critical miscellanies by john morley vol. i. essay : byron london macmillan and co., limited new york: the macmillan company byron byron's influence in europe in england criticism not concerned with byron's private life function of synthetic criticism byron has the political quality of milton and shakespeare contrasted with shelley in this respect peculiarity of the revolutionary view of nature revolutionary sentimentalism and revolutionary commonplace in byron byron's reasonableness size and difficulties of his subject his mastery of it the reflection of danton in byron the reactionary influence upon him origin of his apparent cynicism his want of positive knowledge Æsthetic and emotional relations to intellectual positivity significance of his dramatic predilections his idea of nature less hurtful in art than in politics its influence upon his views of duty and domestic sentiment his public career better than one side of his creed absence of true subjective melancholy from his nature his ethical poverty conclusion byron. it is one of the singular facts in the history of literature, that the most rootedly conservative country in europe should have produced the poet of the revolution. nowhere is the antipathy to principles and ideas so profound, nor the addiction to moderate compromise so inveterate, nor the reluctance to advance away from the past so unconquerable, as in england; and nowhere in england is there so settled an indisposition to regard any thought or sentiment except in the light of an existing social order, nor so firmly passive a hostility to generous aspirations, as in the aristocracy. yet it was precisely an english aristocrat who became the favourite poet of all the most high-minded conspirators and socialists of continental europe for half a century; of the best of those, that is to say, who have borne the most unsparing testimony against the present ordering of society, and against the theological and moral conceptions which have guided and maintained it. the rank and file of the army has been equally inspired by the same fiery and rebellious strains against the order of god and the order of man. 'the day will come,' wrote mazzini, thirty years ago, 'when democracy will remember all that it owes to byron. england, too, will, i hope, one day remember the mission--so entirely english yet hitherto overlooked by her--which byron fulfilled on the continent; the european rôle given by him to english literature, and the appreciation and sympathy for england which he awakened amongst us. before he came, all that was known of english literature was the french translation of shakespeare, and the anathema hurled by voltaire against the "drunken savage." it is since byron that we continentalists have learned to study shakespeare and other english writers. from him dates the sympathy of all the true-hearted amongst us for this land of liberty, whose true vocation he so worthily represented among the oppressed. he led the genius of britain on a pilgrimage throughout all europe.'[ ] [footnote : see also george sand's preface to _obermann_, p. . _'en même temps que les institutions et les coutumes, la littérature anglaise passa le détroit, et vint regner chez nous. la poésie britannique nous révéla le doute incarné sous la figure de byron; puis la littérature allemande, quoique plus mystique, nous conduisit au même résultat par un sentiment de rêverie plus profond.'_ the number of translations that have appeared in germany since proves the coincidence of byronic influence with revolutionary movement in that country.] the day of recollection has not yet come. it is only in his own country that byron's influence has been a comparatively superficial one, and its scope and gist dimly and imperfectly caught, because it is only in england that the partisans of order hope to mitigate or avoid the facts of the revolution by pretending not to see them, while the friends of progress suppose that all the fruits of change shall inevitably fall, if only they keep the forces and processes and extent of the change rigorously private and undeclared. that intense practicalness which seems to have done so many great things for us, and yet at the same moment mysteriously to have robbed us of all, forbids us even to cast a glance at what is no more than an aspiration. englishmen like to be able to answer about the revolution as those ancients answered about the symbol of another revolution, when they said that they knew not so much as whether there were a holy ghost or not. the same want of kindling power in the national intelligence which made of the english reformation one of the most sluggish and tedious chapters in our history, has made the still mightier advance of the moderns from the social system and spiritual bases of the old state, in spite of our two national achievements of punishing a king with death and emancipating our slaves, just as unimpressive and semi-efficacious a performance in this country, as the more affrontingly hollow and halt-footed transactions of the sixteenth century. just because it was wonderful that england should have produced byron, it would have been wonderful if she had received any permanently deep impression from him, or preserved a lasting appreciation of his work, or cheerfully and intelligently recognised his immense force. and accordingly we cannot help perceiving that generations are arising who know not byron. this is not to say that he goes unread; but there is a vast gulf fixed between the author whom we read with pleasure and even delight, and that other to whom we turn at all moments for inspiration and encouragement, and whose words and ideas spring up incessantly and animatingly within us, unbidden, whether we turn to him or no. for no englishman now does byron hold this highest place; and this is not unnatural in any way, if we remember in what a different shape the revolution has now by change of circumstance and occasion come to present itself to those who are most ardent in the search after new paths. an estimate of byron would be in some sort a measure of the distance that we have travelled within the last half century in our appreciation of the conditions of social change. the modern rebel is at least half-acquiescence. he has developed a historic sense. the most hearty aversion to the prolonged reign of some of the old gods does not hinder him from seeing, that what are now frigid and unlovely blocks were full of vitality and light in days before the era of their petrifaction. there is much less eagerness of praise or blame, and much less faith in knife and cautery, less confidence that new and right growth will naturally and necessarily follow upon demolition. the revolution has never had that long hold on the national imagination in england, either as an idol or a bugbear, which is essential to keep the poet who sings it in effective harmony with new generations of readers. more than this, the byronic conception was as transitional and inadequate as the methods and ideas of the practical movers, who were to a man left stranded in every country in europe, during the period of his poetic activity. a transitional and unstable movement of society inevitably fails to supply a propulsion powerful enough to make its poetic expression eternal. there is no better proof of the enormous force of byron's genius than that it was able to produce so fine an expression of elements so intrinsically unfavourable to high poetry as doubt, denial, antagonism, and weariness. but this force was no guarantee for perpetuity of influence. bare rebellion cannot endure, and no succession of generations can continue nourishing themselves on the poetry of complaint, and the idealisation of revolt. if, however, it is impossible that byron should be all to us that he was to a former generation, and if we find no direct guidance in his muse, this is no reason why criticism should pass him over, nor why there may not be something peculiarly valuable in the noble freedom and genuine modernism of his poetic spirit, to an age that is apparently only forsaking the clerical idyll of one school, for the reactionary mediævalism or paganism, intrinsically meaningless and issueless, of another. more attention is now paid to the mysteries of byron's life than to the merits of his work, and criticism and morality are equally injured by the confusion between the worth of the verse he wrote, and the virtue or wickedness of the life he lived. the admirers of his poetry appear sensible of some obligation to be the champions of his conduct, while those who have diligently gathered together the details of an accurate knowledge of the unseemliness of his conduct, cannot bear to think that from this bramble men have been able to gather figs. the result of the confusion has been that grave men and women have applied themselves to investigate and judge byron's private life, as if the exact manner of it, the more or less of his outrages upon decorum, the degree of the deadness of his sense of moral responsibility, were matter of minute and profound interest to all ages. as if all this had anything to do with criticism proper. it is right that we should know the life and manners of one whom we choose for a friend, or of one who asks us to entrust him with the control of public interests. in either of these two cases, we need a guarantee for present and future. art knows nothing of guarantees. the work is before us, its own warranty. what is it to us whether turner had coarse orgies with the trulls of wapping? we can judge his art without knowing or thinking of the artist. and in the same way, what are the stories of byron's libertinism to us? they may have biographical interest, but of critical interest hardly the least. if the name of the author of _manfred_, _cain_, _childe harold_, were already lost, as it may be in remote times, the work abides, and its mark on european opinion. '_je ne considère les gens après leur mort_,' said voltaire, '_que par leurs ouvrages; tout la reste est anéanti pour moi_.' there is a sense in which biographical detail gives light to criticism, but not the sense in which the prurient moralist uses or seeks it. the life of the poet may help to explain the growth and prominence of a characteristic sentiment or peculiar idea. knowledge of this or that fact in his life may uncover the roots of something that strikes, or unravel something that perplexes us. considering the relations between a man's character and circumstance, and what he produces, we can from this point of view hardly know too much as to the personality of a great writer. only let us recollect that this personality manifests itself outwardly in two separate forms, in conduct, and in literary production, and that each of these manifestations is to be judged independently of the other. if one of them is wholly censurable, the other may still be the outcome of the better mind; and even from the purely biographical aspect, it is a plain injustice to insist on identifying a character with its worse expression only. * * * * * poetry, and not only poetry, but every other channel of emotional expression and æsthetic culture, confessedly moves with the general march of the human mind, and art is only the transformation into ideal and imaginative shapes of a predominant system and philosophy of life. minor verse-writers may fairly be consigned, without disrespect, to the region of the literature of taste; and criticism of their work takes the shape of a discussion of stray graces, of new turns, of little variations of shade and colour, of their conformity to the accepted rules that constitute the technique of poetry. the loftier masters, though their technical power and originality, their beauty of form, strength of flight, music and variousness of rhythm, are all full of interest and instruction, yet, besides these precious gifts, come to us with the size and quality of great historic forces, for they represent the hope and energies, the dreams and the consummation, of the human intelligence in its most enormous movements. to appreciate one of these, we need to survey it on every side. for these we need synthetic criticism, which, after analysis has done its work, and disclosed to us the peculiar qualities of form, conception, and treatment, shall collect the products of this first process, construct for us the poet's mental figure in its integrity and just coherence, and then finally, as the sum of its work, shall trace the relations of the poet's ideas, either direct or indirect, through the central currents of thought, to the visible tendencies of an existing age. the greatest poets reflect beside all else the broad-bosomed haven of a perfect and positive faith, in which mankind has for some space found shelter, unsuspicious of the new and distant wayfarings that are ever in store. to this band of sacred bards few are called, while perhaps not more than four high names would fill the list of the chosen: dante, the poet of catholicism; shakespeare, of feudalism; milton, of protestantism; goethe, of that new faith which is as yet without any universally recognised label, but whose heaven is an ever-closer harmony between the consciousness of man and all the natural forces of the universe; whose liturgy is culture, and whose deity is a certain high composure of the human heart. the far-shining pre-eminence of shakespeare, apart from the incomparable fertility and depth of his natural gifts, arises secondarily from the larger extent to which he transcended the special forming influences, and refreshed his fancy and widened his range of sympathy, by recourse to what was then the nearest possible approach to a historic or political method. to the poet, vision reveals a certain form of the truth, which the rest of men laboriously discover and prove by the tardier methods of meditation and science. shakespeare did not walk in imagination with the great warriors, monarchs, churchmen, and rulers of history, nor conceive their conduct, ideas, schemes, and throw himself into their words and actions, without strengthening that original taste which must have first drawn him to historical subjects, and without deepening both his feeling for the great progression of human affairs, and his sympathy for those relative moods of surveying and dealing with them, which are not more positive, scientific, and political, than they may be made truly poetic. again, while in dante the inspiring force was spiritual, and in goethe it was intellectual, we may say that both in shakespeare and milton it was political and social. in other words, with these two, the drama of the one and the epic of the other were each of them connected with ideas of government and the other external movements of men in society, and with the play of the sentiments which spring from them. we assuredly do not mean that in either of them, least of all in shakespeare, there is an absence of the spiritual element. this would be at once to thrust them down into a lower place; for the spiritual is of the very essence of poetry. but with the spiritual there mixes in our englishmen a most abundant leaven of recognition of the impressions and impulses of the outer forms of life, as well as of active sympathy with the every-day debate of the world. they are neither of them inferior to the highest in sense of the wide and unutterable things of the spirit; yet with both of them, more than with other poets of the same rank, the man with whose soul and circumstance they have to deal is the [greek: politikon zôon], no high abstraction of the race, but the creature with concrete relations and a full objective life. in shakespeare the dramatic form helps partly to make this more prominent, though the poet's spirit shines forth thus, independently of the mould which it imposes on itself. of milton we may say, too, that, in spite of the supernatural machinery of his greatest poem, it bears strongly impressed on it the political mark, and that in those minor pieces, where he is avowedly in the political sphere, he still rises to the full height of his majestic harmony and noblest dignity. byron was touched by the same fire. the contemporary and friend of the most truly spiritual of all english poets, shelley, he was himself among the most essentially political. or perhaps one will be better understood, describing his quality as a quality of poetical _worldliness_, in its enlarged and generous sense of energetic interest in real transactions, and a capacity of being moved and raised by them into those lofty moods of emotion which in more spiritual natures are only kindled by contemplation of the vast infinitudes that compass the human soul round about. that shelley was immeasurably superior to byron in all the rarer qualities of the specially poetic mind appears to us so unmistakably assured a fact, that difference of opinion upon it can only spring from a more fundamental difference of opinion as to what it is that constitutes this specially poetic quality. if more than anything else it consists in the power of transfiguring action, character, and thought, in the serene radiance of the purest imaginative intelligence, and the gift of expressing these transformed products in the finest articulate vibrations of emotional speech, then must we not confess that byron has composed no piece which from this point may compare with _prometheus_ or the _cenci_, any more than rubens may take his place with raphael? we feel that shelley transports the spirit to the highest bound and limit of the intelligible; and that with him thought passes through one superadded and more rarefying process than the other poet is master of. if it be true, as has been written, that 'poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge,' we may say that shelley teaches us to apprehend that further something, the breath and finer spirit of poetry itself. contrasting, for example, shelley's _ode to the west wind_, with the famous and truly noble stanzas on the eternal sea which close the fourth canto of _childe harold_, who does not feel that there is in the first a volatile and unseizable element that is quite distinct from the imagination and force and high impressiveness, or from any indefinable product of all of these united, which form the glory and power of the second? we may ask in the same way whether _manfred_, where the spiritual element is as predominant as it ever is in byron, is worth half a page of _prometheus_. to perceive and admit this is not to disparage byron's achievements. to be most deeply penetrated with the differentiating quality of the poet is not, after all, to contain the whole of that admixture of varying and moderating elements which goes to the composition of the broadest and most effective work. of these elements, shelley, with all his rare gifts of spiritual imagination and winged melodiousness of verse, was markedly wanting in a keen and omnipresent feeling for the great course of human events. all nature stirred him, except the consummating crown of natural growth. we do not mean anything so untrue as that shelley was wanting either in deep humanity or in active benevolence, or that social injustice was a thing indifferent to him. we do not forget the energetic political propagandism of his youth in ireland and elsewhere. many a furious stanza remains to show how deeply and bitterly the spectacle of this injustice burnt into his soul. but these pieces are accidents. they do not belong to the immortal part of his work. an american original, unconsciously bringing the revolutionary mind to the climax of all utterances possible to it, has said that 'men are degraded when considered as the members of a political organisation.'[ ] shelley's position was on a yet more remote pinnacle than this. of mankind he was barely conscious, in his loftiest and divinest flights. his muse seeks the vague translucent spaces where the care of man melts away in vision of the eternal forces, of which man may be but the fortuitous manifestation of an hour. [footnote : thoreau.] byron, on the other hand, is never moved by the strength of his passion or the depth of his contemplation quite away from the round earth and the civil animal who dwells upon it. even his misanthropy is only an inverted form of social solicitude. his practical zeal for good and noble causes might teach us this. he never grudged either money or time or personal peril for the cause of italian freedom, and his life was the measure and the cost of his interest in the liberty of greece. then again he was full not merely of wit, which is sometimes only an affair of the tongue, but of humour also, which goes much deeper; and it is of the essence of the humoristic nature, that whether sunny or saturnine, it binds the thoughts of him who possesses it to the wide medley of expressly human things. byron did not misknow himself, nor misapprehend the most marked turn of his own character when he wrote the lines-- i love not man the less, but nature more, from these our interviews, in which i steal from all i may be, or have been before, to mingle with the universe and feel what i can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. it was this which made byron a social force, a far greater force than shelley either has been or can be. men read in each page that he was one of like passions with themselves; that he had their own feet of clay, if he had other members of brass and gold and fine silver which they had none of; and that vehement sensibility, tenacious energy of imagination, a bounding swell of poetic fancy, had not obliterated, but had rather quickened, the sense of the highest kind of man of the world, which did not decay but waxed stronger in him with years. his openness to beauty and care for it were always inferior in keenness and in hold upon him to his sense of human interest, and the superiority in certain respects of _marino faliero_, for example, where he handles a social theme in a worthy spirit, over _manfred_, where he seeks a something tumultuously beautiful, is due to that subordination in his mind of æsthetic to social intention, which is one of the most strongly distinctive marks of the truly modern spirit. the admirable wit both of his letters, and of pieces like the _vision of judgment_ and _don juan_, where wit reaches as high as any english writer has ever carried it, shows in another way the same vividness and reality of attraction which every side of human affairs possessed for this glowing and incessantly animated spirit. in spite of a good many surface affectations, which may have cheated the lighter heads, but which may now be easily seen through, and counted off for as much as they are worth, byron possessed a bottom of plain sincerity and rational sobriety which kept him substantially straight, real, and human, and made him the genuine exponent of that immense social movement which we sum up as the revolution. if keats's whole soul was absorbed by sensuous impressions of the outer world, and his art was the splendid and exquisite reproduction of these; if shelley on the other hand distilled from the fine impressions of the senses by process of inmost meditation some thrice ethereal essence, 'the viewless spirit of a lovely sound;' we may say of byron that, even in the moods when the mightiness and wonder of nature had most effectually possessed themselves of his imagination, his mind never moved for very long on these remote heights, apart from the busy world of men, but returned again like the fabled dove from the desolate void of waters to the ark of mortal stress and human passion. nature, in her most dazzling aspects or stupendous parts, is but the background and theatre of the tragedy of man. we may find a secondary proof of this in the fewness of those fine descriptive strokes and subtle indirect touches of colour or sound which arise with incessant spontaneity, where a mastering passion for nature steeps the mind in vigilant, accurate, yet half-unconscious, observation. it is amazing through how long a catalogue of natural objects byron sometimes takes us, without affixing to one of them any but the most conventional term, or a single epithet which might show that in passing through his mind it had yielded to him a beauty or a savour that had been kept a secret from the common troop. byron is certainly not wanting in commanding image, as when manfred likens the lines of foaming light flung along from the alpine cataract to 'the pale courser's tail, the giant steed, to be bestrode by death.' but imaginative power of this kind is not the same thing as that susceptibility to the minutest properties and unseen qualities of natural objects which reveals itself in chance epithet of telling felicity, or phrase that opens to us hidden lights. our generation is more likely to think too much than too little of this; for its favourite poet, however narrow in subject and feeble in moral treatment, is without any peer in the exquisitely original, varied, and imaginative art of his landscape touches. this treatment of nature was in exact harmony with the method of revolutionary thought, which, from the time of rousseau downwards, had appealed in its profound weariness of an existing social state to the solitude and seeming freedom of mountain and forest and ocean, as though the only cure for the woes of civilisation lay in annihilating it. this was an appeal less to nature than from man, just as we have said that byron's was, and hence it was distinct from the single-eyed appreciation and love of nature for her own sake, for her beauty and terror and unnumbered moods, which has made of her the mistress and the consoler of many men in these times. in the days of old faith while the catholic gods sat yet firm upon their thrones, the loveliness of the universe shone to blind eyes. saint bernard in the twelfth century could ride for a whole day along the shore of the lake of geneva, and yet when in the evening his comrades spoke some word about the lake, he inquired: 'what lake?'[ ] it was not mere difference of temperament that made the preacher of one age pass by in this marvellous unconsciousness, and the singer of another burst forth into that tender invocation of 'clear placid leman,' whose 'contrasted lake with the wild world he dwelt in' moved him to the very depths. to saint bernard the world was as wild and confused as it was to byron; but then he had gods many and saints many, and a holy church in this world, and a kingdom of heaven awaiting resplendent in the world to come. all this filled his soul with a settled certitude, too absorbing to leave any space for other than religious emotion. the seven centuries that flowed between the spiritual mind of europe when saint bernard was its spokesman, and the spiritual mind of which byron was the interpreter, had gradually dissolved these certitudes, and the faint lines of new belief and a more durable order were still invisible. the assurance of science was not yet rooted, nor had men as yet learned to turn back to the history of their own kind, to the long chronicle of its manifold experiences, for an adequate system of life and an inspiring social faith. so they fled in spirit or in flesh into unfamiliar scenes, and vanished from society, because society was not sufficiently social. [footnote : morison's _life of st. bernard_, p. ( d edit.)] the feeling was abnormal, and the method was fundamentally artificial. a sentimentalism arose, which is in art what the metaphysical method is in philosophy. yet a literature was born of it, whose freshness, force, elevation, and, above all, a self-assertion and peculiar aspiring freedom that have never been surpassed, still exert an irresistible attraction, even over minds that are furthest removed from the moral storm and disorder, and the confused intellectual convictions, of that extraordinary group. perhaps the fact that their active force is spent, and that men find in them now only a charm and no longer a gospel, explains the difference between the admiration which some of us permit ourselves to feel for them, and the impatient dislike which they stirred in our fathers. then they were a danger, because they were a force, misleading amiable and high-minded people into blind paths. now this is at an end, and, apart from their historic interest, the permanent elements of beauty draw us to them with a delight that does not diminish, as we recede further and further from the impotence of the aspirations which thus married themselves to lofty and stirring words. to say nothing of rousseau, the father and founder of the nature-worship, which is the nearest approach to a positive side that the revolution has ever possessed, how much fine colour and freshness of feeling there is in _réné_, what a sense of air and space in _paul and virginia_, and what must they have been to a generation that had just emerged from the close parlours of richardson, the best of the sentimentalists of the pre-revolutionary type? may we not say, too, in parenthesis, that the man is the votary, not of wisdom, but of a bald and shapeless asceticism, who is so excessively penetrated with the reality, the duties, the claims, and the constant hazards of civilisation, as to find in himself no chord responsive to that sombre pensiveness into which obermann's unfathomable melancholy and impotence of will deepened, as he meditated on the mean shadows which men are content to chase for happiness, and on all the pigmy progeny of giant effort? '_c'est peu de chose_,' says obermann, '_de n'être point comme le vulgaire des hommes; mais c'est avoir fait un pas vers la sagesse, que de n'être plus comme le vulgaire des sages_.' this penetrating remark hits the difference between de senancourt himself and most of the school. he is absolutely free from the vulgarity of wisdom, and breathes the air of higher peaks, taking us through mysterious and fragrant pine-woods, where more than he may find meditative repose amid the heat and stress of that practical day, of which he and his school can never bear the burden. in that _vulgaire des sages_, of which de senancourt had none, byron abounded. his work is in much the glorification of revolutionary commonplace. melodramatic individualism reaches its climax in that long series of laras, conrads, manfreds, harolds, who present the fatal trilogy, in which crime is middle term between debauch and satiety, that forms the natural development of an anti-social doctrine in a full-blooded temperament. it was this temperament which, blending with his gifts of intellect, gave byron the amazing copiousness and force that makes him the dazzling master of revolutionary emotion, because it fills his work with such variety of figures, such free change of incident, such diversity of passion, such a constant movement and agitation. it was this never-ceasing stir, coupled with a striking concreteness and an unfailing directness, which rather than any markedly correct or wide intellectual apprehension of things, made him so much more than any one else an effective interpreter of the moral tumult of the epoch. if we look for psychological delicacy, for subtle moral traits, for opening glimpses into unobserved depths of character, behold, none of these things are there. these were no gifts of his, any more than the divine gift of music was his. there are some writers whose words but half express the indefinable thoughts that inspired them, and to whom we have to surrender our whole minds with a peculiar loyalty and fulness, independent of the letter and printed phrase, if we would liquefy the frozen speech and recover some portion of its imprisoned essence. this is seldom a necessity with byron. his words tell us all that he means to say, and do not merely hint nor suggest. the matter with which he deals is gigantic, and he paints with violent colours and sweeping pencil. * * * * * yet he is free from that declamation with which some of the french poets of the same age, and representing a portion of the same movement, blow out their cheeks. an angel of reasonableness seems to watch over him, even when he comes most dangerously near to an extravagance. he is equally free from a strained antithesis, which would have been inconsistent, not only with the breadth of effect required by byron's art, but also with the peculiarly direct and forcible quality of his genius. in the preface to _marino faliero_, a composition that abounds in noble passages, and rests on a fine and original conception of character, he mentions his 'desire of preserving a nearer approach to unity, than the irregularity which is the reproach of the english theatre.' and this sound view of the importance of form, and of the barbarism to which our english genius is prone, from _goody blake and harry gill_ up to the clownish savagery which occasionally defaces even plays attributed to shakespeare, is collateral proof of the sanity and balance which marked the foundations of his character, and which at no point of his work ever entirely failed him. byron's admiration for pope was no mere eccentricity. we may value this self-control the more, by remembering the nature of his subjects. we look out upon a wild revolutionary welter, of vehement activity without a purpose, boundless discontent without a hope, futile interrogation of nature in questions for which nature can have no answer, unbridled passion, despairing satiety, impotence. it is too easy, as the history of english opinion about byron's poetic merit abundantly proves, to underrate the genius which mastered so tremendous a conflict, and rendered that amazing scene with the flow and energy and mingled tempest and forlorn calm which belonged to the original reality. the essential futility of the many moods which went to make up all this, ought not to blind us to the enormous power that was needed for the reproduction of a turbulent and not quite aimless chaos of the soul, in which man seemed to be divorced alike from his brother-men in the present, and from all the long succession and endeavour of men in the past. it was no small feat to rise to a height that should command so much, and to exhibit with all the force of life a world that had broken loose from its moorings. it is idle to vituperate this anarchy, either from the point of view of a sour and precise puritanism, or the more elevated point of a rational and large faith in progress. wise men are like burke, who did not know how to draw an indictment against a whole nation. they do not know how to think nothing but ill of a whole generation, that lifted up its voice in heartfelt complaint and wailing against the conceptions, forms, and rulers, human and divine, of a society that the inward faith had abandoned, but which clung to every outward ordinance; which only remembered that man had property, and forgot that he had a spirit. this is the complaint that rings through byron's verse. it was this complaint that lay deep at the bottom of the revolution, and took form in every possible kind of protest, from a dishevelled neckcloth up to a profession of atheism. byron elaborated the common emotion, as the earliest modern poets elaborated the common speech. he gave it inflections, and distinguished its moods, and threw over it an air of system and coherency, and a certain goodly and far-reaching sonorousness. this is the usual function of the spiritual leader, who leaves in bulk no more in the minds of those whom he attracts than he found, but he leaves it articulate with many sounds, and vivid with the consciousness of a multitude of defined impressions. that the whole movement, in spite of its energy, was crude, unscientific, virtually abortive, is most true. that it was presided over by a false conception of nature as a benign and purifying power, while she is in truth a stern force to be tamed and mastered, if society is to hold together, cannot be denied of the revolutionary movement then, any more than it can be denied of its sequels now. nor need we overlook its fundamental error of tracing half the misfortunes and woes of the race to that social union, to which we are really indebted for all the happiness we know, including even this dignifying sensibility of the woes of the race; and the other half to a fictitious entity styled destiny, placed among the nethermost gods, which would be more rightly regarded as the infinitely modifiable influence exercised by one generation of ourselves upon those that follow. every one of these faults of thought is justly chargeable to byron. they were deeply inherent in the revolution. they coloured thoughts about government, about laws, about morals. they effected a transformation of religion, but, resting on no basis of philosophical acceptance of history, the transformation was only temporary. they spread a fantastic passion of which byron was himself an example and a victim, for extraordinary outbreaks of a peculiar kind of material activity, that met the exigences of an imperious will, while it had not the irksomeness of the self-control which would have exercised the will to more permanent profit. they destroyed faith in order, natural or social, actual or potential, and substituted for it an enthusiastic assertion of the claims of the individual to make his passions, aspirations, and convictions, a final and decisive law. such was the moral state which byron had to render and interpret. his relation to it was a relation of exact sympathy. he felt the force of each of the many currents that united in one destructive stream, wildly overflowing the fixed banks, and then, when it had overflowed, often, it must be confessed, stagnating in lazy brackish pools, while new tributaries began to flow in together from far other quarters. the list of his poems is the catalogue of the elements of the revolutionary spirit. for of what manner is this spirit? is it not a masterful and impatient yearning after many good things, unsubdued and uninformed either by a just knowledge of the time, and the means which are needed to bring to men the fruits of their hope, or by a fit appreciation of orderly and tranquil activity for the common service, as the normal type of the individual life? and this is precisely the temper and the spirit of byron. nowhere else do we see drawn in such traits that colossal figure, which has haunted europe these fourscore years and more, with its new-born passion, its half-controlled will, its constant cry for a multitude of unknown blessings under the single name of freedom, the one known and unadulterated word of blessing. if only truth, which alone of words is essentially divine and sacrosanct, had been the chief talisman of the revolution, the movement would have been very different from that which we know. but to claim this or that in the name of truth, would have been to borrow the language which priests and presbyters, dominic and calvin, had covered thick with hateful associations. freedom, after all, was the next best thing, for it is an indispensable condition of the best of all; but it could not lead men until the spirit of truth, which means science in the intellectual order, and justice in the social order, had joined company with it. so there was violent action in politics, and violent and excessive stimulation in literature, the positive effects of the force moved in each sphere being deplorably small in proportion to the intense moral energy which gave the impulse. in literature the straining for mental liberty was the more futile of the two, because it expressed the ardent and hopeless longing of the individual for a life which we may perhaps best call life unconditioned. and this unconditioned life, which the byronic hero vainly seeks, and not finding, he fills the world with stormy complaint, is least of all likely to offer itself in any approximate form to men penetrated with gross and egotistical passions to their inmost core. the byronic hero went to clasp repose in a frenzy. all crimson and aflame with passion, he groaned for evening stillness. he insisted on being free, in the corroding fetters of resentment and scorn for men. conrad sought balm for disappointment of spirit in vehement activity of body. manfred represents the confusion common to the type, between thirst for the highest knowledge and proud violence of unbridled will. harold is held in a middle way of poetic melancholy, equally far from a speechless despair and from gay and reckless licence, by contemplation of the loveliness of external nature, and the great exploits and perishing monuments of man in the past; but he, equally with the others, embodies the paradoxical hope that angry isolation and fretful estrangement from mankind are equivalent to emancipation from their pettiness, instead of being its very climax and demonstration. as if freedom of soul could exist without orderly relations of intelligence and partial acceptance between a man and the sum of surrounding circumstances. that universal protest which rings through byron's work with a plangent resonance, very different from the whimperings of punier men, is a proof that so far from being free, one's whole being is invaded and laid waste. it is no ignoble mood, and it was a most inevitable product of the mental and social conditions of western europe at the close of the eighteenth century. everlasting protest, impetuous energy of will, melancholy and despondent reaction;--this is the revolutionary course. cain and conrad; then manfred and lara and harold. * * * * * in studying that portion of the european movement which burst forth into flame in france between the fall of the bastille and those fatal days of vendémiaire, fructidor, floréal, brumaire, in which the explosion came convulsively to its end, we seem to see a microcosm of the byronic epos. the succession of moods is identical. overthrow, rage, intense material energy, crime, profound melancholy, half-cynical dejection. the revolution was the battle of will against the social forces of a dozen centuries. men thought that they had only to will the freedom and happiness of a world, and all nature and society would be plastic before their daring, as clay in the hands of the potter. they could only conceive of failure as another expression for inadequate will. is not this one of the notes of byron's _ode on the fall of bonaparte_? '_l'audace, l'audace, et toujours l'audace._' if danton could have read byron, he would have felt as one in front of a magician's glass. every passion and fit, from the bloody days of september down to the gloomy walks by the banks of the aube, and the prison-cry that 'it were better to be a poor fisherman than to meddle with the governing of men,' would have found itself there. it is true that in byron we miss the firmness of noble and generous hope. this makes him a more veritable embodiment of the revolution than such a precursor as rousseau, in whom were all the unclouded anticipations of a dawn, that opened to an obscured noon and a tempestuous night. yet one knows not, in truth, how much of that violence of will and restless activity and resolute force was due less to confidence, than to the urgent necessity which every one of us has felt, at some season and under some influence, of filling up spiritual vacuity by energetic material activity. was this the secret of the mysterious charm that scenes of violent strife and bloodshed always had for byron's imagination, as it was perhaps the secret of the black transformation of the social faith of ' into the worship of the conqueror of ' ? nowhere does byron's genius show so much of its own incomparable fire and energy, nor move with such sympathetic firmness and amplitude of pinion, as in _lara_, the _corsair_, _harold_, and other poems, where 'red battle stamps his foot,' and where the giant on the mountain stands, his blood-red tresses deep'ning in the sun, with death-shot glowing in his fiery hands, and eye that scorcheth all it glows upon. yet other and intrinsically nobler passages, where this splendid imaginative energy of the sensations is replaced by the calmer glow of social meditation, prove that byron was penetrated with the distinctively modern scorn and aversion for the military spirit, and the distinctively modern conviction of its being the most deadly of anachronisms. such indirect satisfaction to the physical energies was to him, as their direct satisfaction was to the disillusioned france of ' , the relief demanded by a powerful nature for the impotence of hope and vision. however this may have been, it may be confessed that byron presents less of the flame of his revolutionary prototypes, and too much of the ashes. he came at the end of the experiment. but it is only a question of proportion. the ashes belong as much and as necessarily to the methods of the revolution in that phase, as do the blaze, that first told men of possible light and warmth, and the fire, which yet smoulders with abundant life underneath the gray cinders. and we have to remember that byron came in the midst of a reaction; a reaction of triumph for the partisans of darkness and obstruction, who were assured that the exploded fragments of the old order would speedily grow together again, and a reaction of despondency for those who had filled themselves with illimitable and peremptory hopes. silly byronical votaries, who only half understood their idol, and loved him for a gloom that in their own case was nothing but a graceful veil for selfishness and mental indolence, saw and felt only the melancholy conclusion, and had not travelled a yard in the burning path that led to it. they hugged conrad's haughty misery, but they would have trembled at the thought of conrad's perilous expedition. they were proud despondent laræs after their manner, 'lords of themselves, that heritage of woe,' but the heritage would have been still more unbearable, if it had involved lara's bodily danger. this shallowness has no part in byron himself. his weariness was a genuine outcome of the influence of the time upon a character consumed by passion. his lot was cast among spent forces, and, while it is no hyperbole to say that he was himself the most enormous force of his time, he was only half conscious of this, if indeed he did not always inwardly shrink from crediting his own power and strength, as so many strong men habitually do, in spite of noisy and perpetual self-assertion. conceit and presumption have not been any more fatal to the world, than the waste which comes of great men failing in their hearts to recognise how great they are. many a man whose affectations and assumptions are a proverb, has lost the magnificent virtue of simplicity, for no other reason than that he needed courage to take his own measure, and so finally confirm to himself the reality of his pretensions. with byron, as with some of his prototypes among the men of action in france and elsewhere, theatrical ostentation, excessive self-consciousness, extravagant claims, cannot hide from us that their power was secretly drained by an ever-present distrust of their own aims, their own methods, even of the very results that they seem to have achieved. this diffidence was an inseparable consequence of the vast predominance of exalted passion over reflection, which is one of the revolutionary marks. byron was fundamentally and substantially, as has been already said, one of the most rational of men. hence when the passionate fit grew cold, as it always does in temperaments so mixed, he wanted for perfect strength a justification in thought. there are men whose being is so universally possessed by phantasies, that they never feel this necessity of reconciling the visions of excited emotion with the ideas of ordered reason. byron was more vigorously constituted, and his susceptibility to the necessity of this reconciliation combined with his inability to achieve it, to produce that cynicism which the simple charity of vulgar opinion attributes to the possession of him by unclean devils. it was his refuge, as it sometimes is with smaller men, from the disquieting confusion which was caused by the disproportion between his visions and aspirations, and his intellectual means for satisfying himself seriously as to their true relations and substantive value. only the man arrives at practical strength who is convinced, whether rightly or wrongly, that he knows all about his own ideas that needs to be known. byron never did thus know himself, either morally or intellectually. the higher part of him was consciously dragged down by the degrading reminiscence of the brutishness of his youth and its connections and associations; they hung like miasma over his spirit. he could not rise to that sublimest height of moral fervour, when a man intrepidly chases from his memory past evil done, suppresses the recollection of old corruptions, declares that he no longer belongs to them nor they to him, and is not frightened by the past from a firm and lofty respect for present dignity and worth. it is a good thing thus to overthrow the tyranny of the memory, and to cast out the body of our dead selves. that byron never attained this good, though he was not unlikely to have done so if he had lived longer, does not prove that he was too gross to feel its need, but it explains a moral weakness which has left a strange and touching mark on some of his later works. so in the intellectual order, he knew too much in one sense, and in another too little. the strong man is not conscious of gaps and cataclysms in the structure of his belief, or else he would in so far instantly cease to be strong. one living, as byron emphatically did, in the truly modern atmosphere, was bound by all the conditions of the atmosphere to have mastered what we may call the natural history of his own ideas and convictions; to know something of their position towards fact and outer circumstance and possibility; above all to have some trusty standard for testing their value, and assuring himself that they do really cover the field which he takes them to cover. people with a faith and people living in frenzy are equally under this law; but they take the completeness and coherency of their doctrine for granted. byron was not the prey of habitual frenzy, and he was without a faith. that is to say, he had no firm basis for his conceptions, and he was aware that he had none. the same unrest which drove men of that epoch to nature, haunted them to the end, because they had no systematic conception of her working and of human relations with her. in a word, there was no science. byron was a warm admirer of the genius and art of goethe, yet he never found out the central secret of goethe's greatness, his luminous and coherent positivity. this is the crowning glory of the modern spirit, and it was the lack of this which went so far to neutralise byron's hold of the other chief characteristics of that spirit, its freedom and spaciousness, its humaneness and wide sociality, its versatility and many-sidedness and passionate feeling for the great natural forces. * * * * * this positivity is the cardinal condition of strength for times when theology lies in decay, and the abstractions which gradually replaced the older gods have in their turn ceased to satisfy the intelligence and mould the will. all competent persons agree that it is the first condition of the attainment of scientific truth. nobody denies that men of action find in it the first law of successful achievement in the material order. its varied but always superlative power in the region of æsthetics is only an object of recent recognition, though great work enough has been done in past ages by men whose recognition was informal and inexpress. it is plain that, in the different classes of æsthetic manifestation, there will be differences in objective shape and colour, corresponding to the varied limits and conditions of the matter with which the special art has to deal; but the critic may expect to find in all a profound unity of subjective impression, and that, the impression of a self-sustaining order and a self-sufficing harmony among all those faculties and parts and energies of universal life, which come within the idealising range of art. in other words, the characteristically modern inspiration is the inspiration of law. the regulated play of forces shows itself as fit to stir those profound emotional impulses which wake the artistic soul, as ever did the gracious or terrible gods of antique or middle times. there are glories in turner's idealisation of the energies of matter, which are at least as nobly imaginative and elevated, in spite of the conspicuous absence of the human element in them, as the highest products of the artists who believed that their work was for the service and honour of a deity. it is as mistaken to suppose that this conviction of the supremacy of a cold and self-sustained order in the universe is fatal to emotional expansion, as it would be to suppose it fatal to intellectual curiosity. experience has shown in the scientific sphere, that the gradual withdrawal of natural operations from the grasp of the imaginary volitions of imaginary beings has not tamed, but greatly stimulated and fertilised scientific curiosity as to the conditions of these operations. why should it be otherwise in the æsthetic sphere? why should all that part of our mental composition which responds to the beautiful and imaginative expression of real truths, be at once inflamed and satisfied by the thought that our whole lives, and all the movements of the universe, are the objects of the inexplicable caprice of makers who are also destroyers, and yet grow cold, apathetic, and unproductive, in the shadow of the belief that we can only know ourselves as part of the stupendous and inexorable succession of phenomenal conditions, moving according to laws that may be formulated positively, but not interpreted morally, to new destinies that are eternally unfathomable? why should this conception of a coherent order, free from the arbitrary and presumptuous stamp of certain final causes, be less favourable, either to the ethical or the æsthetic side of human nature, than the older conception of the regulation of the course of the great series by a multitude of intrinsically meaningless and purposeless volitions? the alertness of our sensations for all sources of outer beauty remains unimpaired. the old and lovely attitude of devout service does not pass away to leave vacancy, but is transformed into a yet more devout obligation and service towards creatures that have only their own fellowship and mutual ministry to lean upon; and if we miss something of the ancient solace of special and personal protection, the loss is not unworthily made good by the growth of an imperial sense of participation in the common movement and equal destination of eternal forces. to have a mind penetrated with this spiritual persuasion, is to be in full possession of the highest strength that man can attain. it springs from a scientific and rounded interpretation of the facts of life, and is in a harmony, which freshly found truths only make more ample and elaborate, with all the conclusions of the intellect in every order. the active energies are not paralysed by the possibilities of enfeebling doubt, nor the reason drawn down and stultified by apprehension lest its methods should discredit a document, or its inferences clash with a dogma, or its light flash unseasonably on a mystery. there is none of the baleful distortion of hate, because evil and wrong-doing and darkness are acknowledged to be effects of causes, sums of conditions, terms in a series; they are to be brought to their end, or weakened and narrowed, by right action and endeavour, and this endeavour does not stagnate in antipathy, but concentrates itself in transfixing a cause. in no other condition of the spirit than this, in which firm acquiescence mingles with valorous effort, can a man be so sure of raising a calm gaze and an enduring brow to the cruelty of circumstance. the last appalling stroke of annihilation itself is measured with purest fortitude by one, whose religious contemplation dwells most habitually upon the sovereignty of obdurate laws in the vast revolving circle of physical forces, on the one hand, and, on the other, upon that moral order which the vision and pity of good men for their fellows, guiding the spontaneous energy of all men in strife with circumstance, have raised into a structure sublimer and more amazing than all the majesty of outer nature. in byron's time the pretensions of the two possible answers to the great and eternally open questions of god, immortality, and the like, were independent of that powerful host of inferences and analogies which the advance of physical discovery, and the establishment of a historical order, have since then brought into men's minds. the direct aggressions of old are for the most part abandoned, because it is felt that no fiercest polemical cannonading can drive away the impalpable darkness of error, but only the slow and silent presence of the dawning truth. _cain_ remains, a stern and lofty statement of the case against that theological tradition which so outrages, where it has not already too deeply depraved, the conscience of civilised man. yet every one who is competent to judge, must feel how infinitely more free the mind of the poet would have been, if besides this just and holy rage, most laudable in its kind, his intellectual equipment had been ample enough and precise enough to have taught him, that all the conceptions that races of men have ever held, either about themselves or their deities, have had a source in the permanently useful instincts of human nature, are capable of explanation, and of a historical justification; that is to say, of the kind of justification which is, in itself and of its own force, the most instant destruction to what has grown to be an anachronism. byron's curiously marked predilection for dramatic composition, not merely for dramatic poems, as _manfred_ or _cain_, but for genuine plays, as _marino faliero_, _werner_, the _two foscari_, was the only sign of his approach to the really positive spirit. dramatic art, in its purest modern conception, is genuinely positive; that is, it is the presentation of action, character, and motive in a self-sufficing and self-evolving order. there are no final causes, and the first moving elements are taken for granted to begin with. the dramatist creates, but it is the climax of his work to appear to stand absolutely apart and unseen, while the play unfolds itself to the spectator, just as the greater drama of physical phenomena unfolds itself to the scientific observer, or as the order of recorded history extends in natural process under the eye of the political philosopher. partly, no doubt, the attraction which dramatic form had for byron is to be explained by that revolutionary thirst for action, of which we have already spoken; but partly also it may well have been due to byron's rudimentary and unsuspected affinity with the more constructive and scientific side of the modern spirit. his idea of nature, of which something has been already said, pointed in the same direction; for, although he made an abstraction and a goddess of her, and was in so far out of the right modern way of thinking about these outer forces, it is to be remembered, that, while this dominant conception of nature as introduced by rousseau and others into politics was most mischievous and destructive, its place and worth in poetry are very different; because here in the region of the imagination it had the effect, without any pernicious practical consequences, of giving shape and proportion to that great idea of _ensemble_ throughout the visible universe, which may be called the beginning and fountain of right knowledge. the conception of the relationship of the different parts and members of the vast cosmos was not accessible to byron, as it is to a later generation, but his constant appeal in season and out of season to all the life and movement that surrounds man, implied and promoted the widest extension of consciousness of the wholeness and community of natural processes. * * * * * there was one very manifest evil consequence of the hold which this idea in its cruder shape, gained over byron and his admirers. the vastness of the material universe, as they conceived and half adored it, entirely overshadowed the principle of moral duty and social obligation. the domestic sentiment, for example, almost disappears in those works which made byron most popular, or else it only appears, to be banished with reproach. this is quite in accordance with the revolutionary spirit, which was in one of its most fundamental aspects a revolt on behalf of unconditioned individual rights, and against the family. if we accept what seems to be the fatal law of progress, that excess on one side is only moderated by a nearly corresponding excess of an opposite kind, the byronic dissolution of domestic feeling was not entirely without justification. there is probably no uglier growth of time than that mean and poor form of domesticity, which has always been too apt to fascinate the english imagination, ever since the last great effort of the rebellion, and which rose to the climax of its popularity when george iii. won all hearts by living like a farmer. instead of the fierce light beating about a throne, it played lambently upon a sty. and the nation who admired, imitated. when the regent came, and with him that coarse profligacy which has alternated with cloudy insipidity in the annals of the line, the honest part of the world, out of antipathy to the son, was driven even further into domestic sentimentality of a greasy kind, than it had gone from affection for the sire. byron helped to clear the air of this. his fire, his lofty spaciousness of outlook, his spirited interest in great national causes, his romance, and the passion both of his animosity and his sympathy, acted for a while like an electric current, and every one within his influence became ashamed to barter the large heritage of manhood, with its many realms and illimitable interests, for the sordid ease of the hearth and the good word of the unworthy. he fills men with thoughts that shake down the unlovely temple of comfort. this was good, to force whoever was not already too far sunk into the mire, high up to the larger atmosphere, whence they could see how minute an atom is man, how infinite and blind and pitiless the might that encompasses his little life. many feeble spirits ran back homewards from the horrid solitudes and abysses of _manfred_, and the moral terrors of _cain_, and even the despair of _harold_, and, burying themselves in warm domestic places, were comforted by the familiar restoratives and appliances. firmer souls were not only exhilarated, but intoxicated by the potent and unaccustomed air. they went too far. they made war on the family, and the idea of it. everything human was mischievously dwarfed, and the difference between right and wrong, between gratification of appetite and its control for virtue's sake, between the acceptance and the evasion of clear obligation, all became invisible or of no account in the new light. that constancy and permanence, of which the family is the type, and which is the first condition alike of the stability and progress of society, was obliterated from thought. as if the wonders that have been wrought by this regulated constancy of the feeling of man for man in transforming human life were not far more transcendently exalting than the contemplation of those glories of brute nature, which are barbaric in comparison. it would be unjust not to admit that there are abundant passages in his poems of too manifest depth and sincerity of feeling, for us to suppose that byron himself was dead to the beauty of domestic sentiment. the united tenderness and dignity of faliero's words to angiolina, before he goes to the meeting of the conspirators, would, if there were nothing else, be enough to show how rightly in his better moods the poet appreciated the conditions of the family. unfortunately the better moods were not fixed, and we had _don juan_, where the wit and colour and power served to make an anti-social and licentious sentiment attractive to puny creatures, who were thankful to have their lasciviousness so gaily adorned. as for great britain, she deserved _don juan_. a nation, whose disrespect for all ideas and aspirations that cannot be supported by a text, nor circulated by a religious tract society, was systematic, and where consequently the understanding is least protected against sensual sophisms, received no more than a just chastisement in 'the literature of satan.' here again, in the licence of this literature, we see the finger of the revolution, and of that egoism which makes the passions of the individual his own law. let us condemn and pass on, homily undelivered. if byron injured the domestic idea on this side, let us not fail to observe how vastly he elevated it on others, and how, above all, he pointed to the idea above and beyond it, in whose light only can that be worthy, the idea of a country and a public cause. a man may be sure that the comfort of the hearth has usurped too high a place, when he can read without response the lines declaring that domestic ties must yield in 'those who are called to the highest destinies, which purify corrupted commonwealths.' we must forget all feelings save the one-- we must resign all passions save our purpose-- we must behold no object save our country-- and only look on death as beautiful, so that the sacrifice ascend to heaven and draw down freedom on her evermore. _calendaro._ but if we fail---- _i. bertuccio._ they never fail who die in a great cause: the block may soak their gore; their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs be strung to city gates and castle walls-- but still their spirit walks abroad. though years elapse, and others share as dark a doom, they but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts which overpower all others, and conduct the world at last to freedom. what were we if brutus had not lived? he died in giving rome liberty, but left a deathless lesson-- a name which is a virtue, and a soul which multiplies itself throughout all time, when wicked men wax mighty, and a state turns servile. and the man who wrote this was worthy to play an even nobler part than the one he had thus nobly described; for it was not many years after, that byron left all and laid down his life for the emancipation of a strange land, and 'greece and italy wept for his death, as it had been that of the noblest of their own sons.' detractors have done their best to pare away the merit of this act of self-renunciation by attributing it to despair. that contemporaries of their own humour had done their best to make his life a load to him is true, yet to this talk of despair we may reply in the poet's own words: when we know all that can come, and how to meet it, our resolves, if firm, may merit a more noble word than this, to give it utterance. there was an estimate of the value and purpose of a human life, which our age of comfort may fruitfully ponder. to fix upon violent will and incessant craving for movement as the mark of a poet, whose contemporaries adored him for what they took to be the musing sweetness of his melancholy, may seem a critical perversity. there is, however, a momentous difference between that melancholy, which is as the mere shadow projected by a man's spiritual form, and that other melancholy, which itself is the reality and substance of a character; between the soul to whom dejection brings graceful relief after labour and effort, and the soul which by irresistible habit and constitution dwells ever in golgotha. this deep and penetrating subjective melancholy had no possession of byron. his character was essentially objective, stimulated by outward circumstance, moving to outward harmonies, seeking colour and image and purpose from without. hence there is inevitably a certain liveliness and animation, even when he is in the depths. we feel that we are watching clouds sweep majestically across the sky, and, even when they are darkest, blue interspaces are not far off. contrast the moodiest parts of _childe harold_ or of _cain_ with novalis's _night hymns_. byron's gloom is a mere elegance in comparison. the one pipes to us with a graceful despondency on the edge of the gulf, while the other carries us actually down into the black profound, with no rebellious cry, nor shriek of woe, but sombrely awaiting the deliverance of death, with soul absorbed and consumed by weariness. let the reader mark the note of mourning struck in the opening stanzas, for instance, of novalis's _longing after death_, their simplicity, homeliness, transparent sincerity, and then turn to any of the familiar passages where byron meditates on the good things which the end brings to men. how artificial he seems, and unseasonably ornate, and how conscious of his public. in the first, we sit sadly on the ground in some veritable place of a skull; in the second, we assist at tragical distress after the manner of the italian opera. we should be disposed to call the first a peculiarly german quality, until we remember pascal. with novalis, or with pascal, as with all those whom character, or the outer fates, or the two together, have drawn to dwell in the valley of the shadow, gloom and despondency are the very stuff of their thoughts. material energy could have done nothing for them. their nerves and sinews were too nearly cut asunder. to know the quality of byron's melancholy, and to recognise how little it was of the essence of his character, we have only to consider how far removed he was from this condition. in other words, in spite of morbid manifestations of one sort and another, he always preserved a salutary and vivid sympathy for action, and a marked capacity for it. * * * * * it was the same impetuous and indomitable spirit of effort which moved byron to his last heroic exploit, that made the poetry inspired by it so powerful in europe, from the deadly days of the holy alliance onwards. cynical and misanthropical as he has been called, as though that were his sum and substance, he yet never ceased to glorify human freedom, in tones that stirred the hearts of men and quickened their hope and upheld their daring, as with the voice of some heavenly trumpet. you may, if you choose, find the splendour of the stanzas in the fourth canto on the bourbon restoration, on cromwell, and washington, a theatrical splendour. but for all that, they touched the noblest parts of men. they are alive with an exalted and magnanimous generosity, the one high virtue which can never fail to touch a multitude. subtlety may miss them, graces may miss them, and reason may fly over their heads, but the words of a generous humanity on the lips of poet or chief have never failed to kindle divine music in their breasts. the critic may censure, and culture may wave a disdainful hand. as has been said, all such words 'are open to criticism, and they are all above it.' the magic still works. a mysterious and potent word from the gods has gone abroad over the face of the earth. this larger influence was not impaired by byron's ethical poverty. the latter was an inevitable consequence of his defective discipline. the triteness of his moral climax is occasionally startling. when sardanapalus, for instance, sees zarina torn from him, and is stricken with profound anguish at the pain with which he has filled her life, he winds up with such a platitude as this: to what gulfs a single deviation from the track of human duties leaves even those who claim the homage of mankind as their born due! the baldest writer of hymns might work up passion enough for a consummation like this. once more, byron was insufficiently furnished with positive intellectual ideas, and for want of these his most exalted words were constantly left sterile of definite and pointed outcome. byron's passionate feeling for mankind included the long succession of generations, that stretch back into the past and lie far on in the misty distances of the future. no poet has had a more sublime sense of the infinite melancholy of history; indeed, we hardly feel how great a poet byron was, until we have read him at venice, at florence, and above all in that overpowering scene where the 'lone mother of dead empires' broods like a mysterious haunting spirit among the columns and arches and wrecked fabrics of rome. no one has expressed with such amplitude the sentiment that in a hundred sacred spots of the earth has fill'd up as 'twere, anew, the gaps of centuries; leaving that beautiful which still was so, and making that which was not; till the place became religious, and the heart ran o'er with silent worship of the great of old-- the dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule our spirits from their urns. only he stands aright, who from his little point of present possession ever meditates on the far-reaching lines, which pass through his point from one interminable star-light distance to another. neither the stoic pagan, nor the disciple of the creed which has some of the peculiar weakness of stoicism and not all its peculiar strength, could find manfred's latest word untrue to himself: the mind, which is immortal, makes itself requital for its good or evil thoughts-- is its own origin of ill and end, and its own place and time: its innate sense, when stripped of this mortality, derives no colour from the fleeting things without: but is absorbed in sufferance of joy, born from the knowledge of its own desert. it is only when a man subordinates this absorption in individual sufferance and joy to the thought that his life is a trust for humanity, that he is sure of making it anything other than 'rain fallen on the sand.' in the last great episode of his own career byron was as lofty as the noblest side of his creed. the historic feeling for the unseen benefactors of old time was matched by vehemence of sympathy with the struggles for liberation of his own day. and for this, history will not forget him. though he may have no place in our own minster, he assuredly belongs to the band of far-shining men, of whom pericles declared the whole world to be the tomb. life of lord byron: with his letters and journals. by thomas moore, esq. in six volumes.--vol. ii. new edition. london: john murray, albemarle street. . contents of vol. ii. letters and journals of lord byron, with notices of his life, from the period of his return from the continent, july, , to january, . notices of the life of lord byron. having landed the young pilgrim once more in england, it may be worth while, before we accompany him into the scenes that awaited him at home, to consider how far the general character of his mind and disposition may have been affected by the course of travel and adventure, in which he had been, for the last two years, engaged. a life less savouring of poetry and romance than that which he had pursued previously to his departure on his travels, it would be difficult to imagine. in his childhood, it is true, he had been a dweller and wanderer among scenes well calculated, according to the ordinary notion, to implant the first rudiments of poetic feeling. but, though the poet may afterwards feed on the recollection of such scenes, it is more than questionable, as has been already observed, whether he ever has been formed by them. if a childhood, indeed, passed among mountainous scenery were so favourable to the awakening of the imaginative power, both the welsh, among ourselves, and the swiss, abroad, ought to rank much higher on the scale of poetic excellence than they do at present. but, even allowing the picturesqueness of his early haunts to have had some share in giving a direction to the fancy of byron, the actual operation of this influence, whatever it may have been, ceased with his childhood; and the life which he led afterwards during his school-days at harrow, was,--as naturally the life of so idle and daring a schoolboy must be,--the very reverse of poetical. for a soldier or an adventurer, the course of training through which he then passed would have been perfect;--his athletic sports, his battles, his love of dangerous enterprise, gave every promise of a spirit fit for the most stormy career. but to the meditative pursuits of poesy, these dispositions seemed, of all others, the least friendly; and, however they might promise to render him, at some future time, a subject for bards, gave, assuredly, but little hope of his shining first among bards himself. the habits of his life at the university were even still less intellectual and literary. while a schoolboy, he had read abundantly and eagerly, though desultorily; but even this discipline of his mind, irregular and undirected as it was, he had, in a great measure, given up, after leaving harrow; and among the pursuits that occupied his academic hours, those of playing at hazard, sparring, and keeping a bear and bull-dogs, were, if not the most favourite, at least, perhaps, the most innocent. his time in london passed equally unmarked either by mental cultivation or refined amusement. having no resources in private society, from his total want of friends and connections, he was left to live loosely about town among the loungers in coffee-houses; and to those who remember what his two favourite haunts, limmer's and stevens's, were at that period, it is needless to say that, whatever else may have been the merits of these establishments, they were anything but fit schools for the formation of poetic character. but however incompatible such a life must have been with those habits of contemplation, by which, and which only, the faculties he had already displayed could be ripened, or those that were still latent could be unfolded, yet, in another point of view, the time now apparently squandered by him, was, in after-days, turned most invaluably to account. by thus initiating him into a knowledge of the varieties of human character,--by giving him an insight into the details of society, in their least artificial form,--in short, by mixing him up, thus early, with the world, its business and its pleasures, his london life but contributed its share in forming that wonderful combination which his mind afterwards exhibited, of the imaginative and the practical--the heroic and the humorous--of the keenest and most dissecting views of real life, with the grandest and most spiritualised conceptions of ideal grandeur. to the same period, perhaps, another predominant characteristic of his maturer mind and writings may be traced. in this anticipated experience of the world which his early mixture with its crowd gave him, it is but little probable that many of the more favourable specimens of human kind should have fallen under his notice. on the contrary, it is but too likely that some of the lightest and least estimable of both sexes may have been among the models, on which, at an age when impressions sink deepest, his earliest judgments of human nature were formed. hence, probably, those contemptuous and debasing views of humanity with which he was so often led to alloy his noblest tributes to the loveliness and majesty of general nature. hence the contrast that appeared between the fruits of his imagination and of his experience,--between those dreams, full of beauty and kindliness, with which the one teemed at his bidding, and the dark, desolating bitterness that overflowed when he drew from the other. unpromising, however, as was his youth of the high destiny that awaited him, there was one unfailing characteristic of the imaginative order of minds--his love of solitude--which very early gave signs of those habits of self-study and introspection by which alone the "diamond quarries" of genius are worked and brought to light. when but a boy, at harrow, he had shown this disposition strongly,--being often known, as i have already mentioned, to withdraw himself from his playmates, and sitting alone upon a tomb in the churchyard, give himself up, for hours, to thought. as his mind began to disclose its resources, this feeling grew upon him; and, had his foreign travel done no more than, by detaching him from the distractions of society, to enable him, solitarily and freely, to commune with his own spirit, it would have been an all-important step gained towards the full expansion of his faculties. it was only then, indeed, that he began to feel himself capable of the abstraction which self-study requires, or to enjoy that freedom from the intrusion of others' thoughts, which alone leaves the contemplative mind master of its own. in the solitude of his nights at sea, in his lone wanderings through greece, he had sufficient leisure and seclusion to look within himself, and there catch the first "glimpses of his glorious mind." one of his chief delights, as he mentioned in his "memoranda," was, when bathing in some retired spot, to seat himself on a high rock above the sea, and there remain for hours, gazing upon the sky and the waters[ ], and lost in that sort of vague reverie, which, however formless and indistinct at the moment, settled afterwards on his pages, into those clear, bright pictures which will endure for ever. were it not for the doubt and diffidence that hang round the first steps of genius, this growing consciousness of his own power, these openings into a new domain of intellect, where he was to reign supreme, must have made the solitary hours of the young traveller one dream of happiness. but it will be seen that, even yet, he distrusted his own strength, nor was at all aware of the height to which the spirit he was now calling up would grow. so enamoured, nevertheless, had he become of these lonely musings, that even the society of his fellow-traveller, though with pursuits so congenial to his own, grew at last to be a chain and a burden on him; and it was not till he stood, companionless, on the shore of the little island in the aegean, that he found his spirit breathe freely. if any stronger proof were wanting of his deep passion for solitude, we shall find it, not many years after, in his own written avowal, that, even when in the company of the woman he most loved, he not unfrequently found himself sighing to be alone. it was not only, however, by affording him the concentration necessary for this silent drawing out of his feelings and powers, that travel conduced so essentially to the formation of his poetical character. to the east he had looked, with the eyes of romance, from his very childhood. before he was ten years of age, the perusal of rycaut's history of the turks had taken a strong hold of his imagination, and he read eagerly, in consequence, every book concerning the east he could find.[ ] in visiting, therefore, those countries, he was but realising the dreams of his childhood; and this return of his thoughts to that innocent time, gave a freshness and purity to their current which they had long wanted. under the spell of such recollections, the attraction of novelty was among the least that the scenes, through which he wandered, presented. fond traces of the past--and few have ever retained them so vividly--mingled themselves with the impressions of the objects before him; and as, among the highlands, he had often traversed, in fancy, the land of the moslem, so memory, from the wild hills of albania, now "carried him back to morven." while such sources of poetic feeling were stirred at every step, there was also in his quick change of place and scene--in the diversity of men and manners surveyed by him--in the perpetual hope of adventure and thirst of enterprise, such a succession and variety of ever fresh excitement as not only brought into play, but invigorated, all the energies of his character: as he, himself, describes his mode of living, it was "to-day in a palace, to-morrow in a cow-house--this day with the pacha, the next with a shepherd." thus were his powers of observation quickened, and the impressions on his imagination multiplied. thus schooled, too, in some of the roughnesses and privations of life, and, so far, made acquainted with the flavour of adversity, he learned to enlarge, more than is common in his high station, the circle of his sympathies, and became inured to that manly and vigorous cast of thought which is so impressed on all his writings. nor must we forget, among these strengthening and animating effects of travel, the ennobling excitement of danger, which he more than once experienced,--having been placed in situations, both on land and sea, well calculated to call forth that pleasurable sense of energy, which perils, calmly confronted, never fail to inspire. the strong interest which--in spite of his assumed philosophy on this subject in childe harold--he took in every thing connected with a life of warfare, found frequent opportunities of gratification, not only on board the english ships of war in which he sailed, but in his occasional intercourse with the soldiers of the country. at salora, a solitary place on the gulf of arta, he once passed two or three days, lodged in a small miserable barrack. here, he lived the whole time, familiarly, among the soldiers; and a picture of the singular scene which their evenings presented--of those wild, half-bandit warriors, seated round the young poet, and examining with savage admiration his fine manton gun[ ] and english sword--might be contrasted, but too touchingly, with another and a later picture of the same poet, dying, as a chieftain, on the same land, with suliotes for his guards, and all greece for his mourners. it is true, amidst all this stimulating variety of objects, the melancholy which he had brought from home still lingered around his mind. to mr. adair and mr. bruce, as i have before mentioned, he gave the idea of a person labouring under deep dejection; and colonel leake, who was, at that time, resident at ioannina, conceived very much the same impression of the state of his mind.[ ] but, assuredly, even this melancholy, habitually as it still clung to him, must, under the stirring and healthful influences of his roving life, have become a far more elevated and abstract feeling than it ever could have expanded to within reach of those annoyances, whose tendency was to keep it wholly concentrated round self. had he remained idly at home, he would have sunk, perhaps, into a querulous satirist. but, as his views opened on a freer and wider horizon, every feeling of his nature kept pace with their enlargement; and this inborn sadness, mingling itself with the effusions of his genius, became one of the chief constituent charms not only of their pathos, but their grandeur. for, when did ever a sublime thought spring up in the soul, that melancholy was not to be found, however latent, in its neighbourhood? we have seen, from the letters written by him on his passage homeward, how far from cheerful or happy was the state of mind in which he returned. in truth, even for a disposition of the most sanguine cast, there was quite enough in the discomforts that now awaited him in england, to sadden its hopes, and check its buoyancy. "to be happy at home," says johnson, "is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends." but lord byron had no home,--at least none that deserved this endearing name. a fond family circle, to accompany him with its prayers, while away, and draw round him, with listening eagerness, on his return, was what, unluckily, he never knew, though with a heart, as we have seen, by nature formed for it. in the absence, too, of all that might cheer and sustain, he had every thing to encounter that could distress and humiliate. to the dreariness of a home without affection, was added the burden of an establishment without means; and he had thus all the embarrassments of domestic life, without its charms. his affairs had, during his absence, been suffered to fall into confusion, even greater than their inherent tendency to such a state warranted. there had been, the preceding year, an execution on newstead, for a debt of _l._ owing to the messrs. brothers, upholsterers; and a circumstance told of the veteran, joe murray, on this occasion, well deserves to be mentioned. to this faithful old servant, jealous of the ancient honour of the byrons, the sight of the notice of sale, pasted up on the abbey-door, could not be otherwise than an unsightly and intolerable nuisance. having enough, however, of the fear of the law before his eyes, not to tear the writing down, he was at last forced, as his only consolatory expedient, to paste a large piece of brown paper over it. notwithstanding the resolution, so recently expressed by lord byron, to abandon for ever the vocation of authorship, and leave "the whole castalian state" to others, he was hardly landed in england when we find him busily engaged in preparations for the publication of some of the poems which he had produced abroad. so eager was he, indeed, to print, that he had already, in a letter written at sea, announced himself to mr. dallas, as ready for the press. of this letter, which, from its date, ought to have preceded some of the others that have been given, i shall here lay before the reader the most material parts. [footnote : to this he alludes in those beautiful stanzas, "to sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell," &c. alfieri, before his dramatic genius had yet unfolded itself, used to pass hours, as he tells us, in this sort of dreaming state, gazing upon the ocean:--"après le spectacle un de mes amusemens, à marseille, était de me baigner presque tous les soirs dans la mer. j'avais trouvé un petit endroit fort agréable, sur une langue de terre placée à droite hors du port, où, en m'asseyant sur le sable, le dos appuyé contre un petit rocher qui empêchait qu'on ne pût me voir du côté de la terre, je n'avais plus devant moi que le ciel et la mer. entre ces deux immensités qu'embellissaient les rayons d'un soleil couchant, je passai en rêvant des heures délicieuses; et là, je serais devenu poëte, si j'avais su écrire dans une langue quelconque."] [footnote : but a few months before he died, in a conversation with maurocordato at missolonghi, lord byron said--"the turkish history was one of the first books that gave me pleasure when a child; and i believe it had much influence on my subsequent wishes to visit the levant, and gave perhaps the oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry."--count gamba's _narrative_. in the last edition of mr. d'israeli's work on "the literary character," that gentleman has given some curious marginal notes, which he found written by lord byron in a copy of this work that belonged to him. among them is the following enumeration of the writers that, besides rycaut, had drawn his attention so early to the east:-- "knolles, cantemir, de tott, lady m.w. montague, hawkins's translation from mignot's history of the turks, the arabian nights, all travels, or histories, or books upon the east i could meet with, i had read, as well as rycaut, before i was _ten years old_. i think the arabian nights first. after these, i preferred the history of naval actions, don quixote, and smollett's novels, particularly roderick random, and i was passionate for the roman history. when a boy, i could never bear to read any poetry whatever without disgust and reluctance."] [footnote : "it rained hard the next day, and we spent another evening with our soldiers. the captain, elmas, tried a fine manton gun belonging to my friend, and hitting his mark every time was highly delighted."--hobhouse'_s_ _journey_, &c.] [footnote : it must be recollected that by two of these gentlemen he was seen chiefly under the restraints of presentation and etiquette, when whatever gloom there was on his spirits would, in a shy nature like his, most show itself. the account which his fellow-traveller gives of him is altogether different. in introducing the narration of a short tour to negroponte, in which his noble friend was unable to accompany him, mr. hobhouse expresses strongly the deficiency of which he is sensible, from the absence, on this occasion, of "a companion, who, to quickness of observation and ingenuity of remark, united that gay good-humour which keeps alive the attention under the pressure of fatigue, and softens the aspect of every difficulty and danger." in some lines, too, of the "hints from horace," addressed evidently to mr. hobhouse, lord byron not only renders the same justice to his own social cheerfulness, but gives a somewhat more distinct idea of the frame of mind out of which it rose;-- "moschus! with whom i hope once more to sit, and smile at folly, if we can't at wit; yes, friend, for thee i'll quit my cynic cell, and bear swift's motto, "vive la bagatelle!" which charm'd our days in each Ægean clime, and oft at home with revelry and rhyme." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. _"volage frigate, at sea, june . _. "after two years' absence, (to a day, on the d of july, before which we shall not arrive at portsmouth,) i am retracing my way to england. "i am coming back with little prospect of pleasure at home, and with a body a little shaken by one or two smart fevers, but a spirit i hope yet unbroken. my affairs, it seems, are considerably involved, and much business must be done with lawyers, colliers, farmers, and creditors. now this, to a man who hates bustle as he hates a bishop, is a serious concern. but enough of my home department. "my satire, it seems, is in a fourth edition, a success rather above the middling run, but not much for a production which, from its topics, must be temporary, and of course be successful at first, or not at all. at this period, when i can think and act more coolly, i regret that i have written it, though i shall probably find it forgotten by all except those whom it has offended. "yours and pratt's _protégé_, blackett, the cobbler, is dead, in spite of his rhymes, and is probably one of the instances where death has saved a man from damnation. you were the ruin of that poor fellow amongst you: had it not been for his patrons, he might now have been in very good plight, shoe-(not verse-) making: but you have made him immortal with a vengeance. i write this, supposing poetry, patronage, and strong waters, to have been the death of him. if you are in town in or about the beginning of july, you will find me at dorant's, in albemarle street, glad to see you. i have an imitation of horace's art of poetry ready for cawthorn, but don't let that deter you, for i sha'n't inflict it upon you. you know i never read my rhymes to visitors. i shall quit town in a few days for notts., and thence to rochdale. "yours, &c." * * * * * immediately, on lord byron's arrival in london, mr. dallas called upon him. "on the th of july," says this gentleman, "i had the pleasure of shaking hands with him at reddish's hotel in st. james's street. i thought his looks belied the report he had given me of his bodily health, and his countenance did not betoken melancholy, or displeasure at his return. he was very animated in the account of his travels, but assured me he had never had the least idea of writing them. he said he believed satire to be his _forte_, and to that he had adhered, having written, during his stay at different places abroad, a paraphrase of horace's art of poetry, which would be a good finish to english bards and scotch reviewers. he seemed to promise himself additional fame from it, and i undertook to superintend its publication, as i had done that of the satire. i had chosen the time ill for my visit, and we had hardly any time to converse uninterruptedly, he therefore engaged me to breakfast with him next morning." in the interval mr. dallas looked over this paraphrase, which he had been permitted by lord byron to take home with him for the purpose, and his disappointment was, as he himself describes it, "grievous," on finding, that a pilgrimage of two years to the inspiring lands of the east had been attended with no richer poetical result. on their meeting again next morning, though unwilling to speak disparagingly of the work, he could not refrain, as he informs us, from expressing some surprise that his noble friend should have produced nothing else during his absence.--"upon this," he continues, "lord byron told me that he had occasionally written short poems, besides a great many stanzas in spenser's measure, relative to the countries he had visited. 'they are not worth troubling you with, but you shall have them all with you if you like.' so came i by childe harold's pilgrimage. he took it from a small trunk, with a number of verses. he said they had been read but by one person, who had found very little to commend and much to condemn: that he himself was of that opinion, and he was sure i should be so too. such as it was, however, it was at my service; but he was urgent that 'the hints from horace' should be immediately put in train, which i promised to have done." the value of the treasure thus presented to him, mr. dallas was not slow in discovering. that very evening he despatched a letter to his noble friend, saying--"you have written one of the most delightful poems i ever read. if i wrote this in flattery, i should deserve your contempt rather than your friendship. i have been so fascinated with childe harold that i have not been able to lay it down. i would almost pledge my life on its advancing the reputation of your poetical powers, and on its gaining you great honour and regard, if you will do me the credit and favour of attending to my suggestions respecting," &c.&c.&c. notwithstanding this just praise, and the secret echo it must have found in a heart so awake to the slightest whisper of fame, it was some time before lord byron's obstinate repugnance to the idea of publishing childe harold could be removed. "attentive," says mr. dallas, "as he had hitherto been to my opinions and suggestions, and natural as it was that he should be swayed by such decided praise, i was surprised to find that i could not at first obtain credit with him for my judgment on childe harold's pilgrimage. 'it was any thing but poetry--it had been condemned by a good critic--had i not myself seen the sentences on the margins of the manuscripts?' he dwelt upon the paraphrase of the art of poetry with pleasure, and the manuscript of that was given to cawthorn, the publisher of the satire, to be brought forth without delay. i did not, however, leave him so: before i quitted him i returned to the charge, and told him that i was so convinced of the merit of childe harold's pilgrimage, that, as he had given it to me, i should certainly publish it, if he would have the kindness to attend to some corrections and alterations." among the many instances, recorded in literary history, of the false judgments of authors respecting their own productions, the preference given by lord byron to a work so little worthy of his genius, over a poem of such rare and original beauty as the first cantos of childe harold, may be accounted, perhaps, one of the most extraordinary and inexplicable.[ ] "it is in men as in soils," says swift, "where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of." but lord byron had made the discovery of the vein, without, as it would seem, being aware of its value. i have already had occasion to observe that, even while occupied with the composition of childe harold, it is questionable whether he himself was yet fully conscious of the new powers, both of thought and feeling, that had been awakened in him; and the strange estimate we now find him forming of his own production appears to warrant the remark. it would seem, indeed, as if, while the imaginative powers of his mind had received such an impulse forward, the faculty of judgment, slower in its developement, was still immature, and that of _self_-judgment, the most difficult of all, still unattained. on the other hand, from the deference which, particularly at this period of his life, he was inclined to pay to the opinions of those with whom he associated, it would be fairer, perhaps, to conclude that this erroneous valuation arose rather from a diffidence in his own judgment than from any deficiency of it. to his college companions, almost all of whom were his superiors in scholarship, and some of them even, at this time, his competitors in poetry, he looked up with a degree of fond and admiring deference, for which his ignorance of his own intellectual strength alone could account; and the example, as well as tastes, of these young writers being mostly on the side of established models, their authority, as long as it influenced him, would, to a certain degree, interfere with his striking confidently into any new or original path. that some remains of this bias, with a little leaning, perhaps, towards school recollections[ ], may have had a share in prompting his preference of the horatian paraphrase, is by no means improbable;--at least, that it was enough to lead him, untried as he had yet been in the new path, to content himself, for the present, with following up his success in the old. we have seen, indeed, that the manuscript of the two cantos of childe harold had, previously to its being placed in the hands of mr. dallas, been submitted by the noble author to the perusal of some friend--the first and only one, it appears, who at that time had seen them. who this fastidious critic was, mr. dallas has not mentioned; but the sweeping tone of censure in which he conveyed his remarks was such as, at any period of his career, would have disconcerted the judgment of one, who, years after, in all the plenitude of his fame, confessed, that "the depreciation of the lowest of mankind was more painful to him than the applause of the highest was pleasing."[ ] though on every thing that, after his arrival at the age of manhood, he produced, some mark or other of the master-hand may be traced; yet, to print the whole of his paraphrase of horace, which extends to nearly lines, would be, at the best, but a questionable compliment to his memory. that the reader, however, may be enabled to form some opinion of a performance, which--by an error or caprice of judgment, unexampled, perhaps, in the annals of literature--its author, for a time, preferred to the sublime musings of childe harold, i shall here select a few such passages from the paraphrase as may seem calculated to give an idea as well of its merits as its defects. the opening of the poem is, with reference to the original, ingenious:-- "who would not laugh, if lawrence, hired to grace his costly canvass with each flatter'd face, abused his art, till nature, with a blush, saw cits grow centaurs underneath his brush? or should some limner join, for show or sale, a maid of honour to a mermaid's tail? or low dubost (as once the world has seen) degrade god's creatures in his graphic spleen? not all that forced politeness, which defends fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends. believe me, moschus, like that picture seems the book, which, sillier than a sick man's dreams, displays a crowd of figures incomplete, poetic nightmares, without head or feet." the following is pointed, and felicitously expressed:-- "then glide down grub street, fasting and forgot, laugh'd into lethe by some quaint review, whose wit is never troublesome till--true." of the graver parts, the annexed is a favourable specimen:-- "new words find credit in these latter days, if neatly grafted on a gallic phrase: what chaucer, spenser, did, we scarce refuse to dryden's or to pope's maturer muse. if you can add a little, say why not, as well as william pitt and walter scott, since they, by force of rhyme, and force of lungs, enrich'd our island's ill-united tongues? 'tis then, and shall be, lawful to present reforms in writing as in parliament. "as forests shed their foliage by degrees, so fade expressions which in season please; and we and ours, alas! are due to fate, and works and words but dwindle to a date. though, as a monarch nods and commerce calls, impetuous rivers stagnate in canals; though swamps subdued, and marshes drain'd sustain the heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain; and rising ports along the busy shore protect the vessel from old ocean's roar-- all, all must perish. but, surviving last, the love of letters half preserves the past: true,--some decay, yet not a few survive, though those shall sink which now appear to thrive, as custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway our life and language must alike obey." i quote what follows chiefly for the sake of the note attached to it:-- "satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen. you doubt?--see dryden, pope, st. patrick's dean.[ ] "blank verse is now with one consent allied to tragedy, and rarely quits her side; though mad almanzor rhymed in dryden's days, no sing-song hero rants in modern plays;-- while modest comedy her verse foregoes for jest and pun in very middling prose. not that our bens or beaumonts show the worse, or lose one point because they wrote in verse; but so thalia pleases to appear,-- poor virgin!--damn'd some twenty times a year!" there is more of poetry in the following verses upon milton than in any other passage throughout the paraphrase:-- "'awake a louder and a loftier strain,' and, pray, what follows from his boiling brain? he sinks to s * *'s level in a trice, whose epic mountains never fail in mice! not so of yore awoke your mighty sire the tempered warblings of his master lyre; soft as the gentler breathing of the lute, 'of man's first disobedience and the fruit' he speaks; but, as his subject swells along, earth, heaven, and hades, echo with the song." the annexed sketch contains some lively touches:-- "behold him, freshman!--forced no more to groan o'er virgil's devilish verses[ ], and--his own; prayers are too tedious, lectures too abstruse, he flies from t----ll's frown to 'fordham's mews;' (unlucky t----ll, doom'd to daily cares by pugilistic pupils and by bears!) fines, tutors, tasks, conventions, threat in vain, before hounds, hunters, and newmarket plain: rough with his elders; with his equals rash; civil to sharpers; prodigal of cash. fool'd, pillaged, dunn'd, he wastes his terms away; and, unexpell'd perhaps, retires m.a.:-- master of arts!--as hells and clubs[ ] proclaim, where scarce a black-leg bears a brighter name. "launch'd into life, extinct his early fire, he apes the selfish prudence of his sire; marries for money; chooses friends for rank; buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the bank; sits in the senate; gets a son and heir; sends him to harrow--for himself was there; mute though he votes, unless when call'd to cheer, his son's so sharp--he'll see the dog a peer! "manhood declines; age palsies every limb; he quits the scene, or else the scene quits him; scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves, and avarice seizes all ambition leaves; counts cent. per cent., and smiles, or vainly frets o'er hoards diminish'd by young hopeful's debts; weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, complete in all life's lessons--but to die; peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please, commending every time save times like these; crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot, expires unwept, is buried--let him rot!" in speaking of the opera, he says:-- "hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear aches with orchestras which he pays to hear, whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore, his anguish doubled by his own 'encore!' squeezed in 'fop's alley,' jostled by the beaux, teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes, scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease till the dropp'd curtain gives a glad release: why this and more he suffers, can ye guess?-- because it costs him dear, and makes him dress!" the concluding couplet of the following lines is amusingly characteristic of that mixture of fun and bitterness with which their author sometimes spoke in conversation;--so much so, that those who knew him might almost fancy they hear him utter the words:-- "but every thing has faults, nor is't unknown that harps and fiddles often lose their tone, and wayward voices at their owner's call, with all his best endeavours, only squall; dogs blink their covey, flints withhold the spark, and double barrels (damn them) miss their mark!"[ ] one more passage, with the humorous note appended to it, will complete the whole amount of my favourable specimens:-- "and that's enough--then write and print so fast,-- if satan take the hindmost, who'd be last? they storm the types, they publish one and all, they leap the counter, and they leave the stall:-- provincial maidens, men of high command, yea, baronets, have ink'd the bloody hand! cash cannot quell them--pollio play'd this prank: (then phoebus first found credit in a bank;) not all the living only, but the dead fool on, as fluent as an orpheus' head! damn'd all their days, they posthumously thrive, dug up from dust, though buried when alive! reviews record this epidemic crime, those books of martyrs to the rage for rhyme alas! woe worth the scribbler, often seen in morning post or monthly magazine! there lurk his earlier lays, but soon, hot-press'd, behold a quarto!--tarts must tell the rest! then leave, ye wise, the lyre's precarious chords to muse-mad baronets or madder lords, or country crispins, now grown somewhat stale, twin doric minstrels, drunk with doric ale! hark to those notes, narcotically soft, the cobbler-laureates sing to capel lofft!"[ ] from these select specimens, which comprise, altogether, little more than an eighth of the whole poem, the reader may be enabled to form some notion of the remainder, which is, for the most part, of a very inferior quality, and, in some parts, descending to the depths of doggerel. who, for instance, could trace the hand of byron in such "prose, fringed with rhyme," as the following?-- "peace to swift's faults! his wit hath made them pass unmatch'd by all, save matchless hudibras, whose author is perhaps the first we meet who from our couplet lopp'd two final feet; nor less in merit than the longer line this measure moves, a favourite of the nine. "though at first view, eight feet may seem in vain form'd, save in odes, to bear a serious strain, yet scott has shown our wondering isle of late this measure shrinks not from a theme of weight, and, varied skilfully, surpasses far heroic rhyme, but most in love or war, whose fluctuations, tender or sublime, are curb'd too much by long recurring rhyme. "in sooth, i do not know, or greatly care to learn who our first english strollers were, or if--till roofs received the vagrant art-- our muse--like that of thespis--kept a cart. but this is certain, since our shakspeare's days, there's pomp enough, if little else, in plays; nor will melpomene ascend her throne without high heels, white plume, and bristol stone. "where is that living language which could claim poetic more, as philosophic fame, if all our bards, more patient of delay, would stop like pope to polish by the way?" in tracing the fortunes of men, it is not a little curious to observe, how often the course of a whole life has depended on one single step. had lord byron now persisted in his original purpose of giving this poem to the press, instead of childe harold, it is more than probable that he would have been lost, as a great poet, to the world.[ ] inferior as the paraphrase is, in every respect, to his former satire, and, in some places, even descending below the level of under-graduate versifiers, its failure, there can be little doubt, would have been certain and signal;--his former assailants would have resumed their advantage over him, and either, in the bitterness of his mortification, he would have flung childe harold into the fire; or, had he summoned up sufficient confidence to publish that poem, its reception, even if sufficient to retrieve him in the eyes of the public and his own, could never have, at all, resembled that explosion of success,--that instantaneous and universal acclaim of admiration into which, coming, as it were, fresh from the land of song, he now surprised the world, and in the midst of which he was borne, buoyant and self-assured, along, through a succession of new triumphs, each more splendid than the last. happily, the better judgment of his friends averted such a risk; and he at length consented to the immediate publication of childe harold,--still, however, to the last, expressing his doubts of its merits, and his alarm at the sort of reception it might meet with in the world. "i did all i could," says his adviser, "to raise his opinion of this composition, and i succeeded; but he varied much in his feelings about it, nor was he, as will appear, at his ease until the world decided on its merit. he said again and again that i was going to get him into a scrape with his old enemies, and that none of them would rejoice more than the edinburgh reviewers at an opportunity to humble him. he said i must not put his name to it. i entreated him to leave it to me, and that i would answer for this poem silencing all his enemies." the publication being now determined upon, there arose some doubts and difficulty as to a publisher. though lord byron had intrusted cawthorn with what he considered to be his surer card, the "hints from horace," he did not, it seems, think him of sufficient station in the trade to give a sanction or fashion to his more hazardous experiment. the former refusal of the messrs. longman[ ] to publish his "english bards and scotch reviewers" was not forgotten; and he expressly stipulated with mr. dallas that the manuscript should not be offered to that house. an application was, at first, made to mr. miller, of albemarle street; but, in consequence of the severity with which lord elgin was treated in the poem, mr. miller (already the publisher and bookseller of this latter nobleman) declined the work. even this circumstance,--so apprehensive was the poet for his fame,--began to re-awaken all the qualms and terrors he had, at first, felt; and, had any further difficulties or objections arisen, it is more than probable he might have relapsed into his original intention. it was not long, however, before a person was found willing and proud to undertake the publication. mr. murray, who, at this period, resided in fleet street, having, some time before, expressed a desire to be allowed to publish some work of lord byron, it was in his hands that mr. dallas now placed the manuscript of childe harold;--and thus was laid the first foundation of that connection between this gentleman and the noble poet, which continued, with but a temporary interruption, throughout the lifetime of the one, and has proved an abundant source of honour, as well as emolument, to the other. while thus busily engaged in his literary projects, and having, besides, some law affairs to transact with his agent, he was called suddenly away to newstead by the intelligence of an event which seems to have affected his mind far more deeply than, considering all the circumstances of the case, could have been expected. mrs. byron, whose excessive corpulence rendered her, at all times, rather a perilous subject for illness, had been of late indisposed, but not to any alarming degree; nor does it appear that, when the following note was written, there existed any grounds for apprehension as to her state. [footnote : it is, however, less wonderful that authors should thus misjudge their productions, when whole generations have sometimes fallen into the same sort of error. the sonnets of petrarch were, by the learned of his day, considered only worthy of the ballad-singers by whom they were chanted about the streets; while his epic poem, "africa," of which few now even know the existence, was sought for on all sides, and the smallest fragment of it begged from the author, for the libraries of the learned.] [footnote : gray, under the influence of a similar predilection, preferred, for a long time, his latin poems to those by which he has gained such a station in english literature. "shall we attribute this," says mason, "to his having been educated at eton, or to what other cause? certain it is, that when i first knew him, he seemed to set a greater value on his latin poetry than on that which he had composed in his native language."] [footnote : one of the manuscript notes of lord byron on mr. d'israeli's work, already referred to.--vol. i. p. .] [footnote : "mac flecknoe, the dunciad, and all swift's lampooning ballads.--whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal feelings and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these satires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personal, character of the writers."] [footnote : "harvey, the _circulator_ of the _circulation_ of the blood, used to fling away virgil in his ecstasy of admiration, and say 'the book had a devil.' now, such a character as i am copying would probably fling it away also, but rather wish that the devil had the book; not from a dislike to the poet, but a well-founded horror of hexameters. indeed, the public-school penance of 'long and short' is enough to beget an antipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life, and perhaps so far may be an advantage."] [footnote : "'hell,' a gaming-house so called, where you risk little, and are cheated a good deal: 'club,' a pleasant purgatory, where you lose more, and are not supposed to be cheated at all."] [footnote : "as mr. pope took the liberty of damning homer, to whom he was under great obligations--'and homer (damn him) calls'--it may be presumed that any body or any thing may be damned in verse by poetical license; and in case of accident, i beg leave to plead so illustrious a precedent."] [footnote : "this well-meaning gentleman has spoilt some excellent shoemakers, and been accessary to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious poor. nathaniel bloomfield and his brother bobby have set all somersetshire singing. nor has the malady confined itself to one county. pratt, too (who once was wiser), has caught the contagion of patronage, and decoyed a poor fellow, named blackett, into poetry; but he died during the operation, leaving one child and two volumes of 'remains' utterly destitute. the girl, if she don't take a poetical twist, and come forth as a shoemaking sappho, may do well, but the 'tragedies' are as rickety as if they had been the offspring of an earl or a seatonian prize-poet. the patrons of this poor lad are certainly answerable for his end, and it ought to be an indictable offence. but this is the least they have done; for, by a refinement of barbarity, they have made the (late) man posthumously ridiculous, by printing what he would have had sense enough never to print himself. certes, these rakers of 'remains' come under the statute against resurrection-men. what does it signify whether a poor dear dead dunce is to be stuck up in surgeons' or in stationers' hall? is it so bad to unearth his bones as his blunders? is it not better to gibbet his body on a heath than his soul in an octavo? 'we know what we are, but we know not what we may be,' and it is to be hoped we never shall know, if a man who has passed through life with a sort of éclat is to find himself a mountebank on the other side of styx, and made, like poor joe blackett, the laughing-stock of purgatory. the plea of publication is to provide for the child. now, might not some of this 'sutor ultra crepidam's' friends and seducers have done a decent action without inveigling pratt into biography? and then, his inscriptions split into so many modicums! 'to the duchess of so much, the right honble. so-and-so, and mrs. and miss somebody, these volumes are,' &c. &c. why, this is doling out the 'soft milk of dedication' in gills; there is but a quart, and he divides it among a dozen. why, pratt! hadst thou not a puff left? dost thou think six families of distinction can share this in quiet? there is a child, a book, and a dedication: send the girl to her grace, the volumes to the grocer, and the dedication to the d-v-l."] [footnote : that he himself attributed every thing to fortune, appears from the following passage in one of his journals: "like sylla, i have always believed that all things depend upon fortune, and nothing upon ourselves. i am not aware of any one thought or action worthy of being called good to myself or others, which is not to be attributed to the good goddess, fortune!"] [footnote : the grounds on which the messrs. longman refused to publish his lordship's satire, were the severe attacks it contained upon mr. southey and others of their literary friends.] * * * * * "reddish's hotel, st. james's street, london, july . . "my dear madam, "i am only detained by mr. h * * to sign some copyhold papers, and will give you timely notice of my approach. it is with great reluctance i remain in town. i shall pay a short visit as we go on to lancashire on rochdale business. i shall attend to your directions, of course, and am, "with great respect, yours ever," "byron. "p.s.--you will consider newstead as your house, not mine; and me only as a visitor." * * * * * on his going abroad, she had conceived a sort of superstitious fancy that she should never see him again; and when he returned, safe and well, and wrote to inform her that he should soon see her at newstead, she said to her waiting-woman, "if i should be dead before byron comes down, what a strange thing it would be!"--and so, in fact, it happened. at the end of july, her illness took a new and fatal turn; and, so sadly characteristic was the close of the poor lady's life, that a fit of rage, brought on, it is said, by reading over the upholsterer's bills, was the ultimate cause of her death. lord byron had, of course, prompt intelligence of the attack. but, though he started instantly from town, he was too late,--she had breathed her last. the following letter, it will be perceived, was written on his way to newstead. letter . to dr. pigot. "newport pagnell, august . . "my dear doctor, "my poor mother died yesterday! and i am on my way from town to attend her to the family vault. i heard _one_ day of her illness, the _next_ of her death. thank god her last moments were most tranquil. i am told she was in little pain, and not aware of her situation. i now feel the truth of mr. gray's observation, 'that we can only have _one_ mother.' peace be with her! i have to thank you for your expressions of regard; and as in six weeks i shall be in lancashire on business, i may extend to liverpool and chester,--at least i shall endeavour. "if it will be any satisfaction, i have to inform you that in november next the editor of the scourge will be tried for two different libels on the late mrs. b. and myself (the decease of mrs. b. makes no difference in the proceedings); and as he is guilty, by his very foolish and unfounded assertion, of a breach of privilege, he will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour. "i inform you of this as you seem interested in the affair, which is now in the hands of the attorney-general. "i shall remain at newstead the greater part of this month, where i shall be happy to hear from you, after my two years' absence in the east. "i am, dear pigot, yours very truly, "byron." * * * * * it can hardly have escaped the observation of the reader, that the general tone of the noble poet's correspondence with his mother is that of a son, performing, strictly and conscientiously, what he deems to be his duty, without the intermixture of any sentiment of cordiality to sweeten the task. the very title of "madam," by which he addresses her,--and which he but seldom exchanges for the endearing name of "mother[ ],"--is, of itself, a sufficient proof of the sentiments he entertained for her. that such should have been his dispositions towards such a parent, can be matter neither of surprise or blame,--but that, notwithstanding this alienation, which her own unfortunate temper produced, he should have continued to consult her wishes, and minister to her comforts, with such unfailing thoughtfulness as is evinced not only in the frequency of his letters, but in the almost exclusive appropriation of newstead to her use, redounds, assuredly, in no ordinary degree, to his honour; and was even the more strikingly meritorious from the absence of that affection which renders kindnesses to a beloved object little more than an indulgence of self. but, however estranged from her his feelings must be allowed to have been while she lived, her death seems to have restored them into their natural channel. whether from a return of early fondness and the all-atoning power of the grave, or from the prospect of that void in his future life which this loss of his only link with the past would leave, it is certain that he felt the death of his mother acutely, if not deeply. on the night after his arrival at newstead, the waiting-woman of mrs. byron, in passing the door of the room where the deceased lady lay, heard a sound as of some one sighing heavily from within; and, on entering the chamber, found, to her surprise, lord byron, sitting in the dark, beside the bed. on her representing to him the weakness of thus giving way to grief, he burst into tears, and exclaimed, "oh, mrs. by, i had but one friend in the world, and she is gone!" while his real thoughts were thus confided to silence and darkness, there was, in other parts of his conduct more open to observation, a degree of eccentricity and indecorum which, with superficial observers, might well bring the sensibility of his nature into question. on the morning of the funeral, having declined following the remains himself, he stood looking, from the abbey door, at the procession, till the whole had moved off;--then, turning to young rushton, who was the only person left besides himself, he desired him to fetch the sparring-gloves, and proceeded to his usual exercise with the boy. he was silent and abstracted all the time, and, as if from an effort to get the better of his feelings, threw more violence, rushton thought, into his blows than was his habit; but, at last,--the struggle seeming too much for him,--he flung away the gloves, and retired to his room. of mrs. byron, sufficient, perhaps, has been related in these pages to enable the reader to form fully his own opinion, as well with respect to the character of this lady herself, as to the degree of influence her temper and conduct may have exercised on those of her son. it was said by one of the most extraordinary of men[ ],--who was himself, as he avowed, principally indebted to maternal culture for the unexampled elevation to which he subsequently rose,--that "the future good or bad conduct of a child depends entirely on the mother." how far the leaven that sometimes mixed itself with the better nature of byron,--his uncertain and wayward impulses,--his defiance of restraint,--the occasional bitterness of his hate, and the precipitance of his resentments,--may have had their origin in his early collisions with maternal caprice and violence, is an enquiry for which sufficient materials have been, perhaps, furnished in these pages, but which every one will decide upon, according to the more or less weight he may attribute to the influence of such causes on the formation of character. that, notwithstanding her injudicious and coarse treatment of him, mrs. byron loved her son, with that sort of fitful fondness of which alone such a nature is capable, there can be little doubt,--and still less, that she was ambitiously proud of him. her anxiety for the success of his first literary essays may be collected from the pains which he so considerately took to tranquillise her on the appearance of the hostile article in the review. as his fame began to brighten, that notion of his future greatness and glory, which, by a singular forecast of superstition, she had entertained from his very childhood, became proportionably confirmed. every mention of him in print was watched by her with eagerness; and she had got bound together in a volume, which a friend of mine once saw, a collection of all the literary notices, that had then appeared, of his early poems and satire,--written over on the margin, with observations of her own, which to my informant appeared indicative of much more sense and ability than, from her general character, we should be inclined to attribute to her. among those lesser traits of his conduct through which an observer can trace a filial wish to uphold, and throw respect around, the station of his mother, may be mentioned his insisting, while a boy, on being called "george byron gordon"--giving thereby precedence to the maternal name,--and his continuing, to the last, to address her as "the honourable mrs. byron,"--a mark of rank to which, he must have been aware, she had no claim whatever. neither does it appear that, in his habitual manner towards her, there was any thing denoting a want of either affection or deference,--with the exception, perhaps, occasionally, of a somewhat greater degree of familiarity than comports with the ordinary notions of filial respect. thus, the usual name he called her by, when they were on good-humoured terms together, was "kitty gordon;" and i have heard an eye-witness of the scene describe the look of arch, dramatic humour, with which, one day, at southwell, when they were in the height of their theatrical rage, he threw open the door of the drawing-room, to admit his mother, saying, at the same time, "enter the honourable kitty." the pride of birth was a feeling common alike to mother and son, and, at times, even became a point of rivalry between them, from their respective claims, english and scotch, to high lineage. in a letter written by him from italy, referring to some anecdote which his mother had told him, he says,--"my mother, who was as haughty as lucifer with her descent from the stuarts, and her right line from the _old gordons_,--_not_ the _seyton gordons_, as she disdainfully termed the ducal branch,--told me the story, always reminding me how superior _her_ gordons were to the southern byrons, notwithstanding our norman, and always masculine, descent, which has never lapsed into a female, as my mother's gordons had done in her own person." if, to be able to depict powerfully the painful emotions, it is necessary first to have experienced them, or, in other words, if, for the poet to be great, the man must suffer, lord byron, it must be owned, paid early this dear price of mastery. few as were the ties by which his affections held, whether within or without the circle of relationship, he was now doomed, within a short space, to see the most of them swept away by death.[ ] besides the loss of his mother, he had to mourn over, in quick succession, the untimely fatalities that carried off, within a few weeks of each other, two or three of his most loved and valued friends. "in the short space of one month," he says, in a note on childe harold, "i have lost _her_ who gave me being, and most of those who made that being tolerable."[ ] of these young wingfield, whom we have seen high on the list of his harrow favourites, died of a fever at coimbra; and matthews, the idol of his admiration at college, was drowned while bathing in the waters of the cam. the following letter, written immediately after the latter event, bears the impress of strong and even agonised feeling, to such a degree as renders it almost painful to read it:-- letter . to mr. scrope davies. "newstead abbey, august . . "my dearest davies, "some curse hangs over me and mine. my mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. what can i say, or think, or do? i received a letter from him the day before yesterday. my dear scrope, if you can spare a moment, do come down to me--i want a friend. matthews's last letter was written on _friday_,--on saturday he was not. in ability, who was like matthews? how did we all shrink before him? you do me but justice in saying, i would have risked my paltry existence to have preserved his. this very evening did i mean to write, inviting him, as i invite you, my very dear friend, to visit me. god forgive * * * for his apathy! what will our poor hobhouse feel? his letters breathe but or matthews. come to me, scrope, i am almost desolate--left almost alone in the world--i had but you, and h., and m., and let me enjoy the survivors whilst i can. poor m., in his letter of friday, speaks of his intended contest for cambridge[ ], and a speedy journey to london. write or come, but come if you can, or one or both. "yours ever." [footnote : in many instances the mothers of illustrious poets have had reason to be proud no less of the affection than of the glory of their sons; and tasso, pope, gray, and cowper, are among these memorable examples of filial tenderness. in the lesser poems of tasso, there are few things so beautiful as his description, in the canzone to the metauro, of his first parting with his mother:-- "me dal sen della madre empia fortuna pargoletto divelse," &c. ] [footnote : napoleon.] [footnote : in a letter, written between two and three months after his mother's death, he states no less a number than six persons, all friends or relatives, who had been snatched away from him by death between may and the end of august.] [footnote : in continuation of the note quoted in the text, he says of matthews--"his powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the _ablest candidates_, than those of any graduate on record at cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired." one of the candidates, thus described, was mr. thomas barnes, a gentleman whose career since has kept fully the promise of his youth, though, from the nature of the channels through which his literary labours have been directed, his great talents are far more extensively known than his name.] [footnote : it had been the intention of mr. matthews to offer himself, at the ensuing election, for the university. in reference to this purpose, a manuscript memoir of him, now lying before me, says--"if acknowledged and successful talents--if principles of the strictest honour--if the devotion of many friends could have secured the success of an 'independent pauper' (as he jocularly called himself in a letter on the subject), the vision would have been realised."] * * * * * of this remarkable young man, charles skinner matthews[ ], i have already had occasion to speak; but the high station which he held in lord byron's affection and admiration may justify a somewhat ampler tribute to his memory. there have seldom, perhaps, started together in life so many youths of high promise and hope as were to be found among the society of which lord byron formed a part at cambridge. of some of these, the names have since eminently distinguished themselves in the world, as the mere mention of mr. hobhouse and mr. william bankes is sufficient to testify; while in the instance of another of this lively circle, mr. scrope davies[ ], the only regret of his friends is, that the social wit of which he is such a master should in the memories of his hearers alone be like to leave any record of its brilliancy. among all these young men of learning and talent, (including byron himself, whose genius was, however, as yet, "an undiscovered world,") the superiority, in almost every department of intellect, seems to have been, by the ready consent of all, awarded to matthews;--a concurrence of homage which, considering the persons from whom it came, gives such a high notion of the powers of his mind at that period, as renders the thought of what he might have been, if spared, a matter of interesting, though vain and mournful, speculation. to mere mental pre-eminence, unaccompanied by the kindlier qualities of the heart, such a tribute, however deserved, might not, perhaps, have been so uncontestedly paid. but young matthews appears,--in spite of some little asperities of temper and manner, which he was already beginning to soften down when snatched away,--to have been one of those rare individuals who, while they command deference, can, at the same time, win regard, and who, as it were, relieve the intense feeling of admiration which they excite by blending it with love. to his religious opinions, and their unfortunate coincidence with those of lord byron, i have before adverted. like his noble friend, ardent in the pursuit of truth, he, like him too, unluckily lost his way in seeking her,--"the light that led astray" being by both friends mistaken for hers. that in his scepticism he proceeded any farther than lord byron, or ever suffered his doubting, but still ingenuous, mind to persuade itself into the "incredible creed" of atheism, is, i find (notwithstanding an assertion in a letter of the noble poet to this effect), disproved by the testimony of those among his relations and friends, who are the most ready to admit and, of course, lament his other heresies;--nor should i have felt that i had any right to allude thus to the religious opinions of one who had never, by promulgating his heterodoxy, brought himself within the jurisdiction of the public, had not the wrong impression, as it appears, given of those opinions, on the authority of lord byron, rendered it an act of justice to both friends to remove the imputation. in the letters to mrs. byron, written previously to the departure of her son on his travels, there occurs, it will be recollected, some mention of a will, which it was his intention to leave behind him in the hands of his trustees. whatever may have been the contents of this former instrument, we find that, in about a fortnight after his mother's death, he thought it right to have a new form of will drawn up; and the following letter, enclosing his instructions for that purpose, was addressed to the late mr. bolton, a solicitor of nottingham. of the existence, in any serious or formal shape, of the strange directions here given, respecting his own interment, i was, for some time, i confess, much inclined to doubt; but the curious documents here annexed put this remarkable instance of his eccentricity beyond all question. [footnote : he was the third son of the late john matthews, esq. of belmont, herefordshire, representative of that county in the parliament of - . the author of "the diary of an invalid," also untimely snatched away, was another son of the same gentleman, as is likewise the present prebendary of hereford, the reverend arthur matthews, who, by his ability and attainments, sustains worthily the reputation of the name. the father of this accomplished family was himself a man of considerable talent, and the author of several unavowed poetical pieces; one of which, a parody of pope's eloisa, written in early youth, has been erroneously ascribed to the late professor porson, who was in the habit of reciting it, and even printed an edition of the verses.] [footnote : "one of the cleverest men i ever knew, in conversation, was scrope berdmore davies. hobhouse is also very good in that line, though it is of less consequence to a man who has other ways of showing his talents than in company. scrope was always ready and often witty--hobhouse as witty, but not always so ready, being more diffident."--_ms. journal of lord byron._] * * * * * to ---- bolton, esq. "newstead abbey, august . . "sir, "i enclose a rough draught of my intended will, which i beg to have drawn up as soon as possible, in the firmest manner. the alterations are principally made in consequence of the death of mrs. byron. i have only to request that it may be got ready in a short time, and have the honour, to be, "your most obedient, humble servant, "byron." * * * * * "newstead abbey, august . . "directions for, the contents of a will to be drawn up immediately. "the estate of newstead to be entailed (subject to certain deductions) on george anson byron, heir-at-law, or whoever may be the heir-at-law on the death of lord b. the rochdale property to be sold in part or the whole, according to the debts and legacies of the present lord b. "to nicolo giraud of athens, subject of france, but born in greece, the sum of seven thousand pounds sterling, to be paid from the sale of such parts of rochdale, newstead, or elsewhere, as may enable the said nicolo giraud (resident at athens and malta in the year ) to receive the above sum on his attaining the age of twenty-one years. "to william fletcher, joseph murray, and demetrius zograffo[ ] (native of greece), servants, the sum of fifty pounds pr. ann. each, for their natural lives. to wm. fletcher, the mill at newstead, on condition that he payeth rent, but not subject to the caprice of the landlord. to rt. rushton the sum of fifty pounds per ann. for life, and a further sum of one thousand pounds on attaining the age of twenty-five years. "to jn. hanson, esq. the sum of two thousand pounds sterling. "the claims of s.b. davies, esq. to be satisfied on proving the amount of the same. "the body of lord b. to be buried in the vault of the garden of newstead, without any ceremony or burial-service whatever, or any inscription, save his name and age. his dog not to be removed from the said vault. "my library and furniture of every description to my friends jn. cam hobhouse, esq., and s.b. davies, esq. my executors. in case of their decease, the rev. j. becher, of southwell, notts., and r.c. dallas, esq., of mortlake, surrey, to be executors. "the produce of the sale of wymondham in norfolk, and the late mrs. b.'s scotch property[ ], to be appropriated in aid of the payment of debts and legacies." [footnote : "if the papers lie not (which they generally do), demetrius zograffo of athens is at the head of the athenian part of the greek insurrection. he was my servant in , , , , at different intervals of those years (for i left him in greece when i went to constantinople), and accompanied me to england in : he returned to greece, spring, . he was a clever, but not _apparently_ an enterprising man; but circumstances make men. his two sons (_then_ infants) were named miltiades and alcibiades: may the omen be happy!" --_ms. journal._] [footnote : on the death of his mother, a considerable sum of money, the remains of the price of the estate of gight, was paid into his hands by her trustee, baron clerk.] * * * * * in sending a copy of the will, framed on these instructions, to lord byron, the solicitor accompanied some of the clauses with marginal queries, calling the attention of his noble client to points which he considered inexpedient or questionable; and as the short pithy answers to these suggestions are strongly characteristic of their writer, i shall here give one or two of the clauses in full, with the respective queries and answers annexed. "this is the last will and testament of me, the rt. honble george gordon lord byron, baron byron of rochdale, in the county of lancaster.--i desire that my body may be buried in the vault of the garden of newstead, without any ceremony or burial-service whatever, and that no inscription, save my name and age, be written on the tomb or tablet; and it is my will that my faithful dog may not be removed from the said vault. to the performance of this my particular desire, i rely on the attention of my executors hereinafter named." _"it is submitted to lord byron whether this clause relative to the funeral had not better be omitted. the substance of it can be given in a letter from his lordship to the executors, and accompany the will; and the will may state that the funeral shall be performed in such manner as his lordship may by letter direct, and, in default of any such letter, then at the discretion of his executors."_ "it must stand. b." "i do hereby specifically order and direct that all the claims of the said s.b. davies upon me shall be fully paid and satisfied as soon as conveniently may be after my decease, on his proving [by vouchers, or otherwise, to the satisfaction of my executors hereinafter named][ ] the amount thereof, and the correctness of the same." _"if mr. davies has any unsettled claims upon lord byron, that circumstance is a reason for his not being appointed executor; each executor having an opportunity of paying himself his own debt without consulting his co-executors."_ "so much the better--if possible, let him be an executor. b." [footnote : over the words which i have here placed between brackets, lord byron drew his pen.] * * * * * the two following letters contain further instructions on the same subject:-- letter . to mr. bolton. "newstead abbey, august . . "sir, "i have answered the queries on the margin.[ ] i wish mr. davies's claims to be most fully allowed, and, further, that he be one of my executors. i wish the will to be made in a manner to prevent all discussion, if possible, after my decease; and this i leave to you as a professional gentleman. "with regard to the few and simple directions for the disposal of my _carcass_, i must have them implicitly fulfilled, as they will, at least, prevent trouble and expense;--and (what would be of little consequence to me, but may quiet the conscience of the survivors) the garden is _consecrated_ ground. these directions are copied verbatim from my former will; the alterations in other parts have arisen from the death of mrs. b. i have the honour to be "your most obedient, humble servant, "byron." [footnote : in the clause enumerating the names and places of abode of the executors, the solicitor had left blanks for the christian names of these gentlemen, and lord byron, having filled up all but that of dallas, writes in the margin--"i forget the christian name of dallas--cut him out."] * * * * * letter to mr. bolton. "newstead abbey, august . . "sir, "the witnesses shall be provided from amongst my tenants, and i shall be happy to see you on any day most convenient to yourself. i forgot to mention, that it must be specified by codicil, or otherwise, that my body is on no account to be removed from the vault where i have directed it to be placed; and in case any of my successors within the entail (from bigotry, or otherwise) might think proper to remove the carcass, such proceeding shall be attended by forfeiture of the estate, which in such case shall go to my sister, the honble augusta leigh and her heirs on similar conditions. i have the honour to be, sir, "your very obedient, humble servant, "byron." * * * * * in consequence of this last letter, a proviso and declaration, in conformity with its instructions, were inserted in the will. he also executed, on the th of this month, a codicil, by which he revoked the bequest of his "household goods and furniture, library, pictures, sabres, watches, plate, linen, trinkets, and other personal estate (except money and securities) situate within the walls of the mansion-house and premises at his decease--and bequeathed the same (except his wine and spirituous liquors) to his friends, the said j.c. hobhouse, s.b. davies, and francis hodgson, their executors, &c., to be equally divided between them for their own use;--and he bequeathed his wine and spirituous liquors, which should be in the cellars and premises at newstead, unto his friend, the said j. becher, for his own use, and requested the said j.c. hobhouse, s.b. davies, f. hodgson, and j. becher, respectively, to accept the bequest therein contained, to them respectively, as a token of his friendship." the following letters, written while his late losses were fresh in his mind, will be read with painful interest:-- letter . to mr. dallas. "newstead abbey, notts., august . . "peace be with the dead! regret cannot wake them. with a sigh to the departed, let us resume the dull business of life, in the certainty that we also shall have our repose. besides her who gave me being, i have lost more than one who made that being tolerable--the best friend of my friend hobhouse, matthews, a man of the first talents, and also not the worst of my narrow circle, has perished miserably in the muddy waves of the cam, always fatal to genius:--my poor school-fellow, wingfield, at coimbra--within a month; and whilst i had heard from _all three_, but not seen _one_. matthews wrote to me the very day before his death; and though i feel for his fate, i am still more anxious for hobhouse, who, i very much fear, will hardly retain his senses: his letters to me since the event have been most incoherent. but let this pass; we shall all one day pass along with the rest--the world is too full of such things, and our very sorrow is selfish. "i received a letter from you, which my late occupations prevented me from duly noticing.--i hope your friends and family will long hold together. i shall be glad to hear from you, on business, on common-place, or any thing, or nothing--but death--i am already too familiar with the dead. it is strange that i look on the skulls which stand beside me (i have always had _four_ in my study) without emotion, but i cannot strip the features of those i have known of their fleshy covering, even in idea, without a hideous sensation; but the worms are less ceremonious.--surely, the romans did well when they burned the dead.--i shall be happy to hear from you, and am yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. hodgson. "newstead abbey, august . . "you may have heard of the sudden death of my mother, and poor matthews, which, with that of wingfield, (of which i was not fully aware till just before i left town, and indeed hardly believed it,) has made a sad chasm in my connections. indeed the blows followed each other so rapidly that i am yet stupid from the shock; and though i do eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh, at times, yet i can hardly persuade myself that i am awake, did not every morning convince me mournfully to the contrary.--i shall now wave the subject,--the dead are at rest, and none but the dead can be so. "you will feel for poor hobhouse,--matthews was the 'god of his idolatry;' and if intellect could exalt a man above his fellows, no one could refuse him pre-eminence. i knew him most intimately, and valued him proportionably; but i am recurring--so let us talk of life and the living. "if you should feel a disposition to come here, you will find 'beef and a sea-coal fire,' and not ungenerous wine. whether otway's two other requisites for an englishman or not, i cannot tell, but probably one of them.--let me know when i may expect you, that i may tell you when i go and when return. i have not yet been to lanes. davies has been here, and has invited me to cambridge for a week in october, so that, peradventure, we may encounter glass to glass. his gaiety (death cannot mar it) has done me service; but, after all, ours was a hollow laughter. "you will write to me? i am solitary, and i never felt solitude irksome before. your anxiety about the critique on * *'s book is amusing; as it was anonymous, certes it was of little consequence: i wish it had produced a little more confusion, being a lover of literary malice. are you doing nothing? writing nothing? printing nothing? why not your satire on methodism? the subject (supposing the public to be blind to merit) would do wonders. besides, it would be as well for a destined deacon to prove his orthodoxy.--it really would give me pleasure to see you properly appreciated. i say _really_, as, being an author, my humanity might be suspected. believe me, dear h., yours always." * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. "newstead, august . . "your letter gives me credit for more acute feelings than i possess; for though i feel tolerably miserable, yet i am at the same time subject to a kind of hysterical merriment, or rather laughter without merriment, which i can neither account for nor conquer, and yet i do not feel relieved by it; but an indifferent person would think me in excellent spirits. 'we must forget these things,' and have recourse to our old selfish comforts, or rather comfortable selfishness. i do not think i shall return to london immediately, and shall therefore accept freely what is offered courteously--your mediation between me and murray. i don't think my name will answer the purpose, and you must be aware that my plaguy satire will bring the north and south grub streets down upon the 'pilgrimage;'--but, nevertheless, if murray makes a point of it, and you coincide with him, i will do it daringly; so let it be entitled 'by the author of english bards and scotch reviewers.' my remarks on the romaic, &c., once intended to accompany the 'hints from horace,' shall go along with the other, as being indeed more appropriate; also the smaller poems now in my possession, with a few selected from those published in * *'s miscellany. i have found amongst my poor mother's papers all my letters from the east, and one in particular of some length from albania. from this, if necessary, i can work up a note or two on that subject. as i kept no journal, the letters written on the spot are the best. but of this anon, when we have definitively arranged. "has murray shown the work to any one? he may--but i will have no traps for applause. of course there are little things i would wish to alter, and perhaps the two stanzas of a buffooning cast on london's sunday are as well left out. i much wish to avoid identifying childe harold's character with mine, and that, in sooth, is my second objection to my name appearing in the title-page. when you have made arrangements as to time, size, type, &c. favour me with a reply. i am giving you an universe of trouble, which thanks cannot atone for. i made a kind of prose apology for my scepticism at the head of the ms., which, on recollection, is so much more like an attack than a defence, that, haply, it might better be omitted:--perpend, pronounce. after all, i fear murray will be in a scrape with the orthodox; but i cannot help it, though i wish him well through it. as for me, 'i have supped full of criticism,' and i don't think that the 'most dismal treatise' will stir and rouse my fell of hair' till 'birnam wood do come to dunsinane.' "i shall continue to write at intervals, and hope you will pay me in kind. how does pratt get on, or rather get off, joe blackett's posthumous stock? you killed that poor man amongst you, in spite of your ionian friend and myself, who would have saved him from pratt, poetry, present poverty, and posthumous oblivion. cruel patronage! to ruin a man at his calling; but then he is a divine subject for subscription and biography; and pratt, who makes the most of his dedications, has inscribed the volume to no less than five families of distinction. "i am sorry you don't like harry white: with a great deal of cant, which in him was sincere (indeed it killed him as you killed joe blackett), certes there is poesy and genius. i don't say this on account of my simile and rhymes; but surely he was beyond all the bloomfields and blacketts, and their collateral cobblers, whom lofft and pratt have or may kidnap from their calling into the service of the trade. you must excuse my flippancy, for i am writing i know not what, to escape from myself. hobhouse is gone to ireland. mr. davies has been here on his way to harrowgate. "you did not know m.: he was a man of the most astonishing powers, as he sufficiently proved at cambridge, by carrying off more prizes and fellow-ships, against the ablest candidates, than any other graduate on record; but a most decided atheist, indeed noxiously so, for he proclaimed his principles in all societies. i knew him well, and feel a loss not easily to be supplied to myself--to hobhouse never. let me hear from you, and believe me," &c. * * * * * the progress towards publication of his two forthcoming works will be best traced in his letters to mr. murray and mr. dallas. letter . to mr. murray. "newstead abbey, notts., august . . "sir, "a domestic calamity in the death of a near relation has hitherto prevented my addressing you on the subject of this letter.--my friend, mr. dallas, has placed in your hands a manuscript poem written by me in greece, which he tells me you do not object to publishing. but he also informed me in london that you wished to send the ms. to mr. gifford. now, though no one would feel more gratified by the chance of obtaining his observations on a work than myself, there is in such a proceeding a kind of petition for praise, that neither my pride--or whatever you please to call it--will admit. mr. g. is not only the first satirist of the day, but editor of one of the principal reviews. as such, he is the last man whose censure (however eager to avoid it) i would deprecate by clandestine means. you will therefore retain the manuscript in your own care, or, if it must needs be shown, send it to another. though not very patient of censure, i would fain obtain fairly any little praise my rhymes might deserve, at all events not by extortion, and the humble solicitations of a bandied about ms. i am sure a little consideration will convince you it would be wrong. "if you determine on publication, i have some smaller poems (never published), a few notes, and a short dissertation on the literature of the modern greeks (written at athens), which will come in at the end of the volume.--and, if the present poem should succeed, it is my intention, at some subsequent period, to publish some selections from my first work,--my satire,--another nearly the same length, and a few other things, with the ms. now in your hands, in two volumes.--but of these hereafter. you will apprize me of your determination. i am, sir, your very obedient," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. "newstead abbey, august . . "being fortunately enabled to frank, i do not spare scribbling, having sent you packets within the last ten days. i am passing solitary, and do not expect my agent to accompany me to rochdale before the second week in september; a delay which perplexes me, as i wish the business over, and should at present welcome employment. i sent you exordiums, annotations, &c. for the forthcoming quarto, if quarto it is to be: and i also have written to mr. murray my objection to sending the ms. to juvenal, but allowing him to show it to any others of the calling. hobhouse is amongst the types already: so, between his prose and my verse, the world will be decently drawn upon for its paper-money and patience. besides all this, my 'imitation of horace' is gasping for the press at cawthorn's, but i am hesitating as to the _how_ and the _when_, the single or the double, the present or the future. you must excuse all this, for i have nothing to say in this lone mansion but of myself, and yet i would willingly talk or think of aught else. "what are you about to do? do you think of perching in cumberland, as you opined when i was in the metropolis? if you mean to retire, why not occupy miss * * *'s 'cottage of friendship,' late the seat of cobbler joe, for whose death you and others are answerable? his 'orphan daughter' (pathetic pratt!) will, certes, turn out a shoemaking sappho. have you no remorse? i think that elegant address to miss dallas should be inscribed on the cenotaph which miss * * * means to stitch to his memory. "the newspapers seem much disappointed at his majesty's not dying, or doing something better. i presume it is almost over. if parliament meets in october, i shall be in town to attend. i am also invited to cambridge for the beginning of that month, but am first to jaunt to rochdale. now matthews is gone, and hobhouse in ireland, i have hardly one left there to bid me welcome, except my inviter. at three-and-twenty i am left alone, and what more can we be at seventy? it is true i am young enough to begin again, but with whom can i retrace the laughing part of life? it is odd how few of my friends have died a quiet death,--i mean, in their beds. but a quiet life is of more consequence. yet one loves squabbling and jostling better than yawning. this _last word_ admonishes me to relieve you from yours very truly," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. "newstead abbey, august . . "i was so sincere in my note on the late charles matthews, and do feel myself so totally unable to do justice to his talents, that the passage must stand for the very reason you bring against it. to him all the men i ever knew were pigmies. he was an intellectual giant. it is true i loved w. better; he was the earliest and the dearest, and one of the few one could never repent of having loved: but in ability--ah! you did not know matthews! "'childe harold' may wait and welcome--books are never the worse for delay in the publication. so you have got our heir, george anson byron, and his sister, with you. "you may say what you please, but you are one of the _murderers_ of blackett, and yet you won't allow harry white's genius. setting aside his bigotry, he surely ranks next chatterton. it is astonishing how little he was known; and at cambridge no one thought or heard of such a man till his death rendered all notice useless. for my own part, i should have been most proud of such an acquaintance: his very prejudices were respectable. there is a sucking epic poet at granta, a mr. townsend, _protégé_ of the late cumberland. did you ever hear of him and his 'armageddon?' i think his plan (the man i don't know) borders on the sublime: though, perhaps, the anticipation of the 'last day' (according to you nazarenes) is a little too daring: at least, it looks like telling the lord what he is to do, and might remind an ill-natured person of the line, 'and fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' but i don't mean to cavil, only other folks will, and he may bring all the lambs of jacob behmen about his ears. however, i hope he will bring it to a conclusion, though milton is in his way. "write to me--i dote on gossip--and make a bow to ju--, and shake george by the hand for me; but, take care, for he has a sad sea paw. "p.s. i would ask george here, but i don't know how to amuse him--all my horses were sold when i left england, and i have not had time to replace them. nevertheless, if he will come down and shoot in september, he will be very welcome: but he must bring a gun, for i gave away all mine to ali pacha, and other turks. dogs, a keeper, and plenty of game, with a very large manor, i have--a lake, a boat, house-room, and _neat wines_." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "newstead abbey, notts., sept. . . "sir, "the time seems to be past when (as dr. johnson said) a man was certain to 'hear the truth from his bookseller,' for you have paid me so many compliments, that, if i was not the veriest scribbler on earth, i should feel affronted. as i accept your compliments, it is but fair i should give equal or greater credit to your objections, the more so, as i believe them to be well founded. with regard to the political and metaphysical parts, i am afraid i can alter nothing; but i have high authority for my errors in that point, for even the _Æneid_ was a _political_ poem, and written for a _political_ purpose; and as to my unlucky opinions on subjects of more importance, i am too sincere in them for recantation. on spanish affairs i have said what i saw, and every day confirms me in that notion of the result formed on the spot; and i rather think honest john bull is beginning to come round again to that sobriety which massena's retreat had begun to reel from its centre--the usual consequence of _un_usual success. so you perceive i cannot alter the sentiments; but if there are any alterations in the structure of the versification you would wish to be made, i will tag rhymes and turn stanzas as much as you please. as for the '_orthodox_,' let us hope they will buy, on purpose to abuse--you will forgive the one, if they will do the other. you are aware that any thing from my pen must expect no quarter, on many accounts; and as the present publication is of a nature very different from the former, we must not be sanguine. "you have given me no answer to my question--tell me fairly, did you show the ms. to some of your corps?--i sent an introductory stanza to mr. dallas, to be forwarded to you; the poem else will open too abruptly. the stanzas had better be numbered in roman characters. there is a disquisition on the literature of the modern greeks and some smaller poems to come in at the close. these are now at newstead, but will be sent in time. if mr. d. has lost the stanza and note annexed to it, write, and i will send it myself.--you tell me to add two cantos, but i am about to visit my _collieries_ in lancashire on the th instant, which is so unpoetical an employment that i need say no more. i am, sir, your most obedient," &c. the manuscripts of both his poems having been shown, much against his own will, to mr. gifford, the opinion of that gentleman was thus reported to him by mr. dallas:--"of your satire he spoke highly; but this poem (childe harold) he pronounced not only the best you have written, but equal to any of the present age." * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. "newstead abbey, september . . "as gifford has been ever my 'magnus apollo.' any approbation, such as you mention, would, of course, be more welcome than 'all bokara's vaunted gold, than all the gems of samarkand.' but i am sorry the ms. was shown to him in such a manner, and i had written to murray to say as much, before i was aware that it was too late. "your objection to the expression 'central line' i can only meet by saying that, before childe harold left england, it was his full intention to traverse persia, and return by india, which he could not have done without passing the equinoctial. "the other errors you mention, i must correct in the progress through the press. i feel honoured by the wish of such men that the poem should be continued, but to do that, i must return to greece and asia; i must have a warm sun and a blue sky; i cannot describe scenes so dear to me by a sea-coal fire. i had projected an additional canto when i was in the troad and constantinople, and if i saw them again, it would go on; but under existing circumstances and _sensations_, i have neither harp, 'heart, nor voice' to proceed. i feel that _you are all right_ as to the metaphysical part; but i also feel that i am sincere, and that if i am only to write '_ad captandum vulgus_,' i might as well edit a magazine at once, or spin canzonettas for vauxhall. * * * "my work must make its way as well as it can; i know i have every thing against me, angry poets and prejudices; but if the poem is a _poem_, it will surmount these obstacles, and if _not_, it deserves its fate. your friend's ode i have read--it is no great compliment to pronounce it far superior to s * *'s on the same subject, or to the merits of the new chancellor. it is evidently the production of a man of taste, and a poet, though i should not be willing to say it was fully equal to what might be expected from the author of '_horæ ionicæ_.' i thank you for it, and that is more than i would do for any other ode of the present day. "i am very sensible of your good wishes, and, indeed, i have need of them. my whole life has been at variance with propriety, not to say decency; my circumstances are become involved; my friends are dead or estranged, and my existence a dreary void. in matthews i have lost my 'guide, philosopher, and friend;' in wingfield a friend only, but one whom i could have wished to have preceded in his long journey. "matthews was indeed an extraordinary man; it has not entered into the heart of a stranger to conceive such a man: there was the stamp of immortality in all he said or did;--and now what is he? when we see such men pass away and be no more--men, who seem created to display what the creator _could make_ his creatures, gathered into corruption, before the maturity of minds that might have been the pride of posterity, what are we to conclude? for my own part, i am bewildered. to me he was much, to hobhouse every thing.--my poor hobhouse doted on matthews. for me, i did not love quite so much as i honoured him; i was indeed so sensible of his infinite superiority, that though i did not envy, i stood in awe of it. he, hobhouse, davies, and myself, formed a coterie of our own at cambridge and elsewhere. davies is a wit and man of the world, and feels as much as such a character can do; but not as hobhouse has been affected. davies, who is not a scribbler, has always beaten us all in the war of words, and by his colloquial powers at once delighted and kept us in order. h. and myself always had the worst of it with the other two; and even m. yielded to the dashing vivacity of s.d. but i am talking to you of men, or boys, as if you cared about such beings. "i expect mine agent down on the th to proceed to lancashire, where i hear from all quarters that i have a very valuable property in coals, &c. i then intend to accept an invitation to cambridge in october, and shall, perhaps, run up to town. i have four invitations--to wales, dorset, cambridge, and chester; but i must be a man of business. i am quite alone, as these long letters sadly testify. i perceive, by referring to your letter, that the ode is from the author; make my thanks acceptable to him. his muse is worthy a nobler theme. you will write as usual, i hope. i wish you good evening, and am," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "newstead abbey, notts., sept. . . "sir, "since your former letter, mr. dallas informs me that the ms. has been submitted to the perusal of mr. gifford, most contrary to my wishes, as mr. d. could have explained, and as my own letter to you did, in fact, explain, with my motives for objecting to such a proceeding. some late domestic events, of which you are probably aware, prevented my letter from being sent before; indeed, i hardly conceived you would so hastily thrust my productions into the hands of a stranger, who could be as little pleased by receiving them, as their author is at their being offered, in such a manner, and to such a man. "my address, when i leave newstead, will be to 'rochdale, lancashire;' but i have not yet fixed the day of departure, and i will apprise you when ready to set off. "you have placed me in a very ridiculous situation, but it is past, and nothing more is to be said on the subject. you hinted to me that you wished some alterations to be made; if they have nothing to do with politics or religion, i will make them with great readiness. i am, sir," &c.&c. * * * * * to mr. murray. "newstead abbey, sept. . .[ ] "i return the proof, which i should wish to be shown to mr. dallas, who understands typographical arrangements much better than i can pretend to do. the printer may place the notes in his _own way_, or any _way_ so that they are out of _my way_; i care nothing about types or margins. "if you have any communication to make, i shall be here at least a week or ten days longer. "i am, sir," &c. &c. [footnote : on a leaf of one of his paper-books i find an epigram written at this time, which, though not perhaps particularly good, i consider myself bound to insert:-- "on moore's last operatic farce, or farcical opera. "good plays are scarce, so moore writes farce: the poet's fame grows brittle-- we knew before that _little's_ moore, but now 'tis _moore_ that's _little_. sept. . ." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. "newstead abbey, sept. . . "i can easily excuse your not writing, as you have, i hope, something better to do, and you must pardon my frequent invasions on your attention, because i have at this moment nothing to interpose between you and my epistles. "i cannot settle to any thing, and my days pass, with the exception of bodily exercise to some extent, with uniform indolence, and idle insipidity. i have been expecting, and still expect, my agent, when i shall have enough to occupy my reflections in business of no very pleasant aspect. before my journey to rochdale, you shall have due notice where to address me--i believe at the post-office of that township. from murray i received a second proof of the same pages, which i requested him to show you, that any thing which may have escaped my observation may be detected before the printer lays the corner-stone of an _errata_ column. "i am now not quite alone, having an old acquaintance and school-fellow with me, so _old_, indeed, that we have nothing _new_ to say on any subject, and yawn at each other in a sort of _quiet inquietude_. i hear nothing from cawthorn, or captain hobhouse; and _their quarto_--lord have mercy on mankind! we come on like cerberus with our triple publications. as for _myself_, by _myself_, i must be satisfied with a comparison to _janus_. "i am not at all pleased with murray for showing the ms.; and i am certain gifford must see it in the same light that i do. his praise is nothing to the purpose: what could he say? he could not spit in the face of one who had praised him in every possible way. i must own that i wish to have the impression removed from his mind, that i had any concern in such a paltry transaction. the more i think, the more it disquiets me; so i will say no more about it. it is bad enough to be a scribbler, without having recourse to such shifts to extort praise, or deprecate censure. it is anticipating, it is begging, kneeling, adulating,--the devil! the devil! the devil! and all without my wish, and contrary to my express desire. i wish murray had been tied to _payne_'s neck when he jumped into the paddington canal[ ], and so tell him,--_that_ is the proper receptacle for publishers. you have thoughts of settling in the country, why not try notts.? i think there are places which would suit you in all points, and then you are nearer the metropolis. but of this anon. i am, yours," &c. [footnote : in a note on his "hints from horace," he thus humorously applies this incident:-- "a literary friend of mine walking out one lovely evening last summer on the eleventh bridge of the paddington canal, was alarmed by the cry of 'one in jeopardy!' he rushed along, collected a body of irish haymakers (supping on buttermilk in an adjoining paddock), procured three rakes, one eel spear, and a landing-net, and at last (_horresco referens_) pulled out--his own publisher. the unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which proved, on enquiry, to have been mr. s----'s last work. its 'alacrity of sinking' was so great, that it has never since been heard of, though some maintain that it is at this moment concealed at alderman birch's pastry-premises, cornhill. be this as it may, the coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of 'felo de bibliopolâ' against a 'quarto unknown,' and circumstantial evidence being since strong against the 'curse of kehama' (of which the above words are an exact description), it will be tried by its peers next session in grub street. arthur, alfred, davideis, richard coeur de lion, exodus, exodiad, epigoniad, calvary, fall of cambria, siege of acre, don roderick, and tom thumb the great, are the names of the twelve jurors. the judges are pye, * * *, and the bellman of st. sepulchre's."] * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. "newstead abbey, sept. . . "i have shown my respect for your suggestions by adopting them; but i have made many alterations in the first proof, over and above; as, for example: "oh thou, in _hellas_ deem'd of heavenly birth, &c. &c. "since _shamed full oft_ by _later lyres_ on earth, mine, &c. "yet there _i've wander'd_ by the vaunted rill; and so on. so i have got rid of dr. lowth and 'drunk' to boot, and very glad i am to say so. i have also sullenised the line as heretofore, and in short have been quite conformable. "pray write; you shall hear when i remove to lancs. i have brought you and my friend juvenal hodgson upon my back, on the score of revelation. you are fervent, but he is quite _glowing_; and if he take half the pains to save his own soul, which he volunteers to redeem mine, great will be his reward hereafter. i honour and thank you both, but am convinced by neither. now for notes. besides those i have sent, i shall send the observations on the edinburgh reviewer's remarks on the modern greek, an albanian song in the albanian (_not greek_) language, specimens of modern greek from their new testament, a comedy of goldoni's translated, _one scene_, a prospectus of a friend's book, and perhaps a song or two, _all_ in romaic, besides their pater noster; so there will be enough, if not too much, with what i have already sent. have you received the 'noetes atticæ?' i sent also an annotation on portugal. hobhouse is also forthcoming." * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. "newstead abbey, sept. . . "_lisboa_ is the portuguese word, consequently the very best. ulissipont is pedantic; and as i have _hellas_ and _eros_ not long before, there would be something like an affectation of greek terms, which i wish to avoid, since i shall have a perilous quantity of _modern_ greek in my notes, as specimens of the tongue; therefore lisboa may keep its place. you are right about the 'hints;' they must not precede the 'romaunt;' but cawthorn will be savage if they don't; however, keep _them_ back, and _him_ in _good humour_, if we can, but do not let him publish. "i have adopted, i believe, most of your suggestions, but 'lisboa' will be an exception to prove the rule. i have sent a quantity of notes, and shall continue; but pray let them be copied; no devil can read my hand. by the by, i do not mean to exchange the ninth verse of the 'good night.' i have no reason to suppose my dog better than his brother brutes, mankind; and _argus_ we know to be a fable. the 'cosmopolite' was an acquisition abroad. i do not believe it is to be found in england. it is an amusing little volume, and full of french flippancy. i read, though i do not speak the language. "i _will_ be angry with murray. it was a book-selling, back shop, paternoster-row, paltry proceeding, and if the experiment had turned out as it deserved, i would have raised all fleet street, and borrowed the giant's staff from st. dunstan's church, to immolate the betrayer of trust. i have written to him as he never was written to before by an author, i'll be sworn, and i hope you will amplify my wrath, till it has an effect upon him. you tell me always you have much to write about. write it, but let us drop metaphysics;--on that point we shall never agree. i am dull and drowsy, as usual. i do nothing, and even that nothing fatigues me. adieu." * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. "newstead abbey, oct. . . "i have returned from lancs., and ascertained that my property there may be made very valuable, but various circumstances very much circumscribe my exertions at present. i shall be in town on business in the beginning of november, and perhaps at cambridge before the end of this month; but of my movements you shall be regularly apprised. your objections i have in part done away by alterations, which i hope will suffice; and i have sent two or three additional stanzas for both '_fyttas_' i have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times; but 'i have almost forgot the taste of grief,' and 'supped full of horrors' till i have become callous, nor have i a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed down my head to the earth. it seems as though i were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age. my friends fall around me, and i shall be left a lonely tree before i am withered. other men can always take refuge in their families; i have no resource but my own reflections, and they present no prospect here or hereafter, except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my betters. i am indeed very wretched, and you will excuse my saying so, as you know i am not apt to cant of sensibility. "instead of tiring yourself with _my_ concerns, i should be glad to hear _your_ plans of retirement. i suppose you would not like to be wholly shut out of society? now i know a large village, or small town, about twelve miles off, where your family would have the advantage of very genteel society, without the hazard of being annoyed by mercantile affluence; where _you_ would meet with men of information and independence; and where i have friends to whom i should be proud to introduce you. there are, besides, a coffee-room, assemblies, &c. &c., which bring people together. my mother had a house there some years, and i am well acquainted with the economy of southwell, the name of this little commonwealth. lastly, you will not be very remote from me; and though i am the very worst companion for young people in the world, this objection would not apply to _you_, whom i could see frequently. your expenses, too, would be such as best suit your inclinations, more or less, as you thought proper; but very little would be requisite to enable you to enter into all the gaieties of a country life. you could be as quiet or bustling as you liked, and certainly as well situated as on the lakes of cumberland, unless you have a particular wish to be _picturesque_. "pray, is your ionian friend in town? you have promised me an introduction.--you mention having consulted some friend on the mss.--is not this contrary to our usual way? instruct mr. murray not to allow his shopman to call the work 'child of harrow's pilgrimage!!!!!' as he has done to some of my astonished friends, who wrote to enquire after my sanity on the occasion, as well they might. i have heard nothing of murray, whom i scolded heartily. must i write more notes?--are there not enough?--cawthorn must be kept back with the 'hints.'--i hope he is getting on with hobhouse's quarto. good evening. yours ever," &c. * * * * * of the same date with this melancholy letter are the following verses, never before printed, which he wrote in answer to some lines received from a friend, exhorting him to be cheerful, and to "banish care." they will show with what gloomy fidelity, even while under the pressure of recent sorrow, he reverted to the disappointment of his early affection, as the chief source of all his sufferings and errors, present and to come. "newstead abbey, october . . "'oh! banish care'--such ever be the motto of _thy_ revelry! perchance of _mine_, when wassail nights renew those riotous delights, wherewith the children of despair lull the lone heart, and 'banish care.' but not in morn's reflecting hour, when present, past, and future lower, when all i loved is changed or gone, mock with such taunts the woes of one, whose every thought--but let them pass-- thou know'st i am not what i was. but, above all, if thou wouldst hold place in a heart that ne'er was cold, by all the powers that men revere, by all unto thy bosom dear, thy joys below, thy hopes above, speak--speak of any thing but love. "'twere long to tell, and vain to hear the tale of one who scorns a tear; and there is little in that tale which better bosoms would bewail. but mine has suffer'd more than well 'twould suit philosophy to tell. i've seen my bride another's bride,-- have seen her seated by his side,-- have seen the infant which she bore, wear the sweet smile the mother wore, when she and i in youth have smiled as fond and faultless as her child;-- have seen her eyes, in cold disdain, ask if i felt no secret pain. and i have acted well my part, and made my cheek belie my heart, return'd the freezing glance she gave, yet felt the while _that_ woman's slave;-- have kiss'd, as if without design, the babe which ought to have been mine, and show'd, alas! in each caress time had not made me love the less. "but let this pass--i'll whine no more. nor seek again an eastern shore; the world befits a busy brain,-- i'll hie me to its haunts again. but if, in some succeeding year, when britain's 'may is in the sere,' thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes suit with the sablest of the times, of one, whom love nor pity sways, nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise, one, who in stern ambition's pride, perchance not blood shall turn aside, one rank'd in some recording page with the worst anarchs of the age, him wilt thou _know_--and, _knowing_, pause, nor with the _effect_ forget the cause." * * * * * the anticipations of his own future career in these concluding lines are of a nature, it must be owned, to awaken more of horror than of interest, were we not prepared, by so many instances of his exaggeration in this respect, not to be startled at any lengths to which the spirit of self-libelling would carry him. it seemed as if, with the power of painting fierce and gloomy personages, he had also the ambition to be, himself, the dark "sublime he drew," and that, in his fondness for the delineation of heroic crime, he endeavoured to fancy, where he could not find, in his own character, fit subjects for his pencil. it was about the time when he was thus bitterly feeling and expressing the blight which his heart had suffered from a _real_ object of affection, that his poems on the death of an _imaginary_ one, "thyrza," were written;--nor is it any wonder, when we consider the peculiar circumstances under which these beautiful effusions flowed from his fancy, that of all his strains of pathos, they should be the most touching and most pure. they were, indeed, the essence, the abstract spirit, as it were, of many griefs;--a confluence of sad thoughts from many sources of sorrow, refined and warmed in their passage through his fancy, and forming thus one deep reservoir of mournful feeling. in retracing the happy hours he had known with the friends now lost, all the ardent tenderness of his youth came back upon him. his school-sports with the favourites of his boyhood, wingfield and tattersall,--his summer days with long[ ], and those evenings of music and romance which he had dreamed away in the society of his adopted brother, eddlestone,--all these recollections of the young and dead now came to mingle themselves in his mind with the image of her who, though living, was, for him, as much lost as they, and diffused that general feeling of sadness and fondness through his soul, which found a vent in these poems. no friendship, however warm, could have inspired sorrow so passionate; as no love, however pure, could have kept passion so chastened. it was the blending of the two affections, in his memory and imagination, that thus gave birth to an ideal object combining the best features of both, and drew from him these saddest and tenderest of love-poems, in which we find all the depth and intensity of real feeling touched over with such a light as no reality ever wore. the following letter gives some further account of the course of his thoughts and pursuits at this period:-- letter . to mr. hodgson. "newstead abbey, oct. . . "you will begin to deem me a most liberal correspondent; but as my letters are free, you will overlook their frequency. i have sent you answers in prose and verse[ ] to all your late communications, and though i am invading your ease again, i don't know why, or what to put down that you are not acquainted with already. i am growing nervous (how you will laugh!)--but it is true,--really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically _nervous_. your climate kills me; i can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. my days are listless, and my nights restless; i have very seldom any society, and when i have, i run out of it. at 'this present writing,' there are in the next room three ladies, and i have stolen away to write this grumbling letter.--i don't know that i sha'n't end with insanity, for i find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely; but this looks more like silliness than madness, as scrope davies would facetiously remark in his consoling manner. i must try the hartshorn of your company; and a session of parliament would suit me well,--any thing to cure me of conjugating the accursed verb '_ennuyer_.' "when shall you be at cambridge? you have hinted, i think, that your friend bland is returned from holland. i have always had a great respect for his talents, and for all that i have heard of his character; but of me, i believe he knows nothing, except that he heard my sixth form repetitions ten months together, at the average of two lines a morning, and those never perfect. i remembered him and his 'slaves' as i passed between capes matapan, st. angelo, and his isle of ceriga, and i always bewailed the absence of the anthology. i suppose he will now translate vondel, the dutch shakspeare, and 'gysbert van amstel' will easily be accommodated to our stage in its present state; and i presume he saw the dutch poem, where the love of pyramus and thisbe is compared to the _passion_ of _christ_; also the love of _lucifer_ for eve, and other varieties of low country literature. no doubt you will think me crazed to talk of such things, but they are all in black and white and good repute on the banks of every canal from amsterdam to alkmaar. "yours ever, b." [footnote : see the extract from one of his journals, vol. i. p. .] [footnote : the verses in vol. ii. p. .] * * * * * "my poesy is in the hands of its various publishers; but the 'hints from horace,' (to which i have subjoined some savage lines on methodism, and ferocious notes on the vanity of the triple editory of the edin. annual register,) my '_hints_,' i say, stand still, and why?--i have not a friend in the world (but you and drury) who can construe horace's latin or my english well enough to adjust them for the press, or to correct the proofs in a grammatical way. so that, unless you have bowels when you return to town (i am too far off to do it for myself), this ineffable work will be lost to the world for--i don't know how many _weeks._ "'childe harold's pilgrimage' must wait till _murray's_ is finished. he is making a tour in middlesex, and is to return soon, when high matter may be expected. he wants to have it in quarto, which is a cursed unsaleable size; but it is pestilent long, and one must obey one's bookseller. i trust murray will pass the paddington canal without being seduced by payne and mackinlay's example,--i say payne and mackinlay, supposing that the partnership held good. drury, the villain, has not written to me; 'i am never (as mrs. lumpkin says to tony) to be gratified with the monster's dear wild notes.' "so you are going (going indeed!) into orders. you must make your peace with the eclectic reviewers--they accuse you of impiety, i fear, with injustice. demetrius, the 'sieger of cities,' is here, with 'gilpin homer.' the painter[ ] is not necessary, as the portraits he already painted are (by anticipation) very like the new animals.--write, and send me your 'love song'--but i want 'paulo majora' from you. make a dash before you are a deacon, and try a _dry_ publisher. "yours always, b." [footnote : barber, whom he had brought down to newstead to paint his wolf and his bear.] * * * * * it was at this period that i first had the happiness of seeing and becoming acquainted with lord byron. the correspondence in which our acquaintance originated is, in a high degree, illustrative of the frank manliness of his character; and as it was begun on my side, some egotism must be tolerated in the detail which i have to give of the circumstances that led to it. so far back as the year , on the occasion of a meeting which took place at chalk farm between mr. jeffrey and myself, a good deal of ridicule and raillery, founded on a false representation of what occurred before the magistrates at bow street, appeared in almost all the public prints. in consequence of this, i was induced to address a letter to the editor of one of the journals, contradicting the falsehood that had been circulated, and stating briefly the real circumstances of the case. for some time my letter seemed to produce the intended effect,--but, unluckily, the original story was too tempting a theme for humour and sarcasm to be so easily superseded by mere matter of fact. accordingly, after a little time, whenever the subject was publicly alluded to,--more especially by those who were at all "willing to wound,"--the old falsehood was, for the sake of its ready sting, revived. in the year , on the first appearance of "english bards and scotch reviewers," i found the author, who was then generally understood to be lord byron, not only jesting on the subject--and with sufficiently provoking pleasantry and cleverness--in his verse, but giving also, in the more responsible form of a note, an outline of the transaction in accordance with the original misreport, and, therefore, in direct contradiction to my published statement. still, as the satire was anonymous and unacknowledged, i did not feel that i was, in any way, called upon to notice it, and therefore dismissed the matter entirely from my mind. in the summer of the same year appeared the second edition of the work, with lord byron's name prefixed to it. i was, at the time, in ireland, and but little in the way of literary society; and it so happened that some months passed away before the appearance of this new edition was known to me. immediately on being apprised of it,--the offence now assuming a different form,--i addressed the following letter to lord byron, and, transmitting it to a friend in london, requested that he would have it delivered into his lordship's hands.[ ] "dublin, january . . "my lord, "having just seen the name of 'lord byron' prefixed to a work entitled 'english bards and scotch reviewers,' in which, as it appears to me, _the lie is given_ to a public statement of mine, respecting an affair with mr. jeffrey some years since, i beg you will have the goodness to inform me whether i may consider your lordship as the author of this publication. "i shall not, i fear, be able to return to london for a week or two; but, in the mean time, i trust your lordship will not deny me the satisfaction of knowing whether you avow the insult contained in the passages alluded to. "it is needless to suggest to your lordship the propriety of keeping our correspondence secret. "i have the honour to be "your lordship's very humble servant, "thomas moore. " . molesworth street." [footnote : this is the only entire letter of my own that, in the course of this work, i mean to obtrude upon my readers. being short, and in terms more explanatory of the feeling on which i acted than any others that could be substituted, it might be suffered, i thought, to form the single exception to my general rule. in all other cases, i shall merely give such extracts from my own letters as may be necessary to elucidate those of my correspondent.] * * * * * in the course of a week, the friend to whom i intrusted this letter wrote to inform me that lord byron had, as he learned on enquiring of his publisher, gone abroad immediately on the publication of his second edition; but that my letter had been placed in the hands of a gentleman, named hodgson, who had undertaken to forward it carefully to his lordship. though the latter step was not exactly what i could have wished, i thought it as well, on the whole, to let my letter take its chance, and again postponed all consideration of the matter. during the interval of a year and a half which elapsed before lord byron's return, i had taken upon myself obligations, both as husband and father, which make most men,--and especially those who have nothing to bequeath,--less willing to expose themselves unnecessarily to danger. on hearing, therefore, of the arrival of the noble traveller from greece, though still thinking it due to myself to follow up my first request of an explanation, i resolved, in prosecuting that object, to adopt such a tone of conciliation as should not only prove my sincere desire of a pacific result, but show the entire freedom from any angry or resentful feeling with which i took the step. the death of mrs. byron, for some time, delayed my purpose. but as soon after that event as was consistent with decorum, i addressed a letter to lord byron, in which, referring to my former communication, and expressing some doubts as to its having ever reached him, i re-stated, in pretty nearly the same words, the nature of the insult, which, as it appeared to me, the passage in his note was calculated to convey. "it is now useless," i continued, "to speak of the steps with which it was my intention to follow up that letter. the time which has elapsed since then, though it has done away neither the injury nor the feeling of it, has, in many respects, materially altered my situation; and the only object which i have now in writing to your lordship is to preserve some consistency with that former letter, and to prove to you that the injured feeling still exists, however circumstances may compel me to be deaf to its dictates, at present. when i say 'injured feeling,' let me assure your lordship, that there is not a single vindictive sentiment in my mind towards you. i mean but to express that uneasiness, under (what i consider to be) a charge of falsehood, which must haunt a man of any feeling to his grave, unless the insult be retracted or atoned for; and which, if i did _not_ feel, i should, indeed, deserve far worse than your lordship's satire could inflict upon me." in conclusion i added, that so far from being influenced by any angry or resentful feeling towards him, it would give me sincere pleasure if, by any satisfactory explanation, he would enable me to seek the honour of being henceforward ranked among his acquaintance.[ ] to this letter, lord byron returned the following answer:-- letter . to mr. moore. "cambridge, october . . "sir, "your letter followed me from notts, to this place, which will account for the delay of my reply. your former letter i never had the honour to receive;--be assured, in whatever part of the world it had found me, i should have deemed it my duty to return and answer it in person. "the advertisement you mention, i know nothing of.--at the time of your meeting with mr. jeffrey, i had recently entered college, and remember to have heard and read a number of squibs on the occasion; and from the recollection of these i derived all my knowledge on the subject, without the slightest idea of 'giving the lie' to an address which i never beheld. when i put my name to the production, which has occasioned this correspondence, i became responsible to all whom it might concern,--to explain where it requires explanation, and, where insufficiently, or too sufficiently explicit, at all events to satisfy. my situation leaves me no choice; it rests with the injured and the angry to obtain reparation in their own way. "with regard to the passage in question, _you_ were certainly _not_ the person towards whom i felt personally hostile. on the contrary, my whole thoughts were engrossed by one, whom i had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could i foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion. you do not specify what you would wish to have done: i can neither retract nor apologise for a charge of falsehood which i never advanced. "in the beginning of the week, i shall be at no. . st. james's street.--neither the letter nor the friend to whom you stated your intention ever made their appearance. "your friend, mr. rogers, or any other gentleman delegated by you, will find me most ready to adopt any conciliatory proposition which shall not compromise my own honour,--or, failing in that, to make the atonement you deem it necessary to require. "i have the honour to be, sir, "your most obedient, humble servant, "byron." [footnote : finding two different draughts of this letter among my papers, i cannot be quite certain as to some of the terms employed; but have little doubt that they are here given correctly.] * * * * * in my reply to this, i commenced by saying that his lordship's letter was, upon the whole, as satisfactory as i could expect. it contained all that, in the strict _diplomatique_ of explanation, could be required, namely,--that he had never seen the statement which i supposed him wilfully to have contradicted,--that he had no intention of bringing against me any charge of falsehood, and that the objectionable passage of his work was not levelled personally at _me_. this, i added, was all the explanation i had a right to expect, and i was, of course, satisfied with it. i then entered into some detail relative to the transmission of my first letter from dublin,--giving, as my reason for descending to these minute particulars, that i did not, i must confess, feel quite easy under the manner in which his lordship had noticed the miscarriage of that first application to him. my reply concluded thus:--"as your lordship does not show any wish to proceed beyond the rigid formulary of explanation, it is not for me to make any further advances. we irishmen, in businesses of this kind, seldom know any medium between decided hostility and decided friendship;--but, as any approaches towards the latter alternative must now depend entirely on your lordship, i have only to repeat that i am satisfied with your letter, and that i have the honour to be," &c. &c. on the following day i received the annexed rejoinder from lord byron:-- letter . to mr. moore. " . st. james's street, october . . "sir, "soon after my return to england, my friend, mr. hodgson, apprised me that a letter for me was in his possession; but a domestic event hurrying me from london, immediately after, the letter (which may most probably be your own) is still _unopened in his keeping_. if, on examination of the address, the similarity of the handwriting should lead to such a conclusion, it shall be opened in your presence, for the satisfaction of all parties. mr. h. is at present out of town;--on friday i shall see him, and request him to forward it to my address. "with regard to the latter part of both your letters, until the principal point was discussed between us, i felt myself at a loss in what manner to reply. was i to anticipate friendship from one, who conceived me to have charged him with falsehood? were not _advances_, under such circumstances, to be misconstrued,--not, perhaps, by the person to whom they were addressed, but by others? in _my_ case, such a step was impracticable. if you, who conceived yourself to be the offended person, are satisfied that you had no cause for offence, it will not be difficult to convince me of it. my situation, as i have before stated, leaves me no choice. i should have felt proud of your acquaintance, had it commenced under other circumstances; but it must rest with you to determine how far it may proceed after so _auspicious_ a beginning. i have the honour to be," &c. * * * * * somewhat piqued, i own, at the manner in which my efforts towards a more friendly understanding,--ill-timed as i confess them to have been,--were received, i hastened to close our correspondence by a short note, saying, that his lordship had made me feel the imprudence i was guilty of, in wandering from the point immediately in discussion between us; and i should now, therefore, only add, that if, in my last letter, i had correctly stated the substance of his explanation, our correspondence might, from this moment, cease for ever, as with that explanation i declared myself satisfied. this brief note drew immediately from lord byron the following frank and open-hearted reply:-- letter . to mr. moore. " . st. james's street, october . . "sir, "you must excuse my troubling you once more upon this very unpleasant subject. it would be a satisfaction to me, and i should think, to yourself, that the unopened letter in mr. hodgson's possession (supposing it to prove your own) should be returned 'in statu quo' to the writer; particularly as you expressed yourself 'not quite easy under the manner in which i had dwelt on its miscarriage.' "a few words more, and i shall not trouble you further. i felt, and still feel, very much flattered by those parts of your correspondence, which held out the prospect of our becoming acquainted. if i did not meet them in the first instance as perhaps i ought, let the situation i was placed in be my defence. you have _now_ declared yourself _satisfied_, and on that point we are no longer at issue. if, therefore, you still retain any wish to do me the honour you hinted at, i shall be most happy to meet you, when, where, and how you please, and i presume you will not attribute my saying thus much to any unworthy motive. i have the honour to remain," &c. * * * * * on receiving this letter, i went instantly to my friend, mr. rogers, who was, at that time, on a visit at holland house, and, for the first time, informed him of the correspondence in which i had been engaged. with his usual readiness to oblige and serve, he proposed that the meeting between lord byron and myself should take place at his table, and requested of me to convey to the noble lord his wish, that he would do him the honour of naming some day for that purpose. the following is lord byron's answer to the note which i then wrote:-- letter . to mr. moore. " . st. james's street, november , . "sir, "as i should be very sorry to interrupt your sunday's engagement, if monday, or any other day of the ensuing week, would be equally convenient to yourself and friend, i will then have the honour of accepting his invitation. of the professions of esteem with which mr. rogers has honoured me, i cannot but feel proud, though undeserving. i should be wanting to myself, if insensible to the praise of such a man; and, should my approaching interview with him and his friend lead to any degree of intimacy with both or either, i shall regard our past correspondence as one of the happiest events of my life. i have the honour to be, "your very sincere and obedient servant, "byron." * * * * * it can hardly, i think, be necessary to call the reader's attention to the good sense, self-possession, and frankness, of these letters of lord byron. i had placed him,--by the somewhat national confusion which i had made of the boundaries of peace and war, of hostility and friendship,--in a position which, ignorant as he was of the character of the person who addressed him, it required all the watchfulness of his sense of honour to guard from surprise or snare. hence, the judicious reserve with which he abstained from noticing my advances towards acquaintance, till he should have ascertained exactly whether the explanation which he was willing to give would be such as his correspondent would be satisfied to receive. the moment he was set at rest on this point, the frankness of his nature displayed itself; and the disregard of all further mediation or etiquette with which he at once professed himself ready to meet me, "when, where, and how" i pleased, showed that he could be as pliant and confiding _after_ such an understanding, as he had been judiciously reserved and punctilious _before_ it. such did i find lord byron, on my first experience of him; and such,--so open and manly-minded,--did i find him to the last. it was, at first, intended by mr. rogers that his company at dinner should not extend beyond lord byron and myself; but mr. thomas campbell, having called upon our host that morning, was invited to join the party, and consented. such a meeting could not be otherwise than interesting to us all. it was the first time that lord byron was ever seen by any of his three companions; while he, on his side, for the first time, found himself in the society of persons, whose names had been associated with his first literary dreams, and to _two_[ ] of whom he looked up with that tributary admiration which youthful genius is ever ready to pay its precursors. among the impressions which this meeting left upon me, what i chiefly remember to have remarked was the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice and manners, and--what was, naturally, not the least attraction--his marked kindness to myself. being in mourning for his mother, the colour, as well of his dress, as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure, spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when in repose. as we had none of us been apprised of his peculiarities with respect to food, the embarrassment of our host was not a little, on discovering that there was nothing upon the table which his noble guest could eat or drink. neither meat, fish, nor wine, would lord byron touch; and of biscuits and soda-water, which he asked for, there had been, unluckily, no provision. he professed, however, to be equally well pleased with potatoes and vinegar; and of these meagre materials contrived to make rather a hearty dinner. i shall now resume the series of his correspondence with other friends. [footnote : in speaking thus, i beg to disclaim all affected modesty, lord byron had already made the same distinction himself in the opinions which he expressed of the living poets; and i cannot but be aware that, for the praises which he afterwards bestowed on my writings, i was, in a great degree, indebted to his partiality to myself.] * * * * * letter . to mr. harness. " . st. james's street, dec. . . "my dear harness, "i write again, but don't suppose i mean to lay such a tax on your pen and patience as to expect regular replies. when you are inclined, write; when silent, i shall have the consolation of knowing that you are much better employed. yesterday, bland and i called on mr. miller, who, being then out, will call on bland[ ] to-day or to-morrow. i shall certainly endeavour to bring them together.--you are censorious, child; when you are a little older, you will learn to dislike every body, but abuse nobody. "with regard to the person of whom you speak, your own good sense must direct you. i never pretend to advise, being an implicit believer in the old proverb. this present frost is detestable. it is the first i have felt for these three years, though i longed for one in the oriental summer, when no such thing is to be had, unless i had gone to the top of hymettus for it. "i thank you most truly for the concluding part of your letter. i have been of late not much accustomed to kindness from any quarter, and am not the less pleased to meet with it again from one where i had known it earliest. i have not changed in all my ramblings,--harrow, and, of course, yourself never left me, and the "'dulces reminiscitur argos' attended me to the very spot to which that sentence alludes in the mind of the fallen argive--our intimacy began before we began to date at all, and it rests with you to continue it till the hour which must number it and me with the things that _were_. "do read mathematics.--i should think _x plus y_ at least as amusing as the curse of kehama, and much more intelligible. master s.'s poems _are_, in fact, what parallel lines might be--viz. prolonged _ad infinitum_ without meeting any thing half so absurd as themselves. "what news, what news? queen oreaca, what news of scribblers five? s----, w----, c----e, l----d, and l----e?-- all damn'd, though yet alive. c----e is lecturing. 'many an old fool,' said hannibal to some such lecturer, 'but such as this, never.' "ever yours, &c." [footnote : the rev. robert bland, one of the authors of "collections from the greek anthology." lord byron was, at this time, endeavouring to secure for mr. bland the task of translating lucien buonaparte's poem.] * * * * * letter . to mr. harness. "st. james's street, dec. . . "behold a most formidable sheet, without gilt or black edging, and consequently very vulgar and indecorous, particularly to one of your precision; but this being sunday, i can procure no better, and will atone for its length by not filling it. bland i have not seen since my last letter; but on tuesday he dines with me, and will meet m * * e, the epitome of all that is exquisite in poetical or personal accomplishments. how bland has settled with miller, i know not. i have very little interest with either, and they must arrange their concerns according to their own gusto. i have done my endeavours, _at your request_, to bring them together, and hope they may agree to their mutual advantage. "coleridge has been lecturing against campbell. rogers was present, and from him i derive the information. we are going to make a party to hear this manichean of poesy. pole is to marry miss long, and will be a very miserable dog for all that. the present ministers are to continue, and his majesty _does_ continue in the same state; so there's folly and madness for you, both in a breath. "i never heard but of one man truly fortunate, and he was beaumarchais, the author of figaro, who buried two wives and gained three law-suits before he was thirty. "and now, child, what art thou doing? _reading, i trust._ i want to see you take a degree. remember, this is the most important period of your life; and don't disappoint your papa and your aunt, and all your kin--besides myself. don't you know that all male children are begotten for the express purpose of being graduates? and that even i am an a.m., though how i became so, the public orator only can resolve. besides, you are to be a priest: and to confute sir william drummond's late book about the bible, (printed, but not published,) and all other infidels whatever. now leave master h.'s gig, and master s.'s sapphics, and become as immortal as cambridge can make you. "you see, mio carissimo, what a pestilent correspondent i am likely to become; but then you shall be as quiet at newstead as you please, and i won't disturb your studies as i do now. when do you fix the day, that i may take you up according to contract? hodgson talks of making a third in our journey; but we can't stow him, inside at least. positively you shall go with me as was agreed, and don't let me have any of your _politesse_ to h. on the occasion. i shall manage to arrange for both with a little contrivance. i wish h. was not quite so fat, and we should pack better. you will want to know what i am doing--chewing tobacco. "you see nothing of my allies, scrope davies and matthews[ ]--they don't suit you; and how does it happen that i--who am a pipkin of the same pottery--continue in your good graces? good night,--i will go on in the morning. "dec. th. in a morning, i'm always sullen, and to-day is as sombre as myself. rain and mist are worse than a sirocco, particularly in a beef-eating and beer-drinking country. my bookseller, cawthorne, has just left me, and tells me, with a most important face, that he is in treaty for a novel of madame d'arblay's, for which guineas are asked! he wants me to read the ms. (if he obtains it), which i shall do with pleasure; but i should be very cautious in venturing an opinion on her whose cecilia dr. johnson superintended.[ ] if he lends it to me, i shall put it into the hands of rogers and m * * e, who are truly men of taste. i have filled the sheet, and beg your pardon; i will not do it again. i shall, perhaps, write again, but if not, believe, silent or scribbling, that i am, my dearest william, ever," &c. [footnote : the brother of his late friend, charles skinner matthews.] [footnote : lord byron is here mistaken. dr. johnson never saw cecilia till it was in print. a day or two before publication, the young authoress, as i understand, sent three copies to the three persons who had the best claim to them,--her father, mrs. thrale, and dr. johnson.--_second edition_.] * * * * * letter . to mr. hodgson. "london, dec. . . "i sent you a sad tale of three friars the other day, and now take a dose in another style. i wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days. "away, away, ye notes of woe[ ], &c. &c. "i have gotten a book by sir w. drummond, (printed, but not published,) entitled oedipus judaicus, in which he attempts to prove the greater part of the old testament an allegory, particularly genesis and joshua. he professes himself a theist in the preface, and handles the literal interpretation very roughly. i wish you could see it. mr. w * * has lent it me, and i confess, to me it is worth fifty watsons. "you and harness must fix on the time for your visit to newstead; i can command mine at your wish, unless any thing particular occurs in the interim. bland dines with me on tuesday to meet moore. coleridge has attacked the 'pleasures of hope,' and all other pleasures whatsoever. mr. rogers was present, and heard himself indirectly _rowed_ by the lecturer. we are going in a party to hear the new art of poetry by this reformed schismatic; and were i one of these poetical luminaries, or of sufficient consequence to be noticed by the man of lectures, i should not hear him without an answer. for you know, 'an' a man will be beaten with brains, he shall never keep a clean doublet.' c * * will be desperately annoyed. i never saw a man (and of him i have seen very little) so sensitive;--what a happy temperament! i am sorry for it; what can _he_ fear from criticism? i don't know if bland has seen miller, who was to call on him yesterday. "to-day is the sabbath,--a day i never pass pleasantly, but at cambridge; and, even there, the organ is a sad remembrancer. things are stagnant enough in town,--as long as they don't retrograde, 'tis all very well. h * * writes and writes and writes, and is an author. i do nothing but eschew tobacco. i wish parliament were assembled, that i may hear, and perhaps some day be heard;--but on this point i am not very sanguine. i have many plans;--sometimes i think of the east again, and dearly beloved greece. i am well, but weakly.--yesterday kinnaird told me i looked very ill, and sent me home happy. * * * * * "is scrope still interesting and invalid? and how does hinde with his cursed chemistry? to harness i have written, and he has written, and we have all written, and have nothing now to do but write again, till death splits up the pen and the scribbler. "the alfred has three hundred and fifty-four candidates for six vacancies. the cook has run away and left us liable, which makes our committee very plaintive. master brook, our head serving-man, has the gout, and our new cook is none of the best. i speak from report,--for what is cookery to a leguminous-eating ascetic? so now you know as much of the matter as i do. books and quiet are still there, and they may dress their dishes in their own way for me. let me know your determination as to newstead, and believe me, "yours ever, [greek: mpairôn]." [footnote : this poem is now printed in lord byron's works.] * * * * * letter . to mr. hodgson. " . st. james's street, dec. . . "why, hodgson! i fear you have left off wine and me at the same time,--i have written and written and written, and no answer! my dear sir edgar, water disagrees with you,--drink sack and write. bland did not come to his appointment, being unwell, but m * * e supplied all other vacancies most delectably. i have hopes of his joining us at newstead. i am sure you would like him more and more as he developes,--at least i do. "how miller and bland go on, i don't know. cawthorne talks of being in treaty for a novel of me. d'arblay's, and if he obtains it (at gs.!!) wishes me to see the ms. this i should read with pleasure,--not that i should ever dare to venture a criticism on her whose writings dr. johnson once revised, but for the pleasure of the thing. if my worthy publisher wanted a sound opinion, i should send the ms. to rogers and m * * e, as men most alive to true taste. i have had frequent letters from wm. harness, and _you_ are silent; certes, you are not a schoolboy. however, i have the consolation of knowing that you are better employed, viz. reviewing. you don't deserve that i should add another syllable, and i won't. yours, &c. "p.s.--i only wait for your answer to fix our meeting." * * * * * letter . to mr. harness. " . st. james's street, dec. . . "i wrote you an answer to your last, which, on reflection, pleases me as little as it probably has pleased yourself. i will not wait for your rejoinder; but proceed to tell you, that i had just then been greeted with an epistle of * *'s, full of his petty grievances, and this at the moment when (from circumstances it is not necessary to enter upon) i was bearing up against recollections to which _his_ imaginary sufferings are as a scratch to a cancer. these things combined, put me out of humour with him and all mankind. the latter part of my life has been a perpetual struggle against affections which embittered the earliest portion; and though i flatter myself i have in a great measure conquered them, yet there are moments (and this was one) when i am as foolish as formerly. i never said so much before, nor had i said this now, if i did not suspect myself of having been rather savage in my letter, and wish to inform you thus much of the cause. you know i am not one of your dolorous gentlemen: so now let us laugh again. "yesterday i went with moore to sydenham to visit campbell.[ ] he was not visible, so we jogged homeward, merrily enough. to-morrow i dine with rogers, and am to hear coleridge, who is a kind of rage at present. last night i saw kemble in coriolanus;--he _was glorious_, and exerted himself wonderfully. by good luck i got an excellent place in the best part of the house, which was more than overflowing. clare and delawarre, who were there on the same speculation, were less fortunate. i saw them by accident,--we were not together. i wished for you, to gratify your love of shakspeare and of fine acting to its fullest extent. last week i saw an exhibition of a different kind in a mr. coates, at the haymarket, who performed lothario in a _damned_ and damnable manner. "i told you the fate of b. and h. in my last. so much for these sentimentalists, who console themselves in their stews for the loss--the never to be recovered loss--the despair of the refined attachment of a couple of drabs! you censure _my_ life, harness,--when i compare myself with these men, my elders and my betters, i really begin to conceive myself a monument of prudence--a walking statue--without feeling or failing; and yet the world in general hath given me a proud pre-eminence over them in profligacy. yet i like the men, and, god knows, ought not to condemn their aberrations. but i own i feel provoked when they dignify all this by the name of _love_--romantic attachments for things marketable for a dollar! "dec. th.--i have just received your letter;--i feel your kindness very deeply. the foregoing part of my letter, written yesterday, will, i hope, account for the tone of the former, though it cannot excuse it. i do _like_ to hear from you--more than _like_. next to seeing you, i have no greater satisfaction. but you have other duties, and greater pleasures, and i should regret to take a moment from either. h * * was to call to-day, but i have not seen him. the circumstances you mention at the close of your letter is another proof in favour of my opinion of mankind. such you will always find them--selfish and distrustful. i except none. the cause of this is the state of society. in the world, every one is to stir for himself--it is useless, perhaps selfish, to expect any thing from his neighbour. but i do not think we are born of this disposition; for you find _friendship_ as a schoolboy, and _love_ enough before twenty. "i went to see * *; he keeps me in town, where i don't wish to be at present. he is a good man, but totally without conduct. and now, my dearest william, i must wish you good morrow, and remain ever, most sincerely and affectionately yours," &c. [footnote : on this occasion, another of the noble poet's peculiarities was, somewhat startlingly, introduced to my notice. when we were on the point of setting out from his lodgings in st. james's street, it being then about mid-day, he said to the servant, who was shutting the door of the vis-à-vis, "have you put in the pistols?" and was answered in the affirmative. it was difficult,--more especially, taking into account the circumstances under which we had just become acquainted,--to keep from smiling at this singular noon-day precaution.] * * * * * from the time of our first meeting, there seldom elapsed a day that lord byron and i did not see each other; and our acquaintance ripened into intimacy and friendship with a rapidity of which i have seldom known an example. i was, indeed, lucky in all the circumstances that attended my first introduction to him. in a generous nature like his, the pleasure of repairing an injustice would naturally give a zest to any partiality i might have inspired in his mind; while the manner in which i had sought this reparation, free as it was from resentment or defiance, left nothing painful to remember in the transaction between us,--no compromise or concession that could wound self-love, or take away from the grace of that frank friendship to which he at once, so cordially and so unhesitatingly, admitted me. i was also not a little fortunate in forming my acquaintance with him, before his success had yet reached its meridian burst,--before the triumphs that were in store for him had brought the world all in homage at his feet, and, among the splendid crowds that courted his society, even claims less humble than mine had but a feeble chance of fixing his regard. as it was, the new scene of life that opened upon him with his success, instead of detaching us from each other, only multiplied our opportunities of meeting, and increased our intimacy. in that society where his birth entitled him to move, circumstances had already placed me, notwithstanding mine; and when, after the appearance of "childe harold," he began to mingle with the world, the same persons, who had long been _my_ intimates and friends, became his; our visits were mostly to the same places, and, in the gay and giddy round of a london spring, we were generally (as in one of his own letters he expresses it) "embarked in the same ship of fools together." but, at the time when we first met, his position in the world was most solitary. even those coffee-house companions who, before his departure from england, had served him as a sort of substitute for more worthy society, were either relinquished or had dispersed; and, with the exception of three or four associates of his college days (to whom he appeared strongly attached), mr. dallas and his solicitor seemed to be the only persons whom, even in their very questionable degree, he could boast of as friends. though too proud to complain of this loneliness, it was evident that he felt it; and that the state of cheerless isolation, "unguided and unfriended," to which, on entering into manhood, he had found himself abandoned, was one of the chief sources of that resentful disdain of mankind, which even their subsequent worship of him came too late to remove. the effect, indeed, which his subsequent commerce with society had, for the short period it lasted, in softening and exhilarating his temper, showed how fit a soil his heart would have been for the growth of all the kindlier feelings, had but a portion of this sunshine of the world's smiles shone on him earlier. at the same time, in all such speculations and conjectures as to what _might_ have been, under more favourable circumstances, his character, it is invariably to be borne in mind, that his very defects were among the elements of his greatness, and that it was out of the struggle between the good and evil principles of his nature that his mighty genius drew its strength. a more genial and fostering introduction into life, while it would doubtless have softened and disciplined his mind, might have impaired its vigour; and the same influences that would have diffused smoothness and happiness over his life might have been fatal to its glory. in a short poem of his[ ], which appears to have been produced at athens, (as i find it written on a leaf of the original ms. of childe harold, and dated "athens, ,") there are two lines which, though hardly intelligible as connected with the rest of the poem, may, taken separately, be interpreted as implying a sort of prophetic consciousness that it was out of the wreck and ruin of all his hopes the immortality of his name was to arise. "dear object of defeated care, though now of love and thee bereft, to reconcile me with despair, thine image and my tears are left. 'tis said with sorrow time can cope, but this, i feel, can ne'er be true; for, _by the death-blow of my hope, my memory immortal grew!_" we frequently, during the first months of our acquaintance, dined together alone; and as we had no club, in common, to resort to,--the alfred being the only one to which he, at that period, belonged, and i being then a member of none but watier's,--our dinners used to be either at the st. alban's, or at his old haunt, stevens's. though at times he would drink freely enough of claret, he still adhered to his system of abstinence in food. he appeared, indeed, to have conceived a notion that animal food has some peculiar influence on the character; and i remember, one day, as i sat opposite to him, employed, i suppose, rather earnestly over a beef-steak, after watching me for a few seconds, he said, in a grave tone of enquiry,--"moore, don't you find eating beef-steak makes you ferocious?" understanding me to have expressed a wish to become a member of the alfred, he very good-naturedly lost no time in proposing me as a candidate; but as the resolution which i had then nearly formed of betaking myself to a country life rendered an additional club in london superfluous, i wrote to beg that he would, for the present, at least, withdraw my name: and his answer, though containing little, being the first familiar note he ever honoured me with, i may be excused for feeling a peculiar pleasure in inserting it. [footnote : "written beneath the picture of ----"] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "december . . "my dear moore, "if you please, we will drop our former monosyllables, and adhere to the appellations sanctioned by our godfathers and godmothers. if you make it a point, i will withdraw your name; at the same time there is no occasion, as i have this day postponed your election 'sine die,' till it shall suit your wishes to be amongst us. i do not say this from any awkwardness the erasure of your proposal would occasion to _me_, but simply such is the state of the case; and, indeed, the longer your name is up, the stronger will become the probability of success, and your voters more numerous. of course you will decide--your wish shall be my law. if my zeal has already outrun discretion, pardon me, and attribute my officiousness to an excusable motive. "i wish you would go down with me to newstead. hodgson will be there, and a young friend, named harness, the earliest and dearest i ever had from the third form at harrow to this hour. i can promise you good wine, and, if you like shooting, a manor of acres, fires, books, your own free will, and my own very indifferent company. 'balnea, vina * *.' "hodgson will plague you, i fear, with verse;--for my own part i will conclude, with martial, 'nil recitabo tibi;' and surely the last inducement is not the least. ponder on my proposition, and believe me, my dear moore, yours ever, "byron." * * * * * among those acts of generosity and friendship by which every year of lord byron's life was signalised, there is none, perhaps, that, for its own peculiar seasonableness and delicacy, as well as for the perfect worthiness of the person who was the object of it, deserves more honourable mention than that which i am now about to record, and which took place nearly at the period of which i am speaking. the friend, whose good fortune it was to inspire the feeling thus testified, was mr. hodgson, the gentleman to whom so many of the preceding letters are addressed; and as it would be unjust to rob him of the grace and honour of being, himself, the testimony of obligations so signal, i shall here lay before my readers an extract from the letter with which, in reference to a passage in one of his noble friend's journals, he has favoured me. "i feel it incumbent upon me to explain the circumstances to which this passage alludes, however private their nature. they are, indeed, calculated to do honour to the memory of my lamented friend. having become involved, unfortunately, in difficulties and embarrassments, i received from lord byron (besides former pecuniary obligations) assistance, at the time in question, to the amount of a thousand pounds. aid of such magnitude was equally unsolicited and unexpected on my part; but it was a long-cherished, though secret, purpose of my friend to afford that aid; and he only waited for the period when he thought it would be of most service. his own words were, on the occasion of conferring this overwhelming favour, '_i always intended to do it_.'" during all this time, and through the months of january and february, his poem of "childe harold" was in its progress through the press; and to the changes and additions which he made in the course of printing, some of the most beautiful passages of the work owe their existence. on comparing, indeed, his rough draft of the two cantos with the finished form in which they exist at present, we are made sensible of the power which the man of genius possesses, not only of surpassing others, but of improving on himself. originally, the "little page" and "yeoman" of the childe were introduced to the reader's notice in the following tame stanzas, by expanding the substance of which into their present light, lyric shape, it is almost needless to remark how much the poet has gained in variety and dramatic effect:-- "and of his train there was a henchman page, a peasant boy, who serv'd his master well; and often would his pranksome prate engage childe burun's[ ] ear, when his proud heart did swell with sullen thoughts that he disdain'd to tell. then would he smile on him, and alwin[ ] smiled, when aught that from his young lips archly fell, the gloomy film from harold's eye beguiled.... "him and one yeoman only did he take to travel eastward to a far countrie; and, though the boy was grieved to leave the lake, on whose fair banks he grew from infancy, eftsoons his little heart beat merrily, with hope of foreign nations to behold, and many things right marvellous to see, of which our vaunting travellers oft have told, from mandeville....[ ]" in place of that mournful song "to ines," in the first canto, which contains some of the dreariest touches of sadness that even his pen ever let fall, he had, in the original construction of the poem, been so little fastidious as to content himself with such ordinary sing-song as the following:-- "oh never tell again to me of northern climes and british ladies, it has not been your lot to see, like me, the lovely girl of cadiz, although her eye be not of blue, nor fair her locks, like english lasses," &c. &c. there were also, originally, several stanzas full of direct personality, and some that degenerated into a style still more familiar and ludicrous than that of the description of a london sunday, which still disfigures the poem. in thus mixing up the light with the solemn, it was the intention of the poet to imitate ariosto. but it is far easier to rise, with grace, from the level of a strain generally familiar, into an occasional short burst of pathos or splendour, than to interrupt thus a prolonged tone of solemnity by any descent into the ludicrous or burlesque.[ ] in the former case, the transition may have the effect of softening or elevating, while, in the latter, it almost invariably shocks;--for the same reason, perhaps, that a trait of pathos or high feeling, in comedy, has a peculiar charm; while the intrusion of comic scenes into tragedy, however sanctioned among us by habit and authority, rarely fails to offend. the noble poet was, himself, convinced of the failure of the experiment, and in none of the succeeding cantos of childe harold repeated it. of the satiric parts, some verses on the well-known traveller, sir john carr, may supply us with, at least, a harmless specimen:-- "ye, who would more of spain and spaniards know, sights, saints, antiques, arts, anecdotes, and war, go, hie ye hence to paternoster row,-- are they not written in the boke of carr? green erin's knight, and europe's wandering star. then listen, readers, to the man of ink, hear what he did, and sought, and wrote afar: all these are coop'd within one quarto's brink, this borrow, steal (don't buy), and tell us what you think." among those passages which, in the course of revisal, he introduced, like pieces of "rich inlay," into the poem, was that fine stanza-- "yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be a land of souls beyond that sable shore," &c. through which lines, though, it must be confessed, a tone of scepticism breathes, (as well as in those tender verses-- "yes,--i will dream that we may meet again,") it is a scepticism whose sadness calls far more for pity than blame; there being discoverable, even through its very doubts, an innate warmth of piety, which they had been able to obscure, but not to chill. to use the words of the poet himself, in a note which it was once his intention to affix to these stanzas, "let it be remembered that the spirit they breathe is desponding, not sneering, scepticism,"--a distinction never to be lost sight of; as, however hopeless may be the conversion of the scoffing infidel, he who feels pain in doubting has still alive within him the seeds of belief. at the same time with childe harold, he had three other works in the press,--his "hints from horace," "the curse of minerva," and a fifth edition of "english bards and scotch reviewers." the note upon the latter poem, which had been the lucky origin of our acquaintance, was withdrawn in this edition, and a few words of explanation, which he had the kindness to submit to my perusal, substituted in its place. in the month of january, the whole of the two cantos being printed off, some of the poet's friends, and, among others, mr. rogers and myself, were so far favoured as to be indulged with a perusal of the sheets. in adverting to this period in his "memoranda," lord byron, i remember, mentioned,--as one of the ill omens which preceded the publication of the poem,--that some of the literary friends to whom it was shown expressed doubts of its success, and that one among them had told him "it was too good for the age." whoever may have pronounced this opinion,--and i have some suspicion that i am myself the guilty person,--the age has, it must be owned, most triumphantly refuted the calumny upon its taste which the remark implied. it was in the hands of mr. rogers i first saw the sheets of the poem, and glanced hastily over a few of the stanzas which he pointed out to me as beautiful. having occasion, the same morning, to write a note to lord byron, i expressed strongly the admiration which this foretaste of his work had excited in me; and the following is--as far as relates to literary matters--the answer i received from him. [footnote : if there could be any doubt as to his intention of delineating himself in his hero, this adoption of the old norman name of his family, which he seems to have at first contemplated, would be sufficient to remove it.] [footnote : in the ms. the names "robin" and "rupert" had been successively inserted here and scratched out again.] [footnote : here the manuscript is illegible.] [footnote : among the acknowledged blemishes of milton's great poem, is his abrupt transition, in this manner, into an imitation of ariosto's style, in the "paradise of fools."] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "january . . "my dear moore, "i wish very much i could have seen you; i am in a state of ludicrous tribulation. * * * "why do you say that i dislike your poesy? i have expressed no such opinion, either in _print_ or elsewhere. in scribbling myself, it was necessary for me to find fault, and i fixed upon the trite charge of immorality, because i could discover no other, and was so perfectly qualified in the innocence of my heart, to 'pluck that mote from my neighbour's eye.' "i feel very, very much obliged by your approbation; but, at _this moment_, praise, even _your_ praise, passes by me like 'the idle wind.' i meant and mean to send you a copy the moment of publication; but now i can think of nothing but damned, deceitful,--delightful woman, as mr. liston says in the knight of snowdon. believe me, my dear moore, "ever yours, most affectionately, "byron." * * * * * the passages here omitted contain rather _too_ amusing an account of a disturbance that had just occurred in the establishment at newstead, in consequence of the detected misconduct of one of the maid-servants, who had been supposed to stand rather too high in the favour of her master, and, by the airs of authority which she thereupon assumed, had disposed all the rest of the household to regard her with no very charitable eyes. the chief actors in the strife were this sultana and young rushton; and the first point in dispute that came to lord byron's knowledge (though circumstances, far from creditable to the damsel, afterwards transpired) was, whether rushton was bound to carry letters to "the hut" at the bidding of this female. to an episode of such a nature i should not have thought of alluding, were it not for the two rather curious letters that follow, which show how gravely and coolly the young lord could arbitrate on such an occasion, and with what considerate leaning towards the servant whose fidelity he had proved, in preference to any new liking or fancy by which it might be suspected he was actuated towards the other. * * * * * letter . to robert rushton. " . st. james's street, jan. . . "though i have no objection to your refusal to carry _letters_ to mealey's, you will take care that the letters are taken by _spero_ at the proper time. i have also to observe, that susan is to be treated with civility, and not _insulted_ by any person over whom i have the smallest control, or, indeed, by any one whatever, while i have the power to protect her. i am truly sorry to have any subject of complaint against _you_; i have too good an opinion of you to think i shall have occasion to repeat it, after the care i have taken of you, and my favourable intentions in your behalf. i see no occasion for any communication whatever between _you_ and the _women_, and wish you to occupy yourself in preparing for the situation in which you will be placed. if a common sense of decency cannot prevent you from conducting yourself towards them with rudeness, i should at least hope that your _own interest_, and regard for a master who has _never_ treated you with unkindness, will have some weight. yours, &c. "byron. "p.s.--i wish you to attend to your arithmetic, to occupy yourself in surveying, measuring, and making yourself acquainted with every particular relative to the _land_ of newstead, and you will _write_ to me _one letter every week_, that i may know how you go on." * * * * * letter . to robert rushton. " . st. james's street, january . . "your refusal to carry the letter was not a subject of remonstrance; it was not a part of your business; but the language you used to the girl was (as _she_ stated it) highly improper. "you say that you also have something to complain of; then state it to me immediately; it would be very unfair, and very contrary to my disposition, not to hear both sides of the question. "if any thing has passed between you _before_ or since my last visit to newstead, do not be afraid to mention it. i am sure _you_ would not deceive me, though _she_ would. whatever it is, _you_ shall be forgiven. i have not been without some suspicions on the subject, and am certain that, at your time of life, the blame could not attach to you. you will not _consult_ any one as to your answer, but write to me immediately. i shall be more ready to hear what you have to advance, as i do not remember ever to have heard a word from you before _against_ any human being, which convinces me you would not maliciously assert an untruth. there is not any one who can do the least injury to you while you conduct yourself properly. i shall expect your answer immediately. yours, &c. "byron." * * * * * it was after writing these letters that he came to the knowledge of some improper levities on the part of the girl, in consequence of which he dismissed her and another female servant from newstead; and how strongly he allowed this discovery to affect his mind, will be seen in a subsequent letter to mr. hodgson. letter . to mr. hodgson. " . st. james's street, february . . "dear hodgson, "i send you a proof. last week i was very ill and confined to bed with stone in the kidney, but i am now quite recovered. if the stone had got into my heart instead of my kidneys, it would have been all the better. the women are gone to their relatives, after many attempts to explain what was already too clear. however, i have quite recovered _that_ also, and only wonder at my folly in excepting my own strumpets from the general corruption,--albeit a two months' weakness is better than ten years. i have one request to make, which is, never mention a woman again in any letter to me, or even allude to the existence of the sex. i won't even read a word of the feminine gender;--it must all be 'propria quæ maribus.' "in the spring of i shall leave england for ever. every thing in my affairs tends to this, and my inclinations and health do not discourage it. neither my habits nor constitution are improved by your customs or your climate. i shall find employment in making myself a good oriental scholar. i shall retain a mansion in one of the fairest islands, and retrace, at intervals, the most interesting portions of the east. in the mean time, i am adjusting my concerns, which will (when arranged) leave me with wealth sufficient even for home, but enough for a principality in turkey. at present they are involved, but i hope, by taking some necessary but unpleasant steps, to clear every thing. hobhouse is expected daily in london; we shall be very glad to see him; and, perhaps, you will come up and 'drink deep ere he depart,' if not, 'mahomet must go to the mountain;'--but cambridge will bring sad recollections to him, and worse to me, though for very different reasons. i believe the only human being that ever loved me in truth and entirely was of, or belonging to, cambridge, and, in that, no change can now take place. there is one consolation in death--where he sets his seal, the impression can neither be melted nor broken, but endureth for ever. "yours always, b." * * * * * among those lesser memorials of his good nature and mindfulness, which, while they are precious to those who possess them, are not unworthy of admiration from others, may be reckoned such letters as the following, to a youth at eton, recommending another, who was about to be entered at that school, to his care. letter . to master john cowell. " . st. james's street, february . . "my dear john, "you have probably long ago forgotten the writer of these lines, who would, perhaps, be unable to recognise _yourself_, from the difference which must naturally have taken place in your stature and appearance since he saw you last. i have been rambling through portugal, spain, greece, &c. &c. for some years, and have found so many changes on my return, that it would be very unfair not to expect that you should have had your share of alteration and improvement with the rest. i write to request a favour of you: a little boy of eleven years, the son of mr. * *, my particular friend, is about to become an etonian, and i should esteem any act of protection or kindness to him as an obligation to myself; let me beg of you then to take some little notice of him at first, till he is able to shift for himself. "i was happy to hear a very favourable account of you from a schoolfellow a few weeks ago, and should be glad to learn that your family are as well as i wish them to be. i presume you are in the upper school;--as an _etonian_, you will look down upon a _harrow_ man; but i never, even in my boyish days, disputed your superiority, which i once experienced in a cricket match, where i had the honour of making one of eleven, who were beaten to their hearts' content by your college in _one innings_. "believe me to be, with great truth," &c. &c. * * * * * on the th of february, a day or two before the appearance of childe harold, he made the first trial of his eloquence in the house of lords; and it was on this occasion he had the good fortune to become acquainted with lord holland,--an acquaintance no less honourable than gratifying to both, as having originated in feelings the most generous, perhaps, of our nature, a ready forgiveness of injuries, on the one side, and a frank and unqualified atonement for them, on the other. the subject of debate was the nottingham frame-breaking bill, and, lord byron having mentioned to mr. rogers his intention to take a part in the discussion, a communication was, by the intervention of that gentleman, opened between the noble poet and lord holland, who, with his usual courtesy, professed himself ready to afford all the information and advice in his power. the following letters, however, will best explain their first advances towards acquaintance. letter . to mr. rogers. "february . . "my dear sir, "with my best acknowledgments to lord holland, i have to offer my perfect concurrence in the propriety of the question previously to be put to ministers. if their answer is in the negative, i shall, with his lordship's approbation, give notice of a motion for a committee of enquiry. i would also gladly avail myself of his most able advice, and any information or documents with which he might be pleased to intrust me, to bear me out in the statement of facts it may be necessary to submit to the house. "from all that fell under my own observation during my christmas visit to newstead, i feel convinced that, if _conciliatory_ measures are not very soon adopted, the most unhappy consequences may be apprehended. nightly outrage and daily depredation are already at their height, and not only the masters of frames, who are obnoxious on account of their occupation, but persons in no degree connected with the malecontents or their oppressors, are liable to insult and pillage. "i am very much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken on my account, and beg you to believe me ever your obliged and sincere," &c. * * * * * letter . to lord holland. " . st. james's street, february . . "my lord, "with my best thanks, i have the honour to return the notts, letter to your lordship. i have read it with attention, but do not think i shall venture to avail myself of its contents, as my view of the question differs in some measure from mr. coldham's. i hope i do not wrong him, but _his_ objections to the bill appear to me to be founded on certain apprehensions that he and his coadjutors might be mistaken for the '_original advisers_' (to quote him) of the measure. for my own part, i consider the manufacturers as a much injured body of men, sacrificed to the views of certain individuals who have enriched themselves by those practices which have deprived the frame-workers of employment. for instance;--by the adoption of a certain kind of frame, one man performs the work of seven--six are thus thrown out of business. but it is to be observed that the work thus done is far inferior in quality, hardly marketable at home, and hurried over with a view to exportation. surely, my lord, however we may rejoice in any improvement in the arts which may be beneficial to mankind, we must not allow mankind to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. the maintenance and well-doing of the industrious poor is an object of greater consequence to the community than the enrichment of a few monopolists by any improvement in the implements of trade, which deprives the workman of his bread, and renders the, labourer "unworthy of his hire." my own motive for opposing the bill is founded on its palpable injustice, and its certain inefficacy. i have seen the state of these miserable men, and it is a disgrace to a civilised country. their excesses may be condemned, but cannot be subject of wonder. the effect of the present bill would be to drive them into actual rebellion. the few words i shall venture to offer on thursday will be founded upon these opinions formed from my own observations on the spot. by previous enquiry, i am convinced these men would have been restored to employment, and the county to tranquillity. it is, perhaps, not yet too late, and is surely worth the trial. it can never be too late to employ force in such circumstances. i believe your lordship does not coincide with me entirely on this subject, and most cheerfully and sincerely shall i submit to your superior judgment and experience, and take some other line of argument against the bill, or be silent altogether, should you deem it more advisable. condemning, as every one must condemn, the conduct of these wretches, i believe in the existence of grievances which call rather for pity than punishment. i have the honour to be, with great respect, my lord, your lordship's "most obedient and obliged servant, "byron. "p.s. i am a little apprehensive that your lordship will think me too lenient towards these men, and half a _framebreaker myself_." * * * * * it would have been, no doubt, the ambition of lord byron to acquire distinction as well in oratory as in poesy; but nature seems to set herself against pluralities in fame. he had prepared himself for this debate,--as most of the best orators have done, in their first essays,--not only by composing, but writing down, the whole of his speech beforehand. the reception he met with was flattering; some of the noble speakers on his own side complimented him very warmly; and that he was himself highly pleased with his success, appears from the annexed account of mr. dallas, which gives a lively notion of his boyish elation on the occasion. "when he left the great chamber, i went and met him in the passage; he was glowing with success, and much agitated. i had an umbrella in my right hand, not expecting that he would put out his hand to me;--in my haste to take it when offered, i had advanced my left hand--'what!' said he, 'give your friend your left hand upon such an occasion?' i showed the cause, and immediately changing the umbrella to the other hand, i gave him my right hand, which he shook and pressed warmly. he was greatly elated, and repeated some of the compliments which had been paid him, and mentioned one or two of the peers who had desired to be introduced to him. he concluded with saying, that he had, by his speech, given me the best advertisement for childe harold's pilgrimage." the speech itself, as given by mr. dallas from the noble speaker's own manuscript, is pointed and vigorous; and the same sort of interest that is felt in reading the poetry of a burke, may be gratified, perhaps, by a few specimens of the oratory of a byron. in the very opening of his speech, he thus introduces himself by the melancholy avowal, that in that assembly of his brother nobles he stood almost a stranger. "as a person in some degree connected with the suffering county, though a stranger not only to this house in general, but to almost every individual whose attention i presume to solicit, i must claim some portion of your lordships' indulgence." the following extracts comprise, i think, the passages of most spirit:-- "when we are told that these men are leagued together, not only for the destruction of their own comfort, but of their very means of subsistence, can we forget that it is the bitter policy, the destructive warfare, of the last eighteen years which has destroyed their comfort, your comfort, all men's comfort;--that policy which, originating with 'great statesmen now no more,' has survived the dead to become a curse on the living, unto the third and fourth generation! these men never destroyed their looms till they were become useless,--worse than useless; till they were become actual impediments to their exertions in obtaining their daily bread. can you then wonder that, in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony, are found in a station not far beneath that of your lordships, the lowest, though once most useful, portion of the people should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? but while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for the wretched mechanic who is famished into guilt. these men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them. their own means of subsistence were cut off; all other employments pre-occupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored or condemned, can hardly be the subject of surprise. "i have traversed the seat of war in the peninsula i have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of turkey; but never, under the most despotic of infidel governments, did i behold such squalid wretchedness as i have seen since my return, in the very heart of a christian country. and what are your remedies? after months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, the never-failing nostrum of all state physicians from the days of draco to the present time. after feeling the pulse, and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm water and bleeding--the warm water of your mawkish police, and the lancets of your military--these convulsions must terminate in death, the sure consummation of the prescriptions of all political sangrados. setting aside the palpable injustice and the certain inefficiency of the bill, are there not capital punishments sufficient on your statutes? is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to heaven and testify against you? how will you carry this bill into effect? can you commit a whole county to their own prisons? will you erect a gibbet in every field, and hang up men like scare-crows? or will you proceed (as you must, to bring this measure into effect,) by decimation; place the country under martial law; depopulate and lay waste all around you, and restore sherwood forest as an acceptable gift to the crown in its former condition of a royal chase, and an asylum for outlaws? are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace? will the famished wretch who has braved your bayonets be appalled by your gibbets? when death is a relief, and the only relief it appears that you will afford him, will he be dragooned into tranquillity? will that which could not be effected by your grenadiers, be accomplished by your executioners? if you proceed by the forms of law, where is your evidence? those who refused to impeach their accomplices, when transportation only was the punishment, will hardly be tempted to witness against them when death is the penalty. with all due deference to the noble lords opposite, i think a little investigation, some previous enquiry, would induce even them to change their purpose. that most favourite state measure, so marvellously efficacious in many and recent instances, _temporising_, would not be without its advantage in this. when a proposal is made to emancipate or relieve, you hesitate, you deliberate for years, you temporise and tamper with the minds of men; but a death-bill must be passed off hand, without a thought of the consequences." in reference to his own parliamentary displays, and to this maiden speech in particular, i find the following remarks in one of his journals:-- "sheridan's liking for me (whether he was not mystifying me, i do not know, but lady caroline lamb and others told me that he said the same both before and after he knew me,) was founded upon 'english bards and scotch reviewers.' he told me that he did not care about poetry, (or about mine--at least, any but that poem of mine,) but he was sure, from that and other symptoms, i should make an orator, if i would but take to speaking, and grow a parliament man. he never ceased harping upon this to me to the last; and i remember my old tutor, dr. drury, had the same notion when i was a _boy_; but it never was my turn of inclination to try. i spoke once or twice, as all young peers do, as a kind of introduction into public life; but dissipation, shyness, haughty and reserved opinions, together with the short time i lived in england after my majority (only about five years in all), prevented me from resuming the experiment. as far as it went, it was not discouraging, particularly my _first_ speech (i spoke three or four times in all); but just after it, my poem of childe harold was published, and nobody ever thought about my _prose_ afterwards, nor indeed did i; it became to me a secondary and neglected object, though i sometimes wonder to myself if i should have succeeded." * * * * * his immediate impressions with respect to the success of his first speech may be collected from a letter addressed soon after to mr. hodgson. letter . to mr. hodgson. " . st. james's street, march . . "my dear hodgson, "_we_ are not answerable for reports of speeches in the papers; they are always given incorrectly, and on this occasion more so than usual, from the debate in the commons on the same night. the morning post should have said _eighteen years_. however, you will find the speech, as spoken, in the parliamentary register, when it comes out. lords holland and grenville, particularly the latter, paid me some high compliments in the course of their speeches, as you may have seen in the papers, and lords eldon and harrowby answered me. i have had many marvellous eulogies repeated to me since, in person and by proxy, from divers persons _ministerial_--yea, _ministerial!_--as well as oppositionists; of them i shall only mention sir f. burdett. _he_ says it is the best speech by a _lord_ since the '_lord_ knows when,' probably from a fellow-feeling in the sentiments. lord h. tells me i shall beat them all if i persevere; and lord g. remarked that the construction of some of my periods are very like _burke's_! and so much for vanity. i spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused every thing and every body, and put the lord chancellor very much out of humour; and if i may believe what i hear, have not lost any character by the experiment. as to my delivery, loud and fluent enough, perhaps a little theatrical. i could not recognise myself or any one else in the newspapers. "my poesy comes out on saturday. hobhouse is here; i shall tell him to write. my stone is gone for the present, but i fear is part of my habit. we _all_ talk of a visit to cambridge. "yours ever, b." * * * * * of the same date as the above is the following letter to lord holland, accompanying a copy of his new publication, and written in a tone that cannot fail to give a high idea of his good feeling and candour. letter . to lord holland. "st. james's street, march . . "my lord, "may i request your lordship to accept a copy of the thing which accompanies this note? you have already so fully proved the truth of the first line of pope's couplet, "'_forgiveness to the injured doth belong,_' that i long for an opportunity to give the lie to the verse that follows. if i were not perfectly convinced that any thing i may have formerly uttered in the boyish rashness of my misplaced resentment had made as little impression as it deserved to make, i should hardly have the confidence--perhaps your lordship may give it a stronger and more appropriate appellation--to send you a quarto of the same scribbler. but your lordship, i am sorry to observe to-day, is troubled with the gout; if my book can produce a _laugh_ against itself or the author, it will be of some service. if it can set you to _sleep_, the benefit will be yet greater; and as some facetious personage observed half a century ago, that 'poetry is a mere drug,' i offer you mine as a humble assistant to the 'eau médicinale.' i trust you will forgive this and all my other buffooneries, and believe me to be, with great respect, "your lordship's obliged and "sincere servant, "byron." * * * * * it was within two days after his speech in the house of lords that childe harold appeared[ ];--and the impression which it produced upon the public was as instantaneous as it has proved deep and lasting. the permanence of such success genius alone could secure, but to its instant and enthusiastic burst, other causes, besides the merit of the work, concurred. there are those who trace in the peculiar character of lord byron's genius strong features of relationship to the times in which he lived; who think that the great events which marked the close of the last century, by giving a new impulse to men's minds, by habituating them to the daring and the free, and allowing full vent to "the flash and outbreak of fiery spirits," had led naturally to the production of such a poet as byron; and that he was, in short, as much the child and representative of the revolution, in poesy, as another great man of the age, napoleon, was in statesmanship and warfare. without going the full length of this notion, it will, at least, be conceded, that the free loose which had been given to all the passions and energies of the human mind, in the great struggle of that period, together with the constant spectacle of such astounding vicissitudes as were passing, almost daily, on the theatre of the world, had created, in all minds, and in every walk of intellect, a taste for strong excitement, which the stimulants supplied from ordinary sources were insufficient to gratify;--that a tame deference to established authorities had fallen into disrepute, no less in literature than in politics, and that the poet who should breathe into his songs the fierce and passionate spirit of the age, and assert, untrammelled and unawed, the high dominion of genius, would be the most sure of an audience toned in sympathy with his strains. it is true that, to the licence on religious subjects, which revelled through the first acts of that tremendous drama, a disposition of an opposite tendency had, for some time, succeeded. against the wit of the scoffer, not only piety, but a better taste, revolted; and had lord byron, in touching on such themes in childe harold, adopted a tone of levity or derision, (such as, unluckily, he sometimes afterwards descended to,) not all the originality and beauty of his work would have secured for it a prompt or uncontested triumph. as it was, however, the few dashes of scepticism with which he darkened his strain, far from checking his popularity, were among those attractions which, as i have said, independent of all the charms of the poetry, accelerated and heightened its success. the religious feeling that has sprung up through europe since the french revolution--like the political principles that have emerged out of the same event--in rejecting all the licentiousness of that period, have preserved much of its spirit of freedom and enquiry; and, among the best fruits of this enlarged and enlightened piety is the liberty which it disposes men to accord to the opinions, and even heresies, of others. to persons thus sincerely, and, at the same time, tolerantly, devout, the spectacle of a great mind, like that of byron, labouring in the eclipse of scepticism, could not be otherwise than an object of deep and solemn interest. if they had already known what it was to doubt, themselves, they would enter into his fate with mournful sympathy; while, if safe in the tranquil haven of faith, they would look with pity on one who was still a wanderer. besides, erring and dark as might be his views at that moment, there were circumstances in his character and fate that gave a hope of better thoughts yet dawning upon him. from his temperament and youth, there could be little fear that he was yet hardened in his heresies, and as, for a heart wounded like his, there was, they knew, but one true source of consolation, so it was hoped that the love of truth, so apparent in all he wrote, would, one day, enable him to find it. another, and not the least of those causes which concurred with the intrinsic claims of his genius to give an impulse to the tide of success that now flowed upon him, was, unquestionably, the peculiarity of his personal history and character. there had been, in his very first introduction of himself to the public, a sufficient portion of singularity to excite strong attention and interest. while all other youths of talent, in his high station, are heralded into life by the applauses and anticipations of a host of friends, young byron stood forth alone, unannounced by either praise or promise,--the representative of an ancient house, whose name, long lost in the gloomy solitudes of newstead, seemed to have just awakened from the sleep of half a century in his person. the circumstances that, in succession, followed,--the prompt vigour of his reprisals upon the assailants of his fame,--his disappearance, after this achievement, from the scene of his triumph, without deigning even to wait for the laurels which he had earned, and his departure on a far pilgrimage, whose limits he left to chance and fancy,--all these successive incidents had thrown an air of adventure round the character of the young poet, which prepared his readers to meet half-way the impressions of his genius. instead of finding him, on a nearer view, fall short of their imaginations, the new features of his disposition now disclosed to them far outwent, in peculiarity and interest, whatever they might have preconceived; while the curiosity and sympathy, awakened by what he suffered to transpire of his history, were still more heightened by the mystery of his allusions to much that yet remained untold. the late losses by death which he had sustained, and which, it was manifest, he most deeply mourned, gave a reality to the notion formed of him by his admirers which seemed to authorise them in imagining still more; and what has been said of the poet young, that he found out the art of "making the public a party to his private sorrows," may be, with infinitely more force and truth, applied to lord byron. on that circle of society with whom he came immediately in contact, these personal influences acted with increased force, from being assisted by others, which, to female imaginations especially, would have presented a sufficiency of attraction, even without the great qualities joined with them. his youth,--the noble beauty of his countenance, and its constant play of lights and shadows,--the gentleness of his voice and manner to women, and his occasional haughtiness to men,--the alleged singularities of his mode of life, which kept curiosity alive and inquisitive,--all these lesser traits and habitudes concurred towards the quick spread of his fame; nor can it be denied that, among many purer sources of interest in his poem, the allusions which he makes to instances of "_successful_ passion" in his career[ ] were not without their influence on the fancies of that sex, whose weakness it is to be most easily won by those who come recommended by the greatest number of triumphs over others. that his rank was also to be numbered among these extrinsic advantages appears to have been--partly, perhaps, from a feeling of modesty at the time--his own persuasion. "i may place a great deal of it," said he to mr. dallas, "to my being a lord." it might be supposed that it is only on a rank inferior to his own such a charm could operate; but this very speech is, in itself, a proof, that in no class whatever is the advantage of being noble more felt and appreciated than among nobles themselves. it was, also, natural that, in that circle, the admiration of the new poet should be, at least, quickened by the consideration that he had sprung up among themselves, and that their order had, at length, produced a man of genius, by whom the arrears of contribution, long due from them to the treasury of english literature, would be at once fully and splendidly discharged. altogether, taking into consideration the various points i have here enumerated, it may be asserted, that never did there exist before, and it is most probable never will exist again, a combination of such vast mental power and surpassing genius, with so many other of those advantages and attractions, by which the world is, in general, dazzled and captivated. the effect was, accordingly, electric;--his fame had not to wait for any of the ordinary gradations, but seemed to spring up, like the palace of a fairy tale, in a night. as he himself briefly described it in his memoranda,--"i awoke one morning and found myself famous." the first edition of his work was disposed of instantly; and, as the echoes of its reputation multiplied on all sides, "childe harold" and "lord byron" became the theme of every tongue. at his door, most of the leading names of the day presented themselves,--some of them persons whom he had much wronged in his satire, but who now forgot their resentment in generous admiration. from morning till night the most flattering testimonies of his success crowded his table,--from the grave tributes of the statesman and the philosopher down to (what flattered him still more) the romantic billet of some _incognita,_ or the pressing note of invitation from some fair leader of fashion; and, in place of the desert which london had been to him but a few weeks before, he now not only saw the whole splendid interior of high life thrown open to receive him, but found himself, among its illustrious crowds, the most distinguished object. the copyright of the poem, which was purchased by mr. murray for _l._, he presented, in the most delicate and unostentatious manner, to mr. dallas[ ], saying, at the same time, that he "never would receive money for his writings;"--a resolution, the mixed result of generosity and pride, which he afterwards wisely abandoned, though borne out by the example of swift[ ] and voltaire, the latter of whom gave away most of his copyrights to prault and other booksellers, and received books, not money, for those he disposed of otherwise. to his young friend, mr. harness, it had been his intention, at first, to dedicate the work, but, on further consideration, he relinquished his design; and in a letter to that gentleman (which, with some others, is unfortunately lost) alleged, as his reason for this change, the prejudice which, he foresaw, some parts of the poem would raise against himself, and his fear lest, by any possibility, a share of the odium might so far extend itself to his friend, as to injure him in the profession to which he was about to devote himself. not long after the publication of childe harold, the noble author paid me a visit, one morning, and, putting a letter into my hands, which he had just received, requested that i would undertake to manage for him whatever proceedings it might render necessary. this letter, i found, had been delivered to him by mr. leckie (a gentleman well known by a work on sicilian affairs), and came from a once active and popular member of the fashionable world, colonel greville,--its purport being to require of his lordship, as author of "english bards," &c., such reparation as it was in his power to make for the injury which, as colonel greville conceived, certain passages in that satire, reflecting upon his conduct as manager of the argyle institution, were calculated to inflict upon his character. in the appeal of the gallant colonel, there were some expressions of rather an angry cast, which lord byron, though fully conscious of the length to which he himself had gone, was but little inclined to brook, and, on my returning the letter into his hands, he said, "to such a letter as that there can be but one sort of answer." he agreed, however, to trust the matter entirely to my discretion, and i had, shortly after, an interview with the friend of colonel greville. by this gentleman, who was then an utter stranger to me, i was received with much courtesy, and with every disposition to bring the affair intrusted to us to an amicable issue. on my premising that the tone of his friend's letter stood in the way of negotiation, and that some obnoxious expressions which it contained must be removed before i could proceed a single step towards explanation, he most readily consented to remove this obstacle. at his request i drew a pen across the parts i considered objectionable, and he undertook to send me the letter re-written, next morning. in the mean time i received from lord byron the following paper for my guidance:-- "with regard to the passage on mr. way's loss, no unfair play was hinted at, as may be seen by referring to the book; and it is expressly added that the _managers were ignorant_ of that transaction. as to the prevalence of play at the argyle, it cannot be denied that there were _billiards_ and _dice_;--lord b. has been a witness to the use of both at the argyle rooms. these, it is presumed, come under the denomination of play. if play be allowed, the president of the institution can hardly complain of being termed the 'arbiter of play,'--or what becomes of his authority? "lord b. has no personal animosity to colonel greville. a public institution, to which he himself was a subscriber, he considered himself to have a right to notice _publicly_. of that institution colonel greville was the avowed director;--it is too late to enter into the discussion of its merits or demerits. "lord b. must leave the discussion of the reparation, for the real or supposed injury, to colonel g.'s friend, and mr. moore, the friend of lord b.--begging them to recollect that, while they consider colonel g.'s honour, lord b. must also maintain his own. if the business can be settled amicably, lord b. will do as much as can and ought to be done by a man of honour towards conciliation;--if not, he must satisfy colonel g. in the manner most conducive to his further wishes." [footnote : to his sister, mrs. leigh, one of the first presentation copies was sent, with the following inscription in it:-- "to augusta, my dearest sister, and my best friend, who has ever loved me much better than i deserved, this volume is presented by her father's son, and most affectionate brother, "b." ] [footnote : "little knew she, that seeming marble heart, now mask'd in silence, or withheld by pride, was not unskilful in the spoiler's art, and spread its snares licentious far and wide." _childe harold, canto ii._ we have here another instance of his propensity to self-misrepresentation. however great might have been the irregularities of his college life, such phrases as the "art of the spoiler" and "spreading snares" were in nowise applicable to them.] [footnote : "after speaking to him of the sale, and settling the new edition, i said, 'how can i possibly think of this rapid sale, and the profits likely to ensue, without recollecting--'--'what?'--'think what sum your work may produce.'--'i shall be rejoiced, and wish it doubled and trebled; but do not talk to me of money. i never will receive money for my writings.'"--dallas's _recollections_.] [footnote : in a letter to pulteney, th may, , swift says, "i never got a farthing for any thing i writ, except once."] * * * * * in the morning i received the letter, in its new form, from mr. leckie, with the annexed note. "my dear sir, "i found my friend very ill in bed; he has, however, managed to copy the enclosed, with the alterations proposed. perhaps you may wish to see me in the morning; i shall therefore be glad to see you any time till twelve o'clock. if you rather wish me to call on you, tell me, and i shall obey your summons. yours, very truly, "g.t. leckie." with such facilities towards pacification, it is almost needless to add that there was but little delay in settling the matter amicably. while upon this subject, i shall avail myself of the opportunity which it affords of extracting an amusing account given by lord byron himself of some affairs of this description, in which he was, at different times, employed as mediator. "i have been called in as mediator, or second, at least twenty times, in violent quarrels, and have always contrived to settle the business without compromising the honour of the parties, or leading them to mortal consequences, and this, too, sometimes in very difficult and delicate circumstances, and having to deal with very hot and haughty spirits,--irishmen, gamesters, guardsmen, captains, and cornets of horse, and the like. this was, of course, in my youth, when i lived in hot-headed company. i have had to carry challenges from gentlemen to noblemen, from captains to captains, from lawyers to counsellors, and once from a clergyman to an officer in the life guards; but i found the latter by far the most difficult,-- "'to compose the bloody duel without blows,'-- the business being about a woman: i must add, too, that i never saw a _woman_ behave so ill, like a cold-blooded, heartless b---- as she was,--but very handsome for all that. a certain susan c * * was she called. i never saw her but once; and that was to induce her but to say two words (which in no degree compromised herself), and which would have had the effect of saving a priest or a lieutenant of cavalry. she would not say them, and neither n * * nor myself (the son of sir e. n * *, and a friend to one of the parties,) could prevail upon her to say them, though both of us used to deal in some sort with womankind. at last i managed to quiet the combatants without her talisman, and, i believe, to her great disappointment: she was the damnedest b---- that i ever saw, and i have seen a great many. though my clergyman was sure to lose either his life or his living, he was as warlike as the bishop of beauvais, and would hardly be pacified; but then he was in love, and that is a martial passion." however disagreeable it was to find the consequences of his satire thus rising up against him in a hostile shape, he was far more embarrassed in those cases where the retribution took a friendly form. being now daily in the habit of meeting and receiving kindnesses from persons who, either in themselves, or through their relatives, had been wounded by his pen, he felt every fresh instance of courtesy from such quarters to be, (as he sometimes, in the strong language of scripture, expressed it,) like "heaping coals of fire upon his head." he was, indeed, in a remarkable degree, sensitive to the kindness or displeasure of those he lived with; and had he passed a life subject to the immediate influence of society, it may be doubted whether he ever would have ventured upon those unbridled bursts of energy in which he at once demonstrated and abused his power. at the period when he ran riot in his satire, society had not yet caught him within its pale; and in the time of his cains and don juans, he had again broken loose from it. hence, his instinct towards a life of solitude and independence, as the true element of his strength. in his own domain of imagination he could defy the whole world; while, in real life, a frown or smile could rule him. the facility with which he sacrificed his first volume, at the mere suggestion of his friend, mr. becher, is a strong proof of this pliableness; and in the instance of childe harold, such influence had the opinions of mr. gifford and mr. dallas on his mind, that he not only shrunk from his original design of identifying himself with his hero, but surrendered to them one of his most favourite stanzas, whose heterodoxy they had objected to; nor is it too much, perhaps, to conclude, that had a more extended force of such influence then acted upon him, he would have consented to omit the sceptical parts of his poem altogether. certain it is that, during the remainder of his stay in england, no such doctrines were ever again obtruded on his readers; and in all those beautiful creations of his fancy, with which he brightened that whole period, keeping the public eye in one prolonged gaze of admiration, both the bitterness and the licence of his impetuous spirit were kept effectually under control. the world, indeed, had yet to witness what he was capable of, when emancipated from this restraint. for, graceful and powerful as were his flights while society had still a hold of him, it was not till let loose from the leash that he rose into the true region of his strength; and though almost in proportion to that strength was, too frequently, his abuse of it, yet so magnificent are the very excesses of such energy, that it is impossible, even while we condemn, not to admire. the occasion by which i have been led into these remarks,--namely, his sensitiveness on the subject of his satire,--is one of those instances that show how easily his gigantic spirit could be, if not held down, at least entangled, by the small ties of society. the aggression of which he had been guilty was not only past, but, by many of those most injured, forgiven; and yet,--highly, it must be allowed, to the credit of his social feelings,--the idea of living familiarly and friendlily with persons, respecting whose character or talents there were such opinions of his on record, became, at length, insupportable to him; and, though far advanced in a fifth edition of "english bards," &c., he came to the resolution of suppressing the satire altogether; and orders were sent to cawthorn, the publisher, to commit the whole impression to the flames. at the same time, and from similar motives,--aided, i rather think, by a friendly remonstrance from lord elgin, or some of his connections,--the "curse of minerva," a poem levelled against that nobleman, and already in progress towards publication, was also sacrificed; while the "hints from horace," though containing far less personal satire than either of the others, shared their fate. to exemplify what i have said of his extreme sensibility, to the passing sunshine or clouds of the society in which he lived, i need but cite the following notes, addressed by him to his friend mr. william bankes, under the apprehension that this gentleman was, for some reason or other, displeased with him. * * * * * letter . to mr. william bankes. "april . . "my dear bankes, "i feel rather hurt (not savagely) at the speech you made to me last night, and my hope is, that it was only one of your _profane_ jests. i should be very sorry that any part of my behaviour should give you cause to suppose that i think higher of myself, or otherwise of you than i have always done. i can assure you that i am as much the humblest of your servants as at trin. coll.; and if i have not been at home when you favoured me with a call, the loss was more mine than yours. in the bustle of buzzing parties, there is, there can be, no rational conversation; but when i can enjoy it, there is nobody's i can prefer to your own. believe me ever faithfully and most affectionately yours, "byron." * * * * * letter . to mr. william bankes. "my dear bankes, "my eagerness to come to an explanation has, i trust, convinced you that whatever my unlucky manner might inadvertently be, the change was as unintentional as (if intended) it would have been ungrateful. i really was not aware that, while we were together, i had evinced such caprices; that we were not so much in each other's company as i could have wished, i well know, but i think so _acute_ an _observer_ as yourself must have perceived enough to _explain this_, without supposing any slight to one in whose society i have pride and pleasure. recollect that i do not allude here to 'extended' or 'extending' acquaintances, but to circumstances you will understand, i think, on a little reflection. "and now, my dear bankes, do not distress me by supposing that i can think of you, or you of me, otherwise than i trust we have long thought. you told me not long ago that my temper was improved, and i should be sorry that opinion should be revoked. believe me, your friendship is of more account to me than all those absurd vanities in which, i fear, you conceive me to take too much interest. i have never disputed your superiority, or doubted (seriously) your good will, and no one shall ever 'make mischief between us' without the sincere regret on the part of your ever affectionate, &c. "p.s. i shall see you, i hope, at lady jersey's. hobhouse goes also." * * * * * in the month of april he was again tempted to try his success in the house of lords; and, on the motion of lord donoughmore for taking into consideration the claims of the irish catholics, delivered his sentiments strongly in favour of the proposition. his display, on this occasion, seems to have been less promising than in his first essay. his delivery was thought mouthing and theatrical, being infected, i take for granted (having never heard him speak in parliament), with the same chanting tone that disfigured his recitation of poetry,--a tone contracted at most of the public schools, but more particularly, perhaps, at harrow, and encroaching just enough on the boundaries of song to offend those ears most by which song is best enjoyed and understood. on the subject of the negotiations for a change of ministry which took place during this session, i find the following anecdotes recorded in his notebook:-- "at the opposition meeting of the peers in , at lord grenville's, when lord grey and he read to us the correspondence upon moira's negotiation, i sate next to the present duke of grafton, and said, 'what is to be done next?'--'wake the duke of norfolk' (who was snoring away near us), replied he: 'i don't think the negotiators have left any thing else for us to do this turn.' "in the debate, or rather discussion, afterwards in the house of lords upon that very question, i sate immediately behind lord moira, who was extremely annoyed at grey's speech upon the subject; and, while grey was speaking, turned round to me repeatedly, and asked me whether i agreed with him. it was an awkward question to me who had not heard both sides. moira kept repeating to me, 'it was _not so_, it was so and so,' &c. i did not know very well what to think, but i sympathised with the acuteness of his feelings upon the subject." the subject of the catholic claims was, it is well known, brought forward a second time this session by lord wellesley, whose motion for a future consideration of the question was carried by a majority of one. in reference to this division, another rather amusing anecdote is thus related. "lord * * affects an imitation of two very different chancellors, thurlow and loughborough, and can indulge in an oath now and then. on one of the debates on the catholic question, when we were either equal or within one (i forget which), i had been sent for in great haste to a ball, which i quitted, i confess, somewhat reluctantly, to emancipate five millions of people. i came in late, and did not go immediately into the body of the house, but stood just behind the woolsack. * * turned round, and, catching my eye, immediately said to a peer, (who had come to him for a few minutes on the woolsack, as is the custom of his friends,) 'damn them! they'll have it now,--by g----d! the vote that is just come in will give it them.'" during all this time, the impression which he had produced in society, both as a poet and a man, went on daily increasing; and the facility with which he gave himself up to the current of fashionable life, and mingled in all the gay scenes through which it led, showed that the novelty, at least, of this mode of existence had charms for him, however he might estimate its pleasures. that sort of vanity which is almost inseparable from genius, and which consists in an extreme sensitiveness on the subject of self, lord byron, i need not say, possessed in no ordinary degree; and never was there a career in which this sensibility to the opinions of others was exposed to more constant and various excitement than that on which he was now entered. i find in a note of my own to him, written at this period, some jesting allusions to the "circle of star-gazers" whom i had left around him at some party on the preceding night;--and such, in fact, was the flattering ordeal he had to undergo wherever he went. on these occasions,--particularly before the range of his acquaintance had become sufficiently extended to set him wholly at his ease,--his air and port were those of one whose better thoughts were elsewhere, and who looked with melancholy abstraction on the gay crowd around him. this deportment, so rare in such scenes, and so accordant with the romantic notions entertained of him, was the result partly of shyness, and partly, perhaps, of that love of effect and impression to which the poetical character of his mind naturally led. nothing, indeed, could be more amusing and delightful than the contrast which his manners afterwards, when we were alone, presented to his proud reserve in the brilliant circle we had just left. it was like the bursting gaiety of a boy let loose from school, and seemed as if there was no extent of fun or tricks of which he was not capable. finding him invariably thus lively when we were together, i often rallied him on the gloomy tone of his poetry, as assumed; but his constant answer was (and i soon ceased to doubt of its truth), that, though thus merry and full of laughter with those he liked, he was, at heart, one of the most melancholy wretches in existence. among the numerous notes which i received from him at this time,--some of them relating to our joint engagements in society, and others to matters now better forgotten,--i shall select a few that (as showing his haunts and habits) may not, perhaps, be uninteresting. "march . . "know all men by these presents, that you, thomas moore, stand indicted--no--invited, by special and particular solicitation, to lady c. l * *'s to-morrow evening, at half-past nine o'clock, where you will meet with a civil reception and decent entertainment. pray, come--i was so examined after you this morning, that i entreat you to answer in person. "believe me," &c. * * * * * "friday noon. "i should have answered your note yesterday, but i hoped to have seen you this morning. i must consult with you about the day we dine with sir francis. i suppose we shall meet at lady spencer's to-night. i did not know that you were at miss berry's the other night, or i should have certainly gone there. "as usual, i am in all sorts of scrapes, though none, at present, of a martial description. "believe me," &c. * * * * * "may . . "i am too proud of being your friend to care with whom i am linked in your estimation, and, god knows, i want friends more at this time than at any other. i am 'taking care of myself' to no great purpose. if you knew my situation in every point of view you would excuse apparent and unintentional neglect. i shall leave town, i think; but do not you leave it without seeing me. i wish you, from my soul, every happiness you can wish yourself; and i think you have taken the road to secure it. peace be with you! i fear she has abandoned me. "ever," &c. * * * * * "may . . "on monday, after sitting up all night, i saw bellingham launched into eternity[ ], and at three the same day i saw * * * launched into the country. "i believe, in the beginning of june, i shall be down for a few days in notts. if so, i shall beat you up 'en passant' with hobhouse, who is endeavouring, like you and every body else, to keep me out of scrapes. "i meant to have written you a long letter, but i find i cannot. if any thing remarkable occurs, you will hear it from me--if good; if _bad_, there are plenty to tell it. in the mean time, do you be happy. "ever yours, &c. "p.s.--my best wishes and respects to mrs. * *;--she is beautiful. i may say so even to you, for i never was more struck with a countenance." [footnote : he had taken a window opposite for the purpose, and was accompanied on the occasion by his old schoolfellows, mr. bailey and mr. john madocks. they went together from some assembly, and, on their arriving at the spot, about three o'clock in the morning, not finding the house that was to receive them open, mr. madocks undertook to rouse the inmates, while lord byron and mr. bailey sauntered, arm in arm, up the street. during this interval, rather a painful scene occurred. seeing an unfortunate woman lying on the steps of a door, lord byron, with some expression of compassion, offered her a few shillings: but, instead of accepting them, she violently pushed away his hand, and, starting up with a yell of laughter, began to mimic the lameness of his gait. he did not utter a word; but "i could feel," said mr. bailey, "his arm trembling within mine, as we left her." i may take this opportunity of mentioning another anecdote connected with his lameness. in coming out, one night, from a ball, with mr. rogers, as they were on their way to their carriage, one of the link-boys ran on before lord byron, crying, "this way, my lord."--"he seems to know you," said mr. rogers.--"know me!" answered lord byron, with some degree of bitterness in his tone--"every one knows me,--i am deformed."] * * * * * among the tributes to his fame, this spring, it should have been mentioned that, at some evening party, he had the honour of being presented, at that royal personage's own desire, to the prince regent. "the regent," says mr. dallas, "expressed his admiration of childe harold's pilgrimage, and continued a conversation, which so fascinated the poet, that had it not been for an accidental deferring of the next levee, he bade fair to become a visiter at carlton house, if not a complete courtier." after this wise prognostic, the writer adds,--"i called on him on the morning for which the levee had been appointed, and found him in a full dress court suit of clothes, with his fine black hair in powder, which by no means suited his countenance. i was surprised, as he had not told me that he should go to court; and it seemed to me as if he thought it necessary to apologise for his intention, by his observing that he could not in decency but do it, as the regent had done him the honour to say that he hoped to see him soon at carlton house." in the two letters that follow we find his own account of the introduction. letter . to lord holland. "june . . "my dear lord, "i must appear very ungrateful, and have, indeed, been very negligent, but till last night i was not apprised of lady holland's restoration, and i shall call to-morrow to have the satisfaction, i trust, of hearing that she is well--i hope that neither politics nor gout have assailed your lordship since i last saw you, and that you also are 'as well as could be expected.' "the other night, at a ball, i was presented by order to our gracious regent, who honoured me with some conversation, and professed a predilection for poetry.--i confess it was a most unexpected honour, and i thought of poor b-----s's adventure, with some apprehension of a similar blunder, i have now great hope, in the event of mr. pye's decease, of 'warbling truth at court,' like mr. mallet of indifferent memory.--consider, one hundred marks a year! besides the wine and the disgrace; but then remorse would make me drown myself in my own butt before the year's end, or the finishing of my first dithyrambic.--so that, after all, i shall not meditate our laureate's death by pen or poison. "will you present my best respects to lady holland? and believe me hers and yours very sincerely." * * * * * the second letter, entering much more fully into the particulars of this interview with royalty, was in answer, it will be perceived, to some enquiries which sir walter scott (then mr. scott) had addressed to him on the subject; and the whole account reflects even still more honour on the sovereign himself than on the two poets. letter . to sir walter scott, bart. "st. james's street, july . . "sir, "i have just been honoured with your letter.--i feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the 'evil works of my nonage,' as the thing is suppressed voluntarily, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. the satire was written when i was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now i am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. i cannot sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waving myself, let me talk to you of the prince regent. he ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities: he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your works pleased me most. it was a difficult question. i answered, i thought the "lay." he said his own opinion was nearly similar. in speaking of the others, i told him that i thought you more particularly the poet of _princes_, as _they_ never appeared more fascinating than in 'marmion' and the 'lady of the lake.' he was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on the description of your jameses as no less royal than poetical. he spoke alternately of homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of the turks and your humble servant) you were in very good company. i defy murray to have exaggerated his royal highness's opinion of your powers, nor can i pretend to enumerate all he said on the subject; but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which i had hitherto considered as confined to _manners_, certainly superior to those of any living _gentleman_. "this interview was accidental. i never went to the levee; for having seen the courts of mussulman and catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed; and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, i had, in fact, 'no business there.' to be thus praised by your sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately and sincerely, "your obliged and obedient servant, "byron. "p.s.--excuse this scrawl, scratched in a great hurry, and just after a journey." * * * * * during the summer of this year, he paid visits to some of his noble friends, and, among others, to the earl of jersey and the marquis of lansdowne. "in ," he says, "at middleton (lord jersey's), amongst a goodly company of lords, ladies, and wits, &c., there was (* * *.) [ ] "erskine, too! erskine was there; good, but intolerable. he jested, he talked, he did every thing admirably, but then he would be applauded for the same thing twice over. he would read his own verses, his own paragraph, and tell his own story again and again; and then the 'trial by jury!!!' i almost wished it abolished, for i sat next him at dinner. as i had read his published speeches, there was no occasion to repeat them to me. "c * * (the fox-hunter), nicknamed '_cheek_ c * *,' and i, sweated the claret, being the only two who did so. c * *, who loves his bottle, and had no notion of meeting with a 'bon-vivant' in a scribbler[ ], in making my eulogy to somebody one evening, summed it up in--'by g----d he drinks like a man.' "nobody drank, however, but c * * and i. to be sure, there was little occasion, for we swept off what was on the table (a most splendid board, as may be supposed, at jersey's) very sufficiently. however, we carried our liquor discreetly, like the baron of bradwardine." [footnote : a review, somewhat too critical, of some of the guests is here omitted.] [footnote : for the first day or two, at middleton, he did not join his noble host's party till after dinner, but took his scanty repast of biscuits and soda water in his own room. being told by somebody that the gentleman above mentioned had pronounced such habits to be "effeminate," he resolved to show the "fox-hunter" that he could be, on occasion, as good a _bon-vivant_ as himself, and, by his prowess at the claret next day, after dinner, drew forth from mr. c * * the eulogium here recorded.] * * * * * in the month of august this year, on the completion of the new theatre royal, drury lane, the committee of management, desirous of procuring an address for the opening of the theatre, took the rather novel mode of inviting, by an advertisement in the newspapers, the competition of all the poets of the day towards this object. though the contributions that ensued were sufficiently numerous, it did not appear to the committee that there was any one among the number worthy of selection. in this difficulty it occurred to lord holland that they could not do better than have recourse to lord byron, whose popularity would give additional vogue to the solemnity of their opening, and to whose transcendant claims, as a poet, it was taken for granted, (though without sufficient allowance, as it proved, for the irritability of the brotherhood,) even the rejected candidates themselves would bow without a murmur. the first result of this application to the noble poet will be learned from what follows. letter . to lord holland. "cheltenham, september . . "my dear lord, "the lines which i sketched off on your hint are still, or rather _were_, in an unfinished state, for i have just committed them to a flame more decisive than that of drury. under all the circumstances, i should hardly wish a contest with philo-drama--philo-drury--asbestos, h * *, and all the anonymes and synonymes of committee candidates. seriously, i think you have a chance of something much better; for prologuising is not my forte, and, at all events, either my pride or my modesty won't let me incur the hazard of having my rhymes buried in next month's magazine, under 'essays on the murder of mr. perceval,' and 'cures for the bite of a mad dog,' as poor goldsmith complained of the fate of far superior performances. "i am still sufficiently interested to wish to know the successful candidate; and, amongst so many, i have no doubt some will be excellent, particularly in an age when writing verse is the easiest of all attainments. "i cannot answer your intelligence with the 'like comfort,' unless, as you are deeply theatrical, you may wish to hear of mr. * *, whose acting is, i fear, utterly inadequate to the london engagement into which the managers of covent garden have lately entered. his figure is fat, his features flat, his voice unmanageable, his action ungraceful, and, as diggory says, 'i defy him to _ex_tort that d----d muffin face of his into madness.' i was very sorry to see him in the character of the 'elephant on the slack rope;' for, when i last saw him, i was in raptures with his performance. but then i was sixteen--an age to which all london condescended to subside. after all, much better judges have admired, and may again; but i venture to 'prognosticate a prophecy' (see the courier) that he will not succeed. "so, poor dear rogers has stuck fast on 'the brow of the mighty helvellyn'--i hope not for ever. my best respects to lady h.:--her departure, with that of my other friends, was a sad event for me, now reduced to a state of the most cynical solitude. 'by the waters of cheltenham i sat down and _drank_, when i remembered thee, oh georgiana cottage! as for our _harps_, we hanged them up upon the willows that grew thereby. then they said, sing us a song of drury lane,' &c.;--but i am dumb and dreary as the israelites. the waters have disordered me to my heart's content--you _were_ right, as you always are. believe me ever your obliged and affectionate servant, "byron." * * * * * the request of the committee for his aid having been, still more urgently, repeated, he, at length, notwithstanding the difficulty and invidiousness of the task, from his strong wish to oblige lord holland, consented to undertake it; and the quick succeeding notes and letters, which he addressed, during the completion of the address, to his noble friend, afford a proof (in conjunction with others of still more interest, yet to be cited) of the pains he, at this time, took in improving and polishing his first conceptions, and the importance he wisely attached to a judicious choice of epithets as a means of enriching both the music and the meaning of his verse. they also show,--what, as an illustration of his character, is even still more valuable,--the exceeding pliancy and good humour with which he could yield to friendly suggestions and criticisms; nor can it be questioned, i think, but that the docility thus invariably exhibited by him, on points where most poets are found to be tenacious and irritable, was a quality natural to his disposition, and such as might have been turned to account in far more important matters, had he been fortunate enough to meet with persons capable of understanding and guiding him. the following are a few of those hasty notes, on the subject of the address, which i allude to:-- to lord holland. "september . . "my dear lord, "in a day or two i will send you something which you will still have the liberty to reject if you dislike it. i should like to have had more time, but will do my best,--but too happy if i can oblige _you_, though i may offend a hundred scribblers and the discerning public. ever yours. "keep _my name_ a _secret_; or i shall be beset by all the rejected, and, perhaps, damned by a party." * * * * * letter . to lord holland. "cheltenham, september . . "ecco!--i have marked some passages with _double_ readings--choose between them--_cut_--_add_--_reject_--or _destroy_--do with them as you will--i leave it to you and the committee--you cannot say so called 'a _non committendo_.' what will _they_ do (and i do) with the hundred and one rejected troubadours? 'with trumpets, yea, and with shawms,' will you be assailed in the most diabolical doggerel. i wish my name not to transpire till the day is decided. i shall not be in town, so it won't much matter; but let us have a good _deliverer_. i think elliston should be the man, or pope; _not_ raymond, i implore you, by the love of rhythmus! "the passages marked thus ==, above and below, are for you to choose between epithets, and such like poetical furniture. pray write me a line, and believe me ever, &c. "my best remembrances to lady h. will you be good enough to decide between the various readings marked, and erase the other; or our deliverer may be as puzzled as a commentator, and belike repeat both. if these _versicles_ won't do, i will hammer out some more endecasyllables. "p.s.--tell lady h. i have had sad work to keep out the phoenix--i mean the fire office of that name. it has insured the theatre, and why not the address?" * * * * * to lord holland. "september . "i send a recast of the four first lines of the concluding paragraph. "this greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd, the drama's homage by her herald paid, receive _our welcome too_, whose every tone springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own. the curtain rises, &c. &c. and do forgive all this trouble. see what it is to have to do even with the _genteelest_ of us. ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to lord holland. "september . . "you will think there is no end to my villanous emendations. the fifth and sixth lines i think to alter thus:-- "ye who beheld--oh sight admired and mourn'd, whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd; because 'night' is repeated the next line but one; and, as it now stands, the conclusion of the paragraph, 'worthy him (shakspeare) and _you_,' appears to apply the '_you_' to those only who were out of bed and in covent garden market on the night of conflagration, instead of the audience or the discerning public at large, all of whom are intended to be comprised in that comprehensive and, i hope, comprehensible pronoun. "by the by, one of my corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom-- "when garrick died, and brinsley ceased to write. ceasing to _live_ is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first; therefore i will let the old couplet stand, with its half rhymes 'sought' and 'wrote.'[ ] second thoughts in every thing are best, but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss. i am very anxious on this business, and i do hope that the very trouble i occasion you will plead its own excuse, and that it will tend to show my endeavour to make the most of the time allotted. i wish i had known it months ago, for in that case i had not left one line standing on another. i always scrawl in this way, and smooth as much as i can, but never sufficiently; and, latterly, i can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure i have not the cunning. when i began 'childe harold,' i had never tried spenser's measure, and now i cannot scribble in any other. "after all, my dear lord, if you can get a decent address elsewhere, don't hesitate to put this aside. why did you not trust your own muse? i am very sure she would have been triumphant, and saved the committee their trouble--''tis a joyful one' to me, but i fear i shall not satisfy even myself. after the account you sent me, 'tis no compliment to say you would have beaten your candidates; but i mean that, in _that_ case, there would have been no occasion for their being beaten at all. "there are but two decent prologues in our tongue--pope's to cato--johnson's to drury lane. these, with the epilogue to the 'distrest mother,' and, i think, one of goldsmith's, and a prologue of old colman's to beaumont and fletcher's philaster, are the best things of the kind we have. "p.s.--i am diluted to the throat with medicine for the stone; and boisragon wants me to try a warm climate for the winter--but i won't." [footnote : "such are the names that here your plaudits sought, when garrick acted, and when brinsley wrote." at present the couplet stands thus:-- "dear are the days that made our annals bright, ere garrick fled, or brinsley ceased to write." ] * * * * * letter . to lord holland. "september . . "i have just received your very kind letter, and hope you have met with a second copy corrected and addressed to holland house, with some omissions and this new couplet, "as glared each rising flash[ ], and ghastly shone the skies with lightnings awful as their own. as to remarks, i can only say i will alter and acquiesce in any thing. with regard to the part which whitbread wishes to omit, i believe the address will go off _quicker_ without it, though, like the agility of the hottentot, at the expense of its vigour. i leave to your choice entirely the different specimens of stucco-work; and a _brick_ of your own will also much improve my babylonish turret. i should like elliston to have it, with your leave. 'adorn' and 'mourn' are lawful rhymes in pope's death of the unfortunate lady.--gray has 'forlorn' and 'mourn;'--and 'torn' and 'mourn' are in smollet's famous tears of scotland. "as there will probably be an outcry amongst the rejected, i hope the committee will testify (if it be needful) that i sent in nothing to the congress whatever, with or without a name, as your lordship well knows. all i have to do with it is with and through you; and though i, of course, wish to satisfy the audience, i do assure you my first object is to comply with your request, and in so doing to show the sense i have of the many obligations you have conferred upon me. yours ever, b." [footnote : at present, "as glared the volumed blaze."] * * * * * letter . to lord holland. "september . . "shakspeare certainly ceased to reign in _one_ of his kingdoms, as george iii. did in america, and george iv. may in ireland.[ ] now, we have nothing to do out of our own realms, and when the monarchy was gone, his majesty had but a barren sceptre. i have _cut away_, you will see, and altered, but make it what you please; only i do implore, for my _own_ gratification, one lash on those accursed quadrupeds--'a long shot, sir lucius, if you love me.' i have altered 'wave,' &c., and the 'fire,' and so forth for the timid. "let me hear from you when convenient, and believe me, &c. "p.s.--do let _that_ stand, and cut out elsewhere. i shall choke, if we must overlook their d----d menagerie." [footnote : some objection, it appears from this, had been made to the passage, "and shakspeare _ceased to reign_."] * * * * * letter . to lord holland. "far be from him that hour which asks in vain tears such as flow for garrick in his strain; _or_, "far be that hour that vainly asks in turn {_crown'd his_} such verse for him as { wept o'er } garrick's urn. "september . . "will you choose between these added to the lines on sheridan?[ ] i think they will wind up the panegyric, and agree with the train of thought preceding them. "now, one word as to the committee--how could they resolve on a rough copy of an address never sent in, unless you had been good enough to retain in memory, or on paper, the thing they have been good enough to adopt? by the by, the circumstances of the case should make the committee less 'avidus glorias,' for all praise of them would look plaguy suspicious. if necessary to be stated at all, the simple facts bear them out. they surely had a right to act as they pleased. my sole object is one which, i trust, my whole conduct has shown; viz. that i did nothing insidious--sent in no address _whatever_--but, when applied to, did my best for them and myself; but, above all, that there was no undue partiality, which will be what the rejected will endeavour to make out. fortunately--most fortunately--i sent in no lines on the occasion. for i am sure that had they, in that case, been preferred, it would have been asserted that _i_ was known, and owed the preference to private friendship. this is what we shall probably have to encounter; but, if once spoken and approved, we sha'n't be much embarrassed by their brilliant conjectures; and, as to criticism, an _old_ author, like an old bull, grows cooler (or ought) at every baiting. "the only thing would be to avoid a party on the night of delivery--afterwards, the more the better, and the whole transaction inevitably tends to a good deal of discussion. murray tells me there are myriads of ironical addresses ready--_some_, in imitation of what is called _my style_. if they are as good as the probationary odes, or hawkins's pipe of tobacco, it will not be bad fun for the imitated. "ever," &c. [footnote : these added lines, as may be seen by reference to the printed address, were not retained.] * * * * * the time comprised in the series of letters to lord holland, of which the above are specimens, lord byron passed, for the most part, at cheltenham; and during the same period, the following letters to other correspondents were written. letter . to mr. murray. "high street, cheltenham, sept. . . "pray have the goodness to send those despatches, and a no. of the edinburgh review with the rest. i hope you have written to mr. thompson, thanked him in my name for his present, and told him that i shall be truly happy to comply with his request.--how do you go on? and when is the graven image, 'with _bays and wicked rhyme upon 't,'_ to grace, or disgrace, some of our tardy editions? "send me '_rokeby_.' who the devil is he?--no matter, he has good connections, and will be well introduced. i thank you for your enquiries: i am so so, but my thermometer is sadly below the poetical point. what will you give _me_ or _mine_ for a poem of six cantos, (_when complete_--_no_ rhyme, _no_ recompense,) as like the last two as i can make them? i have some ideas that one day may be embodied, and till winter i shall have much leisure. "p.s.--my last question is in the true style of grub street; but, like jeremy diddler, i only 'ask for information.'--send me adair on diet and regimen, just republished by ridgway." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "cheltenham, sept. . . "the parcels contained some letters and verses, all but one anonymous and complimentary, and very anxious for my conversion from certain infidelities into which my good-natured correspondents conceive me to have fallen. the books were presents of a _convertible_ kind. also, 'christian knowledge' and the 'bioscope,' a religious dial of life explained;--and to the author of the former (cadell, publisher,) i beg you will forward my best thanks for his letter, his present, and, above all, his good intentions. the 'bioscope' contained a ms. copy of very excellent verses, from whom i know not, but evidently the composition of some one in the habit of writing, and of writing well. i do not know if he be the author of the 'bioscope' which accompanied them; but whoever he is, if you can discover him, thank him from me most heartily. the other letters were from ladies, who are welcome to convert me when they please; and if i can discover them, and they be young, as they say they are, i could convince them perhaps of my devotion. i had also a letter from mr. walpole on matters of this world, which i have answered. "so you are lucien's publisher? i am promised an interview with him, and think i shall ask _you_ for a letter of introduction, as 'the gods have made him poetical.' from whom could it come with a better grace than from _his_ publisher and mine? is it not somewhat treasonable in you to have to do with a relative of the 'direful foe,' as the morning post calls his brother? "but my book on 'diet and regimen,' where is it? i thirst for scott's rokeby; let me have your first-begotten copy. the anti-jacobin review is all very well, and not a bit worse than the quarterly, and at least less harmless. by the by, have you secured my books? i want all the reviews, at least the critiques, quarterly, monthly, &c., portuguese and english, extracted, and bound up in one volume for my _old age_; and pray, sort my romaic books, and get the volumes lent to mr. hobhouse--he has had them now a long time. if any thing occurs, you will favour me with a line, and in winter we shall be nearer neighbours. "p.s.--i was applied to, to write the address for drury lane, but the moment i heard of the contest, i gave up the idea of contending against all grub street, and threw a few thoughts on the subject into the fire. i did this out of respect to you, being sure you would have turned off any of your authors who had entered the lists with such scurvy competitors. to triumph would have been no glory; and to have been defeated--'sdeath!--i would have choked myself, like otway, with a quartern loaf; so, remember i had, and have, nothing to do with it, upon _my honour_." * * * * * letter . to mr. william bankes. "cheltenham, september . . "my dear bankes, "when you point out to one how people can be intimate at the distance of some seventy leagues, i will plead guilty to your charge, and accept your farewell, but not _wittingly_, till you give me some better reason than my silence, which merely proceeded from a notion founded on your own declaration of _old_, that you hated writing and receiving letters. besides, how was i to find out a man of many residences? if i had addressed you _now_, it had been to your borough, where i must have conjectured you were amongst your constituents. so now, in despite of mr. n. and lady w., you shall be as 'much better' as the hexham post-office will allow me to make you. i do assure you i am much indebted to you for thinking of me at all, and can't spare you even from amongst the superabundance of friends with whom you suppose me surrounded. "you heard that newstead[ ] is sold--the sum , _l._; sixty to remain in mortgage on the estate for three years, paying interest, of course. rochdale is also likely to do well--so my worldly matters are mending. i have been here some time drinking the waters, simply because there are waters to drink, and they are very medicinal, and sufficiently disgusting. in a few days i set out for lord jersey's, but return here, where i am quite alone, go out very little, and enjoy in its fullest extent the 'dolce far niente.' what you are about, i cannot guess, even from your date;--not dauncing to the sound of the gitourney in the halls of the lowthers? one of whom is here, ill, poor thing, with a phthisic. i heard that you passed through here (at the sordid inn where i first alighted) the very day before i arrived in these parts. we had a very pleasant set here; at first the jerseys, melbournes, cowpers, and hollands, but all gone; and the only persons i know are the rawdons and oxfords, with some later acquaintances of less brilliant descent. "but i do not trouble them much; and as for your rooms and your assemblies, 'they are not dreamed of in our philosophy!!'--did you read of a sad accident in the wye t' other day? a dozen drowned, and mr. rossoe, a corpulent gentleman, preserved by a boat-hook or an eel-spear, begged, when he heard his wife was saved--no--_lost_--to be thrown in again!!--as if he could not have thrown himself in, had he wished it; but this passes for a trait of sensibility. what strange beings men are, in and out of the wye! "i have to ask you a thousand pardons for not fulfilling some orders before i left town; but if you knew all the cursed entanglements i _had_ to wade through, it would be unnecessary to beg your forgiveness.--when will parliament (the new one) meet?--in sixty days, on account of ireland, i presume: the irish election will demand a longer period for completion than the constitutional allotment. yours, of course, is safe, and all your side of the question. salamanca is the ministerial watchword, and all will go well with you. i hope you will speak more frequently, i am sure at least you _ought_, and it will be expected. i see portman means to stand again. good night. "ever yours most affectionately, "[greek: mpahirôn]."[ ] [footnote : "early in the autumn of ," says mr. dallas, "he told me that he was urged by his man of business, and that newstead _must_ be sold." it was accordingly brought to the hammer at garraway's, but not, at that time, sold, only , _l._ being offered for it. the private sale to which he alludes in this letter took place soon after,--mr. claughton, the agent for mr. leigh, being the purchaser. it was never, however, for reasons which we shall see, completed.] [footnote : a mode of signature he frequently adopted at this time.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "cheltenham, september . . "i sent in no address whatever to the committee; but out of nearly one hundred (this is _confidential_), none have been deemed worth acceptance; and in consequence of their _subsequent_ application to _me_, i have written a prologue, which _has_ been received, and will be spoken. the ms. is now in the hands of lord holland. "i write this merely to say, that (however it is received by the audience) you will publish it in the next edition of childe harold; and i only beg you at present to keep my name secret till you hear further from me, and as soon as possible i wish you to have a correct copy, to do with as you think proper. "p.s.--i should wish a few copies printed off _before_, that the newspaper copies may be correct _after_ the _delivery_." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "cheltenham, oct. . . "i have a very _strong_ objection to the engraving of the portrait[ ], and request that it may, on no account, be prefixed; but let _all_ the proofs be burnt, and the plate broken. i will be at the expense which has been incurred; it is but fair that _i_ should, since i cannot permit the publication. i beg, as a particular favour, that you will lose no time in having this done, for which i have reasons that i will state when i see you. forgive all the trouble i have occasioned you. "i have received no account of the reception of the address, but see it is vituperated in the papers, which does not much embarrass an _old author_. i leave it to your own judgment to add it, or not, to your next edition when required. pray comply _strictly_ with my wishes as to the engraving, and believe me, &c. "p.s.--favour me with an answer, as i shall not be easy till i hear that the proofs, &c. are destroyed. i hear that the _satirist_ has reviewed childe harold, in what manner i need not ask; but i wish to know if the old personalities are revived? i have a better reason for asking this than any that merely concerns myself; but in publications of that kind, others, particularly female names, are sometimes introduced." [footnote : a miniature by sanders. besides this miniature, sanders had also painted a full length of his lordship, from which the portrait prefixed to this work is engraved. in reference to the latter picture, lord byron says, in a note to mr. rogers, "if you think the picture you saw at murray's worth your acceptance, it is yours; and you may put a _glove_ or mask on it, if you like."] * * * * * letter . to lord holland. "cheltenham, oct. . . "my dear lord, "i perceive that the papers, yea, even perry's, are somewhat ruffled at the injudicious preference of the committee. my friend perry has, indeed, 'et tu brute'-d me rather scurvily, for which i will send him, for the m.c., the next epigram i scribble, as a token of my full forgiveness. "do the committee mean to enter into no explanation of their proceedings? you must see there is a leaning towards a charge of partiality. you will, at least, acquit me of any great anxiety to push myself before so many elder and better anonymous, to whom the twenty guineas (which i take to be about two thousand pounds _bank_ currency) and the honour would have been equally welcome. 'honour,' i see, 'hath no skill in paragraph-writing.' "i wish to know how it went off at the second reading, and whether any one has had the grace to give it a glance of approbation. i have seen no paper but perry's and two sunday ones. perry is severe, and the others silent. if, however, you and your committee are not now dissatisfied with your own judgments, i shall not much embarrass myself about the brilliant remarks of the journals. my own opinion upon it is what it always was, perhaps pretty near that of the public. "believe me, my dear lord, &c. &c. "p.s.--my best respects to lady h., whose smiles will be very consolatory, even at this distance." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "cheltenham, oct. . . "will you have the goodness to get this parody of a peculiar kind[ ] (for all the first lines are _busby_'s entire) inserted in several of the papers (_correctly_--and copied _correctly_; _my hand_ is difficult)--particularly the morning chronicle? tell mr. perry i forgive him all he has said, and may say against _my address_, but he will allow me to deal with the doctor--(_audi alteram partem_)--and not _betray_ me. i cannot think what has befallen mr. perry, for of yore we were very good friends;--but no matter, only get this inserted. "i have a poem on waltzing for _you_, of which i make _you_ a present; but it must be anonymous. it is in the old style of english bards and scotch reviewers. "p.s.--with the next edition of childe harold you may print the first fifty or a hundred opening lines of the 'curse of minerva' down to the couplet beginning "mortal ('twas thus she spake), &c. of course, the moment the _satire_ begins, there you will stop, and the opening is the best part." [footnote : among the addresses sent in to the drury lane committee was one by dr. busby, entitled a monologue, of which the parody was enclosed in this letter. a short specimen of this trifle will be sufficient. the four first lines of the doctor's address are as follows:-- "when energising objects men pursue, what are the prodigies they cannot do? a magic edifice you here survey, shot from the ruins of the other day!" which verses are thus ridiculed, unnecessarily, in the parody:-- "'when energising objects men pursue,' the lord knows what is writ by lord knows who. 'a modest monologue you here survey,' hiss'd from the theatre the 'other day.'" ] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "oct. . . "many thanks, but i _must_ pay the _damage_, and will thank you to tell me the amount for the engraving. i think the 'rejected addresses' by far the best thing of the kind since the rolliad, and wish _you_ had published them. tell the author 'i forgive him, were he twenty times over a satirist;' and think his imitations not at all inferior to the famous ones of hawkins browne. he must be a man of very lively wit, and less scurrilous than wits often are: altogether, i very much admire the performance, and wish it all success. the _satirist_ has taken a new tone, as you will see: we have now, i think, finished with childe harold's critics. i have in _hand_ a _satire_ on _waltzing,_ which you must publish anonymously: it is not long, not quite two hundred lines, but will make a very small boarded pamphlet. in a few days you shall have it. "p.s.--the editor of the _satirist_ ought to be thanked for his revocation; it is done handsomely, after five years' warfare." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "oct. . . "thanks, as usual. you go on boldly; but have a care of _glutting_ the public, who have by this time had enough of childe harold. 'waltzing' shall be prepared. it is rather above two hundred lines, with an introductory letter to the publisher. i think of publishing, with childe harold, the opening lines of the 'curse of minerva,' as far as the first speech of pallas,--because some of the readers like that part better than any i have ever written, and as it contains nothing to affect the subject of the subsequent portion, it will find a place as a _descriptive fragment_. "the _plate_ is _broken_? between ourselves, it was unlike the picture; and besides, upon the whole, the frontispiece of an author's visage is but a paltry exhibition. at all events, _this_ would have been no recommendation to the book. i am sure sanders would not have _survived_ the engraving. by the by, the _picture_ may remain with _you_ or _him_ (which you please), till my return. the _one_ of two remaining copies is at your service till i can give you a _better_; the other must be _burned peremptorily_. again, do not forget that i have an account with you, and _that_ this is _included_. i give you too much trouble to allow you to incur _expense_ also. "you best know how far this 'address riot' will affect the future sale of childe harold. i like the volume of 'rejected addresses' better and better. the other parody which perry has received is mine also (i believe). it is dr. busby's speech versified. you are removing to albemarle street, i find, and i rejoice that we shall be nearer neighbours. i am going to lord oxford's, but letters here will be forwarded. when at leisure, all communications from you will be willingly received by the humblest of your scribes. did mr. ward write the review of horne tooke's life in the quarterly? it is excellent." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "cheltenham, november . . "on my return here from lord oxford's, i found your obliging note, and will thank you to retain the letters, and any other subsequent ones to the same address, till i arrive in town to claim them, which will probably be in a few days. i have in charge a curious and very long ms. poem, written by lord brooke (the _friend_ of sir _philip sidney_), which i wish to submit to the inspection of mr. gifford, with the following queries:--first, whether it has ever been published, and, secondly (if not), whether it is worth publication? it is from lord oxford's library, and must have escaped or been overlooked amongst the mss. of the harleian miscellany. the writing is lord brooke's, except a different hand towards the close. it is very long, and in the six-line stanza. it is not for me to hazard an opinion upon its merits; but i would take the liberty, if not too troublesome, to submit it to mr. gifford's judgment, which, from his excellent edition of massinger, i should conceive to be as decisive on the writings of that age as on those of our own. "now for a less agreeable and important topic.--how came mr. _mac-somebody_, without consulting you or me, to prefix the address to his volume[ ] of '_dejected_ addresses?' is not this somewhat larcenous? i think the ceremony of leave might have been asked, though i have no objection to the thing itself; and leave the 'hundred and eleven' to tire themselves with 'base comparisons.' i should think the ingenuous public tolerably sick of the subject, and, except the parodies, i have not interfered, nor shall; indeed i did not know that dr. busby had published his apologetical letter and postscript, or i should have recalled them. but, i confess, i looked upon his conduct in a different light before its appearance. i see some mountebank has taken alderman birch's name to vituperate dr. busby; he had much better have pilfered his pastry, which i should imagine the more valuable ingredient--at least for a puff.--pray secure me a copy of woodfall's new junius, and believe me," &c. [footnote : "the genuine rejected addresses, presented to the committee of management for drury lane theatre: preceded by that written by lord byron and adopted by the committee:"--published by b. m'millan.] * * * * * letter . to mr. william bankes. "december . "the multitude of your recommendations has already superseded my humble endeavours to be of use to you; and, indeed, most of my principal friends are returned. leake from joannina, canning and adair from the city of the faithful, and at smyrna no letter is necessary, as the consuls are always willing to do every thing for personages of respectability. i have sent you _three_, one to gibraltar, which, though of no great necessity, will, perhaps, put you on a more intimate footing with a very pleasant family there. you will very soon find out that a man of any consequence has very little occasion for any letters but to ministers and bankers, and of them we have already plenty, i will be sworn. "it is by no means improbable that i shall go in the spring, and if you will fix any place of rendezvous about august, i will _write_ or _join_ you.--when in albania, i wish you would enquire after dervise tahiri and vascillie (or bazil), and make my respects to the viziers, both there and in the morea. if you mention my name to suleyman of thebes, i think it will not hurt you; if i had my dragoman, or wrote turkish, i could have given you letters of _real service_; but to the english they are hardly requisite, and the greeks themselves can be of little advantage. liston you know already, and i do not, as he was not then minister. mind you visit ephesus and the troad, and let me hear from you when you please. i believe g. forresti is now at yanina, but if not, whoever is there will be too happy to assist you. be particular about _firmauns_; never allow yourself to be bullied, for you are better protected in turkey than any where; trust not the greeks; and take some _knicknackeries_ for _presents_--_watches_, _pistols_, &c. &c. to the beys and pachas. if you find one demetrius, at athens or elsewhere, i can recommend him as a good dragoman. i hope to join you, however; but you will find swarms of english now in the levant. "believe me," &c. * * * * * to mr. murray. "february . . "in 'horace in london' i perceive some stanzas on lord elgin in which (waving the kind compliment to myself[ ]) i heartily concur. i wish i had the pleasure of mr. smith's acquaintance, as i could communicate the curious anecdote you read in mr. t.'s letter. if he would like it, he can have the _substance_ for his second edition; if not, i shall add it to our next, though i think we already have enough of lord elgin. "what i have read of this work seems admirably done. my praise, however, is not much worth the author's having; but you may thank him in my name for _his_. the idea is new--we have excellent imitations of the satires, &c. by pope; but i remember but one imitative ode in his works, and _none_ any where else. i can hardly suppose that _they_ have lost any fame by the fate of the _farce_; but even should this be the case, the present publication will again place them on their pinnacle. "yours," &c. [footnote : in the ode entitled "the parthenon," minerva thus speaks:-- "all who behold my mutilated pile shall brand its ravager with classic rage; and soon a titled bard from britain's isle thy country's praise and suffrage shall engage, and fire with athens' wrongs an angry age!" horace in london. ] * * * * * it has already been stated that the pecuniary supplies, which he found it necessary to raise on arriving at majority, were procured for him on ruinously usurious terms.[ ] to some transactions connected with this subject, the following characteristic letter refers. to mr. rogers. "march , . "i enclose you a draft for the usurious interest due to lord * *'s _protégé_;--i also could wish you would state thus much for me to his lordship. though the transaction speaks plainly in itself for the borrower's folly and the lender's usury, it never was my intention to _quash_ the demand, as i _legally_ might, nor to withhold payment of principal, or, perhaps, even _unlawful_ interest. you know what my situation has been, and what it is. i have parted with an estate (which has been in my family for nearly three hundred years, and was never disgraced by being in possession of a _lawyer_, a _churchman_, or a _woman_, during that period,) to liquidate this and similar demands; and the payment of the purchase is still withheld, and may be, perhaps, for years. if, therefore, i am under the necessity of making those persons _wait_ for their money, (which, considering the terms, they can afford to suffer,) it is my misfortune. "when i arrived at majority in , i offered my own security on _legal_ interest, and it was refused. _now_, i will not accede to this. this man i may have seen, but i have no recollection of the names of any parties but the _agents_ and the securities. the moment i can it is assuredly my intention to pay my debts. this person's case may be a hard one; but, under all circumstances, what is mine? i could not foresee that the purchaser of my estate was to demur in paying for it. "i am glad it happens to be in my power so far to accommodate my israelite, and only wish i could do as much for the rest of the twelve tribes. "ever yours, dear r., bn." [footnote : "tis said that persons living on annuities are longer lived than others,--god knows why, unless to plague the grantors,--yet so true it is, that some, i really think, _do_ never die. of any creditors, the worst a jew it is; and _that_'s their mode of furnishing supply: in my young days they lent me cash that way, which i found very troublesome to pay." don juan, canto ii ] * * * * * at the beginning of this year, mr. murray having it in contemplation to publish an edition of the two cantos of childe harold with engravings, the noble author entered with much zeal into his plan; and, in a note on the subject to mr. murray, says,--"westall has, i believe, agreed to illustrate your book, and i fancy one of the engravings will be from the pretty little girl you saw the other day[ ], though without her name, and merely as a model for some sketch connected with the subject. i would also have the portrait (which you saw to-day) of the friend who is mentioned in the text at the close of canto st, and in the notes,--which are subjects sufficient to authorise that addition." early in the spring he brought out, anonymously, his poem on waltzing, which, though full of very lively satire, fell so far short of what was now expected from him by the public, that the disavowal of it, which, as we see by the following letter, he thought right to put forth, found ready credence:-- letter . to mr. murray. "april . . "i shall be in town by sunday next, and will call and have some conversation on the subject of westall's designs. i am to sit to him for a picture at the request of a friend of mine, and as sanders's is not a good one, you will probably prefer the other. i wish you to have sanders's taken down and sent to my lodgings immediately--before my arrival. i hear that a certain malicious publication on waltzing is attributed to me. this report, i suppose, you will take care to contradict, as the author, i am sure, will not like that i should wear his cap and bells. mr. hobhouse's quarto will be out immediately; pray send to the author for an early copy, which i wish to take abroad with me. "p.s.--i see the examiner threatens some observations upon you next week. what can you have done to share the wrath which has heretofore been principally expended upon the prince? i presume all your scribleri will be drawn up in battle array in defence of the modern tonson--mr. bucke, for instance. "send in my account to bennet street, as i wish to settle it before sailing." [footnote : lady charlotte harley, to whom, under the name of ianthe, the introductory lines to childe harold were afterwards addressed.] * * * * * in the month of may appeared his wild and beautiful "fragment," _the giaour_;--and though, in its first flight from his hands, some of the fairest feathers of its wing were yet wanting, the public hailed this new offspring of his genius with wonder and delight. the idea of writing a poem in fragments had been suggested to him by the _columbus_ of mr. rogers; and, whatever objections may lie against such a plan in general, it must be allowed to have been well suited to the impatient temperament of byron, as enabling him to overleap those mechanical difficulties, which, in a regular narrative, embarrass, if not chill, the poet,--leaving it to the imagination of his readers to fill up the intervals between those abrupt bursts of passion in which his chief power lay. the story, too, of the poem possessed that stimulating charm for him, almost indispensable to his fancy, of being in some degree connected with himself,--an event in which he had been personally concerned, while on his travels, having supplied the groundwork on which the fiction was founded. after the appearance of the giaour, some incorrect statement of this romantic incident having got into circulation, the noble author requested of his friend, the marquis of sligo, who had visited athens soon after it happened, to furnish him with his recollections on the subject; and the following is the answer which lord sligo returned:-- "albany, monday, august . . "my dear byron, "you have requested me to tell you all that i heard at athens about the affair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there; you have asked me to mention every circumstance, in the remotest degree relating to it, which i heard. in compliance with your wishes, i write to you all i heard, and i cannot imagine it to be very far from the fact, as the circumstance happened only a day or two before i arrived at athens, and, consequently, was a matter of common conversation at the time. "the new governor, unaccustomed to have the same intercourse with the christians as his predecessor, had of course the barbarous turkish ideas with regard to women. in consequence, and in compliance with the strict letter of the mahommedan law, he ordered this girl to be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the sea,--as is, indeed, quite customary at constantinople. as you were returning from bathing in the piraeus, you met the procession going down to execute the sentence of the waywode on this unfortunate girl. report continues to say, that on finding out what the object of their journey was, and who was the miserable sufferer, you immediately interfered; and on some delay in obeying your orders, you were obliged to inform the leader of the escort, that force should make him comply;--that, on farther hesitation, you drew a pistol, and told him, that if he did not immediately obey your orders, and come back with you to the aga's house, you would shoot him dead. on this, the man turned about and went with you to the governor's house; here you succeeded, partly by personal threats, and partly by bribery and entreaty, to procure her pardon on condition of her leaving athens. i was told that you then conveyed her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night to thebes, where she found a safe asylum. such is the story i heard, as nearly as i can recollect it at present. should you wish to ask me any further questions about it, i shall be very ready and willing to answer them. i remain, my dear byron, "yours, very sincerely, "sligo. "i am afraid you will hardly be able to read this scrawl; but i am so hurried with the preparations for my journey, that you must excuse it." * * * * * of the prodigal flow of his fancy, when its sources were once opened on any subject, the giaour affords one of the most remarkable instances,--this poem having accumulated under his hand, both in printing and through successive editions, till from four hundred lines, of which it consisted in his first copy, it at present amounts to nearly fourteen hundred. the plan, indeed, which he had adopted, of a series of fragments,--a set of "orient pearls at random strung,"--left him free to introduce, without reference to more than the general complexion of his story, whatever sentiments or images his fancy, in its excursions, could collect; and how little fettered he was by any regard to connection in these additions, appears from a note which accompanied his own copy of the paragraph commencing "fair clime, where every season smiles,"--in which he says, "i have not yet fixed the place of insertion for the following lines, but will, when i see you--as i have no copy." even into this new passage, rich as it was at first, his fancy afterwards poured a fresh infusion,--the whole of its most picturesque portion, from the line "for there, the rose o'er crag or vale," down to "and turn to groans his roundelay," having been suggested to him during revision. in order to show, however, that though so rapid in the first heat of composition, he formed no exception to that law which imposes labour as the price of perfection, i shall here extract a few verses from his original draft of this paragraph, by comparing which with the form they wear at present[ ] we may learn to appreciate the value of these after-touches of the master. "fair clime! where _ceaseless summer_ smiles benignant o'er those blessed isles, which, seen from far colonna's height, make glad the heart that hails the sight, and _give_ to loneliness delight. there _shine the bright abodes ye seek, like dimples upon ocean's cheek,-- so smiling round the waters lave_ these edens of the eastern wave. or if, at times, the transient breeze break the _smooth_ crystal of the seas, or _brush_ one blossom from the trees, how _grateful_ is the gentle air that wakes and wafts the _fragrance_ there." among the other passages added to this edition (which was either the third or fourth, and between which and the first there intervened but about six weeks) was that most beautiful and melancholy illustration of the lifeless aspect of greece, beginning "he who hath bent him o'er the dead,"--of which the most gifted critic of our day[ ] has justly pronounced, that "it contains an image more true, more mournful, and more exquisitely finished, than any we can recollect in the whole compass of poetry."[ ] to the same edition also were added, among other accessions of wealth[ ], those lines, "the cygnet proudly walks the water," and the impassioned verses, "my memory now is but the tomb." on my rejoining him in town this spring, i found the enthusiasm about his writings and himself, which i left so prevalent, both in the world of literature and in society, grown, if any thing, still more general and intense. in the immediate circle, perhaps, around him, familiarity of intercourse might have begun to produce its usual disenchanting effects. his own liveliness and unreserve, on a more intimate acquaintance, would not be long in dispelling that charm of poetic sadness, which to the eyes of distant observers hung about him; while the romantic notions, connected by some of his fair readers with those past and nameless loves alluded to in his poems, ran some risk of abatement from too near an acquaintance with the supposed objects of his fancy and fondness at present. a poet's mistress should remain, if possible, as imaginary a being to others, as, in most of the attributes he clothes her with, she has been to himself;--the reality, however fair, being always sure to fall short of the picture which a too lavish fancy has drawn of it. could we call up in array before us all the beauties whom the love of poets has immortalised, from the high-born dame to the plebeian damsel,--from the lauras and sacharissas down to the cloes and jeannies,--we should, it is to be feared, sadly unpeople our imaginations of many a bright tenant that poesy has lodged there, and find, in more than one instance, our admiration of the faith and fancy of the worshipper increased by our discovery of the worthlessness of the idol. but, whatever of its first romantic impression the personal character of the poet may, from such causes, have lost in the circle he most frequented, this disappointment of the imagination was far more than compensated by the frank, social, and engaging qualities, both of disposition and manner, which, on a nearer intercourse, he disclosed, as well as by that entire absence of any literary assumption or pedantry, which entitled him fully to the praise bestowed by sprat upon cowley, that few could "ever discover he was a great poet by his discourse." while thus, by his intimates, and those who had got, as it were, behind the scenes of his fame, he was seen in his true colours, as well of weakness as of amiableness, on strangers and such as were out of this immediate circle, the spell of his poetical character still continued to operate; and the fierce gloom and sternness of his imaginary personages were, by the greater number of them, supposed to belong, not only as regarded mind, but manners, to himself. so prevalent and persevering has been this notion, that, in some disquisitions on his character published since his death, and containing otherwise many just and striking views, we find, in the professed portrait drawn of him, such features as the following:--"lord byron had a stern, direct, severe mind: a sarcastic, disdainful, gloomy temper. he had no light sympathy with heartless cheerfulness;--upon the surface was sourness, discontent, displeasure, ill will. beneath all this weight of clouds and darkness[ ]," &c. &c. of the sort of double aspect which he thus presented, as viewed by the world and by his friends, he was himself fully aware; and it not only amused him, but, as a proof of the versatility of his powers, flattered his pride. he was, indeed, as i have already remarked, by no means insensible or inattentive to the effect he produced personally on society; and though the brilliant station he had attained, since the commencement of my acquaintance with him, made not the slightest alteration in the unaffectedness of his private intercourse, i could perceive, i thought, with reference to the external world, some slight changes in his conduct, which seemed indicative of the effects of his celebrity upon him. among other circumstances, i observed that, whether from shyness of the general gaze, or from a notion, like livy's, that men of eminence should not too much familiarise the public to their persons[ ], he avoided showing himself in the mornings, and in crowded places, much more than was his custom when we first became acquainted. the preceding year, before his name had grown "so rife and celebrated," we had gone together to the exhibition at somerset house, and other such places[ ]; and the true reason, no doubt, of his present reserve, in abstaining from all such miscellaneous haunts, was the sensitiveness, so often referred to, on the subject of his lameness,--a feeling which the curiosity of the public eye, now attracted to this infirmity by his fame, could not fail, he knew, to put rather painfully to the proof. among the many gay hours we passed together this spring, i remember particularly the wild flow of his spirits one evening, when we had accompanied mr. rogers home from some early assembly, and when lord byron, who, according to his frequent custom, had not dined for the last two days, found his hunger no longer governable, and called aloud for "something to eat." our repast,--of his own choosing,--was simple bread and cheese; and seldom have i partaken of so joyous a supper. it happened that our host had just received a presentation copy of a volume of poems, written professedly in imitation of the old english writers, and containing, like many of these models, a good deal that was striking and beautiful, mixed up with much that was trifling, fantastic, and absurd. in our mood, at the moment, it was only with these latter qualities that either lord byron or i felt disposed to indulge ourselves; and, in turning over the pages, we found, it must be owned, abundant matter for mirth. in vain did mr. rogers, in justice to the author, endeavour to direct our attention to some of the beauties of the work:--it suited better our purpose (as is too often the case with more deliberate critics) to pounce only on such passages as ministered to the laughing humour that possessed us. in this sort of hunt through the volume, we at length lighted on the discovery that our host, in addition to his sincere approbation of some of its contents, had also the motive of gratitude for standing by its author, as one of the poems was a warm and, i need not add, well-deserved panegyric on himself. we were, however, too far gone in nonsense for even this eulogy, in which we both so heartily agreed, to stop us. the opening line of the poem was, as well as i can recollect, "when rogers o'er this labour bent;" and lord byron undertook to read it aloud;--but he found it impossible to get beyond the first two words. our laughter had now increased to such a pitch that nothing could restrain it. two or three times he began; but no sooner had the words "when rogers" passed his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh,--till even mr. rogers himself, with all his feeling of our injustice, found it impossible not to join us; and we were, at last, all three, in such a state of inextinguishable laughter, that, had the author himself been of the party, i question much whether he could have resisted the infection. a day or two after, lord byron sent me the following:-- "my dear moore, "'when rogers' must not see the enclosed, which i send for your perusal. i am ready to fix any day you like for our visit. was not sheridan good upon the whole? the 'poulterer' was the first and best.[ ] "ever yours," &c. . "when t * * this damn'd nonsense sent, (i hope i am not violent), nor men nor gods knew what he meant. . "and since not ev'n our rogers' praise to common sense his thoughts could raise-- why _would_ they let him print his lays? . * * * * . * * * * . "to me, divine apollo, grant--o! hermilda's first and second canto, i'm fitting up a new portmanteau; . "and thus to furnish decent lining, my own and others' bays i'm twining-- so gentle t * *, throw me thine in." [footnote : the following are the lines in their present shape, and it will be seen that there is not a single alteration in which the music of the verse has not been improved as well as the thought:-- "fair clime! where every season smiles benignant o'er those blessed isles, which, seen from far colonna's height, make glad the heart that hails the sight, and lend to loneliness delight. there, mildly dimpling, ocean's cheek reflects the tints of many a peak caught by the laughing tides that lave these edens of the eastern wave: and if at times a transient breeze break the blue crystal of the seas, or sweep one blossom from the trees, how welcome is each gentle air that wakes and wafts the odours there!" ] [footnote : mr. jeffrey.] [footnote : in dallaway's constantinople, a book which lord byron is not unlikely to have consulted, i find a passage quoted from gillies's history of greece, which contains, perhaps, the first seed of the thought thus expanded into full perfection by genius:--"the present state of greece compared to the ancient is the silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with the vivid lustre of active life."] [footnote : among the recorded instances of such happy after-thoughts in poetry may be mentioned, as one of the most memorable, denham's four lines, "oh could i flow like thee," &c., which were added in the second edition of his poem.] [footnote : letters on the character and poetical genius of lord byron, by sir egerton brydges, bart.] [footnote : "continuus aspectus minus verendos magnos homines facit."] [footnote : the only peculiarity that struck me on those occasions was the uneasy restlessness which he seemed to feel in wearing a hat,--an article of dress which, from his constant use of a carriage while in england, he was almost wholly unaccustomed to, and which, after that year, i do not remember to have ever seen upon him again. abroad, he always wore a kind of foraging cap.] [footnote : he here alludes to a dinner at mr. rogers's, of which i have elsewhere given the following account:-- "the company consisted but of mr. rogers himself, lord byron, mr. sheridan, and the writer of this memoir. sheridan knew the admiration his audience felt for him; the presence of the young poet, in particular, seemed to bring back his own youth and wit; and the details he gave of his early life were not less interesting and animating to himself than delightful to us. it was in the course of this evening that, describing to us the poem which mr. whitbread had written, and sent in, among the other addresses for the opening of drury lane theatre, and which, like the rest, turned chiefly on allusions to the phoenix, he said--'but whitbread made more of this bird than any of them:--he entered into particulars, and described its wings, beak, tail, &c.;--in short, it was a _poulterer_'s description of a phoenix."--_life of sheridan_.] * * * * * on the same day i received from him the following additional scraps. the lines in italics are from the eulogy that provoked his waggish comments. "to ---- . "'_i lay my branch of laurel down._' "thou 'lay thy branch of laurel down!" why, what thou'st stole is not enow; and, were it lawfully thine own, does rogers want it most, or thou? keep to thyself thy wither'd bough, or send it back to dr. donne-- were justice done to both, i trow, he'd have but little, and thou--none. . "'_then thus to form apollo's crown_. "a crown! why, twist it how you will, thy chaplet must be foolscap still. when next you visit delphi's town, enquire amongst your fellow-lodgers, they'll tell you phoebus gave his crown, some years before your birth, to rogers. . "'_let every other bring his own_.' "when coals to newcastle are carried, and owls sent to athens as wonders, from his spouse when the * *'s unmarried, or liverpool weeps o'er his blunders; when tories and whigs cease to quarrel, when c * *'s wife has an heir, then rogers shall ask us for laurel, and thou shalt have plenty to spare." the mention which he makes of sheridan in the note just cited affords a fit opportunity of producing, from one of his journals, some particulars which he has noted down respecting this extraordinary man, for whose talents he entertained the most unbounded admiration,--rating him, in natural powers, far above all his great political contemporaries. "in society i have met sheridan frequently: he was superb! he had a sort of liking for me, and never attacked me, at least to my face, and he did every body else--high names, and wits, and orators, some of them poets also. i have seen him cut up whitbread, quiz madame de staël, annihilate colman, and do little less by some others (whose names, as friends, i set not down) of good fame and ability. "the last time i met him was, i think, at sir gilbert heathcote's, where he was as quick as ever--no, it was not the last time; the last time was at douglas kinnaird's. "i have met him in all places and parties,--at whitehall with the melbournes, at the marquis of tavistock's, at robins's the auctioneer's, at sir humphrey davy's, at sam rogers's,--in short, in most kinds of company, and always found him very convivial and delightful. "i have seen sheridan weep two or three times. it may be that he was maudlin; but this only renders it more impressive, for who would see "from marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow, and swift expire a driveller and a show? once i saw him cry at robins's the auctioneer's, after a splendid dinner, full of great names and high spirits. i had the honour of sitting next to sheridan. the occasion of his tears was some observation or other upon the subject of the sturdiness of the whigs in resisting office and keeping to their principles: sheridan turned round:--'sir, it is easy for my lord g. or earl g. or marquis b. or lord h. with thousands upon thousands a year, some of it either _presently_ derived, or _inherited_ in sinecure or acquisitions from the public money, to boast of their patriotism and keep aloof from temptation; but they do not know from what temptation those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal talents, and not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not in the course of their lives what it was to have a shilling of their own.' and in saying this he wept. "i have more than once heard him say, 'that he never had a shilling of his own.' to be sure, he contrived to extract a good many of other people's. "in , i had occasion to visit my lawyer in chancery lane, he was with sheridan. after mutual greetings, &c., sheridan retired first. before recurring to my own business, i could not help enquiring _that_ of sheridan. 'oh,' replied the attorney, 'the usual thing! to stave off an action from his wine-merchant, my client.'--'well,' said i, 'and what do you mean to do?'--'nothing at all for the present,' said he: 'would you have us proceed against old sherry? what would be the use of it?' and here he began laughing, and going over sheridan's good gifts of conversation. "now, from personal experience, i can vouch that my attorney is by no means the tenderest of men, or particularly accessible to any kind of impression out of the statute or record; and yet sheridan, in half an hour, had found the way to soften and seduce him in such a manner, that i almost think he would have thrown his client (an honest man, with all the laws, and some justice, on his side) out of the window, had he come in at the moment. "such was sheridan! he could soften an attorney! there has been nothing like it since the days of orpheus. "one day i saw him take up his own 'monody on garrick.' he lighted upon the dedication to the dowager lady * *. on seeing it, he flew into a rage, and exclaimed, 'that it must be a forgery, that he had never dedicated any thing of his to such a d----d canting,' &c. &c. &c--and so went on for half an hour abusing his own dedication, or at least the object of it. if all writers were equally sincere, it would be ludicrous. "he told me that, on the night of the grand success of his school for scandal, he was knocked down and put into the watch-house for making a row in the street, and being found intoxicated by the watchmen. "when dying, he was requested to undergo 'an operation.' he replied, that he had already submitted to two, which were enough for one man's lifetime. being asked what they were, he answered, 'having his hair cut, and sitting for his picture.' "i have met george colman occasionally, and thought him extremely pleasant and convivial. sheridan's humour, or rather wit, was always saturnine, and sometimes savage; he never laughed, (at least that _i_ saw, and i watched him,) but colman did. if i had to _choose_, and could not have both at a time, i should say, 'let me begin the evening with sheridan, and finish it with colman.' sheridan for dinner, colman for supper; sheridan for claret or port, but colman for every thing, from the madeira and champagne at dinner, the claret with a _layer_ of _port_ between the glasses, up to the punch of the night, and down to the grog, or gin and water, of daybreak;--all these i have threaded with both the same. sheridan was a grenadier company of life-guards, but colman a whole regiment--of _light infantry_, to be sure, but still a regiment." it was at this time that lord byron became acquainted (and, i regret to have to add, partly through my means) with mr. leigh hunt, the editor of a well-known weekly journal, the examiner. this gentleman i had myself formed an acquaintance with in the year , and, in common with a large portion of the public, entertained a sincere admiration of his talents and courage as a journalist. the interest i took in him personally had been recently much increased by the manly spirit, which he had displayed throughout a prosecution instituted against himself and his brother, for a libel that had appeared in their paper on the prince regent, and in consequence of which they were both sentenced to imprisonment for two years. it will be recollected that there existed among the whig party, at this period, a strong feeling of indignation at the late defection from themselves and their principles of the illustrious personage who had been so long looked up to as the friend and patron of both. being myself, at the time, warmly--perhaps intemperately--under the influence of this feeling, i regarded the fate of mr. hunt with more than common interest, and, immediately on my arrival in town, paid him a visit in his prison. on mentioning the circumstance, soon after, to lord byron, and describing my surprise at the sort of luxurious comforts with which i had found the "wit in the dungeon" surrounded,--his trellised flower-garden without, and his books, busts, pictures, and piano-forte within,--the noble poet, whose political view of the case coincided entirely with my own, expressed a strong wish to pay a similar tribute of respect to mr. hunt, and accordingly, a day or two after, we proceeded for that purpose to the prison. the introduction which then took place was soon followed by a request from mr. hunt that we would dine with him; and the noble poet having good-naturedly accepted the invitation, horsemonger lane gaol had, in the month of june, , the honour of receiving lord byron, as a guest, within its walls. on the morning of our first visit to the journalist, i received from lord byron the following lines written, it will be perceived, the night before:-- "may . . "oh you, who in all names can tickle the town, anacreon, tom little, tom moore, or tom brown,-- for hang me if i know of which you may most brag, your quarto two-pounds, or your twopenny post bag; * * * * but now to my letter--to yours 'tis an answer-- to-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir, all ready and dress'd for proceeding to spunge on (according to compact) the wit in the dungeon-- pray phoebus at length our political malice may not get us lodgings within the same palace! i suppose that to-night you're engaged with some codgers, and for sotheby's blues have deserted sam rogers; and i, though with cold i have nearly my death got, must put on my breeches, and wait on the heathcote. but to-morrow at four, we will both play the scurra, and you'll be catullus, the r----t mamurra. "dear m.--having got thus far, i am interrupted by * * * *. o'clock. "half-past . * * * * is gone. i must dress for lady heathcote's.--addio." * * * * * our day in the prison was, if not agreeable, at least novel and odd. i had, for lord byron's sake, stipulated with our host beforehand, that the party should be, as much as possible, confined to ourselves; and, as far as regarded dinner, my wishes had been attended to;--there being present, besides a member or two of mr. hunt's own family, no other stranger, that i can recollect, but mr. mitchell, the ingenious translator of aristophanes. soon after dinner, however, there dropped in some of our host's literary friends, who, being utter strangers to lord byron and myself, rather disturbed the ease into which we were all settling. among these, i remember, was mr. john scott,--the writer, afterwards, of some severe attacks on lord byron; and it is painful to think that, among the persons then assembled round the poet, there should have been _one_ so soon to step forth the assailant of his living fame, while _another_, less manful, was to reserve the cool venom for his grave. on the d of june, in presenting a petition to the house of lords, he made his third and last appearance as an orator, in that assembly. in his way home from the house that day, he called, i remember, at my lodgings, and found me dressing in a very great hurry for dinner. he was, i recollect, in a state of most humorous exaltation after his display, and, while i hastily went on with my task in the dressing-room, continued to walk up and down the adjoining chamber, spouting forth for me, in a sort of mock heroic voice, detached sentences of the speech he had just been delivering. "i told them," he said, "that it was a most flagrant violation of the constitution--that, if such things were permitted, there was an end of english freedom, and that ----"--"but what was this dreadful grievance?" i asked, interrupting him in his eloquence.--"the grievance?" he repeated, pausing as if to consider--"oh, that i forget."[ ] it is impossible, of course, to convey an idea of the dramatic humour with which he gave effect to these words; but his look and manner on such occasions were irresistibly comic; and it was, indeed, rather in such turns of fun and oddity, than in any more elaborate exhibition of wit, that the pleasantry of his conversation consisted. though it is evident that, after the brilliant success of childe harold, he had ceased to think of parliament as an arena of ambition, yet, as a field for observation, we may take for granted it was not unstudied by him. to a mind of such quick and various views, every place and pursuit presented some aspect of interest; and whether in the ball-room, the boxing-school, or the senate, all must have been, by genius like his, turned to profit. the following are a few of the recollections and impressions which i find recorded by himself of his short parliamentary career:-- "i have never heard any one who fulfilled my ideal of an orator. grattan would have been near it, but for his harlequin delivery. pitt i never heard. fox but once, and then he struck me as a debater, which to me seems as different from an orator as an improvisatore, or a versifier, from a poet. grey is great, but it is not oratory. canning is sometimes very like one. windham i did not admire, though all the world did; it seemed sad sophistry. whitbread was the demosthenes of bad taste and vulgar vehemence, but strong, and english. holland is impressive from sense and sincerity. lord lansdowne good, but still a debater only. grenville i like vastly, if he would prune his speeches down to an hour's delivery. burdett is sweet and silvery as belial himself, and i think the greatest favourite in pandemonium; at least i always heard the country gentlemen and the ministerial devilry praise his speeches _up_ stairs, and run down from bellamy's when he was upon his legs. i heard bob milnes make his _second_ speech; it made no impression. i like ward--studied, but keen, and sometimes eloquent. peel, my school and form fellow (we sat within two of each other), strange to say, i have never heard, though i often wished to do so; but from what i remember of him at harrow, he _is_, or _should_ be, among the best of them. now i do _not_ admire mr. wilberforce's speaking; it is nothing but a flow of words--'words, words, alone.' "i doubt greatly if the english have any eloquence, properly so called; and am inclined to think that the irish _had_ a great deal, and that the french _will_ have, and have had in mirabeau. lord chatham and burke are the nearest approaches to orators in england. i don't know what erskine may have been at the bar, but in the house i wish him at the bar once more. lauderdale is shrill, and scotch, and acute. "but amongst all these, good, bad, and indifferent, i never heard the speech which was not too long for the auditors, and not very intelligible, except here and there. the whole thing is a grand deception, and as tedious and tiresome as may be to those who must be often present. i heard sheridan only once, and that briefly, but i liked his voice, his manner, and his wit: and he is the only one of them i ever wished to hear at greater length. "the impression of parliament upon me was, that its members are not formidable as _speakers_, but very much so as an _audience_; because in so numerous a body there may be little eloquence, (after all, there were but _two_ thorough orators in all antiquity, and i suspect still _fewer_ in modern times,) but there must be a leaven of thought and good sense sufficient to make them _know_ what is right, though they can't express it nobly. "horne tooke and roscoe both are said to have declared that they left parliament with a higher opinion of its aggregate integrity and abilities than that with which they entered it. the general amount of both in most parliaments is probably about the same, as also the number of _speakers_ and their talent. i except _orators_, of course, because they are things of ages, and not of septennial or triennial re-unions. neither house ever struck me with more awe or respect than the same number of turks in a divan, or of methodists in a barn, would have done. whatever diffidence or nervousness i felt (and i felt both, in a great degree) arose from the number rather than the quality of the assemblage, and the thought rather of the _public without_ than the persons within,--knowing (as all know) that cicero himself, and probably the messiah, could never have altered the vote of a single lord of the bedchamber, or bishop. i thought _our_ house dull, but the other animating enough upon great days. "i have heard that when grattan made his first speech in the english commons, it was for some minutes doubtful whether to laugh at or cheer him. the _débût_ of his predecessor, flood, had been a complete failure, under nearly similar circumstances. but when the ministerial part of our senators had watched pitt (their thermometer) for the cue, and saw him nod repeatedly his stately nod of approbation, they took the hint from their huntsman, and broke out into the most rapturous cheers. grattan's speech, indeed, deserved them; it was a _chef-d'oeuvre_. i did not hear _that_ speech of his (being then at harrow), but heard most of his others on the same question--also that on the war of . i differed from his opinions on the latter question, but coincided in the general admiration of his eloquence. "when i met old courtenay, the orator, at rogers's, the poet's, in - , i was much taken with the portly remains of his fine figure, and the still acute quickness of his conversation. it was _he_ who silenced flood in the english house by a crushing reply to a hasty _débût_ of the rival of grattan in ireland. i asked courtenay (for i like to trace motives) if he had not some personal provocation; for the acrimony of his answer seemed to me, as i had read it, to involve it. courtenay said 'he had; that, when in ireland (being an irishman), at the bar of the irish house of commons, flood had made a personal and unfair attack upon _himself_, who, not being a member of that house, could not defend himself, and that some years afterwards the opportunity of retort offering in the english parliament, he could not resist it.' he certainly repaid flood with interest, for flood never made any figure, and only a speech or two afterwards, in the english house of commons. i must except, however, his speech on reform in , which fox called 'the best he ever heard upon that subject.'" for some time he had entertained thoughts of going again abroad; and it appeared, indeed, to be a sort of relief to him, whenever he felt melancholy or harassed, to turn to the freedom and solitude of a life of travel as his resource. during the depression of spirits which he laboured under, while printing childe harold, "he would frequently," says mr. dallas, "talk of selling newstead, and of going to reside at naxos, in the grecian archipelago,--to adopt the eastern costume and customs, and to pass his time in studying the oriental languages and literature." the excitement of the triumph that soon after ensued, and the success which, in other pursuits besides those of literature, attended him, again diverted his thoughts from these migratory projects. but the roving fit soon returned; and we have seen, from one of his letters to mr. william bankes, that he looked forward to finding himself, in the course of this spring, among the mountains of his beloved greece once more. for a time, this plan was exchanged for the more social project of accompanying his friends, the family of lord oxford, to sicily; and it was while engaged in his preparatives for this expedition that the annexed letters were written. [footnote : his speech was on presenting a petition from major cartwright.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "maidenhead, june . . "* * * i have read the 'strictures,' which are just enough, and not grossly abusive, in very fair couplets. there is a note against massinger near the end, and one cannot quarrel with one's company, at any rate. the author detects some incongruous figures in a passage of english bards, page ., but which edition i do not know. in the _sole_ copy in your possession--i mean the _fifth_ edition--you may make these alterations, that i may profit (though a little too late) by his remarks:--for '_hellish_ instinct,' substitute '_brutal_ instinct;' '_harpies_' alter to '_felons_;' and for 'blood-hounds' write 'hell-hounds.'[ ] these be 'very bitter words, by my troth,' and the alterations not much sweeter; but as i shall not publish the thing, they can do no harm, but are a satisfaction to me in the way of amendment. the passage is only twelve lines. "you do not answer me about h.'s book; i want to write to him, and not to say any thing unpleasing. if you direct to post office, portsmouth, till _called_ for, i will send and receive your letter. you never told me of the forthcoming critique on columbus, which is not _too_ fair; and i do not think justice quite done to the 'pleasures,' which surely entitle the author to a higher rank than that assigned him in the quarterly. but i must not cavil at the decisions of the _invisible infallibles_; and the article is very well written. the general horror of '_fragments_' makes me tremulous for 'the giaour;' but you would publish it--i presume, by this time, to your repentance. but as i consented, whatever be its fate, i won't now quarrel with you, even though i detect it in my pastry; but i shall not open a pie without apprehension for some weeks. "the books which may be marked g.o. i will carry out. do you know clarke's naufragia? i am told that he asserts the _first_ volume of robinson crusoe was written by the first lord oxford, when in the tower, and given by him to defoe; if true, it is a curious anecdote. have you got back lord brooke's ms.? and what does heber say of it? write to me at portsmouth. ever yours, &c. "n." [footnote : in an article on this satire (written for cumberland's review, but never printed) by that most amiable man and excellent poet, the late rev. william crowe, the incongruity of these metaphors is thus noticed:--"within the space of three or four couplets, he transforms a man into as many different animals. allow him but the compass of three lines, and he will metamorphose him from a wolf into a harpy, and in three more he will make him a blood-hound." there are also in this ms. critique some curious instances of oversight or ignorance adduced from the satire; such as "_fish_ from _helicon_"--"_attic_ flowers _aonian_ odours breathe," &c. &c.] * * * * * to mr. murray. "june . . "dear sir, "will you forward the enclosed answer to the kindest letter i ever received in my life, my sense of which i can neither express to mr. gifford himself nor to any one else? ever yours, "n." * * * * * letter . to w. gifford, esq. "june . . "my dear sir, "i feel greatly at a loss how to write to you at all--still more to thank you as i ought. if you knew the veneration with which i have ever regarded you, long before i had the most distant prospect of becoming your acquaintance, literary or personal, my embarrassment would not surprise you. "any suggestion of yours, even were it conveyed in the less tender shape of the text of the baviad, or a monk mason note in massinger, would have been obeyed; i should have endeavoured to improve myself by your censure: judge then if i should be less willing to profit by your kindness. it is not for me to bandy compliments with my elders and my betters: i receive your approbation with gratitude, and will not return my brass for your gold by expressing more fully those sentiments of admiration, which, however sincere, would, i know, be unwelcome. "to your advice on religious topics, i shall equally attend. perhaps the best way will be by avoiding them altogether. the already published objectionable passages have been much commented upon, but certainly have been rather strongly interpreted. i am no bigot to infidelity, and did not expect that, because i doubted the immortality of man, i should be charged with denying the existence of a god. it was the comparative insignificance of ourselves and _our world_, when placed in comparison with the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first led me to imagine that our pretensions to eternity might be over-rated. "this, and being early disgusted with a calvinistic scotch school, where i was cudgelled to church for the first ten years of my life, afflicted me with this malady; for, after all, it is, i believe, a disease of the mind as much as other kinds of hypochondria."[ ] [footnote : the remainder of this letter, it appears, has been lost.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "june . . "yesterday i dined in company with '* *, the epicene,' whose politics are sadly changed. she is for the lord of israel and the lord of liverpool--a vile antithesis of a methodist and a tory--talks of nothing but devotion and the ministry, and, i presume, expects that god and the government will help her to a pension. "murray, the [greek: anax] of publishers, the anac of stationers, has a design upon you in the paper line. he wants you to become the staple and stipendiary editor of a periodical work. what say you? will you be bound, like 'kit smart, to write for ninety-nine years in the universal visiter?' seriously he talks of hundreds a year, and--though i hate prating of the beggarly elements--his proposal may be to your honour and profit, and, i am very sure, will be to our pleasure. "i don't know what to say about 'friendship.' i never was in friendship but once, in my nineteenth year, and then it gave me as much trouble as love. i am afraid, as whitbread's sire said to the king, when he wanted to knight him, that i am 'too old:' but, nevertheless, no one wishes you more friends, fame, and felicity, than yours," &c. * * * * * having relinquished his design of accompanying the oxfords to sicily, he again thought of the east, as will be seen by the following letters, and proceeded so far in his preparations for the voyage as to purchase of love, the jeweller, of old bond street, about a dozen snuff-boxes, as presents for some of his old turkish acquaintances. letter . to mr. moore. " . benedictine street, st. james's, july . . "i presume by your silence that i have blundered into something noxious in my reply to your letter, for the which i beg leave to send beforehand a sweeping apology, which you may apply to any, or all, parts of that unfortunate epistle. if i err in my conjecture, i expect the like from you, in putting our correspondence so long in quarantine. god he knows what i have said; but he also knows (if he is not as indifferent to mortals as the _nonchalant_ deities of lucretius), that you are the last person i want to offend. so, if i have,--why the devil don't you say it at once, and expectorate your spleen? "rogers is out of town with madame de staël, who hath published an essay against suicide, which, i presume, will make somebody shoot himself;--as a sermon by blinkensop, in _proof_ of christianity, sent a hitherto most orthodox acquaintance of mine out of a chapel of ease a perfect atheist. have you found or founded a residence yet? and have you begun or finished a poem? if you won't tell me what _i_ have done, pray say what you have done, or left undone, yourself. i am still in equipment for voyaging, and anxious to hear from, or of, you _before_ i go, which anxiety you should remove more readily, as you think i sha'n't cogitate about you afterwards. i shall give the lie to that calumny by fifty foreign letters, particularly from any place where the plague is rife,--without a drop of vinegar or a whiff of sulphur to save you from infection. "the oxfords have sailed almost a fortnight, and my sister is in town, which is a great comfort--for, never having been much together, we are naturally more attached to each other. i presume the illuminations have conflagrated to derby (or wherever you are) by this time. we are just recovering from tumult and train oil, and transparent fripperies, and all the noise and nonsense of victory. drury lane had a large _m.w._, which some thought was marshal wellington; others, that it might be translated into manager whitbread; while the ladies of the vicinity of the saloon conceived the last letter to be complimentary to themselves. i leave this to the commentators to illustrate. if you don't answer this, i sha'n't say what _you_ deserve, but i think _i_ deserve a reply. do you conceive there is no post-bag but the twopenny? sunburn me, if you are not too bad." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "july . . "your letter set me at ease; for i really thought (as i hear of your susceptibility) that i had said--i know not what--but something i should have been very sorry for, had it, or i, offended you;--though i don't see how a man with a beautiful wife--_his own_ children,--quiet--fame--competency and friends, (i will vouch for a thousand, which is more than i will for a unit in my own behalf,) can be offended with any thing. "do you know, moore, i am amazingly inclined--remember i say but _inclined_--to be seriously enamoured with lady a.f.--but this * * has ruined all my prospects. however, you know her; is she _clever_, or sensible, or good-tempered? either _would_ do--i scratch out the _will_. i don't ask as to her beauty--that i see; but my circumstances are mending, and were not my other prospects blackening, i would take a wife, and that should be the woman, had i a chance. i do not yet know her much, but better than i did. "i want to get away, but find difficulty in compassing a passage in a ship of war. they had better let me go; if i cannot, patriotism is the word--'nay, an' they'll mouth, i'll rant as well as they.' now, what are you doing?--writing, we all hope, for our own sakes. remember you must edite my posthumous works, with a life of the author, for which i will send you confessions, dated, 'lazaretto,' smyrna, malta, or palermo--one can die any where. "there is to be a thing on tuesday ycleped a national fête. the regent and * * * are to be there, and every body else, who has shillings enough for what was once a guinea. vauxhall is the scene--there are six tickets issued for the modest women, and it is supposed there will be three to spare. the passports for the lax are beyond my arithmetic. "p.s.--the staël last night attacked me most furiously--said that i had 'no right to make love--that i had used * * barbarously--that i had no feeling, and was totally insensible to _la belle passion_, and _had_ been all my life.' i am very glad to hear it, but did not know it before. let me hear from you anon." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "july . . "i am not well versed enough in the ways of single woman to make much matrimonial progress. "i have been dining like the dragon of wantley for this last week. my head aches with the vintage of various cellars, and my brains are muddled as their dregs. i met your friends the d * * s:--she sung one of your best songs so well, that, but for the appearance of affectation, i could have cried; he reminds me of hunt, but handsomer, and more musical in soul, perhaps. i wish to god he may conquer his horrible anomalous complaint. the upper part of her face is beautiful, and she seems much attached to her husband. he is right, nevertheless, in leaving this nauseous town. the first winter would infallibly destroy her complexion,--and the second, very probably, every thing else. "i must tell you a story. m * * (of indifferent memory) was dining out the other day, and complaining of the p----e's coldness to his old wassailers. d * * (a learned jew) bored him with questions--why this? and why that? 'why did the p----e act thus?'--'why, sir, on account of lord * *, who ought to be ashamed of himself.'--'and why ought lord * * to be ashamed of himself?'--'because the p----e, sir, * * * * * * * *.'--'and why, sir, did the p----e cut _you_?'--' because, g----d d----mme, sir, i stuck to my principles.'--'and _why_ did you stick to your principles?' "is not this last question the best that was ever put, when you consider to whom? it nearly killed m * *. perhaps you may think it stupid, but, as goldsmith said about the peas, it was a very good joke when i heard it--as i did from an ear-witness--and is only spoilt in my narration. "the season has closed with a dandy ball;--but i have dinners with the harrowbys, rogers, and frere and mackintosh, where i shall drink your health in a silent bumper, and regret your absence till 'too much canaries' wash away my memory, or render it superfluous by a vision of you at the opposite side of the table. canning has disbanded his party by a speech from his * * * *--the true throne of a tory. conceive his turning them off in a formal harangue, and bidding them think for themselves. 'i have led my ragamuffins where they are well peppered. there are but three of the left alive, and they are for the _towns-end_ (_query_, might not falstaff mean the bow street officer? i dare say malone's posthumous edition will have it so) for life.' "since i wrote last, i have been into the country. i journeyed by night--no incident, or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in crossing epping forest, actually, i believe, flung down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second figure of number xix--mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. i can only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols wherewith i had armed him; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out to me whenever we passed any thing--no matter whether moving or stationary. conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong. i have scribbled you a fearfully long letter. this sheet must be blank, and is merely a wrapper, to preclude the tabellarians of the post from peeping. you once complained of my _not_ writing;--i will 'heap coals of fire upon your head' by _not_ complaining of your _not_ reading. ever, my dear moore, your'n (isn't that the staffordshire termination?) "byron." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "july . . "when you next imitate the style of 'tacitus,' pray add, 'de moribus germanorum;'--this last was a piece of barbarous silence, and could only be taken from the _woods_, and, as such, i attribute it entirely to your sylvan sequestration at mayfield cottage. you will find, on casting up accounts, that you are my debtor by several sheets and one epistle. i shall bring my action;--if you don't discharge, expect to hear from my attorney. i have forwarded your letter to ruggiero; but don't make a postman of me again, for fear i should be tempted to violate your sanctity of wax or wafer. "believe me ever yours _indignantly_, "bn." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "july . . "can't you be satisfied with the pangs of my jealousy of rogers, without actually making me the pander of your epistolary intrigue? this is the second letter you have enclosed to my address, notwithstanding a miraculous long answer, and a subsequent short one or two of your own. if you do so again, i can't tell to what pitch my fury may soar. i shall send you verse or arsenic, as likely as any thing,--four thousand couplets on sheets beyond the privilege of franking; that privilege, sir, of which you take an undue advantage over a too susceptible senator, by forwarding your lucubrations to every one but himself. i won't frank _from_ you, or _for_ you, or _to_ you--may i be curst if i do, unless you mend your manners. i disown you--i disclaim you--and by all the powers of eulogy, i will write a panegyric upon you--or dedicate a quarto--if you don't make me ample amends. "p.s.--i am in training to dine with sheridan and rogers this evening. i have a little spite against r., and will shed his 'clary wines pottle-deep.' this is nearly my ultimate or penultimate letter; for i am quite equipped, and only wait a passage. perhaps i may wait a few weeks for sligo, but not if i can help it." * * * * * he had, with the intention of going to greece, applied to mr. croker, the secretary of the admiralty, to procure him a passage on board a king's ship to the mediterranean; and, at the request of this gentleman, captain carlton, of the boyne, who was just then ordered to reinforce sir edward pellew, consented to receive lord byron into his cabin for the voyage. to the letter announcing this offer, the following is the reply. letter . to mr. croker. "bt. str., august . . "dear sir, "i was honoured with your unexpected[ ] and very obliging letter, when on the point of leaving london, which prevented me from acknowledging my obligation as quickly as i felt it sincerely. i am endeavouring all in my power to be ready before saturday--and even if i should not succeed, i can only blame my own tardiness, which will not the less enhance the benefit i have lost. i have only to add my hope of forgiveness for all my trespasses on your time and patience, and with my best wishes for your public and private welfare, i have the honour to be, most truly, your obliged and most obedient servant, "byron." [footnote : he calls the letter of mr. croker "unexpected," because, in their previous correspondence and interviews on the subject, that gentleman had not been able to hold out so early a prospect of a passage, nor one which was likely to be so agreeable in point of society.] * * * * * so early as the autumn of this year, a fifth edition of the giaour was required; and again his fancy teemed with fresh materials for its pages. the verses commencing "the browsing camels' bells are tinkling," and the four pages that follow the line, "yes, love indeed is light from heaven," were all added at this time. nor had the overflowings of his mind even yet ceased, as i find in the poem, as it exists at present, still further additions,--and, among them, those four brilliant lines,-- "she was a form of life and light, that, seen, became a part of sight, and rose, where'er i turn'd mine eye, the morning-star of memory!" the following notes and letters to mr. murray, during these outpourings, will show how irresistible was the impulse under which he vented his thoughts. "if you send more proofs, i shall never finish this infernal story--'ecce signum'--thirty-three more lines enclosed! to the utter discomfiture of the printer, and, i fear, not to your advantage. "b." * * * * * "half-past two in the morning, aug. . . "dear sir, "pray suspend the _proofs_, for i am _bitten_ again, and have _quantities_ for other parts of the bravura. "yours ever, b. "p.s.--you shall have them in the course of the day." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "august . . "i have looked over and corrected one proof, but not so carefully (god knows if you can read it through, but i can't) as to preclude your eye from discovering some _o_mission of mine or _com_mission of your printer. if you have patience, look it over. do you know any body who can stop--i mean _point_--commas, and so forth? for i am, i hear, a sad hand at your punctuation. i have, but with some difficulty, _not_ added any more to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthening its rattles every month. it is now fearfully long, being more than a canto and a half of childe harold, which contains but lines per book, with all late additions inclusive. "the last lines hodgson likes. it is not often he does, and when he don't he tells me with great energy, and i fret and alter. i have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our infidel, and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for himself. "i was quite sorry to hear you say you stayed in town on my account, and i hope sincerely you did not mean so superfluous a piece of politeness. "our _six_ critiques!--they would have made half a quarterly by themselves; but this is the age of criticism." * * * * * the following refer apparently to a still later edition. letter . to mr. murray. "stilton, oct. . . "i have just recollected an alteration you may make in the proof to be sent to aston.--among the lines on hassan's serai, not far from the beginning, is this-- "unmeet for solitude to share. now to share implies more than _one_, and solitude is a single gentleman; it must be thus-- "for many a gilded chamber's there, which solitude might well forbear; and so on.--my address is aston hall, rotherham. "will you adopt this correction? and pray accept a stilton cheese from me for your trouble. ever yours, b. "if[ ] the old line stands let the other run thus-- "nor there will weary traveller halt, to bless the sacred bread and salt. "_note_.--to partake of food--to break bread and taste salt with your host, ensures the safety of the guest; even though an enemy, his person from that moment becomes sacred. "there is another additional note sent yesterday--on the priest in the confessional. "p.s.--i leave this to your discretion; if any body thinks the old line a good one or the cheese a bad one, don't accept either. but, in that case, the word _share_ is repeated soon after in the line-- "to share the master's bread and salt; and must be altered to-- "to break the master's bread and salt. this is not so well, though--confound it!" [footnote : this is written on a separate slip of paper enclosed.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "oct. . . "you must look the giaour again over carefully; there are a few lapses, particularly in the last page.--'i _know_ 'twas false; she could not die;' it was, and ought to be--'i _knew_.' pray observe this and similar mistakes. "i have received and read the british review. i really think the writer in most points very right. the only mortifying thing is the accusation of imitation. _crabbe_'s passage i never saw[ ]; and scott i no further meant to follow than in his _lyric_ measure, which is gray's, milton's, and any one's who likes it. the giaour is certainly a bad character, but not dangerous; and i think his fate and his feelings will meet with few proselytes. i shall be very glad to hear from or of you, when you please; but don't put yourself out of your way on my account." [footnote : the passage referred to by the reviewers is in the poem entitled "resentment;" and the following is, i take for granted, the part which lord byron is accused by them of having imitated:-- "those are like wax--apply them to the fire, melting, they take th' impressions you desire; easy to mould, and fashion as you please, and again moulded with an equal ease: like smelted iron these the forms retain; but, once impress'd, will never melt again." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "bennet street, august . . "as our late--i might say, deceased--correspondence had too much of the town-life leaven in it, we will now, 'paulo majora,' prattle a little of literature in all its branches; and first of the first--criticism. the prince is at brighton, and jackson, the boxer, gone to margate, having, i believe, decoyed yarmouth to see a milling in that polite neighbourhood. made. de staël holstein has lost one of her young barons, who has been carbonadoed by a vile teutonic adjutant,--kilt and killed in a coffee-house at scrawsenhawsen. corinne is, of course, what all mothers must be,--but will, i venture to prophesy, do what few mothers could--write an essay upon it. she cannot exist without a grievance--and somebody to see, or read, how much grief becomes her. i have not seen her since the event; but merely judge (not very charitably) from prior observation. "in a 'mail-coach copy' of the edinburgh, i perceive the giaour is second article. the numbers are still in the leith smack--_pray, which way is the wind?_ the said article is so very mild and sentimental, that it must be written by jeffrey _in love_;--you know he is gone to america to marry some fair one, of whom he has been, for several _quarters, éperdument amoureux_. seriously--as winifred jenkins says of lismahago--mr. jeffrey (or his deputy) 'has done the handsome thing by me,' and i say _nothing_. but this i will say, if you and i had knocked one another on the head in this quarrel, how he would have laughed, and what a mighty bad figure we should have cut in our posthumous works. by the by, i was called _in_ the other day to mediate between two gentlemen bent upon carnage, and,--after a long struggle between the natural desire of destroying one's fellow-creatures, and the dislike of seeing men play the fool for nothing,--i got one to make an apology, and the other to take it, and left them to live happy ever after. one was a peer, the other a friend untitled, and both fond of high play;--and one, i can swear for, though very mild, 'not fearful,' and so dead a shot, that, though the other is the thinnest of men, he would have split him like a cane. they both conducted themselves very well, and i put them out of _pain_ as soon as i could. "there is an american life of g.f. cooke, _scurra_ deceased, lately published. such a book!--i believe, since drunken barnaby's journal, nothing like it has drenched the press. all green-room and tap-room--drams and the drama--brandy, whisky-punch, and, _latterly_, toddy, overflow every page. two things are rather marvellous,--first, that a man should live so long drunk, and, next, that he should have found a sober biographer. there are some very laughable things in it, nevertheless;--but the pints he swallowed, and the parts he performed, are too regularly registered. "all this time you wonder i am not gone; so do i; but the accounts of the plague are very perplexing--not so much for the thing itself as the quarantine established in all ports, and from all places, even from england. it is true, the forty or sixty days would, in all probability, be as foolishly spent on shore as in the ship; but one like's to have one's choice, nevertheless. town is awfully empty; but not the worse for that. i am really puzzled with my perfect ignorance of what i mean to do;--not stay, if i can help it, but where to go?[ ] sligo is for the north;--a pleasant place, petersburgh, in september, with one's ears and nose in a muff, or else tumbling into one's neckcloth or pocket-handkerchief! if the winter treated buonaparte with so little ceremony, what would it inflict upon your solitary traveller?--give me a _sun_, i care not how hot, and sherbet, i care not how cool, and my heaven is as easily made as your persian's.[ ] the giaour is now a thousand and odd lines. 'lord fanny spins a thousand such a day,' eh, moore?--thou wilt needs be a wag, but i forgive it. yours ever, "bn. "p.s. i perceive i have written a flippant and rather cold-hearted letter! let it go, however. i have said nothing, either, of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, i am at this moment in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape than any of the last twelve months,--and that is saying a good deal. it is unlucky we can neither live with nor without these women. "i am now thinking of regretting that, just as i have left newstead, you reside near it. did you ever see it? _do_--but don't tell me that you like it. if i had known of such intellectual neighbourhood, i don't think i should have quitted it. you could have come over so often, as a bachelor,--for it was a thorough bachelor's mansion--plenty of wine and such sordid sensualities--with books enough, room enough, and an air of antiquity about all (except the lasses) that would have suited you, when pensive, and served you to laugh at when in glee. i had built myself a bath and a _vault_--and now i sha'n't even be buried in it. it is odd that we can't even be certain of a _grave_, at least a particular one. i remember, when about fifteen, reading your poems there, which i can repeat almost now,--and asking all kinds of questions about the author, when i heard that he was not dead according to the preface; wondering if i should ever see him--and though, at that time, without the smallest poetical propensity myself, very much taken, as you may imagine, with that volume. adieu--i commit you to the care of the gods--hindoo, scandinavian, and hellenic! "p.s. d. there is an excellent review of grimm's correspondence and made. de staël in this no. of the e.r. jeffrey, himself, was my critic last year; but this is, i believe, by another hand. i hope you are going on with your _grand coup_--pray do--or that damned lucien buonaparte will beat us all. i have seen much of his poem in ms., and he really surpasses every thing beneath tasso. hodgson is translating him _against_ another bard. you and (i believe, rogers,) scott, gifford, and myself, are to be referred to as judges between the twain,--that is, if you accept the office. conceive our different opinions! i think we, most of us (i am talking very impudently, you will think--_us_, indeed!) have a way of our own,--at least, you and scott certainly have." [footnote : one of his travelling projects appears to have been a visit to abyssinia:--at least, i have found, among his papers, a letter founded on that supposition, in which the writer entreats of him to procure information concerning "a kingdom of jews mentioned by bruce as residing on the mountain of samen in that country. i have had the honour," he adds, "of some correspondence with the rev. dr. buchanan and the reverend and learned g.s. faber, on the subject of the existence of this kingdom of jews, which, if it prove to be a fact, will more clearly elucidate many of the scripture prophecies; ... and, if providence favours your lordship's mission to abyssinia, an intercourse might be established between england and that country, and the english ships, according to the rev. mr. faber, might be the principal means of transporting the kingdom of jews, now in abyssinia, to egypt, in the way to their own country, palestine."] [footnote : "a persian's heav'n is easily made-- 'tis but black eyes and lemonade." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "august . . "ay, my dear moore, 'there _was_ a time'--i have heard of your tricks, when 'you was campaigning at the king of bohemy.' i am much mistaken if, some fine london spring, about the year , that time does not come again. after all, we must end in marriage; and i can conceive nothing more delightful than such a state in the country, reading the county newspaper, &c., and kissing one's wife's maid. seriously, i would incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour to-morrow--that is, i would a month ago, but, at present, * * * "why don't you 'parody that ode?'[ ]--do you think i should be _tetchy?_ or have you done it, and won't tell me?--you are quite right about giamschid, and i have reduced it to a dissyllable within this half hour.[ ] i am glad to hear you talk of richardson, because it tells me what you won't--that you are going to beat lucien. at least tell me how far you have proceeded. do you think me less interested about your works, or less sincere than our friend ruggiero? i am not--and never was. in that thing of mine, the 'english bards,' at the time when i was angry with all the world, i never 'disparaged your parts,' although i did not know you personally;--and have always regretted that you don't give us an _entire_ work, and not sprinkle yourself in detached pieces--beautiful, i allow, and quite _alone_ in our language[ ], but still giving us a right to expect a _shah nameh_ (is that the name?) as well as gazels. stick to the east;--the oracle, staël, told me it was the only poetical policy. the north, south, and west, have all been exhausted; but from the east, we have nothing but s * *'s unsaleables,--and these he has contrived to spoil, by adopting only their most outrageous fictions. his personages don't interest us, and yours will. you will have no competitor; and, if you had, you ought to be glad of it. the little i have done in that way is merely a 'voice in the wilderness' for you; and if it has had any success, that also will prove that the public are orientalising, and pave the path for you. "i have been thinking of a story, grafted on the amours of a peri and a mortal--something like, only more _philanthropical_ than, cazotte's diable amoureux. it would require a good deal of poesy, and tenderness is not my forte. for that, and other reasons, i have given up the idea, and merely suggest it to you, because, in intervals of your greater work, i think it a subject you might make much of.[ ] if you want any more books, there is 'castellan's moeurs des ottomans,' the best compendium of the kind i ever met with, in six small tomes. i am really taking a liberty by talking in this style to my 'elders and my betters;'--pardon it, and don't _rochefoucault_ my motives." [footnote : the ode of horace, "natis in usum lætitiæ," &c.; some passages of which i told him might be parodied, in allusion to some of his late adventures: "quanta laboras in charybdi! digne puer meliore flammâ!" ] [footnote : in his first edition of the giaour he had used this word as a trisyllable,--"bright as the gem of giamschid,"--but on my remarking to him, upon the authority of richardson's persian dictionary, that this was incorrect, he altered it to "bright as the ruby of giamschid." on seeing this, however, i wrote to him, "that, as the comparison of his heroine's eye to a 'ruby' might unluckily call up the idea of its being blood-shot, he had better change the line to "bright as the jewel of giamschid;"--which he accordingly did in the following edition.] [footnote : having already endeavoured to obviate the charge of vanity, to which i am aware i expose myself by being thus accessory to the publication of eulogies, so warm and so little merited, on myself, i shall here only add, that it will abundantly console me under such a charge, if, in whatever degree the judgment of my noble friend may be called in question for these praises, he shall, in the same proportion, receive credit for the good-nature and warm-heartedness by which they were dictated.] [footnote : i had already, singularly enough, anticipated this suggestion, by making the daughter of a peri the heroine of one of my stories, and detailing the love adventures of her aërial parent in an episode. in acquainting lord byron with this circumstance, in my answer to the above letter, i added, "all i ask of your friendship is--not that you will abstain from peris on my account, for that is too much to ask of human (or, at least, author's) nature--but that, whenever you mean to pay your addresses to any of these aërial ladies, you will, at once, tell me so, frankly and instantly, and let me, at least, have my choice whether i shall be desperate enough to go on, with such a rival, or at once surrender the whole race into your hands, and take, for the future, to antediluvians with mr. montgomery."] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "august--september, i mean-- . . "i send you, begging your acceptance, castellan, and three vols. on turkish literature, not yet looked into. the _last_ i will thank you to read, extract what you want, and return in a week, as they are lent to me by that brightest of northern constellations, mackintosh,--amongst many other kind things into which india has warmed him, for i am sure your _home_ scotsman is of a less genial description. "your peri, my dear m., is sacred and inviolable; i have no idea of touching the hem of her petticoat. your affectation of a dislike to encounter me is so flattering, that i begin to think myself a very fine fellow. but you are laughing at me--'stap my vitals, tarn! thou art a very impudent person;' and, if you are not laughing at me, you deserve to be laughed at. seriously, what on earth can you, or have you, to dread from any poetical flesh breathing? it really puts me out of humour to hear you talk thus. "'the giaour' i have added to a good deal; but still in foolish fragments. it contains about lines, or rather more--now printing. you will allow me to send you a copy. you delight me much by telling me that i am in your good graces, and more particularly as to temper; for, unluckily, i have the reputation of a very bad one. but they say the devil is amusing when pleased, and i must have been more venomous than the old serpent, to have hissed or stung in your company. it may be, and would appear to a third person, an incredible thing, but i know you will believe me when i say, that i am as anxious for your success as one human being can be for another's,--as much as if i had never scribbled a line. surely the field of fame is wide enough for all; and if it were not, i would not willingly rob my neighbour of a rood of it. now you have a pretty property of some thousand acres there, and when you have passed your present inclosure bill, your income will be doubled, (there's a metaphor, worthy of a templar, namely, pert and low,) while my wild common is too remote to incommode you, and quite incapable of such fertility. i send you (which return per post, as the printer would say) a curious letter from a friend of mine[ ], which will let you into the origin of 'the giaour.' write soon. ever, dear moore, yours most entirely, &c. "p.s.--this letter was written to me on account of a _different story_ circulated by some gentlewomen of our acquaintance, a little too close to the text. the part erased contained merely some turkish names, and circumstantial evidence of the girl's detection, not very important or decorous." [footnote : the letter of lord sligo, already given.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "sept. . . "you need not tie yourself down to a day with toderini, but send him at your leisure, having anatomised him into such annotations as you want; i do not believe that he has ever undergone that process before, which is the best reason for not sparing him now. "* * has returned to town, but not yet recovered of the quarterly. what fellows these reviewers are! 'these bugs do fear us all.' they made you fight, and me (the milkiest of men) a satirist, and will end by making * * madder than ajax. i have been reading memory again, the other day, and hope together, and retain all my preference of the former. his elegance is really wonderful--there is no such thing as a vulgar line in his book. "what say you to buonaparte? remember, i back him against the field, barring catalepsy and the elements. nay, i almost wish him success against all countries but this,--were it only to choke the morning post, and his undutiful father-in-law, with that rebellious bastard of scandinavian adoption, bernadotte. rogers wants me to go with him on a crusade to the lakes, and to besiege you on our way. this last is a great temptation, but i fear it will not be in my power, unless you would go on with one of us somewhere--no matter where. it is too late for matlock, but we might hit upon some scheme, high life or low,--the last would be much the best for amusement. i am so sick of the other, that i quite sigh for a cider-cellar, or a cruise in a smuggler's sloop. "you cannot wish more than i do that the fates were a little more accommodating to our parallel lines, which prolong ad infinitum without coming a jot nearer. i almost wish i were married, too--which is saying much. all my friends, seniors and juniors, are in for it, and ask me to be godfather,--the only species of parentage which, i believe, will ever come to my share in a lawful way; and, in an unlawful one, by the blessing of lucina, we can never be certain,--though the parish may. i suppose i shall hear from you to-morrow. if not, this goes as it is; but i leave room for a p.s., in case any thing requires an answer. ever, &c. "no letter--_n'importe_. r. thinks the quarterly will be at _me_ this time: if so, it shall be a war of extermination--no _quarter_. from the youngest devil down to the oldest woman of that review, all shall perish by one fatal lampoon. the ties of nature shall be torn asunder, for i will not even spare my bookseller; nay, if one were to include readers also, all the better." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "september . . "i am sorry to see tod. again so soon, for fear your scrupulous conscience should have prevented you from fully availing yourself of his spoils. by this coach i send you a copy of that awful pamphlet 'the giaour,' which has never procured me half so high a compliment as your modest alarm. you will (if inclined in an evening) perceive that i have added much in quantity,--a circumstance which may truly diminish your modesty upon the subject. "you stand certainly in great need of a 'lift' with mackintosh. my dear moore, you strangely under-rate yourself. i should conceive it an affectation in any other; but i think i know you well enough to believe that you don't know your own value. however, 'tis a fault that generally mends; and, in your case, it really ought. i have heard him speak of you as highly as your wife could wish; and enough to give all your friends the jaundice. "yesterday i had a letter from _ali pacha!_ brought by dr. holland, who is just returned from albania. it is in latin, and begins 'excellentissime _nec non_ carissime,' and ends about a gun he wants made for him;--it is signed 'ali vizir.' what do you think he has been about? h. tells me that, last spring, he took a hostile town, where, forty-two years ago, his mother and sisters were treated as miss cunigunde was by the bulgarian cavalry. he takes the town, selects all the survivors of this exploit--children, grandchildren, &c. to the tune of six hundred, and has them shot before his face. recollect, he spared the rest of the city, and confined himself to the tarquin pedigree,--which is more than i would. so much for 'dearest friend.'" * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "sept. . . "i write to you from mr. murray's, and i may say, from murray, who, if you are not predisposed in favour of any other publisher, would be happy to treat with you, at a fitting time, for your work. i can safely recommend him as fair, liberal, and attentive, and certainly, in point of reputation, he stands among the first of 'the trade.' i am sure he would do you justice. i have written to you so much lately, that you will be glad to see so little now. "ever," &c. &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "september . . "thomas moore, "(thou wilt never be called '_true_ thomas,' like he of ercildoune,) why don't you write to me?--as you won't, i must. i was near you at aston the other day, and hope i soon shall be again. if so, you must and shall meet me, and go to matlock and elsewhere, and take what, in _flash_ dialect, is poetically termed 'a lark,' with rogers and me for accomplices. yesterday, at holland house, i was introduced to southey--the best looking bard i have seen for some time. to have that poet's head and shoulders, i would almost have written his sapphics. he is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that, and--_there_ is his eulogy. "* * read me part of a letter from you. by the foot of pharaoh, i believe there was abuse, for he stopped short, so he did, after a fine saying about our correspondence, and _looked_--i wish i could revenge myself by attacking you, or by telling you that i have _had_ to defend you--an agreeable way which one's friends have of recommending themselves by saying--'ay, ay, _i_ gave it mr. such-a-one for what he said about your being a plagiary, and a rake, and so on.' but do you know that you are one of the very few whom i never have the satisfaction of hearing abused, but the reverse;--and do you suppose i will forgive _that_? "i have been in the country, and ran away from the doncaster races. it is odd,--i was a visiter in the same house which came to my sire as a residence with lady carmarthen, (with whom he adulterated before his majority--by the by, remember, _she_ was not my mamma,)--and they thrust me into an old room, with a nauseous picture over the chimney, which i should suppose my papa regarded with due respect, and which, inheriting the family taste, i looked upon with great satisfaction. i stayed a week with the family, and behaved very well--though the lady of the house is young, and religious, and pretty, and the master is my particular friend. i felt no wish for any thing but a poodle dog, which they kindly gave me. now, for a man of my courses not even to have _coveted_, is a sign of great amendment. pray pardon all this nonsense, and don't 'snub me when i'm in spirits.' "ever, yours, bn. "here's an impromptu for you by a 'person of quality,' written last week, on being reproached for low spirits. "when from the heart where sorrow sits[ ], her dusky shadow mounts too high, and o'er the changing aspect flits, and clouds the brow, or fills the eye: heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink; my thoughts their dungeon know too well-- back to my breast the wanderers shrink, and bleed within their silent cell." [footnote : now printed in his works.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "october . . "you have not answered some six letters of mine. this, therefore, is my penultimate. i will write to you once more, but, after that--i swear by all the saints--i am silent and supercilious. i have met curran at holland house--he beats every body;--his imagination is beyond human, and his humour (it is difficult to define what is wit) perfect. then he has fifty faces, and twice as many voices, when he mimics--i never met his equal. now, were i a woman, and eke a virgin, that is the man i should make my scamander. he is quite fascinating. remember, i have met him but once; and you, who have known him long, may probably deduct from my panegyric. i almost fear to meet him again, lest the impression should be lowered. he talked a great deal about you--a theme never tiresome to me, nor any body else that i know. what a variety of expression he conjures into that naturally not very fine countenance of his! he absolutely changes it entirely. i have done--for i can't describe him, and you know him. on sunday i return to * *, where i shall not be far from you. perhaps i shall hear from you in the mean time. good night. "saturday morn--your letter has cancelled all my anxieties. i did _not suspect_ you in _earnest_. modest again! because i don't do a very shabby thing, it seems, i 'don't fear your competition.' if it were reduced to an alternative of preference, i _should_ dread you, as much as satan does michael. but is there not room enough in our respective regions? go on--it will soon be my turn to forgive. to-day i dine with mackintosh and mrs. _stale_--as john bull may be pleased to denominate corinne--whom i saw last night, at covent garden, yawning over the humour of falstaff. "the reputation of 'gloom,' if one's friends are not included in the _reputants_, is of great service; as it saves one from a legion of impertinents, in the shape of common-place acquaintance. but thou know'st i can be a right merry and conceited fellow, and rarely 'larmoyant.' murray shall reinstate your line forthwith.[ ] i believe the blunder in the motto was mine:--and yet i have, in general, a memory for _you_, and am sure it was rightly printed at first. "i do 'blush' very often, if i may believe ladies h. and m.;--but luckily, at present, no one sees me. adieu." [footnote : the motto to the giaour, which is taken from one of the irish melodies, had been quoted by him incorrectly in the first editions of the poem. he made afterwards a similar mistake in the lines from burns prefixed to the bride of abydos.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "november . . "since i last wrote to you, much has occurred, good, bad, and indifferent,--not to make me forget you, but to prevent me from reminding you of one who, nevertheless, has often thought of you, and to whom _your_ thoughts, in many a measure, have frequently been a consolation. we were once very near neighbours this autumn; and a good and bad neighbourhood it has proved to me. suffice it to say, that your french quotation was confoundedly to the purpose,--though very _unexpectedly_ pertinent, as you may imagine by what i _said_ before, and my silence since. however, 'richard's himself again,' and except all night and some part of the morning, i don't think very much about the matter. "all convulsions end with me in rhyme; and to solace my midnights, i have scribbled another turkish story[ ]--not a fragment--which you will receive soon after this. it does not trench upon your kingdom in the least, and if it did, you would soon reduce me to my proper boundaries. you will think, and justly, that i run some risk of losing the little i have gained in fame, by this further experiment on public patience; but i have really ceased to care on that head. i have written this, and published it, for the sake of the _employment_,--to wring my thoughts from reality, and take refuge in 'imaginings,' however 'horrible;' and, as to success! those who succeed will console me for a failure--excepting yourself and one or two more, whom luckily i love too well to wish one leaf of their laurels a tint yellower. this is the work of a week, and will be the reading of an hour to you, or even less,--and so, let it go * * * *. "p.s. ward and i _talk_ of going to holland. i want to see how a dutch canal looks after the bosphorus. pray respond." [footnote : the bride of abydos.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "december . . "your letter, like all the best, and even kindest things in this world, is both painful and pleasing. but, first, to what sits nearest. do you know i was actually about to dedicate to you,--not in a formal inscription, as to one's _elders_,--but through a short prefatory letter, in which i boasted myself your intimate, and held forth the prospect of _your_ poem; when, lo! the recollection of your strict injunctions of secrecy as to the said poem, more than _once_ repeated by word and letter, flashed upon me, and marred my intents. i could have no motive for repressing my own desire of alluding to you (and not a day passes that i do not think and talk of you), but an idea that you might, yourself, dislike it. you cannot doubt my sincere admiration, waving personal friendship for the present, which, by the by, is not less sincere and deep rooted. i have you by rote and by heart; of which 'ecce signum!' when i was at * *, on my first visit, i have a habit, in passing my time a good deal alone, of--i won't call it singing, for that i never attempt except to myself--but of uttering, to what i think tunes, your 'oh breathe not,' 'when the last glimpse,' and 'when he who adores thee,' with others of the same minstrel;--they are my matins and vespers. i assuredly did not intend them to be overheard, but, one morning, in comes, not la donna, but il marito, with a very grave face, saying, 'byron, i must request you won't sing any more, at least of _those_ songs.' i stared, and said, 'certainly, but why?'--'to tell you the truth,' quoth he, 'they make my wife _cry_, and so melancholy, that i wish her to hear no more of them.' "now, my dear m., the effect must have been from your words, and certainly not my music. i merely mention this foolish story to show you how much i am indebted to you for even your pastimes. a man may praise and praise, but no one recollects but that which pleases--at least, in composition. though i think no one equal to you in that department, or in satire,--and surely no one was ever so popular in both,--i certainly am of opinion that you have not yet done all _you_ can do, though more than enough for any one else. i want, and the world expects, a longer work from you; and i see in you what i never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence of your own powers, which i cannot account for, and which must be unaccountable, when a _cossac_ like me can appal a _cuirassier_. your story i did not, could not, know,--i thought only of a peri. i wish you had confided in me, not for your sake, but mine, and to prevent the world from losing a much better poem than my own, but which, i yet hope, this _clashing_ will not even now deprive them of.[ ] mine is the work of a week, written, _why_ i have partly told you, and partly i cannot tell you by letter--some day i will. "go on--i shall really be very unhappy if i at all interfere with you. the success of mine is yet problematical; though the public will probably purchase a certain quantity, on the presumption of their own propensity for 'the giaour' and such 'horrid mysteries.' the only advantage i have is being on the spot; and that merely amounts to saving me the trouble of turning over books which i had better read again. if _your chamber_ was furnished in the same way, you have no need to _go there_ to describe--i mean only as to _accuracy_--because i drew it from recollection. "this last thing of mine _may_ have the same fate, and i assure you i have great doubts about it. but, even if not, its little day will be over before you are ready and willing. come out--'screw your courage to the sticking-place.' except the post bag (and surely you cannot complain of a want of success there), you have not been _regularly_ out for some years. no man stands higher,--whatever you may think on a rainy day, in your provincial retreat. 'aucun homme, dans aucune langue, n'a été, peut-être, plus completèment le poëte du coeur et le poëte des femmes. les critiques lui reprochent de n'avoir représenté le monde ni tel qu'il est, ni tel qu'il doit être; _mais les femmes répondent qu'il l'a représenté tel qu'elles le désirent_.'--i should have thought sismondi had written this for you instead of metastasio. "write to me, and tell me of _yourself_. do you remember what rousseau said to some one--'have we quarrelled? you have talked to me often, and never once mentioned yourself.' "p.s.--the last sentence is an indirect apology for my own egotism,--but i believe in letters it is allowed. i wish it was _mutual_. i have met with an odd reflection in grimm; it shall not--at least the bad part--be applied to you or me, though _one_ of us has certainly an indifferent name--but this it is:--'many people have the reputation of being wicked, with whom we should be too happy to pass our lives.' i need not add it is a woman's saying--a mademoiselle de sommery's." [footnote : among the stories intended to be introduced into lalla rookh, which i had begun, but, from various causes, never finished, there was one which i had made some progress in, at the time of the appearance of "the bride," and which, on reading that poem, i found to contain such singular coincidences with it, not only in locality and costume, but in plot and characters, that i immediately gave up my story altogether, and began another on an entirely new subject, the fire-worshippers. to this circumstance, which i immediately communicated to him, lord byron alludes in this letter. in my hero (to whom i had even given the name of "zelim," and who was a descendant of ali, outlawed, with all his followers, by the reigning caliph) it was my intention to shadow out, as i did afterwards in another form, the national cause of ireland. to quote the words of my letter to lord byron on the subject:--"i chose this story because one writes best about what one feels most, and i thought the parallel with ireland would enable me to infuse some vigour into my hero's character. but to aim at vigour and strong feeling after _you_ is hopeless;--that region 'was made for cæsar.'"] * * * * * at this time lord byron commenced a journal, or diary, from the pages of which i have already selected a few extracts, and of which i shall now lay as much more as is producible before the reader. employed chiefly,--as such a record, from its nature, must be,--about persons still living, and occurrences still recent, it would be impossible, of course, to submit it to the public eye, without the omission of some portion of its contents, and unluckily, too, of that very portion which, from its reference to the secret pursuits and feelings of the writer, would the most livelily pique and gratify the curiosity of the reader. enough, however, will, i trust, still remain, even after all this necessary winnowing, to enlarge still further the view we have here opened into the interior of the poet's life and habits, and to indulge harmlessly that taste, as general as it is natural, which leads us to contemplate with pleasure a great mind in its undress, and to rejoice in the discovery, so consoling to human pride, that even the mightiest, in their moments of ease and weakness, resemble ourselves.[ ] [footnote : "c'est surtout aux hommes qui sont hors de toute comparaison par le génie qu'on aime à ressembler au moins par les foiblesses."--ginguene.] "journal, begun november . . "if this had been begun ten years ago, and faithfully kept!!!--heigho! there are too many things i wish never to have remembered, as it is. well,--have had my share of what are called the pleasures of this life, and have seen more of the european and asiatic world than i have made a good use of. they say 'virtue is its own reward,'--it certainly should be paid well for its trouble. at five-and-twenty, when the better part of life is over, one should be _something_;--and what am i? nothing but five-and-twenty--and the odd months. what have i seen? the same man all over the world,--ay, and woman too. give _me_ a mussulman who never asks questions, and a she of the same race who saves one the trouble of putting them. but for this same plague--yellow fever--and newstead delay, i should have been by this time a second time close to the euxine. if i can overcome the last, i don't so much mind your pestilence; and, at any rate, the spring shall see me there,--provided i neither marry myself, nor unmarry any one else in the interval. i wish one was--i don't know what i wish. it is odd i never set myself seriously to wishing without attaining it--and repenting. i begin to believe with the good old magi, that one should only pray for the nation, and not for the individual;--but, on my principle, this would not be very patriotic. "no more reflections--let me see--last night i finished 'zuleika,' my second turkish tale. i believe the composition of it kept me alive--for it was written to drive my thoughts from the recollection of-- 'dear sacred name, rest ever unreveal'd.' at least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it. this afternoon i have burnt the scenes of my commenced comedy. i have some idea of expectorating a romance, or rather a tale in prose;--but what romance could equal the events-- 'quæque ipse ...vidi, et quorum pars magna fui.' "to-day henry byron called on me with my little cousin eliza. she will grow up a beauty and a plague; but, in the mean time, it is the prettiest child! dark eyes and eyelashes, black and long as the wing of a raven. i think she is prettier even than my niece, georgina,--yet i don't like to think so neither; and though older, she is not so clever. "dallas called before i was up, so we did not meet. lewis, too,--who seems out of humour with every thing. what can be the matter? he is not married--has he lost his own mistress, or any other person's wife? hodgson, too, came. he is going to be married, and he is the kind of man who will be the happier. he has talent, cheerfulness, every thing that can make him a pleasing companion; and his intended is handsome and young, and all that. but i never see any one much improved by matrimony. all my coupled contemporaries are bald and discontented. w. and s. have both lost their hair and good humour; and the last of the two had a good deal to lose. but it don't much signify what falls _off_ a man's temples in that state. "mem. i must get a toy to-morrow, for eliza, and send the device for the seals of myself and * * * * * mem. too, to call on the staël and lady holland to-morrow, and on * *, who has advised me (without seeing it, by the by) not to publish 'zuleika;' i believe he is right, but experience might have taught him that not to print is _physically_ impossible. no one has seen it but hodgson and mr. gifford. i never in my life _read_ a composition, save to hodgson, as he pays me in kind. it is a horrible thing to do too frequently;--better print, and they who like may read, and if they don't like, you have the satisfaction of knowing that they have, at least, _purchased_ the right of saying so. "i have declined presenting the debtors' petition, being sick of parliamentary mummeries. i have spoken thrice; but i doubt my ever becoming an orator. my first was liked; the second and third--i don't know whether they succeeded or not. i have never yet set to it _con amore_;--one must have some excuse to one's self for laziness, or inability, or both, and this is mine. 'company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me;'--and then, i have 'drunk medicines,' not to make me love others, but certainly enough to hate myself. "two nights ago i saw the tigers sup at exeter 'change. except veli pacha's lion in the morea,--who followed the arab keeper like a dog,--the fondness of the hyæna for her keeper amused me most. such a conversazione!--there was a 'hippopotamus,' like lord l----l in the face; and the 'ursine sloth' hath the very voice and manner of my valet--but the tiger talked too much. the elephant took and gave me my money again--took off my hat--opened a door--_trunked_ a whip--and behaved so well, that i wish he was my butler. the handsomest animal on earth is one of the panthers; but the poor antelopes were dead. i should hate to see one _here_:--the sight of the _camel_ made me pine again for asia minor. 'oh quando te aspiciam?' "november . "went last night with lewis to see the first of antony and cleopatra. it was admirably got up, and well acted--a salad of shakspeare and dryden, cleopatra strikes me as the epitome of her sex--fond, lively, sad, tender, teasing, humble, haughty, beautiful, the devil!--coquettish to the last, as well with the 'asp' as with antony. after doing all she can to persuade him that--but why do they abuse him for cutting off that poltroon cicero's head? did not tully tell brutus it was a pity to have spared antony? and did he not speak the philippics? and are not '_words things_?' and such '_words_' very pestilent '_things_' too? if he had had a hundred heads, they deserved (from antony) a rostrum (his was stuck up there) apiece--though, after all, he might as well have pardoned him, for the credit of the thing. but to resume--cleopatra, after securing him, says, 'yet go--it is your interest,' &c.--how like the sex! and the questions about octavia--it is woman all over. "to-day received lord jersey's invitation to middleton--to travel sixty miles to meet madame * *! i once travelled three thousand to get among silent people; and this same lady writes octavos, and _talks_ folios. i have read her books--like most of them, and delight in the last; so i won't hear it, as well as read. "read burns to-day. what would he have been, if a patrician? we should have had more polish--less force--just as much verse, but no immortality--a divorce and a duel or two, the which had he survived, as his potations must have been less spirituous, he might have lived as long as sheridan, and outlived as much as poor brinsley. what a wreck is that man! and all from bad pilotage; for no one had ever better gales, though now and then a little too squally. poor dear sherry! i shall never forget the day he and rogers and moore and i passed together; when _he_ talked, and _we_ listened, without one yawn, from six till one in the morning. "got my seals * * * * * * have again forgot a plaything for _ma petite cousine_ eliza; but i must send for it to-morrow. i hope harry will bring her to me. i sent lord holland the proofs of the last 'giaour,' and 'the bride of abydos.' he won't like the latter, and i don't think that i shall long. it was written in four nights to distract my dreams from * *. were it not thus, it had never been composed; and had i not done something at that time, i must have gone mad, by eating my own heart,--bitter diet!--hodgson likes it better than 'the giaour,' but nobody else will,--and he never liked the fragment. i am sure, had it not been for murray, _that_ would never have been published, though the circumstances which are the groundwork make it * * * heigh-ho! "to-night i saw both the sisters of * *; my god! the youngest so like! i thought i should have sprung across the house, and am so glad no one was with me in lady h.'s box. i hate those likenesses--the mock-bird, but not the nightingale--so like as to remind, so different as to be painful.[ ] one quarrels equally with the points of resemblance and of distinction. [footnote : "earth holds no other like to thee, or, if it doth, in vain for me: for worlds i dare not view the dame resembling thee, yet not the same." the giaour. ] "nov. . "no letter from * *; but i must not complain. the respectable job says, 'why should a _living man_ complain?' i really don't know, except it be that a _dead man_ can't; and he, the said patriarch, _did_ complain, nevertheless, till his friends were tired and his wife recommended that pious prologue, 'curse--and die;' the only time, i suppose, when but little relief is to be found in swearing. i have had a most kind letter from lord holland on 'the bride of abydos,' which he likes, and so does lady h. this is very good-natured in both, from whom i don't deserve any quarter. yet i _did_ think, at the time, that my cause of enmity proceeded from holland house, and am glad i was wrong, and wish i had not been in such a hurry with that confounded satire, of which i would suppress even the memory;--but people, now they can't get it, make a fuss, i verily believe, out of contradiction. "george ellis and murray have been talking something about scott and me, george pro scoto,--and very right too. if they want to depose him, i only wish they would not set me up as a competitor. even if i had my choice, i would rather be the earl of warwick than all the _kings_ he ever made! jeffrey and gifford i take to be the monarch-makers in poetry and prose. the british critic, in their rokeby review, have presupposed a comparison, which i am sure my friends never thought of, and w. scott's subjects are injudicious in descending to. i like the man--and admire his works to what mr. braham calls _entusymusy_. all such stuff can only vex him, and do me no good. many hate his politics--(i hate all politics); and, here, a man's politics are like the greek _soul_--an [greek: eidôlon], besides god knows what _other soul_; but their estimate of the two generally go together. "harry has not brought _ma petite cousine_. i want us to go to the play together;--she has been but once. another short note from jersey, inviting rogers and me on the d. i must see my agent to-night. i wonder when that newstead business will be finished. it cost me more than words to part with it--and to _have_ parted with it! what matters it what i do? or what becomes of me?--but let me remember job's saying, and console myself with being 'a living man.' "i wish i could settle to reading again,--my life is monotonous, and yet desultory. i take up books, and fling them down again. i began a comedy, and burnt it because the scene ran into _reality_;--a novel, for the same reason. in rhyme, i can keep more away from facts; but the thought always runs through, through ... yes, yes, through. i have had a letter from lady melbourne--the best friend i ever had in my life, and the cleverest of women. "not a word from * *. have they set out from * *? or has my last precious epistle fallen into the lion's jaws? if so--and this silence looks suspicious, i must clap on my 'musty morion' and 'hold out my iron.' i am out of practice--but i won't begin again at manton's now. besides, i would not return his shot. i was once a famous wafer-splitter; but then the bullies of society made it necessary. ever since i began to feel that i had a bad cause to support, i have left off the exercise. "what strange tidings from that anakim of anarchy--buonaparte! ever since i defended my bust of him at harrow against the rascally time-servers, when the war broke out in , he has been a 'héros de roman' of mine--on the continent; i don't want him here. but i don't like those same flights--leaving of armies, &c. &c. i am sure when i fought for his bust at school, i did not think he would run away from himself. but i should not wonder if he banged them yet. to be beat by men would be something; but by three stupid, legitimate-old-dynasty boobies of regular-bred sovereigns--o-hone-a-rie!--o-hone-a-rie! it must be, as cobbett says, his marriage with the thick-lipped and thick-headed _autrichienne_ brood. he had better have kept to her who was kept by barras. i never knew any good come of your young wife, and legal espousals, to any but your 'sober-blooded boy' who 'eats fish' and drinketh 'no sack.' had he not the whole opera? all paris? all france? but a mistress is just as perplexing--that is, _one_--two or more are manageable by division. "i have begun, or had begun, a song, and flung it into the fire. it was in remembrance of mary duff, my first of flames, before most people begin to burn. i wonder what the devil is the matter with me! i can do nothing, and--fortunately there is nothing to do. it has lately been in my power to make two persons (and their connections) comfortable, _pro tempore_, and one happy, _ex tempore_,--i rejoice in the last particularly, as it is an excellent man[ ]. i wish there had been more inconvenience and less gratification to my self-love in it, for then there had been more merit. we are all selfish--and i believe, ye gods of epicurus! i believe in rochefoucault about _men_, and in lucretius (not busby's translation) about yourselves. your bard has made you very _nonchalant_ and blest; but as he has excused _us_ from damnation, i don't envy you your blessedness _much_--a little, to be sure. i remember, last year, * * said to me, at * *, 'have we not passed our last month like the gods of lucretius?' and so we had. she is an adept in the text of the original (which i like too); and when that booby bus. sent his translating prospectus, she subscribed. but, the devil prompting him to add a specimen, she transmitted him a subsequent answer, saying, that 'after perusing it, her conscience would not permit her to allow her name to remain on the list of subscribblers.' last night, at lord h.'s--mackintosh, the ossulstones, puységur, &c. there--i was trying to recollect a quotation (as _i_ think) of staël's, from some teutonic sophist about architecture. 'architecture,' says this macoronico tedescho, 'reminds me of frozen music.' it is somewhere--but where?--the demon of perplexity must know and won't tell. i asked m., and he said it was not in her: but p----r said it must be _hers_, it was so _like_. h. laughed, as he does at all 'de l'allemagne,'--in which, however, i think he goes a little too far. b., i hear, condemns it too. but there are fine passages;--and, after all, what is a work--any--or every work--but a desert with fountains, and, perhaps, a grove or two, every day's journey? to be sure, in madame, what we often mistake, and 'pant for,' as the 'cooling stream,' turns out to be the '_mirage_' (criticè _verbiage_); but we do, at last, get to something like the temple of jove ammon, and then the waste we have passed is only remembered to gladden the contrast. "called on c * *, to explain * * *. she is very beautiful, to my taste, at least; for on coming home from abroad, i recollect being unable to look at any woman but her--they were so fair, and unmeaning, and _blonde_. the darkness and regularity of her features reminded me of my 'jannat al aden.' but this impression wore off; and now i can look at a fair woman, without longing for a houri. she was very good-tempered, and every thing was explained. "to-day, great news--'the dutch have taken holland,'--which, i suppose, will be succeeded by the actual explosion of the thames. five provinces have declared for young stadt, and there will be inundation, conflagration, constupration, consternation, and every sort of nation and nations, fighting away, up to their knees, in the damnable quags of this will-o'-the-wisp abode of boors. it is said bernadotte is amongst them, too; and, as orange will be there soon, they will have (crown) prince stork and king log in their loggery at the same time. two to one on the new dynasty! "mr. murray has offered me one thousand guineas for 'the giaour' and 'the bride of abydos.' i won't--it is too much, though i am strongly tempted, merely for the _say_ of it. no bad price for a fortnight's (a week each) what?--the gods know--it was intended to be called poetry. "i have dined regularly to-day, for the first time since sunday last--this being sabbath, too. all the rest, tea and dry biscuits--six _per diem_, i wish to god i had not dined now!--it kills me with heaviness, stupor, and horrible dreams;--and yet it was but a pint of bucellas, and fish.[ ] meat i never touch,--nor much vegetable diet. i wish i were in the country, to take exercise,--instead of being obliged to cool by abstinence, in lieu of it. i should not so much mind a little accession of flesh,--my bones can well bear it. but the worst is, the devil always came with it,--till i starved him out,--and i will _not_ be the slave of _any_ appetite. if i do err, it shall be my heart, at least, that heralds the way. oh, my head--how it aches?--the horrors of digestion! i wonder how buonaparte's dinner agrees with him? "mem. i must write to-morrow to 'master shallow, who owes me a thousand pounds,' and seems, in his letter, afraid i should ask him for it[ ];--as if i would!--i don't want it (just now, at least,) to begin with; and though i have often wanted that sum, i never asked for the repayment of _l._ in my life--from a friend. his bond is not due this year, and i told him when it was, i should not enforce it. how often must he make me say the same thing? "i am wrong--i did once ask * * * [ ] to repay me. but it was under circumstances that excused me _to him_, and would to any one. i took no interest, nor required security. he paid me soon,--at least, his _padre_. my head! i believe it was given me to ache with. good even. [footnote : evidently, mr. hodgson.] [footnote : he had this year so far departed from his strict plan of diet as to eat fish occasionally.] [footnote : we have here another instance, in addition to the munificent aid afforded to mr. hodgson, of the generous readiness of the poet, notwithstanding his own limited means, to make the resources he possessed available for the assistance of his friends.] [footnote : left blank thus in the original.] "nov. . . "'orange boven!' so the bees have expelled the bear that broke open their hive. well,--if we are to have new de witts and de ruyters, god speed the little republic! i should like to see the hague and the village of brock, where they have such primitive habits. yet, i don't know,--their canals would cut a poor figure by the memory of the bosphorus; and the zuyder zee look awkwardly after 'ak-denizi.' no matter,--the bluff burghers, puffing freedom out of their short tobacco-pipes, might be worth seeing; though i prefer a cigar or a hooka, with the rose-leaf mixed with the milder herb of the levant. i don't know what liberty means,--never having seen it,--but wealth is power all over the world; and as a shilling performs the duty of a pound (besides sun and sky and beauty for nothing) in the east,--_that_ is the country. how i envy herodes atticus!--more than pomponius. and yet a little _tumult_, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an _aventure_ of any lively description. i think i rather would have been bonneval, ripperda, alberoni, hayreddin, or horuc barbarossa, or even wortley montague, than mahomet himself. "rogers will be in town soon?--the d is fixed for our middleton visit. shall i go? umph!--in this island, where one can't ride out without overtaking the sea, it don't much matter where one goes. "i remember the effect of the _first_ edinburgh review on me. i heard of it six weeks before,--read it the day of its denunciation,--dined and drank three bottles of claret, (with s.b. davies, i think,) neither ate nor slept the less, but, nevertheless, was not easy till i had vented my wrath and my rhyme, in the same pages, against every thing and every body. like george, in the vicar of wakefield, 'the fate of my paradoxes' would allow me to perceive no merit in another. i remembered only the maxim of my boxing-master, which, in my youth, was found useful in all general riots,--'whoever is not for you is against you--_mill_ away right and left,' and so i did;--like ishmael, my hand was against all men, and all men's anent me. i did wonder, to be sure, at my own success-- "'and marvels so much wit is all his own,' as hobhouse sarcastically says of somebody (not unlikely myself, as we are old friends);--but were it to come over again, i would _not_. i have since redde[ ] the cause of my couplets, and it is not adequate to the effect. c * * told me that it was believed i alluded to poor lord carlisle's nervous disorder in one of the lines. i thank heaven i did not know it--and would not, could not, if i had. i must naturally be the last person to be pointed on defects or maladies. "rogers is silent,--and, it is said, severe. when he does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. if you enter his house--his drawing-room--his library--you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. there is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor. but this very delicacy must be the misery of his existence. oh the jarrings his disposition must have encountered through life! "southey, i have not seen much of. his appearance is _epic_; and he is the only existing entire man of letters. all the others have some pursuit annexed to their authorship. his manners are mild, but not those of a man of the world, and his talents of the first order. his prose is perfect. of his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps, too much of it for the present generation;--posterity will probably select. he has passages equal to any thing. at present, he has a party, but no public--except for his prose writings. the life of nelson is beautiful. "* * is a _littérateur_, the oracle of the coteries, of the * * s, l * w * (sydney smith's 'tory virgin'), mrs. wilmot, (she, at least, is a swan, and might frequent a purer stream,) lady b * *, and all the blues, with lady c * * at their head--but i say nothing of _her_--'look in her face and you forget them all,' and every thing else. oh that face!--by 'te, diva potens cypri,' i would, to be beloved by that woman, build and burn another troy. "m * * e has a peculiarity of talent, or rather talents,--poetry, music, voice, all his own; and an expression in each, which never was, nor will be, possessed by another. but he is capable of still higher flights in poetry. by the by, what humour, what--every thing, in the 'post-bag!' there is nothing m * * e may not do, if he will but seriously set about it. in society, he is gentlemanly, gentle, and, altogether, more pleasing than any individual with whom i am acquainted. for his honour, principle, and independence, his conduct to * * * * speaks 'trumpet-tongued.' he has but one fault--and that one i daily regret--he is not _here_. [footnote : it was thus that he, in general, spelled this word.] "nov. . "ward--i like ward.[ ] by mahomet! i begin to think i like every body;--a disposition not to be encouraged;--a sort of social gluttony that swallows every thing set before it. but i like ward. he is _piquant_; and, in my opinion, will stand _very_ high in the house, and every where else, if he applies regularly. by the by, i dine with him to-morrow, which may have some influence on my opinion. it is as well not to trust one's gratitude _after_ dinner. i have heard many a host libelled by his guests, with his burgundy yet reeking on their rascally lips. "i have taken lord salisbury's box at covent garden for the season; and now i must go and prepare to join lady holland and party, in theirs, at drury lane, _questa sera_. "holland doesn't think the man _is junius_; but that the yet unpublished journal throws great light on the obscurities of that part of george the second's reign--what is this to george the third's? i don't know what to think. why should junius be yet dead? if suddenly apoplexed, would he rest in his grave without sending his [greek: eidôlon] to shout in the ears of posterity, 'junius was x.y.z., esq., buried in the parish of * * *. repair his monument, ye churchwardens! print a new edition of his letters, ye booksellers!' impossible,--the man must be alive, and will never die without the disclosure. i like him;--he was a good hater. "came home unwell and went to bed,--not so sleepy as might be desirable. [footnote : the present lord dudley.] "tuesday morning. "i awoke from a dream!--well! and have not others dreamed?--such a dream!--but she did not overtake me. i wish the dead would rest, however. ugh! how my blood chilled--and i could not wake --and--and--heigho! "'shadows to-night have struck more terror to the soul of richard, than could the substance of ten thousand * * s, arm'd all in proof, and led by shallow * *.' i do not like this dream,--i hate its 'foregone conclusion.' and am i to be shaken by shadows? ay, when they remind us of--no matter--but, if i dream thus again, i will try whether _all_ sleep has the like visions. since i rose, i've been in considerable bodily pain also; but it is gone, and now, like lord ogleby, i am wound up for the day. "a note from mountnorris--i dine with ward;--canning is to be there, frere and sharpe,--perhaps gifford. i am to be one of 'the five' (or rather six), as lady * * said a little sneeringly yesterday. they are all good to meet, particularly canning, and--ward, when he likes. i wish i may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals. "no letters to-day;--so much the better,--there are no answers. i must not dream again;--it spoils even reality. i will go out of doors, and see what the fog will do for me. jackson has been here: the boxing world much as usual;--but the club increases. i shall dine at crib's to-morrow. i like energy--even animal energy--of all kinds; and i have need of both mental and corporeal. i have not dined out, nor, indeed, _at all_, lately; have heard no music--have seen nobody. now for a _plunge_--high life and low life. 'amant _alterna_ camoenæ!' "i have burnt my _roman_--as i did the first scenes and sketch of my comedy--and, for aught i see, the pleasure of burning is quite as great as that of printing. these two last would not have done. i ran into realities more than ever; and some would have been recognised and others guessed at. "redde the ruminator--a collection of essays, by a strange, but able, old man (sir e.b.), and a half-wild young one, author of a poem on the highlands, called 'childe alarique.' the word 'sensibility' (always my aversion) occurs a thousand times in these essays; and, it seems, is to be an excuse for all kinds of discontent. this young man can know nothing of life; and, if he cherishes the disposition which runs through his papers, will become useless, and, perhaps, not even a poet, after all, which he seems determined to be. god help him! no one should be a rhymer who could be any thing better. and this is what annoys one, to see scott and moore, and campbell and rogers, who might have all been agents and leaders, now mere spectators. for, though they may have other ostensible avocations, these last are reduced to a secondary consideration. * *, too, frittering away his time among dowagers and unmarried girls. if it advanced any _serious_ affair, it were some excuse; but, with the unmarried, that is a hazardous speculation, and tiresome enough, too; and, with the veterans, it is not much worth trying, unless, perhaps, one in a thousand. "if i had any views in this country, they would probably be parliamentary. but i have no ambition; at least, if any, it would be 'aut cæsar aut nihil.' my hopes are limited to the arrangement of my affairs, and settling either in italy or the east (rather the last), and drinking deep of the languages and literature of both. past events have unnerved me; and all i can now do is to make life an amusement, and look on while others play. after all, even the highest game of crowns and sceptres, what is it? _vide_ napoleon's last twelve-month. it has completely upset my system of fatalism. i thought, if crushed, he would have fallen, when 'fractus illabitur orbis,' and not have been pared away to gradual insignificance; that all this was not a mere _jeu_ of the gods, but a prelude to greater changes and mightier events. but men never advance beyond a certain point; and here we are, retrograding to the dull, stupid old system,--balance of europe--poising straws upon kings' noses, instead of wringing them off! give me a republic, or a despotism of one, rather than the mixed government of one, two, three. a republic!--look in the history of the earth--rome, greece, venice, france, holland, america, our short (eheu!) commonwealth, and compare it with what they did under masters. the asiatics are not qualified to be republicans, but they have the liberty of demolishing despots, which is the next thing to it. to be the first man--not the dictator--not the sylla, but the washington or the aristides--the leader in talent and truth--is next to the divinity! franklin, penn, and, next to these, either brutus or cassius--even mirabeau--or st. just. i shall never be any thing, or rather always be nothing. the most i can hope is, that some will say, 'he might, perhaps, if he would.' " , midnight. "here are two confounded proofs from the printer. i have looked at the one, but for the soul of me, i can't look over that 'giaour' again,--at least, just now, and at this hour--and yet there is no moon. "ward talks of going to holland, and we have partly discussed an ensemble expedition. it must be in ten days, if at all, if we wish to be in at the revolution. and why not? * * is distant, and will be at * *, still more distant, till spring. no one else, except augusta, cares for me; no ties--no trammels--_andiamo dunque--se torniamo, bene--se non, ch' importa_? old william of orange talked of dying in 'the last ditch' of his dingy country. it is lucky i can swim, or i suppose i should not well weather the first. but let us see. i have heard hyænas and jackalls in the ruins of asia; and bull-frogs in the marshes; besides wolves and angry mussulmans. now, i should like to listen to the shout of a free dutchman. "alla! viva! for ever! hourra! huzza!--which is the most rational or musical of these cries? 'orange boven,' according to the morning post. "wednesday, . "no dreams last night of the dead nor the living, so--i am 'firm as the marble, founded as the rock,' till the next earthquake. "ward's dinner went off well. there was not a disagreeable person there--unless _i_ offended any body, which i am sure i could not by contradiction, for i said little, and opposed nothing. sharpe (a man of elegant mind, and who has lived much with the best--fox, horne tooke, windham, fitzpatrick, and all the agitators of other times and tongues,) told us the particulars of his last interview with windham, a few days before the fatal operation which sent 'that gallant spirit to aspire the skies.' windham,--the first in one department of oratory and talent, whose only fault was his refinement beyond the intellect of half his hearers,--windham, half his life an active participator in the events of the earth, and one of those who governed nations,--_he_ regretted, and dwelt much on that regret, that 'he had not entirely devoted himself to literature and science!!!' his mind certainly would have carried him to eminence there, as elsewhere;--but i cannot comprehend what debility of that mind could suggest such a wish. i, who have heard him, cannot regret any thing but that i shall never hear him again. what! would he have been a plodder? a metaphysician?--perhaps a rhymer? a scribbler? such an exchange must have been suggested by illness. but he is gone, and time 'shall not look upon his like again.' "i am tremendously in arrear with my letters,--except to * *, and to her my thoughts overpower me:--my words never compass them. to lady melbourne i write with most pleasure--and her answers, so sensible, so _tactique_--i never met with half her talent. if she had been a few years younger, what a fool she would have made of me, had she thought it worth her while,--and i should have lost a valuable and most agreeable friend. mem. a mistress never is nor can be a friend. while you agree, you are lovers; and, when it is over, any thing but friends. "i have not answered w. scott's last letter,--but i will. i regret to hear from others that he has lately been unfortunate in pecuniary involvements. he is undoubtedly the monarch of parnassus, and the most _english_ of bards. i should place rogers next in the living list (i value him more as the last of the best school)--moore and campbell both _third_--southey and wordsworth and coleridge--the rest, [greek: hoi polloi]--thus:-- w. scott /\ / \ / \ / \ / rogers.\ /----------\ / \ / \ / \ / moore.--campbell.\ /--------------------\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / southey.--wordsworth.--coleridge.\ /------------------------------------\ / \ / the many. \ / \ /--------------------------------------------\ there is a triangular 'gradus ad parnassum!'--the names are too numerous for the base of the triangle. poor thurlow has gone wild about the poetry of queen bess's reign--_c'est dommage_. i have ranked the names upon my triangle more upon what i believe popular opinion, than any decided opinion of my own. for, to me, some of m * * e's last _erin_ sparks--'as a beam o'er the face of the waters'--'when he who adores thee'--'oh blame not'--and 'oh breathe not his name'--are worth all the epics that ever were composed. "* * thinks the quarterly will attack me next. let them. i have been 'peppered so highly' in my time, both ways, that it must be cayenne or aloes to make me taste. i can sincerely say that i am not very much alive _now_ to criticism. but--in tracing this--i rather believe, that it proceeds from my not attaching that importance to authorship which many do, and which, when young, i did also. 'one gets tired of every thing, my angel,' says valmont. the 'angels' are the only things of which i am not a little sick--but i do think the preference of _writers_ to _agents_--the mighty stir made about scribbling and scribes, by themselves and others--a sign of effeminacy, degeneracy, and weakness. who would write, who had any thing better to do? 'action--action--action'--said demosthenes: 'actions--actions,' i say, and not writing,--least of all, rhyme. look at the querulous and monotonous lives of the 'genus;'--except cervantes, tasso, dante, ariosto, kleist (who were brave and active citizens), aeschylus, sophocles, and some other of the antiques also--what a worthless, idle brood it is! " , mezza notte. "just returned from dinner with jackson (the emperor of pugilism) and another of the select, at crib's the champion's. i drank more than i like, and have brought away some three bottles of very fair claret--for i have no headach. we had tom * * up after dinner;--very facetious, though somewhat prolix. he don't like his situation--wants to fight again--pray pollux (or castor, if he was the _miller_) he may! tom has been a sailor--a coal heaver--and some other genteel profession, before he took to the cestus. tom has been in action at sea, and is now only three-and-thirty. a great man! has a wife and a mistress, and conversations well--bating some sad omissions and misapplications of the aspirate. tom is an old friend of mine; i have seen some of his best battles in my nonage. he is now a publican, and, i fear, a sinner;--for mrs. * * is on alimony, and * *'s daughter lives with the champion. _this_ * * told me,--tom, having an opinion of my morals, passed her off as a legal spouse. talking of her, he said, 'she was the truest of women'--from which i immediately inferred she could not be his wife, and so it turned out. "these panegyrics don't belong to matrimony;--for, if 'true,' a man don't think it necessary to say so; and if not, the less he says the better. * * * * is the only man, except * * * *, i ever heard harangue upon his wife's virtue; and i listened to both with great credence and patience, and stuffed my handkerchief into my mouth, when i found yawning irresistible.--by the by, i am yawning now--so, good night to thee.--[greek: nôhairôn]. "thursday, november . "awoke a little feverish, but no headach--no dreams neither, thanks to stupor! two letters; one from * * * *'s, the other from lady melbourne--both excellent in their respective styles. * * * *'s contained also a very pretty lyric on 'concealed griefs;' if not her own, yet very like her. why did she not say that the stanzas were, or were not, of her composition? i do not know whether to wish them hers or not. i have no great esteem for poetical persons, particularly women; they have so much of the 'ideal' in _practics_, as well as _ethics_. "i have been thinking lately a good deal of mary duff, &c. &c. &c. &c.[ ] "lord holland invited me to dinner to-day; but three days' dining would destroy me. so, without eating at all since yesterday, i went to my box at covent garden. "saw * * * * looking very pretty, though quite a different style of beauty from the other two. she has the finest eyes in the world, out of which she pretends _not_ to see, and the longest eyelashes i ever saw, since leila's and phannio's moslem curtains of the light. she has much beauty,--just enough,--but is, i think, _méchante_. "i have been pondering on the miseries of separation, that--oh how seldom we see those we love! yet we live ages in moments, _when met_. the only thing that consoles me during absence is the reflection that no mental or personal estrangement, from ennui or disagreement, can take place; and when people meet hereafter, even though many changes may have taken place in the mean time, still, unless they are _tired_ of each other, they are ready to reunite, and do not blame each other for the circumstances that severed them. [footnote : this passage has been already extracted.] "saturday . (i believe--or rather am in _doubt_, which is the ne plus ultra of mortal faith.) "i have missed a day; and, as the irishman said, or joe miller says for him, 'have gained a loss,' or _by_ the loss. every thing is settled for holland, and nothing but a cough, or a caprice of my fellow-traveller's, can stop us. carriage ordered, funds prepared, and, probably, a gale of wind into the bargain. _n'importe_--i believe, with clym o' the clow, or robin hood, 'by our mary, (dear name!) that art both mother and may, i think it never was a man's lot to die before this day.' heigh for helvoetsluys, and so forth! "to-night i went with young henry fox to see 'nourjahad,' a drama, which the morning post hath laid to my charge, but of which i cannot even guess the author. i wonder what they will next inflict upon me. they cannot well sink below a melodrama; but that is better than a satire, (at least, a personal one,) with which i stand truly arraigned, and in atonement of which i am resolved to bear silently all criticisms, abuses, and even praises, for bad pantomimes never composed by me, without even a contradictory aspect. i suppose the root of this report is my loan to the manager of my turkish drawings for his dresses, to which he was more welcome than to my name. i suppose the real author will soon own it, as it has succeeded; if not, job be my model, and lethe my beverage! "* * * * has received the portrait safe; and, in answer, the only remark she makes upon it is, 'indeed it is like'--and again, 'indeed it is like.' with her the likeness 'covered a multitude of sins;' for i happen to know that this portrait was not a flatterer, but dark and stern,--even black as the mood in which my mind was scorching last july, when i sat for it. all the others of me, like most portraits whatsoever, are, of course, more agreeable than nature. "redde the ed. review of rogers. he is ranked highly; but where he should be. there is a summary view of us all--_moore_ and _me_ among the rest; and both (the _first_ justly) praised--though, by implication (justly again) placed beneath our memorable friend. mackintosh is the writer, and also of the critique on the staël. his grand essay on burke, i hear, is for the next number. but i know nothing of the edinburgh, or of any other review, but from rumour; and i have long ceased--indeed, i could not, in justice, complain of any, even though i were to rate poetry, in general, and my rhymes in particular, more highly than i really do. to withdraw _myself_ from _myself_ (oh that cursed selfishness!) has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all; and publishing is also the continuance of the same object, by the action it affords to the mind, which else recoils upon itself. if i valued fame, i should flatter received opinions, which have gathered strength by time, and will yet wear longer than any living works to the contrary. but, for the soul of me, i cannot and will not give the lie to my own thoughts and doubts, come what may. if i am a fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and i envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom. "all are inclined to believe what they covet, from a lottery-ticket up to a passport to paradise,--in which, from the description, i see nothing very tempting. my restlessness tells me i have something within that 'passeth show.' it is for him, who made it, to prolong that spark of celestial fire which illuminates, yet burns, this frail tenement; but i see no such horror in a 'dreamless sleep,' and i have no conception of any existence which duration would not render tiresome. how else 'fell the angels,' even according to your creed? they were immortal, heavenly, and happy as their _apostate_ _abdiel_ is now by his treachery. time must decide; and eternity won't be the less agreeable or more horrible because one did not expect it. in the mean time, i am grateful for some good, and tolerably patient under certain evils--grace à dieu et mon bon tempérament. "sunday, th. ---- "monday, th. ---- "tuesday, th. "two days missed in my log-book;--hiatus _haud_ deflendus. they were as little worth recollection as the rest; and, luckily, laziness or society prevented me from _notching_ them. "sunday, i dined with the lord holland in st. james's square. large party--among them sir s. romilly and lady ry.--general sir somebody bentham, a man of science and talent, i am told--horner--_the_ horner, an edinburgh reviewer, an excellent speaker in the 'honourable house,' very pleasing, too, and gentlemanly in company, as far as i have seen--sharpe--phillips of lancashire--lord john russell, and others, 'good men and true.' holland's society is very good; you always see some one or other in it worth knowing. stuffed myself with sturgeon, and exceeded in champagne and wine in general, but not to confusion of head. when i _do_ dine, i gorge like an arab or a boa snake, on fish and vegetables, but no meat. i am always better, however, on my tea and biscuit than any other regimen, and even _that_ sparingly. "why does lady h. always have that damned screen between the whole room and the fire? i, who bear cold no better than an antelope, and never yet found a sun quite _done_ to my taste, was absolutely petrified, and could not even shiver. all the rest, too, looked as if they were just unpacked, like salmon from an ice-basket, and set down to table for that day only. when she retired, i watched their looks as i dismissed the screen, and every cheek thawed, and every nose reddened with the anticipated glow. "saturday, i went with harry fox to nourjahad; and, i believe, convinced him, by incessant yawning, that it was not mine. i wish the precious author would own it, and release me from his fame. the dresses are pretty, but not in costume;--mrs. horn's, all but the turban, and the want of a small dagger (if she is a sultana), _perfect_. i never saw a turkish woman with a turban in my life--nor did any one else. the sultanas have a small poniard at the waist. the dialogue is drowsy--the action heavy--the scenery fine--the actors tolerable. i can't say much for their seraglio--teresa, phannio, or * * * *, were worth them all. "sunday, a very handsome note from mackintosh, who is a rare instance of the union of very transcendent talent and great good nature. to-day (tuesday) a very pretty billet from m. la baronne de staël holstein. she is pleased to be much pleased with my mention of her and her last work in my notes. i spoke as i thought. her works are my delight, and so is she herself, for--half an hour. i don't like her politics--at least, her _having changed_ them; had she been _qualis ab incepto_, it were nothing. but she is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually;--she ought to have been a man. she _flatters_ me very prettily in her note;--but i _know_ it. the reason that adulation is not displeasing is, that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie, to make us their friend:--that is their concern. "* * is, i hear, thriving on the repute of a pun which was mine (at mackintosh's dinner some time back), on ward, who was asking 'how much it would take to _re-whig_ him?' i answered that, probably, 'he must first, before he was _re-whigged_, be re-_warded_.' this foolish quibble, before the staël and mackintosh, and a number of conversationers, has been mouthed about, and at last settled on the head of * *, where long may it remain! "george[ ] is returned from afloat to get a new ship. he looks thin, but better than i expected. i like george much more than most people like their heirs. he is a fine fellow, and every inch a sailor. i would do any thing, _but apostatise_, to get him on in his profession. "lewis called. it is a good and good-humoured man, but pestilently prolix and paradoxical and _personal_. if he would but talk half, and reduce his visits to an hour, he would add to his popularity. as an author he is very good, and his vanity is _ouverte_, like erskine's, and yet not offending. "yesterday, a very pretty letter from annabella[ ], which i answered. what an odd situation and friendship is ours!--without one spark of love on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general lead to coldness on one side, and aversion on the other. she is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress--girl of twenty--a peeress that is to be, in her own right--an only child, and a _savante_, who has always had her own way. she is a poetess--a mathematician--a metaphysician, and yet, withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension. any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions, and a tenth of her advantages. [footnote : his cousin, the present lord byron.] [footnote : miss milbanke, afterwards lady byron.] "wednesday, december . . "to-day responded to la baronne de staël holstein, and sent to leigh hunt (an acquisition to my acquaintance--through moore--of last summer) a copy of the two turkish tales. hunt is an extraordinary character, and not exactly of the present age. he reminds me more of the pym and hampden times--much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, aspect. if he goes on _qualis ab incepto_, i know few men who will deserve more praise or obtain it. i must go and see him again;--the rapid succession of adventure, since last summer, added to some serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our acquaintance; but he is a man worth knowing; and though, for his own sake, i wish him out of prison, i like to study character in such situations. he has been unshaken, and will continue so. i don't think him deeply versed in life;--he is the bigot of virtue (not religion), and enamoured of the beauty of that 'empty name,' as the last breath of brutus pronounced, and every day proves it. he is, perhaps, a little opiniated, as all men who are the _centre_ of _circles_, wide or narrow--the sir oracles, in whose name two or three are gathered together--must be, and as even johnson was; but, withal, a valuable man, and less vain than success and even the consciousness of preferring 'the right to the expedient' might excuse. "to-morrow there is a party of _purple_ at the 'blue' miss * * *'s. shall i go? um!--i don't much affect your blue-bottles;--but one ought to be civil. there will be, 'i guess now' (as the americans say), the staëls and mackintoshes--good--the * * * s and * * * s--not so good--the * * * s, &c. &c.--good for nothing. perhaps that blue-winged kashmirian butterfly of book-learning, lady * * * *, will be there. i hope so; it is a pleasure to look upon that most beautiful of faces. "wrote to h.:--he has been telling that i ----[ ]. i am sure, at least, _i_ did not mention it, and i wish he had not. he is a good fellow, and i obliged myself ten times more by being of use than i did him,--and there's an end on 't. "baldwin is boring me to present their king's bench petition. i presented cartwright's last year; and stanhope and i stood against the whole house, and mouthed it valiantly--and had some fun and a little abuse for our opposition. but 'i am not i' th' vein' for this business. now, had * * been here, she would have _made_ me do it. _there_ is a woman, who, amid all her fascination, always urged a man to usefulness or glory. had she remained, she had been my tutelar genius. "baldwin is very importunate--but, poor fellow, 'i can't get out, i can't get out--said the starling.' ah, i am as bad as that dog sterne, who preferred whining over 'a dead ass to relieving a living mother'--villain--hypocrite--slave--sycophant! but _i_ am no better. here i cannot stimulate myself to a speech for the sake of these unfortunates, and three words and half a smile of * * had she been here to urge it, (and urge it she infallibly would--at least she always pressed me on senatorial duties, and particularly in the cause of weakness,) would have made me an advocate, if not an orator. curse on rochefoucault for being always right! in him a lie were virtue,--or, at least, a comfort to his readers. "george byron has not called to-day; i hope he will be an admiral, and, perhaps, lord byron into the bargain. if he would but marry, i would engage never to marry myself, or cut him out of the heirship. he would be happier, and i should like nephews better than sons. "i shall soon be six-and-twenty (january d, ). is there any thing in the future that can possibly console us for not being always _twenty-five_? "oh gioventu! oh primavera! gioventu dell' anno. oh gioventu! primavera della vita. [footnote : two or three words are here scratched out in the manuscript, but the import of the sentence evidently is that mr. hodgson (to whom the passage refers) had been revealing to some friends the secret of lord byron's kindness to him.] "sunday, december . "dallas's nephew (son to the american attorney-general) is arrived in this country, and tells dallas that my rhymes are very popular in the united states. these are the first tidings that have ever sounded like _fame_ to my ears--to be redde on the banks of the ohio! the greatest pleasure i ever derived, of this kind, was from an extract, in cooke the actor's life, from his journal, stating that in the reading-room at albany, near washington, he perused english bards and scotch reviewers. to be popular in a rising and far country has a kind of _posthumous feel_, very different from the ephemeral _éclat_ and fête-ing, buzzing and party-ing compliments of the well-dressed multitude. i can safely say that, during my _reign_ in the spring of , i regretted nothing but its duration of six weeks instead of a fortnight, and was heartily glad to resign. "last night i supped with lewis;--and, as usual, though i neither exceeded in solids nor fluids, have been half dead ever since. my stomach is entirely destroyed by long abstinence, and the rest will probably follow. let it--i only wish the _pain_ over. the 'leap in the dark' is the least to be dreaded. "the duke of * * called. i have told them forty times that, except to half-a-dozen old and specified acquaintances, i am invisible. his grace is a good, noble, ducal person; but i am content to think so at a distance, and so--i was not at home. "galt called.--mem.--to ask some one to speak to raymond in favour of his play. we are old fellow-travellers, and, with all his eccentricities, he has much strong sense, experience of the world, and is, as far as i have seen, a good-natured philosophical fellow. i showed him sligo's letter on the reports of the turkish girl's _aventure_ at athens soon after it happened. he and lord holland, lewis, and moore, and rogers, and lady melbourne have seen it. murray has a copy. i thought it had been _unknown_, and wish it were; but sligo arrived only some days after, and the _rumours_ are the subject of his letter. that i shall preserve,--_it is as well_. lewis and galt were both _horrified_; and l. wondered i did not introduce the situation into 'the giaour.' he _may_ wonder;--he might wonder more at that production's being written at all. but to describe the _feelings of that situation_ were impossible--it is _icy_ even to recollect them. "the bride of abydos was published on thursday the second of december; but how it is liked or disliked, i know not. whether it succeeds or not is no fault of the public, against whom i can have no complaint. but i am much more indebted to the tale than i can ever be to the most partial reader; as it wrung my thoughts from reality to imagination--from selfish regrets to vivid recollections--and recalled me to a country replete with the _brightest_ and _darkest_, but always most _lively_ colours of my memory. sharpe called, but was not let in--which i regret. "saw * * yesterday. i have not kept my appointment at middleton, which has not pleased him, perhaps; and my projected voyage with * * will, perhaps, please him less. but i wish to keep well with both. they are instruments that don't do, in concert; but, surely, their separate tones are very musical, and i won't give up either. "it is well if i don't jar between these great discords. at present i stand tolerably well with all, but i cannot adopt their _dislikes_;--so many _sets_. holland's is the first;--every thing _distingué_ is welcome there, and certainly the _ton_ of his society is the best. then there is mde. de staël's--there i never go, though i might, had i courted it. it is composed of the * *'s and the * * family, with a strange sprinkling,--orators, dandies, and all kinds of _blue_, from the regular grub street uniform, down to the azure jacket of the _littérateur_. to see * * and * * sitting together, at dinner, always reminds me of the grave, where all distinctions of friend and foe are levelled; and they--the reviewer and reviewée--the rhinoceros and elephant--the mammoth and megalonyx--all will lie quietly together. they now _sit_ together, as silent, but not so quiet, as if they were already immured. "i did not go to the berrys' the other night. the elder is a woman of much talent, and both are handsome, and must have been beautiful. to-night asked to lord h.'s--shall i go? um!--perhaps. "morning, two o'clock. "went to lord h.'s--party numerous--_mi_lady in perfect good humour, and consequently _perfect_. no one more agreeable, or perhaps so much so, when she will. asked for wednesday to dine and meet the staël--asked particularly, i believe, out of mischief, to see the first interview after the _note_, with which corinne professes herself to be so much taken. i don't much like it; she always talks of _my_self or _her_self, and i am not (except in soliloquy, as now,) much enamoured of either subject--especially one's works. what the devil shall i say about 'de l'allemagne?' i like it prodigiously; but unless i can twist my admiration into some fantastical expression, she won't believe me; and i know, by experience, i shall be overwhelmed with fine things about rhyme, &c. &c. the lover, mr. * *, was there to-night, and c * * said 'it was the only proof _he_ had seen of her good taste.' monsieur l'amant is remarkably handsome; but _i_ don't think more so than her book. "c * * looks well,--seems pleased, and dressed to _sprucery_. a blue coat becomes him,--so does his new wig. he really looked as if apollo had sent him a birthday suit, or a wedding-garment, and was witty and lively. he abused corinne's book, which i regret; because, firstly, he understands german, and is consequently a fair judge; and, secondly, he is _first-rate_, and, consequently, the best of judges. i reverence and admire him; but i won't give up my opinion--why should i? i read _her_ again and again, and there can be no affectation in this. i cannot be mistaken (except in taste) in a book i read and lay down, and take up again; and no book can be totally bad which finds _one_, even _one_ reader, who can say as much sincerely. "c. talks of lecturing next spring; his last lectures were eminently successful. moore thought of it, but gave it up,--i don't know why. * * had been prating _dignity_ to him, and such stuff; as if a man disgraced himself by instructing and pleasing at the same time. "introduced to marquis buckingham--saw lord gower--he is going to holland; sir j. and lady mackintosh and homer, g. lamb, with i know not how many (r. wellesley, one--a clever man) grouped about the room. little henry fox, a very fine boy, and very promising in mind and manner,--he went away to bed, before i had time to talk to him. i am sure i had rather hear him than all the _savans_. "monday, dec. . "murray tells me that c----r asked him why the thing was called the _bride_ of abydos? it is a cursed awkward question, being unanswerable. _she_ is not a _bride_, only about to be one; but for, &c. &c. &c. "i don't wonder at his finding out the _bull_; but the detection * * * is too late to do any good. i was a great fool to make it, and am ashamed of not being an irishman. "c----l last night seemed a little nettled at something or other--i know not what. we were standing in the ante-saloon, when lord h. brought out of the other room a vessel of some composition similar to that which is used in catholic churches, and, seeing us, he exclaimed, 'here is some _incense_ for you.' c----l answered--'carry it to lord byron, _he is used to it_.' "now, this comes of 'bearing no brother near the throne.' i, who have no throne, nor wish to have one _now_, whatever i may have done, am at perfect peace with all the poetical fraternity: or, at least, if i dislike any, it is not _poetically_, but _personally_. surely the field of thought is infinite; what does it signify who is before or behind in a race where there is no _goal_? the temple of fame is like that of the persians, the universe; our altar, the tops of mountains. i should be equally content with mount caucasus, or mount anything; and those who like it, may have mount blanc or chimborazo, without my envy of their elevation. "i think i may _now_ speak thus; for i have just published a poem, and am quite ignorant whether it is _likely_ to be _liked_ or not. i have hitherto heard little in its commendation, and no one can _downright_ abuse it to one's face, except in print. it can't be good, or i should not have stumbled over the threshold, and blundered in my very title. but i began it with my heart full of * * *, and my head of oriental_ities_ (i can't call them _isms_), and wrote on rapidly. "this journal is a relief. when i am tired--as i generally am--out comes this, and down goes every thing. but i can't read it over; and god knows what contradictions it may contain. if i am sincere with myself (but i fear one lies more to one's self than to any one else), every page should confute, refute, and utterly abjure its _predecessor_. "another scribble from martin baldwin the petitioner; i have neither head nor nerves to present it. that confounded supper at lewis's has spoiled my digestion and my philanthropy. i have no more charity than a cruet of vinegar. would i were an ostrich, and dieted on fire-irons,--or any thing that my gizzard could get the better of. "to-day saw w. his uncle is dying, and w. don't much affect our dutch determinations. i dine with him on thursday, provided _l'oncle_ is not dined upon, or peremptorily bespoke by the posthumous epicures before that day. i wish he may recover--not for _our_ dinner's sake, but to disappoint the undertaker, and the rascally reptiles that may well wait, since they _will_ dine at last. "gell called--he of troy--after i was out. mem.--to return his visit. but my mems. are the very land-marks of forgetfulness;--something like a light-house, with a ship wrecked under the nose of its lantern. i never look at a mem. without seeing that i have remembered to forget. mem.--i have forgotten to pay pitt's taxes, and suppose i shall be surcharged. 'an i do not turn rebel when thou art king'--oons! i believe my very biscuit is leavened with that impostor's imposts. "ly. me. returns from jersey's to-morrow;--i must call. a mr. thomson has sent a song, which i must applaud. i hate annoying them with censure or silence;--and yet i hate _lettering_. "saw lord glenbervie and his prospectus, at murray's, of a new treatise on timber. now here is a man more useful than all the historians and rhymers ever planted. for, by preserving our woods and forests, he furnishes materials for all the history of britain worth reading, and all the odes worth nothing. "redde a good deal, but desultorily. my head is crammed with the most useless lumber. it is odd that when i do read, i can only bear the chicken broth of--_any thing_ but novels. it is many a year since i looked into one, (though they are sometimes ordered, by way of experiment, but never taken,) till i looked yesterday at the worst parts of the monk. these descriptions ought to have been written by tiberius at caprea--they are forced--the _philtred_ ideas of a jaded voluptuary. it is to me inconceivable how they could have been composed by a man of only twenty--his age when he wrote them. they have no nature--all the sour cream of cantharides. i should have suspected buffon of writing them on the death-bed of his detestable dotage. i had never redde this edition, and merely looked at them from curiosity and recollection of the noise they made, and the name they have left to lewis. but they could do no harm, except * * * *. "called this evening on my agent--my business as usual. our strange adventures are the only inheritances of our family that have not diminished. "i shall now smoke two cigars, and get me to bed. the cigars don't keep well here. they get as old as a _donna di quaranti anni_ in the sun of africa. the havannah are the best;--but neither are so pleasant as a hooka or chibouque. the turkish tobacco is mild, and their horses entire--two things as they should be. i am so far obliged to this journal, that it preserves me from verse,--at least from keeping it. i have just thrown a poem into the fire (which it has relighted to my great comfort), and have smoked out of my head the plan of another. i wish i could as easily get rid of thinking, or, at least, the confusion of thought. "tuesday, december . "went to bed, and slept dreamlessly, but not refreshingly. awoke, and up an hour before being called; but dawdled three hours in dressing. when one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation),--sleep, eating, and swilling--buttoning and unbuttoning--how much remains of downright existence? the summer of a dormouse. "redde the papers and _tea_-ed and soda-watered, and found out that the fire was badly lighted. ld. glenbervie wants me to go to brighton--um! "this morning, a very pretty billet from the staël about meeting her at ld. h.'s to-morrow. she has written, i dare say, twenty such this morning to different people, all equally flattering to each. so much the better for her and those who believe all she wishes them, or they wish to believe. she has been pleased to be pleased with my slight eulogy in the note annexed to 'the bride.' this is to be accounted for in several ways,--firstly, all women like all, or any, praise; secondly, this was unexpected, because i have never courted her; and, thirdly, as scrub says, those who have been all their lives regularly praised, by regular critics, like a little variety, and are glad when any one goes out of his way to say a civil thing; and, fourthly, she is a very good-natured creature, which is the best reason, after all, and, perhaps, the only one. "a knock--knocks single and double. bland called. he says dutch society (he has been in holland) is second-hand french; but the women are like women every where else. this is a bore; i should like to see them a little unlike; but that can't be expected. "went out--came home--this, that, and the other--and 'all is vanity, saith the preacher,' and so say i, as part of his congregation. talking of vanity, whose praise do i prefer? why, mrs. inchbald's, and that of the americans. the first, because her 'simple story' and 'nature and art' are, to me, _true_ to their _titles;_ and, consequently, her short note to rogers about 'the giaour' delighted me more than any thing, except the edinburgh review. i like the americans, because _i_ happened to be in _asia_, while the english bards and scotch reviewers were redde in _america_. if i could have had a speech against the _slave trade, in africa_, and an epitaph on a dog in _europe_ (i.e. in the morning post), my _vertex sublimis_ would certainly have displaced stars enough to overthrow the newtonian system. "friday, december . . "i am _ennuyè_ beyond my usual tense of that yawning verb, which i am always conjugating; and i don't find that society much mends the matter. i am too lazy to shoot myself--and it would annoy augusta, and perhaps * *; but it would be a good thing for george, on the other side, and no bad one for me; but i won't be tempted. "i have had the kindest letter from m * * e. i _do_ think that man is the best-hearted, the only _hearted_ being i ever encountered; and, then, his talents are equal to his feelings. "dined on wednesday at lord h.'s--the staffords, staëls, cowpers, ossulstones, melbournes, mackintoshes, &c. &c.--and was introduced to the marquis and marchioness of stafford,--an unexpected event. my quarrel with lord carlisle (their or his brother-in-law) having rendered it improper, i suppose, brought it about. but, if it was to happen at all, i wonder it did not occur before. she is handsome, and must have been beautiful--and her manners are _princessly_. "the staël was at the other end of the table, and less loquacious than heretofore. we are now very good friends; though she asked lady melbourne whether i had really any _bonhommie_. she might as well have asked that question before she told c.l. 'c'est un démon." true enough, but rather premature, for _she_ could not have found it out, and so--she wants me to dine there next sunday. "murray prospers, as far as circulation. for my part, i adhere (in liking) to my fragment. it is no wonder that i wrote one--my mind is a fragment. "saw lord gower, tierney, &c. in the square. took leave of lord gr. who is going to holland and germany. he tells me that he carries with him a parcel of 'harolds' and 'giaours,' &c. for the readers of berlin, who, it seems, read english, and have taken a caprice for mine. um!--have i been _german_ all this time, when i thought myself _oriental_? "lent tierney my box for to-morrow; and received a new comedy sent by lady c.a.--but _not hers_. i must read it, and endeavour not to displease the author. i hate annoying them with cavil; but a comedy i take to be the most difficult of compositions, more so than tragedy. "g----t says there is a coincidence between the first part of 'the bride' and some story of his--whether published or not, i know not, never having seen it. he is almost the last person on whom any one would commit literary larceny, and i am not conscious of any witting thefts on any of the genus. as to originality, all pretensions are ludicrous,--'there is nothing new under the sun.' "went last night to the play. invited out to a party, but did not go;--right. refused to go to lady * *'s on monday;--right again. if i must fritter away my life, i would rather do it alone. i was much tempted;--c * * looked so turkish with her red turban, and her regular, dark, and clear features. not that _she_ and _i_ ever were, or could be, any thing; but i love any aspect that reminds me of the 'children of the sun.' "to dine to-day with rogers and sharpe, for which i have some appetite, not having tasted food for the preceding forty-eight hours. i wish i could leave off eating altogether. "saturday, december . "sunday, december . "by g----t's answer, i find it is some story in _real life_, and not any work with which my late composition coincides. it is still more singular, for mine is drawn from _existence_ also. "i have sent an excuse to m. de staël. i do not feel sociable enough for dinner to-day;--and i will not go to sheridan's on wednesday. not that i do not admire and prefer his unequalled conversation; but--that '_but_' must only be intelligible to thoughts i cannot write. sheridan was in good talk at rogers's the other night, but i only stayed till _nine_. all the world are to be at the staël's to-night, and i am not sorry to escape any part of it. i only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone. went out--did not go to the staël's but to ld. holland's. party numerous--conversation general. stayed late--made a blunder--got over it--came home and went to bed, not having eaten. rather empty, but _fresco_, which is the great point with me. "monday, december . . "called at three places--read, and got ready to leave town to-morrow. murray has had a letter from his brother bibliopole of edinburgh, who says, 'he is lucky in having such a _poet_'--something as if one was a pack-horse, or 'ass, or any thing that is his:' or, like mrs. packwood, who replied to some enquiry after the odes on razors,--'laws, sir, we keeps a poet.' the same illustrious edinburgh bookseller once sent an order for books, poesy, and cookery, with this agreeable postscript--'the _harold_ and _cookery_ are much wanted.' such is fame, and, after all, quite as good as any other 'life in other's breath.' 'tis much the same to divide purchasers with hannah glasse or hannah more. "some editor of some magazine has _announced_ to murray his intention of abusing the thing '_without reading it_.' so much the better; if he redde it first, he would abuse it more. "allen (lord holland's allen--the best informed and one of the ablest men i know--a perfect magliabecchi--a devourer, a helluo of books, and an observer of men,) has lent me a quantity of burns's unpublished, and never-to-be published, letters. they are full of oaths and obscene songs. what an antithetical mind!--tenderness, roughness--delicacy, coarseness--sentiment, sensuality--soaring and grovelling, dirt and deity--all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay! "it seems strange; a true voluptuary will never abandon his mind to the grossness of reality. it is by exalting the earthly, the material, the _physique_ of our pleasures, by veiling these ideas, by forgetting them altogether, or, at least, never naming them hardly to one's self, that we alone can prevent them from disgusting. "december , , . "much done, but nothing to record. it is quite enough to set down my thoughts,--my actions will rarely bear retrospection. "december , . "lord holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in sheridan.[ ] the other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other _hommes marquans_, and mine was this:--'whatever sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, _par excellence_, always the _best_ of its kind. he has written the _best_ comedy (school for scandal), the _best_ drama, (in my mind, far before that st. giles's lampoon, the beggar's opera,) the best farce (the critic--it is only too good for a farce), and the best address (monologue on garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous begum speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.' somebody told s. this the next day, and on hearing it, he burst into tears! "poor brinsley! if they were tears of pleasure, i would rather have said these few, but most sincere, words than have written the iliad or made his own celebrated philippic. nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine, humble as it must appear to 'my elders and my betters.' "went to my box at covent garden to night; and my delicacy felt a little shocked at seeing s * * *'s mistress (who, to my certain knowledge, was actually educated, from her birth, for her profession) sitting with her mother, 'a three-piled b----d, b----d-major to the army,' in a private box opposite. i felt rather indignant; but, casting my eyes round the house, in the next box to me, and the next, and the next, were the most distinguished old and young babylonians of quality;--so i burst out a laughing. it was really odd; lady * * _divorced_--lady * * and her daughter, lady * *, both _divorceable_--mrs. * *[ ], in the next, the _like_, and still nearer * * * * * *! what an assemblage to _me_, who know all their histories. it was as if the house had been divided between your public and your _understood_ courtesans;--but the intriguantes much outnumbered the regular mercenaries. on the other side were only pauline and _her_ mother, and, next box to her, three of inferior note. now, where lay the difference between _her_ and _mamma_, and lady * * and daughter? except that the two last may enter carleton and any _other house_, and the two first are limited to the opera and b----house. how i do delight in observing life as it really is!--and myself, after all, the worst of any. but no matter--i must avoid egotism, which, just now, would be no vanity. "i have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called 'the devil's drive[ ],' the notion of which i took from porson's 'devil's walk.' "redde some italian, and wrote two sonnets on * * *. i never wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise--and i will never write another. they are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. i detest the petrarch so much[ ], that i would not be the man even to have obtained his laura, which the metaphysical, whining dotard never could. [footnote : this passage of the journal has already appeared in my life of sheridan.] [footnote : these names are all left blank in the original.] [footnote : of this strange, wild poem, which extends to about two hundred and fifty lines, the only copy that lord byron, i believe, ever wrote, he presented to lord holland. though with a good deal of vigour and imagination, it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed, wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of mr. coleridge[ ], which lord byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has attributed to professor person. there are, however, some of the stanzas of "the devil's drive" well worth preserving. . "the devil return'd to hell by two, and he stay'd at home till five; when he dined on some homicides done in _ragoût_, and a rebel or so in an _irish_ stew, and sausages made of a self-slain jew, and bethought himself what next to do, 'and,' quoth he, 'i'll take a drive. i walk'd in the morning, i'll ride to-night; in darkness my children take most delight, and i'll see how my favourites thrive.' . "'and what shall i ride in?' quoth lucifer, then-- 'if i follow'd my taste, indeed, i should mount in a wagon of wounded men, and smile to see them bleed. but these will be furnish'd again and again, and at present my purpose is speed; to see my manor as much as i may, and watch that no souls shall be poach'd away. . "'i have a state coach at carleton house, a chariot in seymour place; but they're lent to two friends, who make me amends by driving my favourite pace: and they handle their reins with such a grace, i have something for both at the end of the race. . "'so now for the earth to take my chance.' then up to the earth sprung he; and making a jump from moscow to france, he stepped across the sea, and rested his hoof on a turnpike road, no very great way from a bishop's abode. . "but first as he flew, i forgot to say, that he hover'd a moment upon his way to look upon leipsic plain; and so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare, and so soft to his ear was the cry of despair, that he perch'd on a mountain of slain; and he gazed with delight from its growing height; not often on earth had he seen such a sight, nor his work done half as well: for the field ran so red with the blood of the dead, that it blush'd like the waves of hell! then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he-- 'methinks they have here little need of me!' * * * . "but the softest note that sooth'd his ear was the sound of a widow sighing, and the sweetest sight was the icy tear, which horror froze in the blue eye clear of a maid by her lover lying-- as round her fell her long fair hair; and she look'd to heaven with that frenzied air which seem'd to ask if a god were there! and, stretch'd by the wall of a ruin'd hut, with its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut, a child of famine dying: and the carnage begun, when resistance is done, and the fall of the vainly flying! . "but the devil has reach'd our cliffs so white, and what did he there, i pray? if his eyes were good, he but saw by night what we see every day; but he made a tour, and kept a journal of all the wondrous sights nocturnal, and he sold it in shares to the _men_ of the _row_, who bid pretty well--but they _cheated_ him, though! . "the devil first saw, as he thought, the _mail_, its coachman and his coat; so instead of a pistol, he cock'd his tail, and seized him by the throat: 'aha,' quoth he, 'what have we here? 'tis a new barouche, and an ancient peer!' . "so he sat him on his box again, and bade him have no fear, but be true to his club, and stanch to his rein, his brothel, and his beer; 'next to seeing a lord at the council board. i would rather see him here.' . "the devil gat next to westminster, and he turn'd to 'the room' of the commons; but he heard, as he purposed to enter in there, that 'the lords' had received a summons; and he thought, as a '_quondam_ aristocrat,' he might peep at the peers, though to _hear_ them were flat: and he walk'd up the house, so like one of our own, that they say that he stood pretty near the throne. . "he saw the lord l----l seemingly wise, the lord w----d certainly silly, and johnny of norfolk--a man of some size-- and chatham, so like his friend billy; and he saw the tears in lord e----n's eyes, because the catholics would _not_ rise, in spite of his prayers and his prophecies; and he heard--which set satan himself a staring-- a certain chief justice say something like _swearing_. and the devil was shock'd--and quoth he, 'i must go, for i find we have much better manners below. if thus he harangues when he passes my border, i shall hint to friend moloch to call him to order.'" ] [footnote : or mr. southey,--for the right of authorship in them seems still undecided.] [footnote : he learned to think more reverently of "the petrarch" afterwards.] "january . . "to-morrow i leave town for a few days. i saw lewis to-day, who is just returned from oatlands, where he has been squabbling with mad. de staël about himself, clarissa harlowe, mackintosh, and me. my homage has never been paid in that quarter, or we would have agreed still worse. i don't talk--i can't flatter, and won't listen, except to a pretty or a foolish woman. she bored lewis with praises of himself till he sickened--found out that clarissa was perfection, and mackintosh the first man in england. there i agree, at least _one_ of the first--but lewis did not. as to clarissa, i leave to those who can read it to judge and dispute. i could not do the one, and am, consequently, not qualified for the other. she told lewis wisely, he being my friend, that i was affected, in the first place; and that, in the next place, i committed the heinous offence of sitting at dinner with my _eyes_ shut, or half shut. i wonder if i really have this trick. i must cure myself of it, if true. one insensibly acquires awkward habits, which should be broken in time. if this is one, i wish i had been told of it before. it would not so much signify if one was always to be checkmated by a plain woman, but one may as well see some of one's neighbours, as well as the plate upon the table. "i should like, of all things, to have heard the amabæan eclogue between her and lewis--both obstinate, clever, odd, garrulous, and shrill. in fact, one could have heard nothing else. but they fell out, alas!--and now they will never quarrel again. could not one reconcile them for the 'nonce?' poor corinne--she will find that some of her fine sayings won't suit our fine ladies and gentlemen. "i am getting rather into admiration of * *, the youngest sister of * *. a wife would be my salvation. i am sure the wives of my acquaintances have hitherto done me little good. * * is beautiful, but very young, and, i think, a fool. but i have not seen enough to judge; besides, i hate an _esprit_ in petticoats. that she won't love me is very probable, nor shall i love her. but, on my system, and the modern system in general, that don't signify. the business (if it came to business) would probably be arranged between papa and me. she would have her own way; i am good-humoured to women, and docile; and, if i did not fall in love with her, which i should try to prevent, we should be a very comfortable couple. as to conduct, _that_ she must look to. but _if_ i love, i shall be jealous;--and for that reason i will not be in love. though, after all, i doubt my temper, and fear i should not be so patient as becomes the _bienséance_ of a married man in my station. divorce ruins the poor _femme_, and damages are a paltry compensation. i do fear my temper would lead me into some of our oriental tricks of vengeance, or, at any rate, into a summary appeal to the court of twelve paces. so 'i'll none on 't,' but e'en remain single and solitary;--though i should like to have somebody now and then to yawn with one. "w. and, after him, * *, has stolen one of my buffooneries about mde. de staël's metaphysics and the fog, and passed it, by speech and letter, as their own. as gibbet says, 'they are the most of a gentleman of any on the road.' w. is in sad enmity with the whigs about this review of fox (if he _did_ review him);--all the epigrammatists and essayists are at him. i hate _odds_, and wish he may beat them. as for me, by the blessing of indifference, i have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. the fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better nor worse for a _people_ than another. i shall adhere to my party, because it would not be honourable to act otherwise; but, as to _opinions_, i don't think politics _worth_ an _opinion_. _conduct_ is another thing:--if you begin with a party, go on with them. i have no consistency, except in politics; and _that_ probably arises from my indifference on the subject altogether." * * * * * i must here be permitted to interrupt, for a while, the progress of this journal,--which extends through some months of the succeeding year,--for the purpose of noticing, without infringement of chronological order, such parts of the poet's literary history and correspondence as belong properly to the date of the year . at the beginning, as we have seen, of the month of december, the bride of abydos was published,--having been struck off, like its predecessor, the giaour, in one of those paroxysms of passion and imagination, which adventures such as the poet was now engaged in were, in a temperament like his, calculated to excite. as the mathematician of old required but a spot to stand upon, to be able, as he boasted, to move the world, so a certain degree of foundation in _fact_ seemed necessary to byron, before that lever which he knew how to apply to the world of the passions could be wielded by him. so small, however, was, in many instances, the connection with reality which satisfied him, that to aim at tracing through his stories these links with his own fate and fortunes, which were, after all, perhaps, visible but to his own fancy, would be a task as uncertain as unsafe;--and this remark applies not only to the bride of abydos, but to the corsair, lara, and all the other beautiful fictions that followed, in which, though the emotions expressed by the poet may be, in general, regarded as vivid recollections of what had at different times agitated his own bosom, there are but little grounds,--however he might himself, occasionally, encourage such a supposition,--for connecting him personally with the groundwork or incidents of the stories. while yet uncertain about the fate of his own new poem, the following observations on the work of an ingenious follower in the same track were written. letter . to mr. murray. "dec. . . "i have redde through your persian tales[ ], and have taken the liberty of making some remarks on the _blank_ pages. there are many beautiful passages, and an interesting story; and i cannot give you a stronger proof that such is my opinion, than by the _date_ of the _hour_--_two o'clock_, till which it has kept me awake _without a yawn_. the conclusion is not quite correct in _costume_; there is no _mussulman suicide_ on record--at least for _love_. but this matters not. the tale must have been written by some one who has been on the spot, and i wish him, and he deserves, success. will you apologise to the author for the liberties i have taken with his ms.? had i been less awake to, and interested in, his theme, i had been less obtrusive; but you know _i_ always take this in good part, and i hope he will. it is difficult to say what _will_ succeed, and still more to pronounce what _will not_. _i_ am at this moment in _that uncertainty_ (on our _own_ score); and it is no small proof of the author's powers to be able to _charm_ and _fix_ a _mind_'s attention on similar subjects and climates in such a predicament. that he may have the same effect upon all his readers is very sincerely the wish, and hardly the _doubt_, of yours truly, b." [footnote : poems by mr. gally knight, of which mr. murray had transmitted the ms. to lord byron, without, however, communicating the name of the author.] * * * * * to the bride of abydos he made additions, in the course of printing, amounting, altogether, to near two hundred lines; and, as usual, among the passages thus added, were some of the happiest and most brilliant in the whole poem. the opening lines,--"know ye the land,' &c.--supposed to have been suggested to him by a song of goëthe's[ ]--were among the number of these new insertions, as were also those fine verses,--"who hath not proved how feebly words essay," &c. of one of the most popular lines in this latter passage, it is not only curious, but instructive, to trace the progress to its present state of finish. having at first written-- "mind on her lip and music in her face," he afterwards altered it to-- "the mind of music breathing in her face." but, this not satisfying him, the next step of correction brought the line to what it is at present-- "the mind, the music breathing from her face."[ ] but the longest, as well as most splendid, of those passages, with which the perusal of his own strains, during revision, inspired him, was that rich flow of eloquent feeling which follows the couplet,--"thou, my zuleika, share and bless my bark," &c.--a strain of poetry, which, for energy and tenderness of thought, for music of versification, and selectness of diction, has, throughout the greater portion of it, but few rivals in either ancient or modern song. all this passage was sent, in successive scraps, to the printer,--correction following correction, and thought reinforced by thought. we have here, too, another example of that retouching process by which some of his most exquisite effects were attained. every reader remembers the four beautiful lines-- "or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife, be thou the rainbow to the storms of life! the evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!" in the first copy of this passage sent to the publisher, the last line was written thus-- {_an airy_} "and tints to-morrow with a { fancied } ray"-- the following note being annexed:--"mr. murray,--choose which of the two epithets, 'fancied,' or 'airy,' may be the best; or, if neither will do, tell me, and i will dream another." the poet's dream was, it must be owned, lucky,--"prophetic" being the word, of all others, for his purpose.[ ] i shall select but one more example, from the additions to this poem, as a proof that his eagerness and facility in producing, was sometimes almost equalled by his anxious care in correcting. in the long passage just referred to, the six lines beginning "blest as the muezzin's strain," &c., having been despatched to the printer too late for insertion, were, by his desire, added in an errata page; the first couplet, in its original form, being as follows:-- "soft as the mecca-muezzin's strains invite him who hath journey'd far to join the rite." in a few hours after, another scrap was sent off, containing the lines thus-- "blest as the muezzin's strain from mecca's dome, which welcomes faith to view her prophet's tomb"-- with the following note to mr. murray:-- "december . . "look out in the encyclopedia, article _mecca_, whether it is there or at _medina_ the prophet is entombed. if at medina, the first lines of my alterration must run-- "blest as the call which from medina's dome invites devotion to her prophet's tomb," &c. if at mecca, the lines may stand as before. page . canto d, bride of abydos. yours, b. "you will find this out either by article _mecca_, _medina_, or _mohammed_. i have no book of reference by me." [footnote : "kennst du das land wo die citronen blühn," &c.] [footnote : among the imputed plagiarisms so industriously hunted out in his writings, this line has been, with somewhat more plausibility than is frequent in such charges, included,--the lyric poet lovelace having, it seems, written, "the melody and music of her face." sir thomas brown, too, in his religio medici, says--"there is music even in beauty," &c. the coincidence, no doubt, is worth observing, and the task of "tracking" thus a favourite writer "in the snow (as dryden expresses it) of others" is sometimes not unamusing; but to those who found upon such resemblances a general charge of plagiarism, we may apply what sir walter scott says, in that most agreeable work, his lives of the novelists:--"it is a favourite theme of laborious dulness to trace such coincidences, because they appear to reduce genius of the higher order to the usual standard of humanity, and of course to bring the author nearer to a level with his critics."] [footnote : it will be seen, however, from a subsequent letter to mr. murray, that he himself was at first unaware of the peculiar felicity of this epithet; and it is therefore, probable, that, after all, the merit of the choice may have belonged to mr. gifford.] * * * * * immediately after succeeded another note:-- "did you look out? is it _medina_ or _mecca_ that contains the _holy_ sepulchre? don't make me blaspheme by your negligence. i have no book of reference, or i would save you the trouble. i _blush_, as a good mussulman, to have confused the point. "yours, b." * * * * * notwithstanding all these various changes, the couplet in question stands at present thus:-- "blest as the muezzin's strain from mecca's wall to pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call." in addition to his own watchfulness over the birth of his new poem, he also, as will be seen from the following letter, invoked the veteran taste of mr. gifford on the occasion:-- letter . to mr. gifford. "november . . "my dear sir, "i hope you will consider, when i venture on any request, that it is the reverse of a certain dedication, and is addressed, _not_ to 'the editor of the quarterly review,' but to mr. gifford. you will understand this, and on that point i need trouble you no farther. "you have been good enough to look at a thing of mine in ms.--a turkish story, and i should feel gratified if you would do it the same favour in its probationary state of printing. it was written, i cannot say for amusement, nor 'obliged by hunger and request of friends,' but in a state of mind from circumstances which occasionally occur to 'us youth,' that rendered it necessary for me to apply my mind to something, any thing but reality; and under this not very brilliant inspiration it was composed. being done, and having at least diverted me from myself, i thought you would not perhaps be offended if mr. murray forwarded it to you. he has done so, and to apologise for his doing so a second time is the object of my present letter. "i beg you will _not_ send me any answer. i assure you very sincerely i know your time to be occupied, and it is enough, more than enough, if you read; you are not to be bored with the fatigue of answers. "a word to mr. murray will be sufficient, and send it either to the flames or "a hundred hawkers' load, on wings of wind to fly or fall abroad. it deserves no better than the first, as the work of a week, and scribbled 'stans pede in uno' (by the by, the only foot i have to stand on); and i promise never to trouble you again under forty cantos, and a voyage between each. believe me ever "your obliged and affectionate servant, "byron." * * * * * the following letters and notes, addressed to mr. murray at this time, cannot fail, i think, to gratify all those to whom the history of the labours of genius is interesting:-- letter . to mr. murray. "nov. . . "two friends of mine (mr. rogers and mr. sharpe) have advised me not to risk at present any single publication separately, for various reasons. as they have not seen the one in question, they can have no bias for or against the merits (if it has any) or the faults of the present subject of our conversation. you say all the last of 'the giaour' are gone--at least out of your hands. now, if you think of publishing any new edition with the last additions which have not yet been before the reader (i mean distinct from the two-volume publication), we can add 'the bride of abydos,' which will thus steal quietly into the world: if liked, we can then throw off some copies for the purchasers of former 'giaours;' and, if not, i can omit it in any future publication. what think you? i really am no judge of those things, and with all my natural partiality for one's own productions, i would rather follow any one's judgment than my own. "p.s. pray let me have the proofs i sent _all_ to-night. i have some alterations that i have thought of that i wish to make speedily. i hope the proof will be on separate pages, and not all huddled together on a mile-long ballad-singing sheet, as those of the giaour sometimes are; for then i can't read them distinctly." * * * * * to mr. murray. "nov. . . "will you forward the letter to mr. gilford with the proof? there is an alteration i may make in zuleika's speech, in second canto (the only one of hers in that canto). it is now thus: "and curse, if i could curse, the day. it must be-- "and mourn--i dare not curse--the day that saw my solitary birth, &c. &c. "ever yours, b. "in the last ms. lines sent, instead of 'living heart,' convert to 'quivering heart.' it is in line ninth of the ms. passage. "ever yours again, b." * * * * * to mr. murray. "alteration of a line in canto second. "instead of-- "and tints to-morrow with a _fancied_ ray, print-- "and tints to-morrow with _prophetic_ ray. "the evening beam that smiles the clouds away and tints to-morrow with prophetic ray; or, {_gilds_} "and { tints } the hope of morning with its ray; or, "and gilds to-morrow's hope with heavenly ray. "i wish you would ask mr. gifford which of them is best, or rather _not worst_. ever, &c. "you can send the request contained in this at the same time with the _revise_, _after_ i have seen the _said revise_." * * * * * to mr. murray. "nov. . . "certainly. do you suppose that no one but the galileans are acquainted with _adam_, and _eve_, and _cain_[ ], and _noah_?--surely, i might have had solomon, and abraham, and david, and even moses. when you know that _zuleika_ is the _persian poetical_ name for _potiphar_'s wife, on whom and joseph there is a long poem, in the persian, this will not surprise you. if you want authority, look at jones, d'herbelot, vathek, or the notes to the arabian nights; and, if you think it necessary, model this into a note. "alter, in the inscription, 'the most affectionate respect,' to 'with every sentiment of regard and respect.'" [footnote : some doubt had been expressed by mr. murray as to the propriety of his putting the name of cain into the mouth of a mussulman.] * * * * * to mr. murray. "nov. . . "i send you a note for the _ignorant_, but i really wonder at finding _you_ among them. i don't care one lump of sugar for my _poetry_; but for my _costume_ and my _correctness_ on those points (of which i think the _funeral_ was a proof), i will combat lustily. "yours," &c. * * * * * "nov. . . "let the revise which i sent just now (and _not_ the proof in mr. gifford's possession) be returned to the printer, as there are several additional corrections, and two new lines in it. yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "november . . "mr. hodgson has looked over and _stopped_, or rather _pointed_, this revise, which must be the one to print from. he has also made some suggestions, with most of which i have complied, as he has always, for these ten years, been a very sincere, and by no means (at times) flattering intimate of mine. _he_ likes it (you will think _fatteringly_, in this instance) better than the giaour, but doubts (and so do i) its being so popular; but, contrary to some others, advises a separate publication. on this we can easily decide. i confess i like the _double_ form better. hodgson says, it is _better versified_ than any of the others; which is odd, if true, as it has cost me less time (though more hours at a time) than any attempt i ever made. "p.s. do attend to the punctuation: i can't, for i don't know a comma--at least where to place one. "that tory of a printer has omitted two lines of the opening, and _perhaps more_, which were in the ms. will you, pray, give him a hint of accuracy? i have reinserted the _two_, but they were in the manuscript, i can swear." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "november . . "that you and i may distinctly understand each other on a subject, which, like 'the dreadful reckoning when men smile no more,' makes conversation not very pleasant, i think it as well to _write_ a few lines on the topic.--before i left town for yorkshire, you said that you were ready and willing to give five hundred guineas for the copyright of 'the giaour;' and my answer was--from which i do not mean to recede--that we would discuss the point at christmas. the new story may or may not succeed; the probability, under present circumstances, seems to be, that it may at least pay its expenses--but even that remains to be proved, and till it is proved one way or another, we will say nothing about it. thus then be it: i will postpone all arrangement about it, and the giaour also, till easter, ; and you shall then, according to your own notions of fairness, make your own offer for the two. at the same time, i do not rate the last in my own estimation at half the giaour; and according to your own notions of its worth and its success within the time mentioned, be the addition or deduction to or from whatever sum may be your proposal for the first, which has already had its success. "the pictures of phillips i consider as _mine_, all three; and the one (not the arnaout) of the two best is much at _your service_, if you will accept it as a present. "p.s. the expense of engraving from the miniature send me in my account, as it was destroyed by my desire; and have the goodness to burn that detestable print from it immediately. "to make you some amends for eternally pestering you with alterations, i send you cobbett to confirm your orthodoxy. "one more alteration of _a_ into _the_ in the ms.; it must be--'the _heart whose softness_,' &c. "remember--and in the inscription, 'to the right honourable lord holland,' _without_ the previous names, henry," &c. * * * * * to mr. murray. "november . . "more work for the _row_. i am doing my best to beat 'the giaour'--_no_ difficult task for any one but the author." * * * * * to mr. murray. "november . . "i have no time to _cross_-investigate, but i believe and hope all is right. i care less than you will believe about its success, but i can't survive a single _misprint_: it _chokes_ me to see words misused by the printers. pray look over, in case of some eyesore escaping me. "p.s. send the earliest copies to mr. frere, mr. canning, mr. heber, mr. gifford, lord holland, lord melbourne (whitehall), lady caroline lamb, (brocket), mr. hodgson (cambridge), mr. merivale, mr. ward, from the author." * * * * * to mr. murray. "november . . "you wanted some reflections, and i send you _per selim_ (see his speech in canto d, page .), eighteen lines in decent couplets, of a pensive, if not an _ethical_ tendency. one more revise--positively the last, if decently done--at any rate the _pen_ultimate. mr. canning's approbation (_if_ he did approve) i need not say makes me proud.[ ] as to printing, print as you will and how you will--by itself, if you like; but let me have a few copies in _sheets_. "november . . "you must pardon me once more, as it is all for your good: it must be thus-- "he makes a solitude, and calls it peace. '_makes_' is closer to the passage of tacitus, from which the line is taken, and is, besides, a stronger word than '_leaves_' "mark where his carnage and his conquests cease-- he makes a solitude, and calls it--peace." [footnote : mr. canning's note was as follows:--"i received the books, and, among them, the bride of abydos. it is very, very beautiful. lord byron (when i met him, one day, at dinner at mr. ward's) was so kind as to promise to give me a copy of it. i mention this, not to save my purchase, but because i should be really flattered by the present."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "november . . "if you look over this carefully by the _last proof_ with my corrections, it is probably right; this _you_ can do as well or better;--i have not now time. the copies i mentioned to be sent to different friends last night, i should wish to be made up with the new giaours, if it also is ready. if not, send the giaour afterwards. "the morning post says _i_ am the author of nourjahad!! this comes of lending the drawings for their dresses; but it is not worth a _formal contradiction_. besides, the criticisms on the _supposition_ will, some of them, be quite amusing and furious. the _orientalism_--which i hear is very splendid--of the melodrame (whosever it is, and i am sure i don't know) is as good as an advertisement for your eastern stories, by filling their heads with glitter. "p.s. you will of course _say_ the truth, that i am _not_ the melodramist--if any one charges me in your presence with the performance." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "november . . "send another copy (if not too much of a request) to lady holland of the _journal_[ ], in my name, when you receive this; it is for _earl grey_--and i will relinquish my _own_. also to mr. sharpe, and lady holland, and lady caroline lamb, copies of 'the bride' as soon as convenient. "p.s. mr. ward and myself still continue our purpose; but i shall not trouble you on any arrangement on the score of the giaour and the bride till our return,--or, at any rate, before _may_, ,--that is, six months from hence: and before that time you will be able to ascertain how far your offer may be a losing one; if so, you can deduct proportionably; and if not, i shall not at any rate allow you to go higher than your present proposal, which is very handsome, and more than fair.[ ] "i have had--but this must be _entre nous_--a very kind note, on the subject of 'the bride,' from sir james mackintosh, and an invitation to go there this evening, which it is now too late to accept." [footnote : penrose's journal, a book published by mr. murray at this time.] [footnote : mr. murray had offered him a thousand guineas for the two poems.] * * * * * to mr. murray. "november . . sunday--monday morning--three o'clock--in my doublet and hose,--_swearing_. "i send you in time an errata page, containing an omission of mine, which must be thus added, as it is too late for insertion in the text. the passage is an imitation altogether from medea in ovid, and is incomplete without these two lines. pray let this be done, and directly; it is necessary, will add one page to your book (_making_), and can do no harm, and is yet in time for the _public_. answer me, thou oracle, in the affirmative. you can send the loose pages to those who have copies already, if they like; but certainly to all the _critical_ copyholders. "p.s. i have got out of my bed, (in which, however, i could not sleep, whether i had amended this or not,) and so good morning. i am trying whether de l'allemagne will act as an opiate, but i doubt it." * * * * * to mr. murray. "november . . "_you have looked at it!_' to much purpose, to allow so stupid a blunder to stand; it is _not_ '_courage_' but '_carnage_;' and if you don't want me to cut my own throat, see it altered. "i am very sorry to hear of the fall of dresden." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "nov. . . monday. "you will act as you please upon that point; but whether i go or stay, i shall not say another word on the subject till may--nor then, unless quite convenient to yourself. i have many things i wish to leave to your care, principally papers. the _vases_ need not be now sent, as mr. ward is gone to scotland. you are right about the errata page; place it at the beginning. mr. perry is a little premature in his compliments: these may do harm by exciting expectation, and i think we ought to be above it--though i see the next paragraph is on the _journal_[ ], which makes me suspect _you_ as the author of both. "would it not have been as well to have said 'in two cantos' in the advertisement? they will else think of _fragments_, a species of composition very well for _once_, like _one ruin_ in a _view_; but one would not build a town of them. the bride, such as it is, is my first _entire_ composition of any length (except the satire, and be d----d to it), for the giaour is but a string of passages, and childe harold is, and i rather think always will be, unconcluded. i return mr. hay's note, with thanks to him and you. "there have been some epigrams on mr. ward: one i see to-day. the first i did not see, but heard yesterday. the second seems very bad. i only hope that mr. ward does not believe that i had any connection with either. i like and value him too well to allow my politics to contract into spleen, or to admire any thing intended to annoy him or his. you need not take the trouble to answer this, as i shall see you in the course of the afternoon. "p.s. i have said this much about the epigrams, because i lived so much in the _opposite camp_, and, from my post as an engineer, might be suspected as the flinger of these hand-grenadoes; but with a worthy foe, i am all for open war, and not this bushfighting, and have not had, nor will have, any thing to do with it. i do not know the author." [footnote : penrose's journal.] * * * * * to mr. murray. "nov. . . "print this at the end of _all that is of 'the bride of abydos_,' as an errata page. bn. "omitted, canto d, page ., after line ., "so that those arms cling closer round my neck. read, "then if my lip once murmur, it must be no sigh for safety, but a prayer for thee." * * * * * to mr. murray. "tuesday evening, nov. . . "for the sake of correctness, particularly in an errata page, the alteration of the couplet i have just sent (half an hour ago) must take place, in spite of delay or cancel; let me see the _proof_ early to-morrow. i found out _murmur_ to be a neuter _verb_, and have been obliged to alter the line so as to make it a substantive, thus-- "the deepest murmur of this lip shall be no sigh for safety, but a prayer for thee! don't send the copies to the _country_ till this is all right." * * * * * to mr. murray. "dec. . . "when you can, let the couplet enclosed be inserted either in the page, or in the errata page. i trust it is in time for some of the copies. this alteration is in the same part--the page _but one_ before the last correction sent. "p.s. i am afraid, from all i hear, that people are rather inordinate in their expectations, which is very unlucky, but cannot now be helped. this comes of mr. perry and one's wise friends; but do not _you_ wind _your_ hopes of success to the same pitch, for fear of accidents, and i can assure you that my philosophy will stand the test very fairly; and i have done every thing to ensure you, at all events, from positive loss, which will be some satisfaction to both." * * * * * to mr. murray. "dec. . . "i send you a _scratch_ or _two_, the which _heal_. the christian observer is very savage, but certainly well written--and quite uncomfortable at the naughtiness of book and author. i rather suspect you won't much like the _present_ to be more moral, if it is to share also the usual fate of your virtuous volumes. "let me see a proof of the six before incorporation." * * * * * to mr. murray. "monday evening, dec. . . "it is all very well, except that the lines are not numbered properly, and a diabolical mistake, page ., which _must_ be corrected with the _pen_, if no other way remains; it is the omission of '_not_' before '_disagreeable_,' in the _note_ on the _amber_ rosary. this is really horrible, and nearly as bad as the stumble of mine at the threshold--i mean the _misnomer_ of bride. pray do not let a copy go without the '_not_;' it is nonsense, and worse than nonsense as it now stands. i wish the printer was saddled with a vampire. "p.s. it is still _hath_ instead of _have_ in page .; never was any one so _misused_ as i am by your devils of printers. "p.s. i hope and trust the '_not_' was inserted in the first edition. we must have something--any thing--to set it right. it is enough to answer for one's own bulls, without other people's." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "december . . "lord holland is laid up with the gout, and would feel very much obliged if you could obtain, and send as soon as possible, madame d'arblay's (or even miss edgeworth's) new work. i know they are not out; but it is perhaps possible for your _majesty_ to command what we cannot with much suing purchase, as yet. i need not say that when you are able or willing to confer the same favour on me, i shall be obliged. i would almost fall sick myself to get at madame d'arblay's writings. "p.s. you were talking to-day of the american edition of a certain unquenchable memorial of my younger days. as it can't be helped now, i own i have some curiosity to see a copy of trans-atlantic typography. this you will perhaps obtain, and one for yourself; but i must beg that you will not _import more_, because, _seriously_, i _do wish_ to have that thing forgotten as much as it has been forgiven. "if you send to the globe editor, say that i want neither excuse nor contradiction, but merely a discontinuance of a most ill-grounded charge. i never was consistent in any thing but my politics; and as my redemption depends on that solitary virtue, it is murder to carry away my last anchor." * * * * * of these hasty and characteristic missives with which he despatched off his "still-breeding thoughts," there yet remain a few more that might be presented to the reader; but enough has here been given to show the fastidiousness of his self-criticism, as well as the restless and unsatisfied ardour with which he pressed on in pursuit of perfection,--still seeing, according to the usual doom of genius, much farther than he could reach. an appeal was, about this time, made to his generosity, which the reputation of the person from whom it proceeded would, in the minds of most people, have justified him in treating with disregard, but which a more enlarged feeling of humanity led him to view in a very different light; for, when expostulated with by mr. murray on his generous intentions towards one "whom nobody else would give a single farthing to," he answered, "it is for that very reason _i_ give it, because nobody else will." the person in question was mr. thomas ashe, author of a certain notorious publication called "the book," which, from the delicate mysteries discussed in its pages, attracted far more notice than its talent, or even mischief, deserved. in a fit, it is to be hoped, of sincere penitence, this man wrote to lord byron, alleging poverty as his excuse for the vile uses to which he had hitherto prostituted his pen, and soliciting his lordship's aid towards enabling him to exist, in future, more reputably. to this application the following answer, marked, in the highest degree, by good sense, humanity, and honourable sentiment, was returned by lord byron:-- letter . to mr. ashe. " . bennet street, st. james's, dec. . . "sir, "i leave town for a few days to-morrow; on my return, i will answer your letter more at length. whatever may be your situation, i cannot but commend your resolution to abjure and abandon the publication and composition of works such as those to which you have alluded. depend upon it they amuse _few_, disgrace both _reader_ and _writer_, and benefit _none_. it will be my wish to assist you, as far as my limited means will admit, to break such a bondage. in your answer, inform me what sum you think would enable you to extricate yourself from the hands of your employers, and to regain, at least, temporary independence, and i shall be glad to contribute my mite towards it. at present, i must conclude. your name is not unknown to me, and i regret, for your own sake, that you have ever lent it to the works you mention. in saying this, i merely repeat your _own words_ in your letter to me, and have no wish whatever to say a single syllable that may appear to insult your misfortunes. if i have, excuse me; it is unintentional. yours, &c. "byron." * * * * * in answer to this letter, ashe mentioned, as the sum necessary to extricate him from his difficulties, _l_.--to be advanced at the rate of ten pounds per month; and, some short delay having occurred in the reply to this demand, the modest applicant, in renewing his suit, complained, it appears, of neglect: on which lord byron, with a good temper which few, in a similar case, could imitate, answered him as follows:-- letter . to mr. ashe. "january . . "sir, "when you accuse a stranger of neglect, you forget that it is possible business or absence from london may have interfered to delay his answer, as has actually occurred in the present instance. but to the point. i am willing to do what i can to extricate you from your situation. your first scheme[ ] i was considering; but your own impatience appears to have rendered it abortive, if not irretrievable. i will deposit in mr. murray's hands (with his consent) the sum you mentioned, to be advanced for the time at ten pounds per month. "p.s.--i write in the greatest hurry, which may make my letter a little abrupt; but, as i said before, i have no wish to distress your feelings." [footnote : his first intention had been to go out, as a settler, to botany bay.] * * * * * the service thus humanely proffered was no less punctually performed; and the following is one of the many acknowledgments of payment which i find in ashe's letters to mr. murray:--"i have the honour to enclose you another memorandum for the sum of ten pounds, in compliance with the munificent instructions of lord byron."[ ] his friend, mr. merivale, one of the translators of those selections from the anthology which we have seen he regretted so much not having taken with him on his travels, published a poem about this time, which he thus honours with his praise. letter . to mr. merivale. "january, . "my dear merivale, "i have redde roncesvaux with very great pleasure, and (if i were so disposed) see very little room for criticism. there is a choice of two lines in one of the last cantos,--i think 'live and protect' better, because 'oh who?' implies a doubt of roland's power or inclination. i would allow the--but that point you yourself must determine on--i mean the doubt as to where to place a part of the poem, whether between the actions or no. only if you wish to have all the success you deserve, _never listen to friends_, and--as i am not the least troublesome of the number, least of all to me. "i hope you will be out soon. _march_, sir, _march_ is the month for the _trade_, and they must be considered. you have written a very noble poem, and nothing but the detestable taste of the day can do you harm,--but i think you will beat it. your measure is uncommonly well chosen and wielded."[ ] [footnote : when these monthly disbursements had amounted to _l._, ashe wrote to beg that the whole remaining sum of _l_. might be advanced to him at one payment, in order to enable him, as he said, to avail himself of a passage to new south wales, which had been again offered to him. the sum was accordingly, by lord byron's orders, paid into his hands.] [footnote : this letter is but a fragment,--the remainder being lost.] * * * * * in the extracts from his journal, just given, there is a passage that cannot fail to have been remarked, where, in speaking of his admiration of some lady, whose name he has himself left blank, the noble writer says--"a wife would be the salvation of me." it was under this conviction, which not only himself but some of his friends entertained, of the prudence of his taking timely refuge in matrimony from those perplexities which form the sequel of all less regular ties, that he had been induced, about a year before, to turn his thoughts seriously to marriage,--at least, as seriously as his thoughts were ever capable of being so turned,--and chiefly, i believe, by the advice and intervention of his friend lady melbourne, to become a suitor for the hand of a relative of that lady, miss milbanke. though his proposal was not then accepted, every assurance of friendship and regard accompanied the refusal; a wish was even expressed that they should continue to write to each other, and a correspondence, in consequence,--somewhat singular between two young persons of different sexes, inasmuch as love was not the subject of it,--ensued between them. we have seen how highly lord byron estimated as well the virtues as the accomplishments of the young lady; but it is evident that on neither side, at this period, was love either felt or professed.[ ] in the mean time, new entanglements, in which his heart was the willing dupe of his fancy and vanity, came to engross the young poet: and still, as the usual penalties of such pursuits followed, he again found himself sighing for the sober yoke of wedlock, as some security against their recurrence. there were, indeed, in the interval between miss milbanke's refusal and acceptance of him, two or three other young women of rank who, at different times, formed the subject of his matrimonial dreams. in the society of one of these, whose family had long honoured me with their friendship, he and i passed much of our time, during this and the preceding spring; and it will be found that, in a subsequent part of his correspondence, he represents me as having entertained an anxious wish that he should so far cultivate my fair friend's favour as to give a chance, at least, of matrimony being the result. that i, more than once, expressed some such feeling is undoubtedly true. fully concurring with the opinion, not only of himself, but of others of his friends, that in marriage lay his only chance of salvation from the sort of perplexing attachments into which he was now constantly tempted, i saw in none of those whom he admired with more legitimate views so many requisites for the difficult task of winning him into fidelity and happiness as in the lady in question. combining beauty of the highest order with a mind intelligent and ingenuous,--having just learning enough to give refinement to her taste, and far too much taste to make pretensions to learning,--with a patrician spirit proud as his own, but showing it only in a delicate generosity of spirit, a feminine high-mindedness, which would have led her to tolerate his defects in consideration of his noble qualities and his glory, and even to sacrifice silently some of her own happiness rather than violate the responsibility in which she stood pledged to the world for his;--such was, from long experience, my impression of the character of this lady; and perceiving lord byron to be attracted by her more obvious claims to admiration, i felt a pleasure no less in rendering justice to the still rarer qualities which she possessed, than in endeavouring to raise my noble friend's mind to the contemplation of a higher model of female character than he had, unluckily for himself, been much in the habit of studying. to this extent do i confess myself to have been influenced by the sort of feeling which he attributes to me. but in taking for granted (as it will appear he did from one of his letters) that i entertained any very decided or definite wishes on the subject, he gave me more credit for seriousness in my suggestions than i deserved. if even the lady herself, the unconscious object of these speculations, by whom he was regarded in no other light than that of a distinguished acquaintance, could have consented to undertake the perilous,--but still possible and glorious,--achievement of attaching byron to virtue, i own that, sanguinely as, in theory, i might have looked to the result, i should have seen, not without trembling, the happiness of one whom i had known and valued from her childhood risked in the experiment. i shall now proceed to resume the thread of the journal, which i had broken off, and of which, it will be perceived, the noble author himself had, for some weeks, at this time, interrupted the progress. [footnote : the reader has already seen what lord byron himself says, in his journal, on this subject:--"what an odd situation and friendship is ours!--without one spark of love on either side," &c. &c.] end of the second volume. _lord byron jugé par les témoins de sa vie._ my recollections of lord byron; and those of eye-witnesses of his life. "the long promised work of the countess guiccioli."-- _athenæum._ _new york_: harper & brothers, publishers, franklin square. . advertisement by the english publisher. the publisher of this translation feels authorized to state, that it is the production of the celebrated countess guiccioli. richard bentley. to the author of this work, the english translation is respectfully dedicated by hubert e.h. jerningham. contents. introductory sketch of lord byron page chapter i. lord byron and m. de lamartine chapter ii. portrait of lord byron chapter iii. french portrait of lord byron chapter iv. his religious opinions chapter v. his childhood and his youth chapter vi. his friendships chapter vii. lord byron considered as a father, as a brother, and as a son--his goodness shown by the strength of his instinctive affections chapter viii. qualities of lord byron's heart chapter ix. his benevolence and kindness chapter x. lord byron's qualities and virtues of soul chapter xi. lord byron's constancy chapter xii. his courage and fortitude chapter xiii. his modesty chapter xiv. virtues of his soul chapter xv. his generosity elevated into heroism chapter xvi. his faults chapter xvii. his irritability chapter xviii. his mobility chapter xix. his misanthropy and sociability chapter xx. his pride chapter xxi. his vanity chapter xxii. lord byron's marriage and its consequences chapter xxiii. his gayety and melancholy chapter xxiv. his melancholy chapter xxv. attraction of truth for; or, conscience the chief quality of his soul semi-biography of byron in mr. disraeli's "venetia" my recollections, etc. introduction. "to know another man well, especially if he be a noted and illustrious character, is a great thing not to be despised."--sainte-beuve. many years ago a celebrated writer, in speaking of lord byron, who had then been dead some years, said that so much had already been written upon him that the subject had almost become commonplace, but was far from being exhausted. this truth, indisputable when applied to byron's genius, his works, and to his intellect, was then and still is equally positive when referring to his moral qualities. a subject as well as an object may become commonplace by the quantity, but nevertheless remain new and rare, owing to its quality. a subject can not be exhausted before it has been seen under every one of its various aspects, and appreciated in all its points. if much has been said of lord byron, has his truly noble character been fairly brought to light? has he not, on the contrary, been judged rather as the author than the man, and have not the imaginary creations of his powerful mind been too much identified with reality? in the best biographies of his life do we not meet with many gaps which have to be filled up--nay, worse, gaps filled up with errors which have to be eradicated to make room for the truth? the object of this work is precisely to do away with these errors and to replace them by facts, and to dispel the shadows which fancy has raised around his name. for the old opinions we wish to substitute new appreciations, by weighing exactly the measure of truth which exists in the former; and by the logic of facts we wish to judge fairly so as to prevent posterity from being deceived. in doing this we do not pretend to give england any new information. for a long time, no doubt, error sprang from that country; but years and events have passed since that state of things existed. the liberal and tolerant spirit, enlightened by philosophy, which has spread all over liberal england, has also been reflected in the opinions formed of men, and has modified many pages of biography and history and made englishmen feel how numerous were the wrongs of which they were guilty toward their illustrious countryman. it is useless to speak of the national selfishness of england, and pretend that she only appreciates or rewards with her love and esteem such writers as flatter her pride or hide her defects from the eyes of foreigners. this may be true, generally speaking; but lord byron's patriotic feelings were of a very different cast. he thought it best to expose to the world at large the faults of his countrymen, in order to correct them. his patriotism was influenced by the superiority of the noble sentiments which actuated his life. feeling as he did, that he was, above all, a member of the great human community, and declaring it openly; despising popularity, if it cost him the sacrifice of a truth which he deemed it useful and right to proclaim, and thus going against many of the passions, prejudices, and opinions of his countrymen, byron certainly wounded many susceptibilities; and could we forget all he had to suffer at the hands of the english, we might almost say he was too severe in his judgments upon them. notwithstanding, however, it is almost impossible to travel in england without meeting everywhere some token of homage paid to the memory of byron. scotland, who looks upon him almost as a son, is proud to show the several houses wherein he lived when a child, and preserves his name and memory with love and respect. to have seen him once, is a recollection of which one is proud. a particular charm encircles the places, mountains, rivers, and bridge of don, of which he speaks, simply because he has mentioned them in his poems. a letter or any thing which has belonged to him is looked upon as a treasure. at harrow, the beloved residence of his youth, the growing generation bow with affectionate respect before the pyramid which has been erected to his memory by the love of a former youthful generation. at cambridge, among all the monuments which recall the glories of the past, lord byron's statue commands the rest, and occupies the place of honor. the rooms which he had there are shown and reverenced as places which have harbored genius. in parliament the same man who formerly, by unjust and unmerited criticisms of the youthful poet, decried his growing genius, and who was guilty of other wrongs against him, has made an act of reparation and of justice by expressing publicly his regret that a grudge of the dean in byron's time had prevailed to prevent a monument being erected in westminster abbey to the memory of the poet. the pilgrimage to newstead is looked upon as an intellectual feast, if not as a duty, by young englishmen, and his genius is so much revered by them that they do not admit that he is equalled by any contemporary poet or likely to be surpassed by those who follow. no doubt, therefore, england now-a-days only prefers what formerly she used to exact from her poets. moore's culpable timidities and macaulay's declamatory exaggerations must, at least, be looked upon as weaknesses of character, which would have been disowned by themselves, had they lived long enough to witness the change in public opinion. although full justice has not yet been done to the noble character of the man, still partial justice has been rendered to byron's memory by the summary dismissal of the numerous false writings which appeared and which tended to replace the truth by the creations of fancy, and to put into the mouth of the poet the thoughts of their authors and not his own, or to insult him by a magnanimous defense, the honor and glory of which was to redound entirely to the writers. it is necessary to observe, that if byron was openly calumniated during his lifetime, he was not less so after his death by disguised slander, especially by that kind of absolution which in reality is one of the most odious forms of calumny, since it is the most hypocritical and most difficult to deal with, and least likely to be touched. but england has at last understood the truth and settled all such opinions. to england, therefore, these pages, which contain the rectification of certain old opinions, will be useless. but can the same be said of other countries, and of france especially? even now-a-days, we read such fanciful appreciation of byron's character that we could almost believe that the rumors and calumnies which came from england had never been refuted; and that extraordinary views expressed by lamartine in beautiful verse are still entertained, and the question still asked, whether byron was "a devil or an angel?" on reading such appreciations, it seems opportune to present those who admire genius and truth with a very humble but conscientious study of byron's great mind. can it be objected, that the fact of the defense of a foreigner detracts from the interest of the reader? can a genius be a stranger to man, and does not the earth seem too small to contain such exceptional beings? our civilization, which has almost suppressed every physical barrier that exists between the nations of the earth, has still further annihilated those of the intellect: so much so, that shakspeare, dante, goethe, are as much revered in france as in their respective countries, notwithstanding the difference of the idioms in which they have written. the same will occur in respect to lord byron, whose name alone opposes every barrier, and against whom the difference of nationality can not form any obstacle. the language of genius is not of one country only, but appertains to humanity in general: and god himself has implanted its rules in every heart. this book is not a regular nor a methodical biography. nor is it an apology; but rather a study, an analysis, the portrait of a great mind seen under all its aspects, with no other decided intention on the part of the writer than to tell the truth, and to rest upon indisputable facts and rely upon unimpeachable testimony. the public now, it is said, can not bear eulogy, and cares only to know the weak points of great men. we do not believe this to be the case. it would be too severe a criticism of human nature in general, and of our times in particular. in any case, we can not accept the statement as correct, when applied to noble characters to whom we especially dedicate this work. it may be, the reader will find in our essay beauties which he had not yet observed, which have hitherto been disputed in the original, and which less sympathetic natures than ours might term complacent eulogies; but the fear of being blamed and of being unpopular shall not deter us from our intention of bringing them forth. no criticism can prevent our praising, when he deserves it, the man who never knew the weaknesses of jealousy, and who never failed to bestow eulogy upon every kind of talent without ever claiming any in return. in publishing the book we are, moreover, certain that what to-day may appear praise, to-morrow will be termed justice. lord byron shone at a period when a school called romantic was in progress of formation. that school wanted a type by which to mould its heroes, as a planet requires a sun to give it light. it took byron as that type, and adorned him with all the qualities which pleased its fancy, but the time has more than arrived when it is necessary that truth should reveal him in his true light. my book is not likely to dispel every cloud, but a few shades only add to the lustre and brilliancy of a landscape. lord byron. "others form the man: i tell of him."--montaigne. at all times the world has been very unjust; and (who does not know it?) in the history of nations many an aristides has paid with exile the price of his virtues and his popularity. great men, great countries, whole nations, whole centuries, have had to bear up against injustice; and the truth is, that vice has so often taken the place of virtue, evil of good, and error of truth, some have been judged so severely and others so leniently, that, could the book of redress be written, not only would it be too voluminous, but it would also be too painful to peruse. honest people would feel shame to see the judgments before which many a great mind has had to bend; and how often party spirit, either religious or political, moved by the basest passions--such as hatred, envy, rivalry, vengeance, fanaticism, intolerance, self-love--has been a pretext for disfiguring in the eyes of the public the greatest and noblest characters. it would then be seen how some censor (profiting by the breach which circumstances, or even a slight fault on the part of these great minds, may have made, and joining issue with other inferior judges of character) has often succeeded in throwing a shade on their glorious actions and in casting a slur upon their reputation, like those little insects which from their number actually succeed, notwithstanding their smallness, in darkening the rays of the sun. what is worse, however, is, that when history has once been erroneously written, and a hero has been put forward in colors which are not real, the public actually becomes accessory to the deception practiced upon it: for it becomes so enamored of the false type which has been held out to its admiration that it will not loosen its hold on it. public opinion, once fixed, becomes a perfect despotism. never, perhaps, has this phenomenon shown itself more visibly and more remarkably than in the case of lord byron. not only was he a victim of these obstinate prejudices, but in his case the annihilation of truth and the creation of an imaginary type have been possible only at the cost of common sense, and notwithstanding the most palpable contradictions. so that he has really proved to be one of the most curious instances of the levity with which human judgments are formed. we have elsewhere described the various phases of this phenomenon, one of the principal causes of which has been the resolution to identify the poet with the first heroes of his poems. such a mode of proceeding was as disloyal as it was contrary to all the received rules of literature. it was inspired by hatred and vengeance, adopted by an idle and frivolous public, and the result has proved to be something entirely opposed to the truth. as long as such a whimsical creation was harmless, it amused byron himself and his friends; but the day came when it ceased to be harmless without ceasing to be eccentric, and became to byron a true robe of nessus. at his death the truth was demanded of his biographers; but the puppet which had been erected stood there, and amazed the good, while it served the malice of the wicked. his genius was analyzed, but no conscientious study of his character was made, and byron, as man, remained an unknown personage. yet among his biographers there were men of upright and enlightened minds: they did not all seek to raise themselves at the cost of depreciating him, nor to gain popularity by sparing individuals at the expense of lord byron. if among them many proved to be black sheep, there were several, on the other hand, who were sincere, and even kindly disposed. yet not one did full justice to byron, not one defended him as he deserved, not one explained his true character with the conscientious energy which in itself constitutes authority. we shall speak elsewhere of the causes which gave rise to this phenomenon. we shall mention the part which public opinion played in england when suddenly displeased with a poet who dared sound the deepest recesses of the human heart; and who as an artist and a psychologist was interested in watching the growth of every passion, and especially that of love, regardless of the conjugal felicity which that public wished him to respect. it began to fear that its enthusiasm for lord byron was a national crime, and by degrees became accessory to the calumnies which were heaped upon his noble character, on account of his supposed want of patriotism, and his refusal to be blind to the defects of the mother-country. we shall see how his biographers, preferring invention to strict adherence to the truth, compounded a lord byron such as not to be any longer recognizable, and to become even--especially in france--a caricature. of all this we shall speak hereafter. we shall now rather point to the curious than to the unjust character of this fact, and notice the contradictions to which byron's biographers have lent themselves. all, or nearly all, have granted to him an infinity of virtues, and naturally fine qualities--such as sensitiveness, generosity, frankness, humility, charity, soberness, greatness of soul, force of wit, manly pride, and nobility of sentiment; but, at the same time, they do not sufficiently clear him of the faults which directly exclude the above-mentioned qualities. the moral man does not sufficiently appear in their writings: they do not sufficiently proclaim his character--one of the finest that was ever allied to a great intellect. why? are these virtues such that, like excellent and salutary substances, they become poisoned when placed in contact within the same crucible? in this refusal to do justice there is contradiction; and as error exists where contradiction lies, it is precisely in that contradiction that we must seek the means of refuting error and assert the power of truth. nature always proceeds logically, and the effect is always in direct analogy with its cause. even in the moral world the precise character of exact sciences must be found. if in a problem we meet with a contradiction, are we not certain that its solution has been badly worked out, and that we must begin it over again to find a true result? the same reasoning holds good for the moral spheres. when a judgment has been wrongly formed, that is, when there appears to be contradiction between various opinions, that judgment must be remodelled, the cause of the error must be looked for, truth must be separated from falsehood, and regard must be had to the law which obliges us to weigh impartially every assertion, and to discuss equally the ayes and noes. let this be done for lord byron. let us analyze facts, question the eye-witnesses of his life, and peruse his admirable and simply-written letters, wherein his soul has, so to say, photographed itself. acts are unquestionably more significative than words; yet if we wish to inquire into his poetry, not by way of appreciating his genius (with which at present we have nothing to do), but the nature of the man, let us do so loyally. let us not attribute to him the character which he lends to his heroes, nor the customs which he attributes to them, simply because here and there he has given to the one something of his manner, to the other some of his sentiments; or because he has harbored them, in the belief that hospitality can be extended to the wicked without the good suffering from it. let us first examine "childe harold,"--the poem which principally contributed to mystify the public, and commenced that despotic type of which we have already spoken. childe harold does not tell his own story. his life is told by a poet. there are, therefore, two well-marked personages on the scene, perfectly distinct and different from one another. the first is the young nobleman in whom byron intended to personify the precocious perversion of mind and soul of the age, and in general the blaséd existence of the young men of the day, of whom he had met many types at cambridge, and on his first launch into society. the second is the minstrel who tells his story. the heart of the former is closed to all joy and to all the finest impulses of the soul; whereas that of the other beats with delight at the prospect of all that is noble, great, good, and just in the world. why identify the author rather with the one than with the other--with the former rather than with the latter? why take from him his own sentiments, to give him those of his hero? that hero can not be called mysterious, since in his preface byron tells us himself the moral object for which he has selected him. if childe harold personifies lord byron, who will personify the poet? that poet (and he is no other than lord byron) plays a far greater part than the hero. he is much oftener on the scene. in the greater part of the poem the minstrel alone speaks. in the ninety-three stanzas of which the first canto is composed, harold is on the scene during nineteen stanzas only, while the poet speaks in his own name during the seventy-four other stanzas, displaying a beautiful soul under various aspects, and exhibiting no melancholy other than that inherent to all elevated poetry. as for the second canto, it opens with a monologue of the minstrel, and harold is forgotten until the sixteenth stanza. then only does the melancholy hero appear, to disappear and reappear again for a few moments. but he rather seems to annoy the minstrel, who finishes at the seventy-third stanza by dismissing him altogether; and from that moment to the end of the canto the wretched and unamiable personage does not reappear. to whom, then, belong all the admirable sentiments and all the virtuous aspirations which we read of toward the end of the canto?--to whom, if not to the minstrel himself? that is, to lord byron. what poet has paid so noble a tribute to every virtue? could that vigor and freshness of mind which breathe upon the lips of the poet, and which well belonged to him, suit the corrupted nature of harold? if byron dismisses his hero so often, it is because he experiences toward him the feelings of a logical moralist. why then identify lord byron with a personage he himself disowns as his prototype, both in his notes, in his preface, in his conversations; and who is proved by facts, by the poem itself, and by the poet's logical and moral reasoning, to be entirely different from his creation? it is true that byron conceived the unfortunate idea of surrounding his hero by several incidents in his own existence, to place him in the social circle to which he himself belonged, and to give him a mother and a sister, a disappointed love, a newstead abbey like his own, and to make him travel where he had travelled and experience the same adventures. that is true, and such an act of imprudence can only be explained, by the confidence on which he relied that the identification could never have been thought of. at twenty-one conscience speaks louder than experience. but if we can justify the accusation of his having been imprudent, can we justify his having been calumniated? eight years after the publication of the second canto, byron wrote the third; and here the pilgrim occasionally appears, but so changed that he seems to have been merged into the poet, and to form with him one person only. childe harold's sorrows are those of lord byron, but there no longer exists any trace of misanthropy or of satiety. his heart already beats with that of the poet for chaste and devoted affections, for all the most amiable, the most noble, and the most sublime of sentiments. he loves the flowers, the smiling and glorious, the charming and sublime aspect of nature. "yet not insensible to all which here awoke the jocund birds to early song in glens which might have made even exile dear; though on his brow were graven lines austere, and tranquil sternness, which had ta'en the place of feelings fiercer far but less severe, joy was not always absent from his face, but o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace." no longer, then, is satiety depicted upon the pilgrim's brow, but "lines austere;" and the poet seems so desirous of proving to us that harold is metamorphosed, that when he expresses sentiments full of sympathy, humanity, and goodness, his horror for war and his dislike for the beauties of the rhine, because-- "a thousand battles have assail'd thy banks," he takes care to add-- "thus harold inly said".... harold, then, has ceased to be the weary _blasé_ pilgrim of twenty-one, who in the first canto remains unmoved in presence of the attractions of florence the beautiful, who inspired the poet with such different sentiments that in the midst even of a storm which threatens to swallow him up he actually finds strength enough to express his sentiments of real love for the lovely absent one--of a love, indeed, which is evidently returned. his heart, like the poet's, now beats with a pure love, and causes him to chant the absence of his friend in the most beautiful strain. where is the old harold? it would seem as if the poet, tired of a companion so disagreeable and so opposed to his tastes, and wishing to get rid of him but not knowing how, had first changed and moulded him to his own likeness by giving him his own sentiments, his own great heart, his own pains, his own affections, and, not finding the change natural, had dismissed him altogether. and so it appears, for after the fifty-fifth stanza of the third canto, childe harold disappears forever. thus at the beginning of the fourth canto, which was published a year after, under the auspices of an italian sky, the reader finds himself in the presence of the poet only. he meets in him a great and generous soul, but the victim of the most odious and unmerited persecution, who takes his revenge in forgiving the wrongs which are done to him, and who reserves all his energies to consecrate them to the love of that which is lovable, to the admiration of that which calls for it, and who at twenty-nine years of age is imbued with christian and philosophical qualities, which his wearied hero could never have possessed. why then again have identified byron with childe harold? for what reason? it strikes us, that the simplest notions of fairness require us at least to take into account the words of the author himself, and to listen to the protestations of a man who despised unmerited praise more than unjust reproof. "a fictitious character," says byron, "is introduced for the sake of giving some connection to the piece.... "it had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature and the stimulus of travel are lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected. "it has been suggested to me by friends, on whose opinions i set a high value, that in this fictitious character, 'childe harold,' i may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage: this i beg leave once for all to disclaim--harold is the child of imagination, for the purpose i have stated. in some very trivial particulars, and those merely local, there might be grounds for such a notion: but in the main points, i should hope, none whatever." warned by his friends of the danger which there was for him being identified with his hero, he paused before publishing the poem. he had written it rather by way of recreation than for any other motive; and when dallas expressed to him his great desire to see the works published, byron told him how unwilling he was that it should appear in print, and thus wrote to him, after having given way to dallas's wishes in the matter:-- "i must wish to avoid identifying childe harold's character with mine. if in certain passages it is believed that i wished to identify my hero with myself, believe that is only in certain parts, and even then i shall not allow it. as for the manor of childe harold being an old monastic residence, i thought i might better describe what i have seen than what i invent. i would not for worlds be a man like my hero." a year after, in writing to moore on the occasion of dedicating his "corsair" to him, after saying that not only had his heroes been criticised, but that he had almost been made responsible for their acts as if they were personal to himself, he adds: "those who know me are undeceived, and those who do not i have little interest in undeceiving. i have no particular desire that any but my acquaintance should think the author better than the beings of his imagining; but i can not help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when i see several bards in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of their heroes, who nevertheless might be found with little more morality than the giaour; and perhaps--but no--i must admit childe harold to be a very repulsive personage, and as to his identity, those who like it must give him whatever _alias_ they please." and in order to embrace the whole of his life in these quotations, we will add what he said at cephalonia, to dr. kennedy, shortly before his death:-- "i can not conceive why people will always mix up my own character and opinions, with those of the imaginary beings which, as a poet, i have the right and liberty to draw." "they certainly do not spare your lordship in that respect," replied kennedy; "and in 'childe harold,' 'lara,' the 'giaour,' and 'don juan,' they are too much disposed to think that you paint in many instances yourself, and that these characters are only the vehicles for the expression of your own sentiments and feelings." "they do me great injustice," he replied, "and what was never before done to any poet.... but even in 'don juan' i have been misunderstood. i take a vicious and unprincipled character, and lead him through those ranks of society whose high external accomplishments cover and cloak internal and secret vices, and i paint the natural effects of such characters, and certainly they are not so highly colored as we find them in real life." "this may be true," said kennedy, "but the question is, what are your motives and object for painting nothing but scenes of vice and folly?" "to remove the cloak which the manners and maxims of society," said his lordship, "throw over their secret sins, and show them to the world as they really are. you have not," added he, "been so much in high and noble life as i have been; but if you had fully entered into it, and seen what was going on, you would have felt convinced that it was time to unmask the specious hypocrisy, and show it in its native colors!" kennedy having then remarked that the lower and middling classes of society never entertained the opinion that the highest classes exhibited models of piety and virtue, and were, indeed, disposed to believe them worse than they really were, byron replied:-- "it is impossible you can believe the higher classes of society worse than they are in england, france, and italy, for no language can sufficiently paint them." "but still, my lord, granting this, how is your book calculated to improve them, and by what right, and under what title do you too come forward in this undertaking?" "by the right," he replied, "which every one has who abhors vice united with hypocrisy. my plan is to lead don juan through various ranks of society and show that wherever you go vice is to be found." the doctor then observed, that satire had never done any good, or converted one man from vice to virtue, and that while his satires were useless, they would call upon his head the disapproval both of the virtuous and the wicked. "but it is strange," answered byron, "that i should be attacked on all sides, not only from magazines and reviews, but also from the pulpit. they preach against me as an advocate of infidelity and immorality, and i have missed my mark sadly in having succeeded in pleasing nobody. that those whose vices i depicted and unmasked should cry out is natural, but that the friends of religion should do so is surprising: for you know," said he, smiling, "that i am assisting you in my own way as a poet, by endeavoring to convince people of their depravity; for it is a doctrine of yours--is it not?--that the human heart is corrupted; and therefore if i show that it is so in those ranks which assume the external marks of politeness and benevolence,--having had the best opportunities, and better than most poets, of observing it,--am i not doing an essential service to your cause, by first convincing them of their sins, and thus enabling you to throw in your doctrine with more effect?" "all this is true," said kennedy; "but you have not shown them what to do, however much you may have shown them what they are. you are like the surgeon who tears the bandages from the numerous wounds of his ulcerated patients, and, instead of giving fresh remedies, you expose them to the air and disgust of every bystander, who, laughing, exclaims, 'how filthy these fellows are!'" "but i shall not be so bad as that," said lord byron; "_you shall see what a winding up i shall give to the story._" the end was to justify and give a moral to every thing. while reproving, however, this system of identification, which not only leads to error but also to calumny, can it, however, be denied that there was not some reason, if not to justify it, at least to explain it? to deny that there is, would, we think, be to commit another error. the nature of lord byron's genius, the circumstances of his life, the innate qualities of his heart and soul, were unquestionably aids to his detractors. upon the measure of the relations which existed between reality and fiction in his poems, and especially as applied to his own history, here are the words of moore:-- "as the mathematician of old required but a spot to stand upon, to be able, as he boasted, to move the world, so a certain degree of foundation in fact seemed necessary to byron, before that lever which he knew how to apply to the world of the passions could be wielded by him. so small, however, was, in many instances, the connection with reality which satisfied him, that to aim at tracing through his stories these links with his own fate and fortunes, which were after all, perhaps, visible but to his own fancy, would be a task as uncertain as unsafe; and this remark applies not only to the 'bride of abydos,' but to the 'corsair,' 'lara,' and all the other beautiful fictions that followed, in which, though the emotions expressed by the poet may be in general regarded as vivid recollections of what had at different times agitated his own bosom, there are but little grounds, however he might himself occasionally encourage such a supposition, for connecting him personally with the groundwork or incidents of the stories." to analyze the analogies and differences which existed between the personal character of byron and that of the poet would form a very curious psychological study. it would be even an act of justice toward his memory, but one which would prove too long, and would ill suit these pages. let us merely declare, that both analogies and differences have existed, and that if the same can not be said of him as has been said of men of less renown, "the poet is different from the man," it must be allowed that in byron the two characters were associated without being coupled. this association did not exist between himself and the creatures of his fancy, but merely with the principal features of his poetry, their energy and sensitiveness. as to certain analogies between his heroes, or between them and himself, when they really exist, they should be pointed out; the duty of criticism being to discern and to point to the nature and limits of these analogies. when byron began his travels, his genius ever sought an outlet. too young to have as yet much experience, he had only made known what were his tendencies. the education of his genius began in his childhood, on the romantic banks of the dee and on the shores of the ocean; in the midst of the scottish firs, in the house of his mother, which was peopled with relics of the past; and at newstead abbey, situated in the heart of the romantic forest of sherwood, which is surrounded by the ruins of the great norman abbeys, and teems with traditional recollections of robin hood. the character of that sympathetic chief of the outlaws, who was a nobleman by birth, and who was always followed by the lovely marian, dressed up as a page; his generosity, his courage, his cleverness, his mixture of virtue and vice, his pride, his buoyant and chivalrous nature, his death even, which was so touching, must, to our mind, have produced a powerful impression upon one who, like byron, was gifted with as much heart as imagination. at least the poet's fancy, if not the acts of the man himself, must have been influenced by these early impressions; and, no doubt, conrad, and other heroes of his early poems, must have sprung from the poet's recollections of the legendary stories in the midst of which he had been nursed. in any case, however, the impressions which he had received did not affect his nature. he had, notwithstanding his youthful years, been able to show the measure, not the tendency of his genius, as well as his aversion for all that is artificial, superficial, insipid, and effeminate; and he had proved that the two great characteristics of his nature were energy and sensitiveness. an education thus begun was to be continued and matured during his first voyage among scenes the most poetical and romantic in the world; in the glorious east, where there exists a perpetual contrast between the passionate nature of man and the soft hue of the heavens under the canopy of which he lives. the manners, character, ideas, and singular passions of those races, which civilization has not yet tamed down; their energy, which often betrays itself in the perpetration of the greatest crimes, and as frequently in the practice of the finest qualities; and the life which byron was forced to lead among them, all produced a great impression upon his mind, and became precious materials to help the development of his intellect. in the same way that, as it has been said, salvator rosa's encounters with bandits contributed to the development of his talent, so did the adventures of lord byron during this first journey contribute to form his particular taste. had he always remained in the midst of extremely civilized nations, in which poetry and the great passions are lost, and the heart too often becomes cold, his mind might have developed itself in a less brilliant and original manner. it was this extraordinary union of energy and sensitiveness in byron which was to determine the choice of subjects. no doubt the desire to produce an effect had a part in the selection, especially at the dawn of his genius; and this would seem evident in the picture of satiated pleasure as represented by childe harold, and in the strange nature of manfred. but this is only a portion of the reality. his principal qualities were the real arbiters in the selection of subjects which he made. god has not given to us all the same voice. the largest trees--the oaks--require the help of storms to make their voices heard, while the reed only needs the help of the summer breeze. byron's attention was ever directed to what was uncommon, either in nature or in the human heart; either in good or in evil, either in the ordinary course of things or beyond its limits. to the study of placid nature he preferred that of that soul which, though less well regulated, yet rises superior to fortune by its energy and will. the spark which lit up his genius could not live in that goodness which constituted the groundwork of his nature, but in passion, called forth by the sight of great misfortunes, great faults, great crimes, in fact, by the sight of all which attracted or repelled him, which was most in harmony with his energetic character, or at greatest variance with his sensitive nature. one of the motives which actuated his mind was sympathy--the other, antipathy; which exercised over him the same kind of fascination which the bird feels whom the serpent's glance has fascinated, or like the unaccountable impulse which causes a man to throw himself down the precipice on the verge of which he stands. the various aspects of nature exercised a similar influence over him. with his exquisite sense of their beauties, byron no doubt often described the enchanting climates in the midst of which he placed the action of his poems; but his pen had always a manly action, with a mixture of grace and vigor in it quite inimitable. his descriptions, however, always appeared to be secondary objects in his mind, and rather constituted the frames which encircled the man whom he wished to depict. one would say that the soft beauties of a landscape and the playful zephyrs which caress the crests of little waves were too effeminate subjects for him to dwell upon. his preferences evidently point to the savage side of nature, to the struggles between physical forces, to the sublimities of the tempest, and almost, i would say, to a certain disorganization of nature; provided, of course, all is restored to order the moment such a disorganization threatens the existence of beauty in art or in the moral world. at that time, what byron could not find in his real and historical subject, he took from another reality, which was himself,--that is, his own qualities, the circumstances of his life, his tastes; without ever inquiring whether conrad's fear at the sight of the mysterious drop of blood on gulnare's forehead was that of byron, whether the venetian renegade alp could really experience the horror which byron did at constantinople at the sight of dogs feasting upon human carcasses; or whether the association of the qualities with which he idealized his heroes would not induce psychologists to accuse him of sinning against truth, of destroying the unity of a corsair's nature. in this lord byron confided in his powers. he felt that the love of truth, and of what is beautiful, was too strong in him ever to depart from or cause him to violate the essential rules of art; but he wished to remain a poet while trusting in reality. when he went to the east, and found himself there in contact with outward circumstances so in harmony with the natural bent of his views, and in presence of men like ali pasha, of whose victims he could almost hear the moans and the screams "in the clime" "where all save the spirit of man is divine; where wild as the accents of lovers' farewell are the hearts which they bear and the tales which they tell," he felt that he was at last in the land most likely to fire his natural genius, and to permit of his satisfying the imperious want which his observing mind constantly experienced of resting upon reality and upon truth. the terrible ali pasha of yanina was especially the type which attracted his notice. "ali pasha," says galt, "is at the bottom of all his oriental heroes. his 'corsair' is almost the history of ali pasha." in the "bride of abydos" the old giaffir is again ali. as for "lara," it is thought that byron conceived him on being very strongly impressed by the sight of a nobleman who was accused of murder, and who was pointed out to him at the cagliari theatre. "i always thought," says galt, who was present on the occasion, "that this incident had a share in the conception of 'lara,' so small are the germs which fructify genius." the "giaour" is due to a personal adventure of byron's, in which he played, as was his wont, a most energetic and generous part. the origin of "manfred" lies in the midst of sublime alpine scenery, where, on a rock, byron discovered an inscription bearing the names of two brothers, one of whom had murdered the other at that spot. the history of venice inspired him with alp the renegade, who, disgusted with the unjust severities of his countrymen, turned mohammedan and swore vengeance against the land of his birth. it is, however, indispensable to remark, that in each of these characters there are two distinct realities. the one tries, by a display of too much energy, to overstep the limits of the natural; the other brings the subject back to its true proportions by idealizing it. the first is the result of the poet's observations of men and their customs, or of his study of history; the other, by the impossibility which he knows to exist in him of departing from the rules of art by pushing reality to the point of making of it a positive suffering. in the first case his heroes are like one another by their analogy in the use and abuse of strength; in the other they are like byron, because he has almost instilled a portion of his own life into them, in order to idealize them. conrad is the real pirate of the Ægean sea: independent, haughty, terrible in battle, full of energy and daring such as becomes the chief of corsairs, and such as byron's study of the country where the action lies pointed out to him that such a man should be placed. but the poet describes himself when he makes conrad, at the risk of his own life, save women from a harem, or shudder at the sight of a drop of blood on the brow of a lovely maiden. the spot on gulnare's forehead, while causing him to suspect some crime, banishes all her charms in his eyes, and inspires him with the greater horror from the fact that the love which she had sworn him probably inspired her with the foul act, to save his life and restore him to liberty. he accuses himself with having been the involuntary cause of it, and feels that his gratitude will be a torture; his former love for gulnare an impossibility. we find byron's own nature again in the ascetic rule of life to which conrad has subjected himself, and in his passionate and ideal tenderness for medora, whose love, in his eyes, surpasses all the happiness of this world, and whose death plunges him into irretrievable despair. in the "siege of corinth," alp is the real type of the historical venetian renegade, who is incapable of forgiveness, and who makes use of all his energies to gratify his revenge. but he represents byron when he speaks of the impressions which he felt under the starry canopy of heaven the night before the battle, when his imagination, taking him back to the happy, innocent days of his childhood, he contrasts them with the present, which for him is one of remorse, and when there glimmer still in his soul faint lights of humanity which make him turn away from the horrible sight of dogs devouring the dead bodies of men. byron speaks in his own person in the introduction of the "giaour," which is replete with most exquisite beauty. in it he opens to the reader unexplored fields of delight, leads him through delicious countries where all is joy for the senses, where all recollections are a feast for the soul, and where his love of moral beauty is as strongly marked in his praise of olden greece, as is his condemnation of modern degraded greece. byron speaks again in his own name when he puts invectives in the mouth of the mussulman fisherman, and makes him curse so strongly the crime of the giaour and the criminal himself, whose despair is the expiation of his crimes and the beautiful triumph of morality. in the "bride of abydos" (where the terrible ali again comes forward in the shape of the old giaffir) the amiable and unfortunate selim and the poet share the real sentiments of byron. byron is also himself when he adorns his heroine with every grace and perfection of body and soul, and also whenever it is necessary to idealize in order that a too rigorous imitation of reality may not offend either the laws of art or the feelings of the reader. as for "don juan," it is only fair to say that he in a measure deserved the persecution which it brought upon him. yet, if we judge the poem with no preconceived severity, we shall find that, with the exception of certain passages where he went beyond the limits prescribed to satire, from his hatred of hypocrisy, and also at times as a revenge against his persecutors, the poem is charming. these passages he intended to suppress,[ ] but death prevented him. this is greatly to be regretted, for otherwise "don juan" would have been the most charming satirical poem in existence, and especially had not the last four cantos, written in greece, been destroyed. the scene lay in england, and the views expressed in them explained many things which can never now be known. in allowing such an act to be committed for the sake of sparing the feelings of some influential persons and national susceptibilities, byron's friends failed in their duty to his memory, for the last four cantos gave the key to the previous ones, and justified them. from the moment byron conceived "don juan" he steeled his heart against feeling; and he kept to his resolution not to give way to his natural goodness of disposition, wishing the poem to be a satire as well as an act of revenge. here and there, however, his great soul pierces through, and shows itself in such a true light that byron's portrait could be better drawn from passages of "don juan," than from any other of his poems.[ ] we have sufficiently proved, we think, that the uniform character of byron's heroes, which has been blamed by the poet's enemies, was merely the reflection of the moral beauty which he drew from himself. it might almost be said that the qualities with which he had been gifted by heaven conspired against him. we have been led to dwell upon this phase of his literary career, at the risk even of tiring the patience of the reader, from the necessity which we believe exists to destroy the phantom of identification which has been invoked, and to explain the moral nature of byron in its true light before analyzing the poet under other aspects. it is not in "harold" or in "conrad," nor in any of his oriental poems, that we are likely to trace the moral character of byron, for, although it would be easy to detach the author's sentiments from those of the personages of these poems, yet they might offer a pretext of blame to those who hate to look into a subject to discover the truth which does not appear at first sight. nor is it in "manfred"--the only one of his poems wherein, perhaps, reason may be said to be at fault, owing to the sickness under which his soul labored at the time when it was written, and to his diseased imagination, produced by solitude and unmerited grief. in his lyrical poems byron's soul must be sought. there he speaks and sings in his own name, expresses his own sentiments, breathes his own thoughts; or, again, in his elegies and in his miscellaneous poems, in his dramas, in his mysteries, nay, even in his satires--the noble and courageous independence of which has never been surpassed by any satirist, ancient or modern--and generally in all the poems which he wrote in italy, and which might almost be called his second form. in these poems no medium is any longer required between his soul and that of the reader. it is not possible any longer to make any mistake about him in these. the melancholy and the energy displayed in them can not serve any more to give him the mask of a conrad, or of a harold, or of a misanthrope, or of a haughty individual, but they place in relief what there is of tender, amiable, affectionate sublime in those chosen beings whom god occasionally sends upon earth to testify here below of the things above:-- "per far di colassu fede fra noi."--petrarch. thus, in his elegy upon the death of thyrza, "far too beautiful," says moore, "and too pure to have been inspired by a mortal being," what pathos, what sensitiveness! what charm in his sonnets to guinevre! what soft melancholy, what profound and intimate knowledge of the immortality and spirituality of our soul, in his hebrew melodies! "they seem as though they had been inspired by isaiah and written by shakspeare," says the very rev. dr. stanley, dean of westminster. what touching family affection in his domestic poems, and what generosity in the avowal of certain wrongs! what great and moral feeling pervade the two last cantos of "childe harold," melancholy though they be, like all things which are beautiful! how one feels that the pain they tell of has its origin in unmerited persecution, and how his intellect came to his aid, and enabled him to bear with calmness the uncertainties incident to our nature! what greatness of soul in the forgiveness of what to others would seem unpardonable! what love of humanity and of its rights! what hatred of injustice, tyranny, and oppression in the "ode to venice," in "the lament of tasso," in "the prophecy of dante," and in general in all his latter poems, even in the "isle," a poem little known, which was written a short time before he left genoa for greece. here, more than in any other of his poems, we see the admirable peace of mind which he had created for himself, and how far too high his great intellect soared to be any longer moved by the world's injustice. quotations from his poems would be impossible. how choose without regretting what has been discarded? they must be read; and those must be pitied who do not feel morally better after having read them. this is precisely what has been least done up to the present time: people have been content with reading his early poems, and with seeking byron in "childe harold" or in the heroes of his oriental poems; which is about as just as to look for shakspeare in iago, milton in satan, goethe in mephistopheles, or lamartine in the blasphemies of his ninth meditation. thus french critics,--disposed to identify the man with the imaginary beings of his poems, and neglecting to seek him where they could have found him, relying upon judgments formed in england, and too often by people prejudiced against byron,--have themselves adopted false views with respect to the author and his works. thus, again, poetry--which without any preconceived teaching or any particular doctrine of its own, without transgressing the rules laid down by art, moved the soul, purified and elevated it, and taught it to despise the base and cowardly desires of nature, and excited in it the admiration of all that is noble and heroic,--was declared to be suspicious even in france, because too often it had proclaimed openly the truth where one would have wished truth to have been disguised. many would fain have thought otherwise, but they preferred remaining silent, and to draw from that poetry the poetical riches of which they might be in want. our intention being to consecrate a chapter to the examination of the moral tendency of byron's poetry, we will not now say more. we must add, however, that these views which had been so easily adopted in france were not those of the majority of right-thinking persons in england, although they dared not proclaim their opinions then as they can now. i shall only quote the opinion of two englishmen of great merit (moore and sir egerton brydges), who can neither one nor the other be suspected of partiality; the first, on account of his great fear of ever wounding the susceptibilities of his countrymen, the other by the independence and nobility of his character. "how few are the pages in his poems," says moore, "even if perused rapidly, which by their natural tendency toward virtue, or some splendid tribute to the greatness of god's works, or by an explosion of natural piety more touching than any homily, do not entitle him to be admitted in the purest temple of which christianity may have the keep!"--_moore_, vol. ii. sir egerton brydges, after having fully appreciated the poems of lord byron, says:---- "they give to the reader's best instincts an impulse which elevates, purifies, instructs, charms, and affords us the noblest and purest of joys."--_sir e. brydges_, vol. x. p. . these quotations perhaps will be found too many, but are they not necessary? is truth which can be so easily changed equally easy to re-establish? are not a thousand words wanted to restore a reputation which a light word or, may be, slight malice has tarnished? if the author of these pages only expressed individual opinions without adducing any proof, that is to say, without accompanying them with the disinterested and enlightened testimonies of people who have known byron personally, these volumes might gain in interest by being condensed in a shorter space. but in shortening the road would the author attain the desired end? would the self-imposed task be fulfilled? would his or her own convictions become those of others? should not authors sacrifice themselves to their subject in all works inspired by a devoted spirit? shall it be said that oftentimes one has wished to prove what had already been conceded by every body? that the value of the proofs adduced is lessened by the fact that they are nearly all already known? in answer, and without noticing the words "nearly all," he might say that, as truth has several aspects, one may almost, without mentioning new facts, arrive at being what might be called the guide in the tour round the soul, and fathom its depth in search of the reality; just as when we have looked at all the sides of a picture, we return to it, in order to find in it fresh beauties which may have escaped our notice on a first inspection. there are certain souls, to fathom which it is absolutely necessary to employ a retrospective method; in the same way that the pictures, for instance, of salvator rosa enchant on close inspection of the great beauties which in some lights seem hid by a mass of clouds. "one can hardly employ too many means," says ste. beuve, "to know a man; that is, to understand him to be something more than an intellectual being. as long as we have not asked ourselves a certain number of questions about such and such an author, and as long as they have not been satisfactorily answered, we are not sure of having completely made him out, even were such questions to be wholly irrelevant to the subjects upon which he has written. "what did he think upon religious matters? "how did the aspect of nature affect him? "how did he behave in regard to women? "how about money? "what rules did he follow? "what was his daily life? etc., etc. "finally, what was his peculiar vice and foible? every man has one. "not one of these questions is unimportant in order to appreciate an author or his book, provided the book does not treat of pure mathematics; and especially if it is a literary work, that is to say, a book wherein there is something about every thing."[ ] be this opinion of an eminent critic our rule and an encouragement to our efforts. we are well aware that in france, now-a-days, writers do not like to use the same materials in describing a character as are used by other nations, and especially by england. a study of this kind in france must not be a judgment pronounced upon the individual who is the object of it, and still less an inquiry. the qualities and defects of a man of genius do not constitute the principal business of the artist. man is now rather examined as a work of art or as an object of science. when reason has made him out, and intellectual curiosity has been satisfied, the wish to understand him is not carried out further. the subject is abandoned, lest the reader may be tired. this may be good reasoning in many cases; but in the present perhaps the best rule is "in medio tutissimus." when a good painting is spoilt by overpolish, to wash the polish off is not to restore it to its former appearance. to arrive at this last result, however, no pains should be spared; and upon this principle we must act with regard to byron. in psychological studies the whole depends upon all the parts, and what may at first seem unimportant may prove to be the best confirmation of the thesis. to be stopped by details (i might almost say repetitions) would therefore be to exhibit a fear in adducing proof. can it be said that we have not sufficiently condemned? to add this interest to the volume would not have been a difficult task. to attack is easier than to defend; but we should then have had to invent our facts, and, at the same time, to add romance to history. the world, says a great moralist of our times, prefers a vice which amuses it rather than a virtue which bores it; but our respect for the reader convinces us that the adoption of such a means of arriving at success would forfeit their respect for us and be as repugnant to their sense of justice as to our own. as regards byron, the means have more than once been employed, and with the more success by those who have united to their skill the charms of style. but in claiming no talent, no power to interest, and in refusing to appear as an author from motives of pusillanimity, idleness, or self-love, is one less excusable for hiding the truth when one is acquainted with it? if it is the duty of a man of honor and a christian to come to the rescue of a victim to violence when it is in one's power, is it not incumbent upon one to raise a voice in the defense of those who can no longer resent an insult, when we know that they are wrongly accused? to be silent under such circumstances would be productive of remorse; and the remorse is greater when felt on the score of those whose genius constitutes the monopoly of the whole world, and forms part of the common treasure of humanity, which enjoins that it should be respected. is not their reputation a part of the inherited treasure? to allow such reputation to be outraged would, in our minds, be as culpable as to hide a portion of a treasure which is not our own. "truth," says lamartine, "does not require style. its light shines of itself; its appearance is its proof." in publishing these pages, written conscientiously and scrupulously, we confide in the opinion expressed above in the magic language of the man who can create any prestige. if the reader finds these guarantees of truth sufficient, and deigns to accept our conscientious remarks with indulgence and kindness; if, after examining byron's character under all its aspects, after repeating his words, recalling his acts, and speaking of his life--especially of that which he led in italy--and mentioning the various impressions which he produced upon those who knew him personally, we are justified in the reader's opinion in having endeavored to clear the reality from all the clouds which imagination has gathered round the person of byron, and in trying to earn for his memory a little sympathy by proclaiming the truth, in place of the antipathy which falsehood has hitherto obtained for him, our object will have been obtained. to endeavor to restore byron's reputation is the more necessary, since moore himself, who is his best biographer, failed not only in his duty as a friend, but as the historian of the poet's life: for he knew the truth, and dared not proclaim it. who, for instance, could better inform us of the cause which led to byron's separation from his wife? and yet moore chose to keep the matter secret. who was better acquainted with the conduct of byron's colleagues at the time of his conjugal differences--with the curious proposals which were made to him by them to recover their good graces--with his refusal to regain them at such a cost--with the persecution to which he was, after that, subjected--with the names of the people who instigated a popular demonstration against him--with all the bad treatment which obliged him to quit england? and yet has moore spoken of it?[ ] who, better than moore, could tell of the friends on whom byron relied, and who at the time of his divorce sided with lady byron, and even went so far as to aggravate the case by falsely publishing reports of his having ill-treated lady byron and discharged loaded guns in order to frighten her? who was better acquainted with the fact that the last cantos of "don juan," written in greece, had been destroyed in england, and that the journal which he kept after his departure from genoa had been destroyed in greece? moore knew it very well, and did not reveal these facts, lest he should create enemies for himself. he actually went so far as to pretend that byron never wrote any thing in greece.[ ] who better than moore knew that byron was not irreligious?--and yet he pretended that he was. and finally, who was better aware that byron's greatest aim was to be useful to humanity, and yet encouraged the belief that byron's expedition to greece was purely to satisfy the desire that people should speak of him as a superior man? in a few words, moore has not made the best of byron's qualities, has kept silence over many things which might have enhanced his character in public opinion; and wished, above all, to show the greatness of his poetical genius, which was never questioned. one would almost say that moore did not like byron to be too well spoken of: for whenever he praises, he ever accompanies the praise with a blame, a "but" or an "if;" and instead of openly contradicting accusations which he knew to be false, and honestly proclaiming the truth, he, too, preferred to excuse the poet's supposed shortcomings. moore was wanting in courage. he was good, amiable, and clever; but weak, poor, and a lover of rank--where, naturally, he met with many political enemies of byron. he, therefore, dared not then tell the truth, having too many interests to consider. hence his concessions and his sluggishness in leaving the facts as they were; and in many cases, when it was a question between the departed byron and one of his high detractors, the one sacrificed was the dead friend who could no longer defend himself. all such considerations for the living were wrongs toward the memory of byron. the gravest accusation, however, to which moore is open is, that he did not preserve the memoirs which byron gave him on the sworn condition that nothing should prevent their publication. the promise thus given had restored peace to byron's mind, so confident was he that it would be fulfilled. to have broken his word is a crime for which posterity will never forgive moore. can it be alleged, by way of excuse, that he gave extracts from it? but besides the authenticity of the extracts, which might be questioned, of what value can be a composition like moore's in presence of byron's very words? no one can pretend to be identified with such a mind as byron's in the expression of his own feelings; and, least of all, a character like moore's. the "memoirs," then, which were the justification of byron's life; the last cantos, which were the justification of the poet and of the man; the journal, which showed his prudence and sagacity beyond his age, which by the simple relation of facts proved how he had got rid of all the imperfections of youth, and at last become the follower of wisdom, so much so that he would have been one of the most virtuous men in england--all have been lost to the world: they have descended with him into the tomb, and thus made room for the malice of his detractors. hence the duty of not remaining silent on the subject of this highly-gifted man. in restoring, however, facts to their true light, we do not pretend to make byron appear always superior to humanity in his conduct as a man and a poet. could he, with so sensitive and passionate a nature as his was, and living only that period when passions are strongest, have always acted as those who from age no longer are affected by them? if it is easy not to give way to our passions at seventy, is it equally so at twenty or at thirty? persecuted as he was, could byron be expected to remain unmoved? if his passion for truth made him inexorable in some of his poems; if his passion for justice allowed his pen at times to go beyond the limits which it should have respected; if even at times he was unjust, because he had been too much injured and irritated,--he undoubtedly would have compensated for his involuntary and slight offenses, had he not been carried off so early. as for the imperfection of these pages,--once we have dissipated error, and caused truth to be definitely received as regards byron,--an abler pen can easily correct it, and do away with the numberless repetitions with which we are aware we shall be reproached. we could not do otherwise, as we wished to multiply proofs. others, some day, will achieve what we have been unable to perform. our work is like the stream which falls from the mountain and is filled with ooze: its only merit is to swell the river into which it runs. but, sooner or later, a stronger current will purify it, and give clearness and brilliancy to it, without taking from it the merit of having increased the bulk of the waters. such as it is, we dedicate this humble work to the noble souls who worship truth. they will feel that we have been able to place them in a more intimate connection with another great mind, and thus we shall have gained our reward. footnotes: [footnote : he often told and promised his friends at genoa that he would alter the passages which are unjust and reprehensible, and that, before it was finished, "don juan" would become a chaste and irreproachable satire.] [footnote : "his manner was perhaps the more seductive, because he ne'er seemed anxious to seduce; nothing affected, studied, or constructive of coxcombry or conquest: no abuse of his attractions marr'd the fair perspective, to indicate a cupidon broke loose, and seem to say, 'resist us if you can'-- which makes a dandy while it spoils a man. xiii. "don juan was without it; in fact, his manner was his own alone: sincere he was---- xiv. "by nature soft, his whole address held off suspicion: though not timid, his regard was such as rather seem'd to keep aloof, to shield himself than put you on your guard. xv. "serene, accomplish'd, cheerful, but not loud, insinuating without insinuation; observant of the foibles of the crowd, yet ne'er betraying this in conversation; proud with the proud, yet courteously proud, so as to make them feel he knew his station and theirs:--without a struggle for priority he neither brook'd nor claim'd superiority. xvi. "that is with men: with women he was what they pleased to make or take him for."--_canto_ xv. liv. "there was the purest platonism at bottom of all his feelings."--_canto_ x.] [footnote : ste. beuve, "nouveaux lundis," vol. iii. p. .] [footnote : when the persecution to which lord byron was exposed by his separation had attained its greatest height, an influential person--not belonging to the peerage--came to visit him, and told him that, if he wished to see how far the folly of men went, he had only to give orders for having it shown that nothing said against him was true, but that then he must change politics and come over to the tory party. lord byron replied that he would prefer death and all kinds of tortures to such meanness. hereupon the person in question said that he must suffer the consequences, which would be heavy, since his colleagues were determined on his ruin, out of party spirit and political hatred. it was at this time that, going one day to the house, he was insulted by the populace, and even treated in it like an outlaw. no one spoke to him, nor approached to give any explanation of such a proceeding, except lord holland, who was always kind to him, and indeed to every one else. others--such as the duke of sussex, lord minto, lord lansdowne and lord grey--would fain have acted in a like manner; but they suffered themselves to be influenced by his enemies, among whom more than one was animated by personal rancor because the young lord had laughed at them and shown up their incapacity. lord byron, finding himself received in this way by his colleagues, pretended not to see it, and after a few moments quitted the house, never more to set foot within it.] [footnote : lord byron's mind, incapable of idleness, was constantly at work, even despite himself and amid pressing active occupations. during his stay in the ionian islands, missolonghi, he wrote five cantos of don juan. the scene of the cantos that followed was laid first in england and then in greece. the places chosen for the action naturally rendered these last cantos the most interesting, and, besides, they explained a host of things quite justifying them. they were taken to england with lord byron's other papers; but there they were probably considered not sufficiently respectful toward england, on which they formed a sort of satire too outspoken with regard to living personages, and doubtless it was deemed an act of patriotism to destroy them. and so the world was deprived of them. lord byron had also kept a journal since the day of his departure from genoa up to the time when illness made the pen drop from his hand. to it he had consigned his most intimate thoughts; and we may well imagine how full of interest it must have been, written amid all the emotions agitating his soul at that time. this journal was found among his papers by a personage of high standing in greece, who was the first to inspect them, and who, seeing his own name and conduct mentioned in no flattering terms, destroyed them in order to hide from england the unvarnished truth told of himself. count gamba often speaks of this journal in the letters addressed at this period to his sister. we leave the reader to make his own comments on these too regrettable facts.] chapter i. lord byron and m. de lamartine. _to count de_ ----. paris, th june, . my dear count,--confiding in your willingness to oblige, i beg to ask a favor and your advice. i received, a short time ago, a prospectus of a subscription to be raised for a general addition of the works of m. de lamartine. you are aware that when it is a question of showing my sympathy for m. de lamartine i would never miss the opportunity of doing so; but on this occasion i see on the programme the promise of a life of lord byron. such an announcement must alarm the friends of that great man; for they remember too vividly the sixteenth number of the "cours littéraire" to subscribe hastily to a work when they have not more information than is therein given. you, who forget nothing, must probably remember the strange judgment of byron formed by m. de lamartine in that article. identifying the man with the poet, and associating his great name with that of heine on account of some rather hazardous lines in "don juan," and forgetting the license allowed to such poetry--an imitation of the italian poets berni, ariosto, pulci, buratti--m. de lamartine did not forget a few personal attacks upon himself, and called byron the founder of the school for promoting satanic laughter, while he heaped upon him the most monstrous accusations. m. de lamartine ventured to say of byron things which even his greatest enemies never dared to utter at that time when in england it was the custom to revile him. although the time has not yet come when lord byron's life should be written, since the true sources of collecting information respecting him are unattainable so long as the people live to whom his letters were addressed, still it is easy to perceive that the time has at length arrived when in england the desire to do him justice and fairly to examine his merits is felt by the nation generally. moore, parry, medwin, etc., have already attempted to make known the character of the man as distinct from that of the poet. they no longer sought to find in him a resemblance with childe harold, or the corsair, or manfred, or don juan, nor to judge of him by the conversations in which he sought to mystify those with whom he conversed; but they judged him by his acts and by his correspondence. if so happy a reaction, however, is visible in england the same can not be said of france, where there being no time to read what is published elsewhere, an error is too soon embraced and ingrafted on the mind of the public as a consequence of a certain method which dispenses with all research. hence the imaginary creation which has been called byron, and which has been maintained in france notwithstanding its being wholly unacceptable as a portrait of the man, and totally different from the byron known personally to some happy few who had the pleasure of beholding in him the handsomest, the most amiable of men, and the greatest genius whom god has created. but m. de lamartine, who wishes particularly to show the character of the man, instead of adding to the numerous proofs of courage and grandeur of mind which he has personally shown to the world--that of confessing that he has erred in his judgment of byron--endeavors to study him only in his works. but in doing this, and even though a moral object may be found in each of byron's works, it strikes us that m. de lamartine would have done better to pursue this line in the analysis of the intellectual part of the man, and not the moral side. "you err" (wrote byron to moore on the occasion of the latter saying that such a poem as the "vision of judgment" could not have been written in a desponding mood): "a man's poetry is a distinct faculty or soul, and has no more to do with the every-day individual than the inspiration of the pythoness when removed from her tripod." to which moore observes: "my remark has been hasty and inconsiderate, and lord byron's is the view borne out by all experience. almost all the tragic and gloomy writers have been, in social life, mirthful persons. the author of the 'night thoughts' was a fellow of infinite jest; and of the pathetic otway, pope says, 'he! why, he would laugh all the day long; he would do nothing but laugh!'" it is known that many licentious writers have led very regular and chaste lives; that many who have sung their success with women have not dared to declare their love to one woman; that all sterne's sentiment was perfectly ideal, and proceeded always from the head and never from the heart; that seneca's morality was no barrier to his practicing usury; and that, according to plutarch, demosthenes was a very questionable moralist in practice. why, then, necessarily conclude that a moralist is a moral man, or a sarcastic satirist a deceitful one, or the man who describes scenes of blood and carnage a monster of cruelty? does not montaigne say of authors that they must be judged by their merits, and not by their morals, nor by that show of works which they exhibit to the world? why, then, does m. lamartine appreciate byron according to his satirical works, when all those who knew him assert that his real character was very different to his literary one? he did not personify, but create his heroes; which are two very different things. like salvator rosa, who, the meekest of men in private life, could only find a vent to his talent by painting scenes of brigandage and horror, so did byron's genius require to go down into the darkest recesses of the passions which generate remorse, crime, and heroism, to find that spark which fired his genius. but it must be owned, that even his great qualities were causes of the false judgment of the world upon him. thus, in describing childe harold, he no doubt wished to paint a side of nature which had not yet been seen. at the scenes of despair, at the scenes of doubt which assail him, the poet assists rather as the historian than as the actor. and the same holds good for other poems, where he describes those peculiar diseases of the mind which great geniuses alone can comprehend, though they need not have experienced them. but it was the very life which he infused into his heroes that made it appear as if they could not personify any one but himself. and as to their faults, because he was wont to give them his qualities, it was argued, that since the latter were observable to be common to the author and the creations of his fancy, the faults of these must likewise be his. if only the faults, why not also the crimes? thus it came that, caring little for their want of argument, byron's enemies erected themselves into avengers of too much talent bestowed upon one single man. byron might have taken up his own defense, but did not care to do so, or did it carelessly in some letters written to intimate friends. to moore he wrote:--"like all imaginative men, i, of course, embody myself with the character while i draw it; but not a moment after the pen is from the paper." he always, however, begged that he might be judged by his acts; and a short time before he died at missolonghi, after recommending colonel stanhope to desist from then pressing the necessity of giving liberty to the press, and from recommending the works of bentham to a people who could not even read, byron replied to the colonel's rather hasty remarks, "judge me by my acts." this request he had often repeated, as his life was not one of those which fear the light of day. all in vain. his enemies were not satisfied with this means of putting an end to their calumnies. where does m. de lamartine find the truth which he proposes to tell the world about byron? not surely among the writers whose biographies of byron were either works of revenge or of speculation, and sometimes both. not in the conversations which byron had with several people, and on the credulity of whom he loved to speculate. it can not, therefore, be in the biographies of men who have written erroneously, and have not understood their subject; but in moore, in parry, in count gamba's works, and, may be, in a few others. i am, however, far from saying, that moore has acted toward lord byron with all that friendly feeling which byron recommended to him on asking him to write the life of sheridan, "without offending the living or insulting the dead." quite the contrary. i take it that moore has wholly disregarded his duties as a true friend, by publishing essentially private letters, by introducing into his books certain anecdotes which he might, if even they were true, have advantageously left out; and in failing, from fear of wounding living susceptibilities, to assert with energy that which he knew to be the real case with byron. more than any one, moore experienced the fatal influence which injures independence in aristocratic england. an irishman by birth, and a commoner, moore was flattered to find himself elevated by his talents to a position in aristocratic circles which he owed to his talents, but which he was loath to resign. the english aristocracy then formed a kind of clique whose wish it was to govern england on the condition that its secret of governing should not be revealed, and was furious with byron, who was one of them, for revealing their weaknesses and upbraiding their pretensions. moore wished to live among the statesmen and noblemen whose despotic views and bad policy byron had openly condemned, and among those lovely islanders in whose number there might be found more adelinas than auroras, and to whom byron had preferred foreign beauties. moore, in short, wished to live with the literary men whom byron had ridiculed in his satires, and among the high clergy, then as intolerant as they were hypocritical, and who, as byron said, forgot christ alone in their christianity. moore, whose necessity it had become to live among these open revilers and enemies of byron, after allowing the memoirs of byron to be burnt, because in them some of the above-named personages were unmasked, this moore was weak enough not to proclaim energetically that byron's character was as great as his genius, but to do so only timidly. by way of obtaining pardon even for this mite of justice to the friend who was gone, moore actually condescended to associate himself with those who pleaded extenuating circumstances for byron's temper, like walter scott and other poets. but truth comes out, nevertheless, in moore; and in the perusal of byron's truthful and simple letters we find him there displayed in all his admirable and unique worth as an intellectual and a moral man. we find him adorned with all the virtues which heaven gave him at his birth; his real goodness, which neither injustice nor misfortune could alter; his generosity, which not only made him disbelieve in ingratitude, but actually incited him to render good for evil and obliged him to own that "he could not keep his resentments;" his gratitude for the little that is done for him; his sincerity; his openness of character; his greatness and disinterestedness. "his very failings were those of a sincere, a generous, and a noble mind," says a biographer who knew him well. his contempt for base actions; his love of equity; his passion for truth, which was carried almost to a hatred of cant and hypocrisy, were the immediate causes of his want of fairness in his opinion of himself and of his self-accusation of things most contrary to his nature. so singular a trait in his character was by no means the result of eccentricity, but the result of an exceptional assembly of rare qualities which met for the first time in one man, and which, shining in the midst of a most corrupt society, constituted almost more an anomaly which became a real defect, hurtful, however, to himself only. his ideal of the beautiful magnified weaknesses into crimes, and physical failings into deformities. thus it is that with the saints the slightest transgression of the laws appears at once in the light of mortal sin. st. augustin calls the greediness of his youth a crime. the result of all this was that his very virtues mystified the world and caused it to believe that the faults which he attributed to himself were nothing in comparison of those which he really had. byron, however, was indignant at being so unfairly treated. he treated with contempt the men who calumniated him, and as if they were idiots. he can safely, therefore, be blamed for not urging enough his own defense. this, to my mind, constitutes his capital fault, unless one considers defects of character those changes of humor which rapidly passed from gayety to melancholy, or his pretended irritability, which was merely a slight disposition to be impatient. these were all the result of his poetical nature, added to the effects of early education and to those of certain family circumstances. it would be too hard and too unfair to attribute these slight weaknesses of character proper to great genius to a bad nature or to misanthropy. had lord byron not been impatient he must have been satisfied with his own condition and indifferent to that of others. in other words, he must have been an egotist, which he was not. he was gay by nature, and repeatedly showed it; but he had been sorely wounded by the injustice of men, and his marriage with miss milbank had undermined his peace and happiness. how, then, could he escape the occasional pangs of grief, and not betray outwardly the pain which devoured him inwardly. in such moments it was a relief to him to heave a sigh, or take up a pen to vent his grief in rhyme. his misanthropy was quite foreign to his nature. all those who knew him can bear testimony to the falseness of the accusation. moore, who knew him so well, and who always speaks the truth when no longer under the influences which at times overpower him, after speaking of the charm of byron's manner when he saw him for the first time, ends by saying: "it may be asserted that never did there exist before, and it is most probable never will exist again, a combination of such vast mental power and surpassing genius, with so many others of those advantages and attractions by which the world is in general dazzled and captivated." when, therefore, m. de lamartine seeks the truth in moore, parry, and some other biographers respecting byron, he will find that this eminently beautiful form was in harmony with the splendid intellect and moral qualities of the man. m. de lamartine will see that byron was a good and devoted son, a tender father and brother, a faithful friend, and indulgent master, beloved by all who ever knew him, and who was never accused, even by his enemies, of having tried to seduce an innocent young girl, or having disturbed the peace of conjugal bliss. he will behold his charity, which was universal and unbounded; a pride which never stooped to be subservient of those in power; a firm political faith; a contempt of public dignities, so far as they reflected glory upon himself; and such a spirit of humility that he was ever ready to blame himself and follow the advice of those whom he deemed to be animated by no hostile spirit against himself. when m. de lamartine sees all this, not merely written down as in these pages, but actually proved by facts and irrefutable testimonies, his loyal soul must revolt and wish to do justice to himself by rejecting his former opinions. he will understand that if he himself has been called a drinker of blood by the party whom he styles bigoted and composed of old men, byron, too, may have been calumniated. looking, then, at the great poet in his proper light, that is, in the plenitude of his rare qualities, and considering him under each of the circumstances of his life, m. de lamartine will own that he had misunderstood that most admirable of characters, and grant that the "satanic laughter" of which he spoke was, on the contrary, the smile which was so beautiful that it might have lighted up by its magic soft rays the dark regions of satan. his doubts being cleared away, m. de lamartine will end by saying that byron was an "angel, not a demon." byron's misfortune was to have been born in the england of those days. do you remember his beautiful lines in the "due foscari?"-- "he might have lived, so formed for gentle privacy of life, so loving, so beloved; the native of another land, and who so bless'd and blessing as my poor foscari? nothing was wanting unto his happiness and mine save not to be venetian." in writing these lines byron must have thought of his own fate. he was scarcely british by origin, and very little so by his turn of mind, or by his tastes or by the nature of his genius. "my ancestors are not saxon, they are norman," he said; "and my blood is all meridian." if, instead of being born in england then, he had come before the world when his star would have been hailed with the same love and regard that was granted to dante in italy, to chateaubriand and lamartine in france, or to goethe in germany, who would ever have blamed him for the slight errors which fell from his pen in "don juan,"--a poem written hastily and with carelessness, but of which it can be said, as montesquieu said of the prettiest women, "their part has more gravity and importance than is generally thought." if the sense of the ridiculous is ever stronger among people whose appreciation of the beautiful is keenest, who more than byron could have possessed it to a higher degree? is it therefore to be marvelled at that, in order to make the truth he revealed accessible to all, and such whose minds had rusted in egotism and routine, he should have given to them a new and sarcastic form? had he been born anywhere but in the england of those days, he never would have been accused of mocking virtue because he claimed for it reality of character, and not that superficial form which he saw existed then in society. he believed it right to scorn the appearances of virtue put on only for the purpose of reaping its advantages. no one respected more than he did all that was really holy, virtuous, and respectable; but who could blame him for wishing to denounce hypocrisy? as for his supposed skepticism, and his expressions of despair, they may be classed with the misgivings of job, of pascal, of lamartine, of chateaubriand, and of other great minds, for whom the unknown world is a source of constant anxiety of thought, and whose cry of despair is rather a supplication to the almighty that he would reveal himself more to their eyes. it must be borne in mind that the skepticism which some lines in his poems denounce is one of which the desponding nature calls more for our sympathy than our denunciations, since "we discover in the midst of these doubts," says moore, "an innate piety which might have become tepid but never quite cold." his own words should be remembered when he writes, as a note to the two first cantos of "childe harold," that the spirit of the stanzas reflects grief and illness, more than an obstinate and mocking skepticism; and so they do. they do not embody any conclusions, but are only the expression of a passionate appeal to the almighty to come to the rescue and proclaim the victory of faith. could any thing but a very ordinary event be seen in his separation from a wife who was in no way suited to him, and whose worth can be esteemed by the remark which she addressed to byron some three weeks after her marriage: "when, my lord, do you intend to give up your habit of versifying?" and, alas! could he possibly be happy, born as he was in a country where party prejudices ran so high? where his first satire had created for him so many enemies? where some of his poems had roused political anger against him, and where his truth, his honesty, could not patiently bear with the hypocrisy of those who surrounded him, and where, in fact, he had had the misfortune to marry miss milbank? the great minds whom god designs to be the apostles of truth on earth, make use for that purpose of the most efficacious means at their disposal. the universal genius of byron allowed of his making use of every means to arrive at his end. he was able to be at once pathetic, comic, tragical, satirical, vehement, scoffing, bitter, and pleasant. this universality of talents, directed against englishmen, was injurious to his peace of mind. when byron went to italy his heart was broken down with real and not imaginary sorrows. these were not of that kind which create perfection, but were the result of an unheard-of persecution on account of a family difference in which he was much more the victim than the culprit. he required to live in a milder climate, and a softer atmosphere to breathe in. he found both at venice; and under their influence his mind took a new turn, which had remained undeveloped while in his own clouded country. in the study of italian literature he met with the bernesque poetry, which is so lightly and elegantly sarcastic. he made the acquaintance of buratti, the clever and charming satirist. he began, himself, to perceive the baseness of men, and found in an æsthetical mockery of human failings the most copious of the poetical currents of his mind. the more his friends and his enemies told him of the calumnies which were uttered against him, so much the more did byron's contempt swell into disdain; and to this circumstance did "beppo" and "don juan" _owe_ their appearance. the social condition of his country and the prevalent cant opened to him a field for reflection at venice, where customs were so different and manners so tolerant. seeing new horizons before him, he was more than ever disgusted at the judgments of those who calumniated him, and ended by believing it to be best to laugh at their silly efforts to ruin him. he then wrote "beppo" and afterward "don juan." he was mistaken, however, in believing that in england this new style of poetry would be liked. his jests and sarcasms were not understood by the greater portion of those against whom they were levelled. the nature of the bernese poetry being essentially french, england could not, with its serious tendencies, like a production in which the moral purpose was artistically veiled. from that day forward a severance took place between byron and his countrymen. what had enchanted the french displeased them, and byron in vain translated the "morgante" of pulci, to show them what a priest could say in that style of poetry in a catholic country. in vain did he write to his friends that "don juan" will be known by-and-by for what it is intended,--a satire on the abuses of the present state of society, and not a eulogy of vice. it may be now and then voluptuous: i can't help it. ariosto is worse; smollett ten times worse; fielding no better. no girl will ever be seduced by reading "don juan," etc. but he was blamed just because he jested. to his ultramontane tone they would have preferred him to blaspheme in coarse saxon. one of the best of byron's biographers asserts that he was a french mind lost on the borders of the thames. lord byron had every kind of mind, and that is why he was equally french. but in addressing his countrymen, as such, he heaped a mountain of abuse upon his head. with the most moral portion of the english public a violent satire would have had better chance of success. with the higher classes the work was read with avidity and pleasure. it was not owned, because there were too many reasons for condemning it; but it found its way under many a pillow, to prove to the country how virtue and patriotism were endangered by this production. murray made himself the echo of all this wrath, and lord byron, not able at times to contain his, wrote to him much to the following purpose-- "i intend to write my best work in italian, and i am working at it. as for the opinion of the english, which you mention, let them know how much it is worth before they come and insult me by their condescension. "i have not written for their pleasure; if they find theirs in the perusal of my works, it is because they wish it. i have never flattered their opinion or their pride, nor shall i ever do so. i have no intention either of writing books for women or to '_dilettar le femine e la plese_.' i have written merely from impulse and from passion, and not for their sweet voices. i know what their applause is worth; few writers have had more. they made of me a kind of popular idol without my ever wishing, and kicked me down from the pedestal upon which their caprice had raised me. but the idol did not break in the fall, and now they would raise it again, but they shall not." as soon as they saw that byron was perfectly happy in italy, and that their abuse did him but very little harm, they gave full vent to their rage. they had shown how little they knew him when they identified him with his heroes; they found that they knew even less of him when he appeared to them in the reality of his character. calumny followed upon calumny. unable to find him at fault, they interpreted his words themselves, and gave them a different meaning. every thing was figurative of some wickedness, and to the simplest expressions some vile intention was attributed. they depreciated his works, in which are to be found such admirable and varied types of women characters, that they even surpass in beauty those of shakspeare (angiolina, myrrha, anna): they said that faliero wanted interest, that sardanapalus was a voluptuary; that satan in "cain" did not speak as a theologian (how could he?), that there were irreverent tendencies in his sacred dramas--and finally that his declaration-- "my altars are the mountains and the ocean, earth, air, stars,--all that springs from the great whole, who hath produced, and will receive the soul," was hazardous, and almost that of an atheist. atheist! he! who considered atheists fools. on leaving venice for ravenna,[ ] where he had spent a few months, only by way of distraction in the midst of his sorrows and serious occupations, he was accused of dissolute conduct; and the serious attachment which he had wished to avoid, but which had mastered his whole heart, and induced him to live an isolated life with the person he loved in a town of romagna, far from all that could flatter his vanity and from all intercourse with his countrymen, was brought against him to show that he lived the life of an epicurean, and brought misery into the heart of families. all this, no doubt, might have again called for his contempt, but on his way from ravenna to pisa he wrote the outpourings of his mind in a poem, the last lines of which are:-- "oh fame! if i e'er took delight in thy praises, 'twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover, the thought that i was not unworthy to love her. "_there_ chiefly i sought thee, _there_ only i found thee; her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee; when it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, i knew it was love, and i felt it was glory." his heart was wounded by the persecutions to which those he loved were subjected. his thoughts were for his daughter, who was growing up in the midst of her father's enemies, and for his beloved sister who was praying for him. he contemplated in the future the time when he could show the moral and heroic power of his soul. he looked forward to the great deeds by which he was going to astonish them, and perhaps call for their admiration, instead of his writings, which had never reaped for him any thing but pain. "if i live," he wrote to moore, "you will see that i shall do something better than rhyming." truth however, when told by such men as byron, and however ungraciously received, must guide in the end the steps of those who walk in its wake. this has been the case with byron's poetry. its influence over the minds of englishmen has been very salutary and great, and is one of the principal causes which brought on a reform of the rooted prejudices and opinions of the public in england, by the necessity under which it placed them of looking into the defects of the law and of the constitution, to which they had hitherto so crouchingly submitted. since then the feeling of good-will toward other nations has materially increased in that great country. others have improved the way which byron opened up for reform, and thanks to him england at his death began to lose her excessive susceptibility. she became accustomed to listen to the truth, and those who now proclaim it are not required to be exiled, or to suffer as byron did up to the time of his death. his sufferings, no doubt, paved his way to everlasting glory, but his heroic death left him at the mercy of the enemies who survived him. if ever a premature death was unfortunate, byron's was; not only for him, because he was on the point of giving to the world the proof of those virtues which had been denied him, but also for humanity, by the loss of various treasures which will probably never be found again. the epoch, however, of faint words and unbecoming silence has gone by even in england. already one of the greatest men of england has claimed a monument in westminster abbey, which had been denied to his memory by the bigoted rancor of the man who was dean at the time of byron's death, denied to that poet whom another great english statesman has called "a great writer, but a still greater man." there remains a still more imperious duty to be fulfilled by those who have been able to appreciate his great qualities. that duty is to proclaim them and to prevent the further spread of falsehood and error as to his real character. this is a very long letter, my dear count, but you know how long all letters must be which are intended to refute opinions and to rectify judgments. m. de lamartine has the excellent habit of listening to your advice, and that is why i have had at heart to let you know the truth about byron. the present work will adduce the proofs of the appreciations contained in this letter. i know that you do not require them, but also that the public does. pray accept, etc.----. footnotes: [footnote : galt says, "it was in the course of the passage to the island of zea, where he was put on shore, that one of the most emphatic incidents of his life occurred; an incident which throws a remarkable gleam into the springs and intricacies of his character, more perhaps than any thing which has yet been mentioned. one day, as he was walking the quarter-deck, he lifted an attaghan (it might be one of the midshipmen's weapons), and unsheathing it, said, contemplating the blade, '_i should like to know how a person feels after committing murder_.' by those who have inquiringly noticed the extraordinary cast of his metaphysical associations, this dagger scene must be regarded as both impressive and solemn; the wish to know how a man felt after committing murder does not imply any desire to perpetrate the crime. the feeling might be appreciated by experiencing any actual degree of guilt; for it is not the deed,--the sentiment which follows it makes the horror. but it is doing injustice to suppose the expression of such a wish dictated by desire. lord byron has been heard to express, in the eccentricity of conversation, wishes for a more intense knowledge of remorse than murder itself could give. there is, however, a wide and wild difference between the curiosity that prompts the wish to know the exactitude of any feeling or idea, and the direful passions that instigate to guilty gratifications."--galt, . his curiosity was psychological and philosophical, that of a great artist wishing to explore the heart of man in its darkest depths. on the eve of his departure from rome he assisted at the execution of three assassins, remaining to the end, although this spectacle threw him into a perfect fever, causing such thirst and trembling that he could hardly hold up his opera-glass. at venice he preferred madame benzoni's conversation to that of madame albrizzi, because she was more thoroughly venetian, and as such more fitted for the study he wished to make of national manners. he used to say that _every thing in the world ought to be seen once_, and it is to this idea that we must specially attribute some of the oddities so exaggerated and so much criticised during his short stay at venice, for in reality he had none of these tastes. parry says, "lord byron had an insatiable curiosity, he was forever making questions and researches. he wished me to relate to him all the most trifling incidents of my life in america, virginia, and canada."--parry, .] chapter ii. portrait of lord byron. the following letter was addressed to m. de lamartine, who had asked the author of these pages to give him the "portrait physique" of lord byron. my dear monsieur de lamartine,-- being on the point of departure, i nevertheless wish to send you a few explanations which must serve as my apology. you have asked me to draw the portrait of lord byron, and i have promised you that i would do so. i now see that my promise was presumptuous. every time i have endeavored to trace it, i have had to put down my pen, discouraged as i was by the fact of my always discovering too many obstacles between my reminiscences and the possibility of expressing them. my attempts appeared to me at times to be a profanation by the smallness of their character; at others, they bore the mark of an extreme enthusiasm, which, however, seemed to me very weak in its results and very ridiculous in its want of power. images which are preserved in thought to a degree which may almost be considered supernatural, are susceptible of too much change during the short transit of the mind to the pen. the almighty has created beings of such harmonious and ideal beauty that they defy description or analysis. such a one was lord byron. his wonderful beauty of expression has never been rendered either by the brush of the painter or the sculptor's chisel. it summed up in one magnificent type the highest expression of every possible kind of beauty. if his genius and his great heart could have chosen a human form by which they could have been well represented, they could not have chosen another! genius shone in his very looks. all the effects and emotions of a great soul were therein reflected as well as those of an eminently good and generous heart, and indeed contrasts were visible which are scarcely ever united in one and the same person. his eyes seized and betrayed the sentiments which animated him, with a rapidity and transparency such as called forth from sir walter scott the remark, that the fine head of his young rival "was like unto a beautiful alabaster vase lightened up by an interior lamp." to see him, was to understand thoroughly how really false were the calumnies spread about as to his character. the mass, by their obstinacy in identifying him with the imaginary types of his poems, and in judging him by a few eccentricities of early youth, as well as by various bold thoughts and expressions, had represented to themselves a factitious byron, totally at variance with the real man. calumnies, which unfortunately he passed over in disdainful silence, have circulated as acknowledged facts. time has destroyed many, but it would not be correct to say that they have all entirely been destroyed. lord byron was silent, because he depended upon time to silence his calumniators. all those who saw him must have experienced the charm which surrounded him as a kind of sympathetic atmosphere, gaining all hearts to him. what can be said to those who never saw him? tell them to look at the pictures of him which were painted by saunders, by phillips, by holmes, or by westall? all these, although the works of great artists, are full of faults. saunders's picture represents him with thick lips, whereas his lips were harmoniously perfect: holmes almost gives him a large instead of his well-proportioned and elegant head! in phillips's picture the expression is one of haughtiness and affected dignity, never once visible to those who ever saw him.[ ] "these portraits," says dallas, "will certainly present to the stranger and to posterity that which it is possible for the brush to reproduce so far as the features are concerned, but the charm of speech and the grace of movement must be left to the imagination of those who have had no opportunity to observe them. no brush can paint these." the picture of byron by westall is superior to the others, but does not come up to the original. as for the copies and engravings which have been taken from these pictures, and circulated, they are all exaggerated, and deserve the appellation of caricatures. can his portrait be found in the descriptions given by his biographers? but biographers seek far more to amuse and astonish, in order that their writings may be read, than to adhere to the simple truth. it can not be denied, however, that in the portraits which several, such as moore, dallas, sir walter scott, disraeli in london, the countess albrizzi at venice, beyle (stendhal) at milan, lady blessington and mrs. shelley in italy, have drawn of lord byron there is much truth, accompanied by certain qualifications which it is well to explain. i shall therefore give in their own words (preferring them to my own impressions) the unanimous testimony of those who saw him, be they friends or beings for whom he was indifferent. here are moore's words:--"of his face, the beauty may be pronounced to have been of the highest order, as combining at once regularity of features with the most varied and interesting expression. "his eyes, though of a light gray, were capable of all extremes of expression, from the most joyous hilarity to the deepest sadness, from the very sunshine of benevolence to the most concentrated scorn or rage. but it was in the mouth and chin that the great beauty as well as expression of his fine countenance lay. "his head was remarkably small, so much so as to be rather out of proportion with his face. the forehead, though a little too narrow, was high, and appeared more so from his having his hair (to preserve it, as he said) shaved over the temples. still the glossy dark-brown curls, clustering over his head, gave the finish to its beauty. when to this is added that his nose, though handsomely was rather thickly shaped, that his teeth were white and regular, and his complexion colorless, as good an idea perhaps as it is in the power of mere words to convey may be conceived of his features. "in height he was, as he himself has informed us, five feet eight inches and a half, and to the length of his limbs he attributed his being such a good swimmer. his hands were very white, and, according to his own notions of the size of hands as indicating birth, aristocratically small." "what i chiefly remember to have remarked," adds moore, "when i was first introduced to him, was the gentleness of his voice and manners, the nobleness of his air, his beauty, and his marked kindness to myself. being in mourning for his mother, the color as well of his dress, as of his glossy, curling and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure, spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when in repose." when moore saw him again at venice, some eight years after the first impressions which byron's beauty had produced upon him in london ( ), he noted a change in the character of that beauty. "he had grown fatter both in person and face, and the latter had most suffered by the change--having lost by the enlargement of the features some of that refined and spiritualized look that had in other times distinguished it.... he was still, however, eminently handsome, and in exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high romantic character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, waggish wisdom, that epicurean play of humor, which he had shown to be equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while by the somewhat increased roundness of the contours the resemblance of his finely-formed mouth and chin to those of the belvedere apollo had become still more striking."[ ] here are now the words of lady b----, who saw him a few weeks only before his last departure for greece. this lady had conceived a totally different idea of byron. according to her, byron would have appeared affected, _triste_, in accordance with certain portraits and certain types in his poems. but, if in order not to cause any jealousy among the living, she dared not reveal all her admiration, she at least suffered it to appear from time to time. "there are moments," she says, "when lord byron's face is shadowed over with the pale cast of thought, and then his head might serve as a model for a sculptor or a painter to represent the ideal of poesy. his head is particularly well formed: his forehead is high, and powerfully indicative of his intellect: his eyes are full of expression: his nose is beautiful in profile, though a little thickly shaped. his eyebrows are perfectly drawn, but his mouth is perfection. many pictures have been painted of him, but the excessive beauty of his lips escaped every painter and sculptor. in their ceaseless play they represented every motion, whether pale with anger, curled in disdain, smiling in triumph, or dimpled with archness and love." this portrait can not be suspected of partiality; for, whether justly or not, she did not enjoy lord byron's sympathy, and knew it; she had also to forgive him various little circumstances which had wounded her "amour propre," and was obliged to measure her praise in order not to create any jealousy with certain people who surrounded him and who had some pretension to beauty. here is the portrait of him which another lady (the comtesse albrizzi of venice) has drawn, notwithstanding her wounded pride at the refusal of lord byron to allow her to write a portrait of him and to continue her visits to him at venice:-- "what serenity on his forehead! what beautiful auburn, silken, brilliant, and naturally curled hair! what variety of expression in his sky-blue eyes! his teeth were like pearls, his cheeks had the delicate tint of a pale rose; his neck, which was always bare, was of the purest white. his hands were real works of art. his whole frame was faultless, and many found rather a particular grace of manner than a fault in the slight undulation of his person on entering a room. this bending of the body was, however, so slight that the cause of it was hardly ever inquired into." as i have mentioned the deformity of his foot, even before quoting other testimonies to his beauty, i shall tarry a while and speak of this defect, the only one in so pre-eminently favored a being. what was this defect, since all becomes illustrious in an illustrious man? was it visible? was it true that lord byron felt this imperfection so keenly? here is the truth. no defect existed in the formation of his limbs; his slight infirmity was nothing but the result of weakness of one of his ankles. his habit of ever being on horseback had brought on the emaciation of his legs, as evinced by the post-mortem examination; besides which, the best proof of this has been lately given in an english newspaper much to the following effect:-- "mrs. wildman (the widow of the colonel who had bought newstead) has lately given to the naturalist society of nottingham several objects which had belonged to lord byron, and among others his boot and shoe trees. these trees are about nine inches long, narrow, and generally of a symmetrical form. they were accompanied by the following statement of mr. swift, bootmaker, who worked for his lordship from to . swift is still alive, and continues to reside at southwell. his testimony as to the genuineness of the trees, and to the nature of lord byron's deformity, of which so many contradictory assertions have circulated, is as follows:-- "'william swift, bootmaker at southwell, nottinghamshire, having had the honor of working for lord byron when residing at southwell from to , asserts that these were the trees upon which his lordship's boots and shoes were made, and that the last pair delivered was on the th of may, . he, moreover, affirms that his lordship had not a club foot, as has been said, but that both his feet were equally well formed, one, however, being an inch and a half shorter than the other. the defect was not in the foot but in the ankle, which, being weak, caused the foot to turn out too much. to remedy this his lordship wore a very light and thin boot, which was tightly laced just under the sole, and, when a boy he was made to wear a piece of iron with a joint at the ankle, which passed behind the leg and was tied behind the shoe. the calf of this leg was weaker than the other, and it was the left leg. (signed) william swift.'" this, then, is the extent of the defect of which so much has been said, and which has been called a deformity. as to its being visible, all those who knew him assert that it was so little evident that it was even impossible to discover in which of the legs or feet the fault existed. to the testimonies already quoted i must add another:-- "his defect," says mr. galt, "was scarcely visible. he had a way of walking which made it appear almost imperceptible, and indeed entirely so. i spent several days on board a ship with him without discovering this defect; and, in truth, so little perceptible was it that a doubt always existed in my mind whether it might not be the effect of a temporary accident rather than a natural defect." all those who knew him being therefore agreed in this opinion, that of people who were not acquainted with him is of no value. but if, in the material appreciation of a defect, they have not been able to err, several have erred in their moral appreciation of the fact by pretending that lord byron, for imaginary reasons, was exceedingly sensible of this defect. this excessive sensibility was a pure invention on the part of his biographers. when he did experience it (which was never but to a very moderate extent), it was only because, physically speaking, he suffered from it. under the sole of the weak foot he at times experienced a painful sensation, especially after long walks. "once, at genoa," says mme. g., "he walked down the hill of albaro to the seaside with me, by a rugged and rough path. when we had reached the shore he was very well and lively. but it was an exceedingly hot day, and the return home fatigued him greatly. when home i told him i thought he looked ill. 'yes,' said he,' i suffer greatly from my foot; it can hardly be conceived how much i suffer at times from that pain,' and he continued to speak to me about this defect with great simplicity and indifference." he used often even to laugh at it, so superior was he to that weakness. "beware," said count gamba to him on one occasion while riding with him, and on reaching some dangerous spot, "beware of falling and breaking your neck." "i should decidedly not like it," said byron; "but if this leg of which i don't make much use were to break, it would be the same to me, and perhaps then i should be able to procure myself a more useful one." the sensitiveness, therefore, which he was said to experience, and which would have been childish in him, was in reality only the occasional experience of a physical pain which did not, however, affect his strength, nor the grace of his movements, in all those physical exercises to which he was so much attached. it in no wise altered his good looks, and, as a proof of this, i shall again bring testimonies, giving first that of m.n., who was at constantinople when byron arrived there for the first time, and who thus describes him in a review which he wrote of him after byron's death:-- "a stranger then entered the bazar. he wore a scarlet cloak, richly embroidered with gold in the style of an english aid-de-camp's dress uniform. he was attended by a janissary attached to the english embassy and by a cicerone: he appeared to be about twenty-two. his features were of so exquisite a delicacy, that one might almost have given him a feminine appearance, but for the manly expression of his fine blue eyes. on entering the inner shop he took off his hat, and showed a head of curly auburn hair, which improved in no small degree the uncommon beauty of his face. the impression his whole appearance made upon my mind, was such that it has ever remained most deeply engraven on it; and although fifteen years have since gone by, the lapse of time has not in the least impaired the freshness of the recollection." then, speaking of his manner, he goes on to say: "there was so irresistible an attraction in his manner, that only those who have been so fortunate as to be admitted to his intimacy can have felt its power." moore once asked lady holland whether she believed that lady byron had ever really loved lord byron. "could it be otherwise?" replied lady holland. "was it possible not to love so lovable a creature? i see him there now, surrounded as it were by that great light: oh, how handsome he was!" one of the most difficult things to define was the color of his eyes. it was a mixture of blue, gray, and violet, and these various colors were each uppermost according to the thought which occupied his mind or his heart. "tell me, dear," said the little eliza to her sister, whose enthusiasm for byron she shared, "tell me what is the color of his eyes?" "i can not say; i believe them to be dark," answered miss eliza, "but all i know is that they have quite a supernatural splendor." and one day, having looked at them with greater attention in order to ascertain their color, she said, "they are the finest eyes in the world, but not dark, as i had at first believed. their hue is that of the eyes of mary stuart, and his long, black eye-lashes make them appear dark. never did i before, nor ever again shall i, see such eyes! as for his hands, they are the most beautiful hands, for a man, i ever saw. his voice is a sweet melody."[ ] sir walter scott was enchanted when he could dilate on the extraordinary beauty of byron. one day, at mr. home drummond's, he exclaimed:--"as for poets, i have seen the best that this country has produced, and although burns had the finest eyes that can be imagined, i never thought that any man except byron could give an artist the exact idea of a poet. his portraits do not do him the least justice; the varnish is there, but the ray of sunshine is wanting to light them up. the beauty of byron," he added "is one which makes one dream." colonel wildman, his colleague at harrow, and his friend, was always wont to say, "lord byron is the only man among all those i have seen, who may be called, without restriction, a really handsome man." disraeli, in his novel entitled "venetia," speaks thus of the beauty of hubert (who is lord byron) when venetia finds his portrait:-- "that being of supernatural beauty is her father. young as he was, command and genius, the pride of noble passions, all the glory of a creative mind, seemed stamped upon his brow. with all his marvellous beauty he seemed a being born for greatness.... its reality exceeded the wildest dreams of her romance, her brightest visions of grace and loveliness and genius seemed personified in this form. he was a man in the very spring of sunny youth and of radiant beauty. he was above the middle height, yet with a form that displayed exquisite grace.... it was a countenance of singular loveliness and power. the lips and the moulding of the chin resembled the eager and impassioned tenderness of the shape of antinous; but instead of the effeminate sullenness of the eye and the narrow smoothness of the forehead, shone an expression of profound and piercing thought. on each side of the clear and open brow descended, even to the shoulders, the clustering locks of golden hair; while the eyes large and yet deep, beamed with a spiritual energy, and shone like two wells of crystalline water that reflect the all-beholding heavens." m. beyle (stendhal) writes to mr. swanton belloc:--"it was in the autumn of the year that i met lord byron at the theatre of the scala, at milan, in the box of the bremen minister. i was struck with lord byron's eyes at the time when he was listening to a sestetto in mayer's opera of "elena." i never in my life saw any thing more beautiful or more expressive. even now, when i think of the expression which a great painter should give to genius, i always have before me that magnificent head. i had a moment of enthusiasm." and further, he adds that one day he saw him listening to monti while the latter was singing his first couplet in the "mascheroniana." "i shall never forget," said he, "the divine expression of his look; it was the serene look of genius and power." i might multiply these testimonies of people who have seen him, and fill many pages; their particular character is their uniform resemblance. this proves the soundness of the ground on which their truth is based. i will add one more testimony to the others, that of mrs. shelley, which is even nearer the truth, and condenses all the others:--"lord byron," said this distinguished woman, "was the first genius of his age and the handsomest of men." in all these portraits there is much truth, but they are not sufficiently complete to give those who never saw him any but a faint idea of his smile, or of his mouth, which seemed to be not suited to material purposes, and to be purely intellectual and divine; of his eyes, which changed from one color to another according to the various emotions of his soul, but the habitual expression of which was that of an infinite and intense softness; of his sublime and noble brow; of his melodious voice, which attracted and captivated; and of that kind of supernatural light which seemed to surround him like a halo. this inability on the part of artists and biographers to render exactly byron's features and looks, is not to be wondered at, for although perfectly regular, his features derived their principal beauty from the life which his soul instilled into them. the emotions of his heart, the changes of his thoughts, appeared so variously upon his countenance, and gave the latter so changeable a cast, that it sufficed not for the artist who had to portray him, to gaze at and study him, as one generally does less gifted or elevated organizations. the reality was more likely to be well interpreted when it stood a prey to the various emotions of the soul; in his leisure hours, in the full enjoyment of life and love, he was satisfied with the knowledge that he was young, handsome, beloved, and admired. then it was that his beauty became, as it were, radiant and brilliant like a ray of sunshine. the time to see him was when, under the influence of genius, his soul was tormented with the desire of pouring out the numberless ideas and thoughts which flooded his mind: at such moments one scarcely dared approach him, awed, as it were, by the feeling of one's own nothingness in comparison with his greatness. again, the time to see him was when, coming down from the high regions to which a moment before he had soared, he became once more the simple child adorned with goodness and every grace; taking an interest in all things, as if he were really a child. it was impossible then to refrain from the contemplation of this placid beauty, which, without taking away in the least from the admiration which it inspired, drew one toward him, and made him more accessible to one, and more familiar by lessening a little the distance which separated one from him. but, above all, he should have been seen during the last days of his stay in italy, when his soul had to sustain the most cruel blows; when heroism got the better of his affections, of his worldly interests, and even of his love of ease and tranquillity; when his health, already shaken, appeared to fail him each day more and more, to the loss of his intellectual powers. had one seen him then as we saw him, it would scarcely have been possible to paint him as he looked. does not genius require genius to be its interpreter? thorwaldsen alone has, in his marble bust of him, been able to blend the regular beauty of his features with the sublime expression of his countenance. had the reader seen him, he would have exclaimed with sir walter scott, "that no picture is like him." not only would he have observed in his handsome face the denial of all the absurd statements which had been made about him, but he would have noticed a soul greater even than the mind, and superior to the acts which he performed on this earth; he would have read in unmistakable characters, not only what he was,--a good man,--but the promise of a moral and intellectual perfection ever increasing. if this progressive march toward perfection was at one time arrested by the trials of his life, and by the consequences of undeserved sorrow, it was well proved by his whole conduct toward the end of his life, and in the last poems which he wrote. his poems from year to year assumed a more perfect beauty, and increased constantly, not only in the splendor of their conception, but also in the force of their expressions, and their moral tendency, visible especially in his dramas. in them will be found types surpassing in purity, in delicacy, in grandeur, in heroism, without ever being untrue to nature, all that ever was conceived by the best poets of england. shakspeare, in all his master creations, has not conceived a more noble soul than that of angiolina, or a more tender one than marina's or even one more heroic than myrrha's. as his genius became developed, his soul became purified and more perfect. but the almighty, who does not allow perfection to be of this world, did not permit him to remain on earth, when once he had reached that point. he allowed him, however,--and this perhaps as a compensation for all the injuries which he had suffered,--to die in the prime of life a death worthy of him; the death of a virtuous man, of a hero, of a philosopher. excuse this long letter, for if i have ventured to speak to you at such length of the moral, and--may i say the word?--"physical" beauty of the illustrious englishman, it is because one genius can appreciate another, and that, in speaking of so great a man as lord byron, there is no fear of tiring the listeners. footnotes: [footnote : among the bad portraits of lord byron spread over the world, there is one that surpasses all others in ugliness, which is often put up for sale, and which a mercantile spirit wishes to pass off for a good likeness; it was done by an american, mr. west,--an excellent man, but a very bad painter. this portrait, which america requested to have taken, and which lord byron consented to sit for, was begun at montenero, near leghorn; but lord byron, being obliged to leave montenero suddenly, could only give mr. west two or three sittings. it was then finished from memory, and far from being at all like lord byron, is a frightful caricature, which his family or friends ought to destroy.] [footnote : moore. vol. ii. p. .] [footnote : miss e. smith.] chapter iii. french portrait. "i see that the greater part of the men of my time endeavor to blemish the glory of the generous and fine actions of olden days by giving to them some vile interpretation, or by finding some vain cause or occasion which produced them--very clever, indeed! i shall use a similar license, and take the same trouble to endeavor to raise these great names."--montaigne, chap. "glory." the portrait of lord byron, in a moral point of view, is still to be drawn. many causes have conspired to make the task difficult, and the portrait unlike. physically speaking, on account of his matchless beauty--mentally, owing to his genius--and morally, owing to the rare qualities of his soul, lord byron was certainly a phenomenon. the world agrees in this opinion; but is not yet agreed upon the nature and moral value of the phenomenon. but as all phenomena have, besides a primary and extraordinary cause, some secondary and accidental causes, which it is necessary to examine in order that they may be understood; so, to explain byron's nature, we must not neglect to observe the causes which have contributed chiefly to the formation of his individuality. his biographers have rather considered the results than the causes. even moore, the best among them, if not, indeed, the only one who can claim the title of biographer, grants that the nature of lord byron and its operations were inexplicable, but does not give himself the trouble to understand them. here are his own words:--"so various indeed, and contradictory were his attributes, both moral and intellectual, that he may be pronounced to have been not one, but many: nor would it be any great exaggeration of the truth to say, that out of the mere partition of the properties of his single mind, a plurality of characters, all different and all vigorous, might have been furnished. it was this multiform aspect exhibited by him that led the world, during his short, wondrous career, to compare him with the medley host of personages, almost all differing from each other, which he playfully enumerates in one of his journals. "the object of so many contradictory comparisons must probably be like something different from them all; but what _that_ is, is more than i know, or any body else." but, while merely explaining the extraordinary richness of this nature by the analysis of its results, by his changeable character, by the frankness which ever made his heart speak that which it felt, by his excessive sensitiveness, which made him the slave of momentary impressions, by his almost childlike delight and astonishment at things, moore does not arrive at the true causes of the phenomenon. he registers, it is true, certain effects which become causes when they draw upon the head of lord byron certain false judgments, and open the door to every calumny. without adopting the system of the influence of races on mankind--which, if pushed to its extreme consequences, must lead to the disastrous and deplorable doctrine of fatalism, and would make of man a mere machine--it is, however, impossible to deny that races and their amalgamation do exercise a great influence over our species. it is to this very influence of race, which was so evident in lord byron, that we attribute, in a measure, the exceptional nature of the great english poet. as the reader knows, lord byron was descended, by his father, from the noble race of the birons of france. his ancestors accompanied william the conqueror to england, aided him in the conquest of that country, and distinguished themselves in the various fields of battle which ultimately led to the total subjugation of the island. in his family, the sympathies of the original race always remained strong. his father, a youthful and brilliant officer, was never happy except in france. he was very intimate with the maréchal de biron, who looked upon him as a connection. he even settled in paris with his first wife, the marchioness of carmarthen. soon after his second marriage, he brought his wife over to france, and it was in france that she conceived the future poet. when obliged to return to england to be confined, she was so far advanced in pregnancy that she could not reach london in time, but gave birth to lord byron at dover. it was in france that byron's father died at thirty-five years of age. through his mother--a scotch lady connected with the royal house of stuart--he had scotch blood in his veins. the powerful influence exercised by the norman conquest, in the modification of all the old habits of great britain, and in making the english that which they now are, has descended as an heirloom to some old aristocratic families of the kingdom, where it discovers itself at different times in different individuals. nowhere, perhaps, did this influence show itself more clearly than in the person of lord byron. his duplicate or triplicate origin was already visible in the cast of his features. without any analogy to the type of beauty belonging to the men of his country (a beauty seldom found apart from a kind of cold reserve), lord byron's beauty appeared to unite the energy of the western with the splendor and the mildness of the southern climes. the influence of this mixture of races was equally visible in his moral and intellectual character. he belonged to the gallic race (modified by the latin and celtic elements) by his vivacity and mobility of character, as well as by his wit and his keen appreciation of the ridiculous, by those smiles and sarcasms which hide or discover a profound philosophy, by his perception of humor without malice, by all those amiable qualities which in the daily intercourse of life made of him a being of such irresistible attraction. he belonged to that race likewise by his great sensitiveness, by his expansive good-nature, by his politeness, by his tractableness, by his universal character which rendered every species of success easy to him; by his great generosity, by his love of glory, by his passion for honor, his intuitive perception of great deeds, by a courage which might have appeared rash, had it not been heroic, and which, in presence of the greatest perils and even of death, ever preserved for him that serenity of mind which allowed him to laugh, even at such times; by his energy, and also by his numerous mental and bodily requirements; and by his defects,--which were, a slight tendency to indiscretion, a want of prudence injurious to his interests, impatience, and a kind of intermittent and apparent fickleness. he belonged to the western race by his vast intellect, by his practical common sense, which formed the basis of his intellect, and which never allowed him to divorce sublime conceptions from sound sense and good reason,--two qualities, in fact, which so governed his imagination as to make people say he had not any; by the depth of his feelings, the extent of his learning, his passion for independence, his contempt of death, his thirst for the infinite, and by that kind of melancholy which seemed to follow him into the midst of every pleasure. all these various elements, which belonged separately to individuals in france, in england, and in various countries, being united in lord byron, produced a kind of anomaly which startled systematic critics, and even honest biographers. the apparent contradiction of all these qualities caused his critics to lose their psychological compass in their estimate of his charming nature, and justice, together with truth, suffered by the result. thus a portrait, drawn over and over again, still remains to be painted. the most imaginary portrait, however, of lord byron, and certainly the least like him, is that which has general currency in france: not only has that portrait not been drawn from nature, not only is it a caricature, but it is also a calumny. those who drew it took romance for history. they charged or exaggerated incidents in his life and peculiarities of his character; thus the harmony of the _tout ensemble_ was lost. ugliness and eccentricity, which amuse, succeeded beauty and truth, which are sometimes wearisome. those who knew and loved lord byron even more as a man than a genius (and, after all, these are those who knew him personally) suffer by this injustice done to him, and feel the absurdity of making so privileged a being act so whimsical a part, and one so contrary to his nature as well as to the reality of his life. if this imaginary portrait, however, were more like those which his best biographers have drawn of him, justice to his memory would become so difficult a task as to be almost impossible. happily it is not so; and those who would conscientiously consult moore, parry, and gamba, must at least give up the idea that this admirable genius was the eccentric and unamiable being he has been represented. to reach this point would, perhaps, require a greater respect for truth. even in france there are many superior persons who, struck by the force of facts, have at times endeavored to seize certain features which might lead to the discovery of truth, and have attempted to show that lord byron's noble character and beauty of soul, as well as his genius, did honor to humanity. but their efforts have been vain in presence of the absurd and contradictory creation of fancy which has been styled "lord byron," and which with few modifications, continues to be called so to this day. how has this occurred? what gave rise to it? ignorance, or carelessness? both causes in france, added to revenge in england, which found its expression in cant,--a species of scourge which is becoming quite the fashion. the first of these french biographers (i mean of those who have written upon and wished to characterize lord byron), without knowing the man they were writing about, set to work with a ready-made byron. this, no doubt, they found to be an easier method to follow, and one of which the results must prove at least original. but where had they found, and from whose hands did they receive this ready-made poet, whose features they reproduced and offered to the world? probably from a few lines, not without merit, of lamartine, who by the aid of his rich imagination had identified byron with the types which he had conceived for his oriental poems, mixing up the whole with a heap of calumnies which had just been circulated about him. perhaps also from certain critics who believed in the statements of various calumniators, and who themselves had probably not had any better authority than a few articles in badly informed papers, or in newspapers politically opposed to lord byron. we all know, by what we see daily in france, how little we can trust the moderation of these, and the justice they render to their adversaries; what must it not have been in england at that time, when passions ran so high?--perhaps also from the jealousy of dethroned rivals!--the echoes, perhaps, of the revenge of a woman equally distinguished by her rank and by her talent, but whose passion approached the boundaries of madness, or of the implacable hatred of a few fanatics who, substituting in the most shameless manner their worldly and sectarian interests for the gospel, denounced him as an atheist because he himself had proclaimed them hypocrites. finally, perhaps, from a host of absurd rumors, equally odious and vague, caused by his separation from his wife, and by the articles published in newspapers printed at venice and at milan. for byron's noble, simple, and sublime person was therefore substituted an imaginary being, formed out of these prejudices and these contradictory elements, too outrageous even to be believed, and by dint of sheer malice. thus enveloped in a dense atmosphere, which became an obstacle to the disclosure of truth as the clouds are to the rays of the sun, his image only appeared in fantastical outlines borrowed from "conrad the corsair," or "childe harold," or "lara," or "manfred," or indeed "don juan." analogies were sought which do not exist, and to the poet were attributed the sentiments, and even the acts, of these imaginary beings, albeit without any of the great qualities which constituted his great and noble soul, and which he has not imparted to any of his poetical creations. upon him were heaped every possible and most contradictory accusation--of skepticism and pantheism, of deism and atheism, of superstition and enthusiasm, of irony and passion, of sensuality and ideality, of generosity and avarice. these went to form his portrait, presenting every contrast and every antagonism, which god himself, the father and creator of all things, but also the author of all harmony, could not have assembled in one and the same being unless he made of him a species of new frankenstein, incapable of treading the ordinary paths of physical, moral, or intellectual, nay, of the most ordinary existence. after thus producing such an eccentric character,--the more extraordinary that they entirely forgot to consult the true and most simple history of his life, where if some of the ordinary excusable faults of youth are to be found, "some remarkable qualities, however, must be noticed,"--these wonderful biographers exclaim, astonished as it were at their own conclusions:--"this is indeed a most singular, extraordinary, and not-to-be-defined being!" i should think so: it is their own work, not the noble, amiable, and sublime mind, the work of god, and which he always exhibited in himself, "per far di colassà fede fra noi."--petrarch. happily, if to paint the portrait of byron has become impossible, now that "poca terra è rimasto il suo belviso," it is easy to describe his moral character. his invisible form is, it is true, above, but a conscientious examination of his whole life will give us an idea of it. he knew this so well himself, that a few days before his death he begged, as a favor, of his friend lord harrington, then colonel stanhope, at missolonghi, to judge him only by his deeds. "judge me by my deeds." all bombastic expressions, all systematic views should be discarded, and attention paid only to facts, in order to discover the fine intellectual figure of lord byron so completely lost sight of by his detractors. since the imaginary creations of his pen in moments of exalted passion should not be taken as the real manifestation of his character, the latter is to be found in his own deeds, and in the testimony of those who knew him personally. herein shall we seek truth by which we are to deal with the fanciful statements which have too long been received as facts. let us consider the opinions of those who by their authority have a right to portray him, while we study the various causes which have contributed to lead the public into errors which time has nearly consecrated, but which shall be corrected in france, and indeed in every country where passion and animosity have no interest in maintaining them. "public opinion," says m. cousin, "has its errors, but these can not be of long duration." they lasted a long time, however, as regards lord byron; but, thanks to god, they will not be eternal. he depended upon this himself, for he once at ravenna wrote these prophetic words in a memorandum:-- "never mind the wicked, who have ever persecuted me with the help of lady byron: triumphant justice will be done to me when the hand which writes this is as cold as the hearts that have wounded me." in england, lord byron triumphed over many jealous enemies whom his first satire earned for him, no less than the rapid and wonderful rise of his genius, which, instead of appearing by degrees, burst forth at once, as it were, and towering over many established reputations. the prestige which he acquired was such that every obstacle was surmounted, and in one day he saw himself raised against his will, and without his having ever sought the honor, to the highest pinnacle of fashion and literary fame. in a country where success is all, his enemies, and those who were jealous of his name, were obliged to fall back; but they did not give up their weapons nor their spite. one curious element was introduced in the national veneration for the poet. it was agreed that never had such an accumulation of various gifts been heaped upon the head of one man: he was to be revered and honored, but on one condition. he was to be a mysterious being whose genius should not transgress the boundaries of the east; who was to allow himself to be identified with the imaginary beings of his own fancy, however disagreeable, nay, even criminal they might be in reality. true, his personal conduct (at twenty-four) was to be above all human weakness; if not, he was to be treated, as certain superstitious votaries treat their idols if they do not obtain at once the miracles they ask for. his secret enemies perfidiously made use of these stupid demands of the public. insinuating and giving out at times one calumny after another, they always kept behind the scenes, resolved, however, to ruin him in the public esteem on the first opportunity, which they knew they would not have long to wait for from one so open, so passionate, so generous as lord byron. the greatest misfortune of his life--his marriage--gave them their opportunity. then they came forth, threw down the mask which they had hitherto worn, to put on one more hideous still; overturned the statue from the pedestal upon which the public had raised it, and tried to mutilate its remains. but as the stuff of which it was made was a marble which could not be broken, they only defiled, insulted, and outlawed it. then it was that france made acquaintance with lord byron. she saw him first mysteriously enveloped in the romantic semblance of a corsair, of a skeptical harold, of a young lord who had despised and wounded his mother-country, from which he had almost been obliged to exile himself, in consequence of a series of eccentricities, faults, and--who knows?--of crimes, perhaps. thus caught in a perfidious net, lord byron left england for switzerland. he found shelley, whom he only knew by name, at geneva, where he stopped. shelley was another victim of english fanatical and intolerant opinions; but he, it may be allowed at least, had given cause for this by some reprehensible writings, in which he had declared himself an atheist. no allowance had been made for his youth, for he was only seventeen when he wrote "queen mab," and he found himself expelled not only from the university but also from his home, which was to him a real cause of sorrow and misfortune. between these two great minds there existed a wide gulf--that which exists between pantheism and spiritualism; but they had one great point of resemblance, their mutual passionate love for justice and humanity, their hatred of cant and hypocrisy, in fact, all the elevated sentiments of the moral and social man. with lord byron these noble dispositions of the heart and mind were naturally the consequence of his tastes and opinions, which were essentially spiritualistic. with shelley, though in contradiction with his metaphysics, they were notwithstanding in harmony with the beautiful sentiments of his soul, which, when he was only twenty-three years of age, had already experienced the unkindness of man. their respective souls, wounded and hurt by the perfidiousness and injustice of the world, felt themselves attracted to each other. a real friendship sprang up between them. they saw one another often, and it was in the conversations which they held together at this time that the seed was sown which shortly was to produce the works of genius which were to see the day at the foot of the alps and under the blue sky of italy. although lord byron's heart was mortally wounded, still no feeling of hatred could find its way into it. the sorrow which he felt, the painful knowledge which he had of cruel and perfidious wrongs done to him, the pain of finding out the timidity of character of his friends, and the recollection of the many ungrateful people of whom he was the victim, all and each of these sentiments found their echo in the "prisoner of chillon," in the third canto of "childe harold," in "manfred," in the pathetic stanzas addressed to his sister, in the admirable and sublime monody on the death of sheridan, and in the "dream," which according to moore, he must have written while shedding many bitter tears. according to the same authority, the latter poem is the most melancholy and pathetic history that ever came forth from human pen. i shall not mention here the persecution to which byron was subjected then, nor the ever-manly, dignified, but heartrending words which it drew forth from the noble poet in the midst of his retired, studious, regular, and virtuous existence. i shall speak of it elsewhere; but i will say now that so unexampled, atrocious, and foolish was this persecution, that his enemies must have feared the awakening of the public conscience and the effects of a reaction, which might make them lose all the fruits of their victory, if they tarried in their efforts to prevent it. the most cruel among them was the poet laureate, in whose eyes byron could have had but one defect--that of being superior to him. true, byron had mentioned him in the famous satire which was the work of his youth; but he had most generously expiated his crime by confessing it, in buying up the fifth edition so as to annihilate it, and by declaring that he would have willingly suppressed even the memory of it. this noble action had gained for him the forgiveness and even the friendship of the most generous among them; but the revengeful poet laureate was not, as byron said, "of those who forgive." this man arrived at geneva, and at once set about his hateful work of revenge. this was all the easier on account of the spirit of cant which reigned in that country, and owing to the intimacy which he found to be existing between byron and shelley, for whom likewise he had conceived a malignant hatred. it must be said, however, that the laureate having to account for, among other works, his "wat tyler" (which had been pronounced to be an immoral book, and had been prohibited on that account), rather trusted to his hypocrisy to regain for him the former credit he enjoyed. the intimacy between byron and the spurned atheist shelley presented a capital opportunity for this man to take his revenge. he circulated in geneva all the false reports which had been current in london, and described byron under the worst colors. switzerland was at that time overrun by the english, whom the recently-signed peace had attracted to the continent. the laureate took the lead of those who tried to make the good but bigoted people of geneva believe in all the tittle-tattle against byron which was passed about in london, and actually attempted to make a scandal of his very presence in their town. when he passed in the streets they stopped to stare at him insolently, putting up their glasses to their eyes. they followed him in his rides; they reported that he was seducing all the girls in the "rue basse," and, in fact, although his life was perfectly virtuous, one would have said that his presence was a contagion. having found in a travellers' register the name of shelley, accompanied by the qualification of "atheist!" which byron had amiably struck out with his pen, the laureate caught at this and gave out that the two friends had declared themselves to be atheists. he attributed their friendship to infamous motives; he spoke of incest and of other abominations, so odious, that byron's friends deemed it prudent not to speak to him a word of all this at the time. he only learned it at venice later.[ ] loaded with this very creditable amount of falsehoods, most of which were believed in geneva, the laureate returned to london to spread them in england, so as to prevent the effects of the beautiful and touching poems which were poured forth from the great and wounded soul of byron, and which might have restored him to the esteem of all the honest and just minds of his country. meanwhile lady c. l---- having failed to discover any one who would accept the reward she offered to the person who would take byron's life, had recourse to another means of injuring him--to a kind of moral assassination--which she effected by the publication of her revengeful sentiments in the three volumes entitled "glenarvon." such a work might justify a biographer in passing it over with contempt without even mentioning it; but as enemies of lord byron have made capital out of this book,--as it found credence even with some superior minds, such as goethe's--as the intimacy which prefaced this revenge caused great sensation all over england, and was a source of continual vexation and pain for byron--it must not be passed over without comment, as moore did to spare the susceptibility of living personages. lady c. l---- (afterward lady m----) belonged to the high aristocracy of england. young, clever, and fashionable, but a little eccentric, she had been married some years when she fell so desperately in love with lord byron that she braved every thing for him. it was not byron who made the first advances, for his powers of seduction were only the attractions with which nature had endowed him. his person, his voice, his look,--all in him was irresistible. in presenting himself anywhere, he could very well say with shakspeare, in "othello,"-- "this only is the witchcraft i have used." lord byron, who was then only twenty-three years of age, and not married, was flattered, and more than pleased, by this preference shown to him. although lady c. l----'s beauty was not particularly attractive to him, and although her character was exactly opposite to the ideal which he had formed of what woman's character should be, yet she contrived to interest him, to captivate him by the power of her love, and in a very short time to persuade him that he loved her. this sort of love could not last. it was destined to end in a catastrophe. lady l----'s jealousy was ridiculous. dressed sometimes as a page, sometimes in another costume, she was wont to follow him by means of these disguises. she quarrelled and played the heroine, etc. byron, who disliked quarrels of all kinds (and perhaps even the lady herself), besides being intimate with all her family, was too much the sufferer by this conduct not to endeavor to bring her back to a sense of reason and of her duty. he was indulging in the hope that he had succeeded in these endeavors when, at a ball given by lady heathcote, lady l----, after vain efforts to attract byron's attention, went up to him and asked him whether she might waltz. byron replied, half-absently, that he saw no reason why she should not; upon which her pride and her passion became so excited that she seized hold of a knife, and feigned to commit suicide. the ball was at once at an end, and all london was soon filled with accounts of this incident. lady l---- had scarcely recovered from the slight wound she had inflicted on herself, when she wrote to a young peer, and made him all kinds of extravagant promises, if he would consent to call out byron and kill him. this, however, did not prevent her calling again upon lord byron, not, however, says medwin, with the intention of blowing his brains out; as he was not at home, she wrote on one of his books "remember me." on returning home, byron read what she had written, and, filled with disgust and indignation, he wrote the famous lines "remember thee! ay, doubt it not," and sent her back several of her letters sealed up. "glenarvon" was her revenge. she painted byron in fiendish colors, giving herself all the qualities he possessed, so as to appear an angel, and to him all the passions of the "giaour," of the "corsair," and of "childe harold," so that he might be taken for a demon. in this novel, the result of revenge, truth asserts its rights, notwithstanding all the contradictions of which the book is full. thus lady l---- can not help depicting byron under some of his real characteristics. she was asked, for instance, what she thought of him, when she met him for the first time after hearing of his great reputation, and she answers, while gazing at the soft loveliness of his smile,-- "what do i think? i think that never did the hand of god imprint upon a human form so lovely, so glorious an expression." and further she adds:-- "never did the sculptor's hand, in the sublimest product of his talent, imagine a form and a face so exquisite, so full of animation or so varied in expression. can one see him without being moved? oh! is there in the nature of woman the possibility of listening to him, without cherishing every word he utters? and having listened to him once, is it possible for any human heart ever to forget those accents which awaken every sentiment and calm every fear?" again:-- "oh better far to have died than to see or listen to glenarvon. when he smiled, his smile was like the light of heaven; his voice was more soothing from its softness than the softest music. in his manner there was such a charm, that it would have been vain to affect even to be offended by its sweetness." but while she was obliged to obey the voice of passion and of truth, she took on the other hand as a motto to her novel that of the "corsair," which even applied to the "corsair" is not altogether just, for he was gifted with more than "one virtue:--" "he left a corsair's name to other times, link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes." it is, however, fair to add, that this revenge became the punishment of the heroine; she never again found any rest, struggled against a troubled mind, and never succeeded in forgetting her love. it is even said that, diseased in mind and body, she was one day walking along one of the alleys of her beautiful place, on the road to newstead abbey, when she saw a funeral procession coming up the road in the direction of newstead. having inquired whose funeral it was, and being told it was that of the great poet, whose mortal remains were being conveyed to their last resting-place, she fainted, and died a few days afterward. his name was the last word she uttered, and this she did with love and despair. in london, and wherever the authoress was known, the book had no success, but the case was different abroad and in the provinces. attracted as he always was toward all that is good, great, and sincere, byron was wont to break the monotony of his retired life in the villa diodati by frequent visits to madame de staël at her country-seat, "coppet." she was the first who mentioned "glenarvon" to him, and when murray wrote to him on the subject, byron simply replied,-- "of glenarvon, madame de staël told me (ten days ago at coppet) marvellous and grievous things; but i have seen nothing of it but the motto, which promises amiably 'for us and for our tragedy' ... 'a name to all succeeding,' etc. the generous moment selected for the publication is probably its kindest accompaniment, and, truth to say, the time _was_ well chosen."[ ] "i have not even a guess at its contents," said he, and he really attached no importance to its publication. but a few days later he had a proof of the bad effect which its appearance had produced, for all this venom against him had so poisoned the mind of a poor old woman of sixty-three, an authoress, that on lord byron entering madame de staël's drawing-room one afternoon, she fainted, or feigned to do so. poor soul! a writer of novels herself, and probably most partial to such reading, she had, no doubt, from the perusal of "glenarvon" gleaned the idea that she had before her eyes that hideous monster of seduction and perpetrator of crimes who was therein depicted! at last lord byron read this too famous novel, and wrote to moore as follows on the subject:-- "madame de staël lent me 'glenarvon' last autumn. it seems to me that if the author had written the truth, and nothing but the truth, and the whole truth, the novel might not only have been more romantic but more amusing. as for the likeness, it can not be good, i did not sit long enough for it." from venice byron wrote as follows to murray, in consequence of a series of articles which appeared in germany, where a serious view had been taken of the novel of "glenarvon:"-- "an italian translation of 'glenarvon' was lately printed at venice. the censor (sgr. petrolini) refused to sanction the publication till he had seen me on the subject. i told him that i did not recognize the slightest relation between that book and myself; but that, whatever opinions might be held on that subject, i would never prevent or oppose the publication of any book in any language, on my own private account, and desired him (against his inclination) to permit the poor translator to publish his labors. it is going forward in consequence. you may say this, with my compliments, to the author."[ ] madame de staël had a great affection for lord byron, but his detractors had found their way into her house.[ ] among these was a distinguished lawyer, who had never been injured by any speech or word of lord byron, but who, setting himself up as an amateur enemy of the poet, had, under an anonymous designation, been one of his bitterest detractors in the "edinburgh review," on the occasion of the publication of his early poems. this same lawyer endeavored to gain madame de staël over to his opinion of byron's merit, probably on account of the very knowledge that he had of the harm he had done him; hatred, like nobility, has its obligations. but madame de staël, who, on reading "farewell," was wont to say that she wished almost she had been as unfortunate as lady byron, was too elevated in mind and too noble in character to listen quietly to the abuse of byron in which his enemies indulged. she, however, tried to induce lord byron to become reconciled to his wife, on the ground that one should never struggle against the current of public opinion. madame de staël actually succeeded in obtaining his permission to endeavor to effect this reconciliation; but the lawyer before mentioned used every argument to prevent her pursuing this project of mediation. lord byron's biographers have told how lady byron received this proposal; which, after the way in which he had been treated, appears to have been, on the part of byron, an act of almost superhuman generosity. such an offer should have moved any being gifted with a heart and a soul. but i will not here speak of her refusal and of its consequences; all i wish to state is, that the calumnies put forward against him being too absurd for byron to condescend to notice, assumed a degree of consistency which deceived the public, and even made dupes of superior men, who in their turn contributed to make dupes of others. at this time, then, when the war and the continental blockade were at an end, when each and every one came pouring on to the continent, did the star of byron begin to shine on the european horizon; but, instead of appearing as a sublime and bountiful star, it appeared surrounded by dark and ominous clouds. lamartine, who was then travelling in switzerland, was able to find in this sad state of things materials for his fine poem "meditation," and for doubts whether byron was "an angel, or a demon," according to the manner in which he was viewed, be it as a poet or as a man; and, as if all this were not enough, a host of bad writings were attributed to his pen, which brought forth the following expressions in a letter to murray, his publisher:-- "i had hoped that some other lie would have replaced and succeeded to the thousand and one falsehoods amassed during the winter. i can forgive all that is said of or against me, but not what i am made to say or sing under my own name. i have quite enough to answer for my own writings. it would be too much even for job to bear what he has not said. i believe that the arabian patriarch, when he wished his enemies had written a book, did not go so far as to be willing to sign his name on the first page." but the public mind was so disposed to look at byron in the light of a demon, as traced by lamartine, that when some young scattered-brain youth published out of vanity, or perhaps for speculative motives, another monstrous invention, in the hope of passing it off as a work of byron, he actually succeeded for some time in his object without being discovered. "strange destiny both of books and their authors!" exclaims the writer of the "essai sur lord byron," published in ,--"an evidently apocryphal production, which was at once seen not to be genuine by all persons of taste, notwithstanding the forgery of the title, has contributed as much to make byron known in france as have his best poems. a certain p---- had impudence enough to attribute indirectly to the noble lord himself the absurd and disgusting tale of the 'vampire,' which galignani, in paris, hastened to publish as an acknowledged work of byron. upon this lord byron hastened to remonstrate with messieurs galignani; but unfortunately too late, and after the reputation of the book was already widespread. our theatres appropriated the subject, and the story of lord ruthven swelled into two volumes which created some sensation."[ ] goethe also believed the novels to be true stories, and was especially impressed with "glenarvon."[ ] it is reported that he became jealous of byron on the appearance of the poem of "manfred." if he were not, it is at least certain that the pagan patriarch never could sympathize with the new generation of christian geniuses. on the th of june, however, of the year , byron writes as follows to murray, from ravenna:-- "inclosed is something which will interest you, to wit, the opinion of the greatest man of germany, perhaps of europe, upon one of the great men of your advertisements (all 'famous hands,' as jacob tonson used to say of his ragamuffins)--in short, a critique of goethe's upon 'manfred.' there is the original, an english translation, and an italian one; keep them all in your archives, for the opinions of such a man as goethe, whether favorable or not, are always interesting; and this more so, as being favorable. his 'faust' i never read, for i don't know german; but matthew monk lewis, in , at geneva, translated most of it to me _vivâ voce_, and i was naturally much struck with it: but it was the 'steinbach,' and the 'yungfrau,' and something else, much more than 'faustus,' that made me write 'manfred.' the first scene, however, and that of 'faustus' are very similar." one can scarcely conceive how so great a mind as that of goethe could have been duped by such mystifications. and yet this is what he wrote at that time in a german paper relative to byron's "manfred:"-- "we find in this tragedy the quintessence of the most astonishing talent borne to be its own tormentor. the character of lord byron's life and poetry hardly permits a just and equitable appreciation. he has often enough confessed what it is that torments him. he has repeatedly portrayed it, and scarcely any one feels compassion for this intolerable suffering over which he is ever laboriously ruminating. there are, properly speaking, two females whose phantoms forever haunt him, and which, in this piece also, perform principal parts, one under the name of astarte, the other without form or actual presence, and merely a voice. of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former the following is related. when a bold and enterprising young man, he won the affections of a florentine lady. her husband discovered the amour, and murdered his wife; but the murderer was the same night found dead in the street, and there was no one to whom any suspicion could be attached. lord byron removed from florence, and these spirits haunted him all his life after. "this romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems." and moore adds:--"the grave confidence with which the venerable critic traces the fancies of his brother poet to real persons and events, making no difficulty even of a double murder at florence, to furnish grounds for his theory, affords an amusing instance of the disposition, so prevalent throughout europe, to picture byron as a man full of marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as his poetry. to these exaggerated or wholly false notions of him, the numerous fictions palmed upon the world, of his romantic tours and wonderful adventures in places he never saw, and with persons who never existed, have, no doubt, considerably contributed, and the consequence is, so utterly out of truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long current upon the continent, that it may be questioned whether the real 'flesh and blood' hero of these pages (the social, practical-minded, and, with all his faults and eccentricities, english lord byron) may not, to the over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers, appear only an ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic personage." then, quoting some of the falsehoods which were spread everywhere about byron, moore says:-- "of this kind are the accounts, filled with all sorts of circumstantial wonders, of his residence in the island of mytilene; his voyages to sicily, to ithaca, with the countess guiccioli, etc. but the most absurd, perhaps, of all these fabrications are the stories told by pouqueville, of the poet's religious conferences in the cell of father paul, at athens; and the still more unconscionable fiction in which rizo has indulged, in giving the details of a pretended theatrical scene, got up (according to this poetical historian) between lord byron and the archbishop of arta, at the tomb of botzaris, at missolonghi." as the numerous causes which led to the false judgment of byron's true character never ceased to exist during his lifetime, one consequence has been that those who never knew him have never been able to arrive at the truth of matters concerning him. the contrast which existed between the real and imaginary personage was such as to cause the greatest astonishment to all those who, having hitherto adopted the received notions about him, at last came to know him at ravenna, at pisa, at genoa, and in greece, up to the very last days of his life. but, before quoting some of these fortunate travellers, i must transcribe a few more passages from moore: "on my rejoining him in town this spring, i found the enthusiasm about his writings and himself, which i had left so prevalent, both in the world of literature and society, grown, if any thing, still more genuine and intense. in the immediate circle perhaps around him, familiarity of intercourse must have begun to produce its usual disenchanting effect." "his own liveliness and unreserve, on a more intimate acquaintance, would not be long in dispelling that charm of poetic sadness, which to the eyes of distant observers hung about him; while the romantic notions, connected by some of his fair readers with those past and nameless loves alluded to in his poems, ran some risk of abatement from too near an acquaintance with the supposed objects of his fancy and fondness at present." "but, whatever of its first romantic impression the personal character of the poet may, from such causes, have lost in the circle he most frequented, this disappointment of the imagination was far more than compensated by the frank, social, and engaging qualities, both of disposition and manner, which, on a nearer intercourse, he disclosed, as well as by that entire absence of any literary assumption or pedantry, which entitled him fully to the praise bestowed by sprat upon cowley--that few could ever discover he was a great poet by his discourse." while thus by his friends, he was seen in his true colors, in his weakness and in his strength, to strangers, and such as were out of this immediate circle, the sternness of his imaginary personages were, by the greater number of them, supposed to belong, not only as regarded mind, but manners, to himself. so prevalent and persevering has been this notion, that, in some disquisitions on his character published since his death, and containing otherwise many just and striking views, we find, in the portrait drawn of him, such features as the following:--"lord byron had a stern, direct, severe mind: a sarcastic, disdainful, gloomy temper. he had no sympathy with a flippant cheerfulness: upon the surface was sourness, discontent, displeasure, ill-will. of this sort of double aspect which he presented, the aspect in which he was viewed by the world and by his friends, he was himself fully aware; and it not only amused him, but indeed to a certain extent, flattered his pride." "and if there was ever any tendency to derangement in his mental conformation, on this point alone could it be pronounced to have manifested itself. in the early part of my acquaintance with him, when he most gave way to this humor, i have known him more than once, as we have sat together after dinner, to fall seriously into this sort of dark and self-accusing mood, and throw out hints of his past life with an air of gloom and mystery designed evidently to awaken curiosity and interest.... it has sometimes occurred to me that the occult cause of his lady's separation from him, round which herself and her legal adviser have thrown such formidable mystery, may have been nothing more, after all, than some imposture of this kind, intended only to mystify and surprise, while it was taken in sober seriousness." i have mentioned elsewhere how moore, while justly appreciating the consequences of this youthful eccentricity,--of which later, but too late, byron corrected himself,--does not equally appreciate the motives, or rather the principal motive, which gave rise to it. as, however, he judges rightly of the results, i shall continue to quote him for the reader's benefit. "m. galignani, having expressed a wish to be furnished with a short memoir of lord byron for the purpose of prefixing it to the french edition of his works, i had said jestingly, in a preceding letter to his lordship, that it would but be a fair satire on the disposition of the world to 'remonster his features' if he would write for the public, english as well as french, a sort of mock heroic account of himself, outdoing in horrors and wonders all that had been yet related or believed of him, and leaving even goethe's story of the double murder at florence far behind." lord byron replied from pisa, on the th of december, :--"what you say about galignani's two biographies is very amusing; and, if i were not lazy, i would certainly do what you desire. but i doubt my present stock of facetiousness--that is, of good serious humor--so as not to let the cat out of the bag. i wish you would undertake it. i will forgive and _indulge_ you (like a pope) beforehand, for any thing ludicrous that might keep those fools in their own dear belief that a man is a _loup-garou_. "i suppose i told you that the 'giaour' story had actually some foundation in fact.... i should not like marvels to rest upon any account of my own, and shall say nothing about it.... the worst of any real adventures is that they involve living people." he at last tired of always appearing in the guise of a corsair, or of a mysterious criminal, or of a hero of melodrama. these various disguises had afforded him too much pain, and one day he said to mr. medwin:-- "when galignani thought of publishing a fresh edition of my works he wrote to moore to ask him to give him some anecdotes respecting me: and we thought of composing a narrative filled with the most impossible and incredible adventures, to amuse the parisians. but i reflected that there were already too many ready-made stories about me, to puzzle my brain to invent new ones." mr. medwin adds:-- "the reader will laugh when he hears that one of my friends assured me that the lines of thyrza, published with the first canto to 'childe harold,' were addressed by byron to his bear! there is nothing too wicked to be invented by hatred, or believed by ignorance." moore often refers to the wonderful contrast which existed between the real and imaginary byron. thus, in speaking of his incredibly active and sublime genius at venice, he says:-- "while thus at this period, more remarkably than at any other during his life, the unparalleled versatility of his genius was unfolding itself, those quick, chameleon-like changes of which his character, too, was capable, were, during the same time, most vividly and in strongest contrast, drawn out. to the world, and more especially to england,--the scene at once of his glories and his wrongs,--he presented himself in no other aspect than that of a stern, haughty misanthrope, self-banished from the fellowship of men, and most of all from that of englishmen...." how totally all this differed from the byron of the social hour, they who lived in familiar intercourse with him may be safely left to tell. the reputation which he had acquired for himself abroad, prevented numbers, of course, of his countrymen, whom he would most cordially have welcomed, from seeking his acquaintance. but as it was, no "english gentleman ever approached him, with the common forms of introduction, that did not come away at once surprised and charmed by the kind courtesy and facility of his manners, the unpretending play of his conversation, and, on a nearer intercourse, the frank youthful spirits, to the flow of which he gave way with such a zest as even to deceive some of those who best knew him into the impression that gayety was, after all, the true bent of his disposition." i must confine myself to these quotations, as it is not in my power to reproduce all that moore has said on the subject. his statements, however, prove two things:-- first, that lord byron, instead of being a dark and gloomy hero of romance, was a man full of amiability, goodness, grace, sociability, and liveliness. of the impression produced upon all those who knew him in these combined qualities, i shall have occasion to speak hereafter. secondly, that since even after byron's death the fantastical notions about him were entertained even by so impartial and so enlightened a person as sir edward brydges, it is not surprising (nor should they be blamed for it) that frenchmen, and all foreigners in general, and even a great portion of englishmen, should have believed in this fallacy. there was no means at that time of clearing up the mystery, nor can one see in this belief, however exaggerated, especially in france and on the continent, any spirit either of direct hostility, or even ill-will toward him. the error was exported from england, and upon it they reasoned, logically and oftentimes wittily. but surely those can not be absolved who still adhere to the old errors, after the true state of things had been disclosed at the poet's death in the writings of such biographers as moore, parry, medwin himself, count gamba, and others who knew byron personally. that a portion of the british public should maintain certain prejudices, and preserve a certain animosity against byron, is not matter of astonishment to those who have at all studied the english character. the spirit of tolerance which exists in the laws, is far from pervading the habits of the people; cant is on the decrease, but not quite gone, and may still lead one to a very fair social position. there still live a host of enemies whom byron had made during his lifetime, and the number of whom (owing to a bonâ fide treachery, by the indiscreet publication of a correspondence which was destined to be kept secret and in the dark), increased greatly after his death from the number of people whose pride he had therein wounded. he may be liable to the punishment due to his having trespassed on certain exclusively english notions of virtue, as intimated in the condemnation of the _imaginary_ immorality of some of his works. he may be accused, with some truth, of having been too severe toward several persons and things. but not one of these reasons has any _locus standi_ in france,--a country which might claim a certain share in the honor of having been his mother-country. besides having a french turn of mind in many respects, byron, descended directly from a french stock, had been conceived in france, and had long lived in its neighborhood. if those, therefore, may be absolved who falsely appreciated byron's character both before and immediately after his death, the same indulgence can not be extended to those who persist in their unjust conclusions. such men were greatly to blame; for, in writing about byron, they were bound in conscience to consult the biographers who had known him, and having neglected to do so, either from idleness or from party spirit, they failed in their duty as just and honorable men. before finishing this chapter, we must add to these pages, which were written many years ago, a few remarks suggested by the perusal of a recent work which has caused great sensation by the talent which pervades it, by its boldness, and original writing. i allude to the work of m. taine upon english literature; therein he appreciates, in a manly, fine style, all the loftiness of lord byron's poetry, but always under the influence of a received, and not self-formed, opinion. he likewise deserves, by his appreciations and conclusions, the reproaches addressed to the other critics of the illustrious and calumniated poet. in this work, which is rather magnificent than solid, and which contains a whole psychological system, one note is ever uppermost,--that of disdain. contempt, however, is not his object, but only his means. all must be sacrificed to the triumph of his opinions. the glory of nations, great souls, great minds, their works, their deeds, all must serve to complement his victory. bossuet, newton, dante, shakspeare, corneille, byron, all have erred. if he despises them, if he blames them, it is only to show that they have not been able to discover the logical conclusions which m. taine at last reveals to us,--conclusions which are to transform and change the soul as well as the understanding. this doctrine has hitherto been but a dream, and society has, up to the present time, walked in darkness. this philosophical system is so beautifully set forth, that it can only be compared to a skeleton, upon which a profusion of lovely-scented flowers and precious jewels have been heaped, so that, notwithstanding the horror it inspires, one is unable to leave it. here, then, we find that m. taine comes forth resolutely, by the help of a vigorous understanding and a surpassing talent, to review all that england has produced in a literary sense,--authors as well as their works. the type which he has conceived alone escapes his censure. this type must be the result of three primeval causes, viz., race, centre and time. history must prove its correctness. history and logic might in vain claim his indulgence on behalf of other types. he has conceived his system in his own mind, and, to establish it, facts and characters are made subservient to it; history's duty is to prove their correctness. indulgence can be shown to one type only. all he says is, however, so well said, that if he offended truth a little less, if he only spoke for beings in another planet, and above all, if, under these beautiful surroundings, one failed to notice the gloom of a heaven without god, the work would enchant one. it must be allowed that the charms of truth are still to be preferred; we must therefore be allowed to say a few words about m. taine's system. it can only be in one sense; not on account of any philosophical pretension, nor in the hope of restoring nature to its rights, however much we may grieve at seeing it reduced to a mere animal, nay, a vegetable, and alas! may be, a mineral system. many able pens will repeat the admirable words of one of the cleverest men of the day, who, in his criticism upon m. taine's book, has so thoroughly examined how far a physiological method could be applied to the comprehension of moral and intellectual phenomena, and has shown to what fatal consequences such a method must lead. the analysis of the moral world, the study of souls and of talent, of doctrines and of characters, become in m. taine's mind only a branch of zoology, and psychology ends by being only a part of natural history. many other able writers will echo the noble words of m. caro, and will not fail to point out the numerous contradictions which exist between the work itself and history proper, between it and natural history, and, finally, between it and the author himself. thus, men who have never allowed that a thistle could produce a rose, will question also whether those young englishmen, whom m. taine depicts in such glowing colors,--"so active," says he, "just like harriers on the beat flaring the air in the midst of the hunt," can be transformed in a few years "into beings resembling animals good for slaughter, with appearances equally anxious, vacant, and stupid; gentlemen six feet high, with long and stout german bodies, issuing from their forests with savage-looking whiskers and rolling eyes of pale earthenware-blue color." such critics will question whether the "pale earthenware-blue eyes" of these ugly sires can possibly be those of the fathers of the candid-eyed girls, the fairest among the fair treasures of this earth, whom m. taine describes in such exquisite terms:-- "delightful creatures, whose freshness and innocence can not be conceived by those who have never seen them! full-blown flowers, of which a morning rose, with its delicious and delicate color, with its petals dipped in dew, can alone give an idea." critics will deny the possibility of the existence of such a phenomenon, so contrary to the laws of creation does it seem to be. such airy-like forms can not be produced by such heavy brutes as he describes. say what he likes, nature can not act in the manner indicated by m. taine. nature must ever follow the same track. we, however, shall confine ourselves to oppose the real lord byron to the fanciful one of m. taine; and we say that the portrait of the poet drawn by the latter is drawn systematically, in such a manner as to contribute to the general harmony of his work. but truth can not be subservient to systems. as m. taine views lord byron from a false starting point, it follows that, of course, the whole portrait of him is equally unreal. all the colors in his picture are too dark. what he says of the poet is not so false as it is exaggerated. this is a method peculiar to him. he decidedly perceives the real person, but exaggerates him, and thus fails to realize the original. if the facts are not always entirely false, his conclusions, and the consequences suggested to him by them, are always eminently so. when the facts seem ever so little to lend themselves to his reasoning, when the proportions of his victim allow of their being placed in the _bed of procrustes_, the magnificent draperies of which do not hide the atrocious torture; then, indeed, does m. taine respect history more or less; when this is not the case, his imagination supplies the deficiency. on this principle he gives us his details of lord byron's parents and of the poet's childhood. he makes use of lord byron as an artist makes use of a machine: he places him in the position which he has chosen himself, gives him the gesture he pleases, and the expression he wishes. the portrait he shows us of him may be a little like lord byron; but a very distant likeness, one surrounded by a world of caprice of fancy and eccentricity which serve to make up a powerful picture. it is the effect of a well-posed manikin, with its very flexible articulations, all placed at the disposal of m. taine's system. the features may be slightly those of lord byron, but the gestures and the general physiognomy are the clever creations of the artist. this is how he proceeds, in order to obtain the triumph of his views:-- he selects some quarter of an hour from the life of a man, probably that during which he obeyed the impulses of nature, and judges his whole existence and character by this short space of time. he takes from the author's career one page, perhaps that which he may have written in a moment of hallucination or of extreme passion; and by this single page he judges the author of ten volumes. take lord byron, for instance. with regard to his infancy, m. taine takes care to set aside all that he knows to be admirable in the boy, and only notices one instance of energy, one fit of heroic passion, into which the unjust reprimand of a maid had driven him. the touching tears which the little byron sheds when, in the midst of his playmates, he is informed that he has been raised to the dignity of a peer of the realm, are no sign to m. taine of a character equally timid, sensitive, and good, but the result of pride. in this trait alone, m. taine sees almost sufficient ground to lay thereon the foundations of his work, and to show us in the boy what the man was to be. a similar process is used in the examination of byron as an author. he analyzes "manfred," which is most decidedly a work of prodigious power, and all he says of it is certainly both true and worthy of his own great talent; but is it fair to say that the poet and the man are entirely revealed in this work, and to dismiss all the other creations of the poet, wherein milder qualities, such as feeling, tenderness, and goodness are revealed, and shine forth most prominently? "manfred" is the cry of an ulcerated heart, still struggling, with all the energy of a most powerful soul, against the brutal decrees of a recent persecution. lord byron felt himself to be the victim of the relentless conduct of lady byron, and if his mind was not deranged, at least his soul was wounded and ill at ease, and it was this spirit that dictated "manfred." did he not clearly confess it himself? when he sent "manfred" to murray, did he not say that it was a drama as mad as the tragedy of "lee bedlam," in twenty-five acts, and a few comic scenes--his own being only in three acts? did he not write to moore as follows?-- "i wrote a sort of mad drama for the sake of introducing the alpine scenery. almost all the _dramatis personæ_ are spirits, ghosts, or magicians; and the scene is in the alps and the other world, so you may suppose what a bedlam tragedy it must be.... the third act, like the archbishop of grenada's homily (which savored of the palsy), has the dregs of my fever, during which it was written. it must on no account be published in its present state.... the speech of manfred to the sun is the only part of this act i thought good myself; the rest is certainly as bad as bad can be, and i wonder what the devil possessed me." but let byron's ideas take a different turn, as the lovely blue italian sky and the refreshing breezes from the adriatic waters contribute to quicken his blood, and other tones will be heard, wherein no longer shall the excesses, but the beauties only of energy be discernible. what does m. taine say then? this new aspect does not, evidently, satisfy him! but what of that? he goes on to say that byron's genius is falling off. if the poet takes advantage of a few moments of melancholy common to all poetical and feeling souls, m. taine declares that the melancholy english nature is always associated with the epicurean. what is it to him, that england thinks differently? that in her opinion lord byron's grandest and noblest conceptions are the poems which he wrote in italy, and even on the eve of his death? and that she finds his liveliness "too real and too ultramontane to suit her national tastes?" nothing of this troubles m. taine. is it quite fair to judge so powerful a mind, so great and yet so simple a being as lord byron, only by his "manfred," or by some other passages of his works, and especially of "don juan?" can his amiable, docile, tender, and feeling nature honestly be seen in the child of three years of age, who tears his clothes because his nurse has punished him unfairly? no; all that we see is what m. taine wishes us to see for the purpose he has in view, that is, admiration of the lord byron he has conceived, and who is necessary to his cause,--a byron only to be likened to a furious storm. wishing byron to appear as the type of energy, m. taine exhibits him to our eyes in the light of satan defying all powers on earth and in heaven. the better to mould him to the form he has chosen, he begins by disfiguring him in the arms of his mother, whom with his father and his family he scruples not to calumniate. storms having their origin in the rupture of the elements, and a violent character being, according to m. taine, the result of several forces acting internally and mechanically; it follows that its primary cause is to be found in the disturbed moral condition of those who have given birth to him in the circumstances under which the child was born, and in the influence under which he has been brought up. hence the necessity of supplementing from imagination the historical and logical facts which otherwise might be at fault. as for lord byron's softness of manner, and as to that tenderness of character which was the bane of his existence,--as to his real and great goodness, which made him loved always and everywhere, and which caused such bitter tears to be shed at the news of his death,--these qualities are not to be sought in the strange, fanciful being who is styled byron by m. taine. these qualities would be out of place; they would be opposed to the idea upon which his entire system is founded. they must be merged in the energy and greatness of intellect of the poetical giant. unfortunately for m. taine, facts speak too forcibly and too inopportunely against him. not one of the causes which he mentions, not one of the conclusions which he draws in respect to lord byron's character as a poet, and as a mere mortal, are to be relied upon. he, who contends that he possesses pre-eminently the power of comprehending the man and the author, insists that lord byron was no exception to the rule, though his best biographer, moore, most distinctly opposes this opinion:-- "in lord byron, however, this sort of pivot of character was almost wholly wanting.... so various indeed, and contradictory, were his attributes, both moral and intellectual, that he may be pronounced to have been not one, but many; nor would it be any great exaggeration of the truth to say that out of the mere partition of the properties of his single mind a plurality of characters, all different and all vigorous, might have been furnished." on the other hand, m. taine, who generally pays little attention to the opinion of others, gives as lord byron's predominant characteristic that which phrenologists denominate "_combativité_." which of the two is likely to be right? if moore is right, lord byron must have been almost wanting in consistency of character; if taine is correct, then byron was really of a most passionate nature. but as we have proved that lord byron was not inconsistent, as moore declares, except in cases where this want of consistency did not interfere with his character as a man, and, on the other hand, that no one had a less combative disposition, we are forced to arrive at the conclusion that if byron had one dominant passion, it was most decidedly not that of "_combativité_." it is impossible to deny that if in his early youth signs of resistance may have appeared in his character, yet these had so completely disappeared with the development of his intellect and of his moral sentiments that no one more than himself hated controversies and discussions of all kinds. in fact, no one was more obedient to the call of reason and of friendship; and his whole life is an illustration of it. in order that lord byron should represent the english type, even if we adopt m. taine's philosophy, he should have had a deal of saxon blood in his veins. but this was not the case. it is the norman blood which predominates. he may be said to have been almost borne in france, and to be of french extraction by his father, and of scotch origin through his mother. the total absence of the saxon element, which was so remarkable in him, was equally noticeable in his tastes, mind, sympathies, and inclinations. he loved france very dearly, and pouqueville tells a story, that when ali pasha had got over the fright caused by the announcement that a young traveller, named byron (his name had been pronounced bairon, which made the pasha believe he was a turk in disguise), wished to see him, he received the young lord very cordially. as he had just conquered preveza from the french, ali pasha thought he should be pleasing the englishman by announcing the fact to him. byron replied--"but i am no enemy of france. quite the contrary, i love france." it might almost be said that he was quite the opposite of what a saxon should be. lord byron could not remain, and, actually, lived a very short time, in england. his habits were not english, nor his mode of living. far from over-eating, as the english, according to m. taine, are said to do, byron did not eat enough. he was as sober as a monk. his favorite food was vegetables. his abstinence from meat dated from his youth. his body was little adapted to the material wants of his country. this remarkable sobriety was the effect of taste and principle, and was in no ways broken by excesses which might have acted as compensations. the excesses of which m. taine speaks must have been at the utmost some slight deviations from the real pythagorean abstinence which he had laid down as the rule of his life. abroad, where he lived almost all his life, he had none of the habits of his countrymen. he lived everywhere as a cosmopolitan. all that his body craved for was cleanliness, and this only served to improve his health and the marvellous beauty with which god had gifted him. lord byron was so little partial to the characteristic features and customs of the country in which he was born--"but where he would not die"--that the then so susceptible _amour-propre_ of his countrymen reproached him with it as a most unpardonable fault. it was not he who would have placed england and the english above all foreigners, and frenchmen in particular; nor was it he who would have declared them to be the princes of the human race. justice and truth forbade his committing himself to such statements in the name of national pride. are the animal rather than moral, and moral rather than intellectual instincts of energy and will, which m. taine so much admires in the saxon race, defects or qualities in his eyes? it is difficult to say, for one never knows when he is praising or when he is condemning. judging by the very material causes from which he derives this energy,--namely, the constitution of the people, their climate, their frequent craving for food, their way of cooking the food they eat, their drinks, and all the consequences of these necessities visible in the absence of all sense of delicacy, of all appreciation of the fine arts, and the comprehension of philosophy,--he must evidently intend to depreciate them. but as regards lord byron in particular, it is equally certain that he has no intention of depreciating him. for him alone he finds expressions of great admiration and real sympathy. he allows him to represent the whole nation, and to be the incarnation of the english character; but on one condition,--that of ruling it as its sovereign. thanks to this supremacy, the poet escapes more or less the exigencies of m. taine's theories. m. taine, however, is not subject to the weakness of enthusiasm. judging, as he does, in the light of a lover of nature, both of the merits of virtue and of the demerits of vice, which to him are but fatal results of the constitution, the climate, and the soil--"in a like manner will sugar and vitriol"--why care about lord byron doing this or the other _rightly_ or _wrongly_ rather than any one else? nature follows its necessary track, seeks its equilibrium, and ends by finding it. what pleases him in lord byron, is the facility which is offered to him of proving the truth of this fatalist philosophy which appears at every page of his book. no one more than byron could serve the purpose of m. taine, and become, as it were, the basis of his philosophical operations. his powerful genius, his short but eventful existence, which did not give time for the cooling down of the ardor of youth, to harmonize it with the tempered dictates of mature age,--the universality of his mind, which can furnish arguments to every species of critics,--all contributed wonderfully to the realization of m. taine's object. thus, thanks to the deceptive but generally received portrait which is said to be that of lord byron, and to his identification with the heroes of his poems, and in particular with "manfred" and "childe harold," aided by the impossibility which the human mind finds in estimating moral subjects as it would a proposition of "euclid," m. taine has been able to make use of a great name, and to make a fine demonstration of his system, to call byron the interpreter of the british genius, and his poetry the expression of the man himself. in many respects, however, he has not been able to act in this way without violating historical facts. this is what i hope to point out in these pages, the object of which is to describe byron as he was, and to substitute, without any derogation to his sublimity of character, the reality for the fiction created by m. taine. to refute so brilliant and so powerful a writer, my only means is to proceed in this work with the help of positive proofs of the statements which i make, and by invoking unimpeachable testimonies. these alone constitute weighty arguments, since they all contribute to produce the same impression. in order that truth may be restored to history, i shall adopt a system diametrically opposed to that of m. taine, or rather i shall abstain from all systems, and from all pretensions to literary merit, and confine myself entirely to facts and to reason. the reader will judge whether i shall be able to accomplish this object; he will see how really unimportant are the causes which cast a shade upon the memory of byron, and how careful one should be not to give credit too implicitly to the sincerity of that hypocritical praise which several of his biographers have bestowed upon him. they have, as it were, generally, taken a kind of pleasure in dwelling upon his age, his rank, and other extenuating circumstances, as a cover to their censure, just as if byron ever required their forgiveness. in thus searching into the secrets of his heart, and analyzing his life, the reader will soon be obliged to admit, that if byron, in common with others, had a few of the faults of youth, he in return had a host of virtues which belonged only to him. in short, if byron is received in the light in which he was esteemed by those who knew him personally, he will still constitute one of the finest, most amiable, and grandest characters of his century. as for ourselves, in summing up the merits of this very humble, but very conscientious work, we can only repeat with delight the beautiful words in which moore sums up his own estimate of lord byron's worth: "should the effect of my humble labors be to clear away some of those mists that hung round my friend, and show him, in most respects, as worthy of love as he was, in all, of admiration, then will the chief and sole aim of this work have been accomplished."[ ] footnotes: [footnote : when political events obliged count gamba to quit romagna, he thought at first of going with his family to take up his abode at geneva. lord byron, on learning this, through a letter from the countess guiccioli, who had rejoined her family at florence, disapproved of their design, and begged shelley--then on a visit to him at ravenna--to express for him his disapprobation, and state the reasons of it. shelley addressed the following letter in italian to the countess, and the project was abandoned:-- "madam,--at the request of my friend, lord byron, i consider it my duty to offer you some considerations relative to the proposed journey to geneva, so as to give you an idea of the undesirable results likely to follow. i flatter myself that you will accept this request of his, together with the motives leading me to acquiesce, as an excuse for the liberty taken by a total stranger. in acting thus, the sole object i have in view is my friend's peace of mind, and that of those in whom he is so deeply interested. i have no other motive, nor can entertain any other; and let it suffice, in proof of my perfect sincerity, to assure you that i also have suffered from an intolerant clergy at home, and from tyranny, and that i like your family, have met with persecution and calumny as my sole reward for love of country. "allow me, madam, to state the reasons for which it seems to me that geneva would not be an appropriate residence for your family. your circumstances offer some analogy with those existing between my family and lord byron in the summer of . our dwellings were close together; our mode of life was quiet and retired; it would be impossible to imagine an existence simpler than ours, less calculated to draw down the aspersions cast upon us. "these calumnies were of the most unheard-of nature,--really too infamous to permit us to treat them with disdain. both genevans and english established at geneva affirmed that we were leading a life of the most unblushing profligacy. they said that we had made a compact together for outraging all held most sacred in human society. pardon me, madam, if i spare you the details. i will only say that _incest_, _atheism_, and many other things equally ridiculous or horrible, were imputed to us. the english newspapers were not slow in propagating the scandal, and the nation lent entire faith. "hardly any mode of annoying us was neglected. persons living on the borders of the lake opposite lord byron's house made use of telescopes to spy out all his movements. an english lady fainted, or pretended to faint, with horror on seeing him enter a saloon. the most outrageous caricatures of him and his friends were circulated; and all this took place in the short period of three months. "the effect of this, on lord byron's mind, was most unhappy. his natural gayety abandoned him almost entirely. a man must be more or less than a stoic to bear such injuries with patience. "do not flatter yourself, madam, with the idea, that because englishmen acknowledge lord byron as the greatest poet of the day, they would therefore abstain from annoying him, and, as far as it depended on them, from persecuting him. their admiration for his works is unwillingly extorted, and the pleasure they experience in reading them does not allay prejudice nor stop calumny. "as to the genevans, they would not disturb him, if there were not a colony of english established in the town,--persons who have carried with them a host of mean prejudices and hatred against all those who excel or avoid them; and as these causes would continue to exist, the same effects would doubtless follow. "the english are about as numerous at geneva as the natives, and their riches cause them to be sought after; for the genevans, compared to their guests, are like valets, or, at best, like hotel-keepers, having let their whole town to foreigners. "a circumstance, personally known to me, may afford proof of what is to be expected at geneva. the only inhabitant on whose attachment and honor lord byron thought he had every reason to count, turned out one of those who invented the most infamous calumnies. a friend of mine, deceived by him, involuntarily unveiled all his wickedness to me, and i was therefore obliged to inform my friend of the hypocrisy and perversity we had discovered in this individual. you can not, madam, conceive the excessive violence with which englishmen, of a certain class, detest those whose conduct and opinions are not exactly framed on the model of their own. this system of ideas forms a superstition unceasingly demanding victims, and unceasingly finding them. but, however strong theological hatred may be among them, it yields in intensity to social hatred. this system is quite the order of the day at geneva; and, having once been brought into play for the disquiet of lord byron and his friends, i much fear that the same causes would soon produce the same effects, if the intended journey took place. accustomed as you are, madam, to the gentler manners of italy, you will scarcely be able to conceive to what a pitch this social hatred is carried in less favored regions. i have been forced to pass through this hard experience, and to see all dearest to me entangled in inextricable slanders. my position bore some resemblance to that of your brother, and it is for that reason i hasten to write you, in order to spare you and your family the evil i so fatally experienced. i refrain from adding other reasons, and i pray you to excuse the freedom with which i have written, since it is dictated by sincerest motives, and justified by my friend's request. to him i leave the care of assuring you of my devotion to his interests, and to all those dear to him. "deign, madam, to accept the expression of my highest esteem. "your sincere and humble servant, "percy b. shelley. "p.s.--you will forgive a barbarian, madam, for the bad italian in which the honest sentiments of his letter are couched."] [footnote : moore, vol. ii. p. .] [footnote : when that extravagant book "glenarvon" appeared, moore wrote a comic review on it, and sent the paper to jeffrey, who thought it a good caricature, and wanted to publish it in the "edinburgh review." but the friends of the author of "glenarvon" interfered to such purpose that jeffrey gave up the idea of mentioning the novel at all, which was also approved by lord byron's friends as the best means of proving, by silence, the contempt such a book merited.] [footnote : madame de staël said one day at coppet, with an air of mystery, "you are often seen at night, lord byron, in your bark upon the lake, accompanied by a white phantom." "yes," answered he, "'tis my dog." madame de staël shook her head, not at all convinced that he kept such innocent company, for her head had been filled with fantastic tales and lies about him. in this instance, however, she was somewhat right; for the white phantom was not only his dog, but often mrs. shelley, and even sometimes a young woman intimate with her. this lady, with whom he had, and would have, nothing to do, was bent on running after him, although he did all in his power to avoid her. she succeeded sometimes in getting into the boat with the shelleys, and thus made inquisitive people talk. but lord byron was very innocent in it all, and even victimized, for the _ennui_ it caused him made him quit switzerland and the alps, he loved so well, before the season was even over.] [footnote : "essai sur lord byron," p. .] [footnote : lord byron wrote to moore in november, :-- "pray, where did you get hold of goethe's 'florentine' husband-killing story? upon such matters, in general, i may say, with beau clinker, in reply to erraud's wife:-- "'oh, the villain, he hath murdered my poor timothy!' "_clinker._--'damn your timothy! i tell you, woman, your husband has murdered me--he has carried away my fine jubilee clothes.'"] [footnote : moore, vol. ii. p. ] chapter iv. lord byron's religious opinions. "when the triumph of a cause of such importance to humanity is in question, there never can be too many advocates.... but it is not enough to count up the votes; their value must, above all, be weighed."--sherer. the struggles between heart and reason, in religious matters, began almost with lord byron's infancy. his desire of reconciling them was such, that, if unsuccessful, his mind was perplexed and restless. he was not, as it were, out of the cradle, when, in the midst of his childish play, the great problems of life already filled his youthful thoughts; and his good nurse may, who was wont to sing psalms to him when rocking him to sleep, had also to answer questions which showed the dangerous curiosity of his mind. "among the traits," says moore, "which should be recorded of his earlier years, i should mention, that, according to the character given of him by his first nurse's husband, he was, when a mere child, 'particularly inquisitive and puzzling about religion.'" at ten years of age, he was sent to school, at dulwich, under the care of the rev. dr. glennie, who, in the account given by him to moore, and after speaking of the amiable qualities of byron, adds: that "at that age he already possessed an intimate acquaintance with the historical facts in the scriptures, and was particularly delighted when he could speak of them to him, especially on sunday evenings after worship." he was wont then to reason upon all the facts contained in the bible, with every appearance of faith in the doctrine which it teaches. but while his heart was thus drawn toward its creator, the power of his reason began imperiously to assert its rights. as long as he remained sheltered under his father's roof, under the eyes of his mother, and of young ecclesiastics who were his first teachers, and whose practice agreed with their teaching,--as long as his reason had not reached a certain degree of development,--he remained orthodox and pious. but when he went to college, and particularly when he was received at cambridge, a vast field of contradictions opened before his observing and thinking mind. his reflections, together with the study of the great psychological questions, soon clouded his mind, and threw a shade over his orthodoxy. if lord byron, therefore, had really the misfortune to lose at an earlier age than ordinary children, the simple faith of his childhood, the fact is not to be wondered at. by the universality of his genius he added to the faculties which form the poet, those of an eminently logical and practical mind; and being precocious in all things, he was likewise so in his powers of reflection and reasoning. "never," says moore, "did lord byron lose sight of reality and of common practical sense; his genius, however high it soared, ever preserved upon earth a support of some kind." his intellectual inquisitiveness was likewise, with him, a precocious passion, and circumstances stood so well in the way to serve this craving, that when fifteen years of age (incredible as it seems), he had already perused two thousand volumes, among which his powerful and vivid intellect had been able to weigh the contradictions of all the principal modern and ancient systems of philosophy. this thirst for knowledge (anomalous according to the rules of both school and college) was the more extraordinary that it existed in him together with a passionate love for boyish play, and the indulgence in all the bodily exercises, in which he excelled, and on which he prided himself. but as he stored his mind after the usual college hours, and apart from the influences of that routine discipline, which, with milton, pope, and almost all the great minds, he so cordially hated, the real progress of his intellect remained unobserved by his masters, and even by his fellow-students. this mistake, on the part of men little gifted with quickness of perception, was not shared by disraeli, who could so justly appreciate genius; and of byron he spoke as of a studious boy, who loved to hide this quality from his comrades, thinking it more amiable on his part to appear idle in their eyes. while the young man thus strengthened his intellect by hard though irregular study, his meditative and impassioned nature, feeling in the highest degree the necessity of confirming its impressions, experienced more imperatively than a youth of fifteen generally does, the want of examining the traditional teachings which had been transmitted to him. byron felt the necessity of inquiring on what irrevocable proofs the dogmas which he was called upon to believe were based. holy writ, aided by the infallibility of the teachings of the church, etc., were adduced as the proofs he required. he was wont, therefore, to read with avidity a number of books treating on religious matters; and he perused them, both with artless ingenuity and in the hope of their strengthening his faith. but, could he truly find faith in their pages? are not such books rather dangerous than otherwise for some minds? "the truth is," says the author of the "essays," "that a mind which has never entertained a doubt in revelation, may conceive some doubts by reading books written in its defense." and he adds elsewhere, in speaking of the writers of such controversial works, that "impatient of the least hesitation, they deny with anger the value of their adversary's arguments, and betray, in their way of getting over difficulties, a humor which injures the effects of their reasoning, and of the proofs they make use of to help their arguments." after reading several of these books, he must have found, as did the great pitt, "that such readings provoke many more doubts than they dispel;" and, in fact, they rather disquieted and shook, than strengthened his faith. at the same time, he was alive to another striking contradiction. he noticed that the men who taught the doctrines, too often forgot to make these and their practice agree; and in losing his respect for his masters, he still further doubted the sincerity of their teaching. thus, while remaining religiously inclined, he must have felt his faith becoming more and more shaken, and in the memorandum of his early days, after enumerating the books treating upon religious subjects which he had read, he says: "all very tedious. i hate books treating of religious subjects; although i adore and love god, freed from all absurd and blasphemous notions." in this state of mind, of which one especially finds a proof in his earlier poems, the philosophy of locke, which is that professed at cambridge, and which he had already skimmed, as it were, together with other philosophical systems, became his study. it only added an enormous weight in the way of contradictions to the already heavy weight of doubt. could it be otherwise? does not locke teach that all ideas being the creation of the senses, the notion of god, unless aided by tradition, has no other basis but our senses and the sight of the external world? if this be not the doctrine professed by locke, it is the reading which a logical mind may give to it. he believes in god; yet the notion of god, as it appears from his philosophical teaching, is not that which is taught by christian doctrine. according to him, god is not even proclaimed to be the creator of the universe. but even were he proclaimed such, what would be the result of this philosophical condescension, unless it be that god is distinct from the world? would god possess then all those attributes which reason, independently of all philosophy, points to in the divinity? would power, goodness, infinite perfection be god's? certainly not: as we are unable to know him except through a world of imperfections, where good and evil, order and confusion, are mixed together, and not by the conception of the infinite, which alone can give us a true and perfect idea of god, it follows that god would be much superior to the world, but would not be absolute perfection. after this depreciation of the omnipotent, what says this philosophy of our soul? it does away altogether with one of the essential proofs of its spiritual nature, and thereby compromises the soul itself, declaring as it does, that "it is not unlikely that matter is capable of thought." but then of what necessity would the soul be, if the body can think? how hope for immortality, if that which thinks is subject to dissolution and to death? as for our liberty, it would be annihilated as a consequence of such doctrines; for it is not supposed to derive its essence from the interior activity of the soul, but would seem to be limited to our power of moving. yet we are hourly experiencing what our weakness is in comparison with the power of the laws of nature, which rule us in every sense and way. in making, therefore, all things derivable from sensations, locke fell from one error into another, and nearly arrived at that point when duty and all principles of justice and morality might be altogether denied. being himself, however, both good, honest, liberal, and christian-minded, he could only save himself from the social wreck to which he exposed others, by stopping on the brink of the abyss which he had himself created, and by becoming in practice inconsistent with his speculative notions. his successors, such as condillac and cabanis, fell by following his system and by carrying it too far. a doctrine which denies the right of discovering, or of explaining the religious truths which are the grounds of all moral teaching, and which allows tradition the privilege only of bestowing faith; a system of metaphysics, which can not avoid the dangers in which morality must perish, owing to its contradictions and its inconsistencies, must be perilous for all but those happily constituted minds for whom simple faith and submission are a part of their essence, who believe on hearsay and seek not to understand, but merely glance at the surface of the difficult and venturesome questions which are discussed before them, either because they feel their weakness, or because the light of revelation shines upon them so strongly as to make that of reason pale. for more logical minds, however, for such who are inquisitive, whose reason is both anxious and exacting, who want to understand before they believe, for whom the ties which linked them to tradition have been loosened, owing to their having reflected on a number of contradictions (the least of which, in the case of lord byron, was decidedly not that of seeing such a philosophy professed and adopted in a clerical university); for minds like these such doctrines must necessarily lead to atheism. though lord byron's mind was one of these, he escaped the fearful results by a still greater effort of his reason, which made him reject the precepts of the sensualists, and comprehend their inconsistencies. his protest against the doctrines of the sensualists is entered in his memorandum, where, after naming all the authors of the philosophical systems which he had read, and, coming to the head of that school, he exclaims from the bottom of his heart: "hobbes! i detest him!" and notwithstanding the respect with which the good and great locke must individually have inspired him, he evidently must have repudiated his precepts, inasmuch as they were not strong enough to uproot from his mind the religious truths which reason proclaims, nor prevent either his coming out of his philosophical struggle a firm believer in all the dogmas which are imperiously upheld to the human reason, or his proclaiming his belief in one god and creator, in our free will, and in the immortality of the soul. this glorious and noble victory of his mind and true religious tendencies at that time, is evinced in his "prayer to nature," written when he had not yet reached his eighteenth year. in this beautiful prayer, which his so-called orthodox friends succeeded in having cut out of the volume containing his earliest poems, we find both great power of contemplation and humility and confidence in prayer--a soul too near the creator to doubt of his omnipotence, but also too far from him for his faith and confidence in the divine mercy not to be mixed up with a little fear; in fact, all the essential elements of a noble prayer which is not orthodox. though written on the threshold of life, he might, with few modifications, have signed it on the eve of his death; when, still young, fate had spared him nothing, from the sweetest to the bitterest feelings, from every deserved pleasure to every undeserved pain. the prayer of nature. father of light! great god of heaven! hear'st thou the accents of despair? can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven? can vice atone for crimes by prayer? father of light, on thee i call! thou seest my soul is dark within; thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall, avert from me the death of sin. no shrine i seek, to sects unknown; oh, point to me the path of truth! thy dread omnipotence i own; spare, yet amend, the faults of youth. let bigots rear a gloomy fane, let superstition hail the pile, let priests, to spread their sable reign, with tales of mystic rites beguile. shall man confine his maker's sway to gothic domes of mouldering stone? thy temple is the face of day; earth, ocean, heaven, thy boundless throne. shall man condemn his race to hell, unless they bend in pompous form? tell us that all, for one who fell, must perish in the mingling storm? shall each pretend to reach the skies, yet doom his brother to expire, whose soul a different hope supplies, or doctrines less severe inspire? shall these, by creeds they can't expound, prepare a fancied bliss or woe? shall reptiles, grovelling on the ground, their great creator's purpose know? shall those who live for self alone, whose years float on in daily crime-- shall they by faith for guilt atone, and live beyond the bounds of time? father! no prophet's laws i seek,-- _thy_ laws in nature's works appear;-- i own myself corrupt and weak, yet will i pray, for thou wilt hear! thou, who canst guide the wandering star through trackless realms of æther's space; who calm'st the elemental war, whose hand from pole to pole i trace: thou, who in wisdom placed me here, who, when thou wilt, canst take me hence, ah! while i tread this earthly sphere, extend to me thy wide defence. to thee, my god, to thee i call! whatever weal or woe betide, by thy command i rise or fall, in thy protection i confide. if, when this dust to dust's restored, my soul shall float on airy wing, how shall thy glorious name adored inspire her feeble voice to sing! but, if this fleeting spirit share with clay the grave's eternal bed, while life yet throbs i raise my prayer, though doom'd no more to quit the dead. to thee i breathe my humble strain, grateful for all thy mercies past, and hope, my god, to thee again this erring life may fly at last. _december , ._ [first published, .] as much may be said of another poem which he likewise wrote in his youth; when, very dangerously ill, and believing his last end to be near, he turned all his thoughts to the other world, and conceived the touching poem which ended in the lines:-- "forget this world, my restless sprite; turn, turn thy thoughts to heaven; there must thou soon direct thy flight if errors are forgiven." but if lord byron did not adopt locke's philosophy he at least paid the greatest tribute of regard to his goodness by following ever more closely his best precept, which is to the effect that to love truth for the sake of truth is an essential part of human perfection in this world, and the fertile soil on which is sown the seed of every virtue. while his mind thus wavered between a thousand contradictory opinions, and, finding part of the truth only in every philosophical system which he examined, but not the whole truth--which was what his soul thirsted for; calling himself at times skeptic, because he hesitated in adhering to one school, in consequence of the numerous errors and inconsistencies common to all (the great school which has, to the honor of france, harmonized them all, was not yet open); but not losing sight of the great eternal truths of which he felt inwardly the proofs, he made the acquaintance of a young man who had just completed his university education with great success. this young man, who exercised a great influence over all his fellow-students, owing to his superior intellect, influenced byron in a similar manner. bold, logical, inflexible, he was not swayed by the dangers which the sensualistic teaching presented to all logical minds; dangers which had frightened the chief of that school himself, and who, in wishing to oppose them, had not been able to do so except by contradictions. this young man, by a noble inconsistency, drew back in presence of the moral conclusions of that metaphysical doctrine, but not without culling from the master's thoughts conclusions, such that they leave all that is spiritual and immortal without defense, together with all the legitimate inferences to be derived from the principles he taught, however impious or absurd. among the germans he had likewise met with several bold doctrines; but, merely to speak here of the conclusions to which the school he belonged necessarily brought him, he arrived at those conclusions by a series of deductions from the study of those great questions, which experience always ends by referring either to reason or to revelation. compelled by the tenets of that school, to solve all these problems by means of the sensations only, he was naturally led to the conclusion that no such thing existed as the spirituality of the soul, and hence, that it had neither the gift of immortality nor that of liberty, nor any principles of morality. finally, obliged to seek in tradition the conviction that a god existed, and that he can only be perceived through a maze of imperfections, and not as reason conceives him clearly and simply with all his necessary attributes of perfection, he was even led to the necessity of losing sight of a creator altogether. the fatal precipice, which this young student himself avoided by the practical conclusions by which he abided, byron likewise escaped both by his conclusions and his theoretical notions. he even hated the name of atheist to that degree, that at harrow he wished to fight his companion lord althorpe, because he had written the word atheist under byron's name. this is so true that sir robert dallas, of whose judgment no interpretation can ever be given without making allowances for the intolerant spirit and the exaggeration required by his notions of orthodoxy and by his party prejudices, after regretting that lord byron should not have had a shield during his minority to protect him against his comrades, "proud, free-thinking, and acute sophists," as he calls them, adds that, if surprise must be expressed, it is not that byron should have erred, but that he should have pierced the clouds which surrounded him, and have dispersed them by the sole rays of his genius. so many struggles, however, so many contradictions, so many strains upon the mind, while leaving his heart untouched, could not but multiply the doubts which he conceived, and more or less modify his mind, and even give to it a tinge of skepticism. when he left england for the first time, his mind was in this transitory, suffering state. the various countries which he visited, the various creeds with which he became acquainted the intolerance of the one, the laxity in others in direct opposition to their superstitious and irrational practices; the truly touching piety which he found in the greek monasteries (at zytza and at athens), in the midst of which and in the silence of whose cloisters, he loved to share the peace and even the austerities of a monkish life; his transition from the western countries, where reason is placed above imagination, to the east, where the opposite is aimed at--all contributed to prevent what was vacillating in his mind from becoming settled. meanwhile endless disappointments, bitter sorrows, and broken illusions contributed their share to the pain which his mind experienced at every stage of its philosophical inquiry, and contributed to give him, in the loneliness of his life, a tinge of misanthropy opposed to his natural character, which suggested the rather philosophical and generous than prudent conception of "childe harold's pilgrimage," where he depicts his hero as intellectually imbued with philosophical doctrines which lead practical minds to skepticism and materialism! these doctrines resulted in causing "childe harold" to lose that traditional faith which gives peace to the soul by insuring conviction to the mind. the poet shows the impossibility of withdrawing himself from their disastrous results when arrived at the age when passions assert their rule, and when in a certain social position, they must be carried into practice. nature not having gifted him with a sufficiently generous heart to check the disease of his mind, childe harold, _disgusted with the sins of his youth_, no longer seeks the road to virtue, but begins to experience with solomon the vanity of human things, becomes a prey to satiety, ennui, and to insensibility to both physical and moral worth. byron, who made the intellectual education of his day responsible for childe harold's faults, had conceived this character in his earliest days at harrow. it was in any case, he said, a characteristic of the youth of those days, although idealized and drawn from his own imagination. his enemies and his rivals have endeavored to prove that he wished to describe in this poem the state of his own mind. they made capital out of a few historical and local circumstances, to give to their falsehood some appearance of truth. but only those who did not know him personally could be ignorant how improbable it was that any resemblance between the poet and his hero could be maintained. let us confine ourselves to the remark that lord byron, instead of personifying his hero, personifies no one but simply the poet. let us add, besides, that in no case could lord byron be made responsible for the consequences of the doctrines of the materialists, as held by his hero. not only because of his nature, which was totally opposed to them, but also and especially because of his tendencies, which were eminently and persistently those of a spiritualist, and which clung to him throughout his life even at the time when he was accused of skepticism. this was at the time when he wrote the second canto of "childe harold." thoughts, little in unison with, if not entirely opposed to his intimate convictions, sprang from his sick heart to his head: his soul became dejected, and his copious tears so obscured his eyes as to veil from them for a time the existence of the almighty, which he seemed to question; and he appeared to think that if the cambridge philosophy was right in doubting the soul's spirituality, its immortality might be equally questioned. these doubts having been expressed in his own, and not in his hero's name, at the outset of the second canto of "childe harold," led to his being also accused of skepticism. but if pain actually paralyzed for a time the elasticity of his mind, the latter very soon recovered its natural vigor and showed itself in all its glowing energy in the eighth and ninth stanzas, which are most delicate emanations from a beautiful soul. the first stanzas alone, however, continued to occupy the attention of some orthodox and over-scrupulous minds: poetry not necessarily being a mode of teaching philosophy. we must besides remark that the meaning of the lines is purely hypothetical. in _saying_ that the soul might _not be immortal_, is it not saying much the same as was said by locke in the words _the soul is perhaps spiritual_? is not that perishable which is capable of dissolution according to the laws of the world? lord byron, though a stanch spiritualist at heart, derived his doubts from other much less exalted authorities. believing implicitly in the omnipotence of the creator, could he not modestly fear that god, who had made his soul out of nothing, might cause it to return to nothing? might he not imagine that the contrary belief was rather the result of our wishes, of our pride, and of the importance which we love to attach to ourselves? can the conviction of the existence of immortality, unless founded upon revelation, be any thing else but a hope or a sentiment? pantheists alone find immortality to be the fatal consequence of their presumptuous doctrine. but what an immortality! one to be laughed at, as a philosopher of our days so well expresses it. accused of skepticism, byron replied by explaining the meaning of his lines in a note which, at the instance of mr. dallas, he also consented to suppress with his habitual good-nature, and in which he endeavored to show that the spirit which pervaded the whole of the poem was rather one of discouragement and despair, than raillery at religion, and that, after all, the effect of religion upon the world had been less to make men love their equals than to excite the various sects to a hatred against one another, and thus give rise to those fanatical wars which have caused so much bloodshed and injured so deeply the cause which they were intended to defend. in reading this note again, one can with difficulty make out what dallas's objections were, and why he tried so hard to have it suppressed; for it savors much more of a spirit of toleration and charity than of skepticism. lord byron nevertheless withdrew it. but this was not enough to satisfy the british straight-lacedness. as the accusations against his skepticism were on the increase daily, mr. gifford, for whose enlightened opinion byron ever had great respect, advised him to be more prudent, whereupon byron replied:-- "i will do as you advise in regard to religious matters. the best would perhaps be to avoid them altogether. certainly the passages already published are rather too rigorously interpreted. i am no bigot of incredulity, and i did not expect that i should be accused of denying the existence of god, because i had expressed some doubts as to the immortality of the soul.... after all, i believe my doubts to be but the effects of some mental illness." it is clear from this letter, the tone of which is so honest and sincere, that if in the stanzas which his rivals blamed there was really more skepticism than can be gathered from the consideration of man's littleness and god's greatness, yet it was not his real conviction. perhaps it was only a kind of cloud overhanging the mind, produced by the great grief which weighed on his heart. these sentiments, however, must have been really his own for some time longer. in his journal of he expresses himself thus:-- "my restlessness tells me i have something within that 'passeth show.' it is for him who made it to prolong that spark of celestial fire which illuminates yet burns this frail tenement.... in the mean time i am grateful for some good, and tolerably patient under certain evils, _grace à dieu et à mon bon tempérament_." but all this, as we have said, amounted to the opinion that an omnipotent god is the author of our soul, which is of a totally different nature to that of our body, and that the soul being spiritual and not subjected to the laws which rule the body, the soul must be immortal. that he who made it out of nothing can cause it to return to nothing. the orthodox doctrine does not teach, as pantheism does, that our soul can not perish. it gives it only an individual immortality. notwithstanding this, and indeed on account of it, he was accused of being an atheist, in a poem entitled "anti-byron." this poem was the work of a clever rival, who made himself the echo of a party. murray hesitated to publish it, but byron, who was always just, praised the poem, and advised its publication. "if the author thinks that i have written poetry with such tendencies, he is quite right to contradict it." but having done so much for others, this time, at least, he fulfilled a duty toward himself by adding:-- "the author is however wrong on one point; i am not in the least an atheist;" and ends by saying, "it is very odd; eight lines may have produced eight thousand, if we calculate what has been and may still be said on the subject." he speaks of the same work to moore, in the same tone of pleasantry:-- "oh, by-the-by, i had nearly forgot. there is a long poem--an 'anti-byron'--coming out, to prove that i have formed a conspiracy to overthrow by rhyme all religion and government, and have already made great progress! it is not very scurrilous, but serious and ethereal. i never felt myself important till i saw and heard of my being such a little voltaire as to induce such a production." he therefore laughed at these accusations as too absurd. as for skepticism, he did not defend himself from a touch of it; for not only did he feel that the suspicious stanza could partly justify the belief, but also because there did exist in him a kind of religious skepticism which proceeded far more from meditation and observation than from a passion for it. such a skepticism is in truth a sigh for conviction. a painful vision which appears to most reflective minds in a more or less indistinct and vague manner, but which appeared more forcibly to him, inasmuch as it sought to be expressed in words. "he," says montaigne, "who analyzes all the circumstances which have brought about matters, and all the consequences which have been derived from them, debars himself from having any choice, and remains skeptical." this skepticism of lord byron, however, did not overstep the boundaries of permissible doubt, as prescribed by an intelligence desirous of improvement. this privilege he exercised; and one might say that he remained, as it were, suspended between heaven and earth, ever looking up toward heaven, from whence he felt that light must come in the end,--a light ever on the increase, which would daily steady him in the great principles which form the fundamental basis of truth,--one god the creator, the real immortality of our soul, our liberty and our responsibility before god. tired, however, of ever being the butt of the invectives of his enemies, and of the clergy, whom he had roughly handled in his writings, lord byron preferred remaining silent; and until his arrival in switzerland he ceased making any allusions in his writings to any philosophical doubts which he may have entertained. the heroes which he selected for his oriental poems were, moreover, too passionate to allow the mysterious voices from heaven to silence the cries from their heart. these celestial warnings, however, byron never ceased to hear, although absorbed himself by various passions of a different kind; he was at that time almost surrounded by an idolizing public, and rocked in the cradle of success and popularity. this is but too visible whenever he ceases to talk the language of his heroes, and expresses merely his own ideas and his own personal feelings. it was at this time that he wrote those delicious "hebrew melodies," in which a belief in spirituality and immortality is everywhere manifest, and in which is to be found the moral indication, if not the metaphysical proof, of the working of his mind in a religious point of view, as he matured in years. two of these melodies especially, the third and the fifteenth, contain so positive a profession of faith in the spiritualist doctrines, and carry with them the mark of so elevated a christian sentiment, that i can not forbear quoting them _in extenso_. if that high world. i. if that high world, which lies beyond our own, surviving love endears; if there the cherish'd heart be fond, the eye the same, except in tears-- how welcome those untrodden spheres! how sweet this very hour to die! to soar from earth and find all fears lost in thy light--eternity! ii. it must be so: 'tis not for self that we so tremble on the brink; and striving to o'erleap the gulf, yet cling to being's severing link. oh! in that future let us think to hold each heart the heart that shares; with them the immortal waters drink, and soul in soul grow deathless theirs! * * * * * when coldness wraps this suffering clay. i. when coldness wraps this suffering clay, ah! whither strays the immortal mind? it can not die, it can not stay, but leaves its darken'd dust behind. then, unembodied, doth it trace by steps each planet's heavenly way? or fill at once the realms of space, a thing of eyes, that all survey? ii. eternal, boundless, undecay'd, a thought unseen, but seeing all, all, all in earth or skies display'd, shall it survey, shall it recall: each fainter trace that memory holds so darkly of departed years, in one broad glance the soul beholds, and all, that was, at once appears iii. before creation peopled earth, its eyes shall roll through chaos back; and where the furthest heaven had birth, the spirit trace its rising track. and where the future mars or makes, its glance dilate o'er all to be, while sun is quench'd or system breaks, fix'd in his own eternity. iv. above our love, hope, hate, or fear, it lives all passionless and pure: an age shall fleet like earthly year; its years as moments shall endure. away, away, without a wing, o'er all, through all, its thought shall fly, a nameless and eternal thing, forgetting what it was to die. there is no passage in plato, or in st. augustin, or in pascal, which can equal the sublimity of these stanzas. it was in this painful state of mind that he spent the unfortunate year of his marriage. having separated from his wife, he came to geneva. here, at the same hotel--hôtel de secheron--shelley had also arrived, who some years previously had offered byron a copy of his poem entitled "queen mab." here they became acquainted. although only twenty-three years of age, shelley had already experienced much sorrow during his short existence. born of rich and aristocratic parents, and who professed very religious and tory principles, shelley had been sent to eton at thirteen. his character was most peculiar. he had none of the tastes of the young, could not stand scholastic discipline, despised every rule and regulation, and spent his time in writing novels. he published two when fifteen years old only, which appeared to be far above what could be expected from a boy of his age, but which deserved censure from their immoral tone. owing to the nature of his mind, and especially at a time when reading has much influence, shelley had conceived a great taste for the books which were disapproved of at college. consequently the doctrines of the materialist school, which were the most in fashion then both in france and in england, so poisoned his mind as to cause him to become an atheist, and to argue as such against several theologians. he even published a pamphlet, so exaggerated in tone that he entitled it, "on the necessity of atheism." to crown this folly, shelley sent round to all the bishops a copy of this work, and signed it with his own name. brought before the authorities to answer the charge of this audacious act, he persisted in his doctrines, and was actually preparing an answer to the judges in the same sense, when he was expelled from the university. for people who know england a little, it is easy to conceive what an impression such conduct must have produced on the part of the eldest son of a family like his, of tory principles, belonging to the aristocracy, intimate with the prince regent, and stanch, orthodox and severe in their religious tenets. expelled from college, he was likewise sent away from home; and when his indignant father consented to see him again, shelley was treated with such coldness that he was enraged at being received as a stranger in the bosom of a family of which he was the eldest son. this was not all: even the young lady for whom shelley had already conceived an affection, deemed it right to cast him off. overwhelmed by all these but too well merited misfortunes, he took refuge in an inn, where he tried to poison himself. as he was struggling between life and death, a young girl of fifteen, miss westbrook, took care of him. believing himself to be past recovery, and having no other means of rewarding her attention except by marrying her, he did so, in the hope that after his death his family would provide for her. but it is not always so easy to die, and he did not die. his health, however, was completely broken, and all that remained to him besides was an ill-assorted marriage. after the gretna green ceremony, shelley went to reside in edinburgh. his marriage so exasperated his father, that from that time he ceased to have any intercourse with him. from scotland shelley went to ireland, which was then in a very disturbed state. his metaphysics led him to conceive the most dangerous social theories. conquered by a very real love of humanity, which he hoped to serve by the realization of his chimerical views, he even believed it to be his duty to make proselytes. while recommending the observance of peace, and of a spirit of moderation on the one hand, he, on the other, published pamphlets and spoke at meetings with a degree of talent which earned for him a certain amount of reputation, if not of fame. then he was seized with a violent admiration for the english school called "lockists," and devoted himself to poetry by way of giving a literary expression to his metaphysical reveries, and to his social theories. thus he wrote "queen mab," a poem full of talent and imagination, but which is only the frame which encircles his most deplorable fancies. he sent a copy of it to all the noted literary men of england, and among them to lord byron, whose star had risen since the publication of "childe harold." lord byron declared, as may be seen in a note to the "due foscari," that the metaphysical portion of the poem was quite in opposition with his own opinions; but, with his usual impartiality and justice, he admired the poetry which is noticeable in this work, agreeing in this "with all those who are not blinded by bigotry and baseness of mind." shelley's marriage, contracted as it was under such strange auspices, was, of course, very unfortunate. by his acquaintance with godwin, one of the greatest literary characters of his day, shelley came to know mary, his daughter, by his marriage with the celebrated mrs. woolstonecraft. each fell in love with the other, but shelley was not yet free to marry miss godwin. he separated from the wife he had chosen only from grateful motives, although he had two children by her, and he left england for the first time, where he had become the object of persecutions of all kinds, and of a hatred which at a later period culminated in taking away his right to the guardianship of his children. such was his position when lord byron arrived in switzerland, and alighted at the hôtel secheron. to make acquaintance, therefore, with the author of "queen mab," and with the daughter of godwin, for whom he entertained great regard, was a natural consequence on the part of the author of "childe harold." notwithstanding their difference of character, their diversity of taste, and their different habits, owing to the very opposite mode of living which they had followed, the two poets felt drawn to one another by that irresistible sympathy which springs up in the souls of two persecuted beings, however just that persecution may have been, as regards shelley, but which was wholly unjust as regards byron. here we must allow moore to speak:-- "the conversation of shelley, from the extent of his poetic reading, and the strange, mystic speculations into which his systems of philosophy led him, was of a nature strongly to interest the attention of lord byron, and to turn him away from worldly associations and topics into more abstract and untrodden ways of thought. as far as contrast indeed is an enlivening ingredient of such intercourse, it would be difficult to find two persons more formed to whet each other's faculties by discussion, as on few points of common interest between them did their opinions agree: and that this difference had its root deep in the conformation of their respective minds, needs but a glance through the rich, glittering labyrinth of shelley's pages to assure us. "in lord byron, the real was never forgotten in the fanciful. however imagination had placed her whole realm at his disposal, he was no less a man of this world than a ruler of hers: and, accordingly, through the airiest and most subtle creations of his brain, still the life-blood of truth and reality circulates. with shelley it was far otherwise: his fancy was the medium through which he saw all things, his facts as well as his theories; and not only the greater part of his poetry, but the political and philosophical speculations in which he indulged, were all distilled through the same over-refining and unrealizing alembic. having started as a teacher and reformer of the world, at an age when he could know nothing of the world but from fancy, the persecution he met with on the threshold of this boyish enterprise only confirmed him in his first paradoxical views of human ills, and their remedies. instead of waiting to take lessons from those of greater experience, he with a courage, admirable, had it been but wisely directed, made war upon both.... with a mind, by nature, fervidly pious, he yet refused to acknowledge a supreme providence, and substituted some airy abstraction of 'universal love' in its place. an aristocrat by birth, and, as i understand, also in appearance and manners, he was yet a leveller in politics, and to such an utopian extent as to be the serious advocate of a community of goods. though benevolent and generous to an extent that seemed to exclude all idea of selfishness, he yet scrupled not, in the pride of system, to disturb wantonly the faith of his fellow-men, and, without substituting any equivalent good in its place, to rob the wretched of a hope, which, even if false, would be better than all this world's best truths. "upon no point were the opposite tendencies of the two friends more observable than in their notions on philosophical subjects: lord byron being, with the great bulk of mankind, a believer in the existence of matter and evil, while shelley so far refined upon the theory of berkeley, as not only to resolve the whole of creation into spirit, but to add also to this immaterial system, some pervading principle, some abstract nonentity of love and beauty--of which, as a substitute at least for deity--the philosophic bishop had never dreamed." the difference existing between their philosophical doctrines was that which existed between the two most opposed systems of spiritualism and pantheism. i said that shelley, notwithstanding his originality of mind, was destined, through the mobility of his impressions, to be easily influenced by what he read. the study of plato and of spinoza had already given to his metaphysical views a different bent. but before his transition from atheism to a mystical pantheism, before finding god in all things, after having sought him in vain everywhere, before considering himself to be a fragment of a chosen existence, and before shutting himself up in a kind of mysticism which did actually absorb him at a later period, he confined himself to a positive worship of nature, which appeared to him then in the glorious shape of the mountains and lakes of helvetia. wordsworth was his oracle, and thus cultivating a poetry which deified nature, shelley, in reality, remained at heart an atheist, and doubtless tried to imbue byron with his enthusiasm and with his opinions. himself greatly delighted with the beauties of the scenery in the midst of which they lived, and, as he was wont to say in laughter, having received many large doses of wordsworth from shelley, lord byron wrote several stanzas in which the same enthusiasm may be met with, recorded in terms almost of adoration. it was only a poetical form, however, a poetical illusion, which was succeeded by stanzas in which god himself as our creator, was loudly proclaimed. if in the seventy-second and following stanzas of the third canto, opinions were expressed which savored of pantheistic tendencies, they were at once followed by some such as these:-- "all heaven and earth are still--though not in sleep, but breathless, as we grow when feeling most; and silent, as we stand in thought too deep:-- all heaven and earth are still: from the high host of stars to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast, all is concentred in a life intense, where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, but hath a part of being, and a sense of that which is of all _creator_ and _defense_." and again, on viewing the alps, he writes the poem of "manfred," in which his belief in a one god, and creator, is expressed in sublime lines. his repugnance to atheism and to materialism is testified not only in his poetry, but also by his own actions. on reaching montauvert with his friend hobhouse, and on the point of ascending mont blanc with him, he found shelley's name in the register of the travellers, and under it the qualification of "atheist" written in shelley's own hand. lord byron at once scratched it out. but on reading, a little below, a remark by another traveller, who had justly rebuked shelley's folly, byron added the words, "the appellation is well deserved." he soon after left the alps, and came to italy, without his views, either philosophical or religious, being in the least altered by the seductions of "that serpent," as he jokingly denominated shelley. we shall now follow him, step by step, until the end of his life, and we shall see whether he will not show himself stanch in his adherence to great principles. lord byron had enough of systems, and was disgusted with their absurdity, their proud dogmatical views, and their intolerant spirit. whenever the great questions of life and the dictates of the soul occupy his thoughts, either in the silence of the night or in the absence of passion, we shall see him set himself resolutely to the examination of his own conscience, for the purpose of arriving at truth and justice. the answers which his powerful reasoning suggested to him served to determine and confirm his faith in god. on leaving geneva, lord byron proceeded to milan. "one day," says mr. stendhall, who knew lord byron at milan, in , and saw a great deal of him there, "some people alluded to a couplet from the 'aminta' of tasso, in which the poet appears to take credit to himself for being an unbeliever, and expresses it in the lines which may thus be translated:-- 'listen, oh my son, to the thunder as it rolls. but what is it to us what jupiter does up there? let us rejoice down here if betroubled above; let the common herd of mortals dread his blows: and let the world go to ruin, i will only think of what pleases me; and if i become dust again, i shall only be what i have already been.' lord byron says that these lines were written under the influence of spleen. a belief in the existence of a superior being was a necessity for the fiery and tender nature of tasso. he was, besides, far too platonic to try to reconcile such contrary opinions. when he wrote those lines, he probably was in want of a piece of bread and a mistress." lord byron reached venice, and there his most agreeable hours and days were spent with padre pasquale, in the convent of the armenian priests. he also wrote, at this time, the sublimely moral poem entitled "manfred," in which he renders justice to the existence of god, to the free will of man, the abuse of which has resulted in the loss of "manfred," and retraces, in splendid lines, all the duties incumbent upon man, together with the limits which he is not allowed to pass. the apparition of his lovely and young victim, the uncertainty of her happiness, which causes manfred's greatest grief, and finally his supplication to her that he may know whether she is enjoying eternal bliss, ... "that i do bear this punishment for both--that thou wilt be one of the blessed--...." the whole bears the impress of a truly religious spirit. he shortly afterward visited rome, and finding himself in presence of st. peter's, he again gave expression to his religious sentiments, in the admirable fourth canto of "childe harold," which englishmen do not hesitate to acknowledge as the finest poem which ever came from mortal hands. to st. peter. _stanza_ . * * * * * * * "christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb!" _stanza_ . "but thou, of temples old, or altars new, standest alone, with nothing like to thee. * * * * * * * power, glory, strength, and beauty all are aisled in this eternal ark of worship undefiled." from venice he went on to ravenna. the persecution to which he was subjected, on the ground of religion and morality, on account of the publication of the two first cantos of "don juan," was then at its height, and he was tormented in every possible way. it was useless for him to protest, in verse, in prose, by letter, or by words, against the accusation of his being an atheist and a skeptic. it was asserted that "manfred" was the expression of his doubts upon the dispensation of providence, and that his other poems, all more or less imbued with passion, had tendencies of an irreverent nature in respect to the divinity. his two famous stanzas in "childe harold" were always held up to him by the innumerable army of hypocrites and wicked people who assailed him. all were not hypocrites, however; some were his enemies in good faith, but were blinded by sectarian prejudices. among these was an irishman of the name of mulock, author of a work entitled "atheism answered." lord byron one day at ravenna received a paper from the editor of the "bologna telegraph," with extracts from this work, in which "there is a long eulogium of" his "poetry, and a great _compatimento_ for" his "misery" on account of his being a skeptic and an unbeliever in christ; "although," says mr. mulock, "his bold skepticism is far preferable to the pharisaical parodists of the religion of the gospel, who preach and persecute with an equally intolerant spirit." lord byron, writing that day to murray, says:-- "i never could understand what they mean by accusing me of irreligion. they may, however, have it their own way. this gentleman seems to be my great admirer, so i take what he says in good part, as he evidently intends kindness, to which i can't accuse myself of being insensible." in the evening he talked to and laughed a good deal with the countess guiccioli about this great _compatimento_,[ ] treating it as a great oddity. a few months later, moore having written to him about this same mr. mulock, and told him that that gentleman was giving lectures upon religion, lord byron, while riding with the young count g---- in the forest of ravenna, made his profession of faith, and finding his youthful companion not quite orthodox, said to him: "the nature of classical and philosophical studies generally paralyzes all logical minds, and that is why many young heads leave college unbelievers: you are even still more so, because you mix up your religious views with your political antipathies. as for me, in my early youth, when i left college, where i had to bow to very superior and stronger minds who themselves were under various evil influences of college and of youth, i was more than heterodox. time and reflection have changed my mind upon these subjects, and i consider atheism as a folly. as for catholicism, so little is it objectionable to me, that i wish my daughter to be brought up in that religion, and some day to marry a catholic. if catholicism, after all, suggests difficulties of a nature which it is difficult for reason to get over, are these less great than those which protestantism creates? are not all the mysteries common to both creeds? catholicism at least offers the consolation of purgatory, of the sacraments, of absolution and forgiveness; whereas protestantism is barren of consolation for the soul." this open profession of faith, expressed by such a man as lord byron, in a calm and dispassionate tone, produced a great impression upon the young count. it had been so much the fashion to consider him as irreligious, that one would say that even his friends were of the same opinion. some time had elapsed since byron had sent a translation from the armenian of one of the epistles of st. paul, which murray delayed in publishing. rather annoyed by this delay, byron wrote to him on the th of october, , from ravenna:-- "the epistle of st. paul, which i translated from the armenian, for what reason have you kept it back, though you published that stuff which gave rise to the 'vampire?' is it because you are afraid to print any thing in opposition to the cant of the 'quarterly' about manicheism? let me have a proof of that epistle directly. i am a better christian than those parsons of yours, though not paid for being so." if byron hated fanatical and persecuting clergymen, he, on the other hand, entertained great regard for priests of every denomination, when he knew that they exercised their functions without fanaticism and in a tolerant spirit. among his dearest and earliest friends he placed two young clergymen,[ ] both distinguished in their profession by their piety and their attainments. at ravenna, his alms in favor of churches and monasteries were very liberal. if the organ were not in order, if the steeple wanted repairs, lord byron's pecuniary assistance was asked for, and he ever gave liberally though it was for the benefit of the catholic community. he was always indignant at his writings, especially if connected with religion, being sent back to him by murray with alterations to which he was no party. on one occasion he reproached him in the following terms:-- "in referring to the mistake in stanza , i take the opportunity to desire that in future, in all parts of my writings referring to religion, you will be more careful, and not forget that it is possible that in addressing the deity a blunder may become a blasphemy: and i do not choose to suffer such infamous perversions of my words or of my intentions. i saw the canto by accident." his dearest paternal care was the religious education to be given to his natural daughter, allegra, who was with him at ravenna. in writing to mr. and mrs. hoppner, to give them tidings of his dear allegra, whom he had sent to a convent in romagna to be educated there, he declares that in presence of the political disquietude which reigned in the romagna, he thought he could not do better than send his child to that convent. here "she would receive a little instruction, and some notions of morality and the principles of religion." moore adds to this letter a note, which runs thus:-- "with such anxiety did he look to this essential part of his daughter's education, that notwithstanding the many advantages she was sure to derive from the kind and feminine superintendence of mrs. shelley, his apprehensions lest her feelings upon religious subjects might be disturbed by the conversation of shelley himself prevented him from allowing her to remain under his friend's roof." the bible, as is well known, constituted his favorite reading. often did he find in the magnificent poetry of the bible matter for inspiration. his "hebrew melodies" prove it, and as for the book of job, he used to say that it was far too sublime for him even to attempt to translate it, as he would have wished. toward the end of his stay at ravenna, when his genius was most fertile and almost superhuman--(he wrote five dramas and many other admirable poems in fifteen months, that is to say, in less time than it requires to copy them)--two biblical subjects inspired his muse: "cain," and "heaven and earth." both were admirably suited to his pen. he naturally treated them as a philosopher, but without any preconceived notion of making any religious converts. his enemies nevertheless seized hold of these pieces, to incriminate him and impugn his religious belief. i have spoken elsewhere[ ] of that truly scandalous persecution. i will only add here that moore, timid as he usually was when he had to face an unpopularity which came from high quarters, and alarmed by all the cries proceeding from party spirit, wrote to approve the beauty of the poem in enthusiastic terms, but disapproved of the harm which some doubts expressed therein might produce. byron replied:-- "there is nothing against the immortality of the soul in 'cain,' that i recollect. i hold no such opinions; but in a drama the first rebel and the first murderer must be made to talk according to his character." and in another letter he says, with regard to the same subject:-- "with respect to religion, can i never convince you that i have no such opinions as the characters in that drama, which seem to have frightened every body? yet they are nothing to the expressions in goethe's 'faust' (which are ten times hardier), and not a whit more bold than those of milton's 'satan.' my ideas of character may run away with me: like all imaginative men, i, of course, embody myself with the character while i draw it, but not a moment after the pen is from off the paper. "i am no enemy to religion, but the contrary. as a proof, i am educating my natural daughter a strict catholic in a convent of romagna, for i think people can never have enough of religion, if they are to have any. i incline myself very much to the catholic doctrines; but if i am to write a drama, i must make my characters speak as i conceive them likely to argue." the sympathy of persons sincerely religious was extremely agreeable to him. a short time after he had left ravenna for pisa, a mr. john sheppard sent him a prayer he had found among the papers belonging to his young wife, whom he had lost some two years before. lord byron thanked him in a beautiful letter, in which he consoled the distressed husband by assuring him of his belief in immortality, and of his confidence that he would again see the worthy person whom himself he could not but admire, for her virtues and her pure and simple piety. "i am obliged to you," he added, "for your good wishes, and more than obliged by the extract from the papers of the beloved object whose qualities you have so well described in a few words. i can assure you that all the fame which ever cheated humanity into higher notions of its own importance, would never weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous being may be pleased to take in my welfare. in this point of view i would not exchange the prayers of the deceased in my behalf for the united glory of homer, cæsar, and napoleon, could such be accumulated upon a living head. do me at least the justice to suppose that 'video meliora proboque,' however the _deteriora sequor_ may have been applied to my conduct. byron." not only did lord byron prevent his reason being influenced by the arguments of others, but even by the dictates of his own heart. both his mind and his heart were perfectly independent of one another, nay, often took different directions. it was to him unquestionably painful to see such a division, but it was the fatal result of the excessive development of the powers of each. in the same letter to mr. sheppard which we have quoted, and which is full of gratitude for the prayers which the young wife had addressed to heaven to obtain his conversion, byron adds:-- "a man's creed does not depend upon himself: who can say, 'i will believe this, that, or the other?' and, least of all, that which he least can comprehend." walter scott once told him in london that he was convinced he would daily become more and more religious. "what!" vehemently replied lord byron, "do you believe that i could become bigoted?" "no," said walter scott, "i only think that the influence of some great mind might modify your religious views." galt says the same thing:-- "a mind like byron's," says he, "was little susceptible of being impressed by the reasonings of ordinary men. truth, in visiting him, must come accompanied by every kind of solemnity, and preceded by respect and reverence. a marked superiority, a recognized celebrity, were indispensable to command his sincere attention." without taking implicitly for granted the rather exaggerated opinion of galt with respect to lord byron, we must allow that the great poet's attention could not be captivated by reasonings of a superficial kind, but could be influenced only by great learning, and powerful arguments which had conviction for their basis. but he might have found at pisa the great intellectual influence spoken of, for he found shelley there. seeing him every day, in the quiet intimacy which the delightful sojourn in tuscany procured for them, it was easy for both to forget all the troubles of an agitated and political existence, and only to think about the world of spirits. shelley had every opportunity for inculcating his doctrines, having, or rather being able to exercise, the most exclusive influence upon byron's mind. did he exercise that influence, and if he did not, for what reason? we have said that shelley, notwithstanding his original views, his extreme readiness to be impressed by every thing he heard and saw, was often the victim of his reading. he had read a great deal, and though since he had written the "apology for atheism" he had not changed his mind as to his metaphysical tenets, nevertheless the study of the german philosophy, and especially of spinoza's, had produced on him a revolution of ideas. from a materialistic atheism, which denies the existence of god in every thing, he had gone over to a kind of mystic pantheism, which supposes god to be everywhere and in every thing. this species of pantheism is in reality but a disguised atheism, but which, in such a man as shelley, appeared more in the actions of his life as a pervading devotion than an impious belief. shelley ever adored all that is beautiful, true, and holy. from this it followed that his doctrines, far from appearing to be the result of pride, seemed, on the contrary, to be founded upon humility, sacrifice, and devotion to humanity. if the mystic pantheism of spinoza could have found a living justification of its silly principles, and an excuse for its want of power, shelley would have supplied both. the individuality, always more or less egotistical, which is prominent in the word _ego_, seemed positively to have ceased to exist with him: one would have said that he almost already felt himself absorbed in that universal and divine substance, which is the god of spinoza. if in a century like ours such a philosophy as eclecticism could return and become again a doctrinal institution, shelley might have personified it. he had so sacrificed his individuality to chimeras of all kinds, that he appeared to consider himself a mere phenomenon, and to look upon the external world as mere fiction, in order that the impossible and never-to-be-found divinity of his dreams might occupy all the space. he was perhaps the meekest, most generous, and the most modest of the creatures of the true god, whom he yet persistently refused to recognize as his creator. if, however, there was no impiety in his irreligion, no real pride, in his pride, there existed that weakness, if i may use the word, peculiar to a brain which can not grasp at reality, but adheres to a chimera as a basis for its arguments. "his works," says galt, "are soiled by the false judgments proceeding from a mind which made him look at every thing in a false light, and it must be allowed that that mind was either troubled or defective by nature." if this opinion is too severe, it is, however, certain that shelley had so exalted an imagination that his judgment suffered by it. as he is in his works, so was he in all the commonest actions of his life. a few anecdotes will serve to make him still better known. once, at pisa, he went to see count gamba, who expected him, for some charitable purpose which they were to agree upon together. a violent storm burst forth suddenly, and the wind tore a tile from a roof, and caused it to fall on shelley's head. the blow was very great, and his forehead was covered with blood. this, however, did not in the least prevent his proceeding on his way. when count gamba saw him in this state he was much alarmed, and asked him how it had occurred. shelley replied quite calmly, passing his hand over his head, just as if he had forgotten all about it, that it was true that the wind had blown down a tile which had fallen on his head, but that he would be taken care of later upon his return home. shelley was not rich, but whenever he went to his banker's it was necessary that no one should require his assistance, in order that the money which he had gone to fetch should come home untouched. as, on one occasion, he was returning from a visit to his banker's, some one at the door of his house asked for assistance. shelley hastily got up the stairs, and throwing down his gold and notes on the floor, rushed suddenly away, crying out to mrs. shelley, "there, pick it all up." this the lady did as well as she could, for she was a woman of order, and as much attached to the reality of things as her husband was wanting in that particular. i shall not multiply these characteristic instances of the man, but will only add that such incidents were by no means uncommon, nay, that they were matters of daily occurrence. there was almost a kind of analogy in his life between him and spinoza. notwithstanding their great qualities and merits, both were hated and persecuted for sufficiently just motives,--society having the right of repudiating doctrines which tend to its destruction; but both were persecuted in undue and unfair proportions. both had weak and sickly constitutions. both had great and generous souls. both endeavored to understand the laws which govern the destiny of the world, without ever being subject to their moral consequences, and both devoted themselves to be practically useful to their fellow-creatures--a contradiction which was the effect of their too generous minds. in shelley's heart the dominant wish was to see society entirely reorganized. the sight of human miseries and infirmities distressed him to the greatest degree; but, too modest himself to believe that he was called upon to take the initiative, and inaugurate a new era of good government and fresh laws for the benefit of humanity, he would have been pleased to see such a genius as byron take the initiative in this undertaking. "he can be the regenerator of his country," wrote shelley, speaking of byron, in , at venice. shelley therefore did his best to influence lord byron. but the latter hated discussions: he could not bear entering into philosophical speculation at times when his soul craved the consolations of friendship and his mind a little rest. he was quite insensible to reasonings, which often appear sublime because they are clothed in words incomprehensible to those who have not sought to understand their meaning. but he made an exception in favor of shelley. he knew that he could not shake his faith in a doctrine founded upon illusions, by his incredulity: but he listened to him with pleasure, not only on account of shelley's good faith and sincerity of meaning, but also because he argued upon false data with such talent and originality that he was both interested and amused. but with all his great and noble qualities was it to be expected that lord byron would fall into the doctrines proffered by pantheists? doctrines rejected by reason, which wound the heart, are opposed to the most imperative necessities of our nature, and only bring desolation to our minds. lord byron had examined every kind and species of philosophy by the light of common sense, and by the instinct of his genius: the result had been to make him compassionate toward the vain weaknesses of the human understanding, and to convince him that all systems which have hypothesis as groundwork are illusions, and consequently likely to perish with their authors. pantheism in particular was odious to him, and he esteemed it to be the greatest of absurdities. he made no difference between the pantheism "absolute," which mixes up that which is infinite with that which is finite, and that which struggles in vain to keep clear of atheism. in an age like ours, when the common tendency is of a materialistic character, such as almost to defy the power of man, mysticism has little or no _locus standi_. shelley's opinions, on account of their appearance of spiritualism, were most likely of any to interest byron; but, founded as they are upon fancy, could they please him? could he possibly consent to lose his individuality, deny his own freedom of will, all responsibility of action, and hence all his privileges, his future existence, and all principles of morality? could he possibly admit that the doctrine which prescribed these sacrifices was better than any other? even with the best intentions, could any of the essential, moral, and holy principles of nature be introduced into such a system? byron could not but condemn it, and he attributed all shelley's views to the aberrations of a mind which is happier when it dreams than when it denies. here, then, was the cause of his being inaccessible to shelley's arguments. he used sometimes to exclaim, "why shelley appears to me to be mad with his metaphysics." this he one day repeated to count gamba at pisa, as shelley walked out and he came in. "we have been discussing metaphysics," said he: "what trash in all these systems! say what they will, mystery for mystery, i still find that of the creation the most reasonable of any." he made no disguise of the difficulties which he found in admitting the doctrine of a god, creator of the world, and entirely distinct from it; but he added, "i prefer even that mystery to the contradictions by which other systems endeavor to replace it." he certainly found that in the mystery of creation there existed the proof of the weakness of our minds, but he declared that pantheism had to explain absurdities far too evident for a logical mind to adopt its tenets. "they find," said he, "that reason is more easily satisfied with a system of unity like theirs, in which all is derived from one principle only: may be, but what do we ask of truth? why all our never-ceasing efforts in its pursuit? is it merely that we may exercise the mind, and make truth the toy of our imagination? impossible. at any rate it would be a secret to which, as yet, god has not given us any clue. but in doing this, in constantly placing the phenomena of creation before us without their causes or without ever explaining them, and at the same time instilling into our souls an insatiable thirst for truth, the almighty has placed within us a voice which at times reminds us that he is preparing some surprise for us; and we trust that that surprise may be a happy one." poor shelley lost his time with byron. but, however much byron objected to his doctrines, he had no similar objection to shelley himself, for whom he professed a great respect and admiration. he grieved to find so noble an intellect the victim of hallucination which entirely blinded him to the perception of truth. shelley, however, did not despair of succeeding in making byron some day give up what he termed his philosophical errors, and his persistency earned for him the appellation of "serpent" which byron gave him in jest. this persistency, which at the same time indicates the merit of byron's resistance, has often been mentioned by shelley himself. writing from pisa to a friend in england, a very few days before his death, and alluding to a letter from moore which byron had shown him, and wherein "cain" was attributed to the influence which he (shelley) had evidently exercised over byron, he said, "pray assure moore that in a philosophical point of view i have not the slightest influence over byron; if i had, be sure i should use it for the purpose of uprooting his delusions and his errors. he had conceived 'cain' many years ago, and he had already commenced writing it when i saw him last year at ravenna. how happy i should be could i attribute to myself, even indirectly, a part in that immortal work!" moore wrote to byron on the same subject a little later, and received the following reply:--"as for poor shelley, who also frightens you and the world, he is, to my knowledge, the least egotistical and kindest of men. i know no one who has so sacrificed both fortune and sentiments for the good of others; as for his speculative opinions, we have none in common, nor do i wish to have any." all the poems which he wrote at this time, and which admitted of his introducing the religious element either purposely or accidentally into them, prove one and all that his mind, as regards religion, was as we have shown it to be. this is particularly noticeable in his mystery called "heaven and earth;" but the same remark is applicable to others, such as the "island," and even to some passages in "don juan." "heaven and earth"--a poem which appeared about this time, and which he styled "a mystery"--is a biblical poem in which all the thoughts agree with the book of genesis, and "which was inspired," says galt, "by a mind both serious and patriarchal, and is an echo of the oracles of adam and of melchisedec." in this work he exhibits as much veneration for scriptural theology as milton himself. in the "island," which he wrote at genoa, there are passages which penetrate the soul with so religious a feeling, that benjamin constant, in reading it, and indignant at hearing byron called an unbeliever, exclaimed in his work on religion, "i am assured that there are men who accuse lord byron of atheism and impiety. there is more religion in the twelve lines which i have quoted than in the past, present, and future writings of all his detractors put together." even in "don juan," in that admirable satire which, not being rightly understood, has given rise to so many calumnies, he says, after having spoken in the fifteenth canto of the moral greatness of various men, and among others of socrates:-- "and thou, diviner still, whose lot it is by man to be mistaken, and thy pure creed made sanction of all ill? redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken, how was thy toil rewarded?" at the end of this stanza he wrote the following note:---- "as it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, i say that i mean by 'diviner still,' christ. if ever god was man--or man god--he was both. i never arraigned his creed, but the use or abuse made of it. mr. canning one day quoted christianity to sanction negro slavery, and mr. wilberforce had little to say in reply. and was christ crucified that black men might be scourged? if so, he had better been born a mulatto, to give both colors an equal chance of freedom, or at least salvation." notwithstanding these beautiful lines, which were equally professions of faith, england, instead of doing byron justice, continued more than ever to persecute him. shortly afterward he embarked at genoa for greece, and halted at cephalonia. he there made the acquaintance of a young scotchman, named kennedy, who was attached as doctor to the greek army. before taking to medicine this young man had studied law, with the intention of going to the edinburgh bar. he was so deeply convinced of the truths of christianity, and so familiar with its teaching, that he would fain have imparted his belief to every one he met. from his position he found himself among a host of young officers, mostly scotch, and all more or less lax in their religious practices. among these, however, he met with four who consented to listen to his explanation of the doctrines of christianity. as their principal challenge was to show proofs that the bible was of divine origin, he accepted the challenge in the hope of making some conversions. one of these officers informed lord byron of this projected meeting, and byron, from the interest which he always took in the subject which was to be their ground of discussion, expressed a wish to be present. "you know," said he, "that i am looked upon as a black sheep, and yet i am not as black as the world makes me out, nor worse than others,"--words, which, from the fact of his rarely doing himself justice, were noteworthy in his mouth. under such auspices, then, was kennedy fortunate enough to open his discussion, and lord byron was present in company of the young count gamba and dr. bruno. mr. kennedy has given a detailed account of this meeting, as also of his subsequent conversations with lord byron. we will mention some of them here, because they show lord byron's religious opinions in the latter portion of his life. mr. kennedy had made a condition that he should be allowed to speak, without being interrupted, but at various intervals, for twelve hours. this condition, was soon set aside, and then lord byron joined the conversation. after exciting admiration by his patient silence, he astounded every one as an interlocutor. if kennedy was well versed in the scriptures, lord byron was not less so, and even able to correct a misquotation from holy writ. the direct object of the meeting was to prove that the scriptures contained the genuine and direct revelation of god's will. mr. kennedy, however, becoming a little entangled in a series of quotations, which had not the force that was required to prove his statements, and, seeing that a little impatience betrayed itself among the audience, could not resist showing some temper, and accusing his hearers of ignorance. "strange accusation, when applied to lord byron," says galt. lord byron, who had come there to be interested, and to learn, did not notice the taunt of mr. kennedy, but merely remarked, "that all that can be desired is to be convinced of the truth of the bible, as containing really the word of god; for if this is sincerely believed, it must follow, as a necessary consequence, that one must believe all the doctrines contained in it." he then added, that in his youth he had been brought up by his mother in very strict religious principles; had read a large number of theological works, and that barrow's writings had most pleased him; that he regularly went to church, that he was by no means an unbeliever who denied the scriptures, and wished to grope in atheism; but, on the contrary, that all his wish was to increase his belief, as half-convictions made him wretched. he declared, however, that he could not thoroughly understand the scriptures. he also added, that he entertained the highest respect for, and confidence in, those who believed conscientiously; but that he had met with many whose conduct differed from the principles they professed simply from interested motives, and esteemed the number of those who really believed in the scriptures to be very small. he asked him about his opinion as to various writers against religion, and among others of sir w. hamilton, bellamy, and warburton, who pretend that the jews had no notion of a future existence. he confessed that the sight of so much evil was a difficulty to him, which he could not explain, and which made him question the perfect goodness of the creator. he dwelt upon this argument a long time, exhibiting as much tenderness of heart as force of reasoning. kennedy's answers were weak, as must be those of one who denies the measure of evil, in order that he may not be compassionate toward it, and who promises a reward in after life to escape the necessity of its being bestowed in the present. in reply lord byron pointed to moral and physical evil which exists among savages, to whom scripture is unknown, and who are bereft of all the means of becoming civilized people. why are they deprived of these gifts of god? and what is to be the ultimate fate of pagans? he quoted several objections made to our lord by the apostles; mentioned prophecies which had never been fulfilled, and spoke of the consequences of religious wars. kennedy replied with much ability, and even with a certain degree of eloquence, and prudently made use of the ordinary theological arguments. but to influence such a mind as byron's more was required. in the search after truth, he looked for hard logic, and eloquence was not required by him. fénélon could not have persuaded him; but descartes might have influenced him. he preferred, in fact, in such arguments, the method of the geometrician to that of the artist; the one uses truth to arrive at truth, the other makes use of the beautiful only, to arrive at the same end. the meeting lasted four hours, and created much sensation in the island, and every one agreed in praising lord byron's great knowledge of the scriptures, joined to his moderation and modesty. kennedy, however, a little irritated by the superiority granted to his adversary, did his best to dissipate the impression produced by it. he went so far as to reproach his friends for having allowed themselves to be blinded by the rank, the celebrity, and the prestige of lord byron. "his theological knowledge being," said he, "in reality quite ordinary and superficial." this meeting was the only one in which lord byron took a part, for he left argostoli for metaxata. the meetings continued, however, for some time longer, and kennedy showed a zeal which deserved to meet with better success. he brought before his audience with talent every possible reasoning in favor of orthodoxy; but his audience, composed of young men, were far too engrossed with worldly occupations to be caught by the ardor of their master's zeal. disappointed at not seeing lord byron again among them, they all deserted kennedy's lectures just at the time when he was going to speak of miracles and prophecies, the subject of all others upon which he had built his greatest hopes. not only did they desert the hall, but actually overwhelmed the speaker with mockery. some declared they would put off their conversion to a more advanced age; others actually maintained that they had less faith than before. meanwhile kennedy, though disappointed in his religious enthusiasm on the one hand, received some consolation on the other, at the hands of lord byron, who had not forgotten him, and who often inquired after him though he had not been convinced by his arguments. kennedy also had conceived a great liking for byron. he admired in the poet all his graceful qualities and his unequalled talents. he wished, but dared not yet, visit lord byron. meeting, however, count gamba at argostoli on one occasion, and hearing from him that byron was on the point of departure for continental greece, he resolved to pay him a visit, "as much," said he, "to show the respect which is due to such a man, as to satisfy one's own curiosity in seeing and hearing so distinguished a person." byron received him with his natural cordiality. he made him stay to dinner with him, and thus gave him the opportunity of entering into a long conversation. kennedy, who never lost sight of his mission of proselytism, brought the conversation round to the object of his wishes, and prefaced his arguments by saying that he was prepared to talk upon the matter; but that he had no doubt lost his time, since it was not likely that his lordship would consider these subjects urgent at that moment. byron smiled and replied, "it is true that at the present time i have not given that important subject all my attention, but i should nevertheless be curious to know the motives which not only have convinced you, as a man of sense and reflection, as you undoubtedly are, of the truth of religion, but also have induced you to profess christianity with such zeal." "if there had been men," said kennedy, "who had rejected christianity, there were greater men still who had accepted it; but to adopt a system merely because others have adopted it is not to act rationally, unless it is proved that the great minds which adopted it were mistaken." "but i have not the slightest desire," answered byron, "to reject a doctrine without having investigated it. quite the contrary; i wish to believe, because i feel extremely unhappy in a state of uncertainty as to what i am to believe." kennedy having told him then that to obtain the grace of faith, he should pray humbly for it, byron replied, that prayer does not consist in the act of kneeling or of repeating certain words in a solemn manner: "devotion is the affection of the heart, and that i possess, for when i look at the marvels of creation i bow before the majesty of heaven, and when i experience the delights of life, health, and happiness, then my heart dilates in gratitude toward god for all his blessings." "that is not sufficient," continued the doctor. "i should wish your lordship to read the bible with the greatest attention, having prayed earnestly before that the almighty may grant you the grace to understand it. for, however great your talents, the book will be a sealed letter to you unless the holy spirit inspires you." "i read the bible more than you think," said byron. "i have a bible which my sister, who is goodness itself, gave me, and i often peruse it." he then went into his bedroom, and brought out a handsomely-bound pocket bible which he showed the doctor. the latter advised his continuing to read it, but expressed his surprise that byron should not have better understood it. he looked out several passages in which it is enjoined that we should pray with humility if we wish to understand the truth of the gospel; and where it is expressly said that no human wisdom can fathom these truths; but that god alone can reveal them to us, and enlighten our understanding; that we must not scrutinize his acts, but be submissive as children to his will; and that, as obedience through the sin of our first parents, and our own evil inclinations, has become for us a positive difficulty, we must change our hearts before we can obey or take pleasure in obeying the commandments of our lord god; and, finally, that all, whatever the rank of each, are subject to the necessity of obedience. byron's occupations and ideas at that time were not quite in accordance with the nature of these holy words, but he received them with his usual kind and modest manner, because they came from one who was sincere. he only replied, that, as to the wickedness of the world, he was quite of his opinion, as he had found it in every class of society; but that the doctrines which he had put forth would oblige him to plunge into all the problems respecting the old testament and original sin, which many learned persons, as good christians as dr. kennedy, did not hesitate to reject. he then showed the doctor, in answer to the latter's rather intolerant assertion of the omnipotence of the bible, how conversant he was with the subject by quoting several christian authors who thought differently. he quoted bishop watson, who, while professing christianity, did not attribute such authority to the contents of the bible. he also mentioned the waldenses, who were such good christians that they were called "the true church of christ," but who, nevertheless, looked upon the bible as merely the history of the jews. he then showed that the book of genesis was considered by many doctors of divinity as a mere symbol or allegory. he took up the defense of gibbon against kennedy's insinuation that the great historian had maliciously and intentionally kept back the truth; he quoted warburton as a man whose ingenious theories have found much favor with many learned persons; finally, he proved to the doctor that, in any case, he could not himself be accused of ignorance of the subject. this conversation afforded him the opportunity also of refuting the accusation brought against him by some of his numerous enemies; namely, that of having a tendency to the doctrines of manicheism. kennedy having said that the spirit of evil, as well as the angels, is subject to the will of god, lord byron replied,---- "if received in a literal sense, i find that it gives one a far higher notion of god's majesty, power, and wisdom, if we believe that the spirit of evil is really subject to the will of the almighty, and is as easily controlled by him as the elements follow the respective laws which he has made for them." byron could not bear any thing which took away from the greatness of the divinity, and his words all tended to replace the divinity in that incomprehensible space where he must be silently acknowledged and adored. their conversation extended to other points of religious belief. while the doctor, taking the bible to be the salvation of mankind, indulged in exaggerated and intolerant condemnation of the catholic church, which he called an abominable hierarchy not less to be regretted than deism and socinianism, byron again displayed a spirit of toleration and moderation. though he disapproved of the doctor's language, he did not contradict him, believing him to be sincere in his recriminations, but brought back the conversation to that point from which common sense should never depart. he deplored with him existing hypocrisies and superstitions, which he looked upon as the cause of the unbelief of many in the existence of god; but he added, that it was not confined to the continent only, but likewise existed in england. instead of resting his hopes upon the bible, he said that he knew the scriptures well enough "to be sure that if the spirit of meekness and goodness which the religion of the gospel contains were put into practice by men, there would certainly be a marvellous change in this wicked world;" and he finished by saying, that as for himself he had, as a rule, ever respected those who believed conscientiously, whatever that belief might be; in the same manner as he detested from his heart hypocrites of all kinds, and especially hypocrites in religion. he then changed the topic of conversation, and turned it to literature. all he said on that subject is so interesting that i reserve the record of it to another chapter. the doctor, however, soon resumed the former subject of their conversation, and, more in the spirit of a missionary than a philosopher, he went on to recommend the study of christianity, which he said was summed up entirely in the scriptures. "but what will you have me do?" said byron. "i do not reject the doctrines of christianity, i only ask a few more proofs to profess them sincerely. i do not believe myself to be the vile christian which many--to whom i have never done any harm, and many of whom do not even know me--strenuously assert that i am, and attack me violently in consequence." the doctor insisted. "but," said byron, "you go too fast. there are many points still to be cleared up, and when these shall have been explained, i shall then examine what you tell me." "what are those difficulties?" replied the doctor. "if the subject is important, why delay its explanation? you have time; reason upon it; reflect. you have the means of disposing of the difficulty at your command." "true," answered byron, "but i am the slave of circumstances, and the sphere in which i live is not likely to make me consider the subject." as the doctor became more urgent, byron said---- "how will you have me begin?" "begin this very night to pray god that he may forgive you your sins, and may grant you grace to know the truth. if you pray, and read your bible with purity of intention, the result must be that which we so ardently wish for." "well, yes," replied byron, "i will certainly study these matters with attention." "but your lordship must bear in mind, that you should not be discouraged, even were your doubts and difficulties to increase; for nothing can be understood without sufficient time and pains. you must weigh conscientiously each argument, and continue to pray to god, in whom at least you believe, to give you the necessary understanding." "why then," asked byron, "increase the difficulties, when they are already so great?" the doctor then took the mystery of the trinity as an example, and spoke of it as a man who has faith and accepts the mystery as a revealed dogma. "it is not the province of man," said he, "to comprehend or analyze the nature of an existence which is entirely spiritual, such as that of the divinity; but we must accept it, and believe in it, because it has been revealed to us, being fully convinced that man in his present state will never be able to fathom such mysteries." he not only blamed those who wish to explain all things, but likewise the presumption of certain theologians in mixing up their own arguments with the revelations of scripture in order to prove the unity in the trinity, and who speculate upon the attributes of the deity to ascertain the relative mode of existence of each of the three persons who compose the trinity. "they must fall," he added, "or lead others to a similar end." hence he concluded that mysteries should be believed in implicitly, as children believe fully what their parents tell them. "i therefore advise your lordship," said he, "to put aside all difficult subjects,--such as the origin of sin, the fall of man, the nature of the trinity, the mystery of predestination, etc.,--and to study christianity not in books of theology, which, even the best, are all more or less imperfect, but in the careful examination of the scriptures. by comparing each part of it, you will at last find a harmony so great in all its constituent parts, and so much wisdom in its entire whole, that you will no longer be able to doubt its divine origin, and hence that it contains the only means of salvation." to so firm and enviable a faith, byron replied as follows:-- "you recommend what is very difficult; for how is it possible for one who is acquainted with ecclesiastical history, as well as with the writings of the most renowned theologians, with all the difficult questions which have agitated the minds of the most learned, and who sees the divisions and sects which abound in christianity, and the bitter language which is often used by the one against the other; how is it possible, i ask, for such a one not to inquire into the nature of the doctrines which have given rise to so much discussion? one council has pronounced against another; popes have belied their predecessors, books have been written against other books, and sects have risen to replace other sects; the pope has opposed the protestants and the protestants the pope. we have heard of arianism, socinianism, methodism, quakerism, and numberless other sects. why have these existed? it is a puzzle for the brain; and does it not, after all, seem safer to say 'let us be neutral; let those fight who will, and when they have settled which is the best religion, then shall we also begin to study it?' "i, however, like," he continued, "your way of thinking, in many respects; you make short work of decrees and councils, you reject all which is not in harmony with the scriptures, you do not admit of theological works filled with latin and greek of both high and low church, you would even suppress many abuses which have crept into the church, and you are right; but i question whether the archbishop of canterbury or the scotch presbyterians would consider you their ally. "as for predestination, i do not believe as s---- and m---- do on that subject, but as you do; for it appears to me that i am influenced in a manner which i can not understand, and am led to do things which my will does not direct. if, as we all admit, there is a supreme ruler of the universe, and if, as you say, he rules, over both good and bad spirits, then those actions which we perform against our will are likewise under his direction. i have never tried to sift this subject, but satisfied myself by believing that there is, in certain events, a predestination which depends upon the will of god." the doctor replied, "that he had founded his belief upon his own grounds." the doctor then touched upon the differences which existed in religious opinions, and expressed his regret at this, while showing, nevertheless, some indulgence for those christian sects which do not attack the actual fundamental doctrines of christianity. but he was intolerant as regards other sects, such as arianism, socinianism, and swedenborgianism, of which he spoke almost with passion. "you seem to hate the socinians greatly," remarked byron, "but is this charitable? why exclude a socinian, who believes honestly, from any hope of salvation? does he not also found his belief upon the bible? it is a religion which gains ground daily. lady byron is much in favor with its followers. we were wont to discuss religious matters together, and many of our misunderstandings have arisen from that. yet, on the whole, i think her religion and mine were much alike." of course the doctor deplored the existence of such bold doctrines. lord byron then spoke of shelley:-- "i wish," he said, "you had known him, and that i might have got you both together. you remind me of him, not only in looks, but by your manner of speaking." besides physical appearance, it is easy to understand that there existed a great likeness between the two minds, different though their moral tendencies might have been. in both could be traced that degree of mysticism and expansiveness, which make the poet and the missionary. byron praised the virtues of shelley, and styled them christian, and spoke mainly of his great benevolence of character, and of his generosity above his means. "certainly," replied the doctor, "such rare virtues are esteemed among christians, but they can not be called christian virtues, unless they spring from christian principles: and in shelley they were not so. his virtues might deserve human praise, they were no doubt pagan virtues; but they were nothing in the eyes of god, since god has declared that nothing pleases him but that which springs from a good motive, especially the love of and belief in christ, which was wanting in shelley." when kennedy had characterized shelley in even stronger terms, byron said to him: "i see it is impossible to move your soul to any sympathy, or even to obtain from you in common justice a little indulgence for an unfortunate young man, gifted with a lofty mind and a fine imagination." these remarks reveal the tolerant spirit of lord byron, but they also show how the best natures are spoiled by dogmatism. the conversation had lasted several hours. night was coming on, and the doctor, carried away by his zeal, had forgotten the hour. his host, however, did nothing to remind him of it, and when kennedy got up to take his leave, he said to byron, after making excuses for remaining so long, "god having gifted you, my lord, with a mind which can grasp every subject, i am convinced that if your lordship would devote yourself to the study of religion, you would become one of its lights, the pride of your country, and the consolation of every honest person." lord byron replied:-- "i certainly intend to study the matter, but you must give me a little time. you see that i have begun well: i listen to all you say. don't you find that my arguments are more like your own than you would have thought?" "yes," answered the doctor, "and it gives me great pleasure. i have far better hopes of your lordship's conversion than of that of the young officers who listened to me without understanding the meaning of my words. you have shown greater patience and candor than i could have imagined you to be capable of; whereas they, on the contrary, exhibited so hardened a spirit that they appeared to look upon the subject as one which lent itself admirably to ridicule and laughter." "you must allow," said byron, "that in the times in which we are now living it is difficult to bestow attention to any serious religious matter. i think, however, i can promise to reflect even more on the subject than i have done hitherto, without, however, promising to adopt your orthodox views." the doctor then asked him leave to present him with the work of b----, which he commended in high terms. lord byron said he would have great pleasure in reading it, and told the doctor that he should always be happy to see him, and at any time that he liked to come. "should i be out when you come," he added, "take my books and read until my return." on leaving byron the doctor reflected over all that had taken place, and feared that his zeal had carried him too far--that his long conversation might have tired rather than interested byron; but on the whole, he concluded by saying to himself, "it appears to me, that byron never exhibited the least symptom of fatigue, but, on the contrary, continually showed great attention from beginning to end." we have, perhaps, dwelt too much in our report of this conversation, but we wished to do so for several reasons. first, because it shows, better than a public debate, the real thoughts and feelings of byron on religious matters, next, the real nature of his religious opinions, and finally we find, in byron's conversation, virtues such as amiability, goodness, patience, delicacy, and toleration, which have not been sufficiently noticed. the sympathy which kennedy had conceived for byron after the public meeting greatly increased after this first conversation. the candor and simplicity depicted on his handsome countenance, showed that his lofty intelligence could, better than any one else, grasp the theories of the doctor; and the latter felt that if he could not prevail in making byron a believer in his own orthodox views, at least he could prepare the way for the acquirement of every virtue, and he resolved, therefore, to profit by the permission given him of often visiting byron. meanwhile, the young officers continued their jokes, and pretended that byron was laughing at the doctor, and making use of him in order to study methodism, which he wished to introduce into his poem of "don juan." there is, however, a community of feeling between two frank natures, and byron felt that the doctor's sincerity commanded respect, while the doctor, on the other hand, knew that lord byron was too earnest to condescend to a mockery of him. "there was," says kennedy, "nothing flighty in his manner with me, and nothing which showed any desire to laugh at religion." when he returned to see lord byron, he found him more than ever preoccupied with his approaching departure for continental greece, and engrossed with a multitude of various occupations and visits. byron, nevertheless, received him most graciously, and maintained that jovial humor which was one of his characteristics in conversation. byron had reflected a good deal since his last interview with the doctor, but the direction which his thoughts had taken was not precisely that which the doctor had advised him to pursue. they did not agree with the tenets of the doctor's religion. the latter had not advised an unlimited use of one's reason, but, on the contrary, had recommended reliance on the traditional and orthodox teachings of the church. to reason, however, constituted in byron a positive necessity. he could not admit that god had given us the power of thought not to make use of it, and obliged us to believe that which in religion, as in other things, appears ridiculous to our reason and shocks our sense of justice. "it is useless to tell me," he said, somewhere in his memoranda, "that i am to believe and not to reason: you might just as well tell a man, 'wake not, but sleep.' then to be threatened with eternal sufferings and torments!--i can not help thinking that as many devils are created by the threat of eternal punishment, as numberless criminals are made by the severity of the penal laws." mysteries and dogmas, however, were not objectionable to byron. this was shown in his conversation with kennedy on the subject of the trinity and of predestination. however little disposed he may have been to believe in mysteries, he nevertheless bowed in submission before their existence, and respected the faith which they inspire in minds more happily constituted than his own. his partial skepticism, or rather that in him which has been so denominated, was humble and modest in comparison to montaigne's skepticism. byron admitted that these were mysteries because the littleness of man and the greatness of god were ever present to him. he would have agreed with newton in saying that "he was like a child playing on the beach with the waves which bathed the sands. the water with which he played was what he knew; what he ignored was the widespread ocean before him." surrounded as we are by mysteries on all sides, he would have esteemed it presumption on his part to reject, in the name of science, all the mysteries of religion, when science itself has only to deal with phenomena. all is necessarily a mystery in its origin, and not to understand was no sufficient reason in the eyes of byron to deny altogether the existence of matters relating to the divinity. could he reject religious dogmas under the pretext of not being able to understand them, when he admitted others equally difficult of comprehension, although supported by logical proofs? among the mysteries of religion founded entirely upon revelation, there was one, however, which not only weighed upon his mind, but actually gave him positive pain. this was the dogma of eternal punishment, which he could not reconcile with the idea of an omnipotent creator, as omnipotence implies perfect goodness and justice, of which the ideal has been implanted in our hearts. here again his objections sprang from kindness of disposition. after speaking a while on the subject of prayer, byron said to kennedy:-- "there is a book which i must show you," and, having chosen from a number of books on the table an octavo volume, entitled "illustrations of the moral government of god, by e. smith, m.d., london," he showed it to kennedy, and asked him whether he knew of it. on kennedy replying in the negative, byron said that the author of the book proved that hell was not a place of eternal punishment. "this is no new doctrine," replied kennedy, "and i presume the author to be a socinian, who, if consistent at all with his opinions, will sooner or later reject the bible entirely, and avow himself to be what he really is already, namely, a deist. where did your lordship find the book?" "it was sent to me from england," replied byron, "to convert me, i suppose. the author's arguments are very powerful. they are taken from the bible, and, while proving that the day will come when every intellectual being will enjoy the bliss of eternal happiness, he shows how impossible is the doctrine which pretends that sin and misery can exist eternally under the government of a god whose principle attributes are goodness and love." "but," said kennedy, "how does he then explain the existence of sin in the world for upward of years? that is equally inconsistent with the notion of perfect love and goodness as united in god." "i can not admit the soundness of your argument," replied byron; "for god may allow sin and misery to co-exist for a time, but his goodness must prevail in the end, and cause their existence to cease. at any rate it is better to believe that the infinite goodness of god, while allowing evil to exist as a means of our arriving at perfection, will show itself still greater some day when every intellectual being shall be purified and freed from the bondage of sin and misery." as kennedy persisted in arguing against the author's opinions, lord byron asked him "why he was so desirous of proving the eternity of hell, since such a doctrine was most decidedly against the gentle and kind character of the teaching of christ?" to other arguments on the same subject, byron replied, that he could not determine as to the justice of their conclusions, but that he could not help thinking it would be very desirable to show that in the end all created beings must be happy, and therefore rather agreed with mr. smith than with the doctor. as lord byron, however, had always allowed that man was free in thought and action, and therefore a responsible being made to justify the ends of providence, he believed that providence did give some sanction to the laws implanted in our natures. sinners must be punished, but a merciful god must proportion punishments to the weakness of our natures, and byron therefore inclined toward the catholic belief in purgatory, which agreed better with his own appreciation of the goodness and mercy of god. lord byron's preference for catholicism is well known. his first successes of oratory in the house of lords were due to the cause of catholicism in ireland, which he defended; and when he wished his little daughter allegra to be brought up in the catholic faith, he wrote to mr. hoppner, british consul at venice, who had always taken a lively interest in the child, to say that:-- "in the convent of bagna-cavallo she will at least have her education advanced, and her morals and religion cared for.... it is, besides, my wish that she should be a roman catholic, which i look upon as the best religion, as it is assuredly the oldest of the various branches of christianity." this predilection for catholicism was not the result of the poetry of that religion, or of the effect which its pomps and gorgeous ceremonies produced upon the imagination. they, no doubt, were not indifferent to a mind so easily impressed as his, but not sufficient to justify his preference; for byron, although a poet, never allowed his reason to be swayed by his imagination. he reasoned upon every subject. his objections proceeded as much from his mind as his heart. "catholicism," he was wont say, "is the most ancient of worships; and as for our own heresy, it unquestionably had its origin in vice. with regard to those difficulties which baffle our understanding, are they more easily explained by protestants than by catholics? "catholicism, at least, is a consoling religion, and its belief in purgatory conciliates the justice of the almighty with his goodness. why has protestantism given up so human a belief? to intercede for and do good to beings whom we have loved here below, is to be not altogether separated from them." "i often regretted," he said on one occasion at pisa, "that i was not born a catholic. purgatory is a consoling doctrine. i am surprised that the reformers gave it up, or that they did not at least substitute for it something equally consoling." "it is," he remarked to shelley, "a refinement of the doctrine of transmigration taught by your stupid philosophers." it was, therefore, chiefly this doctrine, and his abhorrence of calvin, which attracted byron toward catholicism. a comparison was made before him, on one occasion, between catholicism and protestantism. "what matters," said byron, "that protestantism has decreased the number of its obligations, and reduced its articles of faith? both religions proceed from the same origin,--authority and examination. it matters little that the measures of either be different; but why does the protestant deny to the catholic the privilege, which he claims more than he uses, of free examination? catholics also claim the right of proving the soundness of their belief, and, therefore, admit likewise the right of discussion and examination. as for authority, if the catholic obeys the church and considers it infallible, does not the protestant do the same with the bible? and while recognizing the authority of the church on the one hand, on the other he claims a right to free examination, does he not incur the liability of being thought inconsistent? and, after all, is not the authority of the church the better of the two? there seems to greater peace for the mind who confides in it, than in the belief in the authority of a book, where one must ever seek the way to salvation by becoming a theologian, as it were. and is it not fairer to have certain books, such, for instance, as the 'apocalypse,' explained to us by the church, than to have them expounded by people more or less well informed or prejudiced?" such were byron's views, if not his very words. before byron left for greece, kennedy had several other conversations with him; but as the limits of this chapter do not allow of my entering into them, i will merely add that they all prove the great charm of byron's mind, and the gentleness of his nature in dealing with persons of contrary opinions to his own, but who argued honestly and from conviction. so it came about that, although the most docile of the doctor's pupils, he refused to change his views concerning eternal punishment. during one of the last of kennedy's visits to him, he found several young men with lord byron, and among these m. s----, and m. f----. the former, seated at one corner of the table, was explaining to count gamba certain views which were any thing but orthodox. lord byron turned to the doctor, and said:-- "have you heard what s---- said? i assure you, he has not made one step toward conversion; he is worse than i am." m. f---- having joined in the conversation, and said that there were many contradictions in the scriptures, byron replied:-- "this is saying too much: i am a sufficiently good believer not to discover any contradictions in the scriptures which can not, upon reflection, be explained; what most troubles me is eternal punishment: i am not prepared to believe in so terrible a dogma, and this is my only difference with the doctor's views; but he will not allow that i am an orthodox christian, unless i agree with him in that matter." this was said half-seriously, half-jestingly, but in so amiable a manner, and in a tone which was so free from mockery, that even the austere doctor was fain to forgive him for entertaining such erroneous views. when byron left for missolonghi, he carried away with him a real regard for kennedy, notwithstanding their differences of opinion. kennedy, on the other hand, had conceived for byron the greatest liking, and, indeed, shows it in his book. his portrait of lord byron is so good, that we have thought it right to reproduce it, together with his general impressions in another chapter. byron's death plunged kennedy into the deepest grief; and it was then that he gathered all his conversations which he had had with lord byron into one volume, which he published. but his friends, or so-called friends, showed themselves hostile to the publication. some feared that he would exaggerate either lord byron's faith or want of it, and others, less disinterested, apprehended the revelation of some of their own views, which might fail to meet with the approval of the public at home. when, therefore, kennedy applied to several of these who were at missolonghi to know in what religious frame of mind byron died, he met with rebukes of all kinds, and his credit was attacked by articles in newspapers, endeavoring to show that byron had all along been laughing at the doctor. all these attacks might have influenced kennedy's picture of byron, but it will be seen that, with the exception of a few puritanical touches, the artist's picture is not unworthy of the original. in the preface to his book, the doctor, not knowing whether he should make use of the conversation he had had with byron to give a greater interest to his work, the object of which was to be of use to the public, answers his own objections in the following words:-- "if my doing so would injure his character or fame, there could not be a moment's hesitation in deciding on the baseness of the measure. but, as far as i can judge, a true statement of what occurred will place his lordship's character in a fairer light than he has himself done in many of his writings, or than can, perhaps, be done by a friendly biographer. the brightest parts of his life were those which he spent in cephalonia and missolonghi, and the fact of his wishing to hear christianity explained by one, simply because he believed him to be sincere, confessing that he derived no happiness from his unsettled notions on religion, expressing a desire to be convinced, and his carrying with him religious books, and promising to give the subject a more attentive study than he had ever done, will throw a certain lustre over the darker side of his fame, ... and deprive deists of the right of quoting him as a cool, deliberate rejecter of christianity." to these very significant declarations, coming as they do from so conscientious a believer as kennedy, i shall add the testimony of a few persons who have been conspicuous by their hostility to byron. mr. galt is one of these, and yet he says:-- "i am persuaded, nevertheless, that to class him among absolute infidels were to do injustice to his memory, and that he has suffered uncharitably in the opinion of the 'rigidly righteous,' who, because he had not attached himself to any particular sect or congregation, assumed that he was an adversary to religion. to claim for him any credit as a pious man would be absurd; but, to suppose he had not as deep an interest as other men 'in his soul's health and welfare,' was to impute to him a nature which can not exist." and elsewhere, after showing, first, what byron did not believe in; secondly, what he would have liked to believe, but which had not sufficient grounds to satisfy his reason; thirdly, what he did actually believe, mr. galt adds:-- "whatever was the degree of lord byron's dubiety as to points of faith and doctrine, he could not be accused of gross ignorance, nor described as animated by any hostile feeling against religion." the same biographer says elsewhere:-- "that byron was deeply imbued with the essence of natural piety; that he often felt the power and being of a god thrilling in all his frame, and glowing in his bosom, i declare my thorough persuasion; and that he believed in some of the tenets and in the philosophy of christianity, as they influence the spirit and conduct of men, i am as little disposed to doubt; especially if those portions of his works which only trench upon the subject, and which bear the impression of fervor and earnestness, may be admitted as evidence. but he was not a member of any particular church." medwin, who might be considered to be an authority, before his vanity was wounded by the publication of writings wherein his good faith was questioned, and it was shown that lord byron had no great esteem for his talents, says,-- "it is difficult to judge, from the contradictory nature of his writings, what the religious opinions of lord byron were. but on the whole, if he were occasionally skeptical, yet his wavering never amounted to a disbelief in the divine founder of christianity. 'i always took great delight,' observed he, 'in the english cathedral service. it can not fail to inspire every man who feels at all, with devotion. notwithstanding which, christianity is not the best source of inspiration for a poet. no poet should be tied down to a direct profession of faith. metaphysics open a vast field. nature and heterodoxy present to the poet's imagination fertile sources from which christianity forbids him to draw;' and he exemplified his meaning by a review of the works of tasso and milton. "'here is a little book somebody has sent me about christianity," he said to shelley and me, 'that has made me very uncomfortable. the reasoning seems to me very strong, the proofs are very staggering. i don't think you can answer it, shelley; at least, i am sure i can't, and, what is more, i don't wish to do so.'" speaking of gibbon, he says,--"l---- b---- thought the question set at rest in the 'history of the decline and fall,' but i am not so easily convinced. it is not a matter of volition to unbelieve. who likes to own that he has been a fool all his life,--to unlearn all that he has been taught in his youth? or can think that some of the best men that ever lived have been fools?" and again,-- "you believe in plato's three principles, why not in the trinity? one is not more mystical than the other. i don't know why i am considered an enemy to religion, and an unbeliever. i disowned the other day that i was of shelley's school in metaphysics, though i admired his poetry." "although," says lord harrington, "byron was no christian, he was a firm believer in the existence of a god. it is, therefore, equally remote from truth to represent him as either an atheist or a christian. he was, as he has often told me, a confirmed deist." further on, the same writer adds:-- "byron always maintained that he was a skeptic, but he was not so at all. during a ride at cephalonia, which lasted two or three hours almost without a pause, he began to talk about 'cain' and his religious opinions, and he condemned all atheists, and maintained the principles of deism." mr. finlay, who used to see lord byron in greece, says, in a letter to his friend lord harrington:-- "lord byron liked exceedingly to converse upon religious topics, but i never once heard him openly profess to be a deist." these quotations are sufficiently numerous, and all point to the same conclusion, but i must quote the words of gamba before i conclude this subject. he was, as it is known, the great friend of byron, and alas! sacrificed his noble self, at the age of twenty-four, to the cause of greece. to kennedy's inquiries respecting lord byron's religious tendencies at missolonghi, p. gamba replied as follows:-- "my belief is that his religious opinions were not fixed. i mean, that he was not more inclined toward one than toward another of the christian sects; but that his feelings were thoroughly religious, and that he entertained the highest respect for the doctrines of christ, which he considered to be the source of virtue and of goodness. as for the incomprehensible mysteries of religion, his mind floated in doubts which he wished most earnestly to dispel, as they oppressed him, and that is why he never avoided a conversation on the subject, as you are well aware. "i have often had an opportunity of observing him at times when the soul involuntarily expresses its most sincere convictions; in the midst of dangers, both at sea and on land; in the quiet contemplation of a calm and beautiful night, in the deepest solitude, etc.; and i remarked that his thoughts always were imbued with a religious sentiment. the first time i ever had a conversation with him on that subject was at ravenna, my native place, a little more than four years ago. we were riding together in a pine wood, on a beautiful spring day, and all was conducive to religious meditation. 'how,' said he 'raising our eyes to heaven, or directing them to the earth, can we doubt of the existence of god? or how, turning them inward, can we doubt that there is something within us more noble and more durable than the clay of which we are formed? those who do not hear, or are unwilling to listen to those feelings, must necessarily be of a vile nature.' i answered him with all those reasons which the superficial philosophy of helvetius, his disciples and his masters, have taught. he replied with very strong arguments and profound eloquence, and i perceived that obstinate contradiction on this subject, forcing him to reason upon it, gave him pain. this discourse made a deep impression on me. "many times, and in various circumstances, i have heard him confirm the same sentiments, and he always seemed to me to be deeply convinced of their truth. last year, at genoa, when we were preparing for our journey to greece, he used to converse with me alone for two or three hours every evening, seated on the terrace of his palace in albano, in the fine evenings of spring, whence there opened a magnificent view of that superb city and the adjoining sea. our conversation turned almost always on greece, for which we were so soon to depart, or on religious subjects. in various ways i heard him confirm the sentiments which i have already mentioned to you. 'why, then,' said i to him, 'have you earned for yourself the name of impious, and enemy of all religious belief, from your writings?' he answered, 'they are not understood, and are wrongly interpreted by the malevolent. my object is only to combat hypocrisy, which i abhor in every thing, and particularly in religion, and which now unfortunately appears to me to be prevalent, ... and for this alone do those to whom you allude wish to render me odious, and make me out to be an impious person, and a monster of incredulity.' "for the bible he had always a particular respect. it was his custom to have it always on his study table, particularly during these last months; and you well know how familiar it was to him, since he sometimes knew how to correct your inaccurate citations. "fletcher may have informed you about his happy state of mind in his last moments. he often repeated subjects from the testament, and when, in his last moments, he had in vain attempted to make known his wishes with respect to his daughter, and others most dear to him in life, and when, on account of the wanderings of his mind, he could not succeed in making himself understood, fletcher answered him, 'nothing is nearer my heart than to execute your wishes; but, unfortunately, i have scarcely been able to comprehend half of them.' 'is it possible?' he replied. 'alas! it is too late. how unfortunate! not my will, but the will of god be done.' there remained to him only a few intervals of reason and interruptions of delirium, the effect of determination of blood to the head. "he often expressed to me the contempt which he felt for those called _esprits forts_ (a set of ignorant egotists, incapable of any generous action, and hypocrites themselves), in their affected contempt of every faith. "he professed a complete toleration, and a particular respect for every sincere conviction. he would have deemed it an unpardonable crime to detach any one persuaded of the truth from his belief, although it might be tinctured with absurdity, because he believed it could lead to no other end than to render him an infidel." after so many proofs of byron's religious tendencies, is it not right to ask, what was that skepticism of which so much has been said that it has been almost received as a fact by the world generally? did he not believe in the necessity of religion? in a god, creator of all things? in the spirituality, and therefore immortality, of the soul? in our liberty of action, and our moral responsibility? we have seen what others have said on each of these subjects; let us now see what he said himself upon the subject. but some will object, "are you going to judge of his views from his poetry? can one attach much importance to opinions expressed in verse? do not poets often say that which they do not think, but which genius inspires them to write? are such dictates to be considered as their own views?" such objections may be valid, and we shall so far respect them, therefore, as to dismiss lord byron's poetry, and treat only of that which he has written in prose: we will not consider him when under the influence of inspiration and of genius, but when given up entirely to the silent examination of his conscience. what did his thorough good sense tell him about religion in general? the following note, in which he repels the stupid and wicked attacks of southey, who called him a skeptic, will prove it:-- "one mode of worship yields to another, but there never will be a country without a worship of some sort. some will instance france; but the parisians alone, and a fanatical faction of them, maintained for a short time the absurd dogma of theophilanthropy. if the english church is upset, it will be by the hands of its own sectaries, not by those of skeptics. people are too wise, too well informed, to submit to an impious unbelief. there may exist a few speculators without faith; but they are small in numbers, and their opinions, being without enthusiasm or appeal to the passions, can not make proselytes unless they are persecuted, that being the only means of augmenting any sects." "'i am always,' he writes in his memorandum, 'most religious upon a sunshiny day, as if there were some association, some internal approach to greater light and purity and the kindler of this dark lantern of our existence. "'the night had also a religious influence, and even more so when i viewed the moon and stars through herschel's telescope, and saw that they were worlds.'" and what thought byron of the existence of god? "supposing even," he says, "that man existed before god, even his higher pre-adamite supposititious creation must have had an origin and a creator, for a creation is a more natural imagination than a fortuitous concourse of atoms; all things remount to a fountain, though they may flow to an ocean. "if, according to some speculations, you could prove the world many thousand years older than the mosaic chronology, or if you could get rid of adam and eve, and the apple, and serpent, still what is to be set up in their stead? or how is the difficulty removed? things must have had a beginning, and what matters it when or how?" if byron did not question the existence of god, did he doubt the spirituality and immortality of the soul? here are some of his answers:-- "what is poetry?" he asked himself in his memorandum, and he replied--"the feeling of a former world and future." and further, in the same memorandum:-- "of the immortality of the soul, it appears to me that there can be little doubt, if we attend to the action of the mind for a moment: it is in perpetual activity. i used to doubt it, but reflection has taught me better. the stoics epictetus and aurelius call the present state 'a soul which draws a carcass'--a heavy chain, to be sure, but all chains, being material, may be shaken off. how far our future life will be individual, or, rather, how far it will at all resemble our present existence, is another question; but that the mind is eternal, seems as probable as that the body is not so. of course, i here venture upon the question without recurring to revelation, which, however, is at least as rational a solution of it as any other. a material resurrection seems strange and even absurd, except for purposes of punishment: and all punishment which is to revenge, rather than correct, must be morally wrong: and when the world is at an end, what moral or warning purpose can eternal tortures answer? human passions have probably disfigured the divine doctrines here; but the whole thing is inscrutable." and again:-- "i have often been inclined to materialism in philosophy; but could never bear its introduction into christianity, which appears to me essentially founded upon the soul. for this reason, priestley's 'christian materialism' always struck me as deadly. believe the resurrection of the body, if you will, but not without a soul. the deuce is in it, if after having had a soul (as, surely, the mind, or whatever you call it, is) in this world, we must part with it in the next, even for an immortal materiality; and i own my partiality for spirit." it has already been seen that, in his early youth, he was intimately convinced of the immortality of his soul, by the fact of the existence of his conscience. but it is equally proved that, as his soul became more perfect, and rose more and more toward all that is great and virtuous, his conviction of the immortality of the soul became still more certain. the beautiful words which he addressed to mr. parry, a few hours before his agony, confirm our assertions:-- "eternity and space are before me; but on this subject, thank god, i am happy and at ease. the thought of living eternally, of again reviving, is a great pleasure. christianity is the purest and most liberal religion in the world; but the numerous teachers who are continually worrying mankind with their denunciations and their doctrines, are the greatest enemies of religion. i have read, with more attention than half of them, the book of christianity, and i admire the liberal and truly charitable principles which christ has laid down. there are questions connected with this subject, which none but almighty god can solve. time and space, who can conceive? none but god: on him i rely." if he neither questioned the existence of god nor the spirituality and immortality of the soul, did he question our liberty of thought, and hence our moral responsibility? to put such a question, is to misunderstand byron completely. who, more than byron, ever believed in our right of judgment, and proclaimed that right more strenuously than he has, in prose and in verse? let any one who has read "manfred," say whether a poet ever developed such christian and philosophical views with greater energy and power. did lord byron really question, in his poems, the infinite goodness of god, as he has been accused of doing? did his doubts and perplexities of mind, caused by the terrible knowledge of the existence of evil, ever go beyond the limits of the doubts which beset the minds of intellectual men, when the light of faith fails to aid them in their philosophical researches after truth? when he published his drama, "cain, a mystery," he was attacked by enemies in the most violent manner. they selected the arguments put into the mouth of lucifer, and their influence upon cain, to prove that this biblical poem was a blasphemous composition, and that its author was consequently deserving of being outlawed, as having attempted to question the supreme wisdom of god. but most certainly lucifer speaks in the poem as lucifer should speak, unless, indeed, the evil spirit ought to speak as a theologian, and the first assassin as a meek orthodox christian? byron gave them each the language logically most suited to their respective characters, as milton did, without, however, incurring the accusation of impiety. it was argued that byron ought, at least, to have introduced some one charged with the defense of the right doctrines. but was not the drama entitled a mystery, and was not the title to be justified, as it were? could he have done otherwise, even if he had wished it ever so much? what could adam, or even god's angel, do better than remain silent in presence of the mental agony of cain, and only advise his bowing to the incomprehensibility of the mystery? again, if discussion was fruitful of results with abel, must it be the same with cain? was lord byron to turn both these personages into theologians, ready to discuss any and every metaphysical question, and to explain the origin and effects of evil? had they done so, it is not very likely they would have succeeded in persuading cain of the solidity of their argument, or in dispelling the clouds which obscured his mind, and both calm his despair and satisfy so inquisitive a nature, influenced and mastered, as it was, by evil passions. if lord byron thought he could explain the existence of evil, he would not have entitled his poem "a mystery." but, above all, lord byron did not wish to outstep the limits of reason to prove still more how powerless is reason, alone and unaided, in its endeavors to conciliate contradictory attributes. the drama was called a mystery, and byron wished it to remain such. were some of his biographers right in asserting that he had adopted cuvier's system? but cuvier never denied the existence of the creator, as moore seems to believe. on the contrary, he endeavored to show, even more forcibly, the admirable work of the creation, in order to bring out still more in relief the perfection of its creator. in the end, however, byron ceased to think the existence of evil to be so great an injustice to the infinite goodness of god, and expressed in his memorandum the opinion "that history and experience show that good and evil are counterbalanced on earth." "were i to begin life again," he said, in the same memorandum, "i don't think i would change any thing in mine." a proof that, without understanding why or wherefore, he felt our life on earth to be but the beginning of one which is to be continued in another sphere, under the rule of him whose gentle hand can be traced in all things created. for the same reason he was reconciled to the injustice of mankind, believing this life to be a trial, and bearing it with noble courage and fortitude. this mental resignation, however, did not prevent his suffering bitterly in a moral sense. all pleasure became a pain to him at the sight of the sufferings of others. he declared on one occasion, at cephalonia, that if every body was to be damned, and he alone to be saved, he would prefer being damned with the rest. this excess of generosity may have appeared eccentric, but can scarcely seem too exaggerated to those who knew him. certain it is, that to witness the sufferings of others with resignation, appeared to him to be egotism, and to evince a coldheartedness, which would have been unpardonable in his eyes. sometimes even the energy of his writings, dictated, as they were, by his great generosity of heart, appeared as the revolt of a noble nature against the miseries of humanity. in such a frame of mind was he when he wrote "cain," at ravenna, in the midst of people who were for the most part unjustly proscribed, and in the midst of sufferings which he always tried to alleviate. did he deserve the appellation of skeptic, because he despised that vain philosophy which believes it can explain all things, even god's nature itself, by the sole force of reason? or because, while respecting the dogmas proclaimed by our reason and our conscience, he preferred to follow the principles of a philosophy that argues with diffidence, and humbly owns its inability to explain all things, and which caused him to exclaim in "don juan"-- "for me, i know naught; nothing i deny, admit, reject, contemn: and what know you, except, perhaps, that you were born to die?" but to whom were these lines addressed? to those metaphysicians, of course, whom he would also have denominated "men who know nothing, but who, among the truths which they ignore, ignore their own ignorance most,"--to those arrogant minds who wish to fathom even the ways which god has kept back from us, and who, in seeking to know the wherefore of all things in creation, are forced to give the name of explanation to mere comparisons. byron says, in "don juan,"-- "explain me your explanation." he addressed himself finally, to all hypocrites and intolerant men; byron has been called a skeptic, notwithstanding. that a sincere and orthodox catholic, who holds that the negation of a dogma constitutes skepticism, should have called byron a skeptic because he questioned the doctrine of eternal punishment, is not to be wondered at; but what is matter of astonishment is, that the reproach was addressed to him by the writer of "faust," and by the writer of "elvire," and the "meditations." yet it is so; and if this psychological problem is not yet solved, let others do it,--we can not. to sum up, we may declare, from what we have said, that as regards lord byron there has been a confusion of words, and that his skepticism has merely been a natural and inevitable situation in which certain minds who, as it were, are the victims of their own contradictory thoughts, are placed, notwithstanding their wish to believe. faith, being a part of poetical feeling, could not but form a part likewise of byron's nature, but there existed also in him a great tendency to weigh the merits of the opinions of others, and consequently the desire not to arrive too hastily at conclusions. this combination of instinctive faith and a philosophical mind could not produce in him the belief in those things which did not appear to him to have been first submitted to the test of argument, and proved to be just by the convictions resulting from the test of reasoning to which they had been subjected. it produced, on the contrary, a species of expectant doubt, a state of mind awaiting some decisive explanation, to reject error and embrace the truth. his skepticism, therefore, may be said to have been the result of thought, not of passion. in religion, however, it must be allowed that his skepticism never went so far as to cause him to deny its fundamental doctrines. these he proclaimed from heartfelt convictions, and his modest, humble, and manly skepticism may be said to have been that of great minds, and his failings, also, theirs. is a day said to be stormy because a few clouds have obscured the rays of the sun? is it necessary to say any thing about what he doubted? in showing what he believed, the exception will be found unnecessary. he believed in a creator, in a spiritual and consequently immortal soul, but which god can reduce to nothing, as he created it out of nothing. he believed in liberty of thought, in our responsibility, our privileges, our duties, and especially in the obligation of practicing the great precept which constitutes christianity; namely, that of charity and devotion toward our neighbor, even to the sacrifice of our existence for his sake. he believed in every virtue, but his experience forbade his according faith to appearances, and trusting in fine phrases. he often found it wise and prudent to scrutinize the idol he was called upon to worship, but when once that idol had borne the test of scrutiny no worship was so sincere. "was he orthodox?" will again be asked. to such a question it may be justly answered, that if he did not entertain for all the doctrines revealed by the scriptures that faith which he was called upon to possess, it was not for want of desiring so powerful an auxiliary to his reason. he felt that, however strong reason might be, it always retains a little wavering and anxious character; and, though essentially religious at heart, he could not master that blind faith required in matters which baffle the efforts of reason to prove their truth logically and definitively. this is to be accounted for by the conflict of his conscience and his philosophical turn of mind. conviction, for him, was a difficult thing to attain. hence for him the difficulty of saying "i believe," and hence the accusation of skepticism to which he became liable. he wanted proofs of a decisive character, and his doubts belonged to that school which made bacon confess that a philosopher who can doubt, knows more than all the wise men together. byron would never have contested absolutely the truth of any mystery, but have merely stated that, as long as the testimonies of its truth were hidden in obscurity, such a mystery must be liable to be questioned. he was wont to add, however, that the mysteries of religion did not appear to him less comprehensible than those of science and of reason. as for miracles, how could he think them absurd and impossible, since he admitted the omnipotence of god? his mind was far too just not to understand that miracles surround us, even from the first origin of our race. he often asked himself, whether the first man could ever have been created a child? "reason," says a great christian philosopher, "does not require the aid of the book of genesis to believe in that miracle." one evening at pisa, in the drawing-room of the countess g----, where byron was wont to spend all his evenings, a great discussion arose respecting a certain miracle which was said to have taken place at lucca. the miracle had been accompanied by several rather ludicrous circumstances, and of course laughter was not spared. shelley, who never lost sight of his philosopher, treated miracles as deplorable superstitions. lord byron laughed at the absurdity of the history told, without any malice however. madame g---- alone did not laugh. "do you, then, believe in that miracle?" asked byron. "i do not say i exactly believe in that miracle," she replied; "but i believe in miracles, since i believe in god and in his omnipotence; nor could i believe that god can be deprived of his liberty, when i feel that i have mine. were i no longer to believe in miracles, it seems to me i should no longer believe in god, and that i should lose my faith." lord byron stopped joking, and said-- "well, after all, the philosophy of common sense is the truest and the best." the conversation continued, in the jesting tone in which it had begun, and m. m----, an _esprit fort_, went so far as to condemn the supernatural in the name of the general and permanent laws which govern nature, and to look upon miracles as the legends of a by-gone age, and as errors which affect the ignorant. from what had gone before, he probably fancied that byron was going to join issue with him. but there was often a wide gulf between the intimate thoughts of byron and his expressions of them. "we allow ourselves too often," he said, "to give way to a jocular mood, and to laugh at everything, probably because god has granted us this faculty to compensate for the difficulty which we find in believing, in the same manner as playthings are given to children. but i really do not see why god should be obliged to preserve in the universe the same order which he once established. to whom did he promise that he would never change it, either wholly or in part? who knows whether some day he will not give the moon an oval or a square shape instead of a round one?" this he said smiling, but added immediately after, in a serious tone:-- "those who believe in a god, creator of the universe, can not refuse their belief in the possibility of miracles, for they behold in god the first of all miracles." finally, lord byron determined himself the limits of what he deemed his necessary belief; and remained throughout life a stanch supporter of those opinions, but he never ceased to evince a tendency to steer clear of intolerance, which according to him only brought one back to total unbelief. let us not omit to add that, as he grew older, he saw better the arrogant weakness of those who screen themselves under the cover of science, and recognized more clearly each day the hand of the creator in the works of nature. "did lord byron pray?" is another objection which will be made. we have already seen what he thought of prayer; we have shown that his poems often took the form of a prayer, and we have read with admiration various passages containing some most sublime lines which completely answer those who accused him of want of religion, while they exhibit the expansion of his soul toward god. we also know with what feelings of respect he approached places devoted to a religious life, and what charms he found in the ceremonies of the church. all this is proof enough, it would seem; but, in any case, we must add that if his prayers were not those advised by kennedy, they were at least the prayers of a great soul which soars upward to bow before its creator. "outward ceremonies," says fénélon, "are only tokens of that essential point, the religion of the soul, and byron's prayer was rather a thanksgiving than a request."--"in the eyes of god," says some one, "a good action is worth more than a prayer." such was his mode of communing with god even in his early youth, but especially in his last moments, which were so sublime. can one doubt, that at that solemn moment his greatest desire was to be allowed to live? he had still to reap all the fruits of his sacrifices. his harvest was only just beginning to ripen. by dint of heroism, he was at last becoming known. he was young, scarcely thirty-six years of age, handsome, rich. rank and genius were his. he was beloved by many, notwithstanding a host of jealous rivals; and yet, on the point of losing all these advantages, what was his prayer? was it egotistical or presumptuous? was it to solicit a miracle in his favor? no, his last words were those of noble resignation. "let thy holy will, my god, be done, and not mine!" and then absorbed, as it were, in the infinity of god's goodness, and, confiding entirely in god's mercy, he begged that he might be left alone to sleep quietly and peacefully into eternity. on the very day which brought to us the hope of our immortality, he would awake in the bosom of god. footnotes: [footnote : sympathy.] [footnote : the rev. mr. hodgson and the rev. mr. harness.] [footnote : article on his life in italy and at pisa.] chapter v. childhood and youth of lord byron. all byron's biographers (at least all those who knew him) have borne testimony to his great goodness, but they have not dwelt sufficiently upon this principal feature in his character. biographers generally wish to produce an effect. but goodness is not a sufficiently noticeable quality to be dilated upon; it would not repay ambition or curiosity. it is a quality mostly attributed to the saints, and a biographer prefers dilating upon the defects of his hero, upon some adventure or scandal--means by which it is easy, with a spark of cleverness, to make a monster of a saint: for, alas! the most rooted convictions are often sacrificed for the sake of amusing a reader who is difficult to please, and of satisfying an editor. lord byron's goodness, however, was so exceptional, and contrasted so strongly with the qualities attributed to him by those who only knew him by repute, that, in making an exception of him, astonishment, at the very least, might have been the result. if we look at him conscientiously in every act of his life, in his letters, and in his poetry, we must sympathize particularly with him. we find that his goodness shines as prominently as does his genius, and we feel that it can bear any test at any epoch of, alas! his too short existence. as, however, i do not purpose here to write his biography, i shall confine myself merely to a few instances, and will give only a few proofs taken from his early life. to no one can the words of alfieri be better applied than to byron:--"he is the continuation of the child"--an idea which has been expressed even more elegantly of late by disraeli, in his "literary characters:"-- "as the sun is seen best at its rising and its setting, so men's native dispositions are clearly perceived while they are children, and when they are dying." lord byron's childhood. of those who have written byron's life, the best disposed among them have not sufficiently noticed his admirable perfection of character when a child, as revealed to us by sundry anecdotes and by his own poems, entitled "hours of idleness:"-- "there was in his disposition," says moore, "as appears from the concurrent testimony of nurses, tutors, and all who were employed about him, a mixture of affectionate sweetness and playfulness, by which it was impossible not to be attached, and which rendered him then, as in his riper years, easily manageable by those who loved and understood him sufficiently to be at once gentle and firm enough for the task. the female attendant whom he had taken the most fancy to was the youngest of two sisters, named mary gray, and she had succeeded in gaining an influence over his mind against which he very rarely rebelled." by an accident which occurred at the time of his birth one of his feet was twisted out of its natural position, and, to restore the limb to shape, expedients were used under the direction of the celebrated dr. hunter. mary gray, to whom fell the task of putting on the bandages at bed-time, used to sing him to sleep, or tell him scotch ballads and legends, in which he delighted, or teach him psalms, and thus lighten his pain. mary gray was a very pious woman, and she unquestionably inspired byron with that love of the scriptures which he preserved to his last day. she only parted from byron when he was placed at school at dulwich, in . the child loved her as she loved him. he gave her his watch, and, later, sent her his portrait. both these treasures were given to dr. ewing (an enthusiast of byron, who had collected the dying words of mary gray, which were all for the child she had nursed), by her grateful husband. the same gratitude was shown by byron to mary gray's sister, who had been his first nursery governess. he wrote to her after he had left scotland, to ask news of her, and to announce with delight that he could now put on an ordinary shoe--an event, he said, which he had greatly looked forward to, and which he was sure it would give her pleasure to hear. before going to school at aberdeen, byron had two tutors, ross and paterson, both young, intelligent, and amiable ecclesiastics, for whom he always entertained a pleasing and affectionate remembrance. at seven years of age he went to the aberdeen grammar school, and the general impression which he left there, as evinced by the testimony of several of his colleagues who are still living, was, says moore, "that he was quick, courageous, passionate, to a remarkable degree venturous and fearless, but affectionate and companionable. "he was most anxious to distinguish himself among his school-fellows by prowess in all sports and exercises, but, though quick when he could be persuaded to attend, he was in general very low in his class, nor seemed ambitious of being promoted higher." the anecdotes told of him at this time all prove his fine nature, and show the goodness and greatness of soul which characterized him up to his last day. all the qualities which are to shine in the man will be found already marked in the child. on one occasion he was taken to see a piece at the edinburgh theatre, in which one of the actors pretends that the moon is the sun. the child, notwithstanding his timidity, was shocked by this insult to his understanding, rose from his seat, and cried out, "i assure you, my dear sir, that it is the moon." here, again, we can trace that love of truth which in after life made him so courageous in its proclamation at any cost. when, at aberdeen, he was, on one occasion, styled dominus byron in the school-room, by way of announcing to him his accession to the title, the child began to cry. can not these tears be explained by the mixture of pleasure and pain which he must have felt at that moment--pleasure at becoming a peer, and distress at not being able to share this pleasure with his comrades? are they not a prelude of the sacrifice of himself which he afterward made by actually placing himself in the wrong, in order that at the time of his greatest triumph his rivals might not be too jealous of him? on one occasion, as he was riding with a friend, they arrived at the bridge of balgounie, on the river dee, and, remembering suddenly the old ballad which threatens with death the man who passes the bridge first on a pony, byron stopped his comrade, and requested to be allowed to pass first; because if the ballad said true, and that one of them must die, it was better, said he, that it should be him, rather than his friend, because he had only a mother to mourn his loss, whereas his friend had a father and a mother, and the pain of his death would fall upon two persons instead of upon one. another illustration of that heroic generosity of character of which byron's life offers so many instances. on another occasion he saw a poor woman coming out of a bookseller's shop, distressed and mortified at not having enough to buy herself the bible she wanted. the child ran after her, brought her back, made her a present of the desired book, and, in doing so, obeyed that same craving of the heart to do good which placed him all his life at the service of others. these instances will suffice at present. on his accession to the title, as heir to his great uncle, he left scotland, and was taken to see newstead abbey, his future residence. he spent the winter at nottingham, the most important of the towns round newstead. his mother, who was blindly fond of him, could not bear to see any physical defect in him, however slight. she confided him to a quack doctor named lavender, who promised to cure him, while his studies were continued under the direction of a mr. rogers. the treatment which he had to undergo being both painful and tedious, furnishes us with the opportunity of admiring his strength of mind. mr. rogers, who had conceived a great liking for the child, noticed on one occasion that he was suffering. "pray do not notice it," said byron, "you will see that i shall behave in such a way that you will not perceive it." notwithstanding his own want of skill, mr. lavender might, perhaps, have cured the child. but byron, who had no faith in him, always found fault with every thing he did, and played tricks upon him. at last his mother agreed with lord carlisle, who was his guardian, to take him to london, to be better educated and taken care of. he was sent to mr. glennie's school at dulwich, and his foot was to be attended to by the famous dr. baillie. for the first time, then, did byron leave the home where he had been rather spoiled than neglected. dr. glennie at once took a great fancy to him, made him sleep in his own study, and watched with an equal care the progress of his studies and the cure of his foot. this latter task was no easy one, owing to the restlessness of the child, who would join in all the gymnastic exercises suitable to his age, whereas absolute repose was prescribed for him. dr. glennie says, however, that, once back in the study-room, byron's docility was equal to his vivacity. he had been instructed according to the mode of teaching adopted at aberdeen, and had to retrace his steps, owing to the difference of teaching prescribed in english schools. "i found him enter upon his tasks," says dr. glennie, "with alacrity and success. he was playful, good-humored, and beloved by his companions. his reading in history and poetry was far beyond the usual standard of his age, and in my study he found, among other works, a set of our poets--from chaucer to churchill--which, i am almost tempted to say, he had more than once perused from beginning to end. he showed at this age an intimate acquaintance with the historical parts of the holy scriptures, upon which he seemed delighted to converse with me, and reasoned upon the facts contained in the sacred volume with every appearance of belief in the divine truths which they unfold. that the impressions thus imbibed in his boyhood had, notwithstanding the irregularities of his after life, sunk deep into his mind, will appear, i think, to every impartial reader of his works, and i never have been able to divest myself of the persuasion, that he must have found it difficult to violate the better principles early instilled into him." he remained two years with dr. glennie, during which time he does not appear to have made great progress in his studies, owing to the too frequent amusements procured for him by his over-fond mother. but though mr. and mrs. glennie saw the child very seldom after he left them, they always remained much attached to him, and followed his career with much interest, owing to the fine qualities which they had loved and admired in him as a child. at thirteen years old he went to harrow, the head master of which school was dr. drury, who at once conceived a great fancy for the boy, and remained attached to him all his life. he thus expresses himself with regard to byron:-- "a degree of shyness hung about him for some time. his manner and temper soon convinced me that he might be led by a silken string, rather than by a cable. on that principle i acted." to lord carlisle's inquiries about byron, drury replied:--"he has talents, my lord, which will add lustre to his rank." after having been his master he remained his friend, and shortly before his death, byron declared that, of all the masters and friends he ever had, the best was dr. drury, for whom he should entertain as much regard as he would have done for his own father. now that we have passed in review both his tutors and his servants; that we have seen them all, without exception, beloved by the child as they loved him, we must take a glance at his college life, and see how he came to possess such charms of manner and of character. in the youth will appear those great qualities which began in the child, and will shine in the man. on one occasion he prevented his comrades from setting fire to the school, by appealing to their filial love, and pointing to the names of their parents on the walls which they wished to destroy. he thus saved the school. "when lord byron and mr. peel were at harrow together," says moore, "a tyrant some few years older, whose name was n----, claimed a right to fag little peel, which claim peel resisted. his resistance was vain, and n---- not only subdued him, but determined also to punish the refractory slave by inflicting a bastinado on the inner fleshy side of the boy's right arm. while the stripes were succeeding each other, and poor peel was writhing under them, byron saw and felt for the misery of his friend; and, although he knew he was not strong enough to fight n---- with any hope of success, and that it was dangerous even to approach him, he advanced to the scene of action, and, with a flush of rage, tears in his eyes, and a voice trembling between terror and indignation, asked very humbly if n---- would be pleased to tell him how many stripes he meant to inflict? 'why,' returned the executioner, 'you little rascal, what is that to you?' 'because, if you please,' said byron, holding out his arm, 'i would take half.' there is a mixture of simplicity and magnanimity in this little trait which is truly heroic." at fifteen byron was still at harrow. a certain mr. peel ordered his fag, lord gort, to make him some toast for tea. the little fag did not do it well, and as a punishment had a red-hot iron applied to the palm of his hand. the child cried, and the masters requested that he should name the author of such cruelty. he did not, however, as the expulsion of peel might have resulted from the avowal. byron, highly pleased with this courageous act, went up to lord gort and said, "you are a brave fellow, and, if you like it, i shall take you as my fag, and you will not have to suffer any more ill-treatment." "i became his fag," says lord gort, "and was very fortunate in obtaining so good a master, and one who constantly gave me presents as he did. "when he gave dinners he always recommended his fag to partake of all the delicacies which he had ordered for his guests." at all times byron's greatest pleasure was to make people happy, and his conduct to his fags showed the kind heart with which through life he acted toward his subordinates. his favorite fag at harrow was the duke of dorset. how much he loved him can be seen in the beautiful lines which he addressed to the duke on leaving harrow, and which reveal his noble heart:-- to the duke of dorset. dorset! whose early steps with mine have stray'd, exploring every path of ida's glade; whom still affection taught me to defend, and made me less a tyrant than a friend, though the harsh custom of our youthful band bade _thee_ obey, and gave _me_ to command; thee, on whose head a few short years will shower the gift of riches and the pride of power; e'en now a name illustrious is thine own, renown'd in rank, nor far beneath the throne. yet, dorset, let not this seduce thy soul to shun fair science, or evade control, though passive tutors, fearful to dispraise the titled child, whose future breath may raise, view ducal errors with indulgent eyes, and wink at faults they tremble to chastise. when youthful parasites, who bend the knee to wealth, their golden idol, not to thee-- and even in simple boyhood's opening dawn some slaves are found to flatter and to fawn-- when those declare, "that pomp alone should wait on one by birth predestined to be great; that books were only meant for drudging fools, that gallant spirits scorn the common rules;" believe them not;--they point the path to shame, and seek to blast the honors of thy name. turn to the few in ida's early throng, whose souls disdain not to condemn the wrong; or if, amid the comrades of thy youth, none dare to raise the sterner voice of truth, ask thine own heart; 'twill bid thee, boy, forbear; for _well_ i know that virtue lingers there. yes! i have mark'd thee many a passing day, but now new scenes invite me far away; yes! i have mark'd within that generous mind a soul, if well matured, to bless mankind. ah! though myself by nature haughty, wild, whom indiscretion hail'd her favorite child; though every error stamps me for her own, and dooms my fall, i fain would fall alone; though my proud heart no precept now can tame, i love the virtues which i can not claim. 'tis not enough, with other sons of power, to gleam the lambent meteor of an hour; to swell some peerage page in feeble pride, with long-drawn names that grace no page beside; then share with titled crowds the common lot-- in life just gazed at, in the grave forgot; while naught divides thee from the vulgar dead, except the dull cold stone that hides thy head, the mouldering 'scutcheon, or the herald's roll, that well-emblazon'd but neglected scroll, where lords, unhonor'd, in the tomb may find one spot, to leave a worthless name behind. there sleep, unnoticed as the gloomy vaults that veil their dust, their follies, and their faults, a race, with old armorial lists o'erspread, in records destined never to be read. fain would i view thee, with prophetic eyes, exalted more among the good and wise, a glorious and a long career pursue, as first in rank, the first in talent too: spurn every vice, each little meanness shun; not fortune's minion, but her noblest son. turn to the annals of a former day; bright are the deeds thine earlier sires display. one, though a courtier, lived a man of worth, and call'd, proud boast! the british drama forth. another view, not less renown'd for wit; alike for courts, and camps, or senates fit; bold in the field, and favor'd by the nine; in every splendid part ordain'd to shine; far, far distinguish'd from the glittering throng, the pride of princes, and the boast of song. such were thy fathers, thus preserve their name; not heir to titles only, but to fame. the hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close, to me, this little scene of joys and woes; each knell of time now warns me to resign shades where hope, peace, and friendship all were mine: hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue, and gild their pinions as the moments flew; peace, that reflection never frown'd away, by dreams of ill to cloud some future day; friendship, whose truth let childhood only tell; alas! they love not long, who love so well. to these adieu! nor let me linger o'er scenes hail'd, as exiles hail their native shore, receding slowly through the dark-blue deep, beheld by eyes that mourn, yet can not weep. dorset, farewell! i will not ask one part of sad remembrance in so young a heart; the coming morrow from thy youthful mind will sweep my name, nor leave a trace behind. and yet, perhaps, in some maturer year, since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere, since the same senate, nay, the same debate, may one day claim our suffrage for the state, we hence may meet, and pass each other by, with faint regard, or cold and distant eye. for me, in future, neither friend nor foe, a stranger to thyself, thy weal or woe, with thee no more again i hope to trace the recollection of our early race; no more, as once, in social hours rejoice, or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known voice: still, if the wishes of a heart untaught to veil those feelings which perchance it ought, if these--but let me cease the lengthen'd strain,-- oh! if these wishes are not breathed in vain, the guardian seraph who directs thy fate will leave thee glorious, as he found thee great. it was especially at harrow that byron contracted those friendships which were like cravings of his heart, and which, although partaking of a passionate character, had nevertheless none of the instability which is the characteristic of passion. the death of some of his friends, and the coldness of others, caused him the greatest grief, and broke up the illusions of youth, exchanging them for that misanthropy discernible in some of his poems, though contrary to his real character. for those, on the other hand, who were spared, and remained faithful to him, byron preserved through life the warmest affection and the tenderest regard; the principal feature of his nature being the unchanging character of his sentiments. although he showed at an early age his disposition to a poetical turn of mind, by the force of his feelings and by his meditative wanderings--in scotland among the mountains and on the sea-shore at cheltenham;--by his rapturous admiration of the setting sun, as well as by the delight which he took in the legends told him by his nurses, and the emotions which he experienced to a degree which made him lose all appetite, all rest, and all peace of mind; yet no one would have believed at that time that a gigantic poetical genius lay dormant in so active a nature. soon, however, did his soul light up his intelligence, and obliged him to have recourse to his pen to pour out his feelings. from that moment his genius spread its roots in his heart, and harrow became his paradise owing to the affection which he met with there. it was at harrow that he wrote, between his fourteenth and eighteenth year, the "hours of idleness, by a minor," of which he had printed at the request of his friends, a few copies for private circulation only. these modest poems did not, however, escape the brutal attacks of critics. mackenzie, however, a man of talent himself, soon discovered that at the bottom of these poems there lay the roots of a great poetical genius. the "hours of idleness" are a treasure of intellectual and psychological gleanings. they showed man as god created him, and before his noble soul, depressed by the insolence of his enemies and the troubles of life, endeavored to escape the eyes of the world, or at least of those who could not or would not understand him. the noblest instincts of human nature shine so conspicuously in the pages of this little volume, that we thank god that he created such a noble mind, while we feel indignant toward those who could not appreciate it. but to understand him better he must reveal himself, and we shall therefore quote a few of his own sayings as a boy. his first grief brought forth his first poem. a young cousin of his died, and of her death he spoke to this effect in his memorandum:-- "my first recourse to poetry was due to my passion for my cousin margaret parker. she was, without doubt, one of the most beautiful and ethereal beings i ever knew. i have forgotten the lines, but never shall i forget her. i was twelve years of age, and she was older than myself by nearly a year. i loved her so passionately, that i could neither sleep, nor get rest, or eat when thinking of her. she died of consumption, and it was at harrow that i heard both of her illness and of her death." then it was that byron wrote his first elegy, which he characterizes as "very dull;" but it is interesting as his first poetical essay, and as the first cry of pain uttered by a child who vents his grief in verse, and reveals in it the goodness of his heart and the power of his great mind. on a calm and dark night he goes to her tomb and strews it with flowers; then, speaking of her virtues, exclaims:-- "but wherefore weep? her matchless spirit soars beyond where splendid shines the orb of day; and weeping angels lead her to those bowers where endless pleasures virtue's deeds repay. "and shall presumptuous mortals heaven arraign, and, madly, godlike providence accuse? ah, no! far fly from me attempts so vain;-- i'll ne'er submission to my god refuse. "yet is remembrance of those virtues dear, yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face, still they call forth my warm affection's tear, still in my heart retain their wonted place." . so beautiful a mind, and one so little understood, reveals itself more and more in each poem of this first collection; and on this account, rather than because of its poetical merits, are the "hours of idleness" interesting to the psychological biographer of byron. "whoever," says sainte-beuve, "has not watched a youthful talent at its outset, will never form for himself a perfect and really true appreciation of it." moore adds: "it is but justice to remark that the early verses of lord byron give but little promise of those dazzling miracles of poesy with which he afterward astonished and enchanted the world, however distinguished they are by tenderness and grace. "there is, indeed, one point of view in which these productions are deeply and intrinsically interesting; as faithful reflections of his character at that period of life, they enable us to judge of what he was before any influences were brought to bear upon him, and so in them we find him pictured exactly such as each anecdote of his boyish days exhibits him--proud, daring, and passionate--resentful of slight or injustice, but still more so in the cause of others than in his own; and yet, with all this vehemence, docile and placable at the least touch of a hand authorized by love to guide him. the affectionateness, indeed, of his disposition, traceable as it is through every page of this volume, is yet but faintly done justice to even by himself; his whole youth being from earliest childhood a series of the most passionate attachments, of those overflowings of the soul, both in friendship and love, which are still more rarely responded to than felt, and which, when checked or sent back upon the heart, are sure to turn into bitterness." while his soul expanded with the first rays of love which dawned upon it, friendship too began to assert its influence over him. but in continuing to observe in him the effects of incipient love, let us remark that, while such precocious impressions are only with others the natural development of physical instincts, they were, in byron, also, the expression of a soul that expands, of an amiability, of a tenderness ever on the increase. though sensible to physical beauty as he always was through life, his principal attraction, however, was in that beauty which expresses the beauty of the soul, without which condition no physical perfection commanded his attention. we have seen what an ethereal creature miss margaret parker was. miss chaworth succeeded her in byron's affections, and was his second, if not third love if we notice his youthful passion at nine years of age for mary duff. but his third love was the occasion of great pain to him. miss chaworth was heiress to the grounds and property of annesley, which were in the immediate neighborhood of newstead. notwithstanding, however, the enmity which had existed between the two families for a long time, on account of a duel which had resulted in the death of miss chaworth's grandfather, byron was received most cordially at annesley. mrs. chaworth thought that a marriage between her daughter and byron might perhaps some day efface the memory of the feud that had existed between their respective families. byron therefore found his school-boy advances encouraged by both mother and daughter, and his imagination naturally was kindled. the result was that byron fell desperately in love with miss chaworth; but he was only fifteen years old, and yet an awkward schoolboy, with none of that splendid and attractive beauty for which he was afterward distinguished. miss chaworth was three years older, and unfortunately her heart was already engaged to the man who, to her misfortune, she married the year after. she therefore looked upon byron as a mere child, as a younger brother, and his love almost amused her. she, however, not only gave him a ring, her portrait, and some of her hair, but actually carried on a secret correspondence with him. these were the faults for which she afterward had to suffer so bitterly. such a union, however, with so great a difference of age, would not have been natural. it could only be a dream; but i shall speak elsewhere[ ] of the nature of this attachment, which had its effect upon byron, in order to show the beauty of his soul under another aspect. i can only add here that he had attributed every virtue to this girl whom he afterward styled frivolous and deceitful. on his return to harrow this love and his passionate friendships divided his heart. but when the following vacation came, his dream vanished. miss chaworth was engaged to another, and on his return to harrow he vainly tried to forget her who had deceived and wounded him. like other young men, he devoted his time during the harrow or cambridge vacations to paying his respects and offering his regards to numerous belles, whose names appear variously in his poems as emma, caroline, helen, and mary. moore believes them to have been imaginary loves. a slight acquaintance with the liberty enjoyed by young men at english universities would lead one to believe these loves to have been any thing but unreal. this can be the more readily believed, as byron always sought in reality the objects which he afterward idealized. he always required some earthly support, though the slightest, as moore observes, in speaking of the charming lines with which his love for miss chaworth inspired him, at the time when the recollection of it made him compare his misfortune in marrying miss milbank, with the happier lot which might have been his had he married miss chaworth. whether these loves were real or not, however, it must be borne in mind that byron deemed all physical beauty to be nothing if unaccompanied by moral beauty. thus, in speaking of a vain young girl, he exclaims:-- "one who is thus from nature vain, i pity, but i can not love." and to miss n. n----, who was exquisitely beautiful, but in whose eyes earthly passion shone too powerfully, he says:-- "oh, did those eyes, instead of fire, with bright but mild affection shine, though they might kindle less desire, love, more than mortal, would be thine. for thou art form'd so heavenly fair, howe'er those orbs may wildly beam, we must admire, but still despair; that fatal glance forbids esteem." in a letter to miss pigott, which he wrote from cambridge, he says:-- "saw a girl at st. mary's the image of ann----; thought it was her--all in the wrong--the lady stared, so did i--i blushed, so did _not_ the lady--sad thing--wish women had more modesty." on awaking from his dream, and on finding that the jewels with which he had believed mary's nature to be adorned were of his own creation, he sought his consolation in friendship. his heart, which was essentially a loving one, could not be consoled except by love, and harrow, to use his own expressions, became a paradise to him. in tracing the picture of tasso's infancy he has drawn a picture of himself:-- "from my very birth my soul was drunk with love, which did pervade and mingle with whate'er i saw on earth of objects all inanimate i made idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, and rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise where i did lay me down within the shade of waving trees, and dreamed uncounted hours, though i was chid for wandering...." this sentiment of friendship, which is always more powerful in england than on the continent, owing to the system of education which takes children away from their parents at an early age, was keenly developed in byron, whose affectionate disposition wanted something to make up for the privation of a father's and a brother's love. in his pure and passionate heart friendship and love became mixed: his love partook of the purity of friendship, and his friendships of all the ardor of love. but to return to his fourteenth year. while expressing in verse his love for his cousin, he expressed at the same time in poetry the strong friendship he had conceived, even before going to harrow, for a boy who had been his companion. this boy, who had a most amiable, good, and virtuous disposition, was the son of one of his tenants at newstead. aristocratic prejudices ran high in england, and this friendship of byron for a commoner was sure to call forth the raillery of some of his companions. notwithstanding this, byron, at twelve years and a half old, replied in these terms to the mockery of others:-- to e----. let folly smile to view the names of thee and me in friendship twined; yet virtue will have greater claims to love, than rank with vice combined. and though unequal is thy fate, since title deck'd my higher birth! yet envy not this gaudy state; thine is the pride of modest worth. our souls at least congenial meet, nor can thy lot my rank disgrace; our intercourse is not less sweet, since worth of rank supplies the place. what noble views in a child of twelve! how well one feels that, whatever may be his fate, such a nature will never lose its independence, nor allow prejudice to carry it beyond the limits of honor and of justice, and that its device will always be, "_fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra._" "i do what i ought, come what may." at thirteen he wrote some lines in which he seemed to have a kind of presentiment of the glory that awaited him, and, at any rate, in which he displayed his resolve to deserve it:-- a fragment. when to their airy hall, my fathers' voice shall call my spirit, joyful in their choice; when, poised upon the gale, my form shall ride, or, dark in mist, descend the mountain's side; oh! may my shade behold no sculptured urns to mark the spot where earth to earth returns! no lengthen'd scroll, no praise-encumber'd stone; my epitaph shall be my name alone: if _that_ with honor fail to crown my clay, oh! may no other fame my deeds repay! _that_, only _that_, shall single out the spot; by that remember'd, or with that forgot. again, at thirteen, a visit to newstead inspired him with the following beautiful lines:-- on leaving newstead abbey. "why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days? thou lookest from thy tower to-day; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes, it howls in thy empty court."--ossian. through thy battlements, newstead, the hollow winds whistle; thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay: in thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle have choked up the rose which late bloom'd in the way. of the mail-cover'd barons, who proudly to battle led their vassals from europe to palestine's plain, the escutcheon and shield, which with every blast rattle, are the only sad vestiges now that remain. no more doth old robert, with harp-stringing numbers, raise a flame in the breast for the war-laurell'd wreath; near askalon's towers john of horistan slumbers, unnerved is the hand of his minstrel by death. paul and hubert, too, sleep in the valley of cressy; for the safety of edward and england they fell: my fathers! the tears of your country redress ye; how you fought, how you died, still her annals can tell. on marston, with rupert, 'gainst traitors contending,[ ] four brothers enrich'd with their blood the bleak field; for the rights of a monarch their country defending, till death their attachment to royalty seal'd. shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant departing from the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu! abroad, or at home, your remembrance imparting new courage, he'll think upon glory and you. though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation, 'tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret; far distant he goes, with the same emulation, the fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. that fame and that memory still will he cherish; he vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown: like you will he live, or like you will he perish: when decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own! when only fourteen his tenant friend dies, and byron wrote his epitaph, in which, even at that early age (thirteen and a half), he particularly mentions his friend's virtues:-- epitaph on a friend. "[greek: astêr prin men elampes eni zôoisin heôos]."--laertius. oh, friend! forever loved, forever dear! what fruitless tears have bathed thy honor'd bier! what sighs re-echo'd to thy parting breath, while thou wast struggling in the pangs of death! could tears retard the tyrant in his course; could sighs avert his dart's relentless force; could youth and virtue claim a short delay, or beauty charm the spectre from his prey; thou still hadst lived to bless my aching sight, thy comrade's honor and thy friend's delight. if yet thy gentle spirit hover nigh the spot where now thy mouldering ashes lie, here wilt thou read, recorded on my heart, a grief too deep to trust the sculptor's art. no marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep, but living statues there are seen to weep; affliction's semblance bends not o'er thy tomb, affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom. what though thy sire lament his failing line, a father's sorrows can not equal mine! though none, like thee, his dying hour will cheer, yet other offspring soothe his anguish here: but who with me shall hold thy former place? thine image, what new friendship can efface? ah, none!--a father's tears will cease to flow, time will assuage an infant brother's woe; to all, save one, is consolation known, while solitary friendship sighs alone. other friends succeeded his earliest one and consoled him for his loss. at harrow, those he loved best were wingfield, tattersall, clare, delaware, and long. his great heart sought to express in verse what it felt for each of them. but it is observable that what touched him most was the excellence of the qualities both of the mind and soul of those he loved. to prove this i shall quote in part a poem which he wrote shortly after leaving harrow for cambridge, entitled "childish recollections." after giving a picture of his life at harrow in the midst of his companions, and after describing very freshly and vividly the scene when he was chosen captain of the school, he exclaims:-- "dear honest race! though now we meet no more, one last long look on what we were before-- our first kind greetings, and our last adieu-- drew tears from eyes unused to weep with you. through splendid circles, fashion's gaudy world, where folly's glaring standard waves unfurl'd, i plunged to drown in noise my fond regret, and all i sought or hoped was to forget. vain wish! if chance some well-remember'd face, some old companion of my early race, advanced to claim his friend with honest joy, my eyes, my heart, proclaim'd me still a boy; the glittering scene, the fluttering groups around, were quite forgotten when my friend was found; the smiles of beauty--(for, alas! i've known what 'tis to bend before love's mighty throne)-- the smiles of beauty, though those smiles were dear, could hardly charm me, when that friend was near; my thoughts bewilder'd in the fond surprise, the woods of ida danced before my eyes; i saw the sprightly wand'rers pour along, i saw and join'd again the joyous throng; panting, again i traced her lofty grove, and friendship's feelings triumph'd over love." after deploring his fate:-- "stern death forbade my orphan youth to share the tender guidance of a father's care. * * * * * * * "what brother springs a brother's love to seek? what sister's gentle kiss has prest my cheek? * * * * * * * "thus must i cling to some endearing hand, and none more dear than ida's social band:"-- he goes on to name his dearest comrades, giving them each a fictitious name. alonzo is wingfield; davus, tattersall; lycus, lord clare: euryalus, lord delaware; and cleon, long:-- "alonzo! best and dearest of my friends, thy name ennobles him who thus commends: from this fond tribute thou canst gain no praise: the praise is his who now that tribute pays. oh! in the promise of thy early youth, if hope anticipate the words of truth, some loftier bard shall sing thy glorious name, to build his own upon thy deathless fame. friend of my heart, and foremost of the list of those with whom i lived supremely blest, oft have we drain'd the font of ancient lore; though drinking deeply, thirsting still the more. yet, when confinement's lingering hour was done, our sports, our studies, and our souls were one: together we impell'd the flying ball; together waited in our tutor's hall; together join'd in cricket's manly toil, or shared the produce of the river's spoil; or, plunging from the green declining shore, our pliant limbs the buoyant billows bore; in every element, unchanged, the same, all, all that brother's should be, but the name. nor yet are you forgot, my jocund boy! davus, the harbinger of childish joy; forever foremost in the ranks of fun, the laughing herald of the harmless pun; yet with a breast of such materials made-- anxious to please, of pleasing half afraid; candid and liberal, with a heart of steel in danger's path, though not untaught to feel. still i remember, in the factious strife, the rustic's musket aim'd against my life: high poised in air the massy weapon hung, a cry of horror burst from every tongue; while i, in combat with another foe, fought on, unconscious of th' impending blow; your arm, brave boy, arrested his career-- forward you sprung, insensible to fear; disarm'd and baffled by your conquering hand, the grovelling savage roll'd upon the sand: an act like this, can simple thanks repay? or all the labors of a grateful lay? oh no! whene'er my breast forgets the deed, that instant, davus, it deserves to bleed. "lycus! on me thy claims are justly great: thy milder virtues could my muse relate, to thee alone, unrivall'd, would belong the feeble efforts of my lengthen'd song. well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit, a spartan firmness with athenian wit: though yet in embryo these perfections shine, lycus! thy father's fame will soon be thine. where learning nurtures the superior mind, what may we hope from genius thus refin'd! when time at length matures thy growing years, how wilt thou tower above thy fellow-peers! prudence and sense, a spirit bold and free, with honor's soul, united, beam in thee. "shall fair euryalus pass by unsung? from ancient lineage, not unworthy sprung: what though one sad dissension bade us part? that name is yet embalm'd within my heart; yet at the mention does that heart rebound, and palpitate, responsive to the sound. envy dissolved our ties, and not our will: we once were friends,--i'll think we are so still, a form unmatch'd in nature's partial mould, a heart untainted, we in thee behold: yet not the senate's thunder thou shalt wield, nor seek for glory in the tented field; to minds of ruder texture these be given-- thy soul shall nearer soar its native heaven. haply, in polish'd courts might be thy seat, but that thy tongue could never forge deceit: the courtier's supple bow and sneering smile, the flow of compliment, the slippery wile. would make that breast with indignation burn, and all the glittering snares to tempt thee spurn. domestic happiness will stamp thy fate; sacred to love, unclouded e'er by hate; the world admire thee, and thy friends adore; ambition's slave alone would toil for more. "now last, but nearest, of the social band, see honest, open, generous cleon stand; with scarce one speck to cloud the pleasing scene, no vice degrades that purest soul serene. on the same day our studious race begun, on the same day our studious race was run; thus side by side we pass'd our first career, thus side by side we strove for many a year; at last concluded our scholastic life, we neither conquer'd in the classic strife: as speakers, each supports an equal name,[ ] and crowds allow to both a partial fame: to soothe a youthful rival's early pride, though cleon's candor would the palm divide, yet candor's self compels me now to own justice awards it to my friend alone. "oh! friends regretted, scenes forever dear, remembrance hails you with her warmest tear! drooping, she bends o'er pensive fancy's urn, to trace the hours which never can return; yet with the retrospection loves to dwell, and soothe the sorrows of her last farewell! yet greets the triumph of my boyish mind, as infant laurels round my head were twined, when probus' praise repaid my lyric song, or placed me higher in the studious throng; or when my first harangue received applause, his sage instruction the primeval cause, what gratitude to him my soul possest, while hope of dawning honors fill'd my breast! for all my humble fame, to him alone the praise is due, who made that fame my own. oh! could i soar above these feeble lays, these young effusions of my early days, to him my muse her noblest strain would give: the song might perish, but the theme might live. yet why for him the needless verse essay? his honored name requires no vain display: by every son of grateful ida blest, it finds an echo in each youthful breast; a fame beyond the glories of the proud, or all the plaudits of the venal crowd. "ida! not yet exhausted is the theme, nor closed the progress of my youthful dream. how many a friend deserves the grateful strain! what scenes of childhood still unsung remain! yet let me hush this echo of the past, this parting song, the dearest and the last; and brood in secret o'er those hours of joy, to me a silent and a sweet employ, while, future hope and fear alike unknown, i think with pleasure on the past alone; yes, to the past alone my heart confine, and chase the phantom of what once was mine. "ida! still o'er thy hills in joy preside, and proudly steer through time's eventful tide; still may thy blooming sons thy name revere, smile in thy bower, but quit thee with a tear,-- that tear, perhaps, the fondest which will flow o'er their last scene of happiness below. tell me, ye hoary few, who glide along, the feeble veterans of some former throng, whose friends, like autumn leaves by tempests whirl'd, are swept forever from this busy world; revolve the fleeting moments of your youth, while care as yet withheld her venom'd tooth; say if remembrance days like these endears beyond the rapture of succeeding years? say, can ambition's fever'd dream bestow so sweet a balm to soothe your hours of woe? can treasures, hoarded for some thankless son, can royal smiles, or wreaths by slaughter won, can stars or ermine, man's maturer toys (for glittering bawbles are not left to boys), recall one scene so much beloved to view as those where youth her garland twined for you? ah, no! amid the gloomy calm of age you turn with faltering hand life's varied page; peruse the record of your days on earth, unsullied only where it marks your birth; still lingering pause above each checker'd leaf, and blot with tears the sable lines of grief; when passion o'er the theme her mantle threw, or weeping virtue sigh'd a faint adieu; but bless the scroll which fairer words adorn, traced by the rosy finger of the morn; when friendship bow'd before the shrine of truth, and love, without his pinion, smiled on youth." on leaving harrow and his best friends, byron felt that he was saying adieu to youth and to its pleasures, and he was as yet unable to replace these by the feasts of the mind. this filled his heart with regret in addition to the sorrows which he experienced by those reflections upon existence which are common to all poetical natures. the cold discipline of cambridge fell like ice upon his warm nature. he fell ill, and, by way of seeking a relief to the oppression of his mind, he wrote the above transcribed poem. harrow is called ida, as his friends are denominated by fictitious names. to the college itself, and to the recollections which it brought back to his memory of physical and mental suffering, he addresses himself:-- "ida! blest spot, where science holds her reign, how joyous once i join'd thy youthful train! bright in idea gleams thy lofty spire, again i mingle with thy playful quire. * * * * * * * my wonted haunts, my scenes of joy and woe, each early boyish friend, or youthful foe; our feuds dissolved, but not my friendship past, i bless the former, and forgive the last." the same kind, affectionate disposition can be traced in all his other poems, together with those well-inculcated notions of god's justice, wisdom, and mercy, of toleration and forgiveness, of hatred of falsehood and contempt of prejudices, which never abandoned him throughout his life. i really pity those who could read "the tear" without being touched by its simple, plaintive style, written in the tenderest strain, or "l'amitié est l'amour sans ailes," or the lines to the duke of dorset on leaving harrow, or the "prayer of nature," or his stanzas to lord clare, to lord delaware, to edward long, or his generous forgiveness of miss chaworth; or, again, his lines on believing that he was going to die, his answer to a poem called "the common lot," his reply to dr. beecher, and, finally, his address to a companion whose conduct obliged him to withdraw his friendship:-- "what friend for thee, howe'er inclined, will deign to own a kindred care? who will debase his manly mind, for friendship every fool may share? "in time forbear; amid the throng no more so base a thing be seen; no more so idly pass along; be something, any thing but--mean." since our object is to show in these effusions of a youthful mind, its natural beauty, and not that genius which is shortly to be developed by contact with the troubles and pains of this life, it may not be irrelevant to our subject to give in parts, if not entirely, some of the poems which he wrote at this time:-- the tear. "o lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros ducentium ortus ex animo; quater felix! in imo qui scatentem pectore te, pia nympha, sensit."--gray. when friendship or love our sympathies move, when truth in a glance should appear, the lips may beguile with a dimple or smile, but the test of affection's a tear. too oft is a smile but the hypocrite's wile, to mask detestation or fear; give me the soft sigh, while the soul-telling eye is dimm'd for a time with a tear. mild charity's glow, to us mortals below, shows the soul from barbarity clear; compassion will melt where this virtue is felt, and its dew is diffused in a tear. the man doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale, through billows atlantic to steer, as he bends o'er the wave which may soon be his grave, the green sparkles bright with a tear. the soldier braves death for a fanciful wreath in glory's romantic career; but he raises the foe when in battle laid low, and bathes every wound with a tear. if with high-bounding pride he return to his bride, renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear, all his toils are repaid, when, embracing the maid, from her eyelid he kisses the tear. sweet scene of my youth! seat of friendship and truth,[ ] where love chased each fast-fleeting year, loth to leave thee, i mourn'd, for a last look i turn'd, but thy spire was scarce seen through a tear. though my vows i can pour to my mary no more, my mary to love once so dear, in the shade of her bower i remember the hour she rewarded those vows with a tear. by another possest, she may live ever blest! her name still my heart must revere: with a sigh i resign what i once thought was mine, and forgive her deceit with a tear. ye friends of my heart, ere from you i depart, this hope to my breast is most near: if again we shall meet in this rural retreat, may we meet as we part, with a tear. when my soul wings her flight to the regions of night, and my corse shall recline on its bier, as ye pass by the tomb where my ashes consume, oh! moisten their dust with a tear. may no marble bestow the splendor of woe, which the children of vanity rear; no fiction of fame shall blazon my name, all i ask--all i wish--is a tear. * * * * * l'amitiÉ est l'amour sans ailes. why should my anxious breast repine, because my youth is fled? days of delight may still be mine; affection is not dead. in tracing back the years of youth, one firm record, one lasting truth, celestial consolation brings; bear it, ye breezes, to the seat, where first my heart responsive beat, "friendship is love without his wings!" through few, but deeply checker'd years, what moments have been mine! now half-obscured by clouds of tears, now bright in rays divine; howe'er my future doom be cast, my soul enraptured with the past, to one idea fondly clings; friendship! that thought is all thine own, worth worlds of bliss, that thought alone-- "friendship is love without his wings!" where yonder yew-trees lightly wave their branches on the gale, unheeded heaves a simple grave, which tells the common tale; round this unconscious schoolboys stray, till the dull knell of childish play from yonder studious mansion rings; but here when'er my footsteps move, my silent tears too plainly prove "friendship is love without his wings!" oh, love! before thy glowing shrine my early vows were paid; my hopes, my dreams, my heart was thine, but these are now decay'd; for thine are pinions like the wind, no trace of thee remains behind, except, alas! thy jealous stings. away, away! delusive power, thou shalt not haunt my coming hour; unless, indeed, without thy wings. seat of my youth! thy distant spire recalls each scene of joy; my bosom glows with former fire, in mind again a boy. thy grove of elms, thy verdant hill thy every path delights me still, each flower a double fragrance flings; again, as once, in converse gay, each dear associate seems to say, "friendship is love without his wings!" my lycus! wherefore dost thou weep? thy falling tears restrain; affection for a time may sleep, but, oh! 'twill wake again. think, think, my friend, when next we meet, our long-wish'd interview, how sweet! from this my hope of rapture springs; while youthful hearts thus fondly swell, absence, my friend, can only tell, "friendship is love without his wings!" in one, and one alone deceived, did i my error mourn? no--from oppressive bonds relieved, i left the wretch to scorn. i turn'd to those my childhood knew, with feelings warm, with bosoms true, twined with my heart's according strings; and till those vital chords shall break, for none but these my breast shall wake friendship, the power deprived of wings! ye few! my soul, my life is yours, my memory and my hope; your worth a lasting love insures, unfetter'd in its scope; from smooth deceit and terror sprung with aspect fair and honey'd tongue, let adulation wait on kings; with joy elate, by snares beset, we, we, my friends, can ne'er forget "friendship is love without his wings!" fictions and dreams inspire the bard who rolls the epic song; friendship and truth be my reward-- to me no bays belong; if laurell'd fame but dwells with lies, me the enchantress ever flies, whose heart and not whose fancy sings; simple and young, i dare not feign; mine be the rude yet heartfelt strain, "friendship is love without his wings!" _december_, . these early poems are well characterized by the impression which they produced upon sir robert dallas, a man of taste and talent, who, though a bigot and a prey to prejudices of all kinds, hastened, nevertheless, after reading them, to compliment the author in the following words:--"your poems are not only beautiful as compositions, but they also denote an honorable and upright heart, and one prone to virtue." this eulogium is well deserved, and i pity those who could read the "hours of idleness" without liking their youthful writer. if we had space enough, we fain would follow the young man from cambridge to the mysterious abbey of newstead, where he loved to invite his friends and institute with them a monastery of which he proclaimed himself the abbot--an amusement really most innocent in itself, and which bigotry and folly alone could consider reprehensible. with what pleasure he would show that in the monastery of newstead its abbot lived the simplest and most austere existence,--"a life of study," as washington irving describes it, from what he heard nanna smyth say of it some years after byron's death. how delighted we should be to follow him in his first travels in search of experience of life, and when his genius revealed itself in that light which was shortly to make him the idol of the public and the hatred of the envious. we could show him to have been always the same kind-hearted man, by whom severity and injustice were never had recourse to except against himself, and whose melancholy was too often the result of broken illusions and disappointments. his simple and noble character, having always before it an ideal perfection, perpetually by comparison, thought itself at fault; and the world, who could not comprehend the exquisite delicacy of his mind, took for granted the reputation he gave himself, and made him a martyr till heaven should give him time to become a saint. footnotes: [footnote : see chapter upon generosity.] [footnote : marston moor, where the adherents of charles i. were defeated. prince rupert, son of the elector palatine, and nephew to charles i. he afterward commanded the fleet in the reign of charles ii.] [footnote : this alludes to the public speeches delivered at the school where the author was educated.] [footnote : harrow.] chapter vi. the friendships of lord byron. the extraordinary part which friendship played in lord byron's life is another proof of his goodness. his friendships may be divided into two categories: the friendships of his heart, and those of his mind. to the first class belong those which he made at harrow and in his early cambridge days, while his later acquaintances at the university matured into friends of the second category. these had great influence over his mind. the names of those of the first category who were dearest to him, and who were alive when he left harrow for cambridge (for he had lost some very intimate friends while still at harrow, and among these curzon), were-- wingfield. delaware. tattersall. clare. long. eddleston. harness. i will say a word of each, so as to show that byron in the selection of his friends was guided instinctively by the qualities of those he loved. wingfield. the hon. john wingfield, of the coldstream guards, was a brother of richard, fourth viscount powerscourt, and died of fever at coimbra, on the th of may, , in his th year. "of all beings on earth," says byron, "i was perhaps at one time more attached to poor wingfield than to any. i knew him during the best part of his life and the happiest portion of mine." when he heard of the death of this beloved companion of his youth, he added the two following stanzas to the first canto of "childe harold:" xci. "and thou, my friend!--since unavailing woe bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain-- had the sword laid thee with the mighty low, pride might forbid e'en friendship to complain: but thus unlaurell'd to descend in vain, by all forgotten, save the lonely breast, and mix unbleeding with the boasted slain, while glory crowns so many a meaner crest! what hadst thou done, to sink so peacefully to rest? xcii. "oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most! dear to a heart where naught was left so dear! though to my hopeless days forever lost, in dreams deny me not to see thee here! and morn in secret shall renew the tear of consciousness awaking to her woes, and fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier, till my frail frame return to whence it rose, and mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose." writing to dallas on the th of august, , he says, "wingfield was among my best and dearest friends; one of the very few i can never regret to have loved." and on the th of september, speaking of the death of matthews, in whom he said he had lost a friend and a guide, he wrote to dallas to say: "in wingfield i have lost a friend only; but one i could have wished to precede in his long journey." tattersall (davus). the rev. john cecil tattersall, b.a., of christ church, oxford, died on the th of october, , aged . "his knowledge," says a writer in the "gentleman's magazine," "was extensive and deep; his affections were sincere and great. by his extreme aversion to hypocrisy, he was so far from assuming the appearance of virtue, that most of his good qualities remained hidden, while he was most anxious to reveal the slightest fault into which he had fallen. he was a stanch friend, and a stranger to all enmity; he behaved loyally to men when alive, and died full of confidence and trust in god." delaware (euryalus). george john, fifth earl of delaware, born in october, , succeeded to his father in july, . lord byron wrote from harrow on the th of october, :-- "i am very comfortable here; my friends are not numerous, but choice. among the first of these i place delaware, who is very amiable, and my great friend. he is younger than i am, but is gifted with the finest character. he is the most intelligent creature on earth, and is besides particularly good-looking, which is a charm in women's eyes." in consequence of a misunderstanding, or rather of a false accusation,--of which i shall speak elsewhere, in order to show the generosity of lord byron's character,--a coolness took place in their friendship. a charming piece in the "hours of idleness" alludes to it, and shows well the nature of his mind. i will only quote the seventh stanza:-- "you knew that my soul, that my heart, my existence, if danger demanded, were wholly your own; you knew me unalter'd by years or by distance, devoted to love and to friendship alone." clare (lycus). john fitzgibbon, second earl of clare, succeeded to his father in ; was twelve years chancellor of ireland, and, later, governor of bombay. lord byron wrote of him at ravenna:-- "i never hear the name of clare without my heart beating even now, and i am writing in , with all the feelings of , , , and _ad infinitum_." he had kept all the letters of his early friends, and among these is one of lord clare's, in which the energy of his mind appears even through the language of the child. at the bottom of this letter and in byron's hand, is a note written years after, showing his tender and amiable feelings:-- "this letter was written at harrow by lord clare, then, and i trust ever, my beloved friend. when we were both students, he sent it to me in my study, in consequence of a brief childish misunderstanding, the only one we ever had. i keep this note only to show him, and laugh with him at the remembrance of the insignificance of our first and last quarrel. byron." besides mentioning lord clare in "childish recollections," his "hours of idleness" contain another poem addressed to him, which begins thus:-- to the earl of clare. "tu semper amoris sis memor, et cari comitis ne abscedat imago."--val. flac. friend of my youth! when young we roved, like striplings, mutually beloved, with friendship's purest glow, the bliss which winged those rosy hours was such as pleasure seldom showers on mortals here below. the recollection seems alone dearer than all the joys i've known, when distant far from you: though pain, 'tis still a pleasing pain, to trace those days and hours again, and sigh again, adieu! * * * * * our souls, my friend! which once supplied one wish, nor breathed a thought beside, now flow in different channels: disdaining humbler rural sports, 'tis yours to mix in polish'd courts, and shine in fashion's annals: * * * * * i think i said 'twould be your fate to add one star to royal state:-- may regal smiles attend you! and should a noble monarch reign, you will not seek his smiles in vain, if worth can recommend you. yet since in danger courts abound, where specious rivals glitter round, from snares may saints preserve you; and grant your love or friendship ne'er from any claim a kindred care, but those who best deserve you! not for a moment may you stray from truth's secure, unerring way! may no delights decoy! o'er roses may your footsteps move, your smiles be ever smiles of love, your tears be tears of joy! oh! if you wish that happiness your coming days and years may bless, and virtues crown your brow; be still, as you were wont to be, spotless as you've been known to me,-- be still as you are now. and though some trifling share of praise, to cheer my last declining days, to me were doubly dear, while blessing your beloved name, i'd waive at once a _poet's_ fame, to prove a _prophet_ here. in , as he was going to pisa, byron met his old and dear friend clare on the route to bologna, and speaks of their meeting in the following terms:-- "'there is a strange coincidence sometimes in the little things of this world, sancho,' says sterne, in a letter (if i mistake not), and so i have often found it. at page , article , of this collection, i had alluded to my friend lord clare in terms such as my feelings suggested. about a week or two afterward i met him on the road between imola and bologna, after an interval of seven or eight years. he was abroad in , and came home just as i set out in . "this meeting annihilated for a moment all the years between the present time and the days of harrow. it was a new and inexplicable feeling, like rising from the grave, to me. clare, too, was much agitated--more in appearance than i was myself; for i could feel his heart beat to his fingers' ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own which made me think so. he told me, that i should find a note from him left at bologna. i did. we were obliged to part for our different journeys--he for rome, i for pisa--but with the promise to meet again in the spring. we were but five minutes together, and on the public road; but i hardly recollect an hour of my existence which could be weighed against those few minutes.... of all i have ever known he has always been the least altered in every thing from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me to him so strongly at school. i should hardly have thought it possible for society to leave a being with so little of the leaven of bad passions. "i do not speak from personal experience only, but from all i have ever heard of him from others during absence and distance." "my greatest friend, lord clare, is at rome," he wrote to moore from pisa, in march, : "we met on the road, and our meeting was quite sentimental--really pathetic on both sides. i have always loved him better than any male thing in the world." in june lord clare came to visit byron, and on the th of that month byron wrote to moore:-- "a few days ago my earliest and dearest friend, lord clare, came over from geneva on purpose to see me before he returned to england. as i have always loved him, since i was thirteen at harrow, better than any male thing in the world, i need hardly say what a melancholy pleasure it was to see him for a day only; for he was obliged to resume his journey immediately." on another occasion he told medwin that there is no pleasure in existence like that of meeting an early friend. "lord clare's visit," says madame g----, "gave byron the greatest joy. the last day they spent together at leghorn was most melancholy. byron had a kind of presentiment that he should never see his friend again, and in speaking of him, for a long time after, his eyes always filled with tears." long (cleon). edward long was with lord byron at harrow and at cambridge. he entered the guards, and distinguished himself in the expedition to copenhagen. as he was on his way to join the army in the peninsula, in , the ship in which he sailed was run down by another vessel, and long was drowned with several others. long's friendship contributed to render byron's stay at cambridge bearable after his beloved harrow days. "long," says lord byron, "was one of those good and amiable creatures who live but a short time. he had talents and qualities far too rare not to make him very much regretted." he depicts him as a lively companion, with an occasional strange touch of melancholy. one would have said he anticipated, as it were, the fate which awaited him. the letter which he wrote to byron, on leaving the university to enter the guards, was so full of sadness that it contrasted strangely with his habitual humor. "his manners," says lord byron, "were amiable and gentle, and he had a great disposition to look at the comical side of things. he was a musician, and played on several instruments, especially the flute and the violincello. we spent our evenings with music, but i was only a listener. our principal beverage consisted in soda-water. during the day we rode, swam, walked, and read together; but we only spent one summer with each other." on his leaving cambridge, byron addressed to him the following lines:-- to edward noel long, esq. "nil ego contulerim jocundo sanus amico."--horace. dear long, in this sequester'd scene, while all around in slumber lie, the joyous days which ours have been come rolling fresh on fancy's eye; thus if amid the gathering storm, while clouds the darken'd noon deform, yon heaven assumes a varied glow, i hail the sky's celestial bow, which spreads the sign of future peace, and bids the war of tempests cease. ah! though the present brings but pain, i think those days may come again; or if, in melancholy mood, some lurking envious fear intrude, to check my bosom's fondest thought, and interrupt the golden dream, i crush the fiend with malice fraught, and still indulge my wonted theme. although we ne'er again can trace in granta's vale the pedant's lore; nor through the groves of ida chase our raptured visions as before, though youth has flown on rosy pinion, and manhood claims his stern dominion, age will not every hope destroy, but yield some hours of sober joy. yes, i will hope that time's broad wing will shed around some dews of spring: but if his scythe must sweep the flowers which bloom among the fairy bowers, where smiling youth delights to dwell, and hearts with early rapture swell; if frowning age, with cold control, confines the current of the soul, congeals the tear of pity's eye, or checks the sympathetic sigh, or hears unmoved misfortune's groan, and bids me feel for self alone; oh, may my bosom never learn to soothe its wonted heedless flow, still, still despise the censor stern, but ne'er forget another's woe. yes, as you knew me in the days o'er which remembrance yet delays, still may i rove, untutor'd, wild, and even in age at heart a child. though now on airy visions borne, to you my soul is still the same. oft has it been my fate to mourn, and all my former joys are tame. but hence! ye hours of sable hue! your frowns are gone, my sorrows o'er: by every bliss my childhood knew, i'll think upon your shade no more. thus, when the whirlwind's rage is past, and caves their sullen roar inclose, we heed no more the wintry blast, when lull'd by zephyr to repose. long's death was the cause of great grief to lord byron. "long's father," said he, "has written to ask me to write his son's epitaph. i promised to do it, but i never had the strength to finish it." i will add that mr. wathen having gone to visit lord byron at ravenna, and having told him that he knew long, byron henceforth treated him with the utmost cordiality. he spoke of long and of his amiable qualities, until he could no longer hide his tears. in the month of october, , lord byron left harrow for trinity college, cambridge, and in he thus described himself, and his own feelings on leaving his beloved ida for a new scene of life:-- "when i went to college it was for me a most painful event. i left harrow against my wish, and so took it to heart, that before i left i never slept for counting the days which i had still to spend there. in the second place, i wished to go to oxford and not to cambridge; and, in the third place, i found myself so isolated in this new world, that my mind was perfectly depressed by it. "not that my companions were not sociable: quite the contrary; they were particularly lively, hospitable, rich, noble, and much more gay than myself. i mixed, dined, and supped with them; but, i don't know why, the most painful and galling sensation of life was that of feeling i was no longer a child." his grief was such that he fell ill, and it was during that illness that he wrote and partly dictated the poem "recollections of childhood," in which he mentions and describes all his dear comrades of harrow, with that particular charm of expression and thought which the heart alone can inspire. it was again under the same impression that he wrote the most melancholy lines in the "hours of idleness," where the regret of the past delightful days of his childhood, spent at his dear ida, ever comes prominently forward. "i would i were a careless child," he exclaims in one poem, and finishes the same by the lines,-- "oh that to me the wings were given which bear the turtle to her nest! then would i cleave the vault of heaven to flee away, and be at rest." life at harrow appears to have been for him then the ideal of happiness. at times the distant view of the village and college of harrow, inspires his muse, at others a visit to the college itself, and an hour spent under the shade of an elm in the church-yard. his whole soul is so revealed in these two poems, that i can not forbear quoting them _in extenso_:-- on a distant view of the village and school of harrow-on-the-hill. "oh! mihi præteritos referat si jupiter annos."--virgil. ye scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollection embitters the present, compared with the past; where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection, and friendships were form'd, too romantic to last; where fancy yet joys to trace the resemblance of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied, how welcome to me your ne'er-fading remembrance, which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied! again i revisit the hills where we sported, the streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought; the school where, loud warn'd by the bell, we resorted, to pore o'er the precepts by pedagogues taught. again i behold where for hours i have ponder'd, as reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone i lay; or round the steep brow of the church-yard i wander'd, to catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray. i once more view the room, with spectators surrounded, where, as zanga, i trod on alonzo o'erthrown; while, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded, i fancied that mossop himself was outshown.[ ] or, as lear, i pour'd forth the deep imprecation, by my daughters of kingdom and reason deprived; till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, i regarded myself as a garrick revived. ye dreams of my boyhood, how much i regret you! unfaded your memory dwells in my breast; though sad and deserted, i ne'er can forget you. your pleasures may still be in fancy possest. to ida full oft may remembrance restore me, while fate shall the shades of the future unroll! since darkness o'ershadows the prospect before me, more dear is the beam of the past to my soul! but if, through the course of the years which await me, some new scene of pleasure should open to view, i will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me, "oh! such were the days which my infancy knew!" * * * * * lines written beneath an elm in the church-yard of harrow. spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh, swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky; where now alone i muse, who oft have trod, with those i loved, thy soft and verdant sod; with those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore, like me, the happy scenes they knew before: oh! as i trace again thy winding hill, mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still, thou drooping elm! beneath whose boughs i lay, and frequent mused the twilight hours away; where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline, but ah! without the thoughts which then were mine: how do thy branches, moaning to the blast, invite the bosom to recall the past, and seem to whisper, as they gently swell, "take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!" when fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast, and calm its cares and passions into rest, oft have i thought, 'twould soothe my dying hour-- if aught may soothe when life resigns her power-- to know some humble grave, some narrow cell, would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell. with this fond dream, methinks, 'twere sweet to die-- and here it linger'd, here my heart might lie; here might i sleep where all my hopes arose; scene of my youth, and couch of my repose; forever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade, press'd by the turf where once my childhood play'd; wrapt by the soil that veils the spot i loved, mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved; blest by the tongues that charm'd my youthful ear, mourn'd by the few my soul acknowledged here; deplored by those in early days allied, and unremember'd by the world beside. "but although he may for a time," says moore, "have experienced this kind of moral atomy, it was not in his nature to be long without attaching himself to somebody, and the friendship which he conceived for eddleston--a man younger than himself, and not at all of his rank in society--even surpassed in ardor all the other attachments of his youth." eddleston was one of the choristers at cambridge. his talent for music attracted byron's attention. when he lost the society of long, who had been his sole comfort at cambridge, he took very much to the company of young eddleston. one feels how much he was attached to him, on reading those lines in which he thanks eddleston for a cornelian heart he had sent him:-- the cornelian. no specious splendor of this stone endears it to my memory ever; with lustre only once it shone, and blushes modest as the giver. some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, have for my weakness oft reproved me; yet still the simple gift i prize, for i am sure the giver loved me. he offer'd it with downcast look, as fearful that i might refuse it; i told him, when the gift i took, my only fear should be to lose it. when eddleston left college, lord byron wrote to miss pigott a letter full of regret at having lost his youthful friend, and thanking her for having taken an interest in him. "during the whole time we were at cambridge together," says byron, "we saw each other every day, summer and winter, and never once found a moment of _ennui_, but parted each day with greater regret. i trust," he added, at the end of his letter, "that you will some day see us together; that is the being i esteem most, though i love several others." but in the year eddleston died of consumption; and lord byron wrote to miss pigott's mother, to beg of her to return the cornelian heart which he had intrusted to her care, because it had "now acquired a value which he wished it had never had;" the original donor having died at the age of twenty-one, a few months before, and being "the sixth in the space of four months of a series of friends and relations whom he had lost since may." the cornelian heart was restored, and byron was informed that he had only intrusted it, but not given it to miss pigott. it was on learning of eddleston's death that byron added the touching ninth stanza to the second canto of "childe harold." after speaking of the hope of meeting again in a celestial abode, those whom he loved on earth, and all those who taught the truth, he exclaims,-- "there, thou!--whose love and life together fled, have left me here to love and live in vain-- twined with my heart, and can i deem thee dead when busy memory flashes on my brain? well--i will dream that we may meet again, and woo the vision to my vacant breast: if aught of young remembrance then remain, be as it may futurity's behest, for me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest!" among the children younger than himself of whom he established himself the protector, one of those he loved best was his fag william harness. harness. the rev. william harness is the author of the work entitled the "relations between christianity and happiness, by one of the oldest and most esteemed friends of lord byron." harness was four years younger than byron, and one of the earliest friends he made at harrow. lord byron had not been long at the school, and had not yet formed any friendship with other boys, when he saw a boy, "still lame from an accident of his childhood, and but just recovered from a severe illness, bullied by a boy much older and stronger than himself." byron interfered and took his part. "we both seem perfectly to recollect," says he, "with a mixture of pleasure and regret, the hours we once passed together; and i assure you, most sincerely, they are numbered among the happiest of my brief chronicle of enjoyment. i am now getting into years, that is to say, i was twenty a month ago, and another year will send me into the world, to run my career of folly with the rest. i was then just fourteen--you were almost the first of my harrow friends, certainly the first in my esteem, if not in date; but an absence from harrow for some time shortly after, and new connections on your side, and the difference in our conduct, from that turbulent and riotous disposition of mine which impelled me into every species of mischief, all these circumstances combined to destroy our intimacy, which affection urged me to continue, and memory compels me to regret. but there is not a circumstance attending that period, hardly a sentence we exchanged, which is not impressed on my mind at this moment. "there is another circumstance you do not know:--the first lines i ever attempted at harrow were addressed to you; but as on our return from the holidays we were strangers, the lines were destroyed. "i have dwelt longer on this theme than i intended, and i shall now conclude with what i ought to have begun. will you sometimes write to me? i do not ask it often, and, if we meet, let us be what we should be, and what we were." young harness, gifted with a calm and mild temperament, was being educated for the church. besides being always at harrow, and four years younger than byron, the life which the latter led at newstead and at cambridge did not suit one destined to a career which requires greater severity of demeanor. but the two friends corresponded, and lord byron sent him one of his early copies of "hours of idleness." in the letter which the rev. w. harness wrote to moore, after byron's death, to tell him the nature of the quarrel which he and byron had had together, and their subsequent reconciliation, he ends by saying:-- "our conversation was renewed and continued from that time till his going abroad. whatever faults lord byron may have exhibited toward others, to myself he was always uniformly affectionate.... i can not call to mind a single instance of caprice or unkindness in the whole course of our intimacy to allege against him." the fault to which harness alludes, and which he acknowledges, was one of the kind to which byron was most sensitive, namely, coldness. having lost some of his early and best friends, edward long, and all the others being spread far and near, abroad and in england, following out their respective careers and destiny, harness was about the only early friend he had near him. the time was approaching when he was going to leave england, to travel and to learn by study the great book of nature. his heart was wounded by the injustice which had been done him, by the many disenchantments which he had experienced, by the brutal criticism of his "hours of idleness" from the pen of his relation lord carlisle, and by his money difficulties. unable as yet to foretell the effects of his satire, which had not yet appeared, and the success of which might have consoled him a little for past mortifications, he found in friendship his sole relief, and particularly in the friendship of harness. at this very critical time, harness--(be it either through the influence of his family and relations, or through a notion that his principles were rather unsuited to the heterodox opinions of lord byron)--behaved coldly toward byron. dallas, however, who from puritanism and family pride, and even from jealousy, was rather an enemy of lord byron's intellectual friends--(contending that it was they who had instilled into byron all the anti-orthodox views which the poet had adopted)--makes an exception in favor of harness. byron spoke of harness with an affection which he hoped was repaid to him. i often met him at newstead, and both he and byron had had their portraits taken, which they were to make a present of to one another. it was not until some unknown cause sprung up to establish a coldness between the two friends that their intimacy ceased, and at the same time harness's visits to newstead. byron felt it very keenly. in what degree the conduct of harness hurt lord byron and contributed to those explosions of misanthropy which, slight and passing as they were, have nevertheless been urged as a reproach against his first and second cantos of "childe harold," i shall examine later. here it is only necessary to say that in a soul such as his, where rancor could never live, such a coldness wounded him without altering his sentiments in any way. after two years' absence he returned to england, and so heartily forgave harness that he actually wished to dedicate to him the first two cantos of "childe harold," and only gave up this idea from a generous fear that its dedication might injure him in his clerical profession, on account of certain stanzas in the poem which were not quite orthodox. "the letter," says moore, "in which he expresses these delicate sentiments is, unfortunately, lost." some months after his return to england he resumed his correspondence with harness, and both the friends assembled at newstead. harness, however, as a clergyman, was severe in his judgments. byron wrote to him:-- "you are censorious, child: when you are a little older, you will learn to dislike every body, but abuse nobody.... i thank you most truly for the concluding part of your letter. i have been of late not much accustomed to kindness from any quarter, and i am not the less pleased to meet with it again from one to whom i had known it earliest. i have not changed in all my ramblings; harrow, and of course yourself, never left me, and the 'dulces reminiscitur argos.' attended me to the very spot to which that sentence alludes in the mind of the fallen argive. our intimacy began before we began to date at all, and it rests with you to continue it till the hour which must number it and me with the things that were." two days afterward, he writes to him again a letter full of endearing expressions, couched in a friendly tone of interest, of which the following extracts are instances:-- "and now, child, what art thou doing? reading, i trust. i want to see you take a degree. remember, this is the most important period of your life; and don't disappoint your papa and your aunt and all your kin, besides myself. "you see, _mio carissimo_, what a pestilent correspondent i am likely to become; but then you shall be as quiet at newstead as you please, and i won't disturb your studies as i do now." on the th of december, of the same year, he invites moore to newstead and says, "h---- will be here, and a young friend named harness, the earliest and dearest i ever had from the third form at harrow to this hour." and, finally, he wrote to harness that he had no greater pleasure than to hear from him; indeed, that it was more than a pleasure. his later friends. when he had reached his nineteenth year, which was the second of his stay at cambridge, byron (having lost sight of most of his harrow friends to whom he dedicated his verses, and having lost both long and eddleston) suddenly found himself launched into the vortex of a university life, for which he had no liking. happily, however, he was thrown among young men of great distinction, whom fate had then gathered at cambridge. "it was so brilliant a constellation," says moore, "that perhaps such a one will never be seen again." among these he selected his friends from their literary merit. those he most distinguished were hobhouse, matthews, banks, and scroope davies. they formed a coterie at cambridge, and spent most of their holidays at newstead. hobhouse. sir john cam hobhouse, bart., since created a peer, under the name of lord broughton, is one of the statesmen and writers the memory of whom england most reveres. it is he whom byron addresses as moschus in the "hints from horace." after being byron's friend at college, he became his faithful companion likewise in his travels, and throughout his short-lived but brilliant career. it was he who accompanied byron in the fatal journey to seaham, where byron wedded miss milbank. it was he who stood best man on that occasion, and it was he whom byron selected as his executor. as soon as byron became of age in , the two friends left england together to visit greece, portugal, spain, and turkey. the results of these travels were, byron's first two cantos of "childe harold," and hobhouse's "journey across albania, and other provinces of turkey in europe and in asia." on their return to england, their intimacy did not cease. "hobhouse," byron was wont to say, "ever gets me out of difficulty;" and in his journal of he says, "hobhouse has returned. he is my best friend, the most animated and most amusing, and one whose knowledge is very deep and extensive. hobhouse told me ten thousand anecdotes of napoleon, which must be true. hobhouse is the most interesting of travelling companions, and really excellent." lord byron wished him to be his best man when he married miss milbank at seaham, and after his separation from her hobhouse joined him in switzerland. they travelled together through the oberland, and visited all the scenes which inspired that magnificent poem entitled "manfred." thence they left for italy, and visited it from north to south; from the alps to rome. the result of this journey was the fourth canto of "childe harold" from byron, and from hobhouse a volume of notes, which constitutes a work of very great merit. if such a companion was agreeable to byron, byron was not less so to hobhouse, who deplores a journey he had made without the company of that friend, whose perspicacity of observation and ingenious remarks united in producing that liveliness and good-humor, which take away half the sting of fatigue, and soften the aspect of danger and of difficulties. during his absence from england byron always insisted that all matters relating to the settlement of his affairs should pass through the hands of hobhouse, his "alter ego" when near or when absent. his highest testimony of regard and friendship for hobhouse, however, is to be found in the dedication of the fourth canto of "childe harold," which was written in italy in , and which is as follows:-- canto the fourth. _to john hobhouse, esq., a.m., f.r.s., etc._ venice, january , . my dear hobhouse,--after an interval of eight years between the composition of the first and last cantos of childe harold, the conclusion of the poem is about to be submitted to the public. in parting with so old a friend, it is not extraordinary that i should recur to one still older and better,--to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to whom i am far more indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened friendship, than--though not ungrateful--i can, or could be, to childe harold, for any public favor reflected through the poem on the poet,--to one whom i have known long and accompanied far, whom i have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril,--to a friend often tried and never found wanting;--to yourself. in so doing, i recur from fiction to truth; and in dedicating to you, in its complete or at least concluded state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, i wish to do honor to myself by the record of many years' intimacy with a man of learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honor. it is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flattery; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship; and it is not for you, nor even for others, but to relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, or lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter of good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that i thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which i have derived from their exertion. even the recurrence of the date of this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate day of my past existence,[ ] but which can not poison my future while i retain the resource of your friendship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few men have experienced, and no one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself. it has been our fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, and fable--spain, greece, asia minor, and italy; and what athens and constantinople were to us a few years ago, venice and rome have been more recently. the poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it may be a pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with complacency on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it was produced, and the objects it would fain describe; and however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of our distant conceptions and immediate impressions, yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production, and i part with it with a kind of regret, which i hardly suspected that events could have left me for imaginary objects. with regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. the fact is, that i had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the chinese in goldsmith's "citizen of the world," whom nobody would believe to be a chinese, it was in vain that i asserted, and imagined that i had drawn, a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that i determined to abandon it altogether--and have done so. the opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject, are _now_ a matter of indifference: the work is to depend on itself and not on the writer; and the author, who has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors. in the course of the following canto it was my intention, either in the text or in the notes, to have touched upon the present state of italian literature, and perhaps of manners. but the text, within the limits i proposed, i soon found hardly sufficient for the labyrinth of external objects, and the consequent reflections; and for the whole of the notes, excepting a few of the shortest, i am indebted to yourself, and these were necessarily limited to the elucidation of the text. it is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us--though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people among whom we have recently abode--to distrust, or at least defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. the state of literary as well as political party appears to run, or to _have_ run, so high, that for a stranger to steer impartially between them is next to impossible. it may be enough then, at least for my purpose, to quote from their own beautiful language--"mi pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lingua la più nobile ed insieme la più dolce, tutte tutte le vie diverse si possouo tentare, e che sinche la patria di alfieri e di monti non ha perduto l'antico valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la prima." italy has great names still: canova, monti, ugo foscolo, pindemonte, visconti, morelli, cicognara, albrizzi, mezzophanti, mai, mustoxidi, aglietti, and vacca, will secure to the present generation an honorable place in most of the departments of art, sciences, and belles-lettres; and in some the very highest. europe--the world--has but one canova. it has been somewhere said by alfieri, that "la pianta uomo nasce più robusta in italia che in qualunque altra terra--e che gli stessi atroci delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova." without subscribing to the latter part of his proposition--a dangerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the italians are in no respect more ferocious than their neighbors--that man must be willfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible, their _capabilities_, the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of beauty, and amid all the disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the desolation of battles, and the despair of ages, their still unquenched "longing after immortality"--the immortality of independence. and when we ourselves, in riding round the walls of rome, heard the simple lament of the laborers' chorus, "roma! roma! roma! roma non è più come era prima," it was difficult not to contrast this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the london taverns, over the carnage of mont st. jean, and the betrayal of genoa, of italy of france, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our history. for me,-- "non movero mai corda ove la turba di sue ciance assorda." what italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for englishmen to inquire, till it becomes ascertained that england has acquired something more than a permanent array and a suspended habeas corpus; it is enough for them to look at home. for what they have done abroad, and especially in the south "verily they _will have_ their reward," and at no very distant period. wishing you, my dear hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, i dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and repeat once more how truly i am ever, your obliged and affectionate friend, byron. matthews. "of this remarkable young man, charles skinner matthews," says moore, "i have already had occasion to speak; but the high station which he held in lord byron's affection and admiration may justify a somewhat ampler tribute to his memory. "there have seldom, perhaps, started together in life so many youths of high promise and hope as were to be found among the society of which lord byron formed a part at cambridge. among all these young men of learning and talent, the superiority in almost every department of intellect seems to have been, by the ready consent of all, awarded to matthews.... young matthews appears--in spite of some little asperities of temper and manner, which he was already beginning to soften down when snatched away--to have been one of those rare individuals who, while they command deference, can at the same time win regard, and who, as it were, relieve the intense feeling of admiration which they excite by blending it with love." matthews died while bathing in the cam. on the th of september, , byron wrote to dallas as follows:--"matthews, hobhouse, davies, and myself, formed a coterie of our own at cambridge and elsewhere.... davies, who is not a scribbler, has always beaten us all in the war of words. h---- and myself always had the worst of it with the other two, and even m---- yielded to the dashing vivacity of s. d----." and in another letter:--"you did not know m----: he was a man of the most astonishing powers." and again, speaking of his death to mr. hodgson, he writes:-- "you will feel for poor hobhouse; matthews was the god of his idolatry: and if intellect could exalt a man above his fellows, no one would refuse him pre-eminence." matthews died at the time when he was offering himself to compete for a lucrative and honorable position in the university. as soon as his death was known, it was said that if the highest talents could be sure of success, if the strictest principles of honor, and the devotion to him of a multitude of friends could have assured it, his dream would have been realized. besides a great superiority of intellect, matthews was gifted with a very amusing originality of thought, which, joined to a very keen sense of the ridiculous, exercised a kind of irresistible fascination. lord byron, who loved a joke better than any one, took great pleasure in all the amusing eccentricities of him who was styled the dean of newstead; while byron had been christened by him the abbot of that place. shortly before his death, in , byron wrote a very amusing letter from ravenna to murray, recalling a host of anecdotes relating to matthews, and which well set forth the clever eccentricity of the man for whom byron professed so much esteem and admiration. scroope davies. we have already seen what byron thought of davies. his cleverness, his great vivacity, and his gayety, were great resources to byron in his moments of affliction. when, in , byron experienced the bitterest loss of his life--that of his mother--he wrote from newstead to beg that davies would come and console him. shortly after, he wrote to hodgson to say, "davies has been here. his gayety, which death itself can not change, has been of great service to me: but it must be allowed that our laughter was very false." we must not forget to mention, among the friends of byron, william banks, mr. pigott, of southwell, and mr. hodgson, a writer of great merit, who was one of his companions at newstead, and with whom he corresponded even during his voyage in the east. for all these he maintained throughout life the kindest remembrance, as also for mr. beecher, for whom he entertained a regard equal to his affection. mr. beecher having disapproved of the moral tendency of his early poems, lord byron destroyed in one night the whole of the first edition of those poems, in order to prove his sense of esteem for mr. beecher's opinion. in the same category we should place lord byron's friendship for dr. drury, his tutor at harrow; but this latter friendship is so marked with feelings of respect, veneration, and gratitude, that i had rather speak of it later, when i shall treat of the last-named quality, as one of the most noticeable in lord byron's character. grief which he experienced at the loss of his friends. the grief which the loss of his friends occasioned to him was proportioned to the degree of affection which he entertained for them. by a curious fatality he had the misfortune to lose at an early age, almost all those he loved. this grief reached its climax on his return from his first travels. "if," says moore, "to be able to depict powerfully the painful emotions it is necessary first to have experienced them, or, in other words, if, for the poet to be great, the man must suffer, lord byron, it must be owned, paid early this dear price of mastery. in the short space of one month," he says in a note on childe harold, "i have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who made that being tolerable." of these young wingfield, whom we have seen high on the list of his harrow favorites, died of a fever at coimbra; and matthews, the idol of his admiration at cambridge, was drowned while bathing in the cam. the following letter, written shortly after, shows so powerful a feeling of regret, and displays such real grief, that it is almost painful to peruse it: "my dearest davies,--some curse hangs over me and mine. my mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. what can i say, or think, or do? my dear scroope, if you can spare a moment, do come down to me; i want a friend. matthews's last letter was written on friday; on saturday he was not. in ability who was like matthews? come to me; i am almost desolate; left almost alone in the world. i had but you and h---- and m----, and let me enjoy the survivors while i can." writing to dallas on the first of august, he says:-- "besides her who gave me being, i have lost more than one who made that being tolerable. matthews, a man of the first talents, has perished miserably in the muddy waves of the cam; my poor school-fellow wingfield, at coimbra, within a month: and while i had heard from all three, but not seen one. but let this pass; we shall all one day pass along with the rest; the world is too full of such things, and our very sorrow is selfish." to hodgson he writes:-- "indeed, the blows followed each other so rapidly, that i am yet stupid from the shock; and though i do eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh at times, yet i can hardly persuade myself that i am awake, did not every morning convince me mournfully to the contrary. "you will write to me? i am solitary, and i never felt solitude irksome before." some months later he heard of the death of his friend eddleston, of which he wrote to dallas in the following terms: "i have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times. but 'i have almost forgot the taste of grief,' and 'supped full of horrors' till i have become callous, nor have i a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed down my head to the earth. it seems as though i were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age. my friends fall around me, and i shall be left a lonely tree before i am withered." on that same day, th of october, when his mind was a prey to such grief, he received a letter from hodgson, advising him to banish all cares and to find in pleasure the distraction he needed. lord byron replied by some lines which moore has reproduced; but the last of which he omitted to give, and which were written only to mystify the excellent mr. hodgson, who always looked at every thing and every one in a bright light, and whom byron wished to frighten. here are the first lines:-- "oh! banish care, such ever be the motto of _thy_ revelry! perchance of _mine_ when wassail nights renew those riotous delights, wherewith the children of despair lull the lone heart, and 'banish care,' but not in morn's reflecting hour." two days after replying in verse, he answered him in prose. "i am growing nervous--it is really true--really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically, nervous. i can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. my days are listless, and my nights restless." the same day, th october, , one of the darkest in his life, he wrote also his first stanza, addressed to thyrza, of which the pathetic charm seems to rise to the highest pitch. "to no other but an imaginary being," says moore, "could he have addressed such tender and melancholy poetical lines." byron's friendship for moore. at this time of his life, whether from the numerous injuries inflicted on him by men and by fate, or from some other circumstance, byron seemed to be less given to friendships than formerly. he felt the force of friendship as deeply as before, but he became less expansive. death, in taking so many of his friends away from him, had endeared those who remained still more to his heart, and caused him to seek among these the consolation he wanted. it is not true to say that lord byron was left alone entirely, at any time of his life: quite the contrary, he at all times lived in the midst of friends more or less devoted to him. dallas and moore pretend that there was a time in his early youth when he had no friends at all; but this time can not be stated, unless one forgets the names of hobhouse, hodgson, harness, clare, and many others who never lost sight of him, and unless one forgets the life of devotion which he led at southwell and at newstead both before and after his travels in the east. dallas and moore, in speaking of this momentary isolation, in all probability adopted a common prejudice which causes them to believe that a lord must ever be lonely unless he is surrounded by a circle of rich and fashionable companions. the truth is that byron, having left england immediately on quitting college, only had college connections, with all of whom he renewed his friendship on his return to the mother-country. but it is equally true, and this is to his credit, that he long hesitated to replace departed friends by new ones. to conquer this repugnance he required a very high degree of esteem for the friend he was about to make, a similarity of tastes, and above all a sympathy based upon real goodness. this was the time of his greatest mental depression. it preceded that splendid epoch in his life, when his star shone with such brilliancy in the literary sphere, thanks to "childe harold," and in the world of politics through his parliamentary successes, which had earned for him the praises of the whole nation. then did friends present themselves in scores, but out of these few were chosen. among the great men of the day who surrounded him, he took to several, and in particular to lord holland, a whig like himself, and a man equally distinguished for the excellence of his heart as for his rare intellect. lord holland's hospitality was the pride of england. byron also conceived a liking for lord lansdowne,--the model of every virtue, social and domestic; for lord dudley, whose wit so charmed him; for mr. douglas kinnaird, brother to lord kinnaird, whom byron called his most devoted friend in politics and in literature; for all those first notabilities of the day, rogers, sheridan, curran, mackintosh, for all of whom he may be said to have entertained a feeling akin to friendship. but all these were friends of the moment; friends whom the relations of every-day life in the world of fashion had brought together, and whose talents exacted admiration, and hence he formed ties which may be styled friendship, provided the strict sense of that word is not understood. byron felt this more than any one. one man, however, contrived to get such a hold on his mind and heart, that he became truly his friend, and exercised a salutary influence over him. this man, who contributed to dispel the dark clouds which hung over byron's mind, and was the first to charm him in his new life of fashion, was no other than thomas moore. this new intimacy had not, it is true, the freshness of his early friendships, formed, as these were, in the freshness of a young heart, and therefore without any worldly calculations. moore was even ten years his senior. but his affection for moore, founded as it was upon a similarity of tastes, upon mutual reminiscences, esteem and admiration, soon developed itself into a friendship which never changed. the circumstances under which byron and moore became friends speak too highly for the credit of both not to be mentioned here, and we must therefore say a few words on the subject. byron, as the reader knows, had in his famous satire of "english bards," etc., attacked the poems of moore as having an immoral tendency. instead of interpreting the beautiful irish melodies in their figurative sense, byron had taken the direct sense conveyed in their love-inspiring words, and considered them as likely to produce effeminate and unhealthy impressions. "who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir of virgins melting, not to vesta's fire, with sparkling eyes, and cheek by passion flush'd, strikes his wild lyre, while listening dames are hush'd? 'tis little! young catullus of his day, as sweet, but as immoral, in his lay! * * * * * * * yet kind to youth,... she bids thee 'mend thy line and sin no more.'" lord byron was always of opinion that literature, when it tends to exalt the more tender sentiments of our nature, pure as these may be, is ever injurious to the preservation of those manly and energetic qualities which are so essential for the accomplishment of a noble mission here below. this opinion is illustrated by the occasional extreme energy of his heroes, and by his repugnance to introduce love into his dramas. if this reproach offended moore a little, lord byron's allusion to his duel with jeffrey at chalk farm in , where it was said that the pistols of each were not loaded, must have wounded him still more, and he wrote a letter to lord byron which must, it would seem, have brought on a duel. lord byron was then travelling in the levant, and the letter remained with his agent in london. it was only two years after, on his return from his travels, that he received it. an exchange of letters with moore took place, and such was the "good sense, self-possession and frankness" of byron's conduct in the matter, that moore was quite pacified, and all chances of a duel disappeared with the reconciliation of both, at the request of each. the reconciliation took place under the auspices of rogers, and at a dinner given by the latter for that purpose. after speaking of his extraordinary beauty, and of the delicacy and prudence of his conduct, moore, in referring to this dinner, ends by saying, "such did i find lord byron on my first experience of him, and such, so open and manly-minded did i find him to the last." byron, too, was influenced by the charm of moore's acquaintance, and so dear to him became the latter's society through that kind of electric current which appears to run through some people and forms between them an unbounded sympathy, that it actually succeeded in dispelling the sombre ideas which then possessed his soul. their similarity of tastes, and at the same time those differences of character which are so essential to the development of the intellect of two sympathetic minds, were admirably adapted to form the charm which existed in their relations with one another. this sympathy, however, would never have found a place in the mind of lord byron had it not sprung from his heart. amiability was essential in his friends before he could love them; and though moore had not that quality in its highest degree, still he had it sufficiently for lord byron to say in one of his notes, "i have received the most amiable letter possible from moore. i really think him the most kind-hearted man i ever met. besides which, his talents are equal to his sentiments." his sympathy for moore was such that the mention of his name was enough to awaken his spirits and give him joy. this is palpable in his letters to moore, which are masterpieces of talent. his cordial friendship for moore was never once affected by the series of triumphs which followed its formation, and which made the whole world bow before his genius. "the new scenes which opened before him with his successes," says moore, "far from detaching us from one another, multiplied, on the contrary, the opportunities of meeting each other, and thereby strengthening our intimacy." this excessive liking for moore was kept up by all the force which constancy lends to affection. one of byron's most remarkable qualities was great constancy in his likes, tastes, and a particular attachment to the recollections of his childhood. at the age of fifteen, moore's "melodies" already delighted him. "i have just been looking over little moore's melodies, which i knew by heart at fifteen." in he wrote from ravenna: "hum! i really believe that all the bad things i ever wrote or did are attributable to that rascally book." we have seen that at southwell he used even to ask miss chaworth and miss pigott to sing him songs of moore. at cambridge, what reconciled him to leaving harrow were the hours which he spent with his beloved edward long, with whom he used to read moore's poetry after having listened to long's music. he already then had a sympathy for moore, and a wish to know him. the latter's place was therefore already marked out in byron's heart, even before he was fortunate enough to know him. moore's straitened means often obliged him to leave london. then byron was seized with a fit of melancholy. "i might be sentimental to-day, but i won't," he said. "the truth is that i have done all i can since i am in this world to harden my heart, and have not yet succeeded, though there is a good chance of my doing so. "i wish your line and mine were a little less parallel, they might occasionally meet, which they do not now. "i am sometimes inclined to write that i am ill, so as to see you arrive in london, where no one was ever so happy to see you as i am, and where there is no one i would sooner seek consolation from, were i ill." then, according to his habitual custom of ever depreciating himself morally, he writes to moore, in answer to the latter's compliments about his goodness: "but they say the devil is amusing when pleased, and i must have been more venomous than the old serpent, to have hissed or stung in your company." his sympathy for moore went so far as to induce him to believe that he was capable of every thing that is good. "moore," says he, in his memoranda of , "has a reunion of exceptional talents--poetry, music, voice, he has all--and an expression of countenance such as no one will ever have. "what humor in his poet's bag! there is nothing that moore can not do if he wishes. "he has but one fault, which i mourn every day--he is not here." he even liked to attribute to moore successes which the latter only owed to himself. byron had, as the reader knows, the most musical of voices. once heard, it could not be forgotten.[ ] he had never learned music, but his ear was so just, that when he hummed a tune his voice was so touching as to move one to tears. "not a day passes," he wrote to moore, "that i don't think and speak of you. you can not doubt my sincere admiration, waiving personal friendship for the present. i have you by rote and by heart, of which _ecce signum_." he then goes on to tell him his adventure when at lady o----'s:-- "i have a habit of uttering, to what i think tunes, your 'oh, breathe not,' and others; they are my matins and vespers. i did not intend them to be overheard, but one morning in comes not la donna, but il marita, with a very grave face, and said, 'byron, i must request you not to sing any more, at least of those songs.'--'why?'--'they make my wife cry, and so melancholy that i wish her to hear no more of them.' "now, my dear moore, the effect must have been from your words, and certainly not my music." to give moore the benefit of effecting a great success with an oriental poem, byron gave up his own idea of writing one, and sent him some turkish books. "i have been thinking of a story," says he, "grafted on the amours of a peri and a mortal, something like cayotte's 'diable amoureux.' tenderness is not my _forte_; for that reason i have given up the idea, but i think it a subject you might make much of." moore actually wished to write a poem on an oriental subject, but dreaded such a rival as byron, and expressed his fears in writing to him. byron replied:-- "your peri, my dear moore, is sacred and inviolable. i have no idea of touching the hem of her petticoat. your affectation of a dislike to encounter me is so flattering that i begin to think myself a very fine fellow. but it really puts me out of humor to hear you talk thus." not only did byron encourage moore in his task, but effaced himself completely in order to make room for him. when he published the "bride of abydos," moore remarked that there existed some connection in that poem with an incident he had to introduce in his own poem of "lalla rookh." he wrote thereupon to byron to say that he would stop his own work, because to aspire after him to describe the energy of passion would be the work of a cæsar. byron replied:-- "i see in you what i never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence of your own powers, which i can not account for, and which must be unaccountable when a cossack like me can appall a cuirassier. "go on--i shall really be very unhappy if i at all interfere with you. the success of mine is yet problematical ... come out, screw your courage to the sticking-place--no man stands higher, whatever you may think on a rainy day in your provincial retreat." to moore he dedicated his "corsair," and to read the preface is to see how sincerely attached byron was to his friend. when at venice he heard of some domestic affliction which had befallen moore; he wrote to him with that admirable simplicity of style which can not be imitated, because the true accents of the heart defy imitation. "your domestic afflictions distress me sincerely; and, as far as you are concerned, my feelings will always reach the furthest limits to which i may still venture. throughout life your losses shall be mine, your gains mine also, and, however much i may lose in sensibility, there will always remain a drop of it for you." when moore obtained his greatest success, and arrived at the summit of popularity, by the publication of "lalla rookh," byron's pleasure was equal to the encouragements he had given him. but of his noble soul, in which no feeling of jealousy could enter, we shall speak elsewhere. here, in conclusion, i must add that his friendship for moore remained stanch through time and circumstances, and even notwithstanding moore's wrongs toward him, of which i shall speak in another chapter. in treating of byron's friendships, i have endeavored to in set forth the wrongs which some of his friends, and moore particular, have committed against him both before and after his death. if, as moore observes, it be true that byron never lost a friend, was their friendship a like friendship with his own? has it ever gone so far as to make sacrifices for his sake, and has not lord byron ever given more as a friend than he ever received in return? had he found in his friendship among men that reciprocity of feeling which he ever found among women, would so many injuries and calumnies have been heaped upon his head? would not his friends, had they shown a little more warmth of affection, have been able to silence those numerous rivals who rendered his life a burden to him? had they been conscientious in their opinions, they would certainly not have drawn upon them the rather bitter lines in "childe harold:"-- "i do believe, though i have found them not, that there may be words which are things, hopes which will not deceive, and virtues which are merciful, nor weave snares for the failing; i would also deem o'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve, that two, or one, are almost what they seem, that goodness is no name, and happiness no dream." and later, in "don juan," byron would not have said with a smile, but also with a pain which sprang from the heart:-- "o job! you had two friends: one's quite enough, especially when we are ill at ease; they are but bad pilots when the weather's rough, doctors less famous for their cures than fees. let no man grumble when his friends fall off, as they will do like leaves at the first breeze; when your affairs come round, one way or t'other, go to the coffee-house and take another." it is, however, also true that he would not have had the opportunity of showing us so perfectly the beauty of his mind, and his admirable constancy, notwithstanding the conduct of those on whom he had bestowed his friendship. this constancy is shown even by his own words, for immediately after the lines quoted above, he adds:-- "but this is not my maxim; had it been, some heart-aches had been spared me." footnotes: [footnote : mossop, a contemporary of garrick, famous for his performance of zanga.] [footnote : his marriage.] [footnote : lord holland's youngest son, in speaking of byron, styled him "the gentleman with the beautiful voice."] chapter vii. lord byron considered as a father, as a brother, and as a son. his goodness shown by the strength of his instinctive affections. lord byron as a father. if, as a great moralist has said, our natural affections have power only upon sensitive and virtuous natures, but are despised by men of corrupt and dissipated habits, then must we find a proof again of lord byron's excellence in the influence which his affections exercised over him. his tenderness for his child, and for his sister, was like a ray of sunshine which lit up his whole heart, and in the moments of greatest depression prevented desolation from completely absorbing his nature. his thoughts were never far from the objects of his affection. cxv. "my daughter! with thy name this song begun; my daughter! with thy name thus much shall end; i see thee not, i hear thee not, but none can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend to whom the shadows of far years extend: albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold, my voice shall with thy future visions blend. and reach into thy heart, when mine is cold, a token and a tone, even from thy father's mould. cxvi. "to aid thy mind's development, to watch thy dawn of little joys, to sit and see almost thy very growth, to view thee catch knowledge of objects,--wonders yet to thee! to hold thee lightly on a gentle knee, and print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss, this, it should seem, was not reserved for me, yet this was in my nature: as it is, i know not what is there, yet something like to this. cxviii. * * * * * * * "sweet be thy cradled slumbers! o'er the sea and from the mountains where i now respire, fain would i waft such blessing upon thee, as, with a sigh, i deem thou might'st have been to me." who ever read "childe harold" and was not touched by the delightful stanzas of the third canto,--a perfect _chef-d'oeuvre_ of tenderness and kindness, inclosed, as it were, in another master-piece, like, were it possible, a jewel found in a diamond? those only, however, who lived with him in greece and in italy are able to bear witness to his paternal tenderness. this sentiment really developed itself on his leaving england, and only appears from that time forward in his poems. byron loved all children, but his heart beat really when he met children of ada's age. hearing at venice that moore had lost a child, he wrote to him, "i enter fully into your misery, for i feel myself entirely absorbed in my children. i have such tenderness for my little ada." both at ravenna and at pisa he was miserable if he did not hear from ada. whenever he received any portraits of her or a piece of her hair, these were solemn days of rejoicing for him, but they usually increased his melancholy. when in greece he heard of ada's illness, he was seized with such anxiety that he could no longer give his attention to any thing. "his journal (which, by-the-by, was lost or destroyed after his death) was interrupted on account of the news of his child's illness," says count gamba, in his narrative of byron's last voyage to greece. the thought of his child was ever present to him when he wrote, and she was the centre of all his hopes and his fears. the persecution to which he was subjected for having written "don juan," having made him fear one day at pisa that its effect upon his daughter might be to diminish her affection for him, he said:-- "i am so jealous of my daughter's entire sympathy, that, were this work, 'don juan'--(written to while away hours of pain and sorrow),--to diminish her affection for me, i would never write a word more; and would to god i had not written a word of it!" he likewise said that he was often wont to think of the time when his daughter would know her father by his works. "then," said he, "shall i triumph, and the tears which my daughter will then shed, together with the knowledge that she will share the feelings with which the various allusions to herself and me have been written, will console me in my darkest hours. ada's mother may have enjoyed the smiles of her youth and childhood, but the tears of her maturer age will be for me." he distinctly foresaw that his daughter would be brought up to look indifferently upon her father; but he never could have believed that such means would be adopted, as were used, to alienate from him the heart of his own child. we will give one instance only, mentioned by colonel wildman, the companion and friend of byron, who had bought newstead, of which he took the most religious care. having in london made the acquaintance of ada, then lady lovelace, the colonel invited her to pay a visit to the late residence of her illustrious father, and she went to see it sixteen months before byron's death. as lady lovelace was looking over the library one morning, the colonel took a book of poems and read out a poem with all the force of the soul and heart. lady lovelace, in rapture with this poem, asked the name of its writer. "there he is," said the colonel, pointing to a portrait of byron, painted by phillips, which hung over the wall, and he accompanied his gesture by certain remarks which showed what he felt at the ignorance of the daughter. lady lovelace remained stupefied, and, from that moment, a kind of revolution took place in her feelings toward her father. "do not think, colonel," she said, "that it is affectation in me to declare that i have been brought up in complete ignorance of all that concerned my father." never had lady lovelace seen even the writing of her father; and it was murray who showed it to her for the first time. from that moment an enthusiasm for her father filled her whole soul. she shut herself up for hours in the rooms which he had inhabited, and which were still filled with the things which he had used. here she devoted herself to her favorite studies. she chose to sleep in the apartments which were most particularly hallowed by the reminiscences of her father, and appeared never to have been happier than during this stay at newstead, absorbed as she had become for the first time in all the glory of him whose tenderness for her had been so carefully concealed from her. from that time all appeared insipid and tasteless to her; existence became a pain. every thing told her of her father's renown, and nothing could replace it. all these feelings so possessed her that she fell ill, and when she was on the point of death she wrote to colonel wildman to beg that she might be buried next to her illustrious father. there, in the modest village church of hucknell, lie the father and the daughter, who, separated from one another during their lifetime, became united in death, and thus were realized, in a truly prophetic way, the words which close the admirable third canto of "childe harold's pilgrimage." words of consolation for those who loved byron, and whom religion and philosophy inspire with hope; for they think that, despite his enemies, this union of their mortal remains must be the symbol of their union above, and that the prophetic sense of the words pronounced in the agony of despair will be realized by an eternal happiness. cxvii. "yet, though dull hate as duty should be taught, i know that thou wilt love me; though my name should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught with desolation, and a broken claim: though the grave closed between us,--'twere the same, i know that thou wilt love me; though to drain _my_ blood from out thy being were an aim and an attainment,--all would be in vain,-- still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain." lord byron as a brother. fraternal love was no less conspicuous in him than his paternal affection. it may be easily conceived how great must have been the influence over one who cared so much for friends in general, of that affection which is the perfection of love, and, at the same time, the most delicate, peaceful, and charming of sentiments. such a love has neither misunderstandings to dread, nor misrepresentations to fear. it is above the caprices, ennui, and changes which often rule the friendships of our choice. from his return from his first travels in the east, to the time of his publishing the first two cantos of "childe harold," byron may be said not to have known his sister. the daughter of another mother, and older by several years than himself,--living as she did with relations of her mother, brought up as she was by her grandmother, lady carmarthen, and married as she had been at an early age to the hon. colonel leigh, lord byron had had very few opportunities of seeing her. it was only on his return from the east that he began to have some correspondence with her, on the occasion of his publication of "childe harold." notwithstanding all these circumstances, which might tend to lessen in him his love for his sister, his affection for her on the contrary increased. the reader has observed that about this time, under the pressure of repeated sorrows, a shade of misanthropy had spread itself over his character, notwithstanding that such a failing was totally contrary to his nature. the acquaintance with his sister helped greatly to dispel this veil, and, thanks to it, he was able to get rid of the first sorrowful impressions of youth. his dear augusta became the confidant of his heart; and his pen on the one hand, and his sister on the other, were the means of curing him of all ills. her influence over him is shown by the love expressed for her in his letters and his notes at that time, and her prudent advice often puts to flight the more unruly dictates of his imagination. thus, on one occasion, mrs. musters (miss chaworth) wrote to ask byron to come and see her. she was miserable that she had preferred her husband to the handsome young man now the celebrated byron. byron is tempted to go and see her; he loved her so dearly when a boy. but augusta thought it dangerous that he should go and see her, and byron does not. "augusta wishes that i should be reconciled with lord carlisle," he says. "i have refused this to every body, but i can not to my sister. i shall, therefore, have to do it, though i had as lief 'drink up esil,' or 'eat a crocodile.'" "we will see. ward, the hollands, the lambs, rogers, every one has, more or less, tried to settle these matters during the past two years, but unsuccessfully; if augusta succeeds it will be odd, and i shall laugh." to refuse his sister any thing was out of the question. he loved her so much that the least likeness to her in any woman was enough to attract his sympathy. if ill, he would not have his sister know it; if she was unwell, he can not rest until he received better accounts of her health. nothing, however, shows better his love for her than the lines with which she inspired him at the time of his deepest distress; that is, on leaving england for switzerland. i can not transcribe them altogether, but i can not refuse myself the satisfaction of quoting some extracts from them. i. "when all around grew drear and dark, and reason half withheld her ray-- and hope but shed a dying spark, which more misled my lonely way, * * * * * * * thou wert the solitary star which rose and set not to the last. iv. "oh! blest be thine unbroken light! that watch'd me as a seraph's eye, and stood between me and the night, forever shining sweetly nigh. vi. "still may the spirit dwell on mine, and teach it what to brave or brook; there's more in one soft word of thine than in the world's defied rebuke." again, "though human, thou didst not deceive me, though woman, thou didst not forsake, though loved, though forborest to grieve me, though slandered, thou never couldst shake, though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, though parted, it was not to fly, though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, nor, mute, that the world might belie. * * * * * * * "from the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, thus much i at least may recall, it hath taught me that what i most cherish'd deserved to be dearest of all." this deep fraternal affection, assumed at times under the influence of his powerful genius, and under exceptional circumstances an almost too passionate expression, which opened a fresh field to his enemies. but it was to him a consolation and a benefit, which did him good throughout his short career; and even at the times when troubles came pouring down upon him, the love of his sister, though not sufficient to give him courage enough to bear up, still always appeared to him as a hope and an encouragement to do well. lord byron as a son. the two sentiments of which we have just spoken were so strong and so proved in lord byron, that it would be almost useless to speak of them, were it not for the pleasure which there is in recalling them. but there is another natural affection which, though less manifested, was not less felt by byron; i mean his filial love. many biographers, and moore at their head, have not, for reasons to which i have alluded in another chapter, been fair to his mother. besides the motives which seem always to have actuated them in the exaggeration of his faults, and of the smallest particulars of his life, they wished, i believe, to give to their narrative a more amusing character. moore would seem to say that byron's childhood was badly directed; but how so? does he mean that his mother did not justly appreciate the peculiarities of her child's character, or promote the fine dispositions of his nature? but such a discernment in parents is matter of rare occurrence, and can it be said that many known characters have been handled according to the scientific rules here laid down? those who speak of these fine theories would, we fear, be rather puzzled by their application, were they called to do so. it is matter of note that byron was surrounded as a child with the tenderest care. at a very early age he was handed over, by his over-indulgent mother and nurses, to most respectable, intelligent, and devoted masters; and at no time of his youth was either his physical, intellectual, or moral education ever neglected. i may add that byron's mother was respected, both as a wife and as a mother. she was an heiress belonging to a most ancient scotch family, and closely allied to the royal house of stuart, and was the second wife of the youngest son of admiral byron,--an unusually handsome man, and father to the poet. though this man had been rather spoiled by the world, and had not rendered her life perfectly happy, she loved him passionately, and was most devoted to him. when he died, four years after their marriage, her grief was such that it completely changed her nature. a widow at twenty-three, she centred in her only child all the depth of her affection, and though her fortune was considerably reduced, she still had enough to render her child's life comfortable, so that his education did not suffer by it. he was scarcely six years of age when he succeeded to the barony of his great-uncle, and this circumstance in a young englishman's life always means increased prosperity. his childhood was, therefore, most decidedly fortunate in many respects. this is all the more certain that byron, throughout his life, always spoke of his happy childhood, and that his ideal of human happiness never seems to have been realized except at that time. but, notwithstanding moore's exaggerations, and the excessive kindness of his mother, whose whole life was centred in the one thought of amusing her child, it is very likely that byron's passionate nature may have rendered his relations at home less agreeable than they might have been. however much this may have been the case, it is still more certain that such little family dissensions never produced in his mind the slightest germ of ingratitude toward or want of care for his mother, and that the recollection of his passionate moments only served to make him acquire by his own efforts that wonderful self-possession for which he was afterward remarkable. his filial sentiments betrayed themselves at every period, and in every circumstance of his life. the reader has seen how, at harrow, by showing the names of their parents written on the wall, he prevented his comrades from setting fire to the school. on attaining his majority, his first care was to improve the financial condition of his mother, notwithstanding the shattered state of his fortune, and to prepare a suitable apartment for her at newstead. when the cruel criticisms of the "edinburgh review" condemned his first steps in the career of literature, his chief care after the first explosion of his own sorrow, was to allay, as far as he could, the sensitiveness of his mother, who, not having the same motive or power to summon up a spirit of resistance, was, of course, more helplessly alive to this attack upon his fame, and felt it far more than, after the first burst of indignation, he did himself. during his first travels to the east his affairs were in a very embarrassed state. but, nevertheless, here are the terms in which he wrote to his mother from constantinople:-- "if you have occasion for any pecuniary supply, pray use my funds as far as they go, without reserve; and, lest this should not be enough, in my next to mr. h---- i will direct him to advance any sum you may want." there is a degree of melancholy in the letter which he wrote to his mother on his return to england. he had received most deplorable accounts of his affairs when at malta, and he applied the terms apathy and indifference to the sentiments with which he approached his native land. he goes on to say, however, that the word apathy is not to be applied to his mother, as he will show; that he wishes her to be the mistress of newstead, and to consider him only as the visitor. he brings her presents of all kinds, etc. "that notwithstanding this alienation," adds moore, "which her own unfortunate temper produced, he should have continued to consult her wishes, and minister to her comforts with such unfailing thoughtfulness (as is evinced not only in the frequency of his letters, but in the almost exclusive appropriation of newstead to her use), redounds in no ordinary degree to his honor." this want of affection never existed but in the minds of some of byron's biographers. lord byron knew that his mother doted upon him, and that she watched his growing fame with feverish anxiety. his successes were passionately looked forward to by her. she had collected in one volume all the articles which had appeared upon his first poems and satires, and had written her own remarks in the margin, which showed that she was possessed of great good sense and considerable talent. could, then, such a heart as lord byron's be ungrateful, and not love such a mother? mr. galt, a biographer of byron's, who is certainly not to be suspected of partiality, renders him, however, full justice in regard to his filial devotion during the life of his mother, and to the deep distress which he felt at her death. "in the mean time, while busily engaged in his literary projects with mr. dallas, and in law affairs with his agent, he was suddenly summoned to newstead by the state of his mother's health. before he reached the abbey she had breathed her last. the event deeply affected him. notwithstanding her violent temper, her affection for him had been so fond and ardent that he undoubtedly returned it with unaffected sincerity; and, from many casual and incidental expressions which i have heard him employ concerning her, i am persuaded that this filial love was not at any time even of an ordinary kind." on the night after his arrival at the abbey, the waiting-woman of mrs. byron, in passing the door of the room where the corpse lay, heard the sound of some one sighing heavily within, and, on entering, found his lordship sitting in the dark beside the bed. she remonstrated, when he burst into tears, and exclaimed, "i had but one friend in the world, and she is gone!" this same filial devotion often inspired him with beautiful lines, such as those in the third canto of "childe harold," when standing before the tomb of julia alpinula, he exclaims: lxvi. "and there--oh! sweet and sacred be the name!-- julia--the daughter, the devoted--gave her youth to heaven; her heart, beneath a claim nearest to heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave. justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave the life she lived in; but the judge was just, and then she died on him she could not save. their tomb was simple, and without a bust, and held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust. lxvii. "but these are deeds which should not pass away, and names that must not wither, though the earth forgets her empires with a just decay, the enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth; the high, the mountain-majesty of worth should be, and shall, survivor of its woe, and from its immortality look forth in the sun's face, like yonder alpine snow, imperishably pure beyond all things below." as a note to the above, byron writes: "julia alpinula, a young aventian priestess, died soon after a vain attempt to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by aulus coecina. her epitaph was discovered many years ago; it is thus: "julia alpinula: hic jaceo. infelicis patris, infelix proles. deÆ aventiÆ sacerdos. exorare patris necem non potui: male mori in fatis ille erat. vixi annos xxiii. "i know," adds byron, "of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. these are the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness." his father having died in , when byron was only four years of age, he could not know him; but to show how keen were his sentiments toward his memory, i must transcribe a note of murray's after the following lines in "hours of idleness:"-- "stern death forbade my orphan youth to share the tender guidance of a father's care; can rank, or e'en a guardian's name supply the love which glistens in a father's eye?" "in all the biographies which have yet been published of byron," remarks murray, "undue severity has been the light by which the character of byron's father has been judged. like his son, he was unfortunately brought up by a mother only. admiral byron, his father, being compelled by his duties to live away from his family, the son was brought up in a french military academy, which was not likely at that time to do his morals much good. he passed from school into the coldstream guards, where he was launched into every species of temptation imaginable, and likely to present themselves to a young man of singular beauty, and heir to a fine name, in the metropolis of england." the unfortunate intrigue, of which so much has been said, as if it had compromised his reputation as a man of honor, took place when he was just of age, and he died in france at the age of thirty-five. one can hardly understand why the biographers of byron have insisted upon depreciating the personal qualities of his father, apart from the positively injurious and wicked assertions made against him in memoirs of lord byron's life, and in reviews of such memoirs. some severe reflections of this kind having found their way into the preface to a french translation of byron's works, which appeared shortly before the latter's departure for greece, called for an expostulation by the son himself on behalf of his father, in a letter addressed to mr. coulmann, who had been charged to offer to the poet the homage of the french literary men of the day. this letter is interesting in more than one particular, as it re-establishes in their true light several facts wrongly stated with regard to byron's family, and because it is, perhaps, the last letter which byron wrote from italy. it is quoted _in extenso_ in the chapter entitled "byron's life in italy."[ ] i can only repeat here the words which apply more particularly to his father:-- "the author of the essay (m. pichot) has cruelly calumniated my father. far from being brutal, he was, according to the testimony of all those who knew him, extremely amiable, and of a lively character, though careless and dissipated. he had the reputation of being a good officer, and had proved himself such in america. the facts themselves belie the assertion. it is not by brutal means that a young officer seduces and elopes with a marchioness, and then marries two heiresses in succession. it is true that he was young, and very handsome, which is a great point. "his first wife, lady conyers, marchioness of carmarthen, did not die of a broken heart, but of an illness which she contracted because she insisted on following my father out hunting before she had completely recovered from her confinement, immediately after the birth of my sister augusta. his second wife, my mother, who claims every respect, had, i assure you, far too proud a nature ever to stand ill-treatment from any body, and would have proved it had it been the case. i must add, that my father lived a long time in paris, where he saw a great deal of the maréchal de biron, the commander of the french guards, who, from the similarity of our names, and of our norman extraction, believed himself to be our cousin. my father died at thirty-seven years of age, and whatever faults he may have had, cruelty was not one of them. if the essay were to be circulated in england, i am sure that the part relating to my father would pain my sister augusta even more than myself, and she does not deserve it; for there is not a more angelic being on earth. both augusta and i have always cherished the memory of our father as much as we cherished one another,--a proof, at least, that we had no recollection of any harsh treatment on his part. if he dissipated his fortune, that concerns us, since we are his heirs; but until we reproach him with the fact, i know of no one who has a right to do so. byron." from all that has been said it will be seen that byron's sensitive heart was eminently adapted to family affections. affection alone made him happy, and his nature craved for it. he was often rather influenced by passion than a seeker of its pleasures, and whenever he found relief in the satisfaction of his passions, it was only because there was real affection at the bottom,--an affection which tended to give him those pleasures of intimacy in which he delighted. footnotes: [footnote : this chapter is to be published separately, at no very distant period, by the author.--_note of the translator._] chapter viii. qualities of lord byron's heart. gratitude,--that honesty of the soul which is even greater than social honesty, since it is regulated by no express law, and that most uncommon virtue, since it proscribes selfishness,--was pre-eminently conspicuous in lord byron. to forget a kindness done, a service rendered, or a good-natured proceeding, was for him an impossibility. the memories of his heart were even more astonishing than those of his mind. his affection for his nurses, for his masters, for all those who had taken care of him when a boy, is well known; and how great was his gratitude for all that doctor drury had done for him! his early poems are full of it. his grateful affection for drury he felt until his last hour. this quality was so strong in him, that it not only permitted him to forget all past offenses, but even rendered him blind to any fresh wrongs. it sufficed to have been kind to him once, to claim his indulgence. the reader remembers that jeffrey had been the most cruel of the persecutors of his early poems, but that later he had shown more impartiality. this act of justice appeared to byron a generous act, and one sufficient for him in return to forget all the harm done to him in the past. we accordingly find in his memoranda of :-- "it does honor to the editor (jeffrey), because he once abused me: many a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its censure, or _can_ praise the man it has once attacked." yet jeffrey, who was eminently a critic, gave fresh causes of displeasure to byron at a later period, and then it was that he forgot the present on recalling the past. in speaking of this scotch critic, he considered himself quite disarmed. when at venice, he heard that he had been attacked about coleridge in the "edinburgh review," he wrote as follows to murray:-- "the article in the 'edinburgh review' on coleridge, i have not seen; but whether i am attacked in it or not, or in any other of the same journal, i shall never think ill of mr. jeffrey on that account, nor forget that his conduct toward me has been certainly most handsome during the last four or more years."[ ] and instead of complaining of this attack, he laughed at it with moore:-- "the 'edinburgh review' had attacked me.... et tu, jeffrey! 'there is nothing but roguery in villainous man.' but i absolve him of all attacks, present and future; for i think he had already pushed his clemency in my behoof to the utmost, and i shall always think well of him. i only wonder he did not begin before, as my domestic destruction was a fine opening for all who wished to avail themselves of the opportunity."[ ] his great sympathy for walter scott became quite enthusiastic, owing also to a feeling of gratitude for a service rendered to him by scott. shortly after his arrival in italy, and the publication of the third canto of "childe harold," public opinion in england went completely against him, and an article appeared in the "quarterly review," by an anonymous pen, in his defense. byron was so touched by this, that he endeavored to find out the name of its writer. "i can not," he said to murray, "express myself better than in the words of my sister augusta, who (speaking of it) says, 'that it is written in a spirit of the most feeling and kind nature.' it is, however, something more: it seems to me (as far as the subject of it may be permitted to judge) to be very well written as a composition, and i think will do the journal no discredit; because, even those who condemn its partiality, must praise its generosity. the temptations to take another and a less favorable view of the question have been so great and numerous, that what with public opinion, politics, etc., he must be a gallant as well as a good man, who has ventured in that place, and at this time, to write such an article even anonymously. "perhaps, some day or other, you will know or tell me the writer's name. be assured, had the article been a harsh one, i should not have asked it." he afterward learnt that the article had been written by walter scott, and his sympathy was so increased by his gratitude for the service rendered, that he never after seemed happier than when he could extol scott's talents and kindness. gratitude, which often weighs upon one as a duty, so captivated his soul, that the remembrance of the kindness done to him was wont to turn into an affectionate devotion, which time could not change. long after the appearance of the article, he wrote as follows to scott from pisa:-- "i owe to you far more than the usual obligations for the courtesies of literature and common friendship, for you went out of your way in to do me a service, when it required, not merely kindness, but courage to do so; to have been mentioned by you, in such a manner, would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time, 'when all the world and his wife,' as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was something still more complimentary to my self-esteem. had it been a common criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, i should have felt pleased, undoubtedly, and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must induce in any mind capable of such sensations. the very tardiness of this acknowledgment will, at least, show that i have not forgotten the obligation; and i can assure you, that my sense of it has been out at compound interest during the delay." gratitude, with him, was oftentimes a magnifying-glass which he used when he had to appreciate certain merits. no doubt gifford was a judicious, clear-sighted, and impartial critic, but byron extolled him as an oracle of good taste, and submitted like a child to his decisions. gratitude levelled every social condition in his eyes, as we may see by his correspondence with murray, where the proud aristocrat considers his publisher on a par with himself. moore marvelled at this; but moore forgets that murray was no ordinary publisher, and that, generous by nature, he made to byron on one occasion, in , when the noble poet was in great difficulties, the handsomest offers. lord byron refused them; but the act was so noble, that its impression was never effaced from byron's mind, and modified the nature of their relations. when he had recovered his fortune, he wrote to murray from ravenna:--"i only know of three men who would have raised a finger on my behalf; and one of those is yourself. it was in , when i was not even sure of a five-pound note. i refused your offer, but have preserved the recollection of it, though you may have lost it." to calculate the degree of gratitude due to a service rendered, would have seemed ingratitude in his eyes. he could create beings who were capable of doling it out in that way, but to apply it to himself was an impossibility. his predilection for the inhabitants of epirus, of albania, and for the suliotes, is known. this predilection originated in the gratitude which he felt for the care taken of him by two albanian servants who doted on him, during an illness which he had at patras at the time when he visited that place for the first time. it was also on the albanian coast that he was wrecked on one occasion, and where he received that hospitality which he has immortalized in don juan. byron's predilection for this people even overcame the effects which their ingratitude might have produced, for it is matter of history, how badly the barbarous suliotes behaved to him at missolonghi a short time before his death; they who had been so benefited by his kindness to them. the memory of services done to him was not susceptible of change, and neither time nor distance could in the least affect it. the moment he had contracted a debt of gratitude, he believed himself obliged to pay interest upon it all his life, even had he discharged his debt. one single anecdote will serve to illustrate the truth of these remarks. on the eve of his last departure from london in , when the cruelty of his enemies, powerfully seconded by the spite of lady byron, had succeeded in so perverting facts as to give their calumnies the color of truth, and to throw upon his conduct as a husband so false a light as to hold him up to universal execration, it required great courage to venture on his defense. lady jersey did it. she--who was then quite the mistress of fashion by her beauty, her youth, her rank, her fortune, and her irreproachable conduct--organized a fête in honor of byron, and invited all that was most distinguished in london to come and wish byron farewell. among those who responded to the noble courage of lady jersey was one equally deserving of praise, miss mercer, now lady k----. this conduct of miss mercer was all the more creditable that there had been a question of her marriage with lord byron, and that miss milbank had been preferred to her. this party gave byron a great insight into the human heart, and showed him all its beauty and all its baseness. the reflections which it caused him to make, and the frank account he gave of it in his memoirs--(the loss of which can never be too much regretted)--would not have pleased his survivors. this was unquestionably a powerful reason why the memoirs were destroyed. but byron cared not so much for the painful portion of this recollection, as he loved to remember the noble conduct of these two ladies. "how often he spoke to me of lady jersey, of her beauty and her goodness," says madame g----. "as to miss m----," he said, "she was a woman of elevated ideas, who had shown him more friendship than he deserved." one of the noblest tributes of gratitude and admiration which can be rendered to a woman was paid by lord byron to miss mercer. as he was embarking at dover, byron turned round to mr. scroope davies, who was with him, and giving him a little parcel which he had forgotten to give her when in london, he added: "tell her that had i been fortunate enough to marry a woman like her, i should not now be obliged to exile myself from my country." "if," pursues arthur dudley (evidently a name adopted by a very distinguished woman biographer), "the rare instances of devotion which he met in life reconciled him to humanity, with what touching glory used he not to repay it. the last accents of the illustrious fugitive will not be forgotten, and history will preserve through centuries the name of her to whom byron at such a time could send so flattering a message." but, as if all this were not enough, he actually consecrated in verse, a short time before his death, the memory of his gratitude to the noble women who had done so much honor to their sex:-- "i've also seen some female _friends_ ('tis odd, but true--as, if expedient, i could prove), that faithful were through thick and thin abroad, at home, far more than ever yet was love-- who did not quit me when oppression trod upon me; whom no scandal could remove; who fought, and fight, in absence, too, my battles, despite the snake society's loud rattles." it was on that occasion that hobhouse said to lady jersey, "who would not consent to be attacked in this way, to boast such a defense?" to which lady jersey might have replied, "but who would not be sufficiently rewarded by such gratitude, preserved in such a heart and immortalized in such verses?" impulses of lord byron. all those who have studied human nature agree that impulses show the natural qualities of the soul. "beware of your first impulses, they are always true," said a diplomatist, the same who insisted that speech was given us to conceal our thoughts. if such be the case, lord byron's goodness of heart is palpable, for all who knew him agree in bearing testimony to the extraordinary goodness of all his impulses. "his lordship," says parry, "was keenly sensitive at the recital of any case of distress, in the first instance; and advantage being taken of this feeling immediately, he would always relieve it when in his power. if this passion, however, was allowed to cool, he was no longer to be excited. this was a fault of lord byron's, as he frequently offered, upon the impulse of a moment, assistance which he would not afterward give, and therefore occasionally compromise his friends." to multiply quotations would only be to repeat the same proof. i shall therefore merely add that it was often the necessity of modifying the nobility of his first impulses which made him appear inconstant and changeable. effects of happiness and misfortune upon byron. "the effect of a great success," writes some one, "is ever bad in bad natures, but does good only to such as are really good in themselves." as the rays of the sun soften the honey and harden the mud, so the rays of happiness soften a good and tender heart, while they harden a base and egotistical nature. this proof has not been wanting in byron. his wonderful successes, which laid at his feet the homage of nations, and which might easily have made him vain and proud, only rendered him better, more amiable, and brighter. "i am happy," said dallas, on the occasion of the great success which greeted the publication of the first canto of "childe harold," "to think that his triumph, and the attention which he has attracted, have already produced upon him the soothing effect i had hoped. he was very lively to day." moore says the same; and galt is obliged to grant that, as byron became the object of public curiosity, his desire to oblige others increased. after giving a personal proof of byron's goodness to him, he ends by saying:-- "his conversation was then so lively, that gayety seemed to have passed into habit with him." it was also at that time that he wrote in his memoranda:--"i love ward, i love a----, i love b----," and then, as if afraid of those numerous sympathies, he adds: "oh! shall i begin to love the whole world?" this universal love was only the expression of the want of his soul which had mollified under the rays of that mild sun which is called happiness. effects of misfortune and injustice upon byron. if his natural goodness had so large a field to develop itself in happiness, it reached a degree of sublimity in misfortune. that byron's short life was full of real sorrows, i have shown in another chapter, when i had to prove their reality against those imputations of their being imaginary made by some of his biographers. he required a strength of mind equal to his genius and to his sensibility, to be able to resist the numerous ills with which he was assailed, throughout his life:-- "have i not had to wrestle with my lot? have i not suffered things to be forgiven? have i not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, hopes sapp'd, name blighted, life's life lied away?" such beautiful lines speak loudly enough of the intensity of his sufferings. great as they were, they did not, however, produce in him any feeling of hatred. to forgive was his only revenge; and not only did he forgive, but, the paroxysm of passion over, there was only room in his soul for those nobler feelings of patience, of toleration, of resignation, and of abnegation, of which no one in london can have formed a notion. the storms to which his soul was at times a prey only purified it, and discovered a host of qualities which are kept back often by the more powerful passions of youth. if he never attained that calmness of spirit which is the gift of those who can not feel, or perhaps of the saints, he at any rate, at the age of thirty-two, began to feel a contempt of all worldly and frivolous matters, and came to the resolution of forgiving most generously all offenses against him. shelley, who went to see him at ravenna, wrote to his wife "that if he had mischievous passions he seemed to have subdued them; and that he was becoming, what he should be,--a _virtuous man_." mme. de bury, in her excellent essay upon byron, expresses herself thus: "had his natural goodness not been great, the events which compelled him to leave his country, and which followed upon his departure, must have exercised over his mind the effect of drying it up; and, in lessening its power, would have forced him to give full vent to his passions." instead of producing such a result, they on the contrary purified it, and developed in him the germs of a host of virtues. i shall not tarry any longer, however, on this subject, as in another chapter i intend to consider byron's kindness of disposition from a far higher point of view. i shall only add his own words, which prove his goodness of character. "i can not," said he, "bear malice to any one, nor can i go to sleep with an ill thought against any body." absence of all jealous feelings in lord byron. among the infirmities of human nature, one of the most general, serious, and incurable, is certainly that of jealousy. being the essence of a disordered self-love, it presents several aspects, according to the different social positions of those whom it afflicts, and the degree of goodness of the people. it might, in my mind, almost be called the thermometer of the heart. but of all the jealousies, that which has done most harm on earth has been the jealousy of artists and of literary men. this kind of fever has at times risen to a degree inconceivable. it has raged so high as to call poison to its aid, to invoke the help of daggers and create assassins. but even putting aside these excesses, proper to southern countries, it is certain that everywhere and at all times jealousy has caused numberless cases of ingratitude, and has set brothers against brothers, friends against friends, and pupils against masters. great minds in france have not been altogether free from it. corneille, racine, voltaire, became a prey to its disastrous influences. in england dryden, addison, swift, shaftesbury, were its victims. so it has been everywhere, and in italy even petrarch, the meek and excellent petrarch, was not exempted from it. this moral infirmity is of so subtle a nature, that not only does it injure those who are devoted to those works of the mind, which can not be said to establish a solid claim to glory inasmuch as public opinion is judge, but also those whose influence being confined to a more limited sphere, should be less anxious about obtaining it. it finds so easy an access into the souls of men, that it is said that even plato was jealous of socrates, aristotle of plato, leibnitz of locke, and so forth. when we behold so many great minds at all times unable to avoid this jealousy, and that we see nowadays jealousy animating the pen of some of the best writers, and completely changing their moral sense, must we not admire the great goodness of him whom, though living in such a heated atmosphere of jealous rivalry, contrived wholly to escape its effects? this right i claim for lord byron, that he was the least jealous of any man, as the proofs which i shall bring forward will abundantly attest. if byron was jealous of the living, of whom could he have been so? of course of such who may have become his rivals in the sphere of literature which he had adopted. when byron appeared in the literary world, those who were most in repute were sir walter scott, rogers, moore, campbell, and the lakers southey, wordsworth, coleridge, and, later, shelley. on one occasion, in , byron amused himself by tracing what he called a "triangular gradus ad parnassum," in which the names of the principal poets then in renown are thus classified:-- sir w. scott, rogers, morre, campbell, southey, wordsworth, coleridge, the many to know best his feelings with respect to his rivals, we must listen to himself; and to preserve the order given in the triangle, let us begin by walter scott. we read in byron's memorandum of the th of september, :-- "george ellis and murray have been talking something about scott and me, george _pro_ scoto--and very right too. if they want to depose him, i only wish they would not set me up as a competitor. even if i had my choice, i would rather be the earl of warwick than all the kings he ever made! jeffrey and gifford i take to be the monarch-makers in poetry and prose. i like scott--and admire his works to what mr. braham calls entusymusy. all such stuff can only vex him, and do me no good." and elsewhere: "i have not answered w. scott's last letter, but i will. i regret to hear from others that he has lately been unfortunate in pecuniary involvements. he is undoubtedly the monarch of parnassus, and the most english of bards." when these expressions were written, byron did not know scott personally; but notwithstanding his satire, of which he had often made a generous retractation, he had always felt a great sympathy for scott, who, on the other hand, appeared to have forgotten the wound inflicted by byron's youthful pen, only to remember the latter's heartfelt praises. a few years after the publication of "english bards" and just after that of "childe harold," byron and sir w. scott manifested a mutual desire to make each other's acquaintance through the medium of murray, who was then travelling in scotland. an exchange of letters full of mutual generosity had taken place, when george iv., then regent, expressed the wish to make byron's acquaintance. after speaking to him of "childe harold," in terms which byron was always proud to recall, the prince went on to speak of walter scott in the most enthusiastic terms. byron seemed almost as pleased as if the praise had been addressed to himself, and hastened to make his illustrious rival acquainted with the flattering words used by royalty with regard to him. it was only in the summer of that they became personally acquainted. scott was then passing through london on his way to france. their sympathy was mutual. byron, who had been married seven months, already foresaw that a storm was brewing in his domestic affairs, which explains the mysterious melancholy, observed by scott, upon the countenance of his young friend. scott's liveliness, however, always brought about a return of byron's spirits, and their meetings were always very gay, "the gayest even," says scott, "that i ever spent." byron's handsomeness produced a great impression upon scott. "it is a beauty," said he, "which causes one to reflect and to dream;" as if he wished one to understand that he thought byron's beauty superhuman. "report had prepared me to meet a man of peculiar habits and a quick temper, and i had some doubt whether we were likely to suit each other in society. i was most agreeably disappointed in this respect. i found lord byron in the highest degree courteous, and even kind. "like the old heroes in homer, we exchanged gifts: i gave byron a beautiful dagger mounted with gold, which had been the property of the redoubted elfi bey. but i was to play the part of diomed in the iliad, for byron sent me, some time after, a large sepulchral vase of silver. it was full of dead men's bones, and had inscriptions on the sides of the base. one ran thus:--"the bones contained in this urn were found in certain ancient sepulchres within the land walls of athens in the month of february, . the other face bears the lines of juvenal-- 'expende quot libras in duce summo invenies. mors sola fatetur quantula hominum corpuscula.' "a letter," adds w. scott, "accompanied this vase, which was more valuable to me than the gift itself, from the kindness with which the donor expressed himself toward me. i left it, naturally, in the urn with the bones, but it is now missing. as the theft was not of a nature to be practiced by a mere domestic, i am compelled to suspect the inhospitality of some individual of higher station,--most gratuitously exercised certainly, since, after what i have here said, no one will probably choose to boast of possessing this literary curiosity." their mutual sympathy increased upon improved acquaintance with one another. when at venice byron was informed that scott was ill, he said that he would not for all the world have him ill. "i suppose it is from sympathy that i have suffered from fever at the same time." at ravenna a little later, on the th of january, , he wrote down in his memoranda:-- "scott is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. his novels are a new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any, if not better (only on an erroneous system), and only ceased to be so popular, because the vulgar learned were tired of hearing aristides called the just, and scott the best, and ostracized them. "i like him, too, for his manliness of character, for the extreme pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature toward myself personally. may he prosper! for he deserves it. "i know no reading to which i fall with such alacrity as a work of w. scott's. i shall give the seal with his bust on it to mlle. la comtesse guiccioli this evening, who will be curious to have the effigies of a man so celebrated." he did take the seal to the countess guiccioli, and she said that byron's expressions about scott were always most affectionate. "how i wish you knew him!" he often repeated. he used to say that it was not the poetry of "child harold," but scott's own superior prose that had done his poetry harm, and that if ever the public could by chance get tired of his novels, scott might write in verse with equal success. he insisted that scott had a dramatic talent, "talent," he said, "which people are loth to grant me." he said that the success of scott's novels was not in the least due to the anonymous character he had adopted, and that he could not understand why he would not sign his name to works of such merit. he likewise asserted that of all the authors of his period, scott was the least jealous. "he is too sure of his fame to fear any rivals, nor does he think of good works as tuscans do of fever; that there is only a certain amount of it in the world, and that in communicating it to others, one gets rid of it." "i never travel without taking scott's novels with me," said byron to medwin, at pisa; "it is a real library, a literary treasure; i can read them yearly with renewed pleasure." a few days before his departure for greece, he learned that m. stendhall had published an article upon racine and shakspeare, wherein there were some unfavorable remarks about walter scott. notwithstanding his occupations preparatory to departure, he found time to write to stendhall, and tell him how much he felt the injustice of these remarks, and to request that they should be rectified. this letter of byron's to m. beyle will no doubt be read with universal admiration, as it points out most prominently all the goodness of his character:-- "sir,--now that i know to whom i am indebted for a very flattering mention in the 'rome, naples, and florence, in ,' by monsieur stendhall, it is fit that i should return my thanks (however undesired or undesirable) to monsieur beyle, with whom i had the honor of being acquainted at milan in .[ ] you only did me too much honor in what you were pleased to say in that work, but it has hardly given me less pleasure than the praise itself, to become at length aware (which i have done by mere accident) that i am indebted for it to one of whose good opinion i was really ambitious. so many changes have taken place since that period in the milan circle, that i hardly dare recur to it--some dead, some banished, and some in the austrian dungeons. poor pelico! i trust that in his iron solitude his muse is consoling him in some measure, one day to delight us again, when both she and her poet are restored to freedom. "there is one part of your observations in the pamphlet, which i shall venture to remark upon: it regards walter scott. you say that 'his character is little worthy of enthusiasm,' at the same time that you mention his productions in the manner they deserve. i have known walter scott long and well, and in occasional situations which call forth the real character, and i can assure you that his character _is_ worthy of admiration; that of all men, he is the most open, the most honorable, the most amiable," etc. byron." even at missolonghi, where certainly literary thoughts were little in harmony with his occupations, byron found occasion to speak of his sentiments as regards scott, since even the simple and anti-poetic parry tells us, in his interesting narrative of "the last days of lord byron," of the admiration and affection with which byron always spoke of walter scott. "he never wearied of his praise of 'waverley,' and continually quoted passages from it." may we be allowed to observe, in conclusion, that such a generous desire on the part of byron constantly to put forward the merits of scott deserved from the latter a warmer acknowledgment. the homage paid to his memory by scott came late, and is cold. be it from a tory or protestant spirit, scott in his eulogy of lord byron did not disclaim openly the calumnies uttered against the great poet's fame, but almost sided with his hypocritical apologists, by assuming a kind of tone of indulgence in speaking of him. rogers. rogers comes next in the triangular order. byron's esteem for rogers was such, that not only did he spare him in his famous satire, but even addressed him a real compliment in the lines:-- "and thou, melodious rogers! rise at last, recall the pleasing memory of the past; arise! let blest remembrance still inspire, and strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd lyre; restore apollo to his vacant throne, assert thy country's honor and thine own." he equally declared that, after the "essay on man" of pope, the "pleasures of memory" constituted the finest english didactic poem. this opinion he maintained always. "i have read again the 'pleasures of memory,'" he wrote in september, . "the elegance of this poem is quite marvellous. not a vulgar line throughout the whole book." about the same time he read, in the "edinburgh review," a eulogy of rogers. "he is placed very high," he exclaimed, "but not higher than he has a right to be. there is a summary review of every body. moore and i included: we were both--he justly--praised; but both very justly ranked under rogers. at another time he wrote in his memoranda: "when he does talk (rogers), on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is as pure as his poetry. if you enter his house, his drawing-room, his library, you involuntarily say, 'this is not the dwelling of a common mind.' there is not a gem, a coin, a book, thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor. but this very delicacy must be the misery of his existence. oh! the jarrings this disposition must have encountered through life!" on one occasion he borrows one of rogers's ideas, to write upon it the "bride of abydos;" and in confessing that the "pleasures of memory" have suggested his theme, he adds in a note, that "it is useless to say that the idea is taken from a poem so well known, and to which one has such pleasurable recourse." to rogers he dedicates the "giaour," a slight but sincere token of admiration. when rogers sent him "jacqueline," byron replied that he could not receive a more acceptable gift. "it is grace, delicacy, poetry itself." what astonishes him is that rogers should not be tempted to write oftener such charming poetry. he sympathized with that kind of soft affection, though he would say that he lacked the talent to express it. from venice he wrote to moore, "i hope rogers is flourishing. he is the titan of poetry, already immortal. you and i must wait to become so." at pisa he took the part of rogers against his detractors in the warmest manner. not only did the "pleasures of memory" always enchant him, not only did he insist that the work was immortal, but added that rogers was kind and good to him. and as people persisted in blaming rogers for being jealous and susceptible, which byron knew from experience to be so, he replied, that "these things are, as lord kenyon said of erskine, little spots in the sun. rogers has qualities which outweigh the little weaknesses of his character." moore. moore is third in the order of the triangle. we have seen byron's sentiments and conduct with regard to this friend. it remains for us to note the feelings of the author for another very popular writer, who was in many respects a worthy rival. byron had often recommended moore to write other poetry than melodies, and to apply his talent to a work of more serious importance. when he learned that he was writing an oriental poem he was charmed. "it may be, and would appear to a third person," he wrote to him, "an incredible thing; but i know _you_ will believe me, when i say that i am as anxious for your success as one human being can be for another's--as much as if i had never scribbled a line. surely the field of fame is wide enough for all; and if it were not, i would not willingly rob my neighbor of a rood of it." and he goes on to praise moore and to depreciate himself, as was his custom. after two years' intimacy he dedicated the "corsair" to moore, and, in speaking of it to him, he adds:-- "if i can but testify to you and the world how truly i admire and esteem you, i shall be quite satisfied." and, in dedicating his work to him, he expresses himself thus:-- "my praise could add nothing to your well-earned and firmly-established fame, and with my most hearty admiration of your talents, and delight in your conversation, you are already acquainted." i have already said that he almost wished to be eclipsed, that moore might shine the more prominently. "the best way to make the public 'forget' me is to remind them of yourself. you can not suppose that i would ask you or advise you to publish, if i thought you would _fail_. i really have no literary envy; and i do not believe a friend's success ever sat nearer another's heart, than yours does to the wishes of mine. it is for _elderly gentlemen_ to 'bear no brother near,' and can not become our disease for more years than we may perhaps number. i wish you to be out before eastern subjects are again before the public." he meanwhile got murray to use his influence to point out to moore the best time for appearing. "i need not say, that i have his success much at heart; not only because he is my friend, but something much better--a man of great talent, of which he is less sensible than, i believe, any even of his enemies. if you can so far oblige me as to step down, do so," etc. lord byron had never ceased to press moore to publish his poem. when it appeared, he wrote to him from venice:-- "i am glad that we are to have it at last. really and truly, i want you to make a great hit, if only out of self-love, because we happen to be old cronies; and i have no doubt you will--i am sure you _can_. but you are, i'll be sworn, in a devil of a pucker, and i am not at your elbow, and rogers _is_. i envy him; which is not fair, because he does _not envy any body_.[ ] mind you send to me--that is, make murray send--the moment you are forth." "i feel as anxious for moore as i could do for myself, for the soul of me; and i would not have him succeed otherwise than splendidly, which i trust he will do." and then, writing again to murray, from venice (june, ):-- "it gives me great pleasure to hear of moore's success, and the more so that i never doubted that it would be complete. whatever good you can tell me of him and his poem will be most acceptable; i feel very anxious indeed to receive it. i hope that he is as happy in his fame and reward as i wish him to be; for i know no one who deserves both more, if any so much." a month later he added:-- "i have got the sketch and extracts from 'lalla rookh'--which i humbly suspect will knock up ..." (he intended himself), "and show young gentlemen that something more than having been across a camel's hump is necessary to write a good oriental tale. the plan, as well as the extracts i have seen, please me very much indeed, and i feel impatient for the whole." and, lastly, after he had received it:-- "i have read 'lalla rookh.' ... i am very glad to hear of his popularity, for moore is a very noble fellow, in all respects, and will enjoy it without any of the bad feelings which success, good or evil, sometimes engenders in the men of rhyme." he wrote to moore from ravenna, in a sort of jest,--"i am not quite sure that i shall allow the miss byrons to read 'lalla rookh,'--in the first place, on account of this sad _passion_, and in the second, that they mayn't discover that there was a better poet than papa."[ ] to end these quotations, let us add that, shortly before his death, he said to medwin:--"moore is one of the small number of writers, who will survive the century which has appreciated his worth. the irish melodies will go to posterity with their music, and the poems and the music will last as long as ireland, or music or poetry." campbell. campbell, the author of "pleasures of hope," and who stands fourth in the triangle, was spared, with rogers, in the famous satire-- "come forth, oh! campbell, give thy talents scope: who dare aspire, if thou must cease to hope?" this homage was strengthened by a note, in which byron called the "pleasures of hope" one of the finest didactic poems in the english language. byron's relations with campbell were never as intimate as with other poets. not only because circumstances prevented it, but also in consequence of a fault in campbell's character, which lessened the sympathy raised by the admiration of his talent and of his worth. this fault consisted in an _excessive_ opinion of himself, which prevented his being just toward his rivals, and bearing patiently with their successes, or the criticisms of his own work. coleridge at this time was giving lectures upon poetry, in which he taught a new system of poetry. "he attacks," says lord byron, "the 'pleasures of hope,' and all other pleasure whatever.... campbell will be desperately annoyed. i never saw a man (and of him i have seen very little) so sensitive. what a happy temperament! i am sorry for it; what can _he_ fear from criticism?" lord byron had just published the "bride of abydos," when he wrote in his journal, "campbell last night seemed a little nettled at something or other--i know not what. we were standing in the ante-saloon, when lord h---- brought out of the other room a vessel of some composition similar to that which is used in catholic churches for burning incense, and seeing us, he exclaimed, 'here is some incense for you.' campbell answered, 'carry it to lord byron; he is used to it.' "now this comes of 'bearing no brother near the throne.' i who have no throne am at perfect peace with all the poetical fraternity." but if this weakness of campbell lessened byron's sympathy for him, or rather interfered with his intimacy, it never altered his just appreciation of his merits, or made him less generous to him. "by-the-by," writes byron to moore, "campbell has a printed poem which is not yet published, the scene of which is laid in germany. it is perfectly magnificent, and equal to himself. i wonder why he does not publish it." later on, in italy, when in his reply to blackwood, byron criticises modern poetry, and gives, without sparing any body, not even himself, his unbiased opinion about the poets of the day, he says: "we are all on a false track, except rogers, campbell, and crabbe." and in his memoranda in , at ravenna, we find the following passage:---- "read campbell's 'poets' ... justly celebrated. his defense of pope is glorious. to be sure, it is his own cause too--but no matter, it is very good, and does him great credit.... if any thing could add to my esteem of this gentleman poet, it would be his classical defense of pope against the cant of the present day." on the fifth line of the triangle come the names of southey, wordsworth, and coleridge, commonly called the "lakers," because they had resided near the lakes of cumberland and westmoreland. he was certainly bitter against these in his satire; but owing simply to their efforts to upset the school of pope, of which he had made a deep study, and to their endeavors to start an æsthetical school, which he strenuously opposed. as, however, in blaming, he allowed his passion at times to master his opinions and judgments of their merits, he generously made amends and owned his error some years later. he kept to his own notions of poetry and art, but nobly recognized the talent of the lakers, knowing, however, very well that he would never obtain from them a reciprocity of good feeling. southey. "yesterday, at holland house, i was introduced to southey,--the best-looking bard i have seen for some time. to have that poet's head and shoulders, i would almost have written his 'sapphics.' he is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that--and--there is his eulogy." "southey i have not seen much of. his appearance is epic; and he is the only existing entire man of letters. his manners are mild, but not those of a man of the world, and his talents of the first order. his prose is perfect. of his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps, too much of it for the present generation--posterity will probably select. he has passages equal to any thing. at present he has a party, but no public--except for his prose writings. the 'life of nelson' is beautiful." wordsworth. underneath some lines of his satire upon wordsworth, byron in wrote in switzerland the word "unjust!" he often praised wordsworth, even at times when the latter had, for reasons which i will mention hereafter, lost all claims to byron's indulgence. even in his poem of the "island," written shortly before his departure for greece, where he was to die, byron found means of inserting a passage from wordsworth's poem, which he considered exquisite. coleridge. among the three lakers, coleridge was the one to whom he showed the most generous feeling. he was poor, and lived by his pen. lord byron, putting this consideration above all others, wished to assist at his readings, and praised them warmly. coleridge having asked him on one occasion to interest himself with the director of drury-lane theatre (on the committee of which byron then stood) the latter did his best to gratify the wishes of coleridge, and wrote him the most flattering letter, blaming the satire which had been the effect of a youthful ebullition of feeling:-- "p.s.--you mention my 'satire,' lampoon, or whatever you or others please to call it. i can only say that it was written when i was very young and very angry, and has been a thorn in my side ever since; more particularly as almost all the persons animadverted upon became subsequently my acquaintances, and some of them my friends, which is 'heaping fire upon an enemy's head,' and forgiving me too readily to permit me to forgive myself. the part applied to you is pert, and petulant, and shallow enough; but, although i have long done every thing in my power to suppress the circulation of the whole thing, i shall always regret the wantonness or generality of many of its attacks. if coleridge writes his promised tragedy, drury lane will be set up." though harassed with pecuniary difficulties of all kinds, byron contrived to help coleridge, who he had heard was in the greatest distress. he wrote to moore:--"by the way, if poor coleridge--who is a man of wonderful talent, and in distress, and about to publish two volumes of poesy and biography, and who has been worse used by the critics than ever we were--will you, if he comes out, promise me to review him favorably in the e.r.? praise him i think you must; but will you also praise him well,--of all things the most difficult? it will be the making of him. "this must be a secret between you and me, as jeffrey might not like such a project: nor, indeed, might he himself like it. but i do think he only wants a pioneer and a spark or two to explode most gloriously." he sent murray a ms. tragedy of coleridge, begging him to read it and to publish it:---- "when you have been enabled to form an opinion on mr. coleridge's ms., you will oblige me by returning it, as, in fact, i have no authority to let it out of my hands. i think most highly of it, and feel anxious that you should be the publisher; but if you are not, i do not despair of finding those who will." as the reader knows, byron, while in england, always gave away the produce of his poems. to coleridge he destined part of the sum offered to him by murray for "parisina" and the "siege of corinth." some difficulty, however, having arisen, because murray refused to pay the guineas to any other than byron himself, he borrowed it himself to give it to coleridge. at the same time byron paid so noble a tribute to coleridge's talent, and to his poem of "christabel," by inserting a note on the subject in his preface to the "siege of corinth," that coleridge's editor took this note as the epigraph. "christabel!--i won't have any one," he said, "sneer at 'christabel;' it is a fine wild poem." in he wrote from venice to moore:-- "i hear that the e.r. has cut up coleridge's 'christabel,' and declared against me for praising it. i praised it, firstly, because i thought well of it; secondly, because coleridge was in great distress, and after doing what little i could for him in essentials, i thought that the public avowal of my good opinion might help him further, at least with the booksellers. i am very sorry that j---- has attacked him, because, poor fellow, it will hurt him in mind and pocket. as for me, he's welcome--i shall never think less of jeffrey for any thing he may say against me or mine in future." at genoa he declared, in a memorandum, that crabbe and coleridge were pre-eminent in point of power and talent. at pisa he blamed those who refused to see in "christabel" a work of rare merit, notwithstanding the knowledge which he had of coleridge's ingratitude to him; and refused to believe that w. scott did not admire the poem, "for we all owe coleridge a great deal," said he, "and even scott himself." and medwin adds: "lord byron thinks coleridge's poem very fine. he paraphrased and imitated one passage. he considers the idea excellent, and enters into it." and speaking of coleridge's psychological poem, he said: "what perfect harmony! 'kubla khan' delights me." shelley. if shelley did not find a place in the triangle, it is only because he was not yet known, except by the eccentricities of his conduct as a boy. but so soon as byron was able to appreciate his genius, he lavished praises upon the poet and the man, while he blamed his metaphysics. in all his letters we find proofs of his affectionate regard for shelley; and during his last days in greece, he said to finlay,--"shelley was really a most extraordinary genius; but those who know him only from his works, know but half his merits: it was from his thoughts and his conversation poor shelley ought to be judged. he was romance itself in his manners and his style of thinking." "you were all mistaken," he wrote from pisa to murray, "about shelley, who was, without exception, the best and least selfish man i ever knew." and when he learned his death, he wrote to moore:--"there is thus another man gone, about whom the world was ill-naturedly, and ignorantly, and brutally mistaken. it will, perhaps, do him justice now, when he can be no better for it." such were byron's expressions in behalf of poets of whose school he disapproved, before the calumnies spread about, and the perfidious provocations of some, joined to the ingratitude and jealousy of others, obliged him to turn his generosity into bitter retaliation. we will speak elsewhere of this epoch in their mutual relations, and we hope to show, if jealousy caused the change, that it sprang from them and not from him. to praise was almost a besetting sin in lord byron. so amiable a fault was not only committed in favor of his rivals, but also by way of encouragement to young authors. what did he not do to promote the success of m.n. n----, the author of bertram's dramas, whom walter scott had recommended to him? after reading a tragedy which a young man had submitted to him, byron wrote in his memoranda:---- "this young man has talent; he has, no doubt, stolen his ideas from another, but i shall not betray him. his critics will be but too prone to proclaim it. i hate to discourage a beginner." indulgent to mediocrity, compassionate with the weakness and defects of all, incapable of causing the slightest pain to those who were destitute of talent, even when art required that he should condemn them, his goodness was such, that he almost felt remorse whenever he had been led to criticise a work too severely. he deplored his having dealt too harshly with poor blackett, as soon as the latter's position became known to him; and also with keats, whose talent, though great, was raw in many respects, and who had become a follower of the lakist school, which byron abhorred. to praise the humble, however, in order to humble the great, was an action incompatible with his noble character. great minds constituted his great attractions, and on these he bestowed such praise as could not be deemed too partial or unjust. happy in the unqualified praise of pope, of the classical poets, of the great german and italian poets, he sometimes made exceptions, and shakspeare was one. this is not to be wondered at. lord byron's mind was as well regulated as it was powerful. his admiration of pope proves it. "as to pope," he writes to moore from ravenna, in , "i have always regarded him as the greatest name in our poetry. depend upon it, the rest are barbarians. he is a greek temple, with a gothic cathedral on one hand, and a turkish mosque and all sorts of fantastic pagodas and conventicles about him. you may call shakspeare and milton pyramids, if you please; but i prefer the temple of theseus, or the parthenon, to a mountain of burnt brick-work."[ ] order and proportion were necessities of his nature, so much so that he condemned his writings whenever they departed from his ideal of the beautiful, the essential constituents of which were order and power. his admiration, therefore, was entirely centred in classical works. but has not shakspeare a little disregarded the eternal laws of the beautiful observed by homer, pindar, and a host of other poets, ancient and modern? if byron, then, did not see in shakspeare all that perfection which an æsthetical school just sprung from the north attributed to him, was he to be blamed? has he, on this account, disregarded the great merits of that glorious mind? even had byron seen in shakspeare the founder of a dramatic school, rather than a genius more powerful than orderly, who acted against his will upon certain principles, and who scrutinized the human heart to an almost supernatural depth, was he interdicted from finding fault with that school? does shakspeare so economize both time and mind, as to make the action of his dramas continuous, without fatiguing the mind or weakening the dramatic effect? are not the unities and the proportions disregarded in his plays? what necessity is there at times to put one piece into another? are not his discussions and monologues too long? does not his own exuberant genius become a fatigue to himself and to his readers? are not, perhaps, his characters too real? and do they not often degenerate, without motive, from the sublime into the ridiculous? would hamlet have appeared less interesting or less mad had he not spoken indelicate and cruel words to ophelia? would laertes have seemed less grieved on hearing of the death of his sister had he not made so unnecessary a play on the words? was not byron, therefore, right when he said, with pope, that shakspeare was "the worst of models?" and could he possibly be called jealous, because he added that, "notwithstanding his defects, shakspeare was still the most extraordinary of men of genius?" this opinion of byron was decidedly serious, though his opinions did not always partake of that character. his humor was rather french: he liked to laugh, to joke, to mystify, and astonish people who wished to understand him. he used, then, to employ a particular measure in his praise and his condemnation. "on one occasion at missolonghi, and shortly before his death," says colonel stanhope, "the drama was mentioned in conversation, and byron at once attacked shakspeare by defending the unities. a gentleman present, on hearing his anti-shakspearean opinions rushed out of the room, and afterward entered his protest most earnestly against such doctrines. lord byron was quite delighted with this, and redoubled the severity of his criticism. "he said once, when we were alone,--'i like to astonish englishmen; they come abroad full of shakspeare, and contempt for the dramatic literature of other nations. they think it blasphemy to find a fault in his writings, which are full of them. people talk of my writings, and yet read the sonnets to master hughes.' "and yet," continues finlay, "he continually had the most melodious lines of shakspeare in his mouth, as examples of blank verse." the jealousy of shakspeare attributed to byron is, however, nothing when compared to the ridiculous assertion, that he was jealous of keats, simply because he had repeated in joke what the papers and shelley himself, a friend of keats, had said, namely, "that the young poet had been killed by a criticism of the 'quarterly.'" but since a french critic, m. philarète chasles, has made the same accusation, we must pause and consider it. at the time when byron was more than ever penetrated with the perfection of pope, and opposed to the romantic school,--at the time when he himself wrote his dramas according to all classical rules,--he received at ravenna the poems of a young disciple of the lakists, who united in himself all their exaggerated faults. this young man had the audacity--(which was almost unpardonable in the eyes of byron)--to despise pope, and to constitute himself at nineteen a lawgiver of poetical rules in england. such ridiculous pride, added to the contempt shown to his idol, incensed byron and prevented his showing keats the same indulgence he had shown maturin and blackett. he spoke severely of keats in his famous reply to "blackwood's magazine," and to his cambridge friends--followers of the good old traditions. he quoted some lines of keats, and remarked that "they were taken from the book of a young man who was learning how to write in verse, but who began by teaching others the art of poetry." then, after a long quotation, he adds--"what precedes will show the ideas and principles professed by the regenerators of the english lyre in regard to the man who most of any contributed to its harmony, and the progress visible in their innovation." let us not forget to add that he styled keats "the tadpole of the lakists." but the following year, when he heard that keats had died at rome, the victim of his inordinate self-love, and unable to be consoled for the criticism directed against his poetry, he wrote the following heartfelt, and, as it were, repentant words to shelley:-- "i am very sorry to hear what you say of keats--is it _actually_ true? i did not think criticism had been so killing. though i differ from you essentially in your estimate of his performances, i so much abhor all unnecessary pain, that i would rather he had been seated on the highest peak of parnassus than have perished in such a manner. poor fellow! though, with such inordinate self-love, he would probably have not been very happy.... had i known that keats was dead, or that he was 'alive,' and so 'sensitive,' i should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry, to which i was provoked by his attack upon pope, and my disapprobation of his own style of writing." to murray he wrote the same day:-- "is it true what shelley writes me, that poor john keats died at rome of the 'quarterly review?' i am very sorry for it; though i think he took the wrong line as a poet, and was spoilt by cockneyfying and suburbing, and versifying tooke's 'pantheon' and lemprière's 'dictionary.' i know by experience, that a savage review is hemlock to a sucking author; and the one on me (which produced the 'english bards,' etc.) knocked me down; but i got up again. instead of bursting a bloodvessel, i drank three bottles of claret, and began an answer, finding that there was nothing in the article for which i could lawfully knock jeffrey on the head, in an honorable way. however, i would not be the person who wrote the homicidal article for all the honor and glory in the world, though i by no means approve of that school of scribbling which it treats upon." some time after he wrote again to murray, saying,--"you know very well that i did not approve of keats's poetry, nor of his poetical principles, nor of his abuse of pope. but he is dead. i beg that you will therefore omit all i have said of him either in my manuscripts or in my publications. his 'hyperion' is a fine monument, and will cause his name to last. i do not envy the man who wrote the article against keats." several months later he made complete amends. he added to his severe article in answer to blackwood, a note in the following terms: "i have read the article before and since; and although it is bitter, i do not think that a man should permit himself to be killed by it. but a young man little dreams what he must inevitably encounter in the course of a life ambitious of public notice. my indignation at mr. keats's depreciation of pope has hardly permitted me do justice to his own genius, which, _malgré_ all the fantastic fopperies of his style, was undoubtedly of great promise. his fragment of 'hyperion' seems actually inspired by the titans, and is as sublime as Æschylus. he is a loss to our literature; and the more so, as he himself, before his death, is said to have been persuaded that he had not taken the right line, and was reforming his style upon the more classical models of the language." were we wrong in saying that the accusations against byron, with respect to keats, did not deserve a notice? if we have noticed them, it has been merely to show, that the french critic should have judged matters in this instance with greater conscientiousness and reflection. influenced as byron always was by his own ideas of beauty, he required in the authors themselves certain moral qualities which would demand for their works the bestowal of his praise. it was not only their talent, but their loyalty, their independence of character, their political consistency, and their perfect honesty, which endeared walter scott, moore, and others, to him. byron, on the other hand, had never found these qualities in the lakists, and especially in the head of their school, whose whole life, on the contrary, bore the marks of quite opposite characteristics. since southey's dream of a life of intimacy with other poets of his school, such as wordsworth and coleridge, in some blissful remote spot from which they would publish their works in common, and where they would live with their wives and children in community of interests, some change had taken place; for southey had so far deviated from his purpose as to become laureate, to write for himself, and to profess ultra-tory principles, the ultimate objects of which could not but be palpable. all this called for byron's contempt. to this contempt, however, he gave no expression, for fear of wounding without reason, until that reason did arise by the laureate's unforgiving spirit. "the laureate," says byron, "is not one of those who can forgive." incapable of forgetting that byron's genius had obscured his own reputation, southey hated byron with an intensity, such as to make him look out for opportunities of doing him an injury. this opportunity southey found in byron's departure for the continent, subsequently to the unfortunate result of his marriage; and not only did he join in all the calumnies which were set forth against him in england, but actually followed him to switzerland, there to invent new ones, in the hope of crushing his reputation and ruining the fame of the poet by the depreciation of the man. lord byron for some time was ignorant of the laureate's baseness, for oftentimes friends deem it prudent to hide the truth which it would perhaps be better to make known. but when he came to know of them, his whole soul revolted, as naturally must be the case with a man of honor, and in "don juan" he came down upon southey with a double-edged sword, throwing ridicule upon the author's writings, and odium upon his conduct as a calumniator. this revenge was well deserved. it was not only natural but just, and even necessary, for it was requisite to show up the man, to judge of the value to be attached to his calumnies; and later, when he called him out, he did what honor required of him. we have seen elsewhere how far the laureate's conduct justified byron's retaliation. it is enough, therefore, that i should have shown here that byron's anger was rather the result of southey's envy than his own, and that his sarcasms were due entirely to the disgust which he felt for such dishonorable proceedings. from that time his language, when speaking of wordsworth and coleridge, always reflected the same disgust. both had made themselves the echoes of southey, and both had been inconstant from interested motives, and had solicited favors from the party in power, which they had abused in their writings. "they have each a price," said byron at pisa. on one occasion, as shelley and medwin were laughing at some of wordsworth's last poems, which disgusted them, not only from the subservient spirit to toryism which pervaded them, but also excited their laughter from their absurdity, byron, in whose house they were, said to them, "it is satisfactory to see that a man who becomes mercenary, and traffics upon the independence of his character, loses at the same time his talent as a poet." byron had such a notion of political consistency, that he ceased having any regard for those who failed in this respect. "i was at dinner," says stendhall, "at the marquis of breno's at milan, in , with byron and the celebrated poet monti, the author of 'basvilliana.' the conversation fell upon poetry, and the question was asked which were the twelve most beautiful lines written in a century, either in english, in italian, or in french. the italians present agreed in declaring that monti's first twelve lines in the 'mascheroniana' were the finest italian lines written for a century. monti recited them. i observed byron. he was in raptures. that kind of haughty look which a man often puts on when he has to get rid of an inopportune question, and which rather took away from the beauty of his magnificent countenance, suddenly disappeared to make way for an expression of happiness. the whole of the first canto to the 'mascheroniana,' which conti was made to recite, enchanted all hearers, and caused the liveliest pleasure to the author of 'childe harold.' never shall i forget the sublime expression of his countenance: it was the peaceful look of power united with genius." he learned, later, that monti was a man inconsistent in his politics, and that on the sole impulse of his passions he had passed from one party to another, and had called from the pen of another poet the remark that he justified dante's saying,-- "il verso si non l' animo costante." byron's sympathy for monti ceased from that time, and he even called him the "giuda del parnaso," whereas his esteem and sympathy for silvio pellico, for manzoni, and for many other italians, remained perfectly unshaken. his sense of justice extended to all nationalities. he was a cosmopolite, and, provided the elements essential to claim his admiration existed both in the man's work, and in his character, no personal consideration ever came in the way of his bestowing praise,--the most pleasing duty that could befall him. the great minds of antiquity, those of the middle ages--especially the italians,--all the modern great men, of whatever nation, were all for him of one country, the country of great intellects, and the degree of his sympathy for each was calculated upon the degree of their merit. we know how ably he defended dante, the greatest of italian poets; how ably he translated "francesca da rimini," and how he exposed the error of those who did not find that dante was not sufficiently pathetic. we know his admiration for goethe, who was not only his contemporary, but also his rival. could goethe see with pleasure another star rise in the horizon, when his own was at its zenith? some say that he could. without sharing altogether in this opinion, it is impossible, however, not to find that the first impressions which he gave to the world with respect to byron do not justify the accusations of those who said he was jealous of him. while at ravenna, byron received several numbers of a german paper edited and written by goethe. it contained several articles upon english literature, and, among others, upon "manfred." curious to know what the patriarch of german literature thought of him, and being unable to read german, byron sent these articles to hoppner, at venice, begging him to translate them. " ... if i may judge by two notes of admiration (generally put after something ridiculous by us), and the word '_hypocondrisch_,' they are any thing but favorable. i shall regret this; for i should have been proud of goethe's good word; but i sha'n't alter my opinion of him, even though he should be (savage).... never mind--soften nothing--i am _literary proof_--as one says of a material object, when he puts it to the proof of fire and water," etc. the article was any thing but favorable. after recognizing that the author of "manfred" is gifted with wonderful genius, goethe pretends that it is an imitation of his "faust," and thereupon writes a tissue of fanciful notions which he palms off upon the world. on learning all this, byron was by no means put out, but laughed heartily at the notion of the author of "werther" accusing him of inciting others to a disgust of life. he wondered at such a man as goethe giving credence to such silly fables, and giving out as authentic what were merely suppositions. instead of being angry at this evident hostility, he declared that the article was intended as favorable to him, and, as an acknowledgment, wished to dedicate to him the tragedy of "marino faliero," upon which he was engaged. in the dedication, which was only projected, the reality of his admiration for goethe soars above some jesting expressions. to goethe also he wished to dedicate "sardanapalus." "i mean," said he, at pisa, "to dedicate 'werner' to goethe. i look upon him as the greatest genius that the age has produced. i desired murray to inscribe his name to a former work; but he said my letter containing the order came too late. it would have been more worthy of him than this. i have a great curiosity about every thing relating to goethe, and please myself with thinking there is some analogy between our characters and writings. so much interest do i take in him, that i offered to give £ to any person who would translate his memoirs for my own reading. shelley has sometimes explained part of them to me. he seems to be very superstitious, and is a believer in astrology, or rather was, for he was very young when he wrote the first part of his 'life.' i would give the world to read 'faust' in the original. i have been urging shelley to translate it." in comparing 'cain' to 'faust,' he said, "'faust' itself is not so fine a subject as 'cain,' which is a grand mystery. the mark that was put upon cain is a sublime and shadowy act; goethe would have made more of it than i have done." not being able to dedicate "sardanapalus" to him, he dedicated "werner" "to the illustrious goethe, by one of his humblest admirers." all these tokens of sympathy pleased goethe. their mutual admiration of one another brought on an exchange of courtesies, which ended by creating on both sides quite a warm feeling. in a letter which goethe wrote to m. m----, after byron's death, he speaks of his relation with the noble poet; after saying how "sardanapalus" appeared without a dedication, of which, however, he was happy to possess a lithographed fac-simile, he adds:-- "it appeared, however, that the noble lord had not renounced his project of showing his contemporary and companion in letters a striking testimony of his friendly intentions, of which the tragedy of 'werner' contains an extremely precious evidence." it might naturally be expected that the aged german poet, after receiving from so celebrated a person such an unhoped-for kindness (proof of a disposition so thoroughly amiable, and the more to be prized from its rarity in the world), should also prepare, on his part, to express most clearly and forcibly a sense of the gratitude and esteem with which he was affected:-- "but this undertaking was so great, and every day seemed to make it so much more difficult; for what could be said of an earthly being whose merit could not be exhausted by thought, or comprehended by words? "but when, in the spring of , a young man of amiable and engaging manners, a m. st.----, brought direct from genoa to weimar, a few words under the hand of this estimable friend, by way of recommendation, and when, shortly after, there was spread a report that the noble lord was about to consecrate his great powers and varied talents to high and perilous enterprise, i had no longer a plea for delay, and addressed to him the stanzas which ends by the lines,--'and he self-known, e'en as to me he's known!' "these verses," continued goethe, "arrived at genoa, but found him not. this excellent friend had already sailed; but being driven back by contrary winds, he landed at leghorn, where this effusion of my heart reached him. on the era of his departure, july , , he found time to send me a reply, full of the most beautiful ideas and the divinest sentiments, which will be treasured as an invaluable testimony of worth and friendship, among the choicest documents which i possess. "what emotions of joy and hope did not that paper at once excite! but now it has become, by the premature death of its noble writer, an inestimable relic, and a source of unspeakable regret; for it aggravates, to a peculiar degree in me, the mourning and melancholy that pervade the whole moral and poetical world,--in me, who looked forward (after the success of his great efforts) to the prospect of being blessed with the sight of this master-spirit of the age--this friend so fortunately acquired: and of having to welcome, on his return, the most humane of conquerors." these are, no doubt, most noble words, but they were called forth by the still nobler conduct of byron toward him. it can not be said that goethe ever appreciated all that there was of worth in his young rival, and a few words at the end of his letter make one believe that he still credited some of the absurd stories which he had been told about byron's youth, and whom he still believed to be identified in the person of "manfred." he entertained a great affection for byron, no doubt, but he believed, however, that indulgence and forgiveness were not only necessary on his part, but actually generous in him. lord byron's sympathetic admiration had this peculiarity,--that it did not attach to one class of individuals devoted like himself to poetry, but extended to every class of society. the statesman, the orator, the philosopher, the prince, the subject, the learned, women, general, or literary men, all were equally sure of having justice done to them. at every page of his memoranda, we find instances of this. thus of mackintosh he says: "he is a rare instance of the union of every transcendent talent and great good-nature." of curran he speaks in the most enthusiastic terms:-- "i have met curran at holland house--he beats every body;--his imagination is beyond conception, and his humor (it is difficult to define what is wit) perfect. then he has fifty faces, and twice as many voices, when he mimics; i never met his equal. now, were i a woman, and e'en a virgin, that is the man i should make my seamander. he is quite fascinating. remember, i have met him only once, and i almost fear to meet him again, lest the impression should be lowered. "curran! curran's the man who struck me most. such imagination! there never was any thing like it, that ever i saw or heard of. his _published_ life--his published speeches--give you no idea of the man, none at all." in his memoranda there were equally enthusiastic praises of curran. "the riches," said he, "of his irish imagination were exhaustless. i have heard that man speak more poetry than i have ever written--though i saw him seldom, and but occasionally." in speaking of colman, he said, "he was most agreeable and sociable. he can laugh so well, which sheridan can not. if i could not have them both together, i should like to begin the evening with sheridan, and finish it with colman." he praised loudly the eloquence of grattan:-- "i differ with him in politics, but i agree with all those who admire his eloquence." as to sheridan, he never ceased his eulogies:-- "at lord holland's the other night, we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other _hommes marquants_, and mine was this:--'whatever sheridan has done, or chosen to do, has been, _par excellence_, always the _best_ of its kind. he has written the _best_ comedy ("school for scandal"), the _best_ drama (in my mind, far before that st. giles's lampoon, the "beggars' opera"), the _best_ farce (the "critic,"--it is only too good for a farce), and the _best_ address ("monologue on garrick"), and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous "begum speech") ever conceived or heard in this country.'" his enthusiasm for sheridan partook even of a kind of tender compassion for his great weaknesses and misfortunes. he wrote in his memoranda, on one occasion, when sheridan had cried with joy on hearing that byron had warmly praised him:-- "poor brinsley, if they were tears of pleasure, i would rather have said those few, but most sincere words, than have written the "iliad," or made his own celebrated "philippic." nay, his own comedy never gratified me more, than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine, humble as it must appear to 'my elders, and my betters.'" and also:-- "poor, dear sherry! i shall never forget the day when he, rogers, moore, and myself, spent the time from six at night till one o'clock in the morning, without a single yawn; we listening to him, and he talking all the time." when he speaks of great men recently dead,--of burke, pitt, burns, goldsmith, and others of his distinguished contemporaries,--he is never-ending in his praise of them. his affectionate admiration for so many went so far, almost, as to frighten him into the belief that it was a weakness: after having said--"i like a----, i like b----. by mohammed!" he exclaims in his memoranda, "i begin to think i like every body; a disposition not to be encouraged; a sort of social gluttony, that swallows every thing set before it." not only was it a pleasure to him to praise those who deserved it, but he would not allow the dead to be blamed, nor the illustrious among the living; we all know how much he admired the talents of madame de staël: "il avait pour elle des admirations _obstinées_." "campbell abused corinne," he says in his journal, : "i reverence and admire him; but i won't give up my opinion. why should i? i read her again and again, and there can be no affectation in this. i can not be mistaken (except in taste) in a book i read and lay down and take up again; and no book can be totally bad, which finds some, even _one_ reader, who can say as much sincerely." and elsewhere: "h---- laughed, as he does at every thing german, in which, however, i think he goes a little too far. b----, i hear, contemns it too. but there are fine passages; and, after all, what is a work--any or every work--but a desert with fountains, and, perhaps, a grove or two every day's journey? to be sure, in mademoiselle, what we often mistake and 'pant for' as the 'cooling stream,' turns out to be the 'mirage' (_criticé_, verbiage); but we do, at last, get to something like the temple of jupiter ammon, and then the waste we have passed is only remembered to gladden the contrast." he who was so sparing of answers to his own detractors, could not allow a criticism against a friend to be left unanswered. we have seen how he defended scott, shelley, coleridge, and numerous other remarkable persons, whenever they were unjustly attacked, although they were alive to defend themselves. the respect and justice which he claimed for the dead was equally proportioned. "do not forget," he wrote to moore on hearing that he was about to write the "life of sheridan;" "do not forget _to spare the living without insulting the dead_." on reading, at ravenna, that schlegel said, that dante was not popular in italy, and accused him of want of pathos: "'tis false," said he, with indignation; "there have been more editors and commentators (and imitators ultimately) of dante, than of all their poets put together. _not_ a favorite! why they talk dante, write dante, and think and dream dante at this moment ( ) to an excess which would be ridiculous, but that he deserves it. "in the same style this german talks of gondolas on the arno--a precious fellow to dare to speak of italy! "he says, also, that dante's chief defect is a want, in a word, of gentle feelings. of gentle feelings! and this in the face of 'francesca of rimini'--and the father's feelings in 'ugolino'--and 'beatrice'--and 'la pia!' why, there is a gentleness in dante beyond all gentleness, when he is tender. it is true, that in treating of the christian hades, or hell, there is not much scope or room for gentleness; but who _but_ dante could have introduced any 'softness' at all into hell? is there any in milton? no--and dante's heaven is all _love_, and _glory_, and _majesty_." we have alluded to his admiration for pope. it was such as to appear almost a kind of filial love. he was sorry, mortified, and humbled, not to find in westminster abbey the monument of so great a man:-- "of all the disgraces that attach to england, the greatest," said he, "is that there should be no place assigned to pope in poets' corner. i have often thought of erecting a monument to him at my own expense in westminster abbey; and hope to do so yet." to add any thing more to show how totally byron was free from all sentiments of an envious nature, would be to exhaust the subject, and to abuse the reader's patience. this absence of envy in him shows itself so clearly in all his sayings and doings, that it appears to be impossible to doubt it, and yet he has not been spared even such a calumny! i do not allude to the french critics, who neither knew the man nor the author, and whose systematic attacks have no value; but i allude to a certain article in the "london magazine," which appeared shortly before his death, under the title of "personal character of lord byron," and which caused some sensation because it appeared to have been written by some one who had known byron intimately. it was all the more perfidious because it gave an appearance of truth to a great many falsehoods, derived from the truth with which these falsehoods were mixed. it was the work of one who had gone to greece, there to play a great part, but who, having failed in his attempt and exposed himself to the laughter of his friends, felt a kind of jealousy for byron's success in that line, and revenged himself by saying, among other things, "that it was dangerous for byron's friends to rise in the world, if they preferred his friendship to their glory, because, as soon as they arrived at a certain pre-eminence, he was sure to hate them." such a calumny exasperated byron's real friends, and among these count gamba, who hastened to reply to it, by publishing an interesting book, precious from its veracity, and which does equal credit to byron and to the young man honored with his friendship. after analyzing the anonymous article, count gamba goes on to say: "my own opinion is just the contrary to that of the writer in the magazine. i think he prided himself on the successes of his friends, and cited them as a proof of discernment in the choice of some of his companions. this i know, that of envy he had not the least spark in his whole disposition: he had strong antipathies, certainly, to one or two individuals; but i have always understood, from those most likely to know, that he never broke with any of the friends of his youth, and that his earliest attachments were also his last." it may be remarked that byron's popularity made it difficult for him to indulge sentiments of envy. but without referring to the unstable character of popularity, was not his own attacked by the jealousy of those who wished to pull him down from the pedestal of fame, to which they hoped themselves to rise? did he not think, some years before his death, that his popularity was wavering, and that his rivals would profit by it? was he less pleased at the success of his friends? does not all he said, and all he did, prove that where he blamed he did so unwillingly, from a sense of justice and truth; but that when he praised, he did so to satisfy a desire of his heart? we have dwelt at considerable length upon this subject, because we believe that a total absence of envy is so rare among poets, and so conspicuous in lord byron, that we can take it to be the criterion of his nobility of soul. we can sum up, therefore, all we have said, by declaring, that if byron has been envied by all his enemies, and even his friends, with, perhaps, the exception of shelley, and has not himself envied one, though he suffered personally from the consequences of their jealousy, it is because the great kindness of his nature made him the least envious of men. footnotes: [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : venice, .] [footnote : why has the passage in the first edition of stendhall's works, which treats in enthusiastic terms of byron's genius, been cut out of the subsequent editions?] [footnote : was this a little irony? i think so, for it was believed that jealousy was the weak point of rogers.] [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : moore, letter .] chapter ix. benevolence and kindness of lord byron. benevolence. the benevolence of byron's character constitutes the principal characteristic of his nature, and was particularly remarkable from its power. all the good qualities in byron do not show the same force in the same degree. in all the sentiments which we have analyzed and given in proof of his goodness, though each may be very strong, and even capable of inspiring him with the greatest sacrifice, yet one might find in each that personal element, inherent in different degrees to our purest and most generous affections, since the impulse which dictates them is evidently based upon a desire to be satisfied with ourselves. the same thing might be said of his benevolence, had it been only the result of habit: but if it had been this, if it had been intermittent, and of that kind which does not exclude occasional harshness and even cruelty, i would not venture to present it to the reader as a proof of byron's goodness. his benevolence had nothing personal in its elements. it was a kind of universal and habitual charity, which gives without hope of return, which is more occupied with the good of others than with its own, and which is called for only by the instinctive desire to alleviate the sufferings of others. if such a quality has no right to be called a virtue, it nevertheless imprints upon the man who possesses it an ineffaceable character of greatness. there was not a single moment in his life in which it did not reveal itself in the most touching actions. we have seen how neither happiness nor misfortune could alter it. as a child, he went one day to bathe with a little school-fellow in the don, in scotland, and having but one very small shetland pony between them, each one walked and rode alternately. when they reached the bridge, at a point where the river becomes sombre and romantic, byron, who was on foot, recollected a legendary prophecy, which says:-- "brig o' balgounie, black's your wa': wi' a wife's ae son and a mare's ae foal doun ye shall fa'!" little byron stopped his companion, asked him if he remembered the prediction, and declared that as the pony might very well be "a mare's ae foal," he intended to cross first, for although both only sons, his mother alone would mourn him, while the death of his friend, whose father and mother were both alive, would cause a twofold grief.[ ] as a stripling, he saw at southwell a poor woman sally mournfully from a shop, because the bible she wished to purchase costs more money than she possesses. byron hastens to buy it, and, full of joy, runs after the poor creature to give it to her. as a young man, at an age when the effervescence and giddiness of youth forget many things, he never forgot that to seduce a young girl is a crime. then, as ever, he was less the seducer than the seduced. moore tells us that byron was so keenly sensitive to the pleasure or pain of those with whom he lived, that while in his imaginary realms he defied the universe, in real life a frown or a smile could overcome him. proud, energetic, independent, intrepid, benevolence alone rendered lord byron so flexible, patient, and docile to the remonstrances or reproaches of those who loved him, and to whom he allowed friendly motives, that he often sacrificed his own talent to this genial and kindly sentiment. the rev. mr. beecher, disapproving as too free one of the poems he had just published at the age of seventeen, in his first edition of the "hours of idleness," lord byron _withdrew_ and _burnt_ the whole edition. at the solicitation of dallas and gifford he suppresses, in the second canto of "childe harold," the very stanzas he preferred to all the rest. madame g----, grieved at the persecution drawn down on him by the first canto of "don juan," begs him to discontinue the poem, and he ceased to write it. at the request of madame de staël, he consented, in spite of his great disinclination, to attempt a reconciliation with lady byron. the "curse of minerva," a poem written in greece, while he was still painfully impressed by the artistic piracies of lord elgin in the "parthenon," was in the press and on the eve of publication; but lord elgin's friends reminded him of the pain it would inflict on him and on his family, and the poem was sacrificed. no one ever bore more generously than he with reproaches made with good-will and kindness. this amiable disposition, observed in greece by mr. finlay, led him to say that it amazed him. as regards lord byron's tenderness toward his friends, it was always so great and constant, that we have thought it right to devote a long article to it. we will, however, quote as another instance of the delicacy of his friendship and his fear of offending his friends, or of giving them pain, a letter which moore also cites as a proof of his extreme sensitiveness in this respect. this letter was addressed to mr. bankes, his friend and college companion, on one occasion when byron believed he had offended him involuntarily:-- "my dear bankes,--my eagerness to come to an explanation has, i trust, convinced you that whatever my unlucky manner might inadvertently be, the change was as unintentional as (if intended) it would have been ungrateful. i really was not aware that, while we were together, i had evinced such caprice. that we were not so much in each other's company as i could have wished, i well know; but i think so astute an observer as yourself must have perceived enough to explain this, without supposing any slight to one in whose society i have pride and pleasure. recollect that i do not allude here to 'extended' or 'extending' acquaintances, but to circumstances you will understand, i think, on a little reflection. "and now, my dear bankes, do not distress me by supposing that i can think of you, or you of me, otherwise than i trust we have long thought. you told me not long ago, that my temper was improved, and i should be sorry that opinion should be revoked. believe me, your friendship is of more account to me than all those absurd vanities in which, i fear, you conceive me to take too much interest. i have never disputed your superiority, or doubted (seriously) your good-will, and no one shall ever 'make mischief between us' without the sincere regret on the part of your ever affectionate, etc. "byron." in the midst of the unexampled enthusiasm of a whole nation, byron is neither touched by the adoration which his genius inspires, nor the endless praises which are bestowed upon him, nor the love declarations which crowd his table, nor the flattering expressions of lord holland, who ranks him next to walter scott as a poet, and to burke as an orator; nor indeed by those of lord fitzgerald, who, notwithstanding a flogging at harrow, can not bear malice against the author of "childe harold," but desires to forgive. to be the friend of those whom his satire offended, so penetrates him with disgust for that poem, that his dearest wish is to lose every trace of it; and, though the fifth edition is nearly completed, he gives orders to his publisher, cawthorn, to burn the whole edition. it is well known that on the occasion of the opening of the new drury lane theatre, the committee called upon all england's poetical talent for an inaugural address. the committee received many, but found none worthy of adoption. it was then that lord holland advised that lord byron should be applied to, whose genius and popularity would enhance, he said, the solemnity of the occasion. lord byron after a refusal, and much hesitation arising partly from modesty and partly from the knowledge that the rejected authors would make him pay a heavy price for his triumph, at last, with much reluctance, accepted the invitation, merely to oblige lord holland. he exchanged with the latter on this topic a long correspondence, revealing so thoroughly his docility and modesty, that moore declares these letters valuable as an illustration of his character; they show, in truth, the exceeding pliant good-nature with which he listened to the counsel and criticism of his friends. "it can not be questioned," says he, "that this docility, which he invariably showed in matters upon which most authors are generally tenacious and irritable, was a natural essence of his character, and which might have been displayed on much more important occasions had he been so fortunate as to become connected with people capable of understanding and of guiding him." another time moore wrote to him at pisa:--"knowing you as i do, lady byron ought to have discovered, that you are the most docile and most amiable man that ever existed, for those who live with you." his hatred of contradiction and petty teasing, his repugnance to annoy or mortify any one, arose from the same cause. once, after having replied with his usual frankness to an inquiry of madame de staël, _that he thought a certain step ill-advised_, he wrote in his memorandum-book:--"i have since reflected that it would be possible for mrs. b---- to be patroness; and i regret having given my opinion, as i detest getting people into difficulties with themselves or their favorites." and again:-- "to-day c---- called, and, while sitting here, in came merivale. during our colloquy, c---- (ignorant that m----was the writer) abused the mawkishness of the 'quarterly review,' on grimm's correspondence. i (knowing the secret) changed the conversation as soon as i could, and c---- went away quite convinced of having made the most favorable impression on his new acquaintance.... i did not look at him while this was going on, but i felt like a coal; for i like merivale, as well as the article in question." his indulgence. his indulgence, so great toward all, was excessive toward his inferiors. "lord byron," says medwin, "was the best of masters, and it may be asserted that he was beloved by his servants; his goodness even extended to their families. he liked them to have their children with them. i remember, on one occasion, as we entered the hall, coming back from our walk, we met the coachman's son, a boy of three or four years of age. byron took the child up in his arms and gave him ten pauls." "his indulgence toward his servants," says mr. hoppner, "was almost reprehensible, for even when they neglected their duty, he appeared rather to laugh at than to scold them, and he never could make up his mind to send them away, even after threatening to do so." mr. hoppner quotes several instances of this indulgence, which he frequently witnessed. i will relate one in which his kindness almost amounts to virtue. on the point of leaving for ravenna, whither his heart passionately summoned him, tita falier, his gondolier, is taken for the conscription. to release him it is not only necessary to pay money, but also to take certain measures, and to delay his departure. the money was given, and the much-desired journey postponed. "the result was," says hoppner, "that his servants were so attached to him that they would have borne every thing for his sake. his death plunged them into the deepest grief. i have in my possession a letter written to his family by byron's gondolier, tita, who followed him from venice to greece, and remained with him until his death. the poor fellow speaks of his master in touching terms: he declares that in byron he has lost rather a father than a master, and he does not cease to dilate upon the goodness with which byron looked after the interests of all who served him." fletcher also wrote to murray after his master's death:-- "pray forgive this scribbling, for i scarcely know what i do and say. i have served lord byron for twenty years, and his lordship was always to me rather a father than a master. i am too distressed to be able to give you any particulars about his death." lord byron's benevolence also shone forth in his tenderness toward children, in the pleasure he experienced in mingling in their amusements, and in making them presents. in general, to procure a moment's enjoyment to any one was real happiness to him. quite as humane as he was benevolent, cruelty or ferocity he could not brook, even in imagination. his genius, although so bold, could not bear too harrowing a plot. "i wanted to write something upon that subject," he told shelley at pisa, "as it is extremely tragical, but it was too heartrending for my nerves to cope with." his works, moreover, from beginning to end, prove this. an analysis of the character of all his heroes will prove that, however daring, they are never ferocious, harsh, nor perverse. even conrad the corsair, whose type is sketched from a ferocious race, and who is placed in circumstances that tempt to inhumanity,--conrad is yet far removed from cruelty. the drop of blood on gulnare's fair brow makes him shudder, and almost forget that it was to save him that she became guilty. the cruel deeds of a man not only prevented lord byron from feeling the least sympathy for him, but even made gratitude toward him a burden. however much ali pasha, the fierce viceroy of janina, may overwhelm him with kindness, wish to treat him as a son, address him in writing as "excellentissime and carissime," the cruelties of such a friend are too revolting for byron to profit by his offer of services. he calls him the man of war and calamity, and in immortal verse perpetuates the memory of his crimes, and even _foretells the death he actually died a few years later_. he can forgive him the weakness of the flesh, but not those crimes which are deaf to pity's voice, and which, to be condemned in every man, are still more so in an old man:-- "blood follows blood, and through this mortal span in bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began." the recollection of human massacres spoilt in his eyes even a beautiful spot. in exalting the rhine, the beautiful river he so much admired, the remembrance of all the blood spilt on its banks saddened his heart:-- "then to see the valley of sweet waters, were to know earth paved like heaven; and to seem such to me even now what wants thy stream?--that it should lethe be: * * * * * * * but o'er the blacken'd memory's blighting dream thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem." as to being himself a witness and spectator of scenes of violence, it was an effort which exceeded the strength, however great, of his will. gifted with much psychological curiosity, and holding the theory that every thing should be seen, he was present at rome at the execution of three murderers, who were to be put to death, on the eve of his departure. this spectacle agitated him to such a degree that it brought on a fever. in spain he attended a bull-fight. the painful impression produced by the barbarous sight is immortalized in verse (_vide_ "childe harold," st canto). but his actions, above all, testify to his humane disposition. he never heard of the misfortune or suffering of a fellow-creature without endeavoring to relieve it, whether in london, venice, ravenna, pisa, or greece; he spared neither gold, time, nor labor to achieve this object. at pisa, hearing that a wretched man, guilty of a sacrilegious theft, was to be condemned to cruel torture, he became ill with dread and anxiety. he wrote to the english ambassador, and to the consuls, begging for their interposition; neglected no chance, and did not rest until he acquired the certainty that the penalty inflicted on the culprit would be more humane. in greece, where traits of generous compassion fill the rest of his life, count gamba relates that colonel napier, then residing in the island of cephalonia, one day rode in great haste to lord byron, to ask for his assistance, a number of workmen, employed in making a road, having been buried under the crumbling side of a mountain in consequence of an imprudent operation. lord byron immediately dispatched his physician, and, although just sitting down to table, had his horses saddled, and galloped off to the scene of the disaster, accompanied by count gamba and his suite. women and children wept and moaned, the crowd each moment increased, lamentations were heard on all sides, but, whether from despair or laziness, none came forward. generous anger overcame lord byron at this scene of woe and shame; he leapt from his horse, and, grasping the necessary implements, began with his own hands the work of setting free the poor creatures, who were there buried alive. his example aroused the courage of the others, and the catastrophe was thus mitigated by the rescue of several victims. count gamba, after dwelling on the good lord byron did everywhere, and on the admirable life he led in greece, expresses himself as follows in a letter to mr. kennedy:-- "one of his principal objects in greece was to awaken the turks as well as the greeks to more humane sentiments. you know how he hastened, whenever the opportunity arose, to purchase the freedom of woman and children, and to send them back to their homes. he frequently, and not without incurring danger to himself, rescued turks from the sanguinary grasp of the greek corsairs. when a moslem brig drifted ashore near missolonghi, the greeks wanted to capture the whole crew; but lord byron opposed it, and promised a reward of a crown for each sailor, and of two for each officer rescued." "coming to greece," wrote lord byron, "one of my principal objects was to alleviate, as much as possible, the miseries incident to a warfare so cruel as the present. when the dictates of humanity are in question, i know no difference between turks and greeks. it is enough that those who want assistance are men, in order to claim the pity and protection of the meanest pretender to humane feelings. i have found here twenty-four turks, including women and children, who have long pined in distress, far from the means of support and the consolations of their home. the government has consigned them to me: i transmit them to prevesa, whither they desire to be sent. i hope you will not object to take care that they may be restored to a place of safety, and that the governor of your town may accept of my present. the best recompense i could hope for would be to find that i had inspired the ottoman commanders with the same sentiments toward those unhappy greeks, who may hereafter fall into their hands. "byron." "lord byron," pursues count gamba, "never could witness a calamity as an idle spectator. he was so alive to the sufferings of others, that he sometimes allowed himself to be imposed upon too readily by tales of woe. the least semblance of injustice excited his indignation, and led him to intervene without a thought for the consequences to himself of his interposition; and he entertained this feeling not only for his fellow-creatures but even toward animals." his compassion extended to every living creature, to every thing that could feel. without alluding to his well-known fondness for dogs, and for the animals of every kind he liked to have about him, and of which he took the greatest care, it will be sufficient to point out the motive which led him to deprive himself of the pleasures of the chase,--a pastime that would have been, from his keen enjoyment of bodily exercises, so congenial to his tastes. the reason is found in his memorandum for :-- "the last bird i ever fired at was an eaglet, on the shore of the gulf of lepanto, near vostitza. it was only wounded, and i tried to save it, the eye was so bright: but it pined and died in a few days; and i never did since, and never will, attempt the death of another bird." angling, as well as shooting, he considered cruel. "and angling, too, that solitary vice, whatever izaak walton sings or says: the quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it." and, as if he feared not to have expressed strongly enough his aversion for the cruelties of angling, he adds in a note:-- "it would have taught him humanity at least. this sentimental savage, whom it is a mode to quote (among the novelists) to show their sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, teaches how to sew up frogs, and break their legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art of angling,--the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended sports. they may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler merely thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure to take his eyes from off the streams, and a single bite is worth to him more than all the scenery around. besides, some fish bite best on a rainy day. the whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have somewhat of noble and perilous in them; even net-fishing, trawling, etc., are more humane and useful. but angling!--no angler can be a good man." "one of the best men i ever knew (as humane, delicate-minded, generous, and excellent a creature as any in the world) was an angler; true, he angled with painted flies, and would have been incapable of the extravagances of izaak walton." "the above addition was made by a friend, in reading over the ms.:--'_audi alteram partem_'--i leave it to counterbalance my own observations." it is well known that lord byron would not deride certain superstitions, and was sometimes tempted to exclaim with hamlet,-- "there are more things in heaven and earth, horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." he, consequently, also conformed to the english superstition, which involves, under pain of an unlucky year, the eating of a goose at michaelmas. alas! once only he did not eat one, and that year was his last; but he eat none because, during the journey from pisa to genoa, on michaelmas eve, he saw the two white geese in their cage in the wagon that followed his carriage, and felt so sorry for them that he gave orders they should be spared. after his arrival at genoa they became such pets that he caressed them constantly. when he left for greece he recommended them to the care of mr. kennedy, who was probably kind to them for the sake of their illustrious protector. not only could lord byron never contribute voluntarily to the suffering of a living being, but his pity, his commiseration for the sufferings of his fellow-creatures showed itself all his life in such habitual benevolence, in such boundless generosity, that volumes would be necessary to record his noble deeds. although, in thus analyzing and enumerating the proofs of his innate goodness, we have declared we did not entertain the pretension of elevating them to the rank of lofty virtues, we are yet compelled to state that if his generosity was too instinctive to be termed a virtue, it was yet too admirable to be considered as an instinct; that while in remaining a quality of his heart, it elevated and transformed itself often through the exertion of his will into an absolute virtue, and through all its phases and in its double nature, it presented in lord byron a remarkably rare blending of all that is most lovable and estimable in the human soul. here we merely speak of the generosity that showed itself in benefits conferred. as to that which consists rather in self-denial, sacrifice which forgives injuries, and which is the greatest triumph of mortal courage, that, in a word, is indeed a sublime virtue. such generosity, if he possessed it, we will treat of in another chapter.[ ] as we here wish to establish by facts that only which appears to have been the impulse of his good heart, the difficulty lies in the choice of proofs, and in the necessity of limiting our narrative. we will, therefore, in order not to convert this chapter into a volume, forbear from quoting more than a few instances; but justice requires us to say, that misfortune or poverty never had recourse to him in vain; that neither the pecuniary embarrassments of his youth, nor the slender merits of the applicants, nor any of the pretexts so convenient to weak or hypocritical[ ] liberality, ever could become a reason with him to refuse those who stretched out their hand to him. the claim of adversity, as adversity, was a sufficient and sacred one to him, and to relieve it an imperious impulse. an appeal was once made to lord byron's generosity by an individual whose bad repute alone might have justified a harsh rebuff. but lord byron, whose charity was of a higher order, looked upon it otherwise. "why," said murray, "should you give £ to this bad writer, to whom nobody would give a penny?" "precisely because nobody is willing to give him any thing is he the more in need that i should help him," answered lord byron. a certain mr. ashe superintended the publication of a paper called "the book," the readers of which were attracted rather by its ill-nature and scandal, and the revelations it made in lifting the veil that had so far concealed the most delicate mysteries, than by the talent of the author. in a fit of repentance this man wrote to lord byron, alleging his great poverty as an apology for having thus prostituted his pen, and imploring from lord byron a gift to enable him to live more honorably in future. lord byron's answer to this letter is so remarkable for its good sense, kindness, and high tone of honor, that we can not refrain from reproducing it. "sir,--i leave town for a few days to-morrow; on my return i will answer your letter more at length. whatever may be your situation, i can not but commend your resolution to abjure and abandon the publication and composition of works such as those to which you have alluded. depend upon it they amuse few, disgrace both reader and writer, and benefit none. it will be my wish to assist you, as far as my limited means will admit, to break such a bondage. in your answer inform me what sum you think would enable you to extricate yourself from the hands of your employers, and to regain, at least, temporary independence, and i shall be glad to contribute my mite toward it. at present, i must conclude. your name is not unknown to me, and i regret, for my own sake, that you have ever lent it to the works you mention. in saying this, i merely repeat your own words in your letter to me, and have no wish whatever to say a single syllable that may appear to insult your misfortunes. if i have, excuse me: it is unintentional. byron." mr. ashe replied with a request for a sum of about four thousand francs. lord byron having somewhat delayed answering him, ashe reiterated his request, complaining of the procrastination; whereupon, "with a kindness which few," says moore, "would imitate in a similar case," byron wrote to him as follows:-- "sir,--when you accuse a stranger of neglect, you forget that it is possible business or absence from london may have interfered to delay his answer, as has actually occurred in the present instance. but to the point. i am willing to do what i can to extricate you from your situation.... i will deposit in mr. murray's hands (with his consent) the sum you mentioned, to be advanced for the time at ten pounds per month. "p.s.--i write in the greatest hurry, which may make my letter a little abrupt; but, as i said before, i have no wish to distress your feelings. byron." ashe, a few months later, asked for the whole amount, to defray his travelling expenses to new south wales, and lord byron again remitted to him the entire amount. on another occasion, some unhappy person being discussed in harsh terms, the remark was made that he deserved his misery. lord byron turned on the accuser, and fired with generous anger, "well!" exclaimed he, "if it be true that n---- is unfortunate, and that he be so through his own fault, he is doubly to be pitied, because his conscience must poison his grief with remorse. such are my morals, and that is why i pity error and respect misfortune." the produce of his poems, as long as he remained in england, he devoted to the relief of his poor relations, or to the assistance of authors in reduced circumstances. i will not speak of certain traits of heroic generosity which averted the disgrace and ruin of families, which robbed vice of many youthful victims, and would cast in the shade many deeds of past and proverbial magnanimity, and deserve the pen of a plutarch to transmit them to posterity. when we are told, with such admiring comments, of alexander's magnanimity in respecting and restoring to freedom the mother and the wife of darius, we do not learn whether those noble women were beautiful and in love with the macedonian hero. but lord byron succored, and restored to the right path, many girls, young and gifted with every charm, who were so subjugated by the beauty, goodness, and generosity of their benefactor, that they fall at his feet, not to implore that they might be sent back to their homes, but ready to become what he bade them. and yet this young man of six-and-twenty, thinking them fair, was touched, and tempted perhaps, yet sent them home, rescued, and enlightened by the counsels of wisdom. there is more than generosity in such actions, and we therefore hold back details for another chapter, in which we will examine this quality under various aspects. here we will content ourselves with stating that these noble traits became known, almost in spite of himself; for his benevolence was also remarkable in this respect, that it was exercised with a truly christian spirit, and in obedience to the divine precept that "the left hand shall not know what the right doeth." having conferred a great favor on one of his friends, mr. hodgson, who was about to take orders, he wrote in the evening in his journal:-- "h---- has been telling that i ... i am sure, at least, i did not mention it, and i wish he had not. he is a good fellow, and i oblige myself ten times more by being of use than i did him,--and there's an end on't."[ ] it was said of chateaubriand that if he wished to do any thing generous, he liked to do so on his balcony; the contrary may be said of byron, who would have preferred to have his good action hid in the cellars. "if we wished to dwell," says count gamba in a letter to kennedy, "on his many acts of charity, a volume would not suffice to tell you of those alone to which i have been a witness. i have known in different italian towns several honorable families, fallen into poverty, with whom lord byron had not the slightest acquaintance, and to whom he nevertheless _secretly_ sent large sums of money, sometimes dollars and more; and these persons never knew the name of their benefactor." count gamba also tells us that, to his knowledge, in florence, a respectable mother of a family, being reduced to great penury by the persecution of a malignant and powerful man, from whom she had protected the honor of one of her _protégées_, lord byron, to whom the lady and her persecutor were equally unknown, sent her assistance, which was powerful enough to counteract the evil designs of her foes. he adds that, having learnt at pisa that a great number of vessels had been shipwrecked during a violent storm, in the very harbor of genoa, and that several respectable families were thereby completely ruined, lord byron _secretly_ sent them money, and to some more than dollars. those who received it never knew their benefactor's name. his charity provided above all for absent ones, for the old, infirm, and retiring. at venice, where it was difficult to elude the influence of the climate, and of the manners of the time, and where he shared for a time the mode of life of its young men, it was still charity, and not pleasure, that absorbed the better part of his income. not satisfied with his casual or out-of-the-way charities, he granted a large number of small monthly and weekly pensions. on definitely leaving venice to reside in ravenna, he decided that, in spite of his absence, these pensions should continue until the expiration of his lease of the palazzo mocenigo. venice watched him as jealously as a miser watches his treasure, and when he left it the honest poor were grieved and the dishonest vexed. listening to these, one might have been led to believe, that lord byron had by a vow bound himself and his fortune to the service of venice, and that his departure was a spoliation of their rights.[ ] in ravenna his presence had been such a blessing, that his departure was considered a public calamity, and the poor of the city addressed a petition to the legate, that he might be entreated to remain. not a quarter of his fortune, as shelley said in extolling his munificence, but the half of it, did he expend in alms. in pisa, in genoa, in greece, his purse was ever open to the needy. "not a day of his life in greece," says his physician, doctor bruno, "but was marked by some charitable deed: not an instance is there on record of a beggar having knocked at lord byron's door who did not go on his way comforted; so prominent among all his noble qualities was the tenderness of his heart, and its boundless sympathy with suffering and affliction. his purse was always opened to the poor." after quoting several traits of benevolence, he goes on to say:--"whenever it came to the knowledge of lord byron that any poor persons were lying ill, whatever the maladies or their cause, without even being asked to do it, my lord immediately sent me to attend to the sufferers. he provided the medicines, and every other means of alleviation. he founded at his own expense a hospital in missolonghi."[ ] this noble quality of his heart had the ring of true generosity; that generosity which springs from the desire and pleasure to do good, and which is so admirable, that in his own estimate of benevolence he always linked it with a sense of order. it never had any thing in common with the capricious munificence of a spendthrift. his exceeding delicacy, the loyalty and noble pride of his soul, inspired him with the deepest aversion for that egotism and vanity which alike ignores its own duties and the rights of others. lord byron was, therefore, very methodical in his expenditure. without stooping to details, he was most careful to maintain equilibrium between his outlay and his income. he attended scrupulously to his bills, and said he could not go to sleep without being on good terms with his friends, and having paid all his debts.[ ] he was often tormented, if his agents were tardy in making remittances, with the dread of not being able to meet his engagements. of his own gold he was liberal, but he respected the coffers of his creditors. "i have the greatest respect for money," he often said in jest. he cared for it, indeed, but as a means of obtaining rest for his mind, and especially of helping the poor. although so generous, he was sometimes annoyed and sorry at the thought of having ill-spent his money, because he had in the same ratio diminished his power of doing good. we should have given but an unfair idea of the lofty nature of his generosity, if we did not add that it was not sustained by any illusory hopes of gratitude. these illusions his confiding heart had entertained in early manhood, and were those the loss of which he most regretted; but their flight, though causing bitter disappointment, left his conduct uninfluenced. he expected ingratitude, and was prepared for it; he _gave_, he said, and _did not lend_; and preferred to expose himself to ingratitude rather than to forsake the unhappy. we fain would have concluded this long chapter, devoted to the proofs of his goodness in all its manifestations, by gathering the principal testimonies of that goodness which were received after byron's death, and show it in its original character and in its modifications through life. but we must confine ourselves to the mention of a few testimonies only, taken from among those borne him at the outset and at the end of his life, so as to extend throughout its course, and to show what those who knew him personally, and well, thought of it. mr. pigott, a friend and companion of byron's, who lived at southwell, in the neighborhood of newstead, who travelled with byron during his holidays, told moore that few people understood byron; but that he knew well how naturally sensitive and kind-hearted he was, and that there was not the slightest particle of malignity in his whole composition. mr. pigott, who thus spoke of byron, was one of the most revered magistrates of his county, and the head of that family with whom byron was wont to spend his holidays, and who loved him, both before and after his death, as good people only can love and mourn. "never," says moore, "did any member of that family allow that byron had a single fault." mr. lake, another biographer of byron, says, "i have frequently asked the country people what sort of a man lord byron was. the impression of his eccentric but energetic character was evident in the reply. 'he's the devil of a fellow for comical fancies--he flogs th' oud laird to nothing, but he's a hearty good fellow for all that.'" here is dallas's opinion, which can not be suspected of partiality, for reasons which we have elsewhere given; for he believed himself aggrieved, and considered as a great culprit the man who, ever so slightly, could depart from the orthodox religious teachings; who had not a blind admiration of his country; who could suffer his heart to be possessed by an affection which marriage had not legitimatized; who preferred to family pride the satisfaction of paying the debts bequeathed to him by his ancestors, and who could make use of his right of selling his lands. yet, notwithstanding all this, mr. dallas expresses himself to the following effect:--"at this time ( ), when on the eve of publishing his first satire, and before taking his seat in the house of lords, i saw lord byron every day. (this was the epoch of his misanthropy). nature had gifted him with most amiable sentiments, which i frequently had occasion to notice, and i have often seen these imprint upon his fine countenance a really sublime expression. his features seemed made expressly to depict the conceptions of genius and the storms of passion. i have often wondered with admiration at these curious effects. i have seen his face lighted up by the fire of poetical inspiration, and, under the influence of strong emotions, sometimes express the highest degree of energy, and at others all the softness and grace of mild and gentle affection. when his soul was a prey to passion and revenge, it was painful to observe the powerful effect upon his features; but when, on the contrary, he was conquered by feelings of tenderness and benevolence (which was the natural tendency of his heart), it was delightful to contemplate his looks. i went to see lord byron the day after lord falkland's death. he had just seen the inanimate body of the man with whom, a few days before, he had spent such an agreeable time. at intervals, i heard him exclaim to himself, and half aloud, 'poor falkland!' his look was even more expressive than were his words. 'but his wife,' added he, 'she is to be pitied!' one could see his soul filled with the most benevolent intentions, which were sterile.[ ] if ever pure action was done, it was that which he then meditated; and the man who conceived it, and who accomplished it, was then progressing through thorns and thistles, toward that free but narrow path which leads to heaven." several years later, mr. hoppner, english consul at venice, and who spent his life with byron in that city, wrote in a narrative of the causes which created so much disgust in byron for english travellers, that byron's affected misanthropy, as observable in his first poems, was by no means natural to him; and he adds, that he is certain that he never met with a man so kind as byron. we might stop here, certain as we are that all loyal and reasonable readers are not only convinced of byron's goodness, but experience a noble pleasure in admiring it. we can not, however, close this chapter, without calling the attention of our readers to the last and painful proofs given of this kindness and goodness of byron's nature: we allude to the extraordinary grief, caused by his death. "never can i forget the stupefaction," says an illustrious writer, "into which we were plunged by the news of his death, so great a part of ourselves died with him, that his death appeared to us almost impossible, and almost not natural. one would have said that a portion of the mechanism of the universe had been stopped. to have questioned him, to have blamed him, became a remorse for us, and all our veneration for his genius was not half so energetically felt as our tenderness for him. "'his last sigh dissolved the charm, the disenchanted earth lost all her lustre. where her glittering towers? her golden mountains where? all darkened, down to naked waste a dreary vale of years! the great magician's dead!'"--young. such griefs are certainly reasonable, just, and honorable: for the deaths which bury such treasures of genius are real public calamities. on hearing of byron's death, one might repeat the beautiful and eloquent words of m. de saint victor: "what a great crime death has committed! it is something like the disappearance of a star, or the extinction of a planet, with all the creation it supposed. when great minds have accomplished their task, like shakspeare, dante, goethe, their departure from the scene of the world leaves in the soul the sublime melancholy which presides over the setting of the sun, after it has poured out all its rays. but when we hear of the death of a raphael, of a mozart, and especially of byron, struck down in their flight, just at the time when they were extending their course, we can not refrain from calling these an eternal cause for mourning, irreparable losses, and inconsolable regrets! a genius who dies prematurely carries treasures away with him! how many ideal existences were linked with his own! what sublime thoughts vanish from his brow! what great and charming characters die with him, even before they are born! how many truths postponed, at least, for humanity!" and we will add: to how many great and noble actions his death has put an end! such regrets do honor as much to those who experience them as to those who give them rise. but it is not to the enthusiasm created by his genius, nor to the grief evinced by the greek nation, for whom he died, that we will turn for a last proof of the goodness of his nature. such regrets might almost be called interested,--emanating, as they do, from the knowledge of the loss of a treasure. of the tears of the heart, which were shed for the man without his genius, shall we ask that last proof. these are the words by which count gamba describes his affliction:-- "in vain should i attempt to describe the deep, the distressing sorrow that overwhelmed us all. i will not speak of myself, but of those who loved him less, because they had seen him less. not only mavrocordato and his immediate circle, but the whole city and all its inhabitants were, as it seemed, stunned by the blow--it had been so sudden, so unexpected. his illness, indeed, had been known; and for the three last days, none of us could walk in the streets, without anxious inquiries from every one who met us, of 'how is my lord?' we did not mourn the loss of the great genius,--no, nor that of the supporter of greece--our first tears were for our father, our patron, our friend. he died in a strange land, and among strangers: but more loved, more sincerely wept, he could never have been, wherever he had breathed his last. "such was the attachment, mingled with a sort of reverence and enthusiasm, with which he inspired those around him, that there was not one of us who would not, for his sake, have willingly encountered any danger in the world. the greeks of every class and every age, from mavrocordato to the meanest citizen, sympathized with our sorrows. it was in vain that, when we met, we tried to keep up our spirits--our attempts at consolation always ended in mutual tears." none but beautiful souls, and those who are really thoroughly good, can be thus regretted; and heartfelt tears are only shed for those who have spent their life in drying those of others. footnotes: [footnote : galt's life of byron, p. .] [footnote : see chapter "generosity raised to a virtue."] [footnote : when travelling in greece, he often found himself in straitened circumstances, merely because he had helped a friend. "it is probable," he wrote to his mother from athens in , "i may steer homeward in spring: but, to enable me to do that, i must have remittances. my own funds would have lasted me very well: but i was obliged to assist a friend, who i know will pay me, but in the mean time i am out of pocket."] [footnote : it may be observed here, that he was not willing, even to confide to paper, the nature and degree of the act of kindness. hodgson wanted thirty-five thousand francs to establish himself. byron actually borrowed this amount, to give it to him, as he had not the sum at his disposal.] [footnote : see his "life in italy."] [footnote : vide kennedy.] [footnote : "yesterday i paid him (to scroope davies) four thousand eight hundred pounds, ... and my mind is much relieved by the removal of that debt," he says in his memorandum of . all his difficulties were inherited from his father, and not contracted by him personally.] [footnote : although not rich, and on the point of undertaking a long and expensive journey, he devoted a large sum to the alleviation of the wants of that family.] chapter x. qualities and virtues of soul. antimaterialism. among lord byron's natural qualities we may rank his antipathy, not only for any thing like low sensuality or gross vice, but even for those follies to which youth and human nature are so prone. whatever may have been said on this head, and notwithstanding the countenance lord byron's own words may have lent to calumnies too widely believed, it will be easy to prove the truth of our assertion. let us examine his actions, his words (when serious), the testimony of those who knew him through life, and it will soon appear that this natural antipathy with him often attained to the height of rare virtue. lord byron had a passionate nature, a feeling heart, a powerful imagination; and it can not be denied that, after the disappointment he experienced in his ethereal love entertained at fifteen, he fell into the usual round of university life. but as he possessed great refinement of mind, never losing sight of an ideal of moral beauty, such an existence speedily became odious to him. his companions thought it all quite natural and pleasant; but he disapproved of it and blamed himself, feeling ashamed in his own conscience. it is well known that lord byron never spared himself. he invented faults rather than sought to extenuate them. and so he fully merits belief, when he happens to do himself justice. let us attend to the following:-- "i passed my degrees in vice," he says, "very quickly, _but they were not after my taste_. for my juvenile passions, though most violent, were concentrated, and did not willingly tend to divide and expand on several objects. i could have renounced every thing in the world with those i loved, or lost it all for them; but fiery though my nature was, _i could not share without disgust in the dissipation common to the place, and time._" this makes moore say, that even at the period to which we are alluding, his irregularities were much less sensual, much less gross and varied than those of his companions. nevertheless it was his boyish university life that caused lord byron to be suspected of drawing his own likeness, when two years later, after his return from the east, he brought out "childe harold"--an imaginary hero, whom he imprudently surrounded with real circumstances personal to himself. moore, with his usual good sense, protests strongly against such injustice, saying that, however dissipated his college and university life might have been during the two or three years previous to his first travels, no foundation exists, except in the imagination of the poet, and the credulity or malice of the world, for such disgraceful scenes as were represented to have taken place at newstead, by way of inferences drawn from "childe harold." "in this poem," adds moore, "he describes the habitation of his hero as a monastic dwelling---- 'condemn'd to uses vile! where superstition once had made her den now paphian girls were known to sing and smile.'" these exaggerated, if not imaginary descriptions, were, nevertheless, taken for serious, and literally believed by the greater part of his readers. moore continues: "mr. dallas, giving way to the same exaggerated tone, says, in speaking of the preparations for departure made by the young lord, 'he was already satiated with pleasure, and disgusted with those comrades who possessed no other resource, so he resolved to overcome his senses, and accordingly dismissed his harem.' the truth is, that lord byron did not then even possess sufficient fortune to allow himself this oriental luxury; his manner of living at newstead was plain and simple. his companions, without being insensible to the pleasures afforded by liberal hospitality, were all too intellectual in their tastes and habits to give themselves up to vulgar debauchery. as to the allusions regarding his _harem_, it appears certain that one or two women were suspected _subintroductæ_--to use the style of the old monks of the abbey--but that even these belonged to the servants of the house. this is the utmost that scandal could allege as the groundwork for suspicion and accusation." these assertions of moore have been corroborated by many other testimonies. i will only relate that mentioned by washington irving, in the account of his visit to newstead abbey in . urged by philosophical curiosity, washington irving managed to get into conversation with a certain nanny smith, who had passed all her life at newstead as house-keeper. this old woman, after having chattered a great deal about lord byron and the ghosts that haunted the abbey, asserting that though she had not seen them, she had heard them quite well, was particularly questioned by mr. irving as to the mode of life her young master led. she certified to his sobriety, and positively denied that he had led a licentious life at newstead with his friends, or brought mistresses with him from london. "once, it is true," said the old lady, "he had a pretty _youth_ for a _page_ with him. the maids declared it was a young woman. but as for me, i never could verify the fact, and all these servant-girls were jealous, especially one of them called lucy. for lord byron being kind to her, and a fortune-teller having predicted a high destiny for her, the poor little thing dreamed of nothing else but becoming a great lady, and perhaps of rising to be mistress of the abbey. ah, well! but her dreams came to nothing."[ ] "lord byron," added the old lady, "passed the greater part of his time seated on his sofa reading. sometimes he had young noblemen of his acquaintance with him. then, it is true, they amused themselves in playing all sorts of tricks--youthful frolics, that was all; they did nothing improper for young gentlemen, nothing that could harm any body."[ ] "lord byron's only amusements at newstead," says mr. irving, "were boating, boxing, fencing, and his dogs." "his constant occupation was to write, and for that he had the habit of sitting up till two and three in the morning. thus his life at newstead was quite one of seclusion, entirely devoted to poetry." after having passed a year in this way at newstead, following on his college and university life, he left england in order to mature his mind under other skies, to forget the injustice of man and the hardships of fortune that had already somewhat tinged his nature with gloom. instead of going in quest of emotions, his desire was, on the contrary, to avoid both those of the heart and of the senses. the admiration felt by the young traveller for charming spanish women and beautiful greeks did not outstep the limits of the purest poetry. nevertheless the stoicism of twenty, with a heart, sensibility and imagination like his, could not be very firm, nor always secure from danger. he did actually meet with a formidable enemy at malta; for he there made acquaintance with mrs. spencer smith, the daughter of one ambassador and the wife of another, a woman most fascinating from her youth, beauty, mind, and character, as well as by her singular position and strange adventures. did he avoid her so much as the stanzas addressed to the lovely florence, in the first canto of "childe harold," would fain imply? this may be doubted, on account of the ring which they exchanged, and also from several charming pieces of verse that testify to another sentiment. in any case, he showed strength of mind, and that his senses were under the dominion of reason; for, unable to secure her happiness or his own, he sought a remedy in flight. when writing "childe harold," however, about this period, an evil genius suggested expressions, that if taken seriously and in their literal sense, might some day furnish the weapons of accusation to his enemies. for, while acting thus toward florence, he introduced the episode into "childe harold" in a way that looks calumnious against himself:---- "little knew she that seeming marble heart, now mask'd in silence or withheld by pride, was not unskillful in the spoiler's art, and spreads its snares licentious far and wide; nor from the base pursuit had turn'd aside, as long as aught was worthy to pursue." "we have here," says moore, "another instance of his propensity to self-misrepresentation. however great might have been the irregularities of his college life, such phrases as the 'art of the spoiler' and 'spreading snares' were in no-wise applicable to them."[ ] galt expresses the same certainty on this head. "notwithstanding," says he, "the unnecessary exposure he makes of his dissipation on his first entrance into society (in the first two cantos of 'childe harold'), it is proved beyond _all dispute_, that at no period of his existence did lord byron _lead an irregular life_. that on one or two occasions he fell into some excesses, may be true; _but his habits were never those of a libertine_."[ ] and after saying that the declaration by which byron himself acknowledges his antipathy to vice carries more weight than all the rest, and that what he says of it is vague and metaphysical, he adds:--"but that only further corroborates my impression concerning him,--that is to say, that he took a sort of vanity in setting forth his experience in dissipation, but _that this dissipation never became a habit with him_." his true sentiments at this time are well portrayed in his letters, and especially in those addressed to his mother from athens, when she consulted him on the conduct to be observed toward one of his tenants, a young farmer, who had behaved ill to a girl. "my opinion is," answered he, "that mr. b---- ought to marry miss k----. _our first duty is not to do evil_ (but, alas! that is not possible); our second duty _is to remedy it, if that be in our power_. the girl is his equal. if she were inferior to him, a sum of money and an allowance for the child might be something,--although, after all, a miserable compensation; but, under the circumstances, he ought to marry her. i will not have _gay seducers_ on my estate, nor grant my farmers a privilege _i would not take myself of seducing other people's daughters_. i expect, then, this lothario to follow my example, and begin by restoring the girl to society, or, by my father's beard, he shall hear of me." to this letter moore justly adds:--"the reader must not pass lightly over this letter, for there is a _vigor of moral sentiment_ in it, expressed in such a plain, sincere manner, that it shows how full of health his heart was at bottom, even though it might have been scorched by passion." lord byron returned to his own country, after having spent two years travelling in spain, portugal, and the east, in the study and contemplation requisite for maturing his genius. his distaste for all material objects of love or passion, and, in general, for sensual pleasures, was then remarked by all those who knew him intimately. "an anchorite," says moore, "who knew lord byron about this time, could not have desired for himself greater _indifference toward all the attractions of the senses_, than lord byron showed at the age of twenty-three." and as on arriving in london he met with a complication of sorrows, he could, without any great effort, remain on his guard against all seductions. he did so in reality; and dallas assures us that, even when "childe harold" appeared, he still professed positive distaste for the society of women. whether this disposition arose from regret at the death of one he had loved, or was caused by the light conduct of other women, it is certain that he did not seek their society then; nay, even avoided them. "i have a favor to ask you," he wrote, during this sad time, to one of his young friends: "never speak to me in your letters of a woman; make no allusion to the sex. i do not even wish to read a word about the feminine gender." and to this same friend he wrote in verse:---- "if thou would'st hold place in a heart that ne'er was cold, by all the powers that men revere, by all unto thy bosom dear, thy joys below, thy hopes above, speak--speak of any thing but love." _newstead abbey, october , ._ but if he did not seek after women, they came in quest of him. when he had achieved celebrity--when fame lit up his noble brow--the sex was dazzled. they did not wait to be sought, but themselves made the first advances. his table was literally strewn with expressions of feminine admiration. dallas relates that one day he found lord byron so absorbed in answering a letter that he seemed almost to have lost the consciousness of what was passing around him. "i went to see him again next day," says he, "and lord byron named the person to whom he had written. "while we were together, the page of the lady in question brought him a fresh letter. apparently it was a young boy of thirteen or fourteen years of age, with a fresh, delicate face, that might have belonged to the _lady herself_. he was dressed in a hussar jacket, and trowsers of scarlet, with silver buttons and embroidery; curls of fair hair clustered over part of the forehead and cheeks, and he held in his hand a little cap with feathers, which completed the theatrical appearance of this childish pandarus. i could not help suspecting it was a disguise." the suspicions were well founded, and they caused dallas's hair to stand on end, for, added to his puritanism, was the hope of becoming the young nobleman's mentor, and he fancied he saw him already on the road to perdition. but was it likely that lord byron, with all his imagination, sensibility, and warm heart, should remain unmoved--neither touched nor flattered by the advances of persons uniting beauty and wit to the highest rank? the world talked, commented, exaggerated. whether actuated by jealousy, rancor, noble or despicable sentiments, all took advantage of the occasion afforded for censure. feminine overtures still continued to be made to lord byron, but the fumes of incense never hid from him the sight of his ideal. and as the comparison was not favorable to realities, disenchantment took place on his side, without a corresponding result on the other. thence many heart-breakings. nevertheless there was no ill-nature, no indelicacy, none of those proceedings that the world readily forgives, but which his feelings as a man of honor would have condemned. calantha, in despair at being no longer loved, resolved on vengeance. she invented a tale, but what does she say when the truth escapes her? "if in his manners he (glenarvon) had shown any of that freedom or wounding familiarity so frequent with men, she might, perhaps, have been alarmed, affrighted. but what was it she would have fled from? certainly not gross adulation, nor those light, easy protestations to which all women, sooner or later, are accustomed; but, on the contrary, respect at once delicate and flattering; attention that sought to gratify her smallest desires; grace and gentleness that, not descending to be humble, were most fascinating, and such as are rarely to be met with," etc. let us now reverse the picture, and pass from shade to light: the difference is striking. passing in review his former life, lord byron said one day to mr. medwin:--"you may not compare me to scipio, but i can assure you that _i never seduced any woman_." no, certainly he did not pretend to rival scipio; his fault was, on the contrary, that he took pleasure in appearing the reverse. and yet lord byron often performed actions during his short life that scipio himself might have envied. and who knows whether in any case scipio could have had the same merit?--for, in order to attain that, he would have required to overcome such sensibility, imagination, and heart, as were possessed by lord byron. the single fact of being able to say, "i never seduced any woman," is a very great thing, and we may well doubt whether many of his detractors could say as much. but let us relate facts. in london the mother of a beautiful girl, hard pressed for money, had recourse to lord byron for a large sum, making him an unnatural offer at the same time. the mother's depravity filled him with horror. many men in his place would have been satisfied with expressing this sentiment either in words or by silence. but that was not enough for his noble heart, and he subtracted from his pleasures or his necessities a sum sufficient to save the honor of the unfortunate girl. at another time, shortly before his marriage, a charming young person, full of talent, requiring help, through some adverse family circumstances, and attracted to lord byron by some presentiment of his generosity, became passionately _in love_ with him. she could not live without his image before her. the history of her passion is quite a romance. utterly absorbed by it, she was forever seeking pretexts for seeing him. a word, a sign, was all she required to become any thing he wished. but lord byron, aware he could not make her happy and respectable, never allowed that word to pass his lips, and his language breathed only counsels of wisdom and virtue.[ ] even at venice, when his heart had no preference, we find him saving a young girl of noble birth from the danger caused by his involuntary fascinations.[ ] in romagna, at pisa, in greece, he also gave similar proofs of virtue and of his delicate sense of honor. let us now examine his words. in , with regard to "the monk," by lewis, which he had just read, lord byron wrote in his memoranda:--"these descriptions might be written by tiberius, at caprera. they are overdrawn; the essence of vicious voluptuousness. as to me, i can not conceive how they could come from the pen of a man of twenty, for lewis was only that age when he wrote 'the monk.' these pages are not natural; they distill cantharides. "i had never read this work, and have just been looking over it out of sheer curiosity, from a remembrance of the noise the book made, and the name it gave lewis. but really such things can not even be dangerous." about the same period mr. allen, a friend of lord holland, very learned--a perfect magliabecchi--a devourer of books, and an observer of mankind, lent lord byron a quantity of unpublished letters by the poet burns--letters that were very unfit to see the light of day, being full of oaths and obscene songs. after reading them, lord byron wrote in his memoranda:---- "what an antithetical intelligence! tenderness and harshness, refinement and vulgarity, sentiment and sensuality; now soaring up into ether, and then dragging along in mud. mire and sublimity; all that is strangely blended in this admixture of inspired dust. it may seem strange, but to me it appears that a true voluptuary should never abandon his thought to the coarseness of reality. it is only by exalting whatever terrestrial, material, physical element there is in our pleasures, by veiling these ideas, or forgetting them quite, or, at least, by never boldly naming them to ourselves, only thus can we avoid disgust." this is how lord byron understood voluptuousness. we might multiply such quotations without end, taking them from every period of his life; all would prove the same thing. as to his poetry written at this time, especially the lyrical pieces where he expresses his own sentiments, what can there be more chaste, more ethereal? when a boy, he begins by consigning to the flames a whole edition of his first poems, on account of a single one, which the rev. dr. beecher considered as expressing sentiments too warm for a young man. in his famous satire, written at twenty, he blames moore's poetry for its effeminate and epicurean tendencies, and he stigmatized as evil the whole poem of "the ausonian nun," and all the sensualities contained in it. in his "childe harold," his eastern tales, his lyric poems above all, where he displays the sentiments of his own heart, every thing is chaste and ethereal. the way in which the public appreciated these poems may be summed up in the words used by the rev. mr. dallas--the living type of puritanism in its most exaggerated form--at a date when, through many causes, lord byron no longer even enjoyed his good graces. "after ," says he (the time at which lord byron left england), "i had no more personal intercourse with him, but i continued to read his new poems with the greatest pleasure until he brought out 'don juan.' that i perused with a real sorrow that no admiration could overcome. until then his truly english muse had despised the licentious tone belonging to poets of low degree. but, in writing 'don juan,' he allied his _chaste and noble genius_ with minds of that stamp." and then he adds, nevertheless, that into whatsoever error lord byron fell, whatsoever his sin (on account of the beginning of "don juan"), he did not long continue to mix his pure gold with base metal, but ceased to sully his lyre by degrees as he progressed with the poem. whether dallas be right or not in speaking thus of "don juan," we do not wish here to examine. in quoting his words, my sole desire is to declare that, until the appearance of this poem, lord byron's muse had been, even for a dallas, the _chaste muse of albion_. this avowal from such a man is worthy of note, and renders unnecessary any other quotation. we must not, however, pass over in silence mr. galt's very remarkable opinion on this subject:-- "certainly," says he, "there are some very fine compositions on love in lord byron's works, but there is not a _single line_ among the thousand he wrote which shows a _sexual_ sentiment. with him, all breathes the _purest_ voluptuousness. all is vague as regards love, and _without material passion_, except in the delicious rhythm of his verses." and elsewhere he says:-- "it is most singular that, with all his tender, passionate apostrophes to love, lord byron _should not once have associated it with sensual images_. not even in 'don juan,' where he has described voluptuous beauties with so much elegance." then, quoting from "hebrew melodies,"---- she walks in beauty. she walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes: thus mellow'd to that tender light which heaven to gaudy day denies. one shade the more, one ray the less, had half impair'd the nameless grace which waves in every raven tress, or softly lightens o'er her face; where thoughts serenely sweet express how pure, how dear their dwelling-place. and on that cheek, and o'er that brow, so soft, so calm, yet eloquent, the smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent, a mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent! "behold in these charming lines," continues galt, "a perfect sample of his _ethereal admiration_, his _immaterial_ enthusiasm. "the sentiment contained in this fine poetry," says he, "beyond all doubt belongs to the highest order of intellectual beauty;" and it seemed proved to him that love, in lord byron, was rather a metaphysical conception than a sensual passion. he remarked that even when lord byron recalls the precocious feelings of his childhood toward his little cousins--feelings so strong as to make him lose sleep, appetite, peace; when he describes them, still unable to explain them--we feel that they were passions much more ethereal with him than with children in general. "it should be duly remarked," says galt, "that there is not a single circumstance in his souvenirs which shows, despite the strength of their natural sympathy, the smallest influence of any particular attraction. he recollects well the color of her hair, the shade of her eyes, even the dress she wore, but he remembers his little mary as if she were a peri, a pure spirit; and it does not appear that his torments and his wakefulness haunted with the thought of his little cousin, were in any way produced by jealousy, or doubt, or fears, or any other consequence of passion." and when galt speaks of "tasso's lament," he expresses the same opinion, namely, that in his writings lord byron treats of love as of a metaphysical conception, and that the fine verses he has put into the mouth of tasso would still better become himself:-- "it is no marvel--from my very birth my soul was drunk with love, which did pervade and mingle with whate'er i saw on earth: of objects all inanimate i made idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, and rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise, where i did lay me down within the shade of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours." "the truth is," adds galt, by way of conclusion, "that no poet has ever described love better than lord byron in that particular _ethereal_ shade:---- "'his love was passion's essence:--as a tree on fire by lightning, with ethereal flame kindled he was, and blasted; for to be thus, and enamor'd, were in him the same. but his was not the love of living dame, nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, but of ideal beauty, which became in him existence, and o'erflowing teems along his burning page, distemper'd though it seems.'" "_childe harold_," canto iii. stanza . and even if it should be denied that love, in lord byron's writings, as indeed in himself, was purely metaphysical, it must, at least, be acknowledged that it was chaste. this would be more easily recognizable if the letters dictated by his heart, if his _love-letters,_ were known. but since we can not open these intimate treasures of his heart to the public, we will speak of those given us in his writings, and we will thence draw our conclusions: firstly, in regard to the characters he gives to all his heroines; secondly, as to the pictures he makes of love in passages where he speaks seriously, and in his own name. lord byron's female characters. what poet of energy has ever painted woman more chaste, more gentle and sweet, than lord byron? "one of the distinguishing excellences of lord byron," says one of his best critics, "is that which may be found in all his productions, whether romantic, classical, or fantastical, an intense sentiment of the loveliness of woman, and the faculty, not only of drawing individual forms, but likewise of infusing into the very atmosphere surrounding them, the essence of beauty and love. a soft roseate hue, that seems to penetrate down to the bottom of the soul, is spread over them." more than any other genius, lord byron had the magic power of conjuring up before our imagination the ideal image of his subject. he was not at all perplexed how to clothe his ideas. that quality, so sought after by other writers, and so necessary for hiding faults, was quite natural to him. when he describes women, a few rapid strokes suffice to engrave an indelible image on the mind of the reader. let us take for examples:---- leila, in the "giaour." zuleika, in the "bride of abydos." medora, in the "corsair." theresa, in "mazeppa." haidée, in "don juan." adah, in "cain." the gentle medora, ensconced within the solitary tower where she awaits her conrad, is fully portrayed in the melancholy song stealing on the strings of her guitar, and in the tender, chaste words with which she greets her lover. zuleika, the lovely, innocent, and pure bride of selim, has her image graven in the following fine lines:-- "fair, as the first that fell of womankind, when on that dread yet lovely serpent smiling, whose image then was stamp'd upon her mind-- but once beguiled--and evermore beguiling; dazzling, as that, oh! too transcendent vision to sorrow's phantom-peopled slumber given, when heart meets heart again in dreams elysian, and paints the lost on earth revived in heaven; soft as the memory of buried love; pure, as the prayer which childhood wafts above, was she--the daughter of that rude old chief, who met the maid with tears--but not of grief. "who hath not proved how freely words essay to fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray? who doth not feel, until his failing sight faints into dimness with its own delight, his changing cheek, his sinking heart confess the might, the majesty of loveliness? such was zuleika, such around her shone the nameless charms unmark'd by her alone-- the light of love, the purity of grace, the mind, the music breathing from her face, the heart whose softness harmonized the whole, and, oh! that eye was in itself a soul! her graceful arms in meekness bending across her gently-budding breast; at one kind word those arms extending to clasp the neck of him who blest his child, caressing and carest."[ ] * * * * * theresa. theresa's form-- methinks it glides before me now, between me and yon chestnut's bough, the memory is so quick and warm; and yet i find no words to tell the shape of her i loved so well; she had the asiatic eye, such as our turkish neighborhood hath mingled with our polish blood, dark as above us is the sky; but through it stole a tender light, like the first moonrise of midnight; large, dark, and swimming in the stream, which seem'd to melt to its own beam; all love, half languor, and half fire, like saints that at the stake expire, and lift their raptured looks on high, as though it were a joy to die. a brow like a midsummer lake, transparent with the sun therein when waves no murmur dare to make, and heaven beholds her face within. a cheek and lip--but why proceed? i loved her then, i love her still; and such as i am, love indeed in fierce extremes--in good and ill. * * * * * leila. her eye's dark charm 'twere vain to tell, but gaze on that of the gazelle, it will assist thy fancy well; as large, as languishingly dark, but soul beam'd forth in every spark that darted from beneath the lid, bright as the jewel of giamschid. yea, _soul_, and should our prophet say that form was naught but breathing clay, by allah! i would answer nay; though on al-sirat's arch i stood, which totters o'er the fiery flood, with paradise within my view, and all his houris beckoning through. oh! who young leila's glance could read and keep that portion of his creed which saith that woman is but dust, a soulless toy for tyrant's lust? on her might muftis gaze, and own that through her eye the immortal shone; on her fair cheek's unfading hue the young pomegranate's blossoms strew their bloom in blushes ever new; her hair in hyacinthine flow, when left to roll its folds below, as midst her handmaids in the hall she stood superior to them all, hath swept the marble where her feet gleam'd whiter than the mountain sleet ere from the cloud that gave it birth it fell, and caught one stain of earth. the cygnet nobly walks the water; so moved on earth circassia's daughter-- the loveliest bird of franguestan! as rears her crest the ruffled swan, and spurns the waves with wings of pride, when pass the steps of stranger man along the banks that bound her tide; thus rose fair leila's whiter neck:-- thus arm'd with beauty would she check intrusion's glance, till folly's gaze shrunk from the charms it meant to praise. thus high and graceful was her gait; her heart as tender to her mate; her mate--stern hassan, who was he? alas! that name was not for thee! adah. adah is the wife of cain. it is especially as the drama develops itself that lord byron brings out the full charm of adah's beautiful nature--a nature at once primitive, tender, generous, and biblical. cain. _lucifer._ approach the things of earth most beautiful, and judge their beauty near. _cain._ i have done this-- the loveliest thing i know is loveliest nearest. _lucifer._ what is that? * * * * * * * _cain._ my sister adah.--all the stars of heaven, the deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world-- the hues of twilight--the sun's gorgeous coming-- his setting indescribable, which fills my eyes with pleasant tears as i behold him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him along that western paradise of clouds-- the forest shade--the green bough--the bird's voice-- the vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love, and mingles with the song of cherubim, as the day closes over eden's walls:-- all these are nothing, to my eyes and heart, like adah's face: i turn from earth and heaven to gaze on it. even those charming children of nature, haidée and dudù, in "don juan," and the neuha, in "the island," scarcely meant to represent more than the visible material part of the ideal woman he could love if he met with her--even these charming creatures possess not only the pagan beauty of form, but also christian beauty, that of the soul: goodness, gentleness, tenderness. and it is also to be remarked, that by degrees, as time wore on, lord byron's female types rose in the moral scale, while still preserving their adorable charms, and their harmony with the state of civilization wherein he placed them. for instance, his haidée, in the second canto of "don juan," written at venice in , is not worth, morally, the haidée of the fourth canto, written at ravenna in . beneath his pen at ravenna, the adorable maiden evidently becomes spiritualized. this may be attributed to the poet's state of mind, for he was quite different at ravenna to what he had been at venice. the portrait of this lovely child is certainly very charming in , but, while admiring her spotless grecian brow, her beautiful hair, large eastern eyes, and noble mouth, we can not help remarking something vague and undecided about her. and even in those fine verses where he says that haidée's face belongs to a type inconceivable for human thought, and still more impossible of execution for mortal chisel, it is still the beauty of form that he shows you; while the haidée of ravenna is quite spiritualized in all her exquisite beauty. after having described her as she appeared in her delicious eastern costume, lord byron expresses himself in these terms:-- "her hair's long auburn waves down to her heel flow'd like an alpine torrent, which the sun dyes with his morning light,--and would conceal her person if allow'd at large to run; and still they seem'd resentfully to feel the silken fillet's curb, and sought to shun their bonds, whene'er some zephyr, caught, began to offer his young pinion as her fan. "round her she made an atmosphere of life, the very air seem'd lighter from her eyes, they were so soft and beautiful, and rife with all we can imagine of the skies, and pure as psyche ere she grew a wife-- too pure even for the purest human ties; her overpowering presence made you feel it would not be idolatry to kneel." and, describing the whiteness of her skin, he says:-- "day ne'er will break on mountain-tops more heavenly white than her; the eye might doubt of it were well awake, she was so like a vision." in the sixth canto of "don juan"--the hero being in the midst of a harem--all his sympathies are for dudù, a beautiful circassian, who unites to all the charms, all the moral qualities that a slave of the harem might possess. this is the portrait which lord byron draws:-- xlii. "a kind of sleepy venus seem'd dudù, yet very fit to 'murder sleep' in those who gazed upon her cheek's transcendent hue, her attic forehead and her phidian nose. * * * * * * * xliii. "she was not violently lively, but stole on your spirit like a may-day breaking. * * * * * * * lii. "dudù, as has been said, was a sweet creature, not very dashing, but extremely winning, with the most regulated charms of feature, which painters can not catch like faces sinning against proportion--the wild strokes of nature which they hit off at once in the beginning, full of expression, right or wrong, that strike, and, pleasing or unpleasing, still are like. liii. "but she was a soft landscape of mild earth, where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet, luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth, which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it than are your mighty passions and so forth, which some call 'the sublime:' i wish they'd try it: i've seen your stormy seas and stormy women, and pity lovers rather more than seamen. liv. "but she was pensive more than melancholy, and serious more than pensive, and serene, it may be, more than either: not unholy her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been. the strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly unconscious, albeit turn'd of quick seventeen, that she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall; she never thought about herself at all. lv. "and therefore was she kind and gentle as the age of gold (when gold was yet unknown)." as to neuha, the daughter of ocean (in "the island"), his last creation, she is, indeed, the daughter of nature also, and no less admirable than her sister haidée, but she is still more highly endowed in a moral sense:-- "the infant of an infant world, as pure from nature--lovely, warm, and premature; dusky like night, but night with all her stars, or cavern sparkling with its native spars; with eyes that were a language and a spell, a form like aphrodite's in her shell, with all her loves around her on the deep, voluptuous as the first approach of sleep; yet full of life--for through her tropic cheek the blush would make its way, and all but speak: the sun-born blood suffused her neck, and threw o'er her clear nut-brown skin a lucid hue, like coral reddening through the darken'd wave, which draws the diver to the crimson cave. such was this daughter of the southern seas, herself a billow in her energies, to bear the bark of others' happiness. nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less: her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew no joy like what it gave; her hopes ne'er drew aught from experience, that chill touchstone, whose sad proof reduces all things from their hues: she fear'd no ill, because she knew it not." when, after the combat, she arrives in her bark to save torquil, the poet exclaims: "and who the first that springing on the strand, leap'd like a nereid from her shell to land, with dark but brilliant skin, and dewy eye shining with love, and hope, and constancy? neuha--the fond, the faithful, the adored-- her heart on torquil's like a torrent pour'd; and smiled, and wept, and near, and nearer clasp'd as if to be assured 'twas _him_ she grasp'd; shuddered to see his yet warm wound, and then, to find it trivial, smiled and wept again. she was a warrior's daughter, and could bear such sights, and feel, and mourn, but not despair. her lover lived,--nor foes nor fears could blight, that full-blown moment in its all delight: joy trickled in her tears, joy filled the sob that rock'd her heart till almost heard to throb; and paradise was breathing in the sigh of nature's child in nature's ecstasy." "all these sweet creations realize the idea, formed from all time, of surpassing loveliness, of gentleness with passion," justly observes monsieur nisard--he who, in his very clever sketch of the illustrious poet, so often forms erroneous judgments of lord byron. for he also accepted him as he was presented--namely, as the victim of calumny and prejudice; or else he considered him after a system, examining only some _passages and one single period_ of the man's and the _poet's_ life, instead of taking the whole career and the general spirit of his writings,--a method also perceivable in his appreciation of lord byron's female characters. indeed monsieur nisard evidently only speaks of the medoras, zuleikas, leilas, and in general of all the types in his eastern poems, and appertaining to his first period: most fascinating beings undoubtedly, true emanations of the purest and most passionate love, but yet as morally inferior to the angiolinas, myrrhas, josephines, auroras, as his poems of the first period are intellectually inferior to those of the second, beginning with the third canto of "childe harold," and as civilized christian woman is superior to a woman in the harem. but monsieur nisard, who has a very systematic way of judging things--wishing to prove that lord byron's loves were quite lawless in their ungovernable strength, filling the whole soul to the absorption of every other sentiment and interest (which might, indeed, perhaps be said of the personages in his eastern poems), and not able, without contradicting himself, to assert the same as regards the love and devotion shown by the heroic myrrhas and virtuous angiolinas, and other dramatic types, all so different one from the other--has been obliged to omit all mention of them, thus sharing an error common to vain, ignorant critics. yet these delightful creatures all resemble each other in the one faculty of _loving passionately and chastely_, for that is a quality which constitutes the very essence of woman, and lord byron's own qualities must always have drawn it out in her. but there is something far beyond beauty and passion in these noble and heroic creations of his second manner. "where shall we find," says sir edward bulwer lytton, "a purer, higher character than that of angiolina, in the 'doge of venice?' among all shakspeare's female characters there is certainly not one more true, and not only true and natural, which would be slight merit, but true as a type of the highest, rarest order in human nature. let us stop here for a moment, we are on no common ground; the character of angiolina has not yet been understood." bulwer then quotes the scene between marian and angiolina, and after having pointed out its moral beauty, exclaims:-- "what a deep sentiment of the dignity of virtue! angiolina does not even conceive that she can be suspected, or that the insult offered her required any other justification than the indignation of public opinion." and bulwer goes on to quote the verses where marian asks angiolina if, when she gave her hand to a man of age so disproportioned, and of a character so opposite to her own, she loved this spouse, this friend of her family; and whether, before marriage, her heart had not beat for some noble youth more worthy to be the husband of beauty like hers; or whether since, she had met with some one who might have aspired to her lovely self. and after angiolina's admirable reply, bulwer says:-- "is not this conception equal at least to that of desdemona? is not her heart equally pure, serene, tender, and at the same time passionate, yet with love, not material but _actual_, which, according to plato, gives a visible form to virtue, and then admits of no other rival. yet this sublime noble woman had no cold stiffness in her nature; she forgives steno, but not from the cold height, of her chastity. "'if,' said she to the indignant page, 'oh! if this false and light calumniator were to shed his blood on account of this absurd calumny, never from that moment would my heart experience an hour's happiness, nor enjoy a tranquil slumber.'" "here," says bulwer, "the reader should remark with what delicate artifice the tenderness of sex and charity heighten and warm the snowy coldness of her ethereal superiority. what a union of all woman's finest qualities! pride that disdains calumny; gentleness that forgives it! nothing can be more simply grand than the whole of this character, and the story which enhances it. an old man of eighty is the husband of a young woman, whose heart preserves the calmness of purity; no love episode comes to disturb her serene course, no impure, dishonorable jealousy casts a shade on her bright name. she treads her path through a life of difficulties, like some angelic nature, though quite human by the form she wears." wishing only to call attention to the beauty of the female characters he created, without reference to the other beauties contained in the work, we shall continue to quote bulwer for the second of these admirable creations of womankind in his dramas, namely, myrrha. after having praised that magnificent tragedy "sardanapalus," he adds:-- "but the principal beauty of this drama is the conception of myrrha. this young greek slave, so tender and courageous, in love with her lord and master, yet sighing after her liberty; adoring equally her natal land and the gentle barbarian: what a new and dramatic combination of sentiments! it is in this conflict of emotions that the master's hand shows itself with happiest triumph. "the heroism of this beautiful ionian never goes beyond nature, yet stops only at sublimest limits. the proud melancholy that blends with her character, when she thinks of her fatherland; her ardent, generous, _unselfish_ love, her passionate desire of elevating the soul of sardanapalus, so as to justify her devotion to him, the earnest yet sweet severity that reigned over her gentlest qualities, showing her faithful and fearless, capable of sustaining with, a firm hand the torch that was to consume on the sacred pile (according to her religion) both assyrian and greek; all these combinations are the result of the purest sentiments, the noblest art. the last words of myrrha on the funereal pyre are in good keeping with the grand conception of her character. with the natural aspirations of a greek, her thoughts turn at this moment to her distant clime; but still they come back at the same time to her lord, who is beside her, and blending almost in one sigh the two contrary affections of her soul, myrrha cries:-- "then farewell, thou earth! and loveliest spot of earth! farewell, ionia! be thou still free and beautiful, and far aloof from desolation! my last prayer was for thee, my last thoughts, save _one_, were of thee! _sar._ and that? _myr._ is yours." "the principal charm," says moore, "and the life-giving angel of this tragedy, is myrrha, a beautiful, heroic, devoted, ethereal creature, enamored of the generous, infatuated monarch, yet ashamed of loving a barbarian, and using all her influence over him to elevate as well as gild his life, and to arm him against the terror of his end. her voluptuousness is that of the heart, her heroism that of the affections." another admirable character, full of christian beauty, is that of josephine in "werner." "josephine," said the "review," when "werner" appeared, "is a model of real spotless virtue. a true woman in her perfection, not only does she preserve the character of her sex by her general integrity, but she also possesses a wife's tender, sweet, and constant affection. she cherishes and consoles her afflicted husband through all the adversities of his destiny and the consequences of his faults. "italian by birth, the contrast between the beauties and circumstances of her native country compared with the frontiers of silesia, where a pretty feudal tyranny exists, displays still more the fine sentiments that characterize her." we shall close this long list of admirable conceptions (which one quits with regret, so great is their charm) by giving some extracts from the portrait he was engaged on, when death, alas! caused the pencil to drop from his fingers: we mean aurora raby in "don juan:"-- "aurora raby, a young star who shone o'er life, too sweet an image for such glass; a lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded, a rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded; * * * * * * * "early in years, and yet more infantine in figure, she had something of sublime in eyes which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine. all youth--but with an aspect beyond time; radiant and grave as pitying man's decline; mournful--but mournful of another's crime, she look'd as if she sat by eden's door, and grieved for those who could return no more." and then:-- "she was a catholic, too, sincere, austere, as far as her own gentle heart allow'd." and again:-- "she gazed upon a world she scarcely knew, as seeking not to know it; silent, lone, as grows a flower, thus quietly she grew, and kept her heart serene within its zone. there was awe in the homage which she drew: her spirit seem'd as seated on a throne apart from the surrounding world, and strong in its own strength--most strange in one so young!" * * * * * * * "high, yet resembling not his lost haidée; yet each was radiant in her proper sphere." * * * * * * * "the difference in them was such as lies between a flower and gem." "_don juan_," canto xv. now that we have seen lord byron's ideal of womankind, let us mark with what sentiments they inspired him, and in what way love always presented itself to his heart or his imagination. ever dealing out toward him the same measure of justice and truth, people have gone on complacently repeating that his love sometimes became a very frenzy, or anon degenerated into a sensation rather than a sentiment. and his poetry has been asserted to contain proof of this in the actions, characters, and words of the persons there portrayed. i think, then, that the best way of ascertaining the degree of truth belonging to these asseverations, is to let him speak himself, on this sentiment, at all the different periods of his life:-- "yes, love indeed is light from heaven; a spark of that immortal fire with angels shared, by allah given to lift from earth our low desire. devotion wafts the mind above, but heaven itself descends in love; a feeling from the godhead caught, to wean from self each sordid thought; a ray of him who form'd the whole; a glory circling round the soul! i grant _my_ love imperfect, all that mortals by the name miscall; then deem it evil, what thou wilt; but say, oh say, _hers_ was not guilt! she was my life's unerring light: that quench'd, what beam shall break my night?" "_the giaour._" in , at venice, when his heart, at twenty-nine years of age, was devoid of any real love, and had even arrived at never loving, although suffering deeply from the void thus created, lord byron giving vent to his feelings wrote thus:-- "oh! that the desert were my dwelling-place, with one fair spirit for my minister, that i might all forget the human race, and, hating no one, love but only her! ye elements!--in whose ennobling stir i feel myself exalted--can ye not accord me such a being? do i err in deeming such inhabit many a spot? though with them to converse can rarely be our lot."[ ] at the same period, he also unveils his soul, in guessing that of tasso:-- "and with my years my soul began to pant with feelings of strange tumult and soft pain; and the whole heart exhaled into one want, but undefined and wandering, till the day i found the thing i sought--and that was thee; and then i lost my being, all to be absorb'd in thine; the world was pass'd away; _thou_ didst annihilate the earth to me!" "_the lament of tasso._" a short time after, having described the charm of the pine forest at ravenna, seen by twilight, he begins to paint the happiness of two loving hearts--of juan and haidée, and says:-- viii. "young juan and his lady-love were left to their own hearts' most sweet society; even time the pitiless in sorrow cleft with his rude scythe such gentle bosoms. * * * * * * * they could not be meant to grow old, but die in happy spring, before one charm or hope had taken wing. ix. "their faces were not made for wrinkles, their pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail! the blank gray was not made to blast their hair, but like the climes that know nor snow nor hail, they were all summer; lightning might assail and shiver them to ashes, but to trail a long and snake-like life of dull decay was not for them--they had too little clay. x. "they were alone once more; for them to be thus was another eden; they were never weary, unless when separate: the tree cut from its forest root of years--the river damn'd from its fountain--the child from the knee and breast maternal wean'd at once forever,-- would wither less than these two torn apart; alas! there is no instinct like the heart. xii. "'whom the gods love die young,' was said of yore, and many deaths do they escape by this: the death of friends, and that which slays even more-- the death of friendship, love, youth, all that is, except mere breath; * * * * * * * perhaps the early grave which men weep over, may be meant to save. xiii. "haidée and juan thought not of the dead. the heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made for them: they found no fault with time, save that he fled; they saw not in themselves aught to condemn; each was the other's mirror. * * * * * * * xvi. "moons changing had roll'd on, and changeless found those their bright rise had lighted to such joys as rarely they beheld throughout their round; and these were not of the vain kind which cloys, for theirs were buoyant spirits, never bound by the mere senses; and that which destroys most love, possession, unto them appear'd a thing which each endearment more endear'd. xvii. "oh beautiful! and rare as beautiful! but theirs was love in which the mind delights to lose itself, when the old world grows dull. and we are sick of its hack sounds and sights, intrigues, adventures of the common school, its petty passions, marriages, and flights, where hymen's torch but brands one strumpet more, whose husband only knows her not a wh--re. xviii. "hard words; harsh truth; a truth which many know. enough.--the faithful and the fairy pair, who never found a single hour too slow, what was it made them thus exempt from care? young innate feelings all have felt below, which perish in the rest, but in them were inherent; what we mortals call romantic, and always envy, though we deem it frantic. xix. "this is in others a factitious state, * * * * * * * but was in them their nature or their fate. * * * * * * * xx. "they gazed upon the sunset: 'tis an hour dear unto all, but dearest to _their_ eyes, for it had made them what they were: the power of love had first o'erwhelm'd them from such skies, when happiness had been their only dower, and twilight saw them link'd in passion's ties; charm'd with each other, all things charm'd that brought the past still welcome as the present thought. * * * * * * * xxvi. "juan and haidée gazed upon each other with swimming looks of speechless tenderness, which mix'd all feelings, friend, child, lover, brother; all that the best can mingle and express when two pure hearts are pour'd in one another, and love too much, and yet can not love less; but almost sanctify the sweet excess by the immortal wish and power to bless. xxvii. "mix'd in each other's arms, and heart in heart, why did they not then die?--they had lived too long should an hour come to bid them breathe apart; years could but bring them cruel things or wrong." "_don juan,"_ canto iv. it was this love which caused campbell the poet to say: "if the love of juan and haidée is not pure and innocent, and expressed with delicacy and propriety, then may we at once condemn and blot out this tender passion of the soul from the list of a poet's themes. then must we shut our eyes and harden our hearts against that passion which sways our whole existence, and quite become mere creatures of hypocrisy and formality, and accuse milton himself of madness." at ravenna, where lord byron composed so many sublime works, he also wrote "sardanapalus" and "heaven and earth." he was then thirty-two years of age. the love predominating in these two dramas is that which swayed his own soul, the same sentiment which, a year later, also inspired the beautiful poem composed on his way from ravenna to pisa. no quotation could convey an idea of the noble energetic feeling animating these two dramas, for adequate language is wanting; impervious to words, the sentiment they contain is like a spirit pervading, or a ray of light warming and illuminating them. they require to be read throughout. i prefer to quote his words on love, in the th canto of "don juan," and in "the island," because they are the last traced by his pen. written a few days previous to his fatal departure for greece, it can not be doubted that the sentiment which dictated them was the same that accompanied him to his last hour. cvii. * * * * * * * "and certainly aurora had renew'd in him some feelings he had lately lost, or harden'd; feelings which, perhaps ideal, are so divine, that i must deem them real:-- cviii. "the love of higher things and better days; the unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance of what is call'd the world, and the world's ways; the moments when we gather from a glance more joy than from all future pride or praise, which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance the heart in an existence of its own, of which another's bosom is the zone."[ ] and then, in describing the happiness of two lovers, in his poem of "the island," a few days before setting out for greece, he says again:-- "like martyrs revel in their funeral pyre, with such devotion to their ecstasy, that life knows no such rapture as to die; and die they do; for earthly life has naught match'd with that burst of nature, even in thought; and all our dreams of better life above but close in one eternal gush of love." after speaking of the religious enthusiast, and saying that his soul preceded his dust to heaven, he adds:-- "is love less potent? no--his path is trod, alike uplifted gloriously to god; or link'd to all we know of heaven below, the other better self, whose joy or woe is more than ours." but enough of quotations; and now what poet has ever written or spoken of love with words and images more chaste, more truly welling from his own heart? we feel that he has given us the key to that. and if, after all these demonstrations, there still remain any readers who continue to accept as true the pleasantries, satires, and mystifications contained in some of his verses, i do not pretend to write for them. they are to be pitied, but there is no hope of convincing them. that depends on their quality of mind. the only thing possible, then, is to recall some of those anecdotes which, while justifying them in a measure, yet at the same time illustrate lord byron's way of acting. i will select one. when lord byron was at pisa a friend of shelley's, whom he sometimes saw, had formed a close intimacy with lady b----, a woman of middle-age but of high birth. the tie between them was evidently the result of vanity on mr. m----'s side, and, as she was the mother of a large family, it was doubly imperative on her to be respectable. but that did not prevent mr. m---- from boasting of his success, and even (that he might be believed) from going into disgusting details in his eagerness for praise. one day that mr. m---- was in the same _salon_ (at mrs. sh----'s house) with lord byron and the countess g----, the conversation turned upon women and love in general, whereupon mr. m---- lauded to the skies the devotedness, constancy, and truth of the sex. when he had finished his sentimental "tirade," lord byron took up the opposite side, going on as don juan or childe harold might. it was easy to see he was playing a part, and that his words, partly in jest, partly ironical, did not express his thoughts. nevertheless they gave pain to mme. g----, and, as soon as they were alone, lord byron having asked her why she was sad, she told him the cause. "i am very sorry to have grieved you," said he, "but how could you think that i was talking seriously?" "i did not think it," she said, "but those who do not know you will believe all; m---- will not fail to repeat your words as if they were your real opinions; and the world, knowing neither him nor you, will remain convinced that he is a man full of noble sentiments, and you a real don juan, not indeed your own charming youth, but molière's don juan!" "very probably," said lord byron; "and that will be another true page to add to m----'s note-book. i can't help it. i couldn't resist the temptation of punishing m---- for his vanity. all those eulogiums and sentimentalities about women were to make us believe how charming they had always been toward him, how they had always appreciated his merits, and how passionately in love with him lady b---- is now. my words were meant to throw water on his imaginary fire." alas! it was on such false appearances that they made up, then and since, the lord byron still believed in by the generality of persons. lord byron by his marriage gave another pledge of having renounced the foibles of the heart and the allurements of the senses; and it is very certain that he redeemed his word. if, through susceptibility or any other defect, lady byron, going back to the past or trusting to vile, revengeful, and interested spies, did not know how to understand him, all lord byron's friends did, whether or not they dared to say so. and he himself, who never could tell a lie, has assured us of his married fidelity.[ ] his life in switzerland was devoted to study, retreat, and even austerity. how little this stood him in stead with his enemies is well known. "i never lived in a more edifying manner than at geneva," he said to mr. medwin. "my reputation has not gained by it. nevertheless, when there is mortification, there ought to be a reward."[ ] when he arrived at milan many ladies belonging to the great world were most anxious to know him; these presentations were proposed to him, and he refused. as to his life at venice, a wicked sort of romance has been made of it, by exaggerating most ordinary things, and heaping invention upon invention; but this has been explained with sufficient detail in another chapter, where all the different causes of these exaggerations have been shown in their just measure of truth.[ ] here, then, i will only say, that if, on arriving at venice, he relaxed his austerity to lead the life common to young men without legitimate ties: if, under the influence of that lovely sky, he did not remain insensible to the songs of the beautiful adriatic siren, nor trample under foot the few flowers fate scattered on his path, to make amends perhaps for the thorns that had so long beset it; if he sometimes accepted distractions in the form of light pleasures, as well as in the form of study,[ ] did he not likewise always impose hard laborious occupation upon his mind, thus chaining it to beautiful immaterial things? did his intellectual activity slacken? was his soul less energetic, less sublime? the works of genius that issued from his pen at venice are a sufficient reply. "manfred," conceived on the summit of the alps, was written at venice; the fourth canto of "childe harold" was conceived and written at venice. the "lament of tasso," "mazeppa," the "ode to venice," "beppo" (from his studies of berni), the first two cantos of "don juan," were all written at venice. moreover, it was there he collected materials for his dramas; there he studied the armenian language, making sufficient progress to translate st. paul's epistles into english. and all that, in less than twenty-six months, including his journeys to rome and to florence. let moralists say whether a man steeped in sensual pleasures could have done all that. "the truth is," says moore, "that, so far from the strength of his intellect being impaired or dissipated by these irregularities, it never was perhaps at any period of his life more than at venice in full possession of all its energies."[ ] all the concessions moore was obliged to make, from a sort of weakness, not to compromise his position, to certain extreme opinions in politics or religion, cloaking in reality personal hatred; are they not all destroyed by this single avowal? shelley, who came to venice to see lord byron, said that all he observed of lord byron's state during his visit gave him a much higher idea of his intellectual grandeur than what he had noticed before. then it was, and under this impression, that shelley sketched almost the whole poem of "julian and maddalo." "it is in this latter character," says moore, "that he has so picturesquely personated his noble friend; his allusions to the 'swan of albion,' in the verses written on the engancennes hills, are also the result of this fit of enthusiastic admiration." at venice lord byron saw few english; but those he did see, and who have spoken of him, have expressed themselves in the same way as shelley; which caused galt to say, that even at venice, with regard to his pleasures, his conduct had been that of most young men! but that the whole difference must have consisted in the extravagant delight he took in exaggerating, through his conversation, not what was conducive to honor, but, on the contrary, what was likely to do him harm. the whole difference, however, does not lie here, but rather in the indiscretion shown by some friends.[ ] among the best testimonies borne to his way of living at venice we must not forget that of hoppner, who bore so high a character, and who was the constant companion of his daily afternoon walks; nor that of the excellent father pascal, who shared his morning studies at the armenian convent.[ ] but in this united homage to truth i can not pass over in silence nor refrain from quoting the words of a very great mind, who, under the veil of fiction, has written almost a biography of lord byron, and who too independent, _though a tory_, to _wish_ to conceal his thought, has declared in the preface to his charming work of "venetia" that lord byron was really his hero. this writer, after speaking of all the silly calumnies with which lord byron was overwhelmed at one time, says of the two more especially calculated to stir up opinion against him, those which accused him of _libertinism_ and _atheism_:-- "a calm inquirer might, perhaps, have suspected that abandoned profligacy is not very compatible with severe study, and that an author is seldom loose in his life, even if he be licentious in his writings. a calm inquirer might, perhaps, have been of opinion that a solitary sage may be the antagonist of a priesthood without absolutely denying the existence of a god; but there never are calm inquirers. the world, on every subject, however unequally, is divided into parties; and even in the case of herbert (lord byron) and his writings, those who admired his genius and the generosity of his soul were not content with advocating, principally out of pique to his adversaries, his extreme opinions on every subject--moral, political, and religious. besides, it must be confessed, there was another circumstance almost as fatal to herbert's character in england as his loose and heretical opinions. the travelling english, during their visits to geneva, found out that their countryman solaced or enlivened his solitude by unhallowed ties. it is a habit to which very young men, who are separated from or deserted by their wives, occasionally have recourse. wrong, no doubt, as most things are, but, it is to be hoped, venial; at least in the case of any man who is not also an atheist. this unfortunate mistress of herbert was magnified into a _seraglio_; extraordinary tales of the voluptuous life of one who generally _at his studies outwatched the stars_, were rife in english society; and 'hoary marquises and stripling dukes,' who were either _protecting opera-dancers_, or, still worse, _making love to their neighbors' wives_, either looked grave when the name of herbert (lord byron) was mentioned in female society, or affectedly confused, as if they could a tale unfold, if they were not convinced, that the sense of propriety among all present was infinitely superior to their sense of curiosity." in addition to all the proofs given by the varied uses lord byron made of his intellect we must not omit those furnished by the state of his heart. if, too readily yielding at venice to momentary and fleeting attractions, lord byron had been led to squander the powers of youth, to wish to extinguish his senses in order to open out a more vast horizon to his intelligence; if, thus mistaking the means, he had, nevertheless, weakened, enervated, degraded himself, would not his heart have been the first victim sacrificed on the altar of light pleasures? but, on the contrary, this heart which he had never succeeded in lulling into more than a slumber, when the hour of awakening came, held dominion by its own natural energy over the proud aspirations of his intelligence, and found both his youth and faculty of loving unweakened, and that he had a love capable of every sacrifice, a love as fresh as in his very spring-tide. are such metamorphoses possible to withered souls? moralists have never met with a like phenomenon. on the contrary, they certify that in hearts withered by the enjoyments of sense all generous feelings, all noble aspirations become extinct. if lord byron's anti-sensuality were not sufficiently proved by his actions, words, writings, and by the undeniable testimony of those who knew him, it might still be abundantly proved by his habits of life, and all his tastes; to begin with his sobriety, which really was wonderful. so much so, that if the proverb, _tell me what you eat, and i will tell you what you are_, be true, and founded on psychological observation, one must admit that lord byron was almost an immaterial being. his fine health, his strong and vigorous constitution, lead to the presumption that, at least in childhood and during his boyish days, his rule of life could not have differed from that of the class to which he belonged. nevertheless, his sobriety was remarkable even in early youth; at eighteen he went with a friend, mr. pigott, to tunbridge wells, and this gentleman says, "we retired to our own rooms directly after dinner, for byron did not care for drinking any more than myself." but this natural sobriety became soon after the sobriety of an anchorite, which lasted more or less all his life, and was a perfect phenomenon. not that he was insensible to the pleasures of good living, and still less did he act from any vanity (as has been said by some incapable of sacrificing the bodily appetites to the soul); his conduct proceeded from the desire and resolution of making _matter_ subservient to the _spirit_. his rule of life was already in full force when he left england for the first time. mr. galt, whom chance associated with lord byron on board the same vessel bound from gibraltar to malta, affirms that lord byron, during the whole voyage, seldom tasted wine; and that, when he did occasionally take some, it was never more than half a glass mixed with water. he ate but little; and never any meat; only bread and vegetables. he made me think of the ghoul taking rice with a needle." on board "la salsette," returning from constantinople, he himself wrote to his friend and preceptor drury, that the gnats which devoured the _delicate body_ of hobhouse had not much effect on him, because he lived in a _more sober manner_. as to his mode of living during his two years' absence from england we can say nothing, except that he lived in climates where sobriety is the rule, and that his letters expressed profound disgust at the complaints, exacting tone, and effeminate tastes of his servants, and his own preference for a monastic mode of life, and very probably also for monastic diet. the testimony to his extraordinary sobriety becomes unanimous as soon as he returns home. dallas, who saw him immediately on his landing in , writes:-- "lord byron has adopted a mode of diet that any one else would have called dying of hunger, and to which several persons even attributed his lowness of spirits. he lived simply on small sea-biscuits, very thin; only eating two of these, and often but one, a day, with one cup of _green tea_, which he generally drank at one in the afternoon. he assured me that was all the nourishment he took during the twenty-four hours, and that, so far from this régime affecting his spirits, it made him feel lighter and more lively; and, in short, gave him _greater command over himself in all respects. this great abstinence is almost incredible.... he thought great eaters were generally prone to anger, and stupid._"[ ] it was about this time that he made the personal acquaintance of moore at a dinner given by rogers for the purpose of bringing them together and of reconciling them. "as none of us," says moore, "knew about his singular régime, our host was not a little embarrassed on discovering, that there was nothing on the table which his noble guest could eat or drink. lord byron did not touch meat, fish, or wine; and as to the biscuits and soda-water he asked for, there were, unfortunately, none in the house. he declared he was equally pleased with potatoes and vinegar, and on this meagre pittance he succeeded in making an agreeable dinner."[ ] about the same time, being questioned by one of his friends, who liked good living, as to what sort of table they had at the alfred club, to which he belonged, "it is not worth much," answered lord byron. "i speak from hearsay; for what does cookery signify to a vegetable-eater? but there are books and quiet; so, for what i care, they may serve up their dishes as they like." "frequently," says moore again, "during the first part of our acquaintance we dined together alone, either at st. alban's, or at his old asylum, stevens's. although occasionally he consented to take a little bordeaux, he _always held to his system of abstaining from meat_. he seemed truly persuaded that animal food must have some particular influence on character. and i remember one day being seated opposite to him, engaged in eating a beefsteak with good appetite, that, after having looked at me attentively for several seconds, he said, gravely, 'moore, does not this eating beefsteaks make you ferocious?' "among the numerous hours we passed together this spring, i remember particularly his extreme gayety one evening on returning from a soirée, when, after having accompanied rogers home, lord byron--who, according to his frequent custom, had not dined the last two days--feeling his appetite no longer governable, asked for something to eat. our repast, at his choice, consisted only of bread and cheese; but i have rarely made a gayer meal in my life." in he relaxed his diet a little, so far as to eat fish now and then; but he considered this an excessive indulgence. "i have made a regular dinner for the first time since sunday," he writes in his journal. "every other day tea and six dry biscuits. this dinner makes me heavy, stupid, gives me horrible dreams (nevertheless, it only consisted of a pint of bucellas and fish; i do not touch meat, and take but little vegetable). i wish i were in the country for exercise, instead of refreshing myself with abstinence. _i am not afraid of a slight addition of flesh; my bones can well support that! but the worst of it is, that the devil arrives with plumpness, and i must drive him away through hunger!_ i do not wish to be the slave of my appetite. if i fall, my heart at least shall herald the race."[ ] except the last phrase, which is more worldly or more human, might not one fancy one's self listening to the confession or soliloquy of some christian philosopher of the fourth century: one of those who sought the theban deserts to measure their strength of soul and body in desperate struggles with nature; the confession of a hilarion or a jerome, rather than that of a young man of twenty-three, brought up amid the conveniences and luxuries surrounding the aristocracy of the most aristocratic country in the world, where material comfort is best appreciated? thus it was, nevertheless, that lord byron practiced epicureanism with regard to his food, making very rare exceptions when he consented to dine out. if time, change of circumstances, and climate, caused some slight modifications in his manner of living, his mode of life did not vary. at venice, ravenna, and genoa, this epicurean would never suffer meat on his table; and he only made some rare exceptions, to avoid too much singularity, at pisa, where he invited some friends to dinner. count gamba, after having spoken of the sobriety of his regimen on board the vessel that took him to greece, the ionian islands, and finally to missolonghi, says, "he ate nothing but vegetables and fish, and drank only water. our fear was," says he, "lest this excessive abstinence should be injurious to his health!" alas! we know that it was. it is certain that this debilitating régime, joined to such strong moral impressions, too strongly felt, undermined lord byron's fine constitution, which had only resisted so long through its extreme vigor and the rare purity of his blood. the bodily exercise he took had the same object, and further added to the injurious effect of his obstinate fasts. "i have not left my room these four days past," he writes in his memorandum, april, , at a moment when his heart was agitated by a passion; "but i have been fencing with jackson an hour a day by way of exercise, _so as to get matter under, and give sway to the ethereal part of my nature_. the more i fatigue myself, the better my mind is for the rest of the day; and then my evenings acquire that calm, that prostration and languor, that are such a happiness to me. to-day i fenced for an hour, wrote an ode to napoleon bonaparte, copied it out, ate six biscuits, drank four bottles of soda-water, read the rest of the time, and then gave a load of advice to poor h---- about his mistress, who torments him intolerably, enough to make him consumptive. ah! to be sure, it suits me well to be giving lessons to----; it is true they are thrown to the winds."[ ] this desire of giving mind dominion over matter is shown equally in all his tastes, all his preferences. beauty in art consisted wholly for him in the expression of heart and soul. he had a horror of realism in art; the flemish school inspired him with a sort of nausea. certain material points of beauty in women, that are generally admired, had no beauty for him. the music he liked, and of which he never grew tired, was not brilliant or difficult, but simple; that which awakens the most delicate sentiments of the soul, which brings tears to the eye. "i have known few persons," says moore, "more alive than he to the charms of simple music; and i have often seen tears in his eyes when listening to the irish melodies. among those that caused him these emotions was the one beginning-- "when first i met thee, warm and young." the words of this melody, besides the moral sentiment they express, also admit a political meaning. lord byron rejected this meaning, and delivered his soul over, with the liveliest motion, to the more natural sentiment conveyed in that song." "only the fear of seeming to affect sensibility could have restrained my tears," he said once, on hearing mrs. d---- sing "could'st thou look." "very often," said mme. g----, "i have seen him with tears in his eyes when i was playing favorite airs to him on the piano, of which he never got tired."[ ] stendhall also speaks of lord byron's emotion while listening to a piece of music by mayer at milan, and says that if he lived a hundred years he could never forget the divine expression of his physiognomy while thus engaged. at most, lord byron could only admire for a moment material beauty without expression in women; it might give rise to sensations, but could never inspire him with the slightest sentiment. we have said enough of the female characters he created: sweet incarnations of the most amiable qualities of heart and soul. let us add here, that although greatly alive to beauty of form, he could not believe in a fine woman's delicate feeling, unless her beauty were accompanied by expression denoting her qualities of heart and mind. beauty of form, of feature, and of color were nothing to him, if a woman had not also beauty of expression; if he could not see, he said, beauty of soul in her eyes. "beauty and goodness have always been associated in my idea," said he, at genoa, to the countess b----, "for in my experience i have generally seen them go together. what constitutes true beauty for me," added he, "is the soul looking through the eyes. sometimes women that were called beautiful have been pointed out to me that could never in the least have excited my feelings, because they wanted physiognomy, or expression, which is the same thing; while others, scarcely noticed, quite struck and attracted me by their expression of face." he admired lady c---- very much, because, he said, her beauty expressed purity, peace, dreaminess, giving the idea that she had never inspired or experienced aught but holy emotions. he once thought of marrying another young lady, because she excited the same feelings. all the women who more or less interested him in england were remarkable for their intellect or their education, including her whom he selected for his companion through life. only, with regard to her, he trusted too much to reputation and appearance; he saw what she had, not what was wanting. she was in great part the cause of his deadly antipathy to regular "blue stockings;" but that did not change the necessity of intellect for exciting his interest. it only required, he said, for the _dress to hide the color of the stockings_. the name he gave to his natural daughter belonged to a venetian lady, whose cleverness he admired, and with whom his acquaintance consisted in a mere exchange of thought. often he has been heard to say that he could never have loved a silly woman, however beautiful; nor yet a vulgar woman, whether the defect were the result of birth, or education, or tastes. he felt no attraction for that style of woman since called "fast." even among the light characters whose acquaintance he permitted to himself at venice, he avoided those who were too bold. there lived then at venice mme. v----, a perfect siren. all venice was at her feet; lord byron would not know her, and at bologna he refused to make acquaintance with a person of still higher rank, countess m----, who was both charming and estimable, but who had the fault in his eyes of attracting too much general admiration. her air of modesty and reserve was what principally drew him toward miss milbank. at ferrara, where he met countess mosti and thought her most delightful, he did not feel the same sympathy for her sister, who was, however, much more brilliant, and whose singing excited the admiration of every one. in order to be truly loved by lord byron, it was requisite for a woman to live in a sort of illusive atmosphere for him, to appear somewhat like an immaterial being, not subject to vulgar corporeal necessities. thence arose his antipathy (considered so singular) to see the woman he loved eat. in short, spiritual and manly in his habits, he was equally so with his person. it sufficed to see his face, upon which there reigned such gentleness allied to so much dignity; and his look, never to be forgotten; and the unrivalled mouth, which seemed incapable of lending itself to any material use; a simple glance enabled one to understand that this privileged being was endowed with all noble passions, joined to an instinctive horror of all that is low and vulgar in human nature. "his beauty was quite independent of his dress," said lady blessington. if, then, his nails were roseate as the shells of the ocean (according to her expression); if his complexion was transparent; his teeth like pearls; his hair glossy and curling; he had only to thank providence for having lavished on him and preserved to him so many free gifts. but it is not easy to persuade others of such remarkable exceptions to the general rule. those who do not possess the same advantages are incredulous; and, indeed, there were not wanting persons to deny, at least in part, that he had them. soon after his death an account of him was published in the "london magazine," containing some truths mixed up with a heap of calumnies. among other things, it was said "that lord byron constantly wore gloves." to which count pietro gamba replied, "_that is not true_; lord byron wore them less than any other man of his standing." another declared that his fingers were loaded with rings; he only wore one, which was a token of affection. in his rooms hardly ordinary comforts could be found. he was not one to carry about with him the habits of his own country. indeed, his habits consisted in having none. during his travels, the most difficult to please were his valet and other servants. "on his last journey," says count gamba, "he passed six days without undressing." his sole self-indulgence consisted in frequent bathing; for his only craving was for extreme cleanliness. but, just as the disciples of epicurus would never have adopted his regimen, so would they equally have refused to imitate this last enjoyment; which was a little too manly for them, for his baths were mostly taken on ocean's back; struggling against the stormy wave, and that in all seasons, up to mid-december. such was the fastidious delicacy of this epicurean![ ] but to acknowledge all these things, or even any thing extraordinarily good in the author of "don juan," the "age of bronze," the "vision;" in a son so _wanting in respect_ for the weaknesses of his mother-country; in a poet that had dared to chastise powerful enemies, and the limit of whose audacity was not even yet known, for his death had just condemned, through revelations and imprudent biographies, many persons and things to a sorry kind of immortality; to praise him, declare him guiltless, do him justice,--truly that would have been asking too much from england at that time. england has since made great strides in the path of generous toleration and even toward justice to lord byron. for vain is calumny after a time: truth destroys calumny by evoking facts. these form a clear atmosphere, wherein truth becomes luminous, as the sun in its atmosphere: for facts give birth to truth, and are mortal to calumny. footnotes: [footnote : the history of the page is, however, true. lord byron was then nineteen years of age. not to give his mother the grief of seeing that he had made an acquaintance she would have disapproved, he brought miss ---- from brighton to the abbey, dressed as a page, that she might pass for her brother gordon.] [footnote : see "newstead abbey," by washington irving.] [footnote : moore, vol. i. p. .] [footnote : see galt, "life of lord byron."] [footnote : see chapter on "generosity."] [footnote : see "life in italy."] [footnote : the heroism of the young zuleika, says mr. g. ellis in his criticism, is full of purity and loveliness. never was a more perfect character traced with greater delicacy and truth; her piety, intelligence, her exquisite sentiment of duty and her unalterable love of truth seem born in her soul rather than acquired by education. she is ever natural, seductive, affectionate, and we must confess that her affection for selim is well placed.] [footnote : "childe harold," canto iv. stanza .] [footnote : see "don juan," canto xvi.] [footnote : see chapter on marriage.] [footnote : medwin, p. .] [footnote : see "life in italy."] [footnote : ibid.] [footnote : moore, vol. ii, p. .] [footnote : see "life in italy," at venice.] [footnote : see "life in italy."] [footnote : dallas, .] [footnote : moore, .] [footnote : moore, first vol.] [footnote : moore, .] [footnote : see "life in italy."] [footnote : "he was more a mental being, if i may use this phrase," said captain parry, who knew him at missolonghi, "than any one i ever saw; he lived on thoughts more than on food."] chapter xi. the constancy of lord byron. among lord byron's moral virtues, may we count that of constancy? men in general, not finding this virtue in their own lives, refuse to believe in its existence among those who, in exception to the common rule, do possess it. they must be forced to this act of justice as to many others. this is comprehensible; constancy is so rare! "i less easily believe constancy in men than any thing else," says montaigne, "and nothing more easily than inconstancy." besides the difficulties common to every one, lord byron had also to fight against those difficulties peculiar to his sensitive nature and his vast intelligence. "the largest minds," says bacon, "are the least constant, because they find reasons for deliberating, where others only see occasion for acting." but if these difficulties overcame lord bacon's constancy, could they have the same power over lord byron, who was indeed his equal in mind, but his opposite in conduct and strength of soul? there are three sorts of constancy: that of affection, which has its source in goodness of heart; that of taste, flowing from beauty of soul; that of idea, derived from rectitude of intelligence. did lord byron possess the whole of these, or only a part? as this may be chiefly proved, not from writings or words, but by conduct, let us ask the question of those who knew him personally and at all periods of his life. was he constant in his ideas? moore, speaking of lord byron's intellectual faculties, of his variableness, of which he makes too much, for the reasons i have mentioned,[ ] and of the danger to which it exposed his consistency and oneness of character, says:-- "the consciousness, indeed, of his own natural tendency to yield thus to every chance impression, and change with every passing impulse, was not only forever present to his mind, but, aware as he was of the suspicion of weakness attached by the world to any retractation or abandonment of long-professed opinions, had the effect of keeping him in that general line of consistency, on certain great subjects, which, notwithstanding occasional fluctuations and contradictions as to the details of these very subjects, he continued to preserve throughout life. a passage from one of his manuscripts will show how sagaciously he saw the necessity of guarding himself against his own instability in this respect:--'the world,' he says, 'visits change of politics or change of religion with a more severe censure than a mere difference of opinion would appear to me to deserve. but there must be some reason for this feeling, and i think it is that this departure from the earliest instilled ideas of our childhood, and from the line of conduct chosen by us when we first enter into public life, have been seen to have more mischievous results for society, and to prove more weakness of mind than other actions, in themselves more immoral.'" "to superficial observers," says the hon. col. stanhope, "his conduct might appear uncertain; and that was the case sometimes, but only _up to a certain point_. his genius was limitless and versatile, and in conversation he passed boldly from grave to gay, from light to serious topics; but nevertheless, _upon the whole and in reality_, no man was more constant, i might almost say _more obstinate_, than lord byron _in the pursuit of great objects_. for instance, in religion and in politics, he seemed as firm as a rock, though, like a rock, he was sometimes subject to great shocks, to the convulsions of nature in commotion. what i affirm is, that lord byron had very fixed opinions on important matters. it is not from the opinion he wished to give of himself, nor from what he allowed to escape his lips, that i could have drawn this conclusion; for, in conversing with me on politics or religion, and passing capriciously over this latter subject, sometimes laughing and making strings of jests, he would say, for instance, '_the more i think the more i doubt--i am a thorough skeptic_;' but i find these words contradicted in _all his actions, and in all his sentiments seriously expressed from childhood to death_. and i opine that although occasionally he may have appeared changeable, still he always came back to certain fixed ideas in his mind; that he always entertained a constant attachment to liberty according to his notions of liberty; and that, although not orthodox in religion, he _firmly believed_ in the existence of a god. it is then equally false to represent him as an atheist or as an orthodox christian. lord byron was, as he often told me, _a thorough deist_."[ ] it would be easy to prove in a thousand ways that, despite the danger of inconstancy resulting from his great sensibility, imagination, and intellect, no one, more than lord byron, steadily and firmly adhered _through life_ in his actions to the principles which _constitute the man of honor_. chances, caprices, inequalities of temper, which are to sensitive natures what bubbles are on a lake, all disappeared when these great principles required to be acted upon; and the effects even of his well-nigh inexhaustible benevolence were checked, if he had to struggle against his principles. we find in his memoranda, :--"i like george byron" (his cousin, the present lord); "i like him much more than one generally does one's heirs. he is a fine fellow. i would do any thing to see him advance in his career as a sailor; _any thing except apostatize_!" (lord byron was a _whig_, and his cousin a _tory_.) as it is impossible to quote every thing, i will only say that his passion for firmness and constancy in the principles of honor, went so far as to inspire him with repugnance for those characters lacking the firmness and oneness of action which he considered it a sacred duty to practice. it is even to this sentiment that must be attributed certain antipathies which he expressed, sometimes by words and sometimes by silence, and which have been laid to totally different, and quite impossible motives. for instance, his silence concerning chateaubriand, expressive of his little sympathy for the individual (a silence so much resented by this proud vindictive poet, and for which he revenged himself in different ways), was not caused solely by the radical antagonism existing between their two natures. assuredly, the literary affectation, the want of sincerity, the theatrical and declamatory nature of chateaubriand's soul, who was positively ill with insatiable pride, innate and incurable ennui, all this could little assimilate with the simplicity, sincerity, passionate tenderness and devotion of lord byron. but his repugnance was especially directed against the skeptic, who made himself the champion of catholicism, and the liberal who upheld the divine right of kings.[ ] a few days before lord byron set out for his last journey to greece, a young man (m. coullmann) arrived at genoa, bringing him the admiring homage of many celebrated men in france, who sent him their respective works. among the number were delavigne and lamartine. chateaubriand, of course, was conspicuous by his absence: but an anecdote coullmann related, of what had just occurred at turin, greatly amused lord byron. chateaubriand had lately been presented in his capacity of ambassador, whereupon the queen said to him: "are you any relation to that chateaubriand who has written _something_?" lord byron, laughing heartily at the anecdote, hastened to go and repeat it to the countess g----. the same sentiment had disenchanted him with monti, whom he had so much admired at milan, and with several other rival poets. when lord byron heard it said of any one, "he has changed sides, he has abandoned his party, he has forfeited his word," one might feel sure that all his natural indulgence, generally so great, was gone: he looked upon such a fault as forming only a despicable variety of the vice he never forgave, viz., untruth. at most, he could only make an exception in favor of women. "i have received a very pretty note from madame de staël," we read in his memoranda of ; "her works are my delight, and she also (for half an hour). but i do not like her politics, or, at least, _her changes_ in politics. if she had been, _æqualis ab incepto_, that would be nothing. but, she is a woman, ... and, intellectually, she has done more than all the rest of her sex put together." nevertheless, constancy in idea being subservient to the consent of the mind, must undoubtedly have undergone oscillations with lord byron. that was, however, only the case with regard to ideas which could be discussed, and which required to pass through the ordeal of long reflection and practice, before being fully adopted by him. but religious ideas were not of this number; on the contrary, they held the first place in the order of those to be accepted and raised into principles by every man of honor and good sense. for, whatever may have been his fluctuations with regard to certain points of religious doctrine, sects and modes of worship, it is certain that in great fundamental matters his mind never seriously doubted, and thus escaped the influence of friends less sensible,--of matthews in his early youth, and of shelley at a later period.[ ] that touching prayer to the divinity, written in boyhood, and which is so full of hope and faith in the soul's immortality, and in the existence of a personal god, he might have signed again when he came to act instead of writing, as also on his death-bed.[ ] between the commencement of his career at eighteen and its close at the age of thirty-six, it is easy to see, by his language, correspondence, and works, that his mind had passed successively through different phases before arriving at the last result. the religious idea is more or less clear. nevertheless, one perceives a golden ray ever present, connecting the different periods of his life, keeping up heat and light in his soul, and giving unity to his whole career. hope, desire, and i may almost say, a sort of latent faith, always influenced him until they merged into the conviction whose light never more abandoned him. at fifteen years of age, while at harrow, he fought with lord calthorpe for calling him an _atheist_; at eighteen, he wrote his beautiful profession of faith in the prayer to the divinity, and in the touching "adieu," which he wrote when he thought he would soon die. at nineteen, giving the list in his memoranda of books already read (a list hardly credible), he says: "with regard to books on religion, i have read blair, porteous, tillotson, hooker,--all very tiresome. i detest books about religion, but i adore and love my god, apart from the blasphemous notions of sectarians, and without believing in their absurd and damnable heresies, mysteries, etc." at twenty-one, when he had passed through the double influence exercised by pagan classical literature and german philosophies, and was in a transition state, he wrote "childe harold;" but the skeptical tendencies to be found in one stanza appear like a bravado, the result of spleen, a feeling that made him suffer, and which he speedily threw aside. for he wrote, at the same time, the stanza upon the death of a friend, whom he _hopes to see again in the land of souls_, and afterward, the elegies to thyrza, which are full of _faith in immortality_. at thirty, writing some philosophical reflections in his memorandum-book, he says: "one can not doubt the immortality of the soul." and, elsewhere, he also says that christianity appears to him essentially founded on the immateriality of the soul, and that, for this reason, the christian materialism of priestley had always struck him as being a deadly sort of doctrine. "believe, if you please," added he, "in the material resurrection of the body, but not without a soul: it would be cruel indeed, if, after having had a soul in this world (and our mind, by whatever name you call it, is really a soul), we were to be separated from it in the other, even for material immortality! i confess my partiality for mind." alluding to the systems of philosophy that do not admit creation according to genesis, he says, that "even if we could get rid of adam and eve, of the apple and the serpent, we should not know what to put in their place; that the difficulty would not be overcome; that things must have had a beginning, it matters not when and how; that creation must have had an origin and a creator. for creation is much more natural and easy to imagine than a concurrence of atoms; that all things may be traced to their sources even though they end by emptying themselves into an ocean." we have seen what he said to parry upon religion[ ] and its ministers, upon god almighty and the hope of enjoying eternal life, only a few weeks before his glorious death. and when the hand of death was already upon him, a few moments before his agony, did he not say that eternity and space were already before his eyes, but that on this point, thanks to god, _he was happy and tranquil?_ that the thought of living _eternally_, of living another life, was a great consolation to him? that christianity was the purest and most liberal of all religions (although a little spoiled by the ministers of christ, often the worst enemies of its liberal and charitable doctrines); but that, as to the questions depending on these doctrines, and which god alone, all powerful, can determine, in him alone did he wish to rest? but if lord byron was constant to a certain order of ideas, was he equally constant in his affections? moore again shall answer:-- "the same distrust in his own steadiness, thus keeping alive in him a conscientious self-watchfulness, concurred not a little, i have no doubt, with the innate, kindness of his nature, to preserve so constant and unbroken the greater number of his attachments through life--some of them, as in the instance of his mother, owing evidently more to a sense of duty than of real affection, the consistency with which, so creditably to the strength of his character, they were maintained." but, putting aside family affections, where constancy may appear a duty and a necessity, let us see what lord byron was in affections of his own choice,--such as friendship and love, where inconstancy is a sin that the world easily forgives. we have seen what the friendship of lord byron meant. death destroyed several of the young existences with which his heart was bound up, and his first sorrows sprang from these misfortunes. but _never_ by his will, caprice, or fault, did he lose a single friend! even the wrongs they inflicted, while they weighed upon his mind, altered his opinions sometimes, dispelled some sweet illusions and grieved his heart, yet could not succeed in changing it. he contented himself with judging the individual in such cases, sometimes with philosophical indulgence which he was only too much accustomed to hide under the veil of pleasantry, and sometimes in showing openly how much his heart was wounded.[ ] this constancy of heart that he showed in friendship, was it equally his in matters of love? by his energy of soul, unable ever to forget any thing, lord byron possessed the first condition toward constancy in love. contrary to those unstable persons who say that they cease to love, for the simple reason that they have already loved too much, it might rather be said of lord byron that he still loved on only because he had loved. in all his poems, he has idealized fidelity and constancy in love. all the heroes of his poems are faithful and constant, from conrad, lara, selim, all those of the oriental poems of his youth, up to those of his latter life, to his biblical mysteries. even the angels, the seraphim, in that beautiful poem, written shortly before his death, "heaven and earth," prefer suffering to inconstancy,--to forfeit heaven rather than return there without their beloved. in vain the archangel raphael presses the two amorous seraphim to come back to the celestial sphere, to abandon the two sisters, and menaces them. samiasa replies:-- "it may not be: we have chosen, and will endure." the poet gives it to be understood that they will be punished; which forms the moral of the piece. don juan himself refuses the love of a beautiful sultana, from fidelity to the remembrance of his haidée; and when, afterward, he does yield, he seems to bear with, rather than to have sought success. one feels that this idealization of fidelity and constancy really has its source in lord byron's heart, and not in his imagination. still, however, the chief and undeniable proof must be drawn from his own life. the first condition for judging any one impartially with regard to inconstancy in love, is not only to know the facts and real circumstances connected with an intimacy, but especially to know the nature of the sentiment to which the name of love has been applied. we are aware that, at fifteen years of age, lord byron's heart was already under the influence of a young girl of eighteen.[ ] the mere disproportion of age prevents such an affection from offering any grounds on which to examine his capability of being constant. it is well known how much suffering this early passion caused him. the object of it, after denying him no token of reciprocal love that was innocent, giving him her picture, agreeing to meetings, receiving all the spontaneous, innocent, confiding tenderness of his young and ardent heart, left him in the lurch one fine day, on account of his youth, in order to marry a fashionable, vulgar man. and thus did she destroy the charm which governed his heart. precocious reflection, with its accompaniment of knowledge, agitating, confusing, throwing young souls on the road to error, succeeded to his enchantment. he then began (at sixteen) to talk of vanished illusions; and, for want of something better, allowed himself to be carried away, and to lead the ordinary university life. he evidently only did what others did; but he was made of different materials; and while they thought this dissipation very natural, and, tranquil in their inferiority, believed themselves innocent, he alone disapproved of his own conduct and blamed it. the better to escape all this, he went in search of forgetfulness amid the fresh breezes of ocean, across the pyrenees, among the ruins of ancient civilization. yet, after two years' travelling, on his return to england, his soul all love, his heart burning with an infinite ardor, through that intoxication of success which weakens, through that eagerness for emotion caused by his vivacity of mind, and even by a sort of psychological curiosity, lord byron did fall into new attachments. and these attachments, not being of a nature that could stand the trial of reflection, caused him to give up known for unknown objects. but his soul was ever agitated, in commotion, and, even when he changed, it was through necessity rather than caprice. in order to escape once more from himself, from the allurements of the senses, from the effects of the enthusiasm which his personal beauty and his genius excited among women, he resolved to take refuge in an indissoluble tie, in a tie formed by duty, not love. perhaps he might have found strength for perseverance in the beauty of the sacrifice. his soul was quite capable of it. but destiny pursued him in his choice, and rendered it impossible. to his misfortune, he married miss milbank.[ ] again he drifted away from the right path, but, this time, with the resolution of keeping his heart independent, his soul free and unfettered by any indissoluble tie.[ ] but in coming to this determination at the age of twenty-eight, he had not consulted his heart, ever athirst for infinitude. vainly he sought to lull it, to keep it earthward, to laugh at his own aspirations--useless labor! one day it broke loose. nature is like water; sooner or later it must find its equilibrium. from that day forth psyche's lamp had no more light; reflection had no more power; and the love which had taken possession of his soul left him not again, but accompanied him to his last hour, through the modifications inevitable in earthly affections. this constancy maintained thenceforth without a struggle, he understood at once; and felt that the unchanging sentiment belonged equally to his will and to his destiny. "_coelum, non animam mutant qui trans mare currunt_," wrote he one day at ravenna, on the opening page of "jacopo ortis," foscolo's work, that had just fallen into his hands; for he knew that no one could read this avowal of his heart where he had traced it. after having remarked the strange coincidence by which this volume was brought a second time before him, just when he was, as once before, in extreme agitation, he continued thus:-- "most men bewail not having attained the object of their desires. i had oftener to deplore the obtaining mine, for i can not love moderately, nor quiet my heart with mere fruition. the letters of this italian werther are very interesting; at least i think so, but my present feelings hardly render me a competent judge." another time, a volume of "corinne," translated into italian, fell under his notice at ravenna. in the same language, which no one then about him could read, he confided to this book the secret of his heart, and, after having poured out its fullness in words of noble melting tenderness, concluded thus:--"think of me when alps and sea shall separate us; _but that will never come to pass, unless you so will it_." it was not willed, and therefore the separation did not take place. but, alas! the day arrived when he was so entangled in a multiplicity of complications, and honor spoke so loudly, that both sides were forced to will it. whoever should consider this departure the result of inconstancy, is incapable to form an estimate of his great soul. his affection, that had lasted for years, admitted no longer of any uneasiness, for it was brought into complete harmony with that of her he loved. naturally his heart underwent the transformation produced by time. his affection was gradually acquiring the sweetness of unchanging friendship, without losing the charm appertaining to ardor of passion. the sacrifice entailed by this departure was in proportion to these sentiments. "often," says m----, "during the passage we saw his eyes filled with tears." the sadness described by mr. barry of his last visit to albano has been seen.[ ] these tears and this sadness betray the extent of his sublime sacrifice! and then, when once arrived in greece, although determined to brave all the storms gathering above his head, he wrote unceasingly to madame g----, with that ease and simplicity which not only forbade any exaggeration of sentiment, but even made him restrain its expression; which was also rendered imperative by the circumstances then surrounding her. "i shall fulfill the object of my mission from the committee, and then ... return to italy.... pray be as cheerful and tranquil as you can, and be assured that there is nothing here that can excite any thing but a wish to be with you again, though we are very kindly treated by the english here of all descriptions." "september . "you may be sure that the moment i can join you again will be as welcome to me as at any period of our acquaintance. there is nothing very attractive here to occupy my attention; but both honor and inclination demand that i should serve the greek cause. i wish that this cause, as well as the affairs of spain, were favorably settled, that i might return to italy and relate all my adventures to you." thus much for his constancy when he truly loved. it would be worth inquiry how many men and how many writers have carried their ideal of constancy into their own life to a higher degree than lord byron? my opinion is that if, the same circumstances given, the number went a little beyond one, we might consider the result very satisfactory. after having seen that lord byron was unchangeable in great principles and ideas, as soon as his mind was convinced, and that he was constant to all the true sentiments of his heart, it still remains to be shown whether he was equally so in his tastes and habits. it may be said of most men that they have no character, because they often vary in taste, and without even perceiving it. that could not be asserted of lord byron, although sometimes, according to his self-accusing custom, he declared himself to be inconstant. the truth is that he was, on the contrary, remarkably steadfast in his tastes. the nature of his preferences, and the conclusions to be drawn from them, will form the subject of another chapter. we shall only speak of them here as relating to constancy. "we shall often have occasion," says moore, "to remark the fidelity to early habits and tastes which distinguished lord byron." moore then observes the extraordinary constancy lord byron showed in clinging to all the impressions of youth; and he adduces as a proof the care with which he preserved the notes and letters written by his favorite comrades at school, even when they were younger than himself. these letters he enriched with dates and notes, after years of long interval, while very few of his childish effusions have been kept by the opposite parties. moore also notes several other features of this constancy, which he continued to practice throughout life. for instance, his punctuality in answering letters immediately, despite his distaste for epistolary effusions; and his love for simple music, such as that of the ballads that used to attract him at sixteen to miss pigott's saloon. it was partly this same taste that made him enjoy so much, at twenty-six, the evenings he passed at his friend kinnaird's house (some months before his marriage, the last of his london life), when moore would sing his favorite songs, bringing tears to byron's eyes. and it was this same taste that subsequently drew him to the piano at which madame g---- sat, at ravenna, pisa, genoa; and which, when she played or sung mozart's and rossini's favorite motets, made him say that he no longer loved any other music but hers. what he had once loved never tired him. memory was to him like an enchanter's wand, throwing some charm into objects which in themselves possessed none. he loved the land where he had loved, however naturally unattractive it might be: witness ravenna, and italy in general. "possession of what i truly love," said he, in the very rare moments when he did himself justice "does not cloy me." he loved the mountains of greece, because they recalled those of scotland; he would have loved other mountains, because they recalled those of greece. a few months before his death, he said in his charming poem "the island,"-- "long have i roam'd through lands which are not mine, adored the alp, and loved the apennine, revered parnassus, and beheld the steep jove's ida and olympus crown the deep: but 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all _their_ nature held me in their thrilling thrall; the infant rapture still survived the boy, and loch-na-gar with ida look'd o'er troy, mix'd celtic memories with the phrygian mount, and highland linns with castalie's clear fount. forgive me, homer's universal shade! forgive me, phoebus! that my fancy stray'd; the north and nature taught me to adore your scenes sublime, from those beloved before."[ ] he would love a place of abode because he had loved when in it. the same with regard to a dwelling, a walk, a melody, a perfume, a form, and even a dish; he who cared so little for any sort of food. his childish impressions, his readings at that age, had a great deal to do with his choice of poetic subjects afterward; and we find them again reproduced even in his last dramatic work. "werner," written in such a fine moral sense, is the result of the "canterbury tale" read in childhood. never was man more constant in his habits and tastes than he; and, indeed, it required that indefinable charm of soul he possessed, and which pervaded his whole being, to prevent monotony from perverting this quality into a fault. why, then, have his biographers talked so much of his mobility, if it were not to make lord byron pass for a creature swayed by every fresh impulse, and incapable of steady feeling? i have given the first reason elsewhere.[ ] but i will add another, namely, that they have transferred the qualities of the _poet to the man_ in an erroneous manner; that to the versatility of his genius (one of his great gifts, and which ever belong to him) they have added mobility of character such as often, too often, perhaps, influenced his conversation, and tinctured his external fictitious nature. but they have done so without examining his actions, without reflecting that this mobility vanished as it was written, or in the light play of his witty conversation, or the trivial acts of his life. otherwise they would have been forced to confess, that it never had any influence on his conduct in matters of moment, that he was persevering and firm to an extremely rare degree in all things _essential_ and which constitute _man in his moral and social capacity_. we may then sum up by saying that lord byron generally established on an impregnable rock, guarded by unbending principles, those great virtues to which principles are essential; but that, after making these treasures secure--for treasures they are to the man of honor and worth--once having placed them beyond the reach of sensibility and sentiment, he may sometimes have allowed the _lesser virtues_ (within ordinary bonds) such indulgence as flowed from his kindly nature, and such as his youth rendered natural to a feeling heart and ardent imagination. like all men, he was only truly firm under serious circumstances, when he wished to show energy in fulfilling a duty. thus lord byron allowed his pen to jest, to mark the follies of men: sometimes attacking them boldly in front, sometimes aiming light arrows aslant, ridiculing, chastising, as humor or fancy prompted; and he gave himself the same liberty of language in private conversation, according to the character of those with whom he conversed. on all these occasions his genius undoubtedly gave itself up to versatility. but let us not forget that all that which changes and becomes effaced in hearts of inconstant mood, and which ought not to change in men of honor and worth, never did vary in him. let us acknowledge, in short, that, if mobility belonged to the _sensitive_ parts of his nature, constancy no less characterized his _moral and intellectual_ being. footnotes: [footnote : see chapter on "mobility."] [footnote : stanhope, parry, .] [footnote : see sainte-beuve, vol. i. p. .] [footnote : see chapter on "religion."] [footnote : see this prayer in chapter on "religion."] [footnote : see chapter on "religion."] [footnote : see octaves , and , canto xiv. "don juan;" and several in "childe harold," cantos iii. and iv.] [footnote : see chapter on "generosity."] [footnote : see chapter on "marriage."] [footnote : see "life at venice, at milan."] [footnote : see chapter on "strength of soul."] [footnote : "the island," canto ii. stanza .] [footnote : see chapter on "mobility."] chapter xii. the courage and fortitude of lord byron. all the moral qualities that flow from energy--courage, intrepidity, fortitude; in a word, self-control--shone with too much lustre in lord byron's soul for us to pass them over in silence, or even to call only superficial attention to them. but, it may be said, why speak of his courage? no one ever called it in question. besides, is courage a virtue? it is hardly a quality; in reality it is but a duty. yes, undoubtedly, that is true, but there are different kinds of courage, and lord byron's was of such a peculiar nature, and showed itself under such uncommon circumstances as to justify observation, for it evinces a quality necessary to be noticed by all who seek to portray his great soul with the wish of arriving at a close resemblance. "whatever virtue may be allowed to belong to personal courage, it is most assuredly those who are endowed by nature with the liveliest imaginations, and who have, therefore, most vividly and simultaneously before their eyes all the remote and possible consequences of danger, that are most deserving of whatever praise attends the exercise of that virtue." certainly lord byron made part of the category, so that moore adds:-- "the courage of lord byron, as all his companions in peril testify, was of that noblest kind which rises with the greatness of the occasion, and becomes the more self-collected and resisting the more imminent the danger." thus, far from its being the natural impetuosity that causes rash natures to rush into danger, lord byron's courage was quite as much the result of reflection as of impulse. _his was courage of the noblest kind_, a quality mixed up with other fine moral faculties, shining with light of its own, yet all combining to lend mutual lustre. this is, indeed, what ought to be called _fortitude_ and _self-control_, and this is what we remark in lord byron. but, in order not to sin against the scientific classification used by moralists, and which requires subdivisions, we will isolate it for a moment, and examine it under the name of courage, presence of mind, and coolness. unaffected in his bravery, as in all things else, lord byron did not seek dangers, but when they presented themselves to him he met them with lofty intrepidity. to give some examples--and the difficulty is to choose--let us consider him under different circumstances that occurred during his first travels in the east. while at malta he was on the point of fighting a duel, through some misunderstanding with an officer on general oakes's staff. the meeting had been fixed for an early hour, but lord byron slept so soundly that his companion was obliged to awaken him. on arriving at the spot, which was near the shore, his adversary was not yet there; and lord byron, although his luggage had already been taken on board the brig that was to convey him to albania, wished to give him the chance at least of another hour. during all this long interval he amused himself very quietly walking about the beach perfectly unconcerned. at last an officer, sent by his antagonist, arrived on the ground, bringing not only an explanation of how the delay had arisen, but likewise all the excuses and satisfaction lord byron could desire for the supposed offense. thus the duel did not take place. the gentleman who was to be his second could not sufficiently praise the coolness and firm courage shown by lord byron throughout this affair. some time later lord byron was on the mountains of epirus with his friend and fellow-traveller, mr. hobhouse (now lord broughton). these mountains being then infested with banditti, they were accompanied by a numerous escort, and even by one of the secretaries, as well as several retainers belonging to the famous ali pasha of joannina, whom they had just been visiting. one evening, seeing a storm impending, mr. hobhouse hastened on in front with part of their suite, in order sooner to reach a neighboring hamlet, and get shelter prepared. lord byron followed with the remainder of the escort. before he could arrive, however, the storm burst, and soon became terrific. mr. hobhouse, who had long been safe under cover in the village, could see nothing of his friend. "it was seven in the evening," says mr. hobhouse, in his account of it, "and the fury of the storm had become quite alarming. never before or since have i witnessed one so terrible. the roof of the hovel in which we had taken shelter trembled beneath violent gusts of rain and wind, and the thunder kept roaring without intermission, for the echo from one mountain crest had not ceased ere another frightful crash broke above our heads. the plain, and distant hills, visible through the chinks of the hut, seemed on fire. in short, the tempest was terrific; quite worthy of the jupiter of ancient greece. the peasants, no less religious than their ancestors, confessed their fears; the women were crying around, and the men, at every new flash of lightning, invoked the name of god, making the sign of the cross." meanwhile hours passed, midnight drew near, the storm was far from abating, and lord byron had not appeared. mr. hobhouse, in great alarm, ordered fires to be lighted on the heights, and guns to be let off in all directions. at length, toward one in the morning, a man, all pale and panic-stricken, soaked through to the skin, suddenly entered the cabin, making loud cries, exclamations, and gestures of despair. he belonged to the escort, and speedily related the danger to which they had been exposed, and in which lord byron and his followers still were, and urging the necessity of sending off at once horses, guides, and men with torches, to extricate them from it. it appears that at the commencement of the storm, when only three miles from the village, lord byron, through the fault of his escort, lost the right path. after wandering about as chance directed, in complete ignorance of their whereabouts, and on the brink of precipices, they had stopped at last near a turkish cemetery and close to a torrent, which they had been enabled to distinguish through the flashes of lightning. lord byron was exposed to _all the fury of the storm for nine consecutive hours_; his guides, instead of lending him any assistance, only increased the general confusion, running about on all sides, because they had been menaced with death by the dragoman george, who, in a paroxysm of rage and fear, had fired off his pistols without warning any body, and lord byron's english servants, fancying they were attacked by robbers, set up loud cries. it was three in the morning before the party could reach the shelter where their friends awaited them. during these nine consecutive hours of danger, lord byron never once lost his self-possession or serenity, or even that pleasant vein of humor which made him always see the ridiculous side of things. about the same period lord byron and his companion, after having visited eleusis, were obliged, by stress of weather, to stop some days at keratea. having heard of a wonderful cavern situated on mount parné, they determined to visit it. on arriving at the entrance they lighted torches of resinous wood, and, preceded by a guide, penetrated through a small aperture, dragging themselves along the ground until they reached a sort of subterranean hall, ornamented with arcades and high cupolas of crystal, supported by columns of shining marcasite; the hall itself opened out into large horizontal chambers, or else conducted to dark, deep yawning abysses toward the centre of the mountain. after having strayed from one grotto to another, the travellers arrived near a fountain of crystal water. there they stopped, till, seeing their torches wane low, they thought of retracing their steps. but, after walking for some minutes in the labyrinth, they again found themselves beside the mysterious fountain. then they grew alarmed, for their guide acknowledged with _terror that he had forgotten the itinerary of the cavern, and no longer knew where to find the outlet_. while they were wandering thus from one grotto to another, in a sort of despair, and occasionally dragging themselves along to get through narrow openings, their last torch was consumed. they remained a long time in total darkness, not knowing what to do, when, as if by miracle, a feeble ray of light made itself visible, and, directing their steps toward it, they ended by reaching the mouth of the cavern. certainly, it would be difficult to meet with a more alarming situation. mr. hobhouse, while confessing that for some moments it had been impossible to look forward to any thing else but the chance of a horrible death, declared that, not only lord byron's presence of mind and coolness were admirable in the teeth of such a prospect, but also that his playful humor never forsook him, and helped to keep up their spirits during minutes that must have seemed years to all of them. it was during this same journey that, finding the mountains which separated them from the morea were infested with banditti, they embarked on board a vessel of war, called the "turk." a tempest broke out, and its violence, joined to the ignorance betrayed by the captain and sailors, put the vessel in great danger. shipwreck seemed inevitable, and close at hand. nothing was heard on board but cries, lamentations, and prayers. lord byron alone remained calm, doing every thing in his power to console and encourage the rest; and then at length, when he saw that his efforts were useless, he wrapped himself up in his albanian cloak, and lay down on the deck, _going tranquilly to sleep until fate should decide his destiny_. after having given his mother a simple description of this tempest, he adds:--"i have learned to philosophize during my travels, and, if i had not, what use is there in complaining?" and moore says:-- "i have heard the poet's fellow-traveller describe this remarkable instance of his coolness and courage even still more strikingly than it is here stated by himself. finding that he was unable to be of any service in the exertions which their very serious danger called for, after a laugh or two at the panic of his valet, he not only wrapped himself up and lay down, in the manner here mentioned, but, when their difficulties were surmounted, was found fast asleep." these adventures happened to him when he was only twenty-one years of age, and within the course of a few weeks. but all his life he gave the same proofs of courage when circumstances called for them. and since we have chosen these examples from his first journey into greece, at the beginning of his career, let us select some others from the last, which took place near its close. mr. h. brown having been asked by lord harrington what his impressions were of lord byron, replied, "lord byron was extremely calm in presence of danger. here are two instances that i witnessed myself:--a greek, named costantino zalichi, to whom his lordship had given his passage, once took up one of manton's pistols, belonging to lord byron. it went off by accident, and the ball passed quite close to lord byron's temple. without the least emotion lord byron began explaining to the greek how such accidents could be avoided. "on another occasion, near the roman coast, we observed a suspicious-looking little vessel, armed, and apparently full of people. it was toward the end of the last war with spain, during which many acts of piracy had been committed in the mediterranean. and our captain was much alarmed. we were followed all day by this vessel, and toward evening, it seemed so ready for action that we no longer doubted being attacked. however a breeze arose, and darkness came on soon after, whereupon we lost sight of it. lord byron, while the danger lasted, remained perfectly calm, giving his orders with the greatest tranquility and reflection."[ ] and lord harrington, then colonel stanhope, says himself, in his essay on lord byron:-- "lord byron was the _beau idéal_ of chivalry. it might have lowered him in the esteem of wise men, if he had not given such extraordinary proofs of the noblest courage. "even at moments of the greatest danger, lord byron _contemplated death with philosophical calm_. for instance, at the moment of returning from the alarming attack which had surprised him in my room (at missolonghi), he immediately asked, with the most perfect self-possession, whether his life were in danger, as, in that case, he required the doctor to tell him so, _for he was not afraid of death_. "shortly after that frightful convulsion, when, weakened by loss of blood, he was lying on his bed of suffering, with his nervous system completely shaken, a band of mutinous suliotes, in their splendid dirty costumes, burst suddenly into his room, brandishing their weapons, and loudly demanding their savage rights. lord byron, as if electrified by the unexpected act, appeared to have recovered his health, and, the more the suliotes cried out and threatened, the more _his cool courage triumphed_. _the scene was really sublime._"[ ] and count gamba, in his interesting narrative of "lord byron's last journey into greece," adds:-- "it is impossible to do justice to the coolness and magnanimity lord byron showed on all great occasions. under ordinary circumstances he was irritable, but the sight of danger calmed him instantly, restoring the free exercise of all the faculties of his noble nature. a man _more indomitable, or firmer in the hour of danger than lord byron was, never existed_."[ ] but enough of these proofs, which, perhaps, say nothing new to the reader. nevertheless, as they may call up again the pleasure ever afforded by the spectacle of great moral beauty, let us further add--the better to set forth the nature of lord byron's wonderful intrepidity in face of danger--that his energetic soul loved to contemplate those sublime things in nature that are usually endured with terror. tempests, the thunder's roll, the lightning's flash--any mysterious display of nature's forces, so that its violence occasioned neither misfortune nor suffering to sensitive beings--aroused in him the keenest sense of enjoyment, which in turn ministered to his genius, incapable of finding complete satisfaction in the beautiful, and ever yearning passionately after the sublime. as to his fortitude, that self-control which makes one bear affliction with external serenity, lord byron possessed it in as high a degree as he did firmness with regard to material obstacles and dangers. endowed with exquisite sensibility, the great poet assuredly went through cruel trials during his stormy career; but instead of ostentatiously exhibiting his sorrows, lord byron on many occasions rather exaggerated the delicacy that led him to veil them under an appearance of stoicism. only very rarely did his poetry echo back the sufferings endured within. once, nevertheless, he wished, and rightly, to perpetuate in his verses the memory of the indignities heaped upon him by a guilty world. he wished that the great struggle he had been obliged to sustain against his destiny should not be forgotten; he wished to show how much his heart had been torn, his hopes sapped, his name blighted by the deepest injuries, the meanest perfidy. he had seen, he said, of what beings with a human semblance were capable, from the frightful roar of foaming calumny to the low whisper of vile reptiles, adroitly distilling poison; double-visaged januses, who supply the place of words by the language of the eyes, who lie without saying a syllable, and, by dint of a shrug or an affected sigh, impose on fools their unspoken calumnies. yes, he had to undergo all that, and for once he wished it to be known. he owed it to himself to make this complaint; his total silence would have been wrong; it was necessary once for all to defend his _character_ and reputation, and when he ran the risk of losing the esteem of the world his sensibility could not show itself in too lively a manner. but if he thus raised his voice to immortalize these indignities, it was not because he recoiled from suffering. "let him come forward," exclaimed he, "whoever has seen me bow the head, or has remarked my courage wane with suffering." already, at the time of the unexampled persecution raised against him in london, when the separation from his wife took place, he wrote to murray:-- "february th, . "you need not be in any apprehension or grief on my account. were i to be beaten down by the world and its inheritors, i should have succumbed to many things years ago. you must not mistake my not bullying for dejection; nor imagine that because i feel, i am to faint."[ ] in all he wrote at this fatal period of his life, one perceives the wide gaping wound, which is however endured with the strength of a titan, who at twenty-nine is to become quite a philosopher, good, gentle, almost resigned. "the camel labors with the heaviest load, and the wolf dies in silence,--not bestow'd in vain should such example be; if they, things of ignoble or of savage mood, endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay may temper it to bear,--it is but for a day."[ ] like all those who feel deeply the joys and griefs of their fellow-men, lord byron had received from nature all that could render him capable of moderating the external expression of his sensibility, when injustice was personal to himself. moreover, circumstances, alas! had only too much favored the development of this noble faculty in him. for, very early, he had received severe lessons from those terrible masters who nurture great souls to self-control; from reverses, vanished illusions, perils, wrongs. the storms however it was his destiny to encounter, though violent, not only did not cause him to be shipwrecked, but even helped to encircle his brow with the martyr's halo. but, we may be asked, whether this great control which lord byron exercised over himself, with regard to obstacles, dangers, and human injustice, existed equally with regard to his own passions. to those who should doubt it, and who, forgetting that lord byron only lived the age of passions, without taking into consideration all the circumstances that rendered difficult to him what is easier for others, should pretend that lord byron gave way to his passions oftener than he warred against them, to such we would say: "what was he doing, then, when, at barely twenty-two years of age, he adopted an anchorite's _régime_, so as to render his soul more _independent_ of _matter_? when he shut himself up at home, with the self-imposed task of writing whole poems before he came out, in order to _overcome his thoughts, and maintain them in a line contrary to that which his passions demanded_? when, grieved, calumniated, outraged, he _preferred exile rather than yield to just resentment_, and in order to avoid the danger of finding himself in situations where he _might not have preserved his self-control_?" have they forgotten that at venice he subjected himself to the ungrateful task of learning languages _more than difficult_, and of working at other _dry studies_, in order to _fix his thoughts on them, and divert them from resentment and anger_? he writes to murray: "i find the armenian language, which is double (_the literary and the vulgar tongue_), difficult, but not insuperably so (at least i hope not). i shall continue. i have found it necessary to chain my mind down to very severe studies, and as this is the most difficult i can find here, it will be a _net for the serpent_." and have we not seen him overcome himself, just as he was setting out to go where his heart called him (for, notwithstanding all his efforts, it had ceased to be independent), and thus defer a journey he sighed for, only to _exercise acts of generosity, and liberate one of his gondoliers from the austrian conscription_? if a true biography could be written of lord byron we should see a constant struggle going on in this young man against his passions. and can more be asked of men than to fight against them? victory is the proof and the reward of combat. if sometimes, as with every man, victory failed him, oftener still he did achieve it; and it is certain that his great desire always was to free himself from the tyranny of his passions. his last triumphs were not only great--they were sublime. the sadness that overwhelmed him during the latter part of his stay at genoa is known. the struggles he had to maintain against his own heart may be conceived. it is also known how, being driven back into port by a storm, he resolved on visiting the palace of albaro; and it may well be imagined that the hours passed in this dwelling, then silent and deserted, must have seemed like those that count as years of anguish in the life of great and feeling souls, among whom visions of the future float before the over-excited mind. it can not be doubted that he would then willingly have given up his fatal idea of leaving italy; indeed he declared so to mr. barry, who was with him; but the sentiment of his own dignity and of his promise given triumphed over his feelings. the night which followed this gloomy day again saw lord byron struggling against stormy waves, and not only determined on pursuing his voyage, but also on appearing calm and serene to his fellow-travellers. could peace, however, have dwelt within his soul? to show it outwardly must he not have struggled? "i often saw lord byron during his last voyage from genoa to greece," says mr. h. browne, in a letter written to colonel stanhope; "i often saw him in the midst of the greatest gayety suddenly become pensive, _and his eyes fill with tears_, doubtless from some painful remembrance. on these occasions he generally got up and retired to the solitude of his cabin." and colonel stanhope, afterward lord harrington, who only knew lord byron later at missolonghi, also says: "i have often observed lord byron in the middle of some gay animated conversation, stop, meditate, and his eyes to fill with tears." and all that he did in that fatal greece, was it not a perpetual triumph over himself, his tastes, his desires, the wants of his nature and his heart? he saw nothing in greece, he wrote to mme. g----, that did not make him wish to return to italy, and yet he remained in greece. he would have preferred waiting in the ionian islands, and yet he set out for that fatal missolonghi! liberal by principle, and aristocratic by birth, taste, and habits, he was condemned to continual intercourse with vulgar, turbulent, barbarous men, to come into contact with things repugnant to his nature and his tastes, and to struggle against a thousand difficulties--a thousand torments, moral and physical; he felt, and knew, that even life would fail him if he did not leave missolonghi, yet he remained. every thing, in short, throughout this last stage of the noble pilgrim, proclaims his empire over self. his triumph was always beautiful, and often sublime, but, alas! he paid for it with his life. footnotes: [footnote : parry, .] [footnote : essay by colonel stanhope.] [footnote : "last journey to greece," p. .] [footnote : moore, "letters," p. .] [footnote : "childe harold."] chapter xiii. the modesty of lord byron. among the qualities that belong to his genius, the one which formed its chief ornament has been too much forgotten. modesty constituted a beautiful quality of his soul. if it has not been formally denied him; if, even among those whom we term his biographers, some have conceded modesty as pertaining to lord byron's genius, they have done so timidly; and have at the same time indirectly denied it by accusing him of pride. was lord byron proud as a poet and as a man? we shall have occasion to answer this question in another chapter. here we shall only examine his claims to modesty; and we say, without hesitation, that it was as great in him as it has ever been in others. it shines in every line of his poetry and his prose, at every age and in all the circumstances of his life. "there is no real modesty" (says a great moralist of the present day) "without diffidence of self, inspired by a deep sense of the beautiful and by the fear of not being able to reach the perfection we conceive." as a poet, lord byron always undervalued or despised himself. as a man, he did so still more; he exaggerated this quality so far as to convert it into a fault, for he calumniated himself. we have seen how unambitious lord byron was as a child, and with what facility he allowed his comrades to surpass him in intellectual exercises, reserving for his sole ambition the wish of excelling them in boyish games and in bodily exercises. as a youth he did nothing but censure his own conduct, which, was not at all different from that which his comrades thought allowable in themselves. we have seen with what modest feelings he published his first poems; with what docility he accepted criticisms, and yielded to the advice of friends whom he esteemed. when cruel criticism showed him neither mercy nor justice, notwithstanding his youthful age, he lost, it is true, serenity and moderation of spirit, but never once put aside his modesty. instigated by a passion for truth, he exclaims in his first satire,-- "truth! rouse some genuine bard, and guide his hand to drive this pestilence from out the land." certainly, he does not spare censure in this passionate satire; but, while inflicting it, he questions whether he should be the one to apply the lash:-- "e'en i, least thinking of a thoughtless throng, just skill'd to know the right and choose the wrong." it was during the time of his first travels that lord byron wrote his first _chef-d'oeuvre_,[ ] but so little was he aware of possessing great faculties that, while suffering from the exactions and torments they created within him, he only asked in return some amusement, an occupation for long hours of solitude. having begun "childe harold" as a memorial of his travelling impressions, he communicated it, on his return to england, to the friend who had been his companion throughout. but, instead of meeting with indulgence and encouragement, this friend only blamed the poem, and called it an extravagant conception. he was, nevertheless, a competent judge and a poet himself. why, then, such severity? did he wish to sacrifice the poet to the man, fearing for his friend lest the allusions therein made should lend further weapons to the malice of his enemies? did he dread for himself, and for those among their comrades who, two years before, had donned the preacher's garb at newstead abbey, lest the voice of public opinion should mix them up in the pretended disorders of which the abbey had been the theatre, and which the poem either exaggerated or invented? whatsoever his motive, this friend was not certainly then a john of bologna for lord byron; but the modesty of the poet surpassed the severity of his judge; for, accepting the blame as if it were merited, he restored the poem to its portfolio with such humility that when mr. dallas afterward heard of it almost by chance, and, fired with enthusiasm on reading it, pronounced this extravagant thing to be a sublime _chef-d'oeuvre_, he had the greatest difficulty in persuading lord byron to make it public. gifford's criticisms were always received by lord byron not only with docility and modesty but even with gratitude. he never lost an occasion of blaming himself as a poet and of depreciating his genius. living only for affection, more than once when he feared that the war going on against him might warp feeling, he was on the point of consigning all he had written to the flames; of destroying forever every vestige of it; and only the fear of harming his publisher made him at last withdraw the given order. he knew only how to praise his rivals, and to assist those requiring help or encouragement. notwithstanding the favor shown him by the public, it always appeared to him that he would weary it with any new production. when about to publish the "bride of abydos," he said, "i know what i risk, and with good reason,--losing the small reputation i have gained by putting the public to this new test; but really i have ceased to attach any importance to that. i write and publish solely for the sake of occupation, to draw my thoughts away from reality, and take refuge in imagination, however dreadful." in , when murray (who was thinking of establishing a periodical for bringing out the works of living authors) consulted lord byron on the subject, he, whose splendid fame had already thrown all his contemporaries into the shade, answered simply, that supported by such poets as scott, wordsworth, southey, and many others, the undertaking would of course succeed; and that for his part, he would unite with hobhouse and moore so as to furnish occasionally--a failure! and at the same time he made use of the opportunity to praise campbell and canning. his memorandum-book is one perpetual record of his humility, even at a time when the public, of all classes and sexes, had made him their idol. after having expressed in his memoranda for his sublime aspirations after glory--that is to say, the happiness he should experience in being _not a ruler, but a guide and benefactor of humanity, a washington, a franklin, a penn_; "but no," added he; "no, i shall never be any thing: or rather, i shall always be nothing. the most i can hope is that some one may say of me, '_he might_, _perhaps_, if he would.'" the low estimation in which he held his poetical genius, to which he preferred action, amounted almost to a fault; for he forgot that grand and beautiful truths, couched in burning words and lighted up by genius, are also actions. he really seemed to have difficulty in forgiving himself for writing at all. even at the outset of his literary career he was indignant with his publisher for having taken steps with gifford which looked like asking for praise. "it is bad enough to be a scribbler," said he, "without having recourse to such subterfuges for extorting praise or warding off criticism." "i have never contemplated the prospect," wrote he, in , "of occupying a permanent place in the literature of my country. those who know me best are aware of that; and they also know that i have been considerably astonished at even the transient success of my works, never having flattered any one person or party, and having expressed opinions which are not those of readers in general. if i could have guessed the high degree of attention that has been awarded to them, i should certainly have made all possible efforts to merit it. but i have lived abroad, in distant countries, or else in the midst of worldly dissipation in england: circumstances by no means favorable to study and reflection. so that almost all i have written is but passion; for in me (if it is not irishism to say so) indifference itself was a _sort of passion_, the result of experience and not the philosophy of nature." the same contempt, manifested in a thousand ways throughout his life, was again expressed by lord byron, a few days before his death, to lord harrington, on being told by the latter that, notwithstanding the war he had waged against english prejudices and national susceptibility, he had nevertheless been the pride and even the idol of his country. "oh!" exclaimed he, "it would be a stupid race that should adore such an idol. it is true, they laid aside their superstition, as to my divinity, after 'cain.'" we find in his memoranda, with regard to a comparison made between himself and napoleon, these significant words: "i, an _insect_, compared to that creature!"[ ] sometimes he ascribes his poetical success to accidental causes, or else to some merit not personal to himself but transmitted by inheritance; that is, to his rank. the generality of authors, especially poets, love to read their productions over and over again, just as a fine woman likes to admire herself in the glass. he, on the contrary, avoided this reflection of his genius, which seemed to displease him. "here are two wretched proof-sheets from the printer. i have looked over one; but, on my soul, i can not read that 'giaour' again--at least not now and at this hour (midnight); yet there is no moonlight." he never read his compositions to any one. on inviting moore to newstead abbey, soon after having made his acquaintance, he said, "i can promise you balnea vina, and, if you like shooting, a manor of four thousand acres, fire, books, full liberty. h----, i fear, will pester you with verses, but, for my part, i can conclude with martial, '_nil recitabo tibi_;' and certainly this last promise ought not to be the least tempting for you." nevertheless, this was a great moment for a young author, as "childe harold" was then going through the press. he never would speak of his works; and when any translation of them was mentioned to him, they were sure to cause annoyance to him. several times in italy he paid large sums to prevent his works from being translated, at the same time not to injure the translator; but while refusing these homages for himself he desired them for others, and with that view praised and assisted them. we have already seen all he did to magnify moore, as well as others, both friends and rivals. the gospel says, "do unto others as ye would they should do unto you;" but for him the precept should rather have been reversed thus, "do for yourself what you would do for others." in the midst of his matrimonial sufferings, at the most cruel moments of his existence, he still found time to write and warmly recommend to his publisher works written by hunt and coleridge, who afterward rewarded all his kindness with the most dire ingratitude. and after praising them greatly, he adds, speaking of one of his own works, "and now let us come to the last, my own, of which i am ashamed to speak after the others. publish it or not, as you like; i don't care a straw about it. if it seems to you that it merits a place in the fourth volume, put it there, or anywhere else; and if not, throw it into the fire." this poem, so despised, was the "siege of corinth!" about the same time, on learning that jeffrey had lauded "hebrew melodies"--poems so much above all praise that one might believe them (said a great mind lately)[ ] thought by isaiah and written by shakspeare--lord byron considered jeffrey very kind to have been so indulgent. with what simplicity or contempt does he always introduce his _chefs-d'oeuvre_, either by dedication to his friends, or to his publisher. "i have put in press a devil of a story or tale, called the 'corsair.' it is of a pirate island, peopled with my own creatures, and you may easily imagine that they will do a host of wicked things, in the course of three cantos." and this _devil of a story or tale_ had numberless editions. several thousand copies were sold in one day. we have already seen the modest terms in which he announced to his friend moore the termination of his poem "manfred." this is how he mentioned it to his publisher:-- "i forgot to mention to you that a kind of poem in dialogue (in blank verse), or drama, from which the translation is an extract, begun last summer in switzerland, is finished; it is in three acts, but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind. byron." he describes to murray the causes, and adds:-- "you may perceive by this outline that i have no great opinion of this piece of fantasy; but i have at least rendered it _quite impossible_ for the stage, for which my intercourse with drury lane has given me the greatest contempt. "i have not even copied it off, and feel too lazy at present to attempt the whole; but when i have, i will send it to you, and you may either throw it into the fire or not. "i have really and truly no notion whether it is good or bad, and as this was not the case with the principal of my former publications, i am, therefore, inclined to rank it very humbly. you will submit it to mr. gifford, and to whomsoever you please besides. with regard to the question of copyright (if it ever comes to publication), i do not know whether you would think _three hundred_ guineas an overestimate, if you do you may diminish it. i do not think it worth more. byron.[ ] "venice, march , ." lord byron never protested against or complained of any criticism as to the talent displayed in his works. his protests (much too rare, alas!) never had any other object than to repel some abominable calumny. when they criticised without good faith and without measure his beautiful dramas, saying they were not adapted for the stage, what did he reply? "it appears that i do not possess dramatic genius." his observations on that wicked and unmerited article in "blackwood's magazine" for , are quite a _chef-d'oeuvre_ of reasoning and modesty. there again, if he defends the man a little, he condemns the poet. his modesty was such that he almost went so far as to see, in the enmity stirred up against him during his latter years, a symptom of the decay of his talent. he really seemed to attach value to his genius only when it could be enlisted in the service of his heart. in , being at ravenna, and writing his memoranda, he recalls that one day in london ( ), just as he was stepping into a carriage with moore (whom he calls with all his heart the poet _par excellence_), he received a java gazette, sent by murray, and that on looking over it, he found a discussion on his merits and those of moore. and, after some modest amusing sentences, he goes on to say:-- "it was a great fame to be named with moore; greater to be compared with him; greatest _pleasure_, at least, to be _with_ him; and, surely, an odd coincidence, that we should be dining together while they were quarrelling about us beyond the equinoctial line. well, the same evening, i met lawrence the painter, and heard one of lord grey's daughters (a fine, tall, spirited-looking girl, with much of the patrician thorough-bred look of her father, which i dote upon) play on the harp, so modestly and ingenuously, that she looked music. well, i would rather have had my talk with lawrence (who talked delightfully) and heard the girl, than have had all the fame of moore and me put together. the only pleasure of fame is that it paves the way to pleasure; and the more intellectual our pleasure, the better for the pleasure and for us too."[ ] this modesty sometimes even carried him so far as to lead him into most extraordinary appreciation of things. for instance, he almost thought it blamable to have one's own bust done in marble, unless it were for the sake of a friend. apropos of a young american who came to see him at ravenna, and who told him he was commissioned by thorwaldsen to have a copy of his bust made and sent to america, lord byron wrote in his journal:-- "_i_ would not pay the price of a thorwaldsen bust for any human head and shoulders, except napoleon's, or my children's or some _absurd womankind's_, as monkbarns calls them, or my sister's. if asked why, then, i sat for my own? answer, that it was at the particular request of j.c. hobhouse, esq., and for no one else. a picture is a different matter; every body sits for their picture; but a bust looks like putting up _pretensions to permanency_, and smacks something of a _hankering for public fame rather than private remembrance_." let us add to all these proofs of lord byron's modesty, that his great experience of men and things, the doubts inseparable from deep learning, and his indulgence for human weakness, rendered his reason most tolerant in its exigencies, and that he never endeavored to impose his opinions on others. but while remaining essentially a modest genius, lord byron did not, however, ignore his own value. if he had doubted himself, if he had wanted a just measure of confidence in his genius, could he have found in his soul the energy necessary for accomplishing in a few years such a marvellous literary career? his modesty did not proceed from conscious inferiority with regard to others. could the intellect that caused him to appreciate others so well fail to make him feel his own great superiority? but that _relative superiority_ which he felt in himself left him _perfectly modest_, or he knew it was subject to other relations that showed it to him in extreme littleness: that is to say, the relation of the finite with the aspiration toward the infinite. it was the appreciation of the immense distance existing between what we know and what we ignore, between what we are and what we would be; the consciousness, in fact, of the limits imposed by god on man, and which neither study nor excellence of faculties can ever enable us to pass beyond. those rare beings, whose greatness of soul equals their penetration of mind, can not themselves feel the fascination they exercise over others; and while performing miracles of genius, devotion, and heroism, remain admirably simple, natural, and modest, believing that they do not outstep the humblest limits. such was lord byron. we may then sum up by saying that he was not only a modest genius, but also that, instead of being too proud of his genius, he may rather be accused of having too little appreciated this great gift, as well as many others bestowed by heaven. footnotes: [footnote : the first two cantos of "childe harold."] [footnote : moore, vol. i. p. .] [footnote : the present dean of westminster.] [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : moore, vol. v. p. .] chapter xiv. the virtues of his soul. his generosity a virtue. all that we have hitherto said, proves that lord byron's generosity has never been disputed; but the generosity usually attributed to him was an innate quality, the impulse of a good heart, naturally inclined to bestow benefits. certainly, to distribute among the poor our superfluities, and very often more than that, to borrow rather than suffer the unfortunate to wait for assistance; to subtract from our pleasures, and even to bear privations, the better to help all the afflicted, without distinction of opinion, age, or sex; to measure the kindness done rather by their wants, than our own resources, and to do all that, without ostentation, habitually, in secret and unknown, with god and our conscience for sole witnesses: certainly, all that is full of moral beauty; and we know on what a large scale lord byron practiced it all his life. we have seen him in childhood, of which we should vainly seek one more amiable and more admirable, wish to take upon himself the punishments destined for his comrades; rescue their hall from the senseless fury of his school-fellows, by showing them the dear names of their parents written on the walls; desire to expose himself to death, to save a comrade, who had two parents to regret his loss, while he himself had only one; and send his good nurse the first watch of which he became possessed,--and we know what a treasure the first watch is to a child. we have followed him later, a youth at college, at the university, and at newstead, in his devoted passionate affections; a young man on his travels, and in the midst of the great world, and we have seen his compassion for every kind of misfortune, and his mode of assuaging them. when we perceive, despite the ardor and mobility of his heart, where so many contrary elements combined, contradicted, jarred against, or succeeded each other, that there never was a single instant in his life when generosity did not reign supreme over every impulse and consideration, not only are we compelled to pronounce him generous, but we are likewise forced to acknowledge that generosity, with a passion for truth, divided the empire of his soul, and formed the two principal features of his character. but if his generosity had ended in only satisfying the fine tendencies of his nature, would it have acquired the right to be called virtuous? we do not think so. for generosity, to merit that sacred epithet, must express sentiments rarer and more elevated, arrive at the highest triumph of moral strength, at the greatest self-abnegation; it must succeed in overcoming appetite, in forgetting the most just resentments, in returning good for evil. then, alone, can generosity attain that sublime degree which entitles it to be called a virtue. did lord byron's generosity reach this great moral height? let us examine facts; they alone can answer. if a young man lends assistance to a young and beautiful girl, without any interested motive, and with exquisite delicacy, he certainly gives proof that he possesses delicacy of soul. his merit becomes much greater if he acts thus solely to save her honor. but if the young girl, full of gratitude, falls deeply in love with her benefactor; if, unable to hide the impression produced on her heart by his presence and his generosity, she makes him understand that her gratitude would have no limits; and if he, at the age when passion is all awake, though touched by the sentiments this charming person has conceived, nevertheless shuts his senses against all temptations, does not the greatness of his soul then become admirable? well, this was fully realized in lord byron. and not only in a single instance; but often during his life. for, if temptations were numerous, so were victories also. we will only quote one example, with sufficient details to make it justly appreciated. miss s----, who had been bred in ease, but who, with her family, had been reduced, through a series of misfortunes, to absolute want, found herself exposed to the greatest evil that can menace a portionless girl. her mother, whose temper had been soured by reverses which had likewise quite overthrown her sense of morality, had become one of those women who consider poverty the worst of all evils. unscrupulous as to the means of putting an end to it, she did not think it necessary to fortify her daughter's mind by good counsels. happily the young girl had lofty sentiments and natural dignity. secure from vulgar seduction, and guided by wholesome steady principles, she desired to depend only on her talents for gaining a livelihood, and for assisting her parents. having written a small volume of poetry, she had already got subscriptions from persons of high position; but her great desire was to obtain lord byron's name. an impulse, often recurring, induced her to apply to the young nobleman, who was then still unmarried. she only knew him through his works, and by report, which already associated with admiration for his talents a thousand calumnies concerning his moral character. the skeptical stanzas of "childe harold" still troubled orthodox repose; the lines on the tears of the princess royal irritated the tories, and his last success with the "corsair," added to those he had already gained, further embittered his jealous rivals. thus calumnies made up from these different elements besieged the poet's house, so as to prevent truth concerning the man from being known. even in her family, miss s---- found hostility against him; for her mother, who called herself a tory, only discovered moral delicacy when she wished to show her repugnance for the whig party, to which lord byron belonged. miss s----, in a moment of extreme anguish and pressing embarrassment, resolved upon applying to the young nobleman. he received her with respect and consideration, and soon perceived how intimidated she was by the rather bold step she had taken, and also by the cause that prompted it. lord byron reassured her, by treating her with peculiar kindness, as he questioned her respecting her circumstances. when she had related the sad reasons that determined her to ask him for a subscription, lord byron rang for his valet, and ordered a desk to be brought to him. then, with that delicacy of heart which formed such a remarkable trait in his character, he wrote down, while still conversing, a few words, which he wrapped up in an envelope, and gave to the young lady. she soon after withdrew, thinking she had obtained the coveted subscription. when fairly out, all she had seen and heard appeared to her like a dream. the door which had just closed behind her seemed the gate of eden, opening on a land of exile. nevertheless, she was to see him again. he had consented to receive her volume. lord byron was not for her the angel with the flaming sword, but rather an angel of gentleness, mercy, and love. never had she seen or imagined such a combination of enchantments; never had she seen so much beauty, nor heard such a voice; never had such a sweet expressive glance met hers. "no;" she repeated to herself, "he is not a man, but some celestial being. _oh, mamma, lord byron is an angel!_" were the first words that escaped her on returning home. the envelope was opened; and a new surprise awaited them. together with his subscription, she found, wrapped up, fifty pounds. that sum was, indeed, a treasure for her. she fell on her knees with all her family; even her mother forgot for the moment that it was whig money to which they owed their deliverance, and seemed almost to agree with her eldest daughter, whose enthusiasm communicated itself to the younger one, who never wearied in questioning her sister about lord byron's perfections, until the night was far spent. but if the family was thus relieved, if the young girl's honor was safe, her peace of mind was gone. the contempt and dislike she already felt for several men who were hovering about her with alarming offers of protection, were now further increased by the comparison she was enabled to make between their vulgar and low, basely hypocritical or openly licentious natures, and that of the noble being she had just seen. thenceforth byron's dazzling image never left her mind. it remained fixed there during the day, to reappear at night in her dreams and visions. such a hold had it gained over her entire being, that miss s---- seemed from that hour to live heart and soul only in the hope of seeing him again. when she returned to take him her book, she found that she had to add to all the other charms of this superior being that respect which the wisdom of mature age seems only able to inspire. for he not only spoke to her of what might best suit her position, and disapproved some of her mother's projects, as dangerous for her honor, but even refused to go and see her as she requested; nor would he give her a letter of introduction to the duke of devonshire, simply, because a handsome girl could not be introduced by a young man without having her reputation compromised. the more miss s---- saw of lord byron, the more intense her passion for him became. it seemed to her that all to which heart could aspire, all of happiness that heaven could give here below, must be found in the love of such a pre-eminent being. lord byron soon perceived the danger of these visits. miss s---- was beautiful, witty, and charming; lord byron was twenty-six years of age. how many young men, in a similar case, would not without a scruple have thought that he had only to cull this flower which seemed voluntarily to tempt him? lord byron never entertained such an idea. innocent of all intentional seduction, unable to render her happy, even if he could have returned her sentiments, instead of being proud of having inspired them, he was distressed at having done so. he did not wish to prove the source of new misfortunes to this young girl, already so tried by fate, and without guide or counsellor. so he resolved to use all his efforts toward restoring her peace. it would be too long to tell the delicate mode he used to attain this end, the generous stratagems he employed to heal this poor wounded heart. he went so far as to try to appear less amiable. for the sake of destroying any hope, he assumed a cold, stern, troubled air; but on perceiving that he had only aggravated the evil, his kindliness of heart could resist no longer, and he hit on other expedients. finally he succeeded in making her comprehend the necessity of putting an end to her visits. she left his house, having ever been treated with respect, the innocence of their mutual intercourse unstained; and the young man's sacrifice only permitted one kiss imprinted on the lovely brow of her whose strong feelings for himself he well knew. what this victory, gained by his will and his sentiment as a man of honor over his senses and his heart, cost lord byron, has remained his own secret. but those who will imagine themselves in similar circumstances at the age of twenty-six, may conceive it. as to miss s----, the excess of her emotions made her ill; and she long hung between life and death. nevertheless, the strength of youth prevailed, and ended by giving her back physical health. but was her mind equally cured? the only light that had brightened her path had gone out, and, plunged in darkness, how did she pursue her course through life? was her heart henceforth closed to every affection? or did she chain it down to the fulfillment of some austere duty, that stood her in lieu of happiness? or, as it sometimes happens to stricken hearts, did a color, a sound, a breeze, one feature in a face, call up hallucinations, give her vain longings, make her build fresh hopes and prepare for her new deceptions? proof against all meannesses, but young and most unhappy, was she always able to resist the promptings of a warm, feeling, grateful heart? we are ignorant of all this. we only know of her, that never again in her long career did she meet united in one man that profusion of gifts, physical, intellectual, and moral, that made lord byron seem like a being above humanity. she tells it to us herself, in letters written at the distance that separates from , lately published in french, preceding and accompanying a narrative composed in her own language, in which she has related her impressions of lord byron, and given the details of all that took place between her and him. it was a duty, she says, that remained for her to accomplish here below. her narrative and these letters are charming from their simplicity and naïveté; what she says bears the stamp of plain truth, her admiration has nothing high-flown in it, and her style is never wanting in the sobriety which ought always to accompany truth, in order to make it penetrate into other minds. we would fain transcribe these pages, that evidently flow from an elevated and sincerely grateful heart. for they reflect great honor on lord byron, since, in showing the strength of the impression made on the young girl, they bring out more fully all the self-denial he must have exercised in regard to her; likewise, because, in her letters, this lady, after so long an experience of life, never ceases proclaiming lord byron the handsomest, the most generous, and the best of men she ever knew. but though it is impossible for me to reproduce all she says, still i feel it necessary to quote some passages from her book. in the first letter addressed to mrs. b----, she says:-- "at the moment of the separation between lord byron and that woman who caused the misery of his life, i was not in london; and i was so ill, that i could neither go to see him nor write as i wished. for he had shown me so much goodness and generosity that my heart was bursting with gratitude and sorrow; and never have i had any means of expressing either to him, except through my little offering.[ ] even now my heart is breaking at the thought of the injustice with which he has been treated. "his friend moore, to whom he had confided his memoirs, written with his own hand, had not the courage to fulfill faithfully the desire of his generous friend. lady blessington made a book upon him very profitable _to herself_, but in which she does not always paint lord byron _en beau_, and where she has related a thousand things that lord byron only meant in joke, and which ought not to have been either written or published. and when it is remembered that this lady (as i am assured) never saw or conversed with lord byron but out of doors, when she happened to meet him on horseback, and very rarely (two or three times) when he consented to dine at her house, in both of these cases, in too numerous a company for the conversation to be of an intimate nature; when it is known (as i am further assured) that lord byron was so much on his guard with this lady (aware of her being an authoress), that he never accepted an invitation to dine with her, unless when his friend count gamba did: truly, we may then conclude that these conversations were materially impossible, and must have been a clever mystification,--a composition got up on the biographies of lord byron that had already appeared, on moore's works, medwin's, lord byron's correspondence, and, above all, on "don juan." she must have made her choice, without any regard to truth or to lord byron's honor; rather selecting such facts, expressions, and observations as allowed her to assume the part of a moral, sensitive woman, to sermonize, by way of gaining favor with the strict set of people in high society, and to be able to bring out her own opinions on a number of things and persons, without fear of compromising herself, since she put them into lord byron's mouth. "verily these conversations can not be explained in any other way. at any rate, i confess this production of her ladyship so displeased me that i threw it aside, unable to read it without ill-humor and disgust. at that time ( ) he was not married; and i beheld in him a young man of the rarest beauty. superior intellect shone in his countenance; his manners were at once full of simplicity and dignity; his voice was sweet, rich, and melodious. if lord byron had defects (and who has not?) he also possessed very great virtues, with a dignity and sincerity of character seldom to be found. the more i have known the world, the more have i rendered homage to lord byron's memory." miss s---- wrote thus to a person with whom she was not acquainted; but, encouraged by the answer she received, she dispatched a second letter, opening her heart still further, and sending some details of her intercourse with lord byron,--what she had seen and known of him. "ah! madam," she exclaims, "if you knew the happiness, the consolation i feel in writing to you, knowing that all i say of him will be well received, and that you believe all these details so creditable to him!" in the same letter, she declares "that when he was exposed to the attacks of jealousy and a thousand calumnies spread against him, he always said, 'do not defend me.' "but, madam, how can we be silent when we hear such infamous things said against one so incapable of them? i have always said frankly what i thought of him, and defended him in such a way as to carry conviction into the minds of those who heard me. but a combat between one person and many is not equal, and i have several times been ill with vexation. never mind; what i can do, i will." she announced her intention of communicating the whole history of her acquaintance with lord byron. "i am about to commence, madam, the account of my acquaintance with our great and noble poet. i shall write all concerning him in english, because i can thus make use of his own words, which are graven in my heart, as well as all the circumstances relating to him. i will give you these details, madam, in all their simplicity; but their value consists less in the words he made use of, than in the manner accompanying them, in the sweetness of his voice, his delicacy and politeness at the moment when he was granting a favor, rendering me such a great service. oh! yes, he was really good and generous; never, in all my long years, have i seen a man _worthy to be compared to him_." she wrote again on the th of november, :-- "here, madam, are the details i promised you about my first interview with lord byron. i give them to you in all their simplicity. i make no attempt at style; but simply tell unvarnished truth; for, with regard to lord byron, i consider truth the most important thing,--his name is the greatest ornament of the page whereon it is inscribed. i will also send you, madam, if you desire, my second and third interview with this noble, admirable man, who was so _misjudged_. to write this history is a great happiness for me; since i know that, in so doing, i render him that justice so often denied him by the envious and the wicked. "his conduct toward me was always so beautiful and noble, that i would fain make it known to the whole world. i think they are beginning to render him the justice that is his due; everywhere now he is quoted--_byron said this, byron thought that_--that is what i hear continually, and many persons who formerly spoke against him, now testify in his favor. "they say we ought not to speak evil of the dead; that is very well, but as this maxim was not observed toward lord byron, i also will repeat what i have heard said of his wife--i mean that the blame was hers--that her temper was so bad, her manners so harsh and disagreeable, that no one could endure her society; that she was avaricious, wicked, scolding; that people hated to wait upon her or live near her. how dared this lady to marry a man so distinguished, and then to treat him ill and tyrannically? truly it is inconceivable. if she were charitable for the poor (as some one has pretended), she certainly wanted christian charity. and i also am wanting in it perhaps; but, when i think of her, i lose all patience." on announcing to mrs. b---- the sequel of her narrative, she says:-- "it contains the history of the two days that passed after my first interview with him whom i ever found the _noblest and most generous_ of men, whose memory lives in my heart like a brilliant star amid the dark and gloomy clouds that have often surrounded me in life; it is the single ray of sunshine illumining my remembrances of the past." miss s---- had not forgotten a look, a word, not even the material external part of things; and when mrs. b---- expressed her astonishment at this lively recollection,-- "all that concerned lord byron," said she, "has been retained by my heart. i recall his words, gestures, looks, now, as if it had all taken place yesterday. i believe this is owing to his great and beautiful qualities, such a rare assemblage of which i never saw in any other human being. "there was so much truth in all he said, so much simplicity in all he did, that every thing became indelibly engraven on heart and memory." after having said that lord byron gave her the best counsels, and among others that of living with her mother ("not knowing," she adds, "to what it would expose me"), she continues: "you say, madam, there is no cause for astonishment that i so admire and respect lord byron. in all he said, or advised, there was so much right reason, goodness and judgment far above his age, that one remained enthralled." on sending the conclusion of her history to mrs. b----, she says:-- "you who knew lord byron, will not be surprised that i loved him so much. but a woman does not pass through such a trial with impunity. on returning home, i threw myself on my knees and tried to pray, imploring heaven for strength and patience. but the sound of his voice, his looks, pierced to my very heart, my soul felt torn asunder; i could not even weep. for two years and a half i was no longer myself. a man of high position offered me his hand. he would have placed me in the first society; but he wished for love, and i could only offer him friendship." and, finally, when the reception of the concluding part of her narrative was acknowledged, she further added:-- "i am very glad that the history of my heart appears to you a precious document for proving the virtues of one whom i have ever looked upon as the _first of men, as well for his qualities as for his genius_." her last letter ends exactly as did her first:--"_ah! there never was but one lord byron!_" in her narrative, which is quite as natural in style as her letters, no detail of her interviews with lord byron has escaped her memory.[ ] we have already seen how, in a moment of despair, the young girl, full of confidence in lord byron, whom she considered as one of the noblest characters that ever existed, thought she might go and ask his protection. a fashionable young man, and still unmarried, the reports current about him might well lead to the belief that his house was not quite the temple of order. she was surprised on knocking timidly at his door, on explaining to the _valet-de-chambre_ who opened it, her great desire to speak to lord byron, to see fletcher listen to her with a civil, compassionate air, that predisposed her in favor of his master. he conducted her into a small room, where all lord byron's servants were assembled, and there also she was greatly surprised at the order and simplicity in the establishment of the young lord. "i never saw servants more polite and respectful," says she. "fletcher and the coachman remained standing, only the old house-keeper kept her seat." miss s---- had dried her tears when admitted into lord byron's presence. "surprise and admiration," says she, "were the first emotions i experienced on seeing him. he was only twenty-six years of age, but he looked still younger. i had been told that he was gloomy, severe, and often out of temper: _i saw, on the contrary, a most attractive physiognomy, wearing a look of charming sweetness._" miss s---- soon found cause to appreciate lord byron's delicacy. she began by excusing herself for having come to him, saying she had taken this step in consequence of family misfortunes. she remained standing. after some moments of silence, during which lord byron appeared to interrogate memory, he said:-- "pray be seated; i will not hear another word until you are. you appear to have an independent spirit, and this step must have cost you much." having already partly seen the results of this interview, we refrain from giving further details here, although they are full of interest on account of the goodness, generosity, and delicacy they reveal. miss s---- endeavored to draw his portrait, but the pencil dropped from her hands:-- "i feel that unless i could portray his look, and repeat his words as pronounced by him, i could not even do justice to his actions." she does it, however in a few bold touches which, on account of their truth, we have quoted in the chapter entitled _portrait_ of lord byron. after having said that it was impossible to see finer eyes, a more beautiful expression of face, manners more graceful, hands more exquisite, or to hear such a tone of voice, she adds:-- "all that formed such an assemblage of seductive qualities, that never before or since have i remarked any man who could be compared to him. what particularly struck me was the serene, gentle dignity of his manner. lady blessington says, that she did not find in lord byron quite the dignity she had expected; but surely, then, she does not understand what dignity is? indeed she did not understand lord byron at all. with me he was unaffected, amiable, and natural. the hours passed in his society i look upon as the brightest of my life, and even now i think of them with an effusion of gratitude and admiration, rather increased than diminished by time." lord byron saw directly that miss s---- had a noble nature. it must have been such; it must even have been, so to say, _incorruptible_, since she had been able to preserve her purity of soul and simplicity in the position to which she was, despite her surroundings and with such a mother. lord byron, seeing her so unprotected and ill-advised, took an interest in her, and instead of profiting by her isolation, resolved to save her. with virtue superior to his years, he opposed the best counsels to the more than imprudent projects of a mother who thought only of repairing her fortune by whatever means. miss s----, attracted toward him with her whole heart and soul, begged her young and noble benefactor to come and see her, if it were only once a month. "i should be so happy, my lord, if you would sometimes grant me the favor of a visit, and guide my life," said she to him. but lord byron had perceived the excited state of feeling in which the young girl was. besides, he was betrothed, and did not wish to expose her and himself to the consequences. honor and prudence alike counselled a refusal, and he refused. "my dear child," answered he, "i can not. i will tell you my present position, and you will understand that i ought not: i am going to marry." "at these words," said she, "my heart sunk within me, as if a piece of lead had fallen on my chest. at the same instant i experienced an acute pain in it. it seemed as if a chilly steel had pierced me. a horrible, indescribable sensation shook my whole frame. for some moments i could not possibly articulate a single word. lord byron looked at me with an expression full of interest, for indeed i must have changed countenance." lord byron, already aware that his image was graven on this young heart, and might become dangerous to her, then understood still better the silent ravages that love must be making there. he pitied her more than ever, he felt the necessity of refusal and sacrifice, and, from that moment, all struggle between will and desire ceased. he also refused, after some hesitation, to recommend her to the duke of devonshire. "you are young and pretty," said he, "and that is sufficient to place any man, wishing to serve you, in a false position. you know how the world understands a young man's friendship and interest for a young woman. no; my name must not appear in a recommendation to the duke. don't think me disobliging, therefore. on the contrary, i wish you to make an appeal to devonshire, but without naming me; i have told you my reasons for refusing to be openly your advocate." "another time," adds she, "i ventured to express the wish of being presented to the future lady byron. but he again answered by a refusal. 'though amiable and unsuspicious,' said he, 'persons about lady byron might put jealous suspicions, devoid of foundation, into her head.'" thus equally by what he refused her and what he granted her, he proved his great generosity, the elevation of his character, his virtuous abnegation and self-control. although miss s---- was then in an humble and humiliating position, she had received a fine classical and intellectual education from her uncle, who was a professor at cambridge. her natural wit, the _naïveté_ and sincerity of her ideas, uncontaminated by worldly knowledge, were appreciated by lord byron. he understood her worth, despite the difficulties that made virtue of greater merit in her, and notwithstanding appearances that were against her; and he showed interest in her conversation during the different interviews she obtained from him. he talked to her of literature, the news of the day; and even had the goodness to read with indulgence and approbation the verses she had composed. one day, among others, she had the happiness of remaining with him till a late hour, and when his carriage was announced, to take him to a _soirée_, he had her conducted home in the same carriage. "oh! how delightful that evening was to me," says she. "lord byron's abode at the albany recalled some collegiate dwelling, so perfectly quiet was it, though situated at the west end, the noisiest quarter of the metropolis. his conversation so varied and delightful, the purity of his english, his refined pronunciation, all offered such a contrast even with the most distinguished men i had had the good fortune to meet, that i really learned what happiness was." these conversations afforded her the opportunity of knowing and admiring him still more. in conversing on literature, she was able to appreciate his modesty by the praises he lavished on the talents of others, and by the slight importance he attached to his own; and also his love of truth when, _à propos_ of some book of travels she was praising, he told her that he preferred a simple but true tale of voyages to all the pomp of lies. in speaking about an adventure in high life that was then making a great noise in england, she was able to appreciate his high sentiments of delicacy and honor. when the conversation fell on religion, she had the happiness of hearing him declare he abhorred atheism and unbelief; and when his childhood was touched upon, of hearing him say that it had been pleasant and happy. finally, when she asked his advice with regard to her future conduct, he displayed, at twenty-six years of age, the wisdom that seldom comes before the advent of gray hairs. in short, by word and by action, he manifested that nobleness of soul which always unveiled itself to pure open natures, but which closed against artificial ones; and which makes miss s---- say at the beginning as well as at the end of her account:--"there has been but one byron on earth: how could i not love him?" but it is especially on account of the great love she felt for him, on going over it, reflecting, comparing the depth of feelings she had been unable to hide from him, with the conduct of this young man of twenty-six, who drew from duty alone a degree of strength superior to his age and sex, that she expressed herself thus. she can still see his looks of tenderness; she can judge what the struggle was, the combat that was going on in him as soft and stern glances chased each other; at length she sees honor gain the victory, and remain triumphant. it is this spectacle of such great moral beauty, still before her eyes, that can be so well appreciated after the lapse of long years, and which justifies the words that begin and close her recital by divesting it of all semblance of exaggeration:--"there has been but one byron!" when we have known such beings, admiration and love outlive all else. and while the causes that may have led to transient emotions in a long career--an error, a fault--pass away and are forgotten like some beautiful vision, these glorious remembrances, these more than human images, tower above, living and radiant, in memory, and even come to visit us in our dreams, sometimes to reproach us with our useless and imprudent doubts, ever to sustain us amid the sadnesses of life; and if the love has been reciprocal, then to console us with the prospect of another life, in that blessed abode where we shall meet again forever. after this long narrative, it would be useless and perhaps wearisome for the reader if we quoted many other similar facts in lord byron's life. they might differ in circumstances, but would all wear the same moral character. footnotes: [footnote : she had dedicated to him a small collection of poems, which she sent to pisa, in , with a letter, _to which she received no answer_.] [footnote : "all that," says she, "lives in my heart and soul, as if these things had taken place a few weeks ago, instead of so many years" ( ).] chapter xv. generosity a heroism. pardon, magnanimity. it remains for us to examine lord byron's generosity under another form. i mean that which, after having passed by different degrees of moral beauty, may reach the highest summit of virtue, and become the greatest triumph of moral strength, because it overcomes the most just resentments, forgives, returns good for evil, and constitutes the very heroism of christian charity. did lord byron's generosity really attain such a high degree? to convince ourselves of it, we must again examine his life. clemency and forgiveness showed themselves in lord byron at all periods of his life. in childhood, in youth, though so passionate, and so sensitive at school and at college, so soon as the first explosion was over, he was ever ready to make peace. in the poems composed during his boyhood and early youth, he was always the first to forgive. he even forgave his wicked guardian (lord carlisle). although this latter only evinced indifference, or worse, with regard to his ward, lord byron dedicated his first poems to him. the noble earl having further aggravated his faults by behaving in an unjustifiable manner, lord byron was of course greatly irritated, since he hurled some satirical lines at him. but soon after, at the intercession of friends, and especially at that of his sister, he showed himself disposed to forget the faults of his bad guardian with all the clemency inherent to his generous nature. he writes to rogers, th june, :--"are there any chances or possibility of ending this, and making our peace with carlisle? i am disposed to do all that is reasonable (or unreasonable) to arrive at it. i would even have done so sooner; but the 'courier' newspaper, and a thousand disagreeable interpretations, have prevented me." afterward, he further sealed this generous pardon by those fine verses in the third canto of "childe harold," where he laments the death of major howard, lord carlisle's son, killed at waterloo.[ ] he forgave miss chaworth; and in this case also there was great generosity. the history of this boyish love is well known. even if the name of love should be refused to the feeling entertained by a child of fifteen for a girl of eighteen, who only looked upon him, it is said, as a boy, and liked him as a brother, not only on account of the difference of age, but also because she was already attached to the young man whom she afterward married, still it can not be denied that these first awakenings of the heart, though full of illusion, cause great suffering. for if lord byron was a child in years, he was already a young man in intellect, soul, imagination, and sensibility. that miss chaworth should raise emotion in his heart is very comprehensible, for every girl has good chances of appearing an angel to youths, whose preference invariably falls on women older than themselves. besides, miss chaworth was placed in quite exceptional circumstances with regard to lord byron, such as were well calculated to act powerfully on the imagination of a boy, and render the dispelling of his poetic dream a most painful reality. miss chaworth was heiress of the noble family whose name she bore, and her uncle had been killed in a duel by the last lord byron, grand-uncle of the poet. she resided with her family at annesley, a seat two miles distant from newstead abbey. their two properties touched each other; but the slight barrier separating them was marked with blood. the two children then, despite their near vicinity, only saw each other by chance, or by secretly getting over the boundary of their respective grounds. the chief obstacle to the reconciliation of the two families was the young girl's father. but when lord byron reached his fourteenth year, and, according to custom, came from harrow to pass his holidays at newstead, mr. chaworth was dead, and the mother of the young heiress received him at annesley with open arms, for she did not partake her husband's feelings, but, on the contrary, looked forward with pleasure to the possibility of a union with her daughter, despite the difference of age between them. the development of their mutual sympathy was equally encouraged by the professors, governesses, and all surrounding the young lady, for they liked young byron extremely. from that time he had his room at annesley, and was looked upon as one of the family. as to the young lady, she made him the companion of her amusements. in the gardens, parks, on horseback, in all excursions, he was constantly by her side. for him she played, and sang to the piano. what was her love for him? were there not moments in which she did not look upon him only as a brother, or a child? did she ever contemplate the possibility of becoming his wife? moore does not think so. "neither is it, indeed, probable," says he, "had even her affections been disengaged, that lord byron would, at this time, have been selected as the object of them. a seniority of two years gives to a girl, 'on the eve of womanhood,' an advance into life with which the boy keeps no proportionate pace. miss chaworth looked upon byron as a mere schoolboy. his manners, too, were not yet formed, and his great beauty was still in its promise and not developed." galt is still more explicit in the same sense. washington irving appears to think the contrary:-- "was this love returned?" says he. "byron sometimes speaks as if it had been; at other times he says, on the contrary, that she never gave him reason to believe so. it is, however, probable, that at the commencement her heart experienced at least fluctuations of feeling: she was at a dangerous age. though a child in years, lord byron was already a man in intelligence, a poet in imagination, and possessed of great beauty." this opinion is the most probable. we may add that every thing must have contributed to keep up his illusion. miss chaworth gave him her portrait, her hair, and a ring. mrs. chaworth, the governess, all the family of the young heiress liked him so much, that after his death, when washington irving visited annesley, he found proofs of this affection in the welcome given to, and the emotion caused even by the presence of a dog that had belonged to lord byron. this beautiful waking dream lasted, however, only the space of a dream in sleep. at the expiration of his six weeks' holidays, young byron returned to harrow. while he was cherishing the sacred flame with his purest energies of soul, what did she? she had forgotten him! the impression made on her heart by the schoolboy's love could not withstand the test of absence. she gave her heart to another. "i thought myself a man," says he; "i was in earnest, she was fickle." it was natural, however. she had arrived at the age when girls become women, and leave their childish loves behind them. while young byron was pursuing his studies, miss chaworth mixed in society. she met with a young man, named musters, remarkable for his handsome person, and whose property lay contiguous to her own. she had perceived him one day from her terrace, galloping toward the park followed by his hounds, the horn sounding in front, and he leading a fox hunt; she had been struck with his manly beauty and graceful carriage. from that day his image seated itself in her remembrance, and probably in her heart. it was under these favorable auspices that he made her acquaintance in society. soon he gained her love. and when young byron at the next vacation saw her again, she was already the willing betrothed of another. that was still, however, a secret locked up in her heart. her parents would not have wished this union. she had not then declared her intentions, and lord byron could not of course guess them. he was still welcomed at annesley, and treated as heretofore. the young lady herself, instead of repelling him, continued to accept his attentions. this lasted until one day when musters was bathing with byron in a river that ran through the park he perceived a ring which he recognized as having belonged to miss chaworth. this discovery, and the scenes it gave rise to, obliged the lady to declare her preference. the grief this broken illusion caused lord byron is shown by some of his early verses, and by the "dream," written at geneva, while musing how different his fate might have been if he had married miss chaworth, instead of miss milbank. it might be objected that sorrows, the proof of which rests on poetry, are not very authentic, and that it is not quite certain they really did pass through his heart. one might consider with galt that this childish sentiment was less a real feeling of love than the phantom of an enthusiastic attachment, quite intellectual in its nature, like others that possessed such power over lord byron, since miss chaworth was not the sole object of his attention, but divided it with study and passionate friendships. one might say, with moore, that the poetic description given by lord byron of this childish love, ought to serve especially to show how genius and sentiment may raise the realities of life, and give an immense lustre to the most ordinary events and objects. in short, one might think that lord byron perceived all the poetic advantages accruing from the remembrance of a youthful passion, at once innocent, pure, and unhappy; how it would furnish him with a magic tint to enrich his palette with an inexhaustible fund of sweet, graceful, and pathetic fancies, with delicate, lofty, and noble sentiments, and therefore that he resolved to shut it up in his heart, so as to preserve its freshness amid the withering atmosphere of the world; and in order to draw thence those exquisite images that so often shed ineffable grace and tenderness over his poems. it may, then, be said that, by maintaining alive in his mind scenes passed at annesley, which recall the chaste, unhappy loves of romeo and juliet, and lucy, he thereby satisfied an intellectual want of the poet that was quite independent of his heart as a man. but, nevertheless, all those who can feel the heart's beatings through the veil of poetic language will understand that lord byron's verses on mary chaworth owe their origin to real grief. could it be otherwise? the experience resulting from reflection and comparison, which made him afterward say, that the perfections of the girl were the creation of his imagination at fifteen, because he found her in reality quite other than angelic;[ ] that she was fickle, and had deceived him. this experience, i say, was wanting to the child. thus, then, miss chaworth was for him at that period the beau ideal of all his young fancy could paint as best and most charming. at the same time, this love, notwithstanding the difference of age, was not, on his side, the giddy result of too much ardor. it was composed of a thousand circumstances and feelings,--of practical, wise, and generous thoughts. a far-off prospect of happiness heightened all the noble instincts of the boy, and all the ideas of order that belonged to his fine moral nature. to reunite two noble families,--to efface the stain of blood and hatred through love,--to revive again the ancient splendor of his ancestral halls,--all these thoughts mingled with the idea of his union with miss chaworth, and made his heart beat with hope. if there were excess in such hope,--if there were illusion,--the fault lies with the relatives of the young lady and herself, rather than with him. generosity was on his side alone, because he alone had a right to feel rancor. "she jilted me," says he in prose, and in verse we read,-- "she knew she was by him beloved,--she knew, for quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw that he was wretched." if, then, it was natural for a girl to prefer a young man of more suitable age, handsome and fashionable, to a boy whose features were yet undeveloped, and whom she treated as a child and a brother; was it quite as natural to flatter him,--load him with caresses,--with those gifts likely to foster illusion and hope,--pledges considered as love tokens? was it natural that in order to justify certain coquetries to her affianced, she should make use of insulting expressions with regard to young byron? but, on the other hand, would it not have been very natural for him, having heard them, to feel a little rancor against her? surely she was guilty if she had spoken in jest, and more guilty still if she were in earnest. and yet what was his conduct? in his poem called the "dream," where he sings this romance of his boyhood, he tells us how he quitted annesley, after having learned that miss chaworth was engaged to mr. musters:-- "he rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp he took her hand; a moment o'er his face a tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced, and then it faded, as it came; he dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps retired, but not as bidding her adieu, for they did part with mutual smiles; he pass'd from out the massy gate of that old hall, and mounting on his steed he went his way; and ne'er repass'd that hoary threshold more." then he jumped upon his horse, intending to gallop over the distance separating annesley from newstead. but when he arrived at the last hill overlooking annesley, he stopped his horse, and cast a glance of mingled sorrow and tenderness at what he left behind,--the groves, the old house, the lovely one inhabiting there. but then the thought that she could never be his dispelled his reverie, and putting spurs to his horse he set off anew, as if rapid motion could drown reflection. however, instead of the reflections he could not succeed in drowning, _he cast away all rancor_. when he alludes to her in his early poems it is always with tenderness and respect.[ ] he contents himself with calling her once, _deceitful girl_, and another time, _a false fair face_. after an interval of some years, when the boy had become a fine young man, before setting out for the east, he accepted the proffered hospitality of annesley. he never ceased to welcome musters at newstead, and, lest he should disturb the peace of mrs. musters, he had even concealed his agitation on kissing his rival's child. heretofore she had only seen the boy or youth, now she beheld the young man whose genius and personal attractions lent to each other light and charm. it was about this time that the bright star of annesley began to pale. on her brow, formerly so gay, a veil of sadness was overspread. it seemed as if the gardens had lost their charm for her; as if the spreading foliage of annesley had become dark for her. what caused this change? on seeing again the companion of her childhood, did she contrast her now solitary walks with those of earlier days in his beautiful park, where beside her was the youth who would fain have kissed the ground on which she trod? the sound of that hunting horn, which anon made her thrill with joy, when it announced the approach of her handsome betrothed, and awakened all the illusions of love,--had it now become to her more discordant and painful by its contrast with the harmonious voice and sweet smile of him whom she had just seen again so changed to his advantage? it was during his travels in the east that lord byron heard of this mysterious melancholy. given the circumstances, such a report would not have displeased, even if it had not pleased, vulgar, rancorous souls. but it produced quite a contrary effect on him. the feeling of his own worth, doubtless, must and ought to have brought certain ideas to his mind; but they saddened his generous nature, and he experienced a desire to drive them away by saying, "has she not the husband of her choice, and lovely children to caress her?" "what could her grief be?--she had all she loved. * * * * * * * what could her grief be?--she had loved him not, * * * * * * * nor could he be a part of that which prey'd upon her mind--a spectre of the past." lord byron returned from his travels, and by degrees, as he rose in the admiration of england, the melancholy observable in mrs. musters deepened. one day she felt such a longing to see again the companion of her childhood, that she asked for an interview. could he not desire the meeting? but ought he to grant it? he had had the courage to meet her again when he thought her happy, when sorrow for the past belonged to him alone, when she appeared neither to understand nor to share it. but would his heart be equally strong--would it not yield on seeing her unhappy?[ ] and yet, what could he then do for her happiness? with the same generosity that induced him always to sacrifice his pleasure to the happiness of others, he listened to his reason, his heart, and the prudent counsels of his sister; he refrained from an interview which could only augment the troubles of that devastated soul, soon to become the "_queen of a fantastic kingdom_" in reason's night. but he ever preserved a tender remembrance of miss chaworth, only forgetting the wrong she had done him.[ ] lord byron's conduct had been no less generous toward mr. musters, his triumphant rival in the affections of miss chaworth. mr. musters, though several years older than lord byron, was, nevertheless, among his early companions. the parents of this young man resided at their country-seat, called colwich, a few miles distant from newstead, and lord byron often accepted their hospitality. one day the two youths were bathing in the trent (a river which runs through the grounds of colwich), when mr. musters perceived a ring among lord byron's clothes, left on the bank. to see and take possession of it was the affair of a moment. he had recognized it as having belonged to miss chaworth. lord byron claimed it, but musters would not restore the ring. high words were exchanged. on returning to the house, musters jumped on a horse and galloped off to ask an explanation from miss chaworth, who, being forced to confess that lord byron wore the ring with her consent, felt obliged to make amends to musters by promising to declare immediately her engagement with him. proud of his success, he returned home and acquainted lord byron with miss chaworth's determination. dinner was announced. the family sat down, and soon perceived there was something amiss between the two friends, whose gloomy silence spoke more eloquently than words. before the end of dinner lord byron left the table, unable to endure the provocations of his rival. the parents of musters, though completely ignorant of what had caused the quarrel, were uneasy for the consequences. after dinner bitter words were again exchanged between the two young men, and musters used such coarse, insolent language that lord byron could ill restrain his indignation. anger flashing from his eyes expressed itself as warmly in words. in this frame of mind he retired to his room, and remained long shut up there, while musters believed he was preparing to leave colwich that very night. but the magnanimous youth, on reflection, understood that at fifteen he ought not to pretend to carry off the fair prize of seventeen from a man nine years his senior; and that it was not generous to grieve his hosts and hurt the reputation of the lady he loved. accordingly, he suppressed his sorrow, his pride, his anger. instead of returning to newstead, he made his appearance as usual in the drawing-room, and to the astonishment of his rival, excused himself for having shown anger, and thus failed in politeness to his hosts. candidly, and with regret, he acknowledged that the excess of his feelings had caused the outburst. from that day forth he gave up all pretensions to miss chaworth's love, and, forgiving them both with equal magnanimity, he even continued inviting his rival to newstead. "but," said he, "now my heart would hate him if he loved her not." on declaring to moore, in a letter written from pisa, that he would still forgive fresh wrongs, lord byron made this avowal:--"the truth is, i can not keep up resentment, however violent may be its explosion." at all periods of his life, he remained the young man of , saying that he could not go to rest with anger at his heart. in greece, a few weeks before his glorious death, he gave another proof of it by his conduct toward colonel stanhope (afterward lord harrington). they had persuaded lord byron that the colonel was very jealous of his influence, and of the enthusiasm manifested for him. true or not, lord byron could not but believe it. the colonel arrived in greece (sent by the london committee), for the purpose, it was said, of uniting with lord byron, and acting jointly in favor of greek independence; but in reality, it would have seemed as if he came only to counteract what byron wished. their ideas on matters of administration and on political economy, their principles with regard to institutions and means of government, were totally opposed. bentham was the colonel's idol and model, while lord byron particularly disliked the moral and social consequences flowing from bentham's doctrines. ever straightforward and practical, lord byron thought the greeks ought to begin by gaining their independence, _and that they had better be taught to read before they were made to buy books, and the liberty of the press were given them_. good and honorable, but fond of systems, the colonel always wished to begin by the end. thence resulted long discussions between them, which produced hours of ennui for lord byron, and many annoyances, most prejudicial to his health, which was then very delicate. one evening, among others, the colonel grew so excited, that he told him he believed him to be a friend of the turks. lord byron only answered: "judge me by my actions." both appeared angry; the colonel got up to leave. lord byron, who was the offended party, instead of bearing rancor, rose also, and, going straight to the colonel, said: "give me your honest hand, and good-night." the night would not have passed tranquilly for lord byron without this reconciliation. among numerous proofs of this generous spirit of forgiveness,--so numerous that choice is difficult--we shall select his behavior toward a certain mr. scott, who, at the time of his separation, had attacked him in a savage, cruel manner,--not only unjustly, but even without any provocation. "i beg to call particular attention," says moore, "to the extract about to follow. "those who at all remember the peculiar bitterness and violence, with which mr. scott had assailed lord byron, at a crisis when both his heart and fame were most vulnerable, will, if i am not mistaken, feel a thrill of pleasurable admiration, in reading these sentences, such as they were penned by lord byron, for his own expressions can alone convey any adequate notion of the proud, generous pleasure that must have been felt in writing them:-- "'poor scott is no more! in the exercise of his vocation, he contrived, at last, to make himself the subject of a coroner's inquest. but he died like a brave man, and he lived an able one. i knew him personally, though slightly; although several years my senior, we had been school-fellows together, at the grammar-school of aberdeen. he did not behave to me quite handsomely, in his capacity of editor, a few years ago, but he was under no obligation to behave otherwise. _the moment was too tempting for many friends, and for all enemies._ at a time when all my relations (save one) fell from me, like leaves from the tree in autumn winds, and my few friends became still fewer,--when the whole periodical press (i mean the daily and weekly, not the _literary_, press) was let loose against me, in every shape of reproach, with the two strange exceptions (from their usual opposition) of, "the courier" and "the examiner,"--the paper of which scott had the direction was neither the last nor the least vituperative. two years ago, i met him at venice, when he was bowed in grief, by the loss of his son, and had known, by experience, the bitterness of domestic privation. he was then earnest with me to return to england, and on my telling him, with a smile, that he was once of a different opinion, he replied to me, "_that he, and others, had been greatly misled; and that some pains, and rather extraordinary means, had been taken to excite them_." scott is no more, but there are more than one living who were present at this dialogue. he was a man of very considerable talents and of great acquirements. he had made his way, as a literary character, with high success, and in a few years. poor fellow! i recollect his joy, at some appointment, which he had obtained, or was to obtain, through sir james mackintosh, and which prevented the further extension (unless by a rapid run to rome) of his travels in italy. i little thought to what it would conduct him. _peace be with him! and may all such other faults as are inevitable to humanity be as readily forgiven him as the little injury which he had done to one who respected his talents and regrets his loss._ byron.'" nor did his magnanimity stop here. after scott's death, a subscription for his widow was got up, and lord byron was requested to contribute ten pounds. "you may make my subscription for mr. scott's widow thirty pounds, instead of the proposed ten," answered he; "but do not put down _my name_. as i mentioned him in the pamphlet, it would look indelicate." but this refined generosity was only one of the forms which lord byron's kindliness took. to act thus, was a necessity for this privileged nature, that could not endure to hate, and loved to pardon. still, his generosity had not yet entered on the road of great sacrifices. it had not yet reached the highest degree of power over self. it did attain to that, when it led him to comprise in one general pardon the so-called friends who had abandoned him in his hour of sacrifice, and those bitter enemies who knew no reconciliation, _when he forgave lady byron_. then his generosity merited the name of virtue. pusillanimity, which binds with an invisible chain the hearts and tongues of vulgar souls, in unreal exacting society, had carried away some; jealousy of his superiority had rendered others ferocious; and an absolute moral monstrosity--an anomaly in the history of types of female hideousness--had succeeded in showing itself in the light of magnanimity. but false as was this high quality in lady byron, so did it shine out in him true and admirable. the position in which lady byron had placed him, and where she continued to keep him by her harshness, silence, and strange refusals, was one of those which cause such suffering, that the highest degree of self-control seldom suffices to quiet the promptings of human weakness, and to cause persons of even slight sensibility to preserve moderation. yet, with his sensibility and the knowledge of his worth, how did he act?--what did he say? i will not speak of his "farewell," of the care he took to shield her from blame by throwing it on others, by taking much too large a share to himself, when in reality his sole fault lay in having married her; because it might be objected that, when he acted thus, he had _not given up the wish of reunion_. but at venice, and more especially at ravenna and pisa, this project certainly had ceased to exist; the measure of insult was filled up to overflowing. and yet, in one of those days of exasperation which letters from london never failed to produce, and precisely when he was writing pages on lady byron that could scarcely be complimentary, he learned that she had been taken ill. his anger and his pen both fell simultaneously, and he hastened to throw into the fire what he had written. another time he was told that lady byron lived in constant dread of having ada forcibly taken from her. "yes," he replied, "i might claim her in chancery, without having recourse to any other means; but i would rather be unhappy myself than make lady byron so." and he said this, well knowing how his name was kept from his daughter, like a forbidden thing; and that his picture was hidden from her sight by a curtain. one day at rome, while he was walking amid the ruins of the forum, treading upon those mighty relics that, to him, breathed language and well-nigh sentiments, that seemed like some magic temple of the past, lord byron traced back, in thought, his own career. the meannesses of which he had been, and still was, the victim rose up to view. he allowed his thoughts to wander amid the saddest memories. all the wounds of his still bleeding heart opened afresh. the serenity of the starry sky, the silence of that solemn hour, the ideas of order, peace, and justice, which such a scene ever awakens, contrasted strangely with the material devastation around worked by time. the natural effect of a grand spectacle like this, is to render sadder still those moral ruins accumulated within by the wickedness of man. then did his past, so recent still, rise up before him in all its bitterness. and, taking earth and heaven to witness, he exclaimed:-- "have i not had to wrestle with my lot? have i not suffered things to be forgiven? have i not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, hopes sapp'd, name blighted, life's life lied away? and only not to desperation driven, because not altogether of such clay as rots into the souls of those whom i survey. "from mighty wrongs to petty perfidy, have i not seen what human things could do? from the loud roar of foaming calumny to the small whisper of the as paltry few, and subtler venom of the reptile crew, the janus glance of whose significant eye, _learning to lie with silence, would_ seem _true, and without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy_." his spirit stirred with excitement, he invoked the aid of the divinity whose shrine these roman remains appeared to be:-- "o time! the beautifier of the dead, adorner of the ruin, comforter and only healer when the heart hath bled; time! the corrector where our judgments err, the test of truth, love--sole philosopher, for all beside are sophists--from thy thrift, which never loses though it doth defer-- time, the avenger! unto thee i lift my hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift." and what was this gift? was it vengeance? no! it was the _repentance_ of those who had done and were still doing him wrong; that was the prayer he sent up to heaven, so as not to have worn in vain this iron in his soul, and so that, when his earthly life should cease, his spirit,-- "_like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre, shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move, in hearts all rocky now, the late remorse of love._"[ ] arrived before the temple of nemesis,--that dread divinity who has never left unpunished human injustice,--lord byron evokes her thus:-- "dost thou not hear my heart?--awake! thou shalt, and must." he feels that the guilty will not escape the vengeance of the goddess, since it is _inevitable_; but, as to him, he will not wreak it. nemesis shall watch; he will sleep. _he reserves to himself, however, one revenge. which? ever the same:--forgiveness!_ "that curse shall be forgiveness."[ ] now, we have seen that his generosity did not recoil from any sacrifice of fortune, repose, affection; we have seen it strong against all privations, all instincts, all interests; in short, we have looked at it under all the aspects that constitute great beauty of soul. there remains only one degree more for him to attain--heroism. but the constant exercise of generosity of soul, in inferior degrees, will give him power to reach that sublime height, and, summing up all in one, arrive at _the crowning sacrifice of his life_. already more than once, in italy, and especially in romagna, when that peninsula was preparing a grand struggle for independence, lord byron had shown himself ready to make any sacrifice, to aid in throwing off austrian chains. but, owing to subsequent events, his extreme devotedness could not then go beyond the offer made. two years later it was accepted; an enslaved nation, eager for redemption, asked lord byron's assistance toward regaining its liberty. in this sacrifice on his part, no single feature of greatness is wanting. lord byron would have been great, had he sacrificed himself for his country; but how much greater was he in sacrificing himself for a foreign nation, for the general cause of humanity? he would still have remained great, had he been led into this noble sacrifice by his own enthusiasm, by his illusions, by personal hopes. but no illusion, no enthusiasm, impelled him toward greece; naught save the satisfaction caused in a noble mind by the performance of a great action. he did not even hope to escape ingratitude or to silence calumny; for, although so young, he had already acquired the experience of mature years. he knew greece, and was well aware what he should find there, in exchange for his repose and for all dear to him in this world. we know what sadness overwhelmed his soul during the last period of his sojourn at genoa. the struggles he had with his own heart may be imagined, when we reflect, that despite his self-control, he was more than once surprised with tears in his eyes. when hardly out of port from genoa, a tempest cast him back. he landed, and resolved on visiting the abode he had left with such anguish the day before. while climbing the hill of albano, the darkest presentiments took possession of his soul. "where shall we be this day next year?" said he to count gamba, who was walking by his side. alas! we know that precisely that day next year, his mortal remains were carried through the streets of london, on their way to repose with his ancestors, near newstead. his sorrow only increased on arriving at the palace. his friends were gone; all within that dwelling was silent, deserted, solitary. he asked to be left alone; and then shut himself up in his apartments, remaining there for several hours. what was his occupation? what were his thoughts? through what strange agony did he pass? who shall tell us (since he concealed it), of that last struggle between the man and the hero? the sadnesses of great souls are _unspeakable_, almost _superhuman_. they are beyond the scales where we would weigh them. but we know that he understood and tasted the bitterness of this chalice,[ ] without drawing back, without failing to drain it to the last. night came, and behold him once more on board the vessel. the tempest roared again, then ceased; but the storm within his soul did not cease. only when a tear sometimes threatened betrayal, did he hasten to the privacy of his cabin. we will not give here the narrative of this voyage. these pages, we again repeat, are not a biography, but the picture of a soul. on arriving at the ionian islands, he soon understood that his sacrifice, though not beyond what circumstances demanded, certainly far transcended any hope that could exist of regenerating this fallen race, and constituting a nation worthy to bear the glorious name of greece. but it mattered not: he had given his word, and he was resolved to remain in the country. he even quitted the asylum afforded by the ionian islands, and determined to encounter all dangers, the better to accomplish his mission. then he went to missolonghi. the privations he underwent there, the moral and physical fatigue, the effluvia from the adjoining marshes, and the mode of life he was forced to lead, all combined to affect his naturally good health. he was entreated to leave this unhealthy place, and told that his life depended on it. he felt it and knew it. already he perceived the spectre of the future, and, at the same time, the image of his beloved italy floated before his eyes,--all that he had left, and would still find there; he represented to himself the existence he might lead there, quiet and happy, surrounded with love and respect. still so young, handsome, rich, and almost adored, for whom could life have more value? but, if he left, what would become of greece? his presence was worth an army to that unhappy country. so, then, he would not desert his post; _he resolved to remain, come what might_. "_no, tita; no, we will not return to italy_," said he sadly to his faithful venetian follower a few days before he fell ill. _he did remain, and he died._ by this action, in which he overcame himself, lord byron gave one of those rare examples of self-immolation, of virtue, and heroism, which, says a noble mind of our day,[ ] "afford real consolation to the soul, and reflect the greatest honor on the human race." footnotes: [footnote : "their praise is hymn'd by loftier hearts than mine, yet one i would select from that proud throng, partly because they blend me with his line, and partly that i did his sire some wrong."] [footnote : see medwin.] [footnote : "in the shade of her bower, i remember the hour she rewarded those vows with a tear. by another possest, may she live ever blest! her name still my heart must revere; with a sigh i resign what i once thought was mine, and forgive her deceit with a tear." "_the tear_" (october, ).] [footnote : she had been obliged to separate from her husband, who returned her sacrifices by bad and even brutal treatment.] [footnote : "oh! she was changed as by the sickness of the soul; her mind had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes they had not their own lustre, but the look which is not of the earth; she was become the queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts were combinations of disjointed things; and forms impalpable and unperceived of others' sight familiar were to hers. and this the world calls frenzy."] [footnote : "childe harold," canto iv.] [footnote : ibid.] [footnote : see his "life in italy."] [footnote : m. janet.] chapter xvi. faults of lord byron. after having shown the virtues lord byron possessed, it might seem useless to inquire whether he had not the faults whose absence they prove. still, however, it is well to look at the subject from another point of view, and to offer, so to say, counter-proof. for, in judging him, all rules have been disregarded, not only those of justice and equity, but likewise those of logic. and, as it has been variously asserted of him, that he was constant and inconstant, firm and fickle, guided by principle, yet giving way to every impulse; that he was both chaste and profligate, a sensual man and an anchorite; calumny alone can not be accused of all these contradictions. we must then seek out conscientiously whether there were not other causes for this _inconsistency_, so as to return back within due bounds, and bring contradiction in accord with truth. it is, of course, beyond dispute that the first cause of the unjust verdicts passed upon him lay in the bad passions stirred up by his success, by the independent language he used, and his contempt for a thousand national prejudices. nevertheless, as the degree of injustice dealt out toward him was quite extraordinary, it may be asked whether some real defects did not lend specious reason to his enemies, and thus we are forced to confess that he had one great fault, which did powerfully aid their wickedness; it consisted in a species of _cruelty_ toward himself, _a positive necessity of calumniating himself_. although the origin of this fault or defect must have been principally in the greatness of his soul, it certainly had other secondary and lesser causes, and, in common with many other qualities, it was fatal to his happiness; for men accustomed to exaggerate their own virtues only too readily believed him. this mode of doing harm to and _persecuting_ himself, of casting shadows over his brilliant destiny, was so strange and so real, that it is necessary to show to what extent he did it, by collecting some of the numerous testimonies given among those who knew him, before we bring out the real cause of his fault, as well as the effect it had on his happiness and his reputation. in no hands could his character have been less safe than his own, nor any greater wrong offered to his memory than the substitution of what he affected to be, for what he was. while yet a student at cambridge, he wrote a letter to miss pigott, full of gayety and fun, giving as an excuse for his silence the dissipated life he was leading, and which he calls _a wretched chaos of noise and drunkenness, doing nothing but hunt, drink burgundy, play, intrigue, libertinize_. then he exclaims:-- "what misery to have nothing else to do but make love and verses, and create enemies for one's self." but while avowing this misery, he adds that he has _just written pages of prose and verses_. and moore remarks, in a note annexed to this curious letter:-- "we observe here, as in other parts of his early letters, that sort of display and boast of _rakishness_ which is but too common a folly at this period of life, when the young aspirant to manhood persuades himself that to be profligate is to be manly. unluckily, this boyish desire to be thought worse than he really was remained with lord byron, as did some other failings and foibles, long after the period when, with others, they are past and forgotten; and his mind, indeed, was but beginning to outgrow them when he was snatched away." when moore speaks of the letter in which lord byron, replying to the praise given by mr. dallas, says he did not merit it, and depreciates himself morally in every possible way, moore adds:-- "here again, however, we should recollect there must be a considerable share of allowance for the _usual tendency to make the most and the worst of his own obliquities_. there occurs, indeed, in his first letter to mr. dallas, an account of this strange ambition, the _very reverse_, it must be allowed, of hypocrisy--which led him to court rather than avoid the reputation of profligacy, and to put, at all times, the worst face on his own character and conduct." mr. dallas, writing for the first time to lord byron after having read his early poems, paid him some compliments on the moral beauties and charitable sentiments contained in his verses, remarking that they recalled another noble author, who was not only a poet, an orator, and a distinguished historian, but one of the most vigorous reasoners in england on the truths of that religion of which forgiveness forms the ruling principle, viz., the good and great lord lyttelton. lord byron answered, depreciating himself in a literary sense, and calumniating himself morally, by the assertion that he resembled lord lyttelton's son--a bad, though talented man--rather than the great author. dallas had the good sense to take this appreciation for what it was worth, and asked permission to pay the young nobleman a visit. lord byron answered politely that he should be happy to make his acquaintance, but continued to paint himself, especially as regarded his opinions, in the most unfavorable colors. moore gives the whole of this letter, and then adds:-- "it must be recollected, before we attach any particular importance to the details of his creed, that in addition to the temptation--never easily resisted by him--of displaying his wit, at the expense of his character, he was here addressing a person who, though, no doubt, well meaning, was evidently one of those _officious self-satisfied advisers_ whom it was the delight of lord byron, at all times, to _astonish_ and _mystify_. "the tricks which, when a boy, he played upon the nottingham quack, lavander, were but the first of a long series, with which, through life, he amused himself, at the expense of all the numerous quacks whom his celebrity and sociability drew around him." in the first satire he gave to the world, and which attracted sympathy for his talent as well as for the justice of his cause, the horror he entertained of hypocrisy already made him speak against himself:-- "e'en i--least thinking of a thoughtless throng, just skill'd to know the right and choose the wrong." after having quoted an early poem of lord byron, written in an hour of great depression, and which would seem, inspired by momentary madness, moore makes the following declaration:-- "these concluding lines are of a nature, it must be owned, to awaken more of horror than of interest, were we not prepared, by so many instances of his exaggeration in this respect, not to be startled at any lengths to which the spirit of _self-libelling_ would carry him. it seemed as if, with the power of painting fierce and gloomy personages, he had also the ambition to be himself the dark 'sublime he drew,' and that, in his fondness for the delineation of heroic crime, he endeavored to fancy, where he could not find in his own character, fit subjects for his pencil." moore, mentioning another article in his memoranda, where lord byron accuses himself of irritability of temperament in his early youth, follows up with this reflection:-- "in all his portraits of himself, the pencil he uses is so dark that the picture of his temperament and his self-attempts, covering as they do with _a dark shadow the shade itself_, must be taken with large allowance for exaggeration." in another passage of his work, moore further says:-- "to the perverse fancy he had for falsifying his own character, and even imputing to himself faults the most alien to his nature, i have already frequently adverted. i had another striking instance of it one day at la mira." moore then relates that, on leaving venice, he went to la mira to bid lord byron farewell. passing through the hall, he saw the little allegra, who had just returned from a walk. moore made some remark on the beauty of the child, and byron answered, "have you any notion--but i suppose you have--of what they call the parental feeling? for myself, i have not the least." and yet, when that child died, in a year or two afterward, he who had uttered this artificial speech was so overwhelmed by the event, that those who were about him at the time actually trembled for his reason.[ ] colonel stanhope, afterward lord harrington, who knew lord byron in greece, shortly before his death, says:-- "most men affect a virtuous character; lord byron's ambition, on the contrary, seemed to be to make the world believe that he was a sort of _satan_, though impelled by high sentiments to accomplish great actions. _happily for his reputation, he possessed another quality that unmasked him completely: he was the most open and most sincere of men, and his nature, inclined to good, ever swayed all his actions._"[ ] mr. finlay, who knew lord byron about the same time, says _that not only he calumniated himself, but that he hid his best sentiments_. speaking of the simplicity of his manners, and his repugnance for all _emphasis_:-- "i have always observed," continues mr. finlay, "that he adopted a very simple and even monotonous tone, when he had to say any thing not quite in the ordinary style of conversation. whenever he had begun a sentence which showed that the subject interested him, and which contained sublime thought, he would check himself suddenly, and come to an end without concluding, either with a smile of indifference or in a careless tone. i thought he had adopted this mode _to hide his real sentiments when he feared lest his tongue should be carried away by his heart_; and often he did so evidently to hide the author or rather the poet. but in satire or clever conversation his genius took full flight."[ ] and stanhope further adds:-- "i also have observed that lord byron acted in this way. he often liked to hide the noble sentiments that filled his soul, and even tried to turn them into ridicule."[ ] this was only too true. the spirit of repartee and fun often made him display his intellectual faculties at the expense of his moral nature and his truest sentiments. moore says that when lord byron went to ravenna to see countess g---- again, he wrote to hoppner, who looked after his affairs, in such a light vein of pleasantry, that it would have been difficult for any one not knowing him thoroughly to conceive the possibility of his expressing himself thus, while under the influence of a passion so sincere:-- "but such is ever the wantonness of the mocking spirit, from which nothing--not even love--remains sacred; and which at last, for want of other food, turns upon self. the same horror, too, of hypocrisy that led lord byron to exaggerate his own errors led him also to disguise, under a seemingly heartless ridicule, all those natural and kindly qualities by which they were redeemed." and by way of contrast with the strange lightness of his letter to hoppner, as well as to do justice to the reality of his passion, moore then quotes the whole of those beautiful stanzas, called "the po," which lord byron wrote while crossing that river on his way from venice to ravenna.[ ] we might multiply quotations, in order to prove that all those who knew him have more or less remarked this phenomenon. but no one has well determined its principal cause; or else it has been too much confounded with the strange caprices he showed, especially in early youth; for subsequently, says moore, "_when he saw that the world gravely believed the opinion he had given of himself, he refused any longer to echo it_." there is certainly truth in the judgment passed by moore and others. it can not be denied that, when as a boy, he boasted of his dissipated life at the university, the chief reason of it lay in the folly common to that period of life, which impels human beings while yet children to seek to appear like men by aping the vices of riper years. it can not be denied, either, that the pleasure of mystifying suggested his answer to dallas; that an exaggerated horror of hypocrisy taught his pen a thousand censures of himself beginning with his first satire; that a sort of over-excitement and reaction of imagination gave him, at times, the strange ambition of appearing to be one of those dark, proud heroes he loved to paint for the sake of effect. moreover, we must not forget that witty turn of mind which his extraordinary perception of the ridiculous, and his facility for seeing the two sides of things, often made him to display at the expense of his better nature, by seeming to mock his truest sentiments, as when he wrote to hoppner: a psychological phenomenon, of which the cause has been more particularly sought elsewhere. finally, we may also add that he might have believed he was disarming envy and malice by speaking against himself; and that he was to a certain extent escaping from the effects of those evil passions by throwing them something whereon to feed. who knows whether he also did not--a little through goodness of heart, and greatly through the tactics that make good politicians complain of the unpleasantnesses attached to their greatness--ascribe to himself imaginary defects, so as to let some compassion, under the form of blame, mix with the malice that hemmed him in on all sides; and whether he did not think it well to make use of this means, as of a shield, to ward off their blows? this sort of generous artifice, which i more than once suspected in him, may serve as long as public favor lasts; but when persecution gets the upper hand,--which is the case sooner or later with all greatness and all virtues--when envy triumphs by means of calumny, she converts into poison, benefits, virtues, gratitude. thus, if our hypothesis be correct, lord byron would have been cruelly punished for his weakness in allowing that to be believed of him which was not true. still, all we have observed can only furnish, at best, the secondary and evanescent causes of the moral phenomenon described, and those who would fain penetrate the recesses of lord byron's soul must search deeper for explanation. our idea is, the first cause will be found to lie in some sentiment that reigned all powerful in his breast. i mean that he placed _his ideal standard too high_, and the influence it exercised over him was manifest _even to his last moments_. in the severe judgments which he has pronounced upon himself in the first place, on mankind in general, and on some particular individuals, the ideal model of all the intellectual, moral, and physical beauty which he found in the depth of his own mind, shone with divine lustre before his imagination, by the union of faculties imbued with extraordinary energy. we see, by a thousand traits, that his ideal was formed much earlier than is common with ordinary children. in his first youthful poems it already displayed itself much developed. ever attracted toward truth, his first desire was to seek after that; and the better to do so, he searched into himself, analyzed what was passing within and without, and finally proclaimed it without any consideration for himself or others. at harrow we see him leaving off play to go and sit down alone and meditate on the stone now called _byron's tomb_. at cambridge afterward, despite the dissipation he shared equally with his comrades, amid games and exercises in which he greatly excelled, we still find him courting meditation under shady trees. on returning to his home, the abbey, when surrounded with the noise and frolic of boisterous companions, we see him devote himself to study and solitary reflection; finally, during his travels, and after his return, when all england was at his feet, we behold him still and ever experiencing that imperious _want_ of scanning himself, of descending into the depths of his own heart, interrogating his conscience, and very often of writing down in his memorandum-books the severe sentences pronounced by that inflexible judge. and, as he could not put away from sight his divine model, he came out from these examinations _humbled, dissatisfied, reproaching and punishing himself for having strayed from it_. for he discovered too many terrestrial elements in all human virtues. for instance, in friendships, though so generous on his side, he found the satisfaction of a personal want, consequently, an egotistical element; the same, and much more strongly, with regard to love. he found something personal in the best instincts, in the passion for glory, in patriotism, even in the sentiment of veneration, since that is an echo of our tastes and personal sympathies. that the high standard of his ideal was the first cause of injustice toward himself, a thousand proofs might be offered. i will choose some only. we read in his memoranda:-- "it has lately been in my power to make two men happy. i am delighted at it, especially as regards the last, for he is excellent. _but i wish there had been a little more sacrifice on my part, and less satisfaction for my self-love in doing that, because then there would have been more merit._" such was this great culprit. he actually felt pleasure in doing good! another time he was asked to present a petition to parliament. "i am not in a humor for this business," writes he in the evening journal, where he examined his conscience. he was suffering then from grief, caused by the absence of a person he loved, and he apostrophizes himself in these terms:--"had ---- been here she would have _made_ me do it. _there_ is a woman who, amid all her fascination, always urged a man to usefulness or glory. had she remained, she had been my tutelar genius. "baldwin is very unfortunate; but, poor fellow, 'i can't get out; i can't get out,' said the starling. _ah! i am as bad as that dog sterne, who preferred whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother. villain! hypocrite! slave! sycophant! but i am no better. here i can not stimulate myself to a speech for the sake of these unfortunates, and three words and half a smile of----, had she been here to urge it (and urge it she infallibly would; at least, she always pressed me on in senatorial duties, and particularly in the cause of weakness), would have made me an advocate, if not an orator. curse on rochefoucault for being always right!_" another time _he also accused himself of selfishness, because he wrote only for amusement_! he was then but twenty-three years of age:-- "to withdraw myself from myself (_oh, that cursed selfishness!_) has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all; and publishing is also the continuance of the same object, by the action it affords to the mind, which else recoils upon itself." this hard opinion of man's virtue, formed by many moralists, and especially by those who see virtue only in pure disinterested benevolence, was an impulse with lord byron rather than the result of reason; and i much doubt whether this craving for equity and truth were ever practically combined and harmonized with the faculty of benevolence in any one else as it was with lord byron, for this combination evidently formed the most striking part of his character. montaigne himself,--who, if he did not possess as much innate benevolence, had nevertheless the faculty, and even felt the want of entering into his conscience, and examining it, so as to draw forth general notions,--says, "when i examine myself conscientiously, i find that my best sort of goodness has a _vicious tint_." and he fears that even plato, in his _brightest virtue_, had he analyzed it well, would have found _some human admixture_. and then he sums up by saying, "man is made up of bits and oddities."[ ] but these sincere philosophers are few in number, and their maxims can never be popular. for men in general experience rather the want of magnifying than of depreciating themselves, and, instead of taking their best models from an ideal, they choose them from reality, judge characters, compare themselves to other men, and, living like other people, see no guilt in themselves; while lord byron, living as they did, discovered in himself weaknesses, reasons for modesty, regret, repentance. if he could have done as they did, he would have been satisfied, and he would either have escaped or vanquished calumny. but he could not and would not, though conscious of the harm thence resulting to himself. "you censure my life, harness. when i compare myself with these men, my elders and my betters, i really begin to conceive myself a monument of prudence,--a walking statue, without feeling or failing; and yet the world in general has given me a proud pre-eminence over them in profligacy. yet i like the men, and, god knows, ought not to condemn their aberrations; but i own i feel provoked when they dignify all this by the name of love. romantic attachments for things marketable for a dollar!" one of his biographers pretends that he rendered himself justice another time, and represents him as saying, speaking of m----: "see how well he has got on in the world! he is just as little inclined to commit a bad action as incapable of doing a good one; fear keeps him from the former, and wickedness from the latter. the difference between him and me is that i attack a great many people, and truly, with one or two exceptions (and note that they are persons of my own sex), i do not hate one; while he says no harm of any one, but hates a great many, if not every body. fancy, then, how amusing it would be to see him in the palace of truth, when he would be thinking he was making the sweetest compliments, while all the time he would be giving vent to the accumulated spite and rancor of years, and then to see the person he had flattered so long listen to his real sentiments for the first time. oh! that would truly be a comic sight. as to me, i should appear to great advantage in the palace of truth, for while i should be thinking to vex friends and enemies with harsh speeches, i should be saying pretty things on the contrary; for at bottom, _i have no malice or ill-nature,--at least, not of that kind which lasts more than a moment_." "never," adds the biographer, "was a truer observation made. lord byron's nature is _very fine_, despite all the bad weeds that might have attempted to spring up in it; and i am convinced that it is the excellence of the poet, or rather the effect of such excellence, which has caused the faults of the man. "the severity of censure lavished on the man has increased in proportion to the admiration excited by the poet, and often with the greatest injustice. the world offered up incense to the poet, while heaping ashes on the head of the man. he was indignant at such usage, and wounded pride avenged itself by painting himself in the darkest colors, as if to give a deeper hue than even his enemies had done; all the time forcing them to admiration for his genius, as boundless as was their disapprobation of his supposed character."[ ] is this conversation real or imaginary? doubt is allowable; but, however it may be, the reflections of the biographer in this case are too sensible and too true for us not to quote them with pleasure. in concluding these remarks, which prove how high was the ideal type that impelled lord byron to be unjust to himself, i will further observe, that it was the exaggeration of his great characteristic faculties which made him fail in some little virtue (such as prudence, when it has its source _solely in our personal interest_). for it was only to this degree, and from this point of view, that lord byron lacked it. and it appears singular that his great mind should not have made him see, in this very craving after self-examination, caused by his inclination for truth; and in that extraordinary susceptibility of conscience which lead to self-reproach for egotism, only because he _felt pleasure in exercising beneficence and that it did not contain enough sacrifice_; it is singular, i say, that this same spirit of equity did not make him see how he shone in the only two faculties that can have no alloy of egotism, and which were very evidently the most _striking qualities of his character_. but he was, with regard to himself, like the torch which, lighting up distant objects, leaves those near it in obscurity. lord byron did not know himself; he had by no means overcome that difficulty which the oracles of greece pronounced _the greatest_. only he was sometimes conscious of it. in his memoranda, written at ravenna, in , after having said that he does not think the world judges him well, he adds:-- "i have seen myself compared, personally or poetically, in english, french, german as (interpreted to me), italian and portuguese, within these nine years, to rousseau, goethe, young, aretin, timon of athens, dante, petrarch, an alabaster vase lighted up within, satan, shakspeare, bonaparte, tiberius, Æschylus, sophocles, euripides, harlequin the clown, sternhold and hopkins, to the phantasmagoria, to henry the eighth, to chenier, to mirabeau, to young, r. dallas (the schoolboy), to michael angelo, to raphael, to a _petit maître_, to diogenes, to childe harold, to lara, to the count in 'beppo,' to milton, to pope, to dryden, to burns, to savage, to chatterton, to 'oft have i heard of thee, my lord byron,' in shakspeare, to churchill the poet, to kean the actor, to alfieri, etc., etc. the object of so many contradictory comparisons must probably be like something different from them all; but what _that_ is is more than i know, or any body else." but had he known himself, he would have found that he realized one of the finest types of character that humanity can offer; for his two characteristic faculties were, his attraction toward truth and benevolence. and in ceasing to calumniate himself, he would have snatched from the hands of the envious and the enemies of truth, the principal weapon they made use of to defame him. when one reflects on all this, one questions with astonishment how it is that all his biographers should have remained outside of truth. but it is useless insisting thereupon, for we have given sufficient answer.[ ] i will, then, confine myself to remarking here that one characteristic peculiar to the biographers of great men in general, is the extreme repugnance they feel toward praising their own subjects. what is the cause? do they fear being told they have made a panegyric, passing for flatterers, appearing to get through a task? do they believe that, in order to show cleverness, perspicacity, and deep knowledge of the human heart, it is necessary to put in place of simple truth a sort of malice, not very intelligible, and often contradictory? all that may well be, but i believe that what they especially feel is, that if their books were only written for noble minds, possessing such qualities as only belong to the minority of the human race, they might run the risk of being less sought after and less bought. thus they search for faults with ardor, just as miners do for diamonds; and when they think they have discovered a vice in their hero, they look upon it as the "mogul" of their book. they make it shine, polish it up, show it in a thousand lights, bring it out as the striking part of their work,--the chief quality of their hero, who, unable to defend himself, is handed down, disfigured, to posterity. such are the strange perils incurred, as regards truth and justice, and the wrong done toward the great departed; and this is why their surviving friends are called on to protest against the false assertions of biographers. those who have written on lord byron, unable to find this great "mogul" (for lord byron had no vices), have all, more or less, sought at least to draw the attention of their readers to a thousand little weaknesses, mostly devoid of reality. upon what basis, indeed, do they rest?--almost always on lord byron's words. now we know what account should be made of his testimony when he speaks against himself. for instance, he has called himself irritable and prone to anger, and biographers have found it very convenient to paint him with his own brush. men never fail to treat those who depreciate themselves with equal injustice. nor is this surprising. if it be true that we are always judged on our faulty side, even though we endeavor to show the best, what must be the case if our efforts tend only to display our worst? and besides, why should others give themselves the trouble of exonerating a man from blame who depreciated himself? as it requires great discernment, great generosity, and very rare qualities, not to go beyond truth in self-esteem, biographers have not hesitated to declare lord byron, on his own testimony, _very irritable_, and even very passionate; but was he really so? this is a question to be examined. footnotes: [footnote : moore's "life," vol. iv. p. .] [footnote : parry, .] [footnote : letter from finlay to stanhope, parry, .] [footnote : parry, .] [footnote : moore, , vol. ii. in to.] [footnote : montaigne, vol. iii. p. .] [footnote : "journal of conversation," p. .] [footnote : see chapter on lord byron's biographers.] chapter xvii. irritability of lord byron. was lord byron irritable? with his poetic temperament, his exquisite and almost morbid sensibility, so grievously tried by circumstances, it would be equally absurd and untrue to pretend that he was as impassible as a stoic, or phlegmatic as some good citizen who vegetates rather than lives. did such qualities, or rather faults,--for they betoken a cold nature,--ever belong to milton, dante, alfieri, and those master-spirits whose strength of passion, combined with force of intellect, have merited for them the rank of geniuses? all more or less were, and could not fail to have been, susceptible of irritation and anger; for such susceptibility was indispensable in the peculiar constitution of their minds. but he who finds sufficient strength of will to control himself, when over-excitement is caused by some wounded feeling, does not that person approach to virtue? did lord byron possess this power? every thing, even to the testimony of his servants, his masters, his comrades, proves that he did. in childhood he showed that he knew how to conquer himself, and would use his power. he says, himself, that his anger was of a silent nature, and made him grow pale. now, is not pale and silent anger of the kind that is overcome? we know that lord byron's mother, while still young, suffered so cruelly from the simultaneous loss of her fortune and a husband she adored, that her temper became changed and embittered. she gave way to violent bursts of passion, quite at variance with her excellent qualities of heart; thus she loved her son, but being very jealous of his affection, a trifle sufficed to make her launch out into reproaches and disagreeable scenes. this disposition on her part was not calculated to inspire the tenderness which her passionate fondness for him would otherwise have merited. but it was his disapprobation of such scenes that taught him to overcome in himself all outward tokens of anger, and to keep guard over his temper. thus he opposed to the violence displayed by his poor mother a calm and silent demeanor that provoked her still more, it is true, but which proved great strength of will in him. after a violent scene that took place with her during one of his cambridge vacations, he even determined on leaving home. "it was very seldom," says moore, "that he allowed himself to be so far provoked by her as to come out of his passivity." and by what he himself declares in his memoranda, written at the age of twenty-two, we see that he did not permit any external demonstration of his temper, and that under this discipline it certainly had already improved. "it is especially when i wish to keep silence, and when i feel my cheeks and brow grow pale," says he, "that it becomes very difficult for me to control myself; but the presence of a woman, though not of all women, suffices to calm me." to proceed with justice in any psychological study, we should never lose sight of the particular circumstances of the subject under treatment. now, the circumstances amid which lord byron's moral and social life first began to unfold itself were very irritating. while yet a boy we see his heart expand to love, to tenderness, excited by the way in which the young lady received his attentions, by the gift she made him of her portrait, by meetings, by the encouragement her parents afforded; for, notwithstanding the disproportion of age, they looked favorably on a union that was equal with regard to fortune and position. and while he was thus beguiled, this girl--whom he considered an angel--deemed the timid youth too childish, and entered into a union with a man of fashion. on the eve of a long farewell to england, a friend whom he loved with all the devotedness that belonged to a heart like his, showed the utmost indifference at his departure. having attained his majority, he ought to have taken his seat in the house of peers; but his noble guardian, lord carlisle, whom he had always treated with respect, and to whom he had lately shown the attention of dedicating his early poems to him, behaved toward him in an unjustifiable manner. not only did he refuse to present him to the house of lords, but he even delayed sending the documents necessary for his admission, because forsooth the noble earl _did not like his ward's mother_! lord byron had published a charming collection of poems that won for him equal applause and sympathy; but an all-powerful review sought to humiliate him and crush his talent in the bud by bringing out a brutal and stupid article against him. nor was this all; he had likewise the annoyance of money embarrassments inherited from his predecessors in the estate. leaving england under the sting of all these insults from men and fate, which a phlegmatic temper could alone have borne with patience, would it have been astonishing if his young heart had felt irritation? but could it have existed without being perceived by those who lived with him? yet they say nothing about it. his fellow-traveller was a friend and comrade of old,--lord broughton, then the hon. mr. hobhouse. if lord byron had been of an irritable, violent temper, who more than his daily companion would have perceived it, and suffered from it in that constant intercourse which tries the gentlest natures? mr. hobhouse had lived with lord byron at cambridge, was one of his inseparable companions of newstead, and was a member of the confraternity of the chapter. thus he knew him well, and if lord byron's temper had been unamiable, would he have undertaken such a long journey with him? lord byron did not then possess even the prestige of celerity to render him desirable as a fellow-traveller. well, on returning from this journey, mr. hobhouse was more attached than ever to lord byron, and, speaking of his qualities, expressed himself thus:--"to perspicacity of observation and ingenious remarks, lord byron united that gayety and good-humor which keeps attention alive under the pressure of fatigue, smoothing all difficulties and dangers." journeys taken together test tempers so much, that a good understanding which has withstood the trial of twenty years, is often compromised in a journey of twenty-four hours. thus to choose again for our travelling companions those with whom we have already long journeyed, is the best testimony that can be rendered to their amiable disposition. well, this testimony was given by mr. hobhouse; and while proving lord byron's excellent temper, it also proves the high character of mr. hobhouse. for we must not forget that malice and stupidity were inflicting a real persecution on lord byron at the very moment when mr. hobhouse hastened to rejoin him at geneva, so as to travel again in company with his noble friend. they accomplished together an excursion into the alps, and afterward crossed over them to visit italy. on arriving at venice, the two friends separated for several months; but in the spring they met again to visit together rome and florence. it was beside mr. hobhouse, while scaling the alps, that the plan of "manfred" was conceived; and it was on the road from venice to rome that the fourth canto of "childe harold" was written: it is dedicated to mr. hobhouse, and he it was who made the volume of notes, which forms, even independently of the text, a work so well appreciated in england. having gathered from lord byron's first journey proofs of his good natural disposition, and of the control he exercised over himself, i shall also draw others from his last: that journey from cephalonia to missolonghi which proved so fatal, and which alone, from all lord byron did, said, and wrote during the time it lasted, would suffice to reveal his fine character, and almost every one of his virtues. it is well known, that during this journey he underwent still greater annoyances than in the one from genoa to cephalonia, which had already tried him so much. on seeing both destiny and the elements so pertinaciously combine against its success, one might really be tempted to embrace superstitious ideas, and see therein the efforts of his good genius raising up all sorts of obstacles in order to save him, and keep him from that fatal shore. i have already given the description of this journey so full of dramatic incidents; and i have related lord byron's admirable conduct throughout, in the passages where proofs are adduced of his courage in danger, of his extraordinary coolness and extreme generosity. but that is not enough; we must also examine him with regard to amiability of temper and the self-control he was able to exercise. we have seen him, when pressed on all sides to quit the ionian islands for the continent of greece, yield to these entreaties, although it was the most severe season of the year ( th december), and, notwithstanding a stormy sea, set out for missolonghi. he refused the honor of an escort of greek vessels, hiring instead a cephalonian _mistico_, and a heavy _bombarda_ that waited for him at st. euphemia. but on arriving near the harbor, he was driven back by contrary winds. forced to remain on shore and wait, what sort of humor did he display under these annoyances? mr. kennedy, who went to wish him a pleasant journey, shall tell us. "i found him," says he, "quietly reading 'quentin durward,' and, as usual, in high spirits." meanwhile, the sea grew calm. they set sail, and embarked; lord byron on the little _mistico_, with his doctor, two or three servants, and his dogs; count gamba on the _bombarda_, with the arms, horses, followers, baggage, papers, money, etc. on arriving at zante, persons came to offer lord byron means of amusement, various comforts, etc. to accept might have been very pleasant for him; but he knew that he was wanted at missolonghi; and not an hour would he lose after having transacted business with his bankers. he believed (for it had been announced) that greek vessels were coming to meet him; nor did he doubt that the turkish fleet was still anchored at lepanto. sea and wind were favorable, the sky serene, fortune for once seemed to smile; but it was only the better to deceive him. the turks had been informed of his departure; and hoped to make an easy prey of him and his riches. they left the waters of lepanto, and heading their course toward patras, set off in pursuit of lord byron and his suite. at the close of a few hours, the _mistico_, which was a good sailer, lost sight of the _bombarda_, of slower motion. they halted opposite the scrophes (rocks in roumelia), to wait for it; and meanwhile lord byron saw a large vessel bearing down upon him. could it be the greek vessel sent to meet him? the _mistico_ fired a pistol at its approach, but the vessel did not answer fire. was it the enemy, then? on hearing the cries of the sailors on board, the captain could no longer doubt it: it was an ottoman frigate, calling on them to surrender. their sole hope of safety lay in the swiftness of their sails. under cover of the darkness, which left the turks in fear lest the _mistico_ should be a fire-ship, and aided by the almost miraculous silence that reigned,--for even the dogs, that had been barking all night, now held their peace,--the _mistico_ sped onward rapidly. at dawn of day it had arrived opposite the coast, but, owing to a contrary wind, was unable to get into port. at the same moment, another turkish vessel, on the watch, closed the passage toward the gulf. an ionian boat perceived the danger, and made signals from the shore for the _mistico_ not to approach. they then succeeded, all sails set, in throwing themselves between the rocks of roumelia, called scrophes, where the turkish vessel could not penetrate. it was amid these rocks, where he hardly remained an hour, that lord byron wrote colonel stanhope a letter, truly admirable for its generosity, patience, courage, coolness, and good temper; a letter which it would seem impossible to pen under such circumstances, and which makes count gamba say, when he quotes it in his work entitled "last voyage of lord byron in greece:"-- "such was lord byron's style in the midst of great dangers. there was always immense gayety in him, under circumstances that render other men serious and full of care. this disposition of mind gave him an air of frankness and sincerity, quite irresistible, even with persons previously less well disposed toward him." having hardly, and as if by a miracle, escaped from this danger, and being exposed every instant to assault from the turks, having seen the _bombarda_ captured by the ottoman frigate, did he complain of any thing personal to himself? no. his sole anxiety was for count gamba; his uneasiness was the danger to which the greeks with him were exposed. as to his money losses--"_never mind_," said he,"_don't think about it, we have some left._ but we have no arms, except two carbines and some pistols; and if our friends, the turks, took a fancy to send their vessels to attack us, i greatly fear that we should only be four on board to defend ourselves." not being able to know that the _unexpected apparition_ of the turkish fleet had put out all their calculations, and prevented the greek government from collecting the vessels sent from missolonghi to meet him; not knowing that missolonghi, in great consternation, on learning the danger to which he was exposed, was about to send other vessels in quest of him, other vessels that would no longer find him near the scrophes rocks, he necessarily believed that nothing had been done to keep the promises made him. under such a persuasion, would not some few harsh words have been most natural? and yet this is the language lord byron used:-- "but where has it gone to; the fleet that lets us advance without giving the least sign of any moslems in these latitudes? present my respects to mavrocordato, and tell him i am here at his disposal. i am ill at ease here (among the rocks), not so much for myself, as for the greek child with me; for you know what his destiny would be! we are all in good health." the _mistico_ had hardly been an hour among these rocks, lord byron's letter to colonel stanhope was hardly finished, when the turkish vessel on the lookout made toward them to give chase; and they were obliged to fly without delay. issuing from the rocks, they directed their course, full sail, toward a little port of acarnania, called dragomestri, where they arrived before night. lord byron wished to continue his route by land; but it was impossible. the mountains did not afford him better hospitality than the sea. it was the st of january; his sole resting-place was the damp deck of the _mistico_. there he slept, there he eat the coarse sailors' food; and his fingers were so cramped with cold, that he could scarcely write. if he had complained a little of his hard fate, could one be much astonished? yet these are the terms in which he wrote to his two correspondents at cephalonia.--_it was the month of january; he wished every one a happy new year; apparently forgetting only himself. he then entered into some details about his "odyssey" with so much calmness, that nothing seemed to touch him personally; but his heart protested meanwhile, and he could not help showing uneasiness about the fate of his friend count gamba, although persuaded that his detention was only temporary:_-- "i regret the detention of gamba, etc., but the rest we can make up again, so tell hancock to set my bills into cash as soon as possible, and corgialegno to prepare the remainder of my credit with messrs. webb to be turned into money. we are here for the _fifth day without taking our clothes off, and sleeping on deck in all weathers, but are all very well and in good spirits_. i shall remain here, unless something extraordinary occurs, till mavrocordato sends, and then go on, and act according to circumstances. my respects to the two colonels, and remembrances to all friends. tell _ultima analise_[ ] that his friend raids did not make his appearance with the brig, though i think that he might as well have spoken with us in or off zante, to give us a gentle hint of what we had to expect. excuse my scrawl, on account of the pen and the frosty morning at daybreak. byron." he writes at the same time to hancock:-- "here we are--the _bombarda_ taken--or at least missing, with all the committee stores, my friend gamba, the horses, negro, bull-dog, steward, and domestics, with all our implements of peace and war--also dollars; but whether she will be a lawful prize or no, is for the decision of the governor of the seven islands. we are in good condition, considering wind and weather, being hunted by the turks, and the difficulty of sleeping on deck; we are in tolerable seasoning for the country and circumstances. but i foresee that we shall have occasion for all the cash i can muster at zante and elsewhere. tell our friends to keep up their spirits--and we may yet do well. i hope that gamba's detention will only be temporary. as for the effects and money, if we have them, well; if otherwise, patience! i disembarked the boy and another greek, who were in most terrible alarm. as for me and mine, we must stick to our goods. i wish you a happy new year; and all our friends the same. yours, byron." would an impatient, irritable temper have acted thus, and preserved such serenity amid so many annoyances, privations, and sufferings, of which one alone might suffice to make a stoic bitter? but this was not yet all. after six days of this life, hopeless of being able to continue by land, and getting no answer from missolonghi (from whence, nevertheless, several gun-boats had been dispatched to meet him, and also the brig "leonidas," which he only fell in with near the scrophes), he resolved on setting out. but the wind, which had never ceased being contrary, soon changed into a furious tempest. then byron was truly sublime. his bark was thrown against enormous rocks; the affrighted sailors, seeing their lives in danger, and excited by fear, abandoned the vessel to seek refuge on the rocks. but he remained there, on board the vessel, which every one saw was sinking.[ ] encouraged by such an example, the sailors let go their hold on the rocks to try and free the vessel, which they succeeded in setting afloat again; but it was only for it to be forced back a second time by the angry waves. then despair seized on them all; they trembled for the general safety, and for the illustrious personage on board. he alone showed no emotion; but calmly said to his doctor, who, in great alarm, was about to swim for the shore: "do not leave the vessel while we have sufficient strength to guide her; only when the water covers us entirely, then throw yourself into the sea, and i will undertake to save you." and in the midst of those dangers he not only appeared calm, but his gay, playful humor, and his habit of observing the different aspects of every thing, did not abandon him. after having soothed and consoled those around him, he likewise found means of amusement in the strong traits of individuality which fear brought to light among his followers. the sailors who had remained on board, seeing the danger become so imminent, were about to betake themselves, like the rest, to the rocks; but encouraged by lord byron's words and example, they remained at their post, and succeeded in bringing the vessel between two little islands, where they cast anchor. thus lord byron, by his courage, firmness, and his great experience in the art of navigation, overcame this great peril, saving several lives, together with the money and other means of assistance he was conveying to greece! the sailors esteemed themselves happy to be able to cast anchor between these islands, or rather these rocks, in order to pass the night; but even what appeared fortunate, was destined to turn out the reverse in this fatal journey. if lord byron did not complain of the privation and ennui he experienced, he did not, therefore, feel them less. after so many nights passed on the damp and dirty deck of his _mistico_, he could not resist the desire of refreshing himself, and seeking amid the waves that cleanliness which was an imperative want for his refined nature. and so, without reflecting on the rigor of the season (it was the month of january), he plunged into the troubled sea, and swam there for half an hour. imprudence no less fatal to him than to alexander.[ ] for it was then, undoubtedly, that he contracted the seeds of the malady which showed itself soon after, and under which he succumbed. at last he arrived at missolonghi, without having ceased for one instant to be threatened by the sea. he was expected there as if he had been the messiah, says stanhope; and the consternation caused by the dangers he had gone through, gave place, on his arrival, to the most lively joy. lord byron met with a reception worthy of himself.[ ] but this enthusiastic joy, which found expression in songs as well as tears, subjected his patience and good-nature to another sort of trial. "after eight days of such fatigue," says count gamba, "he had scarcely time to refresh himself, and converse with mavrocordato, and his friends and countrymen, before he was assailed by the tumultuous visits of the primates and chiefs. these latter, not content with coming all together, each had a suite of twenty or thirty, and not unfrequently, fifty soldiers! it was difficult to make them understand that he had fixed certain hours to receive them. their visits began at seven in the morning, and the greater part of them were without any object." this is one of the most insupportable annoyances to which a man of influence and consideration is exposed in the east. "_i saw lord byron bear all this with the greatest patience._" could an irritable temper have done so? for my part, i think that this journey alone, borne, as we have seen, by his letters and the unanimous testimony of his companions, with such perfect good-humor, that he could jest, be quite resigned to unavoidable evils, show indulgence to the faults of others, however great the sufferings entailed thereby on himself; and display great self-denial, strength of mind, and imperturbable serenity, amid frightful dangers; all these qualities, i say, paint the moral nature of the man better than all analyses and commentaries. but alas! while displaying his virtues, this journey also brings out his faults: since, prudent in behalf of others, he was not at all so for himself; and his want of prudence planted in him the germs of the disease which was so soon to be fatally developed in that stifling atmosphere of greece, then full of tumult and confusion. if the limits of this chapter allowed, we could multiply proofs of his naturally amiable disposition at all periods of his life; and we would show what he was in switzerland, at venice, ravenna, pisa, genoa, and in greece, up to his last hour, as he has been described by shelley, hoppner, m. de g----, medwin, lady b----, and so many others. but to those who have said he was irritable because, feeling himself susceptible of irritation and anger, he declared himself to be so, i will content myself with answering simply by a few lines borrowed from the truthful conversations of mr. kennedy:-- "even during his last days on earth, he calumniated himself. for instance, he told me, that at a certain hour, every evening, he had intolerable fits of ill-humor. well, mr. finlay and m---- always went to see him precisely at that fatal hour, and they invariably found him gay, pleasant, and amiable, as usual." mr. finlay, a young english officer of merit and high intelligence, whom lord byron thought very like shelley, which, perhaps, increased his sympathy for him, and who only knew him two months before his death, says, in a letter written on lord byron to colonel stanhope:-- "what astonished me most was the indifference with which lord byron spoke to us of all the lying reports his enemies spread against him. he gave his vindication and explanation with as much calm frankness as if it had concerned another person." and he declares his astonishment at seeing him submit to the lessons of morality, and the censures on his opinions and principles which kennedy, in his extreme orthodoxy, made him undergo.[ ] i will also add, that lord byron was often heard to say that he had been in a frightful rage with his servants; but, if they were questioned, _they knew nothing at all about it_. it is known, moreover, that his toleration and gentleness with them almost exceeded due bounds, and that, even when he had serious cause for chiding them, his severest reprimands were conveyed in jests and pleasantries. persons who will not change their convictions, go so far as to say,--"well, be it so. we admit that he may have been calumniated in his private life, and that his strange fancy of speaking against himself may have contributed toward it. but how do you explain the anger expressed by his pen? do you forget his misanthropical invectives, his personal attacks, his 'avatar,' his epigrams?" and i answer them:--"do you forget that there are different kinds of anger? some that can never be vicious, and others that can never be virtuous? the anger expressed by his pen--the sole kind that was real with him--requires to be explained, not excused or forgotten." "let us beware," says a great contemporary philosopher, "of him who is never irritated, and can not understand the existence of a noble anger."[ ] be so good as to examine, without preconceived opinions, and without prejudice, the nature of every kind of anger he displayed; see if any were personal, egotistical, or whether they did not rather spring from some noble cause; whether they were not rather the generous explosions of a soul burning with indignation at evil and injustice, because it ever held in view the contrast afforded by an ideal of its own that was only too perfect? it is impossible, for instance, not to see that his pen was guided by one of these generous impulses when he spoke of lord castlereagh. he had no personal, malevolent, interested antipathy toward this gay and fashionable nobleman. his pen was inspired simply by his conscience, that revolted at sight of the evils which he attributed to lord castlereagh's policy. it was not the colleague, but the minister, that he wished to stigmatize together with his policy, which appeared to lord byron inhuman, selfish, and unjust. it was this same policy that caused pitt to say:-- "if we were just for one hour, we should not live a day." and again:--"perish every principle rather than england!" what other statesman did lord byron attack except castlereagh? but him he did detest with a noble hatred. "by what right do you attack lord c----?" he was asked. "by the right," he replied, "that every honest man has to denounce the minister who ruins his country, and treads under foot every sentiment of equity and humanity." a few days before setting out on his last journey to greece, he said to an english lady passing through genoa:-- "with regard to lord castlereagh personally, whom you hear that i have attacked, i can only say that a bad minister's memory is as much an object of investigation as his conduct while alive. he is a matter of history; and wherever i find a tyrant or a _villain_, i will mark him. i attacked him no more than i had the right to do, and than was necessary. "do not defend me, you will only make yourself enemies--mine are neither to be diminished nor softened." when lord byron wrote about lord castlereagh, imagination beheld in him the author of all the evils inflicted on ireland, the man who through a selfish feeling of nationality, dangerous even to england, had riveted the chains of all europe. "if he spoke and wrote thus of lord castlereagh," says kennedy himself, "the reason was that he really thought him an enemy to the true interests of his country; and this sentiment, carried perhaps to excess, made him consider it just to condemn him to the execration of humanity."[ ] what i have said with regard to his attacks on lord castlereagh, may equally apply to all the satire hurled against other individuals, against governments and nations. his benevolence was so great and universal, that it rendered the idea of the sufferings endured by humanity quite intolerable to him. his love of justice likewise was so great, that he became thoroughly indignant at seeing what he worshiped trampled under foot by individual or national selfishness, while deceit and injustice were reigning triumphant. lord byron conceived a sort of hatred and dislike for the wicked, and those who voluntarily prevented the well-being of men. and when thus indignant at some injustice, if he snatched up a pen, he could not help expressing himself with a certain kind of violence, in order to chastise, if he could not change, the guilty men who martyrized ireland, crushed and degraded italy, and condemned england to the hatred of the whole world. the sparkling, witty strain, mocking at all human things, which had served as a weapon for his reason while asserting the interests of truth and injustice in italy, and protesting against folly and evil, no longer sufficed him then. he required to brand with fire the limit where folly stops and crime begins. thus it was not mocking, joking satire he would inflict on these great culprits; but burning words to mark the limits where this should stop, and stigmatize them by condemning moral deformity. this is what he did, and wished to do, with regard to castlereagh, and also with regard to the austrians in italy. shall it be said that his language was occasionally too violent; that the punishment went beyond the crime? but, in the first place, condemnation was pronounced in the language of poetry; and then, does not appreciation of the measure kept depend solely on the point of view taken by reason and conscience when they sat in judgment? shall it be said that the moral sense of these invectives was not always brought forward with all the clearness desirable? but let them be examined attentively, and then the fine sentiments to which they owe their origin will be understood. let us read "avatar," for instance,--"avatar," teeming with noble anger,--and say if any poetry exists emitting flame and light purer, and more intense in its moral life, more efficacious for keeping within the boundaries of that humane just policy from which lord byron never swerved. if, in the war he waged against evil and its perpetrators, he did not outstep the limits of merited punishment, nevertheless he often did go beyond the limits of a quality (he possessed not) which is raised to the rank of a virtue, but which applied, despite conscience, to our personal interests, is but selfishness and cowardice. and therein was he truly sublime; for in attacking thus, not only the great men of the day, but likewise the prejudices, idolatries, and passions belonging to such a proud nation, he well knew the harm that would result to himself. but lord byron was a real hero. so soon as his conscience spoke, he heard no other voice, but kept his glance fixed on the light of justice and truth beaming at the end of his career. without looking to the right or to the left, without taking into account the obstacles and dangers which personal prudence counselled him to avoid, he held on his course; exposed his noble breast to british vengeance pursuing him across the channel and the alps, and then also to genevan and austrian shafts that flew back again across the alps and the channel on the wings of dark, fierce calumny. still i do not pretend to assert that, on some rare occasions, personal suffering did not give rise to irritation and anger. he belonged to humanity; and if, despite the harsh trials to which his sensibility was exposed, he had escaped entirely from nature's laws, he would have been not only heroic, but superhuman. it is then very possible that, in the sad days preceding, accompanying, and following on his separation from lady byron, he may have been irritable. such a host of evils overwhelmed him at once! he may have allowed to escape his lips at that time some drops of the ocean of bitterness with which his soul was overflowing. it is certain also that when the edinburgh critics made such cruel havoc with his heart and mind, the over-excitement caused by this review had likewise for its source the wounds inflicted on his self-love. can we be astonished at it, when we reflect that this senseless, wicked criticism succeeded to, and contrasted strangely with, the praises awarded by such judges as mackenzie and lord woodhouse? they both had expressed their admiration spontaneously, and without knowing the writer: one of them was the celebrated author of the "man of feeling," and the other had brought out many esteemed works, and was considered to be at the head of scottish literature. besides, these cutting criticisms followed close on the strong admiration expressed by his friends, by all the society in which he was then moving, and by a mother who idolized him! these verses, though not yet the highest expression of his genius, were certainly full of charming tenderness, grace, and naïve sensibility; moreover, they had been given to the public in such a modest way by a man so young that he might almost be called a child! if he were not conscious of his great superiority, of which he must nevertheless have felt some prophetic presentiment--restrained, doubtless, by modesty and timidity,--he must at least have been conscious that he had not, in any way, merited the brutality displayed in attacks which violated all the laws of just and allowable criticism. lord byron's soul revolted at it, and in his indignation repelling assault by assault, he overstepped his aim; for he certainly went to extremes. and yet, in the very paroxysm of such irritation, was a personal sentiment his first incentive? no! it was a good, generous, affectionate feeling that actuated him: fear lest his mother should be grieved at what had occurred. he had scarcely been told how biting the criticism was, and he had not read it, when he hastened to write to his friend beecher:-- "tell mrs. byron not to be out of humor with them, and to prepare her mind for the greatest hostility on their part. it will do no injury whatever, and i trust her mind will not be ruffled. they defeat their object by indiscriminate abuse, and they never praise, except the partisans of lord holland and co. it is nothing to be abused when southey and moore share the same fate." in assuming this philosophical calm, which he really did arrive at later, but which he was very far from possessing at this time,--in forcing this language on his just resentment to console his mother, when his whole being was agitated, he certainly made one of those efforts which betoken a soul as vigorous as it was beautiful. he used his pen as soon as he had satisfied this first want of his heart; but the intensity of passion destroyed his equilibrium. when at ravenna he wrote:-- "i recollect well the effect that criticism produced on me; it was rage, and resistance, and redress, but not despondency nor despair. a savage review is hemlock to a sucking author; the one on me knocked me down--but i got up again. this criticism was a master-piece of low jests, a tissue of coarse invectives. it contained many commonplace expressions, lowlived insults; for instance, that one should be grateful for what one got; that a gift horse ought not to be looked at in the mouth, and other stable vocabulary; but that did not frighten me. i resolved on giving the lie to their predictions, and on showing them, that, however discordant my voice, it was not the last time they were to hear it." but when this heat had passed away, his innate passion for that justice so cruelly violated toward himself, made him quickly recover his self-possession. he repented having written this satire, which he designated as insensate, and wished to suppress it. he even judged it more severely than others. he wrote to coleridge in :-- "you mention my satire, lampoon, or whatever you like to call it. i can only say, that it was written when i was very young and very angry, and has been _a thorn in my side ever since_: more particularly as almost all the persons animadverted upon became subsequently my acquaintances, and some of them my friends, which is heaping fire on an enemy's head, and forgiving me too readily to permit me to forgive myself. the part applied to you is pert, and petulant, and shallow enough; but, although i have long done every thing in my power to suppress the circulation of the whole thing, i shall always regret the wantonness or generality of its attempted attacks."[ ] on examining his conscience with regard to this satire, and passing judgment on himself, he adds, in a note to his own verses, after having given great praise to jeffrey for his magnanimity, etc.:-- "_i was really too ferocious--this is mere insanity._--b., ." and farther on:-- "_this is bad; because personal._--b., ." with regard to his verses on his guardian, lord carlisle, so culpable toward himself, he generously remarks: "_wrong also_--_the provocation was not sufficient to justify such acerbity._--b., ." to what he said against wordsworth he simply adds the word, "_unjust._" and again, with reference to lord carlisle:-- "_much too savage, whatever the foundation may be._--b., ." and at geneva, th of july, , he writes:-- "_the greater part of this satire i most sincerely wish had never been written_: not only on account of the injustice of much of the critical and some of the personal part of it, but the tone and temper are such as i can not approve.--byron, _villa diodati_, ." lastly, from venice he wrote to murray, who wished to make a superior edition of his works:-- "with regard to a future large edition, you may print all, or any thing, _except_ '_english bards_,' to the republication of which at no time will i consent. i would not reprint them on any consideration. i don't think them good for much, even in point of poetry; and, as to other things, you are to recollect that i gave up the publication on account of the hollands, and i do not think that any time or circumstances should cancel the suppression. add to which, that, after being on terms with almost all the bards and critics of the day, it would be savage at any time, but worst of all _now_,[ ] to revive this foolish lampoon." "whatever may have been the faults or indiscretion of this satire," says moore, "there are few who would now sit in judgment upon it so severely as did the author himself, on reading it over nine years after, when he had quitted england, never to return. the copy which he then perused is now in possession of mr. murray, and the remarks which he has scribbled over its pages are well worth transcribing. on the first leaf we find:-- "the binding of this volume is considerably too valuable for its contents. nothing but the consideration of its being the property of another prevents me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced anger and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames. byron." to this ample reparation offered on account of his early satire we must add the following paragraph, from the first letter he addressed to sir walter scott, in :-- "i feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the '_evil works of my nonage_,' as the thing is suppressed voluntarily; and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. the satire was written when i was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now i am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. i can not sufficiently thank you for your praise." thus scrupulously did this conscientious man judge himself. and not only do we find him repeating the same fine sentiment a hundred times, but he caused the whole edition, then still in the hands of the publisher, to be destroyed, which of course entailed a great sacrifice of money. he became intimate with the principal personages whom he had attacked; and even, in order to testify that no resentment continued to exist in his mind against his guardian, lord carlisle, he seized the first opportunity that presented itself of writing in "childe harold" those pathetic generous lines on the death of his son, major howard. he acted just in the same way every time he thought he had any fault to repair. but could this same love of justice, that had guided him through life, have caused him equally to disavow what he said of lord castlereagh and of ireland in "avatar?" of southey and the austrians at venice? or the greater part of the satirical traits contained in "don juan" and the "age of bronze?" i do not think so. i believe, even, that if on his death-bed, he had been asked to retract some of his writings, he would have answered as pascal did. and this because the sentiment which under all circumstances guided his pen did not arise from any personal interest, but was only, to use the beautiful language of a great contemporary philosopher, "the indignation and revolt of the generous faculties of the soul, which, hurt by injustice, rose up proudly, to protest against human dignity, offended in one's own person or in that of others." this sentiment not being capable of change, neither could its consequences bring any repentance. according to lord byron, castlereagh was a scourge for mankind. faithful to this opinion, as to all his great principles, he wrote to moore in :-- "i am sick at heart of politics and slaughters; and the luck which providence is pleased to lavish on lord castlereagh, is only a proof of the little value the gods set upon prosperity, when they permit such rogues as he and that drunken corporal, old bl----, to bully their betters. from this, however, wellington should be excepted. he _is_ a man, and the scipio of our hannibal." let people read the "avatar," the eleventh octave and following of the dedication of "don juan," the forty-ninth and fiftieth stanzas of the ninth canto of "don juan," as well as the epigrams; and they will have a fair idea of the generous sentiments that provoked his indignation against the inhuman policy of this minister. they will understand why he wished to denounce him to the execration of posterity. as to his satirical verses and anger against the poet laureate, it has already been seen on whose side lay the fault, and how this jealous poet, through a combination of bad feelings, in which envy and revenge predominated, spared no means, no occasion, of doing him harm. thus lord byron saw himself and his friends enveloped in one of those darksome conspiracies, forming a labyrinth of calumny, whence the purest innocence has no escape; and he felt that justice violated in the person of his friends, by a man unworthy of respect, required him, in justice, to brand the individual. and rightly did he so with his words of fire. when ireland, that he would fain have seen heroic under misfortune, degraded herself by her conduct toward this minister and the king, on the occasion of their visit, he, touched with noble indignation, resolved to punish and warn her; and his "avatar" expressed these fine sentiments. when the prince regent, after having shown himself a liberal and a whig, denied his part, betrayed his party, and leagued with the tories, lord byron's noble indignation burst forth in his verses, and, whenever occasion offered, he stigmatized such unworthy conduct. and a proof that it was the conduct of the individual, and not personal animosity, that guided his pen, may be found in the fact that a single ray of hope of seeing this moral deformity transformed into beauty, sufficed to make him change his tone immediately. when he learned the pardon that had just been granted by george the fourth to the guilty lord edward fitzgerald, he forgot all past offenses; his soul expanded to admiration and hope; and he composed that beautiful sonnet, which so well reveals the aspirations of his great heart:-- "to be the father of the fatherless, to stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise _his_ offspring, who expired in other days to make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less,-- _this_ is to be a monarch, and repress envy into unutterable praise. dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits, for who would lift a hand except to bless? were it not easy, sir, and is't not sweet to make thyself beloved? and to be omnipotent by mercy's means? for thus thy sovereignty would grow but more complete: a despot thou, and yet thy people free, and by the heart, not hand, enslaving us." _bologna, august , ._ and then, as if poetry did not suffice, he adds these lines in prose:-- "so the prince has annulled lord e. fitzgerald's condemnation. he deserves all praise, bad and good: it was truly a princely act." all lord byron's expressions of indignation that have been attributed to anger, belong really to his disinterested, heroic, generous nature. we may convince ourselves of this by following him through life, beginning from childhood, at college, when he would plant himself in front of school tyrants, asking to share the punishments inflicted on his friend peel, and always taking the part of his weak or oppressed companions; then, during his first youth, when an accumulation of unmerited griefs and injustice cast over him a shade of misanthropy, so contrary to his nature; and, lastly, up to the moment when that noble indignation burst forth which he experienced in greece, and which hastened his end.[ ] this is the truth. nevertheless, if, in early youth, he did sometimes go beyond the limits of what may be fairly conceded to extreme sensibility,--to a certain hypochondriacal tendency of race, and more especially of his intellectual life; if he really was sometimes wearied, fatigued, discouraged, inclined to irritation, and to view things darkly, can it, therefore, be said that he weakly gave way to a morbid disposition? by no means. he always wished to sift his conscience thoroughly,--never ceased analyzing causes and symptoms, proclaiming his state morbid, and blaming himself beyond measure, far beyond what justice warranted, for a single word that had escaped his lips under the pressure of intense suffering. and even in the few moments of impatience occasioned by his last illness, he said, "do not take the language of a sick man for his real sentiments." lastly, he never gave over struggling against himself; seeking to acquire dominion over his faculties and passions intellectually by hard study, and materially by the strictest régime. what could he do more? it may be said. but if it be true that he had been irritable in his youth, that would only show how much he achieved; for he must have conquered himself immensely, since at venice, ravenna, pisa, genoa, and in greece, he certainly displayed no traces of temper, and all those causes which usually excite irritation and anger in others had quite ceased to produce any in him. "a mild philosophy," says the countess g----, "every day more and more took possession of his soul. adversity and the companionship of great thoughts strengthened him so much, that he was able to cast off the yoke of even ordinary passions, only retaining those among the number which impel to good.[ ] "i have seen him sometimes at ravenna, pisa, genoa, when receiving news of some stupid, savage attack, from those who, in violating justice, also did him considerable harm. no emotion of anger any longer mixed itself up with his generous indignation. he appeared rather to experience a mixture of contempt, almost of quiet austere pleasure, in the struggle his great soul sustained against fools." when shelley saw him again at venice, in , and painted him under the name of count maddalo, he said:-- "in social life there is not a human being _gentler, more patient, more natural, and modest_, than lord byron. he is gay, open, and witty; his graver conversations steep you in a kind of inebriation. he has travelled a great deal, and possesses ineffable charm when he relates his adventures in the different countries he has visited." mr. hoppner, english consul at venice, and lord byron's friend, who was living constantly with him at this time, sums up his own impressions in these remarkable terms:-- "of one thing i am certain, that i never met with goodness more real than lord byron's." and some years later, when shelley saw lord byron again at ravenna, he wrote to mrs. shelley:-- "lord byron has made great progress in all respects; in genius, _temper_, moral views, health, and happiness. his intimacy with the countess g---- has been of inestimable benefit to him. a fourth part of his revenue is devoted to beneficence. he has conquered his passions, and become what nature meant him to be, _a virtuous man_." in concluding these quotations, no longer requisite, i hope, i will only make one last observation, _that all which infallibly changes in a bad nature never did change in him_. friendship, real love, all devoted feelings, lived on in him _unchanged_ to his last hour. if he had had a bad disposition, been capricious, irritable, or given to anger, would this have been the case? footnotes: [footnote : count delladecima, to whom he gives this name in consequence of a habit which that gentleman had of using the phrase "in ultima analise" frequently in conversation.] [footnote : see the account given by mr. bruno, his physician.] [footnote : alexander the great imprudently bathed in the cydnus, etc.] [footnote : "life in italy." see how he was received at missolonghi.] [footnote : parry, .] [footnote : jules simon.] [footnote : kennedy, .] [footnote : moore, vol. iii, p. .] [footnote : _now_ alludes to the ungenerous treatment received from many of these persons at the time of his separation.] [footnote : see his "life in italy."] [footnote : ibid.] chapter xviii. lord byron's mobility. so much has been said of lord byron's mobility that it is necessary to analyze it well, and examine it under different aspects, so as to define and bring it within due limits. in the first place, we may ask on what grounds his biographers rested their opinion of this extraordinary mobility, which, according to them, went beyond the scope of intellectual qualities rather into the category of faults of temper? evidently it was again through accepting a testimony the small value of which we have already shown; namely, lord byron's own words at twenty-three years of age--that period when passion is hardly ever a regular wind, simply swelling sails, but rather a gusty tempest, tearing them to pieces; and then again they grounded their opinion on verses in "don juan," where he explains the meaning of these expressions,--versatility and mobility. moore, from motives we shall examine hereafter, found it expedient to take lord byron at his word, and to make a great fuss about this quality. in summing up his character, he reasons very cleverly on the unexampled extent, as he calls it, of this faculty, and the consequences to which it led in lord byron. following in moore's wake, other biographers have proclaimed lord byron versatile. moore exaggerates so far as to pretend that this faculty made it almost impossible to find a dominant characteristic in lord byron. as if mobility were not, in reality, a universal quality or defect,--as if men could so govern themselves throughout life as to resemble the hero of a drama, where the action is confined within classical rules. "a man possessing the highest order of mind is, nevertheless, unequal," says la bruyère. "he suffers from increase and diminution; he gets into a good train of thought, and falls out of it likewise. "it is different with an automaton. such a man is like a machine,--a spring. weight carries him away, making him move and turn forever in the same direction, and with equal motion. he is uniform, and never changes. once seen, he appears the same at all times and periods of life. at best, he is but the ox lowing, or the blackbird whistling; he is fixed and stamped by nature, and i may say by species. what shows least in him is his soul; that never acts,--is never brought into play,--perpetually reposes. such a man will be a gainer by death." la bruyère also says, "there is a certain mediocrity that helps to make a man appear wise." and what says montaigne, that great connoisseur of the human heart?-- "our usual custom is to go right or left, over mountains or valleys, just as we are drifted by the wind of opportunity. we change like that animal which assumes the color of the spots where it is placed. all is vacillation and inconstancy. we do not walk of ourselves; we are carried away like unto things that float now gently and now impetuously, according to the uncertain mood of the waters. every day some new fancy arises, and our tempers vary with the weather. this fluctuation and contradiction ever succeeding in us, has caused it to be imagined by some that we possess two souls; by others, that two faculties are perpetually at work within us, one inclining us toward good, and the other toward evil." montaigne also says:--"i give my soul sometimes one appearance, and sometimes another, according to the side on which i look at it; if i speak variously of myself, it is because i look at myself variously: all contrarieties, in one degree or other, are found in me, according to the number of turns given. thus i am shamefaced, insolent, chaste, sensual, talkative, taciturn, laborious, delicate, ingenious, stupid, sad, good-natured, deceitful, true, learned, ignorant, liberal, avaricious, and prodigal, just according to the way in which i look at myself; and whoever studies himself attentively, will find this _variety and discordancy_ even in his judgment. "we are all _parts of a whole_, and formed of such shapeless, mixed materials, that every part and every moment does its own work." if, then, we all experience the varied influences of our passions a hundred times in a lifetime, not to say in every twenty-four hours; if we are sensible of a thousand physical and moral causes, perpetually modifying our dispositions, and our words, making us differ to-day from what we were yesterday; if even the coldest and most stoical temperaments do not wholly escape from these influences, how could moore be surprised that lord byron, who was so sensitive and full of passion, so hardly used by men and providence, that he should not prove invulnerable? moore was not surprised at it in reality, it is true; he only made-believe to be so, and that because lord byron was wanting in some of those virtues called peculiarly english. lord byron had no superstitious patriotism; he did not love his country through sentiment or passion, but on duty and principle. he loved her, but justice also! and he loved justice best. and in order to do homage to truth, he had committed the fault of saying a host of irreverential truths concerning that country, and also many individuals belonging to it; consequently he had made many enemies for himself. indeed, his enemies might be found in every camp: among the orthodox, in the literary world, and the world of fashion, among the fair sex, and in the political world. moore, for his part, wished to live in peace with all these potentates,--the warm, comfortable, and brilliant atmosphere of their society had become a necessity for him; and wishing also, perhaps, to obtain pardon for his friend's boldness, he probably thought to conciliate all things by sparing the susceptibility of the great. instead, then, of attributing lord byron's severe appreciations to observation, experience, and serious reflection, he preferred declaring them the result of capricious and inconsistent mobility. but more just in the depths of his soul than he was in words, moore, it is easy to see, felt painfully conscious of the wrong done to his illustrious friend, and ardently wished to make his own weakness tally with truth. what was the result? the brilliant edifice he had raised was so unstable of basis, that it could not stand the logic of facts and conclusions. while appearing to consider the excess of this quality as a defect, and calling it dangerous, he was all the time showing that lord byron had strength to overcome any real danger it contained; he was giving it to be understood that this versatility of intellect might exist without the least mobility of principle; he made out that mobility was the ornament of his intelligence, just as he had shown constancy to be the ornament of his soul. then, after having reasoned cleverly on this quality, yclept versatility when applied to the intelligence, and mobility when applied to conduct; after having shown how predominant it must have been in lord byron through his great impressionability; moore says that lord byron did yield to his versatile humor, without scruple or resistance, in all things attracting his mind, in all the excursions of reason or fancy assuming all the forms in which his genius could manifest its power, transporting himself into all the regions of thought where there were any new conquests to make; and that thereby he gave to the world a grand spectacle, displayed a variety of unlimited and almost contradictory powers, and finally achieved a succession of unexampled triumphs in every intellectual field. then, in order to characterize completely this quality of lord byron, moore further adds:-- "it must be felt, indeed, by all readers of that work, and particularly by those who, being gifted with but a small portion of such ductility themselves, are unable to keep pace with his changes, that the suddenness with which he passes from one strain of sentiment to another, from the gay to the sad, from the cynical to the tender,--begets a distrust in the sincerity of one or both moods of mind which interferes with, if not chills, the sympathy that a more natural transition would inspire. in general, such a suspicion would do him injustice; as among the singular combinations which his mind presented, that of uniting at once versatility and depth of feeling was not the least remarkable." but, throughout this analysis by moore, do we see aught save an intellectual quality? does it not stand out in relief, a pure, high attribute of genius? for this to be a defect, it would be necessary that, leaving the domain of intelligence, it should become mobility, by entering into the course of his daily life in _extraordinary_ proportions. and how does it, in reality, enter there? were his principles in politics, in religion, in all that constitutes the man of honor in the highest acceptation of the term, at all affected by it? did his true affections, or even his simple tastes, suffer from the varied impresses of his versatile genius? in short, was lord byron inconstant? moore has sufficiently answered, since all he remarked and said oblige us to rank _constancy_ among lord byron's most shining virtues.[ ] and as a human heart can not at the same time be governed by a virtue and its opposite vice, what must we say to those who should persist (for there are some, doubtless, who will), despite all axioms, in considering lord byron as a changeable, capricious, fickle man? i reply, that lord byron proved, once more, the truth of the observation made by that moralist, who said: "the most beautiful souls are those possessing the greatest variety and pliancy," and that he realized in himself, after a splendid fashion, the moral phenomenon remarked in _cato the elder_, who, according to livy, possessed a mind at once so versatile and so comprehensive, that whatever he did it might be thought he was born solely for that. i will acknowledge, then, the intellectual versatility and the mobility of lord byron, but on condition of their being reduced to their real proportions; of their being shown as they ever existed in him, that is to say, under subjection to duty, honor, and feeling. through his extreme impressionability, and his power of combining, in the liveliest manner, the greatest contrasts, through the pleasure he took in exercising such extraordinary faculties, and in manifesting them to others, lord byron sometimes assumed such an appearance of skeptical indifference and caprice, that he might almost be said to show a certain intermission of faculties, and even of ideas. but if his words and writings are examined, it will be seen that this mobility was only skin-deep. it might affect his nerves and muscles, but did not penetrate into his system. it animated his writings occasionally, and oftener his words, _but never his actions!_ for, if in some rare moments of life, he abandoned his will to the sway of light breezes, that was only for very evanescent fancies of youth, in which neither heart nor honor were at stake. and even then it was rather by word than by deed, as occurred at newstead, when he was twenty years of age, and at venice when he was twenty-eight. his energetic soul did not, like feebler natures, require inconstancy to awaken it. as to ideas, they were only changeable in him, when they were by nature open to discussion or _accessory_; and they remained floating, until having been elaborated by his great reason, he could admit them into the small number of such as he considered chosen and indisputable. then they found a sort of sanctuary in his mind, remaining there sacred and unmoved, just like his true sentiments of heart. his mobility, thus limited and circumscribed within due bounds by unswerving principles and the dictates of an excellent heart, _was thus shorn of all danger_, and had for its first result to contribute toward producing that amiability and that wonderful fascination which he exercised over all those who came near him. moore quotes, on this head, the words of cooper, who, speaking of persons with a changeful intellectual temperament, says, that their society "_ought to be preferred in this world, for, all scenes in life having two sides, one dark and the other brilliant, the mind possessing an equal admixture of melancholy and vivacity, is the one best organised for contemplating both._" moore adds:--"it would not be difficult to show that to this readiness in reflecting all hues, whether of the shadows or the lights of our variegated existence, lord byron owed not only the great range of his influence as a poet, but those powers of _fascination_ which he possessed as a man. this susceptibility, indeed, of immediate impressions, which in him were so active, lent a charm, of all others the most attractive, to his social intercourse, and brought whatever was most agreeable in his nature into play." all those who knew him have said the same thing. this charm was the immediate consequence of his qualities; but they produced another result, that justice requires to be mentioned. mobility being united in him with constancy and the most heroic firmness, added lustre to his soul through that great difficulty overcome which amounts to virtue. moralists of all ages have generally found the virtue of constancy so rare, that they have said,-- "wait for death to judge a man." "in all antiquity," says montaigne, "it would be difficult to find a dozen men who shaped their lives in a certain steady course which is the chief end of wisdom." this is true as regards the generality of minds; but to overcome this difficulty, when one has a mind eager for emotion, variable, with width and depth capable of discerning simultaneously the for and against of every thing, and thus being necessarily exposed to perplexity of choice, it is surely marvellous if a mind so constituted be also constant. now, lord byron personified this marvel. in him was seen the realization of that rare thing in nature, intellectual versatility combined with unswerving principle; mobility of mind united to a constant heart. in short, to sum up:--he possessed the amount of versatility requisite to manifest his genius under all its aspects; a degree of mobility most charming in social intercourse; and such constancy as is always estimable, always a virtue, and which, united to a temperament like his,[ ] becomes positively wonderful. footnotes: [footnote : see the chapter on "constancy."] [footnote : see the chapter on "constancy."] chapter xix. lord byron's misanthropy and sociability. lord byron has also been accused of misanthropy. but what is a misanthrope? since lucian, this name has been bestowed on the man who owns no friend but himself; who looks upon all others as so many rogues, for whom relatives, friends, country, are but empty names; who despises fame, and aims at no distinction except that conferred by his strange manners, savage anger, and inhumanity. when those who have known lord byron, and studied his life, compare him to this type, it may well be asked whether such persons be in their right understanding. the famous tower of babel, and all the confusion ensuing, rise up to view. the excess of absurdity may give way, however, to some little moderation in judgment. it will be said, for instance, that there are different kinds of misanthropy. lucian's "timon" does not at all resemble molière's "alceste:" lord byron's misanthropy was not like either of theirs; his was only of the kind that mars sociability, good temper, and other amiable qualities. in short, we shall be given to understand that lord byron is only accused of _having liked solitude too much, of having shunned his fellow-creatures too much, and thought too ill of humanity_. but these modifications can not satisfy our conscience. still too many reasons of astonishment may be offered to allow us to resist the desire of adding other facts and indisputable proofs to those already adduced in the chapter where we examined the nature and limits of his melancholy at all periods of life, and throughout all its phases.[ ] this chapter might even suffice as a response to the above strange accusation. a better answer still would be found in all the proofs we have given of his goodness, generosity, and humanity. nevertheless, we think it right rather to appeal to the patience of our readers; so that they may consider with us, more especially, one of the peculiar aspects of lord byron's character; namely, his sociability. that lord byron loved solitude, and that it was a want of his nature who can doubt? as a child, we know, his delight was to wander alone on the sea-shore, on the scottish strand. at school, he was wont to withdraw from his beloved companions, and the games he liked so well, in order to pass whole hours seated on the solitary stone in the church-yard at harrow, which has been fitly called _byron's tomb_. he himself describes these inclinations of his childhood in the "lament of tasso:"-- "of objects all inanimate i made idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, and rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise, where i did lay me down within the shade of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours, though i was chid for wandering; and the wise shook their white aged heads o'er me, and said, of such materials wretched men were made." arrived at adolescence, he showed so little inclination to mix in society that his friends reproached him with his over-weening love for solitude. amid the gay dissipation of university life, he was often a prey to vague disquietude. like the majority of great spirits that had preceded him at cambridge,--milton, gray, locke, etc.,--he did not enjoy his stay there. he even made a satire upon it in his early poems. at a later period, when he had acquired fame, at the very height of his triumphs, when he was _the observed of all observers_, he often caught himself dreaming on the happiness of escaping from fashionable society, and getting home; for, like pope, he greatly preferred quiet reading to the most agreeable conversation. all his life there were hours and days wherein his mind absolutely required this repose. it may, then, truly be said that he loved solitude, and felt a real attraction for it. but would it be equally just to attribute this taste to melancholy, and then to call his melancholy _misanthropy_? those who have deeply studied the nature of a certain order of genius, and the phases of its development, will discover something very different in the impulse that attracted the child byron to the sea-shore in scotland, and to the sepulchral stone shaded over by the tall trees of harrow? they will see therein, not the melancholy apparent to vulgar eyes, but the forecast of genius, to be revealed sooner or later, and with a further promise, in the antipathy shown for the routine of schools, and especially of the university of cambridge,--a suffocating atmosphere for genius, equally uncongenial to milton, dryden, gray, and locke, who all, like lord byron, and more bitterly than he, exercised their satiric vein on it. as for the slight attraction he sometimes showed for the world in his youth--in his seventeenth year--and which the excellent mr. beecher reproached him with, his feelings are too well defined by the noble boy himself for us to dare to substitute any words of ours in lieu of those used by him, in justification to his friend. dear beecher, you tell me to mix with mankind; i can not deny such a precept is wise; but retirement accords with the tone of my mind; i will not descend to a world i despise. did the senate or camp my exertions require, ambition might prompt me at once to go forth; and, when infancy's years of probation expire, perchance, i may strive to distinguish my birth. the fire in the cavern of etna concealed still mantles unseen in its secret recess: at length in a volume terrific revealed, no torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress. oh! thus the desire in my bosom for fame bids me live but to hope for posterity's praise. could i soar with the phoenix on pinions of flame, with him i would wish to expire in the blaze. for the life of a fox, of a chatham the death, what censure, what danger, what woe would i brave! their lives did not end when they yielded their breath; their glory illumines the gloom of their grave. yet why should i mingle in fashion's full herd? why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules? why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd, why search for delight in the friendship of fools? i have tasted the sweets and the bitters of love; in friendship i early was taught to believe; my passion the matrons of prudence reprove; i have found that a friend may profess, yet deceive. to me what is wealth?--it may pass in an hour, if tyrant's prevail, or if fortune should frown: to me what is title? the phantom of power; to me what is fashion?--i seek but renown. deceit is a stranger as yet to my soul: i still am unpracticed to varnish the truth: then why should i live in a hateful control? why waste upon folly the days of my youth? . thus it was the desire of fame that then engrossed his whole soul; the wish of adding some great action to illustrate a name already ennobled by his ancestors. subsequently, this ardent desire may have become weakened. alas! he had been made to pay so dearly for satisfying it. but at the outset of his career this aspiration after glory, that belongs to the noblest souls, was the strongest impulse he had,--the one that often made him prefer the solitary exercise of intelligence to even the usual dissipation of youth, and when he did yield, like others, he punished himself by self-inflicted blame and contempt, often expressed in an imprudent, exaggerated manner. nevertheless, the paths that lead to glory are various, and trod by many; which should he choose? then did he feel the further torment of uncertainty. his faculties were various, and he was to learn this to his cost. he was to feel, though vaguely, that he might just as well aspire to the civic as to the military crown; be an orator in the senate, or a hero on the field of battle. among all the careers presenting themselves before him, the one that flattered him least was to be an author or a literary man. but he was living in the midst of young men well versed in letters. most of them amused themselves with making verses. to tranquillize his heart, and exercise his activity of mind, he also made some, but without attaching any great importance to them. these verses were charming; the first flower and perfume of a young, pure soul, devoted to friendship and other generous emotions. nevertheless, a criticism that was at once malignant, unjust, and cruel, fell foul of these delightful, clever inspirations. the injustice committed was great. the modest, gentle, but no less sensitive mind of the youth was both indignant and overwhelmed at it. other sorrows, other illusions dispelled, further increased his agitation, making a wound that might really have become misanthropy, had his heart been less excellent by nature. but it could not rankle thus in him, and his sufferings only resulted in making him quit england with less regret, and throw into his verses and letters misanthropical expressions, no sooner written than disavowed by the general tone of cordiality and good-humor that reigned throughout them; and, lastly, by suggesting the imprudent idea of choosing a misanthrope as the hero of the poem in which he was to sing his own pilgrimage. this necessity of essaying and giving expression to his genius also made him desire solitude yet more. he found poetic loneliness beneath the bright skies of the east, where he pitched his tent, slowly to seek the road to that fame for which his soul thirsted. but when he arrived at it,--when he became transformed, so to say, into an idol,--did this necessity for solitude abandon him? by no means. "_april th._--i do not know that i am happiest when alone," he writes in his memoranda; "but this i am sure of, i never am long in the society even of her i love--and god knows how i love her--without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my library. even in the day, i send away my carriage oftener than i use or abuse it." this desire, this craving for his lamp and his library,--this absence of taste for certain realities of life,--show affinities between lord byron and another great spirit, montaigne. one might fancy one hears lord byron saying, with the other:-- "the continual intercourse i hold with ancient thought, and the ideas caught from those wondrous spirits of by-gone times, disgust me with others and with myself." he also felt _ennui_ at living in an age that _only produced very ordinary things_. but whether he felt happy or sad, it was always in silence, in retirement, and contemplation of the great visible nature, carrying his thought away to what does not the less exist though veiled from our feeble sight and intellect; it was there, i say, that his mind and heart sought strength, peace, and consolation. his soul was bursting with mighty griefs when he arrived in switzerland, on the borders of lake leman. he loved this beautiful spot, but did not deem himself sufficiently alone to enjoy it fully. "there is too much of man here, to look through with a fit mind the might which i behold," said he; and he promised himself soon to arrive at that beloved solitude, so necessary to him for enjoying well the grand spectacle presented by helvetian nature; but, he added:-- "to fly from, need not be to hate, mankind: * * * * * * * nor is it discontent to keep the mind deep in its fountain, lest it over boil in the hot throng." and then he continues:-- "i live not in myself, but i become portion of that around me; and to me high mountains are a feeling." thus, even in the midst of the beloved solitude so necessary to him, there was no misanthropy in his thoughts or feelings, but simply the desire of not being disturbed in his studies and reveries. lord byron often said, that solitude made him better. he thought, on that head, like la bruyère:--"_all the evil in us_," says that great moralist, "_springs from the impossibility of our being alone. thence we fall into gambling, luxury, dissipation, wine, women, ignorance, slandering, envy, forgetfulness of self, and of god._" if the satisfaction of this noble want were to be called _misanthropy_, few of our great spirits, whether philosophers, poets, or orators, could escape the accusation. for, with almost all of them, the taste for retirement and solitude has been likewise a necessity: a condition without which we should have lost their greatest _chefs-d'oeuvre_. the biography of the noblest minds leaves no doubt on this head. but if lord byron did not use solitude like a misanthrope, if he loved it solely as a means, and not as an end, so that we may even say it was with him an antidote to misanthropy, can we equally give proof of his sociability? to clear up this point, we have only to glance at his whole life. for the sake of avoiding repetition, let us pass over his childhood, so full of tenderness, and ardor for youthful pastimes; his boyhood, all devoted to feelings affectionate and passionate; his university life, where sociability seemed to predominate over regular study; the vacations, when it was such pleasure to act plays, and he was the life of amateur theatres,--a time that has left behind it such an enthusiastic memory of him, that when moore, some years after lord byron's death, went to obtain information about it from the amiable pigott family, not one member could be found to admit that lord byron _had the smallest defect_. let us also pass over his sojourn at newstead, when his sociability and gayety appear even to have been too noisy; and let us arrive at that period of his life when he began to be called a misanthrope, because he gave himself that appellation, because real sorrows had cast a shade over his life, and because, wishing to devote himself to graver things, his object was to withdraw from the society of gay, noisy companions, and then to mature his mind in distant travel. he left his native land, but in company with his friend hobhouse, a man distinguished for his intelligence, and who, instead of testifying to his fellow-traveller's misanthropy, bears witness, on the contrary, to his amiable, sociable disposition. when this friend was obliged to take leave of him in greece, and return to england, lord byron frequented the society of pleasant persons like lord sligo, mr. bruce, and lady hester stanhope, whom he met at athens, alleviating his studious solitude by intercourse with them. when he also returned to england, after two years of absence, great misfortunes overwhelmed him. he lost successively his mother, dear friends, and other loved ones. not to sink beneath these accumulated blows, and mistrusting his own strength, he called in to aid him the society of his friends. "my dear scroope," wrote he, "if you have an instant, come and join me, i entreat you. i want a friend; i am in utter desolation. come and see me; let me enjoy as long as i can the company of those friends that yet remain." some time after, having attained the highest popularity, and his mind being soothed by friendship even more than by fame, he entered into the fashionable society in which his rank entitled him to move. he frequented the world very much at this period, cultivating it assiduously. a moment even came when he seemed to be completely absorbed by gayety. sometimes going to as many as fourteen assemblies, balls, etc., in one evening. "he acknowledged to me," says dallas, "that it amused him." did not his genius suffer then from the new infatuation? so courted, flattered, and surrounded by temptations, did not this worldly life prove too seductive, hurtful to his mind, heart, and independence of character? did he draw from the world's votaries his rules of judgment, his ways of thought? did he yield when brought in contact with that terrible _english law of opinion_? no; lord byron was safe from all such dangers. amid the vortex in which he allowed himself to be whirled along, his mind was never idle. in the drawing-rooms he frequented, his intellectual curiosity found field for exercise. though so young, he had already reflected much on human nature in general; but he still required to study individuals. it was in society that his extraordinary penetration could find out true character, discover the reality lurking under a borrowed mask. the great world formed an excellent school to discipline his mind. there he found subjects for observation that he afterward put in order, and brought to maturity in retirement. "wherever he went," says moore, "lord byron found field for observation and study. to a mind with a glance so deep, lively, and varied, every place, and every occupation, presented some view of interest; and, whether he were at a ball, in the boxing-school, or the senate, a genius like his turned every thing to advantage." and if _salons_ in general were powerless to exercise any bad influence over him, this impossibility was still greater with regard to london _salons_. without adopting as exact the picture drawn of them by a learned academician,[ ] in a book more witty than true, wherein we read:--"that under pain of passing for eccentric, of giving scandal or exciting alarm, english people are forbidden to speak of others or themselves, of politics, religion, or intellectual things or matters of taste; but only of the environs, the roundabouts, a picnic, a visit to some ruin, a fashionable preacher, a fox-hunt, and the rain,--that never-ending theme kindly furnished by the inconstant climate;" without, i say, adopting this picture as true, for in england it must be considered a clever caricature, it is nevertheless certain, that the discipline of fashionable london _salons_ requires independence of mind to be in a measure sacrificed. the tone reigning in these _salons_, which are only opened during the season, is quite different from that produced by the open-hearted hospitality which renders english country residences so very agreeable. could lord byron long take pleasure in the salons of the metropolis, where every thing is on the surface and noisy, where one may say that people are content with simply showing themselves, intending concealment all the while; or where they show themselves _what they are not_; where set forms, or a vocabulary of their own, so far limits allowable subjects of conversation, that fools may easily have the advantage over clever men (for intellect is looked upon as suspicious, dangerous, bold, and called an eccentricity). lord byron, so frank, and open-hearted, loving fame, and having a sort of presentiment that heaven would not accord him sufficient time to reap his full harvest of genius, consequently regretting the moments he was forced to lose; must he not, after seeking amusement in these assemblies, soon have found that they lasted too long, and were too fatiguing? must he not often have well-nigh revolted against himself, felt something cold and heavy restraining his outburst of soul, something like a sort of slavery; must he not have understood that it was requisite for him to escape from such useless pastimes in order to re-invigorate himself by study, in the society of his own thoughts, and those of the master-spirits of ages? yes, lord byron did experience all that. _ennui_ of the world called him back to solitude. we can not doubt it, he said so himself:-- "last night, _party_ at lansdowne house; to-night, party at lady charlotte greville's--_deplorable waste of time_, and loss of _temper, nothing imparted, nothing acquired_--_talking without ideas_--if any thing like thought were in my mind, it was not on the subjects on which we were gabbling. heigho! and in this way half london pass what is called life. to-morrow, there is lady heathcote's--shall i go? yes; to punish myself for not having a pursuit." and, elsewhere:-- "shall i go to lansdowne's? to the berry's? they are all pleasant; but i don't know, i don't think that _soirées_ improve one." he will not go into the world:-- "i don't believe this worldly life does any good; how could such a world ever be made? of what use are dandies, for instance, and kings, and fellows at college, and women of a certain age, and many men of my age, myself foremost?" having changed his apartments, he had not yet got all his books; was reading without order, composing nothing; and he suffered in consequence. "i must set myself to do something directly; my heart already begins to feed on itself." he accuses himself of not profiting enough by time. "twenty-six years of age! i might and ought to be a pasha at that age. '_i 'gin to be weary of the sun._'" but let him be with a clever friend, like moore, for instance, and, oh! then the _ennui_ of salons becomes metamorphosed into pleasure for him, without taking away his clearsightedness as to the world's worth. "are you going this evening," writes he to moore, "to lady cahir's? i will, if you do; and wherever we can unite in follies, let us embark on the _same ship of fools_. i went to bed at five, and got up at nine." and elsewhere, after having expressed his disappointment at seeing moore so little during the season, he calls london "a populous desert, where one should be able to keep one's thirst like the camel. _the streams are so few, and for the most part so muddy._" and ten years later, in the fourteenth canto of "don juan," he said, speaking of fashionable london society:-- "although it seems both prominent and pleasant, there is a sameness in its gems and ermine, a dull and family likeness through all ages, of no great promise for poetic pages. xvi. "with much to excite, there's little to exalt; nothing that speaks to all men and all times; a sort of varnish over every fault; a kind of commonplace, even in their crimes; factitious passions, wit without much salt, a want of that true nature which sublimes whate'er it shows with truth; a smooth monotony of character, in those at least who have got any. xvii. "sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off parade, they break their ranks and gladly leave the drill; but then the roll-call draws them back afraid, and they must be or seem what they were: still doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade; but when of the first sight you have had your fill, it palls--at least it did so upon me, this paradise of _pleasure and ennui_." it was thus that he judged what is called the great world, the fashionable crowd. yet never having ceased to frequent it, he also might have said, with plutarch:--"my taste leads me to fly the world; but the gentleness of my nature brings me back to it again." the best proof, however, of his sociable disposition does not lie in this fact of his going much to great assemblies, since he submitted to, rather than sought after that: it consists in the pleasure he always took in the society of friends, and those whom he loved; in the want of _intimacy_ which he ever experienced. in such quiet little circles he was truly himself, quite different to what he appeared in salons. then only could he be really known. his wit, gayety, and simplicity were unveiled solely for friends and intimates. he, so light-hearted, became serious amid the forced laughter of drawing-rooms; he, so witty, waxed silent and gloomy amid unmeaning conventional talkativeness. those who only saw him in salons, or on fashionable staircases, during the four years he passed in england, did not really know him; is it surprising that he should have been wrongly judged? moore alone has tolerably well described the agreeable, sociable, gay, kind being lord byron was. when he quitted england, his sociable disposition did not abandon him, though his soul was filled with bitterness. he had scarcely arrived at geneva, when he became intimate with shelley. he made him the companion of his walks, passed whole days and evenings in his society, and that of his amiable wife. several london friends came to join him in switzerland. in his excursions over the alps, lord broughton (then mr. hobhouse) was always his faithful companion. he frequented and appreciated then, more than he had ever done before in england, the society of madame de staël at coppet, because it was there and not in drawing-rooms that this noble-hearted woman showed herself what she was. always attracted by high intellect, he became intimate with count rossi, entertaining so great a sympathy for him, that often when the count was about to leave him and return to geneva, lord byron retained him by his entreaties. as to the natives of geneva, as he detested calvinism, and knew that they believed the calumnies wickedly spread abroad against him by some of his country-people, he did not see them often, for he did not like them. "what are you going to do in that den of honest men," said he one day to count rossi, who was preparing to leave. on arriving at milan, he immediately adopted the style of life usual there. every evening he went to the theatre, occupying m. de breme's box, together with a group of young and clever men; among them i may name silvio pellico, abbé de brême, monti, porro, and stendhal (beyle), who have all unanimously testified to his amiability, social temper, and fascinating conversation. at venice, he allowed himself to be presented in the most hospitable mansions of the nobility; particularly distinguishing those where countess albruzzi and countess benzoni presided, for he always went to one or other of these ladies after leaving the theatre. nor did he disdain, during the early part of his stay at venice, even the official salon of the comtesse de goetz. but his aversion for austrian oppression and the perfidy of the official press soon obliged him to withdraw; for the oppressors of venice, knowing him to be a formidable enemy, sought to discredit him by spreading all sorts of calumnious reports against him and his private character.[ ] it has been seen in his "life in italy" how he divided his time at venice, and the impression he made wherever there had not been a preconceived purpose of judging him unfavorably. in the morning, his first walk was always directed toward the convent of the armenian fathers, in the island of san lazzaro. he went there to study their language; and these good monks conceived an extreme affection for him. afterward he would cross the laguna going to the lido, where his stables were. he was accustomed to ride on horseback with the different friends who chanced to arrive from england: such as hobhouse, monk lewis, rose, kinnaird, shelley, and more particularly still with mr. hoppner, consul-general for england at venice, a man of the noblest stamp, much beloved by lord byron, and who, in the account he has left of this intercourse, can not find words adequate for expressing all he wished to say of the charming social qualities lord byron displayed at venice. "_people have no idea_," says he, "_of lord byron's gayety, vivacity, and_ amiability." he followed italian customs, went every evening to the theatre, where his box was always filled with friends and acquaintances; and after that, generally spent the remainder of the evening or night, according to the then custom of venice, in the most distinguished circles of the town, principally at the houses of countess albruzzi and countess benzoni, where he was not only welcome, but so much liked, that these salons were voted dull when he did not appear. lastly, his social qualities and amiability gave so much pleasure at venice, and the inhabitants were so desirous of keeping him among them, that his departure for ravenna actually stirred up malice, quite foreign to the usual simplicity characterizing venetian society.[ ] the friends who came to see him there,--hobhouse, lewis, kinnaird, shelley, rose, etc.,--succeeded each other at short intervals, and their arrivals were so many fêtes for him. but while he was leading this sociable life, vulgar tourists, who had not been able to succeed in getting presented to him, took their revenge, by repeating in every direction fables they had gleaned from the gondoliers for a few pence--viz., that lord byron was a misanthrope and hated his countrymen. mr. hoppner, who was an ocular witness of the life which lord byron led at venice, and whose testimony is so worthy of respect, told moore how much annoyance lord byron endured from english travellers, bent on following him everywhere, eyeglass in hand, staring at him with impertinence or affectation during his walks, getting into his palace under some pretext, and even penetrating into his bedroom. "thence," says he, "his bitterness toward them. the sentiments he has expressed in a note termed cynical, as well as the misanthropical expressions to be found in his first poems, _are not at all his natural sentiments_." and then he adds that he is very certain "_never to have met with in his lifetime more real goodness than in lord byron_." moore, also, is indignant at all these perfidious inventions:-- "among those minor misrepresentations," says he, "of which it was lord byron's fate to be the victim, advantage was at this time taken of his professed distaste to the english, to accuse him of acts of inhospitality, and even rudeness, toward some of his fellow-countrymen. how far different was his treatment of all who ever visited him, many grateful testimonies might be collected to prove; but i shall here content myself with selecting a few extracts from an account given to me by mr. joy, of a visit which, in company with another english gentleman, he paid to the noble poet, during the summer of , at his villa on the banks of the brenta. after mentioning the various civilities they had experienced from lord byron; and, among others, his having requested them to name their own day for dining with him:--'we availed ourselves,' says mr. joy, 'of this considerate _courtesy_ by naming the day fixed for our return to padua, when our route would lead us to his door; and we were welcomed with all the cordiality which was to be expected from so friendly an invitation. such traits of kindness in such a man deserve to be recorded on account of the numerous slanders heaped upon him by some of the tribes of tourists, who resented, as a personal affront, his resolution to avoid their impertinent inroads upon his retirement. "'so far from any appearance of indiscriminate aversion to his countrymen, his inquiries about his friends in england were most anxious and particular. "'after regaling us with an excellent dinner (in which, by-the-by, a very english joint of roast-beef showed that he did not extend his antipathies to all john bullisms), he took us in his carriage some miles on our route toward padua, after apologizing to my fellow-traveller for the separation, on the score of _his anxiety to hear all he could of his friends in england_: and i quitted him with a confirmed impression of the strong ardor and sincerity of his attachment to those by whom he did not fancy himself slighted or ill-treated!'" it has been seen elsewhere[ ] that mr. rose, speaking of lord byron's sociable temper at venice, said _his presence sufficed to diffuse joy and gayety in the salons he frequented_." when any worthy persons among his countrymen arrived, his _house_, his _time_, his _purse_ were at _their service_. for further proof, let people only read the details captain basil hall gave murray of his intercourse with byron. "_his witty, clever conversation_," says shelley, who visited him at venice in , "_enlivened our winter nights and taught me to know my own soul. day dawned upon us, ere we perceived with surprise that we were still listening to him._" when he went from venice to romagna, he passed by ferrara. but though eager to arrive where his heart summoned him, he did not fail delivering the letters of introduction given him by friends. at ferrara he made the acquaintance of a noble family, and went into society there, speaking of it afterward in the most flattering manner.[ ] at ravenna, he frequented all the salons where he was introduced; and at the request of count g----, became the _cavaliere servente_ of the young countess. according to the custom of the country, he accompanied her to assemblies or theatres, or spent his evenings in her family circle. at pisa, he held aloof from the world, because his friends, the gambas, who had taken refuge there in consequence of the troubles and political enmities existing in romagna, did not wish to mix in society. but he passed all his evenings regularly with them, either at their house, or sometimes dispensing hospitality at home with the greatest affability and kindness. "i believe i can not give a better proof of the sociability of lord byron's disposition," says medwin, "than by speaking of the gayety that prevailed at his wednesday dinner-parties at pisa. his table, when alone, was more than frugal; but on these occasions, every sort of wine, and all the delicacies of the season, were served up in grand display, worthy of the best houses. i never knew any one who did the honors of his house with greater affability and hospitality than lord byron. "the vivacity of his wit, the warmth of his eloquence, are things not to be expressed. could we forget the tone of his voice, or his gesture, adding charm to all he said?"[ ] at pisa he generally received in the morning all those who wished to see him, and among others several of his countrymen, mostly acquaintances or friends of shelley, who also went to see him every day. in the afternoon he rode out on horseback, still followed by his countrymen, and by the young count gamba; amusing himself with them till evening came, in shooting exercises or in long excursions. we have already said how he employed his evenings. in fact, he was so seldom alone that people could not understand how he found time for writing. he did find it, however, and without subtracting from social intercourse. nor was it solely because he composed so rapidly, but likewise because he gave to occupation the hours that young men are wont to pass in idle, not to say vicious, amusements. when he went from pisa to a villa situated on the hills that overlook leghorn and the mediterranean, in order to pass the great heats of summer there, an american painter, mr. west, who had been commissioned by an american society, requested him to sit for his picture. lord byron could not give him much time, and the portrait was not successful. but mr. west, who, if not a good artist, possessed a just and cultivated mind, drew a picture of his moral character as true as it was flattering,--his pen doing him better service than his brush:-- "i returned to leghorn," says he, "hardly able to persuade myself that this was the proud misanthrope whose character had ever appeared shrouded in gloom and mystery. for i never remember having met with _gentler, more attractive manners_ in my life. when i told him the idea i had previously formed, what i had thought about him, he was extremely amused, laughed a great deal, and said, 'don't you find that i am like every body else?'" but mr. rogers thought him better than every body else, for he says:-- "from all i had observed, i left him under the impression that he possessed an excellent heart, which had been _completely misunderstood_, perhaps on account of his mobility and apparent likeness of manner. indeed he took a capricious pleasure in bringing out this contrast between himself and others." on quitting pisa he went to genoa, and there produced the same impression on all who saw him until he left for greece. at this last stage of his life, the testimonies as to his amiable, genial nature are so unanimous, from the time of his arrival to the day of his death, that we can not refrain from quoting the language used by some of those who saw him then. "when i was presented to him," writes mr. d---- to colonel stanhope, "i was particularly struck with his _extremely graceful and affable manners_, so opposite to what i had expected from the reputation given him, and which painted him as _morose, gloomy_, almost _cynical_."[ ] "i took leave of him," writes mr. finlay, who was presented to lord byron at cephalonia, "quite enchanted, charmed to find a great man so agreeable."[ ] colonel stanhope, afterward lord harrington, who had been sent to greece by the committee, and who only knew lord byron a few months before his death, notwithstanding great discrepancies of idea and character, says frankly, _that with regard to social relations, no one could ever have been so agreeable_; that there was no pedantry or affectation about him, but, on the contrary, that he was like a child for simplicity and joyousness. "in the evening all the english, who had not, like colonel stanhope, turned odyssean, assembled at his house, and till late at night enjoyed the charm of his conversation. his character _so much differed from what i had been induced to imagine from the relations of travellers_, that either their reports must have been inaccurate, or his character must have totally changed after his departure from genoa. it would be difficult, indeed impossible, to convey an idea of the pleasure his conversation afforded. among his works that which may perhaps be more particularly regarded as exhibiting the mirror of his conversation, and the spirit which animated it, is 'don juan.' the following lines from shakspeare seem as if prophetically written for him:-- "'biron they call him; but a merrier man, within the limits of becoming mirth, i never spent an hour's talk withal: his eye begets occasion for his wit; for every object that the one doth catch, the other turns to a mirth-moving jest; while his fair tongue (conceit's expositor) delivers in such apt and gracious words, that aged ears play truant at his tales, and younger, hearing, are quite ravished; so sweet and voluble is his discourse.'" millingen says:-- "his wonderful mnemonic faculties, the rich and varied store with which he had furnished his mind, his lively, brilliant, and ever-busy imagination, his deep acquaintance with the world, owing to his sagacious penetration, and the advantageous position in which, through his birth and other circumstances, he had been placed, conjoined to the highly mercurial powers of his wit, rendered his conversation peculiarly interesting; enhanced, too, as it was by the charm of his fascinating manners. far from being the surly, taciturn misanthrope generally imagined, i always found him dwelling on the lightest and merriest subjects; carefully shunning discussions and whatever might give rise to unpleasing reflections. almost every word with him was a jest; and he possessed the talent of passing from subject to subject with a lightness, an ease, and a grace, that could with difficulty be matched. communicative to a degree that astonished us, and might not unfrequently be termed indiscretion, he related anecdotes of himself and his friends which he might as well have kept secret." several persons, influenced by the stories circulated against lord byron, asked dr. kennedy whether his manners and exterior did not give the idea of a demon incarnate. "quite the contrary," replied kennedy, "_his appearance and manners give the idea of a man with an excellent heart, both benevolent and feeling, and he has an amiable, sympathetic physiognomy_. the impression he made on me was that of a man of refined politeness and great affability, united to much gayety, vivacity, and benevolence. his cordial affability even went so far that one was often obliged to recall his rank and fame, in order not to be involuntarily led away by his manner into too great familiarity with him."[ ] a short time after lord byron's death, one of the first english reviews published an article on him entitled "personal character of lord byron." it was written by a personage who had had several occasions, during lord byron's last sojourn in greece, of observing his habits, feelings and opinions. though often jealous of lord byron's influence in the country, nevertheless when he could get rid of these bad feelings, he expressed himself with tolerable justice:-- "lord byron's demeanor," says he, "was perhaps the most affable and courteous i ever met with." when he was in a good humor, and desirous to be on fair terms with any one, there was a great charm, an irresistible fascination in his manner. though very gentle, it was always gay, with an air of great frankness and generosity, qualities most real in him. "lord byron," he adds, "was known for a sort of poetic misanthrope; but that existed much more in public imagination than in reality. he liked society, and was extremely kind and amiable, when calm. instead of being gloomy, he was, on the contrary, of a very gay disposition, and was fond of jesting; it even amused him to witness comic scenes, such as quarrels between vulgar buffoons, to make them drink, or lead them on in any other way to show their drolleries. in his writings, certainly, he loved to paint a character more or less the work of his imagination, and which therefore was assigned to himself by public opinion: that is, a proud, haughty being, despising all men, and disgusted with the human species. his liking for bandits and pirates may have sprung from some tendencies of his nature, some circumstances in his life; _but there was not the smallest resemblance between the poet and the corsair_. lord byron's heart was full of kindness and generosity, he took pride in splendid acts of beneficence: to change the position of some among his fellow-men, and make them exchange misery for unexpected good fortune, was for him the dearest exercise of his faculties. no one ever sympathized more deeply with the joys he could create." the same biographer remarks that one great error of lord byron's youth was to count upon gratitude and devotedness proportionate to his own, and that most of his accusations against human nature originated with this mistake. and then he adds:-- "but his sentiments, in accordance with his nature, far from obeying the false direction his prejudices and erroneous opinions would have given, always made him, on the contrary, love his fellow-men with a warmth that quite excluded misanthropy. still this natural ardor rendered him extremely sensitive to neglect from those he loved, especially in early youth, when he was led by the fault of an individual to generalize blame against mankind. he relates somewhere, with merited contempt, that one of his friends would accompany a female relative to her milliner, instead of coming to take leave of him when he was about to leave england for a long time. the truth is that _no one ever loved his neighbor as much as lord byron_. sympathy, respect, affection, attention, were perpetual wants with him. he was really disgusted and sad when they failed him. but then he did not reason much, he only felt like a poet. it was his business to feed all these discontents, for the public likes nothing so much in poetry as disdain, contempt, derision, indignation, and particularly a kind of proud mockery, which forms the line of transition from or distinguishes a disordered state of imagination from madness. consequently, seeing that this sort of tone pleased the public, when he began to write again he encouraged that style, his first care being to collect, like jupiter, the darkest clouds." the same biographer also tries to insinuate that the romantic interest excited by a handsome young man, full of melancholy and mystery, may have influenced lord byron's choice of heroes in his early poems; for, says he, it is not every one who can be weary of the most exquisite enjoyments of society, and to be thus sated a man must have been greatly prized by beauty and wealth. these reflections and explanations are arbitrary, and not impartial. but even if lord byron, at twenty-one years of age, did borrow ideas and sentiments not really his, by way of producing poetic effect, we must nevertheless acknowledge that, even in this order of sentiments, part still were genuine and real. like all young men, lord byron had entered the world armed with the notions preceptors deem it necessary to inculcate on their disciples regarding generosity, disinterestedness, liberty, honor, patriotism, etc. when he saw that almost all he had thus been taught was mere illusion, a theme for declamation, and that people in the world very rarely act on such principles; then, no doubt, with his exquisite sensibility, and elevated standard of ideal, he must have felt himself more disgusted than any one else, and must have believed he had a right to despise the human race. especially would this have been the case after he had personally suffered from cruel satire, from the conduct of his relative and guardian, lord carlisle, from the lightness of a few women, and the lukewarmness of some few friends. but, while owing to this fault in education, many young men subjected to like trials become sensualists, and others, convinced of the falsities that have been inculcated on them, conclude there is no better system of morality than to seek after place, power, and profit, and become voluntary instruments in the hands of the world's oppressors, lord byron's soul revolted at it. too noble by nature to stoop, and confiding also in his genius, he became a poet with a slight tinge of misanthropy in his mind, but that could never reach unto his heart, that never modified his amiability in society, and which at a later period, when experience of life made him reflect more on the nature of his own sentiments and the weakness of humanity, became transformed into a sweet philosophy, full of indulgence for every human defect. this generous disposition is to be found at the base of all his poems written in italy. another reproach brought against lord byron is that he did not paint the good side of human nature. people showed as much indignation at this as if he had betrayed some secret, or calumniated some innocent person. a wondrous susceptibility, assuredly, with regard to the imperfections of our common nature, as tardy as strange. one would think, in reading the reproaches addressed to lord byron, that those who made them had quite forgotten how, from all time and in all languages, since man commented on man, our poor human nature has not generally been treated with much respect. putting to one side moralists, and still more pessimists, have not the holy scriptures and all the fathers of the church, used the most mortifying language concerning the perversity and corruption of our species? as regards complaints and avowals humiliating for our nature, could there be any more eloquent than those of st. augustine? did not pascal almost wish man to understand that _he is an incomprehensible monster_? lord byron would not have called man a _monster_; but shocked at his pride he would willingly have said with pascal, "if he raises himself, i will lower him; if he abuses himself, i will raise him up." in his drama of "cain," where lucifer is conducting cain through space and worlds, "where is earth?" asks cain. "'tis now beyond thee, less in the universe than thou in it," answers lucifer. byron always wished to make man feel his littleness. it is true that, while saying the same thing, a notable difference exists between lord byron's thought and that of great christian souls, who humble man in order to make him see that his sole hope is in supernatural power. lord byron follows the same road, but his starting-point and his goal are not the same. when lord byron humbles man, it proceeds from a soul-felt want of truth and justice. he sought truth by a natural law of his mind, expressed it unflinchingly, and thus yielded a pleasure to his heart and understanding. but if the impulse that sometimes provoked his severe or contemptuous words was not the sublime one of christian orthodoxy, that sees no remedy for human depravity save in god alone, it was still farther off from belonging to the school of the pessimists, of la rochefoucault in particular, who, content with asserting evil, neither saw nor sought for a remedy anywhere. lord byron never despaired of mankind. in early youth, especially, he thought,--not like a utopist, or even a poet, but like a sensible, humane, generous man, who deems that many of the evils that afflict his species, morally and physically, might be alleviated by better laws, under whose influence more goodness, sincerity, and real virtue might be substituted for the hypocrisy and other vices that now deprave our nature. lord byron saw in many vices and littlenesses the work of man rather than of nature. it was man corrupted by society, rather than by nature, that he condemned. if religious hopes did not furnish him with an escape from the cruel sentence, philosophical hopes saved him from being overwhelmed by it. was that an error?--an illusion? in any case, it was a noble one; sufficient to raise up an insurmountable barrier between him and la rochefoucault. for a time, it is true, in his first youth, he also seemed to be under the prestige la rochefoucault exercised over so many minds, through his "maxims." the elegant manner in which they were written, the clever tone of observation they displayed, boldly laying down the result in the shape of axioms, was well calculated to lead a youthful mind astray, and make a relative appear an absolute truth. for a while, lord byron also seemed to confound the self-love that merges into real hateful egotism, with that which constitutes the principle of life, and which, under the influence of heart and intelligence, claims the high name of virtue. he seemed to doubt of many things, and to be uneasy at the best impulses of his heart. we may remember that he accused himself of selfishness, because he took pleasure in the exercise of amiable virtues. but then that was only the passing error of a youthful mind, filled with an ideal of excellence too high for reality; and therefore coming into rude contact with deceptions and sorrows. in those days, recalling the fine pictures of life and mankind that had been presented to him as realities, especially at his first onset, and perceiving how different things actually were, seeing men pursue their fellow-men, and ascribe vices to the good and virtues to the bad, not even finding in his friends the qualities that distinguished his own heart, indignant at seeing so many persons sought after for their attractions, despite the vices that defaced them, his soul revolted at the sight--saddened too--and he exclaimed, sorrowfully, in his memoranda:--"_yes, la rochefoucault is right._" an illusion might find place in lord byron's mind, but it could not last; and if people will read with attention what he has written, they will soon understand the great difference existing between him and the author of the "maxims." without even speaking of that which separates prose from poetry, an axiom from a hasty expression, grave from gay, maxims from satire, the difference is still enormous. lord byron had not received from nature, any more than the author of the "maxims," the gift of seeing things in a roseate hue. on the contrary, from his habit of profound observation, he too often saw them enveloped in sombre colors. but, on the other hand, he had received such a great gift of perspicacity and exactness that things false and fictitious could no more resist his glance than fog can resist the rays of the sun. la rochefoucault is certainly an admirable painter, but he never takes a likeness otherwise than by profile. just as our satellite turns round our planet, only showing us its volcanoes and calcined summits, and leaving us in ignorance of the other side; just so did la rochefoucault turn around human nature. it only showed him one side,--the most barren and most unhealthy, and that alone did he describe. still, his description is made with such art and nicety, and has so much charm about it, that it appears correct at first sight, and, indeed, so it is relatively; but, nevertheless, by dint of omission and generalization, it is false, since it would fain impose a part upon us for the whole. in his voyage of exploration through the windings of the human heart the author of the "maxims" stops midway, and comes back over the same ground. it would appear as if his mind lacked strength to go through more than half the circle of truth. but lord byron, through the vigor and elasticity of his faculties, after having penetrated into the dark regions where only evil is perceived, and gone through the whole circle, raised himself up into that pure, serene atmosphere where goodness and virtue inhabit, and he also could say, with dante, coming out of the last infernal circle,-- "alfin tornammo a riveder le stelle." la rochefoucault always rails against mankind, without ever finding out any good. lord byron, on the contrary, sees both good and evil. he points out the latter, often sadly, and sometimes with light jests; but he is always happy to acknowledge seriously the existence of good, and to proclaim that, despite all hinderances, beautiful souls do exist, practicing all kinds of virtue; thus proving that, however rare, virtue to him is still a reality, and no illusion. if, in his burlesque, satirical poems, wishing especially to stigmatize vice in high quarters, he has painted wicked women and queens (catherine and elizabeth), did he not likewise refresh our souls with the enchanting portraits of angiolina (the wife of faliero), and of josephine (the wife of werner). if he made merry at the expense of coquettish, weak, hypocritical women (like adeline, for instance), has he not consoled us by painting, in far greater number, angels of loving devotedness, like myrrha, adah, medora, haidée, and in general all his delightful female creations? are not all his heroes even, more or less, constant, devoted, ready to sacrifice every thing to the sincerity of their feelings--devoted love, continued even in the heart of cain toward his adah? in "heaven and earth" the angels gave up celestial happiness, and exposed themselves to every evil, in order not to abandon those who loved them. don juan himself loved unselfishly. bitter remembrances, reflections arising from the conduct of friends, made him, _it is true_, doubt the existence of friendship, generalize, blame sometimes, and write those fine stanzas in the fourteenth canto of "don juan:"-- "without a friend, what were humanity, to hunt our errors up with a good grace? consoling us with--'would you had thought twice! ah! if you had but follow'd my advice!' xlviii. "o job! you had two friends: one's quite enough, especially when we are ill at ease; they're but bad pilots when the weather's rough, doctors less famous for their cures than fees. let no man grumble when his friends fall off. as they will do like leaves at the first breeze: when your affairs come round, one way or 'tother, go to the coffee-house, and take another. xlix. "but this is not my maxim; had it been, some heart-aches had been spared me: yet i care not-- i would not be a tortoise in his screen of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not; 'tis better on the whole to have felt and seen that which humanity may bear, or bear not; 'twill teach discernment to the sensitive, and not to pour their ocean in a sieve. l. "of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, is that portentous phrase, 'i told you so,' utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past, who, 'stead of saying what you now should do, own they foresaw that you would fall at last, and solace your slight lapse 'gainst '_bonos mores_,' with a long memorandum of old stories." on looking into his own heart, lord byron no longer doubted the existence of sincere friendships, devoid of all ironical selfishness, since he wrote that forty-ninth stanza, where he says that such is not his maxim, or his heart would have had less to suffer. did he not make love of country incarnate in that admirable type (_the young venetian foscari_); too fine a type, perhaps, though historical, to be understood by every one. and did he not, through other types, equally prove his belief in all the noblest, most virtuous sentiments of our soul? in fine, if he recognized littleness in man, he recognized greatness likewise. all his writings, as well as his conduct through life, belied continuously and broadly a few poetical expressions and mystifications which drew down upon him, in common with other calumnies, that of having unjustly accused humanity. as to the misanthropy of his early youth, it was of so slight a nature that it only passed through his mind, and occasionally rested on his pen; but it always evaporated in words, and especially in his verses. for his life and actions ever showed that such a sentiment was foreign to his nature. and since its attacks[ ] always took place under the pressure of some great injustice, some excess of suffering imposed by the strong on the weak and inoffensive, we must also add that there was in this pretended misanthropy more real goodness and humanity than in all the elegies, songs, meditations, messenian odes, etc., of all those who blamed him. having studied lord byron at all periods of his life, in his relations with society, and in his love of solitude, we have seen him alternately placed in contact with others, and then more directly with himself; now correcting the inconveniences that flow from solitude, by seeking the amusements of youth and society, and then making solitary meditation follow on the useful field of observation sought in the world, and thus he drew profit from both, without ever suffering himself to be exclusively engrossed by one or the other. the enervating atmosphere of drawing-rooms remained innocuous for him; he came out from them with a mind as virile and independent as if he had never breathed it, keeping all his ideas strong and bold, just and humane, as they were before. but the consequences of this rare equilibrium, which he was enabled to maintain between a worldly and a solitary life, were very great, as regarded his fame, if not his happiness; for he gained thereby an experience and a knowledge of the human heart quite wonderful, at an age when the first pages of the book of life have in general scarcely been read, so that, in perusing his writings, one might imagine that he had already gone through a long career. lastly, as afterward not the least trace of this pretended misanthropy remained, he might have repeated what bernardin de saint pierre said of a certain melancholy that we are scarcely ever free from in youth, and which was compared, in his presence, to the small-pox:--"i also have had that malady, but it left no traces behind it." footnotes: [footnote : see chapter on "melancholy and gayety."] [footnote : m. nisard.] [footnote : see his "life in italy."] [footnote : see his "life in italy."] [footnote : see chapter on "gayety and melancholy."] [footnote : see his "life in italy."] [footnote : medwin, vol. ii. p. .] [footnote : appendix to parry's work.] [footnote : ibid. p. .] [footnote : see kennedy.] [footnote : see chapter on "melancholy."] chapter xx. lord byron's pride. among lord byron's biographers, we remark some who doubtless believed it useless to count on success, if their work did not contain a large tribute to human wickedness, and who, seeing it nevertheless impossible to accuse lord byron of any vice emanating from heart or soul, gave themselves the pleasure of imagining a host of defects. besides the faults produced by impetuosity and irritability of temper,--those we have just explained,--they dwell on i know not what exaggerated esteem of himself, and immoderate desire of esteem from others, so as to insinuate that lord byron was a prey to pride, ambition, and even vanity. though all we have remarked in a general way, with regard to his modesty, might be considered a sufficient response to these accusations, we are willing to take up the theme again and examine more particularly all these forms of self-love. to assert that lord byron was not at all proud, might cause surprise, so much has been said of his pride confounding the man with the poet, and the poet with the heroes of his creation. but assuredly those who would feel surprise could not have known him or studied his character. pride is easily recognized by a thousand traits. it is one of those serious maladies of soul, whose external symptoms can no more be hidden from moral psychologists than the symptoms of serious physical infirmities can be hidden from physiologists. now, what says the moralist of the proud man? that he never listens to the counsels of friendship; that every reproach irritates him; that a proud man can not be grateful, because the burden is too great for him; that he never forgives, makes excuses, or acknowledges his faults, or that he is to blame; that he is extremely reserved and proud in the habits of social life; that he is envious of the goods enjoyed by others, deeming them so much subtracted from his own merits; that hatred toward his rivals fills his heart; finally, that, satisfied with himself almost to idolatry, he is incapable of any moral improvement. now, let it be said in all sincerity, what analogy can there be between the proud man and lord byron? by his words, his actions, and the testimony of all those who approached him, was not lord byron the reverse of all this? was it he who would have refused the counsels of friendship? turned aside from admonition? been indignant at blame? let those who think so, only read the accounts of his childhood, his youth, his life of affection, and they will see whether he was not rather the slave of his loving heart; if he did not always give doubly what he had received. without even speaking of his childhood, when he was really so charming, of his docility toward his nurses and preceptors, toward good dr. glennie at dulwich, and afterward at harrow, toward the excellent dr. drury; let us consider him at that solemn moment for a boy of eighteen, when he was about to publish his poetic compositions. did he not burn the whole edition, because a friend whom he respected, disapproved some parts?[ ] see him again accepting the blame of another friend about "childe harold," and when, before publishing it, yielding to the advice of dallas and gifford, he suppressed the stanzas that most pleased him. see him also ceasing to write "don juan," because the person he loved had expressed disapprobation of it, not even substantiated by reasons. was it lord byron who would have been incapable of forgiving? why, the pardon of injuries was, on the contrary, a habit with him, a necessity, his sole vengeance, even when such conduct might appear almost superhuman. it was thus, that when cruelly wounded in his self-love, even more than in his heart, by lady byron's behavior, he wrote that touching "farewell," which might have disarmed the fiercest resentment: and that afterward, yielding to madame de staël's entreaties, he consented to propose a reconciliation, which was refused: and not even that aggravation prevented him from often speaking well of lady byron. gratitude, that proves such an insupportable load to the proud man, did it not rather seem a happiness to him? when he had done some wrong, far from refusing to make excuses, was he not the first to think of it, saying that he could not go to rest, with resentment in his heart? while a mere boy, and when he had been wounded in his most enthusiastic feelings by a fortunate rival, mr. musters, was not byron the first to hold out his hand and express regret for the bitterness of a few words? far from hiding his faults, and not satisfied with avowing them, did he not magnify them, exaggerate them to such a degree that this generous impulse became a real fault in him? far from having been too proud and reserved in his habits of life, have we not seen him reproached with being too familiar? did envy or rivalry ever enter into his soul? and lastly, far from conceiving too much self-satisfaction, far from rendering his own mind the homage characteristic of pride, did not lord byron, looking at himself through the weaknesses of other men, constantly depreciate himself? all the ways in which genius is wont to manifest itself were assuredly alike familiar to him; neither philosophy nor art had any secrets for him. but he only made use of them to produce continual acts of humility instead of pride; saying, that if philosophy were blind, art was no less incapable of fulfilling the aspirations of mind, and realizing the ideal beheld in imagination. his very skepticism, or rather what has been called by this name, affords another great proof of his modesty. "skepticism," says bacon, "is the great antagonist of pride." but, the most striking proof of all, undoubtedly, consists in the improvement of his moral being that was perpetually going on; for, to carry it out, he must have dived into the depths of his secret soul, sternly and conscientiously, undeterred by the great obstacle to all self-amelioration, namely--pride. so many facts, in support of the same assertions, are to be found spread through the different chapters of this work, that we forbear to lengthen the present view of lord byron's character by adducing any more. let us sum up by saying, that not only was lord byron devoid of pride, but that it would be difficult to find in any man more striking examples of the opposite virtues; unless, indeed, we sought them in souls completely swayed by the sublimest teachings of christianity. and yet it is easy to understand how he might be accused of pride. his contempt for opinion, augmenting as he further appreciated its little worth; a certain natural timidity, of which moore, galt, and pigott have all spoken, though without drawing thence the logical inferences; his eagerness to put down the unfounded _ridiculous pretensions of human nature_; his own dignity under misfortune; his magnanimity and passion for independence; all these qualities might easily betray those superficial minds into error, who do not study their subjects sufficiently to discover the truth. footnotes: [footnote : see what moore says of this trait in lord byron.] chapter xxi. the vanity of lord byron. but it is incomprehensible that any one should have been found to accuse lord byron of vanity. for is not the vain man one who lies in order to appear better and more highly gifted than he really is; who knows full well that the good opinion he so ardently seeks is not what he deserves; who endeavors by every means to attract the attention of others; who flatters in order to be flattered; whose willingness to oblige, whose care and kindness, all flow from interested motives; whose whole character savors of ostentation and show; and who despises humble friends, in order to run after brilliant society and wear borrowed plumes? all these signs indicate vanity. can a single one be found in byron's character? surely our readers will not have forgotten that, for fear of making himself out better, he always wished to appear worse than he was; that he exaggerated the weaknesses common to most of us, and which every body else hides, magnifying them into serious faults; that he never flattered others, nor wished to be flattered himself; that he concealed the services he rendered, the good he did; and kept aloof from those in power so as to give himself more to true friendship. we know besides that his love of _meriting_, rather than _obtaining_, admiration, went so far as to make undeserved praise quite offensive to him. if eulogiums did not seem to him duly bestowed, his soul, athirst for justice and truth, repelled them indignantly. blame, or harsh criticism, annoyed him far less than unmerited praise or suffrages obtained through favor or intrigue. at the moment he was about to publish his first poem, "childe harold," which might naturally be expected to prove the making of his literary reputation, dallas having given him some advice with a view to gaining popularity, lord byron answered:-- "my work must make its way as well as it can; i know i have every thing against me, angry poets and prejudices; but if the poem is a _poem_, it will surmount these obstacles, and if _not_, it deserves its fate." and then, when he discovered that his publisher had been taking steps to obtain the approbation of gifford, the great critic, he wrote indignantly to dallas, calling this proceeding of murray's _a paltry transaction_. "the more i think, the more it vexes me," said he. "it is bad enough to be a scribbler, without having recourse to such shifts to extort praise or deprecate censure, ... and all without my wish, and contrary to my express desire....[ ] "i am angry with murray: it was a bookselling, back-shop, paltry proceeding.... i have written to him as he never was written to before by an author, i'll be sworn." why, then, accuse a man of vanity when he never complained of criticism and never solicited praise? was it on account of some of his tastes, particularly the importance he attached to his superiority in boyish games, in bodily exercises, on those which showed dexterity in swimming, fencing, shooting? but all these tastes were as manly as they were innocent. the really trifling tastes common to the youth of his rank and country lord byron did not share. it has also been said that he attached far too much importance to his noble birth. _much_, perhaps; _too much_, by no means. his ancestors were all illustrious. they were illustrious for their military exploits, and were already nobles in france when they shared the dangers and successes of william the conqueror; they had followed their kings to palestine; seven brothers bearing the name of byron had fought on the same battle-field, and four fell there in defense of their true sovereign and their new country. by his mother he was descended from the kings of scotland. "nothing is nobler," says a moralist of our day, "than to add lustre to a great name by our own deeds." many of his early compositions testify to the desire he felt of increasing the fame that belonged to his family. for instance, in the poem written at fourteen, and which is entitled "verses composed on leaving newstead abbey," after having sung the valor of his ancestors displayed on the plains of palestine, in the valley of crecy, and at marston, where four brothers moistened the field with their blood, he exclaims:-- "shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing from the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu! abroad, or at home, your remembrance imparting new courage, he'll think upon glory and you. * * * * * * * far distant he goes, with the same emulation, the fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. "that fame and that memory still will he cherish; he vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown: like you will he live, or like you will he perish." . the same sentiments appear in other poems, and particularly in the "elegy on newstead," written at sixteen. his wish of adding fresh lustre to the family name was all the stronger because the last lord, his great uncle, had somewhat blemished it by his eccentric conduct. but there is a vast difference between this just feeling of pride and the vanity that leads to exultation in mere titles of nobility, which often owe their origin to the favor of princes. besides, although lord byron was aristocratic by birth, and in his every instinct and taste, he was nevertheless truly liberal on principle and through virtue, in politics as well as in private life; for he always admitted into his affections those who possessed fitting qualities of head and soul, without any consideration of their birth. after having studied lord byron's character under the headings of pride and vanity, we must now examine him with regard to ambition: a third form of self-love, which, though separated from the other two by scarcely perceptible shades, and even being often confounded with them, so as to appear one and the same feeling, does not, however, less retain its permanent and distinguishing traits. was lord byron ambitious? "ambitious men must be divided into three classes," says bacon; "some seek only to raise themselves, forming a common and despicable species; others, with like intent, make the elevation of country enter into the means they employ; this is a nobler ambition, one more refined, and perhaps more violent; lastly, others embrace the happiness and glory of all men in the immensity of their projects.... ambition is, then, sometimes a vice, and sometimes a virtue." that lord byron's ambition did not range him among either of the two first classes was abundantly proved by the actions of his whole life; and as to his writings, letters, or poetic works, we should vainly seek a single word in them that could be attributed to any low ambition. an ambitious man has generally been an ambitious child. now, according to unanimous and competent testimony, lord byron was not an ambitious child. the usual emulation founded on ambition had no effect on his progress. all his advancement proceeded from heart and imagination. it was his heart, as we have seen, that made him take his pen in hand, that dictated his first verses; and he was likewise actuated by the need and the pleasure of trying and exercising the strength of his intellectual faculties, of keeping up the sacred fire that warmed his breast, and appeasing his ardent thirst after truth. we have given too many proofs of all this to require to insist upon it any further. we have also seen that it was disagreeable to him to be admired and praised without having merited it. he felt the same repugnance to seeking for popularity. when "childe harold" appeared, dallas advised him to alter some passages, because, he said, certain metaphysical ideas expressed in the poem might do him harm in public opinion, and that, at twenty-three years of age, it was well to court in an honorable way the suffrages of his countrymen, and to abstain from wounding their feelings, opinions, and even their prejudices.[ ] lord byron replied:-- "i feel that you are right, but i also feel that i am sincere, and that if i am only to write _ad captandum vulgus_, i might as well edit a magazine at once, or concoct songs for vauxhall."[ ] and yet when he wrote thus to dallas he had not arrived at any popularity. soon, however, it came to him unsought; but he did not appreciate it nor flatter it to stay, as an ambitious man would not have failed to do. on the contrary, his noble independence of character and incapacity for flattering the multitude gained strength every day. proofs of the same abound at every period of his life. "if i valued fame," he said in his memoranda, , "i should flatter received opinions, which have gathered strength by time, and which will last longer than any living works that are opposed to them. but, for the soul of me, i can not and will not give the lie to my own thoughts and doubts, come what may. if i am a fool, i am, at least, a doubting one; and i envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom." and then, at the same time, he wrote:-- "if i had any views in this country they would probably be parliamentary. but i have no ambition; at least, if any, it would be '_aut cæsar aut nihil_.' my hopes are limited to the arrangement of my affairs, and settling either in italy or in the east (rather the last), and drinking deep of the language and literature of both." the catastrophe that overtook napoleon, his hero, and the success of fools, quite overcame him at this time:-- "past events have unnerved me, and all i can now do is to make life an amusement and look on while others play. after all, even the highest game of crosses and sceptres, what is it? _vide_ napoleon's last twelvemonth," etc., etc. the following year ( ), when political feeling ran so high against him as to threaten his popularity on account of the lines addressed to the princess charlotte, which had offended the regent, who had just gone over from the whigs to the tories, byron wrote to rogers:-- "all the sayings and doings in the world shall not make me utter one word of conciliation to any thing that breathes. i shall bear what i can, and what i can not i shall resist. the worst they could do would be to exclude me from society. i have never courted it, nor, i may add, in the general sense of the word, enjoyed it--and 'there is a world elsewhere.'" when once he had quitted england his indifference to popularity and its results further increased. he wrote from venice to murray:-- "i never see a newspaper, and know nothing of england, except in a letter now and then from my sister" ( ). but that did not at all suit his publisher, who set about sending him reviews, criticisms, and keeping him up to all that was going on in the literary and political world, thinking thus to stimulate and keep alive the passions that kindle genius. then it was that lord byron, considering this intellectual régime unwholesome for mind and heart, signified to murray that their correspondence could not continue unless he consented to _six_ indispensable conditions. we regret not being able to give the whole of this beautiful letter, circumscribed as we are by certain necessary limits. thus we shall only quote what more particularly relates to our subject:[ ]-- "i have been thinking over our late correspondence, and wish to propose to you the following articles for our future:-- " st. that you shall write to me of yourself, of the health, wealth, and welfare of all friends; but of _me (quoad me) little or nothing_. " dly.... " dly.... " thly. that you send me no periodical works whatsoever, no 'edinburgh,' 'quarterly,' 'monthly,' or any review, magazine, or newspaper, english or foreign, of any description. " thly. that you send me no opinion whatsoever, either _good_, _bad_, or _indifferent_, of yourself, or your friends, or others, concerning any work of mine, past, present, or to come. " thly.... if any thing occurs so violently gross or personal as requires notice, mr. kinnaird will let me know; but of praise i desire to hear nothing. "you will say, 'to what tends all this?' i will answer--to keep my mind free, and unbiased by all paltry and personal irritabilities of praise or censure; to let my genius take its natural direction. all these reviews, with their praise or their criticism, have bored me to death, and taken off my attention from greater objects." byron wished, he said, to place himself in the position of a dead man, knowing nothing and feeling nothing of what is done and said about him.[ ] at the same time he gave the greatest proof of the reality of the sentiments expressed in this letter by continuing to stay at ravenna, where people were ignorant of his language, his genius, and his reputation, and where consequently he could only be remarked and appreciated for his external gifts and his deeds of benevolence. when he went from ravenna to pisa, murray, who had not been discouraged by the six conditions, and who was really attached to lord byron more as a friend even than as a publisher, became alarmed at the angry feeling stirred up by "cain," the "vision of judgment," "don juan," etc., and feared seeing him lose his popularity. so he wrote begging him to compose something in his first style, which had excited such general enthusiasm. but lord byron answered:-- "as to 'a poem in the old way,' i shall attempt of that kind nothing further. i follow the bias of my own mind, without considering whether women or men are or are not to be pleased." his whole conduct in greece was one long act of abnegation, of disinterested and sublime self-devotion. let people read parry, gamba, even stanhope.[ ] he sacrificed for greece all his revenue, his time, pleasures, comforts, even life itself, if necessary, and at the age of thirty-five; and then, after success, he refused every honor, satisfied with having deserved them. "my intentions with regard to greece," said he to parry, at missolonghi, "may be explained in a few words. i will remain here until greece either throws off the turkish yoke, or again sinks beneath it. all my revenue shall be spent in her service. all that can be done with my resources, and personally, i will do with my whole heart. but as soon as greece is delivered from her external enemies, i will leave without taking any part in the interior organization of the government. i will go to the united states of america, and there, if requisite and they like it, be the agent for greece, and endeavor to get that free and enlightened government to recognize the greek federation as an independent state. england would follow her example, and then the destiny of greece would be assured. she would take the place that belongs to her as a member of christendom in europe." one day, at missolonghi, a prussian officer came to complain to lord byron, saying, that his _rank_ would not allow him to remain under command of mr. parry, who was his inferior both in a civil and military capacity, and consequently that he was going to retire. after having done all he could to bring the german to more reasonable sentiments, after having even joked him on his quarterings of nobility, and the folly of wishing to introduce such prejudices into a country like greece, lord byron did not scruple adding:-- "as to me, i should be quite willing to serve as a simple soldier, in any corps, if that were considered useful to the cause." but if lord byron's absence of ambition under the two first categories, as established by bacon, is well proved; the same can not be said with regard to the third. to deny it would be not only contrary to truth, but especially would it be contrary to all justice; for the third order of ambition ceases to be a fault; it is the love of glory, and, according to bacon, that is a virtue. at least it is a quality pertaining to noble minds; and could it, then, be wanting in lord byron? he had always had a presentiment that glory would not fail him. but he was not satisfied with obtaining it, his special wish was to _deserve_ it with just and undeniable right. while yet a child in his fourteenth year, he wrote, in a fragment. "when to their airy hall my fathers' voice shall call my spirit * * * * * * * oh! may my shade behold no sculptured urns to mark the spot where earth to earth returns! no lengthen'd scroll, no praise-encumber'd stone; my epitaph shall be my name alone: if _that_ with honor fail to crown my clay, oh! may no other fame my deeds repay! _that_, only _that_, shall single out the spot; by that remember'd, or with that forgot." another time, replying in verse to a poetic composition of one of his comrades which spoke of _the common lot of mortals as lying in lethe's wave_, lord byron, after some charming couplets, ends thus:-- "what, though the sculpture be destroy'd, from dark oblivion meant to guard; a bright renown shall be enjoy'd by those whose virtues claim reward. "then do not say the common lot of all lies deep in lethe's wave; some few, who ne'er will be forgot, shall burst the bondage of the grave." several other compositions belonging to the same period prove that this child, who was so unambitious, and devoid of the usual sort of emulation, did, however, desire to excel in great and virtuous things. in his adieu to the seat of his ancestors, he says, that,-- "far distant he goes, with the same emulation, the fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. that fame, and that memory still will he cherish; he vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown; like you will he live, or like you will he perish." and when the rev. mr. beecher, his friend and guide during the college vacation passed at southwell, reproached him with not going enough into the world, young byron answered, that retirement suited him better, but that when his boyhood and years of trial should be over, if the senate or the camp claimed his presence, he should endeavor to render himself worthy of his birth:-- "oh! thus, the desire in my bosom for fame bids me live but to hope for posterity's praise; could i soar with the phoenix on pinions of flame, with him i could wish to expire in the blaze." but the fame to which he aspired was not literary fame. garlands weaved on mount parnassus had no perfume for him, and to seek after them would have appeared in his eyes a frivolous, unmeaning pastime. this severe and unjust judgment, this sort of antipathy, could they have been a presentiment of the dangers with which the glory obtained by literary fame threatened his repose? however that may be, it is certain that he endured rather than sought after it; and we may be equally sure that the glory to which his soul aspired was such as could be reaped in the senate, the camp, or amid the difficulties of an active, virtuous life. at sixteen he wrote:-- "for the life of a fox, of a chatham the death, what censure, what danger, what woe would i brave! their lives did not end when they yielded their breath; their glory illumines the gloom of their grave." . we find the following in his examination of conscience, written when he was given up to fashionable london life, and in the heyday of his poetic fame:-- "to be the first man--not the dictator, not the sylla, but the washington or the aristides--the leader in talent and _truth_--is next to the divinity!" ( .) these lines show that he did not feel himself in the position he could have wished to occupy, and that he would fain have achieved other success. but the destiny that was evidently contrary to his tastes, and which through a thousand circumstances carried him away both from a military and a parliamentary career, to keep him almost perforce in the high walks of literature, was this destiny in accordance at least with his nature? lord byron's brilliant début in the senate, and his whole conduct in greece when that country was one great military camp, prove certainly that he might have reaped full harvest in other fields, if fate had so allowed. but nevertheless when we see how prodigious were his achievements, concentrated within the domain of poetry; when we see that, despite himself, despite the resolution he occasionally took of writing no more, that yet, tortured by the energy of his genius, there was no remedy for him but to seize his pen; that he wrote sometimes under the influence of fever; that sleep did not still his imagination, nor travelling interrupt his works; that sorrow did not damp his ardor, nor amusement and pleasure weaken his wondrous energy. when we think that he united to this formidable vigor of genius such a luxuriant poetic vein; that his poems, unrivalled for depth of thought, conciseness, and magic beauty of style, were composed with all the ease of ordinary prose; that he could write them while conversing, interrupt his thread of ideas, and take it up again without difficulty, carry on his theme without previous preparation, not stay his pen except to turn the leaf, not change a single word in whole pages, generally only correcting when the proof-sheets came. when we know that a poem like the "bride of abydos" was written in four nights of a london season, the "corsair" in ten days, "lara" in three weeks, his fourth canto of "childe harold" in twenty days, the "lament of tasso" in the space of time requisite for going from ferrara to florence; the "prisoner of chillon" by way of pastime during the day bad weather forced him to spend at a hotel on the borders of the lake of geneva; when we know that he wrote the "siege of corinth" and "parisina" amid the torments caused by his separation, and when besieged with creditors; that at ravenna, in the space of one year, while torn by many sorrows, and annoyed by conspiracies, though he generously aided the conspirators, he yet found leisure to write "marino faliero," the "foscari," "sardanapalus," "cain," the "vision of judgment," and many other things; that the fifth act of "sardanapalus" was the work of forty-eight hours, and the fifth act of "werner" of one night; that during another year passed between pisa and genoa, in the midst of annoyances, sorrows, perpetual changes, he wrote ten cantos of "don juan," his admirable mystery of "heaven and earth," his delightful poem of the "island," the "age of bronze," etc. when we see all that, it must be acknowledged that if lord byron, in devoting himself to poetry, took a false step for his own happiness, it did not mar the manifestation of his genius. but if the world had cause to applaud, he did not share this sentiment. it might almost be said that he always wrote unwillingly; and certainly it may be added that fame never inspired him with vanity. that noble desire might, doubtless, have made his heart beat for a while, but it yielded to his philosophical spirit. if at twenty-six, being repelled from public business by the political bias of the day, and from a military career by other circumstances, he could write in his memoranda "i am not ambitious," how much more disposed did he feel to renounce every kind of ambition two years later, when he was leaving england, full of disgust, and having sounded all the depths of the human soul. "the wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself," says la bruyère; "he tends toward such great things that he can not confine himself to what are called treasures, high posts, fortune, and favor. he sees nothing in such poor advantages _good_ or _solid_ enough to fill _his heart_, to deserve his cares and desires; and it even requires strong efforts for him not to disdain them too much. the only good capable of tempting him is that sort of fame which ought to be the meed of pure, simple virtue; but men are not wont to give it, and he is fain to go without it." the only advantage lord byron wished to derive from his reputation was to render it subservient to his heart--the true focus of his noble existence. even in the first days of youth, when his pulses beat strongly for glory, it is evident that he would make it tributary to heart--a means rather than an end. but this became more and more conspicuous when he had really attained to fame. in italy especially he had become quite indifferent to the pompous praise accorded by reviews, while a single word emanating from the heart made an impression on him, ofttimes causing tears to start. he wrote to moore from ravenna, in :-- "i have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in england (i never saw her), who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, etc., etc., etc. it is signed simply n.n.a., and has not a word of 'cant' or preachment in it upon my opinions. she merely says that she is dying, and that, as i had contributed so highly to the pleasure of her existence, she thought that she might say so, begging me to _burn_ her _letter_--which, by the way, i can _not_ do, as i look upon such a letter in such circumstances as better than a diploma from gottingen. "i once had a letter from drontheim, in norway (but not from a dying woman), in verse, on the same score of gratulation. these are the things which make one at times believe one's self a poet."[ ] and in "detached thoughts," which he wrote at ravenna, we find:-- "a young american, named coolidge, called on me not many months ago. he was intelligent, very handsome, and not more than twenty years old, according to appearance; a little romantic--but that sits well upon youth--and mighty fond of poesy, as may be suspected from his approaching me in my cavern. he brought me a message from an old servant of my family (joe murray), and told me that he (mr. coolidge) had obtained a copy of my bust from thorwaldsen at rome, to send to america. i confess i was more flattered by this young enthusiasm of a solitary trans-atlantic traveller, than if they had decreed me a statue in the paris pantheon (i have seen emperors and demagogues cast down from their pedestals even in my own time, and grattan's name razed from the street called after him in dublin); i say that i was more flattered by it, because it was _simple, unpolitical, and was without motive or ostentation_, the pure and warm feeling of a boy for the poet he admired." the lines written on the road between ravenna and pisa, scarcely two years before his death, beginning with-- "oh, talk not to me of a name great in story," would alone suffice to prove that his love of fame had both its source and its sole gratification in his heart. these charming verses end thus:-- iii. "oh fame!--if i e'er took delight in thy praises, 'twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover she thought that i was not unworthy to love her. iv. "_there_ chiefly i sought thee, _there_ only i found thee: her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee: when it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, i knew it was love, and i felt it was glory." some days before setting out for genoa, while walking in the garden with countess g----, he went into a retrospective view of his mode of life in england. she, on hearing how he passed his time in london, perceiving what an animated existence it was, so full of variety and occupation, showed some fears lest his stay in italy, leading such a peaceful, retired, concentrated sort of life, away from the political arena presented by his own country, might entail too great a sacrifice offered on the altar of affection. "oh no," said he, "i regret nothing belonging to that great world, where all is artificial, where one can not live to one's self, where one is obliged to be too much occupied with what others think, and too little with what we ought to think ourselves. what should i have done there? made some opposition speeches in the house of lords, that would not have produced any good, since the prevailing policy is not mine. been obliged to frequent, without pleasure or profit, society that suits me not. have had more trouble in keeping and expressing my independent opinions. i should not have met you.... ah, well! i am much better pleased to know you. what is there in the world worth a true affection? nothing. and if i had to begin over again, i would still do what i have done." when lord byron thus unfolded the treasures concealed in his heart, his countenance spoke quite as much as his words. it was at this same period that he wrote in his drama of "werner:"-- "glory's pillow is but restless, if love lay not down his cheek there." and now to sum up, let us say that, after having considered lord byron not only in his actions, and their most apparent motives; not only in the exercise of all his faculties, and in his sentiments sincerely expressed, but that, having likewise confronted him with all the forms of self-love, it is impossible for us to see aught else in him but that legitimate pride belonging to great souls, and the noble passion for glory--sentiments united in him with the peculiar feature of being under control of his affections. thus, then, when the day came that he was called upon to sacrifice his affections, not only in the name of humanity, but also in the name of his love for glory, which was already a virtue, since he only desired and sought it to become a benefactor of mankind; then, by this new sacrifice, and by that even of life, his noble passion for glory attained to the height of a sublime virtue. although our impartial examination of lord byron's faults end really in demonstrating their absence, let us beware nevertheless of raising him above humanity by asserting that he had none. la bruyère thus sums up his portrait of the great condé:--"_a man who was true, simple, and magnanimous, and in whom only the smallest virtues were wanting._" this fine sentence may partly apply to lord byron also. only, to be just, we must substitute the singular for the plural. and instead of declaring that the lesser virtues were wanting in him, we must say _one_ of the smaller virtues. in truth, he had not that prudence which proposes for our supreme end the preservation of our prosperity, fortune, popularity, tranquillity, health--in a word, of all our goods--and which constitutes epicurean wisdom. but this virtue is really so mixed up with personality and egotism, that one may hesitate ere granting it the rank of a virtue; and we ought not to be astonished if it were wanting in lord byron, for it can with difficulty be found united to great sensibility of heart and great generosity of character. nevertheless, had he possessed it, his life might have been much happier. had he possessed it, instead of devoting his revenue and all his literary gains to friends, disappointed authors, and unfortunates of all kinds, he would have kept them for himself; and thus he might have been able to brave almost all the storms of his sad year of married life, when his annoyances were greatly increased by the embarrassed state of his affairs. had he possessed this prudence, he would not in his boyish satire have attacked so many powerful persons, nor, at a later period, would he have made to himself idols of truth and justice. he would have spared the powers that be, and respected national prejudices, in order not to draw down on his own head so much rancor and calumny; he would not have given a hold to slander, nor suffered himself to be insulted by being identified with the heroes of his poems; he would not have compromised his fine health by an anchorite's regimen; he would not have depreciated himself; he would have extended to himself the indulgence with which he knew so well how to cloak the faults of others, and instead of confiding to indiscreet companions, as subjects for curiosity and study, adventures somewhat strange, and the usual routine of juvenile follies, he would have profited by the system so current in our day of satisfying inclinations silently and covertly; lastly, and above all, he would not have married miss milbank. all these reproaches are well founded. but if we may say with reason that he wanted prudence for his own interests, we ought at the same time to _add that he never wanted it for the interests of others_. did we not see him, even in earliest youth, burn writings, or abstain from writing, through excess of delicacy and fear of wounding his neighbors? "i have burned my novel and my comedy," said he in . "after all, i see that the pleasure of burning one's self is as great as that of printing. these two works ought not to have been published. i fell too much into realities; some persons would have been _recognized_, and others _suspected_." when he sent murray his stanzas to the po, he forbade him to print it, because it gave intimate details. his greatest fear at pisa and genoa was lest the newspapers should have spoken of his feelings for the countess g----. but without seeking other examples, it suffices to glance at his conduct in greece, where his prudence formed matter of astonishment to every body. monsieur tricoupi, the best historian of the war of greek independence, has rendered him the most complete justice on this head. let us then sum up by saying that, contrary to what is found in most, even virtuous men, lord byron possessed great and sublime virtues in the highest degree, and the lesser ones only in a secondary degree. as to his faults, it is evident they all sprang from his excellent qualities. endowed with all kinds of genius, except the one of calculating his personal interest, he failed in different ways to discharge his duty toward himself; and though he only harmed himself by his want of prudence, yet was he cruelly punished for it by sorrows, regrets, and even by a fatally premature death. footnotes: [footnote : letter , to dallas, th september, .] [footnote : dallas, letter .] [footnote : lord byron to dallas, letter ; moore, vol. ii.] [footnote : see moore, letter .] [footnote : see moore, letter (ravenna, th september, ).] [footnote : see his "life in italy."] [footnote : letter , moore.] chapter xxii. lord byron's marriage and its consequences. lord byron's marriage exercised such a deplorable influence over his destiny, that it is impossible to speak of it succinctly, and without entering into details; for this one great misfortune proved the fruitful source of all others. if we were permitted to believe that providence sometimes abandons men here below to the influence of an evil genius, we might well conceive this baneful intervention in the case of lord byron's conjugal union, and all the circumstances that led to it. it was but a few months after having returned from his travels in the east, that lord byron published his first cantos of "childe harold," and obtained triumphs as an orator in the house of lords. presenting himself thus for the first time to the public, surrounded by all the prestige belonging to a handsome person, rank, and youth,--in a word, with such an assemblage of qualities as are seldom if ever found united in one person--he immediately became the idol of england. the enemies created by his boyish satire, and augmented by the jealousy his success could not fail to cause, now hid themselves like those vile insects that slink back into their holes on the first appearance of the sun's rays, ready to creep out again when fogs and darkness return. living then in the midst of the great world, in the closest intimacy with many of the fair sex, and witnessing the small amount of wedded happiness enjoyed by aristocratic couples within his observation, intending also to wing his flight eventually toward climes more in unison with his tastes, he no longer felt that attraction for marriage which he had experienced in boyhood (like most youths), and he said, quite seriously, that if his cousin, george byron, would marry, he, on his part, would willingly engage not to enter into wedlock. but his friends saw with regret that his eyes were still seeking through english clouds the blue skies of the east; and that he was kept in perpetual agitation by the fair ones who would cast themselves athwart his path, throwing themselves at his head when not at his feet. vainly did he distort himself, give himself out to the public as a true "childe harold," malign himself; his friends knew that his heart was overflowing with tenderness, and they could not thus be duped. if he had wished to cull some flowers idly, for the sake of scattering their leaves to the breeze, as youth so often does, this sort of amusement would have been difficult for him, for the fine ladies of his choice, if once they succeeded in inspiring him with some kind of tender feeling, fastened themselves upon him in such a passionate way that his freedom became greatly shackled, and they generally ended by making the public the confidante of their secret. lord byron had some adventures that brought him annoyance and grief. they made him fall into low spirits,--a sort of moral apathy and indifference for every thing. his best friends, and the wisest among them, thought that the surest way of settling him in england, and getting him out of the scrapes into which he was being dragged by female enthusiasm, would be for him to marry, and they advised him to it pertinaciously. lord byron, ever docile to the voice of affection, did not repel the counsels given, but he made them well understand that he should marry from reason rather than choice; and the letter he wrote, when moore insisted on his choosing a certain beautiful girl of noble birth,[ ] well explains his whole state of mind at this time:-- "i believe," said he, "that you think i have not been quite fair with that alpha and omega of beauty with whom you would willingly have united me. had lady ---- appeared to wish it, i would have gone on, and very possibly married with the same indifference which has frozen over the black sea of almost all my passions. it is that very indifference which makes me so uncertain and apparently capricious. it is not eagerness of new pursuits, but that nothing impresses me _sufficiently_ to fix. i do not feel disgusted, but simply indifferent to almost all excitements; and the proof of this is that obstacles, the slightest even, stop me. this can hardly be timidity, for i have done some imprudent things, too, in my time; and in almost all cases opposition is a stimulus. in this circumstance it is not; if a straw were in my way i could not stoop to pick it up. i have sent you this long tirade, because i would not have you suppose that i have been trifling designedly with you or others. if you think so, in the name of st. hubert (the patron of antlers and hunters) _let me be married out of hand, i don't care to whom_, so it amuses any body else, and don't interfere with me much in the daytime." but that to which lord byron most aspired was always to wing his flight to brighter skies. "your climate kills me," he wrote to hodgson, directly after his return from the east. and then again, "my inclinations and my health make me wish to leave england; neither my habits nor constitution are improved by your customs or your climate. i shall find employment in making myself a good oriental scholar. i shall buy a mansion in one of the fairest islands, and describe, at intervals, the most interesting portions of the east." lord byron wrote this before he had attained great celebrity, but this did not change either his sentiments or his tastes. notwithstanding the embarrassments arising from the legacy left him by his great uncle, and which were principally caused by the action brought against him on account of the illegal sale of the rochdale mines (a suit which lord byron gained, but the expenses of which were ruinous), he was nevertheless sufficiently rich to live at ease, to let his needy friends enjoy the profits arising from his works, and to allow himself acts of beneficence and generosity that were the joy of his heart. and when he had done all that, he still found that he could not spend the surplus in england according to his tastes. after the death of his mother, no longer bound by his promise to her of not selling newstead, he resolved on effecting the sale so as to settle his affairs definitively. the sale having failed, the forfeit brought him in £ , ; and he wrote to moore, in september, :-- "i shall know to-morrow whether a circumstance, of importance enough to change all my plans, will occur or not.[ ] if it does not, i am off for italy next month. "i have a few thousand pounds which i can't spend after my own heart in this climate, and so i shall go back to the south. hobhouse, i think and hope, will go with me; but whether he will or not, i shall. i want to see venice and the alps, and parmesan cheeses, and look at the coasts of greece, or rather epirus, from italy as i once did, or fancied i did, that of italy, when off corfu." a few days before writing this letter, his evil destiny had led him to take a step fatal to all his future happiness. a person, for whom he entertained both affection and deference, observing one day how unsettled he appeared in his state of mind and projects for the future, again reiterated, with more earnestness than ever, the advice to marry. after long discussions lord byron promised to do so. but who should be the object of his choice? a young lady was named who seemed to possess all the qualities requisite for giving happiness in marriage. lord byron, on his side, suggested miss milbank, with whom he was then in correspondence. she was a niece of lady melbourne, who had thought of this union a year before; a circumstance which probably decided lord byron's preference, for he liked lady melbourne very much. on hearing miss milbank's name his friend protested with great energy, begging him to remark, among other things, that miss milbank had no actual fortune, that his affairs were too much embarrassed for him to be able to marry a woman without money, and moreover that miss milbank was a learned lady, a _blue-stocking_, who could not possibly suit him. ever docile to the voice of friendship, lord byron yielded, and allowed his friend to write a proposal to the other lady. soon after a negative answer arrived, one morning, that the two friends were together. "you see," said lord byron, "that after all it is miss milbank i am to marry; i shall write to her!" he did so immediately; and when the letter was finished, his friend feeling more and more opposed to such a choice, took it from him. after having read it, he exclaimed:-- "truly, this letter is so charming that it is a pity for it not to go. i never read a better effusion." "then go it shall," replied lord byron, who sealed and sent it off, thus signing his own misfortune! we have said that he was in correspondence with miss milbank. this is how he had made her acquaintance. two years previously, at a london _soirée_, he saw sitting in the corner of a sofa a young girl whose simplicity of dress made her look as if she belonged to a less elevated position than most of the other girls in the room; moore told him, however, that she was a rich heiress, miss milbank, and that if he would marry her she might help him to restore the old abbey of newstead. her modest look, in striking contrast with the stiffness and formality common to the aristocracy, interested lord byron. he had himself introduced, and some time after ended by asking her to marry him. his proposal, from motives that could not wound him, was not accepted then. but a year later miss milbank testified the desire of entering into correspondence with him. thus the ground was prepared. when he sent his letter with a fresh proposal, it was accepted all the more eagerly that a report had been spread of his wishing to marry a young and beautiful irish girl, which did not please miss milbank. her answer was couched in very flattering terms, and the fatal marriage was thus decided on. this was perhaps the only time in his life that lord byron did not follow the counsels of friendship. it would indeed seem as if an evil genius had taken possession of his will. warnings were not wanting; but he refused to listen to them. "if you have any thing to say against my decision," wrote he to moore, in his usual jesting way, after the marriage had been agreed on, "i beg you to say it. my resolve is taken, so positively, fixed, and irrevocably, that i can very well listen to reason, since now it can do me no more harm." and so he married miss milbank three months afterward. during the interval between the promise exchanged and the ceremony concluded, lord byron saw his betrothed frequently. had he no warning, no inspiration from his good genius during all that time? had he no fear of such perfection? did he not feel that a faultless coat of mail, like hers, might so have pressed upon her heart that no pulse would be left giving earnest of life? might not tenderness, piety, indulgence, forbearance, the most amiable and sublime virtues belonging to a christian woman, have their place filled in the breast of this perfect creature by another kind of sublimity? and was it not very possible that she would increase by one the number of those chaste wives who judge, condemn, punish, and never forgive any thing that does not enter into the category of their virtues, or rather of the single virtue they practice, and under shadow of which they consider themselves able to dispense with all others? did he not fear that the profound mathematical knowledge of that learned person might have slightly deadened her heart and given a dogmatic tone to her mind, of which he doubtless with his usual penetration suspected the narrowness, likely to render its science pernicious to the heart? all this is easily to be believed, when we see how preoccupied he was before marriage. "at the beginning of the month of december, being called up to town by business, i had opportunities, from being a good deal in my noble friend's society, of observing the state of his mind and feelings under the prospect of the important change he was now about to undergo; and it was with pain i found that those sanguine hopes with which i had sometimes looked forward to the happy influence of marriage, in winning him over to the brighter and better side of life, were, by a view of all the circumstances of his present destiny considerably diminished. while, at the same time, not a few doubts and misgivings, which had never before so strongly occurred to me, with regard to his own fitness, under any circumstances, for the matrimonial tie, filled me altogether with a degree of foreboding anxiety as to his fate, which the unfortunate events that followed but too fully justified." lord byron might still have avoided this misfortune by giving up marriage; but the die was cast. his evil genius presented him with no other alternative than to rush on to the catastrophe. we must add that if, unfortunately, the halo of perfection supposed to encircle the heiress was calculated to make him tremble, it was also of a nature to flatter his self-love. this reputation was, in the eyes of moore, the principal cause of his preference for miss milbank. however that may be, in the last days of december, accompanied by his friend mr. hobhouse, he set out for seaham, the residence of sir ralph, miss milbank's father. and on the morning of the d of january, surrounded by visions of the past, by gloomy forebodings, having in his hand the fatal ring that had been dug up in his garden at the moment when miss milbank's consent arrived; with a beating heart, and eyes all dizzy, that would have made him draw back, if his honor had not been too far engaged, lord byron advanced toward the altar. from that fatal day, if his star of glory did not cease to shine, or even if it shone more brightly seen through the atmosphere of misfortune, nevertheless repose and lasting happiness were gone for him. an heiress for a wife, but who had no actual fortune, naturally forced him into great expenses, that soon went beyond his resources. his creditors, lured by the riches said to belong to miss milbank, came down upon him, as if the wife's fortune could be used to pay the husband's debts. his marriage had taken place in january, and already, in october, he was obliged to sell his library. shortly afterward his furniture was seized, and he had to undergo humiliations, all the more keenly felt, that they were quite unmerited, since his debts were inherited with the property. lord byron--who had a real horror of debt--with his spirit of justice, moderate desires, simple tastes, detached as he was from material enjoyments, and even, perhaps, through pride, would never have fallen into such embarrassments if he had remained _unmarried_. indeed, his creditors were patiently awaiting the sale of some property. besides, he was rich enough while unmarried; he could exercise hospitality, travel in good style, not even keep for himself the produce of his works, and, above all, never refuse to perform works of charity and benevolence. he wrote to one of his friends before marriage that his affairs were about to be settled, that he could live comfortably in england, and buy a principality, if he wished, in turkey. thus, then, marriage alone drew upon him this new disaster, which he must have felt severely, and which, doubtless, led him to make reflections little favorable to the tie so fatally contracted. then it was that he would have required to meet with kindness, indulgence, and peace at home; thus supported, his heart would have endured every thing. instead of that, what did he find? a woman whose jealousy was extreme, and who had her own settled way of living, and was unflinching in her ideas; who united a conviction of her own wisdom to perfect ignorance of the human heart,[ ] all the while fancying that she knew it so well; who, far from consenting to modify her habits, would fain have imposed them on others. in short, a woman who had nothing in common with him, who was unable to understand him, or to find the road to his heart or mind; finally, one to whom forgiveness seemed a weakness, instead of a virtue. is it, then, astonishing that he should have suffered in such a depressing atmosphere; that he should sometimes have been irritable, and have even allowed to escape him a few words likely to wound the susceptible self-love of his wife? lady byron possessed one of those minds clever at reasoning, but weak in judgment; that can _reason_ much without being _reasonable_, to use the words of a great philosophical moralist of our day; one of those minds that act as if life were a problem in jurisprudence or geometry; who argue, distinguish, and, by dint of syllogisms, _deceive themselves learnedly_. she always deceived herself in this way about lord byron. when she was in the family way, and her confinement drawing near, the storm continued to gather above her husband's head. he was in correspondence with moore, then absent from london. moore's apprehensions with regard to the happiness likely to result from a union that had never appeared suitable in his eyes, had, nevertheless, calmed down on receiving letters from lord byron that expressed satisfaction. yet during the first days of what is vulgarly termed the "honey-moon," lord byron sent moore some very melancholy verses, to be set to music, said he, and which begin thus:-- "there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away." moore had already felt some vague disquietude, and he asked why he allowed his mind to dwell on such sorrowful ideas? lord byron replied that he had written these verses on learning the death of a friend of his childhood, the duke of dorset, and, as his subsequent letters were full of jests, moore became reassured. lord byron said he was happy, and so he really was; for lady byron, not being jealous then, continued to be gentle and amiable. "but these indications of a contented heart soon ceased. his mention of the partner of his home became more rare and formal, and there was observable, i thought, through some of his letters, a feeling of unquiet and weariness that brought back all those gloomy anticipations which i had, from the first, felt regarding his fate." above all, there were expressions in his letters that seemed of sad augury. for instance, in announcing the birth of his little girl, lord byron said that he was absorbed in five hundred contradictory contemplations, although he had only one single object in view, which would probably come to nothing, as it mostly happens with all we desire:-- "but never mind," he said, "as somebody says, '_for the blue sky bends over all_.' i only could be glad if it bent over me where it is a little bluer, like _skyish top of blue olympus_." on reading this letter, dated the th of january, full of aspirations after a blue sky, moore was struck with the tone of melancholy pervading it; and, knowing that it was lord byron's habit when under the pressure of sorrow and uneasiness, to seek relief in expressing his yearnings after freedom and after other climes, he wrote to him in these terms:-- "do you know, my dear byron, there was something in your last letter--a sort of mystery, as well as a want of your usual elasticity of spirits--which has hung upon my mind unpleasantly ever since. i long to be near you, that i might know how you really look and feel, for these letters tell nothing, and one word _a quattr' occhi_, is worth whole reams of correspondence. but only do tell me you are happier than that letter has led me to fear, and i shall be satisfied." "it was," says moore, "only a few weeks after the exchange of these letters, that lady byron took the resolution of separating from him. she had left london at the end of january, on a visit to her parents, in leicestershire, and lord byron was to come and join her there soon after. they had parted with mutual demonstrations of attachment and of good understanding. on the journey lady byron wrote a letter to her husband, couched in playful, affectionate language. what, then, must have been his astonishment when, directly after her arrival at kirby mallory, her father, sir ralph, wrote to tell lord byron that his daughter was going to remain with them, and would return to him no more." this unexpected stroke fell heavily upon him. the pecuniary embarrassments growing up since his marriage (for he had already undergone eight or nine executions in his own house), had then reached their climax. he was then, to use his own energetic expression, _alone at his hearth, his penates transfixed around_; and then was he also condemned to receive the unaccountable intelligence that the wife who had just parted from him in the most affectionate manner, had abandoned him forever. his state of mind can not be told, nor, perhaps, be imagined. still he describes it in some passages of his letters, showing at the same time the firmness, dignity, and strength of mind that always distinguished him. for example, he wrote to rogers, two weeks after this thunderbolt had fallen upon him:-- "i shall be very glad to see you if you like to call, though i am at present contending with the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,' some of which have struck me from a quarter whence i did not, indeed, expect them; but, no matter, there is a 'world elsewhere,' and i will cut my way through this as i can. if you write to moore, will you tell him that i shall answer his letter the moment i can muster time and spirits. ever yours, byron." this strength of mind he only found a month afterward, and then he wrote to him:-- "i have not answered your letter for a time, and at present the reply to it might extend to such a length that i shall delay it till it can be made in person, and then i will shorten it as much as i can. i am at war _with all the world and my wife_, or, rather, all the world and my wife are at war with me, and have not yet crushed me, and shall not crush me, whatever they may do. i don't know that in the course of a hair-breadth existence i was ever, at home or abroad, in a situation so completely uprooted of present pleasure, or rational hope for the future, as this time. i say this because i think so, and feel it. but i shall not sink under it the more for that mode of considering the question. i have made up my mind. "by the way, however, you must not believe all you hear on the subject; but don't attempt to defend me. if you succeeded in that it would be a mortal, or an immortal, offense. who can bear refutation?"[ ] and, after having spoken of his wife's family, he concludes in these terms:-- "those who know what is going on say that the mysterious cause of our domestic misunderstandings is a mrs. c----, now a kind of house-keeper and spy of lady n----, who was a washer-woman in former days." swayed by this idea, he went so far then in his generosity as to exonerate his wife, and accuse himself; whereupon moore answered that, "_after all, his misfortunes lay in the choice he had made of a wife, which he_ (moore) _had never approved_." lord byron hastened to reply that he was wrong, and that lady byron's conduct while with him had not deserved the smallest reproach, giving her, at the same time, great praise. but this answer, which, according to moore, _forces admiration for the generous candor of him who wrote it while adding to the sadness and strangeness of the whole affair_--this answer, of such extraordinary generosity, will better find its place elsewhere. it contains expressions that show his real state of soul under the cruel circumstances:-- "i have to battle with all kinds of unpleasantness, including private and pecuniary difficulties, etc. " ...it is nothing to bear the _privations_ of adversity, or, more properly, ill-fortune, but my pride recoils from its _indignities_. however, i have no quarrel with that same pride, which will, i think, be my buckler through every thing. if my heart could have been broken it would have been so years ago, and by events more afflicting than these.... do you remember the lines i sent you early last year? i don't wish to claim the character of 'vates' the prophet, but were they not a little prophetic? i mean those beginning: 'there's not a joy the world can,' etc. they were the truest, though the most melancholy, i ever wrote." to this letter moore answered immediately:-- "i had certainly no right to say any thing about the _unluckiness of your choice_, though i rejoice now that i did, as it has drawn from you a tribute which, however unaccountable and mysterious it renders the whole affair, is highly honorable to both parties. what i meant in hinting a doubt with respect to the object of your selection, did not imply the least impeachment of that perfect amiableness which the world, i find, by common consent, allows to her. i only feared that she might have been too perfect, too _precisely_ excellent, _too matter-of-fact a paragon for you to coalesce with comfortably_, ... and that a person whose perfection hung in more easy folds about her, whose brightness was softened down by some of 'those fair defects which best conciliate love,' would, by appealing more dependently to your protection, have stood a much better chance with your good-nature. all these suppositions, however, i have been led into by my intense anxiety to acquit you of any thing like a capricious abandonment of your wife; and, totally in the dark as i am with respect to all but the fact of your separation, you can not conceive the solicitude--the fearful solicitude--with which i look forward to a history of the transaction from your own lips when we meet--a history in which i am sure of at least one virtue, manly candor." those who knew lord byron, gifted as he was with so much that seemed to render it impossible for any woman to resign herself to the loss of his love; with so much to make a wife proud of bearing his name; may well ask what strange sort of nature lady byron could have possessed to act as she did toward him; and whether, if she really married out of vanity (as lord byron one day told medwin, at pisa), and her heart being full of pride only, she found some greater satisfaction for her vanity in the courage and perseverance she fancied displayed in deserting him. but, in order to view her inexplicable conduct with any sort of indulgence, we must say that lady byron was an only and a spoilt child, a slave to rule, to habits and ideas as unchanging and inflexible as the figures she loved to study; that, being accustomed to the comforts of a rich house, where she was idolized, she could not do without her regular comforts, so generally appreciated and considered necessary by english people. but it was no easy matter to satisfy all her tastes with mathematical regularity, to let her keep up all her habits, and, above all, to make lord byron share them in their married life. in the first place, lord byron, who was naturally un-english in taste, had, moreover, through his long stay abroad, given up the peculiarities of english habits. he did not dine every day, and when he did it was a cenobite's meal, little suited to the taste of a true englishman. he breakfasted on a cup of green tea, without sugar, and the yolk of an egg, which was swallowed standing. the comfortable fireside, the indispensable roast-beef, and the regular evening tea, were not appreciated by him; and, indeed, it was a real pain to him to see women eat at all. not one of his young wife's habits was shared by him. he did not think his soul lost by going to bed at dawn, for he liked to write at night; or by doing other things at what she called irregular hours; and he must have been at least astonished on hearing himself asked, three weeks after marriage, _when he intended giving up his versifying habits_? but he did not give them up; nor could he have done so had he wished it. lady byron must have flattered herself with the idea of ruling him, of showing the world her power over her husband. as long as their resources sufficed for a life of luxury, both parties might have cherished illusion, and put off reflection. but when creditors, attracted by the name of the wealthy heiress--who in reality had only brought her expectations with her--began to pour in, and that pecuniary embarrassment and humiliations were added to home incompatibilities, then, perhaps, lord byron became irritable sometimes, and lady byron must have felt more than ever the painful absence of those comforts whose enjoyment cause many other annoyances to be forgotten. she must often have compared her life then, full of mortifications, and, perhaps, of solitude, with the one so comfortable and agreeable (for her) she formerly led at kirby mallory, in the midst of her relatives. indeed, they had spent two months there, both saying they were happy; for at this period of the honey-moon, lord byron, kind as he was, doubtless yielded to all the caprices and habits of his hosts. nevertheless, through the veil of his customary jests and assurances to moore that he was quite satisfied, it is easy to see how tired he was, and how little the life at seaham was suited to him. "i am in such a state of sameness and stagnation, and so totally occupied in consuming the fruits, and sauntering, and playing dull games at cards, and yawning, and trying to read old 'annual registers' and the daily papers, and gathering shells on the shore, and watching the growth of stunted gooseberry bushes in the garden, that i have neither time nor sense to say more than yours ever, byron." and then another time he wrote,-- "i have been very comfortable here, listening to that d----d monologue which elderly gentlemen call conversation, and in which my pious father-in-law repeats himself every evening, except when he plays upon the fiddle. however, they have been very kind and hospitable, and i like them and the place vastly." again, feeling his thought in bondage at seaham, when it would fain have wandered free beneath some sunny sky, he wrote to moore, "by the way, don't engage yourself in any travelling expedition, as i have a plan of travel into italy, which we will discuss. and then, think of the poesy wherewithal we should overflow from venice to vesuvius, to say nothing of greece, through all which--god willing--we might perambulate." but on quitting seaham to return home, without preventing lady byron from continuing to follow her own tastes, it is likely that he wished to resume his old habits: his beloved solitude, so necessary to him, his fasts, his hours for study and rest, very different from those of seaham. and then she must have found it troublesome to have a husband, who was not only indifferent to english comforts, but who even disliked to see women eat! who, despite his embarrassments, continued to refuse appropriating for his own use the money given and offered by his publisher, making it over instead to the poor, and even borrowing to help his friends and indigent authors.[ ] she could not have known how he would ever get disentangled. being _extremely jealous_, she became the easy dupe of malicious persons; and under the influence of that wicked woman, mrs. claremont, allowed herself to be persuaded that her husband committed grave faults, though in reality they were but slight or even imaginary ones. she forced open his writing-desk, and found in it several proofs of intrigues that had taken place _previous_ to his marriage. in the frenzy of her jealousy, lady byron sent these letters to the husband of the lady compromised, but he had the good sense to take no notice of them. such a revolting proceeding on the part of lady byron requires no commentary: it can not be justified. meanwhile the conjugal abode was given up to bailiffs, and desolation reigned in lord byron's soul. he had lately become a father. this was the moment that his wife chose for leaving him; and the first proof of love she gave their daughter, as soon as she set foot in her own home, was to abandon that child's father and the house where she could no longer find the mode of life to which she had been accustomed. at kirby mallory, the vindictive lady noel, who detested lord byron, doubtless did the rest, together with the governess. and the young heiress, just enriched by a legacy inherited from an uncle, thus newly restored to wealth, had not courage to leave it and them all again. with the kind of nature she possessed, she must have taken pride in a sort of exaggerated firmness; thus seeking to gain strength for trampling under foot all heart-emotions, as if they were so many weaknesses, incompatible with the stern principles that she considered virtues. by assuming the point of view proper to some minds, it is easy to conceive all this, especially when one knows england. but was it really for the purpose of allowing her to give such a spectacle to the world, and to secure for herself the comforts of life, that god had given to her keeping lord byron's noble spirit? did she forget that it was not simply a good, honest, ordinary man, like the generality of husbands, that she had married; but that heaven, having crowned his brow with the rays of genius, imposed far other obligations on his companion? did she forget that she was responsible before god and before that country whose pride he was about to become? ought she to have preferred an easy life to the honor of being his wife; of sustaining him in his weaknesses; of consoling and forgiving him, if necessary; in short, of being his guardian angel? if she aspired to the reputation of a virtuous woman, could true virtue have done otherwise? ere this god has judged her above; but, here below, can those possessing hearts have any indulgence for her? we hear constantly repeated--because it was once said--that men of great genius are less capable than ordinary individuals of experiencing calm affections and of settling down into those easy habits which help to cement domestic life. by dint of repeating this it has become an axiom. but on what grounds is it founded? because these privileged beings give themselves to studies requiring solitude, in order to abstract and concentrate their thoughts; because, their mental riches being greater, they are more independent of the outer world and the intellectual resources of their fellow-creatures; because, through the abundance of their own resources, their mind acquires a certain refinement, likely to make them deem the society of ordinary persons tiresome; does it therefore necessarily follow that the goodness and sensibility of their hearts are blunted, and that there may not be, amid the great variety of women, hearts and minds worthy of comprehending them, and of making it their duty to extend a larger amount of forbearance and indulgence in return for the glory and happiness of being the companions of these noble beings? it is remarked, in support of the above theory, that almost all men of genius who have married--dante, milton, shakspeare, dryden, byron, and many others--were unhappy. but have these observers examined well on which side lay the cause of unhappiness? who will say that if dante, instead of gemma donati, "the ferocious wife" (a thought expressed by lord byron in his "prophecy," evidently to appropriate it to himself, speaking of "_the cold companion who brought him ruin for her dowry_);" who will say that if dante, instead of gemma donati, had married his beatrice portinari, she would not have been the companion and soother of his exile? that the bread of the foreigner shared with her would not have seemed _less bitter_? and that he would not have found it _less fatiguing to mount, leaning on her, the staircase leading to another's dwelling_?-- "lo scendere e il salio per l'altrin scale."--dante. and can we doubt that milton's misfortune was caused by his unhappy choice of a wife, since almost directly after her arrival at their conjugal home she became alarmed at her husband's literary habits and also at the solitude and poverty reigning in the house, and finally abandoned him after a month's trial? to speak only of england, was it not from similar causes, or nearly so, that the amiable shakspeare's misfortune arose--also that of dryden, addison, steele? and, indeed, the same may be said of all the great men belonging to whatsoever age or country. if we were to enter into a polemic on this subject, or simply to make conscientious researches, there would be many chances of proving, in opposition to the axiom, that the fault of these great men lay in the bad choice of their helpmates. in truth, if there have been a gemma donati and a milbank, we also find in ancient times a calpurnia and a portia among the wives of great men; and, in modern times, wives of poets, who have been the honor of their sex, proud of their husbands, and living only for them. ought not these examples at least to destroy the absolute nature of the theory, making it at best conditional? the larger number of great men, it is true, did not marry; of this number we find, michael angelo, raphael, petrarch, ariosto, tasso, cervantes, voltaire, pope, alfieri, and canova; and many others among the poets and philosophers, bacon, newton, galileo, descartes, bayle, and leibnitz. what does that prove, if not that they either would not or could not marry, but certainly not that they were incapable of being good husbands? besides, a thousand causes--apart from the fear of being unhappy in domestic life, considerations of fortune, prior attachments, etc.--may have prevented them. but as to lord byron, at least, it is still more certain with regard to him than to any other, that he might have been happy had he made a better choice: if circumstances had only been tolerable, as he himself says. lord byron had none of those faults that often disturb harmony, because they put the wife's virtue to too great a trial. if the best disposition, according to a deep moralist, is that which gives much and exacts nothing, then assuredly his deserves to be so characterized. lord byron exacted nothing for himself. moreover, discussion, contradiction, teasing, were insupportable to him; his amiable jesting way even precluded them. in all the circumstances and all the details of his life he displayed that high generosity, that contempt of petty, selfish, material calculations so well adapted for gaining hearts in general, and especially those of women. add to that the _prestige_ belonging to his great beauty, his wit, his grace, and it will be easy to understand the love he must have inspired as soon as he became known. "pope remarks," says moore, "that extraordinary geniuses have the misfortune to be admired rather than loved; but i can say, from my own personal experience, that lord byron was an exception to this rule."[ ] nevertheless, lord byron, though exceptional in so many things, yet belonged to the first order of geniuses. therefore he could not escape some of the laws belonging to these first-rate natures: certain habits, tendencies, sentiments--i may almost say infirmities--of genius deriving their _origin from the same sympathies, the same wants_. he required to have certain things granted to him: his hours for solitude, the silence of his library, which he sometimes preferred to every thing, even to the society of the woman he loved. it was wrong to wish by force to shut him up to read the bible, or to make him come to tea and regulate all his hours as a good priest might do. when he was plunged in the delights of plato's "banquet," or conversing with his own ideas, it was folly to interrupt him. but this state was exceptional with him. "_one does not have fever habitually_," said he of himself, characterizing this state of excitement that belongs to composition; and as soon as he returned to his usual state, and that his mind, disengaged from itself, came down from the heights to which it had soared, what amiability then, what a charm in all he said and did! was not one hour passed with him then a payment with rich usury for all the little concessions his genius required? and lastly, if we descend well into the depths of his soul, by all he said and did, by all his sadness, joy, tenderness, we may be well convinced that none more than he was susceptible of domestic happiness. "if i could have been the husband of the countess g----," said he to mrs. b----, a few days only before setting out for greece, "we should have been cited, i am certain, as samples of conjugal happiness, and our retired domestic life would have made us respectable! but alas! i can not marry her." it is also by his latest affections that he proved how, if he had been united to a woman after his own heart, he might have enjoyed and given all the domestic happiness that god vouchsafes us here below, and that when love should have undergone the transformations produced by time and custom, he would have known how to replace the poetic enchantments of love's first days, by feelings graver, more unchanging too, and no less tender and sacred. but we must interrogate those who knew and saw him personally, and in the first place moore; for not only was moore acquainted with lord byron's secret soul, but to him had the poet confided the treasure of his memoirs, whose principal object was to throw light on the most fatal event of his life, and whose sacrifice, made in deference to the susceptibilities of a few living nullities, will be an eternal remorse for england. now this is how moore expresses himself on this subject:-- "with respect to the causes that may be supposed to have led to this separation, it seems needless, with the characters of both parties before our eyes, to go in quest of any very remote or mysterious reasons to account for it." after observing that men of great genius have never seemed made for domestic happiness, through certain habits, certain wants of their nature, and certain faults, which appear, he says, like the shade thrown by genius in proportion to its greatness, moore adds that lord byron still was, in many respects, _a singular exception to this rule_, for his heart was so sensitive and his passions so ardent, that the world of reality never ceased to hold a large place in his sympathies; that for the rest, his imagination could never usurp the place of reality, neither in his feelings nor in the objects exciting them. "the poet in lord byron," says moore, "never absorbed the man. from this very mixture has it arisen that his pages bear so deeply the stamp of real life, and that in the works of no poet with the exception of shakspeare, can every various mood of the mind--whether solemn or gay, whether inclined to the ludicrous or the sublime, whether seeking to divert itself with the follies of society or panting after the grandeur of solitary nature--find so readily a strain of sentiment in accordance with its every passing tone." nevertheless he did not completely escape the usual fate of great geniuses, since he also experienced, though rarely, and always with good cause, that sadness which, as shakspeare says,-- "sicklies the face of happiness itself." "to these faults, and sources of faults, inherent in his own sensitive nature, he added also many of those which a long indulgence of self-will generates--the least compatible, of all others, with that system of mutual concession and sacrifice by which the balance of domestic peace is maintained. in him they were softened down by good-nature. when we look back, indeed, to the unbridled career, of which this marriage was meant to be the goal--to the rapid and restless course in which his life had run along, like a burning train, through a series of wanderings, adventures, successes, and passions, the fever of all which was still upon him, when, with the same headlong recklessness, he rushed into this marriage, it can but little surprise us that, in the space of one short year, he should not have been able to recover all at once from his bewilderment, or to settle down into that _tame level_ of conduct which the close observers of his every action required. as well might it be expected that a steed like his own mazeppa's-- 'wild as the wild deer and untaught, with spur and bridle undefiled,' should stand still, when reined, without chafing or champing the bit.[ ] "even had the new condition of life into which he passed been one of prosperity and smoothness, some time, as well as tolerance, must still have been allowed for the subsiding of so excited a spirit into rest. but, on the contrary, his marriage was at once a signal for all the arrears and claims of a long-accumulating state of embarrassment to explode upon him; his door was almost daily beset by duns, and his house nine times during that year in possession of bailiffs; while, in addition to these anxieties, he had also the pain of fancying that the eyes of enemies and spies were upon him, even under his own roof, and that his every hasty word and look were interpreted in the most perverted light. "he saw but little society, his only relief from the thoughts which a life of such embarrassment brought with it was in those avocations which his duty, as a member of the drury lane committee, imposed upon him. and here, in this most unlucky connection with the theatre, one of the fatalities of his short year of trial, as husband, lay. from the reputation which he had previously acquired for gallantries, and the sort of reckless and boyish levity to which--often in very bitterness of soul--he gave way, it was not difficult to bring suspicion upon some of those acquaintances which his frequent intercourse with the green-room induced him to form, or even (as in one instance was the case) to connect with his name injuriously that of a person to whom he had scarcely ever addressed a single word. "notwithstanding, however, this ill-starred concurrence of circumstances, which might have palliated any excesses either of temper or conduct into which they drove him, it was, after all, i am persuaded, to no such serious causes that the unfortunate alienation, which so soon ended in disunion, is to be traced. "'in all the unhappy marriages i have ever seen,' says steele, 'the great cause of evil has proceeded from slight occasions,' and to this remark, i think, the marriage under our consideration would not be found, upon inquiry, to be an exception. lord byron himself, indeed, when at cephalonia, a short time before his death, seems to have expressed, in a few words, the whole pith of the mystery. "an english gentleman, with whom he was conversing on the subject of lady byron, having ventured to enumerate to him the various causes he had heard alleged for the separation, the noble poet, who had seemed much amused with their absurdity and falsehood, said, after listening to them all: 'the causes, my dear sir, were too simple to be easily found out.' "in truth, the circumstances, so unexampled, that attended their separation, the last words of the wife to the husband being those of the most playful affection, while the language of the husband toward the wife was in a strain, as the world knows, of tenderest eulogy, are in themselves a sufficient proof that, at the time of their parting, there could have been no very deep sense of injury on either side. it was not till afterward that, in both bosoms, the repulsive force came into operation, when, to the party which had taken the first decisive step in the strife, it became naturally a point of pride to persevere in it with dignity, and this unbendingness provoked, as naturally, in the haughty spirit of the other, a strong feeling of resentment which overflowed, at last, in acrimony and scorn. if there be any truth, however, in the principle, that they never pardon who have done the wrong, lord byron, who was, to the last, disposed to reconciliation, proved, at least, that his conscience was not troubled by any very guilty recollections. "but though it would have been difficult perhaps, for the victims of this strife themselves to have pointed out the real cause for their disunion, beyond that general incompatibility which is the canker _of all such marriages_, the public, which seldom allows itself to be at fault on these occasions, was, as usual, ready with an ample supply of reasons for the breach, all tending to blacken the already-darkly painted character of the poet, and representing him, in short, as a finished monster of cruelty and depravity. the reputation of the object of his choice for every possible virtue, was now turned against him by his assailants, as if the excellences of the wife were proof positive of every enormity they chose to charge upon the husband. meanwhile, the unmoved silence of lady byron under the repeated demands made for a specification of her charges against him, left to malice and imagination the fullest range for their combined industry. it was accordingly stated, and almost universally believed, that the noble lord's second proposal to miss milbank had been but with a view to revenge himself for the slight inflicted by her refusal of the first, and that he himself had confessed so much to her on their way from the church. at the time when, as the reader has seen from his own honey-moon letters, he in all faith fancied himself happy, and even boasted, in the pride of his imagination, that if marriage were to be upon lease, he would gladly renew his own for a term of ninety-nine years! "at this very time, according to these veracious chronicles, he was employed in darkly following up the aforesaid scheme of revenge, and tormenting his lady by all sorts of unmanly cruelties--such as firing off pistols, to frighten her as she lay in bed, and other such freaks.[ ] to the falsehoods concerning his green-room intimacies, and particularly with respect to one beautiful actress, with whom, in reality, he had hardly ever exchanged a single word, i have already adverted; and the extreme confidence with which this tale was circulated and believed affords no unfair specimen of the sort of evidence with which the public, in all such fits of moral wrath, is satisfied. it is, at the same time, very far from my intention to allege that, in the course of the noble poet's intercourse with the theatre, he was not sometimes led into a line of acquaintance and converse, unbefitting, if not dangerous to, the steadiness of married life. but the imputations against him on this head were not the less unfounded, as the sole case in which he afforded any thing like real grounds for such an accusation did not take place till after the period of the separation. "not content with such ordinary and tangible charges, the tongue of rumor was emboldened to proceed still further; and, presuming upon the mysterious silence maintained by one of the parties, ventured to throw out dark hints and vague insinuations, of which the fancy of every hearer was left to fill up the outline as he pleased. in consequence of all this exaggeration, such an outcry was now raised against lord byron as, in no case of private life, perhaps, was ever before witnessed; nor had the whole amount of fame which he had gathered, in the course of the last four years, much exceeded in proportion the reproach and obloquy that were now, within the space of a few weeks, heaped upon him. in addition to the many who, no doubt, conscientiously believed and reprobated what they had but too much right, whether viewing him as poet or man of fashion, to consider credible excesses, there were also actively on the alert that large class of persons who seem to think that inveighing against the vices of others is equivalent to virtue in themselves, together with all those natural haters of success who, having long been disgusted with the splendor of the poet, were now enabled, in the guise of champions for innocence, to wreak their spite on the man. in every various form of paragraph, pamphlet, and caricature, both his character and person were held up to odium. hardly a voice was raised, or at least listened to, in his behalf; and though a few faithful friends remained unshaken by his side, the utter hopelessness of stemming the torrent was felt as well by them as by himself, and, after an effort or two to gain a fair hearing, they submitted in silence." as to lord byron, he hardly attempted to defend himself. among all these slanders, he only wished to repel one that wounded his generous pride beyond endurance; and so he wrote to rogers:-- "you are of the few persons with whom i have lived in what is called intimacy, and have heard me at times conversing on the untoward topic of my recent family disquietudes. will you have the goodness to say to me at once, whether you ever heard me speak of her with disrespect, with unkindness, or defending myself at her expense by any serious imputation of any description against her? did you never hear me say, 'that when there was a right or a wrong, she had the right?' the reason i put these questions to you or others of my friends is, because i am said, by her and hers, to have resorted to such means of exculpation." it makes one's heart bleed to see this noble intellect forced by the stupid cruel persecution of wicked fools to descend into the arena and justify himself. but he soon ceased all kind of defense. a struggle of this sort was most repugnant to him. at first lord byron had counted on his wife's return, which would, indeed, have proved his best justification. when he saw this return deferred, he asked simply for an inquiry, but could not obtain what he solicited. his accusers, unable to state any thing definite against him, naturally preferred calumny and _magnanimous_ silence to inquiry! at last, when he felt that reunion had become improbable, and that his friends, for want of moral courage and independence, confined themselves to mere condolence, he sought for strength in the testimony of conscience and in his determination of one day making the whole truth known. and he did so in effect, a year later, while he was in italy, and when all hope of reunion was over. then it was that he wrote his memoirs. here perhaps i ought to speak of one of england's greatest crimes, or rather, of the crime committed by a few englishmen: i mean _the destruction of his memoirs_, a deed perpetrated for the sake of screening the self-love and the follies, if not the crimes, of a whole host of insignificant beings. but, having already spoken of that in another chapter, i will content myself with repeating here that these memoirs were all the more precious, as their principal object was to make known the truth; that the impression they left on the mind was a perfect conviction of the writer's sincerity; that lord byron possessed the most generous of souls, and that the separation had no other cause but incompatibility of disposition between the two parties. had he not given irrefragable proof of the truth of these memoirs, by sending them to be read and _commented on_ by lady byron? we know with what cruel disdain she met this generous proceeding. as to their morality, i will content myself with quoting the exact expressions used by lady b----, wife of the then ambassador in italy, to whom moore gave them to read, and who had copied them out entirely:-- "_i read these memoirs at florence_," said she to countess g----, "_and i assure you that i might have given them to my daughter of fifteen to read, so perfectly free are they from any stain of immorality._" let us then repeat once more, that they, as well as the last cantos of "don juan," and the journal he kept in greece, were sacrificed for the sole purpose of destroying all memento of the guilty weakness of persons calling themselves his friends, and also of hiding the opinions, not always very flattering, entertained by lord byron about a number of living persons, who had unfortunately survived him. it is difficult to conceive in any case, how these memoirs written at venice, when his heart was torn with grief and bitterness, could possibly have been silent as to the injustice and calumny overwhelming him, or even as to the pusillanimous behavior of so-called friends; while even writers generally hostile no longer took part against him. for example, this is how macaulay speaks of him,--macaulay who was not over-lenient toward lord byron, whom he never personally knew, and who is seldom just as well from party spirit as from his desire of shining in antithesis and high-sounding phrases:-- "at twenty-four he found himself on the highest pinnacle of literary fame, along with walter scott, wordsworth, southey, and a crowd of other distinguished writers. there is scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence. every thing that could stimulate, and every thing that could gratify the strongest propensities of our nature, the gaze of a hundred drawing-rooms, the acclamation of the whole nation, the applause of applauded men, the love of lovely women,--all this world, and all the glory of it, were at once offered to a youth to whom nature had given violent passions, and whom education had never taught to control them. he lived as many men live who have no similar excuse to plead for their faults. but his countrymen and countrywomen would love and admire him. they were resolved to see in his excesses only the flash and outbreak of that same fiery mind which glowed in his poetry. he attacked religion; yet in religious circles his name was mentioned with fondness, and in many religious publications his works were censured with singular tenderness. he lampooned the prince regent, yet he could not alienate the tories. every thing, it seemed, was to be forgiven to youth, rank, and genius.[ ] "then came the reaction. society, capricious in its indignation as it had been capricious in its fondness, flew into a rage with its froward and petted darling. he had been worshiped with an irrational idolatry. he was persecuted with an irrational fury. much has been written about those unhappy domestic occurrences which decided the fate of his life. yet nothing is, nothing ever was, positively known to the public but this,--that he quarrelled with his lady, and that she refused to live with him. there have been hints in abundance, and shrugs and shakings of the head, and '_well, well, we know_,' and '_we could if we would_,' and '_if we list to speak_,' and '_there be that might an they list._' but we are not aware that there is before the world, substantiated by credible, or even by tangible evidence, a single fact indicating that lord byron was _more to blame than any other man who is on bad terms with his wife_." and after having said how the persons consulted by lady byron, and who had advised her to separate from her husband, formed their opinion without hearing both parties, and that it would be quite unjust and irrational to pronounce, or even to form, an opinion on an affair so imperfectly known, mr. macaulay continues in these words:-- "we know no spectacle so ridiculous as the british public in one of its periodical fits of morality. in general, elopements, divorces, and family quarrels, pass with little notice. we read the scandal, talk about it for a day, and forget it. but once in six or seven years our virtue becomes outrageous. we can not suffer the laws of religion and decency to be violated. we must make a stand against vice. we must teach libertines that the english people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. accordingly some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose offenses have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. if he has children, they are to be taken from him. if he has a profession, he is to be driven from it. he is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. he is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed, sufficiently chastised. we reflect very complacently on our own severity, and compare with great pride the high standard of morals established in england with the parisian laxity. at length our anger is satiated. our victim is ruined and heart-broken, and our virtue goes quietly to sleep for seven years more. it is clear that those vices which destroy domestic happiness ought to be as much as possible repressed. it is equally clear that they can not be repressed by penal legislation. it is therefore right and desirable that public opinion should be directed against them. but it should be directed against them uniformly, steadily, and temperately; not by sudden fits and starts. there should be one weight and one measure. decimation is always an objectionable mode of punishment. it is the resource of judges too indolent and hasty to investigate facts and to discriminate nicely between shades of guilt. it is an irrational practice, even when adopted by military tribunals. when adopted by the tribunal of public opinion, it is infinitely more irrational. it is good that a certain portion of disgrace should constantly attend on certain bad actions. but it is not good that the offenders should merely have to stand the risks of a lottery of infamy, that ninety-nine out of every hundred should escape, and that the hundredth, perhaps the most innocent of the hundred, should pay for all. we remember to have seen a mob assembled in lincoln's inn to hoot a gentleman against whom the most oppressive proceeding known to the english law was then in progress. he was hooted because he had been an unfaithful husband, as if some of the most popular men of the age, lord nelson for example, had not been unfaithful husbands. we remember a still stronger case. will posterity believe that, in an age in which men whose gallantries were universally known, and had been legally proved, filled some of the highest offices in the state and in the army, presided at the meetings of religious and benevolent institutions, were the delight of every society, and the favorites of the multitude, a crowd of moralists went to the theatre, in order to pelt a poor actor for disturbing the conjugal felicity of an alderman? what there was in the circumstances either of the offender or of the sufferer to vindicate the zeal of the audience we could never conceive. it has never been supposed that the situation of an actor is peculiarly favorable to the rigid virtues, or that an alderman enjoys any special immunity from injuries such as that which on this occasion roused the anger of the public. but such is the justice of mankind. in these cases the punishment was excessive, but the offense was known and proved. the case of lord byron was harder. true jedwood justice was dealt out to him. first came the execution, then the investigation, and last of all, or rather not at all, the accusation. the public, without knowing any thing whatever about the transactions in his family, flew into a violent passion with him, and proceeded to invent stories which might justify its anger. ten or twenty different accounts of the separation, inconsistent with each other, with themselves, and with common sense, circulated at the same time. what evidence there might be for any one of these the virtuous people who repeated them neither knew nor cared. for in fact these stories were not the causes, but the effects of the public indignation. they resembled those loathsome slanders which lewis goldsmith, and other abject libellers of the same class, were in the habit of publishing about bonaparte; such as that he poisoned a girl with arsenic when he was at the military school, that he hired a grenadier to shoot desaix at marengo, that he filled st. cloud with all the pollutions of capreæ. there was a time when anecdotes like these obtained some credence from persons who, hating the french emperor without knowing why, were eager to believe any thing which might justify their hatred. "lord byron fared in the same way. his countrymen were in a bad humor with him. his writings and his character had lost the charm of novelty. he had been guilty of the offense which, of all offenses, is punished most severely; he had been overpraised; he had excited too warm an interest; and the public, with its usual justice, chastised him for its own folly. the attachments of the multitude bear no small resemblance to those of the wanton enchantress in the arabian tales, who, when the forty days of her fondness were over, was not content with dismissing her lovers, but condemned them to expiate, in loathsome shapes, and under cruel penances, the crime of having once pleased her too well. "the obloquy which byron had to endure was such as might well have shaken a more constant mind. the newspapers were filled with lampoons. the theatres shook with execrations. he was excluded from circles where he had lately been the _observed_ of all _observers_. all those creeping things that riot in the decay of nobler natures hastened to their repast; and they were right; they did after their kind. it is not every day that the savage envy of aspiring dunces is gratified by the agonies of such a spirit, and the degradation of such a name. the unhappy man left his country forever. the howl of contumely followed him across the sea, up the rhine, over the alps; it gradually waxed fainter; it died away; those who had raised it began to ask each other, what, after all, was the matter about which they had been so clamorous, and wished to invite back the criminal whom they had just chased from them. his poetry became more popular than it had ever been; and his complaints were read with tears by thousands and tens of thousands who had never seen his face." these observations of macaulay are applied by mr. disraeli to lord cadurcis, who, in his novel called "venetia," is no other than lord byron:-- "lord cadurcis," says he, "was the periodical victim, the scapegoat of english morality, sent into the wilderness with all the crimes and curses of the multitude on his head. lord cadurcis had certainly committed a great crime, not his intrigue with lady monteagle, for that surely was not an unprecedented offense; nor his duel with her husband, for after all it was a duel in self-defense: and, at all events, divorces and duels, under any circumstances, would scarcely have excited or authorized the storm which was now about to burst over the late spoiled child of society. but lord cadurcis had been guilty of the offense which, of all offenses, is punished most severely. lord cadurcis had been overpraised. he had excited too warm an interest; and the public, with its usual justice, was resolved to chastise him for its own folly. there are no fits of caprice so hasty and so violent as those of society. cadurcis, in allusion to his sudden and singular success, had been in the habit of saying to his intimates that he 'woke one morning and found himself famous.' he might now observe, 'i woke one morning and found myself infamous.' before twenty-four hours had passed over his duel with lord monteagle, he found himself branded by every journal in london as an unprincipled and unparalleled reprobate. the public, without waiting to think, or even to inquire after the truth, instantly selected as genuine the most false and the most flagrant of the fifty libellous narratives that were circulated of the transaction. stories, inconsistent with themselves, were all alike eagerly believed, and what evidence there might be for any one of them, the virtuous people, by whom they were repeated, neither knew nor cared. the public, in short, fell into a passion with their daring, and, ashamed of their past idolatry, nothing would satisfy them but knocking the divinity on the head." and this same mr. disraeli, whose testimony is all the more precious as coming from a tory celebrity, after having described the shameful reception given by the noble house to lord cadurcis, when he presented himself there after the duel, and the atrocious conduct of the stupid populace clamoring against him outside, goes on in these terms:-- "and indeed to witness this young, and noble, and gifted creature, but a few days back the idol of the nation, and from whom a word, a glance even, was deemed the greatest and most gratifying distinction--whom all orders, classes, and conditions of men had combined to stimulate with multiplied adulation, with all the glory and ravishing delights of the world, as it were, forced upon him--to see him thus assailed with the savage execrations of all those vile things who exult in the fall of every thing that is great and the abasement of every thing that is noble, was indeed a spectacle which might have silenced malice and satisfied envy!" to these just appreciations formed by some of lord byron's biographers we might add many more; but the limits we have assigned to this work not admitting of it, we will only add, as a last testimony, the most severe of all; him of whom moore said, "that, if one wished to speak against lord byron, one had only to apply to him," that is, to lord byron himself. in , when lord byron was at ravenna, an article from "blackwood's magazine," entitled "observations on don juan," was sent him. it contained such unfounded strictures on his matrimonial conduct, that, for once, lord byron infringed his rule and could not help answering it. the extracts from his defense, "_if defense it can be called_," says moore, "_where there has never yet been any definite charge, will be read with the liveliest interest._" here, then, is a part of these extracts:-- "it is in vain, says my learned brother, that lord byron attempts in any way to justify his own behavior with regard to lady byron. "and now that he has so openly and audaciously invited inquiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should not be plainly told so by the voice of his countrymen." "how far the openness of an anonymous poem, and the audacity of an imaginary character, which the writer supposes to be meant for lady byron, may be deemed to merit this formidable denunciation from their most sweet voices, i neither know nor care; but when he tells me that i can not 'in any way justify my own behavior in that affair,' i acquiesce, because no man can justify himself until he knows of what he is accused; and i have never had--and, god knows, my whole desire has ever been to obtain it--any specific charge, in a tangible shape, submitted to me by the adversary, nor by others, unless the atrocities of public rumor and the mysterious silence of the lady's legal advisers may be deemed such. "but is not the writer content with what has been already said and done? has not the general voice of his countrymen long ago pronounced upon the subject sentence without trial, and condemnation without a charge? have i not been exiled by ostracism, except that the shells which proscribed me were anonymous? is the writer ignorant of the public opinion and the public conduct upon that occasion? if he is, i am not: the public will forget both long before i shall cease to remember either. "the man who is exiled by a faction has the consolation of thinking that he is a martyr; he is upheld by hope and the dignity of his cause, real or imaginary: he who withdraws from the pressure of debt may indulge in the thought that time and prudence will retrieve his circumstances; he who is condemned by the law as a term to his banishment, or a dream of his abbreviation; or, it may be, the knowledge or the belief of some injustice of the law, or of its administration, in his own particular. but he who is outlawed by general opinion, without the intervention of hostile politics, illegal judgment, or embarrassed circumstances, whether he be innocent or guilty, must undergo all the bitterness of exile, without hope, without pride, without alleviation. this case was mine. upon what grounds the public founded their opinion i am not aware; but it was general, and it was decisive. of me or of mine they knew little, except that i had written what is called poetry, was a nobleman, had married, became a father, and was involved in differences with my wife and her relatives, no one knew why, because the persons complaining refused to state their grievances. the fashionable world was divided into parties, mine consisting of a very small minority; the reasonable world was naturally on the stronger side, which happened to be the lady's, as was most proper and polite. the press was active and scurrilous; and such was the rage of the day that the unfortunate publication of two copies of verses rather complimentary than otherwise to the subjects of both, was tortured into a species of crime, or constructive petty treason. i was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumor and private rancor; my name, which had been a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for william the norman, was tainted. i felt that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and murmured, was true, i was unfit for england; if false, england was unfit for me. i withdrew: but this was not enough. in other countries, in switzerland, in the shadow of the alps, and by the blue depth of the lakes, i was pursued and breathed upon by the light. i crossed the mountains, but it was the same; so i went a little farther, and settled myself by the waves of the adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters. "if i may judge by the statements of the few friends who gathered round me, the outcry of the period to which i allude was beyond all precedent, all parallel, even in those cases where political motives have sharpened slander and doubled enmity." one regrets not being able to go on reproducing these fine pages written by lord byron, but the limits we have assigned ourselves force the sacrifice. and now, after all that has been placed before the reader, will he not be curious to learn whether lord byron truly loved lady byron. the answer admits of no doubt. could love exist between two natures so widely dissonant? but then it will be said, why did he marry her? this question may be answered by the simple observation that two-thirds of the marriages in high life, and indeed in all classes, are contracted without any love, nor are the parties, therefore, condemned to unhappiness. still it is as well to recall that not only it did not enter into lord byron's views to marry for love and to satisfy passion, but that he married rather for the sake of escaping from the yoke of his passions! "if i were in love i should be jealous," said he, "and then i could not render happy the woman i married." "let her be happy," added he, "and then, for my part, i shall also be so." then again we find, "let them only leave me my mornings free." lastly, he wrote in his journal, before marrying miss milbank, and while in correspondence with her, "it is very singular, but there is not a spark of love between me and miss milbank." if, then, miss milbank married lord byron out of self-love, and to prevent his marrying a young and beautiful irish girl, lord byron, on his part, married miss milbank from motives the most honorable to human nature. it was her _simple modest_ air that attracted him and caused his delusion, and the fame of her virtues quite decided him. as to interested motives, they were at most but secondary; and his disinterestedness was all the more meritorious, since the embarrassed state of his affairs made him really require money, and miss milbank had none at that period. she was an only daughter, it is true; but her parents were still in the prime of life, and her uncle, lord wentworth, from whom her mother was to inherit before herself, might yet live many years. his marriage with miss milbank was thus not only disinterested as regards fortune, but even _imprudently generous_; for she only brought him a small dowry of £ , --a mere trifle compared to the life of luxury she was to lead, in accordance with their mutual rank.[ ] and these £ , were not only returned by lord byron on their separation, but generously doubled. and now let us hasten to add that although lord byron was not in love with miss milbank, he had no dislike to her person, for she was rather pretty and pleasing in appearance. her reputation for moral and intellectual qualities, standing on such a high pedestal, lord byron naturally conceived that esteem might well suffice to replace tenderness. it is certain that, if she had lent herself to it more, and if circumstances had only been endurable, their union might have presented the same character common to most aristocratic couples in england, and that even lord byron might have been able to act from virtue in default of feeling; but that little requisite for him was wholly wanting. his celebrated and touching "farewell" might be brought up as an objection to what we have just advanced. it might be said that the word _sincere_ is a proof of love, and _insincere_ a proof of _falsehood_. lastly, that in all cases there was a want of delicacy and refinement in thus confiding his domestic troubles to the public. well, all that would be ill-founded, unjust, and contrary to truth. this is the truth of the matter. lord byron had just been informed that lady byron, having sent off by post the letter wherein she confirmed all that her father, sir ralph, had written, namely, her resolution of not returning to the conjugal roof, had afterward caused this letter to be sought for, and on its being restored, had given way to almost mad demonstrations of joy. could he see aught else in this account save a certainty of the evil influences weighing on her, and making her act in contradiction to her real sentiments? he pitied her then as a victim, thought of all the virtues _said_ to crown her, the illusive belief in which he was far then from having lost; he forgot the wrongs she had inflicted on him--the spying she had kept up around him--the calumnies spread against him--the use she had made of the letters subtracted from his desk. yes, all was forgotten by his generous heart; and, according to custom, he even went so far as to accuse himself--to see in the victim only his wife, the mother of his little ada! under this excitement he was walking about at night in his solitary apartments, and suddenly chanced to perceive in some corner different things that had belonged to lady byron--dresses and other articles of attire. it is well known how much the sight of these inanimate mementoes has power to call up recollections even to ordinary imaginations. what, then, must have been the vividness with which they acted on an imagination like lord byron's? his heart softened toward her, and he recollected that one day, under the influence of sorrows which well-nigh robbed him of consciousness, he had answered her harshly. thinking himself in the wrong, and full of the anguish that all these reflections and objects excited in his breast, he allowed his tears to flow, and, snatching a pen, wrote down that touching effusion, which somewhat eased his suffering. the next day one of his friends found these beautiful verses on his desk; and, judging of lady byron's heart and that of the public according to his own, he imprudently gave them to the world. thus we can no more doubt lord byron's sincerity in writing them than we can accuse him of publishing them. but what may cause astonishment is that they could possibly have been ill-interpreted, as they were; and, above all, that this touching "farewell"--which made madame de staël say she would gladly have been unhappy, like lady byron, to draw it forth--that it should not have had power to rescue her heart from its apathy, and bring her to the feet of her husband, or at least into his arms. let us add, in conclusion, that the most atrocious part of this affair, and doubtless the most wounding for him, was precisely lady byron's conduct; and in this conduct the worst was _her cruel silence_! she has been called, after his words, the moral clytemnestra[ ] of her husband. such a surname is severe; but the repugnance we feel to condemning a woman can not prevent our listening to the voice of justice, which tells us that the comparison is still in favor of the guilty one of antiquity. for she, driven to crime by fierce passion overpowering reason, at least only deprived her husband of physical life, and in committing the deed exposed herself to all its consequences; while lady byron left her husband at the very moment that she saw him struggling amid a thousand shoals, in the stormy sea of embarrassments created by his marriage, and precisely when he more than ever required a friendly, tender, and indulgent hand to save him from the tempests of life. besides, she shut herself up in silence a thousand times more cruel than clytemnestra's poniard, that only killed the body; whereas lady byron's silence was destined to kill the soul, and such a soul! leaving the door open to calumny, and making it to be supposed that her silence was magnanimity destined to cover over frightful wrongs, perhaps even depravity. in vain did he, feeling his conscience at ease, implore some inquiry and examination. she refused, and the only favor she granted was to send him, one fine day, two persons to see whether he were not mad. happily lord byron only discovered at a later period the purport of this strange visit. in vain did lord byron's friend, the companion of all his travels, throw himself at lady byron's feet, imploring her to give over this fatal silence. the only reply she deigned was, that she had thought him mad! and why, then, had she believed him mad? because she, a methodical inflexible woman, with that unbendingness which a profound moralist calls the worship rendered to pride by a feelingless soul;--because she could not understand the possibility of tastes and habits different to those of ordinary routine, or of her own starched life! not to be hungry when she was--not to sleep at night, but to write while she was sleeping, and to sleep when she was up--in short, to gratify the requirements of material and intellectual life at hours different to hers:--all that was not merely annoying for her, but it must be _madness!_ or if not, it betokened depravity that she could neither submit to nor tolerate without perilling her own morality! such was the grand secret of the cruel silence which exposed lord byron to the most malignant interpretations--to all the calumny and revenge of his enemies. she was perhaps the only woman in the world so strangely organized--the only one, perhaps, capable of not feeling happy and proud at belonging to a man superior to the rest of humanity! and fatally was it decreed that this woman _alone_ of her species should be lord byron's wife! before closing this chapter it remains for us to examine if it be true, as several of his biographers have pretended, that he wished to be reunited to his wife. we must here declare that lord byron's intention, in the last years of his life, was, on the contrary, not to see lady byron again. this is what he wrote from ravenna, to moore, in june, :-- "i have received a parisian letter from w. w----, which i prefer answering through you, as that worthy says he is an occasional visitor of yours. in november last he wrote to me a well-meaning letter, stating for some reasons of his own, his belief that a _reunion_ might be effected between lady byron and myself. "to this i answered as usual; and he sent me a second letter, repeating his notions, which letter i have never answered, having had a thousand other things to think of. he now writes as if he believed that he had offended me by touching on the topic; and i wish you to assure him that i am not at all so, but on the contrary, obliged by his good-nature. at the same time _acquaint him the thing is impossible. you know this as well as i, and there let it end._" a year later, at pisa, he again said to m----"_that he never would have been reunited_ to lady byron; that the time for such a possibility was passed, and he had made _quite sufficient advances_." let us add likewise that during the last period of his stay at genoa, a person whose acquaintance he had just made, thought fitting, for several reasons and even by way of winning golden opinions among a certain set in england, to insist on this matter with lord byron. in order to succeed, this person represented lady byron as a victim, telling him she was very ill physically and morally, and declaring the secret cause to be, no doubt, grief at her separation from him and dread of his asserting his rights over ada. lord byron, kind and impressionable as he was, may have been moved at this; but assuredly his resolution of not being reunited to lady byron was not shaken. his only reply was to show me a letter he had written some little time before:-- "the letter i inclose," said he, "may help to explain my sentiments.... i was perfectly sincere when i wrote it, and am so still. but it is difficult for me to withstand the thousand provocations on that subject, which both friends and foes have for seven years been throwing in the way of a man whose feelings were once quick, and whose temper was never patient. but 'returning were as tedious as go o'er.' i feel this as much as ever macbeth did; and it is a dreary sensation, which at least avenges the real or imaginary wrongs of one of the two unfortunate persons whom it concerns." here is the letter he wrote from pisa to lady byron:-- "i have to acknowledge the receipt of ada's hair, which is very soft and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years old, if i may judge from what i recollect of some in augusta's possession, taken at that age. but it don't curl, perhaps from its being let grow. "i also thank you for the inscription of the date and name, and i will tell you why: i believe that they are the only two or three words of your handwriting in my possession. for your letters i returned, and except the two words, or rather the one word, 'household,' written twice in an old account-book, i have no other. i burnt your last note for two reasons:--firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, i wished to take your word without documents, which are the worldly resources of suspicious people. "i suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about ada's birthday--the th of december, i believe. she will then be six, so that in about twelve more i shall have some chance of meeting her; perhaps sooner, if i am obliged to go to england by business or otherwise. recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or nearness: every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our mutual feelings, which must always have one rallying-point as long as our child exists, which i presume we both hope will be long after either of her parents. "the time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer one of our prior acquaintance. we both made a bitter mistake; but now it is over, and irrevocably so. for at thirty-three on my part, and a few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life, still it is one when the habits and thoughts are generally so formed as to admit of no modification; and as we could not agree when younger, we should with difficulty do so now. "i say all this, because i own to you that, notwithstanding every thing, i considered our reunion as not impossible for more than a year after the separation; but then i gave up the hope entirely and forever. but this very impossibility of reunion seems to me, at least, a reason why, on all the few points of discussion which can arise between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve, perhaps more easily than nearer connections. for my own part, i am violent, but not malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentment. to you, who are colder and more concentrated, i would just hint that you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a worse feeling for duty. i assure you that i bear you now (whatever i may have done) no resentment whatever. remember that if you have injured me in aught, this forgiveness is something; and that if i have injured you, it is something more still, if it be true, as moralists say, that the most offending are the least forgiving. "whether the offense has been solely on my side or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, i have ceased to reflect upon any but two things, viz., that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again. i think if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference to myself, it will be better for all three. yours ever, "noel byron." this letter, though never sent, requires no further proofs. it can now be understood, although the contrary has been said, that lord byron's resolution never again to unite with lady byron was irrevocable; but that, however, a reconciliation would have pleased him, on account of his daughter, and because no feeling of hatred could find room in his great _soul_. footnotes: [footnote : "in none of the persons he admired," says moore, "did i meet with a union of qualities so well fitted to succeed in the difficult task of winning him into fidelity and happiness as in the lady in question. combining beauty of the highest order with a mind intelligent and ingenuous, having just learning enough to give refinement to her taste, and far too much taste to make pretensions to learning; with a patrician spirit proud as lord byron's, but showing it only in a delicate generosity of spirit, a feminine high-mindedness, which would have led her to tolerate the defects of her husband in consideration of his noble qualities and his glory, and even to sacrifice silently her own happiness rather than violate the responsibility in which she stood pledged to the world for his."] [footnote : this circumstance was his proposal for miss milbank; we shall see presently how it had taken place.] [footnote : "lady byron," said lord byron at pisa, "and mr. medwin were continually making portraits of me; each one more unlike than the other."] [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : at this time of embarrassment he borrowed a large sum to give to coleridge.] [footnote : moore, p. .] [footnote : moore's life, vol. iii. p. .] [footnote : it is true that once lord byron discharged a pistol, by accident, in lady byron's room, when she was _enciente_. this action, coupled with the preoccupations and sadness overwhelming lord byron's mind at this time, and further aided by the insinuation of mrs. claremont, made lady byron begin and continue to suspect that he was mad, and so fully did she believe it, that from that hour, she could never see him come near her without trembling. it was under the influence of this absurd idea that she left him. lady byron was not guilty of the reports then current against him. they were spread abroad by her parents: she, on the contrary, as long as she thought him mad, felt great sorrow at it. it was only when she had to persuade herself that he was not mad, that she vowed hatred against him, convinced as she was that he had only married her out of revenge, and not from love. but if an imaginary fear, and even an unreasonable jealousy may be her excuse (just as one excuses a monomania), can one equally forgive her silence? such a silence is morally what are physically the poisons which kill at once, and defy all remedies, thus insuring the culprit's safety. this silence it is which will ever be her crime, for by it she poisoned the life of her husband.] [footnote : all this is either _false_ or _exaggerated_. religious criticisms were not so mild, though he had not in any way _attacked religion_, and the tories _never forgave_ his attack on the prince regent, which they made a great noise about.] [footnote : see the description of her life made by him to medwin during his stay at pisa.] [footnote : lord byron, in lines wrung from him by anguish and anger, says _the moral clytemnestra of thy lord_.] chapter xxiii. lord byron's gayety and melancholy. his gayety. a great deal has been said about byron's melancholy. his gayety has also been spoken of. as usual, all the judgments pronounced have been more or less false. his temperament is just as little known as his disposition, when people affect to judge him in an exclusive way. let me, then, be permitted in this instance also to re-establish truth on its only sure basis, namely, facts. lord byron was so often gay that several of his biographers had thought themselves justified in asserting that _gayety_ and not _melancholy_ predominated in his nature. even mr. galt, who only knew him at that period of his life when melancholy certainly predominated, nevertheless uses these expressions:--"singular as it may seem, the poem itself ('beppo,' his first essay of facetious poetry) has a stronger tone of gayety than his graver works have of melancholy, commonly believed to have been (i think unjustly) the predominant trait in his character."[ ] many others have said the same thing. the truth is, that if by giving way to reflection--which was a necessity of his genius--and through circumstances--which were a fatality of his destiny--he has shown himself melancholy in his writings and very often in his dispositions, it is no less certain that by temperament and taste, by the activity, penetration, and complex character of his mind, he very often showed himself to be extremely gay. no one better than he seized upon the absurd and ridiculous side of things or more easily found cause for laughter. his gayety--the result of a frank, open, volatile nature, full of varying moods--was easily excited by any absurdities, ridiculous pretensions, or witty sallies; and then he became so expansive and charming, body and soul with him both seemed to laugh in such unison, that it was impossible not to catch the contagion; but his laughter was ever devoid of malice. slight defects of harmony in things, or proportion, or mutual relation, easily gave rise to mirthful sensations in him. being full of admiration for the beautiful, and having, moreover, a great sense of mutual fitness, and much activity of mind, it was with extraordinary and instinctive promptitude that he seized upon the contradictory relations existing between objects, and indeed on all showing a voluntary absence of order and beauty in the conduct of free reasonable beings. his laughter was then quite as æsthetical as it was innocent. and even if it were not admitted, as it is by all philosophical moralists, that no sort of personal calculation enters into this entirely spontaneous emotion, no sentiment of superiority over the being we are laughing at--for _selfishness and laughter never coexist_--if it were possible, i say, to doubt all this, even then to see lord byron laugh would have sufficed to give the right conviction. for truly his mirth was a charming thing; the very air surrounding him appeared to laugh. then would his soul, that often required to emerge from its deep reflections, unbend itself, and alternately disport or repose in utter self-abandonment. it dismissed thought, as it were, in order to become a child again; to deliver itself over to all the caprices of those myriad changeful fugitive impressions that course through the brain at moments of excitement. moore often recurs to byron's liveliness. "nothing, indeed, could be more amusing and delightful.... it was like the bursting gayety of a boy let loose from school, and seemed as if there was no extent of fun or tricks of which he was not capable." when moore visited him at mira, in the autumn of , and accompanied him to venice, the former expressed himself as follows in his memorandum of that occasion:-- "as we proceeded across the lagoon in his gondola the sun was just setting, and it was an evening such as romance would have chosen for a first sight of venice, rising 'with her tiara of bright towers' above the wave; while to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, i behold it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its glories, and sung of that fair city of the sea thus grandly:-- 'i stood in venice, on the bridge of sighs; a palace and a prison on each hand: i saw from out the wave her structures rise as from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: a thousand years their cloudy wings expand around me, and a dying glory smiles o'er the far times, when many a subject land look'd to the winged lion's marble piles, where venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles!' "but whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which i now viewed it was altogether the reverse of what might have been expected. the exuberant gayety of my companion, and the recollections--any thing but romantic--into which our conversation wandered, put at once completely to flight all poetical and historical associations; and our course was, i am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and laughter till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend's palazzo on the grand canal. all that ever happened, of gay or ridiculous, during our london life together; his scrapes and my lecturings; our joint adventures with the bores and blues, the two great enemies, as he always called them, of london happiness; our joyous nights together at walter's, kinnaird's, etc.; and that 'd--d supper of rancliffe's, which ought to have been a dinner;' all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a flow of humor and hilarity on his side of which it would have been difficult for persons even far graver than even i can pretend to be, not to have caught the contagion." lord byron was especially prone to mirth and fun in the society of those he liked; to jest and laugh with any one was a great proof of his sympathy for them. when he wrote to absent dear ones, he would constantly say, "i have many things to tell you for us to laugh over together." in several letters addressed from greece to madame g----, he informs her of these treasures of mirth, held in reserve for the day of meeting, that they might laugh together. lord byron rarely used flattering language to those he loved. it was rather by looks than by words that he expressed his feelings and his approbation. his delight with intimates was to bring out strongly their defects, as well as their qualities and merits, by dint of jests, clever innuendo, and charming sallies of humor. the promptitude with which he discovered the slightest weakness, the faintest symptom of exaggeration or affectation, can hardly be credited. it might almost be said that the persons on whom he bestowed affection became _transparent_ for him, that he dived into their thoughts and feelings. it was this state of mind especially that gave rise to those sallies of wit which formed such a striking feature of his intelligence. then his conversation really became quite dazzling. in his glowing language all objects assumed unforeseen and picturesque aspects. new and striking thoughts followed from him in rapid succession, and the flame of his genius lighted up as if winged with wildfire. those who have not known him at these moments can form no idea of what it was from his works. for, in the silence of his study, when, pen in hand, he was working out his grand conceptions, the lightning strokes lost much of their brilliant intensity; and although we find, especially in "don juan" and "beppo," delightful pages of rich comic humor, only those who knew him can judge how superior still his conversation was. but in this gay exercise of his faculties, which was to him a real enjoyment in all his sallies or even in his railleries, not one iota of malice could be traced--unless we call by that name the amusement springing from mirth and wit indulged. even if his shafts were finely pointed, they were at the same time so inoffensive that the most susceptible could not be wounded. the great pleasure he took in jesting appears to have belonged to his organization, for it accompanied him throughout life. we have already seen what his nurses, his preceptors, and the friends of his childhood said on this subject. we have observed his sympathy for the old cup-bearer of his family mansion; the pleasantries expended on the quack lavander, who was always promising to cure his foot, and never did; the jesting tone of his boyish correspondence; afterward the masqueradings that took place at newstead abbey; then again his gay doings with moore and rogers in london; the jests pervading the correspondence of his maturer years; then their concentration in "beppo" and "don juan;" and finally, how often, even in greece, when he was already unwell at missolonghi, he could not help giving way to pleasantry and childish play to such a degree that good dr. kennedy, when he wished to convert him to his somewhat intolerant orthodoxy at cephalonia, found one of the obstacles to consist in the difficulty of keeping lord byron serious. "he was fond," says the doctor, "of saying smart and witty things, and never allowed an opportunity of punning to escape him.... he generally showed high spirits and hilarity.... i have heard him say several witty things; but as i was always anxious to keep him grave and present important subjects for his consideration, after allowing the laugh to pass i again endeavored to resume the seriousness of the conversation, while his lordship constantly did the same." and then kennedy adds:--"my impression from them was, that they were unworthy a man of his accomplishments: i mean the desire of jesting."[ ] these words well characterize the honest methodist, who, like many other good and noble minds, yet could not understand fun. this incapability is also sometimes the case with persons of a sour, ill-natured, or susceptible disposition, whose excessive vanity is shocked at all simple, innocent explosions of gayety and pleasantry.[ ] colonel stanhope, who knew lord byron at the same period, and who was not a methodist, but who from other causes could not appreciate the poet's vivacious wit, said:-- "the mind of lord byron was like a volcano, full of fire and wrath, sometimes calm, often dazzling and playful.... as a companion," he adds, "no one could be more amusing than lord byron; he had neither pedantry nor affectation about him, but was natural and playful as a boy. his conversation resembled a stream; sometimes smooth, sometimes rapid, and sometimes rushing down in cataracts. it was a mixture of philosophy and slang, of every thing,--like his 'don juan.' he was a patient, and in general a very attentive, listener. when, however, he did engage with earnestness in conversation, his ideas succeeded each other with such uncommon rapidity that he could not control them. they burst from him impetuously; and although he both attended to and noticed the remarks of others, yet he did not allow these to check his discourse for an instant." "there was usually," writes count gamba, his friend and companion in greece, in his interesting work, entitled "last travels of lord byron in greece," "a liveliness of spirit and a tendency to joke, even at times of great danger, when other men would have become serious and pre-occupied. this disposition of mind gave him a kind of air of frankness and sincerity which was quite irresistible with those persons even who were most prejudiced against him." this allusion of count gamba refers to the letter which byron wrote in the midst of the suliotes, among whom he had taken refuge during the storm and to escape the turks. "if any thing," writes lord byron, on the point of embarking for missolonghi, and in his last letter to moore, "if any thing in the way of fever, fatigue, famine, or otherwise, should cut short the middle age of a brother warbler, like garcilasso de la vega, i pray you remember me in 'your smiles and wine.' "i have hopes that the cause will triumph; but, whether it does or no, still 'honor must be minded as strictly as a milk diet.' i trust to observe both. byron." "it is matter of history," continues count gamba, "that lord byron, in consequence of vexations to which he was ever a victim, added to the rigorous diet which he followed (he only fed upon vegetables and green tea, to show that he could live as frugally as a greek soldier), and from the impossibility which he found to take any exercise at missolonghi, had a nervous fit, which deprived him of the power of speech and alarmed all his friends and acquaintances. when the crisis had worn off, he merely laughed over it." "even at missolonghi," says parry, who knew him there only in the midst of troubles and vexations of every description and quite at the close of his life, "he loved to jest in words and actions. these pleasantries lightened his spirits, and prevented him from dwelling on disagreeable thoughts." perhaps this disposition of character was the result of his french origin, for it is scarcely known or even appreciated in england. "yet," exclaims the greatest-minded woman of our day (madame g. sand), "it is that disposition which forms the charm of every delicate intimacy, and which often prevents our committing many follies and stupidities. "to look for the ridiculous side of things is to discover their weakness. to laugh at the dangers in the midst of which we find ourselves is to get accustomed to brave them; like the french, who go into action with a laugh and a song. to quiz a friend is often to save him from a weakness in which our pity might perhaps have allowed him to linger. to laugh at one's self is to preserve one's self from the effects of an exaggerated self-love. i have noticed that the people who never joke are gifted with a childish and insupportable vanity." nevertheless, there are high and noble natures that never laugh, and are incapable of understanding the pleasures of gayety. but minds like these have some vacuum; they certainly lack what is called wit. lord byron's gayety, full of dazzling wit and varied tints, like his other faculties, never went beyond the limits befitting its exercise in a beautiful soul. as much as the truly ridiculous, that which a great writer has defined, "_the strength, small or great, of a free being, out of proportion with its end_,"--as much, i say, as the truly ridiculous attracted and amused him, just as much did grave, moral, and physical disorders, produced by corruption of body or soul, sadden and repel his nature, so full of harmony. he could never laugh at these latter. the grave disorders of soul that exist in free beings, and that are therefore voluntary, raised sadness, anger, or indignation in him, according to the degree of vice or disorder. we need seek no other origin for his bitterest satires in verse and prose. great ugliness and physical defects certainly inspired him with great disgust, consequent upon his passion for the beautiful; but, at the same time, involuntary misfortunes excited his liveliest compassion, often testified by the most generous deeds. we know, for instance, that lord byron had a defect in one of his feet, but a defect so slight--although it has been greatly exaggerated--that people have never been able to say in which of the two feet it did exist. nor did it in any way diminish the grace and activity all his movements displayed. if its existence were painful for him, that must have been because his sense of harmony looked upon this defect as detrimental to the perfection of his physical beauty. but whatever may have been the cause of this sensibility, it sufficed in any case to make him feel a generous compassion for all those afflicted with any defect analogous to his own. lord harrington, then colonel stanhope, says:-- "contrary to what we observe in most people, lord byron, who was always very sensitive to the sufferings of others, showed greatest sympathy for those who had any imperfection akin to his own." at ravenna, his favorite beggar limped. and on him lord byron bestowed the privilege of picking up all the largest coins struck down by his dexterous pistol-shots in the forest of pines. we have said he never laughed at any involuntary defect, not even at a person falling (as is so often the case), for fear it might have been caused by bodily weakness, neither did he ridicule any of the weaknesses or shortcomings of intelligence. he did not laugh at a bad poet on account of his bad verses. when he was at pisa, an irishman there was engaged in translating the "divine comedy." the translation was very heavy and faulty; but the translator was most enthusiastic about the great poet, and absolutely lived on the hope of getting his work published. all the english at pisa, including the kind shelley, were turning him into ridicule. lord byron alone would not join in the laugh. t----'s sincerity won for him grace and compassion. indeed lord byron did still more; for he wrote and entreated murray to publish the work, so as to give the poor poet this consolation. not content with that step, he wrote to moore to beg jeffrey not to criticise him, undertaking himself to ask gifford the same thing, through murray. "perhaps they might speak of the commentaries without touching on the text," said he; and then he added with his usual pleasantry, "however, we must not trust to it. _those dogs! the text is too tempting._"[ ] nor did he laugh at exaggerated devotion, even if it were extravagant or superstitious, provided he thought it sincere. countess g----, paternal aunt of countess g----, the greatest beauty of romagna in , had fallen into such extreme mystical devotion, through the brutal jealousy of her husband, that she died in the odor of sanctity. this lady wrote to her brother, count g----, at genoa, saying how happy she was, and giving no end of praise to "the good jesuit fathers," and speaking of her devotion to st. teresa. madame g----, having sent one of these letters to lord byron, he answered: "i consider all that as _very respectable_, and, moreover, _enviable_. the aunt is right; i wish i could love the good fathers and st. teresa. after all, what does this devotee of st. teresa, this friend of the good jesuit fathers, want? happiness; and she has found it! what else are we seeking for?" we have already seen elsewhere[ ] that lord byron never, at any period of his life, laughed at religion or its _sincere_ votaries, whatever might be their creed of belief. provided their errors came from the heart, they commanded his respect. dallas himself, in reference to the skeptical stanzas of his twenty-second year, can not help rendering him justice. "i have not noticed," says he, "a spirit of mockery in you; and you have the little-known art of not wishing that others should be of your opinion in matters of religious belief. i am less disinterested; i have the greatest desire, nay, even a great hope, to see you some day believe as i do." we have seen, also, what kennedy said of him in greece[ ]. dr. millingen bears the same testimony:-- "during the whole of the time that i visited him, i never heard him utter a single word of contempt for the christian religion. on the contrary, he used often to say, that nothing could be more reprehensible than to turn into ridicule those who believed in it, since in this strange world it is equally difficult to arrive at knowing what one is or is not to believe; and since many freethinkers teach doctrines which are as much beyond the reach of human comprehension as the mysteries of the revelation itself." when, by habit of looking at serious things from their absurd and ridiculous side, he feared he had done the same with regard to some religious ceremony, he at once hastened to explain himself. thus he writes to moore from pisa:-- "i am afraid that this sounds flippant, but i don't mean it to be so; only my turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then. still, i do assure you that i am a very good christian. whether you believe me in this, i do not know." but much as he respected sincere religious feelings, equally did he detest that hypocrisy which despises in secret the idol it adores in public. even at the transition period of what has been called his skepticism, it was extremely distasteful to him to speak against religion, to despise and mock even the hollow worship practiced outwardly from human motives and personal interest. in livadia at this time he met with a greek bishop, whose actions were quite at variance with his language. how great the antipathy lord byron conceived for him, may be seen by the notes appended to the first and second cantos of "childe harold." for the pharisees of our days he felt all the anger due to whited sepulchres. no, certainly, it was not true virtue in general, nor any one virtue in particular, that he laughed at sometimes; nor was it friendship, or love, or religion, or any truly respectable sentiment that ever excited his mirth. he only ridiculed semblances, vain appearances, when those who paraded them did so from _personal interest_. lord byron knew too well, by experience, that many virtues admired and set forth as such do but wear a mask in reality; and he thought it useful for society to divest them of it, and show the hidden visage. why should he have shown any consideration for the virtue that patronizes charity-balls, in order to acquire the right of violating, with impunity, the duties of a christian wife? or that other female virtue which weighs itself in the balance with the privilege of directing almacks? or that, wishing to unite the advantages of modesty with the gratification of passion? in short, why should he have shown consideration for persons whose merit consists in never _allowing themselves to be seen as they are_? he was very disrespectful, likewise, toward certain friendships that he knew by experience to be full of wordy counsel, but finding nothing to say in the way of consolation or defense. this peculiar variety of friendship had made him suffer greatly. in his serious poems he calls it "_the loss of his illusions_;" and expresses himself with misanthropical indignation, or with a bleeding heart. but, returning to a milder philosophy, he ended by smiling and jesting at it, in words like these:-- "look'd grave and pale to see her friend's fragility, for which most friends reserve their sensibility." seriously; was he bound to any great tenderness toward such friendship as that? and does it not suffice to set lord byron right with _true friendship_ to hear him say, after having laughed about false friends:-- "but this is not my maxim: had it been, some heart-aches had been spared me: yet i care not-- i would not be a tortoise in his screen of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not. 'tis better, on the whole, to have felt and seen that which humanity may bear, or bear not: twill teach discernment to the sensitive, and not to pour their ocean in a sieve."[ ] friendship was so necessary to him that he wrote to moore, on the eve of his marriage, th of october, : "an' there were any thing in marriage that would make a difference between my friends and me, particularly in your case, i would none on't." people should read all he said of lord clare and moore, and see with what almost jealous susceptibility he guarded the title of friend,[ ] before they can understand the value he attached to true friendship. but among many of the _privileges_ he conceded to friendship, _duties_ also held their place. and if we pass from friendship to love, could he really bestow such respect on the loves of a lady adeline, or of those who, he said, "embrace you to-day, thinking of the novel they will write to-morrow." his ideal of true love has been noticed; and he became impatient when he saw it confounded with any thing else. at twenty-two years of age he wrote to his young friend, the rev. mr. harness:-- "i told you the fate of b---- and h---- in my last. so much for these sentimentalists, who console themselves in their stews for the loss--the never-to-be-recovered loss--the despair of the refined attachment of a couple of drabs! you censure my life, harness: when i compare myself with these men, my elders and my betters, i really begin to conceive myself a monument of prudence--a walking statue--without feeling or failing; and yet the world in general hath given me a proud pre-eminence over them in profligacy. yet i like the men, and, god knows, ought not to condemn their aberrations. but i own i feel provoked when they dignify all this by the name of love--romantic attachments for things marketable for a dollar!" yes, lord byron never did respect the love that can be bartered for dollars. and afterward, when irritation had given way to a milder and more tolerant philosophy, he took the liberty of laughing at it, both in prose and verse. it may however, be urged against him, that he sometimes turned into ridicule even his deepest sentiments; and moore remarks this as a defeat, apropos of the jesting tone he assumed once at bologna, when writing to hoppner. but moore forgets to say, that while his heart called him to ravenna, he was speaking against the counsels given by hoppner, who, in order to deter him from this visit, for reasons previously cited,[ ] had made the darkest prognostications regarding its consequence; and though he could not shake lord byron's determination, it is very probable that he may have upset his imagination. thus he was trying to show himself ready for every thing. such pleasantries are like the song of one who is alarmed in the dark. moreover, from his manner of judging human nature, and his lively sense of the ridiculous, lord byron was well aware that a light tone is alone admissible for speaking to others of a love they do not share, and more especially when they disapprove of it. he felt that the gayety of ovid and the gallantry of horace are better suited to indifferent people than petrarch's high-flown phrases and sentimentalities, or werther's despair. it was through this same nice perception of the sentiments entertained by indifferent individuals that he sometimes adopted a light, playful tone in conversation, or in his correspondence, when speaking of friendship, devoted feelings of any kind, and a host of sentiments very serious and deep within his own heart, but which he believed less calculated to interest others. and if sometimes his singular penetration of the human heart called forth mockery, it sprang more frequently from seeing fine sentiments put forth in flagrant contradiction with conduct, or morality looked upon as a mere thing of outward decorum, speedily to be set aside, if once the actors were removed from the eyes of the world. he would not grant his esteem to fine sentiments expressed by writers who could be bribed; to the promises of heroes who noisily enroll combatants, while themselves remaining safe by their fireside; or to the generosity that displays itself from a balcony. and, assuredly, he had a right to be particular in his estimate of this latter virtue, which he himself always practiced secretly, and in the shade. he would not consent to its being bartered, nor that people should have the honor of it without any sacrifice on their part. thus he replied to moore, who was in an ecstasy about the generosity of lord some one:--"i shall believe all that when you prove to me that there is no advantage in openly helping a man like you." with wonderful, and, i might almost say, supernatural perspicacity, lord byron penetrated into the arcana of souls, and did not come out thence with a very good opinion of what he had seen. but, kind as he was, he did not like to probe too deeply the motives of others, especially as a rule of action for himself. as he says in his admirable satire of "don juan,"-- "'tis sad to burrow deep to roots of things, so much are they besmeared with earth." lastly, his mockeries were all directed against the vice he most abhorred--_hypocrisy_; for he looked upon that as a gangrene to the soul, the cause of most of the evils that afflict society, and certainly of all his own misfortunes. as long as he was obliged to bear it, under the depressing influence of england's misty atmosphere, he felt by turns saddened and indignant. but when he reached italy, his soul caught the bright rays that emanate from a southern sky, and he preferred to combat hypocrisy with the lighter weapons of pleasantry. but whichsoever arm he wielded, he always pursued the enemy remorselessly, following into every fastness, of which none knew better than himself each winding and each resource. for hypocrisy had been the bane of his life; it had rendered useless for happiness that combination he possessed of heaven's choicest gifts; the plenitude of affections, numberless qualities most charming in domestic life, for he had been exiled from the family circle. hypocrisy had _forced_ him to despise a country also that could act toward him like an unnatural parent, rather than a true mother, wounding him with calumnies, and obstinately depreciating him, solely because she allowed hypocrisy to reign on her soil. such, then, were the virtues which he permitted himself to mock at. "_we must not make out a ridicule where none exists_," says la bruyère; but it is well to see that which has a being, and to draw it forth gracefully, in a manner that may both please and instruct. as to true, holy, pure, undeniable virtues, no one more than he admired and respected them. "any trait of virtue or courage," says one of his biographers, "caused him deep emotion, and would draw tears from his eyes, provided always he were convinced that it had not been actuated by a desire of shining or producing effect." "a generous action," says another, "the remembrance of patriotism, personal sacrifice, disinterestedness, would cause in him the most sublime emotions, the most brilliant thoughts." the more his opinion as to the rarity of virtue appeared to him well-founded, the more did he render homage when he met with it. the more he felt the difficulty of overcoming passions, the more did a victory gained over them excite his admiration. "pray make my respects to mrs. hoppner, and assure her of my unalterable reverence for the singular goodness of her disposition, which is not without its reward even in this world. for those who are no great believers in human virtues would discover enough in her to give them a better opinion of their fellow-creatures, and--what is still more difficult--of themselves, as being of the same species, however inferior in approaching its nobler models." at coppet he was more touched by the conjugal affection of the young duchesse de broglie for her husband, than he was attracted by the genius even of her mother, madame de stäel. "nothing," says he in his memoranda, "was more agreeable than to see the manifestation of domestic tenderness in this young woman." when he received at pisa the posthumous message sent by a beautiful, angelic young creature, who had caught a glimpse of him but once, and who, nevertheless, in the solemn hours of her agony, thought of him, and prayed to god for him, it made a deep impression on his mind. "in the evening," says madame g----, "he spoke to me at great length of this piety and touching virtue." mr. stendhall, who knew him during his stay at milan in , says:--"i passed almost all my evenings with lord b. whenever this singular man was excited and spoke with enthusiasm, his sentiments were noble, great, and generous; in short, worthy of his genius." and then when mr. stendhall speaks of walking alone with him in the large green-room at la scala, he adds:-- "lord byron made his appearance for half an hour every evening, holding the most delightful conversation it was ever my good-fortune to hear. a volume of new ideas and generous sentiments came pouring out in such novel form, that one fancied one's self enjoying them for the first time. the rest of the evening the great man lapsed into the english noble." even biographers most hostile to lord byron render justice to his sensibility and respect for real virtue, for all that is true and estimable. and if we seek proofs of the same in his poems and correspondence, we shall find it at every page, not excepting "don juan,"--the satire that most exposed him to the anger and calumny of _cant_. this is why i shall confine myself to borrowing quotations from this poem. for instance, in speaking of military glory, he says:-- "the drying up a single tear has more of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore. "and why?--because it brings self-approbation; whereas the other, after all its glare, shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation, * * * * * * * are nothing but a child of murder's rattles."[ ] and then again:-- "_one_ life saved ... ... is a thing to recollect far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung from the manure of human clay, though deck'd with all the praises ever said or sung; though hymn'd by every harp, unless within your heart join chorus, fame is but a din."[ ] when he speaks of souvaroff, who, with a hand still reeking from the massacre of , combatants, began his dispatch to the autocrat in these words:-- "glory to _god_ and to the empress [catharine]! ismail's ours!" lord byron exclaims:-- "powers eternal! such names mingled! "methinks these are the most tremendous words since 'mené, mené, tekel,' and 'upharsin,' which hands or pens have ever traced of swords. heaven help me! i'm but little of a parson: what daniel read was short-hand of the lord's, severe, sublime; the prophet wrote no farce on the fate of nations;--but this russ so witty could rhyme, like nero, o'er a burning city. "he wrote this polar melody, and set it, duly accompanied by shrieks and groans, which few will sing, i trust, but none forget it-- for i will teach, if possible, the stones to rise against earth's tyrant's."[ ] and then when he speaks of truly virtuous men--the washingtons and franklins--those who preferred a quiet, retired life; so as better to walk in the paths of justice and goodness, like the ancient heroes of sparta, one feels that his words come really from the heart. but if i wished to make extracts of all the proofs contained in his works, of respect and enthusiasm for true virtue, a volume of quotations would be requisite. thus i have only chosen some at hazard, selecting them principally from that admirable satire of "don juan," which combines more deep philosophy and true morality than is to be found in the works of many moralists; and i may likewise say more wit, and knowledge of the human heart, more kindness and indulgence, than ever before were united in a volume of verse or prose, and more, perhaps, than ever will be. yet, despite of all this, the independence, boldness, and above all, the true state of things revealed in "don juan," excited great anger throughout the political, religious, and moral world of england; indeed, passion went so far in distorting, that the tendency and moral bearing of the poem were quite misunderstood. with regard to france, where this satire is only known through a prose translation, which mars half its cleverness, "don juan" serves, however, the purpose of an inexhaustible reservoir, whence writers unwittingly draw much they deem their own. besides, from analogy of race, he is, perhaps, better appreciated in france than in his own country; for few english do understand what true justice he rendered himself when he said,--that, in point of fact, his character was far too lenient, the greatest proof of his muse's discontent being a smile. but if, despite all this evidence, people should still persist, as is very possible, in asserting that lord byron ridiculed, satirized, and denied the existence of real virtues, at least we would ask to have these virtues named, so as to be able to answer. what are the virtues so insulted? is it truth, piety, generosity, firmness, abnegation, devotedness, independence, patriotism, humanity, heroism? but if he denied not one of these, if he only ridiculed and satirized their semblances, their hypocritical shadows, then let critics and envious minds--the ignorant, or the would-be ignorant--let them cease, in the name of justice, thus to offer lying insult to a great spirit no longer able to defend himself. perhaps he did not render sufficient homage to that great and respectable virtue of his country--conjugal fidelity; but he has told us why. it appeared to him that this virtue, supposed to stamp society, was, in truth, more a pretense than a reality among the higher classes in england; and, if he examined his own heart, this virtue wore a name for him that had been the martyrdom of his whole life. i may say, farther, that when he saw a truth shining at the expense of some hypocrisy, he did not _shut it up in his casket of precious things_, to carry them with him to the grave, nor did he only name them in a low voice to his secretaries, because by _speaking aloud he might have done some harm to himself_ (as, however, the great goethe did and _acknowledged_). lord byron, without thinking of the consequences that might ensue to himself, deemed, on the contrary, that truth ought to be courageously unveiled: and to the heroism of deeds he added the heroism of words. it must not be forgotten, either, that there existed a certain kind of timidity among the other elements of his character, and that jesting often helps to season a tiresome conversation, rendering it less difficult, besides enabling us to hide our real sentiments. footnotes: [footnote : galt, p. .] [footnote : kennedy, p. .] [footnote : see galt, with regard to hunt.] [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : see chapter on "religion."] [footnote : ibid.] [footnote : "don juan," canto xiv.] [footnote : see lord byron's letter to mrs. shelley.] [footnote : see his "life in italy."] [footnote : "don juan," canto viii.] [footnote : "don juan," canto ix.] [footnote : ibid. canto viii.] chapter xxiv. the melancholy of lord byron. "to know the real cause of our sadness is near akin to knowing what we are worth."--paradol, _study on moralists_. from all that we have said, and judging from that natural tendency of his mind to look at even serious things on the ridiculous, laughable side, would it be correct to infer that lord byron was always gay, and never melancholy? those maintaining such an opinion, would have to bear too many contradictions. physiology, psychology, and history, would together protest against such an assertion. we affirm, on the contrary, that lord byron was often melancholy; but that, in order to judge well the nature and shades of his melancholy, it is necessary to analyze and observe it, not only in his writings, but also in his conduct through life. whence arose his melancholy? was it one of those moral infirmities, incurable and causeless, commencing from the cradle, like that of rené, whose childhood was morose, and whose youth disdainful; who, ere he had known life, seemed to bend beneath its mysteries; who knowing not how to be young, will no more know how to be old; who in all things wanted order, proportion, harmony, truth; who had nothing to produce equilibrium between the power of genius and the indolence of will? this kind of melancholy is fatal to the practice of any virtue, and seems like a sacrifice of heart on the altar of pride. was it a melancholy like werther's, whose senses, stimulated by passion, of which society opposed the development, carried perturbation also into the moral regions? was it the deep mysterious ailment of hamlet, at once both meek and full of logic? or the sickness of that "masculine breast with feeble arms;" "of that philosopher who only wanted strength to become a saint;" "of that bird without wings," said a woman of genius, "that exhales its calm melancholy plaint on the shores whence vessels depart, and where only shivered remnants return;" the melancholy of an obermann, whose goodness and almost ascetic virtues are palsied for want of equilibrium, and whose discouragement and ennui were only calculated to exercise a baneful influence over the individual, and over humanity? no; the _striking_ characteristics that exist in all these sorts of melancholy are utterly wanting to lord byron's. his was not a melancholy that had become chronic, like rené's, ere arriving at life's maturity. for, whereas, the child rené was gloomy and wearied, the child byron was passionate and sensitive, but gay, amusing, and frolicsome. his fits of melancholy were only developed under the action of thought, reflection, and circumstances. nor was it werther's kind of melancholy; for, even at intensest height of passion, reason never abandoned its sway over lord byron's energetic soul; with himself, if not with his heroes, personal sacrifice always took, or wished to take, the place of satisfied passion. it was not that of hamlet, for a single instant's dissimulation would have been impossible for lord byron. it was not that of obermann, for his energetic nature could not partake the weakness and powerlessness of oberon; his strength equalled his genius. it was not, either, that of childe harold, for this hero of his first poem is, in the first and second canto, the personification of youthful exquisites, with senses dulled and satiated by excesses to which lord byron had never yielded when he composed this type, since he was then only twenty-one years of age, and had hardly quitted the university, where he lived surrounded by intellectual friends, who have all testified to his mode of life there, and then at newstead abbey, where he may have become a little dissipated, but still without any excess capable of engendering satiety. nor was his melancholy that of the darker heroes he has described in "lara" and "manfred," for he never knew remorse; and we have already seen to what must be attributed all these identifications between himself and his heroes.[ ] in general, these kinds of melancholy have other causes, or else they arise from individual organization. with him, on the contrary, melancholy always originated from some moral external cause, which would tend to show, that without such cause, his melancholy would not have existed, or else might have been quite overcome. but, before arriving at a definition, we must analyze it, after taking a rapid glance at his whole life. it has even been said, that our conduct in early years offers a sure indication of our future; that the man does but continue the child. let us then begin by studying byron during his childhood. we know from the testimony of his nurses and preceptors, both in scotland and england, that goodness, sensibility, tenderness, and likewise gayety, with a tendency to jesting, formed the basis of his character. nevertheless, a yearning after solitude led him into solitary distant walks, along the sea-shore when he was living at aberdeen, or amid the wild poetic mountains of scotland, near the romantic banks of the dee, often putting his life in danger, and causing much alarm to his mother. but this sprang simply from his ardent nature, which, far from inclining him to melancholy, made earth seem like a paradise. has he not described these ecstasies of his childhood in "tasso's lament:"-- "from my very birth my soul was drunk with love," etc. this want of solitude became still more remarkable as reflection acquired further development. at harrow, he would leave his favorite games and dear companions to go and sit alone on the stone which bears his name. but this want of living alone sometimes in the fairyland of his imagination, feeding on his own sentiments, and the bright illusions of his youthful soul, was that what is yclept melancholy? no, no; what he experienced was but the harbinger of genius, destined to dazzle the world; disraeli, that great observer of the race of geniuses, so affirms:-- "eagles fly alone," exclaims sydney, "while sheep are ever to be found in flocks." almost all men of genius have experienced this precocious desire of solitude. but lord byron, who united so many contrasts, and, according to moore, the faculties of several men, had also much of the child about him. and, while almost all children belonging to the race of great intellects, have neither taste nor aptitude for bodily exercises and games of dexterity, he, by exception to the general rule, on coming out of his reveries, experienced equally the want of giving himself up passionately to the play and stir of companions who were inferior to him in intelligence. up to this, then, we can discover no symptom in him of that _fatal_ kind of melancholy--that which is _hereditary_ and _causeless_. but anon, his heart begins to beat high, and the boy already courts aspirations, ardent desires, illusions that may well be destined to agitate, afflict, or even overwhelm him. meanwhile let us follow him from harrow to the vacations passed at nottingham and southwell. there we shall see him acting plays with enthusiasm, making himself the life of the social circle assembled round the amiable pigott family, delighting in music, and writing his first effusions in verse. certainly it was not melancholy that predominated in his early poems, but rather generosity, kindness, sincerity, the ardor of a loving heart, the aspiration after all that is passionate, noble, great, virtuous and heroic; but these verses also make us feel by a thousand delicate shades of sentiment portrayed, and by cherished illusions pertinaciously held, that melancholy may hereafter succeed in making new passage for itself, and finding out the path to that loving, passionate heart. and, in truth, it did more than once penetrate there. for death snatched from him, first, two dear companions of his childhood, and then the young cousin, who beneath an angel's guise on earth, first awakened the fire of love. and afterward lord byron gave his heart, of fifteen, to another affection, was deceived, met with no return,[ ] but, on the contrary, was sorely wounded. yet all the melancholy thus engendered was accidental and factitious, springing from the excessive sensibility of his physical and moral being, as well as from circumstances; his griefs resembled the usual griefs of youth. it was in these dispositions that he quitted harrow for cambridge university. there, one of the greatest sorrows of his life overtook him. it was a complex sentiment, made up of regret at having left his beloved harrow, of grief at the recent loss of a cherished affection, and, lastly, sadness caused by a very modest and very singular feeling for a youth of his age; he regretted no longer feeling himself a child, which regret can only be explained by a presentiment of therefore soon being called on to renounce other illusions. this is how he spoke of it still, when at ravenna, in :-- "it was one of the most fatal and crushing sentiments of my life, to feel that i was no longer a child." he fell ill from it. but all these sorts of melancholy, arising from _palpable avowed_ causes, having their origin in the heart, might equally find their cure in the heart. already did imagination transport him toward his beloved ida, and he consoled himself by saying, that if love has wings, friendship ought to have none. if this were an illusion, he completed it by writing that charming poem of his youth, "friendship is love without wings."[ ] at cambridge he met again one of his dearest friends from harrow, edward long; he also made acquaintance with the amiable eddlestone, and his melancholy disappeared in the genial atmosphere of friendship. as long as these dear friends remained near him he was happy, even at cambridge. but they were called to different careers, and destiny separated them. long, with whom he had passed such happy days,[ ] left the first to go into the guards. eddlestone remained, but lord byron himself was already about to quit cambridge. during the vacation, we see him modestly preparing his first poems intended as an offering to friendship; then going to a watering-place with some respectable friends; devoting himself with ardor to dramatic representations at the amateur theatre at southwell, where he was more than ever the life of society; and thus he remained a whole year away from cambridge, often seeing his dear long again in london, and visiting harrow with him. when he returned, in , to cambridge, long had already left, and eddlestone was shortly to go; thus, he no longer heard the song of that amiable youth, nor the flute of his dear long, and melancholy well-nigh seized hold on him. nevertheless, he consoled himself with projects for the future. besides, he was already nineteen years of age, had made some progress in the journey of life, probably leaving some illusions behind him on the bushes that lined the roadside, and perhaps his soul had already lost somewhat of its early purity. he had certainly seen that many things in the moral world were far removed from the ideal forms with which he had invested them; that love, even friendship, virtue, patriotism, generosity, and goodness, by no means attained the height of his first convictions. a year before, he had said: "i have tasted the joy and the bitterness of love." willingly again would he have given way to the emotions of the heart; but he too soon perceived that to do so were a useless, dangerous luxury,--a language scarcely understood in the world in which he moved; that the idols he had believed of precious metal, were, in reality, made of vile clay. then he also resolved on taking his degrees in vice; but, unlike others, he did so _with disgust_, and he called satiety, not the _quantity_, but the _quality_ of the aliment. a year before he had also said: "_i have found that a friend may promise and yet deceive._" magnanimous as he was, he made advances to the guilty friend, and took half the blame on himself; but in vain was he generous, saying, with tears that flowed from his heart to his pen:-- "you knew that my soul, that my heart, my existence, if danger demanded, were wholly your own; you knew me unalter'd by years or by distance, devoted to love and to friendship alone." and then:-- "repentance will cancel the vow you have made." and again: "with me no corroding resentment shall live: my bosom is calm'd by the simple reflection, that both may be wrong, and that both should forgive." the friend did not return, and lord byron's generous, pure, delicate nature--fearful lest he might be in the wrong--could only find peace in trying to offer reparation. he wrote to lord clare:-- "i have, therefore, made all the reparation in my power, by apologizing for my mistake, though with very faint hopes of success. his answer has not arrived, and, most probably, never will. however, i have eased my own conscience by the atonement, which is humiliating enough to one of my disposition; yet i could not have slept satisfied with the reflection of having, even unintentionally, injured any individual. i have done all that could be done to repair the injury, and there the affair must rest. whether we renew our intimacy or not is of very trivial consequence." but although he could no longer rely entirely upon his heart for defending his loved illusions so cruelly attacked by reality, yet it was not possible for him to put out of sight his ideal of all the beauties of soul whose presence was a condition of his being. and it was this presence that made material dissipated life, and also the intellectual routine existence at granta, both appear so unattractive to him. he wrote a satire on them, and the blame inflicted shows his fine nature. when evil was thus judged, thus condemned, alike by pen and heart, there could be no real danger; not even had it power to sadden him. a more formidable peril menaced him from another side. sadness might now reach his heart through his mind. that deep intellect, so given to analyze, meditate, generalize, from childhood upward, according to the relative capacity of age, was ever busy with the great problems of life. it has been seen that he began to worry even his nurses with childish questions, and afterward much more to embarrass his tutors, masters etc., and especially the excellent dr. glenny at dulwich. a natural tendency fortified by early religious education evidently drew his heart to god; but, on the other hand, a logical mind, fond of investigating every thing, made him experience the necessity of examining his grounds of belief. the answers, all ready prepared, made to him on great questions could not satisfy him; he required to discuss their basis. already the increasing play of his faculties had been revealed in that beautiful prayer to the divinity which constitutes his profession of faith and worship, "every line of which," says moore, "is instinct with fervent sadness, as of a heart that grieves at loss of its illusions." on arriving this year at cambridge, he found, amid a circle of intellectual companions which moore calls "a brilliant pleiad," a young man of genius, an extraordinary thinker, a mind that had, perhaps, some affinity to his own, but which, devoid of his sensibility and logic, surpassed him in hardihood; a bold spirit, striving to scrutinize the inscrutable, and, not content with analysis, desirous to arrive at _conclusions_. through the natural influence of example, and more especially the irresistible fascination exercised by a great intelligence, uniting also the spirit of fun, so amusing to lord byron because so like his own; from all these causes, matthews exercised an immense influence over him. this young man loved to plunge his head into depths from whence he emerged all dizzy. lord byron was guided by too reasonable a mind to arrive at such results. he refused to follow where deformity and evil were to ensue, and persisted still in looking upward. still, however, he allowed his eyes to wander over the magic glass, where danced a few pretended certainties conjoined with a host of doubts. the first he rejected, as too antipathetic to his soul, but perhaps he did not sufficiently repel all the doubts. and, being no longer alarmed at sounding such depths, he imbibed seeds of doctrine capable of producing incredulity or, at least, skepticism. happily these seeds required a dry soil to fructify, and his, being so rich, they _perished_, after a short period of wretched existence. all these influences, and this precocious experience, were for him at this time a sort of personification of mephistopheles, although not entailing serious consequences; for in the main his belief was not deeply shaken. it had no other effect than to throw him, for a time, into uncertainty on points necessary to him, "and to teach him," says moore, "to feel less embarrassed in a _sort_ of skepticism." this disagreement between his reason and his aspirations becoming deeper and wider, his mind ceased always to follow his heart. but the latter following rather the former, though with sadness and fatigue, and all the problems of life becoming more and more enveloped in darkness, it is possible that he passed through gloomy hours, wherein equivocal expressions escaped his pen. in a word, if he avoided dizziness, he was not equally fortunate with regard to ennui. "ennui," says the clever viscomte d'yzarn de freissinet, in his deep and delightful book, "_les pensées grises_," "ennui is felt by ordinary minds because they can not understand earth, and by superior ones because they can not understand heaven." let us now observe byron after he had taken his degrees at the university, and when about to enter into possession of his estates. on seeing this young nobleman of twenty, almost an orphan, commence his career perfectly independent, call around him at newstead abbey his dear companions of harrow and cambridge, make up masquerades with them, don the costume of abbots and monks, pass the nights in running about his own parks and the heather of sherwood forest, and the days amid youthful eccentricities, amiable hospitality, and london dissipation, it would seem as if this odd, shifting, noisy kind of life, however efficient for developing knowledge of men and things, must inevitably obliterate all trace of melancholy. but it was not so; the responsibilities of life began too soon for him, and the joyous horizon of his twentieth year was already dotted with black marks indicative of the approaching tempest. in the first place, the cassock of a real priest never reposed on a heart more sensitive, endowed with feelings deeper and less hostile to audacity of mind. moreover, the griefs of his boyhood had sown seeds of sadness in his heart, and the unjust cruel criticism lavished on his early poems had already inflicted a deep wound. lord byron, it is true, thought to heal this by writing a satire; still, despite the vein of pleasantry indulged, he continued to discipline his mind by serious study of the great masters of literature and of the deepest thinkers. it must be acknowledged that the balm he sought in _satire_, was a dangerous caustic which, while closing one wound, might well cause others to open. at the same time, the money embarrassments inherited from his predecessor in the estate went on accumulating, and the period was approaching when the cassock, donned in boyish fun, was to be exchanged for the grave ermine of a peer of the realm. who should present him, then, to the noble assembly, if not his guardian, and near relative, the earl of carlisle? the young lord had always met his coldness with deference and respect, even dedicating his early poems to him. but the noble earl now still further aggravated his unkind conduct toward his ward by abandoning him at this solemn moment. not only did he refuse to lend countenance himself, but he even hurt and wounded lord byron by interposing delays so as to prevent or put off his reception in the house of peers, and that _solely because he did not like the young man's mother_! it would be impossible for the most loving heart, the one most susceptible of family affections, not to have felt cruelly, under such circumstances, the absence of near ties, and lord byron did not then know his sister. suffer he did, of course; and, had it not been for a distant relative, despite his high birth and wondrous gifts, he must have entered the august assembly accompanied only by his title. however frivolous the young man might have appeared, he was not so in reality; and he hesitated at this time between a project of travelling for information, and the desire to take part immediately in the labors of the senate. some months before, attaining his majority, when the wish of travelling predominated, after having informed his mother of a thousand arrangements, all equally affectionate, wise, and generous, that he was about to take for her during his absence, he wrote that he proposed visiting persia, india, and other countries. "if i do not travel now," said he, "i never shall, and all men should, one day or other. i have, at present, no connections to keep me at home; no wife, or unprovided sisters, brothers, etc. i shall take care of you, and when i return i may possibly become a politician. a few years' knowledge of other countries than our own will not incapacitate me for that part. if we see no nation but our own, we do not give mankind a fair chance: it is from experience, not books, we ought to judge of them. there is nothing like inspection and trusting to our senses." but while cherishing these ideas, his mind at the same time wavered between the two projects,--parliament attracted him greatly. despite his light words, the love of true and merited glory, of the beautiful and the good, ever inflamed his heart. what he wrote a year or two before, to his counsellor and friend, the rev. mr. beecher, had not ceased to be his programme.[ ] he said to his mother, a short time before his majority, that he thought it indispensable, "as a preparation for the future, to make a speech in the house, as soon as he was admitted." he wrote the same thing still more explicitly to harness; for he then thought seriously of entering upon politics without delay, and his rights as a hereditary legislator paved the way for it. nevertheless, being hurt, disappointed, and indignant at his guardian's conduct, and feeling himself isolated, he not only renounced taking any active part in the debates of his colleagues, but, according to moore, appeared to consider the obligation of being among them painful and mortifying. thus, a few days after entering parliament, he returned disgusted to the solitude of his abbey, there to meditate on the bitterness of precocious experience, or upon scenes that appeared more vast to his independent spirit, than those which his country presented. the final decision soon came. he resolved on leaving england and taking a long journey with his friend hobhouse, on seeking sunshine, experience, and forgetfulness for his wounded soul. it seemed really at that moment as if, through an accumulation of disappointment, injustice and grief, the result of lost illusions (he had already written the epitaph on "boatswain"), as if, i say, some germs of misanthropy were beginning to appear. but his bitterness did not reach, or rather, did not change his heart: every thing proves this. one of his friends, lord faulkland, was killed in a duel about this time; and our misanthrope not only was inconsolable, but, despite the embarrassment of his own affairs, generously assisted the family of the deceased, who had been left in distress. dallas, who, through his prejudices, personal susceptibilities, and exaggerated opinions, shows so little indulgence to lord byron, thus describes however the impression made on him, and his conduct under the circumstances:-- "nature had gifted lord byron with most benevolent sentiments, which i had frequent opportunities of perceiving; and i sometimes saw them give to his beautiful countenance an expression truly sublime. i paid him a visit the day after lord faulkland's death; he had just seen the lifeless body of one in whose society he had lately passed a pleasant day. he was saying to himself aloud, from time to time--'poor faulkland!' his look was more expressive than his words. 'but,' he added, 'his wife! 'tis she that is to be pitied!' i read his soul full of the kindest intentions, nor were they sterile. if ever there were a pure action, it was the one he meditated then; and the man who conceived and accomplished it was at that moment advancing through thorns and briers toward the free but narrow path that leads to heaven."[ ] he was setting out then on a long journey. and at that period long journeys were serious things. his first desire was to have a farewell meeting at newstead, of all his old school-fellows. and that not sufficing, he even wished to carry their image away with him, so as to enjoy a sensible means of recalling tender remembrances of the past. but his heart found an aliment for misanthropy in the selfish answer given by one of his comrades, who was alarmed at the expense of getting a portrait taken. we see the impression made by this ungenerous reply, in the letter he addressed to his friend harness:-- "i am going abroad, if possible, in the spring, and before i depart i am collecting the pictures of my most intimate school-fellows. i want yours; i have commissioned one of the first miniature painters of the day to take them, of course, at my own expense, as i never allow any to incur the least expenditure to gratify a whim of mine. to mention this may seem indelicate; but when i tell you a friend of ours first refused to sit, under the idea that he was to _disburse_ on the occasion, you will see that it is _necessary_ to state these preliminaries, to prevent the recurrence of any similar mistake. it will be a tax on your patience for a week, but pray excuse it, as it is possible the resemblance may be the sole trace i shall be able to preserve of our past friendship. just now it seems foolish enough, but in a few years, when some of us are dead, and others are separated by inevitable circumstances, it will be a kind of satisfaction to retain, in these images of the living, the idea of our former selves, and to contemplate, in the resemblances of the dead, all that remains of judgment, feeling, and a host of passions." if misanthropy had not been an element heterogeneous to his character, it might well have assumed larger proportions at this moment; for, on the very eve of his departure from england, his heart had yet to suffer one of those chilling shocks to which sensitive natures, removed far above the usual temperature of the world, says moore, are only too much exposed. and this proof of coldness, which he complains of with indignation in a note to the second canto of "childe harold," was given precisely by one of the friends he most loved. mr. dallas, who witnessed the immediate effect produced by this mark of coldness, thus describes it: "i found him bursting with indignation. '_will you believe it?_' said he, 'i _have just_ met ---- and asked him to come and sit an hour with me; he excused himself; and what do you think was his excuse? he was engaged with his mother and some ladies to go shopping! and he knows i set out to-morrow to be absent for years, perhaps never to return? friendship! i do not believe i shall leave behind me, yourself and family excepted, and perhaps my mother, a single being who will care what becomes of me!'"[ ] the conduct of this friend gave him so much pain, that a year after he wrote again about it, from constantinople, to dallas:-- "the only person i counted would feel grieved at my departure took leave of me with such coldness, that if i had not known the heart of man i should have been surprised. i should have attributed it to some offenses on my part, had i ever been guilty of aught save _too much affection_ for him." dallas thought that some lady, from a spirit of vengeance, had excited this young man to slight lord byron. i will not here seek to discover whether he was right or wrong. it suffices that he could believe it, for me to say, that this singular misanthropy, born of heart-deceptions, was in reality nothing else but grief, the causes of which might each be enumerated, but the intensity of which we do not really know, since that deep capacity is the sad privilege of beings highly endowed. in any case, it is certain that when he left england the measure of disappointments capable of producing real melancholy in such a sensitive heart was quite filled up. is it, then, surprising that he, like his hero, "childe harold," should see with indifference the shores of his native land recede? but if, unhappily, the gloomy ideas he welcomed for a moment brought about a regrettable habit, no more to be lost, of adopting, in his language spoken and written, expressions and mystifications that too often concealed his real feelings, only letting them be seen through the medium of his mind (a sure way of making him misunderstood), he could not long stand against the proofs of real attachment shown him by his fellow-traveller, and, indeed, by all who came near him. even before setting sail, the influence of this sentiment, combined with his natural disposition to gayety, became visible; all annoyances seemed forgotten in the agreeable sensation of a first voyage that was to bear him away from the country where he had suffered so much, and which would probably show him, in other lands, more favorable specimens of the human race. indeed, this is quite evident in the letters and gay verses sent off from falmouth to his friends drury and hodgson, as well as in the more serious strain, though still gay and affectionate, in which he, at the same time, addressed his mother.[ ] hardly had he landed at lisbon, when his heart, yearning after the beautiful, expanded into admiration at sight of the tagus and the beauties of cintra; displaying alike his high moral sense of things, whether he expressed admiration or inflicted blame.[ ] we see his whole nature revolt at baseness, ingratitude, cowardice, ferocity, all kinds of moral deformity; just as much as it was attracted and delighted by patriotism, courage, devotion, sacrifice, love carried to heroism, grace, and beauty. we perceive, in the poet's soul, a freshness and a moral vigor, that shine all the more brightly, contrasted with the misanthropical melancholy of the hero of his legend. but this personage had been imprudently chosen to typify a state of mind into which youth often falls, and which, perhaps, lord byron himself went through during a few short hours of disenchantment. the impressions thus gathered, were treasured in his memory until they came to maturity some months later; then they issued from his pen in flowing numbers, whose magic power he then ignored: but assuredly the fine sentiments expressed came from the soul of the minstrel, not from the satiated feelingless hero, who was incapable of experiencing them. let people only make the distinction between the two personages whom malice has taken pleasure in confounding, an error willingly adopted by a certain set and imposed on credulous minds.[ ] the relation between the two is not one of family or race, but a purely accidental external resemblance; the result of some strange fancy and intellectual want in the poet, whose powerful imagination, while having recourse only to his own spontaneity for the creation of ideal beings and types, yet required to rest always on reality, for painting the material world and for embodying his metaphysical conceptions. thus these two personages leave the same shore, on the same vessel, to make the same voyage, and meet with the same adventures. both have the same family relations,--a mother, a sister; yes, but their souls are not in the same state, because not of the same nature. that results clearly from a simple inspection of the poem, for all who read in good faith; since, out of stanzas that make up the first two cantos of "childe harold," there are wherein the poet forgets his hero, speaks in his own name, and shows his real soul--a soul full of energy and beauty, becoming enthusiastic at sight of the wonders displayed in creation, of grandeur, virtue, and love. moralists of good faith can tell whether a mind that was corrupted, satiated, wearied, could possibly have felt such enthusiasm. in reality, these emotions betokened the future poet, then unknown to the world and to himself. let us return to the man,--the best justification for the poet. from lisbon he wrote another letter, full of fun, to his friend hodgson. already he found all well; better than in england. already he declared himself greatly amused with his pilgrimage: the sight of the tagus pleased him, cintra delighted him; he talked latin at the convent, fed on oranges, embraced every body, asked news of every body and every thing; "and we find him," says moore, "in this charming, gay, sportive, schoolboy humor, just at the very moment that 'childe harold' is about to reveal to the world his misanthropy, disgust, and insensibility. lord byron went from lisbon to seville, going seventy miles a day on horseback in the heat of a spanish july, always delighted, complaining of nothing (in a country where all was wanting), and he arrived in perfect health. there, in that beautiful city of serenades and love-making courtships, his handsome face and person immediately attracted the attention of the fair sex. he was not insensible to the lively demonstrations of two sisters, and especially of the beauteous doña josefa, who declared, with naïve spanish frankness, how much she liked him. this young girl and her sister, who was equally charming, made him all kinds of offers, saying, when he left:--'adieu, handsome creature, i like thee much; and josefa asked to have at least a lock of his beautiful hair. on arriving at cadiz, the lovely daughter of an admiral of high birth, with whom he was thrown in contact, could not hide from her parents or himself her partiality for him. she wished to teach him spanish, never thought he could be near enough to her at the theatre, called him to her side in crowds, made him accompany her home, invited him to return to cadiz, and, in short," moore says:-- "knowing the beauties of cadiz, his imagination, dazzled by the attraction of several, was on the point of being held captive by one." he escaped this danger from being obliged to set out for gibraltar, where he also met with many attentions from persons of rank among his countrymen; but he encountered another peril at the island of calypso (malta). for he met there a real calypso,--a young woman of extraordinary beauty (the daughter and the wife of an ambassador), and no less remarkable for her qualities of mind than for her singular position. all his time at malta was passed between studying a language and the society of this goddess. and the true account of the attraction with which he inspired this beautiful heroine, and which he amply returned, is not certainly to be found in the stanzas of "childe harold," but in the verses addressed from the monastery of zitza to the beautiful florence, who had carried off at the same time (says he) both the ring he had refused to the seville beauty and likewise his heart. on arriving in albania (ancient epirus), he went to visit ali pasha at tepeleni, his country-seat; and the sight of this beautiful, amiable young man so softened the heart of the ferocious old moslem, that he wished to be considered as lord byron's father, treated him like a son, caused his palaces to be opened to him, surrounding him with the most delicate attentions, sending him fresh drinks and all the delicacies of an oriental table; he also ordered the albanian selected to accompany lord byron to defend him if requisite at the peril of his life. this albanian, named basilius, would not leave lord byron afterward. wherever any english residents, consuls, or ambassadors could be found, lord byron was the object of a thousand attentions and kindnesses. at constantinople, the english ambassador, adair, wished him to lodge at his palace; mr. s---- proposed the same thing at patras. when he fell ill, he was taken care of, most affectionately even, by the albanese. all the sympathies enlisted during his travels (and those who knew him thought them most natural) must certainly have acted on his loving, grateful heart, banishing misanthropy if he had experienced it. but did it really exist? must not even his peace of conscience have counterbalanced bitter remembrances? his conscience was unburdened, for the griefs he had had were not merited by him. if a young girl had deceived him, he on his side had deceived no one; if a guardian had neglected and failed in duties toward him, he had always behaved respectfully toward this bad guardian. if hard-hearted critics had insulted, and tried to stifle his budding genius, modest and timid withal, he had already taken his revenge, sure to repent some day of the harshness and injustice which passion had, perhaps, led him into; if his affairs were embarrassed, they had come to him thus by inheritance. if he had taken a share in some youthful dissipation, disgust had quickly followed; not a tear or a seduction had he wherewith to reproach himself. all these testimonies furnished by his conscience, and so consoling in every case, must have been doubly so to a heart like his, which, by his own avowal, could not _go to rest_ with the weight of _any remorse_ upon it. and, truly, all his correspondence certifies this. already at gibraltar, lord byron began writing letters full of clever pleasantry, either to his mother or his friends, and his correspondence always continued in the same tone, with nothing that betrayed melancholy, far less misanthropy like childe harold's, although he was composing that poem at this time. at malta, it was impossible to find shelter.[ ] his companions grew impatient, but lord byron retained his good-humor, laughing and joking. on the mountains of epirus, which were infested by brigands, the albanian escort, given him by ali pasha, lost their way in the middle of the night, and were surprised by a terrific storm. for nine hours he advanced on horseback under torrents of rain; and when at last he reached his companions his gayety was still the same. assailed by a frightful tempest while going by sea from constantinople to athens, shipwreck seemed impending. every one was crying out in despair; lord byron alone consoled and encouraged the rest, then he wrapped himself up in his albanian capote, and went to sleep quietly, until his fate should be decided. on visiting a cavern with his friend hobhouse, they lost their way, their torch went out, and they had no prospect but to remain there, and perish with hunger. hobhouse was in despair; but lord byron kept up his courage with jests, and presence of mind fit to save them, and which did so in effect. privations, rigor of seasons, sufferings that drew complaints from the least delicate, and from his own servants, had no effect on his good-humor.[ ] all this does not simply show his courage and good natural dispositions, it likewise proves that there was not the making of a misanthrope in him. and besides, his fellow-traveller hobhouse says so positively, in his account of their journey, when relating why lord byron could not accompany him in an excursion to negropont; for he energetically expresses his regret at being obliged to separate, even for so short a time, from a companion, who, according to him, _united to perspicacity of wit and originality of observation, that gay and lively temper which keeps attention awake under the pressure of fatigue, softening every difficulty and every danger_. truly it might be said that lord byron was superior to the weaknesses of humanity. he was evidently patient and amiable in the highest degree. greece appeared to him delightful,--an enchanting country with a cloudless sky. he liked athens so much that, on quitting it for the first time, he was obliged to set off at a gallop to have courage enough to go. and when he returned there, though from the cloister of the franciscan monastery, where he had fixed his abode, he could no longer even perceive the pretty heads of the three graces _entre les plantes embaumées de la cour_; he felt himself just as happy, because he devoted his time to study, and mixed with persons of note--such as the celebrated lady hester stanhope, lord sligo, and bruce: souvenirs which he has consecrated in his memoirs, saying lady hester's (?) was the most delightful acquaintance he had made in greece.[ ] he saw greeks, turks, italians, french, and germans, and was delighted. now could he observe the character of persons of all nations, and he became more than ever persuaded that travelling is necessary to complete a man's education; he was happy at being able to verify the superiority of his own country, and to increase his knowledge by finding the contrary. he was never either disappointed or disgusted. he lived with both great and small; passing days in the palaces of pashas, and nights in cow-stables with shepherds; always temperate, he never enjoyed better health. "truly," said he, "i have no cause to complain of my destiny." at constantinople he found the inhabitants good and peaceable; the turks appeared superior to the greeks, the greeks to the spaniards, and the spaniards to the portuguese. it was the man wearied of all, the misanthrope, who wrote all this to his mother, concluding thus:--"i have gone through a great deal of fatigue, but have _not felt wearied for one instant_!" all the letters addressed to his friends drury and hodgson, from greece or turkey, were equally devoid of misanthropy, and, indeed, generally full of jokes. it was only when too long a silence on their part awakened painful remembrances, causing a sort of nostalgia of friendship, that a cry of pain once escaped him in these words:--"truly, i have no friends in the world!" but one feels that he did not believe it, and only spoke as coquettish women do, knowing they are beloved, and willing to hear the old tale repeated. again, it was this same man of worn-out feeling, who, despite the embarrassed state of his affairs, showed such unexampled generosity to his mother, and to friends requiring aid both in england and greece; who likewise displayed touching solicitude toward servants left behind him at home, or even sent away so as not to over-fatigue their youth or their old age: and, finally, who, on learning that one of his dependents was about to commit a bad action, abandoning a young girl whom he had seduced, wrote to his mother:-- "my opinion is that b---- ought to marry miss n----; our first duty is not to do evil, our second to repair it. i will have no seducers on my estates, and will not grant my dependents a privilege i would not take myself: namely, of leading astray our neighbors' daughters. "i hope this lothario will follow my example, and begin by restoring the girl to society, or by my father's beard he shall hear of me." and then he also recommends a young servant to her:-- "i pray you to show kindness to robert, who must miss his master; poor boy! he would scarcely go back." this letter alone shows a freshness of feeling quite consolatory; certainly "childe harold" was not capable of it. but despite all these proofs of his good-humor, gayety, and antimisanthropical dispositions, we could cite persons who, even at this period, thought him melancholy. mr. galt, for instance, whom chance had brought in contact with him, having met on the same vessel going from gibraltar to greece; and then the british ambassador at constantinople, mr. adair, and even mr. bruce, at athens. how then shall we reconcile these opposite testimonies? it may be done by analyzing his fits of melancholy, observing the time and places of their manifestation. i have said that lord byron's melancholy had always real or probable causes (only capable of aggravation from his extremely sensitive temperament), and it has been seen that superabundant causes existed when he left england. that during the whole period of his absence, they may, from time to time, have cast some shade over him, notwithstanding his natural gayety and his strength of mind, is at least very probable. but did mr. galt, mr. adair, and mr. bruce, really witness the return of these impressions? or would it not be more natural to believe, since that better agrees with the observations made by those living constantly with him, that, through some resemblance of symptoms, they may have taken for melancholy another psychological phenomenon generally remarked--namely, _the necessity of solitude_, experienced by a high meditative and poetic nature like his? indeed, what does galt say?-- "when night arrived and there were lights in the vessel, he held himself aloof, took his station on the rail, between the pegs on which the sheets are belayed and the shrouds, and there, for hours, sat in silence, enamored, as people say, of the moon. he was often strangely absent--it may have been from his genius; and, had its sombre grandeur been then known, this conduct might have been explained; but, at the time, it threw as it were, around him the sackcloth of penitence. sitting amid the shrouds and rattlings, in the tranquillity of the moonlight, composing melodies scarcely formed in his mind, he seemed almost an apparition, suggesting dim reminiscences of him who shot the albatross. he was as a mystery in a winding-sheet crowned with a halo. "the influence of the incomprehensible phantasma which hovered about lord byron has been more or less felt by all who ever approached him. that he sometimes descended from the clouds, and was familiar and earthly, is true; but his dwelling was amid the murk and the mist, and the home of his spirit in the abyss of the storm and the hiding-places of guilt. he was at the time of which i am speaking scarcely two-and-twenty, and could claim no higher praise than having written a clever satire; and yet it was impossible, even then, to reflect on the bias of his mind, as it was revealed by the casualties of conversation, without experiencing a presentiment, that he was destined to execute extraordinary things. the description he has given of "manfred" in his youth, was of himself:-- 'my spirit walk'd not with the souls of men, nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes; the thirst of their ambition was not mine, the aim of their existence was not mine; my joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers, made me a stranger.'" all that is very well, but the only astonishing part is mr. galt's astonishment. the incomprehensible phantom of melancholy and caprice then hanging over lord byron, was especially his genius seeking an outlet; it was the melancholy that lays hold of so many great minds, because, having a vision of beauty and fame before their eyes, they fear not attaining to it. that it was which one day led petrarch, all tearful, to his consoler john of florence. if almost all great geniuses, ere carving out their path, have experienced this fever of the soul, falling into certain kinds of melancholy, that put on all sorts of forms,--sometimes noisy, sometimes capricious, sometimes misanthropical, was there not greater reason for lord byron to undergo such a crisis--at a period when energy of heart and mind was not yet balanced by confidence in his own genius? for he had not met with a john of florence; he had been so much hurt at the cruel reception given to his first attempts, that it appeared to him he ought to seek another direction for the employment of his energetic faculties, and turn to active life, as many of his tastes invited. but his genius, unknown to the world as to himself, was, however, fermenting within his brain, feeding on dreams; now pacing a deck, now beneath a starry sky, anon by moonlight, and causing him to absorb from every thing all homogeneous to his nature; and thus "childe harold" came to light. when lord byron took his pen, the mechanical part of the work alone remained to be done. the elaboration and meditation of it had taken place almost unknown to himself, so that his conceptions remained latent, and took their shape by degrees in his brain, before being fixed in his writings. he penned "childe harold" at janina and athens; but it was on the vessel's deck, in that dreamy attitude just seen by mr. galt, that he had moulded the clay of his first statue, and given it an immortal form. could he have done so, if he had always remained in society on deck, laughing, joking, giving way to all his charming, witty bursts of gayety, as he did while coasting the shores of sicily, when, from time to time, his playful nature enabled him not only to forget the wounds of his heart, and the disagreeable remembrances left behind, but also to impose silence on the severe requirements of his genius? the same causes must have produced the same opinions from the british ambassador at constantinople. without even speaking of the irksomeness of etiquette, always so distasteful to lord byron, that moore looks upon it as one of the causes of the apparent sadness remarked by adair, we ought to remember that he left constantinople on board the same frigate as the ambassador, making a sea-voyage of four days with him. during these four days, it is likely that lord byron did not deny himself solitude, and that he also courted the secret influences exercised by starry nights on the bosphorus as he had done under similar circumstances on the Ægean sea. but he had yet another motive for sadness during this passage, since he was then about to separate from his friend and fellow-traveller, hobhouse, who was obliged to go back to england. thus, for the first time, lord byron would soon find himself alone in a foreign land. the effect produced by this situation must have shown itself in his countenance; for he was experiencing beforehand quite a new sensation, wherein any satisfaction at perfect independence and solitude must have been more than counterbalanced in his feeling, grateful, and in reality most sociable nature, by real grief at such a separation. and i doubt not that when setting foot on the barren isle of chios, with its jutting rocks and tall rugged-looking mountains, just after having bade hobhouse adieu, i doubt not that his heart experienced one of those burning suffocating feelings that belong equally to intense sorrow and joy. when, then, a few days later, he wrote to his mother for the evident purpose of calming the uneasiness she must have felt at knowing him to be alone, and when he mentioned with indifference the departure of his friend, he was exaggerating, except in what he said of loving solitude. that he did not even sufficiently express, for he might have boldly declared that it was positively requisite to him; and, indeed, his resignation at loss of a friend so thoroughly appreciated is the best proof we could have of it. in the workings of lord byron's intellect, observation, reflection, and solitary meditation were brought into play much more than imagination.[ ] every thing with him took its source from facts; and the vital flame that circulates in every phase of his writings is the very essence of this reality, first elaborated in his brain and then stamped on his verse. as long as this first kind of work of observation was going on, as long as he was only occupied in imbibing truths of the visible world that were sure to strike him, and storing them in his memory, society, and especially intellectual society, suited him. but when he began to shape his observations into form, by dint of reflection and meditation, generalizing and making deductions, then constant society forced upon him fatigued him, and solitude became indispensable. now it was more particularly at the period of which we are speaking that his mind was in the situation described. he had just visited albania, whose inhabitants were a violent, turbulent race, animated with a passionate love of independence, who were ever rising in rebellion against authority, and whose every sentiment, passion, and principle, formed a perfect contrast with all existing in his own country. he had become familiar with their usages, and recognized in them the possession of virtues which he loved, though mixed up with vices which he abhorred. he had gone through strange emotions and adventures among them; his life had often been in danger from the elements, from pirates and brigands; on the throne sat a prince who united monstrous vices to a few virtues, who, wearing gentleness on his countenance, was yet so ferocious in soul, that byron, despite the favors lavished on himself, felt constrained to paint the tyrant in his real colors. he found in these contrasts, in this moral phenomenon, that which made him shudder, and precisely because it did cause shuddering, the source of soul-stirring, most original poetry, the type of his eastern verses--of "conrad," "the giaour," and "lara"--which, having been admitted into the fertile soil of his brain, were one day to come forth in all their terrible truth, though softened down by some of his own personal qualities; and having gone through, unknown to him, a long process of warm fertilization, while nursed in _solitary_ reflection. thus solitude was necessary to him; and this want, i again repeat, was an intellectual one, and had nothing to do with melancholy. from chios lord byron went to athens, a residence so sad and monotonous at this period, that it was well calculated to give rather than cure the spleen. but as he had no malady of this kind, after an excursion into the morea with lord sligo,--a college friend and companion to whom nothing could be refused,--he returned to athens; and here, in order to enjoy his cherished independence, would not even give himself the distraction of seeing those lovely young faces he used to admire behind the geraniums at their windows, and which had charmed him some months before he took up his abode at the franciscan convent. there, amid the silence of the cloister, he could commune freely with his own mind, allow it full expansion, and revert, at will, from solitary contemplation to the most varied studies, especially to that he always so much appreciated--the study of mankind in general. "here," he wrote to his mother, "i see and have conversed with french, italians, germans, danes, greeks, turks, americans, etc.; and, without losing sight of my own, i can judge of the countries and manners of others. when i see the superiority of england (which, by-the-by, we are a great deal mistaken about in many things) i am pleased, and where i find her inferior, i am at least enlightened. now, i might have staid, smoked in your towns, or fogged in your country a century without being sure of this, and without acquiring any thing more useful or amusing at home." and then he adds:-- "i hope, on my return, to lead a quiet, recluse life; but god knows and does best for us all; at least so they say, and i have nothing to object, as, on the whole, i have no reason to complain of my lot. i trust this will find you well, and as happy as one can be; you will, at least, be pleased to hear i am so." it was in this admirable frame of mind that he often went from athens to cape colonna. and amid these ruins, washed by the blue waves of the Ægean sea, immortalized by plato, who here taught his half-christian philosophy, lord byron took his seat at the celestial banquet spread by the great master, and entered into full possession of his genius. for, although he ignored its great power and extent, it is impossible that he should not have had in hours like these, some vision of the future, some presentiment of coming glory, which, piercing through the veils that yet shrouded his genius, gave moments of ineffable delight. when he bathed in some solitary spot, he tells us in his memoranda that one of his greatest delights was to sit on a rock overlooking the waves, and to remain there whole hours lost in admiration of sky and sea, "absorbed," says moore, "in that sort of vague reverie, which, however formless and indistinct at the moment, settled afterward on his pages into those clear, bright pictures which will endure forever." one day, while he was swimming under the rocks of cape colonna, a vessel from the coast of attica drew near. on board, going from london to athens, were two celebrated personages--lady hester stanhope and mr. bruce. the first object that greeted their eyes, on nearing sanium, was lord byron, playing all alone with his favorite element. some days after, his friend lord sligo wished him to make their acquaintance, and he saw a great deal of them at athens. in his memoranda the following words are applied to them:--"it was the commencement (their meeting at cape colonna) of the most delightful acquaintance i have made in greece." and he wished to assure mr. bruce, in case these lines should ever fall under his notice, of the pleasure he experienced in recalling the time they had passed together at athens. now i do not see any symptom of melancholy in all this, nor in all preceding, and yet bruce thought there was. did he, then, also consider the joy lord byron felt in solitude, and his indifference for the false conventional enthusiasm his countrymen affected to display at sight of the ruins of greece, as so many other tokens of melancholy? in reality lord byron was averse to all kinds of affectation, made no exception in favor of the artistic pretensions which constitute the hypocrisy of taste, and only gave the sincere, ardent homage of his soul to those things of antiquity that recall great names or great actions, and to sublime scenes in nature. notwithstanding his fine intelligence, it is not impossible that mr. bruce also may have shared the errors of superficial minds; and it is likewise possible that lord byron may really, during the last period of his sojourn at athens, have sometimes been melancholy, for causes of grief were certainly not wanting. his man of business wished lord byron at this time to sell newstead, so as to get his affairs into some definite order. perhaps it would have been wise, but such a determination was extremely repugnant to him, for he was very fond of newstead, and had even written to his mother, before leaving, that she might be quite easy on this head, as he would never part with it. however, his agent, wishing to get him back to england, then affected negligence, would not write, and made him wait for money. lord byron grew uneasy and alarmed, was out of humor, and often seemed capricious, because these circumstances obliged him to change his travelling plans, and finally left him no other alternative but to return to england, where, as he wrote to a friend, his first interview would be with a lawyer, the second with a creditor; and then would come discussions with miners, farmers, stewards and all the disagreeables consequent on a ruined property and disputed mines. after having resisted all these fears for some time, he was obliged to decide on returning. behold him, then, on the road to england. at malta he had attacks of fever to which his state of mind was certainly not wholly foreign. "we have seen," says moore, "from the letters written by him on his passage homeward (on board the 'volage' frigate) how far from cheerful or happy was the state of mind in which he returned. in truth, even for a disposition of the most sanguine cast, there was quite enough in the discomfort that now awaited him in england to sadden its hopes and check its buoyancy." and yet in these letters, melancholy at bottom, which he addressed to his mother and friends during this tiresome voyage of more than six weeks, we still perceive, overriding all, his kind, sensitive, playful nature. he told them that if one can not be happy, one must at least try to be a little gay; that if england had ceased to smile on him, there were other skies more serene; that he was coming back shaken by fever morally and physically, but with a firm, intrepid spirit. and, in short, pleasantry never failed him. always admirable toward his mother, he spoke of his apathy, but re-assured her directly, adding:-- "dear mother" (he wrote to her on the 'volage' frigate), "within that apathy i certainly do not comprise yourself, as i will prove by every means in my power. "p.s.--you will consider newstead as your house, not mine, and me only as a visitor."[ ] he had hardly arrived in london when mr. dallas hastened to greet him, and instead of finding him changed, thought he was in excellent health, with a countenance that betrayed neither melancholy nor any trace of discontent at his return. the truth is, that those sorrows which did not reach his heart were never very deep with lord byron. but already a most formidable tempest was gathering on the horizon of his fate, for it was one that would cruelly wound his heart. perhaps it was some vague, inexplicable presentiment of what was threatening him that saddened his return to his native country. the storm burst as soon as he set foot in london; for he was summoned in haste to newstead, his mother's life being declared in danger. he set out instantaneously, but on arriving found only a corpse! this spectacle was still before his eyes; he had hardly quitted the chamber of death, where, in the obscurity of night and alone, believing himself free from all observation, he had given way in silence and darkness to the real sentiments of his heart, weeping bitterly the loss of a mother who had idolized him, when in rapid succession news arrived of the deaths of his dearest friends. matthews, his mind's idol, had just been drowned in the river cam, at cambridge; wingfield, one of his heart-idols, was dying of fever at coimbra; his dear eddlestone was in the last stage of consumption; and, finally, he learned the death of another loved, mysterious being. six deaths within a few short weeks! "if to be able," says moore, "to depict powerfully the painful emotions it is necessary first to have experienced them, or, in other words, if, for the poet to be great the man must suffer, lord byron, it must be owned, paid early this dear price of mastery." this was certainly a most painful crisis in his existence. what he felt then can not be called melancholy; it was truly _desolation, agony of heart_. seeing himself alone in his venerable but gloomy abode, beside the dead body of his mother, solitude was for the first time intolerable to him, and, despite his strength of mind, he experienced moments of weakness. in his agony he wrote a letter to his friend scroope davies that is truly painful to read, so much does it bear the impress of intense suffering. "some curse hangs over me and mine," says he. "my mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. what can i say, or think, or do? "my dear davies, if you can spare a moment, do come down to me; i want a friend. come to me, scroope, i am almost desolate, left almost alone in the world. i must enjoy the survivors while i can. write or come, but come if you can, or one or both." hardly had he allowed himself this heartrending expression of grief, most touching for those who knew his repugnance to showing any sensibility of heart, when a new calamity overtook him. his dear friend, wingfield, died at coimbra at the age of twenty-one. thoughts of death even took possession of lord byron's soul, influencing and directing all his actions. neither self-love, nor the hope of great success with "childe harold," which had been announced to him as he passed through london, any longer could charm; tears dimmed the lustre of fame; he could only occupy himself with the fate of the surviving, and resolved on making his will in case of his own death. we find him then at this time solely engaged in making out this new deed. he destroyed the old will, rendered useless by the death of his mother, and took care to forget no one in the new one; all his servants were mentioned with admirable solicitude; and, in short, his last testament fully displayed the beautiful, generous soul that had dictated it. some weeks after, he wrote to dallas:-- "at three-and-twenty i am left alone, and what more can we be at seventy? it is true that i am young to begin again, but with whom can i retrace the laughing part of life?" "indeed," writes he at the same time to hodgson, "the blows followed each other so rapidly, that i am yet stupid from the shock; and though i do eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh at times, yet i can hardly persuade myself that i am awake did not every morning convince me mournfully to the contrary. "davies has been here; his gayety (death can not mar it) has done me service; but, after all, ours was a hollow laughter! you will write to me? i am solitary, and i never felt solitude irksome before." his moral sufferings had never been so great; and what he said and experienced under these circumstances, amply prove that solitude was good for him, when not unhappy. "i can do nothing," writes he to dallas, "and my days pass, except for a few bodily exercises, in uniform indolence and idle insipidity." the task of publishing "childe harold" was left to dallas, and the certainty of its success found him pretty nearly indifferent. when his heart was in pain, lord byron's self-love always lay dormant. but destiny was still far from granting him any respite. eddlestone, that dear friend, on whose true affection he most relied, as well as another beloved one, whose name ever remained locked within his breast, both died about this time; so that, as he says in his preface, during the short space of two months, he lost six persons most dear. in announcing this new misfortune to dallas, he expresses himself in the following words:-- "i have almost forgot the taste of grief; _and supped full of horrors_, till i have become callous; nor have i a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed down my head to the earth. it seems to me as though i were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age. my friends fall round me, and i shall be left a lonely tree before i am withered. "other men can always take refuge in their families; i have no resource but my own reflections, and they present no prospect here or hereafter, except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my betters. i am, indeed, very wretched, and you will excuse my saying so, as you know i am not apt to cant of sensibility." but if tears no longer flowed from his eyes, they did from his pen; for it was then he wrote his elegies to "thyrza," whose pathetic sublimity is so well characterized by moore; and that he added those melancholy stanzas in "childe harold" on the death of friends, which we find at the end of the second canto. "indeed," he wrote again to hodgson, "i am growing nervous, ridiculously nervous, i can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. my days are listless, and my nights restless. i have very seldom any society, and when i have, i run out of it. at this present writing, there are in the next room three ladies, and i have stolen away to write this grumbling letter. i don't know that i sha'n't end with insanity, for i find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely; but this looks more like silliness than madness, as scroope davies would facetiously remark in his consoling manner. i must try the hartshorn of your company; and a session of parliament would suit me well, any thing to cure me of conjugating the accursed verb _ennuyer_." distractions did come to him, but of a kind to make him conjugate verbs equally disagreeable; for they came caused by grief and irritation. in an infamous, ignoble publication, called "the scourge," an anonymous author, probably making himself the organ of those who wished to avenge lord byron's satires, attacked his birth, and the reputation of his mother, who, despite her faults, was a very respectable, excellent woman. "during the first winters after lord byron had returned to england," says mr. galt, "i was frequently with him. at that time, the strongest feeling by which he appeared to be actuated was indignation against a writer in a scurrilous publication, called 'the scourge,' in which he was not only treated with unjustifiable malignity, but charged with being, as he told me himself, the illegitimate son of a murderer. i had not read the work; but the writer who could make such an absurd accusation, must have been strangely ignorant of the very circumstances from which he derived the materials of his own libel. when lord byron mentioned the subject to me, and that he was consulting sir vicary gibbs with the intention of prosecuting the publisher and the author, i advised him, as well as i could, to desist simply because the allegations referred to well-known occurrences. his grand-uncle's duel with mr. chaworth, and the order of the house of peers to produce evidence of his grandfather's marriage with miss trevannion, the facts of which being matter of history and public record, superseded the necessity of any proceeding. "knowing how deeply this affair agitated him at that time, i was not surprised at the sequestration in which he held himself, and which made those who were not acquainted with his shy and mystical nature apply to him the description of his own 'lara.'"[ ] lord byron's conduct at this period, led those who did not know his timid mystery-loving nature, to fancy that they recognized him in the portrait drawn of "lara." probably they were unaware how his hard fate was now not sparing him one single grief or mortification; how he was struggling between the necessity of putting up newstead for sale and the extreme repugnance he felt to such a step. "before his resolve was taken on this head," says mr. galt, "he was often so troubled in mind, as to be unable to hide his sadness; and he often spoke of leaving england forever." already, long absence had made him lose sight of several early comrades; his mother was dead, and he scarcely saw his sister, who lived in quite another circle; through his antecedents, his youth, and his travels abroad, he was still a stranger among his fellow-peers; the only persons he saw much of were five or six college friends, whom death had spared, and to whom he was extremely attached; but they were his sole affections. his ideal standard of perfection which, being brought in contact with reality, had always a little spoilt women for him, had ended by making them almost disagreeable. "i have one request to make," wrote he at this time to h----, "never again speak to me in your letters of a woman; do not even allude to the existence of the sex. i will not so much as read a word about them; it must be _propria que maribus_." it was in this state of relative isolation that he came to london, about the end of the year, and found dallas preparing to have "childe harold" published; a task in which lord byron half unwillingly joined. "he seemed more inclined," says dallas, "at that time to seek more solid fame, by endeavoring to become an active, eloquent statesman." but, notwithstanding this perspective, despite his genius and his youth, lord byron often fell into a sort of mental prostration, which was, says dallas again, "rather the _result of his particular situation, feeling himself out of his sphere, than that of a gloomy disposition_ received from nature." we have seen, in effect, that there were circumstances then existing well calculated to darken his noble brow, and give him those nervous movements that may have seemed like caprice to those who were ignorant of their cause; and i wished to enter into these details so as to characterize well the epoch when his melancholy was greatest, and to show that it had its chief source in the anguish of his heart. it was to this time he alluded, when, in other days of suffering (at the period of his separation from lady byron), wherein his heart had smaller share, he wrote to moore:--"if my heart could have broken, it would have done so years ago, through events more afflicting than this." i also wished to enter into these details, because, desiring to prove that lord byron's melancholy almost always arose from palpable causes, it was necessary to make these causes known; and thus those who have declared his griefs to be rather _imaginary_ than _real_, may find in this chapter abundant reason for rectifying their ideas. among the number of such persons we may rank mr. macaulay, the eloquent historian, whose opinion, however, has _no weight_, as regards lord byron's character. for it is evident that he made use of this great name by way of choosing a good theme for his eloquence, a sort of mould for fine phrases. besides, macaulay did not know lord byron personally, nor did he study him impartially; facts which are his _fault_ and his _excuse_. after having paid this great tribute to grief during six months, the storm appeared to subside, and a ray of sunshine penetrated into lord byron's mind. it was then that he made moore's acquaintance, and that of other clever men, among whom we may cite rogers and campbell. moore especially, introduced under circumstances that brought out strongly the most amiable and estimable qualities of heart and mind, was to lord byron as a beacon-light amid the clouds external and internal harassing him then; and their sympathy was mutual and instantaneous. lord byron wrote directly to harness:-- "moore is the epitome of every thing exquisite in poetic and personal perfections." on his side, moore, after having praised the _manly, generous, pleasing refinement of his new friend_, sums up by saying:--"_frank and manly as i found his nature then, so did i ever find it to his latest hour._" and in describing the effect produced on him by his first meeting with lord byron, he says:-- "_among the impressions which this meeting left upon me, what i chiefly remember to have remarked was the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice and manners._ being in mourning for his mother, the color, as well of his dress as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure, spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when in repose." but this melancholy, having become habitual to him through accident, began then to disperse, as snow melts beneath the soft and warm breath of spring. the first symptom was that he judged better of himself; for, writing to his friend harness, to express his general opinion on human selfishness, he said, "but i do not think we are born of this disposition." "from the time of our first meeting," says moore, "there seldom elapsed a day that lord byron and i did not see each other, and our acquaintance ripened into intimacy and friendship with a rapidity of which i have seldom known an example."[ ] moore's company was a great consolation to him then, and providence willed that the first balsam applied to his wounds, after that of time, should come from the hand of one whom he had lashed in his satire. he passed in this way the last months of , and the first two of the following year. meanwhile his star was about to rise, soon to transform, without any transition, his misty sky into brightest light, too dazzling, alas! to endure. for the sun, when it shines so radiantly in early morning, absorbs too many bad vapors. but we will not anticipate events which i am not relating here. the parliamentary session being opened, lord byron resumed his seat in the upper house. but he was only known there by the satire that had raised him up such a host of enemies; otherwise, the handsome young man who had come among them three years before, but who had since appeared to disdain their labors, preferring foreign travel in spain and the east, was scarcely remembered. when they saw him return, still so young and handsome, but with a grave melancholy brow, and that he immediately distinguished himself as an orator, general admiration was excited. even those he had offended generously forgot their anger in sympathy for a fellow-countryman, and pride in such a colleague; pride and enthusiasm were so general that both parties, tories and whigs, shared it equally. lord holland told him that _as an orator he would beat them all, if he persevered_. lord grenville remarked that for the construction of his phrases _he already resembled burke_. sir francis burdett declared that his discourse was the _best_ pronounced by a lord in parliamentary memory. several other noblemen asked to be presented, and even those he had offended came round to shake hands. generous natures showed themselves on this occasion. the success of the orator heralded that of the poet, for "childe harold" appeared a few days after. "the effect was," said moore, "accordingly electric; his fame had not to wait for any of the ordinary gradations, but seemed to spring up like the palace of a fairy tale, in a night. as he himself briefly described it in his memoranda:--'i awoke one morning, and found myself famous.' "the first edition of his work was disposed of instantly; and, as the echoes of its reputation multiplied on all sides, 'childe harold' and 'lord byron' became the theme of every tongue. at his door most of the leading names of the day presented themselves. from morning till night the most flattering testimonies of his success crowded his table from the grave tributes of the statesman and the philosopher down to (what flattered him still more) the romantic billet of some _incognita_, or the pressing note of invitation from some fair leader of fashion; and, in place of the desert which london had been to him but a few weeks before, he now not only saw the whole splendid interior of high life thrown open to receive him, but found himself among its illustrious crowds the most distinguished object." i may also mention dallas, who in speaking of this unexampled success, says:-- "lord byron had become the subject of every conversation in town. "he was surrounded with honors. from the regent and his admirable daughter, down to the editor and his clerk; from walter scott and jeffrey down to the anonymous authors of the 'satirist' and the 'scourge,' all and each extolled his merits. he was the admiration of the old, and the marvel of the fashionable circles of which he had become the idol." this adoration of a whole nation did not turn his head, but it touched and rejoiced his heart. when he knew himself forgiven and loved by those even whom he had most offended in his satire, toward whom he felt most guilty, as, for instance, the excellent lord holland, who asked for his friendship, predicting his future fame as an orator, and already placing him beside walter scott as a poet; then by lord fitzgerald, who declared himself incapable of feeling angry with "childe harold," and many, many others; when all this occurred, lord byron's heart expanded to the better feelings he had long kept under control and hidden. he gave way to his innate kindness, to generous forgiveness; his own good qualities were stimulated by the kindness and generosity of others; this, rather than any satisfaction of self-love, dispelled the clouds from his soul, changed the sky and atmosphere, and his melancholy of that period, which owed its source to the heart, became neutralized by the heartfelt satisfaction he experienced. his letters, and particularly those to moore, are full of life and animation at this time; and such as he appeared in his letters, such did moore describe him in his habitual frame of mind. dallas, who before had so often seen him melancholy, says:-- "i am happy to think that the success with which he has met, and the object of universal attention which he has become, have already produced upon his soul that softening influence which i had expected and foreseen; and i trust, that all his former grief will now have passed forever." galt himself, despite the effort he seems to make in praising him, can not help owning that at this period, when every body was kind to lord byron, he, on his side, displayed the utmost gentleness, kindness, amiability, and desire of obliging, combined with habitual gayety and pleasantry. the general tone of his memoranda at this time, particularly in , shows him _pleased with every body and every thing_. after having praised moore, he speaks highly of lord ward, afterward lord dudley:-- "i like ward," he says, and adds, "by mohammed! i begin to fear getting to like every body; a disposition not to be encouraged. it is a sort of social gluttony, that makes one swallow all one comes in contact with. but i do like ward." nevertheless, this serenity, by lasting over the interval that elapsed between his twenty-third and twenty-sixth year, at which period his marriage took place, was traversed by many clouds, more or less evanescent, and he still had hours and days of melancholy. assuredly, lord byron could not avoid those oscillations of heart and mind that belong to the very essence of the human heart. but, at least, it is easy to assign a palpable cause for all the fits of ennui or melancholy experienced at this time. all his tendencies then show indifference, if not dislike, to female society. his ideal of perfection had spoilt him for women, in the first instance, and the unfortunate experience he had of them still further lowered his opinion of them. but if he did not care about them, it was presumptuous to think he could put aside the sex altogether. by adopting an anchorite's regimen, he strengthened, it is true, the spiritual part of his nature; and certainly seemed to believe his heart would be satisfied with friendship. his acquaintance with moore, especially, gave to his daily existence the intellectual and spiritual aliment so necessary to him. but he reckoned on setting woman aside, and his presumptuous heart numbered only twenty-three summers! among the letters and tokens of homage that piled his table in those days figured many rose-colored notes, written on gilt-edged perfumed paper. such incense easily ascends, and it was not surprising that his head should also suffer. "childe harold," of course, acted most on the imagination of women of powerful intellect and ardent nature, and thus his own peril grew afresh, involuntarily evoked by himself. for, if the prestige of position and circumstance adding lustre to genius, could act strongly even upon men, what must have been their combined influence when added to his personal beauty, upon women?-- " ... these personal influences acted with increased force, from the assistance derived from others, which, to female imaginations especially, would have presented a sufficiency of attraction, even without the great qualities joined with them. his youth, the noble beauty of his countenance, and its constant play of light and shadow--the gentleness of his voice and manner to women, and his occasional haughtiness to men,--the alleged singularities of his mode of life, which kept curiosity constantly alive; all these minor traits concurred toward the quick spread of his fame; nor can it be denied that, among many purer sources of interest in his poem, the allusions which he makes to instances of '_successful_ passion' in his career, were not without their influence on the fancies of that sex whose weakness it is to be most easily won by those who come recommended by the greatest number of triumphs over others.... altogether, taking into consideration the various points i have here enumerated, _it may be asserted, that there never before existed, and, it is most probable, there never will exist again, a combination of such vast mental powers and such genius, with so many other of those advantages and attractions by which the world is in general dazzled and captivated_." this rare combination of advantages were so many means of seduction on his side, involuntarily exercised, and the sole ones he would have condescended to employ; meanwhile all advances were spared him on the other. there were fine ladies whom nothing daunted, if only they could find favor in his sight; who forgot for him their rank, their duties, their families, braving the whole world, donning strange costumes to get at him, carrying jealousy to the verge of madness, to attempted suicide, or to the conception, at least, of crime. one distinguished herself by excessive daring; another, who had not been happy in married life, but who had tried to make up for want of affection by securing her husband's friendship and esteem, was now willing to sacrifice all to her wild passion for the youthful peer. whatever the sentiment which in his breast responded to all the feelings he excited, it is certain that they possessed, at least, the power of disturbing his tranquillity. they were like so many beautiful plants, all showy and perfumed, yet distilling poison. the woman whose passion he bore with, rather than shared, could not fail to compromise him; they had exchanged parts, so to say, and he had to suffer from that jealousy, which more frequently falls to the lot of woman. the ennui he thus experienced was tinctured with irritation, while the emotions to which the other lady gave rise, were softer, truer, and more ardent. if we examine well his memoranda and confidential letters of this time, and confront his expressions with facts, we shall always find therein the cause and palpable explanation of those mysterious though short-lived sadnesses then experienced. we shall find the expression of peace sacrificed, or sadness produced, sometimes couched in language indicative of affection or regret; then, again, in words that betray fear or irritation. for instance, we read in a passage of his memoranda:-- "i wish i could settle to reading again,--my life is monotonous, and yet desultory. i take up books, and fling them down again. i began a comedy, and burnt it, because the scene ran into reality; a novel, for the same reason. in rhyme, i can keep more away from facts; but the thought always runs through, through.... yes, yes; through." and we have in these two words the precise explanation of this feeling of _ennui_. he was at this time contemplating a voyage:-- "ward talks of going to holland, and we have partly discussed an expedition together.... and why not?... is far away.... no one else, except augusta (his sister), cares for me--no ties--no trammels--_andiamo dunque_--se torniamo bene--se no che importa?"[ ] he was evidently sad that day; but, is not the nature of his sadness revealed in those words:--"she is far away--?" according to his memoranda, he again fell into this vein of sadness some months later, in february, ; but then, also, its causes are very evident. an accumulation of painful things, united to overwhelm him. he had sought to satisfy the longings of his heart by extraordinary intellectual activity, writing the "bride of abydos" in four nights, and the "corsair" in a few days; he had also fought against them, by endeavoring to make a six months' journey into holland; but this project failed, from obstacles created by a friend who was to accompany him; and, besides, the plague was then prevalent in the east; he was, moreover, embarrassed with the difficulty of selling newstead, and the necessity of such a painful measure; all which circumstances united to keep him in england. and a host of other irritating annoyances, the work of irreconcilable enemies, who were jealous of his success and his superiority, then fell upon him, as they could not fail to do; for his sun had risen too brightly not to call forth noxious vapors. after having passed a month away from london, he wrote in his memoranda:-- "i see all the papers are in a sad commotion with those eight lines.... you have no conception of the ludicrous solemnity with which these two stanzas have been treated, ... of the uproar the lines on the little 'royalty's weeping,' in (now republished) have occasioned. the 'morning post' gave notice of an intended motion in the house of my brethren on the subject, and god knows what proceedings besides.... this last piece of intelligence is, i presume, too laughable to be true, etc., etc."[ ] the first blow to his popularity was now given; and soon the whole nation rose up in arms against him. all jealousies, and all resentments now ranged themselves under one hostile banner, distorting lord byron's every word, calumniating his motives, making his most generous and noble actions serve as pretexts for attack; reproaching him with having given up enmities from base reasons (while he had done so in reality from feelings of justice and gratitude), pretending[ ] that he had pocketed large sums for his poems, and rendering him responsible for the follies women chose to commit about him. this war, breaking out against him like an unexpected hurricane amid radiant sunshine, must naturally have caused irritation. and if we add to it the embarrassment of his affairs, the deplorable events in his opinion then going on in the world, the fall of the great napoleon, whom he admired, the invasion of france by the allied powers, which he disapproved of, the policy pursued by his country, and the evils endured by humanity--spectacles that always made his heart bleed,--we may well understand how all these causes may have given rise to some moments of misanthropy, such as are betrayed by a few expressions in his journal; but it was a misanthropy that existed only in words, a plant without roots, of ephemeral growth, and most natural to a fine nature. we feel, notwithstanding all these real palpable causes of ennui, that his principal sufferings still came from the heart. "lady melbourne," writes lord byron in his memoranda, in , "tells me that it is said that i am 'much out of spirits.' i wonder if i am really or not? i have certainly enough of _'that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart' and it is better they should believe it to be the result of these attacks than that they should guess the real cause_." and this real cause was a grief he wished to keep secret. separation from friends, their departure, even when he was to meet them again, likewise caused him sadness. especially was this the case with regard to moore, whom he loved so much, and whose society had an unspeakable charm for him:--"i can only repeat," he said, "that i wish you would either remain a long time with us, or not come at all, for these snatches of society make the subsequent separations bitterer than ever."[ ] and in the next letter he says:--"i could be very sentimental now, but i won't. the truth is, that i have been all my life trying to harden my heart, and have not yet quite succeeded--though there are great hopes--and you do not know how it sunk with your departure." this influence is ever visible. the english climate was always distasteful to him, and its fogs displeased him more since he had revelled in the splendor of eastern suns; moreover, mists grew darker and colder when his imagination was still more influenced by his heart. at those moments his first thought ever was--"_let me depart, let me seek a bright sun, a blue sky._" when to his great regret, the east was closed against him by the plague of , in his disdain for northern countries, he exclaimed:-- "give me a _sun_, i care not how hot, and sherbet, i care not how cool, and my heaven is as easily made as your persian's." making allusions to this verse-- "_a persian's heaven is_ easily made,-- _'tis but black eyes and lemonade_." but we know that he was thinking of this voyage, in order to divert his mind from the regret of having been obliged, from motives of honor and prudence, to give up accompanying into sicily a family he liked very much. however, the sight of a camel sufficed to carry him back to asia and the euxine sea, and to make him cry out: "_quando te aspiciam!_" it was also at this time that he wrote to moore, "all convulsions with me end in rhyme." to overcome certain agitations of heart, he wrote the "bride of abydos," and directly afterward the "corsair." but if the melancholy, more or less deep, that cast its shadows over this brilliant period of his triumphs, wore specially the above character, it changed somewhat after his marriage. thenceforward his melancholy sprang less from the heart, than from bitter disenchantment; from the suffering of a proud nature, cruelly wounded in its sentiment of justice by indignities, calumnies, persecutions, unexampled under such circumstances. having already spoken of this marriage, i shall leave to regular biographers the detailed account of this painful period, so as only to consider it here under the sole aspect of the griefs it caused. i will not even stop to mention the unaccountable melancholy occasioned by a presentiment before marriage, nor the mysterious sort of agony that seized upon him just as he was about to kneel for the nuptial ceremony in church, nor even the sadness brought about by his first experience of the disposition of the person with whom he had so imprudently linked his fate. i will say, rather, that the melancholy caused and produced by this marriage was really grief; and of the kind that most harshly tries, not only firmness of soul, but likewise true virtue. for all the baseness, cowardice and spirit of revenge that had lain hidden a moment while his triumphal car passed on, united at this moment to overwhelm and cast him down. and the means employed were, instinct with such perversity, that his great moral courage, always so powerful in helping him to bear contradictions, disappointments, and personal misfortunes, were no longer of any assistance, threatened as he was with the greatest calamity that can possibly befall a man of honor--namely, to be misjudged, calumniated, accused, thought capable of deeds quite contrary to his high nature. neither his courage, firmness, nor even the testimony of conscience could shield him from great unhappiness. and he suffered all the more that the blame incurred proceeded from worthy persons who had been mischievously led into error; nor could he conceal from himself that he had voluntarily contributed to produce this unhappy state of things, by not sufficiently avoiding certain appearances, by not attaching sufficient importance to the opinion of his fellow-men, and having lent himself, too easily, to misinterpretation. "the thorns which i have reaped," said he later (but he thought it much earlier), "are of the tree i planted,--they have torn me,--and i bled; i should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed."[ ] in addition to all this, lord byron had to experience the effects of a phenomenon of a terrible character, a phenomenon almost peculiar to england, the tyrannical power of its public opinion. this power, that gives form and movement to what is called the great world in england, weighed so heavily on the weak minds of several persons calling themselves friends, that, with few exceptions, and though all the while persuaded of the injustice of such opinion, after a few feeble efforts at changing it, and showing the wrong done to lord byron, they lost courage to declare their belief. not only did they no longer protest, but they even pretended to believe part of the stupid calumnies spread abroad. to a heart firm and devoted as his, which, under similar circumstances, would have fought to the death in defense of outraged justice and a persecuted friend, this was one of the most cruel trials imposed on him by adverse destiny. what he must have suffered at this period has been already spoken of in another chapter. i will only say here, that, despite time, and the philosophy, which, subsequently, restored partial serenity, this wound never quite closed, since, even in the fourteenth canto of "don juan," written shortly before his last journey into greece, he still made allusion to it, saying ironically:-- "without a friend, what were humanity, to hunt our errors up with a good grace? consoling us with--'would you had thought twice! ah! if you had but followed my advice!' o job! you had but two friends: one's quite enough, especially when we are ill at ease." moore adds:--"lord byron could not have said, at this time, whether it was the attacks of his enemies, or the condolences of his friends that most lacerated his heart." it was in this state of mind that he quitted england. he visited belgium, and its battle-plains, still coming across fields of blood; went up the rhine, and spent some months in switzerland, where the glaciers, precipices, and the alps, presented him with a splendid framework for new poems. all the melancholy to be found in "childe harold" (third canto), in "manfred," and in his memoranda at that time, is evidently caused by grief, either of fresh occurrence or renewed by memory. a smile still sometimes wreathed his lip; but, when the gayety natural to his age and disposition would fain have taken possession of his heart, the remembrance of all the indignities he had undergone, rose up before him as the words _mené, mené, tekel, upharsin_, did to _belshazzar_. and often his fit of gayety ended in a sigh, which even became habitual after it had ceased to express sorrow. all those who knew lord byron have remarked _this singular and touching sigh_, attributing it to a melancholy temperament. but it was especially produced by a crowd of painful indistinct remembrances, intruding upon him at some moment when he would and could have been happy. so he has told us in those exquisite lines of his fourth canto of "childe harold;" and he often repeated the same in prose. thus, for instance, at the time of his excursions to mont blanc and the glaciers, which, had his heart been lighter, would have made him so happy, he finished his memoranda with these melancholy words:-- "in the weather for this tour (of thirteen days) i have been very fortunate--fortunate in a companion (hobhouse), fortunate in our prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays which often render journeys in a less wild country disappointing. i was disposed to be pleased. i am a lover of nature, and an admirer of beauty. i can bear fatigue, and welcome privation, and have seen some of the noblest views in the world. but, in all this, the recollection of bitterness, and more especially of recent and, more, home desolation--which must accompany me through life--have preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the majesty and the power and the glory around, above, and beneath me." after having passed eleven months in switzerland, in about the same frame of mind, he crossed the alps, and entered italy. who can breathe the soft air of that beautiful land, without feeling a healing balm descend on wounds within? the clear atmosphere, and the serene sky, were to him like the indulgent caresses of a sister, bringing a hope--a promise--that peace, and even happiness were about to visit his stricken soul. his first halt was at milan. there he met with sympathetic, noble minds, instead of the envious, hypocritical, intolerant spirits that had caused him so much suffering; sweet and pleasant was it for him to live with such. every evening he took his place in a box at the scala, where the flower of the young intellects of milan assembled, and where he met with other persons of note, such as abbé de brême and silvio pellico: gentle, beautiful souls, burning with love of country, and sighing after its independence. from them he learnt more than ever to detest the humiliating yoke of foreign despotism that weighed on italy; with the independence and frankness of character that belonged to him, he did not scruple to deplore it openly; and his imprudent generosity became a source of annoyance, persecution and calumny for himself. there he heard that passionate music which appeals so strongly to imagination and heart, because it harmonizes so naturally with all its surroundings in italy. it was listening to this music, at times so pathetic and sweet, that emotion would often lend almost supernatural beauty to his countenance, so that even mr. stendhall, the least enthusiastic of men, was wont to say with enthusiasm, _that never, in his whole life, had he seen any thing so beautiful and expressive as lord byron's look, or so sublime as his style of beauty_. there he gave himself freely up to all the fine emotions that art can raise. stendhall accompanied him to the brêra museum, "_and i admired_," says he, "_the depth of sentiment with which lord byron understood painters of most opposite schools, raphael, guercino, luini, titian. guercino's picture of hagar dismissed by abraham quite electrified him, and, from that moment the admiration he inspired rendered every body mute around him_." "he improvised for at least an hour, and even better than madame de staël," says stendhall again. "one day monti was invited to recite before lord byron one of his (monti's) poems which had met in italy with most favor,--the first canto of the 'mascheroniana.'" the reading of these lines gave such intense pleasure to the author of "childe harold" that stendhall adds, he shall never forget the divine expression of his countenance on that occasion. "it was," says he, "the placid air of genius and power." thus taking interest and pleasure in all around him, if he did experience hours of melancholy (which is very probable, his wounds being so recent and so deep), he had, at the same time, strength to hide it from the public eye, and to express it only with his pen. the single symptom that might be considered to betray, at this time, a continual malady of soul, was the indifference he showed toward the fair ladies of milan, who, on their side, were full of enthusiasm about him, and with whom he refused to become acquainted, despite all their advances. but this reserve (though probably more marked and commented on at this particular moment of which we speak) belonged, nevertheless to his nature. after having visited lake garda with that pleasure he always experienced from the beauties of nature, and then the tomb of juliet at verona, with the interest excited by a true story even more than by shakspeare's poetry (since he could only take real interest in what was true), he went from milan to venice. i have mentioned in another chapter the impression made on him by venice in particular, and italy in general; how, aided by exterior circumstances, by the sympathies growing up around him, the severe studies he underwent, so as to keep his heart calm, and bridle an imagination too liable to be influenced by bitter memories; in a few months he began a new existence there, with a more vigorous and healthy impulse for his genius. when first victimized by the most senseless persecution, he was so surprised and confounded by the noise and violence of calumny, that his keen sentiment of injustice underwent a sort of numbness. on seeing himself thus brutally attacked on the one hand, and so feebly defended on the other, by lukewarm, pusillanimous friends, he may have questioned if he were not really in fault, and hesitated, perhaps, how to reply; for he almost spoke of himself as guilty in the farewell addressed to his cold-hearted wife, and also in the lines composed for his more deserving sister. this situation of mind shows itself without disguise, sadly depicted in the third canto of "childe harold." manfred himself, that wondrous conception of genius, whose lot was cast amid all the sublimities of nature, despite his pride and his strength of will, yet was made to wear the sackcloth of penance. but, on arriving at venice when months had rolled on, and the alps were between him and the injustice undergone,--after lady byron's new, incredible, and strange refusal to return,--he felt his conscience disencumbered of all morbid influences. the testimony given, the absolution awarded by this impartial, incorruptible judge, whom he had never ceased to consult, became sufficient for him. and by degrees, as he succeeded in forgetting, so as to have power to forgive, peace and tranquillity revisited his mind. venice was the city of his dream; he had known her, he said, ere he visited her, and after the east she it was that haunted his imagination. reality spoiled nothing of his dream; he loved every thing about her,--the solemn gayety of her gondolas, the silence of her canals, the late hours of her theatres and soirées, the movement and animation reigning on st. mark's, where the gay world nightly assembled. even the decay of the town (which saddened him later), harmonizing then with the whole scene, was not displeasing. he regretted the old costumes given up; but the carnival, though waning, still recalled ancient venice, and rejoiced his heart. familiar with the italian language, he took pleasure in studying, also, the venetian dialect, the naïveté and softness of which charmed him, especially on woman's lips. stretched in his gondola, he loved to court the breezes of the adriatic, especially at twilight and moonlit hours, unrivalled for their splendor in venice. in summer and autumn he delighted to give the rein to his horse along the solitary banks of the lido, or beside the flower-enamelled borders of the brenta. he loved the simplicity of the women, the freedom from hypocrisy of the men. feeling himself liked by those among whom chance or choice had thrown him, frequenting theatres and society that could both amuse and instruct, though powerless to fill his thoughts, for these latter required more substantial food, and some hard difficult study to occupy them, being free from all disquieting passions, and wishing to remain thus, sociable as he was by temperament, though loving solitude for the sake of his genius; under all these circumstances, he could satisfy, in due proportion, the double exigency of his nature; for he lived, as we have seen, amid a small circle of sympathetic acquaintances, and of friends arriving from england, who clustered round him without interfering with the independence he had regained, and which formed the natural necessary element for his mind; though he had been deprived of it in england by the cant and pusillanimity of his friends. if, then, he was not exactly happy at this time, at least he was on the road leading to happiness. for he was beginning to make progress in the path of philosophy,--a gentle, indulgent, generous philosophy, as deep as it was clever and pleasing, and which afterward ruled his life, and inspired his genius. all those who saw him at this period are unanimous in saying that melancholy then held aloof from him. in all his letters we find proof of the same. "venice and i go on well together," wrote he to murray. and elsewhere,--"i go out a great deal, and am very well pleased." mr. rose, who visited him at venice, in the spring of , began a poem which he addressed to him from albano, where he was taking baths for his health, by alluding to the gayety which byron spread around him at the reunions which he liked. but while those living near him, and at venice, where his poetry was not known, would never have imagined him to be melancholy, in england and other places where people read the sorrow-breathing creations of his genius, he continued to be considered the very personification of melancholy or misanthropy. he knew, and laughed about it sometimes. "i suppose now i shall never be able to shake off my sable, in public imagination, more particularly since my moral wife demolished my reputation. however, not that, nor more than that, has yet extinguished my spirit, which always rises with the rebound." and as he did not wish to be considered a misanthrope, he added to moore, in the same letter:-- "i wish you would also tell jeffrey what you know,--that i was not, and indeed, am not, even _now_, the misanthropical and gloomy gentleman for which he takes me, but a facetious companion, getting on well with those with whom i am intimate, and as loquacious and laughing as if i were a much cleverer fellow." and at the same time, to disabuse the public also, and show that he could write gayly, he set himself to study a kind of poetry thoroughly italian in its spirit, and of which berni is the father; poetry replete with wit, and somewhat free, but devoid of malice, even when it merges from gayety into satire; a style unknown to england in its varied shades, and which it was easier for him to introduce than to make popular. "beppo" was his first essay in this line, and it contains too much genuine fun not to have been a natural product of his humor ere flowing from his pen. on sending it to murray as a mere sample of the style he thought it possible to introduce into the literature of his country, he said:-- "at least, this poem will show that i can write gayly, and will repel the accusation of monotony and affectation."[ ] but the gayety visible at this period in his writings and his conduct was not, however, uninterrupted. for such cheerfulness to be constant, neither a continuation of the causes producing it, nor yet the absence of english papers and reviews could quite suffice. it was necessary that no letters should come, awakening painful remembrances that had slumbered awhile, that there should be no necessity for selling his property in england,--a matter always complicated, and difficult of execution at a distance, and which forced upon him cares and occupations most opposed to his character, while affording sad proof of the negligence, ingratitude, and other faults of those intrusted with the management of his affairs. it would have required that friends who had neglected to prevent his departure, should not, when weary of seeing him no more, have conspired to bring about his return, devising a good means of so doing by obstacles thrown in the way of a successful issue to his affairs, which happy conclusion was absolutely necessary for his peace and independence. we see by his letters, written during the summer of , that he was tormented in a thousand ways; sometimes not receiving any accounts, sometimes being advised to come nearer london, then, again, having no tidings of how several thousands had been disposed of. besides that, he had constantly before his eyes a spectacle most painful for a generous heart to witness. that was venice choked and expiring in the grip of her foreign rulers. the humiliation thus inflicted on the city of his dreams, and its noble race of inhabitants, and which was every instant repeated and proclaimed by the brutal voice of drums and cannons, with a thousand added vexations (necessary, perhaps, for keeping up an abhorred sway), caused infinite suffering to his just and liberal nature, raising emotions of anger and pitying regret, that flowed from his pen in sublimely indignant language. thereupon, the despots, unable to impose silence upon him, revenged themselves in various ways, echoing reports spread in london, and inventing new fables, which the idle people of venice, more idle than elsewhere, and even the gondoliers repeated in their turn to strangers, to amuse and gain a few pence. we pass over any details of the persecution inflicted on him by english tourists, who, not actuated by sympathy, but out of sheer curiosity and eagerness to pick up all the gossip and idle tales in circulation, were wont to run after lord byron, intruding on his private walks, and even pressing into his very palace. such conduct, of course, displeased him, and accordingly in the summer of we find traces of ill-humor visible in his correspondence, and even in the first two cantos of "don juan." afterward, when he had been laid hold of and absorbed by a great passion, his irritation merged into sadness, melancholy, disquietude, and irresolution.[ ] but if all this proves that sadness wearing the garb of melancholy sometimes approached him, even at venice; we see too clearly its real and accidental causes to be able to ascribe it to a permanent and fatal disposition of temperament. many signs of suffering escaped his pen at this time. for instance, writing to moore from venice in , and wishing to give him a picturesque description of a creature full of savage energy, who forced herself upon him in a thousand extravagant ways, refusing to leave his house, he said:-- "i like this kind of animal, and am sure that i should have preferred medea to any woman that ever breathed. you may, perhaps, wonder at my speaking thus (making allusion to lady byron).... i could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl, any thing but the _deliberate desolation_ piled upon me when i stood _alone upon my hearth_ with my household gods shivered around me.... do you suppose i have forgotten or forgiven it? it has comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and i shall remain only a spectator upon this earth until some great occasion presents itself, which may come yet. there are others more to be blamed than----, and it is on these that my eyes are fixed unceasingly." meanwhile, until providence should present him with this opportunity, another feeling took involuntary possession of his whole soul. but would not the sentiment which was about to swallow up or transform all others, and which was at last to bring him some happiness, also destroy the peace so carefully preserved in his heart by indifference since he left london? he seemed at first to have dreaded such a result himself; for, in one of the earliest letters addressed to the person beloved (letters which fully unveil his beautiful soul, and where one would vainly seek an indelicate or sensual expression), he tells her "that he had resolved, on system, to avoid a great passion," but that she had put to flight all his resolutions, that he is wholly hers, and will become all she wishes, happy perhaps in her love, but never more at peace,--"_ma tranquillo mai più_." and he ends the letter with a verse quoted from guarini's "pastor fido."[ ] his heart assuredly was satisfied, but precisely because he truly loved, and felt himself beloved; therefore did he also suffer from the impossibility of reconciling the exigencies of his heart with circumstances. in one of these beautiful letters, so full of simplicity and refinement, he tells her:-- "what we shall have to suffer is of common occurrence, and we must bear it like many others, for true love is never happy; but we two shall suffer still more because we are placed in no ordinary circumstances." his real sentiments of soul are likewise displayed in that beautiful satirical poem, "don juan," in the third canto of which he exclaims:-- "oh, love! what is it in this world of ours which makes it fatal to be loved? ah, why with cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers, and made thy best interpreter a sigh?" nevertheless, when he had left venice, which became altogether distasteful to him, and gone to live at ravenna, his heart grew calmer. to murray he writes:-- "you inquire after my health and _spirits_ in large letters; my health can't be very bad, for i cured myself of a sharp tertian ague in three weeks, with cold water, which had held my stoutest gondolier for months, notwithstanding all the bark of the apothecary,--a circumstance which surprised d'aglietti, who said it was a proof of great stamina, particularly in so epidemic a season. i did it out of dislike to the taste of bark (which i can't bear), and succeeded, contrary to the prophecies of every body, by simply taking nothing at all. as to spirits, they are unequal, now high, now low,--like other people's, i suppose, and depending upon circumstances." having grown intimate with the count and countess g----, he was requested by the former to accompany his young wife into society, to the play, everywhere, in short; soon lord byron took up his abode in their palace, and the repose of heart and mind he thus attained was so great, that no sadness seemed able to come near him, as long as this tranquil, regular, pleasing sort of existence lasted, and it seemed destined to endure forever. but nothing is permanent here below, and especially happiness, be its source regular or irregular; such is the mysterious eternal law of this earthly life, doubtless one of probation. to this period of tranquillity succeeded one of uneasiness and grief, which ended by awakening a little melancholy. let us examine the causes of it in his position at that time. the object of lord byron's love had obtained from his holiness pope pius vii., at the solicitation of her parents, permission to leave her husband's house, and return home to her family. consequently she had left in the month of july, and was leading a retired life in a country-house belonging to her parents. thus lord byron, who had been accustomed to feel happy in her society, was now reduced to solitude in the same place her presence had gladdened. in order not to compromise her in her delicate position, he was obliged even to deny himself the gratification of calling upon her in the country. ravenna, which is always a sad kind of abode, becomes in autumn quite a desert, liable to fever. everybody had gone into the country. even if taste had not inclined lord byron to be alone, necessity would have compelled it; for there was no longer a single being with whom he could exchange a word or a thought. equinoctial gales again swept the sea; and thus the wholesome exercise of swimming, so useful in restoring equilibrium to the faculties and calming the mind, was forbidden. if at least he could have roamed on horseback through the forest of pines! but no; the autumn rains, even in this lovely climate, last for weeks. in the absolute solitude of a town like ravenna, imprisoned, so to say, within his own apartment, how could he avoid some emotions of sadness? he was thus assailed; and, as it always happened where he himself was concerned, he mistook its causes. engrossed by an affection that was amply returned, feeling strong against the injustice of man and the hardships of fate, having become well-nigh inaccessible to _ennui_, he was astonished at the sadness that always seemed to return in autumn, and imagined that it might be from some hereditary malady inherent to his temperament. "this season kills me with sadness," he wrote to madame g----, on the th of september; "when i have my mental malady, it is well for others that i keep away. i thank thee, from my heart, for the roses. love me! my soul is like the leaves that fall in autumn, all yellow." and then, as if he almost reproached himself with being sad without some cause existing in the heart, and, above all, not wishing to pain madame g----, he wound up with a joke, saying:--"here is a cantator;" a conventional word recalling some buffooneries in a play, and which signified:--"here is a fine sentence!" certainly, the autumnal season, sad and rainy as it is, must have had great influence over him. could it be otherwise with an organization like his? from this point of view, his melancholy, like his temperament, might be considered as hereditary. but would it have been developed without the aid of other causes? let us observe the date of the letter, wherein he blames the season, and the dates of those received from london, or those he addressed thither. the coincidence between them will show clearly that when he called himself melancholy, and accused the season, it occurred precisely on the day when he was most wearied and overwhelmed by a host of other disagreeable things. for instance, murray, whose answers on several points he had been impatiently expecting, was seized with a new fit of silence. "there you are at your tricks."[ ] and then, when the silence was broken, the letters almost always brought him disagreeable accounts. wishing to disgust him with italy, they sent him volumes full of unjust, stupid attacks on italy and the italians whom he liked. "these fools," exclaimed he, "will force me to write a book myself on italy, to tell them broadly _they have lied_." nothing was more disagreeable, and even hurtful to him, at this time, than the report of his return to england; and they wrote him word that his presence in london was asserted on all sides, that many persons declared that they had seen him, and that lady c. l---- had been to call at his house fully persuaded that he was there.[ ] "pray do not let the papers paragraph me back to england. they may say what they please, any loathsome abuse but that. contradict it." in consequence of this invention, even his newspapers were no longer sent to him; and when he spoke of the harm and annoyance thus occasioned, annoyance increased by murray's silence, his displeasure certainly amounted to anger. at this time also he was informed by letter that some english tourists, on returning home, had boasted that they _could_ have been presented to him at venice, but _would not_. the trial of the unfortunate queen was just coming on at this time, and the whole proceeding, accompanied as it was with so many cruel, indecent circumstances, revolted him in the highest degree. "no one here," said he, "believes a word of all the infamous depositions made." the article in "blackwood's magazine," which was so abominably libellous as to force him out of the silence _he had adopted for his rule_, was often present to his thought; for he dreaded lest his editor should for the sake of lucre publish "don juan" with his name, and lest the noels and other enemies, out of revenge, should profit thereby to contest his right of guardianship over his child, as had been the case with shelley. "recollect, that if you put my name to 'don juan' in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian-right of my daughter in chancery, on the plea of its containing the parody. such are the perils of a foolish jest. i was not aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct, i believe; and you may be sure that the noels would not let it slip. now, i prefer my child to a poem at any time." moreover, amid all these pre-occupations, hobhouse wrote him word that he should be obliged to go to england for the queen's trial; and we know how repugnant this necessity was to lord byron. his little allegra had just fallen rather dangerously ill; countess g----, notwithstanding the sentence pronounced by his holiness, continued to be tormented by her husband, who refused to accept the decision of rome, because he did not wish for a separation. the papal government, pushed on by the austrian police, had recourse to a thousand small vexatious measures, to make lord byron quit ravenna, where he had given offense by becoming too popular with the liberal party. lastly, we may further add that, even in those days, he was suffering from some jealous susceptibility, though knowing well how he was beloved. for in the letter, dated th of september, where he says "his soul is sick," he also complains of madame g----'s having passed some hours at ravenna _without letting him know, and of her having thought fit to hide from him certain steps taken_. this autumn was followed by a winter still more disagreeably exceptional than the preceding one. the most inclement weather prevailed during the month of january, and generally throughout the winter. "bad weather, this th of january," he writes in his memoranda, "as bad as in london itself." the sirocco, a wind that depresses even people without nerves, was blowing and melting the ice. the streets and roads were transformed into pools of half-congealed mud. he was somewhat "_out of spirits_." but still he hoped:-- "if the roads and weather allow, i shall go out on horseback to-morrow. it is high time; already we have had a week of this work: snow and sirocco one day, ice and snow the other. a sad climate for italy; but these two winters have been extraordinary." the next day, he got up "_dull and drooping_." the weather had not changed. lord byron absolutely required to breathe a little fresh air every day, to take exercise on horseback. his health was excellent, but on these two conditions; otherwise, it failed. his temper clouded over, without air and exercise. during the wretched days he was obliged to remain at home, he had not even the diversion letters and newspapers might have afforded, since no post came in. his sole amusement consisted in stirring the fire, and playing with lion, his mastiff, or with his little menagerie. so much did he suffer from it all, that his kind heart bestowed pity even on his horses:-- " ... horses must have exercise--get a ride as soon as weather serves; deuced muggy still. an italian winter is a sad thing, but all the other seasons are charming." on the th of january, he adds:-- "still rain, mist, snow, drizzle, and all the incalculable combinations of a climate where heat and cold struggle for mastery." if the weather cleared up one day, it was only to become more inclement the next. on the th he wrote in his journal:-- "the weather still so humid and impracticable, that london, in its most oppressive fogs, were a summer bower to this mist and sirocco, which has now lasted (but with one day's interval), checkered with snow or heavy rain only, since the th of december, . it is so far lucky that i have a literary turn; but it is very tiresome not to be able to stir out, in comfort, on any horse but pegasus, for so many days. the roads are even worse than the weather, by the long splashing, and the heavy soil, and the inundations." and on the th:-- "winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself, though shakspeare says otherwise.... rather low in spirits--certainly hippish--liver touched--will take a dose of salts." there was, however, too much elasticity of spirits in him, and his melancholy was not sufficiently deep for it to last. his evening visit to countess g---- at eight o'clock (the day's event consoling for all else), a few simple airs played by her on the piano, some slight diversion, such as a ray of sunshine between two showers, or a star in the heavens raising hopes of a brighter morrow, sufficed to clear up his horizon. what always raised his spirits was the prospect of some good or great and generous action to perform, such, in those days, as contributing to the deliverance of a nation. then, not only did the sirocco and falling rain cease to act on his nerves, as he himself acknowledged, but his genius would start into fresh life, making him snatch a pen, and write off in a few days admirable poems,[ ] worthy to be the fruit of long years of meditation. we may, then, believe that if his melancholy had been left solely to the physical and moral influences surrounding him at this time, it would never have become much developed, or at least would have soon passed away, like morning mists that rise in the east to be quickly dissipated by the rays of the sun. but just as these slight vapors may form into a cloud, if winds arise in another part of the sky, bringing fresh moisture to them, so a slight and fugitive sadness in him might be deepened and prolonged through circumstances. and this was exactly what happened in the year of which we speak, for it was full of disappointments and grief for him. to arrive at this persuasion, it is sufficient to remark the coincidence of dates. for example, we find in his memoranda, under the date of th of january, :-- "at eight proposed to go out. lega came in with a letter about a bill _unpaid_ at venice, which i thought paid months ago. i flew into a paroxysm of rage, which almost made me faint. i have not been well ever since. i deserve it for being such a fool--but it _was_ provoking--a set of scoundrels! it is, however, but five-and-twenty pounds." then, again, on the th we find:-- "rode. winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself, though shakspeare says otherwise. at least i am so much more accustomed to meet with ingratitude than the north wind, that i thought the latter the sharper of the two. i had met with both in the course of twenty-four hours, so could judge." and on the same day he wrote to murray a letter, in which, after mentioning a host of vexations and worries, he ends by saying:-- "i am in bad humor--some obstructions in business with those plaguing trustees, who object to an advantageous loan, which i was to furnish to a nobleman (lord b----) on mortgage, because his property is in ireland, have shown me how a man is treated in his absence." between the th and the d, his physical and moral indisposition seemed to last; for he makes reflections in his memoranda, upon melancholy bilious people, and says that he has not even sufficient energy to go on with his tragedy of "sardanapalus," and that he has ceased composing for the last few days. now, it was precisely the th that he was more than ever annoyed by the obstinacy of the london theatre managers, for, despite his determination and his clear right, his protestations and entreaties, they were resolved, said the newspapers that came to hand, on having "marino faliero" acted. he had already written to murray:-- "i must really and seriously request that you will beg of messrs. harris or elliston to let the doge alone: it is not an acting play; it will not serve their purpose; it will destroy yours (the sale); and it will distress me. it is not courteous, it is hardly even gentlemanly, to persist in this appropriation of a man's writings to their mountebanks." he wrote thus, on the th; but on the th his fears had increased to such a pitch that he also addressed the lord-chamberlain, requesting him to forbid this representation. indeed, so great was his annoyance, that he wrote to murray twice in the same day:-- "i wish you would speak to lord holland, and to all my friends and yours, to interest themselves in preventing this cursed attempt at representation. "god help me! at this distance, i am treated like a corpse or a fool by the few people that i thought i could rely upon; and i _was_ a fool to think any better of them than of the rest of mankind." on the st his melancholy does not appear to have worn off. this is to be attributed to the additions to all the causes of the previous day; and to the news of the illness of moore, whom he loved so much, there came, in addition, the following event, which we give in his own words:-- "to-morrow is my birthday--that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, midnight--_i.e._, in twelve minutes, i shall have completed thirty-three years of age!!! and i go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived so long, and to so little purpose." let me be allowed here to make some comment on the beauty of the sentiment causing this sadness; for certainly he was not actuated by a common sensual, selfish regret at youth departing. beauty, youth, love, fortune, and celebrity, all smiled on him then; he possessed every one of them to a degree capable of satisfying any vanity, or any pride, but they were inadequate, for a modesty so rare and so admirable as his! his regrets certainly did not apply to youth; he was only thirty-three years of age! nor yet to beauty, for he possessed it in the highest degree; nor to fame, that had only too much been his; nor to love, for he was the object of real idolatry;[ ] nor to any actions that called for repentance. to what, then, did they apply? to his _aspirations_ after greater things, after _ideal perfections_, that neither he nor any one else can arrive at here below. it was a soaring after the infinite! the cause, noble in itself, of this sadness consisted then in a sort of nostalgia for the great, the beautiful, the good. the simple words in which he expressed it enable us to well understand its nature. "i do not regret this year," said he, "_for what i have done, but for what i have not done_!" i will not further multiply proofs; suffice it to say, that this year having been one of incessant annoyances to him, not only can not we be surprised that he should have experienced moments of sadness, but we might rather be astonished at their being so few, if we did not know that living above all for heart, and his heart being then satisfied, he found therein compensation for all the rest. "thanks for your compliments of the year. i hope that it will be pleasanter than the last. i speak with reference to england only, as far as regards myself, where i had every kind of disappointment--lost an important lawsuit--and the trustees of lady byron refusing to allow of an advantageous loan to be made from my property to lord blessington, etc., by way of closing the four seasons. these, and a hundred other such things, made a year of bitter business for me in england. luckily things were a little pleasanter for me here, else i should have taken the liberty of hannibal's ring." the political and revolutionary events then taking place in romagna and throughout italy, caused emotions and sentiments of too strong a nature in lord byron to be confounded with sadness; but they may well have contributed to develop largely certain melancholy inclinations discoverable toward autumn. by degrees, as the first strength of grief passes away, it leaves behind a sort of melancholy current in the soul, which, without being the sentiment itself, serves as a conductor for it, making it gush forth on occurrence of the smallest cause. causes with him were not so slight at this period, although he considered them such[ ] out of the superabundance of his philosophical spirit; and the year that began with so many contradictions, ended in the same manner. the hope of seeing the counts gamba back again at ravenna was daily lessening. all the letters madame g---- wrote to him from florence and pisa, penned as they were amid the anguish of fear lest lord byron should be assassinated at ravenna, were necessarily pregnant with alarm and affliction. meanwhile his interests were being neglected in london. murray irritated him by his inexplicable negligence or worried him with sending foolish publications and provoking reviews. gifford, a critic he loved and revered, from whom no praise, he said, could compensate for any blame,--gifford, whose ideas on the drama were quite opposite to his own, had just been censuring his beautiful dramatic compositions.[ ] moreover, italy having failed in her attempts at independence, was insulted in her misfortune by that world which smiles only on success, and thus, indirectly, the persons loved and esteemed by lord byron came in for their share of outrage. and all these contradictions, _where_ and _when_ did he experience them? at ravenna, in a solitude and isolation that would have made the bravest stoic shudder, and that was prejudicial to him without his being aware of it. for there were two distinct temperaments in lord byron, that of his genius and that of his humanity, and the wants of one were not always those of the other. the first, from its nature and manifestations, required solitude. the second, eminently sociable, while yielding to the tyranny of the first, or bearing it from force of circumstance, suffered nevertheless when solitude became too complete. it was not the society of the great world, nor what are called its pleasures, that lord byron required; but a society of friends and clever persons capable of affording a little diversion to his monotonous life. when this twofold want did not meet with reasonable satisfaction, a certain degree of melancholy necessarily developed itself. "_when he was not thrown into some unbearable sort of solitude, like that in which he found himself at ravenna_," says madame g----," _his good-humor and gayety only varied when letters from england came to move and agitate him, or when he suffered morally_. "_i must, however, add that all sensitive agents, all atmospherical impressions, acted on him more than on others, and it might almost be said that his sky was mirrored in his soul, the latter often taking its color from the former; and if by that is understood the hereditary malady spoken of by others and himself, then they are right, for he had truly inherited a most impressionable temperament._" moreover, the absolute, inexorable solitude caused by the absence of all his friends from ravenna, was still further augmented by the occurrence of intermittent marshy fevers, which every body endeavors to avoid by flying from ravenna at the close of summer, and to which he fell a prey. this fever, that seized hold of him, and even prevented his departure, might alone have sufficed to render him melancholy, for nothing more inclines to sadness. but so intimate was his persuasion that when sadness does not proceed from the heart it has no cause for existence, and so little was he occupied with self, that he would not allow there could be sufficient cause for melancholy in all the sufferings weighing upon him. "i ride, i am not intemperate in eating or drinking, and my general health is as usual, except a slight ague, which rather does good than not. it must be constitutional; for i know nothing more than usual to depress me to that degree."[ ] but so little was it the necessary product of his temperament alone, so much, on the contrary, did it result from a host of causes accidentally united, that he had scarcely arrived at pisa, where most of the causes either ceased or were neutralized, than his mind recovered its serenity, and he could write to moore:-- "at present, owing to the climate (i can walk down into my garden and pluck my own oranges, indulging in this meridian luxury of proprietorship), my spirits are much better." whenever, then, his heart was happy in the happiness of those he loved, wherever he found an intellectual society to animate the mind, diverting and amusing him without imposing the chains of etiquette, we vainly seek the faintest trace of melancholy. but two great griefs soon befell him at pisa, for sorrow never made long truces with byron. truly might we say that fate ceased not from making him pay for the privilege of his great superiority, by all the sufferings he endured. soon after his arrival at pisa, his little daughter allegra, whom he was having educated at a convent in romagna, died of fever, and shortly afterward shelley was drowned! about the same time the publication of "cain," then going on, raised a perfect storm, furnishing his enemies with pretexts for attacking and slandering him more than ever. they did it in a manner so violent and unjust, bringing in likewise his publisher murray, that lord byron thought it incumbent on him to send a challenge to the poet laureate, the most perfidious among them all. at this same period, hunt, who had lost all means of existence by the death of shelley, forced himself on lord byron in such a disagreeable way as to become the plague of his life. lastly, in consequence of a quarrel that arose between sergeant masi and lord byron's riding companions, an arbitrary measure was taken, which again compelled his friends--the counts gamba--to leave pisa for genoa; and he, though free to remain, resolved on sharing their fate and quitting pisa likewise. for the government, though subservient to austrian rule, did not dare to apply the same unjust decree to an english subject of such high rank. nevertheless, if we except the death of his little girl, which caused him profound sorrow--although he bore it with all the fortitude belonging to his great soul--and the death of shelley, which also afflicted him greatly, none of the other annoyances had power to grieve him or to create melancholy. "it seems to me," he wrote to murray, "that what with my own country and other lands, there has been _hot water enough_ for some time." this manner of announcing so many disagreeables, shows what self-possession he had arrived at, and how he viewed all things calmly and sagely, as disraeli portrays him with truth in "venetia," when he makes him say:--"'_as long as the world leaves us quiet, and does not burn us alive, we ought to be pleased. i have grown callous to all they say_,' observed herbert. '_and i also_,' replied lord cadurcis." cadurcis and herbert both represent lord byron; for disraeli, like moore, having felt that lord byron had enough in him to furnish several individualities, all equally powerful, thought it necessary to call in the aid of this double personification, in order to paint his nature in all its richness, with the changes to be wrought by time and events. if the war waged against lord byron by envy, bigotry, and wickedness, had had power to create emotion during youth, and even later, the gentle, wise philosophy he afterward acquired in the school of adversity, so elevated his mind, that he could no longer suffer, except from wounds of heart, provided his conscience were at rest. when the stupid persecution raised against him on the appearance of "cain" took place, he wrote to murray from pisa, on the th of february:-- "all the _row_ about _me_ has no otherwise affected me than by the attack upon yourself, which is ungenerous in church and state.... i can only say, 'me, me; en adeum qui feci;'--that any proceedings directed against you, i beg may be transferred to me, who am willing, and _ought_, to endure them all." and then he ends his letter, saying, "i write to you about all this row of bad passions and absurdities, with the _summer_ moon (for here our winter is clearer than your dog-days), lighting the winding arno, with all her buildings and bridges,--so quiet and still!--_what nothings are we before the least of these stars!_" soon after, and while still suffering under the same persecution from his enemies and weak fools, he wrote to moore from montenero, recalling in his usual vein of pleasantry, their mutual adventures in fashionable london life, and saying, that he should have done better while listening to moore as he tuned his harp and sang, _to have thrown himself out of the window, ere marrying a miss milbank_. "i speak merely of my marriage, and its consequences, distresses, and calumnies; for i have been much more happy, on the whole, _since_, than i ever could have been with her." and some time after, conversing with madame g----, examining and analyzing all he might have done as an orator and a politician, if he had remained in england, he added:-- "that then he would not have known her, and that no other advantages could have given him the happiness which he found in real affection." this conversation, interrupted by the unexpected arrival of mr. hobhouse, and which, but for the inexplicable sadness arising from presentiments, would have made earth a paradise for the person to whom it was addressed, took place at pisa, in lord byron's garden, a few days before his departure for genoa. at genoa he continued to lead the same retired, studious, simple kind of life; and, although the winter was this year again extremely rigorous, and although his health had been slightly affected since the day of shelley's funeral, and his stay at genoa made unpleasant by the ennui proceeding from mr. hunt's presence there,[ ] still he had no fit of what can be called melancholy until he decided on leaving for greece. then the sadness that he would fain have concealed, but could not, which he betrayed in the parting hour, acknowledged while climbing the hill of albano, and which often brought tears to his eyes on board the vessel--this sadness had its source in the deepest sentiments of his heart. in greece, we know, by the unanimous and constant testimony of all who saw him there, that the rare fits of melancholy he experienced, all arose from the same cause. during his sojourn in the ionian islands, as soon as letters from italy had calmed his uneasiness, finding himself surrounded by general esteem, affection, and admiration, seeing justice dawn for him, and confusion for his enemies, being consoled also with the prospect of a future, and that, with heart at ease, he might at last shed happiness around him; then he was ever to be found full of serenity and even gayety, _only intent on noble virtuous actions_. one day, however, a great melancholy seized upon him, and all the good around suddenly appeared to vanish. whence did this arise? his letters tell us:-- "poor byron!" wrote count gamba, to his sister, on the th of october, "he has been much concerned by the news which reached him some fortnight ago about the headache of his dear ada. you may imagine how _triste_ were the workings of his fancy, to which he added the fear of having to spend several months without hearing any further tidings of her; besides the suspicion that the truth was either kept back from him or disguised. happily, another bulletin has reached him, to say that she is all right again,--and one more, to announce that the child is in good health, with the exception of a slight pain in the eyes. his melancholy is, therefore, a little mitigated, though it has not completely disappeared." the pre-occupation, disquietude, and anxiety, which he experienced more or less continuously in greece, and above all, at missolonghi, and which i have mentioned elsewhere, certainly did agitate, trouble, and even irritate him sometimes; but then it was in such a passing way, on account of the great empire he had acquired over himself, that every one during his sojourn in the islands, and often even at missolonghi, unanimously pronounced gayety to be his predominant disposition. and, truly, it was only to griefs proceeding from the heart that he granted power to cloud his brow with any kind of melancholy. after this long analysis, and before summing up, it still remains for us to examine a species of melancholy that seems not to come within our limits, but which occasionally seized upon him on his first waking in the morning:-- "i have been considering what can be the reason why i always wake at a certain hour in the morning, and always in very bad spirits--i may say, in actual despair and despondency, in all respects--even of that which pleased me over-night. in about an hour or two, this goes off, and i compose myself either to sleep again, or at least, to quiet.... what is it?--liver?... i suppose that it is all hypochondriasis." what name shall we give to this physiological phenomenon? was it hypochondriasis, as he imagined? that lord byron's temperament, so sensitive to all moral causes, so vulnerable to all atmospherical influences, should likewise have contained a vein of hypochondriasis, is not only possible, but likely. and were we as partial as we wish to be just, there would certainly be no reason for denying it. hypochondriasis is an infirmity, not a fault. lord byron himself, when informed that such a one complained of being called hypochondriacal, replied somewhat to the following effect: "i can not conceive how a man in perfect good health can feel wounded by being told that he is hypochondriacal, since his face and his conduct refute the accusation. were this accusation ever to prove correct, to what does it amount, except to say that he has a liver complaint? "'i shall publish it before the whole world,' said the clever smelfungus. 'i should prefer telling my doctor,' said i. there is nothing dishonorable in such an illness, which is more especially that of people who are studious. it has been the illness of those who are good, wise, clever, and even light-hearted. regnard, molière, johnson, gray, burns, were all more or less given to it. mendelssohn and bayle were often so afflicted with it, that they were obliged to have recourse to toys, and to count the slates on the roof of the houses opposite, in order to distract their attention. johnson says, that oftentimes he would have given a limb to raise his spirits." but, nevertheless, when we seek truth for itself, and not for its results, nor to make it help out a system, we must go to the bottom of things, and reveal all we discover. thus, after having spoken of this physiological phenomenon, which he suspects to be hypochondriasis, byron adds, that he came upon him, accompanied with great thirst, that the london chemist, mann, had cured him of it in three days, that it always yielded to a few doses of salts, and that the phenomenon always recurred and ended at the same hours. it appears, then, to me, that all these symptoms are far from indicating a serious and incurable hereditary malady, which would not be likely to have yielded to doses of salts, and which his general good health would seem to exclude. i consider them rather to point, for their cause, to his diet, which was _quite insufficient for him, and even hurtful, likely to affect the most robust health, and much more that of a man whose organization was so sensitive and delicate_. and, as this system of denying his body what was necessary for it increased the demands of his mind, which in its turn revenged itself on the body, the result was that lord byron voluntarily failed in the duties which every man owes to himself. therefore, i think it more just to rank the melancholy arising from such causes, among his _faults_, and not among the accidents of life, or his natural disposition.[ ] now, having examined his melancholy under all its phases, having proved more what it was not than what it was, we shall sum up with saying, that lord byron really experienced, during his short life, every kind of sadness. first, in early youth, he had to encounter disappointments, mortifications, disenchantments, deep moral suffering; then the constant warfare of envy, resulting in cruel, unceasing slanders: then, all the philosophical sadness arising in great minds, the best endowed and the noblest, from the emptiness of earthly things; then that unslakable thirst for the true, the just, the perfect; that sort of nostalgia which the noblest souls experience, because their home is not here, because reality disgusts them, from the striking contrast it presents with the ideal type, in their mind, especially at our epoch, and in our present social condition, when men can with difficulty preserve interior calm by dint of compulsory occupations requiring much energy. and, lastly, there was the sadness inherent to a physical temperament of such exquisite sensibility. yet, notwithstanding all the above, and though lord byron was condemned to drain the cup of bitterness to its dregs, we think he ought not to be classed among geniuses exclusively swayed by the melancholy in their nature, since almost all his sadness sprang from accident, and from a sort of fictitious temperament produced by circumstances. thus his melancholy, being fictitious, remained generally subject in real life to his fine natural temperament, only gaining the mastery when he was under the influence of inspiration, and with pen in hand. "all is strange," says la bruyère, "in the humor, morals, and manners of most men.... the wants of this life, the situation in which we are, necessity's law, force _nature, and cause great changes in it_. thus such men can not be defined, thoroughly and in themselves; too many external things affect, change, and overwhelm them; they are not precisely what they are, or rather, what they appear to be." thus, then, having a natural disposition for gayety received from god, and which i shall call _interior_, which always had the upper hand in all important actions of his life, but which was only truly known by those who approached him closely, i conclude that gayety often predominated, and ought to have predominated much more, in lord byron's life. but through the fictitious character, which i will call _exterior_, derived from _education, from circumstances of family, country, and association_, which (apparently) modified the first, and gave the world sometimes a reason, and sometimes a pretext for inventing that dark myth called by his name, _and which really only influenced his writings_, melancholy often predominated in his life. however, its sway was less in reality than in the imagination of those who wished to identify the man with the poet, and to find the real lord byron in the heroes of his early poems. footnotes: [footnote : see the introduction.] [footnote : see chapter on "generosity."] [footnote : see chapter on "friendships."] [footnote : ibid.] [footnote : see chapter on "love of fame."] [footnote : dallas, vol. ii.] [footnote : moore, vol. i.] [footnote : see moore, th and th letters.] [footnote : see "childe harold."] [footnote : see introduction.] [footnote : "his lordship was in better spirits when i had met with some adventure, and he chuckled with an inward sense of enjoyment, not altogether without spleen, a kind of malicious satisfaction, as his companions recounted, with all becoming gravity, their woes and sufferings as an apology for begging a bed and a morsel for the night. god forgive! but i partook of byron's levity at the idea of personages so consequential wandering destitute in the streets, seeking for lodgings from door to door, and rejected at all. next day, however, they were accommodated by the governor with an agreeable house," etc.--galt, p. .] [footnote : see chapter on "courage, coolness, and self-control."] [footnote : moore, vol. i.] [footnote : galt says that what he relates of his visit to ali pasha has all the _freshness and life of a scene going on under one's own eye_.] [footnote : see moore, letters and , to mrs. byron.] [footnote : galt, p. .] [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : "jacopo ortis," ugo foscolo.] [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : ibid.] [footnote : moore, letters and .] [footnote : "childe harold," canto iv.] [footnote : letter .] [footnote : see his "life in italy."] [footnote : "che giova a te, cor mio, l'esser amato? che giova a me l'aver si cara amante? se tu, crudo destine, ne dividi cio che amor ne stringe!"] [footnote : letter .] [footnote : letter .] [footnote : it was then that "sardanapalus" came to light.] [footnote : see chapter on "life in ravenna."] [footnote : "many small articles make up a sum, and hey ho for caleb quotem, oh!"] [footnote : see letter .] [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : see his "life at genoa."] [footnote : see chapter on "faults."] chapter xxv. love of truth; or, conscience a chief characteristic of lord byron. some of lord byron's biographers, unable to overcome the difficulty of defining so complete a character, or of explaining, by ordinary rules, certain contradictions apparent in his rich nature, think to excuse their own inefficiency and elude the difficulty, by saying that he did not possess one of those striking points, or decided inclinations, that constitute a man's moral physiognomy. they pretend that his qualities of heart and mind, his passions, inclinations, virtues, faults, are so combined in his ardent, mobile nature, as to make him in reality the sport of chance; and that no inclination or passion whatsoever could ever become mistress of his heart or mind, so as to constitute the basis of a character, and render it possible to define it. moore himself, for reasons i have mentioned,[ ] and which have been sufficiently spoken of in another chapter, contents himself with saying that lord byron's intellectual and moral attributes were so dazzling, contradictory, complicated, and varied, beyond all example, that it may be truly said there was not one man, but several men, in him:-- "so various, indeed, and contradictory, were his attributes, both moral and intellectual, that he may be pronounced to have been, not one, but many; nor would it be any great exaggeration of the truth to say that, out of the mere partition of the properties of his single mind, a plurality of characters, all different and all vigorous, might have been furnished. it was this multiform aspect exhibited by him that led the world, during his short, wondrous career, to compare him with that medley host of personages, almost all differing from each other, which he playfully enumerates in one of his journals." these observations of moore's are only true from a certain point of view--the richness of lord byron's nature. but even if this exuberance of faculties, united in one individual, had not been already in itself a character, and had not constituted a well-marked distinct personality, almost unique in kind, moore would have been at variance with the most profound moralists, who agree that human nature never has the simplicity of a geometrical figure, and that, in reality, characters always are mixed, complicated, composed of opposite elements of incompatible inclinations and passions. for moore appears to think that men are almost always swayed by one chief passion, round which, as round a pivot, life unrolls itself, just as we see in theatrical pieces. but even if this system were correct, intimate, as he was with lord byron, and so full of perspicacity, could he not have found, towering above the rich profusion of qualities in his friend, one dominant passion? yes, he ought to have discovered it; but there was a _struggle_ in moore between the love of justice and his friendship for lord byron on one side, _and the desire, alas! of keeping fair with a host of prejudices_ arrayed against lord byron on the other; and on the favor of these persons moore felt that his own position, or rather his pleasure in society, depended. the master-passion that occupied so great a place in lord byron's mind was his _love of truth, with all the qualities flowing from it_. it may, perhaps, be said that all beautiful souls love truth more or less. yes; but seldom does this quality acquire such complete development as in lord byron. for with him it was a _real passion_, since it gave the law, so to say, to his heart, his mind, and all the actions of his life. this extraordinary attraction, coming in contact with the lies, hypocrisy, baseness, cowardice, and deceitfulness of others, often raised indignation to such a pitch that he could not help showing and expressing it. thus his love of truth affected his social status in england, doing him immense harm; and, if it contributed to his greatness and his heroism, so it likewise added to his sorrows. this noble quality showed itself in him, we may say, from his birth, under the form of _sincerity, frankness, a passion for justice, loyalty, delicacy, honor, and likewise in the shape of special hatred for all hypocrisy, and for that shade of it peculiar to england, called cant_. amid all the passions and events of life, whatsoever the consequences, lord byron always went straight at truth; as the hero marches up under fire, or the saint to martyrdom. a lie was not only a lie to him, it was also an injustice, a cowardice, the mark of a corrupt soul, an inconceivable thing, and not to be forgiven. a child, at aberdeen, he was taken to the play to see one of shakspeare's pieces, wherein an actor, showing the sun, says it is the moon. he was a timid child, but (incapable then of understanding shakspeare's meaning) this outrage on truth excited him so far that he rose from his seat and exclaimed, "_i tell you, my dear sir, that it is the sun_." with regard to lying, he remained his whole life the child of aberdeen. neither his nurses nor preceptors ever surprised him in a lie. education, which in england, more than elsewhere, modifies and shapes men according to the requirements of their social position, had no power to affect the fundamental part of his nature. while forming his mind, it did not change his heart. it destroyed some very dear illusions, and made his soul grow sick with disappointment, so that he never ceased regretting his happy childhood. in some respects it even had power to superadd a fictitious character to his real one, but his qualities of soul and his natural character still remained untouched. the ardent affection he entertained for one of the masters at harrow--dr. drury--made him feel dislike to this gentleman's successor. having been asked to dinner by him, lord byron declined, because, he said, that by accepting, _he should belie his heart_. at the university, he, like his companions, ran after the young girls of cambridge and its environs, but he never seduced or deceived any. early in life he adopted the good habit of examining himself most rigidly; and so strict was his conscience, that, where his companions saw reason to excuse him, he, on the contrary, found cause for self-reproach. it was this same imperious, innate want of his nature, which, combined with certain circumstances, made him ill for a time. the malady was one quite foreign to his temperament, springing from self-depreciation, and because he did not then find sufficient gratification in society. a sort of misanthropy stole over his soul, chaining him to the east for two years, as a land where both soul and heart were less tried. on his return home, the impressionability belonging to his ardent, enthusiastic nature may have produced undue excitement, but no bad feeling could ever dim the lustre of the nobler passion that held sway over him. for him truth was more than a virtue, it was an imperative duty. indulgent as he ever showed himself toward all weaknesses in general, and especially toward the faults committed by his servants, he could not forgive _a lie_. at ravenna, a young woman attached to the service of his little allegra, being unwilling to avow, for fear of dismissal, that allegra had had a fall, though the child bore the mark of it, told an untruth instead. no intercession could prevail on lord byron to pardon her, and she was sent away.[ ] though eager for glory--especially at an age when not having yet arrived at it, he ignored the bite of the serpent that often lurks within a garland of roses--he yet repelled all undue praise, and was much more indignant at receiving it, than when unmerited blame was heaped upon him. once, having been compared to a man of high standing in french literature, he, anxious to prove that there could be no resemblance between him and this great man, replied:--"if the thing were true, it might flatter me; but it is impossible to accept fictions with pleasure." when dallas--who only knew him then by his family name--read his early productions, he was enchanted with poetry that often rose to the sublime, and was always chivalrous in feeling, "which denoted," he said, "a heart full of honorable sentiments, and formed for virtue." this is a precious verdict, coming as it does, from a man so bigoted in all respects as the elder dallas. he adds afterward that the perusal of these verses, and the sentiments contained in them, made him discover great affinity of mind between the young author and another literary man, who was equally remarkable as a poet, an orator, and a historian--"_the great and good lord lyttelton of immortal fame_." "and i doubt not," added dallas, "that one day, like him, he will confer more honor on the peerage than it can ever reflect on him." such a compliment from a man so rigid and respectable might certainly have tempted the most ordinary self-love, but lord byron, applying his magnifying-glass to his conscience, and comparing what he saw there with his ideal, did not conceive he merited such praise. accordingly he answered with candor that enchanted dallas himself:-- "though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, i confess a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. but i am afraid i should forfeit all claim to candor, if i did not decline such praise as i do not deserve, and this is, i am sorry to say, the case in the present instance. my pretensions to virtue are, unluckily, so few, that, though i should be happy to deserve your praise, i can not accept your applause in that respect." thus, from fear of being wanting in truth, he exaggerated his youthful imperfections, nor could find any excuse for them. and in the same way throughout life his dread of making himself out better than he was, led him into the opposite defect of representing himself as far inferior to his real worth. if from considering of the man, we turn to look at the author, we shall still always find the same passion for truth. by degrees, as he observed society around him, this passion increased, for he found the dominant vice was precisely that one most repugnant to his nature. if lord byron ever admitted, with la rochefoucault, _that hypocrisy is a homage vice renders to virtue_, he did not the less consider this homage as degrading to him who offered it, insulting to those to whom it is addressed, and most corrupting in its effect upon the soul. thus, then, he from an early period considered hypocrisy and cant as monsters, in the moral world, to be combated energetically whenever an opportunity should present itself, and he resolved on doing so with all the intrepidity and independence of which his nature was capable. his natural gentleness disappeared in presence of the _whited sepulchres_, the _pharisees_ of our day. his whole literary life was one struggle against this vice, "the crying sin of the times,"[ ] as he called it. his conscience was quite as strict with regard to intellectual things as it was in the domain of morals. we might even call it marvellously strict for our epoch, for the decay of truth forms a sadly striking characteristic of the present time. i know not what modern critic it is who says that a general enervation of intelligence and languor of soul now prevail in this respect; that the majesty of truth has been profaned, and the ancient regard in which she was held has been destroyed by religious sects, philosophical systems, the insolent attacks of the press, and by the revolution that has taken place in ideas as well as in deeds. thence the general tendency to place truth and error on the same footing, in theory and in practice. thence the equality of rights established between both, and which has become like the normal state of mind general in society. certainly, in our day, the love and practice of truth have grown obsolete; dramatic pieces and works of fiction, indeed all kinds of literature, especially biography, and even history, combine to outrage truth with impunity; no compunction is felt in transforming great characters into monsters, and monsters into heroes. people are no longer astonished that travellers' narratives should be like poems, good or bad, works of imagination full of anachronisms, exaggerations, impossibilities, making the sea take the place of mountains, and putting mountains where the sea should be. truth is hidden as dangerous, not always to humanity, but to private interests to which it might bring smaller gains. now if, at an epoch like this, we meet with geniuses, or even conscientious talents, sacrificing, both in their works and their actions, every interest or consideration to truth, ought we not to look upon them as real marvels? undoubtedly we ought, and there can be no question that lord byron belonged to the small number of such marvels. friends and enemies are agreed thereupon. galt, who was brought into contact with the poet by chance, at the time of his first journey into greece, and who travelled with him for several days, when remarking the beauty of lord byron's poems on greece, says, "they possess the great and rare quality of being _as true with regard to nature and facts as they are sublime for poetic expression_." he quotes those beautiful lines with which the third canto of the "corsair" opens, wherein lord byron describes the lovely scenery that met his eye on ascending the piræus;[ ] and to the cape colonna, and to the so-called tomb of themistocles in the "giaour;" and galt fancies he can remember by what circumstance and aspect of nature they were inspired. lord byron did not admit the possibility of describing a site that had not been seen, a sentiment that had not been experienced, or at least well known on certain and direct testimony. never could people say of him, what m. sainte-beuve asserted of chateaubriand, namely, _that he had not visited the places he described, that he lent to some what of right belonged only to others, and that he had not even seen niagara_. on the contrary, when lord byron was writing, the objects described were really present, so to say, as facts rather than in imagination. mr. galt was so persuaded of this that he almost denied him the possession of imagination, and he says that the stamp of personal experience is so strongly marked in many of lord byron's productions, usually considered fancies or inventions, that he deems it impossible not to assign for their basis real facts or events wherein he had been either actor or spectator. to refuse lord byron imagination would be absurd; but it is true that his imagination could only have discovered the elements and materials so wonderfully put together, through a scrupulous and profound observation of reality. and it was only afterward, that superadding sentiment and thought, he wrought out such splendid truths, which, if not precisely combined in the living reality, were so far superior that any absence in the original model appeared like a forgetfulness of nature. without, then, admitting mr. galt's ideas, in their extreme consequences, it is at least certain that lord byron's genius required so much to lean on truth in all things, that it may be said he owed far more to facts than to the power of imagination. apart from the faculty of combining, which he possessed in a splendid manner, if any one should take the trouble to observe, one by one, the characters he has painted, we should be still more confirmed in the above opinion. for instance, conrad, that magnificent type of the corsair, that energetic compound of an albanese warrior and a naval officer, far from being an imaginary character, was entirely drawn from nature and real history. all who have travelled in the levant, and especially at that period, must have met with personages whose appearance distinctly recalled conrad. that peaceful men, leading a regular monotonous life in the midst of civilized europe, or persons who have only travelled over their maps or their books, quietly seated in their library--that they should find characters like conrad's eccentric, and the incidents of such a career improbable, may easily be conceived; but it is not the less true that both are in perfect keeping with each other and with truth. i might say the same thing of "childe harold." but having spoken of this character sufficiently elsewhere, in order to repel the unjust identification of the pilgrim with the author,--for "childe harold" appears to me the personification of a moral idea, of the accidental transitory state of a soul placed under certain circumstances, rather than type,--i will only add here, that this unjust identification was also caused by that craving which lord byron experienced of leaning, in all things, on reality, on facts acquired through his own experience. for although it is incorrect to imagine that he made use of his looking-glass for drawing the portraits of his heroes, since the glass could not even for a passing moment--such as suffices only for a daguerreotype--have converted his gentle, beautiful expression of face into the dark countenance of a harold, a giaour, a conrad, or a lara; still it is true that he lent them some of his own noble, fine lineaments, some faint shadow of his beauty, and that more than once he committed the fault of placing them in situations exactly similar to his own, even going so far as to install his heroes within the ancient abbey of newstead,--a hospitality that cost him dear. characters that had produced a strong impression on him easily became models for the personages portrayed in his poems. it was the terrible ali pasha of yanina who furnished the most striking features depicted in the heroes of his eastern poems. the reports current about ali pasha's uncle served to lend their share of truth; and we may say, in general, that those acquainted with lord byron and his history possessed the clew to his imaginary personages; they could even recognize his adelinas, dudus, gulbeyazs, angelinas, myrrhas, adahs; and having first taken his stand on earth, it cost his fancy very little to soar and idealize what might else have been too commonplace. as to the historical characters, we are certain of finding them in the most authentic histories; for it would be impossible to carry scrupulous research further than he did. some observations on "marino faliero," his first historical drama, will suffice for an example. the impression made on lord byron, when he arrived in venice, by the character of this old man, and the terrible catastrophe that overtook him, first gave rise to his idea of the tragedy. but four years intervened between the project and its execution. during this time he consulted all the histories of venice, every document and chronicle he could lay his hands on. he passed long hours in the hall of the great council, opposite the gloomy black veil surmounted by that terrible inscription--"_hic est locus marino faliero decapitati pro criminibus suis_;" on the giants' staircase, where the doge had been crowned ere he was degraded and beheaded; he had interrogated the stones forming the monuments raised to the doges; often was he seen in the church of st. john and st. paul, seeking out the tomb of faliero and his family: and still he was not satisfied, for the motives of the conspiracy did not yet present themselves so clearly to his mind as the fact of the conspiracy itself. then he wrote to murray, to search him out in england other _more authentic_ documents concerning this tragical end. "i want it," he said to him in february, , "and can not find so good an account of that business here.... i have searched all their histories; but the policy of the old aristocracy made their writers silent on his motives, which were a private grievance against one of the patricians." and not only did he seek for truth in books and monuments, but he likewise sought it in the character and manners of all classes inhabiting the lagoons. it was only toward the close of , at ravenna, that he felt ready to write his magnificent drama. all the characters in this tragedy, except that admirable one of angiolina, which he drew from imagination and traced with his heart, were supplied by history. in it lord byron has scrupulously respected places, epoch, and the time of duration for the action; points which he considered as elements of truth in art; in short, all essential circumstances were faithfully reproduced in his drama. even the faults which critics little versed in psychological science, and obstinately forgetful that this work was _not intended for acting_, pretend to find in it, were but the necessary results of historical accuracy. these critics wished to meet with the love, jealousy, and other passions common to their age and country; but lord byron would only give them what he found in history. thence, no love and no jealousy; but a proud, violent character, coming in collision with a government proud and violent as itself; one of those men that are exceptional but real, in whom extremes of good and evil meet; one of those dramatic natures that fastened strongly on his imagination, producing a shock which kindled the flame of genius:-- "it is now four years that i have meditated this work, and before i had sufficiently examined the records, i was rather disposed to have made it turn on a jealousy in faliero. but perceiving no foundation for this in historical truth, and aware that jealousy is an exhausted passion in the drama, i have given it a more historical form."[ ] as to the motives for the conspiracy, the clearness of certainty only came to him a year after his drama had been published. but there was such an attraction between his mind and truth that his intuition had supplied the want of material certainty. and when a year afterward, at ravenna, he received the document so long desired, he was happy in sending murray a copy of this document translated from an ancient chronicle by sir francis palgrave, the learned author of the "history of the anglo-saxons," to be able to write:-- "inclosed is the best account of the 'doge faliero,' which was only sent to me from an old ms. the other day. get it translated, and append it as a note to the next edition. you will perhaps be pleased to see that my conceptions of his character were correct, though i regret not having met with this extract before. you will perceive that he himself said exactly what he is made to say about the bishop of treviso. you will also see that 'he spoke very little,' and these only words of rage and disdain, after his arrest, which is the case in the play, except when he breaks out at the close of act v. but his speech to the conspirators is better in the ms. than in the play. i wish that i had met with it in time." the historical inaccuracies of authors, their carelessness about truth, whether the result of malice or inattention, revolted lord byron, and especially if such untruths tended to asperse a great character. the lies of dr. moore about the "doge faliero" almost made him angry:-- "where did dr. moore find that marino faliero begged his life? i have searched the chroniclers, and find nothing of the kind." lord byron observes that this is not only historically, but also logically false:-- "his having shown a want of firmness," said byron, "indeed, would be as contrary to his character as a soldier, to the age in which he lived, and at which he died, as it is to the truth of history. i know no justification; at any distance of time, for calumniating a historical character: surely truth belongs to the dead, and to the unfortunate; and they who have died upon a scaffold have generally had faults enough of their own, without attributing to them those which the very incurring of the perils which conducted them to their violent death render, of all others, the most improbable." we know his consideration and sympathy for campbell, though campbell had not always behaved well toward him. he forgave him many things, but he could not pardon the indifference this author often showed for _historical truth_! at ravenna he wrote in his journal, on the th of january, :-- "read campbell's 'poets.' marked errors of tom (the author) for correction.... corrected tom campbell's 'slips of the pen;' a good work, though." in his appendix to the first canto of "don juan," he says, "being in the humor of criticism, i shall proceed, after having ventured upon the slips of bacon, to wind up on one or two as trifling in the edition of the 'british poets,' by the justly celebrated campbell. but i do this in good-will, and trust it will be so taken. if any thing could add to my opinion of the talents and true feeling of that gentleman it would be his classical, honest, and triumphant defense of pope against the vulgar cant of the day, as it exists in grub street. "the inadvertencies to which i allude are...." and after mentioning a few inadvertencies which are faults against justice and truth, he says:-- "a great poet quoting another should be correct: he should also be accurate when he accuses a parnassian brother of that dangerous charge, 'borrowing:' a poet had better borrow any thing (excepting money) than the thoughts of another--they are always sure to be reclaimed; but it is very hard, having been the lender, to be denounced as the debtor, as is the case of anstey _versus_ smollett. as 'there is honor among thieves,' let there be some among poets, and give each his due--none can afford to give it more than mr. campbell himself, who, with a high reputation for originality, and a fame which can not be shaken, is the only poet of the times (except rogers) who can be reproached (and in him it is indeed a reproach) with having written too little." hereupon he writes to murray, half joking, half serious:-- "murray, my dear, make my respects to thomas campbell, and tell him from me, with faith and friendship, three things that he must right in his 'poets.' first, he says anstey's 'bath guide' characters are taken from smollett. 'tis impossible: the 'guide' was published in , and 'humphry clinker' in --_dunque_, 'tis smollett who has taken from anstey. secondly, he does not know to whom cowper alludes when he says there was one 'who built a church to god, and then blasphemed his name:' it was 'deo erexit voltaire' to whom that mad calvinist and coddled poet alludes. thirdly, he misquotes and spoils a passage from shakspeare,--'to gild refined gold, to paint the lily,' etc.; for lily he puts rose, and bedevils in more words than one the whole quotation. "now, tom is a fine fellow; but he should be correct: for the first is an injustice (to anstey), the second an _ignorance_, and the third a _blunder_. tell him all this, and let him take it in good part: for i might have chastised him in a review and punished him; instead of which, i act like a christian. byron." with regard to a quotation, or any circumstance intended to prove a truth, his love of _exactness_ amounted to a _scruple_. he would have thought himself wanting in honor if he had made a false or an incomplete quotation. in one of the notes to "don juan," speaking of voltaire, he had quoted those famous words:--" _zaïre, vous pleurez_;" but being accustomed at that time to make great use of the familiar pronoun _thou_, as in the case in italy, his quotation ran: "_zaïre, tu pleures_." but he hastened to write to murray, "_voltaire wrote: zaïre, vous pleurez_; don't forget." in his tragedy of "faliero," lord byron had said that the doges, faliero's predecessors, were buried in the church of st. john and st. paul; but he afterward ascertained that it was only on the death of andrea dandolo, faliero's predecessor, that the council of ten, by a sort of presentiment perhaps, decreed that the doges should in future be buried with their families in their own church; previously they had all been interred in the church of st. mark:-- " ... all that i said of his _ancestral doges_, as buried at st. john's and paul's, is a mistake, _they being interred in_ st. mark's. make a note of this, by the _editor_, to rectify the fact. "in the notes to 'marino faliero,' it may be as well to say that '_benintende_' was not really of the _ten_, but merely _grand chancellor_, a separate office (although important); it was an arbitrary alteration of mine. "as i make such pretentious to accuracy, i should not like to be twitted even with such trifles on that score. of the play they may say what they please, but not so of my costume and _dram. pers._,--they having been real existences."[ ] "as to sardanapalus," he writes to murray, "i thought of nothing but asiatic history. the venetian play, too, is rigidly historical. my object has been to dramatize, like the greeks (a _modest_ phrase), striking passages of history. "all i ask is a preference for accuracy as relating to italy and other places." in books, monuments, and the fine arts, it was always _truth_ that interested him. except sir walter scott's productions, he gave no place in his library to novels; other works of imagination, especially poetry, were excluded; two-thirds of his books were french works. his reading lay chiefly in history, biography, and politics. among the books murray sent him were some travels: "send me no more of them," he wrote, "i have travelled enough already; and, besides, _they lie_."[ ] books with effected sentiment of any kind, imaginary itineraries, made him very impatient. high-sounding phrases jarred on his ears; and i thoroughly believe that the _forty centuries' looking down from the pyramids upon the grand french army_ somewhat _spoilt_ his hero for him. what he especially sought for in monuments and among ruins was their authenticity. it was on this sole condition that he took interest in them. campbell, in his "lives of english poets," had averred that readers cared no more for the truth of the manners portrayed in collins's "eclogues" than for the authenticity of the history of troy:-- "'tis false," says lord byron in his memoranda, after having read campbell; "we do care about 'the authenticity of the tale of troy.' i have stood upon that plain daily, for more than a month, in ; and if any thing diminished my pleasure, it was that the blackguard bryant had impugned its veracity. it is true that i read 'homer travestied' (the first twelve books), because hobhouse and others bored me with their learned localities, and i love quizzing. but i still venerated the grand original as the truth of history (in the material facts) and of place: otherwise, it would have given me no delight. who will persuade me, when i reclined upon a mighty tomb, that it did not contain a hero? its very magnitude proved this. men do not labor over the ignoble and petty dead--and why should not the dead be homer's dead? the secret of tom campbell's defense of inaccuracy in costume and description is, that his 'gertrude,' etc., has no more locality in common with pennsylvania than with penmanmawr. it is notoriously full of grossly false scenery, as all americans declare, though they praise parts of the poem. it is thus that self-love forever creeps out, like a snake, to sting any thing which happens, even accidentally, to stumble upon it." in order then, that lord byron might take an interest in either a place, a monument, or a work of art, he must associate them in his mind with some fact which had really taken place. by what was he most impressed on reaching venice? "there is still in the doge's palace the black veil painted over faliero's picture, and the staircase whereon he was first crowned doge and subsequently decapitated. this was the thing that most struck my imagination in venice--more than the rialto, which i visited for the sake of shylock: and more, too, than schiller's 'armenian,' a novel which took a great hold of me when a boy. it is also called the 'ghost seer,' and i never walked down st. mark's by moonlight without thinking of it. and 'at nine o'clock he died.' but i hate things all fiction, and therefore the _merchant_ and _othello_ have no great attractions for me, but _pierre_ has. there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a liar." the little taste which he entertained for painting came from the impression that, of all the arts, it was the most artificial, and the least truthful. in april, , he wrote to murray as follows, on the subject:-- "depend upon it, of all the arts it is the most artificial and unnatural, and that by which the folly of mankind is most imposed upon. i never yet saw the picture or the statue which came a league within my conception or expectation: but i have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond it." but, then, what enthusiasm, whenever he did meet with truth in art! when visiting the manfrini gallery at venice, which is so rich in _chefs-d'oeuvre_, he admits the charm of painting, and exclaims:-- "among them there is a portrait of ariosto by titian, surpassing all my anticipation of the power of painting or human expression; it is the poetry of portrait and the portrait of poetry. here was also a portrait of a lady of the olden times, celebrated for her talents, whose name i forget, but whose features must always be remembered. i never saw greater beauty or sweetness, or wisdom; it is the kind of face to go mad about, because it can not detach itself from its frame." our readers are aware with what obstinate determination the public voice proclaimed lord byron a skeptic, and still does. nor will we here examine whether that epithet is merited, because a soul has been sometimes visited by the malady always more or less afflicting great minds; we will not ask if disquietude--which constitutes the dignity of our nature; if the torture caused by doubts and universal uncertainty, by the impossibility of explaining what is, or of comprehending what will be, if all this deserve to be called skepticism. it is not necessary to enter into the subject here, because we have already examined in another chapter[ ] with what foundation such a name was applied to lord byron. now, we will content ourselves with adding that it was his love of truth and his delicacy of conscience which caused, in a great measure, what has been called his skepticism. for these sentiments would not allow him to affirm things that many others perhaps affirm, without believing more in them. moreover, he appears sometimes to have been _persuaded that doubt was the feeling least removed from truth_. this quality rises to a virtue. if lord byron's passion for truth had simply remained within the limits already described, it would have given earnest of a noble soul, more gifted than others, with instincts of a higher order; it would have lighted up his social character, given the charm of that frankness so delightful in his manners, conversation, style; so attractive in the expression of his fine countenance; but still it would only have been a natural quality, without any more right to the name of virtue than all the other beautiful instincts he had received from heaven; but, when ceasing to be purely natural, it became a distinguishing characteristic of the author, then it went far beyond these limits. in his writings it raised him above all calculations of interest, made him despise all considerations of ambition or of ease, exposed him to terrible party warfare, to slander, and revenge; spurred him on to attack the great and powerful whenever they turned aside from the path of virtue, justice, or simplicity, and made him forget his nationality, that he might better remember his humanity. meanwhile he never once yielded to any interest; and thus this innate faculty, which might have been a virtue easily practiced, _became one of heroic merit_. we may safely assert that all his griefs through life owed their origin to this rare quality; for perhaps he did not know sufficiently how to reconcile it with a _certain amount_ of that social virtue called prudence; whose office it is to keep silence when advisable, and not to utter dangerous truths. certainly lord byron never showed that wisdom for himself which he knew well how to practice for others; witness his conduct in greece, where, according to the account given by all who lived with him there at that time, he displayed the utmost prudence, moderation, and ability.[ ] that social virtue of prudence, which, to our mind, is somewhat akin to a defect, was wholly wanting in him in private life; yet it is a necessary virtue in his country, and especially was so in his day. england then was, in many respects, far from resembling the england of our time. liberty of opinion was certainly guaranteed by law; but then there were the drawing-room tribunals; very unforgiving with regard to certain truths, and little disposed to admire that inclination which prompts superior minds not to conceal their real thoughts. the earth or the universe might have been conceded as a field open to criticism, he might express his true opinions on all points, provided only some few books, and one island, called england, were excepted. under show of respect, absolute silence was required on these heads. they constituted the ark of alliance; to speak ill of them was not permissible, and even to praise was almost dangerous. in the enchanted palace of "blue beard" one single chamber was reserved; and woe to him who penetrated therein. since then, a period of peace and prosperity, together with the effects of time and travel, have greatly improved the noble character of the english nation. in our day, pens, tongues, and consciences are less strictly bound, and many truths may now be avowed without fear of bringing the flush of anger or of indignant modesty to the cheek. the present, and, still less, the past, are no more considered as sacred ground. even the norman conquest is no longer a seditious subject. the dictionary of society has gained many words; and englishmen no longer fear to see their children lose that patriotism which for them is almost a religion, because they read books not deifying their own country and full of libels on the rest of the globe. historians, novel-writers, poets--even theologians--have vied with each other in tearing away the bandages concealing many old wounds, in order to cure them by contact with the vivifying breezes of heaven; and twenty years after lord byron, macaulay has been able, without losing his popularity, to show less filial piety than he, and to blame the past in language so beautiful as to obtain forgiveness for the sacrifice even of truth. but, in lord byron's time, england was carrying on her great struggle against the lion of the age. separated from the continent by war still more than by the sea, the cannon's roar booming across the waters added venom to her wounds, and pride made her prefer to conceal rather than to heal them. the echo of this detested cannon was still sounding when lord byron returned to england, from his travels in the east, with the same thirst for truth as heretofore, but having gained much from observation, comparison, and reflection. he believed he had the right to make use of faculties with equal independence, whether as regarded his own nation or the rest of humanity. england then seemed to wish to arrogate to herself the monopoly, of morality, wisdom, and greatness, together with the right of despising the rest of the world. lord byron considered this pretension as excessive, and he expressed his generous incredulity in lines proudly independent. he refused to see heroism where he did not believe it to exist, and would not accord glory to victories that seemed to him the result of chance. he refused to see virtue and religion in what he considered calculation or hypocrisy. he demanded _justice_ for catholic ireland, and impartiality for enemies; he even went so far as to show sympathy for napoleon and deplore his fall. he could not allow party spirit to depreciate the genius of napoleon. madame de staël, who had made lord byron's acquaintance in london when he was very young, and had conceived a great liking for him, often wrote to him, and always tried to prove that he was wrong in thinking so highly of napoleon. but on account of this lord byron broke off the correspondence suddenly, which vexed madame de staël not a little. the invasion of france, the humiliation of a great nation, was painful to him; and this generous sentiment even caused him to commit a real _fault, which he expressed regret for more than once_, says madame g----, when conversing with her at pisa and genoa. the fault was a certain feeling of hostility indulged toward the illustrious duke of wellington, whom he yet confessed to be the glory of his country. "p.s.--if you hear any news of battle or retreat on the part of the allies (as they call them), pray send it. he has my best wishes to manure the fields of france with an invading army. i hate invaders of all countries, and have no patience with the cowardly cry of exultation over him at whose name you all turned whiter than the snow to which you are indebted for your triumph." he was too generous an enemy to echo the archbishop of canterbury's prayer.[ ] as a whig, he was indignant at the prince of wales's conduct in deserting his political banner and passing over to the tories when he became regent; so he wrote some hard verses against him,--"lines to a lady weeping," addressed to the princess charlotte. this poem was the olive-branch that robert was about to snatch from the tomb. all evil passions were now let loose against lord byron. the tory party--so influential then, and which saw with displeasure the future promise of a great orator held out in the person of a young whig peer--gladly seized a pretext for displaying its hostility. the higher clergy naturally clung to the interests of the aristocracy, as identical with their own: moreover, they were vexed with the young lord for attacking intolerancy, hypocrisy, and similar anti-christian qualities, and consequently espoused with ardor tory grievances. pretending even to discover danger to religion in some philosophical verses,[ ] they denounced the young poet as an _atheist_ and a _rebel_. at the same time his admiration for foreign beauties wounded feminine self-love at home. in thus placing the interests of truth above every other consideration, not only from the necessity he experienced of expressing it, but also with the design of serving justice, lord byron by no means ignored the formidable amount of burning coals he was piling upon his head. he knew well that the secret war going on against him delighted all his rivals, who, not having dared to show their spite at the time of his triumphs, had bided patiently the day of vengeance. he was aware of it all, but did not therefore draw back; and looking fearlessly at the pile heaped with all these combustible materials intended for his martyrdom, he did not any the more cease from his work. he resisted, and accepted martyrdom like a _hero_. "you can have no conception of the uproar the eight lines on the little royalty's weeping in (now republished) have occasioned.... the 'morning post,' 'sun,' 'herald,' 'courier,' have all been in hysterics.... i am an atheist, a rebel, and at last the devil (_boiteux_, i presume). my demonism seems to be a female's conjecture.... the abuse against me in all directions is vehement, unceasing, loud."[ ] the editor, alarmed, proposed to have them disavowed. "take any course you please to vindicate yourself," lord byron answered him; "but leave me to fight my own way, and, as i before said, do not _compromise_ me by any thing which may look like _shrinking_ on my part; as for your own, make the best of it.... i have already done all in my power by the suppression" (of the satire). "if that is not enough, they must act as they please; but i will not 'teach my tongue a most inherent baseness,' come what may.... i shall bear what i can, and what i can not i shall resist. the worst they could do would be to exclude me from society. i have never courted it, nor, i may add, in the general sense of the word, enjoyed it; and there is a world elsewhere! "any thing remarkably injurious i have the same means of repaying as other men, with such interest as circumstances may annex to it." after this first great explosion, of which the verses addressed to the princess charlotte had formed the occasion and the pretext, the commotion appeared to subside. but the fire in the mine had not gone out. it still circulated obscurely, gathering strength in the quiet darkness. another occasion was alone wanting for a second explosion, and a hand to strike the spark. the circumstance of his unhappy marriage, which had taken place in the interval, presented this occasion; and the hand to strike the spark was the one which had received the nuptial ring a year before. the explosion was brutal, abominable, insensate--unworthy of the society that tolerated it. then came another interval; the good who had been drawn into this stormy current were seized with regret and remorse. "_why did we thus rise against our spoilt and favorite child?_" the wicked knew well wherefore they had done it, but the good did not. macaulay told it them one day, twenty years afterward, better than any one else has, in one of those passages where the beauty of his style, far from injuring truth, lends it a double charm, enhancing it just as nature's beauty is set off by a profusion of light. this good feeling stealing over the public conscience alarmed lord byron's deadly enemies. they feared lest sentimental remorse should compromise their victory; and they manoeuvred so well, that from that hour persecution took up permanent abode in england, under pretext of offense to religion or morals. it followed him on his heroic journey into greece, and ceased not with his death. even after that, the vengeance and rage of his enemies--the indiscretion and timidity of friends--the material or moral speculations of all, together with the assurance of impunity--continued to feed the fire which an end so glorious as his ought to have quenched.[ ] but if the war against him did not cease, his perseverance and courage in saying what he thought did not cease either. who more than he despised popularity and literary success, if they were to be purchased at the cost of truth? "were i alone against the world," said he, "i would not exchange my freedom of thought for a throne." and again: "he who wishes not to be a despot, or a slave, may speak freely." that such independence of mind, aided by such high genius, should have alarmed certain coteries--not to speak of certain political and religious sets, who were all powerful--may easily be conceived. we can not feel surprise at the scandals they got up in defense of their privileges, when attacked by a new power who made every species of baseness and hypocrisy tremble; nor can we wonder that, unknowing where it would stop, they should have sought to cast discredit on the oracle by slandering the man. that the bark bearing him to exile should have been pushed on by a wind of angry passions in coalition--by a breeze not winged by conscience--may also be conceived; but to _conceive_ is not to absolve, and in using the above expression we only mean to allow due share to human nature in general--to the character, manners, and perhaps to the special requirements of england. and if we ought not to condone party spirit in politics, defending privileges to the death; nor the anti-christian ferocity displayed by that portion of the clergy who, without reason or sincerity, attacked him from the pulpit; nor yet the malice and revenge displayed in the vile slanders that pursued him to his last hour; we can, on the other hand, comprehend, and even, up to a certain point, excuse this prosperous and noble country of england for not classing her great son among popular poets--for hiding her admiration cautiously: since it must be acknowledged that lord byron often acted and wrote rather _as belonging to humanity, than merely as belonging to england_. but if he were treated with the same injustice by foreigners, could the same excuse be made for them? would a man be excusable if laziness and carelessness made him accept, without examination, some type set up for lord byron by a country wounded in her self-love, as england had been, or the reserves made by hostile biographers, under the weighty influence of a society organized as english society then was? the vile system which consists in seeking to give a good opinion of one's own morality by being severe on the morality of others, is only too well known. would it be excusable to apply it ruthlessly to lord byron?--to pretend to repeat that in attacking prejudice he wounded morals?--that he injured virtue by warring against hypocrisy?--that by using a right inherent to the human mind in some hypothetical lines of a poem, written at twenty-one years of age, and which is beyond the comprehension of the multitude, since the greater number of mankind neither read elevated poetry nor works of high taste; is it not absurd to pretend that he wished to upset them in their religious belief, and deprive them of truths which are at once their consolation, support, and refuge in time of sorrow and suffering? nevertheless, _frenchmen_ have spoken thus; and in this way, through these united causes, lord byron has remained _unappreciated_ as a man and unfairly judged as a poet. one calls him _the poet of evil_; another _the bard of sorrow_. but no! lord byron was not exclusively either one or the other. he was _the poet of the soul_, just as shakspeare was before him. lord byron, in writing, never had in view virtue rather than vice. to take his stand as a teacher of humanity, at his age, would have seemed ridiculous to him. after having chosen subjects in harmony with his genius, and a point of view favorable to his poetic temperament, which especially required to throw off the yoke of artificial passions and of weak, frivolous sentiments, what he really endeavored was to be powerfully and energetically true. he thought that truth _ought_ always to have precedence over every thing else--that it was the source of the _beautiful_ in art, as well as of all _good_ in souls. to him lies were _evil_ and _vice_; truth was _good_ and _virtue_. as a poet, then, he was the bard of the soul and of truth; and as a man, all those who knew him, and all who read his works, must proclaim him the poet who has come nearest to the ideal of truth and sincerity. and now, after having studied this great soul under every aspect, if there were in happy england men who should esteem themselves higher in the scale of virtue than lord byron, because having never been troubled in their belief, either through circumstances or the nature of their own mind, they _never admitted or expressed any doubt_; because they are the happy husbands of those charming, indulgent, admirable women to be found in england, who _love and forgive so much_; because, being rich, they have not refused _some trifle_ out of their superfluity to the poor; because, proud and happy in privileges bestowed by their constitution, they have never _blamed those in power_: if these prosperous ones deemed themselves superior to their great fellow-citizen, would it be illiberal in them to express now a different opinion? might we not without rashness affirm, that they should rather hold themselves honored in the virtue and glory of their illustrious countryman, humbly acknowledging that their own greater happiness is not the work of their own hands? footnotes: [footnote : see introduction.] [footnote : see "life in italy."] [footnote : preface to canto xi. of "don juan."] [footnote : "slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, * * * * * * * not as in northern climes." " _corsair_," canto iii.] [footnote : see preface to marino faliero.] [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : letter .] [footnote : see chapter on "religion."] [footnote : m. tricoupi, in his interesting "history of the greek revolution," ends his fine article upon lord byron, and upon his death, in the following words:-- "this man's great name, his noble struggle in the midst of misfortunes, the troubles which he had borne for the sake of greece, the bright hopes which he was on the point of seeing realized, proved sufficiently what the greeks lost in losing him, and the misfortune which his death was to them. each one considered and mourned his loss as a private and as a public calamity. in ordering the funeral, the governor of the town exclaimed, 'this time the beautiful easter rejoicings have turned for us into hours of bitterness,' and he was right. all forgot easter in presence of the blow which was dealt them by the loss of such a man. "byron, as a poet, was enthusiastic, but his enthusiasm, like his poetry, was deep; his policy in greece was likewise intelligent and profound. no dreams like those formed by most of the lovers of the greeks. no utopian plans, democratic or anti-democratic. even the press appeared to him as yet uncalled-for. the independence of greece, that was the essential point at issue, and to obtain this end he counselled the greeks to be united among themselves, and to respect foreign courts. his principal care was the organization of the army, and the procuring of the funds necessary to maintain it. he loved glory, but only that which is solid. he refused to take the title of commander-general of continental greece, which the government and the nation offered him in common accord. he hated politics as a rule, and avoided parliamentary discussions even in his own country...."] [footnote : this strange prayer ran thus:--"o lord almighty, give us strength to destroy the last man of that perfidious nation (the french), which has sworn to devour alive thy faithful servants (the english)."] [footnote : stanzas of second canto of "childe harold."] [footnote : moore, letter .] [footnote : the system of depreciating byron's acts never once ceased. it followed him to greece and even to the tomb. count gamba, his friend and companion, in speaking of the excellent health enjoyed by all during the passage from genoa to greece, says:-- "we were in excellent health and spirits during our whole voyage from italy to greece, and for this we were partly indebted to our medical man, and partly to that temperance which was observed by every one on board, except at the beginning of the voyage by the captain of our vessel, who, however, ended by adopting our mode of life. i mention this to contradict an idle story told in a magazine ('the london') 'that lord byron on this voyage passed the principal part of the day drinking with the captain of the ship.' lord byron, as we all did, passed his time chiefly reading. he dined alone on deck; and sometimes in the evening he sat down with us to a glass or two, not more, of light asti wine. he amused himself in jesting occasionally with the captain, whom he ended, however, by inspiring with a love of reading, such as he thought he had never felt before." but his enemies were not discouraged. when they saw that byron landed in one of the ionian islands, which was a far wiser and more prudent course to adopt, and one which might prove infinitely more beneficial to greece than going straight to the morea, they spread the report that instead of going to greece, he spent his life in debauchery and in the continuation of his poem of "don juan," at rest in a lovely villa situated on one of the islands. moore informed him rather abruptly of this report, which distressed him greatly.] reflections upon mr. disraeli's novel "venetia:" a semi-biography of lord byron. is mr. disraeli to be classed among the biographers of lord byron because in his preface to "venetia" he declares that his object is to portray lord byron? we do not think so. truth and error, romance and history, are too much intermixed, and the author himself confesses this fact in calling his work a novel. but while denying to "venetia" the right of being styled a biography, we must admit that it is both a deep, true, and at times admirable study of the fine and so ill-judged character of lord byron. the extraordinary qualities with which he was gifted, both in heart and in mind, his genius, his amiability, his irresistible attractions, his almost supernatural beauty, are all set forth with consummate ability, and the greatest penetration. he has made all his other characters, which are for the most part imaginary, subservient to this end; and he has created some (such as lady annabel) which moralists will not easily admit to be possible, it being granted that all the characters in the book are mentally sane. it is questionable whether the virtues and qualities which adorn lady annabel are compatible with the defects of her nature. mr. disraeli has acted in the same way as regards the circumstances of byron's life; he has heaped them together without any regard to what may or may not be true in their supposed occurrence, some of them being founded on reality and others not so. he has given byron two individualities. lord cadurcis represents byron from his infancy to the time of his marriage, and mr. herbert equally represents lord byron from that fatal epoch till his death. the selection of two persons to represent one same character and to allow of byron's simple yet complex nature being better understood was a very happy philosophical notion. he portrays lord byron as he was, or as he would have been in the given circumstances; and he pictures the others as they should or might have been, not as they were. in reading "venetia" it is impossible not to like lord cadurcis, and to admire him, just as all those who knew lord byron loved and esteemed him, or not to respect mr. herbert, whom he styles "the best and greatest of men," as he would have been revered had byron reached a greater age. he depicts byron at every epoch of his life, and as circumstances develop his latent predispositions. he first shows him to us as the innocent child, whose heart is full of tenderness, meekness, sensibility, and docility, such as his tutor, dr. drury, said he was: "rather easier to be led with a silken string than with a cable;" who is gifted with a noble and proud nature, which is easily moved; who possesses a great sense of justice and an undaunted courage; who scorns excuse and cares not to lessen his fault. he then shows him as the thoughtful boy, both when alone and with others; and as the gayest and wildest of creatures when in the company of the beloved companion of his childish sports; a boy full of kindness, and of the desire to please; whose absence is ever a subject of regret, so great is the love he inspires, both in his master and in his servants, and indeed in all who come near him. at his early age can already be traced the germs of those qualities which foretell that brilliant mind which is to win some day the heart of a nation, and dazzle the fancy of a world of admirers. the sight of the fair hair and of the angelic beauty of the little venetia is enough to dry his tears; and herein we not only perceive already the extreme impressionable disposition of his nature, but also the power and influence which beauty is destined to exercise over him. the love of solitude and meditation is already traceable in the child. he loves to wander at night among the dark and solitary cloisters of his abbey; he loves to listen to the whistling of the wind re-echoed by the cloisters; he delights in the murmurs of the waters of his lake when the winter storms disturb their serenity, and uproot the strongest oaks of his park. proud of his race, his whole nature sympathizes with the glorious deeds of his ancestors, and one feels that he would fain rather die than show himself unworthy of them. one sees the germs of poetry sown in his mind--but one feels that the heart alone can make them fructify, and give them an outward form. nothing is more touching than the tenderness which he feels and inspires wherever he goes. mr. disraeli then shows him in his youth, just at the time when he is to leave college for the university, and presents him to the reader as a remarkably well-educated young man, in whom the best principles have been inculcated, and whose conduct and conversation bear evidence of a pure, generous, and energetic soul "that has acquired at a very early age much of the mature and fixed character of manhood without losing any thing of that boyish sincerity and simplicity that are too often the penalty of experience. "he was indeed sincerely religious, and as he knelt in the old chapel that had been the hallowed scene of his boyish devotions, he offered his ardent thanksgiving to his creator who had mercifully kept his soul pure and true, and allowed him, after so long an estrangement from the sweet spot of his childhood, once more to mingle his supplications with his kind and virtuous friends." "he is what i always hoped he would be," says lady annabel. "remember what a change his life had to endure; few, after such an interval, would have returned with feelings so kind and so pure. i always fancied that i observed in him the seeds of great virtues and great talents, but i was not so sanguine that they would have flourished as they appear to have done." young as he is, he is already accustomed to reflect; and the result of his dreams is a desire to live away from the world with those he loves. the world as seen by others has no attraction for him. what the world covets appears to him paltry and faint. he sympathizes with great deeds, but not with a boisterous existence. he cares not for that which is ordinary. he loves what is rare and out of the common way. he dwells upon the deeds of his ancestors in palestine and in france, who have left a memorable name in the annals of their country. cadurcis experiences inwardly a desire, and even the power to imitate their example. he feels that to become the world's wonder no sacrifice is great enough; but in this age of mechanism, what career is left to a chivalrous spirit like his? he then longs for the happiness of private life in the company of so perfect a creature as venetia; but he is still so young, and venetia, who loves him like a brother and a friend, can not as yet understand the nature of another kind of love. he then leaves for the university, with grief implanted at the bottom of his heart. disraeli then shows how, after three years, during which time his genius had been smouldering as it were, it at last appeared in a splendor quite unrivalled and unexampled, like a star equally strange and brilliant, which scarcely has it become visible in the horizon, than it already reaches its zenith. not only is he distinguished by his writings, but by a thousand other ways, which fill the heart and dazzle the eyes. where every thing is remarkable he is most noticed; and the most conspicuous where all is brilliant. he is envied by men, praised and sought after by women, admired by all. his life has become a perpetual triumph, a splendid act, which is enthusiastically applauded, and in which he ever plays the best and most heroic part. in the midst of this infatuation of a whole nation, among those handsome and noble women who forget themselves too much since they forget themselves entirely for the honor of a look from him, why is he not happy? what is he craving for? what is his occupation? why, when envied by all, is he yet to be pitied? it is that his life is still, and will ever be, the life of the heart which finds no satisfaction to its desire in the midst of the world wherein it is doomed to live. on one occasion he finds himself at the house of the most fashionable woman in london, of the great and beautiful person whose love for him is greater than he would wish. many people are assembled there; dinner is about to be announced. no one but himself attracts attention or calls for enthusiastic eulogies; yet he is sad, absent, wearied. by his proud, handsome looks, his reserve, and his melancholy attitude, he might be taken for an unearthly being, condemned, as a punishment, to visit our terrestrial orb. all of a sudden his melancholy gives way to the liveliest animation; his cheeks glow, and happiness beams in his beautiful eyes. what has happened? among the guests arriving he has heard the servant call out the name of his old tutor at cherbury, the friend of all the friends of his youth. raised to the dignity of a bishop, the late tutor has arrived in london to take his seat in the house of lords. again to see this friend of his youth, who is likely to speak to him of cherbury, which he loved so dearly, and of venetia, is a pleasure which his triumphs have never afforded him; and from that moment all is changed in his eyes, every thing is smiling, every thing is bright. he learns that lady annabel and venetia have left their retreat of cherbury and have arrived in london. cadurcis has but one thought, one aspiration, that of seeing them again. he does see venetia again, and he feels that the world's praises are no longer any thing to him, except to be placed at her feet, and that he would give up all the idolatry of which he is the object for one year of happiness spent at cherbury. when venetia sees her ideal realized, and that lord cadurcis unites in him all the qualities of her dear plantagenet with those brilliant and imposing talents which command love and admiration; when she beholds in him the genius of her father linked with the heart of her earliest friend, to whom she is still so deeply attached; when she sees her dear plantagenet "courted, considered, crowned, incensed--in fact, a great man" living in an atmosphere of glory and in the midst of the applause of his contemporaries, venetia exchanges her fraternal love, which was so touching, for the most ardent passion which one perfect creature can inspire in one as perfect as itself. but the obstacle to their happiness now arises, and lady annabel it is who becomes metamorphosed into a woman whose judgment is false, whose prejudices are great, whose principles are inexorable; who knows nothing of the world, nothing of her own heart nor of the human heart; who judges all things by certain arbitrary rules, and acts sternly in accordance with her inexplicable judgment. all the love which she would have had for plantagenet at cherbury is turned into hatred on learning that he has become a great poet, the admiration of his country, the observed of all observers; that all the world is anxious to see him, that the finest ladies sigh for one of his looks, that he is not insensible to their admiration, that he is a whig, and not only a whig, but very nearly a rebel. she reads his poems, and her astonishment is only surpassed by the horror with which they inspire her. she sees herbert in cadurcis, and unable as she was to understand the former, so is she unequal to the task of comprehending cadurcis. an imaginative being makes her tremble; such a creature can only be a monster. the praises bestowed upon cadurcis do not shake her prejudices. his cousin, a brave sailor--a tory, whose nature is as noble as it is frank and loyal--in vain tells her that cadurcis is one of the most generous, most amiable, and most praiseworthy of men. in vain does he assure her that notwithstanding the difference of their political opinions, he can scarcely give her an idea of the delicacy and unbounded goodness which he has shown--that his heart is perfect, that his intellect is the finest that ever existed, and that if his conduct has at times been a little irregular, allowances must be made for the temptations which assailed him at the age of twenty-one, the sole master of his acts, and with all london at his feet. "it is too much for any one's head; but say or think what the world may, i know there is not a finer creature in existence. venetia, who feels the truth of all this, inwardly exclaims, 'dear, dear cadurcis, can one be surprised at your being beloved when you are so generous, so amiable, so noble, so affectionate!' but the poor child in vain recalls to her mother the conduct of plantagenet, who displays constancy in his true affections. 'no,' exclaims lady annabel, 'minds like his have no heart, a different impulse directs their existence--i mean imagination.'" lady annabel tortures her daughter, to extort from her the promise that she will never marry lord cadurcis. her devotion for that daughter, which seemed to be the essence of her life, is no longer in this hard-hearted woman but a form of her egotism; and venetia, vexed in all her natural sentiments, instead of being the idol of her affections, becomes in reality the martyr of her pride. after dwelling upon the agony of mind experienced by these two beautiful and loving souls, both victims of lady annabel's cruelty, disraeli shows us cadurcis a prey to despair; enduring the consequences of the fashionable life which he is compelled to lead, that is, of the dissipated existence which he wades through against his will; the victim, besides, of the jealous and fanatical love of the great lady whose yoke he had not been able as yet to shake off. a duel between him and the lady's husband is the result, and nothing is more admirable than the picture of lord byron (or lord cadurcis) in all the scenes which precede and follow this duel; his calmness, his courage, the mixture of humor and wit with which he ever was wont to meet the greatest perils, and which was one of the characteristics of his nature, and, above all, that great and noble generosity of which he gave so many proofs in every circumstance and at every period of his life. then followed the consequences of the duel, and the capital derived from it by the accumulated stupidity and revenge of those inferior persons jealous of his superiority and of his popular fame. nothing is so beautiful, however, as the scene which takes place first at the club and then at the house of lords, where mr. disraeli shows this noble and calumniated creature the object of the base and hypocritical jealousy of most of his colleagues, who, notwithstanding their hatred for him, were wont to call themselves his friends; when, exhausted and almost the victim of a ferocious hatred of an excited populace, he stands calm in the midst of these truly english elements in the attitude of an archangel or of a demi-god, opposing them and maintaining his ground until with the aid of a few brave and faithful friends, of the constable's truncheon, and the arrival of the mounted guard, he succeeds in getting rid of them altogether. all this, although not quite true, either as a historical fact or in its details, is, however, so admirably told, that it may be taken as a document well worthy of consideration by the biographer, and of which extracts can not be given without spoiling the whole. in the midst of the turmoil occasioned by this duel, in which his adversary had been seriously wounded, cadurcis suddenly finds himself abandoned by those who called themselves his friends, calumniated by the press, who spare no falsehoods to disparage his character, but whose contradictions have no effect in his great successes. cadurcis, gifted as he is with an extreme sensibility, and accustomed to live in an atmosphere of praise, finds himself suddenly nailed to the pillory of public indignation, sees his writings, his habits, his character, and his person, equally censured, ridiculed, and blemished; in fact, he finds himself the victim of reaction, and yet all this does not affect his mind; his true agony is caused not by the regret at losing his prestige and his popularity, nor by the conduct of those who style themselves his friends, and who now joined his enemies in spreading and believing in the false reports respecting him. his greatness of soul and the purity of his conscience alike help him to endure these misfortunes; but what really does give him pain, is the thought that all these absurd rumors will reach the ears of venetia. he has lost all hope of obtaining her hand, but he feels the want of her esteem. he wishes her to judge him as he deserves to be judged; and the thought that she likewise may put faith in the infamous and stupid reports which are spread about him, throws him into despair. when his cousin announces to him that he has succeeded in making the truth known to venetia, how consoled he feels, and how grateful is he to his cousin! to his credit, the cousin did actually, in presence of lady annabel, who remained incredulous, endeavor to re-establish facts in their true light; and despite her sullen mood, did he courageously undertake the defense of cadurcis, accuse the mounteagles and the world in general, and conclude by declaring that "cadurcis was the best creature that ever existed, the most unfortunate, the most ill-treated; and that if one should be liable to be pursued for such an affair, over which cadurcis could have no control, there was not a man in london who could be sheltered from it for ten minutes." when lord cadurcis receives venetia's message, which is to tell him that he remains for her what he has ever been, the announcement acts upon him as a charm, brings calm back to his mind, and renders him indifferent for the future to the opinion of the world. the experience of that day has entirely cured him of his former deference for the opinion of society. the world has outraged him. he no longer owes any thing to the world. his reception in the house of lords, and the riot outside the house, have severed his ties with all classes, from the highest to the lowest; his grateful heart will ever preserve the remembrance of those who have shown him true affection by displaying moral courage in his defense. but they are few,--some relations, or nearly such by their association with them, and for these his gratitude and his respect are unlimited; but as for the others, he will pay them back by showing them his contempt, by publishing the truth respecting them, their country, their habits, their laws, their customs, their opinions, in order that they may be known and judged by the whole world,--a tribunal far more enlightened than the limited one of his native isle. henceforth he resolves never again to meet the advances of those civilized "ruffians" who affect to be sociable. he prepares to leave england, with the intention never again to return to it. he shuts himself up in his room for a week, and allowing free scope to his passionate and wounded soul, he writes his adieu to england, and in the task his mind finds relief. in this poem, wherein a few well-merited sarcasms find a place, and wherein there are many allusions to venetia, there are passages so delicate, so tender, so irresistibly pathetic, that it exercised an extraordinary influence upon public opinion. again the tide of public sympathy runs high in his favor; it is found that cadurcis is the most calumniated of mortals, that he is more interesting than ever; and lady mounteagle is spoken of as she deserves. cadurcis is, however, too proud to accept new sympathies likely to make him suffer all that he has already suffered. he quits his native land, surrounded by a halo of glory, but with contempt on his part for that popular favor of which he has too cruelly experienced the worth. he sails for greece, and here disraeli shows how he led a life of study, and finally depicts him, under the name of herbert, as a philosopher and a virtuous man, who, after behaving as a hero, and after abandoning some of the illusions of youth, and principally that of making men wiser and better, aspires only at leading a mild, regular, virtuous, and philosophical existence. notwithstanding the great charm of mr. disraeli's book, to give extracts from which would only be to spoil it, it must, however, be allowed that the real and the imaginary are too much intermingled. all the fictions of time and place, which only leave the sentiments of the real man untouched, all the double and treble characters which at times quit, and at others resume, their individuality almost as in a dream, tend to create a confusion which is prejudicial to truth. thus, lady annabel has charms and qualities wholly incompatible with her supposed stern severity. miss venetia, a perfect emanation of love and beauty, is at times transformed into an imaginary miss chaworth, and at others into a beloved sister, and at others again into an adorable ada----; lady mounteagle is sometimes too like, and often too unlike, the real lady c. l----; the whole is confused, fatiguing to the mind, and too fictitious not to be regretted, since the express intention of the author is to paint a historical character, acting in the midst of circumstances generally founded on reality. in following out the intention of the author, and his want of respect for truth, it is impossible not to ask ourselves why, while respecting circumstances of such slight import as the preservation of the christian names of the mother and wife, he has not done the same for more important accidents in the hero's life? why, for instance, have described his childhood as a painful time? was not lord byron surrounded with the tenderest cares while in scotland? had he been unhappy there, would he have transmitted to us in such happy lines his remembrance of the time which he spent in the north? is it not in scotland that his heart was nursed with every affection, that his mind drank in the essence of poetry? why make his mother die when he was only twelve years of age, since she died only on his return from spain and from greece, that is, when he was twenty-two? why make her die of grief at being abandoned by him, in consequence of an imaginary scene which obliges her to take refuge in the midst of a band of bohemian travellers, when it is known that she died rather by the excess of joy which she experienced at the thought of seeing him again after an absence of nearly two years? why change the ages, and give miss chaworth fifteen when she was eighteen, or himself eighteen when he was fifteen? why give him such an affectionate guardian instead of lord carlisle? it may be argued that in these changes in the actual life of lord byron, we must only perceive the genius of the writer, who by making the hero's infancy a sad one, and causing the first glimpse of happiness to dawn upon him at cherbury, in depriving him of his mother at an early age in order that he may live entirely in the herbert family, where he finds so much happiness, and repays it so well, mr. disraeli believed that he could bring out in better relief all the tenderness, kindness, docility, gratitude, constancy, and those other rare and splendid qualities of his hero's young soul. in reducing miss herbert's years, and in increasing those of his hero, the author no doubt wished to render forcible the sentiments which a child of fifteen could not otherwise have inspired in a young girl of eighteen. the imaginary duel was probably conceived to afford the author an opportunity of showing his hero under other admirable aspects, and especially to furnish him with the means of casting blame upon english society, of absolving him, and of showing how he was the victim of inherent national prejudices, which time has not yet succeeded in eradicating. the exuberance and variety of the gifts which nature had bestowed upon byron, together with the universality of his genius, which created in him such apparently singular contrasts, no doubt inspired mr. disraeli with the idea that to make him better known it was necessary to make two persons of one, each of a different age, so as to be able to divide his qualities according to their suitableness to those ages, and to make him act and speak in accordance with each given character: to show us the man in his moral, social, and intellectual capacity during his transition from early youth to a maturer age, after the experience of those hardships of life which have purified and strengthened his soul. the first period is represented by the ardent and passionate lord cadurcis, the other by the wise and philosophical herbert. in making herbert live to a mature age, and in centring in him every grace, every quality, every perfection with which a mortal can be gifted, he wished to show to what degree of moral perfection lord byron might have attained, and how happy he might have been in the peace and quiet of domestic life had he been joined to another wife in matrimony, since notwithstanding lady annabel's faults, happiness was not out of herbert's reach. the conclusion to which disraeli no doubt points is the inward avowal by lady annabel herself that she, not herbert, was the cause of their separation, and of their useless misfortunes. again, when young lord cadurcis returns from greece, and when disraeli recounts his conversation with herbert, his intention, no doubt, was to show us the intellectual and moral progress which time has caused him to make,--the transition from the "childe harold" of twenty-one to the "childe harold" of "manfred" of twenty-nine; and from the "childe harold" of thirty to the "don juan" and "sardanapalus" of thirty-three; he thus was able to put in relief that mobility of character which existed in him as regards a certain order of ideas, and which blended itself so well with the depth and the constancy of other of his views, enabling us to penetrate into the recesses of that beautiful soul, and displaying to our admiring gaze its numberless springs of action,--at times his constant aspiration to come to the aid of humanity, and his little hope of succeeding in modifying our corrupt nature; his love of glory, and how little he cared for the appreciation of the public of which he had experienced the fickle favors; his knowledge of life, his simple tastes, his love of nature, and the greatness of his mind, of which no ambition or worldly feeling could tarnish the simplicity and even sublimity. in giving him two individualities the novelist was better able to combine the passionate sarcasms of cadurcis with the smiles of goodness and tolerance of herbert, and to show him to us as he was wont to converse, mixing the wittiest remarks with the most serious reflections. he had made him express a number of opinions apparently contradictory, but which belonged to his peculiar character, which was equally simple and complex, alike sensible and passionate, subject to a thousand influences of weather and seasons; and though inflexible in his principles of honor as in the whole course of his existence, yet changeable in things of minor importance. he loves to mystify, and writes, without reflecting as to the possible consequences, a number of things which cross his mind, and in which he does not believe, but of which his love of humor forces the expression to his lips. again, disraeli tells us of a number of his real ideas, initiates us into his literary tastes, his philosophical views, his preferences, his admiration for the great men of antiquity and of modern times; tells us why his favorite philosophers are plato and epicurus, his favorite characters in antiquity alexander and alcibiades, both young and handsome conquerors; in modern times, milton and sir philip sydney, bayle and montaigne; what his opinions respecting shakspeare and pope, what cadurcis, and what herbert thinks of these; and finally he gives us his views upon the love which we should have for truth, upon the influence which political situations bear upon the grandeur of country, not only in literature and in arts, but likewise in philosophy, and in a number of other ways. all these means employed by the great novelist certainly succeed in making of "venetia" a most delightful book; but notwithstanding its charms, as we read, it is impossible not to ask one's self at times whether a historical novel is thus entitled to encroach upon the biography of great men. without pretending to settle the question, i own that i rather appreciate the truth of a historical work than all the pleasure which the talent of an author can afford me, and it appears to me that if mr. disraeli, with his admirable talent, had chosen to write the life of lord byron, he would have done better. we should not, it is true, have had in the biography either the pleasant life at cherbury, or the scene at newstead, neither the duel nor its consequences; but we should have had almost a similar lady mounteagle, and we should have seen the rise of that same base spirit in his colleague which greeted him at one period of his life, the same wickedness which assailed him, the same jealousy with which he was looked upon, the same cruel persecution to which he was subjected, the same hatred which assailed him on the part of the people who had a little before so idolized him, and, in short, the same reaction in the public mind which actually took place. we should, on the other hand, have equally seen the same noble mind, too proud again to submit to the curb under the yoke of popular public feeling. he would not have shown us a charming lady annabel styled a virtuous woman, though she abandons her husband simply because she believes he no longer entertains for her all the ardent love which he had evinced during the honey-moon!--a lady annabel, indeed, who constitutes in herself a being morally impossible, who though she does abandon her husband, spends her night in bewailing his loss at the foot of his portrait; who, though she adores her daughter, nearly causes her death with grief from the fear which she has that the child will not marry a man of genius like her father. instead of such a woman we should have had, if not one more logical in her acts, at least more real and historical, and exemplifying the painful and murderous effects of silence in the condemnation of a man against whom the venom of calumny has been directed--that man being no less a person than her own husband. instead of a lady annabel repentant at last, and self-accusing, truth and reality would have presented us with an insensible, hard-hearted, and inexorable woman, who remains inflexible to the last, and who deserves that the effects should be applied to her of the words which cadurcis, in a moment of despair, pronounces against venetia's mother, when the former declares that she is the victim of her mother, but that nevertheless she will do her duty: "then my curse upon your mother's head! may heaven rain all its plagues upon her! the hecate!" we should not have had a venetia who is truly a delicious emanation from a poet's mind, and the only woman worthy of becoming the wife of lord byron, who sums up in herself all the tenderness which he must have inspired in or felt for a woman, a sister, or a daughter. but we should have had, instead of her, three persons who really existed, and who exercised a great influence over lord byron's life. the one a young lady of eighteen, whom lord byron styled light and coquettish, but who really possessed his heart at fifteen years of age; the other his dear augusta, who was truly a venetia toward him; and finally, his beloved little ada, for whom he had such a paternal tenderness. instead of an elderly herbert returning to domestic happiness, which would simply have been impossible with the wife whom fate had chosen for lord byron, we should have had a handsome young man who has not waited until he had reached the mature age of herbert to be adorned with every virtue, in whom reason is not the effect of growing years, whose wisdom is not that of the old; and instead of the pathetic catastrophe which is attributed to herbert and cadurcis together, and which really occurred to shelley, we should have had lord byron's real death, which was infinitely more pathetic, and could have been described in equally beautiful and heartrending language. how sublime would have been the history of the death of that young man who at the age of thirty-four heroically sacrifices his life for the independence of a country which is not his own, and whose patriotism is greater than that of his countrymen, since he prefers the cause of humanity to the interests of the little spot on the globe where he was born! if, then, instead of a novel, mr. disraeli had given us a true history, the work would have been an everlasting monument erected to the memory of two noble beings, and would have been transmitted to posterity as a valuable testimony of the virtues of lord byron. as the book stands, and written by such a man as mr. disraeli, it will ever remain a study worthy of being quoted among those whose object it is to proclaim the truth respecting lord byron. paris, _november, _. the end. valuable standard works for public and private libraries, published by harper & brothers, new york. _for a full list of books suitable for libraries, see_ harper & brothers' trade-list _and_ catalogue, _which may be had gratuitously on application to the publishers personally, or by letter enclosing five cents_. harper & brothers _will send any of the following works by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, on receipt of the price_. motley's dutch republic. the rise of the dutch republic. a history. by john lothrop motley, ll.d., d.c.l. with a portrait of william of orange. vols., vo, cloth, $ . motley's united netherlands. history of the united netherlands: from the death of william the silent to the twelve years' truce-- . with a full view of the english-dutch struggle against spain, and of the origin and destruction of the spanish armada. by john lothrop motley, ll.d., d.c.l., author of "the rise of the dutch republic." portraits. vols., vo, cloth, $ . abbott's life of christ. jesus of nazareth: his life and teachings; 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and the publishers can unhesitatingly affirm their belief that neither fear for loss of her literary fame, nor hope of gain, has for one moment influenced her in the course she has taken. london: january . contents. part i. chapter i. introduction chapter ii. the attack on lady byron chapter iii. resume of the conspiracy chapter iv. results after lord byron's death chapter v. the attack on lady byron's grave part ii. chapter i. lady byron as i knew her chapter ii. lady byron's story as told me chapter iii. chronological summary of events chapter iv. the character of the two witnesses compared chapter v. the direct argument to prove the crime chapter vi. physiological argument chapter vii. how could she love him? chapter viii. conclusion part iii. miscellaneous documents. the true story of lady byron's life (as originally published in 'the atlantic monthly') lord lindsay's letter to 'the london times' dr. forbes winslow's letter to 'the london times' extract from lord byron's expunged letter to murray extracts from 'blackwood's magazine' letters of lady byron to h. c. robinson domestic poems by lord byron part i. chapter i. introduction. the interval since my publication of 'the true story of lady byron's life' has been one of stormy discussion and of much invective. i have not thought it necessary to disturb my spirit and confuse my sense of right by even an attempt at reading the many abusive articles that both here and in england have followed that disclosure. friends have undertaken the task for me, giving me from time to time the substance of anything really worthy of attention which came to view in the tumult. it appeared to me essential that this first excitement should in a measure spend itself before there would be a possibility of speaking to any purpose. now, when all would seem to have spoken who can speak, and, it is to be hoped, have said the utmost they can say, there seems a propriety in listening calmly, if that be possible, to what i have to say in reply. and, first, why have i made this disclosure at all? _to this i answer briefly, because i considered it my duty to make it_. i made it in defence of a beloved, revered friend, whose memory stood forth in the eyes of the civilised world charged with most repulsive crimes, of which i _certainly_ knew her innocent. i claim, and shall prove, that lady byron's reputation has been the victim of a concerted attack, begun by her husband during her lifetime, and coming to its climax over her grave. i claim, and shall prove, that it was not i who stirred up this controversy in this year . i shall show _who did do it_, and who is responsible for bringing on me that hard duty of making these disclosures, which it appears to me ought to have been made by others. i claim that these facts were given to me unguarded by any promise or seal of secrecy, expressed or implied; that they were lodged with me as one sister rests her story with another for sympathy, for counsel, for defence. _never_ did i suppose the day would come that i should be subjected to so cruel an anguish as this use of them has been to me. never did i suppose that,--when those kind hands, that had shed nothing but blessings, were lying in the helplessness of death, when that gentle heart, so sorely tried and to the last so full of love, was lying cold in the tomb,--a countryman in england could be found to cast the foulest slanders on her grave, and not one in all england to raise an effective voice in her defence. i admit the feebleness of my plea, in point of execution. it was written in a state of exhausted health, when no labour of the kind was safe for me,--when my hand had not strength to hold the pen, and i was forced to dictate to another. i have been told that i have no reason to congratulate myself on it as a literary effort. o my brothers and sisters! is there then nothing in the world to think of but literary efforts? i ask any man with a heart in his bosom, if he had been obliged to tell a story so cruel, because his mother's grave gave no rest from slander,--i ask any woman who had been forced to such a disclosure to free a dead sister's name from grossest insults, whether she would have thought of making this work of bitterness a literary success? are the cries of the oppressed, the gasps of the dying, the last prayers of mothers,--are _any_ words wrung like drops of blood from the human heart to be judged as literary efforts? my fellow-countrymen of america, men of the press, i have done you one act of justice,--of all your bitter articles, i have read not one. i shall never be troubled in the future time by the remembrance of any unkind word you have said of me, for at this moment i recollect not one. i had such faith in you, such pride in my countrymen, as men with whom, above all others, the cause of woman was safe and sacred, that i was at first astonished and incredulous at what i heard of the course of the american press, and was silent, not merely from the impossibility of being heard, but from grief and shame. but reflection convinces me that you were, in many cases, acting from a misunderstanding of facts and through misguided honourable feeling; and i still feel courage, therefore, to ask from you a fair hearing. now, as i have done you this justice, will you also do me the justice to hear me seriously and candidly? what interest have you or i, my brother and my sister, in this short life of ours, to utter anything but the truth? is not truth between man and man and between man and woman the foundation on which all things rest? have you not, every individual of you, who must hereafter give an account yourself alone to god, an interest to know the exact truth in this matter, and a duty to perform as respects that truth? hear me, then, while i tell you the position in which i stood, and what was my course in relation to it. a shameless attack on my friend's memory had appeared in the 'blackwood' of july , branding lady byron as the vilest of criminals, and recommending the guiccioli book to a christian public as interesting from the very fact that it was the avowed production of lord byron's mistress. no efficient protest was made against this outrage in england, and littell's 'living age' reprinted the 'blackwood' article, and the harpers, the largest publishing house in america, perhaps in the world, re-published the book. its statements--with those of the 'blackwood,' 'pall mall gazette,' and other english periodicals--were being propagated through all the young reading and writing world of america. i was meeting them advertised in dailies, and made up into articles in magazines, and thus the generation of to-day, who had no means of judging lady byron but by these fables of her slanderers, were being foully deceived. the friends who knew her personally were a small select circle in england, whom death is every day reducing. they were few in number compared with the great world, and were _silent_. i saw these foul slanders crystallising into history uncontradicted by friends who knew her personally, who, firm in their own knowledge of her virtues and limited in view as aristocratic circles generally are, had no idea of the width of the world they were living in, and the exigency of the crisis. when time passed on and no voice was raised, i spoke. i gave at first a simple story, for i knew instinctively that whoever put the first steel point of truth into this dark cloud of slander must wait for the storm to spend itself. i must say the storm exceeded my expectations, and has raged loud and long. but now that there is a comparative stillness i shall proceed, first, to prove what i have just been asserting, and, second, to add to my true story such facts and incidents as i did not think proper at first to state. chapter ii. the attack on lady byron. in proving what i asserted in the first chapter, i make four points: st. a concerted attack upon lady byron's reputation, begun by lord byron in self-defence. nd. that he transmitted his story to friends to be continued after his death. rd. that they did so continue it. th. that the accusations reached their climax over lady byron's grave in 'blackwood' of , and the guiccioli book, and that this re-opening of the controversy was my reason for speaking. and first i shall adduce my proofs that lady byron's reputation was, during the whole course of her husband's life, the subject of a concentrated, artfully planned attack, commencing at the time of the separation and continuing during his life. by various documents carefully prepared, and used publicly or secretly as suited the case, he made converts of many honest men, some of whom were writers and men of letters, who put their talents at his service during his lifetime in exciting sympathy for him, and who, by his own request, felt bound to continue their defence of him after he was dead. in order to consider the force and significance of the documents i shall cite, we are to bring to our view just the issues lord byron had to meet, both at the time of the separation and for a long time after. in byron's 'memoirs,' vol. iv. letter , under date december , , nearly four years after the separation, he writes to murray in a state of great excitement on account of an article in 'blackwood,' in which his conduct towards his wife had been sternly and justly commented on, and which he supposed to have been written by wilson, of the 'noctes ambrosianae.' he says in this letter: 'i like and admire w---n, and he should not have indulged himself in such outrageous license. . . . . when he talks of lady byron's business he talks of what he knows nothing about; and you may tell him _no man can desire a public investigation of that affair more than i do_.' { } he shortly after wrote and sent to murray a pamphlet for publication, which was printed, but not generally circulated till some time afterwards. though more than three years had elapsed since the separation, the current against him at this time was so strong in england that his friends thought it best, at first, to use this article of lord byron's discreetly with influential persons rather than to give it to the public. the writer in 'blackwood' and the indignation of the english public, of which that writer was the voice, were now particularly stirred up by the appearance of the first two cantos of 'don juan,' in which the indecent caricature of lady byron was placed in vicinity with other indecencies, the publication of which was justly considered an insult to a christian community. it must here be mentioned, for the honour of old england, that at first she did her duty quite respectably in regard to 'don juan.' one can still read, in murray's standard edition of the poems, how every respectable press thundered reprobations, which it would be well enough to print and circulate as tracts for our days. byron, it seems, had thought of returning to england, but he says, in the letter we have quoted, that he has changed his mind, and shall not go back, adding 'i have finished the third canto of "don juan," but the things i have heard and read discourage all future publication. you may try the copy question, but you'll lose it; the cry is up, and the cant is up. i should have no objection to return the price of the copyright, and have written to mr. kinnaird on this subject.' one sentence quoted by lord byron from the 'blackwood' article will show the modern readers what the respectable world of that day were thinking and saying of him:-- 'it appears, in short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted _every species_ of sensual gratification--having drained the cup of sin even to its bitterest dregs--were resolved to show us that he is no longer a human being even in his frailties, but a cool, unconcerned fiend, laughing with detestable glee over the whole of the better and worse elements of which human life is composed.' the defence which lord byron makes, in his reply to that paper, is of a man cornered and fighting for his life. he speaks thus of the state of feeling at the time of his separation from his wife:-- 'i was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private rancour; my name, which had been a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for william the norman, was tainted. i felt that, if what was whispered and muttered and murmured was true, i was unfit for england; if false, england was unfit for me. i withdrew; but this was not enough. in other countries--in switzerland, in the shadow of the alps, and by the blue depth of the lakes--i was pursued and breathed upon by the same blight. i crossed the mountains, but it was the same; so i went a little farther, and settled myself by the waves of the adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters. 'if i may judge by the statements of the few friends who gathered round me, the outcry of the period to which i allude was beyond all precedent, all parallel, even in those cases where political motives have sharpened slander and doubled enmity. i was advised not to go to the theatres lest i should be hissed, nor to my duty in parliament lest i should be insulted by the way; even on the day of my departure my most intimate friend told me afterwards that he was under the apprehension of violence from the people who might be assembled at the door of the carriage.' now lord byron's charge against his wife was that she was directly responsible for getting up and keeping up this persecution, which drove him from england,--that she did it in a deceitful, treacherous manner, which left him no chance of defending himself. he charged against her that, taking advantage of a time when his affairs were in confusion, and an execution in the house, she left him suddenly, with treacherous professions of kindness, which were repeated by letters on the road, and that soon after her arrival at her home her parents sent him word that she would never return to him, and she confirmed the message; that when he asked the reason why, she refused to state any; and that when this step gave rise to a host of slanders against him she silently encouraged and confirmed the slanders. his claim was that he was denied from that time forth even the justice of any tangible accusation against himself which he might meet and refute. he observes, in the same article from which we have quoted:-- 'when one tells me that i cannot "in any way _justify_ my own behaviour in that affair," i acquiesce, because no man can "_justify_" himself until he knows of what he is accused; and i have never had--and, god knows, my whole desire has ever been to obtain it--any specific charge, in a tangible shape, submitted to me by the adversary, nor by others, unless the atrocities of public rumour and the mysterious silence of the lady's legal advisers may be deemed such.' lord byron, his publishers, friends, and biographers, thus agree in representing his wife as the secret author and abettor of that persecution, which it is claimed broke up his life, and was the source of all his subsequent crimes and excesses. lord byron wrote a poem in september , in switzerland, just after the separation, in which he stated, in so many words, these accusations against his wife. shortly after the poet's death murray published this poem, together with the 'fare thee well,' and the lines to his sister, under the title of 'domestic pieces,' in his standard edition of byron's poetry. it is to be remarked, then, that this was for some time a private document, shown to confidential friends, and made use of judiciously, as readers or listeners to his story were able to bear it. lady byron then had a strong party in england. sir samuel romilly and dr. lushington were her counsel. lady byron's parents were living, and the appearance in the public prints of such a piece as this would have brought down an aggravated storm of public indignation. for the general public such documents as the 'fare thee well' were circulating in england, and he frankly confessed his wife's virtues and his own sins to madame de stael and others in switzerland, declaring himself in the wrong, sensible of his errors, and longing to cast himself at the feet of that serene perfection, 'which wanted one sweet weakness--to forgive.' but a little later he drew for his private partisans this bitter poetical indictment against her, which, as we have said, was used discreetly during his life, and published after his death. before we proceed to lay that poem before the reader we will refresh his memory with some particulars of the tragedy of aeschylus, which lord byron selected as the exact parallel and proper illustration of his wife's treatment of himself. in his letters and journals he often alludes to her as clytemnestra, and the allusion has run the round of a thousand american papers lately, and been read by a thousand good honest people, who had no very clear idea who clytemnestra was, and what she did which was like the proceedings of lady byron. according to the tragedy, clytemnestra secretly hates her husband agamemnon, whom she professes to love, and wishes to put him out of the way that she may marry her lover, aegistheus. when her husband returns from the trojan war she receives him with pretended kindness, and officiously offers to serve him at the bath. inducing him to put on a garment, of which she had adroitly sewed up the sleeves and neck so as to hamper the use of his arms, she gives the signal to a concealed band of assassins, who rush upon him and stab him. clytemnestra is represented by aeschylus as grimly triumphing in her success, which leaves her free to marry an adulterous paramour. 'i did it, too, in such a cunning wise, that he could neither 'scape nor ward off doom. i staked around his steps an endless net, as for the fishes.' in the piece entitled 'lines on hearing lady byron is ill,' lord byron charges on his wife a similar treachery and cruelty. the whole poem is in murray's english edition, vol. iv. p. . of it we quote the following. the reader will bear in mind that it is addressed to lady byron on a sick-bed:-- 'i am too well avenged, but 't was my right; whate'er my sins might be, _thou_ wert not sent to be the nemesis that should requite, nor did heaven choose so near an instrument. mercy is for the merciful! if thou hast been of such, 't will be accorded now. thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep, for thou art pillowed on a curse too deep; yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel a hollow agony that will not heal. thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap the bitter harvest in a woe as real. _i have had many foes, but none like thee_; for 'gainst the rest myself i could defend, and be avenged, or turn them into friend; but thou, in safe implacability, hast naught to dread,--in thy own weakness shielded, and in my love, which hath but too much yielded, and spared, for thy sake, some i should not spare. and thus upon the world, trust in thy truth, and the wild fame of my ungoverned youth,-- on things that were not and on things that are,-- even upon such a basis thou halt built a monument whose cement hath been guilt! the moral clytemnestra of thy lord, and hewed down with an unsuspected sword fame, peace, and hope, and all that better life which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, might yet have risen from the grave of strife and found a nobler duty than to part. but of thy virtues thou didst make a vice, trafficking in them with a purpose cold, and buying others' woes at any price, for present anger and for future gold; and thus, once entered into crooked ways, the early truth, that was thy proper praise, did not still walk beside thee, but at times, and with a breast unknowing its own crimes, deceits, averments incompatible, equivocations, and the thoughts that dwell _in janus spirits, the significant eye that learns to lie with silence_, { } the pretext of prudence with advantages annexed, the acquiescence in all things that tend, no matter how, to the desired end,-- all found a place in thy philosophy. the means were worthy and the end is won. i would not do to thee as thou hast done.' now, if this language means anything, it means, in plain terms, that, whereas, in her early days, lady byron was peculiarly characterised by truthfulness, she has in her recent dealings with him acted the part of a liar,--that she is not only a liar, but that she lies for cruel means and malignant purposes,--that she is a moral assassin, and her treatment of her husband has been like that of the most detestable murderess and adulteress of ancient history, that she has learned to lie skilfully and artfully, that she equivocates, says incompatible things, and crosses her own tracks,--that she is double-faced, and has the art to lie even by silence, and that she has become wholly unscrupulous, and acquiesces in _any_thing, no matter what, that tends to the desired end, and that end the destruction of her husband. this is a brief summary of the story that byron made it his life's business to spread through society, to propagate and make converts to during his life, and which has been in substance reasserted by 'blackwood' in a recent article this year. now, the reader will please to notice that this poem is dated in september , and that on the th of march of that same year, he had thought proper to tell quite another story. at that time the deed of separation was not signed, and negotiations between lady byron, acting by legal counsel, and himself were still pending. at that time, therefore, he was standing in a community who knew all he had said in former days of his wife's character, who were in an aroused and excited state by the fact that so lovely and good and patient a woman had actually been forced for some unexplained cause to leave him. his policy at that time was to make large general confessions of sin, and to praise and compliment her, with a view of enlisting sympathy. everybody feels for a handsome sinner, weeping on his knees, asking pardon for his offences against his wife in the public newspapers. the celebrated 'fare thee well,' as we are told, was written on the th of march, and accidentally found its way into the newspapers at this time 'through the imprudence of a friend whom he allowed to take a copy.' these 'imprudent friends' have all along been such a marvellous convenience to lord byron. but the question met him on all sides, what is the matter? this wife you have declared the brightest, sweetest, most amiable of beings, and against whose behaviour as a wife you actually never had nor can have a complaint to make,--why is she _now_ all of a sudden so inflexibly set against you? this question required an answer, and he answered by writing another poem, which also _accidentally_ found its way into the public prints. it is in his 'domestic pieces,' which the reader may refer to at the end of this volume, and is called 'a sketch.' there was a most excellent, respectable, well-behaved englishwoman, a mrs. clermont, { } who had been lady byron's governess in her youth, and was still, in mature life, revered as her confidential friend. it appears that this person had been with lady byron during a part of her married life, especially the bitter hours of her lonely child-bed, when a young wife so much needs a sympathetic friend. this mrs. clermont was the person selected by lord byron at this time to be the scapegoat to bear away the difficulties of the case into the wilderness. we are informed in moore's life what a noble pride of rank lord byron possessed, and how when the headmaster of a school, against whom he had a pique, invited him to dinner, he declined, saying, 'to tell you the truth, doctor, if you should come to newstead, i shouldn't think of inviting _you_ to dine with _me_, and so i don't care to dine with you here.' different countries, it appears, have different standards as to good taste; moore gives this as an amusing instance of a young lord's spirit. accordingly, his first attack against this 'lady,' as we americans should call her, consists in gross statements concerning her having been born poor and in an inferior rank. he begins by stating that she was 'born in the garret, in the kitchen bred, promoted thence to deck her mistress' head; next--for some gracious service unexpressed and from its wages only to be guessed-- raised from the toilet to the table, where her wondering betters wait behind her chair. with eye unmoved and forehead unabashed, she dines from off the plate she lately washed: quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, the genial confidante and general spy,-- who could, ye gods! her next employment guess,-- an _only infant's earliest governess_! what had she made the pupil of her art none knows; _but that high soul secured the heart, and panted for the truth it could not hear with longing soul and undeluded ear_!' { } the poet here recognises as a singular trait in lady byron her peculiar love of truth,--a trait which must have struck everyone that had any knowledge of her through life. he goes on now to give what he certainly knew to be the real character of lady byron:-- 'foiled was perversion by that youthful mind, which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, _deceit infect_ not, nor contagion soil, indulgence weaken, or example spoil, nor mastered science tempt her to look down on humbler talent with a pitying frown, nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain.' we are now informed that mrs. clermont, whom he afterwards says in his letters was a spy of lady byron's mother, set herself to make mischief between them. he says:-- 'if early habits,--those strong links that bind at times the loftiest to the meanest mind, have given her power too deeply to instil the angry essence of her deadly will; if like a snake she steal within your walls, till the black slime betray her as she crawls; if like a viper to the heart she wind, and leaves the venom there she did not find,-- what marvel that this hag of hatred works eternal evil latent as she lurks.' the noble lord then proceeds to abuse this woman of inferior rank in the language of the upper circles. he thus describes her person and manner:-- 'skilled by a touch to deepen scandal's tints with all the kind mendacity of hints, while mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles, a thread of candour with a web of wiles; a plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming, to hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming; a lip of lies; a face formed to conceal, and without feeling mock at all who feel; with a vile mask the gorgon would disown,-- a cheek of parchment and an eye of stone. mark how the channels of her yellow blood ooze to her skin and stagnate there to mud, cased like the centipede in saffron mail, or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale,-- (for drawn from reptiles only may we trace congenial colours in that soul or face,) look on her features! and behold her mind as in a mirror of itself defined: look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged there is no trait which might not be enlarged.' the poem thus ends:-- 'may the strong curse of crushed affections light back on thy bosom with reflected blight, and make thee in thy leprosy of mind as loathsome to thyself as to mankind! till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate, black--as thy will for others would create; till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, and thy soul welter in its hideous crust. o, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed, the widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread then when thou fain wouldst weary heaven with prayer, look on thy earthly victims--and despair! down to the dust! and as thou rott'st away, even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay. _but for the love i bore and still must bear_ to her thy malice from all ties would tear, thy name,--thy human name,--to every eye the climax of all scorn, should hang on high, exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers, and festering in the infamy of years.' march , . now, on the th of march , this was lord byron's story. he states that his wife had a truthfulness even from early girlhood that the most artful and unscrupulous governess could not pollute,--that she always _panted_ for truth,--that flattery could not fool nor baseness blind her,--that though she was a genius and master of science, she was yet gentle and tolerant, and one whom no envy could ruffle to retaliate pain. in september of the same year she is a monster of unscrupulous deceit and vindictive cruelty. now, what had happened in the five months between the dates of these poems to produce such a change of opinion? simply this:-- st. the negotiation between him and his wife's lawyers had ended in his signing a deed of separation in preference to standing a suit for divorce. nd. madame de stael, moved by his tears of anguish and professions of repentance, had offered to negotiate with lady byron on his behalf, and had failed. the failure of this application is the only apology given by moore and murray for this poem, which gentle thomas moore admits was not in quite as generous a strain as the 'fare thee well.' but lord byron knew perfectly well, when he suffered that application to be made, that lady byron had been entirely convinced that her marriage relations with him could never be renewed, and that duty both to man and god required her to separate from him. the allowing the negotiation was, therefore, an artifice to place his wife before the public in the attitude of a hard-hearted, inflexible woman; her refusal was what he knew beforehand must inevitably be the result, and merely gave him capital in the sympathy of his friends, by which they should be brought to tolerate and accept the bitter accusations of this poem. we have recently heard it asserted that this last-named piece of poetry was the sudden offspring of a fit of ill-temper, and was never intended to be published at all. there were certainly excellent reasons why his friends should have advised him not to publish it _at that time_. but that it was read with sympathy by the circle of his intimate friends, and believed by them, is evident from the frequency with which allusions to it occur in his confidential letters to them. { } about three months after, under date march , , he writes to moore: 'i suppose now i shall never be able to shake off my sables in public imagination, more particularly since my moral ----- clove down my fame.' again to murray in , three years after, he says: 'i never hear anything of ada, the little electra of mycenae.' electra was the daughter of clytemnestra, in the greek poem, who lived to condemn her wicked mother, and to call on her brother to avenge the father. there was in this mention of electra more than meets the ear. many passages in lord byron's poetry show that he intended to make this daughter a future partisan against her mother, and explain the awful words he is stated in lady anne barnard's diary to have used when first he looked on his little girl,--'what an instrument of torture i have gained in you!' in a letter to lord blessington, april , , he says, speaking of dr. parr:-- { a} 'he did me the honour once to be a patron of mine, though a great friend of the _other branch of the house of atreus_, and the greek teacher, i believe, of my _moral_ clytemnestra. i say _moral_ because it is true, and is so useful to the virtuous, that it enables them to do anything without the aid of an aegistheus.' if lord byron wrote this poem merely in a momentary fit of spleen, why were there so many persons evidently quite familiar with his allusions to it? and why was it preserved in murray's hands? and why published after his death? that byron was in the habit of reposing documents in the hands of murray, to be used as occasion offered, is evident from a part of a note written by him to murray respecting some verses so intrusted: 'pray let not these _versiculi_ go forth with my name except _to the initiated_.' { b} murray, in publishing this attack on his wife after lord byron's death, showed that he believed in it, and, so believing, deemed lady byron a woman whose widowed state deserved neither sympathy nor delicacy of treatment. at a time when every sentiment in the heart of the most deeply wronged woman would forbid her appearing to justify herself from such cruel slander of a dead husband, an honest, kind-hearted, worthy englishman actually thought it right and proper to give these lines to her eyes and the eyes of all the reading world. nothing can show more plainly what this poem was written for, and how thoroughly it did its work! considering byron as a wronged man, murray thought he was contributing his mite towards doing him justice. his editor prefaced the whole set of 'domestic pieces' with the following statements:-- 'they all refer to the unhappy separation, of which the precise causes are still a mystery, and which he declared to the last were never disclosed to himself. he admitted that pecuniary embarrassments, disordered health, and dislike to family restraints had aggravated his naturally violent temper, and driven him to excesses. he suspected that his mother-in-law had fomented the discord,--which lady byron denies,--and that more was due to the malignant offices of a female dependant, who is the subject of the bitterly satirical sketch. * * * * 'to these general statements can only be added the still vaguer allegations of lady byron, that she conceived his conduct to be the result of insanity,--that, the physician pronouncing him responsible for his actions, she could submit to them no longer, and that dr. lushington, her legal adviser, agreed that a reconciliation was neither proper nor possible. _no weight can be attached to the opinions of an opposing counsel upon accusations made by one party behind the back of the other, who urgently demanded and was pertinaciously refused the least opportunity of denial or defence_. he rejected the proposal for an amicable separation, but _consented when threatened with a suit in doctors' commons._' { } neither john murray nor any of byron's partisans seem to have pondered the admission in these last words. here, as appears, was a woman, driven to the last despair, standing with her child in her arms, asking from english laws protection for herself and child against her husband. she had appealed to the first counsel in england, and was acting under their direction. two of the greatest lawyers in england have pronounced that there has been such a cause of offence on his part that a return to him is neither proper nor possible, and that no alternative remains to her but separation or divorce. he asks her to state her charges against him. she, making answer under advice of her counsel, says, 'that if he _insists_ on the specifications, he must receive them in open court in a suit for divorce.' what, now, ought to have been the conduct of any brave, honest man, who believed that his wife was taking advantage of her reputation for virtue to turn every one against him, who saw that she had turned on her side even the lawyer he sought to retain on his; { } that she was an unscrupulous woman, who acquiesced in every and any thing to gain her ends, while he stood before the public, as he says, 'accused of every monstrous vice, by public rumour or private rancour'? when she, under advice of her lawyers, made the alternative legal _separation_ or open investigation in court for divorce, what did he do? he signed the act of separation and left england. now, let any man who knows the legal mind of england,--let any lawyer who knows the character of sir samuel romilly and dr. lushington, ask whether _they_ were the men to take a case into court for a woman that had no _evidence_ but her own statements and impressions? were _they_ men to go to trial without proofs? did they not know that there were artful, hysterical women in the world, and would _they_, of all people, be the men to take a woman's story on her own side, and advise her in the last issue to bring it into open court, without legal proof of the strongest kind? now, as long as sir samuel romilly lived, this statement of byron's--that he was condemned unheard, and had no chance of knowing whereof he _was accused--never appeared in public_. it, however, was most actively circulated in _private_. that byron was in the habit of intrusting to different confidants articles of various kinds to be shown to different circles as they could bear them, we have already shown. we have recently come upon another instance of this kind. in the late eagerness to exculpate byron, a new document has turned up, of which mr. murray, it appears, had never heard when, after byron's death, he published in the preface to his 'domestic pieces' the sentence: '_he rejected the proposal for an amicable separation, but consented when threatened with a suit in doctors' commons_.' it appears that, up to , neither john murray senior, nor the son who now fills his place, had taken any notice of this newly found document, which we are now informed was drawn up by lord byron in august , while mr. hobhouse was staying with him at la mira, near venice, given to mr. matthew gregory lewis, _for circulation among friends in england_, found in mr. lewis's papers after his death, and _now_ in the possession of mr. murray.' here it is:-- 'it has been intimated to me that the persons understood to be the legal advisers of lady byron have declared "their lips to be sealed up" on the cause of the separation between her and myself. if their lips are sealed up, they are not sealed up by me, and the greatest favour _they_ can confer upon me will be to open them. from the first hour in which i was apprised of the intentions of the noel family to the last communication between lady byron and myself in the character of wife and husband (a period of some months), i called repeatedly and in vain for a statement of their or her charges, and it was chiefly in consequence of lady byron's claiming (in a letter still existing) a promise on my part to consent to a separation, if such was _really_ her wish, that i consented at all; this claim, and the exasperating and inexpiable manner in which their object was pursued, which rendered it next to an impossibility that two persons so divided could ever be reunited, induced me reluctantly then, and repentantly still, to sign the deed, which i shall be happy--most happy--to cancel, and go before any tribunal which may discuss the business in the most public manner. 'mr. hobhouse made this proposition on my part, viz. to abrogate all prior intentions--and go into court--the very day before the separation was signed, and it was declined by the other party, as also the publication of the correspondence during the previous discussion. those propositions i beg here to repeat, and to call upon her and hers to say their worst, pledging myself to meet their allegations,--whatever they may be,--and only too happy to be informed at last of their real nature. 'byron.' 'august , . 'p.s.--i have been, and am now, utterly ignorant of what description her allegations, charges, or whatever name they may have assumed, are; and am as little aware for what purpose they have been kept back,--unless it was to sanction the most infamous calumnies by silence. 'byron.' 'la mira, near venice.' it appears the circulation of this document must have been _very private_, since moore, not _over_-delicate towards lady byron, did not think fit to print it; since john murray neglected it, and since it has come out at this late hour for the first time. if lord byron really desired lady byron and her legal counsel to understand the facts herein stated, and was willing at all hazards to bring on an open examination, why was this _privately_ circulated? why not issued as a card in the london papers? is it likely that mr. matthew gregory lewis, and a chosen band of friends acting as a committee, requested an audience with lady byron, sir samuel romilly, and dr. lushington, and formally presented this cartel of defiance? we incline to think not. we incline to think that this small serpent, in company with many others of like kind, crawled secretly and privately around, and when it found a good chance, bit an honest briton, whose blood was thenceforth poisoned by an undetected falsehood. the reader now may turn to the letters that mr. moore has thought fit to give us of this stay at la mira, beginning with letter , dated july , , { a} where he says: 'i have been working up my impressions into a _fourth_ canto of childe harold,' and also 'mr. lewis is in venice. i am going up to stay a week with him there.' next, under date la mira, venice, july , { b} he says, 'monk lewis is here; how pleasant!' next, under date july , , to mr. murray: 'i write to give you notice that i have _completed the fourth and ultimate canto of childe harold_. . . . it is yet to be copied and polished, and the notes are to come.' under date of la mira, august , , he records that the new canto is one hundred and thirty stanzas in length, and talks about the price for it. he is now ready to launch it on the world; and, as now appears, on august , , _two days after_, he wrote the document above cited, and put it into the hands of mr. lewis, as we are informed, 'for circulation among friends in england.' the reason of this may now be evident. having prepared a suitable number of those whom he calls in his notes to murray 'the initiated,' by private documents and statements, he is now prepared to publish his accusations against his wife, and the story of his wrongs, in a great immortal poem, which shall have a band of initiated interpreters, shall be read through the civilised world, and stand to accuse her after his death. in the fourth canto of 'childe harold,' with all his own overwhelming power of language, he sets forth his cause as against the silent woman who all this time had been making no party, and telling no story, and whom the world would therefore conclude to be silent because she had no answer to make. i remember well the time when this poetry, so resounding in its music, so mournful, so apparently generous, filled my heart with a vague anguish of sorrow for the sufferer, and of indignation at the cold insensibility that had maddened him. thousands have felt the power of this great poem, which stands, and must stand to all time, a monument of what sacred and solemn powers god gave to this wicked man, and how vilely he abused this power as a weapon to slay the innocent. it is among the ruins of ancient rome that his voice breaks forth in solemn imprecation:-- 'o time, thou beautifier of the dead, adorner of the ruin, comforter, and only healer when the heart hath bled!-- time, the corrector when our judgments err, the test of truth, love,--sole philosopher, for all besides are sophists,--from thy shrift that never loses, though it doth defer!-- time, the avenger! unto thee i lift my hands and heart and eyes, and claim of thee a gift. * * * * 'if thou hast ever seen me too elate, hear me not; but if calmly i have borne good, and reserved my pride against the hate which shall not whelm me, _let me not have worn this iron in my soul in vain, shall_ they _not mourn_? and thou who never yet of human wrong left the unbalanced scale, great nemesis, here where the ancients paid their worship long, thou who didst call the furies from the abyss, and round orestes bid them howl and hiss _for that unnatural retribution,--just had it but come from hands less near_,--in this thy former realm i call thee from the dust. dost thou not hear, my heart? awake thou shalt and must! it is not that i may not have incurred for my ancestral faults and mine, the wound wherewith i bleed withal, and had it been conferred with a just weapon it had flowed unbound, but now my blood shall not sink in the ground. * * * * 'but in this page a record will i seek; not in the air shall these my words disperse, though i be ashes,--a far hour shall wreak the deep prophetic fulness of this verse, and pile on human heads the mountain of my curse. that curse shall be forgiveness. have i not,-- hear me, my mother earth! behold it, heaven,-- have i not had to wrestle with my lot? have i not suffered things to be forgiven? have i not had my brain seared, my heart riven, hopes sapped, name blighted, life's life lied away, and only not to desperation driven, because not altogether of such clay as rots into the soul of those whom i survey? ---------- 'from mighty wrongs to petty perfidy, have i not seen what human things could do,-- from the loud roar of foaming calumny, to the small whispers of the paltry few, and subtler venom of the reptile crew, _the janus glance of whose significant eye, learning to lie with silence, would seem true, and without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy_?' { } the reader will please notice that the lines in italics are almost, word for word, a repetition of the lines in italics in the former poem on his wife, where he speaks of a _significant eye_ that has _learned to lie in silence_, and were evidently meant to apply to lady byron and her small circle of confidential friends. before this, in the third canto of 'childe harold,' he had claimed the sympathy of the world, as a loving father, deprived by a severe fate of the solace and society of his only child:-- 'my daughter,--with this name my song began,-- my daughter,--with this name my song shall end,-- i see thee not and hear thee not, but none can be so wrapped in thee; thou art the friend to whom the shadows of far years extend. * * * * 'to aid thy mind's developments, to watch the dawn of little joys, to sit and see almost thy very growth, to view thee catch knowledge of objects,--wonders yet to thee,-- and print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss;-- this it should seem was not reserved for me. yet this was in my nature,--as it is, i know not what there is, yet something like to this. ---------- '_yet though dull hate as duty should be taught_, i know that thou wilt love me; though my name should be shut out from thee as spell still fraught with desolation and a broken claim, though the grave close between us,--'t were the same i know that thou wilt love me, though to drain my blood from out thy being were an aim and an attainment,--all will be in vain.' to all these charges against her, sent all over the world in verses as eloquent as the english language is capable of, the wife replied nothing. 'assailed by slander and the tongue of strife, her only answer was,--a blameless life.' she had a few friends, a very few, with whom she sought solace and sympathy. one letter from her, written at this time, preserved by accident, is the only authentic record of how the matter stood with her. we regret to say that the publication of this document was not brought forth to clear lady byron's name from her husband's slanders, but to shield _him_ from the worst accusation against him, by showing that this crime was not included in the few private confidential revelations that friendship wrung from the young wife at this period. lady anne barnard, authoress of 'auld robin grey,' a friend whose age and experience made her a proper confidante, sent for the broken-hearted, perplexed wife, and offered her a woman's sympathy. to her lady byron wrote many letters, under seal of confidence, and lady anne says: 'i will give you a few paragraphs transcribed from one of lady byron's own letters to me. it is sorrowful to think that in a very little time this young and amiable creature, wise, patient, and feeling, will have her character mistaken by every one who reads byron's works. to rescue her from this i preserved her letters, and when she afterwards expressed a fear that anything of her writing should ever fall into hands to injure him (i suppose she meant by publication), i safely assured her that it never should. but here this letter shall be placed, a sacred record in her favour, unknown to herself. 'i am a very incompetent judge of the impression which the last canto of "childe harold" may produce on the minds of indifferent readers. 'it contains the usual trace of a conscience restlessly awake, though his object has been too long to aggravate its burden, as if it could thus be oppressed into eternal stupor. i will hope, as you do, that it survives for his ultimate good. 'it was the acuteness of his remorse, impenitent in its character, which so long seemed to demand from my compassion to spare every semblance of reproach, every look of grief, which might have said to his conscience, "you have made me wretched." 'i am decidedly of opinion that he is responsible. he has wished to be thought partially deranged, or on the brink of it, to perplex observers and _prevent them from tracing effects to their real causes_ through all the intricacies of his conduct. i was, as i told you, at one time the dupe of his acted insanity, and clung to the former delusions in regard to the motives that concerned me personally, till the whole system was laid bare. 'he is the absolute monarch of words, and uses them, as bonaparte did lives, for conquest, without more regard to their intrinsic value, considering them only as ciphers, which must derive all their import from the situation in which he places them, and the ends to which he adapts them, with such consummate skill. 'why, then, you will say, does he not employ them to give a better colour to his own character? because he is too good an actor to over- act, or to assume a moral garb, which it would be easy to strip off. 'in regard to his poetry, egotism is the vital principle of his imagination, which it is difficult for him to kindle on any subject with which his own character and interests are not identified; but by the introduction of fictitious incidents, by change of scene or time, _he has enveloped his poetical disclosures in a system impenetrable except to a very few_; and his constant desire of creating a sensation makes him not averse to be the object of wonder and curiosity, even though accompanied _by some dark and vague suspicions_. 'nothing has contributed more to the misunderstanding of his real character than the lonely grandeur in which he shrouds it, and his affectation of being above mankind, when he exists almost in their voice. the romance of his sentiments is another feature of this mask of state. i know no one more habitually destitute of that enthusiasm he so beautifully expresses, and to which he can work up his fancy chiefly by contagion. '_i had heard he was the best of brothers, the most generous of friends, and i thought such feelings only required to be warmed and cherished into more diffusive benevolence. though these opinions are eradicated, and could never return but with the decay of my memory_, you will not wonder if there are still moments when the association of feelings which arose from them soften and sadden my thoughts. 'but i have not thanked you, dearest lady anne, for your kindness in regard to a principal object,--that of rectifying false impressions. i trust you understand my wishes, which never were to injure lord byron in any way; for, _though he would not suffer me to remain his wife, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend; and it was from considering myself as such that i silenced the accusations by which my own conduct might have been more fully justified_. 'it is not necessary to speak ill of his heart in general; it is sufficient that to me it was hard and impenetrable that my own must have been broken before his could have been touched. i would rather represent this as _my_ misfortune than as _his_ guilt; but, surely, that misfortune is not to be made my crime! such are my feelings; you will judge how to act. 'his allusions to me in "childe harold" are cruel and cold, but with such a semblance as to make _me_ appear so, and to attract all sympathy to himself. it is said in this poem that hatred of him will be taught as a lesson to his child. i might appeal to all who have ever heard me speak of him, and still more to my own heart, to witness that there has been no moment when i have remembered injury otherwise than affectionately and sorrowfully. 'it is not my duty to give way to hopeless and wholly unrequited affection; but, so long as i live, my chief struggle will probably be not to remember him too kindly. i do not seek the sympathy of the world, but i wish to be known by those whose opinion is valuable and whose kindness is dear to me. among such, my dear lady anne, you will ever be remembered by your truly affectionate 'a. byron.' on this letter i observe lord lindsay remarks that it shows a noble but rather severe character, and a recent author has remarked that it seemed to be written rather in a 'cold spirit of criticism.' it seems to strike these gentlemen as singular that lady byron did not enjoy the poem! but there are two remarkable sentences in this letter which have escaped the critics hitherto. lord byron, in this, the third canto of 'childe harold,' expresses in most affecting words an enthusiasm of love for his sister. so long as he lived he was her faithful correspondent; he sent her his journals; and, dying, he left her and her children everything he had in the world. this certainly seems like an affectionate brother; but in what words does lady byron speak of this affection? 'i _had heard he was the best of brothers_, the most generous of friends. i thought these feelings only required to be warmed and cherished into more diffusive benevolence. these opinions are eradicated, and could never return but with the decay of memory.' let me ask those who give this letter as a proof that at this time no idea such as i have stated was in lady byron's mind, to account for these words. let them please answer these questions: why had lady byron ceased to think him a good brother? why does she use so strong a word as that the opinion was eradicated, torn up by the roots, and could never grow again in her except by decay of memory? and yet this is a document lord lindsay vouches for as authentic, and which he brings forward _in defence_ of lord byron. again she says, 'though he _would not suffer me to remain his wife_, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend.' do these words not say that in some past time, in some decided manner, lord byron had declared to her his rejection of her as a wife? i shall yet have occasion to explain these words. again she says, 'i silenced accusations by which my conduct might have been more fully justified.' the people in england who are so very busy in searching out evidence against my true story have searched out and given to the world an important confirmation of this assertion of lady byron's. it seems that the confidential waiting-maid who went with lady byron on her wedding journey has been sought out and interrogated, and, as appears by description, is a venerable, respectable old person, quite in possession of all her senses in general, and of that sixth sense of propriety in particular, which appears not to be a common virtue in our days. as her testimony is important, we insert it just here, with a description of her person in full. the ardent investigators thus speak:-- 'having gained admission, we were shown into a small but neatly furnished and scrupulously clean apartment, where sat the object of our visit. mrs. mimms is a venerable-looking old lady, of short stature, slight and active appearance, with a singularly bright and intelligent countenance. although midway between eighty and ninety years of age, she is in full possession of her faculties, discourses freely and cheerfully, hears apparently as well as ever she did, and her sight is so good that, aided by a pair of spectacles, she reads the chronicle every day with ease. some idea of her competency to contribute valuable evidence to the subject which now so much engages public attention on three continents may be found from her own narrative of her personal relations with lady byron. mrs. mimms was born in the neighbourhood of seaham, and knew lady byron from childhood. during the long period of ten years she was miss milbanke's lady's-maid, and in that capacity became the close confidante of her mistress. there were circumstances which rendered their relationship peculiarly intimate. miss milbanke had no sister or female friend to whom she was bound by the ties of more than a common affection; and her mother, whatever other excellent qualities she may have possessed, was too high-spirited and too hasty in temper to attract the sympathies of the young. some months before miss milbanke was married to lord byron, mrs. mimms had quitted her service on the occasion of her own marriage with mr. mimms; but she continued to reside in the neighbourhood of seaham, and remained on the most friendly terms with her former mistress. as the courtship proceeded, miss milbanke concealed nothing from her faithful attendant; and when the wedding-day was fixed, she begged mrs. mimms to return and fulfil the duties of lady's-maid, at least during the honeymoon. mrs. mimms at the time was nursing her first child, and it was no small sacrifice to quit her own home at such a moment, but she could not refuse her old mistress's request. accordingly, she returned to seaham hall some days before the wedding, was present at the ceremony, and then preceded lord and lady byron to halnaby hall, near croft, in the north riding of yorkshire, one of sir ralph milbanke's seats, where the newly married couple were to spend the honeymoon. mrs. mimms remained with lord and lady byron during the three weeks they spent at halnaby hall, and then accompanied them to seaham, where they spent the next six weeks. it was during the latter period that she finally quitted lady byron's service; but she remained in the most friendly communication with her ladyship till the death of the latter, and for some time was living in the neighbourhood of lady byron's residence in leicestershire, where she had frequent opportunities of seeing her former mistress. it may be added that lady byron was not unmindful of the faithful services of her friend and attendant in the instructions to her executors contained in her will. such was the position of mrs. mimms towards lady byron; and we think no one will question that it was of a nature to entitle all that mrs. mimms may say on the subject of the relations of lord and lady byron to the most respectful consideration and credit.' such is the chronicler's account of the faithful creature whom nothing but intense indignation and disgust at mrs. beecher stowe would lead to speak on her mistress's affairs; but mrs. beecher stowe feels none the less sincere respect for her, and is none the less obliged to her for having spoken. much of mrs. mimms's testimony will be referred to in another place; we only extract one passage, to show that while lord byron spent his time in setting afloat slanders against his wife, she spent hers in sealing the mouths of witnesses against him. of the period of the honeymoon mrs. mimms says:-- 'the happiness of lady byron, however, was of brief duration; even during the short three weeks they spent at halnaby, the irregularities of lord byron occasioned her the greatest distress, and she even contemplated returning to her father. mrs. mimms was her constant companion and confidante through this painful period, and she does not believe that her ladyship concealed a thought from her. _with laudable reticence, the old lady absolutely refuses to disclose the particulars of lord byron's misconduct at this time; she gave lady byron a solemn promise not to do so_. * * * * 'so serious did mrs. mimms consider the conduct of lord byron, that she recommended her mistress to confide all the circumstances to her father, sir ralph milbanke, a calm, kind, and most excellent parent, and take his advice as to her future course. at one time mrs. mimms thinks lady byron had resolved to follow her counsel and impart her wrongs to sir ralph; but on arriving at seaham hall her ladyship strictly enjoined mrs. mimms to preserve absolute silence on the subject--a course which she followed herself;--so that when, six weeks later, she and lord byron left seaham for london, not a word had escaped her to disturb her parents' tranquillity as to their daughter's domestic happiness. as might be expected, mrs. mimms bears the warmest testimony to the noble and lovable qualities of her departed mistress. she also declares that lady byron was by no means of a cold temperament, but that the affectionate impulses of her nature were checked by the unkind treatment she experienced from her husband.' we have already shown that lord byron had been, ever since his separation, engaged in a systematic attempt to reverse the judgment of the world against himself, by making converts of all his friends to a most odious view of his wife's character, and inspiring them with the zeal of propagandists to spread these views through society. we have seen how he prepared partisans to interpret the fourth canto of 'childe harold.' this plan of solemn and heroic accusation was the first public attack on his wife. next we see him commencing a scurrilous attempt to turn her to ridicule in the first canto of 'don juan.' it is to our point now to show how carefully and cautiously this don juan campaign was planned. vol. iv. p. , we find letter to mr. murray:-- 'venice: january , . 'you will do me the favour to _print privately, for private distribution, fifty copies of "don juan."_ the list of the men to whom i wish it presented i will send hereafter.' the poem, as will be remembered, begins with the meanest and foulest attack on his wife that ever ribald wrote, and puts it in close neighbourhood with scenes which every pure man or woman must feel to be the beastly utterances of a man who had lost all sense of decency. such a potion was too strong to be administered even in a time when great license was allowed, and men were not over-nice. but byron chooses fifty armour-bearers of that class of men who would find indecent ribaldry about a wife a good joke, and talk about the 'artistic merits' of things which we hope would make an honest boy blush. at this time he acknowledges that his vices had brought him to a state of great exhaustion, attended by such debility of the stomach that nothing remained on it; and adds, 'i was obliged to reform my way of life, which was conducting me from the yellow leaf to the ground with all deliberate speed.' { } but as his health is a little better he employs it in making the way to death and hell elegantly easy for other young men, by breaking down the remaining scruples of a society not over-scrupulous. society revolted, however, and fought stoutly against the nauseous dose. his sister wrote to him that she heard such things said of it that _she_ never would read it; and the outcry against it on the part of all women of his acquaintance was such that for a time he was quite overborne; and the countess guiccioli finally extorted a promise from him to cease writing it. nevertheless, there came a time when england accepted 'don juan,'--when wilson, in the 'noctes ambrosianae,' praised it as a classic, and took every opportunity to reprobate lady byron's conduct. when first it appeared the 'blackwood' came out with that indignant denunciation of which we have spoken, and to which byron replied in the extracts we have already quoted. he did something more than reply. he marked out wilson as one of the strongest literary men of the day, and set his 'initiated' with their documents to work upon him. one of these documents to which he requested wilson's attention was the private autobiography, written expressly to give his own story of all the facts of the marriage and separation. in the indignant letter he writes murray on the 'blackwood' article, vol. iv., letter --under date december , --he says:-- 'i sent home for moore, and for moore only (who has my journal also), my memoir written up to , and i gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, but _not to publish_ on any account. _you_ may read it, and you may let wilson read it if he likes--not for his public opinion, but his private, for i like the man, and care very little about the magazine. and i could wish lady byron herself to read it, that she may have it in her power to mark any thing mistaken or misstated. as it will never appear till after my extinction, it would be but fair she should see it; that is to say, herself willing. your "blackwood" accuses me of treating women harshly; but i have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them.' it was a part of byron's policy to place lady byron in positions before the world where she _could_ not speak, and where her silence would be set down to her as haughty, stony indifference and obstinacy. such was the pretended negotiation through madame de stael, and such now this apparently fair and generous offer to let lady byron see and mark this manuscript. the little ada is now in her fifth year--a child of singular sensibility and remarkable mental powers--one of those exceptional children who are so perilous a charge for a mother. her husband proposes this artful snare to her,--that she shall mark what is false in a statement which is all built on a damning lie, that she cannot refute over that daughter's head,--and which would perhaps be her ruin to discuss. hence came an addition of two more documents, to be used 'privately among friends,' { } and which 'blackwood' uses after lady byron is safely out of the world to cast ignominy on her grave--the wife's letter, that of a mother standing at bay for her daughter, knowing that she is dealing with a desperate, powerful, unscrupulous enemy. 'kirkby mallory: march , . 'i received your letter of january , offering to my perusal a memoir of part of your life. i decline to inspect it. i consider the publication or circulation of such a composition at any time as prejudicial to ada's future happiness. for my own sake, i have no reason to shrink from publication; but, notwithstanding the injuries which i have suffered, i should lament some of the consequences. 'a. byron. 'to lord byron.' lord byron, writing for the public, as is his custom, makes reply:-- 'ravenna: april , . 'i received yesterday your answer, dated march . my offer was an honest one, and surely could only be construed as such even by the most malignant casuistry. i could answer you, but it is too late, and it is not worth while. to the mysterious menace of the last sentence, whatever its import may be--and i cannot pretend to unriddle it--i could hardly be very sensible even if i understood it, as, before it can take place, i shall be where "nothing can touch him further." . . . i advise you, however, to anticipate the period of your intention, for, be assured, no power of figures can avail beyond the present; and if it could, i would answer with the florentine:-- '"ed io, che posto son con loro in croce . . . . . e certo la fiera moglie, piu ch'altro, mi nuoce." { } 'byron. 'to lady byron.' two things are very evident in this correspondence: lady byron intimates that, if he publishes his story, some _consequences_ must follow which she shall regret. lord byron receives this as a threat, and says he doesn't understand it. but directly after he says, 'before it can take place, i shall be,' etc. the intimation is quite clear. he _does_ understand what the consequences alluded to are. they are evidently that lady byron will speak out and tell her story. he says she cannot do this till _after he is dead_, and then he shall not care. in allusion to her accuracy as to dates and figures, he says: 'be assured no power of figures can avail beyond the present' (life); and then ironically _advises_ her to _anticipate the period_,--i.e. to speak out while he is alive. in vol. vi. letter , which lord byron wrote to lady byron, but did not send, he says: 'i burned your last note for two reasons,--firstly, because it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, because i wished to take your word without documents, which are the resources of worldly and suspicious people.' it would appear from this that there was a last letter of lady byron to her husband, which he did not think proper to keep on hand, or show to the 'initiated' with his usual unreserve; that this letter contained some kind of _pledge_ for which he preferred to take her word, _without documents_. each reader can imagine for himself what that _pledge_ might have been; but from the tenor of the three letters we should infer that it was a promise of silence for his lifetime, on _certain conditions_, and that the publication of the autobiography would violate those conditions, and make it her duty to speak out. this celebrated autobiography forms so conspicuous a figure in the whole history, that the reader must have a full idea of it, as given by byron himself, in vol. iv. letter , to murray:-- 'i gave to moore, who is gone to rome, my life in ms.,--in seventy- eight folio sheets, brought down to . . . also a journal kept in . neither are for publication during my life, but when i am cold you may do what you please. in the mean time, if you like to read them you may, and show them to anybody you like. i care not. . . . ' he tells him also:-- 'you will find in it a detailed account of my marriage and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such an account.' of the extent to which this autobiography was circulated we have the following testimony of shelton mackenzie, in notes to 'the noctes' of june . in 'the noctes' odoherty says:-- 'the fact is, the work had been copied for the private reading of a great lady in florence.' the note says:-- 'the great lady in florence, for whose private reading byron's autobiography was copied, was the countess of westmoreland. . . . lady blessington had the autobiography in her possession for weeks, and confessed to having copied every line of it. moore remonstrated, and she committed her copy to the flames, but did not tell him that her sister, mrs. home purvis, now viscountess of canterbury, had also made a copy! . . . from the quantity of copy i have seen,--and others were more in the way of falling in with it than myself,--i surmise that at least half a dozen copies were made, and of these _five_ are now in existence. some particular parts, such as the marriage and separation, were copied separately; but i think there cannot be less than five full copies yet to be found.' this was written _after the original autobiography was burned_. we may see the zeal and enthusiasm of the byron party,--copying seventy- eight folio sheets, as of old christians copied the gospels. how widely, fully, and thoroughly, thus, by this secret process, was society saturated with byron's own versions of the story that related to himself and wife! against her there was only the complaint of an absolute silence. she put forth no statements, no documents; had no party, sealed the lips of her counsel, and even of her servants; yet she could not but have known, from time to time, how thoroughly and strongly this web of mingled truth and lies was being meshed around her steps. from the time that byron first saw the importance of securing wilson on his side, and wrote to have his partisans attend to him, we may date an entire revolution in the 'blackwood.' it became byron's warmest supporter,--is to this day the bitterest accuser of his wife. why was this wonderful silence? it appears by dr. lushington's statements, that, when lady byron did speak, she had a story to tell that powerfully affected both him and romilly,--a story supported by evidence on which they were willing to have gone to public trial. supposing, now, she had imitated lord byron's example, and, avoiding public trial, had put her story into private circulation; as he sent 'don juan' to fifty confidential friends, suppose she had sent a written statement of her story to fifty judges as intelligent as the two that had heard it; or suppose she had confronted his autobiography with her own,--what would have been the result? the first result might have been mrs. leigh's utter ruin. the world may finally forgive the man of genius anything; but for a woman there is no mercy and no redemption. this ruin lady byron prevented by her utter silence and great self-command. mrs. leigh never lost position. lady byron never so varied in her manner towards her as to excite the suspicions even of her confidential old servant. to protect mrs. leigh effectually, it must have been necessary to continue to exclude even her own mother from the secret, as we are assured she did at first; for, had she told lady milbanke, it is not possible that so high-spirited a woman could have restrained herself from such outward expressions as would at least have awakened suspicion. there was no resource but this absolute silence. lady blessington, in her last conversation with lord byron, thus describes the life lady byron was leading. she speaks of her as 'wearing away her youth in almost monastic seclusion, questioned by some, appreciated by few, seeking consolation alone in the discharge of her duties, and avoiding all external demonstrations of a grief that her pale cheek and solitary existence alone were vouchers for.' { } the main object of all this silence may be imagined, if we remember that if lord byron had not died,--had he truly and deeply repented, and become a thoroughly good man, and returned to england to pursue a course worthy of his powers, there was on record neither word nor deed from his wife to stand in his way. his place was kept in society, ready for him to return to whenever he came clothed and in his right mind. he might have had the heart and confidence of his daughter unshadowed by a suspicion. he might have won the reverence of the great and good in his own lands and all lands. that hope, which was the strong support, the prayer of the silent wife, it did not please god to fulfil. lord byron died a worn-out man at thirty-six. but the bitter seeds he had sown came up, after his death, in a harvest of thorns over his grave; and there were not wanting hands to use them as instruments of torture on the heart of his widow. chapter iii. resume of the conspiracy. we have traced the conspiracy of lord byron against his wife up to its latest device. that the reader's mind may be clear on the points of the process, we shall now briefly recapitulate the documents in the order of time. i. march , .--while negotiations for separation were pending,--'_fare thee well, and if for ever_.' while writing these pages, we have received from england the testimony of one who has seen the original draught of that 'fare thee well.' this original copy had evidently been subjected to the most careful and acute revision. scarcely two lines that were not interlined, scarcely an adjective that was not exchanged for a better; showing that the noble lord was not so far overcome by grief as to have forgotten his reputation. (found its way to the public prints through the imprudence of _a friend_.) ii. march , .--an attack on lady byron's old governess for having been born poor, for being homely, and for having unduly influenced his wife against him; promising that her grave should be a fiery bed, etc.; also praising his wife's perfect and remarkable truthfulness and discernment, that made it impossible for flattery to fool, or baseness blind her; but ascribing all his woes to her being fooled and blinded by this same governess. (found its way to the prints by the imprudence of _a friend_.) iii. september .--lines on hearing that lady byron is ill. calls her a clytemnestra, who has secretly set assassins on her lord; says she is a mean, treacherous, deceitful liar, and has entirely departed from her early truth, and become the most unscrupulous and unprincipled of women. (never printed till after lord byron's death, but circulated _privately_ among the '_initiated_.') iv. aug. , .--gives to m. g. lewis a paper for circulation among friends in england, stating that what he most wants is _public investigation_, which has always been denied him; and daring lady byron and her counsel to come out publicly. (found in m. g. lewis's portfolio after his death; never heard of before, except among the 'initiated.') having given m. g. lewis's document time to work,-- january .--gives the fourth canto of 'childe harold' { } to the public. jan. , .--sends to murray to print for private circulation among the 'initiated' the first canto of 'don juan.' is nobly and severely rebuked for this insult to his wife by the 'blackwood,' august . october .--gives moore the manuscript 'autobiography,' with leave to show it to whom he pleases, and print it after his death. oct. , , vol. iv. letter .--writes to murray, that he may read all this 'autobiography,' and show it to anybody he likes. dec. , .--writes to murray on this article in 'blackwood' against 'don juan' and himself, which he supposes written by wilson; sends a complimentary message to wilson, and asks him to read his 'autobiography' sent by moore. (letter .) march , .--writes and dedicates to i. disraeli, esq., a vindication of himself in reply to the 'blackwood' on 'don juan,' containing an indignant defence of his own conduct in relation to his wife, and maintaining that he never yet has had an opportunity of knowing whereof he has been accused; accusing sir s. romilly of taking his retainer, and then going over to the adverse party, etc. (printed for _private circulation_; to be found in the standard english edition of murray, vol. ix. p. .) to this condensed account of byron's strategy we must add the crowning stroke of policy which transmitted this warfare to his friends, to be continued after his death. during the last visit moore made him in italy, and just before byron presented to him his 'autobiography,' the following scene occurred, as narrated by moore (vol. iv. p. ):-- 'the chief subject of conversation, when alone, was his marriage, and the load of obloquy which it had brought upon him. he was most anxious to know _the worst_ that had been alleged of his conduct; and, as this was our first opportunity of speaking together on the subject, i did not hesitate to put his candour most searchingly to the proof, not only by enumerating the various charges i had heard brought against him by others, but by specifying such portions of these charges as i had been inclined to think not incredible myself. 'to all this he listened with patience, and answered with the most unhesitating frankness; laughing to scorn the tales of unmanly outrage related of him, but at the same time acknowledging that there had been in his conduct but too much to blame and regret, and stating one or two occasions during his domestic life when he had been irritated into letting the "breath of bitter words" escape him,. . . which he now evidently remembered with a degree of remorse and pain which might well have entitled them to be forgotten by others. 'it was, at the same time, manifest, that, whatever admissions he might be inclined to make respecting his own delinquencies, the inordinate measure of the punishment dealt out to him had sunk deeply into his mind, and, with the usual effect of such injustice, drove him also to be unjust himself; so much so, indeed, as to impute to the quarter to which he now traced all his ill fate a feeling of fixed hostility to himself, which would not rest, he thought, even at his grave, but continue to persecute his memory as it was now embittering his life. so strong was this impression upon him, that, during one of our few intervals of seriousness, he conjured me by our friendship, if, as he both felt and hoped, i should survive him, not to let unmerited censure settle upon his name.' in this same account, page , moore testifies that 'lord byron disliked his countrymen, but only because he knew that his morals were held in contempt by them. the english, themselves rigid observers of family duties, could not pardon him the neglect of his, nor his trampling on principles; therefore, neither did he like being presented to them, nor did they, especially when they had wives with them, like to cultivate his acquaintance. still there was a strong desire in all of them to see him; and the women in particular, who did not dare to look at him but by stealth, said in an under-voice, "what a pity it is!" if, however, any of his compatriots of exalted rank and high reputation came forward to treat him with courtesy, he showed himself obviously flattered by it. it seemed that, to the wound which remained open in his ulcerated heart, such soothing attentions were as drops of healing balm, which comforted him.' when in society, we are further informed by a lady quoted by mr. moore, he was in the habit of speaking of his wife with much respect and affection, as an illustrious lady, distinguished for her qualities of heart and understanding; saying that all the fault of their cruel separation lay with himself. mr. moore seems at times to be somewhat puzzled by these contradictory statements of his idol, and speculates not a little on what could be lord byron's object in using such language in public; mentally comparing it, we suppose, with the free handling which he gave to the same subject in his private correspondence. the innocence with which moore gives himself up to be manipulated by lord byron, the naivete with which he shows all the process, let us a little into the secret of the marvellous powers of charming and blinding which this great actor possessed. lord byron had the beauty, the wit, the genius, the dramatic talent, which have constituted the strength of some wonderfully fascinating women. there have been women able to lead their leashes of blinded adorers; to make them swear that black was white, or white black, at their word; to smile away their senses, or weep away their reason. no matter what these sirens may say, no matter what they may do, though caught in a thousand transparent lies, and doing a thousand deeds which would have ruined others, still men madly rave after them in life, and tear their hair over their graves. such an enchanter in man's shape was lord byron. he led captive moore and murray by being beautiful, a genius, and a lord; calling them 'dear tom' and 'dear murray,' while they were only commoners. he first insulted sir walter scott, and then witched his heart out of him by ingenuous confessions and poetical compliments; he took wilson's heart by flattering messages and a beautifully-written letter; he corresponded familiarly with hogg; and, before his death, had made fast friends, in one way or another, of the whole 'noctes ambrosianae' club. we thus have given the historical resume of lord byron's attacks on his wife's reputation: we shall add, that they were based on philosophic principles, showing a deep knowledge of mankind. an analysis will show that they can be philosophically classified:-- st. those which addressed the sympathetic nature of man, representing her as cold, methodical, severe, strict, unforgiving. nd. those addressed to the faculty of association, connecting her with ludicrous and licentious images; taking from her the usual protection of womanly delicacy and sacredness. rd. those addressed to the moral faculties, accusing her as artful, treacherous, untruthful, malignant. all these various devices he held in his hand, shuffling and dealing them as a careful gamester his pack of cards according to the exigencies of the game. he played adroitly, skilfully, with blinding flatteries and seductive wiles, that made his victims willing dupes. nothing can more clearly show the power and perfectness of his enchantments than the masterly way in which he turned back the moral force of the whole english nation, which had risen at first in its strength against him. the victory was complete. chapter iv. results after lord byron's death. at the time of lord byron's death, the english public had been so skilfully manipulated by the byron propaganda, that the sympathy of the whole world was with him. a tide of emotion was now aroused in england by his early death--dying in the cause of greece and liberty. there arose a general wail for him, as for a lost pleiad, not only in england, but over the whole world; a great rush of enthusiasm for his memory, to which the greatest literary men of england freely gave voice. by general consent, lady byron seems to have been looked upon as the only cold-hearted unsympathetic person in this general mourning. from that time the literary world of england apparently regarded lady byron as a woman to whom none of the decorums, nor courtesies of ordinary womanhood, nor even the consideration belonging to common humanity, were due. 'she that is a widow indeed, and desolate,' has been regarded in all christian countries as an object made sacred by the touch of god's afflicting hand, sacred in her very helplessness; and the old hebrew scriptures give to the supreme father no dearer title than 'the widow's god.' but, on lord byron's death, men not devoid of tenderness, men otherwise generous and of fine feeling, acquiesced in insults to his widow with an obtuseness that seems, on review, quite incredible. lady byron was not only a widow, but an orphan. she had no sister for confidante; no father and mother to whom to go in her sorrows--sorrows so much deeper and darker to her than they could be to any other human being. she had neither son nor brother to uphold and protect her. on all hands it was acknowledged that, so far, there was no fault to be found in her but her utter silence. her life was confessed to be pure, useful, charitable; and yet, in this time of her sorrow, the writers of england issued article upon article not only devoid of delicacy, but apparently injurious and insulting towards her, with a blind unconsciousness which seems astonishing. one of the greatest literary powers of that time was the 'blackwood:' the reigning monarch on that literary throne was wilson, the lion-hearted, the brave, generous, tender poet, and, with some sad exceptions, the noble man. but wilson had believed the story of byron, and, by his very generosity and tenderness and pity, was betrayed into injustice. in 'the noctes' of november there is a conversation of the noctes club, in which north says, 'byron and i knew each other pretty well; and i suppose there's no harm in adding, that we appreciated each other pretty tolerably. did you ever see his letter to me?' the footnote to this says, '_this letter, which was_ printed _in byron's lifetime, was not published till_ , when it appeared in moore's "life of byron." it is one of the most vigorous prose compositions in the language. byron had the highest opinion of wilson's genius and noble spirit.' in the first place, with our present ideas of propriety and good taste, we should reckon it an indecorum to make the private affairs of a pure and good woman, whose circumstances under any point of view were trying, and who evidently shunned publicity, the subject of public discussion in magazines which were read all over the world. lady byron, as they all knew, had on her hands a most delicate and onerous task, in bringing up an only daughter, necessarily inheriting peculiarities of genius and great sensitiveness; and the many mortifications and embarrassments which such intermeddling with her private matters must have given, certainly should have been considered by men with any pretensions to refinement or good feeling. but the literati of england allowed her no consideration, no rest, no privacy. in 'the noctes' of november there is the record of a free conversation upon lord and lady byron's affairs, interlarded with exhortations to push the bottle, and remarks on whisky-toddy. medwin's 'conversations with lord byron' is discussed, which, we are told in a note, appeared a few months after the _noble_ poet's death. there is a rather bold and free discussion of lord byron's character--his fondness for gin and water, on which stimulus he wrote 'don juan;' and james hogg says pleasantly to mullion, 'o mullion! it's a pity you and byron could na ha' been acquaint. there would ha' been brave sparring to see who could say the wildest and the dreadfullest things; for he had neither fear of man or woman, and would ha' his joke or jeer, cost what it might.' and then follows a specimen of one of his jokes with an actress, that, in indecency, certainly justifies the assertion. from the other stories which follow, and the parenthesis that occurs frequently ('mind your glass, james, a little more!'), it seems evident that the party are progressing in their peculiar kind of _civilisation_. it is in this same circle and paper that lady byron's private affairs come up for discussion. the discussion is thus elegantly introduced:-- hogg.--'reach me the black bottle. i say, christopher, what, after all, is your opinion o' lord and leddy byron's quarrel? do you yoursel' take part with him, or with her? i wad like to hear your real opinion.' north.--'oh, dear! well, hogg, since you will have it, i think douglas kinnard and hobhouse are bound to tell us whether there be any truth, and how much, in this story about the _declaration_, signed by sir ralph' [milbanke]. the note here tells us that this refers to a statement that appeared in 'blackwood' immediately after byron's death, to the effect that, previous to the formal separation from his wife, byron required and obtained from sir ralph milbanke, lady byron's father, a statement to the effect that lady byron had no charge of moral delinquency to bring against him. { } north continues:-- 'and i think lady byron's letter--the "dearest duck" one i mean--should really be forthcoming, if her ladyship's friends wish to stand fair before the public. at present we have nothing but loose talk of society to go upon; and certainly, _if the things that are said be true, there must be thorough explanation from some quarter, or the tide will continue, as it has assuredly begun, to flow in a direction very opposite to what we were for years accustomed_. sir, they must _explain this business of the letter_. you have, of course, heard about the invitation it contained, the warm, affectionate invitation, to kirkby mallory'-- hogg interposes,-- 'i dinna like to be interruptin' ye, mr. north; but i must inquire, is the _jug_ to stand still while ye're going on at that rate?' north--'there, porker! these things are part and parcel of the chatter of every bookseller's shop; a fortiori, of every drawing-room in may fair. can the matter stop here? can a great man's memory be permitted to incur damnation while these saving clauses are afloat anywhere uncontradicted?' and from this the conversation branches off into strong, emphatic praise of byron's conduct in greece during the last part of his life. the silent widow is thus delicately and considerately reminded in the 'blackwood' that she is the talk, not only over the whisky jug of the noctes, but in every drawing-room in london; and that she must speak out and explain matters, or the whole world will set against her. but she does not speak yet. the public persecution, therefore, proceeds. medwin's book being insufficient, another biographer is to be selected. now, the person in the noctes club who was held to have the most complete information of the byron affairs, and was, on that account, first thought of by murray to execute this very delicate task of writing a memoir which should include the most sacred domestic affairs of a noble lady and her orphan daughter, was maginn. maginn, the author of the pleasant joke, that 'man never reaches the apex of civilisation till he is too drunk to pronounce the word,' was the first person in whose hands the 'autobiography,' memoirs, and journals of lord byron were placed with this view. the following note from shelton mackenzie, in the june number of 'the noctes,' , says,-- 'at that time, had he been so minded, maginn (odoherty) could have got up a popular life of byron as well as most men in england. immediately on the account of byron's death being received in london, john murray proposed that maginn should bring out memoirs, journals, and letters of lord byron, and, with this intent, placed in his hand every line that he (murray) possessed in byron's handwriting. . . . . the strong desire of byron's family and executors that the "autobiography" should be burned, to which desire murray foolishly yielded, made such an hiatus in the materials, that murray and maginn agreed it would not answer to bring out the work then. eventually moore executed it.' the character of the times in which this work was to be undertaken will appear from the following note of mackenzie's to 'the noctes' of august , which we copy, with the author's own italics:-- 'in the "blackwood" of july was a poetical epistle by the renowned timothy tickler to the editor of the "john bull" magazine, on an article in his first number. this article. . . professed to be a portion of the veritable "autobiography" of byron which was burned, and was called "my wedding night." it appeared to relate in detail everything that occurred in the twenty-four hours immediately succeeding that in which byron was married. it had plenty of coarseness, and some to spare. it went into particulars such as hitherto had been given only by faublas; and it had, notwithstanding, many phrases and some facts which evidently did not belong to a mere fabricator. some years after, i compared this "wedding night" with what i had all assurance of having been transcribed from the actual manuscripts of byron, and was persuaded that the magazine-writer must have had the actual statement before him, or have had a perusal of it. the writer in "blackwood" declared his conviction that it really was byron's own writing.' the reader must remember that lord byron died april ; so that, according to this, his 'autobiography' was made the means of this gross insult to his widow three months after his death. if some powerful cause had not paralysed all feelings of gentlemanly honour, and of womanly delicacy, and of common humanity, towards lady byron, throughout the whole british nation, no editor would have dared to open a periodical with such an article; or, if he had, he would have been overwhelmed with a storm of popular indignation, which, like the fire upon sodom, would have made a pillar of salt of him for a warning to all future generations. 'blackwood' reproves the 'john bull' in a poetical epistle, recognising the article as coming from byron, and says to the author,-- 'but that you, sir, a wit and a scholar like you, should not blush to produce what he blushed not to do,-- take your compliment, youngster; this doubles, almost, the sorrow that rose when his honour was lost.' we may not wonder that the 'autobiography' was burned, as murray says in a recent account, by a committee of byron's friends, including hobhouse, his sister, and murray himself. now, the 'blackwood' of july thus declares its conviction that this outrage on every sentiment of human decency came from lord byron, and that his honour was lost. maginn does not undertake the memoir. no memoir at all is undertaken; till finally moore is selected, as, like demetrius of old, a well-skilled gilder and 'maker of silver shrines,' though not for diana. to moore is committed the task of doing his best for this battered image, in which even the worshippers recognise foul sulphurous cracks, but which they none the less stand ready to worship as a genuine article that 'fell down from jupiter.' moore was a man of no particular nicety as to moralities, but in that matter seems not very much below what this record shows his average associates to be. he is so far superior to maginn, that his vice is rose- coloured and refined. he does not burst out with such heroic stanzas as maginn's frank invitation to jeremy bentham:-- 'jeremy, throw your pen aside, and come get drunk with me; and we'll go where bacchus sits astride, perched high on barrels three.' moore's vice is cautious, soft, seductive, slippery, and covered at times with a thin, tremulous veil of religious sentimentalism. in regard to byron, he was an unscrupulous, committed partisan: he was as much bewitched by him as ever man has been by woman; and therefore to him, at last, the task of editing byron's 'memoirs' was given. this byron, whom they all knew to be obscene beyond what even their most drunken tolerance could at first endure; this man, whose foul license spoke out what most men conceal from mere respect to the decent instincts of humanity; whose 'honour was lost,'--was submitted to this careful manipulator, to be turned out a perfected idol for a world longing for an idol, as the israelites longed for the calf in horeb. the image was to be invested with deceitful glories and shifting haloes,--admitted faults spoken of as peculiarities of sacred origin,--and the world given to understand that no common rule or measure could apply to such an undoubtedly divine production; and so the hearts of men were to be wrung with pity for his sorrows as the yearning pain of a god, and with anger at his injuries as sacrilege on the sacredness of genius, till they were ready to cast themselves at his feet, and adore. then he was to be set up on a pedestal, like nebuchadnezzar's image on the plains of dura; and what time the world heard the sound of cornet, sackbut, and dulcimer, in his enchanting verse, they were to fall down and worship. for lady byron, moore had simply the respect that a commoner has for a lady of rank, and a good deal of the feeling that seems to underlie all english literature,--that it is no matter what becomes of the woman when the man's story is to be told. but, with all his faults, moore was not a cruel man; and we cannot conceive such outrageous cruelty and ungentlemanly indelicacy towards an unoffending woman, as he shows in these 'memoirs,' without referring them to lord byron's own influence in making him an unscrupulous, committed partisan on his side. so little pity, so little sympathy, did he suppose lady byron to be worthy of, that he laid before her, in the sight of all the world, selections from her husband's letters and journals, in which the privacies of her courtship and married life were jested upon with a vulgar levity; letters filled, from the time of the act of separation, with a constant succession of sarcasms, stabs, stings, epigrams, and vindictive allusions to herself, bringing her into direct and insulting comparison with his various mistresses, and implying their superiority over her. there, too, were gross attacks on her father and mother, as having been the instigators of the separation; and poor lady milbanke, in particular, is sometimes mentioned with epithets so offensive, that the editor prudently covers the terms with stars, as intending language too gross to be printed. the last mistress of lord byron is uniformly brought forward in terms of such respect and consideration, that one would suppose that the usual moral laws that regulate english family life had been specially repealed in his favour. moore quotes with approval letters from shelley, stating that lord byron's connection with la guiccioli has been of inestimable benefit to him; and that he is now becoming what he should be, 'a virtuous man.' moore goes on to speak of the connection as one, though somewhat reprehensible, yet as having all those advantages of marriage and settled domestic ties that byron's affectionate spirit had long sighed for, but never before found; and in his last resume of the poet's character, at the end of the volume, he brings the mistress into direct comparison with the wife in a single sentence: 'the woman to whom he gave the love of his maturer years idolises his name; and, with a single unhappy exception, scarce an instance is to be found of one brought. . . into relations of amity with him who did not retain a kind regard for him in life, and a fondness for his memory.' literature has never yet seen the instance of a person, of lady byron's rank in life, placed before the world in a position more humiliating to womanly dignity, or wounding to womanly delicacy. the direct implication is, that she has no feelings to be hurt, no heart to be broken, and is not worthy even of the consideration which in ordinary life is to be accorded to a widow who has received those awful tidings which generally must awaken many emotions, and call for some consideration, even in the most callous hearts. the woman who we are told walked the room, vainly striving to control the sobs that shook her frame, while she sought to draw from the servant that last message of her husband which she was never to hear, was not thought worthy even of the rights of common humanity. the first volume of the 'memoir' came out in . then for the first time came one flash of lightning from the silent cloud; and she who had never spoken before spoke out. the libels on the memory of her dead parents drew from her what her own wrongs never did. during all this time, while her husband had been keeping her effigy dangling before the public as a mark for solemn curses, and filthy lampoons, and secretly- circulated disclosures, that spared no sacredness and violated every decorum, she had not uttered a word. she had been subjected to nameless insults, discussed in the assemblies of drunkards, and challenged to speak for herself. like the chaste lady in 'comus,' whom the vile wizard had bound in the enchanted seat to be 'grinned at and chattered at' by all the filthy rabble of his dehumanised rout, she had remained pure, lofty, and undefiled; and the stains of mud and mire thrown upon her had fallen from her spotless garments. now that she is dead, a recent writer in 'the london quarterly' dares give voice to an insinuation which even byron gave only a suggestion of when he called his wife clytemnestra; and hints that she tried the power of youth and beauty to win to her the young solicitor lushington, and a handsome young officer of high rank. at this time, such insinuations had not been thought of; and the only and chief allegation against lady byron had been a cruel severity of virtue. at all events, when lady byron spoke, the world listened with respect, and believed what she said. here let us, too, read her statement, and give it the careful attention she solicits (moore's 'life of byron,' vol. vi. p. ):-- 'i have disregarded various publications in which facts within my own knowledge have been grossly misrepresented; but i am called upon to notice some of the erroneous statements proceeding from one who claims to be considered as lord byron's confidential and authorised friend. domestic details ought not to be intruded on the public attention: if, however, they are so intruded, the persons affected by them have a right to refute injurious charges. mr. moore has promulgated his own impressions of private events in which i was most nearly concerned, as if he possessed a competent knowledge of the subject. having survived lord byron, i feel increased reluctance to advert to any circumstances connected with the period of my marriage; nor is it now my intention to disclose them further than may be indispensably requisite for the end i have in view. self-vindication is not the motive which actuates me to make this appeal, and the spirit of accusation is unmingled with it; but when the conduct of my parents is brought forward in a disgraceful light by the passages selected from lord byron's letters, and by the remarks of his biographer, i feel bound to justify their characters from imputations which i know to be false. the passages from lord byron's letters, to which i refer, are,--the aspersion on my mother's character (p. , l. ): { a} "my child is very well and flourishing, i hear; but i must see also. i feel no disposition to resign it to the contagion of its grandmother's society." the assertion of her dishonourable conduct in employing a spy (p. , l. , etc.): "a mrs. c. (now a kind of housekeeper and spy of lady n's), who, in her better days, was a washerwoman, is supposed to be--by the learned--very much the occult cause of our domestic discrepancies." the seeming exculpation of myself in the extract (p. ), with the words immediately following it, "her nearest relations are a---;" where the blank clearly implies something too offensive for publication. these passages tend to throw suspicion on my parents, and give reason to ascribe the separation either to their direct agency, or to that of "officious spies" employed by them. { b} from the following part of the narrative (p. ), it must also be inferred that an undue influence was exercised by them for the accomplishment of this purpose: "it was in a few weeks after the latter communication between us (lord byron and mr. moore) that lady byron adopted the determination of parting from him. she had left london at the latter end of january, on a visit to her father's house in leicestershire; and lord byron was in a short time to follow her. they had parted in the utmost kindness, she wrote him a letter, full of playfulness and affection, on the road; and, immediately on her arrival at kirkby mallory, her father wrote to acquaint lord byron that she would return to him no more." 'in my observations upon this statement, i shall, as far as possible, avoid touching on any matters relating personally to lord byron and myself. the facts are,--i left london for kirkby mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the th of january, . lord byron had signified to me in writing (jan. ) his absolute desire that i should leave london on the earliest day that i could conveniently fix. it was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a journey sooner than the th. previously to my departure, it had been strongly impressed on my mind that lord byron was under the influence of insanity. this opinion was derived in a great measure from the communications made to me by his nearest relatives and personal attendant, who had more opportunities than myself of observing him during the latter part of my stay in town. it was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying himself. with the concurrence of his family, i had consulted dr. baillie, as a friend (jan. ), respecting this supposed malady. on acquainting him with the state of the case, and with lord byron's desire that i should leave london, dr. baillie thought that my absence might be advisable as an experiment, assuming the fact of mental derangement; for dr. baillie, not having had access to lord byron, could not pronounce a positive opinion on that point. he enjoined that, in correspondence with lord byron, i should avoid all but light and soothing topics. under these impressions i left london, determined to follow the advice given by dr. baillie. whatever might have been the nature of lord byron's conduct towards me from the time of my marriage, yet, supposing him to be in a state of mental alienation, it was not for me, nor for any person of common humanity, to manifest at that moment a sense of injury. on the day of my departure, and again on my arrival at kirkby (jan. ), i wrote to lord byron in a kind and cheerful tone, according to those medical directions. 'the last letter was circulated, and employed as a pretext for the charge of my having been subsequently influenced to "desert" { } my husband. it has been argued that i parted from lord byron in perfect harmony; that feelings incompatible with any deep sense of injury had dictated the letter which i addressed to him; and that my sentiments must have been changed by persuasion and interference when i was under the roof of my parents. these assertions and inferences are wholly destitute of foundation. when i arrived at kirkby mallory, my parents were unacquainted with the existence of any causes likely to destroy my prospects of happiness; and, when i communicated to them the opinion which had been formed concerning lord byron's state of mind, they were most anxious to promote his restoration by every means in their power. they assured those relations who were with him in london, that "they would devote their whole care and attention to the alleviation of his malady;" and hoped to make the best arrangements for his comfort if he could be induced to visit them. 'with these intentions, my mother wrote on the th to lord byron, inviting him to kirkby mallory. she had always treated him with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. never did an irritating word escape her lips in her whole intercourse with him. the accounts given me after i left lord byron, by the persons in constant intercourse with him, added to those doubts which had before transiently occurred to my mind as to the reality of the alleged disease; and the reports of his medical attendant were far from establishing the existence of anything like lunacy. under this uncertainty, i deemed it right to communicate to my parents, that, if i were to consider lord byron's past conduct as that of a person of sound mind, nothing could induce me to return to him. it therefore appeared expedient, both to them and myself, to consult the ablest advisers. for that object, and also to obtain still further information respecting the appearances which seemed to indicate mental derangement, my mother determined to go to london. she was empowered by me to take legal opinions on a written statement of mine, though i had then reasons for reserving a part of the case from the knowledge even of my father and mother. being convinced by the result of these inquiries, and by the tenor of lord byron's proceedings, that the notion of insanity was an illusion, i no longer hesitated to authorise such measures as were necessary in order to secure me from being ever again placed in his power. conformably with this resolution, my father wrote to him on the nd of february to propose an amicable separation. lord byron at first rejected this proposal; but when it was distinctly notified to him that, if he persisted in his refusal, recourse must be had to legal measures, he agreed to sign a deed of separation. upon applying to dr. lushington, who was intimately acquainted with all the circumstances, to state in writing what he recollected upon this subject, i received from him the following letter, by which it will be manifest that my mother cannot have been actuated by any hostile or ungenerous motives towards lord byron:-- '"my dear lady byron,--i can rely upon the accuracy of my memory for the following statement. i was originally consulted by lady noel, on your behalf, whilst you were in the country. the circumstances detailed by her were such as justified a separation; but they were not of that aggravated description as to render such a measure indispensable. on lady noel's representation, i deemed a reconciliation with lord byron practicable, and felt most sincerely a wish to aid in effecting it. there was not on lady noel's part any exaggeration of the facts; nor, so far as i could perceive, any determination to prevent a return to lord byron: certainly none was expressed when i spoke of a reconciliation. when you came to town, in about a fortnight, or perhaps more, after my first interview with lady noel, i was for the first time informed by you of facts utterly unknown, as i have no doubt, to sir ralph and lady noel. on receiving this additional information, my opinion was entirely changed: i considered a reconciliation impossible. i declared my opinion, and added, that, if such an idea should be entertained, i could not, either professionally or otherwise, take any part towards effecting it. '"believe me, very faithfully yours, '"steph. lushington. '"great george street, jan. , ." 'i have only to observe, that, if the statements on which my legal advisers (the late sir samuel romilly and dr. lushington) formed their opinions were false, the responsibility and the odium should rest with me only. i trust that the facts which i have here briefly recapitulated will absolve my father and mother from all accusations with regard to the part they took in the separation between lord byron and myself. 'they neither originated, instigated, nor advised that separation; and they cannot be condemned for having afforded to their daughter the assistance and protection which she claimed. there is no other near relative to vindicate their memory from insult. i am therefore compelled to break the silence which i had hoped always to observe, and to solicit from the readers of lord byron's "life" an impartial consideration of the testimony extorted from me. 'a. i. noel byron. 'hanger hill, feb. , .' the effect of this statement on the literary world may be best judged by the discussion of it by christopher north (wilson) in the succeeding may number of 'the noctes,' where the bravest and most generous of literary men that then were--himself the husband of a gentle wife--thus gives sentence: the conversation is between north and the shepherd:-- north.--'god forbid i should wound the feelings of lady byron, of whose character, known to me but by the high estimation in which it is held by all who have enjoyed her friendship, i have always spoken with respect! . . . but may i, without harshness or indelicacy, say, here among ourselves, james, that, by marrying byron, she took upon herself, with eyes wide open and conscience clearly convinced, duties very different from those of which, even in common cases, the presaging foresight shadows. . . the light of the first nuptial moon?' shepherd.--'she did that, sir; by my troth, she did that.' . . . . north.--'miss milbanke knew that he was reckoned a rake and a roue; and although his genius wiped off, by impassioned eloquence in love- letters that were felt to be irresistible, or hid the worst stain of, that reproach, still miss milbanke must have believed it a perilous thing to be the wife of lord byron. . . . but still, by joining her life to his in marriage, she pledged her troth and her faith and her love, under probabilities of severe, disturbing, perhaps fearful trials, in the future. . . . 'but i think lady byron ought not to have printed that narrative. death abrogates not the rights of a husband to his wife's silence when speech is fatal. . . to his character as a man. has she not flung suspicion over his bones interred, that they are the bones of a--monster? . . . if byron's sins or crimes--for we are driven to use terrible terms--were unendurable and unforgivable as if against the holy ghost, ought the wheel, the rack, or the stake to have extorted that confession from his widow's breast? . . . but there was no such pain here, james: the declaration was voluntary, and it was calm. self- collected, and gathering up all her faculties and feelings into unshrinking strength, she denounced before all the world--and throughout all space and all time--her husband, as excommunicated by his vices from woman's bosom. . . . . ''twas to vindicate the character of her parents that lady byron wrote,--a holy purpose and devout, nor do i doubt sincere. but filial affection and reverence, sacred as they are, may be blamelessly, nay, righteously, subordinate to conjugal duties, which die not with the dead, are extinguished not even by the sins of the dead, were they as foul as the grave's corruption.' here is what john stuart mill calls the literature of slavery for woman, in length and breadth; and, that all women may understand the doctrine, the shepherd now takes up his parable, and expounds the true position of the wife. we render his scotch into english:-- 'not a few such widows do i know, whom brutal, profligate, and savage husbands have brought to the brink of the grave,--as good, as bright, as innocent as, and far more forgiving than, lady byron. there they sit in their obscure, rarely-visited dwellings; for sympathy instructed by suffering knows well that the deepest and most hopeless misery is least given to complaint.' then follows a pathetic picture of one such widow, trembling and fainting for hunger, obliged, on her way to the well for a can of water, her only drink, to sit down on a 'knowe' and say a prayer. 'yet she's decently, yea, tidily dressed, poor creature! in sair worn widow's clothes, a single suit for saturday and sunday; her hair, untimely gray, is neatly braided under her crape cap; and sometimes, when all is still and solitary in the fields, and all labour has disappeared into the house, you may see her stealing by herself, or leading one wee orphan by the hand, with another at her breast, to the kirkyard, where the love of her youth and the husband of her prime is buried. 'yet,' says the shepherd, 'he was a brute, a ruffian, a monster. when drunk, how he raged and cursed and swore! often did she dread that, in his fits of inhuman passion, he would have murdered the baby at her breast; for she had seen him dash their only little boy, a child of eight years old, on the floor, till the blood gushed from his ears; and then the madman threw himself down on the body, and howled for the gallows. limmers haunted his door, and he theirs; and it was hers to lie, not sleep, in a cold, forsaken bed, once the bed of peace, affection, and perfect happiness. often he struck her; and once when she was pregnant with that very orphan now smiling on her breast, reaching out his wee fingers to touch the flowers on his father's grave. . . . 'but she tries to smile among the neighbours, and speaks of her boy's likeness to its father; nor, when the conversation turns on bygone times, does she fear to let his name escape her white lips, "my robert; the bairn's not ill-favoured, but he will never look like his father,"--and such sayings, uttered in a calm, sweet voice. nay, i remember once how her pale countenance reddened with a sudden flush of pride, when a gossiping crone alluded to their wedding; and the widow's eye brightened through her tears to hear how the bridegroom, sitting that sabbath in his front seat beside his bonny bride, had not his equal for strength, stature, and all that is beauty in man, in all the congregation. that, i say, sir, whether right or wrong, was--forgiveness. here is a specimen of how even generous men had been so perverted by the enchantment of lord byron's genius, as to turn all the pathos and power of the strongest literature of that day against the persecuted, pure woman, and for the strong, wicked man. these 'blackwood' writers knew, by byron's own filthy, ghastly writings, which had gone sorely against their own moral stomachs, that he was foul to the bone. they could see, in moore's 'memoirs' right before them, how he had caught an innocent girl's heart by sending a love-letter, and offer of marriage, at the end of a long friendly correspondence,--a letter that had been written to show to his libertine set, and sent on the toss-up of a copper, because he cared nothing for it one way or the other. they admit that, having won this poor girl, he had been savage, brutal, drunken, cruel. they had read the filthy taunts in 'don juan,' and the nameless abominations in the 'autobiography.' they had admitted among themselves that his honour was lost; but still this abused, desecrated woman must reverence her brutal master's memory, and not speak, even to defend the grave of her own kind father and mother. that there was no lover of her youth, that the marriage-vow had been a hideous, shameless cheat, is on the face of moore's account; yet the 'blackwood' does not see it nor feel it, and brings up against lady byron this touching story of a poor widow, who really had had a true lover once,--a lover maddened, imbruted, lost, through that very drunkenness in which the noctes club were always glorying. it is because of such transgressors as byron, such supporters as moore and the noctes club, that there are so many helpless, cowering, broken- hearted, abject women, given over to the animal love which they share alike with the poor dog,--the dog, who, beaten, kicked, starved, and cuffed, still lies by his drunken master with great anxious eyes of love and sorrow, and with sweet, brute forgiveness nestles upon his bosom, as he lies in his filth in the snowy ditch, to keep the warmth of life in him. great is the mystery of this fidelity in the poor, loving brute,--most mournful and most sacred but, oh that a noble man should have no higher ideal of the love of a high-souled, heroic woman! oh that men should teach women that they owe no higher duties, and are capable of no higher tenderness, than this loving, unquestioning animal fidelity! the dog is ever-loving, ever-forgiving, because god has given him no high range of moral faculties, no sense of justice, no consequent horror at impurity and vileness. much of the beautiful patience and forgiveness of women is made possible to them by that utter deadness to the sense of justice which the laws, literature, and misunderstood religion of england have sought to induce in woman as a special grace and virtue. the lesson to woman in this pathetic piece of special pleading is, that man may sink himself below the brute, may wallow in filth like the swine, may turn his home into a hell, beat and torture his children, forsake the marriage-bed for foul rivals; yet all this does not dissolve the marriage- vow on her part, nor free his bounden serf from her obligation to honour his memory,--nay, to sacrifice to it the honour due to a kind father and mother, slandered in their silent graves. such was the sympathy, and such the advice, that the best literature of england could give to a young widow, a peeress of england, whose husband, as they verily believed and admitted, might have done worse than all this; whose crimes might have been 'foul, monstrous, unforgivable as the sin against the holy ghost.' if these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? if the peeress as a wife has no rights, what is the state of the cotter's wife? but, in the same paper, north again blames lady byron for not having come out with the whole story before the world at the time she separated from her husband. he says of the time when she first consulted counsel through her mother, keeping back one item,-- 'how weak, and worse than weak, at such a juncture, on which hung her whole fate, to ask legal advice on an imperfect document! give the delicacy of a virtuous woman its due; but at such a crisis, when the question was whether her conscience was to be free from the oath of oaths, delicacy should have died, and nature was privileged to show unashamed--if such there were--the records of uttermost pollution.' shepherd.--'and what think ye, sir, that a' this pollution could hae been, that sae electrified dr. lushington?' north.--'bad--bad--bad, james. nameless, it is horrible; named, it might leave byron's memory yet within the range of pity and forgiveness; and, where they are, their sister affections will not be far; though, like weeping seraphs, standing aloof, and veiling their wings.' shepherd.--'she should indeed hae been silent--till the grave had closed on her sorrows as on his sins.' north.--'even now she should speak,--or some one else for her,-- . . . and a few words will suffice. worse the condition of the dead man's name cannot be--far, far better it might--i believe it would be--were all the truth somehow or other declared; and declared it must be, not for byron's sake only, but for the sake of humanity itself; and then a mitigated sentence, or eternal silence.' we have another discussion of lady byron's duties in a further number of 'blackwood.' the 'memoir' being out, it was proposed that there should be a complete annotation of byron's works gotten up, and adorned, for the further glorification of his memory, with portraits of the various women whom he had delighted to honour. murray applied to lady byron for her portrait, and was met with a cold, decided negative. after reading all the particulars of byron's harem of mistresses, and moore's comparisons between herself and la guiccioli, one might imagine reasons why a lady, with proper self-respect, should object to appearing in this manner. one would suppose there might have been gentlemen who could well appreciate the motive of that refusal; but it was only considered a new evidence that she was indifferent to her conjugal duties, and wanting in that respect which christopher north had told her she owed a husband's memory, though his crimes were foul as the rottenness of the grave. never, since queen vashti refused to come at the command of a drunken husband to show herself to his drunken lords, was there a clearer case of disrespect to the marital dignity on the part of a wife. it was a plain act of insubordination, rebellion against law and order; and how shocking in lady byron, who ought to feel herself but too much flattered to be exhibited to the public as the head wife of a man of genius! means were at once adopted to subdue her contumacy, of which one may read in a note to the 'blackwood' (noctes), september . an artist was sent down to ealing to take her picture by stealth as she sat in church. two sittings were thus obtained without her knowledge. in the third one, the artist placed himself boldly before her, and sketched, so that she could not but observe him. we shall give the rest in mackenzie's own words, as a remarkable specimen of the obtuseness, not to say indelicacy of feeling, which seemed to pervade the literary circles of england at the time:-- 'after prayers, wright and his friend (the artist) were visited by an ambassador from her ladyship to inquire the meaning of what she had seen. the reply was, that mr. murray must have her portrait, and was compelled to take what she refused to give. the result was, wright was requested to visit her, which he did; taking with him, not the sketch, which was very good, but another, in which there was a strong touch of caricature. rather than allow that to appear as her likeness (a very natural and womanly feeling by the way), she consented to sit for the portrait to w. j. newton, which was engraved, and is here alluded to.' the artless barbarism of this note is too good to be lost; but it is quite borne out by the conversation in the noctes club, which it illustrates. it would appear from this conversation that these byron beauties appeared successively in pamphlet form; and the picture of lady byron is thus discussed:-- mullion.--'i don't know if you have seen the last brochure. it has a charming head of lady byron, who, it seems, sat on purpose: and that's very agreeable to hear of; for it shows her ladyship has got over any little soreness that moore's "life" occasioned, and is now willing to contribute anything in her power to the real monument of byron's genius.' north.--'i am delighted to hear of this: 'tis really very noble in the unfortunate lady. i never saw her. is the face a striking one?' mullion.--'eminently so,--a most calm, pensive, melancholy style of native beauty,--and a most touching contrast to the maids of athens, annesley, and all the rest of them. i'm sure you'll have the proof finden has sent you framed for the boudoir at the lodge.' north.--'by all means. i mean to do that for all the byron beauties.' but it may be asked, was there not a man in all england with delicacy enough to feel for lady byron, and chivalry enough to speak a bold word for her? yes: there was one. thomas campbell the poet, when he read lady byron's statement, believed it, as did christopher north; but it affected him differently. it appears he did not believe it a wife's duty to burn herself on her husband's funeral-pile, as did christopher north; and held the singular idea, that a wife had some rights as a human being as well as a husband. lady byron's own statement appeared in pamphlet form in : at least, such is the date at the foot of the document. thomas campbell, in 'the new monthly magazine,' shortly after, printed a spirited, gentlemanly defence of lady byron, and administered a pointed rebuke to moore for the rudeness and indelicacy he had shown in selecting from byron's letters the coarsest against herself, her parents, and her old governess mrs. clermont, and by the indecent comparisons he had instituted between lady byron and lord byron's last mistress. it is refreshing to hear, at last, from somebody who is not altogether on his knees at the feet of the popular idol, and who has some chivalry for woman, and some idea of common humanity. he says,-- 'i found my right to speak on this painful subject on its now irrevocable publicity, brought up afresh as it has been by mr. moore, to be the theme of discourse to millions, and, if i err not much, the cause of misconception to innumerable minds. i claim to speak of lady byron in the right of a man, and of a friend to the rights of woman, and to liberty, and to natural religion. i claim a right, more especially, as one of the many friends of lady byron, who, one and all, feel aggrieved by this production. it has virtually dragged her forward from the shade of retirement, where she had hid her sorrows, and compelled her to defend the heads of her friends and her parents from being crushed under the tombstone of byron. nay, in a general view, it has forced her to defend herself; though, with her true sense and her pure taste, she stands above all special pleading. to plenary explanation she ought not--she never shall be driven. mr. moore is too much a gentleman not to shudder at the thought of that; but if other byronists, of a far different stamp, were to force the savage ordeal, it is her enemies, and not she, that would have to dread the burning ploughshares. 'we, her friends, have no wish to prolong the discussion: but a few words we must add, even to her admirable statement; for hers is a cause not only dear to her friends, but having become, from mr. moore and her misfortunes, a publicly-agitated cause, it concerns morality, and the most sacred rights of the sex, that she should (and that, too, without more special explanations) be acquitted out and out, and honourably acquitted, in this business, of all share in the blame, which is one and indivisible. mr. moore, on further reflection, may see this; and his return to candour will surprise us less than his momentary deviation from its path. 'for the tact of mr. moore's conduct in this affair, i have not to answer; but, if indelicacy be charged upon me, i scorn the charge. neither will i submit to be called lord byron's accuser; because a word against him i wish not to say beyond what is painfully wrung from me by the necessity of owning or illustrating lady byron's unblamableness, and of repelling certain misconceptions respecting her, which are now walking the fashionable world, and which have been fostered (though heaven knows where they were born) most delicately and warily by the christian godfathership of mr. moore. 'i write not at lady byron's bidding. i have never humiliated either her or myself by asking if i should write, or what i should write; that is to say, i never applied to her for information against lord byron, though i was justified, as one intending to criticise mr. moore, in inquiring into the truth of some of his statements. neither will i suffer myself to be called her champion, if by that word be meant the advocate of her mere legal innocence; for that, i take it, nobody questions. 'still less is it from the sorry impulse of pity that i speak of this noble woman; for i look with wonder and even envy at the proud purity of her sense and conscience, that have carried her exquisite sensibilities in triumph through such poignant tribulations. but i am proud to be called her friend, the humble illustrator of her cause, and the advocate of those principles which make it to me more interesting than lord byron's. lady byron (if the subject must be discussed) belongs to sentiment and morality (at least as much as lord byron); nor is she to be suffered, when compelled to speak, to raise her voice as in a desert, with no friendly voice to respond to her. lady byron could not have outlived her sufferings if she had not wound up her fortitude to the high point of trusting mainly for consolation, not to the opinion of the world, but to her own inward peace; and, having said what ought to convince the world, i verily believe that she has less care about the fashionable opinion respecting her than any of her friends can have. but we, her friends, mix with the world; and we hear offensive absurdities about her, which we have a right to put down. . . . . 'i proceed to deal more generally with mr. moore's book. you speak, mr. moore, against lord byron's censurers in a tone of indignation which is perfectly lawful towards calumnious traducers, but which will not terrify me, or any other man of courage who is no calumniator, from uttering his mind freely with regard to this part of your hero's conduct. i question your philosophy in assuming that all that is noble in byron's poetry was inconsistent with the possibility of his being devoted to a pure and good woman; and i repudiate your morality for canting too complacently about "the lava of his imagination," and the unsettled fever of his passions, being any excuses for his planting the tic douloureux of domestic suffering in a meek woman's bosom. 'these are hard words, mr. moore; but you have brought them on yourself by your voluntary ignorance of facts known to me; for you might and ought to have known both sides of the question; and, if the subject was too delicate for you to consult lady byron's confidential friends, you ought to have had nothing to do with the subject. but you cannot have submitted your book even to lord byron's sister, otherwise she would have set you right about the imaginary spy, mrs. clermont.' campbell now goes on to print, at his own peril, he says, and without time to ask leave, the following note from lady byron in reply to an application he made to her, when he was about to review moore's book, for an 'estimate as to the correctness of moore's statements.' the following is lady byron's reply:-- 'dear mr. campbell,--in taking up my pen to point out for your private information { } those passages in mr. moore's representation of my part of the story which were open to contradiction, i find them of still greater extent than i had supposed; and to deny an assertion here and there would virtually admit the truth of the rest. if, on the contrary, i were to enter into a full exposure of the falsehood of the views taken by mr. moore, i must detail various matters, which, consistently with my principles and feelings, i cannot under the existing circumstances disclose. i may, perhaps, convince you better of the difficulty of the case by an example: it is not true that pecuniary embarrassments were the cause of the disturbed state of lord byron's mind, or formed the chief reason for the arrangements made by him at that time. but is it reasonable for me to expect that you or any one else should believe this, unless i show you what were the causes in question? and this i cannot do. 'i am, etc., 'a. i. noel byron.' campbell then goes on to reprove moore for his injustice to mrs. clermont, whom lord byron had denounced as a spy, but whose respectability and innocence were vouched for by lord byron's own family; and then he pointedly rebukes one false statement of great indelicacy and cruelty concerning lady byron's courtship, as follows:-- 'it is a further mistake on mr. moore's part, and i can prove it to be so, if proof be necessary, to represent lady byron, in the course of their courtship, as one inviting her future husband to correspondence by letters after she had at first refused him. she never proposed a correspondence. on the contrary, he sent her a message after that first refusal, stating that he meant to go abroad, and to travel for some years in the east; that he should depart with a heart aching, but not angry; and that he only begged a verbal assurance that she had still some interest in his happiness. could miss milbanke, as a well- bred woman, refuse a courteous answer to such a message? she sent him a verbal answer, which was merely kind and becoming, but which signified no encouragement that he should renew his offer of marriage. 'after that message, he wrote to her a most interesting letter about himself,--about his views, personal, moral, and religious,--to which it would have been uncharitable not to have replied. the result was an insensibly increasing correspondence, which ended in her being devotedly attached to him. about that time, i occasionally saw lord byron; and though i knew less of him than mr. moore, yet i suspect i knew as much of him as miss milbanke then knew. at that time, he was so pleasing, that, if i had had a daughter with ample fortune and beauty, i should have trusted her in marriage with lord byron. 'mr. moore at that period evidently understood lord byron better than either his future bride or myself; but this speaks more for moore's shrewdness than for byron's ingenuousness of character. 'it is more for lord byron's sake than for his widow's that i resort not to a more special examination of mr. moore's misconceptions. the subject would lead me insensibly into hateful disclosures against poor lord byron, who is more unfortunate in his rash defenders than in his reluctant accusers. happily, his own candour turns our hostility from himself against his defenders. it was only in wayward and bitter remarks that he misrepresented lady byron. he would have defended himself irresistibly if mr. moore had left only his acknowledging passages. but mr. moore has produced a "life" of him which reflects blame on lady byron so dexterously, that "more is meant than meets the ear." the almost universal impression produced by his book is, that lady byron must be a precise and a wan, unwarming spirit, a blue-stocking of chilblained learning, a piece of insensitive goodness. 'who that knows lady byron will not pronounce her to be everything the reverse? will it be believed that this person, so unsuitably matched to her moody lord, has written verses that would do no discredit to byron himself; that her sensitiveness is surpassed and bounded only by her good sense; and that she is '"blest with a temper, whose unclouded ray can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day"? 'she brought to lord byron beauty, manners, fortune, meekness, romantic affection, and everything that ought to have made her to the most transcendent man of genius--had he been what he should have been--his pride and his idol. i speak not of lady byron in the commonplace manner of attesting character: i appeal to the gifted mrs. siddons and joanna baillie, to lady charlemont, and to other ornaments of their sex, whether i am exaggerating in the least when i say, that, in their whole lives, they have seen few beings so intellectual and well-tempered as lady byron. 'i wish to be as ingenuous as possible in speaking of her. her manner, i have no hesitation to say, is cool at the first interview, but is modestly, and not insolently, cool: she contracted it, i believe, from being exposed by her beauty and large fortune, in youth, to numbers of suitors, whom she could not have otherwise kept at a distance. but this manner could have had no influence with lord byron; for it vanishes on nearer acquaintance, and has no origin in coldness. all her friends like her frankness the better for being preceded by this reserve. this manner, however, though not the slightest apology for lord byron, has been inimical to lady byron in her misfortunes. it endears her to her friends; but it piques the indifferent. most odiously unjust, therefore, is mr. moore's assertion, that she has had the advantage of lord byron in public opinion. she is, comparatively speaking, unknown to the world; for though she has many friends, that is, a friend in everyone who knows her, yet her pride and purity and misfortunes naturally contract the circle of her acquaintance. 'there is something exquisitely unjust in mr. moore comparing her chance of popularity with lord byron's, the poet who can command men of talents,--putting even mr. moore into the livery of his service,--and who has suborned the favour of almost all women by the beauty of his person and the voluptuousness of his verses. lady byron has nothing to oppose to these fascinations but the truth and justice of her cause. 'you said, mr. moore, that lady byron was unsuitable to her lord: the word is cunningly insidious, and may mean as much or as little as may suit your convenience. but, if she was unsuitable, i remark that it tells all the worse against lord byron. i have not read it in your book (for i hate to wade through it); but they tell me that you have not only warily depreciated lady byron, but that you have described a lady that would have suited him. if this be true, "it is the unkindest cut of all,"--to hold up a florid description of a woman suitable to lord byron, as if in mockery over the forlorn flower of virtue that was drooping in the solitude of sorrow. 'but i trust there is no such passage in your book. surely you must be conscious of your woman, with her 'virtue loose about her, who would have suited lord byron," to be as imaginary a being as the woman without a head. a woman to suit lord byron! poo, poo! i could paint to you the woman that could have matched him, if i had not bargained to say as little as possible against him. 'if lady byron was not suitable to lord byron, so much the worse for his lordship; for let me tell you, mr. moore, that neither your poetry, nor lord byron's, nor all our poetry put together, ever delineated a more interesting being than the woman whom you have so coldly treated. this was not kicking the dead lion, but wounding the living lamb, who was already bleeding and shorn, even unto the quick. i know, that, collectively speaking, the world is in lady byron's favour; but it is coldly favourable, and you have not warmed its breath. time, however, cures everything; and even your book, mr. moore, may be the means of lady byron's character being better appreciated. 'thomas campbell.' here is what seems to be a gentlemanly, high-spirited, chivalric man, throwing down his glove in the lists for a pure woman. what was the consequence? campbell was crowded back, thrust down, overwhelmed, his eyes filled with dust, his mouth with ashes. there was a general confusion and outcry, which reacted both on him and on lady byron. her friends were angry with him for having caused this re- action upon her; and he found himself at once attacked by lady byron's enemies, and deserted by her friends. all the literary authorities of his day took up against him with energy. christopher north, professor of moral philosophy in the edinburgh university, in a fatherly talk in 'the noctes,' condemns campbell, and justifies moore, and heartily recommends his 'biography,' as containing nothing materially objectionable on the score either of manners or morals. thus we have it in 'the noctes' of may :-- 'mr. moore's biographical book i admired; and i said so to my little world, in two somewhat lengthy articles, which many approved, and some, i am sorry to know, condemned.' on the point in question between moore and campbell, north goes on to justify moore altogether, only admitting that 'it would have been better had he not printed any coarse expression of byron's about the old people;' and, finally, he closes by saying,-- 'i do not think that, under the circumstances, mr. campbell himself, had he written byron's "life," could have spoken, with the sentiments he then held, in a better, more manly, and more gentlemanly spirit, in so far as regards lady byron, than mr. moore did: and i am sorry he has been deterred from "swimming" through mr. moore's work by the fear of "wading;" for the waters are clear and deep; nor is there any mud, either at the bottom or round the margin.' of the conduct of lady byron's so-called friends on this occasion it is more difficult to speak. there has always been in england, as john stuart mill says, a class of women who glory in the utter self-abnegation of the wife to the husband, as the special crown of womanhood. their patron saint is the griselda of chaucer, who, when her husband humiliates her, and treats her as a brute, still accepts all with meek, unquestioning, uncomplaining devotion. he tears her from her children; he treats her with personal abuse; he repudiates her,--sends her out to nakedness and poverty; he installs another mistress in his house, and sends for the first to be her handmaid and his own: and all this the meek saint accepts in the words of milton,-- 'my guide and head, what thou hast said is just and right.' accordingly, miss martineau tells us that when campbell's defence came out, coupled with a note from lady byron,-- 'the first obvious remark was, that there was no real disclosure; and the whole affair had the appearance of a desire, on the part of lady byron, to exculpate herself, while yet no adequate information was given. many, who had regarded her with favour till then, gave her up so far as to believe that feminine weakness had prevailed at last.' the saint had fallen from her pedestal! she had shown a human frailty! quite evidently she is not a griselda, but possessed with a shocking desire to exculpate herself and her friends. is it, then, only to slandered men that the privilege belongs of desiring to exculpate themselves and their families and their friends from unjust censure? lord byron had made it a life-long object to vilify and defame his wife. he had used for that one particular purpose every talent that he possessed. he had left it as a last charge to moore to pursue the warfare after death, which moore had done to some purpose; and christopher north had informed lady byron that her private affairs were discussed, not only with the whisky-toddy of the noctes club, but in every drawing-room in may fair; and declared that the 'dear duck' letter, and various other matters, must be explained, and urged somebody to speak; and then, when campbell does speak with all the energy of a real gentleman, a general outcry and an indiscriminate melee is the result. the world, with its usual injustice, insisted on attributing campbell's defence to lady byron. the reasons for this seemed to be, first, that campbell states that he did not ask lady byron's leave, and that she did not authorise him to defend her; and, second, that, having asked some explanations from her, he prints a note in which she declines to give any. we know not how a lady could more gently yet firmly decline to make a gentleman her confidant than in this published note of lady byron; and yet, to this day, campbell is spoken of by the world as having been lady byron's confidant at this time. this simply shows how very trustworthy are the general assertions about lady byron's confidants. the final result of the matter, so far as campbell was concerned, is given in miss martineau's sketch, in the following paragraph:-- 'the whole transaction was one of poor campbell's freaks. he excused himself by saying it was a mistake of his; that he did not know what he was about when he published the paper.' it is the saddest of all sad things to see a man, who has spoken from moral convictions, in advance of his day, and who has taken a stand for which he ought to honour himself, thus forced down and humiliated, made to doubt his own better nature and his own honourable feelings, by the voice of a wicked world. campbell had no steadiness to stand by the truth he saw. his whole story is told incidentally in a note to 'the noctes,' in which it is stated, that in an article in 'blackwood,' january , on scotch poets, the palm was given to hogg over campbell; 'one ground being, that he could drink "eight and twenty tumblers of punch, while campbell is hazy upon seven."' there is evidence in 'the noctes,' that in due time campbell was reconciled to moore, and was always suitably ashamed of having tried to be any more generous or just than the men of his generation. and so it was settled as a law to jacob, and an ordinance in israel, that the byron worship should proceed, and that all the earth should keep silence before him. 'don juan,' that, years before, had been printed by stealth, without murray's name on the title-page, that had been denounced as a book which no woman should read, and had been given up as a desperate enterprise, now came forth in triumph, with banners flying and drums beating. every great periodical in england that had fired moral volleys of artillery against it in its early days, now humbly marched in the glorious procession of admirers to salute this edifying work of genius. 'blackwood,' which in the beginning had been the most indignantly virtuous of the whole, now grovelled and ate dust as the serpent in the very abjectness of submission. odoherty (maginn) declares that he would rather have written a page of 'don juan' than a ton of 'childe harold.' { a} timothy tickler informs christopher north that he means to tender murray, as emperor of the north, an interleaved copy { b} of 'don juan,' with illustrations, as the only work of byron's he cares much about; and christopher north, professor of moral philosophy in edinburgh, smiles approval! we are not, after this, surprised to see the assertion, by a recent much-aggrieved writer in 'the london era,' that 'lord byron has been, more than any other man of the age, the teacher of the youth of england;' and that he has 'seen his works on the bookshelves of bishops' palaces, no less than on the tables of university undergraduates.' a note to 'the noctes' of july informs us of another instance of lord byron's triumph over english morals:-- 'the mention of this' (byron's going to greece) 'reminds me, by the by, of what the guiccioli said in her visit to london, where she was so lionised as having been the lady-love of byron. she was rather fond of speaking on the subject, designating herself by some venetian pet phrase, which she interpreted as meaning "love-wife."' what was lady byron to do in such a world? she retired to the deepest privacy, and devoted herself to works of charity, and the education of her only child, that brilliant daughter, to whose eager, opening mind the whole course of current literature must bring so many trying questions in regard to the position of her father and mother,--questions that the mother might not answer. that the cruel inconsiderateness of the literary world added thorns to the intricacies of the path trodden by every mother who seeks to guide, restrain, and educate a strong, acute, and precociously intelligent child, must easily be seen. what remains to be said of lady byron's life shall be said in the words of miss martineau, published in 'the atlantic monthly:'-- 'her life, thenceforth, was one of unremitting bounty to society administered with as much skill and prudence as benevolence. she lived in retirement, changing her abode frequently; partly for the benefit of her child's education and the promotion of her benevolent schemes, and partly from a restlessness which was one of the few signs of injury received from the spoiling of associations with home. 'she felt a satisfaction which her friends rejoiced in when her daughter married lord king, at present the earl of lovelace, in ; and when grief upon grief followed, in the appearance of mortal disease in her only child, her quiet patience stood her in good stead as before. she even found strength to appropriate the blessings of the occasion, and took comfort, as did her dying daughter, in the intimate friendship, which grew closer as the time of parting drew nigh. 'lady lovelace died in ; and, for her few remaining years, lady byron was devoted to her grandchildren. but nearer calls never lessened her interest in remoter objects. her mind was of the large and clear quality which could comprehend remote interests in their true proportions, and achieve each aim as perfectly as if it were the only one. her agents used to say that it was impossible to mistake her directions; and thus her business was usually well done. there was no room, in her case, for the ordinary doubts, censures, and sneers about the misapplication of bounty. 'her taste did not lie in the "charity-ball" direction; her funds were not lavished in encouraging hypocrisy and improvidence among the idle and worthless; and the quality of her charity was, in fact, as admirable as its quantity. her chief aim was the extension and improvement of popular education; but there was no kind of misery that she heard of that she did not palliate to the utmost, and no kind of solace that her quick imagination and sympathy could devise that she did not administer. 'in her methods, she united consideration and frankness with singular success. for one instance among a thousand: a lady with whom she had had friendly relations some time before, and who became impoverished in a quiet way by hopeless sickness, preferred poverty with an easy conscience to a competency attended by some uncertainty about the perfect rectitude of the resource. lady byron wrote to an intermediate person exactly what she thought of the case. whether the judgment of the sufferer was right or mistaken was nobody's business but her own: this was the first point. next, a voluntary poverty could never be pitied by anybody: that was the second. but it was painful to others to think of the mortification to benevolent feelings which attends poverty; and there could be no objection to arresting that pain. therefore she, lady byron, had lodged in a neighbouring bank the sum of one hundred pounds, to be used for benevolent purposes; and, in order to preclude all outside speculation, she had made the money payable to the order of the intermediate person, so that the sufferer's name need not appear at all. 'five and thirty years of unremitting secret bounty like this must make up a great amount of human happiness; but this was only one of a wide variety of methods of doing good. it was the unconcealable magnitude of her beneficence, and its wise quality, which made her a second time the theme of english conversation in all honest households within the four seas. years ago, it was said far and wide that lady byron was doing more good than anybody else in england; and it was difficult to imagine how anybody could do more. 'lord byron spent every shilling that the law allowed him out of her property while he lived, and left away from her every shilling that he could deprive her of by his will; yet she had, eventually, a large income at her command. in the management of it, she showed the same wise consideration that marked all her practical decisions. she resolved to spend her whole income, seeing how much the world needed help at the moment. her care was for the existing generation, rather than for a future one, which would have its own friends. she usually declined trammelling herself with annual subscriptions to charities; preferring to keep her freedom from year to year, and to achieve definite objects by liberal bounty, rather than to extend partial help over a large surface which she could not herself superintend. 'it was her first industrial school that awakened the admiration of the public, which had never ceased to take an interest in her, while sorely misjudging her character. we hear much now--and everybody hears it with pleasure--of the spread of education in "common things;" but long before miss coutts inherited her wealth, long before a name was found for such a method of training, lady byron had instituted the thing, and put it in the way of making its own name. 'she was living at ealing, in middlesex, in ; and there she opened one of the first industrial schools in england, if not the very first. she sent out a master to switzerland, to be instructed in de fellenburgh's method. she took, on lease, five acres of land, and spent several hundred pounds in rendering the buildings upon it fit for the purposes of the school. a liberal education was afforded to the children of artisans and labourers during the half of the day when they were not employed in the field or garden. the allotments were rented by the boys, who raised and sold produce, which afforded them a considerable yearly profit if they were good workmen. those who worked in the field earned wages; their labour being paid by the hour, according to the capability of the young labourer. they kept their accounts of expenditure and receipts, and acquired good habits of business while learning the occupation of their lives. some mechanical trades were taught, as well as the arts of agriculture. 'part of the wisdom of the management lay in making the pupils pay. of one hundred pupils, half were boarders. they paid little more than half the expenses of their maintenance, and the day-scholars paid threepence per week. of course, a large part of the expense was borne by lady byron, besides the payments she made for children who could not otherwise have entered the school. the establishment flourished steadily till , when the owner of the land required it back for building purposes. during the eighteen years that the ealing schools were in action, they did a world of good in the way of incitement and example. the poor-law commissioners pointed out their merits. land- owners and other wealthy persons visited them, and went home and set up similar establishments. during those years, too, lady byron had herself been at work in various directions to the same purpose. 'a more extensive industrial scheme was instituted on her leicestershire property, and not far off she opened a girls' school and an infant school; and when a season of distress came, as such seasons are apt to befall the poor leicestershire stocking-weavers, lady byron fed the children for months together, till they could resume their payments. these schools were opened in . the next year, she built a schoolhouse on her warwickshire property; and, five years later, she set up an iron schoolhouse on another leicestershire estate. 'by this time, her educational efforts were costing her several hundred pounds a year in the mere maintenance of existing establishments; but this is the smallest consideration in the case. she has sent out tribes of boys and girls into life fit to do their part there with skill and credit and comfort. perhaps it is a still more important consideration, that scores of teachers and trainers have been led into their vocation, and duly prepared for it, by what they saw and learned in her schools. as for the best and the worst of the ealing boys, the best have, in a few cases, been received into the battersea training school, whence they could enter on their career as teachers to the greatest advantage; and the worst found their school a true reformatory, before reformatory schools were heard of. at bristol, she bought a house for a reformatory for girls; and there her friend, miss carpenter, faithfully and energetically carries out her own and lady byron's aims, which were one and the same. 'there would be no end if i were to catalogue the schemes of which these are a specimen. it is of more consequence to observe that her mind was never narrowed by her own acts, as the minds of benevolent people are so apt to be. to the last, her interest in great political movements, at home and abroad, was as vivid as ever. she watched every step won in philosophy, every discovery in science, every token of social change and progress in every shape. her mind was as liberal as her heart and hand. no diversity of opinion troubled her: she was respectful to every sort of individuality, and indulgent to all constitutional peculiarities. it must have puzzled those who kept up the notion of her being "strait-laced" to see how indulgent she was even to epicurean tendencies,--the remotest of all from her own. 'but i must stop; for i do not wish my honest memorial to degenerate into panegyric. among her latest known acts were her gifts to the sicilian cause, and her manifestations on behalf of the antislavery cause in the united states. her kindness to william and ellen craft must be well known there; and it is also related in the newspapers, that she bequeathed a legacy to a young american to assist him under any disadvantages he might suffer as an abolitionist. 'all these deeds were done under a heavy burden of ill health. before she had passed middle life, her lungs were believed to be irreparably injured by partial ossification. she was subject to attacks so serious, that each one, for many years, was expected to be the last. she arranged her affairs in correspondence with her liabilities: so that the same order would have been found, whether she died suddenly or after long warning. 'she was to receive one more accession of outward greatness before she departed. she became baroness wentworth in november, . this is one of the facts of her history; but it is the least interesting to us, as probably to her. we care more to know that her last days were bright in honour, and cheered by the attachment of old friends worthy to pay the duty she deserved. above all, it is consoling to know that she who so long outlived her only child was blessed with the unremitting and tender care of her grand-daughter. she died on the th of may, . 'the portrait of lady byron as she was at the time of her marriage is probably remembered by some of my readers. it is very engaging. her countenance afterwards became much worn; but its expression of thoughtfulness and composure was very interesting. her handwriting accorded well with the character of her mind. it was clear, elegant, and womanly. her manners differed with circumstances. her shrinking sensitiveness might embarrass one visitor; while another would be charmed with her easy, significant, and vivacious conversation. it depended much on whom she talked with. the abiding certainty was, that she had strength for the hardest of human trials, and the composure which belongs to strength. for the rest, it is enough to point to her deeds, and to the mourning of her friends round the chasm which her departure has made in their life, and in the society in which it is spent. all that could be done in the way of personal love and honour was done while she lived: it only remains now to see that her name and fame are permitted to shine forth at last in their proper light.' we have simply to ask the reader whether a life like this was not the best, the noblest answer that a woman could make to a doubting world. chapter v. the attack on lady byron's grave. we have now brought the review of the antagonism against lady byron down to the period of her death. during all this time, let the candid reader ask himself which of these two parties seems to be plotting against the other. which has been active, aggressive, unscrupulous? which has been silent, quiet, unoffending? which of the two has laboured to make a party, and to make that party active, watchful, enthusiastic? have we not proved that lady byron remained perfectly silent during lord byron's life, patiently looking out from her retirement to see the waves of popular sympathy, that once bore her up, day by day retreating, while his accusations against her were resounding in his poems over the whole earth? and after lord byron's death, when all the world with one consent began to give their memorials of him, and made it appear, by their various 'recollections of conversations,' how incessantly he had obtruded his own version of the separation upon every listener, did she manifest any similar eagerness? lady byron had seen the 'blackwood' coming forward, on the first appearance of 'don juan,' to rebuke the cowardly lampoon in words eloquent with all the unperverted vigour of an honest englishman. under the power of the great conspirator, she had seen that 'blackwood' become the very eager recipient and chief reporter of the stories against her, and the blind admirer of her adversary. all this time, she lost sympathy daily by being silent. the world will embrace those who court it; it will patronise those who seek its favour; it will make parties for those who seek to make parties: but for the often accused who do not speak, who make no confidants and no parties, the world soon loses sympathy. when at last she spoke, christopher north says 'she astonished the world.' calm, clear, courageous, exact as to time, date, and circumstance, was that first testimony, backed by the equally clear testimony of dr. lushington. it showed that her secret had been kept even from her parents. in words precise, firm, and fearless, she says, 'if these statements on which dr. lushington and sir samuel romilly formed their opinion were false, the responsibility and the odium should rest with me only.' christopher north did not pretend to disbelieve this statement. he breathed not a doubt of lady byron's word. he spoke of the crime indicated, as one which might have been foul as the grave's corruption, unforgivable as the sin against the holy ghost. he rebuked the wife for bearing this testimony, even to save the memory of her dead father and mother, and, in the same breath, declared that she ought now to go farther, and speak fully the one awful word, and then--'a mitigated sentence, or eternal silence!' but lady byron took no counsel with the world, nor with the literary men of her age. one knight, with some small remnant of england's old chivalry, set lance in rest for her: she saw him beaten back unhorsed, rolled in the dust, and ingloriously vanquished, and perceived that henceforth nothing but injury could come to any one who attempted to speak for her. she turned from the judgments of man and the fond and natural hopes of human nature, to lose herself in sacred ministries to the downcast and suffering. what nobler record for woman could there be than that which miss martineau has given? particularly to be noted in lady byron was her peculiar interest in reclaiming fallen women. among her letters to mrs. prof. follen, of cambridge, was one addressed to a society of ladies who had undertaken this difficult work. it was full of heavenly wisdom and of a large and tolerant charity. fenelon truly says, it is only perfection that can tolerate imperfection; and the very purity of lady byron's nature made her most forbearing and most tender towards the weak and the guilty. this letter, with all the rest of lady byron's, was returned to the hands of her executors after her death. its publication would greatly assist the world in understanding the peculiarities of its writer's character. lady byron passed to a higher life in . { } after her death, i looked for the publication of her memoir and letters as the event that should give her the same opportunity of being known and judged by her life and writings that had been so freely accorded to lord byron. she was, in her husband's estimation, a woman of genius. she was the friend of many of the first men and women of her times, and corresponded with them on topics of literature, morals, religion, and, above all, on the benevolent and philanthropic movements of the day, whose principles she had studied with acute observation, and in connection with which she had acquired a large experience. the knowledge of her, necessarily diffused by such a series of letters, would have created in america a comprehension of her character, of itself sufficient to wither a thousand slanders. such a memoir was contemplated. lady byron's letters to mrs. follen were asked for from boston; and i was applied to by a person in england, who i have recently learned is one of the existing trustees of lady byron's papers, to furnish copies of her letters to me for the purpose of a memoir. before i had time to have copies made, another letter came, stating that the trustees had concluded that it was best not to publish any memoir of lady byron at all. this left the character of lady byron in our american world precisely where the slanders of her husband, the literature of the noctes club, and the unanimous verdict of may fair as recorded by 'blackwood,' had placed it. true, lady byron had nobly and quietly lived down these slanders in england by deeds that made her name revered as a saint among all those who valued saintliness. but in france and italy, and in these united states, i have had abundant opportunity to know that lady byron stood judged and condemned on the testimony of her brilliant husband, and that the feeling against her had a vivacity and intensity not to be overcome by mere allusions to a virtuous life in distant england. this is strikingly shown by one fact. in the american edition of moore's 'life of byron,' by claxton, remsen, and haffelfinger, philadelphia, , which i have been consulting, lady byron's statement, which is found in the appendix of murray's standard edition, is entirely omitted. every other paper is carefully preserved. this one incident showed how the tide of sympathy was setting in this new world. of course, there is no stronger power than a virtuous life; but, for a virtuous life to bear testimony to the world, its details must be told, so that the world may know them. suppose the memoirs of clarkson and wilberforce had been suppressed after their death, how soon might the coming tide have wiped out the record of their bravery and philanthropy! suppose the lives of francis xavier and henry martyn had never been written, and we had lost the remembrance of what holy men could do and dare in the divine enthusiasm of christian faith! suppose we had no fenelon, no book of martyrs! would there not be an outcry through all the literary and artistic world if a perfect statue were allowed to remain buried for ever because some painful individual history was connected with its burial and its recovery? but is not a noble life a greater treasure to mankind than any work of art? we have heard much mourning over the burned autobiography of lord byron, and seen it treated of in a magazine as 'the lost chapter in history.' the lost chapter in history is lady byron's autobiography in her life and letters; and the suppression of them is the root of this whole mischief. we do not in this intend to censure the parties who came to this decision. the descendants of lady byron revere her memory, as they have every reason to do. that it was their desire to have a memoir of her published, i have been informed by an individual of the highest character in england, who obtained the information directly from lady byron's grandchildren. but the trustees in whose care the papers were placed drew back on examination of them, and declared, that, as lady byron's papers could not be fully published, they should regret anything that should call public attention once more to the discussion of her history. reviewing this long history of the way in which the literary world had treated lady byron, we cannot wonder that her friends should have doubted whether there was left on earth any justice, or sense that anything is due to woman as a human being with human rights. evidently this lesson had taken from them all faith in the moral sense of the world. rather than re-awaken the discussion, so unsparing, so painful, and so indelicate, which had been carried on so many years around that loved form, now sanctified by death, they sacrificed the dear pleasure of the memorials, and the interests of mankind, who have an indefeasible right to all the help that can be got from the truth of history as to the living power of virtue, and the reality of that great victory that overcometh the world. there are thousands of poor victims suffering in sadness, discouragement, and poverty; heart-broken wives of brutal, drunken husbands; women enduring nameless wrongs and horrors which the delicacy of their sex forbids them to utter,--to whom the lovely letters lying hidden away under those seals might bring courage and hope from springs not of this world. but though the friends of lady byron, perhaps from despair of their kind, from weariness of the utter injustice done her, wished to cherish her name in silence, and to confine the story of her virtues to that circle who knew her too well to ask a proof, or utter a doubt, the partisans of lord byron were embarrassed with no such scruple. lord byron had artfully contrived during his life to place his wife in such an antagonistic position with regard to himself, that his intimate friends were forced to believe that one of the two had deliberately and wantonly injured the other. the published statement of lady byron contradicted boldly and point-blank all the statement of her husband concerning the separation; so that, unless she was convicted as a false witness, he certainly was. the best evidence of this is christopher north's own shocked, astonished statement, and the words of the noctes club. the noble life that lady byron lived after this hushed every voice, and silenced even the most desperate calumny, while she was in the world. in the face of lady byron as the world saw her, of what use was the talk of clytemnestra, and the assertion that she had been a mean, deceitful conspirator against her husband's honour in life, and stabbed his memory after death? but when she was in her grave, when her voice and presence and good deeds no more spoke for her, and a new generation was growing up that knew her not; then was the time selected to revive the assault on her memory, and to say over her grave what none would ever have dared to say of her while living. during these last two years, i have been gradually awakening to the evidence of a new crusade against the memory of lady byron, which respected no sanctity,--not even that last and most awful one of death. nine years after her death, when it was fully understood that no story on her side or that of her friends was to be forthcoming, then her calumniators raked out from the ashes of her husband's sepulchre all his bitter charges, to state them over in even stronger and more indecent forms. there seems to be reason to think that the materials supplied by lord byron for such a campaign yet exist in society. to 'the noctes' of november , there is the following note apropos to a discussion of the byron question:-- 'byron's memoirs, given by him to moore, were burned, as everybody knows. but, before this, moore had lent them to several persons. mrs. home purvis, afterwards viscountess of canterbury, is known to have sat up all one night, in which, aided by her daughter, she had a copy made. i have the strongest reason for believing that one other person made a copy; for the description of the first twenty-four hours after the marriage ceremonial has been in my hands. not until after the death of lady byron, and hobhouse, who was the poet's literary executor, can the poet's autobiography see the light; but i am certain it will be published.' thus speaks mackenzie in a note to a volume of 'the noctes,' published in america in . lady byron died in . nine years after lady byron's death, when it was ascertained that her story was not to see the light, when there were no means of judging her character by her own writings, commenced a well-planned set of operations to turn the public attention once more to lord byron, and to represent him as an injured man, whose testimony had been unjustly suppressed. it was quite possible, supposing copies of the autobiography to exist, that this might occasion a call from the generation of to-day, in answer to which the suppressed work might appear. this was a rather delicate operation to commence; but the instrument was not wanting. it was necessary that the subject should be first opened by some irresponsible party, whom more powerful parties might, as by accident, recognise and patronise, and on whose weakness they might build something stronger. just such an instrument was to be found in paris. the mistress of lord byron could easily be stirred up and flattered to come before the world with a book which should re-open the whole controversy; and she proved a facile tool. at first, the work appeared prudently in french, and was called 'lord byron juge par les temoins de sa vie,' and was rather a failure. then it was translated into english, and published by bentley. the book was inartistic, and helplessly, childishly stupid as to any literary merits,--a mere mass of gossip and twaddle; but after all, when one remembers the taste of the thousands of circulating-library readers, it must not be considered the less likely to be widely read on that account. it is only once in a century that a writer of real genius has the art to tell his story so as to take both the cultivated few and the average many. de foe and john bunyan are almost the only examples. but there is a certain class of reading that sells and spreads, and exerts a vast influence, which the upper circles of literature despise too much ever to fairly estimate its power. however, the guiccioli book did not want for patrons in the high places of literature. the 'blackwood'--the old classic magazine of england; the defender of conservatism and aristocracy; the paper of lockhart, wilson, hogg, walter scott, and a host of departed grandeurs--was deputed to usher into the world this book, and to recommend it and its author to the christian public of the nineteenth century. the following is the manner in which 'blackwood' calls attention to it:-- 'one of the most beautiful of the songs of beranger is that addressed to his lisette, in which he pictures her, in old age, narrating to a younger generation the loves of their youth; decking his portrait with flowers at each returning spring, and reciting the verses that had been inspired by her vanished charms:-- 'lorsque les yeux chercheront sous vos rides les traits charmants qui m'auront inspire, des doux recits les jeunes gens avides, diront: quel fut cet ami tant pleure? de men amour peignez, s'il est possible, vardeur, l'ivresse, et meme les soupcons, et bonne vieille, an coin d'un feu paisible de votre ami repetez les chansons. "on vous dira: savait-il etre aimable? et sans rougir vous direz: je l'aimais. d'un trait mechant se montra-t-il capable? avec orgueil vous repondrez: jamais!'" 'this charming picture,' 'blackwood' goes on to say, 'has been realised in the case of a poet greater than beranger, and by a mistress more famous than lisette. the countess guiccioli has at length given to the world her "recollections of lord byron." the book first appeared in france under the title of "lord byron juge par les temoins de sa vie," without the name of the countess. a more unfortunate designation could hardly have been selected. the "witnesses of his life" told us nothing but what had been told before over and over again; and the uniform and exaggerated tone of eulogy which pervaded the whole book was fatal to any claim on the part of the writer to be considered an impartial judge of the wonderfully mixed character of byron. 'when, however, the book is regarded as the avowed production of the countess guiccioli, it derives value and interest from its very faults. { } there is something inexpressibly touching in the picture of the old lady calling up the phantoms of half a century ago; not faded and stricken by the hand of time, but brilliant and gorgeous as they were when byron, in his manly prime of genius and beauty, first flashed upon her enraptured sight, and she gave her whole soul up to an absorbing passion, the embers of which still glow in her heart. 'to her there has been no change, no decay. the god whom she worshipped with all the ardour of her italian nature at seventeen is still the "pythian of the age" to her at seventy. to try such a book by the ordinary canons of criticism would be as absurd as to arraign the authoress before a jury of british matrons, or to prefer a bill of indictment against the sultan for bigamy to a middlesex grand jury.' this, then, is the introduction which one of the oldest and most classical periodicals of great britain gives to a very stupid book, simply because it was written by lord byron's mistress. that fact, we are assured, lends grace even to its faults. having brought the authoress upon the stage, the review now goes on to define her position, and assure the christian world that 'the countess guiccioli was the daughter of an impoverished noble. at the age of sixteen, she was taken from a convent, and sold as third wife to the count guiccioli, who was old, rich, and profligate. a fouler prostitution never profaned the name of marriage. a short time afterwards, she accidentally met lord byron. outraged and rebellious nature vindicated itself in the deep and devoted passion with which he inspired her. with the full assent of husband, father, and brother, and in compliance with the usages of italian society, he was shortly afterwards installed in the office, and invested with all the privileges, of her "cavalier servente."' it has been asserted that the marquis de boissy, the late husband of this guiccioli lady, was in the habit of introducing her in fashionable circles as 'the marquise de boissy, my wife, formerly mistress to lord byron'! we do not give the story as a verity; yet, in the review of this whole history, we may be pardoned for thinking it quite possible. the mistress, being thus vouched for and presented as worthy of sympathy and attention by one of the oldest and most classic organs of english literature, may now proceed in her work of glorifying the popular idol, and casting abuse on the grave of the dead wife. her attacks on lady byron are, to be sure, less skilful and adroit than those of lord byron. they want his literary polish and tact; but what of that? 'blackwood' assures us that even the faults of manner derive a peculiar grace from the fact that the narrator is lord byron's mistress; and so we suppose the literary world must find grace in things like this:-- 'she has been called, after his words, the moral clytemnestra of her husband. such a surname is severe: but the repugnance we feel to condemning a woman cannot prevent our listening to the voice of justice, which tells us that the comparison is still in favour of the guilty one of antiquity; for she, driven to crime by fierce passion overpowering reason, at least only deprived her husband of physical life, and, in committing the deed, exposed herself to all its consequences; while lady byron left her husband at the very moment that she saw him struggling amid a thousand shoals in the stormy sea of embarrassments created by his marriage, and precisely when he more than ever required a friendly, tender, and indulgent hand to save him. 'besides, she shut herself up in silence a thousand times more cruel than clytemnestra's poniard: that only killed the body; whereas lady byron's silence was destined to kill the soul,--and such a soul!--leaving the door open to calumny, and making it to be supposed that her silence was magnanimity destined to cover over frightful wrongs, perhaps even depravity. in vain did he, feeling his conscience at ease, implore some inquiry and examination. she refused; and the only favour she granted was to send him, one fine day, two persons to see whether he were not mad. 'and, why, then, had she believed him mad? because she, a methodical, inflexible woman, with that unbendingness which a profound moralist calls the worship rendered to pride by a feelingless soul, because she could not understand the possibility of tastes and habits different to those of ordinary routine, or of her own starched life. not to be hungry when she was; not to sleep at night, but to write while she was sleeping, and to sleep when she was up; in short, to gratify the requirements of material and intellectual life at hours different to hers,--all that was not merely annoying for her, but it must be madness; or, if not, it betokened depravity that she could neither submit to nor tolerate without perilling her own morality. 'such was the grand secret of the cruel silence which exposed lord byron to the most malignant interpretations, to all the calumny and revenge of his enemies. 'she was, perhaps, the only woman in the world so strangely organised,--the only one, perhaps, capable of not feeling happy and proud at belonging to a man superior to the rest of humanity; and fatally was it decreed that this woman alone of her species should be lord byron's wife!' in a note is added,-- 'if an imaginary fear, and even an unreasonable jealousy, may be her excuse (just as one excuses a monomania), can one equally forgive her silence? such a silence is morally what are physically the poisons which kill at once, and defy all remedies; thus insuring the culprit's safety. this silence it is which will ever be her crime; for by it she poisoned the life of her husband.' the book has several chapters devoted to lord byron's peculiar virtues; and under the one devoted to magnanimity and heroism, his forgiving disposition receives special attention. the climax of all is stated to be that he forgave lady byron. all the world knew that, since he had declared this fact in a very noisy and impassioned manner in the fourth canto of 'childe harold,' together with a statement of the wrongs which he forgave; but the guiccioli thinks his virtue, at this period, has not been enough appreciated. in her view, it rose to the sublime. she says of lady byron,-- 'an absolute moral monstrosity, an anomaly in the history of types of female hideousness, had succeeded in showing itself in the light of magnanimity. but false as was this high quality in lady byron, so did it shine out in him true and admirable. the position in which lady byron had placed him, and where she continued to keep him by her harshness, silence, and strange refusals, was one of those which cause such suffering, that the highest degree of self-control seldom suffices to quiet the promptings of human weakness, and to cause persons of even slight sensibility to preserve moderation. yet, with his sensibility and the knowledge of his worth, how did he act? what did he say? i will not speak of his "farewell;" of the care he took to shield her from blame by throwing it on others, by taking much too large a share to himself.' with like vivacity and earnestness does the narrator now proceed to make an incarnate angel of her subject by the simple process of denying everything that he himself ever confessed,--everything that has ever been confessed in regard to him by his best friends. he has been in the world as an angel unawares from his cradle. his guardian did not properly appreciate him, and is consequently mentioned as that wicked lord carlisle. thomas moore is never to be sufficiently condemned for the facts told in his biography. byron's own frank and lawless admissions of evil are set down to a peculiar inability he had for speaking the truth about himself,--sometimes about his near relations; all which does not in the least discourage the authoress from giving a separate chapter on 'lord byron's love of truth.' in the matter of his relations with women, she complacently repeats (what sounds rather oddly as coming from her) lord byron's own assurance, that he never seduced a woman; and also the equally convincing statement, that he had told her (the guiccioli) that his married fidelity to his wife was perfect. she discusses moore's account of the mistress in boy's clothes who used to share byron's apartments in college, and ride with him to races, and whom he presented to ladies as his brother. she has her own view of this matter. the disguised boy was a lady of rank and fashion, who sought lord byron's chambers, as, we are informed, noble ladies everywhere, both in italy and england, were constantly in the habit of doing; throwing themselves at his feet, and imploring permission to become his handmaids. in the authoress's own words, 'feminine overtures still continued to be made to lord byron; but the fumes of incense never hid from his sight his ideal.' we are told that in the case of these poor ladies, generally 'disenchantment took place on his side without a corresponding result on the other: thence many heart-breakings.' nevertheless, we are informed that there followed the indiscretions of these ladies 'none of those proceedings that the world readily forgives, but which his feelings as a man of honour would have condemned.' as to drunkenness, and all that, we are informed he was an anchorite. pages are given to an account of the biscuits and soda-water that on this and that occasion were found to be the sole means of sustenance to this ethereal creature. as to the story of using his wife's money, the lady gives, directly in the face of his own letters and journal, the same account given before by medwin, and which caused such merriment when talked over in the noctes club,--that he had with her only a marriage portion of , pounds; and that, on the separation, he not only paid it back, but doubled it. { } so on the authoress goes, sowing right and left the most transparent absurdities and misstatements with what carlyle well calls 'a composed stupidity, and a cheerful infinitude of ignorance.' who should know, if not she, to be sure? had not byron told her all about it? and was not his family motto crede byron? the 'blackwood,' having a dim suspicion that this confused style of attack and defence in reference to the two parties under consideration may not have great weight, itself proceeds to make the book an occasion for re-opening the controversy of lord byron with his wife. the rest of the review devoted to a powerful attack on lady byron's character, the most fearful attack on the memory of a dead woman we have ever seen made by living man. the author proceeds, like a lawyer, to gather up, arrange, and restate, in a most workmanlike manner, the confused accusations of the book. anticipating the objection, that such a re-opening of the inquiry was a violation of the privacy due to womanhood and to the feelings of a surviving family, he says, that though marriage usually is a private matter which the world has no right to intermeddle with or discuss, yet-- 'lord byron's was an exceptional case. it is not too much to say, that, had his marriage been a happy one, the course of events of the present century might have been materially changed; that the genius which poured itself forth in "don juan" and "cain" might have flowed in far different channels; that the ardent love of freedom which sent him to perish at six and thirty at missolonghi might have inspired a long career at home; and that we might at this moment have been appealing to the counsels of his experience and wisdom at an age not exceeding that which was attained by wellington, lyndhurst, and brougham. 'whether the world would have been a gainer or a loser by the exchange is a question which every man must answer for himself, according to his own tastes and opinions; but the possibility of such a change in the course of events warrants us in treating what would otherwise be a strictly private matter as one of public interest. 'more than half a century has elapsed, the actors have departed from the stage, the curtain has fallen; and whether it will ever again be raised so as to reveal the real facts of the drama, may, as we have already observed, be well doubted. but the time has arrived when we may fairly gather up the fragments of evidence, clear them as far as possible from the incrustations of passion, prejudice, and malice, and place them in such order, as, if possible, to enable us to arrive at some probable conjecture as to what the skeleton of the drama originally was.' here the writer proceeds to put together all the facts of lady byron's case, just as an adverse lawyer would put them as against her, and for her husband. the plea is made vigorously and ably, and with an air of indignant severity, as of an honest advocate who is thoroughly convinced that he is pleading the cause of a wronged man who has been ruined in name, shipwrecked in life, and driven to an early grave, by the arts of a bad woman,--a woman all the more horrible that her malice was disguised under the cloak of religion. having made an able statement of facts, adroitly leaving out one, { } of which he could not have been ignorant had he studied the case carefully enough to know all the others, he proceeds to sum up against the criminal thus:-- 'we would deal tenderly with the memory of lady byron. few women have been juster objects of compassion. it would seem as if nature and fortune had vied with each other which should be most lavish of her gifts, and yet that some malignant power had rendered all their bounty of no effect. rank, beauty, wealth, and mental powers of no common order, were hers; yet they were of no avail to secure common happiness. the spoilt child of seclusion, restraint, and parental idolatry, a fate (alike evil for both) cast her into the arms of the spoilt child of genius, passion, and the world. what real or fancied wrongs she suffered, we may never know; but those which she inflicted are sufficiently apparent. 'it is said that there are some poisons so subtle that they will destroy life, and yet leave no trace of their action. the murderer who uses them may escape the vengeance of the law; but he is not the less guilty. so the slanderer who makes no charge; who deals in hints and insinuations: who knows melancholy facts he would not willingly divulge,--things too painful to state; who forbears, expresses pity, sometimes even affection, for his victim, shrugs his shoulders, looks with "the significant eye, which learns to lie with silence,--" is far more guilty than he who tells the bold falsehood which may be met and answered, and who braves the punishment which must follow upon detection. 'lady byron has been called "the moral clytemnestra of her lord." the "moral brinvilliers" would have been a truer designation. 'the conclusion at which we arrive is, that there is no proof whatever that lord byron was guilty of any act that need have caused a separation, or prevented a re-union, and that the imputations upon him rest on the vaguest conjecture; that whatever real or fancied wrongs lady byron may have endured are shrouded in an impenetrable mist of her own creation,--a poisonous miasma in which she enveloped the character of her husband, raised by her breath, and which her breath only could have dispersed. "she dies and makes no sign. o god! forgive her."' as we have been obliged to review accusations on lady byron founded on old greek tragedy, so now we are forced to abridge a passage from a modern conversations-lexicon, that we may understand what sort of comparisons are deemed in good taste in a conservative english review, when speaking of ladies of rank in their graves. under the article 'brinvilliers,' we find as follows:-- marguerite d'aubrai, marchioness of brinvilliers.--the singular atrocity of this woman gives her a sort of infamous claim to notice. she was born in paris in ; being daughter of d'aubrai, lieutenant- civil of paris, who married her to the marquis of brinvilliers. although possessed of attractions to captivate lovers, she was for some time much attached to her husband, but at length became madly in love with a gascon officer. her father imprisoned the officer in the bastille; and, while there, he learned the art of compounding subtle and most mortal poisons; and, when he was released, he taught it to the lady, who exercised it with such success, that, in one year, her father, sister, and two brothers became her victims. she professed the utmost tenderness for her victims, and nursed them assiduously. on her father she is said to have made eight attempts before she succeeded. she was very religious, and devoted to works of charity; and visited the hospitals a great deal, where it is said she tried her poisons on the sick.' people have made loud outcries lately, both in america and england, about violating the repose of the dead. we should like to know what they call this. is this, then, what they mean by respecting the dead? let any man imagine a leading review coming out with language equally brutal about his own mother, or any dear and revered friend. men of america, men of england, what do you think of this? when lady byron was publicly branded with the names of the foulest ancient and foulest modern assassins, and lord byron's mistress was publicly taken by the hand, and encouraged to go on and prosper in her slanders, by one of the oldest and most influential british reviews, what was said and what was done in england? that is a question we should be glad to have answered. nothing was done that ever reached us across the water. and why was nothing done? is this language of a kind to be passed over in silence? was it no offence to the house of wentworth to attack the pure character of its late venerable head, and to brand her in her sacred grave with the name of one of the vilest of criminals? might there not properly have been an indignant protest of family solicitors against this insult to the person and character of the baroness wentworth? if virtue went for nothing, benevolence for nothing, a long life of service to humanity for nothing, one would at least have thought, that, in aristocratic countries, rank might have had its rights to decent consideration, and its guardians to rebuke the violation of those rights. we americans understand little of the advantages of rank; but we did understand that it secured certain decorums to people, both while living and when in their graves. from lady byron's whole history, in life and in death, it would appear that we were mistaken. what a life was hers! was ever a woman more evidently desirous of the delicate and secluded privileges of womanhood, of the sacredness of individual privacy? was ever a woman so rudely dragged forth, and exposed to the hardened, vulgar, and unfeeling gaze of mere curiosity?--her maiden secrets of love thrown open to be handled by roues; the sanctities of her marriage-chamber desecrated by leering satyrs; her parents and best friends traduced and slandered, till one indignant public protest was extorted from her, as by the rack,--a protest which seems yet to quiver in every word with the indignation of outraged womanly delicacy! then followed coarse blame and coarser comment,--blame for speaking at all, and blame for not speaking more. one manly voice, raised for her in honourable protest, was silenced and overborne by the universal roar of ridicule and reprobation; and henceforth what refuge? only this remained: 'let them that suffer according to the will of god commit the keeping of their souls to him as to a faithful creator.' lady byron turned to this refuge in silence, and filled up her life with a noble record of charities and humanities. so pure was she, so childlike, so artless, so loving, that those who knew her best, feel, to this day, that a memorial of her is like the relic of a saint. and could not all this preserve her grave from insult? o england, england! i speak in sorrow of heart to those who must have known, loved, and revered lady byron, and ask them, of what were you thinking when you allowed a paper of so established literary rank as the 'blackwood,' to present and earnestly recommend to our new world such a compendium of lies as the guiccioli book? is the great english-speaking community, whose waves toss from maine to california, and whose literature is yet to come back in a thousand voices to you, a thing to be so despised? if, as the solicitors of the wentworth family observe, you might be entitled to treat with silent contempt the slanders of a mistress against a wife, was it safe to treat with equal contempt the indorsement and recommendation of those slanders by one of your oldest and most powerful literary authorities? no european magazine has ever had the weight and circulation in america that the 'blackwood' has held. in the days of my youth, when new england was a comparatively secluded section of the earth, the wit and genius of the 'noctes ambrosianae' were in the mouths of men and maidens, even in our most quiet mountain-towns. there, years ago, we saw all lady byron's private affairs discussed, and felt the weight of christopher north's decisions against her. shelton mackenzie, in his american edition, speaks of the american circulation of 'blackwood' being greater than that in england. { } it was and is now reprinted monthly; and, besides that, 'littell's magazine' reproduces all its striking articles, and they come with the weight of long established position. from the very fact that it has long been considered the tory organ, and the supporter of aristocratic orders, all its admissions against the character of individuals in the privileged classes have a double force. when 'blackwood,' therefore, boldly denounces a lady of high rank as a modern brinvilliers, and no sensation is produced, and no remonstrance follows, what can people in the new world suppose, but that lady byron's character was a point entirely given up; that her depravity was so well established and so fully conceded, that nothing was to be said, and that even the defenders of aristocracy were forced to admit it? i have been blamed for speaking on this subject without consulting lady byron's friends, trustees, and family. more than ten years had elapsed since i had had any intercourse with england, and i knew none of them. how was i to know that any of them were living? i was astonished to learn, for the first time, by the solicitors' letters, that there were trustees, who held in their hands all lady byron's carefully prepared proofs and documents, by which this falsehood might immediately have been refuted. if they had spoken, they might have saved all this confusion. even if bound by restrictions for a certain period of time, they still might have called on a christian public to frown down such a cruel and indecent attack on the character of a noble lady who had been a benefactress to so many in england. they might have stated that the means of wholly refuting the slanders of the 'blackwood' were in their hands, and only delayed in coming forth from regard to the feelings of some in this generation. then might they not have announced her life and letters, that the public might have the same opportunity as themselves for knowing and judging lady byron by her own writings? had this been done, i had been most happy to have remained silent. i have been astonished that any one should have supposed this speaking on my part to be anything less than it is,--the severest act of self-sacrifice that one friend can perform for another, and the most solemn and difficult tribute to justice that a human being can be called upon to render. i have been informed that the course i have taken would be contrary to the wishes of my friend. i think otherwise. i know her strong sense of justice, and her reverence for truth. nothing ever moved her to speak to the public but an attack upon the honour of the dead. in her statement, she says of her parents, 'there is no other near relative to vindicate their memory from insult: i am therefore compelled to break the silence i had hoped always to have observed.' if there was any near relative to vindicate lady byron's memory, i had no evidence of the fact; and i considered the utter silence to be strong evidence to the contrary. in all the storm of obloquy and rebuke that has raged in consequence of my speaking, i have had two unspeakable sources of joy; first, that they could not touch her; and, second, that they could not blind the all-seeing god. it is worth being in darkness to see the stars. it has been said that i have drawn on lady byron's name greater obloquy than ever before. i deny the charge. nothing fouler has been asserted of her than the charges in the 'blackwood,' because nothing fouler could be asserted. no satyr's hoof has ever crushed this pearl deeper in the mire than the hoof of the 'blackwood,' but none of them have defiled it or trodden it so deep that god cannot find it in the day 'when he maketh up his jewels.' i have another word, as an american, to say about the contempt shown to our great people in thus suffering the materials of history to be falsified to subserve the temporary purposes of family feeling in england. lord byron belongs not properly either to the byrons or the wentworths. he is not one of their family jewels to be locked up in their cases. he belongs to the world for which he wrote, to which he appealed, and before which he dragged his reluctant, delicate wife to a publicity equal with his own: the world has, therefore, a right to judge him. we americans have been made accessories, after the fact, to every insult and injury that lord byron and the literary men of his day have heaped upon lady byron. we have been betrayed into injustice and a complicity with villainy. after lady byron had nobly lived down slanders in england, and died full of years and honours, the 'blackwood' takes occasion to re-open the controversy by recommending a book full of slanders to a rising generation who knew nothing of the past. what was the consequence in america? my attention was first called to the result, not by reading the 'blackwood' article, but by finding in a popular monthly magazine two long articles,--the one an enthusiastic recommendation of the guiccioli book, and the other a lamentation over the burning of the autobiography as a lost chapter in history. both articles represented lady byron as a cold, malignant, mean, persecuting woman, who had been her husband's ruin. they were so full of falsehoods and misstatements as to astonish me. not long after, a literary friend wrote to me, 'will you, can you, reconcile it to your conscience to sit still and allow that mistress so to slander that wife,--you, perhaps, the only one knowing the real facts, and able to set them forth?' upon this, i immediately began collecting and reading the various articles and the book, and perceived that the public of this generation were in a way of having false history created, uncontradicted, under their own eyes. i claim for my countrymen and women, our right to true history. for years, the popular literature has held up publicly before our eyes the facts as to this man and this woman, and called on us to praise or condemn. let us have truth when we are called on to judge. it is our right. there is no conceivable obligation on a human being greater than that of absolute justice. it is the deepest personal injury to an honourable mind to be made, through misrepresentation, an accomplice in injustice. when a noble name is accused, any person who possesses truth which might clear it, and withholds that truth, is guilty of a sin against human nature and the inalienable rights of justice. i claim that i have not only a right, but an obligation, to bring in my solemn testimony upon this subject. for years and years, the silence-policy has been tried; and what has it brought forth? as neither word nor deed could be proved against lady byron, her silence has been spoken of as a monstrous, unnatural crime, 'a poisonous miasma,' in which she enveloped the name of her husband. very well; since silence is the crime, i thought i would tell the world that lady byron had spoken. christopher north, years ago, when he condemned her for speaking, said that she should speak further,-- 'she should speak, or some one for her. one word would suffice.' that one word has been spoken. part ii. chapter i. lady byron as i knew her. an editorial in the london times' of sept. says:-- 'the perplexing feature in this "true story" is, that it is impossible to distinguish what part in it is the editress's, and what lady byron's own. we are given the impression made on mrs. stowe's mind by lady byron's statements; but it would have been more satisfactory if the statement itself had been reproduced as bare as possible, and been left to make its own impression on the public.' in reply to this, i will say, that in my article i gave a brief synopsis of the subject-matter of lady byron's communications; and i think it must be quite evident to the world that the main fact on which the story turns was one which could not possibly be misunderstood, and the remembrance of which no lapse of time could ever weaken. lady byron's communications were made to me in language clear, precise, terrible; and many of her phrases and sentences i could repeat at this day, word for word. but if i had reproduced them at first, as 'the times' suggests, word for word, the public horror and incredulity would have been doubled. it was necessary that the brutality of the story should, in some degree, be veiled and softened. the publication, by lord lindsay, of lady anne barnard's communication, makes it now possible to tell fully, and in lady byron's own words, certain incidents that yet remain untold. to me, who know the whole history, the revelations in lady anne's account, and the story related by lady byron, are like fragments of a dissected map: they fit together, piece by piece, and form one connected whole. in confirmation of the general facts of this interview, i have the testimony of a sister who accompanied me on this visit, and to whom, immediately after it, i recounted the story. her testimony on the subject is as follows:-- 'my dear sister,--i have a perfect recollection of going with you to visit lady byron at the time spoken of in your published article. we arrived at her house in the morning; and, after lunch, lady byron and yourself spent the whole time till evening alone together. 'after we retired to our apartment that night, you related to me the story given in your published account, though with many more particulars than you have yet thought fit to give to the public. 'you stated to me that lady byron was strongly impressed with the idea that it might be her duty to publish a statement during her lifetime, and also the reasons which induced her to think so. you appeared at that time quite disposed to think that justice required this step, and asked my opinion. we passed most of the night in conversation on the subject,--a conversation often resumed, from time to time, during several weeks in which you were considering what opinion to give. 'i was strongly of opinion that justice required the publication of the truth, but felt exceedingly averse to its being done by lady byron herself during her own lifetime, when she personally would be subject to the comments and misconceptions of motives which would certainly follow such a communication. 'your sister, 'm. f. perkins.' i am now about to complete the account of my conversation with lady byron; but as the credibility of a history depends greatly on the character of its narrator, and as especial pains have been taken to destroy the belief in this story by representing it to be the wanderings of a broken-down mind in a state of dotage and mental hallucination, i shall preface the narrative with some account of lady byron as she was during the time of our mutual acquaintance and friendship. this account may, perhaps, be deemed superfluous in england, where so many knew her; but in america, where, from maine to california, her character has been discussed and traduced, it is of importance to give interested thousands an opportunity of learning what kind of a woman lady byron was. her character as given by lord byron in his journal, after her first refusal of him, is this:-- 'she is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled; which is strange in an heiress, a girl of twenty, a peeress that is to be in her own right, an only child, and a savante, who has always had her own way. she is a poetess, a mathematician, a metaphysician; yet, withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension. any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions and a tenth of her advantages.' such was lady byron at twenty. i formed her acquaintance in the year , during my first visit in england. i met her at a lunch-party in the house of one of her friends. the party had many notables; but, among them all, my attention was fixed principally on lady byron. she was at this time sixty-one years of age, but still had, to a remarkable degree, that personal attraction which is commonly considered to belong only to youth and beauty. her form was slight, giving an impression of fragility; her motions were both graceful and decided; her eyes bright, and full of interest and quick observation. her silvery-white hair seemed to lend a grace to the transparent purity of her complexion, and her small hands had a pearly whiteness. i recollect she wore a plain widow's cap of a transparent material; and was dressed in some delicate shade of lavender, which harmonised well with her complexion. when i was introduced to her, i felt in a moment the words of her husband:-- 'there was awe in the homage that she drew; her spirit seemed as seated on a throne.' calm, self-poised, and thoughtful, she seemed to me rather to resemble an interested spectator of the world's affairs, than an actor involved in its trials; yet the sweetness of her smile, and a certain very delicate sense of humour in her remarks, made the way of acquaintance easy. her first remarks were a little playful; but in a few moments we were speaking on what every one in those days was talking to me about,--the slavery question in america. it need not be remarked, that, when any one subject especially occupies the public mind, those known to be interested in it are compelled to listen to many weary platitudes. lady byron's remarks, however, caught my ear and arrested my attention by their peculiar incisive quality, their originality, and the evidence they gave that she was as well informed on all our matters as the best american statesman could be. i had no wearisome course to go over with her as to the difference between the general government and state governments, nor explanations of the united states constitution; for she had the whole before her mind with a perfect clearness. her morality upon the slavery question, too, impressed me as something far higher and deeper than the common sentimentalism of the day. many of her words surprised me greatly, and gave me new material for thought. i found i was in company with a commanding mind, and hastened to gain instruction from her on another point where my interest had been aroused. i had recently been much excited by kingsley's novels, 'alton locke' and 'yeast,' on the position of religious thought in england. from these works i had gathered, that under the apparent placid uniformity of the established church of england, and of 'good society' as founded on it, there was moving a secret current of speculative enquiry, doubt, and dissent; but i had met, as yet, with no person among my various acquaintances in england who seemed either aware of this fact, or able to guide my mind respecting it. the moment i mentioned the subject to lady byron, i received an answer which showed me that the whole ground was familiar to her, and that she was capable of giving me full information. she had studied with careful thoughtfulness all the social and religious tendencies of england during her generation. one of her remarks has often since occurred to me. speaking of the oxford movement, she said the time had come when the english church could no longer remain as it was. it must either restore the past, or create a future. the oxford movement attempted the former; and of the future she was beginning to speak, when our conversation was interrupted by the presentation of other parties. subsequently, in reply to a note from her on some benevolent business, i alluded to that conversation, and expressed a wish that she would finish giving me her views of the religious state of england. a portion of the letter that she wrote me in reply i insert, as being very characteristic in many respects:-- 'various causes have been assigned for the decaying state of the english church; which seems the more strange, because the clergy have improved, morally and intellectually, in the last twenty years. then why should their influence be diminished? i think it is owing to the diffusion of a spirit of free enquiry. 'doubts have arisen in the minds of many who are unhappily bound by subscription not to doubt; and, in consequence, they are habitually pretending either to believe or to disbelieve. the state of denmark cannot but be rotten, when to seem is the first object of the witnesses of truth. 'they may lead better lives, and bring forward abler arguments; but their efforts are paralysed by that unsoundness. i see the high churchman professing to believe in the existence of a church, when the most palpable facts must show him that no such church exists; the "low" churchman professing to believe in exceptional interpositions which his philosophy secretly questions; the "broad" churchman professing as absolute an attachment to the established church as the narrowest could feel, while he is preaching such principles as will at last pull it down. 'i ask you, my friend, whether there would not be more faith, as well as earnestness, if all would speak out. there would be more unanimity too, because they would all agree in a certain basis. would not a wider love supersede the creed-bound charity of sects? 'i am aware that i have touched on a point of difference between us, and i will not regret it; for i think the differences of mind are analogous to those differences of nature, which, in the most comprehensive survey, are the very elements of harmony. 'i am not at all prone to put forth my own opinions; but the tone in which you have written to me claims an unusual degree of openness on my part. i look upon creeds of all kinds as chains,--far worse chains than those you would break,--as the causes of much hypocrisy and infidelity. i hold it to be a sin to make a child say, "i believe." lead it to utter that belief spontaneously. i also consider the institution of an exclusive priesthood, though having been of service in some respects, as retarding the progress of christianity at present. i desire to see a lay ministry. 'i will not give you more of my heterodoxy at present: perhaps i need your pardon, connected as you are with the church, for having said so much. 'there are causes of decay known to be at work in my frame, which lead me to believe i may not have time to grow wiser; and i must therefore leave it to others to correct the conclusions i have now formed from my life's experience. i should feel happy to discuss them personally with you; for it would be soul to soul. in that confidence i am yours most truly, 'a. i. noel byron.' it is not necessary to prove to the reader that this letter is not in the style of a broken-down old woman subject to mental hallucinations. it shows lady byron's habits of clear, searching analysis, her thoughtfulness, and, above all, that peculiar reverence for truth and sincerity which was a leading characteristic of her moral nature. { } it also shows her views of the probable shortness of her stay on earth, derived from the opinion of physicians about her disease, which was a gradual ossification of the lungs. it has been asserted that pulmonary diseases, while they slowly and surely sap the physical life, often appear to give added vigour to the play of the moral and intellectual powers. i parted from lady byron, feeling richer in that i had found one more pearl of great price on the shore of life. three years after this, i visited england to obtain a copyright for the issue of my novel of 'dred.' the hope of once more seeing lady byron was one of the brightest anticipations held out to me in this journey. i found london quite deserted; but, hearing that lady byron was still in town, i sent to her, saying in my note, that, in case she was not well enough to call, i would visit her. her reply i give:-- 'my dear friend,--i will be indebted to you for our meeting, as i am barely able to leave my room. it is not a time for small personalities, if they could ever exist with you; and, dressed or undressed, i shall hope to see you after two o'clock. 'yours very truly, 'a. i. noel byron.' i found lady byron in her sick-room,--that place which she made so different from the chamber of ordinary invalids. her sick-room seemed only a telegraphic station whence her vivid mind was flashing out all over the world. by her bedside stood a table covered with books, pamphlets, and files of letters, all arranged with exquisite order, and each expressing some of her varied interests. from that sick-bed she still directed, with systematic care, her various works of benevolence, and watched with intelligent attention the course of science, literature, and religion; and the versatility and activity of her mind, the flow of brilliant and penetrating thought on all the topics of the day, gave to the conversations of her retired room a peculiar charm. you forgot that she was an invalid; for she rarely had a word of her own personalities, and the charm of her conversation carried you invariably from herself to the subjects of which she was thinking. all the new books, the literature of the hour, were lighted up by her keen, searching, yet always kindly criticism; and it was charming to get her fresh, genuine, clear-cut modes of expression, so different from the world-worn phrases of what is called good society. her opinions were always perfectly clear and positive, and given with the freedom of one who has long stood in a position to judge the world and its ways from her own standpoint. but it was not merely in general literature and science that her heart lay; it was following always with eager interest the progress of humanity over the whole world. this was the period of the great battle for liberty in kansas. the english papers were daily filled with the thrilling particulars of that desperate struggle, and lady byron entered with heart and soul into it. her first letter to me, at this time, is on this subject. it was while 'dred' was going through the press. 'cambridge terrace, aug. . 'my dear mrs. stowe,--messrs. chambers liked the proposal to publish the kansas letters. the more the public know of these matters, the better prepared they will be for your book. the moment for its publication seems well chosen. there is always in england a floating fund of sympathy for what is above the everyday sordid cares of life; and these better feelings, so nobly invested for the last two years in florence nightingale's career, are just set free. to what will they next be attached? if you can lay hold of them, they may bring about a deeper abolition than any legislative one,--the abolition of the heart- heresy that man's worth comes, not from god, but from man. 'i have been obliged to give up exertion again, but hope soon to be able to call and make the acquaintance of your daughters. in case you wish to consult h. martineau's pamphlets, i send more copies. do not think of answering: i have occupied too much of your time in reading. 'yours affectionately, 'a. i. noel byron.' as soon as a copy of 'dred' was through the press, i sent it to her, saying that i had been reproved by some excellent people for representing too faithfully the profane language of some of the wicked characters. to this she sent the following reply:-- 'your book, dear mrs. stowe, is of the little leaven kind, and must prove a great moral force; perhaps not manifestly so much as secretly. and yet i can hardly conceive so much power without immediate and sensible effects: only there will be a strong disposition to resist on the part of all hollow-hearted professors of religion, whose heathenisms you so unsparingly expose. they have a class feeling like others. 'to the young, and to those who do not reflect much on what is offered to their belief, you will do great good by showing how spiritual food is often adulterated. the bread from heaven is in the same case as bakers' bread. 'if there is truth in what i heard lord byron say, that works of fiction live only by the amount of truth which they contain, your story is sure of a long life. of the few critiques i have seen, the best is in "the examiner." i find an obtuseness as to the spirit and aim of the book, as if you had designed to make the best novel of the season, or to keep up the reputation of one. you are reproached, as walter scott was, with too much scriptural quotation; not, that i have heard, with phrases of an opposite character. 'the effects of such reading till a late hour one evening appeared to influence me very singularly in a dream. the most horrible spectres presented themselves, and i woke in an agony of fear; but a faith still stronger arose, and i became courageous from trust in god, and felt calm. did you do this? it is very insignificant among the many things you certainly will do unknown to yourself. i know more than ever before how to value communion with you. i have sent robertson's sermons for you; and, with kind regards to your family, am 'yours affectionately, 'a. i. noel byron.' i was struck in this note with the mention of lord byron, and, the next time i saw her, alluded to it, and remarked upon the peculiar qualities of his mind as shown in some of his more serious conversations with dr. kennedy. she seemed pleased to continue the subject, and went on to say many things of his singular character and genius, more penetrating and more appreciative than is often met with among critics. i told her that i had been from childhood powerfully influenced by him; and began to tell her how much, as a child, i had been affected by the news of his death,--giving up all my plays, and going off to a lonely hillside, where i spent the afternoon thinking of him. she interrupted me before i had quite finished, with a quick, impulsive movement. 'i know all that,' she said: 'i heard it all from mrs. ---; and it was one of the things that made me wish to know you. i think you could understand him.' we talked for some time of him then; she, with her pale face slightly flushed, speaking, as any other great man's widow might, only of what was purest and best in his works, and what were his undeniable virtues and good traits, especially in early life. she told me many pleasant little speeches made by him to herself; and, though there was running through all this a shade of melancholy, one could never have conjectured that there were under all any deeper recollections than the circumstances of an ordinary separation might bring. not many days after, with the unselfishness which was so marked a trait with her, she chose a day when she could be out of her room, and invited our family party, consisting of my husband, sister, and children, to lunch with her. what showed itself especially in this interview was her tenderness for all young people. she had often enquired after mine; asked about their characters, habits, and tastes; and on this occasion she found an opportunity to talk with each one separately, and to make them all feel at ease, so that they were able to talk with her. she seemed interested to point out to them what they should see and study in london; and the charm of her conversation left on their minds an impression that subsequent years have never effaced. i record this incident, because it shows how little lady byron assumed the privileges or had the character of an invalid absorbed in herself, and likely to brood over her own woes and wrongs. here was a family of strangers stranded in a dull season in london, and there was no manner of obligation upon her to exert herself to show them attention. her state of health would have been an all-sufficient reason why she should not do it; and her doing it was simply a specimen of that unselfish care for others, even down to the least detail, of which her life was full. a little while after, at her request, i went, with my husband and son, to pass an evening at her house. there were a few persons present whom she thought i should be interested to know,--a miss goldsmid, daughter of baron goldsmid, and lord ockham, her grandson, eldest son and heir of the earl of lovelace, to whom she introduced my son. i had heard much of the eccentricities of this young nobleman, and was exceedingly struck with his personal appearance. his bodily frame was of the order of the farnese hercules,--a wonderful development of physical and muscular strength. his hands were those of a blacksmith. he was broadly and squarely made, with a finely-shaped head, and dark eyes of surpassing brilliancy. i have seldom seen a more interesting combination than his whole appearance presented. when all were engaged in talking, lady byron came and sat down by me, and glancing across to lord ockham and my son, who were talking together, she looked at me, and smiled. i immediately expressed my admiration of his fine eyes and the intellectual expression of his countenance, and my wonder at the uncommon muscular development of his frame. she said that that of itself would account for many of ockham's eccentricities. he had a body that required a more vigorous animal life than his station gave scope for, and this had often led him to seek it in what the world calls low society; that he had been to sea as a sailor, and was now working as a mechanic on the iron work of 'the great eastern.' he had laid aside his title, and went in daily with the other workmen, requesting them to call him simply ockham. i said that there was something to my mind very fine about this, even though it might show some want of proper balance. she said he had noble traits, and that she felt assured he would yet accomplish something worthy of himself. 'the great difficulty with our nobility is apt to be, that they do not understand the working-classes, so as to feel for them properly; and ockham is now going through an experience which may yet fit him to do great good when he comes to the peerage. i am trying to influence him to do good among the workmen, and to interest himself in schools for their children. i think,' she added, 'i have great influence over ockham,--the greater, perhaps, that i never make any claim to authority.' this conversation is very characteristic of lady byron as showing her benevolent analysis of character, and the peculiar hopefulness she always had in regard to the future of every one brought in connection with her. her moral hopefulness was something very singular; and in this respect she was so different from the rest of the world, that it would be difficult to make her understood. her tolerance of wrong-doing would have seemed to many quite latitudinarian, and impressed them as if she had lost all just horror of what was morally wrong in transgression; but it seemed her fixed habit to see faults only as diseases and immaturities, and to expect them to fall away with time. she saw the germs of good in what others regarded as only evil. she expected valuable results to come from what the world looked on only as eccentricities; { } and she incessantly devoted herself to the task of guarding those whom the world condemned, and guiding them to those higher results of which she often thought that even their faults were prophetic. before i quit this sketch of lady byron as i knew her, i will give one more of her letters. my return from that visit in europe was met by the sudden death of the son mentioned in the foregoing account. at the time of this sorrow, lady byron was too unwell to write to me. the letter given alludes to this event, and speaks also of two coloured persons of remarkable talent, in whose career in england she had taken a deep interest. one of them is the 'friend' she speaks of. 'london, feb. , . dear mrs. stowe,--i seem to feel our friend as a bridge, over which our broken outward communication can be renewed without effort. why broken? the words i would have uttered at one time were like drops of blood from my heart. now i sympathise with the calmness you have gained, and can speak of your loss as i do of my own. loss and restoration are more and more linked in my mind, but "to the present live." as long as they are in god's world they are in ours. i ask no other consolation. 'mrs. w---'s recovery has astonished me, and her husband's prospects give me great satisfaction. they have achieved a benefit to their coloured people. she had a mission which her burning soul has worked out, almost in defiance of death. but who is "called" without being "crucified," man or woman? i know of none. 'i fear that h. martineau was too sanguine in her persuasion that the slave power had received a serious check from the ruin of so many of your mammon-worshippers. with the return of commercial facilities, that article of commerce will again find purchasers enough to raise its value. not that way is the iniquity to be overthrown. a deeper moral earthquake is needed. { } we english had ours in india; and though the cases are far from being alike, yet a consciousness of what we ought to have been and ought to be toward the natives could not have been awakened by less than the reddened waters of the ganges. so i fear you will have to look on a day of judgment worse than has been painted. 'as to all the frauds and impositions which have been disclosed by the failures, what a want of the sense of personal responsibility they show. it seems to be thought that "association" will "cover a multitude of sins;" as if "and co." could enter heaven. a firm may be described as a partnership for lowering the standard of morals. even ecclesiastical bodies are not free from the "and co.;" very different from "the goodly fellowship of the apostles." 'the better class of young gentlemen in england are seized with a mediaeval mania, to which ruskin has contributed much. the chief reason for regretting it is that taste is made to supersede benevolence. the money that would save thousands from perishing or suffering must be applied to raise the gothic edifice where their last prayer may be uttered. charity may be dead, while art has glorified her. this is worse than catholicism, which cultivates heart and eye together. the first cathedral was truth, at the beginning of the fourth century, just as christianity was exchanging a heavenly for an earthly crown. true religion may have to cast away the symbol for the spirit before "the kingdom" can come. 'while i am speculating to little purpose, perhaps you are doing--what? might not a biography from your pen bring forth again some great, half- obscured soul to act on the world? even sir philip sidney ought to be superseded by a still nobler type. 'this must go immediately, to be in time for the bearer, of whose meeting with you i shall think as the friend of both. may it be happy! 'your affectionate 'a. i. n. b.' one letter more from lady byron i give,--the last i received from her:-- london, may , . dear friend,--i have found, particularly as to yourself, that, if i did not answer from the first impulse, all had evaporated. your letter came by 'the niagara,' which brought fanny kemble to learn the loss of her best friend, the miss f---- whom you saw at my house. 'her death, after an illness in which she was to the last a minister of good to others, is a soul-loss to me also; and your remarks are most appropriate to my feelings. i have been taught, however, to accept survivorship; even to feel it, in some cases, heaven's best blessing. 'i have an intense interest in your new novel. { } more power in these few numbers than in any of your former writings, relating, at least, to my own mind. it would amuse you to hear my granddaughter and myself attempting to foresee the future of the love-story; being, for the moment, quite persuaded that james is at sea, and the minister about to ruin himself. we think that mary will labour to be in love with the self-devoted man, under her mother's influence, and from that hyper-conscientiousness so common with good girls; but we don't wish her to succeed. then what is to become of her older lover? time will show. 'the lady you desired to introduce to me will be welcomed as of you. she has been misled with respect to my having any house in yorkshire (new leeds). i am in london now to be of a little use to a----; not ostensibly, for i can neither go out, nor give parties: but i am the confidential friend to whom she likes to bring her social gatherings, as she can see something of the world with others. age and infirmity seem to be overlooked in what she calls the harmony between us,--not perfect agreement of opinion (which i should regret, with almost fifty years of difference), but the spirit-union: can you say what it is? 'i am interrupted by a note from mrs. k----. she says that she cannot write of our lost friend yet, though she is less sad than she will be. mrs. f---- may like to hear of her arrival, should you be in communication with our friend. she is the type of youth in age. 'i often converse with miss s----, a judicious friend of the w----s, about what is likely to await them. she would not succeed here as well as where she was a novelty. the character of our climate this year has been injurious to the respiratory organs; but i hope still to serve them. 'i have just missed dale owen, with whom i wished to have conversed on spiritualism. { } harris is lecturing here on religion. i do not hear him praised. 'people are looking for helps to believe, everywhere but in life,--in music, in architecture, in antiquity, in ceremony; and upon all these is written, "thou shalt not believe." at least, if this be faith, happier the unbeliever. i am willing to see through that materialism; but, if i am to rest there, i would rend the veil. 'june . 'the day of the packet's sailing. i shall hope to be visited by you here. the best flowers sent me have been placed in your little vases, giving life to the remembrance of you, though not, like them, to pass away. 'ever yours, 'a. i. noel byron.' shortly after, i was in england again, and had one more opportunity of resuming our personal intercourse. the first time that i called on lady byron, i saw her in one of those periods of utter physical exhaustion to which she was subject on account of the constant pressure of cares beyond her strength. all who knew her will testify, that, in a state of health which would lead most persons to become helpless absorbents of service from others, she was assuming burdens, and making outlays of her vital powers in acts of love and service, with a generosity that often reduced her to utter exhaustion. but none who knew or loved her ever misinterpreted the coldness of those seasons of exhaustion. we knew that it was not the spirit that was chilled, but only the frail mortal tabernacle. when i called on her at this time, she could not see me at first; and when, at last, she came, it was evident that she was in a state of utter prostration. her hands were like ice; her face was deadly pale; and she conversed with a restraint and difficulty which showed what exertion it was for her to keep up at all. i left as soon as possible, with an appointment for another interview. that interview was my last on earth with her, and is still beautiful in memory. it was a long, still summer afternoon, spent alone with her in a garden, where we walked together. she was enjoying one of those bright intervals of freedom from pain and languor, in which her spirits always rose so buoyant and youthful; and her eye brightened, and her step became elastic. one last little incident is cherished as most expressive of her. when it became time for me to leave, she took me in her carriage to the station. as we were almost there, i missed my gloves, and said, 'i must have left them; but there is not time to go back.' with one of those quick, impulsive motions which were so natural to her in doing a kindness, she drew off her own and said, 'take mine if they will serve you.' i hesitated a moment; and then the thought, that i might never see her again, came over me, and i said, 'oh, yes! thanks.' that was the last earthly word of love between us. but, thank god, those who love worthily never meet for the last time: there is always a future. chapter ii. lady byron's story as told me. i now come to the particulars of that most painful interview which has been the cause of all this controversy. my sister and myself were going from london to eversley to visit the rev. c. kingsley. on our way, we stopped, by lady byron's invitation, to lunch with her at her summer residence on ham common, near richmond; and it was then arranged, that on our return, we should make her a short visit, as she said she had a subject of importance on which she wished to converse with me alone. on our return from eversley, we arrived at her house in the morning. it appeared to be one of lady byron's well days. she was up and dressed, and moved about her house with her usual air of quiet simplicity; as full of little acts of consideration for all about her as if they were the habitual invalids, and she the well person. there were with her two ladies of her most intimate friends, by whom she seemed to be regarded with a sort of worship. when she left the room for a moment, they looked after her with a singular expression of respect and affection, and expressed freely their admiration of her character, and their fears that her unselfishness might be leading her to over-exertion. after lunch, i retired with lady byron; and my sister remained with her friends. i should here remark, that the chief subject of the conversation which ensued was not entirely new to me. in the interval between my first and second visits to england, a lady who for many years had enjoyed lady byron's friendship and confidence, had, with her consent, stated the case generally to me, giving some of the incidents: so that i was in a manner prepared for what followed. those who accuse lady byron of being a person fond of talking upon this subject, and apt to make unconsidered confidences, can have known very little of her, of her reserve, and of the apparent difficulty she had in speaking on subjects nearest her heart. her habitual calmness and composure of manner, her collected dignity on all occasions, are often mentioned by her husband, sometimes with bitterness, sometimes with admiration. he says, 'though i accuse lady byron of an excess of self-respect, i must in candour admit that, if ever a person had excuse for an extraordinary portion of it, she has; as, in all her thoughts, words, and deeds, she is the most decorous woman that ever existed, and must appear, what few i fancy could, a perfectly refined gentlewoman, even to her femme de chambre.' this calmness and dignity were never more manifested than in this interview. in recalling the conversation at this distance of time, i cannot remember all the language used. some particular words and forms of expression i do remember, and those i give; and in other cases i give my recollection of the substance of what was said. there was something awful to me in the intensity of repressed emotion which she showed as she proceeded. the great fact upon which all turned was stated in words that were unmistakable:-- 'he was guilty of incest with his sister!' she here became so deathly pale, that i feared she would faint; and hastened to say, 'my dear friend, i have heard that.' she asked quickly, 'from whom?' and i answered, 'from mrs. ----;' when she replied, 'oh, yes!' as if recollecting herself. i then asked her some questions; in reply to which she said, 'i will tell you.' she then spoke of her first acquaintance with lord byron; from which i gathered that she, an only child, brought up in retirement, and living much within herself, had been, as deep natures often were, intensely stirred by his poetry; and had felt a deep interest in him personally, as one that had the germs of all that is glorious and noble. when she was introduced to him, and perceived his admiration of herself, and at last received his offer, although deeply moved, she doubted her own power to be to him all that a wife should be. she declined his offer, therefore, but desired to retain his friendship. after this, as she said, a correspondence ensued, mostly on moral and literary subjects; and, by this correspondence, her interest in him was constantly increased. at last, she said, he sent her a very beautiful letter, offering himself again. 'i thought,' she added, 'that it was sincere, and that i might now show him all i felt. i wrote just what was in my heart. 'afterwards,' she said, 'i found in one of his journals this notice of my letter: "a letter from bell,--never rains but it pours."' there was through her habitual calm a shade of womanly indignation as she spoke these words; but it was gone in a moment. i said, 'and did he not love you, then?' she answered, 'no, my dear: he did not love me.' 'why, then, did he wish to marry you?' she laid her hand on mine, and said in a low voice, 'you will see.' she then told me, that, shortly after the declared engagement, he came to her father's house to visit her as an accepted suitor. the visit was to her full of disappointment. his appearance was so strange, moody, and unaccountable, and his treatment of her so peculiar, that she came to the conclusion that he did not love her, and sought an opportunity to converse with him alone. she told him that she saw from his manner that their engagement did not give him pleasure; that she should never blame him if he wished to dissolve it; that his nature was exceptional; and if, on a nearer view of the situation, he shrank from it, she would release him, and remain no less than ever his friend. upon this, she said, he fainted entirely away. she stopped a moment, and then, as if speaking with great effort, added, 'then i was sure he must love me.' 'and did he not?' said i. 'what other cause could have led to this emotion?' she looked at me very sadly, and said, 'fear of detection.' 'what!' said i, 'did that cause then exist?' 'yes,' she said, 'it did.' and she explained that she now attributed lord byron's great agitation to fear, that, in some way, suspicion of the crime had been aroused in her mind, and that on this account she was seeking to break the engagement. she said, that, from that moment, her sympathies were aroused for him, to soothe the remorse and anguish which seemed preying on his mind, and which she then regarded as the sensibility of an unusually exacting moral nature, which judged itself by higher standards, and condemned itself unsparingly for what most young men of his times regarded as venial faults. she had every hope for his future, and all the enthusiasm of belief that so many men and women of those times and ours have had in his intrinsic nobleness. she said the gloom, however, seemed to be even deeper when he came to the marriage; but she looked at it as the suffering of a peculiar being, to whom she was called to minister. i said to her, that, even in the days of my childhood, i had heard of something very painful that had passed as they were in the carriage, immediately after marriage. she then said that it was so; that almost his first words, when they were alone, were, that she might once have saved him; that, if she had accepted him when he first offered, she might have made him anything she pleased; but that, as it was, she would find she had married a devil. the conversation, as recorded in lady anne barnard's diary, seems only a continuation of the foregoing, and just what might have followed upon it. i then asked how she became certain of the true cause. she said, that, from the outset of their married life, his conduct towards her was strange and unaccountable, even during the first weeks after the wedding, while they were visiting her friends, and outwardly on good terms. he seemed resolved to shake and combat both her religious principles and her views of the family state. he tried to undermine her faith in christianity as a rule of life by argument and by ridicule. he set before her the continental idea of the liberty of marriage; it being a simple partnership of friendship and property, the parties to which were allowed by one another to pursue their own separate individual tastes. he told her, that, as he could not be expected to confine himself to her, neither should he expect or wish that she should confine herself to him; that she was young and pretty, and could have her lovers, and he should never object; and that she must allow him the same freedom. she said that she did not comprehend to what this was tending till after they came to london, and his sister came to stay with them. at what precise time the idea of an improper connection between her husband and his sister was first forced upon her, she did not say; but she told me how it was done. she said that one night, in her presence, he treated his sister with a liberty which both shocked and astonished her. seeing her amazement and alarm, he came up to her, and said, in a sneering tone, 'i suppose you perceive you are not wanted here. go to your own room, and leave us alone. we can amuse ourselves better without you.' she said, 'i went to my room, trembling. i fell down on my knees, and prayed to my heavenly father to have mercy on them. i thought, "what shall i do?"' i remember, after this, a pause in the conversation, during which she seemed struggling with thoughts and emotions; and, for my part, i was unable to utter a word, or ask a question. she did not tell me what followed immediately upon this, nor how soon after she spoke on the subject with either of the parties. she first began to speak of conversations afterwards held with lord byron, in which he boldly avowed the connection as having existed in time past, and as one that was to continue in time to come; and implied that she must submit to it. she put it to his conscience as concerning his sister's soul, and he said that it was no sin, that it was the way the world was first peopled: the scriptures taught that all the world descended from one pair; and how could that be unless brothers married their sisters? that, if not a sin then, it could not be a sin now. i immediately said, 'why, lady byron, those are the very arguments given in the drama of "cain."' 'the very same,' was her reply. 'he could reason very speciously on this subject.' she went on to say, that, when she pressed him hard with the universal sentiment of mankind as to the horror and the crime, he took another turn, and said that the horror and crime were the very attraction; that he had worn out all ordinary forms of sin, and that he 'longed for the stimulus of a new kind of vice.' she set before him the dread of detection; and then he became furious. she should never be the means of his detection, he said. she should leave him; that he was resolved upon: but she should always bear all the blame of the separation. in the sneering tone which was common with him, he said, 'the world will believe me, and it will not believe you. the world has made up its mind that "by" is a glorious boy; and the world will go for "by," right or wrong. besides, i shall make it my life's object to discredit you: i shall use all my powers. read "caleb williams," { } and you will see that i shall do by you just as falkland did by caleb.' i said that all this seemed to me like insanity. she said that she was for a time led to think that it was insanity, and excused and pitied him; that his treatment of her expressed such hatred and malignity, that she knew not what else to think of it; that he seemed resolved to drive her out of the house at all hazards, and threatened her, if she should remain, in a way to alarm the heart of any woman: yet, thinking him insane, she left him at last with the sorrow with which anyone might leave a dear friend whose reason was wholly overthrown, and to whom in this desolation she was no longer permitted to minister. i inquired in one of the pauses of the conversation whether mrs. leigh was a peculiarly beautiful or attractive woman. 'no, my dear: she was plain.' 'was she, then, distinguished for genius or talent of any kind?' 'oh, no! poor woman! she was weak, relatively to him, and wholly under his control.' 'and what became of her?' i said. 'she afterwards repented, and became a truly good woman.' i think it was here she mentioned that she had frequently seen and conversed with mrs. leigh in the latter part of her life; and she seemed to derive comfort from the recollection. i asked, 'was there a child?' i had been told by mrs. ---- that there was a daughter, who had lived some years. she said there was one, a daughter, who made her friends much trouble, being of a very difficult nature to manage. i had understood that at one time this daughter escaped from her friends to the continent, and that lady byron assisted in efforts to recover her. of lady byron's kindness both to mrs. leigh and the child, i had before heard from mrs. ----, who gave me my first information. it is also strongly impressed on my mind, that lady byron, in answer to some question of mine as to whether there was ever any meeting between lord byron and his sister after he left england, answered, that she had insisted upon it, or made it a condition, that mrs. leigh should not go abroad to him. when the conversation as to events was over, as i stood musing, i said, 'have you no evidence that he repented?' and alluded to the mystery of his death, and the message be endeavoured to utter. she answered quickly, and with great decision, that whatever might have been his meaning at that hour, she felt sure he had finally repented; and added with great earnestness, 'i do not believe that any child of the heavenly father is ever left to eternal sin.' i said that such a hope was most delightful to my feelings, but that i had always regarded the indulgence of it as a dangerous one. her look, voice, and manner, at that moment, are indelibly fixed in my mind. she looked at me so sadly, so firmly, and said,-- 'danger, mrs. stowe! what danger can come from indulging that hope, like the danger that comes from not having it?' i said in my turn, 'what danger comes from not having it?' 'the danger of losing all faith in god,' she said, 'all hope for others, all strength to try and save them. i once knew a lady,' she added, 'who was in a state of scepticism and despair from belief in that doctrine. i think i saved her by giving her my faith.' i was silent; and she continued: 'lord byron believed in eternal punishment fully: for though he reasoned against christianity as it is commonly received, he could not reason himself out of it; and i think it made him desperate. he used to say, "the worst of it is i do believe." had he seen god as i see him, i am sure his heart would have relented.' she went on to say, that his sins, great as they were, admitted of much palliation and excuse; that he was the child of singular and ill-matched parents; that he had an organisation originally fine, but one capable equally of great good or great evil; that in his childhood he had only the worst and most fatal influences; that he grew up into manhood with no guide; that there was everything in the classical course of the schools to develop an unhealthy growth of passion, and no moral influence of any kind to restrain it; that the manners of his day were corrupt; that what were now considered vices in society were then spoken of as matters of course among young noblemen; that drinking, gaming, and licentiousness everywhere abounded and that, up to a certain time, he was no worse than multitudes of other young men of his day,--only that the vices of his day were worse for him. the excesses of passion, the disregard of physical laws in eating, drinking, and living, wrought effects on him that they did not on less sensitively organised frames, and prepared him for the evil hour when he fell into the sin which shaded his whole life. all the rest was a struggle with its consequences,--sinning more and more to conceal the sin of the past. but she believed he never outlived remorse; that he always suffered; and that this showed that god had not utterly forsaken him. remorse, she said, always showed moral sensibility, and, while that remained, there was always hope. she now began to speak of her grounds for thinking it might be her duty fully to publish this story before she left the world. first she said that, through the whole course of her life, she had felt the eternal value of truth, and seen how dreadful a thing was falsehood, and how fearful it was to be an accomplice in it, even by silence. lord byron had demoralised the moral sense of england, and he had done it in a great degree by the sympathy excited by falsehood. this had been pleaded in extenuation of all his crimes and vices, and led to a lowering of the standard of morals in the literary world. now it was proposed to print cheap editions of his works, and sell them among the common people, and interest them in him by the circulation of this same story. she then said in effect, that she believed in retribution and suffering in the future life, and that the consequences of sins here follow us there; and it was strongly impressed upon her mind that lord byron must suffer in looking on the evil consequences of what he had done in this life, and in seeing the further extension of that evil. 'it has sometimes strongly appeared to me,' she said, 'that he cannot be at peace until this injustice has been righted. such is the strong feeling that i have when i think of going where he is.' these things, she said, had led her to inquire whether it might not be her duty to make a full and clear disclosure before she left the world. of course, i did not listen to this story as one who was investigating its worth. i received it as truth. and the purpose for which it was communicated was not to enable me to prove it to the world, but to ask my opinion whether she should show it to the world before leaving it. the whole consultation was upon the assumption that she had at her command such proofs as could not be questioned. concerning what they were i did not minutely inquire: only, in answer to a general question, she said that she had letters and documents in proof of her story. knowing lady byron's strength of mind, her clear-headedness, her accurate habits, and her perfect knowledge of the matter, i considered her judgment on this point decisive. i told her that i would take the subject into consideration, and give my opinion in a few days. that night, after my sister and myself had retired to our own apartment, i related to her the whole history, and we spent the night in talking of it. i was powerfully impressed with the justice and propriety of an immediate disclosure; while she, on the contrary, represented the painful consequences that would probably come upon lady byron from taking such a step. before we parted the next day, i requested lady byron to give me some memoranda of such dates and outlines of the general story as would enable me better to keep it in its connection; which she did. on giving me the paper, lady byron requested me to return it to her when it had ceased to be of use to me for the purpose indicated. accordingly, a day or two after, i enclosed it to her in a hasty note, as i was then leaving london for paris, and had not yet had time fully to consider the subject. on reviewing my note, i can recall that then the whole history appeared to me like one of those singular cases where unnatural impulses to vice are the result of a taint of constitutional insanity. this has always seemed to me the only way of accounting for instances of utterly motiveless and abnormal wickedness and cruelty. these my first impressions were expressed in the hasty note written at the time:-- 'london, nov. , . 'dearest friend,--i return these. they have held mine eyes waking! how strange! how unaccountable! have you ever subjected the facts to the judgment of a medical man learned in nervous pathology? 'is it not insanity? "great wits to madness nearly are allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide." 'but my purpose to-night is not to write you fully what i think of this matter. i am going to write to you from paris more at leisure.' the rest of the letter was taken up in the final details of a charity in which lady byron had been engaged with me in assisting an unfortunate artist. it concludes thus:-- 'i write now in all haste, en route for paris. as to america, all is not lost yet. { } farewell! i love you, my dear friend, as never before, with an intense feeling i cannot easily express. god bless you! 'h. b. s.' the next letter is as follows:-- 'paris, dec. , . 'dear lady byron,--the kansas committee have written me a letter desiring me to express to miss ---- their gratitude for the five pounds she sent them. i am not personally acquainted with her, and must return these acknowledgments through you. 'i wrote you a day or two since, enclosing the reply of the kansas committee to you. 'on that subject on which you spoke to me the last time we were together, i have thought often and deeply. 'i have changed my mind somewhat. considering the peculiar circumstances of the case, i could wish that the sacred veil of silence, so bravely thrown over the past, should never be withdrawn during the time that you remain with us. 'i would say, then, leave all with some discreet friends, who, after both have passed from earth, shall say what was due to justice. 'i am led to think this by seeing how low, how unjust, how unworthy, the judgments of this world are; and i would not that what i so much respect, love, and revere should be placed within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes what it touches. 'the day will yet come which will bring to light every hidden thing. "there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known;" and so justice will not fail. 'such, my dear friend, are my thoughts; different from what they were since first i heard that strange, sad history. meanwhile, i love you ever, whether we meet again on earth or not. 'affectionately yours, 'h. b. s.' the following letter will here be inserted as confirming a part of lady byron's story:-- to the editor of 'macmillan's magazine.' 'sir,--i trust that you will hold me excused from any desire to be troublesome, or to rush into print. both these things are far from my wish. but the publication of a book having for its object the vindication of lord byron's character, and the subsequent appearance in your magazine of mrs. stowe's article in defence of lady byron, having led to so much controversy in the various newspapers of the day, i feel constrained to put in a few words among the rest. 'my father was intimately acquainted with lady byron's family for many years, both before and after her marriage; being, in fact, steward to sir ralph milbanke at seaham, where the marriage took place; and, from all my recollections of what he told me of the affair (and he used often to talk of it, up to the time of his death, eight years ago), i fully agree with mrs. stowe's view of the case, and desire to add my humble testimony to the truth of what she has stated. 'whilst byron was staying at seaham, previous to his marriage, he spent most of his time pistol-shooting in the plantations adjoining the hall, often making use of his glove as a mark; his servant being with him to load for him. 'when all was in readiness for the wedding-ceremony (which took place in the drawing-room of the hall), byron had to be sought for in the grounds, where he was walking in his usual surly mood. 'after the marriage, they posted to halnaby lodge in yorkshire, a distance of about forty miles; to which place my father accompanied them, and he always spoke strongly of lady byron's apparent distress during and at the end of the journey. 'the insulting words mentioned by mrs. stowe were spoken by byron before leaving the park at seaham; after which he appeared to sit in moody silence, reading a book, for the rest of the journey. at halnaby, a number of persons, tenants and others, were met to cheer them on their arrival. of these he took not the slightest notice, but jumped out of the carriage, and walked away, leaving his bride to alight by herself. she shook hands with my father, and begged that he would see that some refreshment was supplied to those who had thus come to welcome them. 'i have in my possession several letters (which i should be glad to show to anyone interested in the matter) both from lady byron, and her mother, lady milbanke, to my father, all showing the deep and kind interest which they took in the welfare of all connected with them, and directing the distribution of various charities, etc. pensions were allowed both to the old servants of the milbankes and to several poor persons in the village and neighbourhood for the rest of their lives; and lady byron never ceased to take a lively interest in all that concerned them. 'i desire to tender my humble thanks to mrs. stowe for having come forward in defence of one whose character has been much misrepresented; and to you, sir, for having published the same in your pages. 'i have the honour to be, sir, yours obediently, 'g. h. aird. 'daourty, northamptonshire, sept. , .' chapter iii. chronological summary of events. i have now fulfilled as conscientiously as possible the requests of those who feel that they have a right to know exactly what was said in this interview. it has been my object, in doing this, to place myself just where i should stand were i giving evidence under oath before a legal tribunal. in my first published account, there were given some smaller details of the story, of no particular value to the main purpose of it, which i received not from lady byron, but from her confidential friend. one of these was the account of her seeing lord byron's favourite spaniel lying at his door, and the other was the scene of the parting. the first was communicated to me before i ever saw lady byron, and under these circumstances:--i was invited to meet her, and had expressed my desire to do so, because lord byron had been all my life an object of great interest to me. i inquired what sort of a person lady byron was. my friend spoke of her with enthusiasm. i then said, 'but of course she never loved lord byron, or she would not have left him.' the lady answered, 'i can show you with what feelings she left him by relating this story;' and then followed the anecdote. subsequently, she also related to me the other story of the parting-scene between lord and lady byron. in regard to these two incidents, my recollection is clear. it will be observed by the reader that lady byron's conversation with me was simply for consultation on one point, and that point whether she herself should publish the story before her death. it was not, therefore, a complete history of all the events in their order, but specimens of a few incidents and facts. her object was, not to prove her story to me, nor to put me in possession of it with a view to my proving it, but simply and briefly to show me what it was, that i might judge as to the probable results of its publication at that time. it therefore comprised primarily these points:-- . an exact statement, in so many words, of the crime. . a statement of the manner in which it was first forced on her attention by lord byron's words and actions, including his admissions and defences of it. . the admission of a period when she had ascribed his whole conduct to insanity. . a reference to later positive evidences of guilt, the existence of a child, and mrs. leigh's subsequent repentance. and here i have a word to say in reference to the alleged inaccuracies of my true story. the dates that lady byron gave me on the memoranda did not relate either to the time of the first disclosure, or the period when her doubts became certainties; nor did her conversation touch either of these points: and, on a careful review of the latter, i see clearly that it omitted dwelling upon anything which i might be supposed to have learned from her already published statement. i re-enclosed that paper to her from london, and have never seen it since. in writing my account, which i designed to do in the most general terms, i took for my guide miss martineau's published memoir of lady byron, which has long stood uncontradicted before the public, of which macmillan's london edition is now before me. the reader is referred to page , which reads thus:-- 'she was born ; married in january ; returned to her father's house in ; died on may , .' this makes her married life two years; but we need not say that the date is inaccurate, as lady byron was married in . supposing lady byron's married life to have covered two years, i could only reconcile its continuance for that length of time to her uncertainty as to his sanity; to deceptions practised on her, making her doubt at one time, and believe at another; and his keeping her in a general state of turmoil and confusion, till at last he took the step of banishing her. various other points taken from miss martineau have also been attacked as inaccuracies; for example, the number of executions in the house: but these points, though of no importance, are substantially borne out by moore's statements. this controversy, unfortunately, cannot be managed with the accuracy of a legal trial. its course, hitherto, has rather resembled the course of a drawing-room scandal, where everyone freely throws in an assertion, with or without proof. in making out my narrative, however, i shall use only certain authentic sources, some of which have for a long time been before the public, and some of which have floated up from the waves of the recent controversy. i consider as authentic sources,-- moore's life of byron; lady byron's own account of the separation, published in ; lady byron's statements to me in ; lord lindsay's communication, giving an extract from lady anne barnard's diary, and a copy of a letter from lady byron dated , about three years after her marriage; mrs. mimms' testimony, as given in a daily paper published at newcastle, england; and lady byron's letters, as given recently in the late 'london quarterly.' all which documents appear to arrange themselves into a connected series. from these, then, let us construct the story. according to mrs. mimms' account, which is likely to be accurate, the time spent by lord and lady byron in bridal-visiting was three weeks at halnaby hall, and six weeks at seaham, when mrs. mimms quitted their service. during this first period of three weeks, lord byron's treatment of his wife, as testified to by the servant, was such that she advised her young mistress to return to her parents; and, at one time, lady byron had almost resolved to do so. what the particulars of his conduct were, the servant refuses to state; being bound by a promise of silence to her mistress. she, however, testifies to a warm friendship existing between lady byron and mrs. leigh, in a manner which would lead us to feel that lady byron received and was received by lord byron's sister with the greatest affection. lady byron herself says to lady anne barnard, 'i had heard that he was the best of brothers;' and the inference is, that she, at an early period of her married life, felt the greatest confidence in his sister, and wished to have her with them as much as possible. in lady anne's account, this wish to have the sister with her was increased by lady byron's distress at her husband's attempts to corrupt her principles with regard to religion and marriage. in moore's life, vol. iii., letter , lord byron writes from seaham to moore, under date of march , sending a copy of his verses in lady byron's handwriting, and saying, 'we shall leave this place to-morrow, and shall stop on our way to town, in the interval of taking a house there, at colonel leigh's, near newmarket, where any epistle of yours will find its welcome way. i have been very comfortable here, listening to that d---d monologue which elderly gentlemen call conversation, in which my pious father-in-law repeats himself every evening, save one, when he played upon the fiddle. however, they have been vastly kind and hospitable, and i like them and the place vastly; and i hope they will live many happy months. bell is in health and unvaried good-humour and behaviour; but we are in all the agonies of packing and parting.' nine days after this, under date of march , lord byron says, 'we mean to metropolize to-morrow, and you will address your next to piccadilly.' the inference is, that the days intermediate were spent at colonel leigh's. the next letters, and all subsequent ones for six months, are dated from piccadilly. as we have shown, there is every reason to believe that a warm friendship had thus arisen between mrs. leigh and lady byron, and that, during all this time, lady byron desired as much of the society of her sister-in-law as possible. she was a married woman and a mother, her husband's nearest relative; and lady byron could with more propriety ask, from her, counsel or aid in respect to his peculiarities than she could from her own parents. if we consider the character of lady byron as given by mrs. mimms, that of a young person of warm but repressed feeling, without sister or brother, longing for human sympathy, and having so far found no relief but in talking with a faithful dependant,--we may easily see that the acquisition of a sister through lord byron might have been all in all to her, and that the feelings which he checked and rejected for himself might have flowed out towards his sister with enthusiasm. the date of mrs. leigh's visit does not appear. the first domestic indication in lord byron's letters from london is the announcement of the death of lady byron's uncle, lord wentworth, from whom came large expectations of property. lord byron had mentioned him before in his letters as so kind to bell and himself that he could not find it in his heart to wish him in heaven if he preferred staying here. in his letter of april , he mentions going to the play immediately after hearing this news, 'although,' as he says, 'he ought to have stayed at home in sackcloth for "unc."' on june , he writes that lady byron is more than three months advanced in her progress towards maternity; and that they have been out very little, as he wishes to keep her quiet. we are informed by moore that lord byron was at this time a member of the drury-lane theatre committee; and that, in this unlucky connection, one of the fatalities of the first year of trial as a husband lay. from the strain of byron's letters, as given in moore, it is apparent, that, while he thinks it best for his wife to remain at home, he does not propose to share the retirement, but prefers running his own separate career with such persons as thronged the greenroom of the theatre in those days. in commenting on lord byron's course, we must not by any means be supposed to indicate that he was doing any more or worse than most gay young men of his time. the licence of the day as to getting drunk at dinner-parties, and leading, generally, what would, in these days, be called a disorderly life, was great. we should infer that none of the literary men of byron's time would have been ashamed of being drunk occasionally. the noctes ambrosianae club of 'blackwood' is full of songs glorying, in the broadest terms, in out-and-out drunkenness, and inviting to it as the highest condition of a civilised being. { a} but drunkenness upon lord byron had a peculiar and specific effect, which he notices afterwards, in his journal, at venice: 'the effect of all wines and spirits upon me is, however, strange. it settles, but makes me gloomy--gloomy at the very moment of their effect: it composes, however, though sullenly.' { b} and, again, in another place, he says, 'wine and spirits make me sullen, and savage to ferocity.' it is well known that the effects of alcoholic excitement are various as the natures of the subjects. but by far the worst effects, and the most destructive to domestic peace, are those that occur in cases where spirits, instead of acting on the nerves of motion, and depriving the subject of power in that direction, stimulate the brain so as to produce there the ferocity, the steadiness, the utter deadness to compassion or conscience, which characterise a madman. how fearful to a sensitive young mother in the period of pregnancy might be the return of such a madman to the domestic roof! nor can we account for those scenes described in lady anne barnard's letters, where lord byron returned from his evening parties to try torturing experiments on his wife, otherwise than by his own statement, that spirits, while they steadied him, made him 'gloomy, and savage to ferocity.' take for example this:-- 'one night, coming home from one of his lawless parties, he saw me (lady b.) so indignantly collected, and bearing all with such a determined calmness, that a rush of remorse seemed to come over him. he called himself a monster, and, though his sister was present, threw himself in agony at my feet. "i could not, no, i could not, forgive him such injuries! he had lost me forever!" astonished at this return to virtue, my tears, i believe, flowed over his face; and i said, "byron, all is forgotten; never, never shall you hear of it more." 'he started up, and folding his arms while he looked at me, burst out into laughter. "what do you mean?" said i. "only a philosophical experiment; that's all," said he. "i wished to ascertain the value of your resolutions."' to ascribe such deliberate cruelty as this to the effect of drink upon lord byron, is the most charitable construction that can be put upon his conduct. yet the manners of the period were such, that lord byron must have often come to this condition while only doing what many of his acquaintances did freely, and without fear of consequences. mr. moore, with his usual artlessness, gives us an idea of a private supper between himself and lord byron. we give it, with our own italics, as a specimen of many others:-- 'having taken upon me to order the repast, and knowing that lord byron for the last two days had done nothing towards sustenance beyond eating a few biscuits and (to appease appetite) chewing mastic, i desired that we should have a good supply of at least two kinds of fish. my companion, however, confined himself to lobsters; and of these finished two or three, to his own share, interposing, sometimes, a small liqueur-glass of strong white brandy, sometimes a tumbler of very hot water, and then pure brandy again, to the amount of near half a dozen small glasses of the latter, without which, alternately with the hot water, he appeared to think the lobster could not be digested. after this, we had claret, of which, having despatched two bottles between us, at about four o'clock in the morning we parted. 'as pope has thought his "delicious lobster-nights" worth commemorating, these particulars of one in which lord byron was concerned may also have some interest. 'among other nights of the same description which i had the happiness of passing with him, i remember once, in returning home from some assembly at rather a late hour, we saw lights in the windows of his old haunt, stevens's in bond street, and agreed to stop there and sup. on entering, we found an old friend of his, sir g---- w----, who joined our party; and, the lobsters and brandy and water being put in requisition, it was (as usual on such occasions) broad daylight before we separated.'--vol. iii. p. . during the latter part of lady byron's pregnancy, it appears from moore that byron was, night after night, engaged out at dinner parties, in which getting drunk was considered as of course the finale, as appears from the following letters:-- (letter .) to mr. moore. 'terrace, piccadilly, oct. , . 'i have not been able to ascertain precisely the time of duration of the stock-market; but i believe it is a good time for selling out, and i hope so. first, because i shall see you; and, next, because i shall receive certain moneys on behalf of lady b., the which will materially conduce to my comfort; i wanting (as the duns say) "to make up a sum." 'yesterday i dined out with a large-ish party, where were sheridan and colman, harry harris, of c. g., and his brother, sir gilbert heathcote, ds. kinnaird, and others of note and notoriety. like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, * then altogethery, then inarticulate, and then drunk. when we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling; and, to crown all, kinnaird and i had to conduct sheridan down a d---d corkscrew staircase, which had certainly been constructed before the discovery of fermented liquors, and to which no legs, however crooked, could possibly accommodate themselves. we deposited him safe at home, where his man, evidently used to the business, { } waited to receive him in the hall. 'both he and colman were, as usual, very good; but i carried away much wine, and the wine had previously carried away my memory: so that all was hiccough and happiness for the last hour or so, and i am not impregnated with any of the conversation. perhaps you heard of a late answer of sheridan to the watchman who found him bereft of that "divine particle of air" called reason . . . he (the watchman) found sherry in the street fuddled and bewildered, and almost insensible. "who are you, sir?"--no answer. "what's your name?"--a hiccough. "what's your name?"--answer, in a slow, deliberate, and impassive tone, "wilberforce!" is not that sherry all over?--and, to my mind, excellent. poor fellow, his very dregs are better than the "first sprightly runnings" of others. 'my paper is full, and i have a grievous headache. 'p.s.--lady b. is in full progress. next month will bring to light (with the aid of "juno lucina, fer opem," or rather opes, for the last are most wanted) the tenth wonder of the world; gil blas being the eighth, and he (my son's father) the ninth.' here we have a picture of the whole story,--lady byron within a month of her confinement; her money being used to settle debts; her husband out at a dinner-party, going through the usual course of such parties, able to keep his legs and help sheridan downstairs, and going home 'gloomy, and savage to ferocity,' to his wife. four days after this (letter ), we find that this dinner-party is not an exceptional one, but one of a series: for he says, 'to-day i dine with kinnaird,--we are to have sheridan and colman again; and to-morrow, once more, at sir gilbert heathcote's.' afterward, in venice, he reviews the state of his health, at this period in london; and his account shows that his excesses in the vices of his times had wrought effects on his sensitive, nervous organisation, very different from what they might on the more phlegmatic constitutions of ordinary englishmen. in his journal, dated venice, feb. , , he says,-- 'i have been considering what can be the reason why i always wake at a certain hour in the morning, and always in very bad spirits,--i may say, in actual despair and despondency, in all respects, even of that which pleased me over night. in about an hour or two this goes off, and i compose either to sleep again, or at least to quiet. in england, five years ago, i had the same kind of hypochondria, but accompanied with so violent a thirst, that i have drunk as many as fifteen bottles of soda-water in one night, after going to bed, and been still thirsty,--calculating, however, some lost from the bursting- out and effervescence and overflowing of the soda-water in drawing the corks, or striking off the necks of the bottles from mere thirsty impatience. at present, i have not the thirst; but the depression of spirits is no less violent.'--vol. v. p. . these extracts go to show what must have been the condition of the man whom lady byron was called to receive at the intervals when he came back from his various social excitements and pleasures. that his nerves were exacerbated by violent extremes of abstinence and reckless indulgence; that he was often day after day drunk, and that drunkenness made him savage and ferocious,--such are the facts clearly shown by mr. moore's narrative. of the natural peculiarities of lord byron's temper, he thus speaks to the countess of blessington:-- 'i often think that i inherit my violence and bad temper from my poor mother, not that my father, from all i could ever learn, had a much better; so that it is no wonder i have such a very bad one. as long as i can remember anything, i recollect being subject to violent paroxysms of rage, so disproportioned to the cause as to surprise me when they were over; and this still continues. i cannot coolly view any thing which excites my feelings; and, once the lurking devil in me is roused, i lose all command of myself. i do not recover a good fit of rage for days after. mind, i do not by this mean that the ill humour continues, as, on the contrary, that quickly subsides, exhausted by its own violence; but it shakes me terribly, and leaves me low and nervous after.'--lady blessington's conversations, p. . that during this time also his irritation and ill temper were increased by the mortification of duns, debts, and executions, is on the face of moore's story. moore himself relates one incident, which gives some idea of the many which may have occurred at these times, in a note on p. , vol. iv., where he speaks of lord byron's destroying a favourite old watch that had been his companion from boyhood, and gone with him to greece. 'in a fit of vexation and rage, brought upon him by some of these humiliating embarrassments, to which he was now almost daily a prey, he furiously dashed this watch on the hearth, and ground it to pieces with the poker among the ashes.' it is no wonder, that, with a man of this kind to manage, lady byron should have clung to the only female companionship she could dare to trust in the case, and earnestly desired to retain with her the sister, who seemed, more than herself, to have influence over him. the first letter given by 'the quarterly,' from lady byron to mrs. leigh, without a date, evidently belongs to this period, when the sister's society presented itself as a refuge in her approaching confinement. mrs leigh speaks of leaving. the young wife, conscious that the house presents no attractions, and that soon she herself shall be laid by, cannot urge mrs. leigh's stay as likely to give her any pleasure, but only as a comfort to herself. 'you will think me very foolish; but i have tried two or three times, and cannot talk to you of your departure with a decent visage: so let me say one word in this way to spare my philosophy. with the expectations which i have, i never will nor can ask you to stay one moment longer than you are inclined to do. it would [be] the worst return for all i ever received from you. but in this at least i am "truth itself," when i say, that whatever the situation may be, there is no one whose society is dearer to me, or can contribute more to my happiness. these feelings will not change under any circumstances, and i should be grieved if you did not understand them. should you hereafter condemn me, i shall not love you less. i will say no more. judge for yourself about going or staying. i wish you to consider yourself, if you could be wise enough to do that, for the first time in your life. 'thine, 'a. i. b.' addressed on the cover, 'to the hon. mrs. leigh.' this letter not being dated, we have no clue but what we obtain from its own internal evidence. it certainly is not written in lady byron's usual clear and elegant style; and is, in this respect, in striking contrast to all her letters that i have ever seen. but the notes written by a young woman under such peculiar and distressing circumstances must not be judged by the standard of calmer hours. subsequently to this letter, and during that stormy, irrational period when lord byron's conduct became daily more and more unaccountable, may have come that startling scene in which lord byron took every pains to convince his wife of improper relations subsisting between himself and his sister. what an utter desolation this must have been to the wife, tearing from her the last hold of friendship, and the last refuge to which she had clung in her sorrows, may easily be conceived. in this crisis, it appears that the sister convinced lady byron that the whole was to be attributed to insanity. it would be a conviction gladly accepted, and bringing infinite relief, although still surrounding her path with fearful difficulties. that such was the case is plainly asserted by lady byron in her statement published in . speaking of her separation, lady byron says:-- 'the facts are, i left london for kirkby mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the th of january, . lord byron had signified to me in writing, jan. , his absolute desire that i should leave london on the earliest day that i could conveniently fix. it was not safe for me to encounter the fatigues of a journey sooner than the th. previously to my departure, it had been strongly impressed on my mind that lord byron was under the influence of insanity. 'this opinion was in a great measure derived from the communications made to me by his nearest relatives and personal attendant' now there was no nearer relative than mrs. leigh; and the personal attendant was fletcher. it was therefore presumably mrs. leigh who convinced lady byron of her husband's insanity. lady byron says, 'it was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying himself. 'with the concurrence of his family, i had consulted with dr. baillie, as a friend, on jan. , as to his supposed malady.' now, lord byron's written order for her to leave came on jan. . it appears, then, that lady byron, acting in concurrence with mrs. leigh and others of her husband's family, consulted dr. baillie, on jan. , as to what she should do; the symptoms presented to dr. baillie being, evidently, insane hatred of his wife on the part of lord byron, and a determination to get her out of the house. lady byron goes on:-- 'on acquainting him with the state of the case, and with lord byron's desire that i should leave london, dr. baillie thought my absence might be advisable as an experiment, assuming the fact of mental derangement; for dr. baillie, not having had access to lord byron, could not pronounce an opinion on that point. he enjoined, that, in correspondence with lord byron, i should avoid all but light and soothing topics. under these impressions, i left london, determined to follow the advice given me by dr. baillie. whatever might have been the nature of lord byron's treatment of me from the time of my marriage, yet, supposing him to have been in a state of mental alienation, it was not for me, nor for any person of common humanity, to manifest at that moment a sense of injury.' it appears, then, that the domestic situation in byron's house at the time of his wife's expulsion was one so grave as to call for family counsel; for lady byron, generally accurate, speaks in the plural number. 'his nearest relatives' certainly includes mrs. leigh. 'his family' includes more. that some of lord byron's own relatives were cognisant of facts at this time, and that they took lady byron's side, is shown by one of his own chance admissions. in vol. vi. p. , in a letter on bowles, he says, speaking of this time, 'all my relations, save one, fell from me like leaves from a tree in autumn.' and in medwin's conversations he says, 'even my cousin george byron, who had been brought up with me, and whom i loved as a brother, took my wife's part.' the conduct must have been marked in the extreme that led to this result. we cannot help stopping here to say that lady byron's situation at this time has been discussed in our days with a want of ordinary human feeling that is surprising. let any father and mother, reading this, look on their own daughter, and try to make the case their own. after a few short months of married life,--months full of patient endurance of the strangest and most unaccountable treatment,--she comes to them, expelled from her husband's house, an object of hatred and aversion to him, and having to settle for herself the awful question, whether he is a dangerous madman or a determined villain. such was this young wife's situation. with a heart at times wrung with compassion for her husband as a helpless maniac, and fearful that all may end in suicide, yet compelled to leave him, she writes on the road the much-quoted letter, beginning 'dear duck.' this is an exaggerated and unnatural letter, it is true, but of precisely the character that might be expected from an inexperienced young wife when dealing with a husband supposed to be insane. the next day, she addressed to augusta this letter:-- 'my dearest a.,--it is my great comfort that you are still in piccadilly.' and again, on the rd:-- 'dearest a.,--i know you feel for me, as i do for you; and perhaps i am better understood than i think. you have been, ever since i knew you, my best comforter; and will so remain, unless you grow tired of the office,--which may well be.' we can see here how self-denying and heroic appears to lady byron the conduct of the sister, who patiently remains to soothe and guide and restrain the moody madman, whose madness takes a form, at times, so repulsive to every womanly feeling. she intimates that she should not wonder should augusta grow weary of the office. lady byron continues her statement thus:-- 'when i arrived at kirkby mallory, my parents were unacquainted with the existence of any causes likely to destroy my prospects of happiness; and, when i communicated to them the opinion that had been formed concerning lord byron's state of mind, they were most anxious to promote his restoration by every means in their power. they assured those relations that were with him in london that "they would devote their whole case and attention to the alleviation of his malady."' here we have a quotation { a} from a letter written by lady milbanke to the anxious 'relations' who are taking counsel about lord byron in town. lady byron also adds, in justification of her mother from lord byron's slanders, 'she had always treated him with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. never did an irritating word escape her lips in her whole intercourse with him.' now comes a remarkable part of lady byron's statement:-- 'the accounts given me after i left lord byron, by those in constant intercourse with him, { b} added to those doubts which had before transiently occurred to my mind as to the reality of the alleged disease; and the reports of his medical attendants were far from establishing anything like lunacy.' when these doubts arose in her mind, it is not natural to suppose that they should, at first, involve mrs. leigh. she still appears to lady byron as the devoted, believing sister, fully convinced of her brother's insanity, and endeavouring to restrain and control him. but if lord byron were sane, if the purposes he had avowed to his wife were real, he must have lied about his sister in the past, and perhaps have the worst intentions for the future. the horrors of that state of vacillation between the conviction of insanity and the commencing conviction of something worse can scarcely be told. at all events, the wife's doubts extend so far that she speaks out to her parents. 'under this uncertainty,' says the statement, 'i deemed it right to communicate to my parents, that, if i were to consider lord byron's past conduct as that of a person of sound mind, nothing could induce me to return to him. it therefore appeared expedient, both to them and to myself, to consult the ablest advisers. for that object, and also to obtain still further information respecting appearances which indicated mental derangement, my mother determined to go to london. she was empowered by me to take legal opinion on a written statement of mine; though i then had reasons for reserving a part of the case from the knowledge even of my father and mother.' it is during this time of uncertainty that the next letter to mrs. leigh may be placed. it seems to be rather a fragment of a letter than a whole one: perhaps it is an extract; in which case it would be desirable, if possible, to view it in connection with the remaining text:-- jan. , . 'my dearest augusta,--shall i still be your sister? i must resign my right to be so considered; but i don't think that will make any difference in the kindness i have so uniformly experienced from you.' this fragment is not signed, nor finished in any way, but indicates that the writer is about to take a decisive step. on the th, as we have seen, lady milbanke had written, inviting lord byron. subsequently she went to london to make more particular inquiries into his state. this fragment seems part of a letter from lady byron, called forth in view of some evidence resulting from her mother's observations. { } lady byron now adds,-- 'being convinced by the result of these inquiries, and by the tenour of lord byron's proceedings, that the notion of insanity was an illusion, i no longer hesitated to authorize such measures as were necessary in order to secure me from ever being again placed in his power. 'conformably with this resolution, my father wrote to him, on the nd of february, to request an amicable separation.' the following letter to mrs. leigh is dated the day after this application, and is in many respects a noticeable one:-- 'kirkby mallory, feb. , . 'my dearest augusta,--you are desired by your brother to ask if my father has acted with my concurrence in proposing a separation. he has. it cannot be supposed, that, in my present distressing situation, i am capable of stating in a detailed manner the reasons which will not only justify this measure, but compel me to take it; and it never can be my wish to remember unnecessarily [sic] those injuries for which, however deep, i feel no resentment. i will now only recall to lord byron's mind his avowed and insurmountable aversion to the married state, and the desire and determination he has expressed ever since its commencement to free himself from that bondage, as finding it quite insupportable, though candidly acknowledging that no effort of duty or affection has been wanting on my part. he has too painfully convinced me that all these attempts to contribute towards his happiness were wholly useless, and most unwelcome to him. i enclose this letter to my father, wishing it to receive his sanction. 'ever yours most affectionately, 'a. i. byron.' we observe in this letter that it is written to be shown to lady byron's father, and receive his sanction; and, as that father was in ignorance of all the deeper causes of trouble in the case, it will be seen that the letter must necessarily be a reserved one. this sufficiently accounts for the guarded character of the language when speaking of the causes of separation. one part of the letter incidentally overthrows lord byron's statement, which he always repeated during his life, and which is repeated for him now; namely, that his wife forsook him, instead of being, as she claims, expelled by him. she recalls to lord byron's mind the 'desire and determination he has expressed ever since his marriage to free himself from its bondage.' this is in perfect keeping with the 'absolute desire,' signified by writing, that she should leave his house on the earliest day possible; and she places the cause of the separation on his having 'too painfully' convinced her that he does not want her--as a wife. it appears that augusta hesitates to show this note to her brother. it is bringing on a crisis which she, above all others, would most wish to avoid. in the meantime, lady byron receives a letter from lord byron, which makes her feel it more than ever essential to make the decision final. i have reason to believe that this letter is preserved in lady byron's papers:-- 'feb. , . 'i hope, my dear a., that you would on no account withhold from your brother the letter which i sent yesterday in answer to yours written by his desire, particularly as one which i have received from himself to-day renders it still more important that he should know the contents of that addressed to you. i am, in haste and not very well, 'yours most affectionately, 'a. i. byron.' the last of this series of letters is less like the style of lady byron than any of them. we cannot judge whether it is a whole consecutive letter, or fragments from a letter, selected and united. there is a great want of that clearness and precision which usually characterised lady byron's style. it shows, however, that the decision is made,--a decision which she regrets on account of the sister who has tried so long to prevent it. 'kirkby mallory, feb. , . 'the present sufferings of all may yet be repaid in blessings. do not despair absolutely, dearest; and leave me but enough of your interest to afford you any consolation by partaking of that sorrow which i am most unhappy to cause thus unintentionally. you will be of my opinion hereafter; and at present your bitterest reproach would be forgiven, though heaven knows you have considered me more than a thousand would have done,--more than anything but my affection for b., one most dear to you, could deserve. i must not remember these feelings. farewell! god bless you from the bottom of my heart! 'a. i. b.' we are here to consider that mrs. leigh has stood to lady byron in all this long agony as her only confidante and friend; that she has denied the charges her brother has made, and referred them to insanity, admitting insane attempts upon herself which she has been obliged to watch over and control. lady byron has come to the conclusion that augusta is mistaken as to insanity; that there is a real wicked purpose and desire on the part of the brother, not as yet believed in by the sister. she regards the sister as one, who, though deceived and blinded, is still worthy of confidence and consideration; and so says to her, 'you will be of my opinion hereafter.' she says, 'you have considered me more than a thousand would have done.' mrs. leigh is, in lady byron's eyes, a most abused and innocent woman, who, to spare her sister in her delicate situation, has taken on herself the whole charge of a maniacal brother, although suffering from him language and actions of the most injurious kind. that mrs. leigh did not flee the house at once under such circumstances, and wholly decline the management of the case, seems to lady byron consideration and self-sacrifice greater than she can acknowledge. the knowledge of the whole extent of the truth came to lady byron's mind at a later period. we now take up the history from lushington's letter to lady byron, published at the close of her statement. the application to lord byron for an act of separation was positively refused at first; it being an important part of his policy that all the responsibility and insistence should come from his wife, and that he should appear forced into it contrary to his will. dr. lushington, however, says to lady byron,-- 'i was originally consulted by lady noel on your behalf while you were in the country. the circumstances detailed by her were such as justified a separation; but they were not of that aggravated description as to render such a measure indispensable. on lady noel's representations, i deemed a reconciliation with lord byron practicable, and felt most sincerely a wish to aid in effecting it. there was not, on lady noel's part, any exaggeration of the facts, nor, so far as i could perceive, any determination to prevent a return to lord byron: certainly none was expressed when i spoke of a reconciliation.' in this crisis, with lord byron refusing the separation, with lushington expressing a wish to aid in a reconciliation, and lady noel not expressing any aversion to it, the whole strain of the dreadful responsibility comes upon the wife. she resolves to ask counsel of her lawyer, in view of a statement of the whole case. lady byron is spoken of by lord byron (letter ) as being in town with her father on the th of february; viz., fifteen days after the date of the last letter to mrs. leigh. it must have been about this time, then, that she laid her whole case before lushington; and he gave it a thorough examination. the result was, that lushington expressed in the most decided terms his conviction that reconciliation was impossible. the language be uses is very striking:-- 'when you came to town in about a fortnight, or perhaps more, after my first interview with lady noel, i was, for the first time, informed by you of facts utterly unknown, as i have no doubt, to sir ralph and lady noel. on receiving this additional information, my opinion was entirely changed. i considered a reconciliation impossible. i declared my opinion, and added, that, if such an idea should be entertained, i could not, either professionally or otherwise, take any part towards effecting it.' it does not appear in this note what effect the lawyer's examination of the case had on lady byron's mind. by the expressions he uses, we should infer that she may still have been hesitating as to whether a reconciliation might not be her duty. this hesitancy he does away with most decisively, saying, 'a reconciliation is impossible;' and, supposing lady byron or her friends desirous of one, he declares positively that he cannot, either professionally as a lawyer or privately as a friend, have anything to do with effecting it. the lawyer, it appears, has drawn, from the facts of the case, inferences deeper and stronger than those which presented themselves to the mind of the young woman; and he instructs her in the most absolute terms. fourteen years after, in , for the first time the world was astonished by this declaration from dr. lushington, in language so pronounced and positive that there could be no mistake. lady byron had stood all these fourteen years slandered by her husband, and misunderstood by his friends, when, had she so chosen, this opinion of dr. lushington's could have been at once made public, which fully justified her conduct. if, as the 'blackwood' of july insinuates, the story told to lushington was a malignant slander, meant to injure lord byron, why did she suppress the judgment of her counsel at a time when all the world was on her side, and this decision would have been the decisive blow against her husband? why, by sealing the lips of counsel, and of all whom she could influence, did she deprive herself finally of the very advantage for which it has been assumed she fabricated the story? chapter iv. the character of the two witnesses compared. it will be observed, that, in this controversy, we are confronting two opposing stories,--one of lord and the other of lady byron; and the statements from each are in point-blank contradiction. lord byron states that his wife deserted him. lady byron states that he expelled her, and reminds him, in her letter to augusta leigh, that the expulsion was a deliberate one, and that he had purposed it from the beginning of their marriage. lord byron always stated that he was ignorant why his wife left him, and was desirous of her return. lady byron states that he told her that he would force her to leave him, and to leave him in such a way that the whole blame of the separation should always rest on her, and not on him. to say nothing of any deeper or darker accusations on either side, here, in the very outworks of the story, the two meet point-blank. in considering two opposing stories, we always, as a matter of fact, take into account the character of the witnesses. if a person be literal and exact in his usual modes of speech, reserved, careful, conscientious, and in the habit of observing minutely the minor details of time, place, and circumstances, we give weight to his testimony from these considerations. but if a person be proved to have singular and exceptional principles with regard to truth; if he be universally held by society to be so in the habit of mystification, that large allowances must be made for his statements; if his assertions at one time contradict those made at another; and if his statements, also, sometimes come in collision with those of his best friends, so that, when his language is reported, difficulties follow, and explanations are made necessary,--all this certainly disqualifies him from being considered a trustworthy witness. all these disqualifications belong in a remarkable degree to lord byron, on the oft-repeated testimony of his best friends. we shall first cite the following testimony, given in an article from 'under the crown,' which is written by an early friend and ardent admirer of lord byron:-- 'byron had one pre-eminent fault,--a fault which must be considered as deeply criminal by everyone who does not, as i do, believe it to have resulted from monomania. he had a morbid love of a bad reputation. there was hardly an offence of which he would not, with perfect indifference, accuse himself. an old schoolfellow who met him on the continent told me that he would continually write paragraphs against himself in the foreign journals, and delight in their republication by the english newspapers as in the success of a practical joke. whenever anybody has related anything discreditable of byron, assuring me that it must be true, for he heard it from himself, i always felt that he could not have spoken upon worse authority; and that, in all probability, the tale was a pure invention. if i could remember, and were willing to repeat, the various misdoings which i have from time to time heard him attribute to himself, i could fill a volume. but i never believed them. i very soon became aware of this strange idiosyncrasy: it puzzled me to account for it; but there it was, a sort of diseased and distorted vanity. the same eccentric spirit would induce him to report things which were false with regard to his family, which anybody else would have concealed, though true. he told me more than once that his father was insane, and killed himself. i shall never forget the manner in which he first told me this. while washing his hands, and singing a gay neapolitan air, he stopped, looked round at me, and said, "there always was madness in the family." then, after continuing his washing and his song, he added, as if speaking of a matter of the slightest indifference, "my father cut his throat." the contrast between the tenour of the subject and the levity of the expression was fearfully painful: it was like a stanza of "don juan." in this instance, i had no doubt that the fact was as he related it; but in speaking of it, only a few years since, to an old lady in whom i had perfect confidence, she assured me that it was not so. mr. byron, who was her cousin, had been extremely wild, but was quite sane, and had died very quietly in his bed. what byron's reason could have been for thus calumniating not only himself but the blood which was flowing in his veins, who can divine? but, for some reason or other, it seemed to be his determined purpose to keep himself unknown to the great body of his fellow-creatures; to present himself to their view in moral masquerade.' certainly the character of lord byron here given by his friend is not the kind to make him a trustworthy witness in any case: on the contrary, it seems to show either a subtle delight in falsehood for falsehood's sake, or else the wary artifices of a man who, having a deadly secret to conceal, employs many turnings and windings to throw the world off the scent. what intriguer, having a crime to cover, could devise a more artful course than to send half a dozen absurd stories to the press, which should, after a while, be traced back to himself, till the public should gradually look on all it heard from him as the result of this eccentric humour? the easy, trifling air with which lord byron made to this friend a false statement in regard to his father would lead naturally to the inquiry, on what other subjects, equally important to the good name of others, he might give false testimony with equal indifference. when medwin's 'conversations with lord byron' were first published, they contained a number of declarations of the noble lord affecting the honour and honesty of his friend and publisher murray. these appear to have been made in the same way as those about his father, and with equal indifference. so serious were the charges, that mr. murray's friends felt that he ought, in justice to himself, to come forward and confront them with the facts as stated in byron's letters to himself; and in vol. x., p. , of murray's standard edition, accordingly these false statements are confronted with the letters of lord byron. the statements, as reported, are of a most material and vital nature, relating to murray's financial honour and honesty, and to his general truthfulness and sincerity. in reply, murray opposes to them the accounts of sums paid for different works, and letters from byron exactly contradicting his own statements as to murray's character. the subject, as we have seen, was discussed in 'the noctes.' no doubt appears to be entertained that byron made the statements to medwin; and the theory of accounting for them is, that 'byron was "bamming" him.' it seems never to have occurred to any of these credulous gentlemen, who laughed at others for being 'bammed,' that byron might be doing the very same thing by themselves. how many of his so-called packages sent to lady byron were real packages, and how many were mystifications? we find, in two places at least in his memoir, letters to lady byron, written and shown to others, which, he says, were never sent by him. he told lady blessington that he was in the habit of writing to her constantly. was this 'bamming'? was he 'bamming,' also, when he told the world that lady byron suddenly deserted him, quite to his surprise, and that he never, to his dying day, could find out why? lady blessington relates, that, in one of his conversations with her, he entertained her by repeating epigrams and lampoons, in which many of his friends were treated with severity. she inquired of him, in case he should die, and such proofs of his friendship come before the public, what would be the feelings of these friends, who had supposed themselves to stand so high in his good graces. she says,-- '"that," said byron, "is precisely one of the ideas that most amuses me. i often fancy the rage and humiliation of my quondam friends in hearing the truth, at least from me, for the first time, and when i am beyond the reach of their malice. . . . what grief," continued byron, laughing, "could resist the charges of ugliness, dulness, or any of the thousand nameless defects, personal or mental, 'that flesh is heir to,' when reprisal or recantation was impossible? . . . people are in such daily habits of commenting on the defects of friends, that they are unconscious of the unkindness of it. . . now, i write down as well as speak my sentiments of those who think they have gulled me; and i only wish, in case i die before them, that i might return to witness the effects my posthumous opinions of them are likely to produce in their minds. what good fun this would be! . . . you don't seem to value this as you ought," said byron with one of his sardonic smiles, seeing i looked, as i really felt, surprised at his avowed insincerity. "i feel the same pleasure in anticipating the rage and mortification of my soi-disant friends at the discovery of my real sentiments of them, that a miser may be supposed to feel while making a will that will disappoint all the expectants that have been toadying him for years. then how amusing it will be to compare my posthumous with my previously given opinions, the one throwing ridicule on the other!"' it is asserted, in a note to 'the noctes,' that byron, besides his autobiography, prepared a voluminous dictionary of all his friends and acquaintances, in which brief notes of their persons and character were given, with his opinion of them. it was not considered that the publication of this would add to the noble lord's popularity; and it has never appeared. in hunt's life of byron, there is similar testimony. speaking of byron's carelessness in exposing his friends' secrets, and showing or giving away their letters, he says,-- 'if his five hundred confidants, by a reticence as remarkable as his laxity, had not kept his secrets better than he did himself, the very devil might have been played with i don't know how many people. but there was always this saving reflection to be made, that the man who could be guilty of such extravagances for the sake of making an impression might be guilty of exaggeration, or inventing what astonished you; and indeed, though he was a speaker of the truth on ordinary occasions,--that is to say, he did not tell you he had seen a dozen horses when he had seen only two,--yet, as he professed not to value the truth when in the way of his advantage (and there was nothing he thought more to his advantage than making you stare at him), the persons who were liable to suffer from his incontinence had all the right in the world to the benefit of this consideration.' { a} with a person of such mental and moral habits as to truth, the inquiry always must be, where does mystification end, and truth begin? if a man is careless about his father's reputation for sanity, and reports him a crazy suicide; if he gaily accuses his publisher and good friend of double-dealing, shuffling, and dishonesty; if he tells stories about mrs. clermont, { b} to which his sister offers a public refutation,--is it to be supposed that he will always tell the truth about his wife, when the world is pressing him hard, and every instinct of self-defence is on the alert? and then the ingenuity that could write and publish false documents about himself, that they might reappear in london papers,--to what other accounts might it not be turned? might it not create documents, invent statements, about his wife as well as himself? the document so ostentatiously given to m. g. lewis 'for circulation among friends in england' was a specimen of what the noctes club would call 'bamming.' if byron wanted a legal investigation, why did he not take it in the first place, instead of signing the separation? if he wanted to cancel it, as he said in this document, why did he not go to london, and enter a suit for the restitution of conjugal rights, or a suit in chancery to get possession of his daughter? that this was in his mind, passages in medwin's 'conversations' show. he told lady blessington also that he might claim his daughter in chancery at any time. why did he not do it? either of these two steps would have brought on that public investigation he so longed for. can it be possible that all the friends who passed this private document from hand to hand never suspected that they were being 'bammed' by it? but it has been universally assumed, that, though byron was thus remarkably given to mystification, yet all his statements in regard to this story are to be accepted, simply because he makes them. why must we accept them, any more than his statements as to murray or his own father? so we constantly find lord byron's incidental statements coming in collision with those of others: for example, in his account of his marriage, he tells medwin that lady byron's maid was put between his bride and himself, on the same seat, in the wedding journey. the lady's maid herself, mrs. mimms, says she was sent before them to halnaby, and was there to receive them when they alighted. he said of lady byron's mother, 'she always detested me, and had not the decency to conceal it in her own house. dining with her one day, i broke a tooth, and was in great pain; which i could not help showing. "it will do you good," said lady noel; "i am glad of it!"' lady byron says, speaking of her mother, 'she always treated him with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. never did an irritating word escape her.' lord byron states that the correspondence between him and lady byron, after his refusal, was first opened by her. lady byron's friends deny the statement, and assert that the direct contrary is the fact. thus we see that lord byron's statements are directly opposed to those of his family in relation to his father; directly against murray's accounts, and his own admission to murray; directly against the statement of the lady's maid as to her position in the journey; directly against mrs. leigh's as to mrs. clermont, and against lady byron as to her mother. we can see, also, that these misstatements were so fully perceived by the men of his times, that medwin's 'conversations' were simply laughed at as an amusing instance of how far a man might be made the victim of a mystification. christopher north thus sentences the book:-- 'i don't mean to call medwin a liar . . . the captain lies, sir, but it is under a thousand mistakes. whether byron bammed him, or he, by virtue of his own egregious stupidity, was the sole and sufficient bammifier of himself, i know not; neither greatly do i care. this much is certain, . . . that the book throughout is full of things that were not, and most resplendently deficient quoad the things that were.' yet it is on medwin's 'conversations' alone that many of the magazine assertions in regard to lady byron are founded. it is on that authority that lady byron is accused of breaking open her husband's writing-desk in his absence, and sending the letters she found there to the husband of a lady compromised by them; and likewise that lord byron is declared to have paid back his wife's ten-thousand-pound wedding portion, and doubled it. moore makes no such statements; and his remarks about lord byron's use of his wife's money are unmistakable evidence to the contrary. moore, although byron's ardent partisan, was too well informed to make assertions with regard to him, which, at that time, it would have been perfectly easy to refute. all these facts go to show that lord byron's character for accuracy or veracity was not such as to entitle him to ordinary confidence as a witness, especially in a case where he had the strongest motives for misstatement. and if we consider that the celebrated autobiography was the finished, careful work of such a practised 'mystifier,' who can wonder that it presented a web of such intermingled truth and lies that there was no such thing as disentangling it, and pointing out where falsehood ended and truth began? but in regard to lady byron, what has been the universal impression of the world? it has been alleged against her that she was a precise, straightforward woman, so accustomed to plain, literal dealings, that she could not understand the various mystifications of her husband; and from that cause arose her unhappiness. byron speaks, in 'the sketch,' of her peculiar truthfulness; and even in the 'clytemnestra' poem, when accusing her of lying, he speaks of her as departing from 'the early truth that was her proper praise.' lady byron's careful accuracy as to dates, to time, place, and circumstances, will probably be vouched for by all the very large number of persons whom the management of her extended property and her works of benevolence brought to act as co-operators or agents with her. she was not a person in the habit of making exaggerated or ill-considered statements. her published statement of is clear, exact, accurate, and perfectly intelligible. the dates are carefully ascertained and stated, the expressions are moderate, and all the assertions firm and perfectly definite. it therefore seems remarkable that the whole reasoning on this byron matter has generally been conducted by assuming all lord byron's statements to be true, and requiring all lady byron's statements to be sustained by other evidence. if lord byron asserts that his wife deserted him, the assertion is accepted without proof; but, if lady byron asserts that he ordered her to leave, that requires proof. lady byron asserts that she took counsel, on this order of lord byron, with his family friends and physician, under the idea that it originated in insanity. the 'blackwood' asks, "what family friends?' says it doesn't know of any; and asks proof. if lord byron asserts that he always longed for a public investigation of the charges against him, the 'quarterly' and 'blackwood' quote the saying with ingenuous confidence. they are obliged to admit that he refused to stand that public test; that he signed the deed of separation rather than meet it. they know, also, that he could have at any time instituted suits against lady byron that would have brought the whole matter into court, and that he did not. why did he not? the 'quarterly' simply intimates that such suits would have been unpleasant. why? on account of personal delicacy? the man that wrote 'don juan,' and furnished the details of his wedding-night, held back from clearing his name by delicacy! it is astonishing to what extent this controversy has consisted in simply repeating lord byron's assertions over and over again, and calling the result proof. now, we propose a different course. as lady byron is not stated by her warm admirers to have had any monomania for speaking untruths on any subject, we rank her value as a witness at a higher rate than lord byron's. she never accused her parents of madness or suicide, merely to make a sensation; never 'bammed' an acquaintance by false statements concerning the commercial honour of anyone with whom she was in business relations; never wrote and sent to the press as a clever jest false statements about herself; and never, in any other ingenious way, tampered with truth. we therefore hold it to be a mere dictate of reason and common sense, that, in all cases where her statements conflict with her husband's, hers are to be taken as the more trustworthy. the 'london quarterly,' in a late article, distinctly repudiates lady byron's statements as sources of evidence, and throughout quotes statements of lord byron as if they had the force of self-evident propositions. we consider such a course contrary to common sense as well as common good manners. the state of the case is just this: if lord byron did not make false statements on this subject it was certainly an exception to his usual course. he certainly did make such on a great variety of other subjects. by his own showing, he had a peculiar pleasure in falsifying language, and in misleading and betraying even his friends. but, if lady byron gave false witness upon this subject, it was an exception to the whole course of her life. the habits of her mind, the government of her conduct, her life-long reputation, all were those of a literal, exact truthfulness. the accusation of her being untruthful was first brought forward by her husband in the 'clytemnestra' poem, in the autumn of ; but it never was publicly circulated till after his death, and it was first formally made the basis of a published attack on lady byron in the july 'blackwood' of . up to that time, we look in vain through current literature for any indications that the world regarded lady byron otherwise than as a cold, careful, prudent woman, who made no assertions, and had no confidants. when she spoke in , it is perfectly evident that christopher north and his circle believed what she said, though reproving her for saying it at all. the 'quarterly' goes on to heap up a number of vague assertions,--that lady byron, about the time of her separation, made a confidant of a young officer; that she told the clergyman of ham of some trials with lord ockham; and that she told stories of different things at different times. all this is not proof: it is mere assertion, and assertion made to produce prejudice. it is like raising a whirlwind of sand to blind the eyes that are looking for landmarks. it is quite probable lady byron told different stories about lord byron at various times. no woman could have a greater variety of stories to tell; and no woman ever was so persecuted and pursued and harassed, both by public literature and private friendship, to say something. she had plenty of causes for a separation, without the fatal and final one. in her conversations with lady anne barnard, for example, she gives reasons enough for a separation, though none of them are the chief one. it is not different stories, but contradictory stories, that must be relied on to disprove the credibility of a witness. the 'quarterly' has certainly told a great number of different stories,--stories which may prove as irreconcilable with each other as any attributed to lady byron; but its denial of all weight to her testimony is simply begging the whole question under consideration. a man gives testimony about the causes of a railroad accident, being the only eye-witness. the opposing counsel begs, whatever else you do, you will not admit that man's testimony. you ask, 'why? has he ever been accused of want of veracity on other subjects?'--'no: he has stood high as a man of probity and honour for years.'--'why, then, throw out his testimony?' 'because he lies in this instance,' says the adversary: 'his testimony does not agree with this and that.'--'pardon me, that is the very point in question,' say you: 'we expect to prove that it does agree with this and that.' because certain letters of lady byron's do not agree with the 'quarterly's' theory of the facts of the separation, it at once assumes that she is an untruthful witness, and proposes to throw out her evidence altogether. we propose, on the contrary, to regard lady byron's evidence with all the attention due to the statement of a high-minded conscientious person, never in any other case accused of violation of truth; we also propose to show it to be in strict agreement with all well-authenticated facts and documents; and we propose to treat lord byron's evidence as that of a man of great subtlety, versed in mystification and delighting in it, and who, on many other subjects, not only deceived, but gloried in deception; and then we propose to show that it contradicts well-established facts and received documents. one thing more we have to say concerning the laws of evidence in regard to documents presented in this investigation. this is not a london west-end affair, but a grave historical inquiry, in which the whole english-speaking world are interested to know the truth. as it is now too late to have the securities of a legal trial, certainly the rules of historical evidence should be strictly observed. all important documents should be presented in an entire state, with a plain and open account of their history,--who had them, where they were found, and how preserved. there have been most excellent, credible, and authentic documents produced in this case; and, as a specimen of them, we shall mention lord lindsay's letter, and the journal and letter it authenticates. lord lindsay at once comes forward, gives his name boldly, gives the history of the papers he produces, shows how they came to be in his hands, why never produced before, and why now. we feel confidence at once. but in regard to the important series of letters presented as lady byron's, this obviously proper course has not been pursued. though assumed to be of the most critical importance, no such distinct history of them was given in the first instance. the want of such evidence being noticed by other papers, the 'quarterly' appears hurt that the high character of the magazine has not been a sufficient guarantee; and still deals in vague statements that the letters have been freely circulated, and that two noblemen of the highest character would vouch for them if necessary. in our view, it is necessary. these noblemen should imitate lord lindsay's example,--give a fair account of these letters, under their own names; and then, we would add, it is needful for complete satisfaction to have the letters entire, and not in fragments. the 'quarterly' gave these letters with the evident implication that they are entirely destructive to lady byron's character as a witness. now, has that magazine much reason to be hurt at even an insinuation on its own character when making such deadly assaults on that of another? the individuals who bring forth documents that they suppose to be deadly to the character of a noble person, always in her generation held to be eminent for virtue, certainly should not murmur at being called upon to substantiate these documents in the manner usually expected in historical investigations. we have shown that these letters do not contradict, but that they perfectly confirm the facts, and agree with the dates in lady byron's published statements of ; and this is our reason for deeming them authentic. these considerations with regard to the manner of conducting the inquiry seem so obviously proper, that we cannot but believe that they will command a serious attention. chapter v. the direct argument to prove the crime. we shall now proceed to state the argument against lord byron. st, there is direct evidence that lord byron was guilty of some unusual immorality. the evidence is not, as the 'blackwood' says, that lushington yielded assent to the ex parte statement of a client; nor, as the 'quarterly' intimates, that he was affected by the charms of an attractive young woman. the first evidence of it is the fact that lushington and romilly offered to take the case into court, and make there a public exhibition of the proofs on which their convictions were founded. nd, it is very strong evidence of this fact, that lord byron, while loudly declaring that he wished to know with what he was charged, declined this open investigation, and, rather than meet it, signed a paper which he had before refused to sign. rd, it is also strong evidence of this fact, that although secretly declaring to all his intimate friends that he still wished open investigation in a court of justice, and affirming his belief that his character was being ruined for want of it, he never afterwards took the means to get it. instead of writing a private handbill, he might have come to england and entered a suit; and he did not do it. that lord byron was conscious of a great crime is further made probable by the peculiar malice he seemed to bear to his wife's legal counsel. if there had been nothing to fear in that legal investigation wherewith they threatened him, why did he not only flee from it, but regard with a peculiar bitterness those who advised and proposed it? to an innocent man falsely accused, the certainties of law are a blessing and a refuge. female charms cannot mislead in a court of justice; and the atrocities of rumour are there sifted, and deprived of power. a trial is not a threat to an innocent man: it is an invitation, an opportunity. why, then, did he hate sir samuel romilly, so that he exulted like a fiend over his tragical death? the letter in which he pours forth this malignity was so brutal, that moore was obliged, by the general outcry of society, to suppress it. is this the language of an innocent man who has been offered a fair trial under his country's laws? or of a guilty man, to whom the very idea of public trial means public exposure? th, it is probable that the crime was the one now alleged, because that was the most important crime charged against him by rumour at the period. this appears by the following extract of a letter from shelley, furnished by the 'quarterly,' dated bath, sept. , :-- 'i saw kinnaird, and had a long talk with him. he informed me that lady byron was now in perfect health; that she was living with your sister. i felt much pleasure from this intelligence. i consider the latter part of it as affording a decisive contradiction to the only important calumny that ever was advanced against you. on this ground, at least, it will become the world hereafter to be silent.' it appears evident here that the charge of improper intimacy with his sister was, in the mind of shelley, the only important one that had yet been made against lord byron. it is fairly inferable, from lord byron's own statements, that his family friends believed this charge. lady byron speaks, in her statement, of 'nearest relatives' and family friends who were cognizant of lord byron's strange conduct at the time of the separation; and lord byron, in the letter to bowles, before quoted, says that every one of his relations, except his sister, fell from him in this crisis like leaves from a tree in autumn. there was, therefore, not only this report, but such appearances in support of it as convinced those nearest to the scene, and best apprised of the facts; so that they fell from him entirely, notwithstanding the strong influence of family feeling. the guiccioli book also mentions this same allegation as having arisen from peculiarities in lord byron's manner of treating his sister:-- 'this deep, fraternal affection assumed at times, under the influence of his powerful genius, and under exceptional circumstances, an almost too passionate expression, which opened a fresh field to his enemies.' { } it appears, then, that there was nothing in the character of lord byron and of his sister, as they appeared before their generation, that prevented such a report from arising: on the contrary, there was something in their relations that made it seem probable. and it appears that his own family friends were so affected by it, that they, with one accord, deserted him. the 'quarterly' presents the fact that lady byron went to visit mrs. leigh at this time, as triumphant proof that she did not then believe it. can the 'quarterly' show just what lady byron's state of mind was, or what her motives were, in making that visit? the 'quarterly' seems to assume, that no woman, without gross hypocrisy, can stand by a sister proven to have been guilty. we can appeal on this subject to all women. we fearlessly ask any wife, 'supposing your husband and sister were involved together in an infamous crime, and that you were the mother of a young daughter whose life would be tainted by a knowledge of that crime, what would be your wish? would you wish to proclaim it forthwith? or would you wish quietly to separate from your husband, and to cover the crime from the eye of man?' it has been proved that lady byron did not reveal this even to her nearest relatives. it is proved that she sealed the mouths of her counsel, and even of servants, so effectually, that they remain sealed even to this day. this is evidence that she did not wish the thing known. it is proved also, that, in spite of her secrecy with her parents and friends, the rumour got out, and was spoken of by shelley as the only important one. now, let us see how this note, cited by the 'quarterly,' confirms one of lady byron's own statements. she says to lady anne barnard,-- 'i trust you understand my wishes, which never were to injure lord byron in any way; for, though he would not suffer me to remain his wife, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend; and it was from considering myself as such that i silenced the accusations by which my own conduct might have been more fully justified.' how did lady byron silence accusations? first, by keeping silence to her nearest relatives; second, by shutting the mouths of servants; third, by imposing silence on her friends,--as lady anne barnard; fourth, by silencing her legal counsel; fifth, and most entirely, by treating mrs. leigh, before the world, with unaltered kindness. in the midst of the rumours, lady byron went to visit her; and shelley says that the movement was effectual. can the 'quarterly' prove that, at this time, mrs. leigh had not confessed all, and thrown herself on lady byron's mercy? it is not necessary to suppose great horror and indignation on the part of lady byron. she may have regarded her sister as the victim of a most singularly powerful tempter. lord byron, as she knew, had tried to corrupt her own morals and faith. he had obtained a power over some women, even in the highest circles in england, which had led them to forego the usual decorums of their sex, and had given rise to great scandals. he was a being of wonderful personal attractions. he had not only strong poetical, but also strong logical power. he was daring in speculation, and vigorous in sophistical argument; beautiful, dazzling, and possessed of magnetic power of fascination. his sister had been kind and considerate to lady byron when lord byron was brutal and cruel. she had been overcome by him, as a weaker nature sometimes sinks under the force of a stronger one; and lady byron may really have considered her to be more sinned against than sinning. lord byron, if we look at it rightly, did not corrupt mrs. leigh any more than he did the whole british public. they rebelled at the immorality of his conduct and the obscenity of his writings; and he resolved that they should accept both. and he made them do it. at first, they execrated 'don juan.' murray was afraid to publish it. women were determined not to read it. in , dr. william maginn of the noctes wrote a song against it in the following virtuous strain:-- 'be "juan," then, unseen, unknown; it must, or we shall rue it. we may have virtue of our own: ah! why should we undo it? the treasured faith of days long past we still would prize o'er any, and grieve to hear the ribald jeer of scamps like don giovanni.' lord byron determined to conquer the virtuous scruples of the noctes club; and so we find this same dr. william maginn, who in wrote so valiantly, in declaring that he would rather have written a page of 'don juan' than a ton of 'childe harold.' all english morals were, in like manner, formally surrendered to lord byron. moore details his adulteries in venice with unabashed particularity: artists send for pictures of his principal mistresses; the literary world call for biographical sketches of their points; moore compares his wife and his last mistress in a neatly-turned sentence; and yet the professor of morals in edinburgh university recommends the biography as pure, and having no mud in it. the mistress is lionized in london; and in is introduced to the world of letters by 'blackwood,' and bid, 'without a blush, to say she loved'-- this much being done to all england, it is quite possible that a woman like lady byron, standing silently aside and surveying the course of things, may have thought that mrs. leigh was no more seduced than all the rest of the world, and have said as we feel disposed to say of that generation, and of a good many in this, 'let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.' the peculiar bitterness of remorse expressed in his works by lord byron is a further evidence that he had committed an unusual crime. we are aware that evidence cannot be drawn in this manner from an author's works merely, if unsupported by any external probability. for example, the subject most frequently and powerfully treated by hawthorne is the influence of a secret, unconfessed crime on the soul: nevertheless, as hawthorne is well known to have always lived a pure and regular life, nobody has ever suspected him of any greater sin than a vigorous imagination. but here is a man believed guilty of an uncommon immorality by the two best lawyers in england, and threatened with an open exposure, which he does not dare to meet. the crime is named in society; his own relations fall away from him on account of it; it is only set at rest by the heroic conduct of his wife. now, this man is stated by many of his friends to have had all the appearance of a man secretly labouring under the consciousness of crime. moore speaks of this propensity in the following language:-- 'i have known him more than once, as we sat together after dinner, and he was a little under the influence of wine, to fall seriously into this dark, self-accusing mood, and throw out hints of his past life with an air of gloom and mystery designed evidently to awaken curiosity and interest.' moore says that it was his own custom to dispel these appearances by ridicule, to which his friend was keenly alive. and he goes on to say,-- 'it has sometimes occurred to me, that the occult causes of his lady's separation from him, round which herself and her legal advisers have thrown such formidable mystery, may have been nothing more than some imposture of this kind, some dimly-hinted confession of undefined horror, which, though intended by the relater to mystify and surprise, the hearer so little understood as to take in sober seriousness.' { } all we have to say is, that lord byron's conduct in this respect is exactly what might have been expected if he had a crime on his conscience. the energy of remorse and despair expressed in 'manfred' were so appalling and so vividly personal, that the belief was universal on the continent that the experience was wrought out of some actual crime. goethe expressed this idea, and had heard a murder imputed to byron as the cause. the allusion to the crime and consequences of incest is so plain in 'manfred,' that it is astonishing that any one can pretend, as galt does, that it had any other application. the hero speaks of the love between himself and the imaginary being whose spirit haunts him as having been the deadliest sin, and one that has, perhaps, caused her eternal destruction. 'what is she now? a sufferer for my sins; a thing i dare not think upon.' he speaks of her blood as haunting him, and as being 'my blood,--the pure, warm stream that ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours when we were in our youth, and had one heart, and loved each other as we should not love.' this work was conceived in the commotion of mind immediately following his separation. the scenery of it was sketched in a journal sent to his sister at the time. in letter , defending the originality of the conception, and showing that it did not arise from reading 'faust,' he says,-- 'it was the steinbach and the jungfrau, and something else, more than faustus, that made me write "manfred."' in letter , speaking of the various accounts given by critics of the origin of the story, he says,-- 'the conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of the matter. i had a better origin than he could devise or divine for the soul of him.' in letter , he says:-- 'as to the germs of "manfred," they may be found in the journal i sent to mrs. leigh, part of which you saw.' it may be said, plausibly, that lord byron, if conscious of this crime, would not have expressed it in his poetry. but his nature was such that he could not help it. whatever he wrote that had any real power was generally wrought out of self; and, when in a tumult of emotion, he could not help giving glimpses of the cause. it appears that he did know that he had been accused of incest, and that shelley thought that accusation the only really important one; and yet, sensitive as he was to blame and reprobation, he ran upon this very subject most likely to re-awaken scandal. but lord byron's strategy was always of the bold kind. it was the plan of the fugitive, who, instead of running away, stations himself so near to danger, that nobody would ever think of looking for him there. he published passionate verses to his sister on this principle. he imitated the security of an innocent man in every thing but the unconscious energy of the agony which seized him when he gave vent to his nature in poetry. the boldness of his strategy is evident through all his life. he began by charging his wife with the very cruelty and deception which he was himself practising. he had spread a net for her feet, and he accused her of spreading a net for his. he had placed her in a position where she could not speak, and then leisurely shot arrows at her; and he represented her as having done the same by him. when he attacked her in 'don juan,' and strove to take from her the very protection { }of womanly sacredness by putting her name into the mouth of every ribald, he did a bold thing, and he knew it. he meant to do a bold thing. there was a general outcry against it; and he fought it down, and gained his point. by sheer boldness and perseverance, he turned the public from his wife, and to himself, in the face of their very groans and protests. his 'manfred' and his 'cain' were parts of the same game. but the involuntary cry of remorse and despair pierced even through his own artifices, in a manner that produced a conviction of reality. his evident fear and hatred of his wife were other symptoms of crime. there was no apparent occasion for him to hate her. he admitted that she had been bright, amiable, good, agreeable; that her marriage had been a very uncomfortable one; and he said to madame de stael, that he did not doubt she thought him deranged. why, then, did he hate her for wanting to live peaceably by herself? why did he so fear her, that not one year of his life passed without his concocting and circulating some public or private accusation against her? she, by his own showing, published none against him. it is remarkable, that, in all his zeal to represent himself injured, he nowhere quotes a single remark from lady byron, nor a story coming either directly or indirectly from her or her family. he is in a fever in venice, not from what she has spoken, but because she has sealed the lips of her counsel, and because she and her family do not speak: so that he professes himself utterly ignorant what form her allegations against him may take. he had heard from shelley that his wife silenced the most important calumny by going to make mrs. leigh a visit; and yet he is afraid of her,--so afraid, that he tells moore he expects she will attack him after death, and charges him to defend his grave. now, if lord byron knew that his wife had a deadly secret that she could tell, all this conduct is explicable: it is in the ordinary course of human nature. men always distrust those who hold facts by which they can be ruined. they fear them; they are antagonistic to them; they cannot trust them. the feeling of falkland to caleb williams, as portrayed in godwin's masterly sketch, is perfectly natural, and it is exactly illustrative of what byron felt for his wife. he hated her for having his secret; and, so far as a human being could do it, he tried to destroy her character before the world, that she might not have the power to testify against him. if we admit this solution, byron's conduct is at least that of a man who is acting as men ordinarily would act under such circumstances: if we do not, he is acting like a fiend. let us look at admitted facts. he married his wife without love, in a gloomy, melancholy, morose state of mind. the servants testify to strange, unaccountable treatment of her immediately after marriage; such that her confidential maid advises her return to her parents. in lady byron's letter to mrs. leigh, she reminds lord byron that he always expressed a desire and determination to free himself from the marriage. lord byron himself admits to madame de stael that his behaviour was such, that his wife must have thought him insane. now we are asked to believe, that simply because, under these circumstances, lady byron wished to live separate from her husband, he hated and feared her so that he could never let her alone afterwards; that he charged her with malice, slander, deceit, and deadly intentions against himself, merely out of spite, because she preferred not to live with him. this last view of the case certainly makes lord byron more unaccountably wicked than the other. the first supposition shows him to us as a man in an agony of self-preservation; the second as a fiend, delighting in gratuitous deceit and cruelty. again: a presumption of this crime appears in lord byron's admission, in a letter to moore, that he had an illegitimate child born before he left england, and still living at the time. in letter , to mr. moore, under date venice, feb. , , byron says, speaking of moore's loss of a child,-- 'i know how to feel with you, because i am quite wrapped up in my own children. besides my little legitimate, i have made unto myself an illegitimate since [since ada's birth] to say nothing of one before; and i look forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that i ever reach, as i hope i never shall, that desolating period.' the illegitimate child that he had made to himself since ada's birth was allegra, born about nine or ten months after the separation. the other illegitimate alluded to was born before, and, as the reader sees, was spoken of as still living. moore appears to be puzzled to know who this child can be, and conjectures that it may possibly be the child referred to in an early poem, written, while a schoolboy of nineteen, at harrow. on turning back to the note referred to, we find two things: first, that the child there mentioned was not claimed by lord byron as his own, but that he asked his mother to care for it as belonging to a schoolmate now dead; second, that the infant died shortly after, and, consequently, could not be the child mentioned in this letter. now, besides this fact, that lord byron admitted a living illegitimate child born before ada, we place this other fact, that there was a child in england which was believed to be his by those who had every opportunity of knowing. on this subject we shall cite a passage from a letter recently received by us from england, and written by a person who appears well informed on the subject of his letter:-- 'the fact is, the incest was first committed, and the child of it born before, shortly before, the byron marriage. the child (a daughter) must not be confounded with the natural daughter of lord byron, born about a year after his separation. 'the history, more or less, of that child of incest, is known to many; for in lady byron's attempts to watch over her, and rescue her from ruin, she was compelled to employ various agents at different times.' this letter contains a full recognition, by an intelligent person in england, of a child corresponding well with lord byron's declaration of an illegitimate, born before he left england. up to this point, we have, then, the circumstantial evidence against lord byron as follows:-- a good and amiable woman, who had married him from love, determined to separate from him. two of the greatest lawyers of england confirmed her in this decision, and threatened lord byron, that, unless he consented to this, they would expose the evidence against him in a suit for divorce. he fled from this exposure, and never afterwards sought public investigation. he was angry with and malicious towards the counsel who supported his wife; he was angry at and afraid of a wife who did nothing to injure him, and he made it a special object to defame and degrade her. he gave such evidence of remorse and fear in his writings as to lead eminent literary men to believe he had committed a great crime. the public rumour of his day specified what the crime was. his relations, by his own showing, joined against him. the report was silenced by his wife's efforts only. lord byron subsequently declares the existence of an illegitimate child, born before he left england. corresponding to this, there is the history, known in england, of a child believed to be his, in whom his wife took an interest. all these presumptions exist independently of any direct testimony from lady byron. they are to be admitted as true, whether she says a word one way or the other. from this background of proof, i come forward, and testify to an interview with lady byron, in which she gave me specific information of the facts in the case. that i report the facts just as i received them from her, not altered or misremembered, is shown by the testimony of my sister, to whom i related them at the time. it cannot, then, be denied that i had this interview, and that this communication was made. i therefore testify that lady byron, for a proper purpose, and at a proper time, stated to me the following things:-- . that the crime which separated her from lord byron was incest. . that she first discovered it by improper actions towards his sister, which, he meant to make her understand, indicated the guilty relation. . that he admitted it, reasoned on it, defended it, tried to make her an accomplice, and, failing in that, hated her and expelled her. . that he threatened her that he would make it his life's object to destroy her character. . that for a period she was led to regard this conduct as insanity, and to consider him only as a diseased person. . that she had subsequent proof that the facts were really as she suspected; that there had been a child born of the crime, whose history she knew; that mrs. leigh had repented. the purpose for which this was stated to me was to ask, was it her duty to make the truth fully known during her lifetime? here, then, is a man believed guilty of an unusual crime by two lawyers, the best in england, who have seen the evidence,--a man who dares not meet legal investigation. the crime is named in society, and deemed so far probable to the men of his generation as to be spoken of by shelley as the only important allegation against him. he acts through life exactly like a man struggling with remorse, and afraid of detection; he has all the restlessness and hatred and fear that a man has who feels that there is evidence which might destroy him. he admits an illegitimate child besides allegra. a child believed to have been his is known to many in england. added to all this, his widow, now advanced in years, and standing on the borders of eternity, being, as appears by her writings and conversation, of perfectly sound mind at the time, testifies to me the facts before named, which exactly correspond to probabilities. i publish the statement; and the solicitors who hold lady byron's private papers do not deny the truth of the story. they try to cast discredit on me for speaking; but they do not say that i have spoken falsely, or that the story is not true. the lawyer who knew lady byron's story in does not now deny that this is the true one. several persons in england testify that, at various times, and for various purposes, the same story has been told to them. moreover, it appears from my last letter addressed to lady byron on this subject, that i recommended her to leave all necessary papers in the hands of some discreet persons, who, after both had passed away, should see that justice was done. the solicitors admit that lady byron has left sealed papers of great importance in the hands of trustees, with discretionary power. i have been informed very directly that the nature of these documents was such as to lead to the suppression of lady byron's life and writings. this is all exactly as it would be, if the story related by lady byron were the true one. the evidence under this point of view is so strong, that a great effort has been made to throw out lady byron's testimony. this attempt has been made on two grounds. st, that she was under a mental hallucination. this theory has been most ably refuted by the very first authority in england upon the subject. he says,-- 'no person practically acquainted with the true characteristics of insanity would affirm, that, had this idea of "incest" been an insane hallucination, lady byron could, from the lengthened period which intervened between her unhappy marriage and death, have refrained from exhibiting it, not only to legal advisers and trustees (assuming that she revealed to them the fact), but to others, exacting no pledge of secrecy from them as to her mental impressions. lunatics do for a time, and for some special purpose, most cunningly conceal their delusions; but they have not the capacity to struggle for thirty-six years, as lady byron must have done, with so frightful an hallucination, without the insane state of mind becoming obvious to those with whom they are daily associating. neither is it consistent with experience to suppose, that, if lady byron had been a monomaniac, her state of disordered understanding would have been restricted to one hallucination. her diseased brain, affecting the normal action of thought, would, in all probability, have manifested other symptoms besides those referred to of aberration of intellect. 'during the last thirty years, i have not met with a case of insanity (assuming the hypothesis of hallucination) at all parallel with that of lady byron. in my experience, it is unique. i never saw a patient with such a delusion.' we refer our readers to a careful study of dr. forbes winslow's consideration of this subject given in part iii. anyone who has been familiar with the delicacy and acuteness of dr. winslow, as shown in his work on obscure diseases of the brain and nerves, must feel that his positive assertion on this ground is the best possible evidence. we here gratefully acknowledge our obligations to dr. winslow for the corrected proof of his valuable letter, which he has done us the honour to send for this work. we shall consider that his argument, in connection with what the reader may observe of lady byron's own writings, closes that issue of the case completely. the other alternative is, that lady byron deliberately committed false witness. this was the ground assumed by the 'blackwood,' when in july, , it took upon itself the responsibility of re-opening the byron controversy. it is also the ground assumed by 'the london quarterly' of to-day. both say, in so many words, that no crime was imputed to lord byron; that the representations made to lushington in the beginning were false ones; and that the story told to lady byron's confidential friends in later days was also false. let us examine this theory. in the first place, it requires us to believe in the existence of a moral monster of whom madame brinvilliers is cited as the type. the 'blackwood,' let it be remembered, opens the controversy with the statement that lady byron was a madame brinvilliers. the 'quarterly' does not shrink from the same assumption. let us consider the probability of this question. if lady byron were such a woman, and wished to ruin her husband's reputation in order to save her own, and, being perfectly unscrupulous, had circulated against him a story of unnatural crime which had no proofs, how came two of the first lawyers of england to assume the responsibility of offering to present her case in open court? how came her husband, if he knew himself guiltless, to shrink from that public investigation which must have demonstrated his innocence? most astonishing of all, when he fled from trial, and the report got abroad against him in england, and was believed even by his own relations, why did not his wife avail herself of the moment to complete her victory? if at that moment she had publicly broken with mrs. leigh, she might have confirmed every rumour. did she do it? and why not? according to the 'blackwood,' we have here a woman who has made up a frightful story to ruin her husband's reputation, yet who takes every pains afterwards to prevent its being ruined. she fails to do the very thing she undertakes; and for years after, rather than injure him, she loses public sympathy, and, by sealing the lips of her legal counsel, deprives herself of the advantage of their testimony. moreover, if a desire for revenge could have been excited in her, it would have been provoked by the first publication of the fourth canto of 'childe harold,' when she felt that byron was attacking her before the world. yet we have lady anne barnard's testimony, that, at this time, she was so far from wishing to injure him, that all her communications were guarded by cautious secrecy. at this time, also, she had a strong party in england, to whom she could have appealed. again: when 'don juan' was first printed, it excited a violent re-action against lord byron. had his wife chosen then to accuse him, and display the evidence she had shown to her counsel, there is little doubt that all the world would have stood with her; but she did not. after his death, when she spoke at last, there seems little doubt from the strength of dr. lushington's language, that lady byron had a very strong case, and that, had she been willing, her counsel could have told much more than he did. she might then have told her whole story, and been believed. her word was believed by christopher north, and accepted as proof that byron had been a great criminal. had revenge been her motive, she could have spoken the one word more that north called for. the 'quarterly' asks why she waited till everybody concerned was dead. there is an obvious answer. because, while there was anybody living to whom the testimony would have been utterly destructive, there were the best reasons for withholding it. when all were gone from earth, and she herself was in constant expectation of passing away, there was a reason, and a proper one, why she should speak. by nature and principle truthful, she had had the opportunity of silently watching the operation of a permitted lie upon a whole generation. she had been placed in a position in which it was necessary, by silence, to allow the spread and propagation through society of a radical falsehood. lord byron's life, fame, and genius had all struck their roots into this lie, been nourished by it, and had derived thence a poisonous power. in reading this history, it will be remarked that he pleaded his personal misfortunes in his marriage as excuses for every offence against morality, and that the literary world of england accepted the plea, and tolerated and justified the crimes. never before, in england, had adultery been spoken of in so respectful a manner, and an adulteress openly praised and feted, and obscene language and licentious images publicly tolerated; and all on the plea of a man's private misfortunes. there was, therefore, great force in the suggestion made to lady byron, that she owed a testimony in this case to truth and justice, irrespective of any personal considerations. there is no more real reason for allowing the spread of a hurtful falsehood that affects ourselves than for allowing one that affects our neighbour. this falsehood had corrupted the literature and morals of both england and america, and led to the public toleration, by respectable authorities, of forms of vice at first indignantly rejected. the question was, was this falsehood to go on corrupting literature as long as history lasted? had the world no right to true history? had she who possessed the truth no responsibility to the world? was not a final silence a confirmation of a lie with all its consequences? this testimony of lady byron, so far from being thrown out altogether, as the 'quarterly' proposes, has a peculiar and specific value from the great forbearance and reticence which characterised the greater part of her life. the testimony of a person who has shown in every action perfect friendliness to another comes with the more weight on that account. testimony extorted by conscience from a parent against a child, or a wife against a husband, where all the other actions of the life prove the existence of kind feeling, is held to be the strongest form of evidence. the fact that lady byron, under the severest temptations and the bitterest insults and injuries, withheld every word by which lord byron could be criminated, so long as he and his sister were living, is strong evidence, that, when she did speak, it was not under the influence of ill- will, but of pure conscientious convictions; and the fullest weight ought, therefore, to be given to her testimony. we are asked now why she ever spoke at all. the fact that her story is known to several persons in england is brought up as if it were a crime. to this we answer, lady byron had an undoubted moral right to have exposed the whole story in a public court in , and thus cut herself loose from her husband by a divorce. for the sake of saving her husband and sister from destruction, she waived this right to self-justification, and stood for years a silent sufferer under calumny and misrepresentation. she desired nothing but to retire from the whole subject; to be permitted to enjoy with her child the peace and seclusion that belong to her sex. her husband made her, through his life and after his death, a subject of such constant discussion, that she must either abandon the current literature of her day, or run the risk of reading more or less about herself in almost every magazine of her time. conversations with lord byron, notes of interviews with lord byron, journals of time spent with lord byron, were constantly spread before the public. leigh hunt, galt, medwin, trelawney, lady blessington, dr. kennedy, and thomas moore, all poured forth their memorials; and in all she figured prominently. all these had their tribes of reviewers and critics, who also discussed her. the profound mystery of her silence seemed constantly to provoke inquiry. people could not forgive her for not speaking. her privacy, retirement, and silence were set down as coldness, haughtiness, and contempt of human sympathy. she was constantly challenged to say something: as, for example, in the 'noctes' of november , six months after byron's death, christopher north says, speaking of the burning of the autobiography,-- 'i think, since the memoir was burned by these people, these people are bound to put us in possession of the best evidence they still have the power of producing, in order that we may come to a just conclusion as to a subject upon which, by their act, at least, as much as by any other people's act, we are compelled to consider it our duty to make up our deliberate opinion,--deliberate and decisive. woe be to those who provoke this curiosity, and will not allay it! woe be to them! say i. woe to them! says the world.' when lady byron published her statement, which certainly seemed called for by this language, christopher north blamed her for doing it, and then again said that she ought to go on and tell the whole story. if she was thus adjured to speak, blamed for speaking, and adjured to speak further, all in one breath, by public prints, there is reason to think that there could not have come less solicitation from private sources,--from friends who had access to her at all hours, whom she loved, by whom she was beloved, and to whom her refusal to explain might seem a breach of friendship. yet there is no evidence on record, that we have seen, that she ever had other confidant than her legal counsel, till after all the actors in the events were in their graves, and the daughter, for whose sake largely the secret was guarded, had followed them. now, does anyone claim, that, because a woman has sacrificed for twenty years all cravings for human sympathy, and all possibility of perfectly free and unconstrained intercourse with her friends, that she is obliged to go on bearing this same lonely burden to the end of her days? let anyone imagine the frightful constraint and solitude implied in this sentence. let anyone, too, think of its painful complications in life. the roots of a falsehood are far-reaching. conduct that can only be explained by criminating another must often seem unreasonable and unaccountable; and the most truthful person, who feels bound to keep silence regarding a radical lie of another, must often be placed in positions most trying to conscientiousness. the great merit of 'caleb williams' as a novel consists in its philosophical analysis of the utter helplessness of an innocent person who agrees to keep the secret of a guilty one. one sees there how that necessity of silence produces all the effect of falsehood on his part, and deprives him of the confidence and sympathy of those with whom he would take refuge. for years, this unnatural life was forced on lady byron, involving her as in a network, even in her dearest family relations. that, when all the parties were dead, lady byron should allow herself the sympathy of a circle of intimate friends, is something so perfectly proper and natural, that we cannot but wonder that her conduct in this respect has ever been called in question. if it was her right to have had a public expose in , it was certainly her right to show to her own intimate circle the secret of her life when all the principal actors were passed from earth. the 'quarterly' speaks as if, by thus waiting, she deprived lord byron of the testimony of living witnesses. but there were as many witnesses and partisans dead on her side as on his. lady milbanke and sir ralph, sir samuel romilly and lady anne barnard were as much dead as hobhouse, moore, and others of byron's partisans. the 'quarterly' speaks of lady byron as 'running round, and repeating her story to people mostly below her own rank in life.' to those who know the personal dignity of lady byron's manners, represented and dwelt on by her husband in his conversations with lady blessington, this coarse and vulgar attack only proves the poverty of a cause which can defend itself by no better weapons. lord byron speaks of his wife as 'highly cultivated;' as having 'a degree of self-control i never saw equalled.' 'i am certain,' he says, 'that lady byron's first idea is what is due to herself: i mean that it is the undeviating rule of her conduct . . . . now, my besetting sin is a want of that self-respect which she has in excess . . . . but, though i accuse lady byron of an excess of self-respect, i must, in candour, admit, that, if any person ever had excuse for an extraordinary portion of it, she has; as, in all her thoughts, words, and actions, she is the most decorous woman that ever existed.' this is the kind of woman who has lately been accused in the public prints as a babbler of secrets and a gossip in regard to her private difficulties with children, grandchildren, and servants. it is a fair specimen of the justice that has generally been meted out to lady byron. in , she was accused of having made a confidant of campbell, on the strength of having written him a note declining to give him any information, or answer any questions. in july, , she was denounced by 'blackwood' as a madame brinvilliers for keeping such perfect silence on the matter of her husband's character; and in the last 'quarterly' she is spoken of as a gossip 'running round, and repeating her story to people below her in rank.' while we are upon this subject, we have a suggestion to make. john stuart mill says that utter self-abnegation has been preached to women as a peculiarly feminine virtue. it is true; but there is a moral limit to the value of self-abnegation. it is a fair question for the moralist, whether it is right and proper wholly to ignore one's personal claims to justice. the teachings of the saviour give us warrant for submitting to personal injuries; but both the saviour and st. paul manifested bravery in denying false accusations, and asserting innocence. lady byron was falsely accused of having ruined the man of his generation, and caused all his vices and crimes, and all their evil effects on society. she submitted to the accusation for a certain number of years for reasons which commended themselves to her conscience; but when all the personal considerations were removed, and she was about passing from life, it was right, it was just, it was strictly in accordance with the philosophical and ethical character of her mind, and with her habit of considering all things in their widest relations to the good of mankind, that she should give serious attention and consideration to the last duty which she might owe to abstract truth and justice in her generation. in her letter on the religious state of england, we find her advocating an absolute frankness in all religious parties. she would have all openly confess those doubts, which, from the best of motives, are usually suppressed; and believed, that, as a result of such perfect truthfulness, a wider love would prevail among christians. this shows the strength of her conviction of the power and the importance of absolute truth; and shows, therefore, that her doubts and conscientious inquiries respecting her duty on this subject are exactly what might have been expected from a person of her character and principles. having thus shown that lady byron's testimony is the testimony of a woman of strong and sound mind, that it was not given from malice nor ill-will, that it was given at a proper time and in a proper manner, and for a purpose in accordance with the most elevated moral views, and that it is coincident with all the established facts of this history, and furnishes a perfect solution of every mystery of the case, we think we shall carry the reader with us in saying that it is to be received as absolute truth. this conviction we arrive at while as yet we are deprived of the statement prepared by lady byron, and the proof by which she expected to sustain it; both which, as we understand, are now in the hands of her trustees. chapter vi. physiological argument. the credibility of the accusation of the unnatural crime charged to lord byron is greater than if charged to most men. he was born of parents both of whom were remarkable for perfectly ungoverned passions. there appears to be historical evidence that he was speaking literal truth when he says to medwin of his father,-- 'he would have made a bad hero for hannah more. he ran out three fortunes, and married or ran away with three women . . . he seemed born for his own ruin and that of the other sex. he began by seducing lady carmarthen, and spent her four thousand pounds; and, not content with one adventure of this kind, afterwards eloped with miss gordon.'--medwin's conversations, p. . lady carmarthen here spoken of was the mother of mrs. leigh. miss gordon became lord byron's mother. by his own account, and that of moore, she was a passionate, ungoverned, though affectionate woman. lord byron says to medwin,-- 'i lost my father when i was only six years of age. my mother, when she was in a passion with me (and i gave her cause enough), used to say, "o you little dog! you are a byron all over; you are as bad as your father!"'--ibid., p. . by all the accounts of his childhood and early youth, it is made apparent that ancestral causes had sent him into the world with a most perilous and exceptional sensitiveness of brain and nervous system, which it would have required the most judicious course of education to direct safely and happily. lord byron often speaks as if he deemed himself subject to tendencies which might terminate in insanity. the idea is so often mentioned and dwelt upon in his letters, journals, and conversations, that we cannot but ascribe it to some very peculiar experience, and not to mere affectation. but, in the history of his early childhood and youth, we see no evidence of any original malformation of nature. we see only evidence of one of those organisations, full of hope and full of peril, which adverse influences might easily drive to insanity, but wise physiological training and judicious moral culture might have guided to the most splendid results. but of these he had neither. he was alternately the pet and victim of his mother's tumultuous nature, and equally injured both by her love and her anger. a scotch maid of religious character gave him early serious impressions of religion, and thus added the element of an awakened conscience to the conflicting ones of his character. education, in the proper sense of the word, did not exist in england in those days. physiological considerations of the influence of the body on the soul, of the power of brain and nerve over moral development, had then not even entered the general thought of society. the school and college education literally taught him nothing but the ancient classics, of whose power in exciting and developing the animal passions byron often speaks. the morality of the times is strikingly exemplified even in its literary criticism. for example: one of byron's poems, written while a schoolboy at harrow, is addressed to 'my son.' mr. moore, and the annotator of the standard edition of byron's poems, gravely give the public their speculations on the point, whether lord byron first became a father while a schoolboy at harrow; and go into particulars in relation to a certain infant, the claim to which lay between lord byron and another schoolfellow. it is not the nature of the event itself, so much as the cool, unembarrassed manner in which it is discussed, that gives the impression of the state of public morals. there is no intimation of anything unusual, or discreditable to the school, in the event, and no apparent suspicion that it will be regarded as a serious imputation on lord byron's character. modern physiological developments would lead any person versed in the study of the reciprocal influence of physical and moral laws to anticipate the most serious danger to such an organisation as lord byron's, from a precocious development of the passions. alcoholic and narcotic stimulants, in the case of such a person, would be regarded as little less than suicidal, and an early course of combined drinking and licentiousness as tending directly to establish those unsound conditions which lead towards moral insanity. yet not only lord byron's testimony, but every probability from the licence of society, goes to show that this was exactly what did take place. neither restrained by education, nor warned by any correct physiological knowledge, nor held in check by any public sentiment, he drifted directly upon the fatal rock. here we give mr. moore full credit for all his abatements in regard to lord byron's excesses in his early days. moore makes the point very strongly that he was not, de facto, even so bad as many of his associates; and we agree with him. byron's physical organisation was originally as fine and sensitive as that of the most delicate woman. he possessed the faculty of moral ideality in a high degree; and he had not, in the earlier part of his life, an attraction towards mere brutal vice. his physical sensitiveness was so remarkable that he says of himself, 'a dose of salts has the effect of a temporary inebriation, like light champagne, upon me.' yet this exceptionally delicately-organised boy and youth was in a circle where not to conform to the coarse drinking-customs of his day was to incur censure and ridicule. that he early acquired the power of bearing large quantities of liquor is manifested by the record in his journal, that, on the day when he read the severe 'edinburgh' article upon his schoolboy poems, he drank three bottles of claret at a sitting. yet byron was so far superior to his times, that some vague impulses to physiological prudence seem to have suggested themselves to him, and been acted upon with great vigour. he never could have lived so long as he did, under the exhaustive process of every kind of excess, if he had not re-enforced his physical nature by an assiduous care of his muscular system. he took boxing-lessons, and distinguished himself in all athletic exercises. he also had periods in which he seemed to try vaguely to retrieve himself from dissipation, and to acquire self-mastery by what he called temperance. but, ignorant and excessive in all his movements, his very efforts at temperance were intemperate. from violent excesses in eating and drinking, he would pass to no less unnatural periods of utter abstinence. thus the very conservative power which nature has of adapting herself to any settled course was lost. the extreme sensitiveness produced by long periods of utter abstinence made the succeeding debauch more maddening and fatal. he was like a fine musical instrument, whose strings were every day alternating between extreme tension and perfect laxity. we have in his journal many passages, of which the following is a specimen:-- 'i have dined regularly to-day, for the first time since sunday last; this being sabbath too,--all the rest, tea and dry biscuits, six per diem. i wish to god i had not dined, now! it kills me with heaviness, stupor, and horrible dreams; and yet it was but a pint of bucellas, and fish. meat i never touch, nor much vegetable diet. i wish i were in the country, to take exercise, instead of being obliged to cool by abstinence, in lieu of it. i should not so much mind a little accession of flesh: my bones can well bear it. but the worst is, the devil always came with it, till i starved him out; and i will not be the slave of any appetite. if i do err, it shall be my heart, at least, that heralds the way. o my head! how it aches! the horrors of digestion! i wonder how bonaparte's dinner agrees with him.'--moore's life, vol. ii. p. . from all the contemporary history and literature of the times, therefore, we have reason to believe that lord byron spoke the exact truth when he said to medwin,-- 'my own master at an age when i most required a guide, left to the dominion of my passions when they were the strongest, with a fortune anticipated before i came into possession of it, and a constitution impaired by early excesses, i commenced my travels, in , with a joyless indifference to the world and all that was before me.'--medwin's conversations, p. . utter prostration of the whole physical man from intemperate excess, the deadness to temptation which comes from utter exhaustion, was his condition, according to himself and moore, when he first left england, at twenty-one years of age. in considering his subsequent history, we are to take into account that it was upon the brain and nerve-power, thus exhausted by early excess, that the draughts of sudden and rapid literary composition began to be made. there was something unnatural and unhealthy in the rapidity, clearness, and vigour with which his various works followed each other. subsequently to the first two cantos of 'childe harold,' 'the bride of abydos,' 'the corsair,' 'the giaour,' 'lara,' 'parisina,' and 'the siege of corinth,' all followed close upon each other, in a space of less than three years, and those the three most critical years of his life. 'the bride of abydos' came out in the autumn of , and was written in a week; and 'the corsair' was composed in thirteen days. a few months more than a year before his marriage, and the brief space of his married life, was the period in which all this literary labour was performed, while yet he was running the wild career of intrigue and fashionable folly. he speaks of 'lara' as being tossed off in the intervals between masquerades and balls, etc. it is with the physical results of such unnatural efforts that we have now chiefly to do. every physiologist would say that the demands of such poems on a healthy brain, in that given space, must have been exhausting; but when we consider that they were cheques drawn on a bank broken by early extravagance, and that the subject was prodigally spending vital forces in every other direction at the same time, one can scarcely estimate the physiological madness of such a course as lord byron's. it is evident from his journal, and moore's account, that any amount of physical force which was for the time restored by his first foreign travel was recklessly spent in this period, when he threw himself with a mad recklessness into london society in the time just preceding his marriage. the revelations made in moore's memoir of this period are sad enough: those to medwin are so appalling as to the state of contemporary society in england, as to require, at least, the benefit of the doubt for which lord byron's habitual carelessness of truth gave scope. his adventures with ladies of the highest rank in england are there paraded with a freedom of detail that respect for womanhood must lead every woman to question. the only thing that is unquestionable is, that lord byron made these assertions to medwin, not as remorseful confessions, but as relations of his bonnes fortunes, and that medwin published them in the very face of the society to which they related. when lord byron says, 'i have seen a great deal of italian society, and swum in a gondola; but nothing could equal the profligacy of high life in england . . . when i knew it,' he makes certainly strong assertions, if we remember what mr. moore reveals of the harem kept in venice. but when lord byron intimates that three married women in his own rank in life, who had once held illicit relations with him, made wedding-visits to his wife at one time, we must hope that he drew on his active imagination, as he often did, in his statements in regard to women. when he relates at large his amour with lord melbourne's wife, and represents her as pursuing him with an insane passion, to which he with difficulty responded; and when he says that she tracked a rival lady to his lodgings, and came into them herself, disguised as a carman--one hopes that he exaggerates. and what are we to make of passages like this?-- 'there was a lady at that time, double my own age, the mother of several children who were perfect angels, with whom i formed a liaison that continued without interruption for eight months. she told me she was never in love till she was thirty, and i thought myself so with her when she was forty. i never felt a stronger passion, which she returned with equal ardour . . . . . . . 'strange as it may seem, she gained, as all women do, an influence over me so strong that i had great difficulty in breaking with her.' unfortunately, these statements, though probably exaggerated, are, for substance, borne out in the history of the times. with every possible abatement for exaggeration in these statements, there remains still undoubted evidence from other sources that lord byron exercised a most peculiar and fatal power over the moral sense of the women with whom he was brought in relation; and that love for him, in many women, became a sort of insanity, depriving them of the just use of their faculties. all this makes his fatal history both possible and probable. even the article in 'blackwood,' written in for the express purpose of vindicating his character, admits that his name had been coupled with those of three, four, or more women of rank, whom it speaks of as 'licentious, unprincipled, characterless women.' that such a course, in connection with alternate extremes of excess and abstinence in eating and drinking, and the immense draughts on the brain- power of rapid and brilliant composition, should have ended in that abnormal state in which cravings for unnatural vice give indications of approaching brain-disease, seems only too probable. this symptom of exhausted vitality becomes often a frequent type in periods of very corrupt society. the dregs of the old greek and roman civilisation were foul with it; and the apostle speaks of the turning of the use of the natural into that which is against nature, as the last step in abandonment. the very literature of such periods marks their want of physical and moral soundness. having lost all sense of what is simple and natural and pure, the mind delights to dwell on horrible ideas, which give a shuddering sense of guilt and crime. all the writings of this fatal period of lord byron's life are more or less intense histories of unrepentant guilt and remorse or of unnatural crime. a recent writer in 'temple bar' brings to light the fact, that 'the bride of abydos,' the first of the brilliant and rapid series of poems which began in the period immediately preceding his marriage, was, in its first composition, an intense story of love between a brother and sister in a turkish harem; that lord byron declared, in a letter to galt, that it was drawn from real life; that, in compliance with the prejudices of the age, he altered the relationship to that of cousins before publication. this same writer goes on to show, by a series of extracts from lord byron's published letters and journals, that his mind about this time was in a fearfully unnatural state, and suffering singular and inexplicable agonies of remorse; that, though he was accustomed fearlessly to confide to his friends immoralities which would be looked upon as damning, there was now a secret to which he could not help alluding in his letters, but which he told moore he could not tell now, but 'some day or other when we are veterans.' he speaks of his heart as eating itself out; of a mysterious person, whom he says, 'god knows i love too well, and the devil probably too.' he wrote a song, and sent it to moore, addressed to a partner in some awful guilt, whose very name he dares not mention, because 'there is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame.' he speaks of struggles of remorse, of efforts at repentance, and returns to guilt, with a sort of horror very different from the well-pleased air with which he relates to medwin his common intrigues and adulteries. he speaks of himself generally as oppressed by a frightful, unnatural gloom and horror, and, when occasionally happy, 'not in a way that can or ought to last.' 'the giaour,' 'the corsair,' 'lara,' 'parisina,' 'the siege of corinth,' and 'manfred,' all written or conceived about this period of his life, give one picture of a desperate, despairing, unrepentant soul, whom suffering maddens, but cannot reclaim. in all these he paints only the one woman, of concentrated, unconsidering passion, ready to sacrifice heaven and defy hell for a guilty man, beloved in spite of religion or reason. in this unnatural literature, the stimulus of crime is represented as intensifying love. medora, gulnare, the page in 'lara,' parisina, and the lost sister of manfred, love the more intensely because the object of the love is a criminal, out- lawed by god and man. the next step beyond this is--madness. the work of dr. forbes winslow on 'obscure diseases of the brain and nerves' { } contains a passage so very descriptive of the case of lord byron, that it might seem to have been written for it. the sixth chapter of his work, on 'anomalous and masked affections of the mind,' contains, in our view, the only clue that can unravel the sad tragedy of byron's life. he says, p. ,-- 'these forms of unrecognised mental disorder are not always accompanied by any well-marked disturbance of the bodily health requiring medical attention, or any obvious departure from a normal state of thought and conduct such as to justify legal interference; neither do these affections always incapacitate the party from engaging in the ordinary business of life . . . . the change may have progressed insidiously and stealthily, having slowly and almost imperceptibly induced important molecular modifications in the delicate vesicular neurine of the brain, ultimately resulting in some aberration of the ideas, alteration of the affections, or perversion of the propensities or instincts. . . . 'mental disorder of a dangerous character has been known for years to be stealthily advancing, without exciting the slightest notion of its presence, until some sad and terrible catastrophe, homicide, or suicide, has painfully awakened attention to its existence. persons suffering from latent insanity often affect singularity of dress, gait, conversation, and phraseology. the most trifling circumstances stimulate their excitability. they are martyrs to ungovernable paroxysms of passion, are inflamed to a state of demoniacal fury by the most insignificant of causes, and occasionally lose all sense of delicacy of feeling, sentiment, refinement of manners and conversation. such manifestations of undetected mental disorder may be seen associated with intellectual and moral qualities of the highest order.' in another place, dr. winslow again adverts to this latter symptom, which was strikingly marked in the case of lord byron:-- 'all delicacy and decency of thought are occasionally banished from the mind, so effectually does the principle of thought in these attacks succumb to the animal instincts and passions . . . . 'such cases will commonly be found associated with organic predisposition to insanity or cerebral disease . . . . modifications of the malady are seen allied with genius. the biographies of cowper, burns, byron, johnson, pope, and haydon establish that the most exalted intellectual conditions do not escape unscathed. 'in early childhood, this form of mental disturbance may, in many cases, be detected. to its existence is often to be traced the motiveless crimes of the young.' no one can compare this passage of dr. forbes winslow with the incidents we have already cited as occurring in that fatal period before the separation of lord and lady byron, and not feel that the hapless young wife was indeed struggling with those inflexible natural laws, which, at some stages of retribution, involve in their awful sweep the guilty with the innocent. she longed to save; but he was gone past redemption. alcoholic stimulants and licentious excesses, without doubt, had produced those unseen changes in the brain, of which dr. forbes winslow speaks; and the results were terrible in proportion to the peculiar fineness and delicacy of the organism deranged. alas! the history of lady byron is the history of too many women in every rank of life who are called, in agonies of perplexity and fear, to watch that gradual process by which physical excesses change the organism of the brain, till slow, creeping, moral insanity comes on. the woman who is the helpless victim of cruelties which only unnatural states of the brain could invent, who is heart-sick to-day and dreads to-morrow,--looks in hopeless horror on the fatal process by which a lover and a protector changes under her eyes, from day to day, to a brute and a fiend. lady byron's married life--alas! it is lived over in many a cottage and tenement-house, with no understanding on either side of the cause of the woeful misery. dr. winslow truly says, 'the science of these brain-affections is yet in its infancy in england.' at that time, it had not even begun to be. madness was a fixed point; and the inquiries into it had no nicety. its treatment, if established, had no redeeming power. insanity simply locked a man up as a dangerous being; and the very suggestion of it, therefore, was resented as an injury. a most peculiar and affecting feature of that form of brain disease which hurries its victim, as by an overpowering mania, into crime, is, that often the moral faculties and the affections remain to a degree unimpaired, and protest with all their strength against the outrage. hence come conflicts and agonies of remorse proportioned to the strength of the moral nature. byron, more than any other one writer, may be called the poet of remorse. his passionate pictures of this feeling seem to give new power to the english language:-- 'there is a war, a chaos of the mind, when all its elements convulsed--combined, lie dark and jarring with perturbed force, and gnashing with impenitent remorse, that juggling fiend, who never spake before, but cries, "i warned thee!" when the deed is o'er.' it was this remorse that formed the only redeeming feature of the case. its eloquence, its agonies, won from all hearts the interest that we give to a powerful nature in a state of danger and ruin; and it may be hoped that this feeling, which tempers the stern justice of human judgments, may prove only a faint image of the wider charity of him whose thoughts are as far above ours as the heaven is above the earth. chapter vii. how could she love him? it has seemed, to some, wholly inconsistent, that lady byron, if this story were true, could retain any kindly feeling for lord byron, or any tenderness for his memory; that the profession implied a certain hypocrisy: but, in this sad review, we may see how the woman who once had loved him, might, in spite of every wrong he had heaped upon her, still have looked on this awful wreck and ruin chiefly with pity. while she stood afar, and refused to justify or join in the polluted idolatry which defended his vices, there is evidence in her writings that her mind often went back mournfully, as a mother's would, to the early days when he might have been saved. one of her letters in robinson's memoirs, in regard to his religious opinions, shows with what intense earnestness she dwelt upon the unhappy influences of his childhood and youth, and those early theologies which led him to regard himself as one of the reprobate. she says,-- 'not merely from casual expressions, but from the whole tenor of lord byron's feelings, i could not but conclude that he was a believer in the inspiration of the bible, and had the gloomiest calvinistic tenets. to that unhappy view of the relation of the creature to the creator i have always ascribed the misery of his life. 'it is enough for me to know that he who thinks his transgression beyond forgiveness . . . has righteousness beyond that of the self- satisfied sinner. it is impossible for me to doubt, that, could he once have been assured of pardon, his living faith in moral duty, and love of virtue ("i love the virtues that i cannot claim"), would have conquered every temptation. judge, then, how i must hate the creed that made him see god as an avenger, and not as a father! my own impressions were just the reverse, but could have but little weight; and it was in vain to seek to turn his thoughts from that fixed idea with which he connected his personal peculiarity as a stamp. instead of being made happier by any apparent good, he felt convinced that every blessing would be turned into a curse to him . . . "the worst of it is, i do believe," he said. i, like all connected with him, was broken against the rock of predestination. i may be pardoned for my frequent reference to the sentiment (expressed by him), that i was only sent to show him the happiness he was forbidden to enjoy.' in this letter we have the heart, not of the wife, but of the mother,--the love that searches everywhere for extenuations of the guilt it is forced to confess. that lady byron was not alone in ascribing such results to the doctrines of calvinism, in certain cases, appears from the language of the thirty- nine articles, which says:-- 'as the godly consideration of predestination, and our election in christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the workings of the spirit of christ; . . . so, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the spirit of christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of god's predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into recklessness of most unclean living,--no less perilous than desperation.' lord byron's life is an exact commentary on these words, which passed under the revision of calvin himself. the whole tone of this letter shows not only that lady byron never lost her deep interest in her husband, but that it was by this experience that all her religious ideas were modified. there is another of these letters in which she thus speaks of her husband's writings and character:-- 'the author of the article on "goethe" appears to me to have the mind which could dispel the illusion about another poet, without depreciating his claims . . . to the truest inspiration. 'who has sought to distinguish between the holy and the unholy in that spirit? to prove, by the very degradation of the one, how high the other was. a character is never done justice to by extenuating its faults: so i do not agree to nisi bonum. it is kinder to read the blotted page.' these letters show that lady byron's idea was that, even were the whole mournful truth about lord byron fully told, there was still a foundation left for pity and mercy. she seems to have remembered, that if his sins were peculiar, so also were his temptations; and to have schooled herself for years to gather up, and set in order in her memory, all that yet remained precious in this great ruin. probably no english writer that ever has made the attempt could have done this more perfectly. though lady byron was not a poet par excellence, yet she belonged to an order of souls fully equal to lord byron. hers was more the analytical mind of the philosopher than the creative mind of the poet; and it was, for that reason, the one mind in our day capable of estimating him fully both with justice and mercy. no person in england had a more intense sensibility to genius, in its loftier acceptation, than lady byron; and none more completely sympathised with what was pure and exalted in her husband's writings. there is this peculiarity in lord byron, that the pure and the impure in his poetry often run side by side without mixing,--as one may see at geneva the muddy stream of the arve and the blue waters of the rhone flowing together unmingled. what, for example, can be nobler, and in a higher and tenderer moral strain than his lines on the dying gladiator, in 'childe harold'? what is more like the vigour of the old hebrew scriptures than his thunderstorm in the alps? what can more perfectly express moral ideality of the highest kind than the exquisite descriptions of aurora raby,--pure and high in thought and language, occurring, as they do, in a work full of the most utter vileness? lady byron's hopes for her husband fastened themselves on all the noble fragments yet remaining in that shattered temple of his mind which lay blackened and thunder-riven; and she looked forward to a sphere beyond this earth, where infinite mercy should bring all again to symmetry and order. if the strict theologian must regret this as an undue latitude of charity, let it at least be remembered that it was a charity which sprang from a christian virtue, and which she extended to every human being, however lost, however low. in her view, the mercy which took him was mercy that could restore all. in my recollections of the interview with lady byron, when this whole history was presented, i can remember that it was with a softened and saddened feeling that i contemplated the story, as one looks on some awful, inexplicable ruin. the last letter which i addressed to lady byron upon this subject will show that such was the impression of the whole interview. it was in reply to the one written on the death of my son:-- 'jan. , . 'my dear friend,--i did long to hear from you at a time when few knew how to speak, because i knew that you had known everything that sorrow can teach,--you, whose whole life has been a crucifixion, a long ordeal. 'but i believe that the lamb, who stands for ever "in the midst of the throne, as it had been slain," has everywhere his followers,--those who seem sent into the world, as he was, to suffer for the redemption of others; and, like him, they must look to the joy set before them,--of redeeming others. 'i often think that god called you to this beautiful and terrible ministry when he suffered you to link your destiny with one so strangely gifted and so fearfully tempted. perhaps the reward that is to meet you when you enter within the veil where you must so soon pass will be to see that spirit, once chained and defiled, set free and purified; and to know that to you it has been given, by your life of love and faith, to accomplish this glorious change. 'i think increasingly on the subject on which you conversed with me once,--the future state of retribution. it is evident to me that the spirit of christianity has produced in the human spirit a tenderness of love which wholly revolts from the old doctrine on this subject; and i observe, that, the more christ-like anyone becomes, the more difficult it seems for them to accept it as hitherto presented. and yet, on the contrary, it was christ who said, "fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell;" and the most appalling language is that of christ himself. 'certain ideas, once prevalent, certainly must be thrown off. an endless infliction for past sins was once the doctrine: that we now generally reject. the doctrine now generally taught is, that an eternal persistence in evil necessitates everlasting suffering, since evil induces misery by the eternal nature of things; and this, i fear, is inferable from the analogies of nature, and confirmed by the whole implication of the bible. 'what attention have you given to this subject? and is there any fair way of disposing of the current of assertion, and the still deeper under-current of implication, on this subject, without admitting one which loosens all faith in revelation, and throws us on pure naturalism? but of one thing i always feel sure: probation does not end with this present life; and the number of the saved may therefore be infinitely greater than the world's history leads us to suppose. 'i think the bible implies a great crisis, a struggle, an agony, in which god and christ and all the good are engaged in redeeming from sin; and we are not to suppose that the little portion that is done for souls as they pass between the two doors of birth and death is all. 'the bible is certainly silent there. the primitive church believed in the mercies of an intermediate state; and it was only the abuse of it by romanism that drove the church into its present position, which, i think, is wholly indefensible, and wholly irreconcilable with the spirit of christ. for if it were the case, that probation in all cases begins and ends here, god's example would surely be one that could not be followed, and he would seem to be far less persevering than even human beings in efforts to save. 'nothing is plainer than that it would be wrong to give up any mind to eternal sin till every possible thing had been done for its recovery; and that is so clearly not the case here, that i can see that, with thoughtful minds, this belief would cut the very roots of religious faith in god: for there is a difference between facts that we do not understand, and facts which we do understand, and perceive to be wholly irreconcilable with a certain character professed by god. 'if god says he is love, and certain ways of explaining scripture make him less loving and patient than man, then we make scripture contradict itself. now, as no passage of scripture limits probation to this life, and as one passage in peter certainly unequivocally asserts that christ preached to the spirits in prison while his body lay in the grave, i am clear upon this point. 'but it is also clear, that if there be those who persist in refusing god's love, who choose to dash themselves for ever against the inflexible laws of the universe, such souls must for ever suffer. 'there may be souls who hate purity because it reveals their vileness; who refuse god's love, and prefer eternal conflict with it. for such there can be no peace. even in this life, we see those whom the purest self-devoting love only inflames to madness; and we have only to suppose an eternal persistence in this to suppose eternal misery. 'but on this subject we can only leave all reverently in the hands of that being whose almighty power is "declared chiefly in showing mercy."' chapter viii. conclusion. in leaving this subject, i have an appeal to make to the men, and more especially to the women, who have been my readers. in justice to lady byron, it must be remembered that this publication of her story is not her act, but mine. i trust you have already conceded, that, in so severe and peculiar a trial, she had a right to be understood fully by her immediate circle of friends, and to seek of them counsel in view of the moral questions to which such very exceptional circumstances must have given rise. her communication to me was not an address to the public: it was a statement of the case for advice. true, by leaving the whole, unguarded by pledge or promise, it left discretionary power with me to use it if needful. you, my sisters, are to judge whether the accusation laid against lady byron by the 'blackwood,' in , was not of so barbarous a nature as to justify my producing the truth i held in my hands in reply. the 'blackwood' claimed a right to re-open the subject because it was not a private but a public matter. it claimed that lord byron's unfortunate marriage might have changed not only his own destiny, but that of all england. it suggested, that, but for this, instead of wearing out his life in vice, and corrupting society by impure poetry, he might, at this day, have been leading the counsels of the state, and helping the onward movements of the world. then it directly charged lady byron with meanly forsaking her husband in a time of worldly misfortune; with fabricating a destructive accusation of crime against him, and confirming this accusation by years of persistent silence more guilty than open assertion. it has been alleged, that, even admitting that lady byron's story were true, it never ought to have been told. is it true, then, that a woman has not the same right to individual justice that a man has? if the cases were reversed, would it have been thought just that lord byron should go down in history loaded with accusations of crime because he could be only vindicated by exposing the crime of his wife? it has been said that the crime charged on lady byron was comparatively unimportant, and the one against lord byron was deadly. but the 'blackwood,' in opening the controversy, called lady byron by the name of an unnatural female criminal, whose singular atrocities alone entitle her to infamous notoriety; and the crime charged upon her was sufficient to warrant the comparison. both crimes are foul, unnatural, horrible; and there is no middle ground between the admission of the one or the other. you must either conclude that a woman, all whose other works, words, and deeds were generous, just, and gentle, committed this one monstrous exceptional crime, without a motive, and against all the analogies of her character, and all the analogies of her treatment of others; or you must suppose that a man known by all testimony to have been boundlessly licentious, who took the very course which, by every physiological law, would have led to unnatural results, did, at last, commit an unnatural crime. the question, whether i did right, when lady byron was thus held up as an abandoned criminal by the 'blackwood,' to interpose my knowledge of the real truth in her defence, is a serious one; but it is one for which i must account to god alone, and in which, without any contempt of the opinions of my fellow-creatures, i must say, that it is a small thing to be judged of man's judgment. i had in the case a responsibility very different from that of many others. i had been consulted in relation to the publication of this story by lady byron, at a time when she had it in her power to have exhibited it with all its proofs, and commanded an instant conviction. i have reason to think that my advice had some weight in suppressing that disclosure. i gave that advice under the impression that the byron controversy was a thing for ever passed, and never likely to return. it had never occurred to me, that, nine years after lady byron's death, a standard english periodical would declare itself free to re-open this controversy, when all the generation who were her witnesses had passed from earth; and that it would re-open it in the most savage form of accusation, and with the indorsement and commendation of a book of the vilest slanders, edited by lord byron's mistress. let the reader mark the retributions of justice. the accusations of the 'blackwood,' in , were simply an intensified form of those first concocted by lord byron in his 'clytemnestra' poem of . he forged that weapon, and bequeathed it to his party. the 'blackwood' took it up, gave it a sharper edge, and drove it to the heart of lady byron's fame. the result has been the disclosure of this history. it is, then, lord byron himself, who, by his network of wiles, his ceaseless persecutions of his wife, his efforts to extend his partisanship beyond the grave, has brought on this tumultuous exposure. he, and he alone, is the cause of this revelation. and now i have one word to say to those in england who, with all the facts and documents in their hands which could at once have cleared lady byron's fame, allowed the barbarous assault of the 'blackwood' to go over the civilised world without a reply. i speak to those who, knowing that i am speaking the truth, stand silent; to those who have now the ability to produce the facts and documents by which this cause might be instantly settled, and who do not produce them. i do not judge them; but i remind them that a day is coming when they and i must stand side by side at the great judgment-seat,--i to give an account for my speaking, they for their silence. in that day, all earthly considerations will have vanished like morning mists, and truth or falsehood, justice or injustice, will be the only realities. in that day, god, who will judge the secrets of all men, will judge between this man and this woman. then, if never before, the full truth shall be told both of the depraved and dissolute man who made it his life's object to defame the innocent, and the silent, the self-denying woman who made it her life's object to give space for repentance to the guilty. part iii. miscellaneous documents. the true story of lady byron's life, as originally published in 'the atlantic monthly.' the reading world of america has lately been presented with a book which is said to sell rapidly, and which appears to meet with universal favour. the subject of the book may be thus briefly stated: the mistress of lord byron comes before the world for the sake of vindicating his fame from slanders and aspersions cast on him by his wife. the story of the mistress versus wife may be summed up as follows:-- lord byron, the hero of the story, is represented as a human being endowed with every natural charm, gift, and grace, who, by the one false step of an unsuitable marriage, wrecked his whole life. a narrow-minded, cold-hearted precisian, without sufficient intellect to comprehend his genius, or heart to feel for his temptations, formed with him one of those mere worldly marriages common in high life; and, finding that she could not reduce him to the mathematical proprieties and conventional rules of her own mode of life, suddenly, and without warning, abandoned him in the most cruel and inexplicable manner. it is alleged that she parted from him in apparent affection and good- humour, wrote him a playful, confiding letter upon the way, but, after reaching her father's house, suddenly, and without explanation, announced to him that she would never see him again; that this sudden abandonment drew down upon him a perfect storm of scandalous stories, which his wife never contradicted; that she never in any way or shape stated what the exact reasons for her departure had been, and thus silently gave scope to all the malice of thousands of enemies. the sensitive victim was actually driven from england, his home broken up, and he doomed to be a lonely wanderer on foreign shores. in italy, under bluer skies, and among a gentler people, with more tolerant modes of judgment, the authoress intimates that he found peace and consolation. a lovely young italian countess falls in love with him, and, breaking her family ties for his sake, devotes herself to him; and, in blissful retirement with her, he finds at last that domestic life for which he was so fitted. soothed, calmed, and refreshed, he writes 'don juan,' which the world is at this late hour informed was a poem with a high moral purpose, designed to be a practical illustration of the doctrine of total depravity among young gentlemen in high life. under the elevating influence of love, he rises at last to higher realms of moral excellence, and resolves to devote the rest of his life to some noble and heroic purpose; becomes the saviour of greece; and dies untimely, leaving a nation to mourn his loss. the authoress dwells with a peculiar bitterness on lady byron's entire silence during all these years, as the most aggravated form of persecution and injury. she informs the world that lord byron wrote his autobiography with the purpose of giving a fair statement of the exact truth in the whole matter; and that lady byron bought up the manuscript of the publisher, and insisted on its being destroyed, unread; thus inflexibly depriving her husband of his last chance of a hearing before the tribunal of the public. as a result of this silent persistent cruelty on the part of a cold, correct, narrow-minded woman, the character of lord byron has been misunderstood, and his name transmitted to after-ages clouded with aspersions and accusations which it is the object of this book to remove. * * * * * such is the story of lord byron's mistress,--a story which is going the length of this american continent, and rousing up new sympathy with the poet, and doing its best to bring the youth of america once more under the power of that brilliant, seductive genius, from which it was hoped they had escaped. already we are seeing it revamped in magazine-articles, which take up the slanders of the paramour and enlarge on them, and wax eloquent in denunciation of the marble-hearted insensible wife. all this while, it does not appear to occur to the thousands of unreflecting readers that they are listening merely to the story of lord byron's mistress, and of lord byron; and that, even by their own showing, their heaviest accusation against lady byron is that she has not spoken at all. her story has never been told. for many years after the rupture between lord byron and his wife, that poet's personality, fate, and happiness had an interest for the whole civilized world, which, we will venture to say, was unparalleled. it is within the writer's recollection, how, in the obscure mountain-town where she spent her early days, lord byron's separation from his wife was, for a season, the all-engrossing topic. she remembers hearing her father recount at the breakfast-table the facts as they were given in the public papers, together with his own suppositions and theories of the causes. lord byron's 'fare thee well,' addressed to lady byron, was set to music, and sung with tears by young school-girls, even in this distant america. madame de stael said of this appeal, that she was sure it would have drawn her at once to his heart and his arms; she could have forgiven everything: and so said all the young ladies all over the world, not only in england but in france and germany, wherever byron's poetry appeared in translation. lady byron's obdurate cold-heartedness in refusing even to listen to his prayers, or to have any intercourse with him which might lead to reconciliation, was the one point conceded on all sides. the stricter moralists defended her; but gentler hearts throughout all the world regarded her as a marble-hearted monster of correctness and morality, a personification of the law unmitigated by the gospel. literature in its highest walks busied itself with lady byron. hogg, in the character of the ettrick shepherd, devotes several eloquent passages to expatiating on the conjugal fidelity of a poor highland shepherd's wife, who, by patience and prayer and forgiveness, succeeds in reclaiming her drunken husband, and making a good man of him; and then points his moral by contrasting with this touching picture the cold-hearted pharisaical correctness of lady byron. moore, in his 'life of lord byron,' when beginning the recital of the series of disgraceful amours which formed the staple of his life in venice, has this passage:-- 'highly censurable in point of morality and decorum as was his course of life while under the roof of madame ----, it was (with pain i am forced to confess) venial in comparison with the strange, headlong career of licence to which, when weaned from that connection, he so unrestrainedly, and, it may be added, defyingly abandoned himself. of the state of his mind on leaving england, i have already endeavoured to convey some idea; and among the feelings that went to make up that self-centred spirit of resistance which he then opposed to his fate was an indignant scorn for his own countrymen for the wrongs he thought they had done him. for a time, the kindly sentiments which he still harboured toward lady byron, and a sort of vague hope, perhaps, that all would yet come right again, kept his mind in a mood somewhat more softened and docile, as well as sufficiently under the influence of english opinions to prevent his breaking out into open rebellion against it, as he unluckily did afterward. 'by the failure of the attempted mediation with lady byron, his last link with home was severed: while, notwithstanding the quiet and unobtrusive life which he led at geneva, there was as yet, he found, no cessation of the slanderous warfare against his character; the same busy and misrepresenting spirit which had tracked his every step at home, having, with no less malicious watchfulness, dogged him into exile.' we should like to know what the misrepresentations and slanders must have been, when this sort of thing is admitted in mr. moore's justification. it seems to us rather wonderful how anybody, unless it were a person like the countess guiccioli, could misrepresent a life such as even byron's friend admits he was leading. during all these years, when he was setting at defiance every principle of morality and decorum, the interest of the female mind all over europe in the conversion of this brilliant prodigal son was unceasing, and reflects the greatest credit upon the faith of the sex. madame de stael commenced the first effort at evangelization immediately after he left england, and found her catechumen in a most edifying state of humility. he was, metaphorically, on his knees in penitence, and confessed himself a miserable sinner in the loveliest manner possible. such sweetness and humility took all hearts. his conversations with madame de stael were printed, and circulated all over the world; making it to appear that only the inflexibility of lady byron stood in the way of his entire conversion. lady blessington, among many others, took him in hand five or six years afterwards, and was greatly delighted with his docility, and edified by his frank and free confessions of his miserable offences. nothing now seemed wanting to bring the wanderer home to the fold but a kind word from lady byron. but, when the fair countess offered to mediate, the poet only shook his head in tragic despair; 'he had so many times tried in vain; lady byron's course had been from the first that of obdurate silence.' any one who would wish to see a specimen of the skill of the honourable poet in mystification will do well to read a letter to lady byron, which lord byron, on parting from lady blessington, enclosed for her to read just before he went to greece. he says,-- 'the letter which i enclose i was prevented from sending by my despair of its doing any good. i was perfectly sincere when i wrote it, and am so still. but it is difficult for me to withstand the thousand provocations on that subject which both friends and foes have for seven years been throwing in the way of a man whose feelings were once quick, and whose temper was never patient.' * * * * * 'to lady byron, care of the hon. mrs. leigh, london. 'pisa, nov. , . 'i have to acknowledge the receipt of "ada's hair," which is very soft and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years old, if i may judge from what i recollect of some in augusta's possession, taken at that age. but it don't curl--perhaps from its being let grow. 'i also thank you for the inscription of the date and name; and i will tell you why: i believe that they are the only two or three words of your handwriting in my possession. for your letters i returned; and except the two words, or rather the one word, "household," written twice in an old account book, i have no other. i burnt your last note, for two reasons: firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, i wished to take your word without documents, which are the worldly resources of suspicious people. 'i suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about ada's birthday--the th of december, i believe. she will then be six: so that, in about twelve more, i shall have some chance of meeting her; perhaps sooner, if i am obliged to go to england by business or otherwise. recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or nearness--every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our mutual feelings; which must always have one rallying point as long as our child exists, which, i presume, we both hope will be long after either of her parents. 'the time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer one of our prior acquaintance. we both made a bitter mistake; but now it is over, and irrevocably so. for at thirty-three on my part, and few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life, still it is one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as to admit of no modification; and, as we could not agree when younger, we should with difficulty do so now. 'i say all this, because i own to you, that notwithstanding everything, i considered our reunion as not impossible for more than a year after the separation; but then i gave up the hope entirely and for ever. but this very impossibility of reunion seems to me at least a reason why, on all the few points of discussion which can arise between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve,--perhaps more easily than nearer connections. for my own part, i am violent, but not malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentments. to you, who are colder and more concentrated, i would just hint, that you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a worse feeling for duty. i assure you that i bear you now (whatever i may have done) no resentment whatever. remember, that, if you have injured me in aught, this forgiveness is something; and that, if i have injured you, it is something more still, if it be true, as the moralists say, that the most offending are the least forgiving. 'whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, i have ceased to reflect upon any but two things; viz., that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again. i think, if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference to myself, it will be better for all three. 'yours ever, 'noel byron.' the artless thomas moore introduces this letter in the 'life,' with the remark,-- 'there are few, i should think, of my readers, who will not agree with me in pronouncing, that, if the author of the following letter had not right on his side, he had at least most of those good feelings which are found in general to accompany it.' the reader is requested to take notice of the important admission; that the letter was never sent to lady byron at all. it was, in fact, never intended for her, but was a nice little dramatic performance, composed simply with the view of acting on the sympathies of lady blessington and byron's numerous female admirers; and the reader will agree with us, we think, that, in this point of view, it was very neatly done, and deserves immortality as a work of high art. for six years he had been plunged into every kind of vice and excess, pleading his shattered domestic joys, and his wife's obdurate heart, as the apology and the impelling cause; filling the air with his shrieks and complaints concerning the slander which pursued him, while he filled letters to his confidential correspondents with records of new mistresses. during all these years, the silence of lady byron was unbroken; though lord byron not only drew in private on the sympathies of his female admirers, but employed his talents and position as an author in holding her up to contempt and ridicule before thousands of readers. we shall quote at length his side of the story, which he published in the first canto of 'don juan,' that the reader may see how much reason he had for assuming the injured tone which he did in the letter to lady byron quoted above. that letter never was sent to her; and the unmanly and indecent caricature of her, and the indelicate exposure of the whole story on his own side, which we are about to quote, were the only communications that could have reached her solitude. in the following verses, lady byron is represented as donna inez, and lord byron as don jose; but the incidents and allusions were so very pointed, that nobody for a moment doubted whose history the poet was narrating. 'his mother was a learned lady, famed for every branch of every science known in every christian language ever named, with virtues equalled by her wit alone: she made the cleverest people quite ashamed; and even the good with inward envy groaned, finding themselves so very much exceeded in their own way by all the things that she did. . . . . save that her duty both to man and god required this conduct; which seemed very odd. she kept a journal where his faults were noted, and opened certain trunks of books and letters, (all which might, if occasion served, be quoted); and then she had all seville for abettors, besides her good old grandmother (who doted): the hearers of her case become repeaters, then advocates, inquisitors, and judges,-- some for amusement, others for old grudges. and then this best and meekest woman bore with such serenity her husband's woes! just as the spartan ladies did of yore, who saw their spouses killed, and nobly chose never to say a word about them more. calmly she heard each calumny that rose, and saw his agonies with such sublimity, that all the world exclaimed, "what magnanimity!"' this is the longest and most elaborate version of his own story that byron ever published; but he busied himself with many others, projecting at one time a spanish romance, in which the same story is related in the same transparent manner: but this he was dissuaded from printing. the booksellers, however, made a good speculation in publishing what they called his domestic poems; that is, poems bearing more or less relation to this subject. every person with whom he became acquainted with any degree of intimacy was made familiar with his side of the story. moore's biography is from first to last, in its representations, founded upon byron's communicativeness, and lady byron's silence; and the world at last settled down to believing that the account so often repeated, and never contradicted, must be substantially a true one. the true history of lord and lady byron has long been perfectly understood in many circles in england; but the facts were of a nature that could not be made public. while there was a young daughter living whose future might be prejudiced by its recital, and while there were other persons on whom the disclosure of the real truth would have been crushing as an avalanche, lady byron's only course was the perfect silence in which she took refuge, and those sublime works of charity and mercy to which she consecrated her blighted early life. but the time is now come when the truth may be told. all the actors in the scene have disappeared from the stage of mortal existence, and passed, let us have faith to hope, into a world where they would desire to expiate their faults by a late publication of the truth. no person in england, we think, would as yet take the responsibility of relating the true history which is to clear lady byron's memory; but, by a singular concurrence of circumstances, all the facts of the case, in the most undeniable and authentic form, were at one time placed in the hands of the writer of this sketch, with authority to make such use of them as she should judge best. had this melancholy history been allowed to sleep, no public use would have been made of them; but the appearance of a popular attack on the character of lady byron calls for a vindication, and the true story of her married life will therefore now be related. lord byron has described in one of his letters the impression left upon his mind by a young person whom he met one evening in society, and who attracted his attention by the simplicity of her dress, and a certain air of singular purity and calmness with which she surveyed the scene around her. on inquiry, he was told that this young person was miss milbanke, an only child, and one of the largest heiresses in england. lord byron was fond of idealising his experiences in poetry; and the friends of lady byron had no difficulty in recognising the portrait of lady byron, as she appeared at this time of her life, in his exquisite description of aurora raby:-- 'there was indeed a certain fair and fairy one, of the best class, and better than her class,-- aurora raby, a young star who shone o'er life, too sweet an image for such glass; a lovely being scarcely formed or moulded; a rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded. . . . . early in years, and yet more infantine in figure, she had something of sublime in eyes which sadly shone as seraphs' shine; all youth, but with an aspect beyond time; radiant and grave, as pitying man's decline; mournful, but mournful of another's crime, she looked as if she sat by eden's door, and grieved for those who could return no more. . . . . she gazed upon a world she scarcely knew, as seeking not to know it; silent, lone, as grows a flower, thus quietly she grew, and kept her heart serene within its zone. there was awe in the homage which she drew; her spirit seemed as seated on a throne, apart from the surrounding world, and strong in its own strength,--most strange in one so young!' some idea of the course which their acquaintance took, and of the manner in which he was piqued into thinking of her, is given in a stanza or two:-- 'the dashing and proud air of adeline imposed not upon her: she saw her blaze much as she would have seen a glow-worm shine; then turned unto the stars for loftier rays. juan was something she could not divine, being no sibyl in the new world's ways; yet she was nothing dazzled by the meteor, because she did not pin her faith on feature. his fame too (for he had that kind of fame which sometimes plays the deuce with womankind,-- a heterogeneous mass of glorious blame, half virtues and whole vices being combined; faults which attract because they are not tame; follies tricked out so brightly that they blind),-- these seals upon her wax made no impression, such was her coldness or her self-possession. aurora sat with that indifference which piques a preux chevalier,--as it ought. of all offences, that's the worst offence which seems to hint you are not worth a thought. . . . . to his gay nothings, nothing was replied, or something which was nothing, as urbanity required. aurora scarcely looked aside, nor even smiled enough for any vanity. the devil was in the girl! could it be pride, or modesty, or absence, or inanity? . . . . juan was drawn thus into some attentions, slight but select, and just enough to express, to females of perspicuous comprehensions, that he would rather make them more than less. aurora at the last (so history mentions, though probably much less a fact than guess) so far relaxed her thoughts from their sweet prison as once or twice to smile, if not to listen. . . . . but juan had a sort of winning way, a proud humility, if such there be, which showed such deference to what females say, as if each charming word were a decree. his tact, too, tempered him from grave to gay, and taught him when to be reserved or free. he had the art of drawing people out, without their seeing what he was about. aurora, who in her indifference, confounded him in common with the crowd of flatterers, though she deemed he had more sense than whispering foplings or than witlings loud, commenced (from such slight things will great commence) to feel that flattery which attracts the proud, rather by deference than compliment, and wins even by a delicate dissent. and then he had good looks: that point was carried nem. con. amongst the women. . . . . now, though we know of old that looks deceive, and always have done, somehow these good looks, make more impression than the best of books. aurora, who looked more on books than faces, was very young, although so very sage: admiring more minerva than the graces, especially upon a printed page. but virtue's self, with all her tightest laces, has not the natural stays of strict old age; and socrates, that model of all duty, owned to a penchant, though discreet for beauty.' the presence of this high-minded, thoughtful, unworldly woman is described through two cantos of the wild, rattling 'don juan,' in a manner that shows how deeply the poet was capable of being affected by such an appeal to his higher nature. for instance, when don juan sits silent and thoughtful amid a circle of persons who are talking scandal, the poet says,-- ''tis true, he saw aurora look as though she approved his silence: she perhaps mistook its motive for that charity we owe, but seldom pay, the absent. . . . . he gained esteem where it was worth the most; and certainly aurora had renewed in him some feelings he had lately lost or hardened,--feelings which, perhaps ideal, are so divine that i must deem them real:-- the love of higher things and better days; the unbounded hope and heavenly ignorance of what is called the world and the world's ways; the moments when we gather from a glance more joy than from all future pride or praise, which kindled manhood, but can ne'er entrance the heart in an existence of its own of which another's bosom is the zone. and full of sentiments sublime as billows heaving between this world and worlds beyond, don juan, when the midnight hour of pillows arrived, retired to his.' . . . in all these descriptions of a spiritual unworldly nature acting on the spiritual and unworldly part of his own nature, every one who ever knew lady byron intimately must have recognised the model from which he drew, and the experience from which he spoke, even though nothing was further from his mind than to pay this tribute to the woman he had injured, and though before these lines, which showed how truly he knew her real character, had come one stanza of ribald, vulgar caricature, designed as a slight to her:-- 'there was miss millpond, smooth as summer's sea, that usual paragon, an only daughter, who seemed the cream of equanimity 'till skimmed; and then there was some milk and water; with a slight shade of blue, too, it might be, beneath the surface: but what did it matter? love's riotous; but marriage should have quiet, and, being consumptive, live on a milk diet.' the result of byron's intimacy with miss milbanke and the enkindling of his nobler feelings was an offer of marriage, which she, though at the time deeply interested in him, declined with many expressions of friendship and interest. in fact, she already loved him, but had that doubt of her power to be to him all that a wife should be, which would be likely to arise in a mind so sensitively constituted and so unworldly. they, however, continued a correspondence as friends; on her part, the interest continually increased; on his, the transient rise of better feelings was choked and overgrown by the thorns of base unworthy passions. from the height at which he might have been happy as the husband of a noble woman, he fell into the depths of a secret adulterous intrigue with a blood relation, so near in consanguinity, that discovery must have been utter ruin and expulsion from civilised society. from henceforth, this damning guilty secret became the ruling force in his life; holding him with a morbid fascination, yet filling him with remorse and anguish, and insane dread of detection. two years after his refusal by miss milbanke, his various friends, seeing that for some cause he was wretched, pressed marriage upon him. marriage has often been represented as the proper goal and terminus of a wild and dissipated career; and it has been supposed to be the appointed mission of good women to receive wandering prodigals, with all the rags and disgraces of their old life upon them, and put rings on their hands, and shoes on their feet, and introduce them, clothed and in their right minds, to an honourable career in society. marriage was, therefore, universally recommended to lord byron by his numerous friends and well-wishers; and so he determined to marry, and, in an hour of reckless desperation, sat down and wrote proposals to two ladies. one was declined: the other, which was accepted, was to miss milbanke. the world knows well that he had the gift of expression, and will not be surprised that he wrote a very beautiful letter, and that the woman who had already learned to love him fell at once into the snare. her answer was a frank, outspoken avowal of her love for him, giving herself to him heart and hand. the good in lord byron was not so utterly obliterated that he could receive such a letter without emotion, or practise such unfairness on a loving, trusting heart without pangs of remorse. he had sent the letter in mere recklessness; he had not seriously expected to be accepted; and the discovery of the treasure of affection which he had secured was like a vision of lost heaven to a soul in hell. but, nevertheless, in his letters written about the engagement, there are sufficient evidences that his self-love was flattered at the preference accorded him by so superior a woman, and one who had been so much sought. he mentions with an air of complacency that she has employed the last two years in refusing five or six of his acquaintance; that he had no idea she loved him, admitting that it was an old attachment on his part. he dwells on her virtues with a sort of pride of ownership. there is a sort of childish levity about the frankness of these letters, very characteristic of the man who skimmed over the deepest abysses with the lightest jests. before the world, and to his intimates, he was acting the part of the successful fiance, conscious all the while of the deadly secret that lay cold at the bottom of his heart. when he went to visit miss milbanke's parents as her accepted lover, she was struck with his manner and appearance: she saw him moody and gloomy, evidently wrestling with dark and desperate thoughts, and anything but what a happy and accepted lover should be. she sought an interview with him alone, and told him that she had observed that he was not happy in the engagement; and magnanimously added, that, if on review, he found he had been mistaken in the nature of his feelings, she would immediately release him, and they should remain only friends. overcome with the conflict of his feelings, lord byron fainted away. miss milbanke was convinced that his heart must really be deeply involved in an attachment with reference to which he showed such strength of emotion, and she spoke no more of a dissolution of the engagement. there is no reason to doubt that byron was, as he relates in his 'dream,' profoundly agonized and agitated when he stood before god's altar with the trusting young creature whom he was leading to a fate so awfully tragic; yet it was not the memory of mary chaworth, but another guiltier and more damning memory, that overshadowed that hour. the moment the carriage-doors were shut upon the bridegroom and the bride, the paroxysm of remorse and despair--unrepentant remorse and angry despair--broke forth upon her gentle head:-- 'you might have saved me from this, madam! you had all in your own power when i offered myself to you first. then you might have made me what you pleased; but now you will find that you have married a devil!' in miss martineau's sketches, recently published, is an account of the termination of this wedding-journey, which brought them to one of lady byron's ancestral country seats, where they were to spend the honeymoon. miss martineau says,-- 'at the altar she did not know that she was a sacrifice; but before sunset of that winter day she knew it, if a judgment may be formed from her face, and attitude of despair, when she alighted from the carriage on the afternoon of her marriage-day. it was not the traces of tears which won the sympathy of the old butler who stood at the open door. the bridegroom jumped out of the carriage and walked away. the bride alighted, and came up the steps alone, with a countenance and frame agonized and listless with evident horror and despair. the old servant longed to offer his arm to the young, lonely creature, as an assurance of sympathy and protection. from this shock she certainly rallied, and soon. the pecuniary difficulties of her new home were exactly what a devoted spirit like hers was fitted to encounter. her husband bore testimony, after the catastrophe, that a brighter being, a more sympathising and agreeable companion, never blessed any man's home. when he afterwards called her cold and mathematical, and over-pious, and so forth, it was when public opinion had gone against him, and when he had discovered that her fidelity and mercy, her silence and magnanimity, might be relied on, so that he was at full liberty to make his part good, as far as she was concerned. 'silent she was even to her own parents, whose feelings she magnanimously spared. she did not act rashly in leaving him, though she had been most rash in marrying him.' not all at once did the full knowledge of the dreadful reality into which she had entered come upon the young wife. she knew vaguely, from the wild avowals of the first hours of their marriage, that there was a dreadful secret of guilt; that byron's soul was torn with agonies of remorse, and that he had no love to give to her in return for a love which was ready to do and dare all for him. yet bravely she addressed herself to the task of soothing and pleasing and calming the man whom she had taken 'for better or for worse.' young and gifted; with a peculiar air of refined and spiritual beauty; graceful in every movement; possessed of exquisite taste; a perfect companion to his mind in all the higher walks of literary culture; and with that infinite pliability to all his varying, capricious moods which true love alone can give; bearing in her hand a princely fortune, which, with a woman's uncalculating generosity, was thrown at his feet,--there is no wonder that she might feel for a while as if she could enter the lists with the very devil himself, and fight with a woman's weapons for the heart of her husband. there are indications scattered through the letters of lord byron, which, though brief indeed, showed that his young wife was making every effort to accommodate herself to him, and to give him a cheerful home. one of the poems that he sends to his publisher about this time, he speaks of as being copied by her. he had always the highest regard for her literary judgments and opinions; and this little incident shows that she was already associating herself in a wifely fashion with his aims as an author. the poem copied by her, however, has a sad meaning, which she afterwards learned to understand only too well:-- 'there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away when the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay: 'tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone that fades so fast; but the tender bloom of heart is gone e'er youth itself be past. then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess: the magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain the shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.' only a few days before she left him for ever, lord byron sent murray manuscripts, in lady byron's handwriting, of the 'siege of corinth,' and 'parisina,' and wrote,-- 'i am very glad that the handwriting was a favourable omen of the morale of the piece: but you must not trust to that; for my copyist would write out anything i desired, in all the ignorance of innocence.' there were lucid intervals in which lord byron felt the charm of his wife's mind, and the strength of her powers. 'bell, you could be a poet too, if you only thought so,' he would say. there were summer-hours in her stormy life, the memory of which never left her, when byron was as gentle and tender as he was beautiful; when he seemed to be possessed by a good angel: and then for a little time all the ideal possibilities of his nature stood revealed. the most dreadful men to live with are those who thus alternate between angel and devil. the buds of hope and love called out by a day or two of sunshine are frozen again and again, till the tree is killed. but there came an hour of revelation,--an hour when, in a manner which left no kind of room for doubt, lady byron saw the full depth of the abyss of infamy which her marriage was expected to cover, and understood that she was expected to be the cloak and the accomplice of this infamy. many women would have been utterly crushed by such a disclosure; some would have fled from him immediately, and exposed and denounced the crime. lady byron did neither. when all the hope of womanhood died out of her heart, there arose within her, stronger, purer, and brighter, that immortal kind of love such as god feels for the sinner,--the love of which jesus spoke, and which holds the one wanderer of more account than the ninety and nine that went not astray. she would neither leave her husband nor betray him, nor yet would she for one moment justify his sin; and hence came two years of convulsive struggle, in which sometimes, for a while, the good angel seemed to gain ground, and then the evil one returned with sevenfold vehemence. lord byron argued his case with himself and with her with all the sophistries of his powerful mind. he repudiated christianity as authority; asserted the right of every human being to follow out what he called 'the impulses of nature.' subsequently he introduced into one of his dramas the reasoning by which he justified himself in incest. in the drama of 'cain,' adah, the sister and the wife of cain, thus addresses him:-- 'cain, walk not with this spirit. bear with what we have borne, and love me: i love thee. lucifer. more than thy mother and thy sire? adah. i do. is that a sin, too? lucifer. no, not yet: it one day will be in your children. adah. what! must not my daughter love her brother enoch? lucifer. not as thou lovest cain. adah. o my god! shall they not love, and bring forth things that love out of their love? have they not drawn their milk out of this bosom? was not he, their father, born of the same sole womb, in the same hour with me? did we not love each other, and, in multiplying our being, multiply things which will love each other as we love them? and as i love thee, my cain, go not forth with this spirit: he is not of ours. lucifer. the sin i speak of is not of my making and cannot be a sin in you, whate'er it seems in those who will replace ye in mortality. adah. what is the sin which is not sin in itself? can circumstance make sin of virtue? if it doth, we are the slaves of'-- lady byron, though slight and almost infantine in her bodily presence, had the soul, not only of an angelic woman, but of a strong reasoning man. it was the writer's lot to know her at a period when she formed the personal acquaintance of many of the very first minds of england; but, among all with whom this experience brought her in connection, there was none who impressed her so strongly as lady byron. there was an almost supernatural power of moral divination, a grasp of the very highest and most comprehensive things, that made her lightest opinions singularly impressive. no doubt, this result was wrought out in a great degree from the anguish and conflict of these two years, when, with no one to help or counsel her but almighty god, she wrestled and struggled with fiends of darkness for the redemption of her husband's soul. she followed him through all his sophistical reasonings with a keener reason. she besought and implored, in the name of his better nature, and by all the glorious things that he was capable of being and doing; and she had just power enough to convulse and shake and agonise, but not power enough to subdue. one of the first of living writers, in the novel of 'romola,' has given, in her masterly sketch of the character of tito, the whole history of the conflict of a woman like lady byron with a nature like that of her husband. she has described a being full of fascinations and sweetnesses, full of generosities and of good-natured impulses; a nature that could not bear to give pain, or to see it in others, but entirely destitute of any firm moral principle; she shows how such a being, merely by yielding step by step to the impulses of passion, and disregarding the claims of truth and right, becomes involved in a fatality of evil, in which deceit, crime, and cruelty are a necessity, forcing him to persist in the basest ingratitude to the father who has done all for him, and hard-hearted treachery to the high-minded wife who has given herself to him wholly. there are few scenes in literature more fearfully tragic than the one between romola and tito, when he finally discovers that she knows him fully, and can be deceived by him no more. some such hour always must come for strong decided natures irrevocably pledged--one to the service of good, and the other to the slavery of evil. the demoniac cried out, 'what have i to do with thee, jesus of nazareth? art thou come to torment me before the time?' the presence of all-pitying purity and love was a torture to the soul possessed by the demon of evil. these two years in which lady byron was with all her soul struggling to bring her husband back to his better self were a series of passionate convulsions. during this time, such was the disordered and desperate state of his worldly affairs, that there were ten executions for debt levied on their family establishment; and it was lady byron's fortune each time which settled the account. toward the last, she and her husband saw less and less of each other; and he came more and more decidedly under evil influences, and seemed to acquire a sort of hatred of her. lady byron once said significantly to a friend who spoke of some causeless dislike in another, 'my dear, i have known people to be hated for no other reason than because they impersonated conscience.' the biographers of lord byron, and all his apologists, are careful to narrate how sweet and amiable and obliging he was to everybody who approached him; and the saying of fletcher, his man-servant, that 'anybody could do anything with my lord, except my lady,' has often been quoted. the reason of all this will now be evident. 'my lady' was the only one, fully understanding the deep and dreadful secrets of his life, who had the courage resolutely and persistently and inflexibly to plant herself in his way, and insist upon it, that, if he went to destruction, it should be in spite of her best efforts. he had tried his strength with her fully. the first attempt had been to make her an accomplice by sophistry; by destroying her faith in christianity, and confusing her sense of right and wrong, to bring her into the ranks of those convenient women who regard the marriage-tie only as a friendly alliance to cover licence on both sides. when her husband described to her the continental latitude (the good-humoured marriage, in which complaisant couples mutually agreed to form the cloak for each other's infidelities), and gave her to understand that in this way alone she could have a peaceful and friendly life with him, she answered him simply, 'i am too truly your friend to do this.' when lord byron found that he had to do with one who would not yield, who knew him fully, who could not be blinded and could not be deceived, he determined to rid himself of her altogether. it was when the state of affairs between herself and her husband seemed darkest and most hopeless, that the only child of this union was born. lord byron's treatment of his wife during the sensitive period that preceded the birth of this child, and during her confinement, was marked by paroxysms of unmanly brutality, for which the only possible charity on her part was the supposition of insanity. moore sheds a significant light on this period, by telling us that, about this time, byron was often drunk, day after day, with sheridan. there had been insanity in the family; and this was the plea which lady byron's love put in for him. she regarded him as, if not insane, at least so nearly approaching the boundaries of insanity as to be a subject of forbearance and tender pity; and she loved him with that love resembling a mother's, which good wives often feel when they have lost all faith in their husband's principles, and all hopes of their affections. still, she was in heart and soul his best friend; true to him with a truth which he himself could not shake. in the verses addressed to his daughter, lord byron speaks of her as 'the child of love, though born in bitterness, and nurtured in convulsion.' a day or two after the birth of this child, lord byron came suddenly into lady byron's room, and told her that her mother was dead. it was an utter falsehood; but it was only one of the many nameless injuries and cruelties by which he expressed his hatred of her. a short time after her confinement, she was informed by him, in a note, that, as soon as she was able to travel, she must go; that he could not and would not longer have her about him; and, when her child was only five weeks old, he carried this threat of expulsion into effect. here we will insert briefly lady byron's own account (the only one she ever gave to the public) of this separation. the circumstances under which this brief story was written are affecting. lord byron was dead. the whole account between him and her was closed for ever in this world. moore's 'life' had been prepared, containing simply and solely lord byron's own version of their story. moore sent this version to lady byron, and requested to know if she had any remarks to make upon it. in reply, she sent a brief statement to him,--the first and only one that had come from her during all the years of the separation, and which appears to have mainly for its object the exculpation of her father and mother from the charge, made by the poet, of being the instigators of the separation. in this letter, she says, with regard to their separation,-- 'the facts are, i left london for kirkby mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the th of january, . lord byron had signified to me in writing, jan. , his absolute desire that i should leave london on the earliest day that i could conveniently fix. it was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a journey sooner than the th. previously to my departure, it had been strongly impressed upon my mind that lord byron was under the influence of insanity. this opinion was derived, in a great measure, from the communications made me by his nearest relatives and personal attendant, who had more opportunity than myself for observing him during the latter part of my stay in town. it was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying himself. 'with the concurrence of his family, i had consulted dr. baillie as a friend (jan. ) respecting the supposed malady. on acquainting him with the state of the case, and with lord byron's desire that i should leave london, dr. baillie thought that my absence might be advisable as an experiment, assuming the fact of mental derangement; for dr. baillie, not having had access to lord byron, could not pronounce a positive opinion on that point. he enjoined that, in correspondence with lord byron, i should avoid all but light and soothing topics. under these impressions, i left london, determined to follow the advice given by dr. baillie. whatever might have been the conduct of lord byron toward me from the time of my marriage, yet, supposing him to be in a state of mental alienation, it was not for me, nor for any person of common humanity, to manifest at that moment a sense of injury.' nothing more than this letter from lady byron is necessary to substantiate the fact, that she did not leave her husband, but was driven from him,--driven from him that he might give himself up to the guilty infatuation that was consuming him, without being tortured by her imploring face, and by the silent power of her presence and her prayers. for a long time before this, she had seen little of him. on the day of her departure, she passed by the door of his room, and stopped to caress his favourite spaniel, which was lying there; and she confessed to a friend the weakness of feeling a willingness even to be something as humble as that poor little creature, might she only be allowed to remain and watch over him. she went into the room where he and the partner of his sins were sitting together, and said, 'byron, i come to say goodbye,' offering, at the same time, her hand. lord byron put his hands behind him, retreated to the mantel-piece, and, looking on the two that stood there, with a sarcastic smile said, 'when shall we three meet again?' lady byron answered, 'in heaven, i trust'. and those were her last words to him on earth. now, if the reader wishes to understand the real talents of lord byron for deception and dissimulation, let him read, with this story in his mind, the 'fare thee well,' which he addressed to lady byron through the printer:-- 'fare thee well; and if for ever, still for ever fare thee well! even though unforgiving, never 'gainst thee shall my heart rebel. would that breast were bared before thee where thy head so oft hath lain, while that placid sleep came o'er thee thou canst never know again! though my many faults defaced me, could no other arm be found than the one which once embraced me to inflict a careless wound?' the re-action of society against him at the time of the separation from his wife was something which he had not expected, and for which, it appears, he was entirely unprepared. it broke up the guilty intrigue and drove him from england. he had not courage to meet or endure it. the world, to be sure, was very far from suspecting what the truth was: but the tide was setting against him with such vehemence as to make him tremble every hour lest the whole should be known; and henceforth, it became a warfare of desperation to make his story good, no matter at whose expense. he had tact enough to perceive at first that the assumption of the pathetic and the magnanimous, and general confessions of faults, accompanied with admissions of his wife's goodness, would be the best policy in his case. in this mood, he thus writes to moore:-- 'the fault was not in my choice (unless in choosing at all); for i do not believe (and i must say it in the very dregs of all this bitter business) that there ever was a better, or even a brighter, a kinder, or a more amiable, agreeable being than lady byron. i never had, nor can have, any reproach to make her while with me. where there is blame, it belongs to myself.' as there must be somewhere a scapegoat to bear the sin of the affair, lord byron wrote a poem called 'a sketch,' in which he lays the blame of stirring up strife on a friend and former governess of lady byron's; but in this sketch he introduces the following just eulogy on lady byron:-- 'foiled was perversion by that youthful mind which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, deceit infect not, near contagion soil, indulgence weaken, nor example spoil, nor mastered science tempt her to look down on humbler talents with a pitying frown, nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain, nor fortune change, pride raise, nor passion bow, nor virtue teach austerity,--till now; serenely purest of her sex that live, but wanting one sweet weakness,--to forgive; too shocked at faults her soul can never know, she deemed that all could be like her below: foe to all vice, yet hardly virtue's friend; for virtue pardons those she would amend.' in leaving england, lord byron first went to switzerland, where he conceived and in part wrote out the tragedy of 'manfred.' moore speaks of his domestic misfortunes, and the sufferings which he underwent at this time, as having influence in stimulating his genius, so that he was enabled to write with a greater power. anybody who reads the tragedy of 'manfred' with this story in his mind will see that it is true. the hero is represented as a gloomy misanthrope, dwelling with impenitent remorse on the memory of an incestuous passion which has been the destruction of his sister for this life and the life to come, but which, to the very last gasp, he despairingly refuses to repent of, even while he sees the fiends of darkness rising to take possession of his departing soul. that byron knew his own guilt well, and judged himself severely, may be gathered from passages in this poem, which are as powerful as human language can be made; for instance this part of the 'incantation,' which moore says was written at this time:-- 'though thy slumber may be deep, yet thy spirit shall not sleep: there are shades which will not vanish; there are thoughts thou canst not banish. by a power to thee unknown, thou canst never be alone: thou art wrapt as with a shroud; thou art gathered in a cloud; and for ever shalt thou dwell in the spirit of this spell. . . . . from thy false tears i did distil an essence which had strength to kill; from thy own heart i then did wring the black blood in its blackest spring; from thy own smile i snatched the snake, for there it coiled as in a brake; from thy own lips i drew the charm which gave all these their chiefest harm: in proving every poison known, i found the strongest was thine own. by thy cold breast and serpent smile, by thy unfathomed gulfs of guile, by that most seeming virtuous eye, by thy shut soul's hypocrisy, by the perfection of thine art which passed for human thine own heart, by thy delight in other's pain, and by thy brotherhood of cain, i call upon thee, and compel thyself to be thy proper hell!' again: he represents manfred as saying to the old abbot, who seeks to bring him to repentance,-- 'old man, there is no power in holy men, nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast, nor agony, nor greater than all these, the innate tortures of that deep despair, which is remorse without the fear of hell, but, all in all sufficient to itself, would make a hell of heaven, can exorcise from out the unbounded spirit the quick sense of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge upon itself: there is no future pang can deal that justice on the self-condemned he deals on his own soul.' and when the abbot tells him, 'all this is well; for this will pass away, and be succeeded by an auspicious hope, which shall look up with calm assurance to that blessed place which all who seek may win, whatever be their earthly errors,' he answers, 'it is too late.' then the old abbot soliloquises:-- 'this should have been a noble creature: he hath all the energy which would have made a goodly frame of glorious elements, had they been wisely mingled; as it is, it is an awful chaos,--light and darkness, and mind and dust, and passions and pure thoughts, mixed, and contending without end or order.' the world can easily see, in moore's biography, what, after this, was the course of lord byron's life; how he went from shame to shame, and dishonour to dishonour, and used the fortune which his wife brought him in the manner described in those private letters which his biographer was left to print. moore, indeed, says byron had made the resolution not to touch his lady's fortune; but adds, that it required more self-command than he possessed to carry out so honourable a purpose. lady byron made but one condition with him. she had him in her power; and she exacted that the unhappy partner of his sins should not follow him out of england, and that the ruinous intrigue should be given up. her inflexibility on this point kept up that enmity which was constantly expressing itself in some publication or other, and which drew her and her private relations with him before the public. the story of what lady byron did with the portion of her fortune which was reserved to her is a record of noble and skilfully administered charities. pitiful and wise and strong, there was no form of human suffering or sorrow that did not find with her refuge and help. she gave not only systematically, but also impulsively. miss martineau claims for her the honour of having first invented practical schools, in which the children of the poor were turned into agriculturists, artizans, seamstresses, and good wives for poor men. while she managed with admirable skill and economy permanent institutions of this sort, she was always ready to relieve suffering in any form. the fugitive slaves william and ellen crafts, escaping to england, were fostered by her protecting care. in many cases where there was distress or anxiety from poverty among those too self-respecting to make their sufferings known, the delicate hand of lady byron ministered to the want with a consideration which spared the most refined feelings. as a mother, her course was embarrassed by peculiar trials. the daughter inherited from the father not only brilliant talents, but a restlessness and morbid sensibility which might be too surely traced to the storms and agitations of the period in which she was born. it was necessary to bring her up in ignorance of the true history of her mother's life; and the consequence was that she could not fully understand that mother. during her early girlhood, her career was a source of more anxiety than of comfort. she married a man of fashion, ran a brilliant course as a gay woman of fashion, and died early of a lingering and painful disease. in the silence and shaded retirement of the sick-room, the daughter came wholly back to her mother's arms and heart; and it was on that mother's bosom that she leaned as she went down into the dark valley. it was that mother who placed her weak and dying hand in that of her almighty saviour. to the children left by her daughter, she ministered with the faithfulness of a guardian angel; and it is owing to her influence that those who yet remain are among the best and noblest of mankind. the person whose relations with byron had been so disastrous, also, in the latter years of her life, felt lady byron's loving and ennobling influences, and, in her last sickness and dying hours, looked to her for consolation and help. there was an unfortunate child of sin, born with the curse upon her, over whose wayward nature lady byron watched with a mother's tenderness. she was the one who could have patience when the patience of every one else failed; and though her task was a difficult one, from the strange abnormal propensities to evil in the object of her cares, yet lady byron never faltered, and never gave over, till death took the responsibility from her hands. during all this trial, strange to say, her belief that the good in lord byron would finally conquer was unshaken. to a friend who said to her, 'oh! how could you love him?' she answered briefly, 'my dear, there was the angel in him.' it is in us all. it was in this angel that she had faith. it was for the deliverance of this angel from degradation and shame and sin that she unceasingly prayed. she read every work that byron wrote--read it with a deeper knowledge than any human being but herself could possess. the ribaldry and the obscenity and the insults with which he strove to make her ridiculous in the world fell at her pitying feet unheeded. when he broke away from all this unworthy life to devote himself to a manly enterprise for the redemption of greece, she thought that she saw the beginning of an answer to her prayers. even although one of his latest acts concerning her was to repeat to lady blessington the false accusation which made lady byron the author of all his errors, she still had hopes from the one step taken in the right direction. in the midst of these hopes came the news of his sudden death. on his death-bed, it is well-known that he called his confidential english servant to him, and said to him, 'go to my sister; tell her--go to lady byron,--you will see her,--and say'-- here followed twenty minutes of indistinct mutterings, in which the names of his wife, daughter, and sister, frequently occurred. he then said, 'now i have told you all.' 'my lord,' replied fletcher, 'i have not understood a word your lordship has been saying.' 'not understand me!' exclaimed lord byron with a look of the utmost distress: 'what a pity! then it is too late,--all is over!' he afterwards, says moore, tried to utter a few words, of which none were intelligible except 'my sister--my child.' when fletcher returned to london, lady byron sent for him, and walked the room in convulsive struggles to repress her tears and sobs, while she over and over again strove to elicit something from him which should enlighten her upon what that last message had been; but in vain: the gates of eternity were shut in her face, and not a word had passed to tell her if he had repented. for all that, lady byron never doubted his salvation. ever before her, during the few remaining years of her widowhood, was the image of her husband, purified and ennobled, with the shadows of earth for ever dissipated, the stains of sin for ever removed; 'the angel in him,' as she expressed it, 'made perfect, according to its divine ideal.' never has more divine strength of faith and love existed in woman. out of the depths of her own loving and merciful nature, she gained such views of the divine love and mercy as made all hopes possible. there was no soul of whose future lady byron despaired,--such was her boundless faith in the redeeming power of love. after byron's death, the life of this delicate creature--so frail in body that she seemed always hovering on the brink of the eternal world, yet so strong in spirit, and so unceasing in her various ministries of mercy--was a miracle of mingled weakness and strength. to talk with her seemed to the writer of this sketch the nearest possible approach to talking with one of the spirits of the just made perfect. she was gentle, artless; approachable as a little child; with ready, outflowing sympathy for the cares and sorrows and interests of all who approached her; with a naive and gentle playfulness, that adorned, without hiding, the breadth and strength of her mind; and, above all, with a clear, divining, moral discrimination; never mistaking wrong for right in the slightest shade, yet with a mercifulness that made allowance for every weakness, and pitied every sin. there was so much of christ in her, that to have seen her seemed to be to have drawn near to heaven. she was one of those few whom absence cannot estrange from friends; whose mere presence in this world seems always a help to every generous thought, a strength to every good purpose, a comfort in every sorrow. living so near the confines of the spiritual world, she seemed already to see into it: hence the words of comfort which she addressed to a friend who had lost a son:-- 'dear friend, remember, as long as our loved ones are in god's world, they are in ours.' * * * * * it has been thought by some friends who have read the proof-sheets of the foregoing that the author should give more specifically her authority for these statements. the circumstances which led the writer to england at a certain time originated a friendship and correspondence with lady byron, which was always regarded as one of the greatest acquisitions of that visit. on the occasion of a second visit to england, in , the writer received a note from lady byron, indicating that she wished to have some private, confidential conversation upon important subjects, and inviting her, for that purpose, to spend a day with her at her country-seat near london, the writer went and spent a day with lady byron alone; and the object of the invitation was explained to her. lady byron was in such a state of health, that her physicians had warned her that she had very little time to live. she was engaged in those duties and retrospections which every thoughtful person finds necessary, when coming deliberately, and with open eyes, to the boundaries of this mortal life. at that time, there was a cheap edition of byron's works in contemplation, intended to bring his writings into circulation among the masses; and the pathos arising from the story of his domestic misfortunes was one great means relied on for giving it currency. under these circumstances, some of lady byron's friends had proposed the question to her, whether she had not a responsibility to society for the truth; whether she did right to allow these writings to gain influence over the popular mind by giving a silent consent to what she knew to be utter falsehoods. lady byron's whole life had been passed in the most heroic self-abnegation and self-sacrifice: and she had now to consider whether one more act of self-denial was not required of her before leaving this world; namely, to declare the absolute truth, no matter at what expense to her own feelings. for this reason, it was her desire to recount the whole history to a person of another country, and entirely out of the sphere of personal and local feelings which might be supposed to influence those in the country and station in life where the events really happened, in order that she might be helped by such a person's views in making up an opinion as to her own duty. the interview had almost the solemnity of a death-bed avowal. lady byron stated the facts which have been embodied in this article, and gave to the writer a paper containing a brief memorandum of the whole, with the dates affixed. we have already spoken of that singular sense of the reality of the spiritual world which seemed to encompass lady byron during the last part of her life, and which made her words and actions seem more like those of a blessed being detached from earth than of an ordinary mortal. all her modes of looking at things, all her motives of action, all her involuntary exhibitions of emotion, were so high above any common level, and so entirely regulated by the most unworldly causes, that it would seem difficult to make the ordinary world understand exactly how the thing seemed to lie before her mind. what impressed the writer more strongly than anything else was lady byron's perfect conviction that her husband was now a redeemed spirit; that he looked back with pain and shame and regret on all that was unworthy in his past life; and that, if he could speak or could act in the case, he would desire to prevent the further circulation of base falsehoods, and of seductive poetry, which had been made the vehicle of morbid and unworthy passions. lady byron's experience had led her to apply the powers of her strong philosophical mind to the study of mental pathology: and she had become satisfied that the solution of the painful problem which first occurred to her as a young wife, was, after all, the true one; namely, that lord byron had been one of those unfortunately constituted persons in whom the balance of nature is so critically hung, that it is always in danger of dipping towards insanity; and that, in certain periods of his life, he was so far under the influence of mental disorder as not to be fully responsible for his actions. she went over with a brief and clear analysis the history of his whole life as she had thought it out during the lonely musings of her widowhood. she dwelt on the ancestral causes that gave him a nature of exceptional and dangerous susceptibility. she went through the mismanagements of his childhood, the history of his school-days, the influence of the ordinary school-course of classical reading on such a mind as his. she sketched boldly and clearly the internal life of the young men of the time, as she, with her purer eyes, had looked through it; and showed how habits, which, with less susceptible fibre, and coarser strength of nature, were tolerable for his companions, were deadly to him, unhinging his nervous system, and intensifying the dangers of ancestral proclivities. lady byron expressed the feeling too, that the calvinistic theology, as heard in scotland, had proved in his case, as it often does in certain minds, a subtle poison. he never could either disbelieve or become reconciled to it; and the sore problems it proposes embittered his spirit against christianity. 'the worst of it is, i do believe,' he would often say with violence, when he had been employing all his powers of reason, wit, and ridicule upon these subjects. through all this sorrowful history was to be seen, not the care of a slandered woman to make her story good, but the pathetic anxiety of a mother, who treasures every particle of hope, every intimation of good, in the son whom she cannot cease to love. with indescribable resignation, she dwelt on those last hours, those words addressed to her, never to be understood till repeated in eternity. but all this she looked upon as for ever past; believing, that, with the dropping of the earthly life, these morbid impulses and influences ceased, and that higher nature which he often so beautifully expressed in his poems became the triumphant one. while speaking on this subject, her pale ethereal face became luminous with a heavenly radiance; there was something so sublime in her belief in the victory of love over evil, that faith with her seemed to have become sight. she seemed so clearly to perceive the divine ideal of the man she had loved, and for whose salvation she had been called to suffer and labour and pray, that all memories of his past unworthiness fell away, and were lost. her love was never the doting fondness of weak women; it was the appreciative and discriminating love by which a higher nature recognised god-like capabilities under all the dust and defilement of misuse and passion: and she never doubted that the love which in her was so strong, that no injury or insult could shake it, was yet stronger in the god who made her capable of such a devotion, and that in him it was accompanied by power to subdue all things to itself. the writer was so impressed and excited by the whole scene and recital, that she begged for two or three days to deliberate before forming any opinion. she took the memorandum with her, returned to london, and gave a day or two to the consideration of the subject. the decision which she made was chiefly influenced by her reverence and affection for lady byron. she seemed so frail, she had suffered so much, she stood at such a height above the comprehension of the coarse and common world, that the author had a feeling that it would almost be like violating a shrine to ask her to come forth from the sanctuary of a silence where she had so long abode, and plead her cause. she wrote to lady byron, that while this act of justice did seem to be called for, and to be in some respects most desirable, yet, as it would involve so much that was painful to her, the writer considered that lady byron would be entirely justifiable in leaving the truth to be disclosed after her death; and recommended that all the facts necessary should be put in the hands of some person, to be so published. years passed on. lady byron lingered four years after this interview, to the wonder of her physicians and all her friends. after lady byron's death, the writer looked anxiously, hoping to see a memoir of the person whom she considered the most remarkable woman that england has produced in the century. no such memoir has appeared on the part of her friends; and the mistress of lord byron has the ear of the public, and is sowing far and wide unworthy slanders, which are eagerly gathered up and read by an undiscriminating community. there may be family reasons in england which prevent lady byron's friends from speaking. but lady byron has an american name and an american existence; and reverence for pure womanhood is, we think, a national characteristic of the american; and, so far as this country is concerned, we feel that the public should have this refutation of the slanders of the countess guiccioli's book. lord lindsay's letter to the london 'times.' to the editor of 'the times.' sir,--i have waited in expectation of a categorical denial of the horrible charge brought by mrs. beecher stowe against lord byron and his sister on the alleged authority of the late lady byron. such denial has been only indirectly given by the letter of messrs. wharton and fords in your impression of yesterday. that letter is sufficient to prove that lady byron never contemplated the use made of her name, and that her descendants and representatives disclaim any countenance of mrs. b. stowe's article; but it does not specifically meet mrs. stowe's allegation, that lady byron, in conversing with her thirteen years ago, affirmed the charge now before us. it remains open, therefore, to a scandal-loving world, to credit the calumny through the advantage of this flaw, involuntary, i believe, in the answer produced against it. my object in addressing you is to supply that deficiency by proving that what is now stated on lady byron's supposed authority is at variance, in all respects, with what she stated immediately after the separation, when everything was fresh in her memory in relation to the time during which, according to mrs. b. stowe, she believed that byron and his sister were living together in guilt. i publish this evidence with reluctance, but in obedience to that higher obligation of justice to the voiceless and defenceless dead which bids me break through a reserve that otherwise i should have held sacred. the lady byron of would, i am certain, have sanctioned my doing so, had she foreseen the present unparalleled occasion, and the bar that the conditions of her will present (as i infer from messrs wharton and fords' letter) against any fuller communication. calumnies such as the present sink deep and with rapidity into the public mind, and are not easily eradicated. the fame of one of our greatest poets, and that of the kindest and truest and most constant friend that byron ever had, is at stake; and it will not do to wait for revelations from the fountain-head, which are not promised, and possibly may never reach us. the late lady anne barnard, who died in , a contemporary and friend of burke, windham, dundas, and a host of the wise and good of that generation, and remembered in letters as the authoress of 'auld robin gray,' had known the late lady byron from infancy, and took a warm interest in her; holding lord byron in corresponding repugnance, not to say prejudice, in consequence of what she believed to be his harsh and cruel treatment of her young friend. i transcribe the following passages, and a letter from lady byron herself (written in ) from ricordi, or private family memoirs, in lady anne's autograph, now before me. i include the letter, because, although treating only in general terms of the matter and causes of the separation, it affords collateral evidence bearing strictly upon the point of the credibility of the charge now in question:-- 'the separation of lord and lady byron astonished the world, which believed him a reformed man as to his habits, and a becalmed man as to his remorses. he had written nothing that appeared after his marriage till the famous "fare thee well," which had the power of compelling those to pity the writer who were not well aware that he was not the unhappy person he affected to be. lady byron's misery was whispered soon after her marriage and his ill usage, but no word transpired, no sign escaped, from her. she gave birth, shortly, to a daughter; and when she went, as soon as she was recovered, on a visit to her father's, taking her little ada with her, no one knew that it was to return to her lord no more. at that period, a severe fit of illness had confined me to bed for two months. i heard of lady byron's distress; of the pains he took to give a harsh impression of her character to the world. i wrote to her, and entreated her to come and let me see and hear her, if she conceived my sympathy or counsel could be any comfort to her. she came; but what a tale was unfolded by this interesting young creature, who had so fondly hoped to have made a young man of genius and romance (as she supposed) happy! they had not been an hour in the carriage which conveyed them from the church, when, breaking into a malignant sneer, "oh! what a dupe you have been to your imagination! how is it possible a woman of your sense could form the wild hope of reforming me? many are the tears you will have to shed ere that plan is accomplished. it is enough for me that you are my wife for me to hate you! if you were the wife of any other man, i own you might have charms," etc. i who listened was astonished. "how could you go on after this," said i, "my dear? why did you not return to your father's?" "because i had not a conception he was in earnest; because i reckoned it a bad jest, and told him so,--that my opinions of him were very different from his of himself, otherwise he would not find me by his side. he laughed it over when he saw me appear hurt: and i forgot what had passed, till forced to remember it. i believe he was pleased with me, too, for a little while. i suppose it had escaped his memory that i was his wife." but she described the happiness they enjoyed to have been unequal and perturbed. her situation, in a short time, might have entitled her to some tenderness; but she made no claim on him for any. he sometimes reproached her for the motives that had induced her to marry him: all was "vanity, the vanity of miss milbanke carrying the point of reforming lord byron! he always knew her inducements; her pride shut her eyes to his: he wished to build up his character and his fortunes; both were somewhat deranged: she had a high name, and would have a fortune worth his attention,--let her look to that for his motives!"--"o byron, byron!" she said, "how you desolate me!" he would then accuse himself of being mad, and throw himself on the ground in a frenzy, which she believed was affected to conceal the coldness and malignity of his heart,--an affectation which at that time never failed to meet with the tenderest commiseration. i could find by some implications, not followed up by me, lest she might have condemned herself afterwards for her involuntary disclosures, that he soon attempted to corrupt her principles, both with respect to her own conduct and her latitude for his. she saw the precipice on which she stood, and kept his sister with her as much as possible. he returned in the evenings from the haunts of vice, where he made her understand he had been, with manners so profligate! "o the wretch!" said i. "and had he no moments of remorse?" "sometimes he appeared to have them. one night, coming home from one of his lawless parties, he saw me so indignantly collected, and bearing all with such a determined calmness, that a rush of remorse seemed to come over him. he called himself a monster, though his sister was present, and threw himself in agony at my feet. i could not--no--i could not forgive him such injuries. he had lost me for ever! astonished at the return of virtue, my tears, i believe, flowed over his face, and i said, 'byron, all is forgotten: never, never shall you hear of it more!' he started up, and, folding his arms while he looked at me, burst into laughter. 'what do you mean?' said i. 'only a philosophical experiment; that's all,' said he. 'i wished to ascertain the value of your resolutions.'" i need not say more of this prince of duplicity, except that varied were his methods of rendering her wretched, even to the last. when her lovely little child was born, and it was laid beside its mother on the bed, and he was informed he might see his daughter, after gazing at it with an exulting smile, this was the ejaculation that broke from him: "oh, what an implement of torture have i acquired in you!" such he rendered it by his eyes and manner, keeping her in a perpetual alarm for its safety when in his presence. all this reads madder than i believe he was: but she had not then made up her mind to disbelieve his pretended insanity, and conceived it best to intrust her secret with the excellent dr. baillie; telling him all that seemed to regard the state of her husband's mind, and letting his advice regulate her conduct. baillie doubted of his derangement; but, as he did not reckon his own opinion infallible, he wished her to take precautions as if her husband were so. he recommended her going to the country, but to give him no suspicion of her intentions of remaining there, and, for a short time, to show no coldness in her letters, till she could better ascertain his state. she went, regretting, as she told me, to wear any semblance but the truth. a short time disclosed the story to the world. he acted the part of a man driven to despair by her inflexible resentment and by the arts of a governess (once a servant in the family) who hated him. "i will give you," proceeds lady anne, "a few paragraphs transcribed from one of lady byron's own letters to me. it is sorrowful to think, that, in a very little time, this young and amiable creature, wise, patient, and feeling, will have her character mistaken by every one who reads byron's works. to rescue her from this, i preserved her letters; and, when she afterwards expressed a fear that any thing of her writings should ever fall into hands to injure him (i suppose she meant by publication), i safely assured her that it never should. but here this letter shall be placed, a sacred record in her favour, unknown to herself:-- '"i am a very incompetent judge of the impression which the last canto of 'childe harold' may produce on the minds of indifferent readers. it contains the usual trace of a conscience restlessly awake; though his object has been too long to aggravate its burden, as if it could thus be oppressed into eternal stupor. i will hope, as you do, that it survives for his ultimate good. it was the acuteness of his remorse, impenitent in its character, which so long seemed to demand from my compassion to spare every resemblance of reproach, every look of grief, which might have said to his conscience, 'you have made me wretched.' i am decidedly of opinion that he is responsible. he has wished to be thought partially deranged, or on the brink of it, to perplex observers, and prevent them from tracing effects to their real causes through all the intricacies of his conduct. i was, as i told you, at one time the dupe of his acted insanity, and clung to the former delusions in regard to the motives that concerned me personally, till the whole system was laid bare. he is the absolute monarch of words, and uses them, as bonaparte did lives, for conquest, without more regard to their intrinsic value; considering them only as ciphers, which must derive all their import from the situation in which he places them, and the ends to which he adapts them with such consummate skill. why, then, you will say, does he not employ them to give a better colour to his own character? because he is too good an actor to over-act, or to assume a moral garb which it would be easy to strip off. in regard to his poetry, egotism is the vital principle of his imagination, which it is difficult for him to kindle on any subject with which his own character and interests are not identified: but by the introduction of fictitious incidents, by change of scene or time, he has enveloped his poetical disclosures in a system impenetrable except to a very few; and his constant desire of creating a sensation makes him not averse to be the object of wonder and curiosity, even though accompanied by some dark and vague suspicions. nothing has contributed more to the misunderstanding of his real character than the lonely grandeur in which he shrouds it, and his affectation of being above mankind, when he exists almost in their voice. the romance of his sentiments is another feature of this mask of state. i know no one more habitually destitute of that enthusiasm he so beautifully expresses, and to which he can work up his fancy chiefly by contagion. i had heard he was the best of brothers, the most generous of friends; and i thought such feelings only required to be warmed and cherished into more diffusive benevolence. though these opinions are eradicated, and could never return but with the decay of my memory, you will not wonder if there are still moments when the association of feelings which arose from them soften and sadden my thoughts. but i have not thanked you, dearest lady anne, for your kindness in regard to a principal object,--that of rectifying false impressions. i trust you understand my wishes, which never were to injure lord byron in any way: for, though he would not suffer me to remain his wife, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend; and it was from considering myself as such that i silenced the accusations by which my own conduct might have been more fully justified. it is not necessary to speak ill of his heart in general: it is sufficient that to me it was hard and impenetrable; that my own must have been broken before his could have been touched. i would rather represent this as my misfortune than as his guilt; but surely that misfortune is not to be made my crime! such are my feelings: you will judge how to act. his allusions to me in 'childe harold' are cruel and cold, but with such a semblance as to make me appear so, and to attract all sympathy to himself. it is said in this poem that hatred of him will be taught as a lesson to his child. i might appeal to all who have ever heard me speak of him, and still more to my own heart, to witness that there has been no moment when i have remembered injury otherwise than affectionately and sorrowfully. it is not my duty to give way to hopeless and wholly unrequited affection; but, so long as i live, my chief struggle will probably be not to remember him too kindly. i do not seek the sympathy of the world; but i wish to be known by those whose opinion is valuable, and whose kindness is clear to me. among such, my dear lady anne, you will ever be remembered by your truly affectionate, '"a. byron."' it is the province of your readers, and of the world at large, to judge between the two testimonies now before them,--lady byron's in and , and that put forward in by mrs. b. stowe, as communicated by lady byron thirteen years ago. in the face of the evidence now given, positive, negative, and circumstantial, there can be but two alternatives in the case: either mrs. b. stowe must have entirely misunderstood lady byron, and been thus led into error and misstatement; or we must conclude that, under the pressure of a lifelong and secret sorrow, lady byron's mind had become clouded with an hallucination in respect of the particular point in question. the reader will admire the noble but severe character displayed in lady byron's letter; but those who keep in view what her first impressions were, as above recorded, may probably place a more lenient interpretation than hers upon some of the incidents alleged to byron's discredit. i shall conclude with some remarks upon his character, written shortly after his death by a wise, virtuous, and charitable judge, the late sir walter scott, likewise in a letter to lady anne barnard:-- 'fletcher's account of poor byron is extremely interesting. i had always a strong attachment to that unfortunate though most richly-gifted man, because i thought i saw that his virtues (and he had many) were his own; and his eccentricities the result of an irritable temperament, which sometimes approached nearly to mental disease. those who are gifted with strong nerves, a regular temper, and habitual self-command, are not, perhaps, aware how much of what they may think virtue they owe to constitution; and such are but too severe judges of men like byron, whose mind, like a day of alternate storm and sunshine, is all dark shades and stray gleams of light, instead of the twilight gray which illuminates happier though less distinguished mortals. i always thought, that, when a moral proposition was placed plainly before lord byron, his mind yielded a pleased and willing assent to it; but, if there was any side view given in the way of raillery or otherwise, he was willing enough to evade conviction . . . . it augurs ill for the cause of greece that this master-spirit should have been withdrawn from their assistance just as he was obtaining a complete ascendancy over their counsels. i have seen several letters from the ionian islands, all of which unite in speaking in the highest praise of the wisdom and temperance of his counsels, and the ascendancy he was obtaining over the turbulent and ferocious chiefs of the insurgents. i have some verses written by him on his last birthday: they breathe a spirit of affection towards his wife, and a desire of dying in battle, which seems like an anticipation of his approaching fate.' i remain, sir, your obedient servant, lindsay. dunecht, sept. . dr. forbes winslow's letter to the london 'times.' to the editor. sir,--your paper of the th of september, containing an able and deeply interesting 'vindication of lord byron,' has followed me to this place. with the general details of the 'true story' (as it is termed) of lady byron's separation from her husband, as recorded in 'macmillan's magazine,' i have no desire or intention to grapple. it is only with the hypothesis of insanity, as suggested by the clever writer of the 'vindication' to account for lady byron's sad revelations to mrs. beecher stowe, with which i propose to deal. i do not believe that the mooted theory of mental aberration can, in this case, be for a moment maintained. if lady byron's statement of facts to mrs. b. stowe is to be viewed as the creation of a distempered fancy, a delusion or hallucination of an insane mind, what part of the narrative are we to draw the boundary-line between fact and delusion, sanity and insanity? where are we to fix the point d'appui of the lunacy? again: is the alleged 'hallucination' to be considered as strictly confined to the idea that lord byron had committed the frightful sin of incest? or is the whole of the 'true story' of her married life, as reproduced with such terrible minuteness by mrs. beecher stowe, to be viewed as the delusion of a disordered fancy? if lady byron was the subject of an 'hallucination' with regard to her husband, i think it not unreasonable to conclude that the mental alienation existed on the day of her marriage. if this proposition be accepted, the natural inference will be, that the details of the conversation which lady byron represents to have occurred between herself and lord byron as soon as they entered the carriage never took place. lord byron is said to have remarked to lady byron, 'you might have prevented this (or words to this effect): you will now find that you have married a devil. is this alleged conversation to be viewed as fact, or fiction? evidence of sanity, or insanity? is the revelation which lord byron is said to have made to his wife of his 'incestuous passion' another delusion, having no foundation except in his wife's disordered imagination? are his alleged attempts to justify to lady byron's mind the morale of the plea of 'continental latitude--the good-humoured marriage, in which complaisant couples mutually agree to form the cloak for each other's infidelities,'--another morbid perversion of her imagination? did this conversation ever take place? it will be difficult to separate one part of the 'true story' from another, and maintain that this portion indicates insanity, and that portion represents sanity. if we accept the hypothesis of hallucination, we are bound to view the whole of lady byron's conversations with mrs. b. stowe, and the written statement laid before her, as the wild and incoherent representations of a lunatic. on the day when lady byron parted from her husband, did she enter his private room, and find him with the 'object of his guilty passion?' and did he say, as they parted, 'when shall we three meet again?' is this to be considered as an actual occurrence, or as another form of hallucination? it is quite inconsistent with the theory of lady byron's insanity to imagine that her delusion was restricted to the idea of his having committed 'incest.' in common fairness, we are bound to view the aggregate mental phenomena which she exhibited from the day of the marriage to their final separation and her death. no person practically acquainted with the true characteristics of insanity would affirm, that, had this idea of 'incest' been an insane hallucination, lady byron could, from the lengthened period which intervened between her unhappy marriage and death, have refrained from exhibiting her mental alienation, not only to her legal advisers and trustees, but to others, exacting no pledge of secrecy from them as to her disordered impressions. lunatics do for a time, and for some special purpose, most cunningly conceal their delusions; but they have not the capacity to struggle for thirty-six years with a frightful hallucination, similar to the one lady byron is alleged to have had, without the insane state of mind becoming obvious to those with whom they are daily associating. neither is it consistent with experience to suppose that, if lady byron had been a monomaniac, her state of disordered understanding would have been restricted to one hallucination. her diseased brain, affecting the normal action of thought, would, in all probability, have manifested other symptoms besides those referred to of aberration of intellect. during the last thirty years, i have not met with a case of insanity (assuming the hypothesis of hallucination) at all parallel with that of lady byron's. in my experience, it is unique. i never saw a patient with such a delusion. if it should be established, by the statements of those who are the depositors of the secret (and they are now bound, in vindication of lord byron's memory, to deny, if they have the power of doing so, this most frightful accusation), that the idea of incest did unhappily cross lady byron's mind prior to her finally leaving him, it no doubt arose from a most inaccurate knowledge of facts and perfectly unjustifiable data, and was not, in the right psychological acceptation of the phrase, an insane hallucination. sir, i remain your obedient servant, forbes winslow, m.d. zaringerhof, freiburg-en-breisgau, sept. , . ----- extract from lord byron's expunged letter. to mr. murray. 'bologna, june , . . . . 'before i left venice, i had returned to you your late, and mr. hobhouse's sheets of "juan." don't wait for further answers from me, but address yours to venice as usual. i know nothing of my own movements. i may return there in a few days, or not for some time; all this depends on circumstances. i left mr. hoppner very well. my daughter allegra is well too, and is growing pretty: her hair is growing darker, and her eyes are blue. her temper and her ways, mr. hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make, in that case, a manageable young lady. 'i have never seen anything of ada, the little electra of my mycenae . . . . but there will come a day of reckoning, even if i should not live to see it. i have at least seen ---- shivered, who was one of my assassins. when that man was doing his worst to uproot my whole family,--tree, branch, and blossoms; when, after taking my retainer, he went over to them; when he was bringing desolation on my hearth, and destruction on my household gods,--did he think that, in less than three years, a natural event, a severe domestic, but an expected and common calamity, would lay his carcass in a cross-road, or stamp his name in a verdict of lunacy? did he (who in his sexagenary . . .) reflect or consider what my feelings must have been when wife and child and sister, and name and fame and country, were to be my sacrifice on his legal altar?--and this at a moment when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and my mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointment? while i was yet young, and might have reformed what might be wrong in my conduct, and retrieved what was perplexing in my affairs? but he is in his grave, and--what a long letter i have scribbled!' . . . * * * * * in order that the reader may measure the change of moral tone with regard to lord byron, wrought by the constant efforts of himself and his party, we give the two following extracts from 'blackwood:' the first is 'blackwood' in , just after the publication of 'don juan:' the second is 'blackwood' in . 'in the composition of this work, there is, unquestionably, a more thorough and intense infusion of genius and vice, power and profligacy, than in any poem which had ever before been written in the english, or, indeed, in any other modern language. had the wickedness been less inextricably mingled with the beauty and the grace and the strength of a most inimitable and incomprehensible muse, our task would have been easy. 'don juan' is by far the most admirable specimen of the mixture of ease, strength, gaiety, and seriousness, extant in the whole body of english poetry: the author has devoted his powers to the worst of purposes and passions; and it increases his guilt and our sorrow that he has devoted them entire. 'the moral strain of the whole poem is pitched in the lowest key. love, honour, patriotism, religion, are mentioned only to be scoffed at, as if their sole resting-place were, or ought to be, in the bosoms of fools. it appears, in short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted every species of sensual gratification, having drained the cup of sin even to its bitterest dregs, were resolved to show us that he is no longer a human being, even in his frailties, but a cool, unconcerned fiend, laughing with a detestable glee over the whole of the better and worse elements of which human life is composed; treating well-nigh with equal derision the most pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices; dead alike to the beauty of the one, and the deformity of the other; a mere heartless despiser of that frail but noble humanity, whose type was never exhibited in a shape of more deplorable degradation than in his own contemptuously distinct delineation of himself. to confess to his maker, and weep over in secret agonies the wildest and most fantastic transgressions of heart and mind, is the part of a conscious sinner, in whom sin has not become the sole principle of life and action; but to lay bare to the eye of man and of woman all the hidden convulsions of a wicked spirit, and to do all this without one symptom of contrition, remorse, or hesitation, with a calm, careless ferociousness of contented and satisfied depravity,--this was an insult which no man of genius had ever before dared to put upon his creator or his species. impiously railing against his god, madly and meanly disloyal to his sovereign and his country, and brutally outraging all the best feelings of female honour, affection, and confidence, how small a part of chivalry is that which remains to the descendant of the byrons!--a gloomy visor and a deadly weapon! 'those who are acquainted (and who is not?) with the main incidents in the private life of lord byron, and who have not seen this production, will scarcely believe that malignity should have carried him so far as to make him commence a filthy and impious poem with an elaborate satire on the character and manners of his wife, from whom, even by his own confession, he has been separated only in consequence of his own cruel and heartless misconduct. it is in vain for lord byron to attempt in any way to justify his own behaviour in that affair; and, now that he has so openly and audaciously invited inquiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should not be plainly told so by the general voice of his countrymen. it would not be an easy matter to persuade any man who has any knowledge of the nature of woman, that a female such as lord byron has himself described his wife to be would rashly or hastily or lightly separate herself from the love with which she had once been inspired for such a man as he is or was. had he not heaped insult upon insult, and scorn upon scorn, had he not forced the iron of his contempt into her very soul, there is no woman of delicacy and virtue, as he admitted lady byron to be, who would not have hoped all things, and suffered all things, from one, her love of whom must have been inwoven with so many exalting elements of delicious pride, and more delicious humility. to offend the love of such a woman was wrong, but it might be forgiven; to desert her was unmanly, but he might have returned, and wiped for ever from her eyes the tears of her desertion: but to injure and to desert, and then to turn back and wound her widowed privacy with unhallowed strains of cold-blooded mockery, was brutally, fiendishly, inexpiably mean. for impurities there might be some possibility of pardon, were they supposed to spring only from the reckless buoyancy of young blood and fiery passions; for impiety there might at least be pity, were it visible that the misery of the impious soul equalled its darkness: but for offences such as this, which cannot proceed either from the madness of sudden impulse or the bewildered agonies of doubt, but which speak the wilful and determined spite of an unrepenting, unsoftened, smiling, sarcastic, joyous sinner, there can be neither pity nor pardon. our knowledge that it is committed by one of the most powerful intellects our island ever has produced lends intensity a thousand-fold to the bitterness of our indignation. every high thought that was ever kindled in our breasts by the muse of byron, every pure and lofty feeling that ever responded from within us to the sweep of his majestic inspirations, every remembered moment of admiration and enthusiasm, is up in arms against him. we look back with a mixture of wrath and scorn to the delight with which we suffered ourselves to be filled by one, who, all the while he was furnishing us with delight, must, we cannot doubt it, have been mocking us with a cruel mockery; less cruel only, because less peculiar, than that with which he has now turned him from the lurking-place of his selfish and polluted exile to pour the pitiful chalice of his contumely on the surrendered devotion of a virgin bosom, and the holy hopes of the mother of his child. it is indeed a sad and a humiliating thing to know, that in the same year, there proceeded from the same pen two productions in all things so different as the fourth canto of "childe harold" and his loathsome "don juan." 'we have mentioned one, and, all will admit, the worst instance of the private malignity which has been embodied in so many passages of "don juan;" and we are quite sure the lofty-minded and virtuous men whom lord byron has debased himself by insulting will close the volume which contains their own injuries, with no feelings save those of pity for him that has inflicted them, and for her who partakes so largely in the same injuries.'--august, . * * * * * 'blackwood,'--iterum. 'we shall, like all others who say anything about lord byron, begin, sans apologie, with his personal character. this is the great object of attack, the constant theme of open vituperation to one set, and the established mark for all the petty but deadly artillery of sneers, shrugs, groans, to another. two widely different matters, however, are generally, we might say universally, mixed up here,--the personal character of the man, as proved by his course of life; and his personal character, as revealed in or guessed from his books. nothing can be more unfair than the style in which this mixture is made use of. is there a noble sentiment, a lofty thought, a sublime conception, in the book? "ah, yes!" is the answer. "but what of that? it is only the roue byron that speaks!" is a kind, a generous action of the man mentioned? "yes, yes!" comments the sage; "but only remember the atrocities of 'don juan:' depend on it, this, if it be true, must have been a mere freak of caprice, or perhaps a bit of vile hypocrisy." salvation is thus shut out at either entrance: the poet damns the man, and the man the poet. 'nobody will suspect us of being so absurd as to suppose that it is possible for people to draw no inferences as to the character of an author from his book, or to shut entirely out of view, in judging of a book, that which they may happen to know about the man who writes it. the cant of the day supposes such things to be practicable; but they are not. but what we complain of and scorn is the extent to which they are carried in the case of this particular individual, as compared with others; the impudence with which things are at once assumed to be facts in regard to his private history; and the absolute unfairness of never arguing from his writings to him, but for evil. 'take the man, in the first place, as unconnected, in so far as we can thus consider him, with his works; and ask, what, after all, are the bad things we know of him? was he dishonest or dishonourable? had he ever done anything to forfeit, or even endanger, his rank as a gentleman? most assuredly, no such accusations have ever been maintained against lord byron the private nobleman, although something of the sort may have been insinuated against the author. "but he was such a profligate in his morals, that his name cannot be mentioned with anything like tolerance." was he so, indeed? we should like extremely to have the catechising of the individual man who says so. that he indulged in sensual vices, to some extent, is certain, and to be regretted and condemned. but was he worse, as to such matters, than the enormous majority of those who join in the cry of horror upon this occasion? we most assuredly believe exactly the reverse; and we rest our belief upon very plain and intelligible grounds. first, we hold it impossible that the majority of mankind, or that anything beyond a very small minority, are or can be entitled to talk of sensual profligacy as having formed a part of the life and character of the man, who, dying at six and thirty, bequeathed a collection of works such as byron's to the world. secondly, we hold it impossible, that laying the extent of his intellectual labours out of the question, and looking only to the nature of the intellect which generated, and delighted in generating, such beautiful and noble conceptions as are to be found in almost all lord byron's works,--we hold it impossible that very many men can be at once capable of comprehending these conceptions, and entitled to consider sensual profligacy as having formed the principal, or even a principal, trait in lord byron's character. thirdly, and lastly, we have never been able to hear any one fact established which could prove lord byron to deserve anything like the degree or even kind of odium which has, in regard to matters of this class, been heaped upon his name. we have no story of base unmanly seduction, or false and villainous intrigue, against him,--none whatever. it seems to us quite clear, that, if he had been at all what is called in society an unprincipled sensualist, there must have been many such stories, authentic and authenticated. but there are none such,--absolutely none. his name has been coupled with the names of three, four, or more women of some rank: but what kind of women? every one of them, in the first place, about as old as himself in years, and therefore a great deal older in character; every one of them utterly battered in reputation long before he came into contact with them,--licentious, unprincipled, characterless women. what father has ever reproached him with the ruin of his daughter? what husband has denounced him as the destroyer of his peace? 'let us not be mistaken. we are not defending the offences of which lord byron unquestionably was guilty; neither are we finding fault with those, who, after looking honestly within and around themselves, condemn those offences, no matter how severely: but we are speaking of society in general as it now exists; and we say that there is vile hypocrisy in the tone in which lord byron is talked of there. we say, that, although all offences against purity of life are miserable things, and condemnable things, the degrees of guilt attached to different offences of this class are as widely different as are the degrees of guilt between an assault and a murder; and we confess our belief, that no man of byron's station or age could have run much risk in gaining a very bad name in society, had a course of life similar (in so far as we know any thing of that) to lord byron's been the only thing chargeable against him. 'the last poem he wrote was produced upon his birthday, not many weeks before he died. we consider it as one of the finest and most touching effusions of his noble genius. we think he who reads it, and can ever after bring himself to regard even the worst transgressions that have been charged against lord byron with any feelings but those of humble sorrow and manly pity, is not deserving of the name of man. the deep and passionate struggles with the inferior elements of his nature (and ours) which it records; the lofty thirsting after purity; the heroic devotion of a soul half weary of life, because unable to believe in its own powers to live up to what it so intensely felt to be, and so reverentially honoured as, the right; the whole picture of this mighty spirit, often darkened, but never sunk,--often erring, but never ceasing to see and to worship the beauty of virtue; the repentance of it; the anguish; the aspiration, almost stifled in despair,--the whole of this is such a whole, that we are sure no man can read these solemn verses too often; and we recommend them for repetition, as the best and most conclusive of all possible answers whenever the name of byron is insulted by those who permit themselves to forget nothing, either in his life or in his writings, but the good.'--[ .] letters of lady byron to h. c. robinson the following letters of lady byron's are reprinted from the memoirs of h. c. robinson. they are given that the reader may form some judgment of the strength and activity of her mind, and the elevated class of subjects upon which it habitually dwelt. lady byron to h. c. r. 'dec. , . 'dear mr. crabb robinson,--i have an inclination, if i were not afraid of trespassing on your time (but you can put my letter by for any leisure moment), to enter upon the history of a character which i think less appreciated than it ought to be. men, i observe, do not understand men in certain points, without a woman's interpretation. those points, of course, relate to feelings. 'here is a man taken by most of those who come in his way either for dry- as-dust, matter-of-fact, or for a "vain visionary." there are, doubtless, some defective or excessive characteristics which give rise to those impressions. 'my acquaintance was made, oddly enough, with him twenty-seven years ago. a pauper said to me of him, "he's the poor man's doctor." such a recommendation seemed to me a good one: and i also knew that his organizing head had formed the first district society in england (for mrs. fry told me she could not have effected it without his aid); yet he has always ignored his own share of it. i felt in him at once the curious combination of the christian and the cynic,--of reverence for man, and contempt of men. it was then an internal war, but one in which it was evident to me that the holier cause would be victorious, because there was deep belief, and, as far as i could learn, a blameless and benevolent life. he appeared only to want sunshine. it was a plant which could not be brought to perfection in darkness. he had begun life by the most painful conflict between filial duty and conscience,--a large provision in the church secured for him by his father; but he could not sign. there was discredit, as you know, attached to such scruples. 'he was also, when i first knew him, under other circumstances of a nature to depress him, and to make him feel that he was unjustly treated. the gradual removal of these called forth his better nature in thankfulness to god. still the old misanthropic modes of expressing himself obtruded themselves at times. this passed in ' between him and robertson. robertson said to me, "i want to know something about ragged schools." i replied, "you had better ask dr. king: he knows more about them."--"i?" said dr. king. "i take care to know nothing of ragged schools, lest they should make me ragged." robertson did not see through it. perhaps i had been taught to understand such suicidal speeches by my cousin, lord melbourne. 'the example of christ, imperfectly as it may be understood by him, has been ever before his eyes: he woke to the thought of following it, and he went to rest consoled or rebuked by it. after nearly thirty years of intimacy, i may, without presumption, form that opinion. there is something pathetic to me in seeing any one so unknown. even the other medical friends of robertson, when i knew that dr. king felt a woman's tenderness, said on one occasion to him, "but we know that you, dr. king, are above all feeling." 'if i have made the character more consistent to you by putting in these bits of mosaic, my pen will not have been ill employed, nor unpleasingly to you. 'yours truly, 'a. noel byron.' * * * * * lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, nov. , . 'the thoughts of all this public and private suffering have taken the life out of my pen when i tried to write on matters which would otherwise have been most interesting to me: these seemed the shadows, that the stern reality. it is good, however, to be drawn out of scenes in which one is absorbed most unprofitably, and to have one's natural interests revived by such a letter as i have to thank you for, as well as its predecessor. you touch upon the very points which do interest me the most, habitually. the change of form, and enlargement of design, in "the prospective" had led me to express to one of the promoters of that object my desire to contribute. the religious crisis is instant; but the man for it? the next best thing, if, as i believe, he is not to be found in england, is an association of such men as are to edit the new periodical. an address delivered by freeman clarke at boston, last may, makes me think him better fitted for a leader than any other of the religious "free-thinkers." i wish i could send you my one copy; but you do not need, it, and others do. his object is the same as that of the "alliance universelle:" only he is still more free from "partialism" (his own word) in his aspirations and practical suggestions with respect to an ultimate "christian synthesis." he so far adopts comte's theory as to speak of religion itself under three successive aspects, historically,-- . thesis; . antithesis; . synthesis. i made his acquaintance in england; and he inspired confidence at once by his brave independence (incomptis capillis) and self-unconsciousness. j. j. tayler's address of last month follows in the same path,--all in favour of the "irenics," instead of polemics. 'the answer which you gave me so fully and distinctly to the questions i proposed for your consideration was of value in turning to my view certain aspects of the case which i had not before observed. i had begun a second attack on your patience, when all was forgotten in the news of the day.' * * * * * lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, dec. , . 'with j. j. tayler, though almost a stranger to him, i have a peculiar reason for sympathising. a book of his was a treasure to my daughter on her death-bed. { a} 'i must confess to intolerance of opinion as to these two points,--eternal evil in any form, and (involved in it) eternal suffering. to believe in these would take away my god, who is all-loving. with a god with whom omnipotence and omniscience were all, evil might be eternal; but why do i say to you what has been better said elsewhere?' * * * * * lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, jan. , . . . . 'the great difficulty in respect to "the review" { b} seems to be to settle a basis, inclusive and exclusive; in short, a boundary question. from what you said, i think you agreed with me, that a latitudinarian christianity ought to be the character of the periodical; but the depth of the roots should correspond with the width of the branches of that tree of knowledge. of some of those minds one might say, "they have no root;" and then, the richer the foliage, the more danger that the trunk will fall. "grounded in christ" has to me a most practical significance and value. i, too, have anxiety about a friend (miss carpenter) whose life is of public importance: she, more than any of the english reformers, unless nash and wright, has found the art of drawing out the good of human nature, and proving its existence. she makes these discoveries by the light of love. i hope she may recover, from to-day's report. the object of a reformatory in leicester has just been secured at a county meeting . . . . now the desideratum is well- qualified masters and mistresses. if you hear of such by chance, pray let me know. the regular schoolmaster is an extinguisher. heart, and familiarity with the class to be educated, are all important. at home and abroad, the evidence is conclusive on that point; for i have for many years attended to such experiments in various parts of europe. "the irish quarterly" has taken up the subject with rather more zeal than judgment. i had hoped that a sound and temperate exposition of the facts might form an article in the "might-have-been review."' * * * * * lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, feb. , . 'i have at last earned the pleasure of writing to you by having settled troublesome matters of little moment, except locally; and i gladly take a wider range by sympathizing in your interests. there is, besides, no responsibility--for me at least--in canvassing the merits of russell or palmerston, but much in deciding whether the "village politician" jackson or thompson shall be leader in the school or public-house. 'has not the nation been brought to a conviction that the system should be broken up? and is lord palmerston, who has used it so long and so cleverly, likely to promote that object? 'but, whatever obstacles there may be in state affairs, that general persuasion must modify other departments of action and knowledge. "unroasted coffee" will no longer be accepted under the official seal,--another reason for a new literary combination for distinct special objects, a review in which every separate article should be convergent. if, instead of the problem to make a circle pass through three given points, it were required to find the centre from which to describe a circle through any three articles in the "edinburgh" or "westminster review," who would accomplish it? much force is lost for want of this one-mindedness amongst the contributors. it would not exclude variety or freedom in the unlimited discussion of means towards the ends unequivocally recognized. if st. paul had edited a review, he might have admitted peter as well as luke or barnabas . . . . 'ross gave us an excellent sermon, yesterday, on "hallowing the name." though far from commonplace, it might have been delivered in any church. 'we have had fanny kemble here last week. i only heard her "romeo and juliet,"--not less instructive, as her readings always are, than exciting; for in her glass shakspeare is a philosopher. i know her, and honour her, for her truthfulness amidst all trials.' * * * * * lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, march , . 'i recollect only those passages of dr. kennedy's book which bear upon the opinions of lord byron. strange as it may seem, dr. kennedy is most faithful where you doubt his being so. not merely from casual expressions, but from the whole tenor of lord byron's feelings, i could not but conclude he was a believer in the inspiration of the bible, and had the gloomiest calvinistic tenets. to that unhappy view of the relation of the creature to the creator, i have always ascribed the misery of his life . . . . it is enough for me to remember, that he who thinks his transgressions beyond forgiveness (and such was his own deepest feeling) has righteousness beyond that of the self-satisfied sinner, or, perhaps, of the half-awakened. it was impossible for me to doubt, that, could he have been at once assured of pardon, his living faith in a moral duty, and love of virtue ("i love the virtues which i cannot claim"), would have conquered every temptation. judge, then, how i must hate the creed which made him see god as an avenger, not a father! my own impressions were just the reverse, but could have little weight; and it was in vain to seek to turn his thoughts for long from that idee fixe with which he connected his physical peculiarity as a stamp. instead of being made happier by any apparent good, he felt convinced that every blessing would be "turned into a curse" to him. who, possessed by such ideas, could lead a life of love and service to god or man? they must, in a measure, realize themselves. "the worst of it is, i do believe," he said. i, like all connected with him, was broken against the rock of predestination. i may be pardoned for referring to his frequent expression of the sentiment that i was only sent to show him the happiness he was forbidden to enjoy. you will now better understand why "the deformed transformed" is too painful to me for discussion. since writing the above, i have read dr. granville's letter on the emperor of russia, some passages of which seem applicable to the prepossession i have described. i will not mix up less serious matters with these, which forty years have not made less than present still to me.' * * * * * lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, april , . . . . . 'the book which has interested me most, lately, is that on "mosaism," translated by miss goldsmid, and which i read, as you will believe, without any christian (unchristian?) prejudice. the missionaries of the unity were always, from my childhood, regarded by me as in that sense the people; and i believe they were true to that mission, though blind, intellectually, in demanding the crucifixion. the present aspect of jewish opinions, as shown in that book, is all but christian. the author is under the error of taking, as the representatives of christianity, the mystics, ascetics, and quietists; and therefore he does not know how near he is to the true spirit of the gospel. if you should happen to see miss goldsmid, pray tell her what a great service i think she has rendered to us soi-disant christians in translating a book which must make us sensible of the little we have done, and the much we have to do, to justify our preference of the later to the earlier dispensation.' . . . * * * * * lady byron to h. c. r. brighton, april , . 'you appear to have more definite information respecting "the review" than i have obtained . . . it was also said that "the review" would, in fact, be "the prospective" amplified,--not satisfactory to me, because i have always thought that periodical too unitarian, in the sense of separating itself from other christian churches, if not by a high wall, at least by a wire-gauze fence. now, separation is to me the [greek text]. the revelation through nature never separates: it is the revelation through the book which separates. whewell and brewster would have been one, had they not, i think, equally dimmed their lamps of science when reading their bibles. as long as we think a truth better for being shut up in a text, we are not of the wide-world religion, which is to include all in one fold: for that text will not be accepted by the followers of other books, or students of the same; and separation will ensue. the christian scripture should be dear to us, not as the charter of a few, but of mankind; and to fashion it into cages is to deny its ultimate objects. these thoughts hot, like the roll at breakfast, where your letter was so welcome an addition.' three domestic poems by lord byron. fare thee well. fare thee well! and if for ever, still for ever fare thee well! even though unforgiving, never 'gainst thee shall my heart rebel. would that breast were bared before thee where thy head so oft hath lain, while that placid sleep came o'er thee which thou ne'er canst know again! would that breast, by thee glanced over, every inmost thought could show! then thou wouldst at last discover 'twas not well to spurn it so. though the world for this commend thee, though it smile upon the blow, even its praises must offend thee, founded on another's woe. though my many faults defaced me, could no other arm be found, than the one which once embraced me, to inflict a cureless wound? yet, oh! yet, thyself deceive not: love may sink by slow decay; but, by sudden wrench, believe not hearts can thus be torn away: still thine own its life retaineth; still must mine, though bleeding, beat and the undying thought which paineth is--that we no more may meet. these are words of deeper sorrow than the wail above the dead: both shall live, but every morrow wake us from a widowed bed. and when thou wouldst solace gather, when our child's first accents flow, wilt thou teach her to say 'father,' though his care she must forego? when her little hand shall press thee, when her lip to thine is pressed, think of him whose prayer shall bless thee; think of him thy love had blessed. should her lineaments resemble those thou never more mayst see, then thy heart will softly tremble with a pulse yet true to me. all my faults, perchance, thou knowest; all my madness none can know: all my hopes, where'er thou goest, wither; yet with thee they go. every feeling hath been shaken: pride, which not a world could bow, bows to thee, by thee forsaken; even my soul forsakes me now. but 'tis done: all words are idle; words from me are vainer still; but the thoughts we cannot bridle force their way without the will. fare thee well!--thus disunited, torn from every nearer tie, seared in heart, and lone and blighted, more than this i scarce can die. a sketch. born in the garret, in the kitchen bred; promoted thence to deck her mistress' head; next--for some gracious service unexpress'd, and from its wages only to be guessed-- raised from the toilette to the table, where her wondering betters wait behind her chair, with eye unmoved, and forehead unabashed, she dines from off the plate she lately washed. quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, the genial confidante and general spy, who could, ye gods! her next employment guess?-- an only infant's earliest governess! she taught the child to read, and taught so well, that she herself, by teaching, learned to spell. an adept next in penmanship she grows, as many a nameless slander deftly shows: what she had made the pupil of her art, none know; but that high soul secured the heart, and panted for the truth it could not hear, with longing breast and undeluded ear. foiled was perversion by that youthful mind, which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, deceit infect not, near contagion soil, indulgence weaken, nor example spoil, nor mastered science tempt her to look down on humbler talents with a pitying frown, nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain, nor fortune change, pride raise, nor passion bow, nor virtue teach austerity, till now. serenely purest of her sex that live; but wanting one sweet weakness,--to forgive; too shocked at faults her soul can never know, she deems that all could be like her below: foe to all vice, yet hardly virtue's friend; for virtue pardons those she would amend. but to the theme, now laid aside too long,-- the baleful burthen of this honest song. though all her former functions are no more, she rules the circle which she served before. if mothers--none know why--before her quake; if daughters dread her for the mothers' sake; if early habits--those false links, which bind at times the loftiest to the meanest mind-- have given her power too deeply to instil the angry essence of her deadly will; if like a snake she steal within your walls till the black slime betray her as she crawls; if like a viper to the heart she wind, and leave the venom there she did not find, what marvel that this hag of hatred works eternal evil latent as she lurks, to make a pandemonium where she dwells, and reign the hecate of domestic hells? skilled by a touch to deepen scandal's tints with all the kind mendacity of hints, while mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles, a thread of candour with a web of wiles; a plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming, to hide her bloodless heart's soul-hardened scheming; a lip of lies; a face formed to conceal, and, without feeling, mock at all who feel; with a vile mask the gorgon would disown; a cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone. mark how the channels of her yellow blood ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud! cased like the centipede in saffron mail, or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale, (for drawn from reptiles only may we trace congenial colours in that soul or face,)-- look on her features! and behold her mind as in a mirror of itself defined. look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged; there is no trait which might not be enlarged: yet true to 'nature's journeymen,' who made this monster when their mistress left off trade, this female dog-star of her little sky, where all beneath her influence droop or die. o wretch without a tear, without a thought, save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought! the time shall come, nor long remote, when thou shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now,-- feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain, and turn thee howling in unpitied pain. may the strong curse of crushed affections light back on thy bosom with reflected blight, and make thee, in thy leprosy of mind, as loathsome to thyself as to mankind, till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate black as thy will for others would create: till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, and thy soul welter in its hideous crust! oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed, the widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread! then, when thou fain wouldst weary heaven with prayer, look on thine earthly victims, and despair! down to the dust! and, as thou rott'st away, even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay. but for the love i bore, and still must bear, to her thy malice from all ties would tear, thy name, thy human name, to every eye the climax of all scorn, should hang on high, exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers, and festering in the infamy of years. lines on hearing that lady byron was ill. and thou wert sad, yet i was not with thee! and thou wert sick, and yet i was not near! methought that joy and health alone could be where i was not, and pain and sorrow here. and is it thus? it is as i foretold, and shall be more so; for the mind recoils upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold, while heaviness collects the shattered spoils. it is not in the storm nor in the strife we feel benumbed, and wish to be no more, but in the after-silence on the shore, when all is lost except a little life. i am too well avenged! but 'twas my right: whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent to be the nemesis who should requite; nor did heaven choose so near an instrument. mercy is for the merciful!--if thou hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep! yes! they may flatter thee; but thou shalt feel a hollow agony which will not heal; for thou art pillowed on a curse too deep: thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap the bitter harvest in a woe as real! i have had many foes, but none like thee; for 'gainst the rest myself i could defend, and be avenged, or turn them into friend; but thou in safe implacability hadst nought to dread, in thy own weakness shielded; and in my love, which hath but too much yielded, and spared, for thy sake, some i should not spare. and thus upon the world,--trust in thy truth, and the wild fame of my ungoverned youth, on things that were not and on things that are,-- even upon such a basis hast thou built a monument, whose cement hath been guilt; the moral clytemnestra of thy lord, and hewed down, with an unsuspected sword, fame, peace, and hope, and all the better life, which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, might still have risen from out the grave of strife, and found a nobler duty than to part. but of thy virtues didst thou make a vice, trafficking with them in a purpose cold, for present anger and for future gold, and buying others' grief at any price. and thus, once entered into crooked ways, the early truth, which was thy proper praise, did not still walk beside thee, but at times, and with a breast unknowing its own crimes, deceit, averments incompatible, equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell in janus-spirits; the significant eye which learns to lie with silence; the pretext of prudence, with advantages annexed; the acquiescence in all things which tend, no matter how, to the desired end,-- all found a place in thy philosophy. the means were worthy, and the end is won: i would not do by thee as thou hast done! footnotes. { } the italics are mine. { } the italics are mine. { } in lady blessington's 'memoirs' this name is given charlemont; in the late 'temple bar' article on the character of lady byron it is given clermont. i have followed the latter. { } the italics are mine. { } in lady blessington's conversations with lord byron, just before he went to greece, she records that he gave her this poem in manuscript. it was published in her 'journal.' { a} vol. vi. p. . { b} 'byron's miscellany,' vol. ii. p. . london, . { } the italics are mine. { } lord byron says, in his observations on an article in 'blackwood:' 'i recollect being much hurt by romilly's conduct: he (having a general retainer for me) went over to the adversary, alleging, on being reminded of his retainer, that he had forgotten it, as his clerk had so many. i observed that some of those who were now so eagerly laying the axe to my roof-tree might see their own shaken. his fell and crushed him.' in the first edition of moore's life of lord byron there was printed a letter on sir samuel romilly, so brutal that it was suppressed in the subsequent editions. (see part iii.) { a} vol. iv. p. { b} ibid. p. . { } the italics are mine. { } vol. iv. p. . { } lord byron took especial pains to point out to murray the importance of these two letters. vol. v. letter , he says: 'you must also have from mr. moore the correspondence between me and lady b., to whom i offered a sight of all that concerns herself in these papers. this is important. he has her letter and my answer.' { } 'and i, who with them on the cross am placed, . . . . truly my savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me.' inferno, canto, xvi., longfellow's translation. { } 'conversations,' p. . { } murray's edition of 'byron's works,' vol. ii. p. ; date of dedication to hobhouse, jan. , . { } recently, lord lindsay has published another version of this story, which makes it appear that he has conversed with a lady who conversed with hobhouse during his lifetime, in which this story is differently reported. in the last version, it is made to appear that hobhouse got this declaration from lady byron herself. { a} the references are to the first volume of the first edition of moore's 'life,' originally published by itself. { b} 'the officious spies of his privacy,' p. o. { } 'the deserted husband,' p. . { } 'i (campbell) had not time to ask lady byron's permission to print this private letter; but it seemed to me important, and i have published it meo periculo.' { a} 'noctes,' july . { b} 'noctes,' september . { } miss martineau's biographical sketches. { } the italics are mine.--h. b. s. { } in 'the noctes' of november, christopher north says, 'i don't call medwin a liar. . . . whether byron bammed him, or he, by virtue of his own stupidity, was the sole and sufficient bammifier of himself, i know not.' a note says that murray had been much shocked by byron's misstatements to medwin as to money-matters with him. the note goes on to say, 'medwin could not have invented them, for they were mixed up with acknowledged facts; and the presumption is that byron mystified his gallant acquaintance. he was fond of such tricks.' { } this one fact is, that lord byron might have had an open examination in court, if he had only persisted in refusing the deed of separation. { } in the history of 'blackwood's magazine,' prefaced to the american edition of , mackenzie says of the 'noctes' papers, 'great as was their popularity in england it was peculiarly in america that their high merit and undoubted originality received the heartiest recognition and appreciation. nor is this wonderful when it is considered that for one reader of "blackwood's magazine" in the old country there cannot be less than fifty in the new.' { } the reader is here referred to lady byron's other letters, in part iii.; which also show the peculiarly active and philosophical character of her mind, and the class of subjects on which it habitually dwelt. { } see her character of dr. king, part iii. { } alluding to the financial crisis in the united states in . { } 'the minister's wooing.' { } see her letter on spiritualistic phenomena, part iii. { } this novel of godwin's is a remarkably powerful story. it is related in the first person by the supposed hero, caleb williams. he represents himself as private secretary to a gentleman of high family named falkland. caleb accidentally discovers that his patron has, in a moment of passion, committed a murder. falkland confesses the crime to caleb, and tells him that henceforth he shall always suspect him, and keep watch over him. caleb finds this watchfulness insupportable, and tries to escape, but without success. he writes a touching letter to his patron, imploring him to let him go, and promising never to betray him. the scene where falkland refuses this is the most highly wrought in the book. he says to him, "do not imagine that i am afraid of you; i wear an armour against which all your weapons are impotent. i have dug a pit for you: and whichever way you move, backward or forward, to the right or the left, it is ready to swallow you. be still! if once you fall, call as loud as you will, no man on earth shall hear your cries: prepare a tale however plausible or however true, the whole world shall execrate you for an impostor. your innocence shall be of no service to you. i laugh at so feeble a defence. it is i that say it: you may believe what i tell you. do you know, miserable wretch!" added he, stamping on the ground with fury, "that i have sworn to preserve my reputation, whatever be the expense; that i love it more than the whole world and its inhabitants taken together? and do you think that you shall wound it?" the rest of the book shows how this threat was executed. { } alluding to buchanan's election. { a} shelton mackenzie, in a note to the 'noctes' of july , gives the following saying of maginn, one of the principal lights of the club: 'no man, however much he might tend to civilisation, was to be regarded as having absolutely reached its apex until he was drunk.' he also records it as a further joke of the club, that a man's having reached this apex was to be tested by his inability to pronounce the word 'civilisation,' which, he says, after ten o'clock at night ought to be abridged to civilation, 'by syncope, or vigorously speaking by hic-cup.' { b} vol. v. pp. , . { } these italics are ours. { a} this little incident shows the characteristic carefulness and accuracy of lady byron's habits. this statement was written fourteen years after the events spoken of; but lady byron carefully quotes a passage from her mother's letter written at that time. this shows that a copy of lady milbanke's letter had been preserved, and makes it appear probable that copies of the whole correspondence of that period were also kept. great light could be thrown on the whole transaction, could these documents be consulted. { b} here, again, lady byron's sealed papers might furnish light. the letters addressed to her at this time by those in constant intercourse with lord byron are doubtless preserved, and would show her ground of action. { } probably lady milbanke's letters are among the sealed papers, and would more fully explain the situation. { a} hunt's byron, p. . philadelphia, . { b} from the temple bar article, october . 'mrs. leigh, lord byron's sister, had other thoughts of mrs. clermont, and wrote to her offering public testimony to her tenderness and forbearance under circumstances which must have been trying to any friend of lady byron.'--campbell, in the new monthly magazine, o, p. o. { } 'my recollections,' p. . { } vol. vi. p. . { } the reader is here referred to the remarks of 'blackwood' on 'don juan' in part iii. { } the article in question is worth a careful reading. its industry and accuracy in amassing evidence are worthy attention. { a} probably 'the christian aspects of faith and duty.' mr. tayler has also written 'a retrospect of the religious life of england.' { b} 'the national review.' life of lord byron: with his letters and journals. by thomas moore, esq. in six volumes.--vol. vi. new edition. . contents of vol. vi. letters and journals of lord byron, with notices of his life, from february, , to his death in april, appendix miscellaneous pieces in prose. review of wordsworth's poems. review of gell's geography of ithaca, and itinerary of greece. parliamentary speeches. , fragment. letter to john murray, esq., on the rev. w.l. bowles's strictures on the life and writings of pope. observations upon "observations" of the rev. w.l. bowles on the poetical character of pope; in a second letter to john murray, esq. notices of the life of lord byron. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "genoa, february . . "my dear tom, "i must again refer you to those two letters addressed to you at passy before i read your speech in galignani, &c., and which you do not seem to have received.[ ] [footnote : i was never lucky enough to recover these two letters, though frequent enquiries were made about them at the french post-office.] "of hunt i see little--once a month or so, and then on his own business, generally. you may easily suppose that i know too little of hampstead and his satellites to have much communion or community with him. my whole present relation to him arose from shelley's unexpected wreck. you would not have had me leave him in the street with his family, would you? and as to the other plan you mention, you forget how it would _humiliate_ him--that his writings should be supposed to be dead weight![ ] think a moment--he is perhaps the vainest man on earth, at least his own friends say so pretty loudly; and if he were in other circumstances, i might be tempted to take him down a peg; but not now,--it would be cruel. it is a cursed business; but neither the motive nor the means rest upon my conscience, and it happens that he and his brother _have_ been so far benefited by the publication in a pecuniary point of view. his brother is a steady, bold fellow, such as _prynne_, for example, and full of moral, and, i hear, physical courage. [footnote : the passage in one of my letters to which he here refers shall be given presently.] "and _you_ are _really_ recanting, or softening to the clergy! it will do little good for you--it is _you_, not the poem, they are at. they will say they frightened you--forbid it, ireland! "yours ever, "n.b." lord byron had now, for some time, as may be collected from his letters, begun to fancy that his reputation in england was on the wane. the same thirst after fame, with the same sensitiveness to every passing change of popular favour, which led tasso at last to look upon himself as the most despised of writers[ ], had more than once disposed lord byron, in the midst of all his triumphs, if not to doubt their reality, at least to distrust their continuance; and sometimes even, with that painful skill which sensibility supplies, to extract out of the brightest tributes of success some omen of future failure, or symptom of decline. new successes, however, still came to dissipate these bodings of diffidence; nor was it till after his unlucky coalition with mr. hunt in the liberal, that any grounds for such a suspicion of his having declined in public favour showed themselves. [footnote : in one of his letters this poet says:--"non posso negare che io mi doglio oltramisura di esser stato tanto disprezzato dal mondo quanto non e altro scrittore di questo secolo." in another letter, however, after complaining of being "perseguitato da molti più che non era convenevole," he adds, with a proud prescience of his future fame, "laondé stimo di poter mene ragionevolmente richiamare alla posterità."] the chief inducements, on the part of lord byron, to this unworthy alliance were, in the first place, a wish to second the kind views of his friend shelley in inviting mr. hunt to join him in italy; and, in the next, a desire to avail himself of the aid of one so experienced, as an editor, in the favourite project he had now so long contemplated, of a periodical work, in which all the various offspring of his genius might be received fast as they sprung to light. with such opinions, however, as he had long entertained of mr. hunt's character and talents[ ], the facility with which he now admitted him--_not_ certainly to any degree of confidence or intimacy, but to a declared fellowship of fame and interest in the eyes of the world, is, i own, an inconsistency not easily to be accounted for, and argued, at all events, a strong confidence in the antidotal power of his own name to resist the ridicule of such an association. [footnote : see letter . p. .] as long as shelley lived, the regard which lord byron entertained for him extended its influence also over his relations with his friend; the suavity and good-breeding of shelley interposing a sort of softening medium in the way of those unpleasant collisions which afterwards took place, and which, from what is known of both parties, may be easily conceived to have been alike trying to the patience of the patron and the vanity of the dependent. that even, however, during the lifetime of their common friend, there had occurred some of those humiliating misunderstandings which money engenders,--humiliating on both sides, as if from the very nature of the dross that gives rise to them,--will appear from the following letter of shelley's which i find among the papers in my hands. to lord byron. "february . . "my dear lord byron. "i enclose you a letter from hunt, which annoys me on more than one account. you will observe the postscript, and you know me well enough to feel how painful a task is set me in commenting upon it. hunt had urged me more than once to ask you to lend him this money. my answer consisted in sending him all i could spare, which i have now literally done. your kindness in fitting up a part of your own house for his accommodation i sensibly felt, and willingly accepted from you on his part, but, believe me, without the slightest intention of imposing, or, if i could help it, allowing to be imposed, any heavier task on your purse. as it has come to this in spite of my exertions, i will not conceal from you the low ebb of my own money affairs in the present moment,--that is, my absolute incapacity of assisting hunt farther. "i do not think poor hunt's promise to pay in a given time is worth very much; but mine is less subject to uncertainty, and i should be happy to be responsible for any engagement he may have proposed to you. i am so much annoyed by this subject that i hardly know what to write, and much less what to say; and i have need of all your indulgence in judging both my feelings and expressions. "i shall see you by and by. believe me "yours most faithfully and sincerely, "p.b. shelley." of the book in which mr. hunt has thought it decent to revenge upon the dead the pain of those obligations he had, in his hour of need, accepted from the living, i am luckily saved from the distaste of speaking at any length, by the utter and most deserved oblivion into which his volume has fallen. never, indeed, was the right feeling of the world upon such subjects more creditably displayed than in the reception given universally to that ungenerous book;--even those the least disposed to think approvingly of lord byron having shrunk back from such a corroboration of their own opinion as could be afforded by one who did not blush to derive his authority, as an accuser, from those facilities of observation which he had enjoyed by having been sheltered and fed under the very roof of the man whom he maligned. with respect to the hostile feeling manifested in mr. hunt's work towards myself, the sole revenge i shall take is, to lay before my readers the passage in one of my letters which provoked it; and which may claim, at least, the merit of not being a covert attack, as throughout the whole of my remonstrances to lord byron on the subject of his new literary allies, not a line did i ever write respecting either mr. shelley or mr. hunt which i was not fully prepared, from long knowledge of my correspondent, to find that he had instantly, and as a matter of course, communicated to them. that this want of retention was a fault in my noble friend, i am not inclined to deny; but, being undisguised, it was easily guarded against, and, when guarded against, harmless. besides, such is the penalty generally to be paid for frankness of character; and they who could have flattered themselves that one so open about his own affairs as lord byron would be much more discreet where the confidences of others were concerned, would have had their own imprudence, not his, to blame for any injury that their dependence upon his secrecy had brought on them. the following is the passage, which lord byron, as i take for granted, showed to mr. hunt, and to which one of his letters to myself (february .) refers:-- "i am most anxious to know that you mean to emerge out of the liberal. it grieves me to urge any thing so much against hunt's interest; but i should not hesitate to use the same language to himself, were i near him. i would, if i were you, serve him in every possible way but this--i would give him (if he would accept of it) the profits of the same works, published separately--but i would _not_ mix myself up in this way with others. i would _not_ become a partner in this sort of miscellaneous '_pot au feu_,' where the bad flavour of one ingredient is sure to taint all the rest. i would be, if i were _you_, alone, single-handed, and, as such, invincible." while on the subject of mr. hunt, i shall avail myself of the opportunity it affords me of introducing some portions of a letter addressed to a friend of that gentleman by lord byron, in consequence of an appeal made to the feelings of the latter on the score of his professed "friendship" for mr. hunt. the avowals he here makes are, i own, startling, and must be taken with more than the usual allowance, not only for the particular mood of temper or spirits in which the letter was written, but for the influence also of such slight casual piques and resentments as might have been, just then, in their darkening transit through his mind,--indisposing him, for the moment, to those among his friends whom, in a sunnier mood, he would have proclaimed as his most chosen and dearest. letter . to mrs. ----. "i presume that you, at least, know enough of me to be sure that i could have no intention to insult hunt's poverty. on the contrary, i honour him for it; for i know what it is, having been as much embarrassed as ever he was, without perceiving aught in it to diminish an honourable man's self-respect. if you mean to say that, had he been a wealthy man, i would have joined in this journal, i answer in the negative. * * * i engaged in the journal from good-will towards him, added to respect for his character, literary and personal; and no less for his political courage, as well as regret for his present circumstances: i did this in the hope that he might, with the same aid from literary friends of literary contributions (which is requisite for all journals of a mixed nature), render himself independent. "i have always treated him, in our personal intercourse, with such scrupulous delicacy, that i have forborne intruding advice which i thought might be disagreeable, lest he should impute it to what is called 'taking advantage of a man's situation.' "as to friendship, it is a propensity in which my genius is very limited. i do not know the _male_ human being, except lord clare, the friend of my infancy, for whom i feel any thing that deserves the name. all my others are men-of-the-world friendships. i did not even feel it for shelley, however much i admired and esteemed him, so that you see not even vanity could bribe me into it, for, of all men, shelley thought highest of my talents,--and, perhaps, of my disposition. "i will do my duty by my intimates, upon the principle of doing as you would be done by. i have done so, i trust, in most instances. i may be pleased with their conversation--rejoice in their success--be glad to do them service, or to receive their counsel and assistance in return. but as for friends and friendship, i have (as i already said) named the only remaining male for whom i feel any thing of the kind, excepting, perhaps, thomas moore. i have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in _life_, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this world--not much remembered when the ball is over, though very pleasant for the time. habit, business, and companionship in pleasure or in pain, are links of a similar kind, and the same faith in politics is another." * * * letter . to lady ----. "genoa, march . . "mr. hill is here: i dined with him on saturday before last; and on leaving his house at s. p. d'arena, my carriage broke down. i walked home, about three miles,--no very great feat of pedestrianism; but either the coming out of hot rooms into a bleak wind chilled me, or the walking up-hill to albaro heated me, or something or other set me wrong, and next day i had an inflammatory attack in the face, to which i have been subject this winter for the first time, and i suffered a good deal of pain, but no peril. my health is now much as usual. mr. hill is, i believe, occupied with his diplomacy. i shall give him your message when i see him again. "my name, i see in the papers, has been dragged into the unhappy portsmouth business, of which all that i know is very succinct. mr. h---- is my solicitor. i found him so when i was ten years old--at my uncle's death--and he was continued in the management of my legal business. he asked me, by a civil epistle, as an old acquaintance of his family, to be present at the marriage of miss h----. i went very reluctantly, one misty morning (for i had been up at two balls all night), to witness the ceremony, which i could not very well refuse without affronting a man who had never offended me. i saw nothing particular in the marriage. of course i could not know the preliminaries, except from what he said, not having been present at the wooing, nor after it, for i walked home, and they went into the country as soon as they had promised and vowed. out of this simple fact i hear the debats de paris has quoted miss h. as 'autrefois trés liée avec le célebre,' &c. &c. i am obliged to him for the celebrity, but beg leave to decline the liaison, which is quite untrue; my liaison was with the father, in the unsentimental shape of long lawyers' bills, through the medium of which i have had to pay him ten or twelve thousand pounds within these few years. she was not pretty, and i suspect that the indefatigable mr. a---- was (like all her people) more attracted by her title than her charms. i regret very much that i was present at the prologue to the happy state of horse-whipping and black jobs, &c. &c.; but i could not foresee that a man was to turn out mad, who had gone about the world for fifty years, as competent to vote, and walk at large; nor did he seem to me more insane than any other person going to be married. "i have no objection to be acquainted with the marquis palavicini, if he wishes it. lately i have gone little into society, english or foreign, for i had seen all that was worth seeing in the former before i left england, and at the time of life when i was more disposed to like it; and of the latter i had a sufficiency in the first few years of my residence in switzerland, chiefly at madame de staël's, where i went sometimes, till i grew tired of _conversazioni_ and carnivals, with their appendages; and the bore is, that if you go once, you are expected to be there daily, or rather nightly. i went the round of the most noted soirées at venice or elsewhere (where i remained not any time) to the benzona, and the albrizzi, and the michelli, &c. &c. and to the cardinals and the various potentates of the legation in romagna, (that is, ravenna,) and only receded for the sake of quiet when i came into tuscany. besides, if i go into society, i generally get, in the long run, into some scrape of some kind or other, which don't occur in my solitude. however, i am pretty well settled now, by time and temper, which is so far lucky, as it prevents restlessness; but, as i said before, as an acquaintance of yours, i will be ready and willing to know your friends. he may be a sort of connection for aught i know; for a palavicini, of _bologna_, i believe, married a distant relative of mine half a century ago. i happen to know the fact, as he and his spouse had an annuity of five hundred pounds on my uncle's property, which ceased at his demise; though i recollect hearing they attempted, naturally enough, to make it survive him. if i can do any thing for you here or elsewhere, pray order, and be obeyed." letter . to mr. moore. "genoa, april . . "i have just seen some friends of yours, who paid me a visit yesterday, which, in honour of them and of you, i returned to-day;--as i reserve my bear-skin and teeth, and paws and claws, for our enemies. "i have also seen henry f----, lord h----'s son, whom i had not looked upon since i left him a pretty, mild boy, without a neckcloth, in a jacket, and in delicate health, seven long years agone, at the period of mine eclipse--the third, i believe, as i have generally one every two or three years. i think that he has the softest and most amiable expression of countenance i ever saw, and manners correspondent. if to those he can add hereditary talents, he will keep the name of f---- in all its freshness for half a century more, i hope. i speak from a transient glimpse--but i love still to yield to such impressions; for i have ever found that those i liked longest and best, i took to at first sight; and i always liked that boy--perhaps, in part, from some resemblance in the less fortunate part of our destinies--i mean, to avoid mistakes, his lameness. but there is this difference, that _he_ appears a halting angel, who has tripped against a star; whilst i am _le diable boiteux_,--a soubriquet, which i marvel that, amongst their various _nominis umbræ_, the orthodox have not hit upon. "your other allies, whom i have found very agreeable personages, are milor b---- and _épouse_, travelling with a very handsome companion, in the shape of a 'french count' (to use farquhar's phrase in the beaux stratagem), who has all the air of a _cupidon déchainé_, and is one of the few specimens i have seen of our ideal of a frenchman _before_ the revolution--an old friend with a new face, upon whose like i never thought that we should look again. miladi seems highly literary,--to which, and your honour's acquaintance with the family, i attribute the pleasure of having seen them. she is also very pretty, even in a morning,--a species of beauty on which the sun of italy does not shine so frequently as the chandelier. certainly, english-women wear better than their continental neighbours of the same sex. m---- seems very good-natured, but is much tamed, since i recollect him in all the glory of gems and snuff-boxes, and uniforms, and theatricals, and speeches in our house--'i mean, of peers,'--(i must refer you to pope--who you don't read and won't appreciate--for that quotation, which you must allow to be poetical,) and sitting to stroeling, the painter, (do you remember our visit, with leckie, to the german?) to be depicted as one of the heroes of agincourt, 'with his long sword, saddle, bridle, whack fal de, &c. &c.' "i have been unwell--caught a cold and inflammation, which menaced a conflagration, after dining with our ambassador, monsieur hill,--not owing to the dinner, but my carriage broke down in the way home, and i had to walk some miles, up hill partly, after hot rooms, in a very bleak, windy evening, and over-hotted, or over-colded myself. i have not been so robustious as formerly, ever since the last summer, when i fell ill after a long swim in the mediterranean, and have never been quite right up to this present writing. i am thin,--perhaps thinner than you saw me, when i was nearly transparent, in ,--and am obliged to be moderate of my mouth; which, nevertheless, won't prevent me (the gods willing) from dining with your friends the day after to-morrow. "they give me a very good account of you, and of your nearly 'emprisoned angels.' but why did you change your title?--you will regret this some day. the bigots are not to be conciliated; and, if they were--are they worth it? i suspect that i am a more orthodox christian than you are; and, whenever i see a real christian, either in practice or in theory, (for i never yet found the man who could produce either, when put to the proof,) i am his disciple. but, till then, i cannot truckle to tithe-mongers,--nor can i imagine what has made _you_ circumcise your seraphs. "i have been far more persecuted than you, as you may judge by my present decadence,--for i take it that i am as low in popularity and book-selling as any writer can be. at least, so my friends assure me--blessings on their benevolence! this they attribute to hunt; but they are wrong--it must be, partly at least, owing to myself; be it so. as to hunt, i prefer _not_ having turned him to starve in the streets to any personal honour which might have accrued from such genuine philanthropy. i really act upon principle in this matter, for we have nothing much in common; and i cannot describe to you the despairing sensation of trying to do something for a man who seems incapable or unwilling to do any thing further for himself,--at least, to the purpose. it is like pulling a man out of a river who directly throws himself in again. for the last three or four years shelley assisted, and had once actually extricated him. i have since his demise,--and even before,--done what i could: but it is not in my power to make this permanent. i want hunt to return to england, for which i would furnish him with the means in comfort; and his situation _there_, on the whole, is bettered, by the payment of a portion of his debts, &c.; and he would be on the spot to continue his journal, or journals, with his brother, who seems a sensible, plain, sturdy, and enduring person." * * the new intimacy of which he here announces the commencement, and which it was gratifying to me, as the common friend of all, to find that he had formed, was a source of much pleasure to him during the stay of his noble acquaintances at genoa. so long, indeed, had he persuaded himself that his countrymen abroad all regarded him in no other light than as an outlaw or a show, that every new instance he met of friendly reception from them was as much a surprise as pleasure to him; and it was evident that to his mind the revival of english associations and habitudes always brought with it a sense of refreshment, like that of inhaling his native air. with the view of inducing these friends to prolong their stay at genoa, he suggested their taking a pretty villa called "il paradiso," in the neighbourhood of his own, and accompanied them to look at it. upon that occasion it was that, on the lady expressing some intentions of residing there, he produced the following impromptu, which--but for the purpose of showing that he was not so "chary of his fame" as to fear failing in such trifles--i should have thought hardly worth transcribing. "beneath ----'s eyes the reclaim'd paradise should be free as the former from evil; but, if the new eve for an apple should grieve, what mortal would not play the devil?"[ ] [footnote : the genoese wits had already applied this threadbare jest to himself. taking it into their heads that this villa (which was also, i believe, a casa saluzzo) had been the one fixed on for his own residence, they said "il diavolo é ancora entrato in paradise."] another copy of verses addressed by him to the same lady, whose beauty and talent might well have claimed a warmer tribute from such a pen, is yet too interesting, as descriptive of the premature feeling of age now stealing upon him, to be omitted in these pages. "to the countess of b----. . "you have ask'd for a verse:--the request in a rhymer 'twere strange to deny, but my hippocrene was but my breast, and my feelings (its fountain) are dry. . "were i now as i was, i had sung what lawrence has painted so well; but the strain would expire on my tongue, and the theme is too soft for my shell. . "i am ashes where once i was fire, and the bard in my bosom is dead; what i loved i _now_ merely admire, and my heart is as grey as my head. . "my life is not dated by years-- there are _moments_ which act as a plough, and there is not a furrow appears but is deep in my soul as my brow. . "let the young and the brilliant aspire to sing what i gaze on in vain; for sorrow has torn from my lyre the string which was worthy the strain. "b." the following letters written during the stay of this party at genoa will be found,--some of them at least,--not a little curious. letter . to the earl of b----. "april . . "my dear lord, "how is your gout? or rather, how are you? i return the count ----'s journal, which is a very extraordinary production[ ], and of a most melancholy truth in all that regards high life in england. i know, or knew personally, most of the personages and societies which he describes; and after reading his remarks, have the sensation fresh upon me as if i had seen them yesterday. i would however plead in behalf of some few exceptions, which i will mention by and by. the most singular thing is, _how_ he should have penetrated _not_ the _fact_, but the _mystery_ of the english ennui, at two-and-twenty. i was about the same age when i made the same discovery, in almost precisely the same circles,--(for there is scarcely a person mentioned whom i did not see nightly or daily, and was acquainted more or less intimately with most of them,)--but i never could have described it so well. _il faut étre français_, to effect this. [footnote : in another letter to lord b---- he says of this gentleman, "he seems to have all the qualities requisite to have figured in his brother-in-law's ancestor's memoirs."] "but he ought also to have been in the country during the hunting season, with 'a select party of distinguished guests,' as the papers term it. he ought to have seen the gentlemen after dinner (on the hunting days), and the soiree ensuing thereupon,--and the women looking as if they had hunted, or rather been hunted; and i could have wished that he had been at a dinner in town, which i recollect at lord c----'s--small, but select, and composed of the most amusing people. the dessert was hardly on the table, when, out of twelve, i counted _five asleep_; of that five, there were _tierney_, lord ----, and lord ---- --i forget the other two, but they were either wits or orators--perhaps poets. "my residence in the east and in italy has made me somewhat indulgent of the siesta;--but then they set regularly about it in warm countries, and perform it in solitude (or at most in a tête-à-tête with a proper companion), and retire quietly to their rooms to get out of the sun's way for an hour or two. "altogether, your friend's journal is a very formidable production. alas! our dearly beloved countrymen have only discovered that they are tired, and not that they are tiresome; and i suspect that the communication of the latter unpleasant verity will not be better received than truths usually are. i have read the whole with great attention and instruction. i am too good a patriot to say _pleasure_--at least i won't say so, whatever i may think. i showed it (i hope no breach of confidence) to a young italian lady of rank, _très instruite_ also; and who passes, or passed, for being one of the three most celebrated belles in the district of italy, where her family and connections resided in less troublesome times as to politics, (which is not genoa, by the way,) and she was delighted with it, and says that she has derived a better notion of english society from it than from all madame de staël's metaphysical disputations on the same subject, in her work on the revolution. i beg that you will thank the young philosopher, and make my compliments to lady b. and her sister. "believe me your very obliged and faithful "n. b. "p.s. there is a rumour in letters of some disturbance or complot in the french pyrenean army--generals suspected or dismissed, and ministers of war travelling to see what's the matter. 'marry (as david says), this hath an angry favour.' "tell count ---- that some of the names are not quite intelligible, especially of the clubs; he speaks of _watts_--perhaps he is right, but in my time _watiers_ was the dandy club, of which (though no dandy) i was a member, at the time too of its greatest glory, when brummell and mildmay, alvanley and pierrepoint, gave the dandy balls; and we (the club, that is,) got up the famous masquerade at burlington house and garden, for wellington. he does not speak of the _alfred_, which was the most _recherché_ and most tiresome of any, as i know by being a member of that too." letter . to the earl of b----. "april . . "it _would_ be worse than idle, knowing, as i do, the utter worthlessness of words on such occasions, in me to attempt to express what i ought to feel, and do feel for the loss you have sustained[ ]; and i must thus dismiss the subject, for i dare not trust myself further with it _for your_ sake, or for my own. i shall _endeavour_ to see you as soon as it may not appear intrusive. pray excuse the levity of my yesterday's scrawl--i little thought under what circumstances it would find you. [footnote : the death of lord b----'s son, which had been long expected, but of which the account had just then arrived.] "i have received a very handsome and flattering note from count ----. he must excuse my apparent rudeness and real ignorance in replying to it in english, through the medium of your kind interpretation. i would not on any account deprive him of a production, of which i really think more than i have even _said_, though you are good enough not to be dissatisfied even with that; but whenever it is completed, it would give me the greatest pleasure to have a _copy_--but _how_ to keep it secret? literary secrets are like others. by changing the names, or at least omitting several, and altering the circumstances indicative of the writer's real station or situation, the author would render it a most amusing publication. his countrymen have not been treated, either in a literary or personal point of view, with such deference in english recent works, as to lay him under any very great national obligation of forbearance; and really the remarks are so true and piquante, that i cannot bring myself to wish their suppression; though, as dangle says, 'he is _my_ friend,' many of these personages 'were _my friends_, but much such friends as dangle and his allies. "i return you dr. parr's letter--i have met him at payne knight's and elsewhere, and he did me the honour once to be a patron of mine, although a great friend of the other branch of the house of atreus, and the greek teacher (i believe) of my _moral_ clytemnestra--i say _moral_, because it is true, and is so useful to the virtuous, that it enables them to do any thing without the aid of an Ægisthus. "i beg my compliments to lady b., miss p., and to your _alfred_. i think, since his majesty of the same name, there has not been such a learned surveyor of our saxon society. "ever yours most truly, n. b." "april . . "p.s. i salute miledi, mademoiselle mama, and the illustrious chevalier count ----; who, i hope, will continue his history of 'his own times.' there are some strange coincidences between a part of his remarks and a certain work of mine, now in ms. in england, (i do not mean the hermetically sealed memoirs, but a continuation of certain cantos of a certain poem,) especially in _what_ a _man_ may do in london with impunity while he is 'à la mode;' which i think it well to state, that he may not suspect me of taking advantage of his confidence. the observations are very general." letter . to the earl of b----. "april . . "i am truly sorry that i cannot accompany you in your ride this morning, owing to a violent pain in my face, arising from a wart to which i by medical advice applied a caustic. whether i put too much, i do not know, but the consequence is, that not only i have been put to some pain, but the peccant part and its immediate environ are as black as if the printer's devil had marked me for an author. as i do not wish to frighten your horses, or their riders, i shall postpone waiting upon you until six o'clock, when i hope to have subsided into a more christian-like resemblance to my fellow-creatures. my infliction has partially extended even to my fingers; for on trying to get the black from off my upper lip at least, i have only transfused a portion thereof to my right hand, and neither lemon-juice nor eau de cologne, nor any other eau, have been able as yet to redeem it also from a more inky appearance than is either proper or pleasant. but 'out, damn'd spot'--you may have perceived something of the kind yesterday, for on my return, i saw that during my visit it had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished; and i could not help laughing at the figure i must have cut before you. at any rate, i shall be with you at six, with the advantage of twilight. ever most truly, &c. "eleven o'clock. "p.s. i wrote the above at three this morning. i regret to say that the whole of the skin of about an _inch_ square above my upper lip has come off, so that i cannot even shave or masticate, and i am equally unfit to appear at your table, and to partake of its hospitality. will you therefore pardon me, and not mistake this rueful excuse for a '_make-believe_,' as you will soon recognise whenever i have the pleasure of meeting you again, and i will call the moment i am, in the nursery phrase, 'fit to be seen.' tell lady b. with my compliments, that i am rummaging my papers for a ms. worthy of her acceptation. i have just seen the younger count gamba, and as i cannot prevail on his infinite modesty to take the field without me, i must take this piece of diffidence on myself also, and beg your indulgence for both." letter . to the count ----. "april . . "my dear count ---- (if you will permit me to address you so familiarly), you should be content with writing in your own language, like grammont, and succeeding in london as nobody has succeeded since the days of charles the second and the records of antonio hamilton, without deviating into our barbarous language,--which you understand and write, however, much better than it deserves. "my 'approbation,' as you are pleased to term it, was very sincere, but perhaps not very impartial; for, though i love my country, i do not love my countrymen--at least, such as they now are. and, besides the seduction of talent and wit in your work, i fear that to me there was the attraction of vengeance. i have _seen_ and _felt_ much of what you have described so well. i have known the persons, and the re-unions so described,--(many of them, that is to say,) and the portraits are so like that i cannot but admire the painter no less than his performance. "but i am sorry for you; for if you are so well acquainted with life at your age, what will become of you when the illusion is still more dissipated? but never mind--_en avant!_--live while you can; and that you may have the full enjoyment of the many advantages of youth, talent, and figure, which you possess, is the wish of an--englishman,--i suppose, but it is no treason; for my mother was scotch, and my name and my family are both norman; and as for myself, i am of no country. as for my 'works,' which you are pleased to mention, let them go to the devil, from whence (if you believe many persons) they came. "i have the honour to be your obliged," &c. &c. during this period a circumstance occurred which shows, most favourably for the better tendencies of his nature, how much allayed and softened down his once angry feeling, upon the subject of his matrimonial differences, had now grown. it has been seen that his daughter ada,--more especially since his late loss of the only tie of blood which he could have a hope of attaching to himself,--had become the fond and constant object of his thoughts; and it was but natural, in a heart kindly as his was, that, dwelling thus with tenderness upon the child, he should find himself insensibly subdued into a gentler tone of feeling towards the mother. a gentleman, whose sister was known to be the confidential friend of lady byron, happening at this time to be at genoa, and in the habit of visiting at the house of the poet's new intimates, lord byron took one day an opportunity, in conversing with lady ----, to say, that she would render him an essential kindness if, through the mediation of this gentleman and his sister, she could procure for him from lady byron, what he had long been most anxious to possess, a copy of her picture. it having been represented to him, in the course of the same, or a similar conversation, that lady byron was said by her friends to be in a state of constant alarm lest he should come to england to claim his daughter, or, in some other way, interfere with her, he professed his readiness to give every assurance that might have the effect of calming such apprehensions; and the following letter, in reference to both these subjects, was soon after sent by him. letter . to the countess of b----. "may . . "dear lady ----, "my request would be for a copy of the miniature of lady b. which i have seen in possession of the late lady noel, as i have no picture, or indeed memorial of any kind of lady b., as all her letters were in her own possession before i left england, and we have had no correspondence since--at least on her part. my message, with regard to the infant, is simply to this effect--that in the event of any accident occurring to the mother, and my remaining the survivor, it would be my wish to have her plans carried into effect, both with regard to the education of the child, and the person or persons under whose care lady b. might be desirous that she should be placed. it is not my intention to interfere with her in any way on the subject during her life; and i presume that it would be some consolation to her to know,(if she is in ill health, as i am given to understand,) that in _no_ case would any thing be done, as far as i am concerned, but in strict conformity with lady b.'s own wishes and intentions--left in what manner she thought proper. "believe me, dear lady b., your obliged," &c. this negotiation, of which i know not the results, nor whether, indeed, it ever ended in any, led naturally and frequently to conversations on the subject of his marriage,--a topic he was himself always the first to turn to,--and the account which he then gave, as well of the circumstances of the separation, as of his own entire unconsciousness of the immediate causes that provoked it, was, i find, exactly such as, upon every occasion when the subject presented itself, he, with an air of sincerity in which it was impossible not to confide, promulgated. "of what really led to the separation (said he, in the course of one of these conversations,) i declare to you that, even at this moment, i am wholly ignorant; as lady byron would never assign her motives, and has refused to answer my letters. i have written to her repeatedly, and am still in the habit of doing so. some of these letters i have sent, and others i did not, simply because i despaired of their doing any good. you may, however, see some of them if you like;--they may serve to throw some light upon my feelings." in a day or two after, accordingly, one of these withheld letters was sent by him, enclosed in the following, to lady ----. letter . to the countess of ----. "albaro, may . . my dear lady ----, i send you the letter which i had forgotten, and the book[ ], which i ought to have remembered. it contains (the book, i mean,) some melancholy truths; though i believe that it is too triste a work ever to have been popular. the first time i ever read it (not the edition i send you,--for i got it since,) was at the desire of madame de staël, who was supposed by the good-natured world to be the heroine;--which she was not, however, and was furious at the supposition. this occurred in switzerland, in the summer of , and the last season in which i ever saw that celebrated person. [footnote : adolphe, by m. benjamin constant.] "i have a request to make to my friend alfred (since he has not disdained the title), viz. that he would condescend to add a _cap_ to the gentleman in the jacket,--it would complete his costume,--and smooth his brow, which is somewhat too inveterate a likeness of the original, god help me!" "i did well to avoid the water-party,--_why_, is a mystery, which is not less to be wondered at than all my other mysteries. tell milor that i am deep in his ms., and will do him justice by a diligent perusal." "the letter which i enclose i was prevented from sending by my despair of its doing any good. i was perfectly sincere when i wrote it, and am so still. but it is difficult for me to withstand the thousand provocations on that subject, which both friends and foes have for seven years been throwing in the way of a man whose feelings were once quick, and whose temper was never patient. but 'returning were as tedious as go o'er.' i feel this as much as ever macbeth did; and it is a dreary sensation, which at least avenges the real or imaginary wrongs of one of the two unfortunate persons whom it concerns." "but i am going to be gloomy;--so 'to bed, to bed.' good night,--or rather morning. one of the reasons why i wish to avoid society is, that i can never sleep after it, and the pleasanter it has been the less i rest." "ever most truly," &c. &c. i shall now produce the enclosure contained in the above; and there are few, i should think, of my readers who will not agree with me in pronouncing, that if the author of the following letter had not _right_ on his side, he had at least most of those good feelings which are found in general to accompany it. letter . to lady byron. (to the care of the hon. mrs. leigh, london.) pisa, november . . i have to acknowledge the receipt of 'ada's hair,'which is very soft and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years old, if i may judge from what i recollect of some in augusta's possession, taken at that age. but it don't curl,--perhaps from its being let grow. "i also thank you for the inscription of the date and name, and i will tell you why;--i believe that they are the only two or three words of your handwriting in my possession. for your letters i returned, and except the two words, or rather the one word, 'household,' written twice in an old account book, i have no other. i burnt your last note, for two reasons:--firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, i wished to take your word without documents, which are the worldly resources of suspicious people. i suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about ada's birthday--the th of december, i believe. she will then be six, so that in about twelve more i shall have some chance of meeting her;--perhaps sooner, if i am obliged to go to england by business or otherwise. recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or nearness;--every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our mutual feelings, which must always have one rallying-point as long as our child exists, which i presume we both hope will be long after either of her parents. the time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer one of our prior acquaintance. we both made a bitter mistake; but now it is over, and irrevocably so. for, at thirty-three on my part, and a few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life, still it is one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as to admit of no modification; and as we could not agree when younger, we should with difficulty do so now. i say all this, because i own to you, that, notwithstanding every thing, i considered our re-union as not impossible for more than a year after the separation;--but then i gave up the hope entirely and for ever. but this very impossibility of re-union seems to me at least a reason why, on all the few points of discussion which can arise between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve perhaps more easily than nearer connections. for my own part, i am violent, but not malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentments. to you, who are colder and more concentrated, i would just hint, that you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a worse feeling for duty. i assure you that i bear you _now_ (whatever i may have done) no resentment whatever. remember, that _if you have injured me_ in aught, this forgiveness is something; and that, if i have _injured you_, it is something more still, if it be true, as the moralists say, that the most offending are the least forgiving. "whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, i have ceased to reflect upon any but two things,--viz. that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again. i think if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference to myself, it will be better for all three. "yours ever, "noel byron." it has been my plan, as must have been observed, wherever my materials have furnished me with the means, to leave the subject of my memoir to relate his own story; and this object, during the two or three years of his life just elapsed, i have been enabled by the rich resources in my hands, with but few interruptions, to attain. having now, however, reached that point of his career from which a new start was about to be taken by his excursive spirit, and a course, glorious as it was brief and fatal, entered upon,--a moment of pause may be permitted while we look back through the last few years, and for a while dwell upon the spectacle, at once grand and painful, which his life during that most unbridled period of his powers exhibited. in a state of unceasing excitement, both of heart and brain,--for ever warring with the world's will, yet living but in the world's breath,--with a genius taking upon itself all shapes, from jove down to scapin, and a disposition veering with equal facility to all points of the moral compass,--not even the ancient fancy of the existence of two souls within one bosom would seem at all adequately to account for the varieties, both of power and character, which the course of his conduct and writings during these few feverish years displayed. without going back so far as the fourth canto of childe harold, which one of his bitterest and ablest assailants has pronounced to be, "in point of execution, the sublimest poetical achievement of mortal pen," we have, in a similar strain of strength and splendour, the prophecy of dante, cain, the mystery of heaven and earth, sardanapalus,--all produced during this wonderful period of his genius. to these also are to be added four other dramatic pieces, which, though the least successful of his compositions, have yet, as poems, few equals in our literature; while, in a more especial degree, they illustrate the versatility of taste and power so remarkable in him, as being founded, and to this very circumstance, perhaps, owing their failure, on a severe classic model, the most uncongenial to his own habits and temperament, and the most remote from that bold, unshackled license which it had been the great mission of his genius, throughout the whole realms of mind, to assert. in contrast to all these high-toned strains, and struck off during the same fertile period, we find his don juan--in itself an epitome of all the marvellous contrarieties of his character--the vision of judgment, the translation from pulci, the pamphlets on pope, on the british review, on blackwood,--together with a swarm of other light, humorous trifles, all flashing forth carelessly from the same mind that was, almost at the same moment, personating, with a port worthy of such a presence, the mighty spirit of dante, or following the dark footsteps of scepticism over the ruins of past worlds, with cain. all this time, too, while occupied with these ideal creations, the demands upon his active sympathies, in real life, were such as almost any mind but his own would have found sufficient to engross its every thought and feeling. an amour, not of that light, transient kind which "goes without a burden," but, on the contrary, deep-rooted enough to endure to the close of his days, employed as restlessly with its first hopes and fears a portion of this period as with the entanglements to which it led, political and domestic, it embarrassed the remainder. scarcely, indeed, had this disturbing passion begun to calm, when a new source of excitement presented itself in that conspiracy into which he flung himself so fearlessly, and which ended, as we have seen, but in multiplying the objects of his sympathy and protection, and driving him to a new change of home and scene. when we consider all these distractions that beset him, taking into account also the frequent derangement of his health, and the time and temper he must have thrown away on the minute drudgery of watching over every item of his household expenditure, the mind is lost in almost incredulous astonishment at the wonders he was able to achieve under such circumstances--at the variety and prodigality of power with which, in the midst of such interruptions and hinderances, his "bright soul broke out on every side," and not only held on its course, unclogged, through all these difficulties, but even extracted out of the very struggles and annoyances it encountered new nerve for its strength, and new fuel for its fire. while thus at this period, more remarkably than at any other during his life, the unparalleled versatility of his genius was unfolding itself, those quick, cameleon-like changes of which his character, too, was capable were, during the same time, most vividly, and in strongest contrast, drawn out. to the world, and more especially to england,--the scene at once of his glories and his wrongs,--he presented himself in no other aspect than that of a stern, haughty misanthrope, self-banished from the fellowship of men, and, most of all, from that of englishmen. the more genial and beautiful inspirations of his muse were, in this point of view, looked upon but as lucid intervals between the paroxysms of an inherent malignancy of nature; and even the laughing effusions of his wit and humour got credit for no other aim than that which swift boasted of, as the end of all his own labours, "to vex the world rather than divert it." how totally all this differed from the byron of the social hour, they who lived in familiar intercourse with him may be safely left to tell. the sort of ferine reputation which he had acquired for himself abroad prevented numbers, of course, of his countrymen, whom he would have most cordially welcomed, from seeking his acquaintance. but, as it was, no english gentleman ever approached him, with the common forms of introduction, that did not come away at once surprised and charmed by the kind courtesy and facility of his manners, the unpretending play of his conversation, and, on a nearer intercourse, the frank, youthful spirits, to the flow of which he gave way with such a zest, as even to deceive some of those who best knew him into the impression, that gaiety was after all the true bent of his disposition. to these contrasts which he presented, as viewed publicly and privately, is to be added also the fact, that, while braving the world's ban so boldly, and asserting man's right to think for himself with a freedom and even daringness unequalled, the original shyness of his nature never ceased to hang about him; and while at a distance he was regarded as a sort of autocrat in intellect, revelling in all the confidence of his own great powers, a somewhat nearer observation enabled a common acquaintance at venice[ ] to detect, under all this, traces of that self-distrust and bashfulness which had marked him as a boy, and which never entirely forsook him through the whole of his career. [footnote : the countess albrizzi--see her sketch of his character.] still more singular, however, than this contradiction between the public and private man,--a contradiction not unfrequent, and, in some cases, more apparent than real, as depending upon the relative position of the observer,--were those contrarieties and changes not less startling, which his character so often exhibited, as compared with itself. he who, at one moment, was seen intrenched in the most absolute self-will, would, at the very next, be found all that was docile and amenable. to-day, storming the world in its strong-holds, as a misanthrope and satirist--to-morrow, learning, with implicit obedience, to fold a shawl, as a cavaliere--the same man who had so obstinately refused to surrender, either to friendly remonstrance or public outcry, a single line of don juan, at the mere request of a gentle donna agreed to cease it altogether; nor would venture to resume this task (though the chief darling of his muse) till, with some difficulty, he had obtained leave from the same ascendant quarter. who, indeed, is there that, without some previous clue to his transformations, could have been at all prepared to recognise the coarse libertine of venice in that romantic and passionate lover who, but a few months after, stood weeping before the fountain in the garden at bologna? or, who could have expected to find in the close calculator of sequins and baiocchi, that generous champion of liberty whose whole fortune, whose very life itself were considered by him but as trifling sacrifices for the advancement, but by a day, of her cause? and here naturally our attention is drawn to the consideration of another feature of his character, connected more intimately with the bright epoch of his life now before us. notwithstanding his strongly marked prejudices in favour of rank and high birth, we have seen with what ardour,--not only in fancy and theory, bet practically, as in the case of the italian carbonari,--he embarked his sympathies unreservedly on the current of every popular movement towards freedom. though of the sincerity of this zeal for liberty the seal set upon it so solemnly by his death leaves us no room to doubt, a question may fairly arise whether that general love of excitement, let it flow from whatever source it might, by which, more or less, every pursuit of his whole life was actuated, was not predominant among the impulses that governed him in this; and, again, whether it is not probable that, like alfieri and other aristocratic lovers of freedom, he would not ultimately have shrunk from the result of his own equalising doctrines; and, though zealous enough in lowering those _above_ his own level, rather recoil from the task of raising up those who were _below_ it. with regard to the first point, it may be conceded, without deducting much from his sincere zeal in the cause, that the gratification of his thirst of fame, and, above all, perhaps, that supply of excitement so necessary to him, to whet, as it were, the edge of his self-wearing spirit, were not the least of the attractions and incitements which a struggle under the banners of freedom presented to him. it is also but too certain that, destined as he was to endless disenchantment, from that singular and painful union which existed in his nature of the creative imagination that calls up illusions, and the cool, searching sagacity that, at once, detects their hollowness, he could not long have gone on, even in a path so welcome to him, without finding the hopes with which his fancy had strewed it withering away beneath him at every step. in politics, as in every other pursuit, his ambition was to be among the first; nor would it have been from the want of a due appreciation of all that is noblest and most disinterested in patriotism, that he would ever have stooped his flight to any less worthy aim. the following passage in one of his journals will be remembered by the reader:--"to be the first man _(not_ the dictator), not the sylla, but the washington, or aristides, the leader in talent and truth, is to be next to the divinity." with such high and pure notions of political eminence, he could not be otherwise than fastidious as to the means of attaining it; nor can it be doubted that with the sort of vulgar and sometimes sullied instruments which all popular leaders must stoop to employ, his love of truth, his sense of honour, his impatience of injustice, would have led him constantly into such collisions as must have ended in repulsion and disgust; while the companionship of those beneath him, a tax all demagogues must pay, would, as soon as it had ceased to amuse his fancy for the new and the ridiculous, have shocked his taste and mortified his pride. the distaste with which, as appears from more than one of his letters, he was disposed to view the personal, if not the political, attributes of what is commonly called the radical party in england, shows how unsuited he was naturally to mix in that kind of popular fellowship which, even to those far less aristocratic in their notions and feelings, must be sufficiently trying. but, even granting that all these consequences might safely be predicted as almost certain to result from his engaging in such a career, it by no means the more necessarily follows that, _once_ engaged, he would not have persevered in it consistently and devotedly to the last; nor that, even if reduced to say, with cicero, "nil boni præter causam," he could not have so far abstracted the principle of the cause from its unworthy supporters as, at the same time, to uphold the one and despise the others. looking back, indeed, from the advanced point where we are now arrived through the whole of his past career, we cannot fail to observe, pervading all its apparent changes and inconsistencies, an adherence to the original bias of his nature, a general consistency in the main, however shifting and contradictory the details, which had the effect of preserving, from first to last, all his views and principles, upon the great subjects that interested him through life, essentially unchanged.[ ] [footnote : colonel stanhope, who saw clearly this leading character of byron's mind, has thus justly described it:--"lord byron's was a versatile and still a stubborn mind; it wavered, but always returned to certain fixed principles."] at the worst, therefore, though allowing that, from disappointment or disgust, he might have been led to withdraw all personal participation in such a cause, in no case would he have shown himself a recreant to its principles; and though too proud to have ever descended, like egalité, into the ranks of the people, he would have been far too consistent to pass, like alfieri, into those of their enemies. after the failure of those hopes with which he had so sanguinely looked forward to the issue of the late struggle between italy and her rulers, it may be well conceived what a relief it was to him to turn his eyes to greece, where a spirit was now rising such as he had himself imaged forth in dreams of song, but hardly could have even dreamed that he should live to see it realised. his early travels in that country had left a lasting impression on his mind; and whenever, as i have before remarked, his fancy for a roving life returned, it was to the regions about the "blue olympus" he always fondly looked back. since his adoption of italy as a home, this propensity had in a great degree subsided. in addition to the sedatory effects of his new domestic r, there had, at this time, grown upon him a degree of inertness, or indisposition to change of residence, which, in the instance of his departure from ravenna, was with some difficulty surmounted. the unsettled state of life he was from thenceforward thrown into, by the precarious fortunes of those with whom he had connected himself, conspired with one or two other causes to revive within him all his former love of change and adventure; nor is it wonderful that to greece, as offering _both_ in their most exciting form, he should turn eagerly his eyes, and at once kindle with a desire not only to witness, but perhaps share in, the present triumphs of liberty on those very fields where he had already gathered for immortality such memorials of her day long past. among the causes that concurred with this sentiment to determine him to the enterprise he now meditated, not the least powerful, undoubtedly, was the supposition in his own mind that the high tide of his poetical popularity had been for some time on the ebb. the utter failure of the liberal,--in which, splendid as were some of his own contributions to it, there were yet others from his pen hardly to be distinguished from the surrounding dross,--confirmed him fully in the notion that he had at last wearied out his welcome with the world; and, as the voice of fame had become almost as necessary to him as the air he breathed, it was with a proud consciousness of the yet untouched reserves of power within him he now saw that, if arrived at the end of _one_ path of fame, there were yet others for him to strike into, still more glorious. that some such vent for the resources of his mind had long been contemplated by him appears from a letter of his to myself, in which it will be recollected he says,--"if i live ten years longer, you will see that it is not over with me. i don't mean in literature, for that is nothing; and--it may seem odd enough to say--i do not think it was my vocation. but you will see that i shall do something,--the times and fortune permitting,--that 'like the cosmogony of the world will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.'" he then adds this but too true and sad prognostic:--"but i doubt whether my constitution will hold out." his zeal in the cause of italy, whose past history and literature seemed to call aloud for redress of her present vassalage and wrongs, would have, no doubt, led him to the same chivalrous self-devotion in her service, as he displayed afterwards in that of greece. the disappointing issue, however, of that brief struggle is but too well known; and this sudden wreck of a cause so promising pained him the more deeply from his knowledge of some of the brave and true hearts embarked in it. the disgust, indeed, which that abortive effort left behind, coupled with the opinion he had early formed of the "hereditary bonds-men" of greece, had kept him for some time in a state of considerable doubt and misgiving as to their chances of ever working out their own enfranchisement; nor was it till the spring of this year, when, rather by the continuance of the struggle than by its actual success, some confidence had begun to be inspired in the trust-worthiness of the cause, that he had nearly made up his mind to devote himself to its aid. the only difficulty that still remained to retard or embarrass this resolution was the necessity it imposed of a temporary separation from madame guiccioli, who was herself, as might be expected, anxious to participate his perils, but whom it was impossible he could think of exposing to the chances of a life, even for men, so rude. at the beginning of the month of april he received a visit from mr. blaquiere, who was then proceeding on a special mission to greece, for the purpose of procuring for the committee lately formed in london correct information as to the state and prospects of that country. it was among the instructions of this gentleman that he should touch at genoa and communicate with lord byron; and the following note will show how cordially the noble poet was disposed to enter into all the objects of the committee. letter . to mr. blaquiere. "albaro, april . . "dear sir, "i shall be delighted to see you and your greek friend, and the sooner the better. i have been expecting you for some time,--you will find me at home. i cannot express to you how much i feel interested in the cause, and nothing but the hopes i entertained of witnessing the liberation of italy itself prevented me long ago from returning to do what little i could, as an individual, in that land which it is an honour even to have visited. "ever yours truly, noel byron." soon after this interview with their agent, a more direct communication on the subject was opened between his lordship and the committee itself. letter . to mr. bowring. "genoa, may . "sir, "i have great pleasure in acknowledging your letter, and the honour which the committee have done me:--i shall endeavour to deserve their confidence by every means in my power. my first wish is to go up into the levant in person, where i might be enabled to advance, if not the cause, at least the means of obtaining information which the committee might be desirous of acting upon; and my former residence in the country, my familiarity with the italian language, (which is there universally spoken, or at least to the same extent as french in the more polished parts of the continent,) and my _not_ total ignorance of the romaic, would afford me some advantages of experience. to this project the only objection is of a domestic nature, and i shall try to get over it;--if i fail in this, i must do what i can where i am; but it will be always a source of regret to me, to think that i might perhaps have done more for the cause on the spot. "our last information of captain blaquiere is from ancona, where he embarked with a fair wind for corfu, on the th ult.; he is now probably at his destination. my last letter _from_ him personally was dated rome; he had been refused a passport through the neapolitan territory, and returned to strike up through romagna for ancona:--little time, however, appears to have been lost by the delay. "the principal material wanted by the greeks appears to be, first, a park of field artillery--light, and fit for mountain-service; secondly, gunpowder; thirdly, hospital or medical stores. the readiest mode of transmission is, i hear, by idra, addressed to mr. negri, the minister. i meant to send up a certain quantity of the two latter--no great deal--but enough for an individual to show his good wishes for the greek success,--but am pausing, because, in case i should go myself, i can take them with me. i do not want to limit my own contribution to this merely, but more especially, if i can get to greece myself, i should devote whatever resources i can muster of my own, to advancing the great object. i am in correspondence with signor nicolas karrellas (well known to mr. hobhouse), who is now at pisa; but his latest advice merely stated, that the greeks are at present employed in organising their _internal_ government, and the details of its administration: this would seem to indicate _security_, but the war is however far from being terminated. "the turks are an obstinate race, as all former wars have proved them, and will return to the charge for years to come, even if beaten, as it is to be hoped they will be. but in no case can the labours of the committee be said to be in vain; for in the event even of the greeks being subdued, and dispersed, the funds which could be employed in succouring and gathering together the remnant, so as to alleviate in part their distresses, and enable them to find or make a country (as so many emigrants of other nations have been compelled to do), would 'bless both those who gave and those who took,' as the bounty both of justice and of mercy. "with regard to the formation of a brigade, (which mr. hobhouse hints at in his short letter of this day's receipt, enclosing the one to which i have the honour to reply,) i would presume to suggest--but merely as an opinion, resulting rather from the melancholy experience of the brigades embarked in the columbian service than from any experiment yet fairly tried in greece,--that the attention of the committee had better perhaps be directed to the employment of _officers_ of experience than the enrolment of _raw british_ soldiers, which latter are apt to be unruly, and not very serviceable, in irregular warfare, by the side of foreigners. a small body of good officers, especially artillery; an engineer, with quantity (such as the committee might deem requisite) of stores of the nature which captain blaquiere indicated as most wanted, would, i should conceive, be a highly useful accession. officers, also, who had previously served in the mediterranean would be preferable, as some knowledge of italian is nearly indispensable. "it would also be as well that they should be aware, that they are not going 'to rough it on a beef-steak and bottle of port,'--but that greece--never, of late years, very plentifully stocked for a _mess_--is at present the country of all kinds of _privations_. this remark may seem superfluous; but i have been led to it, by observing that many _foreign_ officers, italian, french, and even germans (but_fewer_ of the _latter_), have returned in disgust, imagining either that they were going up to make a party of pleasure, or to enjoy full pay, speedy promotion, and a very moderate degree of duty. they complain, too, of having been ill received by the government or inhabitants; but numbers of these complainants were mere adventurers, attracted by a hope of command and plunder, and disappointed of both. those greeks i have seen strenuously deny the charge of inhospitality, and declare that they shared their pittance to the last crum with their foreign volunteers. "i need not suggest to the committee the very great advantage which must accrue to great britain from the success of the greeks, and their probable commercial relations with england in consequence; because i feel persuaded that the first object of the committee is their emancipation, without any interested views. but the consideration might weigh with the english people in general, in their present passion for every kind of speculation,--they need not cross the american seas, for one much better worth their while, and nearer home. the resources even for an emigrant population, in the greek islands alone, are rarely to be paralleled; and the cheapness of every kind of, not _only necessary_, but _luxury_, (that is to say, _luxury_ of _nature_,) fruits, wine, oil, &c. in a state of peace, are far beyond those of the cape, and van dieman's land, and the other places of refuge, which the english people are searching for over the waters. "i beg that the committee will command me in any and every way. if i am favoured with any instructions, i shall endeavour to obey them to the letter, whether conformable to my own private opinion or not. i beg leave to add, personally, my respect for the gentleman whom i have the honour of addressing, "and am, sir, your obliged, &c. "p.s. the best refutation of gell will be the active exertions of the committee;--i am too warm a controversialist; and i suspect that if mr. hobhouse have taken him in hand, there will be little occasion for me to 'encumber him with help.' if i go up into the country, i will endeavour to transmit as accurate and impartial an account as circumstances will permit. "i shall write to mr. karrellas. i expect intelligence from captain blaquiere, who has promised me some early intimation from the seat of the provisional government. i gave him a letter of introduction to lord sydney osborne, at corfu; but as lord s. is in the government service, of course his reception could only be a _cautious_ one." letter . to mr. bowring. "genoa, may . . "sir, "i received yesterday the letter of the committee, dated the th of march. what has occasioned the delay, i know not. it was forwarded by mr. galignani, from paris, who stated that he had only had it in his charge four days, and that it was delivered to him by a mr. grattan. i need hardly say that i gladly accede to the proposition of the committee, and hold myself highly honoured by being deemed worthy to be a member. i have also to return my thanks, particularly to yourself, for the accompanying letter, which is extremely flattering. "since i last wrote to you, through the medium of mr. hobhouse, i have received and forwarded a letter from captain blaquiere to me, from corfu, which will show how he gets on. yesterday i fell in with two young germans, survivors of general normann's band. they arrived at genoa in the most deplorable state--without food--without a soul--without shoes. the austrians had sent them out of their territory on their landing at trieste; and they had been forced to come down to florence, and had travelled from leghorn here, with four tuscan _livres_ (about three francs) in their pockets. i have given them twenty genoese scudi (about a hundred and thirty-three livres, french money,) and new shoes, which will enable them to get to switzerland, where they say that they have friends. all that they could raise in genoa, besides, was thirty _sous_. they do not complain of the greeks, but say that they have suffered more since their landing in italy. "i tried their veracity, st, by their passports and papers; dly, by topography, cross-questioning them about arta, argos, athens, missolonghi, corinth, c.; and, dly, in _romaic_, of which i found one of them, at least, knew more than i do. one of them (they are both of good families) is a fine handsome young fellow of three-and-twenty--a wirtembergher, and has a look of _sandt_ about him--the other a bavarian, older and flat-faced, and less ideal, but a great, sturdy, soldier-like personage. the wirtembergher was in the action at arta, where the philhellenists were cut to pieces after killing six hundred turks, they themselves being only a hundred and fifty in number, opposed to about six or seven thousand; only eight escaped, and of them about three only survived; so that general normann 'posted his ragamuffins where they were well peppered--not three of the hundred and fifty left alive--and they are for the town's end for life.' "these two left greece by the direction of the greeks. when churschid pacha over-run the morea, the greeks seem to have behaved well, in wishing to save their allies, when they thought that the game was up with themselves. this was in september last ( ): they wandered from island to island, and got from milo to smyrna, where the french consul gave them a passport, and a charitable captain a passage to ancona, whence they got to trieste, and were turned back by the austrians. they complain only of the minister (who has always been an indifferent character); say that the greeks fight very well in their own way, but were at _first_ afraid to _fire_ their own cannon--but mended with practice. "adolphe (the younger) commanded at navarino for a short time; the other, a more material person, 'the bold bavarian in a luckless hour,' seems chiefly to lament a fast of three days at argos, and the loss of twenty-five paras a day of pay in arrear, and some baggage at tripolitza; but takes his wounds, and marches, and battles in very good part. both are very simple, full of naïveté, and quite unpretending: they say the foreigners quarrelled among themselves, particularly the french with the germans, which produced duels. "the greeks accept muskets, but throw away _bayonets_, and will _not_ be disciplined. when these lads saw two piedmontese regiments yesterday, they said, 'ah! if we had but _these_ two, we should have cleared the morea:' in that case the piedmontese must have behaved better than they did against the austrians. they seem to lay great stress upon a few regular troops--say that the greeks have arms and powder in plenty, but want victuals, hospital stores, and lint and linen, &c. and money, very much. altogether, it would be difficult to show more practical philosophy than this remnant of our 'puir hill folk' have done; they do not seem the least cast down, and their way of presenting themselves was as simple and natural as could be. they said, a dane here had told them that an englishman, friendly to the greek cause, was here, and that, as they were reduced to beg their way home, they thought they might as well begin with me. i write in haste to snatch the post. "believe me, and truly, "your obliged, &c. "p.s. i have, since i wrote this, seen them again. count p. gamba asked them to breakfast. one of them means to publish his journal of the campaign. the bavarian wonders a little that the greeks are not quite the same with them of the time of themistocles, (they were not then very tractable, by the by,) and at the difficulty of disciplining them; but he is a 'bon homme' and a tactician, and a little like dugald dalgetty, who would insist upon the erection of 'a sconce on the hill of drumsnab,' or whatever it was;--the other seems to wonder at nothing." letter . to lady ----. "may . . "my voyage to greece will depend upon the greek committee (in england) partly, and partly on the instructions which some persons now in greece on a private mission may be pleased to send me. i am a member, lately elected, of the said committee; and my object in going up would be to do any little good in my power;--but as there are some _pros_ and _cons_ on the subject, with regard to how far the intervention of strangers may be advisable, i know no more than i tell you; but we shall probably hear something soon from england and greece, which may be more decisive. "with regard to the late person (lord londonderry), whom you hear that i have attacked, i can only say that a bad minister's memory is as much an object of investigation as his conduct while alive,--for his measures do not die with him like a private individual's notions. he is a matter of _history_; and, wherever i find a tyrant or a villain, _i will mark him._ i attacked him no more than i had been wont to do. as to the liberal,--it was a publication set up for the advantage of a persecuted author and a very worthy man. but it was foolish in me to engage in it; and so it has turned out--for i have hurt myself without doing much good to those for whose benefit it was intended. "do _not defend_ me--it will never do--you will only make _yourself_ enemies. "mine are neither to be diminished nor softened, but they may be overthrown; and there are events which may occur, less improbable than those which have happened in our time, that may reverse the present state of things--_nous verrons_. "i send you this gossip that you may laugh at it, which is all it is good for, if it is even good for so much. i shall be delighted to see you again; but it will be melancholy, should it be only for a moment. "ever yours, n. b." it being now decided that lord byron should proceed forthwith to greece, all the necessary preparations for his departure were hastened. one of his first steps was to write to mr. trelawney, who was then at rome, to request that he would accompany him. "you must have heard," he says, "that i am going to greece--why do you not come to me? i can do nothing without you, and am exceedingly anxious to see you. pray, come, for i am at last determined to go to greece:--it is the only place i was ever contented in. i am serious; and did not write before, as i might have given you a journey for nothing. they all say i can be of use to greece; i do not know how--nor do they; but, at all events, let us go." a physician, acquainted with surgery, being considered a necessary part of his suite, he requested of his own medical attendant at genoa, dr. alexander, to provide him with such a person; and, on the recommendation of this gentleman, dr. bruno, a young man who had just left the university with considerable reputation, was engaged. among other preparations for his expedition, he ordered three splendid helmets to be made,--with his never forgotten crest engraved upon them,--for himself and the two friends who were to accompany him. in this little circumstance, which in england (where the ridiculous is so much better understood than the heroic) excited some sneers at the time, we have one of the many instances that occur amusingly through his life, to confirm the quaint but, as applied to him, true observation, that "the child is father to the man;"--the characteristics of these two periods of life being in him so anomalously transposed, that while the passions and ripened views of the man developed themselves in his boyhood, so the easily pleased fancies and vanities of the boy were for ever breaking out among the most serious moments of his manhood. the same schoolboy whom we found, at the beginning of the first volume, boasting of his intention to raise, at some future time, a troop of horse in black armour, to be called byron's blacks, was now seen trying on with delight his fine crested helmet, and anticipating the deeds of glory he was to achieve under its plumes. at the end of may a letter arrived from mr. blaquiere communicating to him very favourable intelligence, and requesting that he would as much as possible hasten his departure, as he was now anxiously looked for, and would be of the greatest service. however encouraging this summons, and though lord byron, thus called upon from all sides, had now determined to give freely the aid which all deemed so essential, it is plain from his letters that, in the cool, sagacious view which he himself took of the whole subject, so far from agreeing with these enthusiasts in their high estimate of his personal services, he had not yet even been able to perceive any definite way in which those services could, with any prospect of permanent utility, be applied. for an insight into the true state of his mind at this crisis, the following observations of one who watched him with eyes quickened by anxiety will be found, perhaps, to afford the clearest and most certain clue. "at this time," says the contessa guiccioli, "lord byron again turned his thoughts to greece; and, excited on every side by a thousand combining circumstances, found himself, almost before he had time to form a decision, or well know what he was doing, obliged to set out for that country. but, notwithstanding his affection for those regions,--notwithstanding the consciousness of his own moral energies, which made him say always that 'a man ought to do something more for society than write verses,'--notwithstanding the attraction which the object of this voyage must necessarily have for his noble mind, and that, moreover, he was resolved to return to italy within a few months,--notwithstanding all this, every person who was near him at the time can bear witness to the struggle which his mind underwent (however much he endeavoured to hide it), as the period fixed for his departure approached."[ ] [footnote : "fu allora che lord byron rivolse i suoi pensieri alla grecia; e stimolato poi da ogni parte per mille combinazioni egli si trovo quasi senza averlo deciso, e senza saperlo, obbligato di partire per la grecia. ma, non ostante il suo affetto per quelle contrade,--non ostante il sentimento delle sue forze morali che gli faceva dire sempre 'che un uomo e obbligato a fare per la societa qualche cosa di piu che dei versi,--non ostante le attrative che doveva avere pel nobile suo animo l'oggetto di que viaggio,--e non ostante che egli fosse determinato di ritornare in italia fra non molti mesi,--pure in quale combattimento si trovasse il suo cuore mentre si avvanzava l'epoca della sua parenza (sebbene cercasse occultarlo) ognuno che lo ha avvicinato allora puù dirlo."] in addition to the vagueness which this want of any defined object so unsatisfactorily threw round the enterprise before him, he had also a sort of ominous presentiment--natural, perhaps, to one of his temperament under such circumstances--that he was but fulfilling his own doom in this expedition, and should die in greece. on the evening before the departure of his friends, lord and lady b----, from genoa, he called upon them for the purpose of taking leave, and sat conversing for some time. he was evidently in low spirits, and after expressing his regret that they should leave genoa before his own time of sailing, proceeded to speak of his intended voyage in a tone full of despondence. "here," said he, "we are all now together--but when, and where, shall we meet again? i have a sort of boding that we see each other for the last time; as something tells me i shall never again return from greece." having continued a little longer in this melancholy strain, he leaned his head upon the arm of the sofa on which they were seated, and, bursting into tears, wept for some minutes with uncontrollable feeling. though he had been talking only with lady b----, all who were present in the room observed, and were affected by his emotion, while he himself, apparently ashamed of his weakness, endeavoured to turn off attention from it by some ironical remark, spoken with a sort of hysterical laugh, upon the effects of "nervousness." he had, previous to this conversation, presented to each of the party some little farewell gift--a book to one, a print from his bust by bartolini to another, and to lady b---- a copy of his armenian grammar, which had some manuscript remarks of his own on the leaves. in now parting with her, having begged, as a memorial, some trifle which she had worn, the lady gave him one of her rings; in return for which he took a pin from his breast, containing a small cameo of napoleon, which he said had long been his companion, and presented it to her ladyship. the next day lady b---- received from him the following note. to the countess of b----. "albaro, june . . "my dear lady b----, 'i am _superstitious_, and have recollected that memorials with a _point_ are of less fortunate augury; i will, therefore, request you to accept, instead of the _pin_, the enclosed chain, which is of so slight a value that you need not hesitate. as you wished for something _worn_, i can only say, that it has been worn oftener and longer than the other. it is of venetian manufacture; and the only peculiarity about it is, that it could only be obtained at or from venice. at genoa they have none of the same kind. i also enclose a ring, which i would wish _alfred_ to keep; it is too large to _wear_; but is formed of _lava_, and so far adapted to the fire of his years and character. you will perhaps have the goodness to acknowledge the receipt of this note, and send back the pin (for good luck's sake), which i shall value much more for having been a night in your custody. "ever and faithfully your obliged, &c. "p.s. i hope your _nerves_ are well to-day, and will continue to flourish." in the mean time the preparations for his romantic expedition were in progress. with the aid of his banker and very sincere friend, mr. barry, of genoa, he was enabled to raise the large sums of money necessary for his supply;-- , crowns in specie, and , crowns in bills of exchange, being the amount of what he took with him, and a portion of this having been raised upon his furniture and books, on which mr. barry, as i understand, advanced a sum far beyond their worth. an english brig, the hercules, had been freighted to convey himself and his suite, which consisted, at this time, of count gamba, mr. trelawney, dr. bruno, and eight domestics. there were also aboard five horses, sufficient arms and ammunition for the use of his own party, two one-pounders belonging to his schooner, the bolivar, which he had left at genoa, and medicine enough for the supply of a thousand men for a year. the following letter to the secretary of the greek committee announces his approaching departure. letter . to mr. bowring. "july . . "we sail on the th for greece.--i have had a letter from mr, blaquiere, too long for present transcription, but very satisfactory. the greek government expects me without delay. "in conformity to the desires of mr. b. and other correspondents in greece, i have to suggest, with all deference to the committee, that a remittance of even '_ten thousand pounds only_' (mr. b.'s expression) would be of the greatest service to the greek government at present. i have also to recommend strongly the attempt of a loan, for which there will be offered a sufficient security by deputies now on their way to england. in the mean time, i hope that the committee will be enabled to do something effectual. "for my own part, i mean to carry up, in cash or credits, above eight, and nearly nine thousand pounds sterling, which i am enabled to do by funds i have in italy, and credits in england. of this sum i must necessarily reserve a portion for the subsistence of myself and suite; the rest i am willing to apply in the manner which seems most likely to be useful to the cause--having of course some guarantee or assurance, that it will not be misapplied to any individual speculation. "if i remain in greece, which will mainly depend upon the presumed probable utility of my presence there, and of the opinion of the greeks themselves as to its propriety--in short, if i am welcome to them, i shall continue, during my residence at least, to apply such portions of my income, present and future, as may forward the object--that is to say, what i can spare for that purpose. privations i can, or at least could once bear--abstinence i am accustomed to--and as to fatigue, i was once a tolerable traveller. what i may be now, i cannot tell--but i will try. "i await the commands of the committee--address to genoa--the letters will be forwarded me, wherever i may be, by my bankers, messrs. webb and barry. it would have given me pleasure to have had some more _defined_ instructions before i went, but these, of course, rest at the option of the committee. i have the honour to be, "yours obediently, &c. "p.s. great anxiety is expressed for a printing press and types, &c. i have not the time to provide them, but recommend this to the notice of the committee. i presume the types must, partly at least, be _greek_: they wish to publish papers, and perhaps a journal, probably in romaic, with italian translations." all was now ready; and on the th of july himself and his whole party slept on board the hercules. about sunrise the next morning they succeeded in clearing the port; but there was little wind, and they remained in sight of genoa the whole day. the night was a bright moonlight, but the wind had become stormy and adverse, and they were, for a short time, in serious danger. lord byron, who remained on deck during the storm, was employed anxiously, with the aid of such of his suite as were not disabled by sea-sickness from helping him in preventing further mischief to the horses, which, having been badly secured, had broken loose and injured each other. after making head against the wind for three or four hours, the captain was at last obliged to steer back to genoa, and re-entered the port at six in the morning. on landing again, after this unpromising commencement of his voyage, lord byron (says count gamba) "appeared thoughtful, and remarked that he considered a bad beginning a favourable omen." it has been already, i believe, mentioned that, among the superstitions in which he chose to indulge, the supposed unluckiness of friday, as a day for the commencement of any work, was one by which he, almost always, allowed himself to be influenced. soon after his arrival at pisa, a lady of his acquaintance happening to meet him on the road from her house as she was herself returning thither, and supposing that he had been to make her a visit, requested that he would go back with her. "i have not been to your house," he answered; "for, just before i got to the door, i remembered that it was friday; and, not liking to make my first visit on a friday, i turned back." it is even related of him that he once sent away a genoese tailor who brought him home a new coat on the same ominous day. with all this, strange to say, he set sail for greece on a friday:--and though, by those who have any leaning to this superstitious fancy, the result maybe thought but too sadly confirmatory of the omen, it is plain that either the influence of the superstition over his own mind was slight, or, in the excitement of self-devotion under which he now acted, was forgotten, in truth, notwithstanding his encouraging speech to count gamba, the forewarning he now felt of his approaching doom seems to have been far too deep and serious to need the aid of any such accessory. having expressed a wish, on relanding, to visit his own palace, which he had left to the care of mr. barry during his absence, and from which madame guiccioli had early that morning departed, he now proceeded thither, accompanied by count gamba alone. "his conversation," says this gentleman, "was somewhat melancholy on our way to albaro: he spoke much of his past life, and of the uncertainty of the future. 'where,' said he, 'shall we be in a year?'--it looked (adds his friend) like a melancholy foreboding; for, on the same day, of the same month, in the next year, he was carried to the tomb of his ancestors." it took nearly the whole of the day to repair the damages of their vessel; and the greater part of this interval was passed by lord byron, in company with mr. barry, at some gardens near the city. here his conversation, as this gentleman informs me, took the same gloomy turn. that he had not fixed to go to england, in preference, seemed one of his deep regrets; and so hopeless were the views he expressed of the whole enterprise before him, that, as it appeared to mr. barry, nothing but a devoted sense of duty and honour could have determined him to persist in it. in the evening of that day they set sail;--and now, fairly launched in the cause, and disengaged, as it were, from his former state of existence, the natural power of his spirit to shake off pressure, whether from within or without, began instantly to display itself. according to the report of one of his fellow-voyagers, though so clouded while on shore, no sooner did he find himself, once more, bounding over the waters, than all the light and life of his better nature shone forth. in the breeze that now bore him towards his beloved greece, the voice of his youth seemed again to speak. before the titles of hero, of benefactor, to which he now aspired, that of poet, however pre-eminent, faded into nothing. his love of freedom, his generosity, his thirst for the new and adventurous,--all were re-awakened; and even the bodings that still lingered at the bottom of his heart but made the course before him more precious from his consciousness of its brevity, and from the high and self-ennobling resolution he had now taken to turn what yet remained of it gloriously to account. "parte, e porta un desio d'eterna ed alma gloria che a nobil cuor e sferza e sprone; a magnanime imprese intenta ha l'alma, ed _insolite cose oprar_ dispone. gir fra i nemici--_ivi o cipresso o palma_ acquistar." after a passage of five days, they reached leghorn, at which place it was thought necessary to touch, for the purpose of taking on board a supply of gunpowder, and other english goods, not to be had elsewhere. it would have been the wish of lord byron, in the new path he had now marked out for himself, to disconnect from his name, if possible, all those poetical associations, which, by throwing a character of romance over the step he was now taking, might have a tendency, as he feared, to impair its practical utility; and it is, perhaps, hardly saying too much for his sincere zeal in the cause to assert, that he would willingly at this moment have sacrificed his whole fame, as poet, for even the prospect of an equivalent renown, as philanthropist and liberator. how vain, however, was the thought that he could thus supersede his own glory, or cause the fame of the lyre to be forgotten in that of the sword, was made manifest to him by a mark of homage which reached him, while at leghorn, from the hands of one of the only two men of the age who could contend with him in the universality of his literary fame. already, as has been seen, an exchange of courtesies, founded upon mutual admiration, had taken place between lord byron and the great poet of germany, goethe. of this intercourse between two such men,--the former as brief a light in the world's eyes, as the latter has been long and steadily luminous,--an account has been by the venerable survivor put on record, which, as a fit preliminary to the letter i am about to give, i shall here insert in as faithful a translation as it has been in my power to procure. "goethe and byron. "the german poet, who, down to the latest period of his long life, had been always anxious to acknowledge the merits of his literary predecessors and contemporaries, because he has always considered this to be the surest means of cultivating his own powers, could not but have his attention attracted to the great talent of the noble lord almost from his earliest appearance, and uninterruptedly watched the progress of his mind throughout the great works which he unceasingly produced. it was immediately perceived by him that the public appreciation of his poetical merits kept pace with the rapid succession of his writings. the joyful sympathy of others would have been perfect, had not the poet, by a life marked by self-dissatisfaction, and the indulgence of strong passions, disturbed the enjoyment which his infinite genius produced. but his german admirer was not led astray by this, or prevented from following with close attention both his works and his life in all their eccentricity. these astonished him the more, as he found in the experience of past ages no element for the calculation of so eccentric an orbit. "these endeavours of the german did not remain unknown to the englishman, of which his poems contain unambiguous proofs; and he also availed himself of the means afforded by various travellers, to forward some friendly salutation to his unknown admirer. at length a manuscript dedication of _sardanapaius_, in the most complimentary terms, was forwarded to him, with an obliging enquiry whether it might be prefixed to the tragedy. the german, who, at his advanced age, was conscious of his own powers and of their effects, could only gratefully and modestly consider this dedication as the expression of an inexhaustible intellect, deeply feeling and creating its own object. he was by no means dissatisfied when, after a long delay, sardanapaius appeared without the dedication; and was made happy by the possession of a fac-simile of it, engraved on stone, which he considered a precious memorial. the noble lord, however, did not abandon his purpose of proclaiming to the world his valued kindness towards his german contemporary and brother poet, a precious evidence of which was placed in front of the tragedy of werner. it will be readily believed, when so unhoped for an honour was conferred upon the german poet,--one seldom experienced in life, and that too from one himself so highly distinguished,--he was by no means reluctant to express the high esteem and sympathising sentiment with which his unsurpassed contemporary had inspired him. the task was difficult, and was found the more so, the more it was contemplated;--for what can be said of one whose unfathomable qualities are not to be reached by words? but when a young gentleman, mr. sterling, of pleasing person and excellent character, in the spring of , on a journey from genoa to weimar, delivered a few lines under the hand of the great man as an introduction, and when the report was soon after spread that the noble peer was about to direct his great mind and various power to deeds of sublime daring beyond the ocean, there appeared to be no time left for further delay, and the following lines were hastily written[ ]:-- [footnote : i insert the verses in the original language, as an english version gives but a very imperfect notion of their meaning.] "ein freundlich wort kommt eines nach dem andern von süden her und bringt uns frohe stunden; es ruft uns auf zum edelsten zu wandern, nich ist der geist, doch ist der fuss gebunden. "wie soil ich dem, den ich so lang begleitet, nun etwas traulich's in die ferne sagen? ihm der sich selbst im innersten bestreitet, stark angewohnt das tiefste weh zu tragen. "wohl sey ihm doch, wenn er sich selbst empfindet! er wage selbst sich hoch beglückt zu nennen, wenn musenkraft die schmerzen überwindet, und wie ich ihn erkannt mög' er sich kennen. "the verses reached genoa, but the excellent friend to whom they were addressed was already gone, and to a distance, as it appeared, inaccessible. driven back, however, by storms, he landed at leghorn, where these cordial lines reached him just as he was about to embark, on the th of july, . he had barely time to answer by a well-filled page, which the possessor has preserved among his most precious papers, as the worthiest evidence of the connection that had been formed. affecting and delightful as was such a document, and justifying the most lively hopes, it has acquired now the greatest, though most painful value, from the untimely death of the lofty writer, which adds a peculiar edge to the grief felt generally throughout the whole moral and poetical world at his loss: for we were warranted in hoping, that when his great deeds should have been achieved, we might personally have greeted in him the pre-eminent intellect, the happily acquired friend, and the most humane of conquerors. at present we can only console ourselves with the conviction that his country will at last recover from that violence of invective and reproach which has been so long raised against him, and will learn to understand that the dross and lees of the age and the individual, out of which even the best have to elevate themselves, are but perishable and transient, while the wonderful glory to which he in the present and through all future ages has elevated his country, will be as boundless in its splendour as it is incalculable in its consequences. nor can there be any doubt that the nation, which can boast of so many great names, will class him among the first of those through whom she has acquired such glory." the following is lord byron's answer to the communication above mentioned from goethe:-- letter . to goethe. "leghorn, july . . "illustrious sir, "i cannot thank you as you ought to be thanked for the lines which my young friend, mr. sterling, sent me of yours; and it would but ill become me to pretend to exchange verses with him who, for fifty years, has been the undisputed sovereign of european literature. you must therefore accept my most sincere acknowledgments in prose--and in hasty prose too; for i am at present on my voyage to greece once more, and surrounded by hurry and bustle, which hardly allow a moment even to gratitude and admiration to express themselves. "i sailed from genoa some days ago, was driven back by a gale of wind, and have since sailed again and arrived here, 'leghorn,' this morning, to receive on board some greek passengers for their struggling country. "here also i found your lines and mr. sterling's letter; and i could not have had a more favourable omen, a more agreeable surprise, than a word of goethe, written by his own hand. "i am returning to greece, to see if i can be of any little use there: if ever i come back, i will pay a visit to weimar, to offer the sincere homage of one of the many millions of your admirers. i have the honour to be, ever and most, "your obliged, "noel byron." from leghorn, where his lordship was joined by mr. hamilton browne, he set sail on the th of july, and, after about ten days of most favourable weather, cast anchor at argostoli, the chief port of cephalonia. it had been thought expedient that lord byron should, with the view of informing himself correctly respecting greece, direct his course, in the first instance, to one of the ionian islands, from whence, as from a post of observation, he might be able to ascertain the exact position of affairs before he landed on the continent. for this purpose it had been recommended that either zante or cephalonia should be selected; and his choice was chiefly determined towards the latter island by his knowledge of the talents and liberal feelings of the resident, colonel napier. aware, however, that, in the yet doubtful aspect of the foreign policy of england, his arrival thus on an expedition so declaredly in aid of insurrection might have the effect of embarrassing the existing authorities, he resolved to adopt such a line of conduct as would be the least calculated either to compromise or offend them. it was with this view he now thought it prudent not to land at argostoli, but to await on board his vessel such information from the government of greece as should enable him to decide upon his further movements. the arrival of a person so celebrated at argostoli excited naturally a lively sensation, as well among the greeks as the english of that place; and the first approaches towards intercourse between the latter and their noble visiter were followed instantly, on both sides, by that sort of agreeable surprise which, from the false notions they had preconceived of each other, was to be expected. his countrymen, who, from the exaggerated stories they had so often heard of his misanthropy and especial horror of the english, expected their courtesies to be received with a haughty, if not insulting coldness, found, on the contrary, in all his demeanour a degree of open and cheerful affability which, calculated, as it was, to charm under any circumstances, was to them, expecting so much the reverse, peculiarly fascinating;--while he, on his side, even still more sensitively prepared, by a long course of brooding over his own fancies, for a cold and reluctant reception from his countrymen, found himself greeted at once with a welcome so cordial and respectful as not only surprised and flattered, but, it was evident, sensibly touched him. among other hospitalities accepted by him was a dinner with the officers of the garrison, at which, on his health being drunk, he is reported to have said, in returning thanks, that "he was doubtful whether he could express his sense of the obligation as he ought, having been so long in the practice of speaking a foreign language that it was with some difficulty he could convey the whole force of what he felt in his own." having despatched messengers to corfu and missolonghi in quest of information, he resolved, while waiting their return, to employ his time in a journey to ithaca, which island is separated from that of cephalonia but by a narrow strait. on his way to vathi, the chief city of the island, to which place he had been invited, and his journey hospitably facilitated, by the resident, captain knox, he paid a visit to the mountain-cave in which, according to tradition, ulysses deposited the presents of the phæacians. "lord byron (says count gamba) ascended to the grotto, but the steepness and height prevented him from reaching the remains of the castle. i myself experienced considerable difficulty in gaining it. lord byron sat reading in the grotto, but fell asleep. i awoke him on my return, and he said that i had interrupted dreams more pleasant than ever he had before in his life." though unchanged, since he first visited these regions, in his preference of the wild charms of nature to all the classic associations of art and history, he yet joined with much interest in any pilgrimage to those places which tradition had sanctified. at the fountain of arethusa, one of the spots of this kind which he visited, a repast had been prepared for himself and his party by the resident; and at the school of homer,--as some remains beyond chioni are called,--he met with an old refugee bishop, whom he had known thirteen years before in livadia, and with whom he now conversed of those times, with a rapidity and freshness of recollection with which the memory of the old bishop could but ill keep pace. neither did the traditional baths of penelope escape his research; and "however sceptical (says a lady, who, soon after, followed his footsteps,) he might have been as to these supposed localities, he never offended the natives by any objection to the reality of their fancies. on the contrary, his politeness and kindness won the respect and admiration of all those greek gentlemen who saw him; and to me they spoke of him with enthusiasm." those benevolent views by which, even more, perhaps, than by any ambition of renown, he proved himself to be actuated in his present course, had, during his short stay at ithaca, opportunities of disclosing themselves. on learning that a number of poor families had fled thither from scio, patras, and other parts of greece, he not only presented to the commandant three thousand piastres for their relief, but by his generosity to one family in particular, which had once been in a state of affluence at patras, enabled them to repair their circumstances and again live in comfort. "the eldest girl (says the lady whom i have already quoted) became afterwards the mistress of the school formed at ithaca; and neither she, her sister, nor mother, could ever speak of lord byron without the deepest feeling of gratitude, and of regret for his too premature death." after occupying in this excursion about eight days, he had again established himself on board the hercules, when one of the messengers whom he had despatched returned, bringing a letter to him from the brave marco botzari, whom he had left among the mountains of agrafa, preparing for that attack in which he so gloriously fell. the following are the terms in which this heroic chief wrote to lord byron:-- "your letter, and that of the venerable ignazio, have filled me with joy. your excellency is exactly the person of whom we stand in need. let nothing prevent you from coming into this part of greece. the enemy threatens us in great number; but, by the help of god and your excellency, they shall meet a suitable resistance. i shall have something to do to-night against a corps of six or seven thousand albanians, encamped close to this place. the day after to-morrow i will set out with a few chosen companions, to meet your excellency. do not delay. i thank you for the good opinion you have of my fellow-citizens, which god grant you will not find ill-founded; and i thank you still more for the care you have so kindly taken of them. "believe me," &c. in the expectation that lord byron would proceed forthwith to missolonghi, it had been the intention of botzari, as the above letter announces, to leave the army, and hasten, with a few of his brother warriors, to receive their noble ally on his landing in a manner worthy of the generous mission on which he came. the above letter, however, preceded but by a few hours his death. that very night he penetrated, with but a handful of followers, into the midst of the enemy's camp, whose force was eight thousand strong, and after leading his heroic band over heaps of dead, fell, at last, close to the tent of the pasha himself. the mention made in this brave suliote's letter of lord byron's care of his fellow-citizens refers to a popular act done recently by the noble poet at cephalonia, in taking into his pay, as a body-guard, forty of this now homeless tribe. on finding, however, that for want of employment they were becoming restless and turbulent, he despatched them off soon after, armed and provisioned, to join in the defence of missolonghi, which was at that time besieged on one side by a considerable force, and blockaded on the other by a turkish squadron. already had he, with a view to the succour of this place, made a generous offer to the government, which he thus states himself in one of his letters:--"i offered to advance a thousand dollars a month for the succour of missolonghi, and the suliotes under botzari (since killed); but the government have answered me, that they wish to confer with me previously, which is in fact saying they wish me to expend my money in some other direction. i will take care that it is for the public cause, otherwise i will not advance a para. the opposition say they want to cajole me, and the party in power say the others wish to seduce me, so between the two i have a difficult part to play; however, i will have nothing to do with the factions unless to reconcile them if possible." in these last few sentences is described briefly the position in which lord byron was now placed, and in which the coolness, foresight, and self-possession he displayed sufficiently refute the notion that even the highest powers of imagination, whatever effect they may sometimes produce on the moral temperament, are at all incompatible with the sound practical good sense, the steadily balanced views, which the business of active life requires. the great difficulty, to an observer of the state of greece at this crisis, was to be able clearly to distinguish between what was real and what was merely apparent in those tests by which the probability of her future success or failure was to be judged. with a government little more than nominal, having neither authority nor resources, its executive and legislative branches being openly at variance, and the supplies that ought to fill its exchequer being intercepted by the military chiefs, who, as they were, in most places, collectors of the revenue, were able to rob by authority;--with that curse of all popular enterprises, a multiplicity of leaders, each selfishly pursuing his own objects, and ready to make the sword the umpire of their claims;--with a fleet furnished by private adventure, and therefore precarious; and an army belonging rather to its chiefs than to the government, and, accordingly, trusting more to plunder than to pay;--with all these principles of mischief, and, as it would seem, ruin at the very heart of the struggle, it had yet persevered, which was in itself victory, through three trying campaigns; and at this moment presented, in the midst of all its apparent weakness and distraction, some elements of success which both accounted for what had hitherto been effected, and gave a hope, with more favouring circumstances, of something nobler yet to come. besides the never-failing encouragement which the incapacity of their enemies afforded them, the greeks derived also from the geographical conformation of their country those same advantages with which nature had blessed their great ancestors, and which had contributed mainly perhaps to the formation, as well as maintenance, of their high national character. islanders and mountaineers, they were, by their very position, heirs to the blessings of freedom and commerce; nor had the spirit of either, through all their long slavery and sufferings, ever wholly died away. they had also, luckily, in a political as well as religious point of view, preserved that sacred line of distinction between themselves and their conquerors which a fond fidelity to an ancient church could alone have maintained for them;--keeping thus holily in reserve, against the hour of struggle, that most stirring of all the excitements to which freedom can appeal when she points to her flame rising out of the censer of religion. in addition to these, and all the other moral advantages included in them, for which the greeks were indebted to their own nature and position, is to be taken also into account the aid and sympathy they had every right to expect from others, as soon as their exertions in their own cause should justify the confidence that it would be something more than the mere chivalry of generosity to assist them.[ ] [footnote : for a clear and concise sketch of the state of greece at this crisis, executed with all that command of the subject which a long residence in the country alone could give, see colonel leake's "historical outline of the greek revolution."] such seem to have been the chief features of hope which the state of greece, at this moment, presented. but though giving promise, perhaps, of a lengthened continuance of the struggle, they, in that very promise, postponed indefinitely the period of its success; and checked and counteracted as were these auspicious appearances by the manifold and inherent evils above enumerated,--by a consideration, too, of the resources and obstinacy of the still powerful turk, and of the little favour with which it was at all probable that the courts of europe would ever regard the attempt of any people, under any circumstances, to be their own emancipators,--none, assuredly, but a most sanguine spirit could indulge in the dream that greece would be able to work out her own liberation, or that aught, indeed, but a fortuitous concurrence of political circumstances could ever accomplish it. like many other such contests between right and might, it was a cause destined, all felt, to be successful, but at its own ripe hour;--a cause which individuals might keep alive, but which events, wholly independent of them, alone could accomplish, and which, after the hearts, and hopes, and lives of all its bravest defenders had been wasted upon it, would at last to other hands, and even to other means than those contemplated by its first champions, owe its completion. that lord byron, on a nearer view of the state of greece, saw it much in the light i have here regarded it in, his letters leave no room to doubt. neither was the impression he had early received of the greeks themselves at all improved by the present renewal of his acquaintance with them. though making full allowance for the causes that had produced their degeneracy, he still saw that they were grossly degenerate, and must be dealt with and counted upon accordingly. "i am of st. paul's opinion," said he, "that there is no difference between jews and greeks,--the character of both being equally vile." with such means and materials, the work of regeneration, he knew, must be slow; and the hopelessness he therefore felt as to the chances of ever connecting his name with any essential or permanent benefit to greece, gives to the sacrifice he now made of himself a far more touching interest than had the consciousness of dying for some great object been at once his incitement and reward. he but looked upon himself,--to use a favourite illustration of his own,--as one of the many waves that must break and die upon the shore, before the tide they help to advance can reach its full mark. "what signifies self," was his generous thought, "if a single spark of that which would be worthy of the past can be bequeathed unquenchedly to the future?"[ ] such was the devoted feeling with which he embarked in the cause of italy; and these words, which, had they remained _only_ words, the unjust world would have pronounced but an idle boast, have now received from his whole course in greece a practical comment, which gives them all the right of truth to be engraved solemnly on his tomb. [footnote : _diary of_ .--the same distrustful and, as it turned out, just view of the chances of success were taken by him also on that occasion:--"i shall not," he says, "fall back;--though i don't think them in force or heart sufficient to make much of it."] though with so little hope of being able to serve signally the cause, the task of at least lightening, by his interposition, some of the manifold mischiefs that pressed upon it, might yet, he thought, be within his reach. to convince the government and the chiefs of the paralysing effect of their dissensions;--to inculcate that spirit of union among themselves which alone could give strength against their enemies;--to endeavour to humanise the feelings of the belligerents on both sides, so as to take from the war that character of barbarism which deterred the more civilised friends of freedom through europe from joining in it;--such were, in addition to the now essential aid of his money, the great objects which he proposed to effect by his interference; and to these he accordingly, with all the candour, clear-sightedness, and courage which so pre-eminently distinguished his great mind, applied himself. aware that, to judge deliberately of the state of parties, he must keep out of their vortex, and warned, by the very impatience and rivalry with which the different chiefs courted his presence, of the risk he should run by connecting himself with any, he resolved to remain, for some time longer, in his station at cephalonia, and there avail himself of the facilities afforded by the position for collecting information as to the real state of affairs, and ascertaining in what quarter his own presence and money would be most available. during the six weeks that had elapsed since his arrival at cephalonia, he had been living in the most comfortless manner, pent up with pigs and poultry, on board the vessel which brought him. having now come, however, to the determination of prolonging his stay, he decided also upon fixing his abode on shore; and, for the sake of privacy, retired to a small village, called metaxata, about seven miles from argostoli, where he continued to reside during the remainder of his stay on the island. before this change of residence, he had despatched mr. hamilton browne and mr. trelawney with a letter to the existing government of greece, explanatory of his own views and those of the committee whom he represented; and it was not till a month after his removal to metaxata that intelligence from these gentlemen reached him. the picture they gave of the state of the country was, in most respects, confirmatory of what has already been described as his own view of it;--incapacity and selfishness at the head of affairs, disorganisation throughout the whole body politic, but still, with all this, the heart of the nation sound, and bent on resistance. nor could he have failed to be struck with the close family resemblance to the ancient race of the country which this picture exhibited;--that great people, in the very midst of their own endless dissensions, having been ever ready to face round in concert against the foe. his lordship's agents had been received with all due welcome by the government, who were most desirous that he should set out for the morea without delay; and pressing letters to the same purport, both from the legislative and executive bodies, accompanied those which reached him from messrs. browne and trelawney. he was, however, determined not to move till his own selected time, having seen reason, the farther insight he obtained into their intrigues, to congratulate himself but the more on his prudence in not plunging into the maze without being first furnished with those guards against deception which the information he was now acquiring supplied him. to give an idea, as briefly as possible, of the sort of conflicting calls that were from various scenes of action, reaching him in his retirement, it may be sufficient to mention that, while by metaxa, the present governor of missolonghi, he was entreated earnestly to hasten to the relief of that place, which the turks were now blockading both by land and by sea, the head of the military chiefs, colocotroni, was no less earnestly urging that he should present himself at the approaching congress of salamis, where, under the dictation of these rude warriors, the affairs of the country were to be settled,--while at the same time, from another quarter, the great opponent of these chieftains, mavrocordato, was, with more urgency, as well as more ability than any, endeavouring to impress upon him his own views, and imploring his presence at hydra, whither he himself had just been forced to retire. the mere knowledge, indeed, that a noble englishman had arrived in those regions, so unprepossessed by any party as to inspire a hope of his alliance in all, and with money, by common rumour, as abundant as the imaginations of the needy chose to make it, was, in itself, fully sufficient, without any of the more elevated claims of his name, to attract towards him all thoughts. "it is easier to conceive," says count gamba, "than to relate the various means employed to engage him in one faction or the other: letters, messengers, intrigues, and recriminations,--nay, each faction had its agents exerting every art to degrade its opponent." he then adds a circumstance strongly illustrative of a peculiar feature in the noble poet's character:--"he occupied himself in discovering the truth, hidden as it was under these intrigues, and _amused himself in confronting the agents of the different factions_." during all these occupations he went on pursuing his usual simple and uniform course of life,--rising, however, for the despatch of business, at an early hour, which showed how capable he was of conquering even long habit when necessary. though so much occupied, too, he was, at all hours, accessible to visitors; and the facility with which he allowed even the dullest people to break in upon him was exemplified, i am told, strongly in the case of one of the officers of the garrison, who, without being able to understand any thing of the poet but his good-nature, used to say, whenever he found his time hang heavily on his hands,--"i think i shall ride out and have a little talk with lord byron." the person, however, whose visits appeared to give him most pleasure, as well from the interest he took in the subject on which they chiefly conversed, as from the opportunities, sometimes, of pleasantry which the peculiarities of his visiter afforded him, was a medical gentleman named kennedy, who, from a strong sense of the value of religion to himself, had taken up the benevolent task of communicating his own light to others. the first origin of their intercourse was an undertaking, on the part of this gentleman, to convert to a firm belief in christianity some rather sceptical friends of his, then at argostoli. happening to hear of the meeting appointed for this purpose, lord byron begged that he might be allowed to attend, saying to the person through whom he conveyed his request, "you know i am reckoned a black sheep,--yet, after all, not so black as the world believes me." he had promised to convince dr. kennedy that, "though wanting, perhaps, in faith, he at least had patience:" but the process of so many hours of lecture,--no less than twelve, without interruption, being stipulated for,--was a trial beyond his strength; and, very early in the operation, as the doctor informs us, he began to show evident signs of a wish to exchange the part of hearer for that of speaker. notwithstanding this, however, there was in all his deportment, both as listener and talker, such a degree of courtesy, candour, and sincere readiness to be taught, as excited interest, if not hope, for his future welfare in the good doctor; and though he never after attended the more numerous meetings, his conferences, on the same subject, with dr. kennedy alone, were not infrequent during the remainder of his stay at cephalonia. these curious conversations are now published; and to the value which they possess as a simple and popular exposition of the chief evidences of christianity, is added the charm that must ever dwell round the character of one of the interlocutors, and the almost fearful interest attached to every word that, on such a subject, he utters. in the course of the first conversation, it will be seen that lord byron expressly disclaimed being one of those infidels "who deny the scriptures, and wish to remain in unbelief." on the contrary, he professed himself "desirous to believe; as he experienced no happiness in having his religious opinions so unfixed." he was unable, however, he added, "to understand the scriptures. those who conscientiously believed them he could always respect, and was always disposed to trust in them more than in others; but he had met with so many whose conduct differed from the principles which they professed, and who seemed to profess those principles either because they were paid to do so, or from some other motive which an intimate acquaintance with their character would enable one to detect, that altogether he had seen few, if any, whom he could rely upon as truly and conscientiously believing the scriptures." we may take for granted that these conversations,--more especially the first, from the number of persons present who would report the proceedings,--excited considerable interest among the society of argostoli. it was said that lord byron had displayed such a profound knowledge of the scriptures as astonished, and even puzzled, the polemic doctor; while in all the eminent writers on theological subjects he had shown himself far better versed than his more pretending opponent. all this dr. kennedy strongly denies; and the truth seems to be, that on neither side were there much stores of theological learning. the confession of the lecturer himself, that he had not read the works of stillingfleet or barrow, shows that, in his researches after orthodoxy, he had not allowed himself any very extensive range; while the alleged familiarity of lord byron with the same authorities must be taken with a similar abatement of credence and wonder to that which his own account of his youthful studies, already given, requires;--a rapid eye and retentive memory having enabled him, on this as on most other subjects, to catch, as it were, the salient points on the surface of knowledge, and the recollections he thus gathered being, perhaps, the livelier from his not having encumbered himself with more. to any regular train of reasoning, even on this his most favourite topic, it was not possible to lead him. he would start objections to the arguments of others, and detect their fallacies; but of any consecutive ratiocination on his own side he seemed, if not incapable, impatient. in this, indeed, as in many other peculiarities belonging to him,--his caprices, fits of weeping, sudden affections and dislikes,--may be observed striking traces of a feminine cast of character;--it being observable that the discursive faculty is rarely exercised by women; but that nevertheless, by the mere instinct of truth (as was the case with lord byron), they are often enabled at once to light upon the very conclusion to which man, through all the forms of reasoning, is, in the mean time, puzzling, and, perhaps, losing his way:-- "and strikes each point with native force of mind, while puzzled logic blunders far behind." of the scriptures, it is certain that lord byron was a frequent and almost daily reader,--the small pocket bible which, on his leaving england, had been given him by his sister, being always near him. how much, in addition to his natural solicitude on the subject of religion, the taste of the poet influenced him in this line of study, may be seen in his frequently expressed admiration of "the ghost-scene," as he called it, in samuel, and his comparison of this supernatural appearance with the mephistopheles of goethe. in the same manner, his imagination appears to have been much struck by the notion of his lecturer, that the circumstance mentioned in job of the almighty summoning satan into his presence was to be interpreted, not, as he thought, allegorically and poetically, but literally. more than once we find him expressing to dr. kennedy "how much this belief of the real appearance of satan to hear and obey the commands of god added to his views of the grandeur and majesty of the creator." on the whole, the interest of these conversations, as far as regards lord byron, arises not so much from any new or certain lights they supply us with on the subject of his religious opinions, as from the evidence they afford of his amiable facility of intercourse, the total absence of bigotry or prejudice from even his most favourite notions, and--what may be accounted, perhaps, the next step in conversion to belief itself--his disposition to believe. as far, indeed, as a frank submission to the charge of being wrong may be supposed to imply an advance on the road to being right, few persons, it must be acknowledged, under a process of proselytism, ever showed more of this desired symptom of change than lord byron. "i own," says a witness to one of these conversations[ ], "i felt astonished to hear lord byron submit to lectures on his life, his vanity, and the uselessness of his talents, which made me stare." [footnote : mr. finlay.] as most persons will be tempted to refer to the work itself, there are but one or two other opinions of his lordship recorded in it which i shall think necessary to notice here. a frequent question of his to dr. kennedy was,--"what, then, you think me in a very bad way?"--the usual answer to which being in the affirmative, he, on one occasion, replied,--"i am now, however, in a fairer way. i already believe in predestination, which i know you believe, and in the depravity of the human heart in general, and of my own in particular:--thus you see there are two points in which we agree. i shall get at the others by and by; but you cannot expect me to become a perfect christian at once." on the subject of dr. southwood's amiable and, it is to be hoped for the sake of christianity and the human race, _orthodox_ work on "the divine government," he thus spoke:--"i cannot decide the point; but to my present apprehension it would be a most desirable thing could it be proved, that ultimately all created beings were to be happy. this would appear to be most consistent with god, whose power is omnipotent, and whose chief attribute is love. i cannot yield to your doctrine of the eternal duration of punishment. this author's opinion is more humane, and i think he supports it very strongly from scripture." i shall now insert, with such explanatory remarks as they may seem to require, some of the letters, official as well as private, which his lordship wrote while at cephalonia; and from which the reader may collect, in a manner far more interesting than through the medium of any narrative, a knowledge both of the events now passing in greece, and of the views and feelings with which they were regarded by lord byron. to madame guiccioli he wrote frequently, but briefly, and, for the first time, in english; adding always a few lines in her brother pietro's letters to her. the following are extracts. "october . "pietro has told you all the gossip of the island,--our earthquakes, our politics, and present abode in a pretty village. as his opinions and mine on the greeks are nearly similar, i need say little on that subject. i was a fool to come here; but, being here, i must see what is to be done." "october ----. "we are still in cephalonia, waiting for news of a more accurate description; for all is contradiction and division in the reports of the state of the greeks. i shall fulfil the object of my mission from the committee, and then return into italy; for it does not seem likely that, as an individual, i can be of use to them;--at least no other foreigner has yet appeared to be so, nor does it seem likely that any will be at present. "pray be as cheerful and tranquil as you can; and be assured that there is nothing here that can excite any thing but a wish to be with you again,--though we are very kindly treated by the english here of all descriptions. of the greeks, i can't say much good hitherto, and i do not like to speak ill of them, though they do of one another." "october . "you may be sure that the moment i can join you again, will be as welcome to me as at any period of our recollection. there is nothing very attractive here to divide my attention; but i must attend to the greek cause, both from honour and inclination. messrs. b. and t. are both in the morea, where they have been very well received, and both of them write in good spirits and hopes. i am anxious to hear how the spanish cause will be arranged, as i think it may have an influence on the greek contest. i wish that both were fairly and favourably settled, that i might return to italy, and talk over with you _our_, or rather pietro's adventures, some of which are rather amusing, as also some of the incidents of our voyages and travels. but i reserve them, in the hope that we may laugh over them together at no very distant period." letter . to mr. bowring. " bre . . "this letter will be presented to you by mr. hamilton browne, who precedes or accompanies the greek deputies. he is both capable and desirous of rendering any service to the cause, and information to the committee. he has already been of considerable advantage to both, of my own knowledge. lord archibald hamilton, to whom he is related, will add a weightier recommendation than mine. "corinth is taken, and a turkish squadron said to be beaten in the archipelago. the public progress of the greeks is considerable, but their internal dissensions still continue. on arriving at the seat of government, i shall endeavour to mitigate or extinguish them--though neither is an easy task. i have remained here till now, partly in expectation of the squadron in relief of missolonghi, partly of mr. parry's detachment, and partly to receive from malta or zante the sum of four thousand pounds sterling, which i have advanced for the payment of the expected squadron. the bills are negotiating, and will be cashed in a short time, as they would have been immediately in any other mart; but the miserable ionian merchants have little money, and no great credit, and are besides _politically shy_ on this occasion; for although i had letters of messrs. webb (one of the strongest houses of the mediterranean), and also of messrs. ransom, there is no business to be done on _fair_ terms except through english merchants. these, however, have proved both able and willing,--and upright as usual.[ ] [footnote : the english merchants whom he thus so justly describes, are messrs. barff and hancock, of zante, whose conduct, not only in the instance of lord byron, but throughout the whole greek struggle, has been uniformly most zealous and disinterested.] "colonel stanhope has arrived, and will proceed immediately; he shall have my co-operation in all his endeavours: but, from every thing that i can learn, the formation of a brigade at present will be extremely difficult, to say the least of it. with regard to the reception of foreigners,--at least of foreign officers,--i refer you to a passage in prince mavrocordato's recent letter, a copy of which is enclosed in my packet sent to the deputies. it is my intention to proceed by sea to napoli di romania as soon as i have arranged this business for the greeks themselves--i mean the advance of two hundred thousand piastres for their fleet. "my time here has not been entirely lost,--as you will perceive by some former documents that any advantage from my _then_ proceeding to the morea was doubtful. we have at last moved the deputies, and i have made a strong remonstrance on their divisions to mavrocordato, which, i understand, was forwarded by the legislative to the prince. with a loan they _may_ do much, which is all that _i_, for particular reasons, can say on the subject. "i regret to hear from colonel stanhope that the committee have exhausted their funds. is it supposed that a brigade can be formed without them? or that three thousand pounds would be sufficient? it is true that money will go farther in greece than in most countries; but the regular force must be rendered a _national concern_, and paid from a national fund; and neither individuals nor committees, at least with the usual means of such as now exist, will find the experiment practicable. "i beg once more to recommend my friend, mr. hamilton browne, to whom i have also personal obligations, for his exertions in the common cause, and have the honour to be "yours very truly." his remonstrance to prince mavrocordato, here mentioned, was accompanied by another, addressed to the existing government; and colonel stanhope, who was about to proceed to napoli and argos, was made the bearer of both. the wise and noble spirit that pervades these two papers must, of itself, without any further comment, be appreciated by all readers.[ ] [footnote : the originals of both are in italian.] letter . to the general government of greece. "cephalonia, november . . "the affair of the loan, the expectations so long and vainly indulged of the arrival of the greek fleet, and the danger to which missolonghi is still exposed, have detained me here, and will still detain me till some of them are removed. but when the money shall be advanced for the fleet, i will start for the morea; not knowing, however, of what use my presence can be in the present state of things. we have heard some rumours of new dissensions, nay, of the existence of a civil war. with all my heart i pray that these reports may be false or exaggerated, for i can imagine no calamity more serious than this; and i must frankly confess, that unless union and order are established, all hopes of a loan will be vain; and all the assistance which the greeks could expect from abroad--an assistance neither trifling nor worthless--will be suspended or destroyed; and, what is worse, the great powers of europe, of whom no one was an enemy to greece, but seemed to favour her establishment of an independent power, will be persuaded that the greeks are unable to govern themselves, and will, perhaps, themselves undertake to settle your disorders in such a way as to blast the brightest hopes of yourselves and of your friends. "allow me to add, once for all,--i desire the well-being of greece, and nothing else; i will do all i can to secure it; but i cannot consent, i never will consent, that the english public, or english individuals, should be deceived as to the real state of greek affairs. the rest, gentlemen, depends on you. you have fought gloriously;--act honourably towards your fellow-citizens and the world, and it will then no more be said, as has been repeated for two thousand years with the roman historians, that philopoemen was the last of the grecians. let not calumny itself (and it is difficult, i own, to guard against it in so arduous a struggle,) compare the patriot greek, when resting from his labours, to the turkish pacha, whom his victories have exterminated. "i pray you to accept these my sentiments as a sincere proof of my attachment to your real interests, and to believe that i am and always shall be "yours," &c. letter . to prince mavrocordato. "cephalonia, dec. . . "prince, "the present will be put into your hands by colonel stanhope, son of major-general the earl of harrington, &c. &c. he has arrived from london in fifty days, after having visited all the committees of germany. he is charged by our committee to act in concert with me for the liberation of greece. i conceive that his name and his mission will be a sufficient recommendation, without the necessity of any other from a foreigner, although one who, in common with all europe, respects and admires the courage, the talents, and, above all, the probity of prince mavrocordato. "i am very uneasy at hearing that the dissensions of greece still continue, and at a moment when she might triumph over every thing in general, as she has already triumphed in part. greece is, at present, placed between three measures: either to reconquer her liberty, to become a dependence of the sovereigns of europe, or to return to a turkish province. she has the choice only of these three alternatives. civil war is but a road which leads to the two latter. if she is desirous of the fate of walachia and the crimea, she may obtain it to-morrow; if of that of italy, the day after; but if she wishes to become truly greece, free and independent, she must resolve to-day, or she will never again have the opportunity. "i am, with all respect, "your highness's obedient servant, "n. b. "p.s. your highness will already have known that i have sought to fulfil the wishes of the greek government, as much as it lay in my power to do so: but i should wish that the fleet so long and so vainly expected were arrived, or, at least, that it were on the way; and especially that your highness should approach these parts, either on board the fleet, with a public mission, or in some other manner." letter . to mr. bowring. " bre . . "i confirm the above[ ]: it is certainly my opinion that mr. millingen is entitled to the same salary with mr. tindall, and his service is likely to be harder. [footnote : he here alludes to a letter, forwarded with his own, from mr. millingen, who was about to join, in his medical capacity, the suliotes, near fatras, and requested of the committee an increase of pay. this gentleman, having mentioned in his letter "that the retreat of the turks from before missolonghi had rendered unnecessary the appearance of the greek fleet," lord byron, in a note on this passage, says, "by the special providence of the deity, the mussulmans were seized with a panic, and fled; but no thanks to the fleet, which ought to have been here months ago, and has no excuse to the contrary, lately--at least since i had the money ready to pay." on another passage, in which mr. millingen complains that his hope of any remuneration from the greeks has "turned out perfectly chimerical," lord byron remarks, in a note, "and _will_ do so, till they obtain a loan. they have not a rap, nor credit (in the islands) to raise one. a medical man may succeed better than others; but all these penniless officers had better have stayed at home. much money may not be required, but some must."] "i have written to you (as to mr. hobhouse _for_ your perusal) by various opportunities, mostly private; also by the deputies, and by mr. hamilton browne. "the public success of the greeks has been considerable,--corinth taken, missolonghi nearly safe, and some ships in the archipelago taken from the turks; but there is not only dissension in the morea, but _civil war_, by the latest accounts[ ]; to what extent we do not yet know, but hope trifling. [footnote : the legislative and executive bodies having been for some time at variance, the latter had at length resorted to violence, and some skirmishes had already taken place between the factions.] "for six weeks i have been expecting the fleet, _which has not arrived_, though i have, at the request of the greek government, advanced--that is, prepared, and have in hand two hundred thousand piastres (deducting the commission and bankers' charges) of my own monies to forward their projects. the suliotes (now in acarnania) are very anxious that i should take them under my directions, and go over and put things to rights in the morea, which, without a force, seems impracticable; and, really, though very reluctant (as my letters will have shown you) to take such a measure, there seems hardly any milder remedy. however, i will not do any thing rashly, and have only continued here so long in the hope of seeing things reconciled, and have done all in my power thereto. had _i gone sooner, they would have forced me into one party or other_, and i doubt as much now; but we will do our best. "yours," &c. letter . to mr. bowring. "october . . "colonel napier will present to you this letter. of his military character it were superfluous to speak: of his personal, i can say, from my own knowledge, as well as from all public rumour or private report, that it is as excellent as his military: in short, a better or a braver man is not easily to be found. _he_ is our man to lead a regular force, or to organise a national one for the greeks. ask the army--ask any one. he is besides a personal friend of both prince mavrocordato, colonel stanhope, and myself, and in such concord with all three that we should all pull together--an indispensable, as well as a rare point, especially in greece at present. "to enable a regular force to be properly organised, it will be requisite for the loan-holders to set apart at least , _l_. sterling for that particular purpose--perhaps more; but by so doing they will guarantee their own monies, 'and make assurance doubly sure.' they can appoint commissioners to see that part property expended--and i recommend a similar precaution for the whole. "i hope that the deputies have arrived, as well as some of my various despatches (chiefly addressed to mr. hobhouse) for the committee. colonel napier will tell you the recent special interposition of the gods, in behalf of the greeks--who seem to have no enemies in heaven or on earth to be dreaded but their own tendency to discord amongst themselves. but these, too, it is to be hoped, will be mitigated, and then we can take the field on the offensive, instead of being reduced to the _petite guerre_ of defending the same fortresses year after year, and taking a few ships, and starving out a castle, and making more fuss about them than alexander in his cups, or buonaparte in a bulletin. our friends have done something in the way of the _spartans_--(though not one tenth of what is told)--but have not yet inherited _their_ style. "believe me yours," &c. letter to mr. bowring. "october . . "since i wrote to you on the th instant, the long-desired squadron has arrived in the waters of missolonghi and intercepted two turkish corvettes--ditto transports--destroying or taking all four--except some of the crews escaped on shore in ithaca--and an unarmed vessel, with passengers, chased into a port on the opposite side of cephalonia. the greeks had fourteen sail, the turks _four_--but the odds don't matter--the victory will make a very good _puff_, and be of some advantage besides. i expect momentarily advices from prince mavrocordato, who is on board, and has (i understand) despatches from the legislative for me; in consequence of which, after paying the squadron, (for which i have prepared, and am preparing,) i shall probably join him at sea or on shore. "i add the above communication to my letter by col. napier, who will inform the committee of every thing in detail much better than i can do. "the mathematical, medical, and musical preparations of the committee have arrived, and in good condition, abating some damage from wet, and some ditto from a portion of the letter-press being spilt in landing--(i ought not to have omitted the press--but forgot it a moment--excuse the same)--they are excellent of their kind, but till we have an engineer and a trumpeter (we have chirurgeons already) mere 'pearls to swine,' as the greeks are quite ignorant of mathematics, and have a bad ear for _our_ music. the maps, &c. i will put into use for them, and take care that _all_ (with proper caution) are turned to the intended uses of the committee--but i refer you to colonel napier, who will tell you, that much of your really valuable supplies should be removed till proper persons arrive to adapt them to actual service. "believe me, my dear sir, to be, &c. "p.s. _private_--i have written to our friend douglas kinnaird on my own matters, desiring him to send me out all the' further credits i can command,--and i have a year's income, and the sale of a manor besides, he tells me, before me,--for till the greeks get _their_ loan, it is probable that i shall have to stand partly paymaster--as far as i am 'good upon _change_,' that is to say. i pray you to repeat as much to _him_, and say that i must in the interim draw on messrs. ransom most formidably. to say the truth, i do not grudge it now the fellows have begun to fight _again_--and still more welcome shall they be if they will go on. but they have had, or are to have, some four thousand pounds (besides some private extraordinaries for widows, orphans, refugees, and rascals of all descriptions,) of mine at one 'swoop;' and it is to be expected the next will be at least as much more. and how can i refuse it if they _will_ fight?--and especially if i should happen ever to be in their company? i therefore request and require that you should apprise my trusty and trust-worthy trustee and banker, and crown and sheet-anchor, douglas kinnaird the honourable, that he prepare all monies of mine, including the purchase money of rochdale manor and mine income for the year ensuing, a.d. , to answer, or anticipate, any orders or drafts of mine for the good cause, in good and lawful money of great britain, &c. &c. may you live a thousand years i which is nine hundred and ninety-nine longer than the spanish cortes' constitution." letter . to the hon. mr. douglas kinnaird. "cephalonia, december . . "i shall be as saving of my purse and person as you recommend; but you know that it is as well to be in readiness with one or both, in the event of either being required. "i presume that some agreement has been concluded with mr. murray about 'werner.' although the copyright should only be worth two or three hundred pounds, i will tell you what can be done with them. for three hundred pounds i can maintain in greece, at more than the _fullest pay_ of the provisional government, rations included, one hundred armed men for _three months_. you may judge of this when i tell you, that the four thousand pounds advanced by me to the greeks is likely to set a fleet and an army in motion for some months. "a greek vessel has arrived from the squadron to convey me to missolonghi, where mavrocordato now is, and has assumed the command, so that i expect to embark immediately. still address, however, to cephalonia, through messrs. welch and barry of genoa, as usual; and get together all the means and credit of mine you can, to face the war establishment, for it is 'in for a penny, in for a pound,' and i must do all that i can for the ancients. "i have been labouring to reconcile these parties, and there is _now_ some hope of succeeding. their public affairs go on well. the turks have retreated from acarnania without a battle, after a few fruitless attempts on anatoliko. corinth is taken, and the greeks have gained a battle in the archipelago. the squadron here, too, has taken a turkish corvette with some money and a cargo. in short, if they can obtain a loan, i am of opinion that matters will assume and preserve a steady and favourable aspect for their independence. "in the mean time i stand paymaster, and what not; and lucky it is that, from the nature of the warfare and of the country, the resources even of an individual can be of a partial and temporary service. "colonel stanhope is at missolonghi. probably we shall attempt patras next. the suliotes, who are friends of mine, seem anxious to have me with them, and so is mavrocordato. if i can but succeed in reconciling the two parties (and i have left no stone unturned), it will be something; and if not, we roust go over to the morea with the western greeks--who are the bravest, and at present the strongest, having beaten back the turks--and try the effect of a little _physical_ advice, should they persist in rejecting _moral_ persuasion. "once more recommending to you the reinforcement of my strong box and credit from all lawful sources and resources of mine to their practicable extent--for, after all, it is better playing at nations than gaming at almack's or newmarket--and requesting you to write to me as often as you can, "i remain ever," &c. the squadron, so long looked for, having made its appearance at last in the waters of missolonghi, and mavrocordato, the only leader of the cause worthy the name of statesman, having been appointed, with full powers, to organise western greece, the fit moment for lord byron's presence on the scene of action seemed to have arrived. the anxiety, indeed, with which he was expected at missolonghi was intense, and can be best judged from the impatient language of the letters written to hasten him. "i need not tell you, my lord," says mavrocordato, "how much i long for your arrival, to what a pitch your presence is desired by every body, or what a prosperous direction it will give to all our affairs. your counsels will be listened to like oracles." colonel stanhope, with the same urgency, writes from missolonghi,--"the greek ship sent for your lordship has returned; your arrival was anticipated, and the disappointment has been great indeed. the prince is in a state of anxiety, the admiral looks gloomy, and the sailors grumble aloud." he adds at the end, "i walked along the streets this evening, and the people asked me after lord byron !!!" in a letter to the london committee of the same date, colonel stanhope says, "all are looking forward to lord byron's arrival, as they would to the coming of the messiah." of this anxiety, no inconsiderable part is doubtless to be attributed to their great impatience for the possession of the loan which he had promised them, and on which they wholly depended for the payment of the fleet--"prince mavrocordato and the admiral (says the same gentleman) are in a state of extreme perplexity: they, it seems, relied on your loan for the payment of the fleet; that loan not having been received, the sailors will depart immediately. this will be a fatal event indeed, as it will place missolonghi in a state of blockade; and will prevent the greek troops from acting against the fortresses of nepacto and patras." in the mean time lord byron was preparing busily for his departure, the postponement of which latterly had been, in a great measure, owing to that repugnance to any new change of place which had lately so much grown upon him, and which neither love, as we have seen, nor ambition, could entirely conquer. there had been also considerable pains taken by some of his friends at argostoli to prevent his fixing upon a place of residence so unhealthy as missolonghi; and mr. muir, a very able medical officer, on whose talents he had much dependence, endeavoured most earnestly to dissuade him from such an imprudent step. his mind, however, was made up,--the proximity of that port, in some degree, tempting him,--and having hired, for himself and suite, a light, fast-sailing vessel, called the mistico, with a boat for part of his baggage, and a larger vessel for the remainder, the horses, &c. he was, on the th of december, ready to sail. the wind, however, being contrary, he was detained two days longer, and in this interval the following letters were written. letter . to mr. bowring. " bre . . "little need be added to the enclosed, which arrived this day, except that i embark to-morrow for missolonghi. the intended operations are detailed in the annexed documents. i have only to request that the committee will use every exertion to forward our views by all its influence and credit. "i have also to request you _personally_ from myself to urge my friend and trustee, douglas kinnaird (from whom i have not heard these four months nearly), to forward to me all the resources of my _own_ we can muster for the ensuing year; since it is no time to ménager _purse_, or, perhaps, _person_. i have advanced, and am advancing, all that i have in hand, but i shall require all that can be got together;--and (if douglas has completed the sale of rochdale, _that _ and my year's income for next year ought to form a good round sum,)--as you may perceive that there will be little cash of their own amongst the greeks (unless they get the loan), it is the more necessary that those of their friends who have any should risk it. "the supplies of the committee are, some, useful, and all excellent in their kind, but occasionally hardly _practical_ enough, in the present state of greece; for instance, the mathematical instruments are thrown away--none of the greeks know a problem from a poker--we must conquer first, and plan afterwards. the use of the trumpets, too, may be doubted, unless constantinople were jericho, for the helenists have no ears for bugles, and you must send us somebody to listen to them. "we will do our best--and i pray you to stir your english hearts at home to more _general_ exertion; for my part, i will stick by the cause while a plank remains which can be _honourably_ clung to. if i quit it, it will be by the greeks' conduct, and not the holy allies or holier mussulmans--but let us hope better things. "ever yours, n. b. "p.s. i am happy to say that colonel leicester stanhope and myself are acting in perfect harmony together--he is likely to be of great service both to the cause and to the committee, and is publicly as well as personally a very valuable acquisition to our party on every account. he came up (as they all do who have not been in the country before) with some high-flown notions of the sixth form at harrow or eton, &c.; but col. napier and i set him to rights on those points, which is absolutely necessary to prevent disgust, or perhaps return; but now we can set our shoulders _soberly_ to the _wheel_, without quarrelling with the mud which may clog it occasionally. "i can assure you that col. napier and myself are as decided for the cause as any german student of them all; but like men who have seen the country and human life, there and elsewhere, we must be permitted to view it in its truth, with its defects as well as beauties,--more especially as success will remove the former _gradually_. n. b. "p.s. as much of this letter as you please is for the committee, the rest may be 'entre nous.'" letter . to mr. moore. "cephalonia, december . . "i received a letter from you some time ago. i have been too much employed latterly to write as i could wish, and even now must write in haste. "i embark for missolonghi to join mavrocordato in four-and-twenty hours. the state of parties (but it were a long story) has kept me here till _now_; but now that mavrocordato (their washington, or their kosciusko) is employed again, i can act with a _safe conscience._ i carry money to pay the squadron, &c., and i have influence with the suliotes, _supposed _ sufficient to keep them in harmony with some of the dissentients;--for there are plenty of differences, but trifling. "it is imagined that we shall attempt either patras or the castles on the straits; and it seems, by most accounts, that the greeks, at any rate, the suliotes, who are in affinity with me of 'bread and salt,'--expect that i should march with them, and--be it even so! if any thing in the way of fever, fatigue, famine, or otherwise, should cut short the middle age of a brother warbler,--like garcilasso de la vega, kleist, korner, joukoffsky[ ] (a russian nightingale--see bowring's anthology), or thersander, or,--or somebody else--but never mind--i pray you to remember me in your 'smiles and wine.' [footnote : one of the most celebrated of the living poets of russia, who fought at borodino, and has commemorated that battle in a poem of much celebrity among his countrymen.] "i have hopes that the cause will triumph; but whether it does or no, still 'honour must be minded as strictly as milk diet,' i trust to observe both, "ever," &c. it is hardly necessary to direct the attention of the reader to the sad, and but too true anticipation expressed in this letter--the last but one i was ever to receive from my friend. before we accompany him to the closing scene of all his toils, i shall here, as briefly as possible, give a selection from the many characteristic anecdotes told of him, while at cephalonia, where (to use the words of colonel stanhope, in a letter from thence to the greek committee,) he was "beloved by cephalonians, by english, and by greeks;" and where, approached as he was familiarly by persons of all classes and countries, not an action, not a word is recorded of him that does not bear honourable testimony to the benevolence and soundness of his views, his ever ready but discriminating generosity, and the clear insight, at once minute and comprehensive, which he had acquired into the character and wants of the people and the cause he came to serve. "of all those who came to help the greeks," says colonel napier, (a person himself the most qualified to judge, as well from long local knowledge, as from the acute, straightforward cast of his own mind,) "i never knew one, except lord byron and mr. gordon, that seemed to have justly estimated their character. all came expecting to find the peloponnesus filled with plutarch's men, and all returned thinking the inhabitants of newgate more moral. lord byron judged them fairly: he knew that half-civilised men are full of vices, and that great allowance must be made for emancipated slaves. he, therefore, proceeded, bridle in hand, not thinking them good, but hoping to make them better."[ ] [footnote : a similar tribute was paid to him by count delladecima, a gentleman of some literary acquirements, of whom he saw a good deal at cephalonia, and to whom he was attracted by that sympathy which never failed to incline him towards those who laboured, like himself, under any personal defects. "of all the men," said this gentleman, "whom i have had an opportunity of conversing with, on the means of establishing the independence of greece, and regenerating the character of the natives, lord byron appears to entertain the most enlightened and correct views."] in speaking of the foolish charge of avarice brought against lord byron by some who resented thus his not suffering them to impose on his generosity, colonel napier says, "i never knew a single instance of it while he was here. i saw only a judicious generosity in all that he did. he would not allow himself to be _robbed_, but he gave profusely where he thought he was doing good. it was, indeed, because he would not allow himself to be _fleeced_, that he was called stingy by those who are always bent upon giving money from any purses but their own. lord byron had no idea of this; and would turn sharply and unexpectedly on those who thought their game sure. he gave a vast deal of money to the greeks in various ways." among the objects of his bounty in this way were many poor refugee greeks from the continent and the isles. he not only relieved their present distresses, but allotted a certain sum monthly to the most destitute. "a list of these poor pensioners," says dr. kennedy, "was given me by the nephew of professor bambas." one of the instances mentioned of his humanity while at cephalonia will show how prompt he was at the call of that feeling, and how unworthy, sometimes, were the objects of it. a party of workmen employed upon one of those fine roads projected by colonel napier having imprudently excavated a high bank, the earth fell in, and overwhelmed nearly a dozen persons; the news of which accident instantly reaching metaxata, lord byron despatched his physician bruno to the spot, and followed with count gamba, as soon as their horses could be saddled. they found a crowd of women and children wailing round the ruins; while the workmen, who had just dug out three or four of their maimed companions, stood resting themselves unconcernedly, as if nothing more was required of them; and to lord byron's enquiry whether there were not still some other persons below the earth, answered coolly that "they did not know, but believed that there were." enraged at this brutal indifference, he sprang from his horse, and seizing a spade himself, began to dig with all his strength; but it was not till after being threatened with the horsewhip that any of the peasants could be brought to follow his example. "i was not present at this scene myself," says colonel napier, in the notices with which he has favoured me, "but was told that lord byron's attention seemed quite absorbed in the study of the faces and gesticulations of those whose friends were missing. the sorrow of the greeks is, in appearance, very frantic, and they shriek and howl, as in ireland. it was in alluding to the above incident that the noble poet is stated to have said that he had come out to the islands prejudiced against sir t. maitland's government of the greeks: "but," he added, "i have now changed my opinion. they are such barbarians, that if i had the government of them, i would pave these very roads with them." while residing at metaxata, he received an account of the illness of his daughter ada, which "made him anxious and melancholy (says count gamba) for several days." her indisposition he understood to have been caused by a determination of blood to the head; and on his remarking to dr. kennedy, as curious, that it was a complaint to which he himself was subject, the physician replied, that he should have been inclined to infer so, not only from his habits of intense and irregular study, but from the present state of his eyes,--the right eye appearing to be inflamed. i have mentioned this latter circumstance as perhaps justifying the inference that there was in lord byron's state of health at this moment a predisposition to the complaint of which he afterwards died. to dr. kennedy he spoke frequently of his wife and daughter, expressing the strongest affection for the latter, and respect towards the former, and while declaring as usual his perfect ignorance of the causes of the separation, professing himself fully disposed to welcome any prospect of reconcilement. the anxiety with which, at all periods of his life, but particularly at the present, he sought to repel the notion that, except when under the actual inspiration of writing, he was at all influenced by poetical associations, very frequently displayed itself. "you must have been highly gratified (said a gentleman to him) by the classical remains and recollections which you met with in your visit to ithaca."--"you quite mistake me," answered lord byron--"i have no poetical humbug about me; i am too old for that. ideas of that sort are confined to rhyme." for the two days during which he was delayed by contrary winds, he took up his abode at the house of mr. hancock, his banker, and passed the greater part of the time in company with the english authorities of the island. at length the wind becoming fair, he prepared to embark. "i called upon him to take leave," says dr. kennedy, "and found him alone, reading quentin durward. he was, as usual, in good spirits." in a few hours after the party set sail,--lord byron himself on board the mistico, and count gamba, with the horses and heavy baggage, in the larger vessel, or bombarda. after touching at zante, for the purpose of some pecuniary arrangements with mr. barff, and taking on board a considerable sum of money in specie, they, on the evening of the th, proceeded towards missolonghi. their last accounts from that place having represented the turkish fleet as still in the gulf of lepanto, there appeared not the slightest grounds for apprehending any interruption in their passage. besides, knowing that the greek squadron was now at anchorage near the entrance of the gulf, they had little doubt of soon falling in with some friendly vessel, either in search, or waiting for them. "we sailed together," says count gamba, in a highly picturesque and affecting passage, "till after ten at night; the wind favourable--a clear sky, the air fresh but not sharp. our sailors sang alternately patriotic songs, monotonous indeed, but to persons in our situation extremely touching, and we took part in them. we were all, but lord byron particularly, in excellent spirits. the mistico sailed the fastest. when the waves divided us, and our voices could no longer reach each other, we made signals by firing pistols and carabines--'to-morrow we meet at missolonghi--to-morrow.' thus, full of confidence and spirits, we sailed along. at twelve we were out of sight of each other." in waiting for the other vessel, having more than once shortened sail for that purpose, the party on board the mistico were upon the point of being surprised into an encounter which might, in a moment, have changed the future fortunes of lord byron. two or three hours before daybreak, while steering towards missolonghi, they found themselves close under the stern of a large vessel, which they at first took to be greek, but which, when within pistol shot, they discovered to be a turkish frigate. by good fortune, they were themselves, as it appears, mistaken for a greek brulot by the turks, who therefore feared to fire, but with loud shouts frequently hailed them, while those on board lord byron's vessel maintained the most profound silence; and even the dogs (as i have heard his lordship's valet mention), though they had never ceased to bark during the whole of the night, did not utter, while within reach of the turkish frigate, a sound;--a no less lucky than a curious accident, as, from the information the turks had received of all the particulars of his lordship's departure from zante, the harking of the dogs, at that moment, would have been almost certain to betray him. under the favour of these circumstances, and the darkness, they were enabled to bear away without further molestation, and took shelter among the scrofes, a cluster of rocks but a few hours' sail from missolonghi. from this place the following letter, remarkable, considering his situation at the moment, for the light, careless tone that pervades it, was despatched to colonel stanhope. letter . to the honourable colonel stanhope. "scrofer (or some such name), on board a cephaloniote mistico, dec. . . "my dear stanhope, "we are just arrived here, that is, part of my people and i, with some things, &c., and which it may be as well not to specify in a letter (which has a risk of being intercepted, perhaps);--but gamba, and my horses, negro, steward, and the press, and all the committee things, also some eight thousand dollars of mine, (but never mind, we have more left, do you understand?) are taken by the turkish frigates, and my party and myself, in another boat, have had a narrow escape last night, (being close under their stern and hailed, but we would not answer, and bore away,) as well as this morning. here we are, with the sun and clearing weather, within a pretty little port enough; but whether our turkish friends may not send in their boats and take us out (for we have no arms except two carbines and some pistols, and, i suspect, not more than four fighting people on board,) is another question, especially if we remain long here, since we are blocked out of missolonghi by the direct entrance. "you had better send my friend george drake (draco), and a body of suliotes, to escort us by land or by the canals, with all convenient speed. gamba and our bombard are taken into patras, i suppose; and we must take a turn at the turks to get them out: but where the devil is the fleet gone?--the greek, i mean; leaving us to get in without the least intimation to take heed that the moslems were out again. "make my respects to mavrocordato, and say that i am here at his disposal. i am uneasy at being here: not so much on my own account as on that of a greek boy with me, for you know what his fate would be; and i would sooner cut him in pieces, and myself too, than have him taken out by those barbarians. we are all very well. n. b. "the bombard was twelve miles out when taken; at least, so it appeared to us (if taken she actually be, for it is not certain); and we had to escape from another vessel that stood right between us and the port." finding that his position among the rocks of the scrofes would be untenable in the event of an attack by armed boats, he thought it right to venture out again, and making all sail, got safe to dragomestri, a small sea-port town on the coast of acarnania; from whence the annexed letters to two of the most valued of his cephalonian friends were written. letter . to mr. muir. "dragomestri, january . . "my dear muir, "i wish you many returns of the season, and happiness therewithal. gamba and the bombard (there is a strong reason to believe) are carried into patras by a turkish frigate, which we saw chase them at dawn on the st: we had been close under the stern in the night, believing her a greek till within pistol shot, and only escaped by a miracle of all the saints (our captain says), and truly i am of his opinion, for we should never have got away of ourselves. they were signalising their consort with lights, and had illuminated the ship between decks, and were shouting like a mob;--but then why did they not fire? perhaps they took us for a greek brulot, and were afraid of kindling us--they had no colours flying even at dawn nor after. "at daybreak my boat was on the coast, but the wind unfavourable for _the port_;--a large vessel with the wind in her favour standing between us and the gulf, and another in chase of the bombard about twelve miles off, or so. soon after they stood (_i.e._ the bombard and frigate) apparently towards patras, and a zantiote boat making signals to us from the shore to get away. away we went before the wind, and ran into a creek called scrofes, i believe, where i landed luke[ ] and another (as luke's life was in most danger), with some money for themselves, and a letter for stanhope, and sent them up the country to missolonghi, where they would be in safety, as the place where we were could be assailed by armed boats in a moment, and gamba had all our arms except two carbines, a fowling-piece, and some pistols. [footnote : a greek youth whom he had brought with him, in his suite, from cephalonia.] "in less than an hour the vessel in chase neared us, and we dashed out again, and showing our stern (our boat sails very well), got in before night to dragomestri, where we now are. but where is the greek fleet? i don't know--do you? i told our master of the boat that i was inclined to think the two large vessels (there were none else in sight) greeks. but he answered, 'they are too large--why don't they show their colours?' and his account was confirmed, be it true or false, by several boats which we met or passed, as we could not at any rate have got in with that wind without beating about for a long time; and as there was much property, and some lives to risk (the boy's especially) without any means of defence, it was necessary to let our boatmen have their own way. "i despatched yesterday another messenger to missolonghi for an escort, but we have yet no answer. we are here (those of my boat) for the fifth day without taking our clothes off, and sleeping on deck in all weathers, but are all very well, and in good spirits. it is to be supposed that the government will send, for their own sakes, an escort, as i have , dollars on board, the greater part for their service. i had (besides personal property to the amount of about more) dollars in specie of my own, without reckoning the committee's stores, so that the turks will have a good thing of it, if the prize be good. "i regret the detention of gamba, &c., but the rest we can make up again; so tell hancock to set my bills into cash as soon as possible, and corgialegno to prepare the remainder of my credit with messrs. webb to be turned into monies. i shall remain here, unless something extraordinary occurs, till mavrocordato sends, and then go on, and act according to circumstances. my respects to the two colonels, and remembrances to all friends. tell '_ultima anahse_'[ ] that his friend raidi did not make his appearance with the brig, though i think that he might as well have spoken with us _in_ or _off_ zante, to give us a gentle hint of what we had to expect. [footnote : count delladecima, to whom he gives this name in consequence of a habit which that gentleman had of using the phrase "in ultima analise" frequently in conversation.] "yours, ever affectionately, n. b. "p.s. excuse my scrawl on account of the pen and the frosty morning at daybreak. i write in haste, a boat starting for kalamo. i do not know whether the detention of the bombard (if she be detained, for i cannot swear to it, and i can only judge from appearances, and what all these fellows say,) be an affair of the government, and neutrality, and &c.--but _she was stopped at least_ twelve miles distant from any port, and had all her papers regular from _zante _ for _kalamo_ and _we also_. i did not land at zante, being anxious to lose as little time as possible, but sir f. s. came off to invite me, &c. and every body was as kind as could be, even in cephalonia." letter . to mr. c. hancock. "dragomestri, january . . "dear sir 'ancock[ ],' [footnote : this letter is, more properly, a postscript to one which dr. bruno had, by his orders, written to mr. hancock, with some particulars of their voyage; and the doctor having begun his letter, "pregiat'mo. sig'r. ancock," lord byron thus parodies his mode of address.] "remember me to dr. muir and every body else. i have still the , dollars with me, the rest were on board the bombarda. here we are--the bombarda taken, or at least missing, with all the committee stores, my friend gamba, the horses, negro, bull-dog, steward, and domestics, with all our implements of peace and war, also dollars; but whether she will be lawful prize or no, is for the decision of the governor of the seven islands. i have written to dr. muir, by way of kalamo, with all particulars. we are in good condition; and what with wind and weather, and being hunted or so, little sleeping on deck, &c. are in tolerable seasoning for the country and circumstances. but i foresee that we shall have occasion for all the cash i can muster at zante and elsewhere. mr. barff gave us and odd dollars; so there is still a balance in my favour. we are not quite certain that the vessels were turkish which chased; but there is strong presumption that they were, and no news to the contrary. at zante, every body, from the resident downwards, were as kind as could be, especially your worthy and courteous partner. "tell our friends to keep up their spirits, and we may yet do well. i disembarked the boy and another greek, who were in most terrible alarm--the boy, at least, from the morea--on shore near anatoliko, i believe, which put them in safety; and, as for me and mine, we must stick by our goods. "i hope that gamba's detention will only be temporary. as for the effects and monies, if we have them,--well; if otherwise, patience. i wish you a happy new year, and all our friends the same. "yours," &c. during these adventures of lord byron, count gamba, having been brought to by the turkish frigate, had been carried, with his valuable charge, into patras, where the commander of the turkish fleet was stationed. here, after an interview with the pacha, by whom he was treated, during his detention, most courteously, he had the good fortune to procure the release of his vessel and freight; and, on the th of january, reached missolonghi. to his surprise, however, he found that lord byron had not yet arrived; for,--as if everything connected with this short voyage were doomed to deepen whatever ill bodings there were already in his mind,--on his lordship's departure from dragomestri, a violent gale of wind had come on; his vessel was twice driven on the rocks in the passage of the scrofes, and, from the force of the wind, and the captain's ignorance of those shoals, the danger was by all on board considered to be most serious. "on the second time of striking," says count gamba, "the sailors, losing all hope of saving the vessel, began to think of their own safety. but lord byron persuaded them to remain; and by his firmness, and no small share of nautical skill, got them out of danger, and thus saved the vessel and several lives, with , dollars, the greater part in specie." the wind still blowing right against their course to missolonghi, they again anchored between two of the numerous islets by which this part of the coast is lined; and here lord byron, as well for refreshment as ablution, found himself tempted into an indulgence which, it is not improbable, may have had some share in producing the fatal illness that followed. having put off in a boat to a small rock at some distance, he sent back a messenger for the nankeen trowsers which he usually wore in bathing; and, though the sea was rough and the night cold, it being then the d of january, swam back to the vessel. "i am fully persuaded," says his valet, in relating this imprudent freak, "that it injured my lord's health. he certainly was not taken ill at the time, but in the course of two or three days his lordship complained of a pain in all his bones, which continued, more or less, to the time of his death." setting sail again next morning with the hope of reaching missolonghi before sunset, they were still baffled by adverse winds, and, arriving late at night in the port, did not land till the morning of the th. the solicitude, in the mean time, of all at missolonghi, knowing that the turkish fleet was out, and lord byron on his way, may without difficulty be conceived, and is most livelily depicted in a letter written during the suspense of that moment, by an eye-witness. "the turkish fleet," says colonel stanhope, "has ventured out, and is, at this moment, blockading the port. beyond these again are seen the greek ships, and among the rest the one that was sent for lord byron. whether he is on board or not is a question. you will allow that this is an eventful day." towards the end of the letter, he adds, "lord byron's servants have just arrived; he himself will be here to-morrow. if he had not come, we had need have prayed for fair weather; for both fleet and army are hungry and inactive. parry has not appeared. should he also arrive to-morrow, all missolonghi will go mad with pleasure." the reception their noble visiter experienced on his arrival was such as, from the ardent eagerness with which he had been looked for, might be expected. the whole population of the place crowded to the shore to welcome him: the ships anchored off the fortress fired a salute as he passed; and all the troops and dignitaries of the place, civil and military, with the prince mavrocordato at their head, met him on his landing, and accompanied him, amidst the mingled din of shouts, wild music, and discharges of artillery, to the house that had been prepared for him. "i cannot easily describe," says count gamba, "the emotions which such a scene excited. i could scarcely refrain from tears." after eight days of fatigue such as lord byron had endured, some short interval of rest might fairly have been desired by him. but the scene on which he had now entered was one that precluded all thoughts of repose. he on whom the eyes and hopes of all others were centred, could but little dream of indulging any care for himself. there were, at this particular moment, too, collected within the precincts of that town as great an abundance of the materials of unquiet and misrule as had been ever brought together in so small a space. in every quarter; both public and private, disorganisation and dissatisfaction presented themselves. of the fourteen brigs of war which had come to the succour of missolonghi, and which had for some time actually protected it against a turkish fleet double its number, nine had already, hopeless of pay, returned to hydra, while the sailors of the remaining five, from the same cause of complaint, had just quitted their ships, and were murmuring idly on shore. the inhabitants, seeing themselves thus deserted or preyed upon by their defenders, with a scarcity of provisions threatening them, and the turkish fleet before their eyes, were no less ready to break forth into riot and revolt; while, at the same moment, to complete the confusion, a general assembly was on the point of being held in the town, for the purpose of organising the forces of western greece, and to this meeting all the wild mountain chiefs of the province, ripe, of course, for dissension, were now flocking with their followers. mavrocordato himself, the president of the intended congress, had brought in his train no less than armed men, who were at this moment in the town. ill provided, too, with either pay or food by the government, this large military mob were but little less discontented and destitute than the sailors; and in short, in every direction, the entire population seems to have presented such a fermenting mass of insubordination and discord as was far more likely to produce warfare among themselves than with the enemy. such was the state of affairs when lord byron arrived at missolonghi;--such the evils he had now to encounter, with the formidable consciousness that to him, and him alone, all looked for the removal of them. of his proceedings during the first weeks after his arrival, the following letters to mr. hancock (which by the great kindness of that gentleman i am enabled to give) will, assisted by a few explanatory notes, supply a sufficiently ample account. letter . to mr. charles hancock. "missolonghi, january . . "dear sir, "many thanks for yours of the fifth; ditto to muir for his. you will have heard that gamba and my vessel got out of the hands of the turks safe and intact; nobody knows well how or why, for there's a mystery in the story somewhat melodramatic. captain valsamachi has, i take it, spun a long yarn by this time in argostoli. i attribute their release entirely to saint dionisio, of zante, and the madonna of the rock, near cephalonia. "the adventures of my separate luck were also not finished at dragomestri; we were conveyed out by some greek gun-boats, and found the leonidas brig-of-war at sea to look after us. but blowing weather coming on, we were driven on the rocks _twice_ in the passage of the scrofes, and the dollars had another narrow escape. two thirds of the crew got ashore over the bowsprit: the rocks were rugged enough, but water very deep close in shore, so that she was, after much swearing and some exertion, got off again, and away we went with a third of our crew, leaving the rest on a desolate island, where they might have been now, had not one of the gun-boats taken them off, for we were in no condition to take them off again. "tell muir that dr. bruno did not show much fight on the occasion; for besides stripping to his flannel waistcoat, and running about like a rat in an emergency, when i was talking to a greek boy (the brother of the greek girls in argostoli), and telling him of the fact that there was no danger for the passengers, whatever there might be for the vessel, and assuring him that i could save both him and myself without difficulty[ ] (though he can't swim), as the water, though deep, was not very rough,--the wind _not_ blowing _right_ on shore (it was a blunder of the greeks who missed stays),--the doctor exclaimed, 'save _him_, indeed! by g--d! save _me_ rather--i'll be first if i can'--a piece of egotism which he pronounced with such emphatic simplicity as to set all who had leisure to hear him laughing[ ], and in a minute after the vessel drove off again after striking twice. she sprung a small leak, but nothing further happened, except that the captain was very nervous afterwards. [footnote : he meant to have taken the boy on his shoulders and swum with him to shore. this feat would have been but a repetition of one of his early sports at harrow; where it was a frequent practice of his thus to mount one of the smaller boys on his shoulders, and, much to the alarm of the urchin, dive with him into the water.] [footnote : in the doctor's own account this scene is described, as might be expected, somewhat differently:--"ma nel di lui passaggio marittimo una fregata turca insegui la di lui nave, obligandola di ricoverarsi dentro le _scrofes_, dove per l'impeto dei venti fù gettata sopra i scogli: tutti i marinari dell' equipaggio saltarono a terra per salvare la loro vita: milord solo col di lui medico dottr. bruno rimasero sulla nave che ognuno vedeva colare a fondo: ma dopo qualche tempo non essendosi visto che ciò avveniva, le persone fuggite a terra respinsero la nave nell' acque: ma il tempestoso mare la ribastò una seconda volta contro i scogli, ed allora si aveva per certo che la nave coll' illustre personaggio, una grande quantità di denari, e molti preziosi effetti per i greci anderebbero a fondo. tuttavia lord byron non si perturbò per nulla; anzi disse al di lui medico che voleva gettarsi al nuoto onde raggiungere la spiaggia: 'non abbandonate la nave finchè abbiamo forze per direggerla: allorchè saremo coperti dall' acque, allora gettatevi pure, che io vi salvo.'"] "to be brief, we had bad weather almost always, though not contrary; slept on deck in the wet generally for seven or eight nights, but never was in better health (i speak personally)--so much so that i actually bathed for a quarter of an hour on the evening of the th instant in the sea, (to kill the fleas, and other &c.) and was all the better for it. "we were received at missolonghi with all kinds of kindness and honours; and the sight of the fleet saluting, &c. and the crowds and different costumes, was really picturesque. we think of undertaking an expedition soon, and i expect to be ordered with the suliotes to join the army. "all well at present. we found gamba already arrived, and every thing in good condition. remember me to all friends. "yours ever, n. b. "p.s. you will, i hope, use every exertion to realise the _assets_. for besides what i have already advanced, i have undertaken to maintain the suliotes for a year, (and will accompany them either as a chief, or whichever is most agreeable to the government,) besides sundries. i do not understand brown's '_letters of credit_.' i neither gave nor ordered a letter of credit that i know of; and though of course, if you have done it, i will be responsible, i was not aware of any thing, except that i would have backed his bills, which you said was unnecessary. as to _orders_--i ordered nothing but some _red cloth_ and _oil cloths_, both of which i am ready to receive; but if gamba has exceeded my commission, _the other things must be sent back, for i cannot permit any thing of the kind, nor will_. the servants' journey will of course be paid for, though _that_ is exorbitant. as for brown's letter, i do not know any thing more than i have said, and i really cannot defray the charges of half greece and the frank adventurers besides. mr. barff must send us some dollars soon, for the expenses fall on me for the present. "january . . "p.s. will you tell saint (jew) geronimo corgialegno that i mean to draw for the balance of my credit with messrs. webb and co. i shall draw for two thousand dollars (that being about the amount, more or less); but, to facilitate the business, i shall make the draft payable also at messrs. ransom and co., pall-mall east, london. i believe i already showed you my letters, (but if not, i have them to show,) by which, besides the credits now realising, you will have perceived that i am not limited to any particular amount of credit with my bankers. the honourable douglas, my friend and trustee, is a principal partner in that house, and having the direction of my affairs, is aware to what extent my present resources may go, and the letters in question were from him. i can merely say, that within the _current_ year, , besides the money already advanced to the greek government, and the credits now in your hands and your partner's (mr. barff), which are all from the income of , i have anticipated nothing from that of the present year hitherto. i shall or ought to have at my disposition upwards of one hundred thousand dollars, (including my income, and the purchase-monies of a manor lately sold,) and perhaps more, without infringing on my income for , and not including the remaining balance of . yours ever, n. b." letter . to mr. charles hancock. "missolonghi, january , . "i have answered, at some length, your obliging letter, and trust that you have received my reply by means of mr. tindal. i will also thank you to remind mr. tindal that i would thank him to furnish you, on my account, with _an order of the committee_ for one hundred dollars, which i advanced to him on their account through signor corgialegno's agency at zante on his arrival in october, as it is but fair that the said committee should pay their own expenses. an order will be sufficient, as the money might be inconvenient for mr. t. at present to disburse. "i have also advanced to mr. blackett the sum of fifty dollars,-which i will thank mr. stevens to pay to you, on my account, from monies of mr. blackett now in his hands. i have mr. b.'s acknowledgment in writing. "as the wants of the state here are still pressing, and there seems very little specie stirring except mine, i will stand paymaster; and must again request you and mr. barff to forward by a _safe _ channel (if possible) all the dollars you can collect upon the bills now negotiating. i have also written to corgialegno for two thousand dollars, being about the balance of my separate letter from messrs. webb and co., making the bills also payable at ransom's in london. "things are going on better, if not well; there is some order, and considerable preparation. i expect to accompany the troops on an expedition shortly, which makes me particularly anxious for the remaining remittance, as 'money is the sinew of war,' and of peace, too, as far as i can see, for i am sure there would be no peace here without it. however, a little does go a good way, which is a comfort. the government of the morea and of candia have written to me for a further advance from my own peculium of or , dollars, to which i demur for the present, (having undertaken to pay the suliotes as a free gift and other things already, besides the loan which i have already advanced,) till i receive letters from england, which i have reason to expect. "when the expected credits arrive, i hope that you will bear a hand, otherwise i must have recourse to malta, which will be losing time and taking trouble; but i do not wish you to do more than is perfectly agreeable to mr. barffand to yourself. i am very well, and have no reason to be dissatisfied with my personal treatment, or with the posture of public affairs--others must speak for themselves. yours ever and truly, &c. "p.s. respects to colonels wright and duffie, and the officers civil and military; also to my friends muir and stevens particularly, and to delladecima." letter . to mr. charles hancock. "missolonghi, january . . "since i wrote on the th, i have received a letter from mr. stevens, enclosing an account from corfu, which is so exaggerated in price and quantity, that i am at a loss whether most to admire gamba's folly, or the merchant's knavery. all that _i_ requested gamba to order was red cloth enough to make a _jacket_, and some oil-skin for trowsers, &c.--the latter has not been sent--the whole could not have amounted to fifty dollars. the account is six hundred and forty-five!!! i will guarantee mr. stevens against any loss, of course, but i am not disposed to take the articles (which i never ordered), nor to pay the amount. i will take one hundred dollars' worth; the rest may be sent back, and i will make the merchant an allowance of so much per-cent.; or, if that is not to be done, you must sell the whole by auction at what price the things may fetch; for i would rather incur the dead loss of _part_, than be encumbered with a quantity of things, to me at present superfluous or useless. why, i could have maintained three hundred men for a month for the sum in western greece. "when the dogs, and the dollars, and the negro; and the horses, fell into the hands of the turks, i acquiesced with patience, as you may have perceived, because it was the work of the elements of war, or of providence: but this is a piece of mere human knavery or folly, or both, and i neither can nor will submit to it.[ ] i have occasion for every dollar i can muster to keep the greeks together, and i do not grudge any expense for the cause; but to throw away as much as would equip, or at least maintain, a corps of excellent ragamuffins with arms in their hands, to furnish gamba and the doctor with blank bills (see list), broad cloth, hessian boots, and horsewhips (the _latter_ i own that they have richly earned), is rather beyond my endurance, though a pacific person, as all the world knows, or at least my acquaintances. i pray you to try to help me out of this damnable commercial speculation of gamba's, for it is one of those pieces of impudence or folly which i don't forgive him in a hurry. i will of course see stevens free of expense out of the transaction;--by the way, the greek of a corfiote has thought proper to draw a bill, and get it discounted at dollars: if i had been there, it should have been _protested_ also. [footnote : we have here as striking an instance as could be adduced of that peculiar feature of his character which shallow or malicious observers have misrepresented as avarice, but which in reality was the result of a strong sense of justice and fairness, and an indignant impatience of being stultified or over-reached. colonel stanhope, in referring to the circumstance mentioned above, has put lord byron's angry feeling respecting it in the true light. "he was constantly attacking count gamba, sometimes, indeed, playfully, but more often with the bitterest satire, for having purchased for the use of his family, while in greece, _ _ dollars' worth of cloth. this he used to mention as an instance of the count's imprudence and extravagance. lord byron told me one day, with a tone of great gravity, that this dollars would have been most serviceable in promoting the siege of lepanto; and that he never would, to the last moment of his existence, forgive gamba, for having squandered away his money in the purchase of cloth. no one will suppose that lord byron could be serious in such a denunciation: he entertained, in reality, the highest opinion of conant gamba, who, both on account of his talents and devotedness to his friend, merited his lordship's esteem. as to lord byron's generosity, it is before the world; he promised to devote his large income to the cause of greece, and he honestly acted up to his pledge."] "mr. blackett is here ill, and will soon set out for cephalonia. he came to me for some pills, and i gave him some reserved for particular friends, and which i never knew any body recover from under several months; but he is no better, and, what is odd, no worse; and as the doctors have had no better success with him than i, he goes to argostoli, sick of the greeks and of a constipation. "i must reiterate my request for _specie_, and that speedily, otherwise public affairs will be at a standstill here. i have undertaken to pay the suliotes for a year, to advance in march dollars, besides, to the government for a balance due to the troops, and some other smaller matters for the germans, and the press, &c. &c. &c.; so what with these, and the expenses of my suite, which, though not extravagant, is expensive, with gamba's d--d nonsense, i shall have occasion for all the monies i can muster; and i have credits wherewithal to face the undertakings, if realised, and expect to have more soon. "believe me ever and truly yours," &c. on the morning of the d of january, his birthday,--the last my poor friend was ever fated to see,--he came from his bedroom into the apartment where colonel stanhope and some others were assembled, and said with a smile, "you were complaining the other day that i never write any poetry now. this is my birthday, and i have just finished something which, i think, is better than what i usually write." he then produced to them those beautiful stanzas, which, though already known to most readers, are far too affectingly associated with this closing scene of his life to be omitted among its details. taking into consideration, indeed, every thing connected with these verses,--the last tender aspirations of a loving spirit which they breathe, the self-devotion to a noble cause which they so nobly express, and that consciousness of a near grave glimmering sadly through the whole,--there is perhaps no production within the range of mere human composition round which the circumstances and feelings under which it was written cast so touching an interest. "january d. "on this day i complete my thirty-sixth year. . "'tis time this heart should be unmoved, since others it hath ceased to move; yet though i cannot be beloved, still let me love! . "my days are in the yellow leaf; the flowers and fruits of love are gone; the worm, the canker, and the grief are mine alone! . "the fire that on my bosom preys is lone as some volcanic isle; no torch is kindled at its blaze-- a funeral pile! . "the hope, the fear, the jealous care, the exalted portion of the pain and power of love, i cannot share, but wear the chain. . "but 'tis not _thus_--and 'tis not _here_-- such thoughts should shake my soul, nor _now_, where glory decks the hero's bier, or binds his brow. . "the sword, the banner, and the field, glory and greece, around roe see! the spartan, borne upon his shield, was not more free. . "awake! (not greece--she _is_ awake!) awake, my spirit! think through _whom_ thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, and then strike home! . "tread those reviving passions down, unworthy manhood!--unto thee indifferent should the smile or frown of beauty be. . "if thou regret'st thy youth, _why live_? the land of honourable death is here:--up to the field, and give away thy breath! . "seek out--less often sought than found-- a soldier's grave, for thee the best; then look around, and choose thy ground,-- and take thy rest." "we perceived," says count gamba, "from these lines, as well as from his daily conversations, that his ambition and his hope were irrevocably fixed upon the glorious objects of his expedition to greece, and that he had made up his mind to 'return victorious, or return no more.' indeed, he often said to me, 'others may do as they please--they may go--but i stay here, _that is certain_.' the same determination was expressed in his letters to his friends; and this resolution was not unaccompanied with the very natural presentiment--that he should never leave greece alive. he one day asked his faithful servant, tita, whether he thought of returning to italy? 'yes,' said tita: 'if your lordship goes, i go.' lord byron smiled, and said, 'no, tita, i shall never go back from greece--either the turks, or the greeks, or the climate, will prevent that.'" letter . to mr. charles hancock. "missolonghi, february . . "dr. muir's letter and yours of the d reached me some days ago. tell muir that i am glad of his promotion for his sake, and of his remaining near us for all our sakes; though i cannot but regret dr. kennedy's departure, which accounts for the previous earthquakes and the present english weather in this climate. with all respect to my medical pastor, i have to announce to him, that amongst other fire-brands, our firemaster parry (just landed) has disembarked an elect blacksmith, intrusted with three hundred and twenty-two greek testaments. i have given him all facilities in my power for his works spiritual and temporal; and if he can settle matters as easily with the greek archbishop and hierarchy, i trust that neither the heretic nor the supposed sceptic will be accused of intolerance. "by the way, i met with the said archbishop at anatolico (where i went by invitation of the primates a few days ago, and was received with a heavier cannonade than the turks, probably,) for the second time (i had known him here before); and he and p. mavrocordato, and the chiefs and primates and i, all dined together, and i thought the metropolitan the merriest of the party, and a very good christian for all that. but gamba (we got wet through on our way back) has been ill with a fever and cholic; and luke has been out of sorts too, and so have some others of the people, and i have been very well,--except that i caught cold yesterday, with swearing too much in the rain at the greeks, who would not bear a hand in landing the committee stores, and nearly spoiled our combustibles; but i turned out in person, and made such a row as set them in motion, blaspheming at them from the government downwards, till they actually did _some_ part of what they ought to have done several days before, and this is esteemed, as it deserves to be, a wonder. "tell muir that, notwithstanding his remonstrances, which i receive thankfully, it is perhaps best that i should advance with the troops; for if we do not do something soon, we shall only have a third year of defensive operations and another siege, and all that. we hear that the turks are coming down in force, and sooner than usual; and as these fellows do mind me a little, it is the opinion that i should go,--firstly, because they will sooner listen to a foreigner than one of their own people, out of native jealousies; secondly, because the turks will sooner treat or capitulate (if such occasion should happen) with a frank than a greek; and, thirdly, because nobody else seems disposed to take the responsibility--mavrocordato being very busy here, the foreign military men too young or not of authority enough to be obeyed by the natives, and the chiefs (as aforesaid) inclined to obey any one except, or rather than, one of their own body. as for me, i am willing to do what i am bidden, and to follow my instructions. i neither seek nor shun that nor any thing else they may wish me to attempt: as for personal safety, besides that it ought not to be a consideration, i take it that a man is on the whole as safe in one place as another; and, after all, he had better end with a bullet than bark in his body. if we are not taken off with the sword, we are like to march off with an ague in this mud basket; and to conclude with a very bad pun, to the ear rather than to the eye, better _martially_ than _marsh-ally:_--the situation of missolonghi is not unknown to you. the dykes of holland when broken down are the deserts of arabia for dryness, in comparison. "and now for the sinews of war. i thank you and mr. barff for your ready answers, which, next to ready money, is a pleasant thing. besides the assets and balance, and the relics of the corgialegno correspondence with leghorn and genoa, (i sold the dog flour, tell him, but not at _his_ price,) i shall request and require, from the beginning of march ensuing, about five thousand dollars every two months, _i.e._, about twenty-five thousand within the current year, at regular intervals, independent of the sums now negotiating. i can show you documents to prove that these are considerably _within_ my supplies for the year in more ways than one; but i do not like to tell the greeks exactly what i _could_ or would advance on an emergency, because otherwise, they will double and triple their demands, (a disposition that they have already sufficiently shown): and though i am willing to do all i can _when_ necessary, yet i do not see why they should not help a little; for they are not quite so bare as they pretend to be by some accounts. "february . . "i have been interrupted by the arrival of parry and afterwards by the return of hesketh, who has not brought an answer to my epistles, which rather surprises me. you will write soon, i suppose. parry seems a fine rough subject, but will hardly be ready for the field these three weeks; he and i will (i think) be able to draw together,--at least, _i_ will not interfere with or contradict him in his own department. he complains grievously of the mercantile and _enthusymusy_ part of the committee, but greatly praises gordon and hume. gordon _would_ have given three or four thousand pounds and come out _himself_, but kennedy or somebody else disgusted him, and thus they have spoiled part of their subscription and cramped their operations. parry says b---- is a humbug, to which i say nothing. he sorely laments the printing and civilising expenses, and wishes that there was not a sunday-school in the world, or _any_ school _here_ at present, save and except always an academy for artilleryship. "he complained also of the cold, a little to my surprise; firstly, because, there being no chimneys, i have used myself to do without other warmth than the animal heat and one's cloak, in these parts; and, secondly, because i should as soon have expected to hear a volcano sneeze, as a firemaster (who is to burn a whole fleet) exclaim against the atmosphere. i fully expected that his very approach would have scorched up the town like the burning-glasses of archimedes. "well, it seems that i am to be commander-in-chief, and the post is by no means a sinecure, for we are not what major sturgeon calls 'a set of the most amicable officers.' whether we shall have 'a boxing bout between captain sheers and the colonel,' i cannot tell; but, between suliote chiefs, german barons, english volunteers, and adventurers of all nations, we are likely to form as goodly an allied army as ever quarrelled beneath the same banner. "february . . "interrupted again by business yesterday, and it is time to conclude my letter. i drew some time since on mr. barff for a thousand dollars, to complete some money wanted by the government. the said government got cash on that bill _here_, and at a profit; but the very same fellow who gave it to them, after proposing to give me money for other bills on barff to the amount of thirteen hundred dollars, either could not, or thought better of it. i had written to barff advising him, but had afterwards to write to tell him of the fellow's having not come up to time. you must really send me the balance soon. i have the artillerists and my suliotes to pay, and heaven knows what besides; and as every thing depends upon punctuality, all our operations will be at a standstill unless you use despatch. i shall send to mr. barff or to you further bills on england for three thousand pounds, to be negotiated as speedily as you can. i have already stated here and formerly the sums i can command at home within the year,--without including my credits, or the bills already negotiated or negotiating, as corgialegno's balance of mr. webb's letter,--and my letters from my friends (received by mr. parry's vessel) confirm what i have already stated. how much i may require in the course of the year i can't tell, but i will take care that it shall not exceed the means to supply it. yours ever, n.b. "p.s. i have had, by desire of a mr. _jerostati_, to draw on demetrius delladecima (is it our friend in ultima analise?) to pay the committee expenses. i really do not understand what the committee mean by some of their freedoms. parry and i get on very well _hitherto_: how long this may last, heaven knows, but i hope it will, for a good deal for the greek service depends upon it; but he has already had some" _miffs_ with col. s. and i do all i can to keep the peace amongst them. however, parry is a fine fellow, extremely active, and of strong, sound, practical talents, by all accounts. enclosed are bills for three thousand pounds, drawn in the mode directed (_i.e._ parcelled out in smaller bills). a good opportunity occurring for cephalonia to send letters on, i avail myself of it. remember me to stevens and to all friends. also my compliments and every thing kind to the colonels and officers. "february . . "p.s. d or d. i have reason to expect a person from england directed with papers (on business) for me to sign, somewhere in the islands, by and by: if such should arrive, would you forward him to me by a safe conveyance, as the papers regard a transaction with regard to the adjustment of a lawsuit, and a sum of several thousand pounds, which i, or my bankers and trustees for me, may have to receive (in england) in consequence. the time of the probable arrival i cannot state, but the date of my letters is the d nov. and i suppose that he ought to arrive soon." how strong were the hopes which even those who watched him most observingly conceived from the whole tenor of his conduct since his arrival at missolonghi, will appear from the following words of colonel stanhope, in one of his letters to the greek committee:-- "lord byron possesses all the means of playing a great part in the glorious revolution of greece. he has talent; he professes liberal principles; he has money, and is inspired with fervent and chivalrous feelings. he has commenced his career by two good measures: st, by recommending union, and declaring himself of no party; and, dly, by taking five hundred suliotes into pay, and acting as their chief. these acts cannot fail to render his lordship universally popular, and proportionally powerful. thus advantageously circumstanced, his lordship will have an opportunity of realising all his professions." that the inspirer, however, of these hopes was himself far from participating in them is a fact manifest from all he said and wrote on the subject, and but adds painfully to the interest which his position at this moment excites. too well, indeed, did he both understand and feel the difficulties into which he was plunged to deceive himself into any such sanguine delusions. in one only of the objects to which he had looked forward with any hope,--that of endeavouring to humanise, by his example, the system of warfare on both sides,--had he yet been able to gratify himself. not many days after his arrival an opportunity, as we have seen, had been afforded him of rescuing an unfortunate turk out of the hands of some greek sailors; and, towards the end of the month, having learned that there were a few turkish prisoners in confinement at missolonghi, he requested of the government to place them at his disposal, that he might send them to yussuff pacha. in performing this act of humane policy, he transmitted with the rescued captives the following letter:-- letter . to his highness yussuff pacha. "missolonghi, january . . "highness! "a vessel, in which a friend and some domestics of mine were embarked, was detained a few days ago, and released by order of your highness. i have now to thank you; not for liberating the vessel, which, as carrying a neutral flag, and being under british protection, no one had a right to detain; but for having treated my friends with so much kindness while they were in your hands. "in the hope, therefore, that it may not be altogether displeasing to your highness, i have requested the governor of this place to release four turkish prisoners, and he has humanely consented to do so. i lose no time, therefore, in sending them back, in order to make as early a return as i could for your courtesy on the late occasion. these prisoners are liberated without any conditions: but should the circumstance find a place in your recollection, i venture to beg, that your highness will treat such greeks as may henceforth fall into your hands with humanity; more especially since the horrors of war are sufficiently great in themselves, without being aggravated by wanton cruelties on either side. noel byron." another favourite and, as it appeared for some time, practicable object, on which he had most ardently set his heart, was the intended attack upon lepanto--a fortified town[ ] which, from its command of the navigation of the gulf of corinth, is a position of the first importance. "lord byron," says colonel stanhope, in a letter dated january ., "burns with military ardour and chivalry, and will accompany the expedition to lepanto." the delay of parry, the engineer, who had been for some months anxiously expected with the supplies necessary for the formation of a brigade of artillery, had hitherto paralysed the preparations for this important enterprise; though, in the mean time, whatever little could be effected, without his aid, had been put in progress both by the appointment of a brigade of suliotes to act under lord byron, and by the formation, at the joint expense of his lordship and colonel stanhope, of a small corps of artillery. [footnote : the ancient naupactus, called epacto by the modern greeks, and lepauto by the italians.] it was towards the latter end of january, as we have seen, that lord byron received his regular commission from the government, as commander of the expedition. in conferring upon him full powers, both civil and military, they appointed, at the same time, a military council to accompany him, composed of the most experienced chieftains of the army, with nota bozzari, the uncle of the famous warrior, at their head. it had been expected that, among the stores sent with parry, there would be a supply of congreve rockets,--an instrument of warfare of which such wonders had been related to the greeks as filled their imaginations with the most absurd ideas of its powers. their disappointment, therefore, on finding that the engineer had come unprovided with these missiles was excessive. another hope, too,--that of being enabled to complete an artillery corps by the accession of those germans who had been sent for into the morea,--was found almost equally fallacious; that body of men having, from the death or retirement of those who originally composed it, nearly dwindled away; and the few officers that now came to serve being, from their fantastic notions of rank and etiquette, far more troublesome than useful. in addition to these discouraging circumstances, the five speziot ships of war which had for some time formed the sole protection of missolonghi were now returned to their home, and had left their places to be filled by the enemy's squadron. perplexing as were all these difficulties in the way of the expedition, a still more formidable embarrassment presented itself in the turbulent and almost mutinous disposition of those suliote troops on whom he mainly depended for success in his undertaking. presuming as well upon his wealth and generosity as upon their own military importance, these unruly warriors had never ceased to rise in the extravagance of their demands upon him;--the wholly destitute and homeless state of their families at this moment affording but too well founded a pretext both for their exaction and discontent. nor were their leaders much more amenable to management than themselves. "there were," says count gamba, "six heads of families among them, all of whom had equal pretensions both by their birth and their exploits; and none of whom would obey any one of his comrades." a serious riot to which, about the middle of january, these suliotes had given rise, and in which some lives were lost, had been a source of much irritation and anxiety to lord byron, as well from the ill-blood it was likely to engender between his troops and the citizens, as from the little dependence it gave him encouragement to place upon materials so unmanageable. notwithstanding all this, however, neither his eagerness nor his efforts for the accomplishment of this sole personal object of his ambition ever relaxed a single instant. to whatever little glory was to be won by the attack upon lepanto, he looked forward as his only reward for all the sacrifices he was making. in his conversations with count gamba on the subject, "though he joked a good deal," says this gentleman, "about his post of 'archistrategos,' or commander in chief, it was plain that the romance and the peril of the undertaking were great allurements to him." when we combine, indeed, his determination to stand, at all hazards, by the cause, with the very faint hopes his sagacious mind would let him indulge as to his power of serving it, i have little doubt that the "soldier's grave" which, in his own beautiful verses, he marked out for himself, was no idle dream of poetry; but that, on the contrary, his "wish was father to the thought," and that to an honourable death, in some such achievement as that of storming lepanto, he looked forward, not only as the sole means of redeeming worthily the great pledge he had now given, but as the most signal and lasting service that a name like his,--echoed, as it would then be, among the watch-words of liberty, from age to age,--could bequeath to her cause. in the midst of these cares he was much gratified by the receipt of a letter from an old friend of his, andrea londo, whom he had made acquaintance with in his early travels in , and who was at that period a rich proprietor, under the turks, in the morca.[ ] this patriotic greek was one of the foremost to raise the standard of the cross; and at the present moment stood distinguished among the supporters of the legislative body and of the new national government. the following is a translation of lord byron's answer to his letter. [footnote : this brave moriote, when lord byron first knew him, was particularly boyish in his aspect and manners, but still cherished, under this exterior, a mature spirit of patriotism which occasionally broke forth; and the noble poet used to relate that, one day, while they were playing at draughts together, on the name of riga being pronounced, londo leaped from the table, and clapping violently his hands, began singing the famous song of that ill-fated patriot:-- "sons of the greeks, arise! the glorious hour's gone forth."] letter . to londo. "dear friend, "the sight of your handwriting gave me the greatest pleasure. greece has ever been for me, as it must be for all men of any feeling or education, the promised land of valour, of the arts, and of liberty; nor did the time i passed in my youth in travelling among her ruins at all chill my affection for the birthplace of heroes. in addition to this, i am bound to yourself by ties of friendship and gratitude for the hospitality which i experienced from you during my stay in that country, of which you are now become one of the first defenders and ornaments. to see myself serving, by your side and under your eyes, in the cause of greece, will be to me one of the happiest events of my life. in the mean time, with the hope of our again meeting, "i am, as ever," &c. among the less serious embarrassments of his position at this period, may be mentioned the struggle maintained against him by his colleague, colonel stanhope,--with a degree of conscientious perseverance which, even while thwarted by it, he could not but respect, on the subject of a free press, which it was one of the favourite objects of his fellow-agent to bring instantly into operation in all parts of greece. on this important point their opinions differed considerably; and the following report, by colonel stanhope, of one of their many conversations on the subject, may be taken as a fair and concise statement of their respective views:--"lord byron said that he was an ardent friend of publicity and the press: but that he feared it was not applicable to this society in its present combustible state. i answered that i thought it applicable to all countries, and essential here, in order to put an end to the state of anarchy which at present prevailed. lord b. feared libels and licentiousness. i said that the object of a free press was to check public licentiousness, and to expose libellers to odium. lord b. had mentioned his conversation with mavrocordato[ ] to show that the prince was not hostile to the press. i declared that i knew him to be an enemy to the press, although he dared not openly to avow it. his lordship then said that he had not made up his mind about the liberty of the press in greece, but that he thought the experiment worth trying." [footnote : lord byron had, it seems, acknowledged, on the preceding evening, his having remarked to prince blavrocordato that "if he were in his situation, he would have placed the press under a censor;" to which the prince had replied, "no; the liberty of the press is guaranteed by the constitution."] that between two men, both eager in the service of one common cause, there should arise a difference of opinion as to the _means_ of serving it is but a natural result of the varieties of human judgment, and detracts nothing from the zeal or sincerity of either. but by those who do not suffer themselves to be carried away by a theory, it will be conceded, i think, that the scruples professed by lord byron, with respect to the expedience or safety of introducing what is called a free press into a country so little advanced in civilisation as greece, were founded on just views of human nature and practical good sense. to endeavour to force upon a state of society, so unprepared for them, such full grown institutions; to think of engrafting, at once, on an ignorant people the fruits of long knowledge and cultivation,--of importing among them, ready made, those advantages and blessings which no nation ever attained but by its own working out, nor ever was fitted to enjoy but by having first struggled for them; to harbour even a dream of the success of such an experiment, implies a sanguineness almost incredible, and such as, though, in the present instance, indulged by the political economist and soldier, was, as we have seen, beyond the poet. the enthusiastic and, in many respects, well founded confidence with which colonel stanhope appealed to the authority of mr. bentham on most of the points at issue between himself and lord byron, was, from that natural antipathy which seems to exist between political economists and poets, but little sympathised in by the latter;--such appeals being always met by him with those sallies of ridicule, which he found the best-humoured vent for his impatience under argument, and to which, notwithstanding the venerable name and services of mr. bentham himself, the quackery of much that is promulgated by his followers presented, it must be owned, ample scope. romantic, indeed, as was lord byron's sacrifice of himself to the cause of greece, there was in the views he took of the means of serving her not a tinge of the unsubstantial or speculative. the grand practical task of freeing her from her tyrants was his first and main object. he knew that slavery was the great bar to knowledge, and must be broken through before her light could come; that the work of the sword must therefore precede that of the pen, and camps be the first schools of freedom. with such sound and manly views of the true exigencies of the crisis, it is not wonderful that he should view with impatience, and something, perhaps, of contempt, all that premature apparatus of printing-presses, pedagogues, &c. with which the philhellenes of the london committee were, in their rage for "utilitarianism," encumbering him. nor were some of the correspondents of this body much more solid in their speculations than themselves; one intelligent gentleman having suggested, as a means of conferring signal advantages on the cause, an alteration of the greek alphabet. though feeling, as strongly, perhaps, as lord byron, the importance of the great object of their mission,--that of rousing and, what was far more difficult, combining against the common foe the energies of the country,--colonel stanhope was also one of those who thought that the lights of their great master, bentham, and the operations of a press unrestrictedly free, were no less essential instruments towards the advancement of the struggle; and in this opinion, as we have seen, the poet and man of literature differed from the soldier. but it was such a difference as, between men of frank and fair minds, may arise without either reproach to themselves, or danger to their cause,--a strife of opinion which; though maintained with heat, may be remembered without bitterness, and which, in the present instance, neither prevented byron, at the close of one of their warmest altercations, from exclaiming generously to his opponent, "give me that honest right hand," nor withheld the other from pouring forth, at the grave of his colleague, a strain of eulogy[ ] not the less cordial for being discriminatingly shaded with censure, nor less honourable to the illustrious dead for being the tribute of one who had once manfully differed with him. [footnote : sketch of lord byron.--see colonel stanhope's "greece in , ," &c.] towards the middle of february, the indefatigable activity of mr. parry having brought the artillery brigade into such a state of forwardness as to be almost ready for service, an inspection of the suliote corps took place, preparatory to the expedition; and after much of the usual deception and unmanageableness on their part, every obstacle appeared to be at length surmounted. it was agreed that they should receive a month's pay in advance;--count gamba, with of their corps, as a vanguard, was to march next day and take up a position under lepanto, and lord byron with the main body and the artillery was speedily to follow. new difficulties, however, were soon started by these untractable mercenaries; and under the instigation, as was discovered afterwards, of the great rival of mavrocordato, colocotroni, who had sent emissaries into missolonghi for the purpose of seducing them, they now put forward their exactions in a new shape, by requiring of the government to appoint, out of their number, two generals, two colonels, two captains, and inferior officers in the same proportion:--"in short," says count gamba, "that, out of three or four hundred actual suliotes, there should be about one hundred and fifty above the rank of common soldiers." the audacious dishonesty of this demand,--beyond what he could have expected even from greeks,--roused all lord byron's rage, and he at once signified to the whole body, through count gamba, that all negotiation between them and himself was at an end; that he could no longer have any confidence in persons so little true to their engagements; and that though the relief which he had afforded to their families should still be continued, all his agreements with them, as a body, must be thenceforward void. it was on the th of february that this rupture with the suliotes took place; and though, on the following day, in consequence of the full submission of their chiefs, they were again received into his lordship's service on his own terms, the whole affair, combined with the various other difficulties that now beset him, agitated his mind considerably. he saw with pain that he should but place in peril both the cause of greece and his own character, by at all relying, in such an enterprise, upon troops whom any intriguer could thus seduce from their duty; and that, till some more regular force could be organised, the expedition against lepanto must be suspended. while these vexatious events were occurring, the interruption of his accustomed exercise by the rains but increased the irritability that such delays were calculated to excite; and the whole together, no doubt, concurred with whatever predisposing tendencies were already in his constitution, to bring on that convulsive fit,--the forerunner of his death,--which, on the evening of the th of february, seized him. he was sitting, at about eight o'clock, with only mr. parry and mr. hesketh, in the apartment of colonel stanhope,--talking jestingly upon one of his favourite topics, the differences between himself and this latter gentleman, and saying that "he believed, after all, the author's brigade would be ready before the soldier's printing-press." there was an unusual flush in his face, and from the rapid changes of his countenance it was manifest that he was suffering under some nervous agitation. he then complained of being thirsty, and, calling for some cider, drank of it; upon which, a still greater change being observable over his features, he rose from his seat, but was unable to walk, and, after staggering forward a step or two, fell into mr. parry's arms. in another minute, his teeth were closed, his speech and senses gone, and he was in strong convulsions. so violent, indeed, were his struggles, that it required all the strength both of mr. parry and his servant tita to hold him during the fit. his face, too, was much distorted; and, as he told count gamba afterwards, "so intense were his sufferings during the convulsion, that, had it lasted but a minute longer, he believed he must have died." the fit was, however, as short as it was violent; in a few minutes his speech and senses returned; his features, though still pale and haggard, resumed their natural shape, and no effect remained from the attack but excessive weakness. "as soon as he could speak," says count gamba, "he showed himself perfectly free from all alarm; but he very coolly asked whether his attack was likely to prove fatal. 'let me know,' he said; 'do not think i am afraid to die--i am not.'" this painful event had not occurred more than half an hour, when a report was brought that the suliotes were up in arms, and about to attack the seraglio, for the purpose of seizing the magazines. instantly lord byron's friends ran to the arsenal; the artillery-men were ordered under arms; the sentinels doubled, and the cannon loaded and pointed on the approaches to the gates. though the alarm proved to be false, the very likelihood of such an attack shows sufficiently how precarious was the state of missolonghi at this moment, and in what a scene of peril, confusion, and uncomfort, the now nearly numbered days of england's poet were to close. on the following morning he was found to be better, but still pale and weak, and complained much of a sensation of weight in his head. the doctors, therefore, thought it right to apply leeches to his temples; but found it difficult, on their removal, to stop the blood, which continued to flow so copiously, that from exhaustion he fainted. it must have been on this day that the scene thus described by colonel stanhope occurred:-- "soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when, faint with over-bleeding, he was lying on his sick bed, with his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous suliotes, covered with dirt and splendid attires, broke into his apartment, brandishing their costly arms, and loudly demanding their wild rights. lord byron, electrified by this unexpected act, seemed to recover from his sickness; and the more the suliotes raged, the more his calm courage triumphed. the scene was truly sublime." another eye-witness, count gamba, bears similar testimony to the presence of mind with which he fronted this and all other such dangers. "it is impossible," says this gentleman, "to do justice to the coolness and magnanimity which he displayed upon every trying occasion. upon trifling occasions he was certainly irritable; but the aspect of danger calmed him in an instant, and restored to him the free exercise of all the powers of his noble nature. a more undaunted man in the hour of peril never breathed." the letters written by him during the few following weeks form, as usual, the best record of his proceedings, and, besides the sad interest they possess as being among the latest from his hand, are also precious, as affording proof that neither illness nor disappointment, neither a worn-out frame nor even a hopeless spirit, could lead him for a moment to think of abandoning the great cause he had espoused; while to the last, too, he preserved unbroken the cheerful spring of his mind, his manly endurance of all ills that affected but himself, and his ever-wakeful consideration for the wants of others. letter . to mr. barff. "february . "i am a good deal better, though of course weakly; the leeches took too much blood from my temples the day after, and there was some difficulty in stopping it, but i have since been up daily, and out in boats of on horseback. to-day i have taken a warm bath, and live as temperately as can well be, without any liquid but water, and without animal food. "besides the four turks sent to patras, i have obtained the release of four-and-twenty women and children, and sent them at my own expense to prevesa, that the english consul-general may consign them to their relations. i did this by their own desire. matters here are a little embroiled with the suliotes and foreigners, &c., but i still hope better things, and will stand by the cause as long as my health and circumstances will permit me to be supposed useful.[ ] [footnote : in a letter to the same gentleman, dated january ., he had already said, "i hope that things here will go on well some time or other. i will stick by the cause as long as a cause exists--first or second."] "i am obliged to support the government here for the present." the prisoners mentioned in this letter as having been released by him and sent to prevesa, had been held in captivity at missolonghi since the beginning of the revolution. the following was the letter which he forwarded with them to the english consul at prevesa. letter . to mr. mayer. "sir, "coming to greece, one of my principal objects was to alleviate as much as possible the miseries incident to a warfare so cruel as the present. when the dictates of humanity are in question, i know no difference between turks and greeks. it is enough that those who want assistance are men, in order to claim the pity and protection of the meanest pretender to humane feelings. i have found here twenty-four turks, including women and children, who have long pined in distress, far from the means of support and the consolations of their home. the government has consigned them to me; i transmit them to prevesa, whither they desire to be sent. i hope you will not object to take care that they may be restored to a place of safety, and that the governor of your town may accept of my present. the best recompense i can hope for would be to find that i had inspired the ottoman commanders with the same sentiments towards those unhappy greeks who may hereafter fall into their hands. "i beg you to believe me," &c. letter . to the honourable douglas kinnaird. "missolonghi, february . . "i have received yours of the d of november. it is essential that the money should be paid, as i have drawn for it all, and more too, to help the greeks. parry is here, and he and i agree very well; and all is going on hopefully for the present, considering circumstances. "we shall have work this year, for the turks are coming down in force; and, as for me, i must stand by the cause. i shall shortly march (according to orders) against lepanto, with two thousand men. i have been here some time, after some narrow escapes from the turks, and also from being ship-wrecked. we were twice upon the rocks; but this you will have heard, truly or falsely, through other channels, and i do not wish to bore you with a long story. "so far i have succeeded in supporting the government of western greece, which would otherwise have been dissolved. if you have received the eleven thousand and odd pounds, these, with what i have in hand, and my income for the current year, to say nothing of contingencies, will, or might, enable me to keep the 'sinews of war' properly strung. if the deputies be honest fellows, and obtain the loan, they will repay the ,'. as agreed upon; and even then i shall save little, or indeed less than little, since i am maintaining nearly the whole machine--in this place, at least--at my own cost. but let the greeks only succeed, and i don't care for myself. "i have been very seriously unwell, but am getting better, and can ride about again; so pray quiet our friends on that score. "it is not true that i ever _did, will, would, could, _ or _should_ write a satire against gifford, or a hair of his head. i always considered him as my literary father, and myself as his 'prodigal son;' and if i have allowed his 'fatted calf' to grow to an ox before, he kills it on my return, it is only because i prefer beef to veal. yours," &c letter . to mr. barff. "february . "my health seems improving, especially from riding and the warm bath. six englishmen will be soon in quarantine at zante; they are artificers[ ], and have had enough of greece in fourteen days. if you could recommend them to a passage home, i would thank you; they are good men enough, but do not quite understand the little discrepancies in these countries, and are not used to see shooting and slashing in a domestic quiet way, or (as it forms here) a part of housekeeping. [footnote : the workmen who came out with parry; and who, alarmed by the scene of confusion and danger they found at missolonghi, had resolved to return home.] "if they should want any thing during their quarantine, you can advance them not more than a dollar a day (amongst them) for that period, to purchase them some little extras as comforts (as they are quite out of their element). i cannot afford them more at present." the following letter to mr. murray,--which it is most gratifying to have to produce, as the last completing link of a long friendship and correspondence which had been but for a short time, and through the fault only of others, interrupted,--contains such a summary of the chief events now passing round lord byron, as, with the assistance of a few notes, will render any more detailed narrative unnecessary. letter . to mr. murray. "missolonghi, february . . "i have heard from mr. douglas kinnaird that you state 'a report of a satire on mr. gifford having arrived from italy, _said_ to be written by _me_! but that _you_ do not believe it.' i dare say you do not, nor anybody else, i should think. whoever asserts that i am the author or abettor of any thing of the kind on gifford lies in his throat. if any such composition exists it is none of mine. _you_ know as well as any body upon _whom_ i have or have not written; and _you_ also know whether they do or did not deserve that same. and so much for such matters. "you will perhaps be anxious to hear some news from this part of greece (which is the most liable to invasion); but you will hear enough through public and private channels. i will, however, give you the events of a week, mingling my own private peculiar with the public; for we are here a little jumbled together at present. "on sunday (the th, i believe,) i had a strong and sudden convulsive attack, which left me speechless, though not motionless--for some strong men could not hold me; but whether it was epilepsy, catalepsy, cachexy, or apoplexy, or what other _exy _ or _epsy_, the doctors have not decided; or whether it was spasmodic or nervous, &c.; but it was very unpleasant, and nearly carried me off, and all that. on monday, they put leeches to my temples, no difficult matter, but the blood could not be stopped till eleven at night (they had gone too near the temporal artery for my temporal safety), and neither styptic nor caustic would cauterise the orifice till after a hundred attempts. "on tuesday, a turkish brig of war ran on shore. on wednesday, great preparations being made to attack her, though protected by her consorts[ ], the turks burned her and retired to patras. on thursday a quarrel ensued between the suliotes and the frank guard at the arsenal: a swedish officer[ ] was killed, and a suliote severely wounded, and a general fight expected, and with some difficulty prevented. on friday, the officer was buried; and captain parry's english artificers mutinied, under pretence that their lives are in danger, and are for quitting the country:--they may.[ ] [footnote : "early in the morning we prepared for our attack on the brig. lord byron, notwithstanding his weakness, and an inflammation that threatened his eyes, was most anxious to be of our party; but the physicians would not suffer him to go."--count gamba's _narrative_. his lordship had promised a reward for every turk taken alive in the proposed attack on this vessel.] [footnote : captain sasse, an officer esteemed as one of the best and bravest of the foreigners in the greek service. "this," says colonel stanhope, in a letter, february th, to the committee, "is a serious affair. the suliotes have no country, no home for their families; arrears of pay are owing to them; the people of missolonghi hate and pay them exorbitantly. lord byron, who was to have led them to lepanto, is much shaken by his fit, and will probably be obliged to retire from greece. in short, all our hopes in this quarter are damped for the present. i am not a little fearful, too, that these wild warriors will not forget the blood that has been spilt. i this morning told prince mavrocordato and lord byron that they must come to some resolution about compelling the suliotes to quit the place."] [footnote : this was a fresh, and, as may be conceived, serious disappointment to lord byron. "the departure of these men," says count gamba, "made us fear that our laboratory would come to nothing; for, if we tried to supply the place of the artificers with native greeks, we should make but little progress.] "on saturday we had the smartest shock of an earthquake which i remember, (and i have felt thirty, slight or smart, at different periods; they are common in the mediterranean,) and the whole army discharged their arms, upon the same principle that savages beat drums, or howl, during an eclipse of the moon:--it was a rare scene altogether--if you had but seen the english johnnies, who had never been out of a cockney workshop before!--or will again, if they can help it--and on sunday, we heard that the vizier is come down to larissa, with one hundred and odd thousand men. "in coming here, i had two escapes, one from the turks, _(one_ of my vessels was taken, but afterwards released,) and the other from shipwreck. we drove twice on the rocks near the scrophes (islands near the coast). "i have obtained from the greeks the release of eight-and-twenty turkish prisoners, men, women, and children, and sent them to patras and prevesa at my own charges. one little girl of nine years old, who prefers remaining with me, i shall (if i live) send, with her mother, probably, to italy, or to england. her name is hato, or hatagee. she is a very pretty, lively child. all her brothers were killed by the greeks, and she herself and her mother merely spared by special favour and owing to her extreme youth, she being then but five or six years old. "my health is now better, and i ride about again. my office here is no sinecure, so many parties and difficulties of every kind; but i will do what i can. prince mavrocordato is an excellent person, and does all in his power, but his situation is perplexing in the extreme. still we have great hopes of the success of the contest. you will hear, however, more of public news from plenty of quarters; for i have little time to write. "believe me yours, &c. &c. n. bn." the fierce lawlessness of the suliotes had now risen to such a height that it became necessary, for the safety of the european population, to get rid of them altogether; and, by some sacrifices on the part of lord byron, this object was at length effected. the advance of a month's pay by him, and the discharge of their arrears by the government, (the latter, too, with money lent for that purpose by the same universal paymaster,) at length induced these rude warriors to depart from the town, and with them vanished all hopes of the expedition against lepanto. letter . to mr. moore. "missolonghi, western greece, march . . "my dear moore, "your reproach is unfounded--i have received two letters from you, and answered both previous to leaving cephalonia. i have not been 'quiet' in an ionian island, but much occupied with business,--as the greek deputies (if arrived) can tell you. neither have i continued 'don juan,' nor any other poem. you go, as usual, i presume, by some newspaper report or other.[ ] [footnote : proceeding, as he here rightly supposes, upon newspaper authority, i had in my letter made some allusion to his imputed occupations, which, in his present sensitiveness on the subject of authorship, did not at all please him. to this circumstance count gamba alludes in a passage of his narrative; where, after mentioning a remark of byron's, that "poetry should only occupy the idle, and that in more serious affairs it would be ridiculous," he adds-- "----, at this time writing to him, said, that he had heard that 'instead of pursuing heroic and warlike adventures, he was residing in a delightful villa, continuing don juan.' this offended him for the moment, and he was sorry that such a mistaken judgment had been formed of him." it is amusing to observe that, while thus anxious, and from a highly noble motive, to throw his authorship into the shade while engaged in so much more serious pursuits, it was yet an author's mode of revenge that always occurred to him, when under the influence of any of these passing resentments. thus, when a little angry with colonel stanhope one day, he exclaimed, "i will libel you in your own chronicle;" and in this brief burst of humour i was myself the means of provoking in him, i have been told, on the authority of count gamba, that he swore to "write a satire" upon me. though the above letter shows how momentary was any little spleen he may have felt, there not unfrequently, i own, comes over me a short pang of regret to think that a feeling of displeasure, however slight, should have been among the latest i awakened in him.] "when the proper moment to be of some use arrived, i came here; and am told that my arrival (with some other circumstances) _has_ been of, at least, temporary advantage to the cause. i had a narrow escape from the turks, and another from shipwreck on my passage. on the th (or th) of february i had an attack of apoplexy, or epilepsy,--the physicians have not exactly decided which, but the alternative is agreeable. my constitution, therefore, remains between the two opinions, like mahomet's sarcophagus between the magnets. all that i can say is, that they nearly bled me to death, by placing the leeches too near the temporal artery, so that the blood could with difficulty be stopped, even with caustic, i am supposed to be getting better, slowly, however. but my homilies will, i presume, for the future, be like the archbishop of grenada's--in this case, 'i order you a hundred ducats from my treasurer, and wish you a little more taste.' "for public matters i refer you to colonel stanhope's and capt. parry's reports,--and to all other reports whatsoever. there is plenty to do--war without, and tumult within--they 'kill a man a week,' like bob acres in the country. parry's artificers have gone away in alarm, on account of a dispute in which some of the natives and foreigners were engaged, and a swede was killed, and a suliote wounded. in the middle of their fright there was a strong shock of an earthquake; so, between that and the sword, they boomed off in a hurry, in despite of all dissuasions to the contrary. a turkish brig run ashore, &c. &c. &c.[ ] [footnote : what i have omitted here is but a repetition of the various particulars, respecting all that had happened since his arrival, which have already been given in the letters to his other correspondents.] "you, i presume, are either publishing or meditating that same. let me hear from and of you, and believe me, in all events, "ever and affectionately yours, "n. b. "p.s. tell mr. murray that i wrote to him the other day, and hope that he has received, or will receive, the letter." letter . to dr. kennedy. "missolonghi, march . . "my dear doctor, "i have to thank you for your two very kind letters, both received at the same time, and one long after its date. i am not unaware of the precarious state of my health, nor am, nor have been, deceived on that subject. but it is proper that i should remain in greece; and it were better to die doing something than nothing. my presence here has been supposed so far useful as to have prevented confusion from becoming worse confounded, at least for the present. should i become, or be deemed useless or superfluous, i am ready to retire; but in the interim i am not to consider personal consequences; the rest is in the hands of providence,--as indeed are all things. i shall, however, observe your instructions, and indeed did so, as far as regards abstinence, for some time past. "besides the tracts, &c. which you have sent for distribution, one of the english artificers (hight brownbill, a tinman,) left to my charge a number of greek testaments, which i will endeavour to distribute properly. the greeks complain that the translation is not correct, nor in _good_ romaic: bambas can decide on that point. i am trying to reconcile the clergy to the distribution, which (without due regard to their hierarchy) they might contrive to impede or neutralise in the effect, from their power over their people. mr. brownbill has gone to the islands, having some apprehension for his life, (not from the priests, however,) and apparently preferring rather to be a saint than a martyr, although his apprehensions of becoming the latter were probably unfounded. all the english artificers accompanied him, thinking themselves in danger on account of some troubles here, which have apparently subsided. "i have been interrupted by a visit from prince mavrocordato and others since i began this letter, and must close it hastily, for the boat is announced as ready to sail. your future convert, hato, or hatagée, appears to me lively, and intelligent, and promising, and possesses an interesting countenance. with regard to her disposition, i can say little, but millingen, who has the mother (who is a middle-aged woman of good character) in his house as a domestic (although their family was in good worldly circumstances previous to the revolution), speaks well of both, and he is to be relied on. as far as i know, i have only seen the child a few times with her mother, and what i have seen is favourable, or i should not take so much interest in her behalf. if she turns out well, my idea would be to send her to my daughter in england (if not to respectable persons in italy), and so to provide for her as to enable her to live with reputation either singly or in marriage, if she arrive at maturity. i will make proper arrangements about her expenses through messrs. barff and hancock, and the rest i leave to your discretion and to mrs. k.'s, with a great sense of obligation for your kindness in undertaking her temporary superintendence. "of public matters here, i have little to add to what you will already have heard. we are going on as well as we can, and with the hope and the endeavour to do better. believe me, "ever and truly," &c. letter . to mr. barff. "march . . "if sisseni[ ] is sincere, he will be treated with, and well treated; if he is not, the sin and the shame may lie at his own door. one great object is to heal those internal dissensions for the future, without exacting too rigorous an account of the past. prince mavrocordato is of the same opinion, and whoever is disposed to act fairly will be fairly dealt with. i _have_ heard a _good deal_ of sisseni, but not a _deal_ of _good_: however, i never judge from report, particularly in a revolution. _personally_, i am rather obliged to him, for he has been very hospitable to all friends of mine who have passed through his district. you may therefore assure him that any overture for the advantage of greece and its internal pacification will be readily and sincerely met _here_. i hardly think that he would have ventured a deceitful proposition to me through _you_, because he must be sure that in such a case it would eventually be exposed. at any rate, the healing of these dissensions is so important a point, that something must be risked to obtain it." [footnote : this sisseni, who was the _capitano_ of the rich district about gastouni, and had for some time held out against the general government, was now, as appears by the above letter, making overtures, through mr. barff, of adhesion. as a proof of his sincerity, it was required by lord byron that he should surrender into the hands of the government the fortress of chiarenza.] letter . to mr. barff. "march . "enclosed is an answer to mr. parruca's letter, and i hope that you will assure him from me, that i have done and am doing all i can to re-unite the greeks with the greeks. "i am extremely obliged by your offer of your country house (as for all other kindness) in case that my health should require my removal; but i cannot quit greece while there is a chance of my being of any (even supposed) utility:--there is a stake worth millions such as i am, and while i can stand at all, i must stand by the cause. when i say this, i am at the same time aware of the difficulties and dissensions and defects of the greeks themselves; but allowance must be made for them by all reasonable people. "my chief, indeed _nine tenths_ of my expenses here are solely in advances to or on behalf of the greeks[ ], and objects connected with their independence." [footnote : "at this time (february th)," says mr. parry, who kept the accounts of his lordship's disbursements, "the expenses of lord byron in the cause of the greeks did not amount to less than two thousand dollars per week in rations alone." in another place this writer says, "the greeks seemed to think he was a mine from which they could extract gold at their pleasure. one person represented that a supply of , dollars would save the island of candia from falling into the hands of the pacha of egypt; and there not being that sum in hand, lord byron gave him authority to raise it if he could in the islands, and he would guarantee its repayment. i believe this person did not succeed."] the letter of parruca, to which the foregoing alludes, contained a pressing invitation to lord byron to present himself in the peloponnesus, where, it was added, his influence would be sure to bring about the union of all parties. so general, indeed, was the confidence placed in their noble ally, that, by every chief of every faction, he seems to have been regarded as the only rallying point round which there was the slightest chance of their now split and jarring interests being united. a far more flattering, as well as more authorised, invitation soon after reached him, through an express envoy, from the chieftain, colocotroni, recommending a national council, where his lordship, it was proposed, should act as mediator, and pledging this chief himself and his followers to abide by the result. to this application an answer was returned similar to that which he sent to parruca, and which was in terms as follows:-- letter . to sr. parruca. "march . . "sir, "i have the honour of answering your letter. my first wish has always been to bring the greeks to agree amongst themselves. i came here by the invitation of the greek government, and i do not think that i ought to abandon roumelia for the peloponnesus until that government shall desire it; and the more so, as this part is exposed in a greater degree to the enemy. nevertheless, if my presence can really be of any assistance in uniting two or more parties, i am ready to go any where, either as a mediator, or, if necessary, as a hostage. in these affairs i have neither private views, nor private dislike of any individual, but the sincere wish of deserving the name of the friend of your country, and of her patriots. i have the honour," &c. letter . to mr. charles hancock. "missolonghi, march . . "sir, "i sent by mr. j.m. hodges a bill drawn on signer c. jerostatti for three hundred and eighty-six pounds, on account of the hon. the greek committee, for carrying on the service at this place. but count delladecima sent no more than two hundred dollars until he should receive instructions from c. jerostatti. therefore i am obliged to advance that sum to prevent a positive stop being put to the laboratory service at this place, &c. &c. "i beg you will mention this business to count delladecima, who has the draft and every account, and that mr. barff, in conjunction with yourself, will endeavour to arrange this money account, and, when received, forward the same to missolonghi. "i am, sir, yours very truly. "so far is written by captain parry; but i see that i must continue the letter myself. i understand little or nothing of the business, saving and except that, like most of the present affairs here, it will be at a stand-still if monies be not advanced, and there are few here so disposed; so that i must take the chance, as usual. "you will see what can be done with delladecima and jerostatti, and remit the sum, that we may have some quiet; for the committee have somehow embroiled their matters, or chosen greek correspondents more grecian than ever the greeks are wont to be. "yours ever, nl. bn. "p.s. a thousand thanks to muir for his cauliflower, the finest i ever saw or tasted, and, i believe, the largest that ever grew out of paradise, or scotland. i have written to quiet dr. kennedy about the newspaper (with which i have nothing to do as a writer, please to recollect and say). i told the fools of conductors that their motto would play the devil; but, like all mountebanks, they persisted. gamba, who is any thing but _lucky_, had something to do with it; and, as usual, the moment he had, matters went wrong. [ ] it will be better, perhaps, in time. but i write in haste, and have only time to say, before the boat sails, that i am ever "yours, n. bn. [footnote : he had a notion that count gamba was destined to be unfortunate,--that he was one of those ill-starred persons with whom every thing goes wrong. in speaking of this newspaper to parry, he said, "i have subscribed to it to get rid of importunity, and, it may be, keep gamba out of mischief. at any rate, he can mar nothing that is of less importance."] "p.s. mr. findlay is here, and has received his money." letter . to dr. kennedy. "missolonghi, march . . "dear sir, "you could not disapprove of the motto to the telegraph more than i did, and do; but this is the land of liberty, where most people do as they please, and few as they ought. "i have not written, nor am inclined to write, for that or for any other paper, but have suggested to them, over and over, a change of the motto and style. however, i do not think that it will turn out either an irreligious or a levelling publication, and they promise due respect to both churches and things, _i.e._ the editors do. "if bambas would write for the greek chronicle, he might have his own price for articles. "there is a slight demur about hato's voyage, her mother wishing to go with her, which is quite natural, and i have not the heart to refuse it; for even mahomet made a law, that in the division of captives, the child should never be separated from the mother. but this may make a difference in the arrangement, although the poor woman (who has lost half her family in the war) is, as i said, of good character, and of mature age, so as to render her respectability not liable to suspicion. she has heard, it seems, from prevesa, that her husband is no longer there. i have consigned your bibles to dr. meyer; and i hope that the said doctor may justify your confidence; nevertheless, i shall keep an eye upon him. you may depend upon my giving the society as fair play as mr. wilberforce himself would; and any other commission for the good of greece will meet with the same attention on my part. "i am trying, with some hope of eventual success, to re-unite the greeks, especially as the turks are expected in force, and that shortly. we must meet them as we may, and fight it out as we can. "i rejoice to hear that your school prospers, and i assure you that your good wishes are reciprocal. the weather is so much finer, that i get a good deal of moderate exercise in boats and on horseback, and am willing to hope that my health is not worse than when you kindly wrote to me. dr. bruno can tell you that i adhere to your regimen, and more, for i do not eat any meat, even fish. "believe me ever, &c. "p.s. the mechanics (six in number) were all pretty much of the same mind. brownbill was but _one_. perhaps they are less to blame than is imagined, since colonel stanhope is said to have told them, '_that he could not positively say their lives were safe.' _ i should like to know _where_ our life _is_ safe, either here or any where else? with regard to a place of safety, at least such hermetically sealed safety as these persons appeared to desiderate, it is not to be found in greece, at any rate; but missolonghi was supposed to be the place where they would be useful, and their risk was no greater than that of others." letter . to colonel stanhope. "missolonghi, march . . "my dear stanhope, "prince mavrocordato and myself will go to salona to meet ulysses, and you may be very sure that p.m. will accept any proposition for the advantage of greece. parry is to answer for himself on his own articles[ ]: if i were to interfere with him, it would only stop the whole progress of his exertion; and he is really doing all that can be done without more aid from the government. [footnote : colonel stanhope had, at the instance of the chief odysseus, written to request that some stores from the laboratory at missolonghi might be sent to athens. neither prince mavrocordato, however, nor lord byron considered it prudent, at this time, to weaken their means for defending missolonghi, and accordingly sent back by the messenger but a few barrels of powder.] "what can be spared will be sent; but i refer you to captain humphries's report, and to count gamba's letter for details upon all subjects. "in the hope of seeing you soon, and deferring much that will be to be said till then, "believe me ever, &c. "p.s. your two letters (to me) are sent to mr. barff, as you desire. pray remember me particularly to trelawney, whom i shall be very much pleased to see again." letter . to mr. barff. "march . "as count mercati is under some apprehensions of a _direct_ answer to _him_ personally on greek affairs, i reply (as you authorised me) to you, who will have the goodness to communicate to him the enclosed. it is the joint answer of prince mavrocordato and of myself, to signor georgio sisseni's propositions. you may also add, both to him and to parruca, that i am perfectly sincere in desiring the most amicable termination of their internal dissensions, and that i believe p. mavrocordato to be so also; otherwise i would not act with him, or any other, whether native or foreigner. "if lord guilford is at zante, or, if he is not, if signor tricupi is there, you would oblige me by presenting my respects to one or both, and by telling them, that from the very first i foretold to col. stanhope and to p. mavrocordato that a greek newspaper (or indeed any other) in _the present state_ of greece might and probably _would_ tend to much mischief and misconstruction, unless under some restrictions, nor have i ever had any thing to do with either, as a writer or otherwise, except as a pecuniary contributor to their support in the outset, which i could not refuse to the earnest request of the projectors. col. stanhope and myself had considerable differences of opinion on this subject, and (what will appear laughable enough) to such a degree, that he charged me with _despotic_ principles, and i _him_ with ultra radicalism. "dr. ----, the editor, with his unrestrained freedom of the press, and who has the freedom to exercise an unlimited discretion,--not allowing any article but his own and those like them to appear,--and in declaiming against restrictions, cuts, carves, and restricts (as they tell me) at his own will and pleasure. he is the author of an article against monarchy, of which he may have the advantage and fame--but they (the editors) will get themselves into a scrape, if they do not take care. "of all petty tyrants, he is one of the pettiest, as are most demagogues, that ever i knew. he is a swiss by birth, and a greek by assumption, having married a wife and changed his religion. "i shall be very glad, and am extremely anxious for some favourable result to the recent pacific overtures of the contending parties in the peloponnese." letter . to mr. barff. "march . "if the greek deputies (as seems probable) have obtained the loan, the sums i have advanced may perhaps be repaid; but it would make no great difference, as i should still spend that in the cause, and more to boot--though i should hope to better purpose than paying off arrears of fleets that sail away, and suliotes that won't march, which, they say, what has hitherto been advanced has been employed in. but that was not my affair, but of those who had the disposal of affairs, and i could not decently say to them, 'you shall do so and so, because, &c. &c. &c.' "in a few days p. mavrocordato and myself, with a considerable escort, intend to proceed to salona at the request of ulysses and the chiefs of eastern greece, and take measures offensive and defensive for the ensuing campaign. mavrocordato is _almost _ recalled by the _new_ government to the morea, (to take the lead, i rather think,) and they have written to propose to me to go either to the morea with him, or to take the general direction of affairs in this quarter--with general londo, and any other i may choose, to form a council. a. londo is my old friend and acquaintance since we were lads in greece together. it would be difficult to give a positive answer till the salona meeting is over[ ]; but i am willing to serve them in any capacity they please, either commanding or commanded--it is much the same to me, as long as i can be of any presumed use to them. [footnote : to this offer of the government to appoint him governor-general of greece, (that is, of the enfranchised part of the continent, with the exception of the morea and the islands,) his answer was, that "he was first going to salona, and that afterwards he would be at their commands; that he could have no difficulty in accepting any office, provided he could persuade himself that any good would result from it."] "excuse haste; it is late, and i have been several hours on horseback in a country so miry after the rains, that every hundred yards brings you to a ditch, of whose depth, width, colour, and contents, both my horses and their riders have brought away many tokens." letter . to me. barff. "march . "since your intelligence with regard to the greek loan, p. mavrocordato has shown to me an extract from some correspondence of his, by which it would appear that three commissioners are to be named to see that the amount is placed in proper hands for the service of the country, and that my name is amongst the number. of this, however, we have as yet only the report. "this commission is apparently named by the committee or the contracting parties in england. i am of opinion that such a commission will be necessary, but the office will be both delicate and difficult. the weather, which has lately been equinoctial, has flooded the country, and will probably retard our proceeding to salona for some days, till the road becomes more practicable. "you were already apprised that p. mavrocordato and myself had been invited to a conference by ulysses and the chiefs of eastern greece. i hear (and am indeed consulted on the subject) that in case the remittance of the first advance of the loan should not arrive immediately, the greek general government mean to try to raise some thousand dollars in the islands in the interim, to be repaid from the earliest instalments on their arrival. what prospect of success they may have, or on what conditions, you can tell better than me: i suppose, if the loan be confirmed, something might be done by them, but subject of course to the usual terms. you can let them and me know your opinion. there is an imperious necessity for some national fund, and that speedily, otherwise what is to be done? the auxiliary corps of about two hundred men, paid by me, are, i believe, the sole regularly and properly furnished with the money, due to them weekly, and the officers monthly. it is true that the greek government give their rations; but we have had three mutinies, owing to the badness of the bread, which neither native nor stranger could masticate (nor dogs either), and there is still great difficulty in obtaining them even provisions of any kind. "there is a dissension among the germans about the conduct of the agents of _their_ committee, and an examination amongst themselves instituted. what the result may be cannot be anticipated, except that it will end in _a row_, of course, as usual. "the english are all very amicable as far as i know; we get on too with the greeks very tolerably, always making allowance for circumstances; and we have no quarrels with the foreigners." during the month of march there occurred but little, besides what is mentioned in these letters, that requires to be dwelt upon at any length, or in detail. after the failure of his design against lepanto, the two great objects of his daily thoughts were, the repairs of the fortifications of missolonghi [ ], and the formation of a brigade;--the one, with a view to such defensive measures as were alone likely to be called for during the present campaign; and the other in preparation for those more active enterprises, which he still fondly flattered himself he should undertake in the next. "he looked forward (says mr. parry) for the recovery of his health and spirits, to the return of the fine weather, and the commencement of the campaign, when he proposed to take the field at the head of his own brigade, and the troops which the government of greece were to place under his orders." [footnote : the generous zeal with which he applied himself to this important object will be understood from the following statement:--"on reporting to lord byron what i thought might be done, he ordered me to draw up a plan for putting the fortifications in thorough repair, and to accompany it with an estimate of the expense. it was agreed that i should make the estimate only one third of what i thought would be the actual expense; and if that third could be procured from the magistrates, lord byron undertook secretly to pay the remainder."] with that thanklessness which too often waits on disinterested actions, it has been sometimes tauntingly remarked, and in quarters from whence a more generous judgment might be expected [ ], that, after all, lord byron effected but little for greece:--as if much _could_ be effected by a single individual, and in so short a time, for a cause which, fought as it has been almost incessantly through the six years since his death, has required nothing less than the intervention of all the great powers of europe to give it a chance of success, and, even so, has not yet succeeded. that byron himself was under no delusion as to the importance of his own solitary aid,--that he knew, in a struggle like this, there must be the same prodigality of means towards one great end as is observable in the still grander operations of nature, where individuals are as nothing in the tide of events,--that such was his, at once, philosophic and melancholy view of his own sacrifices, i have, i trust, clearly shown. but that, during this short period of action, he did not do well and wisely all that man could achieve in the time, and under the circumstances, is an assertion which the noble facts here recorded fully and triumphantly disprove. he knew that, placed as he was, his measures, to be wise, must be prospective, and from the nature of the seeds thus sown by him, the benefits that were to be expected must be judged. to reconcile the rude chiefs to the government and to each other;--to infuse a spirit of humanity, by his example, into their warfare;--to prepare the way for the employment of the expected loan, in a manner most calculated to call forth the resources of the country;--to put the fortifications of missolonghi in such a state of repair as might, and eventually _did_, render it proof against the besieger;--to prevent those infractions of neutrality, so tempting to the greeks, which brought their government in collision with the ionian authorities[ ], and to restrain all such license of the press as might indispose the courts of europe to their cause:--such were the important objects which he had proposed to himself to accomplish, and towards which, in this brief interval, and in the midst of such dissensions and hinderances, he had already made considerable and most promising progress. but it would be unjust to close even here the bright catalogue of his services. it is, after all, _not_ with the span of mortal life that the good achieved by a name immortal ends. the charm acts into the future,--it is an auxiliary through all time; and the inspiring example of byron, as a martyr of liberty, is for ever freshly embalmed in his glory as a poet. from the period of his attack in february he had been, from time to time, indisposed; and, more than once, had complained of vertigos, which made him feel, he said, as if intoxicated. he was also frequently affected with nervous sensations, with shiverings and tremors, which, though apparently the effects of excessive debility, he himself attributed to fulness of habit. proceeding upon this notion, he had, ever since his arrival in greece, abstained almost wholly from animal food, and ate of little else but dry toast, vegetables, and cheese. with the same fear of becoming fat, which had in his young days haunted him, he almost every morning measured himself round the wrist and waist, and whenever he found these parts, as he thought, enlarged, took a strong dose of medicine. [footnote : articles in the times newspaper, foreign quarterly review, &c.] [footnote : in a letter which he addressed to lord sidney osborne, enclosing one, on the subject of these infractions, from prince mavrocordato to sir t. maitland, lord byron says,--"you must all be persuaded how difficult it is, under existing circumstances, for the greeks to keep up discipline, however they may be all disposed to do so, i am doing all i can to convince them of the necessity of the strictest observance of the regulations of the islands, and, i trust, with some effect"] exertions had, as we have seen, been made by his friends at cephalonia, to induce him, without delay, to return to that island, and take measures, while there was yet time, for the re-establishment of his health. "but these entreaties (says count gamba) produced just the contrary effect; for in proportion as byron thought his position more perilous, he the more resolved upon remaining where he was." in the midst of all this, too, the natural flow of his spirits in society seldom deserted him; and whenever a trick upon any of his attendants, or associates, suggested itself, he was as ready to play the mischief-loving boy as ever. his engineer, parry, having been much alarmed by the earthquake they had experienced, and still continuing in constant apprehension of its return, lord byron contrived, as they were all sitting together one evening, to have some barrels full of cannon-balls trundled through the room above them; and laughed heartily, as he would have done when a harrow boy, at the ludicrous effect which this deception produced on the poor frightened engineer. every day, however, brought new trials both to his health and temper. the constant rains had rendered the swamps of missolonghi almost impassable;--an alarm of plague, which, about the middle of march, was circulated, made it prudent, for some time, to keep within doors; and he was thus, week after week, deprived of his accustomed air and exercise. the only recreation he had recourse to was that of playing with his favourite dog, lion; and, in the evening, going through the exercise of drilling with his officers, or practising at single-stick. at the same time, the demands upon his exertions, personal and pecuniary, poured in from all sides, while the embarrassments of his public position every day increased. the chief obstacle in the way of his plan for the reconciliation of all parties had been the rivalry so long existing between mavrocordato and the eastern chiefs; and this difficulty was now not a little heightened by the part taken by colonel stanhope and mr. trelawney, who, having allied themselves with odysseus, the most powerful of these chieftains, were endeavouring actively to detach lord byron from mavrocordato, and enlist him in their own views. this schism was,--to say the least of it,--ill-timed and unfortunate. for, as prince mavrocordato and lord byron were now acting in complete harmony with the government, a co-operation of all the other english agents on the same side would have had the effect of assuring a preponderance to this party (which was that of the civil and commercial interests all through greece), that might, by strengthening the hands of the ruling power, have afforded some hope of vigour and consistency in its movements. by this division, however, the english lost their casting weight; and not only marred whatever little chance they might have had of extinguishing the dissensions of the greeks, but exhibited, most unseasonably, an example of dissension among themselves. the visit to salona, in which, though distrustful of the intended military congress, mavrocordato had consented to accompany lord byron, was, as the foregoing letters have mentioned, delayed by the floods,--the river fidari having become so swollen as not to be fordable. in the mean time, dangers, both from within and without, threatened missolonghi. the turkish fleet had again come forth from the gulf, while, in concert, it was apprehended, with this resumption of the blockade, insurrectionary movements, instigated, as was afterwards known, by the malcontents of the morea, manifested themselves formidably both in the town and its neighbourhood. the first cause for alarm was the landing, in canoes, from anatolico, of a party of armed men, the followers of cariascachi of that place, who came to demand retribution from the people of missolonghi for some injury that, in a late affray, had been inflicted on one of their clan. it was also rumoured that suliotes were marching upon the town; and the following morning, news came that a party of these wild warriors had actually seized upon basiladi, a fortress that commands the port of missolonghi, while some of the soldiers of cariascachi had, in the course of the night, arrested two of the primates, and carried them to anatolico. the tumult and indignation that this intelligence produced was universal. all the shops were shut, and the bazaars deserted. "lord byron," says count gamba, "ordered his troops to continue under arms; but to preserve the strictest neutrality, without mixing in any quarrel, either by actions or words." during this crisis, the weather had become sufficiently favourable to admit of his paying the visit to salona, which he had purposed. but, as his departure at such a juncture might have the appearance of abandoning missolonghi, he resolved to wait the danger out. at this time the following letters were written. letter . to mr. barff. "april . "there is a quarrel, not yet settled, between the citizens and some of cariascachi's people, which has already produced some blows. i keep my people quite neutral; but have ordered them to be on their guard. "some days ago we had an italian private soldier drummed out for thieving. the german officers wanted to flog him; but i flatly refused to permit the use of the stick or whip, and delivered him over to the police.[ ] since then a prussian officer rioted in his lodgings; and i put him under arrest, according to the order. this, it appears, did not please his german confederation: but i stuck by my text; and have given them plainly to understand, that those who do not choose to be amenable to the laws of the country and service, may retire; but that in all that i have to do, i will see them obeyed by foreigner or native. [footnote : "lord byron declared that, as far as he was concerned, no barbarous usages, however adopted even by some civilised people, should be introduced into greece; especially as such a mode of punishment would disgust rather than reform. we hit upon an expedient which favoured our military discipline: but it required not only all lord byron's eloquence, but his authority, to prevail upon our germans to accede to it. the culprit had his uniform stripped off his back, in presence of his comrades, and was afterwards marched through the town with a label on his back, describing, both in greek and italian, the nature of his offence; after which he was given up to the regular police. this example of severity, tempered by a humane spirit, produced the best effect upon our soldiers, as well as upon the citizens of the town. but it was very near causing a most disagreeable circumstance; for, in the course of the evening, some very high words passed on the subject between three englishmen, two of them officers of our brigade, in consequence of which cards were exchanged, and two duels were to have been fought the next morning. lord byron did not hear of this till late at night: but he immediately ordered me to arrest both parties, which i according did; and, after some difficulty, prevailed on them to shake hands."--count gamba's _narrative_.] "i wish something was heard of the arrival of part of the loan, for there is a plentiful dearth of every thing at present." letter . to mr. barff. "april . "since i wrote, we have had some tumult here with the citizens and cariascachi's people, and all are under arms, our boys and all. they nearly fired on me and fifty of my lads[ ], by mistake, as we were taking our usual excursion into the country. to-day matters are settled or subsiding; but, about an hour ago, the father-in-law of the landlord of the house where i am lodged (one of the primates the said landlord is) was arrested for high treason. [footnote : a corps of fifty suliotes which he had, almost ever since his arrival at missolonghi, kept about him as a body-guard. a large outer room of his house was appropriated to these troops; and their carbines were suspended along the walls. "in this room (says mr. parry), and among these rude soldiers, lord byron was accustomed to walk a great deal, particularly in wet weather, accompanied by his favourite dog, lion." when he rode out, these fifty suliotes attended him on foot; and though they carried their carbines, "they were always," says the same authority, "able to keep up with the horses at full speed. the captain, and a certain number, preceded his lordship, who rode accompanied on one side by count gamba, and on the other by the greek interpreter. behind him, also on horseback, came two of his servants,--generally his black groom, and tita,--both dressed like the chasseurs usually seen behind the carriages of ambassadors, and another division of his guard closed the cavalcade."--parry's _last days of lord byron_.] "they are in conclave still with mavrocordato; and we have a number of new faces from the hills, come to assist, they say. gun-boats and batteries all ready, &c. "the row has had one good effect--it has put them on the alert. what is to become of the father-in-law, i do not know: nor what he has done, exactly[ ]: but "''tis a very fine thing to be father-in-law to a very magnificent three-tail'd bashaw,' as the man in bluebeard says and sings. i wrote to you upon matters at length, some days ago; the letter, or letters, you will receive with this. we are desirous to hear more of the loan; and it is some time since i have had any letters (at least of an interesting description) from england, excepting one of th february, from bowring (of no great importance). my latest dates are of bre, or of the th bre, four months exactly. i hope you get on well in the islands: here most of us are, or have been, more or less indisposed, natives as well as foreigners." [footnote : this man had, it seems, on his way from ioannina, passed by anatolico, and held several conferences with cariascachi. he had long been suspected of being a spy; and the letters found upon him confirmed the suspicion.] letter . to mr. barff. "april . "the greeks here of the government have been boring me for more money.[ ] as i have the brigade to maintain, and the campaign is apparently now to open, and as i have already spent , dollars in three months upon them in one way or another, and more especially as their public loan has succeeded, so that they ought not to draw from individuals at that rate, i have given them a refusal, and--as they would not take _that,--another_ refusal in terms of considerable sincerity. [footnote : in consequence of the mutinous proceedings of cariascachi's people, most of the neighbouring chieftains hastened to the assistance of the government, and had already with this view marched to anatolico near men. but, however opportune the arrival of such a force, they were a cause of fresh embarrassment, as there was a total want of provisions for their daily maintenance. it was in this emergency that the governor, primates, and chieftains had recourse, as here stated, to their usual source of supply.] "they wish now to try in the islands for a few thousand dollars on the ensuing loan. if you can serve them, perhaps you will, (in the way of information, at any rate,) and i will see that you have fair play; but still i do not _advise_ you, except to act as you please. almost every thing depends upon the arrival, and the speedy arrival, of a portion of the loan to keep peace among themselves. if they can but have sense to do this, i think that they will be a match and better for any force that can be brought against them for the present. we are all doing as well as we can." it will be perceived from these letters, that besides the great and general interests of the cause, which were in themselves sufficient to absorb all his thoughts, he was also met on every side, in the details of his duty, by every possible variety of obstruction and distraction that rapacity, turbulence, and treachery could throw in his way. such vexations, too, as would have been trying to the most robust health, here fell upon a frame already marked out for death; nor can we help feeling, while we contemplate this last scene of his life, that, much as there is in it to admire, to wonder at, and glory in, there is also much that awakens sad and most distressful thoughts. in a situation more than any other calling for sympathy and care, we see him cast among strangers and mercenaries, without either nurse or friend;--the self-collectedness of woman being, as we shall find, wanting for the former office, and the youth and inexperience of count gamba unfitting him wholly for the other. the very firmness with which a position so lone and disheartening was sustained, serves, by interesting us more deeply in the man, to increase our sympathy, till we almost forget admiration in pity, and half regret that he should have been great at such a cost. the only circumstances that had for some time occurred to give him pleasure were, as regarded public affairs, the news of the successful progress of the loan, and, in his personal relations, some favourable intelligence which he had received, after a long interruption of communication, respecting his sister and daughter. the former, he learned, had been seriously indisposed at the very time of his own fit, but had now entirely recovered. while delighted at this news, he could not help, at the same time, remarking, with his usual tendency to such superstitious feelings, how strange and striking was the coincidence. to those who have, from his childhood, traced him through these pages, it must be manifest, i think, that lord byron was not formed to be long-lived. whether from any hereditary defect in his organisation,--as he himself, from the circumstance of both his parents having died young, concluded,--or from those violent means he so early took to counteract the natural tendency of his habit, and reduce himself to thinness, he was, almost every year, as we have seen, subject to attacks of indisposition, by more than one of which his life was seriously endangered. the capricious course which he at all times pursued respecting diet,--his long fastings, his expedients for the allayment of hunger, his occasional excesses in the most unwholesome food, and, during the latter part of his residence in italy, his indulgence in the use of spirituous beverages,--all this could not be otherwise than hurtful and undermining to his health; while his constant recourse to medicine,--daily, as it appears, and in large quantities,--both evinced and, no doubt, increased the derangement of his digestion. when to all this we add the wasteful wear of spirits and strength from the slow corrosion of sensibility, the warfare of the passions, and the workings of a mind that allowed itself no sabbath, it is not to be wondered at that the vital principle in him should so soon have burnt out, or that, at the age of thirty-three, he should have had--as he himself drearily expresses it--"an old feel." to feed the flame, the all-absorbing flame, of his genius, the whole powers of his nature, physical as well as moral, were sacrificed;--to present that grand and costly conflagration to the world's eyes, in which, "glittering, like a palace set on fire, his glory, while it shone, but ruin'd him!"[ ] [footnote : beaumont and fletcher.] it was on the very day when, as i have mentioned, the intelligence of his sister's recovery reached him, that, having been for the last three or four days prevented from taking exercise by the rains, he resolved, though the weather still looked threatening, to venture out on horseback. three miles from missolonghi count gamba and himself were overtaken by a heavy shower, and returned to the town walls wet through and in a state of violent perspiration. it had been their usual practice to dismount at the walls and return to their house in a boat, but, on this day, count gamba, representing to lord byron how dangerous it would be, warm as he then was, to sit exposed so long to the rain in a boat, entreated of him to go back the whole way on horseback. to this however, lord byron would not consent; but said, laughingly, "i should make a pretty soldier indeed, if i were to care for such a trifle." they accordingly dismounted and got into the boat as usual. about two hours after his return home he was seized with a shuddering, and complained of fever and rheumatic pains. "at eight that evening," says count gamba, "i entered his room. he was lying on a sofa restless and melancholy. he said to me, 'i suffer a great deal of pain. i do not care for death, but these agonies i cannot bear.'" the following day he rose at his accustomed hour,--transacted business, and was even able to take his ride in the olive woods, accompanied, as usual, by his long train of suliotes. he complained, however, of perpetual shudderings, and had no appetite. on his return home he remarked to fletcher that his saddle, he thought, had not been perfectly dried since yesterday's wetting, and that he felt himself the worse for it. this was the last time he ever crossed the threshold alive. in the evening mr. finlay and mr. millingen called upon him. "he was at first (says the latter gentleman) gayer than usual; but on a sudden became pensive." on the evening of the th his fever, which was pronounced to be rheumatic, increased; and on the th he kept his bed all day, complaining that he could not sleep, and taking no nourishment whatever. the two following days, though the fever had apparently diminished, he became still more weak, and suffered much from pains in the head. it was not till the th that his physician, dr. bruno, finding the sudorifics which he had hitherto employed to be unavailing, began to urge upon his patient the necessity of being bled. of this, however, lord byron would not hear. he had evidently but little reliance on his medical attendant; and from the specimens this young man has since given of his intellect to the world, it is, indeed, lamentable,--supposing skill to have been, at this moment, of any avail,--that a life so precious should have been intrusted to such ordinary hands. "it was on this day, i think," says count gamba, "that, as i was sitting near him, on his sofa, he said to me, 'i was afraid i was losing my memory, and, in order to try, i attempted to repeat some latin verses with the english translation, which i have not endeavoured to recollect since i was at school. i remembered them all except the last word of one of the hexameters.'" to the faithful fletcher, the idea of his master's life being in danger seems to have occurred some days before it struck either count gamba or the physician. so little, according to his friend's narrative, had such a suspicion crossed lord byron's own mind, that he even expressed himself "rather glad of his fever, as it might cure him of his tendency to epilepsy." to fletcher, however, it appears, he had professed, more than once, strong doubts as to the nature of his complaint being so slight as the physician seemed to suppose it, and on his servant renewing his entreaties that he would send for dr. thomas to zante, made no further opposition; though still, out of consideration for those gentlemen, he referred him on the subject to dr. bruno and mr. millingen. whatever might have been the advantage or satisfaction of this step, it was now rendered wholly impossible by the weather,--such a hurricane blowing into the port that not a ship could get out. the rain, too, descended in torrents, and between the floods on the land-side and the sirocco from the sea, missolonghi was, for the moment, a pestilential prison. it was at this juncture that mr. millingen was, for the first time, according to his own account, invited to attend lord byron in his medical capacity,--his visit on the th being so little, as he states, professional, that he did not even, on that occasion, feel his lordship's pulse. the great object for which he was now called in, and rather, it would seem, by fletcher than dr. bruno, was for the purpose of joining his representations and remonstrances to theirs, and prevailing upon the patient to suffer himself to be bled,--an operation now become absolutely necessary from the increase of the fever, and which dr. bruno had, for the last two days, urged in vain. holding gentleness to be, with a disposition like that of byron, the most effectual means of success, mr. millingen tried, as he himself tells us, all that reasoning and persuasion could suggest towards attaining his object. but his efforts were fruitless:--lord byron, who had now become morbidly irritable, replied angrily, but still with all his accustomed acuteness and spirit, to the physician's observations. of all his prejudices, he declared, the strongest was that against bleeding. his mother had obtained from him a promise never to consent to being bled; and whatever argument might be produced, his aversion, he said, was stronger than reason. "besides, is it not," he asked, "asserted by dr. reid, in his essays, that less slaughter is effected by the lance than the lancet:--that minute instrument of mighty mischief!" on mr. millingen observing that this remark related to the treatment of nervous, but not of inflammatory complaints, he rejoined, in an angry tone, "who is nervous, if i am not? and do not those other words of his, too, apply to my case, where he says that drawing blood from a nervous patient is like loosening the chords of a musical instrument, whose tones already fail for want of sufficient tension? even before this illness, you yourself know how weak and irritable i had become;--and bleeding, by increasing this state, will inevitably kill me. do with me whatever else you like, but bleed me you shall not. i have had several inflammatory fevers in my life, and at an age when more robust and plethoric: yet i got through them without bleeding. this time, also, will i take my chance."[ ] [footnote : it was during the same, or some similar conversation, that dr. bruno also reports him to have said, "if my hour is come, i shall die, whether i lose my blood or keep it."] after much reasoning and repeated entreaties, mr. millingen at length succeeded in obtaining from him a promise, that should he feel his fever increase at night, he would allow dr. bruno to bleed him. during this day he had transacted business and received several letters; particularly one that much pleased him from the turkish governor, to whom he had sent the rescued prisoners, and who, in this communication, thanked him for his humane interference, and requested a repetition of it. in the evening he conversed a good deal with parry, who remained some hours by his bedside. "he sat up in his bed (says this officer), and was then calm and collected. he talked with me on a variety of subjects connected with himself and his family; he spoke of his intentions as to greece, his plans for the campaign, and what he should ultimately do for that country. he spoke to me about my own adventures. he spoke of death also with great composure; and though he did not believe his end was so very near, there was something about him so serious and so firm, so resigned and composed, so different from any thing i had ever before seen in him, that my mind misgave me, and at times foreboded his speedy dissolution." on revisiting his patient early next morning, mr. millingen learned from him, that having passed, as he thought, on the whole, a better night, he had not considered it necessary to ask dr. bruno to bleed him. what followed, i shall, in justice to mr. millingen, give in his own words.[ ] "i thought it my duty now to put aside all consideration of his feelings, and to declare solemnly to him, how deeply i lamented to see him trifle thus with his life, and show so little resolution. his pertinacious refusal had already, i said, caused most precious time to be lost;--but few hours of hope now remained, and, unless he submitted immediately to be bled, we could not answer for the consequences. it was true, he cared not for life; but who could assure him that, unless he changed his resolution, the uncontrolled disease might not operate such disorganisation in his system as utterly and for ever to deprive him of reason?--i had now hit at last on the sensible chord; and, partly annoyed by our importunities, partly persuaded, he cast at us both the fiercest glance of vexation, and throwing out his arm, said, in the angriest tone, 'there,--you are, i see, a d--d set of butchers,--take away as much blood as you like, but have done with it.' [footnote : ms.--this gentleman is, i understand, about to publish the narrative from which the above extract is taken.] "we seized the moment (adds mr. millingen), and drew about twenty ounces. on coagulating, the blood presented a strong buffy coat; yet the relief obtained did not correspond to the hopes we had formed, and during the night the fever became stronger than it had been hitherto. the restlessness and agitation increased, and the patient spoke several times in an incoherent manner." on the following morning, the th, the bleeding was repeated; for, although the rheumatic symptoms had been completely removed, the appearances of inflammation on the brain were now hourly increasing. count gamba, who had not for the last two days seen him, being confined to his own apartment by a sprained ankle, now contrived to reach his room. "his countenance," says this gentleman, "at once awakened in me the most dreadful suspicions. he was very calm; he talked to me in the kindest manner about my accident, but in a hollow, sepulchral tone. 'take care of your foot,' said he; 'i know by experience how painful it must be.' i could not stay near his bed: a flood of tears rushed into my eyes, and i was obliged to withdraw." neither count gamba, indeed, nor fletcher, appear to have been sufficiently masters of themselves to do much else than weep during the remainder of this afflicting scene. in addition to the bleeding, which was repeated twice on the th, it was thought right also to apply blisters to the soles of his feet. "when on the point of putting them on," says mr. millingen, "lord byron asked me whether it would answer the purpose to apply both on the same leg. guessing immediately the motive that led him to ask this question, i told him that i would place them above the knees. 'do so,' he replied." it is painful to dwell on such details,--but we are now approaching the close. in addition to most of those sad varieties of wretchedness which surround alike the grandest and humblest deathbeds, there was also in the scene now passing around the dying byron such a degree of confusion and uncomfort as renders it doubly dreary to contemplate. there having been no person invested, since his illness, with authority over the household, neither order nor quiet was maintained in his apartment. most of the comforts necessary in such an illness were wanting; and those around him, either unprepared for the danger, were, like bruno, when it came, bewildered by it; or, like the kind-hearted fletcher and count gamba, were by their feelings rendered no less helpless. "in all the attendants," says parry, "there was the officiousness of zeal; but, owing to their ignorance of each other's language, their zeal only added to the confusion. this circumstance, and the want of common necessaries, made lord byron's apartment such a picture of distress and even anguish during the two or three last days of his life, as i never before beheld, and wish never again to witness." the th being easter day,--a holiday which the greeks celebrate by firing off muskets and artillery,--it was apprehended that this noise might be injurious to lord byron; and, as a means of attracting away the crowd from the neighbourhood, the artillery brigade were marched out by parry, to exercise their guns at some distance from the town; while, at the same time, the town-guard patrolled the streets, and informing the people of the danger of their benefactor, entreated them to preserve all possible quiet. about three o'clock in the afternoon, lord byron rose and went into the adjoining room. he was able to walk across the chamber, leaning on his servant tita; and, when seated, asked for a book, which the servant brought him. after reading, however, for a few minutes, he found himself faint; and, again taking tita's arm, tottered into the next room, and returned to bed. at this time the physicians, becoming still more alarmed, expressed a wish for a consultation; and proposed calling in, without delay, dr. freiber, the medical assistant of mr. millingen, and luca vaya, a greek, the physician of mavrocordato. on hea[r]ing this, lord byron at first refused to see them; but being informed that mavrocordato advised it, he said,--"very well, let them come; but let them look at me and say nothing." this they promised, and were admitted; but when one of them, on feeling his pulse, showed a wish to speak--"recollect," he said, "your promise, and go away." it was after this consultation of the physicians[ ], that, as it appeared to count gamba, lord byron was, for the first time, aware of his approaching end. mr. millingen, fletcher, and tita had been standing round his bed; but the two first, unable to restrain their tears, left the room. tita also wept; but, as byron held his hand, could not retire. he, however, turned away his face; while byron, looking at him steadily, said, half smiling, "oh questa è una bella scena!" he then seemed to reflect a moment, and exclaimed, "call parry." almost immediately afterwards, a fit of delirium ensued; and he began to talk wildly, as if he were mounting a breach in an assault,--calling out, half in english, half in italian, "forwards--forwards--courage--follow my example," &c. &c. [footnote : for mr. millingen's account of this consultation, see appendix.] on coming again to himself, he asked fletcher, who had then returned into the room, "whether he had sent for dr. thomas, as he desired?" and the servant answering in the affirmative, he replied, "you have done right, for i should like to know what is the matter with me." he had, a short time before, with that kind consideration for those about him which was one of the great sources of their lasting attachment to him, said to fletcher, "i am afraid you and tita will be ill with sitting up night and day." it was now evident that he knew he was dying; and between his anxiety to make his servant understand his last wishes, and the rapid failure of his powers of utterance, a most painful scene ensued. on fletcher asking whether he should bring pen and paper to take down his words--"oh no," he replied--"there is no time--it is now nearly over. go to my sister--tell her--go to lady byron--you will see her, and say ----" here his voice faltered, and became gradually indistinct; notwithstanding which he continued still to mutter to himself, for nearly twenty minutes, with much earnestness of manner, but in such a tone that only a few words could be distinguished. these, too, were only names,--"augusta,"--"ada,"--"hobhouse,"--"kinnaird." he then said, "now, i have told you all." "my lord," replied fletcher, "i have not understood a word your lordship has been saying."--"not understand me?" exclaimed lord byron, with a look of the utmost distress, "what a pity!--then it is too late; all is over."--"i hope not," answered fletcher; "but the lord's will be done!"--"yes, not mine," said byron. he then tried to utter a few words, of which none were intelligible, except "my sister--my child." the decision adopted at the consultation had been, contrary to the opinion of mr. millingen and dr. freiber, to administer to the patient a strong antispasmodic potion, which, while it produced sleep, but hastened perhaps death. in order to persuade him into taking this draught, mr. parry was sent for[ ], and, without any difficulty, induced him to swallow a few mouthfuls. "when he took my hand," says parry, "i found his hands were deadly cold. with the assistance of tita i endeavoured gently to create a little warmth in them; and also loosened the bandage which was tied round his head. till this was done he seemed in great pain, clenched his hands at times, gnashed his teeth, and uttered the italian exclamation of 'ah christi!' he bore the loosening of the band passively, and, after it was loosened, shed tears; then taking my hand again, uttered a faint good night, and sunk into a slumber." [footnote : from this circumstance, as well as from the terms in which he is mentioned by lord byron, it is plain that this person had, by his blunt, practical good sense, acquired far more influence over his lordship's mind than was possessed by any of the other persons about him.] in about half an hour he again awoke, when a second dose of the strong infusion was administered to him. "from those about him," says count gamba, who was not able to bear this scene himself, "i collected that, either at this time, or in his former interval of reason, he could be understood to say--'poor greece!--poor town!--my poor servants!' also, 'why was i not aware of this sooner?' and 'my hour is come!--i do not care for death--but why did i not go home before i came here?' at another time he said, 'there are things which make the world dear to me _io lascio qualche cosa di caro nel mondo_: for the rest, i am content to die.' he spoke also of greece, saying, 'i have given her my time, my means, my health--and now i give her my life!--what could i do more?'"[ ] [footnote : it is but right to remind the reader, that for the sayings here attributed to lord byron, however natural and probable they may appear, there is not exactly the same authority of credible witnesses by which all the other details i have given of his last hours are supported.] it was about six o'clock on the evening of this day when he said, "now i shall go to sleep;" and then turning round fell into that slumber from which he never awoke. for the next twenty-four hours he lay incapable of either sense or motion,--with the exception of, now and then, slight symptoms of suffocation, during which his servant raised his head,--and at a quarter past six o'clock on the following day, the th, he was seen to open his eyes and immediately shut them again. the physicians felt his pulse--he was no more! to attempt to describe how the intelligence of this sad event struck upon all hearts would be as difficult as it is superfluous. he, whom the whole world was to mourn, had on the tears of greece peculiar claim,--for it was at her feet he now laid down the harvest of such a life of fame. to the people of missolonghi, who first felt the shock that was soon to spread through all europe, the event seemed almost incredible. it was but the other day that he had come among them, radiant with renown,--inspiring faith, by his very name, in those miracles of success that were about to spring forth at the touch of his ever-powerful genius. all this had now vanished like a short dream:--nor can we wonder that the poor greeks, to whom his coming had been such a glory, and who, on the last evening of his life, thronged the streets, enquiring as to his state, should regard the thunder-storm which, at the moment he died, broke over the town, as a signal of his doom, and, in their superstitious grief, cry to each other, "the great man is gone!"[ ] [footnote : parry's "last days of lord byron," p. .] prince mavrocordato, who of all best knew and felt the extent of his country's loss, and who had to mourn doubly the friend of greece and of himself, on the evening of the th issued this melancholy proclamation:-- "provisional government of western greece. "art. . "the present day of festivity and rejoicing has become one of sorrow and of mourning. the lord noel byron departed this life at six o'clock in the afternoon, after an illness of ten days; his death being caused by an inflammatory fever. such was the effect of his lordship's illness on the public mind, that all classes had forgotten their usual recreations of easter, even before the afflicting event was apprehended. "the loss of this illustrious individual is undoubtedly to be deplored by all greece; but it must be more especially a subject of lamentation at missolonghi, where his generosity has been so conspicuously displayed, and of which he had even become a citizen, with the further determination of participating in all the dangers of the war. "every body is acquainted with the beneficent acts of his lordship, and none can cease to hail his name as that of a real benefactor. "until, therefore, the final determination of the national government be known, and by virtue of the powers with which it has been pleased to invest me, i hereby decree,-- " st, to-morrow morning, at daylight, thirty seven minute guns will be fired from the grand battery, being the number which corresponds with the age of the illustrious deceased. " d, all the public offices, even the tribunals, are to remain closed for three successive days. " d, all the shops, except those in which provisions or medicines are sold, will also be shut; and it is strictly enjoined that every species of public amusement, and other demonstrations of festivity at easter, shall be suspended. " th, a general mourning will be observed for twenty-one days. " th, prayers and a funeral service are to be offered up in all the churches. (signed) "a. mavrocordato. "george praidis, secretary. "given at missolonghi, this th day of april, ." similar honours were paid to his memory at many other places through greece. at salona, where the congress had assembled, his soul was prayed for in the church; after which the whole garrison and the citizens went out into the plain, where another religious ceremony took place, under the shade of the olive trees. this being concluded, the troops fired; and an oration, full of the warmest praise and gratitude, was pronounced by the high priest. when such was the veneration shown towards him by strangers, what must have been the feelings of his near associates and attendants? let one speak for all:--"he died (says count gamba) in a strange land, and amongst strangers; but more loved, more sincerely wept he never could have been, wherever he had breathed his last. such was the attachment, mingled with a sort of reverence and enthusiasm, with which he inspired those around him, that there was not one of us who would not, for his sake, have willingly encountered any danger in the world." colonel stanhope, whom the sad intelligence reached at salona, thus writes to the committee:--"a courier has just arrived from the chief scalza. alas! all our fears are realised. the soul of byron has taken its last flight. england has lost her brightest genius, greece her noblest friend. to console them for the loss, he has left behind the emanations of his splendid mind. if byron had faults, he had redeeming virtues too--he sacrificed his comfort, fortune, health, and life, to the cause of an oppressed nation. honoured be his memory!" mr. trelawney, who was on his way to missolonghi at the time, describes as follows the manner in which he first heard of his friend's death:--"with all my anxiety i could not get here before the third day. it was the second, after having crossed the first great torrent, that i met some soldiers from missolonghi. i had let them all pass me, ere i had resolution enough to enquire the news from missolonghi. i then rode back, and demanded of a straggler the news. i heard nothing more than--lord byron is dead,--and i proceeded on in gloomy silence." the writer adds, after detailing the particulars of the poet's illness and death, "your pardon, stanhope, that i have thus turned aside from the great cause in which i am embarked. but this is no private grief. the world has lost its greatest man; i my best friend." among his servants the same feeling of sincere grief prevailed:--"i have in my possession (says mr. hoppner, in the notices with which he has favoured me,) a letter written by his gondolier tita, who had accompanied him from venice, giving an account to his parents of his master's decease. of this event the poor fellow speaks in the most affecting manner, telling them that in lord byron he had lost a father rather than a master; and expatiating upon the indulgence with which he had always treated his domestics, and the care he expressed for their comfort and welfare." his valet fletcher, too, in a letter to mr. murray, announcing the event, says, "please to excuse all defects, for i scarcely know what i either say or do; for, after twenty years' service with my lord, he was more to me than a father, and i am too much distressed to give now a correct account of every particular." in speaking of the effect produced on the friends of greece by this event, mr. trelawney says,--"i think byron's name was the great means of getting the loan. a mr. marshall, with _l_. per annum, was as far as corfu, and turned back on hearing of lord byron's death. thousands of people were flocking here: some had arrived as far as corfu, and hearing of his death, confessed they came out to devote their fortunes not to the greeks, or from interest in the cause, but to the noble poet; and the 'pilgrim of eternity[ ]' having departed, they turned back."[ ] [footnote : the title given by shelley to lord byron in his elegy on the death of keats. "the pilgrim of eternity, whose fame over his living head like heaven is bent, an early but enduring monument, came veiling all the lightnings of his song in sorrow."] [footnote : parry, too, mentions an instance to the same effect:--"while i was on the quarantine-house at zante, a gentleman called on me, and made numerous enquiries as to lord byron. he said he was only one of fourteen english gentlemen, then at ancona, who had sent him on to obtain intelligence, and only waited his return to come and join lord byron. they were to form a mounted guard for him, and meant to devote their personal services and their incomes to the greek cause. on hearing of lord byron's death, however, they turned back."] the funeral ceremony, which, on account of the rains, had been postponed for a day, took place in the church of st. nicholas, at missolonghi, on the d of april, and is thus feelingly described by an eye-witness:-- "in the midst of his own brigade, of the troops of the government, and of the whole population, on the shoulders of the officers of his corps, relieved occasionally by other greeks, the most precious portion of his honoured remains were carried to the church, where lie the bodies of marco bozzari and of general normann. there we laid them down: the coffin was a rude, ill-constructed chest of wood; a black mantle served for a pall; and over it we placed a helmet and a sword, and a crown of laurel. but no funeral pomp could have left the impression, nor spoken the feelings, of this simple ceremony. the wretchedness and desolation of the place itself; the wild and half-civilised warriors around us; their deep-felt, unaffected grief; the fond recollections; the disappointed hopes; the anxieties and sad presentiments which might be read on every countenance;--all contributed to form a scene more moving, more truly affecting, than perhaps was ever before witnessed round the grave of a great man. "when the funeral service was over, we left the bier in the middle of the church, where it remained until the evening of the next day, and was guarded by a detachment of his own brigade. the church was crowded without cessation by those who came to honour and to regret the benefactor of greece. in the evening of the d, the bier was privately carried back by his officers to his own house. the coffin was not closed till the th of the month. immediately after his death, his countenance had an air of calmness, mingled with a severity, that seemed gradually to soften; for when i took a last look of him, the expression, at least to my eyes, was truly sublime." we have seen how decidedly, while in italy, lord byron expressed his repugnance to the idea of his remains resting upon english ground; and the injunctions he so frequently gave to mr. hoppner on this point show his wishes to have been,--at least, during that period,--sincere. with one so changing, however, in his impulses, it was not too much to take for granted that the far more cordial feeling entertained by him towards his countrymen at cephalonia would have been followed by a correspondent change in this antipathy to england as a last resting-place. it is, at all events, fortunate that by no such spleen of the moment has his native country been deprived of her natural right to enshrine within her own bosom one of the noblest of her dead, and to atone for any wrong she may have inflicted upon him, while living, by making his tomb a place of pilgrimage for her sons through all ages. by colonel stanhope and others it was suggested that, as a tribute to the land he celebrated and died for, his remains should be deposited at athens, in the temple of theseus; and the chief odysseus despatched an express to missolonghi to enforce this wish. on the part of the town, too, in which he breathed his last, a similar request had been made by the citizens; and it was thought advisable so far to accede to their desires as to leave with them, for interment, one of the vessels, in which his remains, after embalmment, were enclosed. the first step taken, before any decision as to its ultimate disposal, was to have the body conveyed to zante; and every facility having been afforded by the resident, sir frederick stoven, in providing and sending transports to missolonghi for that purpose, on the morning of the d of may the remains were embarked, under a mournful salute from the guns of the fortress:--"how different," says count gamba, "from that which had welcomed the arrival of byron only four months ago!" at zante, the determination was taken to send the body to england; and the brig florida, which had just arrived there with the first instalment of the loan, was engaged for the purpose. mr. blaquiere, under whose care this first portion of the loan had come, was also the bearer of a commission for the due management of its disposal in greece, in which lord byron was named as the principal commissioner. the same ship, however, that brought this honourable mark of confidence was to return with him a corpse. to colonel stanhope, who was then at zante, on his way homeward, was intrusted the charge of his illustrious colleague's remains; and on the th of may he embarked with them on board the florida for england. in the letter which, on his arrival in the downs, june th, this gentleman addressed to lord byron's executors, there is the following passage:--"with respect to the funeral ceremony, i am of opinion that his lordship's family should be immediately consulted, and that sanction should be obtained for the public burial of his body either in the great abbey or cathedral of london." it has been asserted, and i fear too truly, that on some intimation of the wish suggested in this last sentence being conveyed to one of those reverend persons who have the honours of the abbey at their disposal, such an answer was returned as left but little doubt that a refusal would be the result of any more regular application.[ ] [footnote : a former dean of westminster went so far, we know, in his scruples as to exclude an epitaph from the abbey, because it contained the name of milton:--"a name, in his opinion," says johnson, "too detestable to be read on the wall of a building dedicated to devotion."--_life of_ milton.] there is an anecdote told of the poet hafiz, in sir william jones's life, which, in reporting this instance of illiberality, recurs naturally to the memory. after the death of the great persian bard, some of the religious among his countrymen protested strongly against allowing to him the right of sepulture, alleging, as their objection, the licentiousness of his poetry. after much controversy, it was agreed to leave the decision of the question to a mode of divination, not uncommon among the persians, which consisted in opening the poet's book at random and taking the first verses that occurred. they happened to be these:-- "oh turn not coldly from the poet's bier, nor check the sacred drops by pity given; for though in sin his body slumbereth here, his soul, absolved, already wings to heaven." these lines, says the legend, were looked upon as a divine decree; the religionists no longer enforced their objections, and the remains of the bard were left to take their quiet sleep by that "sweet bower of mosellay" which he had so often celebrated in his verses. were our byron's right of sepulture to be decided in the same manner, how few are there of his pages, thus taken at hazard, that would not, by some genial touch of sympathy with virtue, some glowing tribute to the bright works of god, or some gush of natural devotion more affecting than any homily, give him a title to admission into the purest temple of which christian charity ever held the guardianship. let the decision, however, of these reverend authorities have been, finally, what it might, it was the wish, as is understood, of lord byron's dearest relative to have his remains laid in the family vault at hucknall, near newstead. on being landed from the florida, the body had, under the direction of his lordship's executors, mr. hobhouse and mr. hanson, been removed to the house of sir edward knatchbull in great george street, westminster, where it lay in state during friday and saturday, the th and th of july, and on the following monday the funeral procession took place. leaving westminster at eleven o'clock in the morning, attended by most of his lordship's personal friends and by the carriages of several persons of rank, it proceeded through various streets of the metropolis towards the north road. at pancras church, the ceremonial of the procession being at an end, the carriages returned; and the hearse continued its way, by slow stages, to nottingham. it was on friday the th of july that, in the small village church of hucknall, the last duties were paid to the remains of byron, by depositing them, close to those of his mother, in the family vault. exactly on the same day of the same month in the preceding year, he had said, it will be recollected, despondingly, to count gamba, "where shall we be in another year?" the gentleman to whom this foreboding speech was addressed paid a visit, some months after the interment, to hucknall, and was much struck, as i have heard, on approaching the village, by the strong likeness it seemed to him to bear to his lost friend's melancholy deathplace, missolonghi. on a tablet of white marble in the chancel of the church of hucknall is the following inscription:-- in the vault beneath, where many of his ancestors and his mother are buried, lie the remains of george gordon noel byron, lord byron, of rochdale, in the county of lancaster, the author of "childe harold's pilgrimage." he was born in london on the d of january, . he died at missolonghi, in western greece, on the th of april, , engaged in the glorious attempt to restore that country to her ancient freedom and renown. * * * * * his sister, the honourable augusta maria leigh, placed this tablet to his memory. from among the tributes that have been offered, in prose and verse, and in almost every language of europe, to his memory, i shall select two which appear to me worthy of peculiar notice, as being, one of them,--so far as my limited scholarship will allow me to judge,--a simple and happy imitation of those laudatory inscriptions with which the greece of other times honoured the tombs of her heroes; and the other as being the production of a pen, once engaged controversially against byron, but not the less ready, as these affecting verses prove, to offer the homage of a manly sorrow and admiration at his grave. [greek: eis ton en tê helladi têleutêsanta poiêtên * * * * * ou to zên tanaon biou euklees oud' enarithmein arxaiax progonôn eunxneôn aretas ton d' eudaimonias moir' amphepei, hosper apantôn aien aristeuôn gignetai athanatos.-- eudeis oun su, teknon, xaritôn ear? ouk eti thallei akmaios meleôn hêdupnoôn stephanos?-- alla teon, tripophête, moron penphousin aphênê, mousai, patris, arês, ellas, eleupheria.[ ]] [footnote : by john williams, esq.--the following translation of this inscription will not be unacceptable to my readers:-- "not length of life--not an illustrious birth, rich with the noblest blood of all the earth;-- nought can avail, save deeds of high emprize, our mortal being to immortalise. "sweet child of song, thou deepest!--ne'er again shall swell the notes of thy melodious strain: yet, with thy country wailing o'er thy urn, pallas, the muse, mars, greece, and freedom mourn." h.h. joy.] "childe harold's last pilgrimage. "by the rev. w.l. bowles. "so ends childe harold his last pilgrimage!-- upon the shores of greece he stood, and cried 'liberty!' and those shores, from age to age renown'd, and sparta's woods and rocks replied 'liberty!' but a spectre, at his side, stood mocking;--and its dart, uplifting high, smote him;--he sank to earth in life's fair pride: sparta! thy rocks then heard another cry, and old ilissus sigh'd--'die, generous exile, die!' "i will not ask sad pity to deplore his wayward errors, who thus early died; still less, childe harold, now thou art no more, will i say aught of genius misapplied; of the past shadows of thy spleen or pride:-- but i will bid th' arcadian cypress wave, pluck the green laurel from peneus' side, and pray thy spirit may such quiet have, that not one thought unkind be murmur'd o'er thy grave. "so harold ends, in greece, his pilgrimage!-- there fitly ending,--in that land renown'd, whose mighty genius lives in glory's page,-- he, on the muses' consecrated ground, sinking to rest, while his young brows are bound with their unfading wreath!--to bands of mirth, no more in tempe let the pipe resound! harold, i follow to thy place of birth the slow hearse--and thy last sad pilgrimage on earth. "slow moves the plumed hearse, the mourning train,-- i mark the sad procession with a sigh, silently passing to that village fane, where, harold, thy forefathers mouldering lie;-- there sleeps that mother, who with tearful eye, pondering the fortunes of thy early road, hung o'er the slumbers of thine infancy; her son, released from mortal labour's load, now comes to rest, with her, in the same still abode. "bursting death's silence--could that mother speak-- (speak when the earth was heap'd upon his head)-- in thrilling, but with hollow accent weak, she thus might give the welcome of the dead:-- 'here rest, my son, with me;--the dream is fled;-- the motley mask and the great stir is o'er: welcome to me, and to this silent bed, where deep forgetfulness succeeds the roar of life, and fretting passions waste the heart no more.'" by his lordship's will, a copy of which will be found in the appendix, he bequeathed to his executors in trust for the benefit of his sister, mrs. leigh, the monies arising from the sale of all his real estates at rochdale and elsewhere, together with such part of his other property as was not settled upon lady byron and his daughter ada, to be by mrs. leigh enjoyed, free from her husband's control, during her life, and, after her decease, to be inherited by her children. we have now followed to its close a life which, brief as was its span, may be said, perhaps, to have comprised within itself a greater variety of those excitements and interest which spring out of the deep workings of passion and of intellect than any that the pen of biography has ever before commemorated. as there still remain among the papers of my friend some curious gleanings which, though in the abundance of our materials i have not hitherto found a place for them, are too valuable towards the illustration of his character to be lost, i shall here, in selecting them for the reader, avail myself of the opportunity of trespassing, for the last time, on his patience with a few general remarks. it must have been observed, throughout these pages, and by some, perhaps, with disappointment, that into the character of lord byron, as a poet, there has been little, if any, critical examination; but that, content with expressing generally the delight which, in common with all, i derive from his poetry, i have left the task of analysing the sources from which this delight springs to others.[ ] in thus evading, if it must be so considered, one of my duties as a biographer, i have been influenced no less by a sense of my own inaptitude for the office of critic than by recollecting with what assiduity, throughout the whole of the poet's career, every new rising of his genius was watched from the great observatories of criticism, and the ever changing varieties of its course and splendour tracked out and recorded with a degree of skill and minuteness which has left but little for succeeding observers to discover. it is, moreover, into the character and conduct of lord byron, as a man, not distinct from, but forming, on the contrary, the best illustration of his character, as a writer, that it has been the more immediate purpose of these volumes to enquire; and if, in the course of them, any satisfactory clue has been afforded to those anomalies, moral and intellectual, which his life exhibited,--still more, should it have been the effect of my humble labours to clear away some of those mists that hung round my friend, and show him, in most respects, as worthy of love as he was, in all, of admiration, then will the chief and sole aim of this work have been accomplished. [footnote : it may be making too light of criticism to say with gray that "even a bad verse is as good a thing or better than the best observation that ever was made upon it;" but there are surely few tasks that appear more thankless and superfluous than that of following, as criticism sometimes does, in the rear of victorious genius (like the commentators on a field of blenheim or of waterloo), and either labouring to point out to us _why_ it has triumphed, or still more unprofitably contending that it _ought_ to have failed. the well-known passage of la bruyère, which even voltaire's adulatory application of it to some work of the king of prussia has not spoiled for use, puts, perhaps, in its true point of view the very subordinate rank which criticism must be content to occupy in the train of successful genius:--"quand une lecture vous élève l'esprit et qu'elle vous inspire des sentimens nobles, ne cherehez pas une autre règle pour juger de l'ouvrage; il est bon et fait de main de l'ouvrier: la critique, après ça, peut s'exercer sur les petites choses, relever quelques expressions, corriger des phrases, parler de syntaxe," &c. &c.] having devoted to this object so large a portion of my own share of these pages, and, yet more fairly, enabled the world to form a judgment for itself, by placing the man, in his own person, and without disguise, before all eyes, there would seem to remain now but an easy duty in summing up the various points of his character, and, out of the features, already separately described, combining one complete portrait. the task, however, is by no means so easy as it may appear. there are few characters in which a near acquaintance does not enable us to discover some one leading principle or passion consistent enough in its operations to be taken confidently into account in any estimate of the disposition in which they are found. like those points in the human face, or figure, to which all its other proportions are referable, there is in most minds some one governing influence, from which chiefly,--though, of course, biassed on some occasions by others,--all its various impulses and tendencies will be found to radiate. in lord byron, however, this sort of pivot of character was almost wholly wanting. governed as he was at different moments by totally different passions, and impelled sometimes, as during his short access of parsimony in italy, by springs of action never before developed in his nature, in him this simple mode of tracing character to its sources must be often wholly at fault; and if, as is not impossible, in trying to solve the strange variances of his mind, i should myself be found to have fallen into contradictions and inconsistencies, the extreme difficulty of analysing, without dazzle or bewilderment, such an unexampled complication of qualities must be admitted as my excuse. so various, indeed, and contradictory, were his attributes, both moral and intellectual, that he may be pronounced to have been not one, but many: nor would it be any great exaggeration of the truth to say, that out of the mere partition of the properties of his single mind a plurality of characters, all different and all vigorous, might have been furnished. it was this multiform aspect exhibited by him that led the world, during his short wondrous career, to compare him with that medley host of personages, almost all differing from each other, which he thus playfully enumerates in one of his journals:-- "i have been thinking over, the other day, on the various comparisons, good or evil, which i have seen published of myself in different journals, english and foreign. this was suggested to me by accidentally turning over a foreign one lately,--for i have made it a rule latterly never to _search_ for any thing of the kind, but not to avoid the perusal, if presented by chance. "to begin, then: i have seen myself compared, personally or poetically, in english, french, _german_ (_as_ interpreted to me), italian, and portuguese, within these nine years, to rousseau, goethe, young, aretine, timon of athens, dante, petrarch, 'an alabaster vase, lighted up within,' satan, shakspeare, buonaparte, tiberius, Æschylus, sophocles, euripides, harlequin, the clown, sternhold and hopkins, to the phantasmagoria, to henry the eighth, to chenier, to mirabeau, to young r. dallas (the schoolboy), to michael angelo, to raphael, to a petit-maître, to diogenes, to childe harold, to lara, to the count in beppo, to milton, to pope, to dryden, to burns, to savage, to chatterton, to 'oft have i heard of thee, my lord biron,' in shakspeare, to churchill the poet, to kean the actor, to alfieri, &c. &c. &c. "the likeness to alfieri was asserted very seriously by an italian who had known him in his younger days. it of course related merely to our apparent personal dispositions. he did not assert it to _me_ (for we were not then good friends), but in society. "the object of so many contradictory comparisons must probably be like something different from them all; but what _that_ is, is more than _i_ know, or any body else." it would not be uninteresting, were there either space or time for such a task, to take a review of the names of note in the preceding list, and show in how many points, though differing so materially among themselves, it might be found that each presented a striking resemblance to lord byron. we have seen, for instance, that wrongs and sufferings were, through life, the main sources of byron's inspiration. where the hoof of the critic struck, the fountain was first disclosed; and all the tramplings of the world afterwards but forced out the stream stronger and brighter. the same obligations to misfortune, the same debt to the "oppressor's wrong," for having wrung out from bitter thoughts the pure essence of his genius, was due no less deeply by dante!--"quum illam sub amarâ cogitatione excitatam, occulti divinique ingenii vim exacuerit et inflammarit."[ ] [footnote : paulus jovius.--bayle, too, says of him, "il fit entrer plus de feu et plus de force dans ses livres qu'il n'y en eût mis s'il avoit joui d'une condition plus tranquille."] in that contempt for the world's opinion, which led dante to exclaim, "lascia dir le genti," lord byron also bore a strong resemblance to that poet,--though far more, it must be confessed, in profession than reality. for, while scorn for the public voice was on his lips, the keenest sensitiveness to its every breath was in his heart; and, as if every feeling of his nature was to have some painful mixture in it, together with the pride of dante which led him to disdain public opinion, he combined the susceptibility of petrarch which placed him shrinkingly at its mercy. his agreement, in some other features of character, with petrarch, i have already had occasion to remark[ ]; and if it be true, as is often surmised, that byron's want of a due reverence for shakspeare arose from some latent and hardly conscious jealousy of that poet's fame, a similar feeling is known to have existed in petrarch towards dante; and the same reason assigned for it,--that from the living he had nothing to fear, while before the shade of dante he might have reason to feel humbled,--is also not a little applicable[ ] in the case of lord byron. [footnote : some passages in foscolo's essay on petrarch may be applied, with equal truth, to lord byron.--for instance, "it was hardly possible with petrarch to write a sentence without portraying himself"--"petrarch, allured by the idea that his celebrity would magnify into importance all the ordinary occurrences of his life, satisfied the curiosity of the world," &c. &c.--and again, with still more striking applicability,--"in petrarch's letters, as well as in his poems and treatises, we always identify the author with the man, who felt himself irresistibly impelled to develope his own intense feelings. being endowed with almost all the noble, and with some of the paltry passions of our nature, and having never attempted to conceal them, he awakens us to reflection upon ourselves while we contemplate in him a being of our own species, yet different from any other, and whose originality excites even more sympathy than admiration."] [footnote : "ii petrarca poteva credere candidamente ch'ei non pativa d'invidia solamente, perché fra tutti i viventi non v'era chi non s'arretrasse per cedergli il passo alla prima gloria, ch'ei non poteva sentirsi umiliato, fuorchè dall' ombra di dante."] between the dispositions and habits of alfieri and those of the noble poet of england, no less remarkable coincidences might be traced; and the sonnet in which the italian dramatist professes to paint his own character contains, in one comprehensive line, a portrait of the versatile author of don juan,-- "or stimandome achille ed or tersite." by the extract just given from his journal, it will be perceived that, in byron's own opinion, a character which, like his, admitted of so many contradictory comparisons, could not be otherwise than wholly undefinable itself. it will be found, however, on reflection, that this very versatility, which renders it so difficult to fix, "ere it change," the fairy fabric of his character, is, in itself, the true clue through all that fabric's mazes,--is in itself the solution of whatever was most dazzling in his might or startling in his levity, of all that most attracted and repelled, whether in his life or his genius. a variety of powers almost boundless, and a pride no less vast in displaying them,--a susceptibility of new impressions and impulses, even beyond the usual allotment of genius, and an uncontrolled impetuosity, as well from habit as temperament, in yielding to them,--such were the two great and leading sources of all that varied spectacle which his life exhibited; of that succession of victories achieved by his genius, in almost every field of mind that genius ever trod, and of all those sallies of character in every shape and direction that unchecked feeling and dominant self-will could dictate. it must be perceived by all endowed with quick powers of association how constantly, when any particular thought or sentiment presents itself to their minds, its very opposite, at the same moment, springs up there also:--if any thing sublime occurs, its neighbour, the ridiculous, is by its side;--across a bright view of the present or the future, a dark one throws its shadow;--and, even in questions respecting morals and conduct, all the reasonings and consequences that may suggest themselves on the side of one of two opposite courses will, in such minds, be instantly confronted by an array just as cogent on the other. a mind of this structure,--and such, more or less, are all those in which the reasoning is made subservient to the imaginative faculty,--though enabled, by such rapid powers of association, to multiply its resources without end, has need of the constant exercise of a controlling judgment to keep its perceptions pure and undisturbed between the contrasts it thus simultaneously calls up; the obvious danger being that, where matters of taste are concerned, the habit of forming such incongruous juxtapositions--as that, for example, between the burlesque and sublime--should at last vitiate the mind's relish for the nobler and higher quality; and that, on the yet more important subject of morals, a facility in finding reasons for every side of a question may end, if not in the choice of the worst, at least in a sceptical indifference to all. in picturing to oneself so awful an event as a shipwreck, its many horrors and perils are what alone offer themselves to ordinary fancies. but the keen, versatile imagination of byron could detect in it far other details, and, at the same moment with all that is fearful and appalling in such a scene, could bring together all that is most ludicrous and low. that in this painful mixture he was but too true to human nature, the testimony of de retz (himself an eye-witness of such an event) attests:--"vous ne pouvez vous imaginer (says the cardinal) l'horreur d'une grande tempête;--vous en pouvez imaginer aussi pen le ridicule." but, assuredly, a poet less wantoning in the variety of his power, and less proud of displaying it, would have paused ere he mixed up, thus mockingly, the degradation of humanity with its sufferings, and, content to probe us to the core with the miseries of our fellow-men, would have forborne to wring from us, the next moment, a bitter smile at their baseness. to the moral sense so dangerous are the effects of this quality, that it would hardly, perhaps, be generalising too widely to assert that wheresoever great versatility of power exists, there will also be found a tendency to versatility of principle. the poet chatterton, in whose soul the seeds of all that is good and bad in genius so prematurely ripened, said, in the consciousness of this multiple faculty, that he "held that man in contempt who could not write on both sides of a question;" and it was by acting in accordance with this principle himself that he brought one of the few stains upon his name which a life so short afforded time to incur. mirabeau, too, when, in the legal warfare between his father and mother, he helped to draw up for each the pleadings against the other, was influenced less, no doubt, by the pleasure of mischief than by this pride of talent, and lost sight of the unnatural perfidy of the task in the adroitness with which he executed it. the quality which i have here denominated versatility, as applied to _power_, lord byron has himself designated by the french word "mobility," as applied to _feeling_ and _conduct_; and, in one of the cantos of don juan, has described happily some of its lighter features. after telling us that his hero had begun to doubt, from the great predominance of this quality in her, "how much of adeline was _real_," he says,-- "so well she acted, all and every part, by turns,--with that vivacious versatility, which many people take for want of heart. they err--'tis merely what is called mobility, a thing of temperament and not of art, though seeming so, from its supposed facility; and false--though true; for surely they're sincerest, who are strongly acted on by what is nearest." that he was fully aware not only of the abundance of this quality in his own nature, but of the danger in which it placed consistency and singleness of character, did not require the note on this passage, where he calls it "an unhappy attribute," to assure us. the consciousness, indeed, of his own natural tendency to yield thus to every chance impression, and change with every passing impulse, was not only for ever present in his mind, but,--aware as he was of the suspicion of weakness attached by the world to any retractation or abandonment of long professed opinions,--had the effect of keeping him in that general line of consistency, on certain great subjects, which, notwithstanding occasional fluctuations and contradictions as to the details of these very subjects, he continued to preserve throughout life. a passage from one of his manuscripts will show how sagaciously he saw the necessity of guarding himself against his own instability in this respect. "the world visits change of politics or change of religion with a more severe censure than a mere difference of opinion would appear to me to deserve. but there must be some reason for this feeling;--and i think it is that these departures from the earliest instilled ideas of our childhood, and from the line of conduct chosen by us when we first enter into public life, have been seen to have more mischievous results for society, and to prove more weakness of mind than other actions, in themselves, more immoral." the same distrust in his own steadiness, thus keeping alive in him a conscientious self-watchfulness, concurred not a little, i have no doubt, with the innate kindness of his nature, to preserve so constant and unbroken the greater number of his attachments through life;--some of them, as in the instance of his mother, owing evidently more to a sense of duty than to real affection, the consistency with which, so creditably to the strength of his character, they were maintained. but while in these respects, as well as in the sort of task-like perseverance with which the habits and amusements of his youth were held fast by him, he succeeded in conquering the variableness and love of novelty so natural to him, in all else that could engage his mind, in all the excursions, whether of his reason or his fancy, he gave way to this versatile humour without scruple or check,--taking every shape in which genius could manifest its power, and transferring himself to every region of thought where new conquests were to be achieved. it was impossible but that such a range of will and power should be abused. it was impossible that, among the spirits he invoked from all quarters, those of darkness should not appear, at his bidding, with those of light. and here the dangers of an energy so multifold, and thus luxuriating in its own transformations, show themselves. to this one great object of displaying power,--various, splendid, and all-adorning power,--every other consideration and duty were but too likely to be sacrificed. let the advocate but display his eloquence and art, no matter what the cause;--let the stamp of energy be but left behind, no matter with what seal. _could_ it have been expected that from such a career no mischief would ensue, or that among these cross-lights of imagination the moral vision could remain undisturbed? _is_ it to be at all wondered at that in the works of one thus gifted and carried away, we should find,--wholly, too, without any prepense design of corrupting on his side,--a false splendour given to vice to make it look like virtue, and evil too often invested with a grandeur which belongs intrinsically but to good? among the less serious ills flowing from this abuse of his great versatile powers,--more especially as exhibited in his most characteristic work, don juan,--it will be found that even the strength and impressiveness of his poetry is sometimes not a little injured by the capricious and desultory flights into which this pliancy of wing allures him. it must be felt, indeed, by all readers of that work, and particularly by those who, being gifted with but a small portion of such ductility themselves, are unable to keep pace with his changes, that the suddenness with which he passes from one strain of sentiment to another,--from the frolic to the sad, from the cynical to the tender,--begets a distrust in the sincerity of one or both moods of mind which interferes with, if not chills, the sympathy that a more natural transition would inspire. in general such a suspicion would do him injustice; as, among the singular combinations which his mind presented, that of uniting at once versatility and depth of feeling was not the least remarkable. but, on the whole, favourable as was all this quickness and variety of association to the extension of the range and resources of his poetry, it may be questioned whether a more select concentration of his powers would not have afforded a still more grand and precious result. had the minds of milton and tasso been thus thrown open to the incursions of light, ludicrous fancies, who can doubt that those solemn sanctuaries of genius would have been as much injured as profaned by the intrusion?--and it is at least a question whether, if lord byron had not been so actively versatile, so totally under the dominion of "a fancy, like the air, most free, and full of mutability," he would not have been less wonderful, perhaps, but more great. nor was it only in his poetical creations that this love and power of variety showed itself:--one of the most pervading weaknesses of his life may be traced to the same fertile source. the pride of personating every description of character, evil as well as good, influenced but too much, as we have seen, his ambition, and, not a little, his conduct; and as, in poetry, his own experience of the ill effects of passion was made to minister materials to the workings of his imagination, so, in return, his imagination supplied that dark colouring under which he so often disguised his true aspect from the world. to such a perverse length, indeed, did he carry this fancy for self-defamation, that if (as sometimes, in his moments of gloom, he persuaded himself,) there was any tendency to derangement in his mental conformation[ ], on this point alone could it be pronounced to have manifested itself.[ ] in the early part of my acquaintance with him, when he most gave way to this humour,--for it was observable afterwards, when the world joined in his own opinion of himself, he rather shrunk from the echo,--i have known him more than once, as we have sat together after dinner, and he was, at the time, perhaps, a little under the influence of wine, to fall seriously into this sort of dark and self-accusing mood, and throw out hints of his past life with an air of gloom and mystery designed evidently to awaken curiosity and interest. he was, however, too promptly alive to the least approaches of ridicule not to perceive, on these occasions, that the gravity of his hearer was only prevented from being disturbed by an effort of politeness, and he accordingly never again tried this romantic mystification upon me. from what i have known, however, of his experiments upon more impressible listeners, i have little doubt that, to produce effect at the moment, there is hardly any crime so dark or desperate of which, in the excitement of thus acting upon the imaginations of others, he would not have hinted that he had been guilty; and it has sometimes occurred to me that the occult cause of his lady's separation from him, round which herself and her legal adviser have thrown such formidable mystery, may have been nothing more, after all, than some imposture of this kind, some dimly hinted confession of undefined horrors, which, though intended by the relater but to mystify and surprise, the hearer so little understood him as to take in sober seriousness. [footnote : we have seen how often, in his journals and letters, this suspicion of his own mental soundness is intimated. a similar notion, with respect to himself, seems to have taken hold also of the strong mind of johnson, who, like byron, too, was disposed to attribute to an hereditary tinge that melancholy which, as he said, "made him mad all his life, at least not sober." this peculiar feature of johnson's mind has, in the late new edition of boswell's life of him, given rise to some remarks, pregnant with all the editor's well known acuteness, which, as bearing on a point so important in the history of the human intellect, will be found worthy of all attention. in one of the many letters of lord byron to myself, which i have thought right to omit, i find him tracing this supposed disturbance of his own faculties to the marriage of miss chaworth;--"a marriage," he says, "for which she sacrificed the prospects of two very ancient families, and a heart which was hers from ten years old, and a head which has never been quite right since."] [footnote : in his diary of there is a passage (vol. ii. page .) which i had preserved solely for the purpose of illustrating this obliquity of his mind, intending, at the same time, to accompany it with an explanatory note. from some inadvertence, however, the note was omitted; and, thus left to itself, this piece of mystification has, with the french readers of the work, i see, succeeded most perfectly; there being no imaginable variety of murder which the votaries of the new romantic school have not been busily extracting out of the mystery of that passage.] this strange propensity with which the man was, as it were, inoculated by the poet, re-acted back again upon his poetry, so as to produce, in some of his delineations of character, that inconsistency which has not unfrequently been noticed by his critics,--namely, the junction of one or two lofty and shining virtues with "a thousand crimes" altogether incompatible with them; this anomaly being, in fact, accounted for by the two different sorts of ambition that actuated him,--the natural one, of infusing into his personages those high and kindly qualities he felt conscious of within himself, and the artificial one, of investing them with those crimes which he so boyishly wished imputed to him by the world. independently, however, of any such efforts towards blackening his own name, and even after he had learned from bitter experience the rash folly of such a system, there was still, in the openness and over-frankness of his nature, and that indulgence of impulse with which he gave utterance to, if not acted upon, every chance impression of the moment, more than sufficient to bring his character, in all its least favourable lights, before the world. who is there, indeed, that could bear to be judged by even the best of those unnumbered thoughts that course each other, like waves of the sea, through our minds, passing away unuttered, and, for the most part, even unowned by ourselves?--yet to such a test was byron's character throughout his whole life exposed. as well from the precipitance with which he gave way to every impulse as from the passion he had for recording his own impressions, all those heterogeneous thoughts, fantasies, and desires that, in other men's minds, "come like shadows, so depart," were by him fixed and embodied as they presented themselves, and, at once, taking a shape cognizable by public opinion, either in his actions or his words, either in the hasty letter of the moment, or the poem for all time, laid open such a range of vulnerable points before his judges, as no one individual perhaps ever before, of himself, presented. with such abundance and variety of materials for portraiture, it may easily be conceived how two professed delineators of his character, the one over partial and the other malicious, might,--the former, by selecting only the fairer, and the latter only the darker, features,--produce two portraits of lord byron, as much differing from each other as they would both be, on the whole, unlike the original. of the utter powerlessness of retention with which he promulgated his every thought and feeling,--more especially if at all connected with the subject of self,--without allowing even a pause for the almost instinctive consideration whether by such disclosures he might not be conveying a calumnious impression of himself, a stronger instance could hardly be given than is to be found in a conversation held by him with mr. trelawney, as reported by this latter gentleman, when they were on their way together to greece. after some remarks on the state of his own health[ ], mental and bodily, he said, "i don't know how it is, but i am so cowardly at times, that if, this morning, you had come down and horsewhipped me, i should have submitted without opposition. why is this? if one of these fits come over me when we are in greece, what shall i do?"--"i told him (continues mr. trelawney) that it was the excessive debility of his nerves. he said, 'yes, and of my head, too. i was very heroic when i left genoa, but, like acres, i feel my courage oozing out at my palms.'" [footnote : "he often mentioned," says mr. trelawney, "that he thought he should not live many years, and said that he would die in greece." this he told me at cephalonia. he always seemed unmoved on these occasions, perfectly indifferent as to when he died, only saying that he could not bear pain. on our voyage we had been reading with great attention the life and letters of swift, edited by scott, and we almost daily, or rather nightly, talked them over; and he more than once expressed his horror of existing in that state, and expressed some fears that it would be his fate.] it will hardly, by those who know any thing of human nature, be denied that such misgivings and heart-sinkings as are here described may, under a similar depression of spirits, have found their way into the thoughts of some of the gallantest hearts that ever breathed;--but then, untold and unremembered, even by the sufferer himself, they passed off with the passing infirmity that produced them, leaving neither to truth to record them as proofs of want of health, nor to calumny to fasten upon them a suspicion of want of bravery. the assertion of some one that all men are by nature cowardly would seem to be countenanced by the readiness with which most men believe others so. "i have lived," says the prince de ligne, "to hear voltaire called a fool, and the great frederick a coward." the duke of marlborough in his own times, and napoleon in ours, have found persons not only to assert but believe the same charge against them. after such glaring instances of the tendency of some minds to view greatness only through an inverting medium, it need little surprise us that lord byron's conduct in greece should, on the same principle, have engendered a similar insinuation against him; nor should i have at all noticed the weak slander, but for the opportunity which it affords me of endeavouring to point out what appears to me the peculiar nature of the courage by which, on all occasions that called for it, he so strikingly distinguished himself. whatever virtue may be allowed to belong to personal courage, it is, most assuredly, they who are endowed by nature with the liveliest imaginations, and who have therefore most vividly and simultaneously before their eyes all the remote and possible consequences of danger, that are most deserving of whatever praise attends the exercise of that virtue. a bravery of this kind, which springs more out of mind than temperament,--or rather, perhaps, out of the conquest of the former over the latter,--will naturally proportion its exertion to the importance of the occasion; and the same person who is seen to shrink with an almost feminine fear from ignoble and every-day perils, may be found foremost in the very jaws of danger where honour is to be either maintained or won. nor does this remark apply only to the imaginative class, of whom i am chiefly treating. by the same calculating principle, it will be found that most men whose bravery is the result not of temperament but reflection, are regulated in their daring. the wise de wit, though negligent of his life on great occasions, was not ashamed, we are told, of dreading and avoiding whatever endangered it on others. of the apprehensiveness that attends quick imaginations, lord byron had, of course, a considerable share, and in all situations of ordinary peril gave way to it without reserve. i have seldom seen any person, male or female, more timid in a carriage; and, in riding, his preparation against accidents showed the same nervous and imaginative fearfulness. "his bridle," says the late lord b----, who rode frequently with him at genoa, "had, besides cavesson and martingale, various reins; and whenever he came near a place where his horse was likely to shy, he gathered up these said reins and fixed himself as if he was going at a five-barred gate." none surely but the most superficial or most prejudiced observers could ever seriously found upon such indications of nervousness any conclusion against the real courage of him who was subject to them. the poet ariosto, who was, it seems, a victim to the same fair-weather alarms,--who, when on horseback, would alight at the least appearance of danger, and on the water was particularly timorous,--could yet, in the action between the pope's vessels and the duke of ferrara's, fight like a lion; and in the same manner the courage of lord byron, as all his companions in peril testify, was of that noblest kind which rises with the greatness of the occasion, and becomes but the more self-collected and resisting, the more imminent the danger. in proposing to show that the distinctive properties of lord byron's character, as well moral as literary, arose mainly from those two great sources, the unexampled versatility of his powers and feelings, and the facility with which he gave way to the impulses of both, it had been my intention to pursue the subject still further in detail, and to endeavour to trace throughout the various excellences and defects, both of his poetry and his life, the operation of these two dominant attributes of his nature. "no men," says cowper, in speaking of persons of a versatile turn of mind, "are better qualified for companions in such a world as this than men of such temperament. every scene of life has two sides, a dark and a bright one; and the mind that has an equal mixture of melancholy and vivacity is best of all qualified for the contemplation of either." it would not be difficult to show that to this readiness in reflecting all hues, whether of the shadows or the lights of our variegated existence, lord byron owed not only the great range of his influence as a poet, but those powers of fascination which he possessed as a man. this susceptibility, indeed, of immediate impressions, which in him was so active, lent a charm, of all others the most attractive, to his social intercourse, by giving to those who were, at the moment, present, such ascendant influence, that they alone for the time occupied all his thoughts and feelings, and brought whatever was most agreeable in his nature into play.[ ] [footnote : in reference to his power of adapting himself to all sorts of society, and taking upon himself all varieties of character, i find a passage in one of my early letters to him (from ireland) which, though it might be expressed, perhaps, in better taste, is worth citing for its truth:--"though i have not written, i have seldom ceased to think of you; for you are that sort of being whom every thing, high or low, brings into one's mind. whether i am with the wise or the waggish, among poets or among pugilists, over the book or over the bottle, you are sure to connect yourself transcendently with all, and come 'armed for _every_ field' into my memory."] so much did this extreme mobility,--this readiness to be "strongly acted on by what was nearest,"--abound in his disposition, that, even with the casual acquaintances of the hour, his heart was upon his lips[ ], and it depended wholly upon themselves whether they might not become at once the depositories of every secret, if it might be so called, of his whole life. that in this convergence of all the powers of pleasing towards present objects, those absent should be sometimes forgotten, or, what is worse, sacrificed to the reigning desire of the moment, is unluckily one of the alloys attendant upon persons of this temperament, which renders their fidelity, either as lovers or confidants, not a little precarious. but of the charm which such a disposition diffuses through the manner there can be but little doubt,--and least of all among those who have ever felt its influence in lord byron. neither are the instances in which he has been known to make imprudent disclosures of what had been said or written by others of the persons with whom he was conversing to be all set down to this rash overflow of the social hour. in his own frankness of spirit, and hatred of all disguise, this practice, pregnant as it was with inconvenience, and sometimes danger, in a great degree originated. to confront the accused with the accuser was, in such cases, his delight,--not only as a revenge for having been made the medium of what men durst not say openly to each other, but as a gratification of that love of small mischief which he had retained from boyhood, and which the confusion that followed such exposures was always sure to amuse. this habit, too, being, as i have before remarked, well known to his friends, their sense of prudence, if not their fairness, was put fully on its guard, and he himself was spared the pain of hearing what he could not, without inflicting still worse, repeat. [footnote : it is curious to observe how, in all times, and all countries, what is called the poetical temperament has, in the great possessors, and victims, of that gift, produced similar effects. in the following passage, the biographer of tasso has, in painting that poet, described byron also:--"there are some persons of a sensibility so powerful, that whoever happens to be with them is, at that moment, to them the world: their hearts involuntarily open; they are prompted by a strong desire to please; and they thus make confidants of their sentiments people whom they in reality regard with indifference."] a most apt illustration of this point of his character is to be found in an anecdote told of him by parry, who, though himself the victim, had the sense and good temper to perceive the source to which byron's conduct was to be traced. while the turkish fleet was blockading missolonghi, his lordship, one day, attended by parry, proceeded in a small punt, rowed by a boy, to the mouth of the harbour, while in a large boat accompanying them were prince mavrocordato and his attendants. in this situation, an indignant feeling of contempt and impatience at the supineness of their greek friends seized the engineer, and he proceeded to vent this feeling to lord byron in no very measured terms, pronouncing prince mavrocordato to be "an old gentlewoman," and concluding, according to his own statement, with the following words:--"if i were in their place, i should be in a fever at the thought of my own incapacity and ignorance, and should burn with impatience to attempt the destruction of those rascal turks. but the greeks and the turks are opponents worthy, by their imbecility, of each other." "i had scarcely explained myself fully," adds mr. parry, "when his lordship ordered our boat to be placed alongside the other, and actually related our whole conversation to the prince. in doing it, however, he took on himself the task of pacifying both the prince and me, and though i was at first very angry, and the prince, i believe, very much annoyed, he succeeded. mavrocordato afterwards showed no dissatisfaction with me, and i prized lord byron's regard too much, to remain long displeased with a proceeding which was only an unpleasant manner of reproving us both." into these and other such branches from the main course of his character, it might have been a task of some interest to investigate,--certain as we should be that, even in the remotest and narrowest of these windings, some of the brightness and strength of the original current would be perceptible. enough however has been, perhaps, said to set other minds upon supplying what remains:--if the track of analysis here opened be the true one, to follow it in its further bearings will not be difficult. already, indeed, i may be thought by some readers to have occupied too large a portion of these pages, not only in tracing out such "nice dependencies" and gradations of my friend's character, but still more uselessly, as may be conceived, in recording all the various habitudes and whims by which the course of his every-day life was distinguished from that of other people. that the critics of the day should think it due to their own importance to object to trifles is naturally to be expected; but that, in other times, such minute records of a byron will be read with interest, even such critics cannot doubt. to know that catiline walked with an agitated and uncertain gait is, by no mean judge of human nature, deemed important as an indication of character. but far less significant details will satisfy the idolaters of genius. to be told that tasso loved malmsey and thought it favourable to poetic inspiration is a piece of intelligence, even at the end of three centuries, not unwelcome; while a still more amusing proof of the disposition of the world to remember little things of the great is, that the poet petrarch's excessive fondness for turnips is one of the few traditions still preserved of him at arqua. the personal appearance of lord byron has been so frequently described, both by pen and pencil, that were it not the bounden duty of the biographer to attempt some such sketch, the task would seem superfluous. of his face, the beauty may be pronounced to have been of the highest order, as combining at once regularity of features with the most varied and interesting expression. the same facility, indeed, of change observable in the movements of his mind was seen also in the free play of his features, as the passing thoughts within darkened or shone through them. his eyes, though of a light grey, were capable of all extremes of expression, from the most joyous hilarity to the deepest sadness, from the very sunshine of benevolence to the most concentrated scorn or rage. of this latter passion, i had once an opportunity of seeing what fiery interpreters they could be, on my telling him, thoughtlessly enough, that a friend of mine had said to me--"beware of lord byron; he will some day or other do something very wicked."--"was it man or woman said so?" he exclaimed, suddenly turning round upon me with a look of such intense anger as, though it lasted not an instant, could not easily be forgot, and of which no better idea can be given than in the words of one who, speaking of chatterton's eyes, says that "fire rolled at the bottom of them." but it was in the mouth and chin that the great beauty as well as expression of his fine countenance lay. "many pictures have been painted of him," says a fair critic of his features, "with various success; but the excessive beauty of his lips escaped every painter and sculptor. in their ceaseless play they represented every emotion, whether pale with anger, curled in disdain, smiling in triumph, or dimpled with archness and love." it would be injustice to the reader not to borrow from the same pencil a few more touches of portraiture. "this extreme facility of expression was sometimes painful, for i have seen him look absolutely ugly--i have seen him look so hard and cold, that you must hate him, and then, in a moment, brighter than the sun, with such playful softness in his look, such affectionate eagerness kindling in his eyes, and dimpling his lips into something more sweet than a smile, that you forgot the man, the lord byron, in the picture of beauty presented to you, and gazed with intense curiosity--i had almost said--as if to satisfy yourself, that thus looked the god of poetry, the god of the vatican, when he conversed with the sons and daughters of man." his head was remarkably small[ ],--so much so as to be rather out of proportion with his face. the forehead, though a little too narrow, was high, and appeared more so from his having his hair (to preserve it, as he said,) shaved over the temples; while the glossy, dark-brown curls, clustering over his head, gave the finish to its beauty. when to this is added, that his nose, though handsomely, was rather thickly shaped, that his teeth were white and regular, and his complexion colourless, as good an idea perhaps as it is in the power of mere words to convey may be conceived of his features. [footnote : "several of us, one day," says colonel napier, "tried on his hat, and in a party of twelve or fourteen, who were at dinner, _not one_ could put it on, so exceedingly small was his head. my servant, thomas wells, who had the smallest head in the th regiment (so small that he could hardly get a cap to fit him), was the only person who could put on lord byron's hat, and him it fitted exactly."] in height he was, as he himself has informed us, five feet eight inches and a half, and to the length of his limbs he attributed his being such a good swimmer. his hands were very white, and--according to his own notion of the size of hands as indicating birth--aristocratically small. the lameness of his right foot[ ], though an obstacle to grace, but little impeded the activity of his movements; and from this circumstance, as well as from the skill with which the foot was disguised by means of long trowsers, it would be difficult to conceive a defect of this kind less obtruding itself as a deformity; while the diffidence which a constant consciousness of the infirmity gave to his first approach and address made, in him, even lameness a source of interest. [footnote : in speaking of this lameness at the commencement of my work, i forbore, both from my own doubts on the subject and the great variance i found in the recollections of others, from stating in _which_ of his feet this lameness existed. it will, indeed, with difficulty be believed what uncertainty i found upon this point, even among those most intimate with him. mr. hunt, in his book, states it to have been the left foot that was deformed, and this, though contrary to my own impression, and, as it appears also, to the fact, was the opinion i found also of others who had been much in the habit of living with him. on applying to his early friends at southwell and to the shoemaker of that town who worked for him, so little prepared were they to answer with any certainty on the subject, that it was only by recollecting that the lame foot "was the off one in going up the street" they at last came to the conclusion that his right limb was the one affected; and mr. jackson, his preceptor in pugilism, was, in like manner, obliged to call to mind whether his noble pupil was a right or left hand hitter before he could arrive at the same decision.] in looking again into the journal from which it was my intention to give extracts, the following unconnected opinions, or rather reveries, most of them on points connected with his religious opinions, are all that i feel tempted to select. to an assertion in the early part of this work, that "at no time of his life was lord byron a confirmed unbeliever," it has been objected, that many passages of his writings prove the direct contrary. this assumption, however, as well as the interpretation of most of the passages referred to in its support, proceed, as it appears to me, upon the mistake, not uncommon in conversation, of confounding together the meanings of the words unbeliever and sceptic,--the former implying decision of opinion, and the latter only doubt. i have myself, i find, not always kept the significations of the two words distinct, and in one instance have so far fallen into the notion of these objectors as to speak of byron in his youth as "an unbelieving school-boy," when the word "doubting" would have more truly expressed my meaning. with this necessary explanation, i shall here repeat my assertion; or rather--to clothe its substance in a different form--shall say that lord byron was, to the last, a sceptic, which, in itself, implies that he was, at no time, a confirmed unbeliever. * * * * * "if i were to live over again, i do not know what i would change in my life, unless it were _for--not to have lived at all_.[ ] all history and experience, and the rest, teaches us that the good and evil are pretty equally balanced in this existence, and that what is most to be desired is an easy passage out of it. what can it give us but years? and those have little of good but their ending. [footnote : swift "early adopted," says sir walter scott, "the custom of observing his birth-day, as a term, not of joy, but of sorrow, and of reading, when it annually recurred, the striking passage of scripture, in which job laments and execrates the day upon which it was said in his father's house 'that a man-child was born.'"--_life of swift._] * * * * * "of the immortality of the soul it appears to me that there can be little doubt, if we attend for a moment to the action of mind: it is in perpetual activity. i used to doubt of it, but reflection has taught me better. it acts also so very independent of body--in dreams, for instance;--incoherently and _madly_, i grant you, but still it is mind, and much more mind than when we are awake. now that this should not act _separately_, as well as jointly, who can pronounce? the stoics, epictetus and marcus aurelius, call the present state 'a soul which drags a carcass,'--a heavy chain, to be sure, but all chains being material may be shaken off. how far our future life will be _individual_, or, rather, how far it will at all resemble _our present_ existence, is another question; but that the mind is eternal seems as probable as that the body is not so. of course i here venture upon the question without recurring to revelation, which, however, is at least as rational a solution of it as any other. a _material_ resurrection seems strange and even absurd, except for purposes of punishment; and all punishment which is to _revenge_ rather than _correct_ must be _morally wrong_; and _when the world is at an end_, what moral or warning purpose _can_ eternal tortures answer? human passions have probably disfigured the divine doctrines here;--but the whole thing is inscrutable. * * * * * "it is useless to tell me _not_ to _reason_, but to _believe._ you might as well tell a man not to wake, but _sleep._ and then to _bully_ with torments, and all that! i cannot help thinking that the _menace_ of hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains. * * * * * "man is born _passionate_ of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of good in his main-spring of mind. but, god help us all! it is at present a sad jar of atoms. * * * * * "matter is eternal, always changing, but reproduced, and, as far as we can comprehend eternity, eternal; and why not _mind_? why should not the mind act with and upon the universe, as portions of it act upon, and with, the congregated dust called mankind? see how one man acts upon himself and others, or upon multitudes! the same agency, in a higher and purer degree, may act upon the stars, &c. ad infinitum. * * * * * "i have often been inclined to materialism in philosophy, but could never bear its introduction into _christianity_, which appears to me essentially founded upon the _soul_. for this reason priestley's christian materialism always struck me as deadly. believe the resurrection of the _body_, if you will, but _not without_ a _soul_. the deuce is in it, if after having had a soul, (as surely the _mind_, or whatever you call it, _is,_) in this world, we must part with it in the _next_, even for an immortal materiality! i own my partiality for _spirit_. * * * * * "i am always most religious upon a sunshiny day, as if there was some association between an internal approach to greater light and purity and the kindler of this dark lantern of our external existence. * * * * * "the night is also a religious concern, and even more so when i viewed the moon and stars through herschell's telescope, and saw that they were worlds. * * * * * "if, according to some speculations, you could prove the world many thousand years older than the mosaic chronology, or if you could get rid of adam and eve, and the apple, and serpent, still, what is to be put up in their stead? or how is the difficulty removed? things must have had a beginning, and what matters it _when_ or _how_? * * * * * "i sometimes think that _man_ may be the relic of some higher material being wrecked in a former world, and degenerated in the hardship and struggle through chaos into conformity, or something like it,--as we see laplanders, esquimaux, &c. inferior in the present state, as the elements become more inexorable. but even then this higher pre-adamite supposititious creation must have had an origin and a _creator_--for a _creation_ is a more natural imagination than a fortuitous concourse of atoms: all things remount to a fountain, though they may flow to an ocean. * * * * * "plutarch says, in his life of lysander, that aristotle observes 'that in general great geniuses are of a melancholy turn, and instances socrates, plato, and hercules (or heraclitus), as examples, and lysander, though not while young, yet as inclined to it when approaching towards age.' whether i am a genius or not, i have been called such by my friends as well as enemies, and in more countries and languages than one, and also within a no very long period of existence. of my genius, i can say nothing, but of my melancholy, that it is 'increasing, and ought to be diminished.' but how? "i take it that most men are so at bottom, but that it is only remarked in the remarkable. the duchesse de broglio, in reply to a remark of mine on the errors of clever people, said that 'they were not worse than others, only, being more in view, more noted, especially in all that could reduce them to the rest, or raise the rest to them.' in , this was. "in fact (i suppose that) if the follies of fools were all set down like those of the wise, the wise (who seem at present only a better sort of fools) would appear almost intelligent. * * * * * "it is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be _constantly_ before us: a year impairs; a lustre obliterates. there is little distinct left without an effort of memory. _then_, indeed, the lights are rekindled for a moment; but who can be sure that imagination is not the torch-bearer? let any man try at the end of _ten_ years to bring before him the features, or the mind, or the sayings, or the habits of his best friend, or his _greatest_ man, (i mean his favourite, his buonaparte, his this, that, or t'other,) and he will be surprised at the extreme confusion of his ideas. i speak confidently on this point, having always passed for one who had a good, ay, an excellent memory. i except, indeed, our recollection of womankind; there is no forgetting _them_ (and be d--d to them) any more than any other remarkable era, such as 'the revolution,' or 'the plague,' or 'the invasion,' or 'the comet,' or 'the war' of such and such an epoch,--being the favourite dates of mankind who have so many _blessings_ in their lot that they never make their calendars from them, being too common. for instance, you see 'the great drought,' 'the thames frozen over,' 'the seven years' war broke out,' 'the english, or french, or spanish revolution commenced,' 'the lisbon earthquake,' 'the lima earthquake,' 'the earthquake of calabria,' 'the plague of london,' ditto 'of constantinople,' 'the sweating sickness,' 'the yellow fever of philadelphia,' &c. &c. &c.; but you don't see 'the abundant harvest,' 'the fine summer,' 'the long peace,' 'the wealthy speculation,' 'the wreckless voyage,' recorded so emphatically! by the way, there has been a _thirty years' war_ and a _seventy years' war_; was there ever a _seventy_ or a _thirty years' peace_? or was there even a day's _universal_ peace? except perhaps in china, where they have found out the miserable happiness of a stationary and unwarlike mediocrity. and is all this because nature is niggard or savage? or mankind ungrateful? let philosophers decide. i am none. * * * * * "in general, i do not draw well with literary men; not that i dislike them, but i never know what to say to them after i have praised their last publication. there are several exceptions, to be sure, but then they have either been men of the world, such as scott and moore, &c. or visionaries out of it, such as shelley, &c.: but your literary every-day man and i never went well in company, especially your foreigner, whom i never could abide; except giordani, and--and--and--(i really can't name any other)--i don't remember a man amongst them whom i ever wished to see twice, except perhaps mezzophanti, who is a monster of languages, the briareus of parts of speech, a walking polyglott and more, who ought to have existed at the time of the tower of babel as universal interpreter. he is indeed a marvel--unassuming, also. i tried him in all the tongues of which i knew a single oath, (or adjuration to the gods against post-boys, savages, tartars, boatmen, sailors, pilots, gondoliers, muleteers, camel-drivers, vetturini, post-masters, post-horses, post-houses, post every thing,) and egad! he astounded me--even to my english. * * * * * "'no man would live his life over again,' is an old and true saying which all can resolve for themselves. at the same time, there are probably _moments_ in most men's lives which they would live over the rest of life to _regain_. else why do we live at all? because hope recurs to memory, both false--but--but--but--but--and this _but_ drags on till--what? i do not know; and who does? 'he that died o' wednesday.'" * * * * * in laying before the reader these last extracts from the papers in my possession, it may be expected, perhaps, that i should say something,--in addition to what has been already stated on this subject,--respecting those memoranda, or memoirs, which, in the exercise of the discretionary power given to me by my noble friend, i placed, shortly after his death, at the disposal of his sister and executor, and which they, from a sense of what they thought due to his memory, consigned to the flames. as the circumstances, however, connected with the surrender of that manuscript, besides requiring much more detail than my present limits allow, do not, in any respect, concern the character of lord byron, but affect solely my own, it is not here, at least, that i feel myself called upon to enter into an explanation of them. the world will, of course, continue to think of that step as it pleases; but it is, after all, on a man's _own_ opinion of his actions that his happiness chiefly depends, and i can only say that, were i again placed in the same circumstances, i would--even at ten times the pecuniary sacrifice which my conduct then cost me--again act precisely in the same manner. for the satisfaction of those whose regret at the loss of that manuscript arises from some better motive than the mere disappointment of a prurient curiosity, i shall here add, that on the mysterious cause of the separation, it afforded no light whatever;--that, while some of its details could never have been published at all[ ], and little, if any, of what it contained personal towards others could have appeared till long after the individuals concerned had left the scene, all that materially related to lord byron himself was (as i well knew when i made that sacrifice) to be found repeated in the various journals and memorandum-books, which, though not all to be made use of, were, as the reader has seen from the preceding pages, all preserved. [footnote : this description applies only to the second part of the memoranda; there having been but little unfit for publication in the first part, which was, indeed, read, as is well known, by many of the noble author's friends.] as far as suppression, indeed, is blamable, i have had, in the course of this task, abundantly to answer for it; having, as the reader must have perceived, withheld a large portion of my materials, to which lord byron, no doubt, in his fearlessness of consequences, would have wished to give publicity, but which, it is now more than probable, will never meet the light. there remains little more to add. it has been remarked by lord orford[ ], as "strange, that the writing a man's life should in general make the biographer become enamoured of his subject, whereas one should think that the nicer disquisition one makes into the life of any man, the less reason one should find to love or admire him." on the contrary, may we not rather say that, as knowledge is ever the parent of tolerance, the more insight we gain into the springs and motives of a man's actions, the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, and the influences and temptations under which he acted, the more allowance we may be inclined to make for his errors, and the more approbation his virtues may extort from us? [footnote : in speaking of lord herbert of cherbury's life of henry viii.] the arduous task of being the biographer of byron is one, at least, on which i have not obtruded myself: the wish of my friend that i should undertake that office having been more than once expressed, at a time when none but a boding imagination like his could have foreseen much chance of the sad honour devolving to me. if in some instances i have consulted rather the spirit than the exact letter of his injunctions, it was with the view solely of doing him more justice than he would have done himself, there being no hands in which his character could have been less safe than his own, nor any greater wrong offered to his memory than the substitution of what he affected to be for what he was. of any partiality, however, beyond what our mutual friendship accounts for and justifies, i am by no means conscious; nor would it be in the power, indeed, of even the most partial friend to allege any thing more convincingly favourable of his character than is contained in the few simple facts with which i shall here conclude,--that, through life, with all his faults, he never lost a friend;--that those about him in his youth, whether as companions, teachers, or servants, remained attached to him to the last;--that the woman, to whom he gave the love of his maturer years, idolises his name; and that, with a single unhappy exception, scarce an instance is to be found of any one, once brought, however briefly, into relations of amity with him, that did not feel towards him a kind regard in life, and retain a fondness for his memory. i have now done with the subject, nor shall be easily tempted to recur to it. any mistakes or misstatements i may be proved to have made shall be corrected;--any new facts which it is in the power of others to produce will speak for themselves. to mere opinions i am not called upon to pay attention--and still less to insinuations or mysteries. i have here told what i myself know and think concerning my friend; and now leave his character, moral as well as literary, to the judgment of the world. appendix. * * * * * two epistles from the armenian version. the epistle of the corinthians to st. paul the apostle.[ ] stephen[ ], and the elders with him, dabnus, eubulus, theophilus, and xinon, to paul, our father and evangelist, and faithful master in jesus christ, health.[ ] two men have come to corinth, simon by name, and cleobus[ ], who vehemently disturb the faith of some with deceitful and corrupt words; of which words thou shouldst inform thyself: for neither have we heard such words from thee, nor from the other apostles: but we know only that what we have heard from thee and from them, that we have kept firmly. but in this chiefly has our lord had compassion, that, whilst thou art yet with us in the flesh, we are again about to hear from thee. therefore do thou write to us, or come thyself amongst us quickly. we believe in the lord, that, as it was revealed to theonas, he hath delivered thee from the hands of the unrighteous.[ ] but these are the sinful words of these impure men, for thus do they say and teach: that it behoves not to admit the prophets.[ ] neither do they affirm the omnipotence of god: neither do they affirm the resurrection of the flesh: neither do they affirm that man was altogether created by god: neither do they affirm that jesus christ was born in the flesh from the virgin mary: neither do they affirm that the world was the work of god, but of some one of the angels. therefore do thou make haste[ ] to come amongst us. that this city of the corinthians may remain without scandal. and that the folly of these men may be made manifest by an open refutation. fare thee well.[ ] the deacons thereptus and tichus[ ] received and conveyed this epistle to the city of the philippians.[ ] when paul received the epistle, although he was then in chains on account of stratonice[ ], the wife of apofolanus[ ], yet, as it were forgetting his bonds, he mourned over these words, and said, weeping: "it were better for me to be dead, and with the lord. for while i am in this body, and hear the wretched words of such false doctrine, behold, grief arises upon grief, and my trouble adds a weight to my chains; when i behold this calamity, and progress of the machinations of satan, who searcheth to do wrong." and thus, with deep affliction, paul composed his reply to the epistle.[ ] [footnote : some mss. have the title thus: _epistle of stephen the elder to paul the apostle, from the corinthians_.] [footnote : in the mss. the marginal verses published by the whistons are wanting.] [footnote : in some mss. we find, _the elders numenus, eubulus, theophilus, and nomeson, to paul their brother, health_!] [footnote : others read, _there came certain men, ... and clobeus, who vehemently shake._] [footnote : some mss. have, _we believe in the lord, that his presence was made manifest; and by this hath the lord delivered as from the hands of the unrighteous._] [footnote : others read, _to read the prophets._] [footnote : some mss. have, _therefore, brother, do thou make haste._] [footnote : others read, _fare thee well in the lord._] [footnote : some mss. have, _the deacons therepus and techus_] [footnote : the whistons have, _to the city of phoenicia_; but in all the mss. we find, _to the city of the philippians._] [footnote : others read, _on account of onotice._] [footnote : the whistons have, _of apollophanus_: but in all the mss. we read, _apofolanus_.] [footnote : in the text of this epistle there are some other variations in the words, but the sense is the same.] epistle of paul to the corinthians, [ ] paul, in bonds for jesus christ, disturbed by so many errors [ ], to his corinthian brethren, health. i nothing marvel that the preachers of evil have made this progress. for because the lord jesus is about to fulfil his coming, verily on this account do certain men pervert and despise his words. but i, verily, from the beginning, have taught you that only which i myself received from the former apostles, who always remained with the lord jesus christ. and i now say unto you, that the lord jesus christ was born of the virgin mary, who was of the seed of david, according to the annunciation of the holy ghost, sent to her by our father from heaven; that jesus might be introduced into the world [ ], and deliver our flesh by his flesh, and that he might raise us up from the dead; as in this also he himself became the example: that it might be made manifest that man was created by the father, he has not remained in perdition unsought [ ]; but he is sought for, that he might be revived by adoption. for god, who is the lord of all, the father of our lord jesus christ, who made heaven and earth, sent, firstly, the prophets to the jews: that he would absolve them from their sins, and bring them to his judgment. because he wished to save, firstly, the house of israel, he bestowed and poured forth his spirit upon the prophets; that they should, for a long time, preach the worship of god, and the nativity of christ. but he who was the prince of evil, when he wished to make himself god, laid his hand upon them, and bound all men in sin,[ ] because the judgment of the world was approaching. but almighty god, when he willed to justify, was unwilling to abandon his creature; but when he saw his affliction, he had compassion upon him: and at the end of a time he sent the holy ghost into the virgin foretold by the prophets. who, believing readily [ ], was made worthy to conceive, and bring forth our lord jesus christ. that from this perishable body, in which the evil spirit was glorified, he should be cast out, and it should be made manifest that he was not god: for jesus christ, in his flesh, had recalled and saved this perishable flesh, and drawn it into eternal life by faith. because in his body he would prepare a pure temple of justice for all ages; in whom we also, when we believe, are saved. therefore know ye that these men are not the children of justice, but the children of wrath; who turn away from themselves the compassion of god; who say that neither the heavens nor the earth were altogether works made by the hand of the father of all things.[ ] but these cursed men[ ] have the doctrine of the serpent. but do ye, by the power of god, withdraw yourselves far from these, and expel from amongst you the doctrine of the wicked. because you are not the children of rebellion [ ]; but the sons of the beloved church. and on this account the time of the resurrection is preached to all men. therefore they who affirm that there is no resurrection of the flesh, they indeed shall not be raised up to eternal life; but to judgment and condemnation shall the unbeliever arise in the flesh: for to that body which denies the resurrection of the body, shall be denied the resurrection: because such are found to refuse the resurrection. but you also, corinthians! have known, from the seeds of wheat, and from other seeds, that one grain falls [ ] dry into the earth, and within it first dies, and afterwards rises again, by the will of the lord, endued with the same body: neither indeed does it arise with the same simple body, but manifold, and filled with blessing. but we produce the example not only from seeds, but from the honourable bodies of men. [ ] ye have also known jonas, the son of amittai.[ ] because he delayed to preach to the ninevites, he was swallowed up in the belly of a fish for three days and three nights: and after three days god heard his supplication, and brought him out of the deep abyss; neither was any part of his body corrupted; neither was his eyebrow bent down.[ ] and how much more for you, oh men of little faith; if you believe in our lord jesus christ, will he raise you up, even as he himself hath arisen. if the bones of elisha the prophet, falling upon the dead, revived the dead, by how much more shall ye, who are supported by the flesh and the blood and the spirit of christ, arise again on that day with a perfect body? elias the prophet, embracing the widow's son, raised him from the dead: by how much more shall jesus christ revive you, on that day, with a perfect body, even as he himself hath arisen? but if ye receive other things vainly [ ], henceforth no one shall cause me to travail; for i bear on my body these fetters [ ], to obtain christ; and i suffer with patience these afflictions to become worthy of the resurrection of the dead. and do each of you, having received the law from the hands of the blessed prophets and the holy gospel [ ], firmly maintain it; to the end that you may be rewarded in the resurrection of the dead, and the possession of the life eternal. but if any of ye, not believing, shall trespass, he shall be judged with the misdoers, and punished with those who have false belief. because such are the generation of vipers, and the children of dragons and basilisks. drive far from amongst ye, and fly from such, with the aid of our lord jesus christ. and the peace and grace of the beloved son be upon you.[ ] amen. _done into english by me, january-february,_ , _at the convent of san lazaro, with the aid and exposition of the armenian text by the father paschal aucher, armenian friar_. byron. venice, april , . _i had also the latin text, but it is in many places very corrupt, and with great omissions_. [footnote : some mss. have, _paul's epistle from prison, for the instruction of the corinthians_.] [footnote : others read, _disturbed by various compunctions_.] [footnote : some mss. have. _that jesus might comfort the world_.] [footnote : others read, _he has not remained indifferent_.] [footnote : some mss have, _laid his hand, and then and all body bound in sin_.] [footnote : others read, _believing with a pure heart_.] [footnote : some mss. have, _of god the father of all things._] [footnote : others read, _they curse themselves in this thing._] [footnote : others read, _children of the disobedient._] [footnote : some mss. have, _that one grain falls not dry into the earth._] [footnote : others read, _but we have not only produced from seeds, but from the honourable body of man._] [footnote : others read, _the son of ematthius_.] [footnote : others add, _nor did a hair of his body fall therefrom_.] [footnote : some mss. have, _ye shall not receive other things in vain_.] [footnote : others finished here thus, _henceforth no one can trouble me further, for i bear in my body the sufferings of christ. the grace of our lord jesus christ be with your spirit, my brethren. amen_.] [footnote : some mss. have, _of the holy evangelist_.] [footnote : others add, _our lord be with ye all. amen_.] remarks on mr. moore's life of lord byron, by lady byron. "i have disregarded various publications in which facts within my own knowledge have been grossly misrepresented; but i am called upon to notice some of the erroneous statements proceeding from one who claims to be considered as lord byron's confidential and authorised friend. domestic details ought not to be intruded on the public attention: if, however, they _are_ so intruded, the persons affected by them have a right to refute injurious charges. mr. moore has promulgated his own impressions of private events in which i was most nearly concerned, as if he possessed a competent knowledge of the subject. having survived lord byron, i feel increased reluctance to advert to any circumstances connected with the period of my marriage; nor is it now my intention to disclose them, further than may be indispensably requisite for the end i have in view. self-vindication is not the motive which actuates me to make this appeal, and the spirit of accusation is unmingled with it; but when the conduct of my parents is brought forward in a disgraceful light, by the passages selected from lord byron's letters, and by the remarks of his biographer, i feel bound to justify their characters from imputations which i _know_ to be false. the passages from lord byron's letters, to which i refer, are the aspersion on my mother's character (vol. iii. p. . last line):--'my child is very well, and flourishing, i hear; but i must see also. i feel no disposition to resign it to the _contagian of its grandmother's society_.' the assertion of her dishonourable conduct in employing a spy (vol. iii. p. . l. , &c.), 'a mrs. c. (now a kind of housekeeper and _spy of lady n_'s), who, in her better days, was a washerwoman, is supposed to be--by the learned--very much the occult cause of our domestic discrepancies.' the seeming exculpation of myself, in the extract (vol. iii. p. .), with the words immediately following it,--'her nearest relatives are a ----;' where the blank clearly implies something too offensive for publication. these passages tend to throw suspicion on my parents, and give reason to ascribe the separation either to their direct agency, or to that of 'officious spies' employed by them.[ ] from the following part of the narrative (vol. iii. p. .) it must also be inferred that an undue influence was exercised by them for the accomplishment of this purpose. 'it was in a few weeks after the latter communication between us (lord byron and mr. moore), that lady byron adopted the determination of parting from him. she had left london at the latter end of january, on a visit to her father's house, in leicestershire, and lord byron was in a short time to follow her. they had parted in the utmost kindness,--she wrote him a letter full of playfulness and affection, on the road; and immediately on her arrival at kirkby mallory, her father wrote to acquaint lord byron that she would return to him no more.' in my observations upon this statement, i shall, as far as possible, avoid touching on any matters relating personally to lord byron and myself. the facts are:--i left london for kirkby mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the th of january, . lord byron had signified to me in writing (jan. th) his absolute desire that i should leave london on the earliest day that i could conveniently fix. it was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a journey sooner than the th. previously to my departure, it had been strongly impressed on my mind, that lord byron was under the influence of insanity. this opinion was derived in a great measure from the communications made to me by his nearest relatives and personal attendant, who had more opportunities than myself of observing him during the latter part of my stay in town. it was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying himself. _with the concurrence of his family_, i had consulted dr. baillie, as a friend (jan. th), respecting this supposed malady. on acquainting him with the state of the case, and with lord byron's desire that i should leave london, dr. baillie thought that my absence might be advisable as an experiment, _assuming_ the fact of mental derangement; for dr. baillie, not having had access to lord byron, could not pronounce a positive opinion on that point. he enjoined, that in correspondence with lord byron, i should avoid all but light and soothing topics. under these impressions, i left london, determined to follow the advice given by dr. baillie. whatever might have been the nature of lord byron's conduct towards me from the time of my marriage, yet, supposing him to be in a state of mental alienation, it was not for _me_, nor for any person of common humanity, to manifest, at that moment, a sense of injury. on the day of my departure, and again on my arrival at kirkby, jan. th, i wrote to lord byron in a kind and cheerful tone, according to those medical directions. the last letter was circulated, and employed as a pretext for the charge of my having been subsequently _influenced_ to 'desert[ ]' my husband. it has been argued, that i parted from lord byron in perfect harmony; that feelings, incompatible with any deep sense of injury, had dictated the letter which i addressed to him; and that my sentiments must have been changed by persuasion and interference, when i was under the roof of my parents. these assertions and inferences are wholly destitute of foundation. when i arrived at kirkby mallory, my parents were unacquainted with the existence of any causes likely to destroy my prospects of happiness; and when i communicated to them the opinion which had been formed concerning lord byron's state of mind, they were most anxious to promote his restoration by every means in their power. they assured those relations who were with him in london, that 'they would devote their whole care and attention to the alleviation of his malady,' and hoped to make the best arrangements for his comfort, if he could be induced to visit them. with these intentions, my mother wrote on the th to lord byron, inviting him to kirkby mallory. she had always treated him with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. never did an irritating word escape her lips in her whole intercourse with him. the accounts given me after i left lord byron by the persons in constant intercourse with him, added to those doubts which had before transiently occurred to my mind, as to the reality of the alleged disease, and the reports of his medical attendant, were far from establishing the existence of any thing like lunacy. under this uncertainty, i deemed it right to communicate to my parents, that if i were to consider lord byron's past conduct as that of a person of sound mind, nothing could induce me to return to him. it therefore appeared expedient, both to them and myself, to consult the ablest advisers. for that object, and also to obtain still further information respecting the appearances which seemed to indicate mental derangement, my mother determined to go to london. she was empowered by me to take legal opinions on a written statement of mine, though i had then reasons for reserving a part of the case from the knowledge even of my father and mother. being convinced by the result of these enquiries, and by the tenor of lord byron's proceedings, that the notion of insanity was an illusion, i no longer hesitated to authorise such measures as were necessary, in order to secure me from being ever again placed in his power. conformably with this resolution, my father wrote to him on the d of february, to propose an amicable separation. lord byron at first rejected this proposal; but when it was distinctly notified to him, that if he persisted in his refusal, recourse must be had to legal measures, he agreed to sign a deed of separation. upon applying to dr. lushington, who was intimately acquainted with all the circumstances, to state in writing what he recollected upon this subject, i received from him the following letter, by which it will be manifest that my mother cannot have been actuated by any hostile or ungenerous motives towards lord byron. [footnote : "the officious spies of his privacy," vol. iii. p. .] [footnote : "the deserted husband," vol. iii. p. .] "'my dear lady byron, "'i can rely upon the accuracy of my memory for the following statement. i was originally consulted by lady noel on your behalf, whilst you were in the country; the circumstances detailed by her were such as justified a separation, but they were not of that aggravated description as to render such a measure indispensable. on lady noel's representation, i deemed a reconciliation with lord byron practicable, and felt most sincerely a wish to aid in effecting it. there was not on lady noel's part any exaggeration of the facts; nor, so far as i could perceive, any determination to prevent a return to lord byron: certainly none was expressed when i spoke of a reconciliation. when you came to town in about a fortnight, or perhaps more, after my first interview with lady noel, i was, for the first time, informed by you of facts utterly unknown, as i have no doubt, to sir ralph and lady noel. on receiving this additional information, my opinion was entirely changed: i considered a reconciliation impossible. i declared my opinion, and added, that if such an idea should be entertained, i could not, either professionally or otherwise, take any part towards effecting it. believe me, very faithfully yours, steph. lushington. "'_great george-street, jan_. . .' "i have only to observe, that if the statements on which my legal advisers (the late sir samuel komilly and dr. lushington) formed their opinions were false, the responsibility and the odium should rest with _me only_. i trust that the facts which i have here briefly recapitulated will absolve my father and mother from all accusations with regard to the part they took in the separation between lord byron and myself. they neither originated, instigated, nor advised, that separation; and they cannot be condemned for having afforded to their daughter the assistance and protection which she claimed. there is no other near relative to vindicate their memory from insult. i am therefore compelled to break the silence which i had hoped always to observe, and to solicit from the readers of lord byron's life an impartial consideration of the testimony extorted from me. "a.i. noel byron. "_hanger hill, feb_. . ." * * * * * letter of mr. turner. _referred to in_ vol. v. p. . "eight months after the publication of my 'tour in the levant,' there appeared in the london magazine, and subsequently in most of the newspapers, a letter from the late lord byron to mr. murray. "i naturally felt anxious at the time to meet a charge of error brought against me in so direct a manner: but i thought, and friends whom i consulted at the time thought with me, that i had better wait for a more favourable opportunity than that afforded by the newspapers of vindicating my opinion, which even so distinguished an authority as the letter of lord byron left unshaken, and which, i will venture to add, remains unshaken still. "i must ever deplore that i resisted my first impulse to reply immediately. the hand of death has snatched lord byron from his kingdom of literature and poetry, and i can only guard myself from the illiberal imputation of attacking the mighty dead, whose living talent i should have trembled to encounter, by scrupulously confining myself to such facts and illustrations as are strictly necessary to save me from the charges of error, misrepresentation, and presumptuousness, of which every writer must wish to prove himself undeserving. "lord byron began by stating, 'the _tide_ was _not_ in our favour,' and added, 'neither i nor any person on board the frigate had any notion of a difference of the current on the asiatic side; i never heard of it till this moment.' his lordship had probably forgotten that strabo distinctly describes the difference in the following words;-- [greek: 'dio kai eupetesteron ek tês sêstou diairousi parallaxamenoi mikron epi ton tês hêrous purgon, kakeithen aphientes ta ploia sumprattontos tou rhou pros tên peraiôsin: tois d' ex abudou peraioumenois parallakteon estin eis tanantia, oktô pou stadious epi purgon tina kat' antikru tês sêstou, epeita diairein plagion, kai mê teleôs echousin enantion ton rhoun.'--] ideoque _facilius a sesto, trajiciunt_ paululum deflexâ navigatione ad herus turrim, atque inde _navigia dimittentes adjuvante etiam fluxu trajectum_. qui ab abydo trajiciunt, in contrarium flectunt partem ad octo stadia ad turrim quandam e regione sesti: hinc _oblique_ trajiciunt, non _prorsus_ contrario fluxu.'[ ] [footnote : "strabo, book xiii. oxford edition."] "here it is clearly asserted, that the current assists the crossing from sestos, and the words [greek: 'aphientes ta ploia']--'_navigia dimittentes_,'--'_letting the vessels go of themselves_,' prove how considerable the assistance of the current was; while the words [greek: 'plagion']--'_oblique_,' and '[greek: teleôs],'--'_prorsus_,' show distinctly that those who crossed from abydos were obliged to do so in an _oblique_ direction, or they would have the current _entirely_ against them. "from this ancient authority, which, i own, appears to me unanswerable, let us turn to the moderns. baron de tott, who, having been for some time resident on the spot, employed as an engineer in the construction of batteries, must be supposed well cognisant of the subject, has expressed himself as follows:-- "'la surabondance des eaux que la mer noire reçoit, et qu'elle ne peut evaporer, versée dans la méditerranée par le bosphore de thrace et la propontide, forme aux dardanelles des courans si violens, que souvent les batimens, toutes voiles dehors, out peine à les vaincre. les pilotes doivent encore observer, lorsque le vent suffit, de diriger leur route de manière à présenter le moins de résistance possible à l'effort des eaux. on sent que cette étude a pour base la direction des courans, qui, _renvoyés d'une points à l'autre,_ forment des obstacles à la navigation, et feroient courir les plus grands risques si l'on negligeoit ces connoissances hydrographiques.'--_mémoires de_ tott, ^{_me_} _partie_. "to the above citations, i will add the opinion of tournefort, who, in his description of the strait, expresses with ridicule his disbelief of the truth of leander's exploit; and to show that the latest travellers agree with the earlier, i will conclude my quotation with a statement of mr. madden, who is just returned from the spot. 'it was from the european side lord byron swam _with_ the current, which runs about four miles an hour. but i believe he would have found it totally impracticable to have crossed from abydos to europe.'--madden's _travels_, vol. i. "there are two other observations in lord byron's letter on which i feel it necessary to remark. "'mr. turner says, "whatever is thrown into the stream on this part of the european bank _must_ arrive at the asiatic shore." this is so far from being the case, that it _must_ arrive in the archipelago, if left to the current, although a strong wind from the asiatic[ ] side might have such an effect occasionally.' [footnote : "this is evidently a mistake of the writer or printer. his lordship must here have meant a strong wind from the european side, as no wind from the asiatic side could have the effect of driving an object to the asiatic shore." i think it right to remark, that it is mr. turner himself who has here originated the inaccuracy of which he accuses others; the words used by lord byron being, _not_, as mr. turner says, "from the asiatic side," but "in the asiatic direction."--t. m.] "here lord byron is right, and i have no hesitation in confessing that i was wrong. but i was wrong only in the letter of my remark, not in the spirit of it. any _thing_ thrown into the stream on the european bank would be swept into the archipelago, because, after arriving so near the asiatic-shore as to be almost, if not quite, within a man's depth, it would be again floated off from the coast by the current that is dashed from the asiatic promontory. but this would not affect a swimmer, who, being so near the land, would of course, if he could not actually walk to it, reach it by a slight effort. "lord byron adds, in his p.s. 'the strait is, however, not extraordinarily wide, even where it broadens above and below the forts.' from this statement i must venture to express my dissent, with diffidence indeed, but with diffidence diminished by the ease with which the fact may be established. the strait is widened so considerably above the forts by the bay of maytos, and the bay opposite to it on the asiatic coast, that the distance to be passed by a swimmer in crossing higher up would be, in my poor judgment, too great for any one to accomplish from asia to europe, having such a current to stem. "i conclude by expressing it as my humble opinion that no one is bound to believe in the possibility of leander's exploit, till the passage has been performed by a swimmer, at least from asia to europe. the sceptic is even entitled to exact, as the condition of his belief, that the strait be crossed, as leander crossed it, both ways within at most fourteen hours. "w. turner." mr. millingen's account of the consultation. _referred to in_ vol. vi. p. . as the account given by mr. millingen of this consultation differs totally from that of dr. bruno, it is fit that the reader should have it in mr. millingen's own words:-- "in the morning ( th) a consultation was proposed, to which dr. lucca vega and dr. freiber, my assistants, were invited. dr. bruno and lucca proposed having recourse to antispasmodics and other remedies employed in the last stage of typhus. freiber and i maintained that they could only hasten the fatal termination, that nothing could be more empirical than flying from one extreme to the other; that if, as we all thought, the complaint was owing to the metastasis of rheumatic inflammation, the existing symptoms only depended on the rapid and extensive progress it had made in an organ previously so weakened and irritable. antiphlogistic means could never prove hurtful in this case; they would become useless only if disorganisation were already operated; but then, since all hopes were gone, what means would not prove superfluous? we recommended the application of numerous leeches to the temples, behind the ears, and along the course of the jugular vein; a large blister between the shoulders, and sinapisms to the feet, as affording, though feeble, yet the last hopes of success. dr. b., being the patient's physician, had the casting vote, and prepared the antispasmodic potion which dr. lucca and he had agreed upon; it was a strong infusion of valerian and ether, &c. after its administration, the convulsive movement, the delirium increased; but, notwithstanding my representations, a second dose was given half an hour after. after articulating confusedly a few broken phrases, the patient sunk shortly after into a comatose sleep, which the next day terminated in death. he expired on the th of april, at six o'clock in the afternoon." the will of lord byron. _extracted from the registry of the prerogative court of canterbury_. this is the last will and testament of me, george gordon, lord byron, baron byron, of rochdale, in the county of lancaster, as follows:--i give and devise all that my manor or lordship of rochdale, in the said county of lancaster, with all its rights, royalties, members, and appurtenances, and all my lands, tenements, hereditaments, and premises situate, lying, and being within the parish, manor, or lordship of rochdale aforesaid, and all other my estates, lands, hereditaments, and premises whatsoever and wheresoever, unto my friends john cam hobhouse, late of trinity college, cambridge, esquire, and john hanson, of chancery-lane, london, esquire, to the use and behoof of them, their heirs and assigns, upon trust that they the said john cam hobhouse and john hanson, and the survivor of them, and the heirs and assigns of such survivor, do and shall, as soon as conveniently may be after my decease, sell and dispose of all my said manor and estates for the most money that can or may be had or gotten for the same, either by private contract or public sale by auction, and either together or in lots, as my said trustees shall think proper; and for the facilitating such sale and sales, i do direct that the receipt and receipts of my said trustees, and the survivor of them, and the heirs and assigns of such survivor, shall be a good and sufficient discharge, and good and sufficient discharges to the purchaser or purchasers of my said estates, or any part or parts thereof, for so much money as in such receipt or receipts shall be expressed or acknowledged to be received; and that such purchaser or purchasers, his, her, or their heirs and assigns, shall not afterwards be in any manner answerable or accountable for such purchase-monies, or be obliged to see to the application thereof: and i do will and direct that my said trustees shall stand possessed of the monies to arise by the sale of my said estates upon such trusts and for such intents and purposes as i have hereinafter directed of and concerning the same: and whereas i have by certain deeds of conveyance made on my marriage with my present wife conveyed all my manor and estate of newstead, in the parishes of newstead and limby, in the county of nottingham, unto trustees, upon trust to sell the same, and apply the sum of sixty thousand pounds, part of the money to arise by such sale; upon the trusts of my marriage settlement: now i do hereby give and bequeath all the remainder of the purchase-money to arise by sale of my said estate at newstead, and all the whole of the said sixty thousand pounds, or such part thereof as shall not become vested and payable under the trusts of my said marriage settlement, unto the said john cam hobhouse and john hanson, their executors, administrators, and assigns, upon such trusts and for such ends, intents, and purposes as hereinafter directed of and concerning the residue of my personal estate. i give and bequeath unto the said john cam hobhouse and john hanson, the sum of one thousand pounds each, i give and bequeath all the rest, residue, and remainder of my personal estate whatsoever and wheresoever unto the said john cam hobhouse and john hanson, their executors, administrators, and assigns, upon trust that they, my said trustees and the survivor of them, and the executors and administrators of such survivor, do and shall stand possessed of all such rest and residue of my said personal estate and the money to arise by sale of my real estates hereinbefore devised to them for sale, and such of the monies to arise by sale of my said estate at newstead as i have power to dispose of, after payment of my debts and legacies hereby given, upon the trusts and for the ends, intents, and purposes hereinafter mentioned and directed of and concerning the same, that is to say, upon trust, that they my said trustees and the survivor of them, and the executors and administrators of such survivor, do and shall lay out and invest the same in the public stocks or funds, or upon government or real security at interest, with power from time to time to change, vary, and transpose such securities, and from time to time during the life of my sister augusta mary leigh, the wife of george leigh, esquire, pay, receive, apply, and dispose of the interest, dividends, and annual produce thereof, when and as the same shall become due and payable, into the proper hands of the said augusta mary leigh, to and for her sole and separate use and benefit, free from the control, debts, or engagements of her present or any future husband, or unto such person or persons as she my said sister shall from time to time, by any writing under her hand, notwithstanding her present or any future coverture, and whether covert or sole, direct or appoint; and from and immediately after the decease of my said sister, then upon trust, that they my said trustees and the survivor of them, his executors or administrators, do and shall assign and transfer all my said personal estate and other the trust property hereinbefore mentioned, or the stocks, funds, or securities wherein or upon which the same shall or may be placed out or invested, unto and among all and every the child and children of my said sister, if more than one, in such parts, shares, and proportions, and to become a vested interest, and to be paid and transferred at such time and times, and in such manner, and with, under, and subject to such provisions, conditions, and restrictions, as my said sister, at any time during her life, whether covert or sole, by any deed or deeds, instrument or instruments, in writing, with or without power of revocation, to be sealed and delivered in the presence of two or more credible witnesses, or by her last will and testament in writing, or any writing of appointment in the nature of a will, shall direct or appoint; and in default of any such appointment, or in case of the death of my said sister in my lifetime, then upon trust that they my said trustees and the survivor of them, his executors, administrators, and assigns, do and shall assign and transfer all the trust, property, and funds unto and among the children of my said sister, if more than one, equally to be divided between them, share and share alike, and if only one such child, then to such only child the share and shares of such of them as shall be a son or sons, to be paid and transferred unto him and them when and as he or they shall respectively attain his or their age or ages of twenty-one years; and the share and shares of such of them as shall be a daughter or daughters, to be paid and transferred unto her or them when and as she or they shall respectively attain her or their age or ages of twenty-one years, or be married, which shall first happen; and in case any of such children shall happen to die, being a son or sons, before he or they shall attain the age of twenty-one years, or being a daughter or daughters, before she or they shall attain the said age of twenty-one, or be married; then it is my will and i do direct that the share and shares of such of the said children as shall so die shall go to the survivor or survivors of such children, with the benefit of further accruer in case of the death of any such surviving children before their shares shall become vested. and i do direct that my said trustees shall pay and apply the interest and dividends of each of the said children's shares in the said trust funds for his, her, or their maintenance and education during their minorities, notwithstanding their shares may not become vested interests, but that such interest and dividends as shall not have been so applied shall accumulate, and follow, and go over with the principal. and i do nominate, constitute, and appoint the said john cam hobhouse and john hanson executors of this my will. and i do will and direct that my said trustees shall not be answerable the one of them for the other of them, or for the acts, deeds, receipts, or defaults of the other of them, but each of them for his own acts, deeds, receipts, and wilful defaults only, and that they my said trustees shall be entitled to retain and deduct out of the monies which shall come to their hands under the trusts aforesaid all such costs, charges, damages, and expenses which they or any of them shall bear, pay, sustain, or be put unto, in the execution and performance of the trusts herein reposed in them. i make the above provision for my sister and her children, in consequence of my dear wife lady byron, and any children i may have, being otherwise amply provided for; and, lastly, i do revoke all former wills by me at any time heretofore made, and do declare this only to be my last will and testament. in witness whereof, i have to this my last will, contained in three sheets of paper, set my hand to the first two sheets thereof, and to this third and last sheet my hand and seal this th day of july, in the year of our lord . byron (l.s.) signed, sealed, published, and declared by the said lord byron, the testator, as and for his last will and testament, in the presence of us, who, at his request, in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereto subscribed our names as witnesses. thomas jones mawse, edmund griffin, frederick jervis, clerks to mr. hanson, chancery-lane. codicil.--this is a codicil to the last will and testament of me, the right honourable george gordon, lord byron. i give and bequeath unto allegra biron, an infant of about twenty months old, by me brought up, and now residing at venice, the sum of five thousand pounds, which i direct the executors of my said will to pay to her on her attaining the age of twenty-one years, or on the day of her marriage, on condition that she does not marry with a native of great britain, which shall first happen. and i direct my said executors, as soon as conveniently may be after my decease, to invest the said sum of five thousand pounds upon government or real security, and to pay and apply the annual income thereof in or towards the maintenance and education of the said allegra biron until she attains her said age of twenty-one years, or shall be married as aforesaid; but in case she shall die before attaining the said age and without having been married, then i direct the said sum of five thousand pounds to become part of the residue of my personal estate, and in all other respects i do confirm my said will, and declare this to be a codicil thereto. in witness whereof, i have hereunto set my hand and seal, at venice, this th day of november, in the year of our lord , byron (l.s.) signed, sealed, published, and declared by the said lord byron, as and for a codicil to his will, in the presence of us, who, in his presence, at his request, and in the presence of each other, have subscribed our names as witnesses. newton hanson, william fletcher. proved at london (with a codicil), th of july, , before the worshipful stephen lushington, doctor of laws, and surrogate, by the oaths of john cam hobhouse and john hanson, esquires, the executors, to whom administration was granted, having been first sworn duly to administer. nathaniel gostling, george jenner, charles dyneley, deputy registrars. * * * * * miscellaneous pieces in prose. review of wordsworth's poems, vols. .[ ] [footnote : i have been a reviewer. in , in a magazine called "monthly literary recreations," i reviewed wordsworth's trash of that time. in the monthly review i wrote some articles which were inserted. this was in the latter part of .--byron.] (from "monthly literary recreations," for august, .) the volumes before us are by the author of lyrical ballads, a collection which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause. the characteristics of mr. w.'s muse are simple and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious verse, strong, and sometimes irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments. though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the poems possess a native elegance, natural and unaffected, totally devoid of the tinsel embellishments and abstract hyperboles of several contemporary sonneteers. the last sonnet in the first volume, p. ., is perhaps the best, without any novelty in the sentiments, which we hope are common to every briton at the present crisis; the force and expression is that of a genuine poet, feeling as he writes:-- "another year! another deadly blow! another mighty empire overthrown! and we are left, or shall be left, alone-- the last that dares to struggle with the foe. 'tis well!--from this day forward we shall know that in ourselves our safety must be sought, that by our own right-hands it must be wrought; that we must stand unprop'd, or be laid low. o dastard! whom such foretaste doth not cheer! we shall exult, if they who rule the land be men who hold its many blessings dear, wise, upright, valiant, not a venal band, who are to judge of danger which they fear, and honour which they do not understand." the song at the feast of brougham castle, the seven sisters, the affliction of margaret ---- of ----, possess all the beauties, and few of the defects, of this writer: the following lines from the last are in his first style:-- "ah! little doth the young one dream when full of play and childish cares, what power hath e'en his wildest scream, heard by his mother unawares: he knows it not, he cannot guess: years to a mother bring distress, but do not make her love the less." the pieces least worthy of the author are those entitled "moods of my own mind." we certainly wish these "moods" had been less frequent, or not permitted to occupy a place near works which only make their deformity more obvious; when mr. w. ceases to please, it is by "abandoning" his mind to the most commonplace ideas, at the same time clothing them in language not simple, but puerile. what will any reader or auditor, out of the nursery, say to such namby-pamby as "lines written at the foot of brother's bridge?" "the cock is crowing, the stream is flowing, the small birds twitter, the lake doth glitter. the green field sleeps in the sun; the oldest and youngest, are at work with the strongest; the cattle are grazing, their heads never raising, there are forty feeding like one. like an army defeated, the snow hath retreated, and now doth fare ill, on the top of the bare hill." "the plough-boy is whooping anon, anon," &c. &c. is in the same exquisite measure. this appears to us neither more nor less than an imitation of such minstrelsy as soothed our cries in the cradle, with the shrill ditty of "hey de diddle, the cat and the fiddle: the cow jump'd over the moon, the little dog laugh'd to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon." on the whole, however, with the exception of the above, and other innocent odes of the same cast, we think these volumes display a genius worthy of higher pursuits, and regret that mr. w. confines his muse to such trifling subjects. we trust his motto will be in future, "paulo majora canamus." many, with inferior abilities, have acquired a loftier seat on parnassus, merely by attempting strains in which mr. wordsworth is more qualified to excel.[ ] [footnote : this first attempt of lord byron at reviewing is remarkable only as showing how plausibly he could assume the established tone and phraseology of these minor judgment-seats of criticism. if mr. wordsworth ever chanced to cast his eye over this article, how little could he have expected that under that dull prosaic mask lurked one who, in five short years from thence, would rival even _him_ in poetry!--moore.] review of gell's geography of ithaca, and itinerary of greece. (from the "monthly review" for august, .) that laudable curiosity concerning the remains of classical antiquity, which has of late years increased among our countrymen, is in no traveller or author more conspicuous than in mr. gell. whatever difference of opinion may yet exist with regard to the success of the several disputants in the famous trojan controversy[ ], or, indeed, relating to the present author's merits as an inspector of the troad, it must universally be acknowledged that any work, which more forcibly impresses on our imaginations the scenes of heroic action, and the subjects of immortal song, possesses claims on the attention of every scholar. [footnote : we have it from the best authority that the venerable leader of the anti-homeric sect, jacob bryant, several years before his death, expressed regret for his ungrateful attempt to destroy some of the most pleasing associations of our youthful studies. one of his last wishes was--"_trojaque nunc stares," &c._] of the two works which now demand our report, we conceive the former to be by far the most interesting to the reader, as the latter is indisputably the most serviceable to the traveller. excepting, indeed, the running commentary which it contains on a number of extracts from pausanias and strabo, it is, as the title imports, a mere itinerary of greece, or rather of argolis only, in its present circumstances. this being the case, surely it would have answered every purpose of utility much better by being printed as a pocket road-book of that part of the morea; for a quarto is a very unmanageable travelling companion. the maps[ ] and drawings, we shall be told, would not permit such an arrangement: but as to the drawings, they are not in general to be admired as specimens of the art; and several of them, as we have been assured by eye-witnesses of the scenes which they describe, do not compensate for their mediocrity in point of execution, by any extraordinary fidelity of representation. others, indeed, are more faithful, according to our informants. the true reason, however, for this costly mode of publication is in course to be found in a desire of gratifying the public passion for large margins, and all the luxury of typography; and we have before expressed our dissatisfaction with mr. gell's aristocratical mode of communicating a species of knowledge, which ought to be accessible to a much greater portion of classical students than can at present acquire it by his means:--but, as such expostulations are generally useless, we shall be thankful for what we can obtain, and that in the manner in which mr. gell has chosen to present it. [footnote : or, rather, _map_; for we have only one in the volume, and that is on too small a scale to give more than a general idea of the relative position of places. the excuse about a larger map not folding well is trifling; see, for instance, the author's own map of ithaca.] the former of these volumes, we have observed, is the most attractive in the closet. it comprehends a very full survey of the far-famed island which the hero of the odyssey has immortalized; for we really are inclined to think that the author has established the identity of the modern _theaki_ with the _ithaca_ of homer. at all events, if it be an illusion, it is a very agreeable deception, and is effected by an ingenious interpretation of the passages in homer that are supposed to be descriptive of the scenes which our traveller has visited. we shall extract some of these adaptations of the ancient picture to the modern scene, marking the points of resemblance which appear to be strained and forced, as well as those which are more easy and natural: but we must first insert some preliminary matter from the opening chapter. the following passage conveys a sort of general sketch of the book, which may give our readers a tolerably adequate notion of its contents:-- "the present work may adduce, by a simple and correct survey of the island, coincidences in its geography, in its natural productions, and moral state, before unnoticed. some will be directly pointed out; the fancy or ingenuity of the reader may be employed in tracing others; the mind familiar with the imagery of the odyssey will recognise with satisfaction the scenes themselves; and this volume is offered to the public, not entirely without hopes of vindicating the poem of homer from the scepticism of those critics who imagine that the odyssey is a mere poetical composition, unsupported by history, and unconnected with the localities of any particular situation. "some have asserted that, in the comparison of places now existing with the descriptions of homer, we ought not to expect coincidence in minute details; yet it seems only by these that the kingdom of ulysses, or any other, can be identified, as, if such as idea be admitted, every small and rocky island in the ionian sea, containing a good port, might, with equal plausibility, assume the appellation of ithaca. "the venetian geographers have in a great degree contributed to raise those doubts which have existed on the identity of the modern with the ancient ithaca, by giving, in their charts, the name of val di compare to the island. that name is, however, totally unknown in the country, where the isle is invariably called ithaca by the upper ranks, and theaki by the vulgar. the venetians have equally corrupted the name of almost every place in greece; yet, as the natives of epactos or naupactos never heard of lepanto, those of zacynthos of zante, or the athenians of settines, it would be as unfair to rob ithaca of its name, on such authority, as it would be to assert that no such island existed, because no tolerable representation of its form can be found in the venetian surveys. "the rare medals of the island, of which three are represented in the title-page, might be adduced as a proof that the name of ithaca was not lost during the reigns of the roman emperors. they have the head of ulysses, recognised by the pileum, or pointed cap, while the reverse of one presents the figure of a cock, the emblem of his vigilance, with the legend [greek: ithakon]. a few of these medals are preserved in the cabinets of the curious, and one also, with the cock, found in the island, is in the possession of signor zavo, of bathi. the uppermost coin is in the collection of dr. hunter; the second is copied from newman, and the third is the property of r.p. knight, esq. "several inscriptions, which will be hereafter produced, will tend to the confirmation of the idea that ithaca was inhabited about the time when the romans were masters of greece; yet there is every reason to believe that few, if any, of the present proprietors of the soil are descended from ancestors who had long resided successively in the island. even those who lived, at the time of ulysses, in ithaca, seem to have been on the point of emigrating to argos, and no chief remained, after the second in descent from that hero, worthy of being recorded in history. it appears that the isle has been twice colonised from cephalonia in modern times, and i was informed that a grant had been made by the venetians, entitling each settler in ithaca to as much land as his circumstances would enable him to cultivate." mr. gell then proceeds to invalidate the authority of previous writers on the subject of ithaca. sir george wheeler and m. le chevalier fall under his severe animadversion; and, indeed, according to his account, neither of these gentlemen had visited the island, and the description of the latter is "absolutely too absurd for refutation." in another place, he speaks of m. le c. "disgracing a work of such merit by the introduction of such fabrications;" again, of the inaccuracy of the author's maps; and, lastly, of his inserting an island at the southern entry of the channel between cephalonia and ithaca, which has no existence. this observation very nearly approaches to the use of that monosyllable which gibbon[ ], without expressing it, so adroitly applied to some assertion of his antagonist, mr. davies. in truth, our traveller's words are rather bitter towards his brother tourist: but we must conclude that their justice warrants their severity. [footnote : see his vindication of the th and th chapters of the _decline and fall_, &c.] in the second chapter, the author describes his landing in ithaca, and arrival at the rock korax and the fountain arethusa, as he designates it with sufficient positiveness.--this rock, now known by the name of korax, or koraka petra, he contends to be the same with that which homer mentions as contiguous to the habitation of eumæus, the faithful swine-herd of ulysses.--we shall take the liberty of adding to our extracts from mr. gell some of the passages in homer to which he _refers_ only, conceiving this to be the fairest method of exhibiting the strength or the weakness of his argument. "ulysses," he observes, "came to the extremity of the isle to visit eumusæ, and that extremity was the most southern; for telemachus, coming from pylos, touched at the first south-eastern part of ithaca with the same intention." [greek: kai tote dê r' odusêa kakos pothen êgage daimôn agrou ep' eschatiên, hothi domata naie subôtês; enth' êlthen philos uios odussêos theioio, ek pulou êmathoenios iôn sun nêi melainê; odussei o. autar epên prôtên aktên ithakês aphikêai, nêa men es polin otrunai kai panlas hetairous; autos de prôtisa subôtên eisaphikesthai, k.t.l. odussei o.] these citations, we think, appear to justify the author in his attempt to identify the situation of his rock and fountain with the place of those mentioned by homer. but let us now follow him in the closer description of the scene.--after some account of the subjects in the plate affixed, mr. gell remarks: "it is impossible to visit this sequestered spot without being struck with the recollection of the fount of arethusa and the rock korax, which the poet mentions in the same line, adding, that there the swine eat the _sweet_[ ] acorns, and drank the black water." [footnote : "_sweet_ acorns." does mr. gell translate from the latin? to avoid similar cause of mistake, [greek: menoeikea] should not be rendered _suavem_ but _gratam_, as barnes has given it.] [greek: dêeis ton ge suessi parêmenon; ai de nemontai par korakos petrê, epi te krênê arethousê, esthousai balanon menoeikea, kai melan hudôr pinousai; odussei n.] "having passed some time at the fountain, taken a drawing, and made the necessary observations on the situation of the place, we proceeded to an examination of the precipice, climbing over the terraces above the source, among shady fig-trees, which, however, did not prevent us from feeling the powerful effects of the mid-day sun. after a short but fatiguing ascent, we arrived at the rock, which extends in a vast perpendicular semicircle, beautifully fringed with trees, facing to the southeast. under the crag we found two caves of inconsiderable extent, the entrance of one of which, not difficult of access, is seen in the view of the fount. they are still the resort of sheep and goats, and in one of them are small natural receptacles for the water, covered by a stalagmitic incrustation. "these caves, being at the extremity of the curve formed by the precipice, open toward the south, and present us with another accompaniment of the fount of arethusa, mentioned by the poet, who informs us that the swineherd eumæus left his guests in the house, whilst he, putting on a thick garment, went to sleep near the herd, under the hollow of the rock, which sheltered him from the northern blast. now we know that the herd fed near the fount; for minerva tells ulysses that he is to go first to eumæus, whom he should find with the swine, near the rock korax and the fount of arethusa. as the swine then fed at the fountain, so it is necessary that a cavern should be found in its vicinity; and this seems to coincide, in distance and situation, with that of the poem. near the fount also was the fold or stathmos of eumæus; for the goddess informs ulysses that he should find his faithful servant at or above the fount. "now the hero meets the swineherd close to the fold, which was consequently very near that source. at the top of the rock, and just above the spot where the waterfall shoots down the precipice, is at this day a stagni or pastoral dwelling, which the herdsmen of ithaca still inhabit, on account of the water necessary for their cattle. one of these people walked on the verge of the precipice at the time of our visit to the place, and seemed so anxious to know how we had been conveyed to the spot, that his enquiries reminded us of a question probably not uncommon in the days of homer, who more than once represents the ithacences demanding of strangers what ship had brought them to the island, it being evident they could not come on foot. he told us that there was, on the summit where he stood, a small cistern of water, and a kalybea, or shepherd's hut. there are also vestiges of ancient habitations, and the place is now called amarâthia. "convenience, as well as safety, seems to have pointed out the lofty situation of amarathia as a fit place for the residence of the herdsmen of this part of the island from the earliest ages. a small source of water is a treasure in these climates; and if the inhabitants of ithaca now select a rugged and elevated spot, to secure them from the robbers of the echinades, it is to be recollected that the taphian pirates were not less formidable, even in the days of ulysses, and that a residence in a solitary part of the island, far from the fortress, and close to a celebrated fountain, must at all times have been dangerous, without some such security as the rocks of korax. indeed, there can be no doubt that the house of eumæus was on the top of the precipice; for ulysses, in order to evince the truth of his story to the swineherd, desires to be thrown from the summit if his narration does not prove correct. "near the bottom of the precipice is a curious natural gallery, about seven feet high, which is expressed in the plate. it may be fairly presumed, from the very remarkable coincidence between this place and the homeric account, that this was the scene designated by the poet as the fountain of arethusa, and the residence of eumæus; and, perhaps, it would be impossible to find another spot which bears, at this day, so strong a resemblance to a poetic description composed at a period so very remote. there is no other fountain in this part of the island, nor any rock which bears the slightest resemblance to the korax of homer. "the stathmos of the good eumæus appears to have been little different, either in use or construction, from the stagni and kalybea of the present day. the poet expressly mentions that other herdsmen drove their flocks into the city at sunset,--a custom which still prevails throughout greece during the winter, and that was the season in which ulysses visited eumæus. yet homer accounts for this deviation from the prevailing custom, by observing that he had retired from the city to avoid the suitors of penelope. these trifling occurrences afford a strong presumption that the ithaca of homer was something more than the creature of his own fancy, as some have supposed it; for though the grand outline of a fable may be easily imagined, yet the consistent adaptation of minute incidents to a long and elaborate falsehood is a task of the most arduous and complicated nature." after this long extract, by which we have endeavoured to do justice to mr. gell's argument, we cannot allow room for any farther quotations of such extent; and we must offer a brief and imperfect analysis of the remainder of the work. in the third chapter, the traveller arrives at the capital, and in the fourth, he describes it in an agreeable manner. we select his account of the mode of celebrating a christian festival in the greek church:-- "we were present at the celebration of the feast of the ascension, when the citizens appeared in their gayest dresses, and saluted each other in the streets with demonstrations of pleasure. as we sate at breakfast in the house of zignor zavo, we were suddenly roused by the discharge of a gun, succeeded by a tremendous crash of pottery, which fell on the tiles, steps, and pavements, in every direction. the bells of the numerous churches commenced a most discordant jingle; colours were hoisted on every mast in the port, and a general shout of joy announced some great event. our host informed us that the feast of the ascension was annually commemorated in this manner at bathi, the populace exclaiming [greek: anesê o chrisos, alêthinos o theos,] christ is risen, the true god." in another passage, he continues this account as follows:--"in the evening of the festival, the inhabitants danced before their houses; and at one we saw the figure which is said to have been first used by the youths and virgins of delos, at the happy return of theseus from the expedition of the cretan labyrinth. it has now lost much of that intricacy which was supposed to allude to the windings of the habitation of the minotaur," &c. &c. this is rather too much for even the inflexible gravity of our censorial muscles. when the author talks, with all the _reality_ (if we may use the expression) of a lempriere, on the stories of the fabulous ages, we cannot refrain from indulging a momentary smile; nor can we seriously accompany him in the learned architectural detail by which he endeavours to give us, from the odyssey, the ground-plot of the house of ulysses.--of which he actually offers a plan in drawing! "showing how the description of the house of ulysses in the odyssey may be supposed to correspond with the foundations yet visible on the hill of aito!"--oh, foote! foote! why are you lost to such inviting subjects for your ludicrous pencil!--in his account of this celebrated mansion, mr. gell says, one side of the court seems to have been occupied by the thalamos, or sleeping apartments of the men, &c. &c.; and, in confirmation of this hypothesis, he refers to the th odyssey, line . on examining his reference, we read, [greek: es thalamon t ienai, kai sês epibêmenai eunês.] where ulysses records an invitation which he received from circe to take a part of her bed. how this illustrates the above conjecture, we are at a loss to divine: but we suppose that some numerical error has occurred in the reference, as we have detected a trifling mistake or two of the same nature. mr. g. labours hard to identify the cave of dexia near bathi (the capital of the island), with the grotto of the nymphs described in the th odyssey. we are disposed to grant that he has succeeded: but we cannot here enter into the proofs by which he supports his opinion; and we can only extract one of the concluding sentences of the chapter, which appears to us candid and judicious:-- "whatever opinion may be formed as to the identity of the cave of dexia with the grotto of the nymphs, it is fair to state, that strabo positively asserts that no such cave as that described by homer existed in his time, and that geographer thought it better to assign a physical change, rather than ignorance in homer, to account for a difference which he imagined to exist between the ithaca of his time and that of the poet. but strabo, who was an uncommonly accurate observer with respect to countries surveyed by himself, appears to have been wretchedly misled by his informers on many occasions. "that strabo had never visited this country is evident, not only from his inaccurate account of it, but from his citation of appollodorus and scepsius, whose relations are in direct opposition to each other on the subject of ithaca, as will be demonstrated on a future opportunity." we must, however, observe that "demonstration" is a strong term.--in his description of the leucadian promontory (of which we have a pleasing representation in the plate), the author remarks that it is "celebrated for the _leap_ of sappho, and the _death_ of artemisia." from this variety in the expression, a reader would hardly conceive that both the ladies perished in the same manner: in fact, the sentence is as proper as it would be to talk of the decapitation of russell, and the death of sidney. the view from this promontory includes the island of corfu; and the name suggests to mr. gell the following note, which, though rather irrelevant, is of a curious nature, and we therefore conclude our citations by transcribing it:-- "it has been generally supposed that corfu, or corcyra, was the phæacia of homer; but sir henry englefield thinks the position of that island inconsistent with the voyage of ulysses as described in the odyssey. that gentleman has also observed a number of such remarkable coincidences between the courts of alcinous and solomon, that they may be thought curious and interesting. homer was familiar with the names of tyre, sidon, and egypt; and, as he lived about the time of solomon, it would not have been extraordinary if he had introduced some account of the magnificence of that prince into his poem. as solomon was famous for wisdom, so the name of alcinous signifies strength of knowledge; as the gardens of solomon were celebrated, so are those of alcinous (od. . .); as the kingdom of solomon was distinguished by twelve tribes under twelve princes ( kings, ch. .), so that of alcinous (od. . .) was ruled by an equal number; as the throne of solomon was supported by lions of gold ( kings, ch. .), so that of alcinous was placed on dogs of silver and gold (od, . .); as the fleets of solomon were famous, so were those of alcinous. it is perhaps worthy of remark, that neptune sate on the mountains of the solymi, as he returned from Æthiopia to Ægæ, while he raised the tempest which threw ulysses on the coast of phæacia; and that the solymi of pamphylia are very considerably distant from the route.--the suspicious character, also, which nausicaa attributes to her countryman agrees precisely with that which the greeks and romans gave of the jews." the seventh chapter contains a description of the monastery of kathara, and several adjacent places. the eighth, among other curiosities, fixes on an imaginary site for the farm of laertes: but this is the agony of conjecture indeed!--and the ninth chapter mentions another monastery, and a rock still called the school of homer. some sepulchral inscriptions of a very simple nature are included.--the tenth and last chapter brings us round to the port of schoenus, near bathi; after we have completed, seemingly in a very minute and accurate manner, the tour of the island. we can certainly recommend a perusal of this volume to every lover of classical scene and story. if we may indulge the pleasing belief that homer sang of a real kingdom, and that ulysses governed it, though we discern many feeble links in mr. gell's chain of evidence, we are on the whole induced to fancy that this is the ithaca of the bard and of the monarch. at all events, mr. gell has enabled every future traveller to form a clearer judgment on the question than he could have established without such a "vade-mecum to ithaca," or a "have with you, to the house of ulysses," as the present. with homer in his pocket, and gell on his sumpter-horse or mule, the odyssean tourist may now make a very classical and delightful excursion; and we doubt not that the advantages accruing to the ithacences, from the increased number of travellers who will visit them in consequence of mr. gell's account of their country, will induce them to confer on that gentleman any heraldic honours which they may have to bestow, should he ever look in upon them again.--_baron bathi _ would be a pretty title:-- "_hoc_ ithacus _velit, et magno mercentur atridæ_."--virgil. for ourselves, we confess that all our old grecian feelings would be alive on approaching the fountain of melainudros, where, as the tradition runs, or as the priests relate, homer was restored to sight. we now come to the "grecian patterson," or "cary," which mr. gell has begun to publish; and really he has carried the epic rule of concealing the person of the author to as great a length as either of the above-mentioned heroes of itinerary writ. we hear nothing of his "hair-breadth 'scapes" by sea or land; and we do not even know, for the greater part of his journey through argolis, whether he relates what he has seen or what he has heard. prom other parts of the book, we find the former to be the case: but, though there have been tourists and "strangers" in other countries, who have kindly permitted their readers to learn rather too much of their sweet selves, yet it is possible to carry delicacy, or cautious silence, or whatever it may be called, to the contrary extreme. we think that mr. gell has fallen into this error, so opposite to that of his numerous brethren. it is offensive, indeed, to be told what a man has eaten for dinner, or how pathetic he was on certain occasions; but we like to know that there is a being yet living who describes the scenes to which he introduces us; and that it is not a mere translation from strabo or pausanias which we are reading, or a commentary on those authors. this reflection leads us to the concluding remark in mr. gell's preface (by much the most interesting part of his book) to his itinerary of greece, in which he thus expresses himself:-- "the confusion of the modern with the ancient names of places in this volume is absolutely unavoidable; they are, however, mentioned in such a manner, that the reader will soon be accustomed to the indiscriminate use of them. the necessity of applying the ancient appellations to the different routes, will be evident from the total ignorance of the public on the subject of the modern names, which, having never appeared in print, are only known to the few individuals who have visited the country. "what could appear less intelligible to the reader, or less useful to the traveller, than a route from chione and zaracca to kutchukmadi, from thence to krabata to schoenochorio, and by the mills of peali, while every one is in some degree acquainted with the names of stymphalus, nemea, mycenæ, lyrceia, lerna, and tegea?" although this may be very true inasmuch as it relates to the reader, yet to the traveller we must observe, in opposition to mr. gell, that nothing can be less useful than the designation of his route according to the ancient names. we might as well, and with as much chance of arriving at the place of our destination, talk to a hounslow post-boy about making haste to _augusta_, as apply to our turkish guide in modern greece for a direction to stymphalus, nemea, mycenæ, &c. &c. this is neither more nor less than classical affectation; and it renders mr. gell's book of much more confined use than it would otherwise have been:--but we have some other and more important remarks to make on his general directions to grecian tourists; and we beg leave to assure our readers that they are derived from travellers who have lately visited greece. in the first place, mr. gell is absolutely incautious enough to recommend an interference on the part of english travellers with the minister at the porte, in behalf of the greeks. "the folly of such neglect (page . preface,) in many instances, where the emancipation of a district might often be obtained by the present of a snuff-box or a watch, at constantinople, _and without the smallest danger of exciting the jealousy of such a court as that of turkey,_ will be acknowledged when we are no longer able to rectify the error." we have every reason to believe, on the contrary, that the folly of half a dozen travellers, taking this advice, might bring us into a war. "never interfere with any thing of the kind," is a much sounder and more political suggestion to all english travellers in greece. mr. gell apologises for the introduction of "his panoramic designs," as he calls them, on the score of the great difficulty of giving any tolerable idea of the face of a country in writing, and the ease with which a very accurate knowledge of it may be acquired by maps and panoramic designs. we are informed that this is not the case with many of these designs. the small scale of the single map we have already censured; and we have hinted that some of the drawings are not remarkable for correct resemblance of their originals. the two nearer views of the gate of the lions at mycenæ are indeed good likenesses of their subject, and the first of them is unusually well executed; but the general view of mycenæ is not more than tolerable in any respect; and the prospect of larissa, &c. is barely equal to the former. the view _from_ this last place is also indifferent; and we are positively assured that there are no windows at nauplia which look like a box of dominos,--the idea suggested by mr. gell's plate. we must not, however, be too severe on these picturesque bagatelles, which, probably, were very hasty sketches; and the circumstances of weather, &c. may have occasioned some difference in the appearance of the same objects to different spectators. we shall therefore return to mr. gell's preface; endeavouring to set him right in his directions to travellers, where we think that he is erroneous, and adding what appears to have been omitted. in his first sentence, he makes an assertion which is by no means correct. he says, "_we_ are at present as ignorant of greece, as of the interior of africa." surely not quite so ignorant; or several of our grecian _mungo parks_ have travelled in vain, and some very sumptuous works have been published to no purpose! as we proceed, we find the author observing that "athens is _now_ the most polished city of greece," when we believe it to be the most barbarous, even to a proverb-- [greek: o athêna, protê chora, ti gaidarous trepheis tora[ ]?] [footnote : we write these lines from the _recitation_ of the travellers to whom we have alluded; but we cannot vouch for the correctness of the romaic.] is a couplet of reproach _now_ applied to this once famous city; whose inhabitants seem little worthy of the inspiring call which was addressed to them within these twenty years, by the celebrated riga:-- [greek: deute paides tôn ellênôn--k.t.l.] iannina, the capital of epirus, and the seat of ali pacha's government, _is_ in truth deserving of the honours which mr. gell has improperly bestowed on degraded athens. as to the correctness of the remark concerning the fashion of wearing the hair cropped in _molossia,_ as mr. gell informs us, our authorities cannot depose: but why will he use the classical term of eleuthero-lacones, when that people are so much better known by their modern name of mainotes? "the court of the pacha of tripolizza" is said "to realise the splendid visions of the arabian nights." this is true with regard to the _court_: but surely the traveller ought to have added that the city and palace are most miserable, and form an extraordinary contrast to the splendour of the court.--mr. gell mentions _gold_ mines in greece: he should have specified their situation, as it certainly is not universally known. when, also, he remarks that "the first article of necessity _in greece_ is a firman, or order from the sultan, permitting the traveller to pass unmolested," we are much misinformed if he be right. on the contrary, we believe this to be almost the only part of the turkish dominions in which a firman is not necessary; since the passport of the pacha is absolute within his territory (according to mr. g.'s own admission), and much more effectual than a firman.--"money," he remarks, "is easily procured at salonica, or patrass, where the english have consuls." it is much better procured, we understand, from the turkish governors, who never charge discount. the consuls for the english are not of the most magnanimous order of greeks, and far from being so liberal, generally speaking; although there are, in course, some exceptions, and strune of patrass has been more honourably mentioned.--after having observed that "horses seem the best mode of conveyance in greece," mr. gell proceeds: "some travellers would prefer an english saddle; but a saddle of this sort is always objected to by the owner of the horse, _and not without reason_" &c. this, we learn, is far from being the case; and, indeed, for a very simple reason, an english saddle must seem to be preferable to one of the country, because it is much lighter. when, too, mr. gell calls the _postilion_ "menzilgi," he mistakes him for his betters: _serrugees_ are postilions; _mensilgis_ are postmasters.--our traveller was fortunate in his turks, who are hired to walk by the side of the baggage-horses. they "are certain," he says, "of performing their engagement without grumbling." we apprehend that this is by no means certain:--but mr. gell is perfectly right in preferring a turk to a greek for this purpose; and in his general recommendation to take a janissary on the tour: who, we may add, should be suffered to act as he pleases, since nothing is to be done by gentle means, or even by offers of money, at the places of accommodation. a courier, to be sent on before to the place at which the traveller intends to sleep, is indispensable to comfort: but no tourist should be misled by the author's advice to suffer the greeks to gratify their curiosity, in permitting them to remain for some time about him on his arrival at an inn. they should be removed as soon as possible; for, as to the remark that "no stranger would think of intruding when a room is pre-occupied," our informants were not so well convinced of that fact. though we have made the above exceptions to the accuracy of mr. gell's information, we are most ready to do justice to the general utility of his directions, and can certainly concede the praise which he is desirous of obtaining,--namely, "of having facilitated the researches of future travellers, by affording that local information which it was before impossible to obtain." this book, indeed, is absolutely necessary to any person who wishes to explore the morea advantageously; and we hope that mr. gell will continue his itinerary over that and over every other part of greece. he allows that his volume "is only calculated to become a book of reference, and not of general entertainment:" but we do not see any reason against the compatibility of both objects in a survey of the most celebrated country of the ancient world. to that country, we trust, the attention not only of our travellers, but of our legislators, will hereafter be directed. the greatest caution will, indeed, be required, as we have premised, in touching on so delicate a subject as the amelioration of the possessions of an ally: but the field for the exercise of political sagacity is wide and inviting in this portion of the globe; and mr. gell, and all other writers who interest us, however remotely, in its extraordinary _capabilities_, deserve well of the british empire. we shall conclude by an extract from the author's work: which, even if it fails of exciting that general interest which we hope most earnestly it may attract, towards its important subject, cannot, as he justly observes, "be entirely uninteresting to the scholar;" since it is a work "which gives him a faithful description of the remains of cities, the very existence of which was doubtful, as they perished before the æra of authentic history." the subjoined quotation is a good specimen of the author's minuteness of research as a topographer; and we trust that the credit which must accrue to him from the present performance will ensure the completion of his itinerary:-- "the inaccuracies of the maps of anacharsis are in many respects very glaring. the situation of phlius is marked by strabo as surrounded by the territories of sicyon, argos, cleonæ, and stymphalus. mr. hawkins observed, that phlius, the ruins of which still exist near agios giorgios, lies in a direct line between cleonæ and stymphalus, and another from sicyon to argos; so that strabo was correct in saying that it lay between those four towns; yet we see phlius, in the map of argolis by m. barbie du bocage, placed ten miles to the north of stymphalus, contradicting both history and fact. d'anville is guilty of the same error. "m. du bocage places a town named phlius, and by him phlionte, on the point of land which forms the port of drepano: there are not at present any ruins there. the maps of d'anville are generally more correct than any others where ancient geography is concerned. a mistake occurs on the subject of tiryns, and a place named by him vathia, but of which nothing can be understood. it is possible that vathi, or the profound valley, may be a name sometimes used for the valley of barbitsa, and that the place named by d'anville claustra may be the outlet of that valley called kleisoura, which has a corresponding signification. "the city of tiryns is also placed in two different positions, once by its greek name, and again as tirynthus. the mistake between the islands of sphæria and calaura has been noticed in page . the pontinus, which d'anville represents as a river, and the erasinus are equally ill placed in his map. there was a place called creopolis, somewhere toward cynouria; but its situation is not easily fixed. the ports called bucephalium and piræus seem to have been nothing more than little bays in the country between corinth and epidaurus. the town called athenæ, in cynouria, by pausanias, is called anthena by _thucydides_, book . . "in general, the map of d'anville will be found more accurate than those which have been published since his time; indeed the mistakes of that geographer are in general such as could not be avoided without visiting the country. two errors of d'anville may be mentioned, lest the opportunity of publishing the itinerary of arcadia should never occur. the first is, that the rivers malætas and mylaon, near methydrium, are represented as running toward the south, whereas they flow northwards to the ladon; and the second is, that the aroanius, which falls into the erymanthus at psophis, is represented as flowing from the lake of pheneos; a mistake which arises from the ignorance of the ancients themselves who have written on the subject. the fact is that the ladon receives the waters of the lakes of orchomenos and pheneos: but the aroanius rises at a spot not two hours distant from psophis." in furtherance of our principal object in this critique, we have only to add a wish that some of our grecian tourists, among the fresh articles of information concerning greece which they have lately imported, would turn their minds to the language of the country. so strikingly similar to the ancient greek is the modern romaic as a written language, and so dissimilar in sound, that even a few general rules concerning pronunciation would be of most extensive use. parliamentary speeches. * * * * * debate on the frame-work bill, in the house of lords, february , . the order of the day for the second reading of this bill being read, lord byron rose, and (for the first time) addressed their lordships as follows:-- my lords; the subject now submitted to your lordships for the first time, though new to the house, is by no means new to the country. i believe it had occupied the serious thoughts of all descriptions of persons, long before its introduction to the notice of that legislature, whose interference alone could be of real service. as a person in some degree connected with the suffering county, though a stranger not only to this house in general, but to almost every individual whose attention i presume to solicit, i must claim some portion of your lordships' indulgence, whilst i offer a few observations on a question in which i confess myself deeply interested. to enter into any detail of the riots would be superfluous: the house is already aware that every outrage short of actual bloodshed has been perpetrated, and that the proprietors of the frames obnoxious to the rioters, and all persons supposed to be connected with them, have been liable to insult and violence. during the short time i recently passed in nottinghamshire, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence; and on the day i left the county i was informed that forty frames had been broken the preceding evening, as usual, without resistance and without detection. such was then the state of that county, and such i have reason to believe it to be at this moment. but whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress: the perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings, tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large, and once honest and industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community. at the time to which i allude, the town and county were burdened with large detachments of the military; the police was in motion, the magistrates assembled, yet all the movements, civil and military, had led to--nothing. not a single instance had occurred of the apprehension of any real delinquent actually taken in the fact, against whom there existed legal evidence sufficient for conviction. but the police, however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious delinquents had been detected; men, liable to conviction, on the clearest evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men, who had been nefariously guilty of lawfully begetting several children, whom, thanks to the times! they were unable to maintain. considerable injury has been done to the proprietors of the improved frames. these machines were to them an advantage, inasmuch as they superseded the necessity of employing a number of workmen, who were left in consequence to starve. by the adoption of one species of frame in particular, one man performed the work of many, and the superfluous labourers were thrown out of employment. yet it is to be observed, that the work thus executed was inferior in quality; not marketable at home, and merely hurried over with a view to exportation. it was called, in the cant of the trade, by the name of "spider work." the rejected workmen, in the blindness of their ignorance, instead of rejoicing at these improvements in arts so beneficial to mankind, conceived themselves to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. in the foolishness of their hearts they imagined, that the maintenance and well doing of the industrious poor, were objects of greater consequence than the enrichment of a few individuals by any improvement, in the implements of trade, which threw the workmen out of employment, and rendered the labourer unworthy of his hire. and it must be confessed that although the adoption of the enlarged machinery in that state of our commerce which the country once boasted, might have been beneficial to the master without being detrimental to the servant; yet, in the present situation of our manufactures, rotting in warehouses, without a prospect of exportation, with the demand for work and workmen equally diminished, frames of this description tend materially to aggravate the distress and discontent of the disappointed sufferers. but the real cause of these distresses and consequent disturbances lies deeper. when we are told that these men are leagued together not only for the destruction of their own comfort, but of their very means of subsistence, can we forget that it is the bitter policy, the destructive warfare of the last eighteen years, which has destroyed their comfort, your comfort, all men's comfort? that policy, which, originating with "great statesmen now no more," has survived the dead to become a curse on the living, unto the third and fourth generation! these men never destroyed their looms till they were become useless, worse than useless; till they were become actual impediments to their exertions in obtaining their daily bread. can you, then, wonder that in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony, are found in a station not far beneath that of your lordships, the lowest, though once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? but while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for the wretched mechanic, who is famished into guilt. these men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them: their own means of subsistence were cut off, all other employments pre-occupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be subject of surprise. it has been stated that the persons in the temporary possession of frames connive at their destruction; if this be proved upon enquiry, it were necessary that such material accessories to the crime should be principles in the punishment. but i did hope, that any measure proposed by his majesty's government, for your lordships' decision, would have had conciliation for its basis; or, if that were hopeless, that some previous enquiry, some deliberation would have been deemed requisite; not that we should have been called at once without examination, and without cause, to pass sentences by wholesale, and sign death-warrants blindfold. but, admitting that these men had no cause of complaint; that the grievances of them and their employers were alike groundless; that they deserved the worst; what inefficiency, what imbecility has been evinced in the method chosen to reduce them! why were the military called out to be made a mockery of, if they were to be called out at all? as far as the difference of seasons would permit, they have merely parodied the summer campaign of major sturgeon; and, indeed, the whole proceedings, civil and military, seemed on the model of those of the mayor and corporation of garratt.--such marchings and counter-marchings! from nottingham to bullwell, from bullwell to banford, from banford to mansfield! and when at length the detachments arrived at their destination, in all "the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war," they came just in time to witness the mischief which had been done, and ascertain the escape of the perpetrators, to collect the "_spolia opima_" in the fragments of broken frames, and return to their quarters amidst the derision of old women, and the hootings of children. now, though, in a free country, it were to be wished, that our military should never be too formidable, at least to ourselves, i cannot see the policy of placing them in situations where they can only be made ridiculous. as the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last. in this instance it has been the first; but providentially as yet only in the scabbard. the present measure will, indeed, pluck it from the sheath; yet had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of these riots, had the grievances of these men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighed and justly examined, i do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquillity to the county. at present the county suffers from the double infliction of an idle military and a starving population. in what state of apathy have we been plunged so long, that now for the first time the house has been officially apprised of these disturbances? all this has been transacting within miles of london, and yet we, "good easy men, have deemed full sure our greatness was a ripening," and have sat down to enjoy our foreign triumphs in the midst of domestic calamity. but all the cities you have taken, all the armies which have retreated before your leaders, are but paltry subjects of self-congratulation, if your land divides against itself, and your dragoons and your executioners must be let loose against your fellow-citizens.--you call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous, and ignorant; and seem to think that the only way to quiet the "_bellua multorum capitum_" is to lop off a few of its superfluous heads. but even a mob may be better reduced to reason by a mixture of conciliation and firmness, than by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. are we aware of our obligations to a mob? it is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your houses,--that man your navy, and recruit your army,--that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair! you may call the people a mob; but do not forget, that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people. and here i must remark, with what alacrity you are accustomed to fly to the succour of your distressed allies, leaving the distressed of your own country to the care of providence or--the parish. when the portuguese suffered under the retreat of the french, every arm was stretched out, every hand was opened, from the rich man's largess to the widow's mite, all was bestowed, to enable them to rebuild their villages and replenish their granaries. and at this moment, when thousands of misguided but most unfortunate fellow-countrymen are struggling with the extremes of hardships and hunger, as your charity began abroad it should end at home. a much less sum, a tithe of the bounty bestowed on portugal, even if those men (which i cannot admit without enquiry) could not have been restored to their employments, would have rendered unnecessary the tender mercies of the bayonet and the gibbet. but doubtless our friends have too many foreign claims to admit a prospect of domestic relief; though never did such objects demand it. i have traversed the seat of war in the peninsula, i have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of turkey, but never under the most despotic of infidel governments did i behold such squalid wretchedness as i have seen since my return in the very heart of a christian country. and what are your remedies? after months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, the never-failing nostrum of all state physicians, from the days of draco to the present time. after feeling the pulse and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm water and bleeding, the warm water of your mawkish police, and the lancets of your military, these convulsions must terminate in death, the sure consummation of the prescriptions of all political sangrados. setting aside the palpable injustice and the certain inefficiency of the bill, are there not capital punishments sufficient in your statutes? is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to heaven and testify against you? how will you carry the bill into effect? can you commit a whole county to their own prisons? will you erect a gibbet in every field, and hang up men like scarecrows? or will you proceed (as you must to bring this measure into effect) by decimation? place the county under martial law? depopulate and lay waste all around you? and restore sherwood forest as an acceptable gift to the crown, in its former condition of a royal chase and an asylum for outlaws? are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace? will the famished wretch who has braved your bayonets be appalled by your gibbets? when death is a relief, and the only relief it appears that you will afford him, will he be dragooned into tranquillity? will that which could not be effected by your grenadiers, be accomplished by your executioners? if you proceed by the forms of law, where is your evidence? those who have refused to impeach their accomplices, when transportation only was the punishment, will hardly be tempted to witness against them when death is the penalty. with all due deference to the noble lords opposite, i think a little investigation, some previous enquiry would induce even them to change their purpose. that most favourite state measure, so marvellously efficacious in many and recent instances, temporising, would not be without its advantages in this. when a proposal is made to emancipate or relieve, you hesitate, you deliberate for years, you temporise and tamper with the minds of men; but a death-bill must be passed off hand, without a thought of the consequences. sure i am, from what i have heard, and from what i have seen, that to pass the hill under all the existing circumstances, without enquiry, without deliberation, would only be to add injustice to irritation, and barbarity to neglect. the framers of such a bill must be content to inherit the honours of that athenian lawgiver whose edicts were said to be written not in ink but in blood. but suppose it past; suppose one of these men, as i have seen them,--meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame;--suppose this man surrounded by the children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault that he can no longer so support;--suppose this man, and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims, dragged into court, to be tried for this new offence, by this new law; still, there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him; and these are, in my opinion,--twelve butchers for a jury, and a jefferies for a judge! debate on the earl of donoughmore's motion for a committee on the roman catholic claims, april . . lord byron rose and said:-- my lords,--the question before the house has been so frequently, fully, and ably discussed, and never perhaps more ably than on this night, that it would be difficult to adduce new arguments for or against it. but with each discussion, difficulties have been removed, objections have been canvassed and refuted, and some of the former opponents of catholic emancipation have at length conceded to the expediency of relieving the petitioners. in conceding thus much, however, a new objection is started; it is not the time, say they, or it is an improper time, or there is time enough yet. in some degree i concur with those who say, it is not the time exactly; that time is passed; better had it been for the country, that the catholics possessed at this moment their proportion of our privileges, that their nobles held their due weight in our councils, than that we should be assembled to discuss their claims. it had indeed been better-- "non tempore tali "cogere concilium cum muros obsidet hostis." the enemy is without, and distress within. it is too late to cavil on doctrinal points, when we must unite in defence of things more important than the mere ceremonies of religion. it is indeed singular, that we are called together to deliberate, not on the god we adore, for in that we are agreed; not about the king we obey, for to him we are loyal; but how far a difference in the ceremonials of worship, how far believing not too little, but too much (the worst that can be imputed to the catholics), how far too much devotion to their god may incapacitate our fellow-subjects from effectually serving their king. much has been said, within and without doors, of church and state, and although those venerable words have been too often prostituted to the most despicable of party purposes, we cannot hear them too often; all, i presume, are the advocates of church and state,--the church of christ, and the state of great britain; but not a state of exclusion and despotism, not an intolerant church, not a church militant, which renders itself liable to the very objection urged against the romish communion, and in a greater degree, for the catholic merely withholds its spiritual benediction (and even that is doubtful), but our church, or rather our churchmen, not only refuse to the catholic their spiritual grace, but all temporal blessings whatsoever. it was an observation of the great lord peterborough, made within these walls, or within the walls where the lords then assembled, that he was for a "parliamentary king and a parliamentary constitution, but not a parliamentary god and a parliamentary religion." the interval of a century has not weakened the force of the remark. it is indeed time that we should leave off these petty cavils on frivolous points, these lilliputian sophistries, whether our "eggs are best broken at the broad or narrow end." the opponents of the catholics may be divided into two classes; those who assert that the catholics have too much already, and those who allege that the lower orders, at least, have nothing more to require. we are told by the former, that the catholics never will be contented: by the latter, that they are already too happy. the last paradox is sufficiently refuted by the present as by all past petitions; it might as well be said, that the negroes did not desire to be emancipated, but this is an unfortunate comparison, for you have already delivered them out of the house of bondage without any petition on their part, but many from their task-masters to a contrary effect; and for myself, when i consider this, i pity the catholic peasantry for not having the good fortune to be born black. but the catholics are contented, or at least ought to be, as we are told; i shall, therefore, proceed to touch on a few of those circumstances which so marvellously contribute to their exceeding contentment. they are not allowed the free exercise of their religion in the regular army; the catholic soldier cannot absent himself from the service of the protestant clergyman, and unless he is quartered in ireland, or in spain, where can he find eligible opportunities of attending his own? the permission of catholic chaplains to the irish militia regiments was conceded as a special favour, and not till after years of remonstrance, although an act, passed in , established it as a right. but are the catholics properly protected in ireland? can the church purchase a rood of land whereon to erect a chapel? no! all the places of worship are built on leases of trust or sufferance from the laity, easily broken, and often betrayed. the moment any irregular wish, any casual caprice of the benevolent landlord meets with opposition, the doors are barred against the congregation. this has happened continually, but in no instance more glaringly, than at the town of newton-barry, in the county of wexford. the catholics enjoying no regular chapel, as a temporary expedient, hired two barns; which, being thrown into one, served for public worship. at this time, there was quartered opposite to the spot an officer whose mind appears to have been deeply imbued with those prejudices which the protestant petitions now on the table prove to have been fortunately eradicated from the more rational portion of the people; and when the catholics were assembled on the sabbath as usual, in peace and good-will towards men, for the worship of their god and yours, they found the chapel door closed, and were told that if they did not immediately retire (and they were told this by a yeoman officer and a magistrate), the riot act should be read, and the assembly dispersed at the point of the bayonet! this was complained of to the middle man of government, the secretary at the castle in , and the answer was (in lieu of redress), that he would cause a letter to be written to the colonel, to prevent, if possible, the recurrence of similar disturbances. upon this fact, no very great stress need be laid; but it tends to prove that while the catholic church has not power to purchase land for its chapels to stand upon, the laws for its protection are of no avail. in the mean time, the catholics are at the mercy of every "pelting petty officer," who may choose to play his "fantastic tricks before high heaven," to insult his god, and injure his fellow-creatures. every school-boy, any foot-boy (such have held commissions in our service), any foot-boy who can exchange his shoulder-knot for an epaulette, may perform all this and more against the catholic by virtue of that very authority delegated to him by his sovereign, for the express purpose of defending his fellow subjects to the last drop of his blood, without discrimination or distinction between catholic and protestant. have the irish catholics the full benefit of trial by jury? they have not; they never can have until they are permitted to share the privilege of serving as sheriffs and under-sheriffs. of this a striking example occurred at the last enniskillen assizes. a yeoman was arraigned for the murder of a catholic named macvournagh: three respectable, uncontradicted witnesses deposed that they saw the prisoner load, take aim, fire at, and kill the said macvournagh. this was properly commented on by the judge: but to the astonishment of the bar, and indignation of the court, the protestant jury acquitted the accused. so glaring was the partiality, that mr. justice osborne felt it his duty to bind over the acquitted, but not absolved assassin, in large recognizances; thus for a time taking away his license to kill catholics. are the very laws passed in their favour observed? they are rendered nugatory in trivial as in serious cases. by a late act, catholic chaplains are permitted in gaols, but in fermanagh county the grand jury lately persisted in presenting a suspended clergyman for the office, thereby evading the statute, notwithstanding the most pressing remonstrances of a most respectable magistrate, named fletcher, to the contrary. such is law, such is justice, for the happy, free, contented catholic! it has been asked, in another place, why do not the rich catholics endow foundations for the education of the priesthood? why do you not permit them to do so? why are all such bequests subject to the interference, the vexatious, arbitrary, peculating interference of the orange commissioners for charitable donations? as to maynooth college, in no instance, except at the time of its foundation, when a noble lord (camden), at the head of the irish administration, did appear to interest himself in its advancement; and during the government of a noble duke (bedford), who, like his ancestors, has ever been the friend of freedom and mankind, and who has not so far adopted the selfish policy of the day as to exclude the catholics from the number of his fellow-creatures; with these exceptions, in no instance has that institution been properly encouraged. there was indeed a time when the catholic clergy were conciliated, while the union was pending, that union which could not be carried without them, while their assistance was requisite in procuring addresses from the catholic counties; then they were cajoled and caressed, feared and flattered, and given to understand that "the union would do every thing;" but the moment it was passed, they were driven back with contempt into their former obscurity. in the conduct pursued towards maynooth college, every thing is done to irritate and perplex--every thing is done to efface the slightest impression of gratitude from the catholic mind; the very hay made upon the lawn, the fat and tallow of the beef and mutton allowed, must be paid for and accounted upon oath. it is true, this economy in miniature cannot sufficiently be commended, particularly at a time when only the insect defaulters of the treasury, your hunts and your chinnerys, when only those "gilded bugs" can escape the microscopic eye of ministers. but when you come forward, session after session, as your paltry pittance is wrung from you with wrangling and reluctance, to boast of your liberality, well might the catholic exclaim, in the words of prior:-- "to john i owe some obligation, but john unluckily thinks fit to publish it to all the nation, so john and i are more than quit." some persons have compared the catholics to the beggar in gil bias: who made them beggars? who are enriched with the spoils of their ancestors? and cannot you relieve the beggar when your fathers have made him such? if you are disposed to relieve him at all, cannot you do it without flinging your farthings in his face? as a contrast, however, to this beggarly benevolence, let us look at the protestant charter schools; to them you have lately granted , _l_.: thus are they supported, and how are they recruited? montesquieu observes on the english constitution, that the model may be found in tacitus, where the historian describes the policy of the germans, and adds, "this beautiful system was taken from the woods;" so in speaking of the charter schools, it may be observed, that this beautiful system was taken from the gipsies. these schools are recruited in the same manner as the janissaries at the time of their enrolment under amurath, and the gipsies of the present day with stolen children, with children decoyed and kidnapped from their catholic connections by their rich and powerful protestant neighbours: this is notorious, and one instance may suffice to show in what manner:--the sister of a mr. carthy (a catholic gentleman of very considerable property) died, leaving two girls, who were immediately marked out as proselytes, and conveyed to the charter school of coolgreny; their uncle, on being apprised of the fact, which took place during his absence, applied for the restitution of his nieces, offering to settle an independence on these his relations; his request was refused, and not till after five years' struggle, and the interference of very high authority, could this catholic gentleman obtain back his nearest of kindred from a charity charter school. in this manner are proselytes obtained, and mingled with the offspring of such protestants as may avail themselves of the institution. and how are they taught? a catechism is put into their hands, consisting of, i believe, forty-five pages, in which are three questions relative to the protestant religion; one of these queries is, "where was the protestant religion before luther?" answer, "in the gospel." the remaining forty-four pages and a half regard the damnable idolatry of papists! allow me to ask our spiritual pastors and masters, is this training up a child in the way which he should go? is this the religion of the gospel before the time of luther? that religion which preaches "peace on earth, and glory to god?" is it bringing up infants to be men or devils? better would it be to send them any where than teach them such doctrines; better send them to those islands in the south seas, where they might more humanely learn to become cannibals; it would be less disgusting that they were brought up to devour the dead, than persecute the living. schools do you call them? call them rather dunghills, where the viper of intolerance deposits her young, that when their teeth are cut and their poison is mature, they may issue forth, filthy and venomous, to sting the catholic. but are these the doctrines of the church of england, or of churchmen? no, the most enlightened churchmen are of a different opinion. what says paley? "i perceive no reason why men of different religious persuasions should not sit upon the same bench, deliberate in the same council, or fight in the same ranks, as well as men of various religious opinions, upon any controverted topic of natural history, philosophy, or ethics." it may be answered, that paley was not strictly orthodox; i know nothing of his orthodoxy, but who will deny that he was an ornament to the church, to human nature, to christianity? i shall not dwell upon the grievance of tithes, so severely felt by the peasantry, but it may be proper to observe, that there is an addition to the burden, a per centage to the gatherer, whose interest it thus becomes to rate them as highly as possible, and we know that in many large livings in ireland the only resident protestants are the tithe proctor and his family. amongst many causes of irritation, too numerous for recapitulation, there is one in the militia not to be passed over,--i mean the existence of orange lodges amongst the privates. can the officers deny this? and if such lodges do exist, do they, can they, tend to promote harmony amongst the men, who are thus individually separated in society, although mingled in the ranks? and is this general system of persecution to be permitted; or is it to be believed that with such a system the catholics can or ought to be contented? if they are, they belie human nature; they are then, indeed, unworthy to be any thing but the slaves you have made them. the facts stated are from most respectable authority, or i should not have dared in this place, or any place, to hazard this avowal. if exaggerated, there are plenty as willing, as i believe them to be unable, to disprove them. should it be objected that i never was in ireland, i beg leave to observe, that it is as easy to know something of ireland without having been there, as it appears with some to have been born, bred, and cherished there, and yet remain ignorant of its best interests. but there are who assert that the catholics have already been too much indulged. see (cry they) what has been done: we have given them one entire college, we allow them food and raiment, the full enjoyment of the elements, and leave to fight for us as long as they have limbs and lives to offer, and yet they are never to be satisfied!--generous and just declaimers! to this, and to this only, amount the whole of your arguments, when stript of their sophistry. those personages remind me of a story of a certain drummer, who, being called upon in the course of duty to administer punishment to a friend tied to the halberts, was requested to flog high, he did--to flog low, he did--to flog in the middle, he did,--high, low, down the middle, and up again, but all in vain; the patient continued his complaints with the most provoking pertinacity, until the drummer, exhausted and angry, flung down his scourge, exclaiming, "the devil burn you, there's no pleasing you, flog where one will!" thus it is, you have flogged the catholic high, low, here, there, and every where, and then you wonder he is not pleased. it is true that time, experience, and that weariness which attends even the exercise of barbarity, have taught you to flog a little more gently; but still you continue to lay on the lash, and will so continue, till perhaps the rod may be wrested from your hands, and applied to the backs of yourselves and your posterity. it was said by somebody in a former debate, (i forget by whom, and am not very anxious to remember,) if the catholics are emancipated, why not the jews? if this sentiment was dictated by compassion for the jews, it might deserve attention, but as a sneer against the catholic, what is it but the language of shylock transferred from his daughter's marriage to catholic emancipation-- "would any of the tribe of barabbas should have it rather than a christian." i presume a catholic is a christian, even in the opinion of him whose taste only can be called in question for his preference of the jews. it is a remark often quoted of dr. johnson, (whom i take to be almost as good authority as the gentle apostle of intolerance, dr. duigenan,) that he who could entertain serious apprehensions of danger to the church in these times, would have "cried fire in the deluge." this is more than a metaphor; for a remnant of these antediluvians appear actually to have come down to us, with fire in their mouths and water in their brains, to disturb and perplex mankind with their whimsical outcries. and as it is an infallible symptom of that distressing malady with which i conceive them to be afflicted (so any doctor will inform your lordships), for the unhappy invalids to perceive a flame perpetually flashing before their eyes, particularly when their eyes are shut (as those of the persons to whom i allude have long been), it is impossible to convince these poor creatures, that the fire against which they are perpetually warning us and themselves is nothing but an _ignis fatuus_ of their own drivelling imaginations. what rhubarb, senna, or "what purgative drug can scour that fancy thence?"--it is impossible, they are given over, theirs is the true "caput insanabile tribus anticyris." these are your true protestants. like bayle, who protested against all sects whatsoever, so do they protest against catholic petitions, protestant petitions, all redress, all that reason, humanity, policy, justice, and common sense, can urge against the delusions of their absurd delirium. these are the persons who reverse the fable of the mountain that brought forth a mouse; they are the mice who conceive themselves in labour with mountains. to return to the catholics; suppose the irish were actually contented under their disabilities; suppose them capable of such a bull as not to desire deliverance, ought we not to wish it for ourselves? have we nothing to gain by their emancipation? what resources have been wasted? what talents have been lost by the selfish system of exclusion? you already know the value of irish aid; at this moment the defence of england is intrusted to the irish militia; at this moment, while the starving people are rising in the fierceness of despair, the irish are faithful to their trust. but till equal energy is imparted throughout by the extension of freedom, you cannot enjoy the full benefit of the strength which you are glad to interpose between you and destruction. ireland has done much, but will do more. at this moment the only triumph obtained through long years of continental disaster has been achieved by an irish general: it is true he is not a catholic; had he been so, we should have been deprived of his exertions: but i presume no one will assert that his religion would have impaired his talents or diminished his patriotism; though, in that case, he must have conquered in the ranks, for he never could have commanded an army. but he is fighting the battles of the catholics abroad; his noble brother has this night advocated their cause, with an eloquence which i shall not depreciate by the humble tribute of my panegyric; whilst a third of his kindred, as unlike as unequal, has been combating against his catholic brethren in dublin, with circular letters, edicts, proclamations, arrests, and dispersions;--all the vexatious implements of petty warfare that could be wielded by the mercenary guerillas of government, clad in the rusty armour of their obsolete statutes. your lordships will, doubtless, divide new honours between the saviour of portugal, and the dispenser of delegates. it is singular, indeed, to observe the difference between our foreign and domestic policy; if catholic spain, faithful portugal, or the no less catholic and faithful king of the one sicily, (of which, by the by, you have lately deprived him,) stand in need of succour, away goes a fleet and an army, an ambassador and a subsidy, sometimes to fight pretty hardly, generally to negotiate very badly, and always to pay very dearly for our popish allies. but let four millions of fellow-subjects pray for relief, who fight and pay and labour in your behalf, they must be treated as aliens; and although their "father's house has many mansions," there is no resting-place for them. allow me to ask, are you not fighting for the emancipation of ferdinand vii., who certainly is a fool, and, consequently, in all probability a bigot? and have you more regard for a foreign sovereign than your own fellow-subjects, who are not fools, for they know your interest better than you know your own; who are not bigots, for they return you good for evil; but who are in worse durance than the prison of a usurper, inasmuch as the fetters of the mind are more galling than those of the body? upon the consequences of your not acceding to the claims of the petitioners, i shall not expatiate; you know them, you will feel them, and your children's children when you are passed away. adieu to that union so called, as "_lucus a non lucendo_," a union from never uniting, which in its first operation gave a death-blow to the independence of ireland, and in its last may be the cause of her eternal separation from this country. if it must be called a union, it is the union of the shark with his prey; the spoiler swallows up his victim, and thus they become one and indivisible. thus has great britain swallowed up the parliament, the constitution, the independence of ireland, and refuses to disgorge even a single privilege, although for the relief of her swollen and distempered body politic. and now, my lords, before i sit down, will his majesty's ministers permit me to say a few words, not on their merits, for that would be superfluous, but on the degree of estimation in which they are held by the people of these realms? the esteem in which they are held has been boasted of in a triumphant tone on a late occasion within these walls, and a comparison instituted between their conduct and that of noble lords on this side of the house. what portion of popularity may have fallen to the share of my noble friends (if such i may presume to call them), i shall not pretend to ascertain; but that of his majesty's ministers it were vain to deny. it is, to be sure, a little like the wind, "no one knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth," but they feel it, they enjoy it, they boast of it. indeed, modest and unostentatious as they are, to what part of the kingdom, even the most remote, can they flee to avoid the triumph which pursues them? if they plunge into the midland counties, there will they be greeted by the manufacturers, with spurned petitions in their hands, and those halters round their necks recently voted in their behalf, imploring blessings on the heads of those who so simply, yet ingeniously, contrived to remove them from their miseries in this to a better world. if they journey on to scotland, from glasgow to johnny groats, every where will they receive similar marks of approbation. if they take a trip from portpatrick to donaghadee, there will they rush at once into the embraces of four catholic millions, to whom their vote of this night is about to endear them for ever. when they return to the metropolis, if they can pass under temple bar without unpleasant sensations at the sight of the greedy niches over that ominous gateway, they cannot escape the acclamations of the livery, and the more tremulous, but not less sincere, applause, the blessings, "not loud but deep," of bankrupt merchants and doubting stock-holders. if they look to the army, what wreaths, not of laurel, but of nightshade, are preparing for the heroes of walcheren. it is true, there are few living deponents left to testify to their merits on that occasion; but a "cloud of witnesses" are gone above from that gallant army which they so generously and piously despatched, to recruit the "noble army of martyrs." what if in the course of this triumphal career (in which they will gather as many pebbles as caligula's army did on a similar triumph, the prototype of their own,) they do not perceive any of those memorials which a grateful people erect in honour of their benefactors; what although not even a sign-post will condescend to depose the saracen's head in favour of the likeness of the conquerors of walcheren, they will not want a picture who can always have a caricature; or regret the omission of a statue who will so often see themselves exalted in effigy. but their popularity is not limited to the narrow bounds of an island; there are other countries where their measures, and above all, their conduct to the catholics, must render them preeminently popular. if they are beloved here, in france they must be adored. there is no measure more repugnant to the designs and feelings of bonaparte than catholic emancipation; no line of conduct more propitious to his projects, than that which has been pursued, is pursuing, and, i fear, will be pursued, towards ireland. what is england without ireland, and what is ireland without the catholics? it is on the basis of your tyranny napoleon hopes to build his own. so grateful must oppression of the catholics be to his mind, that doubtless (as he has lately permitted some renewal of intercourse) the next cartel will convey to this country cargoes of seve-china and blue ribands, (things in great request, and of equal value at this moment,) blue ribands of the legion of honour for dr. duigenan and his ministerial disciples. such is that well-earned popularity, the result of those extraordinary expeditions, so expensive to ourselves, and so useless to our allies; of those singular enquiries, so exculpatory to the accused and so dissatisfactory to the people; of those paradoxical victories, so honourable, as we are told, to the british name, and so destructive to the best interests of the british nation: above all, such is the reward of a conduct pursued by ministers towards the catholics. i have to apologise to the house, who will, i trust, pardon one, not often in the habit of intruding upon their indulgence, for so long attempting to engage their attention. my most decided opinion is, as my vote will be, in favour of the motion. * * * * * debate on major cartwright's petition, june . . lord byron rose and said:-- my lords,--the petition which i now hold for the purpose of presenting to the house, is one which i humbly conceive requires the particular attention of your lordships, inasmuch as, though signed but by a single individual, it contains statements which (if not disproved) demand most serious investigation. the grievance of which the petitioner complains is neither selfish nor imaginary. it is not his own only, for it has been, and is still felt by numbers. no one without these walls, nor indeed within, but may to-morrow be made liable to the same insult and obstruction, in the discharge of an imperious duty for the restoration of the true constitution of these realms, by petitioning for reform in parliament. the petitioner, my lords, is a man whose long life has been spent in one unceasing struggle for the liberty of the subject, against that undue influence which has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished; and whatever difference of opinion may exist as to his political tenets, few will be found to question the integrity of his intentions. even now oppressed with years, and not exempt from the infirmities attendant on his age, but still unimpaired in talent, and unshaken in spirit--"_frangas non fleetes_"--he has received many a wound in the combat against corruption; and the new grievance, the fresh insult of which he complains, may inflict another scar, but no dishonour. the petition is signed by john cartwright, and it was in behalf of the people and parliament, in the lawful pursuit of that reform in the representation, which is the best service to be rendered both to parliament and people, that he encountered the wanton outrage which forms the subject-matter of his petition to your lordships. it is couched in firm, yet respectful language--in the language of a man, not regardless of what is due to himself, but at the same time, i trust, equally mindful of the deference to be paid to this house. the petitioner states, amongst other matter of equal, if not greater importance, to all who are british in their feelings, as well as blood and birth, that on the st january, , at huddersfield, himself and six other persons, who, on hearing of his arrival, had waited on him merely as a testimony of respect, were seized by a military and civil force, and kept in close custody for several hours, subjected to gross and abusive insinuation from the commanding officer, relative to the character of the petitioner; that he (the petitioner) was finally carried before a magistrate, and not released till an examination of his papers proved that there was not only no just, but not even statutable charge against him; and that, notwithstanding the promise and order from the presiding magistrates of a copy of the warrant against your petitioner, it was afterwards withheld on divers pretexts, and has never until this hour been granted. the names and condition of the parties will be found in the petition. to the other topics touched upon in the petition, i shall not now advert, from a wish not to encroach upon the time of the house; but i do most sincerely call the attention of your lordships to its general contents--it is in the cause of the parliament and people that the rights of this venerable freeman have been violated, and it is, in my opinion, the highest mark of respect that could be paid to the house, that to your justice, rather than by appeal to any inferior court, he now commits, himself. whatever may be the fate of his remonstrance, it is some satisfaction to me, though mixed with regret for the occasion, that i have this opportunity of publicly stating the obstruction to which the subject is liable, in the prosecution of the most lawful and imperious of his duties, the obtaining by petition reform in parliament. i have shortly stated his complaint; the petitioner has more fully expressed it. your lordships will, i hope, adopt some measure fully to protect and redress him, and not him alone, but the whole body of the people, insulted and aggrieved in his person, by the interposition of an abused civil, and unlawful military force between them and their right of petition to their own representatives. his lordship then presented the petition from major cartwright, which was read, complaining of the circumstances at huddersfield, and of interruptions given to the right of petitioning in several places in the northern parts of the kingdom, and which his lordship moved should be laid on the table. several lords having spoken on the question, lord byron replied, that he had, from motives of duty, presented this petition to their lordships' consideration. the noble earl had contended, that it was not a petition, but a speech; and that, as it contained no prayer, it should not be received. what was the necessity of a prayer? if that word were to be used in its proper sense, their lordships could not expect that any man should pray to others. he had only to say, that the petition, though in some parts expressed strongly perhaps, did not contain any improper mode of address, but was couched in respectful language towards their lordships; he should therefore trust their lordships would allow the petition to be received. a fragment.[ ] [footnote : during a week of rain at diodati, in the summer of , the party having amused themselves with reading german ghost stories, they agreed at last to write something in imitation of them. "you and i," said lord byron to mrs. shelley, "will publish ours together." he then began his tale of the vampire; and, having the whole arranged in his head, repeated to them a sketch of the story one evening;--but, from the narrative being in prose, made but little progress in filling up his outline. the most memorable result, indeed, of their storytelling compact, was mrs. shelley's wild and powerful romance of frankenstein.--moore. "i began it," says lord byron, "in an old account book of miss milbanke's, which i kept because it contains the word 'household,' written by her twice on the inside blank page of the covers; being the only two scraps i have in the world in her writing, except her name to the deed of separation."] _june_ . . in the year --, having for some time determined on a journey through countries not hitherto much frequented by travellers, i set out, accompanied by a friend, whom i shall designate by the name of augustus darvell. he was a few years my elder, and a man of considerable fortune and ancient family; advantages which an extensive capacity prevented him alike from undervaluing or overrating. some peculiar circumstances in his private history had rendered him to me an object of attention, of interest, and even of regard, which neither the reserve of his manners, nor occasional indications of an inquietude at times nearly approaching to alienation of mind, could extinguish. i was yet young in life, which i had begun early; but my intimacy with him was of a recent date: we had been educated at the same schools and university; but his progress through these had preceded mine, and he had been deeply initiated, into what is called the world, while i was yet in my noviciate. while thus engaged, i heard much both of his past and present life; and, although in these accounts there were many and irreconcileable contradictions, i could still gather from the whole that he was a being of no common order, and one who, whatever pains he might take to avoid remark, would still be remarkable. i had cultivated his acquaintance subsequently, and endeavoured to obtain his friendship, but this last appeared to be unattainable; whatever affections he might have possessed, seemed now, some to have been extinguished, and others to be concentred: that his feelings were acute, i had sufficient opportunities of observing; for, although he could control, he could not altogether disguise them: still he had a power of giving to one passion the appearance of another, in such a manner that it was difficult to define the nature of what was working within him; and the expressions of his features would vary so rapidly, though slightly, that it was useless to trace them to their sources. it was evident that he was a prey to some cureless disquiet; but whether it arose from ambition, love, remorse, grief, from one or all of these, or merely from a morbid temperament akin to disease, i could not discover: there were circumstances alleged, which might have justified the application to each of these causes; but, as i have before said, these were so contradictory and contradicted, that none could be fixed upon with accuracy. where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil: i know not how this may be, but in him there certainly was the one, though i could not ascertain the extent of the other--and felt loth, as far as regarded himself, to believe in its existence. my advances were received with sufficient coldness; but i was young, and not easily discouraged, and at length succeeded in obtaining, to a certain degree, that common-place intercourse and moderate confidence of common and every-day concerns, created and cemented by similarity of pursuit and frequency of meeting, which is called intimacy, or friendship, according to the ideas of him who uses those words to express them. darvell had already travelled extensively; and to him i had applied for information with regard to the conduct of my intended journey. it was my secret wish that he might be prevailed on to accompany me; it was also a probable hope, founded upon the shadowy restlessness which i observed in him, and to which the animation which he appeared to feel on such subjects, and his apparent indifference to all by which he was more immediately surrounded, gave fresh strength. this wish i first hinted, and then expressed: his answer, though i had partly expected it, gave me all the pleasure of surprise--he consented; and, after the requisite arrangement, we commenced our voyages. after journeying through various countries of the south of europe, our attention was turned towards the east, according to our original destination; and it was in my progress through those regions that the incident occurred upon which will turn what i may have to relate. the constitution of darvell, which must from his appearance have been in early life more than usually robust, had been for some time gradually giving way, without the intervention of any apparent disease: he had neither cough nor hectic, yet he became daily more enfeebled: his habits were temperate, and he neither declined nor complained of fatigue; yet he was evidently wasting away: he became more and more silent and sleepless, and at length so seriously altered, that my alarm grew proportionate to what i conceived to be his danger. we had determined, on our arrival at smyrna, on an excursion to the ruins of ephesus and sardis, from which i endeavoured to dissuade him in his present state of indisposition--but in vain: there appeared to be an oppression on his mind, and a solemnity in his manner, which ill corresponded with his eagerness to proceed on what i regarded as a mere party of pleasure, little suited to a valetudinarian; but i opposed him no longer--and in a few days we set off together, accompanied only by a serrugee and a single janizary. we had passed halfway towards the remains of ephesus, leaving behind us the more fertile environs of smyrna, and were entering upon that wild and tenantless track through the marshes and defiles which lead to the few huts yet lingering over the broken columns of diana--the roofless walls of expelled christianity, and the still more recent but complete desolation of abandoned mosques--when the sudden and rapid illness of my companion obliged us to halt at a turkish cemetery, the turbaned tombstones of which were the sole indication that human life had ever been a sojourner in this wilderness. the only caravansera we had seen was left some hours behind us, not a vestige of a town or even cottage was within sight or hope, and this "city of the dead" appeared to be the sole refuge for my unfortunate friend, who seemed on the verge of becoming the last of its inhabitants. in this situation, i looked round for a place where he might most conveniently repose:--contrary to the usual aspect of mahometan burial-grounds, the cypresses were in this few in number, and these thinly scattered over its extent: the tombstones were mostly fallen, and worn with age:--upon one of the most considerable of these, and beneath one of the most spreading trees, darvell supported himself, in a half-reclining posture, with great difficulty. he asked for water. i had some doubts of our being able to find any, and prepared to go in search of it with hesitating despondency: but he desired me to remain; and turning to suleiman, our janizary, who stood by us smoking with great tranquillity, he said, "suleiman, verbana su," (_i.e._ bring some water,) and went on describing the spot where it was to be found with great minuteness, at a small well for camels, a few hundred yards to the right: the janizary obeyed. i said to darvell, "how did you know this?"--he replied, "from our situation; you must perceive that this place was once inhabited, and could not have been so without springs: i have also been here before." "you have been here before!--how came you never to mention this to me? and what could you be doing in a place where no one would remain a moment longer than they could help it?" to this question i received no answer. in the mean time suleiman returned with the water, leaving the serrugee and the horses at the fountain. the quenching of his thirst had the appearance of reviving him for a moment; and i conceived hopes of his being able to proceed, or at least to return, and i urged the attempt. he was silent--and appeared to be collecting his spirits for an effort to speak. he began. "this is the end of my journey, and of my life;--i came here to die: but i have a request to make, a command--for such my last words must be.--you will observe it?" "most certainly; but have better hopes." "i have no hopes, nor wishes, but this--conceal my death from every human being." "i hope there will be no occasion; that you will recover, and----" "peace!--it must be so: promise this." "i do." "swear it, by all that"----he here dictated an oath of great solemnity. "there is no occasion for this--i will observe your request; and to doubt me is----" "it cannot be helped,--you must swear." i took the oath: it appeared to relieve him. he removed a seal ring from his finger, on which were some arabic characters, and presented it to me. he proceeded-- "on the ninth day of the month, at noon precisely (what month you please, but this must be the day), you must fling this ring into the salt springs which run into the bay of eleusis: the day after, at the same hour, you must repair to the ruins of the temple of ceres, and wait one hour." "why?" "you will see." "the ninth day of the month, you say?" "the ninth." as i observed that the present was the ninth day of the month; his countenance changed, and he paused. as he sat, evidently becoming more feeble, a stork, with a snake in her beak, perched upon a tombstone near us; and, without devouring her prey, appeared to be steadfastly regarding us. i know not what impelled me to drive it away, but the attempt was useless; she made a few circles in the air, and returned exactly to the same spot. darvell pointed to it, and smiled: he spoke--i know not whether to himself or to me--but the words were only, "'tis well!" "what is well? what do you mean?" "no matter: you must bury me here this evening, and exactly where that bird is now perched. you know the rest of my injunctions." he then proceeded to give me several directions as to the manner in which his death might be best concealed. after these were finished, he exclaimed, "you perceive that bird?" "certainly." "and the serpent writhing in her beak?" "doubtless: there is nothing uncommon in it; it is her natural prey. but it is odd that she does not devour it." he smiled in a ghastly manner, and said, faintly, "it is not yet time!" as he spoke, the stork flew away. my eyes followed it for a moment--it could hardly be longer than ten might be counted. i felt darvell's weight, as it were, increase upon my shoulder, and, turning to look upon his face, perceived that he was dead! i was shocked with the sudden certainty which could not be mistaken--his countenance in a few minutes became nearly black. i should have attributed so rapid a change to poison, had i not been aware that he had no opportunity of receiving it unperceived. the day was declining, the body was rapidly altering, and nothing remained but to fulfil his request. with the aid of suleiman's ataghan and my own sabre, we scooped a shallow grave upon the spot which darvell had indicated: the earth easily gave way, having already received some mahometan tenant. we dug as deeply as the time permitted us, and throwing the dry earth upon all that remained of the singular being so lately departed, we cut a few sods of greener turf from the less withered soil around us, and laid them upon his sepulchre. between astonishment and grief, i was tearless. * * * * * letter to john murray, esq. on the rev. w.l. bowles's strictures on the life and writings of pope. * * * * * "i'll play at _bowls_ with the sun and moon."--old song. "my mither's auld, sir, and she has rather forgotten hersel in speaking to my leddy, that canna weel bide to be contradickit, (as i ken nobody likes it, if they could help themsels.)" tales of my landlord, _old mortality_, vol. ii. p. . * * * * * ravenna, february . . dear sir, in the different pamphlets which you have had the goodness to send me, on the pope and bowles' controversy, i perceive that my name is occasionally introduced by both parties. mr. bowles refers more than once to what he is pleased to consider "a remarkable circumstance," not only in his letter to mr. campbell, but in his reply to the quarterly. the quarterly also and mr. gilchrist have conferred on me the dangerous honour of a quotation; and mr. bowles indirectly makes a kind of appeal to me personally, by saying, "lord byron, _if he remembers_ the circumstance, will _witness_"--_(witness_ in italics, an ominous character for a testimony at present). i shall not avail myself of a "non mi ricordo," even after so long a residence in italy;--i _do_ "remember the circumstance,"--and have no reluctance to relate it (since called upon so to do), as correctly as the distance of time and the impression of intervening events will permit me. in the year , more than three years after the publication of "english bards and scotch reviewers," i had the honour of meeting mr. bowles in the house of our venerable host of "human life," &c. the last argonaut of classic english poetry, and the nestor of our inferior race of living poets. mr. bowles calls this "soon after" the publication; but to me three years appear a considerable segment of the immortality of a modern poem. i recollect nothing of "the rest of the company going into another room,"--nor, though i well remember the topography of our host's elegant and classically furnished mansion, could i swear to the very room where the conversation occurred, though the "taking _down_ the poem" seems to fix it in the library. had it been "taken _up_" it would probably have been in the drawing-room. i presume also that the "remarkable circumstance" took place _after_ dinner; as i conceive that neither mr. bowles's politeness nor appetite would have allowed him to detain "the rest of the company" standing round their chairs in the "other room," while we were discussing "the woods of madeira," instead of circulating its vintage. of mr. bowles's "good humour" i have a full and not ungrateful recollection; as also of his gentlemanly manners and agreeable conversation. i speak of the _whole_, and not of particulars; for whether he did or did not use the precise words printed in the pamphlet, i cannot say, nor could he with accuracy. of "the tone of seriousness" i certainly recollect nothing: on the contrary, i thought mr. bowles rather disposed to treat the subject lightly: for he said (i have no objection to be contradicted if incorrect), that some of his good-natured friends had come to him and exclaimed, "eh! bowles! how came you to make the woods of madeira?" &c. &c. and that he had been at some pains and pulling down of the poem to convince them that he had never made "the woods" do any thing of the kind. he was right, and _i was wrong,_ and have been wrong still up to this acknowledgment; for i ought to have looked twice before i wrote that which involved an inaccuracy capable of giving pain. the fact was, that, although i had certainly before read "the spirit of discovery," i took the quotation from the review. but the mistake was mine, and not the _review's,_ which quoted the passage correctly enough, i believe. i blundered--god knows how--into attributing the tremors of the lovers to "the woods of madeira," by which they were surrounded. and i hereby do fully and freely declare and asseverate, that the woods did _not_ tremble to a kiss, and that the lovers did. i quote from memory-- ------"a kiss stole on the listening silence, &c. &c. they [the lovers] trembled, even as if the power," &c. and if i had been aware that this declaration would have been in the smallest degree satisfactory to mr. bowles, i should not have waited nine years to make it, notwithstanding that "english bards and scotch reviewers" had been suppressed some time previously to my meeting him at mr. rogers's. our worthy host might indeed have told him as much, as it was at his representation that i suppressed it. a new edition of that lampoon was preparing for the press, when mr. rogers represented to me, that "i was _now_ acquainted with many of the persons mentioned in it, and with some on terms of intimacy;" and that he knew "one family in particular to whom its suppression would give pleasure." i did not hesitate one moment, it was cancelled instantly; and it is no fault of mine that it has ever been republished. when i left england, in april, , with no very violent intentions of troubling that country again, and amidst scenes of various kinds to distract my attention,--almost my last act, i believe, was to sign a power of attorney, to yourself, to prevent or suppress any attempts (of which several had been made in ireland) at a republication. it is proper that i should state, that the persons with whom i was subsequently acquainted, whose names had occurred in that publication, were made my acquaintances at their own desire, or through the unsought intervention of others. i never, to the best of my knowledge, sought a personal introduction to any. some of them to this day i know only by correspondence; and with one of those it was begun by myself, in consequence, however, of a polite verbal communication from a third person. i have dwelt for an instant on these circumstances, because it has sometimes been made a subject of bitter reproach to me to have endeavoured to _suppress_ that satire. i never shrunk, as those who know me know, from any personal consequences which could be attached to its publication. of its subsequent suppression, as i possessed the copyright, i was the best judge and the sole master. the circumstances which occasioned the suppression i have now stated; of the motives, each must judge according to his candour or malignity. mr. bowles does me the honour to talk of "noble mind," and "generous magnanimity;" and all this because "the circumstance would have been explained had not the book been suppressed." i see no "nobility of mind" in an act of simple justice; and i hate the word "_magnanimity,"_ because i have sometimes seen it applied to the grossest of impostors by the greatest of fools; but i would have "explained the circumstance," notwithstanding "the suppression of the book," if mr. bowles had expressed any desire that i should. as the "gallant galbraith" says to "baillie jarvie," "well, the devil take the mistake, and all that occasioned it." i have had as great and greater mistakes made about me personally and poetically, once a month for these last ten years, and never cared very much about correcting one or the other, at least after the first eight and forty hours had gone over them. i must now, however, say a word or two about pope, of whom you have my opinion more at large in the unpublished letter _on_ or _to_ (for i forget which) the editor of "blackwood's edinburgh magazine;"--and here i doubt that mr. bowles will not approve of my sentiments. although i regret having published "english bards and scotch reviewers," the part which i regret the least is that which regards mr. bowles with reference to pope. whilst i was writing that publication, in and , mr. hobhouse was desirous that i should express our mutual opinion of pope, and of mr. bowles's edition of his works. as i had completed my outline, and felt lazy, i requested that _he_ would do so. he did it. his fourteen lines on bowles's pope are in the first edition of "english bards and scotch reviewers;" and are quite as severe and much more poetical than my own in the second. on reprinting the work, as i put my name to it, i omitted mr. hobhouse's lines, and replaced them with my own, by which the work gained less than mr. bowles. i have stated this in the preface to the second edition. it is many years since i have read that poem; but the quarterly review, mr. octavius gilchrist, and mr. bowles himself, have been so obliging as to refresh my memory, and that of the public. i am grieved to say, that in reading over those lines, i repent of their having so far fallen short of what i meant to express upon the subject of bowles's edition of pope's works. mr. bowles says, that "lord byron _knows_ he does _not_ deserve this character." i know no such thing. i have met mr. bowles occasionally, in the best society in london; he appeared to me an amiable, well-informed, and extremely able man. i desire nothing better than to dine in company with such a mannered man every day in the week: but of "his character" i know nothing personally; i can only speak to his manners, and these have my warmest approbation. but i never judge from manners, for i once had my pocket picked by the civilest gentleman i ever met with; and one of the mildest persons i ever saw was all pacha. of mr. bowles's "_character_" i will not do him the _injustice_ to judge from the edition of pope, if he prepared it heedlessly; nor the _justice,_ should it be otherwise, because i would neither become a literary executioner nor a personal one. mr. bowles the individual, and mr. bowles the editor, appear the two most opposite things imaginable. "and he himself one--antithesis." i won't say "vile," because it is harsh; nor "mistaken," because it has two syllables too many: but every one must fill up the blank as he pleases. what i saw of mr. bowles increased my surprise and regret that he should ever have lent his talents to such a task. if he had been a fool, there would have been some excuse for him; if he had been a needy or a bad man, his conduct would have been intelligible: but he is the opposite of all these; and thinking and feeling as i do of pope, to me the whole thing is unaccountable. however, i must call things by their right names. i cannot call his edition of pope a "candid" work; and i still think that there is an affectation of that quality not only in those volumes, but in the pamphlets lately published. "why _yet_ he doth _deny_ his prisoners." mr. bowles says, that "he has seen passages in his letters to martha blount which were never published by me, and i _hope never will_ be by others; which are so _gross_ as to imply the _grossest_ licentiousness." is this fair play? it may, or it may not be that such passages exist; and that pope, who was not a monk, although a catholic, may have occasionally sinned in word and deed with woman in his youth: but is this a sufficient ground for such a sweeping denunciation? where is the unmarried englishman of a certain rank of life, who (provided he has not taken orders) has not to reproach himself between the ages of sixteen and thirty with far more licentiousness than has ever yet been traced to pope? pope lived in the public eye from his youth upwards; he had all the dunces of his own time for his enemies, and, i am sorry to say, some, who have not the apology of dulness for detraction, since his death; and yet to what do all their accumulated hints and charges amount?--to an equivocal _liaison_ with martha blount, which might arise as much from his infirmities as from his passions; to a hopeless flirtation with lady mary w. montagu; to a story of cibber's; and to two or three coarse passages in his works. _who_ could come forth clearer from an invidious inquest on a life of fifty-six years? why are we to be officiously reminded of such passages in his letters, provided that they exist. is mr. bowles aware to what such rummaging among "letters" and "stories" might lead? i have myself seen a collection of letters of another eminent, nay, pre-eminent, deceased poet, so abominably gross, and elaborately coarse, that i do not believe that they could be paralleled in our language. what is more strange, is, that some of these are couched as _postscripts_ to his serious and sentimental letters, to which are tacked either a piece of prose, or some verses, of the most hyperbolical indecency. he himself says, that if "obscenity (using a much coarser word) be the sin against the holy ghost, he most certainly cannot be saved." these letters are in existence, and have been seen by many besides myself; but would his _editor_ have been "_candid_" in even alluding to them? nothing would have even provoked _me_, an indifferent spectator, to allude to them, but this further attempt at the depreciation of pope. what should we say to an editor of addison, who cited the following passage from walpole's letters to george montagu? "dr. young has published a new book, &c. mr. addison sent for the young earl of warwick, as he was dying, to show him in what peace a christian could die; unluckily he died of _brandy:_ nothing makes a christian die in peace like being maudlin! but don't say this in gath where you are." suppose the editor introduced it with this preface: "one circumstance is mentioned by horace walpole, which, if true, was indeed _flagitious_. walpole informs montagu that addison sent for the young earl of warwick, when dying, to show him in what peace a christian could die; but unluckily he died drunk," &c. &c. now, although there might occur on the subsequent, or on the same page, a faint show of disbelief, seasoned with the expression of "the _same candour_" (the _same_ exactly as throughout the book), i should say that this editor was either foolish or false to his trust; such a story ought not to have been admitted, except for one brief mark of crushing indignation, unless it were _completely proved._ why the words "_if true_?" that "_if"_ is not a peacemaker. why talk of "cibber's testimony" to his licentiousness? to what does this amount? that pope when very young was _once_ decoyed by some noblemen and the player to a house of carnal recreation. mr. bowles was not always a clergyman; and when he was a very young man, was he never seduced into as much? if i were in the humour for story-telling, and relating little anecdotes, i could tell a much better story of mr. bowles than cibber's, upon much better authority, viz. that of mr. bowles himself. it was not related by _him_ in my presence, but in that of a third person, whom mr. bowles names oftener than once in the course of his replies. this gentleman related it to me as a humorous and witty anecdote; and so it was, whatever its other characteristics might be. but should i, for a youthful frolic, brand mr. bowles with a "libertine sort of love," or with "licentiousness?" is he the less now a pious or a good man, for not having always been a priest? no such thing; i am willing to believe him a good man, almost as good a man as pope, but no better. the truth is, that in these days the grand "_primum mobile"_ of england is _cant;_ cant political, cant poetical, cant religious, cant moral; but always cant, multiplied through all the varieties of life. it is the fashion, and while it lasts will be too powerful for those who can only exist by taking the tone of the time. i say _cant,_ because it is a thing of words, without the smallest influence upon human actions; the english being no wiser, no better, and much poorer, and more divided amongst themselves, as well as far less moral, than they were before the prevalence of this verbal decorum. this hysterical horror of poor pope's not very well ascertained, and never fully proved amours (for even cibber owns that he prevented the somewhat perilous adventure in which pope was embarking) sounds very virtuous in a controversial pamphlet; but all men of the world who know what life is, or at least what it was to them in their youth, must laugh at such a ludicrous foundation of the charge of "a libertine sort of love;" while the more serious will look upon those who bring forward such charges upon an insulated fact as fanatics or hypocrites, perhaps both. the two are sometimes compounded in a happy mixture. mr. octavius gilchrist speaks rather irreverently of a "second tumbler of _hot_ white-wine negus." what does he mean? is there any harm in negus? or is it the worse for being _hot_? or does mr. bowles drink negus? i had a better opinion of him. i hoped that whatever wine he drank was neat; or, at least, that, like the ordinary in jonathan wild, "he preferred _punch,_ the rather as there was nothing against it in scripture." i should be sorry to believe that mr. bowles was fond of negus; it is such a "candid" liquor, so like a wishy-washy compromise between the passion for wine and the propriety of water. but different writers have divers tastes. judge blackstone composed his "commentaries" (he was a poet too in his youth) with a bottle of port before him. addison's conversation was not good for much till he had taken a similar dose. perhaps the prescription of these two great men was not inferior to the very different one of a soi-disant poet of this day, who, after wandering amongst the hills, returns, goes to bed, and dictates his verses, being fed by a by-stander with bread and butter during the operation. i now come to mr. bowles's "invariable principles of poetry." these mr. bowles and some of his correspondents pronounce "unanswerable;" and they are "unanswered," at least by campbell, who seems to have been astounded by the title. the sultan of the time being offered to ally himself to a king of france because "he hated the word league;" which proves that the padishan understood french. mr. campbell has no need of my alliance, nor shall i presume to offer it; but i do hate that word "_invariable_." what is there of _human_, be it poetry, philosophy, wit, wisdom, science, power, glory, mind, matter, life, or death, which is "_invariable_?" of course i put things divine out of the question. of all arrogant baptisms of a book, this title to a pamphlet appears the most complacently conceited. it is mr. campbell's part to answer the contents of this performance, and especially to vindicate his own "ship," which mr. bowles most triumphantly proclaims to have struck to his very first fire. "quoth he, there was a _ship;_ now let me go, thou grey-haired loon, or my staff shall make thee skip." it is no affair of mine, but having once begun, (certainly not by my own wish, but called upon by the frequent recurrence to my name in the pamphlets,) i am like an irishman in a "row," "any body's customer." i shall therefore say a word or two on the "ship." mr. bowles asserts that campbell's "ship of the line" derives all its poetry, not from "_art_," but from "_nature_." "take away the waves, the winds, the sun, &c. &c. _one_ will become a stripe of blue bunting; and the other a piece of coarse canvass on three tall poles." very true; take away the "waves," "the winds," and there will be no ship at all, not only for poetical, but for any other purpose; and take away "the sun," and we must read mr. bowles's pamphlet by candle-light. but the "poetry" of the "ship" does _not_ depend on "the waves," &c.; on the contrary, the "ship of the line" confers its own poetry upon the waters, and heightens _theirs._ i do not deny, that the "waves and winds," and above all "the sun," are highly poetical; we know it to our cost, by the many descriptions of them in verse: but if the waves bore only the foam upon their bosoms, if the winds wafted only the sea-weed to the shore, if the sun shone neither upon pyramids, nor fleets, nor fortresses, would its beams be equally poetical? i think not: the poetry is at least reciprocal. take away "the ship of the line" "swinging round" the "calm water," and the calm water becomes a somewhat monotonous thing to look at, particularly if not transparently _clear_; witness the thousands who pass by without looking on it at all. what was it attracted the thousands to the launch? they might have seen the poetical "calm water" at wapping, or in the "london dock," or in the paddington canal, or in a horse-pond, or in a slop-basin, or in any other vase. they might have heard the poetical winds howling through the chinks of a pigsty, or the garret window; they might have seen the sun shining on a footman's livery, or on a brass warming pan; but could the "calm water," or the "wind," or the "sun," make all, or any of these "poetical?" i think not. mr. bowles admits "the ship" to be poetical, but only from those accessaries: now if they _confer_ poetry so as to make one thing poetical, they would make other things poetical; the more so, as mr. bowles calls a "ship of the line" without them,--that is to say, its "masts and sails and streamers,"--"blue bunting," and "coarse canvass," and "tall poles." so they are; and porcelain is clay, and man is dust, and flesh is grass, and yet the two latter at least are the subjects of much poesy. did mr. bowles ever gaze upon the sea? i presume that he has, at least upon a sea-piece. did any painter ever paint the sea _only_, without the addition of a ship, boat, wreck, or some such adjunct? is the sea itself a more attractive, a more moral, a more poetical object, with or without a vessel, breaking its vast but fatiguing monotony? is a storm more poetical without a ship? or, in the poem of the shipwreck, is it the storm or the ship which most interests? both _much_ undoubtedly; but without the vessel, what should we care for the tempest? it would sink into mere descriptive poetry, which in itself was never esteemed a high order of that art. i look upon myself as entitled to talk of naval matters, at least to poets:--with the exception of walter scott, moore, and southey, perhaps, who have been voyagers, i have _swam_ more miles than all the rest of them together now living ever _sailed_, and have lived for months and months on shipboard; and, during the whole period of my life abroad, have scarcely ever passed a month out of sight of the ocean: besides being brought up from two years till ten on the brink of it. i recollect, when anchored off cape sigeum in , in an english frigate, a violent squall coming on at sunset, so violent as to make us imagine that the ship would part cable, or drive from her anchorage. mr. hobhouse and myself, and some officers, had been up the dardanelles to abydos, and were just returned in time. the aspect of a storm in the archipelago is as poetical as need be, the sea being particularly short, dashing, and dangerous, and the navigation intricate and broken by the isles and currents. cape sigeum, the tumuli of the troad, lemnos, tenedos, all added to the associations of the time. but what seemed the most "_poetical_" of all at the moment, were the numbers (about two hundred) of greek and turkish craft, which were obliged to "cut and run" before the wind, from their unsafe anchorage, some for tenedos, some for other isles, some for the main, and some it might be for eternity. the sight of these little scudding vessels, darting over the foam in the twilight, now appearing and now disappearing between the waves in the cloud of night, with their peculiarly _white_ sails, (the levant sails not being of "_coarse canvass_," but of white cotton,) skimming along as quickly, but less safely than the sea-mews which hovered over them; their evident distress, their reduction to fluttering specks in the distance, their crowded succession, their _littleness_, as contending with the giant element, which made our stout forty-four's _teak_ timbers (she was built in india) creak again; their aspect and their motion, all struck me as something far more "poetical" than the mere broad, brawling, shipless sea, and the sullen winds, could possibly have been without them. the euxine is a noble sea to look upon, and the port of constantinople the most beautiful of harbours, and yet i cannot but think that the twenty sail of the line, some of one hundred and forty guns, rendered it more "poetical" by day in the sun, and by night perhaps still more, for the turks illuminate their vessels of war in a manner the most picturesque, and yet all this is _artificial_. as for the euxine, i stood upon the symplegades--i stood by the broken altar still exposed to the winds upon one of them--i felt all the "_poetry_" of the situation, as i repeated the first lines of medea; but would not that "poetry" have been heightened by the _argo_? it was so even by the appearance of any merchant vessel arriving from odessa. but mr. bowles says, "why bring your ship off the stocks?" for no reason that i know, except that ships are built to be launched. the water, &c. undoubtedly heightens the poetical associations, but it does not _make_ them; and the ship amply repays the obligation: they aid each other; the water is more poetical with the ship--the ship less so without the water. but even a ship laid up in dock, is a grand and a poetical sight. even an old boat, keel upwards, wrecked upon the barren sand, is a "poetical" object, (and wordsworth, who made a poem about a washing tub and a blind boy, may tell you so as well as i,) whilst a long extent of sand and unbroken water, without the boat, would be as like dull prose as any pamphlet lately published. what makes the poetry in the image of the "_marble waste of tadmor_," or grainger's "ode to solitude," so much admired by johnson? is it the "_marble_" or the "_waste,_" the _artificial_ or the _natural_ object? the "waste" is like all other _wastes_; but the "_marble_" of palmyra makes the poetry of the passage as of the place. the beautiful but barren hymettus, the whole coast of attica, her hills and mountains, pentelicus, anchesmus, philopappus, &c. &c. are in themselves poetical, and would be so if the name of athens, of athenians, and her very ruins, were swept from the earth. but am i to be told that the "nature" of attica would be _more_ poetical without the "art" of the acropolis? of the temple of theseus? and of the still all greek and glorious monuments of her exquisitely artificial genius? ask the traveller what strikes him as most poetical, the parthenon, or the rock on which it stands? the columns of cape colonna, or the cape itself? the rocks at the foot of it, or the recollection that falconer's _ship_ was bulged upon them? there are a thousand rocks and capes far more picturesque than those of the acropolis and cape sunium in themselves; what are they to a thousand scenes in the wilder parts of greece, of asia minor, switzerland, or even of cintra in portugal, or to many scenes of italy, and the sierras of spain? but it is the "_art_," the columns, the temples, the wrecked vessel, which give them their antique and their modern poetry, and not the spots themselves. without them, the _spots_ of earth would be unnoticed and unknown; buried, like babylon and nineveh, in indistinct confusion, without poetry, as without existence; but to whatever spot of earth these ruins were transported, if they were _capable_ of transportation, like the obelisk, and the sphinx, and the memnon's head, _there_ they would still exist in the perfection of their beauty, and in the pride of their poetry. i opposed, and will ever oppose, the robbery of ruins from athens, to instruct the english in sculpture; but why did i do so? the _ruins_ are as poetical in piccadilly as they were in the parthenon; but the parthenon and its rock are less so without them. such is the poetry of art. mr. bowles contends again that the pyramids of egypt are poetical, because of "the association with boundless deserts," and that a "pyramid of the same dimensions" would not be sublime in "lincoln's inn fields:" not _so_ poetical certainly; but take away the "pyramids," and what is the "_desert?"_ take away stone-henge from salisbury plain, and it is nothing more than hounslow heath, or any other unenclosed down. it appears to me that st. peter's, the coliseum, the pantheon, the palatine, the apollo, the laocoon, the venus di medicis, the hercules, the dying gladiator, the moses of michael angelo, and all the higher works of canova, (i have already spoken of those of ancient greece, still extant in that country, or transported to england,) are as _poetical_ as mont blanc or mount Ætna, perhaps still more so, as they are direct manifestations of mind, and _presuppose_ poetry in their very conception; and have, moreover, as being such, a something of actual life, which cannot belong to any part of inanimate nature, unless we adopt the system of spinosa, that the world is the deity. there can be nothing more poetical in its aspect than the city of venice: does this depend upon the sea, or the canals?-- "the dirt and sea-weed whence proud venice rose?" is it the canal which runs between the palace and the prison, or the "bridge of sighs," which connects them, that render it poetical? is it the "canal grande," or the rialto which arches it, the churches which tower over it, the palaces which line, and the gondolas which glide over the waters, that render this city more poetical than rome itself? mr. bowles will say, perhaps, that the rialto is but marble, the palaces and churches only stone, and the gondolas a "coarse" black cloth, thrown over some planks of carved wood, with a shining bit of fantastically formed iron at the prow, "_without_" the water. and i tell him that without these, the water would be nothing but a clay-coloured ditch; and whoever says the contrary, deserves to be at the bottom of that, where pope's heroes are embraced by the mud nymphs. there would be nothing to make the canal of venice more poetical than that of paddington, were it not for the artificial adjuncts above mentioned; although it is a perfectly natural canal, formed by the sea, and the innumerable islands which constitute the site of this extraordinary city. the very cloaca of tarquin at rome are as poetical as richmond hill; many will think more so: take away rome, and leave the tibur and the seven hills, in the nature of evander's time. let mr. bowles, or mr. wordsworth, or mr. southey, or any of the other "naturals," make a poem upon them, and then see which is most poetical, their production, or the commonest guide-book, which tells you the road from st. peter's to the coliseum, and informs you what you will see by the way. the ground interests in virgil, because it _will_ be _rome_, and not because it is evander's rural domain. mr. bowles then proceeds to press homer into his service, in answer to a remark of mr. campbell's, that "homer was a great describer of works of art." mr. bowles contends, that all his great power, even in this, depends upon their connection with nature. the "shield of achilles derives its poetical interest from the subjects described on it." and from what does the _spear_ of achilles derive its interest? and the helmet and the mail worn by patroclus, and the celestial armour, and the very brazen greaves of the well-booted greeks? is it solely from the legs, and the back, and the breast, and the human body, which they enclose? in that case, it would have been more poetical to have made them fight naked; and gulley and gregson, as being nearer to a state of nature, are more poetical boxing in a pair of drawers than hector and achilles in radiant armour, and with heroic weapons. instead of the clash of helmets, and the rushing of chariots, and the whizzing of spears, and the glancing of swords, and the cleaving of shields, and the piercing of breast-plates, why not represent the greeks and trojans like two savage tribes, tugging and tearing, and kicking and biting, and gnashing, foaming, grinning, and gouging, in all the poetry of martial nature, unencumbered with gross, prosaic, artificial arms; an equal superfluity to the natural warrior, and his natural poet. is there any thing unpoetical in ulysses striking the horses of rhesus with _his bow_ (having forgotten his thong), or would mr. bowles have had him kick them with his foot, or smack them with his hand, as being more unsophisticated? in gray's elegy, is there an image more striking than his "shapeless sculpture?" of sculpture in general, it may be observed, that it is more poetical than nature itself, inasmuch as it represents and bodies forth that ideal beauty and sublimity which is never to be found in actual nature. this at least is the general opinion. but, always excepting the venus di medicis, i differ from that opinion, at least as far as regards female beauty; for the head of lady charlemont (when i first saw her nine years ago) seemed to possess all that sculpture could require for its ideal. i recollect seeing something of the same kind in the head of an albanian girl, who was actually employed in mending a road in the mountains, and in some greek, and one or two italian, faces. but of _sublimity_, i have never seen any thing in human nature at all to approach the expression of sculpture, either in the apollo, the moses, or other of the sterner works of ancient or modern art. let us examine a little further this "babble of green fields" and of bare nature in general as superior to artificial imagery, for the poetical purposes of the fine arts. in landscape painting, the great artist does not give you a literal copy of a country, but he invents and composes one. nature, in her actual aspect, does not furnish him with such existing scenes as he requires. even where he presents you with some famous city, or celebrated scene from mountain or other nature, it must be taken from some particular point of view, and with such light, and shade, and distance, &c. as serve not only to heighten its beauties, but to shadow its deformities. the poetry of nature alone, _exactly_ as she appears, is not sufficient to bear him out. the very sky of his painting is not the _portrait_ of the sky of nature; it is a composition of different _skies_, observed at different times, and not the whole copied from any _particular_ day. and why? because nature is not lavish of her beauties; they are widely scattered, and occasionally displayed, to be selected with care, and gathered with difficulty. of sculpture i have just spoken. it is the great scope of the sculptor to heighten nature into heroic beauty, _i.e._ in plain english, to surpass his model. when canova forms a statue, he takes a limb from one, a hand from another, a feature from a third, and a shape, it may be, from a fourth, probably at the same time improving upon all, as the greek of old did in embodying his venus. ask a portrait painter to describe his agonies in accommodating the faces with which nature and his sitters have crowded his painting-room to the principles of his art: with the exception of perhaps ten faces in as many millions, there is not one which he can venture to give without shading much and adding more. nature, exactly, simply, barely nature, will make no great artist of any kind, and least of all a poet--the most artificial, perhaps, of all artists in his very essence. with regard to natural imagery, the poets are obliged to take some of their best illustrations from _art_. you say that a "fountain is as clear or clearer than _glass_" to express its beauty:-- "o fons bandusiæ, splendidior vitro!" in the speech of mark antony, the body of cæsar is displayed, but so also is his _mantle_:-- "you all do know this _mantle_," &c. * * * * * "look! in this place ran cassius' _dagger_ through." if the poet had said that cassius had run his _fist_ through the rent of the mantle, it would have had more of mr. bowles's "nature" to help it; but the artificial _dagger_ is more poetical than any natural _hand_ without it. in the sublime of sacred poetry, "who is this that cometh from edom? with _dyed garments_ from bozrah?" would "the comer" be poetical without his "_dyed garments?_" which strike and startle the spectator, and identify the approaching object. the mother of sisera is represented listening for the "_wheels of his chariot_." solomon, in his song, compares the nose of his beloved to "a tower," which to us appears an eastern exaggeration. if he had said, that her stature was like that of a "tower's," it would have been as poetical as if he had compared her to a tree. "the virtuous marcia _towers_ above her sex," is an instance of an artificial image to express a _moral_ superiority. but solomon, it is probable, did not compare his beloved's nose to a "tower" on account of its length, but of its symmetry; and making allowance for eastern hyperbole, and the difficulty of finding a discreet image for a female nose in nature, it is perhaps as good a figure as any other. art is _not_ inferior to nature for poetical purposes. what makes a regiment of soldiers a more noble object of view than the same mass of mob? their arms, their dresses, their banners, and the _art_ and artificial symmetry of their position and movements. a highlander's plaid, a mussulman's turban, and a roman toga, are more poetical than the tattooed or untattooed buttocks of a new sandwich savage, although they were described by william wordsworth himself like the "idiot in his glory." i have seen as many mountains as most men, and more fleets than the generality of landsmen; and, to my mind, a large convoy with a few sail of the line to conduct them is as noble and as poetical a prospect as all that inanimate nature can produce. i prefer the "mast of some great ammiral," with all its tackle, to the scotch fir or the alpine tannen; and think that _more_ poetry _has been_ made out of it. in what does the infinite superiority of "falconer's shipwreck" over all other shipwrecks consist? in his admirable application of the terms of his art; in a poet-sailor's description of the sailor's fate. these _very terms_, by his application, make the strength and reality of his poem. why? because he was a poet, and in the hands of a poet, _art_ will not be found less ornamental than nature. it is precisely in general nature, and in stepping out of his element, that falconer fails; where he digresses to speak of ancient greece, and "such branches of learning." in dyer's grongar hill, upon which his fame rests, the very appearance of nature herself is moralised into an artificial image: "thus is nature's _vesture_ wrought, to instruct our wandering thought; thus she _dresses green and gay_, to disperse our cares away." and here also we have the telescope; the misuse of which, from milton, has rendered mr. bowles so triumphant over mr. campbell:-- "so we mistake the future's face, eyed through hope's deluding _glass_." and here a word en passant to mr. campbell:-- "as yon summits, soft and fair clad in colours of the air, which to those who journey near barren, brown, and rough appear, still we tread the same coarse way-- the present's still a cloudy day." is not this the original of the far-famed-- "'tis distance lends enchantment to the view, and robes the mountain in its azure hue?" to return once more to the sea. let any one look on the long wall of malamocco, which curbs the adriatic, and pronounce between the sea and its master. surely that roman work (i mean _roman_ in conception and performance), which says to the ocean, "thus far shalt thou come, and no further," and is obeyed, is not less sublime and poetical than the angry waves which vainly break beneath it. mr. bowles makes the chief part of a ship's poesy depend upon the "_wind:_" then why is a ship under sail more poetical than a hog in a high wind? the hog is all nature, the ship is all art, "coarse canvass," "blue bunting," and "tall poles;" both are violently acted upon by the wind, tossed here and there, to and fro, and yet nothing but excess of hunger could make me look upon the pig as the more poetical of the two, and then only in the shape of a griskin. will mr. bowles tell us that the poetry of an aqueduct consist in the _water_ which it conveys? let him look on that of justinian, on those of rome, constantinople, lisbon, and elvas, or even at the remains of that in attica. we are asked, "what makes the venerable towers of westminster abbey more poetical, as objects, than the tower for the manufactory of patent shot, surrounded by the same scenery?" i will answer--the _architecture_. turn westminster abbey, or saint paul's into a powder magazine, their poetry, as objects, remains the same; the parthenon was actually converted into one by the turks, during morosini's venetian siege, and part of it destroyed in consequence. cromwell's dragoons stalled their steeds in worcester cathedral; was it less poetical as an object than before? ask a foreigner on his approach to london, what strikes him as the most poetical of the towers before him: he will point out saint paul's and westminster abbey, without, perhaps, knowing the names or associations of either, and pass over the "tower for patent shot,"--not that, for any thing he knows to the contrary, it might not be the mausoleum of a monarch, or a waterloo column, or a trafalgar monument, but because its architecture is obviously inferior. to the question, "whether the description of a game of cards be as poetical, supposing the execution of the artists equal, as a description of a walk in a forest?" it may be answered, that the _materials_ are certainly not equal; but that "the _artist_," who has rendered the "game of cards poetical," is _by far the greater_ of the two. but all this "ordering" of poets is purely arbitrary on the part of mr. bowles. there may or may not be, in fact, different "orders" of poetry, but the poet is always ranked according to his execution, and not according to his branch of the art. tragedy is one of the highest presumed orders. hughes has written a tragedy, and a very successful one; fenton another; and pope none. did any man, however,--will even mr. bowles himself,--rank hughes and fenton as poets above _pope_? was even addison (the author of cato), or rowe (one of the higher order of dramatists as far as success goes), or young, or even otway and southerne, ever raised for a moment to the same rank with pope in the estimation of the reader or the critic, before his death or since? if mr. bowles will contend for classifications of this kind, let him recollect that descriptive poetry has been ranked as among the lowest branches of the art, and description as a mere ornament, but which should never form the "subject" of a poem. the italians, with the most poetical language, and the most fastidious taste in europe, possess now five _great_ poets, they say, dante, petrarch, ariosto, tasso, and, lastly, alfieri[ ]; and whom do they esteem one of the highest of these, and some of them the very highest? petrarch the _sonneteer_: it is true that some of his canzoni are _not less_ esteemed, but _not_ more; who ever dreams of his latin africa? [footnote : of these there is one ranked with the others for his sonnets, and _two_ for compositions which belong to _no class_ at all? where is dante? his poem is not an epic; then what is it? he himself calls it a "divine comedy;" and why? this is more than all his thousand commentators have been able to explain. ariosto's is not an _epic_ poem; and if poets are to be _classed_ according to the _genus_ of their poetry, where is he to be placed? of these five, tasso and alfieri only come within aristotle's arrangement, and mr. bowles's class-book. but the whole position is false. poets are classed by the power of their performance, and not according to its rank in a gradus. in the contrary case, the forgotten epic poets of all countries would rank above petrarch, dante, ariosto, burns, gray, dryden, and the highest names of various countries. mr. bowles's title of "_invariable_ principles of poetry," is, perhaps, the most arrogant ever prefixed to a volume. so far are the principles of poetry from being "_invariable_," that they never were nor ever will be settled. these "principles" mean nothing more than the predilections of a particular age; and every age has its own, and a different from its predecessor. it is now homer, and now virgil; once dryden, and since walter scott; now corneille, and now racine; now crebillon, now voltaire. the homerists and virgilians in france disputed for half a century. not fifty years ago the italians neglected dante--bettinelli reproved monti for reading "that barbarian;" at present they adore him. shakspeare and milton have had their rise, and they will have their decline. already they have more than once fluctuated, as must be the case with all the dramatists and poets of a living language. this does not depend upon their merits, but upon the ordinary vicissitudes of human opinions. schlegel and madame de stael have endeavoured also to reduce poetry to _two_ systems, classical and romantic. the effect is only beginning.] were petrarch to be ranked according to the "order" of his compositions, where would the best of sonnets place him? with dante and the others? no; but, as i have before said, the poet who _executes_ best, is the highest, whatever his department, and will ever be so rated in the world's esteem. had gray written nothing but his elegy, high as he stands, i am not sure that he would not stand higher; it is the corner-stone of his glory: without it, his odes would be insufficient for his fame. the depreciation of pope is partly founded upon a false idea of the dignity of his order of poetry, to which he has partly contributed by the ingenuous boast, "that not in fancy's maze he wandered long, but _stoop'd_ to truth, and moralised his song." he should have written "rose to truth." in my mind, the highest of all poetry is ethical poetry, as the highest of all earthly objects must be moral truth. religion does not make a part of my subject; it is something beyond human powers, and has failed in all human hands except milton's and dante's, and even dante's powers are involved in his delineation of human passions, though in supernatural circumstances. what made socrates the greatest of men? his moral truth--his ethics. what proved jesus christ the son of god hardly less than his miracles? his moral precepts. and if ethics have made a philosopher the first of men, and have not been disdained as an adjunct to his gospel by the deity himself, are we to be told that ethical poetry, or didactic poetry, or by whatever name you term it, whose object is to make men better and wiser, is not the _very first order_ of poetry; and are we to be told this too by one of the priesthood? it requires more mind, more wisdom, more power, than all the "forests" that ever were "walked" for their "description," and all the epics that ever were founded upon fields of battle. the georgics are indisputably, and, i believe, _undisputedly_ even a finer poem than the Æneid. virgil knew this; he did not order _them_ to be burnt. "the proper study of mankind is man." it is the fashion of the day to lay great stress upon what they call "imagination" and "invention," the two commonest of qualities: an irish peasant with a little whiskey in his head will imagine and invent more than would furnish forth a modern poem. if lucretius had not been spoiled by the epicurean system, we should have had a far superior poem to any now in existence. as mere poetry, it is the first of latin poems. what then has ruined it? his ethics. pope has not this defect; his moral is as pure as his poetry is glorious. in speaking of artificial objects, i have omitted to touch upon one which i will now mention. cannon may be presumed to be as highly poetical as art can make her objects. mr. bowles will, perhaps, tell me that this is because they resemble that grand natural article of sound in heaven, and simile upon earth--thunder. i shall be told triumphantly, that milton made sad work with his artillery, when he armed his devils therewithal. he did so; and this artificial object must have had much of the sublime to attract his attention for such a conflict. he _has_ made an absurd use of it; but the absurdity consists not in using _cannon_ against the angels of god, but any _material_ weapon. the thunder of the clouds would have been as ridiculous and vain in the hands of the devils, as the "villanous saltpetre:" the angels were as impervious to the one as to the other. the thunderbolts become sublime in the hands of the almighty not as such, but because _he_ deigns to use them as a means of repelling the rebel spirits; but no one can attribute their defeat to this grand piece of natural electricity: the almighty willed, and they fell; his word would have been enough; and milton is as absurd, (and, in fact, _blasphemous_,) in putting material lightnings into the hands of the godhead, as in giving him hands at all. the artillery of the demons was but the first step of his mistake, the thunder the next, and it is a step lower. it would have been fit for jove, but not for jehovah. the subject altogether was essentially unpoetical; he has made more of it than another could, but it is beyond him and all men. in a portion of his reply, mr. bowles asserts that pope "envied phillips," because he quizzed his pastorals in the guardian, in that most admirable model of irony, his paper on the subject. if there was any thing enviable about phillips, it could hardly be his pastorals. they were despicable, and pope expressed his contempt. if mr. fitzgerald published a volume of sonnets, or a "spirit of discovery," or a "missionary," and mr. bowles wrote in any periodical journal an ironical paper upon them, would this be "envy?" the authors of the "rejected addresses" have ridiculed the sixteen or twenty "first living poets" of the day, but do they "envy" them? "envy" writhes, it don't laugh. the authors of the rejected addresses may despise some, but they can hardly "envy" any of the persons whom they have parodied; and pope could have no more envied phillips than he did welsted, or theobald, or smedley, or any other given hero of the dunciad. he could not have envied him, even had he himself _not_ been the greatest poet of his age. did mr. ings "_envy_" mr. phillips when he asked him, "how came your pyrrhus to drive oxen and say, i am _goaded_ on by love?" this question silenced poor phillips; but it no more proceeded from "envy" than did pope's ridicule. did he envy swift? did he envy bolingbroke? did he envy gay the unparalleled success of his "beggar's opera?" we may be answered that these were his friends--true: but does _friendship_ prevent _envy_? study the first woman you meet with, or the first scribbler, let mr. bowles himself (whom i acquit fully of such an odious quality) study some of his own poetical intimates: the most envious man i ever heard of is a poet, and a high one; besides, it is an _universal_ passion. goldsmith envied not only the puppets for their dancing, and broke his shins in the attempt at rivalry, but was seriously angry because two pretty women received more attention than he did. _this is envy;_ but where does pope show a sign of the passion? in that case dryden envied the hero of his mac flecknoe. mr. bowles compares, when and where he can, pope with cowper--(the same cowper whom in his edition of pope he laughs at for his attachment to an old woman, mrs. unwin; search and you will find it; i remember the passage, though not the page;) in particular he requotes cowper's dutch delineation of a wood, drawn up, like a seedsman's catalogue[ ], with an affected imitation of milton's style, as burlesque as the "splendid shilling." these two writers, for cowper is no poet, come into comparison in one great work, the translation of homer. now, with all the great, and manifest, and manifold, and reproved, and acknowledged, and uncontroverted faults of pope's translation, and all the scholarship, and pains, and time, and trouble, and blank verse of the other, who can ever read cowper? and who will ever lay down pope, unless for the original? pope's was "not homer, it was spondanus;" but cowper's is not homer either, it is not even cowper. as a child i first read pope's homer with a rapture which no subsequent work could ever afford, and children are not the worst judges of their own language. as a boy i read homer in the original, as we have all done, some of us by force, and a few by favour; under which description i come is nothing to the purpose, it is enough that i read him. as a man i have tried to read cowper's version, and i found it impossible. has any human reader ever succeeded? [footnote : i will submit to mr. bowles's own judgment a passage from another poem of cowper's, to be compared with the same writer's sylvan sampler. in the lines to mary,-- "thy _needles_, once a shining store, for my sake restless heretofore, now rust disused, and shine no more, my mary," contain a simple, household, "_indoor_," artificial, and ordinary image; i refer mr. bowles to the stanza, and ask if these three lines about "_needles_" are not worth all the boasted twaddling about trees, so triumphantly re-quoted? and yet, in _fact_, what do they convey? a homely collection of images and ideas, associated with the darning of stockings, and the hemming of shirts, and the mending of breeches; but will any one deny that they are eminently poetical and pathetic as addressed by cowper to his nurse? the trash of trees reminds me of a saying of sheridan's. soon after the "rejected address" scene in , i met sheridan. in the course of dinner, he said, "lord byron, did you know that, amongst the writers of addresses, was whitbread himself?" i answered by an enquiry of what sort of an address he had made. "of that," replied sheridan, "i remember little, except that there was a _phoenix_ in it."--"a phoenix!! well, how did he describe it?"--"_like a poulterer_," answered sheridan: "it was green, and yellow, and red, and blue: he did not let us off for a single feather." and just such as this poulterer's account of a phoenix is cowper's stick-picker's detail of a wood, with all its petty minutiæ of this, that, and the other.] and now that we have heard the catholic repreached with envy, duplicity, licentiousness, avarice--what was the calvinist? he attempted the most atrocious of crimes in the christian code, viz. suicide--and why? because he was to be examined whether he was fit for an office which he seems to wish to have made a sinecure. his connection with mrs. unwin was pure enough, for the old lady was devout, and he was deranged; but why then is the infirm and then elderly pope to be reproved for his connection with martha blount: cowper was the almoner of mrs. throgmorton; but pope's charities were his own, and they were noble and extensive, far beyond his fortune's warrant. pope was the tolerant yet steady adherent of the most bigoted of sects; and cowper the most bigoted and despondent sectary that ever anticipated damnation to himself or others. is this harsh? i know it is, and i do not assert it as my opinion of cowper _personally_, but to _show what might_ be said, with just as great an appearance of truth and candour, as all the odium which has been accumulated upon pope in similar speculations. cowper was a good man, and lived at a fortunate time for his works. [footnote: one more poetical instance of the power of art, and even its _superiority_ over nature, in poetry; and i have done:--the bust of _antinous_! is there any thing in nature like this marble, excepting the venus? can there be more _poetry_ gathered into existence than in that wonderful creation of perfect beauty? but the poetry of this bust is in no respect derived from nature, nor from any association of moral exaltedness; for what is there in common with moral nature, and the male minion of adrian? the very execution is _not natural_, but _super_-natural, or rather _super-artificial,_ for nature has never done so much. away, then, with this cant about nature, and "invariable principles of poetry!" a great artist will make a block of stone as sublime as a mountain, and a good poet can imbue a pack of cards with more poetry than inhabits the forests of america. it is the business and the proof of a poet to give the lie to the proverb, and sometimes to "_make a silken purse out of a sow's ear_;" and to conclude with another homely proverb, "a good workman will not find fault with his tools."] mr. bowles, apparently not relying entirely upon his own arguments, has, in person or by proxy, brought forward the names of southey and moore. mr. southey "agrees entirely with mr. bowles in his _invariable_ principles of poetry." the least that mr. bowles can do in return is to approve the "invariable principles of mr. southey." i should have thought that the word "_invariable_" might have stuck in southey's throat, like macbeth's "amen!" i am sure it did in mine, and i am not the least consistent of the two, at least as a voter. moore _(et tu, brute!_) also approves, and a mr. j. scott. there is a letter also of two lines from a gentleman in asterisks, who, it seems, is a poet of "the highest rank:"--who _can_ this be? not my friend, sir walter, surely. campbell it can't be; rogers it won't be. "you have _hit the nail in_ the head, and * * * * [pope, i presume] _on_ the head also. "i _remain_ yours, affectionately, "(five _asterisks_.)" and in asterisks let him remain. whoever this person may be, he deserves, for such a judgment of midas, that "the nail" which mr. bowles has "hit _in_ the head," should he driven through his own ears; i am sure that they are long enough. the attempt of the poetical populace of the present day to obtain an ostracism against pope is as easily accounted for as the athenian's shell against aristides; they are tired of hearing him always called "the just." they are also fighting for life; for, if he maintains his station, they will reach their own by falling. they have raised a mosque by the side of a grecian temple of the purest architecture; and, more barbarous than the barbarians from whose practice i have borrowed the figure, they are not contented with their own grotesque edifice, unless they destroy the prior, and purely beautiful fabric which preceded, and which shames them and theirs for ever and ever. i shall be told that amongst those i _have_ been (or it may be, still _am_) conspicuous--true, and i am ashamed of it. i _have_ been amongst the builders of this babel, attended by a confusion of tongues, but _never_ amongst the envious destroyers of the classic temple of our predecessor. i have loved and honoured the fame and name of that illustrious and unrivalled man, far more than my own paltry renown, and the trashy jingle of the crowd of "schools" and upstarts, who pretend to rival, or even surpass him. sooner than a single leaf should be torn from his laurel, it were better that all which these men, and that i, as one of their set, have ever written, should "line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row, befringe the rails of bedlam, or soho!" there are those who will believe this, and those who will not. you, sir, know how far i am sincere, and whether my opinion, not only in the short work intended for publication, and in private letters which can never be published, has or has not been the same. i look upon this as the declining age of english poetry; no regard for others, no selfish feeling, can prevent me from seeing this, and expressing the truth. there can be no worse sign for the taste of the times than the depreciation of pope. it would be better to receive for proof mr. cobbett's rough but strong attack upon shakspeare and milton, than to allow this smooth and "candid" undermining of the reputation of the most _perfect_ of our poets, and the purest of our moralists. of his power in the _passions_, in description, in the mock heroic, i leave others to descant. i take him on his strong ground as an _ethical_ poet: in the former, none excel; in the mock heroic and the ethical, none equal him; and in my mind, the latter is the highest of all poetry, because it does that in _verse_, which the greatest of men have wished to accomplish in prose. if the essence of poetry must be a _lie_, throw it to the dogs, or banish it from your republic, as plato would have done. he who can reconcile poetry with truth and wisdom, is the only true "_poet_" in its real sense, "the _maker_" "the _creator_,"--why must this mean the "liar," the "feigner," the "tale-teller?" a man may make and create better things than these. i shall not presume to say that pope is as high a poet as shakspeare and milton, though his enemy, warton, places him immediately under them.[ ] i would no more say this than i would assert in the mosque (once saint sophia's), that socrates was a greater man than mahomet. but if i say that he is very near them, it is no more than has been asserted of burns, who is supposed "to rival all but shakspeare's name below." [footnote : if the opinions cited by mr. bowles, of dr. johnson _against_ pope, are to be taken as decisive authority, they will also hold good against gray, milton, swift, thomson, and dryden: in that case what becomes of gray's poetical, and milton's moral character? even of milton's _poetical_ character, or, indeed, of _english_ poetry in general? for johnson strips many a leaf from every laurel. still johnson's is the finest critical work extant, and can never be read without instruction and delight.] i say nothing against this opinion. but of what "_order_," according to the poetical aristocracy, are burns's poems? there are his _opus magnum_, "tam o'shanter," a _tale_; the cotter's saturday night, a descriptive sketch; some others in the same style: the rest are songs. so much for the _rank_ of his _productions_; the _rank_ of _burns_ is the very first of his art. of pope i have expressed my opinion elsewhere, as also of the effect which the present attempts at poetry have had upon our literature. if any great national or natural convulsion could or should overwhelm your country in such sort, as to sweep great britain from the kingdoms of the earth, and leave only that, after all, the most living of human things, a _dead language_, to be studied and read, and imitated by the wise of future and far generations, upon foreign shores; if your literature should become the learning of mankind, divested of party cabals, temporary fashions, and national pride and prejudice; an englishman, anxious that the posterity of strangers should know that there had been such a thing as a british epic and tragedy, might wish for the preservation of shakspeare and milton; but the surviving world would snatch pope from the wreck, and let the rest sink with the people. he is the moral poet of all civilisation; and as such, let us hope that he will one day be the national poet of mankind. he is the only poet that never shocks; the only poet whose _faultlessness_ has been made his reproach. cast your eye over his productions; consider their extent, and contemplate their variety:--pastoral, passion, mock heroic, translation, satire, ethics,--all excellent, and often perfect. if his great charm be his _melody_, how comes it that foreigners adore him even in their diluted translations? but i have made this letter too long. give my compliments to mr. bowles. yours ever, very truly, byron. _to john murray, esq_. _post scriptum_.--long as this letter has grown, i find it necessary to append a postscript; if possible, a short one. mr. bowles denies that he has accused pope of "a sordid money-getting passion;" but, he adds, "if i had ever done so, i should be glad to find any testimony that, might show he was _not_ so." this testimony he may find to his heart's content in spence and elsewhere. first, there is martha blount, who, mr. bowles charitably says, "probably thought he did not save enough for her, as legatee." whatever she _thought_ upon this point, her words are in pope's favour. then there is alderman barber; see spence's anecdotes. there is pope's cold answer to halifax when he proposed a pension; his behaviour to craggs and to addison upon like occasions, and his own two lines-- "and, thanks to homer, since i live and thrive, indebted to no prince or peer alive;" written when princes would have been proud to pension, and peers to promote him, and when the whole army of dunces were in array against him, and would have been but too happy to deprive him of this boast of independence. but there is something a little more serious in mr. bowles's declaration, that he "_would_ have spoken" of his "noble generosity to the outcast richard savage," and other instances of a compassionate and generous heart, "_had they occurred to his recollection when he wrote_." what! is it come to this? does mr. bowles sit down to write a minute and laboured life and edition of a great poet? does he anatomise his character, moral and poetical? does he present us with his faults and with his foibles? does he sneer at his feelings, and doubt of his sincerity? does he unfold his vanity and duplicity? and then omit the good qualities which might, in part, have "covered this multitude of sins?" and then plead that "_they did not occur to his recollection_?" is this the frame of mind and of memory with which the illustrious dead are to be approached? if mr. bowles, who must have had access to all the means of refreshing his memory, did not recollect these facts, he is unfit for his task; but if he _did_ recollect and omit them, i know not what he is fit for, but i know what would be fit for him. is the plea of "not recollecting" such prominent facts to be admitted? mr. bowles has been at a public school, and as i have been publicly educated also, i can sympathise with his predilection. when we were in the third form even, had we pleaded on the monday morning, that we had not brought up the saturday's exercise, because "we had forgotten it," what would have been the reply? and is an excuse, which would not be pardoned to a schoolboy, to pass current in a matter which so nearly concerns the fame of the first poet of his age, if not of his country? if mr. bowles so readily forgets the virtues of others, why complain so grievously that others have a better memory for his own faults? they are but the faults of an author; while the virtues he omitted from his catalogue are essential to the justice due to a man. mr. bowles appears, indeed, to be susceptible beyond the privilege of authorship. there is a plaintive dedication to mr. gifford, in which _he_ is made responsible for all the articles of the quarterly. mr. southey, it seems, "the most able and eloquent writer in that review," approves of mr. bowles's publication. now it seems to me the more impartial, that notwithstanding that "the great writer of the quarterly" entertains opinions opposite to the able article on spence, nevertheless that essay was permitted to appear. is a review to be devoted to the opinions of any _one_ man? must it not vary according to circumstances, and according to the subjects to be criticised? i fear that writers must take the sweets and bitters of the public journals as they occur, and an author of so long a standing as mr. bowles might have become accustomed to such incidents; he might be angry, but not astonished. i have been reviewed in the quarterly almost as often as mr. bowles, and have had as pleasant things said, and some _as unpleasant_, as could well be pronounced. in the review of "the fall of jerusalem" it is stated, that i have devoted "my powers, &c. to the worst parts of manicheism;" which, being interpreted, means that i worship the devil. now, i have neither written a reply, nor complained to gifford. i believe that i observed in a letter to you, that i thought "that the critic might have praised milman without finding it necessary to abuse me;" but did i not add at the same time, or soon after, (à propos, of the note in the book of travels,) that i would not, if it were even in my power, have a single line cancelled on my account in that nor in any other publication? of course, i reserve to myself the privilege of response when necessary. mr. bowles seems in a whimsical state about the author of the article on spence. you know very well that i am not in your confidence, nor in that of the conductor of the journal. the moment i saw that article, i was morally certain that i knew the author "by his style." you will tell me that i do _not know_ him: that is all as it should be; keep the secret, so shall i, though no one has ever intrusted it to me. he is not the person whom mr. bowles denounces. mr. bowles's extreme sensibility reminds me of a circumstance which occurred on board of a frigate in which i was a passenger and guest of the captain's for a considerable time. the surgeon on board, a very gentlemanly young man, and remarkably able in his profession, wore a _wig_. upon this ornament he was extremely tenacious. as naval jests are sometimes a little rough, his brother officers made occasional allusions to this delicate appendage to the doctor's person. one day a young lieutenant, in the course of a facetious discussion, said, "suppose now, doctor, i should take off your _hat_,"--"sir," replied the doctor, "i shall talk no longer with you; you grow _scurrilous_." he would not even admit so near an approach as to the hat which protected it. in like manner, if any body approaches mr. bowles's laurels, even in his outside capacity of an _editor_, "they grow _scurrilous_." you say that you are about to prepare an edition of pope; you cannot do better for your own credit as a publisher, nor for the redemption of pope from mr. bowles, and of the public taste from rapid degeneracy. observations upon "observations" a second letter to john murray, esq. on the rev. w.l. bowles's strictures on the life and writings of pope. * * * * * _now first published_. * * * * * ravenna, march . . dear sir, in the further "observations" of mr. bowles, in rejoinder to the charges brought against his edition of pope, it is to be regretted that he has lost his temper. whatever the language of his antagonists may have been, i fear that his replies have afforded more pleasure to them than to the public. that mr. bowles should not be pleased is natural, whether right or wrong; but a temperate defence would have answered his purpose in the former case--and, in the latter, no defence, however violent, can tend to any thing but his discomfiture. i have read over this third pamphlet, which you have been so obliging as to send me, and shall venture a few observations, in addition to those upon the previous controversy. mr. bowles sets out with repeating his "_confirmed conviction_," that "what he said of the moral part of pope's character was, generally speaking, true; and that the principles of _poetical_ criticism which he has laid down are _invariable_ and _invulnerable_," &c.; and that he is the _more_ persuaded of this by the "_exaggerations_ of his opponents." this is all very well, and highly natural and sincere. nobody ever expected that either mr. bowles, or any other author, would be convinced of human fallibility in their own persons. but it is nothing to the purpose--for it is not what mr. bowles thinks, but what is to be thought of pope, that is the question. it is what he has asserted or insinuated against a name which is the patrimony of posterity, that is to be tried; and mr. bowles, as a party, can be no judge. the more _he_ is persuaded, the better for himself, if it give him any pleasure; but he can only persuade others by the proofs brought out in his defence. after these prefatory remarks of "conviction," &c. mr. bowles proceeds to mr. gilchrist; whom he charges with "slang" and "slander," besides a small subsidiary indictment of "abuse, ignorance, malice," and so forth. mr. gilchrist has, indeed, shown some anger; but it is an honest indignation, which rises up in defence of the illustrious dead. it is a generous rage which interposes between our ashes and their disturbers. there appears also to have been some slight personal provocation. mr. gilchrist, with a chivalrous disdain of the fury of an incensed poet, put his name to a letter avowing the production of a former essay in defence of pope, and consequently of an attack upon mr. bowles. mr. bowles appears to be angry with mr. gilchrist for four reasons:--firstly, because he wrote an article in "the london magazine;" secondly, because he afterwards avowed it; thirdly, because he was the author of a still more extended article in "the quarterly review;" and, fourthly, because he was not the author of the said quarterly article, and had the audacity to disown it--for no earthly reason but because he had not written it. mr. bowles declares, that "he will not enter into a particular examination of the pamphlet," which by a _misnomer_ is called "gilchrist's answer to bowles," when it should have been called "gilchrist's abuse of bowles." on this error in the baptism of mr. gilchrist's pamphlet, it may be observed, that an answer may be abusive and yet no less an answer, though indisputably a temperate one might be the better of the two: but if _abuse_ is to cancel all pretensions to reply, what becomes of mr. bowles's answers to mr. gilchrist? mr. bowles continues:--"but as mr. gilchrist derides my _peculiar sensitiveness to criticism_, before i show how _destitute of truth is this representation_, i will here explicitly declare the only grounds," &c. &c. &c.--mr. bowles's sensibility in denying his "sensitiveness to criticism" proves, perhaps, too much. but if he has been so charged, and truly--what then? there is no moral turpitude in such acuteness of feeling: it has been, and may be, combined with many good and great qualities. is mr. bowles a poet, or is he not? if he be, he must, from his very essence, be sensitive to criticism; and even if he be not, he need not be ashamed of the common repugnance to being attacked. all that is to be wished is, that he had considered how disagreeable a thing it is, before he assailed the greatest moral poet of any age, or in any language. pope himself "sleeps well,"--nothing can touch him further; but those who love the honour of their country, the perfection of her literature, the glory of her language--are not to be expected to permit an atom of his dust to be stirred in his tomb, or a leaf to be stripped from the laurel which grows over it. mr. bowles assigns several reasons why and when "an author is justified in appealing to every _upright_ and _honourable_ mind in the kingdom." if mr. bowles limits the perusal of his defence to the "upright and honourable" only, i greatly fear that it will not be extensively circulated. i should rather hope that some of the downright and dishonest will read and be converted, or convicted. but the whole of his reasoning is here superfluous--"_an author is justified in appealing_," &c. when and why he pleases. let him make out a tolerable case, and few of his readers will quarrel with his motives. mr. bowles "will now plainly set before the literary public all the circumstances which have led to _his name_ and mr. gilchrist's being brought together," &c. courtesy requires, in speaking of others and ourselves, that we should place the name of the former first--and not "_ego_ et rex meus." mr. bowles should have written "mr. gilchrist's name and his." this point he wishes "particularly to address to those _most respectable characters_, who have the direction and management of the periodical critical press." that the press may be, in some instances, conducted by respectable characters is probable enough; but if they are so, there is no occasion to tell them of it; and if they are not, it is a base adulation. in either case, it looks like a kind of flattery, by which those gentry are not very likely to be softened; since it would be difficult to find two passages in fifteen pages more at variance, than mr. bowles's prose at the beginning of this pamphlet, and his verse at the end of it. in page . he speaks of "those most respectable characters who have the direction, &c. of the periodical press," and in page . we find-- "ye _dark inquisitors_, a monk-like band, who o'er some shrinking victim-author stand, a solemn, secret, and _vindictive brand, only_ terrific in your cowl and hood." and so on--to "bloody law" and "red scourges," with other similar phrases, which may not be altogether agreeable to the above-mentioned "most respectable characters." mr. bowles goes on, "i concluded my observations in the last pamphleteer with feelings _not unkind_ towards mr. gilchrist, or" [it should be _nor_] "to the author of the review of spence, be he whom he might."--"i was in hopes, _as i have always been ready to admit any errors_ i might have been led into, or prejudice i might have entertained, that even mr. gilchrist might be disposed to a more _amicable_ mode of discussing what i had advanced in regard to pope's moral character." as major sturgeon observes, "there never was a set of more _amicable_ officers--with the exception of a boxing-bout between captain shears and the colonel." a page and a half--nay only a page before--mr. bowles re-affirms his conviction, that "what he has said of pope's moral character is _(generally speaking) true,_ and that his "poetical principles are _invariable_ and _invulnerable_." he has also published three pamphlets,--ay, four of the same tenour,--and yet, with this declaration and these declamations staring him and his adversaries in the face, he speaks of his "readiness to admit errors or to abandon prejudices!!!" his use of the word "amicable" reminds me of the irish institution (which i have somewhere heard or read of) called the "_friendly_ society," where the president always carried pistols in his pocket, so that when one amicable gentleman knocked down another, the difference might be adjusted on the spot, at the harmonious distance of twelve paces. but mr. bowles "has since read a publication by him (mr. gilchrist) containing such vulgar slander, affecting private life and character," &c. &c.; and mr. gilchrist has also had the advantage of reading a publication by mr. bowles sufficiently imbued with personality; for one of the first and principal topics of reproach is that he is a _grocer_, that he has a "pipe in his mouth, ledger-book, green canisters, dingy shop-boy, half a hogshead of brown treacle," &c. nay, the same delicate raillery is upon the very title-page. when controversy has once commenced upon this footing, as dr. johnson said to dr. percy, "sir, there is an end of politeness--we are to be as rude as we please--sir, you said that i was _short-sighted_." as a man's profession is generally no more in his own power than his person--both having been made out for him--it is hard that he should be reproached with either, and still more that an honest calling should be made a reproach. if there is any thing more honourable to mr. gilchrist than another it is, that being engaged in commerce he has had the taste, and found the leisure, to become so able a proficient in the higher literature of his own and other countries. mr. bowles, who will be proud to own glover, chatterton, burns, and bloomfleld for his peers, should hardly have quarrelled with mr. gilchrist for his critic. mr. gilchrist's station, however, which might conduct him to the highest civic honours, and to boundless wealth, has nothing to require apology; but even if it had, such a reproach was not very gracious on the part of a clergyman, nor graceful on that of a gentleman. the allusion to "_christian_ criticism" is not particularly happy, especially where mr. gilchrist is accused of having "_set the first example of this mode in europe_." what _pagan_ criticism may have been we know but little; the names of zoilus and aristarchus survive, and the works of aristotle, longinus, and quintilian: but of "christian criticism" we have already had some specimens in the works of philelphus, poggius, scaliger, milton, salmasius, the cruscanti (versus tasso), the french academy (against the cid), and the antagonists of voltaire and of pope--to say nothing of some articles in most of the reviews, since their earliest institution in the person of their respectable and still prolific parent, "the monthly." why, then, is mr. gilchrist to be singled out "as having set the first example?" a sole page of milton or salmasius contains more abuse--rank, rancorous, _unleavened_ abuse--than all that can be raked forth from the whole works of many recent critics. there are some, indeed, who still keep up the good old custom; but fewer english than foreign. it is a pity that mr. bowles cannot witness some of the italian controversies, or become the subject of one. he would then look upon mr. gilchrist as a panegyrist. in the long sentence quoted from the article in "the london magazine," there is one coarse image, the justice of whose application i shall not pretend to determine:--"the pruriency with which his nose is laid to the ground" is an expression which, whether founded or not, might have been omitted. but the "anatomical minuteness" appears to me justified even by mr. bowles's own subsequent quotation. to the point:--"_many facts_ tend to prove the peculiar susceptibility of his passions; nor can we implicitly believe that the connexion between him and martha blount was of a nature so pure and innocent as his panegyrist ruffhead would have us believe," &c.--"at _no time_ could she have regarded _pope personally_ with attachment," &c.--"but the most extraordinary circumstance in regard to his connexion with female society, was the strange mixture of _indecent_ and even _profane_ levity which his conduct and language often exhibited. the cause of this particularity may be sought, perhaps, in his consciousness of physical defect, which made him affect a character uncongenial, and a language opposite to the truth."--if this is not "minute moral anatomy," i should be glad to know what is! it is dissection in all its branches. i shall, however, hazard a remark or two upon this quotation. to me it appears of no very great consequence whether martha blount was or was not pope's mistress, though i could have wished him a better. she appears to have been a cold-hearted, interested, ignorant, disagreeable woman, upon whom the tenderness of pope's heart in the desolation of his latter days was cast away, not knowing whither to turn as he drew towards his premature old age, childless and lonely,--like the needle which, approaching within a certain distance of the pole, becomes helpless and useless, and, ceasing to tremble, rusts. she seems to have been so totally unworthy of tenderness, that it is an additional proof of the kindness of pope's heart to have been able to love such a being. but we must love something. i agree with mr. b. that _she_ "could at no time have regarded _pope personally_ with attachment," because she was incapable of attachment; but i deny that pope could not be regarded with personal attachment by a worthier woman. it is not probable, indeed, that a woman would have fallen in love with him as he walked along the mall, or in a box at the opera, nor from a balcony, nor in a ball-room; but in society he seems to have been as amiable as unassuming, and, with the greatest disadvantages of figure, his head and face were remarkably handsome, especially his eyes. he was adored by his friends--friends of the most opposite dispositions, ages, and talents--by the old and wayward wycherley, by the cynical swift, the rough atterbury, the gentle spence, the stern attorney-bishop warburton, the virtuous berkeley, and the "cankered bolingbroke." bolingbroke wept over him like a child; and spence's description of his last moments is at least as edifying as the more ostentatious account of the deathbed of addison. the soldier peterborough and the poet gay, the witty congreve and the laughing rowe, the eccentric cromwell and the steady bathurst, were all his intimates. the man who could conciliate so many men of the most opposite description, not one of whom but was a remarkable or a celebrated character, might well have pretended to all the attachment which a reasonable man would desire of an amiable woman. pope, in fact, wherever he got it, appears to have understood the sex well, bolingbroke, "a judge of the subject," says warton, thought his "epistle on the characters of women" his "masterpiece." and even with respect to the grosser passion, which takes occasionally the name of "_romantic_," accordingly as the degree of sentiment elevates it above the definition of love by buffon, it may be remarked, that it does not always depend upon personal appearance, even in a woman. madame cottin was a plain woman, and might have been virtuous, it may be presumed, without much interruption. virtuous she was, and the consequences of this inveterate virtue were that two different admirers (one an elderly gentleman) killed themselves in despair (see lady morgan's "france"). i would not, however, recommend this rigour to plain women in general, in the hope of securing the glory of two suicides apiece. i believe that there are few men who, in the course of their observations on life, may not have perceived that it is not the greatest female beauty who forms the longest and the strongest passions. but, apropos of pope.--voltaire tells us that the marechal luxembourg (who had precisely pope's figure) was not only somewhat too amatory for a great man, but fortunate in his attachments. la valière, the passion of louis xiv., had an unsightly defect. the princess of eboli, the mistress of philip ii. of spain, and maugiron, the minion of henry iii. of france, had each of them lost an eye; and the famous latin epigram was written upon them, which has, i believe, been either translated or imitated by goldsmith:-- "lumine acon dextro, capta est leonilla sinistro, et potis est forma vincere uterque deos; blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorrori, sic tu cæcus amor, sic erit illa venus." wilkes, with his ugliness, used to say that "he was but a quarter of an hour behind the handsomest man in england;" and this vaunt of his is said not to have been disproved by circumstances. swift, when neither young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, inspired the two most extraordinary passions upon record, vanessa's and stella's. "vanessa, aged scarce a score, sighs for a gown of _forty-four_." he requited them bitterly; for he seems to have broken the heart of the one, and worn out that of the other; and he had his reward, for he died a solitary idiot in the hands of servants. for my own part, i am of the opinion of pausanias. that success in love depends upon fortune. "they particularly renounce celestial venus, into whose temple, &c. &c. &c. i remember, too, to have seen a building in Ægina in which there is a statue of fortune, holding a horn of amalthea; and near her there is a winged love. the meaning of this is, that the success of men in love affairs depends more on the assistance of fortune than the charms of beauty. i am persuaded, too, with pindar (to whose opinion i submit in other particulars), that fortune is one of the fates, and that in a certain respect she is more powerful than her sisters."--see pausanias, achaics, book vii. chap. . p. . taylor's "translation." grimm has a remark of the same kind on the different destinies of the younger crebillon and rousseau. the former writes a licentious novel, and a young english girl of some fortune and family (a miss strafford) runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while rousseau, the most tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid. if i recollect rightly, this remark was also repeated in the edinburgh review of grimm's correspondence, seven or eight years ago. in regard "to the strange mixture of indecent, and sometimes _profane_ levity, which his conduct and language _often_ exhibited," and which so much shocks mr. bowles, i object to the indefinite word "_often_;" and in extenuation of the occasional occurrence of such language it is to be recollected, that it was less the tone of _pope_, than the tone of the _time_. with the exception of the correspondence of pope and his friends, not many private letters of the period have come down to us; but those, such as they are--a few scattered scraps from farquhar and others--are more indecent and coarse than any thing in pope's letters. the comedies of congreve, vanbrugh, farquhar, cibber, &c., which naturally attempted to represent the manners and conversation of private life, are decisive upon this point; as are also some of steele's papers, and even addison's. we all know what the conversation of sir r. walpole, for seventeen years the prime minister of the country, was at his own table, and his excuse for his licentious language, viz. "that every body understood _that_, but few could talk rationally upon less common topics." the refinement of latter days,--which is perhaps the consequence of vice, which wishes to mask and soften itself, as much as of virtuous civilisation,--had not yet made sufficient progress. even johnson, in his "london," has two or three passages which cannot be read aloud, and addison's "drummer" some indelicate allusions. the expression of mr. bowles, "his consciousness of physical defect," is not very clear. it may mean deformity or debility. if it alludes to pope's deformity, it has been attempted to be shown that this was no insuperable objection to his being beloved. if it alludes to debility, as a consequence of pope's peculiar conformation, i believe that it is a physical and known fact that hump-backed persons are of strong and vigorous passions. several years ago, at mr. angelo's fencing rooms, when i was a pupil of him and of mr. jackson, who had the use of his rooms in albany on the alternate days, i recollect a gentleman named b--ll--gh--t, remarkable for his strength, and the fineness of his figure. his skill was not inferior, for he could stand up to the great captain barclay himself, with the muffles on;--a task neither easy nor agreeable to a pugilistic aspirant. as the by-standers were one day admiring his athletic proportions, he remarked to us, that he had five brothers as tall and strong as himself, and that their _father and mother were both crooked, and of very small stature_;--i think he said, neither of them five feet high. it would not be difficult to adduce similar instances; but i abstain, because the subject is hardly refined enough for this immaculate period, this moral millenium of expurgated editions in books, manners, and royal trials of divorce. this laudable delicacy--this crying-out elegance of the day--reminds me of a little circumstance which occurred when i was about eighteen years of age. there was then (and there may be still) a famous french "entremetteuse," who assisted young gentlemen in their youthful pastimes. we had been acquainted for some time, when something occurred in her line of business more than ordinary, and the refusal was offered to me (and doubtless to many others), probably because i was in cash at the moment, having taken up a decent sum from the jews, and not having spent much above half of it. the adventure on the tapis, it seems, required some caution and circumspection. whether my venerable friend doubted my politeness i cannot tell; but she sent me a letter couched in such english as a short residence of sixteen years in england had enabled her to acquire. after several precepts and instructions, the letter closed. but there was a postscript. it contained these words:--"remember, milor, that _delicaci ensure_ everi succés." the _delicacy_ of the day is exactly, in all its circumstances, like that of this respectable foreigner. "it ensures every _succès_," and is not a whit more moral than, and not half so honourable as, the coarser candour of our less polished ancestors. to return to mr. bowles. "if what is here extracted can excite in the mind (i will not say of any 'layman', of any 'christian', but) of any _human being_," &c. &c. is not mr. gilchrist a "human being?" mr. bowles asks "whether in _attributing_ an article," &c. &c, "to the critic, he had _any reason_ for distinguishing him with that courtesy," &c. &c. but mr. bowles was wrong in "attributing the article" to mr. gilchrist at all; and would not have been right in calling him a dunce and a grocer, if he had written it. mr. bowles is here "peremptorily called upon to speak of a circumstance which gives him the greatest pain,--the mention of a letter he received from the editor of 'the london magazine.'" mr. bowles seems to have embroiled himself on all sides; whether by editing, or replying, or attributing, or quoting,--it has been an awkward affair for him. poor scott is now no more. in the exercise of his vocation, he contrived at last to make himself the subject of a coroner's inquest. but he died like a brave man, and he lived an able one. i knew him personally, though slightly. although several years my senior, we had been schoolfellows together at the "grammar-schule" (or, as the aberdonians pronounce it, "_squeel_") of new aberdeen. he did not behave to me quite handsomely in his capacity of editor a few years ago, but he was under no obligation to behave otherwise. the moment was too tempting for many friends and for all enemies. at a time when all my relations (save one) fell from me like leaves from the tree in autumn winds, and my few friends became still fewer,--when the whole periodical press (i mean the daily and weekly, _not_ the _literary_ press) was let loose against me in every shape of reproach, with the two strange exceptions (from their usual opposition) of "the courier" and "the examiner,"--the paper of which scott had the direction was neither the last nor the least vituperative. two years ago i met him at venice, when he was bowed in griefs by the loss of his son, and had known, by experience, the bitterness of domestic privation. he was then earnest with me to return to england; and on my telling him, with a smile, that he was once of a different opinion, he replied to me, 'that he and others had been greatly misled; and that some pains, and rather extraordinary means, had been taken to excite them.' scott is no more, but there are more than one living who were present at this dialogue. he was a man of very considerable talents, and of great acquirements. he had made his way, as a literary character, with high success, and in a few years. poor fellow! i recollect his joy at some appointment which he had obtained, or was to obtain, through sir james mackintosh, and which prevented the further extension (unless by a rapid run to rome) of his travels in italy. i little thought to what it would conduct him. peace be with him!--and may all such other faults as are inevitable to humanity be as readily forgiven him, as the little injury which he had done to one who respected his talents, and regrets his loss. i pass over mr. bowles's page of explanation, upon the correspondence between him and mr. s----. it is of little importance in regard to pope, and contains merely a re-contradiction of a contradiction of mr. gilchrist's. we now come to a point where mr. gilchrist has, certainly, rather exaggerated matters; and, of course, mr. bowles makes the most of it. capital letters, like kean's name, "large upon the bills," are made use of six or seven times to express his sense of the outrage. the charge is, indeed, very boldly made; but, like "ranold of the mist's" practical joke of putting the bread and cheese into a dead man's mouth, is, as dugald dalgetty says, "somewhat too wild and salvage, besides wasting the good victuals." mr. gilchrist charges mr. bowles with "suggesting" that pope "attempted" to commit "a rape" upon lady m. wortley montague. there are two reasons why this could not be true. the first is, that like the chaste letitia's prevention of the intended ravishment by fireblood (in jonathan wild), it might have been impeded by a timely compliance. the second is, that however this might be, pope was probably the less robust of the two; and (if the lines on sappho were really intended for this lady) the asserted consequences of her acquiescence in his wishes would have been a sufficient punishment. the passage which mr. bowles quotes, however, insinuates nothing of the kind: it merely charges her with encouragement, and him with wishing to profit by it,--a slight attempt at seduction, and no more. the phrase is, "a step beyond decorum." any physical violence is so abhorrent to human nature, that it recoils in cold blood from the very idea. but, the seduction of a woman's mind as well as person is not, perhaps, the least heinous sin of the two in morality. dr. johnson commends a gentleman who having seduced a girl who said, "i am afraid we have done wrong," replied, "yes, we _have_ done wrong,"--"for i would not _pervert_ her mind also." othello would not "kill desdemona's _soul_." mr. bowles exculpates himself from mr. gilchrist's charge; but it is by substituting another charge against pope. "a step beyond decorum," has a soft sound, but what does it express? in all these cases, "ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute." has not the scripture something upon "the lusting after a woman" being no less criminal than the crime? "a step beyond decorum," in short, any step beyond the instep, is a step from a precipice to the lady who permits it. for the gentleman who makes it it is also rather hazardous if he does not succeed, and still more so if he does. mr. bowles appeals to the "christian reader!" upon this "_gilchristian_ criticism." is not this play upon such words "a step beyond decorum" in a clergyman? but i admit the temptation of a pun to be irresistible. but "a hasty pamphlet was published, in which some personalities respecting mr. gilchrist were suffered to appear." if mr. bowles will write "hasty pamphlets," why is he so surprised on receiving short answers? the grand grievance to which he perpetually returns is a charge of "_hypochondriacism_," asserted or insinuated in the quarterly. i cannot conceive a man in perfect health being much affected by such a charge, because his complexion and conduct must amply refute it. but were it true, to what does it amount?--to an impeachment of a liver complaint. "i will tell it to the world," exclaimed the learned smelfungus.--"you had better," said i, "tell it to your physician." there is nothing dishonourable in such a disorder, which is more peculiarly the malady of students. it has been the complaint of the good, and the wise, and the witty, and even of the gay. regnard, the author of the last french comedy after molière, was atrabilious; and molière himself, saturnine. dr. johnson, gray, and burns, were all more or less affected by it occasionally. it was the prelude to the more awful malady of collins, cowper, swift, and smart; but it by no means follows that a partial affliction of this disorder is to terminate like theirs. but even were it so,-- "nor best, nor wisest, are exempt from thee; folly--folly's only free." penrose. if this be the criterion of exemption, mr. bowles's last two pamphlets form a better certificate of sanity than a physician's. mendehlson and bayle were at times so overcome with this depression, as to be obliged to recur to seeing "puppet-shows, and counting tiles upon the opposite houses," to divert themselves. dr. johnson at times "would have given a limb to recover his spirits." mr. bowles, who is (strange to say) fond of quoting pope, may perhaps answer,-- "go on, obliging creatures, let me see all which disgrac'd my betters met in me." but the charge, such as it is, neither disgraces them nor him. it is easily disproved if false; and even if proved true, has nothing in it to make a man so very indignant. mr. bowles himself appears to be a little ashamed of his "hasty pamphlet;" for he attempts to excuse it by the "great provocation;" that is to say, by mr. bowles's supposing that mr. gilchrist was the writer of the article in the quarterly, which he was _not_. "but, in extenuation, not only the _great_ provocation should be remembered, but it ought to be said, that orders were sent to the london booksellers, that the most direct personal passages should be _omitted entirely_," &c. this is what the proverb calls "breaking a head and giving a plaster;" but, in this instance, the plaster was not spread in time, and mr. gilchrist does not seem at present disposed to regard mr. bowles's courtesies like the rust of the spear of achilles, which had such "skill in surgery." but "mr. gilchrist has _no right_ to object, as the reader will see." i am a reader, a "gentle reader," and i see nothing of the kind. were i in mr. gilchrist's place, i should object exceedingly to being abused; firstly, for what i _did_ write, and, secondly, for what i did _not_ write; merely because it is mr. bowles's will and pleasure to be as angry with me for having written in the london magazine, as for not having written in the quarterly review. "mr. gilchrist has had ample revenge; for he has, in his answer, said so and so," &c. &c. there is no great revenge in all this; and i presume that nobody either seeks or wishes it. what revenge? mr. bowles calls names, and he is answered. but mr. gilchrist and the quarterly reviewer are not poets, nor pretenders to poetry; therefore they can have no envy nor malice against mr. bowles: they have no acquaintance with mr. bowles, and can have no personal pique; they do not cross his path of life, nor he theirs. there is no political feud between them. what, then, can be the motive of their discussion of his deserts as an editor?--veneration for the genius of pope, love for his memory, and regard for the classic glory of their country. why would mr. bowles edite? had he limited his honest endeavours to poetry, very little would have been said upon the subject, and nothing at all by his present antagonists. mr. bowles calls the pamphlet a "mud-cart," and the writer a "scavenger." afterward he asks, "shall he fling dirt and receive _rose-water_?" this metaphor, by the way, is taken from marmontel's memoirs; who, lamenting to chamfort the shedding of blood during the french revolution, was answered, "do you think that revolutions are to be made with _rose-water_?" for my own part, i presume that "rose-water" would be infinitely more graceful in the hands of mr. bowles than the substance which he has substituted for that delicate liquid. it would also more confound his adversary, supposing him a "scavenger." i remember, (and do you remember, reader, that it was in my earliest youth, "consule planco,")--on the morning of the great battle, (the second)--between gulley and gregson,--_cribb_, who was matched against horton for the second fight, on the same memorable day, awaking me (a lodger at the inn in the next room) by a loud remonstrance to the waiter against the abomination of his towels, which had been laid in _lavender_. cribb was a coal-heaver--and was much more discomfited by this odoriferous effeminacy of fine linen, than by his adversary horton, whom, he "finished in style," though with some reluctance; for i recollect that he said, "he disliked hurting him, he looked so pretty,"--horton being a very fine fresh-coloured young man. to return to "rose-water"--that is, to gentle means of rebuke. does mr. bowles know how to revenge himself upon a hackney-coachman, when he has overcharged his fare? in case he should not, i will tell him. it is of little use to call him "a rascal, a scoundrel, a thief, an impostor, a blackguard, a villain, a raggamuffin, a--what you please;" all that he is used to--it is his mother-tongue, and probably his mother's. but look him steadily and quietly in the face, and say--"upon my word, i think you are the _ugliest fellow_ i ever saw in my life," and he will instantly roll forth the brazen thunders of the charioteer salmoneus as follows:--"_hugly_! what the h--ll are _you_? _you_ a _gentleman_! why ----!" so much easier it is to _provoke_--and therefore to vindicate--(for passion punishes him who _feels_ it more than those whom the passionate would excruciate)--by a few quiet words the aggressor, than by retorting violently. the "coals of fire" of the scripture are _benefits_;--but they are not the less "coals of _fire_." i pass over a page of quotation and reprobation--"sin up to my song"--"oh let my little bark"--"arcades ambo"--"writer in the quarterly review and himself"--"in-door avocations, indeed"--"king of brentford"--"one nosegay"--"perennial nosegay"--"oh juvenes,"--and the like. page . produces "more reasons,"--(the task ought not to have been difficult, for as yet there were none)--"to show why mr. bowles attributed the critique in the quarterly to octavius gilchrist." all these "reasons" consist of _surmises_ of mr. bowles, upon the presumed character of his opponent. "he did not suppose there could exist a man in the kingdom so _impudent_, &c. &c. except octavius gilchrist."--"he did not think there was a man in the kingdom who would _pretend ignorance_, &c. &c. except octavius gilchrist."--"he did not conceive that one man in the kingdom would utter such stupid flippancy, &c. &c. except octavius gilchrist."--"he did not think there was one man in the kingdom who, &c. &c. could so utterly show his ignorance, _combined with conceit_, &c. as octavius gilchrist."--"he did not believe there was a man in the kingdom so perfect in mr. gilchrist's 'old lunes,'" &c. &c.--"he did not think the _mean mind_ of any one in the kingdom," &c. and so on; always beginning with "any one in the kingdom," and ending with "octavius gilchrist," like the word in a catch. i am not "in the kingdom," and have not been much in the kingdom since i was one and twenty, (about five years in the whole, since i was of age,) and have no desire to be in the kingdom again, whilst i breathe, nor to sleep there afterwards; and i regret nothing more than having ever been "in the kingdom" at all. but though no longer a man "in the kingdom," let me hope that when i have ceased to exist, it may be said, as was answered by the master of clanronald's henchman, his day after the battle of sheriff-muir, when he was found watching his chief's body. he was asked, "who that was?" he replied--"it was a man yesterday." and in this capacity, "in or out of the kingdom," i must own that i participate in many of the objections urged by mr. gilchrist. i participate in his love of pope, and in his not understanding, and occasionally finding fault with, the last editor of our last truly great poet. one of the reproaches against mr. gilchrist is, that he is (it is sneeringly said) an f. s. _a_. if it will give mr. bowles any pleasure, i am not an f. s. a. but a fellow of the royal society at his service, in case there should be any thing in that association also which may point a paragraph. "there are some other reasons," but "the author is now _not_ unknown." mr. bowles has so totally exhausted himself upon octavius gilchrist, that he has not a word left for the real quarterer of his edition, although now "deterré." the following page refers to a mysterious charge of "duplicity, in regard to the publication of pope's letters." till this charge is made in proper form, we have nothing to do with it: mr. gilchrist hints it--mr. bowles denies it; there it rests for the present. mr. bowles professes his dislike to "pope's duplicity, _not_ to pope"--a distinction apparently without a difference. however, i believe that i understand him. we have a great dislike to mr. bowles's edition of pope, but _not_ to mr. bowles; nevertheless, he takes up the subject as warmly as if it was personal. with regard to the fact of "pope's duplicity," it remains to be proved--like mr. bowles's benevolence towards his memory. in page . we have a large assertion, that "the 'eloisa' alone is sufficient to convict him of _gross licentiousness_." thus, out it comes at last. mr. bowles _does_ accuse pope of "_gross_ licentiousness," and grounds the charge upon a poem. the _licentiousness_ is a "grand peut-être," according to the turn of the times being. the grossness i deny. on the contrary, i do believe that such a subject never was, nor ever could be, treated by any poet with so much delicacy, mingled with, at the same time, such true and intense passion. is the "atys" of catullus _licentious_? no, nor even gross; and yet catullus is often a coarse writer. the subject is nearly the same, except that atys was the suicide of his manhood, and abelard the victim. the "licentiousness" of the story was _not_ pope's,--it was a fact. all that it had of gross, he has softened;--all that it had of indelicate, he has purified;--all that it had of passionate, he has beautified;--all that it had of holy, he has hallowed. mr. campbell has admirably marked this in a few words (i quote from memory), in drawing the distinction between pope and dryden, and pointing out where dryden was wanting "i fear," says he, "that had the subject of 'eloisa' fallen into his (dryden's) hands, that he would have given us but a _coarse_ draft of her passion." never was the delicacy of pope so much shown as in this poem. with the facts and the letters of "eloisa" he has done what no other mind but that of the best and purest of poets could have accomplished with such materials. ovid, sappho (in the ode called hers)--all that we have of ancient, all that we have of modern poetry, sinks into nothing compared with him in this production. let us hear no more of this trash about "licentiousness." is not "anacreon" taught in our schools?--translated, praised, and edited? are not his odes the amatory praises of a boy? is not sappho's ode on a girl? is not this sublime and (according to longinus) fierce love for one of her own sex? and is not phillips's translation of it in the mouths of all your women? and are the english schools or the english women the more corrupt for all this? when you have thrown the ancients into the fire it will be time to denounce the moderns. "licentiousness!"--there is more real mischief and sapping licentiousness in a single french prose novel, in a moravian hymn, or a german comedy, than in all the actual poetry that ever was penned, or poured forth, since the rhapsodies of orpheus. the sentimental anatomy of rousseau and mad. de s. are far more formidable than any quantity of verse. they are so, because they sap the principles, by _reasoning_ upon the _passions_; whereas poetry is in itself passion, and does not systematise. it assails, but does not argue; it may be wrong, but it does not assume pretensions to optimism. mr. bowles now has the goodness "to point out the difference between a _traducer_ and him who sincerely states what he sincerely believes." he might have spared himself the trouble. the one is a liar, who lies knowingly; the other (i speak of a scandal-monger of course) lies, charitably believing that he speaks truth, and very sorry to find himself in falsehood;--because he "would rather that the dean should die, than his prediction prove a lie." after a definition of a "traducer," which was quite superfluous (though it is agreeable to learn that mr. bowles so well understands the character), we are assured, that "he feels equally indifferent, mr. gilchrist, for what your malice can invent, or your impudence utter." this is indubitable; for it rests not only on mr. bowles's assurance, but on that of sir fretful plagiary, and nearly in the same words,--"and i shall treat it with exactly the same calm indifference and philosophical contempt, and so your servant." "one thing has given mr. bowles concern." it is "a passage which might seem to reflect on the patronage a young man has received." might seem!! the passage alluded to expresses, that if mr. gilchrist be the reviewer of "a certain poet of nature," his praise and blame are equally contemptible."--mr. bowles, who has a peculiarly ambiguous style, where it suits him, comes off with a "_not_ to the _poet_, but the critic," &c. in my humble opinion, the passage referred to both. had mr. bowles really meant fairly, he would have said so from the first--he would have been eagerly transparent.--"a certain poet of nature" is not the style of commendation. it is the very prologue to the most scandalous paragraphs of the newspapers, when "willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike." "a certain high personage,"--"a certain peeress,"--"a certain illustrious foreigner,"--what do these words ever precede, but defamation? had he felt a spark of kindling kindness for john clare, he would have named him. there is a sneer in the sentence as it stands. how a favourable review of a deserving poet can "rather injure than promote his cause" is difficult to comprehend. the article denounced is able and amiable, and it _has_ "served" the poet, as far as poetry can be served by judicious and honest criticism. with the two next paragraphs of mr. bowles's pamphlet it is pleasing to concur. his mention of "pennie," and his former patronage of "shoel," do him honour. i am not of those who may deny mr. bowles to be a benevolent man. i merely assert, that he is not a candid editor. mr. bowles has been "a writer occasionally upwards of thirty years," and never wrote one word in reply in his life "to criticisms, merely _as_ criticisms." this is mr. lofty in goldsmith's good-natured man; "and i vow by all that's honourable, my resentment has never done the men, as mere men, any manner of harm,--that is, _as mere men_." "the letter to the editor of the newspaper" is owned; but "it was not on account of the criticism. it was because the criticism came down in a frank _directed_ to mrs. bowles!!!"--(the italics and three notes of admiration appended to mrs. bowles are copied verbatim from the quotation), and mr. bowles was not displeased with the criticism, but with the frank and the address. i agree with mr. bowles that the intention was to annoy him; but i fear that this was answered by his notice of the reception of the criticism. an anonymous letter-writer has but one means of knowing the effect of his attack. in this he has the superiority over the viper; he knows that his poison has taken effect, when he hears the victim cry;--the adder is _deaf_. the best reply to an anonymous intimation is to take no notice directly nor indirectly. i wish mr. bowles could see only one or two of the thousand which i have received in the course of a literary life, which, though begun early, has not yet extended to a third part of his existence as an author. i speak of _literary_ life only. were i to add _personal_, i might double the amount of _anonymous_ letters. if he could but see the violence, the threats, the absurdity of the whole thing, he would laugh, and so should i, and thus be both gainers. to keep up the farce,--within the last month of this present writing ( ), i have had my life threatened in the same way which menaced mr. bowles's fame,--excepting that the anonymous denunciation was addressed to the cardinal legate of romagna, instead of to mrs. bowles. the cardinal is, i believe, the elder lady of the two. i append the menace in all its barbaric but literal italian, that mr. bowles may be convinced; and as this is the only "promise to pay," which the italians ever keep, so my person has been at least as much exposed to a "shot in the gloaming," from "john heatherblutter" (see waverley), as ever mr. bowles's glory was from an editor. i am, nevertheless, on horseback and lonely for some hours (_one_ of them twilight) in the forest daily; and this, because it was my "custom in the afternoon," and that i believe if the tyrant cannot escape amidst his guards (should it be so written?), so the humbler individual would find precautions useless. mr. bowles has here the humility to say, that "he must succumb; for with lord byron turned against him, he has no chance,"--a declaration of self-denial not much in unison with his "promise," five lines afterwards, that "for every twenty-four lines quoted by mr. gilchrist, or his friend, to greet him with as many from the 'gilchrisiad';" but so much the better. mr. bowles has no reason to "succumb" but to mr. bowles. as a poet, the author of "the missionary" may compete with the foremost of his cotemporaries. let it be recollected, that all my previous opinions of mr. bowles's poetry were _written_ long before the publication of his last and best poem; and that a poet's _last_ poem should be his best, is his highest praise. but, however, he may duly and honourably rank with his living rivals. there never was so complete a proof of the superiority of pope, as in the lines with which mr. bowles closes his "_to be concluded in our next_." mr. bowles is avowedly the champion and the poet of nature. art and the arts are dragged, some before, and others behind his chariot. pope, where he deals with passion, and with the nature of the naturals of the day, is allowed even by themselves to be sublime; but they complain that too soon-- "he stoop'd to truth and moralised his song," and _there_ even _they_ allow him to be unrivalled. he has succeeded, and even surpassed them, when he chose, in their own _pretended_ province. let us see what their coryphæus effects in pope's. but it is too pitiable, it is too melancholy, to see mr. bowles "_sinning_" not "_up_" but "_down_" as a poet to his lowest depth as an editor. by the way, mr. bowles is always quoting pope. i grant that there is no poet--not shakspeare himself--who can be so often quoted, with reference to life;--but his editor is so like the devil quoting scripture, that i could wish mr. bowles in his proper place, quoting in the pulpit. and now for his lines. but it is painful--painful--to see such a suicide, though at the shrine of pope. i can't copy them all:-- "shall the rank, loathsome miscreant of the age sit, like a night-mare, grinning o'er a page." "whose pye-bald character so aptly suit the two extremes of bantam and of brute, compound grotesque of sullenness and show, the chattering magpie, and the croaking crow." "whose heart contends with thy saturnian head, a root of hemlock, and a lump of lead. gilchrist proceed," &c. &c. "and thus stand forth, spite of thy venom'd foam, to give thee _bite for bite_, or lash thee limping home." with regard to the last line, the only one upon which i shall venture for fear of infection, i would advise mr. gilchrist to keep out of the way of such reciprocal morsure--unless he has more faith in the "ormskirk medicine" than most people, or may wish to anticipate the pension of the recent german professor, (i forget his name, but it is advertised and full of consonants,) who presented his memoir of an infallible remedy for the hydrophobia to the german diet last month, coupled with the philanthropic condition of a large annuity, provided that his cure cured. let him begin with the editor of pope, and double his demand. yours ever, byron. _to john murray, esq_. p.s. amongst the above-mentioned lines there occurs the following, _applied_ to pope-- "the assassin's vengeance, and the coward's lie." and mr. bowles persists that he is a well-wisher to pope!!! he has, then, edited an "assassin" and a "coward" wittingly, as well as lovingly. in my former letter i have remarked upon the editor's forgetfulness of pope's benevolence. but where he mentions his faults it is "with sorrow"--his tears drop, but they do not blot them out. the "recording angel" differs from the recording clergyman. a fulsome editor is pardonable though tiresome, like a panegyrical son whose pious sincerity would demi-deify his father. but a detracting editor is a paricide. he sins against the nature of his office, and connection--he murders the life to come of his victim. if his author is not worthy to be mentioned, do not edit at all: if he be, edit honestly, and even flatteringly. the reader will forgive the weakness in favour of mortality, and correct your adulation with a smile. but to sit down "mingere in patrios cineres," as mr. bowles has done, merits a reprobation so strong, that i am as incapable of expressing as of ceasing to feel it. _further addenda_. it is worthy of remark that, after all this outcry about "_in-door_ nature" and "artificial images," pope was the principal inventor of that boast of the english, _modern gardening_. he divides this honour with milton. hear warton:--"it hence appears, that this _enchanting_ art of modern gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every nation in europe, chiefly owes _its origin_ and its improvements to two great poets, milton and _pope_." walpole (no friend to pope) asserts that pope formed _kent's_ taste, and that kent was the artist to whom the english are chiefly indebted for diffusing "a taste in laying out grounds." the design of the prince of wales's garden was copied from _pope's_ at twickenham. warton applauds "his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres." pope was the _first_ who ridiculed the "formal, french, dutch, false and unnatural taste in gardening," both in _prose_ and verse. (see, for the former, "the guardian.") "pope has given not only some of our _first_ but _best_ rules and observations on _architecture_ and _gardening_." (see warton's essay, vol. ii. p. , &c. &c.) now, is it not a shame, after this, to hear our lakers in "kendal green," and our bucolical cockneys, crying out (the latter in a wilderness of bricks and mortar) about "nature," and pope's "artificial in-door habits?" pope had seen all of nature that _england_ alone can supply. he was bred in windsor forest, and amidst the beautiful scenery of eton; he lived familiarly and frequently at the country seats of bathurst, cobham, burlington, peterborough, digby, and bolingbroke; amongst whose seats was to be numbered _stowe_. he made his own little "five acres" a model to princes, and to the first of our artists who imitated nature. warton thinks "that the most engaging of _kent_'s works was also planned on the model of pope's,--at least in the opening and retiring shades of venus's vale." it is true that pope was infirm and deformed; but he could walk, and he could ride (he rode to oxford from london at a stretch), and he was famous for an exquisite eye. on a tree at lord bathurst's is carved "here pope sang,"--he composed beneath it. bolingbroke, in one of his letters, represents them both writing in the hay-field. no poet ever admired nature more, or used her better, than pope has done, as i will undertake to prove from his works, _prose_ and _verse_, if not anticipated in so easy and agreeable a labour. i remember a passage in walpole, somewhere, of a gentleman who wished to give directions about some willows to a man who had long served pope in his grounds: "i understand, sir," he replied: "you would have them hang down, sir, _somewhat poetical_." now, if nothing existed but this little anecdote, it would suffice to prove pope's taste for _nature_, and the impression which he had made on a common-minded man. but i have already quoted warton and walpole (_both_ his enemies), and, were it necessary, i could amply quote pope himself for such tributes to _nature_ as no poet of the present day has even approached. his various excellence is really wonderful: architecture, painting, _gardening_, all are alike subject to his genius. be it remembered, that english _gardening_ is the purposed perfectioning of niggard _nature_, and that without it england is but a hedge-and-ditch, double-post-and-rail, hounslow heath and clapham common sort of country, since the principal forests have been felled. it is, in general, far from a picturesque country. the case is different with scotland, wales, and ireland; and i except also the lake counties and derbyshire, together with eton, windsor, and my own dear harrow on the hill, and some spots near the coast. in the present rank fertility of "great poets of the age," and "schools of poetry"--a word which, like "schools of eloquence" and of "philosophy," is never introduced till the decay of the art has increased with the number of its professors--in the present day, then, there have sprung up two sorts of naturals;--the lakers, who whine about nature because they live in cumberland; and their _under-sect_ (which some one has maliciously called the "cockney school"), who are enthusiastical for the country because they live in london. it is to be observed, that the rustical founders are rather anxious to disclaim any connexion with their metropolitan followers, whom they ungraciously review, and call cockneys, atheists, foolish fellows, bad writers, and other hard names not less ungrateful than unjust. i can understand the pretensions of the aquatic gentlemen of windermere to what mr. braham terms "_entusumusy_," for lakes, and mountains, and daffodils, and buttercups; but i should be glad to be apprised of the foundation of the london propensities of their imitative brethren to the same "high argument." southey, wordsworth, and coleridge have rambled over half europe, and seen nature in most of her varieties (although i think that they have occasionally not used her very well); but what on earth--of earth, and sea, and nature--have the others seen? not a half, nor a tenth part so much as pope. while they sneer at his windsor forest, have they ever seen any thing of windsor except its _brick_? the most rural of these gentlemen is my friend leigh hunt, who lives at hampstead. i believe that i need not disclaim any personal or poetical hostility against that gentleman. a more amiable man in society i know not; nor (when he will allow his sense to prevail over his sectarian principles) a better writer. when he was writing his "rimini," i was not the last to discover its beauties, long before it was published. even then i remonstrated against its vulgarisms; which are the more extraordinary, because the author is any thing but a vulgar man. mr. hunt's answer was, that he wrote them upon principle; they made part of his "_system!!_" i then said no more. when a man talks of his system, it is like a woman's talking of her _virtue_. i let them talk on. whether there are writers who could have written "rimini," as it might have been written, i know not; but mr. hunt is, probably, the only poet who could have had the heart to spoil his own capo d'opera. with the rest of his young people i have no acquaintance, except through some things of theirs (which have been sent out without my desire), and i confess that till i had read them i was not aware of the full extent of human absurdity. like garrick's "ode to shakspeare," _they "defy criticism_." these are of the personages who decry pope. one of them, a mr. john ketch, has written some lines against him, of which it were better to be the subject than the author. mr. hunt redeems himself by occasional beauties; but the rest of these poor creatures seem so far gone that i would not "march through coventry with them, that's flat!" were i in mr. hunt's place. to be sure, he has "led his ragamuffins where they will be well peppered;" but a system-maker must receive all sorts of proselytes. when they have really seen life--when they have felt it--when they have travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of middlesex--when they have overpassed the alps of highgate, and traced to its sources the nile of the new river--then, and not till then, can it properly he permitted to them to despise pope; who had, if not _in wales_, been _near_ it, when he described so beautifully the "_artificial_" works of the benefactor of nature and mankind, the "man of ross," whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the inn, i have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and admiration of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good works could hardly have preserved his honest renown. i would also observe to my friend hunt, that i shall be very glad to see him at ravenna, not only for my sincere pleasure in his company, and the advantage which a thousand miles or so of travel might produce to a "natural" poet, but also to point out one or two little things in "rimini," which he probably would not have placed in his opening to that poem, if he had ever seen ravenna;--unless, indeed, it made "part of his system!!" i must also crave his indulgence for having spoken of his disciples--by no means an agreeable or self-sought subject. if they had said nothing of _pope_, they might have remained "alone with their glory" for aught i should have said or thought about them or their nonsense. but if they interfere with the "little nightingale" of twickenham, they may find others who will bear it--_i_ won't. neither time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age, can ever diminish my veneration for him, who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence. the delight of my boyhood, the study of my manhood, perhaps (if allowed to me to attain it) he may be the consolation of my age. his poetry is the book of life. without canting, and yet without neglecting religion, he has assembled all that a good and great man can gather together of moral wisdom clothed in consummate beauty. sir william temple observes, "that of all the members of mankind that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a _great poet_, there may be a _thousand_ born capable of making as great generals and ministers of state as any in story." here is a statesman's opinion of poetry: it is honourable to him and to the art. such a "poet of a thousand years" was _pope_. a thousand years will roll away before such another can be hoped for in our literature. but it can _want_ them--he himself is a literature. one word upon his so brutally abused translation of homer. "dr. clarke, whose critical exactness is well known, has _not been_ able to point out above three or four mistakes _in the sense_ through the whole iliad. the real faults of the translation are of a different kind." so says warton, himself a scholar. it appears by this, then, that he avoided the chief fault of a translator. as to its other faults, they consist in his having made a beautiful english poem of a sublime greek one. it will always hold. cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may do their best and their worst: they will never wrench pope from the hands of a single reader of sense and feeling. the grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets is their _vulgarity_. by this i do not mean that they are _coarse_, but "shabby-genteel," as it is termed. a man may be _coarse_ and yet not _vulgar_, and the reverse. burns is often coarse, but never _vulgar_. chatterton is never vulgar, nor wordsworth, nor the higher of the lake school, though they treat of low life in all its branches. it is in their _finery_ that the new under school are _most_ vulgar, and they may be known by this at once; as what we called at harrow "a sunday blood" might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, although his clothes might be the better cut, and his boots the best blackened, of the two;--probably because he made the one, or cleaned the other, with his own hands. in the present case, i speak of writing, not of persons. of the latter, i know nothing; of the former, i judge as it is found. of my friend hunt, i have already said, that he is any thing but vulgar in his manners; and of his disciples, therefore, i will not judge of their manners from their verses. they may be honourable and _gentlemanly_ men, for what i know; but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publications. they remind me of mr. smith and the miss broughtons at the hampstead assembly, in "evelina." in these things (in private life, at least,) i pretend to some small experience; because, in the course of my youth, i have seen a little of all sorts of society, from the christian prince and the mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ranks of their countries, down to the london boxer, the "_flash and the swell_," the spanish muleteer, the wandering turkish dervise, the scotch highlander, and the albanian robber;--to say nothing of the curious varieties of italian social life. far be it from me to presume that there ever was, or can be, such a thing as an _aristocracy_ of _poets_; but there _is_ a nobility of thought and of style, open to all stations, and derived partly from talent, and partly from education,--which is to be found in shakspeare, and pope, and burns, no less than in dante and alfieri, but which is nowhere to be perceived in the mock birds and bards of mr. hunt's little chorus. if i were asked to define what this gentlemanliness is, i should say that it is only to be defined by _examples_--of those who have it, and those who have it not. in _life_, i should say that most _military_ men have it, and few _naval_;--that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers;--that it is more frequent among authors than divines (when they are not pedants); that _fencing_-masters have more of it than dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that (if it be not an irishism to say so) it is far more generally diffused among women than among men. in poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never _make_ entirely a poet or a poem; but neither poet nor poem will ever be good for any thing without it. it is the _salt_ of society, and the seasoning of composition. _vulgarity_ is far worse than downright _blackguardism_; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all things, "signifying nothing." it does not depend upon low themes, or even low language, for fielding revels in both;--but is he ever _vulgar_? no. you see the man of education, the gentleman, and the scholar, sporting with his subject,--its master, not its slave. your vulgar writer is always most vulgar, the higher, his subject; as the man who showed the menagerie at pidcock's was wont to say,--"this, gentlemen, is the _eagle_ of the _sun_, from archangel, in russia; the _otterer_ it is, the _igherer_ he flies." but to the proofs. it is a thing to be felt more than explained. let any man take up a volume of mr. hunt's subordinate writers, read (if possible) a couple of pages, and pronounce for himself, if they contain not the kind of writing which may be likened to "shabby-genteel" in actual life. when he has done this, let him take up pope;--and when he has laid him down, take up the cockney again--if he can. * * * * * _note to the passage in page_ . _relative to pope's lines upon lady mary w. montague_.] i think that i could show, if necessary, that lady mary w. montague was also greatly to blame in that quarrel, _not_ for having rejected, but for having encouraged him: but i would rather decline the task--though she should have remembered her own line, "_he comes too near, that comes to be denied_." i admire her so much--her beauty, her talents--that i should do this reluctantly. i, besides, am so attached to the very name of _mary_, that as johnson once said, "if you called a dog _harvey_, i should love him;" so, if you were to call a female of the same species "mary," i should love it better than others (biped or quadruped) of the same sex with a different appellation. she was an extraordinary woman: she could translate _epictetus_, and yet write a song worthy of aristippus. the lines, "and when the long hours of the public are past, and we meet, with champaigne and a chicken, at last, may every fond pleasure that moment endear! be banish'd afar both discretion and fear! forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd, he may cease to be formal, and i to be proud, till," &c. &c. there, mr. bowles!--what say you to such a supper with such a woman? and her own description too? is not her "_champaigne and chicken_" worth a forest or two? is it not poetry? it appears to me that this stanza contains the "_purée_" of the whole philosophy of epicurus:--i mean the _practical_ philosophy of his school, not the precepts of the master; for i have been too long at the university not to know that the philosopher was himself a moderate man. but, after all, would not some of us have been as great fools as pope? for my part, i wonder that, with his quick feelings, her coquetry, and his disappointment, he did no more,--instead of writing some lines, which are to be condemned if false, and regretted if true. index. * * * * * the roman letters refer to the volume; the arabic figures to the page. * * * * * a. aberdeen, mrs. byron's residence at the day school there at which lord byron was a pupil his allusion to the localities of affection of the people of, for his memory absence, consolations in abstinence, the sole remedy for plethora abydos, lord byron's swimming feat from sestos to see bride of abydos abyssinia, lord byron's project of visiting academical studies, effect of, on the imaginative faculty acerbi, giuseppe acland, mr., lord byron's school-fellow at harrow acting, no immaterial sensuality so delightful actium, remains of the town of actors, an impracticable race ada see byron, augusta-ada adair, robert, esq. adams, john, the southwell carrier lord byron's epitaph on addison, joseph, his character as a poet his conversation his 'drummer' 'adolphe,' benjamin constant's adversity 'Æneid, the,' written for political purposes Æschylus his 'prometheus' his 'seven before thebes' 'agathon,' wieland's history of aglietti, dr., ms. letters in his profession offered to mr. murray albania albanians, their character and manners alberoni, cardinal albrizzi, countess, some account of her conversazioni her 'ritratti di uomini illustri' her portrait of lord byron alder, mr alexander the great, his exclamation to the athenians alfieri, vittorio, his description of his first love effect of the representation of his 'mira' on lord byron his conduct to his mother his tomb in the church of santa croce coincidences between the disposition and habits of lord byron and his 'life' quoted alfred club algarotti, francesco, his treatment of lady m.w. montagu ali pacha of yanina, account of lord byron's visit to his letter in latin to lord byron allegra (lord byron's natural daughter) her death inscription for a tablet to her memory allen, john, esq., a 'helluo of books' althorp, viscount alvanley (william arden), second lord ambrosian library at milan, lord byron's visit to 'americani,' patriotic society so called americans, their freedom acquired by firmness without excess amurath, sultan 'anastasius,' mr. hope's, his character 'anatomy of melancholy,' a most amusing medley of quotations and classical anecdotes ancestry, pride of, one of the most decided features of lord byron's character andalusian nobleman, adventures of a young animal food annesley, the residence of miss chaworth annesley, mr., lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow anstey's 'bath guide' 'anti-byron,' a satire anti-jacobin review antiloctius, tomb of antinous, the bust of, super-natural 'antiquary,' character of scott's novel so called 'antony and cleopatra,' observations on the play of apollo belvidere arethusa, fountain of, lord byron's visit to argenson, marquis d', his advice to voltaire argyle institution ariosto, lord byron's imitation of his portrait by titian measure of his poetry spared by the robber who had read his 'orlando furioso' his courage aristides aristophanes, mitchell's translation of 'armageddon,' townshend's poem so called armenian convent of st. lazarus language grammar art, not inferior to nature, for poetical purposes arts, gulf of ash, thomas, author of 'the book' lord byron's generous conduct towards athens, lord byron's first visit to account of the maid of atticus, herodes aubonne augusta, stanzas to augustus cæsar, his times 'auld lang syne' authors, an irritable set avarice 'away, away, ye notes of woe' 'a year ago you swore,' &c. b. bacon, lord, on the celibacy of men of genius inaccuracies in his apophthegms baillie, joanna, the only woman capable of writing tragedy baillie, dr., lord byron put under his care ----, dr. matthew, consulted on lord byron's supposed insanity baillie 'long' baillie, mr. d. balgounie, brig of ballater, a residence of lord byron in his youth bandello, his history of romeo and juliet bankes, william, esq. letters to barbarossa, aruck barber, j.t., the painter barff, mr., lord byron's letters to, on the greek cause barlow, joel, character of his 'columbiad' barnes, thomas, esq. barry, mr., the banker of genoa bartley, george, the comedian ----, mrs., the actress bartolini, the sculptor, his bust of lord byron bartorini, princess, her monument at bologna bath, lord byron at 'bath guide,' anstey's baths of penelope, lord byron's visit to 'baviad and mæviad,' extinguishment of the delia cruscans by the bay of biscay bayes, mr., caricature of dryden beattie, dr., his 'minstrel' beaumarchais, his singular good fortune beaumont, sir george beauvais, bishop of beccaria, anecdote of becher, rev. john, lord byron's friend his epilogue to the 'wheel of fortune' his influence over lord byron letters to beckford, william, esq., his 'tales' in continuation of 'vathek' beggar's opera,' gay's, a st. giles's lampoon behmen, jacob, his reverses bellingham, lord byron present at his execution beloe, rev. william, character of his 'sexagenarian' bembo, cardinal, amatory correspondence between lucretia borgia and benacus, the (now the lago di garda) bentham, jeremy, quackery of his followers benzoni, countess, her conversazioni some account of 'beppo, a venetian story' see also bergami, the princess of wales's courier and chamberlain bernadotte, jean-baptiste-jules, king of sweden berni, the father of the beppo style of writing berry, miss 'bertram,' mathurin's tragedy of bettesworth, captain (cousin of lord byron), the only officer in the navy who had more wounds than lord nelson betty, william henry west (the young roscius) beyle, m., his 'histoire de la peinture en italie' his account of an interview with lord byron at milan bible, the, read through by lord byron before he was eight years old biography 'bioscope, or dial of life,' mr. grenville penn's birch, alderman blackett, joseph, the poetical cobbler his posthumous writings blackstone, judge, composed his commentaries with a bottle of port before him blackwood's magazine blake, the fashionable tonsor bland, rev. robert blaquiere, mr. bleeding, lord byron's prejudice against blessington, earl of letters to ----, countess of impromptu on her taking a villa called 'il paradiso' lines written at the request of letters to blinkensop, rev. mr., his sermon on christianity bloomfield, nathaniel ----, robert blount, martha, pope's attachment to blucher, marshal 'blues, the; a literary eclogue' 'boatswain,' lord byron's favourite dog boisragon, dr. bolivar, simon bolder, mr., lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow bologna, lord byron's visit to the cemetery of bolton, mr., letters of lord byron to, respecting his will bonneval, claudius alexander, count de bonstetten, m. books, list of, read by lord byron before the age of borgia, lucretia, her amatory correspondence with cardinal bembo 'born in a garret borromean islands 'bosquet de julie' 'bosworth field,' lord byron's projected epic entitled botzari, marco, his letter to lord byron his death bowers, mr. (lord byron's school-master at aberdeen) bowles, rev. william lisle, his controversy concerning pope his 'spirit of discovery,' his 'invariable principles of poetry,' his hypochondriacism his 'missionary,' lord byron's 'letter on his strictures on the life and writings of pope,' lord byron's 'observations upon observations; a second letter,' &c. bowring, dr., lord byron's letters to, on the greek cause, and his intention to embark in it boxing bradshaw, hon. cavendish braham, john, the singer breme, marquis de 'bride of abydos; a turkish tale' bridge of sighs at venice, account of brientz, town and lake of 'brig of balgounie' 'british critic' 'british review' ----, 'my grandmother's review' lord byron's letter to the editor broglie, duchess of (daughter of mad. de staël), her character anecdote of her remark on the errors of clever people brooke, lord (sir fulke greville), account of a ms. poem by brougham, henry, esq. (afterwards lord brougham and vaux), a candidate for westminster against sheridan broughton, the regicide, his monument at vevay brown, isaac hawkins, his 'pipe of tobacco' his 'lava buttons' browne, sir thomas, his 'religio medici' quoted bruce, mr. brummell, william, esq. bruno, dr., lord byron's medical attendant in greece anecdote of brussels bryant, jacob, on the existence of troy brydges, sir egerton, his 'letters on the character and poetical genius of byron' his 'ruminator' buchanan, rev. dr. bucke, rev. charles buonaparte, lucien, his 'charlemagne' ----, napoleon, one of the most extraordinary of men that anakim of anarchy poor little pagod ode on his fall fortune's favourite burdett, sir francis his style of eloquence burgage manor, notts, the residence of lord byron burgess, sir james bland burke, rt. hon. edmund, his oratory burns, robert, his habit of reading at meals his elegy on maillie 'what would he have been his unpublished letters his rank among poets 'often coarse, but never vulgar' burton's 'anatomy of melancholy,' 'a most amusing and instructive medley' burun, ralph de, mentioned in doomsday book busby, dr., dryden's reverential regard for ----, thomas, mus. doct., his monologue on the opening of drury lane theatre his translation of lucretius butler, dr. (headmaster at harrow) reconciliation between lord byron and byron, sir john, the little, with the great beard ----, sir john, st lord, his high and honourable services ----, sir richard, tribute to his valour and fidelity ----, admiral john (the grand-father of the poet), his shipwreck and sufferings ----, william, fifth lord (grand-uncle of the poet) his trial for killing mr. chaworth in a duel his death his eccentric and unsocial habits byron, john (father of the poet), his elopement with lady carmarthen his marriage with miss catherine gordon his death at valenciennes ----, mrs. (mother of the poet), descended from the gordons of gight vehemence of her feelings ballad on the occasion of her marriage her fortune separates from her husband her capricious excesses of fondness and of anger her death lord byron's letters to see also ----, honourable augusta (sister of the poet) see leigh, honourable augusta ----, (george-gordon-byron), sixth lord-- . born jan. -- . taken by his mother to aberdeen impetuosity of his temper affectionate sweetness and playfulness of his disposition the malformation of his foot a source of pain and uneasiness to him his early acquaintance with the sacred writings instances of his quickness and energy death of his father -- ; sent to a day-school at aberdeen his own account of the progress of his infantine studies his sports and exercises -- . removed into the highlands his visits to lachin-y-gair first awakening of his poetic talent his early love of mountain scenery attachment for mary duff . succeeds to the title made a ward of chancery, under the guardianship of the earl of carlisle, and removed to newstead placed under the care of an empiric at nottingham for the cure of his lameness . first symptom of a tendency towards rhyming removed to london, and put under the care of dr. baillie becomes the pupil of dr. glennie, at dulwich - . his boyish love for his cousin, margaret parker his 'first dash into poetry' is sent to harrow notices of his school-life his first harrow verses his school friendships his mode of life as a schoolboy accompanies his mother to bath his early attachment to miss chaworth heads a 'rebelling' at harrow passes the vacation at southwell . removed to cambridge his college friendships . aug.-nov., prepares a collection of his poems for the press his visit to harrowgate southwell private theatricals prints a volume of his poems; but, at the entreaty of mr. becher commits the edition to the flames . publishes 'hours of idleness' list of historical writers whose works he had perused at the age of nineteen reviews wordsworth's poems begins 'bosworth field,' an epic. writes part of a novel . his early scepticism effect produced on his mind by the critique on 'hours of idleness,' in the edinburgh review passes his time between the dissipations of london and cambridge takes up his residence at newstead forms the design of visiting india prepares 'english bards and scotch reviewers,' for the press . his coming of age celebrated at newstead takes his seat in the house of lords loneliness of his position at this period sets out on his travels state of mind in which he took leave of england visits lisbon, seville, cadiz, gibraltar, malta, prevesa, zitza tepaleen is introduced to ali pacha begins 'childe harold' at ioannina visits actium, nicopolis; nearly lost in a turkish ship of war proceeds through acarnania and Ætolia towards the morea reaches missolonghi visits patras, vostizza, mount parnassus, delphi, lepanto, thebes mount cithæron arrives, on christmas-day, at athens . spends ten weeks in visiting the monuments of athens; makes excursions to several parts of attica the maid of athens leaves athens for smyrna visits ruins of ephesus concludes, at smyrna, the second canto of 'childe harold' april, leaves smyrna for constantinople visits the troad swims from sestos to abydos may, arrives at constantinople june, expedition through the bosphorus to the black sea july aug.--sept., makes a tour of the morea returns to athens . writes 'hints from horace,' and 'curse of minerva.' returns to england effect of travel on the general character of his mind and disposition his first connection with mr. murray death of his mother of his college friends, matthews and wingfield and of 'thyrza' origin of his acquaintance with mr. moore act of generosity towards mr. hodgson . feb. ., makes his first speech in the house of lords feb. ., publishes the first and second cantos of 'childe harold,' presents the copyright of the poem to mr. dallas although far advanced in a fifth edition of 'english bards,' determines to commit it to the flames presented to the prince regent writes the address for the opening of drury lane theatre . april, brings out anonymously 'the waltz' may, publishes the 'giaour' his intercourse, through mr. moore, with mr. leigh hunt makes preparations for a voyage to the east projects a journey to abyssinia dec., publishes the 'bride of abydos' is an unsuccessful suitor for the hand of miss milbanke . jan., publishes the 'corsair' april, writes 'ode on the fall of napoleon buonaparte' comes to the resolution, not only of writing no more, but of suppressing all he had ever written may, writes 'lara;' makes a second proposal for the hand of miss milbanke, and is accepted dec., writes 'hebrew melodies' . jan ., marries miss milbanke april, becomes personally acquainted with sir walter scott may, becomes a member of the sub-committee of drury lane theatre pressure of pecuniary embarrassments . jan., lady byron adopts the resolution of separating from him samples of the abuse lavished on him march, writes 'fare thee well,' and 'a sketch' april, leaves england his route--brussels, waterloo, &c. takes up his abode at the campagne diodati finishes, june , the third canto of 'childe harold' writes, june , 'the prisoner of chillon' writes 'darkness,' 'epistle to augusta,' 'churchill's grave,' 'prometheus,' 'could i remount,' 'sonnet to lake leman,' and part of 'manfred' august, an unsuccessful negotiation for a domestic reconciliation sept., makes a tour of the bernese alps his intercourse with mr. shelley oct., proceeds to italy--route, martiguy, the simplon, milan verona nov., takes up his residence at venice marianna segati studies the armenian language . feb., finishes 'manfred' march, translates from the armenian, a correspondence between st. paul and the corinthians april makes a short visit to rome, and writes there a new third act to 'manfred' july, writes, at venice, the fourth canto of 'childe harold' oct., writes 'beppo' . the fornarina, margaritta cogni july, writes 'ode on venice' nov., finishes 'mazeppa' . jan., finishes second canto of 'don juan' april, beginning of his acquaintance with the countess guiccioli june, writes 'stanzas to the po' dec., completes the third and fourth cantos of 'don juan' removes to ravenna . jan., domesticated with countess guiccioli feb., translates first canto of the 'morgante maggiore' march, finishes 'prophecy of dante' translates 'francesa of rimini' and writes 'observations upon an article in blackwood's magazine' april--july, writes 'marino faliero' oct.--nov., writes fifth canto of 'don juan' . feb., writes 'letter on the rev. w.l. bowles's strictures on the life of pope' march, 'second letter,' &c. may, finishes 'sardanapalus' july, 'the two foscari' sept., 'cain' oct., writes 'heaven and earth, a mystery' and 'vision of judgment' removes to pisa . jan., finishes 'werner' sept, removes to genoa his coalition with hunt in the 'liberal' . april, turns his views towards greece receives a communication from the london committee may, offers to proceed to greece, and to devote his resources to the object in view preparations for his departure july ., sails for greece reaches argostoli excursion to ithaca waits, at cephalonia, the arrival of the greek fleet his conversations on religion with dr. kennedy at mataxata his letters to madame guiccioli his address to the greek government and remonstrance to prince mavrocordati testimonies to the benevolence and soundness of his views instances of his humanity and generosity while at cephalonia . jan. ., arrives at missolonghi writes 'lines on completing my thirty-sixth year' intended attack upon lepanto is made commander-in-chief of the expedition rupture with the suliotes the expedition suspended his last illness his death his funeral inscription on his monument his will his person his sensitiveness on the subject of his lameness his abstemiousness his habitual melancholy his tendency to make the worst of his own obliquities his generosity and kind-heartedness his politics his religious opinions his tendency to superstition portraits of him byron, lady her remarks on mr. moore's life of lord byron lord byron's letters to ----, honourable augusta ada byron, (george) seventh lord ----, eliza ----, henry c. cadiz, described cæsar, julius, his times cahir, lady 'cain, a mystery,' alleged blasphemies see also caledonian meeting, 'address intended to be recited at' calvert, mr., lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow cambridge, lord byron's entry into trinity college a chaos of din and drunkenness lord byron's distaste to camoens, distinguished himself in war campbell, thomas, esq., his first introduction to lord byron coleridge lecturing against him his 'pleasures of hope' the best of judges his unpublished poem on a scene in germany inadvertencies in his 'lives of the poets' his 'gertrude of wyoming' full of false scenery see, also canning, right hon. george his oratory ----, sir stratford, his poem entitled 'buonaparte' canova his early love cant, 'the grand primum mobile of england' cantemir, demetrius, his 'history of the ottoman empire,' carlile, richard, folly of his trial carlisle (frederick howard), fifth earl of, becomes lord byron's guardian his alleged neglect of his ward proposed reconciliation between lord byron and caroline, queen of england carmarthen, marchioness of caro, annibale, his translations from the classics carpenter, james, the bookseller carr, sir john, the traveller cartwright, major cary, rev. henry francis, his translation of dante castanos, general castellan, a.l., his 'moeurs des ottomans' castlereagh, viscount, (robert stewart, marquis of londonderry) catholic emancipation 'cato,' pope's prologue to catullus, his 'atys' not licentious 'cavalier servente' cawthorn, mr., the bookseller caylus, count de 'cecilia,' miss burney's celibacy of eminent philosophers centlivre, mrs., character of her comedies drove congreve from the stage 'cenci,' shelley's chamouni, remarks on the scenery of charlemont, lady, lord byron's admiration of ----, mrs. charles the fifth charlotte, the princess, attacks upon lord byron in consequence of his verses to death of chatham, lord, a notice of his oratory chatterton, thomas, self-educated never vulgar chaucer, geoffrey, character of his poetry chauncy, captain chaworth, mary anne (afterwards mrs. musters), lord byron's early attachment to his last farewell of her her marriage interview with, after her marriage cheltenham, lord byron at childe alarique 'childe harold's pilgrimage,' the poem commenced first produced to mr. dallas the author's false judgment concerning identification of lord byron's character with mr. gifford's opinion of the poem preparations for publication its progress through the press mr. moore's opinion its publication and instantaneous success alleged resemblance to marmion in it the d canto written progress of the th canto guineas asked for it the translation confiscated in italy 'the sublimest poetical achievement of mortal pen' chillon, castle of 'chillon, prisoner of christ, what proved him the son of god 'christabel', lord byron's admiration of cicero, antony's treatment of cid cigars cintra, the most beautiful village in the world clare (john fitzgibbon), earl of clare, john, the poet clarens claridge, mr. 'clarissa harlowe.' clarke, rev. james stanier, his 'naufragia.' clarke, hewson classical education claudian, the 'ultimus romanorum.' claughton, mr. clayton, mr. clitumnus, the river clubs coates, romeo, his lothario cobbett, william cochrane, lord 'cockney school' of poetry cogni, margarita (the fornarina), story of coldham, mr. coleridge, samuel taylor, esq., his 'devil's walk' his 'remorse' his 'zopolia' his 'biographia literaria' his 'christabel' lord byron's letters to see also colman, george, esq., his prologue to 'philaster' ----, george, jun., esq., parallel between sheridan and colocotroni colonna, cape columns of comedy more difficult to compose than tragedy concanen, mr. congreve, self-educated his comedies driven from the stage by mrs. centlivre constance (a german lady) constant, benjamin de, his 'adolphe' constantinople, st. sophia the seraglio the first sea view cooke, george frederick, tragedian, an american life of the most natural of actors coolidge, mr., of boston copet cordova, admiral ----, sennorita 'corinne,' notes written by lord byron in corinth ----, capture of see 'siege of corinth.' cork, countess of cornwall, barry (bryan walter proctor) 'corsair, the; a tale' 'cosmopolite,' an amusing little volume full of french flippancy cotin, l'abbé cottin, madame 'could i remount the river of my years' 'courier' courtenay, john, esq., anecdotes of cowell, mr. john, letters to cowley, abraham, his 'essays' quoted his character cowper, earl ----, countess ----, william, famous at cricket and football his remark on the english system of education his spaniel 'beau' an example of filial tenderness 'no poet' his translation of homer crabbe, rev. george, the just tribute to his 'resentment' his quality as a poet 'the father of present poesy' crebillon, the younger, his marriage cribb, tom, the pugilist cricketing, one of lord byron's most favourite sports 'critic,' sheridan's, 'too good for a farce' 'critical review' croker, right hon. john wilson, his query concerning the title of the 'bride of abydos' his 'guess' as to the origin of 'beppo' lord byron's letter to his 'boswell' quoted crosby, benjamin crowe, rev, william, his criticism in 'english bards' curioni, signor, singer curran, right hon. john philpot, lord byron's enthusiastic praise 'curse of kebama' 'curse of minerva' curzon, mr. cuvìer, baron d. dallas, robert charles, commencement of his acquaintance with lord byron childe harold first shown to him copywright of the corsair presented to him his ingratitude see also lord byron's letters to dalrymple, sir hew d'alton, john, esq., his 'dermid' dandies dante, his early passion for beatrice his infelicitous marriage his poem celebrated long before his death his popularity his gentle feelings lord byron's resemblance to see also 'prophecy of' d'arblay, madame (miss burney), guineas asked for one of her novels her 'cecilia' see also darnley, death of, a fine subject for a drama 'darkness' darwin, dr. erasmus, put down by the anti-jacobin davies, scrope, esq. davy, sir humphry dawkins, mr. 'dear doctor, i have read your play' death death de bath, lord deformity, an incentive to distinction d'egville, john, the ballet-master delaval, sir francis blake delawarr (george-john west), fifth earl delia, poetical epistle from, to lord byron delladecima, count his opinion of lord byron's conduct in greece delphi, fountain of demetrius denham, his 'cowper's hill' dent de jument dervish tahiri, lord byron's faithful arnaout guide 'devil's drive,' the devil's walk,' porson's devonshire, duchess of (lady elizabeth foster), her character of the roman government 'diary of an invalid,' matthews's dibdin, thomas, play-wright dick, mr. diderot, his definition of sensibility digestion dioclesian dionysius at corinth d'israeli, j., esq. his 'essay on the literary character' his 'quarrels of authors' his remark on the effect of medicine upon the mind and spirits 'distrest mother,' excellence of the epilogue to d'ivernois, sir francis divorce dogs, fidelity of -----, lord byron's fondness for his epitaph on 'boatswain' don, brig of donegal, lady 'don juan,' a scene in it adapted from the 'narrative of the shipwreck of the juno commencement of the poem the st canto finished copies to be printed privately nd canto 'nonsensical prudery' against it mr. murray in a fright about it the papers not so fierce as was anticipated authorship to be kept anonymous general outcry against the poem spurious rd cantos mr. murray going to law the author hurt but not frightened a french lady's compliments third canto the fifth canto hardly the beginning of the poem the countess guiccioli's intercession for its discontinuance shelley's opinion of it the poem all 'real life' errors of the press partiality of the germans for permission from the countess to continue it three more cantos another the 'quarterly' review of the poem an epitome of the author's character donna bianca, or white lady of colalto the story of her supernatural appearance d'orsay, count his 'journal' lord byron's letter to dorset (george-john frederick), fourth duke of 'lines occasioned by the death of' dorville, mr dovedale, lord byron's eulogy of the scenery of dramatists, old english, 'full of gross faults' 'not good as models' 'dream,' the the most mournful and picturesque story that ever came from the pen and heart of man 'one of the most interesting' of lord byron's poems dreams drummond, sir william his 'oedipus judaicus' ----, mr., lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow drury, rev. henry, lord byron's letters to ----, rev. dr. joseph, his account of lord byron's disposition and capabilities while at harrow lord byron's character of his retirement from the mastership of harrow drury, mark drury lane theatre 'address, spoken at the opening of' dryden, his praise of oxford, at the expense of cambridge eulogy of his 'fables' by lord byron 'duenna,' lord byron's partiality for the songs in duff, colonel (lord byron's god-father) ----, miss mary (afterwards mrs. robert cockburn), lord byron's boyish attachment for dulwich, lord byron at school there dumont, m duncan, mr., lord byron's writing-master at aberdeen dwyer, mr dyer's 'grongar hill' e. eagles, a flight of eboli, princess of, epigram on her losing an eye eclectic review eddleston, the cambridge chorister, lord byron's protegé edgecombe, mr edgehill, battle, seven brothers of the byron family at edgeworth, richard lovell, esq., sketch of ----, maria edinburgh annual register edinburgh review its effect on the author its review of the 'corsair' and 'bride of abydos' education, english system of elba, isle of, lord byron's 'ode to napoleon buonaparte' on his retreat to eldon, earl of anecdote of elgin, earl of, severe treatment of the 'curse of minerva' levelled against him ellice, edward, esq., letter to ellis, george, esq. ellison, lord byron's school-fellow at harrow elliston, robert william, comedian, lord byron's wish that he should speak his 'address' at drury lane theatre eloquence, state of endurance, of more worth than talent english bards and scotch reviewers, the groundwork laid before the appearance of the critique in the 'edinburgh review' sent to mr. harness success of the satire the author's regret in having written it refusal to republish it attempted publication of englishman, otway's three requisites for an envy ephesus, ruins of epigram on moore's operatic farce, or farcical opera erskine, lord, his eloquence his famous pamphlet see, also essex (george-capel), fifth earl of euxine, or black sea, description of ewing, dr. exeter 'change f. faber, rev. george fainting, sensation of falconer, his 'shipwreck' falkland (lucius gary), viscount, killed in a duel by mr. powell 'father of light! great god of heaven!' falkner, mr., lord byron's letter to, with a copy of his poems fall of terni falmouth fame, first tidings of, to lord byron see. also 'fare thee well, and if for ever' farrell, d., esq. fatalism 'faust,' goethe's 'faustus,' marlow's fawcett, john, comedian 'fazio,' milman's tragedy of fear ferrara, lord byron's visit to fersen, count fidler, ernest fielding, 'the prose homer of human nature.' finlay, kirkman, esq. fitzgerald, lord edward ----, william thomas, esq., poetaster flemish school of painting fletcher, william (lord byron's valet) flood, right hon. henry, his debut in the house of commons 'florence,' the lady addressed under this title in 'childe harold' (mrs., spencer smith) florence, lord byron's visits to the picture gallery foote, miss, the actress (afterwards, countess of harrington), her debut in the 'child of nature' forbes, lady adelaide forresti, g. forsyth, joseph, esq., his 'italy' fortune, lord byron attributed everything to see, also 'foscari, the two; an historical tragedy' foscolo, ugo his 'essay on petrarch' fountain of arethusa, lord byron's visit to fox, right hon. charles james, notice of poems his oratory ----, henry 'frament, a' 'francesca of rimini; from the inferno of dante' francis, sir philip, the probable author of 'junius' 'frankenstein,' mrs. shelley's franklin, benjamin frederick the second, 'the only monarch worth recording in prussian annals' free press in greece frere, right hon. john hookham, his 'whistlecraft' fribourg friday, supposed unluckiness of g. galignani, m. gait, john, esq., his life of lord byron see, also gamba, count pietro, the countess guiccioli's letter to mr. moore his friendship with lord byron his arrest at ravenna his notices of lord byron on his departure for greece remarks on lord byron's death garrick, sheridan's monologue on gay, madame sophie ----, mlle. delphine gell, sir william review of his 'geography of ithaca,' and 'itinerary of greece' geneva, lake of george the third, granted a pension to mrs. byron george the fourth, his interview with lord byron his indignation against 'cain' the 'vault reflection' 'georgics,' a finer poem than the Æneid germany and the germans ghost, the newstead 'giaour, the; a fragment of a turkish tale', the author's fears for it first publication of, and its brilliant success additions to the author's endeavours to 'beat' it the story on which it is founded gibbon, edward, esq., his remark on public schools his acacia his remark on his own history gifford, william, esq., his opinion of 'english bards' lord byron's disinclination that 'childe harold' should be shown to him influence of his opinion on lord byron and jeffrey, monarch-makers in poetry and prose the 'bride of abydos' submitted to lord byron's letters to gilchrist, octavius gillies, r.p., the author of 'childe alarique' giordani, signor giorgione his 'picture of his wife his judgment of solomon giraud, nicolo, lord byron's greek protégé 'glenarvon,' lady caroline lamb's glenbervie (sylvester douglas), first lord, his treatise on timber his 'ricciardetto' glennie, dr. (lord byron's preceptor) his account of his pupil's studies glover, mrs., actress godwin, william, lord byron's munificence to goethe, his 'kennst du das land,' &c. imitated his saying of lord byron his 'faust his remarks on 'manfred.' dedication of 'marino faliero' to his 'werther.' his 'giaour' story lord byron's letter to his tribute to the memory of byron goetz, countess gordon, sir john, of bogagicht ----, sir william, grandson of james i., an ancestor of lord byron's ----, duchess of ----, mr. ----, lord alexander ----, pryce, esq. gordons of gight gower, lord granville leveson (now earl and viscount granville) 'gradus ad parnassum,' lord byron's triangular grafton (george henry fitzroy), fourth duke of grainger, his 'ode to solitude.' grant, david, his 'battles and war pieces.' grattan, right hon. henry, his oratory curran's mimicry of him gray, his description of cambridge his preference for his latin poems an example of filial tenderness his 'elegy.' ----, may (lord byron's nurse) greece, past and present condition of small extent of greek islands, resources for an emigrant population in greeks, character of the cause of the purity with which they wrote their own language gregson, the pugilist grenville (william wyndham), lord greville, colonel, challenges lord byron for an insinuation in 'english bards.' grey, charles (afterwards earl grey), his oratory see also grey de ruthven, lord, newstead abbey let to him grillparzer, his tragedy of sappho character of his writings grimaldi, joseph, covent garden clown grimm, baron his 'correspondence' as valuable as muratori or tiraboschi grindenwald, the 'grongar hill,' dyer's guerrino, a picture of his at milan guiccioli, count ----, countess, her first introduction to lord byron attacked with fever sincerity of lord byron's attachment to her accompanies lord byron to venice disinterestedness of her conduct, and returns with the count to ravenna lord byron follows her efforts for a separation the pope pronounces for it the countess retires to her father's villa arrest of her father and brother shelley's opinion of her connexion with lord byron her intercession for the discontinuance of don juan lord byron's unwilling departure for greece his letters to the countess from greece see also guildford, earl of guinguene, p.l. gulley, john, the pugilist (in m. p. for pontefract) h. hafiz, the oriental anacreon hailstone, professor hall, captain basil, lord byron's attention to his letter to hamilton, lady dalrymple hancock, charles, esq. lord byron's letters to hannibal, saying of hanson, john, esq. (lord byron's solicitor) ----, miss (afterwards countess of portsmouth) lord byron's presence at her marriage 'hardyknute,' the fine poem so called harrington, earl of. see stanhope ----, countess of. see foote harley, lady charlotte (the 'lanthe' to whom the first and second cantos of 'childe harold' are dedicated) ----, lady jane harness, rev. william his sermons quoted lord byron's letters to harris, his 'philosophical inquiries' harrow, lord byron's entrance at his first harrow verses his magnanimity in behalf of his friend peel 'byron's tomb' his attachment to harrow harrowby, earl of harrowgate, lord byron's visit to hartington, marquis of (afterwards sixth duke of devonshire) harvey, mrs. jane hatchard, mr. john hawke (edward harvey), third lord hay, captain hayley, his 'triumphs of temper,' lord byron's eulogy of hayreddin hazlitt, william, his style headfort, marchioness of 'hebrew melodies' helen, 'lines on canova's bust of' hellespont, lord byron's swimming feat from sestos to abydos hemans, mrs., her 'restoration' character of her poetry henley, orator herbert of cherbury, lord, his life much interested lord byron hero and leander hill, aaron 'hills of annesley, bleak and barren.' 'hints from horace,' written at athens first produced to mr. dallas singular preference given by the author to them see also hippopotamus at exeter change historians, list of, perused by lord byron at nineteen hoare, mr., lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow hobbes, thomas hobhouse, right hon. henry ----, right hon. sir john cam, bart., his 'journey through albania' quoted his 'historical notes to childe harold' hodgson, rev. francis, lord byron's well-timed assistance to his 'friends' lord byron's letters to see also hogg, james, the ettrick shepherd holerott, thomas, his 'memoirs' holderness, lady holland, lord, the allusion to commencement of lord byron's acquaintance with his oratory lord byron's letters to holland, lady ----, dr. holmes, mr., the miniature painter homer, geography of, visit to the school of hope, thomas, esq., his 'anastasius' hoppner, r b., esq., his account of lord byron's mode of life at venice 'lines on the birth of his son' lord byron's letters to see also horace, lord byron's early dislike to quoted 'horace in london' see 'hints from horace' horestan castle, derbyshire, held by lord byron's ancestors 'horsæ ionicæ homer, francis, esq. 'hours of idleness,' first publication of a review of another in the 'critical review,' furious philippic in the 'eclectic' critique of the edinburgh review howard, hon. frederick hume, david, his essays his 'treatise of human nature' hunt, john ----, leigh, lord byron's first acquaintance with described his 'rimini' his 'foliage' his 'byron and some of his contemporaries' see also hunter, p., esq. hurd, bishop, his remark on academical studies hutchinson, colonel, his memoirs 'huzza! hodgson, we are going' hymettus hypochondriacism i ida, mount imagination immortality of the soul improvisatore, account of one at milan 'ina,' mrs. wilmot's tragedy of inchbald, mrs., her 'simple story' her 'nature and art' incledon, charles, singer 'inez,' stanzas to interlachen invention iris, the 'irish avatar' irving, washington, esq. italian manners italians, bad translators, except from the classics italy, the only modern nation in europe that has a poetical language ithaca, excursion to j. jackson, 'john, the professor of pugilism lord byron's letters to jacobson, m. 'jacqueline,' mr. rogers's jeffrey, francis, esq., allusion to in 'english bards' his duel with mr. moore his review of the 'giaour' his criticisms on lord byron's works his review of coleridge's 'christabel' jersey, earl of ----, countess of jesus christ job jocelyn, lord, (afterwards earl of roden) johnson, dr. his prologue on opening drury lane theatre his 'vanity of human wishes' his melancholy his 'lives of the poets' his 'london' lord byron's high opinion of him jones, mr., tutor at cambridge ----, richard, comedian jordan, mrs., actress joukoffsky, the russian poet joy, henry, esq., his visit to byron juliet's tomb see romeo julius cæsar, his times jungfrau, the junius's letters 'juno,' shipwreck of the jura mountains juvenal k. kay, mr., painter kayo, sir richard kean, edmund, tragedian, his richard the third lord byron's enthusiastic admiration of effect of his sir giles over-reach on keats, john, his poems died through bursting a blood-vessel on reading the article on his 'endymion' in the quarterly review his depreciation of pope kelly, miss, actress kemble, john philip, esq., his coriolanus his hamlet intreats lord byron to write a tragedy his acting described his othello his iago kennedy, dr., his 'conversations on religion with lord byron in cephalonia' lord byron's letters to kent, mr., his taste in gardening formed by pope kidd, captain strange story related to lord byron by kien long, his 'ode to tea' kinnaird, hon. douglas lord byron's letters to klopstock knight, galley, esq. his 'persian tales' knox, captain (british resident at ithaca) kosciusko, general koran, sublime poetical passages in l. la bruytère lachin-y-gair lago maggiore lake leman lake school of poetry 'lakers,' the 'lalla rookh' lamartine, m. lamb, hon. george ----, lady caroline her 'glenarvon' 'lament of tasso' lansdowne, (henry fitzmaurice pitty), fourth marquis of 'laka; a tale' lauderdale, earl of, his oratory laura, her portrait la valière, madame lavender, the nottingham empiric lawrence, sir thomas leacroft, mr. ----, miss leake, colonel his 'outlines of the greek revolution' leandor and hero leckie, gould francis, esq. leigh, mr., lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow ----, colonel ----, hon. augusta (lord byron's sister) leinster, duke of leman, lake le man, mr. leoni, signor, his translation of childe harold lepanto, gulf of lerici leveson-gower, lady charlotte (afterwards countess of surrey) levis, due de lewis, matthew gregory, esq. 'liberal,' the liberty life likenesses lisbon 'lisbon packet' liston, sir robert ----, john, comedian little's poems liverpool, earl of livy lloyd, charles, esq. lobster nights, pope's and lord byron's loch leven locke, his treatise on education his contempt for oxford lockhart, j.g., esq., his 'life of burns' his marriage with miss scott ----, mrs. lodburgh, his 'death song' lofft, capel londo, andrea, the greek patriot account of lord byron's letter to londonderry (robert stewart), second marquis of long, edward noel, esq., lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow long, miss (afterwards mrs. long pole wellesley) longevity longmans, messrs. love, 'not the principal passion for tragedy.' success in, dependent on fortune woman's low spirits lowe, sir hudson lucretius luc, jean andré de ludlow, general, the regicide, his monument his domal inscription lushington, dr., his letter to lady byron lutzerode, baron luxembourg, maréchal lyttleton, george, lord. lord byron compared to ----, thomas, lord m. machinery, effects of mackenzie, henry, esq., his notice of lord byron's early poems mackintosh, sir james, brightest of northern constellations his review of rogers in the edinburgh review a rare instance of the union of very transcendent talent and great good nature his letter in the 'morning chronicle high expectation of his promised history strong impression made by him on lord byron macnamara, arthur, esq. mafra, the palace of, the boast of portugal mahomet maid of athens account of maintenon, madame letters malamocco, wall of 'manfred; a dramatic poem,' finished extracts sent to mr. murray offered to him for guineas a sort of mad drama; instructions for its title the third act to be re-written new third act sent to mr. murray a critique on; omission of a line critique of the 'edinburgh review a menaced version of the poem goethe's remarks on mansel, dr., bishop of bristol manton gun, lord byron's 'manuel,' mathurin's marden, mrs., actress marianna segati 'marino faliero, doge of venice; an historical tragedy.' intention to write the tragedy commenced advanced into the second act completed not intended for the stage mr. gifford's opinion of it a note to be introduced the author's talent 'especially undramatic a phrase to be altered the poem not popular lines to be introduced reported representation of the play and its condemnation a note for the next edition marlow, his 'faustus.' 'marmion.' marriage ceremony marriages, great cause of unhappy ones 'mary,' lord byron's love for the name ---- of aberdeen massaniello materialism mathews, charles, comedian mathurin, rev. charles his 'bertram.' his 'manuel,' matlock, lord byron at matter matthews, john, esq., of belmont, some account of ----, charles skinner, esq. lord byron's account of his visit to newstead tributes to his memory ----, henry, esq. his 'diary of an invalid' account of ----, rev. arthur matthison, frederic, his 'letters from the continent' maugiron, epigram on the loss of his eye mavrocordato, prince lord byron's letters to proclamation issued by him, on lord byron's death mawman, joseph, bookseller mayfield, mr. moore's residence in staffordshire 'mazeppa' medicine, effects of, on the mind and spirits medwin, captain, his acquaintance with lord byron at pisa meillerie melbourne, lady mendelsohn, his habitual melancholy mengaldo, chevalier merivale, j.h., esq. his 'roncesvalles' his review of 'grimm's correspondence' lord byron's letter to metastasio meyler, richard, esq. mezzophanti, 'a monster of languages' milan cathedral ambrosian library at brera gallery napoleon's triumphal arch state of society at milbanke, sir ralph ----, lady. see noel ----, miss (afterwards lady byron) see byron miller, rev. dr., his 'essay on probabilities' ----, william, bookseller, refuses to publish childe harold millingen, mr., his account of the consultation on lord byron's last illness milman, rev. henry hart, now dean of st. paul's, his 'fazio' milnes, robert, esq. milo milton, his imitation of ariosto his practice of dating his poems followed by lord byron his dislike to cambridge his infelicitous marriage his disregard of painting and sculpture his politics kept him down his 'material thunder.' mirabeau, his eloquence 'mirra,' of alfieri, effect of the representation of, on lord byron missiaglia, venetian bookseller mistress, 'cannot be a friend mitchell, t., esq., his translation of aristophanes 'mobility' modern gardening, pope the chief inventor of moira, earl of (afterwards marquis of hastings) molière monçada, marquis 'monk,' lewis's, 'the philtered ideas of a jaded voluptuary' mont blanc montague, edward wortley ----, lady mary wortley, proposed italian translation of her letters and new life of three pretty notes by her pope's lines on her montbovon 'monthly literary recreations,' lord byron's review of wordsworth's poems in monti, his aristodemo ----, account of moore, thomas, esq., his prefaces to his 'life of lord byron,' his first acquaintance with lord byron duel between mr. jeffrey and his person and manners described his poetry 'lines on his last operatic farce or farcical opera' his 'lalla rookh' his 'loves of the angels' lord byron's letters to see also moore, peter, esq. morgan, lady her 'italy' ----, lord byron's school-fellow at harrow 'morgante maggiore, of pulci.' translation of the first canto commenced finished not a line to be omitted the author's opinion of it 'morning post' morosini. his siege of athens mosaic chronology mosti, count mother, future conduct of a child dependent on the muir, mr., letter to mule, mrs., lord byron's housemaid müller, the historian muloch, muley his 'atheism answered' murat, joachim, death of muratori murillo, lord byron's opinion of murray, john, esq, his first connection with lord byron childe harold placed in his hands shows the poem to mr. gifford purchases the copyright 'the [greek: anax] of publishers' recommended by lord byron to mr. moore as 'among the first of the trade,' offers guineas for the 'giaour' and 'bride of abydos,' lord byron's high compliment to pays guineas for the 'siege of corinth' and 'parisina' the 'mokanna' of publishers' offers guineas for the th canto of 'childe harold' poetical epistle to 'strahan, tonson, lintot, of the times' conduct to mr. moore lord byron's last letter to letters and allusions to, _passim_ music, lord byron's love of simple see, also musters, mr. john, his marriage to miss chaworth musters, mrs. see chaworth 'my boat is on the shore' 'my dear mr. murray' n. napier, colonel his testimony to the benevolence and soundness of lord byron's views with regard to greece naples, 'the second best sea view napoleon. see buonaparte nathan, his 'hebrew nasalities' nature ----, 'prayer of.' 'naufragia,' clarke's nelson, southey's life of nepean, mr. ----, sir evan nerni newstead, granted by henry viii. to sir john byron a prophecy of mother shipton's respecting let to lord grey de ruthen lord byron's affection for description of, and of the noble owner attempted sale of nicopolis, ruins of night nobility of thought and style defined noel, lady norfolk (charles howard), twelfth duke of nottingham frame breaking bill ----, lord byron's residence at 'nourjahad,' a drama, falsely attributed to lord byron novels o. oak, the byron 'ode on venice' o'donnovan, p.m., his 'sir proteus.' 'oh! banish care.' 'oh! memory, torture me no more.' o'higgins, mr., his irish tragedy olympus o'neil, miss, actress orators, only two thorough ones 'things of ages.' orchomenus orrery, earl of, his life of swift quoted osborne, lord sidney 'otello,' rossini's otway, his three requisites for an englishman his 'beividera.' ouchy owenson, miss see morgan, lady oxford, gibbon's bitter recollections of dryden's praise of, at the expense of cambridge oxford, earl of ----, countess of p. 'parisina,' guineas offered for it and the 'siege of corinth,' by mr. murray fancied resemblance between part of the poem and a similar scene in 'marmion.' parker, sir peter, stanzas written by lord byron on his death ----, lady ----, margaret, lord byron's boyish love for parkins, miss fanny parliament, lord byron's speeches in parnassus, lord byron's visit to, and stanzas upon parr, dr. parry, captain parruca, signor, letter to parthenon pasquali, padre past, 'the best prophet of the future.' paterson, mr. (lord byron's tutor at aberdeen) patrons paul, st., translation from the armenian, of correspondence between the corinthians and paul's, st., cathedral, comparison with st. sophia's pausanias, his 'achaics' quoted payne, thomas, bookseller peel, right hon. sir robert lord byron's form-fellow at harrow ----, william, esq., one of lord byron's friends penelope, baths of, lord byron's visit to penn, granville, esq., his 'bioscope, or dial of life, explained ----, william, the founder of quakerism perry, james, esq petersburgh petrarch, his literary and personal character interwoven his severity to his daughter in his youth a coxcomb his portrait in the manfrini palace his popularity see also phillips, ambrose, his pastorals ----, s.m., esq ----, thomas, esq., r.a philosophers, celibacy of eminent phoenix, sheridan's story of the physic pictures pierce plowman pigot, miss account of her first acquaintance with lord byron lord byron's letters to pigot, dr his account of lord byron's visit to harrowgate lord byron's letters to pigot, mrs., lord byron's letter to pigot, family pindemonte, ippolito, lord byron's portrait of pitt, rt. hon. william plagiarism players, an impracticable people 'pleasures of hope.' 'pleasures of memory.' plethora, abstinence the sole remedy for poetry, distasteful to byron when a boy when to be employed as the interpreter of feeling addiction to, whence resulting new school of 'the feeling of a former world and future' descriptive ethical, 'the highest of all see also poets, self-educated ones lord byron's list of celebrated poets of all nations unfitted for the calm affections and comforts of domestic life querulous and monotonous lives of female see also polidori, dr. some account of anecdotes of his 'vampire his tragedy political consistency politics pomponius atticus pope, alexander, a self-educated poet lord byron's enthusiastic admiration of his youth and byron's compared an example of filial tenderness his prologue to cato his ineffable distance above all modern poets the parent of real english poetry atrocious cant and nonsense about the christianity of english poetry ten times more poetry in his 'essay on man' than in the 'excursion' keats' depreciation of the most faultless of poets his imagery the greatest name in our poetry his essay upon phillips's pastorals a model of irony the principal inventor of modern gardening his 'homer' 'letter on bowles's strictures on the life and writings of,' second letter see, also porson, professor, his 'devil's walk' lord byron's recollection of portrait painter, agonies of a pouqueville, m. de powerscourt, lord, one of lord byron's friends pratt, samuel jackson priestley, dr., his christian materialism prince regent lord byron's introduction to see george iv. prior's paulo purgante 'prisoner of chillon' probabilities, dr. miller's essay on probationary odes prologues, 'only two decent ones in our language' 'prometheus,' of Æschylus 'prophecy of dante prophets pulci, his 'morgante maggiore' 'sire of the half serious rhyme' punctuation q. quarrels of authors, d'israeli's quarterly review 'quentin durward' r. rae, john, comedian rainsford, lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow rancliffe, lord raphael, his hair rashleigh, lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow ravenna raymond, james grant, comedian reading, the love of regnard, his hypochondriacism reinagle, r.r., his chained eagle 'rejected addresses,' 'the best of the kind since the rolliad,' ----, the genuine republics reviewers reviews reynolds, sir joshua, 'not good in history' reynolds, j.h., his 'safie' 'ricciardetto,' lord glenbervie's translation of rice, lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow richardson, 'the vainest and luckiest of authors' riddel, lady, her masquerade at bath, at which lord byron appeared ridge, printer riga, the greek patriot roberts, mr. (editor of the british review) robins, george, auctioneer robinson crusoe, the first part said to be written by lord oxford rocca, m. de rochdale estate rochefoucault, 'always right' sayings of rogers, samuel, esq., his 'pleasures of memory' his 'jacqueline' 'the tithonus of poetry' 'the father of present poesy' his tribute to the memory of lord byron lord byron's letters to see also ----, mr., of nottingham (lord byron's latin tutor) rokeby, lord byron's schoolfellow at harrow roman catholic religion romanelli, physician rome, 'the wonderful' finer than greece romeo and juliet, the story of rose, william stewart, esq., his 'animali' his 'lines to lord byron' rose glaciers 'rose-water' ross, rev. mr. (lord byron's tutor at aberdeen) rossini, his 'otello' roscoe, mr rossoe, mr., story of roufigny, abbé de rousseau, jean jacques, lord byron's resemblance to comparison between lord byron and his marriage his 'héloïse' his 'confessions' force and accuracy of his descriptions rowcroft, mr royston, lord byron's school-fellow at harrow rubens, his style rushton, robert (the 'little page' in childe harold) lord byron's letters to 'ruminator,' the, by sir egerton brydges rusponi, countess russell, lord john rycaut, his 'history of the turks' first drew lord byron's attention to the east see, also s. st. lambert, his imitation of thomson sanders, mr., his portraits of lord byron 'sappho,' of grillparzer 'sardanapalus,' outline of the tragedy sketched four acts completed the play finished a disparagement of it sarrazin, general satan, lord byron's opinion of his real appearance to the creator 'satirist' scaligers, tomb of the scamander schiller, his 'thirty years war' his 'robbers' his 'fiesco' his 'ghost-seer' schlegel, frederick, his writings anecdotes of 'school for scandal' school of homer, lord byron's visit to scotland, the impressions on lord byron's mind by the mountain scenery of lord byron 'half a scot by birth and bred a whole one' 'a canny scot till ten years' old' scott, sir walter, his dog 'maida' his 'rokeby' the 'monarch of parnassus' his 'lives of the novelists' his 'waverley' his first acquaintance with byron his 'antiquary' his review of 'childe harold' in the quarterly his 'tales of my landlord' 'the ariosto of the north' the first british poet titled for his talent his 'ivanhoe' his 'monastery' his 'abbot' his imitators the 'scotch fielding' his countenance his novels 'a new literature in themselves' his 'kenilworth' his 'life of swift' lord byron's letters to see, also scott, mr., of aberdeen ----, mr. alexander ----, mr. john 'scotticisms' scriptures, lord byron's knowledge of the see, also, bible 'scourge,' proceedings against the, for a libel on mrs. byron sculpture, the most artificial of the arts its superiority to painting more poetical than nature sécheron self-educated poets sensibility separation, miseries of seraglio at constantinople, description of sestos settle, elkanah, his 'emperor of morocco' 'seven before thebes' seville seward, anne, her 'life of darwin' 'sexagenarian,' beloe's 'shah nameh,' the persian iliad shakspeare, his infelicitous marriage 'the worst of models' 'will have his decline' sharp, william (the engraver, and disciple of joanna southcote) sharpe, richard, esq. (the 'conversationist') sheil, richard, esq. sheldrake, mr. shelley, percy bysshe, esq., his 'queen mab' his portrait of lord byron particulars concerning his visit to lord byron at ravenna his praise of don juan lord byron's letters to his letters to lord byron see also ----, mrs. her 'frankenstein' lord byron's letters to shepherd, rev. john, his letter enclosing his wife's prayer on lord byron's behalf lord byron's answer sheridan, right hon. richard brinsley, anecdotes of and colman compared his eloquence his conversation 'whatever he did, was the best of its kind' defence of his phoenix story 'monody on the death of' 'shipwreck,' falconer's shoel, mr. shreikhorn shrewsbury, earl of, his letter to sir john byron's grandson siddons, mrs., her performance of the character of isabella lord byron's praise of effect of her acting at edinburgh an allusion to 'siege of corinth' sigeum, cape simplon, the sinclair, george, esq., 'the prodigy' of harrow school sirmium 'sir proteus,' a satirical ballad 'sketch,' a skull-cup slave trade slavery sligo, marquis of his letter on the origin of the 'giaour' smart, christopher smith, sir henry ----, horace, esq., his 'horace in london' ----, mrs. spencer. see 'florence.' ----, miss (afterwards mrs. oscar byrne), dancer smyrna, lord byron's stay at smythe, professor socrates sonnets, 'the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions,' sorelli, his translation of grillparzer's 'sappho' sotheby, william, esq., his tragedies his 'ivan' accepted for drury lane theatre similarity of a passage in 'ivan' to one in the 'corsair' a 'row' about 'ivan' the Æschylus of the age his 'orestes' see also lord byron's letters to southcote, joanna southey, robert, esq., ll.d., his person and manners his prose and poetry his 'roderick' his 'curse of kehama' lord byron's intention to dedicate 'don juan' to him his 'joan of arc' would have been better in rhyme see also southwell, notts, lord byron's residence at southwood, on the divine government speeches in parliament, lord byron's spence's anecdotes (singer's edition) spencer, dowager lady ----, william, esq. ----, countess spenser, edmund, his measure stäel, madame de, her essay against suicide her 'de l'allemagne' her personal appearance her death notes written by lord byron in her 'corinne' see also stafford, marquis of (now duke of sutherland) stafford, marchioness of (now duchess of sutherland) stanhope, hon. col. leicester, (now earl of harrington) his arrival in greece to assist in effecting its liberation his 'greece in - ' lord byron's letters to ----, lady hester, lord byron taken to task by steele, sir richard stella, swift's sterne, his affected sensibility stephenson, sir john stockhorn storm, aspect of one in the archipelago 'strahan, tonson, lintot of the times' strangford, lord, his 'camoens' strong, mr., lord byron's school-fellow at harrow stuart, sir charles (now lord stuart de rothsay) suleyman, of thebes 'sunshiny day' supernatural appearances suppers lobster nights 'sweet florence, could another ever share' swift, dr. jonathan similarity between the character of lord byron and gave away his copyrights his stella and vanessa swoon, the sensation described sylla symplegades switzerland and the swiss t. taaffe, mr. his 'commentary on dante' tahiri, dervise 'tales of my landlord' tasso, an expert swordsman and dancer an example of filial tenderness his imprisonment his popularity in his lifetime remade the whole of his 'jerusalem' his sensitiveness to public favour 'lament of' tattersall, rev. john cecil (lord byron's school acquaintance) tavernier, the eastern traveller, his château at aubonne tavistock, marquis of taylor. john, esq., lord byron's letter to in respect of an allusion to lady byron in the 'sun' newspaper teeth temple, sir william, his opinion of poetry tepaleen terni, falls of terry, daniel, comedian theatricals, private, at southwell thirst 'this day of all our days has done' thomas of ercildoune thompson, mr. thomson, james, the poet, his 'seasons' would have been better in rhyme thorwaldsen, the sculptor, his bust of lord byron 'though the day of my destiny's o'er' thoun 'through life's dull road, so dim and dirty' thurlow (thomas hovell thurlow) second lord thyrza tiberius tiraboschi ''tis done and shivering in the gale.' lord byron's stanzas to mrs. musters on leaving england titian, his portrait of ariosto his pictures at florence toderinus, his 'storia della letteratura turchesca' town life townshend, rev. george, his 'armageddon' travelling, lord byron's opinion of the advantages of travis, the venetian jew trelawney, edward, esq. troad, the troy authenticity of the tale of tuite, lady, her stanzas to memory tally's 'tripoli' turkey, women of turner, w., esq., his 'tour in the levant' twiss, horace, esq. tyranny u. ulissipont unities, the usurers v. vacca, dr. valentia, lord (now earl of mountnorris) valière, madame la 'vampire, the, a fragment' superstition vanbrugh, his comedies vanessa, swift's 'vanity of human wishes,' johnson's vascillie 'vathek' 'vault reflections' velasquez veli pacha venetian dialect venice, the gondolas st. mark's theatres women carnival morals and manners in nobility of riaito manfrini palace bridge of sighs 'venice, ode on' venus de medici, more for admiration than love verona, how much catullus, claudian, and shakspeare have done for it amphitheatre of juliet's tomb at tombs of the scaligers versatility vestris, italian comedian vevay vicar of wakefield voltaire, gave away his copyrights d'argenson's advice to voluptuary vondel, the dutch shakspeare vostizza vulgarity of style w. waite, mr. (lord byron's dentist) wales, princess of (afterwards queen caroline) wallace, the scottish chief wallace-nook walpole, sir robert, his conversation at table 'waltz, the; an apostrophic hymn' the authorship of it denied by lord byron ward, hon. john william (afterwards earl of dudley), his review of horne tooke's life in the quarterly his style of speaking lord byron's pun on his review of fox's correspondence epigrams on warren, sir john washington, george waterloo, lord byron's verses on the battle of wathen, mr. watier's club 'waverley,' character of way, william, esq. webster, sir godfrey webster, wedderburn, esq. 'weep, daughter of a royal line' wellesley, sir arthur. see wellington ----, richard, esq. wellington, duke of, 'the scipio of our hannibal' wengen alps wentworth, lord 'werner; or, the inheritance; a tragedy' 'werther,' goethe's effects of mad. de stäel's character of west, mr. (american artist), his conversations with lord byron westall, richard, esq.. r.a. westminster abbey westmoreland, lady wetterhorn 'what matter the pangs' 'when man expelled from eden's bowers' 'when time, who steals our years away' whigs 'whistlecraft' whitbread, samuel, esq. 'the demosthenes of bad taste' whitby, captain white, henry kirke, esq. ----, lydia 'white lady of avenel' 'white lady of colalto' 'who killed john keats?' 'why, how now, saucy tom?' wieland his history of 'agathon' resemblance between byron and wilberforce, william, esq., his style of speaking personified by sheridan wildman, thomas, esq. ----, colonel, present proprietor of newstead wilkes, john, esq. will, lord byron's his last williams, captain williams, mrs., the fortune-teller, her prediction concerning byron wilmot, mrs., her tragedy wilson, professor windham, right hon. william 'windsor poetics' wingfield, hon. john his death women, society of cannot write tragedy state of, under the ancient greeks woodhouselee, lord, his opinion of lord byron's early poems woolriche, dr. wordsworth, william, esq., lord byron's review of his early poems the allusion to his 'excursion' his powers to do 'anything' influence of his poetry on lord byron never vulgar see also wrangham, rev. francis wright, walter rodwell, esq., his 'horæ ionicæ' writers, tragic, generally mirthful persons y. yanina york, duke of young, dr. e. yussuff, pacha yverdun z. zitza zograffo, demetrius the end. life of lord byron: with his letters and journals. by thomas moore, esq. in six volumes.--vol. iii. new edition. london: john murray, albemarle street. . contents of vol. iii. letters and journals of lord byron, with notices of his life, from february, , to april, . notices of the life of lord byron. "journal, . "february . "better than a month since i last journalised:--most of it out of london and at notts., but a busy one and a pleasant, at least three weeks of it. on my return, i find all the newspapers in hysterics[ ], and town in an uproar, on the avowal and republication of two stanzas on princess charlotte's weeping at regency's speech to lauderdale in . they are daily at it still;--some of the abuse good, all of it hearty. they talk of a motion in our house upon it--be it so. "got up--redde the morning post, containing the battle of buonaparte, the destruction of the custom-house, and a paragraph on me as long as my pedigree, and vituperative, as usual. "hobhouse is returned to england. he is my best friend, the most lively, and a man of the most sterling talents extant. "'the corsair' has been conceived, written, published, &c. since i last took up this journal. they tell me it has great success;--it was written _con amore_, and much from _existence_. murray is satisfied with its progress; and if the public are equally so with the perusal, there's an end of the matter. [footnote : immediately on the appearance of the corsair, (with those obnoxious verses, "weep, daughter of a royal line," appended to it,) a series of attacks, not confined to lord byron himself, but aimed also at all those who had lately become his friends, was commenced in the courier and morning post, and carried on through the greater part of the months of february and march. the point selected by these writers, as a ground of censure on the poet, was one which _now_, perhaps, even themselves would agree to class among his claims to praise,--namely, the atonement which he had endeavoured to make for the youthful violence of his satire by a measure of justice, amiable even in its overflowings, to every one whom he conceived he had wronged. notwithstanding the careless tone in which, here and elsewhere, he speaks of these assaults, it is evident that they annoyed him;--an effect which, in reading them over now, we should be apt to wonder they could produce, did we not recollect the property which dryden attributes to "small wits," in common with certain other small animals:-- "we scarce could know they live, but that they _bite_." the following is a specimen of the terms in which these party scribes could then speak of one of the masters of english song:--"they might have slept in oblivion with lord carlisle's dramas and lord byron's poems."--"some certainly extol lord byron's poem much, but most of the best judges place his lordship rather low in the list of our minor poets."] "nine o'clock. "been to hanson's on business. saw rogers, and had a note from lady melbourne, who says, it is said i am 'much out of spirits.' i wonder if i really am or not? i have certainly enough of 'that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart,' and it is better they should believe it to be the result of these attacks than of the real cause; but--ay, ay, always _but_, to the end of the chapter. "hobhouse has told me ten thousand anecdotes of napoleon, all good and true. my friend h. is the most entertaining of companions, and a fine fellow to boot. "redde a little--wrote notes and letters, and am alone, which locke says, is bad company. 'be not solitary, be not idle.'--um!--the idleness is troublesome; but i can't see so much to regret in the solitude. the more i see of men, the less i like them. if i could but say so of women too, all would be well. why can't i? i am now six-and-twenty; my passions have had enough to cool them; my affections more than enough to wither them,--and yet--and yet--always _yet_ and _but_--'excellent well, you are a fishmonger--get thee to a nunnery.'--'they fool me to the top of my bent.' "midnight. "began a letter, which i threw into the fire. redde--but to little purpose. did not visit hobhouse, as i promised and ought. no matter, the loss is mine. smoked cigars. "napoleon!--this week will decide his fate. all seems against him; but i believe and hope he will win--at least, beat back the invaders. what right have we to prescribe sovereigns to france? oh for a republic! 'brutus, thou sleepest.' hobhouse abounds in continental anecdotes of this extraordinary man; all in favour of his intellect and courage, but against his _bonhommie_. no wonder;--how should he, who knows mankind well, do other than despise and abhor them? "the greater the equality, the more impartially evil is distributed, and becomes lighter by the division among so many--therefore, a republic! "more notes from mad. de * * unanswered--and so they shall remain. i admire her abilities, but really her society is overwhelming--an avalanche that buries one in glittering nonsense--all snow and sophistry. "shall i go to mackintosh's on tuesday? um!--i did not go to marquis lansdowne's, nor to miss berry's, though both are pleasant. so is sir james's,--but i don't know--i believe one is not the better for parties; at least, unless some _regnante_ is there. "i wonder how the deuce any body could make such a world; for what purpose dandies, for instance, were ordained--and kings--and fellows of colleges--and women of 'a certain age'--and many men of any age--and myself, most of all! "'divesne prisco et natus ab inacho, nil interest, an pauper, et infimâ de gente, sub dio moreris, victima nil miserantis orci. * * * * * omnes eodem cogimur.' "is there any thing beyond?--_who_ knows? _he_ that can't tell. who tells that there _is_? he who don't know. and when shall he know? perhaps, when he don't expect, and generally when he don't wish it. in this last respect, however, all are not alike: it depends a good deal upon education,--something upon nerves and habits--but most upon digestion. "saturday, feb. . "just returned from seeing kean in richard. by jove, he is a soul! life--nature--truth without exaggeration or diminution. kemble's hamlet is perfect;--but hamlet is not nature. richard is a man; and kean is richard. now to my own concerns. "went to waite's. teeth all right and white; but he says that i grind them in my sleep and chip the edges. that same sleep is no friend of mine, though i court him sometimes for half the twenty-four. "february . "got up and tore out two leaves of this journal--i don't know why. hodgson just called and gone. he has much _bonhommie_ with his other good qualities, and more talent than he has yet had credit for beyond his circle. "an invitation to dine at holland house to meet kean. he is worth meeting; and i hope, by getting into good society, he will be prevented from falling like cooke. he is greater now on the stage, and off he should never be less. there is a stupid and under-rating criticism upon him in one of the newspapers. i thought that, last night, though great, he rather under-acted more than the first time. this may be the effect of these cavils; but i hope he has more sense than to mind them. he cannot expect to maintain his present eminence, or to advance still higher, without the envy of his green-room fellows, and the nibbling of their admirers. but, if he don't beat them all, why then--merit hath no purchase in 'these coster-monger days.' "i wish that i had a talent for the drama; i would write a tragedy _now_. but no,--it is gone. hodgson talks of one,--he will do it well;--and i think m--e should try. he has wonderful powers, and much variety; besides, he has lived and felt. to write so as to bring home to the heart, the heart must have been tried,--but, perhaps, ceased to be so. while you are under the influence of passions, you only feel, but cannot describe them,--any more than, when in action, you could turn round and tell the story to your next neighbour! when all is over,--all, all, and irrevocable,--trust to memory--she is then but too faithful. "went out, and answered some letters, yawned now and then, and redde the robbers. fine,--but fiesco is better; and alfieri and monti's aristodemo _best_. they are more equal than the tedeschi dramatists. "answered--or, rather acknowledged--the receipt of young reynolds's poem, safie. the lad is clever, but much of his thoughts are borrowed,--_whence_, the reviewers may find out. i hate discouraging a young one; and i think,--though wild and more oriental than he would be, had he seen the scenes where he has placed his tale,--that he has much talent, and, certainly, fire enough. "received a very singular epistle; and the mode of its conveyance, through lord h.'s hands, as curious as the letter itself. but it was gratifying and pretty. "sunday, february . "here i am, alone, instead of dining at lord h.'s, where i was asked,--but not inclined to go anywhere. hobhouse says i am growing a _loup garou_,--a solitary hobgoblin. true;--'i am myself alone.' the last week has been passed in reading--seeing plays--now and then visiters--sometimes yawning and sometimes sighing, but no writing,--save of letters. if i could always read, i should never feel the want of society. do i regret it?--um!--'man delights not me,' and only one woman--at a time. "there is something to me very softening in the presence of a woman,--some strange influence, even if one is not in love with them,--which i cannot at all account for, having no very high opinion of the sex. but yet,--i always feel in better humour with myself and every thing else, if there is a woman within ken. even mrs. mule[ ], my fire-lighter,--the most ancient and withered of her kind,--and (except to myself) not the best-tempered--always makes me laugh,--no difficult task when i am 'i' the vein.' "heigho! i would i were in mine island!--i am not well; and yet i look in good health. at times, i fear, 'i am not in my perfect mind;'--and yet my heart and head have stood many a crash, and what should ail them now? they prey upon themselves, and i am sick--sick--'prithee, undo this button--why should a cat, a rat, a dog have life--and _thou_ no life at all?' six-and-twenty years, as they call them, why, i might and should have been a pasha by this time. 'i 'gin to be a weary of the sun.' "buonaparte is not yet beaten; but has rebutted blucher, and repiqued swartzenburg. this it is to have a head. if he again wins, 'væ victis!' [footnote : this ancient housemaid, of whose gaunt and witch-like appearance it would be impossible to convey any idea but by the pencil, furnished one among the numerous instances of lord byron's proneness to attach himself to any thing, however homely, that had once enlisted his good nature in its behalf, and become associated with his thoughts. he first found this old woman at his lodgings in bennet street, where, for a whole season, she was the perpetual scarecrow of his visiters. when, next year, he took chambers in albany, one of the great advantages which his friends looked to in the change was, that they should get rid of this phantom. but, no,--there she was again--he had actually brought her with him from bennet street. the following year saw him married, and, with a regular establishment of servants, in piccadilly; and here,--as mrs. mule had not made her appearance to any of the visiters,--it was concluded, rashly, that the witch had vanished. one of those friends, however, who had most fondly indulged in this persuasion, happening to call one day when all the male part of the establishment were abroad, saw, to his dismay, the door opened by the same grim personage, improved considerably in point of habiliments since he last saw her, and keeping pace with the increased scale of her master's household, as a new peruke, and other symptoms of promotion, testified. when asked "how he came to carry this old woman about with him from place to place," lord byron's only answer was, "the poor old devil was so kind to me."] "sunday, march . "on tuesday last dined with rogers,--madame de staël, mackintosh, sheridan, erskine, and payne knight, lady donegall and miss r. there. sheridan told a very good story of himself and madame de recamier's handkerchief; erskine a few stories of himself only. _she_ is going to write a big book about england, she says;--i believe her. asked by her how i liked miss * *'s thing, called * *, and answered (very sincerely) that i thought it very bad for _her_, and worse than any of the others. afterwards thought it possible lady donegall, being irish, might be a patroness of * *, and was rather sorry for my opinion, as i hate putting people into fusses, either with themselves or their favourites; it looks as if one did it on purpose. the party went off very well, and the fish was very much to my gusto. but we got up too soon after the women; and mrs. corinne always lingers so long after dinner that we wish her in--the drawing-room. "to-day c. called, and while sitting here, in came merivale. during our colloquy, c.(ignorant that m. was the writer) abused the 'mawkishness of the quarterly review of grimm's correspondence.' i (knowing the secret) changed the conversation as soon as i could; and c. went away, quite convinced of having made the most favourable impression on his new acquaintance. merivale is luckily a very good-natured fellow, or, god he knows what might have been engendered from such a malaprop. i did not look at him while this was going on, but i felt like a coal--for i like merivale, as well as the article in question. "asked to lady keith's to-morrow evening--i think i will go; but it is the first party invitation i have accepted this 'season,' as the learned fletcher called it, when that youngest brat of lady * *'s cut my eye and cheek open with a misdirected pebble--'never mind, my lord, the scar will be gone before the _season_;' as if one's eye was of no importance in the mean time. "lord erskine called, and gave me his famous pamphlet, with a marginal note and corrections in his handwriting. sent it to be bound superbly, and shall treasure it. "sent my fine print of napoleon to be framed. it _is_ framed; and the emperor becomes his robes as if he had been hatched in them. "march . "rose at seven--ready by half-past eight--went to mr. hanson's, berkeley square--went to church with his eldest daughter, mary anne (a good girl), and gave her away to the earl of portsmouth. saw her fairly a countess--congratulated the family and groom (bride)--drank a bumper of wine (wholesome sherris) to their felicity, and all that--and came home. asked to stay to dinner, but could not. at three sat to phillips for faces. called on lady m.--i like her so well, that i always stay too long. (mem. to mend of that.) "passed the evening with hobhouse, who has begun a poem, which promises highly;--wish he would go on with it. heard some curious extracts from a life of morosini, the blundering venetian, who blew up the acropolis at athens with a bomb, and be d----d to him! waxed sleepy--just come home--must go to bed, and am engaged to meet sheridan to-morrow at rogers's. "queer ceremony that same of marriage--saw many abroad, greek and catholic--one, at _home_, many years ago. there be some strange phrases in the prologue (the exhortation), which made me turn away, not to laugh in the face of the surpliceman. made one blunder, when i joined the hands of the happy--rammed their left hands, by mistake, into one another. corrected it--bustled back to the altar-rail, and said 'amen.' portsmouth responded as if he had got the whole by heart; and, if any thing, was rather before the priest. it is now midnight, and * * *. "march . thor's day. "on tuesday dined with rogers,--mackintosh, sheridan, sharpe,--much talk, and good,--all, except my own little prattlement. much of old times--horne tooke--the trials--evidence of sheridan, and anecdotes of those times, when _i_, alas! was an infant. if i had been a man, i would have made an english lord edward fitzgerald. "set down sheridan at brookes's,--where, by the by, he could not have well set down himself, as he and i were the only drinkers. sherry means to stand for westminster, as cochrane (the stock-jobbing hoaxer) must vacate. brougham is a candidate. i fear for poor dear sherry. both have talents of the highest order, but the youngster has _yet_ a character. we shall see, if he lives to sherry's age, how he will pass over the redhot ploughshares of public life. i don't know why, but i hate to see the _old_ ones lose; particularly sheridan, notwithstanding all his _méchanceté_. "received many, and the kindest, thanks from lady portsmouth, _père_ and _mère_, for my match-making. i don't regret it, as she looks the countess well, and is a very good girl. it is odd how well she carries her new honours. she looks a different woman, and high-bred, too. i had no idea that i could make so good a peeress. "went to the play with hobhouse. mrs. jordan superlative in hoyden, and jones well enough in foppington. _what plays!_ what wit!--helas! congreve and vanbrugh are your only comedy. our society is too insipid now for the like copy. would _not_ go to lady keith's. hobhouse thought it odd. i wonder _he_ should like parties. if one is in love, and wants to break a commandment and covet any thing that is there, they do very well. but to go out amongst the mere herd, without a motive, pleasure, or pursuit--'sdeath! 'i'll none of it.' he told me an odd report,--that _i_ am the actual conrad, the veritable corsair, and that part of my travels are supposed to have passed in privacy. um!--people sometimes hit near the truth; but never the whole truth. h. don't know what i was about the year after he left the levant; nor does any one--nor--nor--nor--however, it is a lie--but, 'i doubt the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth!' "i shall have letters of importance to-morrow. which, * *, * *, or * *? heigho!--* * is in my heart, * * in my head, * * in my eye, and the _single_ one, heaven knows where. all write, and will be answered. 'since i have crept in favour with myself, i must maintain it;' but _i_ never 'mistook my person,' though i think others have. "* * called to-day in great despair about his mistress, who has taken a freak of * * *. he began a letter to her, but was obliged to stop short--i finished it for him, and he copied and sent it. if he holds out, and keeps to my instructions of affected indifference, she will lower her colours. if she don't, he will, at least, get rid of her, and she don't seem much worth keeping. but the poor lad is in love--if that is the case, she will win. when they once discover their power, _finita e la musica_. "sleepy, and must go to bed. "tuesday, march . "dined yesterday with r., mackintosh, and sharpe. sheridan could not come. sharpe told several very amusing anecdotes of henderson, the actor. stayed till late, and came home, having drank so much _tea_, that i did not get to sleep till six this morning. r. says i am to be in _this_ quarterly--cut up, i presume, as they 'hate us youth.' _n'importe_. as sharpe was passing by the doors of some debating society (the westminster forum), in his way to dinner, he saw rubricked on the walls _scott_'s name and _mine_--'which the best poet?' being the question of the evening; and i suppose all the templars and _would bes_ took our rhymes in vain, in the course of the controversy. which had the greater show of hands, i neither know nor care; but i feel the coupling of the names as a compliment,--though i think scott deserves better company. "w.w. called--lord erskine, lord holland, &c. &c. wrote to * * the corsair report. she says she don't wonder, since 'conrad is so _like_.' it is odd that one, who knows me so thoroughly, should tell me this to my face. however, if she don't know, nobody can. "mackintosh is, it seems, the writer of the defensive letter in the morning chronicle. if so, it is very kind, and more than i did for myself. "told murray to secure for me bandello's italian novels at the sale to-morrow. to me they will be _nuts_. redde a satire on myself, called 'anti-byron,' and told murray to publish it if he liked. the object of the author is to prove me an atheist and a systematic conspirator against law and government. some of the verse is good; the prose i don't quite understand. he asserts that my 'deleterious works' have had 'an effect upon civil society, which requires,' &c. &c. &c. and his own poetry. it is a lengthy poem, and a long preface, with a harmonious title-page. like the fly in the fable, i seem to have got upon a wheel which makes much dust; but, unlike the said fly, i do not take it all for my own raising. "a letter from _bella_, which i answered. i shall be in love with her again, if i don't take care. "i shall begin a more regular system of reading soon. "thursday, march . "i have been sparring with jackson for exercise this morning; and mean to continue and renew my acquaintance with the muffles. my chest, and arms, and wind are in very good plight, and i am not in flesh. i used to be a hard hitter, and my arms are very long for my height ( feet - / inches). at any rate, exercise is good, and this the severest of all; fencing and the broad-sword never fatigued me half so much. "redde the 'quarrels of authors' (another sort of _sparring_)--a new work, by that most entertaining and researching writer, israeli. they seem to be an irritable set, and i wish myself well out of it. 'i'll not march through coventry with them, that's flat.' what the devil had i to do with scribbling? it is too late to enquire, and all regret is useless. but, an' it were to do again,--i should write again, i suppose. such is human nature, at least my share of it;--though i shall think better of myself, if i have sense to stop now. if i have a wife, and that wife has a son--by any body--i will bring up mine heir in the most anti-poetical way--make him a lawyer, or a pirate, or--any thing. but, if he writes too, i shall be sure he is none of mine, and cut him off with a bank token. must write a letter--three o'clock. "sunday, march . "i intended to go to lady hardwicke's, but won't. i always begin the day with a bias towards going to parties; but, as the evening advances, my stimulus fails, and i hardly ever go out--and, when i do, always regret it. this might have been a pleasant one;--at least, the hostess is a very superior woman. lady lansdowne's to morrow--lady heathcote's wednesday. um!--i must spur myself into going to some of them, or it will look like rudeness, and it is better to do as other people do--confound them! "redde machiavel, parts of chardin, and sismondi, and bandello--by starts. redde the edinburgh, , just come out. in the beginning of the article on 'edgeworth's patronage,' i have gotten a high compliment, i perceive. whether this is creditable to me, i know not; but it does honour to the editor, because he once abused me. many a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its censure, or _can_ praise the man it has once attacked. i have often, since my return to england, heard jeffrey most highly commended by those who know him for things independent of his talents. i admire him for _this_--not because he has _praised me_, (i have been so praised elsewhere and abused, alternately, that mere habit has rendered me as indifferent to both as a man at twenty-six can be to any thing,) but because he is, perhaps, the _only man_ who, under the relations in which he and i stand, or stood, with regard to each other, would have had the liberality to act thus; none but a great soul dared hazard it. the height on which he stands has not made him giddy:--a little scribbler would have gone on cavilling to the end of the chapter. as to the justice of his panegyric, that is matter of taste. there are plenty to question it, and glad, too, of the opportunity. "lord erskine called to-day. he means to carry down his reflections on the war--or rather wars--to the present day. i trust that he will. must send to mr. murray to get the binding of my copy of his pamphlet finished, as lord e. has promised me to correct it, and add some marginal notes to it. any thing in his handwriting will be a treasure, which will gather compound interest from years. erskine has high expectations of mackintosh's promised history. undoubtedly it must be a classic, when finished. "sparred with jackson again yesterday morning, and shall to-morrow. i feel all the better for it, in spirits, though my arms and shoulders are very stiff from it. mem. to attend the pugilistic dinner:--marquess huntley is in the chair. "lord erskine thinks that ministers must be in peril of going out. so much the better for him. to me it is the same who are in or out;--we want something more than a change of ministers, and some day we will have it. "i remember[ ], in riding from chrisso to castri (delphos), along the sides of parnassus, i saw six eagles in the air. it is uncommon to see so many together; and it was the number--not the species, which is common enough--that excited my attention. "the last bird i ever fired at was an _eaglet_, on the shore of the gulf of lepanto, near vostitza. it was only wounded, and i tried to save it, the eye was so bright; but it pined, and died in a few days; and i never did since, and never will, attempt the death of another bird. i wonder what put these two things into my head just now? i have been reading sismondi, and there is nothing there that could induce the recollection. "i am mightily taken with braccio di montone, giovanni galeazzo, and eccelino. but the last is _not_ bracciaferro (of the same name), count of ravenna, whose history i want to trace. there is a fine engraving in lavater, from a picture by fuseli, of _that_ ezzelin, over the body of meduna, punished by him for a _hitch_ in her constancy during his absence in the crusades. he was right--but i want to know the story. [footnote : part of this passage has been already extracted, but i have allowed it to remain here in its original position, on account of the singularly sudden manner in which it is introduced.] "tuesday, march . "last night, _party_ at lansdowne house. to-night, _party_ at lady charlotte greville's--deplorable waste of time, and something of temper. nothing imparted--nothing acquired--talking without ideas:--if any thing like _thought_ in my mind, it was not on the subjects on which we were gabbling. heigho!--and in this way half london pass what is called life. to-morrow there is lady heathcote's--shall i go? yes--to punish myself for not having a pursuit. "let me see--what did i see? the only person who much struck me was lady s* *d's eldest daughter, lady c.l. they say she is _not_ pretty. i don't know--every thing is pretty that pleases; but there is an air of _soul_ about her--and her colour changes--and there is that shyness of the antelope (which i delight in) in her manner so much, that i observed her more than i did any other woman in the rooms, and only looked at any thing else when i thought she might perceive and feel embarrassed by my scrutiny. after all, there may be something of association in this. she is a friend of augusta's, and whatever she loves i can't help liking. "her mother, the marchioness, talked to me a little; and i was twenty times on the point of asking her to introduce me to _sa fille_, but i stopped short. this comes of that affray with the carlisles. "earl grey told me laughingly of a paragraph in the last _moniteur_, which has stated, among other symptoms of rebellion, some particulars of the _sensation_ occasioned in all our government gazettes by the 'tear' lines,--_only_ amplifying, in its re-statement, an epigram (by the by, no epigram except in the _greek_ acceptation of the word) into a _roman_. i wonder the couriers, &c. &c., have not translated that part of the moniteur, with additional comments. "the princess of wales has requested fuseli to paint from 'the corsair,'--leaving to him the choice of any passage for the subject: so mr. locke tells me. tired, jaded, selfish, and supine--must go to bed. "_roman_, at least _romance_, means a song sometimes, as in the spanish. i suppose this is the moniteur's meaning, unless he has confused it with 'the corsair.' "albany, march . "this night got into my new apartments, rented of lord althorpe, on a lease of seven years. spacious, and room for my books and sabres. _in_ the _house_, too, another advantage. the last few days, or whole week, have been very abstemious, regular in exercise, and yet very _un_well. "yesterday, dined _tête-à-tête_ at the cocoa with scrope davies--sat from six till midnight--drank between us one bottle of champagne and six of claret, neither of which wines ever affect me. offered to take scrope home in my carriage; but he was tipsy and pious, and i was obliged to leave him on his knees praying to i know not what purpose or pagod. no headach, nor sickness, that night nor to-day. got up, if any thing, earlier than usual--sparred with jackson _ad sudorem_, and have been much better in health than for many days. i have heard nothing more from scrope. yesterday paid him four thousand eight hundred pounds, a debt of some standing, and which i wished to have paid before. my mind is much relieved by the removal of that _debit_. "augusta wants me to make it up with carlisle. i have refused _every_ body else, but i can't deny her any thing;--so i must e'en do it, though i had as lief 'drink up eisel--eat a crocodile.' let me see--ward, the hollands, the lambs, rogers, &c. &c.--every body, more or less, have been trying for the last two years to accommodate this _couplet_ quarrel to no purpose. i shall laugh if augusta succeeds. "redde a little of many things--shall get in all my books to-morrow. luckily this room will hold them--with 'ample room and verge, &c. the characters of hell to trace.' i must set about some employment soon; my heart begins to eat _itself_ again. "april . "out of town six days. on my return, find my poor little pagod, napoleon, pushed off his pedestal;--the thieves are in paris. it is his own fault. like milo, he would rend the oak[ ]; but it closed again, wedged his hands, and now the beasts--lion, bear, down to the dirtiest jackall--may all tear him. that muscovite winter _wedged_ his arms;--ever since, he has fought with his feet and teeth. the last may still leave their marks; and 'i guess now' (as the yankees say) that he will yet play them a pass. he is in their rear--between them and their homes. query--will they ever reach them? [footnote : he adopted this thought afterwards in his ode to napoleon, as well as most of the historical examples in the following paragraph.] "saturday, april . . "i mark this day! "napoleon buonaparte has abdicated the throne of the world. 'excellent well.' methinks sylla did better; for he revenged and resigned in the height of his sway, red with the slaughter of his foes--the finest instance of glorious contempt of the rascals upon record. dioclesian did well too--amurath not amiss, had he become aught except a dervise--charles the fifth but so so--but napoleon, worst of all. what! wait till they were in his capital, and then talk of his readiness to give up what is already gone!! 'what whining monk art thou--what holy cheat?' 'sdeath!--dionysius at corinth was yet a king to this. the 'isle of elba' to retire to!--well--if it had been caprea, i should have marvelled less. 'i see men's minds are but a parcel of their fortunes.' i am utterly bewildered and confounded. "i don't know--but i think _i_, even _i_ (an insect compared with this creature), have set my life on casts not a millionth part of this man's. but, after all, a crown may be not worth dying for. yet, to outlive _lodi_ for this!!! oh that juvenal or johnson could rise from the dead! 'expende--quot libras in duce summo invenies?' i knew they were light in the balance of mortality; but i thought their living dust weighed more _carats_. alas! this imperial diamond hath a flaw in it, and is now hardly fit to stick in a glazier's pencil:--the pen of the historian won't rate it worth a ducat. "psha! 'something too much of this.' but i won't give him up even now; though all his admirers have, 'like the thanes, fallen from him.' "april . "i do not know that i am happiest when alone; but this i am sure of, that i never am long in the society even of _her_ i love, (god knows too well, and the devil probably too,) without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library.[ ] even in the day, i send away my carriage oftener than i use or abuse it. _per esempio_,--i have not stirred out of these rooms for these four days past: but i have sparred for exercise (windows open) with jackson an hour daily, to attenuate and keep up the ethereal part of me. the more violent the fatigue, the better my spirits for the rest of the day; and then, my evenings have that calm nothingness of languor, which i most delight in. to-day i have boxed one hour--written an ode to napoleon buonaparte--copied it--eaten six biscuits--drunk four bottles of soda water--redde away the rest of my time--besides giving poor * * a world of advice about this mistress of his, who is plaguing him into a phthisic and intolerable tediousness. i am a pretty fellow truly to lecture about 'the sect.' no matter, my counsels are all thrown away. [footnote : "as much company," says pope, "as i have kept, and as much as i love it, i love reading better, and would rather be employed in reading than in the most agreeable conversation."] "april . . "there is ice at both poles, north and south--all extremes are the same--misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only,--to the emperor and the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. there is, to be sure, a damned insipid medium--an equinoctial line--no one knows where, except upon maps and measurement. "'and all our _yesterdays_ have lighted fools the way to dusty death.' i will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, i tear out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in _ipecacuanha_,--'that the bourbons are restored!!!'--'hang up philosophy.' to be sure, i have long despised myself and man, but i never spat in the face of my species before--'o fool! i shall go mad.'" * * * * * the perusal of this singular journal having made the reader acquainted with the chief occurrences that marked the present period of his history--the publication of the corsair, the attacks upon him in the newspapers, &c.--there only remains for me to add his correspondence at the same period, by which the moods and movements of his mind, during these events, will be still further illustrated. * * * * * to mr. murray. "sunday, jan. . . "excuse this dirty paper--it is the _pen_ultimate half-sheet of a quire. thanks for your book and the ln. chron., which i return. the corsair is copied, and now at lord holland's; but i wish mr. gifford to have it to-night. "mr. dallas is very _perverse_; so that i have offended both him and you, when i really meaned to do good, at least to one, and certainly not to annoy either.[ ] but i shall manage him, i hope.--i am pretty confident of the _tale_ itself; but one cannot be sure. if i get it from lord holland, it shall be sent. "yours," &c. [footnote : he had made a present of the copyright of "the corsair" to mr. dallas, who thus describes the manner in which the gift was bestowed:--"on the th of december, i called in the morning on lord byron, whom i found composing 'the corsair.' he had been working upon it but a few days, and he read me the portion he had written. after some observations, he said, 'i have a great mind--i will.' he then added that he should finish it soon, and asked me to accept of the copyright. i was much surprised. he had, before he was aware of the value of his works, declared that he never would take money for them, and that i should have the whole advantage of all he wrote. this declaration became morally void when the question was about thousands, instead of a few hundreds; and i perfectly agree with the admired and admirable author of waverley, that 'the wise and good accept not gifts which are made in heat of blood, and which may be after repented of.'--i felt this on the sale of 'childe harold,' and observed it to him. the copyright of 'the giaour' and 'the bride of abydos' remained undisposed of, though the poems were selling rapidly, nor had i the slightest notion that he would ever again give me a copyright. but as he continued in the resolution of not appropriating the sale of his works to his own use, i did not scruple to accept that of 'the corsair,' and i thanked him. he asked me to call and hear the portions read as he wrote them. i went every morning, and was astonished at the rapidity of his composition. he gave me the poem complete on new-year's day, , saying, that my acceptance of it gave him great pleasure, and that i was fully at liberty to publish it with any bookseller i pleased, independent of the profit." out of this last-mentioned permission arose the momentary embarrassment between the noble poet and his publisher, to which the above notes allude.] * * * * * to mr. murray. ["jan. .] "i will answer your letter this evening; in the mean time, it may be sufficient to say, that there was no intention on my part to annoy you, but merely to _serve_ dallas, and also to rescue myself from a possible imputation that _i_ had other objects than fame in writing so frequently. whenever i avail myself of any profit arising from my pen, depend upon it, it is not for my own convenience; at least it never has been so, and i hope never will. "p.s. i shall answer this evening, and will set all right about dallas. i thank you for your expressions of personal regard, which i can assure you i do not lightly value." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "january . . "i have got a devil of a long story in the press, entitled 'the corsair,' in the regular heroic measure. it is a pirate's isle, peopled with my own creatures, and you may easily suppose they do a world of mischief through the three cantos. now for your dedication--if you will accept it. this is positively my last experiment on public _literary_ opinion, till i turn my thirtieth year,--if so be i flourish until that downhill period. i have a confidence for you--a perplexing one to me, and, just at present, in a state of abeyance in itself. "however, we shall see. in the mean time, you may amuse yourself with my suspense, and put all the justices of peace in requisition, in case i come into your county with 'hackbut bent.' "seriously, whether i am to hear from her or him, it is a _pause_, which i shall fill up with as few thoughts of my own as i can borrow from other people. any thing is better than stagnation; and now, in the interregnum of my autumn and a strange summer adventure, which i don't like to think of, (i don't mean * *'s, however, which is laughable only,) the antithetical state of my lucubrations makes me alive, and macbeth can 'sleep no more:'--he was lucky in getting rid of the drowsy sensation of waking again. "pray write to me. i must send you a copy of the letter of dedication. when do you come out? i am sure we don't _clash_ this time, for i am all at sea, and in action,--and a wife, and a mistress, &c. "thomas, thou art a happy fellow; but if you wish us to be so, you must come up to town, as you did last year: and we shall have a world to say, and to see, and to hear. let me hear from you. "p.s. of course you will keep my secret, and don't even talk in your sleep of it. happen what may, your dedication is ensured, being already written; and i shall copy it out fair to-night, in case business or amusement--_amant alterna camænæ_." * * * * * to mr. murray. "jan. . . "you don't like the dedication--very well; there is another: but you will send the other to mr. moore, that he may know i _had_ written it. i send also mottoes for the cantos. i think you will allow that an elephant may be more sagacious, but cannot be more docile. "yours, bn. "the _name_ is again altered to _medora_"[ ] [footnote : it had been at first genevra,--not francesca, as mr. dallas asserts.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "january . . "as it would not be fair to press you into a dedication, without previous notice, i send you _two_, and i will tell you _why two_. the first, mr. m., who sometimes takes upon him the critic (and i bear it from _astonishment_), says, may do you _harm_--god forbid!--this alone makes me listen to him. the fact is, he is a damned tory, and has, i dare swear, something of _self_, which i cannot divine, at the bottom of his objection, as it is the allusion to ireland to which he objects. but he be d----d--though a good fellow enough (your sinner would not be worth a d----n). "take your choice;--no one, save he and mr. dallas, has seen either, and d. is quite on my side, and for the first.[ ] if i can but testify to you and the world how truly i admire and esteem you, i shall be quite satisfied. as to prose, i don't know addison's from johnson's; but i will try to mend my cacology. pray perpend, pronounce, and don't be offended with either. "my last epistle would probably put you in a fidget. but the devil, who _ought_ to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my letter to the right place. "is it not odd?--the very fate i said she had escaped from * *, she has now undergone from the worthy * *. like mr. fitzgerald, shall i not lay claim to the character of 'vates?'--as he did in the morning herald for prophesying the fall of buonaparte,--who, by the by, i don't think is yet fallen. i wish he would rally and route your legitimate sovereigns, having a mortal hate to all royal entails.--but i am scrawling a treatise. good night. ever," &c. [footnote : the first was, of course, the one that i preferred. the other ran as follows:-- "january . . "my dear moore, "i had written to you a long letter of dedication, which i suppress, because, though it contained something relating to you which every one had been glad to hear, yet there was too much about politics, and poesy, and all things whatsoever, ending with that topic on which most men are fluent, and none very amusing--_one's self_. it might have been re-written--but to what purpose? my praise could add nothing to your well-earned and firmly-established fame; and with my most hearty admiration of your talents, and delight in your conversation, you are already acquainted. in availing myself of your friendly permission to inscribe this poem to you, i can only wish the offering were as worthy your acceptance as your regard is dear to, "yours, most affectionately and faithfully, "byron." ] * * * * * to mr. murray. "january . . "correct this proof by mr. gifford's (and from the mss.), particularly as to the _pointing_. i have added a section for _gulnare_, to fill up the parting, and dismiss her more ceremoniously. if mr. gifford or you dislike, 'tis but a _sponge_ and another midnight better employed than in yawning over miss * *; who, by the by, may soon return the compliment. "wednesday or thursday. "p.s. i have redde * *. it is full of praises of lord ellenborough!!! (from which i infer near and dear relations at the bar), and * * * *. "i do not love madame de staël; but, depend upon it, she beats all your natives hollow as an authoress, in my opinion; and i would not say this if i could help it. "p.s. pray report my best acknowledgments to mr. gifford in any words that may best express how truly his kindness obliges me. i won't bore him with _lip_ thanks or _notes_." * * * * * to mr. moore. "january . . "i have but a moment to write, but all is as it should be. i have said really far short of my opinion, but if you think enough, i am content. will you return the proof by the post, as i leave town on sunday, and have no other corrected copy. i put 'servant,' as being less familiar before the public; because i don't like presuming upon our friendship to infringe upon forms. as to the other _word_, you may be sure it is one i cannot hear or repeat too often. "i write in an agony of haste and confusion.--perdonate." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "january . . "before any proof goes to mr. gifford, it may be as well to revise this, where there are _words omitted_, faults committed, and the devil knows what. as to the dedication, i cut out the parenthesis of _mr._[ ], but not another word shall move unless for a better. mr. moore has seen, and decidedly preferred the part your tory bile sickens at. if every syllable were a rattle-snake, or every letter a pestilence, they should not be expunged. let those who cannot swallow chew the expressions on ireland; or should even mr. croker array himself in all his terrors them, i care for none of you, except gifford; and he won't abuse me, except i deserve it--which will at least reconcile me to his justice. as to the poems in hobhouse's volume, the translation from the romaic is well enough; but the best of the other volume (of _mine_, i mean) have been already printed. but do as you please--only, as i shall be absent when you come out, _do_, _pray_, let mr. _dallas_ and _you_ have a care of the _press_. yours," &c. [footnote : he had at first, after the words "scott alone," inserted, in a parenthesis,--"he will excuse the _mr._----'we do not say _mr._ cæsar.'"] * * * * * to mr. murray. [" . january .] "i do believe that the devil never created or perverted such a fiend as the fool of a printer.[ ] i am obliged to enclose you, _luckily_ for me, this _second_ proof, _corrected_, because there is an ingenuity in his blunders peculiar to himself. let the press be guided by the present sheet. yours, &c. "_burn the other_. "correct _this also_ by the other in some things which i may have forgotten. there is one mistake he made, which, if it had stood, i would most certainly have broken his neck." [footnote : the amusing rages into which he was thrown by the printer were vented not only in these notes, but frequently on the proof-sheets themselves. thus, a passage in the dedication having been printed "the first of her bands in estimation," he writes in the margin, "bards, not bands--was there ever such a stupid misprint?" and, in correcting a line that had been curtailed of its due number of syllables, he says, "do _not_ omit words--it is quite enough to alter or mis-spell them."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "newstead abbey, january . . "you will be glad to hear of my safe arrival here. the time of my return will depend upon the weather, which is so impracticable, that this letter has to advance through more snows than ever opposed the emperor's retreat. the roads are impassable, and return impossible for the present; which i do not regret, as i am much at my ease, and _six-and-twenty_ complete this day--a very pretty age, if it would always last. our coals are excellent, our fire-places large, my cellar full, and my head empty; and i have not yet recovered my joy at leaving london. if any unexpected turn occurred with my purchasers, i believe i should hardly quit the place at all; but shut my door, and let my beard grow. "i forgot to mention (and i hope it is unnecessary) that the lines beginning--_remember him_, &c. must _not_ appear with _the corsair_. you may slip them in with the smaller pieces newly annexed to _childe harold_; but on no account permit them to be appended to the corsair. have the goodness to recollect this particularly. "the books i have brought with me are a great consolation for the confinement, and i bought more as we came along. in short, i never consult the thermometer, and shall not put up prayers for a _thaw_, unless i thought it would sweep away the rascally invaders of france. was ever such a thing as blucher's proclamation? "just before i left town, kemble paid me the compliment of desiring me to write a _tragedy_; i wish i could, but i find my scribbling mood subsiding--not before it was time; but it is lucky to check it at all. if i lengthen my letter, you will think it is coming on again; so, good-by. yours alway, "b. "p.s. if you hear any news of battle or retreat on the part of the allies (as they call them), pray send it. he has my best wishes to manure the fields of france with an _invading_ army. i hate invaders of all countries, and have no patience with the cowardly cry of exultation over him, at whose name you all turned whiter than the snow to which you are indebted for your triumphs. "i open my letter to thank you for yours just received. the 'lines to a lady weeping' must go with the corsair. i care nothing for consequence, on this point. my politics are to me like a young mistress to an old man--the worse they grow, the fonder i become of them. as mr. gilford likes the 'portuguese translation[ ],' pray insert it as an addition to the corsair. "in all points of difference between mr. gifford and mr. dallas, let the first keep his place; and in all points of difference between mr. gifford and mr. anybody-else, i shall abide by the former; if i am wrong, i can't help it. but i would rather not be right with any other person. so there is an end of that matter. after all the trouble he has taken about me and mine, i should be very ungrateful to feel or act otherwise. besides, in point of judgment, he is not to be lowered by a comparison. in _politics_, he may be right too; but that with me is a _feeling_, and i can't _torify_ my nature." [footnote : his translation of the pretty portuguese song, "tu mi chamas." he was tempted to try another version of this ingenious thought, which is, perhaps, still more happy, and has never, i believe, appeared in print. "you call me still your _life_--ah! change the word-- life is as transient as th' inconstant's sigh; say rather i'm your _soul_, more just that name, for, like the soul, my love can never die." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "newstead abbey, february . . "i need not say that your obliging letter was very welcome, and not the less so for being unexpected. "it doubtless gratifies me much that our _finale_ has pleased, and that the curtain drops gracefully.[ ] _you_ deserve it should, for your promptitude and good nature in arranging immediately with mr. dallas; and i can assure you that i esteem your entering so warmly into the subject, and writing to me so soon upon it, as a personal obligation. we shall now part, i hope, satisfied with each other. i _was_ and am quite in earnest in my prefatory promise not to intrude any more; and this not from any affectation, but a thorough conviction that it is the best policy, and is at least respectful to my readers, as it shows that i would not willingly run the risk of forfeiting their favour in future. besides, i have other views and objects, and think that i shall keep this resolution; for, since i left london, though shut up, _snow_-bound, _thaw_-bound, and tempted with all kinds of paper, the dirtiest of ink, and the bluntest of pens, i have not even been haunted by a wish to put them to their combined uses, except in letters of business. my rhyming propensity is quite gone, and i feel much as i did at patras on recovering from my fever--weak, but in health, and only afraid of a relapse. i do most fervently hope i never shall. "i see by the morning chronicle there hath been discussion in the _courier_; and i read in the morning post a wrathful letter about mr. moore, in which some protestant reader has made a sad confusion about _india_ and ireland. "you are to do as you please about the smaller poems; but i think removing them _now_ from the corsair looks like _fear_; and if so, you must allow me not to be pleased. i should also suppose that, after the _fuss_ of these newspaper esquires, they would materially assist the circulation of the corsair; an object i should imagine at _present_ of more importance to _yourself_ than childe harold's seventh appearance. do as you like; but don't allow the withdrawing that _poem_ to draw any imputation of _dismay_ upon me. "pray make my respects to mr. ward, whose praise i value most highly, as you well know; it is in the approbation of such men that fame becomes worth having. to mr. gifford i am always grateful, and surely not less so now than ever. and so good night to my authorship. "i have been sauntering and dozing here very quietly, and not unhappily. you will be happy to hear that i have completely established my title-deeds as marketable, and that the purchaser has succumbed to the terms, and fulfils them, or is to fulfil them forthwith. he is now here, and we go on very amicably together,--one in each _wing_ of the abbey. we set off on sunday--i for town, he for cheshire. "mrs. leigh is with me--much pleased with the place, and less so with me for parting with it, to which not even the price can reconcile her. your parcel has not yet arrived--at least the _mags_. &c.; but i have received childe harold and the corsair. "i believe both are very correctly printed, which is a great satisfaction. "i thank you for wishing me in town; but i think one's success is most felt at a distance, and i enjoy my solitary self-importance in an agreeable sulky way of my own, upon the strength of your letter--for which i once more thank you, and am, very truly, &c. "p.s. don't you think buonaparte's next _publication_ will be rather expensive to the allies? perry's paris letter of yesterday looks very reviving. what a hydra and briareus it is! i wish they would pacify: there is no end to this campaigning." [footnote : it will be recollected that he had announced the corsair as "the last production with which he should trespass on public patience for some years."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "newstead abbey, february . . "i quite forgot, in my answer of yesterday, to mention that i have no means of ascertaining whether the newark _pirate_ has been doing what you say.[ ] if so, he is a rascal, and a _shabby_ rascal too; and if his offence is punishable by law or pugilism, he shall be fined or buffeted. do you try and discover, and i will make some enquiry here. perhaps some _other_ in town may have gone on printing, and used the same deception. "the _fac-simile_ is omitted in childe harold, which is very awkward, as there is a _note_ expressly on the subject. pray _replace_ it as _usual_. "on second and third thoughts, the withdrawing the small poems from the corsair (even to add to childe harold) looks like shrinking and shuffling after the fuss made upon one of them by the tories. pray replace them in the corsair's appendix. i am sorry that childe harold requires some and such abetments to make him move off; but, if you remember, i told you his popularity would not be permanent. it is very lucky for the author that he had made up his mind to a temporary reputation in time. the truth is, i do not think that any of the present day (and least of all, one who has not consulted the flattering side of human nature,) have much to hope from posterity; and you may think it affectation very probably, but, to me, my present and past success has appeared very singular, since it was in the teeth of so many prejudices. i almost think people like to be contradicted. if childe harold flags, it will hardly be worth while to go on with the engravings: but do as you please; i have done with the whole concern; and the enclosed lines, written years ago, and copied from my skull-cap, are among the last with which you will be troubled. if you like, add them to childe harold, if only for the sake of another outcry. you received so long an answer yesterday, that i will not intrude on you further than to repeat myself, "yours, &c. "p.s. of course, in reprinting (if you have occasion), you will take great care to be correct. the present editions seem very much so, except in the last note of childe harold, where the word _responsible_ occurs twice nearly together; correct the second into _answerable_." [footnote : reprinting the "hours of idleness."] * * * * * to mr. murray. "newark, february . . "i am thus far on my way to town. master ridge[ ] i have seen, and he owns to having _reprinted_ some _sheets_, to make up a few complete remaining copies! i have now given him fair warning, and if he plays such tricks again, i must either get an injunction, or call for an account of profits (as i never have parted with the copyright), or, in short, any thing vexatious, to repay him in his own way. if the weather does not relapse, i hope to be in town in a day or two. yours," &c. [footnote : the printer at newark.] * * * * * to mr. murray. "february . . "i see all the papers in a sad commotion with those eight lines; and the morning post, in particular, has found out that i am a sort of richard iii.--deformed in mind and _body_. the _last_ piece of information is not very new to a man who passed five years at a public school. "i am very sorry you cut out those lines for childe harold. pray re-insert them in their old place in 'the corsair.'" * * * * * letter . to mr. hodgson. "february . . "there is a youngster, and a clever one, named reynolds, who has just published a poem called 'safie,' published by cawthorne. he is in the most natural and fearful apprehension of the reviewers; and as you and i both know by experience the effect of such things upon a _young_ mind, i wish you would take his production into dissection, and do it _gently_. _i_ cannot, because it is inscribed to me; but i assure you this is not my motive for wishing him to be tenderly entreated, but because i know the misery at his time of life, of untoward remarks upon first appearance. "now for _self_. pray thank your _cousin_--it is just as it should be, to my liking, and probably _more_ than will suit any one else's. i hope and trust that you are well and well doing. peace be with you. ever yours, my dear friend." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "february . . "i arrived in town late yesterday evening, having been absent three weeks, which i passed in notts. quietly and pleasantly. you can have no conception of the uproar the eight lines on the little royalty's weeping in (now republished) have occasioned. the r * *, who had always thought them _yours_, chose--god knows why--on discovering them to be mine, to be _affected_ 'in sorrow rather than anger.' the morning post, sun, herald, courier, have all been in hysterics ever since. m. is in a fright, and wanted to shuffle; and the abuse against me in all directions is vehement, unceasing, loud--some of it good, and all of it hearty. i feel a little compunctious as to the r * *'s _regret_;--'would he had been only angry! but i fear him not.' "some of these same assailments you have probably seen. my person (which is excellent for 'the nonce') has been denounced in verses, the more like the subject, inasmuch as they halt exceedingly. then, in another, i am an _atheist_, a _rebel_, and, at last, the _devil_ (_boiteux_, i presume). my demonism seems to be a female's conjecture; if so, perhaps, i could convince her that i am but a mere mortal,--if a queen of the amazons may be believed, who says [greek: ariston chôlos oiphei]. i quote from memory, so my greek is probably deficient; but the passage is _meant_ to mean * *. "seriously, i am in, what the learned call, a dilemma, and the vulgar, a scrape; and my friends desire me not to be in a passion; and, like sir fretful, i assure them that i am 'quite calm,'--but i am nevertheless in a fury. "since i wrote thus far, a friend has come in, and we have been talking and buffooning till i have quite lost the thread of my thoughts; and, as i won't send them unstrung to you, good morning, and "believe me ever, &c. "p.s. murray, during my absence, _omitted_ the tears in several of the copies. i have made him replace them, and am very wroth with his qualms,--'as the wine is poured out, let it be drunk to the dregs.'" * * * * * to mr. murray. "february . . "i am much better, and indeed quite well, this morning. i have received _two_, but i presume there are more of the _ana_, subsequently, and also something previous, to which the morning chronicle replied. you also mentioned a parody on the _skull_. i wish to see them all, because there may be things that require notice either by pen or person. "yours, &c. "you need not trouble yourself to answer this; but send me the things when you get them." * * * * * to mr. murray. "february . . "if you have copies of the 'intercepted letters,' lady holland would be glad of a volume; and when you have served others, have the goodness to think of your humble servant. "you have played the devil by that injudicious _suppression_, which you did totally without my consent. some of the papers have exactly said what might be expected. now i _do_ not, and _will_ not be supposed to shrink, although myself and every thing belonging to me were to perish with my memory. yours, &c. bn. "p.s. pray attend to what i stated yesterday on _technical_ topics." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "monday, february . . "before i left town yesterday, i wrote you a note, which i presume you received. i have heard so many different accounts of _your_ proceedings, or rather of those of others towards _you_, in consequence of the publication of these everlasting lines, that i am anxious to hear from yourself the real state of the case. whatever responsibility, obloquy, or effect is to arise from the publication, should surely _not_ fall upon you in any degree; and i can have no objection to your stating, as distinctly and publicly as you please, _your_ unwillingness to publish them, and my own obstinacy upon the subject. take any course you please to vindicate _yourself_, but leave me to fight my own way; and, as i before said, do not _compromise_ me by any thing which may look like _shrinking_ on my part; as for your own, make the best of it. yours, bn." * * * * * letter . to mr. rogers. "february . . "my dear rogers, "i wrote to lord holland briefly, but i hope distinctly, on the subject which has lately occupied much of my conversation with him and you.[ ] as things now stand, upon that topic my determination must be unalterable. "i declare to you most sincerely that there is no human being on whose regard and esteem i set a higher value than on lord holland's; and, as far as concerns himself, i would concede even to humiliation, without any view to the future, and solely from my sense of his conduct as to the past. for the rest, i conceive that i have already done all in my power by the suppression.[ ] if that is not enough, they must act as they please; but i will not 'teach my tongue a most inherent baseness,' come what may. you will probably be at the marquis lansdowne's to-night. i am asked, but i am not sure that i shall be able to go. hobhouse will be there. i think, if you knew him well, you would like him. "believe me always yours very affectionately, "b." [footnote : relative to a proposed reconciliation between lord carlisle and himself.] [footnote : of the satire.] * * * * * letter . to mr. rogers. "february . . "if lord holland is satisfied, as far as regards himself and lady hd., and as this letter expresses him to be, it is enough. "as for any impression the public may receive from the revival of the lines on lord carlisle, let them keep it,--the more favourable for him, and the worse for me,--better for all. "all the sayings and doings in the world shall not make me utter another word of conciliation to any thing that breathes. i shall bear what i can, and what i cannot i shall resist. the worst they could do would be to exclude me from society. i have never courted it, nor, i may add, in the general sense of the word, enjoyed it--and 'there is a world elsewhere!' "any thing remarkably injurious, i have the same means of repaying as other men, with such interest as circumstances may annex to it. "nothing but the necessity of adhering to regimen prevents me from dining with you to-morrow. "i am yours most truly, "bn." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "february . . "you may be assured that the only prickles that sting from the royal hedgehog are those which possess a torpedo property, and may benumb some of my friends. _i_ am quite silent, and 'hush'd in grim repose.' the frequency of the assaults has weakened their effects,--if ever they had any;--and, if they had had much, i should hardly have held my tongue, or withheld my fingers. it is something quite new to attack a man for abandoning his resentments. i have heard that previous praise and subsequent vituperation were rather ungrateful, but i did not know that it was wrong to endeavour to do justice to those who did not wait till i had made some amends for former and boyish prejudices, but received me into their friendship, when i might still have been their enemy. "you perceive justly that i must _intentionally_ have made my fortune like sir francis wronghead. it were better if there were more merit in my independence, but it really is something nowadays to be independent at all, and the _less_ temptation to be otherwise, the more uncommon the case, in these times of paradoxical servility. i believe that most of our hates and likings have been hitherto nearly the same; but from henceforth they must, of necessity, be one and indivisible,--and now for it! i am for any weapon,--the pen, till one can find something sharper, will do for a beginning. "you can have no conception of the ludicrous solemnity with which these two stanzas have been treated. the morning post gave notice of an intended motion in the house of my brethren on the subject, and god he knows what proceedings besides;--and all this, as bedreddin in the 'nights' says, 'for making a cream tart without pepper.' this last piece of intelligence is, i presume, too laughable to be true; and the destruction of the custom-house appears to have, in some degree, interfered with mine; added to which, the last battle of buonaparte has usurped the column hitherto devoted to my bulletin. "i send you from this day's morning post the best which have hitherto appeared on this 'impudent doggerel,' as the courier calls it. there was another about my _diet_, when a boy--not at all bad--some time ago; but the rest are but indifferent. "i shall think about your _oratorical_ hint[ ];--but i have never set much upon 'that cast,' and am grown as tired as solomon of every thing, and of myself more than any thing. this is being what the learned call philosophical, and the vulgar lack-a-daisical. i am, however, always glad of a blessing[ ]; pray, repeat yours soon,--at least your letter, and i shall think the benediction included. "ever," &c. [footnote : i had endeavoured to persuade him to take a part in parliamentary affairs, and to exercise his talent for oratory more frequently.] [footnote : in concluding my letter, having said "god bless you!" i added--"that is, if you have no objection."] * * * * * letter . to mr. dallas. "february . . "the courier of this evening accuses me of having 'received and pocketed' large sums for my works. i have never yet received, nor wish to receive, a farthing for any. mr. murray offered a thousand for the giaour and bride of abydos, which i said was too much, and that if he could afford it at the end of six months, i would then direct how it might be disposed of; but neither then, nor at any other period, have i ever availed myself of the profits on my own account. for the republication of the satire i refused four hundred guineas; and for the previous editions i never asked nor received a _sous_, nor for any writing whatever. i do not wish you to do any thing disagreeable to yourself; there never was nor shall be any conditions nor stipulations with regard to any accommodation that i could afford you; and, on your part, i can see nothing derogatory in receiving the copyright. it was only assistance afforded to a worthy man, by one not quite so worthy. "mr. murray is going to contradict this [ ]; but your name will not be mentioned: for your own part, you are a free agent, and are to do as you please. i only hope that now, as always, you will think that i wish to take no unfair advantage of the accidental opportunity which circumstances permitted me of being of use to you. ever," &c. [footnote : the statement of the courier, &c.] * * * * * in consequence of this letter, mr. dallas addressed an explanation to one of the newspapers, of which the following is a part;--the remainder being occupied with a rather clumsily managed defence of his noble benefactor on the subject of the stanzas. to the editor of the morning post. "sir, "i have seen the paragraph in an evening paper, in which lord byron is _accused_ of 'receiving and pocketing' large sums for his works. i believe no one who knows him has the slightest suspicion of this kind; but the assertion being public, i think it a justice i owe to lord byron to contradict it publicly. i address this letter to you for that purpose, and i am happy that it gives me an opportunity at this moment to make some observations which i have for several days been anxious to do publicly, but from which i have been restrained by an apprehension that i should be suspected of being prompted by his lordship. "i take upon me to affirm, that lord byron never received a shilling for any of his works. to my certain knowledge, the profits of the satire were left entirely to the publisher of it. the gift of the copyright of childe harold's pilgrimage i have already publicly acknowledged in the dedication of the new edition of my novels; and i now add my acknowledgment for that of the corsair, not only for the profitable part of it, but for the delicate and delightful manner of bestowing it while yet unpublished. with respect to his two other poems, the giaour and the bride of abydos, mr. murray, the publisher of them, can truly attest that no part of the sale of them has ever touched his hands, or been disposed of for his use. having said thus much as to facts, i cannot but express my surprise that it should ever be deemed a matter of reproach that he should appropriate the pecuniary returns of his works. neither rank nor fortune seems to me to place any man above this; for what difference does it make in honour and noble feelings, whether a copyright be bestowed, or its value employed, in beneficent purposes? i differ with my lord byron on this subject as well as some others; and he has constantly, both by word and action, shown his aversion to receiving money for his productions." * * * * * letter. . to mr. moore. "february . . "dallas had, perhaps, have better kept silence;--but that was _his_ concern, and, as his facts are correct, and his motive not dishonourable to himself, i wished him well through it. as for his interpretations of the lines, he and any one else may interpret them as they please. i have and shall adhere to my taciturnity, unless something very particular occurs to render this impossible. do _not you_ say a word. if any one is to speak, it is the person principally concerned. the most amusing thing is, that every one (to me) attributes the abuse to the _man they personally most dislike!_--some say c * * r, some c * * e, others f * * d, &c. &c. &c. i do not know, and have no clue but conjecture. if discovered, and he turns out a hireling, he must be left to his wages; if a cavalier, he must 'wink, and hold out his iron.' "i had some thoughts of putting the question to c * * r, but h., who, i am sure, would not dissuade me if it were right, advised me by all means _not_;--'that i had no right to take it upon suspicion,' &c. &c. whether h. is correct i am not aware, but he believes himself so, and says there can be but one opinion on that subject. this i am, at least, sure of, that he would never prevent me from doing what he deemed the duty of a _preux_ chevalier. in such cases--at least, in this country--we must act according to usages. in considering this instance, i dismiss my own personal feelings. any man will and must fight, when necessary,--even without a motive. _here_, i should take it up really without much resentment; for, unless a woman one likes is in the way, it is some years since i felt a _long_ anger. but, undoubtedly, could i, or may i, trace it to a man of station, i should and shall do what is proper. "* * was angerly, but tried to conceal it. _you_ are not called upon to avow the 'twopenny,' and would only gratify them by so doing. do you not see the great object of all these fooleries is to set him, and you, and me, and all persons whatsoever, by the ears?--more especially those who are on good terms,--and nearly succeeded. lord h. wished me to _concede_ to lord carlisle--concede to the devil!--to a man who used me ill? i told him, in answer, that i would neither concede, nor recede on the subject, but be silent altogether; unless any thing more could be said about lady h. and himself, who had been since my very good friends;--and there it ended. this was no time for concessions to lord c. "i have been interrupted, but shall write again soon. believe me ever, my dear moore," &c. * * * * * another of his friends having expressed, soon after, some intention of volunteering publicly in his defence, he lost no time in repressing him by the following sensible letter:-- letter . to w * * w * *, esq. "february . . "my dear w., "i have but a few moments to write to you. _silence_ is the only answer to the things you mention; nor should i regard that man as my friend who said a word more on the subject. i care little for attacks, but i will not submit to _defences_; and i do hope and trust that _you_ have never entertained a serious thought of engaging in so foolish a controversy. dallas's letter was, to his credit, merely as to facts which he had a right to state; _i_ neither have nor shall take the least _public_ notice, nor permit any one else to do so. if i discover the writer, then i may act in a different manner; but it will not be in writing. "an expression in your letter has induced me to write this to you, to entreat you not to interfere in any way in such a business,--it is now nearly over, and depend upon it _they_ are much more chagrined by my silence than they could be by the best defence in the world. i do not know any thing that would vex me more than any further reply to these things. "ever yours, in haste, "b." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "march . . "my dear friend, "i have a great mind to tell you that i _am_ 'uncomfortable,' if only to make you come to town; where no one ever more delighted in seeing you, nor is there any one to whom i would sooner turn for consolation in my most vapourish moments. the truth is, i have 'no lack of argument' to ponder upon of the most gloomy description, but this arises from _other_ causes. some day or other, when we are _veterans_, i may tell you a tale of present and past times; and it is not from want of confidence that i do not now,--but--but--always a _but_ to the end of the chapter. "there is nothing, however, upon the _spot_ either to love or hate;--but i certainly have subjects for both at no very great distance, and am besides embarrassed between _three_ whom i know, and one (whose name, at least,) i do not know. all this would be very well if i had no heart; but, unluckily, i have found that there is such a thing still about me, though in no very good repair, and, also, that it has a habit of attaching itself to _one_ whether i will or no. 'divide et impera,' i begin to think, will only do for politics. "if i discover the 'toad' as you call him, i shall 'tread,'--and put spikes in my shoes to do it more effectually. the effect of all these fine things i do not enquire much nor perceive. i believe * * felt them more than either of us. people are civil enough, and i have had no dearth of invitations,--none of which, however, i have accepted. i went out very little last year, and mean to go about still less. i have no passion for circles, and have long regretted that i ever gave way to what is called a town life;--which, of all the lives i ever saw (and they are nearly as many as plutarch's), seems to me to leave the least for the past and future. "how proceeds the poem? do not neglect it, and i have no fears. i need not say to you that your fame is dear to me,--i really might say _dearer_ than my own; for i have lately begun to think my things have been strangely over-rated; and, at any rate, whether or not, i have done with them for ever. i may say to you what i would not say to every body, that the last two were written, the bride in four, and the corsair in ten days[ ],--which i take to be a most humiliating confession, as it proves my own want of judgment in publishing, and the public's in reading things, which cannot have stamina for permanent attention. 'so much for buckingham.' "i have no dread of your being too hasty, and i have still less of your failing. but i think a _year_ a very fair allotment of time to a composition which is not to be epic; and even horace's 'nonum prematur' must have been intended for the millennium, or some longer-lived generation than ours. i wonder how much we should have had of _him_, had he observed his own doctrines to the letter. peace be with you! remember that i am always and most truly yours, &c. "p.s. i never heard the 'report' you mention, nor, i dare say, many others. but, in course, you, as well as others, have 'damned good-natured friends,' who do their duty in the usual way. one thing will make you laugh. * * * *" [footnote : in asserting that he devoted but four days to the composition of the bride, he must be understood to refer only to the first sketch of that poem,--the successive additions by which it was increased to its present length having occupied, as we have seen, a much longer period. the corsair, on the contrary, was, from beginning to end, struck off at a heat--there being but little alteration or addition afterwards,--and the rapidity with which it was produced (being at the rate of nearly two hundred lines a day) would be altogether incredible, had we not his own, as well as his publisher's, testimony to the fact. such an achievement,--taking into account the surpassing beauty of the work,--is, perhaps, wholly without a parallel in the history of genius, and shows that 'écrire _par passion_,' as rousseau expresses it, may be sometimes a shorter road to perfection than any that art has ever struck out.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "march . . "guess darkly, and you will seldom err. at present, i shall say no more, and, perhaps--but no matter. i hope we shall some day meet, and whatever years may precede or succeed it, i shall mark it with the 'white stone' in my calendar. i am not sure that i shall not soon be in your neighbourhood again. if so, and i am alone (as will probably be the case), i shall invade and carry you off, and endeavour to atone for sorry fare by a sincere welcome. i don't know the person absent (barring 'the sect') i should be so glad to see again. "i have nothing of the sort you mention but _the lines_ (the weepers), if you like to have them in the bag. i wish to give them all possible circulation. the _vault_ reflection is downright actionable, and to print it would be peril to the publisher; but i think the tears have a natural right to be bagged, and the editor (whoever he may be) might supply a facetious note or not, as he pleased. "i cannot conceive how the _vault_[ ] has got about,--but so it is. it is too _farouche_; but, truth to say, my satires are not very playful. i have the plan of an epistle in my head, _at_ him and _to_ him; and, if they are not a little quieter, i shall embody it. i should say little or nothing of _myself_. as to mirth and ridicule, that is out of my way; but i have a tolerable fund of sternness and contempt, and, with juvenal before me, i shall perhaps read him a lecture he has not lately heard in the c----t. from particular circumstances, which came to my knowledge almost by accident, i could 'tell him what he is--i know him well.' "i meant, my dear m., to write to you a long letter, but i am hurried, and time clips my inclination down to yours, &c. "p.s. _think again_ before you _shelf_ your poem. there is a youngster, (older than me, by the by, but a younger poet,) mr. g. knight, with a vol. of eastern tales, written since his return,--for he has been in the countries. he sent to me last summer, and i advised him to write one in _each measure_, without any intention, at that time, of doing the same thing. since that, from a habit of writing in a fever, i have anticipated him in the variety of measures, but quite unintentionally. of the stories, i know nothing, not having seen them[ ]; but he has some lady in a sack, too, like the giaour:--he told me at the time. "the best way to make the public 'forget' me is to remind them of yourself. you cannot suppose that _i_ would ask you or advise you to publish, if i thought you would _fail_. i really have _no_ literary envy; and i do not believe a friend's success ever sat nearer another than yours do to my best wishes. it is for _elderly gentlemen_ to 'bear no brother near,' and cannot become our disease for more years than we may perhaps number. i wish you to be out before eastern subjects are again before the public." [footnote : those bitter and powerful lines which he wrote on the opening of the vault that contained the remains of henry viii. and charles i.] [footnote : he was not yet aware, it appears, that the anonymous manuscript sent to him by his publisher was from the pen of mr. knight.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "march . . "i have not time to read the whole ms. [ ], but what i have seen seems very well written (both _prose_ and _verse_), and, though i am and can be no judge (at least a fair one on this subject), containing nothing which you _ought_ to hesitate publishing upon _my_ account. if the author is not dr. _busby_ himself, i think it a pity, on his _own_ account, that he should dedicate it to his subscribers; nor can i perceive what dr. busby has to do with the matter except as a translator of lucretius, for whose doctrines he is surely not responsible. i tell you openly, and really most sincerely, that, if published at all, there is no earthly reason why you should _not_; on the contrary, i should receive it as the greatest compliment _you_ could pay to your good opinion of my candour, to print and circulate that or any other work, attacking me in a manly manner, and without any malicious intention, from which, as far as i have seen, i must exonerate this writer. "he is wrong in one thing--_i_ am no _atheist_; but if he thinks i have published principles tending to such opinions, he has a perfect right to controvert them. pray publish it; i shall never forgive myself if i think that i have prevented you. "make my compliments to the author, and tell him i wish him success: his verse is very deserving of it; and i shall be the last person to suspect his motives. yours, &c. "p.s. if _you_ do not publish it, some one else will. you cannot suppose me so narrow-minded as to shrink from discussion. i repeat once for all, that i think it a good poem (as far as i have redde); and that is the only point _you_ should consider. how odd that eight lines should have given birth, i really think, to _eight thousand_, including _all_ that has been said, and will be on the subject!" [footnote : the manuscript of a long grave satire, entitled "anti-byron," which had been sent to mr. murray, and by him forwarded to lord byron, with a _request_--not meant, i believe, seriously--that he would give his opinion as to the propriety of publishing it.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "april . . "all these news are very fine; but nevertheless i want my books, if you can find, or cause them to be found for me,--if only to lend them to napoleon, in "the island of elba," during his retirement. i also (if convenient, and you have no party with you,) should be glad to speak with you, for a few minutes, this evening, as i have had a letter from mr. moore, and wish to ask you, as the best judge, of the best time for him to publish the work he has composed. i need not say, that i have his success much at heart; not only because he is my friend, but something much better--a man of great talent, of which he is less sensible than i believe any even of his enemies. if you can so far oblige me as to step down, do so; and if you are otherwise occupied, say nothing about it. i shall find you at home in the course of next week. "p.s. i see sotheby's tragedies advertised. the death of darnley is a famous subject--one of the best, i should think, for the drama. pray let me have a copy when ready. "mrs. leigh was very much pleased with her books, and desired me to thank you; she means, i believe, to write to you her acknowledgments." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. " . albany, april . . "viscount althorp is about to be married, and i have gotten his spacious bachelor apartments in albany, to which you will, i hope, address a speedy answer to this mine epistle. "i am but just returned to town, from which you may infer that i have been out of it; and i have been boxing, for exercise, with jackson for this last month daily. i have also been drinking, and, on one occasion, with three other friends at the cocoa tree, from six till four, yea, unto five in the matin. we clareted and champagned till two--then supped, and finished with a kind of regency punch composed of madeira, brandy, and _green_ tea, no _real_ water being admitted therein. there was a night for you! without once quitting the table, except to ambulate home, which i did alone, and in utter contempt of a hackney-coach and my own _vis_, both of which were deemed necessary for our conveyance. and so,--i am very well, and they say it will hurt my constitution. "i have also, more or less, been breaking a few of the favourite commandments; but i mean to pull up and marry, if any one will have me. in the mean time, the other day i nearly killed myself with a collar of brawn, which i swallowed for supper, and _in_digested for i don't know how long: but that is by the by. all this gourmandise was in honour of lent; for i am forbidden meat all the rest of the year, but it is strictly enjoined me during your solemn fast. i have been, and am, in very tolerable love; but of that hereafter as it may be. "my dear moore, say what you will in your preface; and quiz any thing or any body,--me if you like it. oons! dost thou think me of the _old_, or rather _elderly_, school? if one can't jest with one's friends, with whom can we be facetious? you have nothing to fear from * *, whom i have not seen, being out of town when he called. he will be very correct, smooth, and all that, but i doubt whether there will be any 'grace beyond the reach of art;'--and, whether there is or not, how long will you be so d----d modest? as for jeffrey, it is a very handsome thing of him to speak well of an old antagonist,--and what a mean mind dared not do. any one will revoke praise; but--were it not partly my own case--i should say that very few have strength of mind to unsay their censure, or follow it up with praise of other things. "what think you of the review of _levis_? it beats the bag and my hand-grenade hollow, as an invective, and hath thrown the court into hysterics, as i hear from very good authority. have you heard from * * *? "no more rhyme for--or rather, _from_--me. i have taken my leave of that stage, and henceforth will mountebank it no longer. i have had my day, and there's an end. the utmost i expect, or even wish, is to have it said in the biographia britannica, that i might perhaps have been a poet, had i gone on and amended. my great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity i have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. i have flattered no ruling powers; i have never concealed a single thought that tempted me. they can't say i have truckled to the times, nor to popular topics, (as johnson, or somebody, said of cleveland,) and whatever i have gained has been at the expenditure of as much _personal_ favour as possible; for i do believe never was a bard more unpopular, _quoad homo_, than myself. and now i have done;--'ludite nunc alios.' every body may be d----d, as they seem fond of it, and resolve to stickle lustily for endless brimstone. "oh--by the by, i had nearly forgot. there is a long poem, an 'anti-byron,' coming out, to prove that i have formed a conspiracy to overthrow, by _rhyme_, all religion and government, and have already made great progress! it is not very scurrilous, but serious and ethereal. i never felt myself important, till i saw and heard of my being such a little voltaire as to induce such a production. murray would not publish it, for which he was a fool, and so i told him; but some one else will, doubtless. 'something too much of this.' "your french scheme is good, but let it be _italian_; all the angles will be at paris. let it be rome, milan, naples, florence, turin, venice, or switzerland, and 'egad!' (as bayes saith,) i will connubiate and join you; and we will write a new 'inferno' in our paradise. pray think of this--and i will really buy a wife and a ring, and say the ceremony, and settle near you in a summer-house upon the arno, or the po, or the adriatic. "ah! my poor little pagod, napoleon, has walked off his pedestal. he has abdicated, they say. this would draw molten brass from the eyes of zatanai. what! 'kiss the ground before young malcolm's feet, and then be baited by the rabble's curse!' i cannot bear such a crouching catastrophe. i must stick to sylla, for my modern favourites don't do,--their resignations are of a different kind. all health and prosperity, my dear moore. excuse this lengthy letter. ever, &c. "p.s. the quarterly quotes you frequently in an article on america; and every body i know asks perpetually after you and yours. when will you answer them in person?" * * * * * he did not long persevere in his resolution against writing, as will be seen from the following notes to his publisher. to mr. murray. "april . . "i have written an ode on the fall of napoleon, which, if you like, i will copy out, and make you a present of. mr. merivale has seen part of it, and likes it. you may show it to mr. gifford, and print it, or not, as you please--it is of no consequence. it contains nothing in _his_ favour, and no allusion whatever to our own government or the bourbons. yours, &c. "p.s. it is in the measure of my stanzas at the end of childe harold, which were much liked, beginning 'and thou art dead,' &c. &c. there are ten stanzas of it--ninety lines in all." * * * * * to mr. murray. "april . . "i enclose you a letter_et_ from mrs. leigh. "it will be best _not_ to put my name to our _ode_; but you may _say_ as openly as you like that it is mine, and i can inscribe it to mr. hobhouse, from the _author_, which will mark it sufficiently. after the resolution of not publishing, though it is a thing of little length and less consequence, it will be better altogether that it is anonymous; but we will incorporate it in the first _tome_ of ours that you find time or the wish to publish. yours alway, b. "p.s. i hope you got a note of alterations, sent this matin? "p.s. oh my books! my books! will you never find my books? "alter '_potent_ spell' to '_quickening_ spell:' the first (as polonius says) 'is a vile phrase,' and means nothing, besides being common-place and _rosa-matilda-ish_." * * * * * to mr. murray. "april . . "i send you a few notes and trifling alterations, and an additional motto from gibbon, which you will find _singularly appropriate_. a 'good-natured friend' tells me there is a most scurrilous attack on _us_ in the anti-jacobin review, which you have _not_ sent. send it, as i am in that state of languor which will derive benefit from getting into a passion. ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "albany, april . . "i _am_ very glad to hear that you are to be transient from mayfield so very soon, and was taken in by the first part of your letter.[ ] indeed, for aught i know, you may be treating me, as slipslop says, with 'ironing' even now. i shall say nothing of the _shock_, which had nothing of _humeur_ in it; as i am apt to take even a critic, and still more a friend, at his word, and never to doubt that i have been writing cursed nonsense, if they say so. there was a mental reservation in my pact with the public[ ], in behalf of _anonymes_; and, even had there not, the provocation was such as to make it physically impossible to pass over this damnable epoch of triumphant tameness. 'tis a cursed business; and, after all, i shall think higher of rhyme and reason, and very humbly of your heroic people, till--elba becomes a volcano, and sends him out again. i can't think it all over yet. "my departure for the continent depends, in some measure, on the _in_continent. i have two country invitations at home, and don't know what to say or do. in the mean time, i have bought a macaw and a parrot, and have got up my books; and i box and fence daily, and go out very little. "at this present writing, louis the gouty is wheeling in triumph into piccadilly, in all the pomp and rabblement of royalty. i had an offer of seats to see them pass; but, as i have seen a sultan going to mosque, and been at _his_ reception of an ambassador, the most christian king 'hath no attractions for me:'--though in some coming year of the hegira, i should not dislike to see the place where he _had_ reigned, shortly after the second revolution, and a happy sovereignty of two months, the last six weeks being civil war. "pray write, and deem me ever," &c. [footnote : i had begun my letter in the following manner:--"have you seen the 'ode to napoleon buonaparte?'--i suspect it to be either f----g----d's or rosa matilda's. those rapid and masterly portraits of all the tyrants that preceded napoleon have a vigour in them which would incline me to say that rosa matilda is the person--but then, on the other hand, that powerful grasp of history," &c. &c. after a little more of this mock parallel, the letter went on thus:--"i should like to know what _you_ think of the matter?--some friends of mine here _will_ insist that it is the work of the author of childe harold,--but then they are not so well read in f----g----d and rosa matilda as i am; and, besides, they seem to forget that _you_ promised, about a month or two ago, not to write any more for years. seriously," &c. &c. i quote this foolish banter merely to show how safely, even on his most sensitive points, one might venture to jest with him.] [footnote : we find d'argenson thus encouraging voltaire to break a similar vow:--"continue to write without fear for five-and-twenty years longer, but write poetry, notwithstanding your oath in the preface to newton."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "april . . "many thanks with the letters which i return. you know i am a jacobin, and could not wear white, nor see the installation of louis the gouty. "this is sad news, and very hard upon the sufferers at any, but more at _such_ a time--i mean the bayonne sortie. "you should urge moore to come _out_. "p.s. i want _moreri_ to purchase for good and all. i have a bayle, but want moreri too. "p.s. perry hath a piece of compliment to-day; but i think the _name_ might have been as well omitted. no matter; they can but throw the old story of inconsistency in my teeth--let them,--i mean, as to not publishing. however, _now_ i will keep my word. nothing but the occasion, which was _physically_ irresistible, made me swerve; and i thought an _anonyme_ within my _pact_ with the public. it is the only thing i have or shall set about." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "april . . "let mr. gifford have the letter and return it at his leisure. i would have offered it, had i thought that he liked things of the kind. "do you want the last page _immediately_! i have doubts about the lines being worth printing; at any rate, i must see them again and alter some passages, before they go forth in any shape into the _ocean_ of circulation;--a very conceited phrase, by the by: well then--_channel_ of publication will do. "'i am not i' the vein,' or i could knock off a stanza or three for the ode, that might answer the purpose better.[ ] at all events, i _must_ see the lines again _first_, as there be two i have altered in my mind's manuscript already. has any one seen or judged of them? that is the criterion by which i will abide--only give me a _fair_ report, and 'nothing extenuate,' as i will in that case do something else. "ever," &c. "i want _moreri_, and an _athenæus_." [footnote : mr. murray had requested of him to make some additions to the ode, so as to save the stamp duty imposed upon publications not exceeding a single sheet; and he afterwards added, in successive editions, five or six stanzas, the original number being but eleven. there were also three more stanzas, which he never printed, but which, for the just tribute they contain to washington, are worthy of being preserved:-- "there was a day--there was an hour, while earth was gaul's--gaul thine-- when that immeasurable power unsated to resign had been an act of purer fame than gathers round marengo's name and gilded thy decline, through the long twilight of all time, despite some passing clouds of crime. "but thou, forsooth, must be a king, and don the purple vest, as if that foolish robe could wring remembrance from thy breast. where is that faded garment? where the gewgaws thou wert fond to wear, the star--the string--the crest? vain froward child of empire! say, are all thy playthings snatch'd away? "where may the wearied eye repose when gazing on the great; where neither guilty glory glows, nor despicable state? yes--one--the first--the last--the best-- the cincinnatus of the west, whom envy dared not hate, bequeathed the name of washington, to make man blush there was but one!" ] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "april . . "i have been thinking that it might be as well to publish no more of the ode separately, but incorporate it with any of the other things, and include the smaller poem too (in that case)--which i must previously correct, nevertheless. i can't, for the head of me, add a line worth scribbling; my 'vein' is quite gone, and my present occupations are of the gymnastic order--boxing and fencing--and my principal conversation is with my macaw and bayle. i want my moreri, and i want athenæus. "p.s. i hope you sent back that poetical packet to the address which i forwarded to you on sunday: if not, pray do; or i shall have the author screaming after his epic." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "april . . "i have no guess at your author,--but it is a noble poem[ ], and worth a thousand odes of anybody's. i suppose i may keep this copy;--after reading it, i really regret having written my own. i say this very sincerely, albeit unused to think humbly of myself. "i don't like the additional stanzas at _all_, and they had better be left out. the fact is, i can't do any thing i am asked to do, however gladly i _would_; and at the end of a week my interest in a composition goes off. this will account to you for my doing no better for your 'stamp duty' postscript. "the s.r. is very civil--but what do they mean by childe harold resembling marmion? and the next two, giaour and bride, _not_ resembling scott? i certainly never intended to copy him; but, if there be any copyism, it must be in the two poems, where the same versification is adopted. however, they exempt the corsair from all resemblance to any thing, though i rather wonder at his escape. "if ever i did any thing original, it was in childe harold, which _i_ prefer to the other things always, after the first week. yesterday i re-read english bards;--bating the _malice_, it is the _best_. "ever," &c. [footnote : a poem by mr. stratford canning, full of spirit and power, entitled "buonaparte." in a subsequent note to mr. murray, lord byron says,--"i do not think less highly of 'buonaparte' for knowing the author. i was aware that he was a man of talent, but did not suspect him of possessing _all_ the _family_ talents in such perfection."] * * * * * a resolution was, about this time, adopted by him, which, however strange and precipitate it appeared, a knowledge of the previous state of his mind may enable us to account for satisfactorily. he had now, for two years, been drawing upon the admiration of the public with a rapidity and success which seemed to defy exhaustion,--having crowded, indeed, into that brief interval the materials of a long life of fame. but admiration is a sort of impost from which most minds are but too willing to relieve themselves. the eye grows weary of looking up to the same object of wonder, and begins to exchange, at last, the delight of observing its elevation for the less generous pleasure of watching and speculating on its fall. the reputation of lord byron had already begun to experience some of these consequences of its own prolonged and constantly renewed splendour. even among that host of admirers who would have been the last to find fault, there were some not unwilling to repose from praise; while they, who had been from the first reluctant eulogists, took advantage of these apparent symptoms of satiety to indulge in blame.[ ] the loud outcry raised, at the beginning of the present year, by his verses to the princess charlotte, had afforded a vent for much of this reserved venom; and the tone of disparagement in which some of his assailants now affected to speak of his poetry was, however absurd and contemptible in itself, precisely that sort of attack which was the most calculated to wound his, at once, proud and diffident spirit. as long as they confined themselves to blackening his moral and social character, so far from offending, their libels rather fell in with his own shadowy style of self-portraiture, and gratified the strange inverted ambition that possessed him. but the slighting opinion which they ventured to express of his genius,--seconded as it was by that inward dissatisfaction with his own powers, which they whose standard of excellence is highest are always the surest to feel,--mortified and disturbed him; and, being the first sounds of ill augury that had come across his triumphal career, startled him, as we have seen, into serious doubts of its continuance. had he been occupying himself, at the time, with any new task, that confidence in his own energies, which he never truly felt but while in the actual exercise of them, would have enabled him to forget these humiliations of the moment in the glow and excitement of anticipated success. but he had just pledged himself to the world to take a long farewell of poesy,--had sealed up that only fountain from which his heart ever drew refreshment or strength,--and thus was left, idly and helplessly, to brood over the daily taunts of his enemies, without the power of avenging himself when they insulted his person, and but too much disposed to agree with them when they made light of his genius. "i am afraid, (he says, in noticing these attacks in one of his letters,) what you call _trash_ is plaguily to the purpose, and very good sense into the bargain; and, to tell the truth, for some little time past, i have been myself much of the same opinion." in this sensitive state of mind,--which he but ill disguised or relieved by an exterior of gay defiance or philosophic contempt,--we can hardly feel surprised that he should have, all at once, come to the resolution, not only of persevering in his determination to write no more in future, but of purchasing back the whole of his past copyrights, and suppressing every page and line he had ever written. on his first mention of this design, mr. murray naturally doubted as to its seriousness; but the arrival of the following letter, enclosing a draft for the amount of the copyrights, put his intentions beyond question. [footnote : it was the fear of this sort of back-water current to which so rapid a flow of fame seemed liable, that led some even of his warmest admirers, ignorant as they were yet of the boundlessness of his resources, to tremble a little at the frequency of his appearances before the public. in one of my own letters to him, i find this apprehension thus expressed:--"if you did not write so well,--as the royal wit observed,--i should say you write too much; at least, too much in the same strain. the pythagoreans, you know, were of opinion that the reason why we do not hear or heed the music of the heavenly bodies is that they are always sounding in our ears; and i fear that even the influence of _your_ song may be diminished by falling upon the world's dull ear too constantly." the opinion, however, which a great writer of our day (himself one of the few to whom his remark replies) had the generosity, as well as sagacity, to pronounce on this point, at a time when lord byron was indulging in the fullest lavishment of his powers, must be regarded, after all, as the most judicious and wise:--"but they cater ill for the public," says sir walter scott, "and give indifferent advice to the poet, supposing him possessed of the highest qualities of his art, who do not advise him to labour while the laurel around his brows yet retains its freshness. sketches from lord byron are more valuable than finished pictures from others; nor are we at all sure that any labour which he might bestow in revisal would not rather efface than refine those outlines of striking and powerful originality which they exhibit when flung rough from the hand of a master."--_biographical memoirs_, by sir w. scott.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. " . albany, april . . "dear sir, "i enclose a draft for the money; when paid, send the copyright. i release you from the thousand pounds agreed on for the giaour and bride, and there's an end. "if any accident occurs to me, you may do then as you please; but, with the exception of two copies of each for _yourself_ only, i expect and request that the advertisements be withdrawn, and the remaining copies of _all_ destroyed; and any expense so incurred i will be glad to defray. "for all this, it might be as well to assign some reason. i have none to give, except my own caprice, and i do not consider the circumstances of consequence enough to require explanation. "in course, i need hardly assure you that they never shall be published with my consent, directly, or indirectly, by any other person whatsoever,--that i am perfectly satisfied, and have every reason so to be, with your conduct in all transactions between us as publisher and author. "it will give me great pleasure to preserve your acquaintance, and to consider you as my friend. believe me very truly, and for much attention, "your obliged and very obedient servant, "byron. "p.s. i do not think that i have overdrawn at hammersley's; but if _that_ be the case, i can draw for the superflux on hoare's. the draft is _l._ short, but that i will make up. on payment--_not_ before--return the copyright papers." * * * * * in such a conjuncture, an appeal to his good nature and considerateness was, as mr. murray well judged, his best resource; and the following prompt reply, will show how easily, and at once, it succeeded. letter . to mr. murray. "may . . "dear sir, "if your present note is serious, and it really would be inconvenient, there is an end of the matter; tear my draft, and go on as usual: in that case, we will recur to our former basis. that _i_ was perfectly _serious_, in wishing to suppress all future publication, is true; but certainly not to interfere with the convenience of others, and more particularly your own. some day, i will tell you the reason of this apparently strange resolution. at present, it may be enough to say that i recall it at your suggestion; and as it appears to have annoyed you, i lose no time in saying so. "yours truly, "b." * * * * * during my stay in town this year, we were almost daily together; and it is in no spirit of flattery to the dead i say, that the more intimately i became acquainted with his disposition and character, the more warmly i felt disposed to take an interest in every thing that concerned him. not that, in the opportunities thus afforded me of observing more closely his defects, i did not discover much to lament, and not a little to condemn. but there was still, in the neighbourhood of even his worst faults, some atoning good quality, which was always sure, if brought kindly and with management into play, to neutralise their ill effects. the very frankness, indeed, with which he avowed his errors seemed to imply a confidence in his own power of redeeming them,--a consciousness that he could afford to be sincere. there was also, in such entire unreserve, a pledge that nothing worse remained behind; and the same quality that laid open the blemishes of his nature gave security for its honesty. "the cleanness and purity of one's mind," says pope, "is never better proved than in discovering its own faults, at first view; as when a stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water." the theatre was, at this time, his favourite place of resort. we have seen how enthusiastically he expresses himself on the subject of mr. kean's acting, and it was frequently my good fortune, during this season, to share in his enjoyment of it,--the orchestra being, more than once, the place where, for a nearer view of the actor's countenance, we took our station. for kean's benefit, on the th of may, a large party had been made by lady j * *, to which we both belonged; but lord byron having also taken a box for the occasion, so anxious was he to enjoy the representation uninterrupted, that, by rather an unsocial arrangement, only himself and i occupied his box during the play, while every other in the house was crowded almost to suffocation; nor did we join the remainder of our friends till supper. between the two parties, however, mr. kean had no reason to complain of a want of homage to his talents; as lord j * *, on that occasion, presented him with a hundred pound share in the theatre; while lord byron sent him, next day, the sum of fifty guineas[ ]; and, not long after, on seeing him act some of his favourite parts, made him presents of a handsome snuff-box and a costly turkish sword. such effect had the passionate energy of kean's acting on his mind, that, once, in seeing him play sir giles overreach, he was so affected as to be seized with a sort of convulsive fit; and we shall find him, some years after, in italy, when the representation of alfieri's tragedy of mirra had agitated him in the same violent manner, comparing the two instances as the only ones in his life when "any thing under reality" had been able to move him so powerfully. the following are a few of the notes which i received from him during this visit to town. [footnote : to such lengths did he, at this time, carry his enthusiasm for kean, that when miss o'neil soon after appeared, and, by her matchless representation of feminine tenderness, attracted all eyes and hearts, he was not only a little jealous of her reputation, as interfering with that of his favourite, but, in order to guard himself against the risk of becoming a convert, refused to go to see her act. i endeavoured sometimes to persuade him into witnessing, at least, one of her performances; but his answer was, (punning upon shakspeare's word, "unanealed,") "no--i'm resolved to continue _un-oneiled_." to the great queen of all actresses, however, it will be seen, by the following extract from one of his journals, he rendered due justice:-- "of actors, cooke was the most natural, kemble the most supernatural,--kean the medium between the two. but mrs. siddons was worth them all put together."--_detached thoughts_.] * * * * * to mr. moore. "may . . "last night we supp'd at r----fe's board, &c.[ ] "i wish people would not shirk their _dinners_--ought it not to have been a dinner?[ ]--and that d----d anchovy sandwich! "that plaguy voice of yours made me sentimental, and almost fall in love with a girl who was recommending herself, during your song, by _hating_ music. but the song is past, and my passion can wait, till the _pucelle_ is more harmonious. "do you go to lady jersey's to-night? it is a large party, and you won't be bored into 'softening rocks,' and all that. othello is to-morrow and saturday too. which day shall we go? when shall i see you? if you call, let it be after three, and as near four as you please. "ever," &c. [footnote : an epigram here followed, which, as founded on a scriptural allusion, i thought it better to omit.] [footnote : we had been invited by lord r. to dine _after_ the play,--an arrangement which, from its novelty, delighted lord byron exceedingly. the dinner, however, afterwards dwindled into a mere supper, and this change was long a subject of jocular resentment with him.] * * * * * to mr. moore. "may . . "dear tom, "thou hast asked me for a song, and i enclose you an experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting.[ ] now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without _phrase_. "ever yours, "byron. "i speak not, i trace not, i breathe not thy name, there is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame; but the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart the deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart. "too brief for our passion, too long for our peace were those hours--can their joy or their bitterness cease? we repent--we abjure--we will break from our chain-- we will part,--we will fly to--unite it again! "oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt! forgive me, adored one!--forsake, if thou wilt;-- but the heart which is thine shall expire undebased, and _man_ shall not break it--whatever _thou_ mayst. "and stern to the haughty, but humble to thee, this soul, in its bitterest blackness, shall be; and our days seem as swift, and our moments more sweet, with thee by my side, than with worlds at our feet. "one sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love, shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove; and the heartless may wonder at all i resign-- thy lip shall reply, not to them, but to _mine_." [footnote : i had begged of him to write something for me to set to music.] * * * * * to mr. moore. "will you and rogers come to my box at covent, then? i shall be there, and none else--or i won't be there, if you _twain_ would like to go without me. you will not get so good a place hustling among the publican _boxers_, with damnable apprentices (six feet high) on a back row. will you both oblige me and come,--or one--or neither--or, what you will? "p.s. an' you will, i will call for you at half-past six, or any time of your own dial." * * * * * to mr. moore. "i have gotten a box for othello to-night, and send the ticket for your friends the r----fes. i seriously recommend to you to recommend to them to go for half an hour, if only to see the third act--they will not easily have another opportunity. we--at least, i--cannot be there, so there will be no one in their way. will you give or send it to them? it will come with a better grace from you than me. "i am in no good plight, but will dine at * *'s with you, if i can. there is music and covent-g. "will you go, at all events, to my box there afterwards, to see a _début_ of a young [ ] in the 'child of nature?'" [footnote : miss foote's first appearance, which we witnessed together.] * * * * * to mr. moore. "sunday matin. "was not iago perfection? particularly the last look. i was _close_ to him (in the orchestra), and never saw an english countenance half so expressive. "i am acquainted with no _im_material sensuality so delightful as good acting; and, as it is fitting there should be good plays, now and then, besides shakspeare's, i wish you or campbell would write one:--the rest of 'us youth' have not heart enough. "you were cut up in the champion--is it not so? this day so am i--even to _shocking_ the editor. the critic writes well; and as, at present, poesy is not my passion predominant, and my snake of aaron has swallowed up all the other serpents, i don't feel fractious. i send you the paper, which i mean to take in for the future. we go to m.'s together. perhaps i shall see you before, but don't let me _bore_ you, now nor ever. "ever, as now, truly and affectionately," &c. * * * * * to mr. moore. "may . . "do you go to the lady cahir's this even? if you do--and whenever we are bound to the same follies--let us embark in the same 'shippe of fooles.' i have been up till five, and up at nine; and feel heavy with only winking for the last three or four nights. "i lost my party and place at supper trying to keep out of the way of * * * *. i would have gone away altogether, but that would have appeared a worse affectation than t'other. you are of course engaged to dinner, or we may go quietly together to my box at covent garden, and afterwards to this assemblage. why did you go away so soon? "ever, &c. "p.s. _ought not_ r * * * fe's supper to have been a dinner? jackson is here, and i must fatigue myself into spirits." * * * * * to mr. moore. "may . . "thanks--and punctuality. _what_ has passed at * * * *s house? i suppose that _i_ am to know, and 'pars fui' of the conference. i regret that your * * * *s will detain you so late, but i suppose you will be at lady jersey's. i am going earlier with hobhouse. you recollect that to-morrow we sup and see kean. "p.s. _two_ to-morrow is the hour of pugilism." * * * * * the supper, to which he here looks forward, took place at watier's, of which club he had lately become a member; and, as it may convey some idea of his irregular mode of diet, and thus account, in part, for the frequent derangement of his health, i shall here attempt, from recollection, a description of his supper on this occasion. we were to have been joined by lord r * *, who however did not arrive, and the party accordingly consisted but of ourselves. having taken upon me to order the repast, and knowing that lord byron, for the last two days, had done nothing towards sustenance, beyond eating a few biscuits and (to appease appetite) chewing mastic, i desired that we should have a good supply of, at least, two kinds of fish. my companion, however, confined himself to lobsters, and of these finished two or three, to his own share,--interposing, sometimes, a small liqueur-glass of strong white brandy, sometimes a tumbler of very hot water, and then pure brandy again, to the amount of near half a dozen small glasses of the latter, without which, alternately with the hot water, he appeared to think the lobster could not be digested. after this, we had claret, of which having despatched two bottles between us, at about four o'clock in the morning we parted. as pope has thought his "delicious lobster-nights" worth commemorating, these particulars of one in which lord byron was concerned may also have some interest. among other nights of the same description which i had the happiness of passing with him, i remember once, in returning home from some assembly at rather a late hour, we saw lights in the windows of his old haunt stevens's, in bond street, and agreed to stop there and sup. on entering, we found an old friend of his, sir g * * w* *, who joined our party, and the lobsters and brandy and water being put in requisition, it was (as usual on such occasions) broad daylight before we separated. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "may . . "i must send you the java government gazette of july d, , just sent to me by murray. only think of _our_ (for it is you and i) setting paper warriors in array in the indian seas. does not this sound like fame--something almost like _posterity_? it is something to have scribblers squabbling about us miles off, while we are agreeing so well at home. bring it with you in your pocket;--it will make you laugh, as it hath me. ever yours, "b. "p.s. oh the anecdote!" * * * * * to the circumstance mentioned in this letter he recurs more than once in the journals which he kept abroad; as thus, in a passage of his "detached thoughts,"--where it will be perceived that, by a trifling lapse of memory, he represents himself as having produced this gazette, for the first time, on our way to dinner. "in the year , as moore and i were going to dine with lord grey in portman square, i pulled out a 'java gazette' (which murray had sent to me), in which there was a controversy on our respective merits as poets. it was amusing enough that we should be proceeding peaceably to the same table while they were squabbling about us in the indian seas (to be sure the paper was dated six months before), and filling columns with batavian criticism. but this is fame, i presume." the following poem, written about this time, and, apparently, for the purpose of being recited at the caledonian meeting, i insert principally on account of the warm feeling which it breathes towards scotland and her sons:-- "who hath not glow'd above the page where fame hath fix'd high caledon's unconquer'd name; the mountain-land which spurn'd the roman chain, and baffled back the fiery-crested dane, whose bright claymore and hardihood of hand no foe could tame--no tyrant could command. "that race is gone--but still their children breathe, and glory crowns them with redoubled wreath: o'er gael and saxon mingling banners shine, and, england! add their stubborn strength to thine. the blood which flow'd with wallace flows as free, but now 'tis only shed for fame and thee! oh! pass not by the northern veteran's claim, but give support--the world hath given him fame! "the humbler ranks, the lowly brave, who bled while cheerly following where the mighty led-- who sleep beneath the undistinguish'd sod where happier comrades in their triumph trod, to us bequeath--'tis all their fate allows-- the sireless offspring and the lonely spouse: she on high albyn's dusky hills may raise the tearful eye in melancholy gaze, or view, while shadowy auguries disclose the highland seer's anticipated woes, the bleeding phantom of each martial form dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm; while sad, she chants the solitary song, the soft lament for him who tarries long-- for him, whose distant relics vainly crave the coronach's wild requiem to the brave! "'tis heaven--not man--must charm away the woe which bursts when nature's feelings newly flow; yet tenderness and time may rob the tear of half its bitterness for one so dear: a nation's gratitude perchance may spread a thornless pillow for the widow'd head; may lighten well her heart's maternal care, and wean from penury the soldier's heir." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "may . . "as i shall probably not see you here to-day, i write to request that, if not inconvenient to yourself, you will stay in town till _sunday_; if not to gratify me, yet to please a great many others, who will be very sorry to lose you. as for myself, i can only repeat that i wish you would either remain a long time with us, or not come at all; for these _snatches_ of society make the subsequent separations bitterer than ever. "i believe you think that i have not been quite fair with that alpha and omega of beauty, &c. with whom you would willingly have united me. but if you consider what her sister said on the subject, you will less wonder that my pride should have taken the alarm; particularly as nothing but the every-day flirtation of every-day people ever occurred between your heroine and myself. had lady * * appeared to wish it--or even not to oppose it--i would have gone on, and very possibly married (that is, _if_ the other had been equally accordant) with the same indifference which has frozen over the 'black sea' of almost all my passions. it is that very indifference which makes me so uncertain and apparently capricious. it is not eagerness of new pursuits, but that nothing impresses me sufficiently to _fix_; neither do i feel disgusted, but simply indifferent to almost all excitements. the proof of this is, that obstacles, the slightest even, _stop_ me. this can hardly be _timidity_, for i have done some impudent things too, in my time; and in almost all cases, opposition is a stimulus. in mine, it is not; if a straw were in my way, i could not stoop to pick it up. "i have sent this long tirade, because i would not have you suppose that i have been _trifling_ designedly with you or others. if you think so, in the name of st. hubert (the patron of antlers and hunters) let me be married out of hand--i don't care to whom, so it amuses any body else, and don't interfere with me much in the daytime. ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "june . . "i _could_ be very sentimental now, but i won't. the truth is, that i have been all my life trying to harden my heart, and have not yet quite succeeded--though there are great hopes--and you do not know how it sunk with your departure. what adds to my regret is having seen so little of you during your stay in this crowded desert, where one ought to be able to bear thirst like a camel,--the springs are so few, and most of them so muddy. "the newspapers will tell you all that is to be told of emperors, &c.[ ] they have dined, and supped, and shown their flat faces in all thoroughfares, and several saloons. their uniforms are very becoming, but rather short in the skirts; and their conversation is a catechism, for which and the answers i refer you to those who have heard it. "i think of leaving town for newstead soon. if so, i shall not be remote from your recess, and (unless mrs. m. detains you at home over the caudle-cup and a new cradle,) we will meet. you shall come to me, or i to you, as you like it;--but _meet_ we will. an invitation from aston has reached me, but i do not think i shall go. i have also heard of * * *--i should like to see her again, for i have not met her for years; and though 'the light that ne'er can shine again' is set, i do not know that 'one dear smile like those of old' might not make me for a moment forget the 'dulness' of 'life's stream.' "i am going to r * *'s to-night--to one of those suppers which '_ought_ to be dinners.' i have hardly seen her, and never _him_, since you set out. i told you, you were the last link of that chain. as for * *, we have not syllabled one another's names since. the post will not permit me to continue my scrawl. more anon. "ever, dear moore, &c. "p.s. keep the journal[ ]; i care not what becomes of it; and if it has amused you i am glad that i kept it. 'lara' is finished, and i am copying him for my third vol., now collecting;--but _no separate_ publication." [footnote : in a few days after this, he sent me a long rhyming epistle full of jokes and pleasantries upon every thing and every one around him, of which the following are the only parts producible:-- 'what say _i_?'--not a syllable further in prose; i'm your man 'of all measures,' dear tom,--so, here goes! here goes, for a swim on the stream of old time, on those buoyant supporters the bladders of rhyme. if our weight breaks them down, and we sink in the flood, we are smother'd, at least, in respectable mud, where the divers of bathos lie drown'd in a heap, and s * * 's last paean has pillow'd his sleep;-- that 'felo de se' who, half drunk with his malmsey, walk'd out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea, singing 'glory to god' in a spick-and-span stanza, the like (since tom sternhold was choked) never man saw. "the papers have told you, no doubt, of the fusses, the fêtes, and the gapings to get at these russes,-- of his majesty's suite, up from coachman to hetman,-- and what dignity decks the flat face of the great man. i saw him, last week, at two balls and a party,-- for a prince, his demeanour was rather too hearty. you know, _we_ are used to quite different graces, * * * * * the czar's look, i own, was much brighter and brisker, but then he is sadly deficient in whisker; and wore but a starless blue coat, and in kersey- mere breeches whisk'd round in a waltz with the j * *, who, lovely as ever, seem'd just as delighted with majesty's presence as those she invited." ] [footnote : the journal from which i have given extracts in the preceding pages.] * * * * * to mr. murray. "june . . "i return your packet of this morning. have you heard that bertrand has returned to paris with the account of napoleon's having lost his senses? it is a _report_; but, if true, i must, like mr. fitzgerald and jeremiah (of lamentable memory), lay claim to prophecy; that is to say, of saying, that he _ought_ to go out of his senses, in the penultimate stanza of a certain ode,--the which, having been pronounced _nonsense_ by several profound critics, has a still further pretension, by its unintelligibility, to inspiration. ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. rogers. "june . . "i am always obliged to trouble you with my awkwardnesses, and now i have a fresh one. mr. w.[ ] called on me several times, and i have missed the honour of making his acquaintance, which i regret, but which _you_, who know my desultory and uncertain habits, will not wonder at, and will, i am sure, attribute to any thing but a wish to offend a person who has shown me much kindness, and possesses character and talents entitled to general respect. my mornings are late, and passed in fencing and boxing, and a variety of most unpoetical exercises, very wholesome, &c., but would be very disagreeable to my friends, whom i am obliged to exclude during their operation. i never go out till the evening, and i have not been fortunate enough to meet mr. w. at lord lansdowne's or lord jersey's, where i had hoped to pay him my respects. "i would have written to him, but a few words from you will go further than all the apologetical sesquipedalities i could muster on the occasion. it is only to say that, without intending it, i contrive to behave very ill to every body, and am very sorry for it. "ever, dear r.," &c. [footnote : mr. wrangham.] * * * * * the following undated notes to mr. rogers must have been written about the same time:-- "sunday. "your non-attendance at corinne's is very _à propos_, as i was on the eve of sending you an excuse. i do not feel well enough to go there this evening, and have been obliged to despatch an apology. i believe i need not add one for not accepting mr. sheridan's invitation on wednesday, which i fancy both you and i understood in the same sense:--with him the saying of mirabeau, that '_words_ are _things_,' is not to be taken literally. "ever," &c. "i will call for you at a quarter before _seven_, if that will suit you. i return you sir proteus[ ], and shall merely add in return, as johnson said of, and to, somebody or other, 'are we alive after all this censure?' "believe me," &c. [footnote : a satirical pamphlet, in which all the writers of the day were attacked.] "tuesday. "sheridan was yesterday, at first, too sober to remember your invitation, but in the dregs of the third bottle he fished up his memory. the staël out-talked whitbread, was _ironed_ by sheridan, confounded sir humphry, and utterly perplexed your slave. the rest (great names in the red book, nevertheless,) were mere segments of the circle. ma'mselle danced a russ saraband with great vigour, grace, and expression. "ever," &c. * * * * * to mr. murray. "june . . "i suppose 'lara' is gone to the devil,--which is no great matter, only let me know, that i may be saved the trouble of copying the rest, and put the first part into the fire. i really have no anxiety about it, and shall not be sorry to be saved the copying, which goes on very slowly, and may prove to you that you may _speak out_--or i should be less sluggish. yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. rogers. "june . . "you could not have made me a more acceptable present than jacqueline,--she is all grace, and softness, and poetry; there is so much of the last, that we do not feel the want of story, which is simple, yet _enough_. i wonder that you do not oftener unbend to more of the same kind. i have some sympathy with the _softer_ affections, though very little in _my_ way, and no one can depict them so truly and successfully as yourself. i have half a mind to pay you in kind, or rather _un_kind, for i have just 'supped full of horror' in two cantos of darkness and dismay. "do you go to lord essex's to-night? if so, will you let me call for you at your own hour? i dined with holland-house yesterday at lord cowper's; my lady very gracious, which she can be more than any one when she likes. i was not sorry to see them again, for i can't forget that they have been very kind to me. ever yours most truly, "bn. "p.s. is there any chance or possibility of making it up with lord carlisle, as i feel disposed to do any thing reasonable or unreasonable to effect it? i would before, but for the 'courier,' and the possible misconstructions at such a time. perpend, pronounce." * * * * * on my return to london, for a short time, at the beginning of july, i found his poem of 'lara,' which he had begun at the latter end of may, in the hands of the printer, and nearly ready for publication. he had, before i left town, repeated to me, as we were on our way to some evening party, the first one hundred and twenty lines of the poem, which he had written the day before,--at the same time giving me a general sketch of the characters and the story. his short notes to mr. murray, during the printing of this work, are of the same impatient and whimsical character as those, of which i have already given specimens, in my account of his preceding publications: but, as matter of more interest now presses upon us, i shall forbear from transcribing them at length. in one of them he says, "i have just corrected some of the most horrible blunders that ever crept into a proof:"--in another, "i hope the next proof will be better; this was one which would have consoled job, if it had been of his 'enemy's book:'" --a third contains only the following words: "dear sir, you demanded more _battle_--there it is. "yours," &c. the two letters that immediately follow were addressed to me, at this time, in town. letter . to mr. moore. "july . . "i returned to town last night, and had some hopes of seeing you to-day, and would have called,--but i have been (though in exceeding distempered good health) a little head-achy with free living, as it is called, and am now at the freezing point of returning soberness. of course, i should be sorry that our parallel lines did not deviate into intersection before you return to the country,--after that same nonsuit[ ], whereof the papers have told us,--but, as you must be much occupied, i won't be affronted, should your time and business militate against our meeting. "rogers and i have almost coalesced into a joint invasion of the public. whether it will take place or not, i do not yet know, and i am afraid jacqueline (which is very beautiful) will be in bad company.[ ] but in this case, the lady will not be the sufferer. "i am going to the sea, and then to scotland; and i have been doing nothing,--that is, no good,--and am very truly," &c. [footnote : he alludes to an action for piracy brought by mr. power (the publisher of my musical works), to the trial of which i had been summoned as a witness.] [footnote : lord byron afterwards proposed that i should make a third in this publication; but the honour was a perilous one, and i begged leave to decline it.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "i suppose, by your non-appearance, that the phil_a_sophy of my note, and the previous silence of the writer, have put or kept you in _humeur_. never mind--it is hardly worth while. "this day have i received information from my man of law of the _non_--and never likely to be--performance of purchase by mr. claughton, of _im_pecuniary memory. he don't know what to do, or when to pay; and so all my hopes and worldly projects and prospects are gone to the devil. he (the purchaser, and the devil too, for aught i care,) and i, and my legal advisers, are to meet to-morrow, the said purchaser having first taken special care to enquire 'whether i would meet him with temper?'--certainly. the question is this--i shall either have the estate back, which is as good as ruin, or i shall go on with him dawdling, which is rather worse. i have brought my pigs to a mussulman market. if i had but a wife now, and children, of whose paternity i entertained doubts, i should be happy, or rather fortunate, as candide or scarmentado. in the mean time, if you don't come and see me, i shall think that sam.'s bank is broke too; and that you, having assets there, are despairing of more than a piastre in the pound for your dividend. ever," &c. * * * * * to mr. murray. "july . . "you shall have one of the pictures. i wish you to send the proof of 'lara' to mr. moore, . bury street, _to-night_, as he leaves town to-morrow, and wishes to see it before he goes[ ]; and i am also willing to have the benefit of his remarks. yours," &c. [footnote : in a note which i wrote to him, before starting, next day, i find the following:--"i got lara at three o'clock this morning--read him before i slept, and was enraptured. i take the proofs with me."] * * * * * to mr. murray. "july . . "i think _you_ will be satisfied even to _repletion_ with our northern friends[ ], and i won't deprive you longer of what i think will give you pleasure; for my own part, my modesty, or my vanity, must be silent. "p.s. if you could spare it for an hour in the evening, i wish you to send it up to mrs. leigh, your neighbour, at the london hotel, albemarle street." [footnote : he here refers to an article in the number of the edinburgh review, just then published (no. .), on the corsair and bride of abydos.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "july . . "i am sorry to say that the print[ ] is by no means approved of by those who have seen it, who are pretty conversant with the original, as well as the picture from whence it is taken. i rather suspect that it is from the _copy_ and not the _exhibited_ portrait, and in this dilemma would recommend a suspension, if not an abandonment, of the _prefixion_ to the volumes which you purpose inflicting upon the public. "with regard to _lara_, don't be in any hurry. i have not yet made up my mind on the subject, nor know what to think or do till i hear from you; and mr. moore appeared to me in a similar state of indetermination. i do not know that it may not be better to _reserve_ it for the _entire_ publication you proposed, and not adventure in hardy singleness, or even backed by the fairy jacqueline. i have been seized with all kinds of doubts, &c. &c. since i left london. "pray let me hear from you, and believe me," &c. [footnote : an engraving by agar from phillips's portrait of him.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "july . . "the minority must, in this case, carry it, so pray let it be so, for i don't care sixpence for any of the opinions you mention, on such a subject: and p * * must be a dunce to agree with them. for my own part, i have no objection at all; but mrs. leigh and my cousin must be better judges of the likeness than others; and they hate it; and so i won't have it at all. "mr. hobhouse is right as for his conclusion: but i deny the premises. the name only is spanish[ ]; the country is not spain, but the morea. "waverley is the best and most interesting novel i have redde since--i don't know when. i like it as much as i hate * *, and * *, and * *, and all the feminine trash of the last four months. besides, it is all easy to me, i have been in scotland so much (though then young enough too), and feel at home with the people, lowland and gael. "a note will correct what mr. hobhouse thinks an error (about the feudal system in spain);--it is _not_ spain. if he puts a few words of prose any where, it will set all right. "i have been ordered to town to vote. i shall disobey. there is no good in so much prating, since 'certain issues strokes should arbitrate.' if you have any thing to say, let me hear from you. "yours," &c. [footnote : alluding to lara.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "august . . "it is certainly a little extraordinary that you have not sent the edinburgh review, as i requested, and hoped it would not require a note a day to remind you. i see _advertisements_ of lara and jacqueline; pray, _why?_ when i requested you to postpone publication till my return to town. "i have a most amusing epistle from the ettrick bard--hogg; in which, speaking of his bookseller, whom he denominates the 'shabbiest' of the _trade_ for not 'lifting his bills,' he adds, in so many words, 'g----d d----n him and them both.' this is a pretty prelude to asking you to adopt him (the said hogg); but this he wishes; and if you please, you and i will talk it over. he has a poem ready for the press (and your _bills_ too, if '_lift_able'), and bestows some benedictions on mr. moore for his abduction of lara from the forthcoming miscellany.[ ] "p.s. sincerely, i think mr. hogg would suit you very well; and surely he is a man of great powers, and deserving of encouragement. i must knock out a tale for him, and you should at all events consider before you reject his suit. scott is gone to the orkneys in a gale of wind; and hogg says that, during the said gale, 'he is sure that scott is not quite at his ease, to say the best of it.' ah! i wish these home-keeping bards could taste a mediterranean white squall, or 'the gut' in a gale of wind, or even the 'bay of biscay' with no wind at all." [footnote : mr. hogg had been led to hope that he should be permitted to insert this poem in a miscellany which he had at this time some thoughts of publishing; and whatever advice i may have given against such a mode of disposing of the work arose certainly not from any ill will to this ingenious and remarkable man, but from a consideration of what i thought most advantageous to the fame of lord byron.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "hastings, august . . "by the time this reaches your dwelling, i shall (god wot) be in town again probably. i have been here renewing my acquaintance with my old friend ocean; and i find his bosom as pleasant a pillow for an hour in the morning as his daughters of paphos could be in the twilight. i have been swimming and eating turbot, and smuggling neat brandies and silk handkerchiefs,--and listening to my friend hodgson's raptures about a pretty wife-elect of his,--and walking on cliffs, and tumbling down hills, and making the most of the 'dolce far-niente' for the last fortnight. i met a son of lord erskine's, who says he has been married a year, and is the 'happiest of men;' and i have met the aforesaid h., who is also the 'happiest of men;' so, it is worth while being here, if only to witness the superlative felicity of these foxes, who have cut off their tails, and would persuade the rest to part with their brushes to keep them in countenance. "it rejoiceth me that you like 'lara.' jeffrey is out with his th number, which i suppose you have got. he is only too kind to me, in my share of it, and i begin to fancy myself a golden pheasant, upon the strength of the plumage wherewith he hath bedecked me. but then, 'surgit amari,' &c.--the gentlemen of the champion, and perry, have got hold (i know not how) of the condolatory address to lady j. on the picture-abduction by our r * * *, and have published them--with my name, too, smack--without even asking leave, or enquiring whether or no! d----n their impudence, and d----n every thing. it has put me out of patience, and so, i shall say no more about it. "you shall have lara and jacque (both with some additions) when out; but i am still demurring and delaying, and in a fuss, and so is r. in his way. "newstead is to be mine again. claughton forfeits twenty-five thousand pounds; but that don't prevent me from being very prettily ruined. i mean to bury myself there--and let my beard grow--and hate you all. "oh! i have had the most amusing letter from hogg, the ettrick minstrel and shepherd. he wants me to recommend him to murray; and, speaking of his present bookseller, whose 'bills' are never 'lifted,' he adds, _totidem verbis_, 'god d----n him and them both.' i laughed, and so would you too, at the way in which this execration is introduced. the said hogg is a strange being, but of great, though uncouth, powers. i think very highly of him, as a poet; but he, and half of these scotch and lake troubadours, are spoilt by living in little circles and petty societies. london and the world is the only place to take the conceit out of a man--in the milling phrase. scott, he says, is gone to the orkneys in a gale of wind;--during which wind, he affirms, the said scott, 'he is sure, is not at his ease,--to say the best of it.' lord, lord, if these homekeeping minstrels had crossed your atlantic or my mediterranean, and tasted a little open boating in a white squall--or a gale in 'the gut'--or the 'bay of biscay,' with no gale at all--how it would enliven and introduce them to a few of the sensations!--to say nothing of an illicit amour or two upon shore, in the way of essay upon the passions, beginning with simple adultery, and compounding it as they went along. "i have forwarded your letter to murray,--by the way, you had addressed it to miller. pray write to me, and say what art thou doing? 'not finished!'--oons! how is this?--these 'flaws and starts' must be 'authorised by your grandam,' and are unbecoming of any other author. i was sorry to hear of your discrepancy with the * *s, or rather your abjuration of agreement. i don't want to be impertinent, or buffoon on a serious subject, and am therefore at a loss what to say. "i hope nothing will induce you to abate from the proper price of your poem, as long as there is a prospect of getting it. for my own part, i have _seriously_ and _not whiningly_, (for that is not my way--at least, it used not to be,) neither hopes, nor prospects, and scarcely even wishes. i am, in some respects, happy, but not in a manner that can or ought to last,--but enough of that. the worst of it is, i feel quite enervated and indifferent. i really do not know, if jupiter were to offer me my choice of the contents of his benevolent cask, what i would pick out of it. if i was born, as the nurses say, with a 'silver spoon in my mouth,' it has stuck in my throat, and spoiled my palate, so that nothing put into it is swallowed with much relish,--unless it be cayenne. however, i have grievances enough to occupy me that way too;--but for fear of adding to yours by this pestilent long diatribe, i postpone the reading of them, _sine die_. "ever, dear m., yours, &c. "p.s. don't forget my godson. you could not have fixed on a fitter porter for his sins than me, being used to carry double without inconvenience." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "august . . "not having received the slightest answer to my last three letters, nor the book (the last number of the edinburgh review) which they requested, i presume that you were the unfortunate person who perished in the pagoda on monday last, and address this rather to your executors than yourself, regretting that you should have had the ill luck to be the sole victim on that joyous occasion. "i beg leave, then, to inform these gentlemen (whoever they may be) that i am a little surprised at the previous neglect of the deceased, and also at observing an advertisement of an approaching publication on saturday next, against the which i protested, and do protest for the present. "yours (or theirs), &c. "b." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "august . . "the edinburgh review is arrived--thanks. i enclose mr. hobhouse's letter, from which you will perceive the work you have made. however, i have done: you must send my rhymes to the devil your own way. it seems, also, that the 'faithful and spirited likeness' is another of your publications. i wish you joy of it; but it is no likeness--that is the point. seriously, if i have delayed your journey to scotland, i am sorry that you carried your complaisance so far; particularly as upon trifles you have a more summary method;--witness the grammar of hobhouse's 'bit of prose,' which has put him and me into a fever. "hogg must translate his own words: '_lifting_' is a quotation from his letter, together with 'god d----n,' &c., which i suppose requires no translation. "i was unaware of the contents of mr. moore's letter; i think your offer very handsome, but of that you and he must judge. if he can get more, you won't wonder that he should accept it. "out with lara, since it must be. the tome looks pretty enough--on the outside, i shall be in town next week, and in the mean time wish you a pleasant journey. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "august . . "i was _not_ alone, nor will be while i can help it. newstead is not yet decided. claughton is to make a grand effort by saturday week to complete,--if not, he must give up twenty-five thousand pounds and the estate, with expenses, &c. &c. if i resume the abbacy, you shall have due notice, and a cell set apart for your reception, with a pious welcome. rogers i have not seen, but larry and jacky came out a few days ago. of their effect i know nothing. "there is something very amusing in _your_ being an edinburgh reviewer. you know, i suppose, that t * * is none of the placidest, and may possibly enact some tragedy on being told that he is only a fool. if, now, jeffery were to be slain on account of an article of yours, there would be a fine conclusion. for my part, as mrs. winifred jenkins says, 'he has done the handsome thing by me,' particularly in his last number; so, he is the best of men and the ablest of critics, and i won't have him killed,--though i dare say many wish he were, for being so good-humoured. "before i left hastings i got in a passion with an ink bottle, which i flung out of the window one night with a vengeance;--and what then? why, next morning i was horrified by seeing that it had struck, and split upon, the petticoat of euterpe's graven image in the garden, and grimed her as if it were on purpose[ ]. only think of my distress,--and the epigrams that might be engendered on the muse and her misadventure. "i had an adventure almost as ridiculous, at some private theatricals near cambridge--though of a different description--since i saw you last. i quarrelled with a man in the dark for asking me who i was (insolently enough to be sure), and followed him into the green-room (a _stable_) in a rage, amongst a set of people i never saw before. he turned out to be a low comedian, engaged to act with the amateurs, and to be a civil-spoken man enough, when he found out that nothing very pleasant was to be got by rudeness. but you would have been amused with the row, and the dialogue, and the dress--or rather the undress--of the party, where i had introduced myself in a devil of a hurry, and the astonishment that ensued. i had gone out of the theatre, for coolness, into the garden;--there i had tumbled over some dogs, and, coming away from them in very ill humour, encountered the man in a worse, which produced all this confusion. "well--and why don't you 'launch?'--now is your time. the people are tolerably tired with me, and not very much enamoured of * *, who has just spawned a quarto of metaphysical blank verse, which is nevertheless only a part of a poem. "murray talks of divorcing larry and jacky--a bad sign for the authors, who, i suppose, will be divorced too, and throw the blame upon one another. seriously, i don't care a cigar about it, and i don't see why sam should. "let me hear from and of you and my godson. if a daughter, the name will do quite as well. "ever," &c. [footnote : his servant had brought him up a large jar of ink, into which, not supposing it to be full, he had thrust his pen down to the very bottom. enraged, on finding it come out all smeared with ink, he flung the bottle out of the window into the garden, where it lighted, as here described, upon one of eight leaden muses, that had been imported, some time before, from holland,--the ninth having been, by some accident, left behind.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "august . . "i wrote yesterday to mayfield, and have just now enfranked your letter to mamma. my stay in town is so uncertain (not later than next week) that your packets for the north may not reach me; and as i know not exactly where i am going--however, _newstead_ is my most probable destination, and if you send your despatches before tuesday, i can forward them to our new ally. but, after that day, you had better not trust to their arrival in time. "* * has been exiled from paris, _on dit_, for saying the bourbons were old women. the bourbons might have been content, i think, with returning the compliment. "i told you all about jacky and larry yesterday;--they are to be separated,--at least, so says the grand m., and i know no more of the matter. jeffrey has done me more than 'justice;' but as to tragedy--um!--i have no time for fiction at present. a man cannot paint a storm with the vessel under bare poles on a lee-shore. when i get to land, i will try what is to be done, and, if i founder, there be plenty of mine elders and betters to console melpomene. "when at newstead, you must come over, if only for a day--should mrs. m. be _exigeante_ of your presence. the place is worth seeing, as a ruin, and i can assure you there _was_ some fun there, even in my time; but that is past. the ghosts [ ], however, and the gothics, and the waters, and the desolation, make it very lively still. "ever, dear tom, yours," &c. [footnote : it was, if i mistake not, during his recent visit to newstead, that he himself actually fancied he saw the ghost of the black friar, which was supposed to have haunted the abbey from the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, and which he thus describes, from the recollection perhaps of his own fantasy, in don juan:-- "it was no mouse, but, lo! a monk, array'd in cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd, now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade, with steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard: his garments only a slight murmur made: he moved as shadowy as the sisters weird, but slowly; and as he pass'd juan by, glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye." it is said, that the newstead ghost appeared, also, to lord byron's cousin, miss fanny parkins, and that she made a sketch of him from memory.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "newstead abbey, septembers. . "i am obliged by what you have sent, but would rather not see any thing of the kind[ ]; we have had enough of these things already, good and bad, and next month you need not trouble yourself to collect even the _higher_ generation--on my account. it gives me much pleasure to hear of mr. hobhouse's and mr. merivale's good entreatment by the journals you mention. "i still think mr. hogg and yourself might make out an alliance. _dodsley's_ was, i believe, the last decent thing of the kind, and _his_ had great success in its day, and lasted several years; but then he had the double advantage of editing and publishing. the spleen, and several of _gray's_ odes, much of _shenstone_, and many others of good repute, made their first appearance in his collection. now, with the support of scott, wordsworth, southey, &c., i see little reason why you should not do as well; and, if once fairly established, you would have assistance from the youngsters, i dare say. stratford canning (whose 'buonaparte' is excellent), and many others, and moore, and hobhouse, and i, would try a fall now and then (if permitted), and you might coax campbell, too, into it. by the by, _he_ has an unpublished (though printed) poem on a scene in germany, (bavaria, i think,) which i saw last year, that is perfectly magnificent, and equal to himself. i wonder he don't publish it. "oh!--do you recollect s * *, the engraver's, mad letter about not engraving phillips's picture of lord _foley_? (as he blundered it;) well, i have traced it, i think. it seems, by the papers, a preacher of johanna southcote's is named _foley_; and i can no way account for the said s * *'s confusion of words and ideas, but by that of his head's running on johanna and her apostles. it was a mercy he did not say lord _tozer_. you know, of course, that s * * is a believer in this new (old) virgin of spiritual impregnation. "i long to know what she will produce[ ]; her being with child at sixty-five is indeed a miracle, but her getting any one to beget it, a greater. "if you were not going to paris or scotland, i could send you some game: if you remain, let me know. "p.s. a word or two of 'lara,' which your enclosure brings before me. it is of no great promise separately; but, as connected with the other tales, it will do very well for the volumes you mean to publish. i would recommend this arrangement--childe harold, the smaller poems, giaour, bride, corsair, lara; the last completes the series, and its very likeness renders it necessary to the others. cawthorne writes that they are publishing _english bards in ireland:_ pray enquire into this; because _it must_ be stopped." [footnote : the reviews and magazines of the month.] [footnote : the following characteristic note, in reference to this passage, appears, in mr. gifford's hand-writing, on the copy of the above letter:--"it is a pity that lord b. was ignorant of jonson. the old poet has a satire on the court pucelle that would have supplied him with some pleasantry on johanna's pregnancy."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "newstead abbey, september . . "i should think mr. hogg, for his own sake as well as yours, would be 'critical' as iago himself in his editorial capacity; and that such a publication would answer his purpose, and yours too, with tolerable management. you should, however, have a good number to start with--i mean, _good_ in quality; in these days, there can be little fear of not coming up to the mark in quantity. there must be many 'fine things' in wordsworth; but i should think it difficult to make _six_ quartos (the amount of the whole) all fine, particularly the pedler's portion of the poem; but there can be no doubt of his powers to do almost any thing. "i _am_ 'very idle.' i have read the few books i had with me, and been forced to fish, for lack of argument. i have caught a great many perch and some carp, which is a comfort, as one would not lose one's labour willingly. "pray, who corrects the press of your volumes? i hope 'the corsair' is printed from the copy i corrected, with the additional lines in the first canto, and some _notes_ from sismondi and lavater, which i gave you to add thereto. the arrangement is very well. "my cursed people have not sent my papers since sunday, and i have lost johanna's divorce from jupiter. who hath gotten her with prophet? is it sharpe, and how? * * * i should like to buy one of her seals: if salvation can be had at half-a-guinea a head, the landlord of the crown and anchor should be ashamed of himself for charging double for tickets to a mere terrestrial banquet. i am afraid, seriously, that these matters will lend a sad handle to your profane scoffers, and give a loose to much damnable laughter. "i have not seen hunt's sonnets nor descent of liberty: he has chosen a pretty place wherein to compose the last. let me hear from you before you embark. ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "newstead abbey, september . . "this is the fourth letter i have begun to you within the month. whether i shall finish or not, or burn it like the rest, i know not. when we meet, i will explain _why_ i have not written--_why_ i have not asked you here, as i wished--with a great many other _whys_ and wherefores, which will keep cold. in short, you must excuse all my seeming omissions and commissions, and grant me more _re_mission than st. athanasius will to yourself, if you lop off a single shred of mystery from his pious puzzle. it is my creed (and it may be st. athanasius's too) that your article on t * * will get somebody killed, and _that_, on the _saints_, get him d----d afterwards, which will be quite enow for one number. oons, tom! you must not meddle just now with the incomprehensible; for if johanna southcote turns out to be * * * "now for a little egotism. my affairs stand thus. to-morrow, i shall know whether a circumstance of importance enough to change many of my plans will occur or not. if it does not, i am off for italy next month, and london, in the mean time, next week. i have got back newstead and twenty-five thousand pounds (out of twenty-eight paid already),--as a 'sacrifice,' the late purchaser calls it, and he may choose his own name. i have paid some of my debts, and contracted others; but i have a few thousand pounds, which i can't spend after my own heart in this climate, and so, i shall go back to the south. hobhouse, i think and hope, will go with me; but, whether he will or not, i shall. i want to see venice, and the alps, and parmesan cheeses, and look at the coast of greece, or rather epirus, from italy, as i once did--or fancied i did--that of italy, when off corfu. all this, however, depends upon an event, which may, or may not, happen. whether it will, i shall know probably to-morrow, and, if it does, i can't well go abroad at present. "pray pardon this parenthetical scrawl. you shall hear from me again soon;--i don't call this an answer. ever most affectionately," &c. the "circumstance of importance," to which he alludes in this letter, was his second proposal for miss milbanke, of which he was now waiting the result. his own account, in his memoranda, of the circumstances that led to this step is, in substance, as far as i can trust my recollection, as follows. a person, who had for some time stood high in his affection and confidence, observing how cheerless and unsettled was the state both of his mind and prospects, advised him strenuously to marry; and, after much discussion, he consented. the next point for consideration was--who was to be the object of his choice; and while his friend mentioned one lady, he himself named miss milbanke. to this, however, his adviser strongly objected,--remarking to him, that miss milbanke had at present no fortune, and that his embarrassed affairs would not allow him to marry without one; that she was, moreover, a learned lady, which would not at all suit him. in consequence of these representations, he agreed that his friend should write a proposal for him to the other lady named, which was accordingly done;--and an answer, containing a refusal, arrived as they were, one morning, sitting together. "you see," said lord byron, "that, after all, miss milbanke is to be the person;--i will write to her." he accordingly wrote on the moment, and, as soon as he had finished, his friend, remonstrating still strongly against his choice, took up the letter,--but, on reading it over, observed, "well, really, this is a very pretty letter;--it is a pity it should not go. i never read a prettier one."--"then it _shall_ go," said lord byron; and in so saying, sealed and sent off, on the instant, this fiat of his fate. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "nd., september . . "i have written to you one letter to-night, but must send you this much more, as i have not franked my number, to say that i rejoice in my god-daughter, and will send her a coral and bells, which i hope she will accept, the moment i get back to london. "my head is at this moment in a state of confusion, from various causes, which i can neither describe nor explain--but let that pass. my employments have been very rural--fishing, shooting, bathing, and boating. books i have but few here, and those i have read ten times over, till sick of them. so, i have taken to breaking soda-water bottles with my pistols, and jumping into the water, and rowing over it, and firing at the fowls of the air. but why should i 'monster my nothings' to you, who are well employed, and happily too, i should hope? for my part, i am happy, too, in my way--but, as usual, have contrived to get into three or four perplexities, which i do not see my way through. but a few days, perhaps a day, will determine one of them. "you do not say a word to me of your poem. i wish i could see or hear it. i neither could, nor would, do it or its author any harm. i believe i told you of larry and jacquy. a friend of mine was reading--at least a friend of his was reading--said larry and jacquy in a brighton coach. a passenger took up the book and queried as to the author. the proprietor said 'there were _two_'--to which the answer of the unknown was, 'ay, ay--a joint concern, i suppose, _summot_ like sternhold and hopkins.' "is not this excellent? i would not have missed the 'vile comparison' to have 'scaped being one of the 'arcades ambo et cantare pares.' good night. again yours." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "newstead abbey, sept. . . "here's to her who long hath waked the poet's sigh! the girl who gave to song what gold could never buy. --my dear moore, i am going to be married--that is, i am accepted[ ], and one usually hopes the rest will follow. my mother of the gracchi (that _are_ to be) _you_ think too strait-laced for me, although the paragon of only children, and invested with 'golden opinions of all sorts of men,' and full of 'most blest conditions' as desdemona herself. miss milbanke is the lady, and i have her father's invitation to proceed there in my elect capacity,--which, however, i cannot do till i have settled some business in london and got a blue coat. "she is said to be an heiress, but of that i really know nothing certainly, and shall not enquire. but i do know, that she has talents and excellent qualities; and you will not deny her judgment, after having refused six suitors and taken me. "now, if you have any thing to say against this, pray do; my mind's made up, positively fixed, determined, and therefore i will listen to reason, because now it can do no harm. things may occur to break it off, but i will hope not. in the mean time, i tell you (a _secret_, by the by,--at least, till i know she wishes it to be public,) that i have proposed and am accepted. you need not be in a hurry to wish me joy, for one mayn't be married for months. i am going to town to-morrow; but expect to be here, on my way there, within a fortnight. "if this had not happened, i should have gone to italy. in my way down, perhaps, you will meet me at nottingham, and come over with me here. i need not say that nothing will give me greater pleasure. i must, of course, reform thoroughly; and, seriously, if i can contribute to her happiness, i shall secure my own. she is so good a person, that--that--in short, i wish i was a better. ever," &c. [footnote : on the day of the arrival of the lady's answer, he was sitting at dinner, when his gardener came in and presented him with his mother's wedding ring, which she had lost many years before, and which the gardener had just found in digging up the mould under her window. almost at the same moment, the letter from miss milbanke arrived; and lord byron exclaimed, "if it contains a consent, i will be married with this very ring." it did contain a very flattering acceptance of his proposal, and a duplicate of the letter had been sent to london, in case this should have missed him.--_memoranda_.] * * * * * letter . to the countess of * * *. "albany, october . . "dear lady * *, "your recollection and invitation do me great honour; but i am going to be 'married, and can't come.' my intended is two hundred miles off, and the moment my business here is arranged, i must set out in a great hurry to be happy. miss milbanke is the good-natured person who has undertaken me, and, of course, i am very much in love, and as silly as all single gentlemen must be in that sentimental situation. i have been accepted these three weeks; but when the event will take place, i don't exactly know. it depends partly upon lawyers, who are never in a hurry. one can be sure of nothing; but, at present, there appears no other interruption to this intention, which seems as mutual as possible, and now no secret, though i did not tell first,--and all our relatives are congratulating away to right and left in the most fatiguing manner. "you perhaps know the lady. she is niece to lady melbourne, and cousin to lady cowper and others of your acquaintance, and has no fault, except being a great deal too good for me, and that _i_ must pardon, if nobody else should. it might have been _two_ years ago, and, if it had, would have saved me a world of trouble. she has employed the interval in refusing about half a dozen of my particular friends, (as she did me once, by the way,) and has taken me at last, for which i am very much obliged to her. i wish it was well over, for i do hate bustle, and there is no marrying without some;--and then, i must not marry in a black coat, they tell me, and i can't bear a blue one. "pray forgive me for scribbling all this nonsense. you know i must be serious all the rest of my life, and this is a parting piece of buffoonery, which i write with tears in my eyes, expecting to be agitated. believe me most seriously and sincerely your obliged servant, byron. "p.s. my best rems. to lord * * on his return." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "october . . "notwithstanding the contradictory paragraph in the morning chronicle, which must have been sent by * *, or perhaps--i know not why i should suspect claughton of such a thing, and yet i partly do, because it might interrupt his renewal of purchase, if so disposed; in short it matters not, but we are all in the road to matrimony--lawyers settling, relations congratulating, my intended as kind as heart could wish, and every one, whose opinion i value, very glad of it. all her relatives, and all mine too, seem equally pleased. "perry was very sorry, and has _re_-contradicted, as you will perceive by this day's paper. it was, to be sure, a devil of an insertion, since the first paragraph came from sir ralph's own county journal, and this in the teeth of it would appear to him and his as _my_ denial. but i have written to do away that, enclosing perry's letter, which was very polite and kind. "nobody hates bustle so much as i do; but there seems a fatality over every scene of my drama, always a row of some sort or other. no matter--fortune is my best friend; and as i acknowledge my obligations to her, i hope she will treat me better than she treated the athenian, who took some merit to _himself_ on some occasion, but (after that) took no more towns. in fact, _she_, that exquisite goddess, has hitherto carried me through every thing, and will i hope, now; since i own it will be all _her_ doing. "well, now, for thee. your article on * * is perfection itself. you must not leave off reviewing. by jove, i believe you can do any thing. there is wit, and taste, and learning, and good humour (though not a whit less severe for that), in every line of that critique. "next to _your_ being an e. reviewer, _my_ being of the same kidney, and jeffrey's being such a friend to both, are amongst the events which i conceive were not calculated upon in mr.--what's his name?'s--'essay on probabilities.' "but, tom, i say--oons! scott menaces the 'lord of the isles." do you mean to compete? or lay by, till this wave has broke upon the _shelves_? (of booksellers, not rocks--a _broken_ metaphor, by the way.) you _ought_ to be afraid of nobody; but your modesty is really as provoking and unnecessary as a * *'s. i am very merry, and have just been writing some elegiac stanzas on the death of sir p. parker. he was my first cousin, but never met since boyhood. our relations desired me, and i have scribbled and given it to perry, who will chronicle it to-morrow. i am as sorry for him as one could be for one i never saw since i was a child; but should not have wept melodiously, except 'at the request of friends.' "i hope to get out of town and be married, but i shall take newstead in my way; and you must meet me at nottingham and accompany me to mine abbey. i will tell you the day when i know it. "ever," &c. "p.s. by the way my wife elect is perfection, and i hear of nothing but her merits and her wonders, and that she is 'very pretty.' her expectations, i am told, are great; but _what_, i have not asked. i have not seen her these ten months." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "october . . "an' there were any thing in marriage that would make a difference between my friends and me, particularly in your case, i would 'none on't.' my agent sets off for durham next week, and i shall follow him, taking newstead and you in my way. i certainly did not address miss milbanke with these views, but it is likely she may prove a considerable _parti_. all her father can give, or leave her, he will; and from her childless uncle, lord wentworth, whose barony, it is supposed, will devolve on ly. milbanke (her sister), she has expectations. but these will depend upon his own disposition, which seems very partial towards her. she is an only child, and sir r.'s estates, though dipped by electioneering, are considerable. part of them are settled on her; but whether _that_ will be _dowered_ now, i do not know,--though, from what has been intimated to me, it probably will. the lawyers are to settle this among them, and i am getting my property into matrimonial array, and myself ready for the journey to seaham, which i must make in a week or ten days. "i certainly did not dream that she was attached to me, which it seems she has been for some time. i also thought her of a very cold disposition, in which i was also mistaken--it is a long story, and i won't trouble you with it. as to her virtues, &c. &c. you will hear enough of them (for she is a kind of _pattern_ in the north), without my running into a display on the subject. it is well that _one_ of us is of such fame, since there is sad deficit in the _morale_ of that article upon my part,--all owing to my 'bitch of a star,' as captain tranchemont says of his planet. "don't think you have not said enough of me in your article on t * *; what more could or need be said? "your long-delayed and expected work--i suppose you will take fright at 'the lord of the isles' and scott now. you must do as you like,--i have said my say. you ought to fear comparison with none, and any one would stare, who heard you were so tremulous,--though, after all, i believe it is the surest sign of talent. good morning. i hope we shall meet soon, but i will write again, and perhaps you will meet me at nottingham. pray say so. "p.s. if this union is productive, you shall name the first fruits." * * * * * letter . to mr. henry drury. "october . . "my dear drury, "many thanks for your hitherto unacknowledged 'anecdotes.' now for one of mine--i am going to be married, and have been engaged this month. it is a long story, and, therefore, i won't tell it,--an old and (though i did not know it till lately) a _mutual_ attachment. the very sad life i have led since i was your pupil must partly account for the offs and _ons_ in this now to be arranged business. we are only waiting for the lawyers and settlements, &c.; and next week, or the week after, i shall go down to seaham in the new character of a regular suitor for a wife of mine own. "i hope hodgson is in a fair way on the same voyage--i saw him and his idol at hastings. i wish he would be married at the same time,--i should like to make a party,--like people electrified in a row, by (or rather through) the same chain, holding one another's hands, and all feeling the shock at once. i have not yet apprised him of this. he makes such a serious matter of all these things, and is so 'melancholy and gentlemanlike,' that it is quite overcoming to us choice spirits. "they say one shouldn't be married in a black coat. i won't have a blue one,--that's flat. i hate it. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. cowell. "october . . "my dear cowell, "many and sincere thanks for your kind letter--the bet, or rather forfeit, was one hundred to hawke, and fifty to hay (nothing to kelly), for a guinea received from each of the two former.[ ] i shall feel much obliged by your setting me right if i am incorrect in this statement in any way, and have reasons for wishing you to recollect as much as possible of what passed, and state it to hodgson. my reason is this: some time ago mr. * * * required a bet of me which i never made, and of course refused to pay, and have heard no more of it; to prevent similar mistakes is my object in wishing you to remember well what passed, and to put hodgson in possession of your memory on the subject. "i hope to see you soon in my way through cambridge. remember me to h., and believe me ever and truly," &c. [footnote : he had agreed to forfeit these sums to the persons mentioned, should he ever marry.] * * * * * soon after the date of this letter, lord byron had to pay a visit to cambridge for the purpose of voting for mr. clarke, who had been started by trinity college as one of the candidates for sir busick harwood's professorship. on this occasion, a circumstance occurred which could not but be gratifying to him. as he was delivering in his vote to the vice-chancellor, in the senate house, the under-graduates in the gallery ventured to testify their admiration of him by a general murmur of applause and stamping of the feet. for this breach of order, the gallery was immediately cleared by order of the vice-chancellor. at the beginning of the month of december, being called up to town by business, i had opportunities, from being a good deal in my noble friend's society, of observing the state of his mind and feelings, under the prospect of the important change he was now about to undergo; and it was with pain i found that those sanguine hopes[ ] with which i had sometimes looked forward to the happy influence of marriage, in winning him over to the brighter and better side of life, were, by a view of all the circumstances of his present destiny, considerably diminished; while, at the same time, not a few doubts and misgivings, which had never before so strongly occurred to me, with regard to his own fitness, under any circumstances, for the matrimonial tie, filled me altogether with a degree of foreboding anxiety as to his fate, which the unfortunate events that followed but too fully justified. the truth is, i fear, that rarely, if ever, have men of the higher order of genius shown themselves fitted for the calm affections and comforts that form the cement of domestic life. "one misfortune (says pope) of extraordinary geniuses is, that their very friends are more apt to admire than love them." to this remark there have, no doubt, been exceptions,--and i should pronounce lord byron, from my own experience, to be one of them,--but it would not be difficult, perhaps, to show, from the very nature and pursuits of genius, that such must generally be the lot of all pre-eminently gifted with it; and that the same qualities which enable them to command admiration are also those that too often incapacitate them from conciliating love. the very habits, indeed, of abstraction and self-study to which the occupations of men of genius lead, are, in themselves, necessarily, of an unsocial and detaching tendency, and require a large portion of indulgence from others not to be set down as unamiable. one of the chief sources, too, of sympathy and society between ordinary mortals being their dependence on each other's intellectual resources, the operation of this social principle must naturally be weakest in those whose own mental stores are most abundant and self-sufficing, and who, rich in such materials for thinking within themselves, are rendered so far independent of any aid from others. it was this solitary luxury (which plato called "banqueting his own thoughts") that led pope, as well as lord byron, to prefer the silence and seclusion of his library to the most agreeable conversation.--and not only too, is the necessity of commerce with other minds less felt by such persons, but, from that fastidiousness which the opulence of their own resources generates, the society of those less gifted than themselves becomes often a restraint and burden, to which not all the charms of friendship, or even love, can reconcile them. "nothing is so tiresome (says the poet of vaucluse, in assigning a reason for not living with some of his dearest friends) as to converse with persons who have not the same information as one's self." but it is the cultivation and exercise of the imaginative faculty that, more than any thing, tends to wean the man of genius from actual life, and, by substituting the sensibilities of the imagination for those of the heart, to render, at last, the medium through which he feels no less unreal than that through which he thinks. those images of ideal good and beauty that surround him in his musings soon accustom him to consider all that is beneath this high standard unworthy of his care; till, at length, the heart becoming chilled as the fancy warms, it too often happens that, in proportion as he has refined and elevated his theory of all the social affections, he has unfitted himself for the practice of them.[ ] hence so frequently it arises that, in persons of this temperament, we see some bright but artificial idol of the brain usurp the place of all real and natural objects of tenderness. the poet dante, a wanderer away from wife and children, passed the whole of a restless and detached life in nursing his immortal dream of beatrice; while petrarch, who would not suffer his only daughter to reside beneath his roof, expended thirty-two years of poetry and passion on an idealised love. it is, indeed, in the very nature and essence of genius to be for ever occupied intensely with self, as the great centre and source of its strength. like the sister rachel, in dante, sitting all day before her mirror, "mai non si smaga del suo ammiraglio, e siede tutto giorno." to this power of self-concentration, by which alone all the other powers of genius are made available, there is, of course, no such disturbing and fatal enemy as those sympathies and affections that draw the mind out actively towards others[ ]; and, accordingly, it will be found that, among those who have felt within themselves a call to immortality, the greater number have, by a sort of instinct, kept aloof from such ties, and, instead of the softer duties and rewards of being amiable, reserved themselves for the high, hazardous chances of being great. in looking back through the lives of the most illustrious poets,--the class of intellect in which the characteristic features of genius are, perhaps, most strongly marked,--we shall find that, with scarcely one exception, from homer down to lord byron, they have been, in their several degrees, restless and solitary spirits, with minds wrapped up, like silk-worms, in their own tasks, either strangers, or rebels to domestic ties, and bearing about with them a deposit for posterity in their souls, to the jealous watching and enriching of which almost all other thoughts and considerations have been sacrificed. "to follow poetry as one ought (says the authority[ ] i have already quoted), one must forget father and mother and cleave to it alone." in these few words is pointed out the sole path that leads genius to greatness. on such terms alone are the high places of fame to be won;--nothing less than the sacrifice of the entire man can achieve them. however delightful, therefore, may be the spectacle of a man of genius tamed and domesticated in society, taking docilely upon him the yoke of the social ties, and enlightening without disturbing the sphere in which he moves, we must nevertheless, in the midst of our admiration, bear in mind that it is not thus smoothly or amiably immortality has been ever struggled for, or won. the poet thus circumstanced may be popular, may be loved; for the happiness of himself and those linked with him he is in the right road,--but not for greatness. the marks by which fame has always separated her great martyrs from the rest of mankind are not upon him, and the crown cannot be his. he may dazzle, may captivate the circle, and even the times in which he lives, but he is not for hereafter. to the general description here given of that high class of human intelligences to which he belonged, the character of lord byron was, in many respects, a signal exception. born with strong affections and ardent passions, the world had, from first to last, too firm a hold on his sympathies to let imagination altogether usurp the place of reality, either in his feelings, or in the objects of them. his life, indeed, was one continued struggle between that instinct of genius, which was for ever drawing him back into the lonely laboratory of self, and those impulses of passion, ambition, and vanity, which again hurried him off into the crowd, and entangled him in its interests; and though it may be granted that he would have been more purely and abstractedly the _poet_, had he been less thoroughly, in all his pursuits and propensities, the _man_, yet from this very mixture and alloy has it arisen that his pages bear so deeply the stamp of real life, and that in the works of no poet, with the exception of shakspeare, can every various mood of the mind--whether solemn or gay, whether inclined to the ludicrous or the sublime, whether seeking to divert itself with the follies of society or panting after the grandeur of solitary nature--find so readily a strain of sentiment in accordance with its every passing tone. but while the naturally warm cast of his affections and temperament gave thus a substance and truth to his social feelings which those of too many of his fellow votaries of genius have wanted, it was not to be expected that an imagination of such range and power should have been so early developed and unrestrainedly indulged without producing, at last, some of those effects upon the heart which have invariably been found attendant on such a predominance of this faculty. it must have been observed, indeed, that the period when his natural affections flourished most healthily was before he had yet arrived at the full consciousness of his genius,--before imagination had yet accustomed him to those glowing pictures, after gazing upon which all else appeared cold and colourless. from the moment of this initiation into the wonders of his own mind, a distaste for the realities of life began to grow upon him. not even that intense craving after affection, which nature had implanted in him, could keep his ardour still alive in a pursuit whose results fell so short of his "imaginings;" and though, from time to time, the combined warmth of his fancy and temperament was able to call up a feeling which to his eyes wore the semblance of love, it may be questioned whether his heart had ever much share in such passions, or whether, after his first launch into the boundless sea of imagination, he could ever have been brought back and fixed by any lasting attachment. actual objects there were, in but too great number, who, as long as the illusion continued, kindled up his thoughts and were the themes of his song. but they were, after all, little more than mere dreams of the hour;--the qualities with which he invested them were almost all ideal, nor could have stood the test of a month's, or even week's, cohabitation. it was but the reflection of his own bright conceptions that he saw in each new object; and while persuading himself that they furnished the models of his heroines, he was, on the contrary, but fancying that he beheld his heroines in them. there needs no stronger proof of the predominance of imagination in these attachments than his own serious avowal, in the journal already given, that often, when in the company of the woman he most loved, he found himself secretly wishing for the solitude of his own study. it was _there_, indeed,--in the silence and abstraction of that study,--that the chief scene of his mistress's empire and glory lay. it was there that, unchecked by reality, and without any fear of the disenchantments of truth, he could view her through the medium of his own fervid fancy, enamour himself of an idol of his own creating, and out of a brief delirium of a few days or weeks, send forth a dream of beauty and passion through all ages. while such appears to have been the imaginative character of his loves, (of all, except the one that lived unquenched through all,) his friendships, though, of course, far less subject to the influence of fancy, could not fail to exhibit also some features characteristic of the peculiar mind in which they sprung. it was a usual saying of his own, and will be found repeated in some of his letters, that he had "no genius for friendship," and that whatever capacity he might once have possessed for that sentiment had vanished with his youth. if in saying thus he shaped his notions of friendship according to the romantic standard of his boyhood, the fact must be admitted: but as far as the assertion was meant to imply that he had become incapable of a warm, manly, and lasting friendship, such a charge against himself was unjust, and i am not the only living testimony of its injustice. to a certain degree, however, even in his friendships, the effects of a too vivid imagination, in disqualifying the mind for the cold contact of reality, were visible. we are told that petrarch (who, in this respect, as in most others, may be regarded as a genuine representative of the poetic character,) abstained purposely from a too frequent intercourse with his nearest friends, lest, from the sensitiveness he was so aware of in himself, there should occur any thing that might chill his regard for them [ ]; and though lord byron was of a nature too full of social and kindly impulses ever to think of such a precaution, it is a fact confirmatory, at least, of the principle on which his brother poet, petrarch, acted, that the friends, whether of his youth or manhood, of whom he had seen least, through life, were those of whom he always thought and spoke with the most warmth and fondness. being brought less often to the touchstone of familiar intercourse, they stood naturally a better chance of being adopted as the favourites of his imagination, and of sharing, in consequence, a portion of that bright colouring reserved for all that gave it interest and pleasure. next to the dead, therefore, whose hold upon his fancy had been placed beyond all risk of severance, those friends whom he but saw occasionally, and by such favourable glimpses as only renewed the first kindly impression they had made, were the surest to live unchangingly, and without shadow, in his memory. to this same cause, there is little doubt, his love for his sister owed much of its devotedness and fervour. in a mind sensitive and versatile as his, long habits of family intercourse might have estranged, or at least dulled, his natural affection for her;--but their separation, during youth, left this feeling fresh and untried.[ ] his very inexperience in such ties made the smile of a sister no less a novelty than a charm to him; and before the first gloss of this newly awakened sentiment had time to wear off, they were again separated, and for ever. if the portrait which i have here attempted of the general character of those gifted with high genius be allowed to bear, in any of its features, a resemblance to the originals, it can no longer, i think, be matter of question whether a class so set apart from the track of ordinary life, so removed, by their very elevation, out of the influences of our common atmosphere, are at all likely to furnish tractable subjects for that most trying of all social experiments, matrimony. in reviewing the great names of philosophy and science, we shall find that all who have most distinguished themselves in those walks have, at least, virtually admitted their own unfitness for the marriage tie by remaining in celibacy;--newton, gassendi, galileo, descartes, bayle, locke, leibnitz, boyle, hume, and a long list of other illustrious sages, having all led single lives.[ ] the poetic race, it is true, from the greater susceptibility of their imaginations, have more frequently fallen into the ever ready snare. but the fate of the poets in matrimony has but justified the caution of the philosophers. while the latter have given warning to genius by keeping free of the yoke, the others have still more effectually done so by their misery under it;--the annals of this sensitive race having, at all times, abounded with proofs, that genius ranks but low among the elements of social happiness,--that, in general, the brighter the gift, the more disturbing its influence, and that in married life particularly, its effects have been too often like that of the "wormwood star," whose light filled the waters on which it fell with bitterness. besides the causes already enumerated as leading naturally to such a result, from the peculiarities by which, in most instances, these great labourers in the field of thought are characterised, there is also much, no doubt, to be attributed to an unluckiness in the choice of helpmates,--dictated, as that choice frequently must be, by an imagination accustomed to deceive itself. but from whatever causes it may have arisen, the coincidence is no less striking than saddening, that, on the list of married poets who have been unhappy in their homes, there should already be found four such illustrious names as dante, milton[ ], shakspeare[ ], and dryden; and that we should now have to add, as a partner in their destiny, a name worthy of being placed beside the greatest of them,--lord byron. i have already mentioned my having been called up to town in the december of this year. the opportunities i had of seeing lord byron during my stay were frequent; and, among them, not the least memorable or agreeable were those evenings we passed together at the house of his banker, mr. douglas kinnaird, where music,--followed by its accustomed sequel of supper, brandy and water, and not a little laughter,--kept us together, usually, till rather a late hour. besides those songs of mine which he has himself somewhere recorded as his favourites, there was also one to a portuguese air, "the song of war shall echo through our mountains," which seemed especially to please him;--the national character of the music, and the recurrence of the words "sunny mountains," bringing back freshly to his memory the impressions of all he had seen in portugal. i have, indeed, known few persons more alive to the charms of simple music; and not unfrequently have seen the tears in his eyes while listening to the irish melodies. among those that thus affected him was one beginning "when first i met thee warm and young," the words of which, besides the obvious feeling which they express, were intended also to admit of a political application. he, however, discarded the latter sense wholly from his mind, and gave himself up to the more natural sentiment of the song with evident emotion. on one or two of these evenings, his favourite actor, mr. kean, was of the party; and on another occasion, we had at dinner his early instructor in pugilism, mr. jackson, in conversing with whom, all his boyish tastes seemed to revive;--and it was not a little amusing to observe how perfectly familiar with the annals of "the ring[ ]," and with all the most recondite phraseology of "the fancy," was the sublime poet of childe harold. the following note is the only one, of those i received from him at this time, worth transcribing:-- "december . . "my dearest tom, "i will send the pattern to-morrow, and since you don't go to our friend ('of the _keeping_ part of the town') this evening, i shall e'en sulk at home over a solitary potation. my self-opinion rises much by your eulogy of my social qualities. as my friend scrope is pleased to say, i believe i am very well for a 'holiday drinker.' where the devil are you? with woolridge[ ], i conjecture--for which you deserve another abscess. hoping that the american war will last for many years, and that all the prizes may be registered at bermoothes, believe me, &c. "p.s. i have just been composing an epistle to the archbishop for an especial licence. oons! it looks serious. murray is impatient to see you, and would call, if you will give him audience. your new coat!--i wonder you like the colour, and don't go about, like dives, in purple." [footnote : i had frequently, both in earnest and in jest, expressed these hopes to him; and, in one of my letters, after touching upon some matters relative to my own little domestic circle, i added, "this will all be unintelligible to you; though i sometimes cannot help thinking it within the range of possibility, that even _you_, volcano as you are, may, one day, cool down into something of the same _habitable_ state. indeed, when one thinks of lava having been converted into buttons for isaac hawkins browne, there is no saying what such fiery things may be brought to at last."] [footnote : of the lamentable contrast between sentiments and conduct, which this transfer of the seat of sensibility from the heart to the fancy produces, the annals of literary men afford unluckily too many examples. alfieri, though he could write a sonnet full of tenderness to his mother, never saw her (says mr. w. rose) but once after their early separation, though he frequently passed within a few miles of her residence. the poet young, with all his parade of domestic sorrows, was, it appears, a neglectful husband and harsh father; and sterne (to use the words employed by lord byron) preferred "whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother."] [footnote : it is the opinion of diderot, in his treatise on acting, that not only in the art of which he treats, but in all those which are called imitative, the possession of real sensibility is a bar to eminence;--sensibility being, according to his view, "le caractere de la bonté de l'ame et de la médiocrité du génie."] [footnote : pope.] [footnote : see foscolo's essay on petrarch. on the same principle, orrery says, in speaking of swift, "i am persuaded that his distance from his english friends proved a strong incitement to their mutual affection."] [footnote : that he was himself fully aware of this appears from a passage in one of his letters already given:--"my sister is in town, which is a great comfort; for, never having been much together, we are naturally more attached to each other."] [footnote : wife and children, bacon tells us in one of his essays, are "impediments to great enterprises;" and adds, "certainly, the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men." see, with reference to this subject, chapter xviii. of mr. d'israeli's work on "the literary character."] [footnote : milton's first wife, it is well known, ran away from him, within a month after their marriage, disgusted, says phillips, "with his spare diet and hard study;" and it is difficult to conceive a more melancholy picture of domestic life than is disclosed in his nuncupative will, one of the witnesses to which deposes to having heard the great poet himself complain, that his children "were careless of him, being blind, and made nothing of deserting him."] [footnote : by whatever austerity of temper or habits the poets dante and milton may have drawn upon themselves such a fate, it might be expected that, at least, the "gentle shakspeare" would have stood exempt from the common calamity of his brethren. but, among the very few facts of his life that have been transmitted to us, there is none more clearly proved than the unhappiness of his marriage. the dates of the birth of his children, compared with that of his removal from stratford,--the total omission of his wife's name in the first draft of his will, and the bitter sarcasm of the bequest by which he remembers her afterwards,--all prove beyond a doubt both his separation from the lady early in life, and his unfriendly feeling towards her at the close of it. in endeavouring to argue against the conclusion naturally to be deduced from this will, boswell, with a strange ignorance of human nature, remarks:--"if he had taken offence at any part of his wife's conduct, i cannot believe that he would have taken this petty mode of expressing it."] [footnote : in a small book which i have in my possession, containing a sort of chronological history of the ring, i find the name of lord byron, more than once, recorded among the "backers."] [footnote : dr. woolriche, an old and valued friend of mine, to whose skill, on the occasion here alluded to, i was indebted for my life.] * * * * * letter. . to mr. murray. "december , . "a thousand thanks for gibbon: all the additions are very great improvements. "at last i must be _most_ peremptory with you about the _print_ from phillips's picture: it is pronounced on all hands the most stupid and disagreeable possible: so do, pray, have a new engraving, and let me see it first; there really must be no more from the same plate. i don't much care, myself; but every one i honour torments me to death about it, and abuses it to a degree beyond repeating. now, don't answer with excuses; but, for my sake, have it destroyed: i never shall have peace till it is. i write in the greatest haste. "p.s. i have written this most illegibly; but it is to beg you to destroy the print, and have another 'by particular desire.' it must be d----d bad, to be sure, since every body says so but the original; and he don't know what to say. but do _do_ it: that is, burn the plate, and employ a new _etcher_ from the other picture. this is stupid and sulky." * * * * * on his arrival in town, he had, upon enquiring into the state of his affairs, found them in so utterly embarrassed a condition as to fill him with some alarm, and even to suggest to his mind the prudence of deferring his marriage. the die was, however, cast, and he had now no alternative but to proceed. accordingly, at the end of december, accompanied by his friend mr. hobhouse, he set out for seaham, the seat of sir ralph milbanke, the lady's father, in the county of durham, and on the d of january, , was married. "i saw him stand before an altar with a gentle bride; her face was fair, but was not that which made the starlight of his boyhood;--as he stood even at the altar, o'er his brow there came the self-same aspect, and the quivering shock that in the antique oratory shook his bosom in its solitude; and then-- as in that hour--a moment o'er his face, the tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced,--and then it faded as it came, and he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke the fitting vows, but heard not his own words, and all things reel'd around him; he could see not that which was, nor that which should have been-- but the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall, and the remember'd chambers, and the place, the day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, all things pertaining to that place and hour, and her, who was his destiny, came back, and thrust themselves between him and the light:-- what business had they there at such a time?"[ ] this touching picture agrees so closely in many of its circumstances, with his own prose account of the wedding in his memoranda, that i feel justified in introducing it, historically, here. in that memoir, he described himself as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the most melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread out before him. in the same mood, he wandered about the grounds alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined, for the first time on that day, his bride and her family. he knelt down, he repeated the words after the clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes,--his thoughts were elsewhere; and he was but awakened by the congratulations of the bystanders, to find that he was--married. the same morning, the wedded pair left seaham for halnaby, another seat of sir ralph milbanke, in the same county. when about to depart, lord byron said to the bride, "miss milbanke, are you ready?"--a mistake which the lady's confidential attendant pronounced to be a "bad omen." it is right to add, that i quote these slight details from memory, and am alone answerable for any inaccuracy there may be found in them. [footnote : the dream.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "kirkby, january . . "the marriage took place on the d instant: so pray make haste and congratulate away. "thanks for the edinburgh review and the abolition of the print. let the next be from the _other_ of phillips--i mean (_not_ the albanian, but) the original one in the exhibition; the last was from the copy. i should wish my sister and lady byron to decide upon the next, as they found fault with the last. _i_ have no opinion of my own upon the subject. "mr. kinnaird will, i dare say, have the goodness to furnish copies of the melodies[ ], if you state my wish upon the subject. you may have them, if you think them worth inserting. the volumes in their collected state must be inscribed to mr. hobhouse, but i have not yet mustered the expressions of my inscription; but will supply them in time. with many thanks for your good wishes, which have all been realised, i remain, very truly, yours, "byron." [footnote : the hebrew melodies which he had employed himself in writing, during his recent stay in london.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "halnaby, darlington, january , . "i was married this day week. the parson has pronounced it--perry has announced it--and the morning post, also, under the head of 'lord byron's marriage'--as if it were a fabrication, or the puff-direct of a new stay-maker. "now for thine affairs. i have redde thee upon the fathers, and it is excellent well. positively, you must not leave off reviewing. you shine in it--you kill in it; and this article has been taken for sydney smith's (as i heard in town), which proves not only your proficiency in parsonology, but that you have all the airs of a veteran critic at your first onset. so, prithee, go on and prosper. "scott's 'lord of the isles' is out--'the mail-coach copy' i have, by special licence, of murray. "now is _your_ time;--you will come upon them newly and freshly. it is impossible to read what you have lately done (verse or prose) without seeing that you have trained on tenfold. * * has floundered; * * has foundered. _i_ have tried the rascals (i.e. the public) with my harrys and larrys, pilgrims and pirates. nobody but s * * * *y has done any thing worth a slice of bookseller's pudding; and _he_ has not luck enough to be found out in doing a good thing. now, tom, is thy time--'oh joyful day!--i would not take a knighthood for thy fortune. let me hear from you soon, and believe me ever, &c. "p.s. lady byron is vastly well. how are mrs. moore and joe atkinson's 'graces?' we must present our women to one another." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "january . . "egad! i don't think he is 'down;' and my prophecy--like most auguries, sacred and profane--is not annulled, but inverted. "to your question about the 'dog'[ ]--umph!--my 'mother,' i won't say any thing against--that is, about her: but how long a 'mistress' or friend may recollect paramours or competitors (lust and thirst being the two great and only bonds between the amatory or the amicable) i can't say,--or, rather, you know, as well as i could tell you. but as for canine recollections, as far as i could judge by a cur of mine own, (always bating boatswain, the dearest and, alas! the maddest of dogs,) i had one (half a _wolf_ by the she side) that doted on me at ten years old, and very nearly ate me at twenty. when i thought he was going to enact argus, he bit away the backside of my breeches, and never would consent to any kind of recognition, in despite of all kinds of bones which i offered him. so, let southey blush and homer too, as far as i can decide upon quadruped memories. "i humbly take it, the mother knows the son that pays her jointure--a mistress her mate, till he * * and refuses salary--a friend his fellow, till he loses cash and character--and a dog his master, till he changes him. "so, you want to know about milady and me? but let me not, as roderick random says, 'profane the chaste mysteries of hymen'[ ]--damn the word, i had nearly spelt it with a small _h_. i like bell as well as you do (or did, you villain!) bessy--and that is (or was) saying a great deal. "address your next to seaham, stockton-on-tees, where we are going on saturday (a bore, by the way,) to see father-in-law, sir jacob, and my lady's lady-mother. write--and write more at length--both to the public and yours ever most affectionately, "b." [footnote : i had just been reading mr. southey's fine poem of "roderick;" and with reference to an incident in it, had put the following question to lord byron:--"i should like to know from you, who are one of the philocynic sect, whether it is probable, that any dog (out of a melodrame) could recognise a master, whom neither his own mother or mistress was able to find out. i don't care about ulysses's dog, &c.--all i want is to know from _you_ (who are renowned as 'friend of the dog, companion of the bear') whether such a thing is probable."] [footnote : the letter h. is blotted in the ms.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "seaham, stockton-on-tees, february . . "i have heard from london that you have left chatsworth and all the women full of 'entusymusy'[ ] about you, personally and poetically; and, in particular, that 'when first i met thee' has been quite overwhelming in its effect. i told you it was one of the best things you ever wrote, though that dog power wanted you to omit part of it. they are all regretting your absence at chatsworth, according to my informant--'all the ladies quite,' &c. &c. &c. stap my vitals! "well, now you have got home again--which i dare say is as agreeable as a 'draught of cool small beer to the scorched palate of a waking sot'--now you have got home again, i say, probably i shall hear from you. since i wrote last, i have been transferred to my father-in-law's, with my lady and my lady's maid, &c. &c. &c. and the treacle-moon is over, and i am awake, and find myself married. my spouse and i agree to--and in--admiration. swift says 'no _wise_ man ever married;' but, for a fool, i think it the most ambrosial of all possible future states. i still think one ought to marry upon _lease_; but am very sure i should renew mine at the expiration, though next term were for ninety and nine years. "i wish you would respond, for i am here 'oblitusque meorum obliviscendus et illis.' pray tell me what is going on in the way of intriguery, and how the w----s and rogues of the upper beggar's opera go on--or rather go off--in or after marriage; or who are going to break any particular commandment. upon this dreary coast, we have nothing but county meetings and shipwrecks; and i have this day dined upon fish, which probably dined upon the crews of several colliers lost in the late gales. but i saw the sea once more in all the glories of surf and foam,--almost equal to the bay of biscay, and the interesting white squalls and short seas of archipelago memory. "my papa, sir ralpho, hath recently made a speech at a durham tax-meeting; and not only at durham, but here, several times since, after dinner. he is now, i believe, speaking it to himself (i left him in the middle) over various decanters, which can neither interrupt him nor fall asleep,--as might possibly have been the case with some of his audience. ever thine, b. "i must go to tea--damn tea. i wish it was kinnaird's brandy, and with you to lecture me about it." [footnote : it was thus that, according to his account, a certain celebrated singer and actor used frequently to pronounce the word "enthusiasm."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "seaham, stockton-upon-tees, february . . "you will oblige me very much by making an occasional enquiry at albany, at my chambers, whether my books, &c. are kept in tolerable order, and how far my old woman[ ] continues in health and industry as keeper of my old den. your parcels have been duly received and perused; but i had hoped to receive 'guy mannering' before this time. i won't intrude further for the present on your avocations, professional or pleasurable, but am, as usual, "very truly," &c. [footnote : mrs. mule.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "february . . "i enclose you half a letter from * *, which will explain itself--at least the latter part--the former refers to private business of mine own. if jeffrey will take such an article, and you will undertake the revision, or, indeed, any portion of the article itself, (for unless _you do_, by phoebus, i will have nothing to do with it,) we can cook up, between us three, as pretty a dish of sour-crout as ever tipped over the tongue of a bookmaker. "you can, at any rate, try jeffrey's inclination. your late proposal from him made me hint this to * *, who is a much better proser and scholar than i am, and a very superior man indeed. excuse haste--answer this. ever yours most, "b. "p.s. all is well at home. i wrote to you yesterday." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "february . . "my dear tom, "jeffrey has been so very kind about me and my damnable works, that i would not be indirect or equivocal with him, even for a friend. so, it may be as well to tell him that it is not mine; but that if i did not firmly and truly believe it to be much better than i could offer, i would never have troubled him or you about it. you can judge between you how far it is admissible, and reject it, if not of the right sort. for my own part, i have no interest in the article one way or the other, further than to oblige * *; and should the composition be a good one, it can hurt neither party,--nor, indeed, any one, saving and excepting mr. * * * *. "curse catch me if i know what h * * means or meaned about the demonstrative pronoun[ ], but i admire your fear of being inoculated with the same. have you never found out that you have a particular style of your own, which is as distinct from all other people, as hafiz of shiraz from hafiz of the morning post? "so you allowed b * * and such like to hum and haw you, or, rather, lady j * * out of her compliment, and _me_ out of mine.[ ] sun-burn me, but this was pitiful-hearted. however, i will tell her all about it when i see her. "bell desires me to say all kinds of civilities, and assure you of her recognition and high consideration. i will tell you of our movements south, which may be in about three weeks from this present writing. by the way, don't engage yourself in any travelling expedition, as i have a plan of travel into italy, which we will discuss. and then, think of the poesy wherewithal we should overflow, from venice to vesuvius, to say nothing of greece, through all which--god willing--we might perambulate in one twelve months. if i take my wife, you can take yours; and if i leave mine, you may do the same. 'mind you stand by me in either case, brother bruin.' "and believe me inveterately yours, "b" [footnote : some remark which he told me had been made with respect to the frequent use of the demonstrative pronoun both by himself and by sir w. scott.] [footnote : verses to lady j * * (containing an allusion to lord byron), which i had written, while at chatsworth, but consigned afterwards to the flames.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "february . . "yesterday i sent off the packet and letter to edinburgh. it consisted of forty-one pages, so that i have not added a line; but in my letter, i mentioned what passed between you and me in autumn, as my inducement for presuming to trouble him either with my own or * *'s lucubrations. i am any thing but sure that it will do; but i have told j. that if there is any decent raw material in it, he may cut it into what shape he pleases, and warp it to his liking. "so you _won't_ go abroad, then, with _me_,--but alone. i fully purpose starting much about the time you mention, and alone, too. "i hope j. won't think me very impudent in sending * * only: there was not room for a syllable. i have avowed * * as the author, and said that you thought or said, when i met you last, that he (j.) would not be angry at the coalition, (though, alas! we have not coalesced,) and so, if i have got into a scrape, i must get out of it--heaven knows how. "your anacreon[ ] is come, and with it i sealed (its first impression) the packet and epistle to our patron. "curse the melodies and the tribes, to boot,[ ] braham is to assist--or hath assisted--but will do no more good than a second physician. i merely interfered to oblige a whim of k.'s, and all i have got by it was 'a speech' and a receipt for stewed oysters. "'not meet'--pray don't say so. we must meet somewhere or somehow. newstead is out of the question, being nearly sold again, or, if not, it is uninhabitable for my spouse. pray write again. i will soon. "p.s. pray when do you come out? ever, or never? i hope i have made no blunder; but i certainly think you said to me, (after w * * th, whom i first pondered upon, was given up,) that * * and i might attempt * * * *. his length alone prevented me from trying my part, though i should have been less severe upon the reviewée. "your seal is the best and prettiest of my set, and i thank you very much therefor. i have just been--or rather, ought to be--very much shocked by the death of the duke of dorset. we were at school together, and there i was passionately attached to him. since, we have never met--but once, i think, since --and it would be a paltry affectation to pretend that i had any feeling for him worth the name. but there was a time in my life when this event would have broken my heart; and all i can say for it now is that--it is not worth breaking. "adieu--it is all a farce." [footnote : a seal, with the head of anacreon, which i had given him.] [footnote : i had taken the liberty of laughing a little at the manner in which some of his hebrew melodies had been set to music.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "march . . "my dear thom, "jeffrey has sent me the most friendly of all possible letters, and has accepted * *'s article. he says he has long liked not only, &c. &c. but my 'character.' this must be _your_ doing, you dog--ar'nt you ashamed of yourself, knowing me so well? this is what one gets for having you for a father confessor. "i feel merry enough to send you a sad song.[ ] you once asked me for some words which you would set. now you may set or not, as you like,--but there they are, in a legible hand[ ], and not in mine, but of my own scribbling; so you may say of them what you please. why don't you write to me? i shall make you 'a speech'[ ] if you don't respond quickly. "i am in such a state of sameness and stagnation, and so totally occupied in consuming the fruits--and sauntering--and playing dull games at cards--and yawning--and trying to read old annual registers and the daily papers--and gathering shells on the shore--and watching the growth of stunted gooseberry bushes in the garden--that i have neither time nor sense to say more than yours ever, b. "p.s. i open my letter again to put a question to you. what would lady c----k, or any other fashionable pidcock, give to collect you and jeffrey and me to _one_ party? i have been answering his letter, which suggested this dainty query. i can't help laughing at the thoughts of your face and mine; and our anxiety to keep the aristarch in good humour during the _early_ part of a compotation, till we got drunk enough to make him 'a speech.' i think the critic would have much the best of us--of one, at least--for i don't think diffidence (i mean social) is a disease of yours." [footnote : the verses enclosed were those melancholy ones, now printed in his works, "there's not a joy the world can give like those it takes away."] [footnote : the ms. was in the handwriting of lady byron.] [footnote : these allusions to "a speech" are connected with a little incident, not worth mentioning, which had amused us both when i was in town. he was rather fond (and had been always so, as may be seen in his early letters,) of thus harping on some conventional phrase or joke.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "march . . "an event--the death of poor dorset--and the recollection of what i once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not--set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands. i am very glad you like them, for i flatter myself they will pass as an imitation of your style. if i could imitate it well, i should have no great ambition of originality--i wish i could make you exclaim with dennis, 'that's my thunder, by g----d!' i wrote them with a view to your setting them, and as a present to power, if he would accept the words, and _you_ did not think yourself degraded, for once in a way, by marrying them to music. "sun-burn n * *!--why do you always twit me with his vile ebrew nasalities? have i not told you it was all k.'s doing, and my own exquisite facility of temper? but thou wilt be a wag, thomas; and see what you get for it. now for my revenge. "depend--and perpend--upon it that your opinion of * *'s poem will travel through one or other of the quintuple correspondents, till it reaches the ear, and the liver of the author.[ ] your adventure, however, is truly laughable--but how could you be such a potatoe? you 'a brother' (of the quill) too, 'near the throne,' to confide to a man's _own publisher_ (who has 'bought,' or rather sold, 'golden opinions' about him) such a damnatory parenthesis! 'between you and me,' quotha--it reminds me of a passage in the heir at law--'tête-a-tête with lady duberly, i suppose.'--'no--tête-a-tête with _five hundred people_;' and your confidential communication will doubtless be in circulation to that amount, in a short time, with several additions, and in several letters, all signed l.h.r.o.b., &c. &c. &c. "we leave this place to-morrow, and shall stop on our way to town (in the interval of taking a house there) at col. leigh's, near newmarket, where any epistle of yours will find its welcome way. "i have been very comfortable here,--listening to that d----d monologue, which elderly gentlemen call conversation, and in which my pious father-in-law repeats himself every evening--save one, when he played upon the fiddle. however, they have been very kind and hospitable, and i like them and the place vastly, and i hope they will live many happy months. bell is in health, and unvaried good-humour and behaviour. but we are all in the agonies of packing and parting; and i suppose by this time to-morrow i shall be stuck in the chariot with my chin upon a band-box. i have prepared, however, another carriage for the abigail, and all the trumpery which our wives drag along with them. "ever thine, most affectionately, "b." [footnote : he here alludes to a circumstance which i had communicated to him in a preceding letter. in writing to one of the numerous partners of a well-known publishing establishment (with which i have since been lucky enough to form a more intimate connection), i had said confidentially (as i thought), in reference to a poem that had just appeared,--"between you and me, i do not much admire mr. * *'s poem." the letter being chiefly upon business, was answered through the regular business channel, and, to my dismay, concluded with the following words:--"_we_ are very sorry that you do not approve of mr. * *'s new poem, and are your obedient, &c. &c. l.h.r.o., &c. &c."] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "march . . "i meaned to write to you before on the subject of your loss[ ]; but the recollection of the uselessness and worthlessness of any observations on such events prevented me. i shall only now add, that i rejoice to see you bear it so well, and that i trust time will enable mrs. m. to sustain it better. every thing should be done to divert and occupy her with other thoughts and cares, and i am sure that all that can be done will. "now to your letter. napoleon--but the papers will have told you all. i quite think with you upon the subject, and for my _real_ thoughts this time last year, i would refer you to the last pages of the journal i gave you. i can forgive the rogue for utterly falsifying every line of mine ode--which i take to be the last and uttermost stretch of human magnanimity. do you remember the story of a certain abbé, who wrote a treatise on the swedish constitution, and proved it indissoluble and eternal? just as he had corrected the last sheet, news came that gustavus iii. had destroyed this immortal government. 'sir,' quoth the abbé, 'the king of sweden may overthrow the _constitution_, but not _my book_!!' i think _of_ the abbé, but not _with_ him. "making every allowance for talent and most consummate daring, there is, after all, a good deal in luck or destiny. he might have been stopped by our frigates--or wrecked in the gulf of lyons, which is particularly tempestuous--or--a thousand things. but he is certainly fortune's favourite, and once fairly set out on his party of pleasure, taking towns at his liking and crowns at his leisure, from elba to lyons and paris he goes, making _balls for_ the ladies, and _bows_ to his foes. you must have seen the account of his driving into the middle of the royal army, and the immediate effect of his pretty speeches. and now if he don't drub the allies, there is 'no purchase in money.' if he can take france by himself, the devil's in 't if he don't repulse the invaders, when backed by those celebrated sworders--those boys of the blade, the imperial guard, and the old and new army. it is impossible not to be dazzled and overwhelmed by his character and career. nothing ever so disappointed me as his abdication, and nothing could have reconciled me to him but some such revival as his recent exploit; though no one could anticipate such a complete and brilliant renovation. "to your question, i can only answer that there have been some symptoms which look a little gestatory. it is a subject upon which i am not particularly anxious, except that i think it would please her uncle, lord wentworth, and her father and mother. the former (lord w.) is now in town, and in very indifferent health. you, perhaps, know that his property, amounting to seven or eight thousand a year, will eventually devolve upon bell. but the old gentleman has been so very kind to her and me, that i hardly know how to wish him in heaven, if he can be comfortable on earth. her father is still in the country. "we mean to metropolise to-morrow, and you will address your next to piccadilly. we have got the duchess of devon's house there, she being in france. "i don't care what power says to secure the property of the song, so that it is _not_ complimentary to me, nor any thing about 'condescending' or '_noble_ author'--both 'vile phrases,' as polonius says. "pray, let me hear from you, and when you mean to be in town. your continental scheme is impracticable for the present. i have to thank you for a longer letter than usual, which i hope will induce you to tax my gratitude still further in the same way. "you never told me about 'longman' and 'next winter,' and i am _not_ a 'mile-stone.'"[ ] [footnote : the death of his infant god-daughter, olivia byron moore.] [footnote : i had accused him of having entirely forgot that, in a preceding letter, i had informed him of my intention to publish with the messrs. longman in the ensuing winter, and added that, in giving him this information, i found i had been--to use an elegant irish metaphor--"whistling jigs to a mile-stone."] * * * * * letter . to mr. coleridge. "piccadilly, march . . "dear sir, "it will give me great pleasure to comply with your request, though i hope there is still taste enough left amongst us to render it almost unnecessary, sordid and interested as, it must be admitted, many of 'the trade' are, where circumstances give them an advantage. i trust you do not permit yourself to be depressed by the temporary partiality of what is called 'the public' for the favourites of the moment; all experience is against the permanency of such impressions. you must have lived to see many of these pass away, and will survive many more--i mean personally, for _poetically_, i would not insult you by a comparison. "if i may be permitted, i would suggest that there never was such an opening for tragedy. in kean, there is an actor worthy of expressing the thoughts of the characters which you have every power of embodying; and i cannot but regret that the part of ordonio was disposed of before his appearance at drury lane. we have had nothing to be mentioned in the same breath with 'remorse' for very many years; and i should think that the reception of that play was sufficient to encourage the highest hopes of author and audience. it is to be hoped that you are proceeding in a career which could not but be successful. with my best respects to mr. bowles, i have the honour to be "your obliged and very obedient servant, "byron. "p.s. you mention my 'satire,' lampoon, or whatever you or others please to call it. i can only say, that it was written when i was very young and very angry, and has been a thorn in my side ever since; more particularly as almost all the persons animadverted upon became subsequently my acquaintances, and some of them my friends, which is 'heaping fire upon an enemy's head,' and forgiving me too readily to permit me to forgive myself. the part applied to you is pert, and petulant, and shallow enough; but, although i have long done every thing in my power to suppress the circulation of the whole thing, i shall always regret the wantonness or generality of many of its attempted attacks." * * * * * it was in the course of this spring that lord byron and sir walter scott became, for the first time, personally acquainted with each other. mr. murray, having been previously on a visit to the latter gentleman, had been intrusted by him with a superb turkish dagger as a present to lord byron; and the noble poet, on their meeting this year in london,--the only time when these two great men had ever an opportunity of enjoying each other's society,--presented to sir walter, in return, a vase containing some human bones that had been dug up from under a part of the old walls of athens. the reader, however, will be much better pleased to have these particulars in the words of sir walter scott himself, who, with that good-nature which renders him no less amiable than he is admirable, has found time, in the midst of all his marvellous labours for the world, to favour me with the following interesting communication:[ ]-- "my first acquaintance with byron began in a manner rather doubtful. i was so far from having any thing to do with the offensive criticism in the edinburgh, that i remember remonstrating against it with our friend, the editor, because i thought the 'hours of idleness' treated with undue severity. they were written, like all juvenile poetry, rather from the recollection of what had pleased the author in others than what had been suggested by his own imagination; but, nevertheless, i thought they contained some passages of noble promise. i was so much impressed with this, that i had thoughts of writing to the author; but some exaggerated reports concerning his peculiarities, and a natural unwillingness to intrude an opinion which was uncalled for, induced me to relinquish the idea. "when byron wrote his famous satire, i had my share of flagellation among my betters. my crime was having written a poem (marmion, i think) for a thousand pounds; which was no otherwise true than that i sold the copy-right for that sum. now, not to mention that an author can hardly be censured for accepting such a sum as the booksellers are willing to give him, especially as the gentlemen of the trade made no complaints of their bargain, i thought the interference with my private affairs was rather beyond the limits of literary satire. on the other hand, lord byron paid me, in several passages, so much more praise than i deserved, that i must have been more irritable than i have ever felt upon such subjects, not to sit down contented, and think no more about the matter. "i was very much struck, with all the rest of the world, at the vigour and force of imagination displayed in the first cantos of childe harold, and the other splendid productions which lord byron flung from him to the public with a promptitude that savoured of profusion. my own popularity, as a poet, was then on the wane, and i was unaffectedly pleased to see an author of so much power and energy taking the field. mr. john murray happened to be in scotland that season, and as i mentioned to him the pleasure i should have in making lord byron's acquaintance, he had the kindness to mention my wish to his lordship, which led to some correspondence. "it was in the spring of that, chancing to be in london, i had the advantage of a personal introduction to lord byron. report had prepared me to meet a man of peculiar habits and a quick temper, and i had some doubts whether we were likely to suit each other in society. i was most agreeably disappointed in this respect. i found lord byron in the highest degree courteous, and even kind. we met, for an hour or two almost daily, in mr. murray's drawing-room, and found a great deal to say to each other. we also met frequently in parties and evening society, so that for about two months i had the advantage of a considerable intimacy with this distinguished individual. our sentiments agreed a good deal, except upon the subjects of religion and politics, upon neither of which i was inclined to believe that lord byron entertained very fixed opinions. i remember saying to him, that i really thought, that if he lived a few years he would alter his sentiments. he answered, rather sharply, 'i suppose you are one of those who prophesy i will turn methodist.' i replied, 'no--i don't expect your conversion to be of such an ordinary kind. i would rather look to see you retreat upon the catholic faith, and distinguish yourself by the austerity of your penances. the species of religion to which you must, or may, one day attach yourself must exercise a strong power on the imagination.' he smiled gravely, and seemed to allow i might be right. "on politics, he used sometimes to express a high strain of what is now called liberalism; but it appeared to me that the pleasure it afforded him as a vehicle of displaying his wit and satire against individuals in office was at the bottom of this habit of thinking, rather than any real conviction of the political principles on which he talked. he was certainly proud of his rank and ancient family, and, in that respect, as much an aristocrat as was consistent with good sense and good breeding. some disgusts, how adopted i know not, seemed to me to have given this peculiar and, as it appeared to me, contradictory cast of mind: but, at heart, i would have termed byron a patrician on principle. "lord byron's reading did not seem to me to have been very extensive either in poetry or history. having the advantage of him in that respect, and possessing a good competent share of such reading as is little read, i was sometimes able to put under his eye objects which had for him the interest of novelty. i remember particularly repeating to him the fine poem of hardyknute, an imitation of the old scottish ballad, with which he was so much affected, that some one who was in the same apartment asked me what i could possibly have been telling byron by which he was so much agitated. i saw byron, for the last time, in , after i returned from france. he dined, or lunched, with me at long's in bond street. i never saw him so full of gaiety and good-humour, to which the presence of mr. mathews, the comedian, added not a little. poor terry was also present. after one of the gayest parties i ever was present at, my fellow-traveller, mr. scott, of gala, and i set off for scotland, and i never saw lord byron again. several letters passed between us--one perhaps every half year. like the old heroes in homer, we exchanged gifts:--i gave byron a beautiful dagger mounted with gold, which had been the property of the redoubted elfi bey. but i was to play the part of diomed, in the iliad, for byron sent me, some time after, a large sepulchral vase of silver. it was full of dead men's bones, and had inscriptions on two sides of the base. one ran thus:--'the bones contained in this urn were found in certain ancient sepulchres within the land walls of athens, in the month of february, .' the other face bears the lines of juvenal: "expende--quot libras in duce summo invenies. --mors sola fatetur quantula hominum corpuscula." juv. x. to these i have added a third inscription, in these words--'the gift of lord byron to walter scott.'[ ] there was a letter with this vase more valuable to me than the gift itself, from the kindness with which the donor expressed himself towards me. i left it naturally in the urn with the bones,--but it is now missing. as the theft was not of a nature to be practised by a mere domestic, i am compelled to suspect the inhospitality of some individual of higher station,--most gratuitously exercised certainly, since, after what i have here said, no one will probably choose to boast of possessing this literary curiosity. "we had a good deal of laughing, i remember, on what the public might be supposed to think, or say, concerning the gloomy and ominous nature of our mutual gifts. "i think i can add little more to my recollections of byron. he was often melancholy,--almost gloomy. when i observed him in this humour, i used either to wait till it went off of its own accord, or till some natural and easy mode occurred of leading him into conversation, when the shadows almost always left his countenance, like the mist rising from a landscape. in conversation he was very animated. "i met with him very frequently in society; our mutual acquaintances doing me the honour to think that he liked to meet with me. some very agreeable parties i can recollect,--particularly one at sir george beaumont's, where the amiable landlord had assembled some persons distinguished for talent. of these i need only mention the late sir humphry davy, whose talents for literature were as remarkable as his empire over science. mr. richard sharpe and mr. rogers were also present. "i think i also remarked in byron's temper starts of suspicion, when he seemed to pause and consider whether there had not been a secret, and perhaps offensive, meaning in something casually said to him. in this case, i also judged it best to let his mind, like a troubled spring, work itself clear, which it did in a minute or two. i was considerably older, you will recollect, than my noble friend, and had no reason to fear his misconstruing my sentiments towards him, nor had i ever the slightest reason to doubt that they were kindly returned on his part. if i had occasion to be mortified by the display of genius which threw into the shade such pretensions as i was then supposed to possess, i might console myself that, in my own case, the materials of mental happiness had been mingled in a greater proportion. "i rummage my brains in vain for what often rushes into my head unbidden,--little traits and sayings which recall his looks, manner, tone, and gestures; and i have always continued to think that a crisis of life was arrived in which a new career of fame was opened to him, and that had he been permitted to start upon it, he would have obliterated the memory of such parts of his life as friends would wish to forget." [footnote : a few passages at the beginning of these recollections have been omitted, as containing particulars relative to lord byron's mother, which have already been mentioned in the early part of this work. among these, however, there is one anecdote, the repetition of which will be easily pardoned, on account of the infinitely greater interest as well as authenticity imparted to its details by coming from such an eye-witness as sir walter scott:--"i remember," he says, "having seen lord byron's mother before she was married, and a certain coincidence rendered the circumstance rather remarkable. it was during mrs. siddons's first or second visit to edinburgh, when the music of that wonderful actress's voice, looks, manner, and person, produced the strongest effect which could possibly be exerted by a human being upon her fellow-creatures. nothing of the kind that i ever witnessed approached it by a hundred degrees. the high state of excitation was aided by the difficulties of obtaining entrance and the exhausting length of time that the audience were contented to wait until the piece commenced. when the curtain fell, a large proportion of the ladies were generally in hysterics. "i remember miss gordon of ghight, in particular, harrowing the house by the desperate and wild way in which she shrieked out mrs. siddons's exclamation, in the character of isabella, 'oh my byron! oh my byron!' a well-known medical gentleman, the benevolent dr. alexander wood, tendered his assistance; but the thick-pressed audience could not for a long time make way for the doctor to approach his patient, or the patient the physician. the remarkable circumstance was, that the lady had not then seen captain byron, who, like sir toby, made her conclude with 'oh!' as she had begun with it."] [footnote : mr. murray had, at the time of giving the vase, suggested to lord byron, that it would increase the value of the gift to add some such inscription; but the feeling of the noble poet on this subject will be understood from the following answer which he returned:-- "april . . "thanks for the books. i have great objection to your proposition about inscribing the vase,--which is, that it would appear _ostentatious_ on my part; and of course i must send it as it is, without any alteration. "yours," &c. ] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "april . . "lord wentworth died last week. the bulk of his property (from seven to eight thousand per ann.) is entailed on lady milbanke and lady byron. the first is gone to take possession in leicestershire, and attend the funeral, &c. this day. "i have mentioned the facts of the settlement of lord w.'s property, because the newspapers, with their usual accuracy, have been making all kinds of blunders in their statement. his will is just as expected--the principal part settled on lady milbanke (now noel) and bell, and a separate estate left for sale to pay debts (which are not great) and legacies to his natural son and daughter. mrs. * *'s tragedy was last night damned. they may bring it on again, and probably will; but damned it was,--not a word of the last act audible. i went (_malgré_ that i ought to have stayed at home in sackcloth for unc., but i could not resist the _first_ night of any thing) to a private and quiet nook of my private box, and witnessed the whole process. the first three acts, with transient gushes of applause, oozed patiently but heavily on. i must say it was badly acted, particularly by * *, who was groaned upon in the third act,--something about 'horror--such a horror' was the cause. well, the fourth act became as muddy and turbid as need be; but the fifth--what garrick used to call (like a fool) the _concoction_ of a play--the fifth act stuck fast at the king's prayer. you know he says, 'he never went to bed without saying them, and did not like to omit them now.' but he was no sooner upon his knees, than the audience got upon their legs--the damnable pit--and roared, and groaned, and hissed, and whistled. well, that was choked a little; but the ruffian-scene--the penitent peasantry--and killing the bishop and princes--oh, it was all over. the curtain fell upon unheard actors, and the announcement attempted by kean for monday was equally ineffectual. mrs. bartley was so frightened, that, though the people were tolerably quiet, the epilogue was quite inaudible to half the house. in short,--you know all. i clapped till my hands were skinless, and so did sir james mackintosh, who was with me in the box. all the world were in the house, from the jerseys, greys, &c. &c. downwards. but it would not do. it is, after all, not an _acting_ play; good language, but no power. * * * women (saving joanna baillie) cannot write tragedy: they have not seen enough nor felt enough of life for it. i think semiramis or catherine ii. might have written (could they have been unqueened) a rare play. "it is, however, a good warning not to risk or write tragedies. i never had much bent that way; but if i had, this would have cured me. "ever, carissime thom., "thine, b." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "may . . "you must have thought it very odd, not to say ungrateful, that i made no mention of the drawings[ ], &c. when i had the pleasure of seeing you this morning. the fact is, that till this moment i had not seen them, nor heard of their arrival: they were carried up into the library, where i have not been till just now, and no intimation given to me of their coming. the present is so very magnificent, that--in short, i leave lady byron to thank you for it herself, and merely send this to apologise for a piece of apparent and unintentional neglect on my own part. yours," &c. [footnote : mr. murray had presented lady byron with twelve drawings, by stothard, from lord byron's poems.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore.[ ] " . piccadilly terrace, june . . "i have nothing to offer in behalf of my late silence, except the most inveterate and ineffable laziness; but i am too supine to invent a lie, or i _certainly_ should, being ashamed of the truth. k * *, i hope, has appeased your magnanimous indignation at his blunders. i wished and wish you were in the committee, with all my heart.[ ] it seems so hopeless a business, that the company of a friend would be quite consoling,--but more of this when we meet. in the mean time, you are entreated to prevail upon mrs. esterre to engage herself. i believe she has been written to, but your influence, in person or proxy, would probably go further than our proposals. what they are, i know not; all _my_ new function consists in listening to the despair of cavendish bradshaw, the hopes of kinnaird, the wishes of lord essex, the complaints of whitbread, and the calculations of peter moore,--all of which, and whom, seem totally at variance. c. bradshaw wants to light the theatre with _gas_, which may, perhaps (if the vulgar be believed), poison half the audience, and all the _dramatis personæ_. essex has endeavoured to persuade k * * not to get drunk, the consequence of which is, that he has never been sober since. kinnaird, with equal success, would have convinced raymond, that he, the said raymond, had too much salary. whitbread wants us to assess the pit another sixpence,--a d----d insidious proposition,--which will end in an o.p. combustion. to crown all, r * *, the auctioneer, has the impudence to be displeased, because he has no dividend. the villain is a proprietor of shares, and a long lunged orator in the meetings. i hear he has prophesied our incapacity,--'a foregone conclusion,' whereof i hope to give him signal proofs before we are done. "will you give us an opera? no, i'll be sworn; but i wish you would. "to go on with the poetical world, walter scott has gone back to scotland. murray, the bookseller, has been cruelly cudgelled of misbegotten knaves, 'in kendal green,' at newington butts, in his way home from a purlieu dinner,--and robbed--would you believe it?--of three or four bonds of forty pound a piece, and a seal-ring of his grandfather's, worth a million! this is his version,--but others opine that d'israeli, with whom he dined, knocked him down with his last publication, 'the quarrels of authors,' in a dispute about copyright. be that as it may, the newspapers have teemed with his 'injuria formæ,' and he has been embrocated, and invisible to all but the apothecary ever since. "lady b. is better than three months advanced in her progress towards maternity, and, we hope, likely to go well through with it. we have been very little out this season, as i wish to keep her quiet in her present situation. her father and mother have changed their names to noel, in compliance with lord wentworth's will, and in complaisance to the property bequeathed by him. "i hear that you have been gloriously received by the irish,--and so you ought. but don't let them kill you with claret and kindness at the national dinner in your honour, which, i hear and hope, is in contemplation. if you will tell me the day, i'll get drunk myself on this side of the water, and waft you an applauding hiccup over the channel. "of politics, we have nothing but the yell for war; and c * * h is preparing his head for the pike, on which we shall see it carried before he has done. the loan has made every body sulky. i hear often from paris, but in direct contradiction to the home statements of our hirelings. of domestic doings, there has been nothing since lady d * *. not a divorce stirring,--but a good many in embryo, in the shape of marriages. "i enclose you an epistle received this morning from i know not whom; but i think it will amuse you. the writer must be a rare fellow.[ ] "p.s. a gentleman named d'alton (not your dalton) has sent me a national poem called 'dermid.' the same cause which prevented my writing to you operated against my wish to write to him an epistle of thanks. if you see him, will you make all kinds of fine speeches for me, and tell him that i am the laziest and most ungrateful of mortals? "a word more;--don't let sir john stevenson (as an evidence on trials for copy-right, &c.) talk about the price of your next poem, or they will come upon you for the _property tax_ for it. i am serious, and have just heard a long story of the rascally tax-men making scott pay for his. so, take care. three hundred is a devil of a deduction out of three thousand." [footnote : this and the following letter were addressed to me in ireland, whither i had gone about the middle of the preceding month.] [footnote : he had lately become one of the members of the sub-committee, (consisting, besides himself, of the persons mentioned in this letter,) who had taken upon themselves the management of drury lane theatre; and it had been his wish, on the first construction of the committee, that i should be one of his colleagues. to some mistake in the mode of conveying this proposal to me, he alludes in the preceding sentence.] [footnote : the following is the enclosure here referred to:-- "darlington, june . . "my lord, "i have lately purchased a set of your works, and am quite vexed that you have not cancelled the ode to buonaparte. it certainly was prematurely written, without thought or reflection. providence has now brought him to reign over millions again, while the same providence keeps as it were in a garrison another potentate, who, in the language of mr. burke, 'he hurled from his throne.' see if you cannot make amends for your folly, and consider that, in almost every respect, human nature is the same, in every clime and in every period, and don't act the part of a _foolish boy_.--let not englishmen talk of the stretch of tyrants, while the torrents of blood shed in the east indies cry aloud to heaven for retaliation. learn, good sir, not to cast the first stone. i remain your lordship's servant, "j. r * *." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "july . . "'grata superveniet,' &c. &c. i had written to you again, but burnt the letter, because i began to think you seriously hurt at my indolence, and did not know how the buffoonery it contained might be taken. in the mean time, i have yours, and all is well. "i had given over all hopes of yours. by-the-by, my 'grata superveniet' should be in the present tense; for i perceive it looks now as if it applied to this present scrawl reaching you, whereas it is to the receipt of thy kilkenny epistle that i have tacked that venerable sentiment. "poor whitbread died yesterday morning,--a sudden and severe loss. his health had been wavering, but so fatal an attack was not apprehended. he dropped down, and i believe never spoke afterwards. i perceive perry attributes his death to drury lane,--a consolatory encouragement to the new committee. i have no doubt that * *, who is of a plethoric habit, will be bled immediately; and as i have, since my marriage, lost much of my paleness, and--'horresco referens' (for i hate even _moderate_ fat)--that happy slenderness, to which, when i first knew you, i had attained, i by no means sit easy under this dispensation of the morning chronicle. every one must regret the loss of whitbread; he was surely a great and very good man. "paris is taken for the second time. i presume it, for the future, will have an anniversary capture. in the late battles, like all the world, i have lost a connection,--poor frederick howard, the best of his race. i had little intercourse, of late years, with his family, but i never saw or heard but good of him. hobhouse's brother is killed. in short, the havoc has not left a family out of its tender mercies. "every hope of a republic is over, and we must go on under the old system. but i am sick at heart of politics and slaughters; and the luck which providence is pleased to lavish on lord castlereagh is only a proof of the little value the gods set upon prosperity, when they permit such * * * s as he and that drunken corporal, old blucher, to bully their betters. from this, however, wellington should be excepted. he is a man,--and the scipio of our hannibal. however, he may thank the russian frosts, which destroyed the _real élite_ of the french army, for the successes of waterloo. "la! moore--how you blasphemes about 'parnassus' and 'moses!' i am ashamed for you. won't you do any thing for the drama? we beseech an opera. kinnaird's blunder was partly mine. i wanted you of all things in the committee, and so did he. but we are now glad you were wiser; for it is, i doubt, a bitter business. "when shall we see you in england? sir ralph noel (_late_ milbanke--he don't promise to be _late_ noel in a hurry), finding that one man can't inhabit two houses, has given his place in the north to me for a habitation; and there lady b. threatens to be brought to bed in november. sir r. and my lady mother are to quarter at kirby--lord wentworth's that was. perhaps you and mrs. moore will pay us a visit at seaham in the course of the autumn. if so, you and i (_without_ our _wives_) will take a lark to edinburgh and embrace jeffrey. it is not much above one hundred miles from us. but all this, and other high matters, we will discuss at meeting, which i hope will be on your return. we don't leave town till august. "ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. sotheby. "sept. . . piccadilly terrace. "dear sir, "'ivan' is accepted, and will be put in progress on kean's arrival. "the theatrical gentlemen have a confident hope of its success. i know not that any alterations for the stage will be necessary; if any, they will be trifling, and you shall be duly apprised. i would suggest that you should not attend any except the latter rehearsals--the managers have requested me to state this to you. you can see them, viz. dibdin and rae, whenever you please, and i will do any thing you wish to be done on your suggestion, in the mean time. "mrs. mardyn is not yet out, and nothing can be determined till she has made her appearance--i mean as to her capacity for the part you mention, which i take it for granted is not in ivan--as i think ivan may be performed very well without her. but of that hereafter. ever yours, very truly, "byron. "p.s. you will be glad to hear that the season has begun uncommonly well--great and constant houses--the performers in much harmony with the committee and one another, and as much good-humour as can be preserved in such complicated and extensive interests as the drury lane proprietary." * * * * * to mr. sotheby. "september . . "dear sir, "i think it would be advisable for you to see the acting managers when convenient, as there must be points on which you will want to confer; the objection i stated was merely on the part of the performers, and is _general_ and not _particular_ to this instance. i thought it as well to mention it at once--and some of the rehearsals you will doubtless see, notwithstanding. "rae, i rather think, has his eye on naritzin for himself. he is a more popular performer than bartley, and certainly the cast will be stronger with him in it; besides, he is one of the managers, and will feel doubly interested if he can act in both capacities. mrs. bartley will be petrowna;--as to the empress, i know not what to say or think. the truth is, we are not amply furnished with tragic women; but make the best of those we have,--you can take your choice of them. we have all great hopes of the success--on which, setting aside other considerations, we are particularly anxious, as being the first tragedy to be brought out since the old committee. "by the way--i have a charge against you. as the great mr. dennis roared out on a similar occasion--'by g----d, _that_ is _my_ thunder!' so do i exclaim, '_this_ is _my_ lightning!' i allude to a speech of ivan's, in the scene with petrowna and the empress, where the thought and almost expression are similar to conrad's in the d canto of 'the corsair.' i, however, do not say this to accuse you, but to exempt myself from suspicion[ ], as there is a priority of six months' publication, on my part, between the appearance of that composition and of your tragedies. "george lambe meant to have written to you. if you don't like to confer with the managers at present, i will attend to your wishes--so state them. yours very truly, byron." [footnote : notwithstanding this precaution of the poet, the coincidence in question was, but a few years after, triumphantly cited in support of the sweeping charge of plagiarism brought against him by some scribblers. the following are mr. sotheby's lines:-- "and i have leapt in transport from my flinty couch, to welcome the thunder as it burst upon my roof, and beckon'd to the lightning, as it flash'd and sparkled on these fetters." i have since been informed by mr. sotheby that, though not published, these lines had been written long before the appearance of lord byron's poem.] * * * * * letter . to mr. taylor. " . terrace, piccadilly, september . . "dear sir, "i am sorry you should feel uneasy at what has by no means troubled me.[ ] if your editor, his correspondents, and readers, are amused, i have no objection to be the theme of all the ballads he can find room for,--provided his lucubrations are confined to _me_ only. "it is a long time since things of this kind have ceased to 'fright me from my propriety;' nor do i know any similar attack which would induce me to turn again,--unless it involved those connected with me, whose qualities, i hope, are such as to exempt them in the eyes of those who bear no good-will to myself. in such a case, supposing it to occur--to _reverse_ the saying of dr. johnson,--'what the law could not do for me, i would do for myself,' be the consequences what they might. "i return you, with many thanks, colman and the letters. the poems, i hope, you intended me to keep;--at least, i shall do so, till i hear the contrary. very truly yours." [footnote : mr. taylor having inserted in the sun newspaper (of which he was then chief proprietor) a sonnet to lord byron, in return for a present which his lordship had sent him of a handsomely bound copy of all his works, there appeared in the same journal, on the following day (from the pen of some person who had acquired a control over the paper), a parody upon this sonnet, containing some disrespectful allusion to lady byron; and it is to this circumstance, which mr. taylor had written to explain, that the above letter, so creditable to the feelings of the noble husband, refers.] * * * * * to mr. murray. "sept. . . "will you publish the drury lane 'magpie?' or, what is more, will you give fifty, or even forty, pounds for the copyright of the said? i have undertaken to ask you this question on behalf of the translator, and wish you would. we can't get so much for him by ten pounds from any body else, and i, knowing your magnificence, would be glad of an answer. ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "september . . "that's right and splendid, and becoming a publisher of high degree. mr. concanen (the translator) will be delighted, and pay his washerwoman; and, in reward for your bountiful behaviour in this instance, i won't ask you to publish any more for drury lane, or any lane whatever, again. you will have no tragedy or any thing else from me, i assure you, and may think yourself lucky in having got rid of me, for good and all, without more damage. but i'll tell you what we will do for you,--act sotheby's ivan, which will succeed; and then your present and next impression of the dramas of that dramatic gentleman will be expedited to your heart's content; and if there is any thing very good, you shall have the refusal; but you sha'n't have any more requests. "sotheby has got a thought, and almost the words, from the third canto of the corsair, which, you know, was published six months before his tragedy. it is from the storm in conrad's cell. i have written to mr. sotheby to claim it; and, as dennis roared out of the pit, 'by g----d, _that's my_ thunder!' so do i, and will i, exclaim, 'by g----d that's _my lightning_!' that electrical fluid being, in fact, the subject of the said passage. "you will have a print of fanny kelly, in the maid, to prefix, which is honestly worth twice the money you have given for the ms. pray what did you do with the note i gave you about mungo park? "ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. " . terrace, piccadilly, october . . "you are, it seems, in england again, as i am to hear from every body but yourself; and i suppose you punctilious, because i did not answer your last irish letter. when did you leave the 'swate country?' never mind, i forgive you;--a strong proof of--i know not what--to give the lie to-- 'he never pardons who hath done the wrong.' "you have written to * *. you have also written to perry, who intimates hope of an opera from you. coleridge has promised a tragedy. now, if you keep perry's word, and coleridge keeps his own, drury lane will be set up; and, sooth to say, it is in grievous want of such a lift. we began at speed, and are blown already. when i say 'we,' i mean kinnaird, who is the 'all in all sufficient,' and can count, which none of the rest of the committee can. "it is really very good fun, as far as the daily and nightly stir of these strutters and fretters go; and, if the concern could be brought to pay a shilling in the pound, would do much credit to the management. mr. ---- has an accepted tragedy * * * * *, whose first scene is in his sleep (i don't mean the author's). it was forwarded to us as a prodigious favourite of kean's; but the said kean, upon interrogation, denies his eulogy, and protests against his part. how it will end, i know not. "i say so much about the theatre, because there is nothing else alive in london at this season. all the world are out of it, except us, who remain to lie in,--in december, or perhaps earlier. lady b. is very ponderous and prosperous, apparently, and i wish it well over. "there is a play before me from a personage who signs himself 'hibernicus.' the hero is malachi, the irishman and king; and the villain and usurper, turgesius, the dane. the conclusion is fine. turgesius is chained by the leg (_vide_ stage direction) to a pillar on the stage; and king malachi makes him a speech, not unlike lord castlereagh's about the balance of power and the lawfulness of legitimacy, which puts turgesius into a frenzy--as castlereagh's would, if his audience was chained by the leg. he draws a dagger and rushes at the orator; but, finding himself at the end of his tether, he sticks it into his own carcass, and dies, saying, he has fulfilled a prophecy. "now, this is _serious downright matter of fact_, and the gravest part of a tragedy which is not intended for burlesque. i tell it you for the honour of ireland. the writer hopes it will be represented:--but what is hope? nothing but the paint on the face of existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of. i am not sure that i have not said this last superfine reflection before. but never mind;--it will do for the tragedy of turgesius, to which i can append it. "well, but how dost thou do? thou bard not of a thousand but three thousand! i wish your friend, sir john piano-forte, had kept that to himself, and not made it public at the trial of the song-seller in dublin. i tell you why: it is a liberal thing for longman to do, and honourable for you to obtain; but it will set all the 'hungry and dinnerless, lank-jawed judges' upon the fortunate author. but they be d----d!--the 'jeffrey and the moore together are confident against the world in ink!' by the way, if poor c * * e--who is a man of wonderful talent, and in distress[ ], and about to publish two vols. of poesy and biography, and who has been worse used by the critics than ever we were--will you, if he comes out, promise me to review him favourably in the e.r.? praise him i think you must, but you will also praise him _well_,--of all things the most difficult. it will be the making of him. "this must be a secret between you and me, as jeffrey might not like such a project;--nor, indeed, might c. himself like it. but i do think he only wants a pioneer and a sparkle or two to explode most gloriously. ever yours most affectionately, b. "p.s. this is a sad scribbler's letter; but the next shall be 'more of this world.'" [footnote : it is but justice both to "him that gave and him that took" to mention that the noble poet, at this time, with a delicacy which enhanced the kindness, advanced to the eminent person here spoken of, on the credit of some work he was about to produce, one hundred pounds.] * * * * * as, after this letter, there occur but few allusions to his connection with the drury lane management, i shall here avail myself of the opportunity to give some extracts from his "detached thoughts," containing recollections of his short acquaintance with the interior of the theatre. "when i belonged to the drury lane committee, and was one of the sub-committee of management, the number of _plays_ upon the shelves were about _five_ hundred. conceiving that amongst these there must be _some_ of merit, in person and by proxy i caused an investigation. i do not think that of those which i saw there was one which could be conscientiously tolerated. there never were such things as most of them! mathurin was very kindly recommended to me by walter scott, to whom i had recourse, firstly, in the hope that he would do something for us himself; and, secondly, in my despair, that he would point out to us any young (or old) writer of promise. mathurin sent his bertram and a letter _without_ his address, so that at first i could give him no answer. when i at last hit upon his residence, i sent him a favourable answer and something more substantial. his play succeeded; but i was at that time absent from england. "i tried coleridge too; but he had nothing feasible in hand at the time. mr. sotheby obligingly offered _all_ his tragedies, and i pledged myself, and notwithstanding many squabbles with my committed brethren, did get 'ivan' accepted, read, and the parts distributed. but, lo! in the very heart of the matter, upon some _tepid_ness on the part of kean, or warmth on that of the author, sotheby withdrew his play. sir j.b. burgess did also present four tragedies and a farce, and i moved green-room and sub-committee, but they would not. "then the scenes i had to go through!--the authors, and the authoresses, and the milliners, and the wild irishmen,--the people from brighton, from blackwall; from chatham, from cheltenham, from dublin, from dundee,--who came in upon me! to all of whom it was proper to give a civil answer, and a hearing, and a reading. mrs. * * * *'s father, an irish dancing-master of sixty years, calling upon me to request to play archer, dressed in silk stockings on a frosty morning to show his legs (which were certainly good and irish for his age, and had been still better,)--miss emma somebody, with a play entitled 'the bandit of bohemia,' or some such title or production,--mr. o'higgins, then resident at richmond, with an irish tragedy, in which the unities could not fail to be observed, for the protagonist was chained by the leg to a pillar during the chief part of the performance. he was a wild man, of a salvage appearance, and the difficulty of _not_ laughing at him was only to be got over by reflecting upon the probable consequences of such cachinnation. "as i am really a civil and polite person, and _do_ hate giving pain when it can be avoided, i sent them up to douglas kinnaird,--who is a man of business, and sufficiently ready with a negative,--and left them to settle with him; and as the beginning of next year i went abroad, i have since been little aware of the progress of the theatres. "players are said to be an impracticable people. they are so; but i managed to steer clear of any disputes with them, and excepting one debate[ ] with the elder byrne about miss smith's _pas de_--(something--i forget the technicals,)--i do not remember any litigation of my own. i used to protect miss smith, because she was like lady jane harley in the face, and likenesses go a great way with me. indeed, in general, i left such things to my more bustling colleagues, who used to reprove me seriously for not being able to take such things in hand without buffooning with the histrions, or throwing things into confusion by treating light matters with levity. "then the committee!--then the sub-committee!--we were but few, but never agreed. there was peter moore who contradicted kinnaird, and kinnaird who contradicted every body: then our two managers, rae and dibdin; and our secretary, ward! and yet we were all very zealous and in earnest to do good and so forth. * * * * furnished us with prologues to our revived old english plays; but was not pleased with me for complimenting him as 'the upton' of our theatre (mr. upton is or was the poet who writes the songs for astley's), and almost gave up prologuing in consequence. "in the pantomime of - there was a representation of the masquerade of given by 'us youth' of watier's club to wellington and co. douglas kinnaird and one or two others, with myself, put on masks, and went on the stage with the [greek: hoi polloi], to see the effect of a theatre from the stage:--it is very grand. douglas danced among the figuranti too, and they were puzzled to find out who we were, as being more than their number. it was odd enough that douglas kinnaird and i should have been both at the _real_ masquerade, and afterwards in the mimic one of the same, on the stage of drury lane theatre." [footnote : a correspondent of one of the monthly miscellanies gives the following account of this incident:-- "during lord byron's administration, a ballet was invented by the elder byrne, in which miss smith (since mrs. oscar byrne) had a _pas seul_. this the lady wished to remove to a later period in the ballet. the ballet-master refused, and the lady swore she would not dance it at all. the music incidental to the dance began to play, and the lady walked off the stage. both parties flounced into the green-room to lay the case before lord byron, who happened to be the only person in that apartment. the noble committee-man made an award in favour of miss smith, and both complainants rushed angrily out of the room at the instant of my entering it. 'if you had come a minute sooner,' said lord byron, 'you would have heard a curious matter decided on by me: a question of dancing!--by me,' added he, looking down at the lame limb, 'whom nature from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step.' his countenance fell after he had uttered this, as if he had said too much; and for a moment there was an embarrassing silence on both sides."] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "terrace, piccadilly, october . . "i have not been able to ascertain precisely the time of duration of the stock market; but i believe it is a good time for selling out, and i hope so. first, because i shall see you; and, next, because i shall receive certain monies on behalf of lady b., the which will materially conduce to my comfort,--i wanting (as the duns say) 'to make up a sum.' "yesterday, i dined out with a large-ish party, where were sheridan and colman, harry harris of c. g, and his brother, sir gilbert heathcote, ds. kinnaird, and others, of note and notoriety. like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogethery, then inarticulate, and then drunk. when we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling; and to crown all, kinnaird and i had to conduct sheridan down a d----d corkscrew staircase, which had certainly been constructed before the discovery of fermented liquors, and to which no legs, however crooked, could possibly accommodate themselves. we deposited him safe at home, where his man, evidently used to the business, waited to receive him in the hall. "both he and colman were, as usual, very good; but i carried away much wine, and the wine had previously carried away my memory; so that all was hiccup and happiness for the last hour or so, and i am not impregnated with any of the conversation. perhaps you heard of a late answer of sheridan to the watchman who found him bereft of that 'divine particle of air,' called reason, * * *. he, the watchman, who found sherry in the street, fuddled and bewildered, and almost insensible. 'who are _you_, sir? '--no answer. 'what's your name?'--a hiccup. 'what's your name?'--answer, in a slow, deliberate and impassive tone--'wilberforce!!!' is not that sherry all over?--and, to my mind, excellent. poor fellow, _his_ very dregs are better than the 'first sprightly runnings' of others. "my paper is full, and i have a grievous headach. "p.s. lady b. is in full progress. next month will bring to light (with the aid of 'juno lucina, _fer opem_,' or rather _opes_, for the last are most wanted,) the tenth wonder of the world--gil blas being the eighth, and he (my son's father) the ninth." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "november . . "had you not bewildered my head with the 'stocks,' your letter would have been answered directly. hadn't i to go to the city? and hadn't i to remember what to ask when i got there? and hadn't i forgotten it? "i should be undoubtedly delighted to see you; but i don't like to urge against your reasons my own inclinations. come you must soon, for stay you _won't_. i know you of old;--you have been too much leavened with london to keep long out of it. "lewis is going to jamaica to suck his sugar canes. he sails in two days; i enclose you his farewell note. i saw him last night at d.l.t. for the last time previous to his voyage. poor fellow! he is really a good man--an excellent man--he left me his walking-stick and a pot of preserved ginger. i shall never eat the last without tears in my eyes, it is so _hot_. we have had a devil of a row among our ballerinas. miss smith has been wronged about a hornpipe. the committee have interfered; but byrne, the d----d ballet master, won't budge a step, _i_ am furious, so is george lamb. kinnaird is very glad, because--he don't know why; and i am very sorry, for the same reason. to-day i dine with kd.--we are to have sheridan and colman again; and to-morrow, once more, at sir gilbert heathcote's. "leigh hunt has written a _real good_ and _very original poem_, which i think will be a great hit. you can have no notion how very well it is written, nor should i, had i not redde it. as to us, tom--eh, when art thou out? if you think the verses worth it, i would rather they were embalmed in the irish melodies, than scattered abroad in a separate song--much rather. but when are thy great things out? i mean the po of pos--thy shah nameh. it is very kind in jeffrey to like the hebrew melodies. some of the fellows here preferred sternhold and hopkins, and said so;--'the fiend receive their souls therefor!' "i must go and dress for dinner. poor, dear murat, what an end! you know, i suppose, that his white plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like henry iv.'s. he refused a confessor and a bandage; so would neither suffer his soul or body to be bandaged. you shall have more to-morrow or next day. "ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "november . . "when you have been enabled to form an opinion on mr. coleridge's ms.[ ] you will oblige me by returning it, as, in fact, i have no authority to let it out of my hands. i think most highly of it, and feel anxious that you should be the publisher; but if you are not, i do not despair of finding those who will. "i have written to mr. leigh hunt, stating your willingness to treat with him, which, when i saw you, i understood you to be. terms and time, i leave to his pleasure and your discernment; but this i will say, that i think it the _safest_ thing you ever engaged in. i speak to you as a man of business; were i to talk to you as a reader or a critic, i should say it was a very wonderful and beautiful performance, with just enough of fault to make its beauties more remarked and remarkable. "and now to the last--my own, which i feel ashamed of after the others:--publish or not as you like, i don't care _one damn_. if _you_ don't, no one else shall, and i never thought or dreamed of it, except as one in the collection. if it is worth being in the fourth volume, put it there and nowhere else; and if not, put it in the fire. yours, n." [footnote : a tragedy entitled, i think, zopolia.] * * * * * those embarrassments which, from a review of his affairs previous to the marriage, he had clearly foreseen would, before long, overtake him, were not slow in realising his worst omens. the increased expenses induced by his new mode of life, with but very little increase of means to meet them,--the long arrears of early pecuniary obligations, as well as the claims which had been, gradually, since then, accumulating, all pressed upon him now with collected force, and reduced him to some of the worst humiliations of poverty. he had been even driven, by the necessity of encountering such demands, to the trying expedient of parting with his books,--which circumstance coming to mr. murray's ears, that gentleman instantly forwarded to him _l._, with an assurance that another sum of the same amount should be at his service in a few weeks, and that if such assistance should not be sufficient, mr. murray was most ready to dispose of the copyrights of all his past works for his use. this very liberal offer lord byron acknowledged in the following letter:-- letter . to mr. murray. "november . . "i return you your bills not accepted, but certainly not _unhonoured_. your present offer is a favour which i would accept from you, if i accepted such from any man. had such been my intention, i can assure you i would have asked you fairly, and as freely as you would give; and i cannot say more of my confidence or your conduct. "the circumstances which induce me to part with my books, though sufficiently, are not _immediately_, pressing. i have made up my mind to them, and there's an end. "had i been disposed to trespass on your kindness in this way, it would have been before now; but i am not sorry to have an opportunity of declining it, as it sets my opinion of you, and indeed of human nature, in a different light from that in which i have been accustomed to consider it. "believe me very truly," &c. * * * * * to mr. murray. "december . . "i send some lines, written some time ago, and intended as an opening to 'the siege of corinth.' i had forgotten them, and am not sure that they had not better be left out now:--on that, you and your synod can determine. yours," &c. * * * * * the following are the lines alluded to in this note. they are written in the loosest form of that rambling style of metre which his admiration of mr. coleridge's "christabel" led him, at this time, to adopt; and he judged rightly, perhaps, in omitting them as the opening of his poem. they are, however, too full of spirit and character to be lost. though breathing the thick atmosphere of piccadilly when he wrote them, it is plain that his fancy was far away, among the sunny hills and vales of greece; and their contrast with the tame life he was leading at the moment, but gave to his recollections a fresher spring and force. "in the year since jesus died for men, eighteen hundred years and ten, we were a gallant company, riding o'er land, and sailing o'er sea. oh! but we went merrily! we forded the river, and clomb the high hill, never our steeds for a day stood still; whether we lay in the cave or the shed, our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed; whether we couch'd in our rough capote, on the rougher plank of our gliding boat, or stretch'd on the beach, or our saddles spread as a pillow beneath the resting head, fresh we woke upon the morrow: all our thoughts and words had scope, we had health, and we had hope, toil and travel, but no sorrow. we were of all tongues and creeds;-- some were those who counted beads, some of mosque, and some of church, and some, or i mis-say, of neither; yet through the wide world might ye search nor find a mother crew nor blither. "but some are dead, and some are gone, and some are scatter'd and alone, and some are rebels on the hills[ ] that look along epirus' valleys where freedom still at moments rallies, and pays in blood oppression's ills: and some are in a far countree, and some all restlessly at home; but never more, oh! never, we shall meet to revel and to roam. but those hardy days flew cheerily; and when they now fall drearily, my thoughts, like swallows, skim the main and bear my spirit back again over the earth, and through the air, a wild bird, and a wanderer. 'tis this that ever wakes my strain, and oft, too oft, implores again the few who may endure my lay, to follow me so far away. "stranger--wilt thou follow now, and sit with me on acro-corinth's brow?" [footnote : "the last tidings recently heard of dervish (one of the arnaouts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head of some of the bands common in that country in times of trouble."] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "january . . "i hope mrs. m. is quite re-established. the little girl was born on the th of december last; her name is augusta _ada_ (the second a very antique family name,--i believe not used since the reign of king john). she was, and is, very flourishing and fat, and reckoned very large for her days--squalls and sucks incessantly. are you answered? her mother is doing very well, and up again. "i have now been married a year on the second of this month--heigh-ho! i have seen nobody lately much worth noting, except s * * and another general of the gauls, once or twice at dinners out of doors. s * * is a fine, foreign, villanous-looking, intelligent, and very agreeable man; his compatriot is more of the _petit-maître_, and younger, but i should think not at all of the same intellectual calibre with the corsican--which s * *, you know, is, and a cousin of napoleon's. "are you never to be expected in town again? to be sure, there is no one here of the fillers of hot-rooms, called the fashionable world. my approaching papa-ship detained us for advice, &c. &c. though i would as soon be here as any where else on this side of the straits of gibraltar. "i would gladly--or, rather, sorrowfully--comply with your request of a dirge for the poor girl you mention.[ ] but how can i write on one i have never seen or known? besides, you will do it much better yourself. i could not write upon any thing, without some personal experience and foundation; far less on a theme so peculiar. now, you have both in this case; and, if you had neither, you have more imagination, and would never fail. "this is but a dull scrawl, and i am but a dull fellow. just at present, i am absorbed in contradictory contemplations, though with but one object in view--which will probably end in nothing, as most things we wish do. but never mind,--as somebody says, 'for the blue sky bends over all.' i only could be glad, if it bent over me where it is a little bluer; like the 'skyish top of blue olympus,' which, by the way, looked very white when i last saw it. "ever," &c. [footnote : i had mentioned to him, as a subject worthy of his best powers of pathos, a melancholy event which had just occurred in my neighbourhood, and to which i have myself made allusion in one of the sacred melodies--"weep not for her."] * * * * * on reading over the foregoing letter, i was much struck by the tone of melancholy that pervaded it; and well knowing it to be the habit of the writer's mind to seek relief, when under the pressure of any disquiet or disgust, in that sense of freedom which told him that there were homes for him elsewhere, i could perceive, i thought, in his recollections of the "blue olympus," some return of the restless and roving spirit, which unhappiness or impatience always called up in his mind. i had, indeed, at the time when he sent me those melancholy verses, "there's not a joy this world can give," &c. felt some vague apprehensions as to the mood into which his spirits then seemed to be sinking, and, in acknowledging the receipt of the verses, thus tried to banter him out of it:--"but why thus on your stool of melancholy again, master stephen?--this will never do--it plays the deuce with all the matter-of-fact duties of life, and you must bid adieu to it. youth is the only time when one can be melancholy with impunity. as life itself grows sad and serious we have nothing for it but--to be as much as possible the contrary." my absence from london during the whole of this year had deprived me of all opportunities of judging for myself how far the appearances of his domestic state gave promise of happiness; nor had any rumours reached me which at all inclined me to suspect that the course of his married life hitherto exhibited less smoothness than such unions,--on the surface, at least,--generally wear. the strong and affectionate terms in which, soon after the marriage, he had, in some of the letters i have given, declared his own happiness--a declaration which his known frankness left me no room to question--had, in no small degree, tended to still those apprehensions which my first view of the lot he had chosen for himself awakened. i could not, however, but observe that these indications of a contented heart soon ceased. his mention of the partner of his home became more rare and formal, and there was observable, i thought, through some of his letters a feeling of unquiet and weariness that brought back all those gloomy anticipations with which i had, from the first, regarded his fate. this last letter of his, in particular, struck me as full of sad omen, and, in the course of my answer, i thus noticed to him the impression it had made on me:--"and so you are a whole year married!-- 'it was last year i vow'd to thee that fond impossibility.' do you know, my dear b., there was a something in your last letter--a sort of unquiet mystery, as well as a want of your usual elasticity of spirits--which has hung upon my mind unpleasantly ever since. i long to be near you, that i might know how you really look and feel; for these letters tell nothing, and one word, _a quattr'occhi_, is worth whole reams of correspondence. but only _do_ tell me you are happier than that letter has led me to fear, and i shall be satisfied." * * * * * it was in a few weeks after this latter communication between us that lady byron adopted the resolution of parting from him. she had left london about the middle of january, on a visit to her father's house, in leicestershire, and lord byron was, in a short time after, to follow her. they had parted in the utmost kindness,--she wrote him a letter, full of playfulness and affection, on the road, and, immediately on her arrival at kirkby mallory, her father wrote to acquaint lord byron that she would return to him no more. at the time when he had to stand this unexpected shock, his pecuniary embarrassments, which had been fast gathering around him during the whole of the last year (there having been no less than eight or nine executions in his house within that period), had arrived at their utmost; and at a moment when, to use his own strong expressions, he was "standing alone on his hearth, with his household gods shivered around him," he was also doomed to receive the startling intelligence that the wife who had just parted with him in kindness, had parted with him--for ever. about this time the following note was written:-- to mr. rogers. "february . . "do not mistake me--i really returned your book for the reason assigned, and no other. it is too good for so careless a fellow. i have parted with all my own books, and positively won't deprive you of so valuable 'a drop of that immortal man.' "i shall be very glad to see you, if you like to call, though i am at present contending with 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,' some of which have struck at me from a quarter whence i did not indeed expect them--but, no matter, 'there is a world elsewhere,' and i will cut my way through this as i can. "if you write to moore, will you tell him that i shall answer his letter the moment i can muster time and spirits? ever yours, "bn." * * * * * the rumours of the separation did not reach me till more than a week afterwards, when i immediately wrote to him thus:--"i am most anxious to hear from you, though i doubt whether i ought to mention the subject on which i am so anxious. if, however, what i heard last night, in a letter from town, be true, you will know immediately what i allude to, and just communicate as much or as little upon the subject as you think proper;--only _something_ i should like to know, as soon as possible, from yourself, in order to set my mind at rest with respect to the truth or falsehood of the report." the following is his answer:-- letter . to mr. moore. "february . . "i have not answered your letter for a time; and, at present, the reply to part of it might extend to such a length, that i shall delay it till it can be made in person, and then i will shorten it as much as i can. "in the mean time, i am at war 'with all the world and his wife;' or rather, 'all the world and _my_ wife' are at war with me, and have not yet crushed me,--whatever they _may_ do. i don't know that in the course of a hair-breadth existence i was ever, at home or abroad, in a situation so completely uprooting of present pleasure, or rational hope for the future, as this same. i say this, because i think so, and feel it. but i shall not sink under it the more for that mode of considering the question--i have made up my mind. "by the way, however, you must not believe all you hear on the subject; and don't attempt to defend me. if you succeeded in that, it would be a mortal, or an immortal, offence--who can bear refutation? i have but a very short answer for those whom it concerns; and all the activity of myself and some vigorous friends have not yet fixed on any tangible ground or personage, on which or with whom i can discuss matters, in a summary way, with a fair pretext;--though i nearly had _nailed one_ yesterday, but he evaded by--what was judged by others--a satisfactory explanation. i speak of _circulators_--against whom i have no enmity, though i must act according to the common code of usage, when i hit upon those of the serious order. "now for other matters--poesy, for instance. leigh hunt's poem is a devilish good one--quaint, here and there, but with the substratum of originality, and with poetry about it, that will stand the test. i do not say this because he has inscribed it to me, which i am sorry for, as i should otherwise have begged you to review it in the edinburgh.[ ] it is really deserving of much praise, and a favourable critique in the e.r. would but do it justice, and set it up before the public eye where it ought to be. "how are you? and where? i have not the most distant idea what i am going to do myself, or with myself--or where--or what. i had, a few weeks ago, some things to say that would have made you laugh; but they tell me now that i must not laugh, and so i have been very serious--and am. "i have not been very well--with a _liver_ complaint--but am much better within the last fortnight, though still under iatrical advice. i have latterly seen a little of * * * * "i must go and dress to dine. my little girl is in the country, and, they tell me, is a very fine child, and now nearly three months old. lady noel (my mother-in-law, or, rather, _at_ law) is at present overlooking it. her daughter (miss milbanke that was) is, i believe, in london with her father. a mrs. c. (now a kind of housekeeper and spy of lady n.'s) who, in her better days, was a washerwoman, is supposed to be--by the learned--very much the occult cause of our late domestic discrepancies. "in all this business, i am the sorriest for sir ralph. he and i are equally punished, though _magis pares quam similes_ in our affliction. yet it is hard for both to suffer for the fault of one, and so it is--i shall be separated from my wife; he will retain his. "ever," &c. [footnote : my reply to this part of his letter was, i find, as follows:--"with respect to hunt's poem, though it is, i own, full of beauties, and though i like himself sincerely, i really could not undertake to praise it _seriously_. there is so much of the _quizzible_ in all he writes, that i never can put on the proper pathetic face in reading him."] * * * * * in my reply to this letter, written a few days after, there is a passage which (though containing an opinion it might have been more prudent, perhaps, to conceal,) i feel myself called upon to extract on account of the singularly generous avowal,--honourable alike to both the parties in this unhappy affair,--which it was the means of drawing from lord byron. the following are my words:--"i am much in the same state as yourself with respect to the subject of your letter, my mind being so full of things which i don't know how to write about, that _i_ too must defer the greater part of them till we meet in may, when i shall put you fairly on your trial for all crimes and misdemeanors. in the mean time, you will not be at a loss for judges, nor executioners either, if they could have their will. the world, in their generous ardour to take what they call the weaker side, soon contrive to make it most formidably the strongest. most sincerely do i grieve at what has happened. it has upset all my wishes and theories as to the influence of marriage on your life; for, instead of bringing you, as i expected, into something like a regular orbit, it has only cast you off again into infinite space, and left you, i fear, in a far worse state than it found you. as to defending you, the only person with whom i have yet attempted this task is myself; and, considering the little i know upon the subject, (or rather, perhaps, _owing_ to this cause,) i have hitherto done it with very tolerable success. after all, your _choice_ was the misfortune. i never liked,--but i'm here wandering into the [greek: aporrêta], and so must change the subject for a far pleasanter one, your last new poems, which," &c. &c. the return of post brought me the following answer, which, while it raises our admiration of the generous candour of the writer, but adds to the sadness and strangeness of the whole transaction. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "march . . "i rejoice in your promotion as chairman and charitable steward, &c. &c. these be dignities which await only the virtuous. but then, recollect you are _six_ and _thirty_, (i speak this enviously--not of your age, but the 'honour--love--obedience--troops of friends,' which accompany it,) and i have eight years good to run before i arrive at such hoary perfection; by which time,--if i _am_ at all[ ],--it will probably be in a state of grace or progressing merits. "i must set you right in one point, however. the fault was _not_--no, nor even the misfortune--in my 'choice' (unless in _choosing at all_)--for i do not believe--and i must say it, in the very dregs of all this bitter business--that there ever was a better, or even a brighter, a kinder, or a more amiable and agreeable being than lady b. i never had, nor can have, any reproach to make her, while with me. where there is blame, it belongs to myself, and, if i cannot redeem, i must bear it. "her nearest relatives are a * * * *--my circumstances have been and are in a state of great confusion--my health has been a _good_ deal disordered, and my mind ill at ease for a considerable period. such are the causes (i do not name them as excuses) which have frequently driven me into excess, and disqualified my temper for comfort. something also may be attributed to the strange and desultory habits which, becoming my own master at an early age, and scrambling about, over and through the world, may have induced. i still, however, think that, if i had had a fair chance, by being placed in even a tolerable situation, i might have gone on fairly. but that seems hopeless,--and there is nothing more to be said. at present--except my health, which is better (it is odd, but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for the time)--i have to battle with all kinds of unpleasantnesses, including private and pecuniary difficulties, &c. &c. "i believe i may have said this before to you, but i risk repeating it. it is nothing to bear the _privations_ of adversity, or, more properly, ill fortune; but my pride recoils from its _indignities_. however, i have no quarrel with that same pride, which will, i think, buckler me through every thing. if my heart could have been broken, it would have been so years ago, and by events more afflicting than these. "i agree with you (to turn from this topic to our shop) that i have written too much. the last things were, however, published very reluctantly by me, and for reasons i will explain when we meet. i know not why i have dwelt so much on the same scenes, except that i find them fading, or _confusing_ (if such a word may be) in my memory, in the midst of present turbulence and pressure, and i felt anxious to stamp before the die was worn out. i now break it. with those countries, and events connected with them, all my really poetical feelings begin and end. were i to try, i could make nothing of any other subject, and that i have apparently exhausted. 'wo to him,' says voltaire, 'who says all he could say on any subject.' there are some on which, perhaps, i could have said still more: but i leave them all, and too soon. "do you remember the lines i sent you early last year, which you still have? i don't wish (like mr. fitzgerald, in the morning post) to claim the character of 'vates' in all its translations, but were they not a little prophetic? i mean those beginning, 'there's not a joy the world can,' &c. &c., on which i rather pique myself as being the truest, though the most melancholy, i ever wrote. "what a scrawl have i sent you! you say nothing of yourself, except that you are a lancasterian churchwarden, and an encourager of mendicants. when are you out? and how is your family? my child is very well and flourishing, i hear; but i must see also. i feel no disposition to resign it to the contagion of its grandmother's society, though i am unwilling to take it from the mother. it is weaned, however, and something about it must be decided. ever," &c. [footnote : this sad doubt,--"if i _am_ at all,"--becomes no less singular than sad when we recollect that six and thirty was actually the age when he ceased to "be," and at a moment, too, when (as even the least friendly to him allow) he was in that state of "progressing merits" which he here jestingly anticipates.] * * * * * having already gone so far in laying open to my readers some of the sentiments which i entertained, respecting lord byron's marriage, at a time when, little foreseeing that i should ever become his biographer, i was, of course, uninfluenced by the peculiar bias supposed to belong to that task, it may still further, perhaps, be permitted me to extract from my reply to the foregoing letter some sentences of explanation which its contents seemed to me to require. "i had certainly no right to say any thing about the unluckiness of your choice, though i rejoice now that i did, as it has drawn from you a tribute which, however unaccountable and mysterious it renders the whole affair, is highly honourable to both parties. what i meant in hinting a doubt with respect to the object of your selection did not imply the least impeachment of that perfect amiableness which the world, i find, by common consent, allows to her. i only feared that she might have been too perfect--too _precisely_ excellent--too matter-of-fact a paragon for you to coalesce with comfortably; and that a person whose perfection hung in more easy folds about her, whose brightness was softened down by some of 'those fair defects which best conciliate love,' would, by appealing more dependently to your protection, have stood a much better chance with your good nature. all these suppositions, however, i have been led into by my intense anxiety to acquit you of any thing like a capricious abandonment of such a woman[ ]; and, totally in the dark as i am with respect to all but the fact of your separation, you cannot conceive the solicitude, the fearful solicitude, with which i look forward to a history of the transaction from your own lips when we meet,--a history in which i am sure of, at least, _one_ virtue--manly candour." [footnote : it will be perceived from this that i was as yet unacquainted with the true circumstances of the transaction.] * * * * * with respect to the causes that may be supposed to have led to this separation, it seems needless, with the characters of both parties before our eyes, to go in quest of any very remote or mysterious reasons to account for it. i have already, in some observations on the general character of men of genius, endeavoured to point out those peculiarities, both in disposition and habitudes, by which, in the far greater number of instances, they have been found unfitted for domestic happiness. of these defects, (which are, as it were, the shadow that genius casts, and too generally, it is to be feared, in proportion to its stature,) lord byron could not, of course, fail to have inherited his share, in common with all the painfully-gifted class to which he belonged. how thoroughly, with respect to one attribute of this temperament which he possessed,--one, that "sicklies o'er" the face of happiness itself,--he was understood by the person most interested in observing him, will appear from the following anecdote, as related by himself.[ ] "people have wondered at the melancholy which runs through my writings. others have wondered at my personal gaiety. but i recollect once, after an hour in which i had been sincerely and particularly gay and rather brilliant, in company, my wife replying to me when i said (upon her remarking my high spirits), 'and yet, bell, i have been called and miscalled melancholy--you must have seen how falsely, frequently?'--'no, byron,' she answered, 'it is not so: at heart you are the most melancholy of mankind; and often when apparently gayest.'" to these faults and sources of faults inherent, in his own sensitive nature, he added also many of those which a long indulgence of self-will generates,--the least compatible, of all others, (if not softened down, as they were in him, by good nature,) with that system of mutual concession and sacrifice by which the balance of domestic peace is maintained. when we look back, indeed, to the unbridled career, of which this marriage was meant to be the goal,--to the rapid and restless course in which his life had run along, like a burning train, through a series of wanderings, adventures, successes, and passions, the fever of all which was still upon him, when, with the same headlong recklessness, he rushed into this marriage,--it can but little surprise us that, in the space of one short year, he should not have been able to recover all at once from his bewilderment, or to settle down into that tame level of conduct which the close observers of his every action required. as well might it be expected that a steed like his own mazeppa's, "wild as the wild deer and untaught, with spur and bridle undefiled-- 'twas but a day he had been caught," should stand still, when reined, without chafing or champing the bit. even had the new condition of life into which he passed been one of prosperity and smoothness, some time, as well as tolerance, must still have been allowed for the subsiding of so excited a spirit into rest. but, on the contrary, his marriage (from the reputation, no doubt, of the lady, as an heiress,) was, at once, a signal for all the arrears and claims of a long-accumulating state of embarrassment to explode upon him;--his door was almost daily beset by duns, and his house nine times during that year in possession of bailiffs[ ]; while, in addition to these anxieties and--what he felt still more--indignities of poverty, he had also the pain of fancying, whether rightly or wrongly, that the eyes of enemies and spies were upon him, even under his own roof, and that his every hasty word and look were interpreted in the most perverting light. as, from the state of their means, his lady and he saw but little society, his only relief from the thoughts which a life of such embarrassment brought with it was in those avocations which his duty, as a member of the drury lane committee, imposed upon him. and here,--in this most unlucky connection with the theatre,--one of the fatalities of his short year of trial, as husband, lay. from the reputation which he had previously acquired for gallantries, and the sort of reckless and boyish levity to which--often in very "bitterness of soul"--he gave way, it was not difficult to bring suspicion upon some of those acquaintances which his frequent intercourse with the green-room induced him to form, or even (as, in one instance, was the case,) to connect with his name injuriously that of a person to whom he had scarcely ever addressed a single word. notwithstanding, however, this ill-starred concurrence of circumstances, which might have palliated any excesses either of temper or conduct into which they drove him, it was, after all, i am persuaded, to no such serious causes that the unfortunate alienation, which so soon ended in disunion, is to be traced. "in all the marriages i have ever seen," says steele, "most of which have been unhappy ones, the great cause of evil has proceeded from slight occasions;" and to this remark, i think, the marriage under our consideration would not be found, upon enquiry, to be an exception. lord byron himself, indeed, when at cephalonia, a short time before his death, seems to have expressed, in a few words, the whole pith of the mystery. an english gentleman with whom he was conversing on the subject of lady byron, having ventured to enumerate to him the various causes he had heard alleged for the separation, the noble poet, who had seemed much amused with their absurdity and falsehood, said, after listening to them all,--"the causes, my dear sir, were too simple to be easily found out." in truth, the circumstances, so unexampled, that attended their separation,--the last words of the parting wife to the husband being those of the most playful affection, while the language of the deserted husband towards the wife was in a strain, as the world knows, of tenderest eulogy,--are in themselves a sufficient proof that, at the time of their parting, there could have been no very deep sense of injury on either side. it was not till afterwards that, in both bosoms, the repulsive force came into operation,--when, to the party which had taken the first decisive step in the strife, it became naturally a point of pride to persevere in it with dignity, and this unbendingness provoked, as naturally, in the haughty spirit of the other, a strong feeling of resentment which overflowed, at last, in acrimony and scorn. if there be any truth, however, in the principle, that they "never pardon who have done the wrong," lord byron, who was, to the last, disposed to reconciliation, proved so far, at least, his conscience to have been unhaunted by any very disturbing consciousness of aggression. but though it would have been difficult, perhaps, for the victims of this strife, themselves, to have pointed out any single, or definite, cause for their disunion,--beyond that general incompatibility which is the canker of all such marriages,--the public, which seldom allows itself to be at a fault on these occasions, was, as usual, ready with an ample supply of reasons for the breach,--all tending to blacken the already darkly painted character of the poet, and representing him, in short, as a finished monster of cruelty and depravity. the reputation of the object of his choice for every possible virtue, (a reputation which had been, i doubt not, one of his own chief incentives to the marriage, from the vanity, reprobate as he knew he was deemed, of being able to win such a paragon,) was now turned against him by his assailants, not only in the way of contrast with his own character, but as if the excellences of the wife were proof positive of every enormity they chose to charge upon the husband. meanwhile, the unmoved silence of the lady herself, (from motives, it is but fair to suppose, of generosity and delicacy,) under the repeated demands made for a specification of her charges against him, left to malice and imagination the fullest range for their combined industry. it was accordingly stated, and almost universally believed, that the noble lord's second proposal to miss milbanke had been but with a view to revenge himself for the slight inflicted by her refusal of the first, and that he himself had confessed so much to her on their way from church. at the time when, as the reader has seen from his own honey-moon letters, he was, with all the good will in the world, imagining himself into happiness, and even boasting, in the pride of his fancy, that if marriage were to be upon _lease_, he would gladly renew his own for a term of ninety-nine years,--at this very time, according to these veracious chroniclers, he was employed in darkly following up the aforesaid scheme of revenge, and tormenting his lady by all sorts of unmanly cruelties,--such as firing off pistols, to frighten her as she lay in bed[ ], and other such freaks. to the falsehoods concerning his green-room intimacies, and particularly with respect to one beautiful actress, with whom, in reality, he had hardly ever exchanged a single word, i have already adverted; and the extreme confidence with which this tale was circulated and believed affords no unfair specimen of the sort of evidence with which the public, in all such fits of moral wrath, is satisfied. it is, at the same time, very far from my intention to allege that, in the course of the noble poet's intercourse with the theatre, he was not sometimes led into a line of acquaintance and converse, unbefitting, if not dangerous to, the steadiness of married life. but the imputations against him on this head were (as far as affected his conjugal character) not the less unfounded,--as the sole case in which he afforded any thing like _real_ grounds for such an accusation did not take place till _after_ the period of the separation. not content with such ordinary and tangible charges, the tongue of rumour was emboldened to proceed still further; and, presuming upon the mysterious silence maintained by one of the parties, ventured to throw out dark hints and vague insinuations, of which the fancy of every hearer was left to fill up the outline as he pleased. in consequence of all this exaggeration, such an outcry was now raised against lord byron as, in no case of private life, perhaps, was ever before witnessed; nor had the whole amount of fame which he had gathered, in the course of the last four years, much exceeded in proportion the reproach and obloquy that were now, within the space of a few weeks, showered upon him. in addition to the many who, no doubt, conscientiously believed and reprobated what they had but too much right, whether viewing him as poet or man of fashion, to consider credible excesses, there were also actively on the alert that large class of persons who seem to hold violence against the vices of others to be equivalent to virtue in themselves, together with all those natural haters of success who, having long sickened under the splendour of the _poet_, were now enabled, in the guise of champions for innocence, to wreak their spite on the _man_. in every various form of paragraph, pamphlet, and caricature, both his character and person were held up to odium[ ];--hardly a voice was raised, or at least listened to, in his behalf; and though a few faithful friends remained unshaken by his side, the utter hopelessness of stemming the torrent was felt as well by them as by himself, and, after an effort or two to gain a fair hearing, they submitted in silence. among the few attempts made by himself towards confuting his calumniators was an appeal (such as the following short letter contains) to some of those persons with whom he had been in the habit of living familiarly. [footnote : ms.--"detached thoughts."] [footnote : an anecdote connected with one of these occasions is thus related in the journal just referred to:-- "when the bailiff (for i have seen most kinds of life) came upon me in to seize my chattels, (being a peer of parliament, my person was beyond him,) being curious (as is my habit), i first asked him "what extents elsewhere he had for government?" upon which he showed me one upon _one house only_ for _seventy thousand pounds_! next i asked him if he had nothing for sheridan? "oh--sheridan!" said he; "ay, i have this" (pulling out a pocket-book, &c.); "but, my lord, i have been in sheridan's house a twelvemonth at a time--a civil gentleman--knows how to deal with _us_," &c. &c. &c. our own business was then discussed, which was none of the easiest for me at that time. but the man was civil, and (what i valued more) communicative. i had met many of his brethren, years before, in affairs of my friends, (commoners, that is,) but this was the first (or second) on my own account.--a civil man; fee'd accordingly; probably he anticipated as much."] [footnote : for this story, however, there was so far a foundation that the practice to which he had accustomed himself from boyhood, of having loaded pistols always near him at night, was considered so strange a propensity as to be included in that list of symptoms (sixteen, i believe, in number,) which were submitted to medical opinion, in proof of his insanity. another symptom was the emotion, almost to hysterics, which he had exhibited on seeing kean act sir giles overreach. but the most plausible of all the grounds, as he himself used to allow, on which these articles of impeachment against his sanity were drawn up, was an act of violence committed by him on a favourite old watch that had been his companion from boyhood, and had gone with him to greece. in a fit of vexation and rage, brought on by some of those humiliating embarrassments to which he was now almost daily a prey, he furiously dashed this watch upon the hearth, and ground it to pieces among the ashes with the poker.] [footnote : of the abuse lavished upon him, the following extract from a poem, published at this time, will give some idea:-- "from native england, that endured too long the ceaseless burden of his impious song; his mad career of crimes and follies run, and grey in vice, when life was scarce begun; he goes, in foreign lands prepared to find a life more suited to his guilty mind; where other climes new pleasures may supply for that pall'd taste, and that unhallow'd eye;-- wisely he seeks some yet untrodden shore, for those who know him less may prize him more." in a rhyming pamphlet, too, entitled "a poetical epistle from delia, addressed to lord byron," the writer thus charitably expresses herself:-- "hopeless of peace below, and, shuddering thought! far from that heav'n, denied, if never sought, thy light a beacon--a reproach thy name-- thy memory "damn'd to everlasting fame," shunn'd by the wise, admired by fools alone-- the good shall mourn thee--and the muse disown." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. rogers. "march . . "you are one of the few persons with whom i have lived in what is called intimacy, and have heard me at times conversing on the untoward topic of my recent family disquietudes. will you have the goodness to say to me at once, whether you ever heard me speak of her with disrespect, with unkindness, or defending myself at _her_ expense by any serious imputation of any description against _her_? did you never hear me say 'that when there was a right or a wrong, she had the _right_?'--the reason i put these questions to you or others of my friends is, because i am said, by her and hers, to have resorted to such means of exculpation. "ever very truly yours, "b." * * * * * in those memoirs (or, more properly, memoranda,) of the noble poet, which it was thought expedient, for various reasons, to sacrifice, he gave a detailed account of all the circumstances connected with his marriage, from the first proposal to the lady till his own departure, after the breach, from england. in truth, though the title of "memoirs," which he himself sometimes gave to that manuscript, conveys the idea of a complete and regular piece of biography, it was to this particular portion of his life that the work was principally devoted; while the anecdotes, having reference to other parts of his career, not only occupied a very disproportionate space in its pages, but were most of them such as are found repeated in the various journals and other mss. he left behind. the chief charm, indeed, of that narrative, was the melancholy playfulness--melancholy, from the wounded feeling so visible through its pleasantry--with which events unimportant and persons uninteresting, in almost every respect but their connection with such a man's destiny, were detailed and described in it. frank, as usual, throughout, in his avowal of his own errors, and generously just towards her who was his fellow-sufferer in the strife, the impression his recital left on the minds of all who perused it was, to say the least, favourable to him;--though, upon the whole, leading to a persuasion, which i have already intimated to be my own, that, neither in kind nor degree, did the causes of disunion between the parties much differ from those that loosen the links of most such marriages. with respect to the details themselves, though all important in his own eyes at the time, as being connected with the subject that superseded most others in his thoughts, the interest they would possess for others, now that their first zest as a subject of scandal is gone by, and the greater number of the persons to whom they relate forgotten, would be too slight to justify me in entering upon them more particularly, or running the risk of any offence that might be inflicted by their disclosure. as far as the character of the illustrious subject of these pages is concerned, i feel that time and justice are doing far more in its favour than could be effected by any such gossiping details. during the lifetime of a man of genius, the world is but too much inclined to judge of him rather by what he wants than by what he possesses, and even where conscious, as in the present case, that his defects are among the sources of his greatness, to require of him unreasonably the one without the other. if pope had not been splenetic and irritable, we should have wanted his satires; and an impetuous temperament, and passions untamed, were indispensable to the conformation of a poet like byron. it is by posterity only that full justice is rendered to those who have paid such hard penalties to reach it. the dross that had once hung about the ore drops away, and the infirmities, and even miseries, of genius are forgotten in its greatness. who now asks whether dante was right or wrong in his matrimonial differences? or by how many of those whose fancies dwell fondly on his beatrice is even the name of his gemma donati remembered? already, short as has been the interval since lord byron's death, the charitable influence of time in softening, if not rescinding, the harsh judgments of the world against genius is visible. the utter unreasonableness of trying such a character by ordinary standards, or of expecting to find the materials of order and happiness in a bosom constantly heaving forth from its depths such "lava floods," is--now that big spirit has passed from among us--felt and acknowledged. in reviewing the circumstances of his marriage, a more even scale of justice is held; and while every tribute of sympathy and commiseration is accorded to her, who, unluckily for her own peace, became involved in such a destiny,--who, with virtues and attainments that would have made the home of a more ordinary man happy, undertook, in evil hour, to "turn and wind a fiery pegasus," and but failed where it may be doubted whether even the fittest for such a task would have succeeded,--full allowance is, at the same time, made for the great martyr of genius himself, whom so many other causes, beside that restless fire within him, concurred to unsettle in mind and (as he himself feelingly expresses it) "disqualify for comfort;"--whose doom it was to be either thus or less great, and whom to have tamed might have been to extinguish; there never, perhaps, having existed an individual to whom, whether as author or man, the following line was more applicable:-- "si non errâsset, fecerat ille minus."[ ] while these events were going on,--events, of which his memory and heart bore painfully the traces through the remainder of his short life,--some occurrences took place, connected with his literary history, to which it is a relief to divert the attention of the reader from the distressing subject that has now so long detained us. the letter that follows was in answer to one received from mr. murray, in which that gentleman had enclosed him a draft for a thousand guineas for the copyright of his two poems, the siege of corinth and parisina:-- * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "january . . "your offer is _liberal_ in the extreme, (you see i use the word _to_ you and _of_ you, though i would not consent to your using it of yourself to mr. * * * *,) and much more than the two poems can possibly be worth; but i cannot accept it, nor will not. you are most welcome to them as additions to the collected volumes, without any demand or expectation on my part whatever. but i cannot consent to their separate publication. i do not like to risk any fame (whether merited or not), which i have been favoured with, upon compositions which i do not feel to be at all equal to my own notions of what they should be, (and as i flatter myself some _have been_, here and there,) though they may do very well as things without pretension, to add to the publication with the lighter pieces. "i am very glad that the handwriting was a favourable omen of the _morale_ of the piece: but you must not trust to that, for my copyist would write out any thing i desired in all the ignorance of innocence--i hope, however, in this instance, with no great peril to either. "p.s. i have enclosed your draft _torn_, for fear of accidents by the way--i wish you would not throw temptation in mine. it is not from a disdain of the universal idol, nor from a present superfluity of his treasures, i can assure you, that i refuse to worship him; but what is right is right, and must not yield to circumstances." [footnote : had he not _erred_, he had far less achieved.] * * * * * notwithstanding the ruinous state of his pecuniary affairs, the resolution which the poet had formed not to avail himself of the profits of his works still continued to be held sacred by him; and the sum thus offered for the copyright of the siege of corinth and parisina was, as we see, refused and left untouched in the publisher's hands. it happened that, at this time, a well-known and eminent writer on political science had been, by some misfortune, reduced to pecuniary embarrassment; and the circumstance having become known to mr. rogers and sir james mackintosh, it occurred to them that a part of the sum thus unappropriated by lord byron could not be better bestowed than in relieving the necessities of this gentleman. the suggestion was no sooner conveyed to the noble poet than he proceeded to act upon it; and the following letter to mr. rogers refers to his intentions:-- letter . to mr. rogers. "february . . "i wrote to you hastily this morning by murray, to say that i was glad to do as mackintosh and you suggested about mr. * *. it occurs to me now, that as i have never seen mr. * * but once, and consequently have no claim to his acquaintance, that you or sir j. had better arrange it with him in such a manner as may be least offensive to his feelings, and so as not to have the appearance of officiousness nor obtrusion on my part. i hope you will be able to do this, as i should be very sorry to do any thing by him that may be deemed indelicate. the sum murray offered and offers was and is one thousand and fifty pounds:--this i refused before, because i thought it more than the two things were worth to murray, and from other objections, which are of no consequence. i have, however, closed with m., in consequence of sir j.'s and your suggestion, and propose the sum of six hundred pounds to be transferred to mr. * * in such a manner as may seem best to your friend,--the remainder i think of for other purposes. "as murray has offered the money down for the copyrights, it may be done directly. i am ready to sign and seal immediately, and perhaps it had better not be delayed. i shall feel very glad if it can be of any use to * *; only don't let him be plagued, nor think himself obliged and all that, which makes people hate one another, &c. yours, very truly, "b." * * * * * in his mention here of other "purposes," he refers to an intention which he had of dividing the residue of the sum between two other gentlemen of literary celebrity, equally in want of such aid, mr. maturin and mr. * *. the whole design, however, though entered into with the utmost sincerity on the part of the noble poet, ultimately failed. mr. murray, who was well acquainted with the straits to which lord byron himself had been reduced, and foresaw that a time might come when even money thus gained would be welcome to him, on learning the uses to which the sum was to be applied, demurred in advancing it,--alleging that, though bound not only by his word but his will to pay the amount to lord byron, he did not conceive himself called upon to part with it to others. how earnestly the noble poet himself, though with executions, at the time, impending over his head, endeavoured to urge the point, will appear from the following letter:-- letter . to mr. murray. "february . . "when the sum offered by you, and even _pressed_ by you, was declined, it was with reference to a separate publication, as you know and i know. that it was large, i admitted and admit; and _that_ made part of my consideration in refusing it, till i knew better what you were likely to make of it. with regard to what is past, or is to pass, about mr. m * *, the case is in no respect different from the transfer of former copyrights to mr. dallas. had i taken you at your word, that is, taken your money, i might have used it as i pleased; and it could be in no respect different to you whether i paid it to a w----, or a hospital, or assisted a man of talent in distress. the truth of the matter seems this: you offered more than the poems are worth. i _said_ so, and i _think_ so; but you know, or at least ought to know, your own business best; and when you recollect what passed between you and me upon pecuniary subjects before this occurred, you will acquit me of any wish to take advantage of your imprudence. "the things in question shall not be published at all, and there is an end of the matter. "yours," &c. * * * * * the letter that follows will give some idea of those embarrassments in his own affairs, under the pressure of which he could be thus considerate of the wants of others. letter . to mr. murray. "march . . "i sent to you to-day for this reason--the books you purchased are again seized, and, as matters stand, had much better be sold at once by public auction.[ ] i wish to see you to return your bill for them, which, thank god, is neither due nor paid. _that_ part, as far as _you_ are concerned, being settled, (which it can be, and shall be, when i see you to-morrow,) i have no further delicacy about the matter. this is about the tenth execution in as many months; so i am pretty well hardened; but it is fit i should pay the forfeit of my forefathers' extravagance and my own; and whatever my faults may be, i suppose they will be pretty well expiated in time--or eternity. ever, &c. "p.s. i need hardly say that i knew nothing till this _day_ of the new _seizure_. i had released them from former ones, and thought, when you took them, that they were yours. "you shall have your bill again to-morrow." [footnote : the sale of these books took place the following month, and they were described in the catalogue as the property of "a nobleman about to leave england on a tour." from a note to mr. murray, it would appear that he had been first announced as going to the morea. "i hope that the catalogue of the books, &c., has not been published without my seeing it. i must reserve several, and many ought not to be printed. the advertisement is a very bad one. i am not going to the morea; and if i was, you might as well advertise a man in russia _as going to yorkshire_.--ever," &c. together with the books was sold an article of furniture, which is now in the possession of mr. murray, namely, "a large screen covered with portraits of actors, pugilists, representations of boxing-matches," &c.] * * * * * during the month of january and part of february, his poems of the siege of corinth and parisina were in the hands of the printers, and about the end of the latter month made their appearance. the following letters are the only ones i find connected with their publication. letter . to mr. murray. "february . . "i sent for 'marmion,' which i return, because it occurred to me, there might be a resemblance between part of 'parisina' and a similar scene in canto d of 'marmion.' i fear there is, though i never thought of it before, and could hardly wish to imitate that which is inimitable. i wish you would ask mr. gifford whether i ought to say any thing upon it;--i had completed the story on the passage from gibbon, which indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of the kind: but it comes upon me not very comfortably. "there are a few words and phrases i want to alter in the ms., and should like to do it before you print, and will return it in an hour. "yours ever." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "february . . "to return to our business--your epistles are vastly agreeable. with regard to the observations on carelessness, &c. i think, with all humility, that the gentle reader has considered a rather uncommon, and designedly irregular, versification for haste and negligence. the measure is not that of any of the other poems, which (i believe) were allowed to be tolerably correct, according to byshe and the fingers--or ears--by which bards write, and readers reckon. great part of 'the siege' is in (i think) what the learned call anapests, (though i am not sure, being heinously forgetful of my metres and my 'gradus',) and many of the lines intentionally longer or shorter than its rhyming companion; and rhyme also occurring at greater or less intervals of caprice or convenience. "i mean not to say that this is right or good, but merely that i could have been smoother, had it appeared to me of advantage; and that i was not otherwise without being aware of the deviation, though i now feel sorry for it, as i would undoubtedly rather please than not. my wish has been to try at something different from my former efforts; as i endeavoured to make them differ from each other. the versification of 'the corsair' is not that of 'lara;' nor 'the giaour' that of 'the bride;' childe harold is again varied from these; and i strove to vary the last somewhat from _all_ of the others. "excuse all this d----d nonsense and egotism. the fact is, that i am rather trying to think on the subject of this note, than really thinking on it.--i did not know you had called: you are always admitted and welcome when you choose. "yours, &c. &c. "p.s. you need not be in any apprehension or grief on my account: were i to be beaten down by the world and its inheritors, i should have succumbed to many things, years ago. you must not mistake my _not_ bullying for dejection; nor imagine that because i feel, i am to faint:--but enough for the present. "i am sorry for sotheby's row. what the devil is it about? i thought it all settled; and if i can do any thing about him or ivan still, i am ready and willing. i do not think it proper for me just now to be much behind the scenes, but i will see the committee and move upon it, if sotheby likes. "if you see mr. sotheby, will you tell him that i wrote to mr. coleridge, on getting mr. sotheby's note, and have, i hope, done what mr. s. wished on that subject?" * * * * * it was about the middle of april that his two celebrated copies of verses, "fare thee well," and "a sketch," made their appearance in the newspapers:--and while the latter poem was generally and, it must be owned, justly condemned, as a sort of literary assault on an obscure female, whose situation ought to have placed her as much _beneath_ his satire as the undignified mode of his attack certainly raised her _above_ it, with regard to the other poem, opinions were a good deal more divided. to many it appeared a strain of true conjugal tenderness, a kind of appeal, which no woman with a heart could resist: while by others, on the contrary, it was considered to be a mere showy effusion of sentiment, as difficult for real feeling to have produced as it was easy for fancy and art, and altogether unworthy of the deep interests involved in the subject. to this latter opinion, i confess my own to have, at first, strongly inclined; and suspicious as i could not help regarding the sentiment that could, at such a moment, indulge in such verses, the taste that prompted or sanctioned their publication appeared to me even still more questionable. on reading, however, his own account of all the circumstances in the memoranda, i found that on both points i had, in common with a large portion of the public, done him injustice. he there described, and in a manner whose sincerity there was no doubting, the swell of tender recollections under the influence of which, as he sat one night musing in his study, these stanzas were produced,--the tears, as he said, falling fast over the paper as he wrote them. neither, from that account, did it appear to have been from any wish or intention of his own, but through the injudicious zeal of a friend whom he had suffered to take a copy, that the verses met the public eye. the appearance of these poems gave additional violence to the angry and inquisitorial feeling now abroad against him; and the title under which both pieces were immediately announced by various publishers, as "poems by lord byron on his domestic circumstances," carried with it a sufficient exposure of the utter unfitness of such themes for rhyme. it is, indeed, only in those emotions and passions, of which imagination forms a predominant ingredient,--such as love, in its first dreams, before reality has come to embody or dispel them, or sorrow, in its wane, when beginning to pass away from the heart into the fancy,--that poetry ought ever to be employed as an interpreter of feeling. for the expression of all those immediate affections and disquietudes that have their root in the actual realities of life, the art of the poet, from the very circumstance of its being an art, as well as from the coloured form in which it is accustomed to transmit impressions, cannot be otherwise than a medium as false as it is feeble. to so very low an ebb had the industry of his assailants now succeeded in reducing his private character, that it required no small degree of courage, even among that class who are supposed to be the most tolerant of domestic irregularities, to invite him into their society. one distinguished lady of fashion, however, ventured so far as, on the eve of his departure from england, to make a party for him expressly; and nothing short, perhaps, of that high station in society which a life as blameless as it is brilliant has secured to her, could have placed beyond all reach of misrepresentation, at that moment, such a compliment to one marked with the world's censure so deeply. at this assembly of lady j * *'s he made his last appearance, publicly, in england; and the amusing account given of some of the company in his memoranda,--of the various and characteristic ways in which the temperature of their manner towards him was affected by the cloud under which he now appeared,--was one of the passages of that memoir it would have been most desirable, perhaps, to have preserved; though, from being a gallery of sketches, all personal and many satirical, but a small portion of it, if any, could have been presented to the public till a time when the originals had long left the scene, and any interest they might once have excited was gone with themselves. besides the noble hostess herself, whose kindness to him, on this occasion, he never forgot, there was also one other person (then miss m * *, now lady k * *,) whose frank and fearless cordiality to him on that evening he most gratefully commemorated,--adding, in acknowledgment of a still more generous service, "she is a high-minded woman, and showed me more friendship than i deserved from her. i heard also of her having defended me in a large company, which _at that time_ required more courage and firmness than most women possess." * * * * * as we are now approaching so near the close of his london life, i shall here throw together the few remaining recollections of that period with which the gleanings of his memorandum-book, so often referred to, furnish me. "i liked the dandies; they were always very civil to _me_, though in general they disliked literary people, and persecuted and mystified madame de staël, lewis, * * * *, and the like, damnably. they persuaded madame de staël that a * * had a hundred thousand a year, &c. &c., till she praised him to his _face_ for his _beauty_! and made a set at him for * *, and a hundred fooleries besides. the truth is, that, though i gave up the business early, i had a tinge of dandyism[ ] in my minority, and probably retained enough of it to conciliate the great ones at five-and-twenty. i had gamed, and drank, and taken my degrees in most dissipations, and having no pedantry, and not being overbearing, we ran quietly together. i knew them all more or less, and they made me a member of watier's (a superb club at that time), being, i take it, the only literary man (except _two others_, both men of the world, moore and spenser,) in it. our masquerade[ ] was a grand one; so was the dandy-ball too, at the argyle, but _that_ (the latter) was given by the four chiefs, b., m., a., and p., if i err not. "i was a member of the alfred, too, being elected while in greece. it was pleasant; a little too sober and literary, and bored with * * and sir francis d'ivernois; but one met peel, and ward, and valentia, and many other pleasant or known people; and it was, upon the whole, a decent resource in a rainy day, in a dearth of parties, or parliament, or in an empty season. "i belonged, or belong, to the following clubs or societies:--to the alfred; to the cocoa tree; to watier's; to the union; to racket's (at brighton); to the pugilistic; to the owls, or "fly-by-night;" to the _cambridge_ whig club; to the harrow club, cambridge; and to one or two private clubs; to the hampden (political) club; and to the italian carbonari, &c. &c., 'though last, _not least_.' i got into all these, and never stood for any other--at least to my own knowledge. i declined being proposed to several others, though pressed to stand candidate." * * * * "when i met h * * l * *, the gaoler, at lord holland's, before he sailed for st. helena, the discourse turned upon the battle of waterloo. i asked him whether the dispositions of napoleon were those of a great general? he answered, disparagingly, 'that they were very simple.' i had always thought that a degree of simplicity was an ingredient of greatness." * * * * "i was much struck with the simplicity of grattan's manners in private life; they were odd, but they were natural. curran used to take him off, bowing to the very ground, and 'thanking god that he had no peculiarities of gesture or appearance,' in a way irresistibly ludicrous; and * * used to call him a 'sentimental harlequin.'" * * * * "curran! curran's the man who struck me most[ ]. such imagination! there never was any thing like it that ever i saw or heard of. his _published_ life--his published speeches, give you _no_ idea of the man--none at all. he was a _machine_ of imagination, as some one said that piron was an epigrammatic machine. "i did not see a great deal of curran--only in ; but i met him at home (for he used to call on me), and in society, at mackintosh's, holland house, &c. &c. and he was wonderful even to me, who had seen many remarkable men of the time." * * * * "* * * (commonly called _long_ * * *, a very clever man, but odd) complained of our friend scrope b. davies, in riding, that he had a _stitch_ in his side. 'i don't wonder at it,' said scrope, 'for you ride _like a tailor_.' whoever had seen * * * on horseback, with his very tall figure on a small nag, would not deny the justice of the repartee." * * * * "when b * * was obliged (by that affair of poor m * *, who thence acquired the name of 'dick the dandy-killer'--it was about money, and debt, and all that) to retire to france, he knew no french, and having obtained a grammar for the purpose of study, our friend scrope davies was asked what progress brummell had made in french; he responded, 'that brummell had been stopped, like buonaparte in russia, by the elements.' "i have put this pun into beppo, which is 'a fair exchange and no robbery; for scrope made his fortune at several dinners (as he owned himself) by repeating occasionally, as his own, some of the buffooneries with which i had encountered him in the morning." * * * * "* * * is a good man, rhymes well (if not wisely), but is a bore. he seizes you by the button. one night of a rout, at mrs. hope's, he had fastened upon me, notwithstanding my symptoms of manifest distress, (for i was in love, and had just nicked a minute when neither mothers, nor husbands, nor rivals, nor gossips, were near my then idol, who was beautiful as the statues of the gallery where we stood at the time,)--* * *, i say, had seized upon me by the button and the heart-strings, and spared neither. w. spencer, who likes fun, and don't dislike mischief, saw my case, and coming up to us both, took me by the hand, and pathetically bade me farewell; 'for,' said he, 'i see it is all over with you.' * * * then went away. _sic me servavit apollo._" * * * * "i remember seeing blucher in the london assemblies, and never saw any thing of his age less venerable. with the voice and manners of a recruiting sergeant, he pretended to the honours of a hero,--just as if a stone could be worshipped because a man had stumbled over it." [footnote : petrarch was, it appears, also in his youth, a dandy. "recollect," he says, in a letter to his brother, "the time, when we wore white habits, on which the least spot, or a plait ill placed, would have been a subject of grief; when our shoes were so tight we suffered martyrdom," &c.] [footnote : to this masquerade he went in the habit of a caloyer, or eastern monk,--a dress particularly well calculated to set off the beauty of his fine countenance, which was accordingly, that night, the subject of general admiration.] [footnote : in his memoranda there were equally enthusiastic praises of curran. "the riches," said he, "of his irish imagination were exhaustless. i have heard that man speak more poetry than i have ever seen written,--though i saw him seldom and but occasionally. i saw him presented to madame de staël at mackintosh's;--it was the grand confluence between the rhone and the saone, and they were both so d----d ugly, that i could not help wondering how the best intellects of france and ireland could have taken up respectively such residences." in another part, however, he was somewhat more fair to madame de staël's personal appearance:--"her figure was not bad; her legs tolerable; her arms good. altogether, i can conceive her having been a desirable woman, allowing a little imagination for her soul, and so forth. she would have made a great man."] * * * * * we now approach the close of this eventful period of his history. in a note to mr. rogers, written a short time before his departure for ostend[ ], he says,--"my sister is now with me, and leaves town to-morrow: we shall not meet again for some time, at all events--if ever; and, under these circumstances, i trust to stand excused to you and mr. sheridan for being unable to wait upon him this evening." this was his last interview with his sister,--almost the only person from whom he now parted with regret; it being, as he said, doubtful _which_ had given him most pain, the enemies who attacked or the friends who condoled with him. those beautiful and most tender verses, "though the day of my destiny's over," were now his parting tribute to her[ ] who, through all this bitter trial, had been his sole consolation; and, though known to most readers, so expressive are they of his wounded feelings at this crisis, that there are few, i think, who will object to seeing some stanzas of them here. "though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd, and its fragments are sunk in the wave, though i feel that my soul is deliver'd to pain--it shall not be its slave. there is many a pang to pursue me: they may crush, but they shall not contemn-- they may torture, but shall not subdue me-- 'tis of _thee_ that i think--not of them. "though human, thou didst not deceive me, though woman, thou didst not forsake, though lov'd, thou forborest to grieve me, though slander'd, thou never couldst shake, though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, though parted, it was not to fly, though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, nor mute, that the world might belie. "from the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, thus much i at least may recall, it hath taught me that what i most cherish'd deserved to be dearest of all: in the desert a fountain is springing, in the wide waste there still is a tree, and a bird in the solitude singing, which speaks to my spirit of _thee_. on a scrap of paper, in his handwriting, dated april . , i find the following list of his attendants, with an annexed outline of his projected tour:--"_servants_, ---- berger, a swiss, william fletcher, and robert rushton.--john william polidori, m.d.--switzerland, flanders, italy, and (perhaps) france." the two english servants, it will be observed, were the same "yeoman" and "page" who had set out with him on his youthful travels in ; and now,--for the second and last time taking leave of his country,--on the th of april he sailed for ostend. the circumstances under which lord byron now took leave of england were such as, in the case of any ordinary person, could not be considered otherwise than disastrous and humiliating. he had, in the course of one short year, gone through every variety of domestic misery;--had seen his hearth eight or nine times profaned by the visitations of the law, and been only saved from a prison by the privileges of his rank. he had alienated, as far as they had ever been his, the affections of his wife; and now, rejected by her, and condemned by the world, was betaking himself to an exile which had not even the dignity of appearing voluntary, as the excommunicating voice of society seemed to leave him no other resource. had he been of that class of unfeeling and self-satisfied natures from whose hard surface the reproaches of others fall pointless, he might have found in insensibility a sure refuge against reproach; but, on the contrary, the same sensitiveness that kept him so awake to the applauses of mankind, rendered him, in a still more intense degree, alive to their censure. even the strange, perverse pleasure which he felt in painting himself unamiably to the world did not prevent him from being both startled and pained when the world took him at his word; and, like a child in a mask before a looking-glass, the dark semblance which he had, half in sport, put on, when reflected back upon him from the mirror of public opinion, shocked even himself. thus surrounded by vexations, and thus deeply feeling them, it is not too much to say, that any other spirit but his own would have sunk under the struggle, and lost, perhaps irrecoverably, that level of self-esteem which alone affords a stand against the shocks of fortune. but in him,--furnished as was his mind with reserves of strength, waiting to be called out,--the very intensity of the pressure brought relief by the proportionate re-action which it produced. had his transgressions and frailties been visited with no more than their due portion of punishment, there can be little doubt that a very different result would have ensued. not only would such an excitement have been insufficient to waken up the new energies still dormant in him, but that consciousness of his own errors, which was for ever livelily present in his mind, would, under such circumstances, have been left, undisturbed by any unjust provocation, to work its usual softening and, perhaps, humbling influences on his spirit. but,--luckily, as it proved, for the further triumphs of his genius,--no such moderation was exercised. the storm of invective raised around him, so utterly out of proportion with his offences, and the base calumnies that were every where heaped upon his name, left to his wounded pride no other resource than in the same summoning up of strength, the same instinct of resistance to injustice, which had first forced out the energies of his youthful genius, and was now destined to give a still bolder and loftier range to its powers. it was, indeed, not without truth, said of him by goethe, that he was inspired by the genius of pain; for, from the first to the last of his agitated career, every fresh recruitment of his faculties was imbibed from that bitter source. his chief incentive, when a boy, to distinction was, as we have seen, that mark of deformity on his person, by an acute sense of which he was first stung into the ambition of being great.[ ] as, with an evident reference to his own fate, he himself describes the feeling,-- "deformity is daring. it is its essence to o'ertake mankind by heart and soul, and make itself the equal,-- ay, the superior of the rest. there is a spur in its halt movements, to become all that the others cannot, in such things as still are free to both, to compensate for stepdame nature's avarice at first."[ ] then came the disappointment of his youthful passion,--the lassitude and remorse of premature excess,--the lone friendlessness of his entrance into life, and the ruthless assault upon his first literary efforts,--all links in that chain of trials, errors, and sufferings, by which his great mind was gradually and painfully drawn out;--all bearing their respective shares in accomplishing that destiny which seems to have decreed that the triumphal march of his genius should be over the waste and ruins of his heart. he appeared, indeed, himself to have had an instinctive consciousness that it was out of such ordeals his strength and glory were to arise, as his whole life was passed in courting agitation and difficulties; and whenever the scenes around him were too tame to furnish such excitement, he flew to fancy or memory for "thorns" whereon to "lean his breast." but the greatest of his trials, as well as triumphs, was yet to come. the last stage of this painful, though glorious, course, in which fresh power was, at every step, wrung from out his soul, was that at which we are now arrived, his marriage and its results,--without which, dear as was the price paid by him in peace and character, his career would have been incomplete, and the world still left in ignorance of the full compass of his genius. it is, indeed, worthy of remark, that it was not till his domestic circumstances began to darken around him that his fancy, which had long been idle, again rose upon the wing,--both the siege of corinth and parisina having been produced but a short time before the separation. how conscious he was, too, that the turmoil which followed was the true element of his restless spirit, may be collected from several passages of his letters at that period, in one of which he even mentions that his health had become all the better for the conflict:--"it is odd," he says, "but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits, and sets me up for the time." this buoyancy it was,--this irrepressible spring of mind,--that now enabled him to bear up not only against the assaults of others, but, what was still more difficult, against his own thoughts and feelings. the muster of all his mental resources to which, in self-defence, he had been driven, but opened to him the yet undreamed extent and capacity of his powers, and inspired him with a proud confidence that he should yet shine down these calumnious mists, convert censure to wonder, and compel even those who could not approve to admire. the route which he now took, through flanders and by the rhine, is best traced in his own matchless verses, which leave a portion of their glory on all that they touch, and lend to scenes, already clothed with immortality by nature and by history, the no less durable associations of undying song. on his leaving brussels, an incident occurred which would be hardly worth relating, were it not for the proof it affords of the malicious assiduity with which every thing to his disadvantage was now caught up and circulated in england. mr. pryce gordon, a gentleman, who appears to have seen a good deal of him during his short stay at brussels, thus relates the anecdote:-- "lord byron travelled in a huge coach, copied from the celebrated one of napoleon, taken at genappe, with additions. besides a _lit de repos_, it contained a library, a plate-chest, and every apparatus for dining in it. it was not, however, found sufficiently capacious for his baggage and suite; and he purchased a calèche at brussels for his servants. it broke down going to waterloo, and i advised him to return it, as it seemed to be a crazy machine; but as he had made a deposit of forty napoleons (certainly double its value), the honest fleming would not consent to restore the cash, or take back his packing case, except under a forfeiture of thirty napoleons. as his lordship was to set out the following day, he begged me to make the best arrangement i could in the affair. he had no sooner taken his departure, than the worthy _sellier_ inserted a paragraph in 'the brussels oracle,' stating 'that the noble _milor anglais_ had absconded with his calèche, value francs!'" in the courier of may ., the brussels account of this transaction is thus copied:-- "the following is an extract from the dutch mail, dated brussels, may th,:--in the journal de belgique, of this date, is a petition from a coachmaker at brussels to the president of the tribunal de premier instance, stating that he has sold to lord byron a carriage, &c. for francs, of which he has received francs, but that his lordship, who is going away the same day, refuses to pay him the remaining francs; he begs permission to seize the carriage, &c. this being granted, he put it into the hands of a proper officer, who went to signify the above to lord byron, and was informed by the landlord of the hotel that his lordship was gone without having given him any thing to pay the debt, on which the officer seized a chaise belonging to his lordship as security for the amount." it was not till the beginning of the following month that a contradiction of this falsehood, stating the real circumstances of the case, as above related, was communicated to the morning chronicle, in a letter from brussels, signed "pryce l. gordon." another anecdote, of far more interest, has been furnished from the same respectable source. it appears that the two first stanzas of the verses relating to waterloo, "stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust[ ]," were written at brussels, after a visit to that memorable field, and transcribed by lord byron, next morning, in an album belonging to the lady of the gentleman who communicates the anecdote. "a few weeks after he had written them (says the relater), the well-known artist, r.r. reinagle, a friend of mine, arrived in brussels, when i invited him to dine with me and showed him the lines, requesting him to embellish them with an appropriate vignette to the following passage:-- "'here his last flight the haughty eagle flew, then tore, with bloody beak, the fatal plain; pierced with the shafts of banded nations through, ambition's life, and labours, all were vain-- he wears the shatter'd links of the world's broken chain.' mr. reinagle sketched with a pencil a spirited chained eagle, grasping the earth with his talons. "i had occasion to write to his lordship, and mentioned having got this clever artist to draw a vignette to his beautiful lines, and the liberty he had taken by altering the action of the eagle. in reply to this, he wrote to me,--'reinagle is a better poet and a better ornithologist than i am; eagles, and all birds of prey, attack with their talons, and not with their beaks, and i have altered the line thus:-- "'then tore, with bloody talon, the rent plain.' this is, i think, a better line, besides its poetical justice.' i need hardly add, when i communicated this flattering compliment to the painter, that he was highly gratified." from brussels the noble traveller pursued his course along the rhine,--a line of road which he has strewed over with all the riches of poesy; and, arriving at geneva, took up his abode at the well-known hotel, sécheron. after a stay of a few weeks at this place, he removed to a villa, in the neighbourhood, called diodati, very beautifully situated on the high banks of the lake, where he established his residence for the remainder of the summer. i shall now give the few letters in my possession written by him at this time, and then subjoin to them such anecdotes as i have been able to collect relative to the same period. [footnote : dated april .] [footnote : it will be seen, from a subsequent letter, that the first stanza of that most cordial of farewells, "my boat is on the shore," was also written at this time.] [footnote : in one of his letters to mr. hunt, he declares it to be his own opinion that "an addiction to poetry is very generally the result of 'an uneasy mind in an uneasy body;' disease or deformity," he adds, "have been the attendants of many of our best. collins mad--chatterton, _i_ think, mad--cowper mad--pope crooked--milton blind," &c. &c.] [footnote : the deformed transformed.] [footnote : childe harold, canto iii. stanza .] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ouchy, near lausanne, june . . "i am thus far (kept by stress of weather) on my way back to diodati (near geneva) from a voyage in my boat round the lake; and i enclose you a sprig of _gibbons acacia_ and some rose-leaves from his garden, which, with part of his house, i have just seen. you will find honourable mention, in his life, made of this 'acacia,' when he walked out on the night of concluding his history. the garden and _summer-house_, where he composed, are neglected, and the last utterly decayed; but they still show it as his 'cabinet,' and seem perfectly aware of his memory. "my route, through flanders, and by the rhine, to switzerland, was all i expected, and more. "i have traversed all rousseau's ground with the heloise before me, and am struck to a degree that i cannot express with the force and accuracy of his descriptions and the beauty of their reality. meillerie, clarens, and vevay, and the château de chillon, are places of which i shall say little, because all i could say must fall short of the impressions they stamp. "three days ago, we were most nearly wrecked in a squall off meillerie, and driven to shore. i ran no risk, being so near the rocks, and a good swimmer; but our party were wet, and incommoded a good deal. the wind was strong enough to blow down some trees, as we found at landing: however, all is righted and right, and we are thus far on our return. "dr. polidori is not here, but at diodati, left behind in hospital with a sprained ankle, which he acquired in tumbling from a wall--he can't jump. "i shall be glad to hear you are well, and have received for me certain helms and swords, sent from waterloo, which i rode over with pain and pleasure. "i have finished a third canto of childe harold (consisting of one hundred and seventeen stanzas), longer than either of the two former, and in some parts, it may be, better; but of course on that i cannot determine. i shall send it by the first safe-looking opportunity. ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "diodati, near geneva, july . . "i wrote to you a few weeks ago, and dr. polidori received your letter; but the packet has not made its appearance, nor the epistle, of which you gave notice therein. i enclose you an advertisement[ ], which was copied by dr. polidori, and which appears to be about the most impudent imposition that ever issued from grub street. i need hardly say that i know nothing of all this trash, nor whence it may spring,--'odes to st. helena,'--'farewells to england,' &c. &c.--and if it can be disavowed, or is worth disavowing, you have full authority to do so. i never wrote, nor conceived, a line on any thing of the kind, any more than of two other things with which i was saddled--something about 'gaul,' and another about 'mrs. la valette;' and as to the 'lily of france,' i should as soon think of celebrating a turnip. 'on the morning of my daughter's birth,' i had other things to think of than verses; and should never have dreamed of such an invention, till mr. johnston and his pamphlet's advertisement broke in upon me with a new light on the crafts and subtleties of the demon of printing,--or rather publishing. "i did hope that some succeeding lie would have superseded the thousand and one which were accumulated during last winter. i can forgive whatever may be said of or against me, but not what they make me say or sing for myself. it is enough to answer for what i have written; but it were too much for job himself to bear what one has not. i suspect that when the arab patriarch wished that his 'enemy had written a book,' he did not anticipate his own name on the title-page. i feel quite as much bored with this foolery as it deserves, and more than i should be if i had not a headach. "of glenarvon, madame de staël told me (ten days ago, at copet) marvellous and grievous things; but i have seen nothing of it but the motto, which promises amiably 'for us and for our tragedy.' if such be the posy, what should the ring be? 'a name to all succeeding[ ],' &c. the generous moment selected for the publication is probably its kindest accompaniment, and--truth to say--the time _was_ well chosen. i have not even a guess at the contents, except from the very vague accounts i have heard. "i ought to be ashamed of the egotism of this letter. it is not my fault altogether, and i shall be but too happy to drop the subject when others will allow me. "i am in tolerable plight, and in my last letter told you what i had done in the way of all rhyme. i trust that you prosper, and that your authors are in good condition. i should suppose your stud has received some increase by what i hear. bertram must be a good horse; does he run next meeting? i hope you will beat the row. yours alway," &c. [footnote : the following was the advertisement enclosed:-- "neatly printed and hot-pressed, s. d. "lord byron's farewell to england, with three other poems--ode to st. helena, to my daughter on her birthday, and to the lily of france. "printed by j. johnston, cheapside, .; oxford, . "the above beautiful poems will be read with the most lively interest, as it is probable they will be the last of the author's that will appear in england." ] [footnote : the motto is-- he left a name to all succeeding times, link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. rogers. "diodati, near geneva, july . . "do you recollect a book, mathieson's letters, which you lent me, which i have still, and yet hope to return to your library? well, i have encountered at copet and elsewhere gray's correspondent, that same bonstetten, to whom i lent the translation of his correspondent's epistles, for a few days; but all he could remember of gray amounts to little, except that he was the most 'melancholy and gentlemanlike' of all possible poets. bonstetten himself is a fine and very lively old man, and much esteemed by his compatriots; he is also a _littérateur_ of good repute, and all his friends have a mania of addressing to him volumes of letters--mathieson, muller the historian, &c.&c. he is a good deal at copet, where i have met him a few times. all there are well, except rocca, who, i am sorry to say, looks in a very bad state of health. schlegel is in high force, and madame as brilliant as ever. "i came here by the netherlands and the rhine route, and basle, berne, moral, and lausanne. i have circumnavigated the lake, and go to chamouni with the first fair weather; but really we have had lately such stupid mists, fogs, and perpetual density, that one would think castlereagh had the foreign affairs of the kingdom of heaven also on his hands. i need say nothing to you of these parts, you having traversed them already. i do not think of italy before september. i have read glenarvon, and have also seen ben. constant's adolphe, and his preface, denying the real people. it is a work which leaves an unpleasant impression, but very consistent with the consequences of not being in love, which is, perhaps, as disagreeable as any thing, except being so. i doubt, however, whether all such _liens_ (as he calls them) terminate so wretchedly as his hero and heroine's. "there is a third canto (a longer than either of the former) of childe harold finished, and some smaller things,--among them a story on the château de chillon; i only wait a good opportunity to transmit them to the grand murray, who, i hope, flourishes. where is moore? why is he not out? my love to him, and my perfect consideration and remembrances to all, particularly to lord and lady holland, and to your duchess of somerset. "ever, &c. "p.s. i send you a _fac-simile_, a note of bonstetten's, thinking you might like to see the hand of gray's correspondent." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "diodati, sept. . . "i am very much flattered by mr. gifford's good opinion of the mss., and shall be still more so if it answers your expectations and justifies his kindness. i liked it myself, but that must go for nothing. the feelings with which most of it was written need not be envied me. with regard to the price, _i_ fixed _none_, but left it to mr. kinnaird, mr. shelley, and yourself, to arrange. of course, they would do their best; and as to yourself, i knew you would make no difficulties. but i agree with mr. kinnaird perfectly, that the concluding _five hundred_ should be only _conditional_; and for my own sake, i wish it to be added, only in case of your selling a certain number, _that number_ to be fixed by _yourself_. i hope this is fair. in every thing of this kind there must be risk; and till that be past, in one way or the other, i would not willingly add to it, particularly in times like the present. and pray always recollect that nothing could mortify me more--no failure on my own part--than having made you lose by any purchase from me. "the monody[ ] was written by request of mr. kinnaird for the theatre. i did as well as i could; but where i have not my choice i pretend to answer for nothing. mr. hobhouse and myself are just returned from a journey of lakes and mountains. we have been to the grindelwald, and the jungfrau, and stood on the summit of the wengen alp; and seen torrents of nine hundred feet in fall, and glaciers of all dimensions: we have heard shepherds' pipes, and avalanches, and looked on the clouds foaming up from the valleys below us, like the spray of the ocean of hell. chamouni, and that which it inherits, we saw a month ago: but though mont blanc is higher, it is not equal in wildness to the jungfrau, the eighers, the shreckhorn, and the rose glaciers. "we set off for italy next week. the road is within this month infested with bandits, but we must take our chance and such precautions as are requisite. "ever, &c. "p.s. my best remembrances to mr. gifford. pray say all that can be said from me to him. "i am sorry that mr. maturin did not like phillips's picture. i thought it was reckoned a good one. if he had made the speech on the original, perhaps he would have been more readily forgiven by the proprietor and the painter of the portrait * * *." [footnote : a monody on the death of sheridan, which was spoken at drury lane theatre.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "diodati, sept. . . "i answered your obliging letters yesterday: to-day the monody arrived with its _title_-page, which is, i presume, a separate publication. 'the request of a friend:'-- 'obliged by hunger and request of friends.' i will request you to expunge that same, unless you please to add, 'by a person of quality,' or 'of wit and honour about town.' merely say, 'written to be spoken at drury lane.' to-morrow i dine at copet. saturday i strike tents for italy. this evening, on the lake in my boat with mr. hobhouse, the pole which sustains the mainsail slipped in tacking, and struck me so violently on one of my legs (the _worst_, luckily) as to make me do a foolish thing, viz. to _faint_--a downright swoon; the thing must have jarred some nerve or other, for the bone is not injured, and hardly painful (it is six hours since), and cost mr. hobhouse some apprehension and much sprinkling of water to recover me. the sensation was a very odd one: i never had but two such before, once from a cut on the head from a stone, several years ago, and once (long ago also) in falling into a great wreath of snow;--a sort of grey giddiness first, then nothingness, and a total loss of memory on beginning to recover. the last part is not disagreeable, if one did not find it again. "you want the original mss. mr. davies has the first fair copy in my own hand, and i have the rough composition here, and will send or save it for you, since you wish it. "with regard to your new literary project, if any thing falls in the way which will, to the best of my judgment, suit you, i will send you what i can. at present i must lay by a little, having pretty well exhausted myself in what i have sent you. italy or dalmatia and another summer may, or may not, set me off again. i have no plans, and am nearly as indifferent what may come as where i go. i shall take felicia heman's restoration, &c. with me; it is a good poem--very. "pray repeat my best thanks and remembrances to mr. gifford for all his trouble and good nature towards me. "do not fancy me laid up, from the beginning of this scrawl. i tell you the accident for want of better to say; but it is over, and i am only wondering what the deuce was the matter with me. "i have lately been over all the bernese alps and their lakes. i think many of the scenes (some of which were not those usually frequented by the english) finer than chamouni, which i visited some time before. i have been to clarens again, and crossed the mountains behind it: of this tour i kept a short journal for my sister, which i sent yesterday in three letters. it is not all for perusal; but if you like to hear about the romantic part, she will, i dare say, show you what touches upon the rocks, &c. "christabel--i won't have any one sneer at christabel: it is a fine wild poem. "madame de staël wishes to see the antiquary, and i am going to take it to her to-morrow. she has made copet as agreeable as society and talent can make any place on earth. yours ever, "n." * * * * * from the journal mentioned in the foregoing letter, i am enabled to give the following extracts:-- extracts from a journal. "september . . "yesterday, september th, i set out with mr. hobhouse on an excursion of some days to the mountains. "september . "rose at five; left diodati about seven, in one of the country carriages (a char-à-banc), our servants on horseback. weather very fine; the lake calm and clear; mont blanc and the aiguille of argentières both very distinct; the borders of the lake beautiful. reached lausanne before sunset; stopped and slept at ----. went to bed at nine: slept till five o'clock. "september . "called by my courier; got up. hobhouse walked on before. a mile from lausanne, the road overflowed by the lake; got on horseback and rode till within a mile of vevay. the colt young, but went very well. overtook hobhouse, and resumed the carriage, which is an open one. stopped at vevay two hours (the second time i had visited it); walked to the church; view from the churchyard superb; within it general ludlow (the regicide's) monument--black marble--long inscription--latin, but simple; he was an exile two-and-thirty-years--one of king charles's judges. near him broughton (who read king charles's sentence to charles stuart) is buried, with a queer and rather canting, but still a republican, inscription. ludlow's house shown; it retains still its inscription--'omne solum forti patria.' walked down to the lake side; servants, carriage, saddle-horses--all set off and left us _plantés là_, by some mistake, and we walked on after them towards clarens: hobhouse ran on before, and overtook them at last. arrived the second time (first time was by water) at clarens. went to chillon through scenery worthy of i know not whom; went over the castle of chillon again. on our return met an english party in a carriage; a lady in it fast asleep--fast asleep in the most anti-narcotic spot in the world--excellent! i remember, at chamouni, in the very eyes of mont blanc, hearing another woman, english also, exclaim to her party, 'did you ever see any thing more _rural_?'--as if it was highgate, or hampstead, or brompton, or hayes,--'rural!' quotha.--rocks, pines, torrents, glaciers, clouds, and summits of eternal snow far above them--and 'rural!' "after a slight and short dinner we visited the chateau de clarens; an english woman has rented it recently (it was not let when i saw it first); the roses are gone with their summer; the family out, but the servants desired us to walk over the interior of the mansion. saw on the table of the saloon blair's sermons and somebody else's (i forget who's) sermons, and a set of noisy children. saw all worth seeing, and then descended to the 'bosquet de julie,' &c. &c.; our guide full of rousseau, whom he is eternally confounding with st. preux, and mixing the man and the book. went again as far as chillon to revisit the little torrent from the hill behind it. sunset reflected in the lake. have to get up at five to-morrow to cross the mountains on horseback; carriage to be sent round; lodged at my old cottage--hospitable and comfortable; tired with a longish ride on the colt, and the subsequent jolting of the char-à-banc, and my scramble in the hot sun. "mem. the corporal who showed the wonders of chillon was as drunk as blucher, and (to my mind) as great a man; he was deaf also, and thinking every one else so, roared out the legends of the castle so fearfully that h. got out of humour. however, we saw things from the gallows to the dungeons (the _potence_ and the _cachots_), and returned to clarens with more freedom than belonged to the fifteenth century. "september . "rose at five. crossed the mountains to montbovon on horseback, and on mules, and, by dint of scrambling, on foot also; the whole route beautiful as a dream, and now to me almost as indistinct. i am so tired;--for though healthy, i have not the strength i possessed but a few years ago. at montbovon we breakfasted; afterwards, on a steep ascent dismounted; tumbled down; cut a finger open; the baggage also got loose and fell down a ravine, till stopped by a large tree; recovered baggage; horse tired and drooping; mounted mule. at the approach of the summit of dent jument[ ] dismounted again with hobhouse and all the party. arrived at a lake in the very bosom of the mountains; left our quadrupeds with a shepherd, and ascended farther; came to some snow in patches, upon which my forehead's perspiration fell like rain, making the same dints as in a sieve; the chill of the wind and the snow turned me giddy, but i scrambled on and upwards. hobhouse went to the highest pinnacle; i did not, but paused within a few yards (at an opening of the cliff). in coming down, the guide tumbled three times; i fell a laughing, and tumbled too--the descent luckily soft, though steep and slippery: hobhouse also fell, but nobody hurt. the whole of the mountains superb. a shepherd on a very steep and high cliff playing upon his _pipe_; very different from _arcadia_, where i saw the pastors with a long musket instead of a crook, and pistols in their girdles. our swiss shepherd's pipe was sweet, and his tune agreeable. i saw a cow strayed; am told that they often break their necks on and over the crags. descended to montbovon; pretty scraggy village, with a wild river and a wooden bridge. hobhouse went to fish--caught one. our carriage not come; our horses, mules, &c. knocked up; ourselves fatigued; but so much the better--i shall sleep. "the view from the highest points of to-day's journey comprised on one side the greatest part of lake leman; on the other, the valleys and mountain of the canton of fribourg, and an immense plain, with the lakes of neuchâtel and morat, and all which the borders of the lake of geneva inherit; we had both sides of the jura before us in one point of view, with alps in plenty. in passing a ravine, the guide recommended strenuously a quickening of pace, as the stones fall with great rapidity and occasional damage; the advice is excellent, but, like most good advice, impracticable, the road being so rough that neither mules, nor mankind, nor horses, can make any violent progress. passed without fractures or menace thereof. "the music of the cow's bells (for their wealth, like the patriarchs', is cattle) in the pastures, which reach to a height far above any mountains in britain, and the shepherds shouting to us from crag to crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps appeared almost inaccessible, with the surrounding scenery, realised all that i have ever heard or imagined of a pastoral existence:--much more so than greece or asia minor, for there we are a little too much of the sabre and musket order, and if there is a crook in one hand, you are sure to see a gun in the other:--but this was pure and unmixed--solitary, savage, and patriarchal. as we went, they played the 'rans des vaches' and other airs, by way of farewell. i have lately repeopled my mind with nature. [footnote : dent de jaman.] "september . up at six; off at eight. the whole of this day's journey at an average of between from to feet above the level of the sea. this valley, the longest, narrowest, and considered the finest of the alps, little traversed by travellers. saw the bridge of la roche. the bed of the river very low and deep, between immense rocks, and rapid as anger;--a man and mule said to have tumbled over without damage. the people looked free, and happy, and _rich_ (which last implies neither of the former); the cows superb; a bull nearly leapt into the char-à-banc--'agreeable companion in a post-chaise;' goats and sheep very thriving. a mountain with enormous glaciers to the right--the klitzgerberg; further on, the hockthorn--nice names--so soft!--_stockhorn_, i believe, very lofty and scraggy, patched with snow only; no glaciers on it, but some good epaulettes of clouds. "passed the boundaries, out of vaud and into berne canton; french exchanged for bad german; the district famous for cheese, liberty, property, and no taxes. hobhouse went to fish--caught none. strolled to the river; saw boy and kid; kid followed him like a dog; kid could not get over a fence, and bleated piteously; tried myself to help kid, but nearly overset both self and kid into the river. arrived here about six in the evening. nine o'clock--going to bed; not tired to day, but hope to sleep, nevertheless. "september . "off early. the valley of simmenthal as before. entrance to the plain of thoun very narrow; high rocks, wooded to the top; river; new mountains, with fine glaciers. lake of thoun; extensive plain with a girdle of alps. walked down to the chateau de schadau; view along the lake; crossed the river in a boat rowed by women. thoun a very pretty town. the whole day's journey alpine and proud. "september . "left thoun in a boat, which carried us the length of the lake in three hours. the lake small; but the banks fine. rocks down to the water's edge. landed at newhause; passed interlachen; entered upon a range of scenes beyond all description or previous conception. passed a rock; inscription--two brothers--one murdered the other; just the place for it. after a variety of windings came to an enormous rock. arrived at the foot of the mountain (the jungfrau, that is, the maiden); glaciers; torrents; one of these torrents _nine hundred feet_ in height of visible descent. lodged at the curate's. set out to see the valley; heard an avalanche fall, like thunder; glaciers enormous; storm came on, thunder, lightning, hail; all in perfection, and beautiful. i was on horseback; guide wanted to carry my cane; i was going to give it him, when i recollected that it was a sword-stick, and i thought the lightning might be attracted towards him; kept it myself; a good deal encumbered with it, as it was too heavy for a whip, and the horse was stupid, and stood with every other peal. got in, not very wet, the cloak being stanch. hobhouse wet through; hobhouse took refuge in cottage; sent man, umbrella, and cloak (from the curate's when i arrived) after him. swiss curate's house very good indeed--much better than most english vicarages. it is immediately opposite the torrent i spoke of. the torrent is in shape curving over the rock, like the _tail_ of a white horse streaming in the wind, such as it might be conceived would be that of the 'pale horse' on which death is mounted in the apocalypse.[ ] it is neither mist nor water, but a something between both; its immense height (nine hundred feet) gives it a wave or curve, a spreading here or condensation there, wonderful and indescribable. i think, upon the whole, that this day has been better than any of this present excursion. [footnote : it is interesting to observe the use to which he afterwards converted these hasty memorandums in his sublime drama of manfred. "it is not noon--the sunbow's rays still arch the torrent with the many hues of heaven, and roll the sheeted silver's waving column o'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, and fling its lines of foaming light along, _and to and fro, like the pale coursers tail, the giant steed, to be bestrode by death as told in the apocalypse._" ] "september . "before ascending the mountain, went to the torrent (seven in the morning) again; the sun upon it, forming a _rainbow_ of the lower part of all colours, but principally purple and gold; the bow moving as you move; i never saw any thing like this; it is only in the sunshine. ascended the wengen mountain; at noon reached a valley on the summit; left the horses, took off my coat, and went to the summit, seven thousand feet (english feet) above the level of the _sea_, and about five thousand above the valley we left in the morning. on one side, our view comprised the jungfrau, with all her glaciers; then the dent d'argent, shining like truth; then the little giant (the kleine eigher); and the great giant (the grosse eigher), and last, not least, the wetterhorn. the height of jungfrau is , feet above the sea, , above the valley; she is the highest of this range. heard the avalanches falling every five minutes nearly. from whence we stood, on the wengen alp, we had all these in view on one side; on the other, the clouds rose from the opposite valley, curling up perpendicular precipices like the foam of the ocean of hell, during a spring tide--it was white, and sulphury, and immeasurably deep in appearance.[ ] the side we ascended was (of course) not of so precipitous a nature; but on arriving at the summit, we looked down upon the other side upon a boiling sea of cloud, dashing against the crags on which we stood (these crags on one side quite perpendicular). stayed a quarter of an hour; begun to descend; quite clear from cloud on that side of the mountain. in passing the masses of snow, i made a snowball and pelted hobhouse with it. "got down to our horses again; ate something; remounted; heard the avalanches still; came to a morass; hobhouse dismounted to get over well; i tried to pass my horse over; the horse sunk up to the chin, and of course he and i were in the mud together; bemired, but not hurt; laughed, and rode on. arrived at the grindelwald; dined; mounted again, and rode to the higher glacier--like _a frozen hurricane_.[ ] starlight, beautiful, but a devil of a path! never mind, got safe in; a little lightning; but the whole of the day as fine in point of weather as the day on which paradise was made. passed _whole woods of withered pines, all withered_; trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless; done by a single winter[ ],--their appearance reminded me of me and my family. [footnote : "ye _avalanches_, whom a breath draws down in mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me! _i hear ye momently above, beneath, crash with a frequent conflict._ * * * the mists boil up around the glaciers; _clouds rise curling_ fast beneath me, white and sulphury, _like foam from the roused ocean of deep hell!_" manfred. ] [footnote : "o'er the savage sea, the glassy ocean of the mountain ice, we skim its rugged breakers, which put on the aspect of a tumbling _tempest_'s foam, _frozen in a moment._" manfred. ] [footnote : "like these _blasted pines, wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless._" ibid. ] "september . "set off at seven; up at five. passed the black glacier, the mountain wetterhorn on the right; crossed the scheideck mountain; came to the _rose_ glacier, said to be the largest and finest in switzerland, _i_ think the bossons glacier at chamouni as fine; hobhouse does not. came to the reichenbach waterfall, two hundred feet high; halted to rest the horses. arrived in the valley of overland; rain came on; drenched a little; only four hours' rain, however, in eight days. came to the lake of brientz, then to the town of brientz; changed. in the evening, four swiss peasant girls of oberhasli came and sang the airs of their country; two of the voices beautiful--the tunes also: so wild and original, and at the same time of great sweetness. the singing is over; but below stairs i hear the notes of a fiddle, which bode no good to my night's rest; i shall go down and see the dancing. "september . "the whole town of brientz were apparently gathered together in the rooms below; pretty music and excellent waltzing; none but peasants; the dancing much better than in england; the english can't waltz, never could, never will. one man with his pipe in his mouth, but danced as well as the others; some other dances in pairs and in fours, and very good. i went to bed, but the revelry continued below late and early. brientz but a village. rose early. embarked on the lake of brientz, rowed by the women in a long boat; presently we put to shore, and another woman jumped in. it seems it is the custom here for the boats to be _manned_ by _women_: for of five men and three women in our bark, all the women took an oar, and but one man. "got to interlachen in three hours; pretty lake; not so large as that of thoun. dined at interlachen. girl gave me some flowers, and made me a speech in german, of which i know nothing; i do not know whether the speech was pretty, but as the woman was, i hope so. re-embarked on the lake of thoun; fell asleep part of the way; sent our horses round; found people on the shore, blowing up a rock with gunpowder; they blew it up near our boat, only telling us a minute before;--mere stupidity, but they might have broken our noddles. got to thoun in the evening; the weather has been tolerable the whole day. but as the wild part of our tour is finished, it don't matter to us; in all the desirable part, we have been most lucky in warmth and clearness of atmosphere. "september . "being out of the mountains, my journal must be as flat as my journey. from thoun to berne, good road, hedges, villages, industry, property, and all sorts of tokens of insipid civilisation. from berne to fribourg; different canton; catholics; passed a field of battle; swiss beat the french in one of the late wars against the french republic. bought a dog. the greater part of this tour has been on horseback, on foot, and on mule. "september . "saw the tree planted in honour of the battle of morat; three hundred and forty years old; a good deal decayed. left fribourg, but first saw the cathedral; high tower. overtook the baggage of the nuns of la trappe, who are removing to normandy; afterwards a coach, with a quantity of nuns in it. proceeded along the banks of the lake of neuchâtel; very pleasing and soft, but not so mountainous--at least, the jura, not appearing so, after the bernese alps. reached yverdun in the dusk; a long line of large trees on the border of the lake; fine and sombre; the auberge nearly full--a german princess and suite; got rooms. "september . "passed through a fine and flourishing country, but not mountainous. in the evening reached aubonne (the entrance and bridge something like that of durham), which commands by far the fairest view of the lake of geneva; twilight; the moon on the lake; a grove on the height, and of very noble trees. here tavernier (the eastern traveller) bought (or built) the château, because the site resembled and equalled that of _erivan_, a frontier city of persia; here he finished his voyages, and i this little excursion,--for i am within a few hours of diodati, and have little more to see, and no more to say." with the following melancholy passage this journal concludes:-- "in the weather for this tour (of days), i have been very fortunate--fortunate in a companion (mr. h.)--fortunate in our prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays which often render journeys in a less wild country disappointing. i was disposed to be pleased. i am a lover of nature and an admirer of beauty. i can bear fatigue and welcome privation, and have seen some of the noblest views in the world. but in all this--the recollection of bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, and beneath me." * * * * * among the inmates at sécheron, on his arrival at geneva, lord byron had found mr. and mrs. shelley, and a female relative of the latter, who had about a fortnight before taken up their residence at this hotel. it was the first time that lord byron and mr. shelley ever met; though, long before, when the latter was quite a youth,--being the younger of the two by four or five years,--he had sent to the noble poet a copy of his queen mab, accompanied by a letter, in which, after detailing at full length all the accusations he had heard brought against his character, he added, that, should these charges not have been true, it would make him happy to be honoured with his acquaintance. the book alone, it appears, reached its destination,--the letter having miscarried,--and lord byron was known to have expressed warm admiration of the opening lines of the poem. there was, therefore, on their present meeting at geneva, no want of disposition towards acquaintance on either side, and an intimacy almost immediately sprung up between them. among the tastes common to both, that for boating was not the least strong; and in this beautiful region they had more than ordinary temptations to indulge in it. every evening, during their residence under the same roof at sécheron, they embarked, accompanied by the ladies and polidori, on the lake; and to the feelings and fancies inspired by these excursions, which were not unfrequently prolonged into the hours of moonlight, we are indebted for some of those enchanting stanzas[ ] in which the poet has given way to his passionate love of nature so fervidly. "there breathes a living fragrance from the shore of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear drips the light drop of the suspended oar. * * * * * at intervals, some bird from out the brakes starts into voice a moment, then is still. there seems a floating whisper on the hill, but that is fancy,--for the starlight dews all silently their tears of love instil, weeping themselves away." a person who was of these parties has thus described to me one of their evenings:--"when the _bise_ or north-east wind blows, the waters of the lake are driven towards the town, and with the stream of the rhone, which sets strongly in the same direction, combine to make a very rapid current towards the harbour. carelessly, one evening, we had yielded to its course, till we found ourselves almost driven on the piles; and it required all our rowers' strength to master the tide. the waves were high and inspiriting--we were all animated by our contest with the elements. 'i will sing you an albanian song,' cried lord byron; 'now, be sentimental and give me all your attention.' it was a strange, wild howl that he gave forth; but such as, he declared, was an exact imitation of the savage albanian mode,--laughing, the while, at our disappointment, who had expected a wild eastern melody." sometimes the party landed, for a walk upon the shore, and, on such occasions, lord byron would loiter behind the rest, lazily trailing his sword-stick along, and moulding, as he went, his thronging thoughts into shape. often too, when in the boat, he would lean abstractedly over the side, and surrender himself up, in silence, to the same absorbing task. the conversation of mr. shelley, from the extent of his poetic reading, and the strange, mystic speculations into which his system of philosophy led him, was of a nature strongly to arrest and interest the attention of lord byron, and to turn him away from worldly associations and topics into more abstract and untrodden ways of thought. as far as contrast, indeed, is an enlivening ingredient of such intercourse, it would be difficult to find two persons more formed to whet each other's faculties by discussion, as on few points of common interest between them did their opinions agree; and that this difference had its root deep in the conformation of their respective minds needs but a glance through the rich, glittering labyrinth of mr. shelley's pages to assure us. in lord byron, the real was never forgotten in the fanciful. however imagination had placed her whole realm at his disposal, he was no less a man of this world than a ruler of hers; and, accordingly, through the airiest and most subtile creations of his brain still the life-blood of truth and reality circulates. with shelley it was far otherwise;--his fancy (and he had sufficient for a whole generation of poets) was the medium through which he saw all things, his facts as well as his theories; and not only the greater part of his poetry, but the political and philosophical speculations in which he indulged, were all distilled through the same over-refining and unrealising alembic. having started as a teacher and reformer of the world, at an age when he could know nothing of the world but from fancy, the persecution he met with on the threshold of this boyish enterprise but confirmed him in his first paradoxical views of human ills and their remedies; and, instead of waiting to take lessons of authority and experience, he, with a courage, admirable had it been but wisely directed, made war upon both. from this sort of self-willed start in the world, an impulse was at once given to his opinions and powers directly contrary, it would seem, to their natural bias, and from which his life was too short to allow him time to recover. with a mind, by nature, fervidly pious, he yet refused to acknowledge a supreme providence, and substituted some airy abstraction of "universal love" in its place. an aristocrat by birth and, as i understand, also in appearance and manners, he was yet a leveller in politics, and to such an utopian extent as to be, seriously, the advocate of a community of property. with a delicacy and even romance of sentiment, which lends such grace to some of his lesser poems, he could notwithstanding contemplate a change in the relations of the sexes, which would have led to results fully as gross as his arguments for it were fastidious and refined; and though benevolent and generous to an extent that seemed to exclude all idea of selfishness, he yet scrupled not, in the pride of system, to disturb wantonly the faith of his fellowmen, and, without substituting any equivalent good in its place, to rob the wretched of a hope, which, even if false, would be worth all this world's best truths. upon no point were the opposite tendencies of the two friends,--to long-established opinions and matter of fact on one side, and to all that was most innovating and visionary on the other,--more observable than in their notions on philosophical subjects; lord byron being, with the great bulk of mankind, a believer in the existence of matter and evil, while shelley so far refined upon the theory of berkeley as not only to resolve the whole of creation into spirit, but to add also to this immaterial system some pervading principle, some abstract non-entity of love and beauty, of which--as a substitute, at least, for deity--the philosophic bishop had never dreamed. on such subjects, and on poetry, their conversation generally turned; and, as might be expected, from lord byron's facility in receiving new impressions, the opinions of his companion were not altogether without some influence on his mind. here and there, among those fine bursts of passion and description that abound in the third canto of childe harold, may be discovered traces of that mysticism of meaning,--that sublimity, losing itself in its own vagueness,--which so much characterised the writings of his extraordinary friend; and in one of the notes we find shelley's favourite pantheism of love thus glanced at:--"but this is not all: the feeling with which all around clarens and the opposite rocks of meillerie is invested, is of a still higher and more comprehensive order than the mere sympathy with individual passion; it is a sense of the existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own participation of its good and of its glory: it is the great principle of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less manifested; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole." another proof of the ductility with which he fell into his new friend's tastes and predilections, appears in the tinge, if not something deeper, of the manner and cast of thinking of mr. wordsworth, which is traceable through so many of his most beautiful stanzas. being naturally, from his love of the abstract and imaginative, an admirer of the great poet of the lakes, mr. shelley omitted no opportunity of bringing the beauties of his favourite writer under the notice of lord byron; and it is not surprising that, once persuaded into a fair perusal, the mind of the noble poet should--in spite of some personal and political prejudices which unluckily survived this short access of admiration--not only feel the influence but, in some degree, even reflect the hues of one of the very few real and original poets that this age (fertile as it is in rhymers _quales ego et cluvienus_) has had the glory of producing. when polidori was of their party, (which, till he found attractions elsewhere, was generally the case,) their more elevated subjects of conversation were almost always put to flight by the strange sallies of this eccentric young man, whose vanity made him a constant butt for lord byron's sarcasm and merriment. the son of a highly respectable italian gentleman, who was in early life, i understand, the secretary of alfieri, polidori seems to have possessed both talents and dispositions which, had he lived, might have rendered him a useful member of his profession and of society. at the time, however, of which we are speaking, his ambition of distinction far outwent both his powers and opportunities of attaining it. his mind, accordingly, between ardour and weakness, was kept in a constant hectic of vanity, and he seems to have alternately provoked and amused his noble employer, leaving him seldom any escape from anger but in laughter. among other pretensions, he had set his heart upon shining as an author, and one evening at mr. shelley's, producing a tragedy of his own writing, insisted that they should undergo the operation of hearing it. to lighten the infliction, lord byron took upon himself the task of reader; and the whole scene, from the description i have heard of it, must have been not a little trying to gravity. in spite of the jealous watch kept upon every countenance by the author, it was impossible to withstand the smile lurking in the eye of the reader, whose only resource against the outbreak of his own laughter lay in lauding, from time to time, most vehemently, the sublimity of the verses;--particularly some that began "'tis thus the goîter'd idiot of the alps,'--and then adding, at the close of every such eulogy, "i assure you when i was in the drury lane committee, much worse things were offered to us." after passing a fortnight under the same roof with lord byron at sécheron, mr. and mrs. shelley removed to a small house on the mont-blanc side of the lake, within about ten minutes' walk of the villa which their noble friend had taken, upon the high banks, called belle rive, that rose immediately behind them. during the fortnight that lord byron outstaid them at sécheron, though the weather had changed and was become windy and cloudy, he every evening crossed the lake, with polidori, to visit them; and "as he returned again (says my informant) over the darkened waters, the wind, from far across, bore us his voice singing your tyrolese song of liberty, which i then first heard, and which is to me inextricably linked with his remembrance." in the mean time, polidori had become jealous of the growing intimacy of his noble patron with shelley; and the plan which he now understood them to have formed of making a tour of the lake without him completed his mortification. in the soreness of his feelings on this subject he indulged in some intemperate remonstrances, which lord byron indignantly resented; and the usual bounds of courtesy being passed on both sides, the dismissal of polidori appeared, even to himself, inevitable. with this prospect, which he considered nothing less than ruin, before his eyes, the poor young man was, it seems, on the point of committing that fatal act which, two or three years afterwards, he actually did perpetrate. retiring to his own room, he had already drawn forth the poison from his medicine chest, and was pausing to consider whether he should write a letter before he took it, when lord byron (without, however, the least suspicion of his intention) tapped at the door and entered, with his hand held forth in sign of reconciliation. the sudden revulsion was too much for poor polidori, who burst into tears; and, in relating all the circumstances of the occurrence afterwards, he declared that nothing could exceed the gentle kindness of lord byron in soothing his mind and restoring him to composure. soon after this the noble poet removed to diodati. he had, on his first coming to geneva, with the good-natured view of introducing polidori into company, gone to several genevese parties; but, this task performed, he retired altogether from society till late in the summer, when, as we have seen, he visited copet. his means were at this time very limited; and though he lived by no means parsimoniously, all unnecessary expenses were avoided in his establishment. the young physician had been, at first, a source of much expense to him, being in the habit of hiring a carriage, at a louis a day (lord byron not then keeping horses), to take him to his evening parties; and it was some time before his noble patron had the courage to put this luxury down. the liberty, indeed, which this young person allowed himself was, on one occasion, the means of bringing an imputation upon the poet's hospitality and good breeding, which, like every thing else, true or false, tending to cast a shade upon his character, was for some time circulated with the most industrious zeal. without any authority from the noble owner of the mansion, he took upon himself to invite some genevese gentlemen (m. pictet, and, i believe, m. bonstetten) to dine at diodati; and the punishment which lord byron thought it right to inflict upon him for such freedom was, "as he had invited the guests, to leave him also to entertain them." this step, though merely a consequence of the physician's indiscretion, it was not difficult, of course, to convert into a serious charge of caprice and rudeness against the host himself. by such repeated instances of thoughtlessness (to use no harsher term), it is not wonderful that lord byron should at last be driven into a feeling of distaste towards his medical companion, of whom he one day remarked, that "he was exactly the kind of person to whom, if he fell overboard, one would hold out a straw, to know if the adage be true that drowning men catch at straws." a few more anecdotes of this young man, while in the service of lord byron, may, as throwing light upon the character of the latter, be not inappropriately introduced. while the whole party were, one day, out boating, polidori, by some accident, in rowing, struck lord byron violently on the knee-pan with his oar; and the latter, without speaking, turned his face away to hide the pain. after a moment he said, "be so kind, polidori, another time, to take more care, for you hurt me very much."--"i am glad of it," answered the other; "i am glad to see you can suffer pain." in a calm suppressed tone, lord byron replied, "let me advise you, polidori, when you, another time, hurt any one, not to express your satisfaction. people don't like to be told that those who give them pain are glad of it; and they cannot always command their anger. it was with some difficulty that i refrained from throwing you into the water; and, but for mrs. shelley's presence, i should probably have done some such rash thing." this was said without ill temper, and the cloud soon passed away. another time, when the lady just mentioned was, after a shower of rain, walking up the hill to diodati, lord byron, who saw her from his balcony where he was standing with polidori, said to the latter, "now, you who wish to be gallant ought to jump down this small height, and offer your arm." polidori chose the easiest part of the declivity, and leaped;--but the ground being wet, his foot slipped, and he sprained his ankle.[ ] lord byron instantly helped to carry him in and procure cold water for the foot; and, after he was laid on the sofa, perceiving that he was uneasy, went up stairs himself (an exertion which his lameness made painful and disagreeable) to fetch a pillow for him. "well, i did not believe you had so much feeling," was polidori's gracious remark, which, it may be supposed, not a little clouded the noble poet's brow. a dialogue which lord byron himself used to mention as having taken place between them during their journey on the rhine, is amusingly characteristic of both the persons concerned. "after all," said the physician, "what is there you can do that i cannot?"--"why, since you force me to say," answered the other, "i think there are three things i can do which you cannot." polidori defied him to name them. "i can," said lord byron, "swim across that river--i can snuff out that candle with a pistol-shot at the distance of twenty paces--and i have written a poem[ ] of which , copies were sold in one day." the jealous pique of the doctor against shelley was constantly breaking out; and on the occasion of some victory which the latter had gained over him in a sailing-match, he took it into his head that his antagonist had treated him with contempt; and went so far, in consequence, notwithstanding shelley's known sentiments against duelling, as to proffer him a sort of challenge, at which shelley, as might be expected, only laughed. lord byron, however, fearing that the vivacious physician might still further take advantage of this peculiarity of his friend, said to him, "recollect, that though shelley has some scruples about duelling, _i_ have none; and shall be, at all times, ready to take his place." at diodati, his life was passed in the same regular round of habits and occupations into which, when left to himself, he always naturally fell; a late breakfast, then a visit to the shelleys' cottage and an excursion on the lake;--at five, dinner[ ] (when he usually preferred being alone), and then, if the weather permitted, an excursion again. he and shelley had joined in purchasing a boat, for which they gave twenty-five _louis_,--a small sailing vessel, fitted to stand the usual squalls of the climate, and, at that time, the only keeled boat on the lake. when the weather did not allow of their excursions after dinner,--an occurrence not unfrequent during this very wet summer,--the inmates of the cottage passed their evenings at diodati, and, when the rain rendered it inconvenient for them to return home, remained there to sleep. "we often," says one, who was not the least ornamental of the party, "sat up in conversation till the morning light. there was never any lack of subjects, and, grave or gay, we were always interested." during a week of rain at this time, having amused themselves with reading german ghost-stories, they agreed, at last, to write something in imitation of them. "you and i," said lord byron to mrs. shelley, "will publish ours together." he then began his tale of the vampire; and, having the whole arranged in his head, repeated to them a sketch of the story[ ] one evening,--but, from the narrative being in prose, made but little progress in filling up his outline. the most memorable result, indeed, of their story-telling compact, was mrs. shelley's wild and powerful romance of frankenstein,--one of those original conceptions that take hold of the public mind at once, and for ever. towards the latter end of june, as we have seen in one of the preceding letters, lord byron, accompanied by his friend shelley, made a tour in his boat round the lake, and visited, "with the heloise before him," all those scenes around meillerie and clarens, which have become consecrated for ever by ideal passion, and by that power which genius alone possesses, of giving such life to its dreams as to make them seem realities. in the squall off meillerie, which he mentions, their danger was considerable[ ]. in the expectation, every moment, of being obliged to swim for his life, lord byron had already thrown off his coat, and, as shelley was no swimmer, insisted upon endeavouring, by some means, to save him. this offer, however, shelley positively refused; and seating himself quietly upon a locker, and grasping the rings at each end firmly in his hands, declared his determination to go down in that position, without a struggle.[ ] subjoined to that interesting little work, the "six weeks' tour," there is a letter by shelley himself, giving an account of this excursion round the lake, and written with all the enthusiasm such scenes should inspire. in describing a beautiful child they saw at the village of nerni, he says, "my companion gave him a piece of money, which he took without speaking, with a sweet smile of easy thankfulness, and then with an unembarrassed air turned to his play." there were, indeed, few things lord byron more delighted in than to watch beautiful children at play;--"many a lovely swiss child (says a person who saw him daily at this time) received crowns from him as the reward of their grace and sweetness." speaking of their lodgings at nerni, which were gloomy and dirty, mr. shelley says, "on returning to our inn, we found that the servant had arranged our rooms, and deprived them of the greater portion of their former disconsolate appearance. they reminded my companion of greece:--it was five years, he said, since he had slept in such beds." luckily for shelley's full enjoyment of these scenes, he had never before happened to read the heloise; and though his companion had long been familiar with that romance, the sight of the region itself, the "birth-place of deep love," every spot of which seemed instinct with the passion of the story, gave to the whole a fresh and actual existence in his mind. both were under the spell of the genius of the place,--both full of emotion; and as they walked silently through the vineyards that were once the "bosquet de julie," lord byron suddenly exclaimed, "thank god, polidori is not here." that the glowing stanzas suggested to him by this scene were written upon the spot itself appears almost certain, from the letter addressed to mr. murray on his way back to diodati, in which he announces the third canto as complete, and consisting of stanzas. at ouchy, near lausanne,--the place from which that letter is dated--he and his friend were detained two days, in a small inn, by the weather: and it was there, in that short interval, that he wrote his "prisoner of chillon," adding one more deathless association to the already immortalised localities of the lake. on his return from this excursion to diodati, an occasion was afforded for the gratification of his jesting propensities by the avowal of the young physician that--he had fallen in love. on the evening of this tender confession they both appeared at shelley's cottage--lord byron, in the highest and most boyish spirits, rubbing his hands as he walked about the room, and in that utter incapacity of retention which was one of his foibles, making jesting allusions to the secret he had just heard. the brow of the doctor darkened as this pleasantry went on, and, at last, he angrily accused lord byron of hardness of heart. "i never," said he, "met with a person so unfeeling." this sally, though the poet had evidently brought it upon himself, annoyed him most deeply. "call _me_ cold-hearted--_me_ insensible!" he exclaimed, with manifest emotion--"as well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has been cast down a precipice, and lies dashed to pieces at the foot!" in the month of july he paid a visit to copet, and was received by the distinguished hostess with a cordiality the more sensibly felt by him as, from his personal unpopularity at this time, he had hardly ventured to count upon it.[ ] in her usual frank style, she took him to task upon his matrimonial conduct--but in a way that won upon his mind, and disposed him to yield to her suggestions. he must endeavour, she told him, to bring about a reconciliation with his wife, and must submit to contend no longer with the opinion of the world. in vain did he quote her own motto to delphine, "un homme peut braver, une femme doit se succomber aux opinions du monde;"--her reply was, that all this might be very well to say, but that, in real life, the duty and necessity of yielding belonged also to the man. her eloquence, in short, so far succeeded, that he was prevailed upon to write a letter to a friend in england, declaring himself still willing to be reconciled to lady byron,--a concession not a little startling to those who had so often, lately, heard him declare that, "having done all in his power to persuade lady byron to return, and with this view put off as long as he could signing the deed of separation, that step being once taken, they were now divided for ever." of the particulars of this brief negotiation that ensued upon madame de staël's suggestion, i have no very accurate remembrance; but there can be little doubt that its failure, after the violence he had done his own pride in the overture, was what first infused any mixture of resentment or bitterness into the feelings hitherto entertained by him throughout these painful differences. he had, indeed, since his arrival in geneva, invariably spoken of his lady with kindness and regret, imputing the course she had taken, in leaving him, not to herself but others, and assigning whatever little share of blame he would allow her to bear in the transaction to the simple and, doubtless, true cause--her not at all understanding him. "i have no doubt," he would sometimes say, "that she really did believe me to be mad." another resolution connected with his matrimonial affairs, in which he often, at this time, professed his fixed intention to persevere, was that of never allowing himself to touch any part of his wife's fortune. such a sacrifice, there is no doubt, would have been, in his situation, delicate and manly; but though the natural bent of his disposition led him to _make_ the resolution, he wanted,--what few, perhaps, could have attained,--the fortitude to _keep_ it. the effects of the late struggle on his mind, in stirring up all its resources and energies, was visible in the great activity of his genius during the whole of this period, and the rich variety, both in character and colouring, of the works with which it teemed. besides the third canto of childe harold and the prisoner of chillon, he produced also his two poems, "darkness" and "the dream," the latter of which cost him many a tear in writing,--being, indeed, the most mournful, as well as picturesque, "story of a wandering life" that ever came from the pen and heart of man. those verses, too, entitled "the incantation," which he introduced afterwards, without any connection with the subject, into manfred, were also (at least, the less bitter portion of them) the production of this period; and as they were written soon after the last fruitless attempt at reconciliation, it is needless to say who was in his thoughts while he penned some of the opening stanzas. "though thy slumber must be deep, yet thy spirit shall not sleep; there are shades which will not vanish, there are thoughts thou canst not banish; by a power to thee unknown, thou canst never be alone; thou art wrapt as with a shroud, thou art gather'd in a cloud; and for ever shalt thou dwell in the spirit of this spell. "though thou see'st me not pass by, thou shalt feel me with thine eye, as a thing that, though unseen, must be near thee, and hath been; and when, in that secret dread, thou hast turn'd around thy head, thou shalt marvel i am not as thy shadow on the spot, and the power which thou dost feel shall be what thou must conceal." besides the unfinished "vampire," he began also, at this time, another romance in prose, founded upon the story of the marriage of belphegor, and intended to shadow out his own matrimonial fate. the wife of this satanic personage he described much in the same spirit that pervades his delineation of donna inez in the first canto of don juan. while engaged, however, in writing this story, he heard from england that lady byron was ill, and, his heart softening at the intelligence, he threw the manuscript into the fire. so constantly were the good and evil principles of his nature conflicting for mastery over him.[ ] the two following poems, so different from each other in their character,--the first prying with an awful scepticism into the darkness of another world, and the second breathing all that is most natural and tender in the affections of this,--were also written at this time, and have never before been published. [footnote : childe harold, canto iii.] [footnote : to this lameness of polidori, one of the preceding letters of lord byron alludes.] [footnote : the corsair.] [footnote : his system of diet here was regulated by an abstinence almost incredible. a thin slice of bread, with tea, at breakfast--a light, vegetable dinner, with a bottle or two of seltzer water, tinged with vin de grave, and in the evening, a cup of green tea, without milk or sugar, formed the whole of his sustenance. the pangs of hunger he appeased by privately chewing tobacco and smoking cigars.] [footnote : from his remembrance of this sketch, polidori afterwards vamped up his strange novel of the vampire, which, under the supposition of its being lord byron's, was received with such enthusiasm in france. it would, indeed, not a little deduct from our value of foreign fame, if what some french writers have asserted be true, that the appearance of this extravagant novel among our neighbours first attracted their attention to the genius of byron.] [footnote : "the wind (says lord byron's fellow-voyager) gradually increased in violence until it blew tremendously; and, as it came from the remotest extremity of the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, and covered the whole surface with a chaos of foam. one of our boatmen, who was a dreadfully stupid fellow, persisted in holding the sail at a time when the boat was on the point of being driven under water by the hurricane. on discovering this error, he let it entirely go, and the boat for a moment refused to obey the helm; in addition, the rudder was so broken as to render the management of it very difficult; one wave fell in, and then another."] [footnote : "i felt, in this near prospect of death (says mr. shelley), a mixture of sensations, among which terror entered, though but subordinately. my feelings would have been less painful had i been alone; but i knew that my companion would have attempted to save me, and i was overcome with humiliation, when i thought that his life might have been risked to preserve mine. when we arrived at st. gingoux, the inhabitants, who stood on the shore, unaccustomed to see a vessel as frail as ours, and fearing to venture at all on such a sea, exchanged looks of wonder and congratulation with our boatmen, who, as well as ourselves, were well pleased to set foot on shore."] [footnote : in the account of this visit to copet in his memoranda, he spoke in high terms of the daughter of his hostess, the present duchess de broglie, and, in noticing how much she appeared to be attached to her husband, remarked that "nothing was more pleasing than to see the developement of the domestic affections in a very young woman." of madame de staël, in that memoir, he spoke thus:--"madame de staël was a good woman at heart and the cleverest at bottom, but spoilt by a wish to be--she knew not what. in her own house she was amiable; in any other person's, you wished her gone, and in her own again."] [footnote : upon the same occasion, indeed, he wrote some verses in a spirit not quite so generous, of which a few of the opening lines is all i shall give:-- "and thou wert sad--yet i was not with thee! and thou wert sick--and yet i was not near. methought that joy and health alone could be where i was _not_, and pain and sorrow here. and is it thus?--it is as i foretold, and shall be more so:--" &c. &c. ] * * * * * "extract from an unpublished poem. "could i remount the river of my years to the first fountain of our smiles and tears, i would not trace again the stream of hours between their outworn banks of wither'd flowers, but bid it flow as now--until it glides into the number of the nameless tides. * * * what is this death?--a quiet of the heart? the whole of that of which we are a part? for life is but a vision--what i see of all which lives alone is life to me, and being so--the absent are the dead, who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread a dreary shroud around us, and invest with sad remembrances our hours of rest. "the absent are the dead--for they are cold, and ne'er can be what once we did behold; and they are changed, and cheerless,--or if yet the unforgotten do not all forget, since thus divided--equal must it be if the deep barrier be of earth, or sea; it may be both--but one day end it must in the dark union of insensate dust. "the under-earth inhabitants--are they but mingled millions decomposed to clay? the ashes of a thousand ages spread wherever man has trodden or shall tread? or do they in their silent cities dwell each in his incommunicative cell? or have they their own language? and a sense of breathless being?--darken'd and intense as midnight in her solitude?--oh earth! where are the past?--and wherefore had they birth? the dead are thy inheritors--and we but bubbles on thy surface; and the key of thy profundity is in the grave, the ebon portal of thy peopled cave, where i would walk in spirit, and behold our elements resolved to things untold, and fathom hidden wonders, and explore the essence of great bosoms now no more." * * * * * * * "to augusta. "my sister! my sweet sister! if a name dearer and purer were, it should be thine. mountains and seas divide us, but i claim no tears, but tenderness to answer mine: go where i will, to me thou art the same-- a loved regret which i would not resign. there yet are two things in my destiny,-- a world to roam through, and a home with thee. "the first were nothing--had i still the last, it were the haven of my happiness; but other claims and other ties thou hast, and mine is not the wish to make them less. a strange doom is thy father's son's, and past recalling, as it lies beyond redress; reversed for him our grandsire's[ ] fate of yore,-- he had no rest at sea, nor i on shore. "if my inheritance of storms hath been in other elements, and on the rocks of perils, overlook'd or unforeseen, i have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks, the fault was mine; nor do i seek to screen my errors with defensive paradox; i have been cunning in mine overthrow, the careful pilot of my proper woe, "mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. my whole life was a contest, since the day that gave me being, gave me that which marr'd the gift,--a fate, or will that walk'd astray; and i at times have found the struggle hard, and thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: but now i fain would for a time survive, if but to see what next can well arrive. "kingdoms and empires in my little day i have outlived, and yet i am not old; and when i look on this, the petty spray of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: something--i know not what--does still uphold a spirit of slight patience; not in vain, even for its own sake, do we purchase pain. "perhaps the workings of defiance stir within me,--or perhaps a cold despair, brought on when ills habitually recur,-- perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air, (for even to this may change of soul refer, and with light armour we may learn to bear,) have taught me a strange quiet, which was not the chief companion of a calmer lot. "i feel almost at times as i have felt in happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, which do remember me of where i dwelt ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, come as of yore upon me, and can melt my heart with recognition of their looks; and even at moments i could think i see some living thing to love--but none like thee. "here are the alpine landscapes which create a fund for contemplation;--to admire is a brief feeling of a trivial date; but something worthier do such scenes inspire: here to be lonely is not desolate, for much i view which i could most desire, and, above all, a lake i can behold lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. "oh that thou wert but with me!--but i grow the fool of my own wishes, and forget the solitude which i have vaunted so has lost its praise in this but one regret; there may be others which i less may show;-- i am not of the plaintive mood, and yet i feel an ebb in my philosophy, and the tide rising in my alter'd eye. "i did remind thee of our own dear lake[ ], by the old hall which may be mine no more. leman's is fair; but think not i forsake the sweet remembrance of a dearer shore: sad havoc time must with my memory make ere _that_ or _thou_ can fade these eyes before; though, like all things which i have loved, they are resign'd for ever, or divided far. "the world is all before me; i but ask of nature that with which she will comply-- it is but in her summer's sun to bask, to mingle with the quiet of her sky, to see her gentle face without a mask, and never gaze on it with apathy. she was my early friend, and now shall be my sister--till i look again on thee. "i can reduce all feelings but this one; and that i would not;--for at length i see such scenes as those wherein my life begun. the earliest--even the only paths for me-- had i but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, i had been better than i now can be; the passions which have torn me would have slept; _i_ had not suffer'd, and _thou_ hadst not wept. "with false ambition what had i to do? little with love, and least of all with fame; and yet they came unsought, and with me grew, and made me all which they can make--a name. yet this was not the end i did pursue; surely i once beheld a nobler aim. but all is over--i am one the more to baffled millions which have gone before. "and for the future, this world's future may from me demand but little of my care; i have outlived myself by many a day; having survived so many things that were; my years have been no slumber, but the prey of ceaseless vigils; for i had the share of life which might have fill'd a century, before its fourth in time had pass'd me by. "and for the remnant which may be to come i am content; and for the past i feel not thankless,--for within the crowded sum of struggles, happiness at times would steal, and for the present, i would not benumb my feelings farther.--nor shall i conceal that with all this i still can look around and worship nature with a thought profound. "for thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart i know myself secure, as thou in mine: we were and are--i am, even as thou art-- beings who ne'er each other can resign; it is the same, together or apart, from life's commencement to its slow decline we are entwined--let death come slow or fast, the tie which bound the first endures the last!" [footnote : "admiral byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without a tempest. he was known to the sailors by the facetious name of 'foul-weather jack.' "but, though it were tempest-tost, still his bark could not be lost. he returned safely from the wreck of the wager (in anson's voyage), and subsequently circumnavigated the world, many years after, as commander of a similar expedition."] [footnote : the lake of newstead abbey.] * * * * * in the month of august, mr. m.g. lewis arrived to pass some time with him; and he was soon after visited by mr. richard sharpe, of whom he makes such honourable mention in the journal already given, and with whom, as i have heard this gentleman say, it now gave him evident pleasure to converse about their common friends in england. among those who appeared to have left the strongest impressions of interest and admiration on his mind was (as easily will be believed by all who know this distinguished person) sir james mackintosh. soon after the arrival of his friends, mr. hobhouse and mr. s. davies, he set out, as we have seen, with the former on a tour through the bernese alps,--after accomplishing which journey, about the beginning of october he took his departure, accompanied by the same gentleman, for italy. the first letter of the following series was, it will be seen, written a few days before he left diodati. letter . to mr. murray. "diodati, oct. . . "save me a copy of 'buck's richard iii.' republished by longman; but do not send out more books, i have too many. "the 'monody' is in too many paragraphs, which makes it unintelligible to me; if any one else understands it in the present form, they are wiser; however, as it cannot be rectified till my return, and has been already published, even publish it on in the collection--it will fill up the place of the omitted epistle. "strike out 'by request of a friend,' which is sad trash, and must have been done to make it ridiculous. "be careful in the printing the stanzas beginning, "'though the day of my destiny,' &c. which i think well of as a composition. "'the antiquary' is not the best of the three, but much above all the last twenty years, saving its elder brothers. holcroft's memoirs are valuable as showing strength of endurance in the man, which is worth more than all the talent in the world. "and so you have been publishing 'margaret of anjou' and an assyrian tale, and refusing w.w.'s waterloo, and the 'hue and cry.' i know not which most to admire, your rejections or acceptances. i believe that _prose_ is, after all, the most reputable, for certes, if one could foresee--but i won't go on--that is with this sentence; but poetry is, i fear, incurable. god help me! if i proceed in this scribbling, i shall have frittered away my mind before i am thirty, but it is at times a real relief to me. for the present--good evening." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "martigny, october . . "thus far on my way to italy. we have just passed the 'fisse-vache' (one of the first torrents in switzerland) in time to view the iris which the sun flings along it before noon. "i have written to you twice lately. mr. davies, i hear, is arrived. he brings the original ms. which you wished to see. recollect that the printing is to be from that which mr. shelley brought; and recollect, also, that the concluding stanzas of childe harold (those to my _daughter_) which i had not made up my mind whether to publish or not when they were _first_ written (as you will see marked on the margin of the first copy), i had (and have) fully determined to publish with the rest of the canto, as in the copy which you received by mr. shelley, before i sent it to england. "our weather is very fine, which is more than the summer has been.--at milan i shall expect to hear from you. address either to milan, _poste restante_, or by way of geneva, to the care of monsr. hentsch, banquier. i write these few lines in case my other letter should not reach you: i trust one of them will. "p.s. my best respects and regards to mr. gifford. will you tell him it may perhaps be as well to put a short note to that part relating to _clarens_, merely to say, that of course the description does not refer to that particular spot so much as to the command of scenery round it? i do not know that this is necessary, and leave it to mr. g.'s choice, as my editor,--if he will allow me to call him so at this distance." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "milan, october . . "i hear that mr. davies has arrived in england,--but that of some letters, &c., committed to his care by mr. h., only _half_ have been delivered. this intelligence naturally makes me feel a little anxious for mine, and amongst them for the ms., which i wished to have compared with the one sent by me through the hands of mr. shelley. i trust that _it_ has arrived safely,--and indeed not less so, that some little crystals, &c., from mont blanc, for my daughter and my nieces, have reached their address. pray have the goodness to ascertain from mr. davies that no accident (by custom-house or loss) has befallen them, and satisfy me on this point at your earliest convenience. "if i recollect rightly, you told me that mr. gifford had kindly undertaken to correct the press (at my request) during my absence--at least i hope so. it will add to my many obligations to that gentleman. "i wrote to you, on my way here, a short note, dated martigny. mr. hobhouse and myself arrived here a few days ago, by the simplon and lago maggiore route. of course we visited the borromean islands, which are fine, but too artificial. the simplon is magnificent in its nature and its art,--both god and man have done wonders,--to say nothing of the devil who must certainly have had a hand (or a hoof) in some of the rocks and ravines through and over which the works are carried. "milan is striking--the cathedral superb. the city altogether reminds me of seville, but a little inferior. we had heard divers bruits, and took precautions on the road, near the frontier, against some 'many worthy fellows (i.e. felons) that were out,' and had ransacked some preceding travellers, a few weeks ago, near sesto,--or _c_esto, i forget which,--of cash and raiment, besides putting them in bodily fear, and lodging about twenty slugs in the retreating part of a courier belonging to mr. hope. but we were not molested, and i do not think in any danger, except of making mistakes in the way of cocking and priming whenever we saw an old house, or an ill-looking thicket, and now and then suspecting the 'true men,' who have very much the appearance of the thieves of other countries. what the thieves may look like, i know not, nor desire to know, for it seems they come upon you in bodies of thirty ('in buckram and kendal green') at a time, so that voyagers have no great chance. it is something like poor dear turkey in that respect, but not so good, for there you can have as great a body of rogues to match the regular banditti; but here the gens d'armes are said to be no great things, and as for one's own people, one can't carry them about like robinson crusoe with a gun on each shoulder. "i have been to the ambrosian library--it is a fine collection--full of mss. edited and unedited. i enclose you a list of the former recently published: these are matters for your literati. for me, in my simple way, i have been most delighted with a correspondence of letters, all original and amatory, between _lucretia borgia_ and _cardinal bembo_, preserved there. i have pored over them and a lock of her hair, the prettiest and fairest imaginable--i never saw fairer--and shall go repeatedly to read the epistles over and over; and if i can obtain some of the hair by fair means, i shall try. i have already persuaded the librarian to promise me copies of the letters, and i hope he will not disappoint me. they are short, but very simple, sweet, and to the purpose; there are some copies of verses in spanish also by her; the tress of her hair is long, and, as i said before, beautiful. the brera gallery of paintings has some fine pictures, but nothing of a collection. of painting i know nothing; but i like a guercino--a picture of abraham putting away hagar and ishmael--which seems to me natural and goodly. the flemish school, such as i saw it in flanders, i utterly detested, despised, and abhorred; it might be painting, but it was not nature; the italian is pleasing, and their _ideal_ very noble. "the italians i have encountered here are very intelligent and agreeable. in a few days i am to meet monti. by the way, i have just heard an anecdote of beccaria, who published such admirable things against the punishment of death. as soon as his book was out, his servant (having read it, i presume) stole his watch; and his master, while correcting the press of a second edition, did all he could to have him hanged by way of advertisement. "i forgot to mention the triumphal arch begun by napoleon, as a gate to this city. it is unfinished, but the part completed worthy of another age and the same country. the society here is very oddly carried on,--at the theatre, and the theatre only,--which answers to our opera. people meet there as at a rout, but in very small circles. from milan i shall go to venice. if you write, write to geneva, as before--the letter will be forwarded. "yours ever." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "milan, november . . "i have recently written to you rather frequently but without any late answer. mr. hobhouse and myself set out for venice in a few days; but you had better still address to me at mr. hentsch's, banquier, geneva; he will forward your letters. "i do not know whether i mentioned to you some time ago, that i had parted with the dr. polidori a few weeks previous to my leaving diodati. i know no great harm of him; but he had an alacrity of getting into scrapes, and was too young and heedless; and having enough to attend to in my own concerns, and without time to become his tutor, i thought it much better to give him his congé. he arrived at milan some weeks before mr. hobhouse and myself. about a week ago, in consequence of a quarrel at the theatre with an austrian officer, in which he was exceedingly in the wrong, he has contrived to get sent out of the territory, and is gone to florence. i was not present, the pit having been the scene of altercation; but on being sent for from the cavalier breme's box, where i was quietly staring at the ballet, i found the man of medicine begirt with grenadiers, arrested by the guard, conveyed into the guard-room, where there was much swearing in several languages. they were going to keep him there for the night; but on my giving my name, and answering for his apparition next morning, he was permitted egress. next day he had an order from the government to be gone in twenty-four hours, and accordingly gone he is, some days ago. we did what we could for him, but to no purpose; and indeed he brought it upon himself, as far as i could learn, for i was not present at the squabble itself. i believe this is the real state of his case; and i tell it you because i believe things sometimes reach you in england in a false or exaggerated form. we found milan very polite and hospitable[ ], and have the same hopes of verona and venice. i have filled my paper. "ever yours," &c. [footnote : with milan, however, or its society, the noble traveller was far from being pleased, and in his memoranda, i recollect, he described his stay there to be "like a ship under quarantine." among other persons whom he met in the society of that place was m. beyle, the ingenious author of "l'histoire de la peinture en italie," who thus describes the impression their first interview left upon him:-- "ce fut pendant l'automne de , que je le rencontrai au théâtre de la _scala_, à milan, dans la loge de m. louis de brême. je fus frappé des yeux de lord byron au moment où il écoutait un sestetto d'un opéra de mayer intitulé elena. je n'ai vu de ma vie, rien de plus beau ni de plus expressif. encore aujourd'hui, si je viens à penser à l'expression qu'un grand peintre devrait donner an génie, cette tête sublime reparaît tout-à-coup devant moi. j'eus un instant d'enthousiasme, et oubliant la juste répugnance que tout homme un peu fier doit avoir à se faire présenter à un pair d'angleterre, je priai m. de brême de m'introduire à lord byron, je me trouvai le lendemain à dîner chez m. de brême, avec lui, et le celèbre monti, l'immortel auteur de la _basvigliana_. on parla poésie, on en vint à demander quels étaient les douze plus beaux vers faits depuis un siècle, en français, en italien, en anglais. les italiens présens s'accordèrent à designer les douze premiers vers de la _mascheroniana_ de monti, comme ce que l'on avait fait de plus beau dans leur langue, depuis cent ans. _monti_ voulut bien nous les réciter. je regardai lord byron, il fut ravi. la nuance de hauteur, ou plutôt l'air d'un homme _qui se trouve avoir à repousser une importunité_, qui déparait un peu sa belle figure, disparut tout-à-coup pour faire à l'expression du bonheur. le premier chant de la _mascheroniana_, que monti récita presque en entier, vaincu par les acclamations des auditeurs, causa la plus vive sensation à l'auteur de childe harold. je n'oublierai jamais l'expression divine de ses traits; c'était l'air serein de la puissance et du génie, et suivant moi, lord byron n'avait, en ce moment, aucune affectation à se reprocher."] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "verona, november . . "my dear moore, "your letter, written before my departure from england, and addressed to me in london, only reached me recently. since that period, i have been over a portion of that part of europe which i had not already seen. about a month since, i crossed the alps from switzerland to milan, which i left a few days ago, and am thus far on my way to venice, where i shall probably winter. yesterday i was on the shores of the benacus, with his _fluctibus et fremitu_. catullus's sirmium has still its name and site, and is remembered for his sake: but the very heavy autumnal rains and mists prevented our quitting our route, (that is, hobhouse and myself, who are at present voyaging together,) as it was better not to see it at all than to a great disadvantage. "i found on the benacus the same tradition of a city, still visible in calm weather below the waters, which you have preserved of lough neagh, 'when the clear, cold eve's declining.' i do not know that it is authorised by records; but they tell you such a story, and say that the city was swallowed up by an earthquake. we moved to-day over the frontier to verona, by a road suspected of thieves,--'the wise _convey_ it call,'--but without molestation. i shall remain here a day or two to gape at the usual marvels,--amphitheatre, paintings, and all that time-tax of travel,--though catullus, claudian, and shakspeare have done more for verona than it ever did for itself. they still pretend to show, i believe, the 'tomb of all the capulets'--we shall see. "among many things at milan, one pleased me particularly, viz. the correspondence (in the prettiest love-letters in the world) of lucretia borgia with cardinal bembo, (who, _you say_, made a very good cardinal,) and a lock of her hair, and some spanish verses of hers,--the lock very fair and beautiful. i took one single hair of it as a relic, and wished sorely to get a copy of one or two of the letters; but it is prohibited: _that_ i don't mind; but it was impracticable; and so i only got some of them by heart. they are kept in the ambrosian library, which i often visited to look them over--to the scandal of the librarian, who wanted to enlighten me with sundry valuable mss., classical, philosophical, and pious. but i stick to the pope's daughter, and wish myself a cardinal. "i have seen the finest parts of switzerland, the rhine, the rhone, and the swiss and italian lakes; for the beauties of which, i refer you to the guidebook. the north of italy is tolerably free from the english; but the south swarms with them, i am told. madame de staël i saw frequently at copet, which she renders remarkably pleasant. she has been particularly kind to me. i was for some months her neighbour, in a country house called diodati, which i had on the lake of geneva. my plans are very uncertain; but it is probable that you will see me in england in the spring. i have some business there. if you write to me, will you address to the care of mons. hentsch, banquier, geneva, who receives and forwards my letters. remember me to rogers, who wrote to me lately, with a short account of your poem, which, i trust, is near the light. he speaks of it most highly. "my health is very endurable, except that i am subject to casual giddiness and faintness, which is so like a fine lady, that i am rather ashamed of the disorder. when i sailed, i had a physician with me, whom, after some months of patience, i found it expedient to part with, before i left geneva some time. on arriving at milan, i found this gentleman in very good society, where he prospered for some weeks: but, at length, at the theatre he quarrelled with an austrian officer, and was sent out by the government in twenty-four hours. i was not present at his squabble; but, on hearing that he was put under arrest, i went and got him out of his confinement, but could not prevent his being sent off, which, indeed, he partly deserved, being quite in the wrong, and having begun a row for row's sake. i had preceded the austrian government some weeks myself, in giving him his congé from geneva. he is not a bad fellow, but very young and hot-headed, and more likely to incur diseases than to cure them. hobhouse and myself found it useless to intercede for him. this happened some time before we left milan. he is gone to florence. "at milan i saw, and was visited by, monti, the most celebrated of the living italian poets. he seems near sixty; in face he is like the late cooke the actor. his frequent changes in politics have made him very unpopular as a man. i saw many more of their literati; but none whose names are well known in england, except acerbi. i lived much with the italians, particularly with the marquis of breme's family, who are very able and intelligent men, especially the abate. there was a famous improvvisatore who held forth while i was there. his fluency astonished me; but, although i understand italian, and speak it (with more readiness than accuracy), i could only carry off a few very common-place mythological images, and one line about artemisia, and another about algiers, with sixty words of an entire tragedy about etocles and polynices. some of the italians liked him--others called his performance 'seccatura' (a devilish good word, by the way)--and all milan was in controversy about him. "the state of morals in these parts is in some sort lax. a mother and son were pointed out at the theatre, as being pronounced by the milanese world to be of the theban dynasty--but this was all. the narrator (one of the first men in milan) seemed to be not sufficiently scandalised by the taste or the tie. all society in milan is carried on at the opera: they have private boxes, where they play at cards, or talk, or any thing else; but (except at the cassino) there are no open houses, or balls, &c. &c. "the peasant girls have all very fine dark eyes, and many of them are beautiful. there are also two dead bodies in fine preservation--one saint carlo boromeo, at milan; the other not a saint, but a chief, named visconti, at monza--both of which appeared very agreeable. in one of the boromean isles (the isola bella), there is a large laurel--the largest known--on which buonaparte, staying there just before the battle of marengo, carved with his knife the word 'battaglia.' i saw the letters, now half worn out and partly erased. "excuse this tedious letter. to be tiresome is the privilege of old age and absence: i avail myself of the latter, and the former i have anticipated. if i do not speak to you of my own affairs, it is not from want of confidence, but to spare you and myself. my day is over--what then?--i have had it. to be sure, i have shortened it; and if i had done as much by this letter, it would have been as well. but you will forgive that, if not the other faults of "yours ever and most affectionately, "b. "p.s. november . . "i have been over verona. the amphitheatre is wonderful--beats even greece. of the truth of juliet's story they seem tenacious to a degree, insisting on the fact--giving a date ( ), and showing a tomb. it is a plain, open, and partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual garden, once a cemetery, now ruined to the very graves. the situation struck me as very appropriate to the legend, being blighted as their love. i have brought away a few pieces of the granite, to give to my daughter and my nieces. of the other marvels of this city, paintings, antiquities, &c., excepting the tombs of the scaliger princes, i have no pretensions to judge. the gothic monuments of the scaligers pleased me, but 'a poor virtuoso am i,' and ever yours." * * * * * it must have been observed, in my account of lord byron's life previous to his marriage, that, without leaving altogether unnoticed (what, indeed, was too notorious to be so evaded) certain affairs of gallantry in which he had the reputation of being engaged, i have thought it right, besides refraining from such details in my narrative, to suppress also whatever passages in his journals and letters might be supposed to bear too personally or particularly on the same delicate topics. incomplete as the strange history of his mind and heart must, in one of its most interesting chapters, be left by these omissions, still a deference to that peculiar sense of decorum in this country, which marks the mention of such frailties as hardly a less crime than the commission of them, and, still more, the regard due to the feelings of the living, who ought not rashly to be made to suffer for the errors of the dead, have combined to render this sacrifice, however much it may be regretted, necessary. we have now, however, shifted the scene to a region where less caution is requisite;--where, from the different standard applied to female morals in these respects, if the wrong itself be not lessened by this diminution of the consciousness of it, less scruple may be, at least, felt towards persons so circumstanced, and whatever delicacy we may think right to exercise in speaking of their frailties must be with reference rather to our views and usages than theirs. availing myself, with this latter qualification, of the greater latitude thus allowed me, i shall venture so far to depart from the plan hitherto pursued, as to give, with but little suppression, the noble poet's letters relative to his italian adventures. to throw a veil altogether over these irregularities of his private life would be to afford--were it even practicable--but a partial portraiture of his character; while, on the other hand, to rob him of the advantage of being himself the historian of his errors (where no injury to others can flow from the disclosure) would be to deprive him of whatever softening light can be thrown round such transgressions by the vivacity and fancy, the passionate love of beauty, and the strong yearning after affection which will be found to have, more or less, mingled with even the least refined of his attachments. neither is any great danger to be apprehended from the sanction or seduction of such an example; as they who would dare to plead the authority of lord byron for their errors must first be able to trace them to the same palliating sources,--to that sensibility, whose very excesses showed its strength and depth,--that stretch of imagination, to the very verge, perhaps, of what reason can bear without giving way,--that whole combination, in short, of grand but disturbing powers, which alone could be allowed to extenuate such moral derangement, but which, even in him thus dangerously gifted, were insufficient to excuse it. having premised these few observations, i shall now proceed, with less interruption, to lay his correspondence, during this and the two succeeding years, before the reader:-- letter . to mr. moore. "venice, november . . "i wrote to you from verona the other day in my progress hither, which letter i hope you will receive. some three years ago, or it may be more, i recollect your telling me that you had received a letter from our friend sam, dated 'on board his gondola.' _my_ gondola is, at this present, waiting for me on the canal; but i prefer writing to you in the house, it being autumn--and rather an english autumn than otherwise. it is my intention to remain at venice during the winter, probably, as it has always been (next to the east) the greenest island of my imagination. it has not disappointed me; though its evident decay would, perhaps, have that effect upon others. but i have been familiar with ruins too long to dislike desolation. besides, i have fallen in love, which, next to falling into the canal, (which would be of no use, as i can swim,) is the best or the worst thing i could do. i have got some extremely good apartments in the house of a 'merchant of venice,' who is a good deal occupied with business, and has a wife in her twenty-second year. marianna (that is her name) is in her appearance altogether like an antelope. she has the large, black, oriental eyes, with that peculiar expression in them which is seen rarely among _europeans_--even the italians--and which many of the turkish women give themselves by tinging the eyelid,--an art not known out of that country, i believe. this expression she has _naturally_,--and something more than this. in short, i cannot describe the effect of this kind of eye,--at least upon me. her features are regular, and rather aquiline--mouth small--skin clear and soft, with a kind of hectic colour--forehead remarkably good: her hair is of the dark gloss, curl, and colour of lady j * *'s: her figure is light and pretty, and she is a famous songstress--scientifically so; her natural voice (in conversation, i mean) is very sweet; and the naïveté of the venetian dialect is always pleasing in the mouth of a woman. "november . "you will perceive that my description, which was proceeding with the minuteness of a passport, has been interrupted for several days. "december . "since my former dates, i do not know that i have much to add on the subject, and, luckily, nothing to take away; for i am more pleased than ever with my venetian, and begin to feel very serious on that point--so much so, that i shall be silent. "by way of divertisement, i am studying daily, at an armenian monastery, the armenian language. i found that my mind wanted something craggy to break upon; and this--as the most difficult thing i could discover here for an amusement--i have chosen, to torture me into attention. it is a rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of learning it. i try, and shall go on;--but i answer for nothing, least of all for my intentions or my success. there are some very curious mss. in the monastery, as well as books; translations also from greek originals, now lost, and from persian and syriac, &c.; besides works of their own people. four years ago the french instituted an armenian professorship. twenty pupils presented themselves on monday morning, full of noble ardour, ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. they persevered, with a courage worthy of the nation and of universal conquest, till thursday; when _fifteen_ of the _twenty_ succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the alphabet. it is, to be sure, a waterloo of an alphabet--that must be said for them. but it is so like these fellows, to do by it as they did by their sovereigns--abandon both; to parody the old rhymes, 'take a thing and give a thing'--'take a king and give a king.' they are the worst of animals, except their conquerors. "i hear that h----n is your neighbour, having a living in derbyshire. you will find him an excellent-hearted fellow, as well as one of the cleverest; a little, perhaps, too much japanned by preferment in the church and the tuition of youth, as well as inoculated with the disease of domestic felicity, besides being over-run with fine feelings about woman and _constancy_ (that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal); but, otherwise, a very worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (i suppose) a child by this time. pray remember me to him, and say that i know not which to envy most his neighbourhood--him, or you. "of venice i shall say little. you must have seen many descriptions; and they are most of them like. it is a poetical place; and classical, to us, from shakspeare and otway. i have not yet sinned against it in verse, nor do i know that i shall do so, having been tuneless since i crossed the alps, and feeling, as yet, no renewal of the 'estro.' by the way, i suppose you have seen 'glenarvon.' madame de staël lent it me to read from copet last autumn. it seems to me that if the authoress had written the _truth_, and nothing but the truth--the whole truth--the _romance_ would not only have been more romantic, but more entertaining. as for the likeness, the picture can't be good--i did not sit long enough. when you have leisure, let me hear from and of you, believing me ever and truly yours most affectionately, b. "p.s. oh! _your poem_--is it out? i hope longman has paid his thousands: but don't you do as h * * t * *'s father did, who, having made money by a quarto tour, became a vinegar merchant; when, lo! his vinegar turned sweet (and be d----d to it) and ruined him. my last letter to you (from verona) was enclosed to murray--have you got it? direct to me _here, poste restante_. there are no english here at present. there were several in switzerland--some women; but, except lady dalrymple hamilton, most of them as ugly as virtue--at least, those that i saw." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, december . . "i have taken a fit of writing to you, which portends postage--once from verona--once from venice, and again from venice--_thrice_ that is. for this you may thank yourself, for i heard that you complained of my silence--so, here goes for garrulity. "i trust that you received my other twain of letters. my 'way of life' (or 'may of life,' which is it, according to the commentators?)--my 'way of life' is fallen into great regularity. in the mornings i go over in my gondola to babble armenian with the friars of the convent of st. lazarus, and to help one of them in correcting the english of an english and armenian grammar which he is publishing. in the evenings i do one of many nothings--either at the theatres, or some of the conversaziones, which are like our routs, or rather worse, for the women sit in a semicircle by the lady of the mansion, and the men stand about the room. to be sure, there is one improvement upon ours--instead of lemonade with their ices, they hand about stiff _rum-punch--punch_, by my palate; and this they think _english_. i would not disabuse them of so agreeable an error,--'no, not for venice.' "last night i was at the count governor's, which, of course, comprises the best society, and is very much like other gregarious meetings in every country,--as in ours,--except that, instead of the bishop of winchester, you have the patriarch of venice, and a motley crew of austrians, germans, noble venetians, foreigners, and, if you see a quiz, you may be sure he is a consul. oh, by the way, i forgot, when i wrote from verona, to tell you that at milan i met with a countryman of yours--a colonel * * * *, a very excellent, good-natured fellow, who knows and shows all about milan, and is, as it were, a native there. he is particularly civil to strangers, and this is his history,--at least, an episode of it. "six-and-twenty years ago, col. * * * *, then an ensign, being in italy, fell in love with the marchesa * * * *, and she with him. the lady must be, at least, twenty years his senior. the war broke out; he returned to england, to serve--not his country, for that's ireland--but england, which is a different thing; and _she_--heaven knows what she did. in the year , the first annunciation of the definitive treaty of peace (and tyranny) was developed to the astonished milanese by the arrival of col. * * * *, who, flinging himself full length at the feet of mad. * * * *, murmured forth, in half-forgotten irish italian, eternal vows of indelible constancy. the lady screamed, and exclaimed, 'who are you?' the colonel cried, 'what! don't you know me? i am so and so,' &c. &c. &c.; till, at length, the marchesa, mounting from reminiscence to reminiscence, through the lovers of the intermediate twenty-five years, arrived at last at the recollection of her _povero_ sub-lieutenant. she then said, 'was there ever such virtue?' (that was her very word) and, being now a widow, gave him apartments in her palace, reinstated him in all the rights of wrong, and held him up to the admiring world as a miracle of incontinent fidelity, and the unshaken abdiel of absence. "methinks this is as pretty a moral tale as any of marmontel's. here is another. the same lady, several years ago, made an escapade with a swede, count fersen (the same whom the stockholm mob quartered and lapidated not very long since), and they arrived at an osteria on the road to rome or thereabouts. it was a summer evening, and, while they were at supper, they were suddenly regaled by a symphony of fiddles in an adjacent apartment, so prettily played, that, wishing to hear them more distinctly, the count rose, and going into the musical society, said, 'gentlemen, i am sure that, as a company of gallant cavaliers, you will be delighted to show your skill to a lady, who feels anxious,' &c. &c. the men of harmony were all acquiescence--every instrument was tuned and toned, and, striking up one of their most ambrosial airs, the whole band followed the count to the lady's apartment. at their head was the first fiddler, who, bowing and fiddling at the same moment, headed his troop and advanced up the room. death and discord!--it was the marquis himself, who was on a serenading party in the country, while his spouse had run away from town. the rest may be imagined--but, first of all, the lady tried to persuade him that she was there on purpose to meet him, and had chosen this method for an harmonic surprise. so much for this gossip, which amused me when i heard it, and i send it to you, in the hope it may have the like effect. now we'll return to venice. "the day after to-morrow (to-morrow being christmas-day) the carnival begins. i dine with the countess albrizzi and a party, and go to the opera. on that day the phenix, (not the insurance office, but) the theatre of that name, opens: i have got me a box there for the season, for two reasons, one of which is, that the music is remarkably good. the contessa albrizzi, of whom i have made mention, is the de staël of venice, not young, but a very learned, unaffected, good-natured woman, very polite to strangers, and, i believe, not at all dissolute, as most of the women are. she has written very well on the works of canova, and also a volume of characters, besides other printed matter. she is of corfu, but married a dead venetian--that is, dead since he married. "my flame (my 'donna' whom i spoke of in my former epistle, my marianna) is still my marianna, and i, her--what she pleases. she is by far the prettiest woman i have seen here, and the most loveable i have met with any where--as well as one of the most singular. i believe i told you the rise and progress of our _liaison_ in my former letter. lest that should not have reached you, i will merely repeat, that she is a venetian, two-and-twenty years old, married to a merchant well to do in the world, and that she has great black oriental eyes, and all the qualities which her eyes promise. whether being in love with her has steeled me or not, i do not know; but i have not seen many other women who seem pretty. the nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race--the gentry rather better. and now, what art _thou_ doing? "what are you doing now, oh thomas moore? what are you doing now, oh thomas moore? sighing or suing now, rhyming or wooing now, billing or cooing now, which, thomas moore? are you not near the luddites? by the lord! if there's a row, but i'll be among ye! how go on the weavers--the breakers of frames--the lutherans of politics--the reformers? "as the liberty lads o'er the sea bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood, so we, boys, we will _die_ fighting, or _live_ free, and down with all kings but king ludd! "when the web that we weave is complete, and the shuttle exchanged for the sword, we will fling the winding-sheet o'er the despot at our feet, and dye it deep in the gore he has pour'd. "though black as his heart its hue, since his veins are corrupted to mud, yet this is the dew which the tree shall renew of liberty, planted by ludd! "there's an amiable _chanson_ for you--all impromptu. i have written it principally to shock your neighbour * * * *, who is all clergy and loyalty--mirth and innocence--milk and water. "but the carnival's coming, oh thomas moore, the carnival's coming, oh thomas moore, masking and humming, fifing and drumming, guitarring and strumming, oh thomas moore. the other night i saw a new play,--and the author. the subject was the sacrifice of isaac. the play succeeded, and they called for the author--according to continental custom--and he presented himself, a noble venetian, mali, or malapiero, by name. mala was his name, and _pessima_ his production,--at least, i thought so, and i ought to know, having read more or less of five hundred drury lane offerings, during my coadjutorship with the sub-and-super committee. "when does your poem of poems come out? i hear that the e.r. has cut up coleridge's christabel, and declared against me for praising it. i praised it, firstly, because i thought well of it; secondly, because coleridge was in great distress, and, after doing what little i could for him in essentials, i thought that the public avowal of my good opinion might help him further, at least with the booksellers. i am very sorry that j * * has attacked him, because, poor fellow, it will hurt him in mind and pocket. as for me, he's welcome--i shall never think less of j * * for any thing he may say against me or mine in future. "i suppose murray has sent you, or will send (for i do not know whether they are out or no) the poem, or poesies, of mine, of last summer. by the mass! they are sublime--'ganion coheriza'--gainsay who dares! pray, let me hear from you, and of you, and, at least, let me know that you have received these three letters. direct, right _here, poste restante_. "ever and ever, &c. "p.s. i heard the other day of a pretty trick of a bookseller, who has published some d----d nonsense, swearing the bastards to me, and saying he gave me five hundred guineas for them. he lies--never wrote such stuff, never saw the poems, nor the publisher of them, in my life, nor had any communication, directly or indirectly, with the fellow. pray say as much for me, if need be. i have written to murray, to make him contradict the impostor." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, november . . "it is some months since i have heard from or of you--i think, not since i left diodati. from milan i wrote once or twice; but have been here some little time, and intend to pass the winter without removing. i was much pleased with the lago di garda, and with verona, particularly the amphitheatre, and a sarcophagus in a convent garden, which they show as juliet's: they insist on the _truth_ of her history. since my arrival at venice, the lady of the austrian governor told me that between verona and vicenza there are still ruins of the castle of the _montecchi_, and a chapel once appertaining to the capulets. romeo seems to have been of vicenza by the tradition; but i was a good deal surprised to find so firm a faith in bandello's novel, which seems really to have been founded on a fact. "venice pleases me as much as i expected, and i expected much. it is one of those places which i know before i see them, and has always haunted me the most after the east. i like the gloomy gaiety of their gondolas, and the silence of their canals. i do not even dislike the evident decay of the city, though i regret the singularity of its vanished costume; however, there is much left still; the carnival, too, is coming. "st. mark's, and indeed venice, is most alive at night. the theatres are not open till _nine_, and the society is proportionably late. all this is to my taste, but most of your countrymen miss and regret the rattle of hackney coaches, without which they can't sleep. "i have got remarkably good apartments in a private house; i see something of the inhabitants (having had a good many letters to some of them); i have got my gondola; i read a little, and luckily could speak italian (more fluently than correctly) long ago, i am studying, out of curiosity, the _venetian_ dialect, which is very naïve, and soft, and peculiar, though not at all classical; i go out frequently, and am in very good contentment. "the helen of canova (a bust which is in the house of madame the countess d'albrizzi, whom i know) is, without exception, to my mind, the most perfectly beautiful of human conceptions, and far beyond my ideas of human execution. "in this beloved marble view, above the works and thoughts of man, what nature _could_, but _would not_, do, and beauty and canova _can_! beyond imagination's power, beyond the bard's defeated art, with immortality her dower, behold the _helen_ of the _heart_! "talking of the 'heart' reminds me that i have fallen in love--fathomless love; but lest you should make some splendid mistake, and envy me the possession of some of those princesses or countesses with whose affections your english voyagers are apt to invest themselves, i beg leave to tell you that my goddess is only the wife of a 'merchant of venice;' but then she is pretty as an antelope, is but two-and-twenty years old, has the large, black, oriental eyes, with the italian countenance, and dark glossy hair, of the curl and colour of lady j * *'s. then she has the voice of a lute, and the song of a seraph (though not quite so sacred), besides a long postscript of graces, virtues, and accomplishments, enough to furnish out a new chapter for solomon's song. but her great merit is finding out mine--there is nothing so amiable as discernment. "the general race of women appear to be handsome; but in italy, as on almost all the continent, the highest orders are by no means a well-looking generation, and indeed reckoned by their countrymen very much otherwise. some are exceptions, but most of them as ugly as virtue herself. "if you write, address to me here, _poste restante_, as i shall probably stay the winter over. i never see a newspaper, and know nothing of england, except in a letter now and then from my sister. of the ms. sent you, i know nothing, except that you have received it, and are to publish it, &c. &c.: but when, where, and how, you leave me to guess; but it don't much matter. "i suppose you have a world of works passing through your process for next year? when does moore's poem appear? i sent a letter for him, addressed to your care, the other day." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, december , . "i have written to you so frequently of late, that you will think me a bore; as i think you a very impolite person, for not answering my letters from switzerland, milan, verona, and venice. there are some things i wanted, and want, to know, viz. whether mr. davies, of inaccurate memory, had or had not delivered the ms. as delivered to him; because, if he has not, you will find that he will bountifully bestow transcriptions on all the curious of his acquaintance, in which case you may probably find your publication anticipated by the 'cambridge' or other chronicles. in the next place,--i forget what was next; but in the third place, i want to hear whether you have yet published, or when you mean to do so, or why you have not done so, because in your last (sept. th,--you may be ashamed of the date), you talked of this being done immediately. "from england i hear nothing, and know nothing of any thing or any body. i have but one correspondent (except mr. kinnaird on business now and then), and her a female; so that i know no more of your island, or city, than the italian version of the french papers chooses to tell me, or the advertisements of mr. colburn tagged to the end of your quarterly review for the year _ago_. i wrote to you at some length last week, and have little to add, except that i have begun, and am proceeding in, a study of the armenian language, which i acquire, as well as i can, at the armenian convent, where i go every day to take lessons of a learned friar, and have gained some singular and not useless information with regard to the literature and customs of that oriental people. they have an establishment here--a church and convent of ninety monks, very learned and accomplished men, some of them. they have also a press, and make great efforts for the enlightening of their nation. i find the language (which is _twin_, the _literal_ and the _vulgar_) difficult, but not invincible (at least i hope not). i shall go on. i found it necessary to twist my mind round some severer study, and this, as being the hardest i could devise here, will be a file for the serpent. "i mean to remain here till the spring, so address to me _directly_ to _venice, poste restante_.--mr. hobhouse, for the present, is gone to rome, with his brother, brother's wife, and sister, who overtook him here: he returns in two months. i should have gone too, but i fell in love, and must stay that over. i should think _that_ and the armenian alphabet will last the winter. the lady has, luckily for me, been less obdurate than the language, or, between the two, i should have lost my remains of sanity. by the way, she is not an armenian but a venetian, as i believe i told you in my last. as for italian, i am fluent enough, even in its venetian modification, which is something like the somersetshire version of english; and as for the more classical dialects, i had not forgot my former practice much during my voyaging. "yours, ever and truly, "b. "p.s. remember me to mr. gifford." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, dec. . . "in a letter from england, i am informed that a man named johnson has taken upon himself to publish some poems called a 'pilgrimage to jerusalem, a tempest, and an address to my daughter,' &c., and to attribute them to me, adding that he had paid five hundred guineas for them. the answer to this is short: _i never wrote such poems, never received the sum he mentions, nor any other in the same quarter, nor_ (as far as moral or mortal certainty can be sure) _ever had, directly or indirectly, the slightest communication with johnson in my life_; not being aware that the person existed till this intelligence gave me to understand that there were such people. nothing surprises me, or this perhaps _would_, and most things amuse me, or this probably would _not_. with regard to myself, the man has merely _lied_; that's natural; his betters have set him the example. but with regard to you, his assertion may perhaps injure you in your publications; and i desire that it may receive the most public and unqualified contradiction. i do not know that there is any punishment for a thing of this kind, and if there were, i should not feel disposed to pursue this ingenious mountebank farther than was necessary for his confutation; but thus far it may be necessary to proceed. "you will make what use you please of this letter; and mr. kinnaird, who has power to act for me in my absence, will, i am sure, readily join you in any steps which it may be proper to take with regard to the absurd falsehood of this poor creature. as you will have recently received several letters from me on my way to venice, as well as two written since my arrival, i will not at present trouble you further. "ever, &c. "p.s. pray let me hear that you have received this letter. address to venice, _poste restante_. "to prevent the recurrence of similar fabrications, you may state, that i consider myself responsible for no publication from the year up to the present date which is not from your press. i speak of course from that period, because, previously, cawthorn and ridge had both printed compositions of mine. 'a pilgrimage to jerusalem!' how the devil should i write about _jerusalem_, never having yet been there? as for 'a tempest,' it was _not_ a _tempest_ when i left england, but a very fresh breeze: and as to an 'address to little ada,' (who, by the way, is a year old to-morrow,) i never wrote a line about her, except in 'farewell' and the third canto of childe harold." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, dec. . . "as the demon of silence seems to have possessed you, i am determined to have my revenge in postage; this is my sixth or seventh letter since summer and switzerland. my last was an injunction to contradict and consign to confusion that cheapside impostor, who (i heard by a letter from your island) had thought proper to append my name to his spurious poesy, of which i know nothing, nor of his pretended purchase or copyright. i hope you have, at least, received _that_ letter. "as the news of venice must be very interesting to you, i will regale you with it. "yesterday being the feast of st. stephen, every mouth was put in motion. there was nothing but fiddling and playing on the virginals, and all kinds of conceits and divertissements, on every canal of this aquatic city. i dined with the countess albrizzi and a paduan and venetian party, and afterwards went to the opera, at the fenice theatre (which opens for the carnival on that day),--the finest, by the way, i have ever seen: it beats our theatres hollow in beauty and scenery, and those of milan and brescia bow before it. the opera and its sirens were much like other operas and women, but the subject of the said opera was something edifying; it turned--the plot and conduct thereof--upon a fact narrated by livy of a hundred and fifty married ladies having poisoned a hundred and fifty husbands in good old times. the bachelors of rome believed this extraordinary mortality to be merely the common effect of matrimony or a pestilence; but the surviving benedicts, being all seized with the cholic, examined into the matter, and found that 'their possets had been drugged;' the consequence of which was, much scandal and several suits at law. this is really and truly the subject of the musical piece at the fenice; and you can't conceive what pretty things are sung and recitativoed about the _horrenda strage_. the conclusion was a lady's head about to be chopped off by a lictor, but (i am sorry to say) he left it on, and she got up and sung a trio with the two consuls, the senate in the back-ground being chorus. the ballet was distinguished by nothing remarkable, except that the principal she-dancer went into convulsions because she was not applauded on her first appearance; and the manager came forward to ask if there was 'ever a physician in the theatre.' there was a greek one in my box, whom i wished very much to volunteer his services, being sure that in this case these would have been the last convulsions which would have troubled the ballarina; but he would not. the crowd was enormous, and in coming out, having a lady under my arm, i was obliged, in making way, almost to 'beat a venetian and traduce the state,' being compelled to regale a person with an english punch in the guts, which sent him as far back as the squeeze and the passage would admit. he did not ask for another, but, with great signs of disapprobation and dismay, appealed to his compatriots, who laughed at him. "i am going on with my armenian studies in a morning, and assisting and stimulating in the english portion of an english and armenian grammar, now publishing at the convent of st. lazarus. "the superior of the friars is a bishop, and a fine old fellow, with the beard of a meteor. father paschal is also a learned and pious soul. he was two years in england. "i am still dreadfully in love with the adriatic lady whom i spake of in a former letter, (and _not_ in _this_--i add, for fear of mistakes, for the only one mentioned in the first part of this epistle is elderly and bookish, two things which i have ceased to admire,) and love in this part of the world is no sinecure. this is also the season when every body make up their intrigues for the ensuing year, and cut for partners for the next deal. "and now, if you don't write, i don't know what i won't say or do, nor what i will. send me some news--good news. yours very truly, &c. &c. &c. "b. "p.s. remember me to mr. gifford, with all duty. "i hear that the edinburgh review has cut up coleridge's christabel, and me for praising it, which omen, i think, bodes no great good to your forthcome or coming canto and castle (of chillon). my run of luck within the last year seems to have taken a turn every way; but never mind, i will bring myself through in the end--if not, i can be but where i began. in the mean time, i am not displeased to be where i am--i mean, at venice. my adriatic nymph is this moment here, and i must therefore repose from this letter." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, jan. . . "your letter has arrived. pray, in publishing the third canto, have you _omitted_ any passages? i hope _not_; and indeed wrote to you on my way over the alps to prevent such an incident. say in your next whether or not the _whole_ of the canto (as sent to you) has been published. i wrote to you again the other day, (_twice_, i think,) and shall be glad to hear of the reception of those letters. "to-day is the d of january. on this day _three_ years ago the corsair's publication is dated, i think, in my letter to moore. on this day _two_ years i married, ('whom the lord loveth he chasteneth,'--i sha'n't forget the day in a hurry,) and it is odd enough that i this day received a letter from you announcing the publication of childe harold, &c. &c. on the day of the date of 'the corsair;' and i also received one from my sister, written on the th of december, my daughter's birth-day (and relative chiefly to my daughter), and arriving on the day of the date of my marriage, this present d of january, the month of my birth,--and various other astrologous matters, which i have no time to enumerate. "by the way, you might as well write to hentsch, my geneva banker, and enquire whether the _two packets_ consigned to his care were or were not delivered to mr. st. aubyn, or if they are still in his keeping. one contains papers, letters, and all the original ms. of your third canto, as first conceived; and the other, some bones from the field of morat. many thanks for your news, and the good spirits in which your letter is written. "venice and i agree very well; but i do not know that i have any thing new to say, except of the last new opera, which i sent in my late letter. the carnival is commencing, and there is a good deal of fun here and there--besides business; for all the world are making up their intrigues for the season, changing, or going on upon a renewed lease. i am very well off with marianna, who is not at all a person to tire me; firstly, because i do not tire of a woman _personally_, but because they are generally bores in their disposition; and, secondly, because she is amiable, and has a tact which is not always the portion of the fair creation; and, thirdly, she is very pretty; and, fourthly--but there is no occasion for further specification. so far we have gone on very well; as to the future, i never anticipate--_carpe diem_--the past at least is one's own, which is one reason for making sure of the present. so much for my proper _liaison_. "the general state of morals here is much the same as in the doges' time; a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or more, are a little _wild_; but it is only those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low connection, such as the princess of wales with her courier, (who, by the way, is made a knight of malta,) who are considered as overstepping the modesty of marriage. in venice, the nobility have a trick of marrying with dancers and singers; and, truth to say, the women of their own order are by no means handsome; but the general race, the women of the second and other orders, the wives of the merchants, and proprietors, and untitled gentry, are mostly _bel' sangue_, and it is with these that the more amatory connections are usually formed. there are also instances of stupendous constancy. i know a woman of fifty who never had but one lover, who dying early, she became devout, renouncing all but her husband. she piques herself, as may be presumed, upon this miraculous fidelity, talking of it occasionally with a species of misplaced morality, which is rather amusing. there is no convincing a woman here that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of right or the fitness of things in having an _amoroso_. the great sin seems to lie in concealing it, or having more than one, that is, unless such an extension of the prerogative is understood and approved of by the prior claimant. "in another sheet, i send you some sheets of a grammar, english and armenian, for the use of the armenians, of which i promoted, and indeed induced, the publication. (it cost me but a thousand francs--french livres.) i still pursue my lessons in the language without any rapid progress, but advancing a little daily. padre paschal, with some little help from me, as translator of his italian into english, is also proceeding in a ms. grammar for the _english_ acquisition of armenian, which will be printed also, when finished. "we want to know if there are any armenian types and letter-press in england, at oxford, cambridge, or elsewhere? you know, i suppose, that, many years ago, the two whistons published in england an original text of a history of armenia, with their own latin translation? do those types still exist? and where? pray enquire among your learned acquaintance. "when this grammar (i mean the one now printing) is done, will you have any objection to take forty or fifty copies, which will not cost in all above five or ten guineas, and try the curiosity of the learned with a sale of them? say yes or no, as you like. i can assure you that they have some very curious books and mss., chiefly translations from greek originals now lost. they are, besides, a much respected and learned community, and the study of their language was taken up with great ardour by some literary frenchmen in buonaparte's time. "i have not done a stitch of poetry since i left switzerland, and have not, at present, the _estro_ upon me. the truth is, that you are _afraid_ of having a _fourth_ canto _before_ september, and of another copyright, but i have at present no thoughts of resuming that poem, nor of beginning any other. if i write, i think of trying prose, but i dread introducing living people, or applications which might be made to living people. perhaps one day or other i may attempt some work of fancy in prose, descriptive of italian manners and of human passions; but at present i am preoccupied. as for poesy, mine is the _dream_ of the sleeping passions; when they are awake, i cannot speak their language, only in their somnambulism, and just now they are not dormant. "if mr. gifford wants _carte blanche_ as to the siege of corinth, he has it, and may do as he likes with it. "i sent you a letter contradictory of the cheapside man (who invented the story you speak of) the other day. my best respects to mr. gifford, and such of my friends as you may see at your house. i wish you all prosperity and new year's gratulation, and am "yours," &c. * * * * * to the armenian grammar, mentioned in the foregoing letter, the following interesting fragment, found among his papers, seems to have been intended as a preface:-- "the english reader will probably be surprised to find my name associated with a work of the present description, and inclined to give me more credit for my attainments as a linguist than they deserve. "as i would not willingly be guilty of a deception, i will state, as shortly as i can, my own share in the compilation, with the motives which led to it. on my arrival at venice, in the year , i found my mind in a state which required study, and study of a nature which should leave little scope for the imagination, and furnish some difficulty in the pursuit. "at this period i was much struck--in common, i believe, with every other traveller--with the society of the convent of st. lazarus, which appears to unite all the advantages of the monastic institution, without any of its vices. "the neatness, the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected devotion, the accomplishments, and the virtues of the brethren of the order, are well fitted to strike the man of the world with the conviction that 'there is another and a better' even in this life. "these men are the priesthood of an oppressed and a noble nation, which has partaken of the proscription and bondage of the jews and of the greeks, without the sullenness of the former or the servility of the latter. this people has attained riches without usury, and all the honours that can be awarded to slavery without intrigue. but they have long occupied, nevertheless, a part of 'the house of bondage,' who has lately multiplied her many mansions. it would be difficult, perhaps, to find the annals of a nation less stained with crimes than those of the armenians, whose virtues have been those of peace, and their vices those of compulsion. but whatever may have been their destiny--and it has been bitter--whatever it may be in future, their country must ever be one of the most interesting on the globe; and perhaps their language only requires to be more studied to become more attractive. if the scriptures are rightly understood, it was in armenia that paradise was placed--armenia, which has paid as dearly as the descendants of adam for that fleeting participation of its soil in the happiness of him who was created from its dust. it was in armenia that the flood first abated, and the dove alighted. but with the disappearance of paradise itself may be dated almost the unhappiness of the country; for though long a powerful kingdom, it was scarcely ever an independent one, and the satraps of persia and the pachas of turkey have alike desolated the region where god created man in his own image." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, january . . "your letter of the th is before me. the remedy for your plethora is simple--abstinence. i was obliged to have recourse to the like some years ago, i mean in point of _diet_, and, with the exception of some convivial weeks and days, (it might be months, now and then,) have kept to pythagoras ever since. for all this, let me hear that you are better. you must not _indulge_ in 'filthy beer,' nor in porter, nor eat _suppers_--the last are the devil to those who swallow dinner. "i am truly sorry to hear of your father's misfortune--cruel at any time, but doubly cruel in advanced life. however, you will, at least, have the satisfaction of doing your part by him, and depend upon it, it will not be in vain. fortune, to be sure, is a female, but not such a b * * as the rest (always excepting your wife and my sister from such sweeping terms); for she generally has some justice in the long run. i have no spite against her, though between her and nemesis i have had some sore gauntlets to run--but then i have done my best to deserve no better. but to _you_, she is a good deal in arrear, and she will come round--mind if she don't: you have the vigour of life, of independence, of talent, spirit, and character all with you. what you can do for yourself, you have done and will do; and surely there are some others in the world who would not be sorry to be of use, if you would allow them to be useful, or at least attempt it. "i think of being in england in the spring. if there is a row, by the sceptre of king ludd, but i'll be one; and if there is none, and only a continuance of 'this meek, piping time of peace,' i will take a cottage a hundred yards to the south of your abode, and become your neighbour; and we will compose such canticles, and hold such dialogues, as shall be the terror of the _times_ (including the newspaper of that name), and the wonder, and honour, and praise of the morning chronicle and posterity. "i rejoice to hear of your forthcoming in february--though i tremble for the 'magnificence' which you attribute to the new childe harold. i am glad you like it; it is a fine indistinct piece of poetical desolation, and my favourite. i was half mad during the time of its composition, between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love unextinguishable, thoughts unutterable, and the night-mare of my own delinquencies. i should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law; and, even _then_, if i could have been certain to haunt her--but i won't dwell upon these trifling family matters. "venice is in the _estro_ of her carnival, and i have been up these last two nights at the ridotto and the opera, and all that kind of thing. now for an adventure. a few days ago a gondolier brought me a billet without a subscription, intimating a wish on the part of the writer to meet me either in gondola, or at the island of san lazaro, or at a third rendezvous, indicated in the note. 'i know the country's disposition well'--in venice 'they do let heaven see those tricks they dare not show,' &c. &c.; so, for all response, i said that neither of the three places suited me; but that i would either be at home at ten at night alone, or be at the ridotto at midnight, where the writer might meet me masked. at ten o'clock i was at home and alone (marianna was gone with her husband to a conversazione), when the door of my apartment opened, and in walked a well-looking and (for an italian) _bionda_ girl of about nineteen, who informed me that she was married to the brother of my _amorosa_, and wished to have some conversation with me. i made a decent reply, and we had some talk in italian and romaic (her mother being a greek of corfu), when lo! in a very few minutes in marches, to my very great astonishment, marianna s * *, _in propriâ personâ_, and after making a most polite courtesy to her sister-in-law and to me, without a single word seizes her said sister-in-law by the hair, and bestows upon her some sixteen slaps, which would have made your ear ache only to hear their echo. i need not describe the screaming which ensued. the luckless visiter took flight. i seized marianna, who, after several vain efforts to get away in pursuit of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; and, in spite of reasoning, eau de cologne, vinegar, half a pint of water, and god knows what other waters beside, continued so till past midnight. "after damning my servants for letting people in without apprizing me, i found that marianna in the morning had seen her sister-in-law's gondolier on the stairs, and, suspecting that his apparition boded her no good, had either returned of her own accord, or been followed by her maids or some other spy of her people to the conversazione, from whence she returned to perpetrate this piece of pugilism. i had seen fits before, and also some small scenery of the same genus in and out of our island: but this was not all. after about an hour, in comes--who? why, signor s * *, her lord and husband, and finds me with his wife fainting upon a sofa, and all the apparatus of confusion, dishevelled hair, hats, handkerchiefs, salts, smelling bottles--and the lady as pale as ashes, without sense or motion. his first question was, 'what is all this?' the lady could not reply--so i did. i told him the explanation was the easiest thing in the world; but in the mean time it would be as well to recover his wife--at least, her senses. this came about in due time of suspiration and respiration. "you need not be alarmed--jealousy is not the order of the day in venice, and daggers are out of fashion, while duels, on love matters, are unknown--at least, with the husbands. but, for all this, it was an awkward affair; and though he must have known that i made love to marianna, yet i believe he was not, till that evening, aware of the extent to which it had gone. it is very well known that almost all the married women have a lover; but it is usual to keep up the forms, as in other nations. i did not, therefore, know what the devil to say. i could not out with the truth, out of regard to her, and i did not choose to lie for my sake;--besides, the thing told itself. i thought the best way would be to let her explain it as she chose (a woman being never at a loss--the devil always sticks by them)--only determining to protect and carry her off, in case of any ferocity on the part of the signor. i saw that he was quite calm. she went to bed, and next day--how they settled it, i know not, but settle it they did. well--then i had to explain to marianna about this never-to-be-sufficiently-confounded sister-in-law; which i did by swearing innocence, eternal constancy, &c. &c. but the sister-in-law, very much discomposed with being treated in such wise, has (not having her own shame before her eyes) told the affair to half venice, and the servants (who were summoned by the fight and the fainting) to the other half. but, here, nobody minds such trifles, except to be amused by them. i don't know whether you will be so, but i have scrawled a long letter out of these follies. "believe me ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, january . . "i have been requested by the countess albrizzi here to present her with 'the works;' and wish you therefore to send me a copy, that i may comply with her requisition. you may include the last published, of which i have seen and know nothing, but from your letter of the th of december. "mrs. leigh tells me that most of her friends prefer the two first cantos. i do not know whether this be the general opinion or not (it is _not hers_); but it is natural it should be so. i, however, think differently, which is natural also; but who is right, or who is wrong, is of very little consequence. "dr. polidori, as i hear from him by letter from pisa, is about to return to england, to go to the brazils on a medical speculation with the danish consul. as you are in the favour of the powers that be, could you not get him some letters of recommendation from some of your government friends to some of the portuguese settlers? he understands his profession well, and has no want of general talents; his faults are the faults of a pardonable vanity and youth. his remaining with me was out of the question: i have enough to do to manage my own scrapes; and as precepts without example are not the most gracious homilies, i thought it better to give him his congé: but i know no great harm of him, and some good. he is clever and accomplished; knows his profession, by all accounts, well; and is honourable in his dealings, and not at all malevolent. i think, with luck, he will turn out a useful member of society (from which he will lop the diseased members) and the college of physicians. if you can be of any use to him, or know any one who can, pray be so, as he has his fortune to make. he has kept a _medical journal_ under the eye of _vacca_ (the first surgeon on the continent) at pisa: vacca has corrected it, and it must contain some valuable hints or information on the practice of this country. if you can aid him in publishing this also, by your influence with your brethren, do; i do not ask you to publish it yourself, because that sort of request is too personal and embarrassing. he has also a tragedy, of which, having seen nothing, i say nothing: but the very circumstance of his having made these efforts (if they are only efforts), at one-and-twenty, is in his favour, and proves him to have good dispositions for his own improvement. so if, in the way of commendation or recommendation, you can aid his objects with your government friends, i wish you would, i should think some of your admiralty board might be likely to have it in their power." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, february . . "i have received your two letters, but not the parcel you mention. as the waterloo spoils are arrived, i will make you a present of them, if you choose to accept of them; pray do. "i do not exactly understand from your letter what has been omitted, or what not, in the publication; but i shall see probably some day or other. i could not attribute any but a _good_ motive to mr. gifford or yourself in such omission; but as our politics are so very opposite, we should probably differ as to the passages. however, if it is only a _note_ or notes, or a line or so, it cannot signify. you say 'a _poem_;' _what_ poem? you can tell me in your next. "of mr. hobhouse's quarrel with the quarterly review, i know very little except * * 's article itself, which was certainly harsh enough; but i quite agree that it would have been better not to answer--particularly after mr. _w.w._, who never more will trouble you, trouble you. i have been uneasy, because mr. h. told me that his letter or preface was to be addressed to me. now, he and i are friends of many years; i have many obligations to him, and he none to me, which have not been cancelled and more than repaid; but mr. gifford and i are friends also, and he has moreover been literally so, through thick and thin, in despite of difference of years, morals, habits, and even _politics_; and therefore i feel in a very awkward situation between the two, mr. gifford and my friend hobhouse, and can only wish that they had no difference, or that such as they have were accommodated. the answer i have not seen, for--it is odd enough for people so intimate--but mr. hobhouse and i are very sparing of our literary confidences. for example, the other day he wished to have a ms. of the third canto to read over to his brother, &c., which was refused;--and i have never seen his journals, nor he mine--(i only kept the short one of the mountains for my sister)--nor do i think that hardly ever he or i saw any of the other's productions previous to their publication. "the article in the edinburgh review on coleridge i have not seen; but whether i am attacked in it or not, or in any other of the same journal, i shall never think ill of mr. jeffrey on that account, nor forget that his conduct towards me has been certainly most handsome during the last four or more years. "i forgot to mention to you that a kind of poem in dialogue[ ] (in blank verse) or drama, from which 'the incantation' is an extract, begun last summer in switzerland, is finished; it is in three acts; but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind. almost all the persons--but two or three--are spirits of the earth and air, or the waters; the scene is in the alps; the hero a kind of magician, who is tormented by a species of remorse, the cause of which is left half unexplained. he wanders about invoking these spirits, which appear to him, and are of no use; he at last goes to the very abode of the evil principle, _in propriâ personâ_, to evocate a ghost, which appears, and gives him an ambiguous and disagreeable answer; and in the third act he is found by his attendants dying in a tower where he had studied his art. you may perceive by this outline that i have no great opinion of this piece of fantasy; but i have at least rendered it _quite impossible_ for the stage, for which my intercourse with drury lane has given me the greatest contempt. "i have not even copied it off, and feel too lazy at present to attempt the whole; but when i have, i will send it you, and you may either throw it into the fire or not." [footnote : manfred.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, february . . "i wrote to you the other day in answer to your letter; at present i would trouble you with a commission, if you would be kind enough to undertake it. "you, perhaps, know mr. love, the jeweller, of old bond street? in , when in the intention of returning to turkey, i purchased of him, and paid (_argent comptant_) for about a dozen snuff-boxes, of more or less value, as presents for some of my mussulman acquaintance. these i have now with me. the other day, having occasion to make an alteration in the lid of one (to place a portrait in it), it has turned out to be _silver-gilt_ instead of _gold_, for which last it was sold and paid for. this was discovered by the workman in trying it, before taking off the hinges and working upon the lid. i have of course recalled and preserved the box _in statu quo_. what i wish you to do is, to see the said mr. love, and inform him of this circumstance, adding, from me, that i will take care he shall not have done this with impunity. "if there is no remedy in law, there is at least the equitable one of making known his _guilt_,--that is, his silver-_gilt_, and be d----d to him. "i shall carefully preserve all the purchases i made of him on that occasion for my return, as the plague in turkey is a barrier to travelling there at present, or rather the endless quarantine which would be the consequence before one could land in coming back. pray state the matter to him with due ferocity. "i sent you the other day some extracts from a kind of drama which i had begun in switzerland and finished here; you will tell me if they are received. they were only in a letter. i have not yet had energy to copy it out, or i would send you the whole in different covers. "the carnival closed this day last week. "mr. hobhouse is still at rome, i believe. i am at present a little unwell;--sitting up too late and some subsidiary dissipations have lowered my blood a good deal; but i have at present the quiet and temperance of lent before me. "believe me, &c. "p.s. remember me to mr. gifford--i have not received your parcel or parcels.--look into 'moore's (dr. moore's) view of italy' for me; in one of the volumes you will find an account of the _doge valiere_ (it ought to be falieri) and his conspiracy, or the motives of it. get it transcribed for me, and send it in a letter to me soon. i want it, and cannot find so good an account of that business here; though the veiled patriot, and the place where he was crowned, and afterwards decapitated, still exist and are shown. i have searched all their histories; but the policy of the old aristocracy made their writers silent on his motives, which were a private grievance against one of the patricians. "i mean to write a tragedy on the subject, which appears to me very dramatic; an old man, jealous, and conspiring against the state of which he was the actually reigning chief. the last circumstance makes it the most remarkable and only fact of the kind in all history of all nations." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, february . . "you will, perhaps, complain as much of the frequency of my letters now, as you were wont to do of their rarity. i think this is the fourth within as many moons. i feel anxious to hear from you, even more than usual, because your last indicated that you were unwell. at present, i am on the invalid regimen myself. the carnival--that is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o'nights, had knocked me up a little. but it is over,--and it is now lent, with all its abstinence and sacred music. "the mumming closed with a masked ball at the fenice, where i went, as also to most of the ridottos, &c. &c.; and, though i did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet i find 'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though i have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine. "so, we'll go no more a roving so late into the night, though the heart be still as loving, and the moon be still as bright. for the sword out-wears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast, and the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest. though the night was made for loving, and the day returns too soon, yet we'll go no more a roving by the light of the moon. i have lately had some news of litter_atoor_, as i heard the editor of the monthly pronounce it once upon a time. i hear that w.w. has been publishing and responding to the attacks of the quarterly, in the learned perry's chronicle. i read his poesies last autumn, and, amongst them, found an epitaph on his bull-dog, and another on _myself_. but i beg leave to assure him (like the astrologer partridge) that i am not only alive now, but was alive also at the time he wrote it. hobhouse has (i hear, also) expectorated a letter against the quarterly, addressed to me. i feel awkwardly situated between him and gifford, both being my friends. "and this is your month of going to press--by the body of diana! (a venetian oath,) i feel as anxious--but not fearful for you--as if it were myself coming out in a work of humour, which would, you know, be the antipodes of all my previous publications. i don't think you have any thing to dread but your own reputation. you must keep up to that. as you never showed me a line of your work, i do not even know your measure; but you must send me a copy by murray forthwith, and then you shall hear what i think. i dare say you are in a pucker. of all authors, you are the only really _modest_ one i ever met with,--which would sound oddly enough to those who recollect your morals when you were young--that is, when you were _extremely_ young--don't mean to stigmatise you either with years or morality. "i believe i told you that the e.r. had attacked me, in an article on coleridge (i have not seen it)--'_et tu_, jeffrey?'--'there is nothing but roguery in villanous man.' but i absolve him of all attacks, present and future; for i think he had already pushed his clemency in my behoof to the utmost, and i shall always think well of him. i only wonder he did not begin before, as my domestic destruction was a fine opening for all the world, of which all who could did well to avail themselves. "if i live ten years longer, you will see, however, that it is not over with me--i don't mean in literature, for that is nothing; and it may seem odd enough to say, i do not think it my vocation. but you will see that i shall do something or other--the times and fortune permitting--that, 'like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.' but i doubt whether my constitution will hold out. i have, at intervals, ex_or_cised it most devilishly. "i have not yet fixed a time of return, but i think of the spring. i shall have been away a year in april next. you never mention rogers, nor hodgson, your clerical neighbour, who has lately got a living near you. has he also got a child yet?--his desideratum, when i saw him last. "pray let me hear from you, at your time and leisure, believing me ever and truly and affectionately," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, march . . "in acknowledging the arrival of the article from the 'quarterly[ ],' which i received two days ago, i cannot express myself better than in the words of my sister augusta, who (speaking of it) says, that it is written in a spirit 'of the most feeling and kind nature.' it is, however, something more; it seems to me (as far as the subject of it may be permitted to judge) to be _very well_ written as a composition, and i think will do the journal no discredit, because even those who condemn its partiality must praise its generosity. the temptations to take another and a less favourable view of the question have been so great and numerous, that, what with public opinion, politics, &c. he must be a gallant as well as a good man, who has ventured in that place, and at this time, to write such an article even anonymously. such things are, however, their own reward; and i even flatter myself that the writer, whoever he may be (and i have no guess), will not regret that the perusal of this has given me as much gratification as any composition of that nature could give, and more than any other has given,--and i have had a good many in my time of one kind or the other. it is not the mere praise, but there is a _tact_ and a _delicacy_ throughout, not only with regard to me, but to _others_, which, as it had not been observed _elsewhere_, i had till now doubted whether it could be observed _any where_. "perhaps some day or other you will know or tell me the writer's name. be assured, had the article been a harsh one, i should not have asked it. "i have lately written to you frequently, with _extracts_, &c., which i hope you have received, or will receive, with or before this letter.--ever since the conclusion of the carnival i have been unwell, (do not mention this, on any account, to mrs. leigh; for if i grow worse, she will know it too soon, and if i get better, there is no occasion that she should know it at all,) and have hardly stirred out of the house. however, i don't want a physician, and if i did, very luckily those of italy are the worst in the world, so that i should still have a chance. they have, i believe, one famous surgeon, vacca, who lives at pisa, who might be useful in case of dissection:--but he is some hundred miles off. my malady is a sort of lowish fever, originating from what my 'pastor and master,' jackson, would call 'taking too much out of one's self.' however, i am better within this day or two. "i missed seeing the new patriarch's procession to st. mark's the other day (owing to my indisposition), with six hundred and fifty priests in his rear--a 'goodly army.' the admirable government of vienna, in its edict from thence, authorising his installation, prescribed, as part of the pageant, 'a _coach_ and four horses.' to show how very, very '_german_ to the matter' this was, you have only to suppose our parliament commanding the archbishop of canterbury to proceed from hyde park corner to st. paul's cathedral in the lord mayor's barge, or the margate hoy. there is but st. mark's place in all venice broad enough for a carriage to move, and it is paved with large smooth flag-stones, so that the chariot and horses of elijah himself would be puzzled to manoeuvre upon it. those of pharaoh might do better; for the canals--and particularly the grand canal--are sufficiently capacious and extensive for his whole host. of course, no coach could be attempted; but the venetians, who are very naïve as well as arch, were much amused with the ordinance. "the armenian grammar is published; but my armenian studies are suspended for the present till my head aches a little less. i sent you the other day, in two covers, the first act of 'manfred,' a drama as mad as nat. lee's bedlam tragedy, which was in acts and some odd scenes:--mine is but in three acts. "i find i have begun this letter at the wrong end: never mind; i must end it, then, at the right. "yours ever very truly and obligedly," &c. [footnote : an article in no. . of this review, written, as lord byron afterwards discovered, by sir walter scott, and well meriting, by the kind and generous spirit that breathes through it, the warm and lasting gratitude it awakened in the noble poet.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, march . . "in remitting the third act of the sort of dramatic poem of which you will by this time have received the two first (at least i hope so), which were sent within the last three weeks, i have little to observe, except that you must not publish it (if it ever is published) without giving me previous notice. i have really and truly no notion whether it is good or bad; and as this was not the case with the principal of my former publications, i am, therefore, inclined to rank it very humbly. you will submit it to mr. gifford, and to whomsoever you please besides. with regard to the question of copyright (if it ever comes to publication), i do not know whether you would think _three hundred_ guineas an over-estimate; if you do, you may diminish it: i do not think it worth more; so you may see i make some difference between it and the others. "i have received your two reviews (but not the 'tales of my landlord'); the quarterly i acknowledged particularly to you, on its arrival, ten days ago. what you tell me of perry petrifies me; it is a rank imposition. in or about february or march, , i was given to understand that mr. croker was not only a coadjutor in the attacks of the courier in , but the author of some lines tolerably ferocious, then recently published in a morning paper. upon this i wrote a reprisal. the whole of the lines i have forgotten, and even the purport of them i scarcely remember; for on _your_ assuring me that he was not, &c. &c., i put them into the _fire before your face_, and there _never was_ but that _one rough_ copy. mr. davies, the only person who ever heard them read, wanted a copy, which i refused. if, however, by some _impossibility_, which i cannot divine, the ghost of these rhymes should walk into the world, i never will deny what i have really written, but hold myself personally responsible for satisfaction, though i reserve to myself the right of disavowing all or any _fabrications_. to the previous facts you are a witness, and best know how far my recapitulation is correct; and i request that you will inform mr. perry from me, that i wonder he should permit such an abuse of my name in his paper; i say an _abuse_, because my absence, at least, demands some respect, and my presence and positive sanction could alone justify him in such a proceeding, even were the lines mine; and if false, there are no words for him. i repeat to you that the original was burnt before you on your _assurance_, and there _never_ was a _copy_, nor even a verbal repetition,--very much to the discomfort of some zealous whigs, who bored me for them (having heard it bruited by mr. davies that there were such matters) to no purpose; for, having written them solely with the notion that mr. croker was the aggressor, and for _my own_ and not party reprisals, i would not lend me to the zeal of any sect when i was made aware that he was not the writer of the offensive passages. _you know_, if there was such a thing, i would not deny it. i mentioned it openly at the time to you, and you will remember why and where i destroyed it; and no power nor wheedling on earth should have made, or could make, me (if i recollected them) give a copy after that, unless i was well assured that mr. croker was really the author of that which you assured me he was not. "i intend for england this spring, where i have some affairs to adjust; but the post hurries me. for this month past i have been unwell, but am getting better, and thinking of moving homewards towards may, without going to rome, as the unhealthy season comes on soon, and i can return when i have settled the business i go upon, which need not be long. i should have thought the assyrian tale very succeedable. "i saw, in mr. w.w.'s poetry, that he had written my epitaph; i would rather have written his. "the thing i have sent you, you will see at a glimpse, could never be attempted or thought of for the stage; i much doubt it for publication even. it is too much in my old style; but i composed it actually with a _horror_ of the stage, and with a view to render the thought of it impracticable, knowing the zeal of my friends that i should try that for which i have an invincible repugnance, viz. a representation. "i certainly am a devil of a mannerist, and must leave off; but what could i do? without exertion of some kind, i should have sunk under my imagination and reality. my best respects to mr. gifford, to walter scott, and to all friends. "yours ever." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, march . . "i wrote again to you lately, but i hope you won't be sorry to have another epistle. i have been unwell this last month, with a kind of slow and low fever, which fixes upon me at night, and goes off in the morning; but, however, i am now better. in spring it is probable we may meet; at least i intend for england, where i have business, and hope to meet you in _your_ restored health and additional laurels. "murray has sent me the quarterly and the edinburgh. when i tell you that walter scott is the author of the article in the former, you will agree with me that such an article is still more honourable to him than to myself. i am perfectly pleased with jeffrey's also, which i wish you to tell him, with my remembrances--not that i suppose it is of any consequence to him, or ever could have been, whether i am pleased or not, but simply in my private relation to him, as his well-wisher, and it may be one day as his acquaintance. i wish you would also add, what you know, that i was not, and, indeed, am not even now, the misanthropical and gloomy gentleman he takes me for, but a facetious companion, well to do with those with whom i am intimate, and as loquacious and laughing as if i were a much cleverer fellow. "i suppose now i shall never be able to shake off my sables in public imagination, more particularly since my moral * * clove down my fame. however, nor that, nor more than that, has yet extinguished my spirit, which always rises with the rebound. "at venice we are in lent, and i have not lately moved out of doors, my feverishness requiring quiet, and--by way of being more quiet--here is the signora marianna just come in and seated at my elbow. "have you seen * * *'s book of poesy? and, if you have seen it, are you not delighted with it? and have you--i really cannot go on: there is a pair of great black eyes looking over my shoulder, like the angel leaning over st. matthew's, in the old frontispieces to the evangelists,--so that i must turn and answer them instead of you. "ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, march . . "i have at last learned, in default of your own writing (or _not_ writing--which should it be? for i am not very clear as to the application of the word _default_) from murray, two particulars of (or belonging to) you; one, that you are removing to hornsey, which is, i presume, to be nearer london; and the other, that your poem is announced by the name of lalla rookh. i am glad of it,--first, that we are to have it at last, and next, i like a tough title myself--witness the giaour and childe harold, which choked half the blues at starting. besides, it is the tail of alcibiades's dog,--not that i suppose you want either dog or tail. talking of tail, i wish you had not called it a '_persian tale_'[ ] say a 'poem' or 'romance,' but not 'tale.' i am very sorry that i called some of my own things 'tales,' because i think that they are something better. besides, we have had arabian, and hindoo, and turkish, and assyrian tales. but, after all, this is frivolous in me; you won't, however, mind my nonsense. "really and truly, i want you to make a great hit, if only out of self-love, because we happen to be old cronies; and i have no doubt you will--i am sure you _can_. but you are, i'll be sworn, in a devil of a pucker; and _i_ am not at your elbow, and rogers _is_. i envy him; which is not fair, because he does not envy any body. mind you send to me--that is, make murray send--the moment you are forth. "i have been very ill with a slow fever, which at last took to flying, and became as quick as need be.[ ] but, at length, after a week of half-delirium, burning skin, thirst, hot headach, horrible pulsation, and no sleep, by the blessing of barley water, and refusing to see any physician, i recovered. it is an epidemic of the place, which is annual, and visits strangers. here follow some versicles, which i made one sleepless night. "i read the 'christabel;' very well: i read the 'missionary;' pretty--very: i tried at 'ilderim;' ahem; i read a sheet of 'marg'ret of _anjou_;' _can you_? i turn'd a page of * *'s 'waterloo;' pooh! pooh! i look'd at wordsworth's milk-white 'rylstone doe:' hillo! &c. &c. &c. "i have not the least idea where i am going, nor what i am to do. i wished to have gone to rome; but at present it is pestilent with english,--a parcel of staring boobies, who go about gaping and wishing to be at once cheap and magnificent. a man is a fool who travels now in france or italy, till this tribe of wretches is swept home again. in two or three years the first rush will be over, and the continent will be roomy and agreeable. "i stayed at venice chiefly because it is not one of their 'dens of thieves;' and here they but pause and pass. in switzerland it was really noxious. luckily, i was early, and had got the prettiest place on all the lake before they were quickened into motion with the rest of the reptiles. but they crossed me every where. i met a family of children and old women half-way up the wengen alp (by the jungfrau) upon mules, some of them too old and others too young to be the least aware of what they saw. "by the way, i think the jungfrau, and all that region of alps, which i traversed in september--going to the very top of the wengen, which is not the highest (the jungfrau itself is inaccessible) but the best point of view--much finer than mont-blanc and chamouni, or the simplon i kept a journal of the whole for my sister augusta, part of which she copied and let murray see. "i wrote a sort of mad drama, for the sake of introducing the alpine scenery in description: and this i sent lately to murray. almost all the _dram. pers._ are spirits, ghosts, or magicians, and the scene is in the alps and the other world, so you may suppose what a bedlam tragedy it must be: make him show it you. i sent him all three acts piece-meal, by the post, and suppose they have arrived. "i have now written to you at least six letters, or lettered, and all i have received in return is a note about the length you used to write from bury street to st. james's street, when we used to dine with rogers, and talk laxly, and go to parties, and hear poor sheridan now and then. do you remember one night he was so tipsy that i was forced to put his cocked hat on for him,--for he could not,--and i let him down at brookes's, much as he must since have been let down into his grave. heigh ho! i wish i was drunk--but i have nothing but this d----d barley-water before me. "i am still in love,--which is a dreadful drawback in quitting a place, and i can't stay at venice much longer. what i shall do on this point i don't know. the girl means to go with me, but i do not like this for her own sake. i have had so many conflicts in my own mind on this subject, that i am not at all sure they did not help me to the fever i mentioned above. i am certainly very much attached to her, and i have cause to be so, if you knew all. but she has a child; and though, like all the 'children of the sun,' she consults nothing but passion, it is necessary i should think for both; and it is only the virtuous, like * * * *, who can afford to give up husband and child, and live happy ever after. "the italian ethics are the most singular ever met with. the perversion, not only of action, but of reasoning, is singular in the women. it is not that they do not consider the thing itself as wrong, and very wrong, but _love_ (the _sentiment_ of love) is not merely an excuse for it, but makes it an _actual virtue_, provided it is disinterested, and not a _caprice_, and is confined to one object. they have awful notions of constancy; for i have seen some ancient figures of eighty pointed out as amorosi of forty, fifty, and sixty years' standing. i can't say i have ever seen a husband and wife so coupled. "ever, &c. "p.s. marianna, to whom i have just translated what i have written on our subject to you, says--'if you loved me thoroughly, you would not make so many fine reflections, which are only good _forbirsi i scarpi_,'--that is, 'to clean shoes withal,'--a venetian proverb of appreciation, which is applicable to reasoning of all kinds." [footnote : he had been misinformed on this point,--the work in question having been, from the first, entitled an "oriental romance." a much worse mistake (because wilful, and with no very charitable design) was that of certain persons, who would have it that the poem was meant to be epic!--even mr. d'israeli has, for the sake of a theory, given in to this very gratuitous assumption:--"the anacreontic poet," he says, "remains only anacreontic in his epic."] [footnote : in a note to mr. murray, subjoined to some corrections for manfred, he says, "since i wrote to you last, the _slow_ fever i wot of thought proper to mend its pace, and became similar to one which i caught some years ago in the marshes of elis, in the morea."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, march . . "your letter and enclosure are safe; but 'english gentlemen' are very rare--at least in venice. i doubt whether there are at present any, save, the consul and vice-consul, with neither of whom i have the slightest acquaintance. the moment i can pounce upon a witness, i will send the deed properly signed: but must he necessarily be genteel? venice is not a place where the english are gregarious; their pigeon-houses are florence, naples, rome, &c.; and to tell you the truth, this was one reason why i stayed here till the season of the purgation of rome from these people, which is infected with them at this time, should arrive. besides, i abhor the nation and the nation me; it is impossible for me to describe my _own_ sensation on that point, but it may suffice to say, that, if i met with any of the race in the beautiful parts of switzerland, the most distant glimpse or aspect of them poisoned the whole scene, and i do not choose to have the pantheon, and st. peter's, and the capitol, spoiled for me too. this feeling may be probably owing to recent events; but it does not exist the less, and while it exists, i shall conceal it as little as any other. "i have been seriously ill with a fever, but it is gone. i believe or suppose it was the indigenous fever of the place, which comes every year at this time, and of which the physicians change the name annually, to despatch the people sooner. it is a kind of typhus, and kills occasionally. it was pretty smart, but nothing particular, and has left me some debility and a great appetite. there are a good many ill at present, i suppose, of the same. "i feel sorry for horner, if there was any thing in the world to make him like it; and still more sorry for his friends, as there was much to make them regret him. i had not heard of his death till by your letter. "some weeks ago i wrote to you my acknowledgments of walter scott's article. now i know it to be his, it cannot add to my good opinion of him, but it adds to that of myself. _he_, and gifford, and moore, are the only _regulars_ i ever knew who had nothing of the _garrison_ about their manner: no nonsense, nor affectations, look you! as for the rest whom i have known, there was always more or less of the author about them--the pen peeping from behind the ear, and the thumbs a little inky, or so. "'lalla rookh'--you must recollect that, in the way of title, the '_giaour_' has never been pronounced to this day; and both it and childe harold sounded very facetious to the blue-bottles of wit and humour about town, till they were taught and startled into a proper deportment; and therefore lalla rookh, which is very orthodox and oriental, is as good a title as need be, if not better. i could wish rather that he had not called it '_a persian tale_;' firstly, because we have had turkish tales, and hindoo tales, and assyrian tales, already; and _tale_ is a word of which it repents me to have nicknamed poesy. 'fable' would be better; and, secondly, 'persian tale' reminds one of the lines of pope on ambrose phillips; though no one can say, to be sure, that this tale has been 'turned for half-a-crown;' still it is as well to avoid such clashings. 'persian story'--why not?--or romance? i feel as anxious for moore as i could do for myself, for the soul of me, and i would not have him succeed otherwise than splendidly, which i trust he will do. "with regard to the 'witch drama,' i sent all the three acts by post, week after week, within this last month. i repeat that i have not an idea if it is good or bad. if bad, it must, on no account, be risked in publication; if good, it is at your service i value it at _three hundred_ guineas, or less, if you like it. perhaps, if published, the best way will be to add it to your winter volume, and not publish separately. the price will show you i don't pique myself upon it; so speak out. you may put it in the fire, if you like, and gifford don't like. "the armenian grammar is published--that is, _one_; the other is still in ms. my illness has prevented me from moving this month past, and i have done nothing more with the armenian. "of italian or rather lombard manners, i could tell you little or nothing: i went two or three times to the governor's conversazione, (and if you go once, you are free to go always,) at which, as i only saw very plain women, a formal circle, in short a _worst sort_ of rout, i did not go again. i went to academie and to madame albrizzi's, where i saw pretty much the same thing, with the addition of some literati, who are the same _blue_[ ], by ----, all the world over. i fell in love the first week with madame * *, and i have continued so ever since, because she is very pretty and pleasing, and talks venetian, which amuses me, and is naïve. "very truly, &c. "p.s. pray send the red tooth-powder by a _safe hand_, and speedily.[ ] "to hook the reader, you, john murray, have publish'd 'anjou's margaret,' which won't be sold off in a hurry (at least, it has not been as yet); and then, still further to bewilder 'em, without remorse you set up 'ilderim;' so mind you don't get into debt, because as how, if you should fail, these books would be but baddish bail. and mind you do _not_ let escape these rhymes to morning post or perry, which would be _very_ treacherous--_very_, and get me into such a scrape! for, firstly, i should have to sally, all in my little boat, against a _gally_; and, should i chance to slay the assyrian wight, have next to combat with the female knight. "you may show these matters to moore and the select, but not to the _profane_; and tell moore, that i wonder he don't write to one now and then." [footnote : whenever a word or passage occurs (as in this instance) which lord byron would have pronounced emphatically in speaking, it appears, in his handwriting, as if written with something of the same vehemence.] [footnote : here follow the same rhymes ("i read the christabel," &c.) which have already been given in one of his letters to myself.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, march . . "you will begin to think my epistolary offerings (to whatever altar you please to devote them) rather prodigal. but until you answer, i shall not abate, because you deserve no better. i know you are well, because i hear of your voyaging to london and the environs, which i rejoice to learn, because your note alarmed me by the purgation and phlebotomy therein prognosticated. i also hear of your being in the press; all which, methinks, might have furnished you with subject-matter for a middle-sized letter, considering that i am in foreign parts, and that the last month's advertisements and obituary would be absolute news to me from your tramontane country. "i told you, in my last, i have had a smart fever. there is an epidemic in the place; but i suspect, from the symptoms, that mine was a fever of my own, and had nothing in common with the low, vulgar typhus, which is at this moment decimating venice, and which has half unpeopled milan, if the accounts be true. this malady has sorely discomfited my serving men, who want sadly to be gone away, and get me to remove. but, besides my natural perversity, i was seasoned in turkey, by the continual whispers of the plague, against apprehensions of contagion. besides which, apprehension would not prevent it; and then i am still in love, and 'forty thousand' fevers should not make me stir before my minute, while under the influence of that paramount delirium. seriously speaking, there is a malady rife in the city--a dangerous one, they say. however, mine did not appear so, though it was not pleasant. "this is passion-week--and twilight--and all the world are at vespers. they have an eternal churching, as in all catholic countries, but are not so bigoted as they seem to be in spain. "i don't know whether to be glad or sorry that you are leaving mayfield. had i ever been at newstead during your stay there, (except during the winter of - , when the roads were impracticable,) we should have been within hail, and i should like to have made a giro of the peak with you. i know that country well, having been all over it when a boy. was you ever in dovedale? i can assure you there are things in derbyshire as noble as greece or switzerland. but you had always a lingering after london, and i don't wonder at it. i liked it as well as any body, myself, now and then. "will you remember me to rogers? whom i presume to be flourishing, and whom i regard as our poetical papa. you are his lawful son, and i the illegitimate. has he begun yet upon sheridan? if you see our republican friend, leigh hunt, pray present my remembrances. i saw about nine months ago that he was in a row (like my friend hobhouse) with the quarterly reviewers. for my part, i never could understand these quarrels of authors with critics and with one another. 'for god's sake, gentlemen, what do they mean?' "what think you of your countryman, maturin? i take some credit to myself for having done my best to bring out bertram; but i must say my colleagues were quite as ready and willing. walter scott, however, was the _first_ who mentioned him, which he did to me, with great commendation, in ; and it is to this casualty, and two or three other accidents, that this very clever fellow owed his first and well-merited public success. what a chance is fame! "did i tell you that i have translated two epistles?--a correspondence between st. paul and the corinthians, not to be found in our version, but the armenian--but which seems to me very orthodox, and i have done it into scriptural prose english.[ ] "ever," &c. [footnote : the only plausible claim of these epistles to authenticity arises from the circumstance of st. paul having (according to the opinion of mosheim and others) written an epistle to the corinthians, before that which we now call his first. they are, however, universally given up as spurious. though frequently referred to as existing in the armenian, by primate usher, johan. gregorius, and other learned men, they were for the first time, i believe, translated from that language by the two whistons, who subjoined the correspondence, with a greek and latin version, to their edition of the armenian history of moses of chorene, published in . the translation by lord byron is, as far as i can learn, the first that has ever been attempted in english; and as, proceeding from _his_ pen, it must possess, of course, additional interest, the reader will not be displeased to find it in the appendix. annexed to the copy in my possession are the following words in his own handwriting:--"done into english by me, january, february, , at the convent of san lazaro, with the aid and exposition of the armenian text by the father paschal aucher, armenian friar.--byron. i had also (he adds) the latin text, but it is in many places very corrupt, and with great omissions."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, april . . "i sent you the whole of the drama at _three several_ times, act by act, in separate covers. i hope that you have, or will receive, some or the whole of it. "so love has a conscience. by diana! i shall make him take back the box, though it were pandora's. the discovery of its intrinsic silver occurred on sending it to have the lid adapted to admit marianna's portrait. of course i had the box remitted _in statu quo_, and had the picture set in another, which suits it (the picture) very well. the defaulting box is not touched, hardly, and was not in the man's hands above an hour. "i am aware of what you say of otway; and am a very great admirer of his,--all except of that maudlin b--h of chaste lewdness and blubbering curiosity, belvidera, whom i utterly despise, abhor, and detest. but the story of marino faliero is different, and, i think, so much finer, that i wish otway had taken it instead: the head conspiring against the body for refusal of redress for a real injury,--jealousy--treason, with the more fixed and inveterate passions (mixed with policy) of an old or elderly man--the devil himself could not have a finer subject, and he is your only tragic dramatist. "there is still, in the doge's palace, the black veil painted over faliero's picture, and the staircase whereon he was first crowned doge, and subsequently decapitated. this was the thing that most struck my imagination in venice--more than the rialto, which i visited for the sake of shylock; and more, too, than schiller's '_armenian_,' a novel which took a great hold of me when a boy. it is also called the 'ghost seer,' and i never walked down st. mark's by moonlight without thinking of it, and 'at nine o'clock he died!'--but i hate things _all fiction_; and therefore the _merchant_ and _othello_ have no great associations to me: but _pierre_ has. there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a liar. "maturin's tragedy.--by your account of him last year to me, he seemed a bit of a coxcomb, personally. poor fellow! to be sure, he had had a long seasoning of adversity, which is not so hard to bear as t'other thing. i hope that this won't throw him back into the 'slough of despond.' "you talk of 'marriage;'--ever since my own funeral, the word makes me giddy, and throws me into a cold sweat. pray, don't repeat it. "you should close with madame de staël. this will be her best work, and permanently historical; it is on her father, the revolution, and buonaparte, &c. bunstetten told me in switzerland it was _very_ _great_. i have not seen it myself, but the author often. she was very kind to me at copet. "there have been two articles in the venice papers, one a review of glenarvon * * * *, and the other a review of childe harold, in which it proclaims me the most rebellious and contumacious admirer of buonaparte now surviving in europe. both these articles are translations from the literary gazette of german jena. "tell me that walter scott is better. i would not have him ill for the world. i suppose it was by sympathy that i had my fever at the same time. "i joy in the success of your quarterly, but i must still stick by the edinburgh; jeffrey has done so by me, i must say, through every thing, and this is more than i deserved from him. i have more than once acknowledged to you by letter the 'article' (and articles); say that you have received the said letters, as i do not otherwise know what letters arrive. both reviews came, but nothing more. m.'s play and the extract not yet come. "write to say whether my magician has arrived, with all his scenes, spells, &c. yours ever, &c. "it is useless to send to the _foreign office_: nothing arrives to me by that conveyance. i suppose some zealous clerk thinks it a tory duty to prevent it." * * * * * letter . to mr. rogers. "venice, april . . "it is a considerable time since i wrote to you last, and i hardly know why i should trouble you now, except that i think you will not be sorry to hear from me now and then. you and i were never correspondents, but always something better, which is, very good friends. "i saw your friend sharp in switzerland, or rather in the german _territory_ (which is and is not switzerland), and he gave hobhouse and me a very good route for the bernese alps; however we took another from a german, and went by clarens, the dent de jamen to montbovon, and through simmenthal to thoun, and so on to lauterbrounn; except that from thence to the grindelwald, instead of round about, we went right over the wengen alps' very summit, and being close under the jungfrau, saw it, its glaciers, and heard the avalanches in all their glory, having famous weather there_for_. we of course went from the grindelwald over the sheidech to brientz and its lake; past the reichenbach and all that mountain road, which reminded me of albania and Ætolia and greece, except that the people here were more civilised and rascally. i do not think so very much of chamouni (except the source of the arveron, to which we went up to the teeth of the ice, so as to look into and touch the cavity, against the warning of the guides, only one of whom would go with us so close,) as of the jungfrau, and the pissevache, and simplon, which are quite out of all mortal competition. "i was at milan about a moon, and saw monti and some other living curiosities, and thence on to verona, where i did not forget your story of the assassination during your sojourn there, and brought away with me some fragments of juliet's tomb, and a lively recollection of the amphitheatre. the countess goetz (the governor's wife here) told me that there is still a ruined castle of the montecchi between verona and vicenza. i have been at venice since november, but shall proceed to rome shortly. for my deeds here, are they not written in my letters to the unreplying thomas moore? to him i refer you: he has received them all, and not answered one. "will you remember me to lord and lady holland? i have to thank the former for a book which. i have not yet received, but expect to reperuse with great pleasure on my return, viz. the d edition of lope de vega. i have heard of moore's forthcoming poem: he cannot wish himself more success than i wish and augur for him. i have also heard great things of 'tales of my landlord,' but i have not yet received them; by all accounts they beat even waverley, &c., and are by the same author. maturin's second tragedy has, it seems, failed, for which i should think any body would be sorry. my health was very victorious till within the last month, when i had a fever. there is a typhus in these parts, but i don't think it was that. however, i got well without a physician or drugs. "i forgot to tell you that, last autumn, i furnished lewis with 'bread and salt' for some days at diodati, in reward for which (besides his conversation) he translated 'goethe's faust' to me by word of mouth, and i set him by the ears with madame de staël about the slave trade. i am indebted for many and kind courtesies to our lady of copet, and i now love her as much as i always did her works, of which i was and am a great admirer. when are you to begin with sheridan? what are you doing, and how do you do? ever very truly," &c. end of the third volume. london: spottiswoodes and shaw, new street square life of lord byron: with his letters and journals. by thomas moore, esq. in six volumes.--vol. iv. new edition. london: john murray, albemarle street. . contents of vol. iv letters and journals of lord byron, with notices of his life, from april, , to october, . notices of the life of lord byron. letter . to mr. murray. "venice, april . . "your letters of the th and th are arrived. in my own i have given you the rise, progress, decline, and fall, of my recent malady. it is gone to the devil: i won't pay him so bad a compliment as to say it came from him;--he is too much of a gentleman. it was nothing but a slow fever, which quickened its pace towards the end of its journey. i had been bored with it some weeks--with nocturnal burnings and morning perspirations; but i am quite well again, which i attribute to having had neither medicine nor doctor thereof. "in a few days i set off for rome: such is my purpose. i shall change it very often before monday next, but do you continue to direct and address to _venice_, as heretofore. if i go, letters will be forwarded: i say '_if_,' because i never know what i shall do till it is done; and as i mean most firmly to set out for rome, it is not unlikely i may find myself at st. petersburg. "you tell me to 'take care of myself;'--faith, and i will. i won't be posthumous yet, if i can help it. notwithstanding, only think what a 'life and adventures,' while i am in full scandal, would be worth, together with the 'membra' of my writing-desk, the sixteen beginnings of poems never to be finished! do you think i would not have shot myself last year, had i not luckily recollected that mrs. c * * and lady n * *, and all the old women in england would have been delighted;--besides the agreeable 'lunacy,' of the 'crowner's quest,' and the regrets of two or three or half a dozen? be assured that i _would live_ for two reasons, or more;--there are one or two people whom i have to put out of the world, and as many into it, before i can 'depart in peace;' if i do so before, i have not fulfilled my mission. besides, when i turn thirty, i will turn devout; i feel a great vocation that way in catholic churches, and when i hear the organ. "so * * is writing again! is there no bedlam in scotland? nor thumb-screw? nor gag? nor hand-cuff? i went upon my knees to him almost, some years ago, to prevent him from publishing a political pamphlet, which would have given him a livelier idea of 'habeas corpus' than the world will derive from his present production upon that suspended subject, which will doubtless be followed by the suspension of other of his majesty's subjects. "i condole with drury lane and rejoice with * *,--that is, in a modest way,--on the tragical end of the new tragedy. "you and leigh hunt have quarrelled then, it seems? i introduce him and his poem to you, in the hope that (malgré politics) the union would be beneficial to both, and the end is eternal enmity; and yet i did this with the best intentions: i introduce * * *, and * * * runs away with your money: my friend hobhouse quarrels, too, with the quarterly: and (except the last) i am the innocent istmhus (damn the word! i can't spell it, though i have crossed that of corinth a dozen times) of these enmities. "i will tell you something about chillon.--a mr. _de luc_, ninety years old, a swiss, had it read to him, and is pleased with it,--so my sister writes. he said that he was _with rousseau_ at _chillon_, and that the description is perfectly correct. but this is not all: i recollected something of the name, and find the following passage in 'the confessions,' vol. iii. page . liv. viii.:-- "'de tous ces amusemens celui qui me plût davantage fut une promenade autour du lac, que je fis en bateau avec _de luc_ père, sa bru, ses _deux fils_, et ma therése. nous mimes sept jours à cette tournée par le plus beau temps du monde. j'en gardai le vif souvenir des sites qui m'avoient frappé à l'autre extrémité du lac, et dont je fis la description, quelques années après, dans la nouvelle heloise' "this nonagenarian, de luc, must be one of the 'deux fils.' he is in england--infirm, but still in faculty. it is odd that he should have lived so long, and not wanting in oddness that he should have made this voyage with jean jacques, and afterwards, at such an interval, read a poem by an englishman (who had made precisely the same circumnavigation) upon the same scenery. "as for 'manfred,' it is of no use sending _proofs_; nothing of that kind comes. i sent the whole at different times. the two first acts are the best; the third so so; but i was blown with the first and second heats. you must call it 'a poem,' for it is _no drama_, and i do not choose to have it called by so * * a name--a 'poem in dialogue,' or--pantomime, if you will; any thing but a green-room synonyme; and this is your motto-- "'there are more things in heaven and earth, horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' "yours ever, &c. "my love and thanks to mr. gifford." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, april . . "i shall continue to write to you while the fit is on me, by way of penance upon you for your former complaints of long silence. i dare say you would blush, if you could, for not answering. next week i set out for rome. having seen constantinople, i should like to look at t'other fellow. besides, i want to see the pope, and shall take care to tell him that i vote for the catholics and no veto. "i sha'n't go to naples. it is but the second best sea-view, and i have seen the first and third, viz. constantinople and lisbon, (by the way, the last is but a river-view; however, they reckon it after stamboul and naples, and before genoa,) and vesuvius is silent, and i have passed by Ætna. so i shall e'en return to venice in july; and if you write, i pray you to address to venice, which is my head, or rather my _heart_, quarters. "my late physician, dr. polidori, is here on his way to england, with the present lord g * * and the widow of the late earl. dr. polidori has, just now, no more patients, because his patients are no more. he had lately three, who are now all dead--one embalmed. horner and a child of thomas hope's are interred at pisa and rome. lord g * * died of an inflammation of the bowels: so they took them out, and sent them (on account of their discrepancies), separately from the carcass, to england. conceive a man going one way, and his intestines another, and his immortal soul a third!--was there ever such a distribution? one certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than i can imagine. i only know if once mine gets out, i'll have a bit of a tussle before i let it get in again to that or any other. "and so poor dear mr. maturin's second tragedy has been neglected by the discerning public! * * will be d----d glad of this, and d----d without being glad, if ever his own plays come upon 'any stage.' "i wrote to rogers the other day, with a message for you. i hope that he flourishes. he is the tithonus of poetry--immortal already. you and i must wait for it. "i hear nothing--know nothing. you may easily suppose that the english don't seek me, and i avoid them. to be sure, there are but few or none here, save passengers. florence and naples are their margate and ramsgate, and much the same sort of company too, by all accounts, which hurts us among the italians. "i want to hear of lalla rookh--are you out? death and fiends! why don't you tell me where you are, what you are, and how you are? i shall go to bologna by ferrara, instead of mantua: because i would rather see the cell where they caged tasso, and where he became mad and * *, than his own mss. at modena, or the mantuan birthplace of that harmonious plagiary and miserable flatterer, whose cursed hexameters were drilled into me at harrow. i saw verona and vicenza on my way here--padua too. "i go alone,--but alone, because i mean to return here. i only want to see rome. i have not the least curiosity about florence, though i must see it for the sake of the venus, &c. &c.; and i wish also to see the fall of terni. i think to return to venice by ravenna and rimini, of both of which i mean to take notes for leigh hunt, who will be glad to hear of the scenery of his poem. there was a devil of a review of him in the quarterly, a year ago, which he answered. all answers are imprudent: but, to be sure, poetical flesh and blood must have the last word--that's certain. i thought, and think, very highly of his poem; but i warned him of the row his favourite antique phraseology would bring him into. "you have taken a house at hornsey: i had much rather you had taken one in the apennines. if you think of coming out for a summer, or so, tell me, that i may be upon the hover for you. "ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, april . . "by the favour of dr. polidori, who is here on his way to england with the present lord g * *, (the late earl having gone to england by another road, accompanied by his bowels in a separate coffer,) i remit to you, to deliver to mrs. leigh, _two miniatures_; previously you will have the goodness to desire mr. love (as a peace-offering between him and me) to set them in plain gold, with my arms complete, and 'painted by prepiani--venice, ,' on the back. i wish also that you would desire holmes to make a copy of _each_--that is, both--for myself, and that you will retain the said copies till my return. one was done while i was very unwell; the other in my health, which may account for their dissimilitude. i trust that they will reach their destination in safety. "i recommend the doctor to your good offices with your government friends; and if you can be of any use to him in a literary point of view, pray be so. "to-day, or rather yesterday, for it is past midnight, i have been up to the battlements of the highest tower in venice, and seen it and its view, in all the glory of a clear italian sky. i also went over the manfrini palace, famous for its pictures. amongst them, there is a portrait of _ariosto_ by _titian_, surpassing all my anticipation of the power of painting or human expression: it is the poetry of portrait, and the portrait of poetry. there was also one of some learned lady, centuries old, whose name i forget, but whose features must always be remembered. i never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom:--it is the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of its frame. there is also a famous dead christ and live apostles, for which buonaparte offered in vain five thousand louis; and of which, though it is a capo d'opera of titian, as i am no connoisseur, i say little, and thought less, except of one figure in it. there are ten thousand others, and some very fine giorgiones amongst them, &c. &c. there is an original laura and petrarch, very hideous both. petrarch has not only the dress, but the features and air of an old woman, and laura looks by no means like a young one, or a pretty one. what struck me most in the general collection was the extreme resemblance of the style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so many centuries or generations old, to those you see and meet every day among the existing italians. the queen of cyprus and giorgione's wife, particularly the latter, are venetians as it were of yesterday; the same eyes and expression, and, to my mind, there is none finer. "you must recollect, however, that i know nothing of painting; and that i detest it, unless it reminds me of something i have seen, or think it possible to see, for which reason i spit upon and abhor all the saints and subjects of one half the impostures i see in the churches and palaces; and when in flanders, i never was so disgusted in my life, as with rubens and his eternal wives and infernal glare of colours, as they appeared to me; and in spain i did not think much of murillo and velasquez. depend upon it, of all the arts, it is the most artificial and unnatural, and that by which the nonsense of mankind is most imposed upon. i never yet saw the picture or the statue which came a league within my conception or expectation; but i have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond it,--besides some horses; and a lion (at veli pacha's) in the morea; and a tiger at supper in exeter change. "when you write, continue to address to me at _venice_. where do you suppose the books you sent to me are? at _turin_! this comes of '_the foreign office_' which is foreign enough, god knows, for any good it can be of to me, or any one else, and be d----d to it, to its last clerk and first charlatan, castlereagh. "this makes my hundredth letter at least. "yours," &c. * * * * * to mr. murray. "venice, april . . "the present proofs (of the whole) begin only at the th page; but as i had corrected and sent back the first act, it does not signify. "the third act is certainly d----d bad, and, like the archbishop of grenada's homily (which savoured of the palsy), has the dregs of my fever, during which it was written. it must on _no account_ be published in its present state. i will try and reform it, or rewrite it altogether; but the impulse is gone, and i have no chance of making any thing out of it. i would not have it published as it is on any account. the speech of manfred to the sun is the only part of this act i thought good myself; the rest is certainly as bad as bad can be, and i wonder what the devil possessed me. "i am very glad indeed that you sent me mr. gifford's opinion without _deduction_. do you suppose me such a booby as not to be very much obliged to him? or that in fact i was not, and am not, convinced and convicted in my conscience of this same overt act of nonsense? "i shall try at it again: in the mean time, lay it upon the shelf (the whole drama, i mean): but pray correct your copies of the first and second acts from the original ms. "i am not coming to england; but going to rome in a few days. i return to venice in _june_; so, pray, address all letters, &c. to me _here_, as usual, that is, to _venice_. dr. polidori this day left this city with lord g * * for england. he is charged with some books to your care (from me), and two miniatures also to the same address, _both_ for my sister. "recollect not to publish, upon pain of i know not what, until i have tried again at the third act. i am not sure that i _shall_ try, and still less that i shall succeed, if i do; but i am very sure, that (as it is) it is unfit for publication or perusal; and unless i can make it out to my own satisfaction, i won't have any part published. "i write in haste, and after having lately written very often. yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "foligno, april . . "i wrote to you the other day from florence, inclosing a ms. entitled 'the lament of tasso.' it was written in consequence of my having been lately at ferrara. in the last section of this ms. _but one_ (that is, the penultimate), i think that i have omitted a line in the copy sent to you from florence, viz. after the line-- "and woo compassion to a blighted name, insert, "sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim. the _context_ will show you _the sense_, which is not clear in this quotation. _remember, i write this in the supposition that you have received my florentine packet._ "at florence i remained but a day, having a hurry for rome, to which i am thus far advanced. however, i went to the two galleries, from which one returns drunk with beauty. the venus is more for admiration than love; but there are sculpture and painting, which for the first time at all gave me an idea of what people mean by their _cant_, and what mr. braham calls 'entusimusy' (_i.e._ enthusiasm) about those two most artificial of the arts. what struck me most were, the mistress of raphael, a portrait; the mistress of titian, a portrait; a venus of titian in the medici gallery--_the_ venus; canova's venus also in the other gallery: titian's mistress is also in the other gallery (that is, in the pitti palace gallery): the parcæ of michael angelo, a picture: and the antinous, the alexander, and one or two not very decent groups in marble; the genius of death, a sleeping figure, &c. &c. "i also went to the medici chapel--fine frippery in great slabs of various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten and forgotten carcasses. it is unfinished, and will remain so. "the church of 'santa croce' contains much illustrious nothing. the tombs of machiavelli, michael angelo, galileo galilei, and alfieri, make it the westminster abbey of italy. i did not admire any of these tombs--beyond their contents. that of alfieri is heavy, and all of them seem to me overloaded. what is necessary but a bust and name? and perhaps a date? the last for the unchronological, of whom i am one. but all your allegory and eulogy is infernal, and worse than the long wigs of english numskulls upon roman bodies in the statuary of the reigns of charles ii., william, and anne. "when you write, write to _venice_, as usual; i mean to return there in a fortnight. i shall not be in england for a long time. this afternoon i met lord and lady jersey, and saw them for some time: all well; children grown and healthy; she very pretty, but sunburnt; he very sick of travelling; bound for paris. there are not many english on the move, and those who are, mostly homewards. i shall not return till business makes me, being much better where i am in health, &c. &c. "for the sake of my personal comfort, i pray you send me immediately _to venice_--_mind, venice_--viz. _waites' tooth-powder_, _red_, a quantity; _calcined magnesia_, of the best quality, a quantity; and all this by safe, sure, and speedy means; and, by the lord! do it. "i have done nothing at manfred's third act. you must wait; i'll have at it in a week or two, or so. yours ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "rome, may . . "by this post, (or next at farthest) i send you in two _other_ covers, the new third act of 'manfred.' i have re-written the greater part, and returned what is not altered in the _proof_ you sent me. the abbot is become a good man, and the spirits are brought in at the death. you will find i think, some good poetry in this new act, here and there; and if so, print it, without sending me farther proofs, _under mr. gifford's correction_, if he will have the goodness to overlook it. address all answers to venice, as usual; i mean to return there in ten days. "'the lament of tasso,' which i sent from florence, has, i trust, arrived: i look upon it as a 'these be good rhymes,' as pope's papa said to him when he was a boy. for the two--it and the drama--you will disburse to me (_via_ kinnaird) _six_ hundred guineas. you will perhaps be surprised that i set the same price upon this as upon the drama; but, besides that i look upon it as _good_, i won't take less than three hundred guineas for any thing. the two together will make you a larger publication than the 'siege' and 'parisina;' so you may think yourself let off very easy: that is to say, if these poems are good for any thing, which i hope and believe. "i have been some days in rome the wonderful. i am seeing sights, and have done nothing else, except the new third act for you. i have this morning seen a live pope and a dead cardinal: pius vii. has been burying cardinal bracchi, whose body i saw in state at the chiesa nuova. rome has delighted me beyond every thing, since athens and constantinople. but i shall not remain long this visit. address to venice. "ever, &c. "p.s. i have got my saddle-horses here, and have ridden, and am riding, all about the country." * * * * * from the foregoing letters to mr. murray, we may collect some curious particulars respecting one of the most original and sublime of the noble poet's productions, the drama of manfred. his failure (and to an extent of which the reader shall be enabled presently to judge), in the completion of a design which he had, through two acts, so magnificently carried on,--the impatience with which, though conscious of this failure, he as usual hurried to the press, without deigning to woo, or wait for, a happier moment of inspiration,--his frank docility in, at once, surrendering up his third act to reprobation, without urging one parental word in its behalf,--the doubt he evidently felt, whether, from his habit of striking off these creations at a heat, he should be able to rekindle his imagination on the subject,--and then, lastly, the complete success with which, when his mind _did_ make the spring, he at once cleared the whole space by which he before fell short of perfection,--all these circumstances, connected with the production of this grand poem, lay open to us features, both of his disposition and genius, in the highest degree interesting, and such as there is a pleasure, second only to that of perusing the poem itself, in contemplating. as a literary curiosity, and, still more, as a lesson to genius, never to rest satisfied with imperfection or mediocrity, but to labour on till even failures are converted into triumphs, i shall here transcribe the third act, in its original shape, as first sent to the publisher:-- act iii.--scene i. a hall in the castle of manfred. manfred and herman. _man._ what is the hour? _her._ it wants but one till sunset, and promises a lovely twilight. _man._ say, are all things so disposed of in the tower as i directed? _her._ all, my lord, are ready: here is the key and casket. _man._ it is well: thou may'st retire. [_exit_ herman. _man._ (_alone._) there is a calm upon me-- inexplicable stillness! which till now did not belong to what i knew of life. if that i did not know philosophy to be of all our vanities the motliest, the merest word that ever fool'd the ear from out the schoolman's jargon, i should deem the golden secret, the sought 'kalon,' found, and seated in my soul. it will not last, but it is well to have known it, though but once: it hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense, and i within my tablets would note down that there is such a feeling. who is there? _re-enter_ herman. _her._ my lord, the abbot of st. maurice craves to greet your presence. _enter the_ abbot of st. maurice. _abbot._ peace be with count manfred! _man._ thanks, holy father! welcome to these walls; thy presence honours them, and blesseth those who dwell within them. _abbot._ would it were so, count! but i would fain confer with thee alone. _man._ herman, retire. what would my reverend guest? [_exit_ herman. _abbot._ thus, without prelude:--age and zeal, my office, and good intent, must plead my privilege; our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood, may also be my herald. rumours strange, and of unholy nature, are abroad, and busy with thy name--a noble name for centuries; may he who bears it now transmit it unimpair'd. _man._ proceed,--i listen. _abbot._ 'tis said thou boldest converse with the things which are forbidden to the search of man; that with the dwellers of the dark abodes, the many evil and unheavenly spirits which walk the valley of the shade of death, thou communest. i know that with mankind, thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude is as an anchorite's, were it but holy. _man._ and what are they who do avouch these things? _abbot._ my pious brethren--the scared peasantry-- even thy own vassals--who do look on thee with most unquiet eyes. thy life's in peril. _man._ take it. _abbot._ i come to save, and not destroy-- i would not pry into thy secret soul; but if these things be sooth, there still is time for penitence and pity: reconcile thee with the true church, and through the church to heaven. _man._ i hear thee. this is my reply; whate'er i may have been, or am, doth rest between heaven and myself.--i shall not choose a mortal to be my mediator. have i sinn'd against your ordinances? prove and punish![ ] _abbot._ then, hear and tremble! for the headstrong wretch who in the mail of innate hardihood would shield himself, and battle for his sins, there is the stake on earth, and beyond earth eternal-- _man._ charity, most reverend father, becomes thy lips so much more than this menace, that i would call thee back to it; but say, what wouldst thou with me? _abbot._ it may be there are things that would shake thee--but i keep them back, and give thee till to-morrow to repent. then if thou dost not all devote thyself to penance, and with gift of all thy lands to the monastery-- _man._ i understand thee,--well! _abbot._ expect no mercy; i have warned thee. _man._ (_opening the casket._) stop-- there is a gift for thee within this casket. [manfred _opens the casket, strikes a light, and burns some incense._ ho! ashtaroth! _the_ demon ashtaroth _appears, singing as follows:--_ the raven sits on the raven-stone, and his black wing flits o'er the milk-white bone; to and fro, as the night-winds blow, the carcass of the assassin swings; and there alone, on the raven-stone[ ], the raven flaps his dusky wings. the fetters creak--and his ebon beak croaks to the close of the hollow sound; and this is the tune by the light of the moon to which the witches dance their round-- merrily, merrily, cheerily, cheerily, merrily, speeds the ball: the dead in their shrouds, and the demons in clouds, flock to the witches' carnival. _abbot._ i fear thee not--hence--hence-- avaunt thee, evil one!--help, ho! without there! _man._ convey this man to the shreckhorn--to its peak-- to its extremest peak--watch with him there from now till sunrise; let him gaze, and know he ne'er again will be so near to heaven. but harm him not; and, when the morrow breaks, set him down safe in his cell--away with him! _ash._ had i not better bring his brethren too, convent and all, to bear him company? _man._ no, this will serve for the present. take him up. _ash._ come, friar! now an exorcism or two, and we shall fly the lighter. ashtaroth _disappears with the_ abbot, _singing as follows:--_ a prodigal son and a maid undone, and a widow re-wedded within the year; and a worldly monk and a pregnant nun, are things which every day appear. manfred _alone._ _man._ why would this fool break in on me, and force my art to pranks fantastical?--no matter, it was not of my seeking. my heart sickens, and weighs a fix'd foreboding on my soul; but it is calm--calm as a sullen sea after the hurricane; the winds are still, but the cold waves swell high and heavily, and there is danger in them. such a rest is no repose. my life hath been a combat. and every thought a wound, till i am scarr'd in the immortal part of me--what now? _re-enter_ herman. _her._ my lord, you bade me wait on you at sunset: he sinks behind the mountain. _man._ doth he so? i will look on him. [manfred _advances to the window of the hall._ glorious orb![ ] the idol of early nature, and the vigorous race of undiseased mankind, the giant sons of the embrace of angels, with a sex more beautiful than they, which did draw down the erring spirits who can ne'er return.-- most glorious orb! that wert a worship, ere the mystery of thy making was reveal'd! thou earliest minister of the almighty, which gladden'd, on their mountain tops, the hearts of the chaldean shepherds, till they pour'd themselves in orisons! thou material god! and representative of the unknown-- who chose thee for his shadow! thou chief star! centre of many stars! which mak'st our earth endurable, and temperest the hues and hearts of all who walk within thy rays! sire of the seasons! monarch of the climes, and those who dwell in them! for, near or far, our inborn spirits have a tint of thee, even as our outward aspects;--thou dost rise, and shine, and set in glory. fare thee well! i ne'er shall see thee more. as my first glance of love and wonder was for thee, then take my latest look: thou wilt not beam on one to whom the gifts of life and warmth have been of a more fatal nature. he is gone: i follow. [_exit_ manfred. scene ii. _the mountains--the castle of manfred at some distance--a terrace before a tower--time, twilight._ herman, manuel, _and other dependants of_ manfred. _her._ 'tis strange enough; night after night, for years, he hath pursued long vigils in this tower, without a witness. i have been within it,-- so have we all been oft-times; but from it, or its contents, it were impossible to draw conclusions absolute of aught his studies tend to. to be sure, there is one chamber where none enter; i would give the fee of what i have to come these three years, to pore upon its mysteries. _manuel._ 'twere dangerous; content thyself with what thou know'st already. _her._ ah! manuel! thou art elderly and wise, and couldst say much; thou hast dwelt within the castle-- how many years is't? _manuel._ ere count manfred's birth, i served his father, whom he nought resembles. _her._ there be more sons in like predicament. but wherein do they differ? _manuel._ i speak not of features or of form, but mind and habits: count sigismund was proud,--but gay and free,-- a warrior and a reveller; he dwelt not with books and solitude, nor made the night a gloomy vigil, but a festal time, merrier than day; he did not walk the rocks and forests like a wolf, nor turn aside from men and their delights. _her._ beshrew the hour, but those were jocund times! i would that such would visit the old walls again; they look as if they had forgotten them. _manuel._ these walls must change their chieftain first. oh! i have seen some strange things in these few years.[ ] _her._ come, be friendly; relate me some, to while away our watch: i've heard thee darkly speak of an event which happened hereabouts, by this same tower. _manuel._ that was a night indeed! i do remember 'twas twilight, as it may be now, and such another evening;--yon red cloud, which rests on eigher's pinnacle, so rested then,-- so like that it might be the same; the wind was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows began to glitter with the climbing moon; count manfred was, as now, within his tower,-- how occupied, we knew not, but with him the sole companion of his wanderings and watchings--her, whom of all earthly things that lived, the only thing he seemed to love,-- as he, indeed, by blood was bound to do, the lady astarte, his-- _her._ look--look--the tower-- the tower's on fire. oh, heavens and earth! what sound, what dreadful sound is that? [_a crash like thunder._ _manuel._ help, help, there!--to the rescue of the count,-- the count's in danger,--what ho! there! approach! _the servants, vassals, and peasantry approach, stupified with terror._ if there be any of you who have heart and love of human kind, and will to aid those in distress--pause not--but follow me-- the portal's open, follow. [manuel _goes in._ _her._ come--who follows? what, none of ye?--ye recreants! shiver then without. i will not see old manuel risk his few remaining years unaided. [herman _goes in._ _vassal._ hark!-- no--all is silent--not a breath--the flame which shot forth such a blaze is also gone; what may this mean? let's enter! _peasant._ faith, not i,-- not that, if one, or two, or more, will join, i then will stay behind; but, for my part, i do not see precisely to what end. _vassal._ cease your vain prating--come. _manuel._ (_speaking within._) 'tis all in vain-- he's dead. _her._ (_within._) not so--even now methought he moved; but it is dark--so bear him gently out-- softly--how cold he is! take care of his temples in winding down the staircase. _re-enter_ manuel _and_ herman, _bearing_ manfred _in their arms._ _manuel._ hie to the castle, some of ye, and bring what aid you can. saddle the barb, and speed for the leech to the city--quick! some water there! _her._ his cheek is black--but there is a faint beat still lingering about the heart. some water. [_they sprinkle_ manfred _with water; after a pause, he gives some signs of life._ _manuel._ he seems to strive to speak--come--cheerly, count! he moves his lips--canst hear him? i am old, and cannot catch faint sounds. [herman _inclining his head and listening._ _her._ i hear a word or two--but indistinctly--what is next? what's to be done? let's bear him to the castle. [manfred _motions with his hand not to remove him._ _manuel._ he disapproves--and 'twere of no avail-- he changes rapidly. _her._ 'twill soon be over. _manuel._ oh! what a death is this! that i should live to shake my gray hairs over the last chief of the house of sigismund.--and such a death! alone--we know not how--unshrived--untended-- with strange accompaniments and fearful signs-- i shudder at the sight--but must not leave him. _manfred._ (_speaking faintly and slowly._) old man! 'tis not so difficult to die. [manfred _having said this expires._ _her._ his eyes are fixed and lifeless.--he is gone.-- _manuel._ close them.--my old hand quivers.--he departs-- whither? i dread to think--but he is gone! [footnote : it will be perceived that, as far as this, the original matter of the third act has been retained.] [footnote : "raven-stone (rabenstein), a translation of the german word for the gibbet, which in germany and switzerland is permanent, and made of stone."] [footnote : this fine soliloquy, and a great part of the subsequent scene, have, it is hardly necessary to remark been retained in the present form of the drama.] [footnote : altered in the present form, to "some strange things in them, herman."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "rome, may . . "address all answers to venice; for there i shall return in fifteen days, god willing. "i sent you from florence 'the lament of tasso,' and from rome the third act of manfred, both of which, i trust, will duly arrive. the terms of these two i mentioned in my last, and will repeat in this, it is three hundred for each, or _six_ hundred guineas for the two--that is, if you like, and they are good for any thing. "at last one of the parcels is arrived. in the notes to childe harold there is a blunder of yours or mine: you talk of arrival at _st. gingo_, and, immediately after, add--'on the height is the château of clarens.' this is sad work: clarens is on the _other_ side of the lake, and it is quite impossible that i should have so bungled. look at the ms.; and at any rate rectify it. "the 'tales of my landlord' i have read with great pleasure, and perfectly understand now why my sister and aunt are so very positive in the very erroneous persuasion that they must have been written by me. if you knew me as well as they do, you would have fallen, perhaps, into the same mistake. some day or other, i will explain to you _why_--when i have time; at present, it does not much matter; but you must have thought this blunder of theirs very odd, and so did i, till i had read the book. croker's letter to you is a very great compliment; i shall return it to you in my next. "i perceive you are publishing a life of raffael d'urbino: it may perhaps interest you to hear that a set of german artists here allow their _hair_ to grow, and trim it into _his fashion_, thereby drinking the cummin of the disciples of the old philosopher; if they would cut their hair, convert it into brushes, and paint like him, it would be more '_german_ to the matter.' "i'll tell you a story: the other day, a man here--an english--mistaking the statues of charlemagne and constantine, which are _equestrian_, for those of peter and paul, asked another _which_ was paul of these same horsemen?--to which the reply was,--'i thought, sir, that st. paul had never got on _horseback_ since his _accident_?' "i'll tell you another: henry fox, writing to some one from naples the other day, after an illness, adds--'and i am so changed, that my _oldest creditors_ would hardly know me.' "i am delighted with rome--as i would be with a bandbox, that is, it is a fine thing to see, finer than greece; but i have not been here long enough to affect it as a residence, and i must go back to lombardy, because i am wretched at being away from marianna. i have been riding my saddle-horses every day, and been to albano, its lakes, and to the top of the alban mount, and to frescati, aricia, &c. &c. with an &c. &c. &c. about the city, and in the city: for all which--vide guide-book. as a whole, ancient and modern, it beats greece, constantinople, every thing--at least that i have ever seen. but i can't describe, because my first impressions are always strong and confused, and my memory _selects_ and reduces them to order, like distance in the landscape, and blends them better, although they may be less distinct. there must be a sense or two more than we have, us mortals; for * * * * * where there is much to be grasped we are always at a loss, and yet feel that we ought to have a higher and more extended comprehension. "i have had a letter from moore, who is in some alarm about his poem. i don't see why. "i have had another from my poor dear augusta, who is in a sad fuss about my late illness; do, pray, tell her (the truth) that i am better than ever, and in importunate health, growing (if not grown) large and ruddy, and congratulated by impertinent persons on my robustious appearance, when i ought to be pale and interesting. "you tell me that george byron has got a son, and augusta says, a daughter; which is it?--it is no great matter: the father is a good man, an excellent officer, and has married a very nice little woman, who will bring him more babes than income; howbeit she had a handsome dowry, and is a very charming girl;--but he may as well get a ship. "i have no thoughts of coming amongst you yet awhile, so that i can fight off business. if i could but make a tolerable sale of newstead, there would be no occasion for my return; and i can assure you very sincerely, that i am much happier (or, at least, have been so) out of your island than in it. "yours ever. "p.s. there are few english here, but several of my acquaintance; amongst others, the marquis of lansdowne, with whom i dine to-morrow. i met the jerseys on the road at foligno--all well. "oh--i forgot--the italians have printed chillon, &c. a _piracy_,--a pretty little edition, prettier than yours--and published, as i found to my great astonishment on arriving here; and what is odd, is, that the english is quite correctly printed. why they did it, or who did it, i know not; but so it is;--i suppose, for the english people. i will send you a copy." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "rome, may . . "i have received your letter here, where i have taken a cruise lately; but i shall return back to venice in a few days, so that if you write again, address there, as usual. i am not for returning to england so soon as you imagine; and by no means at all as a residence. if you cross the alps in your projected expedition, you will find me somewhere in lombardy, and very glad to see you. only give me a word or two beforehand, for i would readily diverge some leagues to meet you. "of rome i say nothing; it is quite indescribable, and the guide-book is as good as any other. i dined yesterday with lord lansdowne, who is on his return. but there are few english here at present; the winter is _their_ time. i have been on horseback most of the day, all days since my arrival, and have taken it as i did constantinople. but rome is the elder sister, and the finer. i went some days ago to the top of the alban mount, which is superb. as for the coliseum, pantheon, st. peter's, the vatican, palatine, &c. &c.--as i said, vide guide-book. they are quite inconceivable, and must _be seen_. the apollo belvidere is the image of lady adelaide forbes--i think i never saw such a likeness. "i have seen the pope alive, and a cardinal dead,--both of whom looked very well indeed. the latter was in state in the chiesa nuova, previous to his interment. "your poetical alarms are groundless; go on and prosper. here is hobhouse just come in, and my horses at the door, so that i must mount and take the field in the campus martius, which, by the way, is all built over by modern rome. "yours very and ever, &c. "p.s. hobhouse presents his remembrances, and is eager, with all the world, for your new poem." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, may . . "i returned from rome two days ago, and have received your letter; but no sign nor tidings of the parcel sent through sir c. stuart, which you mention. after an interval of months, a packet of 'tales,' &c. found me at rome; but this is all, and may be all that ever will find me. the post seems to be the only sure conveyance; and _that only for letters_. from florence i sent you a poem on tasso, and from rome the new third act of 'manfred,' and by dr. polidori two portraits for my sister. i left rome and made a rapid journey home. you will continue to direct here as usual. mr. hobhouse is gone to naples: i should have run down there too for a week, but for the quantity of english whom i heard of there. i prefer hating them at a distance; unless an earthquake, or a good real irruption of vesuvius, were ensured to reconcile me to their vicinity. "the day before i left rome i saw three robbers guillotined. the ceremony--including the _masqued_ priests; the half-naked executioners; the bandaged criminals; the black christ and his banner; the scaffold; the soldiery; the slow procession, and the quick rattle and heavy fall of the axe; the splash of the blood, and the ghastliness of the exposed heads--is altogether more impressive than the vulgar and ungentlemanly dirty 'new drop,' and dog-like agony of infliction upon the sufferers of the english sentence. two of these men behaved calmly enough, but the first of the three died with great terror and reluctance. what was very horrible, he would not lie down; then his neck was too large for the aperture, and the priest was obliged to drown his exclamations by still louder exhortations. the head was off before the eye could trace the blow; but from an attempt to draw back the head, notwithstanding it was held forward by the hair, the first head was cut off close to the ears: the other two were taken off more cleanly. it is better than the oriental way, and (i should think) than the axe of our ancestors. the pain seems little, and yet the effect to the spectator, and the preparation to the criminal, is very striking and chilling. the first turned me quite hot and thirsty, and made me shake so that i could hardly hold the opera-glass (i was close, but was determined to see, as one should see every thing, once, with attention); the second and third (which shows how dreadfully soon things grow indifferent), i am ashamed to say, had no effect on me as a horror, though i would have saved them if i could. yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, june . . "i have received the proofs of the 'lament of tasso,' which makes me hope that you have also received the reformed third act of manfred, from rome, which i sent soon after my arrival there. my date will apprise you of my return home within these few days. for me, i have received _none_ of your packets, except, after long delay, the 'tales of my landlord,' which i before acknowledged. i do not at all understand the _why nots_, but so it is; no manuel, no letters, no tooth-powder, no _extract_ from moore's italy concerning marino faliero, no nothing--as a man hallooed out at one of burdett's elections, after a long ululatus of 'no bastille! no governor-ities! no--'god knows who or what;--but his _ne plus ultra_ was, 'no nothing!'--and my receipts of your packages amount to about his meaning. i want the extract from _moore's_ italy very much, and the tooth-powder, and the magnesia; i don't care so much about the poetry, or the letters, or mr. maturin's by-jasus tragedy. most of the things sent by the post have come--i mean proofs and letters; therefore send me marino faliero by the post, in a letter. "i was delighted with rome, and was on horseback all round it many hours daily, besides in it the rest of my time, bothering over its marvels. i excursed and skirred the country round to alba, tivoli, frescati, licenza, &c. &c.; besides, i visited twice the fall of terni, which beats every thing. on my way back, close to the temple by its banks, i got some famous trout out of the river clitumnus--the prettiest little stream in all poesy, near the first post from foligno and spoletto.--i did not stay at florence, being anxious to get home to venice, and having already seen the galleries and other sights. i left my commendatory letters the evening before i went, so i saw nobody. "to-day, pindemonte, the celebrated poet of verona, called on me; he is a little thin man, with acute and pleasing features; his address good and gentle; his appearance altogether very philosophical; his age about sixty, or more. he is one of their best going. i gave him _forsyth_, as he speaks, or reads rather, a little english, and will find there a favourable account of himself. he enquired after his old cruscan friends, parsons, greathead, mrs. piozzi, and merry, all of whom he had known in his youth. i gave him as bad an account of them as i could, answering, as the false 'solomon lob' does to 'totterton' in the farce, 'all gone dead,' and damned by a satire more than twenty years ago; that the name of their extinguisher was gifford; that they were but a sad set of scribes after all, and no great things in any other way. he seemed, as was natural, very much pleased with this account of his old acquaintances, and went away greatly gratified with that and mr. forsyth's sententious paragraph of applause in his own (pindemonte's) favour. after having been a little libertine in his youth, he is grown devout, and takes prayers, and talks to himself, to keep off the devil; but for all that, he is a very nice little old gentleman. "i forgot to tell you that at bologna (which is celebrated for producing popes, painters, and sausages) i saw an anatomical gallery, where there is a deal of waxwork, in which * *. "i am sorry to hear of your row with hunt; but suppose him to be exasperated by the quarterly and your refusal to _deal_; and when one is angry and edites a paper, i should think the temptation too strong for literary nature, which is not always human. i can't conceive in what, and for what, he abuses you: what have you done? you are not an author, nor a politician, nor a public character; i know no scrape you have tumbled into. i am the more sorry for this because i introduced you to hunt, and because i believe him to be a good man; but till i know the particulars, i can give no opinion. "let me know about lalla rookh, which must be out by this time. "i restore the proofs, but the _punctuation_ should be corrected. i feel too lazy to have at it myself; so beg and pray mr. gifford for me.--address to venice. in a few days i go to my _villeggiatura_, in a cassino near the brenta, a few miles only on the main land. i have determined on another year, and _many years_ of residence if i can compass them. marianna is with me, hardly recovered of the fever, which has been attacking all italy last winter. i am afraid she is a little hectic; but i hope the best. "ever, &c. "p.s. torwaltzen has done a bust of me at rome for mr. hobhouse, which is reckoned very good. he is their best after canova, and by some preferred to him. "i have had a letter from mr. hodgson. he is very happy, has got a living, but not a child: if he had stuck to a curacy, babes would have come of course, because he could not have maintained them. "remember me to all friends, &c. &c. "an austrian officer, the other day, being in love with a venetian, was ordered, with his regiment, into hungary. distracted between love and duty, he purchased a deadly drug, which dividing with his mistress, both swallowed. the ensuing pains were terrific, but the pills were purgative, and not poisonous, by the contrivance of the unsentimental apothecary; so that so much suicide was all thrown away. you may conceive the previous confusion and the final laughter; but the intention was good on all sides." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, june . . "the present letter will be delivered to you by two armenian friars, on their way, by england, to madras. they will also convey some copies of the grammar, which i think you agreed to take. if you can be of any use to them, either amongst your naval or east indian acquaintances, i hope you will so far oblige me, as they and their order have been remarkably attentive and friendly towards me since my arrival at venice. their names are father sukias somalian and father sarkis theodorosian. they speak italian, and probably french, or a little english. repeating earnestly my recommendatory request, believe me, very truly, yours, "byron. "perhaps you can help them to their passage, or give or get them letters for india." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "la mira, near venice, june . . "i write to you from the banks of the brenta, a few miles from venice, where i have colonised for six months to come. address, as usual, to venice. "three months after date ( th march),--like the unnegotiable bill despondingly received by the reluctant tailor,--your despatch has arrived, containing the extract from moore's italy and mr. maturin's bankrupt tragedy. it is the absurd work of a clever man. i think it might have done upon the stage, if he had made manuel (by some trickery, in a masque or vizor) fight his own battle, instead of employing molineux as his champion; and, after the defeat of torismond, have made him spare the son of his enemy, by some revulsion of feeling, not incompatible with a character of extravagant and distempered emotions. but as it is, what with the justiza, and the ridiculous conduct of the whole _dram. pers._ (for they are all as mad as manuel, who surely must have had more interest with a corrupt bench than a distant relation and heir presumptive, somewhat suspect of homicide,) i do not wonder at its failure. as a play, it is impracticable; as a poem, no great things. who was the 'greek that grappled with glory naked?' the olympic wrestlers? or alexander the great, when he ran stark round the tomb of t'other fellow? or the spartan who was fined by the ephori for fighting without his armour? or who? and as to 'flaying off life like a garment,' helas! that's in tom thumb--see king arthur's soliloquy: "'life's a mere rag, not worth a prince's wearing; i'll cast it off.' and the stage-directions--'staggers among the bodies;'--the slain are too numerous, as well as the blackamoor knights-penitent being one too many: and de zelos is such a shabby monmouth street villain, without any redeeming quality--stap my vitals! maturin seems to be declining into nat. lee. but let him try again; he has talent, but not much taste. i 'gin to fear, or to hope, that sotheby, after all, is to be the eschylus of the age, unless mr. shiel be really worthy his success. the more i see of the stage, the less i would wish to have any thing to do with it; as a proof of which, i hope you have received the third act of manfred, which will at least prove that i wish to steer very clear of the possibility of being put into scenery. i sent it from _rome_. "i returned the proof of tasso. by the way, have you never received a translation of st. paul which i sent you, _not_ for publication, before i went to rome? "i am at present on the brenta. opposite is a spanish marquis, ninety years old; next his casino is a frenchman's,--besides the natives; so that, as somebody said the other day, we are exactly one of goldoni's comedies (la vedova scaltra), where a spaniard, english, and frenchman are introduced: but we are all very good neighbours, venetians, &c. &c. &c. "i am just getting on horseback for my evening ride, and a visit to a physician, who has an agreeable family, of a wife and four unmarried daughters, all under eighteen, who are friends of signora s * *, and enemies to nobody. there are, and are to be, besides, conversaziones and i know not what, a countess labbia's and i know not whom. the weather is mild; the thermometer in the _sun_ this day, and odd in the shade. yours, &c. "n." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "la mira, near venice, june . . "it gives me great pleasure to hear of moore's success, and the more so that i never doubted that it would be complete. whatever good you can tell me of him and his poem will be most acceptable: i feel very anxious indeed to receive it. i hope that he is as happy in his fame and reward as i wish him to be; for i know no one who deserves both more--if any so much. "now to business; * * * * * * i say unto you, verily, it is not so; or, as the foreigner said to the waiter, after asking him to bring a glass of water, to which the man answered, 'i will, sir,'--'you will!--g----d d----n,--i say, you _mush_!' and i will submit this to the decision of any person or persons to be appointed by both, on a fair examination of the circumstances of this as compared with the preceding publications. so there's for you. there is always some row or other previously to all our publications: it should seem that, on approximating, we can never quite get over the natural antipathy of author and bookseller, and that more particularly the ferine nature of the latter must break forth. "you are out about the third canto: i have not done, nor designed, a line of continuation to that poem. i was too short a time at rome for it, and have no thought of recommencing. "i cannot well explain to you by letter what i conceive to be the origin of mrs. leigh's notion about 'tales of my landlord;' but it is some points of the characters of sir e. manley and burley, as well as one or two of the jocular portions, on which it is founded, probably. "if you have received dr. polidori as well as a parcel of books, and you can be of use to him, be so. i never was much more disgusted with any human production than with the eternal nonsense, and tracasseries, and emptiness, and ill humour, and vanity of that young person; but he has some talent, and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of amendment, in which he has been aided by a little subsequent experience, and may turn out well. therefore, use your government interest for him, for he is improved and improvable. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "la mira, near venice, june . . "enclosed is a letter to _dr._ holland from pindemonte. not knowing the doctor's address, i am desired to enquire, and, perhaps, being a literary man, you will know or discover his haunt near some populous churchyard. i have written to you a scolding letter--i believe, upon a misapprehended passage in your letter--but never mind: it will do for next time, and you will surely deserve it. talking of doctors reminds me once more to recommend to you one who will not recommend himself,--the doctor polidori. if you can help him to a publisher, do; or, if you have any sick relation, i would advise his advice: all the patients he had in italy are dead--mr. * *'s son, mr. horner, and lord g * *, whom he embowelled with great success at pisa. "remember me to moore, whom i congratulate. how is rogers? and what is become of campbell and all t'other fellows of the druid order? i got maturin's bedlam at last, but no other parcel; i am in fits for the tooth-powder, and the magnesia. i want some of burkitt's _soda_-powders. will you tell mr. kinnaird that i have written him two letters on pressing business, (about newstead, &c.) to which i humbly solicit his attendance. i am just returned from a gallop along the banks of the brenta--time, sunset. yours, "b." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "la mira, near venice, july . . "since my former letter, i have been working up my impressions into a _fourth_ canto of childe harold, of which i have roughened off about rather better than thirty stanzas, and mean to go on; and probably to make this 'fytte' the concluding one of the poem, so that you may propose against the autumn to draw out the conscription for . you must provide moneys, as this new resumption bodes you certain disbursements. somewhere about the end of september or october, i propose to be under way (_i.e._ in the press); but i have no idea yet of the probable length or calibre of the canto, or what it will be good for; but i mean to be as mercenary as possible, an example (i do not mean of any individual in particular, and least of all, any person or persons of our mutual acquaintance) which i should have followed in my youth, and i might still have been a prosperous gentleman. "no tooth-powder, no letters, no recent tidings of you. "mr. lewis is at venice, and i am going up to stay a week with him there--as it is one of his enthusiasms also to like the city. "i stood in venice on the 'bridge of sighs,' &c. &c. "the 'bridge of sighs' (_i.e._ ponte de'i sospiri) is that which divides, or rather joins, the palace of the doge to the prison of the state. it has two passages: the criminal went by the one to judgment, and returned by the other to death, being strangled in a chamber adjoining, where there was a mechanical process for the purpose. "this is the first stanza of our new canto; and now for a line of the second:-- "in venice, tasso's echoes are no more, and silent rows the songless gondolier, her palaces, &c. &c. "you know that formerly the gondoliers sung always, and tasso's gierusalemme was their ballad. venice is built on seventy-two islands. "there! there's a brick of your new babel! and now, sirrah! what say you to the sample? "yours, &c. "p.s. i shall write again by and by." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "la mira, near venice, july . "if you can convey the enclosed letter to its address, or discover the person to whom it is directed, you will confer a favour upon the venetian creditor of a deceased englishman. this epistle is a dun to his executor, for house-rent. the name of the insolvent defunct is, or was, _porter valter_, according to the account of the plaintiff, which i rather suspect ought to be _walter porter_, according to our mode of collocation. if you are acquainted with any dead man of the like name a good deal in debt, pray dig him up, and tell him that 'a pound of his fair flesh' or the ducats are required, and that 'if you deny them, fie upon your law!' "i hear nothing more from you about moore's poem, rogers, or other literary phenomena; but to-morrow, being post-day, will bring perhaps some tidings. i write to you with people talking venetian all about, so that you must not expect this letter to be all english. "the other day, i had a squabble on the highway, as follows: i was riding pretty quickly from dolo home about eight in the evening, when i passed a party of people in a hired carriage, one of whom, poking his head out of the window, began bawling to me in an inarticulate but insolent manner. i wheeled my horse round, and overtaking, stopped the coach, and said, 'signor, have you any commands for me?' he replied, impudently as to manner, 'no.' i then asked him what he meant by that unseemly noise, to the discomfiture of the passers-by. he replied by some piece of impertinence, to which i answered by giving him a violent slap in the face. i then dismounted, (for this passed at the window, i being on horseback still,) and opening the door desired him to walk out, or i would give him another. but the first had settled him except as to words, of which he poured forth a profusion in blasphemies, swearing that he would go to the police and avouch a battery sans provocation. i said he lied, and was a * *, and if he did not hold his tongue, should be dragged out and beaten anew. he then held his tongue. i of course told him my name and residence, and defied him to the death, if he were a gentleman, or not a gentleman, and had the inclination to be genteel in the way of combat. he went to the police, but there having been bystanders in the road,--particularly a soldier, who had seen the business,--as well as my servant, notwithstanding the oaths of the coachman and five insides besides the plaintiff, and a good deal of paying on all sides, his complaint was dismissed, he having been the aggressor;--and i was subsequently informed that, had i not given him a blow, he might have been had into durance. "so set down this,--'that in aleppo once' i 'beat a venetian;' but i assure you that he deserved it, for i am a quiet man, like candide, though with somewhat of his fortune in being forced to forego my natural meekness every now and then. "yours, &c. b." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, july , . "i have got the sketch and extracts from lalla rookh. the plan, as well as the extracts, i have seen, please me very much indeed, and i feel impatient for the whole. "with regard to the critique on 'manfred,' you have been in such a devil of a hurry, that you have only sent me the half: it breaks off at page . send me the rest; and also page ., where there is 'an account of the supposed origin of this dreadful story,'--in which, by the way, whatever it may be, the conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of the matter. i had a better origin than he can devise or divine, for the soul of him. "you say nothing of manfred's luck in the world; and i care not. he is one of the best of my misbegotten, say what they will. "i got at last an extract, but _no parcels_. they will come, i suppose, some time or other. i am come up to venice for a day or two to bathe, and am just going to take a swim in the adriatic; so, good evening--the post waits. yours, &c. "b. "p.s. pray, was manfred's speech to _the sun_ still retained in act third? i hope so: it was one of the best in the thing, and better than the colosseum. i have done _fifty-six_ of canto fourth, childe harold; so down with your ducats." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "la mira, venice, july . . "murray, the mokanna of booksellers, has contrived to send me extracts from lalla rookh by the post. they are taken from some magazine, and contain a short outline and quotations from the two first poems. i am very much delighted with what is before me, and very thirsty for the rest. you have caught the colours as if you had been in the rainbow, and the tone of the east is perfectly preserved. i am glad you have changed the title from 'persian tale.' "i suspect you have written a devilish fine composition, and i rejoice in it from my heart; because 'the douglas and the percy both together are confident against a world in arms.' i hope you won't be affronted at my looking on us as 'birds of a feather;' though on whatever subject you had written, i should have been very happy in your success. "there is a simile of an orange-tree's 'flowers and fruits,' which i should have liked better if i did not believe it to be a reflection on * * *. "do you remember thurlow's poem to sam--'_when_ rogers;' and that d----d supper of rancliffe's that ought to have been a _dinner_? 'ah, master shallow, we have heard the chimes at midnight.' but "my boat is on the shore, and my bark is on the sea; but, before i go, tom moore, here's a double health to thee! "here's a sigh to those who love me, and a smile to those who hate; and whatever sky's above me, here's a heart for every fate. "though the ocean roar around me, yet it still shall bear me on; though a desert should surround me, it hath springs that may be won. "were't the last drop in the well, as i gasp'd upon the brink, ere my fainting spirit fell, 'tis to thee that i would drink. "with that water, as this wine, the libation i would pour, should be--peace with thine and mine, and a health to thee, tom moore. "this should have been written fifteen moons ago--the first stanza was. i am just come out from an hour's swim in the adriatic; and i write to you with a black-eyed venetian girl before me, reading boccacio. "last week i had a row on the road (i came up to venice from my casino, a few miles on the paduan road, this blessed day, to bathe) with a fellow in a carriage, who was impudent to my horse. i gave him a swingeing box on the ear, which sent him to the police, who dismissed his complaint. witnesses had seen the transaction. he first shouted, in an unseemly way, to frighten my palfry. i wheeled round, rode up to the window, and asked him what he meant. he grinned, and said some foolery, which produced him an immediate slap in the face, to his utter discomfiture. much blasphemy ensued, and some menace, which i stopped by dismounting and opening the carriage door, and intimating an intention of mending the road with his immediate remains, if he did not hold his tongue. he held it. "monk lewis is here--'how pleasant!'[ ] he is a very good fellow, and very much yours. so is sam--so is every body--and amongst the number, "yours ever, "b. "p.s. what think you of manfred?" [footnote : an allusion (such as often occurs in these letters) to an anecdote with which he had been amused.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "la mira, near venice, july . . "i have finished (that is, written--the file comes afterwards) ninety and eight stanzas of the fourth canto, which i mean to be the concluding one. it will probably be about the same length as the _third_, being already of the dimensions of the first or second cantos. i look upon parts of it as very good, that is, if the three former are good, but this we shall see; and at any rate, good or not, it is rather a different style from the last--less metaphysical--which, at any rate, will be a variety. i sent you the shaft of the column as a specimen the other day, _i.e._ the first stanza. so you may be thinking of its arrival towards autumn, whose winds will not be the only ones to be raised, _if so be as how that_ it is ready by that time. "i lent lewis, who is at venice, (in or on the canalaccio, the grand canal,) your extracts from lalla rookh and manuel[ ], and, out of contradiction, it may be, he likes the last, and is not much taken with the first, of these performances. of manuel, i think, with the exception of a few capers, it is as heavy a nightmare as was ever bestrode by indigestion. "of the extracts i can but judge as extracts, and i prefer the 'peri' to the 'silver veil.' he seems not so much at home in his versification of the 'silver veil,' and a little embarrassed with his horrors; but the conception of the character of the impostor is fine, and the plan of great scope for his genius,--and i doubt not that, as a whole, it will be very arabesque and beautiful. "your late epistle is not the most abundant in information, and has not yet been succeeded by any other; so that i know nothing of your own concerns, or of any concerns, and as i never hear from any body but yourself who does not tell me something as disagreeable as possible, i should not be sorry to hear from you: and as it is not very probable,--if i can, by any device or possible arrangement with regard to my personal affairs, so arrange it,--that i shall return soon, or reside ever in england, all that you tell me will be all i shall know or enquire after, as to our beloved realm of grub street, and the black brethren and blue sisterhood of that extensive suburb of babylon. have you had no new babe of literature sprung up to replace the dead, the distant, the tired, and the _re_tired? no prose, no verse, no _nothing_?" [footnote : a tragedy, by the rev. mr. maturin.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, july . . "i write to give you notice that i have completed the _fourth_ and _ultimate_ canto of childe harold. it consists of stanzas, and is consequently the longest of the four. it is yet to be copied and polished; and the notes are to come, of which it will require more than the _third_ canto, as it necessarily treats more of works of art than of nature. it shall be sent towards autumn;--and now for our barter. what do you bid? eh? you shall have samples, an' it so please you: but i wish to know what i am to expect (as the saying is) in these hard times, when poetry does not let for half its value. if you are disposed to do what mrs. winifred jenkins calls 'the handsome thing,' i may perhaps throw you some odd matters to the lot,--translations, or slight originals; there is no saying what may be on the anvil between this and the booking season. recollect that it is the _last_ canto, and completes the work; whether as good as the others, i cannot judge, in course--least of all as yet,--but it shall be as little worse as i can help. i may, perhaps, give some little gossip in the notes as to the present state of italian literati and literature, being acquainted with some of their _capi_--men as well as books;--but this depends upon my humour at the time. so, now, pronounce: i say nothing. "when you have got the whole _four_ cantos, i think you might venture on an edition of the whole poem in quarto, with spare copies of the two last for the purchasers of the old edition of the first two. there is a hint for you, worthy of the row; and now, perpend--pronounce. "i have not received a word from you of the fate of 'manfred' or 'tasso,' which seems to me odd, whether they have failed or succeeded. "as this is a scrawl of business, and i have lately written at length and often on other subjects, i will only add that i am," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "la mira, near venice, august , "your letter of the th, and, what will please you, as it did me, the parcel sent by the good-natured aid and abetment of mr. croker, are arrived.--messrs. lewis and hobhouse are here: the former in the same house, the latter a few hundred yards distant. "you say nothing of manfred, from which its failure may be inferred; but i think it odd you should not say so at once. i know nothing, and hear absolutely nothing, of any body or any thing in england; and there are no english papers, so that all you say will be news--of any person, or thing, or things. i am at present very anxious about newstead, and sorry that kinnaird is leaving england at this minute, though i do not tell him so, and would rather he should have _his_ pleasure, although it may not in this instance tend to my profit. "if i understand rightly, you have paid into morland's _pounds_: as the agreement in the paper is two thousand _guineas_, there will remain therefore _six_ hundred _pounds_, and not five hundred, the odd hundred being the extra to make up the specie. six hundred and thirty pounds will bring it to the like for manfred and tasso, making a total of twelve hundred and thirty, i believe, for i am not a good calculator. i do not wish to press you, but i tell you fairly that it will be a convenience to me to have it paid as soon as it can be made convenient to yourself. "the new and last canto is stanzas in length; and may be made more or less. i have fixed no price, even in idea, and have no notion of what it may be good for. there are no metaphysics in it; at least, i think not. mr. hobhouse has promised me a copy of tasso's will, for notes; and i have some curious things to say about ferrara, and parisina's story, and perhaps a farthing candle's worth of light upon the present state of italian literature. i shall hardly be ready by october; but that don't matter. i have all to copy and correct, and the notes to write. "i do not know whether scott will like it; but i have called him the '_ariosto_ of the north' in my _text_. _if he should not, say so in time._ "an italian translation of 'glenarvon' came lately to be printed at venice. the censor (sr. petrotini) refused to sanction the publication till he had seen me on the subject. i told him that i did not recognise the slightest relation between that book and myself; but that, whatever opinions might be upon that subject, _i_ would never prevent or oppose the publication of _any_ book, in _any_ language, on my own private account; and desired him (against his inclination) to permit the poor translator to publish his labours. it is going forwards in consequence. you may say this, with my compliments, to the author. "yours." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, august . . "i have been very sorry to hear of the death of madame de staël, not only because she had been very kind to me at copet, but because now i can never requite her. in a general point of view, she will leave a great gap in society and literature. "with regard to death, i doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes. "the copies of manfred and tasso are arrived, thanks to mr. croker's cover. you have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the poem by omitting the last line of manfred's speaking; and why this was done, i know not. why you persist in saying nothing of the thing itself, i am equally at a loss to conjecture. if it is for fear of telling me something disagreeable, you are wrong; because sooner or later i must know it, and i am not so new, nor so raw, nor so inexperienced, as not to be able to bear, not the mere paltry, petty disappointments of authorship, but things more serious,--at least i hope so, and that what you may think irritability is merely mechanical, and only acts like galvanism on a dead body, or the muscular motion which survives sensation. "if it is that you are out of humour, because i wrote to you a sharp letter, recollect that it was partly from a misconception of your letter, and partly because you did a thing you had no right to do without consulting me. "i have, however, heard good of manfred from two other quarters, and from men who would not be scrupulous in saying what they thought, or what was said; and so 'good morrow to you, good master lieutenant.' "i wrote to you twice about the fourth canto, which you will answer at your pleasure. mr. hobhouse and i have come up for a day to the city; mr. lewis is gone to england; and i am "yours." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "la mira, near venice, august . . "i take you at your word about mr. hanson, and will feel obliged if you will _go_ to him, and request mr. davies also to visit him by my desire, and repeat that i trust that neither mr. kinnaird's absence nor mine will prevent his taking all proper steps to accelerate and promote the sale of newstead and rochdale, upon which the whole of my future personal comfort depends. it is impossible for me to express how much any delays upon these points would inconvenience me; and i do not know a greater obligation that can be conferred upon me than the pressing these things upon hanson, and making him act according to my wishes. i wish you would _speak out_, at least to _me_, and tell me what you allude to by your cold way of mentioning him. all mysteries at such a distance are not merely tormenting but mischievous, and may be prejudicial to my interests; so, pray expound, that i may consult with mr. kinnaird when he arrives; and remember that i prefer the most disagreeable certainties to hints and innuendoes. the devil take every body: i never can get any person to be explicit about any thing or any body, and my whole life is passed in conjectures of what people mean: you all talk in the style of c * * l * *'s novels. "it is not mr. st. john, but _mr. st. aubyn_, son of sir john st. aubyn. _polidori_ knows him, and introduced him to me. he is of oxford, and has got my parcel. the doctor will ferret him out, or ought. the parcel contains many letters, some of madame de staël's, and other people's, besides mss., &c. by ----, if i find the gentleman, and he don't find the parcel, i will say something he won't like to hear. "you want a 'civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedy? take it-- "dear doctor, i have read your play, which is a good one in its way,-- purges the eyes and moves the bowels, and drenches handkerchiefs like towels with tears, that, in a flux of grief, afford hysterical relief to shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses, which your catastrophe convulses. "i like your moral and machinery; your plot, too, has such scope for scenery! your dialogue is apt and smart; the play's concoction full of art; your hero raves, your heroine cries, all stab, and every body dies. in short, your tragedy would be the very thing to hear and see: and for a piece of publication, if i decline on this occasion, it is not that i am not sensible to merits in themselves ostensible, but--and i grieve to speak it--plays are drugs, mere drugs, sir--now-a-days. i had a heavy loss by 'manuel,'-- too lucky if it prove not annual,-- and s * *, with his 'orestes,' (which, by the by, the author's best is,) has lain so very long on hand that i despair of all demand. i've advertised, but see my books, or only watch my shopman's looks;-- still ivan, ina, and such lumber, my back-shop glut, my shelves encumber. "there's byron too, who once did better, has sent me, folded in a letter, a sort of--it's no more a drama than darnley, ivan, or kehama; so alter'd since last year his pen is, i think he's lost his wits at venice. in short, sir, what with one and t'other, i dare not venture on another. i write in haste; excuse each blunder; the coaches through the street so thunder! my room's so full--we've gifford here reading ms., with hookham frere, pronouncing on the nouns and particles of some of our forthcoming articles. "the quarterly--ah, sir, if you had but the genius to review!-- a smart critique upon st. helena, or if you only would but tell in a short compass what--but, to resume: as i was saying, sir, the room-- the room's so full of wits and bards, crabbes, campbells, crokers, freres, and wards, and others, neither bards nor wits:-- my humble tenement admits all persons in the dress of gent., from mr. hammond to dog dent. "a party dines with me to-day, all clever men, who make their way; they're at this moment in discussion on poor de staël's late dissolution. her book, they say, was in advance-- pray heaven, she tell the truth of france! "thus run our time and tongues away.-- but, to return, sir, to your play: sorry, sir, but i cannot deal, unless 'twere acted by o'neill. my hands so full, my head so busy, i'm almost dead, and always dizzy; and so, with endless truth and hurry, dear doctor, i am yours, "john murray. "p.s. i've done the fourth and last canto, which amounts to stanzas. i desire you to name a price; if you don't, _i_ will; so i advise you in time. "yours, &c. "there will be a good many notes." * * * * * among those minor misrepresentations of which it was lord byron's fate to be the victim, advantage was, at this time, taken of his professed distaste to the english, to accuse him of acts of inhospitality, and even rudeness, towards some of his fellow-countrymen. how far different was his treatment of all who ever visited him, many grateful testimonies might be collected to prove; but i shall here content myself with selecting a few extracts from an account given me by mr. henry joy of a visit which, in company with another english gentleman, he paid to the noble poet this summer, at his villa on the banks of the brenta. after mentioning the various civilities they had experienced from lord byron; and, among others, his having requested them to name their own day for dining with him,--"we availed ourselves," says mr. joy, "of this considerate courtesy by naming the day fixed for our return to padua, when our route would lead us to his door; and we were welcomed with all the cordiality which was to be expected from so friendly a bidding. such traits of kindness in such a man deserve to be recorded on account of the numerous slanders thrown upon him by some of the tribes of tourists, who resented, as a personal affront, his resolution to avoid their impertinent inroads upon his retirement. so far from any appearance of indiscriminate aversion to his countrymen, his enquiries about his friends in england (_quorum pars magna fuisti_) were most anxious and particular. "he expressed some opinions," continues my informant, "on matters of taste, which cannot fail to interest his biographer. he contended that sculpture, as an art, was vastly superior to painting;--a preference which is strikingly illustrated by the fact that, in the fourth canto of childe harold, he gives the most elaborate and splendid account of several statues, and none of any pictures; although italy is, emphatically, the land of painting, and her best statues are derived from greece. by the way, he told us that there were more objects of interest in rome alone than in all greece from one extremity to the other. after regaling us with an excellent dinner, (in which, by the by, a very english joint of roast beef showed that he did not extend his antipathies to all john-bullisms,) he took me in his carriage some miles of our route towards padua, after apologising to my fellow-traveller for the separation, on the score of his anxiety to hear all he could of his friends in england; and i quitted him with a confirmed impression of the strong ardour and sincerity of his attachment to those by whom he did not fancy himself slighted or ill treated." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "sept. . . "your letter of the th has conveyed with its contents the impression of a seal, to which the 'saracen's head' is a seraph, and the 'bull and mouth' a delicate device. i knew that calumny had sufficiently _blackened_ me of later days, but not that it had given the features as well as complexion of a negro. poor augusta is not less, but rather more, shocked than myself, and says 'people seem to have lost their recollection strangely' when they engraved such a 'blackamoor.' pray don't seal (at least to me) with such a caricature of the human numskull altogether; and if you don't break the seal-cutter's head, at least crack his libel (or likeness, if it should be a likeness) of mine. "mr. kinnaird is not yet arrived, but expected. he has lost by the way all the tooth-powder, as a letter from spa informs me. "by mr. rose i received safely, though tardily, magnesia and tooth-powder, and * * * *. why do you send me such trash--worse than trash, the sublime of mediocrity? thanks for lalla, however, which is good; and thanks for the edinburgh and quarterly, both very amusing and well-written. paris in , &c.--good. modern greece--good for nothing; written by some one who has never been there, and not being able to manage the spenser stanza, has invented a thing of his own, consisting of two elegiac stanzas, an heroic line, and an alexandrine, twisted on a string. besides, why '_modern_?' you may say _modern greeks_, but surely _greece_ itself is rather more ancient than ever it was. now for business. "you offer guineas for the new canto: i won't take it. i ask two thousand five hundred guineas for it, which you will either give or not, as you think proper. it concludes the poem, and consists of stanzas. the notes are numerous, and chiefly written by mr. hobhouse, whose researches have been indefatigable; and who, i will venture to say, has more real knowledge of rome and its environs than any englishman who has been there since gibbon. by the way, to prevent any mistakes, i think it necessary to state the fact that _he_, mr. hobhouse, has no interest whatever in the price or profit to be derived from the copyright of either poem or notes directly or indirectly; so that you are not to suppose that it is by, for, or through him, that i require more for this canto than the preceding.--no: but if mr. eustace was to have had two thousand for a poem on education; if mr. moore is to have three thousand for lalla, &c.; if mr. campbell is to have three thousand for his prose on poetry--i don't mean to disparage these gentlemen in their labours--but i ask the aforesaid price for mine. you will tell me that their productions are considerably _longer_: very true, and when they shorten them, i will lengthen mine, and ask less. you shall submit the ms. to mr. gifford, and any other two gentlemen to be named by you, (mr. frere, or mr. croker, or whomever you please, except such fellows as your * *s and * *s,) and if they pronounce this canto to be inferior as a _whole_ to the preceding, i will not appeal from their award, but burn the manuscript, and leave things as they are. "yours very truly. "p.s. in answer to a former letter, i sent you a short statement of what i thought the state of our present copyright account, viz. six hundred _pounds_ still (or lately) due on childe harold, and six hundred _guineas_, manfred and tasso, making a total of twelve hundred and thirty pounds. if we agree about the new poem, i shall take the liberty to reserve the choice of the manner in which it should be published, viz. a quarto, certes." * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "la mira, sept. . . "i set out yesterday morning with the intention of paying my respects, and availing myself of your permission to walk over the premises.[ ] on arriving at padua, i found that the march of the austrian troops had engrossed so many horses[ ], that those i could procure were hardly able to crawl; and their weakness, together with the prospect of finding none at all at the post-house of monselice, and consequently either not arriving that day at este, or so late as to be unable to return home the same evening, induced me to turn aside in a second visit to arqua, instead of proceeding onwards; and even thus i hardly got back in time. "next week i shall be obliged to be in venice to meet lord kinnaird and his brother, who are expected in a few days. and this interruption, together with that occasioned by the continued march of the austrians for the next few days, will not allow me to fix any precise period for availing myself of your kindness, though i should wish to take the earliest opportunity. perhaps, if absent, you will have the goodness to permit one of your servants to show me the grounds and house, or as much of either as may be convenient; at any rate, i shall take the first occasion possible to go over, and regret very much that i was yesterday prevented. "i have the honour to be your obliged," &c. [footnote : a country-house on the euganean hills, near este, which mr. hoppner, who was then the english consul-general at venice, had for some time occupied, and which lord byron afterwards rented of him, but never resided in it.] [footnote : so great was the demand for horses, on the line of march of the austrians, that all those belonging to private individuals were put in requisition for their use, and lord byron himself received an order to send his for the same purpose. this, however, he positively refused to do, adding, that if an attempt were made to take them by force, he would shoot them through the head in the middle of the road, rather than submit to such an act of tyranny upon a foreigner who was merely a temporary resident in the country. whether his answer was ever reported to the higher authorities i know not; but his horses were suffered to remain unmolested in his stables.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "september . . "i enclose a sheet for correction, if ever you get to another edition. you will observe that the blunder in printing makes it appear as if the château was _over_ st. gingo, instead of being on the opposite shore of the lake, over clarens. so, separate the paragraphs, otherwise my _to_pography will seem as inaccurate as your _ty_pography on this occasion. "the other day i wrote to convey my proposition with regard to the fourth and concluding canto. i have gone over and extended it to one hundred and fifty stanzas, which is almost as long as the two first were originally, and longer by itself than any of the smaller poems except 'the corsair.' mr. hobhouse has made some very valuable and accurate notes of considerable length, and you may be sure that i will do for the text all that i can to finish with decency. i look upon childe harold as my best; and as i begun, i think of concluding with it. but i make no resolutions on that head, as i broke my former intention with regard to 'the corsair.' however, i fear that i shall never do better; and yet, not being thirty years of age, for some moons to come, one ought to be progressive as far as intellect goes for many a good year. but i have had a devilish deal of tear and wear of mind and body in my time, besides having published too often and much already. god grant me some judgment to do what may be most fitting in that and every thing else, for i doubt my own exceedingly. "i have read 'lalla rookh,' but not with sufficient attention yet, for i ride about, and lounge, and ponder, and--two or three other things; so that my reading is very desultory, and not so attentive as it used to be. i am very glad to hear of its popularity, for moore is a very noble fellow in all respects, and will enjoy it without any of the bad feelings which success--good or evil--sometimes engenders in the men of rhyme. of the poem, itself, i will tell you my opinion when i have mastered it: i say of the _poem_, for i don't like the _prose_ at all; and in the mean time, the 'fire-worshippers' is the best, and the 'veiled prophet' the worst, of the volume. "with regard to poetry in general[ ], i am convinced, the more i think of it, that he and _all_ of us--scott, southey, wordsworth, moore, campbell, i,--are all in the wrong, one as much as another; that we are upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, or systems, not worth a damn in itself, and from which none but rogers and crabbe are free; and that the present and next generations will finally be of this opinion. i am the more confirmed in this by having lately gone over some of our classics, particularly _pope_, whom i tried in this way,--i took moore's poems and my own and some others, and went over them side by side with pope's, and i was really astonished (i ought not to have been so) and mortified at the ineffable distance in point of sense, learning, effect, and even _imagination_, passion, and _invention_, between the little queen anne's man, and us of the lower empire. depend upon it, it is all horace then, and claudian now, among us; and if i had to begin again, i would mould myself accordingly. crabbe's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracticable subject, and * * * is retired upon half-pay, and has done enough, unless he were to do as he did formerly." [footnote : on this paragraph, in the ms. copy of the above letter, i find the following note, in the handwriting of mr. gifford:-- "there is more good sense, and feeling, and judgment in this passage, than in any other i ever read, or lord byron wrote."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "september . . "mr. hobhouse purposes being in england in november; he will bring the fourth canto with him, notes and all; the text contains one hundred and fifty stanzas, which is long for that measure. "with regard to the 'ariosto of the north,' surely their themes, chivalry, war, and love, were as like as can be; and as to the compliment, if you knew what the italians think of ariosto, you would not hesitate about that. but as to their 'measures,' you forget that ariosto's is an octave stanza, and scott's any thing but a stanza. if you think scott will dislike it, say so, and i will expunge. i do not call him the '_scotch_ ariosto,' which would be sad _provincial_ eulogy, but the 'ariosto of the _north_, meaning of all _countries_ that are _not_ the _south_. * * "as i have recently troubled you rather frequently, i will conclude, repeating that i am "yours ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "october . . "mr. kinnaird and his brother, lord kinnaird, have been here, and are now gone again. all your missives came, except the tooth-powder, of which i request further supplies, at all convenient opportunities; as also of magnesia and soda-powders, both great luxuries here, and neither to be had good, or indeed hardly at all, of the natives. * * * "in * *'s life, i perceive an attack upon the then committee of d.l. theatre for acting bertram, and an attack upon maturin's bertram for being acted. considering all things, this is not very grateful nor graceful on the part of the worthy autobiographer; and i would answer, if i had _not_ obliged him. putting my own pains to forward the views of * * out of the question, i know that there was every disposition, on the part of the sub-committee, to bring forward any production of his, were it feasible. the play he offered, though poetical, did not appear at all practicable, and bertram did;--and hence this long tirade, which is the last chapter of his vagabond life. "as for bertram, maturin may defend his own begotten, if he likes it well enough; i leave the irish clergyman and the new orator henley to battle it out between them, satisfied to have done the best i could for _both_. i may say this to _you_, who know it. "mr. * * may console himself with the fervour,--the almost religious fervour of his and w * *'s disciples, as he calls it. if he means that as any proof of their merits, i will find him as much 'fervour' in behalf of richard brothers and joanna southcote as ever gathered over his pages or round his fire-side. "my answer to your proposition about the fourth canto you will have received, and i await yours;--perhaps we may not agree. i have since written a poem (of octave stanzas), humorous, in or after the excellent manner of mr. whistlecraft (whom i take to be frere), on a venetian anecdote which amused me:--but till i have your answer, i can say nothing more about it. "mr. hobhouse does not return to england in november, as he intended, but will winter here and as he is to convey the poem, or poems,--for there may perhaps be more than the two mentioned, (which, by the way, i shall not perhaps include in the same publication or agreement,) i shall not be able to publish so soon as expected; but i suppose there is no harm in the delay. "i have _signed_ and sent your former _copyrights_ by mr. kinnaird, but _not_ the _receipt_, because the money is not yet paid. mr. kinnaird has a power of attorney to sign for me, and will, when necessary. "many thanks for the edinburgh review, which is very kind about manfred, and defends its originality, which i did not know that any body had attacked. i _never read_, and do not know that i ever saw, the 'faustus of marlow,' and had, and have, no dramatic works by me in english, except the recent things you sent me; but i heard mr. lewis translate verbally some scenes of _goethe's faust_ (which were, some good, and some bad) last summer;--which is all i know of the history of that magical personage; and as to the germs of manfred, they may be found in the journal which i sent to mrs. leigh (part of which you saw) when i went over first the dent de jaman, and then the wengen or wengeberg alp and sheideck, and made the giro of the jungfrau, shreckhorn, &c. &c. shortly before i left switzerland. i have the whole scene of manfred before me as if it was but yesterday, and could point it out, spot by spot, torrent and all. "of the prometheus of Æschylus i was passionately fond as a boy (it was one of the greek plays we read thrice a year at harrow);--indeed that and the 'medea' were the only ones, except the 'seven before thebes,' which ever much pleased me. as to the 'faustus of marlow,' i never read, never saw, nor heard of it--at least, thought of it, except that i think mr. gifford mentioned, in a note of his which you sent me, something about the catastrophe; but not as having any thing to do with mine, which may or may not resemble it, for any thing i know. "the prometheus, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that i can easily conceive its influence over all or any thing that i have written;--but i deny marlow and his progeny, and beg that you will do the same. "if you can send me the paper in question[ ], which the edinburgh review mentions, _do_. the review in the magazine you say was written by wilson? it had all the air of being a poet's, and was a very good one. the edinburgh review i take to be jeffrey's own by its friendliness. i wonder they thought it worth while to do so, so soon after the former; but it was evidently with a good motive. "i saw hoppner the other day, whose country-house at este i have taken for two years. if you come out next summer, let me know in time. love to gifford. "yours ever truly. "crabbe, malcolm, hamilton, and chantrey, are all partakers of my pantry. these two lines are omitted in your letter to the doctor, after-- "all clever men who make their way." [footnote : a paper in the edinburgh magazine, in which it was suggested that the general conception of manfred, and much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, had been borrowed from "the tragical history of dr. faustus," of marlow.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, october . . "your two letters are before me, and our bargain is so far concluded. how sorry i am to hear that gifford is unwell! pray tell me he is better: i hope it is nothing but _cold_. as you say his illness originates in cold, i trust it will get no further. "mr. whistlecraft has no greater admirer than myself: i have written a story in stanzas, in imitation of him, called _beppo_, (the short name for giuseppe, that is, the _joe_ of the italian joseph,) which i shall throw you into the balance of the fourth canto, to help you round to your money; but you perhaps had better publish it anonymously; but this we will see to by and by. "in the notes to canto fourth, mr. hobhouse has pointed out _several errors_ of _gibbon_. you may depend upon h.'s research and accuracy. you may print it in what shape you please. "with regard to a future large edition, you may print all, or any thing, except 'english bards,' to the republication of which at _no_ time will i consent. i would not reprint them on any consideration. i don't think them good for much, even in point of poetry; and, as to other things, you are to recollect that i gave up the publication on account of the _hollands_, and i do not think that any time or circumstances can neutralise the suppression. add to which, that, after being on terms with almost all the bards and critics of the day, it would be savage at any time, but worst of all _now_, to revive this foolish lampoon. "the review of manfred came very safely, and i am much pleased with it. it is odd that they should say (that is somebody in a magazine whom the edinburgh controverts) that it was taken from marlow's faust, which i never read nor saw. an american, who came the other day from germany, told mr. hobhouse that manfred was taken from goethe's faust. the devil may take both the faustuses, german and english--i have taken neither. "will you send to _hanson_, and say that he has not written since th september?--at least i have had no letter since, to my great surprise. "will you desire messrs. morland to send out whatever additional sums have or may be paid in credit immediately, and always to their venice correspondents? it is two months ago that they sent me out an additional credit for _one thousand pounds_. i was very glad of it, but i don't know how the devil it came; for i can only make out of hanson's payment, and i had thought the other came from you; but it did not, it seems, as, by yours of the th instant, you have only just paid the _l._ balance. "mr. kinnaird is on his way home with the assignments. i can fix no time for the arrival of canto fourth, which depends on the journey of mr. hobhouse home; and i do not think that this will be immediate. "yours in great haste and very truly, "b. "p.s. morlands have not yet written to my bankers apprising the payment of your balances: pray desire them to do so. "ask them about the _previous_ thousand--of which i know came from hanson's--and make out the other --that is, whence it came." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, november . . "mr. kinnaird has probably returned to england by this time, and will have conveyed to you any tidings you may wish to have of us and ours. i have come back to venice for the winter. mr. hobhouse will probably set off in december, but what day or week i know not. he is my opposite neighbour at present. "i wrote yesterday in some perplexity, and no very good humour, to mr. kinnaird, to inform me about newstead and the hansons, of which and whom i hear nothing since his departure from this place, except in a few unintelligible words from an unintelligible woman. "i am as sorry to hear of dr. polidori's accident as one can be for a person for whom one has a dislike, and something of contempt. when he gets well, tell me, and how he gets on in the sick line. poor fellow! how came he to fix there? "i fear the doctor's skill at norwich will hardly salt the doctor's porridge. methought he was going to the brazils to give the portuguese physic (of which they are fond to desperation) with the danish consul. "your new canto has expanded to one hundred and sixty-seven stanzas. it will be long, you see; and as for the notes by hobhouse, i suspect they will be of the heroic size. you must keep mr. * * in good humour, for he is devilish touchy yet about your review and all which it inherits, including the editor, the admiralty, and its bookseller. i used to think that _i_ was a good deal of an author in _amour propre_ and _noli me tangere_; but these prose fellows are worst, after all, about their little comforts. "do you remember my mentioning, some months ago, the marquis moncada--a spaniard of distinction and fourscore years, my summer neighbour at la mira? well, about six weeks ago, he fell in love with a venetian girl of family, and no fortune or character; took her into his mansion; quarrelled with all his former friends for giving him advice (except me who gave him none), and installed her present concubine and future wife and mistress of himself and furniture. at the end of a month, in which she demeaned herself as ill as possible, he found out a correspondence between her and some former keeper, and after nearly strangling, turned her out of the house, to the great scandal of the keeping part of the town, and with a prodigious éclat, which has occupied all the canals and coffee-houses in venice. he said she wanted to poison him; and she says--god knows what; but between them they have made a great deal of noise. i know a little of both the parties: moncada seemed a very sensible old man, a character which he has not quite kept up on this occasion; and the woman is rather showy than pretty. for the honour of religion, she was bred in a convent, and for the credit of great britain, taught by an englishwoman. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, december . . "a venetian lady, learned and somewhat stricken in years, having, in her intervals of love and devotion, taken upon her to translate the letters and write the life of lady mary wortley montague,--to which undertaking there are two obstacles, firstly, ignorance of english, and, secondly, a total dearth of information on the subject of her projected biography, has applied to me for facts or falsities upon this promising project. lady montague lived the last twenty or more years of her life in or near venice, i believe; but here they know nothing, and remember nothing, for the story of to-day is succeeded by the scandal of to-morrow; and the wit, and beauty, and gallantry, which might render your countrywoman notorious in her own country, must have been _here_ no great distinction--because the first is in no request, and the two latter are common to all women, or at least the last of them. if you can therefore tell me any thing, or get any thing told, of lady wortley montague, i shall take it as a favour, and will transfer and translate it to the 'dama' in question. and i pray you besides to send me, by some quick and safe voyager, the edition of her letters, and the stupid life, by _dr. dallaway_, published by her proud and foolish family. "the death of the princess charlotte has been a shock even here, and must have been an earthquake at home. the courier's list of some three hundred heirs to the crown (including the house of wirtemberg, with that * * *, p----, of disreputable memory, whom i remember seeing at various balls during the visit of the muscovites, &c. in ) must be very consolatory to all true lieges, as well as foreigners, except signor travis, a rich jew merchant of this city, who complains grievously of the length of british mourning, which has countermanded all the silks which he was on the point of transmitting, for a year to come. the death of this poor girl is melancholy in every respect, dying at twenty or so, in childbed--of a _boy_ too, a present princess and future queen, and just as she began to be happy, and to enjoy herself, and the hopes which she inspired. "i think, as far as i can recollect, she is the first royal defunct in childbed upon record in _our_ history. i feel sorry in every respect--for the loss of a female reign, and a woman hitherto harmless; and all the lost rejoicings, and addresses, and drunkenness, and disbursements, of john bull on the occasion. "the prince will marry again, after divorcing his wife, and mr. southey will write an elegy now, and an ode then; the quarterly will have an article against the press, and the edinburgh an article, _half_ and _half_, about reform and right of divorce; the british will give you dr. chalmers's funeral sermon much commended, with a place in the stars for deceased royalty; and the morning post will have already yelled forth its 'syllables of dolour.' "woe, woe, nealliny!--the young nealliny! "it is some time since i have heard from you: are you in bad humour? i suppose so. i have been so myself, and it is your turn now, and by and by mine will come round again. yours truly, "b. "p.s. countess albrizzi, come back from paris, has brought me a medal of himself, a present from denon to me, and a likeness of mr. rogers (belonging to her), by denon also." * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "venice, december . . "i should have thanked you before, for your favour a few days ago, had i not been in the intention of paying my respects, personally, this evening, from which i am deterred by the recollection that you will probably be at the count goess's this evening, which has made me postpone my intrusion. "i think your elegy a remarkably good one, not only as a composition, but both the politics and poetry contain a far greater portion of truth and generosity than belongs to the times, or to the professors of these opposite pursuits, which usually agree only in one point, as extremes meet. i do not know whether you wished me to retain the copy, but i shall retain it till you tell me otherwise; and am very much obliged by the perusal. "my own sentiments on venice, &c., such as they are, i had already thrown into verse last summer, in the fourth canto of childe harold, now in preparation for the press; and i think much more highly of them, for being in coincidence with yours. "believe me yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, january . . "my dear mr. murray, you're in a damn'd hurry to set up this ultimate canto; but (if they don't rob us) you'll see mr. hobhouse will bring it safe in his portmanteau. "for the journal you hint of, as ready to print off, no doubt you do right to commend it; but as yet i have writ off the devil a bit of our 'beppo;'--when copied, i'll send it. "then you've * * * tour,-- no great things, so be sure, you could hardly begin with a less work; for the pompous rascallion, who don't speak italian nor french, must have scribbled by guess-work. "you can make any loss up with 'spence' and his gossip, a work which must surely succeed; then queen mary's epistle-craft, with the new 'fytte' of 'whistlecraft,' must make people purchase and read. "then you've general gordon, who girded his sword on, to serve with a muscovite master, and help him to polish a nation so owlish, they thought shaving their beards a disaster. "for the man, '_poor and shrewd_[ ],' with whom you'd conclude a compact without more delay, perhaps some such pen is still extant in venice; but please, sir, to mention _your pay_." [footnote : "vide your letter."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, january . . "i send you the story[ ] in three other separate covers. it won't do for your journal, being full of political allusions. _print alone, without name_; alter nothing; get a scholar to see that the _italian phrases_ are correctly published, (your printing, by the way, always makes me ill with its eternal blunders, which are incessant,) and god speed you. hobhouse left venice a fortnight ago, saving two days. i have heard nothing of or from him. "yours, &c. "he has the whole of the mss.; so put up prayers in your back shop, or in the printer's 'chapel.'" [footnote : beppo.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, january . . "my father--that is, my armenian father, padre pasquali--in the name of all the other fathers of our convent, sends you the enclosed, greeting. "inasmuch as it has pleased the translators of the long-lost and lately-found portions of the text of eusebius to put forth the enclosed prospectus, of which i send six copies, you are hereby implored to obtain subscribers in the two universities, and among the learned, and the unlearned who would unlearn their ignorance--this _they_ (the convent) request, _i_ request, and _do you_ request. "i sent you beppo some weeks agone. you must publish it alone; it has politics and ferocity, and won't do for your isthmus of a journal. "mr. hobhouse, if the alps have not broken his neck, is, or ought to be, swimming with my commentaries and his own coat of mail in his teeth and right hand, in a cork jacket, between calais and dover. "it is the height of the carnival, and i am in the extreme and agonies of a new intrigue with i don't exactly know whom or what, except that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has light hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that i met her at the masque, and that when her mask is off, i am as wise as ever. i shall make what i can of the remainder of my youth." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, february . . "your letter of december th arrived but this day, by some delay, common but inexplicable. your domestic calamity is very grievous, and i feel with you as much as i _dare_ feel at all. throughout life, your loss must be my loss, and your gain my gain; and, though my heart may ebb, there will always be a drop for you among the dregs. "i know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the substratum of our damnable clay) i am quite wrapt up in my own children. besides my little legitimate, i have made unto myself an _il_legitimate since (to say nothing of one before[ ]), and i look forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that i ever reach--which i hope i never shall--that desolating period. i have a great love for my little ada, though perhaps she may torture me, like * * *. "your offered address will be as acceptable as you can wish. i don't much care what the wretches of the world think of me--all _that's_ past. but i care a good deal what _you_ think of me, and, so, say what you like. you _know_ that i am not sullen; and, as to being _savage_, such things depend on circumstances. however, as to being in good humour in _your_ society, there is no great merit in that, because it would be an effort, or an insanity, to be otherwise. "i don't know what murray may have been saying or quoting.[ ] i called crabbe and sam the fathers of present poesy; and said, that i thought--except them--_all_ of '_us youth_' were on a wrong tack. but i never said that we did not sail well. our fame will be hurt by _admiration_ and _imitation_. when i say _our_, i mean _all_ (lakers included), except the postscript of the augustans. the next generation (from the quantity and facility of imitation) will tumble and break their necks off our pegasus, who runs away with us; but we keep the _saddle_, because we broke the rascal and can ride. but though easy to mount, he is the devil to guide; and the next fellows must go back to the riding-school and the manège, and learn to ride the 'great horse.' "talking of horses, by the way, i have transported my own, four in number, to the lido (_beach_ in english), a strip of some ten miles along the adriatic, a mile or two from the city; so that i not only get a row in my gondola, but a spanking gallop of some miles daily along a firm and solitary beach, from the fortress to malamocco, the which contributes considerably to my health and spirits. "i have hardly had a wink of sleep this week past. we are in the agonies of the carnival's last days, and i must be up all night again, as well as to-morrow. i have had some curious masking adventures this carnival; but, as they are not yet over, i shall not say on. i will work the mine of my youth to the last veins of the ore, and then--good night. i have lived, and am content. "hobhouse went away before the carnival began, so that he had little or no fun. besides, it requires some time to be thoroughgoing with the venetians; but of all this anon, in some other letter. "i must dress for the evening. there is an opera and ridotto, and i know not what, besides balls; and so, ever and ever yours, "b. "p.s. i send this without revision, so excuse errors. i delight in the fame and fortune of lalla, and again congratulate you on your well-merited success." [footnote : this possibly may have been the subject of the poem given in p. . of the first volume.] [footnote : having seen by accident the passage in one of his letters to mr. murray, in which he denounces, as false and worthless, the poetical system on which the greater number of his contemporaries, as well as himself, founded their reputation, i took an opportunity, in the next letter i wrote to him, of jesting a little on this opinion, and his motives for it. it was, no doubt (i ventured to say), excellent policy in him, who had made sure of his own immortality in this style of writing, thus to _throw overboard_ all _us poor devils_, who were embarked with him. he was, in fact, i added, behaving towards us much in the manner of the methodist preacher who said to his congregation--"you may think, at the last day, to get to heaven by laying hold on my skirts; but i'll cheat you all, for i'll wear a spencer, i'll wear a spencer!"] * * * * * of his daily rides on the lido, which he mentions in this letter, the following account, by a gentleman who lived a good deal with him at venice, will be found not a little interesting:-- "almost immediately after mr. hobhouse's departure, lord byron proposed to me to accompany him in his rides on the lido. one of the long narrow islands which separate the lagune, in the midst of which venice stands, from the adriatic, is more particularly distinguished by this name. at one extremity is a fortification, which, with the castle of st. andrea on an island on the opposite side, defends the nearest entrance to the city from the sea. in times of peace this fortification is almost dismantled, and lord byron had hired here of the commandant an unoccupied stable, where he kept his horses. the distance from the city was not very considerable; it was much less than to the terra firma, and, as far as it went, the spot was not ineligible for riding. "every day that the weather would permit, lord byron called for me in his gondola, and we found the horses waiting for us outside of the fort. we rode as far as we could along the sea-shore, and then on a kind of dyke, or embankment, which has been raised where the island was very narrow, as far as another small fort about half way between the principal one which i have already mentioned, and the town or village of malamocco, which is near the other extremity of the island,--the distance between the two forts being about three miles. "on the land side of the embankment, not far from the smaller fort, was a boundary stone which probably marked some division of property,--all the side of the island nearest the lagune being divided into gardens for the cultivation of vegetables for the venetian markets. at the foot of this stone lord byron repeatedly told me that i should cause him to be interred, if he should die in venice, or its neighbourhood, during my residence there; and he appeared to think, as he was not a catholic, that, on the part of the government, there could be no obstacle to his interment in an unhallowed spot of ground by the sea-side. at all events, i was to overcome whatever difficulties might be raised on this account. i was, by no means, he repeatedly told me, to allow his body to be removed to england, nor permit any of his family to interfere with his funeral. "nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the lido were to me. we were from half to three quarters of an hour crossing the water, during which his conversation was always most amusing and interesting. sometimes he would bring with him any new book he had received, and read to me the passages which most struck him. often he would repeat to me whole stanzas of the poems he was engaged in writing, as he had composed them on the preceding evening; and this was the more interesting to me, because i could frequently trace in them some idea which he had started in our conversation of the preceding day, or some remark, the effect of which he had been evidently trying upon me. occasionally, too, he spoke of his own affairs, making me repeat all i had heard with regard to him, and desiring that i would not spare him, but let him know the worst that was said." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, feb. . . "i have to thank mr. croker for the arrival, and you for the contents, of the parcel which came last week, much quicker than any before, owing to mr. croker's kind attention and the official exterior of the bags; and all safe, except much friction amongst the magnesia, of which only two bottles came entire; but it is all very well, and i am exceedingly obliged to you. "the books i have read, or rather am reading. pray, who may be the sexagenarian, whose gossip is very amusing? many of his sketches i recognise, particularly gifford, mackintosh, drummond, dutens, h. walpole, mrs. inchbald, opie, &c., with the scotts, loughborough, and most of the divines and lawyers, besides a few shorter hints of authors, and a few lines about a certain '_noble author_,' characterised as malignant and sceptical, according to the good old story, 'as it was in the beginning, is now, but _not_ always shall be:' do you know such a person, master murray? eh?--and pray, of the booksellers, which be _you_? the dry, the dirty, the honest, the opulent, the finical, the splendid, or the coxcomb bookseller? stap my vitals, but the author grows scurrilous in his grand climacteric! "i remember to have seen porson at cambridge, in the hall of our college, and in private parties, but not frequently; and i never can recollect him except as drunk or brutal, and generally both: i mean in an evening, for in the hall he dined at the dean's table, and i at the vice-master's, so that i was not near him; and he then and there appeared sober in his demeanour, nor did i ever hear of excess or outrage on his part in public,--commons, college, or chapel; but i have seen him in a private party of undergraduates, many of them fresh men and strangers, take up a poker to one of them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his action. i have seen sheridan drunk, too, with all the world; but his intoxication was that of bacchus, and porson's that of silenus. of all the disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, porson was the most bestial, as far as the few times that i saw him went, which were only at william bankes's (the nubian discoverer's) rooms. i saw him once go away in a rage, because nobody knew the name of the 'cobbler of messina,' insulting their ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. he was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents, as the turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. he used to recite, or rather vomit, pages of all languages, and could hiccup greek like a helot; and certainly sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition than this man's intoxication. "i perceive, in the book you sent me, a long account of him, which is very savage. i cannot judge, as i never saw him sober, except in _hall_ or combination-room; and then i was never near enough to hear, and hardly to see him. of his drunken deportment, i can be sure, because i saw it. "with the reviews i have been much entertained. it requires to be as far from england as i am to relish a periodical paper properly: it is like soda-water in an italian summer. but what cruel work you make with lady * * * *! you should recollect that she is a woman; though, to be sure, they are now and then very provoking; still, as authoresses, they can do no great harm; and i think it a pity so much good invective should have been laid out upon her, when there is such a fine field of us jacobin gentlemen for you to work upon. "i heard from moore lately, and was sorry to be made aware of his domestic loss. thus it is--'medio de fonte leporum'--in the acmé of his fame and his happiness comes a drawback as usual. "mr. hoppner, whom i saw this morning, has been made the father of a very fine boy[ ].--mother and child doing very well indeed. by this time hobhouse should be with you, and also certain packets, letters, &c. of mine, sent since his departure.--i am not at all well in health within this last eight days. my remembrances to gifford and all friends. "yours, &c. "b. "p.s. in the course of a month or two, hanson will have probably to send off a clerk with conveyances to sign (newstead being sold in november last for ninety-four thousand five hundred pounds), in which case i supplicate supplies of articles as usual, for which, desire mr. kinnaird to settle from funds in their bank, and deduct from my account with him. "p.s. to-morrow night i am going to see 'otello,' an opera from our 'othello,' and one of rossini's best, it is said. it will be curious to see in venice the venetian story itself represented, besides to discover what they will make of shakspeare in music." [footnote : on the birth of this child, who was christened john william rizzo, lord byron wrote the four following lines, which are in no other respect remarkable than that they were thought worthy of being metrically translated into no less than ten different languages; namely, greek, latin, italian (also in the venetian dialect), german, french, spanish, illyrian, hebrew, armenian, and samaritan:-- "his father's sense, his mother's grace in him, i hope, will always fit so; with (still to keep him in good case) the health and appetite of rizzo." the original lines, with the different versions just mentioned, were printed, in a small neat volume (which now lies before me), in the seminary of padua.] * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "venice, february . . "my dear sir, "our friend, il conte m., threw me into a cold sweat last night, by telling me of a menaced version of manfred (in venetian, i hope, to complete the thing) by some italian, who had sent it to you for correction, which is the reason why i take the liberty of troubling you on the subject. if you have any means of communication with the man, would you permit me to convey to him the offer of any price he may obtain or think to obtain for his project, provided he will throw his translation into the fire[ ], and promise not to undertake any other of that or any other of _my_ things: i will send his money immediately on this condition. "as i did not write _to_ the italians, nor _for_ the italians, nor _of_ the italians, (except in a poem not yet published, where i have said all the good i know or do not know of them, and none of the harm,) i confess i wish that they would let me alone, and not drag me into their arena as one of the gladiators, in a silly contest which i neither understand nor have ever interfered with, having kept clear of all their literary parties, both here and at milan, and elsewhere.--i came into italy to feel the climate and be quiet, if possible. mossi's translation i would have prevented, if i had known it, or could have done so; and i trust that i shall yet be in time to stop this new gentleman, of whom i heard yesterday for the first time. he will only hurt himself, and do no good to his party, for in _party_ the whole thing originates. our modes of thinking and writing are so unutterably different, that i can conceive no greater absurdity than attempting to make any approach between the english and italian poetry of the present day. i like the people very much, and their literature very much, but i am not the least ambitious of being the subject of their discussions literary and personal (which appear to be pretty much the same thing, as is the case in most countries); and if you can aid me in impeding this publication, you will add to much kindness already received from you by yours ever and truly, "byron. "p.s. how is _the_ son, and mamma? well, i dare say." [footnote : having ascertained that the utmost this translator could expect to make by his manuscript was two hundred francs, lord byron offered him that sum, if he would desist from publishing. the italian, however, held out for more; nor could he be brought to terms, till it was intimated to him pretty plainly from lord byron that, should the publication be persisted in, he would horsewhip him the very first time they met. being but little inclined to suffer martyrdom in the cause, the translator accepted the two hundred francs, and delivered up his manuscript, entering at the same time into a written engagement never to translate any other of the noble poet's works. of the qualifications of this person as a translator of english poetry, some idea may be formed from the difficulty he found himself under respecting the meaning of a line in the incantation in manfred,--"and the wisp on the morass,"--which he requested of mr. hoppner to expound to him, not having been able to find in the dictionaries to which he had access any other signification of the word "wisp" than "a bundle of straw."] * * * * * letter . to mr. rogers. "venice, march . . "i have not, as you say, 'taken to wife the adriatic.' i heard of moore's loss from himself in a letter which was delayed upon the road three months. i was sincerely sorry for it, but in such cases what are words? "the villa you speak of is one at este, which mr. hoppner (consul-general here) has transferred to me. i have taken it for two years as a place of villeggiatura. the situation is very beautiful, indeed, among the euganean hills, and the house very fair. the vines are luxuriant to a great degree, and all the fruits of the earth abundant. it is close to the old castle of the estes, or guelphs, and within a few miles of arqua, which i have visited twice, and hope to visit often. "last summer (except an excursion to rome) i passed upon the brenta. in venice i winter, transporting my horses to the lido, bordering the adriatic (where the fort is), so that i get a gallop of some miles daily along the strip of beach which reaches to malamocco, when in health; but within these few weeks i have been unwell. at present i am getting better. the carnival was short, but a good one. i don't go out much, except during the time of masques; but there are one or two conversazioni, where i go regularly, just to keep up the system; as i had letters to their givers; and they are particular on such points; and now and then, though very rarely, to the governor's. "it is a very good place for women. i like the dialect and their manner very much. there is a _naïveté_ about them which is very winning, and the romance of the place is a mighty adjunct; the _bel sangue_ is not, however, now amongst the _dame_ or higher orders; but all under _i fazzioli_, or kerchiefs (a white kind of veil which the lower orders wear upon their heads);--the _vesta zendale_, or old national female costume, is no more. the city, however, is decaying daily, and does not gain in population. however, i prefer it to any other in italy; and here have i pitched my staff, and here do i purpose to reside for the remainder of my life, unless events, connected with business not to be transacted out of england, compel me to return for that purpose; otherwise i have few regrets, and no desires to visit it again for its own sake. i shall probably be obliged to do so, to sign papers for my affairs, and a proxy for the whigs, and to see mr. waite, for i can't find a good dentist here, and every two or three years one ought to consult one. about seeing my children i must take my chance. one i shall have sent here; and i shall be very happy to see the legitimate one, when god pleases, which he perhaps will some day or other. as for my mathematical * * *, i am as well without her. "your account of your visit to fonthill is very striking: could you beg of _him_ for _me_ a copy in ms. of the remaining _tales_?[ ] i think i deserve them, as a strenuous and public admirer of the first one. i will return it when read, and make no ill use of the copy, if granted. murray would send me out any thing safely. if ever i return to england, i should like very much to see the author, with his permission. in the mean time, you could not oblige me more than by obtaining me the perusal i request, in french or english,--all's one for that, though i prefer italian to either. i have a french copy of vathek which i bought at lausanne. i can read french with great pleasure and facility, though i neither speak nor write it. now italian i _can_ speak with some fluency, and write sufficiently for my purposes, but i don't like their _modern_ prose at all; it is very heavy, and so different from machiavelli. "they say francis is junius;--i think it looks like it. i remember meeting him at earl grey's at dinner. has not he lately married a young woman; and was not he madame talleyrand's _cavaliere servente_ in india years ago? "i read my death in the papers, which was not true. i see they are marrying the remaining singleness of the royal family. they have brought out fazio with great and deserved success at covent garden: that's a good sign. i tried, during the directory, to have it done at drury lane, but was overruled. if you think of coming into this country, you will let me know perhaps beforehand. i suppose moore won't move. rose is here. i saw him the other night at madame albrizzi's; he talks of returning in may. my love to the hollands. "ever, &c. "p.s. they have been crucifying othello into an opera (_otello_, by rossini): the music good, but lugubrious; but as for the words, all the real scenes with iago cut out, and the greatest nonsense instead; the handkerchief turned into a _billet-doux_, and the first singer would not _black_ his face, for some exquisite reasons assigned in the preface. singing, dresses, and music, very good." [footnote : a continuation of vathek, by the author of that very striking and powerful production. the "tales" of which this unpublished sequel consists are, i understand, those supposed to have been related by the princes in the hall of eblis.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, march . . "my dear tom, "since my last, which i hope that you have received, i have had a letter from our friend samuel. he talks of italy this summer--won't you come with him? i don't know whether you would like our italian way of life or not. "they are an odd people. the other day i was telling a girl, 'you must not come to-morrow, because margueritta is coming at such a time,'--(they are both about five feet ten inches high, with great black eyes and fine figures--fit to breed gladiators from--and i had some difficulty to prevent a battle upon a rencontre once before,)--'unless you promise to be friends, and'--the answer was an interruption, by a declaration of war against the other, which she said would be a 'guerra di candia.' is it not odd, that the lower order of venetians should still allude proverbially to that famous contest, so glorious and so fatal to the republic? "they have singular expressions, like all the italians. for example, 'viscere'--as we would say, 'my love,' or 'my heart,' as an expression of tenderness. also, 'i would go for you into the midst of a hundred _knives_.'--'_mazza ben_,' excessive attachment,--literally, 'i wish you well even to killing.' then they say (instead of our way, 'do you think i would do you so much harm?') 'do you think i would _assassinate_ you in such a manner?'--'tempo _perfido_,' bad weather; 'strade _perfide_,' bad roads,--with a thousand other allusions and metaphors, taken from the state of society and habits in the middle ages. "i am not so sure about _mazza_, whether it don't mean _massa_, _i.e._ a great deal, a _mass_, instead of the interpretation i have given it. but of the other phrases i am sure. "three o' th' clock--i must 'to bed, to bed, to bed,' as mother s * * (that tragical friend of the mathematical * * *) says. "have you ever seen--i forget what or whom--no matter. they tell me lady melbourne is very unwell. i shall be so sorry. she was my greatest _friend_, of the feminine gender:--when i say 'friend,' i mean _not_ mistress, for that's the antipode. tell me all about you and every body--how sam is--how you like your neighbours, the marquis and marchesa, &c. &c. "ever," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, march . . "i have your letter, with the account of 'beppo,' for which i sent you four new stanzas a fortnight ago, in case you print, or reprint. "croker's is a good guess; but the style is not english, it is italian;--berni is the original of _all_. whistlecraft was _my_ immediate _model_! rose's 'animali' i never saw till a few days ago,--they are excellent. but (as i said above) berni is the father of that kind of writing, which, i think, suits our language, too, very well;--we shall see by the experiment. if it does, i shall send you a volume in a year or two, for i know the italian way of life well, and in time may know it yet better; and as for the verse and the passions, i have them still in tolerable vigour. "if you think that it will do you and the work, or works, any good, you may put my name to it; _but first consult the knowing ones_. it will, at any rate, show them that i can write cheerfully, and repel the charge of monotony and mannerism. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, april . . "will you send me by letter, packet, or parcel, half a dozen of the coloured prints from holmes's miniature (the latter done shortly before i left your country, and the prints about a year ago); i shall be obliged to you, as some people here have asked me for the like. it is a picture of my upright self done for scrope b. davies, esq.[ ] "why have you not sent me an answer, and list of subscribers to the translation of the armenian _eusebius_? of which i sent you printed copies of the prospectus (in french) two moons ago. have you had the letter?--i shall send you another:--you must not neglect my armenians. tooth-powder, magnesia, tincture of myrrh, tooth-brushes, diachylon plaster, peruvian bark, are my personal demands. "strahan, tonson, lintot of the times, patron and publisher of rhymes, for thee the bard up pindus climbs, my murray. "to thee, with hope and terror dumb, the unfledged ms. authors come; thou printest all--and sellest some-- my murray. "upon thy table's baize so green the last new quarterly is seen, but where is thy new magazine, my murray? "along thy sprucest bookshelves shine the works thou deemest most divine-- the 'art of cookery,' and mine, my murray. "tours, travels, essays, too, i wist, and sermons to thy mill bring grist! and then thou hast the 'navy list,' my murray. "and heaven forbid i should conclude without 'the board of longitude,' although this narrow paper would, my murray!" [footnote : there follows, in this place, among other matter, a long string of verses, in various metres, to the amount of about sixty lines, so full of light gaiety and humour, that it is with some reluctance i suppress them. they might, however, have the effect of giving pain in quarters where even the author himself would not have deliberately inflicted it;--from a pen like his, touches may be wounds, and without being actually intended as such.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, april . . "this letter will be delivered by signor gioe. bata. missiaglia, proprietor of the apollo library, and the principal publisher and bookseller now in venice. he sets out for london with a view to business and correspondence with the english booksellers: and it is in the hope that it may be for your mutual advantage that i furnish him with this letter of introduction to you. if you can be of use to him, either by recommendation to others, or by any personal attention on your own part, you will oblige him and gratify me. you may also perhaps both be able to derive advantage, or establish some mode of literary communication, pleasing to the public, and beneficial to one another. "at any rate, be civil to him for my sake, as well as for the honour and glory of publishers and authors now and to come for evermore. "with him i also consign a great number of ms. letters written in english, french, and italian, by various english established in italy during the last century:--the names of the writers, lord hervey, lady m.w. montague, (hers are but few--some billets-doux in french to algarotti, and one letter in english, italian, and all sorts of jargon, to the same,) gray, the poet (one letter), mason (two or three), garrick, lord chatham, david hume, and many of lesser note,--all addressed to count algarotti. out of these, i think, with discretion, an amusing miscellaneous volume of letters might be extracted, provided some good editor were disposed to undertake the selection, and preface, and a few notes, &c. "the proprietor of these is a friend of mine, _dr. aglietti_,--a great name in italy,--and if you are disposed to publish, it will be for _his benefit_, and it is to and for him that you will name a price, if you take upon you the work. _i_ would _edite_ it myself, but am too far off, and too lazy to undertake it; but i wish that it could be done. the letters of lord hervey, in mr. rose's[ ] opinion and mine, are good; and the _short_ french love letters _certainly_ are lady m.w. montague's--the _french_ not good, but the sentiments beautiful. gray's letter good; and mason's tolerable. the whole correspondence must be _well weeded_; but this being done, a small and pretty popular volume might be made of it.--there are many ministers' letters--gray, the ambassador at naples, horace mann, and others of the same kind of animal. "i thought of a preface, defending lord hervey against pope's attack, but pope--_quoad_ pope, the poet--against all the world, in the unjustifiable attempts begun by warton and carried on at this day by the new school of critics and scribblers, who think themselves poets because they do _not_ write like pope. i have no patience with such cursed humbug and bad taste; your whole generation are not worth a canto of the rape of the lock, or the essay on man, or the dunciad, or 'any thing that is his.'--but it is three in the matin, and i must go to bed. yours alway," &c. [footnote : among lord byron's papers, i find some verses addressed to him, about this time, by mr. w. rose, with the following note annexed to them:--"these verses were sent to me by w.s. rose, from abaro, in the spring of . they are good and true; and rose is a fine fellow, and one of the few english who understand _italy_, without which italian is nothing." the verses begin thus: "byron[ ], while you make gay what circle fits ye, bandy venetian slang with the benzòn, or play at company with the albrizzi, the self-pleased pedant, and patrician crone, grimanis, mocenigos, balbis, rizzi, compassionate our cruel case,--alone, our pleasure an academy of frogs, who nightly serenade us from the bogs," &c. &c. ] [footnote : "i have _hunted_ out a precedent for this unceremonious address."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, april . . "a few days ago, i wrote to you a letter, requesting you to desire hanson to desire his messenger to come on from geneva to venice, because i won't go from venice to geneva; and if this is not done, the messenger may be damned, with him who mis-sent him. pray reiterate my request. "with the proofs returned, i sent two additional stanzas for canto fourth: did they arrive? "your monthly reviewer has made a mistake: _cavaliere_, alone, is well enough; but '_cavalier' servente_' has always the _e_ mute in conversation, and omitted in writing; so that it is not for the sake of metre; and pray let griffiths know this, with my compliments. i humbly conjecture that i know as much of italian society and language as any of his people; but, to make assurance doubly sure, i asked, at the countess benzona's last night, the question of more than one person in _the office_, and of these 'cavalieri serventi' (in the plural, recollect) i found that they all accorded in pronouncing for 'cavalier' servente' in the _singular_ number. i wish mr. * * * * (or whoever griffiths' scribbler may be) would not talk of what he don't understand. such fellows are not fit to be intrusted with italian, even in a quotation. "did you receive two additional stanzas, to be inserted towards the close of canto fourth? respond, that (if not) they may be sent. "tell mr. * * and mr. hanson that they may as well expect geneva to come to me, as that i should go to geneva. the messenger may go on or return, as he pleases; i won't stir: and i look upon it as a piece of singular absurdity in those who know me imagining that i should;--not to say _malice_, in attempting unnecessary torture. if, on the occasion, my interests should suffer, it is their neglect that is to blame; and they may all be d----d together. "it is ten o'clock and time to dress. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "april . . "the time is past in which i could feel for the dead,--or i should feel for the death of lady melbourne, the best, and kindest, and ablest female i ever knew, old or young. but 'i have supped full of horrors,' and events of this kind have only a kind of numbness worse than pain,--like a violent blow on the elbow or the head. there is one link less between england and myself. "now to business. i presented you with beppo, as part of the contract for canto fourth,--considering the price you are to pay for the same, and intending to eke you out in case of public caprice or my own poetical failure. if you choose to suppress it entirely, at mr. * * * *'s suggestion, you may do as you please. but recollect it is not to be published in a _garbled_ or _mutilated_ state. i reserve to my friends and myself the right of correcting the press;--if the publication continue, it is to continue in its present form. "as mr. * * says that he did not write this letter, &c. i am ready to believe him; but for the firmness of my former persuasion, i refer to mr. * * * *, who can inform you how sincerely i erred on this point. he has also the note--or, at least, had it, for i gave it to him with my verbal comments thereupon. as to 'beppo,' i will not alter or suppress a syllable for any man's pleasure but my own. "you may tell them this; and add, that nothing but force or necessity shall stir me one step towards places to which they would wring me. "if your literary matters prosper let me know. if 'beppo' pleases, you shall have more in a year or two in the same mood. and so 'good morrow to you, good master lieutenant.' yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "palazzo mocenigo, canal grande, "venice, june . . "your letter is almost the only news, as yet, of canto fourth, and it has by no means settled its fate,--at least, does not tell me how the 'poeshie' has been received by the public. but i suspect, no great things,--firstly, from murray's 'horrid stillness;' secondly, from what you say about the stanzas running into each other[ ], which i take _not_ to be _yours_, but a notion you have been dinned with among the blues. the fact is, that the terza rima of the italians, which always _runs_ on and in, may have led me into experiments, and carelessness into conceit--or conceit into carelessness--in either of which events failure will be probable, and my fair woman, 'superne,' end in a fish; so that childe harold will be like the mermaid, my family crest, with the fourth canto for a tail thereunto. i won't quarrel with the public, however, for the 'bulgars' are generally right; and if i miss now, i may hit another time:--and so, the 'gods give us joy.' "you like beppo, that's right. i have not had the fudges yet, but live in hopes. i need not say that your successes are mine. by the way, lydia white is here, and has just borrowed my copy of 'lalla rookh.' "hunt's letter is probably the exact piece of vulgar coxcombry you might expect from his situation. he is a good man, with some poetical elements in his chaos; but spoilt by the christ-church hospital and a sunday newspaper,--to say nothing of the surrey gaol, which conceited him into a martyr. but he is a good man. when i saw 'rimini' in ms., i told him that i deemed it good poetry at bottom, disfigured only by a strange style. his answer was, that his style was a system, or _upon system_, or some such cant; and, when a man talks of system, his case is hopeless: so i said no more to him, and very little to any one else. "he believes his trash of vulgar phrases tortured into compound barbarisms to be _old_ english; and we may say of it as aimwell says of captain gibbet's regiment, when the captain calls it an 'old corps,'--'the _oldest_ in europe, if i may judge by your uniform.' he sent out his 'foliage' by percy shelley * * *, and, of all the ineffable centaurs that were ever begotten by self-love upon a night-mare, i think this monstrous sagittary the most prodigious. _he_ (leigh h.) is an honest charlatan, who has persuaded himself into a belief of his own impostures, and talks punch in pure simplicity of heart, taking himself (as poor fitzgerald said of _himself_ in the morning post) for _vates_ in both senses, or nonsenses, of the word. did you look at the translations of his own which he prefers to pope and cowper, and says so?--did you read his skimble-skamble about * * being at the head of his own _profession_, in the _eyes_ of _those_ who followed it? i thought that poetry was an _art_, or an _attribute_, and not a _profession_;--but be it one, is that * * * * * * at the head of _your_ profession in _your_ eyes? i'll be curst if he is of _mine_, or ever shall be. he is the only one of us (but of us he is not) whose coronation i would oppose. let them take scott, campbell, crabbe, or you, or me, or any of the living, and throne him;--but not this new jacob behmen, this * * * * * * whose pride might have kept him true, even had his principles turned as perverted as his _soi-disant_ poetry. "but leigh hunt is a good man, and a good father--see his odes to all the masters hunt;--a good husband--see his sonnet to mrs. hunt;--a good friend--see his epistles to different people;--and a great coxcomb and a very vulgar person in every thing about him. but that's not his fault, but of circumstances.[ ] "i do not know any good model for a life of sheridan but that of _savage_. recollect, however, that the life of such a man may be made far more amusing than if he had been a wilberforce;--and this without offending the living, or insulting the dead. the whigs abuse him; however, he never left them, and such blunderers deserve neither credit nor compassion. as for his creditors,--remember, sheridan _never had_ a shilling, and was thrown, with great powers and passions, into the thick of the world, and placed upon the pinnacle of success, with no other external means to support him in his elevation. did fox * * * _pay his_ debts?--or did sheridan take a subscription? was the * *'s drunkenness more excusable than his? were his intrigues more notorious than those of all his contemporaries? and is his memory to be blasted, and theirs respected? don't let yourself be led away by clamour, but compare him with the coalitioner fox, and the pensioner burke, as a man of principle, and with ten hundred thousand in personal views, and with none in talent, for he beat them all _out_ and _out_. without means, without connection, without character, (which might be false at first, and make him mad afterwards from desperation,) he beat them all, in all he ever attempted. but alas, poor human nature! good night--or rather, morning. it is four, and the dawn gleams over the grand canal, and unshadows the rialto. i must to bed; up all night--but, as george philpot says, 'it's life, though, damme, it's life!' ever yours, b. "excuse errors--no time for revision. the post goes out at noon, and i sha'n't be up then. i will write again soon about your _plan_ for a publication." [footnote : i had said, i think, in my letter to him, that this practice of carrying one stanza into another was "something like taking on horses another stage without baiting."] [footnote : i had, in first transcribing the above letter for the press, omitted the whole of this caustic, and, perhaps, over-severe character of mr. hunt; but the tone of that gentleman's book having, as far as himself is concerned, released me from all those scruples which prompted the suppression, i have considered myself at liberty to restore the passage.] * * * * * during the greater part of the period which this last series of letters comprises, he had continued to occupy the same lodgings in an extremely narrow street called the spezieria, at the house of the linen-draper, to whose lady he devoted so much of his thoughts. that he was, for the time, attached to this person,--as far as a passion so transient can deserve the name of attachment,--is evident from his whole conduct. the language of his letters shows sufficiently how much the novelty of this foreign tie had caught his fancy; and to the venetians, among whom such arrangements are mere matters of course, the assiduity with which he attended his signora to the theatre, and the ridottos, was a subject of much amusement. it was with difficulty, indeed, that he could be prevailed upon to absent himself from her so long as to admit of that hasty visit to the immortal city, out of which one of his own noblest titles to immortality sprung; and having, in the space of a few weeks, drunk in more inspiration from all he saw than, in a less excited state, possibly, he might have imbibed in years, he again hurried back, without extending his journey to naples,--having written to the fair marianna to meet him at some distance from venice. besides some seasonable acts of liberality to the husband, who had, it seems, failed in trade, he also presented to the lady herself a handsome set of diamonds; and there is an anecdote related in reference to this gift, which shows the exceeding easiness and forbearance of his disposition towards those who had acquired any hold on his heart. a casket, which was for sale, being one day offered to him, he was not a little surprised on discovering them to be the same jewels which he had, not long before, presented to his fair favourite, and which had, by some unromantic means, found their way back into the market. without enquiring, however, any further into the circumstances, he generously repurchased the casket and presented it to the lady once more, good-humouredly taxing her with the very little estimation in which, as it appeared, she held his presents. to whatever extent this unsentimental incident may have had a share in dispelling the romance of his passion, it is certain that, before the expiration of the first twelvemonth, he began to find his lodgings in the spezieria inconvenient, and accordingly entered into treaty with count gritti for his palace on the grand canal,--engaging to give for it, what is considered, i believe, a large rent in venice, louis a year. on finding, however, that, in the counterpart of the lease brought for his signature, a new clause had been introduced, prohibiting him not only from underletting the house, in case he should leave venice, but from even allowing any of his own friends to occupy it during his occasional absence, he declined closing on such terms; and resenting so material a departure from the original engagement, declared in society, that he would have no objection to give the same rent, though acknowledged to be exorbitant, for any other palace in venice, however inferior, in all respects, to count gritti's. after such an announcement, he was not likely to remain long unhoused; and the countess mocenigo having offered him one of her three palazzi, on the grand canal, he removed to this house in the summer of the present year, and continued to occupy it during the remainder of his stay in venice. highly censurable, in point of morality and decorum, as was his course of life while under the roof of madame * *, it was (with pain i am forced to confess) venial in comparison with the strange, headlong career of licence to which, when weaned from that connection, he so unrestrainedly and, it may be added, defyingly abandoned himself. of the state of his mind on leaving england i have already endeavoured to convey some idea, and, among the feelings that went to make up that self-centred spirit of resistance which he then opposed to his fate, was an indignant scorn of his own countrymen for the wrongs he thought they had done him. for a time, the kindly sentiments which he still harboured towards lady byron, and a sort of vague hope, perhaps, that all would yet come right again, kept his mind in a mood somewhat more softened and docile, as well as sufficiently under the influence of english opinion to prevent his breaking out into such open rebellion against it, as he unluckily did afterwards. by the failure of the attempted mediation with lady byron, his last link with home was severed; while, notwithstanding the quiet and unobtrusive life which he had led at geneva, there was as yet, he found, no cessation of the slanderous warfare against his character;--the same busy and misrepresenting spirit which had tracked his every step at home having, with no less malicious watchfulness, dogged him into exile. to this persuasion, for which he had but too much grounds, was added all that an imagination like his could lend to truth,--all that he was left to interpret, in his own way, of the absent and the silent,--till, at length, arming himself against fancied enemies and wrongs, and, with the condition (as it seemed to him) of an outlaw, assuming also the desperation, he resolved, as his countrymen would not do justice to the better parts of his nature, to have, at least, the perverse satisfaction of braving and shocking them with the worst. it is to this feeling, i am convinced, far more than to any depraved taste for such a course of life, that the extravagances to which he now, for a short time, gave loose, are to be attributed. the exciting effect, indeed, of this mode of existence while it lasted, both upon his spirits and his genius,--so like what, as he himself tells us, was always produced in him by a state of contest and defiance,--showed how much of this latter feeling must have been mixed with his excesses. the altered character too, of his letters in this respect cannot fail, i think, to be remarked by the reader,--there being, with an evident increase of intellectual vigour, a tone of violence and bravado breaking out in them continually, which marks the high pitch of re-action to which he had now wound up his temper. in fact, so far from the powers of his intellect being at all weakened or dissipated by these irregularities, he was, perhaps, at no time of his life, so actively in the full possession of all its energies; and his friend shelley, who went to venice, at this period, to see him[ ], used to say, that all he observed of the workings of byron's mind, during his visit, gave him a far higher idea of its powers than he had ever before entertained. it was, indeed, then that shelley sketched out, and chiefly wrote, his poem of "julian and maddalo," in the latter of which personages he has so picturesquely shadowed forth his noble friend[ ]; and the allusions to "the swan of albion," in his "lines written among the euganean hills," were also, i understand, the result of the same access of admiration and enthusiasm. in speaking of the venetian women, in one of the preceding letters, lord byron, it will be recollected, remarks, that the beauty for which they were once so celebrated is no longer now to be found among the "dame," or higher orders, but all under the "fazzioli," or kerchiefs, of the lower. it was, unluckily, among these latter specimens of the "bel sangue" of venice that he now, by a suddenness of descent in the scale of refinement, for which nothing but the present wayward state of his mind can account, chose to select the companions of his disengaged hours;--and an additional proof that, in this short, daring career of libertinism, he was but desperately seeking relief for a wronged and mortified spirit, and "what to us seem'd guilt might be but woe,"-- is that, more than once, of an evening, when his house has been in the possession of such visitants, he has been known to hurry away in his gondola, and pass the greater part of the night upon the water, as if hating to return to his home. it is, indeed, certain, that to this least defensible portion of his whole life he always looked back, during the short remainder of it, with painful self-reproach; and among the causes of the detestation which he afterwards felt for venice, this recollection of the excesses to which he had there abandoned himself was not the least prominent. the most distinguished and, at last, the reigning favourite of all this unworthy harem was a woman named margarita cogni, who has been already mentioned in one of these letters, and who, from the trade of her husband, was known by the title of the fornarina. a portrait of this handsome virago, drawn by harlowe when at venice, having fallen into the hands of one of lord byron's friends after the death of that artist, the noble poet, on being applied to for some particulars of his heroine, wrote a long letter on the subject, from which the following are extracts:-- "since you desire the story of margarita cogni, you shall be told it, though it may be lengthy. "her face is the fine venetian cast of the old time; her figure, though perhaps too tall, is not less fine--and taken altogether in the national dress. "in the summer of , * * * * and myself were sauntering on horseback along the brenta one evening, when, amongst a group of peasants, we remarked two girls as the prettiest we had seen for some time. about this period, there had been great distress in the country, and i had a little relieved some of the people. generosity makes a great figure at very little cost in venetian livres, and mine had probably been exaggerated as an englishman's. whether they remarked us looking at them or no, i know not; but one of them called out to me in venetian, 'why do not you, who relieve others, think of us also?' i turned round and answered her--'cara, tu sei troppo bella e giovane per aver' bisogna del' soccorso mio.' she answered, 'if you saw my hut and my food, you would not say so.' all this passed half jestingly, and i saw no more of her for some days. "a few evenings after, we met with these two girls again, and they addressed us more seriously, assuring us of the truth of their statement. they were cousins; margarita married, the other single. as i doubted still of the circumstances, i took the business in a different light, and made an appointment with them for the next evening. in short, in a few evenings we arranged our affairs, and for a long space of time she was the only one who preserved over me an ascendency which was often disputed, and never impaired. "the reasons of this were, firstly, her person;--very dark, tall, the venetian face, very fine black eyes. she was two-and-twenty years old, * * * she was, besides, a thorough venetian in her dialect, in her thoughts, in her countenance, in every thing, with all their _naïveté_ and pantaloon humour. besides, she could neither read nor write, and could not plague me with letters,--except twice that she paid sixpence to a public scribe, under the piazza, to make a letter for her, upon some occasion when i was ill and could not see her. in other respects, she was somewhat fierce and 'prepotente,' that is, over-bearing, and used to walk in whenever it suited her, with no very great regard to time, place, nor persons; and if she found any women in her way, she knocked them down. "when i first knew her, i was in 'relazione' (liaison) with la signora * *, who was silly enough one evening at dolo, accompanied by some of her female friends, to threaten her; for the gossips of the villeggiatura had already found out, by the neighing of my horse one evening, that i used to 'ride late in the night' to meet the fornarina. margarita threw back her veil (fazziolo), and replied in very explicit venetian, '_you_ are _not_ his _wife_: _i_ am _not_ his _wife_: you are his donna, and _i_ am his _donna_: your husband is a _becco_, and mine is another. for the rest, what _right_ have you to reproach me? if he prefers me to you, is it my fault? if you wish to secure him, tie him to your petticoat-string.--but do not think to speak to me without a reply, because you happen to be richer than i am.' having delivered this pretty piece of eloquence (which i translate as it was related to me by a bystander), she went on her way, leaving a numerous audience with madame * *, to ponder at her leisure on the dialogue between them. "when i came to venice for the winter, she followed; and as she found herself out to be a favourite, she came to me pretty often. but she had inordinate self-love, and was not tolerant of other women. at the 'cavalchina,' the masked ball on the last night of the carnival, where all the world goes, she snatched off the mask of madame contarini, a lady noble by birth, and decent in conduct, for no other reason, but because she happened to be leaning on my arm. you may suppose what a cursed noise this made; but this is only one of her pranks. "at last she quarrelled with her husband, and one evening ran away to my house. i told her this would not do: she said she would lie in the street, but not go back to him; that he beat her, (the gentle tigress!) spent her money, and scandalously neglected her. as it was midnight i let her stay, and next day there was no moving her at all. her husband came, roaring and crying, and entreating her to come back:--_not_ she! he then applied to the police, and they applied to me: i told them and her husband to _take_ her; i did not want her; she had come, and i could not fling her out of the window; but they might conduct her through that or the door if they chose it. she went before the commissary, but was obliged to return with that 'becco ettico,' as she called the poor man, who had a phthisic. in a few days she ran away again. after a precious piece of work, she fixed herself in my house, really and truly without my consent; but, owing to my indolence, and not being able to keep my countenance, for if i began in a rage, she always finished by making me laugh with some venetian pantaloonery or another; and the gipsy knew this well enough, as well as her other powers of persuasion, and exerted them with the usual tact and success of all she-things; high and low, they are all alike for that. "madame benzoni also took her under her protection, and then her head turned. she was always in extremes, either crying or laughing, and so fierce when angered, that she was the terror of men, women, and children--for she had the strength of an amazon, with the temper of medea. she was a fine animal, but quite untameable. _i_ was the only person that could at all keep her in any order, and when she saw me really angry (which they tell me is a savage sight), she subsided. but she had a thousand fooleries. in her fazziolo, the dress of the lower orders, she looked beautiful; but, alas! she longed for a hat and feathers; and all i could say or do (and i said much) could not prevent this travestie. i put the first into the fire; but i got tired of burning them, before she did of buying them, so that she made herself a figure--for they did not at all become her. "then she would have her gowns with a _tail_--like a lady, forsooth; nothing would serve her but 'l'abita colla _coua_,' or _cua_, (that is the venetian for 'la cola,' the tail or train,) and as her cursed pronunciation of the word made me laugh, there was an end of all controversy, and she dragged this diabolical tail after her every where. "in the mean time, she beat the women and stopped my letters. i found her one day pondering over one. she used to try to find out by their shape whether they were feminine or no; and she used to lament her ignorance, and actually studied her alphabet, on purpose (as she declared) to open all letters addressed to me and read their contents. "i must not omit to do justice to her housekeeping qualities. after she came into my house as 'donna di governo,' the expenses were reduced to less than half, and every body did their duty better--the apartments were kept in order, and every thing and every body else, except herself. "that she had a sufficient regard for me in her wild way, i had many reasons to believe. i will mention one. in the autumn, one day, going to the lido with my gondoliers, we were overtaken by a heavy squall, and the gondola put in peril--hats blown away, boat filling, oar lost, tumbling sea, thunder, rain in torrents, night coming, and wind unceasing. on our return, after a tight struggle, i found her on the open steps of the mocenigo palace, on the grand canal, with her great black eyes flashing through her tears, and the long dark hair, which was streaming, drenched with rain, over her brows and breast. she was perfectly exposed to the storm; and the wind blowing her hair and dress about her thin tall figure, and the lightning flashing round her, and the waves rolling at her feet, made her look like medea alighted from her chariot, or the sibyl of the tempest that was rolling around her, the only living thing within hail at that moment except ourselves. on seeing me safe, she did not wait to greet me, as might have been expected, but calling out to me--'ah! can' della madonna, xe esto il tempo per andar' al' lido?' (ah! dog of the virgin, is this a time to go to lido?) ran into the house, and solaced herself with scolding the boatmen for not foreseeing the 'temporale.' i am told by the servants that she had only been prevented from coming in a boat to look after me, by the refusal of all the gondoliers of the canal to put out into the harbour in such a moment; and that then she sat down on the steps in all the thickest of the squall, and would neither be removed nor comforted. her joy at seeing me again was moderately mixed with ferocity, and gave me the idea of a tigress over her recovered cubs. "but her reign drew near a close. she became quite ungovernable some months after, and a concurrence of complaints, some true, and many false--'a favourite has no friends'--determined me to part with her. i told her quietly that she must return home, (she had acquired a sufficient provision for herself and mother, &c. in my service,) and she refused to quit the house. i was firm, and she went threatening knives and revenge. i told her that i had seen knives drawn before her time, and that if she chose to begin, there was a knife, and fork also, at her service on the table, and that intimidation would not do. the next day, while i was at dinner, she walked in, (having broken open a glass door that led from the hall below to the staircase, by way of prologue,) and advancing straight up to the table, snatched the knife from my hand, cutting me slightly in the thumb in the operation. whether she meant to use this against herself or me, i know not--probably against neither--but fletcher seized her by the arms, and disarmed her. i then called my boatmen, and desired them to get the gondola ready, and conduct her to her own house again, seeing carefully that she did herself no mischief by the way. she seemed quite quiet, and walked down stairs. i resumed my dinner. "we heard a great noise, and went out, and met them on the staircase, carrying her up stairs. she had thrown herself into the canal. that she intended to destroy herself, i do not believe; but when we consider the fear women and men who can't swim have of deep or even of shallow water, (and the venetians in particular, though they live on the waves,) and that it was also night, and dark, and very cold, it shows that she had a devilish spirit of some sort within her. they had got her out without much difficulty or damage, excepting the salt water she had swallowed, and the wetting she had undergone. "i foresaw her intention to refix herself, and sent for a surgeon, enquiring how many hours it would require to restore her from her agitation; and he named the time. i then said, 'i give you that time, and more if you require it; but at the expiration of this prescribed period, if _she_ does not leave the house, _i_ will.' "all my people were consternated. they had always been frightened at her, and were now paralysed: they wanted me to apply to the police, to guard myself, &c. &c. like a pack of snivelling servile boobies as they were. i did nothing of the kind, thinking that i might as well end that way as another; besides, i had been used to savage women, and knew their ways. "i had her sent home quietly after her recovery, and never saw her since, except twice at the opera, at a distance amongst the audience. she made many attempts to return, but no more violent ones. and this is the story of margarita cogni, as far as it relates to me. "i forgot to mention that she was very devout, and would cross herself if she heard the prayer time strike. "she was quick in reply; as, for instance--one day when she had made me very angry with beating somebody or other, i called her a _cow_ (_cow_, in italian, is a sad affront). i called her 'vacca.' she turned round, courtesied, and answered, 'vacca _tua_, 'celenza' (_i.e._ eccelenza). '_your_ cow, please your excellency.' in short, she was, as i said before, a very fine animal, of considerable beauty and energy, with many good and several amusing qualities, but wild as a witch and fierce as a demon. she used to boast publicly of her ascendency over me, contrasting it with that of other women, and assigning for it sundry reasons. true it was, that they all tried to get her away, and no one succeeded till her own absurdity helped them. "i omitted to tell you her answer, when i reproached her for snatching madame contarini's mask at the cavalchina. i represented to her that she was a lady of high birth, 'una dama,' &c. she answered, 'se ella è dama _mi_ (_io_) son veneziana;'--'if she is a lady, i am a venetian.' this would have been fine a hundred years ago, the pride of the nation rising up against the pride of aristocracy: but, alas! venice, and her people, and her nobles, are alike returning fast to the ocean; and where there is no independence, there can be no real self-respect. i believe that i mistook or mis-stated one of her phrases in my letter; it should have been--'can' della madonna cosa vus' tu? esto non é tempo per andar' a lido?'" [footnote : the following are extracts from a letter of shelley's to a friend at this time. "venice, august, . "we came from padua hither in a gondola; and the gondolier, among other things, without any hint on our part, began talking of lord byron. he said he was a 'giovanotto inglese,' with a 'nome stravagante,' who lived very luxuriously, and spent great sums of money. "at three o'clock i called on lord byron. he was delighted to see me, and our first conversation of course consisted in the object of our visit. he took me in his gondola, across the laguna, to a long, strandy sand, which defends venice from the adriatic. when we disembarked, we found his horses waiting for us, and we rode along the sands, talking. our conversation consisted in histories of his own wounded feelings, and questions as to my affairs, with great professions of friendship and regard for me. he said that if he had been in england, at the time of the chancery affair, he would have moved heaven and earth to have prevented such a decision. he talked of literary matters,--his fourth canto, which he says is very good, and indeed repeated some stanzas, of great energy, to me. when we returned to his palace, which is one if the most magnificent in venice," &c. &c. ] [footnote : in the preface also to this poem, under the fictitious name of count maddalo, the following just and striking portrait of lord byron is drawn:-- "he is a person of the most consummate genius, and capable, if he would direct his energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. but it is his weakness to be proud: he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life. his passions and his powers are incomparably greater than those of other men, and instead of the latter having been employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent each other strength. his ambition preys upon itself for want of objects which it can consider worthy of exertion. i say that maddalo is proud, because i can find no other word to express the concentred and impatient feelings which consume him; but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he seems to trample, for in social life no human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming than maddalo. he is cheerful, frank, and witty. his more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication. he has travelled much; and there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different countries."] * * * * * it was at this time, as we shall see by the letters i am about to produce, and as the features, indeed, of the progeny itself would but too plainly indicate, that he conceived, and wrote some part of, his poem of 'don juan;'--and never did pages more faithfully and, in many respects, lamentably, reflect every variety of feeling, and whim, and passion that, like the wrack of autumn, swept across the author's mind in writing them. nothing less, indeed, than that singular combination of attributes, which existed and were in full activity in his mind at this moment, could have suggested, or been capable of, the execution of such a work. the cool shrewdness of age, with the vivacity and glowing temperament of youth,--the wit of a voltaire, with the sensibility of a rousseau,--the minute, practical knowledge of the man of society, with the abstract and self-contemplative spirit of the poet,--a susceptibility of all that is grandest and most affecting in human virtue, with a deep, withering experience of all that is most fatal to it,--the two extremes, in short, of man's mixed and inconsistent nature, now rankly smelling of earth, now breathing of heaven,--such was the strange assemblage of contrary elements, all meeting together in the same mind, and all brought to bear, in turn, upon the same task, from which alone could have sprung this extraordinary poem,--the most powerful and, in many respects, painful display of the versatility of genius that has ever been left for succeeding ages to wonder at and deplore. i shall now proceed with his correspondence,--having thought some of the preceding observations necessary, not only to explain to the reader much of what he will find in these letters, but to account to him for much that has been necessarily omitted. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, june . . "business and the utter and inexplicable silence of all my correspondents renders me impatient and troublesome. i wrote to mr. hanson for a balance which is (or ought to be) in his hands;--no answer. i expected the messenger with the newstead papers two months ago, and instead of him, i received a requisition to proceed to geneva, which (from * *, who knows my wishes and opinions about approaching england) could only be irony or insult. "i must, therefore, trouble _you_ to pay into my bankers' _immediately_ whatever sum or sums you can make it convenient to do on our agreement; otherwise, i shall be put to the _severest_ and most immediate inconvenience; and this at a time when, by every rational prospect and calculation, i ought to be in the receipt of considerable sums. pray do not neglect this; you have no idea to what inconvenience you will otherwise put me. * * had some absurd notion about the disposal of this money in annuity (or god knows what), which i merely listened to when he was here to avoid squabbles and sermons; but i have occasion for the principal, and had never any serious idea of appropriating it otherwise than to answer my personal expenses. hobhouse's wish is, if possible, to force me back to england[ ]: he will not succeed; and if he did, i would not stay. i hate the country, and like this; and all foolish opposition, of course, merely adds to the feeling. _your_ silence makes me doubt the success of canto fourth. if it has failed, i will make such deduction as you think proper and fair from the original agreement; but i could wish whatever is to be paid were remitted to me, without delay, through the usual channel, by course of post. "when i tell you that i have not heard a word from england since very early in may, i have made the eulogium of my friends, or the persons who call themselves so, since i have written so often and in the greatest anxiety. thank god, the longer i am absent, the less cause i see for regretting the country or its living contents. i am yours," &c. [footnote : deeply is it, for many reasons, to be regretted that this friendly purpose did not succeed.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, july . . "i have received your letter and the credit from morlands, &c. for whom i have also drawn upon you at sixty days' sight for the remainder, according to your proposition. "i am still waiting in venice, in expectancy of the arrival of hanson's clerk. what can detain him, i do not know; but i trust that mr. hobhouse, and mr. kinnaird, when their political fit is abated, will take the trouble to enquire and expedite him, as i have nearly a hundred thousand pounds depending upon the completion of the sale and the signature of the papers. "the draft on you is drawn up by siri and willhalm. i hope that the form is correct. i signed it two or three days ago, desiring them to forward it to messrs. morland and ransom. "your projected editions for november had better be postponed, as i have some things in project, or preparation, that may be of use to you, though not very important in themselves. i have completed an ode on venice, and have two stories, one serious and one ludicrous (à la beppo), not yet finished, and in no hurry to be so. "you talk of the letter to hobhouse being much admired, and speak of prose. i think of writing (for your full edition) some memoirs of my life, to prefix to them, upon the same model (though far enough, i fear, from reaching it) of gifford, hume, &c.; and this without any intention of making disclosures or remarks upon living people, which would be unpleasant to them: but i think it might be done, and well done. however, this is to be considered. i have _materials_ in plenty, but the greater part of them could not be used by _me_, nor for these hundred years to come. however, there is enough without these, and merely as a literary man, to make a preface for such an edition as you meditate. but this is by the way: i have not made up my mind. "i enclose you a _note_ on the subject of '_parisina_,' which hobhouse can dress for you. it is an extract of particulars from a history of ferrara. "i trust you have been attentive to missiaglia, for the english have the character of neglecting the italians, at present, which i hope you will redeem. "yours in haste, b." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, july . . "i suppose that aglietti will take whatever you offer, but till his return from vienna i can make him no proposal; nor, indeed, have you authorised me to do so. the three french notes _are_ by lady mary; also another half-english-french-italian. they are very pretty and passionate; it is a pity that a piece of one of them is lost. algarotti seems to have treated her ill; but she was much his senior, and all women are used ill--or say so, whether they are or not. "i shall be glad of your books and powders. i am still in waiting for hanson's clerk, but luckily not at geneva. all my good friends wrote to me to hasten _there_ to meet him, but not one had the good sense or the good nature, to write afterwards to tell me that it would be time and a journey thrown away, as he could not set off for some months after the period appointed. if i _had_ taken the journey on the general suggestion, i never would have spoken again to one of you as long as i existed. i have written to request mr. kinnaird, when the foam of his politics is wiped away, to extract a positive answer from that * * * *, and not to keep me in a state of suspense upon the subject. i hope that kinnaird, who has my power of attorney, keeps a look-out upon the gentleman, which is the more necessary, as i have a great dislike to the idea of coming over to look after him myself. "i have several things begun, verse and prose, but none in much forwardness. i have written some six or seven sheets of a life, which i mean to continue, and send you when finished. it may perhaps serve for your projected editions. if you would tell me exactly (for i know nothing, and have no correspondents except on business) the state of the reception of our late publications, and the feeling upon them, without consulting any delicacies (i am too seasoned to require them), i should know how and in what manner to proceed. i should not like to give them too much, which may probably have been the case already; but, as i tell you, i know nothing. "i once wrote from the fulness of my mind and the love of fame, (not as an _end_, but as a _means_, to obtain that influence over men's minds which is power in itself and in its consequences,) and now from habit and from avarice; so that the effect may probably be as different as the inspiration. i have the same facility, and indeed necessity, of composition, to avoid idleness (though idleness in a hot country is a pleasure), but a much greater indifference to what is to become of it, after it has served my immediate purpose. however, i should on no account like to--but i won't go on, like the archbishop of granada, as i am very sure that you dread the fate of gil blas, and with good reason. yours, &c. "p.s. i have written some very savage letters to mr. hobhouse, kinnaird, to you, and to hanson, because the silence of so long a time made me tear off my remaining rags of patience. i have seen one or two late english publications which are no great things, except rob roy. i shall be glad of whistlecraft." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, august . . "you may go on with your edition, without calculating on the memoir, which i shall not publish at present. it is nearly finished, but will be too long; and there are so many things, which, out of regard to the living, cannot be mentioned, that i have written with too much detail of that which interested me least; so that my autobiographical essay would resemble the tragedy of hamlet at the country theatre, recited 'with the part of hamlet left out by particular desire.' i shall keep it among my papers; it will be a kind of guide-post in case of death, and prevent some of the lies which would otherwise be told, and destroy some which have been told already. "the tales also are in an unfinished state, and i can fix no time for their completion: they are also not in the best manner. you must not, therefore, calculate upon any thing in time for this edition. the memoir is already above forty-four sheets of very large, long paper, and will be about fifty or sixty; but i wish to go on leisurely; and when finished, although it might do a good deal for you at the time, i am not sure that it would serve any good purpose in the end either, as it is full of many passions and prejudices, of which it has been impossible for me to keep clear:--i have not the patience. "enclosed is a list of books which dr. aglietti would be glad to receive by way of price for his ms. letters, if you are disposed to purchase at the rate of fifty pounds sterling. these he will be glad to have as part, and the rest _i_ will give him in money, and you may carry it to the account of books, &c. which is in balance against me, deducting it accordingly. so that the letters are yours, if you like them, at this rate; and he and i are going to hunt for more lady montague letters, which he thinks of finding. i write in haste. thanks for the article, and believe me "yours," &c. * * * * * to the charge brought against lord byron by some english travellers of being, in general, repulsive and inhospitable to his own countrymen, i have already made allusion; and shall now add to the testimony then cited in disproof of such a charge some particulars, communicated to me by captain basil hall, which exhibit the courtesy and kindliness of the noble poet's disposition in their true, natural light. "on the last day of august, (says this distinguished writer and traveller), i was taken ill with an ague at venice, and having heard enough of the low state of the medical art in that country, i was not a little anxious as to the advice i should take. i was not acquainted with any person in venice to whom i could refer, and had only one letter of introduction, which was to lord byron; but as there were many stories floating about of his lordship's unwillingness to be pestered with tourists, i had felt unwilling, before this moment, to intrude myself in that shape. now, however, that i was seriously unwell, i felt sure that this offensive character would merge in that of a countryman in distress, and i sent the letter by one of my travelling companions to lord byron's lodgings, with a note, excusing the liberty i was taking, explaining that i was in want of medical assistance, and saying i should not send to any one till i heard the name of the person who, in his lordship's opinion, was the best practitioner in venice. "unfortunately for me, lord byron was still in bed, though it was near noon, and still more unfortunately, the bearer of my message scrupled to awake him, without first coming back to consult me. by this time i was in all the agonies of a cold ague fit, and, therefore, not at all in a condition to be consulted upon any thing--so i replied pettishly, 'oh, by no means disturb lord byron on my account--ring for the landlord, and send for any one he recommends.' this absurd injunction being forthwith and literally attended to, in the course of an hour i was under the discipline of mine host's friend, whose skill and success it is no part of my present purpose to descant upon:--it is sufficient to mention that i was irrevocably in his hands long before the following most kind note was brought to me, in great haste, by lord byron's servant. "'venice, august . . "'dear sir, "'dr. aglietti is the best physician, not only in venice, but in italy: his residence is on the grand canal, and easily found; i forget the number, but am probably the only person in venice who don't know it. there is no comparison between him and any of the other medical people here. i regret very much to hear of your indisposition, and shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you the moment i am up. i write this in bed, and have only just received the letter and note. i beg you to believe that nothing but the extreme lateness of my hours could have prevented me from replying immediately, or coming in person. i have not been called a minute.--i have the honour to be, very truly, "'your most obedient servant, "'byron.' "his lordship soon followed this note, and i heard his voice in the next room; but although he waited more than an hour, i could not see him, being under the inexorable hands of the doctor. in the course of the same evening he again called, but i was asleep. when i awoke i found his lordship's valet sitting by my bedside. 'he had his master's orders,' he said, 'to remain with me while i was unwell, and was instructed to say, that whatever his lordship had, or could procure, was at my service, and that he would come to me and sit with me, or do whatever i liked, if i would only let him know in what way he could be useful.' "accordingly, on the next day, i sent for some book, which was brought, with a list of his library. i forget what it was which prevented my seeing lord byron on this day, though he called more than once; and on the next, i was too ill with fever to talk to any one. "the moment i could get out, i took a gondola and went to pay my respects, and to thank his lordship for his attentions. it was then nearly three o'clock, but he was not yet up; and when i went again on the following day at five, i had the mortification to learn that he had gone, at the same hour, to call upon me, so that we had crossed each other on the canal; and, to my deep and lasting regret, i was obliged to leave venice without seeing him." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "venice, september . . "an english newspaper here would be a prodigy, and an opposition one a monster; and except some ex tracts _from_ extracts in the vile, garbled paris gazettes, nothing of the kind reaches the veneto-lombard public, who are, perhaps, the most oppressed in europe. my correspondences with england are mostly on business, and chiefly with my * * *, who has no very exalted notion, or extensive conception, of an author's attributes; for he once took up an edinburgh review, and, looking at it a minute, said to me, 'so, i see you have got into the magazine,'--which is the only sentence i ever heard him utter upon literary matters, or the men thereof. "my first news of your irish apotheosis has, consequently, been from yourself. but, as it will not be forgotten in a hurry, either by your friends or your enemies, i hope to have it more in detail from some of the former, and, in the mean time, i wish you joy with all my heart. such a moment must have been a good deal better than westminster-abbey,--besides being an assurance of _that_ one day (many years hence, i trust,) into the bargain. "i am sorry to perceive, however, by the close of your letter, that even _you_ have not escaped the 'surgit amari,' &c. and that your damned deputy has been gathering such 'dew from the still _vext_ bermoothes'--or rather _vexatious_. pray, give me some items of the affair, as you say it is a serious one; and, if it grows more so, you should make a trip over here for a few months, to see how things turn out. i suppose you are a violent admirer of england by your staying so long in it. for my own part, i have passed, between the age of one-and-twenty and thirty, half the intervenient years out of it without regretting any thing, except that i ever returned to it at all, and the gloomy prospect before me of business and parentage obliging me, one day, to return to it again,--at least, for the transaction of affairs, the signing of papers, and inspecting of children. "i have here my natural daughter, by name allegra,--a pretty little girl enough, and reckoned like papa.[ ] her mamma is english,--but it is a long story, and--there's an end. she is about twenty months old. "i have finished the first canto (a long one, of about octaves) of a poem in the style and manner of 'beppo', encouraged by the good success of the same. it is called 'don juan', and is meant to be a little quietly facetious upon every thing. but i doubt whether it is not--at least, as far as it has yet gone--too free for these very modest days. however, i shall try the experiment, anonymously, and if it don't take, it will be discontinued. it is dedicated to s * * in good, simple, savage verse, upon the * * * *'s politics, and the way he got them. but the bore of copying it out is intolerable; and if i had an amanuensis he would be of no use, as my writing is so difficult to decipher. "my poem's epic, and is meant to be divided in twelve books, each book containing with love and war, a heavy gale at sea-- a list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning-- new characters, &c. &c. the above are two stanzas, which i send you as a brick of my babel, and by which you can judge of the texture of the structure. "in writing the life of sheridan, never mind the angry lies of the humbug whigs. recollect that he was an irishman and a clever fellow, and that we have had some very pleasant days with him. don't forget that he was at school at harrow, where, in my time, we used to show his name--r.b. sheridan, ,--as an honour to the walls. remember * *. depend upon it that there were worse folks going, of that gang, than ever sheridan was. "what did parr mean by 'haughtiness and coldness?' i listened to him with admiring ignorance, and respectful silence. what more could a talker for fame have?--they don't like to be answered. it was at payne knight's i met him, where he gave me more greek than i could carry away. but i certainly meant to (and _did_) treat him with the most respectful deference. "i wish you a good night, with a venetian benediction, 'benedetto te, e la terra che ti fara!'--'may you be blessed, and the _earth_ which you will _make_!'--is it not pretty? you would think it still prettier if you had heard it, as i did two hours ago, from the lips of a venetian girl, with large black eyes, a face like faustina's, and the figure of a juno--tall and energetic as a pythoness, with eyes flashing, and her dark hair streaming in the moonlight--one of those women who may be made any thing. i am sure if i put a poniard into the hand of this one, she would plunge it where i told her,--and into _me_, if i offended her. i like this kind of animal, and am sure that i should have preferred medea to any woman that ever breathed. you may, perhaps, wonder that i don't in that case. i could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl, any thing, but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when i stood alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered around me[ ] * * do you suppose i have forgotten or forgiven it? it has comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and i am only a spectator upon earth, till a tenfold opportunity offers. it may come yet. there are others more to be blamed than * * * *, and it is on these that my eyes are fixed unceasingly." [footnote : this little child had been sent to him by its mother about four or five months before, under the care of a swiss nurse, a young girl not above nineteen or twenty years of age, and in every respect unfit to have the charge of such an infant, without the superintendence of some more experienced person. "the child, accordingly," says my informant, "was but ill taken care of;--not that any blame could attach to lord byron, for he always expressed himself most anxious for her welfare, but because the nurse wanted the necessary experience. the poor girl was equally to be pitied; for, as lord byron's household consisted of english and italian men servants, with whom she could hold no converse, and as there was no other female to consult with and assist her in her charge, nothing could be more forlorn than her situation proved to be." soon after the date of the above letter, mrs. hoppner, the lady of the consul general, who had, from the first, in compassion both to father and child, invited the little allegra occasionally to her house, very kindly proposed to lord byron to take charge of her altogether, and an arrangement was accordingly concluded upon for that purpose.] [footnote : "i had one only fount of quiet left, and that they poison'd! _my pure household gods were shivered on my hearth._" marino faliero. ] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, september . . "in the one hundredth and thirty-second stanza of canto fourth, the stanza runs in the manuscript-- "and thou, who never yet of human wrong left the unbalanced scale, great nemesis! and _not 'lost,'_ which is nonsense, as what losing a scale means, i know not; but _leaving_ an unbalanced scale, or a scale unbalanced, is intelligible.[ ] correct this, i pray,--not for the public, or the poetry, but i do not choose to have blunders made in addressing any of the deities so seriously as this is addressed. "yours, &c. "p.s. in the translation from the spanish, alter "in increasing squadrons flew, to-- to a mighty squadron grew. "what does 'thy waters _wasted_ them' mean (in the canto)? _that is not me._[ ] consult the ms. _always_. "i have written the first canto ( octave stanzas) of a poem in the style of beppo, and have mazeppa to finish besides. "in referring to the mistake in stanza . i take the opportunity to desire that in future, in all parts of my writings referring to religion, you will be more careful, and not forget that it is possible that in addressing the deity a blunder may become a blasphemy; and i do not choose to suffer such infamous perversions of my words or of my intentions. "i saw the canto by accident." [footnote : this correction, i observe, has never been made,--the passage still remaining, unmeaningly, "_lost_ the unbalanced scale." ] [footnote : this passage also remains uncorrected.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, january . . "the opinions which i have asked of mr. h. and others were with regard to the poetical merit, and not as to what they may think due to the _cant_ of the day, which still reads the bath guide, little's poems, prior, and chaucer, to say nothing of fielding and smollet. if published, publish entire, with the above-mentioned exceptions; or you may publish anonymously, or _not at all_. in the latter event, print on my account, for private distribution. "yours, &c. "i have written to messrs. k. and h. to desire that they will not erase more than i have stated. "the second canto of don juan is finished in stanzas." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, january . . "you will do me the favour to print privately (for private distribution) fifty copies of 'don juan.' the list of the men to whom i wish it to be presented, i will send hereafter. the other two poems had best be added to the collective edition: i do not approve of _their_ being published separately. print don juan _entire_, omitting, of course, the lines on castlereagh, as i am not on the spot to meet him. i have a second canto ready, which will be sent by and by. by this post, i have written to mr. hobhouse, addressed to your care. "yours, &c. "p.s. i have acquiesced in the request and representation; and having done so, it is idle to detail my arguments in favour of my own self-love and 'poeshie;' but i _protest_. if the poem has poetry, it would stand; if not, fall; the rest is 'leather and prunello,' and has never yet affected any human production 'pro or con.' dulness is the only annihilator in such cases. as to the cant of the day, i despise it, as i have ever done all its other finical fashions, which become you as paint became the ancient britons. if you admit this prudery, you must omit half ariosto, la fontaine, shakspeare, beaumont, fletcher, massinger, ford, all the charles second writers; in short, _something_ of most who have written before pope and are worth reading, and much of pope himself. _read him_--most of you _don't_--but _do_--and i will forgive you; though the inevitable consequence would be that you would burn all i have ever written, and all your other wretched claudians of the day (except scott and crabbe) into the bargain. i wrong claudian, who _was_ a _poet_, by naming him with such fellows; but he was the 'ultimus romanorum,' the tail of the comet, and these persons are the tail of an old gown cut into a waistcoat for jackey; but being both _tails_, i have compared the one with the other, though very unlike, like all similes. i write in a passion and a sirocco, and i was up till six this morning at the carnival: but i _protest_, as i did in my former letter." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, february . . "after one of the concluding stanzas of the first canto of 'don juan,' which ends with (i forget the number)-- "to have ... ... when the original is dust, a book, a d----d bad picture, and worse bust, insert the following stanza:-- "what are the hopes of man, &c. "i have written to you several letters, some with additions, and some upon the subject of the poem itself, which my cursed puritanical committee have protested against publishing. but we will circumvent them on that point. i have not yet begun to copy out the second canto, which is finished, from natural laziness, and the discouragement of the milk and water they have thrown upon the first. i say all this to them as to you, that is, for _you_ to say to _them_, for i will have nothing underhand. if they had told me the poetry was bad, i would have acquiesced; but they say the contrary, and then talk to me about morality--the first time i ever heard the word from any body who was not a rascal that used it for a purpose. i maintain that it is the most moral of poems; but if people won't discover the moral, that is their fault, not mine. i have already written to beg that in any case you will print _fifty_ for private distribution. i will send you the list of persons to whom it is to be sent afterwards. "within this last fortnight i have been rather indisposed with a rebellion of stomach, which would retain nothing, (liver, i suppose,) and an inability, or fantasy, not to be able to eat of any thing with relish but a kind of adriatic fish called 'scampi,' which happens to be the most indigestible of marine viands. however, within these last two days, i am better, and very truly yours." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, april . . "the second canto of don juan was sent, on saturday last, by post, in four packets, two of four, and two of three sheets each, containing in all two hundred and seventeen stanzas, octave measure. but i will permit no curtailments, except those mentioned about castlereagh and * * * *. you sha'n't make _canticles_ of my cantos. the poem will please, if it is lively; if it is stupid, it will fail: but i will have none of your damned cutting and slashing. if you please, you may publish _anonymously_; it will perhaps be better; but i will battle my way against them all, like a porcupine. "so you and mr. foscolo, &c. want me to undertake what you call a 'great work?' an epic poem, i suppose, or some such pyramid. i'll try no such thing; i hate tasks. and then 'seven or eight years!' god send us all well this day three months, let alone years. if one's years can't be better employed than in sweating poesy, a man had better be a ditcher. and works, too!--is childe harold nothing? you have so many 'divine poems,' is it nothing to have written a _human_ one? without any of your worn-out machinery. why, man, i could have spun the thoughts of the four cantos of that poem into twenty, had i wanted to book-make, and its passion into as many modern tragedies. since you want _length_, you shall have enough of _juan_, for i'll make fifty cantos. "and foscolo, too! why does _he_ not do something more than the letters of ortis, and a tragedy, and pamphlets? he has good fifteen years more at his command than i have: what has he done all that time?--proved his genius, doubtless, but not fixed its fame, nor done his utmost. "besides, i mean to write my best work in _italian_, and it will take me nine years more thoroughly to master the language; and then if my fancy exist, and i exist too, i will try what i _can_ do _really_. as to the estimation of the english which you talk of, let them calculate what it is worth, before they insult me with their insolent condescension. "i have not written for their pleasure. if they are pleased, it is that they chose to be so; i have never flattered their opinions, nor their pride; nor will i. neither will i make 'ladies' books 'al dilettar le femine e la plebe.' i have written from the fulness of my mind, from passion, from impulse, from many motives, but not for their 'sweet voices.' "i know the precise worth of popular applause, for few scribblers have had more of it; and if i chose to swerve into their paths, i could retain it, or resume it. but i neither love ye, nor fear ye; and though i buy with ye and sell with ye, i will neither eat with ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye. they made me, without any search, a species of popular idol; they, without reason or judgment, beyond the caprice of their good pleasure, threw down the image from its pedestal; it was not broken with the fall, and they would, it seems, again replace it,--but they shall not. "you ask about my health: about the beginning of the year i was in a state of great exhaustion, attended by such debility of stomach that nothing remained upon it; and i was obliged to reform my 'way of life,' which was conducting me from the 'yellow leaf' to the ground, with all deliberate speed. i am better in health and morals, and very much yours, &c. "p.s. i have read hodgson's 'friends.' he is right in defending pope against the bastard pelicans of the poetical winter day, who add insult to their parricide, by sucking the blood of the parent of english _real_ poetry,--poetry without fault,--and then spurning the bosom which fed them." * * * * * it was about the time when the foregoing letter was written, and when, as we perceive, like the first return of reason after intoxication, a full consciousness of some of the evils of his late libertine course of life had broken upon him, that an attachment differing altogether, both in duration and devotion, from any of those that, since the dream of his boyhood, had inspired him, gained an influence over his mind which lasted through his few remaining years; and, undeniably wrong and immoral (even allowing for the italian estimate of such frailties) as was the nature of the connection to which this attachment led, we can hardly perhaps,--taking into account the far worse wrong from which it rescued and preserved him,--consider it otherwise than as an event fortunate both for his reputation and happiness. the fair object of this last, and (with one signal exception) only _real_ love of his whole life, was a young romagnese lady, the daughter of count gamba, of ravenna, and married, but a short time before lord byron first met with her, to an old and wealthy widower, of the same city, count guiccioli. her husband had in early life been the friend of alfieri, and had distinguished himself by his zeal in promoting the establishment of a national theatre, in which the talents of alfieri and his own wealth were to be combined. notwithstanding his age, and a character, as it appears, by no means reputable, his great opulence rendered him an object of ambition among the mothers of ravenna, who, according to the too frequent maternal practice, were seen vying with each other in attracting so rich a purchaser for their daughters, and the young teresa gamba, not yet sixteen, and just emancipated from a convent, was the selected victim. the first time lord byron had ever seen this lady was in the autumn of , when she made her appearance, three days after her marriage, at the house of the countess albrizzi, in all the gaiety of bridal array, and the first delight of exchanging a convent for the world. at this time, however, no acquaintance ensued between them;--it was not till the spring of the present year that, at an evening party of madame benzoni's, they were introduced to each other. the love that sprung out of this meeting was instantaneous and mutual, though with the usual disproportion of sacrifice between the parties; such an event being, to the man, but one of the many scenes of life, while, with woman, it generally constitutes the whole drama. the young italian found herself suddenly inspired with a passion of which, till that moment, her mind could not have formed the least idea;--she had thought of love but as an amusement, and now became its slave. if at the outset, too, less slow to be won than an englishwoman, no sooner did she begin to understand the full despotism of the passion than her heart shrunk from it as something terrible, and she would have escaped, but that the chain was already around her. no words, however, can describe so simply and feelingly as her own, the strong impression which their first meeting left upon her mind:-- "i became acquainted (says madame guiccioli) with lord byron in the april of :--he was introduced to me at venice, by the countess benzoni, at one of that lady's parties. this introduction, which had so much influence over the lives of us both, took place contrary to our wishes, and had been permitted by us only from courtesy. for myself, more fatigued than usual that evening on account of the late hours they keep at venice, i went with great repugnance to this party, and purely in obedience to count guiccioli. lord byron, too, who was averse to forming new acquaintances,--alleging that he had entirely renounced all attachments, and was unwilling any more to expose himself to their consequences,--on being requested by the countess benzoni to allow himself to be presented to me, refused, and, at last, only assented from a desire to oblige her. "his noble and exquisitely beautiful countenance, the tone of his voice, his manners, the thousand enchantments that surrounded him, rendered him so different and so superior a being to any whom i had hitherto seen, that it was impossible he should not have left the most profound impression upon me. from that evening, during the whole of my subsequent stay at venice, we met every day."[ ] [footnote : "nell' aprile del , io feci la conoscenza di lord byron; e mi fu presentato a venezia dalla contessa benzoni nella di lei società. questa presentazione che ebbe tante consequenze per tutti e due fu fatta contro la volontà d'entrambi, e solo per condiscendenza l'abbiamo permessa. io stanca più che mai quella sera par le ore tarde che si costuma fare in venezia andai con molta ripugnanza e solo per ubbidire al conte guiccioli in quella società. lord byron che scansava di fare nuove conoscenze, dicendo sempre che aveva interamente rinunciato alle passioni e che non voleva esporsi più alle loro consequenze, quando la contessa benzoni la pregò di volersi far presentare a me eglì recusò, e solo per la compiàcenza glielo permise. la nobile e bellissima sua fisonomia, il suono della sua voce, le sue maniere, i mille incanti che lo circondavano lo rendevano un essere così differente, così superiore a tutti quelli che io aveva sino allora veduti che non potei a meno di non provarne la più profonda impressione. da quella sera in poi in tutti i giorni che mi fermai in venezia ei siamo seinpre veduti."--ms.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, may . . "i have got your extract, and the 'vampire.' i need not say it is _not mine_. there is a rule to go by: you are my publisher (till we quarrel), and what is not published by you is not written by me. "next week i set out for romagna--at least, in all probability. you had better go on with the publications, without waiting to hear farther, for i have other things in my head. 'mazeppa' and the 'ode' separate?--what think you? _juan anonymous, without the dedication;_ for i won't be shabby, and attack southey under cloud of night. "yours," &c. * * * * * in another letter on the subject of the vampire, i find the following interesting particulars:-- "to mr. ----. "the story of shelley's agitation is true.[ ] i can't tell what seized him, for he don't want courage. he was once with me in a gale of wind, in a small boat, right under the rocks between meillerie and st. gingo. we were five in the boat--a servant, two boatmen, and ourselves. the sail was mismanaged, and the boat was filling fast. he can't swim. i stripped off my coat, made him strip off his, and take hold of an oar, telling him that i thought (being myself an expert swimmer) i could save him, if he would not struggle when i took hold of him--unless we got smashed against the rocks, which were high and sharp, with an awkward surf on them at that minute. we were then about a hundred yards from shore, and the boat in peril. he answered me with the greatest coolness, 'that he had no notion of being saved, and that i would have enough to do to save myself, and begged not to trouble me.' luckily, the boat righted, and, bailing, we got round a point into st. gingo, where the inhabitants came down and embraced the boatmen on their escape, the wind having been high enough to tear up some huge trees from the alps above us, as we saw next day. "and yet the same shelley, who was as cool as it was possible to be in such circumstances, (of which i am no judge myself, as the chance of swimming naturally gives self-possession when near shore,) certainly had the fit of phantasy which polidori describes, though _not exactly_ as he describes it. "the story of the agreement to write the ghost-books is true; but the ladies are _not_ sisters. mary godwin (now mrs. shelley) wrote frankenstein, which you have reviewed, thinking it shelley's. methinks it is a wonderful book for a girl of nineteen,--not nineteen, indeed, at that time. i enclose you the beginning of mine, by which you will see how far it resembles mr. colburn's publication. if you choose to publish it, you may, _stating why_, and with such explanatory proem as you please. i never went on with it, as you will perceive by the date. i began it in an old account-book of miss milbanke's, which i kept because it contains the word 'household,' written by her twice on the inside blank page of the covers, being the only two scraps i have in the world in her writing, except her name to the deed of separation. her letters i sent back except those of the quarrelling correspondence, and those, being documents, are placed in the hands of a third person, with copies of several of my own; so that i have no kind of memorial whatever of her, but these two words,--and her actions. i have torn the leaves containing the part of the tale out of the book, and enclose them with this sheet. "what do you mean? first you seem hurt by my letter, and then, in your next, you talk of its 'power,' and so forth. 'this is a d----d blind story, jack; but never mind, go on.' you may be sure i said nothing _on purpose_ to plague you; but if you will put me 'in a frenzy, i will never call you _jack_ again.' i remember nothing of the epistle at present. "what do you mean by polidori's _diary_? why, i defy him to say any thing about me, but he is welcome. i have nothing to reproach me with on his score, and i am much mistaken if that is not his _own_ opinion. but why publish the names of the two girls? and in such a manner?--what a blundering piece of exculpation! _he_ asked pictet, &c. to dinner, and of course was left to entertain them. i went into society _solely_ to present _him_ (as i told him), that he might return into good company if he chose; it was the best thing for his youth and circumstances: for myself, i had done with society, and, having presented him, withdrew to my own 'way of life.' it is true that i returned without entering lady dalrymple hamilton's, because i saw it full. it is true that mrs. hervey (she writes novels) fainted at my entrance into coppet, and then came back again. on her fainting, the duchess de broglie exclaimed, 'this is _too much_--at _sixty-five_ years of age!'--i never gave 'the english' an opportunity of avoiding me; but i trust that, if ever i do, they will seize it. with regard to mazeppa and the ode, you may join or separate them, as you please, from the two cantos. "don't suppose i want to put you out of humour. i have a great respect for your good and gentlemanly qualities, and return your personal friendship towards me; and although i think you a little spoilt by 'villanous company,'--wits, persons of honour about town, authors, and fashionables, together with your 'i am just going to call at carlton house, are you walking that way?'--i say, notwithstanding 'pictures, taste, shakspeare, and the musical glasses,' you deserve and possess the esteem of those whose esteem is worth having, and of none more (however useless it may be) than yours very truly, &c. "p.s. make my respects to mr. gifford. i am perfectly aware that 'don juan' must set us all by the ears, but that is my concern, and my beginning. there will be the 'edinburgh,' and all, too, against it, so that, like 'rob roy,' i shall have my hands full." [footnote : this story, as given in the preface to the "vampire," is as follows:-- "it appears that one evening lord b., mr. p.b. shelley, two ladies, and the gentleman before alluded to, after having perused a german work called phantasmagoria, began relating ghost stories, when his lordship having recited the beginning of christabel, then unpublished, the whole took so strong a hold of mr. shelley's mind, that he suddenly started up, and ran out of the room. the physician and lord byron followed, and discovered him leaning against a mantel-piece, with cold drops of perspiration trickling down his face. after having given him something to refresh him, upon enquiring into the cause of his alarm, they found that his wild imagination having pictured to him the bosom of one of the ladies with eyes (which was reported of a lady in the neighbourhood where he lived), he was obliged to leave the room in order to destroy the impression."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, may . . "i have received no proofs by the last post, and shall probably have quitted venice before the arrival of the next. there wanted a few stanzas to the termination of canto first in the last proof; the next will, i presume, contain them, and the whole or a portion of canto second; but it will be idle to wait for further answers from me, as i have directed that my letters wait for my return (perhaps in a month, and probably so); therefore do not wait for further advice from me. you may as well talk to the wind, and better--for _it_ will at least convey your accents a little further than they would otherwise have gone; whereas _i_ shall neither echo nor acquiesce in your 'exquisite reasons.' you may omit the _note_ of reference to hobhouse's travels, in canto second, and you will put as motto to the whole-- 'difficile est proprie communia dicere.'--horace. "a few days ago i sent you all i know of polidori's vampire. he may do, say, or write, what he pleases, but i wish he would not attribute to me his own compositions. if he has any thing of mine in his possession, the ms. will put it beyond controversy; but i scarcely think that any one who knows me would believe the thing in the magazine to be mine, even if they saw it in my own hieroglyphics. "i write to you in the agonies of a _sirocco_, which annihilates me; and i have been fool enough to do four things since dinner, which are as well omitted in very hot weather: stly, * * * *; dly, to play at billiards from to , under the influence of lighted lamps, that doubled the heat; dly, to go afterwards into a red-hot conversazione of the countess benzoni's; and, thly, to begin this letter at three in the morning: but being begun, it must be finished. "ever very truly and affectionately yours, "b. "p.s. i petition for tooth-brushes, powder, magnesia, macassar oil (or russia), _the_ sashes, and sir nl. wraxall's memoirs of his own times. i want, besides, a bull-dog, a terrier, and two newfoundland dogs; and i want (is it buck's?) a life of _richard d_, advertised by longman _long, long, long_ ago; i asked for it at least three years since. see longman's advertisements." * * * * * about the middle of april, madame guiccioli had been obliged to quit venice with her husband. having several houses on the road from venice to ravenna, it was his habit to stop at these mansions, one after the other, in his journeys between the two cities; and from all these places the enamoured young countess now wrote to lord byron, expressing, in the most passionate and pathetic terms, her despair at leaving him. so utterly, indeed, did this feeling overpower her, that three times, in the course of her first day's journey, she was seized with fainting fits. in one of her letters, which i saw when at venice, dated, if i recollect right, from "cà zen, cavanelle di po," she tells him that the solitude of this place, which she had before found irksome, was, now that one sole idea occupied her mind, become dear and welcome to her, and promises that, as soon as she arrives at ravenna, "she will, according to his wish, avoid all general society, and devote herself to reading, music, domestic occupations, riding on horseback,--every thing, in short, that she knew he would most like." what a change for a young and simple girl, who, but a few weeks before, had thought only of society and the world, but who now saw no other happiness but in the hope of making herself worthy, by seclusion and self-instruction, of the illustrious object of her devotion! on leaving this place, she was attacked with a dangerous illness on the road, and arrived half dead at ravenna; nor was it found possible to revive or comfort her till an assurance was received from lord byron, expressed with all the fervour of real passion, that, in the course of the ensuing month, he would pay her a visit. symptoms of consumption, brought on by her state of mind, had already shown themselves; and, in addition to the pain which this separation had caused her, she was also suffering much grief from the loss of her mother, who, at this time, died in giving birth to her fourteenth child. towards the latter end of may she wrote to acquaint lord byron that, having prepared all her relatives and friends to expect him, he might now, she thought, venture to make his appearance at ravenna. though, on the lady's account, hesitating as to the prudence of such a step, he, in obedience to her wishes, on the d of june, set out from la mira (at which place he had again taken a villa for the summer), and proceeded towards romagna. from padua he addressed a letter to mr. hoppner, chiefly occupied with matters of household concern which that gentleman had undertaken to manage for him at venice, but, on the immediate object of his journey, expressing himself in a tone so light and jesting, as it would be difficult for those not versed in his character to conceive that he could ever bring himself, while under the influence of a passion so sincere, to assume. but such is ever the wantonness of the mocking spirit, from which nothing,--not even love,--remains sacred; and which, at last, for want of other food, turns upon himself. the same horror, too, of hypocrisy that led lord byron to exaggerate his own errors, led him also to disguise, under a seemingly heartless ridicule, all those natural and kindly qualities by which they were redeemed. this letter from padua concludes thus:-- "a journey in an italian june is a conscription; and if i was not the most constant of men, i should now be swimming from the lido, instead of smoking in the dust of padua. should there be letters from england, let them wait my return. and do look at my house and (not lands, but) waters, and scold;--and deal out the monies to edgecombe[ ] with an air of reluctance and a shake of the head--and put queer questions to him--and turn up your nose when he answers. "make my respect to the consules--and to the chevalier--and to scotin--and to all the counts and countesses of our acquaintance. "and believe me ever "your disconsolate and affectionate," &c. [footnote : a clerk of the english consulate, whom he at this time employed to control his accounts.] * * * * * as a contrast to the strange levity of this letter, as well as in justice to the real earnestness of the passion, however censurable in all other respects, that now engrossed him, i shall here transcribe some stanzas which he wrote in the course of this journey to romagna, and which, though already published, are not comprised in the regular collection of his works. "river[ ], that rollest by the ancient walls, where dwells the lady of my love, when she walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls a faint and fleeting memory of me; "what if thy deep and ample stream should be a mirror of my heart, where she may read the thousand thoughts i now betray to thee, wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed! "what do i say--a mirror of my heart? are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? such as my feelings were and are, thou art; and such as thou art were my passions long. "time may have somewhat tamed them,--not for ever; thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye thy bosom overboils, congenial river! thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away, "but left long wrecks behind, and now again, borne in our old unchanged career, we move; thou tendest wildly onwards to the main, and i--to loving _one_ i should not love. "the current i behold will sweep beneath her native walls and murmur at her feet; her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe the twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat. "she will look on thee,--i have look'd on thee, full of that thought; and, from that moment, ne'er thy waters could i dream of, name, or see, without the inseparable sigh for her! "her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,-- yes! they will meet the wave i gaze on now: mine cannot witness, even in a dream, that happy wave repass me in its flow! "the wave that bears my tears returns no more: will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?-- both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore, i by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep. "but that which keepeth us apart is not distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth. but the distraction of a various lot, as various as the climates of our birth. "a stranger loves the lady of the land, born far beyond the mountains, but his blood is all meridian, as if never fann'd by the black wind that chills the polar flood. "my blood is all meridian; were it not, i had not left my clime, nor should i be, in spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot, a slave again of love,--at least of thee. "'tis vain to struggle--let me perish young-- live as i lived, and love as i have loved; to dust if i return, from dust i sprung, and then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved." on arriving at bologna and receiving no further intelligence from the contessa, he began to be of opinion, as we shall perceive in the annexed interesting letters, that he should act most prudently, for all parties, by returning to venice. [footnote : the po.] * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "bologna, june . . "i am at length joined to bologna, where i am settled like a sausage, and shall be broiled like one, if this weather continues. will you thank mengaldo on my part for the ferrara acquaintance, which was a very agreeable one. i stayed two days at ferrara, and was much pleased with the count mosti, and the little the shortness of the time permitted me to see of his family. i went to his conversazione, which is very far superior to any thing of the kind at venice--the women almost all young--several pretty--and the men courteous and cleanly. the lady of the mansion, who is young, lately married, and with child, appeared very pretty by candlelight (i did not see her by day), pleasing in her manners, and very lady-like, or thorough-bred, as we call it in england,--a kind of thing which reminds one of a racer, an antelope, or an italian greyhound. she seems very fond of her husband, who is amiable and accomplished; he has been in england two or three times, and is young. the sister, a countess somebody--i forget what--(they are both maffei by birth, and veronese of course)--is a lady of more display; she sings and plays divinely; but i thought she was a d----d long time about it. her likeness to madame flahaut (miss mercer that was) is something quite extraordinary. "i had but a bird's eye view of these people, and shall not probably see them again; but i am very much obliged to mengaldo for letting me see them at all. whenever i meet with any thing agreeable in this world, it surprises me so much, and pleases me so much (when my passions are not interested one way or the other), that i go on wondering for a week to come. i feel, too, in great admiration of the cardinal legate's red stockings. "i found, too, such a pretty epitaph in the certosa cemetery, or rather two: one was 'martini luigi implora pace;' the other, 'lucrezia picini implora eterna quiete.' that was all; but it appears to me that these two and three words comprise and compress all that can be said on the subject,--and then, in italian, they are absolute music. they contain doubt, hope, and humility; nothing can be more pathetic than the 'implora' and the modesty of the request;--they have had enough of life--they want nothing but rest--they implore it, and 'eterna quiete.' it is like a greek inscription in some good old heathen 'city of the dead.' pray, if i am shovelled into the lido churchyard in your time, let me have the 'implora pace,' and nothing else, for my epitaph. i never met with any, ancient or modern, that pleased me a tenth part so much. "in about a day or two after you receive this letter, i will thank you to desire edgecombe to prepare for my return. i shall go back to venice before i village on the brenta. i shall stay but a few days in bologna. i am just going out to see sights, but shall not present my introductory letters for a day or two, till i have run over again the place and pictures; nor perhaps at all, if i find that i have books and sights enough to do without the inhabitants. after that, i shall return to venice, where you may expect me about the eleventh, or perhaps sooner. pray make my thanks acceptable to mengaldo: my respects to the consuless, and to mr. scott. i hope my daughter is well. "ever yours, and truly. "p.s. i went over the ariosto ms. &c. &c. again at ferrara, with the castle, and cell, and house, &c. &c. "one of the ferrarese asked me if i knew 'lord byron,' an acquaintance of his, _now_ at naples. i told him '_no!_' which was true both ways; for i knew not the impostor, and in the other, no one knows himself. he stared when told that i was 'the real simon pure.' another asked me if i had _not translated_ 'tasso.' you see what _fame_ is! how _accurate!_ how _boundless!_ i don't know how others feel, but i am always the lighter and the better looked on when i have got rid of mine; it sits on me like armour on the lord mayor's champion; and i got rid of all the husk of literature, and the attendant babble, by answering, that i had not translated tasso, but a namesake had; and by the blessing of heaven, i looked so little like a poet, that every body believed me." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "bologna, june . . "tell mr. hobhouse that i wrote to him a few days ago from ferrara. it will therefore be idle in him or you to wait for any further answers or returns of proofs from venice, as i have directed that no english letters be sent after me. the publication can be proceeded in without, and i am already sick of your remarks, to which i think not the least attention ought to be paid. "tell mr. hobhouse that, since i wrote to him, i had availed myself of my ferrara letters, and found the society much younger and better there than at venice. i am very much pleased with the little the shortness of my stay permitted me to see of the gonfaloniere count mosti, and his family and friends in general. "i have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous domenichino and guido, both of which are superlative. i afterwards went to the beautiful cemetery of bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides the superb burial-ground, an original of a custode, who reminded one of the grave-digger in hamlet. he has a collection of capuchins' skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of them, said, 'this was brother desiderio berro, who died at forty--one of my best friends. i begged his head of his brethren after his decease, and they gave it me. i put it in lime, and then boiled it. here it is, teeth and all, in excellent preservation. he was the merriest, cleverest fellow i ever knew. wherever he went, he brought joy; and whenever any one was melancholy, the sight of him was enough to make him cheerful again. he walked so actively, you might have taken him for a dancer--he joked--he laughed--oh! he was such a frate as i never saw before, nor ever shall again!' "he told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead people; that since they had buried fifty-three thousand persons. in showing some older monuments, there was that of a roman girl of twenty, with a bust by bernini. she was a princess bartorini, dead two centuries ago: he said that, on opening her grave, they had found her hair complete, and 'as yellow as gold.' some of the epitaphs at ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at bologna; for instance:-- "martini luigi implora pace; "lucrezia picini implora eterna quiete. can any thing be more full of pathos? those few words say all that can be said or sought: the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they _implore_! there is all the helplessness, and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the grave--'implora pace.'[ ] i hope, whoever may survive me, and shall see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the lido, within the fortress by the adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put over me. i trust they won't think of 'pickling, and bringing me home to clod or blunderbuss hall.' i am sure my bones would not rest in an english grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. i believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could i suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to your soil. i would not even feed your worms, if i could help it. "so, as shakspeare says of mowbray, the banished duke of norfolk, who died at venice (see richard ii.) that he, after fighting "'against black pagans, turks, and saracens, and toiled with works of war, retired himself to italy, and there, at _venice_, gave his body to that _pleasant_ country's earth, and his pure soul unto his captain, christ, under whose colours he had fought so long.' "before i left venice, i had returned to you your late, and mr. hobhouse's sheets of juan. don't wait for further answers from me, but address yours to venice, as usual. i know nothing of my own movements; i may return there in a few days, or not for some time. all this depends on circumstances. i left mr. hoppner very well. my daughter allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her hair is growing darker, and her eyes are blue. her temper and her ways, mr. hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make, in that case, a manageable young lady. "i have never heard any thing of ada, the little electra of mycenae. but there will come a day of reckoning, even if i should not live to see it.[ ] what a long letter i have scribbled! yours, &c. "p.s. here, as in greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. i saw a quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves at ferrara. it has the most pleasing effect you can imagine." [footnote : though lord byron, like most other persons, in writing to different friends, was sometimes led to repeat the same circumstances and thoughts, there is, from the ever ready fertility of his mind, much less of such repetition in his correspondence than in that, perhaps, of any other multifarious letter-writer; and, in the instance before us, where the same facts and reflections are, for the second time, introduced, it is with such new touches, both of thought and expression, as render them, even a second time, interesting;--what is wanting in the novelty of the matter being made up by the new aspect given to it.] [footnote : there were, in the former edition, both here and in a subsequent letter, some passages reflecting upon the late sir samuel romilly, which, in my anxiety to lay open the workings of lord byron's mind upon a subject in which so much of his happiness and character were involved, i had been induced to retain, though aware of the erroneous impression under which they were written;--the evident morbidness of the feeling that dictated the attack, and the high, stainless reputation of the person assailed, being sufficient, i thought, to neutralise any ill effects such reflections might otherwise have produced. as i find it, however, to be the opinion of all those whose opinions i most respect, that, even with these antidotes, such an attack upon such a man ought not to be left on record, i willingly expunge all trace of it from these pages.] * * * * * while he was thus lingering irresolute at bologna, the countess guiccioli had been attacked with an intermittent fever, the violence of which, combining with the absence of a confidential person to whom she had been in the habit of intrusting her letters, prevented her from communicating with him. at length, anxious to spare him the disappointment of finding her so ill on his arrival, she had begun a letter, requesting that he would remain at bologna till the visit to which she looked forward should bring her there also; and was in the act of writing, when a friend came in to announce the arrival of an english lord in ravenna. she could not doubt for an instant that it was her noble friend; and he had, in fact, notwithstanding his declaration to mr. hoppner that it was his intention to return to venice immediately, wholly altered this resolution before the letter announcing it was despatched,--the following words being written on the outside cover:--"i am just setting off for ravenna, june . .--i changed my mind this morning, and decided to go on." the reader, however, shall have madame guiccioli's own account of these events, which, fortunately for the interest of my narration, i am enabled to communicate. "on my departure from venice, he had promised to come and see me at ravenna. dante's tomb, the classical pine wood[ ], the relics of antiquity which are to be found in that place, afforded a sufficient pretext for me to invite him to come, and for him to accept my invitation. he came, in fact, in the month of june, arriving at ravenna on the day of the festival of the corpus domini; while i, attacked by a consumptive complaint, which had its origin from the moment of my quitting venice, appeared on the point of death. the arrival of a distinguished foreigner at ravenna, a town so remote from the routes ordinarily followed by travellers, was an event which gave rise to a good deal of conversation. his motives for such a visit became the subject of discussion, and these he himself afterwards involuntarily divulged; for having made some enquiries with a view to paying me a visit, and being told that it was unlikely that he would ever see me again, as i was at the point of death, he replied, if such were the case, he hoped that he should die also; which circumstance, being repeated, revealed the object of his journey. count guiccioli, having been acquainted with lord byron at venice, went to visit him now, and in the hope that his presence might amuse, and be of some use to me in the state in which i then found myself, invited him to call upon me. he came the day following. it is impossible to describe the anxiety he showed,--the delicate attentions that he paid me. for a long time he had perpetually medical books in his hands; and not trusting my physicians, he obtained permission from count guiccioli to send for a very clever physician, a friend of his, in whom he placed great confidence. the attentions of professor aglietti (for so this celebrated italian was called), together with tranquillity, and the inexpressible happiness which i experienced in lord byron's society, had so good an effect on my health, that only two months afterwards i was able to accompany my husband in a tour he was obliged to make to visit his various estates."[ ] [footnote : "tal qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie per la pineta in sul lito di chiassi, quando eolo scirocco fuor discioglie." dante, purg. canto xxviii. dante himself (says mr. carey, in one of the notes on his admirable translation of this poet) "perhaps wandered in this wood during his abode with guido novello da polenta."] [footnote : "partendo io da venezia egli promise di venir a vedermi a ravenna. la tomba di dante, il classico bosco di pini, gli avvanzi di antichità che a ravenna si trovano davano a me ragioni plausibili per invitarlo a venire, ed a lui per accettare l'invito. egli venne difatti nel mese guigno, e giunse a ravenna nel giorno della solennità del corpus domini, mentre io attaccata da una malattia de consunzione ch' ebbe principio dalla mia partenza da venezia ero vicina a morire. l'arrivo in ravenna d'un forestiero distinto, in un paese così lontano dalle strade che ordinariamente tengono i viaggiatori era un avvenimento del quale molto si parlava, indagandosene i motivi, che involontariamente poi egli feci conoscere. perchè avendo egli domandato di me per venire a vedermi ed essendogli risposto 'che non potrebbe vedermi più perchè ero vicina a morire'--egli rispose che in quel caso voleva morire egli pure; la qual cosa essendosi poi ripetata si conobbe cosi l'oggetto del suo viaggio. "il conte guiccioli visitò lord byron, essendolo conosciuto in venezia, e nella speranza che la di lui compagnia potesse distrarmi ed essermi di qualche giovamento nello stato in cui mi trovavo egli lo invitò di venire a visitarmi. il giorno appresso egli venne. non si potrebbero descrivere le cure, i pensieri delicati, quanto egli fece per me. per molto tempo egli non ebbe per le mani che dei libri di medicina; e poco confidandosi nel miei medici ottenne dal conte guiccioli il permesso di far venire un valente medico di lui amico nel quale egli aveva molta confidenza. le cure del professore aglietti (cosi si chiama questo distinto italiano) la tranquillità, anzi la felicità inesprimibile che mi cagionava la presenza di lord byron migliorarono così rapidamente la mia salute che entro lo spazio di due mesi potei seguire mio marito in un giro che egli doveva fare per le sue terre."--ms.] * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "ravenna, june . . "i wrote to you from padua, and from bologna, and since from ravenna. i find my situation very agreeable, but want my horses very much, there being good riding in the environs. i can fix no time for my return to venice--it may be soon or late--or not at all--it all depends on the donna, whom i found very seriously in _bed_ with a cough and spitting of blood, &c. all of which has subsided. i found all the people here firmly persuaded that she would never recover;--they were mistaken, however. "my letters were useful as far as i employed them; and i like both the place and people, though i don't trouble the latter more than i can help _she_ manages very well--but if i come away with a stiletto in my gizzard some fine afternoon, i shall not be astonished. i can't make _him_ out at all--he visits me frequently, and takes me out (like whittington, the lord mayor) in a coach and _six_ horses. the fact appears to be, that he is completely _governed_ by her--for that matter, so am i.[ ] the people here don't know what to make of us, as he had the character of jealousy with all his wives--this is the third. he is the richest of the ravennese, by their own account, but is not popular among them. now do, pray, send off augustine, and carriage and cattle, to bologna, without fail or delay, or i shall lose my remaining shred of senses. don't forget this. my coming, going, and every thing, depend upon her entirely, just as mrs. hoppner (to whom i remit my reverences) said in the true spirit of female prophecy. "you are but a shabby fellow not to have written before. and i am truly yours," &c. [footnote : that this task of "governing" him was one of more ease than, from the ordinary view of his character, might be concluded, i have more than once, in these pages, expressed my opinion, and shall here quote, in corroboration of it, the remark of his own servant (founded on an observation of more than twenty years), in speaking of his master's matrimonial fate:-- "it is very odd, but i never yet knew a lady that could not manage my lord, _except_ my lady." "more knowledge," says johnson, "may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from the most formal and studied narrative."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, june . . "the letters have been forwarded from venice, but i trust that you will not have waited for further alterations--i will make none. "i have no time to return you the proofs--publish without them. i am glad you think the poesy good; and as to 'thinking of the effect,' think _you_ of the sale, and leave me to pluck the porcupines who may point their quills at you. "i have been here (at ravenna) these four weeks, having left venice a month ago;--i came to see my 'amica,' the countess guiccioli, who has been, and still continues, very unwell. * * she is only in her seventeenth, but not of a strong constitution. she has a perpetual cough and an intermittent fever, but bears up most _gallantly_ in every sense of the word. her husband (this is his third wife) is the richest noble of ravenna, and almost of romagna; he is also _not_ the youngest, being upwards of three-score, but in good preservation. all this will appear strange to you, who do not understand the meridian morality, nor our way of life in such respects, and i cannot at present expound the difference;--but you would find it much the same in these parts. at faenza there is lord * * * * with an opera girl; and at the inn in the same town is a neapolitan prince, who serves the wife of the gonfaloniere of that city. i am on duty here--so you see 'così fan tut_ti_ e tut_te_.' "i have my horses here, _saddle_ as well as carriage, and ride or drive every day in the forest, the _pineta_, the scene of boccaccio's novel, and dryden's fable of honoria, &c. &c.; and i see my dama every day; but i feel seriously uneasy about her health, which seems very precarious. in losing her, i should lose a being who has run great risks on my account, and whom i have every reason to love--but i must not think this possible. i do not know what i _should_ do if she died, but i ought to blow my brains out--and i hope that i should. her husband is a very polite personage, but i wish he would not carry me out in his coach and six, like whittington and his cat. "you ask me if i mean to continue d.j. &c. how should i know? what encouragement do you give me, all of you, with your nonsensical prudery? publish the two cantos, and then you will see. i desired mr. kinnaird to speak to you on a little matter of business; either he has not spoken, or you have not answered. you are a pretty pair, but i will be even with you both. i perceive that mr. hobhouse has been challenged by major cartwright--is the major 'so cunning of fence?'--why did not they fight?--they ought. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "ravenna, july . . "thanks for your letter and for madame's. i will answer it directly. will you recollect whether i did not consign to you one or two receipts of madame mocenigo's for house-rent--(i am not sure of this, but think i did--if not, they will be in my drawers)--and will you desire mr. dorville[ ] to have the goodness to see if edgecombe has _receipts_ to all payments _hitherto_ made by him on my account, and that there are _no debts_ at venice? on your answer, i shall send order of further remittance to carry on my household expenses, as my present return to venice is very problematical; and it may happen--but i can say nothing positive--every thing with me being indecisive and undecided, except the disgust which venice excites when fairly compared with any other city in this part of italy. when i say _venice_, i mean the _venetians_--the city itself is superb as its history--but the people are what i never thought them till they taught me to think so. "the best way will be to leave allegra with antonio's spouse till i can decide something about her and myself--but i thought that you would have had an answer from mrs. v----r.[ ] you have had bore enough with me and mine already. "i greatly fear that the guiccioli is going into a consumption, to which her constitution tends. thus it is with every thing and every body for whom i feel any thing like a real attachment;--'war, death, or discord, doth lay siege to them.' i never even could keep alive a dog that i liked or that liked me. her symptoms are obstinate cough of the lungs, and occasional fever, &c. &c. and there are latent causes of an eruption in the skin, which she foolishly repelled into the system two years ago: but i have made them send her case to aglietti; and have begged him to come--if only for a day or two--to consult upon her state. "if it would not bore mr. dorville, i wish he would keep an eye on e---- and on my other ragamuffins. i might have more to say, but i am absorbed about la gui. and her illness. i cannot tell you the effect it has upon me. "the horses came, &c. &c. and i have been galloping through the pine forest daily. "believe me, &c. "p.s. my benediction on mrs. hoppner, a pleasant journey among the bernese tyrants, and safe return. you ought to bring back a platonic bernese for my reformation. if any thing happens to my present amica, i have done with the passion for ever--it is my _last_ love. as to libertinism, i have sickened myself of that, as was natural in the way i went on, and i have at least derived that advantage from vice, to _love_ in the better sense of the word. _this_ will be my last adventure--i can hope no more to inspire attachment, and i trust never again to feel it." [footnote : the vice-consul of mr. hoppner.] [footnote : an english widow lady, of considerable property in the north of england, who, having seen the little allegra at mr. hoppner's, took an interest in the poor child's fate, and having no family of her own, offered to adopt and provide for this little girl, if lord byron would consent to renounce all claim to her. at first he seemed not disinclined to enter into her views--so far, at least, as giving permission that she should take the child with her to england and educate it; but the entire surrender of his paternal authority he would by no means consent to. the proposed arrangement accordingly was never carried into effect.] * * * * * the impression which, i think, cannot but be entertained, from some passages of these letters, of the real fervour and sincerity of his attachment to madame guiccioli[ ], would be still further confirmed by the perusal of his letters to that lady herself, both from venice and during his present stay at ravenna--all bearing, throughout, the true marks both of affection and passion. such effusions, however, are but little suited to the general eye. it is the tendency of all strong feeling, from dwelling constantly on the same idea, to be monotonous; and those often-repeated vows and verbal endearments, which make the charm of true love-letters to the parties concerned in them, must for ever render even the best of them cloying to others. those of lord byron to madame guiccioli, which are for the most part in italian, and written with a degree of ease and correctness attained rarely by foreigners, refer chiefly to the difficulties thrown in the way of their meetings,--not so much by the husband himself, who appears to have liked and courted lord byron's society, as by the watchfulness of other relatives, and the apprehension felt by themselves lest their intimacy should give uneasiness to the father of the lady, count gamba, a gentleman to whose good nature and amiableness of character all who know him bear testimony. in the near approaching departure of the young countess for bologna, lord byron foresaw a risk of their being again separated; and under the impatience of this prospect, though through the whole of his preceding letters the fear of committing her by any imprudence seems to have been his ruling thought, he now, with that wilfulness of the moment which has so often sealed the destiny of years, proposed that she should, at once, abandon her husband and fly with him:--"c'è uno solo rimedio efficace," he says,--"cioè d' andar vià insieme." to an italian wife, almost every thing but this is permissible. the same system which so indulgently allows her a friend, as one of the regular appendages of her matrimonial establishment, takes care also to guard against all unseemly consequences of this privilege; and in return for such convenient facilities of wrong exacts rigidly an observance of all the appearances of right. accordingly, the open step of deserting the husband for the lover instead of being considered, as in england, but a sign and sequel of transgression, takes rank, in italian morality, as the main transgression itself; and being an offence, too, rendered wholly unnecessary by the latitude otherwise enjoyed, becomes, from its rare occurrence, no less monstrous than odious. the proposition, therefore, of her noble friend seemed to the young contessa little less than sacrilege, and the agitation of her mind, between the horrors of such a step, and her eager readiness to give up all and every thing for him she adored, was depicted most strongly in her answer to the proposal. in a subsequent letter, too, the romantic girl even proposed, as a means of escaping the ignominy of an elopement, that she should, like another juliet, "pass for dead,"--assuring him that there were many easy ways of effecting such a deception. [footnote : "during my illness," says madame guiccioli, in her recollections of this period, "he was for ever near me, paying me the most amiable attentions, and when i became convalescent he was constantly at my side. in society, at the theatre, riding, walking, he never was absent from me. being deprived at that time of his books, his horses, and all that occupied him at venice, i begged him to gratify me by writing something on the subject of dante, and, with his usual facility and rapidity, he composed his 'prophecy.'"--"durante la mia malattia l.b. era sempre presso di me, prestandomi le più sensibili cure, e quando passai allo stato di convalescenza egli era sempre al mio fianco;--e in società, e al teatro, e cavalcando, e passeggiando egli non si allontanava mai da me. in quel' epoca essendo egli privo de' suoi libri, e de' suoi cavalli, e di tuttociò che lo occupava in venezia io lo pregai di volersi occupare per me scrivendo qualche cosa sul dante; ed egli colla usata sua facilita e rapidita scrisse la sua profezia."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, august . . [address your answer to venice, however.] "don't be alarmed. you will see me defend myself gaily--that is, if i happen to be in spirits; and by spirits, i don't mean your meaning of the word, but the spirit of a bull-dog when pinched, or a bull when pinned; it is then that they make best sport; and as my sensations under an attack are probably a happy compound of the united energies of these amiable animals, you may perhaps see what marrall calls 'rare sport,' and some good tossing and goring, in the course of the controversy. but i must be in the right cue first, and i doubt i am almost too far off to be in a sufficient fury for the purpose. and then i have effeminated and enervated myself with love and the summer in these last two months. "i wrote to mr. hobhouse, the other day, and foretold that juan would either fall entirely or succeed completely; there will be no medium. appearances are not favourable; but as you write the day after publication, it can hardly be decided what opinion will predominate. you seem in a fright, and doubtless with cause. come what may i never will flatter the million's canting in any shape. circumstances may or may not have placed me at times in a situation to lead the public opinion, but the public opinion never led, nor ever shall lead, me. i will not sit on a degraded throne; so pray put messrs. * * or * *, or tom moore, or * * * upon it; they will all of them be transported with their coronation. "p.s. the countess guiccioli is much better than she was. i sent you, before leaving venice, the real original sketch which gave rise to the 'vampire,' &c.--did you get it?" * * * * * this letter was, of course (like most of those he addressed to england at this time), intended to be shown; and having been, among others, permitted to see it, i took occasion, in my very next communication to lord byron, to twit him a little with the passage in it relating to myself,--the only one, as far as i can learn, that ever fell from my noble friend's pen during our intimacy, in which he has spoken of me otherwise than in terms of kindness and the most undeserved praise. transcribing his own words, as well as i could recollect them, at the top of my letter, i added, underneath, "is _this_ the way you speak of your friends?" not long after, too, when visiting him at venice, i remember making the same harmless little sneer a subject of raillery with him; but he declared boldly that he had no recollection of having ever written such words, and that, if they existed, "he must have been half asleep when he wrote them." i have mentioned the circumstance merely for the purpose of remarking, that with a sensibility vulnerable at so many points as his was, and acted upon by an imagination so long practised in self-tormenting, it is only wonderful that, thinking constantly, as his letters prove him to have been, of distant friends, and receiving from few or none equal proofs of thoughtfulness in return, he should not more frequently have broken out into such sallies against the absent and "unreplying." for myself, i can only say that, from the moment i began to unravel his character, the most slighting and even acrimonious expressions that i could have heard he had, in a fit of spleen, uttered against me, would have no more altered my opinion of his disposition, nor disturbed my affection for him, than the momentary clouding over of a bright sky could leave an impression on the mind of gloom, after its shadow had passed away. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, august . . "talking of blunders reminds me of ireland--ireland of moore. what is this i see in galignani about 'bermuda--agent--deputy--appeal--attachment,' &c.? what is the matter? is it any thing in which his friends can be of use to him? pray inform me. "of don juan i hear nothing further from you; * * *, but the papers don't seem so fierce as the letter you sent me seemed to anticipate, by their extracts at least in galignani's messenger. i never saw such a set of fellows as you are! and then the pains taken to exculpate the modest publisher--he remonstrated, forsooth! i will write a preface that _shall_ exculpate _you_ and * * *, &c. completely, on that point; but, at the same time, i will cut you up, like gourds. you have no more soul than the count de caylus, (who assured his friends, on his death-bed, that he had none, and that _he_ must know better than they whether he had one or no,) and no more blood than a water-melon! and i see there hath been asterisks, and what perry used to called 'd_o_mned cutting and slashing'--but, never mind. "i write in haste. to-morrow i set off for bologna. i write to you with thunder, lightning, &c. and all the winds of heaven whistling through my hair, and the racket of preparation to boot. 'my mistress dear, who hath fed my heart upon smiles and wine' for the last two months, set off with her husband for bologna this morning, and it seems that i follow him at three to-morrow morning. i cannot tell how our romance will end, but it hath gone on hitherto most erotically. such perils and escapes! juan's are as child's play in comparison. the fools think that all my _poeshie_ is always allusive to my _own_ adventures: i have had at one time or another better and more extraordinary and perilous and pleasant than these, every day of the week, if i might tell them; but that must never be. "i hope mrs. m. has accouched. "yours ever." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "bologna, august . . "i do not know how far i may be able to reply to your letter, for i am not very well to-day. last night i went to the representation of alfieri's mirra, the two last acts of which threw me into convulsions. i do not mean by that word a lady's hysterics, but the agony of reluctant tears, and the choking shudder, which i do not often undergo for fiction. this is but the second time for any thing under reality: the first was on seeing kean's sir giles overreach. the worst was, that the 'dama' in whose box i was, went off in the same way, i really believe more from fright than any other sympathy--at least with the players: but she has been ill, and i have been ill, and we are all languid and pathetic this morning, with great expenditure of sal volatile.[ ] but, to return to your letter of the d of july. "you are right, gifford is right, crabbe is right, hobhouse is right--you are all right, and i am all wrong; but do, pray, let me have that pleasure. cut me up root and branch; quarter me in the quarterly; send round my 'disjecti membra poetæ,' like those of the levite's concubine; make me, if you will, a spectacle to men and angels; but don't ask me to alter, for i won't:--i am obstinate and lazy--and there's the truth. "but, nevertheless, i will answer your friend p * *, who objects to the quick succession of fun and gravity, as if in that case the gravity did not (in intention, at least) heighten the fun. his metaphor is, that 'we are never scorched and drenched at the same time.' blessings on his experience! ask him these questions about 'scorching and drenching.' did he never play at cricket, or walk a mile in hot weather? did he never spill a dish of tea over himself in handing the cup to his charmer, to the great shame of his nankeen breeches? did he never swim in the sea at noonday with the sun in his eyes and on his head, which all the foam of ocean could not cool? did he never draw his foot out of too hot water, d----ning his eyes and his valet's? did he never tumble into a river or lake, fishing, and sit in his wet clothes in the boat, or on the bank, afterwards 'scorched and drenched,' like a true sportsman? 'oh for breath to utter!'--but make him my compliments; he is a clever fellow for all that--a very clever fellow. "you ask me for the plan of donny johnny: i _have_ no plan; i _had_ no plan; but i had or have materials; though if, like tony lumpkin, 'i am to be snubbed so when i am in spirits,' the poem will be naught, and the poet turn serious again. if it don't take, i will leave it off where it is, with all due respect to the public; but if continued, it must be in my own way. you might as well make hamlet (or diggory) 'act mad' in a strait waistcoat as trammel my buffoonery, if i am to be a buffoon; their gestures and my thoughts would only be pitiably absurd and ludicrously constrained. why, man, the soul of such writing is its licence; at least the _liberty_ of that _licence_, if one likes--_not_ that one should abuse it. it is like trial by jury and peerage and the habeas corpus--a very fine thing, but chiefly in the _reversion;_ because no one wishes to be tried for the mere pleasure of proving his possession of the privilege. "but a truce with these reflections. you are too earnest and eager about a work never intended to be serious. do you suppose that i could have any intention but to giggle and make giggle?--a playful satire, with as little poetry as could be helped, was what i meant. and as to the indecency, do, pray, read in boswell what _johnson_, the sullen moralist, says of _prior_ and paulo purgante. "will you get a favour done for me? _you_ can, by your government friends, croker, canning, or my old schoolfellow peel, and i can't. here it is. will you ask them to appoint (_without salary or emolument_) a noble italian (whom i will name afterwards) consul or vice-consul for ravenna? he is a man of very large property,--noble, too; but he wishes to have a british protection, in case of changes. ravenna is near the sea. he wants no _emolument_ whatever. that his office might be useful, i know; as i lately sent off from ravenna to trieste a poor devil of an english sailor, who had remained there sick, sorry, and pennyless (having been set ashore in ), from the want of any accredited agent able or willing to help him homewards. will you get this done? if you do, i will then send his name and condition, subject, of course, to rejection, if _not_ approved when known. "i know that in the levant you make consuls and vice-consuls, perpetually, of foreigners. this man is a patrician, and has twelve thousand a year. his motive is a british protection in case of new invasions. don't you think croker would do it for us? to be sure, my _interest_ is rare!! but, perhaps, a brother wit in the tory line might do a good turn at the request of so harmless and long absent a whig, particularly as there is no _salary_ or _burden_ of any sort to be annexed to the office. "i can assure you, i should look upon it as a great obligation; but, alas! that very circumstance may, very probably, operate to the contrary--indeed, it ought; but i have, at least, been an honest and an open enemy. amongst your many splendid government connections, could not you, think you, get our bibulus made a consul? or make me one, that i may make him my vice. you may be assured that, in case of accidents in italy, he would be no feeble adjunct--as you would think, if you knew his patrimony. "what is all this about tom moore? but why do i ask? since the state of my own affairs would not permit me to be of use to him, though they are greatly improved since , and may, with some more luck and a little prudence, become quite clear. it seems his claimants are _american_ merchants? _there goes nemesis!_ moore abused america. it is always thus in the long run:--time, the avenger. you have seen every trampler down, in turn, from buonaparte to the simplest individuals. you saw how some were avenged even upon my insignificance, and how in turn * * * paid for his atrocity. it is an odd world; but the watch has its mainspring, after all. "so the prince has been repealing lord edward fitzgerald's forfeiture? _ecco un' sonetto!_ "to be the father of the fatherless, to stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise _his_ offspring, who expired in other days to make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less,-- _this_ is to be a monarch, and repress envy into unutterable praise. dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits, for who would lift a hand, except to bless? were it not easy, sir, and is't not sweet to make thyself beloved? and to be omnipotent by mercy's means? for thus thy sovereignty would grow but more complete, a despot thou, and yet thy people free, and by the heart, not hand, enslaving us. "there, you dogs! there's a sonnet for you: you won't have such as that in a hurry from mr. fitzgerald. you may publish it with my name, an' ye wool. he deserves all praise, bad and good; it was a very noble piece of principality. would you like an epigram--a translation? "if for silver, or for gold, you could melt ten thousand pimples into half a dozen dimples, then your face we might behold, looking, doubtless, much more snugly, yet ev'n _then_ 'twould be d----d _ugly_. "this was written on some frenchwoman, by rulhieres, i believe. yours." [footnote : the "dama," in whose company he witnessed this representation, thus describes its effect upon him:--"the play was that of mirra; the actors, and particularly the actress who performed the part of mirra, seconded with much success the intentions of our great dramatist. lord byron took a strong interest in the representation, and it was evident that he was deeply affected. at length there came a point of the performance at which he could no longer restrain his emotions;--he burst into a flood of tears, and, his sobs preventing him from remaining any longer in the box, he rose and left the theatre.--i saw him similarly affected another time during a representation of alfieri's 'philip,' at ravenna."--"gli attori, e specialmente l' attrice che rappresentava mirra secondava assai bene la mente del nostro grande tragico. l.b. prece molto interesse alla rappresentazione, e si conosceva che era molto commosso. venne un punto poi della tragedia in cui non potè più frenare la sua emozione,--diede in un diretto pianto e i singhiozzi gl' impedirono di più restare nel palco; onde si levò, e parti dal teatro. in uno stato simile lo viddi un altra volta a ravenna ad una rappresentazione del filippo d'alfieri."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "bologna, august . . "i send you a letter to r * *ts, signed wortley clutterbuck, which you may publish in what form you please, in answer to his article. i have had many proofs of men's absurdity, but he beats all in folly. why, the wolf in sheep's clothing has tumbled into the very trap! we'll strip him. the letter is written in great haste, and amidst a thousand vexations. your letter only came yesterday, so that there is no time to polish: the post goes out to-morrow. the date is 'little piddlington.' let * * * * correct the press: he knows and can read the handwriting. continue to keep the _anonymous_ about 'juan;' it helps us to fight against overwhelming numbers. i have a thousand distractions at present; so excuse haste, and wonder i can act or write at all. answer by post, as usual. "yours. "p.s. if i had had time, and been quieter and nearer, i would have cut him to hash; but as it is, you can judge for yourselves." * * * * * the letter to the reviewer, here mentioned, had its origin in rather an amusing circumstance. in the first canto of don juan appeared the following passage:-- "for fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, i've bribed my grandmother's review,--the british! "i sent it in a letter to the editor, who thank'd me duly by return of post-- i'm for a handsome article his creditor; yet if my gentle muse he please to roast, and break a promise after having made it her, denying the receipt of what it cost, and smear his page with gall instead of honey, all i can say is--that he had the money." on the appearance of the poem, the learned editor of the review in question allowed himself to be decoyed into the ineffable absurdity of taking the charge as serious, and, in his succeeding number, came forth with an indignant contradiction of it. to this tempting subject the letter, written so hastily off at bologna, related; but, though printed for mr. murray, in a pamphlet consisting of twenty-three pages, it was never published by him.[ ] being valuable, however, as one of the best specimens we have of lord byron's simple and thoroughly english prose, i shall here preserve some extracts from it. [footnote : it appeared afterwards in the liberal.] * * * * * "to the editor of the british review. "my dear r----ts, "as a believer in the church of england--to say nothing of the state--i have been an occasional reader, and great admirer, though not a subscriber, to your review. but i do not know that any article of its contents ever gave me much surprise till the eleventh of your late twenty-seventh number made its appearance. you have there most manfully refuted a calumnious accusation of bribery and corruption, the credence of which in the public mind might not only have damaged your reputation as a clergyman and an editor, but, what would have been still worse, have injured the circulation of your journal; which, i regret to hear, is not so extensive as the 'purity (as you well observe) of its, &c. &c.' and the present taste for propriety, would induce us to expect. the charge itself is of a solemn nature; and, although in verse, is couched in terms of such circumstantial gravity as to induce a belief little short of that generally accorded to the thirty-nine articles, to which you so generously subscribed on taking your degrees. it is a charge the most revolting to the heart of man from its frequent occurrence; to the mind of a statesman from its occasional truth; and to the soul of an editor from its moral impossibility. you are charged then in the last line of one octave stanza, and the whole eight lines of the next, viz. th and th of the first canto of that 'pestilent poem,' don juan, with receiving, and still more foolishly acknowledging, the receipt of certain moneys to eulogise the unknown author, who by this account must be known to you, if to nobody else. an impeachment of this nature, so seriously made, there is but one way of refuting; and it is my firm persuasion, that whether you did or did not (and _i_ believe that you did not) receive the said moneys, of which i wish that he had specified the sum, you are quite right in denying all knowledge of the transaction. if charges of this nefarious description are to go forth, sanctioned by all the solemnity of circumstance, and guaranteed by the veracity of verse (as counsellor phillips would say), what is to become of readers hitherto implicitly confident in the not less veracious prose of our critical journals? what is to become of the reviews; and, if the reviews fail, what is to become of the editors? it is common cause, and you have done well to sound the alarm. i myself, in my humble sphere, will be one of your echoes. in the words of the tragedian liston, 'i love a row,' and you seem justly determined to make one. "it is barely possible, certainly improbable, that the writer might have been in jest; but this only aggravates his crime. a joke, the proverb says, 'breaks no bones;' but it may break a bookseller, or it may be the cause of bones being broken. the jest is but a bad one at the best for the author, and might have been a still worse one for you, if your copious contradiction did not certify to all whom it may concern your own indignant innocence, and the immaculate purity of the british review. i do not doubt your word, my dear r----ts, yet i cannot help wishing that, in a case of such vital importance, it had assumed the more substantial shape of an affidavit sworn before the lord mayor atkins, who readily receives any deposition; and doubtless would have brought it in some way as evidence of the designs of the reformers to set fire to london, at the same time that he himself meditates the same good office towards the river thames. "i recollect hearing, soon after the publication, this subject discussed at the tea-table of mr. * * * the poet,--and mrs. and the misses * * * * * being in a corner of the room perusing the proof sheets of mr. * * *'s poems, the male part of the _conversazione_ were at liberty to make some observations on the poem and passage in question, and there was a difference of opinion. some thought the allusion was to the 'british critic;' others, that by the expression 'my grandmother's review,' it was intimated that 'my grandmother' was not the reader of the review, but actually the writer; thereby insinuating, my dear mr. r----ts, that you were an old woman; because, as people often say, 'jeffrey's review," 'gifford's review,' in lieu of edinburgh and quarterly, so 'my grandmother's review' and r----ts's might be also synonymous. now, whatever colour this insinuation might derive from the circumstance of your wearing a gown, as well as from your time of life, your general style, and various passages of your writings,--i will take upon myself to exculpate you from all suspicion of the kind, and assert, without calling mrs. r----ts in testimony, that if ever you should be chosen pope, you will pass through all the previous ceremonies with as much credit as any pontiff since the parturition of joan. it is very unfair to judge of sex from writings, particularly from those of the british review. we are all liable to be deceived, and it is an indisputable fact that many of the best articles in your journal, which were attributed to a veteran female, were actually written by you yourself, and yet to this day there are people who could never find out the difference. but let us return to the more immediate question. "i agree with you that it is impossible lord b. should be the author, not only because, as a british peer and a british poet, it would be impracticable for him to have recourse to such facetious fiction, but for some other reasons which you have omitted to state. in the first place, his lordship has no grandmother. now the author--and we may believe him in this--doth expressly state that the 'british' is his 'grandmother's review;' and if, as i think i have distinctly proved, this was not a mere figurative allusion to your supposed intellectual age and sex, my dear friend, it follows, whether you be she or no, that there is such an elderly lady still extant. "shall i give you what i think a prudent opinion? i don't mean to insinuate, god forbid! but if, by any accident, there should have been such a correspondence between you and the unknown author, whoever he may be, send him back his money; i dare say he will be very glad to have it again; it can't be much, considering the value of the article and the circulation of the journal; and you are too modest to rate your praise beyond its real worth:--don't be angry, i know you won't, at this appraisement of your powers of eulogy: for on the other hand, my dear fellow, depend upon it your abuse is worth, not its own weight, that's a feather, but _your_ weight in gold. so don't spare it; if he has bargained for _that_, give it handsomely, and depend upon your doing him a friendly office. "what the motives of this writer may have been for (as you magnificently translate his quizzing you) 'stating, with the particularity which belongs to fact, the forgery of a groundless fiction,' (do, pray, my dear r., talk a little less 'in king cambyses' vein,') i cannot pretend to say; perhaps to laugh at you, but that is no reason for your benevolently making all the world laugh also. i approve of your being angry, i tell you i am angry too, but you should not have shown it so outrageously. your solemn '_if_ somebody personating the editor of the, &c. &c. has received from lord b. or from any other person,' reminds me of charley incledon's usual exordium when people came into the tavern to hear him sing without paying their share of the reckoning--'if a maun, or _ony_ maun, or _ony other_ maun,' &c. &c.; you have both the same redundant eloquence. but why should you think any body would personate you? nobody would dream of such a prank who ever read your compositions, and perhaps not many who have heard your conversation. but i have been inoculated with a little of your prolixity. the fact is, my dear r----ts, that somebody has tried to make a fool of you, and what he did not succeed in doing, you have done for him and for yourself." * * * * * towards the latter end of august, count guiccioli, accompanied by his lady, went for a short time to visit some of his romagnese estates, while lord byron remained at bologna alone. and here, with a heart softened and excited by the new feeling that had taken possession of him, he appears to have given himself up, during this interval of solitude, to a train of melancholy and impassioned thought, such as, for a time, brought back all the romance of his youthful days. that spring of natural tenderness within his soul, which neither the world's efforts nor his own had been able to chill or choke up, was now, with something of its first freshness, set flowing once more. he again knew what it was to love and be loved,--too late, it is true, for happiness, and too wrongly for peace, but with devotion enough, on the part of the woman, to satisfy even his thirst for affection, and with a sad earnestness, on his own, a foreboding fidelity, which made him cling but the more passionately to this attachment from feeling that it would be his last. a circumstance which he himself used to mention as having occurred at this period will show how over-powering, at times, was the rush of melancholy over his heart. it was his fancy, during madame guiccioli's absence from bologna, to go daily to her house at his usual hour of visiting her, and there, causing her apartments to be opened, to sit turning over her books, and writing in them.[ ] he would then descend into her garden, where he passed hours in musing; and it was on an occasion of this kind, as he stood looking, in a state of unconscious reverie, into one of those fountains so common in the gardens of italy, that there came suddenly into his mind such desolate fancies, such bodings of the misery he might bring on her he loved, by that doom which (as he has himself written) "makes it fatal to be loved[ ]," that, overwhelmed with his own thoughts, he burst into an agony of tears. during the same few days it was that he wrote in the last page of madame guiccioli's copy of "corinne" the following remarkable note:-- "my dearest teresa,--i have read this book in your garden;--my love, you were absent, or else i could not have read it. it is a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a friend of mine. you will not understand these english words, and _others_ will not understand them--which is the reason i have not scrawled them in italian. but you will recognise the hand-writing of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book which was yours, he could only think of love. in that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours--_amor mio_--is comprised my existence here and hereafter. i feel i exist here, and i fear that i shall exist hereafter,--to _what_ purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, seventeen years of age, and two out of a convent. i wish that you had stayed there, with all my heart,--or, at least, that i had never met you in your married state. "but all this is too late. i love you, and you love me,--at least, you _say so_, and _act_ as if you _did_ so, which last is a great consolation in all events. but _i_ more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. "think of me, sometimes, when the alps and the ocean divide us,--but they never will, unless you _wish_ it. byron. "bologna, august . ." [footnote : one of these notes, written at the end of the th chapter, th book of corinne ("fragmens des pensées de corinne") is as follows:-- "i knew madame de staël well,--better than she knew italy,--but i little thought that, one day, i should _think with her thoughts_, in the country where she has laid the scene of her most attractive productions. she is sometimes right, and often wrong, about italy and england; but almost always true in delineating the heart, which is of but one nation, and of no country,--or, rather, of all. "byron. "bologna, august . ." ] [footnote : "oh love! what is it, in this world of ours, which makes it fatal to be loved? ah! why with cypress branches hast thou wreath'd thy bowers, and made thy best interpreter a sigh? as those who dote on odours pluck the flowers, and place them on their breasts--but place to die.-- thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish are laid within our bosoms but to perish." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "bologna, august . . "i wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for publication, addressed to the buffoon r----ts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own tail. it was written off-hand, and in the midst of circumstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of small acid punch:--you will tell me. "keep the anonymous, in any case: it helps what fun there may be. but if the matter grow serious about _don juan_, and you feel _yourself_ in a scrape, or _me_ either, _own that i am the author._ _i_ will never _shrink_; and if _you_ do, i can always answer you in the question of guatimozin to his minister--each being on his own coals.[ ] "i wish that i had been in better spirits; but i am out of sorts, out of nerves, and now and then (i begin to fear) out of my senses. all this italy has done for me, and not england: i defy all you, and your climate to boot, to make me mad. but if ever i do really become a bedlamite, and wear a strait waistcoat, let me be brought back among you; your people will then be proper company. "i assure you what i here say and feel has nothing to do with england, either in a literary or personal point of view. all my present pleasures or plagues are as italian as the opera. and after all, they are but trifles; for all this arises from my 'dama's' being in the country for three days (at capo-fiume). but as i could never live but for one human being at a time, (and, i assure you, _that one_ has never been _myself_, as you may know by the consequences, for the _selfish_ are _successful_ in life,) i feel alone and unhappy. "i have sent for my daughter from venice, and i ride daily, and walk in a garden, under a purple canopy of grapes, and sit by a fountain, and talk with the gardener of his tools, which seem greater than adam's, and with his wife, and with his son's wife, who is the youngest of the party, and, i think, talks best of the three. then i revisit the campo santo, and my old friend, the sexton, has two--but _one_ the prettiest daughter imaginable; and i amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful and innocent face of fifteen with the skulls with which he has peopled several cells, and particularly with that of one skull dated , which was once covered (the tradition goes) by the most lovely features of bologna--noble and rich. when i look at these, and at this girl--when i think of what _they were_, and what she must be--why, then, my dear murray, i won't shock you by saying what i think. it is little matter what becomes of us 'bearded men,' but i don't like the notion of a beautiful woman's lasting less than a beautiful tree--than her own picture--her own shadow, which won't change so to the sun as her face to the mirror. i must leave off, for my head aches consumedly. i have never been quite well since the night of the representation of alfieri's mirra, a fortnight ago. yours ever." [footnote : "am i now reposing on a bed of flowers?" see robertson.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "bologna, august . . "i have been in a rage these two days, and am still bilious therefrom. you shall hear. a captain of dragoons, * *, hanoverian by birth, in the papal troops at present, whom i had obliged by a loan when nobody would lend him a paul, recommended a horse to me, on sale by a lieutenant * *, an officer who unites the sale of cattle to the purchase of men. i bought it. the next day, on shoeing the horse, we discovered the _thrush_,--the animal being warranted sound. i sent to reclaim the contract and the money. the lieutenant desired to speak with me in person. i consented. he came. it was his own particular request. he began a story. i asked him if he would return the money. he said no--but he would exchange. he asked an exorbitant price for his other horses. i told him that he was a thief. he said he was an _officer_ and a man of honour, and pulled out a parmesan passport signed by general count neifperg. i answered, that as he was an officer, i would treat him as such; and that as to his being a gentleman, he might prove it by returning the money: as for his parmesan passport, i should have valued it more if it had been a parmesan cheese. he answered in high terms, and said that if it were the _morning_ (it was about eight o'clock in the evening) he would have _satisfaction_. i then lost my temper: 'as for that,' i replied, 'you shall have it directly,--it will be _mutual_ satisfaction, i can assure you. you are a thief, and, as you say, an officer; my pistols are in the next room loaded; take one of the candles, examine, and make your choice of weapons.' he replied, that _pistols_ were _english weapons_; _he_ always fought with the _sword_. i told him that i was able to accommodate him, having three regimental swords in a drawer near us: and he might take the longest and put himself on guard. "all this passed in presence of a third person. he then said _no_; but to-morrow morning he would give me the meeting at any time or place. i answered that it was not usual to appoint meetings in the presence of witnesses, and that we had best speak man to man, and appoint time and instruments. but as the man present was leaving the room, the lieutenant * *, before he could shut the door after him, ran out roaring 'help and murder' most lustily, and fell into a sort of hysteric in the arms of about fifty people, who all saw that i had no weapon of any sort or kind about me, and followed him, asking him what the devil was the matter with him. nothing would do: he ran away without his hat, and went to bed, ill of the fright. he then tried his complaint at the police, which dismissed it as frivolous. he is, i believe, gone away, or going. "the horse was warranted, but, i believe, so worded that the villain will not be obliged to refund, according to law. he endeavoured to raise up an indictment of assault and battery, but as it was in a public inn, in a frequented street, there were too many witnesses to the contrary; and, as a military man, he has not cut a martial figure, even in the opinion of the priests. he ran off in such a hurry that he left his hat, and never missed it till he got to his hostel or inn. the facts are as i tell you, i can assure you. he began by 'coming captain grand over me,' or i should never have thought of trying his 'cunning in fence.' but what could i do? he talked of 'honour, and satisfaction, and his commission;' he produced a military passport; there are severe punishments for _regular duels_ on the continent, and trifling ones for _rencontres_, so that it is best to fight it out directly; he had robbed, and then wanted to insult me;--what could i do? my patience was gone, and the weapons at hand, fair and equal. besides, it was just after dinner, when my digestion was bad, and i don't like to be disturbed. his friend * * is at forli; we shall meet on my way back to ravenna. the hanoverian seems the greater rogue of the two; and if my valour does not ooze away like acres's--'odds flints and triggers!' if it should be a rainy morning, and my stomach in disorder, there may be something for the obituary. "now pray, 'sir lucius, do not you look upon me as a very ill-used gentleman?' i send my lieutenant to match mr. hobhouse's major cartwright: and so 'good morrow to you, good master lieutenant.' with regard to other things i will write soon, but i have been quarrelling and fooling till i can scribble no more." * * * * * in the month of september, count guiccioli, being called away by business to ravenna, left his young countess and her lover to the free enjoyment of each other's society at bologna. the lady's ill health, which had been the cause of her thus remaining behind, was thought, soon after, to require the still further advantage of a removal to venice; and the count her husband, being written to on the subject, consented, with the most complaisant readiness, that she should proceed thither in company with lord byron. "some business" (says the lady's own memoir) "having called count guiccioli to ravenna, i was obliged, by the state of my health, instead of accompanying him, to return to venice, and he consented that lord byron should be the companion of my journey. we left bologna on the fifteenth of september: we visited the euganean hills and arquà, and wrote our names in the book which is presented to those who make this pilgrimage. but i cannot linger over these recollections of happiness;--the contrast with the present is too dreadful. if a blessed spirit, while in the full enjoyment of heavenly happiness, were sent down to this earth to suffer all its miseries, the contrast could not be more dreadful between the past and the present, than what i have endured from the moment when that terrible word reached my ears, and i for ever lost the hope of again beholding him, one look from whom i valued beyond earth's all happiness. when i arrived at venice, the physicians ordered that i should try the country air, and lord byron, having a villa at la mira, gave it up to me, and came to reside there with me. at this place we passed the autumn, and there i had the pleasure of forming your acquaintance."[ ] it was my good fortune, at this period, in the course of a short and hasty tour through the north of italy, to pass five or six days with lord byron at venice. i had written to him on my way thither to announce my coming, and to say how happy it would make me could i tempt him to accompany me as far as rome. during my stay at geneva, an opportunity had been afforded me of observing the exceeding readiness with which even persons the least disposed to be prejudiced gave an ear to any story relating to lord byron, in which the proper portions of odium and romance were but plausibly mingled. in the course of conversation, one day, with the late amiable and enlightened monsieur d * *, that gentleman related, with much feeling, to my fellow-traveller and myself, the details of a late act of seduction of which lord byron had, he said, been guilty, and which was made to comprise within itself all the worst features of such unmanly frauds upon innocence;--the victim, a young unmarried lady, of one of the first families of venice, whom the noble seducer had lured from her father's house to his own, and, after a few weeks, most inhumanly turned her out of doors. in vain, said the relator, did she entreat to become his servant, his slave;--in vain did she ask to remain in some dark corner of his mansion, from which she might be able to catch a glimpse of his form as he passed. her betrayer was obdurate, and the unfortunate young lady, in despair at being thus abandoned by him, threw herself into the canal, from which she was taken out but to be consigned to a mad-house. though convinced that there must be considerable exaggeration in this story, it was only on my arrival at venice i ascertained that the whole was a romance; and that out of the circumstances (already laid before the reader) connected with lord byron's fantastic and, it must be owned, discreditable fancy for the fornarina, this pathetic tale, so implicitly believed at geneva, was fabricated. having parted at milan, with lord john russell, whom i had accompanied from england, and whom i was to rejoin, after a short visit to rome, at genoa, i made purchase of a small and (as it soon proved) crazy travelling carriage, and proceeded alone on my way to venice. my time being limited, i stopped no longer at the intervening places than was sufficient to hurry over their respective wonders, and, leaving padua at noon on the th of october, i found myself, about two o'clock, at the door of my friend's villa, at la mira. he was but just up, and in his bath; but the servant having announced my arrival, he returned a message that, if i would wait till he was dressed, he would accompany me to venice. the interval i employed in conversing with my old acquaintance, fletcher, and in viewing, under his guidance, some of the apartments of the villa. it was not long before lord byron himself made his appearance; and the delight i felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many years, was not a little heightened by observing that his pleasure was, to the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the evident rarity of such meetings to him of late, and the frank outbreak of cordiality and gaiety with which he gave way to his feelings. it would be impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some time or other, felt the charm of his manner, any idea of what it could be when under the influence of such pleasurable excitement as it was most flatteringly evident he experienced at this moment. i was a good deal struck, however, by the alteration that had taken place in his personal appearance. he had grown fatter both in person and face, and the latter had most suffered by the change,--having lost, by the enlargement of the features, some of that refined and spiritualised look that had, in other times, distinguished it. the addition of whiskers, too, which he had not long before been induced to adopt, from hearing that some one had said he had a "faccia di musico," as well as the length to which his hair grew down on his neck, and the rather foreign air of his coat and cap,--all combined to produce that dissimilarity to his former self i had observed in him. he was still, however, eminently handsome: and, in exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high, romantic character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, waggish wisdom, that epicurean play of humour, which he had shown to be equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while, by the somewhat increased roundness of the contours, the resemblance of his finely formed mouth and chin to those of the belvedere apollo had become still more striking. his breakfast, which i found he rarely took before three or four o'clock in the afternoon, was speedily despatched,--his habit being to eat it standing, and the meal in general consisting of one or two raw eggs, a cup of tea without either milk or sugar, and a bit of dry biscuit. before we took our departure, he presented me to the countess guiccioli, who was at this time, as my readers already know, living under the same roof with him at la mira; and who, with a style of beauty singular in an italian, as being fair-complexioned and delicate, left an impression upon my mind, during this our first short interview, of intelligence and amiableness such as all that i have since known or heard of her has but served to confirm. we now started together, lord byron and myself, in my little milanese vehicle, for fusina,--his portly gondolier tita, in a rich livery and most redundant mustachios, having seated himself on the front of the carriage, to the no small trial of its strength, which had already once given way, even under my own weight, between verona and vicenza. on our arrival at fusina, my noble friend, from his familiarity with all the details of the place, had it in his power to save me both trouble and expense in the different arrangements relative to the custom-house, remise, &c.; and the good-natured assiduity with which he bustled about in despatching these matters, gave me an opportunity of observing, in his use of the infirm limb, a much greater degree of activity than i had ever before, except in sparring, witnessed. as we proceeded across the lagoon in his gondola, the sun was just setting, and it was an evening such as romance would have chosen for a first sight of venice, rising "with her tiara of bright towers" above the wave; while, to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, i beheld it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its glories, and sung of that fair city of the sea thus grandly:-- "i stood in venice on the bridge of sighs; a palace and a prison on each hand: i saw from out the wave her structures rise as from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: a thousand years their cloudy wings expand around me, and a dying glory smiles o'er the far times, when many a subject land look'd to the winged lion's marble piles, where venice sat in state, throned in her hundred isles." but, whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which i now viewed it was altogether the very reverse of what might have been expected. the exuberant gaiety of my companion, and the recollections,--any thing but romantic,--into which our conversation wandered, put at once completely to flight all poetical and historical associations; and our course was, i am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and laughter till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend's palazzo on the grand canal. all that had ever happened, of gay or ridiculous, during our london life together,--his scrapes and my lecturings,--our joint adventures with the bores and blues, the two great enemies, as he always called them, of london happiness,--our joyous nights together at watier's, kinnaird's, &c. and "that d----d supper of rancliffe's which _ought_ to have been a dinner,"--all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a flow of humour and hilarity, on his side, of which it would have been difficult, even for persons far graver than i can pretend to be, not to have caught the contagion. he had all along expressed his determination that i should not go to any hotel, but fix my quarters at his house during the period of my stay; and, had he been residing there himself, such an arrangement would have been all that i most desired. but, this not being the case, a common hotel was, i thought, a far readier resource; and i therefore entreated that he would allow me to order an apartment at the gran bretagna, which had the reputation, i understood, of being a comfortable hotel. this, however, he would not hear of; and, as an inducement for me to agree to his plan, said that, as long as i chose to stay, though he should be obliged to return to la mira in the evenings, he would make it a point to come to venice every day and dine with me. as we now turned into the dismal canal, and stopped before his damp-looking mansion, my predilection for the gran bretagna returned in full force; and i again ventured to hint that it would save an abundance of trouble to let me proceed thither. but "no--no," he answered,--"i see you think you'll be very uncomfortable here; but you'll find that it is not quite so bad as you expect." as i groped my way after him through the dark hall, he cried out, "keep clear of the dog;" and before we had proceeded many paces farther, "take care, or that monkey will fly at you;"--a curious proof, among many others, of his fidelity to all the tastes of his youth, as it agrees perfectly with the description of his life at newstead, in , and of the sort of menagerie which his visiters had then to encounter in their progress through his hall. having escaped these dangers, i followed him up the staircase to the apartment destined for me. all this time he had been despatching servants in various directions,--one, to procure me a _laquais de place_; another to go in quest of mr. alexander scott, to whom he wished to give me in charge; while a third was sent to order his segretario to come to him. "so, then, you keep a secretary?" i said. "yes," he answered, "a fellow who _can't write_[ ]--but such are the names these pompous people give to things." when we had reached the door of the apartment it was discovered to be locked, and, to all appearance, had been so for some time, as the key could not be found;--a circumstance which, to my english apprehension, naturally connected itself with notions of damp and desolation, and i again sighed inwardly for the gran bretagna. impatient at the delay of the key, my noble host, with one of his humorous maledictions, gave a vigorous kick to the door and burst it open; on which we at once entered into an apartment not only spacious and elegant, but wearing an aspect of comfort and habitableness which to a traveller's eye is as welcome as it is rare. "here," he said, in a voice whose every tone spoke kindness and hospitality,--"these are the rooms i use myself, and here i mean to establish you." he had ordered dinner from some tratteria, and while waiting its arrival--as well as that of mr. alexander scott, whom he had invited to join us--we stood out on the balcony, in order that, before the daylight was quite gone, i might have some glimpses of the scene which the canal presented. happening to remark, in looking up at the clouds, which were still bright in the west, that "what had struck me in italian sunsets was that peculiar rosy hue--" i had hardly pronounced the word "rosy," when lord byron, clapping his hand on my mouth, said, with a laugh, "come, d----n it, tom, don't be poetical." among the few gondolas passing at the time, there was one at some distance, in which sat two gentlemen, who had the appearance of being english; and, observing them to look our way, lord byron putting his arms a-kimbo, said with a sort of comic swagger, "ah! if you, john bulls, knew who the two fellows are, now standing up here, i think you _would_ stare!"--i risk mentioning these things, though aware how they may be turned against myself, for the sake of the otherwise indescribable traits of manner and character which they convey. after a very agreeable dinner, through which the jest, the story, and the laugh were almost uninterruptedly carried on, our noble host took leave of us to return to la mira, while mr. scott and i went to one of the theatres, to see the ottavia of alfieri. the ensuing evenings, during my stay, were passed much in the same manner,--my mornings being devoted, under the kind superintendence of mr. scott, to a hasty, and, i fear, unprofitable view of the treasures of art with which venice abounds. on the subjects of painting and sculpture lord byron has, in several of his letters, expressed strongly and, as to most persons will appear, heretically his opinions. in his want, however, of a due appreciation of these arts, he but resembled some of his great precursors in the field of poetry;--both tasso and milton, for example, having evinced so little tendency to such tastes[ ], that, throughout the whole of their pages, there is not, i fear, one single allusion to any of those great masters of the pencil and chisel, whose works, nevertheless, both had seen. that lord byron, though despising the imposture and jargon with which the worship of the arts is, like other worships, clogged and mystified, felt deeply, more especially in sculpture, whatever imaged forth true grace and energy, appears from passages of his poetry, which are in every body's memory, and not a line of which but thrills alive with a sense of grandeur and beauty such as it never entered into the capacity of a mere connoisseur even to conceive. in reference to this subject, as we were conversing one day after dinner about the various collections i had visited that morning, on my saying that fearful as i was, at all times, of praising any picture, lest i should draw upon myself the connoisseur's sneer for my pains, i would yet, to _him_, venture to own that i had seen a picture at milan which--"the hagar!" he exclaimed, eagerly interrupting me; and it was in fact this very picture i was about to mention as having wakened in me, by the truth of its expression, more real emotion than any i had yet seen among the chefs-d'oeuvre of venice. it was with no small degree of pride and pleasure i now discovered that my noble friend had felt equally with myself the affecting mixture of sorrow and reproach with which the woman's eyes tell the whole story in that picture. on the second evening of my stay, lord byron having, as before, left us for la mira, i most willingly accepted the offer of mr. scott to introduce me to the conversazioni of the two celebrated ladies, with whose names, as leaders of venetian fashion, the tourists to italy have made every body acquainted. to the countess a * *'s parties lord byron had chiefly confined himself during the first winter he passed at venice; but the tone of conversation at these small meetings being much too learned for his tastes, he was induced, the following year, to discontinue his attendance at them, and chose, in preference, the less erudite, but more easy, society of the countess b * *. of the sort of learning sometimes displayed by the "blue" visitants at madame a * *'s, a circumstance mentioned by the noble poet himself may afford some idea. the conversation happening to turn, one evening, upon the statue of washington, by canova, which had been just shipped off for the united states, madame a * *, who was then engaged in compiling a description raisonnée of canova's works, and was anxious for information respecting the subject of this statue, requested that some of her learned guests would detail to her all they knew of him. this task a signor * * (author of a book on geography and statistics) undertook to perform, and, after some other equally sage and authentic details, concluded by informing her that "washington was killed in a duel by burke."--"what," exclaimed lord byron, as he stood biting his lips with impatience during this conversation, "what, in the name of folly, are you all thinking of?"--for he now recollected the famous duel between hamilton and colonel burr, whom, it was evident, this learned worthy had confounded with washington and burke! in addition to the motives easily conceivable for exchanging such a society for one that offered, at least, repose from such erudite efforts, there was also another cause more immediately leading to the discontinuance of his visits to madame a * *. this lady, who has been sometimes honoured with the title of "the de staël of italy," had written a book called "portraits," containing sketches of the characters of various persons of note; and it being her intention to introduce lord byron into this assemblage, she had it intimated to his lordship that an article in which his portraiture had been attempted was to appear in a new edition she was about to publish of her work. it was expected, of course, that this intimation would awaken in him some desire to see the sketch; but, on the contrary, he was provoking enough not to manifest the least symptoms of curiosity. again and again was the same hint, with as little success, conveyed; till, at length, on finding that no impression could be produced in this manner, a direct offer was made, in madame a * *'s own name, to submit the article to his perusal. he could now contain himself no longer. with more sincerity than politeness, he returned for answer to the lady, that he was by no means ambitious of appearing in her work; that, from the shortness, as well as the distant nature of their acquaintance, it was impossible she could have qualified herself to be his portrait-painter, and that, in short, she could not oblige him more than by committing the article to the flames. whether the tribute thus unceremoniously treated ever met the eyes of lord byron, i know not; but he could hardly, i think, had he seen it, have escaped a slight touch of remorse at having thus spurned from him a portrait drawn in no unfriendly spirit, and, though affectedly expressed, seizing some of the less obvious features of his character,--as, for instance, that diffidence so little to be expected from a career like his, with the discriminating niceness of a female hand. the following are extracts from this portrait:-- "'toi, dont le monde encore ignore le vrai nom, esprit mystérieux, mortel, ange, ou démon, qui que tu sois, byron, bon ou fatal génie, j'aime de tes conceits la sauvage harmonie.' lamartine. "it would be to little purpose to dwell upon the mere beauty of a countenance in which the expression of an extraordinary mind was so conspicuous. what serenity was seated on the forehead, adorned with the finest chestnut hair, light, curling, and disposed with such art, that the art was hidden in the imitation of most pleasing nature! what varied expression in his eyes! they were of the azure colour of the heavens, from which they seemed to derive their origin. his teeth, in form, in colour, in transparency, resembled pearls; but his cheeks were too delicately tinged with the hue of the pale rose. his neck, which he was in the habit of keeping uncovered as much as the usages of society permitted, seemed to have been formed in a mould, and was very white. his hands were as beautiful as if they had been the works of art. his figure left nothing to be desired, particularly by those who found rather a grace than a defect in a certain light and gentle undulation of the person when he entered a room, and of which you hardly felt tempted to enquire the cause. indeed it was scarcely perceptible,--the clothes he wore were so long. "he was never seen to walk through the streets of venice, nor along the pleasant banks of the brenta, where he spent some weeks of the summer; and there are some who assert that he has never seen, excepting from a window, the wonders of the 'piazza di san marco;'--so powerful in him was the desire of not showing himself to be deformed in any part of his person. i, however, believe that he has often gazed on those wonders, but in the late and solitary hour, when the stupendous edifices which surrounded him, illuminated by the soft and placid light of the moon, appeared a thousand times more lovely. "his face appeared tranquil like the ocean on a fine spring morning; but, like it, in an instant became changed into the tempestuous and terrible, if a passion, (a passion did i say?) a thought, a word, occurred to disturb his mind. his eyes then lost all their sweetness, and sparkled so that it became difficult to look on them. so rapid a change would not have been thought possible; but it was impossible to avoid acknowledging that the natural state of his mind was the tempestuous. "what delighted him greatly one day annoyed him the next; and whenever he appeared constant in the practice of any habits, it arose merely from the indifference, not to say contempt, in which he held them all: whatever they might be, they were not worthy that he should occupy his thoughts with them. his heart was highly sensitive, and suffered itself to be governed in an extraordinary degree by sympathy; but his imagination carried him away, and spoiled every thing. he believed in presages, and delighted in the recollection that he held this belief in common with napoleon. it appeared that, in proportion as his intellectual education was cultivated, his moral education was neglected, and that he never suffered himself to know or observe other restraints than those imposed by his inclinations. nevertheless, who could believe that he had a constant, and almost infantine timidity, of which the evidences were so apparent as to render its existence indisputable, notwithstanding the difficulty experienced in associating with lord byron a sentiment which had the appearance of modesty? conscious as he was that, wherever he presented himself, all eyes were fixed on him, and all lips, particularly those of the women, were opened to say, 'there he is, that is lord byron,'--he necessarily found himself in the situation of an actor obliged to sustain a character, and to render an account, not to others (for about them he gave himself no concern), but to himself, of his every action and word. this occasioned him a feeling of uneasiness which was obvious to every one. "he remarked on a certain subject (which in was the topic of universal discourse) that 'the world was worth neither the trouble taken in its conquest, nor the regret felt at its loss,' which saying (if the worth of an expression could ever equal that of many and great actions) would almost show the thoughts and feelings of lord byron to be more stupendous and unmeasured than those of him respecting whom he spoke. "his gymnastic exercises were sometimes violent, and at others almost nothing. his body, like his spirit, readily accommodated itself to all his inclinations. during an entire winter, he went out every morning alone to row himself to the island of armenians, (a small island situated in the midst of a tranquil lake, and distant from venice about half a league,) to enjoy the society of those learned and hospitable monks, and to learn their difficult language; and, in the evening, entering again into his gondola, he went, but only for a couple of hours, into company. a second winter, whenever the water of the lake was violently agitated, he was observed to cross it, and landing on the nearest _terra firma_, to fatigue at least two horses with riding. "no one ever heard him utter a word of french, although he was perfectly conversant with that language. he hated the nation and its modern literature; in like manner, he held the modern italian literature in contempt, and said it possessed but one living author,--a restriction which i know not whether to term ridiculous, or false and injurious. his voice was sufficiently sweet and flexible. he spoke with much suavity, if not contradicted, but rather addressed himself to his neighbour than to the entire company. "very little food sufficed him; and he preferred fish to flesh for this extraordinary reason, that the latter, he said, rendered him ferocious. he disliked seeing women eat; and the cause of this extraordinary antipathy must be sought in the dread he always had, that the notion he loved to cherish of their perfection and almost divine nature might be disturbed. having always been governed by them, it would seem that his very self-love was pleased to take refuge in the idea of their excellence,--a sentiment which he knew how (god knows how) to reconcile with the contempt in which, shortly afterwards, almost with the appearance of satisfaction, he seemed to hold them. but contradictions ought not to surprise us in characters like lord byron's; and then, who does not know that the slave holds in detestation his ruler? "lord byron disliked his countrymen, but only because he knew that his morals were held in contempt by them. the english, themselves rigid observers of family duties, could not pardon him the neglect of his, nor his trampling on principles; therefore neither did he like being presented to them, nor did they, especially when they had their wives with them, like to cultivate his acquaintance. still there was a strong desire in all of them to see him, and the women in particular, who did not dare to look at him but by stealth, said in an under voice, 'what a pity it is!' if, however, any of his compatriots of exalted rank and of high reputation came forward to treat him with courtesy, he showed himself obviously flattered by it, and was greatly pleased with such association. it seemed that to the wound which remained always open in his ulcerated heart such soothing attentions were as drops of healing balm, which comforted him. "speaking of his marriage,--a delicate subject, but one still agreeable to him, if it was treated in a friendly voice,--he was greatly moved, and said it had been the innocent cause of all his errors and all his griefs. of his wife he spoke with much respect and affection. he said she was an illustrious lady, distinguished for the qualities of her heart and understanding, and that all the fault of their cruel separation lay with himself. now, was such language dictated by justice or by vanity? does it not bring to mind the saying of julius, that the wife of caesar must not even be suspected? what vanity in that saying of caesar! in fact, if it had not been from vanity, lord byron would have admitted this to no one. of his young daughter, his dear ada, he spoke with great tenderness, and seemed to be pleased at the great sacrifice he had made in leaving her to comfort her mother. the intense hatred he bore his mother-in-law, and a sort of euryclea of lady byron, two women to whose influence he, in a great measure, attributed her estrangement from him,--demonstrated clearly how painful the separation was to him, notwithstanding some bitter pleasantries which occasionally occur in his writings against her also, dictated rather by rancour than by indifference." [footnote : "il conte guiccioli doveva per affari ritornare a ravenna; lo stato della mia salute esiggeva che io ritornassi in vece a venezia. egli acconsenti dunque che lord byron, mi fosse compagno di viaggio. partimmo da bologna alli di sre.--visitammo insieme i colli euganei ed arquà; scrivemmo i nostri nomi nel libro che si presenta a quelli che fanno quel pellegrinaggio. ma sopra tali rimembranze di felicità non posso fermarmi, caro signr. moore; l'opposizione col presente é troppo forte, e se un anima benedetta nel pieno godimento di tutte le felicità celesti fosse mandata quaggiù e condannata a sopportare tutte le miserie della nostra terra non potrebbe sentire più terribile contrasto frà il passato ed il presente di quello che io sento dacchè quella terribile parola è giunta alle mie orecchie, dacchè ho perduto la speranza di più vedere quello di cui uno sguardo valeva per me più di tutte le felicità della terra. giunti a venezia i medici mi ordinarono di respirare l'aria della campagna. egli aveva una villa alla mira,--la cedesse a me, e venne meco. là passammo l'autunno, e là ebbi il bene di fare la vostra conoscenza."--ms.] [footnote : the title of segretario is sometimes given, as in this case, to a head-servant or house-steward.] [footnote : that this was the case with milton is acknowledged by richardson, who admired both milton and the arts too warmly to make such an admission upon any but valid grounds. "he does not appear," says this writer, "to have much regarded what was done with the pencil; no, not even when in italy, in rome, in the vatican. neither does it seem sculpture was much esteemed by him." after an authority like this, the theories of hayley and others, with respect to the impressions left upon milton's mind by the works of art he had seen in italy, are hardly worth a thought. though it may be conceded that dante was an admirer of the arts, his recommendation of the apocalypse to giotto, as a source of subjects for the pencil, shows, at least, what indifferent judges poets are, in general, of the sort of fancies fittest to be embodied by the painter.] * * * * * from the time of his misunderstanding with madame a * * *, the visits of the noble poet were transferred to the house of the other great rallying point of venetian society, madame b * * *,--a lady in whose manners, though she had long ceased to be young, there still lingered much of that attaching charm, which a youth passed in successful efforts to please seldom fails to leave behind. that those powers of pleasing, too, were not yet gone, the fidelity of, at least, one devoted admirer testified; nor is she supposed to have thought it impossible that lord byron himself might yet be linked on at the end of that long chain of lovers, which had, through so many years, graced the triumphs of her beauty. if, however, there could have been, in any case, the slightest chance of such a conquest, she had herself completely frustrated it by introducing her distinguished visitor to madame guiccioli,--a step by which she at last lost, too, even the ornament of his presence at her parties, as in consequence of some slighting conduct, on her part, towards his "dama," he discontinued his attendance at her evening assemblies, and at the time of my visit to venice had given up society altogether. i could soon collect, from the tone held respecting his conduct at madame b * * *'s, how subversive of all the morality of intrigue they considered the late step of which he had been guilty in withdrawing his acknowledged "amica" from the protection of her husband, and placing her, at once, under the same roof with himself. "you must really (said the hostess herself to me) scold your friend;--till this unfortunate affair, he conducted himself _so_ well!"--a eulogy on his previous moral conduct which, when i reported it the following day to my noble host, provoked at once a smile and sigh from his lips. the chief subject of our conversation, when alone, was his marriage, and the load of obloquy which it had brought upon him. he was most anxious to know the worst that had been alleged of his conduct; and as this was our first opportunity of speaking together on the subject, i did not hesitate to put his candour most searchingly to the proof, not only by enumerating the various charges i had heard brought against him by others, but by specifying such portions of these charges as i had been inclined to think not incredible myself. to all this he listened with patience, and answered with the most unhesitating frankness, laughing to scorn the tales of unmanly outrage related of him, but, at the same time, acknowledging that there had been in his conduct but too much to blame and regret, and stating one or two occasions, during his domestic life, when he had been irritated into letting "the breath of bitter words" escape him,--words, rather those of the unquiet spirit that possessed him than his own, and which he now evidently remembered with a degree of remorse and pain which might well have entitled them to be forgotten by others. it was, at the same time, manifest, that, whatever admissions he might be inclined to make respecting his own delinquencies, the inordinate measure of the punishment dealt out to him had sunk deeply into his mind, and, with the usual effect of such injustice, drove him also to be unjust himself;--so much so, indeed, as to impute to the quarter, to which he now traced all his ill fate, a feeling of fixed hostility to himself, which would not rest, he thought, even at his grave, but continue to persecute his memory as it was now embittering his life. so strong was this impression upon him, that during one of our few intervals of seriousness, he conjured me, by our friendship, if, as he both felt and hoped, i should survive him, not to let unmerited censure settle upon his name, but, while i surrendered him up to condemnation, where he deserved it, to vindicate him where aspersed. how groundless and wrongful were these apprehensions, the early death which he so often predicted and sighed for has enabled us, unfortunately but too soon, to testify. so far from having to defend him against any such assailants, an unworthy voice or two, from persons more injurious as friends than as enemies, is all that i find raised in hostility to his name; while by none, i am inclined to think, would a generous amnesty over his grave be more readily and cordially concurred in than by her, among whose numerous virtues a forgiving charity towards himself was the only one to which she had not yet taught him to render justice. i have already had occasion to remark, in another part of this work, that with persons who, like lord byron, live centred in their own tremulous web of sensitiveness, those friends of whom they see least, and who, therefore, least frequently come in collision with them in those every-day realities from which such natures shrink so morbidly, have proportionately a greater chance of retaining a hold on their affections. there is, however, in long absence from persons of this temperament, another description of risk hardly less, perhaps, to be dreaded. if the station a friend holds in their hearts is, in near intercourse with them, in danger from their sensitiveness, it is almost equally, perhaps, at the mercy of their too active imaginations during absence. on this very point, i recollect once expressing my apprehensions to lord byron, in a passage of a letter addressed to him but a short time before his death, of which the following is, as nearly as i can recall it, the substance:--"when _with_ you, i feel _sure_ of you; but, at a distance, one is often a little afraid of being made the victim, all of a sudden, of some of those fanciful suspicions, which, like meteoric stones, generate themselves (god knows how) in the upper regions of your imagination, and come clattering down upon our heads, some fine sunny day, when we are least expecting such an invasion." in writing thus to him, i had more particularly in recollection a fancy of this kind respecting myself, which he had, not long before my present visit to him at venice, taken into his head. in a ludicrous, and now, perhaps, forgotten publication of mine, giving an account of the adventures of an english family in paris, there had occurred the following description of the chief hero of the tale:-- "a fine, sallow, sublime sort of werter-faced man, with mustachios which gave (what we read of so oft) the dear corsair expression, half savage, half soft,-- as hyænas in love may be fancied to look, or a something between abelard and old blucher." on seeing this doggrel, my noble friend,--as i might, indeed, with a little more thought, have anticipated,--conceived the notion that i meant to throw ridicule on his whole race of poetic heroes, and accordingly, as i learned from persons then in frequent intercourse with him, flew out into one of his fits of half humorous rage against me. this he now confessed himself, and, in laughing over the circumstance with me, owned that he had even gone so far as, in his first moments of wrath, to contemplate some little retaliation for this perfidious hit at his heroes. "but when i recollected," said he, "what pleasure it would give the whole tribe of blockheads and blues to see you and me turning out against each other, i gave up the idea." he was, indeed, a striking instance of what may be almost invariably observed, that they who best know how to wield the weapon of ridicule themselves, are the most alive to its power in the hands of others. i remember, one day,--in the year , i think,--as we were conversing together about critics and their influence on the public. "for my part," he exclaimed, "i don't care what they say of me, so they don't quiz me."--"oh, you need not fear that,"--i answered, with something, perhaps, of a half suppressed smile on my features,--"nobody could quiz _you_"--"_you could_, you villain!" he replied, clenching his hand at me, and looking, at the same time, with comic earnestness into my face. before i proceed any farther with my own recollections, i shall here take the opportunity of extracting some curious particulars respecting the habits and mode of life of my friend while at venice, from an account obligingly furnished me by a gentleman who long resided in that city, and who, during the greater part of lord byron's stay, lived on terms of the most friendly intimacy with him. "i have often lamented that i kept no notes of his observations during our rides and aquatic excursions. nothing could exceed the vivacity and variety of his conversation, or the cheerfulness of his manner. his remarks on the surrounding objects were always original: and most particularly striking was the quickness with which he availed himself of every circumstance, however trifling in itself, and such as would have escaped the notice of almost any other person, to carry his point in such arguments as we might chance to be engaged in. he was feelingly alive to the beauties of nature, and took great interest in any observations, which, as a dabbler in the arts, i ventured to make upon the effects of light and shadow, or the changes produced in the colour of objects by every variation in the atmosphere. "the spot where we usually mounted our horses had been a jewish cemetery; but the french, during their occupation of venice, had thrown down the enclosures, and levelled all the tombstones with the ground, in order that they might not interfere with the fortifications upon the lido, under the guns of which it was situated. to this place, as it was known to be that where he alighted from his gondola and met his horses, the curious amongst our country people, who were anxious to obtain a glimpse of him, used to resort; and it was amusing in the extreme to witness the excessive coolness with which ladies, as well as gentlemen, would advance within a very few paces of him, eyeing him, some with their glasses, as they would have done a statue in a museum, or the wild beasts at exeter 'change. however flattering this might be to a man's vanity, lord byron, though he bore it very patiently, expressed himself, as i believe he really was, excessively annoyed at it. "i have said that our usual ride was along the sea-shore, and that the spot where we took horse, and of course dismounted, had been a cemetery. it will readily be believed, that some caution was necessary in riding over the broken tombstones, and that it was altogether an awkward place for horses to pass. as the length of our ride was not very great, scarcely more than six miles in all, we seldom rode fast, that we might at least prolong its duration; and enjoy as much as possible the refreshing air of the adriatic. one day, as we were leisurely returning homewards, lord byron, all at once, and without saying any thing to me, set spurs to his horse and started off at full gallop, making the greatest haste he could to get to his gondola. i could not conceive what fit had seized him, and had some difficulty in keeping even within a reasonable distance of him, while i looked around me to discover, if i were able, what could be the cause of his unusual precipitation. at length i perceived at some distance two or three gentlemen, who were running along the opposite side of the island nearest the lagoon, parallel with him, towards his gondola, hoping to get there in time to see him alight; and a race actually took place between them, he endeavouring to outstrip them. in this he, in fact, succeeded, and, throwing himself quickly from his horse, leapt into his gondola, of which he hastily closed the blinds, ensconcing himself in a corner so as not to be seen. for my own part, not choosing to risk my neck over the ground i have spoken of, i followed more leisurely as soon as i came amongst the gravestones, but got to the place of embarkation just at the same moment with my curious countrymen, and in time to witness their disappointment at having had their run for nothing. i found him exulting in his success in outstripping them. he expressed in strong terms his annoyance at what he called their impertinence, whilst i could not but laugh at his impatience, as well as at the mortification of the unfortunate pedestrians, whose eagerness to see him, i said, was, in my opinion, highly flattering to him. that, he replied, depended on the feeling with which they came; and he had not the vanity to believe that they were influenced by any admiration of his character or of his abilities, but that they were impelled merely by idle curiosity. whether it was so or not, i cannot help thinking that if they had been of the other sex, he would not have been so eager to escape from their observation, as in that case he would have repaid them glance for glance. "the curiosity that was expressed by all classes of travellers to see him, and the eagerness with which they endeavoured to pick up any anecdotes of his mode of life, were carried to a length which will hardly be credited. it formed the chief subject of their enquiries of the gondoliers who conveyed them from terra firma to the floating city; and these people, who are generally loquacious, were not at all backward in administering to the taste and humours of their passengers, relating to them the most extravagant and often unfounded stories. they took care to point out the house where he lived, and to give such hints of his movements as might afford them an opportunity of seeing him. many of the english visiters, under pretext of seeing his house, in which there were no paintings of any consequence, nor, besides himself, any thing worthy of notice, contrived to obtain admittance through the cupidity of his servants, and with the most barefaced impudence forced their way even into his bedroom, in the hopes of seeing him. hence arose, in a great measure, his bitterness towards them, which he has expressed in a note to one of his poems, on the occasion of some unfounded remark made upon him by an anonymous traveller in italy; and it certainly appears well calculated to foster that cynicism which prevails in his latter works more particularly, and which, as well as the misanthropical expressions that occur in those which first raised his reputation, i do not believe to have been his natural feeling. of this i am certain, that i never witnessed greater kindness than in lord byron. "the inmates of his family were all extremely attached to him, and would have endured any thing on his account. he was indeed culpably lenient to them; for even when instances occurred of their neglecting their duty, or taking an undue advantage of his good-nature, he rather bantered than spoke seriously to them upon it, and could not bring himself to discharge them, even when he had threatened to do so. an instance occurred within my knowledge of his unwillingness to act harshly towards a tradesman whom he had materially assisted, not only by lending him money, but by forwarding his interest in every way that he could. notwithstanding repeated acts of kindness on lord byron's part, this man robbed and cheated him in the most barefaced manner; and when at length lord byron was induced to sue him at law for the recovery of his money, the only punishment he inflicted upon him, when sentence against him was passed, was to put him in prison for one week, and then to let him out again, although his debtor had subjected him to a considerable additional expense, by dragging him into all the different courts of appeal, and that he never at last recovered one halfpenny of the money owed to him. upon this subject he writes to me from ravenna, 'if * * is in (prison), let him out; if out, put him in for a week, merely for a lesson, and give him a good lecture.' "he was also ever ready to assist the distressed, and he was most unostentatious in his charities: for besides considerable sums which he gave away to applicants at his own house, he contributed largely by weekly and monthly allowances to persons whom he had never seen, and who, as the money reached them by other hands, did not even know who was their benefactor. one or two instances might be adduced where his charity certainly bore an appearance of ostentation; one particularly, when he sent fifty louis d'or to a poor printer whose house had been burnt to the ground, and all his property destroyed; but even this was not unattended with advantage; for it in a manner compelled the austrian authorities to do something for the poor sufferer, which i have no hesitation in saying they would not have done otherwise; and i attribute it entirely to the publicity of his donation, that they allowed the man the use of an unoccupied house belonging to the government until he could rebuild his own, or re-establish his business elsewhere. other instances might be perhaps discovered where his liberalities proceeded from selfish, and not very worthy motives[ ]; but these are rare, and it would be unjust in the extreme to assume them as proofs of his character." it has been already mentioned that, in writing to my noble friend to announce my coming, i had expressed a hope that he would be able to go on with me to rome; and i had the gratification of finding, on my arrival, that he was fully prepared to enter into this plan. on becoming acquainted, however, with all the details of his present situation, i so far sacrificed my own wishes and pleasure as to advise strongly that he should remain at la mira. in the first place, i saw reason to apprehend that his leaving madame guiccioli at this crisis might be the means of drawing upon him the suspicion of neglecting, if not actually deserting, a young person who had just sacrificed so much to her devotion for him, and whose position, at this moment, between the count and lord byron, it required all the generous prudence of the latter to shield from shame or fall. there had just occurred too, as it appeared to me, a most favourable opening for the retrieval of, at least, the imprudent part of the transaction, by replacing the lady instantly under her husband's protection, and thus enabling her still to retain that station in society which, in such society, nothing but such imprudence could have endangered. this latter hope had been suggested by a letter he one day showed me, (as we were dining together alone, at the well-known pellegrino,) which had that morning been received by the contessa from her husband, and the chief object of which was--_not_ to express any censure of her conduct, but to suggest that she should prevail upon her noble admirer to transfer into his keeping a sum of _l._, which was then lying, if i remember right, in the hands of lord byron's banker at ravenna, but which the worthy count professed to think would be more advantageously placed in his own. security, the writer added, would be given, and five per cent. interest allowed; as to accept of the sum on any other terms he should hold to be an "avvilimento" to him. though, as regarded the lady herself, who has since proved, by a most noble sacrifice, how perfectly disinterested were her feelings throughout[ ], this trait of so wholly opposite a character in her lord must have still further increased her disgust at returning to him, yet so important did it seem, as well for her friend's sake as her own, to retrace, while there was yet time, their last imprudent step, that even the sacrifice of this sum, which i saw would materially facilitate such an arrangement, did not appear to me by any means too high a price to pay for it. on this point, however, my noble friend entirely differed with me; and nothing could be more humorous and amusing than the manner in which, in his newly assumed character of a lover of money, he dilated on the many virtues of a thousand pounds, and his determination not to part with a single one of them to count guiccioli. of his confidence, too, in his own power of extricating himself from this difficulty he spoke with equal gaiety and humour; and mr. scott, who joined our party after dinner, having taken the same view of the subject as i did, he laid a wager of two sequins with that gentleman, that, without any such disbursement, he would yet bring all right again, and "save the lady and the money too." it is indeed, certain, that he had at this time taken up the whim (for it hardly deserves a more serious name) of minute and constant watchfulness over his expenditure; and, as most usually happens, it was with the increase of his means that this increased sense of the value of money came. the first symptom i saw of this new fancy of his was the exceeding joy which he manifested on my presenting to him a rouleau of twenty napoleons, which lord k * *d, to whom he had, on some occasion, lent that sum, had intrusted me with, at milan, to deliver into his hands. with the most joyous and diverting eagerness, he tore open the paper, and, in counting over the sum, stopped frequently to congratulate himself on the recovery of it. of his household frugalities i speak but on the authority of others; but it is not difficult to conceive that, with a restless spirit like his, which delighted always in having something to contend with, and which, but a short time before, "for want," as he said, "of something craggy to break upon," had tortured itself with the study of the armenian language, he should, in default of all better excitement, find a sort of stir and amusement in the task of contesting, inch by inch, every encroachment of expense, and endeavouring to suppress what he himself calls "that climax of all earthly ills, the inflammation of our weekly bills." in truth, his constant recurrence to the praise of avarice in don juan, and the humorous zest with which he delights to dwell on it, shows how new-fangled, as well as how far from serious, was his adoption of this "good old-gentlemanly vice." in the same spirit he had, a short time before my arrival at venice, established a hoarding-box, with a slit in the lid, into which he occasionally put sequins, and, at stated periods, opened it to contemplate his treasures. his own ascetic style of living enabled him, as far as himself was concerned, to gratify this taste for economy in no ordinary degree,--his daily bill of fare, when the margarita was his companion, consisting, i have been assured, of but four beccafichi, of which the fornarina eat three, leaving even him hungry. that his parsimony, however (if this new phasis of his ever-shifting character is to be called by such a name), was very far from being of that kind which bacon condemns, as "withholding men from works of liberality," is apparent from all that is known of his munificence, at this very period,--some particulars of which, from a most authentic source, have just been cited, proving amply that while, for the indulgence of a whim, he kept one hand closed, he gave free course to his generous nature by dispensing lavishly from the other. it should be remembered, too, that as long as money shall continue to be one of the great sources of power, so long will they who seek influence over their fellow-men attach value to it as an instrument; and the more lowly they are inclined to estimate the disinterestedness of the human heart, the more available and precious will they consider the talisman that gives such power over it. hence, certainly, it is not among those who have thought highest of mankind that the disposition to avarice has most generally displayed itself. in swift the love of money was strong and avowed; and to voltaire the same propensity was also frequently imputed,--on about as sufficient grounds, perhaps, as to lord byron. on the day preceding that of my departure from venice, my noble host, on arriving from la mira to dinner, told me, with all the glee of a schoolboy who had been just granted a holiday, that, as this was my last evening, the contessa had given him leave to "make a night of it," and that accordingly he would not only accompany me to the opera, but we should sup together at some cafe (as in the old times) afterwards. observing a volume in his gondola, with a number of paper marks between the leaves, i enquired of him what it was?--"only a book," he answered, "from which i am trying to _crib_, as i do wherever i can[ ];--and that's the way i get the character of an original poet." on taking it up and looking into it, i exclaimed, "ah, my old friend, agathon!"[ ]--"what!" he cried, archly, "you have been beforehand with me there, have you?" though in imputing to himself premeditated plagiarism, he was, of course, but jesting, it was, i am inclined to think, his practice, when engaged in the composition of any work, to excite thus his vein by the perusal of others, on the same subject or plan, from which the slightest hint caught by his imagination, as he read, was sufficient to kindle there such a train of thought as, but for that spark, had never been awakened, and of which he himself soon forgot the source. in the present instance, the inspiration he sought was of no very elevating nature,--the anti-spiritual doctrines of the sophist in this romance[ ] being what chiefly, i suspect, attracted his attention to its pages, as not unlikely to supply him with fresh argument and sarcasm for those depreciating views of human nature and its destiny, which he was now, with all the wantonness of unbounded genius, enforcing in don juan. of this work he was, at the time of my visit to him, writing the third canto, and before dinner, one day, read me two or three hundred lines of it;--beginning with the stanzas "oh wellington," &c. which at that time formed the opening of this third canto, but were afterwards reserved for the commencement of the ninth. my opinion of the poem, both as regarded its talent and its mischief, he had already been made acquainted with, from my having been one of those,--his committee, as he called us,--to whom, at his own desire, the manuscript of the two first cantos had been submitted, and who, as the reader has seen, angered him not a little by deprecating the publication of it. in a letter which i, at that time, wrote to him on the subject, after praising the exquisite beauty of the scenes between juan and haidée, i ventured to say, "is it not odd that the same licence which, in your early satire, you blamed _me_ for being guilty of on the borders of my twentieth year, you are now yourself (with infinitely greater power, and therefore infinitely greater mischief) indulging in _after_ thirty!" though i now found him, in full defiance of such remonstrances, proceeding with this work, he had yet, as his own letters prove, been so far influenced by the general outcry against his poem, as to feel the zeal and zest with which he had commenced it considerably abated,--so much so, as to render, ultimately, in his own opinion, the third and fourth cantos much inferior in spirit to the two first. so sensitive, indeed,--in addition to his usual abundance of this quality,--did he, at length, grow on the subject, that when mr. w. bankes, who succeeded me, as his visiter, happened to tell him, one day, that he had heard a mr. saunders (or some such name), then resident at venice, declare that, in his opinion, "don juan was all grub street," such an effect had this disparaging speech upon his mind, (though coming from a person who, as he himself would have it, was "nothing but a d----d salt-fish seller,") that, for some time after, by his own confession to mr. bankes, he could not bring himself to write another line of the poem; and, one morning, opening a drawer where the neglected manuscript lay, he said to his friend, "look here--this is all mr. saunders's 'grub street.'" to return, however, to the details of our last evening together at venice. after a dinner with mr. scott at the pellegrino, we all went, rather late, to the opera, where the principal part in the baccanali di roma was represented by a female singer, whose chief claim to reputation, according to lord byron, lay in her having _stilettoed_ one of her favourite lovers. in the intervals between the singing he pointed out to me different persons among the audience, to whom celebrity of various sorts, but, for the most part, disreputable, attached; and of one lady who sat near us, he related an anecdote, which, whether new or old, may, as creditable to venetian facetiousness, be worth, perhaps, repeating. this lady had, it seems, been pronounced by napoleon the finest woman in venice; but the venetians, not quite agreeing with this opinion of the great man, contented themselves with calling her "la bella _per decréto_,"--adding (as the decrees always begin with the word "considerando"), "ma _senza_ il considerando." from the opera, in pursuance of our agreement to "make a night of it," we betook ourselves to a sort of _cabaret_ in the place of st. mark, and there, within a few yards of the palace of the doges, sat drinking hot brandy punch, and laughing over old times, till the clock of st. mark struck the second hour of the morning. lord byron then took me in his gondola, and, the moon being in its fullest splendour, he made the gondoliers row us to such points of view as might enable me to see venice, at that hour, to advantage. nothing could be more solemnly beautiful than the whole scene around, and i had, for the first time, the venice of my dreams before me. all those meaner details which so offend the eye by day were now softened down by the moonlight into a sort of visionary indistinctness; and the effect of that silent city of palaces, sleeping, as it were, upon the waters, in the bright stillness of the night, was such as could not but affect deeply even the least susceptible imagination. my companion saw that i was moved by it, and though familiar with the scene himself, seemed to give way, for the moment, to the same strain of feeling; and, as we exchanged a few remarks suggested by that wreck of human glory before us, his voice, habitually so cheerful, sunk into a tone of mournful sweetness, such as i had rarely before heard from him, and shall not easily forget. this mood, however, was but of the moment; some quick turn of ridicule soon carried him off into a totally different vein, and at about three o'clock in the morning, at the door of his own palazzo, we parted, laughing, as we had met;--an agreement having been first made that i should take an early dinner with him next day at his villa, on my road to ferrara. having employed the morning of the following day in completing my round of sights at venice,--taking care to visit specially "that picture by giorgione," to which the poet's exclamation, "_such_ a woman!"[ ] will long continue to attract all votaries of beauty,--i took my departure from venice, and, at about three o'clock, arrived at la mira. i found my noble host waiting to receive me, and, in passing with him through the hall, saw his little allegra, who, with her nursery maid, was standing there as if just returned from a walk. to the perverse fancy he had for falsifying his own character, and even imputing to himself faults the most alien to his nature, i have already frequently adverted, and had, on this occasion, a striking instance of it. after i had spoken a little, in passing, to the child, and made some remark on its beauty, he said to me,--"have you any notion--but i suppose _you_ have--of what they call the parental feeling? for myself, i have not the least." and yet, when that child died, in a year or two afterwards, he who now uttered this artificial speech was so overwhelmed by the event, that those who were about him at the time actually trembled for his reason! a short time before dinner he left the room, and in a minute or two returned, carrying in his hand a white leather bag. "look here," he said, holding it up--"this would be worth something to murray, though _you_, i dare say, would not give sixpence for it."--"what is it?" i asked.--"my life and adventures," he answered. on hearing this, i raised my hands in a gesture of wonder. "it is not a thing," he continued, "that can be published during my lifetime, but you may have it--if you like--there, do whatever you please with it." in taking the bag, and thanking him most warmly, i added, "this will make a nice legacy for my little tom, who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century with it." he then added, "you may show it to any of our friends you think worthy of it:"--and this is, nearly word for word, the whole of what passed between us on the subject. at dinner we were favoured with the presence of madame guiccioli, who was so obliging as to furnish me, at lord byron's suggestion, with a letter of introduction to her brother, count gamba, whom it was probable, they both thought, i should meet at rome. this letter i never had an opportunity of presenting; and as it was left open for me to read, and was, the greater part of it, i have little doubt, dictated by my noble friend, i may venture, without impropriety, to give an extract from it here;--premising that the allusion to the "castle," &c. refers to some tales respecting the cruelty of lord byron to his wife, which the young count had heard, and, at this time, implicitly believed. after a few sentences of compliment to the bearer, the letter proceeds:--"he is on his way to see the wonders of rome, and there is no one, i am sure, more qualified to enjoy them. i shall be gratified and obliged by your acting, as far as you can, as his guide. he is a friend of lord byron's, and much more accurately acquainted with his history than those who have related it to you. he will accordingly describe to you, if you ask him, _the shape, the dimensions_, and whatever else you may please to require, of _that castle in which he keeps imprisoned a young and innocent wife_, &c. &c. my dear pietro, whenever you feel inclined to laugh, do send two lines of answer to your sister, who loves and ever will love you with the greatest tenderness.--teresa guiccioli."[ ] after expressing his regret that i had not been able to prolong my stay at venice, my noble friend said, "at least, i think, you might spare a day or two to go with me to arquà. i should like," he continued, thoughtfully, "to visit that tomb with you:"--then, breaking off into his usual gay tone; "a pair of poetical pilgrims--eh, tom, what say you?"--that i should have declined this offer, and thus lost the opportunity of an excursion which would have been remembered, as a bright dream, through all my after-life, is a circumstance i never can think of without wonder and self-reproach. but the main design on which i had then set my mind of reaching rome, and, if possible, naples, within the limited period which circumstances allowed, rendered me far less alive than i ought to have been to the preciousness of the episode thus offered to me. when it was time for me to depart, he expressed his intention to accompany me a few miles; and, ordering his horses to follow, proceeded with me in the carriage as far as strà, where for the last time--how little thinking it was to be the last!--i bade my kind and admirable friend farewell. [footnote : the writer here, no doubt, alludes to such questionable liberalities as those exercised towards the husbands of his two favourites, madame s * * and the fornarina.] [footnote : the circumstance here alluded to may be most clearly, perhaps, communicated to my readers through the medium of the following extract from a letter which mr. barry (the friend and banker of lord byron) did me the favour of addressing to me, soon after his lordship's death:--"when lord byron went to greece, he gave me orders to advance money to madame g * *; but that lady would never consent to receive any. his lordship had also told me that he meant to leave his will in my hands, and that there would be a bequest in it of , _l._ to madame g * *. he mentioned this circumstance also to lord blessington. when the melancholy news of his death reached me, i took for granted that this will would be found among the sealed papers he had left with me; but there was no such instrument. i immediately then wrote to madame g * *, enquiring if she knew any thing concerning it, and mentioning, at the same time, what his lordship had said is to the legacy. to this the lady replied, that he had frequently spoken to her on the same subject, but that she had always cut the conversation short, as it was a topic she by no means liked to hear him speak upon. in addition, she expressed a wish that no such will as i had mentioned would be found; as her circumstances were already sufficiently independent, and the world might put a wrong construction on her attachment, should it appear that her fortunes were, in any degree, bettered by it."] [footnote : this will remind the reader of molière's avowal in speaking of wit:--"c'est mon bien, et je le prends partout où je le trouve."] [footnote : the history of agathon, by wieland.] [footnote : between wieland, the author of this romance, and lord byron, may be observed some of those generic points of resemblance which it is so interesting to trace in the characters of men of genius. the german poet, it is said, never perused any work that made a strong impression upon him, without being stimulated to commence one, himself, on the same topic and plan; and in lord byron the imitative principle was almost equally active,--there being few of his poems that might not, in the same manner, be traced to the strong impulse given to his imagination by the perusal of some work that had just before interested him. in the history, too, of their lives and feelings, there was a strange and painful coincidence,--the revolution that took place in all wieland's opinions, from the platonism and romance of his youthful days, to the material and epicurean doctrines that pervaded all his maturer works, being chiefly, it is supposed, brought about by the shock his heart had received from a disappointment of its affections in early life. speaking of the illusion of this first passion, in one of his letters, he says,--"it is one for which no joys, no honours, no gifts of fortune, not even wisdom itself can afford an equivalent, and which, when it has once vanished, returns no more."] [footnote : "'tis but a portrait of his son and wife, and self; but such a woman! love in life!" beppo, stanza xii. this seems, by the way, to be an incorrect description of the picture, as, according to vasari and others, giorgione never was married, and died young.] [footnote : "egli viene per vedere le meraviglie di questa città, e sono certa che nessuno meglio di lui saprebbe gustarle. mi sarà grato che vi facciate sua guida come potrete, e voi poi me ne avrete obbligo. egli è amico de lord byron--sà la sua storia assai più precisamente di quelli che a voi la raccontarono. egli dunque vi racconterà se lo interrogherete _la forma, le dimensioni_, e tuttociò che vi piacerà del _castello ove tiene imprigionata una giovane innocente sposa_, &c. &c. mio caro pietro, quando ti sei bene sfogato a ridere, allora rispondi due righe alla tua sorella, che t' ama e t' amerà sempre colla maggiore tenerezza."] * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "october . . "i am glad to hear of your return, but i do not know how to congratulate you--unless you think differently of venice from what i think now, and you thought always. i am, besides, about to renew your troubles by requesting you to be judge between mr. e * * * and myself in a small matter of imputed peculation and irregular accounts on the part of that phoenix of secretaries. as i knew that you had not parted friends, at the same time that _i_ refused for my own part any judgment but _yours_, i offered him his choice of any person, the _least_ scoundrel native to be found in venice, as his own umpire; but he expressed himself so convinced of your impartiality, that he declined any but _you_. this is in his favour.--the paper within will explain to you the default in his accounts. you will hear his explanation, and decide if it so please you. i shall not appeal from the decision. "as he complained that his salary was insufficient, i determined to have his accounts examined, and the enclosed was the result.--it is all in black and white with documents, and i have despatched fletcher to explain (or rather to perplex) the matter. "i have had much civility and kindness from mr. dorville during your journey, and i thank him accordingly. "your letter reached me at your departure[ ], and displeased me very much:--not that it might not be true in its statement and kind in its intention, but you have lived long enough to know how useless all such representations ever are and must be in cases where the passions are concerned. to reason with men in such a situation is like reasoning with a drunkard in his cups--the only answer you will get from him is, that he is sober, and you are drunk. "upon that subject we will (if you like) be silent. you might only say what would distress me without answering any purpose whatever; and i have too many obligations to you to answer you in the same style. so that you should recollect that you have also that advantage over me. i hope to see you soon. "i suppose you know that they said at venice, that i was arrested at bologna as a _carbonaro_--story about as true as their usual conversation. moore has been here--i lodged him in my house at venice, and went to see him daily; but i could not at that time quit la mira entirely. you and i were not very far from meeting in switzerland. with my best respects to mrs. hoppner, believe me ever and truly, &c. "p.s. allegra is here in good health and spirits--i shall keep her with me till i go to england, which will perhaps be in the spring. it has just occurred to me that you may not perhaps like to undertake the office of judge between mr. e. and your humble servant.--of course, as mr. liston (the comedian, not the ambassador) says, '_it is all hoptional_;' but i have no other resource. i do not wish to find him a rascal, if it can be avoided, and would rather think him guilty of carelessness than cheating. the case is this--can i, or not, give him a character for _honesty_?--it is not my intention to continue him in my service." [footnote : mr. hoppner, before his departure from venice for switzerland, had, with all the zeal of a true friend, written a letter to lord byron, entreating him "to leave ravenna while yet he had a whole skin, and urging him not to risk the safety of a person he appeared so sincerely attached to--as well as his own--for the gratification of a momentary passion, which could only be a source of regret to both parties." in the same letter mr. hoppner informed him of some reports he had heard lately at venice, which, though possibly, he said, unfounded, had much increased his anxiety respecting the consequences of the connection formed by him.] * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "october . . "you need not have made any excuses about the letter: i never said but that you might, could, should, or would have reason. i merely described my own state of inaptitude to listen to it at that time, and in those circumstances. besides, you did not speak from your _own_ authority--but from what you said you had heard. now my blood boils to hear an italian speaking ill of another italian, because, though they lie in particular, they speak truth in general by speaking ill at all;--and although they know that they are trying and wishing to lie, they do not succeed, merely because they can say nothing so bad of each other, that it _may_ not, and must not be true, from the atrocity of their long debased national character.[ ] "with regard to e., you will perceive a most irregular, extravagant account, without proper documents to support it. he demanded an increase of salary, which made me suspect him; he supported an outrageous extravagance of expenditure, and did not like the dismission of the cook; he never complained of him--as in duty bound--at the time of his robberies. i can only say, that the house expense is now under _one half_ of what it then was, as he himself admits. he charged for a comb _eighteen_ francs,--the real price was _eight_. he charged a passage from fusina for a person named iambelli, who paid it _herself_, as she will prove if necessary. he fancies, or asserts himself, the victim of a domestic complot against him;--accounts are accounts--prices are prices;--let him make out a fair detail. _i_ am not prejudiced against him--on the contrary, i supported him against the complaints of his wife, and of his former master, at a time when i could have crushed him like an earwig; and if he is a scoundrel, he is the greatest of scoundrels, an ungrateful one. the truth is, probably, that he thought i was leaving venice, and determined to make the most of it. at present he keeps bringing in _account after account_, though he had always money in hand--as i believe you know my system was never to allow longer than a week's bills to run. pray read him this letter--i desire nothing to be concealed against which he may defend himself. "pray how is your little boy? and how are you?--i shall be up in venice very soon, and we will be bilious together. i hate the place and all that it inherits. "yours," &c. [footnote : "this language" (says mr. hoppner, in some remarks upon the above letter) "is strong, but it was the language of prejudice; and he was rather apt thus to express the feelings of the moment, without troubling himself to consider how soon he might be induced to change them. he was at this time so sensitive on the subject of madame * *, that, merely because some persons had disapproved of her conduct, he declaimed in the above manner against the whole nation. i never" (continues mr. hoppner) "was partial to venice; but disliked it almost from the first month of my residence there. yet i experienced more kindness in that place than i ever met with in any country, and witnessed acts of generosity and disinterestedness such as rarely are met with elsewhere."] * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "october . . "i have to thank you for your letter, and your compliment to don juan. i said nothing to you about it, understanding that it is a sore subject with the moral reader, and has been the cause of a great row; but i am glad you like it. i will say nothing about the shipwreck, except that i hope you think it is as nautical and technical as verse could admit in the octave measure. "the poem has _not sold well_, so murray says--'but the best judges, &c. say, &c.' so says that worthy man. i have never seen it in print. the third canto is in advance about one hundred stanzas; but the failure of the two first has weakened my _estro_, and it will neither be so good as the two former, nor completed, unless i get a little more _riscaldato_ in its behalf. i understand the outcry was beyond every thing.--pretty cant for people who read tom jones, and roderick random, and the bath guide, and ariosto, and dryden, and pope--to say nothing of little's poems! of course i refer to the _morality_ of these works, and not to any pretension of mine to compete with them in any thing but decency. i hope yours is the paris edition, and that you did not pay the london price. i have seen neither except in the newspapers. "pray make my respects to mrs. h., and take care of your little boy. all my household have the fever and ague, except fletcher, allegra, and my_sen_ (as we used to say in nottinghamshire), and the horses, and mutz, and moretto. in the beginning of november, perhaps sooner, i expect to have the pleasure of seeing you. to-day i got drenched by a thunder-storm, and my horse and groom too, and his horse all bemired up to the middle in a cross-road. it was summer at noon, and at five we were bewintered; but the lightning was sent perhaps to let us know that the summer was not yet over. it is queer weather for the th october. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, october . . "yours of the th came yesterday. i am sorry that you do not mention a large letter addressed to _your care_ for lady byron, from me, at bologna, two months ago. pray tell me, was this letter received and forwarded? "you say nothing of the vice-consulate for the ravenna patrician, from which it is to be inferred that the thing will not be done. "i had written about a hundred stanzas of a _third_ canto to don juan, but the reception of the two first is no encouragement to you nor me to proceed. "i had also written about lines of a poem, the vision (or prophecy) of dante, the subject a view of italy in the ages down to the present--supposing dante to speak in his own person, previous to his death, and embracing all topics in the way of prophecy, like lycophron's cassandra; but this and the other are both at a stand-still for the present. "i gave moore, who is gone to rome, my life in ms., in seventy-eight folio sheets, brought down to . but this i put into his hands for _his_ care, as he has some other mss. of mine--a journal kept in , &c. neither are for publication during my life; but when i am cold you may do what you please. in the mean time, if you like to read them you may, and show them to anybody you like--i care not. "the life is _memoranda_, and not _confessions_ i have left out all my _loves_ (except in a general way), and many other of the most important things (because i must not compromise other people), so that it is like the play of hamlet--'the part of hamlet omitted by particular desire.' but you will find many opinions, and some fun, with a detailed account of my marriage, and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such account, for i suppose we are all prejudiced. "i have never read over this life since it was written, so that i know not exactly what it may repeat or contain. moore and i passed some merry days together. "i probably must return for business, or in my way to america. pray, did you get a letter for hobhouse, who will have told you the contents? i understand that the venezuelan commissioners had orders to treat with emigrants; now i want to go there. i should not make a bad south-american planter, and i should take my natural daughter, allegra, with me, and settle. i wrote, at length, to hobhouse, to get information from perry, who, i suppose, is the best topographer and trumpeter of the new republicans. pray write. "yours ever. "p.s. moore and i did nothing but laugh. he will tell you of 'my whereabouts,' and all my proceedings at this present; they are as usual. you should not let those fellows publish false 'don juans;' but do not put _my name_, because i mean to cut r----ts up like a gourd, in the preface, if i continue the poem." * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "october . . "the ferrara story is of a piece with all the rest of the venetian manufacture,--you may judge. i only changed horses there since i wrote to you, after my visit in june last. '_convent_' and '_carry off_', quotha! and '_girl_.' i should like to know _who_ has been carried off, except poor dear _me_. i have been more ravished myself than anybody since the trojan war; but as to the arrest and its causes, one is as true as the other, and i can account for the invention of neither. i suppose it is some confusion of the tale of the f * * and of me. guiccioli, and half a dozen more; but it is useless to unravel the web, when one has only to brush it away. i shall settle with master e. who looks very blue at your _in-decision_, and swears that he is the best arithmetician in europe; and so i think also, for he makes out two and two to be five. "you may see me next week. i have a horse or two more (five in all), and i shall repossess myself of lido, and i will rise earlier, and we will go and shake our livers over the beach, as heretofore, if you like--and we will make the adriatic roar again with our hatred of that now empty oyster-shell, without its pearl, the city of venice. "murray sent me a letter yesterday: the impostors have published _two_ new _third_ cantos of _don juan_;--the devil take the impudence of some blackguard bookseller or other _therefor_! perhaps i did not make myself understood; he told me the sale had been great, out of quarto, i believe (which is nothing after selling , of the corsair in one day); but that the 'best judges,' &c. had said it was very fine, and clever, and particularly good english, and poetry, and all those consolatory things, which are not, however, worth a single copy to a bookseller: and as to the author, of course i am in a d----ned passion at the bad taste of the times, and swear there is nothing like posterity, who, of course, must know more of the matter than their grandfathers. there has been an eleventh commandment to the women not to read it, and, what is still more extraordinary, they seem not to have broken it. but that can be of little import to them, poor things, for the reading or non-reading a book will never * * * *. "count g. comes to venice next week, and i am requested to consign his wife to him, which shall be done. what you say of the long evenings at the mira, or venice, reminds me of what curran said to moore:--'so i hear you have married a pretty woman, and a very good creature, too--an excellent creature. pray--um! _how do you pass your evenings?_' it is a devil of a question that, and perhaps as easy to answer with a wife as with a mistress. "if you go to milan, pray leave at least a _vice-consul_--the only vice that will ever be wanting in venice. d'orville is a good fellow. but you shall go to england in the spring with me, and plant mrs. hoppner at berne with her relations for a few months. i wish you had been here (at venice, i mean, not the mira) when moore was here--we were very merry and tipsy. he _hated_ venice, by the way, and swore it was a sad place.[ ] "so madame albrizzi's death is in danger--poor woman! moore told me that at geneva they had made a devil of a story of the fornaretta:--'young lady seduced!--subsequent abandonment!--leap into the grand canal!'--and her being in the 'hospital of _fous_ in consequence!' i should like to know who was nearest being made '_fou_,' and be d----d to them i don't you think me in the interesting character of a very ill used gentleman? i hope your little boy is well. allegrina is flourishing like a pomegranate blossom. yours," &c. [footnote : i beg to say that this report of my opinion of venice is coloured somewhat too deeply by the feelings of the reporter.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, november . . "mr. hoppner has lent me a copy of 'don juan,' paris edition, which he tells me is read in switzerland by clergymen and ladies with considerable approbation. in the second canto, you must alter the th stanza to "'twas twilight, and the sunless day went down over the waste of waters, like a veil which if withdrawn would but disclose the frown of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail; thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, and grimly darkled o'er their faces pale and the dim desolate deep; twelve days had fear been their familiar, and now death was here. "i have been ill these eight days with a tertian fever, caught in the country on horseback in a thunderstorm. yesterday i had the fourth attack: the two last were very smart, the first day as well as the last being preceded by vomiting. it is the fever of the place and the season. i feel weakened, but not unwell, in the intervals, except headach and lassitude. "count guiccioli has arrived in venice, and has presented his spouse (who had preceded him two months for her health and the prescriptions of dr. aglietti) with a paper of conditions, regulations of hours and conduct, and morals, &c. &c. &c. which he insists on her accepting, and she persists in refusing. i am expressly, it should seem, excluded by this treaty, as an indispensable preliminary; so that they are in high dissension, and what the result may be i know not, particularly as they are consulting friends. "to-night, as countess guiccioli observed me poring over 'don juan,' she stumbled by mere chance on the th stanza of the first canto, and asked me what it meant. i told her, 'nothing--but "your husband is coming."' as i said this in italian, with some emphasis, she started up in a fright, and said, '_oh, my god, is_ he _coming_?' thinking it was _her own_, who either was or ought to have been at the theatre. you may suppose we laughed when she found out the mistake. you will be amused, as i was;--it happened not three hours ago. "i wrote to you last week, but have added nothing to the third canto since my fever, nor to 'the prophecy of dante.' of the former there are about octaves done; of the latter about lines--perhaps more. moore saw the third juan, as far as it then went. i do not know if my fever will let me go on with either, and the tertian lasts, they say, a good while. i had it in malta on my way home, and the malaria fever in greece the year before that. the venetian is not very fierce, but i was delirious one of the nights with it, for an hour or two, and, on my senses coming back, found fletcher sobbing on one side of the bed, and la contessa guiccioli[ ] weeping on the other; so that i had no want of attendance. i have not yet taken any physician, because, though i think they may relieve in chronic disorders, such as gout and the like, &c. &c. &c. (though they can't cure them)--just as surgeons are necessary to set bones and tend wounds--yet i think fevers quite out of their reach, and remediable only by diet and nature. "i don't like the taste of bark, but i suppose that i must take it soon. "tell rose that somebody at milan (an austrian, mr. hoppner says) is answering his book. william bankes is in quarantine at trieste. i have not lately heard from you. excuse this paper: it is long paper shortened for the occasion. what folly is this of carlile's trial? why let him have the honours of a martyr? it will only advertise the books in question. yours, &c. "p.s. as i tell you that the guiccioli business is on the eve of exploding in one way or the other, i will just add that, without attempting to influence the decision of the contessa, a good deal depends upon it. if she and her husband make it up, you will, perhaps, see me in england sooner than you expect. if not, i shall retire with her to france or america, change my name, and lead a quiet provincial life. all this may seem odd, but i have got the poor girl into a scrape; and as neither her birth, nor her rank, nor her connections by birth or marriage are inferior to my own, i am in honour bound to support her through. besides, she is a very pretty woman--ask moore--and not yet one and twenty. "if she gets over this and i get over my tertian, i will, perhaps, look in at albemarle street, some of these days, _en passant_ to bolivar." [footnote : the following curious particulars of his delirium are given by madame guiccioli:--"at the beginning of winter count guiccioli came from ravenna to fetch me. when he arrived, lord byron was ill of a fever, occasioned by his having got wet through;--a violent storm having surprised him while taking his usual exercise on horseback. he had been delirious the whole night, and i had watched continually by his bedside. during his delirium he composed a good many verses, and ordered his servant to write them down from his dictation. the rhythm of these verses was quite correct, and the poetry itself had no appearance of being the work of a delirious mind. he preserved them for some time after he got well, and then burned them."--"sul cominciare dell' inverno il conte guiccioli venne a prendermi per ricondurmi a ravenna. quando egli giunse ld. byron era ammalato di febbri prese per essersi bagnato avendolo sorpreso un forte temporale mentre faceva l' usato suo esercizio a cavallo. egli aveva delirato tutta la notte, ed io aveva sempre vegliato presso al suo letto. nel suo delirio egli compose molti versi che ordinò al suo domestico di scrivere sotto la sua dittatura. la misura dei versi era esatissima, e la poesia pure non pareva opera di una mente in delirio. egli la conservò lungo tempo dopo restabilito--poi l' abbrucciò." i have been informed, too, that, during his ravings at this time, he was constantly haunted by the idea of his mother-in-law,--taking every one that came near him for her, and reproaching those about him for letting her enter his room.] * * * * * letter . to mr. bankes. "venice, november . . "a tertian ague which has troubled me for some time, and the indisposition of my daughter, have prevented me from replying before to your welcome letter. i have not been ignorant of your progress nor of your discoveries, and i trust that you are no worse in health from your labours. you may rely upon finding every body in england eager to reap the fruits of them; and as you have done more than other men, i hope you will not limit yourself to saying less than may do justice to the talents and time you have bestowed on your perilous researches. the first sentence of my letter will have explained to you why i cannot join you at trieste. i was on the point of setting out for england (before i knew of your arrival) when my child's illness has made her and me dependent on a venetian proto-medico. "it is now seven years since you and i met;--which time you have employed better for others and more honourably for yourself than i have done. "in england you will find considerable changes, public and private,--you will see some of our old college contemporaries turned into lords of the treasury, admiralty, and the like,--others become reformers and orators,--many settled in life, as it is called,--and others settled in death; among the latter, (by the way, not our fellow collegians,) sheridan, curran, lady melbourne, monk lewis, frederick douglas, &c. &c. &c.; but you will still find mr. * * living and all his family, as also * * * * *. "should you come up this way, and i am still here, you need not be assured how glad i shall be to see you; i long to hear some part from you, of that which i expect in no long time to see. at length you have had better fortune than any traveller of equal enterprise (except humboldt), in returning safe; and after the fate of the brownes, and the parkes, and the burckhardts, it is hardly less surprise than satisfaction to get you back again. "believe me ever "and very affectionately yours, "byron." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, december . . "you may do as you please, but you are about a hopeless experiment. eldon will decide against you, were it only that my name is in the record. you will also recollect that if the publication is pronounced against, on the grounds you mention, as _indecent and blasphemous_, that _i_ lose all right in my daughter's _guardianship_ and _education_, in short, all paternal authority, and every thing concerning her, except * * * * * * * * it was so decided in shelley's case, because he had written queen mab, &c. &c. however, you can ask the lawyers, and do as you like: i do not inhibit you trying the question; i merely state one of the consequences to me. with regard to the copyright, it is hard that you should pay for a nonentity: i will therefore refund it, which i can very well do, not having spent it, nor begun upon it; and so we will be quits on that score. it lies at my banker's. "of the chancellor's law i am no judge; but take up tom jones, and read his mrs. waters and molly seagrim; or prior's hans carvel and paulo purganti: smollett's roderick random, the chapter of lord strutwell, and many others; peregrine pickle, the scene of the beggar girl; johnson's _london_, for coarse expressions; for instance, the words '* *,' and '* *;' anstey's bath guide, the 'hearken, lady betty, hearken;'--take up, in short, pope, prior, congreve, dryden, fielding, smollett, and let the counsel select passages, and what becomes of _their_ copyright, if his wat tyler decision is to pass into a precedent? i have nothing more to say: you must judge for yourselves. "i wrote to you some time ago. i have had a tertian ague; my daughter allegra has been ill also, and i have been almost obliged to run away with a married woman; but with some difficulty, and many internal struggles, i reconciled the lady with her lord, and cured the fever of the child with bark, and my own with cold water. i think of setting out for england by the tyrol in a few days, so that i could wish you to direct your next letter to calais. excuse my writing in great haste and late in the morning, or night, whichever you please to call it. the third canto of 'don juan' is completed, in about two hundred stanzas; very decent, i believe, but do not know, and it is useless to discuss until it be ascertained if it may or may not be a property. "my present determination to quit italy was unlooked for; but i have explained the reasons in letters to my sister and douglas kinnaird, a week or two ago. my progress will depend upon the snows of the tyrol, and the health of my child, who is at present quite recovered; but i hope to get on well, and am "yours ever and truly. "p.s. many thanks for your letters, to which you are not to consider this as an answer, but as an acknowledgment." * * * * * the struggle which, at the time of my visit to him, i had found lord byron so well disposed to make towards averting, as far as now lay in his power, some of the mischievous consequences which, both to the object of his attachment and himself, were likely to result from their connection, had been brought, as the foregoing letters show, to a crisis soon after i left him. the count guiccioli, on his arrival at venice, insisted, as we have seen, that his lady should return with him; and, after some conjugal negotiations, in which lord byron does not appear to have interfered, the young contessa consented reluctantly to accompany her lord to ravenna, it being first covenanted that, in future, all communication between her and her lover should cease. "in a few days after this," says mr. hoppner, in some notices of his noble friend with which he has favoured me, "he returned to venice, very much out of spirits, owing to madame guiccioli's departure, and out of humour with every body and every thing around him. we resumed our rides at the lido; and i did my best not only to raise his spirits, but to make him forget his absent mistress, and to keep him to his purpose of returning to england. he went into no society; and having no longer any relish for his former occupation, his time, when he was not writing, hung heavy enough on hand." the promise given by the lovers not to correspond was, as all parties must have foreseen, soon violated; and the letters lord byron addressed to the lady, at this time, though written in a language not his own, are rendered frequently even eloquent by the mere force of the feeling that governed him--a feeling which could not have owed its fuel to fancy alone, since now that reality had been so long substituted, it still burned on. from one of these letters, dated november th, i shall so far presume upon the discretionary power vested in me, as to lay a short extract or two before the reader--not merely as matters of curiosity, but on account of the strong evidence they afford of the struggle between passion and a sense of right that now agitated him. "you are," he says, "and ever will be, my first thought. but, at this moment, i am in a state most dreadful, not knowing which way to decide;--on the one hand, fearing that i should compromise you for ever, by my return to ravenna and the consequences of such a step, and, on the other, dreading that i shall lose both you and myself, and all that i have ever known or tasted of happiness, by never seeing you more. i pray of you, i implore you to be comforted, and to believe that i cannot cease to love you but with my life." [ ] in another part he says, "i go to save you, and leave a country insupportable to me without you. your letters to f * * and myself do wrong to my motives--but you will yet see your injustice. it is not enough that i must leave you--from motives of which ere long you will be convinced--it is not enough that i must fly from italy, with a heart deeply wounded, after having passed all my days in solitude since your departure, sick both in body and mind--but i must also have to endure your reproaches without answering and without deserving them. farewell! in that one word is comprised the death of my happiness." [ ] he had now arranged every thing for his departure for england, and had even fixed the day, when accounts reached him from ravenna that the contessa was alarmingly ill;--her sorrow at their separation having so much preyed upon her mind, that even her own family, fearful of the consequences, had withdrawn all opposition to her wishes, and now, with the sanction of count guiccioli himself, entreated her lover to hasten to ravenna. what was he, in this dilemma, to do? already had he announced his coming to different friends in england, and every dictate, he felt, of prudence and manly fortitude urged his departure. while thus balancing between duty and inclination, the day appointed for his setting out arrived; and the following picture, from the life, of his irresolution on the occasion, is from a letter written by a female friend of madame guiccioli, who was present at the scene:--"he was ready dressed for the journey, his gloves and cap on, and even his little cane in his hand. nothing was now waited for but his coming down stairs,--his boxes being already all on board the gondola. at this moment, my lord, by way of pretext, declares, that if it should strike one o'clock before every thing was in order (his arms being the only thing not yet quite ready), he would not go that day. the hour strikes, and he remains!"[ ] the writer adds, "it is evident he has not the heart to go;" and the result proved that she had not judged him wrongly. the very next day's tidings from ravenna decided his fate, and he himself, in a letter to the contessa, thus announces the triumph which she had achieved. "f * * * will already have told you, _with her accustomed sublimity_, that love has gained the victory. i could not summon up resolution enough to leave the country where you are, without, at least, once more seeing you. on _yourself_, perhaps, it will depend, whether i ever again shall leave you. of the rest we shall speak when we meet. you ought, by this time, to know which is most conducive to your welfare, my presence or my absence. for myself, i am a citizen of the world--all countries are alike to me. you have ever been, since our first acquaintance, _the sole object of my thoughts_. my opinion was, that the best course i could adopt, both for your peace and that of all your family, would have been to depart and go far, _far_ away from you;--since to have been near and not approach you would have been, for me, impossible. you have however decided that i am to return to ravenna. i shall accordingly return--and shall _do_--and _be_ all that you wish. i cannot say more.[ ] on quitting venice he took leave of mr. hoppner in a short but cordial letter, which i cannot better introduce than by prefixing to it the few words of comment with which this excellent friend of the noble poet has himself accompanied it:--"i need not say with what painful feeling i witnessed the departure of a person who, from the first day of our acquaintance, had treated me with unvaried kindness, reposing a confidence in me which it was beyond the power of my utmost efforts to deserve; admitting me to an intimacy which i had no right to claim, and listening with patience, and the greatest good temper, to the remonstrances i ventured to make upon his conduct." [footnote : "tu sei, e sarai sempre mio primo pensier. ma in questo momento sono in un' stato orribile non sapendo cosa decidere;--temendo, da una parte, comprometterti in eterno col mio ritorno a ravenna, e colle sue consequenze; e, dal' altra perderti, e me stesso, e tutto quel che ho conosciuto o gustato di felicità, nel non vederti più. ti prego, ti supplico calmarti, e credere che non posso cessare ad amarti che colla vita."] [footnote : "io parto, per _salvarti_, e lascio un paese divenuto insopportabile senza di te. le tue lettere alla f * *, ed anche a me stesso fanno torto ai miei motivi; ma col tempo vedrai la tua ingiustizia. tu parli del dolor--io lo sento, ma mi mancano le parole. non basta lasciarti per dei motivi dei quali tu eri persuasa (non molto tempo fa)--non basta partire dall' italia col cuore lacerato, dopo aver passato tutti i giorni dopo la tua partenza nella solitudine, ammalato di corpo e di anima--ma ho anche a sopportare i tuoi rimproveri, senza replicarti, e senza meritarli. addio--in quella parola è compresa la morte _di_ mia felicità." the close of this last sentence exhibits one of the very few instances of incorrectness that lord byron falls into in these letters;--the proper construction being "_della_ mia felicità."] [footnote : "egli era tutto vestito di viaggio coi guanti fra le mani, col suo bonnet, e persino colla piccola sua canna; non altro aspettavasi che egli scendesse le scale, tutti i bauli erano in barca. milord fa la pretesta che se suona un ora dopo il mezzodi e che non sia ogni cosa all' ordine (poichè le armi sole non erano in pronto) egli non partirebbe più per quel giorno. l'ora suona ed egli resta."] [footnote : "la f * * ti avra detta, _colla sua solita sublimità_, che l'amor ha vinto. io non ho potuto trovare forza di anima per lasciare il paese dove tu sei, senza vederti almeno un' altra volta:--forse dipenderà da _te_ se mai ti lascio più. per il resto parleremo. tu dovresti adesso sapere cosa sarà più convenevole al tuo ben essere la mia presenza o la mia lontananza. io sono cittadino del mondo--tutti i paesi sono eguali per me. tu sei stata sempre (dopo che ci siamo conosciuti) _l'unico oggetto di miei_ pensieri. credeva che il miglior partito per la pace tua e la pace di tua famiglia fosse il mio partire, e andare ben _lontano_; poichè stare vicino e non avvicinarti sarebbe per me impossible. ma tu hai deciso che io debbo ritornare a ravenna--tornaro--e farò--e sarò ciò die tu vuoi. non posso dirti di più."] * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "my dear hoppner, "partings are but bitter work at best, so that i shall not venture on a second with you. pray make my respects to mrs. hoppner, and assure her of my unalterable reverence for the singular goodness of her disposition, which is not without its reward even in this world--for those who are no great believers in human virtues would discover enough in her to give them a better opinion of their fellow-creatures and--what is still more difficult--of themselves, as being of the same species, however inferior in approaching its nobler models. make, too, what excuses you can for my omission of the ceremony of leave-taking. if we all meet again, i will make my humblest apology; if not, recollect that i wished you all well; and, if you can, forget that i have given you a great deal of trouble. "yours," &c. &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "venice, december . . "since i last wrote, i have changed my mind, and shall not come to england. the more i contemplate, the more i dislike the place and the prospect. you may, therefore, address to me as usual _here_, though i mean to go to another city. i have finished the third canto of don juan, but the things i have read and heard discourage all further publication--at least for the present. you may try the copy question, but you'll lose it: the cry is up, and cant is up. i should have no objection to return the price of the copyright, and have written to mr. kinnaird by this post on the subject. talk with him. "i have not the patience, nor do i feel interest enough in the question, to contend with the fellows in their own slang; but i perceive mr. blackwood's magazine and one or two others of your missives have been hyperbolical in their praise, and diabolical in their abuse. i like and admire w * *n, and _he_ should not have indulged himself in such outrageous licence.[ ] it is overdone and defeats itself. what would he say to the grossness without passion and the misanthropy without feeling of gulliver's travels?--when he talks of lady's byron's business, he talks of what he knows nothing about; and you may tell him that no one can more desire a public investigation of that affair than i do. "i sent home by moore (_for_ moore only, who has my journal also) my memoir written up to , and i gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, but _not to publish_, on any account. you may read it, and you may let w * *n read it, if he likes--not for his _public_ opinion, but his private; for i like the man, and care very little about his magazine. and i could wish lady b. herself to read it, that she may have it in her power to mark any thing mistaken or mis-stated; as it may probably appear after my extinction, and it would be but fair she should see it,--that is to say, herself willing. "perhaps i may take a journey to you in the spring; but i _have_ been ill and _am_ indolent and indecisive, because few things interest me. these fellows first abused me for being gloomy, and now they are wroth that i am, or attempted to be, facetious. i have got such a cold and headach that i can hardly see what i scrawl:--the winters here are as sharp as needles. some time ago, i wrote to you rather fully about my italian affairs; at present i can say no more except that you shall hear further by and by. "your blackwood accuses me of treating women harshly: it may be so, but i have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed _to_ them and _by_ them. i mean to leave venice in a few days, but you will address your letters _here_ as usual. when i fix elsewhere, you shall know." [footnote : this is one of the many mistakes into which his distance from the scene of literary operations led him. the gentleman, to whom the hostile article in the magazine is here attributed, has never, either then or since, written upon the subject of the noble poet's character or genius, without giving vent to a feeling of admiration as enthusiastic as it is always eloquently and powerfully expressed.] * * * * * soon after this letter to mr. murray he set out for ravenna, from which place we shall find his correspondence for the next year and a half dated. for a short time after his arrival, he took up his residence at an inn; but the count guiccioli having allowed him to hire a suite of apartments in the palazzo guiccioli itself, he was once more lodged under the same roof with the countess guiccioli. * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "ravenna, dec. . . "i have been here this week, and was obliged to put on my armour and go the night after my arrival to the marquis cavalli's, where there were between two and three hundred of the best company i have seen in italy,--more beauty, more youth, and more diamonds among the women than have been seen these fifty years in the sea-sodom.[ ] i never saw such a difference between two places of the same latitude, (or platitude, it is all one,)--music, dancing, and play, all in the same _salle_. the g.'s object appeared to be to parade her foreign friend as much as possible, and, faith, if she seemed to glory in so doing, it was not for me to be ashamed of it. nobody seemed surprised;--all the women, on the contrary, were, as it were, delighted with the excellent example. the vice-legate, and all the other vices, were as polite as could be;--and i, who had acted on the reserve, was fairly obliged to take the lady under my arm, and look as much like a cicisbeo as i could on so short a notice,--to say nothing of the embarrassment of a cocked hat and sword, much more formidable to me than ever it will be to the enemy. "i write in great haste--do you answer as hastily. i can understand nothing of all this; but it seems as if the g. had been presumed to be _planted_, and was determined to show that she was not,--_plantation_, in this hemisphere, being the greatest moral misfortune. but this is mere conjecture, for i know nothing about it--except that every body are very kind to her, and not discourteous to me. fathers, and all relations, quite agreeable. "yours ever, "b. "p.s. best respects to mrs. h. "i would send the _compliments_ of the season; but the season itself is so complimentary with snow and rain that i wait for sunshine." [footnote : "gehenna of the waters! thou sea-sodom!" marino faliero. ] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "january . . "my dear moore, "'to-day it is my wedding day; and all the folks would stare, if wife should dine at edmonton, and i should dine at ware.' or _thus_: "here's a happy new year! but with reason, i beg you'll permit me to say-- wish me many returns of the _season_, but as _few_ as you please of the _day_. "my this present writing is to direct you that, if _she chooses_, she may see the ms. memoir in your possession. i wish her to have fair play, in all cases, even though it will not be published till after my decease. for this purpose, it were but just that lady b. should know what is there said of her and hers, that she may have full power to remark on or respond to any part or parts, as may seem fitting to herself. this is fair dealing, i presume, in all events. "to change the subject, are you in england? i send you an epitaph for castlereagh. * * * * * another for pitt:-- "with death doom'd to grapple beneath this cold slab, he who lied in the chapel now lies in the abbey. "the gods seem to have made me poetical this day:-- "in digging up your bones, tom paine, will. cobbett has done well: you visit him on earth again, he'll visit you in hell. or, "you come to him on earth again, he'll go with you to hell. "pray let not these versiculi go forth with my name, except among the initiated, because my friend h. has foamed into a reformer, and, i greatly fear, will subside into newgate; since the honourable house, according to galignani's reports of parliamentary debates, are menacing a prosecution to a pamphlet of his. i shall be very sorry to hear of any thing but good for him, particularly in these miserable squabbles; but these are the natural effects of taking a part in them. "for my own part i had a sad scene since you went. count gu. came for his wife, and _none_ of those consequences which scott prophesied ensued. there was no damages, as in england, and so scott lost his wager. but there was a great scene, for she would not, at first, go back with him--at least, she _did_ go back with him; but he insisted, reasonably enough, that all communication should be broken off between her and me. so, finding italy very dull, and having a fever tertian, i packed up my valise, and prepared to cross the alps; but my daughter fell ill, and detained me. "after her arrival at ravenna, the guiccioli fell ill again too; and at last, her father (who had, all along, opposed the liaison most violently till now) wrote to me to say that she was in such a state that _he_ begged me to come and see her,--and that her husband had acquiesced, in consequence of her relapse, and that _he_ (her father) would guarantee all this, and that there would be no farther scenes in consequence between them, and that i should not be compromised in any way. i set out soon after, and have been here ever since. i found her a good deal altered, but getting better:--_all_ this comes of reading corinna. "the carnival is about to begin, and i saw about two or three hundred people at the marquis cavalli's the other evening, with as much youth, beauty, and diamonds among the women, as ever averaged in the like number. my appearance in waiting on the guiccioli was considered as a thing of course. the marquis is her uncle, and naturally considered me as her relation. "the paper is out, and so is the letter. pray write. address to venice, whence the letters will be forwarded. yours, &c. b." * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "ravenna, january . . "i have not decided any thing about remaining at ravenna. i may stay a day, a week, a year, all my life; but all this depends upon what i can neither see nor foresee. i came because i was called, and will go the moment that i perceive what may render my departure proper. my attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the microscopic accuracy of the close to such liaisons; but 'time and the hour' must decide upon what i do. i can as yet say nothing, because i hardly know any thing beyond what i have told you. "i wrote to you last post for my movables, as there is no getting a lodging with a chair or table here ready; and as i have already some things of the sort at bologna which i had last summer there for my daughter, i have directed them to be moved; and wish the like to be done with those of venice, that i may at least get out of the 'albergo imperiale,' which _is imperial_ in all true sense of the epithet. buffini may be paid for his poison. i forgot to thank you and mrs. hoppner for a whole treasure of toys for allegra before our departure; it was very kind, and we are very grateful. "your account of the weeding of the governor's party is very entertaining. if you do not understand the consular exceptions, i do; and it is right that a man of honour, and a woman of probity, should find it so, particularly in a place where there are not 'ten righteous.' as to nobility--in england none are strictly noble but peers, not even peers' sons, though titled by courtesy; nor knights of the garter, unless of the peerage, so that castlereagh himself would hardly pass through a foreign herald's ordeal till the death of his father. "the snow is a foot deep here. there is a theatre, and opera,--the barber of seville. balls begin on monday next. pay the porter for never looking after the gate, and ship my chattels, and let me know, or let castelli let me know, how my law-suits go on--but fee him only in proportion to his success. perhaps we may meet in the spring yet, if you are for england. i see h * * has got into a scrape, which does not please me; he should not have gone so deep among those men without calculating the consequences. i used to think myself the most imprudent of all among my friends and acquaintances, but almost begin to doubt it. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "ravenna, january . . "you would hardly have been troubled with the removal of my furniture, but there is none to be had nearer than bologna, and i have been fain to have that of the rooms which i fitted up for my daughter there in the summer removed here. the expense will be at least as great of the land carriage, so that you see it was necessity, and not choice. here they get every thing from bologna, except some lighter articles from forli or faenza. "if scott is returned, pray remember me to him, and plead laziness the whole and sole cause of my not replying:--dreadful is the exertion of letter-writing. the carnival here is less boisterous, but we have balls and a theatre. i carried bankes to both, and he carried away, i believe, a much more favourable impression of the society here than of that of venice,--recollect that i speak of the _native_ society only. "i am drilling very hard to learn how to double a shawl, and should succeed to admiration if i did not always double it the wrong side out; and then i sometimes confuse and bring away two, so as to put all the servanti out, besides keeping their _servite_ in the cold till every body can get back their property. but it is a dreadfully moral place, for you must not look at anybody's wife except your neighbour's,--if you go to the next door but one, you are scolded, and presumed to be perfidious. and then a relazione or an amicizia seems to be a regular affair of from five to fifteen years, at which period, if there occur a widowhood, it finishes by a sposalizio; and in the mean time it has so many rules of its own that it is not much better. a man actually becomes a piece of female property,--they won't let their serventi marry until there is a vacancy for themselves. i know two instances of this in one family here. "to-night there was a ----[ ] lottery after the opera; it is an odd ceremony. bankes and i took tickets of it, and buffooned together very merrily. he is gone to firenze. mrs. j * * should have sent you my postscript; there was no occasion to have bored you in person. i never interfere in anybody's squabbles,--she may scratch your face herself. "the weather here has been dreadful--snow several feet--a _fiume_, broke down a bridge, and flooded heaven knows how many _campi_; then rain came--and it is still thawing--so that my saddle-horses have a sinecure till the roads become more practicable. why did lega give away the goat? a blockhead--i must have him again. "will you pay missiaglia and the buffo buffini of the gran bretagna? i heard from moore, who is at paris; i had previously written to him in london, but he has not yet got my letter, apparently. "believe me," &c. [footnote : the word here, being under the seal, is illegible.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, february . . "i have had no letter from you these two months; but since i came here in december, , i sent you a letter for moore, who is god knows _where_--in paris or london, i presume. i have copied and cut the third canto of don juan _into two_, because it was too long; and i tell you this beforehand, because in case of any reckoning between you and me, these two are only to go for one, as this was the original form, and, in fact, the two together are not longer than one of the first: so remember that i have not made this division to _double_ upon _you_; but merely to suppress some tediousness in the aspect of the thing. i should have served you a pretty trick if i had sent you, for example, cantos of stanzas each. "i am translating the first canto of pulci's morgante maggiore, and have half done it; but these last days of the carnival confuse and interrupt every thing. "i have not yet sent off the cantos, and have some doubt whether they ought to be published, for they have not the spirit of the first. the outcry has not frightened but it has _hurt_ me, and i have not written _con amore_ this time. it is very decent, however, and as dull as 'the last new comedy.' "i think my translations of pulci will make you stare. it must be put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse; and you will see what was permitted in a catholic country and a bigoted age to a churchman, on the score of religion;--and so tell those buffoons who accuse me of attacking the liturgy. "i write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the corso, and i must go and buffoon with the rest. my daughter allegra is just gone with the countess g. in count g.'s coach and six to join the cavalcade, and i must follow with all the rest of the ravenna world. our old cardinal is dead, and the new one not appointed yet; but the masquing goes on the same, the vice-legate being a good governor. we have had hideous frost and snow, but all is mild again. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. bankes. "ravenna, february . . "i have room for you in the house here, as i had in venice, if you think fit to make use of it; but do not expect to find the same gorgeous suite of tapestried halls. neither dangers nor tropical heats have ever prevented your penetrating wherever you had a mind to it, and why should the snow now?--italian snow--fie on it!--so pray come. tita's heart yearns for you, and mayhap for your silver broad pieces; and your playfellow, the monkey, is alone and inconsolable. "i forget whether you admire or tolerate red hair, so that i rather dread showing you all that i have about me and around me in this city. come, nevertheless,--you can pay dante a morning visit, and i will undertake that theodore and honoria will be most happy to see you in the forest hard by. we goths, also, of ravenna, hope you will not despise our arch-goth, theodoric. i must leave it to these worthies to entertain you all the fore part of the day, seeing that i have none at all myself--the lark that rouses me from my slumbers, being an afternoon bird. but, then, all your evenings, and as much as you can give me of your nights, will be mine. ay! and you will find me eating flesh, too, like yourself or any other cannibal, except it be upon fridays. then, there are more cantos (and be d----d to them) of what the courteous reader, mr. s----, calls grub street, in my drawer, which i have a little scheme to commit to your charge for england; only i must first cut up (or cut down) two aforesaid cantos into three, because i am grown base and mercenary, and it is an ill precedent to let my mecænas, murray, get too much for his money. i am busy, also, with pulci--translating--servilely translating, stanza for stanza, and line for line--two octaves every night,--the same allowance as at venice. "would you call at your banker's at bologna, and ask him for some letters lying there for me, and burn them?--or i will--so do not burn them, but bring them,--and believe me ever and very affectionately yours, "byron. "p.s. i have a particular wish to hear from yourself something about cyprus, so pray recollect all that you can.--good night." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, february . . "the bull-dogs will be very agreeable. i have only those of this country, who, though good, have not the tenacity of tooth and stoicism in endurance of my canine fellow-citizens: then pray send them by the readiest conveyance--perhaps best by sea. mr. kinnaird will disburse for them, and deduct from the amount on your application or that of captain tyler. "i see the good old king is gone to his place. one can't help being sorry, though blindness, and age, and insanity, are supposed to be drawbacks on human felicity; but i am not at all sure that the latter, at least, might not render him happier than any of his subjects. "i have no thoughts of coming to the coronation, though i should like to see it, and though i have a right to be a puppet in it; but my division with lady byron, which has drawn an equinoctial line between me and mine in all other things, will operate in this also to prevent my being in the same procession. "by saturday's post i sent you four packets, containing cantos third and fourth. recollect that these two cantos reckon only as _one_ with you and me, being, in fact, the third canto cut into two, because i found it too long. remember this, and don't imagine that there could be any other motive. the whole is about stanzas, more or less, and a lyric of lines, so that they are no longer than the first _single_ cantos: but the truth is, that i made the first too long, and should have cut those down also had i thought better. instead of saying in future for so many cantos, say so many stanzas or pages: it was jacob tonson's way, and certainly the best; it prevents mistakes. i might have sent you a dozen cantos of stanzas each,--those of 'the minstrel' (beattie's) are no longer,--and ruined you at once, if you don't suffer as it is. but recollect that you are not _pinned down_ to any thing you say in a letter, and that, calculating even these two cantos as _one_ only (which they were and are to be reckoned), you are not bound by your offer. act as may seem fair to all parties. "i have finished my translation of the first canto of 'the morgante maggiore' of pulci, which i will transcribe and send. it is the parent, not only of whistlecraft, but of all jocose italian poetry. you must print it side by side with the original italian, because i wish the reader to judge of the fidelity: it is stanza for stanza, and often line for line, if not word for word. "you ask me for a volume of manners, &c. on italy. perhaps i am in the case to know more of them than most englishmen, because i have lived among the natives, and in parts of the country where englishmen never resided before (i speak of romagna and this place particularly); but there are many reasons why i do not choose to treat in print on such a subject. i have lived in their houses and in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as 'amico di casa,' and sometimes as 'amico di cuore' of the dama, and in neither case do i feel myself authorised in making a book of them. their moral is not your moral; their life is not your life; you would not understand it; it is not english, nor french, nor german, which you would all understand. the conventual education, the cavalier servitude, the habits of thought and living are so entirely different, and the difference becomes so much more striking the more you live intimately with them, that i know not how to make you comprehend a people who are at once temperate and profligate, serious in their characters and buffoons in their amusements, capable of impressions and passions, which are at once _sudden_ and _durable_ (what you find in no other nation), and who actually have no society (what we would call so), as you may see by their comedies; they have no real comedy, not even in goldoni, and that is because they have no society to draw it from. "their conversazioni are not society at all. they go to the theatre to talk, and into company to hold their tongues. the _women_ sit in a circle, and the men gather into groups, or they play at dreary faro, or 'lotto reale,' for small sums. their academic are concerts like our own, with better music and more form. their best things are the carnival balls and masquerades, when every body runs mad for six weeks. after their dinners and suppers they make extempore verses and buffoon one another; but it is in a humour which you would not enter into, ye of the north. "in their houses it is better. i should know something of the matter, having had a pretty general experience among their women, from the fisherman's wife up to the nobil dama, whom i serve. their system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and its decorums, so as to be reduced to a kind of discipline or game at hearts, which admits few deviations, unless you wish to lose it. they are extremely tenacious, and jealous as furies, not permitting their lovers even to marry if they can help it, and keeping them always close to them in public as in private, whenever they can. in short, they transfer marriage to adultery, and strike the _not_ out of that commandment. the reason is, that they marry for their parents, and love for themselves. they exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honour, while they pay the husband as a tradesman, that is, not at all. you hear a person's character, male or female, canvassed not as depending on their conduct to their husbands or wives, but to their mistress or lover. if i wrote a quarto, i don't know that i could do more than amplify what i have here noted. it is to be observed that while they do all this, the greatest outward respect is to be paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their serventi--particularly if the husband serves no one himself (which is not often the case, however); so that you would often suppose them relations--the servente making the figure of one adopted into the family. sometimes the ladies run a little restive and elope, or divide, or make a scene: but this is at starting, generally, when they know no better, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or some such anomaly,--and is always reckoned unnecessary and extravagant. "you enquire after dante's prophecy: i have not done more than six hundred lines, but will vaticinate at leisure. "of the bust i know nothing. no cameos or seals are to be cut here or elsewhere that i know of, in any good style. hobhouse should write himself to thorwaldsen: the bust was made and paid for three years ago. "pray tell mrs. leigh to request lady byron to urge forward the transfer from the funds. i wrote to lady byron on business this post, addressed to the care of mr. d. kinnaird." * * * * * letter . to mr. bankes. "ravenna, february . . "pulci and i are waiting for you with impatience; but i suppose we must give way to the attraction of the bolognese galleries for a time. i know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little: but to me there are none like the venetian--above all, giorgione. i remember well his judgment of solomon in the mariscalchi in bologna. the real mother is beautiful, exquisitely beautiful. buy her, by all means, if you can, and take her home with you: put her in safety: for be assured there are troublous times brewing for italy; and as i never could keep out of a row in my life, it will be my fate, i dare say, to be over head and ears in it; but no matter, these are the stronger reasons for coming to see me soon. "i have more of scott's novels (for surely they are scott's) since we met, and am more and more delighted. i think that i even prefer them to his poetry, which (by the way) i redde for the first time in my life in your rooms in trinity college. "there are some curious commentaries on dante preserved here, which you should see. believe me ever, faithfully and most affectionately, yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, march . . "i sent you by last post the translation of the first canto of the morgante maggiore, and wish you to ask rose about the word 'sbergo,' _i.e._ 'usbergo,' which i have translated _cuirass_. i suspect that it means _helmet_ also. now, if so, which of the senses is best accordant with the text? i have adopted cuirass, but will be amenable to reasons. of the natives, some say one, and some t'other: but they are no great tuscans in romagna. however, i will ask sgricci (the famous improvisatore) to-morrow, who is a native of arezzo. the countess guiccioli who is reckoned a very cultivated young lady, and the dictionary, say _cuirass_. i have written cuirass, but _helmet_ runs in my head nevertheless--and will run in verse very well, whilk is the principal point. i will ask the sposa spina spinelli, too, the florentine bride of count gabriel rusponi, just imported from florence, and get the sense out of somebody. "i have just been visiting the new cardinal, who arrived the day before yesterday in his legation. he seems a good old gentleman, pious and simple, and not quite like his predecessor, who was a bon-vivant, in the worldly sense of the words. "enclosed is a letter which i received some time ago from dallas. it will explain itself. i have not answered it. this comes of doing people good. at one time or another (including copyrights) this person has had about fourteen hundred pounds of my money, and he writes what he calls a posthumous work about me, and a scrubby letter accusing me of treating him ill, when i never did any such thing. it is true that i left off letter-writing, as i have done with almost everybody else; but i can't see how that was misusing him. "i look upon his epistle as the consequence of my not sending him another hundred pounds, which he wrote to me for about two years ago, and which i thought proper to withhold, he having had his share, methought, of what i could dispone upon others. "in your last you ask me after my articles of domestic wants; i believe they are as usual: the bull-dogs, magnesia, soda-powders, tooth-powders, brushes, and every thing of the kind which are here unattainable. you still ask me to return to england: alas! to what purpose? you do not know what you are requiring. return i must, probably, some day or other (if i live), sooner or later; but it will not be for pleasure, nor can it end in good. you enquire after my health and spirits in large letters: my health can't be very bad, for i cured myself of a sharp tertian ague, in three weeks, with cold water, which had held my stoutest gondolier for months, notwithstanding all the bark of the apothecary,--a circumstance which surprised dr. aglietti, who said it was a proof of great stamina, particularly in so epidemic a season. i did it out of dislike to the taste of bark (which i can't bear), and succeeded, contrary to the prophecies of every body, by simply taking nothing at all. as to _spirits_, they are unequal, now high, now low, like other people's i suppose, and depending upon circumstances. "pray send me w. scott's new novels. what are their names and characters? i read some of his former ones, at least once a day, for an hour or so. the last are too hurried: he forgets ravenswood's name, and calls him _edgar_ and then _norman_; and girder, the cooper, is styled now _gilbert_, and now _john_; and he don't make enough of montrose; but dalgetty is excellent, and so is lucy ashton, and the b----h her mother. what is _ivanhoe_? and what do you call his other? are there _two_? pray make him write at least two a year: i like no reading so well. "the editor of the bologna telegraph has sent me a paper with extracts from mr. mulock's (his name always reminds me of muley moloch of morocco) 'atheism answered,' in which there is a long eulogium of my poesy, and a great 'compatimento' for my misery. i never could understand what they mean by accusing me of irreligion. however, they may have it their own way. this gentleman seems to be my great admirer, so i take what he says in good part, as he evidently intends kindness, to which i can't accuse myself of being invincible. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, march . . "in case, in your country, you should not readily lay hands on the morgante maggiore, i send you the original text of the first canto, to correspond with the translation which i sent you a few days ago. it is from the naples edition in quarto of ,--_dated florence_, however, by a trick of _the trade_, which you, as one of the allied sovereigns of the profession, will perfectly understand without any further spiegazione. "it is strange that here nobody understands the real precise meaning of 'sbergo,' or 'usbergo[ ],' an old tuscan word, which i have rendered _cuirass_ (but am not sure it is not _helmet_). i have asked at least twenty people, learned and ignorant, male and female, including poets, and officers civil and military. the dictionary says _cuirass_, but gives no authority; and a female friend of mine says _positively cuirass_, which makes me doubt the fact still more than before. ginguené says 'bonnet de fer,' with the usual superficial decision of a frenchman, so that i can't believe him: and what between the dictionary, the italian woman, and the frenchman, there's no trusting to a word they say. the context, too, which should decide, admits equally of either meaning, as you will perceive. ask rose, hobhouse, merivale, and foscolo, and vote with the majority. is frere a good tuscan? if he be, bother him too. i have tried, you see, to be as accurate as i well could. this is my third or fourth letter, or packet, within the last twenty days." [footnote : it has been suggested to me that usbergo is obviously the same as hauberk, habergeon, &c. all from the german _halsberg_, or covering of the neck.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, march . . "enclosed is dante's prophecy--vision--or what not.[ ] where i have left more than one reading (which i have done often), you may adopt that which gifford, frere, rose, and hobhouse, and others of your utican senate think the best or least bad. the preface will explain all that is explicable. these are but the four first cantos: if approved, i will go on. "pray mind in printing; and let some good italian scholar correct the italian quotations. "four days ago i was overturned in an open carriage between the river and a steep bank:--wheels dashed to pieces, slight bruises, narrow escape, and all that; but no harm done, though coachman, foot-man, horses, and vehicle, were all mixed together like macaroni. it was owing to bad driving, as i say; but the coachman swears to a start on the part of the horses. we went against a post on the verge of a steep bank, and capsized. i usually go out of the town in a carriage, and meet the saddle horses at the bridge; it was in going there that we boggled; but i got my ride, as usual, after the accident. they say here it was all owing to st. antonio of padua, (serious, i assure you,)--who does thirteen miracles a day,--that worse did not come of it. i have no objection to this being his fourteenth in the four-and-twenty-hours. he presides over overturns and all escapes therefrom, it seems: and they dedicate pictures, &c. to him, as the sailors once did to neptune, after 'the high roman fashion.' "yours, in haste." [footnote : there were in this poem, originally, three lines of remarkable strength and severity, which, as the italian poet against whom they were directed was then living, were omitted in the publication. i shall here give them from memory. "the prostitution of his muse and wife, both beautiful, and both by him debased, shall salt his bread and give him means of life." ] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, march . . "last post i sent you 'the vision of dante,'--four first cantos. enclosed you will find, _line for line_, in _third rhyme_ (_terza rima_), of which your british blackguard reader as yet understands nothing, fanny of rimini. you know that she was born here, and married, and slain, from gary, boyd, and such people. i have done it into _cramp_ english, line for line, and rhyme for rhyme, to try the possibility. you had best append it to the poems already sent by last three posts. i shall not allow you to play the tricks you did last year, with the prose you _post_-scribed to mazeppa, which i sent to you _not_ to be published, if not in a periodical paper,--and there you tacked it, without a word of explanation. if this is published, publish it _with the original_, and _together_ with the _pulci_ translation, _or_ the _dante imitation_. i suppose you have both by now, and the _juan_ long before. "francesca of rimini. "_translation from the inferno of dante, canto th._ "'the land where i was born sits by the seas, upon that shore to which the po descends, with all his followers, in search of peace. love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends, seized him for the fair person which was ta'en from me, and me even yet the mode offends. love, who to none beloved to love again remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong, that, as thou seest, yet, yet it doth remain. love to one death conducted us along, but caina waits for him our life who ended:' these were the accents utter'd by her tongue,-- since first i listen'd to these souls offended, i bow'd my visage and so kept it till-- {_then_} 'what think'st thou?' said the bard; { when } i unbended, and recommenced: 'alas! unto such ill how many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstasies led these their evil fortune to fulfil!' and then i turn'd unto their side my eyes, and said, 'francesca, thy sad destinies have made me sorrow till the tears arise. but tell me, in the season of sweet sighs, by what and how thy love to passion rose, so as his dim desires to recognise?' then she to me: 'the greatest of all woes {_recall to mind_} is to { remind us of } our happy days {_this_} in misery, and { that } thy teacher knows. but if to learn our passion's first root preys upon thy spirit with such sympathy, { _relate_ } i will {do[ ] even} as he who weeps and says.-- we read one day for pastime, seated nigh, of lancilot, how love enchain'd him too. we were alone, quite unsuspiciously, but oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue all o'er discolour'd by that reading were; { _overthrew_ } but one point only wholly {us o'erthrew;} { _desired_ } when we read the {long-sighed-for} smile of her, {_a fervent_} to be thus kiss'd by such { devoted } lover, he who from me can be divided ne'er kiss'd my mouth, trembling in the act all over. accursed was the book and he who wrote! that day no further leaf we did uncover.-- while thus one spirit told us of their lot, the other wept, so that with pity's thralls i swoon'd as if by death i had been smote, and fell down even as a dead body falls.'" [footnote : "in some of the editions, it is, 'diro,' in others 'faro;'--an essential difference between 'saying' and 'doing,' which i know not how to decide. ask foscolo. the d----d editions drive me mad."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, march . . "i have received your letter of the th. besides the four packets you have already received, i have sent the pulci a few days after, and since (a few days ago) the four first cantos of dante's prophecy, (the best thing i ever wrote, if it be not _unintelligible_,) and by last post a literal translation, word for word (versed like the original), of the episode of francesca of rimini. i want to hear what you think of the new juans, and the translations, and the vision. they are all things that are, or ought to be, very different from one another. "if you choose to make a print from the venetian, you may; but she don't correspond at all to the character you mean her to represent. on the contrary, the contessa g. does (except that she is fair), and is much prettier than the fornarina; but i have no picture of her except a miniature, which is very ill done; and, besides, it would not be proper, on any account whatever, to make such a use of it, even if you had a copy. "recollect that the two new cantos only count with us for one. you may put the pulci and dante together: perhaps that were best. so you have put your name to juan, after all your panic. you are a rare fellow. i must now put myself in a passion to continue my prose. yours," &c. "i have caused write to thorwaldsen. pray be careful in sending my daughter's picture--i mean, that it be not hurt in the carriage, for it is a journey rather long and jolting." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, march . . "enclosed is a 'screed of doctrine' for you, of which i will trouble you to acknowledge the receipt by next post. mr. hobhouse must have the correction of it for the press. you may show it first to whom you please. "i wish to know what became of my two epistles from st. paul (translated from the armenian three years ago and more), and of the letter to r----ts of last autumn, which you never have attended to? there are two packets with this. "p.s. i have some thoughts of publishing the 'hints from horace,' written ten years ago[ ],--if hobhouse can rummage them out of my papers left at his father's,--with some omissions and alterations previously to be made when i see the proofs." [footnote : when making the observations which occur in the early part of this work, on the singular preference given by the noble author to the "hints from horace," i was not aware of the revival of this strange predilection, which (as it appears from the above letter, and, still more strongly, from some that follow) took place so many years after, in the full maturity of his powers and taste. such a delusion is hardly conceivable, and can only, perhaps, be accounted for by that tenaciousness of early opinions and impressions by which his mind, in other respects so versatile, was characterised.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, march . . "herewith you will receive a note (enclosed) on pope, which you will find tally with a part of the text of last post. i have at last lost all patience with the atrocious cant and nonsense about pope, with which our present * *s are overflowing, and am determined to make such head against it as an individual can, by prose or verse; and i will at least do it with good will. there is no bearing it any longer; and if it goes on, it will destroy what little good writing or taste remains amongst us. i hope there are still a few men of taste to second me; but if not, i'll battle it alone, convinced that it is in the best cause of english literature. "i have sent you so many packets, verse and prose, lately, that you will be tired of the postage, if not of the perusal. i want to answer some parts of your last letter, but i have not time, for i must 'boot and saddle,' as my captain craigengelt (an officer of the old napoleon italian army) is in waiting, and my groom and cattle to boot. "you have given me a screed of metaphor and what not about _pulci_, and manners, and 'going without clothes, like our saxon ancestors.' now, the _saxons did not go without clothes_; and, in the next place, they are not my ancestors, nor yours either; for mine were norman, and yours, i take it by your name, were _gael_. and, in the next, i differ from you about the 'refinement' which has banished the comedies of congreve. are not the comedies of _sheridan_? acted to the thinnest houses? i know (as _ex-committed_) that 'the school for scandal' was the worst stock piece upon record. i also know that congreve gave up writing because mrs. centlivre's balderdash drove his comedies off. so it is not decency, but stupidity, that does all this; for sheridan is as decent a writer as need be, and congreve no worse than mrs. centlivre, of whom wilks (the actor) said, 'not only her play would be damned, but she too.' he alluded to 'a bold stroke for a wife.' but last, and most to the purpose, pulci is _not_ an _indecent_ writer--at least in his first canto, as you will have perceived by this time. "you talk of _refinement_:--are you all _more_ moral? are you _so_ moral? no such thing. _i_ know what the world is in england, by my own proper experience of the best of it--at least of the loftiest; and i have described it every where as it is to be found in all places. "but to return. i should like to see the _proofs_ of mine answer, because there will be something to omit or to alter. but pray let it be carefully printed. when convenient let me have an answer. "yours." * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "ravenna, march . . "ravenna continues much the same as i described it. conversazioni all lent, and much better ones than any at venice. there are small games at hazard, that is, faro, where nobody can point more than a shilling or two;--other card-tables, and as much talk and coffee as you please. every body does and says what they please; and i do not recollect any disagreeable events, except being three times falsely accused of flirtation, and once being robbed of six sixpences by a nobleman of the city, a count * * *. i did not suspect the illustrious delinquent; but the countess v * * * and the marquis l * * * told me of it directly, and also that it was a way he had, of filching money when he saw it before him; but i did not ax him for the cash, but contented myself with telling him that if he did it again, i should anticipate the law. "there is to be a theatre in april, and a fair, and an opera, and another opera in june, besides the fine weather of nature's giving, and the rides in the forest of pine. with my best respects to mrs. hoppner, believe me ever, &c. byron. "p.s. could you give me an item of what books remain at venice? i don't want them, but want to know whether the few that are not here are there, and were not lost by the way. i hope and trust you have got all your wine safe, and that it is drinkable. allegra is prettier, i think, but as obstinate as a mule, and as ravenous as a vulture: health good, to judge of the complexion--temper tolerable, but for vanity and pertinacity. she thinks herself handsome, and will do as she pleases." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, april . . "in the name of all the devils in the printing-office, why don't you write to acknowledge the receipt of the second, third, and fourth packets, viz. the pulci translation and original, the _danticles_, the observations on, &c.? you forget that you keep me in hot water till i know whether they are arrived, or if i must have the bore of re-copying. "have you gotten the cream of translations, francesca of rimini, from the inferno? why, i have sent you a warehouse of trash within the last month, and you have no sort of feeling about you: a pastry-cook would have had twice the gratitude, and thanked me at least for the quantity. "to make the letter heavier, i enclose you the cardinal legate's (our campeius) circular for his conversazione this evening. it is the anniversary of the pope's _tiara_-tion, and all polite christians, even of the lutheran creed, must go and be civil. and there will be a circle, and a faro-table, (for shillings, that is, they don't allow high play,) and all the beauty, nobility, and sanctity of ravenna present. the cardinal himself is a very good-natured little fellow, bishop of muda, and legate here,--a decent believer in all the doctrines of the church. he has kept his housekeeper these forty years * * * *; but is reckoned a pious man, and a moral liver. "i am not quite sure that i won't be among you this autumn, for i find that business don't go on--what with trustees and lawyers--as it should do, 'with all deliberate speed.' they differ about investments in ireland. "between the devil and deep sea, between the lawyer and trustee, i am puzzled; and so much time is lost by my not being upon the spot, what with answers, demurs, rejoinders, that it may be i must come and look to it; for one says do, and t'other don't, so that i know not which way to turn: but perhaps they can manage without me. "yours, &c. "p.s. i have begun a tragedy on the subject of marino faliero, the doge of venice; but you sha'n't see it these six years, if you don't acknowledge my packets with more quickness and precision. _always write, if but a line_, by return of post, when any thing arrives, which is not a mere letter. "address direct to ravenna; it saves a week's time, and much postage." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, april . . "post after post arrives without bringing any acknowledgment from you of the different packets (excepting the first) which i sent within the last two months, all of which ought to be arrived long ere now; and as they were announced in other letters, you ought at least to say whether they are come or not. you are not expected to write frequent, or long letters, as your time is much occupied; but when parcels that have cost some pains in the composition, and great trouble in the copying, are sent to you, i should at least be put out of suspense, by the immediate acknowledgment, per return of post, addressed _directly_ to _ravenna_. i am naturally--knowing what continental posts are--anxious to hear that they are arrived; especially as i loathe the task of copying so much, that if there was a human being that could copy my blotted mss. he should have all they can ever bring for his trouble. all i desire is two lines, to say, such a day i received such a packet. there are at least six unacknowledged. this is neither kind nor courteous. "i have, besides, another reason for desiring you to be speedy, which is, that there is that brewing in italy which will speedily cut off all security of communication, and set all your anglo-travellers flying in every direction, with their usual fortitude in foreign tumults. the spanish and french affairs have set the italians in a ferment; and no wonder: they have been too long trampled on. this will make a sad scene for your exquisite traveller, but not for the resident, who naturally wishes a people to redress itself. i shall, if permitted by the natives, remain to see what will come of it, and perhaps to take a turn with them, like dugald dalgetty and his horse, in case of business; for i shall think it by far the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence, to see the italians send the barbarians of all nations back to their own dens. i have lived long enough among them to feel more for them as a nation than for any other people in existence. but they want union, and they want principle; and i doubt their success. however, they will try, probably, and if they do, it will be a good cause. no italian can hate an austrian more than i do: unless it be the english, the austrians seem to me the most obnoxious race under the sky. "but i doubt, if any thing be done, it won't be so quietly as in spain. to be sure, revolutions are not to be made with rose-water, where there are foreigners as masters. "write while you can; for it is but the toss up of a paul that there will not be a row that will somewhat retard the mail by and by. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "ravenna, april . . "i have caused write to siri and willhalm to send with vincenza, in a boat, the camp-beds and swords left in their care when i quitted venice. there are also several pounds of mantons best powder in a japan case; but unless i felt sure of getting it away from v. without seizure, i won't have it ventured. i can get it in here, by means of an acquaintance in the customs, who has offered to get it ashore for me; but should like to be certiorated of its safety in leaving venice. i would not lose it for its weight in gold--there is none such in italy, as i take it to be. "i wrote to you a week or so ago, and hope you are in good plight and spirits. sir humphry davy is here, and was last night at the cardinal's. as i had been there last sunday, and yesterday was warm, i did not go, which i should have done, if i had thought of meeting the man of chemistry. he called this morning, and i shall go in search of him at corso time. i believe to-day, being monday, there is no great conversazione, and only the family one at the marchese cavalli's, where i go as a relation sometimes, so that, unless he stays a day or two, we should hardly meet in public. "the theatre is to open in may for the fair, if there is not a row in all italy by that time,--the spanish business has set them all a constitutioning, and what will be the end, no one knows--it is also necessary thereunto to have a beginning. "yours, &c. "p.s. my benediction to mrs. hoppner. how is your little boy? allegra is growing, and has increased in good looks and obstinacy." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, april . . "the proofs don't contain the _last_ stanzas of canto second, but end abruptly with the th stanza. "i told you long ago that the new cantos[ ] were _not_ good, and i also _told you a reason_. recollect, i do not oblige you to publish them; you may suppress them, if you like, but i can alter nothing. i have erased the six stanzas about those two impostors * * * * (which i suppose will give you great pleasure), but i can do no more. i can neither recast, nor replace; but i give you leave to put it all into the fire, if you like, or _not_ to publish, and i think that's sufficient. "i told you that i wrote on with no good will--that i had been, _not_ frightened, but _hurt_ by the outcry, and, besides, that when i wrote last november, i was ill in body, and in very great distress of mind about some private things of my own; but you would have it: so i sent it to you, and to make it lighter, cut it in two--but i can't piece it together again. i can't cobble: i must 'either make a spoon or spoil a horn,'--and there's an end; for there's no remeid: but i leave you free will to suppress the whole, if you like it. "about the _morgante maggiore, i won't have a line omitted_. it may circulate, or it may not; but all the criticism on earth sha'n't touch a line, unless it be because it is badly translated. now you say, and i say, and others say, that the translation is a good one; and so it shall go to press as it is. pulci must answer for his own irreligion: i answer for the translation only. "pray let mr. hobhouse look to the italian next time in the proofs: this time, while i am scribbling to you, they are corrected by one who passes for the prettiest woman in romagna, and even the marches, as far as ancona, be the other who she may. "i am glad you like my answer to your enquiries about italian society. it is fit you should like _something_, and be d----d to you. "my love to scott. i shall think higher of knighthood ever after for his being dubbed. by the way, he is the first poet titled for his talent in britain: it has happened abroad before now; but on the continent titles are universal and worthless. why don't you send me ivanhoe and the monastery? i have never written to sir walter, for i know he has a thousand things, and i a thousand nothings, to do; but i hope to see him at abbotsford before very long, and i will sweat his claret for him, though italian abstemiousness has made my brain but a shilpit concern for a scotch sitting 'inter pocula.' i love scott, and moore, and all the better brethren; but i hate and abhor that puddle of water-worms whom you have taken into your troop. "yours, &c. "p.s. you say that _one half_ is very good: you are _wrong_; for, if it were, it would be the finest poem in existence. _where_ is the poetry of which _one half_ is good? is it the _Æneid_? is it _milton's_? is it _dryden's_? is it any one's except _pope's_ and _goldsmith's_, of which _all_ is good? and yet these two last are the poets your pond poets would explode. but if _one half_ of the two new cantos be good in your opinion, what the devil would you have more? no--no; no poetry is _generally_ good--only by fits and starts--and you are lucky to get a sparkle here and there. you might as well want a midnight _all stars_ as rhyme all perfect. "we are on the verge of a _row_ here. last night they have overwritten all the city walls with 'up with the republic!' and 'death to the pope!' &c. &c. this would be nothing in london, where the walls are privileged. but here it is a different thing: they are not used to such fierce political inscriptions, and the police is all on the alert, and the cardinal glares pale through all his purple. "april . . o'clock, p.m. "the police have been, all noon and after, searching for the inscribers, but have caught none as yet. they must have been all night about it, for the 'live republics--death to popes and priests,' are innumerable, and plastered over all the palaces: ours has plenty. there is 'down with the nobility,' too; they are down enough already, for that matter. a very heavy rain and wind having come on, i did not go out and 'skirr the country;' but i shall mount to-morrow, and take a canter among the peasantry, who are a savage, resolute race, always riding with guns in their hands. i wonder they don't suspect the serenaders, for they play on the guitar here all night, as in spain, to their mistresses. "talking of politics, as caleb quotem says, pray look at the _conclusion_ of my ode on _waterloo_, written in the year , and, comparing it with the duke de berri's catastrophe in , tell me if i have not as good a right to the character of '_vates_' in both senses of the word, as fitzgerald and coleridge? "'crimson tears will follow yet--' and have not they? "i can't pretend to foresee what will happen among you englishers at this distance, but i vaticinate a row in italy; in whilk case, i don't know that i won't have a finger in it. i dislike the austrians, and think the italians infamously oppressed; and if they begin, why, i will recommend 'the erection of a sconce upon drumsnab,' like dugald dalgetty." [footnote : of don juan.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, may . . "from your not having written again, an intention which your letter of the th ultimo indicated, i have to presume that the 'prophecy of dante' has not been found more worthy than its predecessors in the eyes of your illustrious synod. in that case, you will be in some perplexity; to end which, i repeat to you, that you are not to consider yourself as bound or pledged to publish any thing because it is _mine_, but always to act according to your own views, or opinions, or those of your friends; and to be sure that you will in no degree offend me by 'declining the article,' to use a technical phrase. the _prose_ observations on john wilson's attack, i do not intend for publication at this time; and i send a copy of verses to mr. kinnaird (they were written last year on crossing the po) which must _not_ be published either. i mention this, because it is probable he may give you a copy. pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and written upon private feelings and passions. and, moreover, i can't consent to any mutilations or omissions of _pulci_: the original has been ever free from such in italy, the capital of christianity, and the translation may be so in england; though you will think it strange that they should have allowed such _freedom_ for many centuries to the morgante, while the other day they confiscated the whole translation of the fourth canto of childe harold, and have persecuted leoni, the translator--so he writes me, and so i could have told him, had he consulted me before his publication. this shows how much more politics interest men in these parts than religion. half a dozen invectives against tyranny confiscate childe harold in a month; and eight and twenty cantos of quizzing monks and knights, and church government, are let loose for centuries. i copy leoni's account. "'non ignorerà forse che la mia versione del ° canto del childe harold fu confiscata in ogni parte: ed io stesso ho dovuto soffrir vessazioni altrettanto ridicole quanto illiberaii, ad arte che alcuni versi fossero esclusi dalla censura. ma siccome il divieto non fa d'ordinario che accrescere la curiosita cos! quel carme sull' italia è ricercato più che mai, e penso di farlo ristampare in inghil-terra senza nulla escludere. sciagurata condizione di questa mia patria! se patria si può chiamare una terra così avvilita dalla fortuna, dagli uomini, da se medesima.' "rose will translate this to you. has he had his letter? i enclosed it to you months ago. "this intended piece of publication i shall dissuade him from, or he may chance to see the inside of st. angelo's. the last sentence of his letter is the common and pathetic sentiment of all his countrymen. "sir humphry davy was here last fortnight, and i was in his company in the house of a very pretty italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth ascension to mount vesuvius, asked 'if there was not a similar volcano in _ireland_?' my only notion of an irish volcano consisted of the lake of killarney, which i naturally conceived her to mean; but, on second thoughts, i divined that she alluded to _ice_land and to hecla--and so it proved, though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the amiable pertinacity of 'the feminie.' she soon after turned to me and asked me various questions about sir humphry's philosophy, and i explained as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the pompeian mss. 'but what do you call him?' said she. 'a great chemist,' quoth i. 'what can he do?' repeated the lady. 'almost any thing,' said i. 'oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my eyebrows black. i have tried a thousand things, and the colours all come off; and besides, they don't grow; can't he invent something to make them grow?' all this with the greatest earnestness; and what you will be surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but really well educated and clever. but they speak like children, when first out of their convents; and, after all, this is better than an english blue-stocking. "i did not tell sir humphry of this last piece of philosophy, not knowing how he might take it. davy was much taken with ravenna, and the primitive _italianism_ of the people, who are unused to foreigners: but he only stayed a day. "send me scott's novels and some news. "p.s. i have begun and advanced into the second act of a tragedy on the subject of the doge's conspiracy (_i.e._ the story of marino faliero); but my present feeling is so little encouraging on such matters, that i begin to think i have mined my talent out, and proceed in no great phantasy of finding a new vein. "p.s. i sometimes think (if the italians don't rise) of coming over to england in the autumn after the coronation, (at which i would not appear, on account of my family schism,) but as yet i can decide nothing. the place must be a great deal changed since i left it, now more than four years ago." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, may . . "murray, my dear, make my respects to thomas campbell, and tell him from me, with faith and friendship, three things that he must right in his poets: firstly, he says anstey's bath guide characters are taken from smollett. 'tis impossible:--the guide was published in , and humphrey clinker in --_dunque_, 'tis smollett who has taken from anstey. secondly, he does not know to whom cowper alludes, when he says that there was one who 'built a church to _god_, and then blasphemed his name:' it was 'deo erexit _voltaire_' to whom that maniacal calvinist and coddled poet alludes. thirdly, he misquotes and spoils a passage from shakspeare, 'to gild refined gold, to paint the lily,' &c.; for _lily_ he puts rose, and bedevils in more words than one the whole quotation. "now, tom is a fine fellow; but he should be correct; for the first is an _injustice_ (to anstey), the second an _ignorance_, and the third a _blunder_. tell him all this, and let him take it in good part; for i might have rammed it into a review and rowed him--instead of which, i act like a christian. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, may . . "first and foremost, you must forward my letter to _moore_ dated d _january_, which i said you might open, but desired you _to forward_. now, you should really not forget these little things, because they do mischief among friends. you are an excellent man, a great man, and live among great men, but do pray recollect your absent friends and authors. "in the first place, _your packets_; then a letter from kinnaird, on the most urgent business; another from moore, about a communication to lady byron of importance; a fourth from the mother of allegra; and, fifthly, at ravenna, the countess g. is on the eve of being separated. but the italian public are on her side, particularly the women,--and the men also, because they say that _he_ had no business to take the business up now after a year of toleration. all her relations (who are numerous, high in rank, and powerful) are furious _against him_ for his conduct. i am warned to be on my guard, as he is very capable of employing _sicarii_--this is latin as well as italian, so you can understand it; but i have arms, and don't mind them, thinking that i could pepper his ragamuffins, if they don't come unawares, and that, if they do, one may as well end that way as another; and it would besides serve _you_ as an advertisement:-- "man may escape from rope or gun, &c. but he who takes woman, woman, woman, &c. "yours. "p.s. i have looked over the press, but heaven knows how. think what i have on hand and the post going out to-morrow. do you remember the epitaph on voltaire? "'ci-git l'enfant gâté,' &c. "'here lies the spoilt child of the world which he spoil'd.' the original is in grimm and diderot, &c. &c. &c." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "ravenna, may . . "i wrote to you a few days ago. there is also a letter of january last for you at murray's, which will explain to you why i am here. murray ought to have forwarded it long ago. i enclose you an epistle from a countrywoman of yours at paris, which has moved my entrails. you will have the goodness, perhaps, to enquire into the truth of her story, and i will help her as far as i can,--though not in the useless way she proposes. her letter is evidently unstudied, and so natural, that the orthography is also in a state of nature. "here is a poor creature, ill and solitary, who thinks, as a last resource, of translating you or me into french! was there ever such a notion? it seems to me the consummation of despair. pray enquire, and let me know, and, if you could draw a bill on me _here_ for a few hundred francs, at your banker's, i will duly honour it,--that is, if she is not an impostor.[ ] if not, let me know, that i may get something remitted by my banker longhi, of bologna, for i have no correspondence myself, at paris: but tell her she must not translate;--if she does, it will be the height of ingratitude. "i had a letter (not of the same kind, but in french and flattery) from a madame sophie gail, of paris, whom i take to be the spouse of a gallo-greek of that name. who is she? and what is she? and how came she to take an interest in my _poeshie_ or its author? if you know her, tell her, with my compliments, that, as i only _read_ french, i have not answered her letter; but would have done so in italian, if i had not thought it would look like an affectation. i have just been scolding my monkey for tearing the seal of her letter, and spoiling a mock book, in which i put rose leaves. i had a civet-cat the other day, too; but it ran away, after scratching my monkey's cheek, and i am in search of it still. it was the fiercest beast i ever saw, and like * * in the face and manner. "i have a world of things to say; but, as they are not come to a _dénouement_, i don't care to begin their history till it is wound up. after you went, i had a fever, but got well again without bark. sir humphry davy was here the other day, and liked ravenna very much. he will tell you any thing you may wish to know about the place and your humble servitor. "your apprehensions (arising from scott's) were unfounded. there are _no damages_ in this country, but there will probably be a separation between them, as her family, which is a principal one, by its connections, are very much against _him_, for the whole of his conduct;--and he is old and obstinate, and she is young and a woman, determined to sacrifice every thing to her affections. i have given her the best advice, viz. to stay with him,--pointing out the state of a separated woman, (for the priests won't let lovers live openly together, unless the husband sanctions it,) and making the most exquisite moral reflections,--but to no purpose. she says, 'i will stay with him, if he will let you remain with me. it is hard that i should be the only woman in romagna who is not to have her amico; but, if not, i will not live with him; and as for the consequences, love, &c. &c. &c.'--you know how females reason on such occasions. "he says he has let it go on till he can do so no longer. but he wants her to stay, and dismiss me; for he doesn't like to pay back her dowry and to make an alimony. her relations are rather for the separation, as they detest him,--indeed, so does every body. the populace and the women are, as usual, all for those who are in the wrong, viz. the lady and her lover. i should have retreated, but honour, and an erysipelas which has attacked her, prevent me,--to say nothing of love, for i love her most entirely, though not enough to persuade her to sacrifice every thing to a frenzy. 'i see how it will end; she will be the sixteenth mrs. shuffleton.' "my paper is finished, and so must this letter. "yours ever, b. "p.s. i regret that you have not completed the italian fudges. pray, how come you to be still in paris? murray has four or five things of mine in hand--the new don juan, which his back-shop synod don't admire;--a translation of the first canto of pulci's morgante maggiore, excellent;--short ditto from dante, not so much approved; the prophecy of dante, very grand and worthy, &c. &c. &c.;--a furious prose answer to blackwood's observations on don juan, with a savage defence of pope--likely to make a row. the opinions above i quote from murray and his utican senate;--you will form your own, when you see the things. "you will have no great chance of seeing me, for i begin to think i must finish in italy. but, if you come my way, you shall have a tureen of macaroni. pray tell me about yourself, and your intents. "my trustees are going to lend earl blessington sixty thousand pounds (at six per cent.) on a dublin mortgage. only think of my becoming an irish absentee!" [footnote : according to his desire, i waited upon this young lady, having provided myself with a rouleau of fifteen or twenty napoleons to present to her from his lordship; but, with a very creditable spirit, my young countrywoman declined the gift, saying that lord byron had mistaken the object of her application to him, which was to request that, by allowing her to have the sheets of some of his works before publication, he would enable her to prepare early translations for the french booksellers, and thus afford her the means of acquiring something towards a livelihood.] * * * * * letter . to mr. hoppner. "ravenna, may . . "a german named ruppsecht has sent me, heaven knows why, several deutsche gazettes, of all which i understand neither word nor letter. i have sent you the enclosed to beg you to translate to me some remarks, which appear to be _goethe's upon_ manfred--and if i may judge by _two_ notes of _admiration_ (generally put after something ridiculous by us) and the word '_hypocondrisch_,' are any thing but favourable. i shall regret this, for i should have been proud of goethe's good word; but i sha'n't alter my opinion of him, even though he should be savage. "will you excuse this trouble, and do me this favour?--never mind--soften nothing--i am literary proof--having had good and evil said in most modern languages. "believe me," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "ravenna, june . , "i have received a parisian letter from w.w., which i prefer answering through you, if that worthy be still at paris, and, as he says, an occasional visiter of yours. in november last he wrote to me a well-meaning letter, stating, for some reasons of his own, his belief that a re-union might be effected between lady b. and myself. to this i answered as usual; and he sent me a second letter, repeating his notions, which letter i have never answered, having had a thousand other things to think of. he now writes as if he believed that he had offended me by touching on the topic; and i wish you to assure him that i am not at all so,--but, on the contrary, obliged by his good nature. at the same time acquaint him the _thing is impossible. you know this_, as well as i,--and there let it end. "i believe that i showed you his epistle in autumn last. he asks me if i have heard of _my_ 'laureat' at paris[ ],--somebody who has written 'a most sanguinary epître' against me; but whether in french, or dutch, or on what score, i know not, and he don't say,--except that (for my satisfaction) he says it is the best thing in the fellow's volume. if there is any thing of the kind that i _ought_ to know, you will doubtless tell me. i suppose it to be something of the usual sort;--he says, he don't remember the author's name. "i wrote to you some ten days ago, and expect an answer at your leisure. "the separation business still continues, and all the world are implicated, including priests and cardinals. the public opinion is furious against _him_, because he ought to have cut the matter short _at first_, and not waited twelve months to begin. he has been trying at evidence, but can get none _sufficient_; for what would make fifty divorces in england won't do here--there must be the _most decided_ proofs. "it is the first cause of the kind attempted in ravenna for these two hundred years; for, though they often separate, they assign a different motive. you know that the continental incontinent are more delicate than the english, and don't like proclaiming their coronation in a court, even when nobody doubts it. "all her relations are furious against him. the father has challenged him--a superfluous valour, for he don't fight, though suspected of two assassinations--one of the famous monzoni of forli. warning was given me not to take such long rides in the pine forest without being on my guard; so i take my stiletto and a pair of pistols in my pocket during my daily rides. "i won't stir from this place till the matter is settled one way or the other. she is as femininely firm as possible; and the opinion is so much against him, that the _advocates_ decline to undertake his cause, because they say that he is either a fool or a rogue--fool, if he did not discover the liaison till now; and rogue, if he did know it, and waited, for some bad end, to divulge it. in short, there has been nothing like it since the days of guido di polenta's family, in these parts. "if the man has me taken off, like polonius 'say, he made a good end,'--for a melodrama. the principal security is, that he has not the courage to spend twenty scudi--the average price of a clean-handed bravo--otherwise there is no want of opportunity, for i ride about the woods every evening, with one servant, and sometimes an acquaintance, who latterly looks a little queer in solitary bits of bushes. "good bye.--write to yours ever," &c. [footnote : m. lamartine.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, june . . "enclosed is something which will interest you, to wit, the opinion of _the_ greatest man of germany--perhaps of europe--upon one of the great men of your advertisements, (all 'famous hands,' as jacob tonson used to say of his ragamuffins,)--in short, a critique of _goethe's_ upon _manfred_. there is the original, an english translation, and an italian one; keep them all in your archives,--for the opinions of such a man as goethe, whether favourable or not, are always interesting--and this is more so, as favourable. his _faust_ i never read, for i don't know german; but matthew monk lewis, in , at coligny, translated most of it to me _vivâ voce_, and i was naturally much struck with it; but it was the _steinbach_ and the _jungfrau_, and something else, much more than faustus, that made me write manfred. the first scene, however, and that of faustus are very similar. acknowledge this letter. "yours ever. "p.s. i have received _ivanhoe_;--_good_. pray send me some tooth-powder and tincture of myrrh, by _waite_, &c. ricciardetto should have been _translated literally, or not at all_. as to puffing _whistlecraft_, it _won't_ do. i'll tell you why some day or other. cornwall's a poet, but spoilt by the detestable schools of the day. mrs. hemans is a poet also, but too stiltified and apostrophic,--and quite wrong. men died calmly before the christian era, and since, without christianity: witness the romans, and, lately, thistlewood, sandt, and lovel--_men who ought to have been weighed down with their crimes, even had they believed_. a deathbed is a matter of nerves and constitution, and not of religion. voltaire was frightened, frederick of prussia not: christians the same, according to their strength rather than their creed. what does h * * h * * mean by his stanza? which is octave got drunk or gone mad. he ought to have his ears boxed with thor's hammer for rhyming so fantastically." * * * * * the following is the article from goethe's "kunst und alterthum," enclosed in this letter. the grave confidence with which the venerable critic traces the fancies of his brother poet to real persons and events, making no difficulty even of a double murder at florence to furnish grounds for his theory, affords an amusing instance of the disposition so prevalent throughout europe, to picture byron as a man of marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as his poetry. to these exaggerated, or wholly false notions of him, the numerous fictions palmed upon the world of his romantic tours and wonderful adventures in places he never saw, and with persons that never existed[ ], have, no doubt, considerably contributed; and the consequence is, so utterly out of truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long current upon the continent, that it may be questioned whether the real "flesh and blood" hero of these pages,--the social, practical-minded, and, with all his faults and eccentricities, _english_ lord byron,--may not, to the over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers, appear but an ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic personage. [footnote : of this kind are the accounts, filled with all sorts of circumstantial wonders, of his residence in the island of mytilene;--his voyages to sicily,--to ithaca, with the countess guiccioli, &c. &c. but the most absurd, perhaps, of all these fabrications, are the stories told by pouqueville, of the poet's religious conferences in the cell of father paul, at athens; and the still more unconscionable fiction in which rizo has indulged, in giving the details of a pretended theatrical scene, got up (according to this poetical historian) between lord byron and the archbishop of arta, at the tomb of botzaris, in missolonghi.] * * * * * "goethe on manfred. [ .] "byron's tragedy, manfred, was to me a wonderful phenomenon, and one that closely touched me. this singular intellectual poet has taken my faustus to himself, and extracted from it the strongest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. he has made use of the impelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them remains the same; and it is particularly on this account that i cannot enough admire his genius. the whole is in this way so completely formed anew, that it would be an interesting task for the critic to point out not only the alterations he has made, but their degree of resemblance with, or dissimilarity to, the original: in the course of which i cannot deny that the gloomy heat of an unbounded and exuberant despair becomes at last oppressive to us. yet is the dissatisfaction we feel always connected with esteem and admiration. "we find thus in this tragedy the quintessence of the most astonishing talent born to be its own tormentor. the character of lord byron's life and poetry hardly permits a just and equitable appreciation. he has often enough confessed what it is that torments him. he has repeatedly pourtrayed it; and scarcely any one feels compassion for this intolerable suffering, over which he is ever laboriously ruminating. there are, properly speaking, two females whose phantoms for ever haunt him, and which, in this piece also, perform principal parts--one under the name of astarte, the other without form or actual presence, and merely a voice. of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former, the following is related:--when a bold and enterprising young man, he won the affections of a florentine lady. her husband discovered the amour, and murdered his wife; but the murderer was the same night found dead in the street, and there was no one on whom any suspicion could be attached. lord byron removed from florence, and these spirits haunted him all his life after. "this romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable allusions to it in his poems. as, for instance, when turning his sad contemplations inwards, he applies to himself the fatal history of the king of sparta. it is as follows:--pausanias, a lacedemonian general, acquires glory by the important victory at platæa, but afterwards forfeits the confidence of his countrymen through his arrogance, obstinacy, and secret intrigues with the enemies of his country. this man draws upon himself the heavy guilt of innocent blood, which attends him to his end; for, while commanding the fleet of the allied greeks, in the black sea, he is inflamed with a violent passion for a byzantine maiden. after long resistance, he at length obtains her from her parents, and she is to be delivered up to him at night. she modestly desires the servant to put out the lamp, and, while groping her way in the dark, she overturns it. pausanias is awakened from his sleep--apprehensive of an attack from murderers, he seizes his sword, and destroys his mistress. the horrid sight never leaves him. her shade pursues him unceasingly, and he implores for aid in vain from the gods and the exorcising priests. "that poet must have a lacerated heart who selects such a scene from antiquity, appropriates it to himself, and burdens his tragic image with it. the following soliloquy, which is overladen with gloom and a weariness of life, is, by this remark, rendered intelligible. we recommend it as an exercise to all friends of declamation. hamlet's soliloquy appears improved upon here."[ ] [footnote : the critic here subjoins the soliloquy from manfred, beginning "we are the fools of time and terror," in which the allusion to pausanias occurs.] * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "ravenna, june . . "galignani has just sent me the paris edition of your works (which i wrote to order), and i am glad to see my old friends with a french face. i have been skimming and dipping, in and over them, like a swallow, and as pleased as one. it is the first time that i had seen the melodies without music; and, i don't know how, but i can't read in a music-book--the crotchets confound the words in my head, though i recollect them perfectly when _sung_. music assists my memory through the ear, not through the eye; i mean, that her quavers perplex me upon paper, but they are a help when heard. and thus i was glad to see the words without their borrowed robes;--to my mind they look none the worse for their nudity. "the biographer has made a botch of your life--calling your father 'a _venerable old_ gentleman,' and prattling of 'addison,' and 'dowager countesses.' if that damned fellow was to _write my_ life, i would certainly _take his_. and then, at the dublin dinner, you have 'made a speech' (do you recollect, at douglas k.'s, 'sir, he made me a speech?') too complimentary to the 'living poets,' and somewhat redolent of universal praise. _i_ am but too well off in it, but * * *. "you have not sent me any poetical or personal news of yourself. why don't you complete an italian tour of the fudges? i have just been turning over little, which i knew by heart in , being then in my fifteenth summer. heigho! i believe all the mischief i have ever done, or sung, has been owing to that confounded book of yours. "in my last i told you of a cargo of 'poeshie,' which i had sent to m. at his own impatient desire;--and, now he has got it, he don't like it, and demurs. perhaps he is right. i have no great opinion of any of my last shipment, except a translation from pulci, which is word for word, and verse for verse. "i am in the third act of a tragedy; but whether it will be finished or not, i know not: i have, at this present, too many passions of my own on hand to do justice to those of the dead. besides the vexations mentioned in my last, i have incurred a quarrel with the pope's carabiniers, or gens d'armerie, who have petitioned the cardinal against my liveries, as resembling too nearly their own lousy uniform. they particularly object to the epaulettes, which all the world with us have on upon gala days. my liveries are of the colours conforming to my arms, and have been the family hue since the year . "i have sent a tranchant reply, as you may suppose; and have given to understand that, if any soldados of that respectable corps insult my servants, i will do likewise by their gallant commanders; and i have directed my ragamuffins, six in number, who are tolerably savage, to defend themselves, in case of aggression; and, on holidays and gaudy days, i shall arm the whole set, including myself, in case of accidents or treachery. i used to play pretty well at the broad-sword, once upon a time, at angelo's; but i should like the pistol, our national buccaneer weapon, better, though i am out of practice at present. however, i can 'wink and hold out mine iron.' it makes me think (the whole thing does) of romeo and juliet--'now, gregory, remember thy _swashing_ blow.' "all these feuds, however, with the cavalier for his wife, and the troopers for my liveries, are very tiresome to a quiet man, who does his best to please all the world, and longs for fellowship and good will. pray write. i am yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "ravenna, july . . "to remove or increase your irish anxiety about my being 'in a wisp[ ],' i answer your letter forth-with; premising that, as i am a '_will_ of the wisp,' i may chance to flit out of it. but, first, a word on the memoir;--i have no objection, nay, i would rather that _one_ correct copy was taken and deposited in honourable hands, in case of accidents happening to the original; for you know that i have none, and have never even _re_-read, nor, indeed, _read_ at all what is there written; i only know that i wrote it with the fullest intention to be 'faithful and true' in my narrative, but _not_ impartial--no, by the lord! i can't pretend to be that, while i feel. but i wish to give every body concerned the opportunity to contradict or correct me. "i have no objection to any proper person seeing what is there written,--seeing it was written, like every thing else, for the purpose of being read, however much many writings may fail in arriving at that object. "with regard to 'the wisp,' the pope has pronounced _their separation_. the decree came yesterday from babylon,--it was _she_ and _her friends_ who demanded it, on the grounds of her husband's (the noble count cavalier's) extraordinary usage. _he_ opposed it with all his might because of the alimony, which has been assigned, with all her goods, chattels, carriage, &c. to be restored by him. in italy they can't divorce. he insisted on her giving me up, and he would forgive every thing,--* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * but, in this country, the very courts hold such proofs in abhorrence, the italians being as much more delicate in public than the english, as they are more passionate in private. "the friends and relatives, who are numerous and powerful, reply to him--'_you_, yourself, are either fool or knave,--fool, if you did not see the consequences of the approximation of these two young persons,--knave, if you connive at it. take your choice,--but don't break out (after twelve months of the closest intimacy, under your own eyes and positive sanction) with a scandal, which can only make you ridiculous and her unhappy.' "he swore that he thought our intercourse was purely amicable, and that _i_ was more partial to him than to her, till melancholy testimony proved the contrary. to this they answer, that 'will of _this_ wisp' was not an unknown person, and that 'clamosa fama' had not proclaimed the purity of my morals;--that _her_ brother, a year ago, wrote from rome to warn him that his wife would infallibly be led astray by this ignis fatuus, unless he took proper measures, all of which he neglected to take, &c. &c. "now he says that he encouraged my return to ravenna, to see '_in quanti piedi di acqua siamo_,' and he has found enough to drown him in. in short, "'ce ne fut pas le tout; sa femme se plaignit-- procès--la parenté se joint en excuse et dit que du _docteur_ venoit tout le mauvais ménage; que cet homme étoit fou, que sa femme étoit sage. on fit casser le mariage.' it is but to let the women alone, in the way of conflict, for they are sure to win against the field. she returns to her father's house, and i can only see her under great restrictions--such is the custom of the country. the relations behave very well:--i offered any settlement, but they refused to accept it, and swear she _shan't_ live with g. (as he has tried to prove her faithless), but that he shall maintain her; and, in fact, a judgment to this effect came yesterday. i am, of course, in an awkward situation enough. "i have heard no more of the carabiniers who protested against my liveries. they are not popular, those same soldiers, and, in a small row, the other night, one was slain, another wounded, and divers put to flight, by some of the romagnuole youth, who are dexterous, and somewhat liberal of the knife. the perpetrators are not discovered, but i hope and believe that none of my ragamuffins were in it, though they are somewhat savage, and secretly armed, like most of the inhabitants. it is their way, and saves sometimes a good deal of litigation. "there is a revolution at naples. if so, it will probably leave a card at ravenna in its way to lombardy. "your publishers seem to have used you like mine. m. has shuffled, and almost insinuated that my last productions are _dull_. dull, sir!--damme, dull! i believe he is right. he begs for the completion of my tragedy on marino faliero, none of which is yet gone to england. the fifth act is nearly completed, but it is dreadfully long-- sheets of long paper of pages each--about when printed; but 'so full of pastime and prodigality' that i think it will do. "pray send and publish your _pome_ upon me; and don't be afraid of praising me too highly. i shall pocket my blushes. "'not actionable!'--_chantre d'enfer!_[ ]--by * * that's 'a speech,' and i won't put up with it. a pretty title to give a man for doubting if there be any such place! "so my gail is gone--and miss mah_ony_ won't take _mo_ney. i am very glad of it--i like to be generous free of expense. but beg her not to translate me. "oh, pray tell galignani that i shall send him a screed of doctrine if he don't be more punctual. somebody _regularly detains two_, and sometimes _four_, of his messengers by the way. do, pray, entreat him to be more precise. news are worth money in this remote kingdom of the ostrogoths. "pray, reply. i should like much to share some of your champagne and la fitte, but i am too italian for paris in general. make murray send my letter to you--it is full of _epigrams_. "yours," &c. [footnote : an irish phrase for being in a scrape.] [footnote : the title given him by m. lamartine, in one of his poems.] * * * * * in the separation that had now taken place between count guiccioli and his wife, it was one of the conditions that the lady should, in future, reside under the paternal roof:--in consequence of which, madame guiccioli, on the th of july, left ravenna and retired to a villa belonging to count gamba, about fifteen miles distant from that city. here lord byron occasionally visited her--about once or twice, perhaps, in a month--passing the rest of his time in perfect solitude. to a mind like his, whose world was within itself, such a mode of life could have been neither new nor unwelcome; but to the woman, young and admired, whose acquaintance with the world and its pleasures had but just begun, this change was, it must be confessed, most sudden and trying. count guiccioli was rich, and, as a young wife, she had gained absolute power over him. she was proud, and his station placed her among the highest in ravenna. they had talked of travelling to naples, florence, paris,--and every luxury, in short, that wealth could command was at her disposal. all this she now voluntarily and determinedly sacrificed for byron. her splendid home abandoned--her relations all openly at war with her--her kind father but tolerating, from fondness, what he could not approve--she was now, upon a pittance of _l._ a year, living apart from the world, her sole occupation the task of educating herself for her illustrious friend, and her sole reward the few brief glimpses of him which their now restricted intercourse allowed. of the man who could inspire and keep alive so devoted a feeling, it may be pronounced with confidence that he could not have been such as, in the freaks of his own wayward humour, he represented himself; while, on the lady's side, the whole history of her attachment goes to prove how completely an italian woman, whether by nature or from her social position, is led to invert the usual course of such frailties among ourselves, and, weak in resisting the first impulses of passion, to reserve the whole strength of her character for a display of constancy and devotedness afterwards. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, july . . "i have received some books, and quarterlies, and edinburghs, for all which i am grateful: they contain all i know of england, except by galignani's newspaper. "the tragedy is completed, but now comes the task of copy and correction. it is very long, ( _sheets_ of long paper, of four pages each,) and i believe must make more than or pages, besides many historical extracts as notes, which i mean to append. history is closely followed. dr. moore's account is in some respects false, and in all foolish and flippant. _none_ of the chronicles (and i have consulted sanuto, sandi, navagero, and an anonymous siege of zara, besides the histories of laugier, daru, sismondi, &c.) state, or even hint, that he begged his life; they merely say that he did not deny the conspiracy. he was one of their great men,--commanded at the siege of zara,--beat , hungarians, killing , and at the same time kept the town he was besieging in order,--took capo d'istria,--was ambassador at genoa, rome, and finally doge, where he fell for treason, in attempting to alter the government, by what sanuto calls a judgment on him for, many years before (when podesta and captain of treviso), having knocked down a bishop, who was sluggish in carrying the host at a procession. he 'saddles him,' as thwackum did square, 'with a judgment;' but he does not mention whether he had been punished at the time for what would appear very strange, even now, and must have been still more so in an age of papal power and glory. sanuto says, that heaven took away his senses for this buffet, and induced him to conspire. 'però fù permesso che il faliero perdette l'intelletto,' &c. "i do not know what your parlour-boarders will think of the drama i have founded upon this extraordinary event. the only similar one in history is the story of agis, king of sparta, a prince _with_ the commons against the aristocracy, and losing his life therefor. but it shall be sent when copied. "i should be glad to know why your quarter_ing_ reviewers, at the close of 'the fall of jerusalem,' accuse me of manicheism? a compliment to which the sweetener of 'one of the mightiest spirits' by no means reconciles me. the poem they review is very noble; but could they not do justice to the writer without converting him into my religious antidote? i am not a manichean, nor an _any_-chean. i should like to know what harm my 'poeshies' have done? i can't tell what people mean by making me a hobgoblin." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, august . . "i have '_put my soul_' into the tragedy (as you _if_ it); but you know that there are d----d souls as well as tragedies. recollect that it is not a political play, though it may look like it: it is strictly historical. read the history and judge. "ada's picture is her mother's. i am glad of it--the mother made a good daughter. send me gifford's opinion, and never mind the archbishop. i can neither send you away, nor give you a hundred pistoles, nor a better taste: i send you a tragedy, and you ask for 'facetious epistles;' a little like your predecessor, who advised dr. prideaux to 'put some more humour into his life of mahomet.' "bankes is a wonderful fellow. there is hardly one of my school or college contemporaries that has not turned out more or less celebrated. peel, palmerstone, bankes, hobhouse, tavistock, bob mills, douglas kinnaird, &c. &c. have all talked and been talked about. "we are here going to fight a little next month, if the huns don't cross the po, and probably if they do. i can't say more now. if any thing happens, you have matter for a posthumous work, in ms.; so pray be civil. depend upon it, there will be savage work, if once they begin here. the french courage proceeds from vanity, the german from phlegm, the turkish from fanaticism and opium, the spanish from pride, the english from coolness, the dutch from obstinacy, the russian from insensibility, but the _italian_ from _anger_; so you'll see that they will spare nothing." * * * * * letter . to mr. moore. "ravenna, august , . "d----n your 'mezzo cammin[ ]'--you should say 'the prime of life,' a much more consolatory phrase. besides, it is not correct. i was born in , and consequently am but thirty-two. you are mistaken on another point. the 'sequin box' never came into requisition, nor is it likely to do so. it were better that it had, for then a man is not _bound_, you know. as to reform, i did reform--what would you have? 'rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.' i verily believe that nor you, nor any man of poetical temperament, can avoid a strong passion of some kind. it is the poetry of life. what should i have known or written, had i been a quiet, mercantile politician, or a lord in waiting? a man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence. besides, i only meant to be a cavalier servente, and had no idea it would turn out a romance, in the anglo fashion. "however, i suspect i know a thing or two of italy--more than lady morgan has picked up in her posting. what do englishmen know of italians beyond their museums and saloons--and some hack * *, _en passant_? now, i have lived in the heart of their houses, in parts of italy freshest and least influenced by strangers,--have seen and become (_pars magna fui_) a portion of their hopes, and fears, and passions, and am almost inoculated into a family. this is to see men and things as they are. "you say that i called you 'quiet [ ]'--i don't recollect any thing of the sort. on the contrary, you are always in scrapes. "what think you of the queen? i hear mr. hoby says, 'that it makes him weep to see her, she reminds him so much of jane shore.' "mr. hoby the bootmaker's heart is quite sore, for seeing the queen makes him think of jane shore; and, in fact, * * pray excuse this ribaldry. what is your poem about? write and tell me all about it and you. "yours, &c. "p.s. did you write the lively quiz on peter bell? it has wit enough to be yours, and almost too much to be any body else's now going. it was in galignani the other day or week." [footnote : i had congratulated him upon arriving at what dante calls the "mezzo cammin" of life, the age of thirty-three.] [footnote : i had mistaken the concluding words of his letter of the th of june.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, september . . "in correcting the proofs you must refer to the _manuscript_, because there are in it various readings. pray attend to this, and choose what gifford thinks best, let me hear what he thinks of the whole. "you speak of lady * *'s illness; she is not of those who die:--the amiable only do; and those whose death would _do good_ live. whenever she is pleased to return, it may be presumed she will take her 'divining rod' along with her: it may be of use to her at home, as well as to the 'rich man' of the evangelists. "pray do not let the papers paragraph me back to england. they may say what they please, any loathsome abuse but that. contradict it. "my last letters will have taught you to expect an explosion here: it was primed and loaded, but they hesitated to fire the train. one of the cities shirked from the league. i cannot write more at large for a thousand reasons. our 'puir hill folk' offered to strike, and raise the first banner, but bologna paused; and now 'tis autumn, and the season half over. 'o jerusalem! jerusalem!' the huns are on the po; but if once they pass it on their way to naples, all italy will be behind them. the dogs--the wolves--may they perish like the host of sennacherib! if you want to publish the prophecy of dante, you never will have a better time." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, sept. . . "here is another historical _note_ for you. i want to be as near truth as the drama can be. "last post i sent you a note fierce as faliero himself[ ], in answer to a trashy tourist, who pretends that he could have been introduced to me. let me have a proof of it, that i may cut its lava into some shape. "what gifford says is very consolatory (of the first act). english, sterling _genuine english_, is a desideratum amongst you, and i am glad that i have got so much left; though heaven knows how i retain it: i _hear_ none but from my valet, and his is _nottinghamshire_: and i _see_ none but in your new publications, and theirs is _no_ language at all, but jargon. even your * * * * is terribly stilted and affected, with '_very, very_' so soft and pamby. "oh! if ever i do come amongst you again, i will give you such a 'baviad and mæviad!' not as good as the old, but even _better merited_. there never was such a _set_ as your _ragamuffins_ (i mean _not_ yours only, but every body's). what with the cockneys, and the lakers, and the _followers_ of scott, and moore, and byron, you are in the very uttermost decline and degradation of literature. i can't think of it without all the remorse of a murderer. i wish that johnson were alive again to crush them!" [footnote : the angry note against english travellers appended to this tragedy, in consequence of an assertion made by some recent tourist, that he (or as it afterwards turned out, she) "had repeatedly declined an introduction to lord byron while in italy."] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, sept. . . "what! not a line? well, have it your own way. "i wish you would inform perry, that his stupid paragraph is the cause of all my newspapers being stopped in paris. the fools believe me in your infernal country, and have not sent on their gazettes, so that i know nothing of your beastly trial of the queen. "i cannot avail myself of mr. gifford's remarks, because i have received none, except on the first act. yours, &c. "p.s. do, pray, beg the editors of papers to say any thing blackguard they please; but not to put me amongst their arrivals. they do me more mischief by such nonsense than all their abuse can do." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, sept. . . "so you are at your old tricks again. this is the second packet i have received unaccompanied by a single line of good, bad, or indifferent. it is strange that you have never forwarded any further observations of gifford's. how am i to alter or amend, if i hear no further? or does this silence mean that it is well enough as it is, or too bad to be repaired? if the last, why do you not say so at once, instead of playing pretty, while you know that soon or late you must out with the truth. "yours, &c. "p.s. my sister tells me that you sent to her to enquire where i was, believing in my arrival, _driving a curricle_, &c. &c. into palace-yard. do you think me a coxcomb or a madman, to be capable of such an exhibition? my sister knew me better, and told you, that could not be me. you might as well have thought me entering on 'a pale horse,' like death in the revelations." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, sept. ' . . "get from mr. hobhouse, and send me a proof (with the latin) of my hints from horace; it has now the _nonum prematur in annum_ complete for its production, being written at athens in . i have a notion that, with some omissions of names and passages, it will do; and i could put my late observations _for_ pope amongst the notes, with the date of , and so on. as far as versification goes, it is good; and, on looking back to what i wrote about that period, i am astonished to see how _little_ i have trained on. i wrote better then than now; but that comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times. if i can trim it for present publication, what with the other things you have of mine, you will have a volume or two of _variety_ at least, for there will be all measures, styles, and topics, whether good or no. i am anxious to hear what gifford thinks of the tragedy: pray let me know. i really do not know what to think myself. "if the germans pass the po, they will be treated to a mass out of the cardinal de retz's _breviary_. * *'s a fool, and could not understand this: frere will. it is as pretty a conceit as you would wish to see on a summer's day. "nobody here believes a word of the evidence against the queen. the very mob cry shame against their countrymen, and say, that for half the money spent upon the trial, any testimony whatever may be brought out of italy. this you may rely upon as fact. i told you as much before. as to what travellers report, what _are travellers_? now i have _lived_ among the italians--not _florenced_, and _romed_, and galleried, and conversationed it for a few months, and then home again; but been of their families, and friendships, and feuds, and loves, and councils, and correspondence, in a part of italy least known to foreigners,--and have been amongst them of all classes, from the conte to the contadine; and you may be sure of what i say to you. "yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, sept. . . "i thought that i had told you long ago, that it never was intended nor written with any view to the stage. i have said so in the preface too. it is too long and too regular for your stage, the persons too few, and the _unity_ too much observed. it is more like a play of alfieri's than of your stage (i say this humbly in speaking of that great man); but there is poetry, and it is equal to manfred, though i know not what esteem is held of manfred. "i have now been nearly as long _out_ of england as i was there during the time i saw you frequently. i came home july th, , and left again april th, : so that sept. th, , brings me within a very few months of the same duration of time of my stay and my absence. in course, i can know nothing of the public taste and feelings, but from what i glean from letters, &c. both seem to be as bad as possible. "i thought _anastasius excellent_: did i not say so? matthews's diary most excellent; it, and forsyth, and parts of hobhouse, are all we have of truth or sense upon italy. the letter to julia very good indeed, i do not despise * * * * * *; but if she knit blue stockings instead of wearing them, it would be better. _you_ are taken in by that false stilted trashy style, which is a mixture of all the styles of the day, which are _all bombastic_ (i don't except my _own_--no one has done more through negligence to corrupt the language); but it is neither english nor poetry. time will show. "i am sorry gifford has made no further remarks beyond the first act: does he think all the english equally sterling as he thought the first? you did right to send the proofs: i was a fool; but i do really detest the sight of proofs: it is an absurdity; but comes from laziness. "you can steal the two juans into the world quietly, tagged to the others. the play as you will--the dante too; but the _pulci_ i am proud of: it is superb; you have no such translation. it is the best thing i ever did in my life. i wrote the play from beginning to end, and not a _single scene without interruption_, and being obliged to break off in the middle; for i had my hands full, and my head, too, just then; so it can be no great shakes--i mean the play; and the head too, if you like. "p.s. politics here still savage and uncertain. however, we are all in our 'bandaliers,' to join the 'highlanders if they cross the forth,' _i.e._ to crush the austrians if they cross the po. the rascals!--and that dog liverpool, to say their subjects are _happy_! if ever i come back, i'll work some of these ministers. "sept. . "i opened my letter to say, that on reading _more_ of the four volumes on italy, where the author says 'declined an introduction,' i perceive (_horresco referens_) it is written by a woman!!! in that case you must suppress my note and answer, and all i have said about the book and the writer. i never dreamed of it until now, in my extreme wrath at that precious note. i can only say that i am sorry that a lady should say any thing of the kind. what i would have said to one of the other sex you know already. her book too (as a _she_ book) is not a bad one; but she evidently don't know the italians, or rather don't like them, and forgets the _causes_ of their misery and profligacy (_matthews_ and _forsyth_ are your men for truth and tact), and has gone over italy in _company_--_always_ a _bad_ plan: you must be _alone_ with people to know them well. ask her, who was the '_descendant of lady m.w. montague_,' and by whom? by algarotti? "i suspect that, in marino faliero, you and yours won't like the _politics_, which are perilous to you in these times; but recollect that it is _not a political_ play, and that i was obliged to put into the mouths of the characters the sentiments upon which they acted. i hate all things written like pizarro, to represent france, england, and so forth. all i have done is meant to be purely venetian, even to the very prophecy of its present state. "your angles in general know little of the _italians_, who detest them for their numbers and their genoa treachery. besides, the english travellers have not been composed of the best company. how could they?--out of , , how many gentlemen were there, or honest men? "mitchell's aristophanes is excellent. send me the rest of it. "these fools will force me to write a book about italy myself, to give them 'the loud lie.' they prate about assassination; what is it but the origin of duelling--and '_a wild justice_,' as lord bacon calls it? it is the fount of the modern point of honour in what the laws can't or _won't_ reach. every man is liable to it more or less, according to circumstances or place. for instance, i am living here exposed to it daily, for i have happened to make a powerful and unprincipled man my enemy;--and i never sleep the worse for it, or ride in less solitary places, because precaution is useless, and one thinks of it as of a disease which may or may not strike. it is true that there are those here, who, if he did, would 'live to think on't;' but that would not awake my bones: i should be sorry if it would, were they once at rest." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, bre °, . "you will have now received all the acts, corrected, of the marino faliero. what you say of the 'bet of guineas' made by some one who says that he saw me last week, reminds me of what happened in : you can easily ascertain the fact, and it is an odd one. "in the latter end of , i met one evening at the alfred my old school and form fellow (for we were within two of each other, _he_ the higher, though both very near the top of our remove,) _peel_, the irish secretary. he told me that, in , he met me, as he thought, in st. james's street, but we passed without speaking. he mentioned this, and it was denied as impossible, i being then in turkey. a day or two afterward, he pointed out to his brother a person on the opposite side of the way:--'there,' said he, 'is the man whom i took for byron.' his brother instantly answered, 'why, it is byron, and no one else.' but this is not all:--i was _seen_ by somebody to _write down my name_ amongst the enquirers after the king's health, then attacked by insanity. now, at this very period, as nearly as i could make out, i was ill of a _strong fever_ at patras, caught in the marshes near olympia, from the _malaria_. if i had died there, this would have been a new ghost story for you. you can easily make out the accuracy of this from peel himself, who told it in detail. i suppose you will be of the opinion of lucretius, who (denies the immortality of the soul, but) asserts that from the 'flying off of the surfaces of bodies, these surfaces or cases, like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it, so that the shapes and shadows of both the dead and living are frequently beheld.' "but if they are, are their coats and waistcoats also seen? i do not disbelieve that we may be two by some unconscious process, to a certain sign, but which of these two i happen at present to be, i leave you to decide. i only hope that _t'other me_ behaves like a gemman. "i wish you would get peel asked how far i am accurate in my recollection of what he told me; for i don't like to say such things without authority. "i am not sure that i was _not spoken_ with; but this also you can ascertain. i have written to you such letters that i stop. "yours, &c. "p.s. last year (in june, ), i met at count mosti's, at ferrara, an italian who asked me 'if i knew lord byron?' i told him _no_ (no one knows himself, _you_ know). 'then,' says he, 'i do; i met him at naples the other day.' i pulled out my card and asked him if that was the way he spelt his name: he answered, _yes_. i suspect that it was a blackguard navy surgeon, who attended a young travelling madam about, and passed himself for a lord at the post-houses. he was a vulgar dog--quite of the cock-pit order--and a precious representative i must have had of him, if it was even so; but i don't know. he passed himself off as a gentleman, and squired about a countess * * (of this place), then at venice, an ugly battered woman, of bad morals even for italy." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, bre °, . "foscolo's letter is exactly the thing wanted; firstly, because he is a man of genius; and, next, because he is an italian, and therefore the best judge of italics. besides, "he's more an antique roman than a dane; that is, he is more of the ancient greek than of the modern italian. though 'somewhat,' as dugald dalgetty says, 'too wild and sa_l_vage' (like 'ronald of the mist'), 'tis a wonderful man, and my friends hobhouse and rose both swear by him; and they are good judges of men and of italian humanity. "here are in all _two_ worthy voices gain'd: gifford says it is good 'sterling genuine english,' and foscolo says that the characters are right venetian. shakspeare and otway had a million of advantages over me, besides the incalculable one of being _dead_ from one to two centuries, and having been both born blackguards (which are such attractions to the gentle living reader); let me then preserve the only one which i could possibly have--that of having been at venice, and entered more into the local spirit of it. i claim no more. "i know what foscolo means about calendaro's _spitting_ at bertram; _that's_ national--the objection, i mean. the italians and french, with those 'flags of abomination,' their pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else--in your face almost, and therefore _object_ to it on the stage as _too familiar_. but we who _spit_ nowhere--but in a man's face when we grow savage--are not likely to feel this. remember _massinger_, and kean's sir giles overreach-- "lord! _thus_ i _spit_ at thee and at thy counsel! besides, calendaro does _not_ spit in bertram's face; he spits _at_ him, as i have seen the mussulmans do upon the ground when they are in a rage. again, he _does not in fact despise_ bertram, though he affects it--as we all do, when angry with one we think our inferior. he is angry at not being allowed to die in his own way (although not afraid of death); and recollect that he suspected and hated bertram from the first. israel bertuccio, on the other hand, is a cooler and more concentrated fellow: he acts upon _principle and impulse_; calendaro upon _impulse_ and _example_. "so there's argument for you. "the doge _repeats_;--_true_, but it is from engrossing passion, and because he sees _different_ persons, and is always obliged to recur to the _cause_ uppermost in his mind. his speeches are long:--true, but i wrote for the _closet_, and on the french and italian model rather than yours, which i think not very highly of, for all your _old_ dramatists, who are long enough too, god knows:--_look_ into any of them. "i return you foscolo's letter, because it alludes also to his private affairs. i am sorry to see such a man in straits, because i know what they are, or what they were. i never met but three men who would have held out a finger to me: one was yourself, the other william bankes, and the other a nobleman long ago dead: but of these the first was the only one who offered it while i _really_ wanted it; the second from good will--but i was not in need of bankes's aid, and would not have accepted it if i had (though i love and esteem him); and the _third_ --------.[ ] "so you see that i have seen some strange things in my time. as for your own offer, it was in , when i was in actual uncertainty of five pounds. i rejected it; but i have not forgotten it, although you probably have. "p.s. foscolo's ricciardo was lent, with the _leaves uncut_, to some italians, now in villeggiatura, so that i have had no opportunity of hearing their decision, or of reading it. they seized on it as foscolo's, and on account of the beauty of the paper and printing, directly. if i find it takes, i will reprint it _here_. the italians think as highly of foscolo as they can of any man, divided and miserable as they are, and with neither leisure at present to read, nor head nor heart to judge of any thing but extracts from french newspapers and the lugano gazette. "we are all looking at one another, like wolves on their prey in pursuit, only waiting for the first falling on to do unutterable things. they are a great world in chaos, or angels in hell, which you please; but out of chaos came paradise, and out of hell--i don't know what; but the devil went _in_ there, and he was a fine fellow once, you know. "you need never favour me with any periodical publication, except the edinburgh quarterly, and an occasional blackwood; or now and then a monthly review; for the rest i do not feel curiosity enough to look beyond their covers. "to be sure i took in the british finely. he fell precisely into the glaring trap laid for him. it was inconceivable how he could be so absurd as to imagine us serious with him. "recollect, that if you put my name to 'don juan' in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian right of my daughter in chancery, on the plea of its containing the _parody_;--such are the perils of a foolish jest. i was not aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct, i believe; and you may be sure that the noels would not let it slip. now i prefer my child to a poem at any time, and so should you, as having half a dozen. "let me know your notions. "if you turn over the earlier pages of the huntingdon peerage story, you will see how common a name ada was in the early plantagenet days. i found it in my own pedigree in the reign of john and henry, and gave it to my daughter. it was also the name of charlemagne's sister. it is in an early chapter of genesis, as the name of the wife of lamech; and i suppose ada is the feminine of _adam_. it is short, ancient, vocalic, and had been in my family; for which reason i gave it to my daughter." [footnote : the paragraph is left thus imperfect in the original.] * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, bre °, . "by land and sea carriage a considerable quantity of books have arrived; and i am obliged and grateful: but 'medio de fonte leporum, surgit amari aliquid,' &c. &c.; which, being interpreted, means, "i'm thankful for your books, dear murray; but why not send scott's monast_ery_? the only book in four _living_ volumes i would give a baioccolo to see--'bating the rest of the same author, and an occasional edinburgh and quarterly, as brief chroniclers of the times. instead of this, here are johnny keats's * * poetry, and three novels by god knows whom, except that there is peg * * *'s name to one of them--a spinster whom i thought we had sent back to her spinning. crayon is very good; hogg's tales rough, but racy, and welcome. "books of travels are expensive, and i don't want them, having travelled already; besides, they lie. thank the author of 'the profligate' for his (or her) present. pray send me _no more_ poetry but what is rare and decidedly good. there is such a trash of keats and the like upon my tables that i am ashamed to look at them. i say nothing against your parsons, your s * *s and your c * *s--it is all very fine--but pray dispense me from the pleasure. instead of poetry, if you will favour me with a few soda-powders, i shall be delighted: but all prose ('bating _travels_ and novels not by scott) is welcome, especially scott's tales of my landlord, and so on. "in the notes to marino faliero, it may be as well to say that '_benintende_' was not really of _the ten_, but merely _grand chancellor_, a separate office (although important): it was an arbitrary alteration of mine. the doges too were all _buried_ in st. _mark's before_ faliero. it is singular that when his predecessor, andrea dandolo, died, _the ten_ made a law that _all_ the _future doges_ should be _buried with their families, in their own churches,--one would think by a kind of presentiment_. so that all that is said of his _ancestral doges_, as buried at st. john's and paul's, is altered from the fact, _they being in st. mark's. make a note_ of this, and put _editor_ as the subscription to it. "as i make such pretensions to accuracy, i should not like to be _twitted_ even with such trifles on that score. of the play they may say what they please, but not so of my costume and _dram. pers._ they having been real existences. "i omitted foscolo in my list of living _venetian worthies, in the notes_, considering him as an _italian_ in general, and not a mere provincial like the rest; and as an italian i have spoken of him in the preface to canto th of childe harold. "the french translation of us!!! _oimè! oimè!_--the german; but i don't understand the latter and his long dissertation at the end about the fausts. excuse haste. of politics it is not safe to speak, but nothing is decided as yet. "i am in a very fierce humour at not having scott's monastery. you are _too liberal_ in quantity, and somewhat careless of the quality, of your missives. all the _quarterlies_ (four in number) i had had before from you, and _two_ of the edinburgh; but no matter; we shall have new ones by and by. no more keats, i entreat:--flay him alive; if some of you don't, i must skin him myself. there is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the manikin. "i don't feel inclined to care further about 'don juan.' what do you think a very pretty italian lady said to me the other day? she had read it in the french, and paid me some compliments, with due drawbacks, upon it. i answered that what she said was true, but that i suspected it would live longer than childe harold. '_ah but_' (said she). '_i would rather have the fame of childe harold for three years than an_ immortality _of don juan!_' the truth is that _it is_ too true, and the women hate many things which strip off the tinsel of _sentiment_; and they are right, as it would rob them of their weapons. i never knew a woman who did not hate _de grammont's memoirs_ for the same reason: even lady * * used to abuse them. "rose's work i never received. it was seized at venice. such is the liberality of the huns, with their two hundred thousand men, that they dare not let such a volume as his circulate." * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, bre °, . "the abbot has just arrived; many thanks; as also for the _monastery--when you send it!!!_ "the abbot will have a more than ordinary interest for me, for an ancestor of mine by the mother's side, sir j. gordon of gight, the handsomest of his day, died on a scaffold at aberdeen for his loyalty to mary, of whom he was an imputed paramour as well as her relation. his fate was much commented on in the chronicles of the times. if i mistake not, he had something to do with her escape from loch leven, or with her captivity there. but this you will know better than i. "i recollect loch leven as it were but yesterday. i saw it in my way to england in , being then ten years of age. my mother, who was as haughty as lucifer with her descent from the stuarts, and her right line from the _old gordons, not the seyton gordons_, as she disdainfully termed the ducal branch, told me the story, always reminding me how superior _her_ gordons were to the southern byrons, notwithstanding our norman, and always masculine descent, which has never lapsed into a female, as my mother's gordons had done in her own person. "i have written to you so often lately, that the brevity of this will be welcome. yours," &c. * * * * * letter . to mr. murray. "ravenna, bre °, . "enclosed is the dedication of marino faliero to _goethe_. query,--is his title _baron_ or not? i think yes. let me know your opinion, and so forth. "p.s. let me know what mr. hobhouse and you have decided about the two prose letters and their publication. "i enclose you an italian abstract of the german translator of manfred's appendix, in which you will perceive quoted what goethe says of the _whole body_ of english poetry (and _not_ of me in particular). on this the dedication is founded, as you will perceive, though i had thought of it before, for i look upon him as a great man." * * * * * the very singular dedication transmitted with this letter has never before been published, nor, as far as i can learn, ever reached the hands of the illustrious german. it is written in the poet's most whimsical and mocking mood; and the unmeasured severity poured out in it upon the two favourite objects of his wrath and ridicule compels me to deprive the reader of some of its most amusing passages. dedication to baron goethe, &c. &c. &c. "sir,--in the appendix to an english work lately translated into german and published at leipsic, a judgment of yours upon english poetry is quoted as follows: 'that in english poetry, great genius, universal power, a feeling of profundity, with sufficient tenderness and force, are to be found; but that _altogether these do not constitute poets_,' &c. &c. "i regret to see a great man falling into a great mistake. this opinion of yours only proves that the '_dictionary of ten thousand living english authors_' has not been translated into german. you will have read, in your friend schlegel's version, the dialogue in macbeth-- "'there are _ten thousand_! _macbeth_. _geese_, villain? _answer_. _authors_, sir.' now, of these 'ten thousand authors,' there are actually nineteen hundred and eighty-seven poets, all alive at this moment, whatever their works may be, as their booksellers well know; and amongst these there are several who possess a far greater reputation than mine, although considerably less than yours. it is owing to this neglect on the part of your german translators that you are not aware of the works of * * *. "there is also another, named * * * * "i mention these poets by way of sample to enlighten you. they form but two bricks of our babel, (windsor bricks, by the way,) but may serve for a specimen of the building. "it is, moreover, asserted that 'the predominant character of the whole body of the present english poetry is a _disgust_ and _contempt_ for life.' but i rather suspect that, by one single work of _prose_, _you_ yourself have excited a greater contempt for life than all the english volumes of poesy that ever were written. madame de staël says, that 'werther has occasioned more suicides than the most beautiful woman;' and i really believe that he has put more individuals out of this world than napoleon himself, except in the way of his profession. perhaps, illustrious sir, the acrimonious judgment passed by a celebrated northern journal upon you in particular, and the germans in general, has rather indisposed you towards english poetry as well as criticism. but you must not regard our critics, who are at bottom good-natured fellows, considering their two professions,--taking up the law in court, and laying it down out of it. no one can more lament their hasty and unfair judgment, in your particular, than i do; and i so expressed myself to your friend schlegel, in , at coppet. "in behalf of my 'ten thousand' living brethren, and of myself, i have thus far taken notice of an opinion expressed with regard to 'english poetry' in general, and which merited notice, because it was yours. "my principal object in addressing you was to testify my sincere respect and admiration of a man, who, for half a century, has led the literature of a great nation, and will go down to posterity as the first literary character of his age. "you have been fortunate, sir, not only in the writings which have illustrated your name, but in the name itself, as being sufficiently musical for the articulation of posterity. in this you have the advantage of some of your countrymen, whose names would perhaps be immortal also--if any body could pronounce them. "it may, perhaps, be supposed, by this apparent tone of levity, that i am wanting in intentional respect towards you; but this will be a mistake: i am always flippant in prose. considering you, as i really and warmly do, in common with all your own, and with most other nations, to be by far the first literary character which has existed in europe since the death of voltaire, i felt, and feel, desirous to inscribe to you the following work,--_not_ as being either a tragedy or a _poem_, (for i cannot pronounce upon its pretensions to be either one or the other, or both, or neither,) but as a mark of esteem and admiration from a foreigner to the man who has been hailed in germany 'the great goethe.' "i have the honour to be, "with the truest respect, "your most obedient and "very humble servant, "byron. "ravenna, bre °, . "p.s. i perceive that in germany, as well as in italy, there is a great struggle about what they call '_classical_' and '_romantic_,'--terms which were not subjects of classification in england, at least when i left it four or five years ago. some of the english scribblers, it is true, abused pope and swift, but the reason was that they themselves did not know how to write either prose or verse; but nobody thought them worth making a sect of. perhaps there may be something of the kind sprung up lately, but i have not heard much about it, and it would be such bad taste that i shall be very sorry to believe it." end of the fourth volume. proofreading team. byron by john nichol contents. chapter i. ancestry and family chapter ii. early years and school-life. - . chapter iii. cambridge, and first period of authorship--hours of idleness--bards and reviewers. - . chapter iv. two years of travel. - . chapter v. life in london--correspondence with scott and moore--second period of authorship--harold (i., ii.). and the romances. - . chapter vi. marriage and separation--farewell to england. - . chapter vii. switzerland--venice--third period of authorship--harold (iii., iv.) --manfred. - . chapter viii. ravenna--countess guiccioli--the dramas--cain--vision of judgment. - . chapter ix. pisa--genoa--the liberal--don juan. - . chapter. x. politics--the carbonari--expedition to greece--death. - . chapter xi. characteristics, and place in literature index books consulted. . the narrative of the honourable john byron, commodore, in a late expedition round the world, &c. (baker and leigh) . voyage of h.m.s. _blonde_ to the sandwich islands in the years - , the right hon. lord byron, commander (john murray) . memoirs of the life and writings of the right hon. lord byron (h. colburn) . the life, writings, opinions, and times of g.g. noel byron, with courtiers of tho present polished and enlightened age, &c., &c., vols. (m. hey) . narrative of lord byron's last journey to greece, from journal of count peter gamba . medwin's conversations with lord byron at pisa, vols. (h. colburn) . leigh hunt's byron and his contemporaries (h. colburn) . the works of lord byron, with life by thomas moore, vols. (murray) . galt's life of lord byron (colburn and buntley) . kennedy's conversations on religion (murray) . countess of blessington's conversations (colburn) . lady morgan's memoirs, vols. (w.h. allen) . recollections of the countess guiccioli (bentley) . castelar's genius and character of byron (tinsley) . elze's life of lord byron (murray) . trelawny's reminiscences of byron and shelley . torrens' memoirs of viscount melbourne (macmillan) . rev. f. hodgson's memoirs, vols. (macimillan) . essays and articles, or recorded criticisms, by macaulay, scott, shelley, goethe, g. brandes, mazzini, sainte beuve, chasles, h. taine, &c. . burke's peerage and baronetage genealogy of the byron family. the byron family, from the conquest ralph de burun (estates in nottingham and derby). | hugh de burun (lord of horestan). | hugh de buron (became a monk). | sir roger de buron (gave lands to monks of swinstead). | | sir richard clayton. | | robert de byron. = cecelia | robert de byron | sir john byron (governor of york under edward i.). | -------------------------------- | | sir richard byron. sir john (knighted at siege of calais) | sir john (knighted in rd year of henry v.). | | sir john butler. | | sir nicholas. = alice. | ----------------------------------- | | sir nicholas (made k.b. at sir john (knighted by richmond marriage of prince arthur, at milford; fought at bosworth; died ). died ). | sir john byron = nd wife, widow of george halgh. (received grant of newstead from henry viii., may , ). | bar // sinister | sir nicholas strelleye | | john byron, of clayton = alice (inherited by gift, knighted by elizabeth, ). | ------------------------------------- | | | sir nicholas | sir richard molyneux | | sir john = anne (k.b. at coronation of james i; governor of tower). | -------------------------------------- | | richard, nd lord ( - ) sir john st lord (created (buried at hucknal torkard) baron byron of rochdale, | oct. , ; at newbury, | edgehill, chester, &c. | viscount chaworth governor of duke of york; died | | at paris, ). william, rd lord = elizabeth. (died ) | lord berkeley. | | william, th lord = frances ( rd wife) ( - ) | --------------------------- | | admiral john ( - ) |- william, th lord ( - ) (killed mr. | "foul-weather jack"). | chaworth; survived his sons | | and a grandson, who died ; | | called "the wicked lord"). | | | | - isabella = lord carlisle | | | lord carlisle (the poet's | guardian). --------------------------- | | | |- a daughter | | | | | colonel leigh | | | |- george anson ( - ). | | | admiral george anson, th lord | ( - ) | | | ---- | |- frederick | | | | | george f. william, th and present | | lord byron. | | | |- george, th lord ( - ) | ------------------- | . marchioness = john byron ( - ) = . miss gordon of gight of carmarthen | | | | colonel leigh = augusta george gordon, th lord | | ( - ). married several daughters | anna isabella ( - ), | daughter of sir ralph | milbanke and judith, | daughter of sir edward | noel (viscount wentworth), | and by her had ------------------------- | earl lovelace = augusta-ada ( - ). | -------------------------------------- | | | mr. blunt = lady anne. byron noel ralph gordon, (died ) now lord wentworth chapter i. ancestry and family. byron's life was passed under the fierce light that beats upon an intellectual throne. he succeeded in making himself--what he wished to be--the most notorious personality in the world of letters of our century. almost every one who came in contact with him has left on record various impressions of intimacy or interview. those whom he excluded or patronized, maligned; those to whom he was genial, loved him. mr. southey, in all sincerity, regarded him as the principle of evil incarnate; an american writer of tracts in the form of stories is of the same opinion: to the countess guiccioli he is an archangel. mr. carlyle considers him to have been a mere "sulky dandy." goethe ranks him as the first english poet after shakespeare, and is followed by the leading critics of france, italy, and spain. all concur in the admission that byron was as proud of his race as of his verse, and that in unexampled measure the good and evil of his nature were inherited and inborn. his genealogy is, therefore, a matter of no idle antiquarianism. there are legends of old norse buruns migrating from their home in scandinavia, and settling, one branch in normandy, another in livonia. to the latter belonged a distant marshal de burun, famous for the almost absolute power he wielded in the then infant realm of russia. two members of the family came over with the conqueror, and settled in england. of erneis de burun, who had lands in york and lincoln, we hear little more. ralph, the poet's ancestor, is mentioned in doomsday book--our first authentic record--as having estates in nottinghamshire and derby. his son hugh was lord of horestan castle in the latter county, and with his son of the same name, under king stephen, presented the church of ossington to the monks of lenton. tim latter hugh joined their order; but the race was continued by his son sir roger, who gave lands to the monastery of swinstead. this brings us to the reign of henry ii. ( - ), when robert de byron adopted the spelling of his name afterwards retained, and by his marriage with cecilia, heir of sir richard clayton, added to the family possessions an estate; in lancashire, where, till the time of henry viii., they fixed their seat. the poet, relying on old wood-carvings at newstead, claims for some of his ancestors a part in the crusades, and mentions a name not apparently belonging to that age-- near ascalon's towers, john of horestan slumbers-- a romance, like many of his, possibly founded on fact, but incapable of verification. two grandsons of sir robert have a more substantial fame, having served with distinction in the wars of edward i. the elder of these was governor of the city of york. some members of his family fought at cressy, and one of his sons, sir john, was knighted by edward iii. at the siege of calais. descending through the other, sir richard, we come to another sir john, knighted by richmond, afterwards henry vii., on his landing at milford. he fought, with his kin, on the field of bosworth, and dying without issue, left the estates to his brother, sir nicholas, knighted in , at the marriage of prince arthur. the son of sir nicholas, known as "little sir john of the great beard," appears to have been a favourite of henry viii., who made him steward of manchester and lieutenant of sherwood, and on the dissolution of the monasteries presented him with the priory of newstead, the rents of which were equivalent to about l. of our money. sir john, who stepped into the abbey in , married twice, and the premature appearance of a son by the second wife--widow of sir george halgh--brought the bar sinister of which so much has been made. no indication of this fact, however, appears in the family arms, and it is doubtful if the poet was aware of a reproach which in any case does not touch his descent. the "filius naturalis," john byron of clayton, inherited by deed of gift, and was knighted by queen elizabeth in . his descendants were prominent as staunch royalists during the whole period of the civil wars. at edgehill there were seven byrons on the field. on marston, with rupert 'gainst traitors contending, four brothers enrich'd with their blood the bleak field. sir nicholas, one of the seven, is extolled as "a person of great affability and dexterity, as well as martial knowledge, which gave great life to the designs of the well affected." he was taken prisoner by the parliament while acting as governor of chester. under his nephew, sir john, newstead is said to have been besieged and taken; but the knight escaped, in the words of the poet--never a radical at heart--a "protecting genius, for nobler combats here reserved his life, to lead the band where godlike falkland foil." clarendon, indeed, informs us, that on the morning before the battle, falkland, "very cheerful, as always upon action, put himself into the first rank of the lord byron's regiment." this slightly antedates his title. the first battle of newbury was fought on september, . for his services there, and at a previous royal victory, over waller in july, sir john was, on october th of the same year, created baron of rochdale, and so became the first peer of the family. this first lord was succeeded by his brother richard ( - ), famous in the war for his government and gallant defence of newark. he rests in the vault that now contains the dust of the greatest of his race, hucknall torkard church, where his epitaph records the fact that the family lost all their present fortunes by their loyalty, adding, "yet it pleased god so to bless the humble endeavours of the said richard, lord byron, that he repurchased part of their ancient inheritance, which he left to his posterity, with a laudable memory for his great piety and charity." his eldest son, william, the third lord (died ), is worth remembering on two accounts. he married elizabeth, the daughter of viscount chaworth, and so wove the first link in a strange association of tragedy and romance: he was a patron of one of those poets who, approved by neither gods nor columns, are remembered by the accident of an accident, and was himself a poetaster, capable of the couplet,-- my whole ambition only does extend to gain the name of shipman's faithful friend,-- an ambition which, considering its moderate scope, may be granted to have attained its desire. his successor, the fourth lord ( - ), gentleman of the bedchamber to prince george of denmark, himself living a quiet life, became, by his third wife, frances, daughter of lord berkeley, the progenitor of a strange group of eccentric, adventurous, and passionate spirits. the eldest son, the fifth lord, and immediate predecessor in the peerage of the poet, was born in , entered the naval service, left his ship, the "victory," just before she was lost on the rocks of alderney, and subsequently became master of the stag-hounds. in , the year of the passing of the american stamp act, an event occurred which coloured the whole of his after-life, and is curiously illustrative of the manners of the time. on january th or th (accounts vary) ten members of an aristocratic social club sat down to dinner in pall-mall. lord byron and mr. chaworth, his neighbour and kinsman, were of the party. in the course of the evening, when the wine was going round, a dispute arose between them about the management of game, so frivolous that one conjectures the quarrel to have been picked to cloak some other cause of offence. bets were offered, and high words passed, but the company thought the matter had blown over. on going out, however, the disputants met on the stairs, and one of the two, it is uncertain which, cried out to the waiter to show them an empty room. this was done, and a single tallow candle being placed on the table, the door was shut. a few minutes later a bell was rung, and the hotel master rushing in, mr. chaworth was found mortally wounded. there had been a struggle in the dim light, and byron, having received the first lunge harmlessly in his waistcoat, had shortened his sword and run his adversary through the body, with the boast, not uncharacteristic of his grand nephew, "by g-d, i have as much courage as any man in england." a coroner's inquest was held, and he was committed to the tower on a charge of murder. the interest in the trial which subsequently took place in westminster hall, was so great that tickets of admission were sold for six guineas. the peers, after two days' discussion, unanimously returned a verdict of manslaughter. byron, pleading his privileges, and paying his fees, was set at liberty; but he appears henceforth as a spectre-haunted man, roaming about under false names, or shut up in the abbey like a baited savage, shunned by his fellows high and low, and the centre of the wildest stories. that he shot a coachman, and flung the body into the carriage beside his wife, who very sensibly left him; that he tried to drown her; that he had devils to attend him--were among the many weird legends of "the wicked lord." the poet himself says that his ancestor's only companions were the crickets that used to crawl over him, receive stripes with straws when they misbehaved, and on his death made an exodus in procession from the house. when at home he spent his time in pistol-shooting, making sham fights with wooden ships about the rockeries of the lake, and building ugly turrets on the battlements. he hated his heir presumptive, sold the estate of rochdale,--a proceeding afterwards challenged--and cut down the trees of newstead, to spite him; but he survived his three sons, his brother, and his only grandson, who was killed in corsica in . on his own death in , the estates and title passed to george gordon, then a child of ten, whom he used to talk of, without a shadow of interest, as "the little boy who lives at aberdeen." his sister isabella married lord carlisle, and became the mother of the fifth earl, the poet's nominal guardian. she was a lady distinguished for eccentricity of manners, and (like her son satirized in the _bards and reviewers_) for the perpetration of indifferent verses. the career of the fourth lord's second son, john, the poet's grandfather, recalls that of the sea-kings from whom the family claim to have sprung. born in , he at an early age entered the naval service, and till his death in was tossed from storm to storm. "he had no rest on sea, nor i on shore," writes his illustrious descendant. in a fleet of five ships was sent out under commodore anson to annoy the spaniards, with whom we were then at war, in the south seas. byron took service as a midshipman in one of those ships--all more or less unfortunate--called "the wager." being a bad sailor, and heavily laden, she was blown from her company, and wrecked in the straits of magellan. the majority of the crew were cast on a bleak rock, which they christened mount misery. after encountering all the horrors of mutiny and famine, and being in various ways deserted, five of the survivors, among them captain cheap and mr. byron, were taken by some patagonians to the island of chiloe, and thence, after some months, to valparaiso. they were kept for nearly two years as prisoners at st. iago, the capital of chili, and in december, , put on board a french frigate, which reached brest in october, . early in they arrived at dover in a dutch vessel. this voyage is the subject of a well-known apostrophe in _the pleasures of hope_, beginning-- and such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore the hardy byron from his native shore. in torrid climes, where chiloe's tempests sweep tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep, 'twas his to mourn misfortune's rudest shock, scourged by the winds and cradled by the rock. byron's own account of his adventures, published in , is remarkable for freshness of scenery like that of our first literary traveller, sir john mandeville, and a force of description which recalls defoe. it interests us more especially from the use that has been made of it in that marvellous mosaic of voyages, the shipwreck, in _don juan_, the hardships of his hero being, according to the poet-- comparative to those related in my grand-dad's narrative. in june, , byron sailed with two ships, the "dolphin" and the "tamar," on a voyage of discovery arranged by lord egmont, to seek a southern continent, in the course of which he took possession of the largest of the falkland islands, again passed through the magellanic straits, and sailing home by the pacific, circumnavigated the globe. the planets so conspired that, though his affable manners and considerate treatment made him always popular with his men, sailors became afraid to serve under "foul-weather jack." in he married the daughter of a cornish squire, john trevanion. they had two sons and three daughters. one of the latter married her cousin (the fifth lord's eldest son), who died in , leaving as his sole heir the youth who fell in the mediterranean in . the eldest son of the veteran, john byron, father of the poet, was born in , educated at westminster, and, having received a commission, became a captain in the guards; but his character, fundamentally unprincipled, soon developed itself in such a manner as to alienate him from his family. in , under circumstances of peculiar effrontery, he seduced amelia d'arcy, the daughter of the earl of holdernesse, in her own right countess conyers, then wife of the marquis of carmarthen, afterwards duke of leeds. "mad jack," as he was called, seems to have boasted of his conquest; but the marquis, to whom his wife had hitherto been devoted, refused to believe the rumours that were afloat, till an intercepted letter, containing a remittance of money, for which byron, in reverse of the usual relations, was always clamouring, brought matters to a crisis. the pair decamped to the continent; and in , after the marquis had obtained a divorce, they were regularly married. byron seems to have been not only profligate but heartless, and he made life wretched to the woman he was even more than most husbands bound to cherish. she died in , having given birth to two daughters. one died in infancy; the other was augusta, the half sister and good genius of the poet, whose memory remains like a star on the fringe of a thunder-cloud, only brighter by the passing of the smoke of calumny. in she married colonel leigh, and had a numerous family, most of whom died young. her eldest daughter, georgiana, married mr. henry trevanion. the fourth, medora, had an unfortunate history, the nucleus of an impertinent and happily ephemeral romance. the year after the death of his first wife, john byron, who seems to have had the fascinations of a barry lyndon, succeeded in entrapping a second. this was miss catherine gordon of gight, a lady with considerable estates in aberdeenshire--which attracted the adventurer--and an overweening highland pride in her descent from james i., the greatest of the stuarts, through his daughter annabella, and the second earl of huntly. this union suggested the ballad of an old rhymer, beginning-- o whare are ye gaen, bonny miss gordon, o whare are ye gaen, sae bonny and braw? ye've married, ye've married wi' johnny byron, to squander the lands o' gight awa'. the prophecy was soon fulfilled. the property of the scotch heiress was squandered with impetuous rapidity by the english rake. in she left scotland for france, and returned to england toward the close of the following year. on the nd of january, , in holles street, london, mrs. byron gave birth to her only child, george gordon, sixth lord. shortly after, being pressed by his creditors, the father abandoned both, and leaving them with a pittance of _l_ a year, fled to valenciennes, where he died, in august, . chapter ii. early years and school life. soon after the birth of her son, mrs. byron took him to scotland. after spending some time with a relation, she, early in , settled in a small house at aberdeen. ere long her husband, who had in the interval dissipated away his remaining means, rejoined her; and they lived together in humble lodgings, until their tempers, alike fiery and irritable, compelled a definite separation. they occupied apartments, for some time, at the opposite ends of the same street, and interchanged visits. being accustomed to meet the boy and his nurse, the father expressed a wish that the former should be sent to live with him, at least for some days. "to this request," moore informs us, "mrs. byron was at first not very willing to accede; but, on the representation of the nurse that if he kept him over one night he would not do so another, she consented. on inquiring next morning after the child, she was told by captain byron that he had had quite enough of his young visitor." after a short stay in the north, the captain, extorting enough money from his wife to enable him to fly from his creditors, escaped to france. his absence must have been a relief; but his death is said to have so affected the unhappy lady, that her shrieks disturbed the neighbourhood. the circumstance recalls an anecdote of a similar outburst--attested by sir w. scott, who was present on the occasion--before her marriage. being present at a representation, in edinburgh, of the _fatal marriage_, when mrs. siddons was personating isabella, miss gordon was seized with a fit, and carried out of the theatre, screaming out "o my biron, my biron." all we know of her character shows it to have been not only proud, impulsive, and wayward, but hysterical. she constantly boasted of her descent, and clung to the courtesy title of "honourable," to which she had no claim. her affection and anger were alike demonstrative, her temper never for an hour secure. she half worshipped, half hated, the blackguard to whom she was married, and took no steps to protect her property; her son she alternately petted and abused. "your mother's a fool!" said a school companion to him years after. "i know it," was his unique and tragic reply. never was poet born to so much illustrious, and to so much bad blood. the records of his infancy betray the temper which he preserved through life--passionate, sullen, defiant of authority, but singularly amenable to kindness. on being scolded by his first nurse for having soiled a dress, without uttering a word he tore it from top to seam, as he had seen his mother tear her caps and gowns; but her sister and successor in office, may gray, acquired and retained a hold over his affections, to which he has borne grateful testimony. to her training is attributed the early and remarkable knowledge of the scriptures, especially of the psalms, which he possessed: he was, according to her later testimony, peculiarly inquisitive and puzzling about religion. of the sense of solitude, induced by his earliest impressions, he characteristically makes a boast. "my daughter, my wife, my half-sister, my mother, my sister's mother, my natural daughter, and myself, are or were all only children. but the fiercest animals have the fewest numbers in their litters, as lions, tigers, &c." to this practical orphanhood, and inheritance of feverish passion, there was added another, and to him a heavy and life-long burden. a physical defect in a healthy nature may either pass without notice or be turned to a high purpose. no line of his work reveals the fact that sir walter scott was lame. the infirmity failed to cast even a passing shade over that serene power. milton's blindness is the occasion of the noblest prose and verse of resignation in the language. but to understand pope, we must remember that he was a cripple: and byron never allows us to forget, because he himself never forgot it. accounts differ as to the extent and origin of his deformity; and the doubts on the matter are not removed by the inconsistent accounts of the indelicate post-mortem examination made by mr. trelawny at mesolonghi. it is certain that one of the poet's feet was, either at birth or at a very early period, so seriously clubbed or twisted as to affect his gait, and to a considerable extent his habits. it also appears that the surgical means--boots, bandages, &c.--adopted to straighten the limb, only aggravated the evil. his sensitiveness on the subject was early awakened by careless or unfeeling references. "what a pretty boy byron is," said a friend of his nurse. "what a pity he has such a leg." on which the child, with flashing eyes, cutting at her with a baby's whip, cried out, "dinna speak of it." his mother herself, in her violent fits, when the boy ran round the room laughing at her attempts to catch him, used to say he was a little dog, as bad as his father, and to call him "a lame brat"--an incident, which, notoriously suggested the opening scene of the _deformed transformed_. in the height of his popularity he fancied that the beggars and street-sweepers in london were mocking him. he satirized and discouraged dancing; he preferred riding and swimming to other exercises, because they concealed his weakness; and on his death-bed asked to be blistered in such a way that he might not be called on to expose it. the countess guiccioli, lady blessington, and others, assure us that in society few would have observed the defect if he had not referred to it; but it was never far from the mind, and therefore never far from the mouth, of the least reticent of men. in he was sent to a rudimentary day school of girls and boys, taught by a mr. bowers, where he seems to have learnt nothing save to repeat monosyllables by rote. he next passed through the hands of a devout and clever clergyman, named ross, under whom according to his own account he made astonishing progress, being initiated into the study of roman history, and taking special delight in the battle of regillus. long afterwards, when standing on the heights of tusculum and looking down on the little round lake, he remembered his young enthusiasm and his old instructor. he next came under the charge of a tutor called paterson, whom he describes as "a very serious, saturnine, but kind young man. he was the son of my shoemaker, but a good scholar. with him i began latin, and continued till i went to the grammar school, where i threaded all the classes to the fourth, when i was recalled to england by the demise of my uncle." of byron's early school days there is little further record. we learn from scattered hints that he was backward in technical scholarship, and low in his class, in which he seems to have had no ambition to stand high; but that he eagerly took to history and romance, especially luxuriating in the _arabian nights_. he was an indifferent penman, and always disliked mathematics; but was noted by masters and mates as of quick temper, eager for adventures, prone to sports, always more ready to give a blow than to take one, affectionate, though resentful. when his cousin was killed at corsica, in , he became the next heir to the title. in , a friend, meaning to compliment the boy, said, "we shall have the pleasure some day of reading your speeches in the house of commons," he, with precocious consciousness, replied, "i hope not. if you read any speeches of mine, it will be in the house of lords." similarly, when, in the course of the following year, the fierce old man at newstead died, and the young lord's name was called at school with "dominus" prefixed to it, his emotion was so great that he was unable to answer, and burst into tears. belonging to this period is the somewhat shadowy record of a childish passion for a distant cousin slightly his senior, mary duff, with whom he claims to have fallen in love in his ninth year. we have a quaint picture of the pair sitting on the grass together, the girl's younger sister beside them playing with a doll. a german critic gravely remarks, "this strange phenomenon places him beside dante." byron himself, dilating on the strength of his attachment, tells us that he used to coax a maid to write letters for him, and that when he was sixteen, on being informed, by his mother, of mary's marriage, he nearly fell into convulsions. but in the history of the calf-loves of poets it is difficult to distinguish between the imaginative afterthought and the reality. this equally applies to other recollections of later years. moore remarks--"that the charm of scenery, which derives its chief power from fancy and association, should be felt at an age when fancy is yet hardly awake and associations are but few, can with difficulty he conceived." but between the ages of eight and ten, an appreciation of external beauty is sufficiently common. no one doubts the accuracy of wordsworth's account, in the _prelude_ of his early half-sensuous delight in mountain glory. it is impossible to define the influence of nature, either on nations or individuals, or to say beforehand what selection from his varied surroundings a poet will for artistic purposes elect to make. shakespeare rests in meadows and glades, and leaves to milton "teneriffe and atlas." burns, who lived for a considerable part of his life in daily view of the hills of arran, never alludes to them. but, in this respect like shelley, byron was inspired by a passion for the high-places of the earth. their shadow is on half his verse. "the loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow" perpetually remind him of one of his constantly recurring refrains,-- he who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below. in the course of , after an attack of scarlet fever at aberdeen he was taken by his mother to ballater, and on his recovery spent much of his time in rambling about the country. "from this period," he says, "i date my love of mountainous countries. i can never forget the effect, years afterwards, in england, of the only thing i had long seen, even in miniature, of a mountain, in the malvern hills. after i returned to cheltenham i used to watch them every afternoon, at sunset, with a sensation which i cannot describe." elsewhere, in _the island_ he returns, amid allusions to the alps and apennines, to the friends of his youth:-- the infant rapture still survived the boy, and lach-na-gair with ida look'd o'er troy, mixed celtic memories with the phrygian mount, and highland linns with castalie's clear fount. the poet, owing to his physical defect, was not a great climber, and we are informed, on the authority of his nurse, that he never even scaled the easily attainable summit of the "steep frowning" hill of which he has made such effective use. but the impression of it from a distance was none the less genuine. in the midst of a generous address, in _don juan_, to jeffrey, he again refers to the same associations with the country of his early training:-- but i am half a scot by birth, and bred a whole one; and my heart flies to my head as "auld lang syne" brings scotland, one and all-- scotch plaids, scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams, the dee, the don, balgounie's brig's black wall-- all my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams of what i then dreamt, clothed in their own pall, like banquo's offspring... byron's allusions to scotland are variable and inconsistent. his satire on her reviewers was sharpened by the show of national as well as personal antipathy; and when, about the time of its production, a young lady remarked that he had a little of the northern manner of speech, he burst out "good god! i hope not. i would rather the whole d----d country was sunk in the sea. i the scotch accent!" but, in the passage from which we have quoted, the swirl of feeling on the other side continues,-- i rail'd at scots to show my wrath and wit, which must be own'd was sensitive and surly. yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit; they cannot quench young feelings, fresh and early. i scotch'd, not kill'd, the scotchman in my blood, and love the land of mountain and of flood. this suggests a few words on a question of more than local interest. byron's most careful biographer has said of him: "although on his first expedition to greece he was dressed in the tartan of the gordon clan, yet the whole bent of his mind, and the character of his poetry, are anything but scottish. scottish nationality is tainted with narrow and provincial elements. byron's poetic character, on the other hand, is universal and cosmopolitan. he had no attachment to localities, and never devoted himself to the study of the history of scotland and its romantic legends." somewhat similarly thomas campbell remarks of burns, "he was the most un-scotsmanlike of scotchmen, having no caution." rough national verdicts are apt to be superficial. mr. leslie stephen, in a review of hawthorne, has commented on the extent to which the nobler qualities and conquering energy of the english character are hidden, not only from foreigners, but from ourselves, by the "detestable lay figure" of john bull. in like manner, the obtrusive type of the "canny scot" is apt to make critics forget the hot heart that has marked the early annals of the country, from the hebrides to the borders, with so much violence, and at the same time has been the source of so much strong feeling and persistent purpose. of late years, the struggle for existence, the temptations of a too ambitious and over active people in the race for wealth, and the benumbing effect of the constant profession of beliefs that have ceased to be sincere, have for the most part stifled the fervid fire in calculating prudence. these qualities have been adequately combined in scott alone, the one massive and complete literary type of his race. burns, to his ruin, had only the fire: the same is true of byron, whose genius, in some respects less genuine, was indefinitely and inevitably wider. his intensely susceptible nature took a dye from every scene, city, and society through which he passed; but to the last he bore with him the marks of a descendant of the sea-kings, and of the mad gordons in whose domains he had first learned to listen to the sound of the "two mighty voices" that haunted and inspired him through life. in the autumn of the family, i.e. his mother--who had sold the whole of her household furniture for _l_--with himself, and a maid, set south. the poet's only recorded impression of the journey is a gleam of loch leven, to which he refers in one of his latest letters. he never revisited the land of his childhood. our next glimpse of him is on his passing the toll-bar of newstead. mrs. byron asked the old woman who kept it, "who is the next heir?" and on her answer "they say it is a little boy who lives at aberdeen," "this is he, bless him!" exclaimed the nurse. returned to the ancestral abbey, and finding it half ruined and desolate, they migrated for a time to the neighbouring nottingham. here the child's first experience was another course of surgical torture. he was placed under the charge of a quack named lavender, who rubbed his foot in oil, and screwed it about in wooden machines. this useless treatment is associated with two characteristic anecdotes. one relates to the endurance which byron, on every occasion of mere physical trial, was capable of displaying. mr. rogers, a private tutor, with whom he was reading passages of virgil and cicero, remarked, "it makes me uncomfortable, my lord, to see you sitting them in such pain as i know you must be suffering." "never mind, mr. rogers." said the child, "you shall not see any signs of it in me." the other illustrates his precocious delight in detecting imposture. having scribbled on a piece of paper several lines of mere gibberish, he brought them to lavender, and gravely asked what language it was; and on receiving the answer "it is italian," he broke into an exultant laugh at the expense of his tormentor. another story survives, of his vindictive spirit giving birth to his first rhymes. a meddling old lady, who used to visit his mother and was possessed of a curious belief in a future transmigration to our satellite--the bleakness of whose scenery she had not realized--having given him some cause of offence, he stormed out to his nurse that he "could not bear the sight of the witch," and vented his wrath in the quatrain.-- in nottingham county there lives, at swan green, as curst an old lady as ever was seen; and when she does die, which i hope will be soon, she firmly believes she will go to the moon. the poet himself dates his "first dash into poetry" a year later ( ), from his juvenile passion for his cousin margaret parker, whose subsequent death from an injury caused by a fall he afterwards deplored in a forgotten elegy. "i do not recollect," he writes through the transfiguring mists of memory, "anything equal to the _transparent_ beauty of my cousin, or to the sweetness of her temper, during the short period of our intimacy. she looked as if she had been made out of a rainbow--all beauty and peace. my passion had the usual effects upon me--i could not sleep; i could not eat; i could not rest. it was the texture of my life to think of the time that must elapse before we could meet again. but i was a fool then, and not much wiser now." _sic transit secunda_. the departure at a somewhat earlier date of may gray for her native country, gave rise to evidence of another kind of affection. on her leaving he presented her with his first watch, and a miniature by kay of edinburgh, representing him with a bow and arrow in his hand and a profusion of hair over his shoulders. he continued to correspond with her at intervals. byron was always beloved by his servants. this nurse afterwards married well, and during her last illness, in , communicated to her attendant, dr. ewing of aberdeen, recollections of the poet, from which his biographers have drawn. in the summer of he was sent to london, entrusted to the medical care of dr. baillie (brother of joanna, the dramatist), and placed in a boarding school at dulwich, under the charge of dr. glennie. the physician advised a moderation in athletic sports, which the patient in his hours of liberty was constantly apt to exceed. the teacher--who continued to cherish an affectionate remembrance of his pupil, even when he was told, on a visit to geneva in , that, he ought to have "made a better boy of him"--testifies to the alacrity with which he entered on his tasks, his playful good-humour with his comrades, his reading in history beyond his age, and his intimate acquaintance with the scriptures. "in my study," he states, "he found many books open to him; among others, a set of our poets from chaucer to churchill, which i am almost tempted to say he had more than once perused from beginning to end." one of the books referred to was the _narrative of the shipwreck of the "juno,"_ which contains, almost word for word, the account of the "two fathers," in _don juan_. meanwhile mrs. byron,--whose reduced income had been opportunely augmented by a grant of a _l_. annuity from the civil list,--after revisiting newstead followed her son to london, and took up her residence in a house in sloane-terrace. she was in the habit of having him with her there from saturday to monday, kept him from school for weeks, introduced him to idle company, and in other ways was continually hampering his progress. byron on his accession to the peerage having become a ward in chancery, was handed over by the court to the guardianship of lord carlisle, nephew of the admiral, and son of the grand aunt of the poet. like his mother this earl aspired to be a poet, and his tragedy, _the father's revenge_, received some commendation from dr. johnson; but his relations with his illustrious kinsman were from the first unsatisfactory. in answer to dr. glennie's appeal, he exerted his authority against the interruptions to his ward's education; but the attempt to mend matters led to such outrageous exhibitions of temper that he said to the master, "i can have nothing more to do with mrs. byron; you must now manage her as you can." finally, after two years of work, which she had done her best to mar, she herself requested his guardian to have her son removed to a public school, and accordingly he went to harrow, where he remained till the autumn of . the first vacation, in the summer of , is marked by his visit to cheltenham, where his mother, from whom he inherited a fair amount of scotch superstition, consulted a fortune-teller, who said he would be twice married, the second time to a foreigner. harrow was then under the management of dr. joseph drury, one of the most estimable of its distinguished head-masters. his account of the first impressions produced by his pupil, and his judicious manner of handling a sensitive nature, cannot with advantage be condensed. "mr. hanson," he writes, "lord byron's solicitor, consigned him to my care at the age of thirteen and a half, with remarks that his education had been neglected; that he was ill prepared for a public school; but that he thought there was a cleverness about him. after his departure i took my young disciple into my study, and endeavoured to bring him forward by inquiries as to his former amusements, employments, and associates, but with little or no effect, and i soon found that a wild mountain colt had been submitted to my management. but there was mind in his eye. in the first place, it was necessary to attach him to an elder boy; but the information he received gave him no pleasure when he heard of the advances of some much younger than himself. this i discovered, and assured him that he should not be placed till by diligence he might rank with those of his own age. his manner and temper soon convinced me that he might be led by a silken string to a point, rather than a cable: on that principle i acted." after a time, dr. drury tells us that he waited on lord carlisle, who wished to give some information about his ward's property and to inquire respecting his abilities, and continues: "on the former circumstance i made no remark; as to the latter i replied, 'he has talents, my lord, which will add lustre to his rank.' 'indeed!' said his lordship, with a degree of surprise that, according to my feeling, did not express in it all the satisfaction i expected." with, perhaps, unconscious humour on the part of the writer, we are left in doubt as to whether the indifference proceeded from the jealousy that clings to poetasters, from incredulity, or a feeling that no talent could add lustre to rank. in byron refers to the antipathy his mother had to his guardian. later he expresses gratitude for some unknown service, in recognition of which the second edition of the _hours of idleness_ was dedicated "by his obliged ward and affectionate kinsman," to lord carlisle. the tribute being coldly received, led to fresh estrangement, and when byron, on his coming of age, wrote to remind the earl of the fact, in expectation of being introduced to the house of peers, he had for answer a mere formal statement of its rules. this rebuff affected him as addison's praise of tickell affected pope, and the following lines, were published in the march of the same year:-- lords too are bards! such things at times befall, and 'tis some praise in peers to write at all. yet did or taste or reason sway the times, ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes. roscommon! sheffield! with your spirits fled, no future laurels deck a noble head; no muse will cheer, with renovating smile the paralytic puling of carlisle. in prose he adds, "if, before i escaped from my teens, i said anything in favour of his lordship's paper-books, it was in the way of dutiful dedication, and more from the advice of others than my own judgment; and i seize the first opportunity of pronouncing my sincere recantation." as was frequently the case with him, he recanted again. in a letter of he expressed to rogers his regret for his sarcasms; and in his reference to the death of the hon. frederick howard, in the third canto of _childe harold_, he tried to make amends in the lines-- yet one i would select from that proud throng, partly because they blend me with his line, and partly that i did his sire some wrong. this is all of any interest we know regarding the fitful connection of the guardian and ward. towards dr. drury the poet continued through life to cherish sentiments of gratitude, and always spoke of him with veneration. "he was," he says, "the best, the kindest (and yet strict too) friend i ever had; and i look on him still as a father, whose warnings i have remembered but too well, though too late, when i have erred, and whose counsel i have but followed when i have done well or wisely." great educational institutions must consult the greatest good of the greatest number of common-place minds, by regulations against which genius is apt to kick; and byron, who was by nature and lack of discipline peculiarly ill fitted to conform to routine, confesses that till the last year and a half he hated harrow. he never took kindly to the studies of the place, and was at no time an accurate scholar. in the _bards and reviewers_, and elsewhere, he evinces considerable familiarity with the leading authors of antiquity, but it is doubtful whether he was able to read any of the more difficult of them in the original. his translations are generally commonplace, and from the marks on his books he must have often failed to trust his memory for the meanings of the most ordinary greek words. to the well-known passage in _childe harold_ on soracte and the "latian echoes" he appends a prose comment, which preserves its interest as hearing on recent educational controversies:--"i wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote, before we get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of composition, which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as latin and greek, to relish or to reason upon.... in some parts of the continent young persons are taught from common authors, and do not read the best classics till their maturity." comparatively slight stress was then laid on modern languages. byron learnt to read french with fluency, as he certainly made himself familiar with the great works of the eighteenth century; but he spoke it with so little ease or accuracy that the fact was always a stumbling-block to his meeting frenchmen abroad. of german he had a mere smattering. italian was the only language, besides his own, of which he was ever a master. but the extent and variety of his general reading was remarkable. his list of books, drawn up in , includes more history and biography than most men of education read during a long life; a fair load of philosophy; the poets en masse; among orators, demosthenes, cicero, and parliamentary debates from the revolution to the year ; pretty copious divinity, including blair, tillotson, hooker, with the characteristic addition--"all very tiresome. i abhor books of religion, though i reverence and love my god without the blasphemous notions of sectaries." lastly, under the head of "miscellanies" we have _spectator, rambler, world, &c., &c_; among novels, the works of cervantes, fielding, smollett, richardson, mackenzie, sterne, rabelais, and rousseau. he recommends burton's _anatomy of melancholy_ as the best storehouse for second-hand quotations, as sterne and others have found it, and tells us that the great part of the books named were perused before the age of fifteen. making allowance for the fact that most of the poet's autobiographic sketches are emphatically _"dichtang und wahrheit,"_ we can believe that he was an omnivorous reader--"i read eating, read in bed, read when no one else reads"--and, having a memory only less retentive than macaulay's, acquired so much general information as to be suspected of picking it up from reviews. he himself declares that he never read a review till he was eighteen years old--when, he himself wrote one, utterly worthless, on wordsworth. at harrow, byron proved himself capable of violent fits of work, but of "few continuous drudgeries." he would turn out an unusual number of hexameters, and again lapse into as much idleness as the teachers would tolerate. his forte was in declamation: his attitude and delivery, and power of extemporizing, surprised even critical listeners into unguarded praise. "my qualities," he says, "were much more oratorical and martial than poetical; no one had the least notion that i should subside into poesy." unpopular at first, he began to like school when he had fought his way to be a champion, and from his energy in sports more than from the impression produced by his talents had come to be recognized as a leader among his fellows. unfortunately, towards the close of his course, in , the headship of harrow changed hands. dr. drury retired, and was succeeded by dr. butler. this event suggested the lines beginning,-- where are those honours, ida, once your own, when probus fill'd your magisterial throne? the appointment was generally unpopular among the boys, whose sympathies were enlisted in favour of mark drury, brother of their former master, and dr. butler seems for a time to have had considerable difficulty in maintaining discipline. byron, always "famous for rowing," was a ringleader of the rebellious party, and compared himself to tyrlaeus. on one occasion he tore down the window gratings in a room of the school-house, with the remark that they darkened the hall; on another he is reported to have refused a dinner invitation from the master, with the impertinent remark that he would never think of asking him in return to dine at newstead. on the other hand, he seems to have set limits to the mutiny, and prevented some of the boys from setting their desks on fire by pointing to their fathers' names carved on them. byron afterwards expressed regret for his rudeness; but butler remains in his verse as pomposus "of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul." of the poet's free hours, during the last years of his residence which he refers to as among the happiest of his life, many were spent in solitary musing by an elm-tree, near a tomb to which his name has been given--a spot commanding a far view of london, of windsor "bosomed high in tufted trees," and of the green fields that stretch between, covered in spring with the white and red snow of apple blossom. the others were devoted to the society of his chosen comrades. byron, if not one of the safest, was one of the warmest of friends; and he plucked the more eagerly at the choicest fruit of english public school and college life, from the feeling he so pathetically expresses,-- is there no cause beyond the common claim, endear'd to all in childhood's very name? ah, sure some stronger impulse vibrates here, which whispers friendship will be doubly dear to one who thus for kindred hearts must roam, and seek abroad the love denied at home. those hearts, dear ida, have i found in thee-- a home, a world, a paradise to me. of his harrow intimates, the most prominent were the duke of dorset, the poet's favoured fag; lord clare (the lycus of the _childish recollections_); lord delawarr (the euryalus); john wingfield (alonzo), who died at coimbra, ; cecil tattersall (davus); edward noel long (cleon); wildman, afterwards proprietor of newstead; and sir robert peel. of the last, his form-fellow and most famous of his mates, the story is told of his being unmercifully beaten for offering resistance to his fag master, and byron rushing up to intercede with an offer to take half the blows. peel was an exact contemporary, having been born in the same year, . it has been remarked that most of the poet's associates were his juniors, and, less fairly, that he liked to regard them as his satellites. but even at dulwich his ostentation of rank had provoked for him the nickname of "the old english baron." to wildman, who, as a senior, had a right of inflicting chastisement for offences, he said, "i find you have got delawarr on your list; pray don't lick him." "why not?" was the reply. "why, i don't know, except that he is a brother peer." again, he interfered with the more effectual arm of physical force to rescue a junior protégé--lame like himself, and otherwise much weaker--from the ill-treatment of some hulking tyrant. "harness," he said, "if any one bullies you, tell me, and i'll thrash him if i can;" and he kept his word. harness became an accomplished clergyman and minor poet, and has left some pleasing reminiscences of his former patron. the prodigy of the school, george sinclair, was in the habit of writing the poet's exercises, and getting his battles fought for him in return. his bosom friend was lord clare. to him his confidences were most freely given, and his most affectionate verses addressed. in the characteristic stanzas entitled "l'amitié est l'amour sans ailes," we feel as if between them the qualifying phrase might have been omitted: for their letters, carefully preserved on either side, are a record of the jealous complaints and the reconciliations of lovers. in byron writes, "i never hear the name clare without a beating of the heart even now; and i write it with the feelings of - - , ad infinitum." at the same date he says of an accidental meeting: "it annihilated for a moment all the years between the present time and the days of harrow. it was a new and inexplicable feeling, like a rising from the grave to me. clare too was much agitated--more in appearance than i was myself--for i could feel his heart beat to his fingers' ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own which made me think so. we were but five minutes together on the public road, but i hardly recollect an hour of my existence that could be weighed against them." they were "all that brothers should be but the name;" and it is interesting to trace this relationship between the greatest genius of the new time and the son of the statesman who, in the preceding age, stands out serene and strong amid the swarm of turbulent rioters and ranting orators by whom he was surrounded and reviled. before leaving harrow the poet had passed through the experience of a passion of another kind, with a result that unhappily coloured his life. accounts differ as to his first meeting with mary ann chaworth, the heiress of the family whose estates adjoined his own, and daughter of the race that had held with his such varied relations. in one of his letters ho dates the introduction previous to his trip to cheltenham, but it seems not to have ripened into intimacy till a later period. byron, who had, in the autumn of , visited his mother at bath, joined in a masquerade there and attracted attention by the liveliness of his manners. in the following year mrs. byron again settled at nottingham, and in the course of a second and longer visit to her he frequently passed the night at the abbey, of which lord grey de ruthyn was then a temporary tenant. this was the occasion of his renewing his acquaintance with the chaworths, who invited him to their seat at annesley. he used at first to return every evening to newstead, giving the excuse that the family pictures would come down and take revenge on him for his grand-uncle's deed, a fancy repeated in the _siege of corinth_. latterly he consented to stay at annesley, which thus became his headquarters during the remainder of the holidays of . the rest of the six weeks were mainly consumed in an excursion to matlock and castleton, in the same companionship. this short period, with the exception of prologue and epilogue, embraced the whole story of his first real love. byron was on this occasion in earnest; he wished to marry miss chaworth, an event which, he says, would have "joined broad lands, healed an old feud, and satisfied at least one heart." the intensity of his passion is suggestively brought before us in an account of his crossing the styx of the peak cavern, alone with the lady and the charon of the boat. in the same passage he informs us that he had never told his love; but that she had discovered--it is obvious that she never returned--it. we have another vivid picture of his irritation when she was waltzing in his presence at matlock; then an account of their riding together in the country on their return to the family residence; again, of his bending over the piano as she was playing the welsh air of "mary anne;" and lastly, of his overhearing her heartless speech to her maid, which first opened his eyes to the real state of affairs--"do you think i could care for that lame boy?"--upon which he rushed out of the house, and ran, like a hunted creature, to newstead. thence he shortly returned from the rougher school of life to his haunts and tasks at harrow. a year later the pair again met to take farewell, on the hill of annesley--an incident he has commemorated in two short stanzas, that have the sound of a wind moaning over a moor. "i suppose," he said, "the next time i see you, you will be mrs. chaworth?" "i hope so," she replied (her betrothed, mr. musters, had agreed to assume her family name). the announcement of her marriage, which took place in august, , was made to him by his mother, with the remark, "i have some news for you. take out your handkerchief; you will require it." on hearing what she had to say, with forced calm he turned the conversation to other subjects; but he was long haunted by a loss which he has made the theme of many of his verses. in he sent to the lady herself the lines beginning,-- o had my fate been join'd with thine. in the following year he accepted an invitation to dine at annesley, and was visibly affected by the sight of the infant daughter of mrs. chaworth, to whom he addressed a touching congratulation. shortly afterwards, when about to leave england for the first time, he finally addressed her in the stanzas,-- 'tis done, and shivering in the gale, the bark unfurls her snowy sail. some years later, having an opportunity of revisiting the family of his successful rival, mrs. leigh dissuaded him. "don't go," she said, "for if you do you will certainly fall in love again, and there will be a scene." the romance of the story culminates in the famous _dream_, a poem of unequal merit, but containing passages of real pathos, written in the year at diodati, as we are told, amid a flood of tears. miss chaworth's attractions, beyond those of personal beauty, seem to have been mainly due--a common occurrence--to the poet's imagination. a young lady, two years his senior, of a lively and volatile temper, she enjoyed the stolen interviews at the gate between the grounds, and laughed at the ardent letters, passed through a confidant, of the still awkward youth whom she regarded as a boy. she had no intuition to divine the presence, or appreciate the worship, of one of the future master-minds of england, nor any ambition to ally herself with the wild race of newstead, and preferred her hale, commonplace, fox-hunting squire. "she was the beau ideal," says byron, in his first accurate prose account of the affair, written , a few days before his departure for greece, "of all that my youthful fancy could paint of beautiful. and i have taken all my fables about the celestial nature of women from the perfection my imagination created in her. i say created; for i found her, like the rest of the sex, anything but angelic." mrs. musters (her husband re-asserted his right to his own name) had in the long-run reason to regret her choice. the ill-assorted pair after some unhappy years resolved on separation; and falling into bad health and worse spirits, the "bright morning star of annesley" passed under a cloud of mental darkness. she died, in , of fright caused by a nottingham riot. on the decease of musters, in , every relic of her ancient family was sold by auction and scattered to the winds. chapter iii. cambridge, and first period of authorship. in october, , on the advice of dr. drury, byron was removed to trinity college, cambridge, and kept up a connexion with the university for less than three years of very irregular attendance, during which we hear nothing of his studies, except the contempt for them expressed in some of the least effective passages of his early satires. he came into residence in bad temper and low spirits. his attachment to harrow characteristically redoubled as the time drew near to leave it, and his rest was broken "for the last quarter, with counting the hours that remained." he was about to start by himself, with the heavy feeling that he was no longer a boy, and yet, against his choice, for he wished to go to oxford. the _hours of idleness_, the product of this period, are fairly named. he was so idle as regards "problems mathematic," and "barbarous latin," that it is matter of surprise to learn that he was able to take his degree, as he did in march, . a good german critic, dwelling on the comparatively narrow range of studies to which the energies of cambridge were then mainly directed, adds somewhat rashly, that english national literature stands for the most part beyond the range of the academic circle, this statement is often reiterated with persistent inaccuracy; but the most casual reference to biography informs us that at least four-fifths of the leading statesmen, reformers, and philosophers of england, have been nurtured within the walls of her universities, and cherished a portion of their spirit. from them have sprung the intellectual fires that have, at every crisis of our history, kindled the nation into a new life; from the age of wycliffe, through those of latimer, locke, gibbon, macaulay, to the present reign of the physicists, comparatively few of the motors of their age have been wholly "without the academic circle." analysing with the same view the lives of the british poets of real note from barbour to tennyson, we find the proportion of university men increases. "poeta nascitur et fit;" and if the demands of technical routine have sometimes tended to stifle, the comparative repose of a seclusion "unravaged" by the fierce activities around it, the habit of dwelling on the old wisdom and harping on the ancient strings, is calculated to foster the poetic temper and enrich its resources. the discouraging effect of a sometimes supercilious and conservative criticism is not an unmixed evil. the verse-writer who can be snuffed out by the cavils of a tutorial drone, is a poetaster silenced for his country's good. it is true, however, that to original minds, bubbling with spontaneity, or arrogant with the consciousness of power, the discipline is hard, and the restraint excessive; and that the men whom their colleges are most proud to remember, have handled them severely. bacon inveighs against the scholastic trifling of his day; milton talks of the waste of time on litigious brawling; locke mocks at the logic of the schools; cowley complains of being taught words, not things; gibbon rejoices over his escape from the port and prejudice of magdalen; wordsworth contemns the "trade in classic niceties," and roves "in magisterial liberty" by the cam, as afterwards among the hills. but all those hostile critics owe much to the object of their animadversion. any schoolboy can refer the preference of light to fruit in the _novum organum_, half of _comus_ and _lycidas_, the stately periods of the _decline and fall_, and the severe beauties of _laodamia_, to the better influences of academic training on the minds of their authors. similarly, the richest pages of byron's work--from the date of _the curse of minerva_ to that of the "isles of greece"--are brightened by lights and adorned by allusions due to his training, imperfect as it was, on the slopes of harrow, and the associations fostered during his truant years by the sluggish stream of his "injusta noverca." at her, however, he continued to rail as late as the publication of _beppo_, in the th and th stanzas of which we find another cause of complaint,-- one hates an author that's all author, fellows in foolscap uniforms turn'd up with ink-- so very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous, one don't know what to say to them, or think. then, after commending scott, bogers, and moore for being men of the world, he proceeds:-- but for the children of the "mighty mother's," the would-be wits and can't-be gentlemen, i leave them to the daily "tea is ready," snug coterie, and literary lady. this attack, which called forth a counter invective of unusual ferocity from some unknown scribbler, is the expression of a sentiment which, sound enough within limits, byron pushed to an extreme. he had a rooted dislike, of professional _littérateurs_, and was always haunted by a dread that they would claim equality with him on the common ground of authorship. he aspired through life to the superiority of a double distinction, that of a "lord among wits, and among wits a lord." in this same spirit lie resented the comparison frequently made between him and rousseau, and insisted on points of contrast. "he had a bad memory, i a good one. he was of the people; i of the aristocracy." byron was capable, of unbending, where the difference of rank was so great that it could not be ignored. on this principle we may explain his enthusiastic regard for the chorister eddlestone, from whom he received the cornelian that is the theme of some of his verses, and whose untimely death in he sincerely mourned. of his harrow friends, harness and long in due course followed him to cambridge, where their common pursuits were renewed. with the latter, who was drowned in , on a passage to lisbon with his regiment, he spent a considerable portion of his time on the cam, swimming and diving, in which art they were so expert as to pick up eggs, plates, thimbles, and coins from a depth of fourteen feet--incidents recalled to the poet's mind by reading milton's invocation to sabrina. during the, same period he distinguished himself at cricket, as in boxing, riding, and shooting. of his skill as a rider there are various accounts. he was an undoubted marksman, and his habit of carrying about pistols, and use of them wherever he went, was often a source of annoyance and alarm. he professed a theoretical objection to duelling, but was as ready to take a challenge as scott, and more ready to send one. regarding the masters and professors of cambridge, byron has little to say. his own tutor, tavell, appears pleasantly enough in his verse, and he commends the head of his college, dr. lort mansel, for dignified demeanour in his office, and a past reputation for convivial wit. his attentions to professor hailstones at harrowgate were graciously offered and received; but in a letter to murray he gives a graphically abusive account of porson, "hiccuping greek like a helot" in his cups. the poet was first introduced at cambridge to a brilliant circle of contemporaries, whose talents or attainments soon made them more or less conspicuous, and most of whom are interesting on their own account as well as from their connection with the subsequent phases of his career. by common consent charles skinner matthews, son of the member for herefordshire, - , was the most remarkable of the group. distinguished alike for scholarship, physical and mental courage, subtlety of thought, humour of fancy, and fascinations of character, this young man seems to have made an impression on the undergraduates of his own, similar to that left by charles austin on those of a later generation. the loss of this friend byron always regarded as an incalculable calamity. in a note to _childe harold_ he writes, "i should have ventured on a verse to the memory of matthews, were he not too much above all praise of mine. his powers of mind shown in the attainment of greater honours against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends, who loved him too well to envy his superiority." he was drowned when bathing alone among the reeds of the cam, in the summer of . in a letter written from ravenna in , byron, in answer to a request for contributions to a proposed memoir, introduces into his notes much autobiographical matter. in reference to a joint visit to newstead, he writes: "matthews and myself had travelled down from london together, talking all the way incessantly upon one single topic. when we got to loughborough, i know not what chasm had made us diverge for a moment to some other subject, at which he was indignant. 'come,' said he, 'don't let us break through; let us go on as we began, to our journey's end;' and so he continued, and was as entertaining as ever to the very end. he had previously occupied, during my year's absence from cambridge, my rooms in trinity, with the furniture; and jones (his tutor), in his odd way had said, in putting him in, 'mr. matthews, i recommend to your attention not to damage any of the movables, for lord byron, sir, is a young man of _tumultuous passions_.' matthews was delighted with this, and whenever anybody came, to visit him, begged them to handle the very door with caution, and used to repeat jones's admonition in his tone and manner.... he had the same droll sardonic way about everything. a wild irishman, named f., one evening beginning to say something at a large supper, matthews roared 'silence!' and then pointing to f., cried out, in the words of the oracle, 'orson is endowed with reason.' when sir henry smith was expelled from cambridge for a row with a tradesman named 'hiron,' matthews solaced himself with shouting under hiron's windows every evening-- ah me! what perils do environ the man who meddles with hot hiron! he was also of that band of scoffers who used to rouse lort mansel from his slumbers in the lodge of trinity; and when he appeared at the window, foaming with wrath, and crying out, "i know you, gentlemen; i know you!" were wont to reply, "we beseech thee to hear us, good lort. good lort, deliver us!" the whole letter, written in the poet's mature and natural style, gives a vivid picture of the social life and surroundings of his cambridge days: how much of the set and sententious moralizing of some of his formal biographers might we not have spared, for a report of the conversation on the road from london to newstead. of the others gathered round the same centre, scrope davies enlisted the largest share of byron's affections. to him he wrote after the catastrophe:--"come to me, scrope; i am almost desolate--left alone in the world. i had but you, and h., and m., and let me enjoy the survivors while i can." later he says, "matthews, davies, hobhouse, and myself formed a coterie of our own. davies has always beaten us all in the war of words, and by colloquial powers at once delighted and kept us in order; even m. yielded to the dashing vivacity of s.d." the last is everywhere commended for the brilliancy of his wit and repartee: he was never afraid to speak the truth. once when the poet in one of his fits of petulance exclaimed, intending to produce a terrible impression, "i shall go mad!" davies calmly and cuttingly observed, "it is much more like silliness than madness!" he was the only man who ever laid byron under any serious pecuniary obligation, having lent him _l_. in some time of strait. this was repaid on march , , when the pair sat up over champagne and claret from six till midnight, after which "scrope could not be got into the carriage on the way home, but remained tipsy and pious on his knees." davies was much disconcerted at the influence which the sceptical opinions of matthews threatened to exercise over byron's mind. the fourth of this quadrangle of amity was john cam hobhouse, afterwards lord broughton, the steadfast friend of the poet's whole life, the companion of his travels, the witness of his marriage, the executor of his will, the zealous guardian and vindicator of his fame. his ability is abundantly attested by the impression he left on his contemporaries, his published description of the pilgrimage, and subsequent literary and political career. byron bears witness to the warmth of his affections, and the charms of his conversation, and to the candour which, as he confessed to lady blessington, sometimes tried his patience. there is little doubt that they had some misunderstanding when travelling together, but it was a passing cloud. eighteen months after his return the poet admits that hobhouse was his best friend; and when he unexpectedly walked up the stairs of the palazzo lanfranchi, at pisa, madame guiccioli informs us that byron was seized with such violent emotion, and so extreme an excess of joy, that it seemed to take away his strength, and he was forced to sit down in tears. on the edge of this inner circle, and in many respects associated with it, was the rev. francis hodgson, a ripe scholar, good translator, a sound critic, a fluent writer of graceful verse, and a large-hearted divine, whoso correspondence, recently edited with a connecting narrative by his son, has thrown light on disputed passages of lord byron's life. the views entertained by the friends on literary matters were almost identical; they both fought under the standards of the classic school; they resented the same criticisms, they applauded the same successes, and were bound together by the strong tie of mutual admiration. byron commends hodgson's verses, and encourages him to write; hodgson recognizes in the _bards and reviewers_ and the early cantos of _childe harold_ the promise of _manfred_ and _cain_. among the associates who strove to bring the poet back to the anchorage of fixed belief, and to wean him from the error of his thoughts, francis hodgson was the most charitable, and therefore the most judicious. that his cautions and exhortations were never stultified by pedantry or excessive dogmatism, is apparent from the frank and unguarded answers which they called forth. in several, which are preserved, and some for the first time reproduced in the recently-published memoir, we are struck by the mixture of audacity and superficial dogmatism, sometimes amounting to effrontery, that is apt to characterize the negations of a youthful sceptic. in september, , byron writes from newstead:--"i will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another. christ came to save men, but a good pagan will go to heaven, and a bad nazarene to hell. i am no platonist, i am nothing at all; but i would sooner be a paulician, manichean, spinozist, gentile, pyrrhonian, zoroastrian, than one of the seventy-two villainous sects who are tearing each other to pieces for the love of the lord and hatred of each other. i will bring ten mussulman, shall shame you all in good will towards men and prayer to god." on a similar outburst in verse, the rev. f. hodgson comments with a sweet humanity, "the poor dear soul meant nothing of this." elsewhere the poet writes, "i have read watson to gibbon. he proves nothing; so i am where i was, verging towards spinoza; and yet it is a gloomy creed; and i want a better; but there is something pagan in me that i cannot shake off. _in short, i deny nothing, but i doubt everything_." but his early attitude on matters of religion is best set forth in a letter to gilford, of , in which he says, "i am no bigot to infidelity, and did not expect that because i doubted the immortality of man i should be charged with denying the existence of a god. it was the comparative insignificance of ourselves and our world, when placed in comparison of the mighty whole of which man is an atom, that first led me to imagine that our pretensions to eternity might be overrated. this, and being early disgusted with a calvinistic scotch school, where i was cudgelled to church for the first ten years of my life, afflicted me with this malady; for, after all, it is, i believe, a disease of the mind, as much as other kinds of hypochondria." hodgson was a type of friendly forbearance and loyal attachment, which had for their return a perfect open-heartedness in his correspondent. to no one did the poet more freely abuse himself; to no one did he indulge in more reckless sallies of humour; to no one did he more readily betray his little conceits. from him byron sought and received advice, and he owed to him the prevention of what might have been a most foolish and disastrous encounter. on the other hand, the clergyman was the recipient of one of the poet's many single-hearted acts of munificence--a gift of _l_., to pay off debts to which he had been left heir. in a letter to his uncle, the former gratefully alludes to this generosity: "oh, if you knew the exultation of heart, aye, and of head to, i feel at being free from those depressing embarrassments, you would, as i do, bless my dearest friend and brother, byron." the whole transaction is a pleasing record of a benefit that was neither sooner nor later resented by the receiver. among other associates of the same group should be mentioned henry drury--long hodgson's intimate friend, and ultimately his brother-in-law, to whom many of byron's first series of letters from abroad are addressed--and robert charles dallas, a name surrounded with various associations, who played a not insignificant part in byron's history, and, after his death, helped to swell the throng of his annotators. this gentleman, a connexion by marriage, and author of some now forgotten novels, first made acquaintance with the poet in london early in , when we have two letters from byron, in answer to some compliment on his early volume, in which, though addressing his correspondent merely as 'sir,' his flippancy and habit of boasting of excessive badness reach an absurd climax. meanwhile, during the intervals of his attendance at college, byron had made other friends. his vacations were divided between london and southwell, a small town on the road from mansfield and newark, once a refuge of charles i., and still adorned by an old norman minster. here mrs. byron for several summer seasons took up her abode, and was frequently joined by her son. he was introduced to john pigot, a medical student of edinburgh, and his sister elizabeth, both endowed with talents above the average, and keenly interested in literary pursuits, to whom a number of his letters are addressed; also to the rev. j.t. becher, author of a treatise on the state of the poor, to whom he was indebted for encouragement and counsel. the poet often rails at the place, which he found dull in comparison with cambridge and london; writing from the latter, in : "o southwell, how i rejoice to have left thee! and how i curse the heavy hours i dragged along for so many months among the mohawks who inhabit your kraals!" and adding, that his sole satisfaction during his residence there was having pared off some pounds of flush. notwithstanding, in the small but select society of this inland watering-place he passed on the whole a pleasant time--listening to the music of the simple ballads in which he delighted, taking part in the performances of the local theatre, making excursions, and writing verses. this otherwise quiet time was disturbed by exhibitions of violence on the part of mrs. byron, which suggest the idea of insanity. after one more outrageous than usual, both mother and son are said to have gone to the neighbouring apothecary, each to request him not to supply the other with poison. on a later occasion, when he had been meeting her bursts of rage with stubborn mockery, she flung a poker at his head, and narrowly missed her aim. upon this he took flight to london, and his hydra or alecto, as ho calls her, followed: on their meeting a truce was patched, and they withdrew in opposite directions, she back to southwell, he to refresh himself on the sussex coast, till in the august of the same year ( ) he again rejoined her. shortly afterwards we have from pigot a description of a trip to harrogate, when his lordship's favourite newfoundland, boatswain, whose relation to his master recalls that of bounce to pope, or maida to scott, sat on the box. in november byron printed for private circulation the first issue of his juvenile poems. mr. becher having called his attention to one which he thought objectionable, the impression was destroyed; and the author set to work upon another, which, at once weeded and amplified, saw the light in january, . he sent copies, under the title of _juvenilia_, to several of his friends, and among others to henry mackenzie (the man of feeling), and to fraser tytler, lord woodhouselee. encouraged by their favourable notices, he determined in appeal to a wider audience, and in march, , the _hours of idleness_, still proceeding from the local press at newark, were given to the world. in june we find the poet again writing from his college rooms, dwelling with boyish detail on his growth in height and reduction in girth, his late hours and heavy potations, his comrades, and the prospects of his book. from july to september he dates from london, excited by the praises of some now obscure magazine, and planning a journey to the hebrides. in october he is again settled at cambridge, and in a letter to miss pigot, makes a humorous reference to one of his fantastic freaks: "i have got a new friend, the finest in the world--a _tame bear_. when i brought him here, they asked me what i meant to do with him, and my reply was, 'he should sit for a fellowship.' this answer delighted them not." the greater part of the spring and summer of was spent at dorant's hotel, albemarle street. left to himself, he seems during this period for the first time to have freely indulged in dissipations, which are in most lives more or less carefully concealed. but byron, with almost unparalleled folly, was perpetually taking the public into his confidence, and all his "sins of blood," with the strange additions of an imaginative effrontery, have been thrust before us in a manner in which rochester or rousseau might have thought indelicate. nature and circumstances conspired the result. with passions which he is fond of comparing to the fires of vesuvius and hecla, he was, on his entrance into a social life which his rank helped to surround with temptations, unconscious of any sufficient motive for resisting them; he had no one to restrain him from the whim of the moment, or with sufficient authority to give him effective advice. a temperament of general despondency, relieved by reckless outbursts of animal spirits, is the least favourable to habitual self-control. the melancholy of byron was not of the pensive and innocent kind attributed to cowley, rather that of the, [greek: melancholikoi] of whom aristotle asserts, with profound psychological or physiological intuition, that they are [greek: aei en sphodra orexei]. the absurdity of moore's frequent declaration, that all great poets are inly wrapt in perpetual gloom, is only to be excused by the modesty which, in the saying so obviously excludes himself from the list. but it is true that anomalous energies are sources of incessant irritation to their possessor, until they have found their proper vent in the free exercise of his highest faculties. byron had not yet done, this, when he was rushing about between london, brighton, cambridge, and newstead--shooting, gambling, swimming, alternately drinking deep and trying to starve himself into elegance, green-room hunting, travelling with disguised companions,[ ] patronizing d'egville the dancing-master, grimaldi the clown, and taking lessons from mr. jackson, the distinguished professor of pugilism, to whom he afterwards affectionately refers as his "old friend and corporeal pastor and master." there is no inducement to dwell on amours devoid of romance, further than to remember that they never trenched on what the common code of the fashionable world terms dishonour. we may believe the poet's later assertion, backed by want of evidence to the contrary, that he had never been the first means of leading any one astray--a fact perhaps worthy the attention of those moral worshippers of goethe and burns who hiss at lord byron's name. [footnote : in reference to one of these, see an interesting letter from mr. minto to the _athenaeum_ (sept. nd, ), in which with considerable though not conclusive ingenuity, he endeavours to identify the girl with "thyrza," and with "astarté," whom he regards as the same person.] though much of this year of his life was passed unprofitably, from it dates the impulse that provoked him to put forth his powers. the _edinburgh_, with the attack on the _hours of idleness_, appeared in march, . this production, by lord brougham, is a specimen of the tomahawk style of criticism prevalent in the early years of the century, in which the main motive of the critic was, not to deal fairly with his author, but to acquire for himself an easy reputation for cleverness, by a series of smart contemptuous sentences. taken apart, most of the strictures of the _edinburgh_ are sufficiently just, and the passages quoted for censure are all bad. byron's genius as a poet was not remarkably precocious. the _hours of idleness_ seldom rise, either in thought or expression, very far above the average level of juvenile verse; many of the pieces in the collection are weak imitations, or commonplace descriptions; others suggested by circumstances of local or temporary interest, had served their turn before coming into print. their prevailing sentiment is an affectation of misanthropy, conveyed in such lines as these:-- weary of love, of life, devour'd with spleen, i rest, a perfect timon, not nineteen. this mawkish element unfortunately survives in much of the author's later verse. but even in this volume there are indications of force, and command. the _prayer of nature_, indeed, though previously written, was not included in the edition before the notice of the critic; but the sound of _loch-na-gair_ and some of the stanzas on _newstead_ ought to have saved him from the mistake of his impudent advice. the poet, who through life waited with feverish anxiety for every verdict on his work, is reported after reading the review to have looked like a man about to send a challenge. in the midst of a transparent show of indifference, he confesses to have drunk three bottles of claret on the evening of its appearance. but the wound did not mortify into torpor; the sea-kings' blood stood him in good stead, and he was not long in collecting his strength for the panther-like spring, which, gaining strength by its delay, twelve months later made it impossible for him to be contemned. the last months of the year he spent at newstead, vacated by the tenant, who had left the building in the tumble-down condition in which he found it. byron was, by his own acknowledgment, at this time, "heavily dipped," generosities having combined with selfish extravagances to the result; he had no funds to subject the place to anything like a thorough repair, but he busied himself in arranging a few of the rooms for his own present and his mother's after use. about this date he writes to her, beginning in his usual style, "dear madam," saying he has as yet no rooms ready for her reception, but that on his departure she shall be tenant till his return. during this interval he was studying pope, and carefully maturing his own satire. in november the dog boatswain died in a fit of madness. the event called forth the famous burst of misanthropic verse, ending with the couplet,-- to mark a friend's remains these stones arise; i never knew but _one_, and _here_ he lies;-- and the inscription on the monument that still remains in the gardens of newstead,-- near this spot, are deposited the remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices. this praise, which would be unmeaning flattery if inscribed over human ashes, is but a just tribute to the memory of boatswain, a dog, who was born at newfoundland, may, , and died at newstead abbey, november , . on january , , his lordship's coming of age was celebrated with festivities, curtailed of their proportions by his limited means. early in spring he paid a visit to london, bringing the proof of his satire to the publisher, cawthorne. from st. james's street he writes to mrs. byron, on the death of lord falkland, who had been killed in a duel, and expresses a sympathy for his family, left in destitute circumstances, whom he proceeded to relieve with a generosity only equalled by the delicacy of the manner in which it was shown. referring to his own embarrassment, he proceeds in the expression of a resolve, often repeated, "come what may, newstead and i stand or fall together. i have now lived on the spot--i have fixed my heart on it; and no pressure, present or future, shall induce me to barter the last vestige of our inheritance." he was building false hopes on the result of the suit for the rochdale property, which, being dragged from court to court, involved him in heavy expenses, with no satisfactory result. he took his seat in the house of lords on the th of march, and mr. dallas, who accompanied him to the bar of the house, has left an account of his somewhat unfortunate demeanour. "his countenance, paler than usual, showed that his mind was agitated, and that he was thinking of the nobleman to whom he had once looked for a hand and countenance in his introduction. there were very few persons in the house. lord eldon was going through some ordinary business. when lord byron had taken the oaths, the chancellor quitted his seat, and went towards him with a smile, putting out his hand warmly to welcome him; and, though i did not catch the words, i saw that he paid him some compliment. this was all thrown away upon lord byron, who made a stiff bow, and put the tips of his fingers into the chancellor's hand. the chancellor did not press a welcome so received, but resumed his seat; while lord byron carelessly seated himself for a few minutes on one of the empty benches to the left of the throne, usually occupied by the lords in opposition. when, on his joining me, i expressed what i had felt, he said 'if i had shaken hands heartily, he would have set me down for one of his party; but i will have nothing to do with them on either side. i have taken my seat, and now i will go abroad.'" a few days later the _english bards and scotch reviewers_ appeared before the public. the first anonymous edition was exhausted in a month; a second, to which the author gave his name, quickly followed. he was wont at a later date to disparage this production, and frequently recanted many of his verdicts in marginal notes. several, indeed, seem to have been dictated by feelings so transitory, that in the course of the correction of proof blame was turned into praise, and praise into blame; i.e. he wrote in ms. before he met the agreeable author,-- i leave topography to coxcomb gell; we have his second thought in the first edition, before he saw the troad,-- i leave topography to classic gell; and his third, half way in censure, in the fifth,-- i leave topography to rapid gell. of such materials are literary judgments made! the success of byron's satire was due to the fact of its being the only good thing of its kind since churchill,--for in the _baviad_ and _maeviad_ only butterflies were broken upon the wheel--and to its being the first promise of a now power. the _bards and reviewers_ also enlisted sympathy, from its vigorous attack upon the critics who had hitherto assumed the prerogative of attack. jeffrey and brougham were seethed in their own milk; and outsiders, whose credentials were still being examined, as moore and campbell, came in for their share of vigorous vituperation. the lakers fared worst of all. it was the beginning of the author's life-long war, only once relaxed, with southey. wordsworth--though against this passage is written "unjust," a concession not much sooner made than withdrawn,--is dubbed an idiot, who-- both by precept and example shows, that prose is verse and verse is only prose; and coleridge, a baby,-- to turgid ode and tumid stanza dear. the lines ridiculing the encounter between jeffrey and moore, are a fair specimen of the accuracy with which the author had caught the ring of pope's antithesis:-- the surly tolbooth scarcely kept her place. the tolbooth felt--for marble sometimes can, on such occasions, feel as much as man-- the tolbooth felt defrauded of her charms, if jeffrey died, except within her arms. meanwhile byron had again retired to newstead, where he invited some choice spirits to hold a few weeks of farewell revel. matthews, one of these, gives an account of the place, and the time they spent there--entering the mansion between a bear and a wolf, amid a salvo of pistol-shots; sitting up to all hours, talking politics, philosophy, poetry; hearing stories of the dead lords, and the ghost of the black brother; drinking their wine out of the skull cup which the owner had made out of the cranium of some old monk dug up in the garden; breakfasting at two, then reading, fencing, riding, cricketing, sailing on the lake, and playing with the bear or teasing the wolf. the party broke up without having made themselves responsible for any of the orgies of which childe harold raves, and which dallas in good earnest accepts as veracious, when the poet and his friend hobhouse started for falmouth, on their way "_outre mer_." chapter iv. two years of travel. there is no romance of munchausen or dumas more marvellous than the adventures attributed to lord byron abroad. attached to his first expedition are a series of narratives, by professing eye-witnesses, of his intrigues, encounters, acts of diablerie and of munificence, in particular of his roaming about the isles of greece and taking possession of one of them, which have all the same relation to reality as the _arabian nights_ to the actual reign of haroun al raschid.[ ] [footnote : those who wish to read them are referred to the three large volumes--published in , by mr. iley, portman street--of anonymous authorship.] byron had far more than an average share of the _émigré_ spirit, the counterpoise in the english race of their otherwise arrogant isolation. he held with wilhelm meister-- to give space for wandering is it, that the earth was made so wide. and wrote to his mother from athens: "i am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind, instead of reading about them, and the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an islander, that i think there should be a law amongst us to send our young men abroad for a term, among the few allies our wars have left us." on june th, having borrowed money at heavy interest, and stored his mind with information about persia and india, the contemplated but unattained goal of his travels, he left london, accompanied by his friend hobhouse, fletcher his valet, joe murray his old butler, and robert rushton the son of one of his tenants, supposed to be represented by the page in _childe harold_. the two latter, the one on account of his age, the other from his health breaking down, he sent back to england from gibraltar. becalmed for some days at falmouth, a town which he describes as "full of quakers and salt fish," he despatched letters to his mother, drury, and hodgson, exhibiting the changing moods of his mind. smarting under a slight he had received at parting from a school-companion, who had excused himself from a farewell meeting on the plea that he had to go shopping, he at one moment talks of his desolation, and says that, "leaving england without regret," he has thought of entering the turkish service; in the next, especially in the stanzas to hodgson, he runs off into a strain of boisterous buffoonery. on the nd of july, the packet, by which he was bound, sailed for lisbon and arrived there about the middle of the month, when the english fleet was anchored in the tagus. the poet in some of his stanzas has described the fine view of the port and the disconsolate dirtiness of the city itself, the streets of which were at that time rendered dangerous by the frequency of religious and political assassinations. nothing else remains of his sojourn to interest us, save the statement of mr. hobhouse, that his friend made a more perilous, though less celebrated, achievement by water than his crossing the hellespont, in swimming from old lisbon to belem castle, byron praises the neighbouring cintra, as "the most beautiful village in the world," though he joins with wordsworth in heaping anathemas on the convention, and extols the grandeur of mafra, the escurial of portugal, in the convent of which a monk, showing the traveller a large library, asked if the english had any books in their country. despatching his baggage and servants by sea to gibraltar, he and his friend started on horseback through the south-west of spain. their first resting-place, after a ride of miles, performed at an average rate of seventy in the twenty-four hours, was seville, where they lodged for three days in the house of two ladies, to whose attractions, as well as the fascination he seems to have exerted over them, the poet somewhat garrulously refers. here, too, he saw, parading on the prado, the famous _maid of saragossa_, whom he celebrates in his equally famous stanzas (_childe harold_, i., - ). of cadiz, the next stage, he writes with enthusiasm as a modern cythera, describing the bull fights in his verse, and the beauties in glowing prose. the belles of this city, he says, are the lancashire witches of spain; and by reason of them, rather than the sea-shore or the sierra morena, "sweet cadiz is the first spot in the creation." hence, by an english frigate, they sailed to gibraltar, for which place he has nothing but curses. byron had no sympathy with the ordinary forms of british patriotism, and in our great struggle with the tyranny of the first empire, he may almost be said to have sympathized with napoleon. the ship stopped at cagliari in sardinia, and again at girgenti on the sicilian coast. arriving at malta, they halted there for three weeks--time enough to establish a sentimental, though platonic, flirtation with mrs. spencer smith, wife of our minister at constantinople, sister-in-law of the famous admiral, and the heroine of some exciting adventures. she is the "florence" of _childe harold_, and is afterwards addressed in some of the most graceful verses of his cavalier minstrelsy-- do thou, amidst the fair white walls, if cadiz yet be free, at times from out her latticed halls look o'er the dark blue sea-- then think upon calypso's isles, endear'd by days gone by,-- to others give a thousand smiles, to me a single sigh. the only other adventure of the visit is byron's quarrel with an officer, on some unrecorded ground, which hobhouse tells us nearly resulted in a duel. the friends left malta on september th, in the war-ship "spider," and after anchoring off patras, and spending a few hours on shore, they skirted the coast of acarnania, in view of localities--as ithaca, the leucadian rock, and actium--whose classic memories filtered through the poet's mind and found a place in his masterpieces. landing at previsa, they started on a tour through albania,-- o'er many a mount sublime, through lands scarce noticed in historic tales. byron was deeply impressed by the beauty of the scenery, and the half-savage independence of the people, described as "always strutting about with slow dignity, though in rags." in october we find him with his companions at janina, hospitably entertained by order of ali pasha, the famous albanian turk, bandit, and despot, then besieging ibrahim at berat in illyria. they proceeded on their way by "bleak pindus," acherusia's lake, and zitza, with its monastery door battered by robbers. before reaching the latter place, they encountered a terrific thunderstorm, in the midst of which they separated, and byron's detachment lost its way for nine hours, during which he composed the verses to florence, quoted above. some days later they together arrived at tepaleni, and were there received by ali pasha in person. the scene on entering the town is described as recalling scott's branksome castle and the feudal system; and the introduction to ali, who sat for some of the traits of the poet's corsairs,--is graphically reproduced in a letter to mrs. byron. "his first question was, why at so early an age i left my country, and without a 'lala,' or nurse? he then said the english minister had told him i was of a great family, and desired his respects to my mother, which i now present to you (date, november th). he said he was certain i was a man of birth, because i had small ears, curling hair, and little white hands. he told me to consider him as a father whilst i was in turkey, and said he looked on me as his son. indeed he treated me like a child, sending me almonds, fruit, and sweetmeats, twenty times a day." byron shortly afterwards discovered his host to be, a poisoner and an assassin. "two days ago," he proceeds in a passage which illustrates his character and a common experience, "i was nearly lost in a turkish ship-of-war, owing to the ignorance of the captain and crew. fletcher yelled after his wife; the greeks called on all the saints, the mussulmen on alla; the captain burst into tears and ran below deck, telling us to call on god. the sails were split, the mainyard shivered, the wind blowing fresh, the night setting in; and all our chance was to make for corfu--or, as f. pathetically called it, 'a watery grave.' i did what i could to console him, but finding him incorrigible, wrapped myself in my albanian capote, and lay down on the deck to wait the worst." unable from his lameness, says hobhouse, to be of any assistance, he in a short time was found amid the trembling sailors, fast asleep. they got back to the coast of suli, and shortly afterwards started through acarnania and aetolia for the morea, again rejoicing in the wild scenery and the apparently kindred spirits of the wild men among whom they passed. byron was especially fascinated by the firelight dance and song of the robber band, which he describes and reproduces in _childe harold_. on the st of november he reached mesolonghi, whore, fifteen years later, he died. here he dismissed most of his escort, proceeded to patras, and on to vostizza, caught sight of parnassus, and accepted a flight of eagles near delphi as a favouring sign of apollo. "the last bird," he writes, "i ever fired at was an eaglet on the shore of the gulf of lepanto. it was only wounded and i tried to save it--the eye was so bright. but it pined and died in a few days: and i never did since, and never will, attempt the life of another bird." from livadia the travellers proceeded to thebes, visited the cave of trophonius, diana's fountain, the so-called ruins of pindar's house, and the field of cheronea, crossed cithaeron, and on christmas, , arrived before the defile, near the ruins of phyle, where, he had his first glimpse of athens, which evoked the famous lines:-- ancient of days, august athena! where, where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were. first in the race that led to glory's goal, they won, and pass'd away: is this the whole-- a schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour? after which he reverts to his perpetually recurring moral, "men come and go; but the hills, and waves, and skies, and stars, endure"-- apollo still thy long, long summer gilds; still in his beam mendeli's marbles glare; art, glory, freedom fail--but nature still is fair. the duration of lord byron's first visit to athens was about three months, and it was varied by excursions to different parts of attica; eleusis, hymettus, cape colonna, (sunium, the scene of falconer's shipwreck), the colonus of oedipus, and marathon, the plain of which is said to have been placed at his disposal for about the same sum that, thirty years later, an american offered to give for the bark with the poet's name on the tree at newstead. byron had a poor opinion of the modern athenians, who seem to have at this period done their best to justify the roman satirist. he found them superficial, cunning, and false; but, with generous historic insight, he says that no nation in like circumstances would have been much better; that they had the vices of ages of slavery, from which it would require ages of freedom to emancipate them. in the greek capital he lodged at the house of a respectable lady, widow of an english vice-consul, who had three daughters, the eldest of whom, theresa, acquired an innocent and enviable fame as the maid of athens, without the dangerous glory of having taken any very firm hold of the heart that she was asked to return. a more solid passion was the poet's genuine indignation on the "lifting," in border phrase, of the marbles from the parthenon, and their being taken to england by order of lord elgin. byron never wrote anything more sincere than the _curse of minerva_; and he has recorded few incidents more pathetic than that of the old greek who, when the last stone was removed for exportation, shed tears, and said "[greek: telos]!" the question is still an open one of ethics. there are few englishmen of the higher rank who do not hold london in the right hand as barely balanced by the rest of the world in the left; a judgment in which we can hardly expect romans, parisians, and athenians to concur. on the other hand, the marbles were mouldering at athens, and they are preserved, like ginger, in the british museum. among the adventures of this period are an expedition across the ilissus to some caves near kharyati, in which the travellers were by accident nearly entombed; another to pentelicus, where they tried to carve their names on the marble rock; and a third to the environs of the piraeus in the evening light. early in march the convenient departure of an english sloop-of-war induced them to make an excursion to smyrna. there, on the th of march, the second canto of _childe harold_, begun in the previous autumn at janina, was completed. they remained in the neighbourhood, visiting ephesus, without poetical result further than a reference to the jackals, in the _siege of corinth_; and on april th left by the "salsette," a frigate on its way to constantinople. the vessel touched at the troad, and byron spent some time on land, snipe-shooting, and rambling among the reputed ruins of ilium. the poet characteristically, in _don juan_ and elsewhere, attacks the sceptics, and then half ridicules the belief. i've stood upon achilles' tomb, and heard troy doubted! time will doubt of rome! * * * * * there, on the green and village-cotted hill, is, flank'd by the hellespont, and by the sea, entomb'd the bravest of the brave achilles.-- they say so: bryant says the contrary. being again detained in the dardanelles, waiting for a fair wind, byron landed on the european side, and swam, in company with lieutenant ekenhead, from sestos to abydos--a performance of which he boasts some twenty times. the strength of the current is the main difficulty of a feat, since so surpassed as to have passed from notice; but it was a tempting theme for classical allusions. at length, on may , he reached constantinople, exalted the golden horn above all the sights he had seen, and now first abandoned his design of travelling to persia. galt, and other more or less gossiping travellers, have accumulated a number of incidents of the poet's life at this period, of his fanciful dress, blazing in scarlet and gold, and of his sometimes absurd contentions for the privileges of rank--as when he demanded precedence of the english ambassador in an interview with the sultan, and, on its refusal, could only be pacified by the assurances of the austrian internuncio. in converse with indifferent persons he displayed a curious alternation of frankness and hauteur, and indulged a habit of letting people up and down, by which he frequently gave offence. more interesting are narratives of the suggestion of some of his verses, as the slave-market in _don juan_, and the spectacle of the dead criminal tossed on the waves, revived in the _bride of abydos_. one example is, if we except dante's _ugolino_, the most remarkable instance in literature of the expansion, without the weakening, of the horrible. take first mr. hobhouse's plain prose: "the sensations produced by the state of the weather"--it was wretched and stormy when they left the "salsette" for the city--"and leaving a comfortable cabin, were in unison with the impressions which we felt when, passing under the palace of the sultans, and gazing at the gloomy cypress which rises above the walls, we saw two dogs gnawing a dead body." after this we may measure the almost fiendish force of a morbid imagination brooding over the incident,-- and he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall hold o'er the dead their carnival: gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb, they were too busy to bark at him. from a tartar's skull they had stripp'd the flesh, as ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh; and their white tusks crunch'd on the whiter skull, as it slipp'd through their jaws when their edge grow dull. no one ever more persistently converted the incidents of travel into poetic material; but sometimes in doing so he borrowed more largely from his imagination than his memory, as in the description of the seraglio, of which there is reason to doubt his having seen more than the entrance. byron and hobhouse set sail from constantinople on the th july, --the latter to return direct to england, a determination which, from no apparent fault on either side, the former did not regret. one incident of the passage derives interest from its possible consequence. taking up, and unsheathing, a yataghan which he found on the quarter deck, ho remarked, "i should like to know how a person feels after committing a murder." this harmless piece of melodrama--the idea of which is expanded in mr. dobell's _balder_, and parodied in _firmilian_--may have been the basis of a report afterwards circulated, and accepted among others by goethe, that his lordship had committed a murder; hence, obviously, the character of _lara_, and the mystery of _manfred!_ the poet parted from his friend at zea, (ceos): after spending some time in solitude on the little island, he returned to athens, and there renewed acquaintance with his school friend, the marquis of sligo, who after a few days accompanied him to corinth. they then separated, and byron went on to patras in the morea, where he had business with the consul. he dates from there at the close of july. it is impossible to give a consecutive account of his life during the next ten months, a period consequently filled up with the contradictory and absurd mass of legends before referred to. a few facts only of any interest are extricable. during at least half of the time his head-quarters were at athens, where he again met his friend the marquis, associated with the english consul and lady hester stanhope, studied romaic in a franciscan monastery--where he saw and conversed with a motley crew of french, italians, danes, greeks, turks, and americans,--wrote to his mother and others, saying he had swum from sestos to abydos, was sick of fletcher bawling for beef and beer, had done with authorship, and hoped on his return to lead a quiet recluse life. he nevertheless made notes to _harold_, composed the _hints from horace_ and the _curse of minerva_, and presumably brooded over, and outlined in his mind, many of his verse romances. we hear no more of the, _maid of athens_, but there is no fair ground to doubt that the _giaour_ was suggested by his rescue of a young woman whom, for the fault of an amour with some frank, a party of janissaries were about to throw, sewn up in a sack, into the sea. mr. galt gives no authority for his statement, that the girl's deliverer was the original cause of her sentence. we may rest assured that if it had been so, byron himself would have told us of it. a note to the _siege of corinth_ is suggestive of his unequalled restlessness. "i visited all three--tripolitza, napoli, and argos--in - ; and in the course of journeying through the country, from my first arrival in , crossed the isthmus eight times on my way from attica to the morea." in the latter locality we find him during the autumn the honoured guest of the vizier valhi (a son of ali pasha), who presented him with a fine horse. during a second visit to patras, in september, he was attacked by the same sort of marsh fever from which, fourteen years afterwards, in the near neighbourhood, he died. on his recovery, in october, he complains of having been nearly killed by the heroic measures of the native doctors: "one of them trusts to his genius, never having studied; the other, to a campaign of eighteen months against the sick of otranto, which he made in his youth with great effect. when i was seized with my disorder, i protested against both these assassins, but in vain." he was saved by the zeal of his servants, who asseverated that if his lordship died they would take good care the doctors should also; on which the learned men discontinued their visits, and the patient revived. on his final return to athens, the restoration of his health was retarded by one of his long courses of reducing diet; he lived mainly on rice, and vinegar and water. from that city he writes in the early spring, intimating his intention of proceeding to egypt; but mr. hanson, his man of business, ceasing to send him remittances, the scheme was abandoned. beset by letters about his debts, he again declares his determination to hold fast by newstead, adding that if the place which is his only tie to england is sold, he won't come back at all. life on the shores of the archipelago is far cheaper and happier, and "ubi bene ibi patria," for such a citizen of the world as he has become. later he went to malta, and was detained there by another bad attack of tertian fever. the next record of consequence is from the "volage" frigate, at sea, june , , when he writes in a despondent strain to hodgson, that he is returning home "without a hope, and almost without a desire," to wrangle with creditors and lawyers about executions and coal pits. "in short, i am sick and sorry; and when i have a little repaired my irreparable affairs, away i shall march, either to campaign in spain, or back again to the east, where i can at least have cloudless skies and a cessation from impertinence. i am sick of fops, and poesy, and prate, and shall leave the whole castalian state to bufo, or anybody else. howbeit, i have written some lines, of one kind or another, on my travels." with these, and a collection of marbles, and skulls, and hemlock, and tortoises, and servants, he reached london about the middle of july, and remained there, making some arrangements about business and publication. on the rd we have a short but kind letter to his mother, promising to pay her a visit on his way to rochdale. "you know you are a vixen, but keep some champagne for me," he had written from abroad. on receipt of the letter she remarked, "if i should be dead before he comes down, what a strange thing it, would be." towards the close of the month she had an attack so alarming that he was summoned; but before, he had time to arrive she had expired, on the st of august, in a fit of rage brought on by reading an upholsterer's bill. on the way byron heard the intelligence, and wrote to dr. pigot: "i now feel the truth of gray's observation, that we can only have _one_ mother. peace be with her!" on arriving at newstead, all their storms forgotten, the son was so affected that he did not trust himself to go to the funeral, but stood dreamily gazing at the cortège from the gate of the abbey. five days later, charles s. matthews was drowned. chapter v. second period of authorship--in london--correspondence with scott the deaths of long, wingfield, eddlestone, matthews, and of his mother, had narrowed the circle of the poet's early companions; and, though he talks of each loss in succession as if it had been that of an only friend, we can credit a degree of loneliness, and excuse a certain amount of bitterness in the feelings with which he returned to london. he had at this time seen very little of the only relative whom he over deeply loved. he and his half-sister met casually in , and again in the following year. after her marriage ( ), byron writes from abroad ( ), regretting having distressed her by his quarrel with lord carlisle. in she is mentioned as reversionary heiress of his estate. towards the close of , there are two allusions which testify to their mutual affection. next wo come to the interesting series of letters of - , published with the memoir of mr. hodgson, to whom, along with hobhouse and scrope davies, his lordship in a will and codicil leaves the management of his property. harness appears frequently at this period among his surviving intimates: to this list there was shortly added another. in speaking of his _bards and reviewers_, the author makes occasional reference to the possibility of his being called to account for some of his attacks. his expectation was realized by a letter from the poet moore, dated dublin, jan. , , couched in peremptory terms, demanding to know if his lordship avowed the authorship of the insults contained in the poem. this letter, being entrusted to mr. hodgson, was not forwarded to byron abroad; but shortly after his return, he received another in more conciliatory terms, renewing the complaint. to this he replied, in a stiff but manly letter, that he had never meant to insult mr. moore; but that he was, if necessary, ready to give him satisfaction. moore accepting the explanation, somewhat querulously complained of his advances to friendship not being received. byron again replied that much as he would feel honoured by mr. moore's acquaintance, he being practically threatened by the irate irishman could hardly make the first advances. this called forth a sort of apology; the correspondents met at the house of mr. rogers, and out of the somewhat awkward circumstances, owing to the frankness of the "noble author," as the other ever after delights to call him, arose the life-long intimacy which had such various and lasting results. moore has been called a false friend to byron, and a traitor to his memory. the judgment is somewhat harsh, but the association between them was unfortunate. thomas moore had some sterling qualities. his best satirical pieces are inspired by a real indignation, and lit up by a genuine humour. he was also an exquisite musician in words, and must have been occasionally a fascinating companion. but he was essentially a worldling, and, as such, a superficial critic. he encouraged the shallow affectations of his great friend's weaker work, and recoiled in alarm before the daring defiance of his stronger. his criticisms on all byron wrote and felt seriously on religion are almost worthy of a conventicle. his letters to others on _manfred_, and _cain_, and _don juan_, are the expression of sentiments which he had never the courage to state explicitly to the author. on the other hand, byron was attracted beyond reasonable measure by his gracefully deferential manners, paid too much regard to his opinions, and overestimated his genius. for the subsequent destruction of the memoirs, urged by mr. hobhouse and mrs. leigh, he was not wholly responsible; though a braver man, having accepted the position of his lordship's literary legatee, with the express understanding that he would seue to the fulfilment of the wishes of his dead friend, would have to the utmost resisted their total frustration. meanwhile, on landing in england, the poet had placed in the hands of mr. dallas the _hints from horace_, which he intended to have brought out by the publisher cawthorne. of this performance--an inferior edition, relieved by a few strong touches, of the _bards and reviewers_--dallas ventured to express his disapproval. "have you no other result of your travels?" he asked; and got for answer, "a few short pieces; and a lot of spenserian stanzas; not worth troubling you with, but you are welcome to them." dallas took the remark literally, saw they were a safe success, and assumed to himself the merit of the discovery, the risks, and the profits. it is the converse of the story of gabriel harvey and the _faery queene_. tho first two cantos of _childe harold_ bear no comparison with the legend of _una and the red cross knight_; but there was no mistake about their proof of power, their novelty, and adaptation to a public taste as yet unjaded by eloquent and imaginative descriptions of foreign scenery, manners, and climates. the poem--after being submitted to gifford, in defiance of the protestations of the author, who feared that the reference might seem to seek the favour of the august _quarterly_--was accepted by mr. murray, and proceeded through the press, subject to change and additions, during the next five months. the _hints from horace_, fortunately postponed and then suspended, appeared posthumously in . byron remained at newstead till the close of october, negotiating with creditors and lawyers, and engaged in a correspondence about his publications, in the course of which he deprecates any identification of himself and his hero, though he had at first called him childe byron. "instruct mr. murray," he entreats, "not to allow his shopman to call the work 'child of harrow's pilgrimage,' as he has done to some of my astonished friends, who wrote to inquire after my _sanity_ on the occasion, as well they might." at the end of the month we find him in london, again indulging in a voyage in "the ship of fools," in which moore claims to have accompanied him; but at the same time exhibiting remarkable shrewdness in reference to the affairs of his household. in february, , he again declares to hodgson his resolve to leave england for ever, and fix himself in "one of the fairest islands of the east." on the th he made in the house of lords his speech on a bill to introduce special penalties against the frame-breakers of nottingham. this effort, on which he received many compliments, led among other results to a friendly correspondence with lord holland. on april st of the same year, he again addressed the house on behalf of roman catholic emancipation; and in june, , in favour of major cartwright's petition. on all these occasions, as afterwards on the continent, byron espoused the liberal side of politics. but his role was that of manlius or caesar, and he never fails to remind us that he himself was _for_ the people, not _of_ them. his latter speeches, owing partly to his delivery, blamed as too asiatic, were less successful. to a reader the three seem much on the same level. they are clever, but evidently set performances, and leave us no ground to suppose that the poet's abandonment of a parliamentary career was a serious loss to the nation. on the th of february the first and second cantos of _childe harold_ appeared. an early copy was sent to mrs. leigh, with the inscription: "to augusta, my dearest sister and my best friend, who has ever loved me much better than i deserved, this volume is presented by her father's son and most affectionate brother, b." the book ran through seven editions in four weeks. the effect of the first edition of burns, and the sale of scott's _lays_, are the only parallels in modern poetic literature to this success. all eyes were suddenly fastened on the author, who let his satire sleep, and threw politics aside, to be the romancer of his day and for two years the darling of society. previous to the publition, mr. moore confesses to have gratified his lordship with the expression of the fear that _childe harold_ was too good for the age. its success was due to the reverse being the truth. it was just on the level of its age. its flowing verse, defaced by rhymical faults perceptible only to finer ears, its prevailing sentiment, occasional boldness relieved by pleasing platitudes, its half affected rakishness, here and there elevated by a rush as of morning air, and its frequent richness--not yet, as afterwards, splendour--of description, were all appreciated by the fashionable london of the regency; while the comparatively mild satire, not keen enough to scarify, only gave a more piquant flavour to the whole. byron's genius, yet in the green leaf, was not too far above the clever masses of pleasure-loving manhood by which it was surrounded. it was natural that the address on the reopening of drury lane theatre should be written by "the world's new joy"--the first great english poet-peer; as natural as that in his only published satire of the period he should inveigh against almost the only amusement in which he could not share. the address was written at the request of lord holland, when of some hundred competitive pieces none had been found exactly suitable--a circumstance which gave rise to the famous parodies entitled _the rejected addresses_--and it was thought that the ultimate choice would conciliate all rivalry. the care which byron bestowed on the correction of the first draft of this piece, is characteristic of his habit of writing off his poems at a gush, and afterwards carefully elaborating them. _the waltz_ was published anonymously in april, . it was followed in may by the _giaour_, the first of the flood of verse romances which, during the three succeeding years, he poured forth with impetuous fluency, and which were received with almost unrestrained applause. the plots and sentiments and imagery are similar in them all. the giaour steals the mistress of hassan, who revenges his honour by drowning her. the giaour escapes; returns, kills hassan, and then goes to a monastery. in the _bride of abydos_, published in the december of the same year, giaffir wants to marry his daughter zuleika to carasman pasha. she runs off with selim, her reputed brother--in reality her cousin, and so at last her legitimate lover. they are caught; he is slain in fight; she dies, to slow music. in the _corsair_, published january, , conrad, a pirate, "linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes!" is beloved by medora, who on his predatory expeditions, sits waiting for him (like hassan's and sisera's mother) in a tower. on one of these he attacks seyd pasha, and is overborne by superior force; but gulnare, a female slave of seyd, kills her master, and runs off with conrad, who finds medora dead and vanishes. in _lara_, the sequel to this--written in may and june, published in august--a man of mystery appears in the morea, with a page, kaled. after adventures worthy of mrs. radcliffe--from whose schledoni the giaour is said to have been drawn--lara falls in battle with his deadly foe, ezzelin, and turns out to be conrad, while kaled is of course gulnare. the _hebrew melodies_, written in december, , are interesting, in connexion with the author's early familiarity with the old testament, and from the force and music that mark the best of them; but they can hardly be considered an important contribution to the devotional verse of england. the _siege of corinth_ and _parisina_, composed after his marriage in the summer and autumn of , appeared in the following year. the former is founded on the siege of the city, when the turks took it from menotti; but our attention is concentrated on alp the renegade, another sketch from the same protoplastic ruffian, who leads on the turks, is in love with the daughter of the governor of the city, tries to save her, but dies. the poem is frequently vigorous, but it ends badly. _parisina_, though unequal, is on the whole a poem of a higher order than the others of the period. the trial scene exhibits some dramatic power, and the shriek of the lady mingling with ugo's funeral dirge lingers in our ears, along with the convent bells-- in the grey square turret swinging, with a deep sound, to and fro, heavily to the heart they go. these romances belong to the same period of the author's poetic career as the first two cantos of _childe harold_. they followed one another like brilliant fireworks. they all exhibit a command of words, a sense of melody, and a flow of rhythm and rhyme, which mastered moore and even scott on their own ground. none of them are wanting in passages, as "he who hath bent him o'er the dead," and the description of alp leaning against a column, which strike deeper than any verse of either of those writers. but there is an air of melodrama in them all. harmonious delights of novel readers, they will not stand against the winnowing wind of deliberate criticism. they harp on the same string, without the variations of a paganini. they are potentially endless reproductions of one phase of an ill-regulated mind--the picture of the same quasi-melancholy vengeful man, who knows no friend but a dog, and reads on the tombs of the great only "the glory and the nothing of a name," the exile who cannot flee from himself, "the wandering outlaw of his own dark mind," who has not loved the world nor the world him,-- whose heart was form'd for softness, warp'd by wrong, betray'd too early, and beguiled too long-- all this, _decies repetita_, grows into a weariness and vexation. mr. carlyle harshly compares it to the screaming of a meat-jack. the reviewers and the public of the time thought differently. jeffrey, penitent for the early _faux pas_ of his _review_, as byron remained penitent for his answering assault, writes of _lara_, "passages of it may be put into competition with anything that poetry has produced in point either of pathos or energy." moore--who afterwards wrote, not to byron, that seven devils had entered into _manfred_--professes himself "enraptured with it." fourteen thousand copies of the _corsair_ wore sold in a day. but hear the author's own half-boast, half-apology: "_lara_ i wrote while undressing after coming home from balls and masquerades, in the year of revelry . the _bride_ was written in four, the _corsair_ in ten days. this i take to he a humiliating confession, as it proves my own want of judgment in publishing, and the public's in reading, things which cannot have stamina for permanence." the pecuniary profits accruing to byron from his works began with _lara_, for which he received _l_. he had made over to mr. dallas, besides other gifts to the same ungrateful recipient, the profits of _harold_, amounting to _l_, and of the _corsair_, which brought _l_. the proceeds of the _giaour_ and the _bride_ were also surrendered. during this period, - , he had become familiar with all the phases of london society, "tasted their pleasures," and, towards the close, "felt their decay." his associates in those years were of two classes--men of the world, and authors. fêted and courted in all quarters, he patronized the theatres, became in a member of the drury lane committee, "liked the dandies," including beau brummell, and was introduced to the regent. their interview, in june , in the course of which the latter paid unrestrained compliments to _harold_ and the poetry of scott, is naively referred to by mr. moore "as reflecting even still more honour on the sovereign himself than on the two poets." byron, in a different spirit, writes to lord holland: "i have now great hope, in the event of mr. pye's decease, of warbling truth at court, like mr. mallet of indifferent memory. consider, one hundred marks a year! besides the wine and the disgrace." we can hardly conceive the future author of the _vision of judgment_ writing odes to dictation. he does not seem to have been much fascinated with the first gentleman of europe, whom at no distant date he assailed in the terrible "avatar," and left the laureateship to mr. southey. among leaders in art and letters he was brought into more or less intimate contact with sir humphry davy, the edgeworths, sir james mackintosh, colman the dramatic author, the older kean, monk lewis, grattan, curran, and madame de staël. of a meeting of the last two he remarks, "it was like the confluence of the rhone and the sâone, and they were both so ugly that i could not help wondering how the best intellects of france and ireland could have taken up respectively such residences." about this time a communication from mr murray in reference to the meeting with the regent led to a letter from sir walter scott to lord byron, the beginning of a life-long friendship, and one of the most pleasing pages of biography. these two great men were for a season perpetually pitted against one another, as the foremost competitors for literary favour. when _rokeby_ came out, contemporaneously with the _giaour_, the undergraduates of oxford and cambridge ran races to catch the first copies, and laid bets as to which of the rivals would win. during the anti-byronic fever of - they were perpetually contrasted as the representatives of the manly and the morbid schools. a later sentimentalism has affected to despise the work of both. the fact therefore that from an early period the men themselves knew each other as they were, is worth illustrating. scott's letter, in which a generous recognition of the pleasure he had derived from tho work of the english poet, was followed by a manly remonstrance on the subject of the attack in the _bards and reviewers_, drew from byron in the following month (july ) an answer in the same strain, descanting on the prince's praises of the _lay_ and _marmion_, and candidly apologizing for the "evil works of his nonage." "the satire," he remarks, "was written when i was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit; and now i am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions." this, in turn, called forth another letter to byron eager for more of his verses, with a cordial invitation to abbotsford on the ground of scotland's maternal claim on him, and asking for information about pegasus and parnassus. after this the correspondence continues with greater freedom, and the same display on either side of mutual respect. when scott says "the _giaour_ is praised among our mountains," and byron returns "_waverley_ is the best novel i have read," there is no suspicion of flattery--it is the interchange of compliments between men, et cantare pares et respondere parati. they talk in just the same manner to third parties. "i gave over writing romances," says the elder, in the spirit of a great-hearted gentleman," because byron beat me. he hits the mark, where i don't even pretend to fledge my arrow. he has access to a stream of sentiment unknown to me." the younger, on the other hand, deprecates the comparisons that were being invidiously drawn between them. he presents his copy of the _giaour_ to scott, with the phrase "to the monarch of parnassus," and compares the feeling of those who cavilled at his fame to that of the athenians towards aristides. from those sentiments, he never swerves, recognizing to the last the breadth of character of the most generous of his critics, and referring to him, during his later years in italy, as the wizard and the ariosto of the north. a meeting was at length arranged between them. scott looked forward to it with anxious interest, humorously remarking that byron should say,-- art thou the man whom men famed grissell call? and he reply-- art thou the still more famed tom thumb the small? they met in london during the spring of . the following sentences are from sir walter's account of it:--"report had prepared me to meet a man of peculiar habits and quick temper, and i had some doubts whether we were likely to suit each other in society. i was most agreeably disappointed in this respect. i found lord byron in the highest degree courteous, and even kind. we met for an hour or two almost daily in mr. murray's drawing-room, and found a great deal to say to each other. our sentiments agreed a good deal, except upon the subjects of religion and politics, upon neither of which i was inclined to believe that lord byron entertained very fixed opinions. on politics he used sometimes to express a high strain of what is now called liberalism; but it appeared to me that the pleasure it afforded him as a vehicle of displaying his wit and satire against individuals in office was at the bottom of this habit of thinking. at heart, i would have termed byron a patrician on principle. his reading did not seem to me to have been very extensive. i remember repeating to him the fine poem of hardyknute, and some one asked me what i could possibly have been telling byron by which he was so much agitated. i saw him for the last time in (september) , after i returned from france; he dined or lunched with me at long's in bond street. i never saw him so full of gaiety and good humour. the day of this interview was the most interesting i ever spent. several letters passed between us--one perhaps every half year. like the old heroes in homer we exchanged gifts; i gave byron a beautiful dagger mounted with gold, which had been the property of the redoubted elfi bey. but i was to play the part of diomed in the _iliad_, for byron sent me, some time after, a large sepulchral vase of silver, full of dead men's bones, found within the land walls of athens. he was often melancholy, almost gloomy. when i observed him in this humour i used either to wait till it went off of its own accord, or till some natural and easy mode occurred of leading him into conversation, when the shadows almost always left his countenance, like the mist arising from a landscape. i think i also remarked in his temper starts of suspicion, when he seemed to pause and consider whether there had not been a secret and perhaps offensive meaning in something that was said to him. in this case i also judged it best to let his mind, like a troubled spring, work itself clear, which it did in a minute or two. a downright steadiness of manner was the way to his good opinion. will rose, looking by accident at his feet, saw him scowling furiously; but on his showing no consciousness, his lordship resumed his easy manner. what i liked about him, besides his boundless genius, was his generosity of spirit as well as of purse, and his utter contempt of all the affectations of literature. he liked moore and me because, with all our other differences, we were both good-natured fellows, not caring to maintain our dignity, enjoying the _mot-pour-rire_. he wrote from impulse never from effort, and therefore i have always reckoned burns and byron the most genuine poetic geniuses of my time, and of half a century before me. we have many men of high poetic talents, but none of that ever-gushing and perennial fountain of natural waters." scott, like all hale men of sound sense, regretted the almost fatal incontinence which, in the year of his greatest private troubles, led his friend to make a parade of them before the public. he speaks more than once of his unhappy tendency to exhibit himself as the dying gladiator, and even compares him to his peacock, screeching before his window because he chooses to bivouack apart from his mate; but he read a copy of the ravenna diary without altering his view that his lordship was his own worst maligner. scott, says lockhart, considered byron the only poet of transcendent talents we had had since dryden. there is preserved a curious record of his meeting with a greater poet than dryden, but one whose greatness neither he nor scott suspected. mr. crabb robinson reports wordsworth to have said, in charles lamb's chambers, about the year , "these reviewers put me out of patience. here is a young man who has written a volume of poetry; and these fellows, just because he is a lord, set upon him. the young man will do something, if he goes on as he has begun. but these reviewers seem to think that nobody may write poetry unless he lives in a garret." years after, lady byron, on being told this, exclaimed, "ah, if byron had known that, he would never have attacked wordsworth. he went one day to meet him at dinner, and i said, 'well, how did the young poet get on with the old one?' 'why, to tell the truth,' said he, 'i had but one feeling from the beginning of the visit to the end, and that was _reverence_.'" similarly, he began by being on good terms with southey, and after a meeting at holland house, wrote enthusiastically of his prepossessing appearance. byron and the leaders of the so-called lake school were, at starting, common heirs of the revolutionary spirit; they were, either in their social views or personal feelings, to a large extent influenced by the most morbid, though in some respects the most magnetic, genius of modern france, j.j. rousseau; but their temperaments were in many respects fundamentally diverse; and the pre-established discord between them ere long began to make itself manifest in their following out widely divergent paths. wordsworth's return to nature had been preluded by cowper; that of byron by burns. the revival of the one ripened into a restoration of simpler manners and old beliefs; the other was the spirit of the storm. when they had both become recognized powers, neither appreciated the work of the other. a few years after this date byron wrote of wordsworth, to a common admirer of both: "i take leave to differ from you as freely as i once agreed with you. his performances, since the _lyrical ballads_, are miserably inadequate to the ability that lurks within him. there is, undoubtedly, much natural talent spilt over the _excursion_; but it is rain upon rocks, where it stands and stagnates; or rain upon sand, where it falls without fertilizing." this criticism with others in like strain, was addressed to mr. leigh hunt, to whom, in , when enduring for radicalism's sake a very comfortable incarceration, byron had, in company with moore, paid a courteous visit. of the correspondence of this period--flippant, trenchant, or sparkling--few portions are more calculated to excite a smile than the record of his frequent resolutions made, reasseverated, and broken, to have done with literature; even going the length on some occasions of threatening to suppress his works, and, if possible, recall the existing copies. he affected being a man of the world unmercifully, and had a real delight in clever companions who assumed the same rôle. frequent allusion is made to his intercourse with erskine and sheridan: the latter he is never tired of praising, as "the author of the best modern comedy (_school for scandal_), the best farce (_the critic_), and the best oration (the famous begum speech) ever heard in this country." they spent many an evening together, and probably cracked many a bottle. it is byron who tells the story of sheridan being found in a gutter in a sadly incapable state; and, on some one asking "who is this?" stammering out "wilberforce." on one occasion he speaks of coming out of a tavern with the dramatist, when they both found the staircase in a very cork-screw condition: and elsewhere, of encountering a mr. c----, who "had no notion of meeting with a bon-vivant in a scribbler," and summed the poet's eulogy with the phrase, "he drinks like a man." hunt, the tattler, who observed his lordship's habits in italy, with the microscope of malice ensconced within the same walls, makes it a charge against his host that he would not drink like a man. once for all it may be noted, that although there was no kind of excess in which byron, whether from bravado or inclination, failed occasionally to indulge, he was never for any stretch of time given over, like burns, to what is technically termed intemperance. his head does not seem to have been strong, and under the influence of stimulants he may have been led to talk a great deal of his dangerous nonsense. but though he could not say, with wordsworth, that only once, at cambridge, had his brain been "excited by the fumes of wine," his prevailing sins were in other directions. chapter vi. marriage, and farewell to england. "as for poets," says scott, "i have seen all the best of my time and country, and, though burns had the most glorious eye imaginable, i never thought any of them would come up to an artist's notion of the character, except byron. his countenance is a thing to dream of." coleridge writes to the same effect, in language even stronger. we have from all sides similar testimony to the personal beauty which led the unhappiest of his devotees to exclaim, "that pale face is my fate!" southern critics, as chasles, castelar, even mazzini, have dealt leniently with the poet's relations to the other sex; and elze extends to him in this regard the same excessive stretch of charity. "dear childe harold," exclaims the german professor, "was positively besieged by women. they have, in truth, no right to complain of him: from his childhood he had seen them on their worst side." it is the casuistry of hero-worship to deny that byron was unjust to women, not merely in isolated instances, but in his prevailing views of their character and claims. "i regard them," he says, in a passage only distinguished from others by more extravagant petulance, "as very pretty but inferior creatures, who are as little in their place at our tables as they would be in our council chambers. the whole of the present system with regard to the female sex is a remnant of the barbarism of the chivalry of our forefathers. i look on them as grown-up children; but, like a foolish mamma, i am constantly the slave of one of them. the turks shut up their women, and are much happier; give a woman a looking-glass and burnt almonds, and she will be content." in contrast with this, we have the moods in which he drew his pictures of angiolina, and haidee, and aurora raby, and wrote the invocations to the shade of astarte, and his letters in prose and verse to augusta; but the above passage could never have been written by chaucer, or spenser, or shakespeare, or shelley. the class whom he was reviling seemed, however, during "the day of his destiny," bent on confirming his judgment by the blindness of their worship. his rank and fame, the glittering splendour of his verse, the romance of his travels, his picturesque melancholy and affectation of mysterious secrets, combined with the magic of his presence to bewitch and bewilder them. the dissenting malcontents, condemned as prudes and blues, had their revenge. generally, we may say that women who had not written books adored byron; women who had written or were writing books distrusted, disliked, and made him a moral to adorn their tales, often to point their fables with. he was by the one set caressed and spoilt, and "beguiled too long;" by the other, "betrayed too late." the recent memoirs of frances ann kemble present a curious record of the process of passing from one extreme to the other. she dwells on the fascination exerted over her mind by the first reading of his poetry, and tells how she "fastened on the book with a grip like steel," and carried it off and hid it under her pillow; how it affected her "like an evil potion," and stirred her whole being with a tempest of excitement, till finally she, with equal weakness, flung it aside, "resolved to read that grand poetry no more, and broke through the thraldom of that powerful spell." the confession brings before us a type of the transitions of the century, on its way from the byronic to the anti-byronic fever, of which later state mrs. norton and miss martineau are among the most pronounced representatives. byron's garrulity with regard to those delicate matters on which men of more prudence or chivalry are wont to set the seal of silence, has often the same practical effect as reticence; for he talks so much at large--every page of his journal being, by his own admission, apt to "confute and abjure its predecessor"--that we are often none the wiser. amid a mass of conjecture, it is manifest that during the years between his return from greece and final expatriation ( - ), including the whole period of his social glory--though not yet of his solid fame--he was lured into liaisons of all sorts and shades. some, now acknowledged as innocent, were blared abroad by tongues less skilled in pure invention than in distorting truth. on others, as commonplaces of a temperament "all meridian," it were waste of time to dwell. byron rarely put aside a pleasure in his path; but his passions were seldom unaccompanied by affectionate emotions, genuine while they lasted. the verses to the memory of a lost love veiled as "thyrza," of moderate artistic merit, were not, as moore alleges, mere plays of imagination, but records of a sincere grief.[ ] another intimacy exerted so much influence on this phase of the poet's career, that to pass it over would be like omitting vanessa's name from the record of swift. lady caroline lamb, granddaughter of the first earl spencer, was one of those few women of our climate who, by their romantic impetuosity, recall the "children of the sun." she read burns in her ninth year, and in her thirteenth idealized william lamb (afterwards lord melbourne) as a statue of liberty. in her nineteenth ( ) she married him, and lived for some years, during which she was a reigning belle and toast, a domestic life only marred by occasional eccentricities. rogers, whom in a letter to lady morgan she numbers among her lovers, said she ought to know the new poet, who was three years her junior, and the introduction took place in march, . after the meeting, she wrote in her journal, "mad--bad--and dangerous to know;" but, when the fashionable apollo called at melbourne house, she "flew to beautify herself." flushed by his conquest, he spent a great part of the following year in her company, during which time the apathy or self-confidence of the husband laughed at the worship of the hero. "conrad" detailed his travels and adventures, interested her, by his woes, dictated her amusements, invited her guests, and seems to have set rules to the establishment. "medora," on the other hand, made no secret of her devotion, declared that they were affinities, and offered him her jewels. but after the first excitement, he began to grow weary of her talk about herself, and could not praise her indifferent verses: "he grew moody, and she fretful, when their mutual egotisms jarred." byron at length concurred in her being removed for a season to her father's house in ireland, on which occasion he wrote one of his glowing farewell letters. when she came back, matters were little better. the would-be juliet beset the poet with renewed advances, on one occasion penetrating to his rooms in the disguise of a page, on another threatening to stab herself with a pair of scissors, and again, developing into a medea, offering her gratitude to any one who would kill him. "the 'agnus' is furious," he writes to hodgson, in february, , in one of the somewhat ungenerous bursts to which he was too easily provoked. "you can have no idea of the horrible and absurd things she has said and done since (really from the best motives) i withdrew my homage.... the business of last summer i broke off, and now the amusement of the gentle fair is writing letters literally threatening my life." with one member of the family, lady melbourne, mr. lamb's mother, and sister of sir ralph milbanke, he remained throughout on terms of pleasant intimacy. he appreciated the talent and sense, and was ready to profit by the experience and tact of "the cleverest of women." but her well-meant advice had unfortunate results, for it was on her suggestion that he became a suitor for the hand of her niece, miss milbanke. byron first proposed to this lady in ; his offer was refused, but so graciously that they continued to correspond on friendly, which gradually grew into intimate terms, and his second offer, towards the close of the following year, was accepted. [footnote : mr. trelawny says that thyrza was a cousin, but that on this subject byron was always reticent. mr. minto, as we have seen, associates her with the disguised girl of - .] after a series of vain protests, and petulant warnings against her cousin by marriage, who she said was punctual at church, and learned, and knew statistics, but was "not for conrad, no, no, no!" lady caroline lapsed into an attitude of fixed hostility; and shortly after the crash came, and her predictions were realized, vented her wrath in the now almost forgotten novel of _glenarvon_, in which some of byron's real features were represented in conjunction with many fantastic additions. madame de staël was kind enough to bring a copy of the book before his notice when they met on the lake of geneva, but he seems to have been less moved by it than by most attacks. we must however, bear in mind his own admission in a parallel case. "i say i am perfectly calm; i am, nevertheless, in a fury." over the sad vista of the remaining years of the unhappy lady's life we need not linger. during a considerable part of it she appears hovering about the thin line that separates some kinds of wit and passion from madness; writing more novels, burning her hero's effigy and letters, and then clamouring for a lock of his hair, or a sight of his portrait; separated from, and again reconciled to, a husband to whose magnanimous forbearance and compassion she bears testimony to the last, comparing herself to jane shore; attempting byronic verses, loudly denouncing and yet never ceasing inwardly to idolize, the man whom she regarded as her betrayer, perhaps only with justice in that he had unwittingly helped to overthrow her mental balance. after eight years of this life, lit up here and there by gleams of social brilliancy, we find her carriage, on the th of july, , suddenly confronted by a funeral. on hearing that the remains of byron were being carried to the tomb, she shrieked, and fainted. her health finally sank, and her mind gave way under this shock; but she lingered till january, , when she died, after writing a calm letter to her husband, and bequeathing the poet's miniature to her friend, lady morgan. "i have paid some of my debts, and contracted others," byron writes to moore, on september th, ; "but i have a few thousand pounds which i can't spend after my heart in this climate, and so i shall go back to the south. i want to see venice and the alps, and parmesan cheeses, and look at the coast of greece from italy. all this however depends upon an event which may or may not happen. whether it will i shall probably know tomorrow, and if it does i can't well go abroad at present." "a wife," he had written, in the january of the same year, "would be my salvation;" but a marriage entered upon in such a flippant frame of mind could, scarcely have been other than disastrous. in the autumn of the year we are told that a friend,[ ] observing how cheerless was the state both of his mind and prospects, advised him to marry, and after much discussion he consented, naming to his correspondent miss milbanke. to this his adviser objected, remarking that she had, at present, no fortune, and that his embarrassed affairs would not allow him to marry without one, etc. accordingly, he agreed that his friend should write a proposal to another lady, which was done. a refusal arrived as they were one morning sitting together. "'you see,' said lord byron, 'that after all miss milbanke is to be the person,' and wrote on the moment. his friend, still remonstrating against his choice, took up the letter; but, on reading it, observed, 'well, really, this is a very pretty letter; it is a pity it should not go.' 'then it _shall_ go,' said lord byron, and, in so saying, sealed and sent off this fiat of his fate." the incident seems cut from a french novel; but so does the whole strange story--one apparently insoluble enigma in an otherwise only too transparent life. on the arrival of the lady's answer he was seated at dinner, when his gardener came in, and presented him with his mother's wedding-ring, lost many years before, and which had just been found, buried in the mould beneath her window. almost at the same moment the letter arrived; and byron exclaimed, "if it contains a consent (which it did), i will be married with this very ring." he had the highest anticipations of his bride, appreciating her "talents, and excellent qualities;" and saying, "she is so good a person that i wish i was a better." about the same date he writes to various friends in the good spirits raised by his enthusiastic reception from the cambridge undergraduates, when in the course of the same month he went to the senate house to give his vote for a professor of anatomy. [footnote : doubtless moore himself, who tells the story.] the most constant and best of those friends was his sister, augusta leigh, whom, from the death of miss chaworth to his own, byron, in the highest and purest sense of the word, loved more than any other human being. tolerant of errors, which she lamented, and violences in which she had no share, she had a touch of their common family pride, most conspicuous in an almost cat-like clinging to their ancestral home. her early published letters are full of regrets about the threatened sale of newstead, on the adjournment of which, when the first purchaser had to pay , _l_. for breaking his bargain, she rejoices, and over the consummation of which she mourns, in the manner of milton's eve-- must i then leave thee, paradise? in all her references to the approaching marriage there are blended notes of hope and fear. in thanking hodgson for his kind congratulations, she trusts it will secure her brother's happiness. later she adds her testimony to that of all outsiders at this time, as to the graces and genuine worth of the object of his choice. after the usual preliminaries, the ill-fated pair were united, at seaham house, on the nd of january, . byron was married like one walking in his sleep. he trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and almost from the first seems to have been conscious of his irrevocable mistake. i saw him stand before an altar with a gentle bride: her face was fair, but was not that which made the starlight of his boyhood. he could see not that which was--but that which should have been-- but the old mansion, the accustom'd hall. and she who was his destiny came back, and thrust herself between him and the light. here we have faint visions of miss chaworth, mingling with later memories. in handing the bride into the carriage he said, "miss milbanke, are you ready?"--a mistake said to be of evil omen. byron never really loved his wife; and though he has been absurdly accused of marrying for revenge, we must suspect that he married in part for a settlement. on the other hand, it is not unfair to say that she was fascinated by a name, and inspired by the philanthropic zeal of reforming a literary corsair. both were disappointed. miss milbanke's fortune was mainly settled on herself; and byron, in spite of plentiful resolutions gave little sign of reformation. for a considerable time their life, which, after the "treacle moon," as the bridegroom called it, spent at halnaby, near darlington, was divided between residence at seaham and visits to london, seemed to move smoothly. in a letter, evidently mis-dated the th december, mrs. leigh writes to hodgson: "i have every reason to think that my beloved b. is very happy and comfortable. i hear constantly from him and _his rib_. it appears to me that lady b. sets about making him happy in the right way. i had many fears. thank god that they do not appear likely to be realized. in short, there seems to me to be but one drawback to all our felicity, and that, alas, is the disposal of dear newstead. i never shall feel reconciled to the loss of that sacred revered abbey. the thought makes me more melancholy than perhaps the loss of an inanimate object ought to do. did you ever hear that _landed property_, the gift of the crown, could not be sold? lady b. writes me word that she never saw her father and mother so happy; that she believes the latter would go to the bottom of the sea herself to find fish for b.'s dinner, &c." augusta ada was born in london on the th of december, . during the next months a few cynical mutterings are the only interruptions to an ominous silence; but these could be easily explained by the increasing embarrassment of the poet's affairs, and the importunity of creditors, who in the course of the last half-year had served seven or eight executions on his house and furniture. their expectations were raised by exaggerated reports of his having married money; and by a curious pertinacity of pride he still declined, even when he had to sell his books, to accept advances from his publisher. in january the storm which had been secretly gathering suddenly broke. on the th, i.e. five weeks after her daughter's birth, lady byron left home with the infant to pay a visit, as had been agreed, to her own family at kirkby mallory in leicestershire. on the way she despatched to her husband a tenderly playful letter, which has been often quoted. shortly afterwards he was informed--first by her father, and then by herself--that she did not intend ever to return to him. the accounts of their last interview, as in the whole evidence bearing on the affair, not only differ but flatly contradict one another. on behalf of lord byron it is asserted, that his wife, infuriated by his offering some innocent hospitality on occasion of bad weather to a respectable actress, mrs. mardyn, who had called on him about drury lane business, rushed into the room exclaiming, "i leave you for ever"--and did so. according to another story, lady byron, finding him with a friend, and observing him to be annoyed at her entrance, said, "am i in your way, byron?" whereupon he answered, "damnably." mrs. leigh, hodgson, moore, and others, did everything that mutual friends could do to bring about the reconciliation for which byron himself professed to be eager, but in vain; and in vain the effort was renewed in later years. the wife was inveterately bent on a separation, of the causes of which the husband alleged he was never informed, and with regard to which as long as he lived she preserved a rigid silence. for some time after the event byron spoke of his wife with at least apparent generosity. rightly or wrongly, he blamed her parents, and her maid--mrs. clermont, the theme of his scathing but not always dignified "sketch;" but of herself he wrote (march , ), "i do not believe that there ever was a brighter, and a kinder, or a more amiable or agreeable being than lady byron. i never had nor can have any reproach to make to her, when with me." elsewhere he adds, that he would willingly, if he had the chance, "renew his marriage on a lease of twenty years." but as time passed and his overtures were rejected, his patience gave way, and in some of his later satires he even broke the bounds of courtesy. lady byron's letters at the time of the separation, especially those first published in the _academy_ of july , , are to mrs. leigh always affectionate and confidential, often pathetic, asking her advice "in this critical moment," and protesting that, "independent of malady, she does not think of the past with any spirit of resentment, and scarcely with the sense of injury." in her communications to mr. hodgson, on the other hand--the first of almost the same date, the second a few weeks later--she writes with intense bitterness, stating that her action was due to offences which she could only condone on the supposition of her husband's insanity, and distinctly implying that she was in danger of her life. this supposition having been by her medical advisers pronounced erroneous, she felt, in the words only too pungently recalled in _don juan_, that her duty both to man and god prescribed her course of action. her playful letter on leaving she seems to defend on the ground of the fear of personal violence. till lord byron's death the intimacy between his wife and sister remained unbroken; through the latter he continued to send numerous messages to the former, and to his child, who became a ward in chancery; but at a later date it began to cool. on the appearance of lady byron's letter, in answer to moore's first volume, augusta speaks of it as "a despicable tirade," feels "disgusted at such unfeeling conduct," and thinks "nothing can justify any one in defaming the dead." soon after they had an open rupture on a matter of business, which was never really healed, though the then puritanic precisian sent a message of relenting to mrs. leigh on her death-bed ( ). the charge or charges which, during her husband's life, lady byron from magnanimity or other motive reserved, she is ascertained after his death to have delivered with important modifications to various persons, with little regard to their capacity for reading evidence or to their discretion. on one occasion her choice of a confidante was singularly unfortunate. "these," wrote lord byron in his youth, "these are the first tidings that have ever sounded like fame in my ears--to be redde on the banks of the ohio." strangely enough, it is from the country of washington, whom the poet was wont to reverence as the purest patriot of the modern world, that in there emanated the hideous story which scandalized both continents, and ultimately recoiled on the retailer of the scandal. the grounds of the reckless charge have been weighed by those who have wished it to prove false, and by those who have wished it to prove true, and found wanting. the chaff has been beaten in every way and on all sides, without yielding an ounce of grain; and it were ill-advised to rake up the noxious dust that alone remains. from nothing left on record by either of the two persons most intimately concerned can we derive any reliable information. it is plain that lady byron was during the later years of her life the victim of hallucinations, and that if byron knew the secret, which he denies, he did not choose to tell it, putting off captain medwin and others with absurdities, as that "he did not like to see women eat," or with commonplaces, as "the causes, my dear sir, were too simple to be found out." thomas moore, who had the memoirs[ ] supposed to have thrown light on the mystery, in the full knowledge of dr. lushington's judgment and all the gossip of the day, professes to believe that "the causes of disunion did not differ from those that loosen the links of most such marriages," and writes several pages on the trite theme that great genius is incompatible with domestic happiness. negative instances abound to modify this sweeping generalization; but there is a kind of genius, closely associated with intense irritability, which it is difficult to subject to the most reasonable yoke; and of this sort was byron's. his valet, fletcher, is reported to have said that "any woman could manage my lord, except my lady;" and madame de staël, on reading the _farewell_, that "she would have been glad to have been in lady byron's place." but it may be doubted if byron would have made a good husband to any woman; his wife and he were even more than usually ill-assorted. a model of the proprieties, and a pattern of the learned philanthropy of which in her sex he was wont to make a constant butt, she was no fit consort for that "mens insana in corpore insano." what could her stolid temperament conjecture of a man whom she saw, in one of his fits of passion, throwing a favourite watch under the fire, and grinding it to pieces with a poker? or how could her conscious virtue tolerate the recurring irregularities which he was accustomed, not only to permit himself, but to parade? the harassment of his affairs stimulated his violence, till she was inclined to suspect him to be mad. some of her recently printed letters--as that to lady anne barnard, and the reports of later observers of her character--as william howitt, tend to detract from the earlier tributes to her consistent amiability, and confirm our ideas of the incompatibility of the pair. it must have been trying to a poet to be asked by his wife, impatient of his late hours, when he was going to leave off writing verses; to be told he had no real enthusiasm; or to have his desk broken open, and its compromising contents sent to the persons for whom they were least intended. the smouldering elements of discontent may have been fanned by the gossip of dependants, or the officious zeal of relatives, and kindled into a jealous flame by the ostentation of regard for others beyond the circle of his home. lady byron doubtless believed some story which, when communicated to her legal advisers, led them to the conclusion that the mere fact of her believing it made reconciliation impossible; and the inveterate obstinacy which lurked beneath her gracious exterior, made her cling through life to the substance--not always to the form, whatever that may have been--of her first impressions. her later letters to mrs. leigh, as that called forth by moore's _life_, are certainly as open to the charge of self-righteousness, as those of her husband's are to self-disparagement. [footnote : captain trelawney, however, doubts if he ever read them.] byron himself somewhere says, "strength of endurance is worth all the talent in the world." "i love the virtues that i cannot share." his own courage was all active; he had no power of sustained endurance. at a time when his proper refuge was silence, and his prevailing sentiment--for he admits he was somehow to blame--should have been remorse, he foolishly vented his anger and his grief in verses, most of them either peevish or vindictive, and some of which he certainly permitted to be published. "woe to him," exclaims voltaire, "who says all he could on any subject!" woe to him, he might have added, who says anything at all on the subject of his domestic troubles! the poet's want of reticence at this crisis started a host of conjectures, accusations, and calumnies, the outcome, in some degree at least, of the rancorous jealousy of men of whose adulation he was weary. then began that burst of british virtue on which macaulay has expatiated, and at which the social critics of the continent have laughed. cottle, cato, oxoniensis, delia, and styles, were let loose, and they anticipated the _saturday_ and the _spectator_ of , so that the latter might well have exclaimed, "pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt." byron was accused of every possible and impossible vice, he was compared to sardanapalus, nero, tiberius, the duke of orleans, heliogabalus, and satan--all the most disreputable persons mentioned in sacred and profane history; his benevolences were maligned, his most disinterested actions perverted. mrs. mardyn, the actress, was on his account, on one occasion, driven off the public stage. he was advised not to go to the theatres, lest he should be hissed; nor to parliament, lest he should be insulted. on the very day of his departure a friend told him that he feared violence from mobs assembling at the door of his carriage. "upon what grounds," the poet writes, in a trenchant survey of the circumstances, in august, , "the public formed their opinion, i am not aware; but it was general, and it was decisive. of me and of mine they knew little, except that i had written poetry, was a nobleman, bad married, became a father, and was involved in differences with my wife and her relatives--no one knew why, because the persons complaining refused to state their grievances. "the press was active and scurrilous;.. my name--which had been a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for william the norman--was tainted. i felt that, if what was whispered and muttered and murmured was true, i was unfit for england; if false, england was unfit for me. i withdrew; but this was not enough. in other countries--in switzerland, in the shadow of the alps, and by the blue depth of the lakes--i was pursued and breathed upon by the same blight. i crossed the mountains, but it was the same; so i went a little farther, and settled myself by the waves of the adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes himself to the waters." on the th of april, , shortly before his departure, he wrote to mr. rogers: "my sister is now with me, and leaves town to-morrow. we shall not meet again for some time, at all events, if ever (it was their final meeting), and under these circumstances i trust to stand excused to you and mr. sheridan for being unable to wait upon him this evening." in all this storm and stress, byron's one refuge was in the affection which rises like a well of purity amid the passions of his turbid life. in the desert a fountain is springing, in the wild waste there still is a tree; and a bird in the solitude singing, that speaks to my spirit of thee. the fashionable world was tired of its spoilt child, and he of it. hunted out of the country, bankrupt in purse and heart, he left it, never to return; but he left it to find fresh inspiration by the "rushing of the arrowy rhone," and under italian skies to write the works which have immortalized his name. descent of lady byron and lady c. lamb earl spencer. sir ralph milbanke. viscount wentworth | _________________|_______________ | | | | | henrietta elizabeth (lady melbourne) sir ralph + judith noel frances. | m. viscount melbourne. | + | | f. ponsonby | lord byron + anna isabella. (earl of | | bessborough). | augusta ada. | | | | lady caroline + william lamb. descent of allegra william godwin. married st + mary woolstonecraft. nd mrs. clairmont. | she had by previous | | alliance | | | claire claremont + byron. p. b. shelley + mary godwin fanny imlay. | allegra. chapter vii life abroad--switzerland to venice--third period of authorship.--childe harold, iii., iv.--manfred. on the th of april, , byron embarked for ostend. from the "burning marl" of the staring streets he planted his foot again on the dock with a genuine exultation. once more upon the waters, yet once more, and the waves bound beneath me as a steed that knows her rider. welcome to the roar! but he brought with him a relic of english extravagance, sotting out on his land travels in a huge coach, copied from that of napoleon taken at genappe, and being accompanied by fletcher, rushton, berger, a swiss, and polidori, a physician of italian descent, son of alfieri's secretary, a man of some talent but indiscreet. a question arises as to the source from which he obtained the means for these and subsequent luxuries, in striking contrast with goldsmith's walking-stick, knapsack, and flute. byron's financial affairs are almost inextricably confused. we can, for instance, nowhere find a clear statement of the result of the suit regarding the rochdale estates, save that he lost it before the court of exchequer, and that his appeal to the house of lords was still unsettled in . the sale of newstead to colonel wildman in , for , _l_., went mostly to pay off mortgages and debts. in april, , mrs. leigh writes, after a last sigh over this event:--"sixty thousand pounds was secured by his (byron's) marriage settlement, the interest of which he receives for life, and which ought to make him very comfortable." this is unfortunately decisive of the fact that he did not in spirit adhere to the resolution expressed to moore never to touch a farthing of his wife's money, though we may accept his statement to medwin, that he twice repaid the dowry of , _l_. brought to him at the marriage, as in so far diminishing the obligation. none of the capital of lady byron's family came under his control till , when, on the death of her mother, lady noel, byron arranged the appointment of referees, sir francis burdett on his behalf, lord dacre on his wife's. the result was an equal division of a property worth about _l_ a year. while in italy the poet received besides about , _l_ for his writings-- _l_. being given for _childe harold_ (iii., iv.), and _manfred_. "ne pas être dupe" was one of his determinations, and, though he began by caring little for making money, he was always fond of spending it. "i tell you it is too much," he said to murray, in returning a thousand guineas for the _corinth_ and _partsina_. hodgson, moore, bland, thomas ashe, the family of lord falkland, the british consul at venice, and a host of others, were ready to testify to his superb munificence. on the other hand, he would stint his pleasures, or his benevolences, which were among them, for no one; and when he found that to spend money he had to make it, he saw neither rhyme nor reason in accepting less than his due. in he begins to dun murray, declaring, with a frankness in which we can find no fault, "you offer guineas for the new canto (_c. h_., iv.). i won't take it. i ask guineas for it, which you will either give or not, as you think proper." during the remaining years of his life he grew more and more exact, driving hard bargains for his houses, horses, and boats, and fitting himself, had he lived, to be chancellor of the exchequer in the newly-liberated state, from which he took a bond securing a fair interest for his loan. he made out an account in _£. s. d_. against the ungrateful dallas, and when leigh hunt threatened to sponge upon him he got a harsh reception; but there is nothing to countenance the view that byron was ever really possessed by the "good old gentlemanly vice" of which lie wrote. the skimpoles and chadbands of the world are always inclined to talk of filthy lucre: it is equally a fashion of really lavish people to boast that they are good men of business. we have only a few glimpses of byron's progress. at brussels the napoleonic coach was set aside for a more serviceable caleche. during his stay in the belgian capital lie paid a visit to the scene of waterloo, wrote the famous stanzas beginning, "stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust!" and in unpatriotic prose, recorded his impressions of a plain which appeared to him to "want little but a better cause" to make it vie in interest with those of platea and marathon. the rest of his journey lay up the rhine to basle, thence to berne, lausanne, and geneva, where he settled for a time at the hôtel secheron, on the western shore of the lake. here began the most interesting literary relationship of his life, for here he first came in contact with the impassioned ariel of english verse, percy bysshe shelley. they lived in proximity after they left the hotel, shelley's headquarters being at mont alégre, and byron's for the remainder of the summer at the villa diodati; and their acquaintance rapidly ripened into an intimacy which, with some interruptions, extended over the six remaining years of their joint lives. the place for an estimate of their mutual influence belongs to the time of their italian partnership. meanwhile, we hear of them mainly as fellow-excursionists about the lake, which on one occasion departing from its placid poetical character, all but swallowed them both, along with hobhouse, off meillerie. "the boat," says byron, "was nearly wrecked near the very spot where st. preux and julia were in danger of being drowned. it would have been classical to have been lost there, but not agreeable. i ran no risk, being so near the rocks and a good swimmer; but our party wore wet and incommoded." the only anxiety of shelley, who could not swim, was, that no one else should risk a life for his. two such revolutionary or such brave poets were, in all probability, never before nor since in a storm in a boat together. during this period byron complains of being still persecuted. "i was in a wretched state of health and worse spirits when i was in geneva; but quiet and the lake--better physicians than polidori--soon set me up. i never led so moral a life as during my residence in that country, but i gained no credit by it. on the contrary, there is no story so absurd that they did not invent at my cost. i was watched by glasses on the opposite side of the lake, and by glasses, too, that must have had very distorted optics. i was waylaid in my evening drives. i believe they looked upon me as a man-monster." shortly after his arrival in switzerland he contracted an intimacy with miss clairmont, a daughter of godwin's second wife, and consequently a connexion by marriage of the shelleys, with whom she was living, which resulted in the birth of a daughter, allegra, at great marlow, in february, . the noticeable events of the following two months are a joint excursion to chamouni, and a visit in july to madame de staël at coppet, in the course of which he met frederick schlegel. during a wet week, when the families were reading together some german ghost stories, an idea occurred of imitating them, the main result of which was mrs. shelley's _frankenstein_. byron contributed to the scheme a fragment of _the vampire_, afterwards completed and published in the name of his patron by polidori. the eccentricities of this otherwise amiable physician now began to give serious annoyance; his jealousy of shelley grew to such a pitch that it resulted in the doctor's giving a challenge to the poet, at which the latter only laughed; but byron, to stop further outbreaks of the kind, remarked, "recollect that, though shelley has scruples about duelling, i have none, and shall be at all times ready to take his place." polidori had ultimately to be dismissed, and, after some years of vicissitude, committed suicide. the shelleys left for england in september, and byron made an excursion with hobhouse through the bernese oberland. they went by the col de jaman and the simmenthal to thun; then up the valley to the staubbach, which he compares to the tail of the pale horse in the apocalypse--not a very happy, though a striking comparison. thence they proceeded over the wengern to grindelwald and the rosenlau glacier; then back by berne, friburg, and yverdun to diodati. the following passage in reference to this tour may be selected as a specimen of his prose description, and of the ideas of mountaineering before the days of the alpine club:-- "before ascending the mountain, went to the torrent again, the sun upon it forming a rainbow of the lower part, of all colours but principally purple and gold, the bow moving as you move. i never saw anything like this; it is only in the sunshine.... left the horses, took off my coat, and went to the summit, english feet above the level of the sea, and feet above the valley we left in the morning. on one side our view comprised the jungfrau, with all her glaciers; then the dent d'argent, shining like truth; then the eighers and the wetterhorn. heard the avalanches falling every five minutes. from where we stood on the wengern alp we had all these in view on one side; on the other, the clouds rose up from the opposite valley, curling up perpendicular precipices, like the foam of the ocean of hell during a spring tide; it was white and sulphury, and immeasurably deep in appearance.... arrived at the grindelwald; dined; mounted again, and rode to the higher glacier--like a frozen hurricane; starlight beautiful, but a devil of a path. passed whole woods of withered pines, all withered; trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless; done by a single winter. their appearance reminded me of me and my family." students of _manfred_ will recognize whole sentences, only slightly modified in its verse. though byron talks with contempt of authorship, there is scarce a fine phrase in his letters or journal which is not pressed into the author's service. he turns his deepest griefs to artistic gain, and uses five or six times for literary purposes the expression which seems to have dropped from him naturally about his household gods being shivered on his hearth. his account of this excursion concludes with a passage equally characteristic of his melancholy and incessant self-consciousness:-- "in the weather for this tour, i have been very fortunate.... i was disposed to be pleased. i am a lover of nature, &c.... but in all this the recollection of bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory around, above, and beneath me." such egotism in an idle man would only provoke impatience; but byron was, during the whole of this period, almost preternaturally active. detained by bad weather at ouchy for two days (juno , ), he wrote the _prisoner of chillon_, which, with its noble introductory sonnet on bonnivard, in some respects surpasses any of his early romances. the opening lines,-- lake leman lies by chillon's walls; a thousand feet in depth below, its massy waters meet and flow,-- bring before us in a few words the conditions of a hopeless bondage. the account of the prisoner himself, and of the lingering deaths of the brothers; the first frenzy of the survivor, and the desolation which succeeds it-- i only loved: i only drew the accursed breath of dungeon dew,-- the bird's song breaking on the night of his solitude; his growing enamoured of despair, and regaining his freedom with a sigh, are all strokes from a master hand. from the same place, at the same date, he announces to murray the completion of the third canto of _childe harold_. the productiveness of july is portentous. during that month he wrote the _monody on sheridan, the dream, churchill's grave_, the _sonnet to lake leman, could i remount the river of my years_, part of _manfred, prometheus_, the _stanzas to augusta_, beginning, my sister! my sweet sister! if a name dearer and purer were, it should be thine; and the terrible dream of _darkness_, which at least in the ghastly power of the close, where the survivors meet by the lurid light of a dim altar fire, and die of each other's hideousness, surpasses campbell's _last man_[ ]. at lausanne the poet made a pilgrimage to the haunts of gibbon, broke a sprig from his acacia-tree, and carried off some rose leaves from his garden. though entertaining friends, among them mr. m.g. lewis and scrope davies, he systematically shunned "the locust swarm of english tourists," remarking on their obtrusive platitudes; as when he heard one of them at chamouni inquire, "did you ever see anything more truly rural?" ultimately he got tired of the calvinistic genevese--one of whom is said to have swooned as he entered the room--and early in october set out with hobhouse for italy. they crossed the simplon, and proceeded by the lago maggiore to milan, admiring the pass, but slighting the somewhat hothouse beauties of the borromean islands. from milan he writes, pronouncing its cathedral to be only a little inferior to that of seville, and delighted with "a correspondence, all original and amatory, between lucretia borgia and cardinal bembo." he secured a lock of the golden hair of the pope's daughter, and wished himself a cardinal. [footnote : this only appeared in , but campbell claims to have given byron in conversation the suggestion of the subject.] at verona, byron dilates on the amphitheatre, as surpassing anything he had seen even in greece, and on the faith of the people in the story of juliet, from whose reputed tomb he sent some pieces of granite to ada and his nieces. in november we find him settled in venice, "the greenest isle of his imagination." there he began to form those questionable alliances which are so marked a feature of his life, and so frequent a theme in his letters, that it is impossible to pass them without notice. the first of his temporary idols was mariana segati, "the wife of a merchant of venice," for some time his landlord. with this woman, whom he describes as an antelope with oriental eyes, wavy hair, voice like the cooing of a dove, and the spirit of a bacchante, he remained on terms of intimacy for about eighteen months, during which their mutual devotion was only disturbed by some outbursts of jealousy. in december the poet took lessons in armenian, glad to find in the study something craggy to break his mind upon. ho translated into that language a portion of st. paul's epistle to the corinthians. notes on the carnival, praises of _christabel_, instructions about the printing of _childe harold_ (iii.), protests against the publication under his name of some spurious "domestic poems," and constant references, doubtfully domestic, to his adriatic lady, fill up the records of . on february , , he announces to murray the completion of the first sketch of _manfred_, and alludes to it in a bantering manner as "a kind of poem in dialogue, of a wild metaphysical and inexplicable kind;" concluding, "i have at least rendered it _quite impossible_ for the stage, for which my intercourse with drury lane has given me the greatest contempt." about this time byron seems to have entertained the idea of returning to england in the spring, i.e. after a year's absence. this design, however, was soon set aside, partly in consequence of a slow malarian fever, by which he was prostrated for several weeks. on his partial recovery, attributed to his having had neither medicine nor doctor, and a determination to live till he had "put one or two people out of the world," he started on an expedition to rome. his first stage was arqua; then ferrara, where he was inspired, by a sight of the italian poet's prison, with the _lament of tasso_; the next, florence, where he describes himself as drunk with the beauty of the galleries. among the pictures, he was most impressed with the mistresses of raphael and titian, to whom, along with giorgione, he is always reverential; and he recognized in santa croce the westminster abbey of italy. passing through foligno, he reached his destination early in may, and met his old friends, lord lansdowne and hobhouse. the poet employed his short time at rome in visiting on horseback the most famous sites in the city and neighbourhood--as the alban mount, tivoli, frascati, the falls of terni, and the clitumnus--re-casting the crude first draft of the third act of _manfred_, and sitting for his bust to thorwaldsen. of this sitting the sculptor afterwards gave some account to his compatriot, hans andersen: "byron placed himself opposite to me, but at once began to put on a quite different expression from that usual to him. 'will you not sit still?' said i. 'you need not assume that look.' 'that is my expression,' said byron. 'indeed,' said i; and i then represented him as i wished. when the bust was finished he said, 'it is not at all like me; my expression is more unhappy.'" west, the american, who five years later painted his lordship at leghorn, substantiates the above half-satirical anecdote, by the remark, "he was a bad sitter; he assumed a countenance that did not belong to him, as though he were thinking of a frontispiece for _chlde harold_." thorwaldsen's bust, the first cast of which was sent to hobhouse, and pronounced by mrs. leigh to be the best of the numerous likenesses of her brother, was often repeated. professor brandes, of copenhagen, introduces his striking sketch of the poet by a reference to the model, that has its natural place in the museum named from the great sculptor whose genius had flung into the clay the features of a character so unlike his own. the bust, says the danish critic, at first sight impresses one with an undefinable classic grace; on closer examination the restlessness of a life is reflected in a brow over which clouds seem to hover, but clouds from which we look for lightnings. the dominant impression of the whole is that of some irresistible power (unwiderstehlichkeit). thorwaldsen, at a much later date ( - ) executed the marble statue, first intended for the abbey, which is now to be seen in the library of trinity college, in evidence that cambridge is still proud of her most brilliant son. towards the close of the month--after almost fainting at the execution by guillotine of three bandits--he professes impatience to get back to mariana, and early in the next we find him established with her near venice, at the villa of la mira, where for some time he continued to reside. his letters of june refer to the sale of newstead, the mistake of mrs. leigh and others in attributing to him the _tales of a landlord_, the appearance of _lalla rookh_, preparations for _marino faliero_, and the progress of _childe harold_ iv. this poem, completed in september, and published early in (with a dedication to hobhouse, who had supplied most of the illustrative notes), first made manifest the range of the poet's power. only another slope of ascent lay between him and the pinnacle, over which shines the red star of _cain_. had lord byron's public career closed when he left england, he would have been remembered for a generation as the author of some musical minor verses, a clever satire, a journal in verse exhibiting flashes of genius, and a series of fascinating romances--also giving promise of higher power--which had enjoyed a marvellous popularity. the third and fourth cantos of _childe harold_ placed him on another platform, that of the _dii majores_ of english verse. these cantos are separated from their predecessors, not by a stage, but by a gulf. previous to their publication he had only shown how far the force of rhapsody could go; now he struck with his right hand, and from the shoulder. knowledge of life and study of nature were the mainsprings of a growth which the indirect influence of wordsworth, and the happy companionship of shelley, played their part in fostering. faultlessness is seldom a characteristic of impetuous verse, never of byron's; and even in the later parts of the _childe_ there are careless lines, and doubtful images. "self-exiled harold wanders forth again," looking "pale and interesting;" but we are soon refreshed by a higher note. no familiarity can distract from "waterloo," which holds its own by barbour's "bannockburn," and scott's "flodden." sir walter, referring to the climax of the opening, and the pathetic lament of the closing lines, generously doubts whether any verses in english surpass them in vigour. there follows "the broken mirror," extolled by jeffrey with an appreciation of its exuberance of fancy, and negligence of diction; and then the masterly sketch of napoleon, with the implied reference to the writer at the end. the descriptions in both cantos perpetually rise from a basis of rhetoric to a real height of poetry. byron's "rhine" flows, like the river itself, in a stream of "exulting and abounding" stanzas. his "venice" may be set beside the masterpieces of ruskin's prose. they are together the joint pride of italy and england. the tempest in the third canto is in verse a splendid microcosm of the favourites, if not the prevailing mood, of the writer's mind. in spite of manifest flaws, the nine stanzas beginning "it is the hush of night," have enough in them to feed a high reputation. the poet's dying day, his sun and moon contending over the rhaetian hill, his thrasymene, clitumnus, and velino, show that his eye has grown keener, and his imagery at least more terse, and that he can occasionally forgot himself in his surroundings. the drachenfels, ehrenbreitstein, the alps, lake leman, pass before us like a series of dissolving views. but the stability of the book depends on its being a temple of fame, as well as a diorama of scenery. it is no mere versified guide, because every resting-place in the pilgrimage is made interesting by association with illustrious memories. coblontz introduces the tribute to marceau; clarens an almost complete review, in five verses, of rousseau; lausanne and ferney the quintessence of criticism on gibbon and voltaire. a tomb in arqua suggests petrarch; the grass-grown streets of ferrara lead in the lines on tasso; the white walls of the etrurian athens bring back alfieri and michael angelo, and the prose bard of the hundred tales, and dante, "buried by the upbraiding shore," and-- the starry galileo and his woes. byron has made himself so master of the glories and the wrecks of rome, that almost everything else that has been said of them seems superfluous. hawthorne, in his _marble fawn_, comes nearest to him; but byron's gladiator and apollo, if not his laocoon, are unequalled. "the voice of marius," says scott, "could not sound more deep and solemn among the ruins of carthage, than the strains of the pilgrim among the broken shrines and fallen statues of her subduer." as the third canto has a fitting close with the poet's pathetic remembrance of his daughter, so the fourth is wound up with consummate art,--the memorable dirge on the princess charlotte being followed by the address to the sea, which, enduring unwrinkled through all its ebbs and flows, seems to mock at the mutability of human life. _manfred_, his witch drama, as the author called it, has had a special attraction for inquisitive biographers, because it has been supposed in some dark manner to reveal the secrets of his prison house. its lines have been tortured, like the witches of the seventeenth century, to extort from them the meaning of the "all nameless hour," and every conceivable horror has been alleged as its _motif_. on this subject goethe writes with a humorous simplicity: "this singularly intellectual poet has extracted from my _faust_ the strongest nourishment for his hypochondria; but he has made use of the impelling principles for his own purposes.... when a bold and enterprising young man, he won the affections of a florentine lady. her husband discovered the amour, and murdered his wife; but the murderer was the same night found dead in the street, and there was no one to whom any suspicion could be attached. lord byron removed from florence, but these spirits have haunted him all his life. this romantic incident explains innumerable allusions," e.g.,-- i have shed blood, but not hers,--and yet her blood was shed. were it not for the fact that the poet had never seen the city in question when he wrote the poem, this explanation would be more plausible than most others, for the allusions are all to some lady who has been done to death. galt asserts that the plot turns on a tradition of unhallowed necromancy--a human sacrifice, like that of antinous attributed to hadrian. byron himself says it has no plot, but he kept teasing his questioners with mysterious hints, e.g. "it was the staubbach and the jungfrau, and something else more than faustus, which made me write _manfred_;" and of one of his critics he says to murray, "it had a better origin than he can devise or divine, for the soul of him." in any case most methods of reading between its lines would, if similarly applied, convict sophocles, schiller, and shelley of incest, shakespeare of murder, milton of blasphemy, scott of forgery, marlowe and goethe of compacts with the devil. byron was no dramatist, but he had wit enough to vary at least the circumstances of his projected personality. the memories of both fausts--the elizabethan and the german--mingle, in the pages of this piece, with shadows of the author's life; but to these it never gives, nor could be intended to give, any substantial form. _manfred_ is a chaos of pictures, suggested by the scenery of lauterbrunnen and grindelwald, half animated by vague personifications and sensational narrative. like _harold_, and scott's _marmion_, it just misses being a great poem. the coliseum is its masterpiece of description, the appeal, "astarte, my beloved, speak to me," its nearest approach to pathos. the lonely death of the hero makes an effective close to the moral tumult of the preceding scenes. but the reflections, often striking, are seldom absolutely fresh: that beginning, the mind, which is immortal, makes itself requital for its good or evil thoughts, is its own origin of ill and end, and its own place and time, is transplanted from milton with as little change as milton made in transplanting it from marlowe. the author's own favourite passage, the invocation to the sun (act iii., sc. ), has some sublimity, marred by lapses. the lyrics scattered through the poem sometimes open well, e.g.,-- mont blanc is the monarch of mountains; they crowned him long ago, on a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, with a null of snow; but they cannot sustain themselves like true song-birds, and fall to the ground like spent rockets. this applies to byron's lyrics generally; turn to the incantation in the _deformed transformed_: the first line and a half are in tune,-- beautiful shadow of thetis's boy, who sleeps in the meadow whose grass grows o'er troy. nor sternhold nor hopkins has more ruthlessly outraged our ears than the next two-- from the red earth, like adam, thy likeness i shape, as the being who made him, whose actions i ape(!) of his songs: "there be none of beauty's daughters," "she walks in beauty," "maid of athens," "i enter thy garden of roses," the translation "sons of the greeks," and others, have a flow and verve that it is pedantry to ignore; but in general byron was too much of the earth earthy to be a great lyrist. some of the greatest have lived wild lives, but their wings were not weighted with the lead of the love of the world. the summer and early months of the autumn of were spent at la mira, and much of the poet's time was occupied in riding along the banks of the brenta, often in the company of the few congenial englishmen who came in his way; others, whom he avoided, avenged themselves by retailing stories, none of which wore "too improbable for the craving appetites of their slander-loving countrymen." in august he received a visit from mr. hobhouse, and on this occasion drew up the remarkable document afterwards given to mr. m. g. lewis for circulation in england, which appeared in the _academy_ of october th, . in this document he says, "it has been intimated to me that the persons understood to be the legal advisers of lady byron have declared their lips to be sealed up on the cause of the separation between her and myself. if their lips are sealed up they are not sealed up by me, and the greatest favour they can confer upon me will be to open them." he goes on to state, that he repents having consented to the separation--will be glad to cancel the deed, or to go before any tribunal, to discuss the matter in the most public manner; adding, that mr. hobhouse (in whose presence he was writing) proposed, on his part, to go into court, and ending with a renewed asseveration of his ignorance of the allegations against him, and his inability to understand for what purpose they had been kept back, "unless it was to sanction the most infamous calumnies by silence." hobhouse, and others, during the four succeeding years, ineffectually endeavoured to persuade the poet to return to england. moore and others insist that byron's heart was at home when his presence was abroad, and that, with all her faults, he loved his country still. leigh hunt, on the contrary, asserts that he cared nothing for england or its affairs. like many men of genius, byron was never satisfied with what he had at the time. "romae tibur amem ventosus tibure romam." at seaham he is bored to death, and pants for the excitement of the clubs; in london society he longs for a desert or island in the cyclades; after their separation, he begins to regret his wife; after his exile, his country. "where," he exclaimed to hobhouse, "is real comfort to be found out of england?" he frequently fell into the mood in which he wrote the verse,-- yet i was born where men are proud to be, not without cause: and should i leave behind th'immortal island of the sage and free, and seek me out a home by a remoter sea? but the following, to murray (june , ), is equally sincere. "some of the epitaphs at ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments of bologna; for instance-- 'martini luigi implora pace.' 'lucrezia picini implora eterna quiete.'" can anything be more full of pathos? these few words say all that can be said or sought; the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they implore. there is all the helplessness, and humble hope, and death-like prayer that can arise from the grave--'implora pace.' "i hope, whoever may survive me, and shall see me put in the foreigner's burying-ground at the lido, within the fortress by the adriatic, will see these two words, and no more, put over me. i trust they won't think of pickling and bringing me home to clod, or blunderbuss hall. i am sure my bones would not rest in an english grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country." hunt's view is, in this as in other subtle respects, nearer the truth than moore's; for with all byron's insight into italian vice, he hated more the master vice of england--hypocrisy; and much of his greatest, and in a sense latest, because unfinished work, is the severest, as it might be the wholesomest, satire ever directed against a great nation since the days of juvenal and tacitus. in september ( ) byron entered into negotiations, afterwards completed, for renting a country house among the euganean hills near este, from mr. hoppner, the english consul at venice, who bears frequent testimony to his kindness and courtesy. in october we find him settled for the winter in venice, where he first occupied his old quarters, in the spezieria, and afterwards hired one of the palaces of the countess mocenigo on the grand canal. between this mansion, the cottage at este, and the villa of la mira, he divided his time for the next two years. during the earlier part of his venetian career he had continued to frequent the salon of the countess albrizzi, where he met with people of both sexes of some rank and standing who appreciated his genius, though some among them fell into absurd mistakes. a gentleman of the company informing the hostess, in answer to some inquiry regarding canova's busts, that washington, the american president, was shot in a duel by burke, "what, in the name of folly, are you thinking of?" said byron, perceiving that the speaker was confounding washington with hamilton, and burke with burr. he afterwards transferred himself to the rival coterie of the countess benzoni, and gave himself up with little reserve to the intrigues which cast discredit on this portion of his life. nothing is so conducive to dissipation as despair, and byron had begun to regard the sea-cybele as a sea-sodom--when he wrote, "to watch a city die daily, as she does, is a sad contemplation. i sought to distract my mind from a sense of her desolation and my own solitude, by plunging into a vortex that was anything but pleasure." in any case, he forsook the "dame," and, by what his biographer calls a "descent in the scale of refinement, for which nothing but the wayward state of his mind can account," sought the companions of his leisure hours among the wearers of the "fazzioli." the carnivals of the years , , mark the height of his excesses. early in the former, mariana segati fell out of favour, owing to byron's having detected her in selling the jewels he had given as presents, and so being led to suspect a large mercenary element in her devotion. to her succeeded margarita cogni, the wife of a baker who proved as accommodating as his predecessor, the linen-draper. this woman was decidedly a character, and señor castelar has almost elevated her into a heroine. a handsome virago, with brown shoulders, and black hair, endowed with the strength of an amazon, "a face like faustina's, and the figure of a juno--tall and energetic as a pythoness," she quartered herself for twelve months in the palace as "donna di governo," and drove the servants about without let or hindrance. unable to read or write she intercepted his lordship's letters to little purpose; but she had great natural business talents, reduced by one half the expenses of his household, kept everything in good order, and, when her violences roused his wrath, turned it off with some ready retort or witticism. she was very devout, and would cross herself three times at the angelus. one instance, of a different kind of devotion, from byron's own account, is sufficiently graphic:--"in the autumn one day, going to the lido with my gondoliers, we were overtaken by a heavy squall, and the gondola put in peril, hats blown away, boat filling, oar lost, tumbling sea, thunder, rain in torrents, and wind unceasing. on our return, after a tight struggle, i found her on the open stops of the mocenigo palace on the grand canal, with her great black eyes flashing through her tears, and the long dark hair which was streaming, drenched with rain, over her brows. she was perfectly exposed to the storm; and the wind blowing her dress about her thin figure, and the lightning flashing round her, made her look like medea alighted from her chariot, or the sibyl of the tempest that was rolling around her, the only living thing within hail at that moment, except ourselves. on seeing me safe she did not wait to greet me, as might have been expected; but, calling out to me, 'ah! can' della madonna, xe esto il tempo per andar' al' lido,' ran into the house, and solaced herself with scolding the boatmen for not foreseeing the 'temporale.' her joy at seeing me again was moderately mixed with ferocity, and gave me the idea of a tigress over her recovered cubs." some months after she became ungovernable--threw plates about, and snatched caps from the heads of other women who looked at her lord in public places. byron told her she must go home; whereupon she proceeded to break glass, and threaten "knives, poison, fire;" and on his calling his boatmen to get ready the gondola, threw herself in the dark night into the canal. she was rescued, and in a few days finally dismissed; after which he saw her only twice, at the theatre. her whole picture is more like that of théroigne de méricourt than that of raphael's fornarina, whose name she received. other stories, of course, gathered round this strange life--personal encounters, aquatic feats, and all manner of romantic and impossible episodes; their basis being, that byron on one occasion thrashed, on another challenged, a man who tried to cheat him, was a frequent rider, and a constant swimmer, so that he came to be called "the english fish," "water-spaniel," "sea-devil," &c. one of the boatmen is reported to have said, "he is a good gondolier, spoilt by being a poet and a lord;" and in answer to a traveller's inquiry, "where does he get his poetry?" "he dives for it." his habits, as regards eating, seem to have been generally abstemious; but he drank a pint of gin and water over his verses at night, and then took claret and soda in the morning. riotous living may have helped to curtail byron's life, but it does not seem to have seriously impaired his powers. among these adverse surroundings of the "court of circe," he threw off _beppo_, _mazeppa_, and the early books of _don juan_. the first canto of the last was written in november, , the second in january, , the third and fourth towards the close of the same year. _beppo_, its brilliant prelude, sparkles like a draught of champagne. this "venetian story," or sketch, in which the author broke ground on his true satiric field--the satire of social life--and first adopted the measure avowedly suggested by _whistlecraft_ (frere), was drafted in october, , and appeared in may, . it aims at comparatively little, but is perfectly successful in its aim, and unsurpassed for the incisiveness of its side strokes, and the courtly ease of a manner that never degenerates into mannerism. in _mazeppa_ the poet reverts to his earlier style, and that of scott; the description of the headlong ride hurries us along with a breathless expectancy that gives it a conspicuous place among his minor efforts. the passage about the howling of the wolves, and the fever faint of the victim, is as graphic as anything in burns-- the skies spun like a mighty wheel, i saw the trees like drunkards reel. in the may or june of byron's little daughter, allegra, had been sent from england, under the care of a swiss nurse too young to undertake her management in such trying circumstances, and after four months of anxiety he placed her in charge of mrs. hoppner. in the course of this and the next year there are frequent allusions to the child, all, save one which records a mere affectation of indifference, full of affectionate solicitude. in june, , he writes, "her temper and her ways, mr. hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features; she will make, in that case, a manageable young lady." later he talks of her as "flourishing like a pomegranate blossom." in march, , we have another reference. "allegra is prettier, i think, but as obstinate as a mule, and as ravenous as a vulture; health good, to judge by the complexion, temper tolerable, but for vanity and pertinacity. she thinks herself handsome, and will do as she pleases." in may he refers to having received a letter from her mother, but gives no details. in the following year, with the approval of the shelleys then at pisa, he placed her for education in the convent of cavalli bagni in the romagna. "i have," he writes to hoppner, who had thought of having her boarded in switzerland, "neither spared care, kindness, nor expense, since the child was sent to me. the people may say what they please. i must content myself with not deserving, in this instance, that they should speak ill. the place is a _country_ town, in a good air, and less liable to objections of every kind. it has always appeared to me that the moral defect in italy does _not_ proceed from a _conventual_ education; because, to my certain knowledge, they come out of their convents innocent, even to ignorance of moral evil; but to the state of society into which they are directly plunged on coming out of it. it is like educating an infant on a mountain top, and then taking him to the sea, and throwing him into it, and desiring him to swim." elsewhere he says, "i by no means intend to give a natural child an english education, because, with the disadvantages of her birth, her after settlement would be doubly difficult. abroad, with a fair foreign education, and a portion of _l_. or _l_. (his will leaving her _l_., on condition that she should not marry an englishman, is here explained and justified), she might, and may, marry very respectably. in england such a dowry would be a pittance, while elsewhere it is a fortune. it is, besides, my wish that she should be a roman catholic, which i look upon as the best religion, as it is assuredly the oldest of the various branches of christianity." it only remains to add that, when he heard that the child had fallen ill of fever in , byron was almost speechless with agitation, and, on the news of her death, which took place april nd, he seemed at first utterly prostrated. next day he said, "allegra is dead; she is more fortunate than we. it is god's will, let us mention it no more." her remains rest beneath the elm-tree at harrow which her father used to haunt in boyhood, with the date of birth and death, and the scripture-- i shall go to her, but she shall not return to me. the most interesting of the visits paid to byron during the period of his life at venice was that of shelley, who, leaving his wife and children at bagni di lucca, came to see him in august, . he arrived late, in the midst of a thunderstorm; and next day they sailed to the lido, and rode together along the sands. the attitude of the two poets towards each other is curious; the comparatively shrewd man of the world often relied on the idealist for guidance and help in practical matters, admired his courage and independence, spoke of him invariably as the best of men, but never paid a sufficiently warm tribute in public to his work. shelley, on the other hand, certainly the most modest of great poets, contemplates byron in the fixed attitude of a literary worshipper. the introduction to _julian and maddalo_, directly suggested by this visit, under the slight veil of a change in the name, gives a summary of the view of his friend's character which he continued to entertain. "he is a person of the most consummate genius, and capable if he would direct his energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. but it is his weakness to be proud; he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life. his passions and his powers are incomparably greater than those of other men; and instead of the latter having been employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent each other strength;" but "in social life no human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming. he is cheerful, frank, and witty. his more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication; men are held by it as by a spell." subsequently to this visit byron lent the villa at este to his friend, and during the autumn weeks of their residence there were written the lines among the euganean hills, where, in the same strain of reverence, shelley refers to the "tempest-cleaving swan of albion," to the "music flung o'er a mighty thunder-fit," and to the sunlike soul destined to immortalize his ocean refuge,-- as the ghost of homer clings round seamander's wasting springs, as divinest shakespeare's might fills avon and the world with light. "the sun," he says, at a later date, "has extinguished the glowworm;" and again, "i despair of rivalling lord byron, as well i may; and there is no other with whom it is worth contending." shelley was, in the main, not only an exquisite but a trustworthy critic; and no man was more absolutely above being influenced by the fanfaronade of rank or the din of popularity. these criticisms are therefore not to be lightly set aside, nor are they unintelligible. perhaps those admirers of the clearer and more consistent nature, who exalt him to the rank of a greater poet, are misled by the amiable love of one of the purest characters in the history of our literature. there is at least no difficulty in understanding why he should have been, as it were, concussed by byron's greater massiveness and energy into a sense--easy to an impassioned devotee--of inferiority. similarly, most of the estimates-- many already reversed, others reversible--by the men of that age, of each other, can be explained. we can see how it was that shelley overestimated both the character and the powers of hunt; and byron depreciated keats, and was ultimately repelled by wordsworth, and held out his hand to meet the manly grasp of scott. the one enigma of their criticism is the respect that they joined in paying to the witty, genial, shallow, worldly, musical tom moore. this favourite of fortune and the minor muses, in the course of a short tour through the north of italy in the autumn of , found his noble friend on the th of october at la mira, went with him on a sight-seeing expedition to venice, and passed five or six days in his company. of this visit he has recorded his impressions, some of which relate to his host's personal appearance, others to his habits and leading incidents of his life. byron "had grown fatter, both in person and face, and the latter had suffered most by the change, having lost by the enlargement of the features some of that refined and spiritualized look that had in other times distinguished it, but although less romantic he appeared more humorous." they renewed their recollections of the old days and nights in london, and compared them with later experiences of bores and blues, in a manner which threatened to put to flight the historical and poetical associations naturally awakened by the city of the sea. byron had a rooted dislike to any approach to fine talk in the ordinary intercourse of life; and when his companion began to rhapsodize on the rosy hue of the italian sunsets, he interrupted him with, "come, d--n it, tom, _don't_ be poetical." he insisted on moore, who sighed after what he imagined would be the greater comforts of an hotel, taking up his quarters in his palace; and as they were groping their way through the somewhat dingy entrance, cried out, "keep clear of the dog!" and a few paces farther, "take care, or the monkey will fly at you!" an incident recalling the old vagaries of the menagerie at newstead. the biographer's reminiscences mainly dwell on his lordship's changing moods and tempers and gymnastic exercises, his terror of interviewing strangers, his imperfect appreciation of art, his preference of fish to flesh, his almost parsimonious economy in small matters, mingled with allusions to his domestic calamities, and frequent expressions of a growing distaste to venetian society. on leaving the city, moore passed a second afternoon at la mira, had a glimpse of allegra, and the first intimation of the existence of the notorious memoirs. "a short time after dinner byron left the room, and returned carrying in his hand a white leather bag. 'look here,' he said, holding it up; 'this would be worth something to murray, though _you_, i dare say, would not give sixpence for it.' 'what is it?' i asked. 'my life and adventures,' he answered. 'it is not a thing,' he answered, 'that can be published during my lifetime, but you may have it if you like. there, do whatever you please with it.' in taking the bag, and thanking him most warmly, i added, 'this will make a nice legacy for my little tom, who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century with it.'"[ ] shortly after, moore for the last time bade his friend farewell, taking with him from madame guiccioli, who did the honours of the house, an introduction to her brother, count gamba, at rome. "theresa guiccioli," says castelar, "appears like a star on the stormy horizon of the poet's life." a young romagnese, the daughter of a nobleman of ravenna, of good descent but limited means, she had been educated in a convent, and married in her nineteenth year to a rich widower of sixty, in early life a friend of alfieri, and noted as the patron of the national theatre. this beautiful blonde, of pleasing manners, graceful presence, and a strong vein of sentiment, fostered by the reading of chateaubriand, met byron for the first time casually when she came in her bridal dress to one of the albrizzi reunions; but she was only introduced to him early in the april of the following year, at the house of the countess benzoni. "suddenly the young italian found herself inspired with a passion of which till that moment her mind could not have formed the least idea; she had thought of love but as an amusement, and now became its slave." byron, on the other hand, gave what remained of a heart, never alienated from her by any other mistress. till the middle of the month they met every day; and when the husband took her back to ravenna she despatched to her idol a series of impassioned letters, declaring her resolution to mould her life in accordance with his wishes. towards the end of may she had prepared her relatives to receive byron as a visitor. he started in answer to the summons, writing on his way the beautiful stanzas to the po, beginning-- river that rollest by the ancient walls where dwells the lady of my love. [footnote : in december, , byron sent several more sheets of memoranda from ravenna, and in the following year suggested an arrangement by which murray paid over to moore, who was then in difficulties, _l_. for the right of publishing the whole, under the condition, among others, that lady byron should see them, and have the right of reply to anything that might seem to her objectionable. she on her part declined to have anything to do with them. when the memoirs were destroyed, moore paid back the _l_., but obtained four thousand guineas for editing the _life and correspondence_.] again passing through ferrara, and visiting bologna, he left the latter on the th, and on his arrival at his destination found the countess dangerously ill; but his presence, and the attentions of the famous venetian doctor, aglietti, who was sent for by his advice, restored her. the count seems to have been proud of his guest. "i can't make him out at all," byron writes; "he visits me frequently, and takes me out (like whittington the lord mayor) in a coach and six horses. the fact appears to be, that he is completely governed by her--and, for that matter, so am i." later he speaks of having got his horses from venice, and riding or driving daily in the scenery reproduced in the third canto of _don juan_:-- sweet hour of twilight! in the solitude of the pine forest, and the silent shore which bounds ravenna's immemorial wood. on theresa's recovery, in dread of a possible separation he proposed to fly with her to america, to the alps, to "some unsuspected isle in the far seas;" and she suggested the idea of feigning death, like juliet, and rising from the tomb. neither expedient was called for. when the count went to bologna, in august, with his wife, lord byron was allowed to follow; and--after consoling himself during an excursion which the married pair made to their estate, by hovering about her empty rooms and writing in her books--he established himself, on the count's return to his headquarters, with her and allegra at bologna. meanwhile, byron had written _the prophecy of dante_, and in august the prose letter, _to the editor of the british review_, on the charge of bribery in _don juan_. than this inimitable epistle no more laughter-compelling composition exists. about the same time, we hear of his leaving the theatre in a convulsion of tears, occasioned by the representation of alfieri's _mirra_. he left bologna with the countess on the th of september, when they visited the euganean hills and arqua, and wrote their names together in the pilgrim's book. on arriving at venice, the physicians recommending madame guiccioli to country air, they settled, still by her husband's consent, for the autumn at la mira, where moore and others found them domesticated. at the beginning of november the poet was prostrated by an attack of tertian fever. in some of his hours of delirium he dictated to his careful nurses, fletcher and the countess, a number of verses, which she assures us were correct and sensible. he attributes his restoration to cold water and the absence of doctors; but, ere his complete recovery, count guiccioli had suddenly appeared on the scene, and run away with his own wife. the lovers had for a time not only to acquiesce in the separation, but to agree to cease their correspondence. in december, byron in a fit of spleen had packed up his belongings, with a view to return to england. "he was," we are told, "ready dressed for the journey, his boxes on board the gondola, his gloves and cap on, and even his little cane in his hand, when my lord declares that if it should strike one--which it did--before everything was in order, he would not go that day. it is evident he had not the heart to go." next day he heard that madame guiccioli was again seriously ill, received and accepted the renewed invitation which bound him to her and to the south. he left venice for the last time almost by stealth, rushed along the familiar roads, and was welcomed at ravenna. chapter viii. - . ravenna--dramas--cain--vision of judgment. byrons's life at ravenna was during the first months comparatively calm; nevertheless, he mingled in society, took part in the carnival, and was received at the parties of the legate. "i may stay," he writes in january, , "a day--a week--a year--all my life." meanwhile, he imported his movables from venice, hired a suite of rooms in the guiccioli palace, executed his marvellously close translation of pulci's _morgante maggiore_, wrote his version of the story of _francesca of rimini_, and received visits from his old friend bankes and from sir humphrey davy. at this time he was accustomed to ride about armed to the teeth, apprehending a possible attack from assassins on the part of count guiccioli. in april his letters refer to the insurrectionary movements then beginning against the holy alliance. "we are on the verge of a row here. last night they have over-written all the city walls with 'up with the republic!' and 'death to the pope!' the police have been searching for the subscribers, but have caught none as yet. the other day they confiscated the whole translation of the fourth canto of _childe harold_, and have prosecuted the translator." in july a papal decree of separation between the countess and her husband was obtained, on condition of the latter paying from his large income a pittance to the lady of _l_. a year, and her undertaking to live in her father's house--an engagement which was, first in the spirit, and subsequently in the letter, violated. for a time, however, she retired to a villa about fifteen miles from ravenna, where she was visited by byron at comparatively rare intervals. by the end of july he had finished _marino faliero_, and ere the close of the year the fifth canto of _don juan_. in september he says to murray, "i am in a fierce humour, at not having scott's _monastery_. no more keats,[ ] i entreat. there is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the manikin. i don't feel inclined to care further about _don juan_. what do you think a very pretty italian lady said to me the other day, when i remarked that 'it would live longer than _childe harold_'? 'ah! but i would rather have the fame of _childe harold_ for three years than an immortality of _d. j._'" this is to-day the common female judgment; it is known to have been la guiccioli's, as well as mrs. leigh's, and by their joint persuasion byron was for a season induced to lay aside "that horrid, wearisome don." about this time he wrote the memorable reply to the remarks on that poem in _blackwood's magazine_', where he enters on a defence of his life, attacks the lakers, and champions pope against the new school of poetry, lamenting that his own practice did not square with his precept; and adding, "we are all wrong, except rogers, crabbe, and campbell." [footnote : in a note on a similar passage, bearing the date november , , he, however, confesses:--"my indignation at mr. keats' depreciation of pope has hardly permitted me to do justice to his own genius, which malgré all the fantastic fopperies of his style was undoubtedly of great promise. his fragment of hyperion seems actually inspired by the titans, and is as sublime as aeschylus. he is a loss to our literature."] in november he refers to reports of his letters being opened by the austrian officials, and the unpleasant things the huns, as he calls them, are likely to find therein. early in the next month he tells moore that the commandant of their troops, a brave officer, but obnoxious to the people, had been found lying at his door, with five slugs in him, and, bleeding inwardly, had died in the palace, where he had been brought to be nursed. this incident is versified in _don juan_, v. - , with anatomical minuteness of detail. after trying in vain to wrench an answer out of death, the poet ends in his accustomed strain-- but it was all a mystery. here we are, and there we go:--but _where_? five bits of lead-- or three, or two, or one--send very far! assassination has sometimes been the prelude to revolution, but it may be questioned if it has over promoted the cause of liberty. most frequently it has served as a pretext for reaction, or a red signal. in this instance--as afterwards in --overt acts of violence made the powers of despotism more alert, and conduced with the half-hearted action of their adversaries to the suppression of the rising of - . byron's sympathy with the movement seems to have been stimulated by his new associations. theresa's brother, count pietro, an enthusiastic young soldier, having returned from rome and naples, surmounting a prejudice not wholly unnatural, became attached to him, and they entered into a partnership in behalf of what--adopting a phrase often flaunted in opposite camps--they called constitutional principles. finally the poet so committed himself to the party of insurrection that, though his nationality secured him from direct attack, his movements were necessarily affected by the fiasco. in july the gambas were banished from the romagna, pietro being actually carried by force over the frontier; and, according to the articles of her separation, the countess had to follow them to florence. byron lingered for some mouths, partly from a spirit of defiance, and partly from his affection towards a place where he had enlisted the regards of numerous beneficiaries. the gambas were for some time bent on migrating to switzerland; but the poet, after first acquiescing, subsequently conceived a violent repugnance to the idea, and early in august wrote to shelley, earnestly requesting his presence, aid, and counsel. shelley at once complied, and, entering into a correspondence with madame guiccioli, succeeded in inducing her relatives to abandon their transmontane plans, and agree to take up their headquarters at pisa. this incident gave rise to a series of interesting letters, in which the younger poet gives a vivid and generous account of the surroundings and condition of his friend. on the nd of august he writes from ravenna:--"i arrived last night at ten o'clock, and sat up talking with lord b. till five this morning. he was delighted to see me. he has, in fact, completely recovered his health, and lives a life totally the reverse of that which he led at venice.... poor fellow! he is now quite well, and immersed in politics and literature. we talked a great deal of poetry and such matters last night, and, as usual, differed, i think, more than ever. he affects to patronize a system of criticism fit only for the production of mediocrity; and, although all his finer poems and passages have been produced in defiance of this system, yet i recognize the pernicious effects of it in the _doge of venice_." again, on the th: "lord b. is greatly improved in every respect--in genius, in temper, in moral views, in health, and happiness. his connexion with la guiccioli has been an inestimable benefit to him. he lives in considerable splendour, but within his income, which is now about _l_. a year, _l_. of which he devotes to purposes of charity. switzerland is little fitted for him; the gossip and the cabals of those anglicised coteries would torment him, as they did before. ravenna is a miserable place. he would in every respect be better among the tuscans. he has read to me one of the unpublished cantos of _don juan_. it sets him not only above, but far above, all the poets of the day. every word has the stamp of immortality.... i have spoken to him of hunt, but not with a direct view of demanding a contribution. i am sure, if i asked, it would not be refused; yet there is something in me that makes it impossible. lord b. and i are excellent friends; and were i reduced to poverty, or were i a writer who had no claim to a higher position than i possess, i would freely ask him any favour. such is not now the case." later, after stating that byron had decided upon tuscany, he says, in reference to la guiccioli, "at the conclusion of a letter, full of all the fine things she says she has heard of me, is this request, which i transcribe:--'signore, la vostra bontà mi fa ardita di chiedervi un favore, me lo accordarete voi? _non partite da ravenna senza milord_.' of course, being now by all the laws of knighthood captive to a lady's request, i shall only be at liberty on my parole until lord byron is settled at pisa." shelley took his leave, after a visit of ten days' duration, about the th or th of april. in a letter, dated august , he mentions having secured for his lordship the palazzo lanfranchi, an old spacious building on the lung' arno, once the family residence of the destroyers of ugolino, and still said to be haunted by their ghosts. towards the close of october, he says they have been expecting him any day those six weeks. byron, however, did not leave till the morning of the th. on his road, there occurred at imola the accidental meeting with lord clare. clare--who on this occasion merely crossed his friend's path on his way to rome--at a later date came on purpose from geneva before returning to england to visit the poet, who, then at leghorn, recorded in a letter to moore his sense of this proof of old affection undecayed. at bologna--his next stage--he met rogers by appointment, and the latter has preserved his memory of the event in well-known lines. together they revisited florence and its galleries, where they were distracted by the crowds of sight-seeing visitors. byron must have reached pisa not later than the nd of november ( ), for his first letter from there bears the date of the rd. the later months of the poet's life at ravenna were marked by intense literary activity. over a great part of the year was spread the controversy with bowles about pope, i.e. between the extremes of art against nature, and nature against art. it was a controversy for the most part free from personal animus, and on byron's part the genuine expression of a reaction against a reaction. to this year belong the greater number of the poet's historical dramas. what was said of these, at the time by jeffrey, heber, and others, was said with justice; it is seldom that the criticism of our day finds so little to reverse in that of sixty years ago. the author, having shown himself capable of being pathetic, sarcastic, sentimental, comical, and sublime, we would be tempted to think that he had written these plays to show, what no one before suspected, that he could also be dull, were it not for his own exorbitant estimation of them. lord byron had few of the powers of a great dramatist; he had little architectural imagination, or capacity to conceive and build up a whole. his works are mainly masses of fine, splendid, or humorous writing, heaped together; the parts are seldom forged into one, or connected by any indissoluble link. his so-called dramas are only poems divided into chapters. further, he had little of what mr. ruskin calls penetrative imagination. so it has been plausibly said that he made his men after his own image, his women after his own heart. the former are, indeed, rather types of what he wished to be than what he was. they are better, and worse, than himself. they have stronger wills, more definite purposes, but less genial and less versatile natures. but it remains true, that when he tried to represent a character totally different from himself, the result is either unreal or uninteresting. _marino faliero_, begun april, finished july, , and prefixed by a humorous dedication to goethe--which was, however, suppressed--was brought on the stage of drury lane theatre early in , badly mangled, appointed, and acted--and damned. byron seems to have been sincere in saying he did not intend any of his plays to be represented. we are more inclined to accuse him of self-deception when he asserts that he did not mean them to be popular; but he took sure means to prevent them from being so. _marino faliero_, in particular, was pronounced by dr. john watkins--old grobius himself--"to be the dullest of dull plays;" and even the warmest admirers of the poet had to confess that the style was cumbrous. the story may be true, but it is none the less unnatural. the characters are comparatively commonplace, the women especially being mere shadows; the motion is slow; and the inevitable passages of fine writing are, as the extolled soliloquy of lioni, rather rhetorical than imaginative. the speeches of the doge are solemn, but prolix, if not ostentatious, and--perhaps the vital defect--his cause fails to enlist our sympathies. artistically, this play was byron's most elaborate attempt to revive the unities and other restrictions of the severe style, which, when he wrote, had been "vanquished in literature." "i am persuaded," he writes in the preface, "that a great tragedy is not to be produced by following the old dramatists, who are full of faults, but by producing regular dramas like the greeks." he forgets that the statement in the mouth of a greek dramatist that his play was not intended for the stage, would have been a confession of failure; and that aristotle had admitted that even the deity could not make the past present. the ethical motives of faliero are, first, the cry for vengeance--the feeling of affronted or unsatiated pride,--that runs through so much of the author's writing, and second, the enthusiasm for public ends, which was beginning to possess him. the following lines have been pointed out as embodying some of byron's spirit of protest against the more selfish "greasy domesticity" of the georgian era:-- i. ber. such ties are not for those who are called to the high destinies which purify corrupted commonwealths: we must forget all feelings save the one, we must resign all passions save our purpose, we must behold no object save our country, and only look on death as beautiful so that the sacrifice ascend to heaven, and draw down freedom on her evermore. cal. but if we fail--? i. ber. they never fail who die in a great cause: the block may soak their gore; their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs be strung to city gates and castle walls, but still their spirit walks abroad. --a passage which, after his wont, he spoils by platitudes about the precisian brutus, who certainly did not give rome liberty. byron's other venetian drama, the _two foscari_, composed at ravenna, between the th of june and the th of july, , and published in the following december, is another record of the same failure and the same mortification, due to the same causes. in this play, as jeffrey points out, the preservation of the unities had a still more disastrous effect. the author's determination to avoid rant did not hinder his frequently adopting an inflated style; while professing to follow the ancient rules, he forgets the warning of horace so far as to permit the groans of the tortured foscari to be heard on the stage. the declamations of marina produce no effect on the action, and the vindictiveness of loridano, though effectively pointed in the closing words, "he has paid me," is not rendered interesting, either by a well established injury, or by any trace of iago's subtle genius. in the same volume appeared _sardanapalus_, written in the previous may, and dedicated to goethe. in this play, which marks the author's last reversion to the east, we are more arrested by the majesty of the theme-- thirteen hundred years of empire ending like a shepherd's tale, by the grandeur of some of the passages, and by the development of the chief character, made more vivid by its being distinctly autobiographical. sardanapalus himself is harold, raised "high on a throne," and rousing himself at the close from a life of effeminate lethargy. myrrha has been often identified with la guiccioli, and the hero's relation to his queen zarina compared with that of the poet to his wife; but in his portrait of the former the author's defective capacity to represent national character is manifest: myrrha is only another gulnare, medora, or zuleika. in the domestic play of _werner_--completed at pisa in january, , and published in november, there is no merit either of plan or execution; for the plot is taken, with little change, from "the german's tale," written by harriet lee, and the treatment is throughout prosaic. byron was never a master of blank verse; but _werner_, his solo success on the modern british stage, is written in a style fairly parodied by campbell, when he cut part of the author's preface into lines, and pronounced them as good as any in the play. the _deformed transformed_, another adaptation, suggested by a forgotten novel called _the three brothers_, with reminiscences of _faust_, and possibly of scott's _black dwarf_, was begun at pisa in , but not published till january, . this fragment owes its interest to the bitter infusion of personal feeling in the first scene, and its occasional charm to the march of some of the lines, especially those describing the bourbon's advance on rome; but the effect of the magical element is killed by previous parallels, while the story is chaotic and absurd. the _deformed transformed_ bears somewhat the same relation to _manfred as heaven and earth_--an occasionally graphic dream of the world before the deluge, written october, , and issued about the same time as moore's _loves of the angels_, on a similar theme--does to _cain_. the last named, begun in july, and finished at ravenna in september, is the author's highest contribution to the metaphysical poetry of the century. in _cain_ byron grapples with the perplexities of a belief which he never either accepted or rejected, and with the yet deeper problems of life and death, of good and ill. in dealing with these his position is not that of one justifying the ways of god to man--though he somewhat disingenuously appeals to milton in his defence--nor that of the definite antagonism of _queen mab_. the distinction in this respect between byron and shelley cannot be over-emphasized. the latter had a firm faith other than that commonly called christian. the former was, in the proper sense of the word, a sceptic, beset with doubts, and seeking for a solution which he never found, shifting in his expression of them with every change of a fickle and inconsistent temperament. the atmosphere of _cain_ is almost wholly negative; for under the guise of a drama, which is mainly a dialogue between two halves of his mind, the author appears to sweep aside with something approaching to disdain the answers of a blindly accepted tradition, or of a superficial optimism, e.g.-- cain. then my father's god did well when he prohibited the fatal tree. lucifer. but had done better in not planting it. again, a kid, after suffering agonies from the sting of a reptile, is restored by antidotes-- behold, my son! said adam, how from evil springs good! lucifer. what didst thou answer? cain. nothing; for he is my father; but i thought, that 'twere a better portion for the animal never to have been stung at all. this rebellious nature naturally yields to the arguments of lucifer, a spirit in which much of the grandeur of milton's satan is added to the subtlety of mephistopheles. in the first scene cain is introduced, rebelling against toils imposed on him by an offence committed before he was born,--"i sought not to be born"--the answer, that toil is a good, being precluded by its authoritative representation as a punishment; in which mood he is confirmed by the entrance and reasonings of the tempter, who identifies the deity with seva the destroyer, hints at the dreadful visitation of the yet untasted death; when adah, entering, takes him at first for an angel, and then recognizes him as a fiend. her invocation to eve, and comparison of the "heedless, harmless, wantonness of bliss" in eden, to the later lot of those girt about with demons from whose fascination they cannot fly, is one of the most striking in the drama; as is the line put into the mouth of the poet's most beautiful female character, to show that god cannot be alone,-- what else can joy be, but diffusing joy? her subsequent contrast of lucifer with the other angels is more after the style of shelley than anything else in byron-- as the silent sunny moon, all light, they look upon us. but thou seemst like an ethereal night, where long white clouds streak the deep purple, and unnumber'd stars spangle the wonderful mysterious vault with things that look as if they would be suns-- so beautiful, unnumber'd and endearing; not dazzling, and yet drawing us to them, they fill my eyes with tears, and so dost thou. the flight with lucifer, in the second act, in the abyss of space and through the hades of "uncreated night," with the vision of long-wrecked worlds, and the interminable gloomy realms of swimming shadows and enormous shapes, --suggested, as the author tells us, by the reading of cuvier--leaves us with impressions of grandeur and desolation which no other passages of english poetry can convey. lord byron has elsewhere exhibited more versatility of fancy and richness of illustration, but nowhere else has he so nearly "struck the stars." from constellation to constellation the pair speed on, cleaving the blue with mighty wings, but finding in all a blank, like that in richter's wonderful dream. the result on the mind of cain is summed in the lines on the fatal tree,-- it was a lying tree--for we _know_ nothing; at least, it _promised knowledge_ at the price of death--but _knowledge_ still; but, what _knows_ man? a more modern poet answers, after beating at the same iron gates, "behold, we know not anything." the most beautiful remaining passage is cain's reply to the question--what is more beautiful to him than all that he has seen in the "unimaginable ether"?-- my sister adah.--all the stars of heaven, the deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world-- the hues of twilight--the sun's gorgeous coming-- his setting indescribable, which fills my eyes with pleasant tears as i behold him sink, and feel my heart flow softly with him along that western paradise of clouds the forest shade--the green bough--the bird's voice-- the vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love, and mingles with the song of cherubim, as the day closes over eden's walls:-- all these are nothing, to my eyes and heart, like adah's face. lucifer's speech, at the close of the act is perhaps too miltonic to be absolutely original. returning to earth, we have a pastoral, of which sir egerton brydges justly and sufficiently remarks, "the censorious may say what they will, but there are speeches in the mouth of cain and adah, especially regarding their child, which nothing in english poetry but the 'wood-notes wild' of shakespeare, ever equalled." her cry, as cain seems to threaten the infant, followed by the picture of his bloom and joy, is a touch of perfect pathos. then comes the interview with the pious abel, who is amazed at the lurid light in the eyes of his brother, with the spheres "singing in thunder round" him--the two sacrifices, the murder, the shriek of zillah-- father! eve! adah! come hither! death is in the world; cain's rallying from stupor-- i am awake at last--a dreary dream had madden'd me,--but he shall never wake: the curse of eve; and the close--[greek: meizon ae kata dakrua] cain. leave me. adah. why all have left thee. cain. and wherefore lingerest thou? dost thou not fear? adah. i fear nothing, except to leave thee. * * * * * cain. eastward from eden will we take our way. adah. leave! thou shalt be my guide; and may our god be thine! now let us carry forth our children. cain. and _he_ who lieth there was childless. i have dried the fountain of a gentle race. o abel! adah. peace be with him. cain. but with _me_! _cain_, between which and the _cenci_ lies the award of the greatest single performance in dramatic shape of our century, raised a storm. it was published, with _sardanapalus_ and _the two foscari_ in december, , and the critics soon gave evidence of the truth of elze's remark-- "in england freedom of action is cramped by the want of freedom of thought. the converse is the case with us germans; freedom of thought is restricted by the want of freedom in action. to us this scepticism presents nothing in the least fearful." but with us it appeared as if a literary guy fawkes had been detected in the act of blowing up half the cathedrals and all the chapels of the country. the rage of insular orthodoxy was in proportion to its impotence. every scribbler with a cassock denounced the book and its author, though few attempted to answer him. the hubbub was such that byron wrote to murray, authorizing him to disclaim all responsibility, and offering to refund the payment he had received. "say that both you and mr. gilford remonstrated. i will come to england to stand trial. 'me, me, adsum qui feci,'"--and much to the same effect. the book was pirated; and on the publisher's application to have an injunction, lord eldon refused to grant it. the majority of the minor reviewers became hysterical, and dr. watkins, amid much almost inarticulate raving, said that sir walter scott, who had gratefully accepted the dedication, would go down to posterity with the brand of _cain_ upon his brow. several even of the higher critics took fright. jeffrey, while protesting his appreciation of the literary merits of the work, lamented its tendency to unsettle faith. mr. campbell talked of its "frightful audacity." bishop heber wrote at great length to prove that its spirit was more dangerous than that of _paradise lost_--and succeeded. the _quarterly_ began to cool towards the author. moore wrote to him, that cain was "wonderful, terrible, never to be forgotten," but "dreaded and deprecated" the influence of shelley. byron showed the letter to shelley, who wrote to a common friend to assure mr. moore that he had not the smallest influence over his lordship in matters of religion, and only wished he had, as he would "employ it to eradicate from his great mind the delusions of christianity, which seem perpetually to recur, and to lie in ambush for the hours of sickness and distress." shelley elsewhere writes: "what think you of lord b.'s last volume? in my opinion it contains finer poetry than has appeared in england since _paradise lost_. cain is apocalyptic; it is a revelation not before communicated to man." in the same strain, scott says of the author of the "grand and tremendous drama:" "he has certainly matched milton on his own ground." the worst effect of those attacks appears in the shifts to which byron resorted to explain himself,--to be imputed, however, not to cowardice, but to his wavering habit of mind. great writers in our country have frequently stirred difficult questions in religion and life, and then seemed to be half scared, like rouget de lisle, by the reverberation of their own voices. shelley almost alone was always ready to declare, "i meant what i said, and stand to it." byron having, with or without design, arraigned some of the thirty-nine articles of his countrymen, proceeded in the following month (october ) to commit an outrage, yet more keenly resented, on the memory of their sainted king, the pattern of private virtue and public vice, george iii. the perpetration of this occurred in the course of the last of his numerous literary duels, of which it was the close. that mr. southey was a well-meaning and independent man of letters, there can be no doubt. it does not require the conclusive testimony of the esteem of savage landor to compel our respect for the author of the _life of nelson_, and the open-handed friend of coleridge; nor is it any disparagement that, with the last-named and with wordsworth, he in middle life changed his political and other opinions. but in his dealings with lord byron, southey had "eaten of the insane root." he attacked a man of incomparably superior powers, for whom his utter want of humour--save in its comparatively childish forms--made him a ludicrously unequal match, and paid the penalty in being gibbeted in satires that will endure with the language. the strife, which seems to have begun on byron's leaving england, rose to its height when his lordship, in the humorous observations and serious defence of his character against "the remarks" in blackwood, (august), accused the laureate of apostasy, treason, and slander. in , when the latter published his _vision of judgment_--the most quaintly preposterous panegyric ever penned--he prefixed to it a long explanatory note, in the course of which he characterizes _don juan_ as a "monstrous combination of horror and mockery, lewdness and impiety," regrets that it has not been brought under the lash of the law, salutes the writer as chief of the satanic school, inspired by the spirits of moloch and belial, and refers to the remorse that will overtake him on his death-bed. to which byron, _inter alia_: "mr. southey, with a cowardly ferocity, exults over the anticipated death-bed repentance of the objects of his dislike, and indulges himself in a pleasant 'vision of judgment,' in prose, as well as verse, full of impious impudence. what mr. southey's sensations or ours may be in the awful moment of leaving this state of existence, neither he nor we can pretend to decide. in common, i presume, with most men of any reflection, _i_ have not waited for a death-bed to repent of many of my actions, notwithstanding the 'diabolical pride' which this pitiful renegade in his rancour would impute to those who scorn him." this dignified, though trenchant, rejoinder would have been unanswerable; but the writer goes on to charge the laureate with spreading calumnies. to this charge southey, in january, , replies with "a direct and positive denial," and then proceeds to talk at large of the "whip and branding iron," "slaves of sensuality," "stones from slings," "goliahs," "public panders," and what not, in the manner of the brave days of old. in february byron, having seen this assault in the _courier_, writes off in needless heat, "i have got southey's pretended reply; what remains to be done is to call him out,"--and despatches a cartel of mortal defiance. mr. douglas kinnaird, through whom this was sent, judiciously suppressed it, and the author's thirst for literary blood was destined to remain unquenched. meanwhile he had written his own _vision of judgment_. this extraordinary work, having been refused by both murray and longman, appeared in in the pages of the _liberal_. it passed the bounds of british endurance; and the publisher, mr. john hunt, was prosecuted and fined for the publication. readers of our day will generally admit that the "gouty hexameters" of the original poem, which celebrates the apotheosis of king george in heaven, are much more blasphemous than the _ottava rima_ of the travesty, which professes to narrate the difficulties of his getting there. byron's _vision of judgment_ is as unmistakably the first of parodies as the _iliad_ is the first of epics, or the _pilgrim's progress_ the first of allegories. in execution it is almost perfect. _don juan_ is in scope and magnitude a far wider work; but no considerable series of stanzas in _don juan_ are so free from serious artistic flaw. from first to last, every epithet hits the white; every line that does not convulse with laughter stings or lashes. it rises to greatness by the fact that, underneath all its lambent buffoonery, it is aflame with righteous wrath. nowhere in such space, save in some of the prose of swift, is there in english so much scathing satire. chapter ix. - . pisa--genoa--don juan. byron, having arrived at pisa with his troop of carriages, horses, dogs, fowls, servants, and a monkey, settled himself quietly in the palazzo lanfranchi for ten months, interrupted only by a sojourn of six weeks in the neighbourhood of leghorn. his life in the old feudal building followed in the main the tenour of his life at ravenna. he rose late, received visitors in the afternoons, played billiards, rode or practised with his pistols, in concert with shelley, whom he refers to at this time as "the most companionable man under thirty" he had ever met. both poets were good shots, but byron the safest; for, though his hand often shook, he made allowance for the vibration, and never missed his mark. on one occasion he set up a slender cane, and at twenty paces divided it with his bullet. the early part of the evening he gave to a frugal meal and the society of la guiccioli--now apparently, in defiance of the statute of limitations, established under the same roof--and then sat late over his verses. he was disposed to be more sociable than at venice or ravenna, and occasionally entertained strangers; but his intimate acquaintanceship was confined to captain williams and his wife, and shelley's cousin, captain medwin. the latter used frequently to dine and sit with his host till the morning, collecting materials for the _conversations_ which he afterwards gave to the world. the value of these reminiscences is impaired by the fact of their recording, as serious revelations, the absurd confidences in which the poet's humour for mystification was wont to indulge. another of the group, an irishman, called taafe, is made, in his lordship's correspondence of the period, to cut a somewhat comical figure. the master-passion of this worthy and genial fellow was to get a publisher for a fair commentary on dante, to which he had firmly linked a very bad translation, and for about six months byron pesters murray with constant appeals to satisfy him; e.g. november l , "he must be gratified, though the reviewers will make him suffer more tortures than there are in his original." march , "he will die if he is not published; he will be damned if he is; but that he don't mind." march , "i make it a point that he shall be in print; it will make the man so exuberantly happy. he is such a good-natured christian that we must give him a shove through the press. besides, he has had another fall from his horse into a ditch." taafe, whose horsemanship was on a par with his poetry, can hardly have been consulted as to the form assumed by these apparently fruitless recommendations, so characteristic of the writer's frequent kindliness and constant love of mischief. about this time byron received a letter from mr. shepherd, a gentleman in somersetshire, referring to the death of his wife, among whose papers he had found the record of a touching, because evidently heart-felt, prayer for the poet's reformation, conversion, and restored peace of mind. to this letter he at once returned an answer. marked by much of the fine feeling of his best moods. pisa, december : "sir, i have received your letter. i need not say that the extract which it contains has affected me, because it would imply a want of all feeling to have read it with indifference.... your brief and simple picture of the excellent person, whom i trust you will again meet, cannot be contemplated without the admiration due to her virtues and her pure and unpretending piety. i do not know that i ever met with anything so unostentatiously beautiful. indisputably, the firm believers in the gospel have a great advantage over all others--for this simple reason, that if true they will have their reward hereafter; and if there be no hereafter, they can but be with the infidel in his eternal sleep.... but a man's creed does not depend upon _himself_: who can say, i _will_ believe this, that, or the other? and least of all that which he least can comprehend.... i can assure you that not all the fame which ever cheated humanity into higher notions of its own importance, would ever weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous being may be pleased to take in my behalf. in this point of view i would not exchange the prayer of the deceased in my behalf for the united glory of homer, caesar, and napoleon." the letter to lady byron, which he afterwards showed to lady blessington, must have borne about the same date; and we have a further indication of his thoughts reverting homeward in an urgent request to murray--written on december th, ada's sixth birthday--to send his daughter's miniature. after its arrival nothing gave him greater pleasure than to be told of its strong likeness to himself. in the course of the same month an event occurred which strangely illustrates the manners of the place, and the character of the two poets. an unfortunate fanatic having taken it into his head to steal the wafer-box out of a church at lucca, and being detected, was, in accordance with the ecclesiastical law till lately maintained against sacrilege, condemned to be burnt alive. shelley, who believed that the sentence would really be carried into effect, proposed to byron that they should gallop off together, and by aid of their servants rescue by force the intended victim. byron, however, preferred in the first place, to rely on diplomacy; some vigorous letters passed; ultimately a representation, convoyed by taafe to the english ambassador, led to a commutation of the sentence, and the man was sent to the galleys. the january of was marked by the addition to the small circle of captain e.j. trelawny, the famous rover and bold free-lance (long sole survivor of the remarkable group), who accompanied lord byron to greece, and has recorded a variety of incidents of the last months of his life. trelawny, who appreciated shelley with an intensity that is often apt to be exclusive, saw, or has reported, for the most part the weaker side of byron. we are constrained to accept as correct the conjecture that his judgment was biassed by their rivalry in physical prowess, and the political differences which afterwards developed between them. letters to his old correspondents--to scott about the _waverleys_, to murray about the dramas, and the _vision of judgment_, and _cain_--make up almost the sole record of the poet's pursuits during the five following months. in february th he sent, through mr. kinnaird, the challenge to southey, of the suppression of which he was not aware till may . the same letter contains a sheaf of the random cynicisms, as--"cash is virtue," "money is power; and when socrates said he knew nothing, he meant he had not a drachma"--by which he sharpened the shafts of his assailants. a little later, on occasion of the death of lady noel, he expresses himself with natural bitterness on hearing that she had in her will recorded a wish against his daughter ada seeing his portrait. in march he sat, along with la guiccioli, to the sculptor bartolini. on the th, when the company were on one of their riding excursions outside the town, a half-drunken dragoon on horseback broke through them, and by accident or design knocked shelley from his seat. byron, pursuing him along the lung' arno, called for his name, and, taking him for an officer, flung his glove. the sound of the fray brought the servants of the lanfranchi to the door; and one of them, it was presumed--though in the scuffle everything remained uncertain--seriously wounded the dragoon in the side. an investigation ensued, as the result of which the gambas were ultimately exiled from tuscany, and the party of friends was practically broken up. shelley and his wife, with the williamses and trelawny, soon after settled at the villa magni at lerici in the gulf of spezia. byron, with the countess and her brother, established themselves in the villa rossa at monte nero, a suburb of leghorn, from which port at this date the remains of allegra were conveyed to england. among the incidents of this residence were, the homage paid to the poet by a party of americans; the painting of his portrait (and that of la guiccioli) by the artist west, who has left a pleasing account of his visits; byron's letter making inquiry about the country of bolivar (where it was his fancy to settle); and another of those disturbances by which he seemed destined to be harassed. one of his servants--among whom were unruly spirits, apparently selected with a kind of _corsair_ bravado,--had made an assault on count pietro, wounding him in the face. this outburst, though followed by tears and penitence, confirmed the impression of the tuscan police that the whole company were dangerous, and made the government press for their departure. in the midst of the uproar, there suddenly appeared at the villa mr. leigh hunt, with his wife and six children. they had taken passage to genoa, where they were received by trelawny, in command of the "bolivar"--a yacht constructed in that port for lord byron, simultaneously with the "don juan" for shelley. the latter, on hearing of the arrival of his friends, came to meet them at leghorn, and went with them to pisa. early in july they were all established on the lung' arno, having assigned to them the ground floor of the palazzo. we have now to deal briefly--amid conflicting asseverations it is hard to deal fairly--with the last of the vexatiously controverted episodes which need perplex our narrative. byron, in wishing moore from ravenna a merry christmas for , proposes that they shall embark together in a newspaper, "with some improvement on the plan of the present scoundrels," "to give the age some new lights on policy, poesy, biography, criticism, morality, theology," &c. moore absolutely refusing to entertain the idea, hunt's name was brought forward in connexion with it, during tho visit of shelley. shortly after the return of the latter to pisa, he writes (august ) to hunt, stating that byron was anxious to start a periodical work, to be conducted in italy, and had proposed that they should both go shares in the concern, on which follow some suggestions of difficulties about money. nevertheless, in august, , he presses hunt to come. moore, on the other hand, strongly remonstrates against the project. "i heard some days ago that leigh hunt was on his way to you with all his family; and the idea seems to be that you and he and shelley are to conspire together in the _examiner_. i deprecate such a plan with all my might. partnerships in fame, like those in trade, make the strongest party answer for the rest. i tremble even for you with such a bankrupt co.! you must stand alone." shelley--who had, in the meantime, given his bond to byron for an advance of _l_. towards the expenses of his friends, besides assisting them himself to the utmost of his power--began, shortly before their arrival, to express grave doubts as to the success of the alliance. his last published letter--written july th, --after they had settled at pisa, is full of forebodings. on the th he set sail in the "don juan"-- that fatal and perfidious bark, built in th'eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, and was overtaken by the storm in which he perished. three days after, trelawny rode to pisa, and told byron of his fears, when the poet's lips quivered, and his voice faltered. on the nd of july the bodies of shelley, williams, and vivian, were cast ashore. on the th august, hunt, byron, and trelawny were present at the terribly weird cremation, which they have all described. at a later date, the two former were seized with a fit of delirium which is one of the phases of the tension of grief. byron's references to the event are expressions less of the loss which he indubitably felt, than of his indignation at the "world's wrong." "thus," he writes, "there is another man gone, about whom the world was ill-naturedly and ignorantly and brutally mistaken. it will, perhaps, do him justice now, when he can be no better for it." towards the end of the same letter the spirit of his dead friend seems to inspire the sentence --"with these things and these fellows it is necessary, in the present clash of philosophy and tyranny, to throw away the scabbard. i know it is against fearful odds, but the battle must be fought." meanwhile, shortly after the new settlement at the lanfranchi, the preparations for issuing the _liberal_, edited by leigh hunt in italy, and published by john hunt in london, progressed. the first number, which appeared in september, was introduced, after a few words of preface, by the _vision of judgment_, with the signature quevedo redivivus, and adorned by shelley's translation of the "may-day night," in _faust_. it contained besides, the _letter to the editor of my grandmother's review_, an indifferent florentine story, a german apologue, and a gossiping account of pisa, presumably by hunt. three others followed, containing byron's _heaven and earth_, his translation of the _morgante maggiore_, and _the blues_--a very slight, if not silly, satire on literary ladies; some of shelley's posthumous minor poems, among them "i arise from dreams of thee," and a few of hazlitt's essays, including, however, none of his best. leigh hunt himself wrote most of the rest, one of his contributions being a palpable imitation of _don juan_, entitled the _book of beginnings_, but he confesses that owing to his weak health and low spirits at the time, none of these did justice to his ability; and the general manner of the magazine being insufficiently vigorous to carry off the frequent eccentricity of its matter, the prejudices against it prevailed, and the enterprise came to an end. partners in failing concerns are apt to dispute; in this instance the unpleasantness which arose at the time rankled in the mind of the survivor, and gave rise to his singularly tasteless and injudicious book--a performance which can be only in part condoned by the fact of hunt's afterwards expressing regret, and practically withdrawing it. he represents himself throughout as a much-injured man, lured to italy by misrepresentations, that he might give the aid of his journalistic experience and undeniable talents to the advancement of a mercenary enterprise, and that when it failed he was despised, insulted, and rejected. byron, on the other hand, declares, "the hunts pressed me to engage in this work, and in an evil hour i consented;" and his subsequent action in the matter, if not always gentle never unjust, goes to verify his statements in the letters of the period. "i am afraid," he writes from genoa, oct. , , "the journal is a bad business. i have done all i can for leigh hunt since he came here; but it is almost useless. his wife is ill, his six children not very tractable, and in the affairs of this world he himself is a child." later he says to murray, "you and your friends, by your injudicious rudeness, cement a connexion which you strove to prevent, and which, had the hunts prospered, would not in all probability have continued. as it is ... i can't leave them among the breakers." on february th we have, his last word on the subject, to the same effect. in the following sentences, moore seems to give a fair statement of the motives which led to the establishment of the unfortunate journal--"the chief inducements on the part of lord byron to this unworthy alliance were, in the first place, a wish to second the kind views of his friend shelley in inviting mr. hunt to italy; and in the next, a desire to avail himself of the aid of one so experienced as an editor in the favourite object he has so long contemplated of a periodical work in which all the offspring of his genius might be received as they sprung to light." for the accomplishment of this purpose mr. leigh hunt was a singularly ill-chosen associate. a man of radical opinions on all matters, not only of religion but of society--opinions which he acquired and held easily but firmly--could never recognize the propriety of the claim to deference which "the noble poet" was always too eager to assert, and was inclined to take liberties which his patron perhaps superciliously repelled. mrs. hunt does not seem to have been a very judicious person. "trelawny here," said byron jocularly, "has been speaking against my morals." "it is the first time i ever heard of them," she replied. mr. hunt, by his own admission, had "peculiar notions on the subject of money." byron, on his part, was determined not to be "put upon," and doled out through his steward stated allowances to hunt, who says that only "stern necessity and a large family" induced him to accept them. hunt's expression that the _l_. was, _in the first instance_, a debt to shelley, points to the conclusion that it was remitted on that poet's death. besides this, byron maintained the family till they left genoa for florence in , and defrayed up to that date all their expenses. he gave his contributions to the _liberal_ gratis; and, again by hunt's own confession, left to him and his brother the profits of the proprietorship. according to mr. galt "the whole extent of the pecuniary obligation appears not to have exceeded _l_.; but, little or great, the manner in which it was recollected reflects no credit either on the head or heart of the debtor." of the weaknesses on which the writer--bent on verifying pope's lines on atossa--from his vantage in the ground-floor, was enabled to dilate, many are but slightly magnified. we are told for instance, in very many words, that byron clung to the privileges of his rank while wishing to seem above them; that he had a small library, and was a one-sided critic; that bayle and gibbon supplied him with the learning he had left at school; that, being a good rider with a graceful seat, he liked to be told of it; that he showed letters he ought not to have shown; that he pretended to think worse of wordsworth than he did; that he knew little of art or music, adored rossini, and called rubens a dauber; that, though he wrote _don juan_ under gin and water, he had not a strong head, &c., &c. it is true, but not new. but when hunt proceeds to say that byron had no sentiment; that la guiccioli did not really care much about him; that he admired gifford because he was a sycophant, and scott because he loved a lord; that he had no heart for anything except a feverish notoriety; that he was a miser from his birth, and had "as little regard for liberty as allieri,"--it is new enough, but it is manifestly not true. hunt's book, which begins with a caricature on the frontispiece, and is inspired in the main by uncharitableness, yet contains here and there gleams of a deeper insight than we find in all the volumes of moore--an insight, which, in spite of his irritated egotism, is the mark of a man with the instincts of a poet, with some cosmopolitan sympathies, and a courage on occasion to avow them at any risk. "lord byron," he says truly, "has been too much admired by the english because he was sulky and wilful, and reflected in his own person their love of dictation and excitement. they owe his memory a greater regard, and would do it much greater honour if they admired him for letting them know they were not so perfect a nation as they supposed themselves, and that they might take as well as give lessons of humanity, by a candid comparison of notes with civilization at large." in july, when at leghorn, the gambas received orders to leave tuscany; and on his return to pisa, byron, being persecuted by the police, began to prepare for another change. after entertaining projects about greece, america, and switzerland--trelawny undertaking to have the "bolivar" conveyed over the alps to the lake of geneva--he decided on following his friends to genoa. he left in september with la guiccioli, passed by lerici and sestri, and then for the ten remaining mouths of his italian life took up his quarters at albaro, about a mile to the east of the city, in the villa saluzzo, which mrs. shelley had procured for him and his party. she herself settled with the hunts--who travelled about the same time, at byron's expense, but in their own company--in the neighbouring casa negroto. not far off, mr. savage landor was in possession of the casa pallavicini, but there was little intercourse between the three. landor and byron, in many respects more akin than any other two englishmen of their age, were always separated by an unhappy bar or intervening mist. the only family with whom the poet maintained any degree of intimacy was that of the earl of blessington, consisting of the earl himself--a gouty old gentleman, with stories about him of the past--the countess, and her sister, miss power, and the "cupidon déchaîné," the anglo-french count alfred d'orsay--who were to take part in stories of the future. in the spring of , byron persuaded them to occupy the villa paradiso, and was accustomed to accompany them frequently on horseback excursions along the coast to their favourite nervi. it has been said that lady blessington's _conversations with lord byron_ are, as regards trustworthiness, on a par with landor's _imaginary conversations_. let this be so, they are still of interest on points of fact which it must have been easier to record than to imagine. however adorned, or the reverse, by the fancies of a habitual novelist, they convey the impressions of a goodhumoured, lively, and fascinating woman, derived from a more or less intimate association with the most brilliant man of the age. of his personal appearance--a matter of which she was a good judge--we have the following: "one of byron's eyes was larger than the other; his nose was rather thick, so he was best seen in profile; his mouth was splendid, and his scornful expression was real, not affected; but a sweet smile often broke through his melancholy. he was at this time very pale and thin (which indicates the success of his regimen of reduction since leaving venice). his hair was dark brown, here and there turning grey. his voice was harmonious, clear and low. there is some gaucherie in his walk, from his attempts to conceal his lameness. ada's portrait is like him, and he is pleased at the likeness, but hoped she would not turn out to be clever--at any events not poetical. he is fond of gossip, and apt to speak slightingly of some of his friends, but is loyal to others. his great defect is flippancy, and a total want of self-possession." the narrator also dwells on his horror of interviewers, by whom at this time he was even more than usually beset. one visitor of the period ingenuously observes--"certain persons will be chagrined to hear that byron's mode of life does not furnish the smallest food for calumny." another says, "i never saw a countenance more composed and still--i might even add, more sweet and prepossessing. but his temper was easily ruffled and for a whole day; he could not endure the ringing of bells, bribed his neighbours to repress their noises, and failing, retaliated by surpassing them; he never forgave colonel carr for breaking one of his dog's ribs, though he generally forgave injuries without forgetting them. he had a bad opinion of the inertness of the genoese; for whatever he himself did he did with a will--'toto se corpore miscuit,' and was wont to assume a sort of dictatorial tone--as if 'i have said it, and it must be so' were enough." from these waifs and strays of gossip we return to a subject of deeper interest. the countess of blessington, with natural curiosity, was anxious to elicit from byron some light on the mystery of his domestic affairs, and renewed the attempt previously made by madame de staël, to induce him to some movement towards a reconciliation with his wife. his reply to this overture was to show her a letter which he had written to lady byron from pisa, but never forwarded, of the tone of which the following extracts must be a sufficient indication:--"i have to acknowledge the receipt of ada's hair.... i also thank you for the inscription of the date and name; and i will tell you why. i believe they are the only two or three words of your hand-writing in my possession, for your letters i returned, and except the two words--or rather the one word 'household' written twice--in an old account book, i have no other. every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our mutual feelings, which must always have one rallying-point as long as our child exists. we both made a bitter mistake, but now it is over, i considered our re-union as not impossible for more than a year after the separation, but then i gave up the hope. i am violent, but not malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentment. remember that if you have injured me in aught, this forgiveness is something, and that if i have injured you, it is something more still, if it be true, as moralists assert, that the most offending are the least forgiving." "it is a strange business," says the countess, about lady byron. "when he was praising her mental and personal qualifications, i asked him how all that he now said agreed with certain sarcasms supposed to be a reference to her in his works. he smiled, shook his head, and said, they were meant to spite and vex her, when he was wounded and irritated at her refusing to receive or answer his letters; that he was sorry he had written them, but might on similar provocations recur to the same vengeance." on another occasion he said, "lady b.'s first idea is what is due to herself. i wish she thought a little more of what is due to others. my besetting sin is a want of that self-respect which she has in excess. when i have broken out, on slight provocation, into one of my ungovernable fits of rage, her calmness piqued and seemed to reproach me; it gave her an air of superiority that vexed and increased my _mauvaise humeur_." to lady blessington as to every one, he always spoke of mrs. leigh with the same unwavering admiration, love, and respect. "my first impressions were melancholy--my poor mother gave them: but to my sister, who, incapable of wrong herself, suspected no wrong in others, i owe the little good of which i can boast: and had i earlier known her it might have influenced my destiny. augusta was to me in the hour of need a tower of strength. her affection was my last rallying-point, and is now the only bright spot that the horizon of england offers to my view. she has given me such good advice--and yet finding me incapable of following it, loved and pitied me but the more because i was erring." similarly, in the height of his spleen, writes leigh hunt--"i believe there did exist one person to whom he would have been generous, if she pleased: perhaps was so. at all events, he left her the bulk of his property, and always spoke of her with the greatest esteem. this was his sister, mrs. leigh. he told me she used to call him 'baby byron.' it was easy to see that of the two persons she had by far the greater judgment." byron having laid aside _don juan_ for more than a year, in deference to la guiccioli, was permitted to resume it again, in july, , on a promise to observe the proprieties. cantos vi.-xi. were written at pisa. cantos xii.-xvi. at genoa, in . these latter portions of the poem were published by john hunt. his other works of the period are of minor consequence. the _age of bronze_ is a declamation, rather than a satire, directed against the convention of cintra and the congress of verona, especially lord londonderry's part in the latter, only remarkable, from its advice to the greeks, to dread-- the false friend worse than the infuriate foe; i.e. to prefer the claw of the tartar savage to the paternal hug of the great bear-- better still toil for masters, than await, the slave of slaves, before a russian gate. in the _island_--a tale of the mutiny of the "bounty"--he reverts to the manner and theme of his old romances, finding a new scene in the pacific for the exercise of his fancy. in this piece his love of nautical adventure reappears, and his idealization of primitive life, caught from rousseau and chateaubriand. there is more repose about this poem than in any of the author's other compositions. in its pages the sea seems to plash about rocks and caves that bask under a southern sun. "'byron, the sorcerer,' he can do with me what he will," said old dr. parr, on reading it. as the swan-song of the poet's sentimental verse, it has a pleasing if not pathetic calm. during the last years in italy he planned an epic on the conquest, and a play on the subject of hannibal, neither of which was executed. in the criticism of a famous work there is often little left to do but to criticise the critics--to bring to a focus the most salient things that have been said about it, to eliminate the absurd from the sensible, the discriminating from the commonplace. _don juan_, more than any of its precursors, _is_ byron, and it has been similarly handled. the early cantos were ushered into the world amid a chorus of mingled applause and execration. the minor reviews, representing middle-class respectability, were generally vituperative, and the higher authorities divided in their judgments. the _british magazine_ said that "his lordship had degraded his personal character by the composition;" the _london_, that the poem was "a satire on decency;" the _edinburgh monthly_, that it was "a melancholy spectacle;" the _eclectic_, that it was "an outrage worthy of detestation." _blackwood_ declared that the author was "brutally outraging all the best feelings of humanity." moore characterizes it as "the most painful display of the versatility of genius that has ever been left for succeeding ages to wonder at or deplore." jeffrey found in the whole composition "a tendency to destroy all belief in the reality of virtue;" and dr. john watkins classically named it "the odyssey of immorality." "_don juan_ will be read," wrote one critic, "as long as satire, wit, mirth, and supreme excellence shall be esteemed among men." "stick to _don juan_," exhorted another; "it is the only sincere thing you have written, and it will live after all your _harolds_ have ceased to be 'a schoolgirl's tale, the wonder of an hour.' it is the best of all your works--the most spirited, the most straightforward, the most interesting, the most poetical." "it is a work," said goethe, "full of soul, bitterly savage in its misanthropy, exquisitely delicate in its tenderness." shelley confessed, "it fulfils in a certain degree what i have long preached, the task of producing something wholly new and relative to the age, and yet surpassingly beautiful." and sir walter scott, in the midst of a hearty panegyric: "it has the variety of shakespeare himself. neither _childe harold_, nor the most beautiful of byron's earlier tales, contain more exquisite poetry than is to be found scattered through the cantos of _don juan_, amidst verses which the author seems to have thrown from him with an effort as spontaneous as that of a tree resigning its leaves." one noticeable feature about these comments is their sincerity: reviewing, however occasionally one-sided, had not then sunk to be the mere register of adverse or friendly cliques; and, with all his anxiety for its verdict, byron never solicited the favour of any portion of the press. another is, the fact that the adverse critics missed their mark. they had not learnt to say of a book of which they disapproved, that it was weak or dull: in pronouncing it to be vicious, they helped to promote its sale; and the most decried has been the most widely read of the author's works. many of the readers of _don juan_ have, it must be confessed, been found among those least likely to admire in it what is most admirable--who have been attracted by the very excesses of buffoonery, violations of good taste, and occasionally almost vulgar slang, which disfigure its pages. their patronage is, at the best, of no more value than that of a mob gathered by a showy shakespearian revival, and it has laid the volume open to the charge of being adapted "laudari ab illaudatis." but the welcome of the work in other quarters is as indubitably duo to higher qualities. in writing _don juan_, byron attempted something that had never been done before, and his genius so chimed with his enterprise that it need never be done again. "down," cries m. chasles, "with the imitators who did their host to make his name ridiculous." in commenting on their failure, an athenaeum critic has explained the pre-established fitness of the ottava rima--the first six lines of which are a dance, and the concluding couplet a "breakdown"--for the mock-heroic. byron's choice of this measure may have been suggested by whistlecraft; but, he had studied its cadence in pulci, and the _novelle galanti_ of casti, to whom he is indebted for other features of his satire; and he added to what has been well termed its characteristic jauntiness, by his almost constant use of the double rhyme. that the ottava rima is out of place in consistently pathetic poetry, may be seen from its obvious misuse in keats's _pot of basil_. many writers, from tennant and frere to moultrie, have employed it in burlesque or more society verse; but byron alone has employed it triumphantly, for he has made it the vehicle of thoughts grave as well as gay, of "black spirits and white, red spirits and grey," of sparkling fancy, bitter sarcasm, and tender memories. he has swept into the pages of his poem the experience of thirty years of a life so crowded with vitality that our sense of the plethora of power which it exhibits makes us ready to condone its lapses. byron, it has been said, balances himself on a ladder like other acrobats; but alone, like the japanese master of the art, he all the while bears on his shoulders the weight of a man. much of _don juan_ is as obnoxious to criticism in detail as his earlier work; it has every mark of being written in hot haste. in the midst of the most serious passages (e.g. the "ave maria") we are checked in our course by bathos or commonplace and thrown where the writer did not mean to throw us: but the mocking spirit is so prevailingly present that we are often left in doubt as to his design, and what is in _harold_ an outrage is in this case only a flaw. his command over the verse itself is almost miraculous: he glides from extreme to extreme, from punning to pathos, from melancholy to mad merriment, sighing or laughing by the way at his readers or at himself or at the stanzas. into them he can fling anything under the sun, from a doctor's prescription to a metaphysical theory. when bishop berkeley said there was no matter, and proved it, 'twas no matter what he said, is as cogent a refutation of idealism as the cumbrous wit of scotch logicians. the popularity of the work is due not mainly to the verbal skill which makes it rank as the _cleverest_ of english verse compositions, to its shoals of witticisms, its winged words, telling phrases, and incomparable transitions; but to the fact that it continues to address a large class who are not in the ordinary sense of the word lovers of poetry. _don juan_ is emphatically the poem of intelligent men of middle age, who have grown weary of mere sentiment, and yet retain enough of sympathetic feeling to desire at times to recall it. such minds, crusted like plato's glaucus with the world, are yet pervious to appeals to the spirit that survives beneath the dry dust amid which they move; but only at rare intervals can they accompany the pure lyrist "singing as if he would never be old," and they are apt to turn with some impatience even from _romeo and juliet_ to _hamlet_ and _macbeth_. to them, on the other hand, the hard wit of _hudibras_ is equally tiresome, and more distasteful; their chosen friend is the humourist who, inspired by a subtle perception of the contradictions of life, sees matter for smiles in sorrow, and tears in laughter. byron was not, in the highest sense, a great humourist; he does not blend together the two phases, as they are blended in single sentences or whole chapters of sterne, in the april-sunshine of richter, or in _sartor resartus_; but he comes near to produce the same effect by his unequalled power of alternating them. his wit is seldom hard, never dry, for it is moistened by the constant juxtaposition of sentiment. his tenderness is none the less genuine that he is perpetually jerking it away--an equally favourite fashion with carlyle,--as if he could not trust himself to be serious for fear of becoming sentimental; and, in recollection of his frequent exhibitions of unaffected hysteria, we accept his own confession-- if i laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis that i may not weep, as a perfectly sincere comment on the most sincere, and therefore in many respects the most effective, of his works. he has, after his way, endeavoured in grave prose and light verse to defend it against its assailants; saying, "in _don juan_ i take a vicious and unprincipled character, and lead him through those ranks of society whose accomplishments cover and cloak their vices, and paint the natural effects;" and elsewhere, that he means to make his scamp "end as a member of the society for the suppression of vice, or by the guillotine, or in an unhappy marriage." it were easy to dilate on the fact that in interpreting the phrases of the satirist into the language of the moralist we often require to read them backwards: byron's own statement, "i hate a motive," is, however, more to the point: but the fact is that i have nothing plann'd, unless it were to be a moment merry-- a novel word in my vocabulary. _don juan_ can only be credited with a text in the sense in which every large experience, of its own accord, conveys its lesson. it was to the author a picture of the world as he saw it; and it is to us a mirror in which every attribute of his genius, every peculiarity of his nature, is reflected without distortion. after the audacious though brilliant opening, and the unfortunately pungent reference to the poet's domestic affairs, we find in the famous storm (c. ii.) a bewildering epitome of his prevailing manner. home-sickness, sea-sickness, the terror of the tempest, "wailing, blasphemy, devotion," the crash of the wreck, the wild farewell, "the bubbling cry of some strong swimmer in his agony," the horrors of famine, the tale of the two fathers, the beautiful apparitions of the rainbow and the bird, the feast on juan's spaniel, his reluctance to dine on "his pastor and his master," the consequences of eating pedrillo,--all follow each other like visions in the phantasmagoria of a nightmare, till at last the remnant of the crew are drowned by a ridiculous rhyme-- finding no place for their landing better, they ran the boat ashore,--and overset her. then comes the episode of haidee, "a long low island song of ancient days," the character of the girl herself being like a thread of pure gold running through the fabric of its surroundings, motley in every page; e.g., after the impassioned close of the "isles of greece," we have the stanza:-- thus sang, or would, or could, or should, have sung, the modern greek, in tolerable verse; if not like orpheus quite, when greece was young, yet in those days he might have done much worse-- with which the author dashes away the romance of the song, and then launches into a tirade against bob southey's epic and wordsworth's pedlar poems. this vein exhausted, we come to the "ave maria," one of the most musical, and seemingly heartfelt, hymns in the language. the close of the ocean pastoral (in c. iv.) is the last of pathetic narrative in the book; but the same feeling that "mourns o'er the beauty of the cyclades," often re-emerges in shorter passages. the fifth and sixth cantos, in spite of the glittering sketch of gulbeyaz, and tho fawn-like image of dudù, are open to the charge of diffuseness, and the character of johnson is a failure. from the seventh to the tenth, the poem decidedly dips, partly because the writer had never been in russia; then it again rises, and shows no sign of falling off to the end. no part of the work has more suggestive interest or varied power than some of the later cantos, in which juan is whirled through the vortex of the fashionable life which byron knew so well, loved so much, and at last esteemed so little. there is no richer piece of descriptive writing in his works than that of newstead (in c. xiii.); nor is there any analysis of female character so subtle as that of the lady adeline. conjectures as to the originals of imaginary portraits, are generally futile; but miss millpond--not donna inez--is obviously lady byron; in adeline we may suspect that at genoa he was drawing from the life in the villa paradiso; while aurora raby seems to be an idealization of la guiccioli:-- early in years, and yet more infantine in figure, she had something of sublime in eyes, which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine: all youth--but with an aspect beyond time; radiant and grave--us pitying man's decline; mournful--but mournful of another's crime, she look'd as if she sat by eden's door, and grieved for those who could return no more. she was a catholic, too, sincere, austere, as far as her own gentle heart allow'd, and deem'd that fallen worship far more dear, perhaps, because 'twas fallen: her sires were proud of deeds and days, when they had fill'd the ear of nations, and had never bent or bow'd to novel power; and, as she was the last, she held her old faith and old feelings fast. she gazed upon a world she scarcely knew, as seeking not to know it; silent, lone, as grows a flower, thus quietly she grew, and kept her heart serene within its zone. constantly, towards the close of the work, there is an echo of home and country, a half involuntary cry after-- the love of higher things and better days; th'unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance of what is call'd the world and the world's ways. in the concluding stanza of the last completed canto, beginning-- between two worlds life hovers like a star, 'twixt night and morn, on the horizon's verge-- we have a condensation of the refrain of the poet's philosophy; but the main drift of the later books is a satire on london society. there are elements in a great city which may be wrought into something nobler than satire, for all the energies of the age are concentrated where passion is fiercest and thought intensest, amid the myriad sights and sounds of its glare and gloom. but those scenes, and the actors in them, are apt also to induce the frame of mind in which a prose satirist describes himself as reclining under an arcade of the pantheon: "not the pantheon by the piazza navona, where the immortal gods were worshipped--the immortal gods now dead; but the pantheon in oxford street. have not selwyn, and walpole, and march, and carlisle figured there? has not prince florizel flounced through the hall in his rustling domino, and danced there in powdered splendour? o my companions, i have drunk many a bout with you, and always found 'vanitas vanitatum' written on the bottom of the pot." this is the mind in which _don juan_ interprets the universe, and paints the still living court of florizel and his buffoons. a "nondescript and ever varying rhyme"--"a versified aurora borealis," half cynical, half epicurean, it takes a partial though a subtle view of that microcosm on stilts called the great world. it complains that in the days of old "men made the manners--manners now make men." it concludes-- good company's a chess-board, there are kings, queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns; the world's a game. it passes from a reflection on "the dreary _fuimus_ of all things here" to the advice-- but "carpe diem," juan, "carpe, carpe!" to-morrow sees another race as gay and transient, and devour'd by the same harpy. "life's a poor player,"--then play out the play. it was the natural conclusion of the foregone stage of byron's career. years had given him power, but they were years in which his energies were largely wasted. self-indulgence had not petrified his feeling, but it had thrown wormwood into its springs. he had learnt to look on existence as a walking shadow, and was strong only with the strength of a sincere despair. through life's road, so dim and dirty, i have dragg'd to three and thirty. what have those years left to me? nothing, except thirty-three. these lines are the summary of one who had drained the draught of pleasure to the dregs of bitterness. chapter x. - . politics--the carbonari--expedition to greece--death. in leaving venice for ravenna, byron passed from the society of gondoliers and successive sultanas to a comparatively domestic life, with a mistress who at least endeavoured to stimulate some of his higher aspirations, and smiled upon his wearing the sword along with the lyre. in the last episode of his constantly chequered and too voluptuous career, we have the waking of sardanapalus realized in the transmutation of the fantastical harold into a practical strategist, financier, and soldier. no one ever lived who, in the same space, more thoroughly ran the gauntlet of existence. having exhausted all other sources of vitality and intoxication--travel, gallantry, and verse--it remained for the despairing poet to become a hero. but he was also moved by a public passion, the genuineness of which there is no reasonable ground to doubt. like alfieri and rousseau, he had taken for his motto, "i am of the opposition;" and, as dante under a republic called for a monarchy, byron, under monarchies at home and abroad, called for a commonwealth. amid the inconsistencies of his political sentiment, he had been consistent in so much love of liberty as led him to denounce oppression, even when he had no great faith in the oppressed--whether english, or italians, or greeks. byron regarded the established dynasties of the continent with a sincere hatred. he talks of the "more than infernal tyranny" of the house of austria. to his fancy, as to shelley's, new england is the star of the future. attracted by a strength or rather force of character akin to his own, he worshipped napoleon, even when driven to confess that "the hero had sunk into a king." he lamented his overthrow; but, above all, that he was beaten by "three stupid, legitimate old dynasty boobies of regular sovereigns." "i write in ipecacuanha that the bourbons are restored." "what right have we to prescribe laws to france? here we are retrograding to the dull, stupid old system, balance of europe--poising straws on kings' noses, instead of wringing them off." "the king-times are fast finishing. there will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. i shall not live to see it, but i foresee it." "give me a republic. look in the history of the earth--rome, greece, venice, holland, france, america, our too short commonwealth--and compare it with what they did under masters." his serious political verses are all in the strain of the lines on wellington-- never had mortal man such opportunity-- except napoleon--or abused it more; you might have freed fallen europe from the unity of tyrants, and been blessed from shore to shore. an enthusiasm for italy, which survived many disappointments, dictated some of the most impressive passages of his _harold_, and inspired the _lament of tasso_ and the _ode on venice_. the _prophecy of dante_ contains much that has since proved prophetic-- what is there wanting, then, to set thee free, and show thy beauty in its fullest light? to make the alps impassable; and we, her sons, may do this with one deed--_unite_! his letters reiterate the same idea, in language even more emphatic. "it is no great matter, supposing that italy could be liberated, who or what is sacrificed. it is a grand object--the very poetry of politics; only think--a free italy!" byron acted on his assertion that a man ought to do more for society than write verses. mistrusting its leaders, and detesting the wretched lazzaroni, who "would have betrayed themselves and all the world," he yet threw himself heart and soul into the insurrection of , saying, "whatever i can do by money, means, or person, i will venture freely for their freedom." he joined the secret society of the carbonari, wrote an address to the liberal government set up in naples, supplied arms and a refuge in his house, which he was prepared to convert into a fortress. in february, , on the rout of the neapolitans by the austrians, the conspiracy was crushed. byron, who "had always an idea that it would be bungled," expressed his fear that the country would be thrown back for years into barbarism, and the countess guiccioli confessed with tears that the italians must return to composing and strumming operatic airs. carbonarism having collapsed, it of course made way for a reaction; but the encouragement and countenance of the english poet and peer helped to keep alive the smouldering fire that mazzini fanned into a flame, till cavour turned it to a practical purpose, and the dreams of the idealists of were finally realized. on the failure of the luckless conspiracy, byron naturally betook himself to history, speculation, satire, and ideas of a journalistic propaganda; but all through, his mind was turning to the renewal of the action which was his destiny. "if i live ten years longer," he writes in , "you will see that it is not all over with me. i don't mean in literature, for that is nothing--and i do not think it was my vocation; but i shall do something." the greek war of liberation opened a new field for the exercise of his indomitable energy. this romantic struggle, begun in april, , was carried on for two years with such remarkable success, that at the close of greece was beginning to be recognized as an independent state; but in the following months the tide seemed to turn; dissensions broke out among the leaders, the spirit of intrigue seemed to stifle patriotism, and the energies of the insurgents were hampered for want of the sinews of war. there was a danger of the movement being starved out, and the committee of london sympathizers--of which the poet's intimate friend and frequent correspondent, mr. douglas kinnaird, and captain blaquière, were leading promoters--was impressed with the necessity of procuring funds in support of the cause. with a view to this it seemed of consequence to attach to it some shining name, and men's thoughts almost inevitably turned to byron. no other englishman seemed so fit to be associated with the enterprise as the warlike poet, who had twelve years before linked his fame to that of "grey marathon" and "athena's tower," and, more recently immortalized the isles on which he cast so many a longing glance. hobhouse broke the subject to him early in the spring of : the committee opened communications in april. after hesitating through may, in june byron consented to meet blaquière at zante, and, on hearing the results of the captain's expedition to the morea, to decide on future steps. his share in this enterprise has been assigned to purely personal and comparatively mean motives. he was, it is said, disgusted with his periodical, sick of his editor, tired of his mistress, and bent on any change, from china to peru, that would give him a new theatre for display. one grows weary of the perpetual half-truths of inveterate detraction. it is granted that byron was restless, vain, imperious, never did anything without a desire to shine in the doing of it, and was to a great degree the slave of circumstances. had the _liberal_ proved a lamp to the nations, instead of a mere "red flag flaunted in the face of john bull," he might have cast anchor at genoa; but the whole drift of his work and life demonstrates that he was capable on occasion of merging himself in what he conceived to be great causes, especially in their evil days. of the hunts he may have had enough; but the invidious statement about la guiccioli has no foundation, other than a somewhat random remark of shelley, and the fact that he left her nothing in his will. it is distinctly ascertained that she expressly prohibited him from doing so; they continued to correspond to the last, and her affectionate, though unreadable, reminiscences, are sufficient proof that she at no time considered herself to be neglected, injured, or aggrieved. byron indeed left italy in an unsettled state of mind: he spoke of returning in a few months, and as the period for his departure approached, became more and more irresolute. a presentiment of his death seemed to brood over a mind always superstitious, though never fanatical. shortly before his own departure, the blessingtons were preparing to leave genoa for england. on the evening of his farewell call he began to speak of his voyage with despondency, saying, "here we are all now together; but when and where shall we meet again? i have a sort of boding that we see each other for the last time, as something tells me i shall never again return from greece:" after which remark he leant his head on the sofa, and burst into one of his hysterical fits of tears. the next week was given to preparations for an expedition, which, entered on with mingled motives--sentimental, personal, public--became more real and earnest to byron at every step he took. he knew all the vices of the "hereditary bondsmen" among whom he was going, and went among them, with yet unquenched aspirations, but with the bridle of discipline in his hand, resolved to pave the way towards the nation becoming better, by devoting himself to making it free. on the morning of july th ( ) he embarked in the brig "hercules," with trelawny, count pietro gamba, who remained with him to the last, bruno a young italian doctor, scott the captain of the vessel, and eight servants, including fletcher, besides the crew. they had on board two guns, with other arms and ammunition, five horses, an ample supply of medicines, with , spanish dollars in coin and bills. the start was inauspicious. a violent squall drove them back to port, and in the course of a last ride with gamba to albaro, byron asked, "where shall we be in a year?" on the same day of the same month of he was carried to the tomb of his ancestors. they again set sail on the following evening, and in five days reached leghorn, where the poet received a salutation in verse, addressed to him by goethe, and replied to it. here mr. hamilton brown, a scotch gentleman with considerable knowledge of greek affairs, joined the party, and induced them to change their course to cephalonia, for the purpose of obtaining the advice and assistance of the english resident, colonel napier. the poet occupied himself during the voyage mainly in reading--among other books, scott's _life of swift_, grimm's _correspondence_, la rochefoucauld, and las casas--and watching the classic or historic shores which they skirted, especially noting elba, soracte, the straits of messina, and etna. in passing stromboli he said to trelawny, "you will see this scene in a fifth canto of _childe harold_." on his companions suggesting that he should write some verses on the spot, he tried to do so, but threw them away, with the remark, "i cannot write poetry at will, as you smoke tobacco." trelawny confesses that he was never on shipboard with a better companion, and that a severer test of good fellowship it is impossible to apply. together they shot at gulls or empty bottles, and swam every morning in the sea. early in august they reached their destination. coming in sight of the morea, the poet said to trelawny, "i feel as if the eleven long years of bitterness i have passed through, since i was here, were taken from my shoulders, and i was scudding through the greek archipelago with old bathurst in his frigate." byron remained at or about cephalonia till the close of the year. not long after his arrival he made an excursion to ithaca, and, visiting the monastery at vathi, was received by the abbot with great ceremony, which, in a fit of irritation, brought on by a tiresome ride on a mule, he returned with unusual discourtesy; but next morning, on his giving a donation to their alms-box, he was dismissed with the blessing of the monks. "if this isle were mine," he declared on his way back, "i would break my staff and bury my book." a little later, brown and trelawny being sent off with letters to the provisional government, the former returned with some greek emissaries to london, to negotiate a loan; the latter attached himself to odysseus, the chief of the republican party at athens, and never again saw byron alive. the poet, after spending a month on board the "hercules," dismissed the vessel, and hired a house for gamba and himself at metaxata, a healthy village about four miles from the capital of the island. meanwhile, blaquière, neglecting his appointment at zante, had gone to corfu, and thence to england. colonel napier being absent from cephalonia, byron had some pleasant social intercourse with his deputy, but, unable to get from him any authoritative information, was left without advice, to be besieged by letters and messages from the factions. among these there were brought to him hints that the greeks wanted a king, and he is reported to have said, "if they make me the offer, i will perhaps not reject it." the position would doubtless have been acceptable to a man who never--amid his many self-deceptions--affected to deny that he was ambitious: and who can say what might not have resulted for greece, had the poet lived to add lustre to her crown? in the meantime, while faring more frugally than a day-labourer, he yet surrounded himself with a show of royal state, had his servants armed with gilt helmets, and gathered around him a body-guard of suliotes. these wild mercenaries becoming turbulent, he was obliged to despatch them to mesolonghi, then threatened with siege by the turks and anxiously waiting relief. during his residence at cephalonia, byron was gratified by the interest evinced in him by the english residents. among these the physician, dr. kennedy, a worthy scotchman, who imagined himself to be a theologian with a genius for conversion, was conducting a series of religious meetings at argostoli, when the poet expressed a wish to be present at one of them. after listening, it is said, to a set of discourses that occupied the greater part of twelve hours, he seems, for one reason or another, to have felt called on to enter the lists, and found himself involved in the series of controversial dialogues afterwards published in a substantial book. this volume, interesting in several respects, is one of the most charming examples of unconscious irony in the language, and it is matter of regret that our space does not admit of the abridgment of several of its pages. they bear testimony, on the one hand, to byron's capability of patience, and frequent sweetness of temper under trial; on the other, to kennedy's utter want of humour, and to his courageous honesty. the curiously confronted interlocutors, in the course of the missionary and subsequent private meetings, ran over most of the ground debated between opponents and apologists of the calvinistic faith, which kennedy upheld without stint. the _conversations_ add little to what we already know of byron's religious opinions; nor is it easy to say where he ceases to be serious and begins to banter, or vice versa. he evidently wished to show that in argument he was good at fence, and could handle a theologian as skilfully as a foil. at the same time he wished if possible, though, as appears, in vain, to get some light on a subject with regard to which in his graver moods he was often exercised. on some points he is explicit. he makes an unequivocal protest against the doctrines of eternal punishment and infant damnation, saying that if the rest of mankind were to be damned, he "would rather keep them company than creep into heaven alone." on questions of inspiration, and the deeper problems of human life, he is less distinct, being naturally inclined to a speculative necessitarianism, and disposed to admit original depravity; but he did not see his way out of the maze through the atonement, and held that prayer had only significance as a devotional affection of the heart. byron showed a remarkable familiarity with the scriptures, and with parts of barrow, chillingworth, and stillingfleet; but on kennedy's lending for his edification boston's _fourfold state_, he returned it with the remark that it was too deep for him. on another occasion he said, "do you know i am nearly reconciled to st. paul, for he says there is no difference between the jews and the greeks? and i am exactly of the same opinion, for the character of both is equally vile." the good scotchman's religious self-confidence is throughout free from intellectual pride; and his own confession, "this time i suspect his lordship had the best of it," might perhaps be applied to the whole discussion. critics who have little history and less war have been accustomed to attribute byron's lingering at cephalonia to indolence and indecision; they write as if he ought on landing on greek soil to have put himself at the head of an army and stormed constantinople. those who know more, confess that the delay was deliberate, and that it was judicious. the hellenic uprising was animated by the spirit of a "lion after slumber," but it had the heads of a hydra hissing and tearing at one another. the chiefs who defended the country by their arms, compromised her by their arguments, and some of her best fighters were little better than pirates and bandits. greece was a prey to factions--republican, monarchic, aristocratic--representing naval, military, and territorial interests, and each beset by the adventurers who flock round every movement, only representing their own. during the first two years of success they were held in embryo; during the later years of disaster, terminated by the allies at navarino, they were buried; during the interlude of byron's residence, when the foes were like hounds in the leash, waiting for a renewal of the struggle, they were rampant. had he joined any one of them he would have degraded himself to the level of a mere condottiere, and helped to betray the common cause. beset by solicitations to go to athens, to the morea, to acarnania, he resolutely held apart, biding his time, collecting information, making himself known as a man of affairs, endeavouring to conciliate rival clamants for pension or place, and carefully watching the tide of war. numerous anecdotes of the period relate to acts of public or private benevolence, which endeared him to the population of the island; but he was on the alert against being fleeced or robbed. "the bulk of the english," writes colonel napier, "came expecting to find the peloponnesus filled with plutarch's men, and returned thinking the inhabitants of newgate more moral. lord byron judged the greeks fairly, and knew that allowance must be made for emancipated slaves." among other incidents we hear of his passing a group, who were "shrieking and howling as in ireland" over some men buried in the fall of a bank; he snatched a spade, began to dig, and threatened to horsewhip the peasants unless they followed his example. on november th he despatched to the central government a remarkable state paper, in which he dwells on the fatal calamity of a civil war, and says that unless union and order are established all hopes of a loan--which being every day more urgent, he was in letters to england constantly pressing--are at an end. "i desire," he concluded, "the well being of greece, and nothing else. i will do all i can to secure it; but i will never consent that the english public be deceived as to the real state of affairs. you have fought gloriously; act honourably towards your fellow-citizens and the world, and it will then no more be said, as has been repeated for two thousand years, with the roman historians, that philopoemen was the last of the grecians." prince alexander mavrocordatos--the most prominent of the practical patriotic leaders--having been deposed from the presidency, was sent to regulate the affairs of western greece, and was now on his way with a fleet to relieve mesolonghi, in attempting which the brave marco bozzaris had previously fallen. in a letter, opening communication with a man for whom he always entertained a high esteem, byron writes, "colonel stanhope has arrived from london, charged by our committee to act in concert with me.... greece is at present placed between three measures--either to reconquer her liberty, to become a dependence of the sovereigns of europe, or to return to a turkish province. she has the choice only of these three alternatives. civil war is but a road that leads to the two latter." at length the long looked-for fleet arrived, and the turkish squadron, with the loss of a treasure-ship, retired up the gulf of lepanto. mavrocordatos on entering mesolonghi lost no time in inviting the poet to join him, and placed a brig at his disposal, adding, "i need not tell you to what a pitch your presence is desired by everybody, or what a prosperous direction it will give to all our affairs. your counsels will be listened to like oracles." at the same date stanhope writes, "the people in the streets are looking forward to his lordship's arrival as they would to the coming of the messiah." byron was unable to start in the ship sent for him; but in spite of medical warnings, a few days later, i.e. december th, he embarked in a small fast-sailing sloop called a mistico, while the servants and baggage were stowed in another and larger vessel under the charge of count gamba. from gamba's graphic account of the voyage we may take the following:--"we sailed together till after ten at night; the wind favourable, a clear sky, the air fresh, but not sharp. our sailors sang alternately patriotic songs, monotonous indeed, but to persons in our situation extremely touching, and we took part in them. we were all, but lord byron particularly, in excellent spirits. the mistico sailed the fastest. when the waves divided us, and our voices could no longer reach each other, we made signals by firing pistols and carbines. to-morrow we meet at mesolonghi--to morrow. thus, full of confidence and spirits, we sailed along. at twelve we were out of sight of each other." byron's vessel, separated from her consort, came into the close proximity of a turkish frigate, and had to take refuge among the scrofes' rocks. emerging thence, he attained a small seaport of acarnania, called dragomestri, whence sallying forth on the nd of january under the convoy of some greek gunboats, he was nearly wrecked. on the th byron made, when violently heated, an imprudent plunge in the sea, and was never afterwards free from a pain in his bones. on the th he arrived at mesolonghi, and was received with salvoes of musketry and music. gamba was waiting him. his vessel, the "bombarda," had been taken by the ottoman frigate, but the captain of the latter, recognizing the count as having formerly saved his life in the black sea, made interest in his behalf with yussuf pasha at patras, and obtained his discharge. in recompense, the poet subsequently sent to the pasha some turkish prisoners, with a letter requesting him to endeavour to mitigate the inhumanities of the war. byron brought to the greeks at mesolonghi the _l_. of his personal loan (applied, in the first place, to defraying the expenses of the fleet), with the spell of his name and presence. he was shortly afterwards appointed to the command of the intended expedition against lepanto, and, with this view, again took into his pay five hundred suliotes. an approaching general assembly to organize the forces of the west, had brought together a motley crew, destitute, discontented, and more likely to wage war upon each other than on their enemies. byron's closest associates during the ensuing months, were the engineer parry, an energetic artilleryman, "extremely active, and of strong practical talents," who had travelled in america, and colonel stanhope (afterwards lord harrington) equally with himself devoted to the emancipation of greece, but at variance about the means of achieving it. stanhope, a moral enthusiast of the stamp of kennedy, beset by the fallacy of religious missions, wished to cover the morea with wesleyan tracts, and liberate the country by the agency of the press. he had imported a converted blacksmith, with a cargo of bibles, types, and paper, who on _l_. a year, undertook to accomplish the reform. byron, backed by the good sense of mavrocordatos, proposed to make cartridges of the tracts, and small shot of the type; he did not think that the turbulent tribes were ripe for freedom of the press, and had begun to regard republicanism itself as a matter of secondary moment. the disputant allies in the common cause occupied each a flat of the same small house, the soldier by profession was bent on writing the turks down, the poet on fighting them down, holding that "the work of the sword must precede that of the pen, and that camps must be the training schools of freedom." their altercations were sometimes fierce--"despot!" cried stanhope, "after professing liberal principles from boyhood, you when called to act prove yourself a turk." "radical!" retorted byron, "if i had held up my finger i could have crushed your press,"--but this did not prevent the recognition by each of them of the excellent qualities of the other. ultimately stanhope went to athens, and allied himself with trelawny and odysseus and the party of the left. nothing can be more statesmanlike than some of byron's papers of this and the immediately preceding period; nothing more admirable than the spirit which inspires them. he had come into the heart of a revolution, exposed to the same perils as those which had wrecked the similar movement in italy. neither trusting too much nor distrusting too much, with a clear head and a good will he set about enforcing a series of excellent measures. from first to last he was engaged in denouncing dissension, in advocating unity, in doing everything that man could do to concentrate and utilize the disorderly elements with which he had to work. he occupied himself in repairing fortifications, managing ships, restraining licence, promoting courtesy between the foes, and regulating the disposal of the sinews of war. on the morning of the nd of january, his last birthday, he came from his room to stanhope's, and said, smiling, "you were complaining that i never write any poetry now," and read the familiar stanzas beginning-- 'tis time this heart should be unmoved, and ending-- seek out--less often sought than found-- a soldier's grave, for thee the best; then look around, and choose thy ground, and take thy rest. high thoughts, high resolves; but the brain that was over-tasked, and the frame that was outworn, would be tasked and worn little longer. the lamp of a life that had burnt too fiercely was flickering to its close. "if we are not taken off with the sword," he writes on february th, "we are like to march off with an ague in this mud basket; and, to conclude with a very bad pun, better _martially_ than _marsh-ally_. the dykes of holland when broken down are the deserts of arabia, in comparison with mesolonghi." in april, when it was too late, stanhope wrote from salona, in phocis, imploring him not to sacrifice health, and perhaps life, "in that bog." byron's house stood in the midst of the exhalations of a muddy creek, and his natural irritability was increased by a more than usually long ascetic regimen. from the day of his arrival in greece he discarded animal food and lived mainly on toast, vegetables, and cheese, olives and light wine, at the rate of forty paras a day. in spite of his strength of purpose, his temper was not always proof against the rapacity and turbulence by which he was surrounded. about the middle of february, when the artillery had been got into readiness for the attack on lepanto--the northern, as patras was the southern, gate of the gulf, still in the hands of the turks--the expedition was thrown back by the unexpected rising of the suliotes. these peculiarly irish greeks, chronically seditious by nature, were on this occasion, as afterwards appeared, stirred up by emissaries of colocatroni, who, though assuming the position of the rival of mavrocordatos, was simply a brigand on a large scale in the morca. exasperation at this mutiny, and the vexation of having to abandon a cherished scheme, seem to have been the immediately provoking causes of a violent convulsive fit which, on the evening of the th, attacked the poet, and endangered his life. next day he was better, but complained of weight in the head; and the doctors applying leeches too close to the temporal artery, he was bled till he fainted. and now occurred the last of those striking incidents so frequent in his life, in reference to which we may quote the joint testimony of two witnesses. colonel stanhope writes, "soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when he was lying on his sick-bed, with his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous suliotes, covered with dirt and splendid attires, broke into his apartment, brandishing their costly arms and loudly demanding their rights. lord byron, electrified by this unexpected act, seemed to recover from his sickness; and the more the suliotes raged, the more his calm courage triumphed. the scene was truly sublime." "it is impossible," says count gamba, "to do justice to the coolness and magnanimity which he displayed upon every trying occasion. upon trifling occasions he was certainly irritable; but the aspect of danger calmed him in an instant, and restored him the free exercise of all the powers of his noble nature. a more undaunted man in the hour of peril never breathed." a few days later, the riot being renewed, the disorderly crew were, on payment of their arrears, finally dismissed; but several of the english artificers under parry left about the same time, in fear of their lives. on the th, the last of the long list of byron's letters to moore resents, with some bitterness, the hasty acceptance of a rumour that he had been quietly writing _don juan_ in some ionian island. at the same date he writes to kennedy, "i am not unaware of the precarious state of my health. but it is proper i should remain in greece, and it were better to die doing something than nothing." visions of enlisting europe and america on behalf of the establishment of a new state, that might in course of time develope itself over the realm of alexander, floated and gleamed in his fancy; but in his practical daily procedure the poet took as his text the motto "festina lente," insisted on solid ground under his feet, and had no notion of sailing balloons over the sea. with this view he discouraged stanhope's philanthropic and propagandist paper, the _telegrapho_, and disparaged dr. mayor, its swiss editor, saying, "of all petty tyrants he is one of the pettiest, as are most demagogues." byron had none of the sclavonic leanings, and almost personal hatred of ottoman rule, of some of our statesmen; but he saw on what side lay the forces and the hopes of the future. "i cannot calculate," he said to gamba, during one of their latest rides together, "to what a height greece may rise. hitherto it has been a subject for the hymns and elegies of fanatics and enthusiasts; but now it will draw the attention of the politician.... at present there is little difference, in many respects, between greeks and turks, nor could there be; but the latter must, in the common course of events, decline in power; and the former must as inevitably become better.... the english government deceived itself at first in thinking it possible to maintain the turkish empire in its integrity; but it cannot be done, that unwieldy mass is already putrified, and must dissolve. if anything like an equilibrium is to be upheld, greece must be supported." these words have been well characterized as prophetic. during this time byron rallied in health, and displayed much of his old spirit, vivacity, and humour, took part in such of his favourite amusements as circumstances admitted, fencing, shooting, riding, and playing with his pet dog lion. the last of his recorded practical jokes is his rolling about cannon balls, and shaking the rafters, to frighten parry in the room below with the dread of an earthquake. towards the close of the month, after being solicited to accompany mavrocordatos, to share the governorship of the morea, he made an appointment to meet colonel stanhope and odysseus at salona, but was prevented from keeping it by violent floods which blocked up the communication. on the th he was presented with the freedom of the city of mesolonghi. on the rd of april he intervened to prevent an italian private, guilty of theft, from being flogged by order of some german officers. on the th, exhilarated by a letter from mrs. leigh with good accounts of her own and ada's health, he took a long ride with gamba and a few of the remaining suliotes, and after being violently heated, and then drenched in a heavy shower, persisted in returning home in a boat, remarking with a laugh, in answer to a remonstrance, "i should make a pretty soldier if i were to care for such a trifle." it soon became apparent that he had caught his death. almost immediately on his return, he was seized with shiverings and violent pain. the next day he rose as usual, and had his last ride in the olive woods. on the th a rheumatic fever set in. on the th, bruno's skill being exhausted, it was proposed to call dr. thomas from zante, but a hurricane prevented any ship being sent. on the th, another physician, mr. milligen, suggested bleeding to allay the fever, but byron held out against it, quoting dr. reid to the effect that "less slaughter is effected by the lance than the lancet--that minute instrument of mighty mischief;" and saying to bruno, "if my hour is come i shall die, whether i lose my blood or keep it." next morning milligen induced him to yield, by a suggestion of the possible loss of his reason. throwing out his arm, he cried, "there! you are, i see, a d----d set of butchers. take away as much blood as you like, and have done with it." the remedy, repeated on the following day with blistering, was either too late or ill-advised. on the th he saw more doctors, but was manifestly sinking, amid the tears and lamentations of attendants who could not understand each other's language. in his last hours his delirium bore him to the field of arms. he fancied he was leading the attack on lepanto, and was heard exclaiming, "forwards! forwards! follow me!" who is not reminded of another death-bed, not remote in time from his, and the _tête d'armée_ of the great emperor who with the great poet divided the wonder of europe? the stormy vision passed, and his thoughts reverted home. "go to my sister," he faltered out to fletcher; "tell her--go to lady byron--you will see her, and say"--nothing more could be heard but broken ejaculations: "augusta--ada--my sister, my child. io lascio qualche cosa di caro nel mondo. for the rest, i am content to die." at six on the evening of the th he uttered his last words, "[greek: _dei me nun katheudein_];" and on the th he passed away. never perhaps was there such a national lamentation. by order of mavrocordatos, thirty-seven guns--one for each year of the poet's life-- were fired from the battery, and answered by the turks from patras with an exultant volley. all offices, tribunals, and shops were shut, and a general mourning for twenty-one days proclaimed. stanhope wrote, on hearing the news, "england has lost her brightest genius--greece her noblest friend;" and trelawny, on coming to mesolonghi, heard nothing in the streets but "byron is dead!" like a bell tolling through the silence and the gloom. intending contributors to the cause of greece turned back when they heard the tidings, that seemed to them to mean she was headless. her cities contended for the body, as of old for the birth of a poet. athens wished him to rest in the temple of theseus. the funeral service was performed at mesolonghi. but on the nd of may the embalmed remains left zante, and on the th arrived in the downs. his relatives applied for permission to have them interred in westminster abbey, but it was refused; and on the th july they were conveyed to the village church of hucknall. chapter xi. characteristics, and place in literature. lord jeffrey at the close of a once-famous review quaintly laments: "the tuneful quartos of southey are already little better than lumber, and the rich melodies of keats and shelley, and the fantastical emphasis of wordsworth, and the plebeian pathos of crabbe, are melting fast from the field of our vision. the novels of scott have put out his poetry, and the blazing star of byron himself is receding from its place of pride." of the poets of the early part of this century, lord john russell thought byron the greatest, then scott, then moore. "such an opinion," wrote a _national_ reviewer, in , "is not worth a refutation; we only smile at it." nothing in the history of literature is more curious than the shifting of the standard of excellence, which so perplexes criticism. but the most remarkable feature of the matter is the frequent return to power of the once discarded potentates. byron is resuming his place: his spirit has come again to our atmosphere; and every budding critic, as in , is impelled to pronounce a verdict on his genius and character. the present times are, in many respects, an aftermath of the first quarter of the century, which was an era of revolt, of doubt, of storm. there succeeded an era of exhaustion, of quiescence, of reflection. the first years of the third quarter saw a revival of turbulence and agitation; and, more than our fathers, we are inclined to sympathize with our grandfathers. macaulay has popularized the story of the change of literary dynasty which in our island marked the close of the last, and the first two decades of the present, hundred years. the corresponding artistic revolt on the continent was closely connected with changes in the political world. the originators of the romantic literature in italy, for the most part, died in spielberg or in exile. the same revolution which levelled the bastille, and converted versailles and the trianon--the classic school in stone and terrace--into a moral herculaneum and pompeii, drove the models of the so-called augustan ages into a museum of antiquarians. in our own country, the movement initiated by chatterton, cowper, and burns, was carried out by two classes of great writers. they agreed in opposing freedom to formality; in substituting for the old, new aims and methods; in preferring a grain of mother wit to a peck of clerisy. they broke with the old school, as protestantism broke with the old church; but, like the sects, they separated again. wordsworth, southey, and coleridge, while refusing to acknowledge the literary precedents of the past, submitted themselves to a self-imposed law. the partialities of their maturity were towards things settled and regulated; their favourite virtues, endurance and humility; their conformity to established institutions was the basis of a new conservatism. the others were the radicals of the movement: they practically acknowledged no law but their own inspiration. dissatisfied with the existing order, their sympathies were with strong will and passion and defiant independence. these found their master-types in shelley and in byron. a reaction is always an extreme. lollards, puritans, covenanters, were in some respects nauseous antidotes to ecclesiastical corruption. the ruins of the scotch cathedrals and of the french nobility are warnings at once against the excess that provokes and the excess that avenges. the revolt against the _ancien régime_ in letters made possible the ode that is the high-tide mark of modern english inspiration, but it was parodied in page on page of maundering rusticity. byron saw the danger, but was borne headlong by the rapids. hence the anomalous contrast between his theories and his performance. both wordsworth and byron were bitten by rousseau; but the former is, at furthest, a girondin. the latter, acting like danton on the motto "l'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace," sighs after _henri quatre et gabrièlle_. there is more of the spirit of the french revolution in _don juan_ than in all the works of the author's contemporaries; but his criticism is that of boileau, and when deliberate is generally absurd. he never recognized the meaning of the artistic movement of his age, and overvalued those of his works which the unities helped to destroy. he hailed gifford as his magnus apollo, and put rogers next to scott in his comical pyramid. "chaucer," he writes, "i think obscene and contemptible." he could see no merit in spenser, preferred tasso to milton, and called the old english dramatists "mad and turbid mountebanks." in the same spirit he writes: "in the time of pope it was all horace, now it is all claudian." he saw--what fanatics had begun to deny--that pope was a great writer, and the "angel of reasonableness," the strong common sense of both was a link between them; but the expressions he uses during his controversy with bowles look like jests, till we are convinced of his earnestness by his anger. "neither time, nor distance, nor grief, nor age can ever diminish my veneration for him who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence.... your whole generation are not worth a canto of the _dunciad_, or anything that is his." all the while he was himself writing prose and verse, in grasp if not in vigour as far beyond the stretch of pope, as pope is in "worth and wit and sense" removed above his mimics. the point of the paradox is not merely that he deserted, but that he sometimes imitated his model, and when he did so, failed. macaulay's judgment, that "personal taste led him to the eighteenth century, thirst for praise to the nineteenth," is quite at fault. there can be no doubt that byron loved praise as much as he affected to despise it. his note, on reading the _quarterly_ on his dramas, "i am the most unpopular man in england," is like the cry of a child under chastisement; but he had little affinity, moral or artistic, with the spirit of our so-called augustans, and his determination to admire them was itself rebellious. again we are reminded of his phrase, "i am of the opposition." his vanity and pride were perpetually struggling for the mastery, and though he thirsted for popularity he was bent on compelling it; so he warred with the literary impulse of which he was the child. byron has no relation to the master-minds whose works reflect a nation or an era, and who keep their own secrets. his verse and prose is alike biographical, and the inequalities of his style are those of his career. he lived in a glass case, and could not hide himself by his habit of burning blue lights. he was too great to do violence to his nature, which was not great enough to be really consistent. it was thus natural for him to pose as the spokesman of two ages--as a critic and as an author; and of two orders of society--as a peer, and as a poet of revolt. sincere in both, he could never forget the one character in the other. to the last, he was an aristocrat in sentiment, a democrat in opinion. "vulgarity," he writes with a pithy half-truth, "is far worse than downright black guardism; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong sense at times, while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all things, signifying nothing." he could never reconcile himself to the english radicals; and it has been acutely remarked, that part of his final interest in greece lay in the fact that he found it a country of classic memories, "where a man might be the champion of liberty without soiling himself in the arena." he owed much of his early influence to the fact of his moving in the circles of rank and fashion; but though himself steeped in the prejudices of caste, he struck at them at times with fatal force. aristocracy is the individual asserting a vital distinction between itself and "the muck o' the world." byron's heroes all rebel against the associative tendency of the nineteenth century; they are self-worshippers at war with society; but most of them come to bad ends. he maligned himself in those caricatures, and has given more of himself in describing one whom with special significance we call a brother poet. "allen," he writes in , "has lent me a quantity of burns's unpublished letters.... what an antithetical mind!--tenderness, roughness--delicacy, coarseness-- sentiment, sensuality--soaring and grovelling--dirt and deity--all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay!" we have only to add to these antitheses, in applying them with slight modification to the writer. byron had, on occasion, more self-control than burns, who yielded to every thirst or gust, and could never have lived the life of the soldier at mesolonghi; but partly owing to meanness, partly to a sound instinct, his memory has been more severely dealt with. the fact of his being a nobleman helped to make him famous, but it also helped to make him hated. no doubt it half spoiled him in making him a show; and the circumstance has suggested the remark of a humourist, that it is as hard for a lord to be a perfect gentleman as for a camel to pass through the needle's eye. but it also exposed to the rancours of jealousy a man who had nearly everything but domestic happiness to excite that most corroding of literary passions; and when he got out of gear he became the quarry of spenser's "blatant beast." on the other hand, burns was, beneath his disgust at holy fairs and willies, sincerely reverential; much of _don juan_ would have seemed to him "an atheist's laugh," and--a more certain superiority--he was absolutely frank. byron, like pope, was given to playing monkey-like tricks, mostly harmless, but offensive to their victims. his peace of mind was dependent on what people would say of him, to a degree unusual even in the irritable race; and when they spoke ill he was, again like pope, essentially vindictive. the _bards and reviewers_ beats about, where the lines to atticus transfix with philoctetes' arrows; but they are due to a like impulse. byron affected to contemn the world; but, say what he would, he cared too much for it. he had a genuine love of solitude as an alterative; but he could not subsist without society, and, shelley tells us, wherever he went, became the nucleus of it. he sprang up again when flung to the earth, but he never attained to the disdain he desired. we find him at once munificent and careful about money; calmly asleep amid a crowd of trembling sailors, yet never going to ride without a nervous caution; defying augury, yet seriously disturbed by a gipsy's prattle. he could be the most genial of comrades, the most considerate of masters, and he secured the devotion of his servants, as of his friends; but he was too overbearing to form many equal friendships, and apt to be ungenerous to his real rivals. his shifting attitude towards lady byron, his wavering purposes, his impulsive acts, are a part of the character we trace through all his life and work,--a strange mixture of magnanimity and brutality, of laughter and tears, consistent in nothing but his passion and his pride, yet redeeming all his defects by his graces, and wearing a greatness that his errors can only half obscure. alternately the idol and the horror of his contemporaries, byron was, during his life, feared and respected as "the grand napoleon of the realms of rhyme." his works were the events of the literary world. the chief among them were translated into french, german, italian, danish, polish, russian, spanish. on the publication of moore's _life_, lord macaulay had no hesitation in referring to byron as "the most celebrated englishman of the nineteenth century." nor have we now; but in the interval between - , it was the fashion to talk of him as a sentimentalist, a romancer, a shallow wit, a nine days' wonder, a poet for "green unknowing youth." it was a reaction, such as leads us to disestablish the heroes of our crude imaginations till we learn that to admire nothing is as sure a sign of immaturity as to admire everything. the weariness, if not disgust, induced by a throng of more than usually absurd imitators, enabled carlyle, the poet's successor in literary influence (followed with even greater unfairness by thackeray), more effectively to lead the counter-revolt. "in my mind," writes the former, in , "byron has been sinking at an accelerated rate for the last ten years, and has now reached a very low level.... his fame has been very great, but i do not see how it is to endure; neither does that make him great. no genuine productive thought was ever revealed by him to mankind. he taught me nothing that i had not again to forgot." the refrain of carlyle's advice during the most active years of his criticism was, "close thy byron, open thy goethe." we do so, and find that the refrain of goethe's advice in reference to byron is--"nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurnâ." he urged eckermann to study english that he might read him; remarking, "a character of such eminence has never existed before, and probably will never come again. the beauty of _cain_ is such as we shall not see a second time in the world.... byron issues from the sea-waves ever fresh. in _helena_, i could not make use of any man as the representative of the modern poetic era except him, who is undoubtedly the greatest genius[ ] of our century." again: "tasso's epic has maintained its fame, but byron is the burning bush, which reduces the cedar of lebanon to ashes.... the english may think of him as they please; this is certain, they can show no (living) poet who is comparable to him.... but he is too worldly. contrast _macbeth_, and _beppo_, where you are in a nefarious empirical world." on eckermann's doubting "whether there is a gain for pure culture in byron's work," goethe conclusively replies, "there i must contradict you. the audacity and grandeur of byron must certainly tend towards culture. we should take care not to be always looking for it in the decidedly pure and moral. everything that is great promotes cultivation, as soon as we are aware of it." [footnote : mr. arnold wrongly objects to this translation of the german "talent."] this verdict of the olympian as against the verdict of the titan is interesting in itself, and as being the verdict of the whole continental world of letters. "what," exclaims castelar, "does spain not owe to byron? from his mouth come our hopes and fears. he has baptized us with his blood. there is no one with whose being some song of his is not woven. his life is like a funeral torch over our graves." mazzini takes up the same tune for italy. stendhal speaks of byron's "apollonic power;" and sainte beuve writes to the same intent, with some judicious caveats. m. taine concludes his survey of the romantic movement with the remark: "in this splendid effort, the greatest are exhausted. one alone--byron--attains the summit. he is so great and so english, that from him alone we shall learn more truths of his country and his age than from all the rest together." dr. elze, ranks the author of _harold_ and _juan_ among the four greatest english poets, and claims for him the intellectual parentage of lamartine and musset in france, of espronceda in spain, of puschkin in russia, with some modifications, of heine in germany, of berchet and others in italy. so many voices of so various countries cannot be simply set aside: unless we wrap ourselves in an insolent insularism, we are bound at least to ask what is the meaning of their concurrent testimony. foreign judgments can manifestly have little weight on matters of form, and not one of the above-mentioned critics is sufficiently alive to the egregious shortcomings which byron himself recognized. that he loses almost nothing by translation is a compliment to the man, a disparagement to tho artist. very few pages of his verse even aspire to perfection; hardly a stanza will bear the minute word-by-word dissection which only brings into clearer view the delicate touches of keats or tennyson; his pictures with a big brush were never meant for the microscope. here the contrast between his theoretic worship of his idol and his own practice reaches a climax. if, as he professed to believe, "the best poet is he who best executes his work," then he is hardly a poet at all. he is habitually rapid and slovenly; an improvisatore on the spot whore his fancy is kindled, writing _currente calamo_, and disdaining the "art to blot." "i can never recast anything. i am like the tiger; if i miss the first spring, i go grumbling back to my jungle." he said to medwin, "blank verse is the most difficult, because every line must be good." consequently, his own blank verse is always defective--sometimes execrable. no one else--except, perhaps, wordsworth--who could write so well, could also write so ill. this fact in byron's case seems due not to mere carelessness, but to incapacity. something seems to stand behind him, like the slave in the chariot, to check the current of his highest thought. the glow of his fancy fades with the suddenness of a southern sunset. his best inspirations are spoilt by the interruption of incongruous commonplace. he had none of the guardian delicacy of taste, or the thirst after completeness, which mark the consummate artist. he is more nearly a dwarf shakespeare than a giant popo. this defect was most mischievous where he was weakest, in his dramas and his lyrics, least so where he was strongest, in his mature satires. it is almost transmuted into an excellence in the greatest of these, which is by design and in detail a temple of incongruity. if we turn from his manner to his matter, we cannot claim for byron any absolute originality. his sources have been found in rousseau, voltaire, chateaubriand, beaumarchais, lauzun, gibbon, bayle, st. pierre, alfieri, casti, cuvier, la bruyore, wieland, swift, sterne, le sage, goethe, scraps of the classics, and the book of job. absolute originality in a late age is only possible to the hermit, the lunatic, or the sensation novelist. byron, like the rovers before minos, was not ashamed of his piracy. he transferred the random prose of his own letters and journals to his dramas, and with the same complacency made use of the notes jotted down from other writers as he sailed on the lake of geneva. but he made them his own by smelting the rough ore into bell metal. he brewed a cauldron like that of macbeth's witches, and from it arose the images of crowned kings. if he did not bring a new idea into the world, he quadrupled the force of existing ideas and scattered them far and wide. southern critics have maintained that he had a southern nature and was in his true element on the lido or under an andalusian night. others dwell on the english pride that went along with his italian habits and greek sympathies. the truth is, he had the power of making himself poetically everywhere at home; and this, along with the fact of all his writings being perfectly intelligible, is the secret of his european influence. he was a citizen of the world; because he not only painted the environs, but reflected the passions and aspirations of every scene amid which he dwelt. a disparaging critic has said, "byron is nothing without his descriptions." the remark only emphasizes the fact that his genius was not dramatic. all non-dramatic art is concerned with bringing before us pictures of the world, the value of which lies half in their truth, half in the amount of human interest with which they are invested. to scientific accuracy few poets can lay claim, and byron less than most; but the general truth of his descriptions is acknowledged by all who have travelled in the same countries. the greek verses of his first pilgrimage,--e.g. the night scene on the gulf of arta, many of the albanian sketches, with much of the _siege of corinth_ and the _giaour_ --have been invariably commended for their vivid realism. attention has been especially directed to the lines in the _corsair_ beginning-- but, lo! from high hymettus to the plain, as being the veritable voice of one spell-bound, within the clustering cyclades. the opening lines of the same canto, transplanted from the _curse of minerva_, are even more suggestive:-- slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, along morea's hill the setting sun, not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright, but one unclouded blaze of living light, &c. in the same way, the later cantos of _harold_ are steeped in switzerland and in italy. byron's genius, it is true, required a stimulus; it could not have revelled among the daisies of chaucer, or pastured by the banks of the doon or the ouse, or thriven among the lincolnshire fens. he had a sincere, if somewhat exclusive, delight in the storms and crags that seemed to respond to his nature and to his age. there is no affectation in the expression of the wish, "o that the desert were my dwelling-place!" though we know that the writer on the shores of the mediterranean still craved for the gossip of the clubs. it only shows that-- two desires toss about the poet's feverish blood; one drives him to the world without, and one to solitude. of byron's two contemporary rivals, wordsworth had no feverish blood; nothing drove him to the world without; consequently his "eyes avert their ken from half of human fate," and his influence, though perennial, will always be limited. he conquered england from his hills and lakes; but his spirit has never crossed the straits which he thought too narrow. the other, with a fever in his veins, calmed it in the sea and in the cloud, and, in some degree because of his very excellencies, has failed as yet to mark the world at large. the poets' poet, the cynosure of enthusiasts, he bore the banner of the forlorn hope; but byron, with his feet of clay, led the ranks. shelley, as pure a philanthropist as st. francis or howard, could forget mankind, and, like his adonaïs, become one with nature. byron, who professed to hate his fellows, was of them even more than for them, and so appealed to them through a broader sympathy, and held them with a firmer hand. by virtue of his passion, as well as his power, he was enabled to represent the human tragedy in which he played so many parts, and to which his external universe of cloudless moons, and vales of evergreen, and lightning-riven peaks, are but the various background. he set the "anguish, doubt, desire," the whole chaos of his age, to a music whose thunder-roll seems to have inspired the opera of _lohengrin_--a music not designed to teach or to satisfy "the budge doctors of the stoic fur," but which will continue to arouse and delight the sons and daughters of men. madame de staël said to byron, at ouchy, "it does not do to war with the world: the world is too strong for the individual." goethe only gives a more philosophic form to this counsel when he remarks of the poet, "he put himself into a false position by his assaults on church and state. his discontent ends in negation.... if i call _bad_ bad, what do i gain? but if i call _good_ bad, i do mischief." the answer is obvious: as long as men call _bad_ good, there is a call for iconoclasts: half the reforms of the world have begun in negation. such comments also point to the common error of trying to make men other than they are by lecturing them. this scion of a long line of lawless bloods--a scandinavian berserker, if there ever was one--the literary heir of the eddas--was specially created to wage that war--to smite the conventionality which is the tyrant of england with the hammer of thor, and to sear with the sarcasm of mephistopheles the hollow hypocrisy--sham taste, sham morals, sham religion--of the society by which he was surrounded and infected, and which all but succeeded in seducing him. but for the ethereal essence,-- the fount of fiery life which served for that titanic strife, byron would have been merely a more melodious moore and a more accomplished brummell. but the caged lion was only half tamed, and his continual growls were his redemption. his restlessness was the sign of a yet unbroken will. he fell and rose, and fell again; but never gave up the struggle that keeps alive, if it does not save, the soul. his greatness as well as his weakness lay, in the fact that from boyhood battle was the breath of his being. to tell him not to fight, was like telling wordsworth not to reflect, or shelley not to sing. his instrument is a trumpet of challenge; and he lived, as he appropriately died, in the progress of an unaccomplished campaign. his work is neither perfect architecture nor fine mosaic; but, like that of his intellectual ancestors, the elder elizabethans whom he perversely maligned, it is all animated by the spirit of action and of enterprise. in good portraits his head has a lurid look, as if it had been at a higher temperature than that of other men. that high temperature was the source of his inspiration, and the secret of a spell which, during his life, commanded homage and drew forth love. mere artists are often mannikins. byron's brilliant though unequal genius was subordinate to the power of his personality; he had the elements so mix'd in him, that nature might stand up and say to all the world--"this was a man." we may learn much from him still, when we have ceased to disparage, as our fathers ceased to idolize, a name in which there is so much warning and so much example. index. _abydos, bride of_ adeline (lady), analysis of female character albrizzi (countess), salon of ali pasha, his reception of byron allegra, byron's daughter athenians, character of athens aurora raby, la guiccioli idealised becher's, rev. j.t., influence on byron _beppo_ _blackwood's magazine_ blessington, lady _blues, the_ boatswain (byron's dog) bologna boston's _fourfold state_ bowers, byron's tutor bowles, controversy about pope bozzaris, marco, death of brandes, prof., criticism of byron's bust _british review, to the editor of the_ _bronze, the age of_ brougham's, lord, criticism of _hours of idleness_ brown, hamilton bruno, dr. brydges, sir egerton, criticism of _cain_ burns burun, an ancestor of byron butler, dr., master of harrow byron, augusta ada (the poet's daughter) byron, george gordon, th lord genealogy; birth; residence at ballater; school-life; early loves; "first dash into poetry"; accession to peerage; baillie, dr., medical adviser; at harrow; coming of age; writes review on wordsworth; annesley, residence at; at cambridge; takes seat in house of lords; travels; studies romaic; armenian; attacks of fever; speeches in house of lords; writes address on re-opening of drury lane theatre; publishes the _giaour_; friendship with sir walter scott; marriage; separation from wife; departure from england; friendship with shelley; in switzerland; in italy; life in venice completes _childe harold_ life at ravenna at pisa relations with leigh hunt life in albaro joins conspiracy in italy joins movement for liberation of greece leaves italy life in greece last illness and death last words funeral honours byron, lord allusions in his poetry to his training appreciation of aristocratic sentiments austria, hatred of, characteristics characteristics of literature in byron's age cleverness comparison with shelley and wordsworth contemporary admiration debts defects of character defects of his poetry descriptive power dislike of professional _littérateurs_ dissipations dogmatism early friends financial affairs follower of pope garrulity idleness knowledge of languages knowledge of scripture in london society lameness love of mountains melancholy pecuniary profits personal appearance physical endurance poetic character politics reading relations to female sex scholarship scotch superstition social views solitude sources of byron's work swimming, feats of tame bear temper theological views verse-romances women estimate of works translated byron, john, admiral byron, john, of clayton byron, john (father) byron, lady (wife) byron, mrs. (mother) byron, richard ( nd lord) byron, robert de byron, sir john ( st lord) byron, sir nicholas byron, william ( rd lord) byron, william ( th lord) byron, william ( th lord) cadiz, estimate of _cain_ cambridge campbell, thomas carbonari, a secret society carlisle, lord carlyle castelar _cenci_ charlotte, princess chasles, criticism by chatterton chaucer chaworth, mary ann chaworth, mr. chaworth, viscount cheltenham _childe harold_ criticism of _chillon, prisoner of_ _christabel_ _churchill's grave_ civil wars clairmont, miss, intimacy with clare, lord, friendship with clermont, mrs., lady byron's maid cogni, margarita, intimacy with coleridge colocatroni, the brigand constantinople _corinth, siege of_ _corsair_ _could i remount the river of my years_ cowley cowper crabbe _curse of minerva_ dallas, r.c. dante d'arcy, amelia (countess conyers) _darkness_ davies, scrope davy, sir h. _deformed transformed_ _don juan_ criticism of doomsday book dramas (byron's) _dream, the_ drury, dr. joseph drury, henry drury lane theatre drury, mark dryden duff, mary, intimacy with dulwich eddlestone, the chorister _edinburgh review_ ekenhead, lieutenant eldon, lord elgin, lord elze england's vice of hypocrisy _english bards and scotch reviewers_ english character english literature _faery queene_ (spenser's) falkland, lord _faust_, influence of, on byron ferrara fletcher (valet) florence _foscari, the two_ _francesca of rimini_ frere galt gamba gell geneva genoa george, prince of denmark george iii. _giaour_ gibbon gibraltar gifford _glenarvon_ (lady caroline lamb's novel) glennie, dr. goethe gray, may, her influence over byron gray (poet) greece grindelwald guiccioli hailstone, prof. hanson, mr., solicitor harness, a school-fellow harrogate, trip to harrow hawthorne _heaven and earth_ heber, bishop _hebrew melodies_ _hints from horace_ hiron, a cambridge tradesman hobhouse hodgson, rev. f. holderness, earl of holland, lord hoppner _hours of idleness_ howard, hon. f. howitt, william hucknall torkard, church _hudibras_ hunt, john hunt, leigh ilissus ilium _island, the_ italy ithaca jackson, mr., a pugilist janina jeffrey jones (tutor) journal (byron's) juliet, story of jungfrau _juvenilia_ keats kemble, frances ann, memoirs of kennedy, dr. kharyati kinnaird, douglas kirkby mallory _lalla rookh_ lamb, lady caroline la mira _landlord, tales of a_ landor lanfranchi _lara_ lausanne lavender, a quack lee, harriet leeds, duke of leghorn leigh, colonel leigh, mrs. (poet's sister augusta) loman, lake lepanto lewis _liberal_, the lido lion (pet dog) lisbon lisle, rouget de loch leven locke lockhart london londonderry, lord long, edward noel longman loughborough lucca lucifer lushington, dr. macaulay mackenzie (the man of feeling) mafra magellan, straits of mallet malta mandeville, sir john _manfred_ criticism of mansel, dr. lort marathon marilyn, mrs. _marina faliero_ criticism of marius marlowe martineau, miss matlock matthews, c.s. mavrocordatos, prince alexander mayor, dr. _mazeppa_ mazzini medora (daughter of mrs. leigh) medwin, captain meister, wilhelm melbourne memoirs (byron's) mesolonghi milan milbanke, sir ralph milligen (a physician) milton moore morea morgan, lady _morgantc maggiore_ murray, joe (butler) murray, john musters napier, colonel naples napoleon newark newbury, battle of nowstead noel, lady norton, mrs. _nottingham_ odysseus ossington oxford paganini _parisina_ parker, margaret, intimacy with parr, dr. parry (engineer) parthenon paterson (a tutor) patras peel, sir robert peloponnesus pentelicus persia petrarch philopoemen pigot pisa plato's glaucus _pleasures of hope_ po (river) polidori pope porson, power, miss _prometheus_ pulci _quarterly review_ _rambler_ raphael ravenna regent, the regillus reid, dr. _rejected addresses_ revolution, the french rhine rhoetian hill richter robinson, crabb rochdale rochester rogers, samuel, (poet) rogers (tutor) roman catholic emancipation, speech on behalf of roman catholic religion rome ross (a tutor) rossina rousseau rubens rushton, robert ruskin russell, lord john russia ruthyn, lord grey de sainte beuve santa croce _saragassa, maid of_ sardanapalus _saturday review_ schlegel, f. scotland, allusions to scott, sir walter seaham segati, mariana, intimacy with seville shakespeare shelley shelley, mrs. shepherd, mrs., letter of sheridan siddons, mrs. sinclair, george, friend of byron sligo, marquis of smith, mrs. spencer ("florence") smith, sir henry smyrna socrates soraete southey southwell spain spectator spencer, earl spenser spielberg spinoza stael, madame de stanhope, colonel stanhope, lady hester staubbach stendhal stephen, leslie stromboli suliotes swift swinstead switzerland taafe taine tasso tavell (a tutor) _telegrapho_(newspaper) tennant tennyson tepaleni thackeray thebes theresa (maid of athens) thorwaldsen tickhill titian trelawny turkey tusculum university training _vampire, the_ vanessa vathi venice verona "victory," the _vision of judgment_ voltaire "wager," the _waltz, the,_ washington waterloo watkins, dr. john wellington wengern _werner_ west (artist) westminster abbey wildman williams, captain wingfield, john woodhouselee, lord wordsworth _world_ wycliffe york yussuf pasha zante zitza the end. the works of lord byron. a new, revised and enlarged edition, with illustrations. letters and journals. vol. ii. edited by rowland e. prothero, m.a., formerly fellow of all souls college, oxford. preface the second volume of mr. murray's edition of byron's 'letters and journals' carries the autobiographical record of the poet's life from august, , to april, . between these dates were published 'childe harold' (cantos i., ii.), 'the waltz', 'the giaour', 'the bride of abydos', the 'ode to napoleon buonaparte'. at the beginning of this period byron had suddenly become the idol of society; towards its close his personal popularity almost as rapidly declined before a storm of political vituperation. three great collections of byron's letters, as was noted in the preface [ ] to the previous volume, are in existence. the first is contained in moore's 'life' ( ); the second was published in america, in fitzgreene halleck's edition of byron's 'works' ( ); of the third, edited by mr. w.e. henley, only the first volume has yet appeared. a comparison between the letters contained in these three collections and in that of mr. murray, down to december, , shows the following results: moore prints letters; halleck, ; mr. henley, . mr. murray's edition adds letters to moore, to halleck, and to mr. henley . it should also be noticed that the material added to moore's 'life' in the second and third collections consists almost entirely of letters which were already in print, and had been, for the most part, seen and rejected by the biographer. the material added in mr. murray's edition, on the contrary, consists mainly of letters which have never before been published, and were inaccessible to moore when he wrote his 'life' of byron. these necessary comparisons suggest some further remarks. it would have been easy, not only to indicate what letters or portions of letters are new, but also to state the sources whence they are derived. but, in the circumstances, such a course, at all events for the present, is so impolitic as to be impossible. on the other hand, anxiety has been expressed as to the authority for the text which is adopted in these volumes. to satisfy this anxiety, so far as circumstances allow, the following details are given. the material contained in these two volumes consists partly of letters now for the first time printed; partly of letters already published by moore, dallas, and leigh hunt, or in such books as galt's 'life of lord byron', and the 'memoirs of francis hodgson'. speaking generally, it may be said that the text of the new matter, with the few exceptions noted below, has been prepared from the original letters, and that it has proved impossible to authenticate the text of most of the old material by any such process. the point may be treated in greater detail. out of the letters contained in these two volumes, have been printed from the original letters. in these are included practically the whole of the new material. among the letters thus collated with the originals are those to mrs. byron (with four exceptions), all those to the hon. augusta byron, to the hanson family, to james wedderburn webster, and to john murray, twelve of those to francis hodgson, those to the younger rushton, william gifford, john cam hobhouse, lady caroline lamb, mrs. parker, bernard barton, and others. the two letters to charles gordon ( , ), the three to captain leacroft ( , , ), and the one to ensign long (vol. ii. p. , 'note'), are printed from copies only. the old material stands in a different position. efforts have been made to discover the original letters, and sometimes with success. but it still remains true that, speaking generally, the printed text of the letters published by moore, dallas, leigh hunt, and others, has not been collated with the originals. the fact is important. moore, who, it is believed, destroyed not only his own letters from byron, but also many of those entrusted to him for the preparation of the 'life', allowed himself unusual liberties as an editor. the examples of this licence given in mr. clayden's 'rogers and his contemporaries' throw suspicion on his text, even where no apparent motive exists for his suppressions. but, as byron's letters became more bitter in tone, and his criticisms of his contemporaries more outspoken, moore felt himself more justified in omitting passages which referred to persons who were still living in . from onwards, it will be found that he has transferred passages from one letter to another, or printed two letters as one, and 'vice versâ', or made such large omissions as to shorten letters, in some instances, by a third or even a half. no collation with the originals has ever been attempted, and the garbled text which moore printed is the only text at present available for an edition of the most important of byron's letters. but the originals of the majority of the letters published in the 'life', from to , are in the possession or control of mr. murray, and in his edition they will be for the first time printed as they were written. if any passages are omitted, the omissions will be indicated. besides the new letters contained in this volume, passages have been restored from byron's manuscript notes ('detached thoughts', ). to these have been added sir walter scott's comments, collated with the originals, and, in several instances, now for the first time published. appendix vii. contains a collection of the attacks made upon him in the tory press for february and march, , which led him, for the moment, to resolve on abandoning his literary work. in conclusion, i wish to repeat my acknowledgment of the invaluable aid of the 'national dictionary of biography', both in the facts which it supplies and the sources of information which it suggests. r.e. prothero. september, . [footnote : also available from project gutenberg in text and html form.] * * * * * list of letters. . . aug. . to john murray . aug. . to james wedderburn webster . aug. . to r.c. dallas . aug. . " " . aug. . to the hon. augusta leigh . aug. . " " " . aug. . to james wedderburn webster . sept. . to the hon. augusta leigh . sept. . to francis hodgson . sept. . to r.c. dallas . sept. . to john murray . sept. . to r.c. dallas . sept. . to the hon. augusta leigh . sept. . to francis hodgson . sept. . to r.c. dallas . sept. . to francis hodgson . sept. . to john murray . sept. . to r.c. dallas . sept. . to john murray . sept. . to r.c. dallas . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . sept. . to francis hodgson . sept. . to r.c. dallas . oct. . to james wedderburn webster . oct. . to r.c. dallas . oct. . " " . oct. . to francis hodgson . oct. . to r.c. dallas . oct. . " " . oct. . " " . oct. . to thomas moore . oct. . to r.c. dallas . oct. . to thomas moore . oct. . " " . oct. . to r.c. dallas . nov. . to thomas moore . nov. . to francis hodgson . dec. . " " . dec. . to william harness . dec. . to james wedderburn webster . dec. . to william harness . dec. . to francis hodgson . dec. . to thomas moore . dec. . to francis hodgson . undated. r.c. dallas . dec. . to william harness . . jan. . to robert rushton . jan. . " " . jan. . to thomas moore . feb. . to francis hodgson . feb. . to samuel rogers . feb. . to master john cowell . feb. . to francis hodgson . feb. . " " . feb. . to lord holland . march . to francis hodgson . march . to lord holland . undated. to thomas moore . undated. to william bankes . march . to thomas moore . undated. to lady caroline lamb . april . to william bankes . undated. to thomas moore . may . to lady caroline lamb . may . to thomas moore . may . " " . june . to bernard barton . june . to lord holland . june . to professor clarke . july . to walter scott . undated. to lady caroline lamb . sept. . to john murray . sept. . to lord holland . sept. . to john murray . sept. . to lord holland . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . sept. . to john murray . sept. . to lord holland . sept. . " " . sept. . to william bankes . sept. . to lord holland . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . oct. . " " . oct. . to john murray . oct. . to lord holland . oct. . to john hanson . oct. . to john murray . oct. . to robert rushton . oct. . to john murray . oct. . to john hanson . oct. . to john murray . oct. . to john hanson . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . to john murray . dec. . to william bankes . . jan. . to john murray . feb. . to francis hodgson . feb. . to john hanson . feb. . to john murray . feb. . to robert rushton . feb. . to john hanson . march . " " . march . to ____ corbet . march . to john hanson . march . to charles hanson . march . to samuel rogers . march . to the hon. augusta leigh . march . to john murray . april . to john hanson . april . " " . april . to john murray . may . " " . may . to thomas moore . may . to john murray . may . " " . june . " " . undated. to thomas moore . june . to john hanson . june . to francis hodgson . june . " " . june . to john murray . june . " " . june . " " . june . " " . june . to w. gifford . june . to john murray . june . to thomas moore . june . to the hon. augusta leigh . undated. " " " . june . " " " . july . to john murray . july . to thomas moore . july . " " . july . to john hanson . july . to john murray . july . to thomas moore . july . " " . july . " " . july to john murray . aug. . to john wilson croker . undated. to john murray . aug. . " " . aug. . to james wedderburn webster . aug. . to thomas moore . aug. . to john murray . aug. . to thomas moore . sept. . " " . sept. . to james wedderburn webster . sept. . to thomas moore . sept. . " " . sept. . " " . sept. . to james wedderburn webster . sept. . to the hon. augusta leigh . sept. . to john murray . sept. . to james wedderburn webster . sept. . to sir james mackintosh . sept. . to thomas moore . sept. . to john murray . sept. . to james wedderburn webster . oct. . to francis hodgson . oct. . to thomas moore . oct. . to john murray . oct. . to john hanson . oct. . to the hon. augusta leigh . oct. . to john murray . nov. . to the hon. augusta leigh . nov. . to john murray . nov. . to william gifford . nov. . to john murray . nov. . " " . undated. " " . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . " " . nov. . to john murray . nov. . " " . nov. " " . nov. . " " . dec. . to thomas moore . dec. . to francis hodgson . dec. . to john murray . dec. . to leigh hunt . dec. . to john murray . dec. . " " . undated. " " . dec. . " " . dec. . " " . dec. . to thomas moore . dec. . to john galt . dec. . to john murray . dec. . to thomas ashe . dec. . to professor clarke . dec. . to leigh hunt . dec. . to john murray * * * * * contents v. childe harold, cantos i., ii. vi. the idol of society--the drury lane address--second speech in parliament vii. the 'giaour' and 'bride of abydos' viii. journal: november, , --april , appendix i. articles from 'the monthly review' " ii. parliamentary speeches " iii. lady caroline lamb and byron " iv. letters of bernard barton " v. correspondence with walter scott " vi. "the giant and the dwarf" " vii. attacks upon byron in the newspapers for february and march, * * * * * chapter v. august, -march, . 'childe harold', cantos i., ii. .--to john murray. [ ] newstead abbey, notts., august , . sir,--a domestic calamity in the death of a near relation [ ] has hitherto prevented my addressing you on the subject of this letter. my friend, mr. dallas, [ ] has placed in your hands a manuscript poem written by me in greece, which he tells me you do not object to publishing. but he also informed me in london that you wished to send the ms. to mr. gifford. [ ] now, though no one would feel more gratified by the chance of obtaining his observations on a work than myself, there is in such a proceeding a kind of petition for praise, that neither my pride--or whatever you please to call it--will admit. mr. g. is not only the first satirist of the day, but editor of one of the principal reviews. as such, he is the last man whose censure (however eager to avoid it) i would deprecate by clandestine means. you will therefore retain the manuscript in your own care, or, if it must needs be shown, send it to another. though not very patient of censure, i would fain obtain fairly any little praise my rhymes might deserve, at all events not by extortion, and the humble solicitations of a bandied-about ms. i am sure a little consideration will convince you it would be wrong. if you determine on publication, i have some smaller poems (never published), a few notes, and a short dissertation on the literature of the modern greeks (written at athens), which will come in at the end of the volume.--and, if the present poem should succeed, it is my intention, at some subsequent period, to publish some selections from my first work,--my satire,--another nearly the same length, and a few other things, with the ms. now in your hands, in two volumes.--but of these hereafter. you will apprize me of your determination. i am, sir, your very obedient, humble servant, byron. [footnote : for john murray, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , note [footnote to letter ].] [footnote : mrs. byron died august i, .] [footnote : for r. c. dallas, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , note . [footnote to letter ]] [footnote : for gifford, the editor of the 'quarterly review', see 'letters', vol. i. p. , note . [footnote of letter ]] * * * * * .--to james wedderburn webster. [ ] newstead abbey, august th, . my dear w.,--conceiving your wrath to be somewhat evaporated, and your dignity recovered from the _hysterics_ into which my innocent note from london had thrown it, i should feel happy to be informed how you have determined on the disposal of this accursed coach, [ ] which has driven us out of our good humour and good manners to a complete standstill, from which i begin to apprehend that i am to lose altogether your valuable correspondence. your angry letter arrived at a moment, to which i shall not allude further, as my happiness is best consulted in forgetting it. [ ] you have perhaps heard also of the death of poor matthews, whom you recollect to have met at newstead. he was one whom his friends will find it difficult to replace, nor will cambridge ever see his equal. i trust you are on the point of adding to your relatives instead of losing them, and of _friends_ a man of fortune will always have a plentiful stock--at his table. i dare say now you are gay, and connubial, and popular, so that in the next parliament we shall be having you a county member. but beware your tutor, for i am sure he germanized that sanguinary letter; you must not write such another to your constituents; for myself (as the mildest of men) i shall say no more about it. seriously, _mio caro w._, if you can spare a moment from matrimony, i shall be glad to hear that you have recovered from the pucker into which this _vis_ (one would think it had been a _sulky_) has thrown you; you know i wish you well, and if i have not inflicted my society upon you according to your own invitation, it is only because i am not a social animal, and should feel sadly at a loss amongst countesses and maids of honour, particularly being just come from a far country, where ladies are neither carved for, or fought for, or danced after, or mixed at all (publicly) with the men-folks, so that you must make allowances for my natural _diffidence_ and two years travel. but (god and yourself willing) i shall certes pay my promised visit, as i shall be in town, if parliament meets, in october. in the mean time let me hear from you (without a privy council), and believe me in sober sadness, yours very sincerely, byron. [footnote : james wedderburn webster ( - ), grandson of sir a. wedderburn, bart., whose third son, david, assumed the additional name of webster, was the author of 'waterloo, and other poems' ( ), and 'a genealogical account of the wedderburn family' (privately printed, ). he was with byron, possibly at cambridge, certainly at athens in . he married, in , lady frances caroline annesley, daughter of arthur, first earl of mountnorris and eighth viscount valencia. he was knighted in . byron, in , lent him £ . lady frances died in , and her husband in . moore ('memoirs, journals, etc.', vol. iii. p. ) mentions dining with webster at paris in . "he told me," writes moore, "that, one day, travelling from newstead to town with lord byron in his vis-a-vis, the latter kept his pistols beside him, and continued silent for hours, with the most ferocious expression possible on his countenance. 'for god's sake, my dear b.,' said w----at last, 'what are you thinking of? are you about to commit murder? or what other dreadful thing are you meditating?' to which byron answered that he always had a sort of presentiment that his own life would be attacked some time or other; and that this was the reason of his always going armed, as it was also the subject of his thoughts at that moment." moore also adds ('ibid'., p. ), "w. w. owes lord byron, he says, £ , and does not seem to have the slightest intention of paying him." lady frances was the lady to whom byron seriously devoted himself in - . subsequently she was practically separated from her husband, and byron, in , endeavoured to reconcile them. moore ('memoirs, journals, etc'., vol. ii. p. ) writes, "to the devizes ball in the evening; lady frances w. there; introduced to her, and had much conversation, chiefly about our friend lord b. several of those beautiful things, published (if i remember right) with the 'bride', were addressed to her. she must have been very pretty when she had more of the freshness of youth, though she is still but five or six and twenty; but she looks faded already" ( ). in the court of common pleas, february , , the libel action of 'webster v. baldwin' was heard. the plaintiff obtained £ in damages for a libel charging lady frances and the duke of wellington with adultery.] [footnote : on his return to london in july, , byron ordered a 'vis-a-vis' to be built by goodall. this he exchanged for a carriage belonging to webster, who, within a few weeks, resold the 'vis-a-vis' to byron. the two following letters from byron to webster explain the transaction:-- "reddish's hotel, th july, . "my dear webster,--as this eternal 'vis-a-vis' seems to sit heavy on your soul, i beg leave to apprize you that i have arranged with goodall: you are to give me the promised wheels, and the lining, with 'the box at brighton,' and i am to pay the stipulated sum. i am obliged to you for your favourable opinion, and trust that the happiness you talk so much of will be stationary, and not take those freaks to which the felicity of common mortals is subject. i do very sincerely wish you well, and am so convinced of the justice of your matrimonial arguments, that i shall follow your example as soon as i can get a sufficient price for my coronet. in the mean time i should be happy to drill for my new situation under your auspices; but business, inexorable business, keeps me here. your letters are forwarded. if i can serve you in any way, command me. i will endeavour to fulfil your requests as awkwardly as another. i shall pay you a visit, perhaps, in the autumn. believe me, dear w., yours unintelligibly, b." "reddish's hotel, july st, . my dear w. w.,--i always understood that the 'lining' was to accompany the 'carriage'; if not, the 'carriage' may accompany the 'lining', for i will have neither the one nor the other. in short, to prevent squabbling, this is my determination, so decide;--if you leave it to my 'feelings' (as you say) they are very strongly in favour of the said lining. two hundred guineas for a carriage with ancient lining!!! rags and rubbish! you must write another pamphlet, my dear w., before; but pray do not waste your time and eloquence in expostulation, because it will do neither of us any good, but decide--content or 'not' content. the best thing you can do for the tutor you speak of will be to send him in your vis (with the lining) to 'the u--niversity of göttingen.' how can you suppose (now that my own bear is dead) that i have any situation for a german genius of this kind, till i get another, or some children? i am infinitely obliged by your invitations, but i can't pay so high for a second-hand chaise to make my friends a visit. the coronet will not 'grace' the 'pretty vis,' till your tattered lining ceases to 'dis'grace it. pray favour me with an answer, as we must finish the affair one way or another immediately,--before next week. believe me, yours truly, byron." "byron," says webster, in a note, "was more than strict about trifles."] [footnote : the death of mrs. byron, august , .] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, august , . being fortunately enabled to frank, i do not spare scribbling, having sent you packets within the last ten days. i am passing solitary, and do not expect my agent to accompany me to rochdale [ ] before the second week in september; a delay which perplexes me, as i wish the business over, and should at present welcome employment. i sent you exordiums, annotations, etc., for the forthcoming quarto, if quarto it is to be: and i also have written to mr. murray my objection to sending the ms. to juvenal, [ ] but allowing him to show it to any others of the calling. hobhouse [ ] is amongst the types already: so, between his prose and my verse, the world will be decently drawn upon for its paper-money and patience. besides all this, my 'imitation of horace' [ ] is gasping for the press at cawthorn's, but i am hesitating as to the how and the when, the single or the double, the present or the future. you must excuse all this, for i have nothing to say in this lone mansion but of myself, and yet i would willingly talk or think of aught else. what are you about to do? do you think of perching in cumberland, as you opined when i was in the metropolis? if you mean to retire, why not occupy miss milbanke's "cottage of friendship," late the seat of cobbler joe, [ ] for whose death you and others are answerable? his "orphan daughter" (pathetic pratt!) will, certes, turn out a shoemaking sappho. have you no remorse? i think that elegant address to miss dallas should be inscribed on the cenotaph which miss milbanke means to stitch to his memory. the newspapers seem much disappointed at his majesty's not dying, or doing something better. [ ] i presume it is almost over. if parliament meets in october, i shall be in town to attend. i am also invited to cambridge for the beginning of that month, but am first to jaunt to rochdale. now matthews [ ] is gone, and hobhouse in ireland, i have hardly one left there to bid me welcome, except my inviter. at three-and-twenty i am left alone, and what more can we be at seventy? it is true i am young enough to begin again, but with whom can i retrace the laughing part of life? it is odd how few of my friends have died a quiet death,--i mean, in their beds. but a quiet life is of more consequence. yet one loves squabbling and jostling better than yawning. this 'last word' admonishes me to relieve you from yours very truly, etc. [footnote : for byron's rochdale property, which was supposed to contain a quantity of coal, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : gifford.] [footnote : for john cam hobhouse, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : the poem remained unpublished till after byron's death. (see 'note', p. , and 'poems', ed. , vol. i. pp. - .) ] [footnote : "in seaham churchyard, without any memorial," says mr. surtees, "rest the remains of joseph blacket, an unfortunate child of genius, whose last days were soothed by the generous attention of the family of milbanke." 'hist. of durham', vol. i. p. . (see also 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]. for miss milbanke, afterwards lady byron, see p. , 'note' .) [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : on july , , lord grenville wrote to lord auckland, "it is, i believe, certainly true that the king has taken for the last three days scarcely any food at all, and that, unless a change takes place very shortly in that respect, he cannot survive many days" ('auckland correspondence', vol. iv. p. ). it was, however, the mind, and not the physical strength that failed. "the king, i should suppose," wrote lord buckinghamshire, on august , "is not likely to die soon, but i fear his mental recovery is hardly to be expected." ('ibid'., vol. iv. p. ). george iii. never, except for brief intervals, recovered his reason.] [footnote : for c. s. matthews, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. [ ] newstead abbey, aug. , . i was so sincere in my note on the late charles matthews, and do feel myself so totally unable to do justice to his talents, that the passage must stand for the very reason you bring against it. to him all the men i ever knew were pigmies. he was an intellectual giant. it is true i loved wingfield [ ] better; he was the earliest and the dearest, and one of the few one could never repent of having loved: but in ability--ah! you did not know matthews! 'childe harold' may wait and welcome--books are never the worse for delay in the publication. so you have got our heir, george anson byron, [ ] and his sister, with you. you may say what you please, but you are one of the 'murderers' of blackett, and yet you won't allow harry white's genius. [ ] setting aside his bigotry, he surely ranks next chatterton. it is astonishing how little he was known; and at cambridge no one thought or heard of such a man till his death rendered all notice useless. for my own part, i should have been most proud of such an acquaintance: his very prejudices were respectable. there is a sucking epic poet at granta, a mr. townsend, [ ] 'protégé' of the late cumberland. did you ever hear of him and his 'armageddon'? i think his plan (the man i don't know) borders on the sublime: though, perhaps, the anticipation of the "last day" (according to you nazarenes) is a little too daring: at least, it looks like telling the lord what he is to do, and might remind an ill-natured person of the line, "and fools rush in where angels fear to tread." but i don't mean to cavil, only other folks will, and he may bring all the lambs of jacob behmen about his ears. however, i hope he will bring it to a conclusion, though milton is in his way. write to me--i dote on gossip--and make a bow to ju--, and shake george by the hand for me; but, take care, for he has a sad sea paw. p.s.--i would ask george here, but i don't know how to amuse him--all my horses were sold when i left england, and i have not had time to replace them. nevertheless, if he will come down and shoot in september, he will be very welcome: but he must bring a gun, for i gave away all mine to ali pacha, and other turks. dogs, a keeper, and plenty of game, with a very large manor, i have--a lake, a boat, houseroom, and _neat wines_. [footnote : dallas, writing to byron, august , , had said, "i have been reading the 'remains' of kirke white, and find that you have to answer for misleading me. he does not, in my opinion, merit the high praise you have bestowed upon him." writing again, august , he objected to the 'note' on matthews in 'childe harold': "in your note, as it stands, it strikes me that the eulogy on matthews is a 'little' at the expense of wingfield and others whom you 'have' commemorated. i should think it quite enough to say that his powers and attainments were above all praise, without expressly admitting them to be above that of a muse who soars high in the praise of others."] [footnote : for wingfield, see 'letters', vol. i, p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] [footnote: for george anson byron, afterwards lord byron, and his sister julia, see 'letters', vol. i, p. , 'note' .[footnote of letter ]] [footnote : for h. k. white, see 'letters', vol. i, p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : the rev. george townsend ( - ) of trinity college, cambridge, published 'poems' in , and eight books of his 'armageddon' in . the remaining four books were never published. townsend became a canon of durham in , and held the stall till his death in . richard cumberland, dramatist, novelist, and essayist ( - ), the "sir fretful plagiary" of 'the critic', announced the forthcoming poem in the 'london review'; but, as townsend says, in the preface to 'armageddon', praised him "too abundantly and prematurely." "my talents," he adds, "were neither equal to my own ambition, nor his zeal to serve me." (see 'hints from horace', lines - , and byron's 'note' to line , 'poems', ed. , vol. i. p. .)] * * * * * .--to the hon. augusta leigh. [ ] newstead abbey, august th, . my dear augusta,--the embarrassments you mention in your last letter i never heard of before, but that disease is epidemic in our family. neither have i been apprised of any of the changes at which you hint, indeed how should i? on the borders of the black sea, we heard only of the russians. so you have much to tell, and all will be novelty. i don't know what scrope davies [ ] meant by telling you i liked children, i abominate the sight of them so much that i have always had the greatest respect for the character of herod. but, as my house here is large enough for us all, we should go on very well, and i need not tell you that i long to see _you_. i really do not perceive any thing so formidable in a journey hither of two days, but all this comes of matrimony, you have a nurse and all the etceteras of a family. well, i must marry to repair the ravages of myself and prodigal ancestry, but if i am ever so unfortunate as to be presented with an heir, instead of a _rattle_ he shall be provided with a _gag_. i shall perhaps be able to accept d's invitation to cambridge, but i fear my stay in lancashire will be prolonged, i proceed there in the d week in septr to arrange my coal concerns, & then if i can't persuade some wealthy dowdy to ennoble the dirty puddle of her mercantile blood,--why--i shall leave england and all it's clouds for the east again; i am very sick of it already. joe [ ] has been getting well of a disease that would have killed a troop of horse; he promises to bear away the palm of longevity from old parr. as you won't come, you will write; i long to hear all those unutterable things, being utterly unable to guess at any of them, unless they concern _your_ relative the thane of carlisle, [ ] though i had great hopes we had done with him. i have little to add that you do not already know, and being quite alone, have no great variety of incident to gossip with; i am but rarely pestered with visiters, and the few i have i get rid of as soon as possible. i will now take leave of you in the jargon of . "health & _fraternity!"_ yours always, b. [footnote : for the hon. augusta leigh, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ] byron's letter is in answer to the following from his half-sister: " mile bottom, aug. th. "my dearest brother,--your letter was stupidly sent to town to me on sunday, from whence i arrived at home yesterday; consequently i have not received it so soon as i ought to have done. i feel so very happy to have the pleasure of hearing from you that i will not delay a moment answering it, altho' i am in all the delights of 'unpacking', and afraid of being too late for the post. "i have been a fortnight in town, and went up on my 'eldest' little girl's account. she had been very unwell for some time, and i could not feel happy till i had better advice than this neighbourhood affords. she is, thank heaven! much better, and i hope in a fair way to be quite 'herself' again. mr. davies flattered me by saying she was exactly the sort of child 'you' would delight in. i am determined not to say another word in her praise for fear you should accuse me of partiality and expect too much. the youngest ('little' augusta) is just months old, and has no particular merit at present but a very sweet placid temper. "oh! that i could immediately set out to newstead and shew them to you. i can't tell you 'half' the happiness it would give me to see it and 'you'; but, my dearest b., it is a long journey and serious undertaking all things considered. mr. davies writes me word you promise to make him a visit bye and bye; 'pray do', you can then so easily come here. i have set my heart upon it. consider how very long it is since i've seen you. "i have indeed 'much' to tell you; but it is more easily 'said' than 'written'. probably you have heard of many changes in our situation since you left england; in a 'pecuniary' point of view it is materially altered for the worse; perhaps in other respects better. col. leigh has been in dorsetshire and sussex during my stay in town. i expect him at home towards the end of this week, and hope to make him acquainted with you ere long. "i have not time to write half i have to say, for my letter must go; but i prefer writing in a hurry to not writing at all. you can't think how much i feel for your griefs and losses, or how much and constantly i have thought of you lately. i began a letter to you in town, but destroyed it, from the fear of appearing troublesome. there are times, i know, when one cannot write with any degree of comfort or satisfaction. i intend to do so again shortly, so i hope yon won't think me a bore. "remember me most kindly to old joe. i rejoice to hear of his health and prosperity. your letter (some parts of it at least) made me laugh. i am so very glad to hear you have sufficiently overcome your prejudices against the 'fair sex' to have determined upon marrying; but i shall be most anxious that my future 'belle soeur' should have more attractions than merely money, though to be sure 'that' is somewhat necessary. i have not another moment, dearest b., so forgive me if i write again very soon, and believe me, "your most affec'tn sister, a. l. "do write if you can."] [footnote : for scrope berdmore davies, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ] the following story is told of him by byron, in a passage of his 'detached thoughts' (ravenna, ): "one night scrope davies at a gaming house (before i was of age), being tipsy as he usually was at the midnight hour, and having lost monies, was in vain intreated by his friends, one degree less intoxicated than himself, to come or go home. in despair, he was left to himself and to the demons of the dice-box. "next day, being visited about two of the clock, by some friends just risen with a severe headache and empty pockets (who had left him losing at four or five in the morning), he was found in a sound sleep, without a night-cap, and not particularly encumbered with bed-cloathes: a chamber-pot stood by his bed-side, brim-full of---'bank notes!', all won, god knows how, and crammed, scrope knew not where; but there they were, all good legitimate notes, and to the amount of some thousand pounds."] [footnote : for joe murray, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : for the earl of carlisle, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] * * * * * .-to the hon. augusta leigh. newstead abbey, aug'st th, . my dear augusta,--i wrote to you yesterday, and as you will not be very sorry to hear from me again, considering our long separation, i shall fill up this sheet before i go to bed. i have heard something of a quarrel between your spouse and the prince, i don't wish to pry into family secrets or to hear anything more of the matter, but i can't help regretting on your account that so long an intimacy should be dissolved at the very moment when your husband might have derived some advantage from his r. h.'s friendship. however, at all events, and in all situations, you have a brother in me, and a home here. i am led into this train of thinking by a part of your letter which hints at pecuniary losses. i know how delicate one ought to be on such subjects, but you are probably the only being on earth _now_ interested in my welfare, certainly the only relative, and i should be very ungrateful if i did not feel the obligation. you must excuse my being a little cynical, knowing how my _temper_ was tried in my non-age; the manner in which i was brought up must necessarily have broken a meek spirit, or rendered a fiery one ungovernable; the effect it has had on mine i need not state. however, buffeting with the world has brought me a little to reason, and two years travel in distant and barbarous countries has accustomed me to bear privations, and consequently to laugh at many things which would have made me angry before. but i am wandering--in short i only want to assure you that i love you, and that you must not think i am indifferent, because i don't shew my affection in the usual way. pray can't you contrive to pay me a visit between this and xmas? or shall i carry you down with me from cambridge, supposing it practicable for me to come? you will do what you please, without our interfering with each other; the premises are so delightfully extensive, that two people might live together without ever seeing, hearing or meeting,--but i can't feel the comfort of this till i marry. in short it would be the most amiable matrimonial mansion, and that is another great inducement to my plan,--my wife and i shall be so happy,--one in each wing. if this description won't make you come, i can't tell what will, you must please yourself. good night, i have to walk half a mile to my bed chamber. yours ever, byron. * * * * * .--to james wedderburn webster. newstead abbey, notts., aug'st st, . my dear w.,--i send you back your friend's letter, and, though i don't agree with his canons of criticism, they are not the worse for that. my friend hodgson [ ] is not much honoured by the comparison to the 'pursuits of l.', which is notoriously, as far as the 'poetry' goes, the worst written of its kind; the world has been long but of one opinion, viz. that it's sole merit lies in the notes, which are indisputably excellent. had hodgson's "alterative" been placed with the 'baviad' the compliment had been higher to both; for, surely, the 'baviad' is as much superior to h.'s poem, as i do firmly believe h.'s poem to be to the 'pursuits of literature'. your correspondent talks for talking's sake when he says "lady j. grey" is neither "epic, dramatic, or legendary." who ever said it was "epic" or "dramatic"? he might as well say his letter was neither "epic or dramatic;" the poem makes no pretensions to either character. "legendary" it certainly is, but what has that to do with its merits? all stories of that kind founded on facts are in a certain degree legendary, but they may be well or ill written without the smallest alteration in that respect. when mr. hare prattles about the "economy," etc., he sinks sadly;--all such expressions are the mere cant of a schoolboy hovering round the skirts of criticism. hodgson's tale is one of the best efforts of his muse, and mr. h.'s approbation must be of more consequence, before any body will reduce it to a "scale," or be much affected by "the place" he "assigns" to the productions of a man like hodgson. but i have said more than i intended and only beg you never to allow yourself to be imposed upon by such "common place" as the th form letter you sent me. judge for yourself. i know the mr. bankes [ ] you mention though not to that "extreme" you seem to think, but i am flattered by his "boasting" on such a subject (as you say), for i never thought him likely to "boast" of any thing which was not his own. i am not "'melancholish'"--pray what "'folk'" dare to say any such thing? i must contradict them by being 'merry' at their expence. i shall invade you in the course of the winter, out of envy, as lucifer looked at adam and eve. pray be as happy as you can, and write to me that i may catch the infection. yours ever, byron. [footnote : webster had sent byron a letter from naylor hare, in which the latter criticized hodgson's poems, 'lady jane grey, a tale; and other poems ( )' (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note ' [footnote of letter ]). in the volume (pp. - ) was printed his "gentle alterative prepared for the reviewers," which hare apparently compared to 'the pursuits of literature ( - )', by t. j. mathias. to this criticism byron objected, saying that the "alterative" might be more fairly compared to gifford's 'baviad' ( ).] [footnote : for william john bankes, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] * * * * * .---to the hon. augusta leigh. [ ] newstead abbey, sept. d, . my dear augusta,--i wrote you a vastly dutiful letter since my answer to your second epistle, and i now write you a third, for which you have to thank silence and solitude. mr. hanson [ ] comes hither on the th, and i am going to rochdale on business, but that need not prevent you from coming here, you will find joe, and the house and the cellar and all therein very much at your service. as to lady b., when i discover one rich enough to suit me and foolish enough to have me, i will give her leave to make me miserable if she can. money is the magnet; as to women, one is as well as another, the older the better, we have then a chance of getting her to heaven. so, your spouse does not like brats better than myself; now those who beget them have no right to find fault, but _i_ may rail with great propriety. my "satire!"--i am glad it made you laugh for somebody told me in greece that you was angry, and i was sorry, as you were perhaps the only person whom i did _not_ want to _make angry_. but how you will make _me laugh_ i don't know, for it is a vastly _serious_ subject to me i assure you; therefore take care, or i shall hitch _you_ into the next edition to make up our family party. nothing so fretful, so despicable as a scribbler, see what _i_ am, and what a parcel of scoundrels i have brought about my ears, and what language i have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way;--all this comes of authorship, but now i am in for it, and shall be at war with grubstreet, till i find some better amusement. you will write to me your intentions and may almost depend on my being at cambridge in october. you say you mean to be etc. in the _autumn_; i should be glad to know what you call this present season, it would be winter in every other country which i have seen. if we meet in october we will travel in my _vis_. and can have a cage for the children and a cart for the nurse. or perhaps we can forward them by the canal. do let us know all about it, your "_bright thought_" is a little clouded, like the moon in this preposterous climate. good even, child. yours ever, b. [footnote : the following is mrs. leigh's letter, to which the above is an answer: " mile bottom, saturday, aug. "my dearest brother,--i hope you don't dislike receiving letters so much as writing them, for you would in that case pronounce me a great torment. but as i prepared you in my last for its being followed very soon by another, i hope you will have reconciled your mind to the impending toil. i really wrote in such a hurry that i did not say half i wished; but i did not like to delay telling you how happy you made me by writing. i have been dwelling constantly upon the idea of going to newstead ever since i had your wish to see me there. at last a _bright thought_ struck me. "we intend, i believe, to go to yorkshire in the autumn. now, if i could contrive to pay you a visit _en passant_, it would be delightful, and give me the greatest pleasure. but i fear you would be obliged to make up your mind to receive my _brats_ too. as for my husband, he prefers the _outside of the mail_ to _the inside of a post-chaise_, particularly when partly occupied by nurse and children, so that we always travel _independent_ of each other. "so much for this, my dear b. i can only say i should _much_ like to see you at newstead. the former i hope i shall at all events, as you must not be shabby, but come to cambridge as you promised. are you staying at newstead now for any time? i saw george byron in town for one day, and he promised to call or write again, but has not done either, so i begin to think he has gone back to lisbon. i think it is impossible not to like him; he is so good-natured and natural. we talked much of you; he told me you were grown very thin; as you don't complain, i hope you are not the worse for being so, and i remember you used to wish it. don't you think _it a great shame_ that george b. is not promoted? i wish there was any possibility of assisting him about it; but all i know who _could_ do any good with you _present_ ministers, i don't for many reasons like to ask. perhaps there may be a change bye and bye. "fred howard is married to miss _lambton_. i saw them in town in their way to castle howard. i hope he will be happy with all my heart; his kindness and friendship to us last year, when col. _leigh_ was placed in one of the most perplexing situations that i think anybody could be in, is never to be forgotten. i think he used to be a greater favourite with you than some others of his family. _mrs. f.h._ is very pretty, _very_ young (not quite ), and appears gentle and pleasing, which is all one can expect [to discover from] a very slight acquaintance. "now, my dearest byron, pray let me hear from you. i shall be daily expecting to hear of a _lady byron_, since you have confided to me your determination of marrying, in which i really hope you are serious, being convinced such an event would contribute greatly to your happiness, provided _her ladyship_ was the sort of person that would suit you; and you won't be angry with me for saying that it is not every _one_ who would; therefore don't be too _precipitate_. you will _wish me hanged_, i fear, for boring you so unmercifully, so god bless you, my dearest bro.; and, when you have time, do write. are you going to amuse us with any more _satires_? oh, _english bards!_ i shall make you laugh (when we meet) about it. "ever your most affectionate sis. and friend, "a. l."] [footnote : for john hanson, see letters, vol. i. p. , note . [footnote of letter ]] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. newstead abbey, sept. , . my dear hodgson,--i will have nothing to do with your immortality; [ ] we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another. if men are to live, why die at all? and if they die, why disturb the sweet and sound sleep that "knows no waking"? "post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil ... quæris quo jaceas post obitum loco? quo _non_ nata jacent." [ ] as to revealed religion, christ came to save men; but a good pagan will go to heaven, and a bad nazarene to hell; "argal" (i argue like the gravedigger) why are not all men christians? or why are any? if mankind may be saved who never heard or dreamt, at timbuctoo, otaheite, terra incognita, etc., of galilee and its prophet, christianity is of no avail: if they cannot be saved without, why are not all orthodox? it is a little hard to send a man preaching to judaea, and leave the rest of the world--negers and what not--_dark_ as their complexions, without a ray of light for so many years to lead them on high; and who will believe that god will damn men for not knowing what they were never taught? i hope i am sincere; i was so at least on a bed of sickness in a far-distant country, when i had neither friend, nor comforter, nor hope, to sustain me. i looked to death as a relief from pain, without a wish for an after-life, but a confidence that the god who punishes in this existence had left that last asylum for the weary. [greek: hon ho theòs agapáei apothnáeskei néos.] [ ] i am no platonist, i am nothing at all; but i would sooner be a paulician, manichean, spinozist, gentile, pyrrhonian, zoroastrian, than one of the seventy-two villainous sects who are tearing each other to pieces for the love of the lord and hatred of each other. talk of galileeism? show me the effects--are you better, wiser, kinder by your precepts? i will bring you ten mussulmans shall shame you in all goodwill towards men, prayer to god, and duty to their neighbours. and is there a talapoin, [ ] or a bonze, who is not superior to a fox-hunting curate? but i will say no more on this endless theme; let me live, well if possible, and die without pain. the rest is with god, who assuredly, had he _come_ or _sent_, would have made himself manifest to nations, and intelligible to all. i shall rejoice to see you. my present intention is to accept scrope davies's invitation; and then, if you accept mine, we shall meet _here_ and _there_. did you know poor matthews? i shall miss him much at cambridge. [footnote : the religious discussion arose out of the opening stanzas of 'childe harold', canto ii., which hodgson was helping to correct for the press. byron's opinions were not newly formed, as is shown by the following letter to ensign long (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note ' [footnote of letter ]), which reached the editor too late for insertion in its proper place: southwell, ap: th, . "your epistle, my dear standard bearer, augurs not much in favour of your new life, particularly the latter part, where you say your happiest days are over. i most sincerely hope not. the past has certainly in some parts been pleasant, but i trust will be equalled, if not exceeded by the future. you hope it is not so with me. "to be plain with regard to myself. nature stampt me in the die of indifference. i consider myself as destined never to be happy, although in some instances fortunate. i am an isolated being on the earth, without a tie to attach me to life, except a few school-fellows, and a 'score of females.' let me but 'hear my fame on the winds' and the song of the bards in my norman house, i ask no more and don't expect so much. of religion i know nothing, at least in its 'favour'. we have 'fools' in all sects and impostors in most; why should i believe mysteries no one understands, because written by men who chose to mistake madness for inspiration, and style themselves 'evangelicals?' however enough on this subject. your 'piety' will be 'aghast,' and i wish for no proselytes. this much i will venture to affirm, that all the virtues and pious 'deeds' performed on earth can never entitle a man to everlasting happiness in a future state; nor on the other hand can such a scene as a seat of eternal punishment exist, it is incompatible with the benign attributes of a deity to suppose so. "i am surrounded here by parsons and methodists, but, as you will see, not infected with the mania. i have lived a 'deist', what i shall die i know not; however, come what may, 'ridens moriar'. "nothing detains me here but the publication, which will not be complete till june. about of the present pieces will be cut out, and a number of new things added. amongst them a complete episode of nisus and euryalus from virgil, some odes from anacreon, and several original odes, the whole will cover pages. my last production has been a poem in imitation of ossian, which i shall not publish, having enough without it. many of the present poems are enlarged and altered, in short you will behold an 'old friend with a new face.' were i to publish all i have written in rhyme, i should fill a decent quarto; however, half is quite enough at present. you shall have 'all' when we meet. "i grow thin daily; since the commencement of my system i have lost lbs. in my weight '(i.e.)' st. and lbs. when i began i weighed st. lbs., and on tuesday i found myself reduced to st. lb. what sayest thou, ned? do you not envy? i shall still proceed till i arrive at st. and then stop, at least if i am not too fat, but shall always live temperately and take much exercise. "if there is a possibility we shall meet in june. i shall be in town, before i proceed to granta, and if the 'mountain will not come to mahomet, mahomet will go to the mountain.' i don't mean, by comparing you to the mountain, to insinuate anything on the subject of your size. xerxes, it is said, formed mount athos into the shape of a woman; had he lived now, and taken a peep at chatham, he would have spared himself the trouble and made it unnecessary by finding a 'hill' ready cut to his wishes. "adieu, dear mont blanc, or rather 'mont rouge'; don't, for heaven's sake, turn volcanic, at least roll the lava of your indignation in any other channel, and not consume your's ever, "byron. "_write immediately_." byron lived to modify these opinions, as is shown by the following passages from his 'detached thoughts': "if i were to live over again, i do not know what i would change in my life, unless it were 'for--not to have lived at all'. all history and experience, and the rest, teaches us that the good and evil are pretty equally balanced in this existence, and that what is most to be desired is an easy passage out of it. what can it give us but years? and those have little of good but their ending. "of the immortality of the soul it appears to me that there can be little doubt, if we attend for a moment to the action of mind; it is in perpetual activity. i used to doubt of it, but reflection has taught me better. it acts also so very independent of body--in dreams, for instance;--incoherently and 'madly', i grant you, but still it is mind, and much more mind than when we are awake. now that this should not act 'separately', as well as jointly, who can pronounce? the stoics, epictetus and marcus aurelius, call the present state 'a soul which drags a carcass,'--a heavy chain, to be sure; but all chains being material may be shaken off. how far our future life will be 'individual', or, rather, how far it will at all resemble our 'present' existence, is another question; but that the mind is eternal seems as probable as that the body is not so. of course i here venture upon the question without recurring to revelation, which, however, is at least as rational a solution of it as any other. a 'material' resurrection seems strange, and even absurd, except for purposes of punishment; and all punishment which is to 'revenge' rather than 'correct' must be 'morally wrong'; and 'when the world is at an end', what moral or warning purpose 'can' eternal tortures answer? human passions have probably disfigured the divine doctrines here;--but the whole thing is inscrutable." "it is useless to tell me 'not' to 'reason', but to 'believe'. you might as well tell a man not to wake, but 'sleep'. and then to 'bully' with torments, and all that! i cannot help thinking that the 'menace' of hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains." "man is born 'passionate' of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of good in his main-spring of mind. but, god help us all! it is at present a sad jar of atoms."] [footnote : the lines are quoted from seneca's 'troades' (act ii. et seqq.): "post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil. ........ ........ quæris, quo jaceas post obitum loco? quo non nata jacent."] [footnote : the sentiment is found in one of the [greek: monóstichoi] of menander ('menandri et philemonis reliquiæ,' edidit augustus meineke, p. ). it is thus quoted by stobæus ('florilegium', cxx. ) as an iambic: [greek: hon oi theoì philoûsin apothnáeskei néos.] in the 'comicorum græcorum sententiæ, id est' [greek: gnômai](p. , ed, henricus stephanus, mdlxix.) it is quoted as a leonine verse: [greek: hon gàr philei theòs apothnáeskei néos.] plautus gives it thus ('bacchides', iv. ): "quem di diligunt adolescens moritur."] [footnote : the word is said to be illegible, and the conclusion of the letter to be lost ('memoir of the rev. francis hodgson', vol. i. p. ). only the latter statement is correct. the word is perfectly legible. talapoin (yule's 'glossary of anglo-indian words, sub voce') is the name used by the portuguese, and after them by the french writers, and by english travellers of the seventeenth century (hakluyt, ed. , vol. ii. p. ; and purchas, ed. , vol. ii. p. ), to designate the buddhist monks of ceylon and the indo-chinese countries. pallegoix ('description du royaume thai ou siam', vol. ii. p. ) says, "les européens les ont appelés 'talapoins', probablement du nom de l'éventail qu'ils tiennent à la main, lequel s'appelle 'talapat', qui signifie 'feuille de palmier'." possibly byron knew the word through voltaire ('dial.' xxii., 'andré des couches à siam'); "'a. des c.': combien avez-vous de soldats? 'croutef.': quatre-vingt mille, fort médiocrement payés. 'a. des c.': et de talapoins? 'cr.': cent vingt-mille, tous fainéans et trés riches," etc.] * * * * * .--to r.c. dallas. newstead abbey, september th, . my dear sir,--i am at present anxious, as cawthorn seems to wish it, to have a small edition of the 'hints from horace' [ ] published immediately, but the latin (the most difficult poem in the language) renders it necessary to be very particular not only in correcting the proofs with horace open, but in adapting the parallel passages of the imitation in such places to the original as may enable the reader not to lose sight of the allusion. i don't know whether i ought to ask you to do this, but i am too far off to do it for myself; and if you condescend to my school-boy erudition, you will oblige me by setting this thing going, though you will smile at the importance i attach to it. believe me, ever yours, byron. [footnote : 'hints from horace', written during byron's second stay at athens, march - , , and subsequently added to, had been placed in the hands of cawthorn, the publisher of 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', for publication. byron afterwards changed his mind, and the poem remained unpublished till after his death. the following letter from cawthorn shows that considerable progress had been made with the printing of the poem, and that byron also contemplated another edition of 'english bards, and scotch reviewers'. the advice of his friends led him to abandon both plans; but his letter to cawthorn, printed below, is evidence that in september he was still at work on 'hints from horace': " , cockspur street, aug. 'd, . "my lord,--mr. green the amanuensis has finished the latin of the horace, and i shall be happy to do with it as your lordship may direct, either to forward it to newstead, or keep it in town. would it not be better to print a small edition seperate ('sic'), and afterwards print the two satires together? this i leave to your lordship's consideration. four sheets of the 'travels' are already printed, and one of the plates (albanian solain) is executed. i sent it capt. h[obhouse] yesterday to cork, to see if it meets his approbation. the work is printed in quarto, for which i may be in some measure indebted to your lordship, as i urged it so strongly. i shall be extremely sorry if capt. h. is not pleased with it, but i think he will. your lordship's goodness will excuse me for saying how much the very sudden and melancholy events that have lately transpired--i regret--capt. hobhouse has written me since the decease of mr. mathews. i am told capt. h. is very much affected at it. i have received some drawings of costumes from him, which i am to deliver to your lordship. is it likely we shall see your lordship in town soon? "i have the honour to be your lordship's "most respectful and greatly obliged servt., "james cawthorn. "if a small edition is printed of 'horace' for the first" [words erased] "that, and i think in all probability the 'e. bards' will want reprinting about march next, when both could be done together. do not think me too sanguine." a few days later, byron writes to cawthom as follows: "newstead abbey, september th, . "more notes for the 'hints'! you mistake me much by thinking me inattentive to this publication. if i had a friend willing and able to correct the press, it should be out with my good will immediately. pray attend to annexing additional notes in their proper places, and let them be added immediately. "yours, etc., "byron."] * * * * * .--to john murray. [ ] newstead abbey, notts., sept. , . sir,--the time seems to be past when (as dr. johnson said) a man was certain to "hear the truth from his bookseller," for you have paid me so many compliments, that, if i was not the veriest scribbler on earth, i should feel affronted. as i accept your compliments, it is but fair i should give equal or greater credit to your objections, the more so as i believe them to be well founded. with regard to the political and metaphysical parts, i am afraid i can alter nothing; but i have high authority for my errors in that point, for even the 'Æneid' was a _political_ poem, and written for a _political_ purpose; and as to my unlucky opinions on subjects of more importance, i am too sincere in them for recantation. on spanish affairs i have said what i saw, and every day confirms me in that notion of the result formed on the spot; and i rather think honest john bull is beginning to come round again to that sobriety which massena's retreat [ ] had begun to reel from its centre--the usual consequence of _un_usual success. so you perceive i cannot alter the sentiments; but if there are any alterations in the structure of the versification you would wish to be made, i will tag rhymes and turn stanzas as much as you please. as for the "_orthodox_," let us hope they will buy, on purpose to abuse--you will forgive the one, if they will do the other. you are aware that any thing from my pen must expect no quarter, on many accounts; and as the present publication is of a nature very different from the former, we must not be sanguine. you have given me no answer to my question--tell me fairly, did you show the ms. to some of your corps? [ ] i sent an introductory stanza to mr. dallas, that it might be forwarded to you; the poem else will open too abruptly. the stanzas had better be numbered in roman characters, there is a disquisition on the literature of the modern greeks, and some smaller poems to come in at the close. these are now at newstead, but will be sent in time. if mr. d. has lost the stanza and note annexed to it, write, and i will send it myself.--you tell me to add two cantos, but i am about to visit my _collieries_ in lancashire on the th instant, which is so _unpoetical_ an employment that i need say no more. i am, sir, your most obedient, etc., etc., byron. [footnote : the following is murray's letter, to which byron replies: "london, sept. , , wednesday. "my lord,--an absence of some days, passed in the country, has prevented me from writing earlier in answer to your obliging letter. i have now, however, the pleasure of sending under a separate cover, the first proof sheet of your lordship's 'poem', which is so good as to be entitled to all your care to render perfect. besides its general merit, there are parts, which, i am tempted to believe, far excel anything that your lordship has hitherto published, and it were therefore grievous indeed, if you do not condescend to bestow upon it all the improvement of which your lordship's mind is so capable; every correction already made is valuable, and this circumstance renders me more confident in soliciting for it your further attention. "there are some expressions, too, concerning spain and portugal, which, however just, and particularly so at the time they were conceived, yet as they do not harmonize with the general feeling, would so greatly interfere with the popularity which the poem is, in other respects, so certainly calculated to excite, that, in compassion to your publisher, who does not presume to reason upon the subject, otherwise than as a mere matter of business, i hope your lordship's goodness will induce you to obviate them, and, with them, perhaps, some religious feelings which may deprive me of some customers amongst the 'orthodox'. "could i flatter myself that these suggestions were not obtrusive, i would hazard another, in an earnest solicitation that your lordship would add the two promised cantos, and complete the 'poem'. it were cruel indeed not to perfect a work which contains so much that is excellent; your fame, my lord, demands it; you are raising a monument that will outlive your present feelings, and it should therefore be so constructed as to excite no other associations than those of respect and admiration for your lordship's character and genius. "i trust that you will pardon the warmth of this address when i assure your lordship that it arises, in the greatest degree, in a sincere regard for your lasting reputation, with, however, some view to that portion of it, which must attend the publisher of so beautiful a poem, as your lordship is capable of rendering "'the romaunt of childe harold'. "i have the honour to be, my lord, "your lordship's "obedient and faithful servant, "john murray."] [footnote : on the night of march , , massena retreated from his camp at santarem, whence he had watched wellington at torres vedras, and on april he crossed the coa into spain.] [footnote : murray had shown the ms. to gifford for advice as to its publication. byron seems to have resented this on the ground that it might look like an attempt to propitiate the 'quarterly review'.] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, september , . as gifford has been ever my "magnus apollo," any approbation, such as you mention, would, of course, be more welcome than "all bocara's vaunted gold", than all "the gems of samarcand." [ ] but i am sorry the ms. was shown to him in such a manner, and had written to murray to say as much, before i was aware that it was too late. your objection to the expression "central line" i can only meet by saying that, before childe harold left england, it was his full intention to traverse persia, and return by india, which he could not have done without passing the equinoctial. the other errors you mention, i must correct in the progress through the press. i feel honoured by the wish of such men that the poem should be continued, but to do that i must return to greece and asia; i must have a warm sun, a blue sky; i cannot describe scenes so dear to me by a sea-coal fire. i had projected an additional canto when i was in the troad and constantinople, and if i saw them again, it would go on; but under existing circumstances and 'sensations', i have neither harp, "heart, nor voice" to proceed, i feel that 'you are all right' as to the metaphysical part; but i also feel that i am sincere, and that if i am only to write "ad captandum vulgus," i might as well edit a magazine at once, or spin canzonettas for vauxhall. [ ] my work must make its way as well as it can; i know i have every thing against me, angry poets and prejudices; but if the poem is a 'poem', it will surmount these obstacles, and if 'not', it deserves its fate. your friend's ode [ ] i have read--it is no great compliment to pronounce it far superior to smythe's on the same subject, or to the merits of the new chancellor. it is evidently the production of a man of taste, and a poet, though i should not be willing to say it was fully equal to what might be expected from the author of "'horae ionicae'." [ ] i thank you for it, and that is more than i would do for any other ode of the present day. i am very sensible of your good wishes, and, indeed, i have need of them. my whole life has been at variance with propriety, not to say decency; my circumstances are become involved; my friends are dead or estranged, and my existence a dreary void. in matthews i have lost my "guide, philosopher, and friend;" in wingfield a friend only, but one whom i could have wished to have preceded in his long journey. matthews was indeed an extraordinary man; it has not entered into the heart of a stranger to conceive such a man: there was the stamp of immortality in all he said or did;--and now what is he? when we see such men pass away and be no more--men, who seem created to display what the creator 'could make' his creatures, gathered into corruption, before the maturity of minds that might have been the pride of posterity, what are we to conclude? for my own part, i am bewildered. to me he was much, to hobhouse every thing. my poor hobhouse doted on matthews. for me, i did not love quite so much as i honoured him; i was indeed so sensible of his infinite superiority, that though i did not envy, i stood in awe of it. he, hobhouse, davies, and myself, formed a coterie of our own at cambridge and elsewhere. davies is a wit and man of the world, and feels as much as such a character can do; but not as hobhouse has been affected. davies, who is not a scribbler, has always beaten us all in the war of words, and by his colloquial powers at once delighted and kept us in order. hobhouse and myself always had the worst of it with the other two; and even matthews yielded to the dashing vivacity of scrope davies. but i am talking to you of men, or boys, as if you cared about such beings. i expect mine agent down on the th to proceed to lancashire, where i hear from all quarters that i have a very valuable property in coals, etc. i then intend to accept an invitation to cambridge in october, and shall, perhaps, run up to town. i have four invitations--to wales, dorset, cambridge, and chester; but i must be a man of business. i am quite alone, as these long letters sadly testify. i perceive, by referring to your letter, that the ode is from the author; make my thanks acceptable to him. his muse is worthy a nobler theme. you will write as usual, i hope. i wish you good evening, and am, etc. [footnote : the lines, which are parodied in byron's unpublished 'barmaid', are from sir w. jones's translation of a song by hafiz ('works, vol. x. p. ): "sweet maid, if thou would'st charm my sight, and bid these arms thy neck infold; that rosy cheek, that lily hand, would give thy poet more delight, than all bocara's vaunted gold, than all the gems of samarcand."] [footnote : vauxhall gardens ( to july , ) were still not only a popular but a fashionable resort, though fireworks and masquerades threatened to expel musicians and vocalists. at this time the principal singers were charles dignum ( - ); maria theresa bland ( - ), a famous ballad-singer; rosoman mountain, 'née' wilkinson ( - ), whose husband was a violinist and leader at vauxhall.--('the london pleasure gardens', pp. - .)] [footnote : on june , , the duke of gloucester was installed as chancellor of the university of cambridge. the installation ode, written by w. smyth, of peterhouse ( - ), professor of modern history at cambridge, and author of 'english lyrics' ( ) and other works, was set to music by hague, and performed in the senate house, braham and ashe, it is said, particularly distinguishing themselves among the performers. the ode is given in the 'annual register' for , pp. - . the rival ode, which byron preferred, was by walter rodwell wright.] [footnote : for walter rodwell wright, author of 'horæ ionicæ' ( ), see letters, vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] * * * * * .--to the hon. augusta leigh. [six mile bottom, newmarket.] newstead abbey, sept. th, . my dear augusta,--my rochdale affairs are understood to be settled as far as the law can settle them, and indeed i am told that the most valuable part is that which was never disputed; but i have never reaped any advantage from them, and god knows if i ever shall. mr. h., my agent, is a good man and able, but the most dilatory in the world. i expect him down on the th to accompany me to rochdale, where something will be decided as to selling or working the collieries. i am lord of the manor (a most extensive one), and they want to enclose, which cannot be done without me; but i go there in the worst humour possible and am afraid i shall do or say something not very conciliatory. in short all my affairs are going on as badly as possible, and i have no hopes or plans to better them as i long ago pledged myself never to sell newstead, which i mean to hold in defiance of the devil and man. i am quite alone and never see strangers without being sick, but i am nevertheless on good terms with my neighbours, for i neither ride or shoot or move over my garden walls, but i fence and box and swim and run a good deal to keep me in exercise and get me to sleep. poor murray is ill again, and one of my greek servants is ill too, and my valet has got a pestilent cough, so that we are in a peck of troubles; my family surgeon sent an emetic this morning for _one_ of them, i did not very well know _which_, but i swore _somebody_ should take it, so after a deal of discussion the greek swallowed it with tears in his eyes, and by the blessing of it, and the _virgin_ whom he invoked to assist _it_ and _him_, i suppose he'll be well tomorrow, if not, _another_ shall have the _next_. so your spouse likes children, _that_ is lucky as he will have to bring them up; for my part (since i lost my newfoundland dog,) i like nobody except his successor a dutch mastiff and three land tortoises brought with me from greece. i thank you for your letters and am always glad to hear from you, but if you won't come here before xmas, i very much fear we shall not meet _here_ at all, for i shall be off somewhere or other very soon out of this land of paper credit (or rather no credit at all, for every body seems on the high road to bankruptcy), and if i quit it again i shall not be back in a hurry. however, i shall endeavour to see you somewhere, and make my bow with decorum before i return to the ottomans, i believe i shall turn mussulman in the end. you ask after my health; i am in tolerable leanness, which i promote by exercise and abstinence. i don't know that i have acquired any thing by my travels but a smattering of two languages and a habit of chewing tobacco. [ ] yours ever, b. [footnote : to appease the pangs of hunger, and keep down his fat, byron was in the habit of chewing gum-mastic and tobacco. for the same reason, at a later date, he took opium. the mistake which he makes in his letter to hodgson (december , ), "i do nothing but eschew tobacco," is repeated in 'don juan' (canto xii. stanza xiiii.)-- "in fact, there's nothing makes me so much grieve, as that abominable tittle-tattle, which is the cud eschewed by human cattle."] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. newstead abbey, sept. , . dear hodgson,--i have been a good deal in your company lately, for i have been reading 'juvenal' and 'lady jane', [ ] etc., for the first time since my return. the tenth sat'e has always been my favourite, as i suppose indeed of everybody's. it is the finest recipe for making one miserable with his life, and content to walk out of it, in any language. i should think it might be redde with great effect to a man dying without much pain, in preference to all the stuff that ever was said or sung in churches. but you are a deacon, and i say no more. ah! you will marry and become lethargic, like poor hal of harrow, [ ] who yawns at o' nights, and orders caudle annually. i wrote an answer to yours fully some days ago, and, being quite alone and able to frank, you must excuse this subsequent epistle, which will cost nothing but the trouble of deciphering. i am expectant of agents to accompany me to rochdale, a journey not to be anticipated with pleasure; though i feel very restless where i am, and shall probably ship off for greece again; what nonsense it is to talk of soul, when a cloud makes it _melancholy_ and wine makes it _mad_. collet of staines, your "most kind host," has lost that girl you saw of his. she grew to five feet eleven, and might have been god knows how high if it had pleased him to renew the race of anak; but she fell by a ptisick, a fresh proof of the folly of begetting children. you knew matthews. was he not an intellectual giant? i knew few better or more intimately, and none who deserved more admiration in point of ability. scrope davies has been here on his way to harrowgate; i am his guest in october at king's, where we will "drink deep ere we depart." "won't you, won't you, won't you, won't you come, mr. mug?" [ ] we did not amalgamate properly at harrow; it was somehow rainy, and then a wife makes such a damp; but in a seat of celibacy i will have revenge. don't you hate helping first, and losing the wings of chicken? and then, conversation is always flabby. oh! in the east women are in their proper sphere, and one has--no conversation at all. my house here is a delightful matrimonial mansion. when i wed, my spouse and i will be so happy!--one in each wing. i presume you are in motion from your herefordshire station, [ ] and drury must be gone back to gerund grinding. i have not been at cambridge since i took my m.a. degree in . _eheu fugaces!_ i look forward to meeting you and scrope there with the feelings of other times. capt. hobhouse is at enniscorthy in juverna. i wish he was in england. yours ever, b. [footnote : see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' i. [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : for henry drury, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : byron may possibly allude to "matthew mug," a character in foote's 'mayor of garratt', said to be intended for the duke of newcastle. in act ii. sc. of the comedy occurs this passage-- "'heel-tap'. now, neighbours, have a good caution that this master mug does not cajole you; he is a damn'd palavering fellow." but there is no passage in the play which exactly corresponds with byron's quotation.] [footnote : hodgson was staying with his uncle, the rev. richard coke, of lower moor, herefordshire.] * * * * * .--to r.c. dallas. newstead abbey, sept. , . dear sir,--i rather think in one of the opening stanzas of 'childe harold' there is this line: 'tis said at times the sullen tear would start. now, a line or two after, i have a repetition of the epithet "_sullen_ reverie;" so (if it be so) let us have "speechless reverie," or "silent reverie;" but, at all events, do away the recurrence. yours ever, b. * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. newstead abbey, september , . my dear hodgson,--i thank you for your song, or, rather, your two songs,--your new song on love, and your _old song_ on _religion_. [ ] i admire the _first_ sincerely, and in turn call upon you to _admire_ the following on anacreon moore's new operatic farce, [ ] or farcical opera--call it which you will: good plays are scarce, so moore writes _farce_; is fame like his so brittle? we knew before that "_little's" moore_, but now _'tis moore_ that's _little_. i won't dispute with you on the arcana of your new calling; they are bagatelles like the king of poland's rosary. one remark, and i have done; the basis of your religion is _injustice_; the _son_ of _god_, the _pure_, the _immaculate_, the _innocent_, is sacrificed for the _guilty_. this proves _his_ heroism; but no more does away _man's_ guilt than a schoolboy's volunteering to be flogged for another would exculpate the dunce from negligence, or preserve him from the rod. you degrade the creator, in the first place, by making him a begetter of children; and in the next you convert him into a tyrant over an immaculate and injured being, who is sent into existence to suffer death for the benefit of some millions of scoundrels, who, after all, seem as likely to be damned as ever. as to miracles, i agree with hume that it is more probable men should _lie_ or be _deceived_, than that things out of the course of nature should so happen. mahomet wrought miracles, brothers [ ] the prophet had _proselytes_, and so would breslaw [ ] the conjuror, had he lived in the time of tiberius. besides i trust that god is not a _jew_, but the god of all mankind; and as you allow that a virtuous gentile may be saved, you do away the necessity of being a jew or a christian. i do not believe in any revealed religion, because no religion is revealed: and if it pleases the church to damn me for not allowing a _nonentity_, i throw myself on the mercy of the "_great first cause, least understood_," who must do what is most proper; though i conceive he never made anything to be tortured in another life, whatever it may in this. i will neither read _pro_ nor _con_. god would have made his will known without books, considering how very few could read them when jesus of nazareth lived, had it been his pleasure to ratify any peculiar mode of worship. as to your immortality, if people are to live, why die? and our carcases, which are to rise again, are they worth raising? i hope, if mine is, that i shall have a better _pair of legs_ than i have moved on these two-and-twenty years, or i shall be sadly behind in the squeeze into paradise. did you ever read "malthus on population"? if he be right, war and pestilence are our best friends, to save us from being eaten alive, in this "best of all possible worlds." [ ] i will write, read, and think no more; indeed, i do not wish to shock your prejudices by saying all i do think. let us make the most of life, and leave dreams to emanuel swedenborg. now to dreams of another genus--poesies. i like your song much; but i will say no more, for fear you should think i wanted to scratch you into approbation of my past, present, or future acrostics. i shall not be at cambridge before the middle of october; but, when i go, i should certes like to see you there before you are dubbed a deacon. write to me, and i will rejoin. yours ever, byron. [footnote : the lines in which hodgson answered byron's letter on his religious opinions are quoted in the 'memoir of the rev. f. hodgson', vol. i. pp. , .] [footnote : moore's 'm.p., or the bluestocking', was played at the lyceum, september , , but was soon withdrawn.] [footnote : richard brothers ( - ) believed that, in , he was to be revealed as prince of the hebrews and ruler of the world. in that year he was arrested, and confined first as a criminal lunatic, afterwards in a private asylum, where he remained till . a portrait of "richard brothers, prince of the hebrews," was engraved, april, , by william sharp, with the following inscription: "fully believing this to be the man whom god has appointed, i engrave this likeness. william sharp."] [footnote : see 'breslaw's last legacy; or, the magical companion'. including the various exhibitions of those wonderful artists, breslaw, sieur comus, jonas, etc. ( ).] [footnote : 'candide, ou l'optimisms' (chapitre xxx.): "et pangloss disait quelquefois à candide; tous les événements sont enchainés dans le meilleur des mondes possibles," etc. hodgson replies (september , ): "your last letter has unfeignedly grieved me. believing, as i do from my heart, that you would be better and happier by thoroughly examining the evidences for christianity, how can i hear you say you will not read any book on the subject, without being pained? but god bless you under all circumstances. i will say no more. only do not talk of 'shocking my prejudices,' or of 'rushing to see me 'before' i am a deacon.' i wish to see you at all times; and as to our different opinions, we can easily keep them to ourselves." the next day he writes again: "let me make one other effort. you mentioned an opinion of hume's about miracles. for god's sake,--hear me, byron, for god's sake--examine paley's answer to that opinion; examine the whole of paley's 'evidences'. the two volumes may be read carefully in less than a week. let me for the last time by our friendship, implore you to read them."] * * * * * .--to john murray. [ ] newstead abbey, notts., sept. , . sir,--since your former letter, mr. dallas informs me that the ms. has been submitted to the perusal of mr. gifford, most contrary to my wishes, as mr. d. could have explained, and as my own letter to you did, in fact, explain, with my motives for objecting to such a proceeding. some late domestic events, of which you are probably aware, prevented my letter from being sent before; indeed, i hardly conceived you would have so hastily thrust my productions into the hands of a stranger, who could be as little pleased by receiving them, as their author is at their being offered, in such a manner, and to such a man. my address, when i leave newstead, will be to "rochdale, lancashire;" but i have not yet fixed the day of departure, and i will apprise you when ready to set off. you have placed me in a very ridiculous situation, but it is past, and nothing more is to be said on the subject. you hinted to me that you wished some alterations to be made; if they have nothing to do with politics or religion, i will make them with great readiness. i am, sir, etc., etc., byron. [footnote : as soon as byron came to town, he was a frequent visitor at , fleet street, while the sheets of 'childe harold' were passing through the press. "fresh from the fencing rooms of angelo and jackson, he used to amuse himself by renewing his practice of 'carte et tierce', with his walking-cane directed against the bookshelves, while murray was reading passages from the poem with occasional ejaculations of admiration, on which byron would say, 'you think that a good idea, do you, murray?' then he would fence and lunge with his walking-stick at some special book which he had picked out on the shelves before him. as murray afterwards said, 'i was often very glad to get rid of him!'" (smiles's 'memoir of john murray', vol. i. p. ).] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, sept. , . my dear sir,--my agent will not he here for at least a week, and even afterwards my letters will be forwarded to rochdale. i am sorry that murray should _groan_ on my account, tho' _that_ is better than the anticipation of applause, of which men and books are generally disappointed. the notes i sent are _merely matter_ to be divided, arranged, and published for _notes_ hereafter, in proper places; at present i am too much occupied with earthly cares to waste time or trouble upon rhyme, or its modern indispensables, annotations. pray let me hear from you, when at leisure. i have written to abuse murray for showing the ms. to mr. g., who must certainly think it was done by my wish, though you know the contrary.--believe me, yours ever, b-- * * * * * .--to john murray. newstead abbey, sept. , . dear sir,--i return the proof, which i should wish to be shown to mr. dallas, who understands typographical arrangements much better than i can pretend to do. the printer may place the notes in his _own way_, or any _way_, so that they are out of _my way_; i care nothing about types or margins. if you have any communication to make, i shall be here at least a week or ten days longer. i am, sir, etc., etc., byron. * * * * * --to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, sept. , . dear sir,--i send you a 'motto': "l'univers est une espèce de livre, dont on n'a lu que la première page quand on n'a vu que son pays. j'en ai feuilleté un assez grand nombre, que j'ai trouvé également mauvaises. cet examen ne m'a point été infructueux. je haïssais ma patrie. toutes les impertinences des peuples divers, parmi lesquels j'ai vécu, m'ont réconcilié avec elle. quand je n'aurais tiré d'autre bénéfice de mes voyages que celui-là, je n'en regretterais ni les frais, ni les fatigues." "le cosmopolite." [ ] if not too long, i think it will suit the book. the passage is from a little french volume, a great favourite with me, which i picked up in the archipelago. i don't think it is well known in england; monbron is the author; but it is a work sixty years old. good morning! i won't take up your time. yours ever, byron. [footnote : fougeret de monbron, born at péronne, served in the 'gardes du corps', but abandoned the sword for the pen, and published 'henriade travestie' ( ); 'préservatif centre l'anglomanie' ( ); and 'le cosmopolite' ( ). his novels, 'margot la ravaudeuse, thérlsé philosophe', and others, appeared under the name of fougeret. he died in . in that year was published in london an edition of 'le cosmopolite, ou le citoyen du monde', par mr. de monbron, with the motto, "patria est ubicunque est bene" (cic. , tusc. ). byron's quotation is the opening paragraph of the book. the author, who had travelled in england, returns to france a complete "jacques rôt-de-bif." he then visits holland, the low countries, constantinople, italy, spain, portugal, and england a second time. he finds that the charm has vanished, and that the english are no better than their neighbours. it is a cynical little book, abounding in such sayings as. "make acquaintances, not friends; intimacy breeds disgust;" "the best fruit of travelling is the justification of instinctive dislikes." monbron, like byron, ridicules the traveller's passion for collecting broken statues and antiques.] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, sept. , . i can easily excuse your not writing, as you have, i hope, something better to do, and you must pardon my frequent invasions on your attention, because i have at this moment nothing to interpose between you and my epistles. i cannot settle to any thing, and my days pass, with the exception of bodily exercise to some extent, with uniform indolence, and idle insipidity. i have been expecting, and still expect, my agent, when i shall have enough to occupy my reflections in business of no very pleasant aspect. before my journey to rochdale, you shall have due notice where to address me--i believe at the post-office of that township. from murray i received a second proof of the same pages, which i requested him to show you, that any thing which may have escaped my observation may be detected before the printer lays the corner-stone of an _errata_ column. i am now not quite alone, having an old acquaintance and school-fellow [ ] with me, so _old_, indeed, that we have nothing _new_ to say on any subject, and yawn at each other in a sort of _quiet inquietude_. i hear nothing from cawthorn, or captain hobhouse; and _their quarto_--lord have mercy on mankind! we come on like cerberus with our triple publications. [ ] as for _myself_, by _myself_, i must be satisfied with a comparison to _janus_. i am not at all pleased with murray for showing the ms.; and i am certain gifford must see it in the same light that i do. his praise is nothing to the purpose: what could he say? he could not spit in the face of one who had praised him in every possible way. i must own that i wish to have the impression removed from his mind, that i had any concern in such a paltry transaction. the more i think, the more it disquiets me; so i will say no more about it. it is bad enough to be a scribbler, without having recourse to such shifts to extort praise, or deprecate censure. it is anticipating, it is begging, kneeling, adulating,--the devil! the devil! the devil! and all without my wish, and contrary to my express desire. i wish murray had been tied to _payne's_ neck when he jumped into the paddington canal, [ ] and so tell him,--_that_ is the proper receptacle for publishers. you have thought of settling in the country, why not try notts.? i think there are places which would suit you in all points, and then you are nearer the metropolis. but of this anon. i am, yours, etc., byron. [footnote : john claridge. (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' .) [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : i. e. 'childe harold', 'hints from horace', and 'travels in albania.'] [footnote : mr. payne, of the firm of payne and mackinlay, the publishers of hodgson's 'juvenal', committed suicide by drowning himself in the paddington canal. byron, in a note to 'hints from horace', line , thus applies the incident: "a literary friend of mine, walking out one lovely evening last summer, on the eleventh bridge of the paddington canal, was alarmed by the cry of 'one in jeopardy:' he rushed along, collected a body of irish haymakers (supping on buttermilk in an adjacent paddock), procured three rakes, one eel spear and a landing-net, and at last ('horresco referens') pulled out--his own publisher. the unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which proved, on inquiry, to have been mr. southey's last work. its 'alacrity of sinking' was so great, that it has never since been heard of; though some maintain that it is at this moment concealed at alderman birch's pastry-premises, cornhill. be this as it may, the coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of ''felo de bibliopolâ'' against a quarto unknown,' and circumstantial evidence being since strong against the 'curse of kehama' (of which the above words are an exact description), it will be tried by its peers next session, in grub street--arthur, alfred, davideis, richard coeur de lion, exodus, exodiad, epigoniad, calvary, fall of cambria, siege of acre, don roderick, and tom thumb the great, are the names of the twelve jurors. the judges are pye, bowles, and the bell-man of st. sepulchre's." * * * * * .--to r.c. dallas. newstead abbey, sept. , . dear sir,--i have just discovered some pages of observations on the modern greeks, written at athens by me, under the title of 'noctes atticæ'. they will do to _cut up_ into notes, and to be _cut up_ afterwards, which is all that notes are generally good for. they were written at athens, as you will see by the date. yours ever, b. * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, sept, , . i have shown my respect for your suggestions by adopting them; but i have made many alterations in the first proof, over and above; as, for example: oh thou, in _hellas_ deem'd of heavenly birth, etc., etc. since _shamed full oft_ by _later lyres_ on earth, mine, etc. yet there _i've wandered_ by the vaunted rill; and so on. so i have got rid of dr. lowth and "drunk" to boot, and very glad i am to say so. i have also sullenised the line as heretofore, and in short have been quite conformable. pray write; you shall hear when i remove to lancashire. i have brought you and my friend juvenal hodgson upon my back, on the score of revelation. you are fervent, but he is quite _glowing_; and if he take half the pains to save his own soul, which he volunteers to redeem mine, great will be his reward hereafter. i honour and thank you both, but am convinced by neither. now for notes. besides those i have sent, i shall send the observations on the edinburgh reviewer's remarks on the modern greek, an albanian song in the albanian (_not greek_) language, specimens of modern greek from their new testament, a comedy of goldoni's translated, _one scene_, a prospectus of a friend's book, and perhaps a song or two, _all_ in romaic, besides their pater noster; so there will be enough, if not too much, with what i have already sent. have you received the "noctes atticæ"? i sent also an annotation on portugal. hobhouse is also forthcoming. [ ] [footnote : that is, with his 'travels in albania', in part of which byron and his greek servant, demetrius, were assisting him with notes and other material.] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, sept. , . _lisboa_ [ ] is the portuguese word, consequently the very best. ulissipont is pedantic; and as i have _hellas_ and _eros_ not long before, there would be something like an affectation of greek terms, which i wish to avoid, since i shall have a perilous quantity of _modern_ greek in my notes, as specimens of the tongue; therefore lisboa may keep its place. you are right about the _hints_; they must not precede the _romaunt_; but cawthorn will be savage if they don't; however, keep _them_ back, and _him_ in _good humour_, if we can, but do not let him publish. i have adopted, i believe, most of your suggestions, but "lisboa" will be an exception to prove the rule. i have sent a quantity of notes, and shall continue; but pray let them be copied; no devil can read my hand. by the by, i do not mean to exchange the ninth verse of the "good night." [ ] i have no reason to suppose my dog better than his brother brutes, mankind; and _argus_ we know to be a fable. the _cosmopolite_ was an acquisition abroad. i do not believe it is to be found in england. it is an amusing little volume, and full of french flippancy. i read, though i do not speak the language. i _will_ be angry with murray. it was a bookselling, back-shop, paternoster-row, paltry proceeding; and if the experiment had turned out as it deserved, i would have raised all fleet street, and borrowed the giant's staff from st. dunstan's church, [ ] to immolate the betrayer of trust. i have written to him as he never was written to before by an author, i'll be sworn, and i hope you will amplify my wrath, till it has an effect upon him. you tell me always you have much to write about. write it, but let us drop metaphysics;--on that point we shall never agree. i am dull and drowsy, as usual. i do nothing, and even that nothing fatigues me. adieu. [footnote : see 'childe harold', canto i. stanza xvi., and byron's 'note'.] [footnote : see 'childe harold', canto i. the "good night" is placed between stanzas xiii. and xiv. "and now i'm in the world alone, upon the wide, wide sea; but why should i for others groan, when none will sigh for me? perchance my dog will whine in vain, till fed by stranger hands; but long ere i come back again he'd tear me where he stands."] [footnote : st. dunstan's in the west, before its rebuilding by shaw ( - ), was one of the oldest churches in london. the clock, which projected over the street, and had two wooden figures of wild men who struck the hours with their clubs, was set up in . unless there was a similar clock before this date, as is not improbable, scott is wrong in 'the fortunes of nigel', where he makes moniplies stand "astonished as old adam and eve ply their ding-dong." the figures, the removal of which, it is said, brought tears to the eyes of charles lamb, were bought by the marquis of hertford to adorn his villa in regent's park, still called st. dunstan's. murray's shop at , fleet street, stood opposite the church, the yard of which was surrounded with stationers' shops, where many famous books of the seventeenth century were published.] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. newstead abbey, sept. , . my dear hodgson,--i fear that before the latest of october or the first of november, i shall hardly be able to make cambridge. my everlasting agent puts off his coming like the accomplishment of a prophecy. however, finding me growing serious he hath promised to be here on thursday, and about monday we shall remove to rochdale. i have only to give discharges to the tenantry here (it seems the poor creatures must be raised, though i wish it was not necessary), and arrange the receipt of sums, and the liquidation of some debts, and i shall be ready to enter upon new subjects of vexation. i intend to visit you in granta, and hope to prevail on you to accompany me here or there or anywhere. i am plucking up my spirits, and have begun to gather my little sensual comforts together. lucy is extracted from warwickshire; some very bad faces have been warned off the premises, and more promising substituted in their stead; the partridges are plentiful, hares fairish, pheasants not quite so good, and the girls on the manor * * * * just as i had formed a tolerable establishment my travels commenced, and on my return i find all to do over again; my former flock were all scattered; some married, not before it was needful. as i am a great disciplinarian, i have just issued an edict for the abolition of caps; no hair to be cut on any pretext; stays permitted, but not too low before; full uniform always in the evening; lucinda to be commander--'vice' the present, about to be wedded ('mem'. she is with a flat face and a squeaking voice), of all the makers and unmakers of beds in the household. my tortoises (all athenians), my hedgehog, my mastiff and the other live greek, are all purely. the tortoises lay eggs, and i have hired a hen to hatch them. i am writing notes for 'my' quarto (murray would have it a 'quarto'), and hobhouse is writing text for 'his' quarto; if you call on murray or cawthorn you will hear news of either. i have attacked de pauw, [ ] thornton, [ ] lord elgin, [ ] spain, portugal, the 'edinburgh review', [ ] travellers, painters, antiquarians, and others, so you see what a dish of sour crout controversy i shall prepare for myself. it would not answer for me to give way, now; as i was forced into bitterness at the beginning, i will go through to the last. 'væ victis'! if i fall, i shall fall gloriously, fighting against a host. 'felicissima notte a voss. signoria,' b. [footnote : 'childe harold', canto ii. note d, part ii.] [footnote : 'ibid'., note a.] [footnote : 'ibid'., note d, part iii.] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, sept. , . my dear sir,-in a stanza towards the end of canto st, there is in the concluding line, some bitter bubbles up, and e'en on roses stings. i have altered it as follows: full from the heart of joy's delicious springs some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. if you will point out the stanzas on cintra [ ] which you wish recast, i will send you mine answer. be good enough to address your letters here, and they will either be forwarded or saved till my return. my agent comes tomorrow, and we shall set out immediately. the press must not proceed of course without my seeing the proofs, as i have much to do. pray, do you think any alterations should be made in the stanzas on vathek? [ ] i should be sorry to make any improper allusion, as i merely wish to adduce an example of wasted wealth, and the reflection which arose in surveying the most desolate mansion in the most beautiful spot i ever beheld. pray keep cawthorn back; he was not to begin till november, and even that will be two months too soon. i am so sorry my hand is unintelligible; but i can neither deny your accusation, nor remove the cause of it.--it is a sad scrawl, certes.--a perilous quantity of annotation hath been sent; i think almost _enough_, with the specimens of romaic i mean to annex. i will have nothing to say to your metaphysics, and allegories of rocks and beaches; we shall all go to the bottom together, so "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow, etc." i am as comfortable in my creed as others, inasmuch as it is better to sleep than to be awake. i have heard nothing of murray; i hope he is ashamed of himself. he sent me a vastly complimentary epistle, with a request to alter the two, and finish another canto. i sent him as civil an answer as if i had been engaged to translate by the sheet, declining altering anything in sentiment, but offered to tag rhymes, and mend them as long as he liked. i will write from rochdale when i arrive, if my affairs allow me; but i shall be so busy and savage all the time with the whole set, that my letters will, perhaps, be as pettish as myself. if so, lay the blame on coal and coal-heavers. very probably i may proceed to town by way of newstead on my return from lancs. i mean to be at cambridge in november, so that, at all events, we shall be nearer. i will not apologise for the trouble i have given and do give you, though i ought to do so; but i have worn out my politest periods, and can only say that i am much obliged to you. believe me, yours always, byron. [footnote : 'childe harold', canto i. stanza xviii.] [footnote : 'i.e.' on bedford (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]; and 'childe harold', canto i, stanza xxii.).] * * * * * .-to james wedderburn webster. newstead abbey, oct. th, . dear webster,--i can hardly invite a gentleman to my house a second time who walked out of it the first in so singular a mood, but if you had thought proper to pay me a visit, you would have had a "highland welcome." i am only just returned to it out of lancashire, where i have been on business to a coal manor of mine near rochdale, and shall leave it very shortly for cambridge and london. my companions, or rather companion, (for claridge alone has been with me) have not been very amusing, and, as to their "_sincerity_," they are doubtless sincere enough for a man who will never put them to the trial. besides you talked so much of your conjugal happiness, that an invitation from home would have seemed like sacrilege, and my rough bachelor's hall would have appeared to little advantage after the "bower of armida" [ ] where you have been reposing. i cannot boast of my social powers at any time, and just at present they are more stagnant than ever. your brother-in-law [ ] means to stand for wexford, but i have reasons for thinking the portsmouth interest will be against him; however i wish him success. do _you_ mean to stand for any place next election? what are your politics? i hope valentia's lord is for the catholics. you will find hobhouse at enniscorthy in the contested county. pray what has seized you? your last letter is the only one in which you do not rave upon matrimony. are there no symptoms of a young w.w.? and shall i never be a godfather? i believe i must be married myself soon, but it shall be a secret and a surprise. however, knowing your exceeding discretion i shall probably entrust the secret to your silence at a proper period. you have, it is true, invited me repeatedly to dean's court [ ] and now, when it is probable i might adventure there, you wish to be off. be it so. if you address your letters to this place they will be forwarded wherever i sojourn. i am about to meet some friends at cambridge and on to town in november. the papers are full of dalrymple's bigamy [ ] (i know the man). what the devil will he do with his _spare-rib_? he is no beauty, but as lame as myself. he has more ladies than legs, what comfort to a cripple! _sto sempre umilissimo servitore_. byron. [footnote : armida is the sorceress, the niece of prince idreotes, in tasso's 'jerusalem delivered', in whose palace rinaldo forgets his vow as a crusader. byron, in 'don juan' (canto i. stanza lxxi.), says: "but ne'er magician's wand wrought change, with all armida's fairy art, like what this light touch left on juan's heart." in the catalogue of byron's books, sold april , , appear four editions of tasso's 'gerusalemme liberata', being those of , , , and one undated.] [footnote : for george annesley, lord valentia, afterwards earl of mountnorris ( - ), see 'poems', ed. , vol. i. p. , and 'note '.] [footnote : near wimborne, dorset.] [footnote : the suit of 'dalrymple' v. 'dalrymple' was tried before sir william scott, in the consistory court, doctors' commons, july , . the suit was brought by mrs. dalrymple ('née' joanna gordon) against captain john william henry dalrymple. by scottish law he was held to have been married to miss gordon, and his subsequent marriage with miss manners, sister of the duchess of st. albans, was held to be illegal.] * * * * * .--to r.c. dallas. newstead abbey, october th, . dear sir,--stanzas , , , [ ] though _crossed_ must _stand_, with their _alterations_. the other three [ ] are cut out to meet your wishes. we must, however, have a repetition of the proof, which is the first. i will write soon. yours ever, b. p.s.--yesterday i returned from lancs. [footnote : the stanzas are xxiv., xxv., xxvi. of canto i.] [footnote : the following are the three deleted stanzas: xxv. "in golden characters, right well designed, first on the list appeareth one 'junot;' then certain other glorious names we find; (which rhyme compelleth me to place below--) dull victors! baffled by a vanquished foe, wheedled by conynge tongues of laurels due, stand, worthy of each other, in a row sirs arthur, harry, and the dizzard hew dalrymple, seely wight, sore dupe of 'tother tew." xxvii. "but when convention sent his handy work, pens, tongues, feet, hands, combined in wild uproar; mayor, alderman, laid down th' uplifted fork; the bench of bishops half forgot to snore; stern cobbett, who for one whole week forbore to question aught, once more with transport leapt, and bit his dev'lish quill agen, and swore with foe such treaty never should be kept. then burst the blatant beast, and roared and raged and--slept!!!" xxviii. "thus unto heaven appealed the people; heaven, which loves the lieges of our gracious king, decreed that ere our generals were forgiven, inquiry should be held about the thing. but mercy cloaked the babes beneath her wing; and as they spared our foes so spared we them. (where was the pity of our sires for byng?) yet knaves, not idiots, should the law condemn. then live ye, triumph gallants! and bless your judges' phlegm."] * * * * * .--to r.c. dallas. newstead abbey, oct. , . i have returned from lancashire, and ascertained that my property there may be made very valuable, but various circumstances very much circumscribe my exertions at present. i shall be in town on business in the beginning of november, and perhaps at cambridge before the end of this month; but of my movements you shall be regularly apprised. your objections i have in part done away by alterations, which i hope will suffice; and i have sent two or three additional stanzas for both _"fyttes."_ i have been again shocked with a _death_, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times [ ]; but "i have almost forgot the taste of grief," and "supped full of horrors" [ ] till i have become callous, nor have i a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed down my head to the earth. it seems as though i were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age. my friends fall around me, and i shall be left a lonely tree before i am withered. other men can always take refuge in their families; i have no resource but my own reflections, and they present no prospect here or hereafter, except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my betters. i am indeed very wretched, and you will excuse my saying so, as you know i am not apt to cant of sensibility. instead of tiring yourself with _my_ concerns, i should be glad to hear _your_ plans of retirement. i suppose you would not like to be wholly shut out of society? now i know a large village, or small town, about twelve miles off, where your family would have the advantage of very genteel society, without the hazard of being annoyed by mercantile affluence; where _you_ would meet with men of information and independence; and where i have friends to whom i should be proud to introduce you. there are, besides, a coffee-room, assemblies, etc., etc., which bring people together. my mother had a house there some years, and i am well acquainted with the economy of southwell, the name of this little commonwealth. lastly, you will not be very remote from me; and though i am the very worst companion for young people in the world, this objection would not apply to _you_, whom i could see frequently. your expenses, too, would be such as best suit your inclinations, more or less, as you thought proper; but very little would be requisite to enable you to enter into all the gaieties of a country life. you could be as quiet or bustling as you liked, and certainly as well situated as on the lakes of cumberland, unless you have a particular wish to be _picturesque_. pray, is your ionian friend in town? you have promised me an introduction. you mention having consulted some friend on the mss. is not this contrary to our usual way? instruct mr. murray not to allow his shopman to call the work _child of harrow's pilgrimage_!!!!! [ ] as he has done to some of my astonished friends, who wrote to inquire after my _sanity_ on the occasion, as well they might. i have heard nothing of murray, whom i scolded heartily. must i write more notes? are there not enough? cawthorn must be kept back with the _hints_. i hope he is getting on with hobhouse's quarto. good evening. yours ever, etc. [footnote : the reference is to edleston (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , note [footnote of letter ]), of whose death miss edleston had recently sent byron an account.] [footnote : "i have almost forgot the taste of fears: ... i have supp'd full with horrors." 'macbeth', act v. sc. .] [footnote : francis hodgson, writing to byron, october , , says, "murray's shopman, taught, i presume, by himself, calls 'psyche' 'pishy,' 'the four slaves of cythera' 'the four do. of cythera,' and 'childe harold's pilgrimage' 'child of harrow's pilgrimage.' this misnomering vendor of books must have been misbegotten in some portentous union of the malaprops and the slipslops."] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. newstead abbey, oct. , . you will begin to deem me a most liberal correspondent; but as my letters are free, you will overlook their frequency. i have sent you answers in prose and verse to all your late communications; and though i am invading your ease again, i don't know why, or what to put down that you are not acquainted with already. i am growing _nervous_ (how you will laugh!)--but it is true,--really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically _nervous_. your climate kills me; i can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. my days are listless, and my nights restless; i have very seldom any society, and when i have, i run out of it. at "this present writing," there are in the next room three _ladies_, and i have stolen away to write this grumbling letter.--i don't know that i sha'n't end with insanity, for i find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely; but this looks more like silliness than madness, as scrope davies would facetiously remark in his consoling manner. i must try the hartshorn of your company; and a session of parliament would suit me well,--any thing to cure me of conjugating the accursed verb "_ennuyer_." when shall you be at cambridge? you have hinted, i think, that your friend bland [ ] is returned from holland. i have always had a great respect for his talents, and for all that i have heard of his character; but of me, i believe he knows nothing, except that he heard my sixth form repetitions ten months together at the average of two lines a morning, and those never perfect. i remembered him and his _slaves_ as i passed between capes matapan, st. angelo, and his isle of ceriga, and i always bewailed the absence of the _anthology_. i suppose he will now translate vondel, the dutch shakspeare, and _gysbert van amsteli_ [ ] will easily be accommodated to our stage in its present state; and i presume he saw the dutch poem, where the love of pyramus and thisbe is compared to the passion of christ; also the love of lucifer for eve, and other varieties of low country literature. no doubt you will think me crazed to talk of such things, but they are all in black and white and good repute on the banks of every canal from amsterdam to alkmaar. yours ever, b. my poesy is in the hands of its various publishers; but the _hints from horace_ (to which i have subjoined some savage lines on methodism, [ ] and ferocious notes on the vanity of the triple editory of the _edin. annual register_ [ ]), my _hints_, i say, stand still, and why?--i have not a friend in the world (but you and drury) who can construe horace's latin or my english well enough to adjust them for the press, or to correct the proofs in a grammatical way. so that, unless you have bowels when you return to town (i am too far off to do it for myself), this ineffable work will be lost to the world for--i don't know how many _weeks_. _childe harold's pilgrimage_ must wait till _murray's_ is finished. he is making a tour in middlesex, and is to return soon, when high matter may be expected. he wants to have it in quarto, which is a cursed unsaleable size; but it is pestilent long, and one must obey one's bookseller. i trust murray will pass the paddington canal without being seduced by payne and mackinlay's example,--i say payne and mackinlay, supposing that the partnership held good. drury, the villain, has not written to me; "i am never (as mrs. lumpkin [ ] says to tony) to be gratified with the monster's dear wild notes." so you are going (going indeed!) into orders. you must make your peace with the eclectic reviewers--they accuse you of impiety, i fear, with injustice. demetrius, the "sieger of cities," is here, with "gilpin horner." [ ] the painter [ ] is not necessary, as the portraits he already painted are (by anticipation) very like the new animals.--write, and send me your "love song"--but i want _paulo majora_ from you. make a dash before you are a deacon, and try a _dry_ publisher. yours always, b. [footnote : for robert bland, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]. in his 'four slaves of cythera' ( ), canto i., occur the following lines: "now full in sight the paphian gardens smile, and thence by many a green and summer isle, whose ancient walls and temples seem to sleep, enshadowed on the mirror of the deep, they coast along cythera's happy ground, gem of the sea, for love's delight renown'd."] [footnote : bland had been acting as english chaplain in holland. joost van vondel ( - ), born at cologne of anabaptist parents, became a roman catholic in . most of his thirty-two tragedies are on classical or religious subjects, and in the latter may be traced his gradual change of faith. 'gysbrecht van amstel'( ) is a play, the action of which takes place on christmas day in the thirteenth century. the scene is laid at amsterdam, which is captured by a ruse like that of the greeks at troy. the play appealed strongly to the patriotic instincts of the dutch by its prophecy of the future greatness of amsterdam. vondel's 'lucifer' ( ) has been often compared to 'paradise lost'. it also bears some affinities to 'cain'. in it the archangel lucifer rebels against god on learning the divine intention to take on himself the nature, not of angels, but of man.] [footnote : 'hints from horace', lines - .] [footnote : 'the edinburgh annual register' ( - ) was published by john ballantyne and co. the prospectus promised a general history of europe; a collection of state papers; a chronicle of events; original essays on morality, literature, and science; and articles on biography, the useful arts, and meteorology. the editor was scott, and southey was responsible for the historical department. the first two parts, giving the history of , did not appear till july, , and then with an editorial apology for the omission of the articles on biography, the useful arts, and meteorology; also with an explanation that the idea of original essays on morality, literature, and science had been abandoned. the venture, thus unfortunately launched, never succeeded. for byron's attack, see 'hints from horace', line , and his 'note'.] [footnote : this is an obvious slip for "mrs. hardcastle," who, in 'she stoops to conquer' (act ii.), says, "i'm never to be delighted with your agreeable wild notes, unfeeling monster!"] [footnote : probably demetrius, his greek servant, whom he nicknames after demetrius poliorcetes, and claridge, who had bored byron during a long stay of three weeks.] [footnote : barber, whom he had brought down to newstead to paint his wolf and his bear.] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. oct. , . dear sir,--stanza th, for canto nd, somewhat altered, to avoid recurrence in a former stanza. stanza . there, thou! whose love and life together fled, have left me here to love and live in vain:-- twined with my heart, and can i deem thee dead, when busy memory flashes o'er my brain? well--i will dream that we may meet again, and woo the vision to my vacant breast; if aught of young remembrance then remain, be as it may whate'er beside futurity's behest; or,-- howe'er may be for me 'twere bliss enough to see thy spirit blest! i think it proper to state to you, that this stanza alludes to an event which has taken place since my arrival here, and not to the death of any _male_ friend. yours, b. * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, oct. , . i am on the wing for cambridge. thence, after a short stay, to london. will you be good enough to keep an account of all the mss. you receive, for fear of omission? have you adopted the three altered stanzas of the latest proof? i can do nothing more with them. i am glad you like the new ones. of the last, and of the _two_, i sent for a new edition, to-day a _fresh note_. the lines of the second sheet i fear must stand; i will give you reasons when we meet. believe me, yours ever, byron. * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. cambridge, oct. , . dear sir,--i send you a conclusion to the _whole_. in a stanza towards the end of canto i. in the line, oh, known the earliest and _beloved_ the most, i shall alter the epithet to "_esteemed_ the most." the present stanzas are for the end of canto ii. for the beginning of the week i shall be at no. , my old lodgings, in st. james' street, where i hope to have the pleasure of seeing you. yours ever, b. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. [ ] cambridge, october , . sir,--your letter followed me from notts, to this place, which will account for the delay of my reply. your former letter i never had the honour to receive;--be assured in whatever part of the world it had found me, i should have deemed it my duty to return and answer it in person. the advertisement you mention, i know nothing of.--at the time of your meeting with mr. jeffrey, i had recently entered college, and remember to have heard and read a number of squibs on the occasion; and from the recollection of these i derived all my knowledge on the subject, without the slightest idea of "giving the lie" to an address which i never beheld. when i put my name to the production, which has occasioned this correspondence, i became responsible to all whom it might concern,--to explain where it requires explanation, and, where insufficiently or too sufficiently explicit, at all events to satisfy. my situation leaves me no choice; it rests with the injured and the angry to obtain reparation in their own way. with regard to the passage in question, _you_ were certainly _not_ the person towards whom i felt personally hostile. on the contrary, my whole thoughts were engrossed by one, whom i had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could i foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion. you do not specify what you would wish to have done: i can neither retract nor apologise for a charge of falsehood which i never advanced. in the beginning of the week, i shall be at no. , st. james's street.--neither the letter nor the friend to whom you stated your intention ever made their appearance. your friend, mr. rogers, [ ] or any other gentleman delegated by you, will find me most ready to adopt any conciliatory proposition which shall not compromise my own honour,--or, failing in that, to make the atonement you deem it necessary to require. i have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient, humble servant, byron. [footnote : thomas moore ( - ), by his literary and social gifts, had made his name several years before , when he first became personally acquainted with byron. his precocity was as remarkable as his versatility. the son of a dublin grocer, for whom his political interest secured the post of barrack-master, he went, like sheridan, to samuel whyte's school, and was afterwards at trinity college, dublin. before he was fifteen he had written verses, including lines to whyte, himself a poet, the publication of which, in the 'anthologia hibernica' (october, ; february, march, and june, ), gained him a local reputation. coming to london in , he read law at the middle temple. his 'odes' translated from anacreon ( ), dedicated to the prince of wales, opened to him the houses of the whig aristocracy; and his powers as a singer, an actor, a talker, and, later, as a satirist, made him a favourite in society. in appeared his 'poems: by the late thomas little', amatory verses which byron read, and imitated in some of the silliest of his youthful lines. the review of moore's 'odes, epistles, and other poems' ( ), which appeared in the 'edinburgh review' for july, , provoked moore to challenge jeffrey. their duel with "leadless pistols" led, not only to moore's friendship with jeffrey, but, indirectly, as is seen from the following letters, to moore's acquaintance with byron. moore himself contributed to the 'edinburgh', between the years and , essays on multifarious subjects, from poetry to german rationalism, from the fathers to french official life. in the first of the 'irish melodies' was published; they continued to appear at irregular intervals till , when had been printed. a master of the art of versification, moore sings, with graceful fancy, in a tone of mingled mirth and melancholy, his love of his country, of the wine of other countries, and the women of all countries. but, except in his patriotism, he shows little depth of feeling. the 'melodies' are the work of a brilliantly clever man, endowed with an exquisite musical ear, and a temperament that is rather susceptible than intense. with them may be classed his 'national airs' ( ) and 'sacred song' ( ). moore had already found one field in which he excelled; it was not long before he discovered another. his serious satires, 'corruption' ( ), 'intolerance' ( ), and 'the sceptic' ( ), failed. his nature was neither deep enough nor strong enough for success in such themes. in the ephemeral strife of party politics he found his real province. nothing can be better of their kind than the metrical lampoons collected in 'intercepted letters, or the twopenny post-bag, by thomas brown the younger' ( ). in his hands the bow and arrows of cupid become formidable weapons of party warfare; nor do their ornaments impede the movements of the archer. the shaft is gaily winged and brightly polished; the barb sharp and dipped in venom; and the missile hums music as it flies to its mark. moore's satire is the satire of the clubs at its best; but it is scarcely the satire of literature. 'the twopenny post-bag' was the parent of many similar productions, beginning with 'the fudge family in paris' ( ), and ending with 'fables for the holy alliance' ( ), which he dedicated to byron. as a serious poet, and the author of 'lalla rookh' ( ), 'the loves of the angels' ( ), and 'alciphron' ( ), moore was perhaps overrated by his contemporaries. in spite of their brightness of fancy, metrical skill, and brilliant cleverness, they lack the greater elements of the highest poetry. moore's prose work begins, apart from his contributions to periodical literature, with the 'memoirs of captain rock' ( ), 'the epicurean' ( ), 'the travels of an irish gentleman in search of a religion' ( ), 'the history of ireland' ( ); and a succession of biographies--the life of 'sheridan' ( ), of 'byron' ( ), and 'lord edward fitzgerald' ( )--complete the list. in the midst of his biographical work, moore was advised by lord lansdowne to write nine lives at once, and print them together under the title of 'the cat'. in moore married miss elizabeth dyke (born ), an actress who fascinated him at the kilkenny private theatricals in . to the outer world, mrs. moore's bird, as she called him, was a sprightly little songster, who lived in a whirl of dinners, suppers, concerts, and theatricals. these, as well as his private anxieties and misfortunes, are recorded in the eight volumes of his 'memoirs, journals, and correspondence', which were edited by lord john russell, in . moore was an excellent son, a good husband, an affectionate father, and to byron a loyal friend, neither envious nor subservient. clare, hobhouse, and moore were (lady blessington's 'conversations', nd edition, , pp. , ) the only persons whose friendship byron never disclaimed. he spoke of moore ('ibid'., pp. , ) as "a delightful companion, gay without being boisterous, witty without effort, comic without coarseness, and sentimental without being lachrymose. he reminds one of the fairy who, whenever she spoke, let diamonds fall from her lips. my 'tête-à-tête' suppers with moore are among the most agreeable impressions i retain of the hours passed in london." in july, , in consequence of the article in the 'edinburgh review' on his recent volume of 'poems', moore sent, through his friend hume, a challenge to jeffrey, who was seconded by francis horner, and a meeting was arranged. moore, who had only once in his life discharged a firearm of any kind, and then nearly blew his thumb off, borrowed a case of pistols from william spencer, and bought in bond street enough powder and bullets for a score of duels. the parties met at chalk farm; the seconds loaded the pistols, placed the men at their posts, and were about to give the signal to fire, when the police officers, rushing upon them from behind a hedge, knocked jeffrey's weapon from his hand, disarmed moore, and conveyed the whole party to bow street. they were released on bail; but, on moore returning to claim the borrowed pistols, the officer refused to give them up, because only moore's pistol was loaded with ball. horner, however, gave evidence that he had seen both pistols loaded; and there, but for the reports circulated in the newspapers, the affair would have ended. but the joke was too good to be allowed to drop, and, in spite of moore's published letter, he was for months a target for the wits ('memoirs, journals, and correspondence', vol. i. pp. - ). in 'english bards, etc.', lines , , and his 'note', byron made merry over "little's leadless pistol," with the result that, when the second edition o£ the satire was published, with his name attached, moore sent him the following letter:-- "dublin, january , . "my lord,--having just seen the name of 'lord byron' prefixed to a work entitled 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', in which, as it appears to me, 'the lie is given' to a public statement of mine, respecting an affair with mr. jeffrey some years since, i beg you will have the goodness to inform me whether i may consider your lordship as the author of this publication. "i shall not, i fear, be able to return to london for a week or two; but, in the mean time, i trust your lordship will not deny me the satisfaction of knowing whether you avow the insult contained in the passages alluded to. "it is needless to suggest to your lordship the propriety of keeping our correspondence secret. "i have the honour to be, "your lordship's very humble servant, "thomas moore. " , molesworth street." owing to byron's absence abroad, the letter never reached him; it was, in fact, kept back by hodgson. on his return to england, moore, who in the interval had married, sent him a second letter, restating the nature of the insult he had received in 'english bards'. "'it is now useless,' i continued ('life', p. ), 'to speak of the steps with which it was my intention to follow up that letter. the time which has elapsed since then, though it has done away neither the injury nor the feeling of it, has, in many respects, materially altered my situation; and the only object which i have now in writing to your lordship is to preserve some consistency with that former letter, and to prove to you that the injured feeling still exists, however circumstances may compel me to be deaf to its dictates, at present. when i say "injured feeling," let me assure your lordship that there is not a single vindictive sentiment in my mind towards you. i mean but to express that uneasiness, under (what i consider to be) a charge of falsehood, which must haunt a man of any feeling to his grave, unless the insult be retracted or atoned for; and which, if i did 'not' feel, i should, indeed, deserve far worse than your lordship's satire could inflict upon me.' in conclusion i added, that so far from being influenced by any angry or resentful feeling towards him, it would give me sincere pleasure if, by any satisfactory explanation, he would enable me to seek the honour of being henceforward ranked among his acquaintance." byron's letter of october , . was written in reply to this second letter from moore.] [footnote : for samuel rogers, see p. , note .] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. , st. james's street, th october, . dear sir,--i arrived in town last night, and shall be very glad to see you when convenient. yours very truly, byron. .--to thomas moore. [ ] , st. james's street, october , . sir,--soon after my return to england, my friend, mr. hodgson, apprised me that a letter for me was in his possession; but a domestic event hurrying me from london immediately after, the letter (which may most probably be your own) is still _unopened in his keeping_. if, on examination of the address, the similarity of the handwriting should lead to such a conclusion, it shall be opened in your presence, for the satisfaction of all parties. mr. h. is at present out of town;--on friday i shall see him, and request him to forward it to my address. with regard to the latter part of both your letters, until the principal point was discussed between us, i felt myself at a loss in what manner to reply. was i to anticipate friendship from one, who conceived me to have charged him with falsehood? were not _advances_, under such circumstances, to be misconstrued,--not, perhaps, by the person to whom they were addressed, but by others? in _my_ case such a step was impracticable. if you, who conceived yourself to be the offended person, are satisfied that you had no cause for offence, it will not be difficult to convince me of it. my situation, as i have before stated, leaves me no choice. i should have felt proud of your acquaintance, had it commenced under other circumstances; but it must rest with you to determine how far it may proceed after so _auspicious_ a beginning. i have the honour to be, etc. [footnote : moore had replied, accepting byron's explanation, and adding, "as your lordship does not show any wish to proceed beyond the rigid formulary of explanation, it is not for me to make any further advances. we irishmen, in businesses of this kind, seldom know any medium between decided hostility and decided friendship; but, as any approaches towards the latter alternative must now depend entirely on your lordship, i have only to repeat that i am satisfied with your letter, and that i have the honour to be," etc., etc.] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. [ ] , st. james's street, october , . sir,--you must excuse my troubling you once more upon this very unpleasant subject. it would be a satisfaction to me, and i should think to yourself, that the unopened letter in mr. hodgson's possession (supposing it to prove your own) should be returned _in statu quo_ to the writer; particularly as you expressed yourself "not quite easy under the manner in which i had dwelt on its miscarriage." a few words more, and i shall not trouble you further. i felt, and still feel, very much flattered by those parts of your correspondence, which held out the prospect of our becoming acquainted. if i did not meet them in the first instance as perhaps i ought, let the situation i was placed in be my defence. you have _now_ declared yourself _satisfied_, and on that point we are no longer at issue. if, therefore, you still retain any wish to do me the honour you hinted at, i shall be most happy to meet you, when, where, and how you please, and i presume you will not attribute my saying thus much to any unworthy motive. i have the honour to remain, etc. [footnote : "piqued," says moore ('life', ), "at the manner in which my efforts towards a more friendly understanding were received," he had briefly expressed his satisfaction at byron's explanation, and added that the correspondence might close.] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. , st. james's street, october , . dear sir,--i have already taken up so much of your time that there needs no excuse on your part, but a great many on mine, for the present interruption. i have altered the passages according to your wish. with this note i send a few stanzas on a subject which has lately occupied much of my thoughts. they refer to the death of one to whose name you are a _stranger_, and, consequently, cannot be interested. i mean them to complete the present volume. they relate to the same person whom i have mentioned in canto nd, and at the conclusion of the poem. i by no means intend to identify myself with 'harold', but to _deny_ all connection with him. if in parts i may be thought to have drawn from myself, believe me it is but in parts, and i shall not own even to that. as to the _monastic dome_, etc., [ ] i thought those circumstances would suit him as well as any other, and i could describe what i had seen better than i could invent. i would not be such a fellow as i have made my hero for all the world. yours ever, b. [footnote : 'childe harold', canto ii. stanza xlviii.] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. , st. james's street, november , . sir,--as i should be very sorry to interrupt your sunday's engagement, if monday, or any other day of the ensuing week, would be equally convenient to yourself and friend, i will then have the honour of accepting his invitation. [ ] of the professions of esteem with which mr. rogers [ ] has honoured me, i cannot but feel proud, though undeserving. i should be wanting to myself, if insensible to the praise of such a man; and, should my approaching interview with him and his friend lead to any degree of intimacy with both or either, i shall regard our past correspondence as one of the happiest events of my life. i have the honour to be, your very sincere and obedient servant, byron. [footnote : rogers has left an account of this dinner. "neither moore nor myself had ever seen byron when it was settled that he should dine at my house to meet moore; nor was he known by sight to campbell, who, happening to call upon me that morning, consented to join the party. i thought it best that i alone should be in the drawing-room when byron entered it; and moore and campbell accordingly withdrew. soon after his arrival, they returned; and i introduced them to him severally, naming them as adam named the beasts. when we sat down to dinner, i asked byron if he would take soup? 'no; he never took soup.' 'would he take some fish?' 'no; he never took fish.' presently i asked if he would eat some mutton? 'no; he never ate mutton.' i then asked if he would take a glass of wine? 'no; he never tasted wine.' it was now necessary to inquire what he 'did' eat and drink; and the answer was, 'nothing but hard biscuits and soda-water.' unfortunately, neither hard biscuits nor soda-water were at hand; and he dined upon potatoes bruised down on his plate and drenched with vinegar. my guests stayed very late, discussing the merits of walter scott and joanna baillie. some days after, meeting hobhouse, i said to him, 'how long will lord byron persevere in his present diet? 'he replied, 'just as long as you continue to notice it.' i did not then know, what i now know to be a fact, that byron, after leaving my house, had gone to a club in st. james's street and eaten a hearty meat-supper" ('table-talk of samuel rogers', pp. , ). moore's ('life', p. ) first impressions of byron were "the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice and manners, and--what was naturally not the least attraction--his marked kindness to myself. being in mourning for his mother, the colour, as well of his dress, as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure, spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when in repose."] [footnote : samuel rogers ( - ), the third son of a london banker, was born at stoke newington. shortly after his father's death, in , he withdrew from any active part in the management of the bank, and devoted himself for the rest of his long life to literature, art, and society. in he moved from chambers in the temple to a house in st. james's place, overlooking the green park. here he lived till his death, in december, , and here he gathered round him, at his celebrated breakfasts, the most distinguished men and women of his time. an excellent account of the "town mouse" entertaining the "country mouse" is given by dean stanley ('life', vol. i. p. ), who met wordsworth at breakfast with rogers, in , and describes "the town mouse a sleek, well-fed, sly, 'white' mouse, and the country mouse with its rough, weather-worn face and grey hairs; the town mouse displaying its delicate little rolls and pyramids of glistening strawberries, the country mouse exulting in its hollow tree, its crust of bread and liberty, and rallying its brother on his late hours and frequent dinners." one of his earliest recollections was the sight of a rebel's head upon a pole at temple bar. he had talked with a thames boatman who remembered pope; had seen garrick in 'the suspicious husband'; had heard sir joshua reynolds deliver his last lecture as president of the royal academy; had seen john wesley "lying in state" in the city road; had gone to call on dr. johnson, but, when his hand was on the knocker, found his courage fled. he lived to be offered the laureateship in , on the death of wordsworth, and to decline it in favour of tennyson. "time was," wrote mathias ('pursuits of literature', note, p. , ed. ), "when bankers were as stupid as their guineas could make them; they were neither orators, nor painters, nor poets. but now. .. mr. rogers dreams on parnassus; and, if i am rightly informed, there is a great demand among his brethren for the 'pleasures of memory'." rogers began to write poetry at an early age, and continued to write it all his life. his 'ode to superstition' was published in ; the 'pleasures of memory', in ; the 'epistle to a friend', in ; 'columbus', in ; 'jacqueline', in ; 'human life', in ; 'italy', in - . his later years were occupied in revising, correcting, or amplifying his published poems, and in preparing the notes to 'italy', which are admirable studies in compactness and precision of language. a disciple of pope, an imitator of goldsmith, rogers was rather a skilful adapter than an original poet. his chief talent was his taste; if he could not originate, he could appreciate. the fastidious care which he lavished on his work has preserved it. in his commonplace-book he has entered the number of years which he spent in composing and revising his poems. his 'pleasures of memory' occupied seven years, 'columbus' fourteen, and 'italy' fifteen. an excellent judge of art, he employed flaxman, stothard, and turner at a time when their powers were little appreciated by his fellow-countrymen. of his taste byron speaks enthusiastically in his journal (see p. ). but the following passage (hitherto unpublished) from his 'detached thoughts' (ravenna, ) gives his later opinion of the man: "when sheridan was on his death-bed, rogers aided him with purse and person. this was particularly kind of rogers, who always spoke ill of sheridan (to me, at least), but, indeed, he does that of everybody to anybody. rogers is the reverse of the line: 'the _best good man_ with the _worst_ natured muse,' being: 'the _worst_ good man with the _best_ natured muse.' his muse being all sentiment and sago and sugar, while he himself is a venomous talker. i say 'worst good man' because he is (perhaps) a 'good' man; at least he does good now and then, as well he may, to purchase himself a shilling's worth of salvation for his slanders. they are so 'little', too--small talk--and old womanny, and he is malignant too--and envious--and--he be damned!" in a manuscript note to these passages sir walter scott writes, "i never heard rogers say a single word against byron, which is rather odd too. byron wrote a bitter and undeserved satire on rogers. this conduct must have been motived by something or other." speaking of rogers and sheridan, he says, "he certainly took pennyworths out of his friend's character. i sat three hours for my picture to sir thomas lawrence, during which the whole conversation was filled up by rogers with stories of sheridan, for the least of which, if true, he deserved the gallows. one respected his committing a rape on his sister-in-law on the day of her husband's funeral. others were worse." in politics rogers was a whig, in religion a presbyterian. but he meddled little with either. in private life he was as kindly in action as he was caustic in speech. a sensitive man himself, he studied to be satirical to others. when ward condemned 'columbus' in the 'quarterly review', rogers repaid his critic in the stinging epigram: "ward has no heart, they say; but i deny it; he has a heart, and gets his speeches by it." byron warmly admired rogers's poetry. to him he dedicated 'the giaour', in "admiration for his genius, respect for his character, and gratitude for his friendship." the 'quarterly review', in an article on 'the corsair' and 'lara', mentions "the highly refined, but somewhat insipid, pastoral tale of 'jacqueline'." byron, on reading the review, said to lady byron, "the man's a fool. 'jacqueline' is as superior to 'lara' as rogers is to me" ('table-talk of samuel rogers', p. , 'note'). "the 'pleasures of memory'," he said (lady blessington's 'conversations', p. ), "is a very beautiful poem, harmonious, finished, and chaste; it contains not a single meretricious ornament. if rogers has not fixed himself in the higher fields of parnassus, he has, at least, cultivated a very pretty flower-garden at its base." but he goes on to speak of the poem (p. ) as "a 'hortus siccus' of pretty flowers," and an illustration of "the difference between inspiration and versification." if rogers ever saw byron's 'question and answer' ( ), he was generous enough to forget the satire. in 'italy' he paid a noble tribute to the genius of the dead poet: "he is now at rest; and praise and blame fall on his ear alike, now dull in death. yes, byron, thou art gone, gone like a star that through the firmament shot and was lost, in its eccentric course dazzling, perplexing. yet thy heart, methinks, was generous, noble--noble in its scorn of all things low or little; nothing there sordid or servile. if imagined wrongs pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do things long regretted, oft, as many know, none more than i, thy gratitude would build on slight foundations; and, if in thy life not happy, in thy death thou surely wert, thy wish accomplished; dying in the land where thy young mind had caught ethereal fire, dying in greece, and in a cause so glorious! they in thy train--ah, little did they think, as round we went, that they so soon should sit mourning beside thee, while a nation mourned, changing her festal for her funeral song; that they so soon should hear the minute-gun, as morning gleamed on what remained of thee, roll o'er the sea, the mountains, numbering thy years of joy and sorrow. thou art gone; and he who would assail thee in thy grave, oh, let him pause! for who among us all, tried as thou wert--even from thy earliest years, when wandering, yet unspoilt, a highland boy-- tried as thou wert, and with thy soul of flame; pleasure, while yet the down was on thy cheek, uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine, her charmed cup--ah, who among us all could say he had not erred as much, and more?"] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. , st. james's street, november , . dear hodgson,--i have been waiting for the letter [ ] which was to have been sent by you _immediately_, and must again jog your memory on the subject. i believe i wrote you a full and true account of poor--'s proceedings. since his reunion to--, [ ] i have heard nothing further from him. what a pity! a man of talent, past the heyday of life, and a clergyman, to fall into such imbecility. i have heard from hobhouse, who has at last sent more copy to cawthorn for his _travels_. i franked an enormous cover for you yesterday, seemingly to convey at least twelve cantos on any given subject. i fear the i aspect of it was too _epic_ for the post. from this and other coincidences i augur a publication on your part, but what, or when, or how much, you must disclose immediately. i don't know what to say about coming down to cambridge at present, but live in hopes. i am so completely superannuated there, and besides feel it something brazen in me to wear my magisterial habit, after all my buffooneries, that i hardly think i shall venture again. and being now an [greek: ariston men hydôr] disciple i won't come within wine-shot of such determined topers as your collegiates. i have not yet subscribed to bowen. i mean to cut harrow "_enim unquam_" as somebody classically said for a farewell sentence. i am superannuated there too, and, in short, as old at twenty-three as many men at seventy. do write and send this letter that hath been so long in your custody. it is important that moore should be certain that i never received it, if it be _his_. are you drowned in a bottle of port? or a kilderkin of ale? that i have never heard from you, or are you fallen into a fit of perplexity? cawthorn has declined, and the ms. is returned to him. this is all at present from yours in the faith, [greek: mpairon]. [footnote : on november , , hodgson writes to byron: "i enclose you the long-delayed letter, which, from the similarity of hands alone, davies and i will go shares in a bet of ten to one is the cartel in question."] [footnote : the names are carefully erased by hodgson.] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. , st. james's street, december , . my dear hodgson,--i have seen miller, [ ] who will see bland, [ ] but i have no great hopes of his obtaining the translation from the crowd of candidates. yesterday i wrote to harness, who will probably tell you what i said on the subject. hobhouse has sent me my romaic ms., and i shall require your aid in correcting the press, as your greek eye is more correct than mine. but these will not come to type this month, i dare say. i have put some soft lines on ye scotch in the 'curse of minerva'; take them; "yet caledonia claims some native worth," etc. [ ] if you are not content now, i must say with the irish drummer to the deserter who called out, "flog high, flog low" "the de'il burn ye, there's no pleasing you, flog where one will." have you given up wine, even british wine? i have read watson to gibbon. [ ] he proves nothing, so i am where i was, verging towards spinoza; and yet it is a gloomy creed, and i want a better, but there is something pagan in me that i cannot shake off. in short, i deny nothing, but doubt everything. the post brings me to a conclusion. bland has just been here. yours ever, bn. [footnote : see letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : byron was endeavouring to secure for bland (see 'letters, vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]), the work of translating lucien buonaparte's poem of 'charlemagne'. he did not succeed. the poem, translated by dr. butler, head-master of shrewsbury, afterwards bishop of lichfield, and francis hodgson, was published in .] [footnote : lines - .] [footnote : 'an apology for christianity, in a series of letters to edward gibbon, esq.', by richard watson, d.d. ( ). gibbon had a great respect for watson, at this time professor of divinity at cambridge, afterwards bishop of llandaff, whom he describes as "a prelate of a large mind and liberal spirit." in a letter to holroyd (november , ), he speaks of the 'apology' as "feeble," but "uncommingly genteel." to his stepmother he writes, november , , that watson's answer is "civil" and "too dull to deserve your notice."] * * * * * .--to william harness. [ ] , st. james's street, dec. , . my dear harness,--i write again, but don't suppose i mean to lay such a tax on your pen and patience as to expect regular replies. when you are inclined, write: when silent, i shall have the consolation of knowing that you are much better employed. yesterday, bland and i called on mr. miller, who, being then out, will call on bland to-day or to-morrow. i shall certainly endeavour to bring them together.--you are censorious, child; when you are a little older, you will learn to dislike every body, but abuse nobody. with regard to the person of whom you speak, your own good sense must direct you. i never pretend to advise, being an implicit believer in the old proverb. this present frost is detestable. it is the first i have felt for these three years, though i longed for one in the oriental summer, when no such thing is to be had, unless i had gone to the top of hymettus for it. i thank you most truly for the concluding part of your letter. i have been of late not much accustomed to kindness from any quarter, and am not the less pleased to meet with it again from one where i had known it earliest. i have not changed in all my ramblings,--harrow, and, of course, yourself, never left me, and the "_dulces reminiscitur argos_" attended me to the very spot to which that sentence alludes in the mind of the fallen argive.--our intimacy began before we began to date at all, and it rests with you to continue it till the hour which must number it and me with the things that _were_. do read mathematics.--i should think _x plus y_ at least as amusing as the 'curse of kehama' [ ], and much more intelligible. master southey's poems _are_, in fact, what parallel lines might be--viz. prolonged _ad infinitum_ without meeting anything half so absurd as themselves. "what news, what news? queen orraca, what news of scribblers five? s----, w----, c----, l----d, and l----e? all damn'd, though yet alive." coleridge is lecturing. [ ] "many an old fool," said hannibal to some such lecturer, "but such as this, never." [ ] ever yours, etc. [footnote : see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' . [footnote of letter ]] [footnote : robert southey ( - ) published his 'curse of kehama' in . it formed a part of a series of heroic poems in which he intended to embody the chief mythologies of the world. in spite of byron's adverse opinion, it contains magnificent passages, and disputes with 'roderick, the last of the goths' ( ), the claim to be the finest of his longer poems. southey's literary activity was immense. he had already produced 'joan of arc' ( ), 'thalaba' ( ), 'madoc' ( ), and many other works in prose and verse. at this time he was personally unknown to byron, who had ridiculed his "annual strains." they met for the first time at holland house, in september, . (see byron's letter to moore, september , , and journal, p. .) the animosity between the two men belongs to a later date, and in its origin was partly political, partly personal. southey, in early life, had been a republican and a unitarian, if not a deist. he collaborated with coleridge in the 'fall of robespierre' ( ), wrote a portion of the 'conciones ad populum' ( ), which the government considered seditious; and, according to poole ('thomas pools and his friends', vol. i. chap, vi.), wavered "between deism and atheism." he became a champion of monarchical principles and of religious orthodoxy, and attacked the views, which he had once held and expressed in 'wat tyler' (written in , and piratically published in ), with the bitterness of a reactionary. he had also, as byron believed, circulated, if not invented, a report that byron and shelley had formed "a league of incest" at geneva, in - , with "two girls," mary godwin (mrs. shelley) and jane clairmont. byron not only denied the charge, but retorted upon him, in his "observations upon an article in 'blackwood's magazine'" (march , ), as the author of 'wat tyler' and poet laureate, the man who "wrote treason and serves the king," the ex-pantisocrat who advocated "all things, including women, in common." southey's 'vision of judgment', an apotheosis of george iii., published in , gave byron a second provocation and a second opportunity, by speaking in the preface of his "satanic spirit of pride and audacious impiety." byron again replied in prose; and southey (january , ), in a letter to the 'london courier', invited him to attack him in rhyme. in byron's 'vision of judgment' he found his invitation accepted, and himself pilloried in that tremendous satire. southey overvalued his own narrative poetry. it is as a man, a prominent figure in literary history, a leader in the romantic revival, a master of prose, and the author of the best short biography in the english language--the 'life of nelson' ( )--that he lives at the present day. his name also deserves to be remembered with gratitude by all who have read the nursery classic of "'the three bears'." byron parodies a stanza in southey's "queen orraca and the five martyrs of morocco" ('works', vol. vi. pp. - ): "what news, o king affonso, what news of the friars five? have they preached to the miramamolin; and are they still alive?" the blanks stand for scott or southey, wordsworth, coleridge, lloyd, and lamb(e), with the lines from 'new morality' in his mind: "coleridge and southey, lloyd and lamb and co., tune all your mystic harps to praise lepaux."] [footnote : coleridge, beginning november , , and ending january , , delivered a course of seventeen lectures on shakespeare and milton, "in illustration of the principles of poetry." the lectures were given under the auspices of the london philosophical society, in the scot's corporation hall, crane court, fleet street. single tickets for the whole course were two guineas, or three guineas "with the privilege of introducing a lady." j. payne collier took shorthand notes of the lectures and published a portion of his material, the rest being lost ('lectures on shakespear', from notes by j.p. collier), the notes, with other contemporary reports from the 'times', 'morning chronicle', 'dublin chronicle', crabb robinson's 'diary', and other sources, were republished in by mr. ashe ('lectures and notes on shakspere and other english poets'). collier, in his notes of coleridge's conversation (november i, ), gives the substance, in all probability, of the attack on campbell alluded to in the next letter. coleridge said that "neither southey, scott, nor campbell would by their poetry survive much beyond the day when they lived and wrote. their works seemed to him not to have the seeds of vitality, the real germs of long life. the two first were entertaining as tellers of stories in verse; but the last, in his 'pleasures of hope', obviously had no fixed design, but when a thought (of course, not a very original one) came into his head, he put it down in couplets, and afterwards strung the 'disjecta membra' (not 'poetæ') together. some of the best things in it were borrowed; for instance the line: 'and freedom shriek'd when kosciusko fell,' was taken from a much-ridiculed piece by dennis, a pindaric on william iii.: 'fair liberty shriek'd out aloud, aloud religion groaned.' it is the same production in which the following much-laughed-at specimen of bathos is found: 'nor alps nor pyreneans keep him out, nor fortified redoubt.' coleridge had little toleration for campbell, and considered him, as far as he had gone, a mere verse-maker."(ashe's introduction to 'lectures on shakspere', pp. , ).] [footnote : hannibal, in exile at ephesus, was taken to hear a lecture by a peripatetic philosopher named phormio. the lecturer ('homo copiosus') discoursed for some hours on the duties of a general, and military subjects generally. the delighted audience asked hannibal his opinion of the lecture. he replied in greek, "i have seen many old fools often, but such an old fool as phormio, never ('multos se deliros senes s¾pe vidisse; sed qui magis, quam phormio, deliraret, vidisse neminem')" (cicero, 'de oratore', ii. ).] * * * * * .--to james wedderburn webster. , st. james's st., dec. th, . my dear w.,--i was out of town during the arrival of your letters, but forwarded all on my return. i hope you are going on to your satisfaction, and that her ladyship is about to produce an heir with all his mother's graces and all his sire's good qualities. you know i am to be a godfather. byron webster! a most heroic name, say what you please. don't be alarmed; my "_caprice_" won't lead me in to dorset. no, _bachelors_ for me! i consider you as dead to us, and all my future _devoirs_ are but tributes of respect to your _memory_. poor fellow! he was a facetious companion and well respected by all who knew him; but he is gone. sooner or later we must all come to it. i see nothing of you in the _papers_, the only place where i don't wish to see you; but you will be in town in the winter. what dost thou do? shoot, hunt, and "wind up y'e clock" as caleb quotem says? [ ] that thou art vastly happy, i doubt not. i see your brother in law at times, and like him much; but we miss you much; i shall leave town in a fortnight to pass my xmas in notts. good afternoon, dear w. believe me, yours ever most truly, b. [footnote : byron alludes to caleb quotem's song in 'the review, or wags of windsor' (act ii. sc. ), by george colman the younger: "i'm parish clerk and sexton here, my name is caleb quotem, i'm painter, glazier, auctioneer, in short, i am factotum." ... "at night by the fire, like a good, jolly cock, when my day's work is done and all over, i tipple, i smoke, and i wind up the clock, with my sweet mrs. quotem in clover."] * * * * * .--to william harness. st. james's street, dec. , . behold a most formidable sheet, without gilt or black edging, and consequently very vulgar and indecorous, particularly to one of your precision; but this being sunday, i can procure no better, and will atone for its length by not filling it. bland i have not seen since my last letter; but on tuesday he dines with me, and will meet moore, the epitome of all that is exquisite in poetical or personal accomplishments. how bland has settled with miller, i know not. i have very little interest with either, and they must arrange their concerns according to their own gusto. i have done my endeavours, _at your request_, to bring them together, and hope they may agree to their mutual advantage. coleridge has been lecturing against campbell. [ ] rogers was present, and from him i derive the information. we are going to make a party to hear this manichean of poesy. pole [ ] is to marry miss long, and will be a very miserable dog for all that. the present ministers are to continue, and his majesty _does_ continue in the same state; so there's folly and madness for you, both in a breath. i never heard but of one man truly fortunate, and he was beaumarchais, [ ] the author of _figaro_, who buried two wives and gained three lawsuits before he was thirty. and now, child, what art thou doing? _reading, i trust_. i want to see you take a degree. remember, this is the most important period of your life; and don't disappoint your papa and your aunt, and all your kin--besides myself. don't you know that all male children are begotten for the express purpose of being graduates? and that even i am an a.m., [ ] though how i became so the public orator only can resolve. besides, you are to be a priest; and to confute sir william drummond's late book about the bible [ ] (printed, but not published), and all other infidels whatever. now leave master h.'s gig, and master s.'s sapphics, and become as immortal as cambridge can make you. you see, _mio carissimo_, what a pestilent correspondent i am likely to become; but then you shall be as quiet at newstead as you please, and i won't disturb your studies as i do now. when do you fix the day, that i may take you up according to contract? hodgson talks of making a third in our journey; but we can't stow him, inside at least. positively you shall go with me as was agreed, and don't let me have any of your _politesse_ to h. on the occasion. i shall manage to arrange for both with a little contrivance. i wish h. was not quite so fat, and we should pack better. you will want to know what i am doing--chewing tobacco. you see nothing of my allies, scrope davies and matthews [ ]--they don't suit you; and how does it happen that i--who am a pipkin of the same pottery--continue in your good graces? good night,--i will go on in the morning. dec. th.--in a morning i am always sullen, and to-day is as sombre as myself. rain and mist are worse than a sirocco, particularly in a beef-eating and beer-drinking country. my bookseller, cawthorne, has just left me, and tells me, with a most important face, that he is in treaty for a novel of madame d'arblay's, for which guineas are asked! [ ] he wants me to read the ms. (if he obtains it), which i shall do with pleasure; but i should be very cautious in venturing an opinion on her whose _cecilia_ dr. johnson superintended. [ ] if he lends it to me, i shall put it in the hands of rogers and moore, who are truly men of taste. i have filled the sheet, and beg your pardon; i will not do it again. i shall, perhaps, write again; but if not, believe, silent or scribbling, that i am, my dearest william, ever, etc. [footnote : see p. , 'note' . in the application to coleridge of the phrase, "manichean of poesy," byron may allude to cowper's 'task' (bk. v. lines , ): "as dreadful as the manichean god, adored through fear, strong only to destroy."] [footnote : william wellesley pole tylney long wellesley ( - ), one of the most worthless of the bloods of the regency, son of lord maryborough, and nephew of the duke of wellington, became in the fourth earl of mornington. he married in march, , catherine, daughter and co-heir, with her brother, of sir james tylney long, bart., of draycot, wilts. on his marriage he added his wife's double name to his own, and so gave a point to the authors of rejected addresses: "long may long-tilney-wellesley-long-pole live." for byron's allusion to him in 'the waltz', see 'poems', , vol. i. p. , note . having run through his wife's large fortune by his extravagant expenditure at wanstead park and elsewhere, he was obliged, in , to escape from his creditors to the continent. there ( - ) he lived with mrs. bligh, wife of captain bligh, of the coldstream guards. his wife died in , after filing a bill for divorce, and making her children wards of chancery. wellesley subsequently ( ) married mrs. bligh; but the second wife was as ill treated as the first, and he left her so destitute that she was a frequent applicant for relief at the metropolitan police-courts. he died of heart-disease in july, , a pensioner on the charity of his cousin, the second duke of wellington.] [footnote : byron's statement is incorrect. pierre-auguste caron de beaumarchais ( - ) married, in , as his first wife, madeleine-catherine aubertin, widow of the sieur franquet. she died in . he married, in , as his second wife, geneviève-magdaleine wattebled, widow of the sieur lévêque. she died in . the only lawsuit which he won "before he was thirty," was that against lepaute, who claimed as his own invention the escapement for watches and clocks, which beaumarchais had discovered. the case was decided in favour of beaumarchais in . out of his second lawsuit--with count de la blache, legatee of his patron duverney, who died in --sprang his action against goëzman, with which began the publication of his 'mémoires'. (see loménie, 'beaumarchais and his times', tr. by h.s. edwards, vols., london, - .)] [footnote : byron took his m. a. degree at cambridge july , .] [footnote : sir william drummond ( - ), tory m.p. for st. mawes ( - ) and for lostwithiel ( - ), held from to several diplomatic posts: ambassador to the court of naples - ; to the ottoman porte - ; to the court of naples for the second time, - . from , at which date his political and diplomatic career closed, he devoted himself to literature. he had already published 'philosophical sketches on the principles of society and government' ( ); 'a review of the governments of sparta and athens' ( ); 'the satires of persius', translated ( ); 'byblis, a tragedy', in verse ( ); 'academical questions' ( ). in he published 'herculanensia'; and, in the following year, printed for private circulation his 'oedipus judaicus', a bold attempt to explain many parts of the old testament as astronomical allegories. in appeared the first part of his 'odin', a poem in blank verse; in - his 'origines, or remarks on the origin of several empires, states, and cities', was published. sir william, who died at rome in , lived much of his later life abroad. drummond, as a member of the alfred club, is described in the 'sexagenarian' (vol. ii. chap, xxiv.), where beloe, speaking of the ('edipus judaicus'), says that "he appeared to have employed his leisure in searching for objections and arguments as they related to scripture, which had been so often refuted, that they were considered by the learned and wise as almost exploded." he refers to 'byblis' as evidence of his "perverted and fantastical taste" in poetry, praises his "spirited translation" of persius, commends the "sound sense and very extensive reading" of his 'philosophical' 'sketches', and scoffs at the "metaphysical labyrinth" of his 'academical questions'. "when you go to naples," said byron to lady blessington ('conversations', pp. , ), "you must make acquaintance with sir william drummond, for he is certainly one of the most erudite men and admirable philosophers now living. he has all the wit of voltaire, with a profundity that seldom appertains to wit, and writes so forcibly, and with such elegance and purity of style, that his works possess a peculiar charm. have you read his 'academical questions'? if not, get them directly, and i think you will agree with me, that the preface to that work alone would prove sir william drummond an admirable writer. he concludes it by the following sentence, which i think one of the best in our language: "'prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of time, while reason slumbers in the citadel; but if the latter sink into a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for herself. philosophy, wisdom, and liberty support each other; he who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.' "is not the passage admirable? how few could have written it! and yet how few read drummond's works! they are too good to be popular. his 'odin' is really a fine poem, and has some passages that are beautiful, but it is so little read that it may be said to have dropped still-born from the press--a mortifying proof of the bad taste of the age. his translation of persius is not only very literal, but preserves much of the spirit of the original... he has escaped all the defects of translators, and his persius resembles the original as nearly, in feeling and sentiment, as two languages so dissimilar in idiom will admit."] [footnote : henry matthews ( - ) of eton and king's college, cambridge, younger brother of charles skinner matthews, and author of the 'diary of an invalid' ( ).] [footnote : 'the wanderer, or female difficulties', madame d'arblay's fourth and last novel ('evelina', ; 'cecilia', ; 'camilla', ), was published in . "i am indescribably occupied," she writes to dr. burney, october , , "in giving more and more last touches to my work, about which i begin to grow very anxious. i am to receive merely £ upon delivery of the ms.; the two following £ by instalments from nine months to nine months, that is, in a year and a half from the day of publication. if all goes well, the whole will be £ , but only at the end of the sale of eight thousand copies." the book failed; but rumour magnified the sum received by the writer. mrs. piozzi, shortly after the publication of 'the wanderer' and of byron's lines, "weep, daughter of a royal line," writes to samuel lysons, february , : "come now, do send me a kind letter and tell me if madame d'arblaye gets £ for her book or no, and if lord byron is to be called over about some verses he has written, as the papers hint" ('autobiography, letters, and literary remains', vol. ii. p. ).] [footnote : dr. johnson never saw 'cecilia' ( ) till it was in print. a day or two before publication, miss burney sent three copies to the three persons who had the best claim to them--her father, mrs. thrale, and dr. johnson.] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. london, dec. , . i sent you a sad tale of three friars the other day, and now take a dose in another style. i wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days. "away, away, ye notes of woe," etc., etc. [ ] i have gotten a book by sir w. drummond (printed, but not published), entitled _oedipus judaicus_ in which he attempts to prove the greater part of the old testament an allegory, particularly genesis and joshua. he professes himself a theist in the preface, and handles the literal interpretation very roughly. i wish you could see it. mr. ward [ ] has lent it me, and i confess to me it is worth fifty watsons. you and harness must fix on the time for your visit to newstead; i can command mine at your wish, unless any thing particular occurs in the interim. master william harness and i have recommenced a most fiery correspondence; i like him as euripides liked agatho, or darby admired joan, as much for the past as the present. bland dines with me on tuesday to meet moore. coleridge has attacked the _pleasures of hope_, and all other pleasures whatsoever. mr. rogers was present, and heard himself indirectly _rowed_ by the lecturer. we are going in a party to hear the new art of poetry by this reformed schismatic [ ]; and were i one of these poetical luminaries, or of sufficient consequence to be noticed by the man of lectures, i should not hear him without an answer. for you know, "an a man will be beaten with brains, he shall never keep a clean doublet." [ ] campbell [ ] will be desperately annoyed. i never saw a man (and of him i have seen very little) so sensitive;--what a happy temperament! i am sorry for it; what can _he_ fear from criticism? i don't know if bland has seen miller, who was to call on him yesterday. to-day is the sabbath,--a day i never pass pleasantly, but at cambridge; and, even there, the organ is a sad remembrancer. things are stagnant enough in town; as long as they don't retrograde, 'tis all very well. hobhouse writes and writes and writes, and is an author. i do nothing but eschew tobacco. [ ] i wish parliament were assembled, that i may hear, and perhaps some day be heard;--but on this point i am not very sanguine. i have many plans;--sometimes i think of the east again, and dearly beloved greece. i am well, but weakly. yesterday kinnaird [ ] told me i looked very ill, and sent me home happy. you will never give up wine. see what it is to be thirty! if you were six years younger, you might leave off anything. you drink and repent; you repent and drink. is scrope still interesting and invalid? and how does hinde with his cursed chemistry? to harness i have written, and he has written, and we have all written, and have nothing now to do but write again, till death splits up the pen and the scribbler. the alfred [ ] has three hundred and fifty-four candidates for six vacancies. the cook has run away and left us liable, which makes our committee very plaintive. master brook, our head serving-man, has the gout, and our new cook is none of the best. i speak from report,--for what is cookery to a leguminous-eating ascetic? so now you know as much of the matter as i do. books and quiet are still there, and they may dress their dishes in their own way for me. let me know your determination as to newstead, and believe me, yours ever, [greek: mpairon.] [footnote : here follows one of the 'thyrza' poems.] [footnote : the hon. john william ward, afterwards fourth earl of dudley. byron said of him (lady blessington's 'conversations with lord byron', p. ), "ward is one of the best-informed men i know, and, in a 'tête-à-tête', is one of the most agreeable companions. he has great originality, and, being 'très distrait', it adds to the piquancy of his observations, which are sometimes somewhat 'trop naïve', though always amusing. this 'naïveté' of his is the more piquant from his being really a good-natured man, who unconsciously thinks aloud. interest ward on a subject, and i know no one who can talk better. his expressions are concise without being poor, and terse and epigrammatic without being affected," etc. of somewhat the same opinion was lady h. leveson gower ('letters of harriet, countess granville', vol. i. pp. , ): "the charm of mr. ward's conversation is exactly what mr. luttrell wants, a sort of 'abandon', and being entertaining because it is his nature and he cannot help it. i only mean mr. ward in his happier hour, for what i have said of him is the very reverse of what he is when vanity or humour seize upon him."] [footnote : crabb robinson, in his 'diary' for january , , has the following entry: "in the evening at coleridge's lecture. conclusion of milton. not one of the happiest of coleridge's efforts. rogers was there, and with him was lord byron. he was wrapped up, but i recognized his club foot, and, indeed, his countenance and general appearance."] [footnote : "'benedict': no; if a man will be beaten with brains, he shall wear nothing handsome about him." 'much ado about nothing', act v. sc. .] [footnote : thomas campbell ( - ) lectured at the royal institution in on poetry. the lectures were afterwards published in the 'new monthly magazine', of which he was editor ( - ). campbell also apparently read his lectures aloud at private houses. miss berry ('journal', vol. ii. p. ) mentions a dinner-party on june , , at the princess of wales's, where she heard him read his "first discourse," delivered at the institution. again (ibid., vol. iii. p. ), she dined with madame de stael, march , : "nobody but campbell the poet, rocca, and her own daughter. after dinner, campbell read to us a discourse of his upon english poetry, and upon some of the great poets. there are always signs of a poet and critic of genius in all he does, often encumbered by too ornate a style." campbell's best work was done between and . within that period were published 'the pleasures of hope' ( ), 'gertrude of wyoming' ( ), and such other shorter poems as "hohenlinden," "ye mariners of england," "the battle of the baltic," and "o'connor's child." his "ritter bann," a reminiscence of his sojourn abroad ( - ), was not published till later; both it and "the last man" were published in the 'new monthly magazine', during the period of his editorship. an excellent judge of verse, he collected 'specimens of the british poets' ( ), to which he added a valuable essay on poetry and short biographies. his 'theodoric' ( ), 'pilgrim of glencoe' ( ), and lives of mrs. siddons, petrarch, and shakespeare added nothing to his reputation. the judgment of contemporary poets in the main agreed with coleridge's estimate of campbell's work. "there are some of campbell's lyrics," said rogers ('table-talk', etc., pp. , ), "which will never die. his 'pleasures of hope' is no great favourite with me. the 'feeling' throughout his 'gertrude' is very beautiful." wordsworth also thought the 'pleasures of hope' "strangely over-rated; its fine words and sounding lines please the generality of readers, who never stop to ask themselves the meaning of a passage." byron, who calls campbell "a warm-hearted and honest man," thought that his "'lochiel' and 'mariners' are spirit-stirring productions; his 'gertrude of wyoming' is beautiful; and some of the episodes in his 'pleasures of hope' pleased me so much that i know them by heart". (lady blessington's 'conversations with lord byron', p. ). george ticknor, who met campbell in ('life', vol. i. p. ), says, "he is a short, small man, and has one of the roundest and most lively faces i have seen amongst this grave people. his manners seemed as open as his countenance, and his conversation as spirited as his poetry. he could have kept me amused till morning." shortly afterwards, ticknor went to see him at sydenham (ibid., p. ): "campbell had the same good spirits and love of merriment as when i met him before,--the same desire to amuse everybody about him; but still i could see, as i partly saw then, that he labours under the burden of an extraordinary reputation, too easily acquired, and feels too constantly that it is necessary for him to make an exertion to satisfy expectation. the consequence is that, though he is always amusing, he is not always quite natural." sir walter scott made a similar remark about the numbing effect of campbell's reputation upon his literary work; his deference to critics ruined his individuality. it was scott's admiration for "hohenlinden" which induced campbell to publish the poem. the two men, travelling in a stage-coach alone, beguiled the way by repeating poetry. at last scott asked campbell for something of his own. he replied that there was one thing he had never printed, full of "drums and trumpets and blunderbusses and thunder," and that he did not know if there was any good in it. he then repeated "hohenlinden." when he had finished, scott broke out with, "but, do you know, that's devilish fine! why, it's the finest thing you ever wrote, and it 'must' be printed!"] [footnote : see p. , note [footnote of letter ].] [footnote : douglas james william kinnaird ( - ), fifth son of the seventh baron kinnaird, was educated at eton, gottingen, and trinity college, cambridge. he was an intimate friend of hobhouse, with whom he travelled on the continent ( - ), and was in political sympathy. he represented bishop's castle from july, , to march, , but losing his seat at the general election, did not again attempt to enter parliament. he was famous for his "mob dinners," to which moore probably refers when he writes to byron, in an undated letter, of the "deipnosophist kinnaird." he was a partner in the bank of ransom and morland, a member of the committee for managing drury lane theatre, author of the acting version of 'the merchant of bruges, or beggar's bush' (acted at drury lane, december , ), and a member of the radical rota club. kinnaird was byron's "trusty and trustworthy trustee and banker, and crown and sheet anchor." it was at his suggestion that byron wrote the 'hebrew melodies' and the 'monody on the death of sheridan'. talking of kinnaird to lady blessington ('conversations', p. ), byron said, "my friend dug is a proof that a good heart cannot compensate for an irritable temper; whenever he is named, people dwell on the last and pass over the first; and yet he really has an excellent heart, and a sound head, of which i, in common with many others of his friends, have had various proofs. he is clever, too, and well informed, and i do think would have made a figure in the world, were it not for his temper, which gives a dictatorial tone to his manner, that is offensive to the 'amour propre' of those with whom he mixes."] [footnote : the alfred club ( - ), established at , albemarle street, was the savile of the day. beloe, in his 'sexagenarian' (vol. ii. chaps, xx.-xxv.), describes among the members of the symposium, as he calls it, sir james mackintosh, george ellis, william gifford, john reeves, sir w. drummond, and himself. byron, in his 'detached thoughts', says, "i was a member of the alfred. it was pleasant; a little too sober and literary, and bored with sotheby and sir francis d'ivernois; but one met peel, and ward, and valentia, and many other pleasant or known people; and it was, upon the whole, a decent resource in a rainy day, in a dearth of parties, or parliament, or in an empty season." it was, says mr. wheatley ('london past and present'), known as the 'half-read'. in a manuscript note, now for the first time printed as written, on the above passage from byron's 'detached thoughts', sir walter scott writes, "the alfred, like all other clubs, was much haunted with boars, a tusky monster which delights to range where men most do congregate. a boar, or bore, is always remarkable for something respectable, such as wealth, character, high birth, acknowledged talent, or, in short, for something that forbids people to turn him out by the shoulders, or, in other words, to cut him dead. much of this respectability is supplied by the mere circumstance of belonging to a certain society of clubists, within whose districts the bore obtains free-warren, and may wallow or grunt at pleasure. old stagers in the club know and avoid the fated corner and arm-chair which he haunts; but he often rushes from his lair on the inexperienced."] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. december , . my dear moore,--if you please, we will drop our former monosyllables, and adhere to the appellations sanctioned by our godfathers and godmothers. if you make it a point, i will withdraw your name; at the same time there is no occasion, as i have this day postponed your election 'sine die', till it shall suit your wishes to be amongst us. i do not say this from any awkwardness the erasure of your proposal would occasion to _me_, but simply such is the state of the case; and, indeed, the longer your name is up, the stronger will become your probability of success, and your voters more numerous. of course you will decide--your wish shall be my law. if my zeal has already outrun discretion, pardon me, and attribute my officiousness to an excusable motive. i wish you would go down with me to newstead. hodgson will be there, and a young friend, named harness, the earliest and dearest i ever had from the third form at harrow to this hour. i can promise you good wine, and, if you like shooting, a manor of acres, fires, books, your own free will, and my own very indifferent company. 'balnea, vina, venus' [ ]. hodgson will plague you, i fear, with verse;--for my own part i will conclude, with martial, 'nil recitabo tibi' [ ]; and surely the last inducement, is not the least. ponder on my proposition, and believe me, my dear moore, yours ever, byron. [footnote : "balnea, vina, venus corrumpunt corpora nostra." the words are thus given in grüter ('corpus inscriptionum' ( ), p. dccccxii. ).] [footnote : martial (xi. lii. ), 'ad julium cerealem': "plus ego polliceor: nil recitabo tibi."] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. , st. james's street, dec. , . why, hodgson! i fear you have left off wine and me at the same time,--i have written and written and written, and no answer! my dear sir edgar [ ], water disagrees with you--drink sack and write. bland did not come to his appointment, being unwell, but moore supplied all other vacancies most delectably. i have hopes of his joining us at newstead. i am sure you would like him more and more as he developes,--at least i do. how miller and bland go on, i don't know. cawthorne talks of being in treaty for a novel of madame d'arblay's, and if he obtains it (at guineas!!) wishes me to see the ms. this i should read with pleasure,-- not that i should ever dare to venture a criticism on her whose writings dr. johnson once revised, but for the pleasure of the thing. if my worthy publisher wanted a sound opinion, i should send the ms. to rogers and moore, as men most alive to true taste. i have had frequent letters from wm. harness, and _you_ are silent; certes, you are not a schoolboy. however, i have the consolation of knowing that you are better employed, viz. reviewing. you don't deserve that i should add another syllable, and i won't. yours, etc. p.s.--i only wait for your answer to fix our meeting. [footnote : hodgson published, in , 'sir edgar, a tale'.] * * * * * .--to r. c. dallas. [undated, dec.? ] [ ] dear sir,--i have only this scrubby paper to write on--excuse it. i am certain that i sent some more notes on spain and portugal, particularly one on the latter. pray rummage, and don't mind my _politics_. i believe i leave town next week. are you better? i hope so. yours ever, b. [footnote : dallas's answer is dated december , ] * * * * * .--to william harness. , st. james's street, dec. , . i wrote you an answer to your last, which, on reflection, pleases me as little as it probably has pleased yourself. i will not wait for your rejoinder; but proceed to tell you, that i had just then been greeted with an epistle of * *'s, full of his petty grievances, and this at the moment when (from circumstances it is not necessary to enter upon) i was bearing up against recollections to which _his_ imaginary sufferings are as a scratch to a cancer. these things combined, put me out of humour with him and all mankind. the latter part of my life has been a perpetual struggle against affections which embittered the earliest portion; and though i flatter myself i have in a great measure conquered them, yet there are moments (and this was one) when i am as foolish as formerly. i never said so much before, nor had i said this now, if i did not suspect myself of having been rather savage in my letter, and wish to inform you this much of the cause. you know i am not one of your dolorous gentlemen: so now let us laugh again. yesterday i went with moore to sydenham to visit campbell [ ]. he was not visible, so we jogged homeward merrily enough. to-morrow i dine with rogers, and am to hear coleridge, who is a kind of rage at present. last night i saw kemble in coriolanus [ ];--he _was glorious_, and exerted himself wonderfully. by good luck i got an excellent place in the best part of the house, which was more than overflowing. clare [ ] and delawarr [ ], who were there on the same speculation, were less fortunate. i saw them by accident,--we were not together. i wished for you, to gratify your love of shakspeare and of fine acting to its fullest extent. last week i saw an exhibition of a different kind in a mr. coates, [ ] at the haymarket, who performed lothario in a _damned_ and damnable manner. i told you the fate of b[land] and h[odgson] in my last. so much for these sentimentalists, who console themselves in their stews for the loss--the never to be recovered loss--the despair of the refined attachment of a couple of drabs! you censure _my_ life, harness,--when i compare myself with these men, my elders and my betters, i really begin to conceive myself a monument of prudence--a walking statue--without feeling or failing; and yet the world in general hath given me a proud pre-eminence over them in profligacy. yet i like the men, and, god knows, ought not to condemn their aberrations. but i own i feel provoked when they dignify all this by the name of _love_--romantic attachments for things marketable for a dollar! dec. th.--i have just received your letter;--i feel your kindness very deeply. the foregoing part of my letter, written yesterday, will, i hope, account for the tone of the former, though it cannot excuse it. i do _like_ to hear from you--more than _like_. next to seeing you, i have no greater satisfaction. but you have other duties, and greater pleasures, and i should regret to take a moment from either. h * * was to call to-day, but i have not seen him. the circumstances you mention at the close of your letter is another proof in favour of my opinion of mankind. such you will always find them--selfish and distrustful. i except none. the cause of this is the state of society. in the world, every one is to stir for himself--it is useless, perhaps selfish, to expect any thing from his neighbour. but i do not think we are born of this disposition; for you find _friendship_ as a schoolboy, and _love_ enough before twenty. i went to see * *; he keeps me in town, where i don't wish to be at present. he is a good man, but totally without conduct. and now, my dearest william, i must wish you good morrow, and remain ever, most sincerely and affectionately yours, etc. [footnote : campbell lived at sydenham from to . moore (life, p. ) adds the following note: "on this occasion, another of the noble poet's peculiarities was, somewhat startlingly, introduced to my notice. when we were on the point of setting out from his lodgings in st. james's street, it being then about midday, he said to the servant, who was shutting the door of the 'vis-a-vis', 'have you put in the pistols?' and was answered in the affirmative. it was difficult,--more especially taking into account the circumstances under which we had just become acquainted,-- to keep from smiling at this singular noonday precaution."] [footnote : on december , , at covent garden, kemble acted "coriolanus" with mrs. siddons as "volumnia." it was kemble's great part, and in it he made his last appearance on the stage (june , ).] [footnote : for lord clare, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter .]] [footnote : for lord delawarr, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , note [footnote of letter .]] [footnote : robert coates, "the amateur of fashion," known as "romeo" coates, sometimes as "diamond" coates, sometimes as "cock-a-doodle-doo" coates ( - ), was the only surviving son of a wealthy west indian planter. he made his first appearance on the stage at bath (february , ), as "romeo." in the play-bill he was announced as "a gentleman, st appearance on any stage." genest ('english stage', vol. viii. p. ) says, "many gentlemen have been weak enough to fancy themselves actors, but no one ever persevered in obtruding himself for so long a time on the notice of the public in spite of laughter, hissing, etc." on december , , he appeared at the haymarket as "lothario" in rowe's 'fair penitent'. mathews, at covent garden, imitated his performance, in bate dudley's 'at home', as "mr. romeo rantall," appearing in the "pink silk vest and cloak, white satin breeches and stockings, spanish hat, with a rich high plume of ostrich feathers," in which coates had played "lothario" 'memoirs of charles mathews', (vol. ii. pp. , ).] * * * * * .--to robert rushton. [ ] , st. james's street, jan. , . though i have no objection to your refusal to carry _letters_ to mealey's, you will take care that the letters are taken by _spero_ at the proper time. i have also to observe, that susan is to be treated with civility, and not _insulted_ by any person over whom i have the smallest controul, or, indeed, by any one whatever, while i have the power to protect her. i am truly sorry to have any subject of complaint against _you_; i have too good an opinion of you to think i shall have occasion to repeat it, after the care i have taken of you, and my favourable intentions in your behalf. i see no occasion for any communication whatever between _you_ and the _women_, and wish you to occupy yourself in preparing for the situation in which you will be placed. if a common sense of decency cannot prevent you from conducting yourself towards them with rudeness, i should at least hope that your _own interest_, and regard for a master who has _never_ treated you with unkindness, will have some weight. yours, etc., byron. p.s.--i wish you to attend to your arithmetic, to occupy yourself in surveying, measuring, and making yourself acquainted with every particular relative to the _land_ of newstead, and you will _write_ to me _one letter every week_, that i may know how you go on. [footnote : the two following letters, and a suppressed passage in the letter to moore of january , , refer to a quarrel among his dependents, in which rushton, the "little page" of childe harold (see 'letters', vol. i. pp. , ), played a part. the story is told at considerable length in a letter to hodgson, dated january , . to the same affair probably belong the following scrap and byron's note: "pray don't forget me, as i shall never cease thinking of you, my dearest 'and only friend, (signed) s. h. v.'" to this byron has added this note: "this was written on the th of january, ; on the th i received ample proof that the girl had forgotten _me_ and _herself_ too. heigho! b." the letters show, writes moore ('life', p. ), "how gravely and coolly the young lord could arbitrate on such an occasion, and with what considerate leaning towards the servant whose fidelity he had proved, in preference to any new liking or fancy by which it might be suspected he was actuated toward the other." in a ms. book written by mrs. heath of newstead ('née' rebekah beardall), it is stated that the elder rushton had as his farm-servant fletcher, afterwards byron's valet. byron watched fletcher and young robert rushton ploughing, took a fancy to both, and engaged them as his servants. rushton accompanied byron to geneva, but afterwards entered the service of james wedderburn webster (see p. , 'note' ). in he married a woman of the name of bagnall, and with her help kept a school at arnold, near nottingham. subsequently he took a farm on the newstead estate, named hazelford, and shortly afterwards died, leaving a widow and three children.] * * * * * .--to robert rushton. , st. james's street, january , . your refusal to carry the letter was not a subject of remonstrance: it was not a part of your business; but the language you used to the girl was (as _she_ stated it) highly improper. you say, that you also have something to complain of; then state it to me immediately: it would be very unfair, and very contrary to my disposition, not to hear both sides of the question. if any thing has passed between you _before_ or since my last visit to newstead, do not be afraid to mention it. i am sure _you_ would not deceive me, though _she_ would. whatever it is, _you_, shall be forgiven. i have not been without some suspicions on the subject, and am certain that, at your time of life, the blame could not attach to you. you will not _consult_, any one as to your answer, but write to me immediately. i shall be more ready to hear what you have to advance, as i do not remember ever to have heard a word from you before _against_, any human being, which convinces me you would not maliciously assert an untruth. there is not any one who can do the least injury to you, while you conduct yourself properly. i shall expect your answer immediately. yours, etc., byron. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. january , . my dear moore,--i wish very much i could have seen you; i am in a state of ludicrous tribulation.*** why do you say that i dislike your poesy [ ]? i have expressed no such opinion, either in _print_ or elsewhere. in scribbling myself, it was necessary for me to find fault, and i fixed upon the trite charge of immorality, because i could discover no other, and was so perfectly qualified in the innocence of my heart, to "pluck that mote from my neighbour's eye." i feel very, very much obliged by your approbation; but, at _this moment_, praise, even _your_ praise, passes by me like "the idle wind." i meant and mean to send you a copy the moment of publication; but now i can think of nothing but damned, deceitful,--delightful woman, as mr. liston says in the 'knight of snowdon' [ ]? believe me, my dear moore, ever yours, most affectionately, byron. [footnote: . of moore's early poems byron was an admirer. the influence of "little" and "anacreon" is strongly marked throughout 'hours of idleness'. for the "trite charge of immorality," see 'english bards, etc.', lines - ; and 'letters', vol. i. p. . byron's opinion of moore's later poetry was thus stated by him to lady blessington ('conversations', pp. , ): "having compared rogers's poems to a flower-garden, to what shall i compare moore's?--to the valley of diamonds, where all is brilliant and attractive, but where one is so dazzled by the sparkling on every side that one knows not where to fix, each gem beautiful in itself, but overpowering to the eye from their quantity."] [footnote : 'the knight of snowdoun', a musical drama, written by thomas morton ( - ), and founded on 'the lady of the lake', was produced at covent garden, feb. , , and published the same year. john liston ( - ), the most famous comedian of the century, played the part of "macloon," his wife that of "isabel." in act iii. sc. macloon says, "oh, woman! woman! deceitful, damnable, (_changing into a half-smile_) delightful woman! do all one can, there's nothing else worth thinking of."] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. , st. james's street, feb. , . my dear hodgson,-i am rather unwell with a vile cold, caught in the house of lords last night. lord sligo and myself, being tired, _paired off_, being of opposite sides, so that nothing was gained or lost by _our_ votes. i did not speak: but i might as well, for nothing could have been inferior to the duke of devonshire, marquis of downshire, and the earl of fitzwilliam. the catholic question comes on this month, and perhaps i may then commence. i must "screw my courage to the sticking-place," and we'll _not_ fail. yours ever, b. * * * * * .--to samuel rogers. february , . my dear sir,--with my best acknowledgments to lord holland [ ], i have to offer my perfect concurrence in the propriety of the question previously to be put to ministers. if their answer is in the negative, i shall, with his lordship's approbation, give notice of a motion for a committee of inquiry. i would also gladly avail myself of his most able advice, and any information or documents with which he might be pleased to intrust me, to bear me out in the statement of facts it may be necessary to submit to the house. from all that fell under my own observation during my christmas visit to newstead, i feel convinced that, if _conciliatory_ measures are not very soon adopted, the most unhappy consequences may be apprehended. [ ] nightly outrage and daily depredation are already at their height; and not only the masters of frames, who are obnoxious on account of their occupation, but persons in no degree connected with the malecontents or their oppressors, are liable to insult and pillage. i am very much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken on my account, and beg you to believe me, ever your obliged and sincere, etc. [footnote : for lord holland, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]. he was recorder of nottingham; hence his special interest in the proposed legislation against frame-breaking.] [footnote : owing to the state of trade, numbers of stocking-weavers had lost work. the discontent thus produced was increased by the introduction of a wide frame for the manufacture of gaiters and stockings, which, it was supposed, would further diminish the demand for manual labour. in november, , organized bands of men began to break into houses and destroy machinery. for several days no serious effort was made to check the riots, which extended to a considerable distance round nottingham. but on november the soldiers were called out. between that date and december , cavalry and infantry were sent to nottingham; and, on january , , these forces were increased by two additional regiments. the rioters assumed the name of luddites, and their leader was known as general lud. the name is said to have originated in , in a leicestershire village, where a half-witted lad, named ned lud, broke a stocking-frame in a fit of passion; hence the common saying, when machinery was broken, that "ned lud" did it. a bill was introduced in the house of commons (february ) increasing the severity of punishments for frame-breaking. on the second reading (february ) sir samuel romilly strongly opposed the measure, which passed its third reading (february ) without a division. the bill, as introduced into the upper house by lord liverpool, ( ) rendered the offence of frame-breaking punishable by death; and ( ) compelled persons in whose houses the frames were broken to give information to the magistrates. on the second reading of the bill (february , ), byron spoke against it in his first speech in the house of lords (see appendix ii. (i)). the bill passed its third reading on march , and became law as geo. iii. c. . byron did not confine his opposition to a speech in the house of lords. he also addressed "an ode to the framers of the frame bill," which appeared in the 'morning chronicle' on monday, march , . the following letter to perry, the editor, is published by permission of messrs. ellis and elvey, in whose possession is the original: "sir,--i take the liberty of sending an alteration of the two last lines of stanza 'd which i wish to run as follows, "'gibbets on sherwood will _heighten_ the scenery shewing how commerce, _how_ liberty thrives!' "i wish you could insert it tomorrow for a particular reason; but i feel much obliged by your inserting it at all. of course, do not put _my name_ to the thing. believe me, your obliged and very obed't serv't, byron. " , st. james street, sunday, march st, ."] * * * * * .--to master john cowell. [ ] , st. james's street, february , . my dear john,--you have probably long ago forgotten the writer of these lines, who would, perhaps, be unable to recognize _yourself_, from the difference which must naturally have taken place in your stature and appearance since he saw you last. i have been rambling through portugal, spain, greece, etc., etc., for some years, and have found so many changes on my return, that it would be very unfair not to expect that you should have had your share of alteration and improvement with the rest. i write to request a favour of you: a little boy of eleven years, the son of mr. **, my particular friend, is about to become an etonian, and i should esteem any act of protection or kindness to him as an obligation to myself: let me beg of you then to take some little notice of him at first, till he is able to shift for himself. i was happy to hear a very favourable account of you from a schoolfellow a few weeks ago, and should be glad to learn that your family are as well as i wish them to be. i presume you are in the upper school;--as an _etonian_, you will look down upon a _harrow_ man; but i never, even in my boyish days, disputed your superiority, which i once experienced in a cricket match, where i had the honour of making one of eleven, who were beaten to their hearts' content by your college in _one innings_. [ ] believe me to be, with great truth, etc., etc., b. [footnote : "breakfasted with mr. cowell," writes moore, in his diary, june , , "having made his acquaintance for the purpose of gaining information about lord byron. knew byron for the first time when he himself was a little boy, from being in the habit of playing with b.'s dogs. byron wrote to him to school to bid him mind his prosody. gave me two or three of his letters to him. saw a good deal of b. at hastings; mentioned the anecdote about the ink-bottle striking one of the lead muses. these muses had been brought from holland; and there were, i think, only eight of them arrived safe. fletcher had brought b. a large jar of ink, and, not thinking it was full, b. had thrust his pen down to the very bottom; his anger at finding it come out all besmeared with ink made him chuck the jar out of the window, when it knocked down one of the muses in the garden, and deluged her with ink. in , when b. was at salt hill, he had cowell over from eton, and 'pouched' him no less than ten pounds. cowell has ever since kept one of the notes. told me a curious anecdote of byron's mentioning to him, as if it had made a great impression on him, their seeing shelley (as they thought) walking into a little wood at lerici, when it was discovered afterwards that shelley was at that time in quite another direction. 'this,' said byron, in a sort of awe-struck voice, 'was about ten days before his death.' cowell's imitation of his look and manner very striking. thinks that in byron's speech to fletcher, when he was dying, threatening to appear to him, there was a touch of that humour and fun which he was accustomed to mix up with everything". ('memoirs, journals, etc'., vol. v. pp. , ).] [footnote : see 'letters', vol. i. p. , and 'note' [footnote of letter .]] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. , st. james's street, february , . dear hodgson,--i send you a proof. last week i was very ill and confined to bed with stone in the kidney, but i am now quite recovered. the women are gone to their relatives, after many attempts to explain what was already too clear. if the stone had got into my heart instead of my kidneys, it would have been all the better. however, i have quite recovered _that_ also, and only wonder at my folly in excepting my own strumpets from the general corruption,--albeit a two months' weakness is better than ten years. i have one request to make, which is, never mention a woman again in any letter to me, or even allude to the existence of the sex. i won't even read a word of the feminine gender;--it must all be 'propria quæ maribus'. in the spring of i shall leave england for ever. every thing in my affairs tends to this, and my inclinations and health do not discourage it. neither my habits nor constitution are improved by your customs or your climate. i shall find employment in making myself a good oriental scholar. i shall retain a mansion in one of the fairest islands, and retrace, at intervals, the most interesting portions of the east. in the mean time, i am adjusting my concerns, which will (when arranged) leave me with wealth sufficient even for home, but enough for a principality in turkey. at present they are involved, but i hope, by taking some necessary but unpleasant steps, to clear every thing. hobhouse is expected daily in london: we shall be very glad to see him; and, perhaps, you will come up and "drink deep ere he depart," if not, "mahomet must go to the mountain;" [ ]--but cambridge will bring sad recollections to him, and worse to me, though for very different reasons. i believe the only human being, that ever loved me in truth and entirely, was of, or belonging to, cambridge, and, in that, no change can now take place. there is one consolation in death--where he sets his seal, the impression can neither be melted nor broken, but endureth for ever. yours always, b. p.s.--i almost rejoice when one i love dies young, for i could never bear to see them old or altered. [footnote : see bacon's 'essays' ("of boldness"): "mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. the people assembled; mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, 'if the hill will not come to mahomet, mahomet will go to the hill.'"] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. london, february , . my dear hodgson,--there is a book entituled _galt, his travels in ye archipelago_, [ ] daintily printed by cadell and davies, ye which i could desiderate might be criticised by you, inasmuch as ye author is a well-respected esquire of mine acquaintance, but i fear will meet with little mercy as a writer, unless a friend passeth judgment. truth to say, ye boke is ye boke of a cock-brained man, and is full of devises crude and conceitede, but peradventure for my sake this grace may be vouchsafed unto him. review him myself i can not, will not, and if you are likewize hard of heart, woe unto ye boke! ye which is a comely quarto. now then! i have no objection to review, if it pleases griffiths [ ] to send books, or rather _you_, for you know the sort of things i like to [play] with. you will find what i say very serious as to my intentions. i have every reason to induce me to return to ionia. believe me, yours always, b. [footnote : john galt ( - ) published in his 'voyages and travels in the years , , and '. for his meeting with byron at gibraltar in , see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]; see also 'ibid.', p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]. galt's novels were, in later years, liked by byron, who "praised the 'annals of the parish' very highly, as also 'the entail' ... some scenes of which, he said, had affected him very much. 'the characters in mr. galt's novels have an identity,' added byron, 'that reminds me of wilkie's pictures'" (lady blessington's 'conversations with lord byron', p. ). "when i knew galt, years ago," said byron to lady blessington, "i was not in a frame of mind to form an impartial opinion of him: his mildness and equanimity struck me even then; but, to say the truth, his manner had not deference enough for my then aristocratical taste, and finding i could not awe him into a respect sufficiently profound for my sublime self, either as a peer or an author, i felt a little grudge towards him that has now completely worn off," etc., etc. ('ibid.', p. ).] [footnote : george edward griffiths (circ. - ), son of ralph griffiths, who founded, owned, and published the 'monthly review', and boarded and lodged oliver goldsmith as a contributor, succeeded to the management of the 'review' on the death of his father in . he edited it till , when he sold the property. he lived at linden house, turnham green. francis hodgson wrote for the 'monthly review', and, march , , he writes to byron, "i have already read a review of safie in the 'british critic', and will undertake it in the 'monthly' if griffiths, with whom i am in very bad odour from my late shameful idleness, will allow me. oh that you would write a good smart critique of something to get both 'yourself and me' in high repute at turnham green!!!!" in byron's 'detached thoughts' occurs the following passage: "i have been a reviewer. in the 'monthly review' i wrote some articles which were inserted. this was in the latter part of . in , in a magazine called 'monthly literary recreations', i reviewed wordsworth's trash of that time. "excepting these, i cannot accuse myself of anonymous criticism (that i recollect), though i have been 'offered' more than one review in our principal journals." in the bodleian library is a copy of the 'monthly review', in which griffiths has entered the initials of the authors of each article. two articles from the 'review', attributed to byron on this authority, are given in appendix i.] * * * * * .--to lord holland. , st. james's street, february , . my lord,--with my best thanks, i have the honour to return the notts, letter to your lordship. i have read it with attention, but do not think i shall venture to avail myself of its contents, as my view of the question differs in some measure from mr. coldham's. i hope i do not wrong him, but _his_ objections to the bill appear to me to be founded on certain apprehensions that he and his coadjutors might be mistaken for the "_original advisers_" (to quote him) of the measure. for my own part, i consider the manufacturers as a much injured body of men, sacrificed to the views of certain individuals who have enriched themselves by those practices which have deprived the frame-workers of employment. for instance;--by the adoption of a certain kind of frame, one man performs the work of seven--six are thus thrown out of business. but it is to be observed that the work thus done is far inferior in quality, hardly marketable at home, and hurried over with a view to exportation. surely, my lord, however we may rejoice in any improvement in the arts which may be beneficial to mankind, we must not allow mankind to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. the maintenance and well-doing of the industrious poor is an object of greater consequence to the community than the enrichment of a few monopolists by any improvement in the implements of trade, which deprives the workman of his bread, and renders the labourer "unworthy of his hire." my own motive for opposing the bill is founded on its palpable injustice, and its certain inefficacy. i have seen the state of these miserable men, and it is a disgrace to a civilized country. their excesses may be condemned, but cannot be subject of wonder. the effect of the present bill would be to drive them into actual rebellion. the few words i shall venture to offer on thursday will be founded upon these opinions formed from my own observations on the spot. by previous inquiry, i am convinced these men would have been restored to employment, and the county to tranquillity. it is, perhaps, not yet too late, and is surely worth the trial. it can never be too late to employ force in such circumstances. i believe your lordship does not coincide with me entirely on this subject, and most cheerfully and sincerely shall i submit to your superior judgment and experience, and take some other line of argument against the bill, or be silent altogether, should you deem it more advisable. condemning, as every one must condemn, the conduct of these wretches, i believe in the existence of grievances which call rather for pity than punishment. i have the honour to be, with great respect, my lord, your lordship's most obedient and obliged servant, byron. p.s.--i am a little apprehensive that your lordship will think me too lenient towards these men, and half a _frame-breaker myself_. * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. , st. james's street, march , . my dear hodgson,--_we_ are not answerable for reports of speeches in the papers; they are always given incorrectly, and on this occasion more so than usual, from the debate in the commons on the same night. the _morning post_ should have said _eighteen years_. however, you will find the speech, as spoken, in the parliamentary register, when it comes out. lords holland and grenville, particularly the latter, paid me some high compliments in the course of their speeches, as you may have seen in the papers, and lords eldon and harrowby answered me. i have had many marvellous eulogies [ ] repeated to me since, in person and by proxy, from divers persons _ministerial_--yea, _ministerial!_--as well as oppositionists; of them i shall only mention sir f. burdett. _he_ says it is the best speech by a _lord_ since the "_lord_ knows when," probably from a fellow-feeling in the sentiments. lord h. tells me i shall beat them all if i persevere; and lord g. remarked that the construction of some of my periods are very like _burke's!!_ and so much for vanity. i spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused every thing and every body, and put the lord chancellor very much out of humour: and if i may believe what i hear, have not lost any character by the experiment. as to my delivery, loud and fluent enough, perhaps a little theatrical. i could not recognize myself or any one else in the newspapers [ ]. i hire myself unto griffiths, and my poesy [ ] comes out on saturday. hobhouse is here; i shall tell him to write. my stone is gone for the present, but i fear is part of my habit. we _all_ talk of a visit to cambridge. yours ever, b. [footnote : for byron's speech, february , , see appendix ii. (i).] grenville said, "there never was a maxim of greater wisdom than that uttered by the noble lord [byron] who had so ably addressed their lordships that night for the first time" ('hansard', vol. xxi. p. ). moore quotes a passage from byron's 'detached thoughts': "sheridan's liking for me (whether he was not mystifying me i do not know, but lady caroline lamb and others told me that he said the same both before and after he knew me) was founded upon 'english bards, and scotch reviewers'. he told me that he did not care about poetry (or about mine--at least, any but 'that' poem of mine), but he was sure, from 'that' and other symptoms, i should make an orator, if i would but take to speaking, and grow a parliament man. he never ceased harping upon this to me to the last; and i remember my old tutor, dr. drury, had the same notion when i was a 'boy'; but it never was my turn of inclination to try. i spoke once or twice, as all young peers do, as a kind of introduction into public life; but dissipation, shyness, haughty and reserved opinions, together with the short time i lived in england after my majority (only about five years in all), prevented me from resuming the experiment. as far as it went, it was not discouraging, particularly my 'first' speech (i spoke three or four times in all); but just after it, my poem of 'childe harold' was published, and nobody ever thought about my 'prose' afterwards, nor indeed did i; it became to me a secondary and neglected object, though i sometimes wonder to myself if i should have succeeded."] [footnote : byron, writing to john hanson, february , , says: "dear sir,--in the report of my speech (which by the bye is given very incorrectly) in the 'm[orning] herald', 'day', and 'b[ritish] press', they state that i mentioned 'bristol', a place i never saw in my life and knew nothing of whatever, nor 'mentioned' at all last night. will you be good enough to send to these 'papers' 'immediately', and have the mistake corrected, or i shall get into a scrape with the bristol people? "i am, yours very truly, "b."] [footnote : 'childe harold', cantos i., ii.] * * * * * .--to lord holland. st. james's street, march , . my lord,--may i request your lordship to accept a copy of the thing which accompanies this note [ ]? you have already so fully proved the truth of the first line of pope's couplet [ ], "forgiveness to the injured doth belong," that i long for an opportunity to give the lie to the verse that follows. if i were not perfectly convinced that any thing i may have formerly uttered in the boyish rashness of my misplaced resentment had made as little impression as it deserved to make, i should hardly have the confidence--perhaps your lordship may give it a stronger and more appropriate appellation--to send you a quarto of the same scribbler. but your lordship, i am sorry to observe to-day, is troubled with the gout; if my book can produce a _laugh_ against itself or the author, it will be of some service. if it can set you to _sleep_, the benefit will be yet greater; and as some facetious personage observed half a century ago, that "poetry is a mere drug," [ ] i offer you mine as a humble assistant to the _eau medicinale_. i trust you will forgive this and all my other buffooneries, and believe me to be, with great respect, your lordship's obliged and sincere servant, byron. [footnote : 'childe harold' was published march , . another copy of 'childe harold' was sent to mrs. leigh, with the following inscription: "to augusta, my dearest sister, and my best friend, who has ever loved me much better than i deserved, this volume is presented by her _father's_ son, and most affectionate brother, b." the effect which the poem instantly produced is best expressed in byron's own memorandum: "i awoke one morning and found myself famous." he was only just twenty-three years old. "the subject," says elizabeth, duchess of devonshire ('two duchesses', pp. , ), "of conversation, of curiosity, of enthusiasm almost, one might say, of the moment is not spain or portugal, warriors or patriots, but lord byron!" "he returned," she continues, "sorry for the severity of some of his lines (in the 'english bards'), and with a new poem, 'childe harold', which he published. this poem is on every table, and himself courted, visited, flattered, and praised whenever he appears. he has a pale, sickly, but handsome countenance, a bad figure, and, in short, he is really the only topic almost of every conversation--the men jealous of him, the women of each other." "lord byron," writes lady harriet leveson gower to the duke of devonshire, may , ('letters of harriet, countess granville', vol. i. p. ), "is still upon a pedestal, and caroline william doing homage. i have made acquaintance with him. he is agreeable, but i feel no wish for any further intimacy. his countenance is fine when it is in repose; but the moment it is in play, suspicious, malignant, and consequently repulsive. his manner is either remarkably gracious and conciliatory, with a tinge of affectation, or irritable and impetuous, and then, i am afraid, perfectly natural." rogers ('recollections of the table-talk of samuel rogers', pp. , ) says, "after byron had become the 'rage', i was frequently amused at the manoeuvres of certain noble ladies to get acquainted with him by means of me; for instance, i would receive a note from lady----, requesting the pleasure of my company on a particular evening, with a postscript, 'pray, could you not contrive to bring lord byron with you?' once, at a great party given by lady jersey, mrs. sheridan ran up to me and said, 'do, as a favour, try if you can place lord byron beside me at supper!'"] [footnote : "forgiveness to the injured does belong, but they ne'er pardon, who have done the wrong." dryden's 'conquest of grenada', part ii. act i. sc. .] [footnote : murphy, in sc. of 'the way to keep him' ( ), uses the word in the same sense; "a wife's a drug now; mere tar-water, with every virtue under heaven, but nobody takes it."] * * * * * chapter vi. march, --may, . the idol of society--the drury lane address--second speech in parliament. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. with regard to the passage on mr. way's loss, no unfair play was hinted at, as may be seen by referring to the book [ ]; and it is expressly added that the managers _were ignorant_ of that transaction. as to the prevalence of play at the argyle, it cannot be denied that there were _billiards_ and _dice_;--lord b. has been a witness to the use of both at the argyle rooms. these, it is presumed, come under the denomination of play. if play be allowed, the president of the institution can hardly complain of being termed the "arbiter of play,"--or what becomes of his authority? lord b. has no personal animosity to colonel greville. a public institution, to which he himself was a subscriber, he considered himself to have a right to notice _publickly_. of that institution colonel greville was the avowed director;--it is too late to enter into the discussion of its merits or demerits. lord b. must leave the discussion of the reparation, for the real or supposed injury, to colonel g.'s friend and mr. moore, the friend of lord b.--begging them to recollect that, while they consider colonel g.'s honour, lord b. must also maintain his own. if the business can be settled amicably, lord b. will do as much as can and ought to be done by a man of honour towards conciliation;--if not, he must satisfy colonel g. in the manner most conducive to his further wishes. [footnote : byron, in 'english bards, etc.' (lines - ), had alluded to colonel greville, manager of the argyle institution: "or hail at once the patron and the pile of vice and folly, greville and argyle," etc. in a note he had also referred to "billy" way's loss of several thousand pounds in the rooms. on his return from abroad, colonel greville demanded satisfaction through his friend gould francis leckie. byron referred leckie to moore, and sent moore the above paper for his guidance. the affair was amicably settled. in his 'detached thoughts' occurs the following passage:-- "i have been called in as mediator, or second, at least twenty times, in violent quarrels, and have always contrived to settle the business without compromising the honour of the parties, or leading them to mortal consequences, and this, too, sometimes in very difficult and delicate circumstances, and having to deal with very hot and haughty spirits,--irishmen, gamesters, guardsmen, captains, and cornets of horse, and the like. this was, of course, in my youth, when i lived in hot-headed company. i have had to carry challenges from gentlemen to noblemen, from captains to captains, from lawyers to counsellors, and once from a clergyman to an officer in the life guards; but i found the latter by far the most difficult: "'to compose the bloody duel without blows,' "the business being about a woman: i must add, too, that i never saw a _woman_ behave so ill, like a cold-blooded, heartless b----as she was,--but very handsome for all that. a certain susan c----was she called. i never saw her but once; and that was to induce her but to say two words (which in no degree compromised herself), and which would have had the effect of saving a priest or a lieutenant of cavalry. she would _not_ say them, and neither nepean nor myself [the son of sir evan nepean, and a friend to one of the parties] could prevail upon her to say them, though both of us used to deal in some sort with womankind. at last i managed to quiet the combatants without her talisman, and, i believe, to her great disappointment: she was the damnedest b----that i ever saw, and i have seen a great many. though my clergyman was sure to lose either his life or his living, he was as warlike as the bishop of beauvais, and would hardly be pacified; but then he was in love, and that is a martial passion." one challenge from a gentleman to a nobleman was that of scrope davies to lord foley, in ; but byron succeeded in arranging the matter. that from a lawyer to a counsellor was in , from john hanson to serjeant best, afterwards lord wynford, and arose out of the marriage of miss hanson to lord portsmouth; this quarrel was also settled by byron. the case of the clergyman was that of the rev. robert bland, whose mistress, during his absence in holland, left him for an officer in the guards (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , end of 'note' [footnote of letter ] on francis hodgson). byron was himself a fair shot with a pistol. "when in london," writes gronow ('reminiscences', vol. i. p. ), "byron used to go to manton's shooting-gallery, in davies street, to try his hand, as he said, at a wafer. wedderburn webster was present when the poet, intensely delighted with his own skill, boasted to joe manton that he considered himself the best shot in london. 'no, my lord,' replied manton, 'not the best; but your shooting to-day was respectable.' whereupon byron waxed wroth, and left the shop in a violent passion."] * * * * * .--to william bankes. my dear bankes,--my eagerness to come to an explanation has, i trust, convinced you that whatever my unlucky manner might inadvertently be, the change was as unintentional as (if intended) it would have been ungrateful. i really was not aware that, while we were together, i had evinced such caprices; that we were not so much in each other's company as i could have wished, i well know, but i think so _acute an observer_ as yourself must have perceived enough to _explain this_, without supposing any slight to one in whose society i have pride and pleasure. recollect that i do not allude here to "extended" or "extending" acquaintances, but to circumstances you will understand, i think, on a little reflection. and now, my dear bankes, do not distress me by supposing that i can think of you, or you of me, otherwise than i trust we have long thought. you told me not long ago that my temper was improved, and i should be sorry that opinion should be revoked. believe me, your friendship is of more account to me than all those absurd vanities in which, i fear, you conceive me to take too much interest. i have never disputed your superiority, or doubted (seriously) your good will, and no one shall ever "make mischief between us" without the sincere regret on the part of your ever affectionate, etc. p.s.--i shall see you, i hope, at lady jersey's [ ]. hobhouse goes also. [footnote : george child-villiers ( - ), "in manners and appearance 'le plus grand seigneur' of his time," succeeded his father, "the prince of maccaronies," in , as fifth earl of jersey. he was twice lord chamberlain to william iv., and twice master of the horse to queen victoria. he married, in , lady sarah sophia fane, eldest daughter of john, tenth earl of westmorland, and heiress, through her mother, 'née' sarah anne child, of the fortune of her grandfather, robert child, the banker. lady jersey for many years reigned supreme, by her beauty and wit, in london society, "the veriest tyrant," said byron, "that ever governed fashion's fools, and compelled them to shake their caps and bells as she willed it." at almack's, where, according to gronow ('reminiscences', vol. i. p. ), she introduced the quadrille after waterloo, she was a despot. 'almack's', the very clever and personal picture of fashionable life, published in , is dedicated "to that most distinguished and despotic conclave, composed of their high mightinesses the ladies patronesses of the balls at almack's, the rulers of fashion, the arbiters of taste, the leaders of 'ton', and the makers of manners, whose sovereign sway over 'the world' of london has long been established on the firmest basis, whose decrees are laws, and from whose judgment there is no appeal." over this "willis coalition cabinet" lady jersey, as "lady hauton," is described as reigning supreme. "she knew more than any person i ever met with, and both everything and everybody; she could quiz and she could flatter." "treat people like fools," she is supposed to say, "and they will worship you; stoop to make up to them, and they will directly tread you underfoot." ticknor ('life', vol. i. p. ) speaks of her as a "beautiful creature, with a great deal of talent, taste, and elegant knowledge." he was at almack's, in , and standing close to lady jersey, then at the height of beauty and brilliant talent, a leader in society, and with decided political opinions, when she refused the duke of wellington admittance. the lady patronesses had made a rule to admit no one after eleven o'clock. when the rule first came into operation, ticknor heard one of the attendants announce that the duke of wellington was at the door. "what o'clock is it?" lady jersey asked. "seven minutes after eleven, your ladyship." she paused a moment, and then said, with emphasis and distinctness, "give my compliments,--give lady jersey's compliments to the duke of wellington, and say that she is very glad that the first enforcement of the rule of exclusion is such that hereafter no one can complain of its application. he cannot be admitted" ('ibid'., vol. i. pp. , ). politically, lady jersey was a power. such an entry as the following sounds strange to modern readers: dining at lord holland's, in , in company with lord melbourne, lord grey, and other prominent politicians, ticknor notes that "public business was much talked about--the corporation bill, the motion for admitting dissenters to the universities, etc., etc.; and as to the last, when the question arose whether it would be debated on tuesday night, it was admitted to be doubtful whether lady jersey would not succeed in getting it postponed, as she has a grand dinner that evening" ('life', vol. i. pp. , ). lady jersey, whose mother-in-law, 'née' frances twyden, had been a bitter opponent of the princess of wales, provoked the wrath of the regent by espousing the cause of his wife. the prince was determined to break off this friendship with his wife's champion, and sent a letter to her by the hand of colonel willis, announcing his determination. some time later they met at a great party given by henry hope in cavendish square. lady jersey was walking with rogers in the gallery, when they met the prince, who "stopped for a moment, and then, drawing himself up, marched past her with a look of the utmost disdain. lady jersey returned the look to the full; and, as soon as the prince was gone, said to me, with a smile, 'didn't i do it well?'" ('table talk of samuel rogers', pp. , ). from this same change of feeling arose the incident which byron celebrated in his condolatory address "on the occasion of the prince regent returning her picture to mrs. mee." the lines were enclosed with a letter which is printed at the date may , . "pegasus is, perhaps, the only horse of whose paces," said byron ('conversations with lady blessington', p. ), "lord [jersey] could not be a judge." of lady jersey he says ('ibid'., p. ), "of all that coterie, madame [de stael], after lady [jersey], was the best; at least i thought so, for these two ladies were the only ones who ventured to protect me when all london was crying out against me on the separation, and they behaved courageously and kindly ... poor dear lady [jersey]! does she still retain her beautiful cream-coloured complexion and raven hair? i used to long to tell her that she spoiled her looks by her excessive animation; for eyes, tongue, head, and arms were all in movement at once, and were only relieved from their active service by want of respiration," etc., etc.] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. march , . know all men by these presents, that you, thomas moore, stand indicted--no--invited, by special and particular solicitation, to lady caroline lamb's [ ] tomorrow evening, at half-past nine o'clock, where you will meet with a civil reception and decent entertainment. pray, come--i was so examined after you this morning, that i entreat you to answer in person. believe me, etc. [footnote : lady caroline lamb ( - ), the "calantha avondale" of her own 'glenarvon', was the daughter of frederick ponsonby, third earl of bessborough, by his wife, lady henrietta frances spencer, sister of georgiana, duchess of devonshire. she was brought up, partly in italy under the care of a servant, partly by her grandmother, the wife of john, first earl spencer. she married, june , , william lamb, afterwards lord melbourne. her manuscript commonplace-book is in the possession of the hon. g. ponsonby. a few pages are taken up with a printed copy of the 'essay on the progressive improvement of mankind', with which her husband won the declamation prize at trinity, cambridge, in . the rest of the volume consists of some pages filled with prose, and verse, and sketches. it begins with a list of her nicknames--"sprite," "young savage," "ariel," "squirrel," etc. then follow the secret language of an imaginary order; her first verses, written at the age of thirteen; scraps of poetry, original and extracted, in french, italian, and english; a long fragment of a wild romantic story of a girl's seduction by an infidel nobleman. a clever sketch in water-colour of william lamb and of herself, after their marriage, is followed by verses on the birth of her son, "little "augustus," august , . the last stanza of a poem, which has nothing to commend it except the feelings of the wife and mother which it expresses, runs thus: "his little eyes like william's shine; how great is then my joy, for, while i call this darling mine, i see 'tis william's boy!" the most ambitious effort in the volume is a poem, illustrated with pictures in water colours, such as 'l'amour se cache sous le voile d'amitié, or l'innocence le recoit dans ses bras'; a third, in the style of blake, bears the inscription 'le désespoir met fin à ses jours'. the poem opens with the following lines: "winged with hope and hushed with joy, see yon wanton, blue-eyed boy,-- arch his smile, and keen his dart,-- aim at laura's youthful heart! how could he his wiles disguise? how deceive such watchful eyes? how so pure a breast inspire, set so young a mind on fire? 'twas because to raise the flame love bethought of friendship's name. under this false guise he told her that he lived but to behold her. how could she his fault discover when he often vowed to love her? how could she her heart defend when he took the name of friend?" dates are seldom affixed to the compositions, and it is impossible to say whether any are autobiographical. but, taken as a whole, they reveal a clever, romantic, impulsive, imaginative woman, whose pet names describe at once the charm of her character and the fascination of her small, slight figure, "golden hair, large hazel eyes," and low musical voice. her marriage with william lamb, june , seems to have been at first kept secret. lord minto in august, ('life and letters', vol. iii. p. ), speaks of her as unmarried, and adds that she is "a lively and rather a pretty girl; they say she is very clever." augustus foster, writing to his mother, lady elizabeth foster, july , ('the two duchesses', p. ), says, "i cannot fancy lady caroline married. i cannot be glad of it. how changed she must be--the delicate ariel, the little fairy queen become a wife and soon perhaps a mother." lady elizabeth replies, september , ('ibid'., p. ): "you may retract all your sorrow about caro ponsonby's marriage, for she is the same wild, delicate, odd, delightful person, unlike everything." lady caroline and william lamb are described by lady elizabeth, three months later, as "flirting all day long 'è felice adesso'." the phrase, perhaps, correctly expresses lady caroline's conception of love as an episode; but no breach occurred till . in the previous year, when byron had suddenly risen to the height of his fame, she had refused to be introduced by lady westmorland to the man of whom she made the famous entry in her diary "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." but they met, a few days later, at holland house, and byron called on her in whitehall, where for the next four months he was a daily visitor. on blue-bordered paper, embossed at the corners with scallop-shells, she wrote to byron at an early stage in their acquaintance, the letter numbered in appendix iii. for the sequel to the story of their friendship, see byron's letter to lady caroline, p. , 'note' , and appendix iii.] * * * * * .--to lady caroline lamb. [undated.] i never supposed you artful: we are all selfish,--nature did that for us. but even when you attempt deceit occasionally, you cannot maintain it, which is all the better; want of success will curb the tendency. every word you utter, every line you write, proves you to be either _sincere_ or a _fool_. now as i know you are not the one, i must believe you the other. i never knew a woman with greater or more pleasing talents, _general_ as in a woman they should be, something of everything, and too much of nothing. but these are unfortunately coupled with a total want of common conduct. [ ] for instance, the _note_ to your _page_--do you suppose i delivered it? or did you mean that i should? i did not of course. then your heart, my poor caro (what a little volcano!), that pours _lava_ through your veins; and yet i cannot wish it a bit colder, to make a _marble slab_ of, as you sometimes see (to understand my foolish metaphor) brought in vases, tables, etc., from vesuvius, when hardened after an eruption. to drop my detestable tropes and figures, you know i have always thought you the cleverest, most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous, fascinating little being that lives now, or ought to have lived years ago. i won't talk to you of beauty; i am no judge. but our beauties cease to be so when near you, and therefore you have either some, or something better. and now, caro, this nonsense is the first and last compliment (if it be such) i ever paid you. you have often reproached me as wanting in that respect; but others will make up the deficiency. come to lord grey's; at least do not let me keep you away. all that you so often _say_, i _feel_. can more be said or felt? this same prudence is tiresome enough; but one _must_ maintain it, or what _can_ one do to be saved? keep to it. [footnote : the following letter from lady caroline to fletcher, byron's valet, illustrates the statement in the text: "fletcher,--will you come and see me here some evening at , and no one will know of it. you may say you bring a letter, and wait the answer. i will send for you in. but i will let you know first, for i wish to speak with you. i also want you to take the little foreign page i shall send in to see lord byron. do not tell him before-hand, but, when he comes with flowers, shew him in. i shall not come myself, unless just before he goes away; so do not think it is me. besides, you will see this is quite a child, only i wish him to see my lord if you can contrive it, which, if you tell me what hour is most convenient, will be very easy. i go out of town to-morrow for a day or two, and i am now quite well--at least much better."] * * * * * .--to william bankes. april , . my dear bankes,--i feel rather hurt (not savagely) at the speech you made to me last night, and my hope is that it was only one of your _profane_ jests. i should be very sorry that any part of my behaviour should give you cause to suppose that i think higher of myself, or otherwise of you than i have always done. i can assure you that i am as much the humblest of your servants as at trin. coll.; and if i have not been at home when you favoured me with a call, the loss was more mine than yours. in the bustle of buzzing parties, there is, there can be, no rational conversation; but when i can enjoy it, there is nobody's i can prefer to your own. believe me, ever faithfully and most affectionately yours, byron. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. friday noon. i should have answered your note yesterday, but i hoped to have seen you this morning. i must consult with you about the day we dine with sir francis [ ]. i suppose we shall meet at lady spencer's [ ] to-night. i did not know that you were at miss berry's [ ] the other night, or i should have certainly gone there. as usual, i am in all sorts of scrapes, though none, at present, of a martial description. believe me, etc. [footnote : probably with sir francis burdett, at , piccadilly.] [footnote : grandmother of lady caroline lamb.] [footnote : mary berry ( - ), the friend and editor of horace walpole, whom she might have married, lived at little strawberry hill, and in north audley street, london. in her journal miss berry mentions two occasions on which she met byron. the first was thursday, april , , at lord glenbervie's. "i had a quarter of an hour's conversation, which, i own, gave me a great desire to know him better, and he seemed willing that i should do so." the second occasion was may , . "at the end of the evening i had half an hour's conversation with lord byron, principally on the subject of the scotch review, with which he is very much pleased. he is a singular man, and pleasant to me but i very much fear that his head begins to be turned by all the adoration of the world, especially the women" ('journal and correspondence of miss berry', vol. ii. pp. , ).] * * * * * .--to lady caroline lamb. may st, . my dear lady caroline,-i have read over the few poems of miss milbank [ ] with attention. they display fancy, feeling, and a little practice would very soon induce facility of expression. though i have an abhorrence of blank verse, i like the lines on dermody [ ] so much that i wish they were in rhyme. the lines in the cave at seaham have a turn of thought which i cannot sufficiently commend, and here i am at least candid as my own opinions differ upon such subjects. the first stanza is very good indeed, and the others, with a few slight alterations, might be rendered equally excellent. the last are smooth and pretty. but these are all, has she no others? she certainly is a very extraordinary girl; who would imagine so much strength and variety of thought under that placid countenance? it is not necessary for miss m. to be an authoress, indeed i do not think publishing at all creditable either to men or women, and (though you will not believe me) very often feel ashamed of it myself; but i have no hesitation in saying that she has talents which, were it proper or requisite to indulge, would have led to distinction. a friend of mine (fifty years old, and an author, but not _rogers_) has just been here. as there is no name to the mss. i shewed them to him, and he was much more enthusiastic in his praises than i have been. he thinks them beautiful; i shall content myself with observing that they are better, much better, than anything of miss m.'s protegee ('sic') blacket. you will say as much of this to miss m. as you think proper. i say all this very sincerely. i have no desire to be better acquainted with miss milbank; she is too good for a fallen spirit to know, and i should like her more if she were less perfect. believe me, yours ever most truly, b. [footnote : this letter refers to the future lady byron, the "miss monmouth" of 'glenarvon' (see vol. iii. p. ), who was first brought to byron's notice by lady caroline lamb. anna isabella (often shortened into annabella) milbanke (born may , ; died may , ) was the only child of sir ralph milbanke, bart., and the hon. judith noel, daughter of lord wentworth. her childhood was passed at halnaby, or at seaham, where her father had "a pretty villa on the cliff." in seaham "was the most primitive hamlet ever met with--a dozen or so of cottages, no trade, no manufacture, no business doing that we could see; the owners were mostly servants of sir ralph milbanke's" ('memoirs of a highland lady', p. ). it was here that blacket the poet (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' ; p. , 'note' , of the present volume; and 'english bards, etc'., line , and byron's 'note') died, befriended by miss milbanke. byron (medwin's 'conversations with lord byron', pp. , ) thus describes the personal appearance of his future wife: "there was something piquant and what we term pretty in miss milbanke. her features were small and feminine, though not regular. she had the fairest skin imaginable. her figure was perfect for her height; and there was a simplicity, a retired modesty, about her, which was very characteristic, and formed a happy contrast to the cold, artificial formality and studied stiffness which is called fashion." the roundness of her face suggested to byron the pet name of "pippin." high-principled, guided by a strong sense of duty, imbued with deep religious feeling, miss milbanke lived to impress f. w. robertson as "the noblest woman he ever knew" ('diary of crabb robinson' ( ), vol. iii. p. ). she was also a clever, well-read girl, fond of mathematics, a student of theology and of greek, a writer of meritorious verse, which, however, byron only allowed to be "good by accident" (medwin, p. ). among her mother's friends were mrs. siddons, joanna baillie, and maria edgeworth. the latter, writing, may, , to miss ruxton, says, "lady milbanke is very agreeable, and has a charming, well-informed daughter." with all her personal charms, virtues, and mental gifts, she shows, in many of her letters, a precision, formality, and self-complacency, which suggest the female pedant. byron says of her that "she was governed by what she called fixed rules and principles, squared mathematically" (medwin, p. ); at one time he used to speak of her as his "princess of parallelograms," and at a later period he called her his "mathematical medea." before miss milbanke met byron, she had a lover in augustus foster, son of lady elizabeth foster, afterwards duchess of devonshire. the duchess, writing to her son, february , , says that mrs. george lamb (?) would sound miss milbanke as to her feelings: "caro means to see 'la bella' annabelle before she writes to you ... i shall almost hate her if she is blind to the merits of one who would make her so happy" ('the two duchesses', p. ). apparently mr. foster's love was not returned. "she persists in saying," writes the duchess, may , ('ibid'., p. ), "that she never suspected your attachment to her; but she is so odd a girl that, though she has for some time rather liked another, she has decidedly refused them, because she thinks she ought to marry a person with a good fortune; and this is partly, i believe, from generosity to her parents, and partly owning that fortune is an object to herself for happiness. in short, she is good, amiable, and sensible, but cold, prudent, and reflecting. lord byron makes up to her a little; but she don't seem to admire him except as a poet, nor he her except for a wife." again, june , , she says, "your annabella is a mystery; liking, not liking; generous-minded, yet afraid of poverty; there is no making her out. i hope you don't make yourself unhappy about her; she is really an icicle." miss milbanke's unaffected simplicity attracted byron; even her coldness was a charm. when he came to know her, he probably found her not only agreeable, but the best woman he had ever met. lady melbourne, who knew him most intimately, and was also miss milbanke's aunt, may well have thought that, if her niece once gained control over byron, her influence would be the making of his character. she encouraged the match by every means in her power. it is unnecessary to suppose that she did so to save lady caroline lamb; that danger was over. at some time before the autumn of , byron proposed to miss milbanke, and was refused. he still, however, continued to correspond with her, and his 'journal' shows that his affection for her was steadily growing during the years - . in september, , he proposed a second time, and was accepted. byron professed to believe (medwin, p. ) that miss milbanke was not in love with him. "i was the fashion when she first came out; i had the character of being a great rake, and was a great dandy--both of which young ladies like. she married me from vanity, and the hope of reforming and fixing me." byron was not the man to unbosom himself to medwin on such a subject. moore asked the same question--whether lady byron really loved byron--of lady holland, who "seemed to think she must. he was such a loveable person. i remember him (said she) sitting there with that light upon him, looking so beautiful!'" ('journals, etc.', vol. ii. p. ). the letters that will follow seem to show beyond all question that the marriage was one of true affection on both sides.] [footnote : thomas dermody ( - ), a precocious irish lad, whose dissipated habits weakened his mind and body, published poems in , , and . his collected verses appeared in under the title of 'the harp of erin', edited by j. g. raymond, who had published the previous year ( ) 'the life of thomas dermody' in two volumes.] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. may , . i am too proud of being your friend, to care with whom i am linked in your estimation, and, god knows, i want friends more at this time than at any other. i am "taking care of myself" to no great purpose. if you knew my situation in every point of view, you would excuse apparent and unintentional neglect. i shall leave town, i think; but do not you leave it without seeing me. i wish you, from my soul, every happiness you can wish yourself; and i think you have taken the road to secure it. peace be with you! i fear she has abandoned me. ever, etc. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. may , . on monday, after sitting up all night, i saw bellingham launched into eternity [ ], and at three the same day i saw * * * launched into the country. i believe, in the beginning of june, i shall be down for a few days in notts. if so, i shall beat you up 'en passant' with hobhouse, who is endeavouring, like you and every body else, to keep me out of scrapes. i meant to have written you a long letter, but i find i cannot. if any thing remarkable occurs, you will hear it from me--if good; if _bad_, there are plenty to tell it. in the mean time, do you be happy. ever yours, etc. p.s.--my best wishes and respects to mrs. moore;--she is beautiful. i may say so even to you, for i was never more struck with a countenance. [footnote : bellingham, while engaged in the timber trade at archangel, fancied himself wronged by the russian government, and the british ambassador at st. petersburg, lord g. leveson-gower. returning to england, he set up in liverpool as an insurance broker, continuing to press his claims against russia on the ministry without success. on may , , he shot spencer perceval, first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, dead in the lobby of the house of commons. bellingham was hanged before newgate on may . byron took a window, says moore ('life', p. ), to see the execution. he "was accompanied on the occasion by his old schoolfellows, mr. bailey and mr. john madocks. they went together from some assembly, and, on their arriving at the spot, about three o'clock in the morning, not finding the house that was to receive them open, mr. madocks undertook to rouse the inmates, while lord byron and mr. bailey sauntered, arm in arm, up the street. during this interval, rather a painful scene occurred. seeing an unfortunate woman lying on the steps of a door, lord byron, with some expression of compassion, offered her a few shillings; but, instead of accepting them, she violently pushed away his hand, and, starting up with a yell of laughter, began to mimic the lameness of his gait. he did not utter a word; but 'i could feel,' said mr. bailey, 'his arm trembling within mine, as we left her.'" in byron's 'detached thoughts' is an anecdote of baillie, whose name is here misspelt by moore: "baillie (commonly called 'long' baillie, a very clever man, but odd) complained in riding, to our friend scrope davies, that he had a 'stitch' in his side. 'i don't wonder at it,' said scrope, 'for you ride like a _tailor_.' whoever has seen b. on horseback, with his very tall figure on a small nag, would not deny the justice of the repartee."] * * * * * .--to bernard barton [ ]. , st. james's st., june , . the most satisfactory answer to the concluding part of your letter is that mr. murray will republish your volume, if you still retain your inclination for the experiment, which i trust will be successful. some weeks ago my friend mr. rogers showed me some of the stanzas in ms., and i then expressed my opinion of their merit, which a further perusal of the printed volume has given me no reason to revoke. i mention this, as it may not be disagreeable to you to learn that i entertained a very favourable opinion of your powers, before i was aware that such sentiments were reciprocal. waiving your obliging expressions as to my own productions, for which i thank you very sincerely, and assure you that i think not lightly of the praise of one whose approbation is valuable, will you allow me to talk to you candidly, not critically, on the subject of yours? you will not suspect me of a wish to discourage, since i pointed out to the publisher the propriety of complying with your wishes. i think more highly of your poetical talents than it would, perhaps, gratify you to hear expressed, for i believe, from what i observe of your mind, that you are above flattery. to come to the point, you deserve success, but we know, before addison wrote his cato', that desert does not always command it. but, suppose it attained: "you know what ills the author's life assail, toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail." [ ] do not renounce writing, but never trust entirely to authorship. if you have a possession, retain it; it will be, like prior's fellowship [ ], a last and sure resource. compare mr. rogers with other authors of the day; assuredly he is amongst the first of living poets, but is it to that he owes his station in society, and his intimacy in the best circles? no, it is to his prudence and respectability; the world (a bad one, i own) courts him because he has no occasion to court it. he is a poet, nor is he less so because he was something more. i am not sorry to hear that you are not tempted by the vicinity of capel loft, esq're. [ ], though, if he had done for you what he has done for the bloomfields, i should never have laughed at his rage for patronising. but a truly constituted mind will ever be independent. that you may be so is my sincere wish, and, if others think as well of your poetry as i do, you will have no cause to complain of your readers. believe me, etc. [footnote : bernard barton ( - ), the friend of charles lamb, and the quaker poet, to whose 'poems and letters' ( ) edward fitzgerald prefixed a biographical introduction, published 'metrical effusions' ( ), 'poems by an amateur' ( ), 'poems' ( ), and several other works. he was for many years a clerk in a bank at woodbridge, in suffolk. byron's advice to him was that of lamb: "keep to your bank, and your bank will keep you." two letters, written by him to byron in , showing his admiration of the poet, and his appreciation of the generosity of his character, and part of the draft of byron's answer, are given in appendix iv.] [footnote : "there mark what ills the scholar's life assail,-- toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail." johnson's 'vanity of human wishes', line .] [footnote : matthew prior ( - ) became a fellow of st. john's college, cambridge, in .] [footnote : for capell lofft and the bloomfields, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'notes' i and [footnotes and of letter .]] * * * * * .--to lord holland. june , . my dear lord,--i must appear very ungrateful, and have, indeed, been very negligent, but till last night i was not apprised of lady holland's restoration, and i shall call to-morrow to have the satisfaction, i trust, of hearing that she is well.--i hope that neither politics nor gout have assailed your lordship since i last saw you, and that you also are "as well as could be expected." the other night, at a ball, i was presented by order to our gracious regent, who honoured me with some conversation, and professed a predilection for poetry [ ].--i confess it was a most unexpected honour, and i thought of poor brummell's [ ] adventure, with some apprehension of a similar blunder. i have now great hope, in the event of mr. pye's [ ] decease, of "warbling truth at court," like mr. mallet [ ] of indifferent memory.--consider, one hundred marks a year! besides the wine and the disgrace; but then remorse would make me drown myself in my own butt before the year's end, or the finishing of my first dithyrambic.--so that, after all, i shall not meditate our laureate's death by pen or poison. will you present my best respects to lady holland? and believe me, hers and yours very sincerely. [footnote : the ball was given in june, , at miss johnson's (see 'memoir of john murray', vol. i. p. ). in the words "predilection for poetry" byron probably refers to the phrase in the regent's letter to the duke of york (february , ): "i have no predilections to indulge, no resentments to gratify." moore, in the 'twopenny post-bag', twice fastens on the phrase. in "the insurrection of the papers", a dream suggested by lord castlereagh's speech--"it would be impossible for his royal highness to disengage his person from the accumulating pile of papers that encompassed it"--he writes: "but, oh, the basest of defections! his letter about 'predilections'-- his own dear letter, void of grace, now flew up in its parent's face!" and again, in the "parody of a celebrated letter": "i am proud to declare i have no predilections, my heart is a sieve, where some scatter'd affections are just danc'd about for a moment or two, and the 'finer' they are, the more sure to run through."] [footnote : the grandfather of beau brummell, who was in business in bury street, st. james's, also let lodgings. one of his lodgers, charles jenkinson, afterwards earl of liverpool, obtained for his landlord's son, william brummell, a clerkship in the treasury. the treasury clerk became so useful to lord north that he obtained several lucrative offices; and, dying in , left £ , in the hands of trustees for division among his three children. the youngest of these was george bryan brummell ( - ), the celebrated beau. george brummell went from eton to oriel college, oxford, where his undergraduate career is traced in "trebeck," a character in lister's 'granby' ( ). from oxford brummell entered the tenth hussars, a favourite regiment of the prince of wales. well-built and well-mannered, possessed of admirable tact, witty and original in conversation, inexhaustible in good temper and good stories, a master of impudence and banter, the new cornet made himself so agreeable to the prince that, at the latter's marriage, brummell attended him, both at st. james's and to windsor, as "a kind of 'chevalier d'honneur." in brummell left the army with the rank of captain. a year later he came of age, and settled at , chesterfield street, mayfair. on his intimacy with the prince regent, brummell founded the extraordinary position which he achieved in society. fashion was in those days a power; and he was its dictator--the oracle, both for men and women, of taste, manners, and dress. his ascendency rested in some degree on solid foundations. he was not a mere fop, but conspicuous for the quiet neatness of his dress--for "a certain exquisite propriety," as byron described it to leigh hunt--and, at a time when the opposite was common, for the scrupulous cleanliness of his person and his linen. an excellent dancer, clever at 'vers de société', an agreeable singer, a talented artist, a judge of china, buhl, and other objects of 'virtù', a collector of snuff-boxes, a connoisseur in canes, he had gifts which might have raised him above the bond street 'flaneur', or the idler at watier's club. well-read in a desultory fashion, he wrote verses which were not without merit in their class. the following are the first and last stanzas of 'the butterfly's funeral', a poem which was suggested by mrs. dorset's 'peacock at home' and roscoe's 'butterfly's ball':-- "oh ye! who so lately were blythsome and gay, at the butterfly's banquet carousing away; your feasts and your revels of pleasure are fled, for the soul of the banquet, the butterfly's dead! * * * * * and here shall the daisy and violet blow, and the lily discover her bosom of snow; while under the leaf, in the evenings of spring, still mourning his friend, shall the grasshopper sing." in the days of his prosperity ( - ), brummell knew everybody to whose acquaintance he condescended. his album, in which he collected pieces of poetry, many by himself, others by celebrities of the day, is a curious proof of his popularity. it contains contributions from such persons as the duchess of devonshire, erskine, lord john townshend, sheridan, general fitzpatrick, william lamb (afterwards lord melbourne) and his brother george, and byron. lady hester stanhope ('memoirs', vol. i. pp. - ) knew him well. she describes him "riding in bond street, with his bridle between his fore-finger and thumb, as if he held a pinch of snuff;" gives many instances of his audacious effrontery, and yet concludes that "the man was no fool," and that she "should like to see him again." the story that brummell told the prince regent to ring the bell was denied by him. a more probable version of the story is given in jesse's 'life of beau brummell' (vol. i. p. ), "that one evening, when brummell and lord moira were engaged in earnest conversation at carlton house, the prince requested the former to ring the bell, and that he replied without reflection, 'your royal highness is close to it,' upon which the prince rang the bell and ordered his friend's carriage, but that lord moira's intervention caused the unintentional liberty to be overlooked." the rupture between them is attributed by jesse to mrs. fitzherbert's influence. whatever the cause, the prince cut his former friend. a short time afterwards, brummell, walking with lord alvanley, met the prince leaning on the arm of lord moira. as the prince, who stopped to speak to lord alvanley, was moving on, brummell said to his companion, "alvanley, who's your fat friend?" in the 'twopenny postbag' moore makes the regent say, in the "parody of a celebrated letter": "neither have i resentments, or wish there should come ill to mortal--except, now i think on it, beau brummell, who threatened last year, in a superfine passion, to cut me, and bring the old king into fashion." brummell's position withstood the loss of the regent's friendship. he became one of the most frequent visitors to the duke and duchess of york, at oatlands park ('journal of t. raikes', vol. i. p. ); and his friendship with the duchess lasted till her death. he was ruined by gambling at watier's club, of which he was perpetual president. this club, which was in piccadilly, at the corner of bolton street, was originally founded, in , by lord headfort, john madocks, and other young men, for musical gatherings. but glees and snatches soon gave way to superlative dinners and gambling at macao. byron, moore, and william spencer belonged to watier's--the only men of letters admitted within its precincts. from to brummell lost heavily; he could obtain no further supplies, and was completely ruined. in his distress he wrote to scrope davies, in may, : "my dear scrope,--lend me two hundred pounds; the banks are shut, and all my money is in the three per cents. it shall be repaid to-morrow morning. yours, george brummell." the reply illustrates byron's remark that "scrope davies is a wit, and a man of the world, and feels as much as such a character can do." "my dear george,--'tis very unfortunate, but all my money is in the three per cents. yours, s. davies." on may , "obliged," says byron ('detached thoughts'), "by that affair of poor meyler, who thence acquired the name of 'dick the dandykiller'--(it was about money and debt and all that)--to retire to france," brummell took flight to dover, and crossed to calais. watier's club died a natural death, in , from the ruin of most of its members. amongst brummell's effects at chesterfield street was a screen which he was making for the duchess of york. the sixth panel was occupied by byron and napoleon, placed opposite each other; the former, surrounded with flowers, had a wasp in his throat (jesse's 'life', vol. i. p. ). at calais brummell bought a french grammar to study the language. when scrope davies was asked, says byron ('detached thoughts'), "what progress brummell had made in french, he responded 'that brummell had been stopped, like buonaparte in russia, by the 'elements'' i have put this pun into 'beppo', which is 'a fair exchange and no robbery;' for scrope made his fortune at several dinners (as he owned himself) by repeating occasionally as his own some of the buffooneries with which i had encountered him in the morning." brummell died, in , at caen, after making acquaintance with the inside of the debtor's prison in that town--imbecile, and in the asylum of the 'bon sauveur'. he is buried in the protestant cemetery of caen. france has raised a more lasting monument to his fame in barbey d'aurevilly's 'du dandysme et de georges brummell' ( ).] [footnote : henry james pye ( - ) was, from to his death, poet laureate, in which post he succeeded thomas warton, and was followed by southey. mathias, in the 'pursuits of literature' (dialogue ii. lines , ), says: "with spartan pye lull england to repose, or frighten children with lenora's woes;" and again ('ibid'., lines , ): "why should i faint when all with patience hear, and laureat pye sings more than twice a year?" his birthday odes were so full of "vocal groves and feathered choirs," that george steevens broke out with the lines: "when the 'pie' was opened," etc. pye's 'magnum opus' was 'alfred' ( ), an epic poem in six books.] [footnote : david mallet, or malloch ( - ), is best known for his ballad of 'william and margaret', his unsubstantiated claim to the authorship of 'rule, britannia', and his edition of bolingbroke's works. he was appointed, in , under-secretary to frederick, prince of wales.] * * * * * .--to professor clarke [ ]. st. james's street, june , . will you accept my very sincere congratulations on your second volume, wherein i have retraced some of my old paths, adorned by you so beautifully, that they afford me double delight? the part which pleases me best, after all, is the preface, because it tells me you have not yet closed labours, to yourself not unprofitable, nor without gratification, for what is so pleasing as to give pleasure? i have sent my copy to sir sidney smith, who will derive much gratification from your anecdotes of djezzar, [ ] his "energetic old man." i doat upon the druses; but who the deuce are they with their pantheism? i shall never be easy till i ask _them_ the question. how much you have traversed! i must resume my seven leagued boots and journey to palestine, which your description mortifies me not to have seen more than ever. i still sigh for the Ægean. shall not you always love its bluest of all waves, and brightest of all skies? you have awakened all the gipsy in me. i long to be restless again, and wandering; see what mischief you do, you won't allow gentlemen to settle quietly at home. i will not wish you success and fame, for you have both, but all the happiness which even these cannot always give. [footnote : edward daniel clarke ( - ), appointed professor of mineralogy at cambridge, in , was the rival whose travels hobhouse was anxious to anticipate. he is described by miss edgeworth, in ('letters', vol. i. p. ), as "a little, square, pale, flat-faced, good-natured-looking, fussy man, with very intelligent eyes, yet great credulity of countenance, and still greater benevolence." byron met clarke at cambridge in november, , discussed greece with him, and was relieved to find that he knew "no romaic." clarke was an indefatigable traveller, and, as he was a botanist, mineralogist, antiquary, and numismatist, he made good use of his opportunities. the marbles, including the eleusinian ceres, which he brought home, are in the fitzwilliam museum. his mineralogical collections were purchased, after his death, by the university of cambridge; and his coins by payne knight. his 'travels in various countries of europe, asia, and africa' appeared at intervals, from to , in six quarto volumes. the following letter was written by clarke to byron, after the appearance of 'childe harold': "trumpington, wednesday morning. "dear lord byron,--from the eagerness which i felt to make known my opinions of your poem before others had expressed _any_ upon the subject, i waited upon you to deliver my hasty, although hearty, commendation. if it be worthy your acceptance, take it once more, in a more deliberate form! upon my arrival in town i found that mathias entirely coincided with me. 'surely,' said i to him, 'lord byron, at this time of life, cannot have experienced such keen anguish as those exquisite allusions to what older men _may_ have felt seem to denote!' this was his answer: 'i fear he has--he could not else have written such a poem.' this morning i read the second canto with all the attention it so highly merits, in the peace and stillness of my study; and i am ready to confess i was never so much affected by any poem, passionately fond of poetry as i have been from my earliest youth.... "the eighth stanza, '_yet if as holiest men_,' etc., has never been surpassed. in the twenty-third, the sentiment is at variance with dryden: 'strange cozenage! _none_ would live past years again.' "and it is perhaps an instance wherein, for the first time, i found not within my own breast an echo to your thought, for i would not '_be once more a boy_;' but the generality of men will agree with you, and wish to tread life's path again. "in the twelfth stanza of the same canto, you might really add a very curious note to these lines: 'her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, yet felt some portion of their mother's pains,' "by stating this fact: when the last of the metopes was taken from the parthenon, and, in moving it, a great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs, was thrown down by the work men whom lord elgin employed, the disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe out of his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to lusieri--[greek: télos]! i was present at the time. "once more i thank you for the gratification you have afforded me. "believe me, ever yours most truly, "e. d. clarke."] [footnote : in clarke's 'travels' (part ii. sect. i. chap, xii., "greece, egypt, and the holy land") will be found an account of djezzar pasha, who fortified acre in , and with sir sidney smith, defended it against buonaparte, march to may , . clarke ('ibid'.) mentions the druses detained by djezzar as hostages.] * * * * * .--to walter scott. [ ] st. james's street, july , . sir,--i have just been honoured with your letter.--i feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the "evil works of my nonage," as the thing is suppressed _voluntarily_, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. the satire was written when i was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now i am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. i cannot sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waving myself, let me talk to you of the prince regent. he ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities: he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your works pleased me most. it was a difficult question. i answered, i thought the 'lay'. he said his own opinion was nearly similar. in speaking of the others, i told him that i thought you more particularly the poet of _princes_, as _they_ never appeared more fascinating than in 'marmion' and the 'lady of the lake'. he was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on the description of your jameses as no less royal than poetical. he spoke alternately of homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of the turks [ ] and your humble servant) you were in very good company. i defy murray to have exaggerated his royal highness's opinion of your powers, nor can i pretend to enumerate all he said on the subject; but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which i had hitherto considered as confined to _manners_, certainly superior to those of any living _gentleman_ [ ]. this interview was accidental. i never went to the levee; for having seen the courts of mussulman and catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed; and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, i had, in fact, "no business there." to be thus praised by your sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately and sincerely, your obliged and obedient servant, byron. p.s.--excuse this scrawl, scratched in a great hurry, and just after a journey. [footnote : the correspondence which begins with this letter laid the foundation of a firm friendship between the two poets. scott was naturally annoyed by the attack upon him in 'english bards, etc'. (lines - ), made by "a young whelp of a lord byron." though 'childe harold' seemed to him "a clever poem," it did not raise his opinion of byron's character. murray, hoping to heal the breach between them, wrote to scott, june , ('memoir of john murray', vol. i. p. ), giving byron's account of the conversation with the prince regent. "but the prince's great delight," says murray, "was walter scott, whose name and writings he dwelt upon and recurred to incessantly. he preferred him far beyond any other poet of the time, repeated several passages with fervour, and criticized them faithfully.... lord byron called upon me, merely to let off the raptures of the prince respecting you, thinking, as he said, that if i were likely to have occasion to write to you, it might not be ungrateful for you to hear of his praises." scott's answer (july ) enclosed the following letter from himself to byron: "edinburgh, july d, . "my lord,--i am uncertain if i ought to profit by the apology which is afforded me, by a very obliging communication from our acquaintance, john murray, of fleet street, to give your lordship the present trouble. but my intrusion concerns a large debt of gratitude due to your lordship, and a much less important one of explanation, which i think i owe to myself, as i dislike standing low in the opinion of any person whose talents rank so highly in my own, as your lordship's most deservedly do. "the first 'count', as our technical language expresses it, relates to the high pleasure i have received from the 'pilgrimage of childe harold', and from its precursors; the former, with all its classical associations, some of which are lost on so poor a scholar as i am, possesses the additional charm of vivid and animated description, mingled with original sentiment; but besides this debt, which i owe your lordship in common with the rest of the reading public, i have to acknowledge my particular thanks for your having distinguished by praise, in the work which your lordship rather dedicated in general to satire, some of my own literary attempts. and this leads me to put your lordship right in the circumstances respecting the sale of 'marmion', which had reached you in a distorted and misrepresented form, and which, perhaps, i have some reason to complain, were given to the public without more particular inquiry. the poem, my lord, was _not_ written upon contract for a sum of money--though it is too true that it was sold and published in a very unfinished state (which i have since regretted), to enable me to extricate myself from some engagements which fell suddenly upon me by the unexpected misfortunes of a very near relation. so that, to quote statute and precedent, i really come under the case cited by juvenal, though not quite in the extremity of the classic author: 'esurit, intactam paridi nisi vendit agaven.' "and so much for a mistake, into which your lordship might easily fall, especially as i generally find it the easiest way of stopping sentimental compliments on the beauty, etc., of certain poetry, and the delights which the author must have taken in the composition, by assigning the readiest reason that will cut the discourse short, upon a subject where one must appear either conceited or affectedly rude and cynical. "as for my attachment to literature, i sacrificed for the pleasure of pursuing it very fair chances of opulence and professional honours, at a time of life when i fully knew their value; and i am not ashamed to say, that in deriving advantages in compensation from the partial favour of the public, i have added some comforts and elegancies to a bare independence. i am sure your lordship's good sense will easily put this unimportant egotism to the right account, for--though i do not know the motive would make me enter into controversy with a fair or an 'unfair' literary critic--i may be well excused for a wish to clear my personal character from any tinge of mercenary or sordid feeling in the eyes of a contemporary of genius. your lordship will likewise permit me to add that you would have escaped the trouble of this explanation, had i not understood that the satire alluded to had been suppressed, not to be reprinted. for in removing a prejudice on your lordship's own mind, i had no intention of making any appeal by or through you to the public, since my own habits of life have rendered my defence as to avarice or rapacity rather too easy. "leaving this foolish matter where it lies, i have to request your lordship's acceptance of my best thanks for the flattering communication which you took the trouble to make mr. murray on my behalf, and which could not fail to give me the gratification which i am sure you intended. i dare say our worthy bibliopolist overcoloured his report of your lordship's conversation with the prince regent, but i owe my thanks to him nevertheless, for the excuse he has given me for intruding these pages on your lordship. wishing you health, spirit, and perseverance, to continue your pilgrimage through the interesting countries which you have still to pass with 'childe harold', i have the honour to be, my lord, "your lordship's obedient servant, "walter scott. "p.s.--will your lordship permit me a verbal criticism on 'childe harold', were it only to show i have read his pilgrimage with attention? 'nuestra dama de la pena' means, i suspect, not our lady of crime or punishment, but our lady of the cliff; the difference is, i believe, merely in the accentuation of 'peña'." to scott byron replied with the letter given in the text. scott's answer, which followed in due course, will be found in appendix v. the prince regent, it may be added, showed his appreciation of scott's poetry by offering him, on the death of pye, the post of poet laureate. scott refused, on the ground, apparently, that the office had been made ridiculous by the previous holder. "at the time when scott and byron were the two 'lions' of london, hookham frere observed, 'great poets formerly (homer and milton) were blind; now they are lame'" ('table-talk of samuel rogers', p. ).] [footnote : the turkish ambassador and suite were at the ball.] [footnote : byron had already written his "stanzas to a lady weeping," suggested by the rumour that princess charlotte had burst into tears, on being told that there would be no change of ministry when the prince of wales assumed the regency. they appeared anonymously in the 'morning chronicle' for march , , under the title of a "sympathetic 'address' to a young lady." they were published, as byron's work, with 'the corsair', in february, . the verses rather betray the influence of moore than express his own feelings at the time. in 'don juan' (canto xii. stanza lxxxiv.) he thus speaks of the regent: "there, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now) a prince, the prince of princes at the time, with fascination in his very bow, and full of promise, as the spring of prime. though royalty was written on his brow, he had 'then' the grace, too, rare in every clime, of being, without alloy of fop or beau, a finish'd gentleman from top to toe." dallas found him, shortly after his introduction to the prince, "in a full-dress court suit of clothes, with his fine black hair in powder," prepared to attend a levee. but the levee was put off, and the subsequent avowal of the authorship of the stanzas rendered it impossible for him to go ('recollections', p. ).] * * * * * .--to lady caroline lamb. [august, ?] my dearest caroline, [ ]--if tears which you saw and know i am not apt to shed,--if the agitation in which i parted from you,--agitation which you must have perceived through the _whole_ of this most _nervous_ affair, did not commence until the moment of leaving you approached,--if all i have said and done, and am still but too ready to say and do, have not sufficiently proved what my real feelings are, and must ever be towards you, my love, i have no other proof to offer. god knows, i wish you happy, and when i quit you, or rather you, from a sense of duty to your husband and mother, quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what i again promise and vow, that no other in word or deed, shall ever hold the place in my affections, which is, and shall be, most sacred to you, till i am nothing. i never knew till _that moment_ the _madness_ of my dearest and most beloved friend; i cannot express myself; this is no time for words, but i shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can scarcely conceive, for you do not know me. i am about to go out with a heavy heart, because my appearing this evening will stop any absurd story which the event of the day might give rise to. do you think _now_ i am _cold_ and _stern_ and _artful_? will even _others_ think so? will your _mother_ ever--that mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much, more, much more on my part than she shall ever know or can imagine? "promise not to love you!" ah, caroline, it is past promising. but i shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive, and never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed, and more than can ever be known but to my own heart,--perhaps to yours. may god protect, forgive, and bless you. ever, and even more than ever, your most attached, byron. p.s.--these taunts which have driven you to this, my dearest caroline, were it not for your mother and the kindness of your connections, is there anything on earth or heaven that would have made me so happy as to have made you mine long ago? and not less _now_ than _then_, but _more_ than ever at this time. you know i would with pleasure give up all here and all beyond the grave for you, and in refraining from this, must my motives be misunderstood? i care not who knows this, what use is made of it,--it is to _you_ and to _you_ only that they are _yourself (sic)_. i was and am yours freely and most entirely, to obey, to honour, love,--and fly with you when, where, and how you yourself _might_ and _may_ determine. [footnote : lady caroline's infatuation for byron, expressed in various ways--once (in july, ) by a self-inflicted stab with a table-knife, or a broken glass--became the talk of society. "your little friend, caro william," writes the duchess of devonshire, may , , "as usual, is doing all sorts of imprudent things for him and with him." again she writes, six days later, of byron: "the ladies, i hear, spoil him, and the gentlemen are jealous of him. he is going back to naxos, and then the husbands may sleep in peace. i should not be surprised if caro william were to go with him, she is so wild and imprudent" (the 'two duchesses', pp. , ). but lady caroline's extravagant adoration wearied byron, who felt that it made him ridiculous; lady melbourne gave him sound advice about her daughter-in-law; and he was growing attached to miss milbanke, and, when rejected by her, at first to lady oxford, and later to lady frances wedderburn webster. when lady bessborough endeavoured to persuade her daughter to leave london for ireland, lady caroline is said to have forced herself into byron's room, and implored him to fly with her. byron refused, conducted her back to melbourne house, wrote her the letter printed above, and, as she herself admits, kept the secret. in december, , lady caroline burned byron in effigy, with "his book, ring, and chain," at brocket hall. the lines which she wrote for the ceremony are preserved in mrs. leigh's handwriting, and given in appendix iii., . from ireland lady caroline continued the siege, threatening to follow him into herefordshire, demanding interviews, and writing about him to lady oxford. at length byron sent her the letter, probably in november, , which she professes to publish in 'glenarvon' (vol. iii. chap. ix.). the words are acknowledged by byron to have formed part at least of the real document, which is here quoted as printed in the novel: "mortanville priory, november the th. "lady avondale,--i am no longer your lover; and since you oblige me to confess it, by this truly unfeminine persecution, ... learn, that i am attached to another; whose name it would, of course, be dishonourable to mention. i shall ever remember with gratitude the many instances i have received of the predilection you have shown in my favour. i shall ever continue your friend, if your ladyship will permit me so to style myself; and, as a first proof of my regard, i offer you this advice, correct your vanity, which is ridiculous; exert your absurd caprices upon others; and leave me in peace. "your most obedient servant, "glenarvon." the first effect of this letter and her unrequited passion was, as she told lady morgan, to deprive her temporarily of reason, and it may be added that, when she was a child, her grandmother was so alarmed by her eccentricities as to consult a doctor on the state of her mind. the second effect was to render her temper so ungovernable that william lamb decided on a separation. all preliminaries were arranged; the solicitor arrived with the documents; but the old charm reasserted itself, and she was found seated by her husband, "feeding him with tiny scraps of transparent bread and butter" (torrens, 'memoirs of lord melbourne', vol. i. p. ). the separation did not take place till . throughout - lady caroline continued to write to byron, at first asking for interviews. two of her last letters to him, written apparently on the eve of his leaving england, in , are worth printing, though they increase the mystery of 'glenarvon'. (see appendix iii., and .) in isaac nathan's 'fugitive pieces' ( ), a section is devoted to "poetical effusions, letters, anecdotes, and recollections of lady caroline lamb." lady caroline wrote three novels: 'glenarvon' ( ); 'graham hamilton' ( ); and 'ada reis; a tale' ( ). 'glenarvon', apart from its biographical interest, is unreadable. "i do not know," writes c. lemon to lady h. frampton ('journal of mary frampton', pp. , ), "all the characters in 'glenarvon', but i will tell you all i do know. i am not surprised at your being struck with a few detached passages; but before you have read one volume, i think you will doubt at which end of the book you began. there is no connection between any two ideas in the book, and it seems to me to have been written as the sages of laputa composed their works. 'glenarvon' is lord byron; 'lady augusta,' the late duchess of devonshire; 'lady mandeville'--i think it is lady mandeville, but the lady who dictated glearvon's farewell letter to calantha--is lady oxford. this letter she really dictated to lord byron to send to lady caroline lamb, and is now very much offended that she has treated the matter so lightly as to introduce it into her book. the best character in it is the 'princess of madagascar' (lady holland), with all her reviewers about her. the young duke of devonshire is in the book, but i forget under what name. i need not say that the heroine is lady caroline's own self." in july, , she was out riding, when she accidentally met byron's funeral on its way to newstead. "i am sure," she wrote to murray, july , , "i am very sorry i ever said one unkind word against him." her mind never recovered the shock, and she died in january, , in the presence of her husband, at melbourne house. (see also appendix iii., .)] * * * * * .--to john murray. high street, cheltenham, sept. , . dear sir,--pray have the goodness to send those despatches, and a no. of the _e.r._ with the rest. i hope you have written to mr. thompson, thanked him in my name for his present, and told him that i shall be truly happy to comply with his request.--how do you go on? and when is the graven image, "with _bays and wicked rhyme upon't_," to grace, or disgrace, some of our tardy editions? send me "_rokeby_" [ ] who the deuce is he?--no matter, he has good connections, and will be well introduced. i thank you for your inquiries: i am so so, but my thermometer is sadly below the poetical point. what will you give _me_ or _mine_ for a poem [ ] of six cantos, (_when complete--no_ rhyme, _no_ recompense,) as like the last two as i can make them? i have some ideas which one day may be embodied, and till winter i shall have much leisure. believe me, yours very sincerely, byron. p. s.--my last question is in the true style of grub street; but, like _jeremy diddler_ [ ], i only "ask for information."--send me adair on _diet and regimen_, just republished by ridgway [ ]. [footnote : 'rokeby', completed december , , was published in the following year, with a dedication to john morritt, to whom rokeby belonged. it was, as scott admits in the preface to the edition of , comparatively a failure. in the popularity of byron he finds the chief cause of the small success which his poem obtained. "to have kept his ground at the crisis when 'rokeby' appeared," he writes, "its author ought to have put forth his utmost strength, and to have possessed all his original advantages, for a mighty and unexpected rival was advancing on the stage--a rival not in poetical powers only, but in that art of attracting popularity, in which the present writer had hitherto preceded better men than himself. the reader will easily see that byron is here meant, who, after a little velitation of no great promise, now appeared as a serious candidate, in the first two cantos of 'childe harold'." on this rivalry byron wrote the passage in his diary for november , . a further cause for the cold reception of 'rokeby' was its inferiority both to the 'lay' and to 'marmion'. in letter vii. of the 'twopenny post-bag', moore writes thus of 'rokeby' "should you feel any touch of 'poetical' glow, we've a scheme to suggest--mr. sc--tt, you must know, (who, we're sorry to say it, now works for the 'row') having quitted the borders, to seek new renown, is coming by long quarto stages, to town; and beginning with rokeby (the job's sure to pay) means to 'do' all the gentlemen's seats on the way. now the scheme is (though none of our hackneys can beat him) to start a fresh poet through highgate to 'meet' him; who, by means of quick proofs--no revises--long coaches-- may do a few villas before sc--tt approaches-- indeed, if our pegasus be not curst shabby, he'll reach, without found'ring, at least woburn abbey."] [footnote : 'the giaour', published in , for which murray paid, not byron, but dallas, guineas.] [footnote : kenney's 'raising the wind', act i. sc. : "'diddler'. o sam, you haven't got such a thing as tenpence about you, have you? "'sam'. yes. 'and i mean to keep it about me, you see'. "'diddler'. oh, aye, certainly. i only asked for information."] [footnote : james mackittrick ( - ), who assumed the name of adair, published, in , 'an essay on diet and regimen, as indispensable to the recovery and preservation of firm health, especially to indolent, studious, delicate and invalid; with appropriate cases'.] * * * * * .--to lord holland. cheltenham, september , . my dear lord,--the lines which i sketched off on your hint are still, or rather _were_, in an unfinished state, for i have just committed them to a flame more decisive than that of drury [ ]. under all circumstances, i should hardly wish a contest with philodrama--philo-drury--asbestos, h----, and all the anonymes and synonymes of committee candidates. seriously, i think you have a chance of something much better; for prologuising is not my forte, and, at all events, either my pride or my modesty won't let me incur the hazard of having my rhymes buried in next month's magazine, under "essays on the murder of mr. perceval." and "cures for the bite of a mad dog," as poor goldsmith complained of the fate of far superior performances [ ]. i am still sufficiently interested to wish to know the successful candidate; and, amongst so many, i have no doubt some will be excellent, particularly in an age when writing verse is the easiest of all attainments. i cannot answer your intelligence with the "like comfort," unless, as you are deeply theatrical, you may wish to hear of mr. betty [ ], whose acting is, i fear, utterly inadequate to the london engagement into which the managers of covent garden have lately entered. his figure is fat, his features flat, his voice unmanageable, his action ungraceful, and, as diggory [ ] says, "i defy him to extort that damned muffin face of his into madness." i was very sorry to see him in the character of the "elephant on the slack rope;" for, when i last saw him, i was in raptures with his performance. but then i was sixteen--an age to which all london condescended to subside. after all, much better judges have admired, and may again; but i venture to "prognosticate a prophecy" (see the 'courier') that he will not succeed. so, poor dear rogers has stuck fast on "the brow of the mighty helvellyn" [ ]--i hope not for ever. my best respects to lady h.:--her departure, with that of my other friends, was a sad event for me, now reduced to a state of the most cynical solitude. "by the waters of cheltenham i sat down and _drank_, when i remembered thee, oh georgiana cottage! as for our _harps_, we hanged them up upon the willows that grew thereby. then they said, sing us a song of drury lane," etc.; --but i am dumb and dreary as the israelites. the waters have disordered me to my heart's content--you _were_ right, as you always are. believe me, ever your obliged and affectionate servant, byron. [footnote : drury lane theatre was reopened, after the fire of february , , on saturday, october , . in the previous august the following advertisement was issued: "'rebuilding of drury-lane theatre.' "the committee are desirous of promoting a fair and free competition for an address, to be spoken upon the opening of the theatre, which will take place on the th of october next: they have therefore thought fit to announce to the public, that they will be glad to receive any such compositions, addressed to their secretary at the treasury office in drury lane, on or before the th of september, sealed up, with a distinguishing word, number, or motto, on the cover, corresponding with the inscription, on a separate sealed paper, containing the name of the author, which will not be opened, unless containing the name of the successful candidate. theatre royal, drury-lane, august , . "owing to an accidental delay in the publication of the above advertisement, the committee have thought proper to extend the time for receiving addresses, from the last day of august to the th of september." byron, on the suggestion of lord holland, intended to send in an 'address' in competition with other similar productions. he afterwards changed his mind, and refused to compete. after all the 'addresses' had been received and rejected, the committee applied to him to write an 'address'. this he consented to do.] [footnote : "the public were more importantly employed, than to observe the easy simplicity of my style, or the harmony of my periods. sheet after sheet was thrown off to oblivion. my essays were buried among the essays upon liberty, eastern tales, and cures for the bite of a mad dog." 'vicar of wakefield', chap. xx.] [footnote : see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' .[footnote of letter ]] [footnote : "diggory," one of liston's parts, a character in jackman's 'all the world's a stage', asks (act i. sc. ), "but how can you extort that damned pudding-face of yours to madness?"] [footnote : rogers had gone for a tour in the north. byron alludes to scott's poem 'helvellyn': "i climb'd the dark brow of the mighty helvellyn," etc., etc. the poem was occasioned, as scott's note states, by the death of "a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition," who was killed on the mountain in .] * * * * * .--to john murray. cheltenham, sept. , . dear sir,--the parcels contained some letters and verses, all (but one) anonymous and complimentary, and very anxious for my conversion from certain infidelities into which my good-natured correspondents conceive me to have fallen. the books were presents of a _convertible_ kind also,--'christian knowledge' and the 'bioscope' [ ], a religious dial of life explained:--to the author of the former (cadell, publisher,) i beg you will forward my best thanks for his letter, his present, and, above all, his good intentions. the 'bioscope' contained an ms. copy of very excellent verses, from whom i know not, but evidently the composition of some one in the habit of writing, and of writing well. i do not know if he be the author of the 'bioscope' which accompanied them; but whoever he is, if you can discover him, thank him from me most heartily. the other letters were from ladies, who are welcome to convert me when they please; and if i can discover them, and they be young, as they say they are, i could convince them perhaps of my devotion. i had also a letter from mr. walpole on matters of this world, which i have answered. so you are lucien's publisher! [ ] i am promised an interview with him, and think i shall ask _you_ for a letter of introduction, as "the gods have made him poetical." from whom could it come with a better grace than from _his_ publisher and mine? is it not somewhat treasonable in you to have to do with a relative of the "direful foe," as the 'morning post' calls his brother? but my book on 'diet and regimen', where is it? i thirst for scott's 'rokeby'; let me have y'e first-begotten copy. the 'anti-jacobin review' [ ] is all very well, and not a bit worse than the 'quarterly', and at least less harmless. by the by, have you secured my books? i want all the reviews, at least the critiques, quarterly, monthly, etc., portuguese and english, extracted, and bound up in one volume for my _old age_; and pray, sort my romaic books, and get the volumes lent to mr. hobhouse--he has had them now a long time. if any thing occurs, you will favour me with a line, and in winter we shall be nearer neighbours. yours very truly, byron. p.s.--i was applied to to write the _address_ for drury lane, but the moment i heard of the contest, i gave up the idea of contending against all grub street, and threw a few thoughts on the subject into the fire. i did this out of respect to you, being sure you would have turned off any of your authors who had entered the lists with such scurvy competitors; to triumph would have been no glory, and to have been defeated--'sdeath!--i would have choked myself, like otway, with a quartern loaf [ ]; so, remember i had, and have, nothing to do with it, upon _my honour!_ [footnote : granville penn ( - ) was the author of numerous works on religious subjects. 'the bioscope, or dial of life explained' appeared in . the other work referred to by byron is probably penn's 'christian's survey of all the primary events and periods of the world' ( ), of which a second edition was published in .] [footnote : lucien buonaparte ( - ), prince of canino, since a landed proprietor in shropshire, wrote an epic poem, 'charlemagne, ou l'Église délivrée'. it was translated ( ) by dr. butler of shrewsbury and francis hodgson.] [footnote : 'the anti-jacobin review' criticized 'childe harold' in august, ; the 'quarterly', in march, .] [footnote : otway died april, , at the age of thirty-three, from a fever contracted by drinking water when heated by running after an assassin (spence's 'anecdotes', p. ). theophilus cibber ('lives of the poets', ed. , vol. ii. pp. , ) gives another account of his death, viz. that he begged a shilling of a gentleman, and, being given a guinea, bought a roll, with which he was choked.] * * * * * .--to lord holland. september , . my dear lord,--in a day or two i will send you something which you will still have the liberty to reject if you dislike it. i should like to have had more time, but will do my best,--but too happy if i can oblige _you_, though i may offend a hundred scribblers and the discerning public. ever yours. keep _my name_ a _secret_; or i shall be beset by all the rejected, and, perhaps, damned by a party. * * * * * .--to lord holland. cheltenham, september , . ecco!--i have marked some passages with _double_ readings--choose between them--_cut--add--reject_--or _destroy_--do with them as you will--i leave it to you and the committee--you cannot say so called "a _non committendo_." what will _they_ do (and i do) with the hundred and one rejected troubadours? [ ] "with trumpets, yea, and with shawms," will you be assailed in the most diabolical doggerel. i wish my name not to transpire till the day is decided. i shall not be in town, so it won't much matter; but let us have a _good deliverer_. i think elliston [ ] should be the man, or pope [ ]; not raymond [ ], i implore you, by the love of rhythmus! the passages marked thus = =, above and below, are for you to choose between epithets, and such like poetical furniture. pray write me a line, and believe me ever, etc. my best remembrances to lady h. will you be good enough to decide between the various readings marked, and erase the other; or our _deliverer_ may be as puzzled as a commentator, and belike repeat both. if these _versicles_ won't do, i will hammer out some more endecasyllables. p.s.--tell lady h. i have had sad work to keep out the phoenix--i mean the fire office of that name. it has insured the theatre, and why not the address? [footnote : the genuine rejected addresses were advertised for by b. mcmillan, of bow street, covent garden, and forty-two of them were published by him in november, , with the following title: 'the genuine rejected addresses presented to the committee of management for drury lane theatre; preceded by that written by lord byron and adopted by the committee'. the youngest competitor was "anna, a young lady in the fifteenth year of her age." the actual number sent in was , and sixty-nine of the competitors invoked the phoenix. among the competitors were peter pindar, whose 'address' was printed in ; whitbread, the manager, who gave the "poulterer's description" of the phoenix; and horace smith, who published his 'address without a phoenix', by s. t. p., in 'rejected addresses'.] [footnote : robert william elliston ( - ), according to genest ('english stage', vol. ix. p. ), made his first appearance at bath in april, , as "tressel" in 'richard iii'., and from to bath remained his head-quarters. an excellent actor both in tragedy and comedy, he became in a member of the haymarket company. from to , and again from to , he acted at drury lane. byron's prologue was spoken by him on october , , at the reopening of the new theatre. it was at drury lane in april, , while he was lessee ( - ), that byron's 'marino faliero' was acted. his last appearance was as "sheva" in 'the jew', at the surrey theatre, of which ( - ) he was lessee. in spite of his drunken habits, he won the enthusiastic praise of charles lamb as the "joyousest of once embodied spirits" (see 'essays of elia', "to the shade of elliston" and "ellistoniana").] [footnote : alexander pope ( - ), miniaturist, 'gourmand', and actor, was for years the principal tragedian at covent garden. opinion was divided as to his merits as an actor. he owed much to his voice, which had a "mellow richness ... superior to any other performer on the stage." genest, who quotes the above (vol. ix. p. ), adds that "in his better days he had more pathos about him than any other actor." he made his first appearance in cork as "oroonoko," and subsequently (january, ) at covent garden in the same part. he ceased acting at covent garden in june, .] [footnote : in the cast for 'hamlet', with which drury lane reopened, raymond played the ghost. raymond was also the stage manager of the theatre.] * * * * * .--to lord holland. september . i send a recast of the four first lines of the concluding paragraph. this greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd, the drama's homage by her herald paid, receive _our welcome too_, whose every tone springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own. the curtain rises, etc., etc. and do forgive all this trouble. see what it is to have to do even with the _genteelest_ of us. ever, etc. * * * * * .--to lord holland. cheltenham, sept. , . still "more matter for a may morning." [ ] having patched the middle and end of the address, i send one more couplet for a part of the beginning, which, if not too turgid, you will have the goodness to add. after that flagrant image of the _thames_ (i hope no unlucky wag will say i have set it on fire, though dryden [ ], in his _annus mirabilis_, and churchill [ ], in his _times_, did it before me), i mean to insert this: as flashing far the new volcano shone {_meteors_} and swept the skies with {lightnings} not their own, while thousands throng'd around the burning dome, etc., etc. i think "thousands" less flat than "crowds collected"--but don't let me plunge into the bathos, or rise into nat. lee's _bedlam metaphors_ [ ]. by the by, the best view of the said fire (which i myself saw from a house-top in covent-garden) was at westminster bridge, from the reflection on the thames. perhaps the present couplet had better come in after "trembled for their homes," the two lines after;--as otherwise the image certainly sinks, and it will run just as well. the lines themselves, perhaps, may be better thus--("choose," or "refuse"--but please _yourself_, and don't mind "sir fretful" [ ]): as flash'd the volumed blaze, and {_sadly_/ghastly} shone the skies with lightnings awful as their own. the last _runs_ smoothest, and, i think, best; but you know _better_ than _best_. "lurid" is also a less indistinct epithet than "livid wave," and, if you think so, a dash of the pen will do. i expected one line this morning; in the mean time, i shall remodel and condense, and, if i do not hear from you, shall send another copy. i am ever, etc. [footnote : 'twelfth night', act iii. sc. .] [footnote : dryden's 'annus mirabilis', stanza : "a key of fire ran all along the shore, and lightened all the river with a blaze; the wakened tides began again to roar, and wondering fish in shining waters gaze."] [footnote : churchill's 'times', lines , : "bidding in one grand pile this town expire, her towers in dust, her thames a lake of fire."] [footnote : nathaniel lee (circ. - ), the dramatist, wrote 'the rival queens' ( ), in which occurs the line: "when greek join'd greek then was the tug of war." he collaborated with dryden in 'oedipus' ( ) and 'the duke of guise' ( ). his numerous dramas were distinguished, in his own day, for extravagance and bombast. his mind failing, he was confined from to in bethlehem hospital, where he is said to have composed a tragedy in acts.] [footnote : 'the critic', act i. sc. i. "sneer," speaking of "sir fretful plagiary," says, "he is as envious as an old maid verging on the desperation of six and thirty; and then the insidious humility with which he seduces you to give a free opinion on any of his works can be exceeded only by the petulant arrogance with which he is sure to reject your observations."] * * * * * .--to lord holland. september , . you will think there is no end to my villanous emendations. the fifth and sixth lines i think to alter thus: ye who beheld--oh sight admired and mourn'd, whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd; because "night" is repeated the next line but one; and, as it now stands, the conclusion of the paragraph, "worthy him (shakspeare) and _you_," appears to apply the "_you_" to those only who were out of bed and in covent garden market on the night of conflagration, instead of the audience or the discerning public at large, all of whom are intended to be comprised in that comprehensive and, i hope, comprehensible pronoun. by the by, one of my corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom: when garrick died, and brinsley ceased to write. ceasing to _live_ is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first; therefore i will let the old couplet stand, with its half rhymes "sought" and "wrote." [ ] second thoughts in every thing are best, but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss. i am very anxious on this business, and i do hope that the very trouble i occasion you will plead its own excuse, and that it will tend to show my endeavour to make the most of the time allotted. i wish i had known it months ago, for in that case i had not left one line standing on another. i always scrawl in this way, and smooth as much as i can, but never sufficiently; and, latterly, i can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure i have not the cunning. when i began _childe harold_, i had never tried spenser's measure, and now i cannot scribble in any other. after all, my dear lord, if you can get a decent _address_ elsewhere, don't hesitate to put this aside [ ]. why did you not trust your own muse? i am very sure she would have been triumphant, and saved the committee their trouble--"'tis a joyful one" to me, but i fear i shall not satisfy even myself. after the account you sent me, 'tis no compliment to say you would have beaten your candidates; but i mean that, in _that_ case, there would have been no occasion for their being beaten at all. there are but two decent prologues in our tongue--pope's to 'cato' [ ]--johnson's to drury-lane [ ]. these, with the epilogue to 'the distrest mother' [ ] and, i think, one of goldsmith's [ ], and a prologue of old colman's to beaumont and fletcher's 'philaster' [ ], are the best things of the kind we have. p.s.--i am diluted to the throat with medicine for the stone; and boisragon wants me to try a warm climate for the winter--but i won't. [footnote : "such are the names that here your plaudits sought, when garrick acted, and when brinsley wrote." at present the couplet stands thus: "dear are the days that made our annals bright, ere garrick fled, or brinsley ceased to write."] [footnote : "i am almost ashamed," writes lord holland to rogers, october , (clayden's 'rogers and his contemporaries', vol. i. p. ), "of having induced lord byron to write on so ungrateful a theme (ungrateful in all senses) as the opening of a theatre; he was so good-humoured, took so much pains, corrected so good-humouredly, and produced, as i thought and think, a prologue so superior to the common run of that sort of trumpery, that it is quite vexatious to see him attacked for it. some part of it is a little too much laboured, and the whole too long; but surely it is good and poetical.... you cannot imagine how i grew to like lord byron in my critical intercourse with him, and how much i am convinced that your friendship and judgment have contributed to improve both his understanding and his happiness."] [footnote : pope wrote the prologue to addison's 'cato' when it was acted at drury lane, april , .] [footnote : johnson wrote the prologue when garrick opened drury lane, september , , with 'the merchant of venice'. "it is," says genest ('english stage', vol. iv. p. ), "the best prologue that was ever written." johnson wrote the prologue to milton's 'comus', played at drury lane, april , ; to goldsmith's 'good-natured man', played at covent garden, january , ; and to hugh kelly's 'a word to the wise', played at drury lane, march , .] [footnote : 'the distrest mother', adapted from racine by ambrose philips, was first played at drury lane, march , . addison is supposed (genest, 'english stage', vol. ii. p. ) to have written the epilogue.] [footnote : it is impossible to say to which of goldsmith's epilogues byron refers. a previous editor of moore's 'life, etc'., identified it with his epilogue to charlotte lennox's unsuccessful comedy, 'the sister', which was once played at covent garden, february , , and then withdrawn.] [footnote : george colman the elder, who edited an edition of beaumont and fletcher ( vols., ), wrote the prologue to 'philaster', when it was produced at drury lane, october , .] * * * * * .--to lord holland. sept. , . i believe this is the third scrawl since yesterday--all about epithets. i think the epithet "intellectual" won't convey the meaning i intend; and though i hate compounds, for the present i will try (_col' permesso_) the word "genius gifted patriots of our line" [ ] instead. johnson has "many coloured life," a compound----but they are always best avoided. however, it is the only one in ninety lines [ ], but will be happy to give way to a better. i am ashamed to intrude any more remembrances on lady h. or letters upon you; but you are, fortunately for me, gifted with patience already too often tried by your etc., etc., byron. [footnote : this, as finally altered, stood thus: "immortal names emblazon'd on our line."] [footnote : reduced to seventy-three lines.] * * * * * .--to lord holland. september , . i have just received your very kind letter, and hope you have met with a second copy corrected and addressed to holland house, with some omissions and this new couplet, as glared each rising flash, [ ] and ghastly shone the skies with lightnings awful as their own. as to remarks, i can only say i will alter and acquiesce in any thing. with regard to the part which whitbread [ ] wishes to omit, i believe the 'address' will go off _quicker_ without it, though, like the agility of the hottentot, at the expense of its vigour. i leave to your choice entirely the different specimens of stucco-work; and a _brick_ of your own will also much improve my babylonish turret. i should like elliston to have it, with your leave. "adorn" and "mourn" are lawful rhymes in pope's 'death of the unfortunate lady'.--gray has "forlorn" and "mourn"--and "torn" and "mourn" are in smollett's famous 'tears of scotland' [ ]. as there will probably be an outcry amongst the rejected, i hope the committee will testify (if it be needful) that i sent in nothing to the congress whatever, with or without a name, as your lordship well knows. all i have to do with it is with and through you; and though i, of course, wish to satisfy the audience, i do assure you my first object is to comply with your request, and in so doing to show the sense i have of the many obligations you have conferred upon me. yours ever, b. [footnote : at present: "as glared the volumed blaze."] [footnote : samuel whitbread ( - ) married, in , elizabeth, daughter of general sir charles grey, created ( ) earl grey, and sister of the second earl grey, of reform bill fame. the son of a wealthy brewer, whose fortune he inherited, he entered parliament as m.p. for bedford in . raikes, in his 'journal' (vol. iv. pp. , ), speaks of him, at the outset of his career, as a staunch foxite, and "much remarked in society." comparing him with his brother-in-law grey, he says, "mr. whitbread was a more steady character; his appearance was heavy; he was fond of agriculture, and was very plain and simple in his tastes. both were reckoned good debaters in the house, but grey was the most eloquent." an independent whig, and an advocate for peace with france, whitbread supported fox against pitt throughout the napoleonic war, strongly opposed its renewal after the return of the emperor from elba, and interested himself in such measures as moderate parliamentary reform, the amendment of the poor law, national education, and retrenchment of public expenditure. on april , , he moved the resolutions which ended in the impeachment of lord melville, and took the lead in the inquiries, which were made, march, , into the conduct of the duke of york. he was a plain, business-like speaker, and a man of such unimpeachable integrity that mr., afterwards lord, plunket, in a speech on the roman catholic claims, february , , called him "the incorruptible sentinel of the constitution." when he moved the articles of impeachment against lord melville, canning scribbled the following impromptu parody of his speech ('anecdotal history of the british parliament', p. ): "i'm like archimedes for science and skill; i'm like a young prince going straight up a hill; i'm like--(with respect to the fair be it said)-- i'm like a young lady just bringing to bed. if you ask why the th of june i remember much better than april, or may, or november, on that day, my lords, with truth i assure ye, my sainted progenitor set up his brewery; on that day, in the morn, he began brewing beer; on that day, too, commenced his connubial career;] on that day he received and he issued his bills; on that day he cleared out all the cash from his tills; on that day he died, having finished his summing, and the angels all cried, 'here's old whitbread a-coming!' so that day still i hail with a smile and a sigh, for his beer with an e, and his bier with an i; and still on that day, in the hottest of weather, the whole whitbread family dine all together.-- so long as the beams of this house shall support the roof which o'ershades this respectable court, where hastings was tried for oppressing the hindoos; so long as that sun shall shine in at those windows, my name shall shine bright as my ancestor's shines, 'mine' recorded in journals, 'his' blazoned on signs!" an active member of parliament, a large landed proprietor, the manager of his immense brewery in chiswell street, whitbread also found time to reduce to order the chaotic concerns of drury lane theatre. he was, with lord holland and harvey combe, responsible for the request to byron to write an address, having first rejected his own address with its "poulterer's description of the phoenix." he was fond of private theatricals, and dibdin ('reminiscences', vol. ii. pp. , ) gives the play-bill of an entertainment given by him at southill. in the first play, 'the happy return', he took the part of "margery;" and in the second, 'fatal duplicity', that of "eglantine," a very young lady, loved by "sir buntybart" and "sir brandywine." in his capacity as manager of drury lane, whitbread is represented by the author of 'accepted addresses' ( ) as addressing "the m--s of h--d"-- "my lord,-- "as i now have the honour to be by 'man'ging' a 'playhouse' a double m.p., in this my address i think fit to complain of certain encroachments on great drury lane," etc., etc. whitbread strongly supported the cause of the princess of wales. miss berry ('journal', vol. iii. p. ) says that he dictated the letters which the princess wrote to the queen, who had desired that she should not attend the two drawing-rooms to be held in june, . "they were good," she adds, "but too long, and sometimes marked by whitbread's want of taste." the strain of his multifarious activities affected both his health and his mind, and he committed suicide july , .] [footnote : "by foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, by strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd." (pope.) "stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn, leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn." (gray.) "mourn, hapless caledonia, mourn thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn." (smollett.)] * * * * * .--to john murray. cheltenham, september , . dear sir,--i sent in no 'address' whatever to the committee; but out of nearly one hundred (this is _confidential_), none have been deemed worth acceptance; and in consequence of their _subsequent_ application to _me_, i have written a prologue, which _has_ been received, and will be spoken. the ms. is now in the hands of lord holland. i write this merely to say, that (however it is received by the audience) you will publish it in the next edition of _childe harold_; and i only beg you at present to keep my name secret till you hear further from me, and as soon as possible i wish you to have a correct copy, to do with as you think proper. i am, yours very truly, byron. p.s.--i should wish a few copies printed off _before_, that the newspaper copies may be correct _after_ the _delivery_. * * * * * .--to lord holland. september , . will this do better? the metaphor is more complete. till slowly ebb'd the {_lava of the_/spent volcanic} wave, and blackening ashes mark'd the muse's grave. if not, we will say "burning wave," and instead of "burning clime," in the line some couplets back, have "glowing." is whitbread determined to castrate all my _cavalry_ lines [ ]? i don't see why t'other house should be spared; besides it is the public, who ought to know better; and you recollect johnson's was against similar buffooneries of rich's--but, certes, i am not johnson. [ ] instead of "effects," say "labours"--"degenerate" will do, will it? mr. betty is no longer a babe, therefore the line cannot be personal. will this do? till ebb'd the lava of {_the burning_}/{that molten} wave [ ] with "glowing dome," in case you prefer "burning" added to this "wave" metaphorical. the word "fiery pillar" was suggested by the "pillar of fire" in the book of exodus, which went before the israelites through the red sea. i once thought of saying "like israel's pillar," and making it a simile, but i did not know,--the great temptation was leaving the epithet "fiery" for the supplementary wave. i want to work up that passage, as it is the only new ground us prologuizers can go upon-- this is the place where, if a poet shined in description, he might show it. if i part with the possibility of a future conflagration, we lessen the compliment to shakspeare. however, we will e'en mend it thus: yes, it shall be--the magic of that name, that scorns the scythe of time, the torch of flame, on the same spot, etc., etc. there--the deuce is in it, if that is not an improvement to whitbread's content. recollect, it is the "name," and not the "magic," that has a noble contempt for those same weapons. if it were the "magic," my metaphor would be somewhat of the maddest--so the "name" is the antecedent. but, my dear lord, your patience is not quite so immortal--therefore, with many and sincere thanks, i am, yours ever most affectionately. p.s.--i foresee there will be charges of partiality in the papers; but you know i sent in no _address_; and glad both you and i must be that i did not, for, in that case, their plea had been plausible. i doubt the pit will be testy; but conscious innocence (a novel and pleasing sensation) makes me bold. [footnote : the lines which were omitted by the committee ran thus: "'nay, lower still, the drama yet deplores that late she deigned to crawl upon all-fours. when richard roars in bosworth for a horse, if you command, the steed must come in course. if you decree, the stage must condescend' to soothe the sickly taste we dare not mend. _blame not our judgment should we acquiesce, and gratify you more by showing less_. oh, since your fiat stamps the drama's laws, forbear to mock us with misplaced applause; _that public praise be ne'er again disgraced, from_ {brutes to man recall}/{_babes and brutes redeem} a nation's taste_; then pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers, when reason's voice is echoed back by ours." the last couplet but one was altered in a subsequent copy, thus: "'the past reproach let present scenes refute, nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute'." on february , , at covent garden, a troop of horses were introduced in 'bluebeard'. for the manager, juvenal's words, "_lucri bonus est odor ex re qualibet_" ('sat'. xiv. ) may have been true; but, as the dressing-room of the equine comedians was under the orchestra, the stench on the first night was to the audience intolerable. at the same theatre, april , , the horses were again brought on the stage in lewis's 'timour the tartar'. at the same theatre, on the following december , a live elephant appeared. the novelty had, however, been anticipated in the dublin theatre during the season of - (genest's 'english stage', vol. viii. p. ). at the haymarket, and drury lane, the introduction of live animals was ridiculed. 'the quadrupeds of quedlinburgh' was given at the haymarket, july , , as a burlesque on 'timour the tartar' and the horses. the prologue, by colman the younger, attacks the passion for german plays and animal actors: "your taste, recover'd half from foreign quacks, takes airings, now, on english horses' backs; while every modern bard may raise his name, if not on _lasting praise_, on _stable fame_." at the lyceum, during the season - , 'quadrupeds, or the manager's last kick', in which the tailors were mounted on asses and mules, was given by the drury lane company with success. it was this introduction of animal performers which byron wished to attack.] [footnote : the following are the lines in johnson's 'prologue' to which byron refers: "then crush'd by rules, and weaken'd as refined, for years the power of tragedy declined; from bard to bard the frigid caution crept, till declamation roared, whilst passion slept. yet still did virtue deign the stage to tread, philosophy remained though nature fled. but forced, at length, her ancient reign to quit, she saw great faustus lay the ghost of wit; exulting folly hailed the joyous day, and pantomime and song confirmed her sway. but who the coming changes can presage, and mark the future periods of the stage? perhaps if skill could distant times explore, new behns, new durfeys, yet remain in store; perhaps, where lear has raved, and hamlet died, on flying cars new sorcerers may ride; perhaps (for who can guess th' effects of chance?) here hunt may box, or mahomet may dance." john rich (circ. - ) was the creator of pantomime in england, which he introduced at lincoln's inn fields in april, , and in which, under the stage name of lun, he played the part of harlequin. at lincoln's inn fields, january , , he produced 'the beggar's opera', which, after being refused at drury lane, made "gay 'rich', and rich 'gay'." "great faustus" probably alludes to the war between the two theatres, and the rival productions of 'harlequin dr. faustus' at drury lane in , and of 'the necromancer, or the history of dr. faustus' at lincoln's inn fields in december of the same year. on december , , rich opened the new theatre at covent garden, of which he remained manager till his death in .] [footnote : the form of this couplet, as printed, is as follows: "till blackening ashes and lonely wall usurp'd the muse's realm, and mark'd her fall."] * * * * * .--to lord holland. september . i have altered the _middle_ couplet, so as i hope partly to do away with w.'s objection. i do think, in the present state of the stage, it had been unpardonable to pass over the horses and miss mudie [ ], etc. as betty is no longer a boy, how can this be applied to him? he is now to be judged as a man. if he acts still like a boy, the public will but be more ashamed of their blunder. i have, you see, _now_ taken it for granted that these things are reformed. i confess, i wish that part of the _address_ to stand; but if w. is inexorable, e'en let it go. i have also new-cast the lines, and softened the hint of future combustion, and sent them off this morning. will you have the goodness to add, or insert, the _approved_ alterations as they arrive? they "come like shadows, so depart," [ ] occupy me, and, i fear, disturb you. do not let mr. w. put his _address_ into elliston's hands till you have settled on these alterations. e. will think it too long:--much depends on the speaking. i fear it will not bear much curtailing, without _chasms_ in the sense. it is certainly too long in the reading; but if elliston exerts himself, such a favourite with the public will not be thought tedious. _i_ should think it so, if _he_ were not to speak it. yours ever, etc. p.s.--on looking again, i doubt my idea of having obviated w.'s objection. to the other house allusion is _non sequitur_--but i wish to plead for this part, because the thing really is not to be passed over. many afterpieces of the lyceum by the _same company_ have already attacked this "augean _stable_"--and johnson, in his prologue against "lunn" (the harlequin manager, rich),--"hunt,"--"mahomet," etc. is surely a fair precedent. [ ] [footnote : for the horses, see p. , 'note' . miss mudie, another "phenomenon," with whom the covent garden manager hoped to rival the success of master betty, was announced in the 'morning post', july , , as the "young roscia of the dublin stage." she appeared at covent garden, november , , in the part of "peggy" in 'the country girl', miss brunton being "alithea," c. kemble "harcourt," and moody "murray." being hissed by the audience, she walked with great composure to the front of the stage, and said, as reported in the 'morning post' (november , ) "ladies and gentlemen,--i know nothing i have done to offend you, and has set ('sic') those who are sent here to hiss me; i will be very much obliged to you to turn them out." this unfortunate speech made matters worse; the audience refused to hear her, and her part was finished by miss searle. miss mudie was said to be only eight years old. but j. kemble, being asked if she were really such a child, answered, "'child'! why, sir, when i was a very young actor in the york company, that little creature kept an inn at tadcaster, and had a large family" (clark russell's 'representative actors', p. , 'note' ). the 'morning post' (april , ) says that miss mudie afterwards joined a children's troupe in leicester place, where, "though deservedly discountenanced at a great theatre, she will, no doubt, prove an acquisition to the infant establishment" (ashton's 'dawn of the xixth century in england', pp. - ).] [footnote : macbeth, act iv. sc. .] [footnote : for lun, or rich, see p. , end of 'note' . hunt, in the notes to johnson's 'prologue' (gilfillan's edition of johnson's 'poestical works', p. ), is said to be "a famous stage-boxer, mahomet, a rope-dancer."] * * * * * .--to william bankes. cheltenham, september , . my dear bankes,--when you point out to one how people can be intimate at the distance of some seventy leagues, i will plead guilty to your charge, and accept your farewell, but not _wittingly_, till you give me some better reason than my silence, which merely proceeded from a notion founded on your own declaration of _old_, that you hated writing and receiving letters. besides, how was i to find out a man of many residences? if i had addressed you _now_, it had been to your borough, where i must have conjectured you were amongst your constituents. so now, in despite of mr. n. and lady w., you shall be as "much better" as the hexham post-office will allow me to make you. i do assure you i am much indebted to you for thinking of me at all, and can't spare you even from amongst the superabundance of friends with whom you suppose me surrounded. you heard that newstead [ ] is sold--the sum £ , ; sixty to remain in mortgage on the estate for three years, paying interest, of course. rochdale is also likely to do well--so my worldly matters are mending. i have been here some time drinking the waters, simply because there are waters to drink, and they are very medicinal, and sufficiently disgusting. in a few days i set out for lord jersey's [ ], but return here, where i am quite alone, go out very little, and enjoy in its fullest extent the _dolce far niente_. what you are about i cannot guess, even from your date;--not dauncing to the sound of the gitourney in the halls of the lowthers? one of whom is here, ill, poor thing, with a phthisic. i heard that you passed through here (at the sordid inn where i first alighted) the very day before i arrived in these parts. we had a very pleasant set here; at first the jerseys, melbournes [ ], cowpers [ ], and hollands, but all gone; and the only persons i know are the rawdons [ ] and oxfords [ ], with some later acquaintances of less brilliant descent. but i do not trouble them much; and as for your rooms and your assemblies "they are not dreamed of in our philosophy!!"--did you read of a sad accident in the wye t'other day [ ]? a dozen drowned; and mr. rossoe, a corpulent gentleman, preserved by a boat-hook or an eel-spear, begged, when he heard his wife was saved--no--_lost_--to be thrown in again!!--as if he could not have thrown himself in, had he wished it; but this passes for a trait of sensibility. what strange beings men are, in and out of the wye! i have to ask you a thousand pardons for not fulfilling some orders before i left town; but if you knew all the cursed entanglements i _had_ to wade through, it would be unnecessary to beg your forgiveness.--when will parliament (the new one) meet [ ]?--in sixty days, on account of ireland, i presume: the irish election will demand a longer period for completion than the constitutional allotment. yours, of course, is safe, and all your side of the question. salamanca is the ministerial watchword, and all will go well with you. i hope you will speak more frequently, i am sure at least you _ought_, and it will be expected. i see portman means to stand again. good night. ever yours most affectionately, [greek: mpairon.] [footnote : newstead was put up at garraway's in the autumn of ; but only £ , were bid, and the property was therefore withdrawn. subsequently it was privately sold to a mr. claughton, who found himself unable to complete the purchase, and forfeited £ , on the contract. newstead was eventually sold, in november, , to colonel wildman, byron's harrow schoolfellow, for £ , .] [footnote : for lady jersey, see p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]. the following passage, from byron's 'detached thoughts', gives an account of the party at middleton: "in at middelton (lord jersey's), amongst a goodly company of lords, ladies, and wits, etc., there was poor old vice leach, the lawyer, attempting to play off the fine gentleman. his first exhibition, an attempt on horseback, i think, to escort the women--god knows where--in the month of november, ended in a fit of the lumbago--as lord ogleby says, 'a grievous enemy to gallantry and address'--and if he could have but heard lady jersey quizzing him (as i did) next day for the _cause_ of his malady, i don't think that he would have turned a 'squire of dames' in a hurry again. he seemed to me the greatest fool (in that line) i ever saw. this was the last i saw of old vice leach, except in town, where he was creeping into assemblies, and trying to look young--and gentlemanly. "erskine too!--erskine was there--good but intolerable. he jested, he talked, he did everything admirably, but then he 'would' be applauded for the same thing twice over. he would read his own verses, his own paragraphs, and tell his own story again and again; and then 'the trial by jury!!!'--i almost wished it abolished, for i sate next him at dinner, and, as i had read his published speeches, there was no occasion to repeat them to me. chester (the fox-hunter), surnamed 'cheek chester,' and i sweated the claret, being the only two who did so. cheek, who loves his bottle, and had no notion of meeting with a 'bonvivant' in a scribbler, in making my eulogy to somebody one evening, summed it up in 'by g-d, he 'drinks like a man'!'"] [footnote : sir peniston lamb, created an irish baron as lord melbourne in , an irish viscount in , and an english peer in , married, in , elizabeth, only daughter of sir ralph milbanke, of halnaby, yorkshire, one of the cleverest and most beautiful women of the day. horace walpole, writing to mason, may , , mentions her when she was at the height of her beauty. "on tuesday," he says, "i supped, after the opera, at mrs. meynel's with a set of the most fashionable company, which, take notice, i very seldom do now, as i certainly am not of the age to mix often with young people. lady melbourne was standing before the fire, and adjusting her feathers in the glass. says she, 'lord, they say the stocks will blow up! that will be very comical.'" greville ('memoirs', ed. , vol. vi. p. ) associates her name with that of lord egremont. reynolds painted her with her eldest son in his well-known picture 'maternal affection'. her second son, william, afterwards prime minister, used to say, "ah! my mother was a most remarkable woman; not merely clever and engaging, but the most sagacious woman i ever knew" ('memoirs of viscount melbourne', vol. i. p. ). lady melbourne, whom byron spoke of as "the best, the kindest, and ablest female i have ever known, old or young," died in , her husband in . he thus described her to lady blessington ('conversations', p. ): "lady m., who might have been my mother, excited an interest in my feelings that few young women have been able to awaken. she was a charming person--a sort of modern aspasia, uniting the energy of a man's mind with the delicacy and tenderness of a woman's. she wrote and spoke admirably, because she felt admirably. envy, malice, hatred, or uncharitableness, found no place in her feelings. she had all of philosophy, save its moroseness, and all of nature, save its defects and general 'faiblesse'; or if some portion of 'faiblesse' attached to her, it only served to render her more forbearing to the errors of others. i have often thought, that, with a little more youth, lady m. might have turned my head, at all events she often turned my heart, by bringing me back to mild feelings, when the demon passion was strong within me. her mind and heart were as fresh as if only sixteen summers had flown over her, instead of four times that number."] [footnote : peter, fifth earl cowper ( - ), married, in emily mary lamb, daughter of lord melbourne; she married, secondly, in , lord palmerston.] [footnote : francis rawdon, second earl of moira ( - ), created lord rawdon ( ), and marquis of hastings ( ), married, in , the countess of loudoun.] [footnote : edward harley ( - ) succeeded his uncle as fifth earl of oxford in , and married, in , jane elizabeth, daughter of the rev. james scott, vicar of itchin, hants. it is probably of lady oxford, whose picture was painted by hoppner, that byron spoke to lady blessington ('conversations', p. ), "even now the autumnal charms of lady----are remembered by me with more than admiration. she resembled a landscape by claude lorraine, with a setting sun, her beauties enhanced by the knowledge that they were shedding their last dying beams, which threw a radiance around. a woman... is only grateful for her 'first' and 'last' conquest. the first of poor dear lady----'s was achieved before i entered on this world of care; but the 'last', i do flatter myself, was reserved for me, and a 'bonne bouche' it was." the following passage certainly relates to lady oxford: "there was a lady at that time," said byron (medwin's 'conversations', pp. , ), "double my own age, the mother of several children who were perfect angels, with whom i had formed a 'liaison' that continued without interruption for eight months. the autumn of a beauty like her's is preferable to the spring in others. she told me she was never in love till she was thirty; and i thought myself so with her when she was forty. i never felt a stronger passion; which she returned with equal ardour.... she had been sacrificed, almost before she was a woman, to one whose mind and body were equally contemptible in the scale of creation; and on whom she bestowed a numerous family, to which the law gave him the right to be called father. strange as it may seem, she gained (as all women do) an influence over me so strong, that i had great difficulty in breaking with her, even when i knew she had been inconstant to me: and once was on the point of going abroad with her, and narrowly escaped this folly." to be near the oxfords at eywood, in herefordshire, byron took kinsham court, a dower-house of the family, where bishop harley died in . at one time, as is evident from his correspondence with hanson, he was bent on going abroad with lady oxford. in the end he only accompanied her to portsmouth. of lady oxford, uvedale price wrote thus to rogers (clayden, 'rogers and his contemporaries', vol. i. pp. , ): "this is a melancholy subject"--[the death, by consumption of lord aberdeen's children]--"and i must go to another. poor lady oxford! i had heard with great concern of her dangerous illness, but hoped she might get through it, and was much, very much grieved to hear that it had ended fatally. i had, as you know, lived a great deal with her from the time she came into this country, immediately after her marriage; but for some years past, since she went abroad, had scarcely had any correspondence or intercourse with her, till i met her in town last spring. i then saw her twice, and both times she seemed so overjoyed to see an old friend, and expressed her joy so naturally and cordially, that i felt no less overjoyed at seeing her after so long an absence. she talked, with great satisfaction, of our meeting for a longer time this next spring, little thinking of an eternal separation. there could not, in all respects, be a more ill-matched pair than herself and lord oxford, or a stronger instance of the cruel sports of venus, or, rather, of hymen-- 'cui placet impares formas atque animos sub juga ahenea sævo mittere cum joco.' "it has been said that she was, in some measure, forced into the match. had she been united to a man whom she had loved, esteemed, and respected, she herself might have been generally respected and esteemed, as well as loved; but in her situation, to keep clear of all misconduct required a strong mind or a cold heart; perhaps both, and she had neither. her failings were in no small degree the effect of circumstances; her amiable qualities all her own. there was something about her, in spite of her errors, remarkably attaching, and that something was not merely her beauty. 'kindness has resistless charms,' and she was full of affectionate kindness to those she loved, whether as friends or as lovers. as a friend, i always found her the same, never at all changeful or capricious. as i am not a very rigid moralist, and am extremely open to kindness, 'i could have better spared a better woman.'"] [footnote : an account of the accident is given in the chronicle of the 'annual register', september , . the party consisted of ten people, three of whom were saved. among those rescued was mr. rothery--not rossoe, as byron gives it.] [footnote : the new parliament met november , . wellington won the battle of salamanca on the previous july .] * * * * * .--to lord holland. september , . shakespeare certainly ceased to reign in _one_ of his kingdoms, as george iii. did in america, and george iv. [ ] may in ireland? now, we have nothing to do out of our own realms, and when the monarchy was gone, his majesty had but a barren sceptre. i have _cut away_, you will see, and altered, but make it what you please; only i do implore, for my _own_ gratification, one lash on those accursed quadrupeds--"a long shot, sir lucius, if you love me." [ ] i have altered "wave," etc., and the "fire," and so forth for the timid. let me hear from you when convenient, and believe me, etc. p.s.--do let _that_ stand, and cut out elsewhere. i shall choke, if we must overlook their damned menagerie. [footnote : some objection, it appears, had been made to the passage, "and shakspeare _ceased to reign_."] [footnote : bob acres, in 'the rivals' (act v. se. ), says, "a long shot, sir lucius, if you love me."] * * * * * .--to lord holland. september , . i send you the most i can make of it; for i am not so well as i was, and find i "pull in resolution." [ ] i wish much to see you, and will be at tetbury by twelve on saturday; and from thence i go on to lord jersey's. it is impossible not to allude to the degraded state of the stage, but i have lightened _it_, and endeavoured to obviate your _other_ objections. there is a new couplet for sheridan, allusive to his monody [ ]. all the alterations i have marked thus ],--as you will see by comparison with the other copy. i have cudgelled my brains with the greatest willingness, and only wish i had more time to have done better. you will find a sort of clap-trap laudatory couplet inserted for the quiet of the committee [ ], and i have added, towards the end, the couplet you were pleased to _like_. the whole address is seventy-three lines, still perhaps too long; and, if shortened, you will save time, but, i fear, a little of what i meant for sense also. with myriads of thanks, i am ever, etc. my sixteenth edition of respects to lady h.--how she must laugh at all this! i wish murray, my publisher, to print off some copies as soon as your lordship returns to town--it will ensure correctness in the papers afterwards. [footnote : 'macbeth', act v. sc. .] [footnote : sheridan's 'monody on garrick'.] [footnote : the committee of selection consisted, says the 'satirist' (november , , p. ), "of one peer and two commoners, one poet and two prosers, one lord and two brewers; and the only points in which they coincided were in being all three parliament men, all three politicians, all three in opposition to the government of the country. their names, as we understand, were vassal holland, samuel whitbread, and harvey christian combe."] * * * * * .--to lord holland. far be from him that hour which asks in vain tears such as flow for garrick in his strain; _or_, far be that hour that vainly asks in turn such verse for him as {_crown'd his_/wept o'er} garrick's urn. september , . will you choose between these added to the lines on sheridan [ ]? i think they will wind up the panegyric, and agree with the train of thought preceding them. now, one word as to the committee--how could they resolve on a rough copy of an _address_ never sent in, unless you had been good enough to retain in memory, or on paper, the thing they have been good enough to adopt? by the by, the circumstances of the case should make the committee less _avidus gloriæ_, for all praise of them would look plaguy suspicious. if necessary to be stated at all, the simple facts bear them out. they surely had a right to act as they pleased. my sole object is one which, i trust, my whole conduct has shown; viz. that i did nothing insidious--sent in no address _whatever_--but, when applied to, did my best for them and myself; but, above all, that there was no undue partiality, which will be what the rejected will endeavour to make out. fortunately--most fortunately--i sent in no lines on the occasion. for i am sure that had they, in that case, been preferred, it would have been asserted that _i_ was known, and owed the preference to private friendship. this is what we shall probably have to encounter; but, if once spoken and approved, we sha'n't be much embarrassed by their brilliant conjectures; and, as to criticism, an _old_ author, like an old bull, grows cooler (or ought) at every baiting. the only thing would be to avoid a party on the night of delivery--afterwards, the more the better, and the whole transaction inevitably tends to a good deal of discussion. murray tells me there are myriads of ironical addresses [ ] ready--_some_, in imitation of what is called _my style_. if they are as good as the 'probationary odes' [ ], or hawkins's 'pipe of tobacco' [ ], it will not be bad fun for the imitated. ever, etc. [footnote : these added lines, as may be seen by reference to the printed address, were not retained.] [footnote : probably the reference is to 'rejected addresses, or the new theatrum poetarum' ( ), by james ( - ) and horace ( - ) smith. "cui bono?" the parody on byron, is the joint composition of james and horace. the manuscript was offered to murray for £ , but declined by him. it was afterwards published by john miller, of bow street, covent garden, who also published 'horace in london'.] [footnote : 'probationary odes', which generally forms, with 'political eclogues', the third portion of the 'rolliad', is really distinct from that work. it is the result of an imaginary contest for the laureate-ship. each candidate was to deliver a "probationary birthday ode," and among the candidates are dr. pretyman, archbishop markham, thomas and joseph warton, sir cecil wray, sir joseph mawbey, henry dundas, lord thurlow, and other tories of the day. the plan of the work is said to have been suggested by joseph richardson ( - ), who wrote odes iv. (sir richard hill) and xix. (lord mountmorres).] [footnote : 'in praise of a pipe of tobacco' ( ), written by isaac hawkins browne ( - ), was an ode in imitation of swift, pope, thomson, and other contemporary poets. browne represented wenlock in the whig interest in the parliaments of and . johnson spoke of him (boswell, 'johnson', april , ) as "one of the first wits of this country," who "got into parliament, and never opened his mouth."] * * * * * .--to lord holland. october , . a copy of this _still altered_ is sent by the post, but this will arrive first. it must be "humbler"--"_yet aspiring_" does away the modesty, and, after all, _truth is truth_. besides, there is a puff direct altered, to please your _plaguy renters_. i shall be at tetbury by or --but send this for you to ponder over. there are several little things marked thus / altered for your perusal. i have dismounted the cavalry, and, i hope, arranged to your general satisfaction. ever, etc. at tetbury by noon.--i hope, after it is sent, there will be no more elisions. it is not now so long-- lines--two less than allotted. i will alter all committee objections, but i hope you won't permit _elliston_ to have any _voice_ whatever,--except in speaking it. * * * * * .--to john murray. cheltenham, oct. , . dear sir,--i have a _very strong objection_ to the engraving of the portrait [ ], and request that it may, on no account, be prefixed; but let _all_ the proofs be burnt, and the plate broken. i will be at the expense which has been incurred; it is but fair that _i_ should, since i cannot permit the publication. i beg, as a particular favour, that you will lose no time in having this done, for which i have reasons that i will state when i see you. forgive all the trouble i have occasioned you. i have received no account of the reception of the _address_ [ ], but see it is vituperated in the papers, which does not much embarrass an _old author_. i leave it to your own judgment to add it, or not, to your next edition when required. pray comply _strictly_ with my wishes as to the engraving, and believe me, etc. yours very truly, byron. p.s.--favour me with an answer, as i shall not be easy until i hear that the _proofs_, etc., are destroyed. i hear that the _satirist_ has reviewed _childe harold_ [ ], in what manner i need not ask; but i wish to know if the old personalities are revived? i have a better reason for asking this than any that merely concerns myself; but in publications of that kind, others, particularly female names, are sometimes introduced. [footnote : a miniature by sanders. besides this miniature, sanders had also painted a full-length of byron, from which the portrait prefixed to the quarto edition of moore's 'life' is engraved. in reference to the latter picture, byron says, in a note to rogers, "if you think the picture you saw at murray's worth your acceptance, it is yours; and you may put a glove or mask on it, if you like" (moore).] [footnote : on saturday, october , drury lane reopened with 'the devil to pay' and 'hamlet'. then, after the whole body of actors had sung "god save the king" and "rule, britannia," elliston delivered byron's address.] [footnote : 'the satirist, a monthly meteor' (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]), ran from october, , to . up to it was the property of george manners, who sold it in that year to w. jerdan. it reviewed 'childe harold' in october, (pp. - ); and again in december of the same year (pp. - ). in the first of the two notices, the 'satirist' quotes the "judgment of our predecessors," that unless byron "improved wonderfully, he could never be a poet," and continues thus: "it is with unaffected satisfaction we find that he has improved wonderfully, and that he is a poet. indeed, when we consider the comparatively short interval which has elapsed, and contrast the character of his recent with that of his early work, we confess ourselves astonished at the intellectual progress which lord byron has made, and are happy to hold him up as another example of the extraordinary effects of study and cultivation, 'even' on minds apparently of the most unpromising description." the reviewer severely condemns the morbid bitterness of the poet's thought and feeling, but yet affirms that the poems "abound with beautiful imagery, clothed in a diction free, forcible, and various. 'childe harold', although avowedly a fragment, contains many fragments which would do honour to any poet, of any period, in any country."] * * * * * .--to lord holland. cheltenham, oct. , . my dear lord,--i perceive that the papers, yea, even perry's [ ], are somewhat ruffled at the injudicious preference of the committee. my friend perry has, indeed, 'et tu, brute'-d me rather scurvily, for which i will send him, for the 'morning chronicle', the next epigram i scribble, as a token of my full forgiveness. do the committee mean to enter into no explanation of their proceedings? you must see there is a leaning towards a charge of partiality. you will, at least, acquit me of any great anxiety to push myself before so many elder and better anonymous, to whom the twenty guineas (which i take to be about two thousand pounds 'bank' currency) and the honour would have been equally welcome. "honour," i see, "hath skill in paragraph-writing." i wish to know how it went off at the second reading, and whether any one has had the grace to give it a glance of approbation. i have seen no paper but perry's and two sunday ones. perry is severe, and the others silent. if, however, you and your committee are not now dissatisfied with your own judgments, i shall not much embarrass myself about the brilliant remarks of the journals. my own opinion upon it is what it always was, perhaps pretty near that of the public. believe me, my dear lord, etc., etc. p.s.--my best respects to lady h., whose smiles will be very consolatory, even at this distance. [footnote : james perry ( - ) purchased, in , the 'morning chronicle', originally established by woodfall in . in perry's hands the paper became the leading organ of the whigs. he was the first editor to introduce a succession of parliamentary reporters. he gathered round him a remarkable staff of contributors, including ricardo, sir james mackintosh, porson (who married his sister), charles lamb, sheridan, coleridge, hazlitt, lord campbell, moore, campbell, byron, and burns. the 'morning chronicle' (october , ) says: "mr. elliston then came forward and delivered the following 'prize' address. we cannot boast of the eloquence of the delivery. it was neither gracefully nor correctly recited. the merits of the production itself we submit to the criticism of our readers. we cannot suppose that it was selected as the most poetical composition of all the scores that were submitted to the committee. but, perhaps by its tenor, by its allusions to the fire, to garrick, to siddons, and to sheridan, it was thought most applicable to the occasion, notwithstanding its being in parts unmusical, and in general tame." again (october ), in a notice of 'rejected addresses', the 'morning chronicle' returns to the subject: "a wag has already published a small volume of 'addresses rejected', in which, with admirable wit, all the poets of the day are assembled, contesting for the prize address at drury lane. and certainly he has assigned to the pen of lord b. a superior 'poem' to that which has gained the prize." the address was also severely handled in 'a critique on the address written by lord byron, which was spoken at the opening of the new theatre royal, drury lane, october' , . by lord--------(london, no date). the author is "astonished at the glaring faults and general insipidity" of the address, and, after a detailed criticism, concludes that "public indignation" will sympathize with the rejected poets, and "pursue the rival patrons and the rival bard." rogers, writing to moore, october , ('memoirs, etc., of thomas moore', vol. viii. p. ), says, "poor byron! what i hear and read of his prologue makes me very angry. of such value is public favour! so a man is to be tried by a copy of verses thrown off perhaps at hazard, and 'invitâ minervâ!'"] * * * * * .--to john hanson. cheltenham, octr. th, . dear sir,--with perfect confidence in you i sign the note; but is not claughton's delay very strange? let us take care what we are about. i answered his letter, which i enclose to you, very _cautiously;_ the wines and china, etc., i will not demur much upon; but the _vase_ and cup (not the _skull cup_) and some little coffee things brought from the east, or made for the purpose of containing relics brought from thence, i will not part with, and if he refuses to ratify, i will take such steps as the law will allow on the form of the contract for compelling him to ratify it. pray write. i am invited to lord o.'s and lord h.'s; but if you wish very much to meet me i can come to town. i suppose the tythe purchase will be made in my name. what is to be done with deardon? [ ] mrs. m[assingberd] [ ] is dead, and i would wish something settled for the daughter who is still responsible. will you give a glance into that business, and if possible first settle something about the annuities. i shall perhaps draw within a £ next week, but i will delay for your answer on c.'s business. ever yours, sincerely and affectionately, byron. my love to all the family. i wish to do something for young rushton, if practicable at _rochdale_; if not, think of some situation where he might occupy himself to avoid idleness, in the mean time. [footnote : deardon was the lessee of the rochdale coal-pits. "when mr. france was here," writes mrs. byron to hanson, july , (kölbing's 'englische studien', vol. xxv. p. i ), "he told me there had been an injunction procured to prevent deardin from working the coal pits that was in dispute between lord byron and him, but since france was here, there has been a man from lancashire who says they are worked by deardin the same as ever. i also heard that the person you sent down to take an account of the coals was bribed by deardin, and did not give an account of half of what was got."] [footnote : for mrs. massingberd, see 'letters', vol. i. p. , at end of 'note' [footnote of letter ]. byron's pecuniary transactions, though not unimportant in their influence on his career, are difficult to unravel. the following statement, in his own handwriting, with regard to the annuities was apparently prepared for some legal proceedings, and is dated january , : "lord byron, to the best of his knowledge and recollection, in dec., --january, applied to king, in consequence of an advertisement in the papers, who acquainted lord byron that his minority prevented all money transactions without the security of competent persons. through mr. k. he became acquainted with mr. dellevelly, another of the tribe of israel, and subsequently with a mr. howard of golden square. "after many delays, during which lord b. had interviews with howard, once, he thinks, in golden square, but more frequently in piccadilly, mrs. m[assingberd] agreed to become security jointly with her daughter. lord b. knows howard's person perfectly well, has not seen him subsequent to the transaction, but recollects howard's mentioning to him that he, lord b., was acting imprudently, stating that he made it a rule to advise young men against such proceedings. lord b. recollects, on the day on which the money was paid, that he remained in the next room till the papers were signed, mrs. m[assingberd] having stated that the parties wished him to be kept out of sight during the business, and wished to avoid even mentioning his name. mrs. m[assingberd] deducted the interest for two years and a half, and £ for howard's papers." two other annuities were effected, in both of which mrs. massingberd figured as a security, and in one the manager of dorant's hotel. it was the interest on these minority loans which crippled byron. two were still unpaid in .] * * * * * .--to john murray. cheltenham, oct. , , dear sir,--will you have the goodness to get this parody of a peculiar kind [ ] (for all the first lines are _busby's_ entire), inserted in several of the papers (_correctly_--and copied _correctly; my hand_ is difficult)--particularly the 'morning chronicle'? tell mr. perry i forgive him all he has said, and may say against _my address_, but he will allow me to deal with the doctor--(_audi alteram partem_)--and not _betray_ me. i cannot think what has befallen mr. perry, for of yore we were very good friends;--but no matter, only get this inserted. i have a poem on waltzing for _you_, of which i make _you_ a present; but it must be anonymous. it is in the old style of 'english bards, and scotch reviewers'. ever yours, byron. p.s.--with the next edition of 'childe harold' you may print the first fifty or a hundred opening lines of the 'curse of minerva' [ ] down to the couplet beginning mortal ('twas thus she spake), etc. of course, the moment the satire begins, there you will stop, and the opening is the best part. [footnote : the 'parenthetical address', "by dr. plagiary," is a parody by byron of dr, busby's 'address', the original of which will be found in the 'genuine rejected addresses', as well as parodied in 'rejected addresses' ("architectural atoms"). on october young busby forced his way on to the stage of drury lane, attempted to recite his father's address, and was taken into custody. on the next night, dr. busby, speaking from one of the boxes, obtained a hearing for his son, who could not, however, make his voice heard in the theatre. then another "rejected" author tried to recite his composition, but was hooted down. order was restored by raymond reminding the audience that the chamberlain's licence was necessary for all stage speeches. to the failure of the younger busby (himself a competitor and the author of an "unalogue" of fifty-six lines) to make himself heard, byron alludes in the stage direction to the 'parenthetical address'--"to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by master p." the 'parenthetical address' appeared in the 'morning chronicle' for october , . in the same issue was printed a long statement by dr. busby, in which, after paying a compliment to byron's "poetical genius," he insisted that the committee of drury lane had broken faith by not choosing one of the addresses sent in by competitors. (see references to dr. busby in 'poems', vol. i. pp. and , 'note' .) dr. thomas busby ( - ) composed the music for holcroft's 'tale of mystery', the first musical melodrama produced on the english stage (covent garden, november , ). he was for some time assistant editor of the 'morning post', and parliamentary reporter for the 'london courant'; wrote on musical subjects, taught languages and music, and translated lucretius into rhymed verse ( ).] [footnote : 'the curse of minerva,' written at athens, in , was not published as a whole till . but the first fifty-four lines appeared in canto iii. of 'the corsair' ( ). (see 'the curse of minerva:' introductory note, 'poems,' , vol. i. p. .)] * * * * * .--to robert rushton. cheltenham, oct. th, . robert,--i hope you continue as much as possible to apply yourself to _accounts_ and land-measurement, etc. whatever change may take place about newstead, there will be none as to you and mr. murray. it is intended to place you in a situation in rochdale for which your pursuance of the studies i recommend will best fit you. let me hear from you; is your health improved since i was last at the abbey? in the mean time, if any accident occur to me, you are provided for in my will, and if not, you will always find in your master a sincere friend. b. * * * * * .--to john murray. oct. , . dear sir,--many thanks, but i _must_ pay the 'damage', and will thank you to tell me the amount for the engraving. i think the 'rejected addresses' by far the best thing of the kind since the 'rolliad', and wish _you_ had published them. tell the author "i forgive him, were be twenty times our satirist;" and think his imitations not at all inferior to the famous ones of hawkins browne. he must be a man of very lively wit, and much less scurrilous than wits often are: altogether, i very much admire the performance, and wish it all success. the 'satirist' has taken a _new_ tone, as you will see: we have now, i think, finished with 'c. h.'s' critics. i have in 'hand' a 'satire' on 'waltzing', which you must publish anonymously: it is not long, not quite lines, but will make a very small boarded pamphlet. in a few days you shall have it. ever yours, byron. p.s.--the editor of the 'satirist' almost ought to be thanked for his revocation; it is done handsomely, after five years' warfare. * * * * * .--to john hanson. octr. d, . dear sir,--i enclose you mr. c[laughton]'s letter, from which you yourself will judge of my own. i insisted on the _contract_, and said, _if_ i gave up the wines, etc., it would be as a _gift_. he admits the validity, as you perceive. i told him that _i_ wished to avoid raising difficulties and in all respects to fulfil the bargain. i am going to lord oxford's, _eywood, presteigne, hereford_. in my way back i will take farleigh, if you are not returned to london before. i wish to take a small _house_ for the winter any where not remote from st. james's. will you arrange this for me?--and think of young rushton, whom i promised to provide for, and must begin to think of it; he might be a _sub_-tythe _collector_, or a bailiff to our agent at rochdale, or many other things. he has had a fair education and was well disposed; at all events, he must no longer remain in idleness. let the mule be sold and the dogs. pray let me hear from you when convenient, and believe me, ever yours truly, byron. my best remembrances to all. i shall draw for _fifty_ this week. is anything done about miss m[assingberd]? you have not mentioned her. * * * * * .--to john murray. oct. , . dear sir,--thanks, as usual. you go on boldly; but have a care of _glutting_ the public, who have by this time had enough of 'c. h.' 'waltz' shall be prepared. it is rather above lines, with an introductory letter to the publisher. i think of publishing, with 'c. h.', the opening lines of the '_curse of minerva_' as far as the first speech of pallas,--because some of the readers like that part better than any i have ever written; and as it contains nothing to affect the subject of the subsequent portion, it will find a place as a _descriptive fragment_. the _plate_ is _broken_? between ourselves, it was unlike the picture; and besides, upon the whole, the frontispiece of an author's visage is but a paltry exhibition. at all events, _this_ would have been no recommendation to the book. i am sure sanders would not have _survived_ the engraving. by the by, the _picture_ may remain with _you_ or _him_ (which you please), till my return. the _one_ of two remaining copies is at your service till i can give you a _better_; the other must be _burned peremptorily_. again, do not forget that i have an account with you, and _that_ this is _included_. i give you too much trouble to allow you to incur expense also. you best know how far this "address riot" will affect the future sale of 'c. h.' i like the volume of "_rejected a._" better and better. the other parody which perry has received is _mine_ also (i believe). it is dr. busby's speech versified. you are removing to albemarle street, i find, and i rejoice that we shall be nearer neighbours. i am going to lord oxford's, but letters here will be forwarded. when at leisure, all communications from you will be willingly received by the humblest of your scribes. did mr. ward write the review of h. tooke's life? [ ] it is excellent. yours ever, b. [footnote : see 'quarterly review', vol. vii. p. . the article alluded to was written by the hon. j. w. ward, afterwards earl of dudley.] * * * * * .--to john hanson. eywood, presteign, hereford, octr. st, . dear sir,--the inclosed bill [ ] will convince you how anxious i must be for the payment of claughton's first instalment; though it has been sent in without due notice, i cannot blame mr. davies who must feel very anxious to get rid of the business. press c., and let me have an answer whenever you can to this place. yours ever, b. p.s.--i am at _lord oxford's_, eywood, as above. [footnote : the bill was byron's for £ , and the enclosure ran as follows: "lord byron. "a bill for £ , drawn by scrope b. davies, lies due at sir _james esdaile_ and co's., no. , _lombard-street_. "all drafts intended for the payment of bills, to be brought before half past three o'clock. "please to call between and five o'clock." the same day byron writes a second letter to hanson: "do pray press claughton, as mr. d.'s business must be settled at all events. i send you his letter, and i am more uncomfortable than i can possibly express myself upon the subject. pray write."] * * * * * .--to john hanson. presteign, novr. th, . dear sir,--not being able (and to-day being sunday also) to procure a stamp, as the post town is very remote, i must request this letter to be considered as an order for paying fifteen hundred pounds to s.b. davies, esq., and the same sum to your own account for the tythe purchase. mr. d.'s receipt can be indorsed on the bond. i shall be in london the latter end of the week. i set out from this place on the th. as to mr. c., the law must decide between us; i shall abide by the contract. your answer will not reach me in time, so do not write to me while here. pray let mr. d. be paid and you also--come what may.[ ] i always foresaw that c. would _shirk_; but he did it with his eyes open. what question can arise as to the title? has it never been examined? i never heard of it before, and surely, in all our law suits, that question must have come to issue. i hope we shall meet in town. i will wait on you the moment i arrive. my best respects to your family; believe me, ever yours sincerely, byron. [footnote : byron was prepared to make some sacrifices to extricate himself from debt, or go abroad. the following letter to hanson is dated december , : "dear sir,--i have to request that you will pay the bearer (my groom) the wages due to him ( pds. s.), and dismiss him immediately, as i have given up my horses, and place the sum to my account. "ever yours, "byron." four days later, december , , he writes again to hanson: "dear sir,--i request your attention to the enclosed. see what can be done with howard, and urge claughton. if this kind of thing continues, i must quit a country which my debts render uninhabitable, notwithstanding every sacrifice on my part. "yours ever, "b."] * * * * * .--to john hanson. presteign, novr. th, . dear sir,--the floods having rendered the road impassable, i am detained here, but trust by the latter end of the week to proceed to cheltenham, where i shall expect a letter from you to tell me if i am wanted in town. i shall not be in time for the prince's address; but i wish you to write down for my _parliamentary_ robes (mrs. chaworth had them, at least mrs. clarke the mother); though i rather think those were the coronation and not the house robes. at least enquire. i hope mr. d. is paid; and, if mr. c. demurs, we must bring an action according to contract. i trust you are well, and well doing in my behalf and your own. ever yours most sincerely, b. * * * * * .--to john murray. cheltenham, november , . dear sir,--on my return here from lord oxford's, i found your obliging note, and will thank you to retain the letters, and any other subsequent ones to the same address, till i arrive in town to claim them, which will probably be in a few days. i have in charge a curious and very long ms. poem, written by lord brooke (the _friend_ of sir _philip sidney_), which i wish to submit to the inspection of mr. gifford, with the following queries:--first, whether it has ever been published, and secondly (if not), whether it is worth publication? it is from lord oxford's library, and must have escaped or been overlooked amongst the mss. of the harleian miscellany. the writing is lord brooke's, except a different hand towards the close. it is very long, and in the six-line stanza. it is not for me to hazard an opinion upon its merits; but i would take the liberty, if not too troublesome, to submit it to mr. gifford's judgment, which, from his excellent edition of massinger, i should conceive to be as decisive on the writings of that age as on those of our own. now for a less agreeable and important topic.--how came mr. mac-somebody [ ], without consulting you or me, to prefix the address to his volume of "_dejected addresses?"_ is not this somewhat larcenous? i think the ceremony of leave might have been asked, though i have no objection to the thing itself; and leave the "hundred and eleven" to tire themselves with "base comparisons." i should think the ingenuous public tolerably sick of the subject, and, except the parodies, i have not interfered, nor shall; indeed i did not know that dr. busby had published his apologetical letter and postscript [ ], or i should have recalled them. but, i confess, i looked upon his conduct in a different light before its appearance. i see some mountebank has taken alderman birch's name [ ] to vituperate the doctor; he had much better have pilfered his pastry, which i should imagine the more valuable ingredient--at least for a puff.--pray secure me a copy of woodfall's new 'junius' [ ], and believe me, dear sir, yours very sincerely, b. [footnote : b. mcmillan] [footnote : this probably refers to busby's apologetic letter in the 'morning chronicle' for october , .] [footnote : alderman birch was a pastry-cook in cornhill.] [footnote : in the catalogue of byron's books, sold april , , appear two copies of 'junius': "junius's letters, vol. _russia_, ." "junius's letters, by woodfall, vol., _large paper_, ."] * * * * * .--to william bankes. december , [ ]. the multitude of your recommendations has already superseded my humble endeavours to be of use to you; and, indeed, most of my principal friends are returned, leake from joannina, canning and adair from the city of the faithful, and at smyrna no letter is necessary, as the consuls are always willing to do every thing for personages of respectability. i have sent you _three_; one to gibraltar, which, though of no great necessity, will, perhaps, put you on a more intimate footing with a very pleasant family there. you will very soon find out that a man of any consequence has very little occasion for any letters but to ministers and bankers, and of them we have already plenty, i will be sworn. it is by no means improbable that i shall go in the spring; and if you will fix any place of rendezvous about august, i will _write_ or _join_ you.--when in albania, i wish you would inquire after dervise tahiri and vascillie (or bazil), and make my respects to the viziers, both there and in the morea. if you mention my name to suleyman of thebes, i think it will not hurt you; if i had my dragoman, or wrote turkish, i could have given you letters of _real service;_ but to the english they are hardly requisite, and the greeks themselves can be of little advantage. liston [ ] you know already, and i do not, as he was not then minister. mind you visit ephesus and the troad, and let me hear from you when you please. i believe g. forresti is now at yanina; but if not, whoever is there will be too happy to assist you. be particular about _firmauns;_ never allow yourself to be bullied, for you are better protected in turkey than any where; trust not the greeks; and take some knicknackeries for _presents--watches, pistols,_ etc., etc., to the beys and pachas. if you find one demetrius, at athens or elsewhere, i can recommend him as a good dragoman. i hope to join you, however; but you will find swarms of english now in the levant. believe me, etc. [footnote : robert liston, afterwards sir robert liston ( - ), succeeded adair as ambassador at constantinople in .] * * * * * .--to john murray. eywood, presteign, january , . dear sir,--you have been imposed upon by a letter forged in my name to obtain the picture left in your possession. this i know by the confession of the culprit [ ] and as she is a woman (and of rank), with whom i have unfortunately been too much connected, you will for the present say very little about it; but if you have the letter _retain_ it--write to me the particulars. you will also be more cautious in future, and not allow anything of mine to pass from your hands without my _seal_ as well as signature. i have not been in town, nor have written to you since i left it. so i presume the forgery was a skilful performance.--i shall endeavour to get back the picture by fair means, if possible. yours ever, byron. p.s.--keep the letter if you have it. i did not receive your parcel, and it is now too late to send it on, as i shall be in town on the th. the _delinquent_ is one of the first families in this kingdom; but, as dogberry says, this is "flat burglary." [ ] favour me with an answer. i hear i am scolded in the 'quarterly'; but you and it are already forgiven. i suppose that made you bashful about sending it. [footnote : the culprit was lady caroline lamb, who imitated byron's handwriting with remarkable skill.] [footnote : 'much ado about nothing', act iv. sc. .] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. february , . my dear hodgson,--i will join you in any bond for the money you require, be it that or a larger sum. with regard to security, as newstead is in a sort of abeyance between sale and purchase, and my lancashire property very unsettled, i do not know how far i can give more than personal security, but what i can i will. at any rate you can try, and as the sum is not very considerable, the chances are favourable. i hear nothing of my own concerns, but expect a letter daily. let me hear from you where you are and will be this month. i am a great admirer of the 'r. a.' ['rejected addresses'], though i have had so great a share in the cause of their publication, and i like the 'c. h.' ['childe harold'] imitation one of the best. [ ] lady oxford has heard me talk much of you as a relative of the cokes, etc., and desires me to say she would be happy to have the pleasure of your acquaintance. you must come and see me at k[insham]. i am sure you would like _all_ here if you knew them. the "agnus" is furious. you can have no idea of the horrible and absurd things she has said and done [ ] since (really from the best motives) i withdrew my homage. "great pleasure" is, certes, my object, but "_why brief_, mr. wild?" [ ] i cannot answer for the future, but the past is pretty secure; and in it i can number the last two months as worthy of the gods in 'lucretius'. i cannot review in the "_monthly;_" in fact i can just now do nothing, at least with a pen; and i really think the days of authorship are over with me altogether. i hear and rejoice in eland's and merivale's intentions [ ]. murray has grown great, and has got him new premises in the fashionable part of the town [ ]. we live here so shut out of the _monde_ that i have nothing of general import to communicate, and fill this up with a "happy new year," and drink to you and drury. ever yours, dear h., b. i have no intention of continuing "_childe harold._" there are a few additions in the "body of the book" of description, which will merely add to the number of pages in the next edition. i have taken kinsham court. the business of last summer i broke off [ ], and now the amusement of the gentle fair is writing letters literally threatening my life, and much in the style of "miss mathews" in "_amelia_," or "lucy" in the "_beggar's opera_." such is the reward of restoring a woman to her family, who are treating her with the greatest kindness, and with whom i am on good terms. i am still in _palatia circes_, and, being no ulysses, cannot tell into what animal i may be converted; as you are aware of the turn of both parties, your conjectures will be very correct, i daresay, and, seriously, i am very much _attached_. she has had her share of the denunciations of the brilliant phryne, and regards them as much as i do. i hope you will visit me at k. which will not be ready before spring, and i am very sure you would like my neighbours if you knew them. if you come down now to kington [ ], pray come and see me. [footnote : "byron often talks of the authors of the 'rejected addresses', and always in terms of unqualified praise. he says that the imitations, unlike all other imitations, are full of genius. 'parodies,' he said, 'always give a bad impression of the original, but in the 'rejected addresses' the reverse was the fact;' and he quoted the second and third stanzas, in imitation of himself, as admirable, and just what he could have wished to write on a similar subject" (lady blessington's 'conversations', p. ).] [footnote : "the bessboroughs," writes lady h. leveson gower to lady g. morpeth, september , ('letters of harriet, countess granville', vol. i. pp. , ), "have been unpacked about a couple of hours. my aunt looks stout and well, but poor caroline most terribly the contrary. she is worn to the bone, as pale as death and her eyes starting out of her head. she seems indeed in a sad way, alternately in tearing spirits and in tears. i hate her character, her feelings, and herself when i am away from her, but she interests me when i am with her, and to see her poor careworn face is dismal, in spite of reason and speculation upon her extraordinary conduct. she appears to me in a state very (little) short of insanity, and my aunt describes it as at times having been decidedly so."] [footnote : the context and allusion seem to require another word than "_brief_;" but the sentence is written as printed. in fielding's 'life of mr. jonathan wild' (bk. iii. chap. viii.) and in "a dialogue matrimonial, which passed between jonathan wild, esquire, and laetitia his wife" ('née' laetitia snap), "laetitia asks, 'but pray, mr. wild, why b--ch? why did you suffer such a word to escape you?'"] [footnote : the republication of the 'anthology'] [footnote : murray's removal from , fleet street, to , albemaile street.] [footnote : with lady caroline lamb.] [footnote : near lower moor, the residence of hodgson's relatives, the cokes.] * * * * * .--to john hanson. d feb'y, . dear sir,--will you forward the inclosed immediately to corbet, whose address i do not exactly remember? it is of consequence, relative to a foolish woman [ ] i never saw, who fancies i want to marry her. yours ever, b. p.s.--i wish you would see corbet and talk to him about it, for she plagues my soul out with her damned letters. [footnote : the lady in question seems to have been lady falkland (see 'letters', vol. , p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ], and the letter dated march , [letter in this volume.])] * * * * * .--to john murray. february , . dear sir,--in "_horace in london_" [ ] i perceive some stanzas on lord elgin in which (waving the kind compliment to myself [ ]) i heartily concur. i wish i had the pleasure of mr. smith's acquaintance, as i could communicate the curious anecdote you read in mr. t.'s letter. if he would like it, he can have the _substance_ for his second edition; if not, i shall add it to _our_ next, though i think we already have enough of lord elgin. what i have read of this work seems admirably done. my praise, however, is not much worth the author's having; but you may thank him in my name for _his_. the idea is new--we have excellent imitations of the satires, etc. by pope; but i remember but one imitative ode in his works, and _none_ any where else. i can hardly suppose that _they_ have lost any fame by the fate of the farce [ ]; but even should this be the case, the present publication will again place them on their pinnacle. yours truly, b. [footnote : 'horace in london; consisting of imitations of the first two books of the odes of horace', by james and horace smith ( ), was a collection of imitations, the best of which are by james smith, republished from hill's 'monthly mirror', where they originally appeared.] [footnote : in book . ode xv. of 'horace in london', entitled "the parthenon," minerva thus speaks: "all who behold my mutilated pile shall brand its ravager with classic rage, and soon a titled bard from britain's isle, thy country's praise and suffrage shall engage, and fire with athens' wrongs an angry age!" [footnote : horace smith's unsuccessful comedy, 'first impressions; or, trade in the west', was performed at drury lane. the prologue, spoken by powell, beseeches a judgment from the audience: "such as mild justice might herself dispense, to _inexperience and a first offence_."] * * * * * .--to robert rushton. , bennet street, st. james's, feb. th, . i feel rather surprised to have heard nothing from you or your father in answer to fletcher's last letter. i wish to know whether you intend taking a share in a farm with your brother, or prefer to wait for some other situation in lancashire;--the first will be the best, because, at your time of life, it is highly improper to remain idle. if this _marriage_ which is spoken of for you is at all advantageous, i can have no objection; but i should suppose, after being in my service from your infancy, you will at least let me know the name of your _intended_, and her expectations. if at all respectable, nothing can be better for your settlement in life, and a proper provision will be made for you; at all events let me hear something on the subject, for, as i have some intention of leaving england in the summer, i wish to make my arrangements with regard to yourself before that period. as you and mr. murray have not received any money for some time, if you will draw on _me_ for _fifty_ pounds (payable at messrs. hoare's, bankers, fleet street), and tell mr. j[oseph] murray to draw for the _same sum_ on his _own_ account, both will be paid by me. etc., etc., b. * * * * * .--to john hanson. f'y. th, . dear sir,--i have called several times, and you may suppose am very anxious to hear something from or of mr. claughton. it is my determination, on account of a malady to which i am subject, and for other weighty reasons, to go abroad again almost immediately. to this you will object; but, as my intention cannot be altered, i have only to request that you will assist me as far as in your power to make the necessary arrangements. i have every confidence in you, and will leave the fullest powers to act in my absence. if this man still hesitates, i must sell my part of rochdale for what it will bring, even at a loss, and fight him out about newstead; without this, i have no funds to go on with, and i do not wish to incur further debts if possible. pray favour me with a short reply to this, and say when i can see you. excuse me to mrs. h. for my non-appearance last night; i was detained in the h. of l. till too late to dress for her party. compliments to all. ever yours, bn. * * * * * .--to john hanson. march st, . dear sir,--i am sorry that i could not call today but will tomorrow. your objections i anticipated and can only repeat that i cannot act otherwise; so pray hasten some arrangement--for with, or without, i must go. a person told me yesterday there was one who would give within of c.'s price and take the title as it was. c. is a fool or is shuffling. think of what i said about _rochdale_, for i will sell it for what i can get, and will not stay three months longer in this country. i again repeat i will leave all with full powers to you. i commend your objection which is a proof of an honourable mind--which however i did not need to convince me of your character. if you have any news send a few lines. ever yours, bn. * * * * * .--to----corbet. mh. th, . dear sir,--lady f[alkland?] has returned by mr. hanson the only two letters i ever wrote her, both some time ago, and neither containing the least allusion which could make any person suppose that i had any intention further than regards the children of her husband. my servant returned the packet and letter of yesterday at the moment of receiving them; by her letter to mr. h. it should seem they have not been redelivered. i am sorry for this, but it is not my fault, and they ought never to have been sent. after her ladyship's mistakes, so often repeated, you will not blame me for declining all further interference in her affairs, and i rely much upon your word in contradicting her foolish assertions, and most absurd imaginations. she now says that "i need not leave the country on her account." how the devil she knew that i was about to leave it i cannot guess; but, however, for the first time she has _dreamed_ right. but _her_ being the cause is still more ludicrous than the rest. first, she would have it that i returned here for love of a woman i _never saw_, and now that i am going, for the same whom i _have never seen_, and certainly never wished, nor wish, to see! the maddest _consistency_ i ever heard of. i trust that she has regained her senses, as she tells mr. h. she will not scribble any more, which will also save _you_ from the troublesome correspondence of your obliged and obedient servant, byron. * * * * * .--to john hanson. march th, . dear sir,--i must be ready in april at whatever risk,--at whatever loss. you will therefore advertize rochdale; if you decline this, i will sell it for what it will bring, even though but a few thousand pounds. with regard to claughton, i shall only say that, if he knew the ruin,--the misery, he occasions by his delay, he would be sorry for his conduct, and i only hope that he and i may not meet, or i shall say something he will not like to hear. i have called often. i shall call today at three or between three and four; again and again, i can only beg of you to forward my plans, for here no power on earth shall make me remain six weeks longer. ever yours, b. * * * * * .--to charles hanson. mh. th, . my dear charles,--this is very evasive and dissatisfactory. what is to be done i cannot tell, but your father had better see his letter and this of mine. a long litigation neither suits my inclination nor circumstances; it were better to take back the estate, and raise it to what it will bear, which must be at least double, to dismantle the house and sell the materials, and sell rochdale. something i must determine on and that quickly. i want to go abroad immediately; it is utterly impossible for me to remain here; every thing i have done to extricate myself has been useless. your father said "_sell_;" i have sold, and see what has become of it! if i go to law with this fellow, after five years litigation at the present depreciation of money, the _price_ will not be worth the _property_; besides how much of it will be spent in the contest! and how am i to live in the interim? every day land rises and money falls. i shall tell mr. cn. he is a _scoundrel_, and have done with him, and i only hope he will have spirit enough to resent the appellation, and defend his own rascally conduct. in the interim of his delay in his journey, i shall leave town; on sunday i shall set out for herefordshire, from whence, when wanted, i will return. pray tell your father to get the money on rochdale, or i must sell it directly. i must be ready by the last week in _may_, and am consequently pressed for time. i go first to cagliari in sardinia, and on to the levant. believe me, dear charles, yours truly, b. * * * * * .--to samuel rogers. [ ] march , . i enclose you a draft for the usurious interest due to lord b[oringdon]'s _protégé_;--i also could wish you would state thus much for me to his lordship. though the transaction speaks plainly in itself for the borrower's folly and the lender's usury, it never was my intention to _quash_ the demand, as i _legally_ might, nor to withhold payment of principal, or, perhaps, even _unlawful_ interest. you know what my situation has been, and what it is. i have parted with an estate (which has been in my family for nearly three hundred years, and was never disgraced by being in possession of a _lawyer_, a _churchman_, or a _woman_, during that period,) to liquidate this and similar demands; and the payment of the purchase is still withheld, and may be, perhaps, for years. if, therefore, i am under the necessity of making those persons _wait_ for their money, (which, considering the terms, they can afford to suffer,) it is my misfortune. when i arrived at majority in , offered my own security on _legal_ interest, and it was refused. _now_, i will not accede to this. this man i may have seen, but i have no recollection of the names of any parties but the _agents_ and the securities. the moment i can, it is assuredly my intention to pay my debts. this person's case may be a hard one; but, under all circumstances, what is mine? i could not foresee that the purchaser of my estate was to demur in paying for it. i am glad it happens to be in my power so far to accommodate my israelite, and only wish i could do as much for the rest of the twelve tribes. ever yours, dear r., bn. [footnote : the following was rogers's reply:-- "friday morning. "my dearest byron,--i have just received your note, but i _will not_ execute your commission; and, moreover, i will tell lord boringdon that i refused to do it. i know your situation; and i should never sleep again, if by any interference of mine, for by so harsh a word i must call it, you should be led by your generosity, your pride, or any other noble motive, to do more than you are called upon to do. "i mentioned the thing to lord holland last night, and he entirely agreed with me, that you are not called upon to do it. the principal and the legal interest are all that these extortioners are entitled to; and, you must forgive me, but i will not do as you require. i shall keep the draft till i see you. "yours ever and ever, "saml. rogers."] * * * * * .--to the hon. augusta leigh. , bennet street, st. james's, march th, . my dearest augusta,--i did not answer your letter, because i could not answer as i wished, but expected that every week would bring me some tidings that might enable me to reply better than by apologies. but claughton has not, will not, and, i think, cannot pay his money, and though, luckily, it was stipulated that he should never have possession till the whole was paid, the estate is still on my hands, and your brother consequently not less embarrassed than ever. this is the truth, and is all the excuse i can offer for inability, but not unwillingness, to serve you. i am going abroad again in june, but should wish to see you before my departure. you have perhaps heard that i have been fooling away my time with different "_regnantes_;" but what better can be expected from me? i have but one _relative_, and her i never see. i have no connections to domesticate with, and for marriage i have neither the talent nor the inclination. i cannot fortune-hunt, nor afford to marry without a fortune. my parliamentary schemes are not much to my taste--i spoke twice last session, [ ] and was told it was well enough; but i hate the thing altogether, and have no intention to "strut another hour" on that stage. i am thus wasting the best part of life, daily repenting and never amending. on sunday, i set off for a fortnight for eywood, near presteign, in herefordshire--with the _oxfords_. i see you put on a _demure_ look at the name, which is very becoming and matronly in you; but you won't be sorry to hear that i am quite out of a more serious scrape with another singular personage which threatened me last year, and trouble enough i had to steer clear of it i assure you. i hope all my nieces are well, and increasing in growth and number; but i wish you were not always buried in that bleak common near newmarket. i am very well in health, but not happy, nor even comfortable; but i will not bore you with complaints. i am a fool, and deserve all the ills i have met, or may meet with, but nevertheless very _sensibly_, dearest augusta, your most affectionate brother, byron. [footnote : what is generally supposed to have been byron's second speech (see appendix ii. ( )) was made, april , , on lord donoughmore's motion for a committee on roman catholic claims. the following impressions of his short parliamentary career are recorded by byron himself: "i have never heard any one who fulfilled my ideal of an orator. grattan would have been near it, but for his harlequin delivery. pitt i never heard. fox but once, and then he struck me as a debater, which to me seems as different from an orator as an improvisatore, or a versifier, from a poet. grey is great, but it is not oratory. canning is sometimes very like one. windham i did not admire, though all the world did; it seemed sad sophistry. whitbread was the demosthenes of bad taste and vulgar vehemence, but strong, and english. holland is impressive from sense and sincerity. lord lansdowne good, but still a debater only. grenville i like vastly, if he would prune his speeches down to an hour's delivery. burdett is sweet and silvery as belial himself, and i think the greatest favourite in pandemonium; at least i always heard the country gentlemen and the ministerial devilry praise his speeches _up_ stairs, and run down from bellamy's when he was upon his legs. i heard bob milnes make his _second_ speech; it made no impression. i like ward--studied, but keen, and sometimes eloquent. peel, my school and form fellow (we sat within two of each other), strange to say, i have never heard, though i often wished to do so; but, from what i remember of him at harrow, he _is_, or _should_ be, among the best of them. now i do _not_ admire mr. wilberforce's speaking; it is nothing but a flow of words--'words, words, alone.' "i doubt greatly if the english _have_ any eloquence, properly so called; and am inclined to think that the irish _had_ a great deal, and that the french _will_ have, and have had in mirabeau. lord chatham and burke are the nearest approaches to orators in england. i don't know what erskine may have been at the _bar_, but in the house, i wish him at the bar once more. lauderdale is shrill, and scotch, and acute. of brougham i shall say nothing, as i have a personal feeling of dislike to the man. "but amongst all these, good, bad, and indifferent, i never heard the speech which was not too long for the auditors, and not very intelligible, except here and there. the whole thing is a grand deception, and as tedious and tiresome as maybe to those who must be often present. i heard sheridan only once, and that briefly, but i liked his voice, his manner, and his wit: and he is the only one of them i ever wished to hear at greater length. "the impression of parliament upon me was, that its members are not formidable as _speakers_, but very much so as an _audience_; because in so numerous a body there may be little eloquence, (after all, there were but _two_ thorough orators in all antiquity, and i suspect still _fewer_ in modern times,) but there must be a leaven of thought and good sense sufficient to make them _know_ what is right, though they can't express it nobly. "horne tooke and roscoe both are said to have declared that they left parliament with a higher opinion of its aggregate integrity and abilities than that with which they entered it. the general amount of both in most parliaments is probably about the same, as also the number of _speakers_ and their talent. i except _orators_, of course, because they are things of ages, and not of septennial or triennial reunions. neither house ever struck me with more awe or respect than the same number of turks in a divan, or of methodists in a barn, would have done. whatever diffidence or nervousness i felt (and i felt both, in a great degree) arose from the number rather than the quality of the assemblage, and the thought rather of the _public without_ than the persons within,--knowing (as all know) that cicero himself, and probably the messiah, could never have altered the vote of a single lord of the bedchamber, or bishop. i thought _our_ house dull, but the other animating enough upon great days. "i have heard that when grattan made his first speech in the english commons, it was for some minutes doubtful whether to laugh at or cheer him. the _débût_ of his predecessor, flood, had been a complete failure, under nearly similar circumstances. but when the ministerial part of our senators had watched pitt (their thermometer) for the cue, and saw him nod repeatedly his stately nod of approbation, they took the hint from their huntsman, and broke out into the most rapturous cheers. grattan's speech, indeed, deserved them; it was a _chef-d'oeuvre_. i did not hear _that_ speech of his (being then at harrow), but heard most of his others on the same question--also that on the war of . i differed from his opinions on the latter question, but coincided in the general admiration of his eloquence. "when i met old courtenay, the orator, at rogers's the poet's, in - , i was much taken with the portly remains of his fine figure, and the still acute quickness of his conversation. it was _he_ who silenced flood in the english house by a crushing reply to a hasty _débût_ of the rival of grattan in ireland. i asked courtenay (for i like to trace motives) if he had not some personal provocation; for the acrimony of his answer seemed to me, as i read it, to involve it. courtenay said 'he had; that, when in ireland (being an irishman), at the bar of the irish house of commons, flood had made a personal and unfair attack upon _himself_, who, not being a member of that house, could not defend himself, and that some years afterwards, the opportunity of retort offering in the english parliament, he could not resist it.' he certainly repaid flood with interest, for flood never made any figure, and only a speech or two afterwards, in the english house of commons. i must except, however, his speech on reform in , which fox called 'the best he ever heard upon that subject.'"] * * * * * .--to john murray. march th, . dear sir,--westall has, i believe, agreed to illustrate your book [ ], and i fancy one of the engravings will be from the pretty little girl [ ] you saw the other day, though without her name, and merely as a model for some sketch connected with the subject. i would also have the portrait (which you saw to-day) of the friend who is mentioned in the text at the close of canto st, and in the notes,--which are subjects sufficient to authorise that addition. believe me, yours truly, b'n. [footnote : an edition of the first two cantos of 'childe harold', to be illustrated by richard westall ( - ), who painted byron's portrait in - .] [footnote : lady charlotte harley, daughter of lord oxford, to whom, under the name of ianthe, the introductory lines to 'childe harold' were afterwards addressed. lady charlotte married, in , brigadier-general bacon.] * * * * * .--to john hanson. presteigne, april th, . dear sir,--i wrote to you requesting an answer last week, and again apprising you of my determination of leaving england early in may, and proceeding no further with claughton. now, having arrived, i shall write to that person immediately to give up the whole business. i am sick of the delays attending it, and can wait no longer, and i have had too much of _law_ already at rochdale to place newstead in the same predicament. i shall only be able to see you for a few days in town, as i shall sail before the th of may. believe me, yours ever, b. p.s.--my best compliments to mrs. h. and the family. * * * * * .--to john hanson. presteigne, april th, . dear sir,--i shall follow your advice and say nothing to our shuffling purchaser, but leave him to you, and the fullest powers of _attorney_, which i hope you will have ready on my arrival in town early next week. i wish, if possible, the arrangement with hoare to be made immediately, as i must set off forthwith. i mean to remain _incog_. in london for the short time previous to my embarkation. i have not written to claughton, nor shall, of course, after your counsel on the subject. i wish you would turn in your mind the expediency of selling rochdale. i shall never make any thing of it, as it is. i beg you will provide (as before my last voyage) the fullest powers to act in my absence, and bring my cursed concerns into some kind of order. you must at least allow that i have acted according to your advice about newstead, and i shall take no step without your being previously consulted. i hope i shall find you and mrs. h., etc., well in london, and that you have heard something from this dilatory gentleman. believe me, ever yours truly, b. * * * * * .--to john murray. april , . dear sir,--i shall be in town by sunday next, and will call and have some conversation on the subject of westall's proposed designs. i am to sit to him for a picture at the request of a friend of mine [ ]; and as sanders's is not a good one, you will probably prefer the other. i wish you to have sanders's taken down and sent to my lodgings immediately--before my arrival. i hear that a certain malicious publication on waltzing [ ] is attributed to me. this report, i suppose, you will take care to contradict, as the author, i am sure, will not like that i should wear his cap and bells. mr. hobhouse's quarto will be out immediately; pray send to the author for an early copy which i wish to take abroad with me. dear sir, i am, yours very truly, b. p.s.--i see the 'examiner' [ ] threatens some observations upon you next week. what can you have done to share the wrath which has heretofore been principally expended upon the prince? i presume all your scribleri will be drawn up in battle array in defence of the modern tonson--mr. bucke [ ], for instance. send in my account to bennet street, as i wish to settle it before sailing. [footnote : this picture, exhibited at the royal academy in , is now in the possession of the baroness burdett-coutts.] [footnote : byron's 'waltz' was published anonymously in the spring of , not, apparently, by murray, but by sherwood, neely, and jones, paternoster row.] [footnote : in the 'examiner' for april, , occurs the paragraph: "a word or two on mr. murray's (the 'splendid bookseller') judgment in the fine arts--next week, 'if room'."] [footnote : charles bucke ( - ), a voluminous writer of verse, plays, and miscellaneous subjects, published, in , his 'philosophy of nature; or, the influence of scenery on the mind and heart'. he supported himself by his pen, and that indifferently. byron seems to suggest that he was a dependent of murray's. in he sent to the committee of management at drury lane his tragedy, 'the italians; or, the fatal accusation', and it was accepted. in february, , he withdrew the play, in consequence of a quarrel with edmund kean, and published it with extracts from the correspondence and a preface, which sent it through numerous editions. the play itself was, after being withdrawn, played at drury lane, april , . bucke and his preface were answered in 'the assailant assailed', and in 'a defence of edmund kean, esq'. (both in ), and the opinion of the town condemned both him and his tragedy.] * * * * * chapter vii. may, -december, . the 'giaour' and 'bride of abydos'. * * * * * .--to john murray. may , . dear sir,--i send a corrected, and, i hope, amended copy of the lines for the "fragment" already sent this evening. [ ] let the enclosed be the copy that is sent to the devil (the printers) and burn the other. yours, etc., b'n. [footnote : 'the giaour', which was now in the press, was expanded, either in the course of printing, or in the successive editions, from lines to . it was published in may, .] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. may , . oh you, who in all names can tickle the town, anacreon, tom little, tom moore, or tom brown, [ ]-- for hang me if i know of which you may most brag, your quarto two-pounds, or your twopenny post bag; * * * * * but now to my letter--to _yours_ 'tis an answer-- to-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir, all ready and dress'd for proceeding to spunge on (according to compact) the wit in the dungeon [ ]-- pray phoebus at length our political malice may not get us lodgings within the same palace! i suppose that to-night you're engaged with some codgers, and for sotheby's [ ] blues have deserted sam rogers; and i, though with cold i have nearly my death got, must put on my breeches, and wait on the heathcote. but to-morrow at four, we will both play the _scurra_, and you'll be catullus, the regent, mamurra. [ ] dear m.,--having got thus far, i am interrupted by----. o'clock. half-past .----is gone. i must dress for lady heathcote's.--addio. [footnote : moore's 'intercepted letters, or the twopenny post-bag. by thomas brown, the younger', was published in .] [footnote : the "wit in the dungeon" was james henry leigh hunt ( - ), who was educated at christ's hospital, and began his literary life with "a collection of poems, written between the ages of twelve and sixteen," and published in as 'juvenilia'. in he and his brother john started a weekly newspaper called the 'examiner', which advocated liberal principles with remarkable independence. on february , , hunt published an article in defence of peter finnerty, convicted for a libel on castlereagh, and exhorting public writers to be bold in the cause of individual liberty. the same number contained an article on the savagery of military floggings, for which he was prosecuted, defended by brougham, and acquitted. his acquittal drew from shelley a letter of congratulation, addressed to hunt as "one of the most fearless enlighteners of the public mind" (dowden's 'life of shelley', vol. i. p. ). in march, , the 'morning post' printed a poem, speaking of the prince regent as the "mæcenas of the age," the "exciter of desire," the "glory of the people," an "adonis of loveliness," etc. the 'examiner' for march , , thus translated this adulation into "the language of truth:" "what person, unacquainted with the true state of the case, would imagine, in reading these astounding eulogies, that this 'glory of the people' was the subject of millions of shrugs and reproaches!... that this 'exciter of desire' (bravo! messieurs of the 'post'!), this 'adonis in loveliness,' was a corpulent man of fifty!--in short, this 'delightful, blissful, wise, pleasureable, honourable, virtuous, true', and 'immortal' prince was a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demireps, a man who has just closed half a century without one single claim on the gratitude of his country or the respect of posterity." crabb robinson, who met leigh hunt, four days later, at charles lamb's, says ('diary', vol. i. p. ), "leigh hunt is an enthusiast, very well intentioned, and, i believe, prepared for the worst. he said, pleasantly enough, 'no one can accuse me of not writing a libel. everything is a libel, as the law is now declared, and our security lies only in their shame.'" for this libel john and leigh hunt were convicted in the court of king's bench on december , . in the following february they were sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine of £ a-piece. john was imprisoned in coldbath-fields, leigh in the surrey county gaol. they were released on february or , . shelley, on reading the sentence, proposed a subscription for "the brave and enlightened man... to whom the public owes a debt as the champion of their liberties and virtues" (dowden, 'life of shelley', vol. i. p. ). keats wrote a sonnet to hunt on the day he left his prison, beginning: "what though for showing truth to flatter'd state, kind hunt was shut in prison." a political alliance was thus cemented, which, for the time, was disastrous to the literary prospects of shelley and keats. to hunt shelley dedicated the 'cenci', and keats his first volume of 'poems' ( ). he is the "gentlest of the wise" in shelley's 'adonais'; and, in a suppressed stanza of the same poem, the poet speaks of hunt's "sweet and earnest looks," "soft smiles," and "dark and night-like eyes." the words inscribed on shelley's tomb--"_cor cordium_"--were hunt's choice. in his various papers hunt zealously championed his friends. in the 'examiner' for september to october, , he defended shelley's personal character; in the same paper for june to july, , he praised keats's first volume of 'poems'; he reviewed "lamia" in the 'indicator' for august - , , and "la belle dame sans merci" in that for may , . in his 'foliage' ( ) are three sonnets addressed to keats. shelley believed in hunt to the end. it was mainly through him that hunt came to pisa in june, , to join with byron in 'the liberal'. but he doubted whether the alliance between the "wren and the eagle" could continue ('life of shelley', vol. ii. p. ). keats, on the other hand, lost his faith in hunt. in a letter to haydon (may, ), speaking of hunt, he says, "there is no greater sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself into an idea of being a great poet." again (march, ) he writes, "it is a great pity that people should, by associating themselves with the finest things, spoil them. hunt has damned hampstead, and masks, and sonnets, and italian tales." he writes still more severely (december, -january, ), "if i were to follow my own inclinations, i should never meet any one of that set again, not even hunt, who is certainly a pleasant fellow in the main when you are with him; but in reality he is vain, egotistical, and disgusting in matters of taste and morals. hunt does one harm by making fine things petty, and beautiful things hateful. through him i am indifferent to mozart. i care not for white busts--and many a glorious thing when associated with him becomes a nothing." haydon considered that hunt was the "great unhinger" of keats's best dispositions ('works of keats', ed. h.b. forman, vol. iv. p. ); and severn attributes keats's temporary "mawkishness" to hunt's society ('ibid'., p. ). nathaniel hawthorne ('our old home', p. , ed. ) says of hunt, and means it as high praise, that "there was not an english trait in him from head to foot--morally, intellectually, or physically. beef, ale or stout, brandy or port-wine, entered not at all into his composition." he was, in fact, a man of weak fibre, who allowed himself to sponge upon his friends, such as talfourd, haydon, and shelley. though dickens denied ('all the year round', dec. , ) that "harold skimpole" was intended for hunt, the picture was recognized as a portrait. on the other hand, hunt was a man of kindly and genial disposition. "he loves everything," says crabb robinson ('diary', vol. ii. p. ), "he catches the sunny side of everything, and, excepting that he has a few polemical antipathies, finds everything beautiful." in his essays, the best of which appeared in the 'indicator' ( - ), he communicates some of his own sense of enjoyment to those of his readers who are content to take him as he is. his circle is limited; but in it his observation is minute and suggestive. the vale of health is to him, in a degree proportioned to their respective powers, what the temple was to lamb. his style is neat, pretty, and would be affected if it were not the man himself. as a literary journalist, a dramatic critic, and an essayist, he has a place in literature. his poetry is less successful; his affectations, innate vulgarity, and habit of pawing his subjects repel even those who are attracted by its sweetness. yet his 'story of rimini' ( ), which he dedicated to byron, was admired in its day. byron, though he condemned its affected style, thought the poem a "devilish good one." moore held the same opinion; and jeffrey, writing to him may , ('memoirs, etc., of thomas moon,' vol. ii. p. ), says, "i certainly shall not be ill-natured to 'rimini'. it is very sweet and very lively in many places, and is altogether piquant, as being by far the best imitation of chaucer and some of his italian contemporaries that modern times have produced." no two men could be more unlike than byron and hunt, or have less in common. yet, with a singular capacity for self-delusion, hunt told his wife that the texture of byron's mind resembled his to a thread ('correspondence of l. hunt', vol. i. p. ). the friendship began in political sympathy; but two years later (see byron's letter to moore, june , ) it had, on one side at least, cooled. in june, , hunt came to pisa to launch the liberal, with the aid of shelley and byron. 'the liberal: verse and prose from the south', started in , lived through four numbers, and died in july, . during that time byron expressed to lady blessington ('conversations', p. ) "a very good opinion of the talents and principle of mr. hunt, though, as he said, 'our tastes are so opposite that we are totally unsuited to each other ... in short, we are more formed to be friends at a distance, than near.'" for the best part of two years hunt was byron's guest: he repaid his hospitality by publishing his 'lord byron and some of his contemporaries' ( ). though lady blessington said the book "gave, in the main, a fair account" of byron (crabb robinson's 'diary', vol. iii. p. ), its publication was a breach of honour. as such it was justly attacked by moore in "the 'living dog' and the 'dead lion'": "next week will be published (as 'lives' are the rage) the whole reminiscences, wondrous and strange, of a small puppy-dog, that lived once in the cage of the late noble lion at exeter 'change. "though the dog is a dog of the kind they call 'sad,' 'tis a puppy that much to good breeding pretends; and few dogs have such opportunities had of knowing how lions behave--among friends. "how that animal eats, how he snores, how he drinks, is all noted down by this boswell so small; and 'tis plain, from each sentence, the puppy-dog thinks that the lion was no such great things after all. "though he roared pretty well--this the puppy allows-- it was all, he says, borrowed--all second-hand roar; and he vastly prefers his own little bow-wows to the loftiest war-note the lion could pour. "'tis, indeed, as good fun as a 'cynic' could ask, to see how this cockney-bred setter of rabbits takes gravely the lord of the forest to task, and judges of lions by puppy-dog habits. "nay, fed as he was (and this makes it a dark case) with sops every day from the lion's own pan, he lifts up his leg at the noble beast's carcass, and--does all a dog, so diminutive, can. "however, the book's a good book, being rich in examples and warnings to lions high-bred, how they suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen, who'll feed on them living, and foul them when dead. "exeter 'change'. t. pidcock." for the reply of hunt or one of his friends, "the giant and the dwarf," see appendix vi.] [footnote : william sotheby ( - ), once a cavalry officer, afterwards a man of letters and of fortune, published his 'oberon' in , and his 'georgics' in (see 'english bards, etc.', line , and 'note'). the following passage from byron's 'detached thoughts' ( ) refers to him: "sotheby is a good man; rhymes well (if not wisely), but is a bore. he seizes you by the button. one night of a rout, at mrs. hope's, he had fastened upon me (something about agamemnon or orestes--or some of his plays), notwithstanding my symptoms of manifest distress, (for i was in love and had just nicked a minute when neither mothers, nor husbands, nor rivals, nor gossips, were near my then idol, who was beautiful as the statues of the gallery where we stood at the time). sotheby, i say, had seized upon me by the button, and the heart-strings, and spared neither. w. spencer, who likes fun, and don't dislike mischief, saw my case, and, coming up to us both, took me by the hand and pathetically bade me farewell, 'for,' said he, 'i see it is all over with you.' sotheby then went away. 'sic me servavit apollo.'"] [footnote : see catullus, xxix. : "quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati, nisi impudicus et vorax, et aleo, mamurram habere, quod comata gallia habebat uncti et ultima britannia?" see also xli. , xliii. (compare horace, 'sat'. i. . ), and lvii. .] * * * * * .--to john murray. may nd, . dear sir,--i return the "_curiosities of literature_." [ ] pray is it fair to ask if the "_twopenny postbag_" is to be reviewed in this no.? because, if not, i should be glad to undertake it, and leave it to chance and the editor for a reception into your pages. yours truly, b. p.s.--you have not sent me eustace's 'travels'. [ ] [footnote : the first volume of isaac disraeli's 'curiosities of literature' was published in . the remaining volumes were published at intervals: vol. ii., ; vol. iii., ; vols. iv. and v., in ; vol. vi., .] [footnote : john chetwode eustace ('circ'. - ) published his 'tour through italy' in .] * * * * * .--to john murray. may rd, . dear sir,--i question whether ever author before received such a compliment from his _master_. i am glad you think the thing is tolerably _vamped_ and will be _vendible_. pray look over the proof again. i am but a careless reviser, and let me have struck off, and one or two for yourself to serve as ms. for the thing when published in the body of the volume. if lady caroline lamb sends for it, do _not_ let her have it, till the copies are all ready, and then you can send her one. yours truly, [greek: mpairon]. p.s.--h.'s book is out at last; i have my copy, which i have lent already. * * * * * .--to john murray. june , . dear sir,--i presented a petition to the house yesterday, [ ] which gave rise to some debate, and i wish you to favour me for a few minutes with the 'times' and 'herald' to look on their hostile report. you will find, if you like to look at my 'prose', my words nearly 'verbatim' in the 'm. chronicle'. b'n. [footnote : the petition was from major cartwright, and was presented june , . (for byron's speech, see appendix ii. ( ).) returning from the house, he called on moore, and, while the latter was dressing for dinner, walked up and down the next room, "spouting in a sort of mock heroic voice, detached sentences of the speech he had just been delivering. 'i told them,' he said, 'that it was a most flagrant violation of the constitution--that, if such things were permitted, there was an end of english freedom, and that--' "'but what was this dreadful grievance?' asked moore. "'the grievance?' he repeated, pausing as if to consider, 'oh, _that_ i forget.'"] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. my dear moore,--"when rogers" [ ] must not see the inclosed, which i send for your perusal. i am ready to fix any day you like for our visit. was not sheridan good upon the whole? the "poulterer" was the first and best. [ ] ever yours, etc. . when thurlow this damn'd nonsense sent, (i hope i am not violent), nor men nor gods knew what he meant. . and since not ev'n our rogers' praise to common sense his thoughts could raise-- why _would_ they let him print his lays? . * * * * * . * * * * * . to me, divine apollo, grant--o! hermilda's first and second canto, i'm fitting up a new portmanteau; . and thus to furnish decent lining, my own and others' bays i'm twining-- so, gentle thurlow, throw me thine in. * * * * * .--to john hanson. june d, . dear sir,--when you receive this i shall have left town for a week, and, as it is perfectly right we should understand each other, i think you will not be surprised at my persisting in my intention of going abroad. if the suit can be carried on in my absence,--_well_; if not, it must be given up. one word, one letter, to cn. would put an end to it; but this i shall not do, at all events without acquainting you before hand; nor at all, provided i am able to go abroad again. but at all hazards, at all losses, on this last point i am as determined as i have been for the last six months, and you have always told me that you would endeavour to assist me in that intention. every thing is ordered and ready now. do not trifle with me, for i am in very solid serious earnest, and if utter ruin _were_, or _is_ before me, on the one hand--and wealth at home on the other,--i have made my choice, and go i will. if you wish to write, address a line before saturday to salthill post office; maidenhead, i believe, but am not sure, is the post town; but i shall not be in town till wednesday next. believe me, yours ever, bn. p.s.--let all the books go to mr. murray's immediately, and let the plate, linen, etc., which i find _excepted_ by the _contract_, be sold, particularly a large silver vase--with the _contents_ not removed as they are curious, and a silver cup (not the skull) be sold also--both are of value. the pictures also, and every moveable that is mine, and can be converted into cash; all i want is a few thousand pounds, and then adieu. you shan't be troubled with me these ten years, if ever. * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. june , . my dear hodgson,--i write to you a few lines on business. murray has thought proper at his own risk, and peril, and profit (if there be any) to publish 'the giaour'; and it may possibly come under your ordeal in the 'monthly' [ ] i merely wish to state that in the published copies there are additions to the amount of ten pages, _text_ and _margin_ (_chiefly_ the last), which render it a little less unfinished (but more unintelligible) than before. if, therefore, you review it, let it be from the published copies and not from the first sketch. i shall not sail for this month, and shall be in town again next week, when i shall be happy to hear from you but more glad to see you. you know i have no time or turn for correspondence(!). but you also know, i hope, that i am not the less yours ever, [greek: mpairon]. [footnote : 'the giaour' was reviewed in the 'monthly review' for june, (n.s. vol. lxxi. p. ). in the editor's copy is added in ms. at the end of the article, as indicating the author of the review, the word "den."] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. june th, . my dear hodgson,--in town for a night i find your card. i had written to you at cambridge merely to say that murray has thought it expedient to publish 'the giaour' at his own risk (and reimbursement, if he can), and that, as it will probably be in your department in the 'monthly', i wished to state that, in the published copies, there are additions to the tune of lines or so towards the end, and, if reviewed, it should _not_ be from the privately printed copy. so much for scribbling. i shall manage to see you somewhere before i sail, which will be next month; till then i am yours here, and afterwards any where and every where, dear h., _tutto tuo_, bn. * * * * * .--to john murray. je. , . dear sir,--i regret much that i have no profane garment to array you with for the masquerade. as my motions will be uncertain, you need not write nor send the proofs till my return. yours truly, bn. p.s.--my wardrobe is out of town--or i could have dressed you as an albanian--or a turk--or an officer--or a waggoner. * * * * * .--to john murray. june , . dear sir,--having occasion to send a servant to london, i will thank you to inform me whether i left with the other things miniatures in your care (--if not--i know where to find them), and also to "report progress" in unpacking the books? the bearer returns this evening. how does hobhouse's work go on, or rather off--for that is the essential part? in yesterday's paper, immediately under an advertisement on "strictures in the urethra," i see--most appropriately consequent--a poem with "_strictures_ on ld b., mr. southey and others,"[ ] though i am afraid neither "mr. s.'s" poetical distemper, nor "mine," nor "others," is of the suppressive or stranguary kind. you may read me the prescription of this kill or cure physician. the medicine is compounded at white and cochrane's, fleet street. as i have nothing else to do, i may enjoy it like sir fretful, or the archbishop of grenada, or any other personage in like predicament. recollect that my lacquey returns in the evening, and that i set out for portsmouth [ ] to-morrow. all here are very well, and much pleased with your politeness and attention during their stay in town. believe me, yours truly, b. p.s.--are there anything but books? if so, let those _extras_ remain untouched for the present. i trust you have not stumbled on any more "aphrodites," and have burnt those. i send you both the advertisements, but don't send me the first treatise--as i have no occasion for _caustic_ in that quarter. [footnote : in the 'morning chronicle' (june , ) appeared advertisements of the two following books:--'practical observations on the best mode of curing strictures, etc., with remarks on inefficacy, etc., of caustic applications'. by william wadd. printed for j. callow, soho. 'modern poets; a dialogue in verse, containing some strictures on the poetry of lord byron, mr. southey, and others'. printed for white, cochrane, and co., fleet street. in a note on 'modern poets' (p. ) occurs the following passage: "in 'english bards, and scotch reviewers' the same respectable corps of critics is successively exhibited, in the course of only ten lines, under the following significant but somewhat incongruous forms, viz. ( ) northern wolves, ( ) harpies, ( ) bloodhounds." in proof the writer quotes lines - of the satire. then follows a long review of 'childe harold', in which the critic condemns harold, the hero, as "an uncouth incumbrance of this flighty lord;" the want of "plot ... action and fable, interest, order, end;" and asks: "shall he immortal bays aspire to wear who immortality from man would tear, repress the sigh which hopes a happier home, and chase the visions of a life to come?"] [footnote : for byron's intention to go abroad with lord and lady oxford, see p. , 'note' [footnote of letter .]] * * * * * .--to john murray. [maidenhead], june , . dear sir,--amongst the books from bennet st. is a small vol. of abominable poems by the earl of haddington which must not be in ye catalogue on sale--also--a vol. of french epigrams in the same predicament. on the title page of meletius is an inscription in writing which must be _erased_ and made illegible. i have read the strictures, which are just enough, and not grossly abusive, in very fair couplets. there is a note against massinger near the end, but one cannot quarrel with one's company, at any rate. the author detects some incongruous figures in a passage of 'e. bds'., page ., but which edition i do not know. in the _sole_ copy in your possession--i mean the _fifth_ edition--you may make these alterations, that i may profit (though a little too late) by his remarks:--for "_hellish_ instinct," substitute "_brutal_ instinct;" "_harpies_" alter to "_felons_;" and for "blood-hounds" write "hell-hounds." these be "very bitter words, by my troth," and the alterations not much sweeter; but as i shall not publish the thing, they can do no harm, but are a satisfaction to me in the way of amendment. the passage is only lines. you do not answer me about h.'s book; i want to write to him, and not to say anything unpleasing. if you direct to post office, portsmouth, till _called_ for, i will send and receive your letter. you never told me of the forthcoming critique on 'columbus' [ ] which is not _too_ fair; and i do not think justice quite done to the 'pleasures', which surely entitles the author to a higher rank than that assigned to him in the 'quarterly'. but i must not cavil at the decisions of the _invisible infallibles_; and the article is very well written. the general horror of "_fragments_" [ ] makes me tremulous for "_the giaour_;" but you would publish it--i presume, by this time, to your repentance. but as i consented, whatever be its fate, i won't now quarrel with you, even though i detect it in my pastry; but i shall not open a pye without apprehension for some weeks. the books which may be marked g.o. i will carry out. do you know clarke's 'naufragia' [ ]? i am told that he asserts the _first_ volume of 'robinson crusoe' was written by the first lord oxford, when in the tower, and given by him to defoe; if true, it is a curious anecdote. have you got back lord brooke's ms.? and what does heber say of it? write to me at portsmouth. ever yours, etc., bn. [footnote : rogers's _columbus_ was reviewed by ward in the _quarterly_ for march, . the reviewer detects "evident marks of haste" in the poem.] [footnote : _the giaour_, like _columbus_, was written in fragments.] [footnote : james stanier clarke, a navy chaplain ( - ), published, in , 'naufragia, or historical memoirs of shipwrecks'. in that work he does not himself attribute the _first_ volume of 'robinson crusoe' to lord oxford. the following is the passage to which byron refers ('naufragia', vol. i. pp. , ): "but before i conclude this section, i wish to make the admirers of this nautical romance mindful of a report, which prevailed many years ago; that defoe, after all, was not the real author of robinson crusoe. this assertion is noticed in an article in the seventh volume of the 'edinburgh magazine' [vol. vii. p. ]. dr. towers, in his 'life' of defoe in the 'biographia', is inclined to pay no attention to it; but was that writer aware of the following letter, which also appeared in the 'gentleman's magazine' for ? (vol. lviii. part i. p. ). at least no notice is taken of it in his 'life' of defoe: "'dublin, february . "mr. urban,--in the course of a late conversation with a nobleman of the first consequence and information in this kingdom, he assured me, that mr. benjamin holloway, of middleton stony, assured him, some time ago: that he knew for fact, that the celebrated romance of 'robinson crusoe' was really written by the earl of oxford, when confined in the tower of london: that his lordship gave the manuscript to daniel defoe, who frequently visited him during his confinement: and that defoe, having afterwards added the second volume, published the whole as his own production. this anecdote i would not venture to send to your valuable magazine, if i did not think my information good, and imagine it might be acceptable to your numerous readers, not-withstanding the work has heretofore been generally attributed to the latter. w. w.' "it is impossible for me to enter on a discussion of this literary subject; though i thought the circumstance ought to be more generally known. and yet i must observe, that i always discerned a very striking falling off between the composition of the first and second volumes of this romance--they seem to bear evident marks of having been the work of different writers." a volume of memoranda in the handwriting of warton, the laureate, preserved in the british museum, contains the following: "mem. jul. , . in the year , i was told by the rev. mr. benjamin holloway, rector of middleton stony, in oxfordshire, then about years old, and in the early part of his life domestic chaplain to lord sunderland, that he had often heard lord sunderland say that lord oxford, while a prisoner in the tower of london, wrote the first volume of the history of robinson crusoe, merely as an amusement under confinement; and gave it to daniel de foe, who frequently visited lord oxford in the tower, and was one of his pamphlet writers. that de foe, by lord oxford's permission, printed it as his own, and, encouraged by its extraordinary success, added himself the second volume, the inferiority of which is generally acknowledged. mr. holloway also told me, from lord sunderland, that lord oxford dictated some parts of the manuscript to de foe. mr. holloway was a grave conscientious clergyman, not vain of telling anecdotes, very learned, particularly a good orientalist, author of some theological tracts, bred at eton school, and a master of arts at st. john's college, cambridge. he lived many years with great respect in lord sunderland's family, and was like to the late duke of marlborough. he died, as i remember, about the year ." ] * * * * * .--to john murray. june , . dear sir,--will you forward the enclosed answer to the kindest letter i ever received in my life, my sense of which i can neither express to mr. gifford himself nor to any one else? ever yours, b'n. * * * * * .--to w. gifford. june , . my dear sir,--i feel greatly at a loss how to write to you at all--still more to thank you as i ought. if you knew the veneration with which i have ever regarded you, long before i had the most distant prospect of becoming your acquaintance, literary or personal, my embarrassment would not surprise you. any suggestion of yours, even were it conveyed in the less tender shape of the text of the 'baviad', or a monk mason note in massinger, [ ] would have been obeyed; i should have endeavoured to improve myself by your censure: judge then if i shall be less willing to profit by your kindness. it is not for me to bandy compliments with my elders and my betters: i receive your approbation with gratitude, and will not return my brass for your gold by expressing more fully those sentiments of admiration, which, however sincere, would, i know, be unwelcome. to your advice on religious topics, i shall equally attend. perhaps the best way will be by avoiding them altogether. the already published objectionable passages have been much commented upon, but certainly have been rather _strongly_ interpreted. i am no bigot to infidelity, and did not expect that, because i doubted the immortality of man, i should be charged with denying the existence of a god. it was the comparative insignificance of ourselves and _our world_, when placed in competition with the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first led me to imagine that our pretensions to eternity might be over-rated. this, and being early disgusted with a calvinistic scotch school, where i was cudgelled to church for the first ten years of my life, afflicted me with this malady; for, after all, it is, i believe, a disease of the mind as much as other kinds of hypochondria. i regret to hear you talk of ill-health. may you long exist! not only to enjoy your own fame, but outlive that of fifty such ephemeral adventurers as myself. as i do not sail quite so soon as murray may have led you to expect (not till july) i trust i have some chance of taking you by the hand before my departure, and repeating in person how sincerely and affectionately i am your obliged servant, byron. [footnote : see 'letters', vol. i. p. [footnote of letter .]] * * * * * .--to john murray. june , . dear sir,--i send you a _corrected_ copy of the lines with several _important_ alterations,--so many that this had better be sent for proof rather than subject the other to so many blots. you will excuse the eternal trouble i inflict upon you. as you will see, i have attended to your criticism, and softened a passage you proscribed this morning. yours veritably, b. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. june , . yesterday i dined in company with stael, the "epicene," [ ] whose politics are sadly changed. she is for the lord of israel and the lord of liverpool--a vile antithesis of a methodist and a tory--talks of nothing but devotion and the ministry, and, i presume, expects that god and the government will help her to a pension. murray, the [greek: anax] of publishers, the anak of stationers, has a design upon you in the paper line. he wants you to become the staple and stipendiary editor of a periodical work. what say you? will you be bound, like "kit smart, to write for ninety-nine years in the _universal visitor?_" [ ] seriously, he talks of hundreds a year, and--though i hate prating of the beggarly elements--his proposal may be to your honour and profit, and, i am very sure, will be to our pleasure. i don't know what to say about "friendship." i never was in friendship but once, in my nineteenth year, and then it gave me as much trouble as love. i am afraid, as whitbread's sire said to the king, when he wanted to knight him, that i am "too old;" [ ] but nevertheless, no one wishes you more friends, fame, and felicity, than yours, etc. [footnote : "'and ah! what verse can grace thy stately mien, guide of the world, preferment's golden queen, neckar's fair daughter, staël the 'epicene'! bright o'er whose flaming cheek and pumple nose the bloom of young desire unceasing glows! fain would the muse--but ah! she dares no more, a mournful voice from lone 'guyana's' shore, sad quatremer, the bold presumption checks, forbid to question thy ambiguous sex.' "these lines contain the secret history of quatremer's deportation. he presumed, in the council of five hundred, to arraign madame de staël's conduct, and even to hint a doubt of her sex. he was sent to 'guyana'. the transaction naturally brings to one's mind the dialogue between falstaff and hostess quickly in shakespeare's 'henry iv'." 'canning's new morality', lines - (edmonds' edition of the 'poetry of the anti-jacobin', pp. , ). anne louise germaine necker ( - ), only child of the minister necker and his wife suzanne curchod, gibbon's early love, married, in , the swedish ambassador baron de staël holstein, who died in . she married, as her second husband, in , m. de rocca, a young french officer, who had been severely wounded in spain, but survived her by a year (madame de récamier, 'souvenirs', vol. i. p. ). her book, 'de l'allemagne', seized and destroyed by napoleon, was brought out in june, , by john murray. byron thought her "certainly the cleverest, though not the most agreeable woman he had ever known. 'she declaimed to you instead of conversing with you,' said he, 'never pausing except to take breath; and if during that interval a rejoinder was put in, it was evident that she did not attend to it, as she resumed the thread of her discourse as though it had not been interrupted'" (lady blessington's 'conversations', p. ). croker ('croker papers', vol. i. p. ) describes her as "ugly, and not of an intellectual ugliness. her features were coarse, and the ordinary expression rather vulgar, she had an ugly mouth, and one or two irregularly prominent teeth, which perhaps gave her countenance an habitual gaiety. her eye was full, dark, and expressive; and when she declaimed, which was almost whenever she spoke, she looked eloquent, and one forgot that she was plain." madame de staël "did not affect to conceal her preference for the society of men to that of her own sex," and was entirely above, or below, studying the feminine arts of pleasing. in miss berry called on her in paris. "found her in an excessively dirty 'cabinet'--sofa singularly so; her own dress, a loose spencer with a bare neck" ('journal', vol. ii. p. ). a similar experience is mentioned by crabb robinson ('diary', ). "on the th of january," he writes, "i first waited on madame de staël. i was shown into her bedroom, for which, not knowing parisian customs, i was unprepared. she was sitting, most decorously, 'in' her bed, and writing. she had her night-cap on, and her face was not made up for the day. it was by no means a captivating spectacle; but i had a very cordial reception, and two bright black eyes smiled benignantly on me." of her political opinions sir john bowring ('autobiographical recollections', pp. , ) has left a sketch. "madame de staël was a perfect aristocrat, and her sympathies were wholly with the great and prosperous. she saw nothing in england but the luxury, stupidity, and pride of the tory aristocracy, and the intelligence and magnificence of the whig aristocracy. these latter talked about truth, and liberty and herself, and she supposed it was all as it should be. as to the millions, the people, she never inquired into their situation. she had a horror of the 'canaille', but anything of 'sangre asul' had a charm for her. when she was dying she said, 'let me die in peace; let my last moments be undisturbed.' yet she ordered the cards of every visitor to be brought to her. among them was one from the duc de richelieu. 'what!' exclaimed she indignantly, 'what! have you sent away the 'duke'? hurry! fly after him. bring him back. tell him that, though i die for all the world, i live for 'him'.'" napoleon's hatred of her was intense. "do not allow that jade, madame de staël," he writes to fouché, december , ('new letters of napoleon i.', p. ), "to come near paris." again, march , ('ibid.', p. ), "you are not to allow madame de staël to come within forty leagues of paris. that wicked schemer ought to make up her mind to behave herself at last." in a third letter, april , ('ibid.', p. ), he speaks of her as "paying court, one day to the great--a patriot, a democrat, the next!... a fright, ... a worthless woman" (léon lecestre's 'lettres inédites de napoléon i'er', nd ed. vol. i. pp. , , ).] [footnote : "old gardner the bookseller employed rolt and smart to write a monthly miscellany called the 'universal visitor'. there was a formal written contract, which allen the printer saw.... they were bound to write nothing else; they were to have, i think, a third of the profits of his sixpenny pamphlet; and the contract was for ninety-nine years" (boswell's 'life of dr. johnson', ed. birrell, vol. iii. p. ).] [footnote : "but first the monarch, so polite, ask'd mister whitbread if he'd be a 'knight'. unwilling in the list to be enroll'd, whitbread contemplated the knights of 'peg', then to his generous sov'reign made a leg, and said, 'he was afraid he was 'too old','" etc. peter pindar's 'instructions to a laureat'.] * * * * * .--to the hon. augusta leigh. , bennet street, june th, . my dearest augusta,--let me know when you arrive, and when, and where, and how, you would like to see me,--any where in short but at _dinner_. i have put off going into ye country on purpose to _waylay_ you. ever yours, byron * * * * * .--to the hon. augusta leigh. [june, .] my dearest augusta,--and if you knew _whom_ i had put off besides my journey--you would think me grown strangely fraternal. however i won't overwhelm you with my _own praises_. between one and two be it--i shall, in course, prefer seeing you all to myself without the incumbrance of third persons, even of _your_ (for i won't own the relationship) fair cousin of _eleven page_ memory [ ], who, by the bye, makes one of the finest busts i have seen in the exhibition, or out of it. good night! ever yours, byron. p.s.--your writing is grown like my attorney's, and gave me a qualm, till i found the remedy in your signature. [footnote : 'letters', vol. i. p. [end of footnote of letter .], lady gertrude howard married, in , william sloane stanley, and died in .] * * * * * .--to the hon. augusta leigh. [sunday], june th, . my dearest augusta,--if you like to go with me to ye lady davy's [ ] [ to-night, i _have_ an invitation for you. there you will see the _stael_, some people whom you know, and _me_ whom you do _not_ know,--and you can talk to which you please, and i will watch over you as if you were unmarried and in danger of always being so. now do as you like; but if you chuse to array yourself before or after half past ten, i will call for you. i think our being together before d people will be a new _sensation_ to _both_. ever yours, b. [footnote : sir humphry davy ( - ), the son of a wood-carver of penzance, was apprenticed to john borlase, a surgeon at penzance, in whose dispensary he became a chemist. he wrote poetry as a young man, but soon abandoned the pursuit for science. two poems on byron by davy, one written in , the other in , will be found in dr. davy's 'memoirs of the life of sir h. davy', vol. ii. pp. , . in october, , he joined dr. beddoes at bristol, where he superintended the laboratory at his pneumatic institution. his 'researches, chemical and philosophical' ( ), made him famous. at the royal institution in london, founded in , davy became assistant-lecturer in chemistry, and director of the chemical laboratory. there his lecture-room was crowded by some of the most distinguished men and women of the day. within the next few years his discoveries in electricity and galvanism, ( - ) brought him european celebrity; his lectures on agricultural chemistry ( ) marked a fresh era in farming, and inaugurated the new movement of "science with practice." his famous discovery of the safety lamp was made in . he was created a baronet in . a skilful fisherman, he wrote, when in declining health, 'salmonia, or days of fly-fishing', published in . ticknor ('life', vol. i. p. ), speaking of davy in , says, "he is now about thirty-three, but with all the freshness and bloom of five-and-twenty, and one of the handsomest men i have seen in england. he has a great deal of vivacity, talks rapidly, though with great precision, and is so much interested in conversation, that his excitement amounts to nervous impatience, and keeps him in constant motion." davy married, in , a rich widow, jane aprecce, 'née' kerr ( - ). the marriage brought him wealth; but it also, it is said, impaired the simplicity of his character, and made him ambitious of social distinction. miss berry ('journal', vol. ii. p. ) supped with lady davy in may, , to meet the princess of wales, and notes that among the other guests was byron. lady davy, who was so dark a brunette that sydney smith said she was as brown as a dry toast, was for many years a prominent figure in the society of london and rome. it was of her that madame de staël said that she had "all corinne's talents without her faults or extravagances." ticknor, who called on her in june, , "found her in her parlour, working on a dress, the contents of her basket strewed about the table, and looking more like home than anything since i left it. she is small, with black eyes and hair, a very pleasant face, an uncommonly sweet smile, and, when she speaks, has much spirit and expression in her countenance. her conversation is agreeable, particularly in the choice and variety of her phraseology, and has more the air of eloquence than i have ever heard before from a lady." ('life of george ticknor', vol. i. p. ).] * * * * * .--to john murray. july st, . dear sir,--there is an error in my dedication. [ ] the word "_my_" must be struck out--"my" admiration, etc.; it is a false construction and disagrees with the signature. i hope this will arrive in time to prevent a _cancel_ and serve for a proof; recollect it is only the "my" to be erased throughout. there is a critique in the 'satirist', [ ] which i have read,--fairly written, and, though _vituperative_, very fair in judgment. one part belongs to you, _viz_., the _s_. and _d_ charge; it is unconscionable, but you have no conscience. yours truly, b. [footnote : the dedication was originally printed thus: "to samuel rogers, esq., as a slight but most sincere token of my admiration of his genius."] [footnote : 'the satirist' for july , (pp. - ), reviews the 'giaour' at length. it condemns it for its fragmentary character and consequent obscurity, its carelessness and defects of style; but it also admits that the poem "abounds with proofs of genius:" "a word in conclusion. the noble lord appears to have an aristocratical solicitude to be read only by the opulent. four shillings and sixpence for forty-one octavo pages of poetry! and those pages verily happily answering to mr. sheridan's image of a rivulet of text flowing through a meadow of margin. my good lord byron, while you are revelling in all the sensual and intellectual luxury which the successful sale of newstead abbey has procured for you, you little think of the privations to which you have subjected us unfortunate reviewers, ... in order to enable us to purchase your lordship's expensive publication."] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. , benedictine street, st. james's, july , . i presume by your silence that i have blundered into something noxious in my reply to your letter, for the which i beg leave to send beforehand a sweeping apology, which you may apply to any, or all, parts of that unfortunate epistle. if i err in my conjecture, i expect the like from you in putting our correspondence so long in quarantine. god he knows what i have said; but he also knows (if he is not as indifferent to mortals as the _nonchalant_ deities of lucretius), that you are the last person i want to offend. so, if i have,--why the devil don't you say it at once, and expectorate your spleen? rogers is out of town with madame de stael, who hath published an essay against suicide, [ ] which, i presume, will make somebody shoot himself;--as a sermon by blenkinsop, in _proof_ of christianity, sent a hitherto most orthodox acquaintance of mine out of a chapel of ease a perfect atheist. have you found or founded a residence yet? and have you begun or finished a poem? if you won't tell me what _i_ have done, pray say what you have done, or left undone, yourself. i am still in equipment for voyaging, and anxious to hear from, or of, you _before_ i go, which anxiety you should remove more readily, as you think i sha'n't cogitate about you afterwards. i shall give the lie to that calumny by fifty foreign letters, particularly from any place where the plague is rife,--without a drop of vinegar or a whiff of sulphur to save you from infection. the oxfords have sailed almost a fortnight, and my sister is in town, which is a great comfort,--for, never having been much together, we are naturally more attached to each other. i presume the illuminations have conflagrated to derby (or wherever you are) by this time. [ ] we are just recovering from tumult and train oil, and transparent fripperies, and all the noise and nonsense of victory. drury lane had a large _m.w._, which some thought was marshal wellington; others, that it might be translated into manager whitbread; while the ladies of the vicinity of the saloon conceived the last letter to be complimentary to themselves. i leave this to the commentators to illustrate. if you don't answer this, i sha'n't say what _you_ deserve, but i think _i_ deserve a reply. do you conceive there is no post-bag but the twopenny? [ ] sunburn me, if you are not too bad. [footnote : "madame de stael treats me as the person whom she most delights to honour; i am generally ordered with her to dinner, as one orders beans and bacon: she is one of the few persons who surpass expectation; she has every sort of talent, and would be universally popular, if, in society, she were to confine herself to her inferior talents-- pleasantry, anecdote, and literature. i have reviewed her 'essay on suicide' in the last 'edinburgh review': it is not one of her best, and i have accordingly said more of the author and the subject than of the work." sir j. mackintosh ('life', vol. ii. p. ).] [footnote : one result of the illuminations in honour of the battle of vittoria (june , ), which took place july , was a great fire at woolwich. moore was at this time living at mayfield cottage near ashbourne, in derbyshire.] [footnote : moore's 'intercepted letters, or the twopenny post-bag', was published, without his name, in .] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. july , . your letter set me at ease; for i really thought (as i hear of your susceptibility) that i had said--i know not what--but something i should have been very sorry for, had it, or i, offended you;--though i don't see how a man with a beautiful wife--_his own_ children,--quiet--fame --competency and friends, (i will vouch for a thousand, which is more than i will for a unit in my own behalf,) can be offended with any thing. do you know, moore, i am amazingly inclined--remember i say but _inclined_--to be seriously enamoured with lady a[delaide] f[orbes] [ ]--but this----has ruined all my prospects. however, you know her; is she _clever_, or sensible, or good-tempered? either _would_ do--i scratch out the _will_. i don't ask as to her beauty--that i see; but my circumstances are mending, and were not my other prospects blackening, i would take a wife, and that should be the woman, had i a chance. i do not yet know her much, but better than i did. i want to get away, but find difficulty in compassing a passage in a ship of war. they had better let me go; if i cannot, patriotism is the word--"nay, an they'll mouth, i'll rant as well as they." [ ] now, what are you doing?--writing, we all hope, for our own sakes. remember you must edit my posthumous works, with a life of the author, for which i will send you confessions, dated "lazaretto," smyrna, malta, or palermo--one can die any where. there is to be a thing on tuesday ycleped a national fête [ ]. the regent and----are to be there, and every body else, who has shillings enough for what was once a guinea. vauxhall is the scene--there are six tickets issued for the modest women, and it is supposed there will be three to spare. the passports for the lax are beyond my arithmetic. p. s.--the stael last night attacked me most furiously--said that i had "no right to make love--that i had used----barbarously--that i had no feeling, and was totally _in_sensible to _la belle passion_, and _had_ been all my life." i am very glad to hear it, but did not know it before. let me hear from you anon. [footnote : "lady a. f----'was' also very handsome. it is melancholy to talk of women in the past tense. what a pity, that of all flowers, none fade so soon as beauty! poor lady a. f--has not got married. do you know, i once had some thoughts of her as a wife; not that i was in love, as people call it, but i had argued myself into a belief that i ought to marry, and, meeting her very often in society, the notion came into my head, not heart, that she would suit me. moore, too, told me so much of her good qualities--all which was, i believe, quite true--that i felt tempted to propose to her, but did not, whether 'tant mieux' or 'tant pis', god knows, supposing my proposal accepted." (lady blessington's 'conversations', pp. , ). lady adelaide forbes, whom byron in rome compared to the "belvedere apollo," was the daughter of george, sixth earl of granard, and his wife, lady selina rawdon, daughter of the first earl of moira. born in , she died at dresden, in , unmarried. lord moira was moore's patron, and, through this connection and political sympathies, moore was acquainted with lord granard and his family.] [footnote : byron possibly quoted the actual words from 'hamlet' (act v. sc. ), referring to moore's attack on the regent in 'the two-penny post-bag': "nay, an thou'lt mouth, i'll rant as well as thou." but the letter is destroyed.] [footnote : the 'morning chronicle' for july contains the announcement that "the prince regent has projected a 'grand national fête' in honour of the battle of vittoria. it is to be held at vauxhall gardens." the 'fête' was held on tuesday, july , beginning with a banquet, at which such toasts were drunk as "the marquis of wellington," "sir thomas graham and the other officers engaged," "the spanish armies and the brave guerillas." the 'báton' of marshal jourdan was "disposed among the plate, so as to be obvious to all." the proceedings ended with illuminations and dancing.] * * * * * .--to john hanson. sunday, july th, . dear sir,--a report is in general circulation (which has distressed my friends, and is not very pleasing to me), that the purchaser of newstead is a _young_ man, who has been over-reached, ill-treated, and ruined, by me in this transaction of the sale, and that i take an unfair advantage of the _law_ to enforce the contract. this must be contradicted by a true and open statement of the circumstances attending, and subsequent to, the sale, and that immediately and publicly. surely, if anyone is ill treated it is myself. he bid his own price; he took time before he bid at all, and now, when i am actually granting him further time as a favour, i hear from all quarters that i have acted unfairly. pray do not delay on this point; see him, and let a proper and true statement be drawn up of the sale, etc., and inserted in the papers. ever yours, b. p.s.--mr. c. himself, if he has either honour or feeling, will be the first to vindicate me from so unfounded an implication. it is surely not for his credit to be supposed _ruined_ or _over-reached_. * * * * * .--to john murray. july nd, . dear sir,--i have great pleasure in accepting your invitation to meet anybody or nobody as you like best. pray what should you suppose the book in the inclosed advertisement to be? is it anything relating to buonaparte or continental concerns? if so, it may be worth looking after, particularly if it should turn out to be your purchase--lucien's _epic_. believe me, very truly yours, byron. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. july , . i am not well versed enough in the ways of single woman to make much matrimonial progress. i have been dining like the dragon of wantley [ ] for this last week. my head aches with the vintage of various cellars, and my brains are muddled as their dregs. i met your friends the daltons:--she sang one of your best songs so well, that, but for the appearance of affectation, i could have cried; he reminds me of hunt, but handsomer, and more musical in soul, perhaps. i wish to god he may conquer his horrible anomalous complaint. the upper part of her face is beautiful, and she seems much attached to her husband. he is right, nevertheless, in leaving this nauseous town. the first winter would infallibly destroy her complexion,--and the second, very probably, every thing else. i must tell you a story. morris [ ] (of indifferent memory) was dining out the other day, and complaining of the prince's coldness to his old wassailers. d'israeli (a learned jew) bored him with questions--why this? and why that? "why did the prince act thus?"--"why, sir, on account of lord----, who ought to be ashamed of himself."--"and why ought lord----to be ashamed of himself?"--"because the prince, sir, --------"--"and why, sir, did the prince cut _you_?"--"because, g--d d--mme, sir, i stuck to my principles."--"and why did you stick to your principles?" is not this last question the best that was ever put, when you consider to whom? it nearly killed morris. perhaps you may think it stupid, but, as goldsmith said about the peas, [ ] it was a very good joke when i heard it--as i did from an ear-witness--and is only spoilt in my narration. the season has closed with a dandy ball; [ ]--but i have dinners with the harrowbys, rogers, and frere and mackintosh [ ], where i shall drink your health in a silent bumper, and regret your absence till "too much canaries" wash away my memory, or render it superfluous by a vision of you at the opposite side of the table. canning has disbanded his party by a speech from his [----]--the true throne of a tory [ ]. conceive his turning them off in a formal harangue, and bidding them think for themselves. "i have led my ragamuffins where they are well peppered. there are but three of the left alive," [ ] and they are for the _townsend_ (_query_, might not falstaff mean the bow street officer? i dare say malone's posthumous edition will have it so) for life. since i wrote last, i have been into the country. i journeyed by night--no incident, or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in crossing epping forest, actually, i believe, flung down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second figure of number xix--mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. i can only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols wherewith i had armed him; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out to me whenever we passed any thing--no matter whether moving or stationary. conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong. i have scribbled you a fearfully long letter. this sheet must be blank, and is merely a wrapper, to preclude the tabellarians [ ] of the post from peeping. you once complained of my _not_ writing;--i will "heap coals of fire upon your head" by _not_ complaining of your _not_ reading. ever, my dear moore, your'n (isn't that the staffordshire termination?), byron. [footnote : under the title of "an excellent ballad of a most dreadful combat, fought between moore of moore-hall and the dragon of wantley," this ballad forms (in the th edition) the argument of 'the dragon of wantley, a burlesque opera', performed at covent garden, the libretto of which is by sig. carini, 'i.e.' henry carey: "have you not heard of the 'trojan' horse; with seventy men in his belly? this dragon was not quite so big, but very near, i'll tell you; devoured he poor children three, that could not with him grapple; and at one sup he eat them up, as one would eat an apple. "all sorts of cattle this dragon did eat, some say he eat up trees, and that the forest sure he would devour by degrees. for houses and churches were to him geese and turkies; he eat all, and left none behind, but some stones, dear jack, which he could not crack, which on the hills you'll find."] [footnote : charles morris ( - ) served in the th foot, the royal irish dragoons, and finally in the second life guards. he was laureate and punch-maker to the beef-steak club, founded in by john rich, patentee of covent garden theatre. the prince of wales became a member of the club in , and morris was a frequent guest at carlton house. another member of the club was the duke of norfolk, who gave morris the villa at brockham, near betchworth, where he lived and died. morris, who was an admirable song-writer and singer, attached himself politically to the prince's party, and attacked pitt in such popular ballads as "billy's too young to drive us," and "billy pitt and the farmer." he was, however, disappointed in his hope of reward from his political patrons, and vented his spleen in his ode, "the old whig poet to his old buff waistcoat" "farewell, thou poor rag of the muse! in the bag of the clothesman go lie; a farthing thou'lt fetch from the jews, which the hard-hearted christians deny," etc. some of his poems deserve the censure of 'the shade of pope' (line ): "there reeling morris and his bestial songs." but others, in their ease and vivacity, hold their own with all but the best of moore's songs. a collection of them was printed in two volumes by bentley, in , under the title of 'lyra urbanica'.] [footnote : in forster's 'life of goldsmith' (vol. i. p. ) it is related that goldsmith ran away from trinity college, dublin, because he had been beaten by one of the fellows. he started for cork with a shilling in his pocket, on which he lived for three days. he told reynolds that he thought "a handful of grey pease, given him by a girl at a wake (after fasting for twenty-four hours) the most comfortable repast he had ever made." byron may mean that any joke seems good to a man who had not heard one for a day.] [footnote : "i liked the dandies," says byron, in his 'detached thoughts'; "they were always very civil to _me_, though in general they disliked literary people, and persecuted and mystified madme. de staël, lewis, horace twiss, and the like, damnably. they persuaded madme. de staël that alvanley had a hundred thousand a year, etc., etc., till she praised him to his _face_ for his _beauty!_ and made a set at him for albertine ('libertine', as brummell baptized her, though the poor girl was, and is, as correct as maid or wife can be, and very amiable withal), and a hundred other fooleries besides. the truth is, that, though i gave up the business early, i had a tinge of dandyism in my minority, and probably retained enough of it to conciliate the great ones at four and twenty. i had gamed and drunk and taken my degrees in most dissipations, and, having no pedantry, and not being overbearing, we ran quietly together. i knew them all more or less, and they made me a member of watier's (a superb club at that time), being, i take it, the only literary man (except 'two' others, both men of the world, m[oore] and s[pencer]) in it. our masquerade was a grand one; so was the dandy ball too--at the argyle,--but 'that' (the latter) was given by the four chiefs--b[rummel?], m[idmay?], a[lvanley?], and p[ierreoint?], if i err not."] [footnote : sir james mackintosh ( - ), after studying medicine, was called to the english bar in . originally a supporter of the french revolution, he answered burke's 'reflections' with his 'vindiciæ gallicæ' ( ). he is "mr. macfungus" in the 'anti-jacobin's' account of the "meeting of the friends of freedom." but his revolutionary sympathies rapidly cooled, and he publicly disavowed them in his 'introductory discourse on the study of the law of nature and nations' ( ). he remained, however, throughout his life, a whig. his lectures on "'the law of nature and nations'," delivered at lincoln's inn, in , brought him into prominence, both at the bar and in society. in he was knighted on accepting the recordership of bombay. he returned to england in , entered parliament as member for nairn, advocated some useful measures, became a privy councillor in , and held office in the whig ministry of as commissioner of the board of control. in politics, as well as in literature, he disappointed expectation. his principal works, besides those mentioned above, were his 'dissertation on the progress of ethical philosophy' ( ), and his 'history of the revolution in england in ' ( ). his great intellectual powers were shown to most advantage in society. rogers ('table-talk', pp. , ) thought him one of the three acutest men he had ever known. "he had a prodigious memory, and could repeat by heart more of cicero than you could easily believe.... i never met a man with a fuller mind than mackintosh,--such readiness on all subjects, such a talker." "till subdued by age and illness," wrote sydney smith ('life of mackintosh', vol. ii. p. ), "his conversation was more brilliant and instructive than that of any human being i ever had the good fortune to be acquainted with." as in political life, so in society, he was too much of the lecturer. ticknor ('life', vol. i. p. ) thought him "a little too precise, a little too much made up in his manners and conversation." but on all sides there is evidence to confirm the testimony of rogers ('table-talk', p. ) that he was a man "who had not a particle of envy or jealousy in his nature."] [footnote : george canning ( - ) had been offered the foreign office in after the assassination of perceval, on condition that castlereagh should lead the house of commons. he refused the offer. elected m.p. for liverpool in , he had, in july, , disbanded his followers, and in left england. he supported lord liverpool in carrying the repressive measures known as the six acts ( - ), and, on the death of lord londonderry, in , entered the government as secretary for foreign affairs. it is to the private speech to his followers, in july, , that byron refers. the 'morning chronicle' for july , , has the following paragraph: "mr. canning it seems has (to use a french phrase) 'reformed' his political corps. he assembled them at the close of the session, and with many expressions of regret for the failure of certain negociations, which might have been favourable to them as a body, relieved them from their oaths of allegiance, and recommended them to pursue in future their objects separately. the right honourable gentleman, perhaps, finds it more convenient for himself to act unencumbered; and both he and one or two others may find their interest in disbanding the squad; but some of them are turned off 'without a character'." the 'courier' for july , quoting the first part of the statement, adds, "we believe ... that mr. canning is not indisposed to join the present cabinet, and may wish one or two of his particular friends to come in with him."] [footnote : "i have led my ragamuffins where they are pepper'd: there's but three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's end, to beg during life." ('henry iv'., part i. act v. sc. ). townshend, the bow street officer, is described by cronow ('reminiscences', vol. i. p. ) as "a little fat man with a flaxen wig, kersey-mere breeches, a blue straight-cut coat, and a broad-brimmed white hat. to the most daring courage he added great dexterity and cunning; and was said, 'in propria persona', to have taken more thieves than all the other bow street officers put together."] [footnote : "epistolam, quam attulerat phileros tabellarius." (cic., 'fam'., , ).] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. july , . when you next imitate the style of "tacitus," pray add, _de moribus germannorum_;--this last was a piece of barbarous silence, and could only be taken from the _woods_, and, as such, i attribute it entirely to your sylvan sequestration at mayfield cottage. you will find, on casting up accounts, that you are my debtor by several sheets and one epistle. i shall bring my action;--if you don't discharge, expect to hear from my attorney. i have forwarded your letter to ruggiero [ ]; but don't make a postman of me again, for fear i should be tempted to violate your sanctity of wax or wafer. believe me, ever yours _ indignantly_, bn. [footnote : _i. e._ samuel rogers.] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. july , . can't you be satisfied with the pangs of my jealousy of rogers, without actually making me the pander of your epistolary intrigue? this is the second letter you have enclosed to my address, notwithstanding a miraculous long answer, and a subsequent short one or two of your own. if you do so again, i can't tell to what pitch my fury may soar. i shall send you verse or arsenic, as likely as any thing,--four thousand couplets on sheets beyond the privilege of franking; that privilege, sir, of which you take an undue advantage over a too susceptible senator, by forwarding your lucubrations to every one but himself. i won't frank _from_ you, or _for_ you, or _to_ you--may i be curst if i do, unless you mend your manners. i disown you--i disclaim you--and by all the powers of eulogy, i will write a panegyric upon you--or dedicate a quarto--if you don't make me ample amends. p.s.--i am in training to dine with sheridan [ ] and rogers this evening. i have a little spite against r., and will shed his "clary wines pottle-deep." [ ] this is nearly my ultimate or penultimate letter; for i am quite equipped, and only wait a passage. perhaps i may wait a few weeks for sligo, but not if i can help it. [footnote : in his 'detached thoughts' byron has noted the following impressions of sheridan: "in society i have met sheridan frequently: he was superb! he had a sort of liking for me, and never attacked me, at least to my face, as he did every body else--high names, and wits, and orators, some of them poets also. i have seen him cut up whitbread, quiz madame de staël, annihilate colman, and do little less by some others (whose names, as friends, i set not down) of good fame and ability. poor fellow! he got drunk very thoroughly and very soon. it occasionally fell to my lot to pilot him home--no sinecure, for he was so tipsy that i was obliged to put on his cocked hat for him. to be sure, it tumbled off again, and i was not myself so sober as to be able to pick it up again. "the last time i met him was, i think, at sir gilbert elliot's, where he was as quick as ever--no, it was not the last time; the last time was at douglas kinnaird's. i have met him in all places and parties--at whitehall with the melbournes, at the marquis of tavistock's, at robins's the auctioneer's, at sir humphry davy's, at sam rogers's,--in short, in most kinds of company, and always found him very convivial and delightful. "i have seen sheridan weep two or three times. it may be that he was maudlin; but this only renders it more impressive, for who would see 'from marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow, and swift expire a driveller and a show'? "once i saw him cry at robins's the auctioneer's, after a splendid dinner, full of great names and high spirits. i had the honour of sitting next to sheridan. the occasion of his tears was some observation or other upon the subject of the sturdiness of the whigs in resisting office and keeping to their principles: sheridan turned round: 'sir, it is easy for my lord g. or earl g. or marquis b. or lord h. with thousands upon thousands a year, some of it either 'presently' derived, or 'inherited' in sinecure or acquisitions from the public money, to boast of their patriotism and keep aloof from temptation; but they do not know from what temptation those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal talents, and not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not in the course of their lives what it was to have a shilling of their own.' and in saying this he wept. "there was something odd about sheridan. one day, at dinner, he was slightly praising that pert pretender and impostor, lyttelton (the parliamentary puppy, still alive, i believe). i took the liberty of differing from him; he turned round upon me, and said, 'is that your real opinion?' i confirmed it. then said he, 'fortified by this concurrence, i beg leave to say that it, in fact, is 'my' opinion also, and that he is a person whom i do absolutely and utterly despise, abhor, and detest.' he then launched out into a description of his despicable qualities, at some length, and with his usual wit, and evidently in earnest (for he hated lyttelton). his former compliment had been drawn out by some preceding one, just as its reverse was by my hinting that it was unmerited. "i have more than once heard him say, 'that he never had a shilling of his own.' to be sure, he contrived to extract a good many of other people's. "in i had occasion to visit my lawyer in chancery lane; he was with sheridan. after mutual greetings, etc., sheridan retired first. before recurring to my own business, i could not help inquiring 'that' of sheridan. 'oh,' replied the attorney, 'the usual thing! to stave off an action from his wine-merchant, my client.'--'well,' said i, 'and what do you mean to do?'--'nothing at all for the present,' said he: 'would you have us proceed against old sherry? what would be the use of it?' and here he began laughing, and going over sheridan's good gifts of conversation. "now, from personal experience, i can vouch that my attorney is by no means the tenderest of men, or particularly accessible to any kind of impression out of the statute or record; and yet sheridan, in half an hour, had found the way to soften and seduce him in such a manner, that i almost think he would have thrown his client (an honest man, with all the laws, and some justice, on his side) out of the window, had he come in at the moment. "such was sheridan! he could soften an attorney! there has been nothing like it since the days of orpheus. "one day i saw him take up his own ''monody on garrick'.' he lighted upon the dedication to the dowager lady spencer. on seeing it, he flew into a rage, and exclaimed 'that it must be a forgery, that he had never dedicated any thing of his to such a damned canting bitch,' etc., etc.--and so went on for half an hour abusing his own dedication, or at least the object of it. if all writers were equally sincere, it would be ludicrous. "he told me that, on the night of the grand success of his 'school for scandal' he was knocked down and put into the watch-house for making a row in the street, and being found intoxicated by the watchmen. latterly, when found drunk one night in the kennel, and asked his name by the watchmen, he answered, 'wilberforce.' "when dying he was requested to undergo 'an operation.' he replied that he had already submitted to two, which were enough for one man's lifetime. being asked what they were, he answered, 'having his hair cut, and sitting for his picture." "i have met george colman occasionally, and thought him extremely pleasant and convivial. sheridan's humour, or rather wit, was always saturnine, and sometimes savage; he never laughed (at least that 'i' saw, and i watched him), but colman did. if i had to 'choose' and could not have both at a time i should say, 'let me begin the evening with sheridan, and finish it with colman.' sheridan for dinner, colman for supper; sheridan for claret or port but colman for every thing, from the madeira and champagne at dinner the claret with a 'layer' of 'port' between the glasses up to the punch of the night, and down to the grog, or gin and water, of daybreak;--all these i have threaded with both the same. sheridan was a grenadier company of life guards, but colman a whole regiment--of 'light infantry', to be sure, but still a regiment."] [footnote : "potations pottle deep" 'othello', act ii. sc. , line .] * * * * * .--to john murray. july , . dear sir--as i leave town early tomorrow, the proof must be sent to-night, or many days will be lost. if you have any _reviews_ of the 'giaour' to send, let me have them now. i am not very well to day. i thank you for the 'satirist', which is short but savage on this unlucky affair, and _personally_ facetious on me which is much more to the purpose than a tirade upon other peoples' concerns [ ]. ever yours, b. [footnote : in the 'satirist' (vol. xiii. pp. , ) is an article headed "scandalum magnatum," with the motto from 'rejected addresses': with horn-handled knife, to kill a tender lamb as dead as mutton." "a short time back (say the newspapers, and newspapers never say 'the thing which is not') lady h. gave a ball and supper. among the company were lord b--n, lady w--, and lady c. l--b. lord b., it would appear, is a favourite with the latter lady; on this occasion, however, he seemed to lavish his attention on another fair object. this preference so enraged lady c. l. that in a paroxysm of jealousy she took up a dessert-knife and stabbed herself. the gay circle was, of course, immediately plunged in confusion and dismay, which however, was soon succeeded by levity and scandal. the general cry for medical assistance was from lady w--d: lady w--d!!! and why? because it was said that, early after her marriage, lady w--also took a similar liberty with her person for a similar cause, and was therefore considered to have learned from experience the most efficacious remedy for the complaint. it was also whispered that the lady's husband had most to grieve, that the attempt had not fully succeeded. lady c. l. is still living. "the poet has told us how 'ladies wish to be who love their lords;' but this is the first public demonstration in our times to show us how ladies wish to be who love, not their own, but others' lords. 'better be with the dead than thus,' cried the jealous fair; and, casting a languishing look at lord b--, who, heaven knows, is more like pan than apollo, she whipt up as pretty a little dessert-knife as a lady could desire to commit suicide with, 'and stuck it in her wizzard.' "the desperate lady was carried out of the room, and the affair endeavoured to be hushed up, etc., etc." ] * * * * * .--to john wilson croker [ ]. bt. str., august , . dear sir,--i was honoured with your unexpected and very obliging letter, when on the point of leaving london, which prevented me from acknowledging my obligation as quickly as i felt it sincerely. i am endeavouring all in my power to be ready before saturday--and even if i should not succeed, i can only blame my own tardiness, which will not the less enhance the benefit i have lost. i have only to add my hope of forgiveness for all my trespasses on your time and patience, and with my best wishes for your public and private welfare, i have the honour to be, most truly, your obliged and most obedient servant, byron. [footnote : j. w. croker ( - ),--the "wenham" of thackeray, the "rigby" of disraeli, and the "con crawley" of lady morgan's 'florence macarthy', had been made secretary to the admiralty in . at his request captain carlton of the 'boyne', "just then ordered to re-enforce sir edward pellew" in the mediterranean, had consented to receive byron into his cabin for the voyage,] * * * * * .--to john murray. if you send more proofs, i shall never finish this infernal story--"_ecce signum_"--thirty-three more lines enclosed! to the utter discomfiture of the printer, and, i fear, not to your advantage. b. * * * * * .--to john murray. half-past two in the morning, aug. , . dear sir,--pray suspend the _proofs_, for i am _bitten_ again, and have _quantities_ for other parts of the bravura. yours ever, b. p. s.--you shall have them in the course of the day. * * * * * .--to james wedderburn webster. august , . my dear webster,--i am, you know, a detestable correspondent, and write to no one person whatever; you therefore cannot attribute my silence to any thing but want of good breeding or good taste, and not to any more atrocious cause; and as i confess the fault to be entirely mine--why--you will pardon it. i have ordered a copy of the 'giaour' (which is nearly doubled in quantity in this edition) to be sent, and i will first scribble my name in the title page. many and sincere thanks for your good opinion of book, and (i hope to add) author. rushton shall attend you whenever you please, though i should like him to stay a few weeks, and help my other people in forwarding my chattels. your taking him is no less a favor to me than him; and i trust he will behave well. if not, your remedy is very simple; only don't let him be idle; honest i am sure he is, and i believe good-hearted and quiet. no pains has been spared, and a good deal of expense incurred in his education; accounts and mensuration, etc., he ought to know, and i believe he does. i write this near london, but your answer will reach me better in bennet street, etc. (as before). i am going very soon, and if you would do the same thing--as far as sicily--i am sure you would not be sorry. my sister, mrs. l. goes with me--her spouse is obliged to retrench for a few years (but _he_ stays at home); so that his _link boy_ prophecy (if ever he made it) recoils upon himself. i am truly glad to hear of lady frances's good health. have you added to your family? pray make my best respects acceptable to her ladyship. nothing will give me more pleasure than to hear from you as soon and as fully as you please. ever most truly yours, byron. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. bennet street, august , . as our late--i might say, deceased--correspondence had too much of the town-life leaven in it, we will now, _paulo majora_, prattle a little of literature in all its branches; and first of the first--criticism. the prince is at brighton, and jackson, the boxer, gone to margate, having, i believe, decoyed yarmouth to see a milling in that polite neighbourhood [ ]. mad'e. de stael holstein has lost one of her young barons [ ], who has been carbonadoed by a vile teutonic adjutant,--kilt and killed in a coffee-house at scrawsenhawsen. corinne is, of course, what all mothers must be,--but will, i venture to prophesy, do what few mothers could--write an essay upon it. she cannot exist without a grievance--and somebody to see, or read, how much grief becomes her. i have not seen her since the event; but merely judge (not very charitably) from prior observation. in a "mail-coach copy" of the _edinburgh_ [ ] i perceive _the giaour_ is second article. the numbers are still in the leith smack--_pray which way is the wind?_ the said article is so very mild and sentimental, that it must be written by jeffrey _in love_ [ ];--you know he is gone to america to marry some fair one, of whom he has been, for several _quarters, éperdument amoureux_. seriously--as winifred jenkins [ ] says of lismahago--mr. jeffrey (or his deputy) "has done the handsome thing by me," and i say _nothing_. but this i will say, if you and i had knocked one another on the head in this quarrel, how he would have laughed, and what a mighty bad figure we should have cut in our posthumous works. by the by, i was call'd _in_ the other day to mediate between two gentlemen bent upon carnage, and--after a long struggle between the natural desire of destroying one's fellow-creatures, and the dislike of seeing men play the fool for nothing,--i got one to make an apology, and the other to take it, and left them to live happy ever after [ ]. one was a peer, the other a friend untitled, and both fond of high play;--and one, i can swear for, though very mild, "not fearful," and so dead a shot, that, though the other is the thinnest of men, he would have split him like a cane. they both conducted themselves very well, and i put them out of _pain_ as soon as i could. there is an american _life_ of g. f. cooke [ ], _scurra_ deceased, lately published. such a book!--i believe, since _drunken barnaby's journal_ [ ] nothing like it has drenched the press. all green-room and tap-room--drams and the drama--brandy, whisky-punch, and, _latterly_, toddy, overflow every page. two things are rather marvellous,--first, that a man should live so long drunk, and, next, that he should have found a sober biographer. there are some very laughable things in it, nevertheless;--but the pints he swallowed, and the parts he performed, are too regularly registered. all this time you wonder i am not gone; so do i; but the accounts of the plague are very perplexing--not so much for the thing itself as the quarantine established in all ports, and from all places, even from england. it is true, the forty or sixty days would, in all probability, be as foolishly spent on shore as in the ship; but one likes to have one's choice, nevertheless. town is awfully empty; but not the worse for that. i am really puzzled with my perfect ignorance of what i mean to do;--not stay, if i can help it, but where to go? sligo is for the north;--a pleasant place, petersburgh, in september, with one's ears and nose in a muff, or else tumbling into one's neckcloth or pocket-handkerchief! if the winter treated buonaparte with so little ceremony, what would it inflict upon your solitary traveller?--give me a _sun_, i care not how hot, and sherbet, i care not how cool, and _my_ heaven is as easily made as your persian's [ ]. _the giaour_ is now a thousand and odd lines. "lord fanny spins a thousand such a day," [ ] eh, moore?--thou wilt needs be a wag, but i forgive it. yours ever, byron. p. s.--i perceive i have written a flippant and rather cold-hearted letter! let it go, however. i have said nothing, either, of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, i am at this moment in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape [ ] than any of the last twelve months,--and that is saying a good deal. it is unlucky we can neither live with nor without these women. i am now thinking of regretting that, just as i have left newstead, you reside near it. did you ever see it? _do_--but don't tell me that you like it. if i had known of such intellectual neighbourhood, i don't think i should have quitted it. you could have come over so often, as a bachelor,--for it was a thorough bachelor's mansion--plenty of wine and such sordid sensualities--with books enough, room enough, and an air of antiquity about all (except the lasses) that would have suited you, when pensive, and served you to laugh at when in glee. i had built myself a bath and a _vault_--and now i sha'n't even be buried in it. it is odd that we can't even be certain of a _grave_, at least a particular one. i remember, when about fifteen, reading your poems there, which i can repeat almost now,--and asking all kinds of questions about the author, when i heard that he was not dead according to the preface; wondering if i should ever see him--and though, at that time, without the smallest poetical propensity myself, very much taken, as you may imagine, with that volume. adieu--i commit you to the care of the gods--hindoo, scandinavian, and hellenic! p.s. d.--there is an excellent review of grimm's _correspondence_ and madame de stael in this no. of the _e[dinburgh] r[eview]_ [ ]. jeffrey, himself, was my critic last year; but this is, i believe, by another hand. i hope you are going on with your _grand coup_--pray do--or that damned lucien buonaparte will beat us all. i have seen much of his poem in ms., and he really surpasses every thing beneath tasso. hodgson is translating him _against_ another bard. you and (i believe rogers,) scott, gifford, and myself, are to be referred to as judges between the twain,--that is, if you accept the office. conceive our different opinions! i think we, most of us (i am talking very impudently, you will think--_us_, indeed!) have a way of our own,--at least, you and scott certainly have. [footnote : the fight, in which harry harmer, "the coppersmith" ( - ), beat jack ford, took place at st. nicholas, near margate, august , . francis charles seymour conway, earl of yarmouth ( - ), succeeded his father as second marquis of hertford in . the colossal libertinism and patrician splendour of his life inspired disraeli to paint him as "monmouth" in 'coningsby', and thackeray as "steyne" in 'vanity fair'. he married, in , maria fagniani, claimed as a daughter by george selwyn and by "old q.," and enriched by both. yarmouth, as an intimate friend of the regent, and the son of the prince's female favourite, was the butt of moore and the whig satirists. byron gibes at yarmouth's red whiskers, which helped to gain him the name of "red herrings" in the 'waltz', line , 'note' . yarmouth, like byron, patronized the fancy, and, like him also, was a frequenter of manton's shooting-gallery in davies street; but there is no record of their being acquainted, though the house, which byron occupied ( , piccadilly terrace) during his brief married life, was in the occupation of lord yarmouth before byron took it from the duchess of devonshire.] [footnote : albert de staël "led an irregular life, and met a deplorable death at doberan, a small city of the duchy of mecklenburg-schwerin, on the coast of the baltic sea, a favourite resort in summer for bathing, gambling, etc. some officers of the état-major of bernadotte had gone to try their luck in this place of play and pleasure. they quarrelled over some louis, and a duel immediately ensued. i well remember that the grand-duke paul of mecklenburg-schwerin told me he was there at the time, and, while walking with his tutors in the park, suddenly heard the clinking of swords in a neighbouring thicket. they ran to the place, and reached it just in time to see the head of albert fall, cleft by one of those long and formidable sabres which were carried by the prussian cavalry." the above passage is quoted from the unpublished 'souvenirs' of m. pictet de sergy, given by a. stevens in his 'life of madame de staël', vol. ii. pp. , .] [footnote : only special copies of books published in edinburgh came to london by coach: the bulk was forwarded in leith smacks. in the 'edinburgh review' for july, , the 'giaour' was reviewed as a poem "full of spirit, character, and originality," and producing an effect at once "powerful and pathetic." but the reviewer considers that "energy of character and intensity of emotion... presented in combination with worthlessness and guilt," are "most powerful corrupters and perverters of our moral nature," and he deplores byron's exclusive devotion to gloomy and revolting subjects.] [footnote : francis jeffrey ( - ) succeeded sidney smith as editor of the 'edinburgh review' (founded ), and held the editorship till . the first number of the 'review', says francis horner, brought to light "the genius of that little man." during the first six years of its existence, he wrote upwards of seventy articles. at the same time, he was a successful lawyer. called to the scottish bar in , he became successively dean of the faculty of advocates ( ), lord advocate ( ), and a judge of the court of sessions ( ) with the title of lord jeffrey. he married, as his second wife, at new york, in october, , charlotte wilkes, a grandniece of john wilkes. jeffrey is described at considerable length by ticknor, in a letter, dated february , ('life of g. ticknor', vol. i. pp. - ): "you are to imagine, then, before you a short, stout, little gentleman, about five and a half feet high, with a very red face, black hair, and black eyes. you are to suppose him to possess a very gay and animated countenance, and you are to see in him all the restlessness of a will-o'-wisp ... he enters a room with a countenance so satisfied, and a step so light and almost fantastic, that all your previous impressions of the dignity and severity of the 'edinburgh review' are immediately put to flight ... it is not possible, however, to be long in his presence without understanding something of his real character, for the same promptness and assurance which mark his entrance into a room carry him at once into conversation. the moment a topic is suggested--no matter what or by whom--he comes forth, and the first thing you observe is his singular fluency," etc., etc. by the side of this description may be set that given of jeffrey by francis horner ('life of jeffrey', nd edition, vol. i. p. ): "his manner is not at first pleasing; what is worse, it is of that cast which almost irresistibly impresses upon strangers the idea of levity and superficial talents. yet there is not any man whose real character is so much the reverse." the secret of his success, both as editor and critic, is that he made the 'review' the expression of the whig character, both in its excellences and its limitations. a man of clear, discriminating mind, of cool and placid judgment, he refused to accept the existing state of things, was persuaded that it might be safely improved, saw the practical steps required, and had the courage of his convictions. he was suspicious of large principles, somewhat callous to enthusiasm or sentiment, intolerant of whatever was incapable of precise expression. his intellectual strength lay not in the possession of one great gift, but in the simultaneous exercise of several well-adjusted talents. his literary taste was correct; but it consisted rather in recognizing compliance with accepted rules of proved utility than in the readiness to appreciate novelties of thought and treatment. hence his criticism, though useful for his time, has not endured beyond his day. it may be doubted whether more could be expected from a man who was eminently successful in addressing a jury. "he might not know his subject, but he knew his readers" (bagehot's 'literary studies', vol. i. p. ). byron, believing him to have been the author of the famous article on 'hours of idleness', attacked him bitterly in 'english bards, and scotch reviewers'; (lines - ). he afterwards recognized his error. 'don juan' (canto x. stanza xvi.) expresses his mature opinion of a critic who, whatever may have been his faults, was as absolutely honest as political prejudice would permit: "and all our little feuds, at least all 'mine', dear jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe (as far as rhyme and criticism combine to make such puppets of us things below), are over; here's a health to 'auld lang syne!' i do not know you, and may never know your face--but you have acted, on the whole, most nobly; and i own it from my soul." jeffrey reviewed 'childe harold' in the 'edinburgh review', no. , art. ; the 'giaour', no. , art. ; the 'corsair' and 'bride of abydos', no. , art. ; byron's 'poetry', no. , art. i; 'manfred', no. , art. ; 'beppo', no. , art. ; 'marino faliero', no. , art. i; byron's 'tragedies', no. , art. .] [footnote : winifred jenkins is the maid to miss tabitha bramble, who marries captain lismahago, in smollett's 'humphrey clinker'.] [footnote : lord foley and scrope davies.] [footnote : g. f. cooke ( - ), from to was the hero of the dublin stage, with the exception of an interval, during which he served in the army. on october , , he appeared at covent garden as "richard iii.," and afterwards played such parts in tragedy as "iago" and "shylock" with great success. in comedy he was also a favourite, especially as "kitely" in 'every man in his humour', and "sir pertinax macsycophant" in 'the man of the world'. his last appearance on the london stage was as "falstaff," june , . in that year he sailed for new york, and, september , , died there from his "incorrigible habits of drinking." byron uses the word 'scurra', which generally means a "parasite," in its other sense of a "buffoon." 'memoirs of george frederic cooke, late of the theatre royal, covent garden', by w. dunlap, in vols., was published in ] [footnote : the original edition of 'drunken barnaby's journal', a small square volume, without date, was probably printed about . the author was supposed to be barnaby harrington of queen's college, oxford. but joseph haslewood, whose edition ( ) is the best, attributed it to richard brathwait (circ. - ). the title of the second edition ( ) runs as follows: 'drunken barnaby's four journeys to the north of england. in latin and english verse. wittily and merrily (tho' near one hundred years ago) composed; found among some old musty books, that had a long time lain by in a corner; and now at last made publick. to which is added, bessy bell'. "drunken barnaby" was also the burden of an old ballad quoted by haslewood: "barnaby, barnaby, thou'st been drinking, i can tell by thy nose, and thy eyes winking; drunk at richmond, drunk at dover, drunk at newcastle, drunk all over. hey, barnaby! tak't for a warning, be no more drunk, nor dry in a morning!"] [footnote : "a persian's heav'n is easily made-- 'tis but black eyes and lemonade."] [footnote : pope's 'imitations of horace', satire i. line .] [footnote : with lady frances wedderburn webster.] [footnote : the review of madame de staël's 'germany' was by mackintosh.] * * * * * .--to john murray. august , . dear sir,--i have looked over and corrected one proof, but not so carefully (god knows if you can read it through, but i can't) as to preclude your eye from discovering some _o_mission of mine or _com_mission of y'e printer. if you have patience, look it over. do you know any body who can _stop_--i mean _point_-commas, and so forth? for i am, i hear, a sad hand at your punctuation. i have, but with some difficulty, _not_ added any more to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthening its rattles every month. it is now fearfully long, being more than a canto and a half of _c. h_., which contains but lines per book, with all late additions inclusive. the last lines hodgson likes--it is not often he does--and when he don't, he tells me with great energy, and i fret and alter. i have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our infidel, and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for himself. do you think you shall get hold of the _female_ ms. you spoke of to day? if so, you will let me have a glimpse; but don't tell our _master_ (not w's), or we shall be buffeted. i was quite sorry to hear you say you stayed in town on my account, and i hope sincerely you did not mean so superfluous a piece of politeness. our _six_ critiques!--they would have made half a _quarterly_ by themselves; but this is the age of criticism. ever yours, b. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. august , . ay, my dear moore, "there _was_ a time"--i have heard of your tricks, when "you was campaigning at the king of bohemy." [ ] i am much mistaken if, some fine london spring, about the year , that time does not come again. after all, we must end in marriage; and i can conceive nothing more delightful than such a state in the country, reading the county newspaper, etc., and kissing one's wife's maid. seriously, i would incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour to-morrow--that is, i would a month ago, but, at present,---- why don't you "parody that ode?"--do you think [ ] i should be _tetchy?_ or have you done it, and won't tell me?--you are quite right about giamschid, and i have reduced it to a dissyllable within this half hour [ ]. i am glad to hear you talk of richardson [ ], because it tells me what you won't--that you are going to beat lucien. at least tell me how far you have proceeded. do you think me less interested about your works, or less sincere than our friend ruggiero? i am not--and never was. in that thing of mine, the _english bards_, at the time when i was angry with all the world, i never "disparaged your parts," although i did not know you personally;--and have always regretted that you don't give us an _entire_ work, and not sprinkle yourself in detached pieces--beautiful, i allow, and quite _alone_ in our language, but still giving us a right to expect a _shah nameh_ [ ] (is that the name?) as well as gazelles. stick to the east;--the oracle, staël, told me it was the only poetical policy. the north, south, and west, have all been exhausted; but from the east, we have nothing but southey's unsaleables,--and these he has contrived to spoil, by adopting only their most outrageous fictions. his personages don't interest us, and yours will. you will have no competitor; and, if you had, you ought to be glad of it. the little i have done in that way is merely a "voice in the wilderness" for you; and if it has had any success, that also will prove that the public are orientalising, and pave the path for you. i have been thinking of a story, grafted on the amours of a peri and a mortal--something like, only more _philanthropical_ than, cazotte's _diable amoureux_ [ ]. it would require a good deal of poesy, and tenderness is not my forte. for that, and other reasons, i have given up the idea, and merely suggest it to you, because, in intervals of your greater work, i think it a subject you might make much of [ ]. if you want any more books, there is "castellan's _moeurs des ottomans_," the best compendium of the kind i ever met with, in six small tomes [ ]. i am really taking a liberty by talking in this style to my "elders and my betters;"--pardon it, and don't _rochefoucault_ [ ] my motives. [footnote : jerry sneak, in foote's 'mayor of garratt' (act ii.), says to major sturgeon, "i heard of your tricks at the king of bohemy."] [footnote : "the ode of horace-- 'natis in usum lætitiæ,' etc.; some passages of which i told him might be parodied, in allusion to some of his late adventures: 'quanta laboras in charybdi! digne puer meliore flammâ!'" (moore.)] [footnote : "in his first edition of 'the giaour' he had used this word as a trisyllable--'bright as the gem of giamschid'--but on my remarking to him, upon the authority of richardson's persian dictionary, that this was incorrect, he altered it to 'bright as the ruby of giamschid.' on seeing this, however, i wrote to him, 'that, as the comparison of his heroine's eye to a "ruby" might unluckily call up the idea of its being bloodshot, he had better change the line to "bright as the jewel of giamschid;"' which he accordingly did in the following edition" (moore). in the 'sháh námeh', giamschid is the fourth sovereign of the ancient persians, and ruled seven hundred years. his jewel was a green chrysolite, the reflection of which gives to the sky its blue-green colour. byron probably changed to "ruby" on the authority of 'vathek' (p. , ed. ), where beckford writes, "then all the riches this place contains, as well as the carbuncle of giamschid, shall be hers."] [footnote : moore's reference (see 'note' ) to john richardson's 'dictionary of persian, arabic, and english' ( ), suggests to byron that moore was at work on an oriental poem, probably 'lalla rookh', which would surpass the 'charlemagne' of lucien buonaparte.] [footnote : the 'sháh námeh' is a rhymed history of persia, in which occurs the famous episode of sohrab and rustem. it was written in thirty years by abul kásim firdausí, the last name being given to him by sultan mahmúd because he had shed over the court at ghizni the delights of "paradise." firdausí is said to have lived about to . (see the 'sháh námeh', translated and abridged by james atkinson.)] [footnote : jacques cazotte ( - ) wrote 'la patte du chat' ( ); 'mille et une fadaises' ( ); 'observations sur la lettre de rousseau au sujet de la musique française' ( ); and other works. 'le diable amoureux' appeared in . cazotte escaped the september massacres at the abbaye in , through the heroism of his daughter, but was executed on the twenty-fifth of the same month.] [footnote : "i had already, singularly enough, anticipated this suggestion, by making the daughter of a peri the heroine of one of my stories, and detailing the love adventures of her aërial parent in an episode. in acquainting lord byron with this circumstance, in my answer to the above letter, i added, 'all i ask of your friendship is--not that you will abstain from peris on my account, for that is too much to ask of human (or, at least, author's) nature--but that, whenever you mean to pay your addresses to any of these aërial ladies, you will, at once, tell me so, frankly and instantly, and let me, at least, have my choice whether i shall be desperate enough to go on, with such a rival, or at once surrender the whole race into your hands, and take, for the future, to antediluvians with mr. montgomery'" (moore).] [footnote : brunet, 's.v.' "breton de la martinière," gives the title of the work: 'moeurs, usages costumes des othomans, et abrégé de leur histoire'. par a.l. castellan, paris, .] [footnote : maxime lxxxv.: "nous nous persuadons souvent d'aimer les gens plus puissans que nous, et néanmoins c'est l'interêt seul qui produit notre amitié; nous ne nous donnons pas à eux pour le bien que nous leur voulons faire, mais pour celui que nous en voulons recevoir."] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. august--september, i mean-- , . i send you, begging your acceptance, castellan, and three vols. on turkish literature [ ], not yet looked into. the _last_ i will thank you to read, extract what you want, and return in a week, as they are lent to me by that brightest of northern constellations, mackintosh [ ],--amongst many other kind things into which india has warmed him; for i am sure your _home_ scotsman is of a less genial description. your peri, my dear m., is sacred and inviolable; i have no idea of touching the hem of her petticoat. your affectation of a dislike to encounter me is so flattering, that i begin to think myself a very fine fellow. but you are laughing at me--"stap my vitals, tam! thou art a very impudent person;" [ ] and, if you are not laughing at me, you deserve to be laughed at. seriously, what on earth can you, or have you, to dread from any poetical flesh breathing? it really puts me out of humour to hear you talk thus. _the giaour_ i have added to a good deal; but still in foolish fragments. it contains about lines, or rather more--now printing. you will allow me to send you a copy. you delight me much by telling me that i am in your good graces, and more particularly as to temper; for, unluckily, i have the reputation of a very bad one. but they say the devil is amusing when pleased, and i must have been more venomous than the old serpent, to have hissed or stung in your company. it may be, and would appear to a third person, an incredible thing, but i know _you_ will believe me when i say, that i am as anxious for your success as one human being can be for another's,--as much as if i had never scribbled a line. surely the field of fame is wide enough for all; and if it were not, i would not willingly rob my neighbour of a rood of it. now you have a pretty property of some thousand acres there, and when you have passed your present inclosure bill, your income will be doubled, (there's a metaphor, worthy of a templar, namely, pert and low,) while my wild common is too remote to incommode you, and quite incapable of such fertility. i send you (which return per post, as the printer would say) a curious letter from a friend of mine [ ], which will let you into the origin of _the giaour_. write soon. ever, dear moore, yours most entirely, etc. p.s.--this letter was written to me on account of a _different story_ circulated by some gentlewomen of our acquaintance, a little too close to the text. the part erased contained merely some turkish names, and circumstantial evidence of the girl's detection, not very important or decorous. [footnote : giovanni battista toderini ( - ) published his work 'della letteratura turchesca', at venice in . brunet says, "cet ouvrage curieux a été traduit en français, par cournand. paris, ('de la littérature des turcs')."] [footnote : "yes, his manner was cold; his shake of the hand came under the genus 'mortmain;' but his heart was overflowing with benevolence" (lady holland's 'memoir of sydney smith', th edition, vol. i. p. ).] [footnote : a reminiscence of sheridan's 'trip to scarborough' (act v. sc. ), itself borrowed from vanbrugh's 'relapse' (act iv. sc. ), in both of which passages lord foppington says, "strike me dumb, tam, thou art a very impudent fellow."] [footnote : the following is the letter to which byron refers: albany, monday, august , . "my dear byron,--you have requested me to tell you all that i heard at athens about the affair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there; you have asked me to remember every circumstance, in the remotest degree relating to it, which i heard. in compliance with your wishes, i write to you all i heard, and i cannot imagine it to be very far from the fact, as the circumstances happened only a day or two before i arrived at athens, and, consequently, was a matter of common conversation at the time. "the new governor, unaccustomed to have the same intercourse with the christians as his predecessor, had, of course, the barbarous turkish ideas with regard to women. in consequence, and in compliance with the strict letter of the mohammedan law, he ordered this girl to be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the sea--as is, indeed, quite customary at constantinople. as you were returning from bathing in the piræus, you met the procession going down to execute the sentence of the waywode on this unhappy girl. report continues to say, that on finding out what the object of their journey was, and who was the miserable sufferer, you immediately interfered; and on some delay in obeying your orders, you were obliged to inform the leader of the escort that force should make him comply; that, on further hesitation, you drew a pistol, and told him, that if he did not immediately obey your orders, and come back with you to the aga's house, you would shoot him dead. on this the man turned about and went with you to the governor's house; here you succeeded, partly by personal threats, and partly by bribery and entreaty, in procuring her pardon, on condition of her leaving athens. i was told that you then conveyed her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night to thebes, where she found a safe asylum. such is the story i heard, as nearly as i can recollect it at present. should you wish to ask me any further questions about it, i shall be very ready and willing to answer them. "i remain, my dear byron, "yours very sincerely, "sligo".] * * * * * .--to james wedderburn webster. september nd, . my dear webster,--you are just the same generous and i fear careless gentleman of the years of _indifferent_ memory . i--; but i must not burthen you with my entire household. joe [ ] is, i believe, necessary for the present as a fixture, to keep possession till every thing is arranged; and were it otherwise, you don't know what a perplexity he would prove--honest and faithful, but fearfully superannuated: now _this_ i ought and do bear, but as he has not been fifty years in your family, it would be rather hard to convert your mansion into a hospital for decayed domestics. rushton is, or may be made useful, and i am less _compunctious_ on his account. "will i be godfather?" [ ] yea, verily! i believe it is the only species of parentage i shall ever encounter, for all my acquaintance, powerscourt, jocelyn, yourself, delawarr, stanhope, with a long list of happy _etceteras_, are married; most of them my juniors too, and i as single and likely to remain so as, nay more than, if i were seventy. if it is a _girl_ why not also? georgina, or even _byron_ will make a classical name for a spinster, if mr. richardson's _sir charles grandison_ is any authority in your estimation. my ship is not settled. my passage in the _boyne_ was only for _one_ servant, and would not do, of course. you ask after the expense, a question no less interesting to the married than the single. unless things are much altered, no establishment in the mediterranean countries could amount to the quarter of the expenditure requisite in england for the same or an inferior household. i am interrupted, and have only time to offer my best thanks for all your good wishes and intentions, and to beg you will believe me, equally yours ever, b. p.s.--rushton shall be sent on saturday next. [footnote : joseph murray] [footnote : webster's eldest son was christened "byron wedderburn." he died young, and when his father told byron of the child's death, the godfather "almost chuckled with joy or irony," and said, "well, i cautioned you, and told you that my name would almost damn any thing or creature." (ms. note by wedderburn webster.)] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. sept. , . you need not tie yourself down to a day with toderini, but send him at your leisure, having anatomised him into such annotations as you want; i do not believe that he has ever undergone that process before, which is the best reason for not sparing him now. rogers has returned to town, but not yet recovered of the 'quarterly'. what fellows these reviewers are! "these bugs do fear us all." [ ] they made you fight, and me (the milkiest of men) a satirist, and will end by making rogers madder than ajax. i have been reading 'memory' again, the other day, and _hope_ together, and retain all my preference of the former [ ]. his elegance is really wonderful--there is no such thing as a vulgar line in his book. what say you to buonaparte? remember, i back him against the field, barring catalepsy and the elements. nay, i almost wish him success against all countries but this,--were it only to choke the 'morning post', and his undutiful father-in-law, with that rebellious bastard of scandinavian adoption, bernadotte. rogers wants me to go with him on a crusade to the lakes, and to besiege you on our way. this last is a great temptation, but i fear it will not be in my power, unless you would go on with one of us somewhere--no matter where. it is too late for matlock, but we might hit upon some scheme, high life or low,--the last would be much the best for amusement. i am so sick of the other, that i quite sigh for a cider-cellar [ ], or a cruise in a smuggler's sloop. you cannot wish more than i do that the fates were a little more accommodating to our parallel lines, which prolong _ad infinitum_ without coming a jot nearer. i almost wish i were married, too--which is saying much. all my friends, seniors and juniors, are in for it, and ask me to be godfather,--the only species of parentage which, i believe, will ever come to my share in a lawful way; and, in an unlawful one, by the blessing of lucina, we can never be certain,--though the parish may. i suppose i shall hear from you to-morrow. if not, this goes as it is; but i leave room for a p.s., in case any thing requires an answer. ever, etc. no letter--_n'importe_. rogers thinks the _quarterly_ will be at _me_ this time; if so, it shall be a war of extermination--no _quarter_. from the youngest devil down to the oldest woman of that review, all shall perish by one fatal lampoon. the ties of nature shall be torn asunder, for i will not even spare my bookseller; nay, if one were to include readers also, all the better. [footnote : "warwick was a bug that feared us all" ('henry vi'., part iii. act v. se. ).] [footnote : byron quoted to lady blessington "some passages from the 'pleasures of hope', which he said was a poem full of beauties... 'the 'pleasures of memory' is a very beautiful poem' (said byron), 'harmonious, finished, and chaste; it contains not a single meretricious ornament'" ('conversations', pp. , ).] [footnote : no. , maiden lane, covent garden, was a tavern called the 'cider cellars'. over the entrance was the motto, 'honos erit huic quoque homo', supplied by porson, who frequented the house. there lord campbell heard him "recite from memory to delighted listeners the whole of anstey's 'pleader's guide'" ('lives of the chief justices', vol. iii. p. , note). mr. wheatley, in 'london past and present, sub voce' "maiden lane," says that the "tavern continued to be frequented by young men, and 'much in vogue for devilled kidneys, oysters, and welch rabbits, cigars, "goes" of brandy, and great supplies of london stout' (also for comic songs), till it was absorbed in the extensions of the adelphi theatre."] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. september , . i am sorry to see toderini again so soon, for fear your scrupulous conscience should have prevented you from fully availing yourself of his spoils. by this coach i send you a copy of that awful pamphlet _the giaour_, which has never procured me half so high a compliment as your modest alarm. you will (if inclined in an evening) perceive that i have added much in quantity,--a circumstance which may truly diminish your modesty upon the subject. you stand certainly in great need of a "lift" with mackintosh. my dear moore, you strangely under-rate yourself. i should conceive it an affectation in any other; but i think i know you well enough to believe that you don't know your own value. however, 'tis a fault that generally mends; and, in your case, it really ought. i have heard him speak of you as highly as your wife could wish; and enough to give all your friends the jaundice. yesterday i had a letter from _ali pacha!_ brought by dr. holland, who is just returned from albania [ ]. it is in latin, and begins "excellentissime _nec non_ carissime," and ends about a gun he wants made for him;--it is signed "ali vizir." what do you think he has been about? h. tells me that, last spring, he took a hostile town, where, forty-two years ago, his mother and sisters were treated as miss cunigunde [ ] was by the bulgarian cavalry. he takes the town, selects all the survivors of this exploit--children, grandchildren, etc. to the tune of six hundred, and has them shot before his face. recollect, he spared the rest of the city, and confined himself to the tarquin pedigree [ ],--which is more than i would. so much for "dearest friend." [footnote : see 'letters', vol. i. p. [letter ], and 'note' [footnote of letter ]. dr., afterwards sir henry, holland ( - ) published his 'travels in the ionian islands, albania, etc.', in .] [footnote: voltaire's 'candide', ch. vii.: "on ne vous a done pas violé? on ne vous a point fendu le ventre, comme le philosophe pangloss me l'avait assuré? si fait, dit la belle cunégonde; mais on ne meurt pas toujours de ces deux accidents."] [footnote : the "false sextus... that wrought the deed of shame," and violated lucretia.] * * * * * .--to thomas moore. sept. , . i write to you from mr. murray's, and i may say, from murray, who, if you are not predisposed in favour of any other publisher, would be happy to treat with you, at a fitting time, for your work. i can safely recommend him as fair, liberal, and attentive, and certainly, in point of reputation, he stands among the first of "the trade." i am sure he would do you justice. i have written to you so much lately, that you will be glad to see so little now. ever, etc., etc. * * * * * .--to james wedderburn webster. september th, . my dear webster,--i shall not resist your second invitation, and shortly after the receipt of this you may expect me. you will excuse me from the races. as a guest i have no "antipathies" and few preferences.... you won't mind, however, my _not_ dining with you--every day at least. when we meet, we can talk over our respective plans: mine is very short and simple; viz. to sail when i can get a passage. if i remained in england i should live in the country, and of course in the vicinity of those whom i knew would be most agreeable. i did not know that jack's graven image [ ] was at newstead. if it be, pray transfer it to aston. it is my hope to see you so shortly, tomorrow or next day, that i will not now trouble you with my speculations. ever yours very faithfully, byron. p.s.--i don't know how i came to sign myself with the "i." it is the old spelling, and i sometimes slip into it. when i say i can't _dine_ with you, i mean that sometimes i don't dine at all. of course, when i do, i conform to all hours and domestic arrangements. [footnote : "jack's graven image" means the portrait of john jackson the pugilist.] * * * * * .--to the hon. augusta leigh. [wednesday], sept'r. th, . my dear augusta,--i joined my friend scrope about , and before eleven we had swallowed six bottles of his burgundy and claret, which left him very unwell and me rather feverish; we were 'tête à tête'. i remained with him next day and set off last night for london, which i reached at three in the morning. tonight i shall leave it again, perhaps for aston or newstead. i have not yet determined, nor does it much matter. as you perhaps care more on the subject than i do, i will tell you when i know myself. when my departure is arranged, and i can get this long-evaded passage, you will be able to tell me whether i am to expect a visit or not, and i can come for or meet you as you think best. if you write, address to bennet street. yours very truly, b. * * * * * .--to john murray. sept. , . dear sir,--will you pray enquire after any ship with a convoy _taking passengers_ and get me one if possible? i mean not in a ship of war, but anything that may be _paid_ for. i have a friend and servants --gibraltar or minorca--or zante. yours ever, b. * * * * * .--to james wedderburn webster. stilton, september th, . my dear w.,--thus far can i "report progress," and as a solid token of my remembrance i send you a 'cheese' of lbs. to enable your digestion to go through the race week. it will go to night; pray let your retainers enquire after it. the date of this letter will account for so homely a present. on my arrival in town i will write more on our different concerns. in the mean time i wish you and yours all the gratification on doncaster you can wish for yourselves. my love to the faithless nettle [ ] (who i dare say is 'wronging' me during my absence), and my best compliments to all in your house who will receive them. ever, dear w., yours truly, b. [footnote : a dog given by webster to byron. (note by j. w. w.)] * * * * * .--to sir james mackintosh. sept. , . dear sir james,--i was to have left london on friday, but will certainly remain a day longer (and believe i _would a year_) to have the honour of meeting you. my best respects to lady mackintosh. ever your obliged and faithful servant, byron. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. september , . thomas moore,--(thou wilt never be called "_true_ thomas," [ ] like he of ercildoune,) why don't you write to me?--as you won't, i must. i was near you at aston the other day, and hope i soon shall be again. if so, you must and shall meet me, and go to matlock and elsewhere, and take what, in _flash_ dialect, is poetically termed "a lark," with rogers and me for accomplices. yesterday, at holland house, i was introduced to southey--the best-looking bard i have seen for some time. to have that poet's head and shoulders, i would almost have written his sapphics. he is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that, and--_there_ is his eulogy. ----read me _part_ of a letter from you. by the foot of pharaoh, i believe there was abuse, for he stopped short, so he did, after a fine saying about our correspondence, and _looked_--i wish i could revenge myself by attacking you, or by telling you that i have _had_ to defend you--an agreeable way which one's friends have of recommending themselves by saying--"ay, ay, _i_ gave it mr. such-a-one for what he said about your being a plagiary, and a rake, and so on." but do you know that you are one of the very few whom i never have the satisfaction of hearing abused, but the reverse;--and do you suppose i will forgive _that_? i have been in the country, and ran away from the doncaster races. it is odd,--i was a visitor in the same house [ ] which came to my sire as a residence with lady carmarthen (with whom he adulterated before his majority--by the by, remember _she_ was not my mamma),--and they thrust me into an old room, with a nauseous picture over the chimney, which i should suppose my papa regarded with due respect, and which, inheriting the family taste, i looked upon with great satisfaction. i stayed a week with the family, and behaved very well--though the lady of the house is young, and religious, and pretty, and the master is my particular friend. i felt no wish for any thing but a poodle dog, which they kindly gave me. now, for a man of my courses not even to have _coveted_, is a sign of great amendment. pray pardon all this nonsense, and don't "snub me when i'm in spirits." [ ] ever yours, bn. here's an impromptu for you by a "person of quality," written last week, on being reproached for low spirits: when from the heart where sorrow sits, her dusky shadow mounts too high, and o'er the changing aspect flits, and clouds the brow, or fills the eye: heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink; my thoughts their dungeon know too well-- back to my breast the wanderers shrink, and bleed within their silent cell. [footnote : thomas learmont, of ercildoune, called "thomas the rhymer," is to reappear on earth when shrove tuesday and good friday change places. he sleeps beneath the eildon hills.] [footnote : aston hall, rotherham, at that time rented by j. wedderburn webster.] [footnote : in 'she stoops to conquer' (act ii.) tony lumpkin says, "i wish you'd let me and my good alone, then--snubbing this way when i'm in spirits."] * * * * * .--to john murray. sept. , . dear sir,--pray suspend the _proofs_ for i am bitten again and have quantities for other parts of _the giaour_. yours ever, b. p. s.--you shall have these in the course of the day. * * * * * .--to james wedderburn webster. september th, . my dear webster,--thanks for your letter. i had answered it by _anticipation_ last night, and this is but a postscript to my reply. my yesterday's contained some advice, which i now see you don't want, and hope you never will. so! petersham [ ] has not joined you. i pity the poor women. no one can properly repair such a deficiency; but rather than such a chasm should be left utterly unfathomable, i, even i, the most awkward of attendants and deplorable of danglers, would have been of your forlorn hope, on this expedition. nothing but business, and the notion of my being utterly superfluous in so numerous a party, would have induced me to resign so soon my quiet apartments never interrupted but by the sound, or the more harmonious barking of nettle, and clashing of billiard balls. on sunday i shall leave town and mean to join you immediately. i have not yet had my sister's answer to lady frances's very kind invitation, but expect it tomorrow. pray assure lady frances that i never can forget the obligation conferred upon me in this respect, and i trust that even lady catherine [ ] will, in this instance, not question my "stability." i yesterday wrote you rather a long tirade about la comptesse, but you seem in no immediate peril; i will therefore burn it. yet i don't know why i should, as you may relapse: it shall e'en go. i have been passing my time with rogers and sir james mackintosh; and once at holland house i met southey; he is a person of very _epic_ appearance, and has a fine head--as far as the outside goes, and wants nothing but taste to make the inside equally attractive. ever, my dear w., yours, biron. p.s.--i read your letter thus: "the countess is _miserable_" instead of which it is "_inexorable_" a very different thing. the best way is to let her alone; she must be a _diablesse_ by what you told me. you have probably not _bid_ high enough. _now_ you are not, perhaps, of my opinion; but i would not give the tithe of a birmingham farthing for a woman who could or would be purchased, nor indeed for any woman _quoad mere woman_; that is to say, unless i loved her for something more than her sex. if she _loves_, a little _pique_ is not amiss, nor even if she don't; the next thing to a woman's _love_ in a man's favour is her _hatred_,--a seeming paradox but true. get them once out of _indifference_ and circumstance, and their passions will do wonders for a _dasher_ which i suppose you are, though i seldom had the impudence or patience to follow them up. [footnote : lord petersham was one of the chief dandies of the day. gronow in ('reminiscences', vol. i. p. ) found him "making a particular sort of blacking, which he said would eventually supersede every other." his snuff-mixture was famous among tobacconists, and he gave his name to a fashionable great-coat. in his collection of snuff-boxes, one of the finest in england, he was supposed to have a box for every day in the year. gronow ('ibid'.) "heard him, on the occasion of a delightful old light-blue sèvres box he was using being admired, say, in his lisping way, 'yes, it is a nice summer box, but would not do for winter wear.'" lord petersham, who never went out of doors before p.m., was celebrated for his brown carriages, brown horses, brown harness, and brown liveries.] [footnote : lady catherine annesley, sister of lady f. w. webster, afterwards lady john somerset.] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. october , . my dear h.,--i leave town again for aston on sunday, but have messages for you. lord holland desired me repeatedly to bring you; he wants to know you much, and begged me to say so: you will like him. i had an invitation for you to dinner there this last sunday, and rogers is perpetually screaming because you don't call, and wanted you also to dine with him on wednesday last. yesterday we had curran there--who is beyond all conception! and mackintosh and the wits are to be seen at h. h. constantly, so that i think you would like their society. i will be a judge between you and the attorneo. so b[utler] may mention me to lucien if he still adheres to his opinion. pray let rogers be one; he has the best taste extant. bland's nuptials delight me; if i had the least hand in bringing them about it will be a subject of selfish satisfaction to me these three weeks. desire drury--if he loves me--to kick dwyer thrice for frightening my horses with his flame-coloured whiskers last july. let the kicks be hard, etc. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. october , . you have not answered some six letters of mine. this, therefore, is my penultimate. i will write to you once more, but, after that--i swear by all the saints--i am silent and supercilious. i have met curran [ ] at holland house--he beats every body;--his imagination is beyond human, and his humour (it is difficult to define what is wit) perfect. then he has fifty faces, and twice as many voices, when he mimics--i never met his equal. now, were i a woman, and eke a virgin, that is the man i should make my scamander [ ]. he is quite fascinating. remember, i have met him but once; and you, who have known him long, may probably deduct from my panegyric. i almost fear to meet him again, lest the impression should be lowered. he talked a great deal about you--a theme never tiresome to me, nor any body else that i know. what a variety of expression he conjures into that naturally not very fine countenance of his! he absolutely changes it entirely. i have done--for i can't describe him, and you know him. on sunday i return to aston, where i shall not be far from you. perhaps i shall hear from you in the mean time. good night. saturday morn.--your letter has cancelled all my anxieties. i did _not suspect_ you in _earnest_. modest again! because i don't do a very shabby thing, it seems, i "don't fear your competition." if it were reduced to an alternative of preference, i _should_ dread you, as much as satan does michael. but is there not room enough in our respective regions? go on--it will soon be my turn to forgive. to-day i dine with mackintosh and mrs. _stale_--as john bull may be pleased to denominate corinne--whom i saw last night, at covent garden, yawning over the humour of falstaff. the reputation of "gloom," if one's friends are not included in the _reputants_, is of great service; as it saves one from a legion of impertinents, in the shape of common-place acquaintance. but thou know'st i can be a right merry and conceited fellow, and rarely _larmoyant_. murray shall reinstate your line forthwith. [ ] i believe the blunder in the motto was mine;--and yet i have, in general, a memory for you, and am sure it was rightly printed at first. i do "blush" very often, if i may believe ladies h. and m.;--but luckily, at present, no one sees me. adieu. [footnote : rogers ('table-talk, etc'., p. ) regretted "that so little of curran's brilliant talk has been preserved." john philpot curran ( - ), after accepting the mastership of the rolls in ireland ( ), spent much of his time in england. he retired from the bench, where he never shone, in . in byron's 'detached thoughts' ( ) occurs the following passage: "i was much struck with the simplicity of grattan's manners in private life. they were odd, but they were natural. curran used to take him off, bowing to the very ground, and 'thanking god that he had no peculiarities of gesture or appearance,' in a way irresistibly ludicrous. rogers used to call him a 'sentimental harlequin;' but rogers backbites everybody, and curran, who used to quiz his great friend godwin to his very face, would hardly respect a fair mark of mimicry in another. to be sure, curran _was_ admirable! to hear his description of the examination of an irish witness was next to hearing his own speeches; the latter i never heard, but i have the former." elsewhere ('ibid'.) he returns to the subject: "curran! curran's the man who struck me most--such imagination! there never was anything like it, that ever i saw or heard of. his _published_ life--his published speeches--give you no idea of the man; none at all. he was a _machine_ of imagination, as some one said that piron was an 'epigrammatic machine.' i did not see a great deal of curran,--only in ; but i met him at home (for he used to call on me), and in society, at mackintosh's, holland house, etc., etc. and he was wonderful, even to me, who had seen many remarkable men of the time." the following notes on this passage are in the handwriting of walter scott: "when mathews first began to imitate curran in dublin--in society, i mean,--curran sent for him and said, the moment he entered the room, 'mr. mathews, you are a first-rate artist, and, since you are to do my picture, pray allow me to give you a sitting.' everyone knows how admirably mathews succeeded in furnishing at last the portraiture begun under these circumstances. no one was more aware of the truth than curran himself. in his latter and feeble days, he was riding in hyde park one morning, bowed down over the saddle and bitterly dejected in his air. mathews happened to observe and saluted him. curran stopped his horse for a moment, squeezed charles by the hand, and said in that deep whisper which the comedian so exquisitely mimics, 'don't speak to me, my dear mathews; you are the only curran now!'" "did you know curran?" asked byron of lady blessington ('conversations', p. ); "he was the most wonderful person i ever saw. in him was combined an imagination the most brilliant and profound, with a flexibility and wit that would have justified the observation applied to----, that his heart was in his head." moore ('journal, etc.', vol. i. p. ) quotes a couplet by mrs. battier upon curran, which "commemorates in a small compass two of his most striking peculiarities, namely, his very unprepossessing personal appearance, and his great success, notwithstanding, in pursuits of gallantry...: "'for though his monkey face might fail to woo her, yet, ah! his monkey tricks would quite undo her.'"] [footnote : in the spurious letters of Æschines (letter x.) is a passage which explains the allusion. "it is the custom of maidens, on the eve of their marriage, to wash in the waters of the scamander, and then to utter this almost sacred formula, 'take, o scamander, my virginity' ([greek: to èpos toûto hosper hierón ti epilégein, lhabé mou scámandre tàen parthénian)."] [footnote : "the motto to 'the giaour': one fatal remembrance--one sorrow that throws its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes,' etc. "which is taken from one of the 'irish melodies', had been quoted by him incorrectly in the first editions of the poem". (moore).] * * * * * .--to john murray. stilton, oct. , . dear sir,--i have just recollected an alteration you may make in the proof to be sent to aston.--among the lines on hassan's serai, not far from the beginning, is this: unmeet for solitude to share. now to share implies more than _one_, and solitude is a single gentlewoman; it must be thus: for many a gilded chamber's there, which solitude might well forbear; and so on.--my address is aston hall, rotherham. will you adopt this correction? and pray accept a cheese from me for your trouble. ever yours, b. p.s.--i leave this to your discretion; if any body thinks the old line a good one or the cheese a bad one, don't accept either. but, in that case, the word _share_ is repeated soon after in the line: to share the master's "bread and salt;" and must be altered to: to break the master's bread and salt. this is not so well, though--confound it! if the old line stands, let the other run thus: nor there will weary traveller halt, to bless the sacred "bread and salt." _note_.--to partake of food--to break bread and taste salt with your host--ensures the safety of the guest; even though an enemy, his person from that moment becomes sacred. there is another additional note sent yesterday--on the priest in the confessional. * * * * * .--to john hanson. nottingham, octr. th, . dear sir,--i am disposed to advance a loan of £ to james webster wedderburne webster, esqre., of aston hall, york county, and request you will address to me _there a bond_ and _judgement_ to be signed by the said as soon as possible. of claughton's payments i know nothing further, and the demands on myself i know also; but w. is a very old friend of mine, and a man of property, and, as i can command the money, he shall have it. i do not at all wish to inconvenience you, and i also know that, when we balance accounts, it will be much in your favour; but if you could replace the sum at hoare's from my advance of two thousand eight hundred in july, it would be a favour; or, still better, if c. makes further payments, which will render it unnecessary. don't let the first part of the last sentence embarrass you at all; the last part about claughton i would wish you to attend to. i have written this day--about his opening the cellar. pray send the bond and judgement to aston as directed. ever, dear sir, b. p.s.--many, many thanks for your kind invitation; but it was too late. i was in this county before it arrived. my best remembrances to mrs. h. and all the family. * * * * * .--to the hon. augusta leigh. [sunday], october th, . my dearest augusta,--i have only time to say that i am not in the least angry, and that my silence has merely arisen from several circumstances which i cannot now detail. i trust you are better, and will continue _best_. ever, my dearest, yours, b. * * * * * .--to john murray. oct. , . dear sir,--you must look 'the giaour' again over carefully; there are a few lapses, particularly in the last page,--"i _know_ 'twas false; she could not die;" it was, and ought to be--"_knew_." pray observe this and similar mistakes. i have received and read the 'british review' [ ]. i really think the writer in most parts very right. the only mortifying thing is the accusation of imitation. _crabbe's passage_ i never saw; and scott i no further meant to follow than in his _lyric_ measure, which is gray's, milton's, and any one's who likes it. 'the giaour' is certainly a bad character, but not dangerous: and i think his fate and his feelings will meet with few proselytes. i shall be very glad to hear from or of you, when you please; but don't put yourself out of your way on my account. yours ever, b. [footnote : 'the british review' (no. ix.) criticized 'the giaour' severely (pp. - ). "lord byron," it says, "has had the bad taste to imitate mr. walter scott" (p. ). further on (p. ) it charges him with borrowing a simile from crabbe's 'resentment'. the passage to which the reviewer alludes will be found in lines - of that poem: "those are like wax--apply them to the fire, melting, they take th' impressions you desire: easy to mould, and fashion as you please, and again moulded with an equal ease: like smelted iron these the forms retain; but, once impress'd, will never melt again."] * * * * * .--to the hon. augusta leigh. (monday), nov'r. th, . my dearest augusta,--i have only time to say that i shall write tomorrow, and that my present and long silence has been occasioned by a thousand things (with which _you_ are not concerned). it is not l'y c. nor o.; but perhaps you may _guess_, and, if you do, do not tell. you do not know what mischief your being with me might have prevented. you shall hear from me tomorrow; in the mean time don't be alarmed. i am in _no immediate_ peril. believe me, ever yours, b. * * * * * .--to john murray. (nov. , . with first proof of _bride of abydos_ correct.) dear sir,--i have looked over--corrected--and added--_all_ of which you may do too--at least _certainly_ the _two_ first. there is more ms. _within_. let me know tomorrow at your leisure _how_ and _when_ we shall proceed! it looks better than i thought at first. _look over_ again. i suspect some omissions on my part and on the printers'. yours ever, b. always print "een" "even." i utterly abhor "een"--if it must be contracted, be it "ev'n." * * * * * .--to william gifford. november , . my dear sir,--i hope you will consider, when i venture on any request, that it is the reverse of a certain dedication, and is addressed, _not_ to "the editor of the 'quarterly review'" but to mr. gifford. you will understand this, and on that point i need trouble you no farther. you have been good enough to look at a thing of mine in ms.--a turkish story, and i should feel gratified if you would do it the same favour in its probationary state of printing. it was written, i cannot say for amusement, nor "obliged by hunger and request of friends," [ ] but in a state of mind, from circumstances which occasionally occur to "us youth," that rendered it necessary for me to apply my mind to something, any thing but reality; and under this not very brilliant inspiration it was composed. being done, and having at least diverted me from myself, i thought you would not perhaps be offended if mr. murray forwarded it to you. he has done so, and to apologise for his doing so a second time is the object of my present letter. i beg you will _not_ send me any answer. i assure you very sincerely i know your time to be occupied, and it is enough, more than enough, if you read; you are not to be bored with the fatigue of answers. a word to mr. murray will be sufficient, and send it either to the flames or "a hundred hawkers' load, on wings of wind to fly or fall abroad." it deserves no better than the first, as the work of a week, and scribbled 'stans pede in uno' [ ], (by the by, the only foot i have to stand on); and i promise never to trouble you again under forty cantos, and a voyage between each. believe me ever, your obliged and affectionate servant, byron. [footnote : pope, 'epistle to arbuthnot', l. .] [footnote : horace, 'sat'. . iv. .] * * * * * .--to john murray. nov. , . two friends of mine (mr. rogers and mr. sharpe) have advised me not to risk at present any single publication separately, for various reasons. as they have not seen the one in question, they can have no bias for or against the merits (if it has any) or the faults of the present subject of our conversation. you say all the last of 'the giaour' [ ] are gone--at least out of your hands. now, if you think of publishing any new edition with the last additions which have not yet been before the reader (i mean distinct from the two-volume publication), we can add "'the bride of abydos'," which will thus steal quietly into the world [ ]: if liked, we can then throw off some copies for the purchasers of former "giaours;" and, if not, i can omit it in any future publication. what think you? i really am no judge of those things; and, with all my natural partiality for one's own productions, i would rather follow any one's judgment than my own. p.s.--pray let me have the proofs. i sent _all_ to-night. i have some alterations that i have thought of that i wish to make speedily. i hope the proof will be on separate pages, and not all huddled together on a mile-long, ballad-singing sheet, as those of 'the giaour' sometimes are: for then i can't read them distinctly. [footnote : in 'accepted addresses; or, premium poetarum', pp. - ( ), 'address' xvii. is from "lord b----n to j. m----y, book-seller." the address itself runs as follows: "a turkish tale i shall unfold, a sweeter tale was never told; but then the facts, i must allow, are in the east not common now; tho' in the 'olden time,' the scene my goaour (_sic_) describes had often been. what is the cause! perhaps the fair are now more cautious than they were; perhaps the christians not so bold, so enterprising as of old. no matter what the cause may be, it is a subject fit for me. "take my disjointed fragments then, the offspring of a willing pen. and give them to the public, pray, on or before the month of may. yes, my disjointed fragments take, but do not ask _how much they'll make_. perhaps not fifty pages--well, i in a little space can tell th' adventures of an infidel; of _quantity_ i never boast, for _quality_'s, approved of most. "it is a handsome sum to touch, induces authors to write much; but in this much, alas! my friend, how little is there to commend. so, mr. m----y, i disdain, to sacrifice my muse for gain. i wish it to be understood, the little which i write is good. "i do not like the quarto size, th' octavo, therefore, i advise. then do not, mr. m----y, fail, to publish this, my turkish tale; for tho' the volume may be thin, a thousand readers it will win; and when my pages they explore, they'll gladly read them o'er and o'er; and all the ladies, i engage, with tears will moisten every page."] [footnote : john murray writes, in an undated letter to byron, "mr. canning returned the poem to-day with very warm expressions of delight. i told him your delicacy as to separate publication, of which he said you should remove every apprehension."] * * * * * .--to john murray. nov. , . will you forward the letter to mr. gifford with the proof? there is an alteration i may make in zuleika's speech, in second canto (the only one of _hers_ in that canto). it is now thus: and curse--if i could curse--the day. it must be: and mourn--i dare not curse--the day, that saw my solitary birth, etc., etc. ever yours, b. in the last ms. lines sent, instead of "living heart," correct to "quivering heart." it is in line th of the ms. passage. ever yours again, b. * * * * * .--to john murray. alteration of a line in canto nd. instead of: and tints to-morrow with a _fancied_ ray print: and tints to-morrow with _prophetic_ ray. the evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints to-morrow with prophetic ray; or, and {_gilds_/tints} the hope of morning with its ray; or, and gilds to-morrow's hope with heavenly ray. dear sir,--i wish you would ask mr. g. which of them is best, or rather _not worst_. ever yours, b. you can send the request contained in this at the same time with the _revise, after_ i have seen the _said revise_. * * * * * .--to john murray. nov. , . certainly. do you suppose that no one but the galileans are acquainted with _adam_, and _eve_, and _cain,_ [ ] and _noah_?--surely, i might have had solomon, and abraham, and david, and even moses, or the other. when you know that _zuleika_ is the _persian poetical_ name for _potiphar's_ wife, on whom and joseph there is a long poem in the persian, this will not surprise you. if you want authority look at jones, d'herbelot, 'vathek', or the notes to the 'arabian nights'; and, if you think it necessary, model this into a _note_. alter, in the inscription, "the most affectionate respect," to "with every sentiment of regard and respect," [footnote : "some doubt had been expressed by murray as to the propriety of his putting the name of cain into the mouth of a mussulman." (moore).] * * * * * .--to john murray. nov. , . i send you a note for the _ignorant_, but i really wonder at finding _you_ among them. i don't care one lump of sugar for my _poetry_; but for my _costume_, and my _correctness_ on those points (of which i think the _funeral_ was a proof), i will combat lustily. yours ever, b. * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . dear sir,--mr. hodgson has looked over and _stopped_, or rather _pointed_, this revise, which must be the one to print from. he has also made some suggestions, with most of which i have complied, as he has always, for these ten years, been a very sincere, and by no means (at times) flattering critic of mine. _he_ likes it (you will think _flatteringly_, in this instance) better than 'the giaour', but doubts (and so do i) its being so popular; but, contrary to some others, advises a separate publication. on this we can easily decide. i confess i like the _double_ form better. hodgson says, it is _better versified_ than any of the others; which is odd, if true, as it has cost me less time (though more _hours_ at a time) than any attempt i ever made. yours ever, b. p.s.--do attend to the punctuation: i can't, for i don't know a comma--at least where to place one. that tory of a printer has omitted two lines of the opening, and _perhaps more_, which were in the ms. will you, pray, give him a hint of accuracy? i have reinserted the , but they were in the manuscript, i can swear. * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . my dear sir,--that you and i may distinctly understand each other on a subject, which, like "the dreadful reckoning when men smile no more," [ ] makes conversation not very pleasant, i think it as well to _write_ a few lines on the topic.--before i left town for yorkshire, you said that you were ready and willing to give five hundred guineas for the copyright of 'the giaour'; and my answer was--from which i do not mean to recede--that we would discuss the point at christmas. the new story may or may not succeed; the probability, under present circumstances, seems to be, that it may at least pay its expences--but even that remains to be proved, and till it is proved one way or the other, we will say nothing about it. thus then be it: i will postpone all arrangement about it, and 'the giaour' also, till easter, ; and you shall then, according to your own notions of fairness, make your own offer for the two. at the same time, i do not rate the last in my own estimation at half 'the giaour'; and according to your own notions of its worth and its success within the time mentioned, be the addition or deduction to or from whatever sum may be your proposal for the first, which has already had its success [ ]. my account with you since my last payment (which i believe cleared it off within five pounds) i presume has not _much_ increased--but whatever it is have the goodness to send it to me--that i may at least meet you on even terms. the pictures of phillips i consider as _mine_, all three; and the one (not the arnaut) of the two best is much at _your service_, if you will accept it as a present, from yours very truly, biron. p.s.--the expence of engraving from the miniature send me in my account, as it was destroyed by my desire; and have the goodness to burn that detestable print from it immediately. [footnote : 'the what d'ye call't?' by john gay (act ii. sc. ): "so comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er, the dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more."] [footnote : murray replies, november , , "i restore the 'giaour' to your lordship entirely, and for 'it', the 'bride of abydos', and the miscellaneous poems intended to fill up the volume of the small edition, i beg leave to offer you the sum of one thousand guineas, and i shall be happy if you perceive that my estimation of your talents in my character of a man of business is not much under my admiration of them as a man."] * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . more work for the _row_. i am doing my best to beat "_the giaour_"--_no_ difficult task for any one but the author. yours truly, b. * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . dear sir,--i have no time to _cross_-investigate, but i believe and hope all is right. i care less than you will believe about its success, but i can't survive a single _misprint_; it _choaks_ me to see words misused by the printers. pray look over, in case of some eyesore escaping me. ever yours, b. p.s.--send the earliest copies to mr. frere, mr. canning, mr. heber, mr. gifford, lord holland, lady melbourne (whitehall), lady c. l. (brocket), mr. hodgson (cambridge), mr. merivale, mr. ward, from the author. * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . dear sir,--you wanted some _reflections_, and i send you _per selim_ (see his speech in canto d, page .), eighteen lines in decent couplets, of a pensive, if not an _ethical_ tendency. one more revise--poz. the _last_, if decently done--at any rate the _pen_ultimate. mr. canning's approbation (_if_ he did approve) i need not say makes me proud [ ]. as to printing, print as you will and how you will--by itself, if you like; but let me have a few copies in _sheets_. ever yours, b. [footnote : canning wrote the following note to murray: "i received the books, and, among them, 'the bride of abydos'. it is very, very beautiful. lord byron (when i met him, one day, at dinner at mr. ward's) was so kind as to promise to give me a copy of it. i mention this, not to save my purchase, but because i should be really flattered by the present. i can now say that i have read enough of mad. de staël to be highly pleased and instructed by her. the second volume delights me particularly. i have not yet finished the third, but am taking it with me on my journey to liverpool."] * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . you must pardon me once more, as it is all for your good: it must be thus: he makes a solitude, and calls it peace. "_makes_" is closer to the passage of tacitus [ ], from which the line is taken, and is, besides, a stronger word than "_leaves_." mark where his carnage and his conquests cease-- he makes a solitude, and calls it--peace. you will perceive that the sense is now clearer, the "_he_" refers to "_man_" in the preceding couplet. yours ever, b. [footnote : "solitudinem faciunt--pacem appellant." tacitus, 'agricola', .] * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . dear sir,--if you look over this carefully by the _last proof_ with my corrections, it is probably right; this _you_ can _do_ as well or better;--i have not now time. the copies i mentioned to be sent to different friends last night, i should wish to be made up with the new giaours, if it also is ready. if not, send 'the giaour' afterwards. the 'morning post' says _i_ am the author of 'nourjahad' [ ]!! this comes of lending the drawings for their dresses; but it is not worth a _formal contradiction_. besides, the criticisms on the _supposition_ will, some of them, be quite amusing and furious. the _orientalism_--which i hear is very splendid--of the melodrame (whosever it is, and i am sure i don't know) is as good as an advertisement for your eastern stories, by filling their heads with glitter. yours ever, b. p.s.--you will of course _say_ the truth, that i am _not_ the melo-dramatist--if any one charges me in your presence with the performance. [footnote : the same charge is made in the 'satirist' (vol. xiii. p. ). 'illusion, or the trances of nourjahad', was acted at drury lane, november , . it is described by genest ('the english stage', vol. viii. p. ) as "a melo-dramatic spectacle in three acts by an anonymous author." "nourjahad" was acted by elliston; "mandane," his wife, by mrs. horn.] * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . dear sir,--send another copy (if not too much of a request) to lady holland of the _journal_ [ ], in my name, when you receive this; it is for _earl grey_--and i will relinquish my own. also to mr. sharpe, lady holland, and lady caroline lamb, copies of _the bride_, as soon as convenient. ever yours, biron. p.s.--mr. w. and myself still continue our purpose; but i shall not trouble you on any arrangement on the score of _the giaour_ and _the bride_ till our return,--or, at any rate, before _may_, ,--that is, six months from hence: and before that time you will be able to ascertain how far your offer may be a losing one: if so, you can deduct proportionably; and if not, i shall not at any rate allow you to go higher than your present proposal, which is very handsome, and more than fair. i have had--but this must be _entre nous_--a very kind note, on the subject of _the bride_, from sir james mackintosh, and an invitation to go there this evening, which it is now too late to accept [ ]. [footnote : the rev. john eagles ( - ), scholar, artist, and contributor ( - ) to 'blackwood's magazine', edited 'the journal of llewellin penrose, a seaman', which murray published in .] [footnote : "lord byron is the author of the day; six thousand of his 'bride of abydos' have been sold within a month." sir james mackintosh ('life', vol. ii. p. ).] * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . sunday--monday morning--three o'clock--in my doublet and hose,--_swearing_. dear sir,--i send you in time an errata page, containing an omission of mine [ ], which must be thus added, as it is too late for insertion in the text. the passage is an imitation altogether from medea in ovid, and is incomplete without these two lines. pray let this be done, and directly; it is necessary, will add one page to your book(-_making_), and can do no harm, and is yet in time for the _public_. answer me, thou oracle, in the affirmative. you can send the loose pages to those who have copies already, if they like; but certainly to all the _critical_ copyholders. ever yours, biron. p.s.--i have got out of my bed (in which, however, i could not sleep, whether i had amended this or not), and so good morning. i am trying whether _de l'allemagne_ will act as an opiate, but i doubt it. [footnote : 'the bride of abydos', canto ii. stanza xx. the lines were: "then, if my lip once murmurs, it must be no sigh for safety, but a prayer for thee."] * * * * * .--to john murray. november , . "_you have looked at it!_" to much purpose, to allow so stupid a blunder to stand; it is _not_ "_courage_" but "_carnage_;" and if you don't want me to cut my own throat, see it altered. i am very sorry to hear of the fall of dresden. * * * * * .--to john murray. nov. , , monday. dear sir,--you will act as you please upon that point; but whether i go or stay, i shall not say another word on the subject till may--nor then, unless quite convenient to yourself. i have many things i wish to leave to your care, principally papers. the _vases_ need not be now sent, as mr. w. is gone to scotland. you are right about the er[rata] page; place it at the beginning. mr. perry is a little premature in his compliments [ ]: these may do harm by exciting expectation, and i think _we_ ought to be above it--though i see the next paragraph is on the 'journal' [ ], which makes me suspect _you_ as the author of both. would it not have been as well to have said in cantos in the advertisement? they will else think of _fragments_, a species of composition very well for _once_, like _one ruin_ in a _view_; but one would not build a town of them. 'the bride', such as it is, is my first _entire_ composition of any length (except the satire, and be damned to it), for 'the giaour' is but a string of passages, and 'childe harold' is, and i rather think always will be, unconcluded. i return mr. hay's note, with thanks to him and you. there have been some epigrams on mr. w[ard]: one i see to-day [ ]. the first i did not see, but heard yesterday. the second seems very bad and mr. p[erry] has placed it over _your_ puff. i only hope that mr. w. does not believe that i had any connection with either. the regent is the only person on whom i ever expectorated an epigram, or ever should; and even if i were disposed that way, i like and value mr. w. too well to allow my politics to contract into spleen, or to admire any thing intended to annoy him or his. you need not take the trouble to answer this, as i shall see you in the course of the afternoon. yours very truly, b. p.s.--i have said this much about the epigrams, because i live so much in the _opposite camp_, and, from my post as an engineer, might be suspected as the flinger of these hand grenadoes; but with a worthy foe i am all for open war, and not this bush-fighting, and have [not] had, nor will have, any thing to do with it. i do not know the author. [footnote : in the 'morning chronicle', november , , appeared the following paragraph: "lord byron's muse is extremely fruitful. he has another poem coming out, entitled 'the bride of abydos', which is spoken of in terms of the highest encomium."] [footnote : 'journal of llewellin penrose, a seaman.'] [footnote : "ward has no heart, they say; but i deny it;-- he has a heart, and gets his speeches by it."] * * * * * .--to john murray. tuesday evening, nov. , . dear sir,--for the sake of correctness, particularly in an errata page, the alteration of the couplet i have just sent (half an hour ago) must take place, in spite of delay or cancel; let me see the _proof_ early to-morrow. i found out _murmur_ to be a neuter _verb_, and have been obliged to alter the line so as to make it a substantive, thus: the deepest murmur of this life shall be no sigh for safety, but a prayer for thee! don't send the copies to the _country_ till this is all right. yours, b. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. november , . since i last wrote to you, much has occurred, good, bad, and indifferent,--not to make me forget you, but to prevent me from reminding you of one who, nevertheless, has often thought of you, and to whom _your_ thoughts, in many a measure, have frequently been a consolation. we were once very near neighbours this autumn; and a good and bad neighbourhood it has proved to me. suffice it to say, that your french quotation [ ] was confoundedly to the purpose,--though very _unexpectedly_ pertinent, as you may imagine by what i _said_ before, and my silence since. however, "richard's himself again," [ ] and except all night and some part of the morning, i don't think very much about the matter. all convulsions end with me in rhyme; and to solace my midnights, i have scribbled another turkish story [ ]--not a fragment--which you will receive soon after this. it does not trench upon your kingdom in the least, and if it did, you would soon reduce me to my proper boundaries. you will think, and justly, that i run some risk of losing the little i have gained in fame, by this further experiment on public patience; but i have really ceased to care on that head. i have written this, and published it, for the sake of the _employment_,--to wring my thoughts from reality, and take refuge in "imaginings," however "horrible;" [ ] and, as to success! those who succeed will console me for a failure--excepting yourself and one or two more, whom luckily i love too well to wish one leaf of their laurels a tint yellower. this is the work of a week, and will be the reading of an hour to you, or even less,--and so, let it go----. p.s.--ward and i _talk_ of going to holland. i want to see how a dutch canal looks after the bosphorus. pray respond. [footnote : moore wrote to byron in an undated letter, in which the following passage occurs: "i am sorry i must wait till 'we are veterans' before you will open to me 'the story of your wandering life, wherein you find more hours _due to repentance_ ... than time hath told you yet.' is it so with you, or are you, like me, reprobate enough to look back with complacency on what you have done? i suppose repentance _must bring up the rear_ with us all; but at present i should say with old fontenelle, _si je recommençais ma carrière, je ferais tout ce que j'ai fait_."] [footnote : colley cibber's 'richard iii', act v. sc. : "conscience, avaunt! richard's himself again."] [footnote : 'the bride of abydos' was published december, .] [footnote : "horrible imaginings." 'macbeth', act i. sc. .] * * * * * .--to francis hodgson. nov'r--dec'r st, . i have just heard that _knapp_ is acquainted with what i was but too happy in being enabled to do for you [ ]. now, my dear hn., you, or drury, must have told this, for, upon my own honour, not even to scrope, nor to one soul, (drury knew it before) have i said one syllable of the matter. so don't be out of humour with me about it, but you can't be more so than i am. i am, however, glad of one thing; if you ever conceived it to be in the least an obligation, this disclosure most fairly and fully releases you from it: "to john i owe some obligation, but john unluckily thinks fit to publish it to all the nation, so john and i are more than quit." and so there's an end of the matter. ward _wavers_ a little about the dutch, till matters are more sedative, and the french more sedentary. the 'bride' will blush upon you in a day or two; there is _much_, at least a _little_ addition. i am happy to say that frere and heber, and some other "good men and true," have been kind enough to adopt the same opinion that you did. pray write when you like, and believe me, ever yours, byron. p.s.--murray has _offered_ me a thousand guineas for the _two_ ('giaour' and 'bride'), and told m'e. de stael that he had _paid_ them to me!! i should be glad to be able to tell her so too. but the truth is, he would; but i thought the fair way was to decline it till may, and, at the end of months, he can safely say whether he can afford it or not--without running any risk by speculation. if he paid them now and lost by it, it would be hard. if he gains, it will be time enough when he has already funded his profits. but he needed not have told "_la baronne_" such a devil of an uncalled for piece of--premature _truth_, perhaps--but, nevertheless, a _lie_ in the mean time. [footnote : hodgson, now engaged to miss tayler, was anxious to clear off his father's liabilities. byron gave him from first to last the sum of £ for the purpose. hodgson, in a letter to his uncle, thus describes the gift ('memoir of rev. f. hodgson', vol. i. pp. , ): "my noble-hearted friend, lord byron, after many offers of a similar kind, which i felt bound to refuse, has irresistibly in my present circumstances ... volunteered to pay all my debts, and within a few pounds it is done! oh, if you knew (but _you_ do know) the exultation of heart, aye, and of head too, i feel at being free from these depressing embarrassments, you would, as i do, bless my dearest friend and brother byron."] * * * * * .--to john murray. dec. , . dear sir,--when you can, let the couplet enclosed be inserted either in the page, or in the errata page. i trust it is in time for some of the copies. this alteration is in the same part--the page _but one_ before the last correction sent. yours, etc., b. p.s.--i am afraid, from all i hear, that people are rather inordinate in their expectations, which is very unlucky, but cannot now be helped. this comes of mr. perry and one's wise friends; but do not _you_ wind _your_ hopes of success to the same pitch, for fear of accidents, and i can assure you that my philosophy will stand the test very fairly; and i have done every thing to ensure you, at all events, from positive loss, which will be some satisfaction to both. * * * * * .--to leigh hunt. , bennet st., dec. , . my dear sir,--few things could be more welcome than your note, and on saturday morning i will avail myself of your permission to thank you for it in person. my time has not been passed, since we met, either profitably or agreeably. a very short period after my last visit, an incident occurred with which, i fear, you are not unacquainted, as report, in many mouths and more than one paper, was busy with the topic. that, naturally, gave me much uneasiness. then i nearly incurred a lawsuit on the sale of an estate; but that is now arranged: next--but why should i go on with a series of selfish and silly details? i merely wish to assure you that it was not the frivolous forgetfulness of a mind, occupied by what is called pleasure (_not_ in the true sense of epicurus), that kept me away; but a perception of my, then, unfitness to share the society of those whom i value and wish not to displease. i hate being _larmoyant_, and making a serious face among those who are cheerful. it is my wish that our acquaintance, or, if you please to accept it, friendship, may be permanent. i have been lucky enough to preserve some friends from a very early period, and i hope, as i do not (at least now) select them lightly, i shall not lose them capriciously. i have a thorough esteem for that independence of spirit [ ] which you have maintained with sterling talent, and at the expense of some suffering. you have not, i trust, abandoned the poem you were composing, when moore and i partook of your hospitality in the summer. i hope a time will come when he and i may be able to repay you in kind for the _latter_--for the rhyme, at least in _quantity_, you are in arrear to both. believe me, very truly and affectionately yours, byron. [footnote : the following is leigh hunt's answer: "my dear lord,--i need not tell you how much your second letter has gratified me, for i am apt to speak as sincerely as i think (you must suffer me to talk in this way after what you have been kind enough to say of my independence), and it always rejoices me to find that those whom i wish to regard will take me at my word. but i shall grow egotistical upon the strength of your lordship's good opinion. i shall be heartily glad to see you on saturday morning, and perhaps shall prevail upon you to take a luncheon with us at our dinner-time( ). the nature of your letter would have brought upon you a long answer, filled perhaps with an enthusiasm that might have made you smile; but i am keeping your servant in the cold, and so, among other good offices, you see what he has done for you. however, i would not make a light thing of so good a matter as i mean my enthusiasm to be, and intend, before i have done, that you shall have as sound a regard for it, as i have for the feelings on your lordship's part that have called it forth. "yours, my dear lord, most sincerely and cordially, "leigh hunt. "surrey jail, 'd dec'r., ."] * * * * * .--to john murray. dec. , . i send you a _scratch_ or _two_, the which _heal_. the _christian observer_ [ ] is very savage, but certainly uncommonly well written--and quite uncomfortable at the naughtiness of book and author. i rather suspect you won't much like the _present_ to be more moral, if it is to share also the usual fate of your virtuous volumes. let me see a proof of the _six_ before _incorporation_. [footnote : the 'christian observer' for november, (pp. - ) felt compelled to review 'the giaour', because of its extraordinary popularity; but it found that some of the passages savoured "too much of newgate and bedlam for our expurgated pages." it acknowledged one obligation to byron. "he never attempts to deceive the world by representing the profligate as happy.... and his testimony is of the more value, as his situation in life must have permitted him to see the experiment tried under the most favourable circumstances. he has probably seen more than one example of young men of high birth, talents, and expectancies, ... sink under the burden of unsubdued tempers, licentious alliances, and ennervating indulgence.... he has _seen_ all this; nay, perhaps--but we check our pen," etc., etc.] * * * * * .--to john murray. dec. , . my dear sir,--look out the encyclopedia article _mecca_ whether it is there or at _medina_ the prophet is entombed, if at medina the first lines of my alteration must run: blest as the call which from medina's dome invites devotion to her prophet's tomb, etc. if at "mecca" the lines may stand as before. page , c°. nd, 'bride of abydos'. yours, b. you will find this out either by article _mecca, medina_ or _mahommed_. i have no book of reference by me. * * * * * .--to john murray. [no date.] did you look out? is it _medina_ or _mecca_ that contains the _holy_ sepulchre? don't make me blaspheme by your negligence. i have no books of reference or i would save you the trouble. i _blush_ as a good mussulman to have confused the point. yours, b. * * * * * .--to john murray. dec. , . dear sir,--i have redde through your persian tales [ ], and have taken the liberty of making some remarks on the _blank_ pages. there are many beautiful passages, and an interesting story; and i cannot give you a stronger proof that such is my opinion, than by the _date_ of the _hour--two o'clock_,--till which it has kept me awake _without a yawn_. the conclusion is not quite correct in _costume_: there is no _mussulman suicide_ on record--at least for _love_. but this matters not. the tale must have been written by some one who has been on the spot, and i wish him, and he deserves, success. will you apologise to the author for the liberties i have taken with his ms.? had i been less awake to, and interested in, his theme, i had been less obtrusive; but you know _i_ always take this in good part, and i hope he will. it is difficult to say what _will_ succeed, and still more to pronounce what _will not_. _i_ am at this moment in _that uncertainty_ (on your _own_ score); and it is no small proof of the author's powers to be able to _charm_ and _fix_ a _mind's_ attention on similar subjects and climates in such a predicament. that he may have the same effect upon all his readers is very sincerely the wish, and hardly the _doubt_, of yours truly, b. [footnote : henry gally knight ( - ), who was with byron at trinity, cambridge, and afterwards distinguished himself by his architectural writings (e.g. 'the normans in sicily,' ), began his literary career with 'ilderim, a syrian tale' ( ). 'phrosyne, a grecian tale'; 'alashtar, an arabian tale' ( ), was followed, after a considerable interval, by 'eastern sketches' (about - ). if the manuscript of the first-mentioned volume is that to which byron refers, he seems to have changed his mind as to its merits (march , ): "i tried at 'ilderim;' ahem!"] * * * * * .--to john murray. monday evening, dec. , . dear sir,--it is all very well, except that the lines are not numbered properly, and a diabolical mistake, page ., which _must_ be corrected with the _pen_, if no other way remains; it is the omission of "_not_" before "_disagreeable_" in the _note_ on the _amber_ rosary. this is really horrible, and nearly as bad as the stumble of mine at the threshold--i mean the _misnomer_ of bride. pray do not let a copy go without the "_not_;" it is nonsense, and worse than nonsense, as it now stands. i wish the printer was saddled with a vampire. yours ever, b. p.s.--it is still _hath_ instead of _have_ in page .; never was any one so _misused_ as i am by your devils of printers. p.s.--i hope and trust the "_not_" was inserted in the first edition. we must have something--any thing--to set it right. it is enough to answer for one's own bulls, without other people's. * * * * * .--to thomas moore. december , . your letter, like all the best, and even kindest things in this world, is both painful and pleasing. but, first, to what sits nearest. do you know i was actually about to dedicate to you,--not in a formal inscription, as to one's _elders_,--but through a short prefatory letter, in which i boasted myself your intimate, and held forth the prospect of _your_ poem; when, lo! the recollection of your strict injunctions of secrecy as to the said poem, more than _once_ repeated by word and letter, flashed upon me, and marred my intents. i could have no motive for repressing my own desire of alluding to you (and not a day passes that i do not think and talk of you), but an idea that you might, yourself, dislike it. you cannot doubt my sincere admiration, waving personal friendship for the present, which, by the by, is not less sincere and deep rooted. i have you by rote and by heart; of which _ecce signum!_ when i was at aston, on my first visit, i have a habit, in passing my time a good deal alone, of--i won't call it singing, for that i never attempt except to myself--but of uttering, to what i think tunes, your "oh breathe not," "when the last glimpse," and "when he who adores thee," with others of the same minstrel;--they are my matins and vespers. i assuredly did not intend them to be overheard, but, one morning, in comes, not _la donna_, but _il marito_, with a very grave face, saying, "byron, i must request you won't sing any more, at least of those songs." i stared, and said, "certainly, but why?"--"to tell you the truth," quoth he, "they make my wife _cry_, and so melancholy, that i wish her to hear no more of them." now, my dear m., the effect must have been from your words, and certainly not my music. i merely mention this foolish story to show you how much i am indebted to you for even your pastimes. a man may praise and praise, but no one recollects but that which pleases--at least, in composition. though i think no one equal to you in that department, or in satire,--and surely no one was ever so popular in both,--i certainly am of opinion that you have not yet done all _you_ can do, though more than enough for any one else. i want, and the world expects, a longer work from you; and i see in you what i never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence of your own powers, which i cannot account for, and which must be unaccountable, when a _cossac_ like me can appal a _cuirassier_. your story i did not, could not, know,--i thought only of a peri. i wish you had confided in me, not for your sake, but mine, and to prevent the world from losing a much better poem than my own, but which, i yet hope, this _clashing_ will not even now deprive them of [ ]. mine is the work of a week, written, _why_ i have partly told you, and partly i cannot tell you by letter--some day i will. go on--i shall really be very unhappy if i at all interfere with you. the success of mine is yet problematical; though the public will probably purchase a certain quantity, on the presumption of their own propensity for 'the giaour' and such "horrid mysteries." the only advantage i have is being on the spot; and that merely amounts to saving me the trouble of turning over books which i had better read again. if _your chamber_ was furnished in the same way, you have no need to _go there_ to describe--i mean only as to _accuracy_--because i drew it from recollection. this last thing of mine _may_ have the same fate, and i assure you i have great doubts about it. but, even if not, its little day will be over before you are ready and willing. come out--"screw your courage to the sticking-place." [ ] except the _post bag_ (and surely you cannot complain of a want of success there), you have not been _regularly_ out for some years. no man stands higher,--whatever you may think on a rainy day, in your provincial retreat. "aucun homme, dans aucune langue, n'a été, peut-être, plus complètement le poëte du coeur et le poëte des femmes. les critiques lui reprochent de n'avoir représenté le monde ní tel qu'il est, ni tel qu'il doit être; _mais les femmes répondent qu'il l'a représenté tel qu'elles le désirent._" i should have thought sismondi [ ] had written this for you instead of metastasio. write to me, and tell me of _yourself_. do you remember what rousseau said to some one--"have we quarrelled? you have talked to me often, and never once mentioned yourself." p.s.--the last sentence is an indirect apology for my egotism,--but i believe in letters it is allowed. i wish it was _mutual_. i have met with an odd reflection in grimm; it shall not--at least the bad part--be applied to you or me, though _one_ of us has certainly an indifferent name--but this it is:--"many people have the reputation of being wicked, with whom we should be too happy to pass our lives". i need not add it is a woman's saying--a mademoiselle de sommery's [ ]. [footnote : "among the stories intended to be introduced into 'lalla rookh', which i had begun, but, from various causes, never finished, there was one which i had made some progress in, at the time of the appearance of 'the bride', and which, on reading that poem, i found to contain such singular coincidences with it, not only in locality and costume, but in plot and characters, that i immediately gave up my story altogether, and began another on an entirely new subject--the fire-worshippers. to this circumstance, which i immediately communicated to him, lord byron alludes in this letter. in my hero (to whom i had even given the name of 'zelim,' and who was a descendant of ali, outlawed, with all his followers, by the reigning caliph) it was my intention to shadow out, as i did afterwards in another form, the national cause of ireland. to quote the words of my letter to lord byron on the subject: 'i chose this story because one writes best about what one feels most, and i thought the parallel with ireland would enable me to infuse some vigour into my hero's character. but to aim at vigour and strong feeling after 'you' is hopeless;--that region "was made for cæsar."'" (moore).] [footnote : 'macbeth', act i. sc. .] [footnote : 'de la littérature du midi de l'europe', ed. , tom. ii. p. .] [footnote : grimm ('correspondance littéraire', ed. , part iii. tom ii. p. ) says of mlle. de sommery, who died of apoplexy in , "que de gens ont la réputation d'être méchans, avec lesquels on serait trop heureux de passer sa vie." the 'biographie universelle' says of her, "elle avait du talent pour écrire; mais elle ne l'exerça que fort tard .... le premier livre qu'elle publia, n'étant plus très jeune, fut un recueil de pensées détachées, dédié aux mânes de saurin, qu'elle intitula 'doutes sur differentes opinions reçues dans la societé'. ce recueil eut un véritable succés." mlle. de sommery also published, besides the 'doutes' ( ), 'lettres de madame la comtesse de l. à m. le comte de r'. ( ); 'lettres de mlle. de tourville à madame la comtesse de lénoncourt' ( ); 'l'oreille, conte asiatique' ( ).] * * * * * .--to john galt [ ]. dec. , . my dear galt,--there was no offence--there _could_ be none. i thought it by no means impossible that we might have hit on something similar, particularly as you are a dramatist, and was anxious to assure you of the truth, viz., that i had not wittingly seized upon plot, sentiment, or incident; and i am very glad that i have not in any respect trenched upon your subjects. something still more singular is, that the _first_ part, where you have found a coincidence in some events within your observations on _life_, was _drawn_ from _observations_ of mine also, and i meant to have gone on with the story, but on _second_ thoughts, i thought myself _two centuries_ at least too late for the subject; which, though admitting of very powerful feeling and description, yet is not adapted for this age, at least this country, though the finest works of the greeks, one of schiller's and alfieri's in modern times, besides several of our _old_ (and best) dramatists, have been grounded on incidents of a similar cast. i therefore altered it as you perceive, and in so doing have weakened the whole, by interrupting the train of thought: and in composition i do not think _second_ thoughts are the best, though _second_ expressions may improve the first ideas. i do not know how other men feel towards those they have met abroad, but to me there seems a kind of tie established between all who have met together in a foreign country, as if we had met in a state of pre-existence, and were talking over a life that has ceased: but i always look forward to renewing my travels; and though _you_, i think, are now stationary, if i can at all forward your pursuits _there_ as well as here, i shall be truly glad in the opportunity. ever yours very sincerely, b. p.s.--i leave town for a day or two on monday, but after that i am always at home, and happy to see you till half-past two. [footnote : for john galt, see 'letters', vol. i. p. [footnote of letter ], and vol. ii. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]. galt wrote to byron in , pointing out that "there was a remarkable coincidence in the story" (of 'the bride of abydos') "with a matter in which i had been interested" ('life of byron', p. , ed. ). byron, imagining himself charged with plagiarism, wrote a somewhat angry reply, to which gait answered by stating that the coincidence was not one of ideas, sentiment, or story, but of real fact. he received the above answer ('life of byron', pp. , ). on this poem byron seems to have been particularly sensitive. he is accused of borrowing the opening lines from mignon's song in goethe's 'wilhelm meister': "kennst du das land wo die citronen blühn?" cyrus redding ('yesterday and to-day', vol. ii. pp. , ) suggests that byron used the translation of the poem which he himself had made and published in or . byron was also charged with pilfering them from madame de staël. "do you know de staël's lines?" he asked lady blessington ('conversations', pp. , ); "for if i am a thief, she must be the plundered, as i don't read german and do french: yet i could almost swear that i never saw her verses when i wrote mine, nor do i even now remember them. i think the first began with 'cette terre,' etc., etc.; but the rest i forget. as you have a good memory, perhaps you would repeat them." "i did so," says lady blessington, "and they are as follows: "'cette terre, où les myrtes fleurissent, où les rayons des cieux tombent avec amour, où des sons enchanteurs dans les airs retentissent, où la plus douce nuit succéde au plus beau jour,' etc."] * * * * * .--to john murray. decr. y'r th, . deare sir,--send y'e e'r of ye new r'w a copy as he hath had y'e trouble of two walks on y't acct. as to the man of the _satirist_--i hope you have too much spirit to allow a single sheet to be offered as a peace offering to him or any one. if you _do_, expect _never_ to be _forgiven_ by me--if he is not personal he is quite welcome to his opinion--and if he is, i have my own remedy. send a copy _double_ to dr. clarke (y'e traveller) cambrigge by y'e first opportunitie--and let me see you in y'e morninge y't i may mention certain thinges y'e which require sundrie though slight alterations. sir, your servitor, biroñ * * * * * .--to thomas ashe [ ]. , bennet street, st. james's, dec. , . sir,--i leave town for a few days to-morrow. on my return, i will answer your letter more at length. whatever may be your situation, i cannot but commend your resolution to abjure and abandon the publication and composition of works such as those to which you have alluded. depend upon it they amuse _few_, disgrace both _reader_ and _writer_, and benefit _none_. it will be my wish to assist you, as far as my limited means will admit, to break such a bondage. in your answer, inform me what sum you think would enable you to extricate yourself from the hands of your employers, and to regain, at least, temporary independence, and i shall be glad to contribute my mite towards it. at present, i must conclude. your name is not unknown to me, and i regret, for your own sake, that you have ever lent it to the works you mention. in saying this, i merely repeat your _own words_ in your letter to me, and have no wish whatever to say a single syllable that may appear to insult your misfortunes. if i have, excuse me; it is unintentional. yours, etc., byron. [footnote : thomas ashe ( - ) had already written books of travel in north and south america, and two novels--'the spirit of "the book'"( ), and 'the liberal critic, or henry percy' ( ). he was a man of more ability than character, but possessed little of either. his 'memoirs' ( ) describe his literary undertakings, one at least of which was of a blackmailing kind, and are interspersed with protestations of his desire for independence, and of regrets for the wretched stuff that dropped from his pen. his first novel, 'the spirit of "the book,"' gained some success from its subject. in - lady douglas brought certain charges against the princess of wales, which were answered on her behalf by spencer perceval. the extraordinary secrecy with which this defence, called "the book," was printed, and its complete suppression, excited curiosity, which was increased by the following advertisement in the 'times' for march , : "'a book'--any person having in their possession a copy of a certain book, printed by mr. edwards, in , but 'never published', with w. lindsell's name as the seller of the same on the title page, and will bring it to w. lindsell, bookseller, wimpole-street, will receive a handsome gratuity." the subject-matter of this book, then unknown to the public, ashe professes to embody in 'the spirit of "the book;" or, memoirs of caroline, princess of hasburgh, a political and amatory romance' ( vols., ). the letters, which purport to be written from caroline to charlotte, and contain (vol. ii. pp. - ) an attack on the lady jersey, who attended the princess, are absolutely dull, and scarcely even indecent. ashe's 'memoirs and confessions' ( vols., ) are dedicated to the duke of northumberland and to byron, to whom, in a preface written at havre, he acknowledges his "transcendent obligations."] * * * * * .--to professor clarke [ ]. dec. , . your very kind letter is the more agreeable, because, setting aside talents, judgment, and the _laudari a laudato_, etc., you have been on the spot; you have seen and described more of the east than any of your predecessors--i need not say how ably and successfully; and (excuse the bathos) you are one of the very few men who can pronounce how far my costume (to use an affected but expressive word) is correct. as to poesy, that is, as "men, gods, and columns," please to decide upon it; but i am sure that i am anxious to have an observer's, particularly a famous observer's, testimony on the fidelity of my manners and dresses; and, as far as memory and an oriental twist in my imagination have permitted, it has been my endeavour to present to the franks, a sketch of that of which you have and will present them a complete picture. it was with this notion, that i felt compelled to make my hero and heroine relatives, as you well know that none else could there obtain that degree of intercourse leading to genuine affection; i had nearly made them rather too much akin to each other; and though the wild passions of the east, and some great examples in alfieri, ford, and schiller (to stop short of antiquity), might have pleaded in favour of a copyist, yet the time and the north (not frederic, but our climate) induced me to alter their consanguinity and confine them to cousinship. i also wished to try my hand on a female character in zuleika, and have endeavoured, as far as the grossness of our masculine ideas will allow, to preserve her purity without impairing the ardour of her attachment. as to criticism, i have been reviewed about a hundred and fifty times--praised and abused. i will not say that i am become indifferent to either eulogy or condemnation, but for some years at least i have felt grateful for the former, and have never attempted to answer the latter. for success equal to the first efforts, i had and have no hope; the novelty was over, and the "bride," like all other brides, must suffer or rejoice for and with her husband. by the bye, i have used "bride" turkishly, as affianced, not married; and so far it is an english bull, which, i trust, will be at least a comfort to all hibernians not bigotted to monopoly. you are good enough to mention your quotations in your third volume. i shall not only be indebted to it for a renewal of the high gratification received from the two first, but for preserving my relics embalmed in your own spices, and ensuring me readers to whom i could not otherwise have aspired. i called on you, as bounden by duty and inclination, when last in your neighbourhood; but i shall always take my chance; you surely would not have me inflict upon you a formal annunciation; i am proud of your friendship, but not so fond of myself as to break in upon your better avocations. i trust that mrs. clarke is well; i have never had the honour of presentation, but i have heard so much of her in many quarters, that any notice she is pleased to take of my productions is not less gratifying than my thanks are sincere, both to her and you; by all accounts i may safely congratulate you on the possession of "a bride" whose mental and personal accomplishments are more than poetical. p. s.--murray has sent, or will send, a double copy of the _bride_ and _giaour_; in the last one, some lengthy additions; pray accept them, according to old custom, "from the author" to one of his better brethren. your persian, or any memorial, will be a most agreeable, and it is my fault if not an useful present. i trust your third will be out before i sail next month; can i say or do anything for you in the levant? i am now in all the agonies of equipment, and full of schemes, some impracticable, and most of them improbable; but i mean to fly "freely to the green earth's end," [ ] though not quite so fast as milton´s sprite. p. s. nd.--i have so many things to say.--i want to show you lord sligo's letter to me detailing, as he heard them on the spot, the athenian account of our adventure (a personal one), which certainly first suggested to me the story of _the giaour_. it was a strange and not a very long story, and his report of the reports (he arrived just after my departure, and i did not know till last summer that he knew anything of the matter) is not very far from the truth. don't be alarmed. there was nothing that led further than to the water's edge; but one part (as is often the case in life) was more singular than any of the _giaour's_ adventures. i never have, and never should have, alluded to it on my own authority, from respect to the ancient proverb on travellers. [footnote : dr. clark, in october, , was a candidate for the professorship of anatomy, and byron went to cambridge to vote for his friend. writing to miss tayler, hodgson ('memoir', vol. i. p. ) adds a postscript: "i open my letter to say that when lord byron went to give his vote just now in the senate house, the young men burst out into the most rapturous applause." the next day he writes again: "i should add that as i was going to vote i met him coming away, and presently saw that something had happened, by his extreme paleness and agitation. dr. clark, who was with him, told me the cause, and i returned with b. to my room. there i begged him to sit down and write a letter and communicate this event, which he did not feel up to, but wished 'i' would. so down i sate, and commenced my acquaintance with miss milbanke by writing her an account of this most pleasing event, which, although nothing at oxford, is here very unusual indeed." the following was miss milbanke's answer ('ibid'., pp. , ), dated, "seaham, november , :" "dear sir,--it will be easier for you to imagine than for me to express the pleasure which your very kind letter has given me. not only on account of its gratifying intelligence, but also as introductory to an acquaintance which i have been taught to value, and have sincerely desired. allow me to consider lord byron's friend as not 'a stranger,' and accept, with my sincerest thanks, my best wishes for your own happiness. "i am, dear sir, your faithful servant, "a. i. mllbanke." ] [footnote : the spirit in milton´s 'comus, a mask' (lines , ), says: "i can fly, or i can run quickly to the green earth´s end."] * * * * * .--to leigh hunt. dec. , . my dear sir,--i am indeed "in your debt,"--and, what is still worse, am obliged to follow _royal_ example (he has just apprised _his_ creditors that they must wait till the next meeting), and intreat your indulgence for, i hope, a very short time. the nearest relation and almost the only friend i possess, has been in london for a week, and leaves it tomorrow with me for her own residence. i return immediately; but we meet so seldom, and are so _minuted_ when we meet at all, that i give up all engagements till _now_, without reluctance. on my return, i must see you to console myself for my past disappointment. i should feel highly honoured in mr. b.'s permission to make his acquaintance, and _there_ you are in _my_ debt; for it is a promise of last summer which i still hope to see performed. yesterday i had a letter from moore; you have probably heard from him lately; but if not, you will be glad to learn that he is the same in heart, head, and health. * * * * * .--to john murray. december , . lord holland is laid up with the gout, and would feel very much obliged if you could obtain, and send as soon as possible, madame d'arblay's (or even miss edgeworth's) new work. i know they are not out; but it is perhaps possible for your _majesty_ to command what we cannot with much suing purchase, as yet. i need not say that when you are able or willing to confer the same favour on me, i shall be obliged. i would almost fall sick myself to get at madame d'arblay's writings. p.s.--you were talking to-day of the american e'n of a certain unquenchable memorial of my younger days [ ]. as it can't be helped now, i own i have some curiosity to see a copy of transatlantic typography. this you will perhaps obtain, and one for yourself; but i must beg that you will not _import more_, because, _seriously_, i _do wish_ to have that thing forgotten as much as it has been forgiven. if you send to the 'globe' e'r, say that i want neither excuse nor contradiction, but merely a discontinuance of a most ill-grounded charge. i never was consistent in any thing but my politics; and as my redemption depends on that solitary virtue, it is murder to carry away my last anchor. [footnote : 'english bards, and scotch reviewers'.] * * * * * chapter viii. journal: november , --april , . if this had been begun ten years ago, and faithfully kept!!!--heigho! there are too many things i wish never to have remembered, as it is. well,--i have had my share of what are called the pleasures of this life, and have seen more of the european and asiatic world than i have made a good use of. they say "virtue is its own reward,"--it certainly should be paid well for its trouble. at five-and-twenty, when the better part of life is over, one should be _something_;--and what am i? nothing but five-and-twenty--and the odd months. what have i seen? the same man all over the world,--ay, and woman too. give _me_ a mussulman who never asks questions, and a she of the same race who saves one the trouble of putting them. but for this same plague--yellow fever--and newstead delay, i should have been by this time a second time close to the euxine. if i can overcome the last, i don't so much mind your pestilence; and, at any rate, the spring shall see me there,--provided i neither marry myself, nor unmarry any one else in the interval. i wish one was--i don't know what i wish. it is odd i never set myself seriously to wishing without attaining it--and repenting. i begin to believe with the good old magi, that one should only pray for the nation, and not for the individual;--but, on my principle, this would not be very patriotic. no more reflections.--let me see--last night i finished "zuleika," my second turkish tale. i believe the composition of it kept me alive--for it was written to drive my thoughts from the recollection of: "dear sacred name, rest ever unreveal'd." [ ] at least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it. this afternoon i have burnt the scenes of my commenced comedy. i have some idea of expectorating a romance, or rather a tale in prose;--but what romance could equal the events: "quæque ipse......vidi, et quorum pars magna fui." [ ] to-day henry byron [ ] called on me with my little cousin eliza. she will grow up a beauty and a plague; but, in the mean time, it is the prettiest child! dark eyes and eyelashes, black and long as the wing of a raven. i think she is prettier even than my niece, georgina,--yet i don't like to think so neither: and though older, she is not so clever. dallas called before i was up, so we did not meet. lewis [ ], too,--who seems out of humour with every thing. what can be the matter? he is not married--has he lost his own mistress, or any other person's wife? hodgson, too, came. he is going to be married, and he is the kind of man who will be the happier. he has talent, cheerfulness, every thing that can make him a pleasing companion; and his intended is handsome and young, and all that. but i never see any one much improved by matrimony. all my coupled contemporaries are bald and discontented. w[ordsworth] and s[outhey] have both lost their hair and good humour; and the last of the two had a good deal to lose. but it don't much signify what falls _off_ a man's temples in that state. mem. i must get a toy to-morrow for eliza, and send the device for the seals of myself and----mem. too, to call on the stael and lady holland to-morrow, and on----, who has advised me (without seeing it, by the by) not to publish "zuleika;" [ ] i believe he is right, but experience might have taught him that not to print is _physically_ impossible. no one has seen it but hodgson and mr. gifford. i never in my life _read_ a composition, save to hodgson, as he pays me in kind. it is a horrible thing to do too frequently;--better print, and they who like may read, and if they don't like, you have the satisfaction of knowing that they have, at least, _purchased_ the right of saying so. i have declined presenting the debtors' petition [ ], being sick of parliamentary mummeries. i have spoken thrice; but i doubt my ever becoming an orator. my first was liked; the second and third--i don't know whether they succeeded or not. i have never yet set to it _con amore_;--one must have some excuse to one's self for laziness, or inability, or both, and this is mine. "company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me;" [ ]--and then, i "have drunk medicines," not to make me love others, but certainly enough to hate myself. two nights ago i saw the tigers sup at exeter 'change. except veli pacha's lion in the morea,--who followed the arab keeper like a dog,--the fondness of the hyæna for her keeper amused me most. such a conversazione!--there was a "hippopotamus," like lord liverpool in the face; and the "ursine sloth" had the very voice and manner of my valet--but the tiger talked too much. the elephant took and gave me my money again--took off my hat--opened a door--_trunked_ a whip--and behaved so well, that i wish he was my butler. the handsomest animal on earth is one of the panthers; but the poor antelopes were dead. i should hate to see one _here:_--the sight of the _camel_ made me pine again for asia minor. _"oh quando te aspiciam?_" [footnote : "dear fatal name! rest ever unrevealed, nor pass these lips in holy silence sealed." pope's 'eloisa to abelard', lines , .] [footnote : virgil, 'Æneid', ii. : ". ... quoeque ipse miserrima vidi et quorum pars magna fui."] [footnote : the rev. henry byron, second son of the rev. and hon. richard byron, and nephew of william, fifth lord byron, died in . his daughter eliza married, in , george rochford clarke. byron's "niece georgina" was the daughter of mrs. leigh.] [footnote : matthew gregory lewis ( - ), intended by his father for the diplomatic service, was educated at westminster and christ church, weimar, and paris. he soon showed his taste for literature. at the age of seventeen he had translated a play from the french, and written a farce, a comedy called 'the east indian' (acted at drury lane, april , ), "two volumes of a novel, two of a romance, besides numerous poems" ('life, etc., of m. g. lewis', vol. i. p. ). in he was attached to the british embassy at the hague. there, stimulated ('ibid'., vol. i. p. ) by reading mrs. radcliffe's 'mysteries of udolpho', he wrote 'ambrosio, or the monk'. the book, published in , made him famous in fashionable society, and decided his career. though he sat in parliament for hindon from to , he took no part in politics, but devoted himself to literature. the moral and outline of 'the monk' are taken, as lewis says in a letter to his father ('life, etc.', vol. i. pp. - ), and as was pointed out in the 'monthly review' for august, , from addison's "santon barsisa" in the 'guardian' (no. ). the book was severely criticized on the score of immorality. mathias ('pursuits of literature', dialogue iv.) attacks lewis, whom he compares to john cleland, whose 'memoirs of a woman of pleasure' came under the notice of the law courts: "another cleland see in lewis rise. why sleep the ministers of truth and law?" an injunction was, in fact, moved for against the book; but the proceedings dropped. lewis had a remarkable gift of catching the popular taste of the day, both in his tales of horror and mystery, and in his ballads. in the latter he was the precursor of scott. many of his songs were sung to music of his own composition. his 'tales of terror' ( ) were dedicated to lady charlotte campbell, afterwards bury, with whom he was in love. to his 'tales of wonder' ( ) scott, southey, and others contributed. his most successful plays were 'the castle spectre' (drury lane, december , ), and 'timour the tartar' (covent garden, april , ). in , by the death of his father, "the monk" became a rich man, and the owner of plantations in the west indies. he paid two visits to his property, in - and - . on the voyage home from the last visit he died of yellow fever, and was buried at sea. his 'journal of a west indian proprietor', published in , is written in sterling english, with much quiet humour, and a graphic power of very high order. among his 'detached thoughts' byron has the following notes on lewis: "sheridan was one day offered a bet by m. g. lewis: 'i will bet you, mr. sheridan, a very large sum--i will bet you what you owe me as manager, for my 'castle spectre'.' "'i never make _large bets_,' said sheridan, 'but i will lay you a _very small_ one. i will bet you _what it is_ worth!'" "lewis, though a kind man, hated sheridan, and we had some words upon that score when in switzerland, in . lewis afterwards sent me the following epigram upon sheridan from saint maurice: "'for worst abuse of finest parts was misophil begotten; there might indeed be _blacker_ hearts, but none could be more _rotten_.'" lewis at oatlands was observed one morning to have his eyes red, and his air sentimental; being asked why? he replied 'that when people said anything 'kind' to him, it affected him deeply, and just now the duchess had said something so kind to him'--here tears began to flow again. 'never mind, lewis,' said col. armstrong to him, 'never mind--don't cry, she could not mean it'.' "lewis was a good man--a clever man, but a bore--a damned bore, one may say. my only revenge or consolation used to be setting him by the ears with some vivacious person who hated bores especially--me. de staël or hobhouse, for example. but i liked lewis; he was a jewel of a man had he been better set, i don't mean _personally_, but less _tiresome_, for he was tedious, as well as contradictory to everything and everybody. being short-sighted, when we used to ride out together near the brenta in the twilight in summer, he made me go _before_ to pilot him. i am absent at times, especially towards evening, and the consequence of this pilotage was some narrow escapes to the monk on horseback. once i led him into a ditch, over which i had passed as usual, forgetting to warn my convoy; once i led him nearly into the river instead of on the 'moveable' bridge which _in_commodes passengers; and twice did we both run against the diligence, which, being heavy and slow, did communicate less damage than it received in its leaders, who were 'terrasséd' by the charge. thrice did i lose him in the gray of the gloaming and was obliged to bring to, to his distant signals of distance and distress. all the time he went on talking without intermission, for he was a man of many words. poor fellow, he died a martyr to his new riches--of a second visit to jamaica. "'i'd give the lands of deloraine dark musgrave were alive again!' _that is_ 'i would give many a sugar cane monk lewis were alive again!' "lewis said to me, 'why do you talk 'venetian' (such as i could talk, not very fine to be sure) to the venetians, and not the usual italian?' i answered, partly from habit and partly to be understood, if possible. 'it may be so,' said lewis, 'but it sounds to me like talking with a 'brogue' to an _irishman_.'" in a ms. note by sir walter scott on these passages from byron's 'detached thoughts', he says, "mat had queerish eyes; they projected like those of some insect, and were flattish in their orbit. his person was extremely small and boyish; he was, indeed, the least man i ever saw to be strictly well and neatly made. i remember a picture of him by saunders being handed round at dalkeith house. the artist had ungenerously flung a dark folding mantle round the form, under which was half hid a dagger, or dark lanthorn, or some such cut-throat appurtenance. with all this the features were preserved and ennobled. it passed from hand to hand into that of henry, duke of buccleuch, who, hearing the general voice affirm that it was very like, said aloud, 'like mat lewis? why, that picture is like a 'man'.' he looked, and lo! mat lewis's head was at his elbow. his boyishness went through life with him. he was a child, and a spoiled child, but a child of high imagination, so that he wasted himself in ghost stories and german nonsense. he had the finest ear for the rhythm of verse i ever heard--finer than byron's. "lewis was fonder of great people than he ought to have been, either as a man of talent or a man of fortune. he had always dukes and duchesses in his mouth, and was particularly fond of any one who had a title. you would have sworn he had been a 'parvenu' of yesterday, yet he had been all his life in good society. "he was one of the kindest and best creatures that ever lived. his father and mother lived separately. mr. lewis allowed his son a handsome income; but reduced it more than one half when he found that he gave his mother half of it. he restricted himself in all his expenses, and shared the diminished income with his mother as before. he did much good by stealth, and was a most generous creature. "i had a good picture drawn me, i think by thos. thomson, of fox, in his latter days, suffering the fatigue of an attack from lewis. the great statesman was become bulky and lethargic, and lay like a fat ox which for sometime endures the persecution of a buzzing fly, rather than rise to get rid of it; and then at last he got up, and heavily plodded his way to the other side of the room." referring to byron's story of lewis near the brenta, scott adds, "i had a worse adventure with mat lewis. i had been his guide from the cottage i then had at laswade to the chapel of roslin. we were to go up one side of the river and come down the other. in the return he was dead tired, and, like the israelites, he murmured against his guide for leading him into the wilderness. i was then as strong as a poney, and took him on my back, dressed as he was in his shooting array of a close sky-blue jacket, and the brightest 'red' pantaloons i ever saw on a human breech. he also had a kind of feather in his cap. at last i could not help laughing at the ridiculous figure we must both have made, at which my rider waxed wroth. it was an ill-chosen hour and place, for i could have served him as wallace did fawden--thrown him down and twisted his head off. we returned to the cottage weary wights, and it cost more than one glass of noyau, which he liked in a decent way, to get mat's temper on its legs again."] [footnote : 'the bride of abydos' was originally called 'zuleika'. ] [footnote : the petition, directed against lord redesdale's insolvent debtors act, was presented by romilly in the house of commons, november , , and by lord holland in the house of lords, november , .] [footnote : henry iv., part i. act in. sc. .] * * * * * november . went last night with lewis to see the first of 'antony and cleopatra' [ ]. it was admirably got up, and well acted--a salad of shakspeare and dryden. cleopatra strikes me as the epitome of her sex--fond, lively, sad, tender, teasing, humble, haughty, beautiful, the devil!--coquettish to the last, as well with the "asp" as with antony. after doing all she can to persuade him that--but why do they abuse him for cutting off that poltroon cicero's head? did not tully tell brutus it was a pity to have spared antony? and did he not speak the philippics? and are not "_words things_?" [ ] and such "_words_" very pestilent "_things_" too? if he had had a hundred heads, they deserved (from antony) a rostrum (his was stuck up there) apiece--though, after all, he might as well have pardoned him, for the credit of the thing. but to resume--cleopatra, after securing him, says, "yet go--it is your interest," etc.--how like the sex! and the questions about octavia--it is woman all over. to-day received lord jersey's invitation to middleton--to travel sixty miles to meet madame de stael! i once travelled three thousand to get among silent people; and this same lady writes octavos, and _talks_ folios. i have read her books--like most of them, and delight in the last; so i won't hear it, as well as read. read burns to-day. what would he have been, if a patrician? we should have had more polish--less force--just as much verse, but no immortality--a divorce and a duel or two, the which had he survived, as his potations must have been less spirituous, he might have lived as long as sheridan, and outlived as much as poor brinsley. what a wreck is that man! and all from bad pilotage; for no one had ever better gales, though now and then a little too squally. poor dear sherry! i shall never forget the day he and rogers and moore and i passed together; when _he_ talked, and _we_ listened, without one yawn, from six till one in the morning. got my seals----. have again forgot a play-thing for _ma petite cousine_ eliza; but i must send for it to-morrow. i hope harry will bring her to me. i sent lord holland the proofs of the last "_giaour_" and "_the bride of abydos_" he won't like the latter, and i don't think that i shall long. it was written in four nights to distract my dreams from----. were it not thus, it had never been composed; and had i not done something at that time, i must have gone mad, by eating my own heart,--bitter diet;--hodgson likes it better than "_the giaour_" but nobody else will,--and he never liked the fragment. i am sure, had it not been for murray, _that_ would never have been published, though the circumstances which are the ground-work make it----heigh-ho! to-night i saw both the sisters of----; my god! the youngest so like! i thought i should have sprung across the house, and am so glad no one was with me in lady h.'s box. i hate those likenesses--the mock-bird, but not the nightingale--so like as to remind, so different as to be painful [ ]. one quarrels equally with the points of resemblance and of distinction. [footnote : 'antony and cleopatra' was revived at covent garden, november , , with additions from dryden's 'all for love, or the world well lost'( ). "cleopatra" was acted by mrs. fawcit; "marc antony" by young. (see for the allusions, act v. se. , and act i. sc. .)] [footnote : "but words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." 'don juan', canto iii. stanza lxxxviii.] [footnote : "-----my weal, my woe, my hope on high--my all below; earth holds no other like to thee, or, if it doth, in vain for me: for worlds i dare not view the dame resembling thee, yet not the same." 'the giaour'.] * * * * * nov. . no letter from----; but i must not complain. the respectable job says, "why should a _living man_ complain?" [ ] i really don't know, except it be that a _dead man_ can't; and he, the said patriarch, _did_ complain, nevertheless, till his friends were tired and his wife recommended that pious prologue,"curse--and die;" the only time, i suppose, when but little relief is to be found in swearing. i have had a most kind letter from lord holland on "_the bride of abydos_," which he likes, and so does lady h. this is very good-natured in both, from whom i don't deserve any quarter. yet i _did_ think, at the time, that my cause of enmity proceeded from holland house, and am glad i was wrong, and wish i had not been in such a hurry with that confounded satire, of which i would suppress even the memory;--but people, now they can't get it, make a fuss, i verily believe, out of contradiction. george ellis [ ] and murray have been talking something about scott and me, george _pro scoto_,--and very right too. if they want to depose him, i only wish they would not set me up as a competitor. even if i had my choice, i would rather be the earl of warwick than all the _kings_ he ever made! jeffrey and gifford i take to be the monarch-makers in poetry and prose. the 'british critic', in their rokeby review, have presupposed a comparison which i am sure my friends never thought of, and w. scott's subjects are injudicious in descending to. i like the man--and admire his works to what mr. braham calls _entusymusy_. all such stuff can only vex him, and do me no good. many hate his politics--(i hate all politics); and, here, a man's politics are like the greek _soul_--an [greek: eidolon], besides god knows what _other soul_; but their estimate of the two generally go together. harry has not brought _ma petite cousine_. i want us to go to the play together;--she has been but once. another short note from jersey, inviting rogers and me on the d. i must see my agent to-night. i wonder when that newstead business will be finished. it cost me more than words to part with it--and to _have_ parted with it! what matters it what i do? or what becomes of me?--but let me remember job's saying, and console myself with being "a living man." i wish i could settle to reading again,--my life is monotonous, and yet desultory. i take up books, and fling them down again. i began a comedy, and burnt it because the scene ran into _reality_;--a novel, for the same reason. in rhyme, i can keep more away from facts; but the thought always runs through, through ... yes, yes, through. i have had a letter from lady melbourne--the best friend i ever had in my life, and the cleverest of women. not a word from----[lady f. w. webster], have they set out from----? or has my last precious epistle fallen into the lion's jaws? if so--and this silence looks suspicious--i must clap on my "musty morion" and "hold out my iron." [ ] i am out of practice--but i won't begin again at manton's now. besides, i would not return his shot. i was once a famous wafer-splitter; but then the bullies of society made it necessary. ever since i began to feel that i had a bad cause to support, i have left off the exercise. what strange tidings from that anakim of anarchy--buonaparte [ ]! ever since i defended my bust of him at harrow against the rascally time-servers, when the war broke out in , he has been a _héros de roman_ of mine--on the continent; i don't want him here. but i don't like those same flights--leaving of armies, etc., etc. i am sure when i fought for his bust at school, i did not think he would run away from himself. but i should not wonder if he banged them yet. to be beat by men would be something; but by three stupid, legitimate-old-dynasty boobies of regular-bred sovereigns--o-hone-a-rie!--o-hone-a-rie! it must be, as cobbett says, his marriage with the thick-lipped and thick-headed _autrichienne_ brood. he had better have kept to her who was kept by barras. i never knew any good come of your young wife, and legal espousals, to any but your "sober-blooded boy" who "eats fish" and drinketh "no sack." [ ] had he not the whole opera? all paris? all france? but a mistress is just as perplexing--that is, _one_--two or more are manageable by division. i have begun, or had begun, a song, and flung it into the fire. it was in remembrance of mary duff, [ ] my first of flames, before most people begin to burn. i wonder what the devil is the matter with me! i can do nothing, and--fortunately there is nothing to do. it has lately been in my power to make two persons (and their connections) comfortable, _pro tempore_, and one happy, _ex tempore_,--i rejoice in the last particularly, as it is an excellent man. [ ] i wish there had been more convenience and less gratification to my self-love in it, for then there had been more merit. we are all selfish--and i believe, ye gods of epicurus! i believe in rochefoucault about _men_, and in lucretius (not busby's translation) about yourselves. [ ] your bard has made you very _nonchalant_ and blest; but as he has excused _us_ from damnation, i don't envy you your blessedness much--a little, to be sure. i remember, last year,----[lady oxford] said to me, at----[eywood], "have we not passed our last month like the gods of lucretius?" and so we had. she is an adept in the text of the original (which i like too); and when that booby bus. sent his translating prospectus, she subscribed. but, the devil prompting him to add a specimen, she transmitted him a subsequent answer, saying, that "after perusing it, her conscience would not permit her to allow her name to remain on the list of subscribblers." last night, at lord h.'s--mackintosh, the ossulstones, puységur, [ ] etc., there--i was trying to recollect a quotation (as _i_ think) of stael's, from some teutonic sophist about architecture. "architecture," says this macoronico tedescho, "reminds me of frozen music." it is somewhere--but where?--the demon of perplexity must know and won't tell. i asked m., and he said it was not in her: but puységur said it must be _hers_, it was so _like_. h. laughed, as he does at all "_de l'allemagne_"--in which, however, i think he goes a little too far. b., i hear, contemns it too. but there are fine passages;--and, after all, what is a work--any--or every work--but a desert with fountains, and, perhaps, a grove or two, every day's journey? to be sure, in madame, what we often mistake, and "pant for," as the "cooling stream," turns out to be the "_mirage_" (criticè _verbiage_); but we do, at last, get to something like the temple of jove ammon, and then the waste we have passed is only remembered to gladden the contrast. called on c--, to explain----. she is very beautiful, to my taste, at least; for on coming home from abroad, i recollect being unable to look at any woman but her--they were so fair, and unmeaning, and _blonde_. the darkness and regularity of her features reminded me of my "jannat al aden." but this impression wore off; and now i can look at a fair woman, without longing for a houri. she was very good-tempered, and every thing was explained. to-day, great news--"the dutch have taken holland,"--which, i suppose, will be succeeded by the actual explosion of the thames. five provinces have declared for young stadt, and there will be inundation, conflagration, constupration, consternation, and every sort of nation and nations, fighting away, up to their knees, in the damnable quags of this will-o'-the-wisp abode of boors. it is said bernadotte is amongst them, too; and, as orange will be there soon, they will have (crown) prince stork and king log in their loggery at the same time. two to one on the new dynasty! mr. murray has offered me one thousand guineas for _the giaour_ and _the bride of abydos_. i won't--it is too much, though i am strongly tempted, merely for the _say_ of it. no bad price for a fortnight's (a week each) what?--the gods know--it was intended to be called poetry. i have dined regularly to-day, for the first time since sunday last--this being sabbath, too. all the rest, tea and dry biscuits--six _per diem_. i wish to god i had not dined now!--it kills me with heaviness, stupor, and horrible dreams; and yet it was but a pint of bucellas, and fish.[ ] meat i never touch,--nor much vegetable diet. i wish i were in the country, to take exercise,--instead of being obliged to _cool_ by abstinence, in lieu of it. i should not so much mind a little accession of flesh,--my bones can well bear it. but the worst is, the devil always came with it,--till i starved him out,--and i will _not_ be the slave of _any_ appetite. if i do err, it shall be my heart, at least, that heralds the way. oh, my head--how it aches?--the horrors of digestion! i wonder how buonaparte's dinner agrees with him? mem. i must write to-morrow to "master shallow, who owes me a thousand pounds," [ ] and seems, in his letter, afraid i should ask him for it; [ ]--as if i would!--i don't want it (just now, at least,) to begin with; and though i have often wanted that sum, i never asked for the repayment of £ . in my life--from a friend. his bond is not due this year, and i told him when it was, i should not enforce it. how often must he make me say the same thing? i am wrong--i did once ask----[ ] to repay me. but it was under circumstances that excused me _to him_, and would to any one. i took no interest, nor required security. he paid me soon,--at least, his _padre_. my head! i believe it was given me to ache with. good even. [footnote : "wherefore doth a living man complain?" ('lam'. iii. ).] [footnote : george ellis ( - ), a contributor to the 'rolliad' and the 'anti-jacobin', and "the first converser" walter scott "ever knew."] [footnote : "i dare not fight; but i will wink, and hold out mine iron." 'henry v.', act ii. sc. i.] [footnote : byron was not always, even at harrow, attached to buonaparte, for, if we may trust harness, he "roared out" at a buonapartist schoolfellow: "bold robert speer was bony's bad precursor. bob was a bloody dog, but bonaparte a worser." his feeling for him was probably that which is expressed in the following passage from an undated letter, written to him by moore: "we owe great gratitude to this thunderstorm of a fellow for clearing the air of all the old legitimate fogs that have settled upon us, and i sincerely trust his task is not yet over." ticknor ('life', vol. i. p. ) describes byron's reception of the news of the battle of waterloo: "after an instant's pause, lord byron replied, 'i am damned sorry for it;' and then, after another slight pause, he added, 'i didn't know but i might live to see lord castlereagh's head on a pole. but i suppose i shan't now.'" byron's liking for buonaparte was probably increased by his dislike of wellington and blucher. the following passages are taken from the 'detached thoughts'( ): "the vanity of victories is considerable. of all who fell at waterloo or trafalgar, ask any man in company to 'name you ten off hand'. they will stick at nelson: the other will survive himself. 'nelson was' a hero, the other is a mere corporal, dividing with prussians and spaniards the luck which he never deserved. he even--but i hate the fool, and will be silent." "the miscreant wellington is the cub of fortune, but she will never lick him into shape. if he lives, he will be beaten; that's certain. victory was never before wasted upon such an unprofitable soil as this dunghill of tyranny, whence nothing springs but viper's eggs." "i remember seeing blucher in the london assemblies, and never saw anything of his age less venerable. with the voice and manners of a recruiting sergeant, he pretended to the honours of a hero; just as if a stone could be worshipped because a man stumbled over it."] [footnote : henry iv., part ii. act iv. se. .] [footnote : mary duff, his distant cousin, who lived not far from the "plain-stanes" of aberdeen, in byron's childhood. she married mr. robert cockburn, a wine-merchant in edinburgh and london.] [footnote : the first is, perhaps, dallas; the second probably is francis hodgson, to whom he gave, from first to last, £ .] [footnote : "l'intérêt est l'ame de l'amour-propre, de sorte que comme le corps, privé de son ame, est sans vue, sans ouïe, sans connoissance, sans sentiment, et sans mouvement; de même l'amour-propre, séparé, s'il le faut dire ainsi, de son intérêt, ne voit, n'entend, ne sent, et ne se remue plus," etc., etc. (rochefoucault, lettre à madame sablé). the passage in lucretius probably is 'de rerum naturâ', i. - .] [footnote : "monsieur de puységur," says lady h. leveson gower ('letters of harriet, countess of granville', vol. i. p. ), "is really 'concentré' into one wrinkle. it is the oldest, gayest, thinnest, most withered, and most brilliant thing one can meet with. when there are so many young, fat fools going about the world, i wish for the transmigration of souls. puységur might animate a whole family." the phrase, of which byron was in search, is goethe's, 'eine erstarrte musik' (stevens's 'life of madame de staël', vol. ii. p. ).] [footnote : that the poet sometimes dined seems evident from the annexed bill: lord byron. to m. richold -- £ s. d. ballance of last bill aug. . to dinner bill . to do. do. . to do. do. . to do. do. . to share of do. . to dinner bill . to do. do. . to do. do. . to share of do. . to dinner bill . to do. do. . to do. do. . to do. do. aug. . to dinner bill . to do. do. sept . to do. do. . to do. do. . to do. do. . to do. do. . to do. do. . to do. do. . to do. do. nov. . to do. do. . to do. do. -- -- -- £ ] [footnote : henry iv., part ii. act v. sc. .] [footnote : james wedderburn webster (see p. , note [footnote of letter ]).] [footnote : probably john cam hobhouse, whose expenses on the tour of - were paid by byron, and repaid by sir benjamin hobhouse.] * * * * * nov. , . "orange boven!" [ ] so the bees have expelled the bear that broke open their hive. well,--if we are to have new de witts and de ruyters, god speed the little republic! i should like to see the hague and the village of brock, where they have such primitive habits. yet, i don't know,--their canals would cut a poor figure by the memory of the bosphorus; and the zuyder zee look awkwardly after "ak-denizi" [ ]. no matter,--the bluff burghers, puffing freedom out of their short tobacco-pipes, might be worth seeing; though i prefer a cigar or a hooka, with the rose-leaf mixed with the milder herb of the levant. i don't know what liberty means,--never having seen it,--but wealth is power all over the world; and as a shilling performs the duty of a pound (besides sun and sky and beauty for nothing) in the east,--_that_ is the country. how i envy herodes atticus [ ]!--more than pomponius. and yet a little _tumult_, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an _aventure_ of any lively description. i think i rather would have been bonneval, ripperda, alberoni, hayreddin, or horuc barbarossa, or even wortley montague, than mahomet himself. [ ] rogers will be in town soon?--the d is fixed for our middleton visit. shall i go? umph!--in this island, where one can't ride out without overtaking the sea, it don't much matter where one goes. i remember the effect of the _first edinburgh review_ on me. i heard of it six weeks before,--read it the day of its denunciation,--dined and drank three bottles of claret, (with s. b. davies, i think,) neither ate nor slept the less, but, nevertheless, was not easy till i had vented my wrath and my rhyme, in the same pages, against every thing and every body. like george, in the _vicar of wakefield_,--"the fate of my paradoxes" [ ] would allow me to perceive no merit in another. i remembered only the maxim of my boxing-master, which, in my youth, was found useful in all general riots,--"whoever is not for you is against you--_mill_ away right and left," and so i did;--like ishmael, my hand was against all men, and all men's anent me. i did wonder, to be sure, at my own success: "and marvels so much wit is all his own," [ ] as hobhouse sarcastically says of somebody (not unlikely myself, as we are old friends);--but were it to come over again, i would _not_. i have since redde the cause of my couplets, and it is not adequate to the effect. c----told me that it was believed i alluded to poor lord carlisle's nervous disorder in one of the lines. i thank heaven i did not know it--and would not, could not, if i had. i must naturally be the last person to be pointed on defects or maladies. rogers is silent,--and, it is said, severe. when he does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. if you enter his house--his drawing-room--his library--you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. there is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor. but this very delicacy must be the misery of his existence. oh the jarrings his disposition must have encountered through life! southey, i have not seen much of. his appearance is _epic_; and he is the only existing entire man of letters. all the others have some pursuit annexed to their authorship. his manners are mild, but not those of a man of the world, and his talents of the first order. his prose is perfect. of his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps, too much of it for the present generation; posterity will probably select. he has _passages_ equal to any thing. at present, he has _a party_, but no _public_--except for his prose writings. the life of nelson is beautiful. sotheby [ ] is a _littérateur_, the oracle of the coteries, of the----s [ ], lydia white (sydney smith's "tory virgin") [ ], mrs. wilmot [ ] (she, at least, is a swan, and might frequent a purer stream,) lady beaumont, [ ] and all the blues, with lady charlemont [ ] at their head--but i say nothing of _her_--"look in her face and you forget them all," and every thing else. oh that face!--by _te, diva potens cypri_, i would, to be beloved by that woman, build and burn another troy. moore has a peculiarity of talent, or rather talents,--poetry, music, voice, all his own; and an expression in each, which never was, nor will be, possessed by another. but he is capable of still higher flights in poetry. by the by, what humour, what--every thing, in the "_post-bag!_" there is nothing moore may not do, if he will but seriously set about it. in society, he is gentlemanly, gentle, and, altogether, more pleasing than any individual with whom i am acquainted. for his honour, principle, and independence, his conduct to----speaks "trumpet-tongued." he has but one fault--and that one i daily regret--he is not _here_. [footnote : holland, constituted a kingdom for louis napoleon ( ), was ( ) incorporated with the french empire. on november , , the people of amsterdam raised the cry of "orange boven!", donned the orange colours, and expelled the french from the city. their example was followed in other provinces, and on november , deputies arrived in london, asking the prince of orange to place himself at the head of the movement. he landed in holland, november , and entered amsterdam the next day in state. a play was announced at drury lane, december , , under the title of 'orange boven', but it was suppressed because no licence had been obtained for its performance. it was produced december , , and ran about ten nights.] [footnote : the lake of ak-deniz, north-east of antioch, into and out of which flows the nahr-ifrin to join the nahr-el-asy or orontes.] [footnote : a typically wealthy greek, as pomponius atticus was a typically wealthy roman.] [footnote : bonneval ( - ) was a french soldier of fortune, who served successively in the austrian, russian, and turkish armies. ripperda (died ) a dutch adventurer, became prime minister of spain under philip v., and after his fall turned mohammedan. alberoni ( - ) was an italian adventurer, who became prime minister of spain in . hayreddin (died ) and horuc barbarossa (died ) were algerine pirates. edward wortley montague ( - ), son of lady mary, saw the inside of several prisons, served at fontenoy, sat in the british parliament, was received into the roman catholic church at jerusalem ( ), lived at rosetta as a mohammedan with his mistress, caroline dormer, till , and died at padua, from swallowing a fish-bone.] [footnote : 'vicar of wakefield' (chap. xx.). the vicar's eldest son, george, "resolved to write a book that should be wholly new. i therefore dressed up three paradoxes with some ingenuity.... 'well,' asks the vicar, 'and what did the learned world say to your paradoxes?' 'sir,' replied my son, 'the learned world said nothing to my paradoxes, nothing at all.... i found that no genius in another could please me. my unfortunate paradoxes had entirely dried up that source of comfort. i could neither read nor write with satisfaction; for excellence in another was my aversion, and writing was my trade.'"] [footnote : from boileau ('imitations, etc.', by j.c. hobhouse): "with what delight rhymes on the scribbling dunce. he's ne'er perplex'd to choose, but right at once; with rapture hails each work as soon as done, and wonders so much wit was all his own."] [footnote : at sotheby's house, miss jane porter, author of 'the scottish chiefs', etc., etc., met byron. she made the following note of his appearance, and after his death sent it to his sister: "i once had the gratification of seeing lord byron. he was at evening party at the poet sotheby's. i was not aware of his being in the room, or even that he had been invited, when i was arrested from listening to the person conversing with me by the sounds of the most melodious speaking voice i had ever heard. it was gentle and beautifully modulated. i turned round to look for the speaker, and then saw a gentleman in black of an elegant form (for nothing of his lameness could be discovered), and with a face i never shall forget. the features of the finest proportions. the eye deep set, but mildly lustrous; and the complexion what i at the time described to my sister as a sort of moonlight paleness. it was so pale, yet with all so softly brilliant. "i instantly asked my companion who that gentleman was. he replied, 'lord byron.' i was astonished, for there was no scorn, no disdain, nothing in that noble countenance _then_ of the proud spirit which has since soared to heaven, illuminating the horizon far and wide."] [footnote : probably the berrys.] [footnote : miss lydia white, the "miss diddle" of byron's 'blues', of whom ticknor speaks ('life', vol. i. p. ) as "the fashionable blue-stocking," was a wealthy irishwoman, well known for her dinners and conversaziones "in all the capitals of europe. at one of her dinners in park street (all the company except herself being whigs), the desperate prospects of the whig party were discussed. yes,' said sydney smith, who was present, 'we are in a most deplorable condition; we must do something to help ourselves. i think,' said he, looking at lydia white, 'we had better sacrifice a tory virgin'" (lady morgan's 'memoirs', vol. ii. p. ). miss berry, in her 'journal' (vol. iii. p. , may , ), says, "lord and lady byron persuaded me to go with them to miss white. never have i seen a more imposing convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered, taking william spencer with us. lord byron brought me home. he stayed to supper." miss white's last years were passed in bad health. moore called upon rogers, may , : "found him in high good humour. in talking of miss white, he said, 'how wonderfully she does hold out! they may say what they will, but miss white and 'miss'olongi are the most remarkable things going" ('memoirs, etc.', vol. v. p. ). lydia white died in february, .] [footnote : barberina ogle ( - ), daughter of sir chaloner ogle, widow of valentia wilmot, married, in , lord dacre. her tragedy, 'ina', was produced at drury lane, april , . her literary work was, for the most part, privately printed: 'dramas, translations, and occasional poems' ( ); 'translations from the italian' ( ). she also edited her daughter's 'recollections of a chaperon' ( ), and 'tales of the peerage and peasantry' ( ).] [footnote : margaret willes, granddaughter of chief justice willes, married, in , sir george beaumont, bart. ( - ), the landscape-painter, art critic, and picture-collector, who founded the national gallery, was a friend of sir joshua reynolds, of dr. johnson, and of wordsworth, and is mentioned by byron in the 'blues': "sir george thinks exactly with lady bluebottle."] [footnote : francis william caulfield, who succeeded his father, in , as second earl of charlemont, married, in , anne, daughter of william bermingham, of ross hill, co. galway. she died in . of lady charlemont's beauty byron was an enthusiastic admirer. in his 'letter on the rev. w.l. bowles's strictures on pope' (february , ) he says, "the head of lady charlemont (when i first saw her, nine years ago) seemed to possess all that sculpture could require for its ideal." moore ('journals, etc.', vol. iii. p. ) has the following entry in his diary for november , : "called upon lady charlemont, and sat with her some time. lady mansfield told me that the effect she produces here with her beauty is wonderful; last night, at the comtesse d'albany's, the italians were ready to fall down and worship her." for the two quotations, see horace, 'odes', i. iii. , and 'the rape of the lock', ii. .] * * * * * nov. . ward--i like ward. by mahomet! i begin to think i like every body;--a disposition not to be encouraged;--a sort of social gluttony that swallows every thing set before it. but i like ward. he is _piquant_; and, in my opinion, will stand very _high_ in the house, and every where else, if he applies _regularly_. by the by, i dine with him to-morrow, which may have some influence on my opinion. it is as well not to trust one's gratitude _after_ dinner. i have heard many a host libelled by his guests, with his burgundy yet reeking on their rascally lips. i have taken lord salisbury's box at covent garden for the season; and now i must go and prepare to join lady holland and party, in theirs, at drury lane, _questa sera_. holland doesn't think the man is _junius_; but that the yet unpublished journal throws great light on the obscurities of that part of george the second's reign.--what is this to george the third's? i don't know what to think. why should junius be yet dead? if suddenly apoplexed, would he rest in his grave without sending his [greek: eidolon] to shout in the ears of posterity, "junius was x.y.z., esq., buried in the parish of ----. repair his monument, ye churchwardens! print a new edition of his letters, ye booksellers!" impossible,--the man must be alive, and will never die without the disclosure. i like him;--he was a good hater. came home unwell and went to bed,--not so sleepy as might be desirable. tuesday morning. i awoke from a dream!--well! and have not others dreamed?--such a dream!--but she did not overtake me. i wish the dead would rest, however. ugh! how my blood chilled,--and i could not wake--and--and--heigho! "shadows to-night have struck more terror to the soul of richard, than could the substance of ten thousand----s, arm'd all in proof, and led by shallow----." [ ] i do not like this dream,--i hate its "foregone conclusion." and am i to be shaken by shadows? ay, when they remind us of--no matter--but, if i dream thus again, i will try whether _all_ sleep has the like visions. since i rose, i've been in considerable bodily pain also; but it is gone, and now, like lord ogleby [ ], i am wound up for the day. a note from mountnorris [ ]--i dine with ward;--canning is to be there, frere [ ] and sharpe [ ], perhaps gifford. i am to be one of "the five" (or rather six), as lady----said a little sneeringly yesterday. they are all good to meet, particularly canning, and--ward, when he likes. i wish i may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals. no letters to-day;--so much the better,--there are no answers. i must not dream again;--it spoils even reality. i will go out of doors, and see what the fog will do for me. jackson has been here: the boxing world much as usual;--but the club increases. i shall dine at crib's [ ] to-morrow. i like energy--even animal energy--of all kinds; and i have need of both mental and corporeal. i have not dined out, nor, indeed, _at all_, lately: have heard no music--have seen nobody. now for a _plunge_--high life and low life. _amant_ alterna _camoenæ!_ [ ]. i have burnt my _roman_--as i did the first scenes and sketch of my comedy--and, for aught i see, the pleasure of burning is quite as great as that of printing. these two last would not have done. i ran into _realities_ more than ever; and some would have been recognised and others guessed at. redde the _ruminator_--a collection of essays, by a strange, but able, old man [sir egerton brydges] [ ], and a half-wild young one, author of a poem on the highlands, called _childe alarique_ [ ]. the word "sensibility" (always my aversion) occurs a thousand times in these essays; and, it seems, is to be an excuse for all kinds of discontent. this young man can know nothing of life; and, if he cherishes the disposition which runs through his papers, will become useless, and, perhaps, not even a poet, after all, which he seems determined to be. god help him! no one should be a rhymer who could be any thing better. and this is what annoys one, to see scott and moore, and campbell and rogers, who might have all been agents and leaders, now mere spectators. for, though they may have other ostensible avocations, these last are reduced to a secondary consideration.----, too, frittering away his time among dowagers and unmarried girls. if it advanced any _serious_ affair, it were some excuse; but, with the unmarried, that is a hazardous speculation, and tiresome enough, too; and, with the veterans, it is not much worth trying, unless, perhaps, one in a thousand. if i had any views in this country, they would probably be parliamentary [ ]. but i have no ambition; at least, if any, it would be _aut cæsar aut nihil_. my hopes are limited to the arrangement of my affairs, and settling either in italy or the east (rather the last), and drinking deep of the languages and literature of both. past events have unnerved me; and all i can now do is to make life an amusement, and look on while others play. after all, even the highest game of crowns and sceptres, what is it? _vide_ napoleon's last twelvemonth. it has completely upset my system of fatalism. i thought, if crushed, he would have fallen, when _fractus illabitur orbis_, [ ] and not have been pared away to gradual insignificance; that all this was not a mere _jeu_ of the gods, but a prelude to greater changes and mightier events. but men never advance beyond a certain point; and here we are, retrograding, to the dull, stupid old system,--balance of europe--poising straws upon kings' noses, instead of wringing them off! give me a republic, or a despotism of one, rather than the mixed government of one, two, three. a republic!--look in the history of the earth--rome, greece, venice, france, holland, america, our short (_eheu!_) commonwealth, and compare it with what they did under masters. the asiatics are not qualified to be republicans, but they have the liberty of demolishing despots, which is the next thing to it. to be the first man--not the dictator--not the sylla, but the washington or the aristides--the leader in talent and truth--is next to the divinity! franklin, penn, and, next to these, either brutus or cassius--even mirabeau--or st. just. i shall never be any thing, or rather always be nothing. the most i can hope is, that some will say, "he might, perhaps, if he would." , midnight. here are two confounded proofs from the printer. i have looked at the one, but for the soul of me, i can't look over that _giaour_ again,--at least, just now, and at this hour--and yet there is no moon. ward talks of going to holland, and we have partly discussed an _ensemble_ expedition. it must be in ten days, if at all, if we wish to be in at the revolution. and why not?----is distant, and will be at ----, still more distant, till spring. no one else, except augusta, cares for me; no ties--no trammels--_andiamo dunque--se torniamo, bene--se non, ch' importa?_ old william of orange talked of dying in "the last ditch" of his dingy country. it is lucky i can swim, or i suppose i should not well weather the first. but let us see. i have heard hyeenas and jackalls in the ruins of asia; and bull-frogs in the marshes; besides wolves and angry mussulmans. now, i should like to listen to the shout of a free dutchman. alla! viva! for ever! hourra! huzza!--which is the most rational or musical of these cries? "orange boven," according to the 'morning post'. [footnote : "by the apostle paul, shadows to-night have struck more terror to the soul of richard than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers, armed in proof, and led by shallow richmond." 'richard iii'., act v. sc. .] [footnote : "lord ogleby" is a character in 'the clandestine marriage' (by colman and garrick, first acted at drury lane, february , ). "brush," his valet, says (act ii.) of his master, "what with qualms, age, rheumatism, and a few surfeits in his youth, he must have a great deal of brushing, oyling, screwing, and winding up, to set him a-going for the day."] [footnote : viscount valentia, created in earl of mountnorris, was the father of byron's friend, viscount valentia (afterwards second and last earl of mountnorris, died in ); of lady frances wedderburn webster; of lady catherine annesley, who married lord john somerset, and died in ; and of lady juliana annesley, who married robert bayly, of ballyduff.] [footnote : john hookham frere ( - ), educated at eton, and caius college, cambridge (fellow, ), m.p. for west loe ( - ), was a clerk in the foreign office. a school-friend of canning, he joined with him in the 'anti-jacobin' (november , --july , ). among the pieces which he contributed, in whole or part, are "the loves of the triangles," "the friend of humanity and the knife-grinder," "the rovers, or the double arrangement," "_la sainte guillotine_" "new morality," and the "meeting of the friends of freedom." he was british envoy at lisbon ( - ) and to the spanish junta (october, -april, ). from this post he was recalled, owing to the fatal effects of his advice to sir john moore, and he never again held any public appointment. from to he lived at malta, where he died. his translations of "the frogs" of aristophanes ( ), and of "the acharnians, the knights, and the birds" ( ), are masterpieces of spirit and fidelity. his 'prospectus and specimen of an intended national work, by william and robert whistlecraft' (cantos i., ii., ; cantos iii., iv., ), inspired byron with 'beppo'. ticknor describes him in ('life', vol. i. p. ): "frere is a slovenly fellow. his remarks on homer, in the 'classical journal', prove how fine a greek scholar he is; his 'quarterly reviews', how well he writes; his 'rovers, or the double arrangement,' what humour he possesses; and the reputation he has left in spain and portugal, how much better he understood their literatures than they do themselves; while, at the same time, his books left in france, in gallicia, at lisbon, and two or three places in england; his manuscripts, neglected and lost to himself; his manners, lazy and careless; and his conversation, equally rich and negligent, show how little he cares about all that distinguishes him in the eyes of the world. he studies as a luxury, he writes as an amusement, and conversation is a kind of sensual enjoyment to him. if he had been born in asia, he would have been the laziest man that ever lived."] [footnote : for "conversation" sharp, see p. , 'note' [footnote of journal entry for november, .]] [footnote : thomas cribb ( - ), born at bitton, near bristol, began life as a bell-hanger, became first a coal-porter, then a sailor, and finally found his vocation as a pugilist. in his profession he was known, from one of his previous callings, as the "black diamond." his first big fight was against george maddox (january , ), whom he defeated after seventy-six rounds. he twice beat the ex-champion, the one-eyed jem belcher (april , , and february , ), and with his victory over bob gregson (october , ; see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]) became champion of england. his two defeats of molineaux, the black pugilist (december , , and september , ), established his title, which was never again seriously challenged, and in it was conferred upon him for life. cribb was one of the prize-fighters, who, dressed as pages, kept order at the coronation of george iv. in he was landlord of the king's arms, duke street, st. james's, and universally respected as the honest head of the pugilistic profession. he died in at woolwich; three years later a monument was erected to his memory by public subscription in woolwich churchyard. it represents "a british lion grieving over the ashes of a british hero," and on the plinth is the inscription, "respect the ashes of the brave."] [footnote : virgil, 'eclogues', iii. .] [footnote : sir samuel egerton brydges ( - ), poet, novelist, genealogist, and bibliographer, published, in , 'the ruminator: containing a series of moral, critical, and sentimental essays'. of the essays, appeared in the 'censura literaria' between january, , and june, . the remainder were by gillies, except two by the rev. francis wrangham and two by the rev. montagu pennington. no. is a review of some original poems by capell lofft, including a greek ode on eton college. gillies, in his 'memoirs of a literary veteran' (vol. ii. p. ), says that in he addressed an anonymous letter to brydges, containing some thoughts on the advantages of retirement (the subject of 'childe alarique'). the letter, printed in 'the ruminator', began his literary career and introduced him to brydges. 'the ruminator', vols. ( ), and 'childe alarique' ( ), are among the books included in the sale catalogue of byron's books, april , .] [footnote : robert pearse gillies ( - ) wrote 'wallace, a fragment' ( ); 'childe alarique, a poet's reverie, with other poems' ( ); 'confessions of sir henry longueville, a novel' ( ); and numerous other works and translations. his 'memoirs of a literary veteran' was published in . he was the founder and first editor of the 'foreign quarterly review' ( ).] [footnote : the following additional notes on byron's parliamentary career are taken from his 'detached thoughts':-- "at the opposition meeting of the peers, in , at lord grenville's, when lord grey and he read to us the correspondence upon moira's negociation, i sate next to the present duke of grafton. when it was over, i turned to him and said, 'what is to be done next?' 'wake the duke of norfolk' (who was snoring away near us), replied he. 'i don't think the negociators have left anything else for us to do this turn.'" "in the debate, or rather discussion, afterwards, in the house of lords, upon that very question, i sate immediately behind lord moira, who was extremely annoyed at g.'s speech upon the subject, and while g. was speaking, turned round to me repeatedly and asked me whether i agreed with him? it was an awkward question to me, who had not heard both sides. moira kept repeating to me, 'it was 'not so', it was so and so,' etc. i did not know very well what to think, but i sympathized with the acuteness of his feelings upon the subject." "lord eldon affects an imitation of two very different chancellors--thurlow and loughborough--and can indulge in an oath now and then. on one of the debates on the catholic question, when we were either equal or within one (i forget which), i had been sent for in great haste from a ball, which i quitted, i confess somewhat reluctantly, to emancipate five millions of people. i came in late, and did not go immediately into the body of the house, but stood just behind the woolsack. eldon turned round, and, catching my eye, immediately said to a peer (who had come to him for a few minutes on the woolsack, as is the custom of his friends), 'damn them! they'll have it now, by god!--the vote that is just come in will give it them.'"] [footnote : horace, 'odes', iii. iii. .] * * * * * wednesday, . no dreams last night of the dead, nor the living; so--i am "firm as the marble, founded as the rock," [ ] till the next earthquake. ward's dinner went off well. there was not a disagreeable person there--unless _i_ offended any body, which i am sure i could not by contradiction, for i said little, and opposed nothing. sharpe [ ] (a man of elegant mind, and who has lived much with the best--fox, horne tooke, windham, fitzpatrick, and all the agitators of other times and tongues,) told us the particulars of his last interview with windham, [ ] a few days before the fatal operation which sent "that gallant spirit to aspire the skies." [ ] windham,--the first in one department of oratory and talent, whose only fault was his refinement beyond the intellect of half his hearers,--windham, half his life an active participator in the events of the earth, and one of those who governed nations,--_he_ regretted,--and dwelt much on that regret, that "he had not entirely devoted himself to literature and science!!!" his mind certainly would have carried him to eminence there, as elsewhere;--but i cannot comprehend what debility of that mind could suggest such a wish. i, who have heard him, cannot regret any thing but that i shall never hear him again. what! would he have been a plodder? a metaphysician?--perhaps a rhymer? a scribbler? such an exchange must have been suggested by illness. but he is gone, and time "shall not look upon his like again." [ ] i am tremendously in arrear with my letters,--except to----, and to her my thoughts overpower me:--my words never compass them. to lady melbourne i write with most pleasure--and her answers, so sensible, so _tactique_--i never met with half her talent. if she had been a few years younger, what a fool she would have made of me, had she thought it worth her while,--and i should have lost a valuable and most agreeable _friend_. mem. a mistress never is nor can be a friend. while you agree, you are lovers; and, when it is over, any thing but friends. i have not answered w. scott's last letter,--but i will. i regret to hear from others, that he has lately been unfortunate in pecuniary involvements. he is undoubtedly the monarch of parnassus, and the most _english_ of bards. i should place rogers next in the living list (i value him more as the last of the best school)--moore and campbell both _third_--southey and wordsworth and coleridge--the rest, [greek: hoi polloi]--thus: w. scott. ^ rogers. moore.--campbell. southey.--wordsworth.--coleridge. < the many. > there is a triangular _gradus ad parnassum_!--the names are too numerous for the base of the triangle. poor thurlow has gone wild about the poetry of queen bess's reign--_c'est dommage_. i have ranked the names upon my triangle more upon what i believe popular opinion, than any decided opinion of my own. for, to me, some of moore's last _erin_ sparks--"as a beam o'er the face of the waters"--"when he who adores thee"--"oh blame not"--and "oh breathe not his name"--are worth all the epics that ever were composed. rogers thinks the 'quarterly' will attack me next. let them. i have been "peppered so highly" in my time, _both_ ways, that it must be cayenne or aloes to make me taste. i can sincerely say, that i am not very much alive _now_ to criticism. but--in tracing this--i rather believe that it proceeds from my not attaching that importance to authorship which many do, and which, when young, i did also. "one gets tired of every thing, my angel," says valmont [ ]. the "angels" are the only things of which i am not a little sick--but i do think the preference of _writers_ to _agents_--the mighty stir made about scribbling and scribes, by themselves and others--a sign of effeminacy, degeneracy, and weakness. who would write, who had any thing better to do? "action--action--action"--said demosthenes: "actions--actions," i say, and not writing,--least of all, rhyme. look at the querulous and monotonous lives of the "genus;"--except cervantes, tasso, dante, ariosto, kleist (who were brave and active citizens), Æschylus, sophocles, and some other of the antiques also--what a worthless, idle brood it is! [footnote : 'macbeth', act iii. sc. -- "whole as the marble, founded as the rock."] [footnote : richard sharp ( - ), a wealthy hat-manufacturer, was a prominent figure in political and literary life. a consistent whig, he was one of the "friends of the people," and in the house of commons ( - ) was a recognized authority on questions of finance. essentially a "club-able man," he was a member of many clubs, both literary and political. in park lane and at mickleham he gathered round him many friends--rogers, moore, mackintosh, macaulay, coleridge, horner, grattan, horne tooke, and sydney smith, who was so frequently his guest in the country that he was called the "bishop of mickleham." horner (may , ) speaks of a visit paid to sharp in surrey, in company with grattan ('memoirs', vol. ii. p. ). ticknor, who, in , breakfasted with sharp in park lane ('life', vol. i. pp. , ), says of a party of "men of letters:" "i saw little of them, excepting mr. sharp, formerly a member of parliament, and who, from his talents in society, has been called 'conversation sharp.' he has been made an associate of most of the literary clubs in london, from the days of burke down to the present time. he told me a great many amusing anecdotes of them, and particularly of burke, porson, and grattan, with whom he had been intimate; and occupied the dinner-time as pleasantly as the same number of hours have passed with me in england.... 'june '.--this morning i breakfasted with mr. sharp, and had a continuation of yesterday,--more pleasant accounts of the great men of the present day, and more amusing anecdotes of the generation that has passed away." miss berry, who met sharp often, writes, in her journal for march , ('journal', vol. ii. p. ), "he is clever, but i should suspect of little real depth of intellect." sharp published anonymously a volume of 'epistles in verse' ( ). these were reproduced, with additions, in his 'letters and essays', published with his name in . his "epistle to an eminent poet" is evidently addressed to his lifelong friend, samuel rogers: "yes! thou hast chosen well 'the better part,' and, for the triumphs of the noblest art, hast wisely scorn'd the sordid cares of life."] [footnote : william windham, of felbrigg hall ( - ), educated at eton, glasgow, and university college, oxford, became m.p. for norwich in . in the following year he was made chief secretary to lord northington, lord-lieutenant of ireland. expressing some doubts to dr. johnson whether he possessed the arts necessary for parliamentary success, the doctor said, "you will become an able negotiator; a very pretty rascal." he resigned the secretaryship within the year, according to gibbon, on the plea of ill health. he was one of the managers of the impeachment of warren hastings in , secretary at war from to , and war and colonial secretary, - . windham, a shrewd critic of other speakers, called pitt's style a "state-paper style," because of its combined dignity and poverty, and "verily believed mr. pitt could speak a king's speech off-hand." as a speaker he was himself remarkably effective, a master of illustration and allusion, delighting in "homely saxon," and affecting provincial words and pronunciation. lord sheffield, writing to gibbon, february , , says, "as to windham, i should think he is become the best, at least the most sensible, speaker of the whole." his love of paradox, combined with his political independence and irresolution, gained him the name of "weathercock windham;" but he was respected by both sides as an honest politician. outside the house it was his ambition to be known as a thorough englishman--a patron of horse-racing, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, pugilism, and football. he was also a scholar, a man of wide reading, an admirable talker, and a friend of miss berry and of madame d'arblay, in whose diaries he is a prominent figure. his own 'diary' ( - ) was published in . on the th of july, , he saw a fire in conduit street, which threatened to spread to the house of his friend north, who possessed a valuable library. in his efforts to save the books, he fell and bruised his hip. a tumour formed, which was removed; but he sank under the operation, and died june , .] [footnote : "o romeo, romeo, brave mercutio's dead; that gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds." 'romeo and juliet', act iii. sc. .] [footnote : "he was a man, take him for all in all, i shall not look upon his like again." 'hamlet', act i. sc. .] [footnote : the allusion probably is to 'the foundling of the forest' ( ), by william dimond the younger. but no passage exactly corresponds to the quotation.] * * * * * , mezza notte. just returned from dinner with jackson (the emperor of pugilism) and another of the select, at crib's, the champion's. i drank more than i like, and have brought away some three bottles of very fair claret--for i have no headach. we had tom crib up after dinner;--very facetious, though somewhat prolix. he don't like his situation--wants to fight again--pray pollux (or castor, if he was the _miller_) he may! tom has been a sailor--a coal-heaver--and some other genteel profession, before he took to the cestus. tom has been in action at sea, and is now only three-and-thirty. a great man! has a wife and a mistress, and conversations well--bating some sad omissions and misapplications of the aspirate. tom is an old friend of mine; i have seen some of his best battles in my nonage. he is now a publican, and, i fear, a sinner;--for mrs. crib is on alimony, and tom's daughter lives with the champion. _this_ tom told me,--tom, having an opinion of my morals, passed her off as a legal spouse. talking of her, he said, "she was the truest of women"--from which i immediately inferred she could _not_ be his wife, and so it turned out. these panegyrics don't belong to matrimony;--for, if "true," a man don't think it necessary to say so; and if not, the less he says the better. crib is the only man except----, i ever heard harangue upon his wife's virtue; and i listened to both with great credence and patience, and stuffed my handkerchief into my mouth, when i found yawning irresistible--by the by, i am yawning now--so, good night to thee.--[greek: noairon] [ ] [footnote : it is doubtful whether this is not a mistake for [greek: npairon], a variant of [greek: mpairon], which is the correct transliteration into modern greek of 'byron', but the ms. is destroyed.] * * * * * thursday, november . awoke a little feverish, but no headach--no dreams neither, thanks to stupor! two letters; one from----, the other from lady melbourne--both excellent in their respective styles.----'s contained also a very pretty lyric on "concealed griefs;" if not her own, yet very like her. why did she not say that the stanzas were, or were not, of her own composition? i do not know whether to wish them _hers_ or not. i have no great esteem for poetical persons, particularly women; they have so much of the "ideal" in _practics_, as well as _ethics_. i have been thinking lately a good deal of mary duff. how very odd that i should have been so utterly, devotedly fond of that girl, at an age when i could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the word. and the effect! my mother used always to rally me about this childish amour; and, at last, many years after, when i was sixteen, she told me one day, "oh, byron, i have had a letter from edinburgh, from miss abercromby, and your old sweetheart mary duff is married to a mr. co'e." and what was my answer? i really cannot explain or account for my feelings at that moment; but they nearly threw me into convulsions, and alarmed my mother so much, that after i grew better, she generally avoided the subject--to _me_--and contented herself with telling it to all her acquaintance. now, what could this be? i had never seen her since her mother's _faux pas_ at aberdeen had been the cause of her removal to her grandmother's at banff; we were both the merest children. i had and have been attached fifty times since that period; yet i recollect all we said to each other, all our caresses, her features, my restlessness, sleeplessness, my tormenting my mother's maid to write for me to her, which she at last did, to quiet me. poor nancy thought i was wild, and, as i could not write for myself, became my secretary. i remember, too, our walks, and the happiness of sitting by mary, in the children's apartment, at their house not far from the plain-stanes at aberdeen, while her lesser sister helen played with the doll, and we sat gravely making love, in our way. how the deuce did all this occur so early? where could it originate? i certainly had no sexual ideas for years afterwards; and yet my misery, my love for that girl were so violent, that i sometimes doubt if i have ever been really attached since. be that as it may, hearing of her marriage several years after was like a thunder-stroke--it nearly choked me--to the horror of my mother and the astonishment and almost incredulity of every body. and it is a phenomenon in my existence (for i was not eight years old) which has puzzled, and will puzzle me to the latest hour of it; and lately, i know not why, the _recollection_ (_not_ the attachment) has recurred as forcibly as ever. i wonder if she can have the least remembrance of it or me? or remember her pitying sister helen for not having an admirer too? how very pretty is the perfect image of her in my memory--her brown, dark hair, and hazel eyes; her very dress! i should be quite grieved to see _her now_; the reality, however beautiful, would destroy, or at least confuse, the features of the lovely peri which then existed in her, and still lives in my imagination, at the distance of more than sixteen years. i am now twenty-five and odd months.... i think my mother told the circumstances (on my hearing of her marriage) to the parkynses, and certainly to the pigot family, and probably mentioned it in her answer to miss a., who was well acquainted with my childish _penchant_, and had sent the news on purpose for _me_,--and thanks to her! next to the beginning, the conclusion has often occupied my reflections, in the way of investigation. that the facts are thus, others know as well as i, and my memory yet tells me so, in more than a whisper. but, the more i reflect, the more i am bewildered to assign any cause for this precocity of affection. lord holland invited me to dinner to-day; but three days' dining would destroy me. so, without eating at all since yesterday, i went to my box at covent garden. saw----looking very pretty, though quite a different style of beauty from the other two. she has the finest eyes in the world, out of which she pretends _not_ to see, and the longest eyelashes i ever saw, since leila's and phannio's moslem curtains of the light. she has much beauty,--just enough,--but is, i think, _méchante_. i have been pondering on the miseries of separation, that--oh how seldom we see those we love! yet we live ages in moments, _when met_. the only thing that consoles me during absence is the reflection that no mental or personal estrangement, from ennui or disagreement, can take place; and when people meet hereafter, even though many changes may have taken place in the mean time, still, unless they are _tired_ of each other, they are ready to reunite, and do not blame each other for the circumstances that severed them. * * * * * saturday (i believe or rather am in _doubt_, which is the _ne plus ultra_ of mortal faith.) i have missed a day; and, as the irishman said, or joe miller says for him, "have gained a loss," or _by_ the loss. every thing is settled for holland, and nothing but a cough, or a caprice of my fellow-traveller's, can stop us. carriage ordered, funds prepared, and, probably, a gale of wind into the bargain. _n'importe_--i believe, with clym o' the clow, or robin hood, "by our mary, (dear name!) thou art both mother and may, i think it never was a man's lot to die before his day." [ ] heigh for helvoetsluys, and so forth! to-night i went with young henry fox to see _nourjahad_, a drama, which the _morning post_ hath laid to my charge, but of which i cannot even guess the author. i wonder what they will next inflict upon me. they cannot well sink below a melodrama; but that is better than a satire, (at least, a personal one,) with which i stand truly arraigned, and in atonement of which i am resolved to bear silently all criticisms, abuses, and even praises, for bad pantomimes never composed by me, without even a contradictory aspect. i suppose the root of this report is my loan to the manager of my turkish drawings for his dresses, to which he was more welcome than to my name. i suppose the real author will soon own it, as it has succeeded; if not, job be my model, and lethe my beverage! ----has received the portrait safe; and, in answer, the only remark she makes upon it is, "indeed it is like"--and again, "indeed it is like." with her the likeness "covered a multitude of sins;" for i happen to know that this portrait was not a flatterer, but dark and stern,--even black as the mood in which my mind was scorching last july, when i sat for it. all the others of me, like most portraits whatsoever, are, of course, more agreeable than nature. redde the 'edinburgh review' of rogers. he is ranked highly; but where he should be. there is a summary view of us all--_moore_ and _me_ among the rest; [ ] and both (the _first_ justly) praised--though, by implication (justly again) placed beneath our memorable friend. mackintosh is the writer, and also of the critique on the stael. [ ] his grand essay on burke, i hear, is for the next number. but i know nothing of the 'edinburgh', or of any other _review_, but from rumour; and i have long ceased; indeed, i could not, in justice, complain of any, even though i were to rate poetry, in general, and my rhymes in particular, more highly than i really do. to withdraw _myself_ from _myself_ (oh that cursed selfishness!) has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all; and publishing is also the continuance of the same object, by the action it affords to the mind, which else recoils upon itself. if i valued fame, i should flatter received opinions, which have gathered strength by time, and will yet wear longer than any living works to the contrary. but, for the soul of me, i cannot and will not give the lie to my own thoughts and doubts, come what may. if i am a fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and i envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom. all are inclined to believe what they covet, from a lottery-ticket up to a passport to paradise,--in which, from the description, i see nothing very tempting. my restlessness tells me i have something "within that passeth show." [ ] it is for him, who made it, to prolong that spark of celestial fire which illuminates, yet burns, this frail tenement; but i see no such horror in a "dreamless sleep," and i have no conception of any existence which duration would not render tiresome. how else "fell the angels," even according to your creed? they were immortal, heavenly, and happy, as their _apostate abdiel_ [ ] is now by his treachery. time must decide; and eternity won't be the less agreeable or more horrible because one did not expect it. in the mean time, i am grateful for some good, and tolerably patient under certain evils--_grace à dieu et mon bon tempérament_. [footnote : "ah, deere ladye, said robin hood, thou that art both mother and may, i think it was never man's destinye to die before his day." 'ballad of robin hood' [footnote : the following is the passage to which byron alludes: "greece, the mother of freedom and of poetry in the west, which had long employed only the antiquary, the artist, and the philologist, was at length destined, after an interval of many silent and inglorious ages, to awaken the genius of a poet. full of enthusiasm for those perfect forms of heroism and liberty which his imagination had placed in the recesses of antiquity, he gave vent to his impatience of the imperfections of living men and real institutions, in an original strain of sublime satire, which clothes moral anger in imagery of an almost horrible grandeur; and which, though it cannot coincide with the estimate of reason, yet could only flow from that worship of perfection which is the soul of all true poetry." 'edin. rev'., vol. xxii. p. .] [footnote : "in the last 'edinburgh review' you will find two articles of mine, one on rogers, and the other on madame de staël: they are both, especially the first, thought too panegyrical. i like the praises which i have bestowed on lord byron and thomas moore. i am convinced of the justness of the praises given to madame de staël." 'mackintosh's life', vol. ii. p. .] [footnote : "i have that within which passeth show." 'hamlet', act i. sc. .] [footnote : "... the seraph abdiel, faithful found among the faithless." milton, 'paradise lost', v. .] * * * * * tuesday, th. two days missed in my log-book;--_hiatus_ haud _deflendus_. they were as little worth recollection as the rest; and, luckily, laziness or society prevented me from _notching_ them. sunday, i dined with the lord holland in st. james's square. large party--among them sir s. romilly [ ] and lady r'y.--general sir somebody bentham, [ ] a man of science and talent, i am told--horner [ ]--_the_ horner, an edinburgh reviewer, an excellent speaker in the "honourable house," very pleasing, too, and gentlemanly in company, as far as i have seen--sharpe--philips of lancashire [ ]--lord john russell, and others, "good men and true." holland's society is very good; you always see some one or other in it worth knowing. stuffed myself with sturgeon, and exceeded in champagne and wine in general, but not to confusion of head. when i _do_ dine, i gorge like an arab or a boa snake, on fish and vegetables, but no meat. i am always better, however, on my tea and biscuit than any other regimen, and even _that_ sparingly. why does lady h. always have that damned screen between the whole room and the fire? i, who bear cold no better than an antelope, and never yet found a sun quite _done_ to my taste, was absolutely petrified, and could not even shiver. all the rest, too, looked as if they were just unpacked, like salmon from an ice-basket, and set down to table for that day only. when she retired, i watched their looks as i dismissed the screen, and every cheek thawed, and every nose reddened with the anticipated glow. saturday, i went with harry fox to _nourjahad_; and, i believe, convinced him, by incessant yawning, that it was not mine. i wish the precious author would own it, and release me from his fame. the dresses are pretty, but not in costume;--mrs. horn's, all but the turban, and the want of a small dagger (if she is a sultana), _perfect_. i never saw a turkish woman with a turban in my life--nor did any one else. the sultanas have a small poniard at the waist. the dialogue is drowsy--the action heavy--the scenery fine--the actors tolerable. i can't say much for their seraglio--teresa, phannio, or----, were worth them all. sunday, a very handsome note from mackintosh, who is a rare instance of the union of very transcendent talent and great good nature. to-day (tuesday) a very pretty billet from m. la baronne de stael holstein. [ ] she is pleased to be much pleased with my mention of her and her last work in my notes. i spoke as i thought. her works are my delight, and so is she herself, for--half an hour. i don't like her politics--at least, her _having changed_ them; had she been _qualis ab incepto_, it were nothing. but she is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually;--she ought to have been a man. she _flatters_ me very prettily in her note;--but i _know_ it. the reason that adulation is not displeasing is, that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie, to make us their friend:--that is their concern. ----is, i hear, thriving on the repute of a _pun_ which was _mine_ (at mackintosh's dinner some time back), on ward, who was asking, "how much it would take to _re-whig_ him?" i answered that, probably, "he must first, before he was _re-whigged_, be re-_warded_." [ ] this foolish quibble, before the stael and mackintosh, and a number of conversationers, has been mouthed about, and at last settled on the head of----, where long may it remain! george [ ] is returned from afloat to get a new ship. he looks thin, but better than i expected. i like george much more than most people like their heirs. he is a fine fellow, and every inch a sailor. i would do any thing, _but apostatise_, to get him on in his profession. lewis called. it is a good and good-humoured man, but pestilently prolix and paradoxical and _personal_ [ ]. if he would but talk half, and reduce his visits to an hour, he would add to his popularity. as an author he is very good, and his vanity is _ouverte_, like erskine's, and yet not offending. yesterday, a very pretty letter from annabella [ ], which i answered. what an odd situation and friendship is ours!--without one spark of love on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general lead to coldness on one side, and aversion on the other. she is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress--a girl of twenty--a peeress that is to be, in her own right--an only child, and a _savante_, who has always had her own way. she is a poetess--a mathematician--a metaphysician, and yet, withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension. any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions, and a tenth of her advantages. [footnote : sir samuel romilly ( - ), solicitor-general ( - ), distinguished himself in parliament by his consistent advocacy of catholic emancipation, the abolition of the slave-trade, parliamentary reform, and the mitigation of the harshness of the criminal law. writing of romilly's 'observations on the criminal law of england' ( ), sir james mackintosh says, "it does the very highest honour to his moral character, which, i think, stands higher than that of any other conspicuous englishman now alive. probity, independence, humanity, and liberality breathe through every word; considered merely as a composition, accuracy, perspicuity, discretion, and good taste are its chief merits; great originality and comprehension of thought, or remarkable vigour of expression, it does not possess." the death of his wife, october , , so affected romilly's mind that he committed suicide four days later. "romilly," said lord lansdowne to moore ('memoirs, etc'., vol. ii. p. ), "was a stern, reserved sort of man, and she was the only person in the world to whom he wholly unbent and unbosomed himself; when he lost her, therefore, the very vent of his heart was stopped up."] [footnote : sir samuel bentham ( - ), naval architect and engineer, like his brother jeremy, was a strong reformer. he was a knight of the russian order of st. george, and, like sir samuel egerton brydges, who was a knight of the swedish order of st. joachim before he was created a baronet ( ), assumed the title in england.] [footnote : francis horner ( - ), called to the scottish bar in , and to the english bar in , was one of the founders of the 'edinburgh review', and acted as second to jeffrey in his duel with moore. in the house of commons (m.p. for st. ives, - ; wendover, - ; st. mawes, - ) he was one of the most impressive speakers of the day, especially on financial questions. when lord morpeth moved (march , ) for a new writ for the borough of st. mawes, striking tributes were paid to his character from both sides of the house ('memoirs and correspondence of francis horner', vol. ii. pp. - ), and further proof was given of public esteem by the statue erected to his memory in westminster abbey. the speeches delivered in the lower house on march , , were translated by ugo foscolo, and published with a dedication 'al nobile giovinetto, enrico fox, figlio di lord holland'.] [footnote : george philips, only son of thomas philips of sedgley, lancashire (born march , ), was created a baronet in february, . he sat for south warwickshire in the first reformed house of commons.] [footnote : in a note to 'the bride of abydos' (canto i. st. vi.), byron had written, "for an eloquent passage in the latest work of the first female writer of this, perhaps of any, age, on the analogy (and the immediate comparison excited by that analogy) between 'painting and music,' see vol. iii. cap. , 'de l'allemagne'." the passage is as follows (part iii. chap, x.): "sans cesse nous comparons la peinture à la musique, et la musique à la peinture, parceque les émotions que nous eprouvons nous révèlent des analogies où l'observation froide ne verroit que des différences," etc., etc. the following is madame de staël's "very pretty billet:" "argyll st., no. . "je ne saurais vous exprímer, my lord, à quel point je me trouve honorée d'être dans une note de votre poëme, et de quel poëme! il me semble que pour la première fois je me crois certaine d'un nom d'avenir et que vous avez disposé pour moi de cet empire de reputation qui vous sera tous les jours plus soumis. je voudrais vous parler de ce poëme que tout le monde admire, mais j'avouerai que je suis trop suspecte en le louant, et je ne cache pas qu' une louage de vous m'a fait épreuver un sentiment de fierté et de réconaissance qui me rendrait incapable de vous juger; mais heureusement vous êtes au dessus du jugement. "donnez moi quelquefois le plaisir de vous voir; il-y-a un proverbe français qui dit qu'un bonheur ne va jamais sans d'autre. "de staËl."] [footnote : "byron," writes sir walter scott, in a hitherto unpublished note, "occasionally said what are called good things, but never studied for them. they came naturally and easily, and mixed with the comic or serious, as it happened. a professed wit is of all earthly companions the most intolerable. he is like a schoolboy with his pockets stuffed with crackers. "no first-rate author was ever what is understood by a 'great conversational wit'. swift's wit in common society was either the strong sense of a wonderful man unconsciously exerting his powers, or that of the same being wilfully unbending, wilfully, in fact, degrading himself. who ever heard of any fame for conversational wit lingering over the memory of a shakespeare, a milton, even of a dryden or a pope? "johnson is, perhaps, a solitary exception. more shame to him. he was the most indolent great man that ever lived, and threw away in his talk more than he ever took pains to embalm in his writings. "it is true that boswell has in great measure counteracted all this. but here is no defence. few great men can expect to have a boswell, and none 'ought' to wish to have one, far less to trust to having one. a man should not keep fine clothes locked up in his chest only that his valet may occasionally show off in them; no, nor yet strut about in them in his chamber, only that his valet may puff him and his finery abroad. "what might not he have done, who wrote 'rasselas' in the evenings of eight days to get money enough for his mother's funeral expenses? as it is, what has johnson done? is it nothing to be the first intellect of 'an age'? and who seriously talks even of burke as having been more than a clever boy in the presence of old samuel?"] [footnote : george anson byron, r. n., afterwards lord byron.] [footnote : scott has this additional note on lewis: "nothing was more tiresome than lewis when he began to harp upon any extravagant proposition. he would tinker at it for hours without mercy, and repeat the same thing in four hundred different ways. if you assented in despair, he resumed his reasoning in triumph, and you had only for your pains the disgrace of giving in. if you disputed, daylight and candle-light could not bring the discussion to an end, and mat's arguments were always 'ditto repeated'."] [footnote : miss milbanke, afterwards lady byron.] * * * * * wednesday, december , . to-day responded to la baronne de stael holstein, and sent to leigh hunt (an acquisition to my acquaintance--through moore--of last summer) a copy of the two turkish tales. hunt is an extraordinary character, and not exactly of the present age. he reminds me more of the pym and hampden times--much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, aspect. if he goes on _qualis ab incepto_, i know few men who will deserve more praise or obtain it. i must go and see him again;--the rapid succession of adventure, since last summer, added to some serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our acquaintance; but he is a man worth knowing; and though, for his own sake, i wish him out of prison, i like to study character in such situations. he has been unshaken, and will continue so. i don't think him deeply versed in life;--he is the bigot of virtue (not religion), and enamoured of the beauty of that "empty name," as the last breath of brutus pronounced [ ], and every day proves it. he is, perhaps, a little opinionated, as all men who are the _centre_ of _circles_, wide or narrow--the sir oracles, in whose name two or three are gathered together--must be, and as even johnson was; but, withal, a valuable man, and less vain than success and even the consciousness of preferring "the right to the expedient" might excuse. to-morrow there is a party of _purple_ at the "blue" miss berry's. shall i go? um!--i don't much affect your blue-bottles;--but one ought to be civil. there will be, "i guess now" (as the americans say), the staels and mackintoshes--good--the----s and----s--not so good--the----s, etc., etc.--good for nothing. perhaps that blue-winged kashmirian butterfly of book-learning [ ], lady charlemont, will be there. i hope so; it is a pleasure to look upon that most beautiful of faces. wrote to h.:--he has been telling that i------[ ] i am sure, at least, _i_ did not mention it, and i wish he had not. he is a good fellow, and i obliged myself ten times more by being of use than i did him,--and there's an end on't. baldwin [ ] is boring me to present their king's bench petition. i presented cartwright's last year; and stanhope and i stood against the whole house, and mouthed it valiantly--and had some fun and a little abuse for our opposition. but "i am not i' th' vein" [ ] for this business. now, had----been here, she would have _made_ me do it. _there_ is a woman, who, amid all her fascination, always urged a man to usefulness or glory. had she remained, she had been my tutelar genius. baldwin is very importunate--but, poor fellow, "i can't get out, i can't get out--said the starling." [ ] ah, i am as bad as that dog sterne, who preferred whining over "a dead ass to relieving a living mother" [ ]--villain--hypocrite--slave--sycophant! but _i_ am no better. here i cannot stimulate myself to a speech for the sake of these unfortunates, and three words and half a smile of----had she been here to urge it (and urge it she infallibly would--at least she always pressed me on senatorial duties, and particularly in the cause of weakness) would have made me an advocate, if not an orator. curse on rochefoucault for being always right! in him a lie were virtue,--or, at least, a comfort to his readers. george byron has not called to-day; i hope he will be an admiral, and, perhaps, lord byron into the bargain. if he would but marry, i would engage never to marry myself, or cut him out of the heirship. he would be happier, and i should like nephews better than sons. i shall soon be six-and-twenty (january d., ). is there any thing in the future that can possibly console us for not being always _twenty-five_? "oh gioventu! oh primavera! gioventu dell' anno. oh gioventu! primavera della vita." [footnote : "'strato'. for brutus only overcame himself, and no man else hath honour by his death. * * * * * 'octavius'. according to his virtue let us use him, with all respect and rites of burial." 'julius cæsar', act v. sc. .] [footnote : in 'the giaour' (lines - ) occurs the following passage: "as rising on its purple wing the insect-queen of eastern spring o'er emerald meadows of kashmeer invites the young pursuer near," etc. to line is appended this note: "the blue-winged butterfly of kashmeer, the most rare and beautiful of the species."] [footnote : see letter [letter ] to francis hodgson, p. .] [footnote : the letters which w.j. baldwin, a debtor in the king's bench prison, wrote to byron are preserved. byron seems to have refused to present the petition from diffidence, but he interested himself in the subject, and probably induced lord holland to take up the question. (see p. , 'note' [footnote of the initial journal entry which forms the beginning of chapter viii.]) in the list of abuses enumerated by baldwin is mentioned a "strong room," in which prisoners were confined, without fires or glass to the windows, in the depth of winter.] [footnote : 'richard iii'., act iv, sc. .] [footnote : 'sentimental journey' (ed. ), vol. ii. p. .] [footnote : 'ibid.', vol. ii. p. .] * * * * * sunday, december . dallas's nephew (son to the american attorney-general) is arrived in this country, and tells dallas that my rhymes are very popular in the united states. these are the first tidings that have ever sounded like _fame_ to my ears--to be redde on the banks of the ohio! the greatest pleasure i ever derived, of this kind was from an extract, in cooke the actor's life, from his journal [ ], stating that in the reading-room at albany, near washington, he perused _english bards, and scotch reviewers_. to be popular in a rising and far country has a kind of _posthumous feel_, very different from the ephemeral _éclat_ and fête-ing, buzzing and party-ing compliments of the well-dressed multitude. i can safely say that, during my _reign_ in the spring of , i regretted nothing but its duration of six weeks instead of a fortnight, and was heartily glad to resign. last night i supped with lewis; and, as usual, though i neither exceeded in solids nor fluids, have been half dead ever since. my stomach is entirely destroyed by long abstinence, and the rest will probably follow. let it--i only wish the _pain_ over. the "leap in the dark" is the least to be dreaded. the duke of----called. i have told them forty times that, except to half-a-dozen old and specified acquaintances, i am invisible. his grace is a good, noble, ducal person; but i am content to think so at a distance, and so--i was not at home. galt called.--mem.--to ask some one to speak to raymond in favour of his play. we are old fellow-travellers, and, with all his eccentricities, he has much strong sense, experience of the world, and is, as far as i have seen, a good-natured philosophical fellow. i showed him sligo's letter on the reports of the turkish girl's _aventure_ at athens soon after it happened. he and lord holland, lewis, and moore, and rogers, and lady melbourne have seen it. murray has a copy. i thought it had been _unknown_, and wish it were; but sligo arrived only some days after, and the _rumours_ are the subject of his letter. that i shall preserve,--_it is as well_. lewis and gait were both _horrified_; and l. wondered i did not introduce the situation into _the giaour_. he _may_ wonder;--he might wonder more at that production's being written at all. but to describe the _feelings_ of _that situation_ were impossible--it is _icy_ even to recollect them. the _bride of abydos_ was published on thursday the second of december; but how it is liked or disliked, i know not. whether it succeeds or not is no fault of the public, against whom i can have no complaint. but i am much more indebted to the tale than i can ever be to the most partial reader; as it wrung my thoughts from reality to imagination--from selfish regrets to vivid recollections--and recalled me to a country replete with the _brightest_ and _darkest_, but always most _lively_ colours of my memory. sharpe called, but was not let in, which i regret. saw [rogers] yesterday. i have not kept my appointment at middleton, which has not pleased him, perhaps; and my projected voyage with [ward] will, perhaps, please him less. but i wish to keep well with both. they are instruments that don't do in concert; but, surely, their separate tones are very musical, and i won't give up either. it is well if i don't jar between these great discords. at present i stand tolerably well with all, but i cannot adopt their _dislikes_;--so many _sets_. holland's is the first;--every thing _distingué_ is welcome there, and certainly the _ton_ of his society is the best. then there is madame de stael's--there i never go, though i might, had i courted it. it is composed of the----s and the----family, with a strange sprinkling,--orators, dandies, and all kinds of _blue_, from the regular grub street uniform, down to the azure jacket of the _littérateur_ [ ]? to see----and----sitting together, at dinner, always reminds me of the grave, where all distinctions of friend and foe are levelled; and they--the reviewer and the reviewée--the rhinoceros and elephant--the mammoth and megalonyx--all will lie quietly together. they now _sit_ together, as silent, but not so quiet, as if they were already immured. i did not go to the berrys' the other night. the elder is a woman of much talent, and both are handsome, and must have been beautiful. to-night asked to lord h.'s--shall i go? um!--perhaps. morning, two o'clock. went to lord h.'s--party numerous--_mi_lady in perfect good humour, and consequently _perfect_. no one more agreeable, or perhaps so much so, when she will. asked for wednesday to dine and meet the stael--asked particularly, i believe, out of mischief to see the first interview after the _note_, with which corinne professes herself to be so much taken. i don't much like it; she always talks of _my_self or _her_self, and i am not (except in soliloquy, as now,) much enamoured of either subject--especially one's works. what the devil shall i say about _de l'allemagne_? i like it prodigiously; but unless i can twist my admiration into some fantastical expression, she won't believe me; and i know, by experience, i shall be overwhelmed with fine things about rhyme, etc., etc. the lover, mr.----[rocca], was there to-night, and c----said "it was the only proof _he_ had seen of her good taste." monsieur l'amant is remarkably handsome; but _i_ don't think more so than her book. c----[campbell] looks well,--seems pleased, and dressed to _sprucery_. a blue coat becomes him,--so does his new wig. he really looked as if apollo had sent him a birthday suit, or a wedding-garment, and was witty and lively. he abused corinne's book, which i regret; because, firstly, he understands german, and is consequently a fair judge; and, secondly, he is _first-rate_, and, consequently, the best of judges. i reverence and admire him; but i won't give up my opinion--why should i? i read _her_ again and again, and there can be no affectation in this. i cannot be mistaken (except in taste) in a book i read and lay down, and take up again; and no book can be totally bad which finds _one_, even _one_ reader, who can say as much sincerely. campbell talks of lecturing next spring; his last lectures were eminently successful. moore thought of it, but gave it up,--i don't know why.----had been prating _dignity_ to him, and such stuff; as if a man disgraced himself by instructing and pleasing at the same time. introduced to marquis buckingham--saw lord gower [ ]--he is going to holland; sir j. and lady mackintosh and horner, g. lamb [ ], with i know not how many (richard wellesley, one--a clever man), grouped about the room. little henry fox, a very fine boy, and very promising in mind and manner,--he went away to bed, before i had time to talk to him. i am sure i had rather hear him than all the _savans_. [footnote : in dunlap's 'memoirs of george frederick cooke' (vol. ii. p. ), the following passage is quoted from the actor's journal: "read 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', by lord byron. it is well written. his lordship is rather severe, perhaps justly so, on walter scott, and most assuredly justly severe upon monk lewis."] [footnote : in byron's 'detached thoughts' ( ) occurs this passage: "in general i do not draw well with literary men. not that i dislike them, but i never know what to say to them after i have praised their last publication. there are several exceptions, to be sure; but then they have always been men of the world, such as scott and moore, etc., or visionaries out of it, such as shelley, etc. but your literary every-day man and i never went well in company, especially your foreigner, whom i never could abide,--except giordani, and--and--and (i really can't name any other); i do not remember a man amongst them whom i ever wished to see twice, except, perhaps, mezzophanti, who is a monster of languages, the briareus of parts of speech, a walking polyglott, and more--who ought to have existed at the time of the tower of babel as universal interpreter. he is, indeed, a marvel, --unassuming also. i tried him in all the tongues of which i have a single oath (or adjuration to the gods against postboys, savages, tartars, boatmen, sailors, pilots, gondoliers, muleteers, cameldrivers, vetturini, postmasters, post-horses, post-houses, post-everything) and egad! he astounded me even to my english." on this passage sir walter scott makes the following note: "i suspect lord byron of some self-deceit as to this matter. it appears that he liked extremely the only 'first-rate' men of letters into whose society he happened to be thrown in england. they happened to be men of the world, it is true; but how few men of very great eminence in literature, how few intellectually lord b.'s peers, have 'not' been men of the world? does any one doubt that the topics he had most pleasure in discussing with scott or moore were literary ones, or had at least some relation to literature? "as for the foreign 'literati', pray what 'literati' anything like his own rank did he encounter abroad? i have no doubt he would have been as much at home with an alfieri, a schiller, or a goethe, or a voltaire, as he was with scott or moore, and yet two of these were very little of men of the world in the sense in which he uses that phrase. "as to 'every-day men of letters,' pray who does like their company? would a clever man like a prosing 'captain, or colonel, or knight-in-arms' the 'better' for happening to be himself the duke of wellington?"] [footnote : george granville leveson gower ( - ) succeeded his father in as second duke of sutherland.] [footnote : george lamb ( - ), the fourth son of the first lord melbourne, married, in , caroline rosalie st. jules. as one of the early contributors to the 'edinburgh review', he was attacked by byron in 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', lines and (see 'poems', ed. , vol. i. p. , 'note' i). a clever amateur actor, his comic opera 'whistle for it' was produced at covent garden, april , , and he was afterwards on the drury lane committee of management. his translation of the 'poems of catullus' was published in . in , as the representative of the official whigs, he was elected for westminster against hobhouse; but was defeated at the next election ( ).] * * * * * monday, dec. . murray tells me that croker asked him why the thing was called the _bride_ of abydos? it is a cursed awkward question, being unanswerable. _she_ is not a _bride_, only about to be one; but for, etc., etc., etc. i don't wonder at his finding out the _bull_; but the detection----is too late to do any good. i was a great fool to make it, and am ashamed of not being an irishman. campbell last night seemed a little nettled at something or other--i know not what. we were standing in the ante-saloon, when lord h. brought out of the other room a vessel of some composition similar to that which is used in catholic churches, and, seeing us, he exclaimed, "here is some _incense_ for you." campbell answered--"carry it to lord byron, _he is used to it_." now, this comes of "bearing no brother near the throne." [ ] i, who have no throne, nor wish to have one _now_, whatever i may have done, am at perfect peace with all the poetical fraternity; or, at least, if i dislike any, it is not _poetically_, but _personally_. surely the field of thought is infinite; what does it signify who is before or behind in a race where there is no _goal_? the temple of fame is like that of the persians, the universe; our altar, the tops of mountains. i should be equally content with mount caucasus, or mount anything; and those who like it, may have mount blanc or chimborazo, without my envy of their elevation. i think i may _now_ speak thus; for i have just published a poem, and am quite ignorant whether it is _likely_ to be _liked_ or not. i have hitherto heard little in its commendation, and no one can _downright_ abuse it to one's face, except in print. it can't be good, or i should not have stumbled over the threshold, and blundered in my very title. but i began it with my heart full of----, and my head of oriental_ities_ (i can't call them _isms_), and wrote on rapidly. this journal is a relief. when i am tired--as i generally am--out comes this, and down goes every thing. but i can't read it over; and god knows what contradictions it may contain. if i am sincere with myself (but i fear one lies more to one's self than to any one else), every page should confute, refute, and utterly abjure its predecessor. another scribble from martin baldwin the petitioner; i have neither head nor nerves to present it. that confounded supper at lewis's has spoiled my digestion and my philanthropy. i have no more charity than a cruet of vinegar. would i were an ostrich, and dieted on fire-irons,--or any thing that my gizzard could get the better of. to-day saw ward. his uncle [ ] is dying, and w. don't much affect our dutch determinations. i dine with him on thursday, provided _l'oncle_ is not dined upon, or peremptorily bespoke by the posthumous epicures before that day. i wish he may recover--not for _our_ dinner's sake, but to disappoint the undertaker, and the rascally reptiles that may well wait, since they _will_ dine at last. gell called--he of troy--after i was out. mem.--to return his visit. but my mems. are the very landmarks of forgetfulness;--something like a light-house, with a ship wrecked under the nose of its lantern. i never look at a mem. without seeing that i have remembered to forget. mem.--i have forgotten to pay pitt's taxes, and suppose i shall be surcharged. "an i do not turn rebel when thou art king "--oons! i believe my very biscuit is leavened with that impostor's imposts. lady melbourne returns from jersey's to-morrow;--i must call. a mr. thomson has sent a song, which i must applaud. i hate annoying them with censure or silence;--and yet i hate _lettering_. saw lord glenbervie [ ] and this prospectus, at murray's, of a new treatise on timber. now here is a man more useful than all the historians and rhymers ever planted. for, by preserving our woods and forests, he furnishes materials for all the history of britain worth reading, and all the odes worth nothing. redde a good deal, but desultorily. my head is crammed with the most useless lumber. it is odd that when i do read, i can only bear the chicken broth of--_any thing_ but novels. it is many a year since i looked into one, (though they are sometimes ordered, by way of experiment, but never taken,) till i looked yesterday at the worst parts of the _monk_. these descriptions ought to have been written by tiberius at caprea--they are forced--the _philtered_ ideas of a jaded voluptuary. it is to me inconceivable how they could have been composed by a man of only twenty--his age when he wrote them. they have no nature--all the sour cream of cantharides. i should have suspected buffon of writing them on the death-bed of his detestable dotage. i had never redde this edition, and merely looked at them from curiosity and recollection of the noise they made, and the name they had left to lewis. but they could do no harm, except----. called this evening on my agent--my business as usual. our strange adventures are the only inheritances of our family that have not diminished. i shall now smoke two cigars, and get me to bed. the cigars don't keep well here. they get as old as a _donna di quaranti anni_ in the sun of africa. the havannah are the best;--but neither are so pleasant as a hooka or chiboque. the turkish tobacco is mild, and their horses entire--two things as they should be. i am so far obliged to this journal, that it preserves me from verse,--at least from keeping it. i have just thrown a poem into the fire (which it has relighted to my great comfort), and have smoked out of my head the plan of another. i wish i could as easily get rid of thinking, or, at least, the confusion of thought. [footnote : pope's 'epistle to dr. arbuthnot', line .] [footnote : william bosville ( - ), called colonel, but really only lieutenant in the coldstream guards, was a noted 'bon vivant', whose maxim for life was "better never than late." he was famous for his hospitality in welbeck street. a friend of horne tooke, he dined with him at wimbledon every sunday in the spring and autumn. see 'diversions of purley', ed. , ii. : "your friend bosville and i have entered into a strict engagement to belong for ever to the established government, to the established church, and to the established language of our country, because they are established."] [footnote : sylvester douglas ( - ), created in baron glenbervie, married, in september, , catherine, eldest daughter of lord north, afterwards earl of guildford. he was educated at leyden for the medical profession, a circumstance to which sheridan alludes in the lines: "glenbervie, glenbervie, what's good for the scurvy? for ne'er be your old trade forgot." gibbon writes of him, october , ('letters', vol. ii. p. ), "he has been curious, attentive, agreeable; and in every place where he has resided some days, he has left acquaintance who esteem and regret him; i never knew so clear and general an impression." glenbervie was surveyor-general of woods and forests, - , and again from to . in that year he became first commissioner of land revenue and woods and forests, and held the appointment till august, .] * * * * * tuesday, december . went to bed, and slept dreamlessly, but not refreshingly. awoke, and up an hour before being called; but dawdled three hours in dressing. when one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation),--sleep, eating, and swilling--buttoning and unbuttoning--how much remains of downright existence? the summer of a dormouse. redde the papers and _tea_-ed and soda-watered, and found out that the fire was badly lighted. lord glenbervie wants me to go to brighton--um! this morning, a very pretty billet from the stael about meeting her at ld. h.'s to-morrow. she has written, i dare say, twenty such this morning to different people, all equally flattering to each. so much the better for her and those who believe all she wishes them, or they wish to believe. she has been pleased to be pleased with my slight eulogy in the note annexed to _the bride_. this is to be accounted for in several ways,--firstly, all women like all, or any, praise; secondly, this was unexpected, because i have never courted her; and, thirdly, as scrub [ ] says, those who have been all their lives regularly praised, by regular critics, like a little variety, and are glad when any one goes out of his way to say a civil thing; and, fourthly, she is a very good-natured creature, which is the best reason, after all, and, perhaps, the only one. a knock--knocks single and double. bland called. he says dutch society (he has been in holland) is second-hand french; but the women are like women every where else. this is a bore: i should like to see them a little _un_like; but that can't be expected. went out--came home--this, that, and the other--and "all is vanity, saith the preacher," and so say i, as part of his congregation. talking of vanity, whose praise do i prefer? why, mrs. inchbald's [ ], and that of the americans. the first, because her _simple story_ and _nature and art_ are, to me, _true_ to their _titles_; and, consequently, her short note to rogers about _the giaour_ delighted me more than any thing, except the _edinburgh review_. i like the americans, because _i_ happened to be in _asia_, while the _english bards, and scotch reviewers_ were redde in _america_. if i could have had a speech against the _slave trade in africa_, and an epitaph on a dog in _europe_ (i.e. in the _morning post_), my _vertex sublimis_ [ ] would certainly have displaced stars enough to overthrow the newtonian system. [footnote : the reference is only to the form of the sentence. "scrub," in 'the beaux' stratagem' (act iv. se. ), says, "first, it must be a plot, because there's a woman in't; secondly, it must be a plot, because there's a priest in't; thirdly, it must be a plot, because there's french gold in't; and fourthly, it must be a plot, because i don't know what to make on't."] [footnote : elizabeth simpson ( - ), daughter of a suffolk farmer, married ( ) joseph inchbald, actor and portrait-painter. actress, dramatist, and novelist, she was one of the most attractive women of the day. winning in manner, quick in repartee, an admirable teller of stories, she always gathered all the men round her chair. "it was vain," said mrs. shelley, "for any other woman to attempt to gain attention." miss edgeworth wished to see her first among living celebrities; her charm fascinated sheridan, and overcame the prejudice of lamb; even peter pindar wrote verse in her praise. from the age of eighteen she was wooed on and off the stage, where her slight stammer hindered her complete success; but no breath of scandal tarnished her name. had john kemble, the hero of 'a simple story', proposed to her, she probably would have married him. mrs. butler records that her uncle john once asked the actress, when matrimony was the subject of green-room conversation, "well, mrs. inchbald, would you have had me?" "dear heart," said the stammering beauty, turning her sunny face up at him," i'd have j-j-j-jumped at you." mrs. inchbald's 'simple story' ( ) wears a more modern air than any previously written novel. her dramatic experience stood her in good stead. "dorriforth," the priest, educated, like kemble, at douay, impressed himself upon macaulay's mind as the true type of the roman catholic peer. 'nature and art' ( ) was written when mrs. inchbald was most under the influence of the french revolution. of two boys who come to london to seek their fortunes, nature makes one a musician, and art raises the other into a dean. the trial and condemnation of "agnes" perhaps suggested to lytton the scene in 'paul clifford', where "brandon" condemns his own son.] [footnote : horace, 'odes', i. i. .] * * * * * friday, december , . i am _ennuyé_ beyond my usual tense of that yawning verb, which i am always conjugating; and i don't find that society much mends the matter. i am too lazy to shoot myself--and it would annoy augusta, and perhaps ----; but it would be a good thing for george, on the other side, and no bad one for me; but i won't be tempted. i have had the kindest letter from moore. i _do_ think that man is the best-hearted, the only _hearted_ being i ever encountered; and, then, his talents are equal to his feelings. dined on wednesday at lord h.'s--the staffords, staels, cowpers, ossulstones, melbournes, mackintoshes, etc., etc.--and was introduced to the marquis and marchioness of stafford [ ],--an unexpected event. my quarrel with lord carlisle (their or his brother-in-law) having rendered it improper, i suppose, brought it about. but, if it was to happen at all, i wonder it did not occur before. she is handsome, and must have been beautiful--and her manners are _princessly_. the stael was at the other end of the table, and less loquacious than heretofore. we are now very good friends; though she asked lady melbourne whether i had really any _bonhommie_. she might as well have asked that question before she told c. l. "_c'est un demon_." true enough, but rather premature, for _she_ could not have found it out, and so--she wants me to dine there next sunday. murray prospers, as far as circulation. for my part, i adhere (in liking) to my fragment. it is no wonder that i wrote one--my mind is a fragment. saw lord gower, tierney [ ], etc., in the square. took leave of lord gower, who is going to holland and germany. he tells me that he carries with him a parcel of _harolds_ and _giaours_, etc., for the readers of berlin, who, it seems, read english, and have taken a caprice for mine. um!--have i been _german_ all this time, when i thought myself _oriental_? lent tierney my box for to-morrow; and received a new comedy sent by lady c. a.--but _not hers_. i must read it, and endeavour not to displease the author. i hate annoying them with cavil; but a comedy i take to be the most difficult of compositions, more so than tragedy. galt says there is a coincidence between the first part of _the bride_ and some story of his--whether published or not, i know not, never having seen it. he is almost the last person on whom any one would commit literary larceny, and i am not conscious of any _witting_ thefts on any of the genus. as to originality, all pretensions are ludicrous,--"there is nothing new under the sun." [ ] went last night to the play. invited out to a party, but did not go;--right. refused to go to lady----'s on monday;--right again. if i must fritter away my life, i would rather do it alone. i was much tempted;--c----looked so turkish with her red turban, and her regular, dark, and clear features. not that _she_ and _i_ ever were, or could be, any thing; but i love any aspect that reminds me of the "children of the sun." to dine to-day with rogers and sharpe, for which i have some appetite, not having tasted food for the preceding forty-eight hours. i wish i could leave off eating altogether. [footnote : george granville leveson gower ( - ) succeeded his father, in , as second marquis of stafford. he married, in , elizabeth, countess of sutherland, and was created, in , first duke of sutherland. lord carlisle had married, in margaret caroline, sister of the second marquis of stafford.] [footnote : george tierney ( - ) entered parliament as member for colchester in . in he was returned for southwark. a useful speaker and political writer, he was treasurer of the navy in the addington administration, and president of the board of control in that of "all the talents." his drafting of the petition of the "society of the friends of the people," his duel with pitt in , and his leadership of the opposition after , are almost forgotten; but he is remembered as the "friend of humanity" in 'the needy knife-grinder'.] [footnote : 'eccles'. i. .] * * * * * saturday, december . * * * * * sunday, december . by galt's answer, i find it is some story in _real life_, and not any work with which my late composition coincides. it is still more singular, for mine is drawn from _existence_ also. i have sent an excuse to madame de stael. i do not feel sociable enough for dinner to-day;--and i will not go to sheridan's on wednesday. not that i do not admire and prefer his unequalled conversation; but--that "_but_" must only be intelligible to thoughts i cannot write. sheridan was in good talk at rogers's the other night, but i only stayed till _nine_. all the world are to be at the stael's to-night, and i am not sorry to escape any part of it. i only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone. went out--did not go to the stael's but to ld. holland's. party numerous--conversation general. stayed late--made a blunder--got over it--came home and went to bed, not having eaten. rather empty, but _fresco_, which is the great point with me. * * * * * monday, december , . called at three places--read, and got ready to leave town to-morrow. murray has had a letter from his brother bibliopole of edinburgh, who says, "he is lucky in having such a _poet_"--something as if one was a packhorse, or "ass, or any thing that is his;" or, like mrs. packwood, [ ] who replied to some inquiry after the odes on razors,--"laws, sir, we keeps a poet." the same illustrious edinburgh bookseller once sent an order for books, poesy, and cookery, with this agreeable postscript--"the _harold and cookery_ [ ] are much wanted." such is fame, and, after all, quite as good as any other "life in others' breath." 'tis much the same to divide purchasers with hannah glasse or hannah more. some editor of some magazine has _announced_ to murray his intention of abusing the thing "_without reading it_." so much the better; if he redde it first, he would abuse it more. allen [ ] (lord holland's allen--the best informed and one of the ablest men i know--a perfect magliabecchi [ ]--a devourer, a _helluo_ of books, and an observer of men,) has lent me a quantity of burns's [ ] unpublished and never-to-be-published letters. they are full of oaths and obscene songs. what an antithetical mind!--tenderness, roughness--delicacy, coarseness--sentiment, sensuality--soaring and grovelling, dirt and deity--all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay! it seems strange; a true voluptuary will never abandon his mind to the grossness of reality. it is by exalting the earthly, the material, the _physique_ of our pleasures, by veiling these ideas, by forgetting them altogether, or, at least, never naming them hardly to one's self, that we alone can prevent them from disgusting. [footnote : mrs. packwood is the wife of george packwood, "the celebrated razor strop maker and author of 'the goldfinch's nest'," whose shop was at , gracechurch street. 'packwood's whim; the goldfinch's nest, or the way to get money and be happy', by george packwood, was published in , and reached a second edition in . it is a collection of his advertisements in prose and verse. the poet, whom packwood kept, apparently lived in soho (p. ), from his verses which appeared in the 'true briton' for november , : "if you wish, sir, to shave--nay, pray look not grave, since nothing on earth can be worse, to p--d repair, you're shaved to a hair, which i mean to exhibit in verse. "when in moving the beard--i wish to be heard-- the dull razor occasions a curse, the strop that i view will its merits renew; behold i record it in verse. "some in fashion's tontine disperse all their spleen, and others their destinies curse; but p--d's fine taste, with his strops and his paste, which i'll show you in prose and in verse. "i have taken this plan to comment on a man, whose merit i'm proud to rehearse; for a razor and knife he will sharpen for life, and deserves every praise in my verse. "soho, nov. , ."] [footnote : 'the art of cookery made plain and easy', "by a lady," was published anonymously in . the th edition ( ) bears the name of h. glasse. the book was at one time supposed to be the work of dr. john hill ( - ), and to contain the proverb, "first catch your hare, then cook it." but hill's claim is untenable, and the proverb is not in the book. mrs. rundell's 'domestic cookery' was one of murray's most successful publications. in byron's lines, "to mr. murray" (march , ), occurs the following passage: "along thy sprucest bookshelves shine the works thou deemest most divine-- the 'art of cookery,' and mine, my murray."] [footnote : john allen, m.d. ( - ), accompanied lord holland to spain ( - and - ), and lived with him at holland house. his 'inquiry into the rise and growth of the royal prerogative in england', his numerous articles in the 'edinburgh review', and his life of fox in the 'encyclopedia britannica', and many other works, justify byron's praise. in the social life of holland house he was a prominent figure, and to it, perhaps, he sacrificed his literary powers and acquirements. he was warden of dulwich college ( - ), and master ( - ). allen was the author of the article in the 'edinburgh review' on payne knight's 'taste', in which he severely criticized pindar's greek, and which byron, probably trusting to hodgson (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' ), or possibly misled by similarity of sound (h. crabb robinson's 'diary', vol. i. p. ), attributed to "classic hallam, much renowned for greek" ('english bards, etc.', line ).] [footnote : antonio magliabecchi ( - ) was appointed, in , librarian to the grand-duke of tuscany, to whom he bequeathed his immense collection of , volumes. in burton's 'book-hunter' (p. ) it is said that magliabecchi "could direct you to any book in any part of the world, with the precision with which the metropolitan policeman directs you to st. paul's or piccadilly. it is of him that the stories are told of answers to inquiries after books, in these terms: 'there is but one copy of that book in the world. it is in the grand seignior's library at constantinople, and is the seventh book in the second shelf on the right hand as you go in.'"] [footnote : byron himself was "likened to burns," and sir walter scott, commenting on the comparison in a manuscript note, says, "burns, in depth of poetical feeling, in strong shrewd sense to balance and regulate this, in the 'tact' to make his poetry tell by connecting it with the stream of public thought and the sentiment of the age, in 'commanded' wildness of fancy and profligacy or recklessness as to moral and 'occasionally' as to religious matters, was much more like lord byron than any other person to whom lord b. says he had been compared. "a gross blunder of the english public has been talking of burns as if the character of his poetry ought to be estimated with an eternal recollection that he was a 'peasant'. it would be just as proper to say that lord byron ought always to be thought of as a 'peer'. rank in life was nothing to either in his true moments. then, they were both great poets. some silly and sickly affectations connected with the accidents of birth and breeding may be observed in both, when they are not under the influence of 'the happier star.' witness burns's prate about independence, when he was an exciseman, and byron's ridiculous pretence of republicanism, when he never wrote sincerely about the multitude without expressing or insinuating the very soul of scorn."] * * * * * december , , . much done, but nothing to record. it is quite enough to set down my thoughts,--my actions will rarely bear retrospection. * * * * * december , . lord holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in sheridan. the other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other _hommes marquans_, and mine was this:--"whatever sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, _par excellence_, always the _best_ of its kind. he has written the _best_ comedy (_school for scandal_), the _best_ drama (in my mind, far before that st. giles's lampoon, the _beggar's opera_), the best farce (the _critic_--it is only too good for a farce), and the best address (monologue on garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous begum speech) ever conceived or heard in this country." somebody told s. this the next day, and on hearing it he burst into tears! poor brinsley! if they were tears of pleasure, i would rather have said these few, but most sincere, words than have written the iliad or made his own celebrated philippic. nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine, humble as it must appear to "my elders and my betters." went to my box at covent garden to-night; and my delicacy felt a little shocked at seeing s----'s mistress (who, to my certain knowledge, was actually educated, from her birth, for her profession) sitting with her mother, "a three-piled b----d, b----d major to the army," in a private box opposite. i felt rather indignant; but, casting my eyes round the house, in the next box to me, and the next, and the next, were the most distinguished old and young babylonians of quality;--so i burst out a laughing. it was really odd; lady----_divorced_--lady----and her daughter, lady----, both _divorceable_--mrs.----, in the next the _like_, and still nearer------! [ ] what an assemblage to _me_, who know all their histories. it was as if the house had been divided between your public and your _understood_ courtesans;--but the intriguantes much outnumbered the regular mercenaries. on the other side were only pauline and _her_ mother, and, next box to her, three of inferior note. now, where lay the difference between _her_ and _mamma_, and lady----and daughter? except that the two last may enter carleton and any _other house_, and the two first are limited to the opera and b----house. how i do delight in observing life as it really is!--and myself, after all, the worst of any. but no matter--i must avoid egotism, which, just now, would be no vanity. i have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called "_the devil's drive_" the notion of which i took from person's "_devil's walk_." [ ] redde some italian, and wrote two sonnets on----. i never wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise--and i will never write another. they are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. i detest the petrarch so much, that i would not be the man even to have obtained his laura, which the metaphysical, whining dotard never could. [footnote : "these names are all left blank in the original" (moore).] [footnote : richard person did not write 'the devil's walk', which was written by coleridge and southey, and published in the 'morning post' for september , , under the title of 'the devil's thoughts'.] * * * * * january , . to-morrow i leave town for a few days. i saw lewis to-day, who is just returned from oatlands, where he has been squabbling with mad. de stael about himself, clarissa harlowe, mackintosh, and me. my homage has never been paid in that quarter, or we would have agreed still worse. i don't talk--i can't flatter, and won't listen, except to a pretty or a foolish woman. she bored lewis with praises of himself till he sickened--found out that clarissa was perfection, and mackintosh the first man in england. there i agree, at least _one_ of the first--but lewis did not. as to clarissa, i leave to those who can read it to judge and dispute. i could not do the one, and am, consequently, not qualified for the other. she told lewis wisely, he being my friend, that i was affected, in the first place; and that, in the next place, i committed the heinous offence of sitting at dinner with my _eyes_ shut, or half shut. i wonder if i really have this trick. i must cure myself of it, if true. one insensibly acquires awkward habits, which should be broken in time. if this is one, i wish i had been told of it before. it would not so much signify if one was always to be checkmated by a plain woman, but one may as well see some of one's neighbours, as well as the plate upon the table. i should like, of all things, to have heard the amabæan eclogue between her and lewis--both obstinate, clever, odd, garrulous, and shrill. in fact, one could have heard nothing else. but they fell out, alas!--and now they will never quarrel again. could not one reconcile them for the "nonce?" poor corinne--she will find that some of her fine sayings won't suit our fine ladies and gentlemen. i am getting rather into admiration of [lady c. annesley] the youngest sister of [lady f. webster]. a wife would be my salvation. i am sure the wives of my acquaintances have hitherto done me little good. catherine is beautiful, but very young, and, i think, a fool. but i have not seen enough to judge; besides, i hate an _esprit_ in petticoats. that she won't love me is very probable, nor shall i love her. but, on my system, and the modern system in general, that don't signify. the business (if it came to business) would probably be arranged between papa and me. she would have her own way; i am good-humoured to women, and docile; and, if i did not fall in love with her, which i should try to prevent, we should be a very comfortable couple. as to conduct, _that_ she must look to. but _if_ i love, i shall be jealous;--and for that reason i will not be in love. though, after all, i doubt my temper, and fear i should not be so patient as becomes the _bienséance_ of a married man in my station. divorce ruins the poor _femme_, and damages are a paltry compensation. i do fear my temper would lead me into some of our oriental tricks of vengeance, or, at any rate, into a summary appeal to the court of twelve paces. so "i'll none on't," but e'en remain single and solitary;--though i should like to have somebody now and then to yawn with one. ward, and, after him,----, has stolen one of my buffooneries about mde. de stael's metaphysics and the fog, and passed it, by speech and letter, as their own. as gibbet says, "they are the most of a gentleman of any on the road." [ ] w. is in sad enmity with the whigs about this review of fox [ ] (if he _did_ review him);--all the epigrammatists and essayists are at him. i hate _odds_, and wish he may beat them. as for me, by the blessing of indifference, i have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. the fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better nor worse for a _people_ than another. i shall adhere to my party, because it would not be honourable to act otherwise; but, as to _opinions_, i don't think politics _worth_ an _opinion_. _conduct_ is another thing:--if you begin with a party, go on with them. i have no consistency, except in politics; and _that_ probably arises from my indifference on the subject altogether. [footnote : the 'beaux' stratagem', by george farquhar (act iv. sc. ): "'gibbet'. "and i can assure you, friend, there's a great deal of address and good manners in robbing a lady: i am most a gentleman that way that ever travelled the road."] [footnote : an article by ward on 'the correspondence of gilbert wakefield with mr. fox', in the 'quarterly review' for july, .] * * * * * feb. . better than a month since i last journalised:--most of it out of london and at notts., but a busy one and a pleasant, at least three weeks of it. on my return, i find all the newspapers in hysterics, and town in an uproar, on the avowal and republication of two stanzas on princess charlotte's weeping at regency's speech to lauderdale in . [ ] they are daily at it still;--some of the abuse good, all of it hearty. they talk of a motion in our house upon it--be it so. got up--redde the _morning post_ containing the battle of buonaparte, [ ] the destruction of the customhouse, [ ] and a paragraph on me as long as my pedigree, and vituperative, as usual. [ ] hobhouse is returned to england. he is my best friend, the most lively, and a man of the most sterling talents extant. 'the corsair' has been conceived, written, published, etc., since i last took up this journal. they tell me it has great success;--it was written _con amore_, and much from _existence_. murray is satisfied with its progress; and if the public are equally so with the perusal, there's an end of the matter. nine o'clock. been to hanson's on business. saw rogers, and had a note from lady melbourne, who says, it is said i am "much out of spirits." i wonder if i really am or not? i have certainly enough of "that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart," [ ] and it is better they should believe it to be the result of these attacks than of the real cause; but--ay, ay, always _but_, to the end of the chapter. hobhouse has told me ten thousand anecdotes of napoleon, all good and true. my friend h. is the most entertaining of companions, and a fine fellow to boot. redde a little--wrote notes and letters, and am alone, which locke says is bad company. "be not solitary, be not idle." [ ]--um!--the idleness is troublesome; but i can't see so much to regret in the solitude. the more i see of men, the less i like them. if i could but say so of women too, all would be well. why can't i? i am now six-and-twenty; my passions have had enough to cool them; my affections more than enough to wither them,--and yet--and yet--always _yet_ and _but_--"excellent well, you are a fishmonger--get thee to a nunnery." [ ]--"they fool me to the top of my bent." [ ] midnight. began a letter, which i threw into the fire. redde--but to little purpose. did not visit hobhouse, as i promised and ought. no matter, the loss is mine. smoked cigars. napoleon!--this week will decide his fate. all seems against him; but i believe and hope he will win--at least, beat back the invaders. what right have we to prescribe sovereigns to france? oh for a republic! "brutus, thou sleepest." [ ] hobhouse abounds in continental anecdotes of this extraordinary man; all in favour of his intellect and courage, but against his _bonhommie_. no wonder;--how should he, who knows mankind well, do other than despise and abhor them? the greater the equality, the more impartially evil is distributed, and becomes lighter by the division among so many--therefore, a republic! [ ] more notes from madame de stael unanswered--and so they shall remain. [ ] i admire her abilities, but really her society is overwhelming--an avalanche that buries one in glittering nonsense--all snow and sophistry. shall i go to mackintosh's on tuesday? um!--i did not go to marquis lansdowne's nor to miss berry's, though both are pleasant. so is sir james's,--but i don't know--i believe one is not the better for parties; at least, unless some _regnante_ is there. i wonder how the deuce any body could make such a world; for what purpose dandies, for instance, were ordained--and kings--and fellows of colleges--and women of "a certain age"--and many men of any age--and myself, most of all! "divesne prisco natus ab inacho nil interest, an pauper et infimâ de gente, sub dio ('sic') moreris, victima nil miserantis orci. omnes eodem cogimur," etc. [ ] is there any thing beyond?--_who_ knows? _he_ that can't tell. who tells that there _is_? he who don't know. and when shall he know? perhaps, when he don't expect, and generally when he don't wish it. in this last respect, however, all are not alike: it depends a good deal upon education,--something upon nerves and habits--but most upon digestion. [footnote : see p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ], and appendix vii.] [footnote : the battle of brienne was fought february , .] [footnote : by fire, on the th of february.] [footnote : "we are informed from very good authority, that as soon as the house of lords meet again, a peer of very independent principles and character intends to give notice of a motion occasioned by a late spontaneous avowal of a copy of verses by lord byron, addressed to the princess charlotte of wales, in which he has taken the most unwarrantable liberties with her august father's character and conduct: this motion being of a personal nature, it will be necessary to give the noble satirist some days' notice, that he may prepare himself for his defence against a charge of so aggravated a nature," etc. 'morning post', february .] [footnote : 'macbeth', act v. sc. .] [footnote : these words close the penultimate paragraph of burton's 'anatomy of melancholy'.] [footnote : 'hamlet', act ii. sc. , and act iii. sc. .] [footnote : 'ibid'., sc. .] [footnote : "brutus, thou sleepest, awake." 'julius cæsar', act ii. sc. .] [footnote : the following extract from 'detached thoughts' ( ) implies that this expression of opinion was no passing thought (but see scott's note, p. [footnote of journal entry for december th, ]): "there is nothing left for mankind but a republic, and i think that there are hopes of such. the two americas (south and north) have it; spain and portugal approach it; all thirst for it. oh washington!"] [footnote : here is one of madame de staël's notes: "je renonce à vos visites, pourvu que vous acceptiez mes diners, car enfin à quoi servirait il de vivre dans le même tems que vous, si l'on ne vous voyait pas? dinez chez moi dimanche avec vos amis,--je ne dirai pas vos admirateurs, car je n'ai rencontré que cela de touts parts. "a dimanche, "de staËl. "mardi. "je prends le silence pour oui."] [footnote : horace, 'odes', ii. iii. , 'et seqq.'] * * * * * saturday, feb. . just returned from seeing kean [ ] in richard. by jove, he is a soul! life--nature--truth without exaggeration or diminution. kemble's hamlet is perfect;--but hamlet is not nature. richard is a man; and kean is richard. now to my own concerns. went to waite's. teeth are all right and white; but he says that i grind them in my sleep and chip the edges. that same sleep is no friend of mine, though i court him sometimes for half the twenty-four. [footnote : edmund kean ( - ), after acting in provincial theatres, appeared at the haymarket in june, , as "ganem" in 'the mountaineers', but again returned to the country. his performance of "shylock" in the 'merchant of venice', at drury lane, on january , , made him famous. he appeared in "richard iii" on february , and still further increased his reputation. in the 'courier', february , , appears this paragraph: "mr. kean's attraction is unprecedented in the annals of theatricals--even cooke's performances are left at an immeasurable distance; his first three nights of 'richard' produced upwards of £ , and on repeating that character on thursday night for the fourthth ('sic') time, the receipts were upwards of £ ." on march the same paper says, "drury lane theatre again overflowed last night, at an early hour. such is the continued and increasing attraction of that truly great actor mr. kean." after the retirement of john kemble (june , ), he had no rival on the stage, especially in such parts as "othello," "lear," "hamlet," "sir giles overreach," and the two already mentioned. his last appearance on the stage was in "othello" at covent garden, march , . "to see kean act," said coleridge, "is like reading shakespeare by flashes of lightning." "garrick's nature," writes leigh hunt, in the 'tatler', july , , "displaced quin's formalism; and in precisely the same way did kean displace kemble. ... everything with kemble was literally a 'personation'--it was a mask and a sounding-pipe. it was all external and artificial.... kean's face is full of light and shade, his tones vary, his voice trembles, his eye glistens, sometimes with a withering scorn, sometimes with a tear." it was the realism and nature of kean which so strongly appealed to byron, and enabled the actor, to the last, in spite of his drunken habits, poor figure, and weak voice, to sway his audiences. the same qualities at first repelled more timid critics, and perhaps justified hazlitt's saying that kean was "not much relished in the upper circles." miss berry, for example, who saw him in all his principal parts in --in "richard iii," "hamlet," "othello," and "sir giles overreach"--remained cold. "his 'richard iii.' pleased me, but i was not enthusiastic. his expression of the passions is natural and strong, but i do not like his declamation; his voice, naturally not agreeable, becomes monotonous" ('diary', vol. iii. p. ). of his "hamlet" she says, "to my mind he is without grace and without elevation of mind, because he never seems to rise with the poet in those sublime passages which abound in 'hamlet'" ('ibid.', p. ). miss berry's criticism is supported by good authority. lewes ('on actors and the art of acting', pp. , ), while calling him "a consummate master of passionate expression," denies his capacity for representing "the intellectual side of heroism." kean preferred the coal-hole tavern in the strand, and the society of the wolf club, to lord holland's dinner-parties. though he never fell so low as cooke, his recklessness, irregularities, eccentricities, and habits of drinking, in spite of the large sums of money that passed through his hands, made his closing days neither prosperous nor reputable. such effect had the passionate energy of kean's acting on byron's mind, that, once, in seeing him play "sir giles overreach," he was so affected as to be seized with a sort of convulsive fit. some years later, in italy, when the representation of alfieri's tragedy of 'mirra' had agitated him in the same violent manner, he compared the two instances as the only ones in his life when "any thing under reality" had been able to move him so powerfully. "to such lengths," says moore, "did he, at this time, carry his enthusiasm for kean, that when miss o'neil appeared, and, by her matchless representation of feminine tenderness, attracted all eyes and hearts, he was not only a little jealous of her reputation, as interfering with that of his favourite, but, in order to guard himself against the risk of becoming a convert, refused to go to see her act. i endeavoured sometimes to persuade him into witnessing, at least, one of her performances; but his answer was (punning upon shakspeare's word, 'unanealed'), 'no--i am resolved to continue 'un-oneiled'.' " in his 'detached thoughts' ( ) byron says, "of actors cooke was the most natural, kemble the most supernatural, kean the medium between the two. but mrs. siddons was worth them all put together."] * * * * * february . got up and tore out two leaves of this journal--i don't know why. hodgson just called and gone. he has much _bonhommie_ with his other good qualities, and more talent than he has yet had credit for beyond his circle. an invitation to dine at holland house to meet kean. he is worth meeting; and i hope, by getting into good society, he will be prevented from falling like cooke. he is greater now on the stage, and off he should never be less. there is a stupid and underrating criticism upon him in one of the newspapers. i thought that, last night, though great, he rather under-acted more than the first time. this may be the effect of these cavils; but i hope he has more sense than to mind them. he cannot expect to maintain his present eminence, or to advance still higher, without the envy of his green-room fellows, and the nibbling of their admirers. but, if he don't beat them all, why then--merit hath no purchase in "these coster-monger days." [ ] i wish that i had a talent for the drama; i would write a tragedy _now_. but no,--it is gone. hodgson talks of one,--he will do it well;--and i think m---e [moore] should try. he has wonderful powers, and much variety; besides, he has lived and felt. to write so as to bring home to the heart, the heart must have been tried,--but, perhaps, ceased to be so. while you are under the influence of passions, you only feel, but cannot describe them,--any more than, when in action, you could turn round and tell the story to your next neighbour! when all is over,--all, all, and irrevocable,--trust to memory--she is then but too faithful. went out, and answered some letters, yawned now and then, and redde the 'robbers'. fine,--but 'fiesco' is better [ ]; and alfieri, and monti's 'aristodemo' [ ] _best_. they are more equal than the tedeschi dramatists. answered--or rather acknowledged--the receipt of young reynolds's [ ] poem, _safie_. the lad is clever, but much of his thoughts are borrowed,--whence, the reviewers may find out. i hate discouraging a young one; and i think,--though wild and more oriental than he would be, had he seen the scenes where he has placed his tale,--that he has much talent, and, certainly fire enough. received a very singular epistle; and the mode of its conveyance, through lord h.'s hands, as curious as the letter itself. but it was gratifying and pretty. [footnote : 'henry iv.', part ii. act i. sc. .] [footnote : schiller's 'robbers' was first produced at mannheim, january , ; his 'fiesco' was published in . the 'robbers' is included in benjamin thompson's 'german theatre' ( ). 'fiesco' was translated by g. h. noehden and john stoddart in .] [footnote : monti's three tragedies, 'caio gracco', 'aristodemo', and 'manfredi', were written in rivalry of alfieri's tragedies between the years and .] [footnote : for john hamilton reynolds, see 'letters', vol. iii. (february , , 'note' ).] * * * * * sunday, february . here i am, alone, instead of dining at lord h.'s, where i was asked,--but not inclined to go any where. hobhouse says i am growing a _loup garou_,--a solitary hobgoblin. true;--"i am myself alone." [ ] the last week has been passed in reading--seeing plays--now and then visitors--sometimes yawning and sometimes sighing, but no writing,--save of letters. if i could always read, i should never feel the want of society. do i regret it?--um!--"man delights not me," [ ] and only one woman--at a time. there is something to me very softening in the presence of a woman,--some strange influence, even if one is not in love with them--which i cannot at all account for, having no very high opinion of the sex. but yet,--i always feel in better humour with myself and every thing else, if there is a woman within ken. even mrs. mule [ ], my firelighter,--the most ancient and withered of her kind,--and (except to myself) not the best-tempered--always makes me laugh,--no difficult task when i am "i' the vein." heigho! i would i were in mine island!--i am not well; and yet i look in good health. at times, i fear, "i am not in my perfect mind;" [ ]--and yet my heart and head have stood many a crash, and what should ail them now? they prey upon themselves, and i am sick--sick--"prithee, undo this button--why should a cat, a rat, a dog have life--and thou no life at all?" [ ] six-and-twenty years, as they call them, why, i might and should have been a pasha by this time. "i 'gin to be a-weary of the sun." [ ] buonaparte is not yet beaten; but has rebutted blucher, and repiqued schwartzenburg [ ]. this it is to have a head. if he again wins, _væ victis!_ [footnote : "i am myself alone." 'henry vi.', part iii. act v. sc. .] [footnote : 'hamlet', act ii. sc. .] [footnote : "this ancient housemaid, of whose gaunt and witch-like appearance it would be impossible to convey any idea but by the pencil, furnished one among the numerous instances of lord byron's proneness to attach himself to any thing, however homely, that had once enlisted his good nature in its behalf, and become associated with his thoughts. he first found this old woman at his lodgings in bennet street, where, for a whole season, she was the perpetual scarecrow of his visitors. when, next year, he took chambers in albany, one of the great advantages which his friends looked to in the change was, that they should get rid of this phantom. but, no,--there she was again--he had actually brought her with him from bennet street. the following year saw him married, and, with a regular establishment of servants, in piccadilly; and here,--as mrs. mule had not made her appearance to any of the visitors,--it was concluded, rashly, that the witch had vanished. one of those friends, however, who had most fondly indulged in this persuasion, happening to call one day when all the male part of the establishment were abroad, saw, to his dismay, the door opened by the same grim personage, improved considerably in point of babiliments since he last saw her, and keeping pace with the increased scale of her master's household, as a new peruke, and other symptoms of promotion, testified. when asked 'how he came to carry this old woman about with him from place to place,' lord byron's only answer was, 'the poor old devil was so kind to me'". (moore).] [footnote : 'king lear', act iv. sc. .] [footnote : "why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and thou no breath at all?" 'king lear', act v. sc. .] [footnote : "i 'gin to be a-weary of the sun, and wish the estate of the world were now undone." 'macbeth', act v. sc. .] [footnote : napoleon fought the battle of nangis against blucher on the th of february, , and that of montereau against prince schwartzenberg on the following day.] * * * * * sunday, march . on tuesday last dined with rogers,--madame de staël, mackintosh, sheridan, erskine [ ], and payne knight, lady donegal, and miss r. there. sheridan told a very good story of himself and madame de recamier's handkerchief; erskine a few stories of himself only. _she_ is going to write a big book about england, she says;--i believe her. asked by her how i liked miss edgeworth's thing, called _patronage_ [ ], and answered (very sincerely) that i thought it very bad for _her_, and worse than any of the others. afterwards thought it possible lady donegal [ ], being irish, might be a patroness of miss edgeworth, and was rather sorry for my opinion, as i hate putting people into fusses, either with themselves or their favourites; it looks as if one did it on purpose. the party went off very well, and the fish was very much to my gusto. but we got up too soon after the women; and mrs. corinne always lingers so long after dinner that we wish her in--the drawing-room. to-day campbell called, and while sitting here in came merivale [ ]. during our colloquy, c. (ignorant that merivale was the writer) abused the "mawkishness of the _quarterly review_ of grimm's _correspondence_." i (knowing the secret) changed the conversation as soon as i could; and c. went away, quite convinced of having made the most favourable impression on his new acquaintance. merivale is luckily a very good-natured fellow, or god he knows what might have been engendered from such a malaprop. i did not look at him while this was going on, but i felt like a coal--for i like merivale, as well as the article in question. asked to lady keith's [ ] to-morrow evening--i think i will go; but it is the first party invitation i have accepted this "season," as the learned fletcher called it, when that youngest brat of lady----'s cut my eye and cheek open with a misdirected pebble--"never mind, my lord, the scar will be gone before the _season_;" as if one's eye was of no importance in the mean time. lord erskine called, and gave me his famous pamphlet, with a marginal note and corrections in his handwriting. sent it to be bound superbly, and shall treasure it. sent my fine print of napoleon [ ] to be framed. it _is_ framed; and the emperor becomes his robes as if he had been hatched in them. [footnote : thomas, lord erskine ( - ), youngest son of the tenth earl of buchan, a midshipman in the royal navy ( - ), an ensign, and subsequently a lieutenant in the first foot ( - ), was called to the bar in , and became lord chancellor in . as an advocate he was unrivalled. "even the great luminaries of the law," says wraxall ('posthumous memoirs', vol. i. p. ), "when arrayed in their ermine, bent under his ascendancy, and seemed to be half subdued by his intelligence, or awed by his vehemence, pertinacity, and undaunted character." with a jury he was particularly successful, though he lived to write the lines quoted by lord campbell ('lives of the chancellors', ed. , vol. viii. p. ): "the monarch's pale face was with blushes suffused, to observe right and wrong by twelve villains confused, and, kicking their----s all round in a fury, cried, ''curs'd be the day i invented a jury!''" a whig in politics, and in sympathy with the doctrines of the french revolution, he defended paine, frost, hardy, and other political offenders, and did memorable service to the cause of constitutional liberty. in the house of commons, which he entered as m. p. for portsmouth in , he was a failure; his maiden speech on fox's india bill fell flat, and he was crushed by pitt's contempt. as lord chancellor ( - ) he proved a better judge than was expected. at the time when byron made his acquaintance, he had practically retired from public life, and devoted himself to literature, society, and farming, writing on the services of rooks, and attending the holkham sheep-shearings. lord campbell has collected many of his verses and jokes in vol. ix. chap. cxc. of his 'lives of the chancellors'. his famous pamphlet, 'on the causes and consequences of the war with france' ( ), was written, as he told miss berry ('journal of miss berry', vol. ii. p. ), "on slips of paper in the midst of all the business which i was engaged in at the time--not at home, but in open court, whilst the causes were trying. when it was not my turn to examine a witness, or to speak to the jury, i wrote a little bit; and so on by snatches." his 'armata' was published by murray in . in society erskine was widely known for his brilliancy, his puns, and his extraordinary vanity. his egotism gained him such titles as counsellor ego, baron ego of eye, and supplied mathias ('pursuits of literature') with an illustration: "a vain, pert prater, bred in erskine's school."] [footnote : miss edgeworth's 'patronage' was published in - . in she had been in london with her father and stepmother. the following entries respecting the family are taken from byron's 'detached thoughts': "old edgeworth, the fourth or fifth mrs. edgeworth, and 'the' miss edgeworth were in london, . miss edgeworth liked, mrs. edgeworth not disliked, old edgeworth a bore, the worst of bores--a boisterous bore. i met them in society--once at a breakfast of sir h.d.'s. old edgeworth came in late, boasting that he had given 'dr. parr a dressing the night before' (no such easy matter by the way). i thought her pleasant. they all abused anna seward's memory. when on the road they heard of her brother's--and his son's--death. what was to be done? their 'london' apparel was all ordered and made! so they sunk his death for the six weeks of their sojourn, and went into mourning on their way back to ireland. 'fact!' "while the colony were in london, there was a book with a subscription for the 'recall of mrs. siddons to the stage' going about for signatures. moore moved for a similar subscription for the 'recall of 'mr. edgeworth to ireland!'' "sir humphry davy told me that the scene of the french valet and irish postboy in 'ennui' was taken from his verbal description to the edgeworths in edgeworthtown of a similar fact on the road occurring to himself. so much the better--being 'life'."] [footnote : the marquis of donegal married, in , anna, daughter of sir edward may, bart.] [footnote : for j. h. merivale, see 'letters', vol. iii. (january, . 'note' ).] [footnote : hester maria, eldest daughter and co-heir of henry thrale, of streatham, the friend of dr. johnson, married, in , viscount keith.] [footnote : byron's "portrait of bonaparte, engraved by morghen, _very fine impression, in a gilt frame_," was sold at his sale, april , .] * * * * * march . rose at seven--ready by half-past eight--went to mr. hanson's, bloomsbury square--went to church with his eldest daughter, mary anne (a good girl), and gave her away to the earl of portsmouth. [ ] saw her fairly a countess--congratulated the family and groom (bride)--drank a bumper of wine (wholesome sherris) to their felicity, and all that--and came home. asked to stay to dinner, but could not. at three sat to phillips for faces. called on lady m. [melbourne]--i like her so well, that i always stay too long. (mem. to mend of that.) passed the evening with hobhouse, who has begun a poem, which promises highly;--wish he would go on with it. heard some curious extracts from a life of morosini, [ ] the blundering venetian, who blew up the acropolis at athens with a bomb, and be damned to him! waxed sleepy--just come home--must go to bed, and am engaged to meet sheridan to-morrow at rogers's. queer ceremony that same of marriage--saw many abroad, greek and catholic--one, at _home_, many years ago. there be some strange phrases in the prologue (the exhortation), which made me turn away, not to laugh in the face of the surpliceman. made one blunder, when i joined the hands of the happy--rammed their left hands, by mistake, into one another. corrected it--bustled back to the altar-rail, and said "amen." portsmouth responded as if he had got the whole by heart; and, if any thing, was rather before the priest. it is now midnight and----. [footnote : lord portsmouth (see 'letters', vol. i. p. , 'note' [footnote of letter ]), who had long known the hansons, from whose house he married his first wife, married, march , , mary anne, eldest daughter of john hanson. a commission of lunacy was taken out by the brother and next heir, the hon. newton fellowes; but lord chancellor eldon decided that lord portsmouth was capable of entering into the marriage contract and managing his own affairs. the commission was, however, ultimately granted. byron swore an affidavit on the first occasion. "denman mentioned lord byron's affidavit about lord portsmouth as a proof of the influence of hanson over him; lord b. swearing that lord p. had 'rather a 'superior' mind than otherwise'" ('memoirs, etc., of thomas moore', vol. vi. p. ). the following is the note which byron sent hanson to embody in his affidavit: "i have been acquainted with mr. hanson and his family for many years. he is my solicitor. about the beginning of march last he sent to me to ask my opinion on the subject of lord portsmouth, who, as i understood from mr. h., was paying great attention to his eldest daughter. he stated to me that mr. newton fellowes (with whom i have no personal acquaintance) was particularly desirous that lord portsmouth should marry some 'elderly woman' of his (mr. fellowes's) selection--that the title and family estates might thereby devolve on mr. f. or his children; but that lord p. had expressed a dislike to old women, and a desire to choose for himself. i told mr. hanson that, if miss hanson's affections were not pre-engaged, and lord portsmouth appeared attached to her, there could be, in my opinion, no objection to the match. i think, but cannot be positive, that i saw lord portsmouth at mr. hanson's two or three times previous to the marriage; but i had no conversation with him upon it. "the night before the ceremony, i received an invitation from mr. hanson, requesting me, as a friend of the family, to be present at the marriage, which was to take place next morning. i went next morning to bloomsbury square, where i found the parties. lady portsmouth, with her brother and sister and another gentleman, went in the carriage to st. george's church; lord portsmouth and myself walked, as the carriage was full, and the distance short. on my way lord portsmouth told me that he had been partial to miss hanson from her childhood, and that, since she grew up, and more particularly subsequent to the decease of the late lady p., this partiality had become attachment, and that he thought her calculated to make him an excellent wife. i was present at the ceremony and gave away the bride. lord portsmouth's behaviour seemed to me perfectly calm and rational on the occasion. he seemed particularly attentive to the priest, and gave the responses audibly and very distinctly. i remarked this because, in ordinary conversation, his lordship has a hesitation in his speech. after the ceremony, we returned to mr. hanson's, whence, i believe, they went into the country--where i did not accompany them. since their return i have occasionally seen lord and lady portsmouth in bloomsbury square. they appeared very happy. i have never been very intimate with his lordship, and am therefore unqualified to give a decided opinion of his general conduct. but had i considered him insane, i should have advised mr. hanson, when he consulted me on the subject, not to permit the marriage. his preference of a young woman to an old one, and of his own wishes to those of a younger brother, seemed to me neither irrational nor extraordinary." there is nothing in the note itself, or in the draft affidavit, to bear out moore's report of denman's statement. byron, according to the account given by newton hanson, is wrong in saying that mrs. hanson approved of the marriage. on the contrary, it was the cause of her death, a fortnight later. in the marriage was annulled, a jury having decided that lord portsmouth was 'non compos mentis' when he contracted it.] [footnote : francesco morosini ( - ) occupied the morea for venice ( ), besieged athens, and bombarded the parthenon, which had been made a powder-magazine. he became doge of venice in .] * * * * * march , thor's day. on tuesday dined with rogers,--mackintosh, sheridan, sharpe,--much talk, and good,--all, except my own little prattlement. much of old times--horne tooke--the trials--evidence of sheridan, and anecdotes of those times, when _i_, alas! was an infant. if i had been a man, i would have made an english lord edward fitzgerald. set down sheridan at brookes's,--where, by the by, he could not have well set down himself, as he and i were the only drinkers. sherry means to stand for westminster, as cochrane [ ] (the stock-jobbing hoaxer) must vacate. brougham [ ] is a candidate. i fear for poor dear sherry. both have talents of the highest order, but the youngster has _yet_ a character. we shall see, if he lives to sherry's age, how he will pass over the redhot plough-shares of public life. i don't know why, but i hate to see the _old_ ones lose; particularly sheridan, notwithstanding all his _méchanceté_. received many, and the kindest, thanks from lady portsmouth, _père_ and _mère_, for my match-making. i don't regret it, as she looks the countess well, and is a very good girl. it is odd how well she carries her new honours. she looks a different woman, and high-bred, too. i had no idea that i could make so good a peeress. went to the play with hobhouse. mrs. jordan superlative in hoyden, [ ] and jones well enough in foppington. _what plays_! what wit!--_hélas_! congreve and vanbrugh are your only comedy. our society is too insipid now for the like copy. would _not_ go to lady keith's. hobhouse thought it odd. i wonder _he_ should like parties. if one is in love, and wants to break a commandment and covet any thing that is there, they do very well. but to go out amongst the mere herd, without a motive, pleasure, or pursuit--'sdeath! "i'll none of it." he told me an odd report,--that _i_ am the actual conrad, the veritable corsair, and that part of my travels are supposed to have passed in privacy. um!--people sometimes hit near the truth; but never the whole truth. h. don't know what i was about the year after he left the levant; nor does any one--nor-- --nor--nor--however, it is a lie--but, "i doubt the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth!" [ ] i shall have letters of importance to-morrow. which,----,----, or ----? heigho!------is in my heart,----in my head,----in my eye, and the _single_ one, heaven knows where. all write, and will be answered. "since i have crept in favour with myself, i must maintain it;" [ ] but i never "mistook my person," [ ] though i think others have. ----called to-day in great despair about his mistress, who has taken a freak of----. he began a letter to her, but was obliged to stop short--i finished it for him, and he copied and sent it. if _he_ holds out, and keeps to my instructions of affected indifference, she will lower her colours. if she don't, he will, at least, get rid of her, and she don't seem much worth keeping. but the poor lad is in love--if that is the case, she will win. when they once discover their power, _finita è la musica_. sleepy, and must go to bed. [footnote : thomas, lord cochrane ( - ), eldest son of the ninth earl of dundonald, a captain in the royal navy, and m. p. for westminster, had done brilliant service in his successive commands--the 'speedy', 'pallas', 'impérieuse', and the flotilla of fire-ships at basque roads in . in the house of commons he had been a strong opponent of the government, an advocate of parliamentary reform, and a vigorous critic of naval administration. in february, , he had been appointed to the 'tonnant' for the american station, and it was while he was on a week's leave of absence in london, before sailing, that the stock-jobbing hoax occurred. during the days february - , , it seemed possible that napoleon might defeat the allied armies, and the funds were sensitive to every rumour. at midnight on sunday, february , a man calling himself du bourg brought news to admiral foley, at dover, that napoleon had been killed by a party of cossacks. hurrying towards london, du bourg, whose real name was berenger, spread the news as he went. arrived in london soon after daybreak, he went to cochrane's house, and there changed his uniform. when the stock exchange opened at ten on february , , the funds rose rapidly, and among those who sold on the rise was cochrane. the next day, when the swindle had been discovered, the stocks fell. a stock exchange committee sat to investigate the case, and their report (march ) threw grave suspicion on cochrane. he, his uncle, cochrane johnstone, a mr. butt, and berenger, were indicted for a conspiracy, tried before lord ellenborough, june - , and convicted. cochrane was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine of £ . on the back of the note for £ (still kept in the bank of england) with which he paid his fine on july , , he wrote: "my health having suffered by long and close confinement, and my oppressors being resolved to deprive me of property or life, i submit to robbery to protect myself from murder, in the hope that i shall live to bring the delinquents to justice." cochrane was also expelled from the house of commons and from the order of the bath. there is little doubt that the circumstances were extremely suspicious. those who wish to form an opinion as to cochrane's guilt or innocence will find the subject of the trial exhaustively treated in mr. j.b. atlay's 'lord cochrane's trial before lord ellenborough' ( ).] [footnote : henry, lord brougham ( - ) acknowledged that he wrote the famous article on byron's 'hours of idleness' in the 'edinburgh review' (sir m.e. grant-duff's 'notes from a diary', vol. ii. p. ). he lost his seat for camelford in september, , and did not re-enter the house till july, , when he sat for winchelsea. in the postscript of a letter written by him to douglas kinnaird, december , , he speaks of byron thus: "your friend, lord b., is, in my opinion, a singularly agreeable person, which is very rarely the case with eminent men. his independent principles give him a great additional charm." but the part which brougham played in the separation, both as counsel and in society, infuriated byron, who wrote of him in his letters with the utmost bitterness. (see also the passage, now for the first time published, from byron's 'detached thoughts', on his parliamentary experiences, p. , first paragraph of 'note'. [ md paragraph of footnote of letter ])] [footnote : dorothy jordan ( - ) first appeared as "phoebe" in 'as you like it' at the crow street theatre, dublin, in . after acting in provincial theatres, she made her 'début' on the london stage at drury lane (october , ) as "peggy" in garrick's 'country girl', an expurgated version of wycherley's 'country wife'. during the season she appeared also in six of her best parts: "miss hoyden" in 'the trip to scarborough', "priscilla tomboy" in 'the romp', "hypolita" in 'she would and she would not', "mrs. brady" in 'the irish widow', "viola" in 'twelfth night', and "rosalind" in 'as you like it'. her last appearance on the london stage was as "lady teazle" in 'the school for scandal', at covent garden, june , . a list of her principal characters is given by genest ('english stage', vol. viii. pp. - ). as a comic actress, mrs. jordan was unrivalled; her voice was perfect; and her natural gaiety irresistible. sir joshua reynolds preferred her to all other actresses as a being "who ran upon the stage as a playground, and laughed from sincere wildness of delight." in genteel comedy, critics like genest ('english stage', vol. viii. p. ) and leigh hunt ('dramatic essays', ed. , p. ) agree that she failed, perhaps, as the latter suggests, because she was so "perpetually employed" in "broad and romping characters." in private life mrs. jordan was chiefly known as the mistress of the duke of clarence, to whom she bore ten children. she died at st. cloud, july , . the play acted at covent garden, march , , was sheridan's 'trip to scarborough', which is a close adaptation of vanbrugh's 'relapse'. the performance is thus described in the 'courier', march , : "mrs. jordan, the only 'miss hoyden' on the stage, supported that character with unabated spirit. in every scene, from her soliloquy on being locked up, which was delivered with extraordinary 'naïveté', both with reference to her tones, her emphasis, and her action, until the consummation of the piece, the house was shaken by loud and quick-succeeding peals of laughter. the style in which she expressed 'hoyden's' rustic arithmetic, 'now, 'nursey', if he gives me 'six hundred pounds' a-year to buy 'pins', what will he give me to buy petticoats?' was uncommonly fine. the frock waving in her hand, the backward bound of two or three steps, the gravity of countenance, induced by a mental glance at the magnitude of the sum, all spoke expectation, delight, and astonishment."] [footnote : 'macbeth', act v. sc. .] [footnote : 'richard iii', act i. sc. , line .] [footnote : 'ibid.', line .] * * * * * tuesday, march . dined yesterday with rogers, mackintosh, and sharpe. sheridan could not come. sharpe told several very amusing anecdotes of henderson, the actor. [ ] stayed till late, and came home, having drunk so much _tea_, that i did not get to sleep till six this morning. r. says i am to be in _this quarterly_--cut up, i presume, as they "hate us youth." [ ] _n'importe_. as sharpe was passing by the doors of some debating society (the westminster forum), in his way to dinner, he saw rubricked on the wall _scott's_ name and _mine_--"which the best poet?" being the question of the evening; and i suppose all the templars and _would-bes_ took our rhymes in vain in the course of the controversy. which had the greater show of hands, i neither know nor care; but i feel the coupling of the names as a compliment--though i think scott deserves better company. wedderburn webster called--lord erskine, lord holland, etc., etc. wrote to----_the corsair_ report. she says she don't wonder, since "conrad is so _like_." it is odd that one, who knows me so thoroughly, should tell me this to my face. however, if she don't know, nobody can. mackintosh is, it seems, the writer of the defensive letter in the _morning chronicle_. if so, it is very kind, and more than i did for myself. told murray to secure for me bandello's italian novels [ ] at the sale to-morrow. to me they will be _nuts_. redde a satire on myself, called "anti-byron," and told murray to publish it if he liked. the object of the author is to prove me an atheist and a systematic conspirator against law and government. some of the verse is good; the prose i don't quite understand. he asserts that my "deleterious works" have had "an effect upon civil society, which requires," etc., etc., etc., and his own poetry. it is a lengthy poem, and a long preface, with an harmonious title-page. like the fly in the fable, i seem to have got upon a wheel which makes much dust; but, unlike the said fly, i do not take it all for my own raising. a letter from _bella_, [ ] which i answered. i shall be in love with her again if i don't take care. i shall begin a more regular system of reading soon. [footnote : john henderson, the bath roscius ( - ), without any great personal advantages, was, according to mrs. siddons, "a fine actor ... the soul of intelligence." rogers ('table-talk', ed. , p. ) says, "henderson was a truly great actor: his hamlet and his falstaff were equally good. he was a very fine reader too: in his comic readings, superior, of course, to mrs. siddons: his john gilpin was marvellous." in sharp's 'letters and essays' (ed. , pp. - ) will be found an interesting letter to henderson, written a few days before his death, giving an account of john kemble's first appearance on the london boards, in the character of "hamlet." "there has not," says sharp, "been such a first appearance since yours; yet nature, though she has been bountiful to him in figure and feature, has denied him a voice.... you have been so long without a 'brother near the throne,' that it will perhaps be serviceable to you to be obliged to bestir yourself in hamlet, macbeth, lord townley, and maskwell; but in lear, richard, falstaff, and benedict, you have nothing to fear, not-withstanding the known fickleness of the public and its love of novelty."] [footnote : 'henry iv', part i. act ii. sc. .] [footnote : matteo bandello ( - ), a native of piedmont, became in bishop of agen. his tales, in the manner of boccaccio, were published at milan ( - ). in the catalogue of byron's books, "sold by auction by mr. evans, at his house, no. , pall mall, on friday, april , , and following day," appears "bandello, 'novelle', vol., wanting vol. , 'livorn', ."] [footnote : miss milbanke, afterwards lady byron.] * * * * * thursday, march . i have been sparring with jackson for exercise this morning; and mean to continue and renew my acquaintance with the muffles. my chest, and arms, and wind are in very good plight, and i am not in flesh. i used to be a hard hitter, and my arms are very long for my height ( feet / inches). at any rate, exercise is good, and this the severest of all; fencing and the broad-sword never fatigued me half so much. redde the 'quarrels of authors' [ ] (another sort of _sparring_)--a new work, by that most entertaining and researching writer, israeli. they seem to be an irritable set, and i wish myself well out of it. "i'll not march through coventry with them, that's flat." [ ] what the devil had i to do with scribbling? it is too late to inquire, and all regret is useless. but, an it were to do again,--i should write again, i suppose. such is human nature, at least my share of it;--though i shall think better of myself, if i have sense to stop now. if i have a wife, and that wife has a son--by any body--i will bring up mine heir in the most anti-poetical way--make him a lawyer, or a pirate, or--any thing. but, if he writes too, i shall be sure he is none of mine, and cut him off with a bank token. must write a letter--three o'clock. [footnote : disraeli's 'curiosities of literature', vols. ( ); 'calamities of authors', vols. ( ); and 'quarrels of authors', vols. ( ), appear in the sale catalogue.] [footnote : 'henry iv'., part i. act iv. sc. .] * * * * * sunday, march . i intended to go to lady hardwicke's, [ ] but won't. i always begin the day with a bias towards going to parties; but, as the evening advances, my stimulus fails, and i hardly ever go out--and, when i do, always regret it. this might have been a pleasant one;--at least, the hostess is a very superior woman. lady lansdowne's [ ] to-morrow--lady heathcote's [ ] wednesday. um!--i must spur myself into going to some of them, or it will look like rudeness, and it is better to do as other people do--confound them! redde machiavel, [ ] parts of chardin, and sismondi, and bandello--by starts. redde the _edinburgh_, , just come out. in the beginning of the article on edgeworth's _patronage_, i have gotten a high compliment, i perceive. [ ] whether this is creditable to me, i know not; but it does honour to the editor, because he once abused me. many a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its censure, or _can_ praise the man it has once attacked. i have often, since my return to england, heard jeffrey most highly commended by those who know him for things independent of his talents. i admire him for _this_--not because he has _praised me_ (i have been so praised elsewhere and abused, alternately, that mere habit has rendered me as indifferent to both as a man at twenty-six can be to any thing), but because he is, perhaps, the _only man_ who, under the relations in which he and i stand, or stood, with regard to each other, would have had the liberality to act thus; none but a great soul dared hazard it. the height on which he stands has not made him giddy;--a little scribbler would have gone on cavilling to the end of the chapter. as to the justice of his panegyric, that is matter of taste. there are plenty to question it, and glad, too, of the opportunity. lord erskine called to-day. he means to carry down his reflections on the war--or rather wars--to the present day. i trust that he will. must send to mr. murray to get the binding of my copy of his pamphlet finished, as lord e. has promised me to correct it, and add some marginal notes to it. any thing in his handwriting will be a treasure, which will gather compound interest from years. erskine has high expectations of mackintosh's promised history. undoubtedly it must be a classic, when finished. [ ] sparred with jackson again yesterday morning, and shall to-morrow. i feel all the better for it, in spirits, though my arms and shoulders are very stiff from it. mem. to attend the pugilistic dinner:--marquess huntley [ ] is in the chair. lord erskine thinks that ministers must be in peril of going out. so much the better for him. to me it is the same who are in or out;--we want something more than a change of ministers, and some day we will have it. i remember, in riding from chrisso to castri (delphos), along the sides of parnassus, i saw six eagles in the air. it is uncommon to see so many together; and it was the number--not the species, which is common enough--that excited my attention. the last bird i ever fired at was an _eaglet_, on the shore of the gulf of lepanto, near vostitza. it was only wounded, and i tried to save it, the eye was so bright; but it pined, and died in a few days; and i never did since, and never will, attempt the death of another bird. i wonder what put these two things into my head just now? i have been reading sismondi, and there is nothing there that could induce the recollection. i am mightily taken with braccio di montone, giovanni galeazzo, and eccelino. but the last is _not_ bracciaferro (of the same name), count of ravenna, whose history i want to trace. there is a fine engraving in lavater, from a picture by fuseli, of _that_ ezzelin, over the body of meduna, punished by him for a _hitch_ in her constancy during his absence in the crusades. he was right--but i want to know the story. [ ] [footnote : philip yorke, third earl of hardwicke, married, in , elizabeth, daughter of the fifth earl of balcarres.] [footnote : louisa emma, daughter of the second earl of ilchester, was married, in , to the marquis of lansdowne, at that time lord henry petty.] [footnote : katherine sophia, daughter of john manners, of grantham grange, co. lincoln, was married, in , to sir gilbert heathcote.] [footnote : machiavelli's 'opere', vols., 'in russia, milan' ( ); sismondi's 'de la littérature du midi', vols., 'in russia', paris ( ); and chardin's 'voyages en perse', vols. and atlas ( ), appear in the catalogue of sale.] [footnote : "it is no slight consolation to us, while suffering under alternate reproaches for ill-timed severity, and injudicious praise, to reflect that no very mischievous effects have as yet resulted to the literature of the country, from this imputed misbehaviour on our part. powerful genius, we are persuaded, will not be repressed even by unjust castigation; nor will the most excessive praise that can be lavished by sincere admiration ever abate the efforts that are fitted to attain to excellence. our alleged severity upon a youthful production has not prevented the noble author from becoming the first poet of his time." 'edinburgh review', vol. xxii. p. .] [footnote : mackintosh wrote ( ) a 'history of england' for lardner's 'cabinet cyclopaedia' ( ); ( ) a 'history of the revolution in england' ( ).] [footnote : afterwards fifth, and last, duke of gordon. he died in may, .] [footnote : "fuseli's picture of ezzelin bracciaferro musing over meduna, slain by him for disloyalty during his absence in the holy land, was exhibited at the royal academy in . mr. knowles, in his 'life' of the painter, relates the following anecdote: 'fuseli frequently invented the subject of his pictures without the aid of the poet or historian, as in his composition of ezzelin, belisaire, and some others: these he denominated "philosophical ideas intuitive, or sentiment personified." on one occasion he was much amused by the following inquiry of lord byron: "i have been looking in vain, mr. fuseli, for some months, in the poets and historians of italy, for the subject of your picture of ezzelin: pray where is it to be found?" "only in my brain, my lord," was the answer: "for i invented it"' (vol. i. p. )" (moore).] * * * * * tuesday, march . last night, _party_ at lansdowne house. to-night, _party_ at lady charlotte greville's [ ]--deplorable waste of time, and something of temper. nothing imparted--nothing acquired--talking without ideas:--if any thing like _thought_ in my mind, it was not on the subjects on which we were gabbling. heigho!--and in this way half london pass what is called life. to-morrow there is lady heathcote's--shall i go? yes--to punish myself for not having a pursuit. let me see--what did i see? the only person who much struck me was lady s--d's [stafford's] eldest daughter, lady c. l. [ ] [charlotte leveson]. they say she is _not_ pretty. i don't know--every thing is pretty that pleases; but there is an air of _soul_ about her--and her colour changes--and there is that shyness of the antelope (which i delight in) in her manner so much, that i observed her more than i did any other woman in the rooms, and only looked at any thing else when i thought she might perceive and feel embarrassed by my scrutiny. after all, there may be something of association in this. she is a friend of augusta's, and whatever she loves i can't help liking. her mother, the marchioness, talked to me a little; and i was twenty times on the point of asking her to introduce me to _sa fille_, but i stopped short. this comes of that affray with the carlisles. earl grey told me laughingly of a paragraph in the last _moniteur_, which has stated, among other symptoms of rebellion, some particulars of the _sensation_ occasioned in all our government gazettes by the "tear" lines,--_only_ amplifying, in its re-statement, an epigram (by the by, no epigram except in the _greek_ acceptation of the word) into a _roman_. i wonder the _couriers_, etc., etc., have not translated that part of the _moniteur_, with additional comments. [ ] the princess of wales has requested fuseli to paint from 'the corsair'--leaving to him the choice of any passage for the subject: so mr. locke tells me. tired, jaded, selfish, and supine--must go to bed. _roman_, at least _romance_, means a song sometimes, as in the spanish. i suppose this is the _moniteur's_ meaning, unless he has confused it with 'the corsair'. [footnote : daughter of william henry cavendish, third duke of portland, married, in , to charles greville.] [footnote : afterwards countess of surrey.] [footnote : "londres le mars... on vient de publier une caricature insolente et grossiere centre le mariage projeté (de la princesse de galles) et centre le prince d'orange. en commentant cette gravure, le 'town talk' a osé avancer que la princesse charlotte détestait son époux futur, et que ses véritables affections étaient sacrifices à des vues politiques. le lord byron a fait de ce bruit populaire le sujet d'une romance." 'moniteur', mars, .] * * * * * albany, march . this night got into my new apartments, [ ] rented of lord althorpe, on a lease of seven years. spacious, and room for my books and sabres. _in_ the _house_, too, another advantage. the last few days, or whole week, have been very abstemious, regular in exercise, and yet very _un_well. yesterday, dined _tête-à-tête_ at the cocoa with scrope davies--sat from six till midnight--drank between us one bottle of champagne and six of claret, neither of which wines ever affect me. offered to take scrope home in my carriage; but he was tipsy and pious, and i was obliged to leave him on his knees praying to i know not what purpose or pagod. no headach, nor sickness, that night nor to-day. got up, if any thing, earlier than usual--sparred with jackson _ad sudorem_, and have been much better in health than for many days. i have heard nothing more from scrope. yesterday paid him four thousand eight hundred pounds, a debt of some standing, and which i wished to have paid before. my mind is much relieved by the removal of that _debit_. augusta wants me to make it up with carlisle. i have refused _every_ body else, but i can't deny her any thing;--so i must e'en do it, though i had as lief "drink up eisel--eat a crocodile." [ ] let me see--ward, the hollands, the lambs, rogers, etc., etc.,--every body, more or less, have been trying for the last two years to accommodate this _couplet_ quarrel, to no purpose. i shall laugh if augusta succeeds. redde a little of many things--shall get in all my books to-morrow. luckily this room will hold them--with "ample room and verge, etc., the characters of hell to trace." [ ] i must set about some employment soon; my heart begins to eat _itself_ again. [footnote : in albany house, in piccadilly, long occupied by the duke of york and albany, was converted into sets of bachelor chambers, and the gardens behind were also built over with additional suites of rooms. byron's were in the original house on the ground floor, no. . moore, writing to rogers, april , ('memoirs, etc'., vol. viii. p. ), says, "lord byron, as you know, has removed into albany, and lives in an apartment, i should think thirty by forty feet."] [footnote : 'hamlet', act v. sc. , line .] [footnote : "give ample room, and verge enough the characters of hell to trace." gray, 'the bard', lines , .] * * * * * april . out of town six days. on my return, found my poor little pagod, napoleon, pushed off his pedestal;--the thieves are in paris. it is his own fault. like milo, he would rend the oak; [ ] but it closed again, wedged his hands, and now the beasts--lion, bear, down to the dirtiest jackal--may all tear him. that muscovite winter _wedged_ his arms;--ever since, he has fought with his feet and teeth. the last may still leave their marks; and "i guess now" (as the yankees say) that he will yet play them a pass. he is in their rear--between them and their homes. query--will they ever reach them? [footnote : he adopted this thought afterwards in his 'ode to napoleon', as well as most of the historical examples in the following paragraph: "he who of old would rend the oak, dream'd not of the rebound; chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke-- alone--how look'd he round?"] * * * * * saturday, april , . i mark this day! napoleon buonaparte has abdicated the throne of the world. "excellent well." methinks sylla did better; for he revenged and resigned in the height of his sway, red with the slaughter of his foes--the finest instance of glorious contempt of the rascals upon record. dioclesian did well too--amurath not amiss, had he become aught except a dervise--charles the fifth but so so--but napoleon, worst of all. what! wait till they were in his capital, and then talk of his readiness to give up what is already gone!! "what whining monk art thou--what holy cheat?" [ ] 'sdeath!--dionysius at corinth was yet a king to this. the "isle of elba" to retire to!--well--if it had been caprea, i should have marvelled less. "i see men's minds are but a parcel of their fortunes." [ ] i am utterly bewildered and confounded. i don't know--but i think _i_, even _i_ (an insect compared with this creature), have set my life on casts not a millionth part of this man's. but, after all, a crown may be not worth dying for. yet, to outlive _lodi_ for this!!! oh that juvenal or johnson could rise from the dead! _expende--quot libras in duce summo invenies_? [ ] i knew they were light in the balance of mortality; but i thought their living dust weighed more _carats_. [ ] alas! this imperial diamond hath a flaw in it, and is now hardly fit to stick in a glazier's pencil:--the pen of the historian won't rate it worth a ducat. psha! "something too much of this." [ ] but i won't give him up even now; though all his admirers have, "like the thanes, fallen from him." [ ] [footnote : in otway's 'venice preserved' (act iv. sc. ), pierre says to jaffier, who had betrayed him: "what whining monk art thou? what holy cheat? that would'st encroach upon my credulous ears, and cant'st thus vilely! hence! i know thee not!"] [footnote : "i see, men's judgements are a parcel of their fortunes." 'antony and cleopatra', act iii. sc. ii, line .] [footnote : "expende hannibalem: quot libras in duce summo invenies?" juvenal, 'sat'. x. . "produce the urn that hannibal contains, and weigh the mighty dust which yet remains: 'and is this all?'" gifford's 'juvenal' (ed. ), vol. ii. pp. , .] [footnote : "in the statistical account of scotland, i find that sir john paterson had the curiosity to collect, and weigh, the ashes of a person discovered a few years since in the parish of eccles. wonderful to relate, he found the whole did not exceed in weight one ounce and a half! 'and is this all'!" gifford's 'juvenal, ut supra'.] [footnote : 'hamlet', act iii. sc. .] [footnote : 'macbeth', act v. sc. , "doctor, the thanes fly from me!"] * * * * * april . i do not know that i am happiest when alone; but this i am sure of, that i never am long in the society even of _her_ i love, (god knows too well, and the devil probably too,) without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library. even in the day, i send away my carriage oftener than i use or abuse it. _per esempio_,--i have not stirred out of these rooms for these four days past: but i have sparred for exercise (windows open) with jackson an hour daily, to attenuate and keep up the ethereal part of me. the more violent the fatigue, the better my spirits for the rest of the day; and then, my evenings have that calm nothingness of languor, which i most delight in. to-day i have boxed an hour--written an ode to napoleon buonaparte--copied it--eaten six biscuits--drunk four bottles of soda water [ ]--redde away the rest of my time--besides giving poor [? webster] a world of advice about this mistress of his, who is plaguing him into a phthisic and intolerable tediousness. i am a pretty fellow truly to lecture about "the sect." no matter, my counsels are all thrown away. [footnote : the following is one of byron's bills for soda water: lord byron to r. shipwash, st. albans st. -- s. d. octr. doz. soda water " doz. do. do. " doz. do. do. " doz. do. do. doz. do. do. " doz. do. do. decr. doz. do. do. " doz. do. do. " doz. do. do. " doz. do. do. [overstrike ] [overstrike ] th decr. recd. r. shipwash. * * * * * april , . there is ice at both poles, north and south--all extremes are the same--misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only, to the emperor and the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. there is, to be sure, a damned insipid medium--an equinoctial line--no one knows where, except upon maps and measurement. "and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death." [ ] i will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, i tear out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in _ipecacuanha_, --"that the bourbons are restored!!!"--"hang up philosophy." [ ] to be sure, i have long despised myself and man, but i never spat in the face of my species before--"o fool! i shall go mad." [ ] [footnote : 'macbeth', act v. sc. , line .] [footnote : 'romeo and juliet', act iii. sc. .] [footnote : 'king lear', act ii. sc. .] * * * * * appendix i. articles from 'the monthly review'. . 'poems', by w. r. spencer. (vol. , , pp. - .) art. vii. poems by william robert spencer. vo. s. boards. cadell and davies. . the author of this well-printed volume has more than once been introduced to our readers, and is known to rank among that class of poetical persons who have never been highly favoured by stern criticism. the "mob of gentlemen who write with ease" has indeed of late years (like other mobs) become so importunate, as to threaten an alarming rivalry to the regular body of writers who are not fortunate enough to be either easy or genteel. hence the jaundiced eye with which the real author regards the red morocco binding of the presumptuous "littérateur;" we say, _the binding_, for into the book itself he cannot condescend to look, at least not beyond the frontispiece.--into mr. spencer's volume, however, he may dip farther, and will find sufficient to give him pleasure or pain, in proportion to his own candour. it consists chiefly of "_vers de société_," calculated to prove very delightful to a large circle of fashionable acquaintance, and pleasing to a limited number of vulgar purchasers. these last, indeed, may be rude enough to expect something more for their specie during the present scarcity of change, than lines to "young poets and poetesses," "epitaphs upon years," poems "to my grammatical niece," "epistle from sister dolly in cascadia to sister tanny in snowdonia," etc.: but we doubt not that a long list of persons of quality, wit, and honour, "in town and country," who are here addressed, will be highly pleased with themselves and with the poet who has _shewn them off_ in a very handsome volume: as will doubtless the "butterfly at the end of winter," provided that he is fortunate enough to survive the present inclemencies. we are, however, by no means convinced that the bellman will relish mr. s.'s usurpation of a "christmas carol;" which looks so very like his own, that we advise him immediately to put in his claim, and it will be universally allowed. with the exception of these and similar productions, the volume contains poems eminently beautiful; some which have been already published, and others that are well worthy of present publication. of "leonora," with which it opens, we made our report many years ago (in vol. xx. n.s. p. ): but our readers, perhaps, will not be sorry to see another short extract. we presume that they are well acquainted with the story, and therefore select one of the central passages: "see, where fresh blood-gouts mat the green, yon wheel its reeking points advance; there, by the moon's wan light half seen, grim ghosts of tombless murderers dance. 'come, spectres of the guilty dead, with us your goblin morris ply, come all in festive dance to tread, ere on the bridal couch we lie.' "forward th' obedient phantoms push, their trackless footsteps rustle near, in sound like autumn winds that rush through withering oak or beech-wood sere. with lightning's force the courser flies, earth shakes his thund'ring hoofs beneath, dust, stones, and sparks, in whirlwind rise, and horse and horseman heave for breath. "swift roll the moon-light scenes away, hills chasing hills successive fly; e'en stars that pave th' eternal way, seem shooting to a backward sky. 'fear'st thou, my love? the moon shines clear; hurrah! how swiftly speed the dead! the dead does leonora fear? oh god! oh leave, oh leave the dead!'" such a specimen of "the terrible" will place the merit of the poem in a proper point of view: but we do not think that some of the alterations in this copy of leonora are altogether so judicious as mr. s.'s well-known taste had led us to expect. "reviving friendship" (p. ) is perhaps less expressive than "relenting," as it once stood; and the phrase, "ten thousand _furlowed_ heroes" ('ibid'.), throws a new light on the heroic character. it is extremely proper that heroes should have "furlows," since school-boys have holidays, and lawyers have long vacations: but we very much question whether young gentlemen of the scholastic, legal, or heroic calling, would be flattered by any epithet derived from the relaxation of their respectable pursuits. we should feel some hesitation in telling an interesting youth, of any given battalion from portugal, that he was a "furlowed hero," lest he should prove to us that his "furlow" had by no means impaired his "heroism." the old epithet, "war-worn," was more adapted to heroism and to poetry; and, if we mistake not, it has very recently been superseded by an epithet which precludes "otium cum dignitate" from the soldier, without imparting either ease or dignity to the verse. why is "horse and horsemen _pant_ for breath" changed to "_heave_ for breath," unless for the alliteration of the too tempting aspirate? "heaving" is appropriate enough to coals and to sighs, but "panting" _belongs_ to successful lovers and spirited horses; and why should mr. s.'s horse and horseman not have panted as heretofore? the next poem in arrangement as well as in merit is the "year of sorrow;" to which we offered a tribute of praise in our th vol. n.s. p. .--we are sorry to observe that the compliment paid to mr. wedgewood by a "late traveller" (see note, p. ), viz. that "an englishman in journeying from calais to ispahan may have his dinner served every day on wedgewood's ware," is no longer a matter of fact. it has lately been the good or evil fortune of one of our travelling department to pass near to calais, and to have journeyed through divers paynim lands to no very remote distance from ispahan; and neither in the palace of the pacha nor in the caravanserai of the traveller, nor in the hut of the peasant, was he so favoured as to masticate his pilaff from that fashionable service. such is, in this and numerous other instances, the altered state of the continent and of europe, since the annotation of the "late traveller;" and on the authority of a _later_, we must report that the ware has been all broken since the former passed that way. we wish that we could efficiently exhort mr. wedgewood to send out a fresh supply, on all the _turnpike roads_ by the route of bagdad, for the convenience of the "latest travellers." passing over the "chorus from euripides," which might as well have slept in quiet with the rest of the author's school-exercises, we come to "the visionary," which we gladly extract as a very elegant specimen of the lighter poems: "when midnight o'er the moonless skies her pall of transient death has spread, when mortals sleep, when spectres rise, and nought is wakeful but the dead! "no bloodless shape my way pursues, no sheeted ghost my couch annoys. visions more sad my fancy views, visions of long departed joys! "the shade of youthful hope is there, that linger'd long, and latest died; ambition all dissolved to air, with phantom honours at her side. "what empty shadows glimmer nigh! they once were friendship, truth, and love! oh, die to thought, to mem'ry die, since lifeless to my heart ye prove!" we cannot forbear adding the beautiful stanzas in pages , : "to the lady anne hamilton. "too late i staid, forgive the crime, unheeded flew the hours; how noiseless falls the foot of time, that only treads on flow'rs! "what eye with clear account remarks the ebbing of his glass, when all its sands are di'mond sparks, that dazzle as they pass? "ah! who to sober measurement time's happy swiftness brings, when birds of paradise have lent their plumage for his wings?" the far greater part of the volume, however, contains pieces which can be little gratifying to the public:--some are pretty; and all are besprinkled with "gems," and "roses," and "birds," and "diamonds," and such like cheap poetical adornments, as are always to be obtained at no great expense of thought or of metre.--it is happy for the author that these _bijoux_ are presented to persons of high degree; countesses, foreign and domestic; "maids of honour to louisa landgravine of hesse d'armstadt;" lady blank, and lady asterisk, besides---, and---, and others anonymous; who are exactly the kind of people to be best pleased with these sparkling, shining, fashionable trifles. we will solace our readers with three stanzas of the soberest of these odes: "addressed to lady susan fincastle, now countess of dunmore. "what ails you, fancy? you're become colder than truth, than reason duller! your wings are worn, your chirping's dumb, and ev'ry plume has lost its colour. "you droop like geese, whose cacklings cease when dire st. michael they remember, or like some _bird_ who just has heard that fin's preparing for september? "can you refuse your sweetest spell when i for susan's praise invoke you? what, sulkier still? you pout and swell as if that lovely name would choke you." we are to suppose that "fin preparing for september" is the lady with whose "lovely name" fancy runs some risk of being "choked;" and, really, if _killing partridges_ formed a part of her ladyship's accomplishments, both "fancy" and feeling were in danger of a quinsey. indeed, the whole of these stanzas are couched in that most exquisite irony, in which mr. s. has more than once succeeded. all the songs to "persons of quality" seem to be written on that purest model, "the song by a person of quality;" whose stanzas have not been fabricated in vain. this sedulous imitation extends even to the praise of things inanimate: "when an eden zephyr hovers o'er a slumb'ring cherub's lyre, or when sighs of seraph lovers breathe upon th' unfinger'd wire." if namby-pamby still leads to distinction, mr. s., like ambrose phillips, will be "preferred for wit." "heav'n must hear--a bloom more tender seems to tint the wreath of may, lovelier beams the noon-day splendour, brighter dew-drops gem the spray! "is the breath of angels moving o'er each flow'ret's heighten'd hue? are their smiles the day improving, have their tears enrich'd the dew?" here we have "angels' tears," and "breath," and "smiles," and "eden zephyrs," "sighs of seraph lovers," and "lyres of slumbering cherubs," dancing away to "the pedal harp!" how strange it is that thomson, in his stanzas on the Æolian lyre (see the 'castle of indolence'), never dreamed of such things, but left all these prettinesses to the last of the cruscanti! one of the best pieces in the volume is an "epistle to t. moore, esq.," which though disfigured with "fiends on sulphur nurst," and "_hell's chillest winter_" ("poor tom's a'-cold!"), and some other vagaries of the same sort, forms a pleasant specimen of poetical friendship.--we give the last ten lines: "the triflers think your varied powers made only for life's gala bow'rs, to smooth reflection's mentor-frown, or pillow joy on softer down.-- fools!--yon blest orb not only glows to chase the cloud, or paint the rose; _these_ are the pastimes of his might, earth's torpid bosom drinks his light; find there his wondrous pow'r's true measure, death turn'd to life, and dross to treasure!" we have now arrived at mr. spencer's french and italian poesy; the former of which is written sometimes in new and sometimes in old french, and, occasionally, in a kind of tongue neither old nor new. we offer a sample of the two former: "'qu'est ce que c'est que le genie?' "brillant est cet esprit privé de sentiment; mais ce n'est qu'un soleil trop vif et trop constant, tendre est ce sentiment qu' aucun esprit n'anime, mais ce n'est qu'un jour doux, que trop de pluie abime! quand un brillant esprit de ses rares couleurs, orne du sentiment les aimables douleurs, un _phenomêne_ en nait, le plus beau de la vie! c'est alors que les ris en se mélant aux pleurs, font ces _iris de l'ame_, appellê le genie!" "c'y gist un povre menestrel, occis par maint ennuict cruel-- ne plains pas trop sa destinée-- n'est icy que son corps mortel: son ame est toujours à gillwell, et n'est ce pas là l'elyséé?" we think that mr. spencer's italian rhymes are better finished than his french; and indeed the facility of composing in that most poetical of all languages must be obvious: but, as a composer in italian, he and all other englishmen are much inferior to mr. mathias. it is very perceptible in many of mr. s.'s smaller pieces that he has suffered his english versification to be vitiated with italian 'concetti'; and we should have been better pleased with his compositions in a foreign language, had they not induced him to corrupt his mother-tongue. still we would by no means utterly proscribe these excursions into other languages; though they remind us occasionally of that aspiring frenchman who placed in his grounds the following inscription in honour of shenstone and the leasowes: "see this stone for william shenstone-- who planted groves rural, and wrote verse natural!" the above lines were displayed by the worthy proprietor, in the pride of his heart, to all english travellers, as a tribute of respect for the resemblance of his paternal chateau to the leasowes, and a striking coincidence between shenstone's versification and his own.--we do not mean to insinuate that mr. spencer's french verses ("_cy gist un povre menestrel,"_ with an urn inscribed w. r. s. at the top) are _precisely_ a return in kind for the quatrain above quoted: but we place it as a beacon to all young gentlemen of poetical propensities on the french parnassus. few would proceed better on the gallic pegasus, than the anglo-troubadour on ours. we now take our leave of mr. spencer, without being blind to his errors or insensible to his merits. as a poet, he may be placed rather below mr. moore and somewhat above lord strangford; and if his volume meet with half their number of purchasers, he will have no reason to complain either of our judgment or of his own success. * * * * * articles from the monthly review. . neglected genius, by w.h. ireland. (vol. , , pp. - .) art. xv. 'neglected genius:' a poem. illustrating the untimely and unfortunate fall of many british poets; from the period of henry viii. to the Æra of the unfortunate chatterton. containing imitations of their different styles, etc., etc. by w.h. ireland, author of the 'fisher-soy', 'sailor-boy', 'cottage-girl', etc., etc., etc. vo. pp. . s. boards. sherwood & co. . this volume, professing in a moderately long title-page to be "illustrative of the untimely and unfortunate fate of _many_ british poets," might with great propriety include the author among the number; for if his "imitations of their different styles" resemble the originals, the consequent starvation of "many british poets" is a doom which is calculated to excite pity rather than surprize. the book opens with a dedication to the present, and a monody on the late duke of devonshire (one of the neglected bards, we presume, on whom the author holds his inquest), in which it were difficult to say whether the "enlightened understanding" of the living or the "intellect" of the deceased nobleman is more justly appreciated or more elegantly eulogized. lest the monody should be mistaken for anything but itself, of which there was little danger, it is dressed in marginal mourning, like a dying speech, or an american gazette after a defeat. the following is a specimen--the poet is addressing the duchess: "chaste widow'd mourner, still with tears bedew that sacred urn, which can imbue thy worldly thoughts, thus kindling mem'ry's glow: each retrospective virtue, fadeless beam, embalms thy _truth_ in heavenly dream, to soothe the bosom's agonizing woe. "yet soft--more poignantly to wake the soul, and ev'ry pensive thought controul, truth shall with energy his worth proclaim; here i'll record his _philanthropic mind_, eager to bless all human kind, yet _modest shrinking_ from the voice of _fame_. "as _patriot_ view him shun the courtly crew, and dauntless ever keep in view that bright palladium, england's dear renown. the people's freedom and the monarch's good, purchas'd with patriotic blood, the surest safeguard of the state and crown. "or now behold his glowing soul extend, to shine the polish'd social _friend_; his country's _matchless prince_ his worth rever'd; _gigantic fox_, true freedom's darling child, by kindred excellence beguil'd, to lasting _amity_ the temple rear'd. "as _critic_ chaste, his judgment could explore the beauties of poetic lore, or classic strains mellifluent infuse; yet glowing genius and expanded sense were crown'd with _innate diffidence_, the sure attendant of a genuine muse." page contains, forsooth, a very correct imitation of milton: "to thee, gigantic genius, next i'll sound; the clarion string, and fill fame's vasty round; 'tis _milton_ beams upon the wond'ring sight, rob'd in the splendour of apollo's light; as when from ocean bursting on the view, his orb dispenses ev'ry brilliant hue, crowns with resplendent gold th' horizon wide, and cloathes with countless gems the buoyant tide; while through the boundless realms of æther blaze, on spotless azure, streamy saffron rays:-- so o'er the world of genius _milton_ shone, profound in science--as the bard--alone." we must not pass over the imitative specimen of "nahum tate," because in this the author approximates nearest to the style of his original: "friend of great _dryden_, though of humble fame, the laureat tate, shall here record his name; whose sorrowing numbers breath'd a nation's pain, when death from mortal to immortal reign translated royal _anne_, our island's boast, victorious sov'reign, dread of gallia's host; whose arms by land and sea with fame were crown'd, whose statesmen grave for wisdom were renown'd, whose reign with science dignifies the page; bright noon of genius--_great augustan age_. such was thy queen, and such th' illustrious time that nurs'd thy muse, and tun'd thy soul to rhyme; yet wast thou fated sorrow's shaft to bear, augmenting still this catalogue of care; the gripe of penury thy bosom knew, a gloomy jail obscur'd bright freedom's view; so life's gay visions faded to thy sight, thy brilliant hopes enscarf'd in sorrow's night." where did mr. ireland learn that _hold fast_ and _ballâst_, _stir_ and _hungêr_, _please_ and _kidnêys_, _plane_ and _capstâne_, _expose_ and _windôws_, _forgot_ and _pilôt_, _sail on_ _and deucalôn!_ (lemprière would have saved him a scourging at school by telling him that there was an _i_ in the word), were legitimate hudibrastic rhymes? (see pp. , etc.). chatterton is a great favourite of this imitative gentleman; and bristol, where he appears to have been held in no greater estimation than mr. ireland himself deserves, is much vituperated in some sad couplets, seemingly for this reason, "all for love, and a little for the bottle," as bannister's song runs,--"all for chatterton, and a little for myself," thinks mr. ireland. the notes communicate, among other novelties, the new title of "sir horace" to the honourable h. walpole: surely a perusal of the life of the unfortunate boy, whose fate mr. i. deplores, might have prevented this piece of ignorance, twice repeated in the same page; and we wonder at the malicious fun of the printer's devil in permitting it to stand, for _he_ certainly knew better. we must be excused from a more detailed notice of mr. ireland for the present; and indeed we hope to hear no more of his lamentations, very sure that none but reviewers ever will peruse them: unless, perhaps, the unfortunate persons of quality whom he may henceforth single out as proper victims of future dedication. though his dedications are enough to kill the living, his anticipated monodies, on the other hand, must add considerably to the natural dread of death in such of his patrons as may be liable to common sense or to chronic diseases. * * * * * appendix ii. parliamentary speeches. . debate on the frame-work bill, in the house of lords, february , . the order of the day for the second reading of this bill being read, lord byron rose, and (for the first time) addressed their lordships as follows: my lords,--the subject now submitted to your lordships for the first time, though new to the house, is by no means new to the country. i believe it had occupied the serious thoughts of all descriptions of persons, long before its introduction to the notice of that legislature, whose interference alone could be of real service. as a person in some degree connected with the suffering county, though a stranger not only to this house in general, but to almost every individual whose attention i presume to solicit, i must claim some portion of your lordships' indulgence, whilst i offer a few observations on a question in which i confess myself deeply interested. to enter into any detail of the riots would be superfluous: the house is already aware that every outrage short of actual bloodshed has been perpetrated, and that the proprietors of the frames obnoxious to the rioters, and all persons supposed to be connected with them, have been liable to insult and violence. during the short time i recently passed in nottinghamshire, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence; and on the day i left the county i was informed that forty frames had been broken the preceding evening, as usual, without resistance and without detection. such was then the state of that county, and such i have reason to believe it to be at this moment. but whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress: the perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large, and once honest and industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community. at the time to which i allude, the town and county were burdened with large detachments of the military; the police was in motion, the magistrates assembled; yet all the movements, civil and military, had led to--nothing. not a single instance had occurred of the apprehension of any real delinquent actually taken in the fact, against whom there existed legal evidence sufficient for conviction. but the police, however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious delinquents had been detected,--men, liable to conviction, on the clearest evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men, who had been nefariously guilty of lawfully begetting several children, whom, thanks to the times! they were unable to maintain. considerable injury has been done to the proprietors of the improved frames. these machines were to them an advantage, inasmuch as they superseded the necessity of employing a number of workmen, who were left in consequence to starve. by the adoption of one species of frame in particular, one man performed the work of many, and the superfluous labourers were thrown out of employment. yet it is to be observed, that the work thus executed was inferior in quality; not marketable at home, and merely hurried over with a view to exportation. it was called, in the cant of the trade, by the name of "spider-work." the rejected workmen, in the blindness of their ignorance, instead of rejoicing at these improvements in arts so beneficial to mankind, conceived themselves to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. in the foolishness of their hearts they imagined that the maintenance and well-doing of the industrious poor were objects of greater consequence than the enrichment of a few individuals by any improvement, in the implements of trade, which threw the workmen out of employment, and rendered the labourer unworthy of his hire. and it must be confessed that although the adoption of the enlarged machinery in that state of our commerce which the country once boasted might have been beneficial to the master without being detrimental to the servant; yet, in the present situation of our manufactures, rotting in warehouses, without a prospect of exportation, with the demand for work and workmen equally diminished, frames of this description tend materially to aggravate the distress and discontent of the disappointed sufferers. but the real cause of these distresses and consequent disturbances lies deeper. when we are told that these men are leagued together not only for the destruction of their own comfort, but of their very means of subsistence, can we forget that it is the bitter policy, the destructive warfare of the last eighteen years, which has destroyed their comfort, your comfort, all men's comfort? that policy, which, originating with "great statesmen now no more," has survived the dead to become a curse on the living, unto the third and fourth generation! these men never destroyed their looms till they were become useless, worse than useless; till they were become actual impediments to their exertions in obtaining their daily bread. can you, then, wonder that in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony are found in a station not far beneath that of your lordships, the lowest, though once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? but while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for the wretched mechanic, who is famished into guilt. these men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them: their own means of subsistence were cut off, all other employments pre-occupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be subject of surprise. it has been stated that the persons in the temporary possession of frames connive at their destruction; if this be proved upon inquiry, it were necessary that such material accessories to the crime should be principals in the punishment. but i did hope, that any measure proposed by his majesty's government for your lordships' decision, would have had conciliation for its basis; or, if that were hopeless, that some previous inquiry, some deliberation, would have been deemed requisite; not that we should have been called at once, without examination and without cause, to pass sentences by wholesale, and sign death-warrants blindfold. but, admitting that these men had no cause of complaint; that the grievances of them and their employers were alike groundless; that they deserved the worst;--what inefficiency, what imbecility has been evinced in the method chosen to reduce them! why were the military called out to be made a mockery of, if they were to be called out at all? as far as the difference of seasons would permit, they have merely parodied the summer campaign of major sturgeon; and, indeed, the whole proceedings, civil and military, seemed on the model of those of the mayor and corporation of garratt.--such marchings and countermarchings! --from nottingham to bullwell, from bullwell to banford, from banford to mansfield! and when at length the detachments arrived at their destination, in all "the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war," they came just in time to witness the mischief which had been done, and ascertain the escape of the perpetrators, to collect the "'spolia opima'" in the fragments of broken frames, and return to their quarters amidst the derision of old women, and the hootings of children. now, though, in a free country, it were to be wished that our military should never be too formidable, at least to ourselves, i cannot see the policy of placing them in situations where they can only be made ridiculous. as the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last. in this instance it has been the first; but providentially as yet only in the scabbard. the present measure will, indeed, pluck it from the sheath; yet had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of these riots, had the grievances of these men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighed and justly examined, i do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquillity to the county. at present the county suffers from the double infliction of an idle military and a starving population. in what state of apathy have we been plunged so long, that now for the first time the house has been officially apprised of these disturbances? all this has been transacting within miles of london; and yet we, "good easy men, have deemed full sure our greatness was a-ripening," and have sat down to enjoy our foreign triumphs in the midst of domestic calamity. but all the cities you have taken, all the armies which have retreated before your leaders, are but paltry subjects of self-congratulation, if your land divides against itself, and your dragoons and your executioners must be let loose against your fellow-citizens.--you call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous, and ignorant; and seem to think that the only way to quiet the "'bellua multorum capitum'" is to lop off a few of its superfluous heads. but even a mob may be better reduced to reason by a mixture of conciliation and firmness, than by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. are we aware of our obligations to a mob? it is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your houses,--that man your navy, and recruit your army,--that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair! you may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people. and here i must remark, with what alacrity you are accustomed to fly to the succour of your distressed allies, leaving the distressed of your own country to the care of providence or--the parish. when the portuguese suffered under the retreat of the french, every arm was stretched out, every hand was opened, from the rich man's largess to the widow's mite, all was bestowed, to enable them to rebuild their villages and replenish their granaries. and at this moment, when thousands of misguided but most unfortunate fellow-countrymen are struggling with the extremes of hardships and hunger, as your charity began abroad it should end at home. a much less sum, a tithe of the bounty bestowed on portugal, even if those men (which i cannot admit without inquiry) could not have been restored to their employments, would have rendered unnecessary the tender mercies of the bayonet and the gibbet. but doubtless our friends have too many foreign claims to admit a prospect of domestic relief; though never did such objects demand it. i have traversed the seat of war in the peninsula, i have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of turkey; but never under the most despotic of infidel governments did i behold such squalid wretchedness as i have seen since my return in the very heart of a christian country. and what are your remedies? after months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, the never-failing nostrum of all state physicians, from the days of draco to the present time. after feeling the pulse and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm water and bleeding,--the warm water of your mawkish police, and the lancets of your military,--these convulsions must terminate in death, the sure consummation of the prescriptions of all political sangrados. setting aside the palpable injustice and the certain inefficiency of the bill, are there not capital punishments sufficient in your statutes? is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to heaven and testify against you? how will you carry the bill into effect? can you commit a whole county to their own prisons? will you erect a gibbet in every field, and hang up men like scarecrows? or will you proceed (as you must to bring this measure into effect) by decimation? place the county under martial law? depopulate and lay waste all around you? and restore sherwood forest as an acceptable gift to the crown, in its former condition of a royal chase and an asylum for outlaws? are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace? will the famished wretch who has braved your bayonets be appalled by your gibbets? when death is a relief, and the only relief it appears that you will afford him, will he be dragooned into tranquillity? will that which could not be effected by your grenadiers be accomplished by your executioners? if you proceed by the forms of law, where is your evidence? those who have refused to impeach their accomplices when transportation only was the punishment, will hardly be tempted to witness against them when death is the penalty. with all due deference to the noble lords opposite, i think a little investigation, some previous inquiry, would induce even them to change their purpose. that most favourite state measure, so marvellously efficacious in many and recent instances, temporising, would not be without its advantages in this. when a proposal is made to emancipate or relieve, you hesitate, you deliberate for years, you temporise and tamper with the minds of men; but a death-bill must be passed off-hand, without a thought of the consequences. sure i am, from what i have heard, and from what i have seen, that to pass the bill under all the existing circumstances, without inquiry, without deliberation, would only be to add injustice to irritation, and barbarity to neglect. the framers of such a bill must be content to inherit the honours of that athenian law-giver whose edicts were said to be written not in ink but in blood. but suppose it passed; suppose one of these men, as i have seen them,--meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame; --suppose this man surrounded by the children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault that he can no longer so support;--suppose this man--and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims--dragged into court, to be tried for this new offence, by this new law; still, there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him; and these are, in my opinion,--twelve butchers for a jury, and a jeffreys for a judge! * * * * * . debate on the earl of donoughmore's motion for a committee on the roman catholic claims, april , . [byron's notes for a portion of his speech are in the possession of mr. murray.] lord byron rose and said: my lords,--the question before the house has been so frequently, fully, and ably discussed, and never perhaps more ably than on this night, that it would be difficult to adduce new arguments for or against it. but with each discussion difficulties have been removed, objections have been canvassed and refuted, and some of the former opponents of catholic emancipation have at length conceded to the expediency of relieving the petitioners. in conceding thus much, however, a new objection is started; it is not the time, say they, or it is an improper time, or there is time enough yet. in some degree i concur with those who say it is not the time exactly; that time is past; better had it been for the country that the catholics possessed at this moment their proportion of our privileges, that their nobles held their due weight in our councils, than that we should be assembled to discuss their claims. it had indeed been better: "non tempore tali cogere concilium cum muros obsidet hostis." the enemy is without, and distress within. it is too late to cavil on doctrinal points, when we must unite in defence of things more important than the mere ceremonies of religion. it is indeed singular, that we are called together to deliberate, not on the god we adore, for in that we are agreed; not about the king we obey, for to him we are loyal; but how far a difference in the ceremonials of worship, how far believing not too little, but too much (the worst that can be imputed to the catholics), how far too much devotion to their god may incapacitate our fellow-subjects from effectually serving their king. much has been said, within and without doors, of church and state; and although those venerable words have been too often prostituted to the most despicable of party purposes, we cannot hear them too often: all, i presume, are the advocates of church and state,--the church of christ, and the state of great britain; but not a state of exclusion and despotism; not an intolerant church; not a church militant, which renders itself liable to the very objection urged against the romish communion, and in a greater degree, for the catholic merely withholds its spiritual benediction (and even that is doubtful), but our church, or rather our churchmen, not only refuse to the catholic their spiritual grace, but all temporal blessings whatsoever. it was an observation of the great lord peterborough, made within these walls, or within the walls where the lords then assembled, that he was for a "parliamentary king and a parliamentary constitution, but not a parliamentary god and a parliamentary religion." the interval of a century has not weakened the force of the remark. it is indeed time that we should leave off these petty cavils on frivolous points, these lilliputian sophistries, whether our "eggs are best broken at the broad or narrow end." the opponents of the catholics may be divided into two classes; those who assert that the catholics have too much already, and those who allege that the lower orders, at least, have nothing more to require. we are told by the former, that the catholics never will be contented: by the latter, that they are already too happy. the last paradox is sufficiently refuted by the present as by all past petitions: it might as well be said, that the negroes did not desire to be emancipated; but this is an unfortunate comparison, for you have already delivered them out of the house of bondage without any petition on their part, but many from their taskmasters to a contrary effect; and for myself, when i consider this, i pity the catholic peasantry for not having the good fortune to be born black. but the catholics are contented, or at least ought to be, as we are told; i shall, therefore, proceed to touch on a few of those circumstances which so marvellously contribute to their exceeding contentment. they are not allowed the free exercise of their religion in the regular army; the catholic soldier cannot absent himself from the service of the protestant clergyman; and unless he is quartered in ireland, or in spain, where can he find eligible opportunities of attending his own? the permission of catholic chaplains to the irish militia regiments was conceded as a special favour, and not till after years of remonstrance, although an act, passed in , established it as a right. but are the catholics properly protected in ireland? can the church purchase a rood of land whereon to erect a chapel? no! all the places of worship are built on leases of trust or sufferance from the laity, easily broken, and often betrayed. the moment any irregular wish, any casual caprice of the benevolent landlord meets with opposition, the doors are barred against the congregation. this has happened continually, but in no instance more glaringly than at the town of newton barry, in the county of wexford. the catholics enjoying no regular chapel, as a temporary expedient hired two barns; which, being thrown into one, served for public worship. at this time, there was quartered opposite to the spot an officer whose mind appears to have been deeply imbued with those prejudices which the protestant petitions now on the table prove to have been fortunately eradicated from the more rational portion of the people; and when the catholics were assembled on the sabbath as usual, in peace and good-will towards men, for the worship of their god and yours, they found the chapel door closed, and were told that if they did not immediately retire (and they were told this by a yeoman officer and a magistrate), the riot act should be read, and the assembly dispersed at the point of the bayonet! this was complained of to the middle-man of government, the secretary at the castle in , and the answer was (in lieu of redress), that he would cause a letter to be written to the colonel, to prevent, if possible, the recurrence of similar disturbances. upon this fact no very great stress need be laid; but it tends to prove that while the catholic church has not power to purchase land for its chapels to stand upon, the laws for its protection are of no avail. in the mean time, the catholics are at the mercy of every "pelting petty officer," who may choose to play his "fantastic tricks before high heaven," to insult his god, and injure his fellow-creatures. every schoolboy, any footboy (such have held commissions in our service), any footboy who can exchange his shoulder-knot for an epaulette, may perform all this and more against the catholic by virtue of that very authority delegated to him by his sovereign for the express purpose of defending his fellow-subjects to the last drop of his blood, without discrimination or distinction between catholic and protestant. have the irish catholics the full benefit of trial by jury? they have not; they never can have until they are permitted to share the privilege of serving as sheriffs and under-sheriffs. of this a striking example occurred at the last enniskillen assizes. a yeoman was arraigned for the murder of a catholic named macvournagh; three respectable, uncontradicted witnesses, deposed that they saw the prisoner load, take aim, fire at, and kill the said macvournagh. this was properly commented on by the judge; but, to the astonishment of the bar, and indignation of the court, the protestant jury acquitted the accused. so glaring was the partiality, that mr. justice osborne felt it his duty to bind over the acquitted, but not absolved assassin, in large recognizances; thus for a time taking away his licence to kill catholics. are the very laws passed in their favour observed? they are rendered nugatory in trivial as in serious cases. by a late act, catholic chaplains are permitted in gaols; but in fermanagh county the grand jury lately persisted in presenting a suspended clergyman for the office, thereby evading the statute, notwithstanding the most pressing remonstrances of a most respectable magistrate named fletcher to the contrary. such is law, such is justice, for the happy, free, contented catholic! it has been asked, in another place, why do not the rich catholics endow foundations for the education of the priesthood? why do you not permit them to do so? why are all such bequests subject to the interference, the vexatious, arbitrary, peculating interference of the orange commissioners for charitable donations? as to maynooth college, in no instance, except at the time of its foundation, when a noble lord (camden), at the head of the irish administration, did appear to interest himself in its advancement, and during the government of a noble duke (bedford), who, like his ancestors, has ever been the friend of freedom and mankind, and who has not so far adopted the selfish policy of the day as to exclude the catholics from the number of his fellow-creatures; with these exceptions, in no instance has that institution been properly encouraged. there was indeed a time when the catholic clergy were conciliated, while the union was pending, that union which could not be carried without them, while their assistance was requisite in procuring addresses from the catholic counties; then they were cajoled and caressed, feared and flattered, and given to understand that "the union would do every thing"; but the moment it was passed, they were driven back with contempt into their former obscurity. in the conduct pursued towards maynooth college, every thing is done to irritate and perplex--every thing is done to efface the slightest impression of gratitude from the catholic mind; the very hay made upon the lawn, the fat and tallow of the beef and mutton allowed, must be paid for and accounted upon oath. it is true, this economy in miniature cannot sufficiently be commended, particularly at a time when only the insect defaulters of the treasury, your hunts and your chinnerys, when only those "gilded bugs" can escape the microscopic eye of ministers. but when you come forward, session after session, as your paltry pittance is wrung from you with wrangling and reluctance, to boast of your liberality, well might the catholic exclaim, in the words of prior: "to john i owe some obligation, but john unluckily thinks fit to publish it to all the nation, so john and i are more than quit." some persons have compared the catholics to the beggar in 'gil blas': who made them beggars? who are enriched with the spoils of their ancestors? and cannot you relieve the beggar when your fathers have made him such? if you are disposed to relieve him at all, cannot you do it without flinging your farthings in his face? as a contrast, however, to this beggarly benevolence, let us look at the protestant charter schools; to them you have lately granted £ , : thus are they supported; and how are they recruited? montesquieu observes on the english constitution, that the model may be found in tacitus, where the historian describes the policy of the germans, and adds, "this beautiful system was taken from the woods;" so in speaking of the charter schools, it may be observed, that this beautiful system was taken from the gipsies. these schools are recruited in the same manner as the janissaries at the time of their enrolment under amurath, and the gipsies of the present day, with stolen children, with children decoyed and kidnapped from their catholic connections by their rich and powerful protestant neighbours: this is notorious, and one instance may suffice to show in what manner:--the sister of a mr. carthy (a catholic gentleman of very considerable property) died, leaving two girls, who were immediately marked out as proselytes, and conveyed to the charter school of coolgreny; their uncle, on being apprised of the fact, which took place during his absence, applied for the restitution of his nieces, offering to settle an independence on these his relations; his request was refused, and not till after five years' struggle, and the interference of very high authority, could this catholic gentleman obtain back his nearest of kindred from a charity charter school. in this manner are proselytes obtained, and mingled with the offspring of such protestants as may avail themselves of the institution. and how are they taught? a catechism is put into their hands, consisting of, i believe, forty-five pages, in which are three questions relative to the protestant religion; one of these queries is, "where was the protestant religion before luther?" answer: "in the gospel." the remaining forty-four pages and a half regard the damnable idolatry of papists! allow me to ask our spiritual pastors and masters, is this training up a child in the way which he should go? is this the religion of the gospel before the time of luther? that religion which preaches "peace on earth, and glory to god"? is it bringing up infants to be men or devils? better would it be to send them any where than teach them such doctrines; better send them to those islands in the south seas, where they might more humanely learn to become cannibals; it would be less disgusting that they were brought up to devour the dead, than persecute the living. schools do you call them? call them rather dung-hills, where the viper of intolerance deposits her young, that when their teeth are cut and their poison is mature, they may issue forth, filthy and venomous, to sting the catholic. but are these the doctrines of the church of england, or of churchmen? no, the most enlightened churchmen are of a different opinion. what says paley? "i perceive no reason why men of different religious persuasions should not sit upon the same bench, deliberate in the same council, or fight in the same ranks, as well as men of various religious opinions upon any controverted topic of natural history, philosophy, or ethics." it may be answered, that paley was not strictly orthodox; i know nothing of his orthodoxy, but who will deny that he was an ornament to the church, to human nature, to christianity? i shall not dwell upon the grievance of tithes, so severely felt by the peasantry; but it may be proper to observe, that there is an addition to the burden, a percentage to the gatherer, whose interest it thus becomes to rate them as highly as possible, and we know that in many large livings in ireland the only resident protestants are the tithe proctor and his family. amongst many causes of irritation, too numerous for recapitulation, there is one in the militia not to be passed over,--i mean the existence of orange lodges amongst the privates. can the officers deny this? and if such lodges do exist, do they, can they tend to promote harmony amongst the men, who are thus individually separated in society, although mingled in the ranks? and is this general system of persecution to be permitted; or is it to be believed that with such a system the catholics can or ought to be contented? if they are, they belie human nature; they are then, indeed, unworthy to be any thing but the slaves you have made them. the facts stated are from most respectable authority, or i should not have dared in this place, or any place, to hazard this avowal. if exaggerated, there are plenty as willing, as i believe them to be unable, to disprove them. should it be objected that i never was in ireland, i beg leave to observe, that it is as easy to know something of ireland, without having been there, as it appears with some to have been born, bred, and cherished there, and yet remain ignorant of its best interests. but there are who assert that the catholics have already been too much indulged. see (cry they) what has been done: we have given them one entire college; we allow them food and raiment, the full enjoyment of the elements, and leave to fight for us as long as they have limbs and lives to offer; and yet they are never to be satisfied!--generous and just declaimers! to this, and to this only, amount the whole of your arguments, when stript of their sophistry. those personages remind me of a story of a certain drummer, who, being called upon in the course of duty to administer punishment to a friend tied to the halberts, was requested to flog high, he did--to flog low, he did--to flog in the middle, he did,--high, low, down the middle, and up again, but all in vain; the patient continued his complaints with the most provoking pertinacity, until the drummer, exhausted and angry, flung down his scourge, exclaiming, "the devil burn you, there's no pleasing you, flog where one will!" thus it is, you have flogged the catholic high, low, here, there, and every where, and then you wonder he is not pleased. it is true that time, experience, and that weariness which attends even the exercise of barbarity, have taught you to flog a little more gently; but still you continue to lay on the lash, and will so continue, till perhaps the rod may be wrested from your hands, and applied to the backs of yourselves and your posterity. it was said by somebody in a former debate, (i forget by whom, and am not very anxious to remember,) if the catholics are emancipated, why not the jews? if this sentiment was dictated by compassion for the jews, it might deserve attention, but as a sneer against the catholic, what is it but the language of shylock transferred from his daughter's marriage to catholic emancipation: "would any of the tribe of barabbas should have it rather than a christian!" i presume a catholic is a christian, even in the opinion of him whose taste only can be called in question for his preference of the jews. it is a remark often quoted of dr. johnson, (whom i take to be almost as good authority as the gentle apostle of intolerance, dr. duigenan,) that he who could entertain serious apprehensions of danger to the church in these times, would have "cried fire in the deluge." this is more than a metaphor; for a remnant of these antediluvians appear actually to have come down to us, with fire in their mouths and water in their brains, to disturb and perplex mankind with their whimsical outcries. and as it is an infallible symptom of that distressing malady with which i conceive them to be afflicted (so any doctor will inform your lordships), for the unhappy invalids to perceive a flame perpetually flashing before their eyes, particularly when their eyes are shut (as those of the persons to whom i allude have long been), it is impossible to convince these poor creatures that the fire against which they are perpetually warning us and themselves is nothing but an 'ignis fatuus' of their own drivelling imaginations. what rhubarb, senna, or "what purgative drug can scour that fancy thence?"--it is impossible, they are given over,--theirs is the true "caput insanabile tribus anticyris." these are your true protestants. like bayle, who protested against all sects whatsoever, so do they protest against catholic petitions, protestant petitions, all redress, all that reason, humanity, policy, justice, and common sense can urge against the delusions of their absurd delirium. these are the persons who reverse the fable of the mountain that brought forth a mouse; they are the mice who conceive themselves in labour with mountains. to return to the catholics: suppose the irish were actually contented under their disabilities; suppose them capable of such a bull as not to desire deliverance,--ought we not to wish it for ourselves? have we nothing to gain by their emancipation? what resources have been wasted? what talents have been lost by the selfish system of exclusion? you already know the value of irish aid; at this moment the defence of england is intrusted to the irish militia; at this moment, while the starving people are rising in the fierceness of despair, the irish are faithful to their trust. but till equal energy is imparted throughout by the extension of freedom, you cannot enjoy the full benefit of the strength which you are glad to interpose between you and destruction. ireland has done much, but will do more. at this moment the only triumph obtained through long years of continental disaster has been achieved by an irish general: it is true he is not a catholic; had he been so, we should have been deprived of his exertions: but i presume no one will assert that his religion would have impaired his talents or diminished his patriotism; though, in that case, he must have conquered in the ranks, for he never could have commanded an army. but he is fighting the battles of the catholics abroad; his noble brother has this night advocated their cause, with an eloquence which i shall not depreciate by the humble tribute of my panegyric; whilst a third of his kindred, as unlike as unequal, has been combating against his catholic brethren in dublin, with circular letters, edicts, proclamations, arrests, and dispersions;--all the vexatious implements of petty warfare that could be wielded by the mercenary guerillas of government, clad in the rusty armour of their obsolete statutes. your lordships will doubtless divide new honours between the saviour of portugal, and the disperser of delegates. it is singular, indeed, to observe the difference between our foreign and domestic policy; if catholic spain, faithful portugal, or the no less catholic and faithful king of the one sicily, (of which, by the by, you have lately deprived him,) stand in need of succour, away goes a fleet and an army, an ambassador and a subsidy, sometimes to fight pretty hardly, generally to negotiate very badly, and always to pay very dearly for our popish allies. but let four millions of fellow-subjects pray for relief, who fight and pay and labour in your behalf, they must be treated as aliens; and although their "father's house has many mansions," there is no resting-place for them. allow me to ask, are you not fighting for the emancipation of ferdinand vii, who certainly is a fool, and, consequently, in all probability a bigot? and have you more regard for a foreign sovereign than your own fellow-subjects, who are not fools, for they know your interest better than you know your own; who are not bigots, for they return you good for evil; but who are in worse durance than the prison of an usurper, inasmuch as the fetters of the mind are more galling than those of the body? upon the consequences of your not acceding to the claims of the petitioners, i shall not expatiate; you know them, you will feel them, and your children's children when you are passed away. adieu to that union so called, as "'lucus a non lucendo'" an union from never uniting, which in its first operation gave a death-blow to the independence of ireland, and in its last may be the cause of her eternal separation from this country. if it must be called an union, it is the union of the shark with his prey; the spoiler swallows up his victim, and thus they become one and indivisible. thus has great britain swallowed up the parliament, the constitution, the independence of ireland, and refuses to disgorge even a single privilege, although for the relief of her swollen and distempered body politic. and now, my lords, before i sit down, will his majesty's ministers permit me to say a few words, not on their merits, for that would be superfluous, but on the degree of estimation in which they are held by the people of these realms? the esteem in which they are held has been boasted of in a triumphant tone on a late occasion within these walls, and a comparison instituted between their conduct and that of noble lords on this side of the house. what portion of popularity may have fallen to the share of my noble friends (if such i may presume to call them), i shall not pretend to ascertain; but that of his majesty's ministers it were vain to deny. it is, to be sure, a little like the wind, "no one knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth;" but they feel it, they enjoy it, they boast of it. indeed, modest and unostentatious as they are, to what part of the kingdom, even the most remote, can they flee to avoid the triumph which pursues them? if they plunge into the midland counties, there will they be greeted by the manufacturers, with spurned petitions in their hands, and those halters round their necks recently voted in their behalf, imploring blessings on the heads of those who so simply, yet ingeniously, contrived to remove them from their miseries in this to a better world. if they journey on to scotland, from glasgow to john o' groat's, every where will they receive similar marks of approbation. if they take a trip from portpatrick to donaghadee, there will they rush at once into the embraces of four catholic millions, to whom their vote of this night is about to endear them for ever. when they return to the metropolis, if they can pass under temple bar without unpleasant sensations at the sight of the greedy niches over that ominous gateway, they cannot escape the acclamations of the livery, and the more tremulous, but not less sincere, applause, the blessings, "not loud, but deep," of bankrupt merchants and doubting stock-holders. if they look to the army, what wreaths, not of laurel, but of nightshade, are preparing for the heroes of walcheren! it is true, there are few living deponents left to testify to their merits on that occasion; but a "cloud of witnesses" are gone above from that gallant army which they so generously and piously despatched, to recruit the "noble army of martyrs." what if in the course of this triumphal career (in which they will gather as many pebbles as caligula's army did on a similar triumph, the prototype of their own,) they do not perceive any of those memorials which a grateful people erect in honour of their benefactors; what although not even a sign-post will condescend to depose the saracen's head in favour of the likeness of the conquerors of walcheren, they will not want a picture who can always have a caricature, or regret the omission of a statue who will so often see themselves exalted into effigy. but their popularity is not limited to the narrow bounds of an island; there are other countries where their measures, and, above all, their conduct to the catholics, must render them pre-eminently popular. if they are beloved here, in france they must be adored. there is no measure more repugnant to the designs and feelings of bonaparte than catholic emancipation; no line of conduct more propitious to his projects than that which has been pursued, is pursuing, and, i fear, will be pursued towards ireland. what is england without ireland, and what is ireland without the catholics? it is on the basis of your tyranny napoleon hopes to build his own. so grateful must oppression of the catholics be to his mind, that doubtless (as he has lately permitted some renewal of intercourse) the next cartel will convey to this country cargoes of sevres china and blue ribands, (things in great request, and of equal value at this moment,) blue ribands of the legion of honour for dr. duigenan and his ministerial disciples. such is that well-earned popularity, the result of those extraordinary expeditions, so expensive to ourselves, and so useless to our allies; of those singular inquiries, so exculpatory to the accused, and so dissatisfactory to the people; of those paradoxical victories, so honourable, as we are told, to the british name, and so destructive to the best interests of the british nation: above all, such is the reward of the conduct pursued by ministers towards the catholics. i have to apologise to the house, who will, i trust, pardon one not often in the habit of intruding upon their indulgence, for so long attempting to engage their attention. my most decided opinion is, as my vote will be, in favour of the motion. * * * * * . debate on major cartwright's petition. june , . lord byron rose and said: my lords,--he petition which i now hold for the purpose of presenting to the house is one which, i humbly conceive, requires the particular attention of your lordships, inasmuch as, though signed but by a single individual, it contains statements which (if not disproved) demand most serious investigation. the grievance of which the petitioner complains is neither selfish nor imaginary. it is not his own only, for it has been and is still felt by numbers. no one without these walls, nor indeed within, but may to-morrow be made liable to the same insult and obstruction, in the discharge of an imperious duty for the restoration of the true constitution of these realms, by petitioning for reform in parliament. the petitioner, my lords, is a man whose long life has been spent in one unceasing struggle for the liberty of the subject, against that undue influence which has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished; and whatever difference of opinion may exist as to his political tenets, few will be found to question the integrity of his intentions. even now oppressed with years, and not exempt from the infirmities attendant on his age, but still unimpaired in talent, and unshaken in spirit--"'frangas non flectes'"--he has received many a wound in the combat against corruption; and the new grievance, the fresh insult, of which he complains, may inflict another scar, but no dishonour. the petition is signed by john cartwright; and it was in behalf of the people and parliament, in the lawful pursuit of that reform in the representation which is the best service to be rendered both to parliament and people, that he encountered the wanton outrage which forms the subject-matter of his petition to your lordships. it is couched in firm, yet respectful language--in the language of a man, not regardless of what is due to himself, but at the same time, i trust, equally mindful of the deference to be paid to this house. the petitioner states, amongst other matter of equal, if not greater importance, to all who are british in their feelings, as well as blood and birth, that on the st january, , at huddersfield, himself and six other persons, who, on hearing of his arrival, had waited on him merely as a testimony of respect, were seized by a military and civil force, and kept in close custody for several hours, subjected to gross and abusive insinuation from the commanding officer, relative to the character of the petitioner; that he (the petitioner) was finally carried before a magistrate, and not released till an examination of his papers proved that there was not only no just, but not even statutable charge against him; and that, notwithstanding the promise and order from the presiding magistrates of a copy of the warrant against your petitioner, it was afterwards withheld on divers pretexts, and has never until this hour been granted. the names and condition of the parties will be found in the petition. to the other topics touched upon in the petition i shall not now advert, from a wish not to encroach upon the time of the house; but i do most sincerely call the attention of your lordships to its general contents--it is in the cause of the parliament and people that the rights of this venerable freeman have been violated, and it is, in my opinion, the highest mark of respect that could be paid to the house, that to your justice, rather than by appeal to any inferior court, he now commits himself. whatever may be the fate of his remonstrance, it is some satisfaction to me, though mixed with regret for the occasion, that i have this opportunity of publicly stating the obstruction to which the subject is liable, in the prosecution of the most lawful and imperious of his duties, the obtaining by petition reform in parliament. i have shortly stated his complaint; the petitioner has more fully expressed it. your lordships will, i hope, adopt some measure fully to protect and redress him, and not him alone, but the whole body of the people, insulted and aggrieved in his person, by the interposition of an abused civil and unlawful military force between them and their right of petition to their own representatives. his lordship then presented the petition from major cartwright, which was read, complaining of the circumstances at huddersfield, and of interruptions given to the right of petitioning in several places in the northern parts of the kingdom, and which his lordship moved should be laid on the table. several lords having spoken on the question, lord byron replied, that he had, from motives of duty, presented this petition to their lordships' consideration. the noble earl had contended that it was not a petition, but a speech; and that, as it contained no prayer, it should not be received. what was the necessity of a prayer? if that word were to be used in its proper sense, their lordships could not expect that any man should pray to others. he had only to say, that the petition, though in some parts expressed strongly perhaps, did not contain any improper mode of address, but was couched in respectful language towards their lordships; he should therefore trust their lordships would allow the petition to be received. * * * * * appendix iii. lady caroline lamb and byron. . the following letter is one of the first which lady caroline wrote to byron, in the spring of : "the rose lord byron gave lady caroline lamb died in despight of every effort made to save it; probably from regret at its fallen fortunes. hume, at least, who is no great believer in most things, says that many more die of broken hearts than is supposed. when lady caroline returns from brocket hall, she will dispatch the _cabinet maker_ to lord biron, with the flower she wishes most of all others to resemble, as, however deficient its beauty and even use, it has a noble and aspiring mind, and, having once beheld in its full lustre the bright and unclouded sun that for one moment condescended to shine upon it, never while it exists could it think any lower object worthy of its worship and admiration. yet the sunflower was punished for its temerity; but its fate is more to be envied than that of many less proud flowers. it is still permitted to gaze, though at the humblest distance, on him who is superior to every other, and, though in this cold foggy atmosphere it meets no doubt with many disappointments, and though it never could, never will, have reason to boast of any peculiar mark of condescension or attention from the bright star to whom it pays constant homage, yet to behold it sometimes, to see it gazed at, to hear it admired, will repay all. she hopes, therefore, when brought by the little page, it will be graciously received without any more taunts and cuts about 'love of what is new.' "lady caroline does not plead guilty to this most unkind charge, at least no further than is laudable, for that which is rare and is distinguished and singular ought to be more prized and sought after than what is commonplace and disagreeable. how can the other accusation, of being easily pleased, agree with this? the very circumstance of seeking out that which is of high value shows at least a mind not readily satisfied. but to attempt excuses for faults would be impossible with lady caroline. they have so long been rooted in a soil suited to their growth that a far less penetrating eye than lord byron's might perceive them--even on the shortest acquaintance. there is not one, however, though long indulged, that shall not be instantly got rid of, if l'd byron thinks it worth while to name them. the reproof and abuse of some, however severe and just, may be valued more than the easily gained encomiums of the rest of the world. "miss mercer, were she here, would join with lady caroline in a last request during their absence, that, besides not forgetting his new acquaintances, he would eat and drink like an english man till their return. the lines upon the only dog ever loved by l'd byron are beautiful. what wrong then, that, having such proof of the faith and friendship of this animal, l'd byron should censure the whole race by the following unjust remarks: "'perchance my dog will whine in vain till fed by stranger hands; but long e'er i come back again, he'd tear me where he stands.' "march th, , _good friday_." * * * * * . the following are the lines written by lady caroline when she burned byron in effigy at brocket hall (endorsed, in mrs. leigh's handwriting, "december, "): "address spoken by the page at brocket hall, before the bonfire. "is this guy faux you burn in effigy? why bring the traitor here? what is guy faux to me? guy faux betrayed his country, and his laws. england revenged the wrong; his was a public cause. but i have private cause to raise this flame. burn also those, and be their fate the same. [_puts the basket in the fire under the figure_. see here are locks and braids of coloured hair worn oft by me, to make the people stare; rouge, feathers, flowers, and all those tawdry things, besides those pictures, letters, chains, and rings-- all made to lure the mind and please the eye, and fill the heart with pride and vanity-- burn, fire, burn; these glittering toys destroy. while thus we hail the blaze with throats of joy. burn, fire, burn, while wondering boys exclaim, and gold and trinkets glitter in the flame. ah! look not thus on me, so grave, so sad; shake not your heads, nor say the lady's mad. judge not of others, for there is but one to whom the heart and feelings can be known. upon my youthful faults few censures cast. look to the future--and forgive the past. london, farewell; vain world, vain life, adieu! take the last tears i e'er shall shed for you. young tho' i seem, i leave the world for ever, never to enter it again--no, never--never!" * * * * * . the following letter was apparently written in the summer of : "you have been very generous and kind if you have not betray'd me, and i do _not think you have_. my remaining in town and seeing you thus is sacrificing the last chance i have left. i expose myself to every eye, to every unkind observation. you think me weak, and selfish; you think i do not struggle to withstand my own feelings, but indeed it is exacting more than human nature can bear, and when i came out last night, which was of itself an effort, and when i heard your name announced, the moment after i saw nothing more, but seemed in a dream. miss berry's very loud laugh and penetrating eyes did not restore me. she, however, [was] good natur'd and remain'd near me, and mr. moor (_sic_), though he really does not approve one feeling i have, had kindness of heart to stay near me. otherwise i felt so ill i could not have struggled longer. lady cahir said, 'you are ill; shall we go away?' which i [was] very glad to accept; but we could not get through, and so i fear it caus'd you pain to see me intrude again. i sent a groom to holmes twice yesterday morning, to prevent his going to you, or giving you a letter full of flippant jokes, written in one moment of gaiety, which is quite gone since. i am so afraid he has been to you; if so, i entreat you to forgive it, and to do just what you think right about the picture. "i have been drawing you mad. de staël, as the last i sent was not like. if you do not approve this, give it murray, and pray do not be angry with me. "do not marry yet, or, if you do, let me know it first. i shall not suffer, if she you chuse be worth you, but she will never love you as i did. i am going to the chapple royal at st. james. do you ever go there? it begins at / past , and lasts till six; it is the most beautiful singing i ever heard; the choristers sing 'by the waters of babylon.' "the peers sit below; the women quite apart. but for the evening service very few go; i wonder that more do not,--it is really most beautiful, for those who like that style of music. if you never heard it, go there some day, but not when it is so cold as this. how very pale you are! what a contrast with moore! '_mai io l'ho veduto piu bello che jeri, ma e la belta della morte_,' or a statue of white marble so colourless, and the dark brow and hair such a contrast. i never see you without wishing to cry; if any painter could paint me that face as it is, i would give them any thing i possess on earth,--not one has yet given the countenance and complexion as it is. i only could, if i knew how to draw and paint, because one must feel it to give it the real expression." * * * * * . the following letter was evidently written at the time when the separation of lord and lady byron was first rumoured: "melbourne house, thursday. "when so many wiser and better surround you, it is not for me to presume to hope that anything i can say will find favour in your sight; but yet i must venture to intrude upon you, even though your displeasure against me be all i gain for so doing. all others may have some object or interest in their's; i have none, but the wish to save you. will you generously consent to what is for the peace of both parties? and will you act in a manner worthy of yourself? i am sure in the end you will consent. even were everything now left to your own choice, you never could bring yourself to live with a person who felt desirous of being separated from you. i know you too well to believe this possible, and i am sure that a separation nobly and generously arranged by you will at once silence every report spread against either party. believe me, lord byron, you will feel happier when you act thus, and all the world will approve your conduct, which i know is not a consideration with you, but still should in some measure be thought of. they tell me that you have accused me of having spread injurious reports against you. had you the heart to say this? i do not greatly believe it; but it is affirmed and generally thought that you said so. you have often been unkind to me, but never as unkind as this. "those who are dear to you cannot feel more anxious for your happiness than i do. they may fear to offend you more than i ever will, but they cannot be more ready to serve you. i wish to god that i could see one so superior in mind and talents and every grace and power that can fascinate and delight, happier. you might still be so, lord byron, if you would believe what some day you will find true. have you ever thought for one moment seriously? do you wish to heap such misery upon yourself that you will no longer be able to endure it? return to virtue and happiness, for god's sake, whilst it is yet time. oh, lord byron, let one who has loved you with a devotion almost profane find favour so far as to incline you to hear her. sometimes from the mouth of a sinner advice may be received that a proud heart disdains to take from those who are upon an equality with themselves. if this is so, may it now, even now, have some little weight with you. do not drive things to desperate extremes. do not, even though you may have the power, use it to ill. god bless and sooth you, and preserve you. i cannot see all that i once admired and loved so well ruining himself and others without feeling it deeply. if what i have said is unwise, at least believe the motive was a kind one; and would to god it might avail. "i cannot believe that you will not act generously in this instance. "yours, unhappily as it has proved for me, "caroline. "those of my family who have seen lady byron have assured me that, whatever her sorrow, she is the last in the world to reproach or speak ill of you. she is most miserable. what regret will yours be evermore if false friends or resentment impel you to act harshly on this occasion? whatever my feelings may be towards you or her, i have, with the most scrupulous care for both your sakes, avoided either calling, or sending, or interfering. to say that i have spread reports against either is, therefore, as unjust as it is utterly false. i fear no enquiry." * * * * * . the following letter probably refers to the publication of the lines, "fare thee well," in april, : "at a moment of such deep agony, and i may add shame--when utterly disgraced, judge, byron, what my feelings must be at murray's shewing me some beautiful verses of yours. i do implore you for god sake not to publish them. could i have seen you one moment, i would explain why. i have only time to add that, however those who surround you may make you disbelieve it, you will draw ruin on your own head and hers if at this moment you shew these. i know not from what quarter the report originates. you accused _me_, and falsely; but if you could hear all that is said at this moment, you would believe one, who, though your enemy, though for ever alienated from you, though resolved never more, whilst she lives, to see or speak to or forgive you, yet would perhaps die to save you. "byron, hear me. my own misery i have scarce once thought of. what is the loss of one like me to the world? but when i see such as you are ruined for ever, and utterly insensible of it, i must [speak out]. of course, i cannot say to murray what i think of those verses, but to you, to you alone, i will say i think they will prove your ruin." * * * * * . in , after the death of byron, and after the publication of captain medwin's 'recollections of lord byron', lady caroline lamb sent a letter to mr. henry colburn, the publisher, enclosing one to be given to medwin and published. both are given here, and the latter should be read in substantiation or correction of what is stated in the notes. the letter is printed 'verbatim et literati'. ( ) lady caroline lamb to henry colburn. "[november (?), .] "my dear sir,--walter who takes this will explain my wishes. will you enable him to deliver my letter to captain medwin, and will you publish it? you are to give him ten pound for it; i will settle it with you. i am on my death bed, do not fail to obey my wishes. i send you my journals but do not publish them until i am dead. "yours, "caroline lamb." ( ) lady caroline lamb to captain thomas medwin. [endorsed, "this copy to be carefully preserved." hy. cn. (henry colburn?).] "[november (?), .] "sir,--i hope you will excuse my intruding upon your time, with the most intense interest i have just finished your book which does you credit as to the manner in which it is executed and after the momentary pain in part which it excites in many a bosom, will live in despight of censure--and be gratefully accepted by the public as long as lord byron's name is remembered--yet as you have left to one who adored him a bitter legacy, and as i feel secure the lines 'remember thee--thou false to him thou fiend to me'--were his--and as i have been very ill & am not likely to trouble any one much longer--you will i am sure grant me one favour--let me to you at least confide the truth of the past--you owe it to me--you will not i know refuse me. "it was when the first child harold came out upon lord byron's return from greece that i first had the misfortune to be acquainted with him--at that time i was the happiest and gayest of human beings i do believe without exception--_i had married for love_ and love the most romantic and ardent--my husband and i were so fond of each other that false as i too soon proved he never would part with me. devonshire house was at that time closed from my uncle's death for one year--at melbourne house where i lived the waltzes and quadrilles were being daily practised, lady jersey, lady cowper, the duke of devonshire, miss milbanke and a number of foreigners coming there to learn--you may imagine what forty or fifty people dancing from in the morning until near dinner time all young gay and noisy were--in the evenings we either had opposition suppers or went out to balls and routs--such was the life i then led when moore and rogers introduced lord byron to me--what you say of his falling upstairs and of miss milbanke is all true. lord byron days after this brought me a rose and carnation and used the very words i mentioned in glenarvon--with a sort of half sarcastic smile--saying, 'your ladyship i am told likes all that is new and rare for a moment'--i have them still, and the woman who through many a trial has kept these relics with the romance of former ages--deserves not that you should speak of her as you do. byron never never could say i had no heart. he never could say, either, that i had not loved my husband. in his letters to me he is perpetually telling me i love him the best of the two; and my only charm, believe me, in his eyes was, that i was innocent, affectionate, and enthusiastic. recall those words, and let me not go down with your book as heartless. tell the truth; it is bad enough; but not what is worse. it makes me so nervous to write that i must stop--will it tire you too much if i continue? i was not a woman of the world. had i been one of that sort, why would he have devoted nine entire months almost entirely to my society; have written perhaps ten times in a day; and lastly have press'd me to leave all and go with him--and this at the very moment when he was made an idol of, and when, as he and you justly observe, i had few personal attractions. indeed, indeed i tell the truth. byron did not affect--but he loved me as never woman was loved. i have had one of his letters copied in the stone press for you; one just before we parted. see if it looks like a mere lesson. besides, he was then very good, to what he grew afterwards; &, his health being delicate, he liked to read with me & stay with me out of the crowd. not but what we went about everywhere together, and were at last invited always as if we had been married--it was a strange scene--but it was not vanity misled me. i grew to love him better than virtue, religion--all prospects here. he broke my heart, & still i love him--witness the agony i experienced at his death & the tears your book has cost me. yet, sir, allow me to say, although you have unintentionally given me pain, i had rather have experienced it than not have read your book. parts of it are beautiful; and i can vouch for the truth of much, as i read his own memoirs before murray burnt them. keep lord byron's letter to me (i have the original) & some day add a word or two to your work from his own words, not to let every one think i am heartless. the cause of my leaving lord byron was this; my dearest mother, now dead, grew so terrified about us--that upon hearing a false report that we were gone off together she was taken dangerously ill & broke a blood vessel. byron would not believe it, but it was true. when he was convinced, we parted. i went to ireland, & remained there months. he wrote, every day, long kind entertaining letters; it is these he asked murray to look out, and extract from, when he published the journal; but i would not part with them--i have them now--they would only burn them, & nothing of his should be burnt. at dublin, god knows why, he wrote me the cruel letter part of which he acknowledges in glenarvon (the th of november, )--he knew it would destroy my mind and all else--it did so--lady oxford was no doubt the instigator. what will not a woman do to get rid of a rival? she knew that he still loved me--i need not tire you with every particular. i was brought to england a mere wreck; & in due time, lady melbourne & my mother being seriously alarmed for me, brought me to town, and allowed me to see lord byron. our meeting was not what he insinuates--he asked me to forgive him; he looked sorry for me; he cried. i adored him still, but i felt as passionless as the dead may feel.--would i had died there!--i should have died pitied, & still loved by him, & with the sympathy of all. i even should have pardoned myself--so deeply had i suffered. but, unhappily, we continued occasionally to meet. lord byron liked others, i only him--the scene at lady heathcote's is nearly true--he had made me swear i was never to waltz. lady heathcote said, come, lady caroline, you must begin, & i bitterly answered--oh yes! i am in a merry humour. i did so--but whispered to lord byron 'i conclude i may waltz _now_' and he answered sarcastically, 'with every body in turn--you always did it better than any one. i shall have a pleasure in seeing you."--i did so you may judge with what feelings. after this, feeling ill, i went into a small inner room where supper was prepared; lord byron & lady rancliffe entered after; seeing me, he said, 'i have been admiring your dexterity.' i clasped a knife, not intending anything. 'do, my dear,' he said. 'but if you mean to act a roman's part, mind which way you strike with your knife--be it at your own heart, not mine--you have struck there already.' 'byron,' i said, and ran away with the knife. i never stabbed myself. it is false. lady rancliffe & tankerville screamed and said i would; people pulled to get it from me; i was terrified; my hand got cut, & the blood came over my gown. i know not what happened after--but this is the very truth. after this, long after, ld. byron abused by every one, made the theme of every one's horror, yet pitied me enough to come & see me; and still, in spight of every one, william lamb had the generosity to retain me. i never held my head up after--never could. it was in all the papers, and put not truly. it is true i burnt lord byron in effigy, & his book, ring & chain. it is true i went to see him as a carman, after all that! but it is also true, that, the last time we parted for ever, as he pressed his lips on mine (it was in the albany) he said 'poor caro, if every one hates me, you, i see, will never change--no, not with ill usage!' & i said, 'yes, i _am_ changed, & shall come near you no more.'--for then he showed me letters, & told me things i cannot repeat, & all my attachment went. this was our last parting scene--well i remember it. it had an effect upon me not to be conceived-- years i had _worshipped_ him. "shortly after he married, once, lady melbourne took me to see his wife in piccadilly. it was a cruel request, but lord byron himself made it. it is to this wedding visit he alludes. mrs. leigh, myself, lady melbourne, lady noel, & lady byron, were in the room. i never looked up. annabella was very cold to me. lord byron came in & seemed agitated--his hand was cold, but he seemed kind. this was the last time upon this earth i ever met him. soon after, the battle of waterloo took place. my brother was wounded, & i went to brussels. i had one letter while at paris from ld. byron; a jesting one; hoping i was as happy with the regiment as he was with his 'wife bell.' when i returned, the parting between them occurred--& my page affair--& glenarvon. i wrote it in a month under circumstances would surprise every body, but which i am not at liberty to mention. besides, it has nothing to do with your book and would only tire you. previous to this, i once met, & once only, lady byron. it was just after the separation occurred. she was so altered i could hardly know her--she appeared heart broken. what she then said to me _i may not repeat_--she was however sent away, she did not go willingly. "she accused me of knowing every thing, & reproached me for not having stopped the marriage. how could i! she had been shewn my letters, and every one else. it is utterly false that she ever opened the desk--the nurse had nothing to do with the separation-- "from that hour, lady byron & i met no more, & it was after this, that, indignant & miserable, i wrote glenarvon. lady b. was more angry at it than he was--from that time, i put the whole as much as i could from my mind. ld. byron never once wrote to me--and always spoke of me with contempt. i was taken ill in march this year--mrs. russell hunter & a nurse sat up with me. in the middle of the night i fancied i saw ld. byron--i screamed, jumped out of bed & desired them to save me from him. he looked horrible, & ground his teeth at me; he did not speak; his hair was straight; he was fatter than when i knew him, & not near so handsome. i felt convinced i was to die. this dream took possession of my mind. i had not dreamed of him since we had parted. it was, besides, like no other dream except one of my mother that i ever had. i am glad to think it occurred before his death as i never did & hope i never shall see a ghost. i have even avoided enquiring about the exact day for fear i should believe it--it made enough impression as it was. i told william, and my brother & murray at the time. judge what my horror was, as well as grief, when, long after, the news came of his death, it was conveyed to me in two or words--'caroline, behave properly, i know it will shock you--lord byron is dead'--this letter i received when laughing at brockett hall. its effect or some other cause produced a fever from which i never yet have recovered--it was also singular that the first day i could go out in an open carriage, as i was slowly driving up the hill here,--lord byron's hearse was at that moment passing under these very walls, and rested at welwyn. william lamb, who was riding on before me, met the procession at the turnpike, & asked whose funeral it was. he was very much affected and shocked--i of course was not told; but, as i kept continually asking where & when he was to be buried, & had read in the papers it was to be at westminster abbey, i heard it too soon, & it made me very ill again." * * * * * appendix iv. letters of bernard barton. the two following letters were written to byron in , by bernard barton, the quaker poet (see letter , [foot]note ):-- i "woodbridge, suffolk, apl. th, . "my lord,--i received this morning the reply with which your lordship honour'd my last, and now avail myself of the permission you have so kindly granted to state as briefly as i can the circumstances which have induced me to make this application, and the extent of my wishes respecting your lordship's interference. "eight years since, i went into business in this place as a merchant. i was then just of age, and, shortly after, married. the business in which i was engaged was of a very precarious nature; and after vainly trying for years to make the best of it, i was compell'd to relinquish it altogether. just then, to add to my distress, i lost my best, my firmest, my tenderest friend--the only being for whose sake i ever desir'd wealth, and the only one who could have cheer'd the gloom of poverty. my capital being a borrow'd one, i returned it as far as i could to the person who had lent it. since that time, my lord, i have been struggling to make the best of a clerkship of £ per ann., out of which i have to meet every expence, and still to maintain a respectable appearance in a place where i have resided under different circumstances. had i enter'd my present situation free of all debts, i should have made it an inviolable rule to have limited my expenditure to my income; but beginning in debt, compell'd by peculiar circumstances to mix with those much superior to myself, i have gone on till i find it quite impossible to go on any longer, and i am compelled to seek for some asylum where, by rigid frugality and indefatigable exertion, i may free myself from my present humiliating embarrassments; but while i am here the thing seems impracticable. your lordship will naturally inquire why i do not avail myself of the influence of those friends by whom i am known. as you have, my lord, done me the honour to encourage me to state my position frankly, i will, without hesitation, inform you. i am, nominally at least, a quaker. the persons to whom i should, in my present difficulties, naturally look for assistance are among the most respectable of that body; but my attachments to literary and metaphysical studies, and a line of conduct not compatible with the strictness of quaker discipline, have, i am afraid, brought me into disrepute with those to whom i should otherwise have confided my situation. were i to disclose it, it would only be consider'd as a fit judgment on me for my scepticism and infidelity. "this, my lord, is a brief but faithful statement of my present situation; it is, as i before told your lordship, in every respect an untenable one. i must relinquish it, and throw myself an outcast on society. _can you, will you_, my lord, exert _your influence_ to save me from irretrievable ruin? can you, my lord, in any possible way, afford employment to me? can you take me into your service--a young man, not totally destitute of talents, eager to exert them, and willing to do anything or be anything in his power? if you can, my lord, i will promise to serve you not servilely, but faithfully in any manner you shall point out. do not, i beg of you, my lord, refuse my application the moment you peruse it. the mouse, you know, once was able to show its gratitude to the lion; and it may be in my power, if your lordship will but give me the opportunity, to evince my deep gratitude for any kindness you may show me, not by _words_, but _deeds_. be assur'd you will not have cause to repent any interest you have taken or may take in my concerns. for the civility you shewed me on a former occasion, my lord, i felt, as i ought, much indebted; but infinitely more for the generosity of feeling and soundness of judgment which dictated the letter you then did me the honour to address to me. ever since then i have entertain'd the highest opinion both of your head and your heart. is it, then, strange, my lord, that, surrounded by difficulties, perplexed at every step i take, i should look up to your lordship for _advice_, and, if possible, for assistance? be the consequences what they may, i have ventur'd on the presumption of doing so. if i have taken too great a liberty, i beg you, my lord, to forgive me, and let the tale of my perplexities and my misfortunes, my impertinence and its punishment, be alike forgotten; it can, at any rate, only give your lordship the trouble of reading a letter. if, on the other hand, your lordship can in any way realize the hopes i have long enthusiastically cherished, why, the 'blessing of him who is ready to perish shall fall on you.' be the event what it may, '_crede byron_' is, your lordship sees, my motto. "i am, my lord, "your lordship's very obt. servt, "b. barton. "p. s.--i shall wait with no common anxiety to see whether your lordship will so far forgive this intrusion as to answer it." * * * * * . "woodbridge, april th, . "my lord,--i should be truly sorry if my importunity should defeat its own purpose, and, instead of interesting your lordship on my behalf, should make you regret the indulgence you have already granted me; but i really feel as if i had staked every remaining hope on the cast of the die, and, therefore, before it is thrown, i wish, my lord, to make one or two more observations. "although in my last, which, as i before observed, was hastily written, i express'd my wish to be allow'd, _in some capacity or other_, to serve your lordship, yet i am not so foolish as to think of fastening myself on you, my lord, _bon gré ou malgré_. one reason for my expressing that wish, was an idea that your lordship might go abroad before long; and, added to my own wish to see something of the world on which fate has thrown me, it occurred to me at the moment, that on such an occasion the services of one who is warmly attach'd to you, perhaps _romantically_, for i know nothing of your lordship but by your writings, might be acceptable. "but, my lord, although i have thus alluded to what would most gratify my own wishes, it was not intended to dictate to you the manner in which you might promote my interest. if your lordship's superior judgment and greater knowledge of the world can suggest anything else for my consideration, it shall receive every attention. "one more remark, my lord, and i have done. i am very sensible that in this application to your lordship i have been guilty of what would be term'd by some a piece of great impertinence, and by most an act of consummate folly. will you allow me, my lord, frankly to state to you the arguments on which my resolutions were founded? "i have not address'd you, my lord, on the impulse of the moment, dictated by desperation, and adopted without reflection. no, my lord; i had, or, at least, i thought i had, better reasons. i remembered that you had once condescended to address me _'candidly, not critically,'_ that you had even kindly interested yourself on my behalf. i thought that, amid all the keenness and poignancy of your habitual feelings, as powerfully pourtrayed in your writings, i could discern the workings of a heart _truly noble_. i imagin'd that what to a superficial observer appear'd only the overflowings of misanthropy, were, in reality, the effusions of deep sensibility. i convinc'd myself, by repeated perusals of your different productions, that though disappointments the most painful, and sensations the most acute, might have stung your heart to its very core, it had yet many feelings of the most exalted kind. from these i hoped everything. those hopes may be disappointed, but the opinions which gave rise to them have not been hastily form'd, nor will any selfish feeling of mortification be able to alter them. "i do not, my lord, intend the above as any idle complimentary apology for what i have done. i am not, god knows, just now in a complimentary mood; and if i were, you, my lord, are one of the last persons on earth on whom i should be tempted to play off such trash as idle panegyrics. i esteem you, my lord, not merely for your rank, still less for your personal qualities. the former i respect as i ought; of the latter i know nothing. but i feel something more than mere respect for your genius and your talents; and from your past conduct towards myself i cannot be insensible to your kindness. for these reasons, my lord, i acted as i have done. i before told you that i consider'd you _no common character_, and i think your lordship will admit that i have not treated you as such. "permit me once more, my lord, to take my leave by assuring you that i am, "with the truest esteem, "your very obt. and humble servt., "bernard barton. "p. s.--i hope your lordship will find no difficulty in making out this scrawl; but really, not being able to mend my pen, i am forced to write with it backwards. when i have the good luck to find my pen-knife, i will endeavour to furnish myself with a better tool." * * * * * part of the draft of byron's answer to these two letters is in existence, and runs as follows: "albany, april th, . "sir,--all offence is out of the question. my principal regret is that it is not in my power to be of service. my own plans are very unsettled, and at present, from a variety of circumstances, embarrassed, and, even were it otherwise, i should be both to offer anything like dependence to one, who, from education and acquirements, must doubly feel sensible of such a situation, however i might be disposed to render it tolerable. "as an adviser i am rather qualified to point out what should be avoided than what may be pursued, for my own life has been but a series of imprudences and conflicts of all descriptions. from these i have only acquired experience; if repentance were added, perhaps it might be all the better, since i do not find the former of much avail without it." * * * * * appendix v. correspondence with walter scott. the following is walter scott's reply to byron's letter of july , : "abbotsford, near melrose, th july, . "my lord,--i am much indebted to your lordship for your kind and friendly letter; and much gratified by the prince regent's good opinion of my literary attempts. i know so little of courts or princes, that any success i may have had in hitting off the stuarts is, i am afraid, owing to a little old jacobite leaven which i sucked in with the numerous traditionary tales that amused my infancy. it is a fortunate thing for the prince himself that he has a literary turn, since nothing can so effectually relieve the ennui of state, and the anxieties of power. "i hope your lordship intends to give us more of 'childe harold'. i was delighted that my friend jeffrey--for such, in despite of many a feud, literary and political, i always esteem him--has made so handsomely the 'amende honorable' for not having discovered in the bud the merits of the flower; and i am happy to understand that the retractation so handsomely made was received with equal liberality. these circumstances may perhaps some day lead you to revisit scotland, which has a maternal claim upon you, and i need not say what pleasure i should have in returning my personal thanks for the honour you have done me. i am labouring here to contradict an old proverb, and make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, namely, to convert a bare 'haugh' and 'brae', of about acres, into a comfortable farm. now, although i am living in a gardener's hut, and although the adjacent ruins of melrose have little to tempt one who has seen those of athens, yet, should you take a tour which is so fashionable at this season, i should be very happy to have an opportunity of introducing you to anything remarkable in my fatherland. my neighbour, lord somerville, would, i am sure, readily supply the accommodations which i want, unless you prefer a couch in a closet, which is the utmost hospitality i have at present to offer. the fair, or shall i say the sage, apreece that was, lady davy that is, is soon to show us how much science she leads captive in sir humphrey; so your lordship sees, as the citizen's wife says in the farce, 'thread-needle street has some charms,' since they procure us such celebrated visitants. as for me, i would rather cross-question your lordship about the outside of parnassus, than learn the nature of the contents of all the other mountains in the world. pray, when under 'its cloudy canopy' did you hear anything of the celebrated pegasus? some say he has been brought off with other curiosities to britain, and now covers at tattersal's. i would fain have a cross from him out of my little moss-trooper's galloway, and i think your lordship can tell one how to set about it, as i recognise his true paces in the high-mettled description of ali pacha's military court. "a wise man said--or, if not, i, who am no wise man, now say--that there is no surer mark of regard than when your correspondent ventures to write nonsense to you. having, therefore, like dogberry, bestowed all my tediousness upon your lordship, you are to conclude that i have given you a convincing proof that i am very much "your lordship's obliged and very faithful servant, "walter scott." * * * * * appendix vi. "the giant and the dwarf." the reply of leigh hunt's friends to moore's squib, "the 'living dog' and the 'dead lion'" (see letter , p. , note [footnote ]), ran as follows: "the giant and the dwarf. "humbly inscribed to t. pidcock, esq., of exeter 'change. "a giant that once of a dwarf made a friend, (and their friendship the dwarf took care shouldn't be hid), would now and then, out of his glooms, condescend to laugh at his antics,--as every one did. "this dwarf-an extremely diminutive dwarf,-- in birth unlike g--y, though his pride was as big, had been taken, when young, from the bogs of clontarf, and though born quite a helot, had grown up a whig. "he wrote little verses--and sung them withal, and the giant's dark visions they sometimes could charm, like the voice of the lute which had pow'r over saul, and the song which could hell and its legions disarm. "the giant was grateful, and offered him gold, but the dwarf was indignant, and spurn'd at the offer: 'no, never!' he cried, 'shall _my_ friendship be sold for the sordid contents of another man's coffer! "'what would dwarfland, and ireland, and every land say? to what would so shocking a thing be ascribed? _my lady_ would think that i was in your pay, and the _quarterly_ say that i must have been bribed. "'you see how i'm puzzled; i don't say it wouldn't be pleasant just now to have just that amount: but to take it in gold or in bank-notes!--i couldn't, i _wouldn't_ accept it--on any account. "'but couldn't you just write your autobiography, all fearless and personal, bitter and stinging? sure _that_, with a few famous heads in lithography, would bring me far more than my songs or my singing. "'you know what i did for poor sheridan's life; _your's_ is sure of my very best superintendence; i'll expunge what might point at your sister or wife,-- and i'll thus keep my priceless, unbought independence!' "the giant smiled grimly: he couldn't quite see what diff'rence there was on the face of the earth, between the dwarf's taking the money in fee, and his taking the same thing _in that money's worth_. "but to please him he wrote; and the business was done: the dwarf went immediately off to 'the row;' and ere the next night had pass'd over the sun, the memoirs were purchas'd by longman and co. "w. gyngell, showman, bartholomew fair." * * * * * appendix vii. attacks upon byron in the newspapers for february and march, . i. 'the courier'. ( ) lord byron ('the courier', february , ). a new poem has just been published by the above nobleman, and the 'morning chronicle' of to-day has favoured its readers with his lordship's dedication of it to thomas moore, esq., in what that paper calls "an elegant eulogium." if the elegance of an eulogium consist in its extravagance, the 'chronicle's' epithet is well chosen. but our purpose is not with the dedication, nor the main poem, 'the corsair', but with one of the pieces called poems, published at the end of the 'corsair'. nearly two years ago (in march, ), when the regent was attacked with a bitterness and rancour that disgusted the whole country; when attempts were made day after day to wound every feeling of the heart; there appeared in the 'morning chronicle' an anonymous 'address to a young lady weeping', upon which we remarked at the time ('courier of march' , ), considering it as tending to make the princess charlotte of wales view the prince regent her father as an object of suspicion and disgrace. few of our readers have forgotten the disgust which this address excited. the author of it, however, unwilling that it should sleep in the oblivion to which it had been consigned with the other trash of that day, has republished it, and, placed the first of what are called poems at the end of this newly published work the corsair, we find this very address: "weep daughter of a _royal_ line, a sire's disgrace, a realm's decay;" _lord byron thus avows himself to be the author._ to be sure the prince has been extremely _disgraced_ by the policy he has adopted, and the events which that policy has produced; and the realm has experienced _great decay_, no doubt, by the occurrences in the peninsula, the resistance of russia, the rising in germany, the counter-revolution in holland, and the defeat, disgrace, and shame of buonaparte. but, instead of continuing our observations, suppose we parody his lordship's address, and apply it to february : to a young lady. february, . "view! daughter of a royal line, a father's fame, a realm's renown: ah! happy that that realm is thine, and that its father is thine own! "view, and exulting view, thy fate, which dooms thee o'er these blissful isles to reign, (but distant be the date!) and, like thy sire, deserve thy people's smiles." * * * * * ( ) 'the courier', february , . lord byron, as we stated yesterday, has discovered and promulgated to the world, in eight lines of choice doggrel, that the realm of england is in decay, that her sovereign is disgraced, and that the situation of the country is one which claims the tears of all good patriots. to this very indubitable statement, the 'morning chronicle' of this day exhibits an admirable companion picture, a _genuine_ letter from _paris_, of the th ult. * * * * * ( ) 'the courier', february , . "'the courier' is indignant," says the 'morning chronicle', "at the discovery now made by lord byron, that he was the author of 'the verses to a young lady weeping,' which were inserted about a twelvemonth ago in the 'morning chronicle'. the editor thinks it audacious in a hereditary counsellor of the king to admonish the 'heir apparent'. it may not be 'courtly' but it is certainly 'british', and we wish the kingdom had more such honest advisers." the discovery of the author of the verses in question was not made by lord byron. how could it be? when he sent them to the 'chronicle, without' his name, he was just as well informed about the author as he is now that he has published them in a pamphlet, 'with' his name. the discovery was made to the public. they did not know in march, , what they know in february, . they did not suspect then what they now find avowed, that a peer of the realm was the author of the attack upon the prince; of the attempt to induce the princess charlotte of wales to think that her father was an object not of reverence and regard, but of disgrace. but we "think it audacious in an hereditary counsellor of the king to admonish the heir apparent." no! we do not think it audacious: it is constitutional and proper. but are anonymous attacks the constitutional duty of a peer of the realm? is that the mode in which he should admonish the heir apparent? if lord byron had desired to admonish the prince, his course was open, plain, and known--he could have demanded an audience of the prince; or, he could have given his admonition in parliament. but to level such an attack--what!--"kill men i' the dark!" this, however, is called by the 'chronicle' "certainly 'british'," though it might not be 'courtly', and a strong wish is expressed that "the country had many more such honest advisers" or admonishers. --admonishers indeed! a pretty definition of admonition this, which consists not in giving advice, but in imputing blame, not in openly proffering counsel, but in secretly pointing censure. * * * * * ( ) byroniana no. i ('the courier', february , ). the lord byron has assumed such a poetico-political and such a politico-poetical air and authority, that in our double capacity of men of letters and politicians, he forces himself upon our recollection. we say 'recollection' for reasons which will bye and by, be obvious to our readers, and will lead them to wonder why this young lord, whose greatest talent it is to forget, and whose best praise it would be to be forgotten, should be such an enthusiastic admirer of mr. sam rogers's 'pleasures of memory'. the most virulent satirists have ever been the most nauseous panegyrists, and they are for the most part as offensive by the praise as by the abuse which they scatter. his lordship does not degenerate from the character of those worthy persons, his poetical ancestors: "the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease" who of all authors dealt the most largely in the alternation of flattery and filth. he is the severest satirical and the civilest dedicator of our day; and what completes his reputation for candour, good feeling, and honesty, is that the persons whom he most reviles, and to whom he most fulsomely dedicates, are identically the same. we shall indulge our readers with a few instances:--the most obvious case, because the most recent, is that of mr. thomas moore, to whom he has dedicated, as we have already stated, his last pamphlet; but as we wish to proceed orderly, we shall postpone this and revert to some instances prior in order of time; we shall afterwards show that his lordship strictly adheres to horace's rule, in maintaining to the end the ill character in which he appeared at the outset. his lordship's first dedication was to his guardian and relative, the earl of carlisle. so late as the year , we find that lord byron was that noble lord's "most affectionate kinsman, etc., etc." hear how dutifully and affectionately this ingenuous young man celebrates, in a few months after ( ), the praises of his friend: "no muse will cheer with renovating smile, the _paralytic puling_ of carlisle; what heterogeneous honours deck the peer, lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, pamphleteer! so _dull_ in youth, so _drivelling_ in age, _his_ scenes alone had damn'd our sinking stage. but managers, for once, cried 'hold, enough,' nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff. yet at their judgment let his lordship laugh, and case his volumes in _congenial calf_: yes! doff that covering where morocco shines, and hang a calf-skin on those recreant lines." and in explanation of this affectionate effusion, our lordly dedicator subjoins a note to inform us that lord carlisle's works are splendidly bound, but that "the rest is all but leather and prunella," and a little after, in a very laborious note, in which he endeavours to defend his consistency, he out-herods herod, or to speak more forcibly, out-byrons byron, in the virulence of his invective against "his guardian and relative, to whom he dedicated his volume of puerile poems." lord carlisle has, it seems, if we are to believe his word, for a series of years, beguiled "the public with reams of most orthodox, imperial _nonsense_," and lord byron concludes by asking, "what can ennoble knaves, or _fools_, or cowards? alas! not all the blood of all the howards." "so says pope," adds lord byron. but pope does not say so; the words "_knaves and fools_," are not in pope, but interpolated by lord byron, in favour of his "guardian and relative." now, all this might have slept in oblivion with lord carlisle's dramas, and lord byron's poems; but if this young gentleman chooses to erect himself into a spokesman of the public opinion, it becomes worth while to consider to what notice he is entitled; when he affects a tone of criticism and an air of candour, he obliges us to enquire whether he has any just pretensions to either, and when he arrogates the high functions of public praise and public censure, we may fairly inquire what the praise or censure of such a being is worth: "thus bad begins, but worse remains behind." * * * * * ( ) byroniana no. ('the courier', february , ). "_crede byron_" is lord byron's armorial motto; 'trust byron' is the translation in the red-book. we cannot but admire the ingenuity with which his lordship has converted the good faith of his ancestors into a sarcasm on his own duplicity. "could nothing but your chief reproach, serve for a motto on your coach?" poor lord carlisle; he, no doubt, _trusted_ in his affectionate ward and kinsman, and we have seen how the affectionate ward and kinsman acknowledged, like _macbeth_, "_the double trust_" only to abuse it. we shall now show how much another noble peer, lord holland, has to trust to from his _ingenuous_ dedicator. some time last year lord byron published a poem, called _the bride of abydos_, which was inscribed to lord holland, "_with every sentiment of regard and respect by his gratefully obliged and sincere friend_, byron." "_grateful and sincere!_" alas! alas; 'tis not even so good as what shakespeare, in contempt, calls "the sincerity of a cold heart." "_regard and respect!"_ hear with what regard, and how much respect, he treats this identical lord holland. in a tirade against literary assassins (a class of men which lord byron may well feel entitled to describe), we have these lines addressed to the chief of the critical banditti: "known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway, thy _holland's_ banquets shall each toil repay, while grateful britain yields the praise she owes, _to hollands hirelings_, and to _learnings foes!_" by which it appears, that "--these wolves that still in darkness prowl; this coward brood, which mangle, as their prey, by hellish instinct, all that cross their way;" are hired by lord holland, and it follows, very naturally, that the "_hirelings_" of lord holland must be the "_foes of learning_." this seems sufficiently caustic; but hear, how our dedicator proceeds: "illustrious holland! hard would be his lot, his hirelings mention'd, and himself forgot! blest be the banquets spread at holland house, where scotchmen feed, and critics may carouse! long, long, beneath that hospitable roof shall _grub-street_ dine, while duns are kept aloof, and _grateful_ to the founder of the feast declare the landlord can _translate_, at least!" lord byron has, it seems, very accurate notions of _gratitude_, and the word "_grateful_" in these lines, and in his dedication of 'the bride of abydos', has a delightful similarity of meaning. his lordship is pleased to add, in an explanatory note to this passage, that lord holland's life of lopez de vega, and his translated specimens of that author, are much "bepraised _by these disinterested guests_." lord byron well knows that _bepraise_ and _bespatter_ are almost synonimous. there was but one point on which he could have any hope of touching lord holland more nearly; and of course he avails himself, in the most gentlemanly and generous manner, of the golden opportunity. when his club of literary assassins is assembled at lord holland's table, lord byron informs us "that lest when heated with the unusual grape, some _glowing_ thoughts should to the press escape, and tinge with red the _female_ reader's cheek, my lady skims the _cream_ of each critique; breathes o'er each page _her purity_ of soul, reforms each error, and refines the whole." our readers will, no doubt, duly appreciate the manliness and generosity of these lines; but, to encrease their admiration, we beg to remind them that the next time lord byron addresses lord holland, it is to dedicate to him, in all friendship, _sincerity_, and gratitude, the story of a young, a pure, an amiable, and an affectionate bride! the verses were bad enough, but what shall be said, after _such_ verses, of the insult of _such_ a dedication! we forbear to extract any further specimens of this peculiar vein of lord byron's satire; our "gorge rises at it," and we regret to have been obliged to say so much. and yet lord byron is, "with all regard and _respect_, lord holland's sincere and grateful friend!" it reminds us of the _respect_ which lear's daughters shewed their father, and which the poor old king felt to be "worse than murder." some of our readers may perhaps observe that, personally, lord holland was not so ill-treated as lord carlisle; but let it be recollected, that lord holland is only an acquaintance, while lord carlisle was "guardian and relation," and had therefore _peculiar_ claims to the ingratitude of a mind like lord byron's. _trust byron_, indeed! "him," as hamlet says "_him_, i would trust as i would _adders_ fang'd." * * * * * ( ) byroniana no. ('the courier', february , ). "crede byron"--"trust byron." we have seen lord byron's past and present opinions of two noble persons whom he has honoured with his satire, and vilified by his dedications; let us now compare the evidence which he has given at different and yet not distant times, on the merits of his third _dedicatee_, mr. thomas moore. to him lord byron has inscribed his last poem as a person "of unshaken _public principle_, and the most undoubted and various talents; as the firmest of irish _patriots_, and the first of irish bards." before we proceed to give lord byron's own judgment of this "firmest of patriots," and this "best of poets," we must be allowed to say, that though we consider mr. moore as a very good writer of songs, we should very much complain of the poetical supremacy assigned to him, if lord byron had not qualified it by calling him the first only of _irish_ poets, and, as we suppose his lordship must mean, of _irish_ poets of the _present_ day. the title may be, for aught we know to the contrary, perfectly appropriate; but we cannot conceive how mr. moore comes by the high-sounding name of "_patriot_;" what pretence there is for such an appellation; by what effort of intellect or of courage he has placed his name above those idols of irish worship, messrs. scully, connell, and dromgoole. mr. moore has written words to irish tunes; so did burns for _his_ national airs; but who ever called burns the "firmest of patriots" on the score of his contributions to the _scots magazine_? mr. moore, we are aware, has been accused of tuning his harpsichord to the key-note of a faction, and of substituting, wherever he could, a party spirit for the spirit of poetry: this, in the opinion of most persons, would derogate even from his _poetical_ character, but we hope that lord byron stands alone in considering that such a prostitution of the muse entitles him to the name of patriot. mr. moore, it seems, is an irishman, and, we believe, a roman catholic; he appears to be, at least in his poetry, no great friend to the connexion of ireland with england. one or two of his ditties are quoted in ireland as _laments_ upon certain worthy persons whose lives were terminated by the hand of the law, in some of the unfortunate disturbances which have afflicted that country; and one of his most admired songs begins with a stanza, which we hope the attorney-general will pardon us for quoting: "let erin remember the days of old, ere her _faithless sons betrayed her_, when malachy wore the collar of gold, which he won from her proud invader; when her kings, with standard of green unfurl'd, led the red branch knights to danger, ere, the emerald gem of the western world, _was set in the crown of a stranger_." this will pretty well satisfy an english reader, that, if it be any ingredient of patriotism to promote the affectionate connexion of the english isles under the constitutional settlement made at the revolution and at the union; and if the foregoing verses speak mr. moore's sentiments, he has the same claims to the name of "_patriot_" that lord byron has to the title of "trustworthy;" but if these and similar verses do not speak mr. moore's political sentiments, then undoubtedly he has never written, or at least published any thing relating to public affairs; and lord byron has no kind of pretence for talking of the political character and public principles of an humble individual who is only known as the translator of anacreon, and the writer, composer, and singer of certain songs, which songs do not (_ex-hypothesi_) speak the sentiments even of the writer himself. but, hold--we had forgot one circumstance: mr. moore has been said to be one of the authors of certain verses on the highest characters of the state, which appeared from time to time in the 'morning chronicle', and which were afterwards collected into a little volume; this may, probably, be in lord byron's opinion, a clear title to the name of _patriot_, in which case, his lordship has also his claim to the same honour; and, indeed that sagacious and loyal person, the editor of the 'morning chronicle', seems to be of this notion; for when some one ventured to express some, we think not unnatural, indignation at lord byron's having been the author of some impudent doggrels, of the same vein, which appeared anonymously in that paper reflecting on his royal highness the prince regent, and her royal highness his daughter, the editor before-mentioned exclaimed--"what! and is not a peer, an hereditary councillor of the crown, to be permitted to give his constitutional advice?!!!" if writing such vile and anonymous stuff as one sometimes reads in the 'morning chronicle' be the duty of a good subject, or the privilege of a peer of parliament, then indeed we have nothing to object to mr. moore's title of patriot, or lord byron's open, honourable, manly, and constitutional method of advising the crown. to return, however, to our main object, lord byron's _consistency, truth_, and trustworthiness. his lordship is pleased to call mr. moore not only patriot and poet, but he acquaints us also, that "he is the delight alike of his readers and his friends; the poet of all circles, and the idol of his own." let us now turn to lord byron's thrice-recorded opinion of "_this poet of all circles_." we shall quote from a poem which was republished, improved, amended, and reconsidered, not more than _three_ years ago; since which time mr. moore has published no poem whatsoever; therefore, lord byron's former and his present opinions are founded upon the same data, and if they do not agree, it really is no fault of mr. moore's, who has published nothing to alter them. "now look around and turn each _trifling_ page, survey the _precious_ works that please the age, while little's lyrics shine in hot-pressed twelves." here, by no great length of induction, we find little's, _i.e._ mr. thomas moore's lyrics, are _trifling, "precious_ works," his lordship ironically adds, that "please times from which," as his lordship says, "taste and reason are passed away!" bye and by his lordship delivers a still more plain opinion on mr. moore's fitness to be the "_poet of all circles_." "who in soft guise, surrounded by a quire of virgins _melting_, not to _vesta's_ fire, with sparkling eyes, and cheek by _passion_ flush'd, strikes his wild lyre, while listening dames are hush'd? 'tis little, young catullus of his day, as sweet, but as immoral, in his lay; griev'd to condemn, the muse must yet be just, nor spare melodious _advocates of lust!_" "_o calum et terra!_" as _lingo_ says. what! this purest of patriots is _immoral?_ what! "the poet of _all_ circles" is "the advocate of lust"? monstrous! but who can doubt byron? and his lordship, in a subsequent passage, does not hesitate to speak still more plainly, and to declare, in plain round terms (we shudder while we copy) that moore, the poet, the patriot "moore, is lewd"!!! after this, we humbly apprehend that if we were to "trust byron," mr. moore, however he may be the idol of his own circle, would find some little difficulty in obtaining admittance into any other. lord byron having thus disposed, as far as depended upon him, of the moral character of the first of patriots and poets, takes an early opportunity of doing justice to the personal honour of this dear "friend;" one, as his lordship expresses it, of "the magnificent and fiery spirited" sons of erin. "in ," says lord byron, "messrs. jeffery and moore met at chalk farm--the duel was prevented by the interference of the magistracy, and on examination, the balls of the pistols, _like the courage of the combatants_, were found to have _evaporated!_" "magnificent and fiery spirit," with a vengeance! we are far from thinking of mr. moore as lord byron either did or does; not so degradingly as his lordship did in ; not so extravagantly as he does in . but we think that mr. moore has grave reason of complaint, and almost just cause, to exert "his fiery spirit" against lord byron, who has the effrontery to drag him twice before the public, and overwhelm him, one day with odium, and another with ridicule. we regret that lord byron, by obliging us to examine the value of his censures, has forced us to contrast his past with his present judgments, and to bring again before the public the objects of his lampoons and his flatteries. we have, however, much less remorse in quoting his satire than his dedications; for, by this time, we believe, the whole world is inclined to admit that his lordship can pay no compliment so valuable as his censure, nor offer any insult so intolerable as his praise. * * * * * ( ) byroniana no. ('the courier', february , ). "'don pedro.' what offence have these men done? "'dogberry.' many, sir; they have committed false reports; moreover they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixthly and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things, and, to conclude, they are lying knaves." 'much ado about nothing.' we have already seen how scurvily lord byron has treated _three_ of the four persons to whom he has successively dedicated his poems; but for the fourth he reserved a species of contumely, which we are confident our readers will think more degrading than all the rest. _he has uniformly praised him! and him alone!!!_--the exalted rank, the gentle manners, the polished taste of his guardian and relation, lord carlisle; the considerations due to lord holland, from his family, his personal character, and his love of letters; the amiability of mr. moore's society, the sweetness of his versification, and the vivacity of his imagination;--all these could not save their possessors from the _brutality_ of lord byron's personal satire. it was, then, for a person only, who should have _none_ of these titles to his envy that his lordship could be expected to reserve the fullness and steadiness of his friendship; and if we had any respect or regard for that small poet and very disagreeable person, mr. sam rogers, we should heartily pity him for being "_damned_" to such "_fame_" as lord byron's uninterrupted praise can give. but mr. sam rogers has another cause of complaint against lord byron, and which he is of a taste to resent more. his lordship has not deigned to call _him_ "the firmest of patriots," though we have heard that his claims to that title are not much inferior to mr. moore's. mr. sam rogers is reported to have clubb'd with the irish anacreon in that scurrilous collection of verses, which we have before mentioned, and which were published under the title of the _twopenny post-bag_, and the assumed name of "thomas brown." the rumour may be unfounded; if it be, messrs. rogers and moore will easily forgive us for saying that, much as we are astonished at the effrontery with which lord byron has acknowledged his lampoon, we infinitely prefer it to the cowardly prudence of the author or authors of the _twopenny post-bag_ lurking behind a fictitious name, and "devising impossible slanders," which he or they have not the spirit to avow. but, to return to the more immediate subject of our lucubrations: it seems almost like a fatality, that lord byron has hardly ever praised any thing that he has not at some other period censured, or censured any thing that he has not, by and bye, praised or _practised_. it does not often happen that booksellers are assailed for their too great liberality to authors; yet, in lord byron's satire, while mr. scott is abused, his publisher, mr. murray, is sneered at, in the following lines: "and think'st them, scott, by vain conceit perchance, on public taste to foist thy stale romance; though _murray_ with his miller may combine, _to yield thy muse just_ half-a-crown a line? no! when the sons of song descend to trade, their bays are sear, their former _laurels fade_. let such forego the poet's sacred name, who _rack_ their _brains_ for _lucre_, not for fame: low may they sink to _merited contempt_, and _scorn_ remunerate the _mean_ attempt." now, is it not almost incredible that this very murray (the only remaining one of the booksellers whom his lordship had attacked; miller has left the trade)--is it not, we say, almost incredible that this very murray should have been soon after selected, by this very lord byron, to be his own publisher? but what will our readers say, when we assure them, that not only was murray so selected, but that this magnanimous young lord has actually _sold_ his works to this same murray? and, what is a yet more singular circumstance, has received and pocketted, for one of his own "stale romances," a sum amounting, not to "_half-a-crown_," but to _a whole crown, a line!!!_ this fact, monstrous as it seems in the author of the foregoing lines, is, we have the fullest reason to believe, accurately true. and the "_faded laurel_," "_the brains rac'd for lucre_," "_the merited contempt_," "_the scorn_," and the "_meanness_," which this impudent young man dared to attribute to mr. scott, appear to have been a mere anticipation of his own future proceedings; and thus, "--even-handed justice commends the ingredients of his _poison'd_ chalice to his own lips." how he now likes the taste of it we do not know; about as much, we suspect, as the "incestuous, murderous, damned dane" did, when _hamlet_ obliged him to "_drink off the potion_" which he had treacherously drugged for the destruction of others. * * * * * ( ) byroniana no. ('the courier', february , ). "he professes no keeping oaths; in breaking them he is stronger than hercules. he will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool." 'all's well that ends well'. we have, we should hope, sufficiently exposed the audacious levity and waywardness of lord byron's mind, and yet there are a few touches which we think will give a finish to the portrait, and add, if it be at all wanting, to the strength of the resemblance. * * * * * it must be amusing to those who know anything of lord byron in the circles of london, to find him magnanimously defying in very stout heroics, "--all the din of _melbourne_ house and _lambes'_ resentment--" and adding that he is "_unscared_" even by "_holland's spouse_." * * * * * to those who may be in the habit of hearing his lordship's political descants, the following extract will appear equally curious: "mr. brougham, in no. of the 'edinburgh review', throughout the article concerning don pedro cevallos, has displayed more politics than policy; many of the worthy burgesses of edinburgh being so _incensed at the_ infamous _principles it evinces_, as to have withdrawn their subscriptions;" and in the text of this poem, to which the foregoing is a note, he advises the editor of the review to "beware, lest _blundering brougham_ destroy the sale; turn beef to bannacks, cauliflower to kail." those who have attended to his lordship's progress as an author, and observed that he has published _four_ poems, in little more than two years, will start at the following lines: "--oh cease thy song! a bard may chaunt too often and too long; as thou art strong in verse, in mercy spare; a fourth, alas, were more than we could bear." and as the scene of each of these _four_ poems is laid in the levant, it is curious to recollect, that when his lordship informed the world that he was about to visit "afric's coast," and "calpe's height," and "stamboul's minarets," and "beauty's native clime," he enters into a voluntary and solemn engagement with the public, "that should he back return, no letter'd rage shall drag _his_ common-place book on the stage; of dardan tours let dilettanti tell, he'll leave topography to classic cell, and, _quite content_, no more shall interpose, to _stun_ mankind with _poetry or prose_." and yet we have already had, growing out of this "tour," four volumes of _poetry_, enriched with copious notes in _prose_, selected from his "_common-place book_." the whole interspersed every here and there with the most convincing proofs that instead of being "_quite content_," his lordship has returned, as he went out, the most discontented and peevish thing that breathes. but the passage of all others which gives us the most delight is that in which his lordship attacks his critics, and declares that "our men in buckram shall have blows enough, and feel they _too_ are penetrable stuff." and adds, "--i have-- learn'd to deride the critic's stern decree, and _break him on the wheel he meant for me_." we should now, with all humility, ask his lordship whether _he_ yet feels that "he _too_ is penetrable stuff;" and we should further wish to know how he likes being "_broken on the wheel he meant for others?_" when his lordship shall have sufficiently pondered on those questions, we may perhaps venture to propound one or two more. * * * * * ( ) from 'the courier' (march , ). the republication of some _satires_, which the humour of the moment now disposes the writer to recall, was strenuously censured, the other day, in a morning paper. it was there said, amongst other things, that such a republication "contributes to exasperate and perpetuate the divisions of those whom _nature_ and friendship have joined!" this is within six weeks after the deliberate _republication_ of "weep, daughter," etc., etc.; and thus we are informed of the exact moment at which all retort is to cease; at which misrepresentation towards the public and outrage towards the personages much more than insulted in those lines, is to be no longer remembered. what privileges does this writer claim for his friends! they are to live in all "the swill'd insolence" of attack upon those on whose character, union, and welfare, the public prosperity mainly depends; they are to instruct the daughter to hold the father disgraced, because he does not surrender the prime offices of the state to their ambition. and if, after this, public disgust make the author feel, in the midst of the little circle of flatterers that remains to him, what an insight he has given into the guilt of satire _before_ maturity, _before_ experience, _before_ knowledge; if the original unprovoked intruder upon the peace of others be thus taught a love of privacy and a facility of retraction; if turnus have found the time, "magno cum optaverit emptum intactum pallanta, et cum spolia ista, diemque oderit;" if triumphing arrogance be changed into a sentimental humility, o! then 'liberality' is to call out for him in the best of her hacknied tones; the contest is to cease at the instant when his humour changes from mischief to melancholy; 'affetuoso' is to be the only word; and he is to be allowed his season of sacred torpidity, till the venom, new formed in the shade, make him glisten again in the sunshine he envies! * * * * * ii. morning post. ( ) verses ('morning post', february , ). suggested by reading some lines of lord byron's at the end of his newly published work, entitled "_the corsair_" which begin: "_weep, daughter of a royal line._" "'far better be the thing that crawls, [ ] disgustful on a dungeon's walls; far better be the worm that creeps, in icy rings o'er him who sleeps;'" "far better be the reptile scorn'd, unseen, unheeded, unadorn'd, than him, to whom indulgent heav'n, has talents and has genius giv'n; if stung by envy, warp'd by pride, such gifts, alas! are misapplied; not all by nature's bounty blest in beauty's dazzling hues are drest; but who shall play the critic's part, if for the form atones the heart? but if the gloomiest thoughts prevail, and atheist doctrines stain the tale; if calumny to pow'r addrest, attempts to wound its sovereign's breast; if impious it shall try to part, the father from the daughter's heart; if it shall aim to wield a brand, to fire our fair and native land; if hatred for the world and men, shall dip in gall the ready pen: "'oh then far better 'tis to crawl, harmless upon a dungeon's wall; and better far the worm that creeps, in icy rings o'er him who sleeps.'" [footnote : 'vide' lord byron's works.] * * * * * ( ) to lord byron ('morning post', february , ). "bard of ungentle wayward mood! 'tis said of thee, when in the lap, thy nurse to tempt thee to thy food, would squeeze a _lemon_ in thy pap. "at _vinegar_ how danc'd thine eyes, before thy tongue a want could utter, and oft the dame to stop thy cries, strew'd _wormwood_ on thy bread and butter. "and when in childhood's frolic hour, thou'dst plait a garland for thy hair; the _nettle_ bloom'd a chosen flow'r, and native thistles flourish'd there. "for _sugar-plum_ thou ne'er did'st pine, thy teeth no _sweet-meat_ ever hurt-- the _sloe's juice_ was thy favourite wine, and _bitter almonds_ thy desert. "mustard, how strong so e'er the sort is, can draw no moisture from thine eye; not vinegar nor aqua-fortis could ever set thy face awry. "thus train'd a satirist--thy mind soon caught the bitter, sharp, and sour, and all their various pow'rs combin'd, produc'd 'childe harold', and the 'giaour'." * * * * * ( ) lord byron ('morning post', february , ). we are very much surprized, and we are not the only persons who feel disgust as well as astonishment, at the uncalled for avowal lord byron has made of being the author of some insolent lines, by inserting them at the end of his new poem, entitled "_the corsair_." the lines we allude to begin "_weep, daughter of a royal line_." nothing can be more repugnant to every good heart, as well as to the moral and religious feelings of a country, which we are proud to say still cherishes every right sentiment, than an attempt to lower a father in the eyes of his child. lord byron is a young man, and from the tenor of his writings, has, we fear, adopted principles very contrary to those of christianity. but as a man of honour and of _feeling_, which latter character he affects _outrageously_, he ought never to have been guilty of so unamiable and so unprovoked an attack. should so gross an insult to her royal father ever meet the eyes of the illustrious young lady, for whose perusal it was intended, we trust her own good sense and good heart will teach her to consider it with the contempt and abhorrence it so well merits. will she _weep for the disgrace of a father_ who has saved europe from bondage, and has accumulated, in the short space of two years, more glory than can be found in any other period of british history? will she "_weep for a realm's decay_," when that realm is hourly emerging under the government of her father, from the complicated embarrassments in which he found it involved? but all this is too evident to need being particularised. what seems most surprising is, that lord byron should chuse to avow irish trash at a moment when every thing conspires to give it the lie. it is for the _organ of the party_ alone, or a few insane admirers of bonaparte and defamers of their own country and its rulers, to applaud him. we know it is now the fashion for our young gentlemen to become poets, and a very innocent amusement it is, while they confine themselves to putting their travels into verse, like _childe harolde_, and lord nugent's _portugal_. nor is there any harm in turkish tales, nor wonderful ditties, of ghosts and hobgoblins. we cannot say so much for all mr. moore's productions, admired as he is by lord byron. in short, the whole galaxy of minor poets, lords nugent and byron, with messrs. rogers, lewis, and moore, would do well to keep to rhyme, and not presume to meddle with politics, for which they seem mighty little qualified. we must repeat, that it is innocent to write tales and travels in verse, but calumny can never be so, whether written by poets in st. james's-street, albany, or grub-street. * * * * * ( ) lines ('morning post', february , ). written on reading the insolent verses published by lord byron at the end of his new poem, "_the corsair_" beginning "_weep, daughter of a royal line_." "unblest by nature in thy mien, pity might still have play'd her part, for oft compassion has been seen, to soften into love the heart. but when thy gloomy lines we read, and see display'd without controul, th' ungentle thought, the atheist creed, and all the rancour of the soul. when bold and shameless ev'ry tie, that god has twin'd around the heart, thy malice teaches to defy, and act on earth a demon's part. oh! then from misanthropic pride we shrink--but pity too the fate of youth and talents misapplied, which, _if admired_, [ ] we still must hate." [footnote : we say, _if admired_, as there is a great variety of opinions respecting lord byron's poems. some certainly extol them much, but most of the best judges place his lordship rather low in the list of our minor poets.] * * * * * ( ) lines ('morning post', february , ). suggested by perusing lord byron's small poem, at the end of his "_corsair_" addressed to a lady weeping, beginning: "_weep, daughter of a royal line_." "to lord byron. "were he the man thy verse would paint, '_a sire's disgrace, a realm's decay_;' art thou the meek, the pious saint, that _prates_ of feeling night and day? "stern as the pirate's [ ] heart is thine, without one ray to cheer its gloom; and shall that daughter once repine, because thy rude, unhallow'd line, would on her virtuous cause presume? "hide, byron! in the shades of night-- hide in thy own congenial cell the mind that would a fiend affright, _and shock the dunnest realms of hell!_ "no; she will never weep the tears which thou would'st virtue's deign to call; nor will they, in remoter years, molest her father's heart at all. "dark-vision'd man! thy moody vein tends only to thy mental pain, and cloud the talents heav'n had meant to prove the source of true content; much better were it for thy soul, both here and in the realms of bliss, to check the glooms that now controul those talents, which might still repay the wrongs of many a luckless day, in such a _cheerless_[ ] clime as this. "but never strive to lure the heart from _one_ to which 'tis ever nearest, lest from its duty it depart, and shun the pow'r which should be dearest: for heav'n may sting thy heart in turn, and rob thee of thy sweetest treasure but, byron! thou hast yet to learn, _that virtue is the source of pleasure!_" tyrtÆus. g--n-street, feb. , . [footnote : 'the corsair'.] [footnote : in allusion to the general melancholy character of his lordship's poetical doctrines.] * * * * * ( ) to lord byron ('morning post', february , ). occasioned by reading his poem, at the end of 'the corsair', beginning: "_weep, daughter of a royal line_." shame on the verse that dares intrude on virtue's uncorrupted way-- that smiles upon ingratitude, and charms us only to betray! for this does byron's muse employ the calm unbroken hours of night? and wou'd she basely thus destroy the source of all that's just-upright? traitor to every moral law! think what thy own cold heart wou'd feel, if some insidious mind should draw thy daughter [ ] from her filial zeal. and dost thou bid the offspring shun its father's fond, incessant care? why, every sister, sire, and son, must loathe thee as the poison'd air! byron! thy dark, unhallow'd mind, stor'd as it is with atheist writ, will surely, never, never find, one convert to admire its wit! thou art a planet boding woe, attractive for thy novel mien-- a calm, but yet a deadly foe, most baneful when thou'rt most serene! tho' fortune on thy course may shine, strive not to lead the mind astray, nor let one impious verse of thine, the unsuspecting heart betray! but rather let thy talents aim to lead incautious youth aright; thus shall thy works acquire that fame, which ought to be thy chief delight. "the verse, however smooth it flow, must be abhorr'd, abjur'd, despis'd, when virtue feels a secret blow, and order finds her course surpris'd." horatio. fitzroy-square, feb. . [footnote : supposing lord byron to have a daughter.] * * * * * ( ) to lord byron ('morning post', february , ). "bard of the pallid front, and curling hair, to london taste, and northern critics dear, friend of the dog, companion of the bear, apollo drest in trimmest turkish gear. "'tis thine to eulogize the fell corsair, scorning all laws that god or man can frame; and yet so form'd to please the gentle fair, that reading misses wish their loves the same. "thou prov'st that laws are made to aid the strong, that murderers and thieves alone are brave, that all religion is an idle song, which troubles life, and leaves us at the grave. "that men and dogs have equal claims on heav'n, though dogs but bark, and men more wisely prate, that to thyself one friend alone was giv'n, that friend a dog, now snatch'd away by fate. "and last can tell how daughters best may shew their love and duty to their fathers dear, by reckoning up what stream of filial woe will give to every crime a cleansing tear. "long may'st thou please this wonder-seeking age, by murray purchas'd, and by moore admir'd; may fashion never quit thy classic page, nor e'er be with thy turkomania tir'd." unus multorum. * * * * * ( ) verses addressed to lord byron ('morning post', february , ). "lord _byron_! lord _byron_! your heart's made of iron, as hard and unfeeling as cold. half human, half bird, from _virgil_ we've heard, were form'd the fam'd harpies of old. "like those monsters you chatter, friends and foes you bespatter, and dirty, like them, what you eat: the _hollands_, your muse does most grossly abuse, tho' you feed on their wine and their meat. "your friend, little _moore_, you have dirtied before, but you know that in safety you write: you've declared in your lines, that revenge he declines, for the poor little man will not fight. "at _carlisle_ you sneer, that worthy old peer, though united by every tie; but you act as you preach, and do what you teach, and your _god_ and your duty defy. "as long as your aim was alone to defame, the nearest relation you own; at your malice he smil'd, but he won't see defil'd, by your harpy bespatt'rings, the throne." * * * * * ( ) patronage extraordinary ('morning post', february , ). "procul este profani--!" "a friendship subsisted, no friendship was closer, 'twixt the heir of a peer and the son of a grocer; 'tis _true_, though so wide was their difference of station, for, we _always_ find _truth_ in a _long dedication_. atheistical doctrines in verse we are told, the former sold _wholesale_, was daring and bold; while the latter (whatever _he_ offer'd for sale) like papa, he disposed of--of course by _retail!_ first--_scraps_ of _indecency_, next _disaffection_, disguised by the knave from his fear of detection; to court _party favour_, then, sonnets he wrote; set political squibs to the harpsichord's note. one, as _patron_ was chosen by his brother poet, the peer, to be sure, from his rank we may know it; not the low and indecent composer of jigs-- yes! yes! 'twas the son of the seller of figs!! did the peer then possess _no respectable friend_ to add weight to his name, and his works recommend?! atheistical writings we well may believe, none of _worth_ from the author would deign to receive; so--to cover the faults of his friend he essays, by _daubing_ him _thickly all over with praise_. but, _parents_, attend! if your _daughters_ you _love_, the works of _these serpents_ take _care_ to remove: their _infernal attacks_ from your _mansions_ repel, where _filial affection_ and _modesty_ dwell." verax. * * * * * ( ) lord byron ('morning post', february , ). if it was the object of lord byron to stamp his character, and to bring his name forward by a single act of his life into general notoriety, it must be confessed that he has completely succeeded. we do not recollect any former instance in which a peer has stood forth as the libeller of his sovereign. if he disapproves the measures of his ministers, the house of parliament, in which he has an hereditary right to sit, is the place where his opinions may with propriety be uttered. if he thinks he can avert any danger to his country by a personal conference with his sovereign, he has a right to demand it. the peers are the natural advisers of the crown, but the constitution which has granted them such extraordinary privileges, makes it doubly criminal in them to attack the authority from which it is derived, and to insult the power which it is their peculiar province to uphold and protect. what then must we think of the foolish vanity, or the bad taste of a titled poet, who is the first to proclaim himself the author of a libel, because he is fearful it will not be sufficiently read without his avowal. we perfectly remember having read the verses in question a year ago; but we could not then suppose them the offspring of patrician bile, nor should we now believe it without the author's special authority. it seems by some late quotations from his lordship's works, which have been rescued from that oblivion to which they were hastening with a rapid step, by one of our co-equals, that this peerless peer has already gone through a complete course of private ingratitude. the inimitable hogarth has traced the gradual workings of an unfeeling heart in his progress of cruelty. he has shewn, that malevolence is progressive in its operation, and that a man who begins life by impaling flies, will find a delight in torturing his fellow creatures before he closes it. we have heard that even at school these poetical propensities were strongly manifested in lord byron, and that he began his satirical career against those persons to whom the formation of his mind was entrusted. from his schoolmaster he turned the oestrum of his opening genius to his guardian and uncle, the earl of carlisle. we cannot believe that the noble person's conduct has in this instance been a perfect contrast to the general tenor of his life. we have heard, that during his guardianship he tripled the amount of his nephew's fortune. if the earl of carlisle was satisfied with his own 'conscia mens recti', if he wanted no thanks, he must at least have been much surprised to find such attentions and services rewarded with a libel, in which not only his literary accomplishments, but his bodily infirmities, were made the subject of public ridicule. the noble earl was certainly at liberty to treat such personal attacks with the contempt which they deserve, but since his sovereign is become the object of a vile and unprovoked libel, he will no doubt draw the attention of his peers to a new case of outrage to good order and government, which has been unfortunately furnished by his own nephew. * * * * * iii. the sun. ( ) lord byron and the 'morning chronicle' ('the sun', february , ). that poetical peer, lord byron, knowing full well that anything insulting to his prince or injurious to his country would be most thankfully received and published by the 'morning chronicle', did in march, , send the following loyal and patriotic lines to that loyal and patriotic paper, in which of course they appeared: "to a lady weeping. "weep, daughter of a royal line, _a sire's disgrace, a realm's decay:_ ah! happy! if each tear of thine could wash a father's _fault_ away! "weep--for thy tears are virtue's tears-- auspicious to these suffering isles: and be each drop, in future years, repaid thee by thy people's smiles!" these lines the 'morning chronicle', in the following paragraph of yesterday, informs us were aimed at the prince regent, and addressed to the princess charlotte: "'the courier' is indignant at the discovery now made by lord byron, that he was the author of 'the verses to a young lady weeping,' which were inserted about a twelvemonth ago in 'the morning chronicle'. the editor thinks it audacious in a hereditary counsellor of the king to admonish the 'heir apparent'. it may not be 'courtly', but it is certainly 'british', and we wish the kingdom had more such honest advisers." no wonder the 'courier', and every loyal man, should be indignant at the discovery (made by the republication of these worthless lines, in the noble lord's new volume) that this gross insult came from the pen of "a hereditary counsellor of the king! "no wonder every good subject should execrate this novel and disagreeable mode of "'admonishing' the heir apparent," which is further from being british than it is from being courtly; for, from courtier baseness may be expected, but from a briton no such infamous dereliction of his duty as is involved in a malignant, 'anonymous' attack by a peer of the realm upon the person exercising the sovereign authority of his country. but the assertions of lord byron are as false as they are audacious. what was the "sire's disgrace" to be thus bewept? he preferred the independence of the crown to the arrogant dictation of a haughty aristocracy, who desired to hold him in leading-strings. it was then, amid a "realm's (fancied) decay," because this faction were not admitted to supreme power, that his royal highness's early friends drunk his health in contemptuous silence, while their more vulgar partizans "at the lower end of the hall" hissed and hooted the royal name. but mark the reverse since march, , a reverse which it might have been thought would have induced the noble lord, from prudent motives, to have withheld this ill-timed publication! how is his royal highness's health toasted 'now'? with universal shouts and acclamations. treason itself dare not interpose a single discordant sound save in its own private orgies! where is 'now' the realm's decay? oh short-sighted prognosticators of the prophecies! look around, and dread the fate of the speakers of falsehood among the jews of old, who were stoned to death by the people! the wide world furnishes the answer to your selfish croakings, and tells lord byron that he is destitute of at least one of the qualities of an inspired bard. perhaps we might add another, viz. honesty in acknowledging his plagiarisms, one of which (as we have already said more than his silly verse above quoted deserves, except from the rank of its author) we shall take the liberty of stating to the public. the 'bride of abydos' begins, something in the stile of an old ballad, thus: "know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime, where the rage of the vulture--the love of the turtle-- now melt into sorrow--now madden to crime?-- know ye the land of the cedar and vine? where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine, where the light wings of zephyr, oppress'd with perfume, wax faint o'er the gardens of gúl in her bloom; where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, and the voice of the nightingale never is mute; where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, in colour though varied, in beauty may vie, and the purple of ocean is deepest in dye." the whole of which passage we take to be a paraphrase, and a bad paraphrase too, of a song of the german of göthe, of which the following translation was published at berlin in : "know'st thou the land, where citrons scent the gale, where glows the orange in the golden vale, where softer breezes fan the azure skies, where myrtles spring and prouder laurels rise? "know'st them the pile, the colonnade sustains, its splendid chambers and its rich domains, where breathing statues stand in bright array, and seem, 'what ails thee, hapless maid?' to say? "know'st thou the mount, where clouds obscure the day; where scarce the mule can trace his misty way; where lurks the dragon and her scaly brood; and broken rocks oppose the headlong flood?" * * * * * ( ) epigram ('the sun', february , ). on the detection of lord byron's plagiarism, in 'the sun' of friday last. "that byron _borrows verses_ is well known, but his _misanthropy_ is all his own." * * * * * ( ) lord byron ('the sun', february , ). we are informed from very good authority, that as soon as the house of lords meets again, a peer of very independent principles and character intends to give notice of a motion, occasioned by the late spontaneous avowal of a copy of verses by lord byron, addressed to the princess charlotte of wales, in which he has taken the most unwarrantable liberties with her august father's character and conduct; this motion being of a personal nature, it will be necessary to give the noble satirist some days notice, that he may prepare himself for his defence against a charge of so aggravated a nature, which may perhaps not be a fit subject for a criminal prosecution, as the laws of the country, not forseeing the probability of such a case ever occurring, under all the present circumstances, have not made a provision against it; but we know that each house of parliament has a controul over its own members, and that there are instances on the journals of parliament, where an individual peer has been suspended from all the privileges of the high situation to which his birth entitled him, when by any flagrant offence against good order and government, he has rendered himself unworthy of exercising so important a trust. 'morning post'. * * * * * ( ) parody ('the sun', february , ). "'weep, daughter of a royal line!' "mourn, dabbler in dull party rhyme, thy mind's disease, thy name's disgrace. ah, lucky! if the hand of time should all thy muse's crimes efface! "mourn--for thy lays are rancour's lays-- disgraceful to a briton born; and hence each theme of factious praise consigns thee to thy country's scorn." the works of lord byron. a new, revised and enlarged edition, with illustrations. letters and journals. vol. i. _____________________________ edited by rowland e. prothero. . preface two great collections of byron's letters have been already printed. in moore's 'life', which appeared in , were given. these, in fitzgreene halleck's american edition of byron's 'works', published in , were increased to . the first volume of a third collection, edited by mr. w. e. henley, appeared early in . a comparison of the number of letters contained in these three collections down to august , , shows that moore prints , halleck , and mr. henley . in other words, the edition of , which was the most complete so far as it goes, added letters to that of , and to that of . but it should be remembered that by far the greater part of the material added by halleck and mr. henley was seen and rejected by moore. the present edition, down to august , , prints letters, or an addition of to moore, to halleck, and to mr. henley. of this additional matter considerably more than two-thirds was inaccessible to moore in . in preparing this volume for the press, use has been also made of a mass of material, bearing more or less directly on byron's life, which was accumulated by the grandfather and father of mr. murray. the notes thus contain, it is believed, many details of biographical interest, which are now for the first time published. it is necessary to make these comparisons, in order to define the position which this edition claims to hold with regard to its predecessors. on the other hand, no one can regret more sincerely than myself--no one has more cause to regret--the circumstances which placed this wealth of new material in my hands rather than in those of the true poet and brilliant critic, who, to enthusiasm for byron, and wide acquaintance with the literature and social life of the day, adds the rarer gift of giving life and significance to bygone events or trivial details by unconsciously interesting his readers in his own living personality. byron's letters appeal on three special grounds to all lovers of english literature. they offer the most suggestive commentary on his poetry; they give the truest portrait of the man; they possess, at their best, in their ease, freshness, and racy vigour, a very high literary value. the present volume, which covers the period from to august, , includes the letters written lord byron from his eleventh to his twenty-third year. they therefore illustrate the composition of his youthful poetry, of 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', and of the first two cantos of 'childe harold'. they carry his history down to the eve of that morning in march, , when he awoke and found himself famous--in a degree and to an extent which to the present generation seem almost incomprehensible. if the letters were selected for their literary value alone, it is probable that very few of those contained in the present volume would find a place in a collection formed on this principle. but biographical interest also demands consideration, and, in the case of byron, this claim is peculiarly strong. he has for years suffered much from the suppression of the material on which a just estimate of his life may be formed. it is difficult not to regret the destruction of the 'memoirs', in which he himself intended his history to be told. their loss cannot be replaced; but their best substitute is found in his letters. through them a truer conception of byron can be formed than any impression which is derived from dallas, leigh hunt, medwin, or even moore. it therefore seems only fair to byron, that they should be allowed, as far as possible, to interpret his career. for other reasons also it appears to me too late, or too soon, to publish only those letters which possess a high literary value. the real motive of such a selection would probably be misread, and thus further misconceptions of byron's character would be encouraged. with one exception, therefore, the whole of the available material has been published. the exception consists of some of the business letters written by byron to his solicitor. enough of these have been printed to indicate the pecuniary difficulties which undoubtedly influenced his life and character; but it was not considered necessary to publish the whole series. men of genius ask money from their lawyers in the same language, and with the same arguments, as the most ordinary persons. the picture which the letters give of byron, is, it is believed, unique in its completeness, while the portrait has the additional value of being painted by his own hand. byron's career lends itself only too easily to that method of treatment, which dashes off a likeness by vigorous strokes with a full brush, seizing with false emphasis on some salient feature, and revelling in striking contrasts of light and shade. but the style here adopted by the unconscious artist is rather that in which richardson the novelist painted his pathetic picture of clarissa harlowe. with slow, laborious touches, with delicate gradations of colour, sometimes with almost tedious minuteness and iteration, the gradual growth of a strangely composite character is presented, surrounded by the influences which controlled or moulded its development, and traced through all the varieties of its rapidly changing moods. written, as byron wrote, with habitual exaggeration, and on the impulse of the moment, his letters correct one another, and, from this point of view, every letter contained in the volume adds something to the truth and completeness of the portrait. round the central figure of byron are grouped his relations and friends, and two of the most interesting features in the volume are the strength of his family affections, and the width, if not the depth, of his capacity for friendship. his father died when the child was only three years old. but a bundle of his letters, written from valenciennes to his sister, mrs. leigh, in - , still exists, to attest, with startling plainness of speech, the strength of the tendencies which john byron transmitted to his son. the following extract contains the father's only allusion to the boy:-- "valenciennes, feb. , . have you never received any letters from me by way of bologne? i have sent two. for god's sake send me some, as i have a great deal to pay. with regard to mrs. byron, i am glad she writes to you. she is very amiable at a distance; but i defy you and all the apostles to live with her two months, for, if any body could live with her, it was me. 'mais jeu de mains, jeu de vilains'. for my son, i am happy to hear he is well; but for his walking, 'tis impossible, as he is club-footed." between his mother and himself, in spite of frequent and violent collisions, there existed a real affection, while the warmth of his love for his half-sister augusta, who had much of her brother's power of winning affection, lost nothing in its permanence from the rarity of their personal intercourse. outside the family circle, the volume introduces the only two men among his contemporaries who remained his lifelong friends. in his affection for lord clare, whom he very rarely saw after leaving school, there was a tinge of romance, and in him byron seems to have personified the best memories of an idealized harrow. in hobhouse he found at once the truest and the most intimate of his friends, a man whom he both liked and respected, and to whose opinion and judgment he repeatedly deferred. on hobhouse's side, the sentiment which induced him, eminently sensible and practical as he was, to treasure the nosegay which byron had given him, long after it was withered, shows how attractive must have been the personality of the donor. without the 'dictionary of national biography', the labour of preparing the letters for the press would be trebled. both in the facts which it supplies, and in the sources of information which it suggests, it is an invaluable aid. in conclusion, i desire to express my special obligations to lord lovelace and mr. richard edgcumbe, who have read the greater part of the proofs, and to both of whom i am indebted for several useful suggestions. r. e. prothero. march, . list of letters . nov. . to mrs. parker . . march . to his mother . undated. to john hanson . . may . to his mother . june , to his mother . sept. to his mother . . march . to the hon. augusta byron . march . to the hon. augusta byron . april . to the hon. augusta byron . april . to the hon. augusta byron aug. . to the hon. augusta byron . aug. . to elizabeth bridget pigot . oct. . to the hon. augusta byron . nov. . to the hon. augusta byron . nov. . to the hon. augusta byron . nov. . to the hon. augusta byron . nov. . to the hon. augusta byron . dec. . to john hanson . . jan. . to the hon. augusta byron . april . to the hon. augusta byron . april . to hargreaves hanson . april . to hargreaves hanson . april . to the hon. augusta byron . april . to the hon. augusta byron . may . to john hanson . june . to the hon. augusta byron . june . to john hanson . july . to the hon. augusta byron . july . to john hanson . aug. . to charles o. gordon . aug. . to the hon. augusta byron . aug. . to the hon. augusta byron . aug. . to charles o. gordon. . aug. . to hargreaves hanson . undated. to hargreaves hanson . oct. . to hargreaves hanson . oct. . to john hanson . nov. . to the hon. augusta byron . nov. . to hargreaves hanson . nov. . to john hanson . nov. . to john hanson . dec. . to john hanson . dec. . to john hanson . dec. . to the hon. augusta byron . dec. . to the hon. augusta byron . jan. . to the hon. augusta byron . feb. . to his mother . march . to john hanson . march . to john hanson . march . to john hanson . may . to henry angelo . aug. . to john m.b. pigot . aug. . to elizabeth bridget pigot . aug. . to john m.b. pigot . aug. . to john m.b. pigot . aug. . to john m.b. pigot . aug. . to john m. b. pigot . undated. to elizabeth bridget pigot . dec. . to john hanson . . jan. . to j. ridge . jan. . to john m. b. pigot . jan. . to captain john leacroft . feb. . " " " . feb. . " " " . feb. . to the earl of clare . feb. . to mrs. hanson . march . to william bankes . undated. " " . undated. to----falkner . april . to john hanson . april. to john m. b. pigot . april . to john hanson . june . to elizabeth bridget pigot . june . " " " . july . " " " . july . " " " . july . to john hanson . aug. . to elizabeth bridget pigot . aug. . " " " . oct. . to john hanson . oct. . to elizabeth bridget pigot . nov. . to j. ridge . dec. . to john hanson . nov. ( ) to john murray . . jan. . to henry drury . jan. . to john cam hobhouse . jan. . to robert charles dallas . jan. . " " " . jan. . to john hanson . jan. . " " . feb. . to james de bathe . feb. . to william harness . feb. . to j. ridge . feb. . to the rev. john becher . march . " " " . april . to the hon. augusta leigh . sept. . to the rev. john becher . sept. . to john jackson . oct. . " " . oct. . to his mother . nov. . " " . nov. . to francis hodgson . nov. . to john hanson . nov. . to francis hodgson . nov. . to the hon. augusta leigh . dec. . " " " . dec. . to john hanson . dec. . to francis hodgson . . jan. . to john hanson . jan. . to r. c. dallas . feb. . " " " . feb. . " " " . feb. . " " " . feb. . " " " . feb. . " " " . feb. . " " " . march . to his mother . march . to william harness . undated. to william bankes . april . to r. c. dallas . april . to john hanson . may . to the rev. r. lowe . june . to his mother . june . to the rev. henry drury . june - . to francis hodgson . july . " " " . aug. . " " " . aug. . to his mother . aug. . to mr. rushton . sept. . to his mother . nov. . " " " . . march . to his mother . april . to his mother . april i . to his mother . april . to his mother . may . to henry drury . may . to francis hodgson . may . to his mother . may . to his mother . june . to henry drury . june . to his mother . july . to his mother . july . to francis hodgson . july . to his mother . july . to his mother . july . to his mother . oct. . to his mother . oct. . to francis hodgson . oct. . to john cam hobhouse . nov. . to francis hodgson . . jan. . to his mother i . feb. . to his mother . june . to his mother . june . to r. c. dallas . june . to francis hodgson . july . to henry drury . july . to his mother . july . to william miller . aug. . to john m. b. pigot . aug. . to john hanson . aug. . to scrope berdmore davies . aug. . to r. c. dallas . aug. . to----bolton . aug. . to----bolton . aug. . to----bolton . aug. . to the hon. augusta leigh . aug. . to r. c. dallas . aug. . to francis hodgson contents. chapter i. childhood and school ii. cambridge and juvenile poems iii. english bards, and scotch reviewers iv. travels in albania, greece, etc.--death of mrs. byron appendix i. review of wordsworth's poems appendix ii. article from the 'edinburgh review', for january, appendix iii. review of gell's 'geography of ithaca', and 'itinerary of greece' the letters of lord byron. chapter i. - . childhood and school. catherine gordon of gight ( - ), afterwards mrs. byron, and mother of the poet, was descended on the paternal side from sir william gordon of gight, the third son, by annabella stewart, daughter of james i of scotland, of george, second earl of huntly, chancellor of scotland ( - ), and lord-lieutenant of the north from to his death in . the owners of gight, now a ruin, once a feudal stronghold, were a hot-headed, hasty-handed race, sufficiently notable to be commemorated by thomas the rhymer, and to leave their mark in the traditions of aberdeenshire. in the seventh generation from sir william gordon, the property passed to an heiress, mary gordon. by her marriage with alexander davidson of newton, who assumed the name of gordon, she had a son alexander, mrs. byron's grandfather, who married margaret duff of craigston, a cousin of the first earl of fife. their eldest son, george, the fifth of the gordons of gight who bore that name, married catherine innes of rosieburn, and by her became the father of catherine gordon, born in , afterwards mrs. byron. both her parents dying early, catherine gordon was brought up at banff by her grandmother, commonly called lady gight, a penurious, illiterate woman, who, however, was careful that her granddaughter was better educated than herself. thus, for the second time, gight, which, with other property, was worth between £ , and £ , , passed to an heiress. miss catherine gordon had her full share of feminine vanity. at the age of thirty-five she was a stout, dumpy, coarse-looking woman, awkward in her movements, provincial in her accent and manner. but as her son was vain of his personal appearance, and especially of his hands, neck, and ears, so she, when other charms had vanished, clung to her pride in her arms and hands. she exhausted the patience of stewartson the artist, who in , after forty sittings, painted her portrait, by her anxiety to have a particular turn in her elbow exhibited in the most pleasing light. of her ancestry she was, to use her son's expression, as "proud as lucifer," looked down upon the byron family, and regarded the duke of gordon as an inferior member of her clan. in later life, at any rate, her temper was ungovernable; her language, when excited, unrestrained; her love of gossip insatiable. capricious in her moods, she flew from one extreme to the other, passing, for the slightest cause, from passionate affection to equally passionate resentment. how far these defects were produced, as they certainly were aggravated, by her husband's ill treatment and her hard struggle with poverty, it is impossible to say. she had many good qualities. she bore her ruin, as her letters show, with good sense, dignity, and composure. she lived on a miserable pittance without running into debt; she pinched herself in order to give her son a liberal supply of money; she was warm-hearted and generous to those in distress. she adored her scamp of a husband, and, in her own way, was a devoted mother. in politics she affected democratic opinions, took in the 'morning chronicle', and paid for it, as is shown by a bill sent in after her death, at the rate of £ s. d. for the half-year--no small deduction from her narrow income. she was fond of books, subscribed to the southwell book club, copied passages which struck her in the course of her reading, collected all the criticisms on her son's poetry, made shrewd remarks upon them herself (moore's 'journal and correspondence', vol. v. p. ), and corresponded with her friends on literary subjects. in miss catherine gordon was at bath, where, it may be mentioned, her father had, some years before, committed suicide. there she met, and there, on may , , in the parish church of st. michael, as the register shows, she married captain john byron. captain john byron ( - ), born at plymouth, was the eldest son of admiral the hon. john byron ( - )--known in the royal navy as "hardy byron" or "foul-weather jack"--by his marriage ( ) with sophia trevanion of carhais, in cornwall. the admiral, next brother to william, fifth lord byron, was a distinguished naval officer, whose 'narrative' of his shipwreck in the 'wager' was published in , and whose 'voyage round the world' in the 'dolphin' was described by "an officer in the said ship" in . his eldest son, john byron, educated at westminster and a french military academy, entered the guards and served in america. a gambler, a spendthrift, a profligate scamp, disowned by his father, he in ran away with, and in married, lady carmarthen, wife of francis, afterwards fifth duke of leeds, née lady amelia d'arcy, only child and heiress of the last earl of holderness, and baroness conyers in her own right. captain byron and his wife lived in paris, where were born to them a son and a daughter, both of whom died in infancy, and augusta, born , the poet's half-sister, who subsequently married her first cousin, colonel george leigh. in lady conyers died, and captain byron returned to england, a widower, over head and ears in debt, and in search of an heiress. it was a rhyme in aberdeenshire-- "when the heron leaves the tree, the laird of gight shall landless be." tradition has it that, at the marriage of catherine gordon with "mad jack byron," the heronry at gight passed over to kelly or haddo, the property of the earl of aberdeen. "the land itself will not be long in following," said his lordship, and so it proved. for a few months mrs. byron gordon--for her husband assumed the name, and by this title her scottish friends always addressed her--lived at gight. but the ready money, the outlying lands, the rights of fishery, the timber, failed to liquidate captain byron's debts, and in gight itself was sold to lord aberdeen for £ , . mrs. byron gordon found herself, at the end of eighteen months, stripped of her property, and reduced to the income derived from £ , subject to an annuity payable to her grandmother. she bore the reverse with a composure which shows her to have been a woman of no ordinary courage. her letters on the subject are sensible, not ill-expressed, and, considering the circumstances in which they were written, give a favourable impression of her character. the wreck of their fortunes compelled mrs. byron gordon and her husband to retire to france. at the beginning of she had returned to london, and on january , , at , holles street (since numbered , and now destroyed), in the back drawing-room of the first floor, gave birth to her only child, george gordon, afterwards sixth lord byron. hanson gives the names of the nurse, mrs. mills, the man-midwife, mr. combe, the doctor, dr. denman, who attended mrs. byron at her confinement. dallas was, therefore, mistaken in his supposition that the poet was born at dover. the child was baptized in london on february , , as is proved by the register of the parish of marylebone. shortly after the birth of her son, mrs. byron settled in aberdeen, where she lived for upwards of eight years. during her stay there, in the summer of , her husband died at valenciennes. in the year , by the death of his cousin william john byron ( - ) from a wound received at the siege of calvi, in corsica, her son became the heir to his great-uncle, the "wicked lord byron" (william, fifth lord byron, - ), and a solicitor named hanson was appointed to protect the boy's interests. from aberdeen mrs. byron kept up a correspondence with her sister-in-law, frances leigh ('née' byron), wife of general charles leigh, to whom, in a letter, dated march , , she speaks of her son as "very well, and really a charming boy." writing again to mrs. leigh, december , , she says, "i think myself much obliged to you for being so interested for george; you may be sure i would do anything i could for my son, but i really don't see what can be done for him in that case. you say you are afraid lord b. will dispose of the estates that are left, if he can; if he has it in his power, nobody can prevent him from selling them; if he has not, no one will buy them from him. you know lord byron. do you think he will do anything for george, or be at any expense to give him a proper education; or, if he wish to do it, is his present fortune such a one that he could spare anything out of it? you know how poor i am, not that i mean to ask him to do anything for him, that is to say, to be of any expense on his account." if any application was made to the boy's great-uncle, it was unsuccessful. on may , , lord byron died, and hanson informed mrs. byron that her son had succeeded to the title and estates. at the end of the summer of that year, the little lord byron, with his mother and the nurse may gray, reached newstead, and, within a few weeks from their arrival, his first letter was written. his letters to his mother, it may be observed, are always addressed to "the honourable mrs. byron," a title to which she had no claim. .--to mrs. parker. [ ] newstead abbey, nov. th, . dear madam,--my mamma being unable to write herself desires i will let you know that the potatoes are now ready and you are welcome to them whenever you please. she begs you will ask mrs. parkyns if she would wish the poney to go round by nottingham or to go home the nearest way as it is now quite well but too small to carry me. i have sent a young rabbit which i beg miss frances will accept off and which i promised to send before. my mamma desires her best compliments to you all in which i join. i am, dear aunt, yours sincerely, byron. i hope you will excuse all blunders as it is the first letter i ever wrote. [footnote : this letter, the first that byron wrote, was written when he was ten years and ten months old. it is preserved in the library of trinity college, cambridge, and a facsimile is given by elze, in his 'life of lord byron'. it is apparently addressed to his aunt, mrs. parker. charlotte augusta byron, daughter of admiral the hon. john byron, married christopher parker ( - ), vice-admiral , the son of admiral of the fleet sir peter parker, bart. ( - ). her son, who, on the death of his grandfather, succeeded to the baronetcy as sir peter parker, second bart. ( - ), commanded h.m.s. 'menelaus', and was killed in an attack on a body of american militia encamped near baltimore. (see byron's "elegy on the death of sir peter parker," and his letter to moore, october , .) her daughter margaret, one of byron's early loves, inspired, as he says, his "first dash into poetry" (see 'poems', vol. i, p. , note ).] .--to his mother. nottingham, march, . dear mama,--i am very glad to hear you are well. i am so myself, thank god; upon my word i did not expect so long a letter from you; however i will answer it as well as i can. mrs. parkyns and the rest are well and are much obliged to you for the present. mr. rogers [ ] could attend me every night at a separate hour from the miss parkynses, and i am astonished you do not acquiesce in this scheme which would keep me in mind of what i have almost entirely forgot. i recommend this to you because, if some plan of this kind is not adopted, i shall be called, or rather branded with the name of a dunce, which you know i could never bear. i beg you will consider this plan seriously and i will lend it all the assistance in my power. i shall be very glad to see the letter you talk of, and i have time just to say i hope every body is well at newstead, and remain, your affectionate son, byron. p.s.--pray let me know when you are to send in the horses to go to newstead. may [ ] desires her duty and i also expect an answer by the miller. [footnote : dummer rogers, "teacher of french, english, latin, and mathematicks", was, according to 'notes and queries' ( th series, vol. iii. p. ), an american loyalist, pensioned by the english government. he lived at hen cross, nottingham, when byron was staying in that city, partly with mrs. parkyns, partly at mr. gill's, in st. james's lane, to be attended by a man named lavender, "trussmaker to the general hospital", who had some local reputation for the treatment of misshapen limbs. lavender, in ('nottingham directory' for ), appears as a "surgeon". rogers, who read parts of virgil and cicero with byron, represents him as, for his age, a fair scholar. he was often, during his lessons, in violent pain, from the position in which his foot was kept; and rogers one day said to him, "it makes me uncomfortable, my lord, to see you sitting there in such pain as i know you must be suffering". "never mind, mr. rogers," answered the boy; "you shall not see any signs of it in _me_." many years after, when in the neighbourhood of nottingham, byron sent a kind message to his old instructor, bidding the bearer tell him that he could still recite twenty verses of virgil which he had read with rogers when suffering torture all the time. [footnote : byron's nurse, who had accompanied him from aberdeen (see p. , note ).] .--to john hanson. [ ] sir,--i am not a little disappointed at your stay, for this last week i expected you every hour; but, however, i beg it as a favour that you will come up soon from newstead as the holidays commence in three weeks time. i congratulate you on capt. hanson's [ ] being appointed commander of the 'brazen' sloop of war, and i congratulate myself on lord portsmouth's [ ] marriage, hoping his lady, when he and i meet next, will keep him in a little better order. the manner i knew that capt. hanson was appointed commander of the ship before mentioned was this. i saw it in the public paper, and now, since you are going to newstead, i beg if you meet gray [ ] send her a packing as fast as possible, and give my compliments to mrs. hanson and to all my comrades of the battalions in and out upon different stations, and remain, your little friend, byron. i forgot to tell you how i was. i am at present very well and my foot goes but indifferently; i cannot perceive any alteration. [footnote : john hanson, of , chancery lane, a well-known london solicitor, was introduced to the byron family by an aberdeenshire friend of mrs. byron, mr. farquhar, a member of parliament, and a civilian practising in doctors' commons. the acquaintance began in january, , with byron's birth, for the midwife and the nurse were recommended by mrs. hanson. six years later, hanson was employed by mrs. byron to watch the interests of her son, who in had become heir-presumptive to his great-uncle. it was hanson who, in the summer of , communicated the news of the death of lord byron to mrs. byron, and with his wife received her and her son at newstead. from that time till the close of the minority, hanson was intimately associated with byron, both as a man of business and a friend. he selected dr. glennie's school for the boy, persuaded lord carlisle to become his guardian, introduced the ward to lord carlisle, and entered him at harrow. it was at his house in earl's court that byron, for five years, spent a considerable part of his successive holidays. there he made acquaintance with hanson's children--his sons charles, hargreaves (his contemporary at harrow), and newton, and his daughter, mary anne, who subsequently (march , ) married the earl of portsmouth, byron giving her away. this letter was written by byron a few weeks after he had gone to school at dr. glennie's, in lordship lane, dulwich. he remained there from august, , to april, . in a letter to mrs. byron, dated september , , hanson describes dr. glennie's "academy," where he had shortly before left the boy:-- "i left my entertaining companion with mr. glennie last thursday week, and i have since learnt from him that he is very comfortable and likes the situation. his schoolfellows are very fine youths, and their deportment does very great credit to their preceptor. i succeeded in getting lord byron a separate room, and i am persuaded the greatest attention will be paid to him. mr. glennie is a scotchman, has travelled a great deal, and seems every way qualified for his present situation." [footnote : captain james hanson, r.n., was the brother of john hanson to whom the letter is written. byron was born with a caul, prized by sailors as a preservative from drowning. the caul was sold by mrs. mills, the nurse who attended mrs. byron in january, , to captain hanson. in january, , captain hanson, in command of h.m.s. 'brazen', had captured a french vessel, which he sent to portsmouth with a prize crew. on the th of the month, while shorthanded, he was caught in a storm off newhaven. the 'brazen' foundered, and captain hanson with all his men, except one, were drowned.] [footnote : in the late autumn of lord portsmouth was staying with the hansons before his marriage (november , ) with miss norton, sister of lord grantley. in rough play he pinched byron's ear; the boy picked up a conch shell which was lying on the ground, and hurled it at lord portsmouth's head, missing it by a hair's breadth, and smashing the glass behind. in vain mrs. hanson tried to make the peace by saying that byron did not mean the missile for lord portsmouth. "but i 'did' mean it!" he reiterated; "i will teach a fool of an earl to pinch another noble's ear."] [footnote: . the following extract from a letter written by hanson to mrs. byron (september , ) places the character of byron's nurse in a different light to that which is given in moore's 'life':-- "i assure you, madam, i should not have taken the liberty to have interfered in your domestic arrangements, had i not thought it absolutely necessary to apprize you of the proceedings of your servant, mrs. gray; her conduct towards your son while at nottingham was shocking, and i was persuaded you needed but a hint of it to dismiss her. mrs. parkyns, when i saw her, said something to me about her; but when i found from dispassionate persons at nottingham, it was the general topic of conversation, it would have ill become me to have remained silent. my honourable little companion, tho' disposed to retain his feelings, could not refrain, from the harsh usage he had received at her hands, from complaining to me, and such is his dread of the woman that i really believe he would forego the satisfaction of seeing you if he thought he was to meet her again. he told me that she was perpetually beating him, and that his bones sometimes ached from it; that she brought all sorts of company of the very lowest description into his apartments; that she was out late at nights, and he was frequently left to put himself to bed; that she would take the chaise-boys into the chaise with her, and stopped at every little ale-house to drink with them. but, madam, this is not all; she has even----traduced yourself. i entertain a very great affection for lord byron, and i trust i shall not be considered solely in my professional character, but as his friend. i introduced him to my friends, lord grantley and his brother general norton, who were vastly taken with him, as indeed are every one. and i should be mortified in the highest degree to see the honourable feelings of my little fellow exposed to insult by the inordinate indiscretions of any servant. he has ability and a quickness of conception, and a correct discrimination that is seldom seen in a youth, and he is a fit associate of men, and choice indeed must be the company that is selected for him."] .--to his mother. harrow-on-the-hill, sunday, may st, . my dear mother,--i received your letter the other day. and am happy to hear you are well. i hope you will find newstead in as favorable a state as you can wish. i wish you would write to sheldrake to tell him to make haste with my shoes. [ ] i am sorry to say that mr. henry drury [ ] has behaved himself to me in a manner i neither'can' nor 'will bear'. he has seized now an opportunity of showing his resentment towards me. to day in church i was talking to a boy who was sitting next me; 'that' perhaps was not right, but hear what followed. after church he spoke not a word to me, but he took this boy to his pupil room, where he abused me in a most violent manner, called me 'blackguard', said he 'would' and 'could' have me expelled from the school, and bade me thank his 'charity' that 'prevented' him; this was the message he sent me, to which i shall return no answer, but submit my case to 'you' and those you may think 'fit' to 'consult'. is this fit usage for any body? had i 'stole' or behaved in the most 'abominable' way to him, his language could not have been more outrageous. what must the boys think of me to hear such a message ordered to be delivered to me by a 'master'? better let him take away my life than ruin my 'character'. my conscience acquits me of ever 'meriting' expulsion at this school; i have been 'idle' and i certainly ought not to talk in church, but i have never done a mean action at this school to him or 'any one'. if i had done anything so 'heinous', why should he allow me to stay at the school? why should he himself be so 'criminal' as to overlook faults which merit the 'appellation' of a 'blackguard'? if he had had it in his power to have me expelled, he would long ago have 'done' it; as it is, he has done 'worse'. if i am treated in this manner, i will not stay at this school. i write you that i will not as yet appeal to dr. drury; his son's influence is more than mine and 'justice' would be 'refused' me. remember i told you, when i 'left' you at 'bath', that he would seize every means and opportunity of revenge, not for leaving him so much as the mortification he suffered, because i begged you to let me leave him. if i had been the blackguard he talks of, why did he not of his own accord refuse to keep me as his 'pupil'? you know dr. drury's first letter, in it were these words: "my son and lord byron have had some disagreements; but i hope that his future behaviour will render a change of tutors unnecessary." last term i was here but a short time, and though he endeavoured, he could find nothing to abuse me in. among other things i forgot to tell you he said he had a great mind to expel the boy for speaking to me, and that if he ever again spoke to me he would expel him. let him explain his meaning; he abused me, but he neither did nor can mention anything bad of me, further than what every boy else in the school has done. i fear him not; but let him explain his meaning; 'tis all i ask. i beg you will write to dr. drury to let him know what i have said. he has behaved to me, as also mr. evans, very kindly. if you do not take notice of this, i will leave the school myself; but i am sure 'you' will not see me 'ill treated'; better that i should suffer anything than this. i believe you will be tired by this time of reading my letter, but, if you love me, you will now show it. pray write me immediately. i shall ever remain, your affectionate son, byron. p.s.--hargreaves hanson desires his love to you and hopes you are very well. i am not in want of any money so will not ask you for any. god bless, bless you. [footnote : byron appears to have suffered from what would now be described as infantile paralysis, which affected the inner muscles of the right leg and foot, and rendered him permanently lame. before leaving london for aberdeen, mrs. byron consulted john hunter, who, in correspondence with dr. livingstone of aberdeen, advised her as to the treatment of her son. writing, may , , to mrs. leigh, she says, "george's foot turns inward, and it is the right foot; he walks quite on the side of his foot." in the child was placed under the care of lavender (see p. , note ) at nottingham, doubtless on the recommendation of his aunt. in july, , he was taken to london, in order to consult dr. baillie. from july, , till the end of , he was attended by baillie in consultation with dr. laurie of , bartholomew's close. special appliances were made for the boy, under their superintendence, by a scientific bootmaker named sheldrake, in the strand. in 'the lancet' for - (vol. ii. p. ) mr. t. sheldrake describes "lord byron's case," giving an illustration of the foot. his account does not tally, in some respects, with that taken from contemporary letters, and his sketch represents the left not the right leg. but the nature and extent of byron's lameness have been the subject of a curious variety of opinion. lady blessington, moore, gait, the contessa albrizzi, never knew which foot was deformed. jackson, the boxer, thought it was the 'left' foot. trelawney says that it proceeded from a contraction of the back sinews, and that the 'right' foot was most distorted. the lasts from which his shoes were made by swift, the southwell bootmaker, are preserved in the nottingham museum, and in both the foot is perfect in shape. the last pair of shoes modelled on them were made may , . mrs. leigh hunt says that the 'left' foot was shrunken, but was not a club-foot. stendhal says the 'right' foot. thorwaldsen indicates the 'left' foot. dr. james millingen, who inspected the feet after the poet's death, says that there was a malformation of the 'left' foot and leg, and that he was born club-footed. two surgical boots are in the possession of mr. murray, made for byron as a child; both are for the 'right' foot, ankle, and leg, and, assuming that they were made to fit the foot, they are too long and thin for a club-foot. both at dulwich and at harrow, byron was frequently seen by laurie, whom mrs. byron paid, as she once complained in a letter to laurie, "at the rate of £ a year." it is difficult to see what more could have been done for the boy, and the explanation of the failure to effect a cure is probably to be found in the following extracts from two of laurie's letters to mrs. byron. the first is dated december , :-- "agreeable to your desire, i waited on lord byron at harrow, and i think it proper to inform you that i found his foot in a much worse state than when i last saw it,--the shoe entirely wet through and the brace round his ancle quite loose. i much fear his extreme inattention will counteract every exertion on my part to make him better. i have only to add that with proper care and bandaging, his foot may still be greatly recovered; but any delay further than the present vacation would render it folly to undertake it." the second letter is dated october , . in it laurie complains that the boy had spent several days in london without seeing him, and adds-- "i cannot help lamenting he has so little sense of the benefit he has already received as to be so apparently neglectful."] [footnote : for henry drury (afterwards an intimate friend of byron) and his father, the head-master of harrow, see p. , note . when byron went to harrow, in april, , he was placed in henry drury's house. but in january, , he refused to go back to school unless he was removed from drury's care. he was in consequence placed at evans's house. dr. drury, writing to explain the new arrangement, says, in a letter to hanson, dated february , -- "the reason why lord byron wishes for this change arises from the repeated complaints of mr. henry drury respecting his inattention to business, and his propensity to make others laugh and disregard their employments as much as himself. on this subject i have had many very serious conversations with him, and though mr. h. d. had repeatedly requested me to withdraw him from his tuition, yet, relying on my own remonstrances and arguments to rectify his error, and on his own reflection to confirm him in what is right, i was unwilling to accede to my son's wishes. lord byron has now made the request himself; i am glad it has been made, as he thereby imposes on himself an additional responsibility, and encourages me to hope that by this change he intends to lay aside all that negligence and those childish practices which were the cause of former complaints." fresh troubles soon arose, as byron's letter indicates. hanson forwarded the boy's complaint to dr. drury, from whom he received the following answer, dated may , :-- "the perusal of the inclosed has allowed me to inquire into the whole matter, and to relieve your young friend's mind from any uneasy impression it might have sustained from a hasty word i fairly confess. i am sorry it was ever uttered; but certainly it was never intended to make so deep a wound as his letter intimates. "i may truly say, without any parade of words, that i am deeply interested in lord byron's welfare. he possesses, as his letter proves, a mind that feels, and that can discriminate reasonably on points in which it conceives itself injured. when i look forward to the possibility of the exercise of his talents hereafter, and his supplying the deficiencies of fortune by the exertion of his abilities and by application, i feel particularly hurt to see him idle, and negligent, and apparently indifferent to the great object to be pursued. this event, and the conversations which have passed between us relative to it, will probably awaken in his mind a greater degree of emulation, and make him studious of acquiring distinction among his schoolfellows, as well as of securing to himself the affectionate regard of his instructors."] .--to his mother. harrow-on-the-hill, june rd, th, th, th, . my dear mother,--i am much obliged to you for the money you sent me. i have already wrote to you several times about writing to sheldrake: i wish you would write to him, or mr. hanson to call on him, to tell him to make an instrument for my leg immediately, as i want one, rather. i have been placed in a higher form in this school to day, and dr. drury and i go on very well; write soon, my dear mother. i remain, your affectionate son, byron. .--to his mother. [ ] southwell, [sept. ]. my dear mother,--i have sent mealey [ ] to day to you, before william came, but now i shall write myself. i _promise_ you, upon my _honour_, i will come over tomorrow in the _afternoon_. i was not wishing to resist your _commands_, and really seriously intended coming over tomorrow, ever since i received your last letter; you know as well as i do that it is not your company i dislike, but the place you reside in. i know it is time to go to harrow. it will make me _unhappy_; but i will _obey_. i only desire, entreat, this one day, and on my _honour_ i will be over tomorrow in the evening or afternoon. i am sorry you disapprove my companions, who, however, are the first this county affords, and my equals in most respects; but i will be permitted to chuse for myself. i shall never interfere in your's and i desire you will not molest me in mine. if you grant me this favour, and allow me this one day unmolested, you will eternally oblige your unhappy son, byron. i shall attempt to offer no excuse as you do not desire one. i only entreat you as a governor, not as a mother, to allow me this one day. those that i most love live in this county; therefore in the name of mercy i entreat this one day to take leave, and then i will join you again at southwell to prepare to go to a place where--i will write no more; it would only incense you. adieu. tomorrow i come. [footnote : this letter is endorsed by hanson, "lord byron to his mother, " ". in september, , at the end of the summer holidays, byron did not return to harrow. dr. drury asked the reason, received no reply, and, on october , applied to hanson for an explanation. hanson's inquiry drew from mrs. byron, on october , the following answer, with which was enclosed the above letter from byron:-- "you may well be surprized, and so may dr. drury, that byron is not returned to harrow. but the truth is, i cannot get him to return to school, though i have done all in my power for six weeks past. he has no indisposition that i know of, but love, desperate love, the 'worst' of all 'maladies' in my opinion. in short, the boy is distractedly in love with miss chaworth, and he has not been with me three weeks all the time he has been in this county, but spent all his time at annesley. if my son was of a proper age and the lady 'disengaged', it is the last of all connexions that i would wish to take place; it has given me much uneasiness. to prevent all trouble in future, i am determined he shall not come here again till easter; therefore i beg you will find some proper situation for him at the next holydays. i don't care what i pay. i wish dr. drury would keep him. i shall go over to newstead to-morrow and make a 'last effort' to get him to town." the effort, if made, failed. on november , , mrs. byron wrote again:-- "byron is really so unhappy that i have agreed, much against my inclination, to let him remain in this county till after the next holydays." it was not till january, , that byron returned to harrow. miss mary anne chaworth, the object of byron's passion, was then living with her mother, mrs. clarke, at annesley, near newstead (see 'poems', vol. i. p. , and note ). the grand-niece of the mr. chaworth who was killed in a duel by william, fifth lord byron, on january , ('annual register', , pp. - ; and 'state trials', vol. xix. pp. - ), and the heiress of annesley, she married, in august, , john musters, by whom she had a daughter, born in . (see "well! thou art happy!" 'poems', vol. i. p. ; see also, for other allusions to mrs. chaworth musters, 'ibid'., pp. , , , ; and "the dream" of july, .) in byron's memorandum-book, he describes a visit which he paid to matlock with miss chaworth's mother, her stepfather mr. clarke, some friends, "and 'my' m. a. c. alas! why do i say my? our union would have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers,--it would have joined lands broad and rich, it would have joined at least 'one' heart, and two persons not ill matched in years (she is two years my elder) and--and--and--'what' has been the result?" ('life', p. ). mrs. musters, after an unhappy married life, died in february, , at wiverton hall, near nottingham. the connection between the families of chaworth and byron came through the marriage of william, third lord byron (died ), with elizabeth chaworth (died ), daughter of george chaworth, created ( ) viscount chaworth of armagh (thoroton's 'nottinghamshire', vol. i. p. ).] [footnote : owen mealey, the steward at newstead.] .--to the hon. augusta byron. [ ] [at , portland place, london.] burgage manor, [thursday], march d, . although, my ever dear augusta, i have hitherto appeared remiss in replying to your kind and affectionate letters; yet i hope you will not attribute my neglect to a want of affection, but rather to a shyness naturally inherent in my disposition. i will now endeavour as amply as lies in my power to repay your kindness, and for the future i hope you will consider me not only as _a brother_ but as your warmest and most affectionate _friend_, and if ever circumstances should require it your _protector_. recollect, my dearest sister, that you are _the nearest relation_ i have in _the world both by the ties of blood_ and _affection_. if there is anything in which i can serve you, you have only to mention it; trust to your brother, and be assured he will never betray your confidence. when you see my cousin and future brother george leigh, [ ] tell him that i already consider him as my friend, for whoever is beloved by you, my amiable sister, will always be equally dear to me. i arrived here today at o'clock after a fatiguing journey, i found my mother perfectly well. she desires to be kindly remembered to you; as she is just now gone out to an assembly, i have taken the first opportunity to write to you, i hope she will not return immediately; for if she was to take it into her head to peruse my epistle, there is one part of it which would produce from her a panegyric on _a friend of yours_, not at all agreeable to me, and i fancy, _not particularly delightful to you_. if you see lord sidney osborne [ ] i beg you will remember me to him; i fancy he has almost forgot me by this time, for it is rather more than a year since i had the pleasure of seeing him.--also remember me to poor old murray; [ ] tell him we will see that something is to be done for him, for _while i live he shall never be abandoned in his old age_. write to me soon, my dear augusta, and do not forget to love me, in the meantime, i remain, more than words can express, your ever sincere, affectionate brother and friend, byron. p.s. do not forget to knit the purse you promised me, adieu my beloved sister. [footnote: . the hon. augusta byron, byron's half-sister (january, -november, ), was the daughter of captain john byron by his first wife, amelia d'arcy (died ), only child of the last earl of holderness, baroness conyers in her own right, the divorced wife of francis, marquis of carmarthen, subsequently fifth duke of leeds. after the return of captain and mrs. byron to london early in , she was brought up by her grandmother, the countess of holderness. when the latter died, augusta byron divided her time between her half-sister, lady mary osborne, who married, july , , lord pelham, subsequently ( ) earl of chichester; her half-brother george, who succeeded his father as sixth duke of leeds in ; her cousin, the earl of carlisle; and general and mrs. harcourt. from their houses her letters during the period - are written. in she married her first cousin, colonel george leigh of the tenth dragoons, the son of general charles leigh, by frances, daughter of admiral the hon. john byron. by her husband, who was a friend of the prince regent and well known in society, she was the mother of seven children. their home was at newmarket, till, in april, , they were granted apartments in flag court, st. james's palace, where she died in november, . augusta byron seems scarcely to have seen her brother between his infancy and . lady holderness and mrs. byron were not on friendly terms, and it was not till the former's death that any intimacy was renewed between the brother and sister. writing on october , , to augusta byron, mrs. byron says, in allusion to the death of lady holderness, "as i wish to bury what is past in _oblivion_, i shall avoid all reflections on a person now no more; my opinion of yourself i have suspended for some years; the time is now arrived when i shall form a very _decided_ one. i take up my pen now, however, to condole with you on the melancholy event that has happened, to offer you every consolation in my power, to assure you of the inalterable regard and friendship of myself and son. we will be extremely happy if ever we can be of any service to you, now or at any future period. i take it upon me to answer for him; although he knows so little of you, he often mentions you to me in the most affectionate manner, indeed the goodness of his heart and amiable disposition is such that your being his sister, had he never seen you, would be a sufficient claim upon him and ensure you every attention in his power to bestow. ah, augusta, need i assure you that you will ever be dear to me as the daughter of the man i tenderly loved, as the sister of my beloved, my darling boy, and i take god to witness you _once_ was dear to me on your own account, and may be so _again_. i still recollect with a degree of horror the many _sleepless_ nights, and days of _agony_, i have passed by your bedside drowned in tears, while you lay insensible and at the gates of death. your recovery certainly was wonderful, and thank god i did my duty. these days you cannot remember, but i never will forget them ... your brother is at harrow school, and, if you wish to see him, i have now no desire to keep you asunder." from till byron's death, augusta took in him the interest of an elder sister. writing to hanson (june , ), she says-- "pray write me a line and mention all you hear of my dear brother: he was a most delightful correspondent while he remained in nottinghamshire: but i can't obtain a single line from harrow. i was much struck with his _general improvement_; it was beyond the expectations raised by what you had told me, and his letters gave me the most excellent opinion of both his _head_ and _heart_." in this tone the letters are continued (see extracts p. ; p. , note ; and p. [letter ], [foot]note [further down]). from the end of , with some interruptions, and less regularity, the correspondence between brother and sister was maintained to the end of byron's life. to augusta, then mrs. leigh, byron sent a presentation copy of 'childe harold', with the inscription: "to augusta, my dearest sister, and my best friend, who has ever loved me much better than i deserved, this volume is presented by her father's son and most affectionate brother." she was the god-mother of byron's daughter augusta ada, born december , . in january, , when lady byron was still with her husband, she writes of and to mrs. leigh: "in this at least, i _am_ 'truth itself,' when i say that, whatever the situation may be, there is no one whose society is dearer to me, or can contribute more to my happiness." lady byron left byron on january , . writing to mrs. leigh from kirby mallory, she speaks of her as her "best comforter," notices her absolute unselfishness, and says that augusta's presence in byron's house in piccadilly is her "great comfort" (lady byron's letters to mrs. leigh, january and january , , quoted in the 'quarterly review' for october, , p. ). through mrs. leigh passed many communications between byron and lady byron after the separation. to her, byron, in and , wrote the two sets of "stanzas to augusta," the "epistle to augusta," and the journal of his journey through the alps, "which contains all the germs of 'manfred' (letter to murray, august, ). she was in his thoughts on the rhine, and in the third canto of 'childe harold':-- "but one thing want these banks of rhine, thy gentle hand to clasp in mine." to her he was writing a letter at missolonghi (february , ), which he did not live to finish, "my dearest augusta, i received a few days ago your and lady byron's report of ada's health." he carried with him everywhere the pocket bible which she had given him. "i have a bible," he told dr. kennedy ('conversations'), "which my sister gave me, who is an excellent woman, and i read it very often." his last articulate words were "my sister--my child." several volumes of mrs. leigh's commonplace books are in existence, filled with extracts mostly on religious topics. she was, wrote the late earl stanhope, in a letter quoted in the 'quarterly review' (october, , p. ), "very fond" of talking about byron. "she was," he continues, "extremely unprepossessing in her person and appearance--more like a nun than anything, and never can have had the least pretension to beauty. i thought her shy and sensitive to a fault in her mind and character." frances, lady shelley, who died in january, , and was intimately acquainted with byron and his contemporaries, speaks of her as a "dowdy-goody." "i have seen," she writes (see 'quarterly review', october, , p. , quoting from a letter signed e. m. u., which appeared in the 'times' for september ii, ), "a great deal of mrs. leigh (augusta), having passed some days with her and colonel leigh, for my husband's shooting near newmarket, when lord byron was in the house, and, as she told me, was writing 'the corsair', to my great astonishment, for it was a wretched small house, full of her ill-trained children, who were always running up and down stairs, and going into 'uncle's' bedroom, where he remained all the morning."] [footnote : see preceding note.] [footnote : francis, fifth duke of leeds, married, october , , as his second wife, miss catherine anguish, by whom he had two children: the eldest, a son, sydney godolphin osborne, was born december , .] [footnote : joe murray had been for many years in the employment of william, fifth lord byron. at his master's death, in , he was taken into the service of the duke of leeds. "i saw poor joseph murray the other night," writes augusta byron to hanson (june , ), "who wishes me particularly to apply to col. leigh, to get him into some city charity which the prince of wales is at the head of. i cannot understand what he means, nor can any body else, and therefore, as he said he was advised by you, i think it better to apply to you on the subject. i'm sure col. leigh would be happy to oblige him; but in general he dislikes _asking favours_ of the _prince_, and this present moment is a bad one to chuse for the purpose, as h.r.h. is so much taken up with _public affairs_. i am very anxious about poor joseph, and would almost do anything to serve him. i fear he is too old and infirm to go to service again." three years later (march , ), augusta byron writes again to hanson:-- "i have just had a pitiful note from poor old murray, telling me of his dismissal from the duchess of leeds; but he says he does not leave her till june. i therefore hope something may in the mean time be done for him. he requests me to write word of it to my brother. i shall certainly comply with his wishes, and send _two lines_ on that subject to southwell, where i conclude he is." byron made murray an allowance of £ a year (see letter ), took him, as soon as he could, into his service, and was careful, as he promises, to provide that he should not be "abandoned in his old age." his affection for murray is marked by the postscript to the letter to mrs. byron of june , (see also 'life', pp. , ); as also by his draft will of , in which he leaves murray £ a year for life. .--to the hon. augusta byron. [ , portland place, london.] southwell, march th, . i received your affectionate letter, my ever dear sister, yesterday and i now hasten to comply with your injunction by answering it as soon as possible. not, my dear girl, that it can be in the least irksome to me to write to you, on the contrary it will always prove my greatest pleasure, but i am sorry that i am afraid my correspondence will not prove the most entertaining, for i have nothing that i can relate to you, except my affection for you, which i can never sufficiently express, therefore i should tire you, before i had half satisfied myself. ah, how unhappy i have hitherto been in being so long separated from so amiable a sister! but fortune has now sufficiently atoned by discovering to me a relation whom i love, a friend in whom i can confide. in both these lights, my dear augusta, i shall ever look upon you, and i hope you will never find your brother unworthy of your affection and friendship. i am as you may imagine a little dull here; not being on terms of intimacy with lord grey [ ] i avoid newstead, and my resources of amusement are books, and writing to my augusta, which, wherever i am, will always constitute my greatest pleasure. i am not reconciled to lord grey, _and i never will_. he was once my _greatest friend_, my reasons for ceasing that friendship are such as i cannot explain, not even to you, my dear sister, (although were they to be made known to any body, you would be the first,) but they will ever remain hidden in my own breast. they are good ones, however, for although i am _violent_ i am not _capricious_ in my _attachments_. my mother disapproves of my quarrelling with him, but if she knew the cause (which she never will know,) she would reproach me no more. he has forfeited all _title to my esteem_, but i hold him in too much _contempt_ ever _to hate him_. my mother desires to be kindly remembered to you. i shall soon be in town to resume my studies at harrow; i will certainly call upon you in my way up. present my respects to mrs. harcourt; [ ] i am glad to hear that i am in her good graces for i shall always esteem her on account of her behaviour to you, my dear girl. pray tell me if you see lord s. osborne, and how he is; what little i know of him i like very much and if we were better acquainted i doubt not i should like him still better. do not forget to tell me how murray is. as to your future prospects, my dear girl, _may they be happy_! i am sure you deserve happiness and if _you_ do not meet with it i shall begin to think it is "a bad world we live in." write to me soon. i am impatient to hear from you. god bless you, my amiable augusta, i remain, your ever affectionate brother and friend, byron. [footnote : henry, third earl of sussex, died in , when the earldom lapsed. he was, however, succeeded in the ancient barony of grey de ruthyn by his daughter's son, henry edward, twentieth baron grey de ruthyn ( - ), to whom newstead was let. "i am glad," writes mrs. byron to hanson, march , , "that newstead is well let. i cannot find lord grey de ruthin's title in the peerage of england, ireland, or scotland. i suppose he is a _new_ peer." lord grey de ruthyn married, in , anna maria, daughter of william kelham, of ryton-upon-dunsmore, warwick. (see postscript to byron's letter to his mother, august , .) the lease of newstead terminated in april, .] [footnote : probably the wife of general the hon. william harcourt ( - ), who distinguished himself in the war of american independence, succeeded his only brother in as third (and last) earl harcourt, was created a field-marshal in , and died in . he married, in , mary, daughter of the rev. william danby, and widow of thomas lockhart. she died in .] .--to the hon. augusta byron. [at general harcourt's, st. leonard's hill, windsor, berkshire.] burgage manor, april d, . i received your present, my beloved augusta, which was very acceptable, not that it will be of any use as a token of remembrance, no, my affection for you will never permit me to forget you. i am afraid, my dear girl, that you will be absent when i am in town. i cannot exactly say when i return to harrow, but however it will be in a very short time. i hope you were entertained by sir wm. fawcet's funeral on saturday. [ ] though i should imagine such spectacles rather calculated to excite gloomy ideas. but i believe _your motive was not quite of so mournful a cast_. you tell me that you are tired of london. i am rather surprised to hear that, for i thought the gaieties of the metropolis were particularly pleasing to _young ladies_. for my part i detest it; the smoke and the noise feel particularly unpleasant; but however it is preferable to this horrid place, where i am oppressed with _ennui_, and have no amusement of any kind, except the conversation of my mother, which is sometimes very _edifying_, but not always very _agreeable_. there are very few books of any kind that are either instructive or amusing, no society but old parsons and old maids;--i shoot a good deal; but, thank god, i have not so far lost my reason as to make shooting my only amusement. there are indeed some of my neighbours whose only pleasures consist in field sports, but in other respects they are only one degree removed from the brute creation. these however i endeavour not to imitate, but i sincerely wish for the company of a few friends about my own age to soften the austerity of the scene. i am an absolute hermit; in a short time my gravity which is increased by my solitude will qualify me for an archbishoprick; i really begin to think that i should become a mitre amazingly well. you tell me to write to you when i have nothing better to do; i am sure writing to you, my dear sister, must ever form my greatest pleasure, but especially so, at this time. your letters and those of one of my harrow friends form my only resources for driving away _dull care_. for godsake write me a letter as long as may fill _twenty sheets_ of paper, recollect it is my only pleasure, if you won't give me twenty sheets, at least send me as long an epistle as you can and as soon as possible; there will be time for me to receive one more letter at southwell, and as soon as i get to harrow i will write to you. excuse my not writing more, my dear augusta, for i am sure you will be sufficiently tired of reading this complaining narrative. god bless you, my beloved sister. adieu. i remain your sincere and affectionate friend and brother, byron. remember me kindly to mrs. harcourt. [footnote : general the right hon. sir william fawcett, k.b. ( - ), colonel of the rd dragoon guards, adjutant-general ( - ), and governor of chelsea hospital ( - ), died at his house in great george street, westminster, march , . he had served during the rebellion of , and distinguished himself during the seven years' war, where he was aide-de-camp first to general elliot, and afterwards to the marquis of granby. an excellent linguist, he translated from the french, 'reveries: or memoirs upon the art of war, by field-marshal count saxe' ( ); and from the german, 'regulations for the prussian cavalry' ( ), 'regulations for the prussian infantry', and 'the prussian tacticks' ( ). his military and diplomatic services were commemorated by a magnificent funeral on saturday, march , . the body was carried through the streets from westminster to the chapel of chelsea hospital, the prince regent, the duke of clarence, and the duke of kent following the hearse, and eight general officers acting as pall-bearers.] .--to the hon. augusta byron. [at general harcourt's, st. leonard's hill, windsor, berkshire.] burgage manor, april th, . a thousand thanks, my dear and beloved augusta, for your affectionate letter, and so ready compliance with the request of a peevish and fretful brother; it acted as a cordial on my drooping spirits and for a while dispelled the gloom which envelopes me in this uncomfortable place. you see what power your letters have over me, so i hope you will be liberal in your epistolary consolation. you will address your next letter to harrow as i set out from southwell on wednesday, and am sorry that i cannot contrive to be with you, as i must resume my studies at harrow directly. if i speak in public at all, it will not be till the latter end of june or the beginning of july. you are right in your conjecture for i feel not a little nervous in the anticipation _of my debut_ [ ] as _an orator_. by the bye, i do not dislike harrow. i find _ways_ and _means_ to amuse _myself very pleasantly_ there; the friend, whose correspondence i find so amusing, is an old sporting companion of mine, whose recitals of shooting and hunting expeditions are amusing to me as having often been his companion in them, and i hope to be so still oftener. my mother gives a _party_ to night at which the principal _southwell belles_ will be present, with one of which, although i don't as yet know whom i shall so far _honour, having never seen them_, i intend to _fall violently_ in love; it will serve as an amusement _pour passer le temps_ and it will at least have the charm of novelty to recommend it, then you know in the course of a few weeks i shall be quite _au désespoir_, shoot myself and go out of the world with _éclat_, and my history will furnish materials for a pretty little romance which shall be entitled and denominated the loves of lord b. and the cruel and inconstant sigismunda cunegunda bridgetina, etc., etc., princess of terra incognita. don't you think that i have a very good knack for _novel writing_? i have just this minute been called away from writing to you by two gentlemen who have given me an invitation to go over to screveton, a village a few miles off, and spend a few days; but however i shall not accept it, so you will continue to address your letters to harrow as usual. write to me as soon as possible and give me a long letter. remember me to mrs. harcourt and all who enquire after me. continue to love me and believe me, your truly affectionate brother and friend, byron. p.s.--my mother's love to you, adieu. [footnote : mrs. byron, writing to hanson, july , , says, "i was informed by a gentleman yesterday that he had been at harrow and heard him speaking, and that he acquitted himself uncommonly well." byron's name occurs in three of the harrow speech-bills--july , ; june , ; and july , . the three bills are printed below:-- harrow school public speeches. . july , . erskine, maj. cæsar } ex sallustio. sinclair cato } long c. canuleius ad pleb. ex livio. molloy, sr. the country box lloyd. lord byron latinus } leeke drances } ex virgilio. peel, sr. turnus } chaplin henry the fifth to his shakespear. soldiers clayton micispa ad jugurtham ex sallustio. rowley germanicus moriens ex tacito. grenside, sr. general wolfe to his enfield. soldiers morant, sr. dido ex virgilio. mr. calthorpe, sr. in catilinam ex cicerone. lloyd, sr. the ghost shakespear. mr. powys tiresias ex horatio. sir thomas acland the boil'd pig wesley. leveson gower ad antonium ex cicerone. drury, max. earl of strafford hume. . june , . there were no speeches for may, . dr. butler came to harrow this year, after the easter holiday.--g.b. [ ] doveton canulcius ex livio. farrer, sr. medea ex ovidio. long caractacus mason. rogers manlius ex sallustio. molloy micipsa ex sallustio. lord byron zanga young. drury, sr. memmius ex sallustio. hoare ajax } ex ovidio. east ulysses } leeke the passions: an ode collins. calvert, sr. galgacus ex tacito. bazett catilina ad consp. ex sallustio. franks, sr. antony shakespeare. wildman, majr. sat. ix., lib. i. ex horatio. lloyd, sr. the bard: an ode gray. . july , . lyon piso ad milites ex tacito. east cato addison. saumarez drances } ex virgilio, _Æn._ xi annesley turnus } calvert lord strafford's hume. defence erskine, sr. achilles ex homero, _il._ xvi bazett york shakespeare. harrington camillus ex livio. leeke ode to the passions collins. sneyd electra ex sophocle. long satan's soliloquy milton, _p.l._, b. iv gibson brutus } ex lucano. drury, sr. cato } lord byron lear shakespeare. hoare otho ad milites ex livio. wildman caractacus mason. franks wolsey shakespeare. of byron's oratorical powers, dr. drury, head-master of harrow, formed a high opinion. "the upper part of the school," he writes (see 'life', p. ), composed declamations, which, after a revisal by the tutors, were submitted to the master. to him the authors repeated them, that they might be improved in manner and action, before their public delivery. i certainly was much pleased with lord byron's attitude, gesture, and delivery, as well as with his composition. all who spoke on that day adhered, as usual, to the letter of their composition, as, in the earlier part of his delivery, did lord byron; but, to my surprise, he suddenly diverged from the written composition, with a boldness and rapidity sufficient to alarm me, lest he should fail in memory as to the conclusion. there was no failure; he came round to the close of his composition without discovering any impediment and irregularity on the whole. i questioned him why he had altered his declamation. he declared he had made no alteration, and did not know, in speaking, that he had deviated from it one letter. i believed him; and, from a knowledge of his temperament, am convinced that, fully impressed with the sense and substance of the subject, he was hurried on to expressions and colourings more striking than what his pen had expressed." "my qualities," says byron, in one of his note-books (quoted by moore, 'life', p. ), "were much more oratorical and martial than poetical; and dr. drury, my grand patron (our head-master), had a great notion that i should turn out an orator, from my fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and my action. i remember that my first declamation astonished him into some unwonted (for he was economical of such) and sudden compliments before the declaimers at our first rehearsal." for his subjects byron chose passages expressive of vehement passion, such as lear's address to the storm, or the speech of zanga over the body of alonzo, from young's tragedy 'the revenge'. zanga's character and speech are famous in history from their application to benjamin franklin, in wedderburn's speech before the privy council (january, ) on the whately letters (stanhope's 'history of england', vol. v. p. , ed. ):-- "i forg'd the letter, and dispos'd the picture, i hated, i despis'd, and i destroy."] [sub-footnote a: note, in dr. g. butler's writing, in the bound volume of speech-bills presented by him to the harrow school library.] .--to the hon. augusta byron. burgage manor, august th, . my dearest augusta,--i seize this interval of my _amiable_ mother's absence this afternoon, again to inform you, or rather to desire to be informed by you, of what is going on. for my own part i can send nothing to amuse you, excepting a repetition of my complaints against my tormentor, whose _diabolical_ disposition (pardon me for staining my paper with so harsh a word) seems to increase with age, and to acquire new force with time. the more i see of her the more my dislike augments; nor can i so entirely conquer the appearance of it, as to prevent her from perceiving my opinion; this, so far from calming the gale, blows it into a _hurricane_, which threatens to destroy everything, till exhausted by its own violence, it is lulled into a sullen torpor, which, after a short period, is again roused into fresh and revived phrenzy, to me most terrible, and to every other spectator astonishing. she then declares that she plainly sees i hate her, that i am leagued with her bitter enemies, viz. yourself, l'd c[arlisle] and mr. h[anson], and, as i never dissemble or contradict her, we are all _honoured_ with a multiplicity of epithets, too _numerous_, and some of them too _gross_, to be repeated. in this society, and in this amusing and instructive manner, have i dragged out a weary fortnight, and am condemned to pass another or three weeks as happily as the former. no captive negro, or prisoner of war, ever looked forward to their emancipation, and return to liberty with more joy, and with more lingering expectation, than i do to my escape from this maternal bondage, and this accursed place, which is the region of dullness itself, and more stupid than the banks of lethe, though it possesses contrary qualities to the river of oblivion, as the detested scenes i now witness, make me regret the happier ones already passed, and wish their restoration. such augusta is the happy life i now lead, such my _amusements_. i wander about hating everything i behold, and if i remained here a few months longer, i should become, what with _envy, spleen and all uncharitableness_, a complete _misanthrope_, but notwithstanding this, believe me, dearest augusta, ever yours, etc., etc., byron. .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. [ ] burgage manor, august , . i received the arms, my dear miss pigot, and am very much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken. it is impossible i should have any fault to find with them. the sight of the drawings gives me great pleasure for a double reason,--in the first place, they will ornament my books, in the next, they convince me that _you_ have not entirely _forgot_ me. i am, however, sorry you do not return sooner--you have already been gone an _age_. i perhaps may have taken my departure for london before you come back; but, however, i will hope not. do not overlook my watch-riband and purse, as i wish to carry them with me. your note was given me by harry, [ ] at the play, whither i attended miss leacroft, [ ] and dr. s----; and now i have sat down to answer it before i go to bed. if i am at southwell when you return,--and i sincerely hope you will soon, for i very much regret your absence,--i shall be happy to hear you sing my favourite, "the maid of lodi." [ ] my mother, together with myself, desires to be affectionately remembered to mrs. pigot, and, believe me, my dear miss pigot, i remain, your affectionate friend, byron. p.s.--if you think proper to send me any answer to this, i shall be extremely happy to receive it. adieu. p.s. d.--as you say you are a novice in the art of knitting, i hope it don't give you too much trouble. go on _slowly_, but surely. once more, adieu. [footnote : elizabeth bridget pigot lived with her mother and two brothers on southwell green, in a house opposite burgage manor. miss pigot thus describes her first meeting with byron ('life', p. ):-- "the first time i was introduced to him was at a party at his mother's, when he was so shy that she was forced to send for him three times before she could persuade him to come into the drawing-room, to play with the young people at a round game. he was then a fat, bashful boy, with his hair combed straight over his forehead, and extremely like a miniature picture that his mother had painted by m. de chambruland. the next morning mrs. byron brought him to call at our house, when he still continued shy and formal in his manner. the conversation turned upon cheltenham, where we had been staying, the amusements there, the plays, etc.; and i mentioned that i had seen the character of gabriel lackbrain very well performed. his mother getting up to go, he accompanied her, making a formal bow, and i, in allusion to the play, said, 'good-by, gaby.' his countenance lighted up, his handsome mouth displayed a broad grin, all his shyness vanished, never to return, and, upon his mother's saying, 'come, byron, are you ready?'--no, she might go by herself, he would stay and talk a little longer; and from that moment he used to come in and go out at all hours, as it pleased him, and in our house considered himself perfectly at home." the character of "gabriel lackbrain," mentioned above, occurs in 'life', a comedy by f. reynolds. it was at byron's suggestion that moore, when preparing the 'life', applied to miss pigot for letters. on january , , he was taken to call on her and her mother by the rev. john becher. "their reception of me most cordial and flattering; made me sit in the chair which byron used to sit in, and remarked, as a singularity, that this was the poor fellow's birthday; he would to-day have been forty. on parting with mrs. pigot, a fine, intelligent old lady, who has been bedridden for years, she kissed my hand most affectionately, and said that, much as she had always admired me as a poet, it was as the friend of byron she valued and loved me ... her affection, indeed, to his memory is unbounded, and she seems unwilling to allow that he had a single fault ... miss pigot in the evening, with his letters, which interested me exceedingly; some written when he was quite a boy, and the bad spelling and scrambling handwriting delightful; spelling, indeed, was a very late accomplishment with him" ('diary of thomas moore', vol. v. p. ). (see "to eliza," 'poems', vol. i. pp. - ; see also the lines "to m. s. g.," 'poems', vol. i. pp. , ; see for the lines which byron wrote in her copy of burns, 'poems', vol. i. pp. , .) miss pigot died at southwell in , her brother john (see letter of august , , p. , note ) in . her brother henry, whom byron used to call his grandson, died october , , a captain in the rd native infantry in the service of the east india company. the following undated note ( ) from mrs. pigot to mrs. byron illustrates the enthusiastic interest with which the pigots followed byron's career:-- "indeed, my dear mrs. byron, you have given me a very 'great treat' in sending me 'english bards' to look at; you know how very highly i thought of the 'first' edition, and this is certainly much improved; indeed, i do not think anybody but lord byron could (in these our days) have produced such a work, for it has all the fire of ancient genius. i have always been accustomed to tell you my thoughts most sincerely, and i cannot say that i like that addition to the part where 'bowles' is mentioned; it wants that 'brilliant spirit' which almost invariably accompanies lord b.'s writings. maurice, too, and his granite weight of leaves, is in truth a heavy comparison. but i turn with pleasure from these specks in the sun to notice 'vice and folly, greville and argyle;' it is 'most admirable': the 'same pen' may 'equal', but i think it is not in the power of human abilities to 'exceed' it. as to lord carlisle, i think he well deserves the note lord b. has put in; i am 'very much' pleased with it, and the little word 'amen' at the end, gives a point 'indescribably good'. the whole of the conclusion is excellent, and the postscript i think must entertain everybody except 'jeffrey'. i hope the poor bear is well; i wish you could make him understand that he is 'immortalized', for, if 'four-leg'd bears' have any vanity, it would certainly delight him. walter scott, too (i really do not mean to call him a bear), will be highly gratified: the compliment to him is very elegant: in short, i look upon it as a most 'highly finished' work, and lord byron has certainly taken the palm from 'all our' poets.... a good account of yourself i assure you will always give the most sincere pleasure to my dear mrs. byron's very affectionate friend, margt. pigot. elizabeth begs her compts."] [footnote : henry pigot. (see p. , note .)] [footnote : miss julia leacroft, daughter of a neighbour, mr. john leacroft. (see lines "to lesbia," 'poems', vol. i. pp. - .) the private theatricals in september, (see p. [letter ], [foot]note [ ]), were held at mr. leacroft's house. later, captain leacroft expostulated with byron on his attentions to his sister, and, according to moore, threatened to call him out. byron was ready to meet him; but afterwards, on consulting becher, resolved never to go near the house again.--'prose and verse of thomas moore', edited by richard herne shepherd (london, ), p. . (but see letters , , .) ] [footnote : by dibdin, set to music by shield. (see moore's 'life', p. .) byron's love for simple ballad music lasted throughout his life. as a boy at harrow, he was famous for the vigour with which he sang "this bottle's the sun of our table" at mother barnard's. he liked the welsh air "mary anne," sung by miss chaworth; the songs in 'the duenna'; "when time who steals our years away," which he sang with miss pigot; or "robin adair," in which he was accompanied by miss hanson on her harp. "it is very odd," he said to miss pigot, "i sing much better to your playing than to any one else's." "that is," she answered, "because i play to your singing." moore ('journal and correspondence', vol. v. pp. , ), speaking of "byron's chanting method of repeating poetry," says that "it is the men who have the worst ears for music that 'sing' out poetry in this manner, having no nice perception of the difference there ought to be between animated reading and 'chant'." rogers ('table-talk, etc.', pp. , ) expresses the same opinion, when he says, "i can discover from a poet's versification whether or not he has an ear for music. to instance poets of the present day:--from bowles's and moore's, i should know that they had fine ears for music; from southey's, wordsworth's, and byron's, that they had no ears for it."] .-to the hon. augusta byron. [castle howard, malton, yorkshire.] harrow-on-the-hill, october th, . my dear augusta,--in compliance with your wishes, as well as gratitude for your affectionate letter, i proceed as soon as possible to answer it; i am glad to hear that _any body_ gives a good account of me; but from the quarter you mention, i should imagine it was exaggerated. that you are unhappy, my dear sister, makes me so also; were it in my power to relieve your sorrows you would soon recover your spirits; as it is, i sympathize better than you yourself expect. but really, after all (pardon me my dear sister), i feel a little inclined to laugh at you, for love, in my humble opinion, is utter nonsense, a mere jargon of compliments, romance, and deceit; now, for my part, had i fifty mistresses, i should in the course of a fortnight, forget them all, and, if by any chance i ever recollected one, should laugh at it as a dream, and bless my stars, for delivering me from the hands of the little mischievous blind god. can't you drive this cousin [ ] of ours out of your pretty little head (for as to _hearts_ i think they are out of the question), or if you are so far gone, why don't you give old l'harpagon [ ] (i mean the general) the slip, and take a trip to scotland, you are now pretty near the borders. be sure to remember me to my formal guardy lord carlisle, [ ] whose magisterial presence i have not been into for some years, nor have i any ambition to attain so great an honour. as to your favourite lady gertrude, i don't remember her; pray, is she handsome? i dare say she is, for although they are a _disagreeable, formal, stiff_ generation, yet they have by no means plain _persons_, i remember lady cawdor was a sweet, pretty woman; pray, does your sentimental gertrude resemble her? i have heard that the duchess of rutland was handsome also, but we will say nothing about her temper, as i hate scandal. adieu, my pretty sister, forgive my levity, write soon, and god bless you. i remain, your very affectionate brother, byron. p.s.--i left my mother at southwell, some time since, in a monstrous pet with you for not writing. i am sorry to say the old lady and myself don't agree like lambs in a meadow, but i believe it is all my own fault, i am rather too fidgety, which my precise mama objects to, we differ, then argue, and to my shame be it spoken fall out a _little_, however after a storm comes a calm; what's become of our aunt the amiable antiquated sophia? [ ] is she yet in the land of the living, or does she sing psalms with the _blessed_ in the other world. adieu. i am happy enough and comfortable here. my friends are not numerous, but select; among them i rank as the principal lord delawarr, [ ] who is very amiable and my particular friend; do you know the family at all? lady delawarr is frequently in town, perhaps you may have seen her; if she resembles her son she is the most amiable woman in europe. i have plenty of acquaintances, but i reckon them as mere blanks. adieu, my dear augusta. [footnote : colonel george leigh.] [footnote : general leigh, father of the colonel. both harpagon and cléante ('l'avare') wish to marry mariane; but the miser prefers his casket to the lady, who therefore marries cléante. ] [footnote : frederick howard, fifth earl of carlisle ( - ), was, on his mother's side, connected with the byron family. the hon. isabella byron ( - ), daughter of the fourth lord byron, married, in , henry, fourth earl of carlisle. she subsequently, after the death of lord carlisle ( ), married, as her second husband, sir william musgrave. she was a woman of considerable ability, and apparently, in later life, of eccentric habits--a "recluse in pride and rags." she was the reputed writer of some published poetry, and of 'maxims addressed to young ladies'. some of these maxims might have been of use to her grand-nephew: "habituate yourself to that way of life most agreeable to the person to whom you are united; be content in retirement, or with society, in town, or country." her 'answer' to mrs. greville's ode on 'indifference' has more of the neck-or-nothing temper of the byrons:-- "is that your wish, to lose all sense in dull lethargic ease, and wrapt in cold indifference, but half be pleased or please? ... it never shall be my desire to bear a heart unmov'd, to feel by halves the gen'rous fire, or be but half belov'd. let me drink deep the dang'rous cup, in hopes the prize to gain, nor tamely give the pleasure up for fear to share the pain. give me, whatever i possess, to know and feel it all; when youth and love no more can bless, let death obey my call." lady carlisle's son, frederick, who was educated at eton and cambridge, succeeded his father as fifth earl of carlisle, in , when he was ten years old. after leaving cambridge, he started on a continental tour with two eton friends--lord fitzwilliam and charles james fox. a lively letter-writer, his correspondence with his friend george selwyn, while in italy, shows him to have been a young man of wit, feeling, and taste. it is curious to notice that, at rome, he singles out, like his cousin in 'childe harold' or 'manfred', as the most striking objects, the general aspect of the "marbled wilderness", the moonlight view of the amphitheatre, the laocoon, the belvedere apollo, and the group of niobe and her daughters. one other taste he shared with byron--he was a lover of dogs, and "rover" was his constant companion abroad. lord carlisle returned to england in . like fox, he was a prodigious dandy. they "once travelled from paris to lyons for the express purpose of buying waistcoats; and during the whole journey they talked of nothing else" ('table-talk of samuel rogers', pp. , ). already well known in london society, carlisle was a close friend of george selwyn, a familiar figure at white's and brookes's, an inveterate gambler, an adorer of lady sarah bunbury, who, as lady sarah lennox, had won the heart of george iii. the flirtation provoked from lord holland an adaptation of 'lydia, dic per omnes':-- "sally, sally, don't deny, but, for god's sake, tell me why you have flirted so, to spoil that once lively youth, carlisle? he used to mount while it was dark; now he lies in bed till noon, and, you not meeting in the park, thinks that he gets up too soon," etc. in lord carlisle married lady margaret leveson gower, a beautiful and charming woman. "everybody," writes lord holland to george selwyn (may , ), "says it is impossible not to admire lady carlisle." but matrimony did not at once steady his character. for the next few years--though in he published a volume of 'poems'--his pursuits were mainly those of a young man of fashion, and he impoverished himself at the gaming-table. from onwards, however, his life took a more serious turn. in that year he became treasurer of the household, and was sworn a member of the privy council. in he was the chief of the three commissioners sent out by lord north to negotiate with the united states. there he declined a challenge from lafayette, provoked by reflections on the french court and nation, which he had issued with his fellow-commissioners in their political capacity. in he was nominated lord-lieutenant of yorkshire, and first lord of trade and plantations. he was lord-lieutenant of ireland from to , and held the post of lord privy seal in the duke of portland's administration of . till the outbreak of the french revolutionary wars, he was an opponent of pitt; but after he consistently supported the government. carlisle was a collector of pictures, statuary, and works of art. he was also a writer of verse, tragedies, and pamphlets; but, in literature, his admirable letters are his best claim to be remembered. one of his two tragedies, 'the father's revenge' ( ), was praised by walpole, and received the guarded approval of dr. johnson. his published poetry consisted of an ode on the death of gray, verses on that of lord nelson, "lines for the monument of a favourite spaniel," an address to sir joshua reynolds, and translations from dante. the first two poems provoked richard tickell to write the 'wreath of fashion' ( ). "the following lines," says tickell, in his "advertisement," were "occasioned by the author's having lately studied, with infinite attention, several fashionable productions in the 'sentimental' stile.... for example, a noble author has lately published his works, which consist of 'three' compositions: 'one' an ode upon the death of mr. gray; the two others upon the death of his lordship's 'spaniel'." "here, placid 'carlisle' breathes his gentle line, or haply, gen'rous 'hare', re-echoes thine. soft flows the lay: as when, with tears, he paid the last sad honours to his------spaniel's shade! and lo! he grasps the badge of wit, a wand; he waves it thrice and 'storer' is at hand." his contemporaries seem to have thought that his poetry, weak though it was, was indebted to his eton friends, "the hare with many friends," and antony storer. the latter's name is linked with that of carlisle in another satire, 'pandolfo attonito':-- "fall'n though i am, i ne'er shall mourn, like the dark peer on storer's urn," where a note refers to "antony storer, formerly member for morpeth ('as some persons' near carlisle and castle howard 'may possibly recollect'), a gentleman well known in the circles of fashion and polite literature." carlisle's name occurs in many of the satires of the day on literary subjects. 'the shade of pope' (ii. , ) says-- "carlisle is lost with gillies in surprize, as lysias charms soft jersey's classic eyes;" and in the 'pursuits of literature' (dialogue ii. line ), a note to the line-- "while lyric carlisle purrs o'er love transformed," again associates his name with that of lady jersey. in lord carlisle was persuaded by hanson to become byron's guardian, in order to facilitate legal proceedings for the recovery of the rochdale property, illegally sold by william, fifth lord byron. he was introduced to his ward by hanson, who took the boy to grosvenor place, to see his guardian and consult dr. baillie in july, . he seemed anxious to befriend the boy; but byron was eager, as hanson notes, to leave the house. when mrs. byron, in , was anxious to remove her son from dr. glennie's care, carlisle exercised his authority, and forbade the schoolmaster to give him up to his mother. he probably, on this occasion, experienced mrs. byron's temper, for augusta byron, writing to hanson (november , ), says that he dreaded "having any concern whatever with mrs. byron." byron does not seem to have met his guardian again till january, , when augusta byron writes to hanson: "i hear from lady gertrude howard that lord carlisle was 'very much' pleased with my brother, and i am sure, from what he said to me at castle howard, is disposed to show him all the kindness and attention in his power. i know you are so partial to byron and so much interested in all that concerns him, that you will rejoice almost as much as i do that his acquaintance with lord c. is renewed. in the mean time it is a great comfort for me to think that he has spent his holydays so comfortably and so much to his wishes. you will easily believe that he is a 'very great favourite of mine', and i may add the more i see and hear of him, the more i 'must' love and esteem him." it may be doubted whether carlisle ever saw the dedication of 'hours of idleness'. augusta byron, in a letter to hanson of february , , says, "i return you my brother's poems with many thanks. mrs. b. has had the attention to send me copies. i like some of them very much: but you will laugh when i tell you i have never had courage to shew them to lord carlisle for fear of his disapproving others." the years - , spent at southwell, as his sister says, "in idleness and ill humour with the whole world," were not the most creditable of byron's life, and carlisle's efforts to make him return to cambridge failed. it is, moreover, certain that in carlisle was ill; it is also probable that at a time when the scandal of mary anne clarke and the duke of york threatened to come before the house of lords, he was unwilling to connect himself in public with a cousin of whom he knew no good, and of whose political views he was ignorant. these causes may have combined to produce the coldly formal letter, in which he told byron the course of procedure to be adopted in taking his seat in the house of lords, and ignored the young man's wish that his cousin and guardian should introduce him. (for byron's attack upon carlisle, and his subsequent admission of having done him "some wrong," see 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', lines - ; and 'childe harold', canto iii. stanzas xxix., xxx.) it is possible that the "paralytic puling" may have been suggested by the "placid purring" of previous satirists. in march, , his sister augusta was trying hard to persuade byron, as he notes in his diary, "to make it up with carlisle. i have refused 'every' body else, but i can't deny her anything, though i had as leif 'drink up eisel--eat a crocodile.'" lord carlisle had three daughters: the eldest, lady caroline isabella howard, married, in , john, first lord cawdor, and died in ; the second, lady elizabeth, married, in , john henry, fifth duke of rutland, and died in ; the third, lady gertrude, married, in , william sloane stanley, of paultons, hants, and died in .] [footnote : no "aunt sophia" appears in the pedigree; but his grandmother was sophia trevanion, who married, in , the hon. john byron, afterwards admiral byron. mrs. byron knew dr. johnson well, and she and miss burney were the only two friends who, as mrs. piozzi (then mrs. thrale) thought, might regret her departure from streatham in ('life and writings of mrs. piozzi', vol. i. p. ). "mrs. byron, who really loves me," says mrs. piozzi ('ibid.', p. ), "was disgusted at miss burney's carriage to me." in august, , mrs. piozzi writes to a miss willoughby, to tell her "what wonders lord byron is come home to do, for i see his arrival in the paper. his grandmother was my intimate friend, a cornish lady, sophia trevanion, wife to the admiral, 'pour ses péchés', and we called her mrs. b_i_ron always, after the french fashion" ('life and writings, etc.', vol. ii. pp. , )' mrs. byron died at bath in .] [footnote : lady delawarr, widow of john richard, fourth earl delawarr, whom she married in , died in . her only son, george john, fifth earl, succeeded his father in . he went from harrow to brasenose college, oxford; married, in , lady elizabeth sackville; was lord chamberlain - ; and died in . he was the "euryalus" of "childish recollections" (see 'poems', vol. i. p. ; and lines "to george, earl of delawarr," 'ibid.', p. ).] .--to the hon. augusta byron. friday, november d, . this morning, my dear augusta, i received your affectionate letter, and it reached me at a time when i wanted consolation, not however of your kind for i am not yet old enough or goose enough to be in love; no, my sorrows are of a different nature, though more calculated to provoke risibility than excite compassion. you must know, sister of mine, that i am the most unlucky wight in harrow, perhaps in christendom, and am no sooner out of one scrape than into another. and to day, this very morning, i had a thundering jobation from our good doctor, [ ] which deranged my _nervous system_, for at least five minutes. but notwithstanding he and i now and then disagree, yet upon the whole we are very good friends, for there is so much of the gentleman, so much mildness, and nothing of pedantry in his character, that i cannot help liking him, and will remember his instructions with gratitude as long as i live. he leaves harrow soon, _apropos_, so do i. this quitting will be a considerable loss to the school. he is the best master we ever had, and at the same time respected and feared; greatly will he be regretted by all who know him. you tell me you don't know my friend l'd delawarr; he is considerably younger than me, but the most good tempered, amiable, clever fellow in the universe. to all which he adds the quality (a good one in the eyes of women) of being remarkably handsome, almost too much so for a boy. he is at present very low in the school, not owing to his want of ability, but to his years. i am nearly at the top of it; by the rules of our seminary he is under my power, but he is too goodnatured ever to offend me, and i like him too well ever to exert my authority over him. if ever you should meet, and chance to know him, take notice of him on my account. you say that you shall write to the dowager soon; her address is at southwell, _that_ i need hardly inform you. now, augusta, i am going to tell you a secret, perhaps i shall appear undutiful to you, but, believe me, my affection for you is founded on a more firm basis. my mother has lately behaved to me in such an eccentric manner, that so far from feeling the affection of a son, it is with difficulty i can restrain my dislike. not that i can complain of want of liberality; no, she always supplies me with as much money as i can spend, and more than most boys hope for or desire. but with all this she is so hasty, so impatient, that i dread the approach of the holidays, more than most boys do their return from them. in former days she spoilt me; now she is altered to the contrary; for the most trifling thing, she upbraids me in a most outrageous manner, and all our disputes have been lately heightened by my one with that object of my cordial, deliberate detestation, lord grey de ruthyn. she wishes me to explain my reasons for disliking him, which i will never do; would i do it to any one, be assured you, my dear augusta, would be the first who would know them. she also insists on my being reconciled to him, and once she let drop such an odd expression that i was half inclined to believe the dowager was in love with him. but i hope not, for he is the most disagreeable person (in my opinion) that exists. he called once during my last vacation; she threatened, stormed, begged me to make it up, "he himself loved me, and wished it;" but my reason was so excellent--that neither had effect, nor would i speak or stay in the same room, till he took his departure. no doubt this appears odd; but was my reason known, which it never will be if i can help it, i should be justified in my conduct. now if i am to be tormented with her and him in this style, i cannot submit to it. you, augusta, are the only relation i have who treats me as a friend; if you too desert me, i have nobody i can love but delawarr. if it was not for his sake, harrow would be a desert, and i should dislike staying at it. you desire me to burn your epistles; indeed i cannot do that, but i will take care that they shall be invisible. if you burn any of mine, i shall be _monstrous angry_; take care of them till we meet. delawarr [ ] and myself are in a manner connected, for one of our forefathers in charles the st's time married into their family. hartington, [ ] whom you enquire after, is on very good terms with me, nothing more, he is of a soft milky disposition, and of a happy apathy of temper which defies the softer emotions, and is insensible of ill treatment; so much for him. don't betray me to the dowager. i should like to know your lady gertrude, as you and her are so great friends. adieu, my sister, write. from [signature, etc., cut out.] [footnote : the rev. joseph drury, d.d. ( - ), educated at westminster and trinity college, cambridge, was appointed an assistant-master at harrow before he was one and twenty. he was head-master from to . in that year he retired, and till his death in lived at cockwood, in devonshire, where he devoted himself to farming. the following statement by dr. drury illustrates byron's respect for his head-master ('life', p. ):-- "after my retreat from harrow, i received from him two very affectionate letters. in my occasional visits subsequently to london, when he had fascinated the public with his productions, i demanded of him, why, as in 'duty bound', he had sent none to me? 'because,' said he, 'you are the only man i never wish to read them;' but in a few moments, he added, 'what do you think of the 'corsair'?'" dr. drury married louisa heath, sister of the rev. benjamin heath, his predecessor in the head-mastership. they had four children, all of whom have some connection with byron's life. ( ) henry joseph drury ( - ), educated at eton and king's college, cambridge (fellow), assistant-master at harrow school, married (december , ) ann caroline tayler, and had a numerous family. mrs. drury's sister married the rev. f. hodgson (see page [letter ], [foot]note ). ( ) benjamin heath drury ( - ), educated at eton and king's college, cambridge (fellow), assistant-master at eton. ( ) charles drury ( - ), educated at harrow and queen's college, oxford (fellow). ( ) louisa heath drury ( - ) married john herman merivale. dr. drury's brother, mark drury, the lower master at harrow, was the candidate whom byron supported for the head-mastership.] [footnote : thomas, third lord delawarr, captain-general of all the colonies planted or to be planted in virginia, died in . his fourth daughter, cecilie, widow of sir francis bindlose, married sir john byron, created lord byron by charles i. his fifth daughter, lucy, married sir robert byron, brother to lord byron. but the first lord byron left no heirs, and the title descended to his brother, richard byron, from whom the poet was descended.] [footnote : william spencer, marquis of hartington ( - ), succeeded his father as sixth duke of devonshire in , and died unmarried. his sister, georgiana dorothy, married, in , lord carlisle's eldest son.] .--to the hon. augusta byron. harrow, saturday, th novr, . i thought, my dear augusta, [ ] that your opinion of my _meek mamma_ would coincide with mine; her temper is so variable, and, when inflamed, so furious, that i dread our meeting; not but i dare say, that i am troublesome enough, but i always endeavour to be as dutiful as possible. she is so very strenuous, and so tormenting in her entreaties and commands, with regard to my reconciliation, with that detestable lord g. [ ] that i suppose she has a penchant for his lordship; but i am confident that he does not return it, for he rather dislikes her than otherwise, at least as far as i can judge. but she has an excellent opinion of her personal attractions, sinks her age a good six years, avers that when i was born she was only eighteen, when you, my dear sister, know as well as i know that she was of age when she married my father, and that i was not born for three years afterwards. but vanity is the weakness of _your sex_,--and these are mere foibles that i have related to you, and, provided she never molested me, i should look upon them as follies very excusable in a woman. but i am now coming to what must shock you, as much as it does me, when she has occasion to lecture me (not very seldom you will think no doubt) she does not do it in a manner that commands respect, and in an impressive style. no! did she do that, i should amend my faults with pleasure, and dread to offend a kind though just mother. but she flies into a fit of phrenzy, upbraids me as if i was the most undutiful wretch in existence, rakes up the ashes of my _father_, abuses him, says i shall be a true byrrone, which is the worst epithet she can invent. am i to call this woman mother? because by nature's law she has authority over me, am i to be trampled upon in this manner? am i to be goaded with insult, loaded with obloquy, and suffer my feelings to be outraged on the most trivial occasions? i owe her respect as a son, but i renounce her as a friend. what an example does she shew me! i hope in god i shall never follow it. i have not told you all, nor can i; i respect you as a female, nor, although i ought to confide in you as a sister, will i shock you with the repetition of scenes, which you may judge of by the sample i have given you, and which to all but you are buried in oblivion. would they were so in my mind! i am afraid they never will. and can i, my dear sister, look up to this mother, with that respect, that affection i ought? am i to be eternally subjected to her caprice? i hope not--; indeed a few short years will emancipate me from the shackles i now wear, and then perhaps she will govern her passion better than at present. you mistake me, if you think i dislike lord carlisle; i respect him, and might like him did i know him better. for him too my mother has an antipathy, why i know not. i am afraid he could be but of little use to me, in separating me from her, which she would oppose with all her might; but i dare say he would assist me if he could, so i take the will for the deed, and am obliged to him in exactly the same manner as if he succeeded in his efforts. i am in great hopes, that at christmas i shall be with mr. hanson during the vacation, i shall do all i can to avoid a visit to my mother wherever she is. it is the first duty of a parent, to impress precepts of obedience in their children, but her method is so violent, so capricious, that the patience of job, the versatility of a member of the house of commons could not support it. i revere dr. drury much more than i do her, yet he is never violent, never outrageous: i dread offending him, not however through fear, but the respect i bear him makes me unhappy when i am under his displeasure. my mother's precepts, never convey instruction, never fix upon my mind; to be sure they are calculated, to inculcate obedience, so are chains, and tortures, but though they may restrain for a time, the mind revolts from such treatment. not that mrs. byron ever injures my _sacred_ person. i am rather too old for that, but her words are of that rough texture, which offend more than personal ill usage. "a talkative woman is like an adder's tongue," so says one of the prophets, but which i can't tell, and very likely you don't wish to know, but he was a true one whoever he was. the postage of your letters, my dear augusta, don't fall upon me; but if they did, it would make no difference, for i am generally in cash, and should think the trifle i paid for your epistles the best laid out i ever spent in my life. write soon. remember me to lord carlisle, and, believe me, i ever am your affectionate brother and friend, byrone. [footnote : in consequence of this letter, augusta byron wrote as follows to hanson, and byron spent the christmas holidays of with his solicitor:-- "castle howard, nov. , . my dear sir,--i am afraid you will think i presume almost too much upon the kind permission you have so often given me of applying to you about my brother's concerns. the reason that induces me now to do so is his having lately written me several letters containing the most extraordinary accounts of his mother's conduct towards him and complaints of the uncomfortable situation he is in during the holidays when with her. all this you will easily imagine has more _vexed_ than _surprized_ me. i am quite unhappy about him, and wish i could in any way remedy the grievances he confides to me. i wished, as the most likely means of doing this, to mention the subject to lord carlisle, who has always expressed the greatest interest about byron and also shewn me the greatest kindness. finding that he did _not object_ to it, i yesterday had some conversation with lord c. on the subject, and it is partly by his advice and wishes that i trouble you with this letter. he authorized me to tell you that, if you would allow my brother to spend the next vacation with you (which _he_ seems _strongly_ to wish), that it would put it into his power to see more of him and shew him more attention than he has hitherto, being withheld from doing so from the dread of having any concern whatever with mrs. byron. i need hardly add that it is almost my first wish that this should be accomplished. i am sure you are of my opinion that it is now of the greatest consequence to byron to secure the friendship of lord c., the only relation he has who possesses the _will_ and _power_ to be of use to him. i think the letters he writes me _quite perfect_ and he does not express one sentiment or idea i should wish different; he tells me he is soon to leave harrow, but does not say where he is to go. i conclude to oxford or cambridge. pray be so good as to write me a few lines on this subject. i trust entirely to the interest and friendship you have ever so kindly expressed for my brother, for _my forgiveness_. of course you will not mention to mrs. b. having heard from me, as she would only accuse me of wishing to estrange her son from her, which would be very far from being the case further than his happiness and comfort are concerned in it. my opinion is that _as_ they cannot agree, they had better be separated, for such eternal scenes of wrangling are enough to spoil the very best temper and disposition in the universe. i shall hope to hear from you soon, my dear sir, and remain, most sincerely yours, augusta byron."] [footnote : lord grey de ruthyn. (see p. , note .)] .--to the hon. augusta byron. [castle howard, malton, yorkshire.] harrow-on-the-hill, novr., saturday, th, . i am glad to hear, my dear sister, that you like castle howard so well, i have no doubt what you say is true and that lord c. is much more amiable than he has been represented to me. never having been much with him and always hearing him reviled, it was hardly possible i should have conceived a very _great friendship_ for his l'dship. my mother, you inform me, commends my _amiable disposition_ and _good understanding;_ if she does this to you, it is a great deal more than i ever hear myself, for the one or the other is always found fault with, and i am told to copy the _excellent pattern_ which i see before me in _herself._ you have got an invitation too, you may accept it if you please, but if you value your own comfort, and like a pleasant situation, i advise you to avoid southwell.--i thank you, my dear augusta, for your readiness to assist me, and will in some manner avail myself of it; i do not however wish to be separated from _her_ entirely, but not to be so much with her as i hitherto have been, for i do believe she likes me; she manifests that in many instances, particularly with regard to money, which i never want, and have as much as i desire. but her conduct is so strange, her caprices so impossible to be complied with, her passions so outrageous, that the evil quite overbalances her _agreeable qualities._ amongst other things i forgot to mention a most _ungovernable appetite_ for scandal, which she never can govern, and employs most of her time abroad, in displaying the faults, and censuring the foibles, of her acquaintance; therefore i do not wonder, that my precious aunt, comes in for her share of encomiums; this however is nothing to what happens when my conduct admits of animadversion; "then comes the tug of war." my whole family from the conquest are upbraided! myself abused, and i am told that what little accomplishments i possess either in mind or body are derived from her and _her alone._ when i leave harrow i know not; that depends on her nod; i like it very well. the master dr. drury, is the most amiable _clergyman_ i ever knew; he unites the gentleman with the scholar, without affectation or pedantry, what little i have learnt i owe to him alone, nor is it his fault that it was not more. i shall always remember his instructions with gratitude, and cherish a hope that it may one day be in my power to repay the numerous obligations, i am under; to him or some of his family. our holidays come on in about a fortnight. i however have not mentioned that to my mother, nor do i intend it; but if i can, i shall contrive to evade going to southwell. depend upon it i will not approach her for some time to come if it is in my power to avoid it, but she must not know, that it is my wish to be absent. i hope you will excuse my sending so short a letter, but the bell has just rung to summon us together. write soon, and believe me, ever your affectionate brother, byron. i am afraid you will have some difficulty in decyphering my epistles, but _that_ i know you will excuse. adieu. remember me to lord carlisle. .--to the hon. augusta byron. [castle howard, malton, yorkshire.] harrow-on-the-hill, novr. st, . my dearest augusta,--this morning i received your by no means unwelcome epistle, and thinking it demands an immediate answer, once more take up my pen to employ it in your service. there is no necessity for my mother to know anything of my intentions, till the time approaches; and when it does come, mr. h. has only to write her a note saying, that, as i could not accept the invitation he gave me last holidays, he imagined i might do it now; to this she surely can make no objections; but, if she entertained the slightest idea of my making any complaint of her very _lenient_ treatment, the scene that would ensue beggars all power of description. you may have some little idea of it, from what i have told you, and what you yourself know. i wrote to you the other day; but you make no mention of receiving my letter in yours of the th inst. it is however of little importance, containing merely a recapitulation of circumstances which i have before detailed at full length. to lord carlisle make my warmest acknowledgements. i feel more gratitude, than my feelings can well express; i am truly obliged to him for his endeavours, and am perfectly satisfied with your explanation of his reserve, though i was hitherto afraid it might proceed from personal dislike. i have some idea that i leave harrow these holidays. the dr., whose character i gave you in my last, leaves the mastership at easter. who his successor may be i know not, but he will not be a better i am confident. you inform me that you intend to visit my mother, then you will have an opportunity of seeing what i have described, and hearing a great _deal of scandal_. she does not trouble me much with epistolary communications; when i do receive them, they are very concise, and much to the purpose. however i will do her the justice to say that she behaves, or rather means, well, and is in some respects very kind, though her manners are not the most conciliating. she likewise expresses a great deal of affection for you, but disapproves your marriage, wishes to know my opinion of it, and complains that you are negligent and do not write to her or care about her. how far her opinion of your love for her is well grounded, you best know. i again request you will return my sincere thanks to lord carlisle, and for the future i shall consider him as more my friend than i have hitherto been taught to think. i have more reasons than one, to wish to avoid going to notts, for there i should be obliged to associate with lord g. whom i detest, his manners being unlike those of a gentleman, and the information to be derived from him but little except about shooting, which i do not intend to devote my life to. besides, i have a particular reason for not liking him. pray write to me soon. adieu, my dear augusta. i remain, your affectionate brother, byron. .-to john hanson [ ]. saturday, dec. st, . my dear sir,--our vacation commences on the th of this month, when i propose to myself the pleasure of spending the holidays at your house, if it is not too great an inconvenience. i tell you fairly, that at southwell i should have nothing in the world to do, but play at cards and listen to the edifying conversation of old maids, two things which do not at all suit my inclinations. in my mother's last letter i find that my poney and pointers are not yet procured, and that lord grey is still at newstead. the former i should be very dull at such a place as southwell without; the latter is still more disagreeable to be with. i presume he goes on in the old way,--quarrelling with the farmers, and stretching his judicial powers (he being now in the commission) to the utmost, becoming a torment to himself, and a pest to all around him.--i am glad you approve of my gun, feeling myself happy, that it has been tried by so _distinguished_ a _sportsman_. i hope your campaigns against the partridges and the rest of the feathered tribe have been attended with no serious consequences--_trifling accidents_ such as the top of a few fingers and a thumb, you _gentlemen_ of the _city_ being used to, of course occasion no interruption to your field sports. your accommodation i have no doubt i shall be perfectly satisfied with, only do exterminate that _vile generation_ of _bugs_ which nearly ate me up the last time i _sojourned_ at your house. after undergoing the purgatory of harrow _board_ and _lodging_ for three months i shall not be _particular_ or exorbitant in my demands. pray give my best compliments to mrs. hanson and the now _quilldriving_ hargreaves [ ]. till i see you, i remain, yours, etc., byron. [footnote : byron spent the christmas holidays of - with the hansons. he gave hanson to understand that it was his wish to leave the school, and that dr. drury agreed with him in the decision. hanson, after consulting lord carlisle, wrote to drury, urging that byron was too young to leave the school. drury's reply, dated december , , gave a different colour to the matter. "your letter," he writes, "supposes that lord byron was desirous to leave school, and that i acquiesced in his wish: but i must do him the justice to observe that _the wish originated with me._ during his last residence at harrow his conduct gave me much trouble and uneasiness; and as two of his associates were to leave me at christmas, i certainly suggested to him _my wish_ that he might be placed under the care of some private tutor previously to his admission to either of the universities. this i did no less with a view to the forming of his mind and manners, than to my own comfort; and i am fully convinced that if such a situation can be procured for his lordship, it will be much more advantageous for him than a longer residence at school, where his animal spirits and want of judgment may induce him to do wrong, whilst his age and person must prevent his instructors from treating him in some respects as a schoolboy. if we part now, we may entertain affectionate dispositions towards each other, and his lordship will have left the school with credit; as my dissatisfactions were expressed to him only privately, and in such a manner as not to affect his public situation in the school." finally, however, dr. drury, yielding to the appeal of lord carlisle and hanson, allowed the boy to return to harrow, and byron remained at the school till july, , the last three months being passed under the rule of dr. butler.] [footnote : hargreaves hanson, second son of john hanson, had just left harrow, and was articled as a pupil in his father's business. he died in , at the age of .] .--to the hon. augusta byron. , chancery lane, wednesday, th jany., . i have delayed writing to you so long, my dearest augusta, from ignorance of your residence, not knowing whether you _graced_ castle howard, or kireton with your _presence._ the instant mr. h[anson] informed me where you was, i prepared to address you, and you have but just forestalled my intention. and now, i scarcely know what to begin with; i have so many things, to tell you. i wish to god, that we were together, for it is impossible that i can confine all i have got to say in an epistle, without i was to follow your example, and fill eleven pages, as i was informed, by my _proficiency_ in _the art of magic,_ that you sometimes send that _number_ to _lady gertrude._ to begin with an article of _grand importance;_ i on saturday dined with lord carlisle, and on further acquaintance i like them all very much. amongst other circumstances, i heard of your _boldness_ as a _rider,_ especially one anecdote about your horse carrying you into the stable _perforce._ i should have admired amazingly to have seen your progress, provided you met with no accident. i hope you recollect the circumstance, and know what i allude to; else, you may think that i am _soaring_ into the _regions of romance._ i wish you to corroborate my account in your next, and inform me whether my information was correct. i think your friend lady g. is a sweet girl. if your taste in _love_, is as good as it is in _friendship_, i shall think you a _very discerning little gentlewoman_. his lordship too improves upon further acquaintance, her ladyship i always liked, but of the junior part of the family frederick [ ] is my favourite. i believe with regard to my future destination, that i return to harrow until june, and then i'm off for the university. could i have found room there, i was to have gone immediately. i have contrived to pass the holidays with mr. and mrs. hanson, to whom i am greatly obliged for their hospitality. you are now within a days journey of my _amiable mama_. if you wish your spirits _raised_, or rather _roused_, i would recommend you to pass a week or two with her. however i daresay she would behave very well to _you_, for you do not know her disposition so well as i do. i return you, my dear girl, a thousand thanks for hinting to mr. h. and lord c. my uncomfortable situation, i shall always remember it with gratitude, as a most _essential service_. i rather think that, if you were any time with my mother, she would bore you about your marriage which she _disapproves_ of, as much for the sake of finding fault as any thing, for that is her favourite amusement. at any rate she would be very inquisitive, for she was always tormenting me about it, and, if you told her any thing, she might very possibly divulge it; i therefore advise you, _when you see her_ to say nothing, or as little, about it, as you can help. if you make haste, you can answer this _well written_ epistle by return of post, for i wish again to hear from you immediately; you need not fill _eleven pages, nine_ will be sufficient; but whether it contains nine pages or nine lines, it will always be most welcome, my beloved sister, to your affectionate brother and friend, byron. [footnote : the hon. frederick howard, third son of lord carlisle, the "young, gallant howard" of _childe harold_ (canto iii. stanzas xxix, xxx; see byron's note), was killed at waterloo. "the best of his race," says byron, in a letter to moore, july , .] .--to the hon. augusta byron. [london], thursday, th april, . my dearest augusta,--you certainly have excellent reasons for complaint against my want of punctuality in our correspondence; but, as it does not proceed from want of affection, but an idle disposition, you will, i hope, accept my excuses. i am afraid, however, that when i shall take up my pen, you will not be greatly _edified_ or _amused_, especially at present, since, i sit down in very bad spirits, out of humour with myself, and all the world, except _you_. i left harrow yesterday, and am now at mr. hanson's till sunday morning, when i depart for nottinghamshire, to pay a visit to my _mother_, with whom i shall remain for a week or two, when i return to town, and from thence to harrow, until july, when i take my departure for the university, but which i am as yet undecided. mr. h. recommends cambridge; ld. carlisle allows me to chuse for myself, and i must own i prefer oxford. but, i am not violently bent upon it, and whichever is determined upon will meet with my concurrence.--this is the outline of my plans for the next months. i am glad that you are going to pay his _lordship_ a visit, as i shall have an opportunity of seeing you on my return to town, a pleasure, which, as i have been long debarred of it, will be doubly felt after so long a separation. my visit to the dowager does not promise me all the happiness i could wish; however, it must be gone through, as it is some time since i have seen her. it shall be as short as possible. i shall expect to find a letter from you, when i come down, as i wish to know when you go to town, and how long you remain there. if you stay till the middle of next month, you may have an opportunity of hearing me speak, as the first day of our _harrow orations_ occurs in may. my friend delawarr [ ], (as you observed) danced with the little princess, nor did i in the least _envy_ him the honour. i presume you have heard that dr. drury leaves harrow this easter, and that, as a memorial of our gratitude for his long services, the scholars presented him with plate to the amount of guineas. i hope you will excuse this _hypocondriac_ epistle, as i never was in such low spirits in my life. adieu, my dearest sister, and believe me, your ever affectionate though negligent brother, byron. [footnote : on february , , their majesties gave a magnificent "house-warming" at windsor castle. "the expenditure," says the 'gentleman's magazine' for (part i. pp. - ), "cannot have cost less than £ , . the floor of the ball-room, instead of being chalked, was painted with most fanciful and appropriate devices by an eminent artist." the "little princess" charlotte of wales, we are told, left the castle at half-past nine.] .--to hargreaves hanson. burgage manor, southwell, notts, april, . dear hargreaves,--as i have been unable to return to town with your father, i must request, that you will take care of my books, and a parcel which i expect from my taylor's, and, as i understand you are going to pay farleigh a visit, i would be obliged to you to leave them under the care of one of the clerks, or a servant, who may inform me where to find them. i shall be in town on wednesday the th at furthest, when i shall not hope to see you, or wish it; not but what i should be glad of your _entertaining and loquacious society_, but as i think you will be more amused at farleigh, it would be selfish in me to wish that you should forego the pleasures of contemplating _pigs_, _poultry_, _pork_, _pease_, and _potatoes_ together, with other rural delights, for my company. much pleasure may you find in your excursion and i dare say, when you have exchanged _pleadings_ for _ploughshares_ and _fleecing clients_ for _feeding flocks_, you will be in no hurry to resume your law functions. remember me to your father and mother and the juniors, and if you should find it convenient to dispatch a note in answer to this epistle, it will afford great pleasure to yours very sincerely and affectionately, byron. p.s.--it is hardly necessary to inform you that i am heartily tired of southwell, for i am at this minute experiencing those delights which i have recapitulated to you and which are more entertaining to be _talked_ of at a distance than enjoyed at home. i allude to the eloquence of a _near relation_ of mine, which is as remarkable as your _taciturnity_. .--to hargreaves hanson. burgage manor, april , . dear hargreaves,--dr. butler, [ ] our new master, has thought proper to postpone our meeting till the th of may, which obliges me to delay my return to town for one week, so that instead of wednesday the th i shall not arrive in london till the st of may, on which day (if i live) i shall certainly be in town, where i hope to have the pleasure of seeing you. i shall remain with you only a week, as we are all to return to the very day, on account of the prolongation of our holidays. however, if you shall previous to that period take a _jaunt_ into hants, i beg you will leave my _valuables_, etc., etc., in the care of one of the _gentlemen_ of your office, as that _razor faced villain_, james, might perhaps take the liberty of walking off with a suit. i have heard several times from tattersall [ ] and it is very probable we may see him on my return. i beg you will excuse this short epistle as my time is at present rather taken up, and believe me, yours very sincerely, byron. [footnote : the rev. george butler ( - ), who was senior wrangler ( ), succeeded dr. drury as head-master of harrow school in april, . he was then fellow, tutor, and classical lecturer at sydney sussex college, cambridge. from affection to dr. drury, byron supported the candidature of his brother, mark drury, and avenged himself on butler for the defeat of his candidate by the lines on "pomposus" (see 'poems', vol. i. pp. , , "on a change of masters," etc.; and pp. - , "childish recollections"). at a later period he became reconciled to butler, who knew the continent well, was an excellent linguist, and gave him valuable advice for his foreign tour in - . butler resigned the head-mastership of harrow in april, , and retired to a country living. in he was appointed to the deanery of peterborough, where he died in .] [footnote : john cecil tattersall entered harrow in may, . he was the "davus" of "childish recollections" ('poems', vol. i. pp. , , and notes). he went from harrow to christ church, oxford, took orders, and died december , .] .--to the hon. augusta byron. [the earl of carlisle's, grosvenor place, london.] burgage manor, april d, . my dearest augusta,--i presume by this time, that you are safely arrived at the earl's, at least i _hope_ so; nor shall i feel myself perfectly easy, till i have the pleasure of hearing from yourself of your safety. i myself shall set out for town this day (tuesday) week, and intend waiting upon you on thursday at farthest; in the mean time i must console myself as well as i can; and i am sure, no unhappy mortal ever required much more consolation than i do at present. you as well as myself know the _sweet_ and _amiable_ temper of a certain personage to whom i am nearly related; of _course_, the pleasure i have enjoyed during my vacation, (although it has been greater than i expected) yet has not been so _superabundant_ as to make me wish to stay a day longer than i can avoid. however, notwithstanding the dullness of the place, and certain _unpleasant things_ that occur in a family not a hundred miles distant from southwell, i contrived to pass my time in peace, till to day, when unhappily, in a most inadvertent manner, i said that southwell was not _peculiarly_ to my taste; but however, i merely expressed this in common conversation, without speaking disrespectfully of the _sweet_ town; (which, between you and i, i wish was swallowed up by an earthquake, provided my _eloquent mother_ was not in it). no sooner had the unlucky sentence, which i believe was prompted by my evil genius, escaped my lips, than i was treated with an oration in the _ancient style_, which i have often so _pathetically_ described to you, unequalled by any thing of _modern_ or _antique_ date; nay the _philippics_ against lord melville [ ] were nothing to it; one would really imagine, to have heard the _good lady_, that i was a most _treasonable culprit_, but thank st. peter, after undergoing this _purgatory_ for the last hour, it is at length blown over, and i have sat down under these _pleasing impressions_ to address you, so that i am afraid my epistle will not be the most entertaining. i assure you upon my _honour_, jesting apart, i have never been so _scurrilously_, and _violently_ abused by any person, as by that woman, whom i think i am to call mother, by that being who gave me birth, to whom i ought to look up with veneration and respect, but whom i am sorry i cannot love or admire. within one little hour, i have not only heard myself, but have heard my _whole family_, by the father's side, _stigmatized_ in terms that the _blackest malevolence_ would perhaps shrink from, and that too in words you would be shocked to hear. such, augusta, such is my mother; _my mother!_ i disclaim her from this time, and although i cannot help treating her with respect, i cannot reverence, as i ought to do, that parent who by her outrageous conduct forfeits all title to filial affection. to you, augusta, i must look up, as my nearest relation, to you i must confide what i cannot mention to others, and i am sure you will pity me; but i entreat you to keep this a secret, nor expose that unhappy failing of this woman, which i must bear with patience. i would be very sorry to have it discovered, as i have only one week more, for the present. in the mean time you may write to me with the greatest safety, as she would not open any of my letters, even from you. i entreat then that you will favour me with an answer to this. i hope however to have the pleasure of seeing you on the day appointed, but if you could contrive any way that i may avoid being asked to dinner by l'd c. i would be obliged to you, as i hate strangers. adieu, my beloved sister, i remain ever yours, byron. [footnote : henry dundas ( - ), created viscount melville in , lord advocate ( - ), made himself useful to lord north's government as a shrewd, hard-working man of business, a ready speaker--in broad scotch, and a consummate election agent. for twenty years he was the right-hand man of pitt-- "too proud from pilfered greatness to descend, too humble not to call dundas his friend." not only was he pitt's political colleague, but in private life his boon companion. a well-known epigram commemorates in a dialogue their convivial habits-- 'pitt'. "i cannot see the speaker, hal; can you?" 'dundas'. "not see the speaker, billy? i see two." melville, for a long series of years, held important political posts. he was treasurer of the navy ( - ); member of the board of control for india ( - ) and president ( - ); home secretary ( - ); secretary of war ( - ); first lord of the admiralty ( - ). in a commission had been appointed to examine into the accounts of the naval department for the past twenty years, and, in consequence of their tenth report, a series of resolutions were moved in the house of commons (april, ) against melville. the voting was even-- for and against; the resolutions were carried by the casting vote of speaker abbott. "pitt was overcome; his friend was ruined. at the sound of the speaker's voice, the prime minister crushed his hat over his brows to hide the tears that poured over his cheeks: he pushed in haste out of the house. some of his opponents, i am ashamed to say, thrust themselves near, 'to see how billy took it.'" (mark boyd's 'reminiscences of fifty years', p. .) melville, who was heard at the bar of the house of commons in his own defence, was impeached before the house of lords (june , ) of high crimes and misdemeanours. at the close of the proceedings, which began in westminster hall on april , , melville was acquitted on all the charges. whitbread took the leading part in the impeachment. see 'all the talents: a satirical poem', by polypus (e. s. barrett)-- "rough as his porter, bitter as his barm, he sacrificed his fame to m--lv--lle's harm." dialogue ii.] .--to the hon. augusta byron. [the earl of carlisle's, grosvenor place, london.] burgage manor, southwell, friday, april th, . my dearest augusta,--thank god, i believe i shall be in town on wednesday next, and at last relieved from those _agreeable amusements_, i described to you in my last. i return you and lady g. many thanks for your _benediction_, nor do i doubt its efficacy as it is bestowed by _two such angelic beings_; but as i am afraid my _profane blessing_ would but expedite your road to _purgatory_, instead of _salvation_, you must be content with my best wishes in return, since the _unhallowed adjurations_ of a mere mortal would be of no effect. you say, you are sick of the installation; [ ] and that l'd c. was not present; i however saw his name in the _morning post_, as one of the knights companions. i indeed expected that _you_ would have been present at the ceremony. i have seen this young roscius [ ] several times at the hazard of my life, from the _affectionate squeezes_ of the surrounding crowd. i think him tolerable in some characters, but by no means equal to the ridiculous praises showered upon him by _john bull_. i am afraid that my stay in town ceases after the th. i should not continue it so long, as we meet on the th at harrow, but, i remain on purpose to hear our _sapient_ and _noble legislators_ of both houses debate on the catholic question, [ ] as i have no doubt there will be many _nonsensical_, and some _clever_ things said on the occasion. i am extremely glad that you _sport_ an audience chamber for the benefit of your _modest_ visitors, amongst whom i have the _honour_ to reckon myself: i shall certainly be most happy again to see you, notwithstanding my _wise_ and _good_ mother (who is at this minute thundering against somebody or other below in the dining room), has interdicted my visiting at his _lordship's_ house, with the threat of her malediction, in case of disobedience, as she says he has behaved very ill to her; the truth of this i much doubt, nor should the orders of all the mothers (especially such mothers) in the world, prevent me from seeing my beloved sister after so long an absence. i beg you will forgive this _well written epistle_, for i write in a great hurry, and, believe me, with the greatest impatience again to behold you, your attached brother and [friend, byron]. p.s.--by the bye lady g. ought not to complain of your writing a _decent_ long letter to me, since i remember your _ pages_ to her, at which i did not make the least complaint, but submitted like a _meek lamb_ to the innovation of my privileges, for nobody _ought_ to have had so long an epistle but my _most excellent self_. [footnote : on st. george's day, april , , seven knights were installed at windsor as knights of the garter, each in turn being invested with the surcoat, girdle, and sword. the new knights were the dukes of rutland and beaufort; the marquis of abercorn; the earls of chesterfield, pembroke, and winchilsea; and, by proxy, the earl of hardwicke. lady louisa strangways, writing to her sister, lady harriet frampton, on april , ('journal of mary frampton', p. ), says, "i was full dressed for seventeen hours yesterday, and sat in one spot for seven, which is enough to tire any one who enjoyed what was going on, which i did not. i saw them walk to st. george's chapel, which was the best part, as it did not last long ... their dresses were very magnificent. the knights, before they were installed, were in white and silver, like the old pictures of henry viii., and afterwards they had a purple mantle put on. they had immense plumes of ostrich feathers, with a heron's feather in the middle."] [footnote : william henry west betty ( - ), the "young roscius," made his first appearance on the stage at belfast, in , in the part of "osman," in hill's 'zara;' and on december , , at covent garden, as "selim" disguised as "achmet," in browne's 'barbarossa'. in the winter season of - , when he appeared at covent garden and drury lane, such crowds collected to see him, that the military were called out to preserve order. leslie ('autobiographical recollections', vol. i. p. ) speaks of him as a boy "of handsome features and graceful manners, with a charming voice." fox, who saw him in 'hamlet', said, "this is finer than garrick" ('table-talk of samuel rogers', p. ). northcote ('conversations', p. ) spoke of his acting as "a beautiful effusion of natural sensibility; and then that graceful play of the limbs in youth gave such an advantage over every one about him." "young roscius's premature powers," writes mrs. piozzi, february , , "attract universal attention, and i suppose that if less than an angel had told 'his' parents that a bulletin of that child's health should be necessary to quiet the anxiety of a metropolis for his safety, they would not have believed the prediction" ('life and writings of mrs. piozzi', vol. ii. p. ). in society he was the universal topic of conversation, and he commanded a salary of £ a night, at a time when john kemble was paid £ 's'. a week ('life of frederick reynolds', vol. ii. p. ). "when," writes mrs. byron of her son to hanson (december , ), "he goes to see the young roscius, i hope he will take care of himself in the crowd, and not go alone." betty lost his attractiveness with the growth of his beard. byron's opinion of the merits of the youthful prodigy became that of the general public; but not till the actor had made a large fortune. he retired from the stage in .] [footnote : on march , , petitions were presented by lord grenville in the house of lords, and fox in the house of commons, calling the attention of the country to the claims of the roman catholics, and praying their relief from their disabilities, civil, naval, and military. on friday, may , lord grenville moved, in the upper house, for a committee of the whole house to consider the petition. at six o'clock on the morning of tuesday, may , the motion was negatived by a division of against . on monday, may , fox, in the lower house, made a similar motion, which was negatived, at five o'clock on the morning of wednesday, may , by a division of against . byron, on april , , in the second of his three parliamentary speeches, supported the relief of the roman catholics.] .--to john hanson. harrow-on-the-hill, may, . dear sir,--as you promised to cash my draft on the day that i left your house, and as you was only prevented by the bankers being shut up, i will be very much obliged to you to _give the ready_ to this old girl, mother barnard, [ ] who will either present herself or send a messenger, as she demurs on its being not payable till the th of june. believe me, sir, by doing this you will greatly oblige yours very truly, byron. [footnote: . mother barnard was the keeper of the "tuck-shop" at harrow.] .--to the hon. augusta byron. [the earl of carlisle's, grosvenor place, london.] [harrow, wednesday, june , .] my dearest augusta,--at last you have a _decent_ specimen of the dowager's talents for epistles in the _furioso_ style. you are now freed from the _shackles_ of her correspondence, and when i revisit her, i shall be bored with long stories of your _ingratitude_, etc., etc. she is as i have before declared certainly mad (to say she was in her senses, would be condemning her as a criminal), her conduct is a _happy_ compound of derangement and folly. i had the other day an epistle from her; not a word was mentioned about you, but i had some of the usual _compliments_ on my own account. i am now about to answer her letter, though i shall scarcely have patience, to treat her with civility, far less with affection, that was almost over before, and this has given the finishing stroke to _filial_, which now gives way to _fraternal_ duty. believe me, dearest augusta, not ten thousand _such_ mothers, or indeed any mothers, could induce me to give you up.--no, no, as the dowager says in that rare epistle which now lies before me, "the time has been, but that is past long since," and nothing now can influence your _pretty_ _sort of_ a _brother_ (bad as he is) to forget that he is your _brother_. our first speech day will be over ere this reaches you, but against the d you shall have timely notice.--i am glad to hear your illness is not of a serious nature; _young ladies_ ought not to throw themselves in to the fidgets about a trifling delay of or years; age brings experience and when you in the flower of youth, between and , shall then marry, you will no doubt say that i am a _wise man_, and that the later one makes one's self miserable with the matrimonial clog, the better. adieu, my dearest augusta, i bestow my _patriarchal blessing_ on you and lady g. and remain, [signature cut out.] .--to john hanson. harrow-on-the-hill, june, . dear sir,--i will be in town on saturday morning, but it is absolutely necessary for me to return to harrow on tuesday or wednesday, as thursday is our d speechday and butler says he cannot dispense with my presence on that day. i thank you for your compliment in the beginning of your letter, and with the hope of seeing you and hargreaves well on saturday, i remain, yours, etc., etc., byron. .--to the hon. augusta byron. [address cut out], tuesday, july d, . my dearest augusta,--i am just returned from cambridge, where i have been to enter myself at trinity college.--thursday is our speechday at harrow, and as i forgot to remind you of its approach, previous to our first declamation, [ ] i have given you _timely_ notice this time. if you intend doing me the _honour_ of attending, i would recommend you not to come without a gentleman, as i shall be too much engaged all the morning to take care of you, and i should not imagine you would admire _stalking_ about by yourself. you had better be there by o'clock as we begin at , and i should like to procure you a good place; harrow is miles from town, it will just make a _comfortable_ mornings drive for you. i don't know how you are to come, but for _godsake_ bring as few women with you as possible. i would wish you to write me an answer immediately, that i may know on thursday morning, whether you will drive over or not, and i will arrange my other engagements accordingly. i _beg_, _madam_, you may make your appearance in one of his lordships most _dashing_ carriages, as our harrow _etiquette_, admits of nothing but the most _superb_ vehicles, on our grand _festivals_. in the mean time, believe me, dearest augusta, your affectionate brother, byron. [footnote : mrs. byron, writing to hanson (june , ), says, "the fame of byron's oratory has reached southwell" (see page , note ).] .--to john hanson. harrow, july, . my dear sir,--i have just received a letter from my mother, in which she talks of coming to town about the _commencement_ of our holidays. if she does, it will be impossible for me to call on _my sister_, previous to my leaving it, and at the same time i cannot conceive what the deuce she can want at this season in london. i have written to tell her that my holidays commence on the th of august, but however, july the st is the proper day.--i beg that if you cannot find some means to keep her in the country that you at least will connive at this deception which i can palliate, and then i shall be down in the country before she knows where i am. my reasons for this are, that i do _not wish_ to be detained in town so uncomfortably as i know i shall be if i remain with her; that _i do wish_ to see my sister; and in the next place she can just as well come to town after my return to notts, as i don't desire to be dragged about according to her caprice, and there are some other causes i think unnecessary to be now mentioned. if you will only contrive by settling this business (if it is in your power), or if that is impossible, not mention anything about the day our holidays commence, of which you can be easily supposed not to be informed. if, i repeat, you can by any means prevent this mother from executing her purposes, believe me, you will greatly oblige yours truly, byron. .--to charles o. gordon. [ ] burgage manor, southwell, notts, august , . although i am greatly afraid, my dearest gordon, that you will not receive this epistle till you return from abergeldie, (as your letter stated that you would be at ledbury on thursday next) yet, that is not my fault, for i have not deferred answering yours a moment, and, as i have just now concluded my journey, my first, and, i trust you will believe me when i say, most pleasing occupation will be to write to you. we have played the eton and were most confoundedly beat; [ ] however it was some comfort to me that i got notches the st innings and the nd, which was more than any of our side except brockman & ipswich could contrive to hit. after the match we dined together, and were extremely friendly, not a single discordant word was uttered by either party. to be sure, we were most of us rather drunk and went together to the haymarket theatre, where we kicked up a row, as you may suppose, when so many harrovians & etonians met at one place; i was one of seven in a single hackney, eton and harrow, and then we all got into the same box, and the consequence was that such a devil of a noise arose that none of our neighbours could hear a word of the drama, at which, not being _highly delighted_, they began to quarrel with us, and we nearly came to a _battle royal_. how i got home after the play god knows. i hardly recollect, as my brain was so much confused by the heat, the row, and the wine i drank, that i could not remember in the morning how i found my way to bed. the rain was so incessant in the evening that we could hardly get our jarveys, which was the cause of so many being stowed into one. i saw young twilt, your brother, with malet, and saw also an old schoolfellow of mine whom i had not beheld for six years, but he was not the one whom you were so good as to enquire after for me, and for which i return you my sincere thanks. i set off last night at eight o'clock to my mother's, and am just arrived this afternoon, and have not delayed a second in thanking you for so soon fulfilling my request that you would correspond with me. my address at cambridge will be trinity college, but i shall not go there till the th of october. you may continue to direct your letters here, when i go to hampshire which will not be till you have returned to harrow. i will send my address previous to my departure from my mother's. i agree with you in the hope that we shall continue our correspondence for a long time. i trust, my dearest friend, that it will only be interrupted by our being some time or other in the same place or under the same roof, as, when i have finished my _classical labour_, and my minority is expired, i shall expect you to be a frequent visitor to newstead abbey, my seat in this county which is about miles from my mother's house where i now am. there i can show you plenty of hunting, shooting and fishing, and be assured no one ever will be more welcome guest than yourself--nor is there any one whose correspondence can give me more pleasure, or whose friendship yield me greater delight than yours, sweet, dearest charles, believe me, will always be the sentiments of yours most affectionately, byron. [footnote : this and letter are written to byron's harrow friend, charles gordon, one of his "juniors and favourites," whom he "spoilt by indulgence." gordon, who was the son of david gordon of abergeldie, died in .] [footnote : byron's reputation as a cricketer rests on this match between eton and harrow. it was played on the old cricket ground in dorset square, august , , and ended in a victory for eton by an innings and two runs. the score is thus given by lillywhite, in his _cricket scores and biographies of celebrated cricketers from to _ (vol. i. pp. , )-- harrow. first innings. second innings. -------------------------------------------------------- lord ipswich, b carter -- b heaton -- t. farrer, esq., b carter -- c bradley-- t. drury, esq., b carter -- st heaton-- --bolton, esq., run out -- b heaton -- c. lloyd, esq., b carter -- b carter -- a. shakespeare, esq., st heaton-- runout -- lord byron, c barnard-- b carter -- hon. t. erskine, b carter -- b heaton -- w. brockman, esq., b heaton -- b heaton -- e. stanley, esq., not out -- c canning-- --asheton, esq., b carter -- not out -- byes -- byes -- -- -- eton. -------------------------------------------------------- --heaton, esq., b lloyd -- --slingsby, esq., b shakespeare-- --carter, esq., b shakespeare-- --farhill, esq., c lloyd -- --canning, esq., c farrer -- --camplin, esq., b ipswich -- --bradley, esq., b lloyd -- --barnard, esq., b shakespeare-- --barnard, esq., not out -- --kaye, esq., b byron -- --dover, esq., c bolton -- byes -- -- at this match lord stratford de redcliffe remembers seeing a "moody-looking boy" dismissed for a small score. the boy was byron. but the moment is not favourable to expression of countenance. .--to the hon. augusta byron. [castle howard, malton, yorkshire.] burgage manor, august th, . well, my dearest augusta, here i am, once more situated at my mother's house, which together with its _inmate_ is as _agreeable_ as ever. i am at this moment _vis à vis_ and téte à téte with that amiable personage, who is, whilst i am writing, pouring forth complaints against your _ingratitude_, giving me many oblique hints that i ought not to correspond with you, and concluding with an interdiction that if you ever after the expiration of my minority are invited to my residence, _she_ will no longer condescend to grace it with her _imperial_ presence. you may figure to yourself, for your amusement, my solemn countenance on the occasion, and the _meek lamblike_ demeanour of her ladyship, which, contrasted with my _saintlike visage_, forms a _striking family painting_, whilst in the back ground, the portraits of my great grandfather and grandmother, suspended in their frames, seem to look with an eye of pity on their _unfortunate descendant_, whose _worth_ and _accomplishments_ deserve a milder fate. i am to remain in this _garden_ of _eden_ one month, i do not indeed reside at cambridge till october, but i set out for hampshire in september where i shall be on a visit till the commencement of the term. in the mean time, augusta, your _sympathetic_ correspondence must be some alleviation to my sorrows, which however are too ludicrous for me to regard them very seriously; but they are _really_ more _uncomfortable_ than _amusing_. i presume you were rather surprised not to see my _consequential_ name in the papers [ ] amongst the orators of our nd speech day, but unfortunately some wit who had formerly been at harrow, suppressed the merits of long [ ], farrer [ ] and myself, who were always supposed to take the lead in harrow eloquence, and by way of a _hoax_ thought proper to insert a panegyric on those speakers who were really and truly allowed to have rather disgraced than distinguished themselves, of course for the _wit_ of the thing, the best were left out and the worst inserted, which accounts for the _gothic omission_ of my _superior talents._ perhaps it was done with a view to weaken our vanity, which might be too much raised by the flattering paragraphs bestowed on our performance the st speechday; be that as it may, we were omitted in the account of the nd, to the astonishment of all harrow. these are _disappointments_ we _great men_ are liable to, and we must learn to bear them with philosophy, especially when they arise from attempts at wit. i was indeed very ill at that time, and after i had finished my speech was so overcome by the exertion that i was obliged to quit the room. i had caught cold by sleeping in damp sheets which was the cause of my indisposition. however i am now perfectly recovered, and live in hopes of being emancipated from the slavery of burgage manor. but believe me, dearest augusta, whether well or ill, i always am your affect. brother, byron. [footnote : see page , note .] [footnote : edward noel long, son of e. b. long of hampton lodge, surrey, the "cleon" of "childish recollections" ('poems', vol. i. pp. , ), entered harrow in april, . he went with byron to trinity college, cambridge, and till the end of the summer of was his most intimate friend. "we were," says byron, in his diary ('life', p. ), "rival swimmers, fond of riding, reading, and of conviviality. our evenings we passed in music (he was musical, and played on more than one instrument--flute and violoncello), in which i was audience; and i think that our chief beverage was soda-water. in the day we rode, bathed, and lounged, reading occasionally. i remember our buying, with vast alacrity, moore's new quarto (in ), and reading it together in the evenings. ... _his_ friendship, and a violent though pure passion--which held me at the same period--were the then romance of the most romantic period of my life." long was byron's companion at littlehampton in august, . in he entered the guards, served with distinction in the expedition to copenhagen, and was drowned early in , "on his passage to lisbon with his regiment in the 'st. george' transport, which was run foul of in the night by another transport" ('life', p. . see also byron's lines "to edward noel long, esq.," 'poems', vol. i. pp. - ).] [footnote : thomas farrer entered harrow in april, . he played in byron's xi. against eton, on the ground in dorset square, on august , .] chapter ii. - . cambridge and juvenile poems. .--to the hon. augusta byron. [castle howard, malton, yorkshire.] burgage manor, august th, . i have at last succeeded, my dearest augusta, in pacifying the dowager, and mollifying that _piece_ of _flint_ which the good lady denominates her heart. she now has condescended to send you her _love_, although with many comments on the occasion, and many compliments to herself. but to me she still continues to be a torment, and i doubt not would continue so till the end of my life. however this is the last time she ever will have an opportunity, as, when i go to college, i shall employ my vacations either in town; or during the summer i intend making a tour through the highlands, and to visit the hebrides with a party of my friends, whom i have engaged for the purpose. this my old preceptor drury recommended as the most improving way of employing my summer vacation, and i have now an additional reason for following his advice, as i by that means will avoid the society of this woman, whose detestable temper destroys every idea of domestic comfort. it is a happy thing that she is my mother and not my wife, so that i can rid myself of her when i please, and indeed, if she goes on in the style that she has done for this last week that i have been with her, i shall quit her before the month i was to drag out in her company, is expired, and place myself any where, rather than remain with such a vixen. as i am to have a very handsome allowance,[ ] which does not deprive her of a sixpence, since there is an addition made from my fortune by the chancellor for the purpose, i shall be perfectly independent of her, and, as she has long since trampled upon, and harrowed up every affectionate tie, it is my serious determination never again to visit, or be upon any friendly terms with her. this i owe to myself, and to my own comfort, as well as justice to the memory of my nearest relations, who have been most shamefully libelled by this female 'tisiphom', a name which your 'ladyship' will recollect to have belonged to one of the furies. you need not take the precaution of writing in so enigmatical a style in your next, as, bad as the woman is, she would not dare to open any letter addressed to me from you. whenever you can find time to write, believe me, your epistles will be productive of the greatest pleasure, to your affectionate brother, byron. [footnote : during byron's schooldays, mrs. byron received £ a year from the court of chancery for his education. when he went to cambridge, she gave up this allowance to her son, and the expenditure of a certain sum was sanctioned by chancery for furniture, clothes, plate, etc. at the same time, mrs. byron applied for an allowance of £ a year, but in the allowance had not been granted. her pension, it may be added, most irregularly paid at all times, was reduced to £ a year. writing to hanson (september , ), she says, "i give up the five hundred a year to my son, and you will supply him with money accordingly. the two hundred a year addition i shall reserve for myself; nor can i do with less, as my house will always be a home for my son whenever he chooses to come to it."] .--to charles o. gordon. burgage manor, august , . believe me, my dearest charles, no letter from you can ever be unentertaining or dull, at least to me; on the contrary they will always be productive of the highest pleasure as often as you think proper to gratify me by your correspondence. my answer to your first was addressed to ledbury; and i fear you will not receive it till you return from your tour, which i hope may answer your expectation in every respect; i recollect some years ago passing near abergeldie on an excursion through the highlands, it was at that time a most beautiful place. i suppose you will soon have a view of the eternal snows that summit the top of lachin y gair, which towers so magnificently above the rest of our _northern alps_. i still remember with pleasure the admiration which filled my mind, when i first beheld it, and further on the dark frowning mountains which rise near invercauld, together with the romantic rocks that overshadow mar lodge, a seat of lord fife's, and the cataract of the dee, which dashes down the declivity with impetuous violence in the grounds adjoining to the house. all these i presume you will soon see, so that it is unnecessary for me to expatiate on the subject. i sincerely wish that every happiness may attend you in your progress. i have given you an account of our match in my epistle to herefordshire. we unfortunately lost it. i got notches the first innings and the nd, making in all, which was more runs than any of our side (except ipswich) could make. brockman also scored . we were very _convivial_ in the evening.[ ] [footnote : here the letter, which is printed from a copy made by the rev. w. harness (see page [letter ], [foot]note ), comes to an end.] .--to hargreaves hanson. burgage manor, august th, . my dear hargreaves,--you may depend upon my observance of your father's invitation to farleigh [ ] in september, where i hope we shall be the cause of much destruction to the feathered tribe and great amusement to ourselves. the lancashire trial [ ] comes on very soon, and mr. hanson will come down by nottingham; perhaps, i may then have a chance of seeing him; at all events, i shall probably accompany him on his way back; as i hope his health is by this time perfectly reestablished, and will not require a journey to harrowgate. i shall not as you justly conjecture have any occasion for my _chapeau de bras_, as there is nobody in the neighbourhood who would be worth the trouble of wearing it, when i went to their parties. i am uncommonly dull at this place, as you may easily imagine, nor do i think i shall have much amusement till the commencement of the shooting season. i shall expect (when you next write) an account of your military preparations, to repel the invader of our isle whenever he makes the attempt.--_you_ will doubtless acquire _great glory_ on the occasion, and in expectation of hearing of your warlike exploits, i remain, yours very truly, byron. [footnote : hanson had property at farleigh, near basingstoke.] [footnote : the rochdale property of the byron family had been illegally sold by william, fifth lord byron. proceedings were taken to recover the property; but fresh points arose at every stage, and eventually byron, unable to wait longer, sold newstead.] .--to hargreaves hanson. burgage manor. my dear hargeaves,--i would be obliged to you, if you would write to your father, and enquire--what time it will be most convenient for him to receive my visit, and i will come to town immediately to the time appointed and accompany you to the _rural shades_ and _fertile fields_ of hants. you must excuse the laconic style of my epistle as this place is damned dull and i have nothing to relate, but believe me, yours truly, byron. .--to hargreaves hanson. trinity coll., october , . dear hargreaves,--i presume your father has by this time informed you of our safe arrival here. [ ] i can as yet hardly form an opinion in favour, or against the college, but as soon as i am settled you shall have an account. i wish you to pack up carefully--& send immediately the remainder of my books, and also my _stocks_ which were left in chancery lane. _mon chapeau de bras_ take care of till winter extends his icy reign and i shall visit the metropolis. tell your father that i am getting in the furniture he spoke of, but shall defer papering and painting till the recess. the sooner you execute my _commands_ the better. beware of mr. terry, and believe me, yours faithfully, byron. the bills for furniture i shall send to mr. h., your worthy papa, according to his _particular desire_. the cambridge coach sets off from the white horse, fetter lane. [footnote : byron entered trinity on july , ; but he did not go into residence till the following october. his tutors were the rev. thomas jones ( - ), who was senior tutor from till his death in , and the rev. george frederick tavell (b.a., ; m.a., ), to whom byron alludes in 'hints from horace', lines - :-- "unlucky tavell! doom'd to daily cares by pugilistic pupils, and by bears!"] .--to john hanson. trinity coll., oct. , . dear sir,--i will be obliged to you to order me down dozen of wine--port, sherry, claret, and madeira, one dozen of each. i have got part of my furniture in, and begin to admire a college life. yesterday my appearance in the hall in my state robes was _superb_, but uncomfortable to my _diffidence_. you may order the saddle, etc., etc., for "oateater" as soon as you please and i will pay for them. i remain, sir, yours truly, byron. p.s.--give hargreaves a hint to be expeditious in his sending my _valuables_ which i begin to want. your cook had the impudence to charge my servant shillings for days provision which i think is exorbitant; but i hear that in _town_ it is but reasonable. pray is it the custom to allow your servants / per diem, in london? i will thank you for information on the subject. .--to the hon. augusta byron. [castle howard, near malton, yorkshire.] trin. coll. [wednesday], novr. th, . my dear augusta,--as might be supposed i like a college life extremely, especially as i have escaped the trammels or rather _fetters_ of my domestic tyrant mrs. byron, who continued to plague me during my visit in july and september. i am now most pleasantly situated in _super_excellent rooms, flanked on one side by my tutor, on the other by an old fellow, both of whom are rather checks upon my _vivacity_. i am allowed a year, a servant and horse, so feel as independent as a german prince who coins his own cash, or a cherokee chief who coins no cash at all, but enjoys what is more precious, liberty. i talk in raptures of that _goddess_ because my amiable mama was so despotic. i am afraid the specimens i have lately given her of my spirit, and determination to submit to no more unreasonable demands, (or the insults which follow a refusal to obey her implicitly whether right or wrong,) have given high offence, as i had a most _fiery_ letter from the _court_ at _southwell_ on tuesday, because i would not turn off my servant, (whom i had not the least reason to distrust, and who had an excellent character from his last master) at her suggestion, from some caprice she had taken into her head. [ ] i sent back to the epistle, which was couched in _elegant_ terms, a severe answer, which so nettled her ladyship, that after reading it, she returned it in a cover without deigning a syllable in return. the letter and my answer you shall behold when you next see me, that you may judge of the comparative merits of each. i shall let her go on in the _heroics_, till she cools, without taking the least notice. her behaviour to me for the last two years neither merits my respect, nor deserves my affection. i am comfortable here, and having one of the best allowances in college, go on gaily, but not extravagantly. i need scarcely inform you that i am not the least obliged to mrs. b. for it, as it comes off my property, and she refused to fit out a single thing for me from her own pocket; [ ] my furniture is paid for, & she has moreover a handsome addition made to her own income, which i do not in the least regret, as i would wish her to be happy, but by _no means_ to live with me in _person_. the sweets of her society i have already drunk to the last dregs, i hope we shall meet on more affectionate terms, or meet no more. but why do i say _meet?_ her temper precludes every idea of happiness, and therefore in future i shall avoid her _hospitable_ mansion, though she has the folly to suppose she is to be mistress of my house when i come of [age]. i must apologize to you for the [dullness?] of this letter, but to tell you the [truth] [the effects] of last nights claret have no[t gone] out of my head, as i supped with a large party. i suppose that fool hanson in his _vulgar_ idiom, by the word jolly did not mean fat, but high spirits, for so far from increasing i have lost one pound in a fortnight as i find by being regularly weighed. adieu, dearest augusta. [signature cut out.] [nb: words in square brackets were cut and torn out with the seal.] [footnote : the servant, byron's valet frank, was accused of obtaining money on false pretences from a nottingham tradesman, and mrs. byron informed her son of the charge. frank was afterwards transported. (see letter to lord clare, february , ; and letter to hanson, april , .)] [footnote : see page , note .] .--to hargreaves hanson. trinity coll., novr. th, . dear hargreaves,--return my thanks to your father for the _expedition_ he has used in filling my _cellar_. he deserves commendation for the _attention_ he paid to my request. the time of "oateater's" journey approaches; i presume he means to repair his neglect by punctuality in this respect. however, no _trinity ale_ will be forthcoming, till i have broached the promised _falernum._ college improves in every thing but learning. nobody here seems to look into an author, ancient or modern, if they can avoid it. the muses, poor devils, are totally neglected, except by a few musty old _sophs_ and _fellows_, who, however agreeable they may be to _minerva_, are perfect antidotes to the _graces._ even i (great as is my _inclination_ for knowledge) am carried away by the tide, having only supped at home twice since i saw your father, and have more engagements on my hands for a week to come. still my tutor and i go on extremely well and for the first three weeks of my life i have not involved myself in any scrape of consequence. i have news for you which i bear with _christian_ resignation and without any _violent transports_ of _grief._ my mother (whose diabolical temper you well know) has taken it into her _sagacious_ head to quarrel with me her _dutiful son._ she has such a devil of a disposition, that she cannot be quiet, though there are fourscore miles between us, which i wish were lengthened to . the cause too frivolous to require taking up your time to read or mine to write. at last in answer to a _furious epistle_ i returned a _sarcastick_ answer, which so incensed the _amiable dowager_ that my letter was sent back without her deigning a line in the cover. when i next see you, you shall behold her letter and my answer, which will amuse you as they both contain fiery philippics. i must request you will write immediately, that i may be informed when my servant shall convey "oateater" from london; the th was the appointed; but i wish to hear further from your father. i hope all the family are in a convalescent state. i shall see you at christmas (if i live) as i propose passing the vacation, which is only a month, in london. believe me, mr. terry, your's truly, byron. .--to john hanson. trin. coll. cambridge, novr. , . dear sir,--your advice was good but i have not determined whether i shall follow it; this place is the _devil_ or at least his principal residence. they call it the university, but any other appellation would have suited it much better, for study is the last pursuit of the society; the master [ ] eats, drinks, and sleeps, the fellows [ ] _drink, dispute and pun_; the employment of the under graduates you will probably conjecture without my description. i sit down to write with a head confused with dissipation which, tho' i hate, i cannot avoid. i have only supped at home times since my arrival, and my table is constantly covered with invitations, after all i am the most _steady_ man in college, nor have i got into many scrapes, and none of consequence. whenever you appoint a day my servant shall come up for "oateater," and as the time of paying my bills now approaches, the remaining £ will be very _agreeable_. you need not make any deduction as i shall want most of it; i will settle with you for the saddle and accoutrements _next_ quarter. the upholsterer's bill will not be sent in yet as my rooms are to be papered and painted at xmas when i will procure them. no furniture has been got except what was absolutely necessary including some decanters and wine glasses. your cook certainly deceived you, as i know my servant was in town days, and she stated . i have yet had no reason to distrust him, but we will examine the affair when i come to town when i intend lodging at mrs. massingbird's. my mother and i have quarrelled, which i bear with the _patience_ of a philosopher; custom reconciles me to everything. in the hope that mrs. h. and the _battalion_ are in good health. i remain, sir, etc., etc., byron. [footnote : william lort mansel ( - ), master of trinity ( - ), bishop of bristol ( - ), was the chief wit of cambridge in his day, and the author of many neat epigrams. "i wish," said rogers (_table-talk_, etc., p. ), "somebody would collect all the epigrams written by dr. mansel; they are remarkably neat and clever." beloe, in _the sexagenarian_ (vol. i. p. ), speaks of mansel as "a young man remarkable for his personal confidence, for his wit and humour, and, above all, for his gallantries." apparently, on the same somewhat unreliable authority, he was, as master, a severe disciplinarian, and extremely tenacious of his dignity (i. p. ).] [footnote : byron probably refers to richard porson ( - ), professor of greek ( - ). the son of the parish clerk of bacton and earl ruston, in norfolk, porson was entered, by the kindness of friends, on the foundation of eton college ( - ). at trinity, cambridge, he became a scholar in , and a fellow ( - ). in , as he could not conscientiously take orders, he vacated his fellowship, but was elected professor of greek. when byron was at cambridge, porson's health and powers were failing. silent and reserved, except in the society of his friends, a sloven in his person, he had probably taken to drink as a cure for sleeplessness. in a note to the _pursuits of literature_ (dialogue iv. lines - ), "what," asks the author, j. t. mathias, himself a fellow of trinity, "is mere genius without a regulated life! to show the deformity of vice to the rising hopes of the country, the policy of ancient sparta exhibited an inebriated slave." yet porson's fine love of truth and genius for textual criticism make him one of the greatest, if not the greatest, name in british scholarship. porson married, in , mrs. lunan, sister of mr. perry, the editor of the 'morning chronicle', for which he frequently wrote. in the 'shade of alexander pope', mathias again attacks him as "dogmatic bardolph in his nuptial noose." porson's wife died shortly after their marriage. his controversial method was merciless. of his 'letters to archdeacon travis', green ('lover of literature', p. ) says that "he dandles travis as a tyger would a fawn: and appears only to reserve him alive, for a time, that he may gratify his appetite for sport, before he consigns his feeble prey, by a rougher squeeze, to destruction."] .--to john hanson. trinity college, cambridge, novr. , . sir,--after the contents of your epistle, you will probably be less surprized at my answer, than i have been at many points of yours; [ ] never was i more astonished than at the perusal, for i confess i expected very different treatment. your _indirect_ charge of dissipation does not affect me, nor do i fear the strictest inquiry into my conduct; neither here nor at _harrow_ have i disgraced myself, the "metropolis" and the "cloisters" are alike unconscious of my debauchery, and on the plains of _merry sherwood_ i have experienced _misery_ alone; in july i visited them for the last time. mrs. byron and myself are now totally separated, injured by her, i sought refuge with strangers, too late i see my error, for how was kindness to be expected from _others_, when denied by a _parent_? in you, sir, i imagined i had found an instructor; for your advice i thank you; the hospitality of yourself and mrs. h. on many occasions i shall always gratefully remember, for i am not of opinion that even present injustice can cancel past obligations. before i proceed, it will be necessary to say a few words concerning mrs. byron; you hinted a probability of her appearance at trinity; the instant i hear of her arrival i quit cambridge, though _rustication_ or _expulsion_ be the consequence. many a weary week of _torment_ have i passed with her, nor have i forgot the insulting _epithets_ with which myself, my _sister_, my _father_ and my _family_ have been repeatedly reviled. to return to you, sir, though i feel obliged by your hospitality, etc., etc., in the present instance i have been completely deceived. when i came down to college, and even previous to that period i stipulated that not only my furniture, but even my gowns and books, should be paid for that i might set out free from _debt_. now with all the _sang froid_ of your profession you tell me, that not only i shall not be permitted to repair my rooms (which was at first agreed to) but that i shall not even be indemnified for my present expence. in one word, hear my determination. i will _never_ pay for them out of my allowance, and the disgrace will not attach to me but to _those_ by whom i have been deceived. still, sir, not even the shadow of dishonour shall reflect on _my_ name, for i will see that the bills are discharged; whether by you or not is to me indifferent, so that the men i employ are not the victims of my imprudence or your duplicity. i have ordered nothing extravagant; every man in college is allowed to fit up his rooms; mine are secured to me during my residence which will probably be some time, and in rendering them decent i am more praiseworthy than culpable. the money i requested was but a secondary consideration; as a _lawyer_ you were not obliged to advance it till due; as a _friend_ the request might have been complied with. when it is required at xmas i shall expect the demand will be answered. in the course of my letter i perhaps have expressed more asperity than i intended, it is my nature to feel warmly, nor shall any consideration of interest or fear ever deter me from giving vent to my sentiments, when injured, whether by a sovereign or a subject. i remain, etc., etc., byron. [footnote : the quarrel arose from byron misunderstanding a letter from hanson on the subject of the allowance made by the court of chancery for his furniture.] .--to john hanson. trin. coll. cambridge, dec. , . sir,--in charging you with downright _duplicity_ i wronged you, nor do i hesitate to atone for an injury which i feel i have committed, or add to my fault by the vindication of an expression dictated by resentment, an _expression_ which deserves censure, and demands the apology i now offer; for i think that disposition indeed _mean_ which adds obstinacy to insult, by attempting the palliation of unmerited invective from the mistaken principle of disdaining the avowal of even _self convicted_ error. in regard to the other _declarations_ my sentiments remain _unaltered;_ the event will shew whether my prediction is false. i know mrs. byron too well to imagine that she would part with a _sous_, and if by some _miracle_ she was prevailed upon, the _details_ of her _generosity_ in allowing me part of my _own property_ would be continually _thundered_ in my ears, or _launched_ in the _lightening_ of her letters, so that i had rather encounter the evils of embarrassment than lie under an obligation to one who would continually reproach me with her benevolence, as if her charity had been extended to a _stranger_ to the detriment of her own fortune. my opinion is perhaps harsh for a son, but it is justified by experience, it is confirmed by _facts_, it was generated by oppression, it has been nourished by injury. to you, sir, i attach no blame. i am too much indebted to your kindness to retain my anger for a length of time, that _kindness_ which, by a forcible contrast, has taught me to spurn the _ties_ of _blood_ unless strengthened by proper and gentle treatment. i declare upon my honor that the horror of entering mrs. byron's house has of late years been so implanted in my soul, that i dreaded the approach of the vacations as the _harbingers_ of _misery_. my letters to my sister, written during my residence at southwell, would prove my assertion. with my kind remembrances to mrs. h. and hargreaves, i remain, sir, yours truly, byron. .--to john hanson. trin. coll. cambridge, dec. , . dear sir,--i return you my thanks for the remaining £ which came in extremely _apropos_, and on my visit to town about the th will give you a regular receipt. in your extenuation of mrs. byron's conduct you use as a _plea_, that, by her being my mother, greater allowance ought to be made for those _little_ traits in her disposition, so much more _energetic_ than _elegant_. i am afraid, (however good your intention) that you have added to rather than diminished my dislike, for independent of the moral obligations she is under to _protect, cherish_, and _instruct_ her _offspring_, what can be expected of that man's heart and understanding who has continually (from childhood to maturity) beheld so pernicious an example? his nearest relation is the first person he is taught to revere as his guide and instructor; the perversion of temper before him leads to a corruption of his own, and when that is depraved, vice quickly becomes habitual, and, though timely severity may sometimes be necessary & justifiable, surely a peevish harassing system of torment is by no means commendable, & when that is interrupted by ridiculous indulgence, the only purpose answered is to soften the feelings for a moment which are soon after to be doubly wounded by the recal of accustomed harshness. i will now give this disagreeable subject to the _winds_. i conclude by observing that i am the more confirmed in my opinion of the futility of natural ties, unless supported not only by attachment but _affectionate_ and _prudent_ behaviour. tell mrs. h. that the predicted alteration in my manners and habits has not taken place. i am still the schoolboy and as great a _rattle_ as ever, and between ourselves college is not the place to improve either morals or income. i am, sir, yours truly, byron. .--to the hon. augusta byron. [[cas]tle howard, [ne]ar malton, yorkshire.] , piccadilly, [thursday], decr. th, . my dearest augusta,--by the date of my letter you will perceive that i have taken up my residence in the metropolis, where i presume we shall behold you in the latter end of january. i sincerely hope you will make your appearance at that time, as i have some subjects to discuss with you, which i do not wish to communicate in my epistle. the dowager has thought proper to solicit a reconciliation which in some measure i have agreed to; still there is a coolness which i do not feel inclined to _thaw_, as terms of civility are the only resource against her impertinent and unjust proceedings with which you are already acquainted. town is not very full and the weather has been so unpropitious that i have not been able to make use of my horses above twice since my arrival. i hope your everlasting negotiation with the father of your _intended_ is near a conclusion in _some_ manner; if you do not hurry a little, you will be verging into the "_vale of years_," and, though you may be blest with sons and daughters, you will never live to see your _grandchildren_. when convenient, favour me with an answer and believe me, [signature cut out.] .--to the hon. augusta byron. [castle howar[d], neat malto[n], yorkshire.] , piccadilly, [friday], decr. th, . my dear augusta,--you will doubtless be surprised to see a second epistle so close upon the arrival of the first, (especially as it is not my custom) but the business i mentioned rather mysteriously in my last compels me again to proceed. but before i disclose it, i must require the most inviolable secrecy, for if ever i find that it has transpired, all confidence, all friendship between us has concluded. i do not mean this exordium as a threat to induce you to comply with my request but merely (whether you accede or not) to keep it a secret. and although your compliance would essentially oblige me, yet, believe me, my esteem will not be diminished by your refusal; nor shall i suffer a complaint to escape. the affair is briefly thus; like all other young men just let loose, and especially one as i am, freed from the worse than bondage of my maternal home, i have been extravagant, and consequently am in want of money. you will probably now imagine that i am going to apply to you for some. no, if you would offer me thousands, i declare solemnly that i would without hesitation refuse, nor would i accept them were i in danger of starvation. all i expect or wish is, that you will be joint security with me for a few hundreds a person (one of the money lending tribe) has offered to advance in case i can bring forward any collateral guarantee that he will not be a loser, the reason of this requisition is my being a minor, and might refuse to discharge a debt contracted in my non-age. if i live till the period of my minority expires, you cannot doubt my paying, as i have property to the amount of times the sum i am about to raise; if, as i think rather probable, a pistol or a fever cuts short the thread of my existence, you will receive half the _dross_ saved since i was ten years old, and can be no great loser by discharging a debt of or £ from as many thousands. it is far from my breast to exact any promise from you that would be detrimental, or tend to lower me in your opinion. if you suppose this leads to either of those consequences, forgive my impertinence and bury it in oblivion. i have many friends, most of them in the same predicament with myself; to those who are not, i am too proud to apply, for i hate obligation; my relations you know i _detest_; who then is there that i can address on the subject but yourself? to you therefore i appeal, and if i am disappointed, at least let me not be tormented by the advice of guardians, and let silence rule your resolution. i know you will think me foolish, if not criminal; but tell me so yourself, and do not rehearse my failings to others, no, not even to that proud grandee the earl, who, whatever his qualities may be, is certainly not amiable, and that chattering puppy hanson would make still less allowance for the foibles of a boy. i am now trying the experiment, whether a woman can retain a secret; let me not be deceived. if you have the least doubt of my integrity, or that you run too great a risk, do not hesitate in your refusal. adieu. i expect an answer with impatience, believe me, whether you accede or not, [signature cut out.] p.s.--i apologize for the numerous errors probably enveloped in this cover; the temper of my mind at present, and the hurry i have written in, must plead for pardon. adieu. .--to the hon. augusta byron. [castle howard, near malton, yorkshire.] , piccadilly, [tuesday], january th, . [in another hand]-- . my dearest augusta,--your efforts to reanimate my sinking spirits will, i am afraid, fail in their effect, for my melancholy proceeds from a very different cause to that which you assign, as, my nerves were always of the strongest texture.--i will not however pretend to say i possess that _gaieté de coeur_ which formerly distinguished me, but as the diminution of it arises from what you could not alleviate, and might possibly be painful, you will excuse the disclosure. suffice it to know, that it cannot spring from indisposition, as my health was never more firmly established than now, nor from the subject on which i lately wrote, as that is in a promising train, and even were it otherwise, the failure would not lead to despair. you know me too well to think it is _love_; & i have had no quarrel or dissention with friend or enemy, you may therefore be easy, since no unpleasant consequence will be produced from the present sombre cast of my temper. i fear the business will not be concluded before your arrival in town, when we will settle it together, as by the th these _sordid bloodsuckers_ who have agreed to furnish the sum, will have drawn up the bond. believe me, my dearest sister, it never entered in to my head, that you either could or would propose to antic[ipate] my application to others, by a p[resent from?] yourself; i and i only will be [injured] by my own extravagance, nor would i have wished you to take the least concern, had any other means been open for extrication. as it is, i hope you will excuse my impertinence, or if you feel an inclination to retreat, do not let affection for me counterbalance prudence. [signature cut out.] [footnote : words in square brackets accidentally torn off the edge of the paper, and conjecturally supplied.] .--to his mother. , piccadilly, febry. , . dear mother,--notwithstanding your sage and economical advice i have paid my _harrow_ debts, as i can better afford to wait for the money than the poor devils who were my creditors. i have also discharged my college bills amounting to £ ,--£ of which i shall trouble hanson to repay, being for furniture, and as my allowance is £ per annum, i do not chuse to lose the overplus as it makes only £ per quarter. i happen to have a few hundreds in ready cash by me, [ ] so i have paid the accounts; but i find it inconvenient to remain at college, not for the expence, as i could live on my allowance (only i am naturally extravagant); however the mode of going on does not suit my constitution. improvement at an english university to a man of rank is, you know, impossible, and the very idea _ridiculous_. now i sincerely desire to finish my education and, having been sometime at cambridge, the credit of the university is as much attached to my name, as if i had pursued my studies _there_ for a century; but, believe me, it is nothing more than a name, which is already acquired. i can now leave it with honour, as i have paid everything, & wish to pass a couple of years abroad, where i am certain of employing my time to far more advantage and at much less expence, than at our english seminaries. 'tis true i cannot enter france; but germany and the courts of berlin, vienna & petersburg are still open, i shall lay the plan before hanson & lord c. i presume you will all agree, and if you do not, i will, if possible, get away without your consent, though i should admire it more in the regular manner & with a tutor of your furnishing. this is my project, at present i wish _you_ to be silent to hanson about it. let me have your answer. i intend remaining in town a month longer, when perhaps i shall bring my horses and myself down to your residence in that _execrable_ kennel. i hope you have engaged a man servant, else it will be impossible for me to visit you, since my servant must attend chiefly to his horses; at the same time you must cut an indifferent figure with only maids in your habitation. i remain, your's, byron. [footnote : "the bills," writes mrs. byron to hanson (january , ), "are coming in thick upon me to double the amount i expected; he went and ordered just what he pleased here, at nottingham, and in london. however, it is of no use to say anything about it, and i beg you will take no notice. i am determined to have everything clear within the year, if possible." again she writes (march , ): "i beg you will not mention to my son, having heard from me, but try to get out of him his reason for wishing to leave england, and where he got the money. i much fear he has fallen into bad hands, not only in regard to money matters, but in other respects. my idea is that he has inveigled himself with some woman that he wishes to get rid of and finds it difficult. but whatever it is, he must be got out of it." again (march , ): "that boy will be the death of me, and drive me mad! i never will consent to his going abroad. where can he get hundreds? has he got into the hands of moneylenders? he has no feeling, no heart. this i have long known; he has behaved as ill as possible to me for years back. this bitter truth i can no longer conceal: it is wrung from me by _heart-rending agony_. i am well rewarded. i came to nottinghamshire to please him, and now he hates it. he knows that i am doing everything in my power to pay his debts, and he writes to me about hiring servants!" once more (april , ): "lord byron has given £ s. to pitt's statue. he has also bought a carriage, which he says was intended for me, which i _refused_ to accept of, being in hopes it would stop his having one."] .--to john hanson. , piccadilly, march , . sir,--i called at your house in chancery lane yesterday evening, as i expected you would have been in town, but was disappointed. if convenient, i should be glad to see you on wednesday morning about one o'clock, as i wish for your advice on some business. on saturday one of my horses threw me; i was stunned for a short time, but soon recovered and suffered no material _injury_; the accident happened on the harrow road. i have paid jones's bill amounting to £ . . of which i expect to be reimbursed £ for furniture. i have got his bankers' receipt and the account ready for your inspection. i now owe nothing at cambridge; but shall not return this term, [ ] as i have been extremely _unwell_, and at the same time can stay where i am at much less expence and _equal improvement_. i wish to consult you on several subjects and expect you will pay me a visit on wednesday; in the mean time, i remain, yours, etc., byron. [footnote : lectures began on february , , as is stated on the college bills, sent in by mr. jones, the senior tutor of trinity. but byron preferred to remain in london. augusta byron writes to hanson (march , )---- "i trouble you again in consequence of some conversation i had last night with lord carlisle about my brother. he expressed himself to me as kindly on that subject as on all others, and though he says it may not be productive of any good, and that he may be only _able to join his lamentations_ with yours, he should like to talk to you and try if anything can be done. i was much surprized and vexed to see my brother a week ago at the play, as i think he ought to be employing his time more profitably at cambridge."] .--to john hanson. , piccadilly, near park lane, th march, . sir,--as in all probability you will not make your appearance tomorrow i must disclose by letter the business i intended to have discussed at our interview.--we know each other sufficiently to render apology unnecessary. i shall therefore without further prelude proceed to the subject in question. you are not ignorant, that i have lately lived at considerable expence, to support which my allotted income by the 'sapient' court of chancery is inadequate.--i confess i have borrowed a trifling sum and now wish to raise £ to discharge some debts i have contracted; my approaching quarter will bring me £ due from my allowance, and if you can procure me the other £ at a moderate interest, it will save per cent i must pay my _israelite_ for the same purpose.--you see by this i have an _excellent_ idea of oeconomy even in my extravagance by being willing to pay as little money as possible, for the cash must be disbursed _somewhere_ or _somehow_, and if you decline (as in prudence i tell you fairly you ought), the _tribe_ of _levi_ will be my _dernier resort_. however i thought proper to make this experiment with very slender hopes of success indeed, since recourse to the _law_ is at best a _desperate_ effort. i have now laid open my affairs to you without disguise and stated the facts as they appear, declining all comments, or the use of any sophistry to palliate my application, or urge my request. all i desire is a speedy answer, whether successful or not. believe me, yours truly, byron. .--to john hanson. , piccadilly, th march, . sir,--your last letter, as i expected, contained much advice, but no money. i could have excused the former unaccompanied by the latter, since any one thinks himself capable of giving that, but very few chuse to own themselves competent to the other. i do not now write to urge a nd request, one denial is sufficient. i only require what is my right. this is lady day. £ is due for my last quarter, and £ for my expenditure in furniture at cambridge and i will thank you to remit. the court of chancery may perhaps put in force your threat. i have always understood it formed a sanction for legal plunderers to protract the decision of justice from year to year, till weary of spoil it at length condescended to give sentence, but i never yet understood even its unhallowed hands preyed upon the orphan it was bound to protect. be it so, only let me have your answer. i remain, etc., etc., byron. .--to henry angelo. [ ] trinity college, cambridge, may , . sir,--you cannot be more indignant, at the insolent and unmerited conduct of mr. mortlock, [ ] than those who authorised you to request his permission. however we do not yet despair of gaining our point, and every effort shall be made to remove the obstacles, which at present prevent the execution of our project. i yesterday waited on the master of this college, [ ] who, having a personal dispute with the mayor, declined interfering, but recommended an application to the vice chancellor, whose authority is paramount in the university. i shall communicate this to lord altamount,[ ] and we will endeavour to bend the obstinacy of the _upstart_ magistrate, who seems to be equally deficient in justice and common civility. on my arrival in town, which will take place in a few days, you will see me at albany buildings, when we will discuss the subject further. present my remembrance to the messrs. angelo, junior, and believe me, we will yet _humble_ this _impertinent bourgeois_. i remain, sir, your obedient servant, byron. [footnote : henry angelo, the famous fencing-master, was at the head of his profession for nearly forty years. his position was recognized at least as early as , when he published _the school of fencing_, and fenced, with the chevalier de st. george and other celebrities, before the prince of wales at carlton house. in he was travelling down every other week to cambridge, as he states in his _pic nic_ ( ), to visit his pupils. he had made byron's acquaintance at harrow by teaching him to fence, and in later years had many bouts with him with the foils, single-sticks, and highland broadsword. his _reminiscences_ ( ), together with his _pic nic_, contain numerous anecdotes of byron, to whom he seems to have been sincerely attached. in he had several rooms in london for the use of his pupils. one of these was at , bond street, which he shared with gentleman jackson, the pugilist and ex-champion. in cruikshank's picture of the room (pierce egan's _life in london_, p. ), two fencers have unmasked and stopped their bout to see jackson spar with corinthian tom. angelo contributed an article on fencing to sir john sinclair's _code of health and longevity_, vol. ii. p. . angelo, who retired from london in , and lived near bath, was in at the height of his reputation. an old etonian ( ), he knew every one in london; had dined at the same table with the prince of wales, acted with lord barrymore, sung comic songs with dibdin, punned with bannister and colman, fished at benham on the invitation of the margravine of anspach, played the flute to lady melfort's accompaniment on the piano, and claimed his share of the table-talk at the keep line club. nearly every celebrity of the day, from lord sidmouth and lord liverpool to kean and macready, was his pupil.] [footnote : mr. mortlock, the mayor of cambridge, is thus mentioned in a letter from s. t. coleridge to southey, dated september , : "all last night i was obliged to listen to the damned chatter of "mortlock, our mayor, a fellow that would certainly be a pantisocrat "were his head and heart as highly illuminated as his face. in the tropical latitude of this fellow's nose was i obliged to fry" (_letters of s. t. coleridge_ ( ), vol. i. p. ).] [footnote : william lort mansel, master of trinity, and bishop of bristol. (see page [letter ], [foot]note .)] [footnote : howe peter browne, lord altamont ( - ), of jesus college, succeeded his father in as second marquis of sligo. byron spent some time with him at athens in . lord sligo's letter on the origin of the 'giaour' is quoted by moore ('life', p. ). (see also page [letter ], [foot]note [ ].)] .--to john m. b. pigot. [ ] , piccadilly, august , . my dear pigot,--many thanks for your amusing narrative of the last proceedings of my amiable alecto, who now begins to feel the effects of her folly. i have just received a penitential epistle, to which, apprehensive of pursuit, i have despatched a moderate answer, with a _kind_ of promise to return in a fortnight;--this, however (_entre nous_), i never mean to fulfil. her soft warblings must have delighted her auditors, her higher notes being particularly musical, and on a calm moonlight evening would be heard to great advantage. had i been present as a spectator, nothing would have pleased me more; but to have come forward as one of the _dramatis personae_--st. dominic defend me from such a scene! seriously, your mother has laid me under great obligations, and you, with the rest of your family, merit my warmest thanks for your kind connivance at my escape from "mrs. byron _furiosa_." oh! for the pen of ariosto to rehearse, in epic, the scolding of that momentous eve,--or rather, let me invoke the shade of dante to inspire me, for none but the author of the inferno could properly preside over such an attempt. but, perhaps, where the pen might fail, the pencil would succeed. what a group!--mrs. b. the principal figure; you cramming your ears with cotton, as the only antidote to total deafness; mrs.----in vain endeavouring to mitigate the wrath of the lioness robbed of her whelp; and last, though not least, elizabeth and _wousky_,--wonderful to relate!--both deprived of their parts of speech, and bringing up the rear in mute astonishment. how did s. b. receive the intelligence? how many _puns_ did he utter on so _facetious_ an event? in your next inform me on this point, and what excuse you made to a. you are probably, by this time, tired of deciphering this hieroglyphical letter;--like tony lumpkin, you will pronounce mine to be "a damned up and down hand." all southwell, without doubt, is involved in amazement. _apropos_, how does my blue-eyed nun, the fair----? is she "_robed in sable garb of woe?_" here i remain at least a week or ten days; previous to my departure you shall receive my address, but what it will be i have not determined. my lodgings must be kept secret from mrs. b. you may present my compliments to her, and say any attempt to pursue me will fail, as i have taken measures to retreat immediately to portsmouth, on the first intimation of her removal from southwell. you may add, i have proceeded to a friend's house in the country, there to remain a fortnight. i have now _blotted_ (i must not say written) a complete double letter, and in return shall expect a _monstrous budget_. without doubt, the dames of southwell reprobate the pernicious example i have shown, and tremble lest their _babes_ should disobey their mandates, and quit, in dudgeon, their mammas on any grievance. adieu. when you begin your next, drop the "lordship," and put "byron" in its place. believe me yours, etc., byron. [footnote : j. m. b. pigot, eldest brother of miss e. b. pigot (see letter of august , , page , note ). to him byron addressed his "reply" ('poems', vol. i. pp. - ) and verses "to the sighing strephon" ('ibid'., pp. - ). in - pigot was studying medicine at edinburgh, and in his vacations saw much of byron. he died at ruddington, notts., november , , aged . it would appear that byron had, with the connivance of the pigots, escaped to london, after a quarrel with his mother; but the caution to keep his lodgings secret gives a theatrical air to the letter, as the rooms, kept by mrs. massingberd, were originally taken by mrs. byron, and often occupied by her, and she was at the time corresponding with hanson about her son's debt to mrs. massingberd, who seems to have been both landlady and money-lender to byron.] .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. london, august , . my dear bridget,--as i have already troubled your brother with more than he will find pleasure in deciphering, you are the next to whom i shall assign the employment of perusing this second epistle. you will perceive from my first, that no idea of mrs. b.'s arrival had disturbed me at the time it was written; _not_ so the present, since the appearance of a note from the _illustrious cause_ of my _sudden decampment_ has driven the "natural ruby from my cheeks," and completely blanched my woebegone countenance. this gunpowder intimation of her arrival (confound her activity!) breathes less of terror and dismay than you will probably imagine, from the volcanic temperament of her ladyship; and concludes with the comfortable assurance of _present motion_ being prevented by the fatigue of her journey, for which my _blessings_ are due to the rough roads and restive quadrupeds of his majesty's highways. as i have not the smallest inclination to be chased round the country, i shall e'en make a merit of necessity; and since, like macbeth, "they've tied me to the stake, i cannot fly," i shall imitate that valorous tyrant, and bear-like fight the "course," all escape being precluded. i can now engage with less disadvantage, having drawn the enemy from her intrenchments, though, like the _prototype_ to whom i have compared myself, with an excellent chance of being knocked on the head. however, "lay on macduff", and "damned be he who first cries, hold, enough." i shall remain in town for, at least, a week, and expect to hear from _you_ before its expiration. i presume the printer has brought you the offspring of my _poetic mania_. [ ] remember in the first line to read "_loud_ the winds whistle," instead of "round," which that blockhead ridge had inserted by mistake, and makes nonsense of the whole stanza. addio!--now to encounter my _hydra_. yours ever. [footnote : byron's first volume of verse was now in the press. the line to which he alludes is the first line of the poem, "on leaving newstead abbey" ('poems', vol. i. pp. - ). it now runs-- "through thy battlements, newstead, the hollow winds whistle." (for the bibliography of his early poems, see 'poems', vol. i., bibliographical note; and vol. vi., appendix.) the first collection ('fugitive pieces', printed by s. and j. ridge, newark, to, ) was destroyed, with the exception of two copies, by the advice of the rev. j. t. becher (see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]). the second collection ('poems on various occasions', printed by s. and j. ridge, newark, mo, ) was published anonymously. it is to this edition that letters , , , , , , , refer. in the summer of , 'poems on various occasions' was superseded by the third collection, called 'hours of idleness' (printed by s. and j. ridge, newark, mo, ), published with the author's name. to this edition letters and refer. 'hours of idleness' was reviewed by lord brougham ('notes from a diary', by sir m. e. grant duff, vol. ii. p. ) in the 'edinburgh review' for january, . the fourth and final collection, entitled 'poems original and translated' (printed by s. and j. ridge, newark, mo, ), was dedicated to the earl of carlisle. .--to john m. b. pigot. london, sunday, midnight, august , . dear pigot,--this _astonishing_ packet will, doubtless, amaze you; but having an idle hour this evening, i wrote the enclosed stanzas, [ ] which i request you will deliver to ridge, to be printed _separate_ from my other compositions, as you will perceive them to be improper for the perusal of ladies; of course, none of the females of your family must see them. i offer apologies for the trouble i have given you in this and other instances. yours truly. [footnote : these are probably some silly lines "to mary," written in the erotic style of moore's early verse. to the same mary, of whom nothing is known, are addressed the lines "to mary, on receiving her picture" ('poems', vol. i. pp. , ).] .--to john m. b. pigot. piccadilly, august , . i cannot exactly say with caesar, "veni, vidi, vici:" however, the most important part of his laconic account of success applies to my present situation; for, though mrs. byron took the _trouble_ of "_coming_," and "_seeing_," yet your humble servant proved the _victor_. after an obstinate engagement of some hours, in which we suffered considerable damage, from the quickness of the enemy's fire, they at length retired in confusion, leaving behind the artillery, field equipage, and some prisoners: their defeat is decisive for the present campaign. to speak more intelligibly, mrs. b. returns immediately, but i proceed, with all my laurels, to worthing, on the sussex coast; to which place you will address (to be left at the post office) your next epistle. by the enclosure of a second _gingle of rhyme_, you will probably conceive my muse to be _vastly prolific_; her inserted production was brought forth a few years ago, and found by accident on thursday among some old papers. i have recopied it, and, adding the proper date, request that it may be printed with the rest of the family. i thought your sentiments on the last bantling would coincide with mine, but it was impossible to give it any other garb, being founded on _facts_. my stay at worthing will not exceed three weeks, and you may _possibly_ behold me again at southwell the middle of september. will you desire ridge to suspend the printing of my poems till he hears further from me, as i have determined to give them a new form entirely? this prohibition does not extend to the two last pieces i have sent with my letters to you. you will excuse the _dull vanity_ of this epistle, as my brain is a _chaos_ of absurd images, and full of business, preparations, and projects. i shall expect an answer with impatience;--believe me, there is nothing at this moment could give me greater delight than your letter. .--to john m. b. pigot. london, august , . i am just on the point of setting off for worthing, and write merely to request you will send that _idle scoundrel charles_ with my horses immediately; tell him i am excessively provoked he has not made his appearance before, or written to inform me of the cause of his delay, particularly as i supplied him with money for his journey. on _no_ pretext is he to postpone his _march_ one day longer; and if, in obedience to the caprices of mrs. b. (who, i presume, is again spreading desolation through her little monarchy), he thinks proper to disregard my positive orders, i shall not, in future, consider him as my servant. he must bring the surgeon's bill with him, which i will discharge immediately on receiving it. nor can i conceive the reason of his not acquainting frank with the state of my unfortunate quadrupeds. dear pigot, forgive this _petulant_ effusion, and attribute it to the idle conduct of that _precious_ rascal, who, instead of obeying my injunctions, is sauntering through the streets of that _political pandemonium_, nottingham. present my remembrance to your family and the leacrofts, and believe me, etc. p.s.--i delegate to _you_ the unpleasant task of despatching him on his journey--mrs. b.'s orders to the contrary are not to be attended to: he is to proceed first to london, and then to worthing, without delay. every thing i have _left_ must be sent to london. my _poetics you_ will _pack up_ for the same place, and not even reserve a copy for yourself and sister, as i am about to give them an _entire new form_: when they are complete, you shall have the _first fruits_. mrs. b. on no account is to _see_ or touch them. adieu. .--to john m. b. pigot. little hampton, august , . i this morning received your epistle, which i was obliged to send for to worthing, whence i have removed to this place, on the same coast, about eight miles distant from the former. you will probably not be displeased with this letter, when it informs you that i am £ , richer than i was at our parting, having just received intelligence from my lawyer that a cause has been gained at lancaster assizes, [ ] which will be worth that sum by the time i come of age. mrs. b. is, doubtless, acquainted of this acquisition, though not apprised of its exact _value_, of which she had better be ignorant; for her behaviour under any sudden piece of favourable intelligence, is, if possible, more ridiculous than her detestable conduct on the most trifling circumstances of an unpleasant nature. you may give my compliments to her, and say that her detaining my servant's things shall only lengthen my absence: for unless they are immediately despatched to , piccadilly, together with those which have been so long delayed, belonging to myself, she shall never again behold my _radiant countenance_ illuminating her gloomy mansion. if they are sent, i may probably appear in less than two years from the date of my present epistle. metrical compliment is an ample reward for my strains: you are one of the few votaries of apollo who unite the sciences over which that deity presides. i wish you to send my poems to my lodgings in london immediately, as i have several alterations and some additions to make; _every_ copy must be sent, as i am about to _amend_ them, and you shall soon behold them in all their glory. i hope you have kept them from that upas tree, that antidote to the arts, mrs. b. _entre nous_, --you may expect to see me soon. adieu. yours ever. [footnote : byron was disappointed in his expectations. fresh legal difficulties arose, and newstead had to be sold before they were settled (see page [letter ], [foot]note ).] .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. [ ] my dear bridget,--i have only just dismounted from my _pegasus_, which has prevented me from descending to _plain prose_ in an epistle of greater length to your _fair_ self. you regretted, in a former letter, that my poems were not more extensive; i now for your satisfaction announce that i have nearly doubled them, partly by the discovery of some i conceived to be lost, and partly by some new productions. we shall meet on wednesday next; till then, believe me, yours affectionately, byron. p.s.--your brother john is seized with a poetic mania, and is now rhyming away at the rate of three lines _per hour_--so much for _inspiration_! adieu! [footnote : this letter was written about september, , from harrogate, where byron had gone with john pigot. it forms the conclusion of a longer letter, written by pigot to his sister, from which moore quotes ('life', p. ) the following passage:-- "harrowgate is still extremely full; wednesday (to-day) is our ball-night, and i meditate going into the room for an hour, although i am by no means fond of strange faces. lord b., you know, is even more shy than myself; but for an hour this evening i will shake it off.... how do our theatricals proceed? lord byron can say 'all' his part, and i 'most' of mine. he certainly acts it inimitably. lord b. is now 'poetising', and, since he has been here, has written some very pretty verses ['to a beautiful quaker,' see 'poems', vol. i. pp. - ]. he is very good in trying to amuse me as much as possible, but it is not in my nature to be happy without either female society or study.... there are many pleasant rides about here, which i have taken in company with bo'swain, who, with brighton, is universally admired. 'you' must read this to mrs. b., as it is a little 'tony lumpkinish'. lord b. desires some space left: therefore, with respect to all the comedians 'elect', believe me," etc., etc. (for the theatricals to which mr. pigot alludes, see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ].) brighton, it may be added, was one of byron's horses; the other was called sultan. bo'swain was the dog to which byron addressed the well-known epitaph (see 'poems', vol. i. pp. , , and note ). moore also quotes pigot's recollections of the visit to harrogate ('life', pp. , ). "we, i remember, went in lord byron's own carriage, with post-horses; and he sent his groom with two saddle-horses, and a beautifully formed, very ferocious, bull-mastiff, called nelson, to meet us there. boatswain went by the side of his valet frank on the box, with us. "the bull-dog, nelson, always wore a muzzle, and was occasionally sent for into our private room, when the muzzle was taken off, much to my annoyance, and he and his master amused themselves with throwing the room into disorder. there was always a jealous feud between this nelson and boatswain; and whenever he latter came into the room while the former was there, they instantly seized each other; and then, byron, myself, frank, and all the waiters that could be found, were vigorously engaged in parting them,--which was in general only effected by thrusting poker and tongs into the mouths of each. but, one day, nelson unfortunately escaped out of the room without his muzzle, and going into the stable-yard fastened upon the throat of a horse from which he could not be disengaged. the stable-boys ran in alarm to find frank, who taking one of his lord's wogdon's pistols, always kept loaded in his room, shot poor nelson through the head, to the great regret of byron. "we were at the crown inn, at low harrowgate. we always dined in the public room, but retired very soon after dinner to our private one; for byron was no more a friend to drinking than myself. we lived retired, and made few acquaintance; for he was naturally shy, 'very' shy; which people who did not know him mistook for pride. while at harrowgate he accidentally met with professor hailstone from cambridge, and appeared much delighted to see him. the professor was at upper harrowgate: we called upon him one evening to take him to the theatre, i think,--and lord byron sent his carriage for him, another time, to a ball at the granby. this desire to show attention to one of the professors of his college is a proof that, though he might choose to satirise the mode of education in the university, and to abuse the antiquated regulations and restrictions to which undergraduates are subjected, he had yet a due discrimination in his respect for the individuals who belonged to it. i have always, indeed, heard him speak in high terms of praise of hailstone, as well as of his master, bishop mansel, of trinity college, and of others whose names i have now forgotten. "few people understood byron; but i know that he had naturally a kind and feeling heart, and that there was not a single spark of malice in his composition." professor hailstone was woodwardian professor of geology ( - ). (for bishop mansel, see page , note .)] .--to john hanson. [ ] southwell, dec. th, . sir,--a letter to mrs. byron has just arrived which states, from what "you have _heard_ of the tenor of my letters," you will not put up with insult. i presume this means (for i will not be positive on what is rather ambiguously expressed) that some offence to you has been conveyed in the above mentioned epistles. if you will peruse the papers in question, you will discover that the _person_ insulted is not _yourself_, or any one of your "_connections_." on mr. b.'s apology, i have expressed my opinion in a letter to your son, if any misrepresentation has taken place, it must be those "connections" to whom i am to pay such deference, & whose conduct to me has deserved such _ample respect_. i must now beg leave to observe in turn, that i am by no means disposed to bear insult, &, be the consequences what they may, i will always declare, in plain and explicit terms, my grievance, nor will i overlook the slightest mark of disrespect, & silently brood over affronts from a mean and interested dread of injury to my person or property. the former i have strength and resolution to protect; the latter is too trifling by its loss to occasion a moments uneasiness. though not conversant with the methodical & dilatory arrangements of law or business, i know enough of justice to direct my conduct by the principles of equity, nor can i reconcile the "insolence of office" to her regulations or forget in an instant a poignant affront. but enough of this dispute. you will perceive my sentiments on the subject, in my correspondence with mr. b. and mr. h. junior. in future to prevent a repetition and altercation i shall advise; but as, even then, some demur may take place, i wish to be informed, if the equitable court of chancery, whose paternal care of their ward can never be sufficiently commended, have determined, in the great flow of parental affection, to withhold their beneficent support, till i return to "alma mater" (i.e.) cambridge. your information on this point will oblige, as a college life is neither conducive to my improvement, nor suitable to my inclination. as to the reverse of the rochdale trial, i received the news of success without confidence or exultation; i now sustain the loss without repining. my expectations from _law_ were never very sanguine. i remain, yr very obedt. sert., byron. [footnote : hanson's partner, birch, the "mr. b." of the letter, seems to have irritated byron by withholding the income allotted to him by the court of chancery for his education at cambridge. the attempt to compel his return to trinity by cutting off the supplies, failed. he did not appear again at cambridge till the summer term of .] .--to j. ridge. dorant's hotel, albemarle street, jany. , . mr. ridge,--i understand from some of my friends, that several of the papers are in the habit of publishing extracts from my volume, particularly the _morning herald_. i cannot say for my own part i have observed this, but i am assured it is so. the thing is of no consequence to me, except that i dislike it. but it is to you, and as publisher you should put a stop to it. the _morning herald_ is the paper; of course you cannot address any other, as i am sure i have seen nothing of the kind in mine. you will act upon this as you think proper, and proceed with the d. edition as you please. i am in no hurry, and i still think you were _premature_ in undertaking it. etc., etc., byron. p.s.--present a copy of the _antijacobin_ therein to mrs. byron. .--to john m. b. pigot. southwell, jan. , . i ought to begin with _sundry_ apologies, for my own negligence, but the variety of my avocations in _prose_ and _verse_ must plead my excuse. with this epistle you will receive a volume of all my _juvenilia_, published since your departure: it is of considerably greater size than the _copy_ in your possession, which i beg you will destroy, as the present is much more complete. that _unlucky_ poem to my poor mary [ ] has been the cause of some animadversion from _ladies in years_. i have not printed it in this collection, in consequence of my being pronounced a most _profligate sinner_, in short, a "_young moore_," [ ] by------, your----friend. i believe, in general, they have been favourably received, and surely the age of their author will preclude _severe_ criticism. the adventures of my life from sixteen to nineteen, and the dissipation into which i have been thrown in london, have given a voluptuous tint to my ideas; but the occasions which called forth my muse could hardly admit any other colouring. this volume is _vastly_ correct and miraculously chaste. apropos, talking of love, ... ... if you can find leisure to answer this farrago of unconnected nonsense, you need not doubt what gratification will accrue from your reply to yours ever, etc. [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ].] [footnote : thomas moore ( - ) had already published 'anacreon' ( ), 'the poetical works of the late thomas little' ( ), and 'odes, epistles, and other poems' ( ). in all, especially in the second, the poetry was of an erotic character. "so heartily," said rogers ('table-talk, etc.', pp. , ), "has moore repented of having published 'little's poems', that i have seen him shed tears--tears of deep contrition--when we were talking of them. young ladies read his 'lalla rookh' without being aware (i presume) of the grossness of 'the veiled prophet'. these lines by mr. sneyd are amusing enough-- "''lalla rookh' is a naughty book by tommy moore, who has written four, each warmer than the former. so the most recent is the least decent.'"] .--to captain john leacroft. [ ] january , . sir,--upon serious reflection on the conversation we last night held, i am concerned to say, that the only effectual method to crash the animadversions of officious malevolence, is by my declining all future intercourse with those whom my acquaintance has unintentionally injured. at the same time i must observe that i do not form this resolution from any resentment at your representation, which was temperate and gentlemanly, but from a thorough conviction that the desirable end can be attained by no other line of conduct. i beg leave to return my thanks to mr. & mrs. leacroft, for the attention and hospitality i have always experienced, of which i shall ever retain a grateful remembrance. so much to them; with your permission, i must add a few words for myself. you will be sensible, that a coolness between families, hitherto remarkable for their intimacy, cannot remain unobserved in a town, whose inhabitants are notorious for officious curiosity; that the causes for our separation will be mis-represented i have little doubt; if, therefore, i discover that such misrepresentation does take place, i shall call upon you, to unite with myself in making a serious example of those _men_, be they _who_ they may, that dare to cast an aspersion on the character i am sacrificing my own comfort to protect. if, on the other hand, they imagine, that my conduct is the consequence of intimidation, from my conference with you, i must require a further explanation of what passed between us on the subject, as, however careful i am of your sister's honour, i am equally tenacious of my own. i do not wish this to be misconstrued into any desire to quarrel; it is what i shall endeavour to avoid; but, as a young man very lately entered into the world, i feel compelled to state, that i can permit no suspicion to be attached to my name with impunity. i have the honour to remain, your very obedient servant, byron. [footnote : this and the two following letters refer to a quarrel between byron and the leacroft family, which arose from his attentions to miss julia leacroft. moore's statement, that captain leacroft, the lady's brother (see page [letter ], [foot]note ), sent a challenge to byron, who was at first inclined to accept it, is inaccurate. but it is possible that byron was acting on the advice of the rev. j. t. becher, when he decided, in order to prevent misunderstanding, to break off his acquaintance with the leacrofts absolutely.] .--to captain john leacroft. february th, . sir,--i have just received your note, which conveys all that can be said on the subject. i can easily conceive your feelings must have been irritated in the course of the affair. i am sorry that i have been the unintentional cause of so disagreeable a business. the line of conduct, however painful to myself, which i have adopted, is the only effectual method to prevent the remarks of a _meddling world_. i therefore again take my leave for the last time. i repeat, that, though the intercourse, from which i have derived so many hours of happiness, is for ever interrupted, the remembrance can never be effaced from the bosom of your very obedient servant, byron. .--to captain john leacroft. february th, . sir,--i am concerned to be obliged again to trouble you, as i had hoped that our conversations had terminated amicably. your good father, it seems, has desired otherwise; he has just sent a most _agreeable_ epistle, in which i am honoured with the appellations of _unfeeling_ and ungrateful. but as the consequences of all this must ultimately fall on you and myself, i merely write this to apprise you that the dispute is not of my seeking, and that, if we must cut each other's throats to please our relations, you will do me the justice to say it is from no _personal_ animosity between us, or from any insult on my part, that such _disagreeable_ events (for i am not so much enamoured of quarrels as to call them _pleasant_) have arisen. i remain, your's, etc., byron. .-to the earl of clare. [ ] southwell, notts, february , . my dearest clare,--were i to make all the apologies necessary to atone for my late negligence, you would justly say you had received a petition instead of a letter, as it would be filled with prayers for forgiveness; but instead of this, i will acknowledge my _sins_ at once, and i trust to your friendship and generosity rather than to my own excuses. though my health is not perfectly re-established, i am out of all danger, and have recovered every thing but my spirits, which are subject to depression. you will be astonished to hear i have lately written to delawarr, [ ] for the purpose of explaining (as far as possible without involving some _old friends_ of mine in the business) the cause of my behaviour to him during my last residence at harrow (nearly two years ago), which you will recollect was rather "_en cavalier_." since that period, i have discovered he was treated with injustice both by those who misrepresented his conduct, and by me in consequence of their suggestions. i have therefore made all the reparation in my power, by apologizing for my mistake, though with very faint hopes of success; indeed i never expected any answer, but desired one for form's sake; _that_ has not yet arrived, and most probably never will. however, i have _eased_ my own _conscience_ by the atonement, which is humiliating enough to one of my disposition; yet i could not have slept satisfied with the reflection of having, _even unintentionally_, injured any individual. i have done all that could be done to repair the injury, and there the affair must end. whether we renew our intimacy or not is of very trivial consequence. my time has lately been much occupied with very different pursuits. i have been _transporting_ a servant, [ ] who cheated me,--rather a disagreeable event;--performing in private theatricals; [ ]--publishing a volume of poems (at the request of my friends, for their perusal);--making love,--and taking physic. the two last amusements have not had the best effect in the world; for my attentions have been divided amongst so many fair damsels, and the drugs i swallow are of such variety in their composition, that between venus and Æsculapius i am harassed to death. however, i have still leisure to devote some hours to the recollections of past, regretted friendships, and in the interval to take the advantage of the moment, to assure you how much i am, and ever will be, my dearest clare, your truly attached and sincere byron. [footnote : john fitzgibbon ( - ), son of the first earl of clare, by his wife anne whaley, succeeded his father as second earl in january, . a schoolfellow of byron's at harrow, he was the "lycus" of "childish recollections," and one of his dearest friends. clare, after leaving harrow, went to a private tutor, the rev. mr. smith, at woodnesborough, near sandwich. there he formed so close a friendship with lord john russell as to provoke byron's jealousy ('life', p. ). clare was at christ church, oxford (b.a. ); byron at trinity, cambridge. they rarely met after leaving harrow. their meeting on the road between imola and bologna in , "annihilated for a moment," says byron (see 'life', p. ; 'detached thoughts', november , ), "all the years between the present time and the days of harrow. we were but five minutes together, and on the public road; but i hardly recollect an hour of my existence which could be weighed against them. of all i have ever known, he has always been the least altered in everything from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me to him so strongly at school. i should hardly have thought it possible for society (or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of the leaven of bad passions. i do not speak from personal experience only, but from all i have ever heard of him from others, during absence and distance." lord clare was governor of bombay from to .] [footnote : see page [letter ], note [footnote ].] [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note .] [footnote : in the theatricals, which took place at southwell in the autumn of , byron was the chief mover. a letter received by mr. pigot, quoted by moore ('life', p. ), shows how eagerly his return from harrogate was expected:-- "tell lord byron that, if any accident should retard his return, his mother desires he will write to her, as she shall be 'miserable' if he does not arrive the day he fixes. mr. w. b. has written a card to mrs. h. to offer for the character of 'henry woodville,'--mr. and mrs.---- not approving of their son's taking a part in the play: but i believe he will persist in it. mr. g. w. says, that sooner than the party should be disappointed, 'he' will take any part,--sing--dance--in short, do any thing to oblige. till lord byron returns, nothing can be done; and positively he must not be later than tuesday or wednesday." a full account of the theatricals is given in a manuscript written by miss bristoe, one of the performers. two plays were represented, ( ) cumberland's 'wheel of fortune' and ( ) allingham's 'weathercock'. the following were the respective casts:-- ( ) 'penruddock', lord byron. 'sir david daw', mr. c. becher. 'woodville', captain lightfoot. 'sydenham', mr. pigot. 'henry woodville', mr. h. houson. 'mrs. woodville', miss bristoe. 'emily tempest', miss j. leacroft 'dame dunckley', miss leacroft. 'weazel', mr. g. wylde. 'jenkins', mr. g. heathcote. ( ) 'tristram fickle', lord byron. 'old fickle', mr. pigot. 'briefwit', captain lightfoot. 'sneer', mr. r. leacroft. 'variella', miss bristoe. 'ready', miss leacroft. 'gardener', mr. c. becher. 'barber', mr. g. wylde. between the two plays, a member of the southwell choir sang "the death of abercrombie." the brave general, attended by two aides-de-camp, all three in the costume of the southwell volunteers, appeared on the stage, and the general, sinking into the outstretched arms of his two friends, warbled out his dying words in a style which convulsed byron with laughter. the play itself nearly came to an untimely conclusion. captain lightfoot screwed his failing courage to the sticking point by several glasses of wine, with the result that, being a very abstemious man, he became tipsy. but "restoratives were administered," and he went through his part with credit. byron, who was the star of the company, repeatedly brought down the house by his acting. (for byron's prologue to 'the wheel of fortune', see 'poems', vol. i. pp. , .) moore's account of the epilogue, written by the rev. j. t. becher, and spoken by byron, is erroneous. only one word gave any opportunity for mimicry. it occurs in the lines-- "tempest becalmed forgets his blust'ring rage, he calls dame dunckley 'sister' off the stage." in pronouncing the word "sister," byron "took off exactly the voice and manner of mr. r. leacroft."] .--to mrs. hanson. southwell, feb. , . dear madam,--having understood from mrs. byron that mr. hanson is in a very indifferent state of health, i have taken the liberty of addressing you on the subject. though the _governor_ & _i_ have lately not been on the _best_ of _terms_, yet i should be extremely sorry to learn he was in danger, and i trust _he_ and _i_ will live to have many more _squabbles_ in _this world_, before we _finally make peace_ in the next. if therefore you can favor me with any _salutary_ intelligence of the _aforesaid_ gentleman, believe me, nothing will be more acceptable to yours very truly, byron. p.s.--remember me to all the family now in _garrison_, particularly my old friend harriet. .--to william bankes. [ ] southwell, march , . dear bankes,--your critique is valuable for many reasons: in the first place, it is the only one in which flattery has borne so slight a part; in the _next_, i am _cloyed_ with insipid compliments. i have a better opinion of your judgment and ability than your _feelings_. accept my most sincere thanks for your kind decision, not less welcome, because totally unexpected. with regard to a more exact estimate, i need not remind you how few of the _best poems_, in our language, will stand the test of _minute_ or _verbal_ criticism: it can, therefore, hardly be expected the effusions of a boy (and most of these pieces have been produced at an early period) can derive much merit either from the subject or composition. many of them were written under great depression of spirits, and during severe indisposition:--hence the gloomy turn of the ideas. we coincide in opinion that the "_poësies érotiques_" are the most exceptionable; they were, however, grateful to the _deities_, on whose altars they were offered--more i seek not. the portrait of pomposus [ ] was drawn at harrow, after a _long sitting_; this accounts for the resemblance, or rather the _caricatura_. he is _your_ friend, he _never was mine_--for both our sakes i shall be silent on this head. the _collegiate_ rhymes [ ] are not personal--one of the notes may appear so, but could not be omitted. i have little doubt they will be deservedly abused--a just punishment for my unfilial treatment of so excellent an alma mater. i sent you no copy, lest _we_ should be placed in the situation of _gil blas_ and the _archbishop_ of grenada; [ ] though running some hazard from the experiment, i wished your _verdict_ to be unbiassed. had my "_libellus_" been presented previous to your letter, it would have appeared a species of bribe to purchase compliment. i feel no hesitation in saying, i was more anxious to hear your critique, however severe, than the praises of the _million_. on the same day i was honoured with the encomiums of _mackenzie_, the celebrated author of the _man of feeling_ [ ] whether _his_ approbation or _yours_ elated me most, i cannot decide. you will receive my _juvenilia_,--at least all yet published. i have a large volume in manuscript, which may in part appear hereafter; at present i have neither time nor inclination to prepare it for the press. in the spring i shall return to trinity, to dismantle my rooms, and bid you a final adieu. the _cam_ will not be much increased by my _tears_ on the occasion. your further remarks, however _caustic_ or bitter, to a palate vitiated with the _sweets of adulation_, will be of service. johnson has shown us _that no poetry_ is perfect; but to correct mine would be an herculean labour. in fact i never looked beyond the moment of composition, and published merely at the request of my friends. notwithstanding so much has been said concerning the "genus irritabile vatum," we shall never quarrel on the subject--poetic fame is by no means the "acme" of my wishes.--adieu. yours ever, byron. [footnote : william john bankes, of kingston lacy, dorsetshire, was byron's friend, possibly at harrow, though his name does not occur in the school lists, certainly at trinity college, cambridge (b.a. ). he represented truro from to , when he left england on his eastern travels. at philæ he discovered an obelisk, the geometrical elevation and inscriptions of which he published in . in mesopotamia he encountered john silk buckingham, whom he afterwards charged with making use of his notes in his 'travels', a statement, found to be libellous, which (october , ) cost bankes £ in damages. he also travelled with giovanni finati, a native of ferrara, who, under the assumed name of mahomet, made the campaigns against the wahabees for the recovery of mecca and medina. finati's italian 'narrative' was translated by bankes, to whom it is dedicated by his "attached and faithful servant hadjee mahomet," and published in . in bankes was elected m.p. for cambridge university, but lost his seat to sir j. copley in . at a bye-election in , he was again unsuccessful. his candidature gave occasion to macaulay's squib, which appeared in the 'times' for may , , 'a country clergyman's trip to cambridge'. "a letter--and free--bring it here: i have no correspondent who franks. no! yes! can it be? why, my dear, 'tis our glorious, our protestant bankes. 'dear sir as i know your desire that the church should receive due protection, i humbly presume to require your aid at the cambridge election,'"etc., etc. bankes subsequently represented marlborough ( - ) and dorsetshire ( - ). he was byron's "collegiate pastor, and master and patron," "ruled the roast" at trinity, "or, rather, the 'roasting', and was father of all mischief" (byron to murray, october , ). "william bankes," byron told lady blessington ('conversations', p. ), "is another of my early friends. he is very clever, very original, and has a fund of information: he is also very good-natured, but he is not much of a flatterer." bankes died at venice in .] [footnote : dr. butler, head-master of harrow. (see page [letter ],[foot]note .)] [footnote : "thoughts suggested by a college examination" ('poems', vol. i. pp. - ); and "granta, a medley" ('poems', vol. i. pp. - ).] [footnote : alluding to 'gil blas', bk. vii. chap, iv., where gil blas ventures to criticize the archbishop's work, and is dismissed for his candour. "adieu, monsieur gil blas; je vous souhaite toutes sortes de prosperités, avec un peu plus de goût."] [footnote : the praise was worth having. henry mackenzie ( - ) was not only the author of the lackadaisical 'man of feeling', but in real life a shrewd, hard-headed man. as a novelist, he wrote 'the man of feeling' ( ), 'the man of honour' ( ), and 'julia de roubigne' ( ). as a playwright, he produced four plays, none of which succeeded. as an essayist, he contributed to the 'mirror' ( - ) and the 'lounger' ( - ). as a political writer, he supported pitt, and was rewarded by the comptrollership of taxes. an original member of the royal society of edinburgh, many of his papers appear in its 'transactions'. in edinburgh society he was "the life of the company," a connecting link on the literary side between david hume, walter scott, and lord cockburn, and in all matters of sport a fund of anecdotes and reminiscences.] .--to william bankes. [ ] for my own part, i have suffered severely in the decease of my two greatest friends, the only beings i ever loved (females excepted); i am therefore a solitary animal, miserable enough, and so perfectly a citizen of the world, that whether i pass my days in great britain or kamschatka, is to me a matter of perfect indifference. i cannot evince greater respect for your alteration than by immediately adopting it--this shall be done in the next edition. i am sorry your remarks are not more frequent, as i am certain they would be equally beneficial. since my last, i have received two critical opinions from edinburgh, both too flattering for me to detail. one is from lord woodhouselee, [ ] at the head of the scotch literati, and a most _voluminous_ writer (his last work is a _life_ of lord kaimes); the other from mackenzie, who sent his decision a second time, more at length. i am not personally acquainted with either of these gentlemen, nor ever requested their sentiments on the subject: their praise is voluntary, and transmitted through the medium of a friend, at whose house they read the productions. contrary to my former intention, i am now preparing a volume for the public at large: my amatory pieces will be exchanged, and others substituted in their place. the whole will be considerably enlarged, and appear the latter end of may. this is a hazardous experiment; but want of better employment, the encouragement i have met with, and my own vanity, induce me to stand the test, though not without _sundry palpitations_. the book will circulate fast enough in this country from mere curiosity; what i prin----... [letter incomplete] [footnote : this fragment refers, like the previous letter, to byron's volume of verse, 'poems on various occasions'.] [footnote : alexander fraser tytler, lord woodhouselee, one of the senators of the college of justice in scotland, and a friend of robert burns. besides the 'memoirs of the life and writings of the hon. henry home of kames' ( ), he published 'elements of general history' ( ), 'essay on the principles of translation', etc. he died in . his 'universal history', in six vols., appeared in .] .--to----falkner. [ ] sir,--the volume of little pieces which accompanies this, would have been presented before, had i not been apprehensive that miss falkner's indisposition might render some trifles unwelcome. there are some errors of the printer which i have not had time to correct in the collection: you have it thus, with "all its imperfections on its head," a heavy weight, when joined with the faults of its author. such _juvenilia_, as they can claim no great degree of approbation, i may venture to hope, will also escape the severity of uncalled for, though perhaps _not_ undeserved, criticism. they were written on many and various occasions, and are now published merely for the perusal of a friendly circle. believe me, sir, if they afford the slightest amusement to yourself and the rest of my _social_ readers, i shall have gathered all the _bays_ i ever wish to adorn the head of yours very truly, byron. p.s.--i hope miss f. is in a state of recovery. [footnote : mrs. byron's landlord at burgage manor.] .--to john hanson. [farleigh house, basingstoke, hants.] southwell, april nd, . dear sir,--before i proceed in reply to the other parts of your epistle, allow me to congratulate you on the _accession_ of _dignity_ and _profit_, which will doubtless accrue, from your official appointment. you was fortunate in obtaining possession at so critical a period; your patrons "exeunt omnes." [ ] i trust they will soon supersede the cyphers, their successors. the reestablishment of your health is another happy event, and, though _secondary_ in my _statement_, is by no means so in my _wishes_. as to our feuds, they are purely _official_, the natural consequence of our relative situations, but as little connected with _personal animosity_, as the _florid declamations_ of _parliamentary_ demagogues. i return you my thanks for your favorable opinion of my muse; i have lately been honoured with many very flattering literary critiques, from men of high reputation in the sciences, particularly lord woodhouselee and henry mackenzie, both _scots_ and of great eminence as authors themselves. i have received also some most favorable testimonies from _cambridge_. this you will _marvel_ at, as indeed i did myself. encouraged by these and several other encomiums, i am about to publish a volume at large; this will be very different from the present; the amatory effusions, not to be wondered at from the _dissipated_ life i have led, will be cut out, and others substituted. i coincide with you in opinion that the _poet_ yields to the _orator_; but as nothing can be done in the latter capacity till the expiration of my _minority_, the former occupies my present attention, and both _ancients_ and _moderns_ have declared that the two pursuits are so nearly similar as to require in a great measure the same talents, and he who excels in the one, would on application succeed in the other. lyttleton, glover, and young (who was a celebrated preacher and a bard) are instances of the kind. _sheridan & fox_ also; _these_ are _great names_. i may imitate, i can never equal them. you speak of the _charms_ of southwell; the _place_ i _abhor_. the fact is i remain here because i can appear no where else, being _completely done_ up. _wine_ and _women_ have _dished_ your _humble servant_, not a _sou_ to be _had_; all _over_; condemned to exist (i cannot say live) at this _crater_ of dullness till my _lease_ of _infancy_ expires. to appear at cambridge is impossible; no money even to pay my college expences. you will be surprized to hear i am grown _very thin_; however it is the _fact_, so much so, that the people here think i am _going_. i have lost lb in my weight, that is one stone & pounds since january, this was ascertained last wednesday, on account of a _bet_ with an acquaintance. however don't be alarmed; i have taken every means to accomplish the end, by violent exercise and fasting, as i found myself too plump. i shall continue my exertions, having no other amusement; i wear _seven_ waistcoats and a great coat, run, and play at cricket in this dress, till quite exhausted by excessive perspiration, use the hip bath daily; eat only a quarter of a pound of butcher's meat in hours, no suppers or breakfast, only one meal a day; drink no malt liquor, but a little wine, and take physic occasionally. by these means my _ribs_ display skin of no great thickness, & my clothes have been taken in nearly _half a yard_. do you believe me now? adieu. remembrance to spouse and the acorns. yours ever, byron. [footnote : in march, , george iii demanded from the coalition ministry a written pledge that they would propose no further concessions to the roman catholics. they refused to give it, and the tories, with the duke of portland as their nominal head, were recalled to the government.] .--to john m. b. pigot. southwell, april, . my dear pigot,--allow me to congratulate you on the success of your first examination--"_courage_, mon ami." the title of doctor will do wonders with the damsels. i shall most probably be in essex or london when you arrive at this damned place, where i am detained by the publication of my _rhymes_. adieu.--believe me, yours very truly, byron. p.s.--since we met, i have reduced myself by violent exercise, _much_ physic, and _hot_ bathing, from stone lb. to stone lb. in all i have lost pounds. [ ] bravo!--what say you? [footnote : the following extract is taken from a ledger in the possession of messrs. merry, of st. james's street, s.w.:-- " --january . lord byron (boots, no hat) stone lbs --july . lord byron (shoes) stone lbs --july . lord byron (shoes) stone lbs --august . lord byron (shoes) stone - / lbs --may . lord byron (shoes) stone lbs --june . lord byron (shoes) stone - / lbs --july . lord byron (shoes) stone - / lbs"] .--to john hanson. [ , chancery lane, temple bar, london.] southwell, april, . sir,--my last was an epistle "_entre nous_;" _this_ is a _letter_ of _business_, of course the _formalities_ of _official communication_ must be attended to. from lying under pecuniary difficulties, i shall draw for the quarter due the th june, in a short time. you will recollect i was to receive £ for the expence of furniture, etc., at cambridge. i placed in your possession accounts to amount and then i have received £ , for which i believe you have my receipt. this extra £ or £ (though the bills are long ago discharged from my own purse) i should not have troubled you for, had not my present situation rendered even that trifle of some consequence. i have therefore to request that my draft for £ , instead of £ the simple quarter, may be honoured, but think it necessary to apprize you previous to its appearance, and indeed to request an early answer, as i had one draft returned by mistake from your _house_, some months past. i have no inclination to be placed in a similar dilemma. i lent mrs. b. _£ _ last year; of this i have never received a sou and in all probability never shall. i do not mention the circumstance as any reproach on that worthy and lamblike dame, [ ] but merely to show you how affairs stand. 'tis true myself and two servants lodge in the house, but my horses, etc., and their expences are defrayed by your humble sert. i quit cambridge in july, and shall have considerable payments to make at that period; for this purpose i must sell my _steeds_. i paid jones in january £ , £ to my stable keeper, £ to my wine merchant, £ to a _lawyer_ for the prosecution of a scoundrel, a late servant. in short i have done all i can, but am now completely _done_ up. your answer will oblige yours, etc., etc., byron. [footnote : mrs. byron, on the other hand, tells a different story. "lord byron," she writes to hanson (march , ), "has now been with me seven months, with two men servants, for which i have never received one farthing, as he requires the five hundred a year for himself. therefore it is impossible i can keep him and them out of my small income of four hundred a year,--two in scotland [mrs. gordon of gight (see chapter i. p. ) was dead], and the pension is now reduced to two hundred a year. but if the court allows the additional two hundred, i shall be perfectly satisfied. "i do not know what to say about byron's returning to cambridge. when he was there, i believe he did nothing but drink, gamble, and spend money." a month later (april , ), she consults hanson about raising £ by a loan from mrs. parkyns on her security. "byron from their last letter gave up all hopes of getting the money, and behaved very well on the occasion, and proposed selling his horses and plans of oeconomy that i much fear will be laid aside if the money is procured. my only motive for wishing it was to keep him clear of the jews; but at present he does not seem at all disposed to have anything to do with them, even if he is disappointed in this resource. i wish to act for the best: but god knows what is for the best." eventually money was provided on mrs. byron's security (see letters of march [letter ] and april [letter ], ), and he resided at trinity for a few days at the end of the may term, . .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. june , . dear queen bess,--_savage_ ought to be _immortal_:--though not a _thorough-bred bull-dog_, he is the finest puppy i ever _saw_, and will answer much better; in his great and manifold kindness he has already bitten my fingers, and disturbed the _gravity_ of old boatswain, who is _grievously discomposed_. i wish to be informed what he _costs_, his _expenses_, etc., etc., that i may indemnify mr. g----. my thanks are _all_ i can give for the trouble he has taken, make a _long speech_, and conclude it with . [ ] i am out of practice, so _deputize_ you as a legate,--_ambassador_ would not do in a matter concerning the _pope_, which i presume this must, as the _whole_ turns upon a _bull_. yours, byron. p.s.--i write in bed. [footnote : he here alludes to an odd fancy or trick of his own; --whenever he was at a loss for something to say, he used always to gabble over " " (moore).] .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. cambridge, june , . "better late than never, pal," [ ] is a saying of which you know the origin, and as it is applicable on the present occasion, you will excuse its conspicuous place in the front of my epistle. i am almost superannuated here. my old friends (with the exception of a very few) all departed, and i am preparing to follow them, but remain till monday to be present at three _oratorios_, two _concerts_, a _fair_, and a ball. i find i am not only _thinner_ but _taller_ by an inch since my last visit. i was obliged to tell every body my _name_, nobody having the least recollection of my _visage_, or person. even the hero of _my cornelian_ [ ] (who is now sitting _vis-à-vis_ reading a volume of my _poetics_) passed me in trinity walks without recognising me in the least, and was thunderstruck at the alteration which had taken place in my countenance, etc., etc. some say i look _better_, others _worse_, but all agree i am _thinner_,--more i do not require. i have lost two pounds in my weight since i left your _cursed_, _detestable_, and _abhorred_ abode of _scandal_, where, excepting yourself and john becher, [ ] i care not if the whole race were consigned to the _pit of acheron_, which i would visit in person rather than contaminate my _sandals_ with the polluted dust of southwell. _seriously_, unless obliged by the _emptiness_ of my purse to revisit mrs. b., you will see me no more. on monday i depart for london. i quit cambridge with little regret, because our _set_ are _vanished_, and my _musical protégé_ before mentioned has left the choir, and is stationed in a mercantile house of considerable eminence in the metropolis. you may have heard me observe he is exactly to an hour two years younger than myself. i found him grown considerably, and as you will suppose, very glad to see his former _patron_. he is nearly my height, very _thin_, very fair complexion, dark eyes, and light locks. my opinion of his mind you already know;--i hope i shall never have occasion to change it. every body here conceives me to be an _invalid_. the university at present is very gay from the fètes of divers kinds. i supped out last night, but eat (or ate) nothing, sipped a bottle of claret, went to bed at two, and rose at eight. i have commenced early rising, and find it agrees with me. the masters and the fellows all very _polite_, but look a little _askance_--don't much admire _lampoons_ [ ]--truth always disagreeable. write, and tell me how the inhabitants of your _menagerie_ go _on_, and if my publication goes _off_ well: do the quadrupeds _growl_? apropos, my bull-dog is deceased--"flesh both of cur and man is grass." address your answer to cambridge. if i am gone, it will be forwarded. sad news just arrived--russians beat [ ]--a bad set, eat nothing but _oil_, consequently must melt before a _hard fire_. i get awkward in my academic habiliments for want of practice. got up in a window to hear the oratorio at st. mary's, popped down in the middle of the _messiah_, tore a _woeful_ rent in the back of my best black silk gown, and damaged an egregious pair of breeches. mem.--never tumble from a church window during service. adieu, dear----! do not remember me to any body:--to _forget_ and be forgotten by the people of southwell is all i aspire to. [footnote : the allusion is to the farce _better late than never_ (attributed to miles peter andrews, but really, according to reynolds (_life_, vol. ii. pp. , ), by himself, topham, and andrews), in which pallet, an artist, is a prominent character. it was played at drury lane for the first time october , , with kemble as "saville" and mrs. jordan as "augusta."] [footnote : "the hero of _my cornelian_" was a cambridge chorister named edleston, whose life, as harness has recorded in a ms. note, byron saved from drowning. this began their acquaintance. (see byron's lines on "the cornelian," _poems_, vol. i. - .) edleston died of consumption in may, . byron, writing to mrs. pigot, gives the following account of his death:-- "cambridge, oct. , . dear madam,--i am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet i cannot well do otherwise. you may remember a _cornelian_, which some years ago i consigned to miss pigot, indeed _gave_ to her, and now i am going to make the most selfish and rude of requests. the person who gave it to me, when i was very young, is _dead_, and though a long time has elapsed since we met, as it was the only memorial i possessed of that person (in whom i was very much interested), it has acquired a value by this event i could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes. if, therefore, miss pigot should have preserved it, i must, under these circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me at no. , st. james's street, london, and i will replace it by something she may remember me by equally well. as she was always so kind as to feel interested in the fate of him that formed the subject of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian died in may last of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one, making the sixth, within four months, of friends and relatives that i have lost between may and the end of august. "believe me, dear madam, yours very sincerely, "byron. "p.s.--i go to london to-morrow." the cornelian heart was, of course, returned, and lord byron, at the same time, reminded that he had left it with miss pigot as a deposit, _not_ a gift (moore).] [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ].] [footnote : see "thoughts suggested by a college examination" (_poems_, vol. i. pp. - ), also "granta: a medley" (_poems_, vol. i. pp. - ).] [footnote : the battle of friedland, june , . this is almost the first allusion that byron makes to the war.] .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. trin. coll. camb. july , . since my last letter i have determined to reside _another year_ at granta, as my rooms, etc., etc., are finished in great style, several old friends come up again, and many new acquaintances made; consequently my inclination leads me forward, and i shall return to college in october if still _alive_. my life here has been one continued routine of dissipation--out at different places every day, engaged to more dinners, etc., etc., than my _stay_ would permit me to fulfil. at this moment i write with a bottle of claret in my _head_ and _tears_ in my _eyes_; for i have just parted with my "_cornelian_" who spent the evening with me. as it was our last interview, i postponed my engagement to devote the hours of the _sabbath_ to friendship:--edleston and i have separated for the present, and my mind is a chaos of hope and sorrow. to-morrow i set out for london: you will address your answer to "gordon's hotel, albemarle street," where i _sojourn_ during my visit to the metropolis. i rejoice to hear you are interested in my _protégé_; he has been my _almost constant_ associate since october, , when i entered trinity college. his _voice_ first attracted my attention, his _countenance_ fixed it, and his _manners_ attached me to him for ever. he departs for a _mercantile house_ in _town_ in october, and we shall probably not meet till the expiration of my minority, when i shall leave to his decision either entering as a _partner_ through my interest, or residing with me altogether. of course he would in his present frame of mind prefer the _latter_, but he may alter his opinion previous to that period;--however, he shall have his choice. i certainly love him more than any human being, and neither time nor distance have had the least effect on my (in general) changeable disposition. in short, we shall, put _lady e. butler_ and _miss ponsonby_ [ ] to the blush, _pylades_ and _orestes_ out of countenance, and want nothing but a catastrophe like _nisus_ and _euryalus_, to give _jonathan_ and _david_ the "go by." he certainly is perhaps more attached to _me_ than even i am in return. during the whole of my residence at cambridge we met every day, summer and winter, without passing _one_ tiresome moment, and separated each time with increasing reluctance. i hope you will one day see us together. he is the only being i esteem, though i _like_ many. the marquis of tavistock [ ] was down the other day; i supped with him at his tutor's--entirely a whig party. the opposition muster strong here now, and lord hartington, the duke of leinster, etc., etc., are to join us in october, so every thing will be _splendid_. the _music_ is all over at present. met with another "_accidency_"--upset a butter-boat in the lap of a lady--look'd very _blue_--_spectators_ grinned--"curse 'em!" apropos, sorry to say, been _drunk_ every day, and not quite _sober_ yet--however, touch no meat, nothing but fish, soup, and vegetables, consequently it does me no harm--sad dogs all the _cantabs_. mem.--_we mean_ to reform next january. this place is a _monotony of endless variety_--like it--hate southwell. has ridge sold well? or do the ancients demur? what ladies have bought? saw a girl at st. mary's the image of anne----, [ ] thought it was her--all in the wrong--the lady stared, so did i--i _blushed_, so did _not_ the lady,--sad thing--wish women had _more modesty_. talking of women, puts me in mind of my terrier fanny--how is she? got a headache, must go to bed, up early in the morning to travel. my _protégé_ breakfasts with me; parting spoils my appetite--excepting from southwell. mem. _i hate southwell_. yours, etc. [footnote : lady eleanor butler (c. - ), sister of the seventeenth earl of ormonde, and sarah ponsonby (circ. - ), cousin of the earl of bessborough, were the two "ladies of the vale," or "ladies of llangollen." about the year they settled in a cottage at plasnewydd, in the vale of llangollen, where they lived, with their maidservant, mary caryll, for upwards of half a century. they are buried, with their servant, in the churchyard of plasnewydd, under a triangular pyramid. though they had withdrawn from the world, they watched its proceedings with the keenest interest. "if," writes mrs. piozzi, from brynbella, july , , "mr. bunbury's 'little gray man' is printed, do send it hither; the ladies at llangollen are dying for it. they like those old scandinavian tales and the imitations of them exceedingly; and tell me about the prince and princess of 'this' loyal country, one province of which alone had disgraced itself" ('life and writings of mrs. piozzi', vol. ii. p. ). nor did they despise the theatre. charles mathews ('memoirs', vol. iii. pp. , ), writing from oswestry, september , , says, "the dear inseparable inimitables, lady butler and miss ponsonby, were in the boxes here on friday. they came twelve miles from llangollen, and returned, as they never sleep from home. oh, such curiosities! i was nearly convulsed.... as they are seated, there is not one point to distinguish them from men; the dressing and powdering of the hair; their well-starched neckcloths; the upper part of their habits, which they always wear, even at a dinner-party, made precisely like men's coats; and regular black beaver men's hats. they looked exactly like two respectable superannuated old clergymen.... i was highly flattered, as they never were in the theatre before." among the many people who visited them in their retreat, and have left descriptions of them, are madame de genlis, de quincey, prince pückler-muskau. their friendships were sung by sotheby and anne seward, and their cottage was depicted by pennant. "it is very singular," writes john murray, august , , to his son ('memoir of john murray', vol. ii. p. ), "that the ladies, intending to 'retire' from the world, absolutely brought all the world to visit them, for after a few years of seclusion their strange story was the universal subject of conversation, and there has been no person of rank, talent, and importance in any way who did not procure introductions to them." [footnote : lord tavistock's experience at cambridge resembled that of byron. he had received only a "pretended education," and the duke of bedford had come to the conclusion that "nothing was learned at english universities." "tavistock left cambridge in may," lord j. russell notes in his diary for , "having been there in supposition two years" (walpole's 'life of lord john russell', vol. i. pp. and ).] [footnote : probably miss anne houson, daughter of the rev. henry houson of southwell. she married the rev. luke jackson, died december , , and is buried at hucknall torkard. (for verses addressed to her, see 'poems', vol. i. pp. - , - , - , - , .)] .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. gordon's hotel, july , . you write most excellent epistles--a fig for other correspondents, with their nonsensical apologies for "_knowing nought about it_"--you send me a delightful budget. i am here in a perpetual vortex of dissipation (very pleasant for all that), and, strange to tell, i get thinner, being now below eleven stone considerably. stay in town a _month_, perhaps six weeks, trip into essex, and then, as a favour, _irradiate_ southwell for three days with the light of my countenance; but nothing shall ever make me _reside_ there again. i positively return to cambridge in october; we are to be uncommonly gay, or in truth i should _cut_ the university. an extraordinary circumstance occurred to me at cambridge; a girl so very like----made her appearance, that nothing but the most _minute inspection_ could have undeceived me. i wish i had asked if _she_ had ever been at h---- what the devil would ridge have? is not fifty in a fortnight, before the advertisements, a sufficient sale? [ ] i hear many of the london booksellers have them, and crosby [ ] has sent copies to the principal watering places. are they liked or not in southwell? ... i wish boatswain had _swallowed_ damon! how is bran? by the immortal gods, bran ought to be a _count_ of the _holy roman empire_. the intelligence of london cannot be interesting to you, who have rusticated all your life--the annals of routs riots, balls and boxing-matches, cards and crim. cons., parliamentary discussion, political details, masquerades, mechanics, argyle street institution and aquatic races, love and lotteries, brookes's and buonaparte, opera-singers and oratorios, wine, women, wax-work, and weathercocks, can't accord with your _insulated_ ideas of decorum and other _silly expressions_ not inserted in _our vocabulary_. oh! southwell, southwell, how i rejoice to have left thee, and how i curse the heavy hours i dragged along, for so many months, among the mohawks who inhabit your kraals!--however, one thing i do not regret, which is having _pared off_ a sufficient quantity of flesh to enable me to slip into "an eel-skin," and vie with the _slim_ beaux of modern times; though i am sorry to say, it seems to be the mode amongst _gentlemen_ to grow _fat_, and i am told i am at least fourteen pound below the fashion. however, i _decrease_ instead of enlarging, which is extraordinary, as _violent_ exercise in london is impracticable; but i attribute the _phenomenon_ to our _evening squeezes_ at public and private parties. i heard from ridge this morning (the th, my letter was begun yesterday): he says the poems go on as well as can be wished; the seventy-five sent to town are circulated, and a demand for fifty more complied with, the day he dated his epistle, though the advertisements are not yet half published. adieu. p.s.--lord carlisle, on receiving my poems, sent, before he opened the book, a tolerably handsome letter:[ ]--i have not heard from him since. his opinions i neither know nor care about: if he is the least insolent, i shall enrol him with _butler_ and the other worthies. he is in yorkshire, poor man! and very ill! he said he had not had time to read the contents, but thought it necessary to acknowledge the receipt of the volume immediately. perhaps the earl "_bears no brother near the throne"--if so_, i will make his _sceptre_ totter _in his hands_.--adieu! [footnote : this is probably the third collection of early verse, 'hours of idleness', the first collection published with byron's name (see page [letter ], [foot]note ).] [footnote : b. crosby & co., of stationers' court, were the london agents of ridge, the newark bookseller. crosby was also the publisher of a magazine called 'monthly literary recreations', in which (july, ) appeared a highly laudatory notice of 'hours of idleness', and byron's review of wordsworth's 'poems' ( vols. . see appendix i.), and his "stanzas to jessy" (see 'poems', vol. i. pp. - ). these lines were enclosed with the following letter, addressed to "mr. crosby, stationers' court:"-- "july , . sir,--i have sent according to my promise some stanzas for 'literary recreations'. the insertion i leave to the option of the editors. they have never appeared before. i should wish to know whether they are admitted or not, and when the work will appear, as i am desirous of a copy. etc., etc., byron. p.s.--send your answer when convenient."] [footnote : "my dear lord,--your letter of yesterday found me an invalid, and unable to do justice to your poems by a dilligent ['sic'] perusal of them. in the meantime i take the first occasion to thank you for sending them to me, and to express a sincere satisfaction in finding you employ your leisure in such occupations. be not disconcerted if the reception of your works should not be that you may have a right to look for from the public. persevere, whatever that reception may be, and tho' the public maybe found very fastidious, ... you will stand better with the world than others who only pursue their studies in bond st. or at tatershall's. believe me to be, yours most sincerely, carlisle. july th, ."] .--to john hanson. july th, . sir,--your proposal to make mrs. byron my _treasurer_ is very kind, but does not meet with my approbation. mrs. byron has already made more _free_ with my _funds_ than suits my convenience & i do not chuse to expose her to the danger of temptation. things will therefore stand as they are; the remedy would be worse than the disease. i wish you would order your drafts payable to me and not mrs. b. this is worse than hannibal higgins; [ ] who the devil could suppose that any body would have mistaken him for a _real personage?_ & what earthly consequence could it be whether the blank in the draft was filled up with _wilkins, tomkyns, simkins, wiggins, spriggins, jiggins_, or _higgins?_ if i had put in _james johnson_ you would not have demurred, & why object to hannibal higgins? particularly after his _respectable endorsements_. as to business, i make no pretensions to a knowledge of any thing but a greek grammer or a racing calendar; but if the _quintessence_ of information on that head consists in unnecessary & unpleasant delays, explanations, rebuffs, retorts, repartees, & recriminations, the house of h.& b. stands pre-eminent in the profession, as from the bottom of his soul testifies yours, etc., etc., byron. p.s--will you dine with me on sunday tête a tête at six o'clock? i should be happy to see you before, but my engagements will not permit me, as on wednesday i go to the house. i shall have hargreaves & his brother on some day after you; i don't like to annoy children with the _formal_ faces of _legal_ papas. [footnote : the point of the allusion is that byron had endorsed one of hanson's drafts with the name of "hannibal higgins," and had been solemnly warned of the consequences of so tampering with the dignity of the law.] .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. august , . london begins to disgorge its contents--town is empty--consequently i can scribble at leisure, as occupations are less numerous. in a fortnight i shall depart to fulfil a country engagement; but expect two epistles from you previous to that period. ridge does not proceed rapidly in notts--very possible. in town things wear a more promising aspect, and a man whose works are praised by _reviewers_, admired by _duchesses_, and sold by every bookseller of the metropolis, does not dedicate much consideration to _rustic readers_. i have now a review before me, entitled _literary recreations_ [ ] where my _hardship_ is applauded far beyond my deserts. i know nothing of the critic, but think _him_ a very discerning gentleman, and _myself_ a devilish _clever_ fellow. his critique pleases me particularly, because it is of great length, and a proper quantum of censure is administered, just to give an agreeable _relish_ to the praise. you know i hate insipid, unqualified, common-place compliment. if you would wish to see it, order the th number of _literary recreations_ for the last month. i assure you i have not the most distant idea of the writer of the article--it is printed in a periodical publication--and though i have written a paper (a review of wordsworth), which appears in the same work, i am ignorant of every other person concerned in it--even the editor, whose name i have not heard. my cousin, lord alexander gordon, who resided in the same hotel, told me his mother, her grace of gordon, [ ] requested he would introduce my _poetical_ lordship to her _highness_, as she had bought my volume, admired it exceedingly, in common with the rest of the fashionable world, and wished to claim her relationship with the author. i was unluckily engaged on an excursion for some days afterwards; and, as the duchess was on the eve of departing for scotland, i have postponed my introduction till the winter, when i shall favour the lady, _whose taste i shall not dispute_, with my most sublime and edifying conversation. she is now in the highlands, and alexander took his departure, a few days ago, for the same _blessed_ seat of "_dark rolling winds_." crosby, my london publisher, has disposed of his second importation, and has sent to ridge for a _third_--at least so he says. in every bookseller's window i see my _own name_, and _say nothing_, but enjoy my fame in secret. my last reviewer kindly requests me to alter my determination of writing no more: and "a friend to the cause of literature" begs i will _gratify_ the _public_ with some new work "at no very distant period." who would not be a bard?--that is to say, if all critics would be so polite. however, the others will pay me off, i doubt not, for this _gentle_ encouragement. if so, have at 'em? by the by, i have written at my intervals of leisure, after two in the morning, lines in blank verse, of bosworth field. i have luckily got hutton's account. [ ] i shall extend the poem to eight or ten books, and shall have finished it in a year. whether it will be published or not must depend on circumstances. so much for _egotism!_ my _laurels_ have turned my brain, but the _cooling acids_ of forthcoming criticism will probably restore me to _modesty_. southwell is a damned place--i have done with it--at least in all probability; excepting yourself, i esteem no one within its precincts. you were my only _rational_ companion; and in plain truth, i had more respect for you than the whole _bevy_, with whose foibles i amused myself in compliance with their prevailing propensities. you gave yourself more trouble with me and my manuscripts than a thousand _dolls_ would have done. believe me, i have not forgotten your good nature in _this circle_ of _sin_, and one day i trust i shall be able to evince my gratitude. adieu. yours, etc. p.s.--remember me to dr. p. [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note .] [footnote : the duchess of gordon ( - ), 'née' jean maxwell of monreith, daughter of sir w. maxwell, bart., married in the duke of gordon. the most successful matchmaker of the age, she married three of her daughters to three dukes--manchester, richmond, and bedford. a fourth daughter was lady mandalina sinclair, afterwards, by a second marriage, lady mandalina palmer. a fifth was married to lord cornwallis (see the extraordinary story told in the 'recollections of samuel rogers', pp. - ). according to wraxall ('posthumous memoirs', vol. ii. p. ), she schemed to secure pitt for her daughter lady charlotte, and eugène beauharnais for lady georgiana, afterwards duchess of bedford. cyrus redding ('memoirs of william beckford', vol. ii. pp. - ) describes her attack upon the owner of fonthill, where she stayed upwards of a week, magnificently entertained, without once seeing the wary master of the house. she was also the social leader of the tories, and her house in pall mall, rented from the duke of buckingham, was the meeting-place of the party. malcontents accused her of using her power tyrannically:-- "not gordon's broad and brawny grace, the last new woman in the place with more contempt could blast." 'pandolfo attonito' ( ). lord alexander gordon died in .] [footnote : william hutton ( - ), a birmingham bookseller, who took to literature and became a voluminous writer of poems, and of topographical works which still have their value. in his 'trip to redcar and coatham' (preface, p. vi.) he says, "i took up my pen at the advanced age of fifty-six ... i drove the quill thirty years, during which time i wrote and published thirty books." 'the battle of bosworth field' was published in . a new edition, with additions by john nichols, appeared in . byron's poem was never published.] .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. london, august , . on sunday next i set off for the highlands. [ ] a friend of mine accompanies me in my carriage to edinburgh. there we shall leave it, and proceed in a _tandem_ (a species of open carriage) though the western passes to inverary, where we shall purchase _shelties_, to enable us to view places inaccessible to _vehicular conveyances_. on the coast we shall hire a vessel, and visit the most remarkable of the hebrides; and, if we have time and favourable weather, mean to sail as far as iceland, only miles from the northern extremity of caledonia, to peep at _hecla_. this last intention you will keep a secret, as my nice _mamma_ would imagine i was on a voyage of _discovery_, and raised the accustomed _maternal warwhoop_. last week i swam in the thames from lambeth through the two bridges, westminster and blackfriars, a distance, including the different turns and tracks made on the way, of three miles! [ ] you see i am in excellent training in case of a _squall_ at sea. i mean to collect all the erse traditions, poems, etc., etc., and translate, or expand the subject to fill a volume, which may appear next spring under the denomination of _"the highland "harp"_ or some title equally _picturesque_. of bosworth field, one book is finished, another just began. it will be a work of three or four years, and most probably never _conclude_. what would you say to some stanzas on mount hecla? they would be written at least with _fire_. how is the immortal bran? and the phoenix of canine quadrupeds, boatswain? i have lately purchased a thorough-bred bull-dog, worthy to be the coadjutor of the aforesaid celestials--his name is _smut!_ "bear it, ye breezes, on your _balmy_ wings." write to me before i set off, i conjure you, by the fifth rib of your grandfather. ridge goes on well with the books--i thought that worthy had not done much in the country. in town they have been very successful; carpenter (moore's publisher) told me a few days ago they sold all their's immediately, and had several enquiries made since, which, from the books being gone, they could not supply. the duke of york, the marchioness of headfort, the duchess of gordon, etc., etc., were among the purchasers; and crosby says the circulation will be still more extensive in the winter, the summer season being very bad for a sale, as most people are absent from london. however, they have gone off extremely well altogether. i shall pass very near you on my journey through newark, but cannot approach. don't tell this to mrs. b, who supposes i travel a different road. if you have a letter, order it to be left at ridge's shop, where i shall call, or the post-office, newark, about six or eight in the evening. if your brother would ride over, i should be devilish glad to see him--he can return the same night, or sup with us and go home the next morning--the kingston arms is my inn. adieu. yours ever, byron. [footnote : this projected trip to the highlands, mentioned in his letter to augusta byron of august , , seems to have become a joke among byron's friends. moore quotes ('life', p. ) a letter written by miss pigot to her brother: "how can you ask if lord b. is going to visit the highlands in the summer? why, don't _you_ know that he never knows his own mind for ten minutes together? i tell him he is as fickle as the winds, and as uncertain as the waves."] [footnote : "the first time i saw lord byron," says leigh hunt ('lord byron and his contemporaries', p. ), "he was rehearsing the part of leander, under the auspices of mr. jackson the prize-fighter. it was in the river thames, before he went to greece. i had been bathing, and was standing on the floating machine adjusting my clothes, when i noticed a respectable-looking manly person who was eyeing something at a distance. this was mr. jackson waiting for his pupil. the latter was swimming with somebody for a wager." on this occasion, however, hunt only saw "his lordship's head bob up and down in the water, like a "buoy."] .--to john hanson. dorant's hotel, october th, . dear hanson,--i will thank you to disburse the quarter due as soon as possible, for i am at this moment contemplating with woeful visage, one _solitary guinea, two bad sixpences_ and a shilling, being _all_ the _cash_ at present in possession of yours very truly, byron. .--to elizabeth bridget pigot. trinity college, cambridge, october , . my dear elizabeth,--fatigued with sitting up till four in the morning for the last two days at hazard, i take up my pen to inquire how your highness and the rest of my female acquaintance at the seat of archiepiscopal grandeur go on. i know i deserve a scolding for my negligence in not writing more frequently; but racing up and down the country for these last three months, how was it possible to fulfil the duties of a correspondent? fixed at last for six weeks, i write, as _thin_ as ever (not having gained an ounce since my reduction), and rather in better humour;--but, after all, southwell was a detestable residence. thank st. dominica, i have done with it: i have been twice within eight miles of it, but could not prevail on myself to _suffocate_ in its heavy atmosphere. this place is wretched enough--a villainous chaos of din and drunkenness, nothing but hazard and burgundy, hunting, mathematics, and newmarket, riot and racing. yet it is a paradise compared with the eternal dulness of southwell. oh! the misery of doing nothing but make _love, enemies_, and _verses_. next january (but this is _entre nous only_, and pray let it be so, or my maternal persecutor will be throwing her tomahawk at any of my curious projects,) i am going to _sea_ for four or five months, with my cousin captain bettesworth, [ ] who commands the _tartar_, the finest frigate in the navy. i have seen most scenes, and wish to look at a naval life. we are going probably to the mediterranean, or to the west indies, or--to the devil; and if there is a possibility of taking me to the latter, bettesworth will do it; for he has received four and twenty wounds in different places, and at this moment possesses a letter from the late lord nelson, stating bettesworth as the only officer in the navy who had more wounds than himself. i have got a new friend, the finest in the world, a _tame bear_. [ ] when i brought him here, they asked me what i meant to do with him, and my reply was, "he should _sit for a fellowship._" sherard will explain the meaning of the sentence, if it is ambiguous. this answer delighted them not. we have several parties here, and this evening a large assortment of jockeys, gamblers, boxers, authors, parsons, and poets, sup with me,--a precious mixture, but they go on well together; and for me, i am a _spice_ of every thing except a jockey; by the bye, i was dismounted again the other day. thank your brother in my name for his treatise. i have written pages of a novel--one poem of lines, [ ] to be published (without my name) in a few weeks, with notes,-- lines of bosworth field, and lines of another poem in rhyme, besides half a dozen smaller pieces. the poem to be published is a satire. _apropos_, i have been praised to the skies in the _critical review_, [ ] and abused greatly in another publication. [ ] so much the better, they tell me, for the sale of the book: it keeps up controversy, and prevents it being forgotten. besides, the first men of all ages have had their share, nor do the humblest escape;--so i bear it like a philosopher. it is odd two opposite critiques came out on the same day, and out of five pages of abuse, my censor only quotes _two lines_ from different poems, in support of his opinion. now, the proper way to _cut up_, is to quote long passages, and make them appear absurd, because simple allegation is no proof. on the other hand, there are seven pages of praise, and more than _my modesty_ will allow said on the subject. adieu. p.s.--write, write, write!!! [footnote : george edmund byron bettesworth ( - ), as lieutenant of the 'centaur', was wounded ( ) in the capture of the 'curieux'. in command of the latter vessel he captured the 'dame ernouf' ( ), and was again wounded. he was made a post-captain in the latter year, when he brought home despatches from nelson at antigua, announcing villeneuve's return to europe. he was killed off bergen in , while in command of the 'tartar'. captain bettesworth, whose father assumed the name of bettesworth in addition to that of trevanion, married, in , lady alethea grey, daughter of earl grey. through his grandmother, sophia trevanion, byron was captain bettesworth's cousin.] [footnote : see 'poems', vol. i. p. . ] [footnote : this poem, printed in book form, but not published, under the title of 'british bards', is the foundation of 'english bards, and scotch reviewers'. the ms. is in the possession of mr. murray.] [footnote : for september, . in noticing the elegy on newstead abbey, the writer says, "we could not but hail, with something of prophetic rapture, the hope conveyed in the closing stanza:-- "'haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine, thee to irradiate with meridian ray.'"] [footnote : the first number of 'the satirist: a monthly meteor' (october, ).] .--to j. ridge. trinity college, cambridge, november , . sir,--i am happy to hear every thing goes on so well, and i presume you will soon commence, though i am still of opinion the first edition had better be entirely sold, before you risk the printing of a second. as curly recommends fine wove foolscap, let it be used, and i will order a design in london for a plate, my own portrait would perhaps be best, but as that would take up so long a time in completing we will substitute probably a view of harrow, [ ] or newstead in its stead. you will omit the poems mentioned below: stanzas on a view of harrow. to a quaker. the first kiss of love. college examinations. lines to the rev. j. t. becher. to be inserted, not exactly in the place, but in different parts of the volume, i will send you five poems never yet published. two of tolerable length, at least much longer than any of the above, which are ordered to be omitted. mention in your answer when you would like to receive the manuscripts that they may be sent. by the bye, i must have the proofs of the manuscripts sent to cambridge as they occur; the proofs from the printed copy you can manage with care, if mr. becher will assist you. attend to the list of _errata_, that we may not have a _second edition_ of them also. the preface we have done with, perhaps i may send an advertisement, a dedication shall be forthcoming in due season. you will send a proof of the first sheet for inspection, and soon too, for i am about to set out for london next week. if i remain there any time, i shall apprize you where to send the manuscript proofs. do you think the others will be sold before the next are ready, what says curly? remember i have advised you not to risk it a second time, and it is not too late to retract. however, you must abide by your own discretion: etc., etc., byron. p.s.--you will print from the copy i sent you with the alterations, pray attend to these, and be careful of mistakes. in my last i gave you directions concerning the title page and mottoes. [footnote : a view of harrow was given.] .--to john hanson. trin. coll., cambridge, dec. nd, . my dear sir,--i hope to take my new years day dinner with you _en famille_. tell hargreaves i will bring his blackstones, and shall have no objection to see my daniel's _field sports_, if they have not escaped his recollection.--i certainly wish the expiration of my minority as much as you do, though for a reason more nearly affecting my magisterial person at this moment, namely, the want of twenty pounds, for no spendthrift peer, or unlucky poet, was ever less indebted to _cash_ than george gordon is at present, or is more likely to continue in the same predicament.--my present quarter due on the th was drawn long ago, and i must be obliged to you for the loan of twenty on my next, to be deducted when the whole becomes tangible, that is, probably, some months after it is exhausted. reserve murray's quarter, [ ] of course, and i shall have just _!_. to receive at easter, but if the risk of my demand is too great, inform me, that i may if possible convert my title into cash, though i am afraid twenty pounds will be too much to ask as times go, if i were an earl ... but a barony must fetch ten, perhaps fifteen, and that is something when we have not as many pence. your answer will oblige yours very truly, byron. p.s.--remember me to mrs. h. in particular, and the family in general. [footnote : joe murray. (see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ].)] .--to john murray. [ ] ravenna, bre , . what you said of the late charles skinner matthews [ ] has set me to my recollections; but i have not been able to turn up any thing which would do for the purposed memoir of his brother,--even if he had previously done enough during his life to sanction the introduction of anecdotes so merely personal. he was, however, a very extraordinary man, and would have been a great one. no one ever succeeded in a more surpassing degree than he did as far as he went. he was indolent, too; but whenever he stripped, he overthrew all antagonists. his conquests will be found registered at cambridge, particularly his _downing_ one, which was hotly and highly contested, and yet easily _won_. hobhouse was his most intimate friend, and can tell you more of him than any man. william bankes [ ] also a great deal. i myself recollect more of his oddities than of his academical qualities, for we lived most together at a very idle period of _my_ life. when i went up to trinity, in , at the age of seventeen and a half, i was miserable and untoward to a degree. i was wretched at leaving harrow, to which i had become attached during the two last years of my stay there; wretched at going to cambridge instead of oxford (there were no rooms vacant at christchurch); wretched from some private domestic circumstances of different kinds, and consequently about as unsocial as a wolf taken from the troop. so that, although i knew matthews, and met him often _then_ at bankes's, (who was my collegiate pastor, and master, and patron,) and at rhode's, milnes's, price's, dick's, macnamara's, farrell's, gally knight's, and others of that _set_ of contemporaries, yet i was neither intimate with him nor with any one else, except my old schoolfellow edward long [ ] (with whom i used to pass the day in riding and swimming), and william bankes, who was good-naturedly tolerant of my ferocities. it was not till , after i had been upwards of a year away from cambridge, to which i had returned again to _reside_ for my degree, that i became one of matthews's familiars, by means of hobhouse, [ ] who, after hating me for two years, because i wore a _white hat_, and a _grey_ coat, and rode a _grey_ horse (as he says himself), took me into his good graces because i had written some poetry. i had always lived a good deal, and got drunk occasionally, in their company--but now we became really friends in a morning. matthews, however, was not at this period resident in college. i met _him_ chiefly in london, and at uncertain periods at cambridge. hobhouse, in the mean time, did great things: he founded the cambridge "whig club" (which he seems to have forgotten), and the "amicable society," which was dissolved in consequence of the members constantly quarrelling, and made himself very popular with "us youth," and no less formidable to all tutors, professors, and heads of colleges. william bankes was gone; while he stayed, he ruled the roast--or rather the _roasting_--and was father of all mischiefs. matthews and i, meeting in london, and elsewhere, became great cronies. he was not good tempered--nor am i--but with a little tact his temper was manageable, and i thought him so superior a man, that i was willing to sacrifice something to his humours, which were often, at the same time, amusing and provoking. what became of his _papers_ (and he certainly had many), at the time of his death, was never known. i mention this by the way, fearing to skip it over, and _as_ he _wrote_ remarkably well, both in latin and english. we went down to newstead together, [ ] where i had got a famous cellar, and _monks'_ dresses from a masquerade warehouse. we were a company of some seven or eight, with an occasional neighbour or so for visiters, and used to sit up late in our friars' dresses, drinking burgundy, claret, champagne, and what not, out of the _skull-cup_, and all sorts of glasses, and buffooning all round the house, in our conventual garments. [ ] matthews always denominated me "the abbot," and never called me by any other name in his good humours, to the day of his death. the harmony of these our symposia was somewhat interrupted, a few days after our assembling, by matthews's threatening to throw hobhouse out of a _window_, in consequence of i know not what commerce of jokes ending in this epigram. hobhouse came to me and said, that "his respect and regard for me as host would not permit him to call out any of my guests, and that he should go to town next morning." he did. it was in vain that i represented to him that the window was not high, and that the turf under it was particularly soft. away he went. matthews and myself had travelled down from london together, talking all the way incessantly upon one single topic. when we got to loughborough, i know not what chasm had made us diverge for a moment to some other subject, at which he was indignant. "come," said he, "don't let us break through--let us go on as we began, to our journey's end;" and so he continued, and was as entertaining as ever to the very end. he had previously occupied, during my year's absence from cambridge, my rooms in trinity, with the furniture; and jones, [ ] the tutor, in his odd way, had said, on putting him in, "mr. matthews, i recommend to your attention not to damage any of the moveables, for lord byron, sir, is a young man of _tumultuous passions_." matthews was delighted with this; and whenever anybody came to visit him, begged them to handle the very door with caution; and used to repeat jones's admonition in his tone and manner. there was a large mirror in the room, on which he remarked, "that he thought his friends were grown uncommonly assiduous in coming to _see him_, but he soon discovered that they only came to _see themselves_." jones's phrase of "_tumultuous passions_" and the whole scene, had put him into such good humour, that i verily believe that i owed to it a portion of his good graces. when at newstead, somebody by accident rubbed against one of his white silk stockings, one day before dinner; of course the gentleman apologised. "sir," answered matthews, "it may be all very well for you, who have a great many silk stockings, to dirty other people's; but to me, who have only this _one pair_, which i have put on in honour of the abbot here, no apology can compensate for such carelessness; besides, the expense of washing." he had the same sort of droll sardonic way about every thing. a wild irishman, named farrell, one evening began to say something at a large supper at cambridge, matthews roared out "silence!" and then, pointing to farrell, cried out, in the words of the oracle, "orson is endowed with reason." you may easily suppose that orson lost what reason he had acquired, on hearing this compliment. when hobhouse published his volume of poems, the _miscellany_ (which matthews would call the "_miss-sell-any_"), all that could be drawn from him was, that the preface was "extremely like _walsh_." hobhouse thought this at first a compliment; but we never could make out what it was, [ ] for all we know of _walsh_ is his ode to king william, [ ] and pope's epithet of "_knowing walsh_." [ ] when the newstead party broke up for london, hobhouse and matthews, who were the greatest friends possible, agreed, for a whim, to _walk together_ to town. they quarrelled by the way, and actually walked the latter half of the journey, occasionally passing and repassing, without speaking. when matthews had got to highgate, he had spent all his money but three-pence halfpenny, and determined to spend that also in a pint of beer, which i believe he was drinking before a public-house, as hobhouse passed him (still without speaking) for the last time on their route. they were reconciled in london again. one of matthews's passions was "the fancy;" and he sparred uncommonly well. but he always got beaten in rows, or combats with the bare fist. in swimming, too, he swam well; but with _effort_ and _labour_, and _too high_ out of the water; so that scrope davies [ ] and myself, of whom he was therein somewhat emulous, always told him that he would be drowned if ever he came to a difficult pass in the water. he was so; but surely scrope and myself would have been most heartily glad that "the dean had lived, and our prediction proved a lie." his head was uncommonly handsome, very like what _pope's_ was in his youth. his voice, and laugh, and features, are strongly resembled by his brother henry's, if henry be _he_ of _king's college_. his passion for boxing was so great, that he actually wanted me to match him with dogherty [ ] (whom i had backed and made the match for against tom belcher [ ]), and i saw them spar together at my own lodgings with the gloves on. as he was bent upon it, i would have backed dogherty to please him, but the match went off. it was of course to have been a private fight, in a private room. on one occasion, being too late to go home and dress, he was equipped by a friend (mr. baillie, i believe,) in a magnificently fashionable and somewhat exaggerated shirt and neckcloth. he proceeded to the opera, and took his station in fop's alley. during the interval between the opera and the ballet, an acquaintance took his station by him and saluted him: "come round," said matthews, "come round." "why should i come round?" said the other; "you have only to turn your head--i am close by you." "that is exactly what i cannot do," said matthews; "don't you see the state i am in?" pointing to his buckram shirt collar and inflexible cravat,--and there he stood with his head always in the same perpendicular position during the whole spectacle. one evening, after dining together, as we were going to the opera, i happened to have a spare opera ticket (as subscriber to a box), and presented it to matthews. "now, sir," said he to hobhouse afterwards, "this i call _courteous_ in the abbot--another man would never have thought that i might do better with half a guinea than throw it to a door-keeper;--but here is a man not only asks me to dinner, but gives me a ticket for the theatre." these were only his oddities, for no man was more liberal, or more honourable in all his doings and dealings, than matthews. he gave hobhouse and me, before we set out for constantinople, a most splendid entertainment, to which we did ample justice. one of his fancies was dining at all sorts of out-of-the-way places. somebody popped upon him in i know not what coffee-house in the strand--and what do you think was the attraction? why, that he paid a shilling (i think) to _dine with his hat on_. this he called his "_hat_ house," and used to boast of the comfort of being covered at meal times. when sir henry smith [ ] was expelled from cambridge for a row with a tradesman named "hiron," matthews solaced himself with shouting under hiron's windows every evening, "ah me! what perils do environ the man who meddles with _hot hiron_." he was also of that band of profane scoffers who, under the auspices of----, used to rouse lort mansel (late bishop of bristol) from his slumbers in the lodge of trinity; and when he appeared at the window foaming with wrath, and crying out, "i know you, gentlemen, i know you!" were wont to reply, "we beseech thee to hear us, good lort!"--"good lort deliver us!" (lort was his christian name.) as he was very free in his speculations upon all kinds of subjects, although by no means either dissolute or intemperate in his conduct, and as i was no less independent, our conversation and correspondence used to alarm our friend hobhouse to a considerable degree. you must be almost tired of my packets, which will have cost a mint of postage. salute gifford and all my friends. yours, etc. [footnote : this letter, though written twelve years later, belongs to the cambridge period of byron's life. it is therefore introduced here. (for john murray, see [foot]note [ ] to letter to r. c. dallas [letter ] of august , .)] [footnote : charles skinner matthews was known at eton as matthews 'major', his 'minor' being his brother henry, the author of 'the diary of an invalid', afterwards a judge in the supreme court of ceylon, who died in . they were the sons of john matthews of belmont, herefordshire, m.p. for that county ( - ). c. s. matthews became a scholar of trinity, cambridge; ninth wrangler in ; first members' prizeman in ; fellow of downing in . he was drowned in the cam in august, . he at the time contemplated standing as member for the university of cambridge. for a description of the accident, see letter from henry drury to francis hodgson ('life of the rev. francis hodgson', vol. i. pp. - ). in the note to 'childe harold', canto i. stanza xci., byron speaks of matthews: "i should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late charles skinner matthews, fellow of downing college, cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. his powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority."] [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note .] [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note .] [footnote : see page [letter ], note [ ].] [footnote : of this visit to newstead, matthews wrote the following account to his sister:-- "london, may , . "my dear----,--i must begin with giving you a few particulars of the singular place which i have lately quitted. newstead abbey is situate miles from london,--four on this side mansfield. it is so fine a piece of antiquity, that i should think there must be a description, and, perhaps, a picture of it in grose. the ancestors of its present owner came into possession of it at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries,--but the building itself is of a much earlier date. though sadly fallen to decay, it is still completely an _abbey_, and most part of it is still standing in the same state as when it was first built. there are two tiers of cloisters, with a variety of cells and rooms about them, which, though not inhabited, nor in an inhabitable state, might easily be made so; and many of the original rooms, amongst which is a fine stone hall, are still in use. of the abbey church only one end remains; and the old kitchen, with a long range of apartments, is reduced to a heap of rubbish. leading from the abbey to the modern part of the habitation is a noble room, seventy feet in length, and twenty-three in breadth; but every part of the house displays neglect and decay, save those which the present lord has lately fitted up. the house and gardens are entirely surrounded by a wall with battlements. in front is a large lake, bordered here and there with castellated buildings, the chief of which stands on an eminence at the further extremity of it. fancy all this surrounded with bleak and barren hills, with scarce a tree to be seen for miles, except a solitary clump or two, and you will have some idea of newstead. for the late lord, being at enmity with his son, to whom the estate was secured by entail, resolved, out of spite to the same, that the estate should descend to him in as miserable a plight as he could possibly reduce it to; for which cause, he took no care of the mansion, and fell to lopping of every tree he could lay his hands on, so furiously, that he reduced immense tracts of woodland country to the desolate state i have just described. however, his son died before him, so that all his rage was thrown away. so much for the place, concerning which i have thrown together these few particulars, meaning my account to be, like the place itself, without any order or connection. but if the place itself appear rather strange to you, the ways of the inhabitants will not appear much less so. ascend, then, with me the hall steps, that i may introduce you to my lord and his visitants. but have a care how you proceed; be mindful to go there in broad daylight, and with your eyes about you. for, should you make any blunder,--should you go to the right of the hall steps, you are laid hold of by a bear; and should you go to the left, your case is still worse, for you run full against a wolf!--nor, when you have attained the door, is your danger over; for the hall being decayed, and therefore standing in need of repair, a bevy of inmates are very probably banging at one end of it with their pistols; so that if you enter without giving loud notice of your approach, you have only escaped the wolf and the bear to expire by the pistol-shots of the merry monks of newstead. our party consisted of lord byron and four others, and was, now and then, increased by the presence of a neighbouring parson. as for our way of living, the order of the day was generally this:--for breakfast we had no set hour, but each suited his own convenience, --everything remaining on the table till the whole party had done; though had one wished to breakfast at the early hour of ten, one would have been rather lucky to find any of the servants up. our average hour of rising was one. i, who generally got up between eleven and twelve, was always,--even when an invalid,--the first of the party, and was esteemed a prodigy of early rising. it was frequently past two before the breakfast party broke up. then, for the amusements of the morning, there was reading, fencing, single-stick, or shuttle-cock, in the great room; practising with pistols in the hall; walking--riding--cricket--sailing on the lake, playing with the bear, or teasing the wolf. between seven and eight we dined; and our evening lasted from that time till one, two, or three in the morning. the evening diversions may be easily conceived. i must not omit the custom of handing round, after dinner, on the removal of the cloth, a human skull filled with burgundy. after revelling on choice viands, and the finest wines of france, we adjourned to tea, where we amused ourselves with reading, or improving conversation,--each, according to his fancy,--and, after sandwiches, etc., retired to rest. a set of monkish dresses, which had been provided, with all the proper apparatus of crosses, beads, tonsures, etc., often gave a variety to our appearance, and to our pursuits. you may easily imagine how chagrined i was at being ill nearly the first half of the time i was there. but i was led into a very different reflection from that of dr. swift, who left pope's house without ceremony, and afterwards informed him, by letter, that it was impossible for two sick friends to live together; for i found my shivering and invalid frame so perpetually annoyed by the thoughtless and tumultuous health of every one about me, that i heartily wished every soul in the house to be as ill as myself. "the journey back i performed on foot, together with another of the guests. we walked about twenty-five miles a day; but were a week on the road, from being detained by the rain. so here i close my account of an expedition which has somewhat extended my knowledge of this country. and where do you think i am going next? to constantinople!--at least, such an excursion has been proposed to me. lord b. and another friend of mine are going thither next month, and have asked me to join the party; but it seems to be but a wild scheme, and requires twice thinking upon. "addio, my dear i., yours very affectionately, c. s. matthews."] [footnote : a joke, related by hobhouse, reminds us of the youth of the party. in the long gallery at newstead was placed a stone coffin, from which, as he passed down the gallery at night, he heard a groan proceeding. on going nearer, a cowled figure rose from the coffin and blew out the candle. it was matthews.] [footnote : the rev. thomas jones. (see page [letter ], [foot]note .)] [footnote : the only thing remarkable about walsh's preface is that dr. johnson praises it as "very judicious," but is, at the same time, silent respecting the poems to which it is prefixed (moore).] [footnote : no "ode" under this title is to be found in walsh's poems. byron had, no doubt, in mind _the golden age restored_--a composition in which, says dr. johnson, "there was something of humour, while the facts were recent; but it now strikes no longer."] [footnote : "----granville the polite, and _knowing walsh_, would tell me i could write." "about fifteen," says pope, "i got acquainted with mr. walsh. he used to encourage me much, and tell me, that there was one way left of excelling: for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct; and he desired me to make that my study and aim" (spence's _anecdotes_, edit. , p. ).] [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note .] [footnote : dan dogherty, irish champion ( - ), came into notice as a pugilist in . he was beaten by belcher in april, , near the rubbing house on epsom downs, and again on the curragh of kildare, in , in thirty-five minutes, after twenty-six rounds.] [footnote : tom belcher ( - ), younger brother of jem belcher the champion, fought and won his first fight in london, in , against warr. the fight took place in tothill fields, westminster. twice beaten by dutch sam (elias samuel), in and , he never held the championship, which a man of his height ( ft. ins.) and weight ( st. lbs.) could scarcely hope to win. but he repeatedly established the superiority of art over strength, and was one of the most popular and respectable pugilists of the day. under his management the castle tavern at holborn, in which he succeeded gregson (page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]), was the head-quarters of pugilism.] [footnote : sir henry smyth, baronet, of trinity hall, a.m. , was found between eleven and twelve at night, on may , , "inciting to a disturbance" at the shop of a mrs. thrower on market hill. other members of the university seem to have been equally guilty. the sentence of the vice-chancellor and heads was "that he be suspended from his degree and banished from the university." the others were admonished only; so it was clearly considered that smyth was the ring-leader.] .--to henry drury. [ ] dorant's hotel, jan. , . my dear sir,--though the stupidity of my servants, or the porter of the house, in not showing you up stairs (where i should have joined you directly), prevented me the pleasure of seeing you yesterday, i hoped to meet you at some public place in the evening. however, my stars decreed otherwise, as they generally do, when i have any favour to request of them. i think you would have been surprised at my figure, for, since our last meeting, i am reduced four stone in weight. i then weighed fourteen stone seven pound, and now only _ten stone and a half_. i have disposed of my _superfluities_ by means of hard exercise and abstinence. should your harrow engagements allow you to visit town between this and february, i shall be most happy to see you in albemarle street. if i am not so fortunate, i shall endeavour to join you for an afternoon at harrow, though, i fear, your cellar will by no means contribute to my cure. as for my worthy preceptor, dr. b., [ ] our encounter would by no means prevent the _mutual endearments_ he and i were wont to lavish on each other. we have only spoken once since my departure from harrow in , and then he politely told tatersall [ ] i was not a proper associate for his pupils. this was long before my strictures in verse; but, in plain _prose_, had i been some years older, i should have held my tongue on his perfections. but, being laid on my back, when that schoolboy thing was written--or rather dictated--expecting to rise no more, my physician having taken his sixteenth fee, and i his prescription, i could not quit this earth without leaving a memento of my constant attachment to butler in gratitude for his manifold good offices. i meant to have been down in july; but thinking my appearance, immediately after the publication, would be construed into an insult, i directed my steps elsewhere. besides, i heard that some of the boys had got hold of my _libellus_, contrary to my wishes certainly, for i never transmitted a single copy till october, when i gave one to a boy, since gone, after repeated importunities. you will, i trust, pardon this egotism. as you had touched on the subject i thought some explanation necessary. defence i shall not attempt, _hic murus aheneus esto, nil conscire sibi_--and "so on" (as lord baltimore [ ] said on his trial for a rape)--i have been so long at trinity as to forget the conclusion of the line; but though i cannot finish my quotation, i will my letter, and entreat you to believe me, gratefully and affectionately, etc. p.s.--i will not lay a tax on your time by requiring an answer, lest you say, as butler said to tatersall (when i had written his reverence an impudent epistle on the expression before mentioned), viz. "that i wanted to draw him into a correspondence." [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]; and page [letter ], [foot] note [ ].] [footnote : dr. butler, head-master of harrow (see page [letter ], [foot]note ).] [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ].] [footnote : francis calvert, seventh lord baltimore ( - ), was charged with decoying a young milliner, named sarah woodcock, to his house, and with rape. on february , , he was committed for trial at the spring assizes, was tried at kingston, march , , and acquitted. the story is the subject of a romance, 'injured innocence; or the rape of sarah woodcock;' a tale, by s. j., esq., of magdalen college, oxford. new york (no date). "i thank god," lord baltimore is reported to have said, "that i have had firmness and resolution to meet my accusers face to face, and provoke an enquiry into my conduct, 'hic murus aheneus esto, nil conscire sibi'" ('ann. register' for , p. ). his body lay in state at exeter change, previous to its interment at epsom (leigh hunt's 'the town', edit. , p. ).] .--to john cam hobhouse. [ ] newstead abbey, notts, january , . my dear hobhouse,--i do not know how the _dens_-descended davies [ ] came to mention his having received a copy of my epistle to you, but i addressed him and you on the same evening, and being much incensed at the account i had received from wallace, i communicated the contents to the birdmore, though without any of that malice wherewith you charge me. i shall leave my card at batts, and hope to see you in your progress to the north. i have lately discovered scrope's genealogy to be ennobled by a collateral tie with the beardmore, chirurgeon and dentist to royalty, and that the town of southwell contains cousins of scrope's, who disowned them (i grieve to speak it) on visiting that city in my society. how i found this out i will disclose, the first time "we three meet again." but why did he conceal his lineage? "ah, my dear h., it was _cruel_, it was _insulting_, it was _unnecessary_." i have (notwithstanding your kind invitation to wallace) been alone since the th of december; nothing of moment has occurred since our anniversary row. i shall be in london on the th; there are to be oxen roasted and sheep boiled on the nd, with ale and uproar for the mobility; a feast is also providing for the tenantry. for my own part, i shall know as little of the matter as a corpse of the funeral solemnized in its honour. a letter addressed to reddish's will find me. i still intend publishing the _bards_, but i have altered a good deal of the "body of the book," added and interpolated, with some excisions; your lines still stand, [ ] and in all there will appear lines. i should like much to see your essay upon entrails: is there any honorary token of silver gilt? any cups, or pounds sterling attached to the prize, besides glory? i expect to see you with a medal suspended from your button-hole, like a croix de st. louis. fletcher's father is deceased, and has left his son tway cottages, value ten pounds per annum. i know not how it is, but fletch., though only the third brother, conceives himself entitled to all the estates of the defunct, and i have recommended him to a lawyer, who, i fear, will triumph in the spoils of this ancient family. a birthday ode has been addressed to me by a country schoolmaster, in which i am likened to the sun, or sol, as he classically saith; the people of newstead are compared to laplanders. i am said to be a baron, and a byron, the truth of which is indisputable. feronia is again to reign (she must have some woods to govern first), but it is altogether a very pleasant performance, and the author is as superior to pye, as george gordon to george guelph. to be sure some of the lines are too short, but then, to make amends, the alexandrines have from fifteen to seventeen syllables, so we may call them alexandrines the great. i shall be glad to hear from you, and beg you to believe me, yours very truly, byron. [footnote : john cam hobhouse ( - ), created in baron broughton de gyfford, was the eldest son of mr. benjamin hobhouse, created a baronet in , and m.p. (from to ) successively for bletchingley, grampound, and hindon. from a school at bristol, john cam hobhouse was sent to westminster, and thence to trinity, cambridge, where he won ( ) the hulsean prize for an essay on "sacrifices," and made acquaintance with byron, as related in letter . in he published a poetical miscellany, consisting of sixty-five pieces, under the title of 'imitations and translations from the ancient and modern classics, together with original poems never before published' (london, , vo). (for byron's nine contributions, see 'poems', vol. i., bibliographical note.) in - he was byron's travelling companion abroad (see 'a journey through albania, etc.' london, , to). in he travelled with douglas kinnaird in sweden, germany, austria, and italy; in he was at paris with the allied armies; and in april, , was there again till the second napoleonic war broke out, returning to witness the second restoration of the bourbons (see his 'letters--written by an englishman resident in paris, etc.' anon., london, , vols., vo). during he was much with byron in london. he notes going with him to drury lane, and being introduced with him to kean (may ); dining with him at lord tavistock's (june ); dining with him at douglas kinnaird's, to meet kean (december ). he was byron's best man at his marriage at seaham (january , ), and it was to him that the bride said, "if i am not happy, it will be my own fault." he was the last person who shook hands with byron on dover pier, when the latter left england in . later in the same year he was with him at the villa diodati, on the lake of geneva, and travelled with him to venice. to him byron dedicated 'the siege of corinth', in the next year he was again with byron in the villa la mira on the banks of the brenta, and at venice, where he prepared the commentary on the fourth canto of 'childe harold', which byron dedicated to him. part of the notes were published separately ('historical illustrations, etc.' london, , vo). in hobhouse stood for westminster, but was defeated by george lamb, the representative of the official whigs. he was an original member of "the rota club," afterwards known as "harrington's," to which michael bruce, douglas kinnaird, scrope davies, and others belonged, and which byron, writing from italy, expressed a wish to join. he had now embarked on political life. his pamphlet, 'a defence of the people' ( ), was followed in the same year by 'a trifling mistake', which was declared by the house of commons to be a breach of privilege. in consequence, he was committed to newgate. the death of george iii., and the dissolution of parliament, set him free. he contested westminster, won the seat with sir francis burdett as his colleague, and represented it for thirteen years. he took the part of queen caroline against the government. at the queen's funeral (august , ) he attended the procession which escorted her body (august ) from brandenburg house to harwich, and saw the coffin placed upon the vessel. his political career was long, independent, useful, and distinguished, and he specially associated himself with such questions as the shortening of the hours for infant labour, the opening up of metropolitan vestries, and the subject of parliamentary reform. in he was made a privy councillor, and became secretary at war in lord grey's ministry. this post, finding himself unable to effect essential reforms at the war office, he exchanged for that of secretary for ireland ( ); but he resigned both his office and his seat a few weeks later, being opposed to the government on a question of taxation. in he joined lord melbourne's government as first commissioner of woods and forests, with a seat in the cabinet. in lord melbourne's second administration, and again in lord j. russell's government of , he was president of the board of control. on his retirement from public life, in , he received high recognition of his official services from the queen, who conferred on him the grand cross of the bath and a peerage. hobhouse was present at her majesty's first council, and is said to have originated the phrase, "her majesty's opposition." in he travelled in italy (see 'italy: remarks made in several visits from the year to ', london, , vols., vo). there, on september , at pisa, he for the last time saw byron, whose parting words were, "hobhouse, you should never have come, or you should never go." in july, , when byron's body was brought home, he boarded the 'florida' in sandgate creek, and took charge of the funeral ceremonies from westminster stairs to the interment at hucknall torkard. he prepared an article for the 'quarterly review', exposing the absurdities of medwin's 'conversations' and of dallas's 'recollections'; but, owing to difficulties with southey, it was not published. it was the substance of this article which afterwards appeared in the 'westminster review' in . in he wrote, but, by lord holland's advice, withheld, a refutation of the charges made against the dead poet as to his separation from lady byron. he has, however, left on record that it was not fear which induced byron to agree to the separation, but that, on the contrary, he was ready to "go into court." the staunchest of byron's friends, hobhouse was also the most sensible and candid. as such byron valued him. talking to lady blessington at genoa, in , he said ('conversations', p. ) that hobhouse was "the most impartial, or perhaps," added he, "'unpartial', of my friends; he always told me my faults, but i must do him the justice to add, that he told them to 'me', and not to others." on another occasion he said (p. ), "if friendship, as most people imagine, consists in telling one truth--unvarnished, unadorned truth--he is indeed a friend: yet, hang it, i must be candid, and say i have had many other, and more agreeable, proofs of hobhouse's friendship than the truths he always told me; but the fact is, i wanted him to sugar them over a little with flattery, as nurses do the physic given to children; and he never would, and therefore i have never felt quite content with him, though, 'au fond', i respect him the more for his candour, while i respect myself very much less for my weakness in disliking it."] [footnote : scrope berdmore davies ( - ), born at horsley, in gloucestershire, was educated at eton, and king's college, cambridge, where he was admitted a scholar in july, , and a fellow in july, . in he was awarded by the provost of eton the belham scholarship, given to those scholars of king's who had behaved well at eton, and held it till . a witty companion, with "a dry caustic manner, and an irresistible stammer" ('life of rev, f. hodgson', vol. i. p. ), davies was, during the regency and afterwards, a popular member of fashionable society. a daring gambler and shrewd calculator, he at one time won heavily at the gaming-tables. on june , , as he told hobhouse, he won £ at watier's club at macao. captain cronow, in his 'reminiscences' (ed. , vol. i. pp. - ), sketches him among "golden ball" hughes, "king" allen, and other dandies. but luck turned against him, and he retired, poverty-stricken and almost dependent upon his fellowship, to paris, where he died, may , . it was supposed he had for many years occupied himself with writing his recollections of his friends. but the notes, if they were ever written, have disappeared. byron, who hated obligations, as he himself says, counted davies as a friend, though not on the same plane as hobhouse. he borrowed from davies £ before he left england in , repaid him in , and dedicated to him his 'parisina'. in his 'ms. journal' ('life', pp. , ) he says, "one of the cleverest men i ever knew, in conversation, was scrope berdmore davies. hobhouse is also very good in that line, though it is of less consequence to a man who has other ways of showing his talents than in company. scrope was always ready, and often witty--hobhouse was witty, but not always so ready, being more diffident." byron appointed him one of the executors of his will of . in his 'journal' for march , ('life', p. ), occurs this entry: "yesterday, dined tête à tête at the cocoa with scrope davies--sat from six till midnight--drank between us one bottle of champagne and six of claret, neither of which wines ever affect me. offered to take scrope home in my carriage; but he was tipsy and pious, and i was obliged to leave him on his knees praying to i know not what purpose or pagod. no headach, nor sickness, that night, nor to-day. got up, if anything, earlier than usual--sparred with jackson 'ad sudorem', and have been much better in health than for many days. i have heard nothing more from scrope." scrope davies visited byron at the villa diodati, in , and brought back with him 'childe harold', canto iii. on his return he gave evidence in the case of 'byron v. johnson', before the lord chancellor, november , , when an injunction was obtained to restrain johnson from publishing a volume containing 'lord byron's childe harold's pilgrimage to the holy land', and other works, which he professed to have bought from byron for £ . according to gronow ('reminiscences', vol. i. p. , ), scrope davies, asked to give his private opinion of byron, said that he considered him "very agreeable and clever, but vain, overbearing, suspicious, and jealous. byron hated palmerston, but liked peel, and thought that the whole world ought to be constantly employed in admiring his poetry and himself."] [footnote : for hobhouse's lines on bowles, see 'english bards, etc.', line , and note.] .--to robert charles dallas. [ ] dorant's hotel, albemarle street, jan. , . sir,--your letter was not received till this morning, i presume from being addressed to me in notts., where i have not resided since last june; and as the date is the th, you will excuse the delay of my answer. if the little volume you mention has given pleasure to the author of _percival_ and _aubrey_, i am sufficiently repaid by his praise. though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, i confess a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. but i am afraid i should forfeit all claim to candour, if i did not decline such praise as i do not deserve; and this is, i am sorry to say, the case in the present instance. my compositions speak for themselves, and must stand or fall by their own worth or demerit: _thus far_ i feel highly gratified by your favourable opinion. but my pretensions to virtue are unluckily so few, that though i should be happy to merit, i cannot accept, your applause in that respect. one passage in your letter struck me forcibly: you mention the two lords lyttleton [ ] in the manner they respectively deserve, and will be surprised to hear the person who is now addressing you has been frequently compared to the _latter_. i know i am injuring myself in your esteem by this avowal, but the circumstance was so remarkable from your observation, that i cannot help relating the fact. the events of my short life have been of so singular a nature, that, though the pride commonly called honour has, and i trust ever will, prevent me from disgracing my name by a mean or cowardly action, i have been already held up as the votary of licentiousness, and the disciple of infidelity. how far justice may have dictated this accusation, i cannot pretend to say; but, like the _gentleman_ to whom my religious friends, in the warmth of their charity, have already devoted me, i am made worse than i really am. however, to quit myself (the worst theme i could pitch upon), and return to my poems, i cannot sufficiently express my thanks, and i hope i shall some day have an opportunity of rendering them in person. a second edition is now in the press, with some additions and considerable omissions; you will allow me to present you with a copy. the 'critical', [ ] 'monthly', [ ] and 'anti-jacobin [ ] reviews' have been very indulgent; but the 'eclectic' [ ] has pronounced a furious philippic, not against the _book_ but the _author_, where you will find all i have mentioned asserted by a reverend divine who wrote the critique. your name and connection with our family have been long known to me, and i hope your person will be not less so: you will find me an excellent compound of a "brainless" and a "stanhope." [ ] i am afraid you will hardly be able to read this, for my hand is almost as bad as my character; but you will find me, as legibly as possible, your obliged and obedient servant, byron. [footnote : robert charles dallas ( - ), born in jamaica and educated in scotland, read law at the inner temple. about he returned to jamaica to look after his property and take up a lucrative appointment. three years later he returned to england, married, and took his wife back with him to the west indies. his wife's health compelled him to return to europe, and he lived for some time in france. at the outbreak of the revolution he emigrated to america; but finally settled down to literary work in england. his first publication ( ) was _miscellaneous writings consisting of poems; lucretia, a tragedy; and moral essays, with a vocabulary of the passions_. he translated a number of french books bearing on the french revolution, by bertrand de moleville, mallet du pan, hue, and joseph weber; also a work on volcanoes by the abbé ordinaire, and an historical novel by madame de genlis, _the siege of rochelle_. he wrote a number of novels, among them _percival, or nature vindicated_ ( ); _aubrey: a novel_ ( ); _the morlands; tales illustrative of the simple and surprising_ ( ); _the knights; tales illustrative of the marvellous_ ( ). later ( and ) he published two volumes of poems. he says (preface to _percival_, p. ix.) that his object is "to improve the heart, as well as to please the fancy, and to be the auxiliary of the divine and the moralist." he is one of the writers, others being "gleaner" pratt and lord carlisle, "whose writings" (_memoirs of the life and writings of percival stockdale_, , vol. i. preface, p. xvi.) "dart through the general fog of our literary dulness." stockdale further says of him that he was "a man of a most affectionate and virtuous mind. he has had the moral honour, in several novels, to exert his talents, which were worthy of their glorious cause, in the service of good conduct and religion." dallas's sister, henrietta charlotte, married george anson byron, the son of admiral the hon. john byron, and was therefore byron's aunt by marriage. on the score of this connection, dallas introduced himself to byron by complimenting him, in a letter dated january , , on his _hours of idleness_. a well-meaning, self-satisfied, dull, industrious man, he gave byron excellent moral advice, to which the latter responded as the _fanfaron de ses vices_, evidently with great amusement to himself. _english bards, and scotch reviewers_ was brought out under dallas's auspices, as well as _childe harold_ and _the corsair_, the profits of which byron made over to him. dallas distrusted his own literary judgment in the matter of byron's verse, and consulted walter wright, the author of horæ ioniæ, about the prospects of 'childe harold'. "i have told him," said wright, "that i have no doubt this will succeed. lord byron had offered him before some translations from horace, which i told him would never sell, and he did not take them" ('diary of h. crabb robinson', vol. i. pp. , ). the connection between dallas and byron practically ended in . the publication of dallas's 'recollections of the life of lord byron from the year to the end of ' was stopped by a decree obtained by byron's executors, in the court of chancery, august , . but the book was published by the writer's son, the rev. a. r. c. dallas.] [footnote : byron refers to the following passage in dallas's letter of january , : "a spirit that brings to my mind another noble author, who was not only a fine poet, orator, and historian, but one of the closest reasoners we have on the truth of that religion, of which forgiveness is a prominent principle: the great and the good lord lyttelton, whose fame will never die. his son, to whom he had transmitted genius but not virtue, sparkled for a moment, and went out like a falling star, and with him the title became extinct. he was the victim of inordinate passions, and he will be heard of in this world only by those who read the english peerage" ('correspondence of lord byron', p. , the suppressed edition). dallas was, of course, aware that byron's predecessor in the title, william, fifth lord byron, was known as the "wicked lord byron." george, first lord lyttelton ( - ), to whom pope refers ('imitations of horace', bk. i. ep. i. . ) as "still true to virtue, and as warm as true," was a voluminous writer in prose and verse, but owed his political importance to his family connection with chatham, temple, and george grenville. horace walpole calls him a "wise moppet" ('letters', vol. ii. p. , ed. cunningham), and repeatedly sneers at his dulness. his son thomas, second lord lyttelton ( - ), the "wicked lord lyttelton," appears in w. combe's 'diaboliad' as the "peer of words, well known,--and honour'd in the house of lords,-- whose eloquence all parallel defies!" who claims the throne of hell as the worst of living men. his 'poems by a young nobleman lately deceased' (published in , after his death) may have helped dallas in his allusion. he was the hero and the victim of the famous ghost story which dr. johnson was "willing to believe."] [footnote : 'the critical review' ( rd series, vol. xii. pp. - ) specially praises lines "on leaving newstead abbey" and "childish recollections."] [footnote : in 'monthly literary recreations' (july, , pp. - ), "childish recollections" and "the tear" are particularly commended. "as friends to the cause of literature, we have thought proper not to disguise our opinion of his powers, that we might alter his determination, and lead him once more to the castalian fount."] [footnote : 'the anti-jacobin review' (december, , pp. , ) says that the poems "exhibit strong proofs of genius, accompanied by a lively but chastened imagination, a classical taste, and a benevolent heart."] [footnote : _the eclectic review_ (vol. iii. part ii. pp. - ) begins its review thus: "the notice we take of this publication regards the author rather than the book; the book is a collection of juvenile pieces, some of very moderate merit, and others of very questionable morality; but the author is a _nobleman_!"] [footnote : characters in the novel called _percival_.] .--to robert charles dallas. dorant's, january , . sir,--whenever leisure and inclination permit me the pleasure of a visit, i shall feel truly gratified in a personal acquaintance with one whose mind has been long known to me in his writings. you are so far correct in your conjecture, that i am a member of the university of cambridge, where i shall take my degree of a.m. this term; but were reasoning, eloquence, or virtue, the objects of my search, granta is not their metropolis, nor is the place of her situation an "el dorado," far less an utopia. the intellects of her children are as stagnant as her cam, and their pursuits limited to the church--not of christ, but of the nearest benefice. as to my reading, i believe i may aver, without hyperbole, it has been tolerably extensive in the historical department; so that few nations exist, or have existed, with whose records i am not in some degree acquainted, from herodotus down to gibbon. of the classics, i know about as much as most school-boys after a discipline of thirteen years; of the law of the land as much as enables me to keep "within the statute"--to use the poacher's vocabulary. i did study the "spirit of laws" [ ] and the law of nations; but when i saw the latter violated every month, i gave up my attempts at so useless an accomplishment:--of geography, i have seen more land on maps than i should wish to traverse on foot;--of mathematics, enough to give me the headach without clearing the part affected;--of philosophy, astronomy, and metaphysics, more than i can comprehend; and of common sense so little, that i mean to leave a byronian prize at each of our "almæ matres" for the first discovery,--though i rather fear that of the longitude will precede it. i once thought myself a philosopher, and talked nonsense with great decorum: i defied pain, and preached up equanimity. for some time this did very well, for no one was in _pain_ for me but my friends, and none lost their patience but my hearers. at last, a fall from my horse convinced me bodily suffering was an evil; and the worst of an argument overset my maxims and my temper at the same moment: so i quitted zeno for aristippus, and conceive that pleasure constitutes the [greek (transliterated): to kalon]. in morality, i prefer confucius to the ten commandments, and socrates to st. paul (though the two latter agree in their opinion of marriage). in religion, i favour the catholic emancipation, but do not acknowledge the pope; and i have refused to take the sacrament, because i do not think eating bread or drinking wine from the hand of an earthly vicar will make me an inheritor of heaven. i hold virtue, in general, or the virtues severally, to be only in the disposition, each a _feeling_, not a principle. i believe truth the prime attribute of the deity, and death an eternal sleep, at least of the body. you have here a brief compendium of the sentiments of the _wicked_ george, lord byron; and, till i get a new suit, you will perceive i am badly cloathed. i remain yours, etc., byron. [footnote : in byron's "list of historical writers whose works i have perused in different languages" ('life', pp. , ), occurs the name of montesquieu. it is to his 'esprit des lois' that byron refers.] .--to john hanson. dorant's, january th, . sir,--the picture i have drawn of my finances is unfortunately a true one, and i find the colours may be heightened but not improved by time.--i have inclosed the receipt, and return my thanks for the loan, which shall be repaid the first opportunity. in the concluding part of my last i gave my reasons for not troubling you with my society at present, but when i can either communicate or receive pleasure, i shall not be long absent. yrs., etc., byron. p.s.--i have received a letter from whitehead, of course you know the contents, and must act as you think proper. .--to john hanson. dorant's, january th, . dear sir,--some time ago i gave mitchell the sadler [_sic_] a letter for you, requesting his bill might be paid from the balance of the quarter you obliged me by advancing. if he has received this you will further oblige me by paying what remains, i believe somewhere about five pounds, if so much. you will confer a favour upon me by the loan of twenty. i will endeavour to repay it next week, as i have immediate occasion for that sum, and i should not require it of you could i obtain it elsewhere. i am now in my one and twentieth year, and cannot command as many pounds. to cambridge i cannot go without paying my bills, and at present i could as soon compass the national debt; in london i must not remain, nor shall i, when i can procure a trifle to take me out of it. home i have none; and if there was a possibility of getting out of the country, i would gladly avail myself of it. but even that is denied me, my debts amount to three thousand, three hundred to jews, eight hundred to mrs. b. of nottingham, to coachmaker and other tradesmen a thousand more, and these must be much increased, before they are lessened. such is the prospect before me, which is by no means brightened by ill-health. i would have called on you, but i have neither spirits to enliven myself or others, or inclination to bring a gloomy face to spoil a group of happy ones. i remain, your obliged and obedt. sert., byron. p.s.--your answer to the former part will oblige, as i shall be reduced to a most unpleasant dilemma if it does not arrive. .--to james de bathe. [ ] dorant's hotel, february d, . my dear de bathe,--last night i saw your father and brother, the former i have not the pleasure of knowing, but the latter informed me _you_ came to town on _saturday_ and returned _yesterday_. i have received a pressing invitation from henry drury to pay him a visit; in his letter he mentions a very old _friend_ of yours, who told him he would join my party, if i could inform him on what day i meant to go over. this friend you will readily conclude to be a lord _b_.; but not the one who now addresses you. shall i bring him to you? and insure a welcome for myself which perhaps might not otherwise be the case. this will not be for a fortnight to come. i am waiting for long, who is now at chatham, when he arrives we shall probably drive down and dine with drury. i confess harrow has lost most of its charms for me. i do not know if delawarr is still there; but, with the exception of yourself and the earl, i shall find myself among strangers. long has a brother at butler's, and all his predilections remain in full force; mine are weakened, if not destroyed, and though i can safely say, i never knew a friend out of harrow, i question whether i have one left in it. you leave harrow in july; may i ask what is your future destination? in january _ _ i shall be twenty one & in the spring of the same year proceed abroad, not on the usual tour, but a route of a more extensive description. what say you? are you disposed for a view of the peloponnesus and a voyage through the archipelago? i am merely in jest with regard to you, but very serious with regard to my own intention which is fixed on the _pilgrimage_, unless some political view or accident induce me to postpone it. adieu! if you have leisure, i shall be as happy to hear from you, as i would have been to have _seen_ you. believe me, yours very truly, byron. [footnote : sir james wynne de bathe ( - ) succeeded his father as second baronet, february , . "clare, dorset, charles gordon, de bathe, claridge, and john wingfield, were my juniors and favourites, whom i spoilt by indulgence" ('life', p. ). de bathe's name does not appear in the harrow school lists. a captain de bathe interested himself in the case of medora leigh in (see charles mackay's 'medora leigh', pp. , , and elsewhere in the volume).] .--to william harness. [ ] dorant's hotel, albemarle street, feb. ii, . my dear harness,--as i had no opportunity of returning my verbal thanks, i trust you will accept my written acknowledgments for the compliment you were pleased to pay some production of my unlucky muse last november,--i am induced to do this not less from the pleasure i feel in the praise of an old schoolfellow, than from justice to you, for i had heard the story with some slight variations. indeed, when we met this morning, wingfield [ ] had not undeceived me; but he will tell you that i displayed no resentment in mentioning what i had heard, though i was not sorry to discover the truth. perhaps you hardly recollect, some years ago, a short, though, for the time, a warm friendship between us. why it was not of longer duration i know not. i have still a gift of yours in my possession, that must always prevent me from forgetting it. i also remember being favoured with the perusal of many of your compositions, and several other circumstances very pleasant in their day, which i will not force upon your memory, but entreat you to believe me, with much regret at their short continuance, and a hope they are not irrevocable, yours very sincerely, etc., byron. [footnote : william harness ( - ), son of dr. j. harness, commissioner of the transport board, was educated at harrow and christ's college, cambridge. ordained in , he was, from to , curate at hampstead. "i could quiz you heartily," writes mrs. franklin to miss mitford (september , ), "for having told me in three successive letters of mr. harness's chapel at hampstead. i understand he now lives a very retired life" ('the friendships of mary russell mitford', vol. i. p. ). from to he was incumbent of regent square chapel; minister of brompton chapel ( - ); perpetual curate ( - ) of all saints', knightsbridge, which he built from subscriptions raised by himself. he is described by crabb robinson ('diary', vol. iii. p. ) as "a clergyman with oxford propensities, and a worshipper of the heathen muses as well as of the christian graces;" and again (iii. ), as "a man of taste, of high church principles and liberal in spirit." miss mitford ('the friendships of mary russell mitford', vol. ii. p. ) writes that "he has neither catholic nor puseyite tendencies,--only it is a large and liberal mind like bishop stanley's, believing good men and good christians may exist among papists, and will be as safe there as if they were protestants." again (vol. ii. p. ) she says of him: "besides his varied accomplishments, and his admirable goodness and kindness, he has all sorts of amusing peculiarities. with a temper never known to fail, an indulgence the largest, a tenderness as of a woman, he has the habit of talking like a cynic! and with more learning, ancient and modern, and a wider grasp of literature than almost any one i know, professes to read nothing and care for nothing but 'shakespeare and the bible.' he is the finest reader of both that i ever heard. his preaching, which has been so much admired, is too rapid, but his reading the prayers is perfection. the best parish priest in london, and the truest christian." miss mitford's praise may be exaggerated; but she had known harness for a lifetime. harness edited 'shakespeare' ( , vols.), as well as 'massinger' ( ) and 'ford' ( ); wrote for the 'quarterly' and 'blackwood'; and published a number of sermons, including 'the wrath of cain', 'a boyle lecture' ( ). he wrote 'the life of mary russell mitford' ( ), in collaboration with the rev. a. g. l'estrange, whose 'life of the rev. w. harness' is the chief authority for his career. his friendship with byron began at harrow ('life', pp. , ), where byron, who was older than harness, took pity upon his lameness and weakness, and protected him from the bullies of the school. at a later period they became estranged, as is shown by the following letter from byron to harness ('life', pp. , ):-- "we both seem perfectly to recollect, with a mixture of pleasure and regret, the hours we once passed together, and i assure you, most sincerely, they are numbered among the happiest of my brief chronicle of enjoyment. i am now 'getting into years', that is to say, i was 'twenty' a month ago, and another year will send me into the world to run my career of folly with the rest. i was then just fourteen,--you were almost the first of my harrow friends, certainly the 'first' in my esteem, if not in date; but an absence from harrow for some time, shortly after, and new connections on your side, and the difference in our conduct (an advantage decidedly in your favour) from that turbulent and riotous disposition of mine, which impelled me into every species of mischief,--all these circumstances combined to destroy an intimacy, which affection urged me to continue, and memory compels me to regret. but there is not a circumstance attending that period, hardly a sentence we exchanged, which is not impressed on my mind at this moment. i need not say more,--this assurance alone must convince you, had i considered them as trivial, they would have been less indelible. how well i recollect the perusal of your 'first flights'! there is another circumstance you do not know;--the 'first lines' i ever attempted at harrow were addressed to 'you'. you were to have seen them; but sinclair had the copy in his possession when we went home;--and, on our return, we were 'strangers'. they were destroyed, and certainly no great loss; but you will perceive from this circumstance my opinions at an age when we cannot be hypocrites. i have dwelt longer on this theme than i intended, and i shall now conclude with what i ought to have begun. we were once friends,--nay, we have always been so, for our separation was the effect of chance, not of dissension. i do not know how far our destinations in life may throw us together, but if opportunity and inclination allow you to waste a thought on such a hare-brained being as myself, you will find me at least sincere, and not so bigoted to my faults as to involve others in the consequences. will you sometimes write to me? i do not ask it often; and, if we meet, let us be what we 'should' be, and what we 'were'." the following is harness's own account of the circumstances in which letter was written:-- "a coolness afterwards arose, which byron alludes to in the first of the accompanying letters, and we never spoke during the last year of his remaining at school, nor till after the publication of his 'hours of idleness'. lord byron was then at cambridge; i, in one of the upper forms, at harrow. in an english theme i happened to quote from the volume, and mention it with praise. it was reported to byron that i had, on the contrary, spoken slightingly of his work and of himself, for the purpose of conciliating the favour of dr. butler, the master, who had been severely satirised in one of the poems. wingfield, who was afterwards lord powerscourt, a mutual friend of byron and myself, disabused him of the error into which he had been led, and this was the occasion of the first letter of the collection. our intimacy was renewed, and continued from that time till his going abroad. whatever faults lord byron might have had towards others, to myself he was always uniformly affectionate. i have many slights and neglects towards him to reproach myself with; but i cannot call to mind a single instance of caprice or unkindness, in the whole course of our friendship, to allege against him." in december, , harness paid byron a visit at newstead, the only other guest being francis hodgson, who, like harness, was not then ordained. he thus describes the visit ('life of the rev. francis hodgson', vol. i. pp. - ):-- "when byron returned, with the ms. of the first two cantos of 'childe harold' in his portmanteau, i paid him a visit at newstead. it was winter--dark, dreary weather--the snow upon the ground; and a straggling, gloomy, depressive, partially inhabited place the abbey was. those rooms, however, which had been fitted up for residence were so comfortably appointed, glowing with crimson hangings, and cheerful with capacious fires, that one soon lost the melancholy feeling of being domiciled in the wing of an extensive ruin. many tales are related or fabled of the orgies which, in the poet's early youth, had made clamorous these ancient halls of the byrons. i can only say that nothing in the shape of riot or excess occurred when i was there. the only other visitor was dr. hodgson, the translator of 'juvenal', and nothing could be more quiet and regular than the course of our days. byron was retouching, as the sheets passed through the press, the stanzas of 'childe harold'. hodgson was at work in getting out the ensuing number of the 'monthly review', of which he was principal editor. i was reading for my degree. when we met, our general talk was of poets and poetry--of who could or who could not write; but it occasionally rose into very serious discussions on religion. byron, from his early education in scotland, had been taught to identify the principles of christianity with the extreme dogmas of calvinism. his mind had thus imbibed a most miserable prejudice, which appeared to be the only obstacle to his hearty acceptance of the gospel. of this error we were most anxious to disabuse him. the chief weight of the argument rested with hodgson, who was older, a good deal, than myself. i cannot even now--at a distance of more than fifty years--recall those conversations without a deep feeling of admiration for the judicious zeal and affectionate earnestness (often speaking with tears in his eyes) which dr. hodgson evinced in his advocacy of the truth. the only difference, except perhaps in the subjects talked about, between our life at newstead abbey and that of the great families around us, was the hours we kept. it was, as i have said, winter, and the days were cold; and, as nothing tempted us to rise early, we got up late. this flung the routine of the day rather backward, and we did not go early to bed. my visit to newstead lasted about three weeks, when i returned to cambridge to take my degree." to harness byron intended to dedicate 'childe harold', but feared to do so, "lest it should injure him in his profession."] [footnote : three wingfields, sons of lord powerscourt, entered harrow in february, . the hon. richard wingfield succeeded his father as fifth viscount powerscourt in , and died in . edward became a clergyman and died of cholera in ; john, byron's friend, the "alonzo" of "childish recollections" entered the coldstream guards, and died of fever at coimbra, may , . "of all human beings, i was perhaps at one time most attached to poor wingfield, who died at coimbra, , before i returned to england" ('life', p. ). to his memory byron wrote the lines in 'childe harold', canto i. stanza xci.] .--to j. ridge. [mr. ridge, newark.] dorant's hotel, february st, . mr. ridge,--something has occurred which will make considerable alteration in my new volume. you must _go back_ and _cut out_ the whole _poem_ of 'childish recollections'. [ ] of course you will be surprized at this, and perhaps displeased, but it must be _done_. i cannot help its detaining you a _month_ longer, but there will be enough in the volume without it, and as i am now reconciled to dr. butler i cannot allow my satire to appear against him, nor can i alter that part relating to him without spoiling the whole. you will therefore omit the whole poem. send me an _immediate_ answer to this letter but _obey_ the directions. it is better that my reputation should suffer as a poet by the omission than as a man of honour by the insertion. etc., etc., byron. [footnote : for "childish recollections," see 'poems', vol.i. p. . a previous letter, written to ridge from dorant's hotel, january , , illustrates the rapidity with which byron's moods changed. in this case, the lines on "euryalus" (lord delawarr: see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]) were to be omitted:-- "mr. ridge,--in childish recollections omit the whole character of 'euryalus', and insert instead the lines to 'florio' as a part of the poem, and send me a proof in due course. "etc. etc., "byron. "p.s.--the first line of the passage to be omitted begins 'shall fair euryalus,' etc., and ends at 'toil for more;' omit the _whole_."] chapter iii. - . 'english bards, and scotch reviewers.' .--to the rev. john becher. [ ] dorant's hotel, feb. , . my dear becher,--now for apollo. i am happy that you still retain your predilection, and that the public allow me some share of praise. i am of so much importance that a most violent attack is preparing for me in the next number of the 'edinburgh review'. [ ] this i had from the authority of a friend who has seen the proof and manuscript of the critique. you know the system of the edinburgh gentlemen is universal attack. they praise none; and neither the public nor the author expects praise from them. it is, however, something to be noticed, as they profess to pass judgment only on works requiring the public attention. you will see this when it comes out;--it is, i understand, of the most unmerciful description; but i am aware of it, and hope 'you' will not be hurt by its severity. tell mrs. byron not to be out of humour with them, and to prepare her mind for the greatest hostility on their part. it will do no injury whatever, and i trust her mind will not be ruffled. they defeat their object by indiscriminate abuse, and they never praise except the partisans of lord holland and co. [ ] it is nothing to be abused when southey, moore, lauderdale, strangford, and payne knight, share the same fate. [ ] i am sorry--but "childish recollections" must be suppressed during this edition. i have altered, at your suggestion, the _obnoxious allusions_ in the sixth stanza of my last ode. and now, my dear becher, i must return my best acknowledgments for the interest you have taken in me and my poetical bantlings, and i shall ever be proud to show how much i esteem the _advice_ and the _adviser._ believe me, most truly, etc. [footnote : the rev. john thomas becher ( - ), educated at westminster and christ church, oxford, was appointed vicar of rumpton, notts., and midsomer norton, ; prebendary of southwell in ; and chairman of newark quarter sessions in . in all matters relating to the condition of the poor he made himself an acknowledged authority. he was the originator of a house of correction, a friendly society, and a workhouse at southwell. he was one of the "supervisors" appointed to organize the milbank penitentiary, which was opened in june, . on friendly societies he published three works ( , , and ), in which, 'inter alia', he sought to prove that labourers, paying sixpence a week from the time they were twenty, could secure not only sick-pay, but an annuity of five shillings a week at the age of sixty-five. his 'anti-pauper system' ( ) pointed to indoor relief as the true cure to pauperism. it was by becher's advice that byron destroyed his 'fugitive pieces'. no one who has read the silly verses which becher condemned, can doubt that the counsel was wise (see byron's lines to becher, 'poems', vol. i. pp. - , - , - ). the following are the lines in which becher expostulated with byron on the mischievous tendency of his verses:-- "say, byron! why compel me to deplore talents designed for choice poetic lore, deigning to varnish scenes, that shun the day, with guilty lustre, and with amorous lay? forbear to taint the virgin's spotless mind, in power though mighty, be in mercy kind, bid the chaste muse diffuse her hallowed light, so shall thy page enkindle pure delight, enhance thy native worth, and proudly twine, with britain's honors, those that are divine." [footnote : see, for the review itself, appendix ii. "as an author," writes byron to hobhouse, february , , "i am cut to atoms by the e-----'review;' it is just out, and has completely demolished my little fabric of fame. this is rather scurvy treatment for a whig review; but politics and poetry are different things, and i am no adept in either. i therefore submit in silence." among the less sentimental effects of this review upon byron's mind, he used to mention that, on the day he read it, he drank three bottles of claret to his own share after dinner; that nothing, however, relieved him till he had given vent to his indignation in rhyme, and that "after the first twenty lines, he felt himself considerably better" (moore, 'life', p. ). "i was sitting with charles lamb," h. crabb robinson told de morgan, "when wordsworth came in, with fume in his countenance and the 'edinburgh review' in his hand. 'i have no patience with these reviewers,' he said; 'here is a young man, a lord, and a minor, it appears, who publishes a little volume of poetry; and these fellows attack him, as if no one may write poetry unless he lives in a garret. the young man will do something, if he goes on.' when i became acquainted with lady byron, i told her this story, and she said, 'ah! if byron had known that, he would never have attacked wordsworth. he once went out to dinner where wordsworth was to be; when he came home, i said, "well, how did the young poet get on with the old one?" "to tell you the truth," said he, "i had but one feeling from the beginning of the visit to the end--'reverence!'"'" ('diary,' iii. .)] [footnote : that is to say, the 'edinburgh review' praised only whigs. henry richard vassall fox, third lord holland ( - ), the "nephew of fox, and friend of grey," married, in , elizabeth vassall, the divorced wife of sir godfrey webster. he held the office of lord privy seal in the ministry of all the talents (october, , to march, ). during the long exclusion of the whigs from office ( - ), when there seemed as little chance of a whig administration as of "a thaw in nova zembla," holland, in the house of lords, supported catholic emancipation, advocated the emancipation of slaves, opposed the detention of napoleon as a prisoner of war, and moved the abolition of capital punishment for minor offences. from november, , to his death, with brief intervals, he was chancellor of the duchy of lancaster, in the administrations of lord grey and of lord melbourne. outside the house he kept the party together by his great social gifts. an admirable talker, 'raconteur', and mimic, with a wit's relish for wit, the charm of his good temper was irresistible. "in my whole experience of our race," said lord brougham, "i never saw such a temper, nor anything that at all resembled it" ('statesmen of the time of george iii.', ed. , rd series, p. ). greville speaks of "his imperturbable temper, unflagging vivacity and spirit, his inexhaustible fund of anecdote, extensive information, sprightly wit" ('memoirs', iii. ). leslie, in his 'autobiographical recollections' (vol. i. p. ), adds the tribute that "he was, without any exception, the very best-tempered man i have ever known." lord john russell (preface to vol. vi. of the 'life of thomas moore') says that "he won without seeming to court, instructed without seeming to teach, and he amused without labouring to be witty." george ticknor ('life', vol. i. p. ) "never met a man who so disarms opposition in discussion, as i have often seen him, without yielding an iota, merely by the unpretending simplicity and sincerity of his manner." sydney smith ('memoir of the rev. sydney smith', chap. x. p. ) considered that his "career was one great, incessant, and unrewarded effort to resist oppression, promote justice, and restrain the abuse of power. he had an invincible hatred of tyranny and oppression, and the most ardent love of public happiness and attachment to public rights." a lover of art, a scholar, a linguist, he wrote memoirs, satires, and verses, collected materials for a life of his uncle, charles james fox, and translated both from the spanish and italian. his 'account of the life and writings of lope felix de vega carpio' ( ) was reviewed favourably by the 'edinburgh review' for october, . byron attacked him in 'english bards, and scotch reviewers' (lines - , and 'notes'), on the supposition that lord holland had instigated the article in the 'edinburgh review' on 'hours of idleness' (january, ). in , learning his mistake, and hearing from rogers that lord and lady holland desired the satire to be withdrawn, he gave orders that the whole impression should be burned (see 'introduction to english sards, and scotch reviewers, poems,' vol. i. p. ). in his 'journal' (november , ) he writes, "i have had a most kind letter from lord holland on 'the bride of abydos,' which he likes, and so does lady h. this is very good-natured in both, from whom i do not deserve any quarter. yet i 'did' think at the time, that my cause of enmity proceeded from holland house, and am glad i was wrong, and wish i had not been in such a hurry with that confounded satire, of which i would suppress even the memory; but people, now they can't get it, make a fuss, i verily believe out of contradiction."] [footnote : in the early numbers of the 'edinburgh review' reviews were published of southey's 'thalaba' and 'madoc;' of moore's 'odes of anacreon' and 'poems;' of lord lauderdale's 'inquiry into the nature and origin of public wealth;' of lord strangford's 'translations from camoëns;' of payne knight's 'principles of taste.'] .--to the rev. john becher. dorant's, march , . i have lately received a copy of the new edition from ridge, and it is high time for me to return my best thanks to you for the trouble you have taken in the superintendence. this i do most sincerely, and only regret that ridge has not seconded you as i could wish,--at least, in the bindings, paper, etc., of the copy he sent to me. perhaps those for the public may be more respectable in such articles. you have seen the 'edinburgh review', of course. i regret that mrs. byron is so much annoyed. for my own part, these "paper bullets of the brain" have only taught me to stand fire; and, as i have been lucky enough upon the whole, my repose and appetite are not discomposed. pratt, [ ] the gleaner, author, poet, etc., etc., addressed a long rhyming epistle to me on the subject, by way of consolation; but it was not well done, so i do not send it, though the name of the man might make it go down. the e. rs. have not performed their task well; at least the literati tell me this; and i think _i_ could write a more sarcastic critique on _myself_ than any yet published. for instance, instead of the remark,--ill-natured enough, but not keen,--about macpherson, i (quoad reviewers) could have said, "alas, this imitation only proves the assertion of dr. johnson, that many men, women, and _children_, could write such poetry as ossian's." [ ] i am _thin_ and in exercise. during the spring or summer i trust we shall meet. i hear lord ruthyn leaves newstead in april. as soon as he quits it for ever, i wish much you would take a ride over, survey the mansion, and give me your candid opinion on the most advisable mode of proceeding with regard to the _house_. _entre nous_, i am cursedly dipped; my debts, _every_ thing inclusive, will be nine or ten thousand before i am twenty-one. but i have reason to think my property will turn out better than general expectation may conceive. of newstead i have little hope or care; but hanson, my agent, intimated my lancashire property was worth three newsteads. i believe we have it hollow; though the defendants are protracting the surrender, if possible, till after my majority, for the purpose of forming some arrangement with me, thinking i shall probably prefer a sum in hand to a reversion. newstead i may _sell_;--perhaps i will not,--though of that more anon. i will come down in may or june. yours most truly, etc. [footnote : samuel jackson pratt ( - ), actor, itinerant lecturer, poet of the cruscan school, tragedian, and novelist, published a large number of volumes. his 'gleanings' in england, holland, wales, and westphalia attained some reputation. his 'sympathy, a poem' ( ) passed through several editions. his stage-name, as well as his 'nom de plume', was courtney melmoth. he was the discoverer and patron of the cobbler-poet, blacket (see also 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', line , note ).] [footnote : "dr. johnson's reply to the friend who asked him if any man 'living' could have written such a book, is well known: 'yes, sir; many men, many women, and many children.' i inquired of him myself if this story was authentic, and he said it was" (mrs. piozzi, 'johnsoniana', p. ).--[moore.]] .--to the hon. augusta leigh. [six mile bottom, newmarket, cambridge.] dorant's, [tuesday], april th, . my dear augusta,--i regret being compelled to trouble you again, but it is necessary i should request you will inform col. leigh, if the p's consent is not obtained in a few days, it will be of little service to mr. wallace, who is ordered to join the th in ten days, the regiment is stationed in the east indies, and, as he has already served there nine years, he is unwilling to return. i shall feel particularly obliged by col. leigh's interference, as i think from his influence the prince's consent might be obtained. i am not much in the habit of asking favours, or pressing exertion, but, on this occasion, my wish to save wallace must plead my excuse. i have been introduced to julia byron [ ] by trevannion at the opera; she is pretty, but i do not admire her; there is too much byron in her countenance, i hear she is clever, a very great defect in a woman, who becomes conceited in course; altogether i have not much inclination to improve the acquaintance. i have seen my old friend george, [ ] who will prove the best of the family, and will one day be lord b. i do not much care how soon. pray name my nephew after his uncle; it must be a nephew, (i _won't_ have a _niece,_) i will make him my _heir,_ for i shall never marry, unless i am ruined, and then his _inheritance_ would not be great. george will have the title and his _laurels;_ my property, (if any is left in five years time,) i can leave to whom i please, and your son shall be the legatee. adieu. yours ever, byron. [footnote : george anson byron, r.n. ( - ), second son of admiral the hon. john byron, by his wife sophia trevanion, and brother of byron's father, married henrietta charlotte dallas, by whom he had a son, george, who was at this time in the royal navy, and in succeeded as seventh lord byron; and a daughter, julia byron, who married, in , the rev. robert heath. of his cousin george, byron writes in his 'journal' for november , ('life,' p. ): "i like george much more than most people like their heirs. he is a fine fellow, and every inch a sailor." again on december , , he says, "i hope he will be an admiral, and, perhaps, lord byron into the bargain. if he would but marry, i would engage never to marry myself, or cut him out of the heirship." george anson byron and his wife both died in .] .--to the rev. john becher. newstead abbey, notts., sept. , . my dear becher,--i am much obliged to you for your inquiries, and shall profit by them accordingly. i am going to get up a play here; the hall will constitute a most admirable theatre. i have settled the 'dram. pers.,' and can do without ladies, as i have some young friends who will make tolerable substitutes for females, and we only want three male characters, beside mr. hobhouse and myself, for the play we have fixed on, which will be the 'revenge.' [ ] pray direct nicholson the carpenter to come over to me immediately, and inform me what day you will dine and pass the night here. believe me, etc. [footnote : young's tragedy ( ), from which one of byron's harrow speeches in the character of "zanga" was taken (see page [letter ], [foot]note ).] .--to john jackson. [ ] n. a., notts., september , . dear jack,--i wish you would inform me what has been done by jekyll, at no. , sloane square, concerning the pony i returned as unsound. i have also to request you will call on louch at brompton, and inquire what the devil he meant by sending such an insolent letter to me at brighton; and at the same time tell him i by no means can comply with the charge he has made for things pretended to be damaged. ambrose behaved most scandalously about the pony. you may tell jekyll if he does not refund the money, i shall put the affair into my lawyer's hands. five and twenty guineas is a sound price for a pony, and by god, if it costs me five hundred pounds, i will make an example of mr. jekyll, and that immediately, unless the cash is returned. believe me, dear jack, etc. [footnote : john jackson ( - ), better known as "gentleman" jackson, was champion of england from to . his three fights were against fewterel ( ), george ingleston ( ), and mendoza ( ). in his fight at ingatestone with "george the brewer," he slipped on the wet stage, and, falling, dislocated his ankle and broke his leg. his fight with mendoza at hornchurch, essex, was decided in nine rounds. at the end of the third round "the odds rose two to one on mendoza." in the fifth, jackson "seized hold of his opponent by the hair, and served him out in that defenceless state till he fell to the ground." the fight was practically over, and the odds at once turned in favour of jackson, who thenceforward had matters all his own way. even if mendoza had worn a wig, he probably would have succumbed to jackson, who was a more powerful man with a longer reach, and as scientific, though not so ornamental, a boxer. in jackson retired from the ring. "i can see him now" ('pugilistica,' vol. i. ), "as i saw him in ' , walking down holborn hill towards smithfield. he had on a scarlet coat worked in gold at the button-holes, ruffles, and frill of fine lace, a small white stock, no collar (they were not then invented), a looped hat with a broad black band, buff knee-breeches, and long silk strings, striped white silk stockings, pumps, and paste buckles; his waistcoat was pale blue satin, sprigged with white. it was impossible to look on his fine ample chest, his noble shoulders, his waist, (if anything too small,) his large, but not too large hips, ... his limbs, his balustrade calf and beautifully turned, but not over delicate ankle, his firm foot, and peculiarly small hand, without thinking that nature had sent him on earth as a model. on he went at a good five miles and a half an hour, the envy of all men, and the admiration of all women." his rooms at , bond street, became the head-quarters of the pugilistic club, with whose initials, p.c., the ropes and stakes at prize-rings were marked (see page [letter ], [foot]note ; and pierce egan's 'life in london,' pp. - ). from to , when he retired from the profession, he was, as pierce egan says of him (p. ), unrivalled as "a teacher of the art of 'self-defence.'" his character stood high. "from the highest to the lowest person in the sporting world, his 'decision' is law." "this gentleman," says moore, in a note to 'tom crib's memorial to congress' (p. ), "as he well deserves to be called, from the correctness of his conduct and the peculiar urbanity of his manners, forms that useful link between the amateurs and the professors of pugilism, which, when broken, it will be difficult, if not wholly impossible, to replace." he was byron's guest at cambridge, newstead, and brighton; received from him many letters; and is described by him, in a note to 'don juan' (canto xi. stanza xix.), as "my old friend and corporeal pastor and master." jackson's monument in brompton cemetery, a couchant lion and a mourning athlete, was subscribed for "by several noblemen and gentlemen, to record their admiration of one whose excellence of heart and incorruptible worth endeared him to all who knew him."] .--to john jackson. n. a., notts., october , . you will make as good a bargain as possible with this master jekyll, if he is not a gentleman. if he is a _gentleman_, inform me, for i shall take very different steps. if he is not, you must get what you can of the money, for i have too much business on hand at present to commence an action. besides, ambrose is the man who ought to refund,--but i have done with him. you can settle with l. out of the balance, and dispose of the bidets, etc., as you best can. i should be very glad to see you here; but the house is filled with workmen, and undergoing a thorough repair. i hope, however, to be more fortunate before many months have elapsed. if you see bold webster, [ ] remember me to him, and tell him i have to regret sydney, who has perished, i fear, in my rabbit warren, for we have seen nothing of him for the last fortnight. adieu. [ ] believe me, etc. [footnote : sir godfrey vassal webster ( - ).] [footnote : a third letter to jackson, written from newstead, december , , runs as follows:-- "my dear jack,--you will get the greyhound from the owner at any price, and as many more of the same breed (male or female) as you can collect. "tell d'egville his dress shall be returned--i am obliged to him for the pattern. i am sorry you should have so much trouble, but i was not aware of the difficulty of procuring the animals in question. i shall have finished part of my mansion in a few weeks, and, if you can pay me a visit at christmas, i shall be very glad to see you. believe me, etc." in a bill, for , sent in to byron by messrs. finn and johnson, tailors, of nottingham, appears the following item: "masquerade jackett with belt and rich turban, £ : : ." this is probably the dress made from d'egville's pattern. james d'egville learned dancing from gaetano vestris, well known at the court of frederick the great, and from gardel, the court teacher of marie antoinette. he, his brother louis, and his sister madame michau, were the most famous teachers of the day in england. the real name of the family was hervey; that of d'egville was assumed for professional purposes. james d'egville enjoyed a great reputation, both as an actor and a dancer, in paris and london. he was acting-manager and director of the king's theatre (october, , to january, ), but was dismissed, owing to a disagreement between the managers, in the course of which he was accused of french proclivities and republican principles (see waters's 'opera-glass', pp. - ). a man of taste and cultivation, he produced some musical extravaganzas and ballets; 'e.g. don quichotte ou les noces de gamache, l'elèvement d'adonis, the rape of dejanira', etc. a coloured print, in the possession of his great-nephew, mr. louis d'egville, represents him, with deshayes, in one of his most successful appearances, the ballet-pantomime of 'achille et deidamie'. he was an enthusiastic sportsman.] .--to his mother. newstead abbey, notts, october , . dear madam,--i have no beds for the hansons or any body else at present. the hansons sleep at mansfield. i do not know that i resemble jean jacques rousseau. [ ] i have no ambition to be like so illustrious a madman--but this i know, that i shall live in my own manner, and as much alone as possible. when my rooms are ready i shall be glad to see you: at present it would be improper, and uncomfortable to both parties. you can hardly object to my rendering my mansion habitable, notwithstanding my departure for persia in march (or may at farthest), since _you_ will be _tenant_ till my return; and in case of any accident (for i have already arranged my will to be drawn up the moment i am twenty-one), i have taken care you shall have the house and manor for _life_, besides a sufficient income. so you see my improvements are not entirely selfish. as i have a friend here, we will go to the infirmary ball on the th; we will drink tea with mrs. byron [ ] at eight o'clock, and expect to see you at the ball. if that lady will allow us a couple of rooms to dress in, we shall be highly obliged:--if we are at the ball by ten or eleven, it will be time enough, and we shall return to newstead about three or four. adieu. believe me, yours very truly, byron. [footnote : in byron's 'detached thoughts', quoted by moore ('life', p. ), he thus refers to the comparison with rousseau:-- "my mother, before i was twenty, would have it that i was like rousseau, and madame de stael used to say so too in , and the 'edinburgh review' has something of the sort in its critique on the fourth canto of 'childe harold'. i can't see any point of resemblance:--he wrote prose, i verse: he was of the people; i of the aristocracy: he was a philosopher; i am none: he published his first work at forty; i mine at eighteen: his first essay brought him universal applause; mine the contrary: he married his housekeeper; i could not keep house with my wife: he thought all the world in a plot against him; my little world seems to think me in a plot against it, if i may judge by their abuse in print and coterie: he liked botany; i like flowers, herbs, and trees, but know nothing of their pedigrees: he wrote music; i limit my knowledge of it to what i catch by _ear_--i never could learn any thing by _study_, not even a _language_--it was all by rote and ear, and memory: he had a _bad_ memory; i _had_, at least, an excellent one (ask hodgson the poet--a good judge, for he has an astonishing one): he wrote with hesitation and care; i with rapidity, and rarely with pains: _he_ could never ride, nor swim, nor 'was cunning of fence;' _i_ am an excellent swimmer, a decent, though not at all a dashing, rider, (having staved in a rib at eighteen, in the course of scampering,) and was sufficient of fence, particularly of the highland broadsword,--not a bad boxer, when i could keep my temper, which was difficult, but which i strove to do ever since i knocked down mr. purling, and put his knee-pan out (with the gloves on), in angelo's and jackson's rooms in , during the sparring, --and i was, besides, a very fair cricketer,--one of the harrow eleven, when we played against eton in . besides, rousseau's way of life, his country, his manners, his whole character, were so very different, that i am at a loss to conceive how such a comparison could have arisen, as it has done three several times, and all in rather a remarkable manner. i forgot to say that _he_ was also short-sighted, and that hitherto my eyes have been the contrary, to such a degree that, in the largest theatre of bologna, i distinguished and read some busts and inscriptions, painted near the stage, from a box so distant and so _darkly_ lighted, that none of the company (composed of young and very bright-eyed people, some of them in the same box,) could make out a letter, and thought it was a trick, though i had never been in that theatre before. "altogether, i think myself justified in thinking the comparison not well founded. i don't say this out of pique, for rousseau was a great man; and the thing, if true, were flattering enough;--but i have no idea of being pleased with the chimera."] [footnote : the hon. mrs. george byron, 'née' frances levett, byron's great-aunt, widow of the hon. george byron, fourth brother of william, fifth lord byron.] .--to his mother. newstead abbey, november , . dear mother,--if you please, we will forget the things you mention. i have no desire to remember them. when my rooms are finished, i shall be happy to see you; as i tell but the truth, you will not suspect me of evasion. i am furnishing the house more for you than myself, and i shall establish you in it before i sail for india, which i expect to do in march, if nothing particularly obstructive occurs. i am now fitting up the _green_ drawing-room; the red for a bed-room, and the rooms over as sleeping-rooms. they will be soon completed;--at least i hope so. i wish you would inquire of major watson (who is an old indian) what things will be necessary to provide for my voyage. i have already procured a friend to write to the arabic professor at cambridge, [ ] for some information i am anxious to procure. i can easily get letters from government to the ambassadors, consuls, etc., and also to the governors at calcutta and madras. i shall place my property and my will in the hands of trustees till my return, and i mean to appoint you one. from hanson i have heard nothing--when i do, you shall have the particulars. after all, you must own my project is not a bad one. if i do not travel now, i never shall, and all men should one day or other. i have at present no connections to keep me at home; no wife, or unprovided sisters, brothers, etc. i shall take care of you, and when i return i may possibly become a politician. a few years' knowledge of other countries than our own will not incapacitate me for that part. if we see no nation but our own, we do not give mankind a fair chance;--it is from _experience_, not books, we ought to judge of them. there is nothing like inspection, and trusting to our own senses. yours, etc. [footnote : the rev. john palmer, fellow of st. john's, adam's professor of arabic ( - ).] .--to francis hodgson. [ ] newstead abbey, notts., nov. , . my dear hodgson,--i expected to have heard ere this the event of your interview with the mysterious mr. haynes, my volunteer correspondent; however, as i had no business to trouble you with the adjustment of my concerns with that illustrious stranger, i have no right to complain of your silence. you have of course seen drury, [ ] in all the pleasing palpitations of anticipated wedlock. well! he has still something to look forward to, and his present extacies are certainly enviable. "peace be with him and with his spirit," and his flesh also, at least just now ... hobhouse and your humble are still here. hobhouse hunts, etc., and i do nothing; we dined the other day with a neighbouring esquire (not collet of staines), and regretted your absence, as the bouquet of staines was scarcely to be compared to our last "feast of reason." you know, laughing is the sign of a rational animal; so says dr. smollett. i think so, too, but unluckily my spirits don't always keep pace with my opinions. i had not so much scope for risibility the other day as i could have wished, for i was seated near a woman, to whom, when a boy, i was as much attached as boys generally are, and more than a man should be. [ ] i knew this before i went, and was determined to be valiant, and converse with _sang froid_; but instead i forgot my valour and my nonchalance, and never opened my lips even to laugh, far less to speak, and the lady was almost as absurd as myself, which made both the object of more observation than if we had conducted ourselves with easy indifference. you will think all this great nonsense; if you had seen it, you would have thought it still more ridiculous. what fools we are! we cry for a plaything, which, like children, we are never satisfied with till we break open, though like them we cannot get rid of it by putting it in the fire. i have tried for gifford's _epistle to pindar_,[ ] and the bookseller says the copies were cut up for _waste paper_; if you can procure me a copy i shall be much obliged. adieu! believe me, my dear sir, yours ever sincerely, byron. [footnote : francis hodgson ( - ), educated at eton ( - ) and at king's college, cambridge, scholar ( ), fellow ( ), hesitated between literature and the bar as his profession. for three years he was a private tutor, for one ( ) a master at eton. in he became a resident tutor at king's. it was not till that he decided to take orders. two years later he married miss tayler, a sister of mrs. henry drury, and took a country curacy. in he was given the eton living of bakewell, in derbyshire, became archdeacon of derby in , and in provost of eton. at eton he died december , . hodgson's literary facility was extraordinary. he rhymed with an ease which almost rivals that of byron, and from to he poured out quantities of verse, english and latin, original and translated, besides writing articles for the 'quarterly', the 'monthly', and the 'critical' reviews. he published his 'translation of juvenal' in , in which he was assisted by drury and merivale; 'lady jane grey', a tale; and other poems ( ); 'sir edgar, a tale' ( ); 'leaves of laurel' ( ); 'charlemagne, an epic poem' ( ), translated from the original of lucien bonaparte, prince of canino, by s. butler and francis hodgson; 'the friends, a poem in four books; mythology for versification' ( ); 'a charge, as archdeacon of derby' ( ); 'sermons' ( ); and other works. his acquaintance with byron began in , when byron was meditating 'british bards', and hodgson, provoked by a review of his 'juvenal' in the 'edinburgh review', was composing his 'gentle alterative prepared for the reviewers', which appears on pp. , of 'lady jane grey'. there are some curious points of resemblance between the two poems, though hodgson's lines can hardly be compared for force and sting to 'english bards, and scotch reviewers'. like byron (see 'english bards, etc'., line , note ), he makes merry over the blunder of the 'edinburgh' reviewer, who, in an article on payne knight's 'principles of taste', severely criticized some greek lines which he attributed to knight, but which, in fact, were by pindar:-- "and when he frown'd on kn--'s erroneous greek, bad him in pindar's page that error seek." like byron also, he attributes the blunder to hallam, and speaks of "hallam's baffled art." the article was written by lord holland's physician, dr. allen, who, according to sydney smith, had "the creed of a philosopher and the legs of a clergyman." like byron also (see 'english bards, etc'., line ), he appeals to gifford, who was an old family friend, to return to the fray:-- "oh! for that voice, whose cadence loud and strong drove delia crusca from the field of song-- and with a force that guiltier fools should feel, rack'd a vain butterfly on satire's wheel." in a note appended to the words in his satire--"like clowns detest nobility"--he refers to the 'edinburgh's' treatment of byron's verse. the link thus established between byron and hodgson grew stronger for the next few years. hodgson suppressed moore's challenge to the author of 'english bards'; was byron's guest at newstead (see page [letter ], in [foot]note [further down]); pleaded with him on the subject of religion; translated his lines, "i would i were a careless child," into latin verse ('lady jane grey', p. ); addressed him in poetry, as, for instance, in the "lines to a friend going abroad" ('sir edgar', p. ). byron, on his side, seems to have been sincerely attached to hodgson, to whom he left, by his first will ( ), one-third of his personal goods, and in gave £ to enable him to marry. hodgson corresponded with mrs. leigh and with miss milbanke, afterwards lady byron, endeavoured to heal the breach between husband and wife, and was one of the mourners at hucknall torkard church. in haydon's 'table-talk' (vol. ii. pp. - ) is recorded a conversation with hobhouse on the subject of hodgson. haydon's account of hobhouse's words is confused; but he definitely asserts that hodgson's life was dissipated, and insinuates that he perverted byron's character. part of the explanation is probably this: hodgson's friend, the rev. robert bland, kept a mistress, described as a woman of great personal and mental attraction. he asked hodgson, during his absence on the continent, to visit the lady and send him frequent news of her. hodgson did so, with the result that, at bland's return, the lady refused to see him. when byron came back from his eastern tour, he received a frantic letter from bland, telling him that hodgson had stolen her love. to this byron refers in his letter to harness, december , , and probably told an embellished story to hobhouse. but hodgson himself warmly repudiated the charge; and there is no reason to think that his version of the affair is not the truth.] [footnote : the rev. henry drury married, december , , ann caroline, daughter of archdale wilson tayler, of boreham wood, herts. their five sons were all educated at harrow: henry, archdeacon of wilts and editor of 'arundines cami' ( ); byron, vice-admiral r.n.; benjamin heath, vice-president of caius college, cambridge; heber, colonel in the madras army; charles curtis, general of the bengal staff corps (see also page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]).] [footnote : mrs. chaworth musters (see byron's lines, "well! thou art happy," 'poems', vol. i. pp. - ).] [footnote : william gifford ( - ), a self-taught scholar, first a ploughboy, then boy on board a brixham coaster, afterwards shoemaker's apprentice, was sent by friends to exeter college, oxford ( - ). in the 'baviad' ( ) and the 'maeviad' ( ) he attacked many of the smaller writers of the day, who were either silly, like the delia cruscan school, or discreditable, like williams, who wrote as "anthony pasquin." in his 'epistle to peter pindar' ( ) he succeeds in laying bare the true character of john wolcot. as editor of the 'anti-jacobin, or weekly examiner' (november, , to july, ), he supported the political views of canning and his friends. as editor of the 'quarterly review', from its foundation (february, ) to his resignation in september, , he did yeoman's service to sound literature by his good sense and adherence to the best models. it was a period when all criticism was narrow, and, to some degree, warped by political prejudice. in these respects, gifford's work may not have risen above--it certainly did not fall below--the highest standard of contemporary criticism. his editions of 'massinger' ( ), which superseded that of monck mason and davies ( ), of 'ben jonson' ( ), of 'ford' ( ), are valuable. to his translation of 'juvenal' ( ) is prefixed his autobiography. his translation of 'persius' appeared in . to gifford, byron usually paid the utmost deference. "any suggestion of yours, even if it were conveyed," he writes to him, in , "in the less tender text of the 'baviad,' or a monk mason note to massinger, would be obeyed." see also his letter (september , ), in which he calls gifford his "magnus apollo," and values his praise above the gems of samarcand. "he was," says sir walter scott ('diary,' january , ), "a little man, dumpled up together, and so ill-made as to seem almost deformed, but with a singular expression of talent in his countenance." byron was attracted to gifford, partly by his devotion to the classical models of literature, partly by the outspoken frankness of his literary criticism, partly also, perhaps, by his physical deformity. .--to john hanson. newstead abbey, notts., november th, . dear sir,--i am truly glad to hear your health is reinstated. as for my affairs i am sure you will do your best, and, though i should be glad to get rid of my lancashire property for an equivalent in money, i shall not take any steps of that nature without good advice and mature consideration. i am (as i have already told you) going abroad in the spring; for this i have many reasons. in the first place, i wish to study india and asiatic policy and manners. i am young, tolerably vigorous, abstemious in my way of living; i have no pleasure in fashionable dissipation, and i am determined to take a wider field than is customary with travellers. if i return, my judgment will be more mature, and i shall still be young enough for politics. with regard to expence, travelling through the east is rather inconvenient than expensive: it is not like the tour of europe, you undergo hardship, but incur little hazard of spending money. if i live here i must have my house in town, a separate house for mrs. byron; i must keep horses, etc., etc. when i go abroad i place mrs. byron at newstead (there is one great expence saved), i have no horses to keep. a voyage to india will take me six months, and if i had a dozen attendants cannot cost me five hundred pounds; and you will agree with me that a like term of months in england would lead me into four times that expenditure. i have written to government for letters and permission of the company, so you see i am _serious._ you honour my debts; they amount to perhaps twelve thousand pounds, and i shall require perhaps three or four thousand at setting out, with credit on a bengal agent. this you must manage for me. if my resources are not adequate to the supply i must _sell_, but _not newstead._ i will at least transmit that to the next lord. my debts must be paid, if possible, in february. i shall leave my affairs to the care of _trustees_, of whom, with your acquiescence, i shall _name you_ one, mr. parker another, and two more, on whom i am not yet determined. pray let me hear from you soon. remember me to mrs. hanson, whom i hope to see on her return. present my best respects to the young lady, and believe me, etc., byron. .--to francis hodgson. newstead abbey, notts., nov. , . my dear sir,--boatswain [ ] is to be buried in a vault waiting for myself. i have also written an epitaph, which i would send, were it not for two reasons: one is, that it is too long for a letter; and the other, that i hope you will some day read it on the spot where it will be engraved. you discomfort me with the intelligence of the real orthodoxy of the arch-fiend's name, [ ] but alas! it must stand with me at present; if ever i have an opportunity of correcting, i shall liken him to geoffrey of monmouth, a noted liar in his way, and perhaps a more correct prototype than the carnifex of james ii. i do not think the composition of your poem "a sufficing reason" for not keeping your promise of a christmas visit. why not come? i will never disturb you in your moments of inspiration; and if you wish to collect any materials for the _scenery_?,[ ] hardwicke (where mary was confined for several years) is not eight miles distant, and, independent of the interest you must take in it as her vindicator, is a most beautiful and venerable object of curiosity. i shall take it very ill if you do not come; my mansion is improving in comfort, and, when you require solitude, i shall have an apartment devoted to the purpose of receiving your poetical reveries. i have heard from our drury; he says little of the row, which i regret: indeed i would have sacrificed much to have contributed in any way (as a schoolboy) to its consummation; but butler survives, and thirteen boys have been expelled in vain. davies is not here, but hobhouse hunts as usual, and your humble servant "drags at each remove a lengthened chain." i have heard from his grace of portland [ ] on the subject of my expedition: he talks of difficulties; by the gods! if he throws any in my way i will next session ring such a peal in his ears, that he shall wish the fiery dane had rather been his guest again. [ ] you do not tell me if gifford is really my commentator: it is too good to be true, for i know nothing would gratify my vanity so much as the reality; even the idea is too precious to part with. i shall expect you here; let me have no more excuses. hobhouse desires his best remembrance. we are now lingering over our evening potations. i have extended my letter further than i ought, and beg you will excuse it; on the opposite page i send you some stanzas [ ] i wrote off on being questioned by a former flame as to my motives for quitting this country. you are the first reader. hobhouse hates everything of the kind, therefore i do not show them to him. adieu! believe me, yours very sincerely, byron. [footnote : boatswain, the newfoundland dog, died november , . (for byron's inscriptions in prose and verse, see 'poems', vol. i. p. .)] [footnote : byron at first thought that jeffrey, the editor of the 'edinburgh review', spelt his name in the same way as the judge jeffreys of the bloody assizes. he probably writes "orthodoxy" for "orthography" as a joke. (see the lines quoted from 'british bards' in notes to 'english. bards, etc.', line , note .)] [footnote : it is stated that hodgson was writing a poem on mary queen of scots ('life of rev. francis hodgson', vol. i. p. ). no such poem was apparently ever published. in hodgson's 'lady jane grey', queen mary of england plays a part; hence, possibly, the mistake.] [footnote : byron asked the duke of portland to procure him "permission from the e.i. directors to pass through their settlements." the duke replied, in effect, that byron trespassed on his time and patience. so byron at least took his answer (see 'english bards, and scotch reviewers,' line and note ).] [footnote : 'marmion', canto ii. stanza xxxi.] [footnote : see stanzas "to a lady on being asked my reason for quitting england in the spring" ('poems', vol. i. p. ).] .--to the hon. augusta leigh. [ld. chichester's, stratton street, london.] newstead abbey, notts., [wednesday], novr. th, . my dearest augusta,--i return you my best thanks for making me an uncle, and forgive the sex this time; but the next _must_ be a nephew. you will be happy to hear my lancashire property is likely to prove extremely valuable; indeed my pecuniary affairs are altogether far superior to my expectations or any other person's. if i would _sell_, my income would probably be six thousand per annum; but i will not part at least with newstead, or indeed with the other, which is of a nature to increase in value yearly. i am living here _alone_, which suits my inclinations better than society of any kind. mrs. byron i have shaken off for two years, and i shall not resume her yoke in future, i am afraid my disposition will suffer in your estimation; but i never can forgive that woman, or breathe in comfort under the same roof. i am a very unlucky fellow, for i think i had naturally not a bad heart; but it has been so bent, twisted, and trampled on, that it has now become as hard as a highlander's heelpiece. i do not know that much alteration has taken place in my person, except that i am grown much thinner, and somewhat taller! i saw col. leigh at brighton in july, where i should have been glad to have seen you; i only know your husband by sight, though i am acquainted with many of the tenth. indeed my relations are those whom i know the least, and in most instances, i am not very anxious to improve the acquaintance. i hope you are quite recovered, i shall be in town in january to take my seat, and will call, if convenient; let me hear from you before. [signature cut off, and over the page is, in mrs. leigh's writing, this endorsement: "sent to miss alderson to go to germany, may th, ."] .--to the hon. augusta leigh. [ld. chichester's, stratton street, london.] newstead abbey, notts., decr. th, . my dearest augusta,--when i stated in my last, that my intercourse with the world had hardened my heart, i did not mean from any matrimonial disappointment, no, i have been guilty of many absurdities, but i hope in god i shall always escape that worst of evils, marriage. i have no doubt there are exceptions, and of course include you amongst them, but you will recollect, that "_exceptions only prove the rule_." i live here much in my own manner, that is, _alone_, for i could not bear the company of my best friend, above a month; there is such a sameness in mankind upon the whole, and they grow so much more disgusting every day, that, were it not for a portion of ambition, and a conviction that in times like the present we ought to perform our respective duties, i should live here all my life, in unvaried solitude. i have been visited by all our nobility and gentry; but i return no visits. joseph murray is at the head of my household, poor honest fellow! i should be a great brute, if i had not provided for him in the manner most congenial to his own feelings, and to mine. i have several horses, and a considerable establishment, but i am not addicted to hunting or shooting. i hate all field sports, though a few years since i was a tolerable adept in the _polite_ arts of foxhunting, hawking, boxing, etc., etc. my library is rather extensive, (and as you perhaps know) i am a mighty scribbler; i flatter myself i have made some improvements in newstead, and, as i am independent, i am happy, as far as any person unfortunate enough to be born into this world, can be said to be so. i shall be glad to hear from you when convenient, and beg you to believe me, very sincerely yours, byron. .--to john hanson. newstead abbey, notts., dec. , . my dear sir,--i regret the contents of your letter as i think we shall be thrown on our backs from the delay. i do not know if our best method would not be to compromise if possible, as you know the state of my affairs will not be much bettered by a protracted and possibly unsuccessful litigation. however, i am and have been so much in the dark during the whole transaction that i am not a competent judge of the most expedient measures. i suppose it will end in my marrying a _golden dolly_ [ ] or blowing my brains out; it does not much matter which, the remedies are nearly alike. i shall be glad to hear from you further on the business. i suppose now it will be still more difficult to come to any terms. have you seen mrs. massingberd, and have you arranged my israelitish accounts? pray remember me to mrs. hanson, to harriet, and all the family, female and male. believe me also, yours very sincerely, byron. [footnote : mrs. byron also advised his marriage with an heiress. the following passage is taken from her letter to hanson, january , :-- "i was sorry i could not see you here. byron told me he intended to put his servants on board wages at newstead. i was very sorry to hear of the great expence the newstead _fête_ would put him to. i can see nothing but the road to ruin in all this, which grieves me to the heart and makes me still worse than i would otherwise be (unless, indeed, coal mines turn to gold mines), or that he mends his fortune in the old and usual way by marrying a woman with two or three hundred thousand pounds. i have no doubt of his being a great speaker and a celebrated public character, and _all_ that; but that _won't add_ to his fortune, but bring on more expenses on him, and there is nothing to be had in this country to make a man rich in his line of life." in another letter to hanson, dated march , , she returns to the same subject:-- "i have had a very dismal letter from my son, informing me that he is _ruined_. he wishes to borrow my money. this i shall be very ready to oblige him in, on such security as you approve. as it is my _all_, this is very necessary, and i am sure he would not wish to have it on any other terms. it cannot be paid up, however, under six months' notice. i wish he would take the debt of a thousand pounds, that i have been security for, on himself, and pay about eighty pounds he owes here. i wish to god he would exert himself and retrieve his affairs. he must marry a woman of _fortune_ this spring; love matches is all nonsense. let him make use of the talents god has given him. he is an english peer, and has all the privileges of that situation. what is this about proving his grandfather's marriage? i thought it had been in lancashire. if it was not, it surely easily can be proved. is nothing going forward concerning the rochdale property? i am sure, if i was lord byron, i would sell no estates to pay jews; i only would pay what was lawful. pray answer the note immediately, and answer all my questions concerning lending the money, the rochdale property, and why b. don't or can't take his seat, which is very hard, and very provoking. i am, dear sir, yours sincerely, c. g. byron."] .--to francis hodgson. newstead abbey, notts., dec. , . my dear hodgson,--i have just received your letter, and one from b. drury, [ ] which i would send, were it not too bulky to despatch within a sheet of paper; but i must impart the contents and consign the answer to your care. in the first place, i cannot address the answer to him, because the epistle is without date or direction; and in the next, the contents are so singular that i can scarce believe my optics, "which are made the fools of the other senses, or else worth all the rest." a few weeks ago, i wrote to our friend harry drury of facetious memory, to request he would prevail on his brother at eton to receive the son of a citizen in london well known unto me as a pupil; the family having been particularly polite during the short time i was with them, induced me to this application. "now mark what follows," as somebody or southey sublimely saith: on this day, the th december, arrives an epistle signed b. drury, containing not the smallest reference to tuition or _in_tuition, but a _petition_ for _robert gregson_, [ ] of pugilistic notoriety, now in bondage for certain paltry pounds sterling, and liable to take up his everlasting abode in banco regis. had this letter been from any of my _lay_ acquaintance, or, in short, from anyone but the gentleman whose signature it bears, i should have marvelled not. if drury is serious, i congratulate pugilism on the acquisition of such a patron, and shall be happy to advance any sum necessary for the liberation of the captive gregson; but i certainly hope to be certified from you or some reputable housekeeper of the fact, before i write to drury on the subject. when i say the _fact_, i mean of the _letter_ being written by _drury_, not having any doubt as to the authenticity of the statement. the letter is now before me, and i keep it for your perusal. when i hear from you i shall address my answer to him, under _your care_; for as it is now the vacation at eton, and the letter is without _time_ or _place_, i cannot venture to consign my sentiments on so _momentous_ a _concern_ to chance. to you, my dear hodgson, i have not much to say. if you can make it convenient or pleasant to trust yourself here, be assured it will be both to me. [footnote : benjamin heath drury ( - ), second son of the headmaster of harrow (see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]), was a fellow of king's college, cambridge, and assistant-master at eton. gronow ('reminiscences', vol. i. pp. and ) says that drury was "passionately devoted to theatricals," and, with his friend knapp, frequently drove up to london after school-hours to sup with edmund kean and arnold at drury lane or the hummums in covent garden. on one occasion they took with them lord eldon's son, then a school-boy at eton. after supper the party were "run in" by the watchmen, and bailed out at bow street by the lord chancellor's secretary.] [footnote : bob gregson ( - ), the big-boned, burly landlord of the castle, holborn, known as "bob's chop-house," was a familiar figure in the sporting world. when captain of the liverpool and wigan packet, he established his reputation in lancashire as a fighter. he stood feet - / inches in height, and weighed stone pounds. but, in spite of the eulogies of pierce egan--a low-caste irishman, who was first a compositor, then a comedian, and afterwards a newspaper reporter (see grantley berkeley's 'my life and recollections', vol. i. pp. , )--gregson had no science, and depended only on his strength, courage, and endurance. he was beaten by gully at six mile bottom in , and again in at markyate street; also by tom cribb at moulsey hurst in ('pugilistica', vol. i. pp. - ). failing as landlord of the castle, he set up a school of boxing at dublin, where he afterwards kept "the punch house," in moor street. he died at liverpool in . according to egan ('boxiana', vol. i. pp. , ), gregson "united pugilism with poetry." on this claim he adopted the letters "p.p." after his name. egan gives some of his doggerel among "prime chaunts for the fancy" ('ibid'., p. ). moore, in 'tom crib's memorial to congress', attributes to him his "lines to miss grace maddox" (pp. - ); "ya-hip, my hearties!" (pp. - ); and "the annual pill" (pp. - ).] .--to john hanson. newstead abbey, jan. th, . my dear sir,--i am much obliged by your kind invitation, but i wish you, if possible, to be here on the nd. [ ] your presence will be of great service, everything is prepared for your reception exactly as if i remained, and i think hargreaves will be gratified by the appearance of the place, and the humours of the day. i shall on the first opportunity pay my respects to your family, and though i will not trespass on your hospitality on the nd, my obligation is not less for your agreeable offer, which on any other occasion would be immediately accepted, but i wish you much to be present at the festivities, and i hope you will add charles to the party. consider, as the courtier says in the tragedy of _tom thumb_ [ ]-- "this is a day; your majesties may boast of it, and since it never can come o'er, 'tis fit you make the most of it." i shall take my seat as soon as circumstances will admit. i have not yet chosen my side in politics, nor shall i hastily commit myself with professions, or pledge my support to any men or measures, but though i shall not run headlong into opposition, i will studiously avoid a connection with ministry. i cannot say that my opinion is strongly in favour of either party; [ ] on the one side we have the late underlings of pitt, possessing all his ill fortune, without his talents; this may render their failure more excusable, but will not diminish the public contempt; on the other, we have the ill-assorted fragments of a worn-out minority; mr. windham with his coat _twice_ turned, and my lord grenville who perhaps has more sense than he can make good use of; between the two and the shuttlecock of both, a sidmouth, and the general _football_ sir f. burdett, kicked at by all, and owned by none. i shall stand aloof, speak what i think, but not often, nor too soon. i will preserve my independence, if possible, but if involved with a party, i will take care not to be the _last_ or _least_ in the ranks. as to _patriotism_, the word is obsolete, perhaps improperly, so, for all men in the country are patriots, knowing that their own existence must stand or fall with the constitution, yet everybody thinks he could alter it for the better, and govern a people, who are in fact easily governed, but always claim the privilege of grumbling. so much for politics, of which i at present know little and care less; bye and bye, i shall use the senatorial privilege of talking, and indeed in such times, and in such a crew, it must be difficult to hold one's tongue. believe me, etc., byron. [footnote : byron's coming of age was celebrated at newstead on january , .] [footnote : see o'hara's acting version of fielding's _tom thumb the great_, act i. sc. i-- "_doodle_. a day we never saw before; a day of fun and drollery. _noodle_. that you may say, their majesties may boast of it; and since it never can come more, 'tis fit they make the most of it."] [footnote : lord grenville ( - ) became first lord of the treasury; lord sidmouth, lord privy seal; and william windham, secretary for war, in february, . they, with fox and his friends, formed the administration of "all the talents," which in march, , fell over the roman catholic question. they were succeeded by the duke of portland's ministry, which included the "late underlings of pitt,"--perceval, canning, dundas, etc. "weathercock" windham, in the ministry of "all the talents," was responsible for the conduct of a war which, as leader of the so-called "new opposition," he had vigorously opposed. sir francis burdett's zeal for parliamentary reform involved him in hostility to both whigs and tories, who had combined to exclude him from parliament after his election for middlesex ( - ). in he had been elected for westminster.] .--to r. c. dallas. reddish's hotel, jan. , . my dear sir,--my only reason for not adopting your lines is because they are _your_ lines. [ ] you will recollect that lady wortley montague said to pope: "no touching, for the good will be given to you, and the bad attributed to me." i am determined it shall be all my own, except such alterations as may be absolutely required; but i am much obliged by the trouble you have taken, and your good opinion. the couplet on lord c. [ ] may be scratched out and the following inserted: roscommon! sheffield! with your spirits fled, no future laurels deck a noble head. nor e'en a hackney'd muse will deign to smile on minor byron, nor mature carlisle. this will answer the purpose of concealment. now for some couplets on mr. crabbe, [ ] which you may place after "gifford, sotheby, m'niel:" there be who say, in these enlightened days, that splendid lies are all the poet's praise; that strained invention, ever on the wing, alone impels the modern bard to sing. 'tis true that all who rhyme, nay, all who write, shrink from that fatal word to genius, trite: yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires, and decorate the verse herself inspires. this fact in virtue's name let crabbe attest; though nature's sternest painter, yet the best. i am sorry to differ with you with regard to the title, [ ] but i mean to retain it with this addition: _the british [the word "british" is struck through] english bards and scotch reviewers_; and if we call it a _satire_, it will obviate the objection, as the bards also were welch. your title is too humorous;--and as i know a little of----, i wish not to embroil myself with him, though i do not commend his treatment of----. i shall be glad to hear from you or see you, and beg you to believe me, yours very sincerely, byron. [footnote : dallas (january , ) takes "the liberty of sending you some two dozen lines," etc.] [footnote : the couplet on lord carlisle, as it stood in 'british bards', was-- "on one alone apollo deigns to smile, and crowns a new roscommon in carlisle." (see 'english bards, etc.', lines , 'et seqq.'; see also line , note . for lord carlisle, see page , note .)] [footnote : for "gifford, sotheby, macneil," see 'english bards, etc'., line , and 'notes'. dallas had written (january , ), "i am sorry you have not found a place among the genuine sons of apollo for crabbe, who, in spite of something bordering on servility in his dedication, may surely rank with some you have admitted to his temple" (see 'english bards, etc'., lines - ).] [footnote : dallas suggested as a title, 'the parish poor of parnassus'.] .--to r. c. dallas. february , . my dear sir,--suppose we have this couplet-- though sweet the sound, disdain a borrow'd tone, resign achaia's lyre, and strike your own: [ ] or, though soft the echo, scorn a borrow'd tone, resign achaia's lyre, and strike your own. so much for your admonition; but my note of notes, my solitary pun, [ ] must not be given up--no, rather "let mightiest of all the beasts of chace that roam in woody caledon" come against me; my annotation must stand. we shall never sell a thousand; then why print so many? did you receive my yesterday's note? i am troubling you, but i am apprehensive some of the lines are omitted by your young amanuensis, to whom, however, i am infinitely obliged. believe me, yours very truly, byron. [footnote : dallas (february , ) objected to the rhyme in the couplet:-- "translation's servile work at length disown, and quit achaia's muse to court your own." (for the corrected couplet, see 'english bards, etc'., lines , .)] [footnote : see 'english bards, etc.', line , note .] .--to r. c. dallas. february , . i wish you to call, if possible, as i have some alterations to suggest as to the part about brougham. [ ] b. [footnote : see 'ibid.', line , note .] .--to r. c. dallas. february , . excuse the trouble, but i have added two lines which are necessary to complete the poetical character of lord carlisle. [ ] ..........in his age his scenes alone had damn'd our singing stage; but managers for once cried, "hold, enough!" nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff! yours, etc., b. [footnote : see 'ibid.', lines - . another letter, written february , , runs as follows:-- "i wish you much to call on me, about _one_, not later, if convenient, as i have some thirty or forty lines for addition. believe me, etc., b."] .--to r. c. dallas. february , . _ecce iterum crispinus!_--i send you some lines to be placed after "gifford, sotheby, m'niel." [ ] pray call tomorrow any time before two, and believe me, etc., b. p.s.--print soon, or i shall overflow with more rhyme. [footnote : see 'english bards, etc.', lines - .] .--to r. c. dallas. february , . i enclose some lines to be inserted, the first six after "lords too are bards," etc., or rather immediately following the line: "ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes." the four next will wind up the panegyric on lord carlisle, and come after "tragic stuff." [ ] yours truly. in these our times with daily wonders big, a letter'd peer is like a letter'd pig: both know their alphabet, but who from thence infers that peers or pigs have manly sense? still less that such should woo the graceful nine? parnassus was not made for lords and swine. roscommon, sheffield, etc., etc. ... ... tragic stuff. yet at their judgment let his lordship laugh, and case his volumes in congenial calf: yes, doff that covering where morocco shines, "and hang a calf-skin on those recreant" lines. [footnote : see 'ibid.', lines - .] .--to r. c. dallas. february , . a cut at the opera.--_ecce signum_! from last night's observation, and inuendos against the society for the suppression of vice. [ ] the lines will come well in after the couplets concerning naldi and catalani! [ ] yours truly, byron. [footnote : see 'english bards, etc.', lines - , note , for the "cut at the opera." the piece which provoked the outburst was 'i villegiatori rezzani', at the king's theatre, february , . guiseppe naldi ( - ) made his 'début' in london, at the king's theatre, in april, . (for further details, see 'english bards, etc.', line , note .) angelica catalani, born at sinigaglia, in , or, according to some authorities, , came out at venice, in an opera by nasolini. she sang in many capitals of europe, married at lisbon a french officer named vallabrègue, and came to london in october, . the salary paid her was a cause of the o. p. riots at covent garden in , when one of the cries was, "no foreigners! no catalani!" a series of caricatures, one set by isaac cruikshank, and several medals, commemorate the riots. madame catalani died at paris in .] [footnote : see 'english bards, etc.', lines - .] .--to his mother. , st. james's street, march , . dear mother,--my last letter was written under great depression of spirits from poor falkland's death, [ ] who has left without a shilling four children and his wife. i have been endeavouring to assist them, which, god knows, i cannot do as i could wish, for my own embarrassments and the many claims upon me from other quarters. what you say is all very true: come what may, _newstead_ and i _stand_ or fall together. i have now lived on the spot, i have fixed my heart upon it, and no pressure, present or future, shall induce me to barter the last vestige of our inheritance. i have that pride within me which will enable me to support difficulties. i can endure privations; but could i obtain in exchange for newstead abbey the first fortune in the country, i would reject the proposition. set your mind at ease on that score; mr. hanson talks like a man of business on the subject,--i feel like a man of honour, and i will not sell newstead. i shall get my seat [ ] on the return of the affidavits from carhais, in cornwall, and will do something in the house soon: i must dash, or it is all over. my satire must be kept secret for a _month_; after that you may say what you please on the subject. lord carlisle has used me infamously, and refused to state any particulars of my family to the chancellor. i have _lashed_ him in my rhymes, and perhaps his lordship may regret not being more conciliatory. they tell me it will have a sale; i hope so, for the bookseller has behaved well, as far as publishing well goes. believe me, etc. p.s.--you shall have a mortgage on one of the farms. [ ] [footnote : captain charles john cary, r.n., succeeded his brother thomas in as ninth lord falkland. he married, in , miss anton, the daughter of a west india merchant. he had been recently dismissed from his ship "on account of some irregularities arising from too free a circulation of the bottle." but he had received a promise of being reinstated, and, in high spirits at the prospect, dined one evening in march, , at stevens's coffeehouse, in bond street. there he applied to mr. powell an offensive nickname. "he lost his life for a joke, and one too he did not make himself" (medwin, 'conversations', ed. , p. ). a challenge resulted. the parties met on goldar's green, and falkland, mortally wounded, died two days later in powell's house in devonshire place, on march , . ('annual register', vol. li. pp. , .) for a more detailed account, see 'gentleman's magazine' for march, . both accounts give march as the date of falkland's death. a posthumous child was born to lady falkland. byron stood godfather, and gave £ at the christening. [footnote : byron took his seat in the house of lords, march , . the delay was caused by the difficulty of proving the marriage of admiral the hon. john byron with miss sophia trevanion in the private chapel of carhais. probably carlisle neither possessed nor withheld any information.] [footnote : byron had borrowed £ for his return to cambridge in : £ from messrs. wylde and co., bankers, of southwell; and the remainder from the misses parkyns, and his great-aunt, the hon. mrs. george byron. for this debt his mother made herself liable. no mortgage was given (see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]).] .--to william harness. , st. james's street, march , . there was no necessity for your excuses: if you have time and inclination to write, "for what we receive, the lord make us thankful,"--if i do not hear from you, i console myself with the idea that you are much more agreeably employed. i send down to you by this post a certain satire lately published, and in return for the three and sixpence expenditure upon it, only beg that if you should guess the author, you will keep his name secret; at least for the present. london is full of the duke's business. [ ] the commons have been at it these last three nights, and are not yet come to a decision. i do not know if the affair will be brought before our house, unless in the shape of an impeachment. if it makes its appearance in a debatable form, i believe i shall be tempted to say something on the subject.--i am glad to hear you like cambridge: firstly, because, to know that you are happy is pleasant to one who wishes you all possible sublunary enjoyment; and, secondly, i admire the morality of the sentiment. _alma mater_ was to me _injusta noverca_; and the old beldam only gave me my m.a. degree because she could not avoid it. [ ]--you know what a farce a noble cantab. must perform. i am going abroad, if possible, in the spring, and before i depart i am collecting the pictures of my most intimate school-fellows; i have already a few, and shall want yours, or my cabinet will be incomplete. i have employed one of the first miniature painters [ ] of the day to take them, of course, at my own expense, as i never allow my acquaintance to incur the least expenditure to gratify a whim of mine. to mention this may seem indelicate; but when i tell you a friend of ours first refused to sit, under the idea that he was to disburse on the occasion, you will see that it is necessary to state these preliminaries to prevent the recurrence of any similar mistake. i shall see you in time, and will carry you to the 'limner'. it will be a tax on your patience for a week; but pray excuse it, as it is possible the resemblance may be the sole trace i shall be able to preserve of our past friendship and acquaintance. just now it seems foolish enough; but in a few years, when some of us are dead, and others are separated by inevitable circumstances, it will be a kind of satisfaction to retain in these images of the living the idea of our former selves, and, to contemplate, in the resemblances of the dead, all that remains of judgment, feeling, and a host of passions. but all this will be dull enough for you, and so good night; and, to end my chapter, or rather my homily, believe me, my dear h., yours most affectionately, [footnote : this was the inquiry into the charges made by colonel gwyllym wardle, m.p. for okehampton ( - ), against the duke of york and his mistress, mary ann clarke. the inquiry began january , , and ended march , , with the duke's resignation, the commons having previously (march ) acquitted him of "personal connivance and corruption." the case has passed into literature. wardle, the valorous dowler, and lowten, mr. perker's clerk, had all figured in the trial before they played their parts in 'pickwick'. wardle, who was a colonel of the welsh fusiliers ("wynne's lambs") had fought at vinegar hill. after losing his seat, he took a farm between tunbridge wells and rochester, from which he fled to escape his creditors, and died at florence, november , , aged seventy-two.] [footnote : byron took his m.a. degree, july , . in another letter to harness, dated february, , he says, "i do not know how you and alma mater agree. i was but an untoward child myself, and i believe the good lady and her brat were equally rejoiced when i was weaned, and if i obtained her benediction at parting, it was, at best, equivocal."] [footnote : george sanders ( - ) painted miniatures, made watercolour copies of continental master-pieces, and afterwards became a portrait-painter in oils. he painted several portraits of byron, two of which have been often engraved.] .--to william bankes. twelve o'clock, friday night. my dear bankes,--i have just received your note; believe me i regret most sincerely that i was not fortunate enough to see it before, as i need not repeat to you that your conversation for half an hour would have been much more agreeable to me than gambling [ ] or drinking, or any other fashionable mode of passing an evening abroad or at home.--i really am very sorry that i went out previous to the arrival of your despatch: in future pray let me hear from you before six, and whatever my engagements may be, i will always postpone them.--believe me, with that deference which i have always from my childhood paid to your _talents_, and with somewhat a better opinion of your heart than i have hitherto entertained, yours ever, etc. [footnote : "i learn with delight," writes hobhouse from cambridge, may , , "from scrope davies, that you have totally given up dice. to be sure you must give it up; for you to be seen every night in the very vilest company in town--could anything be more shocking, anything more unfit? i speak feelingly on this occasion, 'non ignara mali miseris, &c'. i know of nothing that should bribe me to be present once more at such horrible scenes. perhaps 'tis as well that we are both acquainted with the extent of the evil, that we may be the more earnest in abstaining from it. you shall henceforth be 'diis animosus hostis'." moore quotes ('life', p. ) the following extract from byron's 'journal':-- "i have a notion that gamblers are as happy as many people, being always _excited_. women, wine, fame, the table,--even ambition, _sate_ now and then; but every turn of the card and cast of the dice keeps the gamester alive: besides, one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else. i was very fond of it when young, that is to say, of hazard, for i hate all _card_ games,--even faro. when macco (or whatever they spell it) was introduced, i gave up the whole thing, for i loved and missed the _rattle_ and _dash_ of the box and dice, and the glorious uncertainty, not only of good luck or bad luck, but of _any luck at all_, as one had sometimes to throw _often_ to decide at all. i have thrown as many as fourteen mains running, and carried off all the cash upon the table occasionally; but i had no coolness, or judgment, or calculation. it was the delight of the thing that pleased me. upon the whole, i left off in time, without being much a winner or loser. since one-and-twenty years of age i played but little, and then never above a hundred, or two, or three."] .--to r. c. dallas. april , . dear sir,--i am just arrived at batt's hotel, jermyn street, st. james's, from newstead, and shall be very glad to see you when convenient or agreeable. hobhouse is on his way up to town, full of printing resolution, [ ] and proof against criticism.--believe me, with great sincerity, yours truly, byron. [footnote : see page [letter ], [foot]note . hobhouse's miscellany was published in , under the title of 'imitations and translations from the antient and modern classics: together with original poems never before published'.] .--to john hanson. batt's hotel, jermyn street, april th, . dear sir,--i wish to know before i make my final effort elsewhere, if you can or cannot assist me in raising a sum of money on fair and equitable terms and immediately. [ ] i called twice this morning, and beg you will favour me with an answer when convenient. i hope all your family are well. i should like to see them together before my departure. the court of chancery it seems will not pay the money, of which indeed i do not know the precise amount; the duke of portland will not pay his debt, and with the rochdale property nothing is done.--my debts are daily increasing, and it is with difficulty i can command a shilling. as soon as possible i shall get quit of this country, but i wish to do justice to my creditors (though i do not like their importunity), and particularly to my securities, for their annuities must be paid off soon, or the interest will swallow up everything. come what may, in every shape and in any shape, i can meet ruin, but i will never sell newstead; the abbey and i shall stand or fall together, and, were my head as grey and defenceless as the arch of the priory, i would abide by this resolution. the whole of my wishes are summed up in this; procure me, either of my own or borrowed of others, three thousand pounds, and place two in hammersley's hands for letters of credit at constantinople; if possible sell rochdale in my absence, pay off these annuities and my debts, and with the little that remains do as you will, but allow me to depart from this cursed country, and i promise to turn mussulman, rather than return to it. believe me to be, yours truly, byron. p.s.--is my will finished? i should like to sign it while i have anything to leave. [footnote : money was obtained, partly by means of a life insurance effected with the provident institution. the medical report, signed by benjamin hutchinson, f.r.c.s., london, states that hutchinson had attended byron for the last four or five years; that he was, when last seen by hutchinson, in very good health; that he never was afflicted with any serious malady; that he was sober and temperate; that he "sometimes used much exercise, and at others was of a studious and sedentary turn;" and thus concludes: "i do believe that he possesses an unimpaired, healthy constitution, and i am not aware of any circumstance which may be considered as tending to shorten his life." mrs. byron (april , ) begs hanson to see that byron gave some security for the thousand pounds for which she was bound. she adds: "there is some trades people at nottingham that will be completely ruined if he does not pay them, which i would not have happen for the whole world." no security seems to have been given, and the tradesmen remained unpaid. mrs. byron's death was doubtless accelerated by anxiety from these causes.] .-to the rev. r. lowe. [ ] , st. james street, may , . my dear sir,--i have just been informed that a report is circulating in notts of an intention on my part to sell newstead, which is rather unfortunate, as i have just tied the property up in such a manner as to prevent the practicability, even if my inclination led me to dispose of it. but as such a report may render my tenants uncomfortable, i will feel very much obliged if you will be good enough to contradict the rumour, should it come to your ears, on my authority. i rather conjecture it has arisen from the sale of some copyholds of mine in norfolk. [ ] i sail for gibraltar in june, and thence to malta when, of course, you shall have the promised detail. i saw your friend thornhill last night, who spoke of you as a friend ought to do. excuse this trouble, and believe me to be, with great sincerity, yours affectionately, byron. [footnote . the rev. robert lowe was some years older than byron, and had known him intimately at southwell in his early youth. miss pigot was a cousin of mr. lowe, as was also the rev. j. t. becher of southwell. mrs. chaworth musters, who contributed this letter to 'the life and letters of viscount sherbrooke' (vol. i. p. ), adds that her grandfather was, naturally, excessively annoyed at having been made the mouthpiece of an untruth, and that the coolness which arose in consequence lasted up to the end of byron's life. there can, however, be no doubt that byron made the statement in all sincerity.] [footnote : at wymondham.] chapter iv. travels in albania, greece, etc.--death of mrs. byron. - . .--to his mother. falmouth, june , . dear mother,--i am about to sail in a few days; probably before this reaches you. fletcher begged so hard, that i have continued him in my service. if he does not behave well abroad, i will send him back in a _transport_. i have a german servant (who has been with mr. wilbraham in persia before, and was strongly recommended to me by dr. butler, of harrow), robert and william; [ ] they constitute my whole suite. i have letters in plenty:--you shall hear from me at the different ports i touch upon; but you must not be alarmed if my letters miscarry. the continent is in a fine state--an insurrection has broken out at paris, and the austrians are beating buonaparte--the tyrolese have risen. there is a picture of me in oil, to be sent down to newstead soon. [ ] --i wish the miss pigots had something better to do than carry my miniatures to nottingham to copy. now they have done it, you may ask them to copy the others, which are greater favourites than my own. as to money matters, i am ruined--at least till rochdale is sold; and if that does not turn out well, i shall enter into the austrian or russian service--perhaps the turkish, if i like their manners. the world is all before me, and i leave england without regret, and without a wish to revisit any thing it contains, except _yourself_, and your present residence. believe me, yours ever sincerely. p.s.--pray tell mr. rushton his son is well, and doing well; so is murray, [ ] indeed better than i ever saw him; he will be back in about a month. i ought to add the leaving murray to my few regrets, as his age perhaps will prevent my seeing him again. robert i take with me; i like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal. [footnote : robert rushton and william fletcher, the "little page" and "staunch yeoman" of childe harold's "good night," canto i. stanza xiii.] [footnote : by george sanders.] [footnote : "joe" murray was sent back from gibraltar, and with him returned the homesick robert rushton. .--to the rev. henry drury. falmouth, june , . my dear drury,--we sail to-morrow in the lisbon packet, having been detained till now by the lack of wind, and other necessaries. these being at last procured, by this time tomorrow evening we shall be embarked on the vide vorld of vaters, vor all the vorld like robinson crusoe. the malta vessel not sailing for some weeks, we have determined to go by way of lisbon, and, as my servants term it, to see "that there "'portingale'"--thence to cadiz and gibraltar, and so on our old route to malta and constantinople, if so be that captain kidd, our gallant, or rather gallows, commander, understands plain sailing and mercator, and takes us on a voyage all according to the chart. will you tell dr. butler that i have taken the treasure of a servant, friese, the native of prussia proper, into my service from his recommendation? he has been all among the worshippers of fire in persia, and has seen persepolis and all that. hobhouse has made woundy preparations for a book on his return; pens, two gallons of japan ink, and several volumes of best blank, is no bad provision for a discerning public. i have laid down my pen, but have promised to contribute a chapter on the state of morals, and a further treatise on the same to be intituled "..., 'simplified,... or proved to be praiseworthy from ancient authors and modern practice.'" hobhouse further hopes to indemnify himself in turkey for a life of exemplary chastity at home. pray buy his 'missellingany', as the printer's devil calls it. i suppose it is in print by this time. providence has interposed in our favour with a fair wind to carry us out of its reach, or he would have hired a faqui to translate it into the turcoman lingo. "the cock is crowing, i must be going, and can no more." 'ghost of gaffer thumb'. [ ] adieu.--believe me, etc., etc. [footnote : in fielding's burlesque tragedy, 'the tragedy of tragedies; or the life and death of tom thumb the great'( ), occur the lines-- "arthur, beware; i must this moment hence, not frighted by your voice, but by the cock's." the burlesque was altered by kane o'hara, and published as performed at the theatre royal, haymarket, in . in this prompt-book version (act i.) appear the lines quoted by byron. "'ghost'. grizzle's rebellion, what need i tell you on? or by a red cow tom thumb devoured? ('cock crows') hark the cock crowing! i must be going: i can no more {'vanishes'}."] .--to francis hodgson. falmouth, june , . my dear hodgson,--before this reaches you, hobhouse, two officers' wives, three children, two waiting-maids, ditto subalterns for the troops, three portuguese esquires and domestics, in all nineteen souls, will have sailed in the lisbon packet, with the noble captain kidd, a gallant commander as ever smuggled an anker of right nantz. we are going to lisbon first, because the malta packet has sailed, d'ye see?--from lisbon to gibraltar, malta, constantinople, and "all that," as orator henley said, when he put the church, and "all that," in danger. [ ] this town of falmouth, as you will partly conjecture, is no great ways from the sea. it is defended on the sea-side by tway castles, st. maws and pendennis, extremely well calculated for annoying every body except an enemy. st. maws is garrisoned by an able-bodied person of fourscore, a widower. he has the whole command and sole management of six most unmanageable pieces of ordnance, admirably adapted for the destruction of pendennis, a like tower of strength on the opposite side of the channel. we have seen st. maws, but pendennis they will not let us behold, save at a distance, because hobhouse and i are suspected of having already taken st. maws by a coup de main. the town contains many quakers and salt fish--the oysters have a taste of copper, owing to the soil of a mining country--the women (blessed be the corporation therefor!) are flogged at the cart's tail when they pick and steal, as happened to one of the fair sex yesterday noon. she was pertinacious in her behaviour, and damned the mayor. this is all i know of falmouth. nothing occurred of note in our way down, except that on hartford bridge we changed horses at an inn, where the great----, beckford, [ ] sojourned for the night. we tried in vain to see the martyr of prejudice, but could not. what we thought singular, though you perhaps will not, was that ld courtney [ ] travelled the same night on the same road, only one stage _behind_ him. hodgson, remember me to the drury, and remember me to yourself when drunk. i am not worth a sober thought. look to my satire at cawthorn's, cockspur street, and look to the 'miscellany' of the hobhouse. it has pleased providence to interfere in behalf of a suffering public by giving him a sprained wrist, so that he cannot write, and there is a cessation of ink-shed. i don't know when i can write again, because it depends on that experienced navigator, captain kidd, and the "stormy winds that (don't) blow" at this season. i leave england without regret--i shall return to it without pleasure. i am like adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation, but i have no eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab;--and thus ends my first chapter. adieu. [ ] yours, etc. [footnote : henley, in one of his publications entitled 'oratory transactions', engaged "to execute singly what would sprain a dozen of modern doctors of the tribe of issachar--to write, read, and study twelve hours a day, and yet appear as untouched by the yoke as if he never wore it--to teach in one year what schools or universities teach in five;" and he furthermore pledged himself to persevere in his bold scheme until he had "put the church,--and all that--, in danger." (moore).] [footnote : william beckford ( - ), son of chatham's friend who was twice lord mayor of london, at the age of eleven succeeded it is said, to a million of ready money and a hundred thousand a year. before he was seventeen he wrote his 'biographical memoirs of extraordinary painters', designed as a satire on the 'vies des peintres flamands', ('memoirs of william beckford', by cyrus redding, vol. i. p. .) his travels ( - ) in switzerland, the low countries, and italy are described in his 'dreams, waking thoughts, and incidents, in a series of letters from various parts of europe', published anonymously in , and reprinted, with additions and omissions, in and . in the previous year he had written 'vathek' in french, in "three days and two nights," without, as he says, taking off his clothes; "the severe application made me very ill." this statement, if made by beckford, as redding implies, is untrue. evidence exists to prove that 'vathek' was a careful and elaborate composition. the book was published with his name in ; but a translation, made and printed without his leave, had already ( ) appeared, and was often mistaken for the original. in he married lady margaret gordon, with whom he lived in switzerland till her death in . one of his two daughters--he had no son--became mrs. orde, the other the duchess of hamilton. from to , and again from to , he visited portugal and spain, and to this period belong his 'sketches of spain and portugal' ( ), and his 'recollections of an excursion to the 'monasteries of alobaca and batalha' ( ). between his two visits to portugal, on the last of which he occupied the retreat at cintra celebrated by byron ('childe harold', canto i. stanzas xviii.-xxii.), he saw the destruction of the bastille, bought gibbon's library at lausanne (in ), and, shutting himself up in it "for six weeks, from early in the morning until night, only now and then taking "a ride," read himself "nearly blind" (cyrus redding's "recollections of the author of vathek," 'new monthly magazine', vol. lxxi. p. ). he also wrote two burlesque novels, to ridicule, it is said, those written by his sister, mrs. henry: 'azemia; a descriptive and sentimental novel. by jacquetta agneta mariana jenks of bellgrove priory in wales' ( ); and 'modern novel-writing, or the elegant enthusiast. by the rt. hon. lady harriet marlow'( ). he represented wells from to , and hindon from to ; but took no part in political life. he was now settled at fonthill ( - ), absorbed in collecting books, pictures, and engravings, laying out the grounds, indulging his architectural extravagances, and shutting himself and his palace out from the world by a gigantic wall. when rogers visited him at fonthill, and arrived at the gate, he was told that neither his servant nor his horses could be admitted, but that mr. beckford's attendants and horses would be at his service ('recollections of the table-talk of samuel rogers', p. ). beckford had been taught music by mozart, and rogers says ('ibid'.) that "in the evening beckford would amuse us by reading one of his unpublished works; or he would extemporize on the pianoforte, producing the most novel and charming melodies." in his gigantic fortune had dwindled; he was in embarrassed circumstances; fonthill and most of its contents were sold, and beckford settled in lansdowne terrace, bath, where he still collected books and works of art, laid out the grounds, and built the tower on lansdowne hill, which are now the property of the city. at bath he died in . 'vathek' is a masterpiece, which, as an eastern tale, is unrivalled in european literature. "for correctness of costume," says byron, in one of his diaries, "beauty of description, and power of imagination, it far surpasses all european imitations; and bears such marks of originality, that those who have visited the east will find some difficulty in believing it to be a translation. as an eastern tale, even 'rasselas' must bow before it: his 'happy valley' will not bear a comparison with the hall of eblis." beckford's letters are, in their way, equally masterpieces, and, like 'vathek', have the appearance of being struck off without labour. reprinted, as their writer says (preface to the edition of ), because "some justly admired authors... condescended to glean a few stray thoughts from these letters," they suggest, in some respects, comparison with byron's own work. there is the same prodigality of power, the same simple nervous style, the same vein of melancholy, the same cynical contempt for mankind. in both writers there is a passionate feeling for the grander aspects of nature, though beckford was also thrilled, as byron was not, by the beauties of art. in both there are similar inconsistencies and incongruities of temperament, and the same vein of reckless self-indulgence appears to run by the side of nobler enthusiasms. in both there is a taste for oriental magnificence, which, in beckford, was to some degree corrected by his artistic perceptions. both, finally, described not so much the objects they saw, as the impression which those objects produced on themselves, and thus steeped their pictures, clear and vivid though they are, in an atmosphere of their own personality.] [footnote : william, third viscount courtenay, died unmarried in , and with him the viscountcy became extinct. in he proved before parliament his title to the earldom of devon, which passed at his death to a cousin, william, tenth earl of devon ( - ).] [footnote : in this letter the following verses were enclosed:-- "falmouth roads, june , . "huzza! hodgson, we are going, our embargo's off at last; favourable breezes blowing bend the canvass o'er the mast. from aloft the signal's streaming, hark! the farewell gun is fired, women screeching, tars blaspheming, tell us that our time's expired. here's a rascal come to task all, prying from the custom-house; trunks unpacking, cases cracking, not a corner for a mouse 'scapes unsearch'd amid the racket, ere we sail on board the packet. now our boatmen quit their mooring, and all hands must ply the oar; baggage from the quay is lowering, we're impatient--push from shore. 'have a care! that case holds liquor-- stop the boat--i'm sick--oh lord!' 'sick, ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker ere you've been an hour on board.' thus are screaming men and women, gemmen, ladies, servants, jacks; here entangling, all are wrangling, stuck together close as wax. such the general noise and racket, ere we reach the lisbon packet. now we've reach'd her, lo! the captain, gallant kidd, commands the crew; passengers their berths are clapt in, some to grumble, some to spew. 'hey day! call you that a cabin? why 'tis hardly three feet square; not enough to stow queen mab in-- who the deuce can harbour there?' 'who, sir? plenty-- nobles twenty-- did at once my vessel fill'-- 'did they? jesus, how you squeeze us! would to god they did so still: then i'd 'scape the heat and racket, of the good ship, lisbon packet.' fletcher! murray! bob! where are you? stretch'd along the deck like logs-- bear a hand, you jolly tar you! here's a rope's end for the dogs. hobhouse muttering fearful curses, as the hatchway down he rolls; now his breakfast, now his verses, vomits forth--and damns our souls. 'here's a stanza on braganza-- help!'--'a couplet?'--'no, a cup of warm water.'-- 'what's the matter?' 'zounds! my liver's coming up; i shall not survive the racket of this brutal lisbon packet.' now at length we're off for turkey, lord knows when we shall come back! breezes foul and tempests murky may unship us in a crack. but, since life at most a jest is, as philosophers allow, still to laugh by far the best is, then laugh on--as i do now. laugh at all things, great and small things, sick or well, at sea or shore; while we're quaffing, let's have laughing-- who the devil cares for more?-- some good wine! and who would lack it, ev'n on board the lisbon packet? "byron." .--to francis hodgson. lisbon, july , . thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of marvellous sights, palaces, convents, etc.;--which, being to be heard in my friend hobhouse's forthcoming book of travels, i shall not anticipate by smuggling any account whatsoever to you in a private and clandestine manner. i must just observe, that the village of cintra in estremadura is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world. i am very happy here, because i loves oranges, and talks bad latin to the monks, who understand it, as it is like their own,--and i goes into society (with my pocket-pistols), and i swims in the tagus all across at once, and i rides on an ass or a mule, and swears portuguese, and have got a diarrhoea and bites from the mosquitoes. but what of that? comfort must not be expected by folks that go a pleasuring. when the portuguese are pertinacious, i say 'carracho!'--the great oath of the grandees, that very well supplies the place of "damme,"--and, when dissatisfied with my neighbour, i pronounce him 'ambra di merdo'. with these two phrases, and a third, 'avra louro', which signifieth "get an ass," i am universally understood to be a person of degree and a master of languages. how merrily we lives that travellers be!--if we had food and raiment. but, in sober sadness, any thing is better than england, and i am infinitely amused with my pilgrimage as far as it has gone. to-morrow we start to ride post near miles as far as gibraltar, where we embark for melita and byzantium. a letter to malta will find me, or to be forwarded, if i am absent. pray embrace the drury and dwyer, and all the ephesians you encounter. i am writing with butler's donative pencil, which makes my bad hand worse. excuse illegibility. hodgson! send me the news, and the deaths and defeats and capital crimes and the misfortunes of one's friends; and let us hear of literary matters, and the controversies and the criticisms. all this will be pleasant--'suave mari magno', etc. talking of that, i have been sea-sick, and sick of the sea. adieu. yours faithfully, etc. .--to francis hodgson. gibraltar, august , . i have just arrived at this place after a journey through portugal, and a part of spain, of nearly miles. we left lisbon and travelled on horseback to seville and cadiz, and thence in the 'hyperion' frigate to gibraltar. the horses are excellent--we rode seventy miles a day. eggs and wine, and hard beds, are all the accommodation we found, and, in such torrid weather, quite enough. my health is better than in england. seville is a fine town, and the sierra morena, part of which we crossed, a very sufficient mountain; but damn description, it is always disgusting. cadiz, sweet cadiz! [ ]--it is the first spot in the creation. the beauty of its streets and mansions is only excelled by the loveliness of its inhabitants. for, with all national prejudice, i must confess the women of cadiz are as far superior to the english women in beauty as the spaniards are inferior to the english in every quality that dignifies the name of man. just as i began to know the principal persons of the city, i was obliged to sail. you will not expect a long letter after my riding so far "on hollow pampered jades of asia." talking of asia puts me in mind of africa, which is within five miles of my present residence. i am going over before i go on to constantinople. cadiz is a complete cythera. many of the grandees who have left madrid during the troubles reside there, and i do believe it is the prettiest and cleanest town in europe. london is filthy in the comparison. the spanish women are all alike, their education the same. the wife of a duke is, in information, as the wife of a peasant,--the wife of peasant, in manner, equal to a duchess. certainly they are fascinating; but their minds have only one idea, and the business of their lives is intrigue. i have seen sir john carr [ ] at seville and cadiz, and, like swift's barber, have been down on my knees to beg he would not put me into black and white [ ]. pray remember me [ ] to the drurys and the davies, and all of that stamp who are yet extant. send me a letter and news to malta. my next epistle shall be from mount caucasus or mount sion. i shall return to spain before i see england, for i am enamoured of the country. adieu, and believe me, etc. [footnote : in 'childe harold' (canto i., after stanza lxxxiv.), instead of the song "to inez," byron originally wrote the song beginning "oh never talk again to me of northern climes and british ladies, it has not been your lot to see, like me, the lovely girl of cadiz."] [footnote : sir john carr ( - ), a native of devonshire, and a barrister of the middle temple, was knighted by the duke of bedford as viceroy of ireland about . he published 'the fury of discord, a poem' ( ); 'the sea-side hero, a drama in acts' ( ); and 'poems'( ). but he is best known by his travels, which gained him the nickname of "jaunting carr," and considerable profit. 'the stranger in france' ( ) was bought by johnson for £ . 'a northern summer, or travels round the baltic, etc._( ), 'the stranger in ireland' ( ), and 'a tour through holland_( ), were bought for £ , £ , and £ respectively by sir richard phillips, who, but for the ridicule cast upon carr by edward dubois (in 'my pocket book; or hints for a ryhte merrie and conceited tour in quarto, to be called "the stranger in ireland in ," by a knight errant'), would have given £ for his 'caledonian sketches' ( ). in spite, however, of this proof of damages, the jury found, in carr's action against messrs. hood and sharpe, the publishers of 'my pocket book', that the criticism was fair and justifiable ( ). carr published, in , his 'descriptive travels in the southern and eastern parts of spain', without mentioning byron's name. byron concluded his ms. of 'childe harold', canto i. with three stanzas on "green erin's knight and europe's wandering star" (see, for the lines, 'childe harold', at the end of canto i.). in letter vii. of 'intercepted letters; or the twopenny post-bag', by thomas brown the younger ( ), occur the following lines:-- "since the chevalier c--rr took to marrying lately, the trade is in want of a 'traveller' greatly-- no job, sir, more easy--your 'country' once plann'd, a month aboard ship and a fortnight on land puts your quarto of travels, sir, clean out of hand."] [footnote : "once stopping at an inn at dundalk, the dean was so much amused with a prating barber, that rather than be alone he invited him to dinner. the fellow was rejoiced at this unexpected honour, and being dressed out in his best apparel came to the inn, first inquiring of the groom what the clergyman's name was who had so kindly invited him. 'what the vengeance!' said the servant,' don't you know dean swift?' at which the barber turned pale, and, running into the house, fell upon his knees and intreated the dean 'not to put him into print; for that he was a poor barber, had a large family to maintain, and if his reverence put him into black and white he should lose all his customers.' swift laughed heartily at the poor fellow's simplicity, bade him sit down and eat his dinner in peace, for he assured him he would neither put him nor his wife in print." sheridan's 'life of swift'.--(moore).] [footnote : "this sort of passage," says the rev. francis hodgson, in a note on his copy of this letter, "constantly occurs in his correspondence. nor was his interest confined to mere remembrances and inquiries after health. were it possible to state 'all' he has done for numerous friends, he would appear amiable indeed. for myself, i am bound to acknowledge, in the fullest and warmest manner, his most generous and well-timed aid; and, were my poor friend bland alive, he would as gladly bear the like testimony;--though i have most reason, of all men, to do so." (moore).] .--to his mother. gibraltar, august th, . dear mother,-i have been so much occupied since my departure from england, that till i could address you at length i have forborne writing altogether. as i have now passed through portugal, and a considerable part of spain, and have leisure at this place, i shall endeavour to give you a short detail of my movements. we sailed from falmouth on the nd of july, reached lisbon after a very favourable passage of four days and a half, and took up our abode in that city. it has been often described without being worthy of description; for, except the view from the tagus, which is beautiful, and some fine churches and convents, it contains little but filthy streets, and more filthy inhabitants. to make amends for this, the village of cintra, about fifteen miles from the capital, is, perhaps in every respect, the most delightful in europe; it contains beauties of every description, natural and artificial. palaces and gardens rising in the midst of rocks, cataracts, and precipices; convents on stupendous heights--a distant view of the sea and the tagus; and, besides (though that is a secondary consideration), is remarkable as the scene of sir hew dalrymple's convention.[ ] it unites in itself all the wildness of the western highlands, with the verdure of the south of france. near this place, about ten miles to the right, is the palace of mafra, the boast of portugal, as it might be of any other country, in point of magnificence without elegance. there is a convent annexed; the monks, who possess large revenues, are courteous enough, and understand latin, so that we had a long conversation: they have a large library, and asked me if the _english_ had _any books_ in their country? i sent my baggage, and part of the servants, by sea to gibraltar, and travelled on horseback from aldea galbega (the first stage from lisbon, which is only accessible by water) to seville (one of the most famous cities in spain), where the government called the junta is now held. the distance to seville is nearly four hundred miles, and to cadiz almost ninety farther towards the coast. i had orders from the governments, and every possible accommodation on the road, as an english nobleman, in an english uniform, is a very respectable personage in spain at present. the horses are remarkably good, and the roads (i assure you upon my honour, for you will hardly believe it) very far superior to the best english roads, without the smallest toll or turnpike. you will suppose this when i rode post to seville, in four days, through this parching country in the midst of summer, without fatigue or annoyance. seville is a beautiful town; though the streets are narrow, they are clean. we lodged in the house of two spanish unmarried ladies, who possess _six_ houses in seville, and gave me a curious specimen of spanish manners. they are women of character, and the eldest a fine woman, the youngest pretty, but not so good a figure as donna josepha. the freedom of manner, which is general here, astonished me not a little; and in the course of further observation, i find that reserve is not the characteristic of the spanish belles, who are, in general, very handsome, with large black eyes, and very fine forms. the eldest honoured your _unworthy_ son with very particular attention, embracing him with great tenderness at parting (i was there but three days), after cutting off a lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of her own, about three feet in length, which i send, and beg you will retain till my return. her last words were, _adios, tu hermoso! me gusto mucho_--"adieu, you pretty fellow! you please me much." she offered me a share of her apartment, which my _virtue_ induced me to decline; she laughed, and said i had some english _amante_ (lover), and added that she was going to be married to an officer in the spanish army. i left seville, and rode on to cadiz, through a beautiful country. at _xeres_, where the sherry we drink is made, i met a great merchant--a mr. gordon of scotland--who was extremely polite, and favoured me with the inspection of his vaults and cellars, so that i quaffed at the fountain head. cadiz, sweet cadiz, is the most delightful town i ever beheld, very different from our english cities in every respect except cleanliness (and it is as clean as london), but still beautiful, and full of the finest women in spain, the cadiz belles being the lancashire witches of their land. just as i was introduced and began to like the grandees, i was forced to leave it for this cursed place; but before i return to england i will visit it again. the night before i left it, i sat in the box at the opera with admiral cordova's family; [ ] he is the commander whom lord st. vincent defeated in , and has an aged wife and a fine daughter, sennorita cordova. the girl is very pretty, in the spanish style; in my opinion, by no means inferior to the english in charms, and certainly superior in fascination. long black hair, dark languishing eyes, _clear_ olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an englishman used to the drowsy, listless air of his countrywomen, added to the most becoming dress, and, at the same time, the most decent in the world, render a spanish beauty irresistible. i beg leave to observe that intrigue here is the business of life; when a woman marries she throws off all restraint, but i believe their conduct is chaste enough before. if you make a proposal, which in england will bring a box on the ear from the meekest of virgins, to a spanish girl, she thanks you for the honour you intend her, and replies, "wait till i am married, and i shall be too happy." this is literally and strictly true. miss cordova and her little brother understood a little french, and, after regretting my ignorance of the spanish, she proposed to become my preceptress in that language. i could only reply by a low bow, and express my regret that i quitted cadiz too soon to permit me to make the progress which would doubtless attend my studies under so charming a directress. i was standing at the back of the box, which resembles our opera boxes, (the theatre is large and finely decorated, the music admirable,) in the manner which englishmen generally adopt, for fear of incommoding the ladies in front, when this fair spaniard dispossessed an old woman (an aunt or a duenna) of her chair, and commanded me to be seated next herself, at a tolerable distance from her mamma. at the close of the performance i withdrew, and was lounging with a party of men in the passage, when, _en passant,_ the lady turned round and called me, and i had the honour of attending her to the admiral's mansion. i have an invitation on my return to cadiz, which i shall accept if i repass through the country on my return from asia. [ ] i have met sir john carr, knight errant, at seville and cadiz. he is a pleasant man. i like the spaniards much. you have heard of the battle near madrid, [ ] and in england they would call it a victory--a pretty victory! two hundred officers and five thousand men killed, all english, and the french in as great force as ever. i should have joined the army, but we have no time to lose before we get up the mediterranean and archipelago. i am going over to africa tomorrow; it is only six miles from this fortress. my next stage is cagliari in sardinia, where i shall be presented to his majesty. i have a most superb uniform as a court dress, indispensable in travelling. _august ._--i have not yet been to africa--the wind is contrary--but i dined yesterday at algesiras, with lady westmorland, [ ] where i met general castanos, the celebrated spanish leader in the late and present war. to-day i dine with him. he has offered me letters to tetuan in barbary, for the principal moors, and i am to have the house for a few days of one of the great men, which was intended for lady w., whose health will not permit her to cross the straits. _august _.--i could not dine with castanos [ ] yesterday, but this afternoon i had that honour. he is pleasant and, for aught i know to the contrary, clever. i cannot go to barbary. the malta packet sails to-morrow, and myself in it. admiral purvis, with whom i dined at cadiz, gave me a passage in a frigate to gibraltar, but we have no ship of war destined for malta at present. the packets sail fast, and have good accommodation. you shall hear from me on our route. joe murray delivers this; i have sent him and the boy back. pray show the lad kindness, as he is my great favourite; i would have taken him on. and say this to his father, who may otherwise think he has behaved ill. i hope this will find you well. believe me, yours ever sincerely, byron. p.s.--so lord g----[ ] is married to a rustic. well done! if i wed, i will bring home a sultana, with half a dozen cities for a dowry, and reconcile you to an ottoman daughter-in-law, with a bushel of pearls not larger than ostrich eggs, or smaller than walnuts. [footnote : sir hew whitefoord dalrymple ( - ) took command of the british forces in the peninsular war, august , , and signed the convention of cintra (august ), by which junot, whom sir arthur wellesley had defeated at vimeira, evacuated portugal, and surrendered elvas and lisbon. the convention was approved by a court of general officers ordered to sit at chelsea hospital; but dalrymple never again obtained a command. the so-called convention of cintra was signed at the palace of the marquis de marialva, thirty miles distant.] [footnote : admiral cordova commanded the spanish fleet, defeated, february , , off cape st. vincent, by sir john jervis, afterwards earl st. vincent.] [footnote : to these adventures in his hasty passage through spain byron briefly alludes in the early part of his _memoranda._ "for some time," he said, "i went on prosperously both as a linguist and a lover, till at length the lady took a fancy to a ring which i wore, and set her heart on my giving it to her, as a pledge of my sincerity. this, however, could not be:--any thing but the ring, i declared, was at her service, and much more than its value,--but the ring itself i had made a vow never to give away." the young spaniard grew angry as the contention went on, and it was not long before the lover became angry also; till, at length, the affair ended by their separating. "soon after this," said he, "i sailed for malta, and there parted with both my heart and ring." ('life', p. ). he also alludes to the incident in 'don juan', canto ii, stanza clxiv.-- "'tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongue by female lips and eyes--that is, i mean, when both the teacher and the taught are young, as was the case, at least, where i have been," etc.] [footnote : the battle of talavera, july and , , in which sir arthur wellesley defeated marshal victor. in cuesta's despatch to the spanish government, dated seville, august , the british loss is mentioned as officers and men.] [footnote : lady westmorland, _nee_ jane saunders, daughter of dr. r. h. saunders, married, in , as his second wife, john, tenth earl of westmorland ( - ). at her house lady caroline lamb refused to be introduced to byron (_life of lord melbourne,_ vol. i. p. ). [footnote : general francisco de castanos, duke of baylen ( - ) defeated general dupont at baylen in , and distinguished himself at vittoria in . he was guardian to queen isabella in .] [footnote : lord grey de ruthyn. (see page [letter ], [foot]note .)] .--to mr. rushton. gibraltar, august , . mr. rushton,--i have sent robert home with mr. murray, because the country which i am about to travel through is in a state which renders it unsafe, particularly for one so young. i allow you to deduct five-and-twenty pounds a year for his education for three years, provided i do not return before that time, and i desire he may be considered as in my service. let every care be taken of him, and let him be sent to school. in case of my death i have provided enough in my will to render him independent. he has behaved extremely well, and has travelled a great deal for the time of his absence. deduct the expense of his education from your rent. byron. .--to his mother. malta, september , . dear mother,--though i have a very short time to spare, being to sail immediately for greece, i cannot avoid taking an opportunity of telling you that i am well. i have been in malta [ ] a short time, and have found the inhabitants hospitable and pleasant. this letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary woman, whom you have doubtless heard of, mrs. spencer smith, of whose escape the marquis de salvo published a narrative a few years ago. [ ] she has since been shipwrecked, and her life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents, that in a romance they would appear improbable. she was born at constantinople, where her father, baron herbert, was austrian ambassador; married unhappily, yet has never been impeached in point of character; excited the vengeance of buonaparte by a part in some conspiracy; several times risked her life; and is not yet twenty-five. she is here on her way to england, to join her husband, being obliged to leave trieste, where she was paying a visit to her mother, by the approach of the french, and embarks soon in a ship of war. since my arrival here, i have had scarcely any other companion. i have found her very pretty, very accomplished, and extremely eccentric. buonaparte is even now so incensed against her, that her life would be in some danger if she were taken prisoner a second time. you have seen murray and robert by this time, and received my letter. little has happened since that date. i have touched at cagliari in sardinia, and at girgenti in sicily, and embark to-morrow for patras, from whence i proceed to yanina, where ali pacha holds his court. so i shall soon be among the mussulmans. adieu. believe me, with sincerity, yours ever, byron. [footnote : at gibraltar, john galt, who was travelling for his health, met byron, whom he did not know by sight, but by whose appearance he was attracted. "his dress indicated a londoner of some fashion, partly by its neatness and simplicity, with just so much of a peculiarity of style as served to show that, although he belonged to the order of metropolitan beaux, he was not altogether a common one ... his physiognomy was prepossessing and intelligent, but ever and anon his brows lowered and gathered--a habit, as i then thought, with a degree of affectation in it, probably first assumed for picturesque effect and energetic expression, but which i afterwards discovered was undoubtedly the scowl of some unpleasant reminiscence; it was certainly disagreeable, forbidding, but still the general cast of his features was impressed with elegance and character." afterwards galt was a fellow-passenger on board the packet from gibraltar to malta. "in the little bustle and process of embarking their luggage, his lordship affected, as it seemed to me, more aristocracy than befitted his years, or the occasion; and then i thought of his singular scowl, and suspected him of pride and irascibility. the impression that evening was not agreeable, but it was interesting; and that forehead mark, the frown, was calculated to awaken curiosity, and beget conjectures ... byron held himself aloof, and sat on the rail, leaning on the mizzen shrouds, inhaling, as it were, poetical sympathy from the gloomy rock, then dark and stern in the twilight. there was, in all about him that evening, much waywardness. he spoke petulantly to fletcher, his valet, and was evidently ill at ease with himself, and fretful towards others. i thought he would turn out an unsatisfactory shipmate; yet there was something redeeming in the tones of his voice, and when, some time after having indulged his sullen meditation he again addressed fletcher; so that, instead of finding him ill-natured, i was soon convinced he was only capricious." on the voyage, "about the third day, byron relented from his rapt mood, as if he felt it was out of place, and became playful, and disposed to contribute his fair proportion to the general endeavour to while away the tediousness of the dull voyage." but yet throughout the whole passage, "if," says galt, "my remembrance is not treacherous, he only spent one evening in the cabin with us--the evening before we came to anchor at cagliari; for, when the lights were placed, he made himself a man forbid, took his station on the railing, between the pegs on which the sheets are belayed and the shrouds, and there, for hours, sat in silence, enamoured, it may be, of the moon. all these peculiarities, with his caprices, and something inexplicable in the cast of his metaphysics, while they served to awaken interest, contributed little to conciliate esteem. he was often strangely rapt--it may have been from his genius; and, had its grandeur and darkness been then divulged, susceptible of explanation; but, at the time, it threw, as it were, around him the sackcloth of penitence. sitting amid the shrouds and rattlings, in the tranquillity of the moonlight, churning an inarticulate melody, he seemed almost apparitional, suggesting dim reminiscences of him who shot the albatross" (galt's 'life of byron', pp. - ).] [footnote : byron's "new calypso." mrs. spencer smith (born about ) was the daughter of baron herbert, austrian ambassador at constantinople, wife of spencer smith, the british minister at stuttgart, and sister-in-law of sir sidney smith, the hero of acre. in she was staying, for her health, at the baths of valdagno, near vicenza, when the napoleonic wars overspread northern italy, and she took refuge with her sister, the countess attems, at venice. in general lauriston took over the government of the city in the name of napoleon, and m. de la garde was appointed prefect of the police. a few days after their arrival, on april , mrs. smith was arrested, and, guarded by 'gendarmes', conveyed towards the italian frontier, to be confined, as la garde told a sicilian nobleman, the marquis de salvo, at valenciennes. mrs. smith's beauty and impending fate deeply impressed the marquis, who determined to rescue her. the prisoner and her guard had reached brescia, and were lodged at the 'albergo delle due torre', the opportunity seemed favourable. once across the guarda lake, and in the passes of tyrol, it would be easy to reach styria. the marquis made his arrangements--hired two boats, one for the fugitives, the other for their post-chaise and horses; procured for mrs. smith a boy's dress, as a disguise; made a ladder long enough to reach her window in the inn, and succeeded in making known his plan to the prisoner. the escape was effected; but all along the road the danger continued, for their way lay through a country which was practically french territory. it was not till they reached gratz, and mrs. smith was under the roof of her sister, the countess strassoldo, that she was safe. the story is told in detail by the marquis de salvo, in his 'travels in the year from italy to england' ( ), and by the duchesse d'abrantes ('memoires,' vol. xv. pp. - ). to mrs. spencer smith are addressed the "lines to florence," the "stanzas composed during a thunderstorm" (near zitza, in october, ), and stanzas xxx.-xxxii. of the second canto of 'childe harold.' the duchesse d'abrantés ('mémoires', vol. xv. pp. , ) thus describes her: "une jeune femme, dont la délicate et elégante tournure, la peau blanche et diaphane, les cheveux blonds, les mouvemens onduleux, toute une tournure impossible à décrire autrement qu'en disant qu'elle était de toutes les créatures la plus gracieuse, lui donnaient l'aspect d'une de ces apparitions amenées par un rêve heureux... il y avail de la sylphide en elle. sa vue excessivement basse n'etait qu'un charme de plus." moore ('life,' p. ) thinks that byron was less in love with mrs. smith than with his recollection of her. according to gait ('life of byron,' p. ), "he affected a passion for her, but it was only platonic. she, however, beguiled him of his valuable yellow diamond ring."] .--to his mother. prevesa, november , . my dear mother,--i have now been some time in turkey: this place is on the coast, but i have traversed the interior of the province of albania on a visit to the pacha. i left malta in the _spider,_ a brig of war, on the st of september, and arrived in eight days at prevesa. i thence have been about miles, as far as tepaleen, his highness's country palace, where i stayed three days. the name of the pacha is _ali_ [ ] and he is considered a man of the first abilities: he governs the whole of albania (the ancient illyricum), epirus, and part of macedonia. his son, vely pacha, [ ] to whom he has given me letters, governs the morea, and has great influence in egypt; in short, he is one of the most powerful men in the ottoman empire. when i reached yanina, the capital, after a journey of three days over the mountains, through a country of the most picturesque beauty, i found that ali pacha was with his army in illyricum, besieging ibrahim pacha in the castle of berat. he had heard that an englishman of rank was in his dominions, and had left orders in yanina with the commandant to provide a house, and supply me with every kind of necessary _gratis_; and, though i have been allowed to make presents to the slaves, etc., i have not been permitted to pay for a single article of household consumption. i rode out on the vizier's horses, and saw the palaces of himself and grandsons: they are splendid, but too much ornamented with silk and gold. i then went over the mountains through zitza, [ ] a village with a greek monastery (where i slept on my return), in the most beautiful situation (always excepting cintra, in portugal) i ever beheld. in nine days i reached tepaleen. our journey was much prolonged by the torrents that had fallen from the mountains, and intersected the roads. i shall never forget the singular scene on entering tepaleen at five in the afternoon, as the sun was going down. it brought to my mind (with some change of _dress_, however) scott's description of branksome castle in his _lay_, and the feudal system. [ ] the albanians, in their dresses, (the most magnificent in the world, consisting of a long _white kilt_, gold-worked cloak, crimson velvet gold-laced jacket and waistcoat, silver-mounted pistols and daggers,) the tartars with their high caps, the turks in their vast pelisses and turbans, the soldiers and black slaves with the horses, the former in groups in an immense large open gallery in front of the palace, the latter placed in a kind of cloister below it, two hundred steeds ready caparisoned to move in a moment, couriers entering or passing out with the despatches, the kettle-drums beating, boys calling the hour from the minaret of the mosque, altogether, with the singular appearance of the building itself, formed a new and delightful spectacle to a stranger. i was conducted to a very handsome apartment, and my health inquired after by the vizier's secretary, 'à-la-mode turque'! the next day i was introduced to ali pacha. i was dressed in a full suit of staff uniform, with a very magnificent sabre, etc. the vizier received me in a large room paved with marble; a fountain was playing in the centre; the apartment was surrounded by scarlet ottomans. he received me standing, a wonderful compliment from a mussulman, and made me sit down on his right hand. i have a greek interpreter for general use, but a physician of ali's named femlario, who understands latin, acted for me on this occasion. his first question was, why, at so early an age, i left my country?--(the turks have no idea of travelling for amusement). he then said, the english minister, captain leake, [ ] had told him i was of a great family, and desired his respects to my mother; which i now, in the name of ali pacha, present to you. he said he was certain i was a man of birth, because i had small ears, curling hair, and little white hands, and expressed himself pleased with my appearance and garb. he told me to consider him as a father whilst i was in turkey, and said he looked on me as his son. indeed, he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and sugared sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats, twenty times a day. he begged me to visit him often, and at night, when he was at leisure. i then, after coffee and pipes, retired for the first time. i saw him thrice afterwards. it is singular that the turks, who have no hereditary dignities, and few great families, except the sultans, pay so much respect to birth; for i found my pedigree more regarded than my title. to-day i saw the remains of the town of actium, [ ] near which antony lost the world, in a small bay, where two frigates could hardly manoeuvre: a broken wall is the sole remnant. on another part of the gulf stand the ruins of nicopolis, built by augustus in honour of his victory. last night i was at a greek marriage; but this and a thousand things more i have neither time nor _space_ to describe. his highness is sixty years old, very fat, and not tall, but with a fine face, light blue eyes, and a white beard; his manner is very kind, and at the same time he possesses that dignity which i find universal amongst the turks. he has the appearance of anything but his real character, for he is a remorseless tyrant, guilty of the most horrible cruelties, very brave, and so good a general that they call him the mahometan buonaparte. napoleon has twice offered to make him king of epirus, but he prefers the english interest, and abhors the french, as he himself told me. he is of so much consequence, that he is much courted by both, the albanians being the most warlike subjects of the sultan, though ali is only nominally dependent on the porte; he has been a mighty warrior, but is as barbarous as he is successful, roasting rebels, etc., etc. buonaparte sent him a snuff-box with his picture. he said the snuff-box was very well, but the picture he could excuse, as he neither liked it nor the original. his ideas of judging of a man's birth from ears, hands, etc., were curious enough. to me he was, indeed, a father, giving me letters, guards, and every possible accommodation. our next conversations were of war and travelling, politics and england. he called my albanian soldier, who attends me, and told him to protect me at all hazard; his name is viseillie, and, like all the albanians, he is brave, rigidly honest, and faithful; but they are cruel, though not treacherous, and have several vices but no meannesses. they are, perhaps, the most beautiful race, in point of countenance, in the world; their women are sometimes handsome also, but they are treated like slaves, _beaten_, and, in short, complete beasts of burden; they plough, dig, and sow. i found them carrying wood, and actually repairing the highways. the men are all soldiers, and war and the chase their sole occupations. the women are the labourers, which after all is no great hardship in so delightful a climate. yesterday, the th of november, i bathed in the sea; to-day is so hot that i am writing in a shady room of the english consul's, with three doors wide open, no fire, or even _fireplace_, in the house, except for culinary purposes. i am going to-morrow, with a guard of fifty men, to patras in the morea, and thence to athens, where i shall winter. [ ] two days ago i was nearly lost in a turkish ship of war, owing to the ignorance of the captain and crew, though the storm was not violent. fletcher yelled after his wife, the greeks called on all the saints, the mussulmans on alla; the captain burst into tears and ran below deck, telling us to call on god; the sails were split, the main-yard shivered, the wind blowing fresh, the night setting in, and all our chance was to make corfu, which is in possession of the french, or (as fletcher pathetically termed it) "a watery grave." i did what i could to console fletcher, but finding him incorrigible, wrapped myself up in my albanian capote (an immense cloak), and lay down on deck to wait the worst. i have learnt to philosophise in my travels; and if i had not, complaint was useless. luckily the wind abated, and only drove us on the coast of suli, on the main land, where we landed, and proceeded, by the help of the natives, to prevesa again; but i shall not trust turkish sailors in future, though the pacha had ordered one of his own galliots to take me to patras. i am therefore going as far as missolonghi by land, and there have only to cross a small gulf to get to patras. fletcher's next epistle will be full of marvels. we were one night lost for nine hours in the mountains in a thunder-storm, and since nearly wrecked. in both cases fletcher was sorely bewildered, from apprehensions of famine and banditti in the first, and drowning in the second instance. his eyes were a little hurt by the lightning, or crying (i don't know which), but are now recovered. when you write, address to me at mr. strané's, english consul, patras, morea. i could tell you i know not how many incidents that i think would amuse you, but they crowd on my mind as much as they would swell my paper, and i can neither arrange them in the one, nor put them down on the other, except in the greatest confusion. i like the albanians much; they are not all turks; some tribes are christians. but their religion makes little difference in their manner or conduct. they are esteemed the best troops in the turkish service. i lived on my route, two days at once, and three days again, in a barrack at salora, and never found soldiers so tolerable, though i have been in the garrisons of gibraltar and malta, and seen spanish, french, sicilian, and british troops in abundance. i have had nothing stolen, and was always welcome to their provision and milk. not a week ago an albanian chief, (every village has its chief, who is called primate,) after helping us out of the turkish galley in her distress, feeding us, and lodging my suite, consisting of fletcher, a greek, two athenians, a greek priest, and my companion, mr. hobhouse, refused any compensation but a written paper stating that i was well received; and when i pressed him to accept a few sequins, "no," he replied; "i wish you to love me, not to pay me." these are his words. it is astonishing how far money goes in this country. while i was in the capital i had nothing to pay by the vizier's order; but since, though i have generally had sixteen horses, and generally six or seven men, the expense has not been _half_ as much as staying only three weeks in malta, though sir a. ball, [ ] the governor, gave me a house for nothing, and i had only _one servant_. by the by, i expect hanson to remit regularly; for i am not about to stay in this province for ever. let him write to me at mr. strané's, english consul, patras. the fact is, the fertility of the plains is wonderful, and specie is scarce, which makes this remarkable cheapness. i am going to athens, to study modern greek, which differs much from the ancient, though radically similar. i have no desire to return to england, nor shall i, unless compelled by absolute want, and hanson's neglect; but i shall not enter into asia for a year or two, as i have much to see in greece, and i may perhaps cross into africa, at least the egyptian part. fletcher, like all englishmen, is very much dissatisfied, though a little reconciled to the turks by a present of eighty piastres from the vizier, which, if you consider every thing, and the value of specie here, is nearly worth ten guineas english. he has suffered nothing but from cold, heat, and vermin, which those who lie in cottages and cross mountains in a cold country must undergo, and of which i have equally partaken with himself; but he is not valiant, and is afraid of robbers and tempests. i have no one to be remembered to in england, and wish to hear nothing from it, but that you are well, and a letter or two on business from hanson, whom you may tell to write. i will write when i can, and beg you to believe me, your affectionate son, byron. p.s.--i have some very "magnifiques" albanian dresses, the only expensive articles in this country. they cost fifty guineas each, and have so much gold, they would cost in england two hundred. i have been introduced to hussein bey, [ ] and mahmout pacha, [ ] both little boys, grandchildren of ali, at yanina; they are totally unlike our lads, have painted complexions like rouged dowagers, large black eyes, and features perfectly regular. they are the prettiest little animals i ever saw, and are broken into the court ceremonies already. the turkish salute is a slight inclination of the head, with the hand on the heart; intimates always kiss. mahmout is ten years old, and hopes to see me again; we are friends without understanding each other, like many other folks, though from a different cause. he has given me a letter to his father in the morea, to whom i have also letters from ali pacha. [footnote : ali pasha ( - ) was born in albania, at tepeleni, a town miles north of janina, of which his father was governor. this "mahometan buonaparte," or "rob roy of albania," made himself the supreme ruler of epirus and albania, acquired a predominance over the agas of thessaly, and pushed his troops to the frontiers of ancient attica (see raumer's 'historisches taschenbuch,' pp. - ). a merciless and unscrupulous tyrant, he was also a fine soldier and a born administrator. intriguing now with the porte, now with buonaparte, now with the english, using the rival despots of the country against each other, hand in glove with the brigands while commanding the police for their suppression, he extended his power by using conflicting interests to aggrandize himself. the venetian possessions on the eastern shores of the adriatic, which had passed in to france, by the treaty of campo formio, were wrested from the french by ali, who defeated general la salsette ( ) in the plains of nicopolis, and, with the exception of parga, seized and held the principal towns in the name of the sultan. byron speaks of his "aged venerable face" in 'childe harold' (canto ii. stanza lxii.; see also stanza xlvii.), and of the delicacy of his hand in 'don juan' (canto iv. stanza xlv.), and finds in his treatment of "giaffir, pacha of argyro castro or scutari (i am not sure which)," the material for stanzas xiv., xv. of canto ii. of 'the bride of abydos'. hobhouse ('journey through albania', edit. , vol. i. pp. , ) describes ali as "a short man, about five feet five inches in height, and very fat, though not particularly corpulent. he had a very pleasing face, fair and round, with blue quick eyes, not at all settled into a turkish gravity. his beard was long and white, and such a one as any other turk would have been proud of; though he, who was more taken up with his guests than himself, did not continue looking at it, nor smelling and stroking it, as is usually the custom of his country-men, to fill up the pauses of conversation." dr. (afterwards sir henry) holland, in his 'travels in the ionian isles, albania, thessaly, and greece in - ', pp. , ( ), gives an account of his first interview with ali: "were i to attempt a description of ali, i should speak of his face as large and full; the forehead remarkably broad and open, and traced by many deep furrows; the eye penetrating, yet not expressive of ferocity; the nose handsome and well formed; the mouth and lower part of the face concealed, except when speaking, by his mustachios and the long beard which flows over his breast. his complexion is somewhat lighter than that usual among the turks, and his general appearance does not indicate more than his actual age ... the neck is short and thick, the figure corpulent and unwieldy; his stature i had afterwards the means of ascertaining to be about five feet nine inches. the general character and expression of the countenance are unquestionably fine, and the forehead especially is a striking and majestic feature. much of the talent of the man may be inferred from his exterior; the moral qualities, however, may not equally be determined in this way; and to the casual observation of the stranger i can conceive from my own experience, that nothing may appear but what is open, placid, and alluring. opportunities were afterwards afforded me of looking beneath this exterior of expression; it is the fire of a stove burning fiercely under a smooth and polished surface.... the inquiries he made respecting our journey to joannina, gave us the opportunity of complimenting him on the excellent police of his dominions, and the attention he has paid to his roads. i mentioned to him generally lord byron's poetical description of albania, the interest it had excited in england, and mr. hobhouse's intended publication of his travels in the same country. he seemed pleased with these circumstances, and stated his recollection of lord byron." dr. holland brought back to england a letter to byron from ali (see letter to moore, september , ). a further account of ali, together with a portrait, will be found in hughes's 'travels in sicily, etc.' (pp. - ). he again ( ) "asked with much apparent interest respecting lord byron." at the close of the napoleonic struggle, the interest of this country was excited by the resistance of parga to his arms, especially as, during the late war, the pargiotes had received the protection of great britain. after the fall of parga ( ), ali's power roused the jealousy of the sultan, and it was partly in consequence of his open defiance of the porte, that insurrections broke out in wallachia, and that ypsilanti proclaimed himself the liberator of greece. the turkish troops, under kurchid pasha, gradually overpowered ali, and, at the end of , shut him up in his citadel of janina. in the following january he surrendered, and was at first treated with respect. but on february , , ali was informed that the sultan demanded his head. his answer was to fire his pistol at the messenger. in the fray that followed he was killed. another and better account (walsh's 'narrative of a journey from constantinople to england', p. ) says that he was stabbed in the back as he was bowing to the departing messenger, who had solemnly assured him of the sultan's pardon and favour. his head was cut off, sent to constantinople, and fixed on the grand gate of the seraglio, with the sentence of death by its side. recently fresh interest has been aroused in ali by the publication of mr. bain's translation of maurus jókai's semi-historical novel 'janicsárok végnapjai', under the title of 'the lion of janina' ( ).] [footnote : veli pasha was the son of ali by a daughter of coul pasha, the governor of berat, in whose army ali had served as a young man. he was married ( ) to a daughter of ibrahim pasha, who had succeeded coul pasha in the pashalik of berat. the war with ibrahim, to which byron alludes, ended in his defeat, and the transference of his pashalik to ali. veli, at this time vizier of the morea, resided at tripolizza, when he was visited by galt, who describes him as sitting "on a crimson velvet cushion, wrapped in a superb pelisse; on his head was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger encrusted with jewels, and on the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire which was said to have cost two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. in his left hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he twisted backwards and forwards during the greater part of the visit." "in his manners," says galt, "i found him free and urbane, with a considerable tincture of humour and drollery" ('life of byron', p. ). hobhouse ('journey through albania, etc.', vol. i. p. ) says, "the vizier, for he is a pasha of three tails, is a lively young man; and besides the albanian, greek, and turkish languages, speaks italian--an accomplishment not possessed, i should think, by any other man of his high rank in turkey. it is reported that he, as well as his father, is preparing, in case of the overthrow of the ottoman power, to establish an independent sovereignty." veli, in his father's struggle with the sultan, betrayed prevesa to the turks. he was executed in , and is buried at the silivria gate of constantinople. [footnote : for "monastic zitza," see 'childe harold', canto ii. stanza xlviii., and byron's note.] [footnote : see 'lay of the last minstrel', canto i.] [footnote : william martin leake ( - ) received his commission as second lieutenant in the artillery in , became a captain in , major in , and lieutenant-colonel in . his professional life, up to , was spent abroad, chiefly at constantinople, in egypt, or in various parts of european turkey. in he had been sent by the british government with stores of artillery, ammunition, and congreve rockets, to ali, pasha of albania, and he remained at preveza, or janina, as the representative of great britain, till . during his travels he collected the vases, gems, bronzes, marbles, and coins now placed in the british museum, and in the fitzwilliam museum at cambridge. at the same time, he accumulated the materials which, during his literary life ( - ), he embodied in numerous books. of these the more important are--'the topography of athens' ( ); 'journal of a tour in asia minor' ( ); 'an historical outline of the greek revolution' ( ); 'travels in the morea' ( ); 'travels in northern greece' ( ); 'numismata hellenica' ( - ). as a diplomatist he was remarkably successful; but his reputation mainly rests on his topographical works. with his antiquarian labours byron would have had little sympathy; but leake was also a warm-hearted advocate of the christian population of greece against their turkish rulers.] [footnote : the battle of actium (b.c. ) was fought at the entrance of the gulf of arta, and nicopolis, the city of victory, the 'palaio-kastro' of the modern greek, was founded by augustus on an isthmus connecting prevesa with the mainland to commemorate his triumph. leake ('travels in northern greece', vol. i. p. ) identifies actium with punda ([greek (transliterated: aktae], "the head of a promontory") on the headland opposite prevesa (see 'childe harold', canto ii. stanza xlv.).] [footnote : "upon parnassus going to the fountain of delphi (castri) in ," writes byron, in his 'diary' for ('life', pp. , ), "i saw a flight of twelve eagles (h. says they were vultures--at least in conversation), and i seized the omen. on the day before i composed the lines to parnassus (in 'childe harold'), and, on beholding the birds, had a hope that apollo had accepted my homage. i have at least had the name and fame of a poet during the poetical part of life (from twenty to thirty);--whether it will 'last' is another matter." (for the lines to parnassus, see 'childe harold', canto i. stanzas lx.-lxii.) to this journey belongs another incident, recorded by byron. "the last bird i ever fired at was an eaglet, on the shore of the gulf of lepanto, near vostizza. it was only wounded, and i tried to save it,--the eye was so bright. but it pined, and died in a few days; and i never did since, and never will, attempt the death of another bird."] [footnote : rear-admiral sir alexander john ball ( - ), who belonged to a gloucestershire family, entered the navy, inspired by 'robinson crusoe'. a lieutenant in , he distinguished himself with rodney in (post-captain, ; rear-admiral, ), and at the battle of the nile, when he commanded the 'alexander'. nelson had no liking for ball until the latter saved the dismasted 'vanguard' from going on shore by taking her in tow. henceforward they were friends, and nelson spoke of him as one of his "three right arms." by his skill in blockading valetta ( - ), ball was the hero of the siege of malta, and (june , ) was created a baronet for his services, and received the order of merit from ferdinand iv of naples. when byron met him, ball was "his majesty's civil commissioner for the island of malta and its dependencies, and minister plenipotentiary to the order of st. john." s.t. coleridge, who was with him as secretary from may, , to october, , wrote enthusiastically of him in his letters, and in 'the friend' ( rd edit., vol. i. essay i., and vol. iii. pp. - ). but his picture of the admiral would have been more definite had he remembered the spirit of the remark (quoted in 'the friend') which ball once made to him: "the distinction is just, and, now i understand you, abundantly obvious; but hardly worth the trouble of your inventing a puzzle of words to make it appear otherwise."] [footnote : hussein bey, then a boy of ten years old, son of mouctar pasha, the eldest son of ali, in after years ( - ) remained faithful to his grandfather, when his father, uncles, and cousin had gone over to the sultan, and held tepeleni for ali in his last struggle against the turks. mahomet pasha, son of veli pasha, second son of ali, though only twelve years old, was already in possession of a pashalik. in ali's contest with turkey, he betrayed parga to the sultan, and persuaded his father to surrender prevesa. he was, however, rewarded for his treachery by execution, and is among the five members of his family who lie buried at the silivria gate at constantinople (walsh's 'narrative', p. ).] .--to his mother. smyrna, march , . dear mother,--i cannot write you a long letter; but as i know you will not be sorry to receive any intelligence of my movements, pray accept what i can give. i have traversed the greatest part of greece, besides epirus, etc., etc., resided ten weeks at athens, and am now on the asiatic side on my way to constantinople. i have just returned from viewing the ruins of ephesus, a day's journey from smyrna. [ ] i presume you have received a long letter i wrote from albania, with an account of my reception by the pacha of the province. when i arrive at constantinople, i shall determine whether to proceed into persia or return, which latter i do not wish, if i can avoid it. but i have no intelligence from mr. hanson, and but one letter from yourself. i shall stand in need of remittances whether i proceed or return. i have written to him repeatedly, that he may not plead ignorance of my situation for neglect. i can give you no account of any thing, for i have not time or opportunity, the frigate sailing immediately. indeed the further i go the more my laziness increases, and my aversion to letter-writing becomes more confirmed. i have written to no one but to yourself and mr. hanson, and these are communications of business and duty rather than of inclination. fletcher is very much disgusted with his fatigues, though he has undergone nothing that i have not shared. he is a poor creature; indeed english servants are detestable travellers. i have, besides him, two albanian soldiers and a greek interpreter; all excellent in their way. greece, particularly in the vicinity of athens, is delightful;--cloudless skies and lovely landscapes. but i must reserve all account of my adventures till we meet. i keep no journal, but my friend hobhouse scribbles incessantly. pray take care of murray and robert, and tell the boy it is the most fortunate thing for him that he did not accompany me to turkey. consider this as merely a notice of my safety, and believe me, yours, etc., etc., byron. [footnote : it was at smyrna that the two first cantos of 'childe harold' were completed. to his original ms. of the poem is prefixed the following memorandum:-- "byron, ioannina in albania. begun october st, ; concluded canto d, smyrna, march th, . --byron."] .--to his mother. smyrna, april , . dear mother,--i know you will be glad to hear from me: i wish i could say i am equally delighted to write. however, there is no great loss in my scribbles, except to the portmanteau-makers, who, i suppose, will get all by and by. nobody but yourself asks me about my creed,--what i am, am not, etc., etc. if i were to begin _explaining_, god knows where i should leave off; so we will say no more about that, if you please. i am no "good soul," and not an atheist, but an english gentleman, i hope, who loves his mother, mankind, and his country. i have not time to write more at present, and beg you to believe me, ever yours, etc., byron. p.s.-are the miss----anxiously expecting my arrival and contributions to their gossip and _rhymes_, which are about as bad as they can be? b. .--to his mother. smyrna, april , . dear mother,--to-morrow, or this evening, i sail for constantinople in the 'salsette' frigate, of thirty-six guns. she returns to england with our ambassador, [ ] whom she is going up on purpose to receive. i have written to you short letters from athens, smyrna, and a long one from albania. i have not yet mustered courage for a second large epistle, and you must not be angry, since i take all opportunities of apprizing you of my safety; but even that is an effort, writing is so irksome. i have been traversing greece, and epirus, illyria, etc., etc., and you see by my date, have got into asia. i have made but one excursion lately to the ruins of ephesus. malta is the rendez-vous of my letters, so address to that island. mr. hanson has not written, though i wished to hear of the norfolk sale, [ ] the lancashire law-suit, etc., etc., i am anxiously expecting fresh remittances. i believe you will like nottinghamshire, at least my share of it. [ ] pray accept my good wishes in lieu of a long letter, and believe me, yours sincerely and affectionately, byron. [footnote : robert (afterwards the right hon. sir robert) adair ( - ), son of sergeant-surgeon adair and lady caroline keppel, described by an austrian aristocrat as "le fils du plus grand 'seigneur' d'angleterre," was educated at westminster and the university of gottingen." at the latter place adair, always, as his kinsman lord albemarle said of him, "an enthusiastic admirer of the fair sex" ('recollections', vol. i. p. ), fell in love with his tutor's daughter. he did not, however, marry "sweet matilda pottingen," but angélique gabrielle, daughter of the marquis d'hazincourt. he is supposed to have contributed to the 'rolliad'; and the "dedication to sir lloyd kenyon," "margaret nicholson" ('political eclogues', p. ), and the "song of scrutina" ('probationary odes', p. ), have been attributed to him. he, however, denied (moore's 'journal and correspondence', vol. ii. p. ) that he wrote any part of the 'rolliad'. a whig, and an intimate friend and follower of fox, he was in at st. petersburg, where the tories believed that he had been sent by his chief on "half a mission" to intrigue with russia against pitt. the charge was published by dr. pretyman, bishop of winchester, in his 'life of pitt' ( ), who may have wished to pay off old scores, and to retaliate on one of the reputed authors of the 'rolliad' for the "pretymaniana," and was answered in 'two letters from mr. adair to the bishop of winchester'. it is to this accusation that ellis and frere, in the 'anti-jacobin', refer in "a bit of an ode to mr. fox" ('poetry of the anti-jacobin', edit. , pp. - ):-- "i mount, i mount into the sky, sweet bird, to 'petersburg' i'll fly, or, if you bid, to 'paris'. fresh missions of the 'fox' and 'goose' successful 'treaties' may produce, though pitt in all miscarries." sir james mackintosh, speaking of the story, told moore ('journals and correspondence', vol. iv. p. ) that a private letter from adair, reporting his conversations with a high official in st. petersburg, fell into the hands of the british government; that some members of the council were desirous of taking proceedings upon it; but that lord grenville and pitt threatened to resign, if any use was made of such a document so obtained. (see also the "translation of a letter from bawba-dara-adul-phoola," etc.--'i.e.' "bob adair, a dull fool"--in the 'anti-jacobin', p. .) adair was in sent by fox as ambassador to vienna, and in was appointed by canning ambassador extraordinary at constantinople, where, with stratford canning as his secretary, he negotiated the treaty of the dardanelles. for his services, on his return in , he was made a k.c.b. he was subsequently ( - ) employed on a mission to the low countries, when war appeared imminent between william, prince of orange and king leopold. he was afterwards sworn a member of the privy council, and received a pension. george ticknor ('life', vol. i. p. ), who met him at woburn in , speaks of his great conversational charms, and moore ('journals and correspondence', vol. vii. p. ) describes him, in , as a man "from whom one gets, now and then, an agreeable whiff of the days of fox, tickell, and sheridan." many years after fox's death, adair was at a fête at chiswick house. "'in which room,' he asked of samuel rogers, 'did fox expire?' 'in this very room,' i replied. immediately, adair burst into tears with a vehemence of grief such as i hardly ever saw exhibited by a man" ('recollections of the table-talk of samuel rogers', p. ).] [footnote : the sale of wymondham and other property in norfolk, which had come to him through his great-uncle.] [footnote : probably an allusion to his mother leaving burgage manor and taking up her residence at newstead.] .--to his mother. _salsette frigate, off the dardanelles_, april , . dear madam,--i write at anchor (on our way to constantinople) off the troad, which i traversed ten days ago. all the remains of troy are the tombs of her destroyers, amongst which i saw that of antilochus from my cabin window. these are large mounds of earth, like the barrows of the danes in your island. there are several monuments, about twelve miles distant, of the alexandrian troas, which i also examined, but by no means to be compared with the remnants of athens and ephesus. this will be sent in a ship of war, bound with despatches for malta. in a few days we shall be at constantinople, barring accidents. i have also written from smyrna, and shall, from time to time, transmit short accounts of my movements, but i feel totally unequal to long letters. believe me, yours very sincerely, byron. p.s.--no accounts from hanson!!! do not complain of short letters; i write to nobody but yourself and mr. h. .--to henry drury. _salsette_ frigate, may , . my dear drury,--when i left england, nearly a year ago, you requested me to write to you--i will do so. i have crossed portugal, traversed the south of spain, visited sardinia, sicily, malta, and thence passed into turkey, where i am still wandering. i first landed in albania, the ancient epirus, where we penetrated as far as mount tomarit-- excellently treated by the chief ali pacha,--and, after journeying through illyria, chaonia, etc., crossed the gulf of actium, with a guard of fifty albanians, and passed the achelous in our route through acarnania and Ætolia. we stopped a short time in the morea, crossed the gulf of lepanto, and landed at the foot of parnassus;--saw all that delphi retains, and so on to thebes and athens, at which last we remained ten weeks. his majesty's ship, _pylades_, brought us to smyrna; but not before we had topographised attica, including, of course, marathon and the sunian promontory. from smyrna to the troad (which we visited when at anchor, for a fortnight, off the tomb of antilochus) was our next stage; and now we are in the dardanelles, waiting for a wind to proceed to constantinople. this morning i _swam_ from _sestos_ to _abydos_. [ ] the immediate distance is not above a mile, but the current renders it hazardous;--so much so that i doubt whether leander's conjugal affection must not have been a little chilled in his passage to paradise. i attempted it a week ago, and failed,--owing to the north wind, and the wonderful rapidity of the tide,--though i have been from my childhood a strong swimmer. but, this morning being calmer, i succeeded, and crossed the "broad hellespont" in an hour and ten minutes. well, my dear sir, i have left my home, and seen part of africa and asia, and a tolerable portion of europe. i have been with generals and admirals, princes and pashas, governors and ungovernables,--but i have not time or paper to expatiate. i wish to let you know that i live with a friendly remembrance of you, and a hope to meet you again; and if i do this as shortly as possible, attribute it to any thing but forgetfulness. greece, ancient and modern, you know too well to require description. albania, indeed, i have seen more of than any englishman (except a mr. leake), for it is a country rarely visited, from the savage character of the natives, though abounding in more natural beauties than the classical regions of greece,--which, however, are still eminently beautiful, particularly delphi and cape colonna in attica. yet these are nothing to parts of illyria and epirus, where places without a name, and rivers not laid down in maps, may, one day, when more known, be justly esteemed superior subjects, for the pencil and the pen, to the dry ditch of the ilissus and the bogs of boeotia. the troad is a fine field for conjecture and snipe-shooting, and a good sportsman and an ingenious scholar may exercise their feet and faculties to great advantage upon the spot;--or, if they prefer riding, lose their way (as i did) in a cursed quagmire of the scamander, who wriggles about as if the dardan virgins still offered their wonted tribute. the only vestige of troy, or her destroyers, are the barrows supposed to contain the carcasses of achilles, antilochus, ajax, etc.;--but mount ida is still in high feather, though the shepherds are now-a-days not much like ganymede. but why should i say more of these things? are they not written in the _boke_ of _gell_? [ ] and has not hobhouse got a journal? i keep none, as i have renounced scribbling. i see not much difference between ourselves and the turks, save that we have----and they have none--that they have long dresses, and we short, and that we talk much, and they little. they are sensible people. ali pacha told me he was sure i was a man of rank, because i had _small ears_ and _hands_, and _curling hair_. by the by, i speak the romaic, or modern greek, tolerably. it does not differ from the ancient dialects so much as you would conceive; but the pronunciation is diametrically opposite. of verse, except in rhyme, they have no idea. i like the greeks, who are plausible rascals,--with all the turkish vices, without their courage. however, some are brave, and all are beautiful, very much resembling the busts of alcibiades;--the women not quite so handsome. i can swear in turkish; but, except one horrible oath, and "pimp," and "bread," and "water," i have got no great vocabulary in that language. they are extremely polite to strangers of any rank, properly protected; and as i have two servants and two soldiers, we get on with great éclat. we have been occasionally in danger of thieves, and once of shipwreck,--but always escaped. of spain i sent some account to our hodgson, but have subsequently written to no one, save notes to relations and lawyers, to keep them out of my premises. i mean to give up all connection, on my return, with many of my best friends--as i supposed them-and to snarl all my life. but i hope to have one good-humoured laugh with you, and to embrace dwyer, and pledge hodgson, before i commence cynicism. tell dr. butler i am now writing with the gold pen he gave me before i left england, which is the reason my scrawl is more unintelligible than usual. i have been at athens, and seen plenty of these reeds for scribbling, some of which he refused to bestow upon me, because topographic gell had brought them from attica. but i will not describe,--no--you must be satisfied with simple detail till my return, and then we will unfold the floodgates of colloquy. i am in a thirty-six gun frigate, going up to fetch bob adair from constantinople, who will have the honour to carry this letter. and so hobhouse's _boke_ is out, [ ] with some sentimental sing-song of my own to fill up,--and how does it take, eh? and where the devil is the second edition of my satire, with additions? and my name on the title page? and more lines tagged to the end, with a new exordium and what not, hot from my anvil before i cleared the channel? the mediterranean and the atlantic roll between me and criticism; and the thunders of the hyperborean review are deafened by the roar of the hellespont. remember me to claridge, [ ] if not translated to college, and present to hodgson assurances of my high consideration. now, you will ask, what shall i do next? and i answer, i do not know. i may return in a few months, but i have intents and projects after visiting constantinople. hobhouse, however, will probably be back in september. on the d of july we have left albion one year--_oblitus meorum obliviscendus et illis_. i was sick of my own country, and not much prepossessed in favour of any other; but i "drag on my chain" without "lengthening it at each remove." [ ] i am like the jolly miller, caring for nobody, and not cared for. [ ] all countries are much the same in my eyes. i smoke, and stare at mountains, and twirl my mustachios very independently. i miss no comforts, and the musquitoes that rack the morbid frame of h. have, luckily for me, little effect on mine, because i live more temperately. i omitted ephesus in my catalogue, which i visited during my sojourn at smyrna; but the temple has almost perished, and st. paul need not trouble himself to epistolise the present brood of ephesians, who have converted a large church built entirely of marble into a mosque, and i don't know that the edifice looks the worse for it. my paper is full, and my ink ebbing--good afternoon! if you address to me at malta, the letter will be forwarded wherever i may be. h. greets you; he pines for his poetry,--at least, some tidings of it. i almost forgot to tell you that i am dying for love of three greek girls at athens, sisters. i lived in the same house. teresa, mariana, and katinka, [ ] are the names of these divinities,--all of them under fifteen. your [greek (transliterated): tapeinotatos doulos], byron. [footnote : byron made two attempts to swim across the hellespont from abydos to sestos. the first, april , failed; the second, may , in warmer weather, succeeded. "byron was one hour and ten minutes in the water; his companion, mr. ekenhead, five minutes less ... my fellow-traveller had before made a more perilous, but less celebrated, passage; for i recollect that, when we were in portugal, he swam from old lisbon to belem castle, and, having to contend with a tide and counter-current, the wind blowing freshly, was but little less than two hours in crossing the river" (hobhouse, 'travels in albania', etc., vol. ii. p. ). in hobhouse's journal, byron made the following note: "the whole distance e. and myself swam was more than four miles--the current very strong and cold--some large fish near us when half across--we were not fatigued, but a little chilled--did it with little difficulty.--may , . byron." of his feat byron was always proud. see the "lines written after swimming from sestos to abydos" ("by the by, from abydos to sestos would have been more correct"), and 'don juan', canto ii. stanza cv.:-- "a better swimmer you could scarce see ever; he could, perhaps, have pass'd the hellespont, as once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) leander, mr. ekenhead, and i did." in a note to the "lines written after swimming from sestos to abydos," byron writes, "chevalier says that a young jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and oliver mentions its having been done by a neapolitan; but our consul, tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. a number of the 'salsette''s crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability." lieutenant ekenhead, of the marines, was afterwards killed by a fall from the fortifications of malta.] [footnote : sir william gell ( - ) published the 'topography of troy' ( ); 'geography and antiquities of ithaca' ( ); the 'itinerary of greece' ( ); and many other subsequent works. (for byron's review of 'ithaca' and 'greece', in the 'monthly review' for august, , see appendix iii.) in the ms. of 'english bards, and scotch reviewers' (line ) he called him "coxcomb gell;" but, having made his personal acquaintance before the satire was printed, he changed the epithet to "classic." after seeing the country himself, he again altered the epithet-- "of dardan tours let dilettanti tell, i leave topography to rapid gell." to these lines is appended the following note: "'rapid,' indeed! he topographised and typographised king priam's dominions in three days! i called him 'classic' before i saw the troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't belong to it." to this passage byron, in , added the further expression of his opinion, that "gell's survey was hasty and superficial." one of two suppressed stanzas in 'childe harold' (canto ii. stanza xiii.) refers to gell and his works:-- "or will the gentle dilettanti crew now delegate the task to digging gell? that mighty limner of a bird's-eye view, how like to nature let his volumes tell; who can with him the folio's limits swell with all the author saw, or said he saw? who can topographise or delve so well? no boaster he, nor impudent and raw, his pencil, pen, and shade, alike without a flaw."] [footnote : 'imitations and translations from the ancient and modern classics, etc.' (london, , vo). of the sixty-five pieces, nine were by byron (see 'poems', vol. i., bibliographical note; and vol. vi., bibliographical note). the second and enlarged edition of 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', with byron's name attached, appeared in october, .] [footnote : two boys of this name, sons of j. claridge, of sevenoaks, entered harrow school in april, . george became a. solicitor, and died at sevenoaks in ; john (afterwards sir john) went to christ church, oxford, became a barrister, and died in . john claridge seems to have been one of byron's "juniors and favourites," whom he "spoilt by indulgence."] [footnote : "still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, and drags at each remove a lengthening chain." goldsmith's traveller, lines , .] [footnote : the allusion is to the familiar lines inserted by isaac bickerstaffe in 'love in a village' ( ), act i. sc. -- "there was a jolly miller once, liv'd on the river dee; he work'd and sung from morn till night; no lark more blithe than he. "and this the burden of his song, for ever us'd to be-- i care for nobody, not i, if no one cares for me."] [footnote : "during our stay at athens," writes hobhouse ('travels in albania, etc.', vol. i. pp. , ), "we occupied two houses separated from each other only by a single wall, through which we opened a doorway. one of them belongs to a greek lady, whose name is theodora macri, the daughter of the late english vice-consul, and who has to show many letters of recommendation left in her hands by several english travellers. her lodgings consisted of a sitting-room and two bedrooms, opening into a court-yard where there were five or six lemon-trees, from which, during our residence in the place, was plucked the fruit that seasoned the pilaf and other national dishes served up at our frugal table." the beauty of the greek women is transient. hughes ('travels in sicily, etc.', vol. i. p. , published in ) speaks of the three daughters of madame macri as "the 'belles' of athens." of theresa, the eldest, he says that "her countenance was extremely interesting, and her eye retained much of its wonted brilliancy; but the roses had already deserted the cheek, and we observed the remains only of that loveliness which elicited such strains from an impassioned poet." walsh, in his 'narrative of a resident in constantinople' (vol. i. p. ), speaks of theresa macri, the "maid of athens," whom he saw in , as "still very elegant in her person, and gentle and ladylike in her manners," but adds that "she has lost all pretensions to beauty, and has a countenance singularly marked by hopeless sadness." on the other hand, williams, in his 'travels in italy, etc.' (vol. ii. pp. , ), speaks, in , with an artist's enthusiasm, of the beauty of the three daughters of theodora macri. he quotes from the "visitors' book," to which hobhouse alludes, four lines written by byron in answer to an anonymous versifier-- "this modest bard, like many a bard unknown, rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own; but yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse, his name would bring more credit than his verse." theresa and mariana macri were dark; katinka was fair. the latter name byron uses as that of the fair georgian in 'don juan' (canto vi. stanza xli.). "it was," says moore, "if i recollect right, in making love to one of these girls that he had recourse to an act of courtship often practised in that country;--namely, giving himself a wound across the breast with his dagger. the young athenian, by his own account, looked on very coolly during the operation, considering it a fit tribute to her beauty, but in no degree moved to gratitude." theresa, sometimes called thyrza, macri married an englishman named black, employed in h.m.'s consular service at missolonghi. she survived her husband, and fell into great poverty. finlay, the historian of greece, made an appeal on her behalf, which obtained the support of the leading members of athenian society, including m. charilaus tricoupi, for some time prime minister at athens, the son of spiridion tricoupi--byron's intimate friend. in the 'new york times' for october , , mr. anthony martelaus, united states consular agent at athens, describes mrs. black, whom he visited in august, , as "a tall old lady, with features inspiring reverence, and showing that at a time past she was a beautiful woman." theresa black died october , , aged years. (see letters to the 'times', october and october , , by richard edgcumbe and neocles mussabini respectively.)] .--to francis hodgson. 'salsette' frigate, in the dardanelles, off abydos, may , . i am on my way to constantinople, after a tour through greece, epirus, etc., and part of asia minor, some particulars of which i have just communicated to our friend and host, h. drury. with these, then, i shall not trouble you; but as you will perhaps be pleased to hear that i am well, etc., i take the opportunity of our ambassador's return to forward the few lines i have time to despatch. we have undergone some inconveniences, and incurred partial perils, but no events worthy of communication, unless you will deem it one that two days ago i swam from sestos to abydos. this, with a few alarms from robbers, and some danger of shipwreck in a turkish galliot six months ago, a visit to a pacha, a passion for a married woman at malta, [ ] a challenge to an officer, an attachment to three greek girls at athens, with a great deal of buffoonery and fine prospects, form all that has distinguished my progress since my departure from spain. hobhouse rhymes and journalises; i stare and do nothing--unless smoking can be deemed an active amusement. the turks take too much care of their women to permit them to be scrutinised; but i have lived a good deal with the greeks, whose modern dialect i can converse in enough for my purposes. with the turks i have also some male acquaintances--female society is out of the question. i have been very well treated by the pachas and governors, and have no complaint to make of any kind. hobhouse will one day inform you of all our adventures--were i to attempt the recital, neither _my_ paper nor _your_ patience would hold out during the operation. nobody, save yourself, has written to me since i left england; but indeed i did not request it. i except my relations, who write quite as often as i wish. of hobhouse's volume i know nothing, except that it is out; and of my second edition i do not even know _that_, and certainly do not, at this distance, interest myself in the matter. i hope you and bland [ ] roll down the stream of sale with rapidity. of my return i cannot positively speak, but think it probable hobhouse will precede me in that respect. we have been very nearly one year abroad. i should wish to gaze away another, at least, in these evergreen climates; but i fear business, law business, the worst of employments, will recall me previous to that period, if not very quickly. if so, you shall have due notice. i hope you will find me an altered personage,--i do not mean in body, but in manner, for i begin to find out that nothing but virtue will do in this damned world. i am tolerably sick of vice, which i have tried in its agreeable varieties, and mean, on my return, to cut all my dissolute acquaintance, leave off wine and carnal company, and betake myself to politics and decorum. i am very serious and cynical, and a good deal disposed to moralise; but fortunately for you the coming homily is cut off by default of pen and defection of paper. good morrow! if you write, address to me at malta, whence your letters will be forwarded. you need not remember me to any body, but believe me, yours with all faith, byron. constantinople, may , . p.s.--my dear h.,--the date of my postscript "will prate to you of my whereabouts." we anchored between the seven towers and the seraglio on the th, and yesterday settled ashore. [ ] the ambassador [ ] is laid up; but the secretary [ ] does the honours of the palace, and we have a general invitation to his palace. in a short time he has his leave of audience, and we accompany him in our uniforms to the sultan, etc., and in a few days i am to visit the captain pacha with the commander of our frigate. [ ] i have seen enough of their pashas already; but i wish to have a view of the sultan, the last of the ottoman race. of constantinople you have gibbon's description, very correct as far as i have seen. the mosques i shall have a firman to visit. i shall most probably ('deo volente'), after a full inspection of stamboul, bend my course homewards; but this is uncertain. i have seen the most interesting parts, particularly albania, where few franks have ever been, and all the most celebrated ruins of greece and ionia. of england i know nothing, hear nothing, and can find no person better informed on the subject than myself. i this moment drink your health in a bumper of hock; hobhouse fills and empties to the same; do you and drury pledge us in a pint of any liquid you please--vinegar will bear the nearest resemblance to that which i have just swallowed to your name; but when we meet again the draught shall be mended and the wine also. yours ever, b. [footnote : mrs. spencer smith (see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]). "in the mean time," writes galt, who was at malta with him, "besides his "platonic dalliance with mrs. spencer smith, byron had involved himself in a quarrel with an officer; but it was satisfactorily settled" ('life of byron', p. ).] [footnote : the rev. robert bland ( - ), the son of a well-known london doctor, educated at harrow and pembroke college, cambridge, was an assistant-master at harrow when byron was a schoolboy. there he became one of a "social club or circle," to which belonged j. herman merivale, hodgson, henry drury, denman (afterwards lord chief justice), charles pepys (afterwards lord chancellor), launcelot shadwell (afterwards vice-chancellor), walford (afterwards solicitor to the customs), and paley, a son of the archdeacon. a good singer, an amusing companion, and a clever, impulsive, eccentric creature, he was nicknamed by his friends "don hyperbolo" for his humorous extravagances. some of his letters, together with a sketch of his life, are given in the 'life of the rev. francis hodgson', vol. i. pp. - . in the 'monthly magazine' for march, , he and merivale began to publish a series of translations from the greek minor poets and epigrammatists, which were afterwards collected, with additions by denman, hodgson, drury, and others, and published ( ) under the title of 'translations, chiefly from the greek anthology, with tales and miscellaneous poems'. bland and merivale ( - ) are addressed by byron ('english bards, and scotch reviewers', lines - ) as "associate bards," and adjured to "resign achaia's lyre, and strike your own." the two friends also collaborated in the 'collections from the greek anthology' ( ), and 'a collection of the most beautiful poems of the minor poets of greece' ( ). bland also published two volumes of original verse: 'edwy and elgiva' ( ), and 'the four slaves of cythera, a poetical romance' ( ). several generations of schoolboys have learned to write latin verse from his 'elements of latin hexameters and pentameters'. a lover of france, and of the french nation and of french acting, he spoke the language like a native, travelled in disguise over the countries occupied by napoleon's armies, and ( ) published, in collaboration with miss plumptre, a translation of the 'memoirs' of baron grimm and diderot. he was appointed chaplain at amsterdam, whence he returned in . (for the circumstances of his quarrel with hodgson, see page [letter ], [foot]note .) he was successively curate of prittlewell and kenilworth. at the latter place, where he eked out a scanty income by taking pupils, he died in from breaking a blood-vessel.] [footnote : byron and hobhouse landed on may , and rode to their inn. "this," says hobhouse ('travels in albania, etc.', vol. ii pp. , ), "was situated at the corner of the main street of pera, here four ways meet, all of which were not less mean and dirty than the lanes of wapping. the hotel, however (kept by a mons. marchand), was a very comfortable mansion, containing many chambers handsomely furnished, and a large billiard-room, which is the resort of all the idle young men of the place. our dinners there were better served, and composed of meats more to the english taste, than we had seen at any tavern since our departure from falmouth; and the butter of belgrade (perfectly fresh, though not of a proper consistency) was a delicacy to which we had long been unaccustomed. the best london porter, and nearly every species of wine, except port, were also to be procured in any quantity. to this eulogy cannot be added the material recommendation of cheapness."] [footnote : robert adair. (see page [letter ], [foot]note .)] [footnote : stratford canning, afterwards lord stratford de redcliffe.] [footnote : captain bathurst, and the officers of the 'salsette', anxious to see the arsenal and the turkish fleet, paid a visit with byron to ali, the capudan-pasha, or lord high admiral. "he was," writes hobhouse ('travels in albania, etc.', vol. ii. p. ), "in his kiosk of audience at divan-hane, a splendid chamber, surrounded by his attendants, and, contrary to custom, received us sitting. he is reported to be a ferocious character, and certainly had the appearance of being so."] .--to his mother. constantinople, may , . dear madam,--i arrived here in an english frigate from smyrna a few days ago, without any events worth mentioning, except landing to view the plains of troy, and afterwards, when we were at anchor in the dardanelles, _swimming_ from sestos to abydos, in imitation of monsieur leander, whose story you, no doubt, know too well for me to add anything on the subject except that i crossed the hellespont without so good a motive for the undertaking. as i am just going to visit the captain-pacha, you will excuse the brevity of my letter. when mr. adair takes leave i am to see the sultan and the mosques, etc. believe me, yours ever, byron. .--to his mother. constantinople, may , . dear mother,--i wrote to you very shortly the other day on my arrival here, and, as another opportunity avails, take up my pen again, that the frequency of my letters may atone for their brevity. pray did you ever receive a picture of me in oil by _sanders_ in _vigo lane_, london? (a noted limner); if not, write for it immediately; it was paid for, except the frame (if frame there be), before i left england. i believe i mentioned to you in my last that my only notable exploit lately has been swimming from sestos to abydos in humble imitation of _leander_, of amorous memory; though i had no _hero_ to receive me on the other shore of the hellespont. of constantinople you have of course read fifty descriptions by sundry travellers, which are in general so correct that i have nothing to add on the subject. when our ambassador takes his leave i shall accompany him to see the sultan, and afterwards probably return to greece. i have heard nothing of mr. h----, but one remittance without any letter from that legal gentleman. if you have occasion for any pecuniary supply, pray use my funds as far as they _go_, without reserve; and lest there should not be enough, in my next to mr. h----i will direct him to advance any sum you want, leaving at your discretion how much, in the present state of my affairs, you may think proper to require. i have already seen the most interesting part of turkey in europe and asia minor, but shall not proceed further till i hear from england. in the mean time i shall expect occasional supplies, according to circumstances, and shall pass my summer amongst my friends the greeks of the morea. you will direct to malta, where my letters are forwarded. and believe me, with great sincerity, yours ever, byron. p.s.--fletcher is well. pray take care of my boy robert and the old man murray. it is fortunate they returned; neither the youth of the one nor the age of the other would have suited the changes of climate and fatigue of travelling. .--to henry drury. constantinople, june , . though i wrote to you so recently, i break in upon you again to congratulate you on a child being born, [ ] as a letter from hodgson apprizes me of that event, in which i rejoice. i am just come from an expedition through the bosphorus to the black sea and the cyanean symplegades, up which last i scrambled with as great risk as ever the argonauts escaped in their hoy. you remember the beginning of the nurse's dole in the 'medea', of which i beg you to take the following translation, done on the summit:-- "oh how i wish that an embargo had kept in port the good ship argo! who, still unlaunched from grecian docks, had never passed the azure rocks; but now i fear her trip will be a damned business for my miss medea, etc., etc.," [ ] as it very nearly was to me;--for, had not this sublime passage been in my head, i should never have dreamed of ascending the said rocks, and bruising my carcass in honour of the ancients. i have now sat on the cyaneans, swam from sestos to abydos (as i trumpeted in my last), and, after passing through the morea again, shall set sail for santa maura, and toss myself from the leucadian promontory;--surviving which operation, i shall probably join you in england. hobhouse, who will deliver this, is bound straight for these parts; and, as he is bursting with his travels, i shall not anticipate his narratives, but merely beg you not to believe one word he says, but reserve your ear for me, if you have any desire to be acquainted with the truth. i am bound for athens once more, and thence to the morea; but my stay depends so much on my caprice, that i can say nothing of its probable duration. i have been out a year already, and may stay another; but i am quicksilver, and say nothing positively. we are all very much occupied doing nothing, at present. we have seen every thing but the mosques, which we are to view with a firman on tuesday next. but of these and other sundries let h. relate, with this proviso, that 'i' am to be referred to for authenticity; and i beg leave to contradict all those things whereon he lays particular stress. but, if he soars at any time into wit, i give you leave to applaud, because that is necessarily stolen from his fellow-pilgrim. tell davies [ ] that hobhouse has made excellent use of his best jokes in many of his majesty's ships of war; but add, also, that i always took care to restore them to the right owner; in consequence of which he (davies) is no less famous by water than by land, and reigns unrivalled in the cabin as in the "cocoa tree." [ ] and hodgson has been publishing more poesy--i wish he would send me his 'sir edgar', [ ] and bland's 'anthology', to malta, where they will be forwarded. in my last, which i hope you received, i gave an outline of the ground we have covered. if you have not been overtaken by this despatch, hobhouse's tongue is at your service. remember me to dwyer, who owes me eleven guineas. tell him to put them in my banker's hands at gibraltar or constantinople. i believe he paid them once, but that goes for nothing, as it was an annuity. i wish you would write. i have heard from hodgson frequently. malta is my post-office. i mean to be with you by next montem. you remember the last,--i hope for such another; but after having swam across the "broad hellespont," i disdain datchett. [ ] good afternoon! i am yours, very sincerely, byron. [footnote : henry drury, afterwards archdeacon of wilts.] [footnote : euripides, 'medea', lines - -- [greek (transliterated)]: eith _ophel argous mae diaptasthai skaphos kolch_on es aian kuaneas symplaegadas, maed en napaisi paeliou pedein pote tmaetheisa peukae, maed eretm_osai cheras andr_on ariste_on, oi to pagchryson deros pelia metaelthon ou gar an despoin emae maedeia pyrgous gaes epleus i_olkias k.t.l.]] [footnote : for scrope berdmore davies, see page [letter ], [foot]note .] [footnote : "the cocoa tree," now , st. james's street, formerly in pall mall, was, in the reign of queen anne, the tory chocolate house. it became a club about , and was then regarded as the headquarters of the jacobites. probably for this reason gibbon, whose father professed jacobite opinions, belonged to it on coming to live in london (see his journal for november, , and his letter to his stepmother, january , : "the cocoa tree serves now and then to take off an idle hour"). byron was a member.] [footnote : hodgson's 'sir edgar' was published in .] [footnote : alluding to his having swum across the thames with henry drury, after the montem, to see how many times they could make the passage backwards and forwards without touching land. in this trial byron was the conqueror.] .--to his mother. constantinople, june , . my dear mother,--i regret to perceive by your last letter that several of mine have not arrived, particularly a very long one written in november last from albania, where i was on a visit to the pacha of that province. fletcher has also written to his spouse perpetually. mr. hobhouse, who will forward or deliver this, and is on his return to england, can inform you of our different movements, but i am very uncertain as to my own return. he will probably be down in notts, some time or other; but fletcher, whom i send back as an incumbrance (english servants are sad travellers), will supply his place in the interim, and describe our travels, which have been tolerably extensive. i have written twice briefly from this capital, from smyrna, from athens and other parts of greece; from albania, the pacha of which province desired his respects to my mother, and said he was sure i was a man of high birth because i had small ears, curling hair, and white hands!!! he was very kind to me, begged me to consider him as a father, and gave me a guard of forty soldiers through the forests of acarnania. but of this and other circumstances i have written to you at large, and yet hope you will receive my letters. i remember mahmout pacha, the grandson of ali pacha, at yanina, (a little fellow of ten years of age, with large black eyes, which our ladies would purchase at any price, and those regular features which distinguish the turks,) asked me how i came to travel so young, without anybody to take care of me. this question was put by the little man with all the gravity of threescore. i cannot now write copiously; i have only time to tell you that i have passed many a fatiguing, but never a tedious moment; and all that i am afraid of is that i shall contract a gypsy like wandering disposition, which will make home tiresome to me: this, i am told, is very common with men in the habit of peregrination, and, indeed, i feel it so. on the rd of may i swam from _sestos_ to _abydos_. you know the story of leander, but i had no _hero_ to receive me at landing. i also passed a fortnight on the troad. the tombs of achilles and Æsyetes still exist in large barrows, similar to those you have doubtless seen in the north. the other day i was at belgrade (a village in these environs), to see the house built on the same site as lady mary wortley's.[ ] by-the-by, her ladyship, as far as i can judge, has lied, but not half so much as any other woman would have done in the same situation. i have been in all the principal mosques by the virtue of a firman: this is a favor rarely permitted to infidels, but the ambassador's departure obtained it for us. i have been up the bosphorus into the black sea, round the walls of the city, and, indeed, i know more of it by sight than i do of london. i hope to amuse you some winter's evening with the details, but at present you must excuse me;--i am not able to write long letters in june. i return to spend my summer in greece. i write often, but you must not be alarmed when you do not receive my letters; consider we have no regular post farther than malta, where i beg you will in future send your letters, and not to this city. fletcher is a poor creature, and requires comforts that i can dispense with. he is very sick of his travels, but you must not believe his account of the country. he sighs for ale, and idleness, and a wife, and the devil knows what besides. i have not been disappointed or disgusted. i have lived with the highest and the lowest. i have been for days in a pacha's palace, and have passed many a night in a cowhouse, and i find the people inoffensive and kind. i have also passed some time with the principal greeks in the morea and livadia, and, though inferior to the turks, they are better than the spaniards, who, in their turn, excel the portuguese. of constantinople you will find many descriptions in different travels; but lady mary wortley errs strangely when she says, "st. paul's would cut a strange figure by st. sophia's." [ ] i have been in both, surveyed them inside and out attentively. st. sophia's is undoubtedly the most interesting from its immense antiquity, and the circumstance of all the greek emperors, from justinian, having been crowned there, and several murdered at the altar, besides the turkish sultans who attend it regularly. but it is inferior in beauty and size to some of the mosques, particularly "soleyman," etc., and not to be mentioned in the same page with st. paul's (i speak like a _cockney_). however, i prefer the gothic cathedral of seville to st. paul's, st. sophia's, and any religious building i have ever seen. the walls of the seraglio are like the walls of newstead gardens, only higher, and much in the same _order_; but the ride by the walls of the city, on the land side, is beautiful. imagine four miles of immense triple battlements, covered with ivy, surmounted with towers, and, on the other side of the road, turkish burying-grounds (the loveliest spots on earth), full of enormous cypresses. i have seen the ruins of athens, of ephesus, and delphi. i have traversed great part of turkey, and many other parts of europe, and some of asia; but i never beheld a work of nature or art which yielded an impression like the prospect on each side from the seven towers to the end of the golden horn. [ ] now for england. i am glad to hear of the progress of 'english bards', etc. of course, you observed i have made great additions to the new edition. have you received my picture from sanders, vigo lane, london? it was finished and paid for long before i left england: pray, send for it. you seem to be a mighty reader of magazines: where do you pick up all this intelligence, quotations, etc., etc.? though i was happy to obtain my seat without the assistance of lord carlisle, i had no measures to keep with a man who declined interfering as my relation on that occasion, and i have done with him, though i regret distressing mrs. leigh, [ ] poor thing!--i hope she is happy. it is my opinion that mr. b----ought to marry miss r----. our first duty is not to do evil; but, alas! that is impossible: our next is to repair it, if in our power. the girl is his equal: if she were his inferior, a sum of money and provision for the child would be some, though a poor, compensation: as it is, he should marry her. i will have no gay deceivers on my estate, and i shall not allow my tenants a privilege i do not permit myself--_that_ of debauching each other's daughters. god knows, i have been guilty of many excesses; but, as i have laid down a resolution to reform, and lately kept it, i expect this lothario to follow the example, and begin by restoring this girl to society, or, by the beard of my father! he shall hear of it. pray take some notice of robert, who will miss his master; poor boy, he was very unwilling to return. i trust you are well and happy. it will be a pleasure to hear from you. believe me, yours very sincerely, byron. p.s.--how is joe murray? p.s.--i open my letter again to tell you that fletcher having petitioned to accompany me into the morea, i have taken him with me, contrary to the intention expressed in my letter. [footnote : alluding to his having swum across the thames with henry drury, after the montem, to see how many times they could make the passage backwards and forwards without touching land. in this trial byron was the conqueror.] [footnote : lady mary describes the village of belgrade in a letter to pope, dated june , ('letters', edit. , vol. i. pp. - ). but walsh ('narrative of a residence in constantinople', vol. ii. , ), who visited belgrade in , says that no trace of her description was then to be seen--no view of the black sea, no houses of the wealthy christians, no fountains, and no fruit-trees. "the very tradition" of the house, which had disappeared before dallaway visited belgrade in , had perished.] [footnote : lady mary does not compare st. paul's with st. sophia's, but with the mosque of the valide, "the largest of all, built entirely of marble, the most prodigious, and, i think, the most beautiful structure i ever saw, be it spoken to the honour of our sex, for it was founded by the mother of mahomet iv. between friends, "st. paul's church would make a pitiful figure near it" ('letters', vol. i. p. ). [footnote : "the european with the asian shore sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream here and there studded with a seventy-four; sophia's cupola with golden gleam; the cypress groves; olympus high and hoar; the twelve isles, and the more than i could dream, far less describe, present the very view which charm'd the charming mary montagu." _don juan_, canto v. stanza .] [footnote : for mrs. leigh, 'née' augusta byron, see page [letter ], [foot]note .] .--to his mother. constantinople, july , . my dear mother,--i have no wish to forget those who have any claim upon me, and shall be glad of the good wishes of r----when he can express them in person, which it seems will be at some very indefinite date. i shall perhaps essay a speech or _two_ in the house when i return, but i am not ambitious of a parliamentary career, which is of all things the most degrading and unthankful. if i could by my own efforts inculcate the truth, that a man is not intended for a despot or a machine, but as an individual of a community, and fit for the society of kings, so long as he does not trespass on the laws or rebel against just governments, i might attempt to found a new utopia; but as matters are at present, in course you will not expect me to sacrifice my health or self to your or anyone's ambition. to quit this new idea for something you will understand better, how are miss r's, the w's, and mr. r's blue bastards? for i suppose he will not deny their _authorship_, which was, to say the least, imprudent and immoral. poor miss----: if he does not marry, and marry her speedily, he shall be no tenant of mine from the day that i set foot on english shores. i am glad you have received my portrait from sanders. it does not _flatter_ me, i think, but the subject is a bad one, and i must even do as fletcher does over his greek wines--make a face and hope for better. what you told me of----is not _true_, which i regret for your sake and your gossip-seeking neighbours, whom present with my good wishes, and believe me, yours, etc., byron. .--to francis hodgson. constantinople, july , . my dear hodgson,--twice have i written--once in answer to your last, and a former letter when i arrived here in may. that i may have nothing to reproach myself with, i will write once more--a very superfluous task, seeing that hobhouse is bound for your parts full of talk and wonderment. my first letter went by an ambassadorial express; my second by the _black john_ lugger; my third will be conveyed by cam, the miscellanist. i shall begin by telling you, having only told it you twice before, that i swam from sestos to abydos. i do this that you may be impressed with proper respect for me, the performer; for i plume myself on this achievement more than i could possibly do on any kind of glory, political, poetical, or rhetorical. having told you this, i will tell you nothing more, because it would be cruel to curtail cam's narrative, which, by-the-by, you must not believe till confirmed by me, the eye-witness. i promise myself much pleasure from contradicting the greatest part of it. he has been plaguily pleased by the intelligence contained in your last to me respecting the reviews of his hymns. i refreshed him with that paragraph immediately, together with the tidings of my own third edition, which added to his recreation. but then he has had a letter from a lincoln's inn bencher, full of praise of his harpings, and vituperation of the other contributions to his _missellingany_, which that sagacious person is pleased to say must have been put in as foils (_horresco referens!_); furthermore he adds that cam "is a genuine pupil of dryden," concluding with a comparison rather to the disadvantage of pope. i have written to drury by hobhouse; a letter is also from me on its way to england intended for that matrimonial man. before it is very long, i hope we shall again be together; the moment i set out for england you shall have intelligence, that we may meet as soon as possible. next week the frigate sails with adair; i am for greece, hobhouse for england. a year together on the nd july since we sailed from falmouth. i have known a hundred instances of men setting out in couples, but not one of a similar return. aberdeen's [ ] party split; several voyagers at present have done the same. i am confident that twelve months of any given individual is perfect ipecacuanha. the russians and turks are at it, [ ] and the sultan in person is soon to head the army. the captain pasha cuts off heads every day, and a frenchman's ears; the last is a serious affair. by-the-by i like the pashas in general. ali pasha called me his son, desired his compliments to my mother, and said he was sure i was a man of birth, because i had "small ears and curling hair." he is pasha of albania six hundred miles off, where i was in october--a fine portly person. his grandson mahmout, a little fellow ten years old, with large black eyes as big as pigeon's eggs, and all the gravity of sixty, asked me what i did travelling so young without a _lala_ (tutor)? good night, dear h. i have crammed my paper, and crave your indulgence. write to me at malta. i am, with all sincerity, yours affectionately, byron. [footnote : george hamilton gordon, earl of aberdeen ( - ), afterwards prime minister ( - ), succeeded his grandfather as fourth earl in . grandson of the purchaser of mrs. byron's old home of gight, and writer of an article in the 'edinburgh review' (july, ) on gell's 'topography of troy,' he has a place in 'english bards, and scotch reviewers' (lines , ). he also appears as "sullen aberdeen," in a suppressed stanza of 'childe harold', canto ii., which in the ms. follows stanza xiii., among those who "----pilfer all the pilgrim loves to see, all that yet consecrates the fading scene." after leaving harrow, and before entering st. john's college, cambridge, he spent two years ( - ) in greece. on his return he founded the athenian society, and became president of the society of antiquaries from to . it may be added that he was foreign secretary when the porte acknowledged the independence of greece by the treaty of adrianople ( ).] [footnote : in this war, the scene of which lay chiefly in wallachia, bosnia, bulgaria, and servia, the main episodes were the two battles of rustchuk (july and october , ), the recapture of silistria by the russians, and the convention of giurgevo between the contending forces (october , ).]g .--to his mother. athens, july , . dear mother,--i have arrived here in four days from constantinople, which is considered as singularly quick, particularly for the season of the year. i left constantinople with adair, at whose adieux of leave i saw sultan mahmout, [ ] and obtained a firman to visit the mosques, of which i gave you a description in my last letter, now voyaging to england in the _salsette_ frigate, in which i visited the plains of troy and constantinople. your northern gentry can have no conception of a greek summer; which, however, is a perfect frost compared with malta and gibraltar, where i reposed myself in the shade last year, after a gentle gallop of four hundred miles, without intermission, through portugal and spain. you see, by my date, that i am at athens again, a place which i think i prefer, upon the whole, to any i have seen. my next movement is to-morrow into the morea, where i shall probably remain a month or two, and then return to winter here, if i do not change my plans, which, however, are very variable, as you may suppose; but none of them verge to england. the marquis of sligo, [ ] my old fellow-collegian, is here, and wishes to accompany me into the morea. we shall go together for that purpose; but i am woefully sick of travelling companions, after a year's experience of mr. hobhouse, who is on his way to great britain. lord s. will afterwards pursue his way to the capital; and lord b., having seen all the wonders in that quarter, will let you know what he does next, of which at present he is not quite certain. malta is my perpetual post-office, from which my letters are forwarded to all parts of the habitable globe:--by the bye, i have now been in asia, africa, and the east of europe, and, indeed, made the most of my time, without hurrying over the most interesting scenes of the ancient world. fletcher, after having been toasted and roasted, and baked, and grilled, and eaten by all sorts of creeping things, begins to philosophise, is grown a refined as well as a resigned character, and promises at his return to become an ornament to his own parish, and a very prominent person in the future family pedigree of the fletchers, who i take to be goths by their accomplishments, greeks by their acuteness, and ancient saxons by their appetite. he (fletcher) begs leave to send half-a-dozen sighs to sally his spouse, and wonders (though i do not) that his ill-written and worse spelt letters have never come to hand; as for that matter, there is no great loss in either of our letters, saving and except that i wish you to know we are well, and warm enough at this present writing, god knows. you must not expect long letters at present, for they are written with the sweat of my brow, i assure you. it is rather singular that mr. hanson has not written a syllable since my departure. your letters i have mostly received as well as others; from which i conjecture that the man of law is either angry or busy. i trust you like newstead, and agree with your neighbours; but you know _you_ are a _vixen_--is not that a dutiful appellation? pray, take care of my books and several boxes of papers in the hands of joseph; and pray leave me a few bottles of champagne to drink, for i am very thirsty;--but i do not insist on the last article, without you like it. i suppose you have your house full of silly women, prating scandalous things. have you ever received my picture in oil from sanders, london? it has been paid for these sixteen months: why do you not get it? my suite, consisting of two turks, two greeks, a lutheran, and the nondescript, fletcher, are making so much noise, that i am glad to sign myself yours, etc., etc., byron. [footnote : on july , , the british ambassador, robert adair, had his audience of sultan mahmoud ii, and on the th the 'salsette' set sail. she touched at the island of zea to land byron, who thence made his way to athens. it was in making war against mahmoud ii, the conqueror of ali pasha and the destroyer of the janissaries, that byron lost his life. the following description of the sultan is given by hobhouse ('travels in albania, etc.,' vol. ii. pp. , ):-- "the chamber was small and dark, or rather illumined with a gloomy artificial light, reflected from the ornaments of silver, pearls, and other white brilliants, with which it is thickly studded on every side and on the roof. the throne, which is supposed the richest in the world, is like a four-posted bed, but of a dazzling splendour; the lower part formed of burnished silver and pearls, and the canopy and supporters encrusted with jewels. it is in an awkward position, being in one corner of the room, and close to a fireplace. "sultan mahmoud was placed in the middle of the throne, with his feet upon the ground, which, notwithstanding the common form of squatting upon the hams, seems the seat of ceremony. he was dressed in a robe of yellow satin, with a broad border of the darkest sable; his dagger, and an ornament on his breast, were covered with diamonds; the front of his white and blue turban shone with a large treble sprig of diamonds, which served as a buckle to a high, straight plume of bird-of-paradise feathers. he, for the most part, kept a hand on each knee, and neither moved his body nor head, but rolled his eyes from side to side, without fixing them for an instant upon the ambassador or any other person present. occasionally he stroked and turned up his beard, displaying a milk-white hand glittering with diamond rings. his eyebrows, eyes, and beard, being of a glossy jet black, did not appear natural, but added to that indescribable majesty which it would be difficult for any but an oriental sovereign to assume; his face was pale, and regularly formed, except that his nose (contrary to the usual form of that feature in the ottoman princes) was slightly turned up and pointed; his whole physiognomy was mild and benevolent, but expressive and full of dignity. he appeared of a short and small stature, and about thirty years old, which is somewhat more than his actual age." byron, at the audience, claimed some precedence in the procession as a peer. on may , , moore sat at dinner next to stratford canning (afterwards lord stratford de redcliffe), who "gave a ludicrous account of lord byron's insisting upon taking precedence of the 'corps diplomatique' in a procession at constantinople (when canning was secretary), and upon adair's refusing it, limping, with as much swagger as he could muster, up the hall, cocking a foreign military hat on his head. he found, however, he was wrong, and wrote a very frank letter acknowledging it, and offering to take his station anywhere" ('journals, etc., of thomas moore', vol. ii. p. ). an incident of the voyage from constantinople to zea is mentioned by moore ('life', p. ). picking up a turkish dagger on the deck, byron looked at the blade, and then, before replacing it in the sheath, was overheard to say to himself, "i should like to know how a person feels after committing a murder." in 'firmilian; a spasmodic tragedy' (scene ix.) the sentiment is parodied. firmilian determines to murder his friend, in order to shriek "delirious at the taste of sin!" he had already blown up a church full of people; but-- "i must have a more potential draught of guilt than this with more of wormwood in it! ... ... courage, firmilian! for the hour has come when thou canst know atrocity indeed, by smiting him that was thy dearest friend. and think not that he dies a vulgar death-- 'tis poetry demands the sacrifice!" and he hurls haverillo from the summit of the pillar of st. simeon stylites. [footnote : for lord sligo, see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]. lord sligo was at athens with a -gun brig and a crew of fifty men. at athens, also, were lady hester stanhope and michael bruce, on their way through european turkey. as the party were passing the piraeus, they saw a man jump from the mole-head into the sea. lord sligo, recognizing the bather as byron, called to him to dress and join them. thus began what byron, in his memoranda, speaks of as "the most delightful acquaintance which i formed in greece." from lord sligo moore heard the following stories:-- weakened and thinned by his illness at patras, byron returned to athens. there, standing one day before a looking-glass, he said to lord sligo, "how pale i look! i should like, i think, to die of a consumption." "why of a consumption?" asked his friend. "because then," he answered, "the women would all say, 'see that poor byron--how interesting he looks in dying!'" he often spoke of his mother to lord sligo, who thought that his feeling towards her was little short of aversion. "some time or other," he said, "i will tell you why i feel thus towards her." a few days after, when they were bathing together in the gulf of lepanto, pointing to his naked leg and foot, he exclaimed, "look there! it is to her false delicacy at my birth i owe that deformity; and yet as long as i can remember, she has never ceased to taunt and reproach me with it. even a few days before we parted, for the last time, on my leaving england, she, in one of her fits of passion, uttered an imprecation upon me, praying that i might prove as ill formed in mind as i am in body!" relics of ancient art only appealed to byron's imagination among their original and natural surroundings. for collections and collectors he had a contempt which, like everything he thought or felt, was unreservedly expressed. lord sligo wished to spend some money in digging for antiquities, and byron offered to act as his agent, and to see the money honestly applied. "you may safely trust 'me'" he said; "i am no dilettante. your connoisseurs are all thieves; but i care too little for these things ever to steal them." his system of thinning himself, which he had begun before he left england, was continued abroad. while at athens, where he stayed at the franciscan convent, he took a turkish bath three times a week, his usual drink being vinegar and water, and his food seldom more than a little rice. the result was that, when he returned to england, he weighed only stone - / lbs. (see page [letter ], [foot]note ). moore's account of the "cordial friendship" between byron and lady hester stanhope requires modification. lady hester (see page , note i) thus referred in after-life to her meeting with byron, if her physician's recollection is to be trusted ('memoirs', by dr. meryon, vol. iii. pp. , )-- "'i think he was a strange character: his generosity was for a motive, his avarice for a motive; one time he was mopish, and nobody was to speak to him; another, he was for being jocular with everybody. then he was a sort of don quixote, fighting with the police for a woman of the town; and then he wanted to make himself something great ... at athens i saw nothing in him but a well-bred man, like many others; for, as for poetry, it is easy enough to write verses; and as for the thoughts, who knows where he got them? ... he had a great deal of vice in his looks--his eyes set close together, and a contracted brow--so' (imitating it). 'oh, lord! i am sure he was not a liberal man, whatever else he might be. the only good thing about his looks was this part' (drawing her hand under the cheek down the front of her neck), 'and the curl on his forehead.'" michael bruce, with the help of sir robert wilson and capt. hutchinson, assisted count lavallette to escape from paris in january, . for an account, see wilson's intercepted letter to lord grey ('memoires du comte lavallette', vol. ii. p. ) and the story of their trial, conviction, and sentence before the assize court of the department of the seine (april - , ), given in the 'annual register' for , pp. - .] .--to his mother. athens, july , . dear mother,--i write again in case you have not received my letters. to-day i go into the morea, which will, i trust, be colder than this place, where i have tarried in the expectation of obtaining rest. sligo has very kindly proposed a union of our forces for the occasion, which will be perhaps as uncomfortable to him as to myself, judging from previous experience, which, however, may be explained by my own irritability and hurry. at constantinople i visited the mosques, plains, and grandees of that place, which, in my opinion, cannot be compared with athens and its neighbourhood; indeed i know of no turkish scenery to equal this, which would be civilised and celtic enough with a little alteration in situation and inhabitants. an usual custom here, as at cadiz, is to part with wives, daughters, etc., for a trifling present of gold or english arms (which the greeks set a high value upon). the women are generally of the middle height, with turkish eyes, straight hair, and clear olive complexion, but are not nearly so amorous as the spanish belles, whom i have described to you in former letters. i have some feats to boast of when i return, which is undesired and undesirable--i always except you from my complaints, and hope you will expect me with the same delight that i anticipate meeting you. you can have no conception of lord s.'s ecstasy when i informed him of my probable movements. the man is well enough and sensible enough by himself; but the swarm of attendants, turks, greeks, englishmen that he carries with him, makes his society, or rather theirs, an intolerable annoyance. if you will read this letter to----, you may imagine in what capacity i believe you excel. before i left england i promised to give my silver-mounted whip (in your chamber) to charles. present it to him, poor boy, for i should not like him to suppose me as unfaithful as his _amante_, who, by the way is no better than she should be, and no great loss to himself or his family. hobhouse is silent, and has, i suppose, not yet returned; indeed, like myself, he appears to love the world better than england, and the devil more than either, who i regret is not present to be informed of this. do not fail, if you see him (hobhouse, i mean), to repeat it, and the assurance that i am to him, with yourself, ever affectionately, byron. .--to his mother. patras, july , . dear madam,--in four days from constantinople, with a favourable wind, i arrived in the frigate at the island of teos, from whence i took a boat to athens, where i met my friend the marquis of sligo, who expressed a wish to proceed with me as far as corinth. at corinth we separated, he for tripolitza, i for patras, where i had some business with the consul, mr. strané, in whose house i now write. he has rendered me every service in his power since i quitted malta on my way to constantinople, whence i have written to you twice or thrice. in a few days i visit the pacha[ ] at tripolitza, make the tour of the morea, and return again to athens, which at present is my head-quarters. the heat is at present intense. in england, if it reaches ° you are all on fire: the other day, in travelling between athens and megara, the thermometer was at °!!! yet i feel no inconvenience; of course i am much bronzed, but i live temperately, and never enjoyed better health. before i left constantinople, i saw the sultan (with mr. adair), and the interior of the mosques, things which rarely happen to travellers. mr. hobhouse is gone to england: i am in no hurry to return, but have no particular communications for your country, except my surprise at mr. hanson's silence, and my desire that he will remit regularly. i suppose some arrangement has been made with regard to wymondham and rochdale. malta is my post-office, or to mr. strané, consul-general, patras, morea. you complain of my silence--i have written twenty or thirty times within the last year: never less than twice a month, and often more. if my letters do not arrive, you must not conclude that we are eaten, or that there is war, or a pestilence, or famine: neither must you credit silly reports, which i dare say you have in notts., as usual. i am very well, and neither more nor less happy than i usually am; except that i am very glad to be once more alone, for i was sick of my companion,--not that he was a bad one, but because my nature leads me to solitude, and that every day adds to this disposition. if i chose, here are many men who would wish to join me--one wants me to go to egypt, another to asia, of which i have seen enough. the greater part of greece is already my own, so that i shall only go over my old ground, and look upon my old seas and mountains, the only acquaintances i ever found improve upon me. i have a tolerable suite, a tartar, two albanians, an interpreter, besides fletcher; but in this country these are easily maintained. adair received me wonderfully well, and indeed i have no complaints against any one. hospitality here is necessary, for inns are not. i have lived in the houses of greeks, turks, italians, and english--to-day in a palace, to-morrow in a cow-house; this day with a pacha, the next with a shepherd. i shall continue to write briefly, but frequently, and am glad to hear from you; but you fill your letters with things from the papers, as if english papers were not found all over the world. i have at this moment a dozen before me. pray take care of my books, and believe me, my dear mother, yours very faithfully, byron. [footnote : for veli pasha, see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ].] .--to his mother. patras, october , . dear madam,--it is now several months since i have received any communication from you; but at this i am not surprised, nor indeed have i any complaint to make, since you have written frequently, for which i thank you; but i very much condemn mr. hanson, who has not taken the smallest notice of my many letters, nor of my request before i left england, which i sailed from on this very day _fifteen_ months ago. thus one year and a quarter have passed away, without my receiving the least intelligence on the state of my affairs, and they were not in a posture to admit of neglect; and i do conceive and declare that mr. hanson has acted negligently and culpably in not apprising me of his proceedings; i will also add uncivilly. his letters, were there any, could not easily miscarry; the communications with the levant are slow, but tolerably secure, at least as far as malta, and there i left directions which i know would be observed. i have written to you several times from constantinople and smyrna. you will perceive by my date i am returned into the morea,[ ] of which i have been making the tour, and visiting the pacha, who gave me a fine horse, and paid me all possible honours and attention. i have now seen a good portion of turkey in europe, and asia minor, and shall remain at athens, and in the vicinity, till i hear from england. i have punctually obeyed your injunctions of writing frequently, but i shall not pretend to describe countries which have been already amply treated of. i believe before this time mr. hobhouse will have arrived in england, and he brings letters from me, written at constantinople. in these i mention having seen the sultan and the mosques, and that i swam from sestos to abydos, an exploit of which i take care to boast. i am here on business at present, but athens is my head-quarters, where i am very pleasantly situated in a franciscan convent. believe me to be, with great sincerity, yours very affectionately, byron. p.s.--fletcher is well, and discontented as usual; his wife don't write, at least her scrawls have not arrived. you will address to malta. pray have you never received my picture in oil from sanders, vigo lane, london? [footnote : in a note upon the advertisement prefixed to his 'siege of corinth', byron says, "i visited all three (tripolitza, napoli, and argos) in - , and, in the course of journeying through the country, from my first arrival in , i crossed the isthmus eight times in my way from attica to the morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from the gulf of athens to that of lepanto."] .--to francis hodgson. patras, morea, october , . as i have just escaped from a physician and a fever, which confined me five days to bed, you won't expect much _allegrezza_ in the ensuing letter. in this place there is an indigenous distemper, which when the wind blows from the gulf of corinth (as it does five months out of six), attacks great and small, and makes woful work with visiters. here be also two physicians, one of whom trusts to his genius (never having studied)--the other to a campaign of eighteen months against the sick of otranto, which he made in his youth with great effect. when i was seized with my disorder, i protested against both these assassins;--but what can a helpless, feverish, toast-and-watered poor wretch do? in spite of my teeth and tongue, the english consul, my tartar, albanians, dragoman, forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. in this state i made my epitaph--take it:-- youth, nature, and relenting jove, to keep my lamp _in_ strongly strove: but romanelli was so stout, he beat all three--and _blew_ it _out_. but nature and jove, being piqued at my doubts, did, in fact, at last, beat romanelli, and here i am, well but weakly, at your service. since i left constantinople, i have made a tour of the morea, and visited veley pacha, who paid me great honours, and gave me a pretty stallion. h. is doubtless in england before even the date of this letter:--he bears a despatch from me to your bardship. he writes to me from malta, and requests my journal, if i keep one. i have none, or he should have it; but i have replied in a consolatory and exhortatory epistle, praying him to abate three and sixpence in the price of his next boke, seeing that half a guinea is a price not to be given for any thing save an opera ticket. as for england, it is long since i have heard from it. every one at all connected with my concerns is asleep, and you are my only correspondent, agents excepted. i have really no friends in the world; though all my old school companions are gone forth into that world, and walk about there in monstrous disguises, in the garb of guardsmen, lawyers, parsons, fine gentlemen, and such other masquerade dresses. so, i here shake hands and cut with all these busy people, none of whom write to me. indeed i ask it not;--and here i am, a poor traveller and heathenish philosopher, who hath perambulated the greatest part of the levant, and seen a great quantity of very improvable land and sea, and, after all, am no better than when i set out--lord help me! i have been out fifteen months this very day, and i believe my concerns will draw me to england soon; but of this i will apprise you regularly from malta. on all points hobhouse will inform you, if you are curious as to our adventures. [ ] i have seen some old english papers up to the th of may. i see the _lady of the lake_[ ] advertised. of course it is in his old ballad style, and pretty. after all, scott is the best of them. the end of all scribblement is to amuse, and he certainly succeeds there. i long to read his new romance. and how does _sir edgar_? and your friend bland? i suppose you are involved in some literary squabble. the only way is to despise all brothers of the quill. i suppose you won't allow me to be an author, but i contemn you all, you dogs!--i do. you don't know dallas, do you? he had a farce [ ] ready for the stage before i left england, and asked me for a prologue, which i promised, but sailed in such a hurry i never penned a couplet. i am afraid to ask after his drama, for fear it should be damned--lord forgive me for using such a word! but the pit, sir, you know the pit--they will do those things in spite of merit. i remember this farce from a curious circumstance. when drury lane [ ] was burnt to the ground, by which accident sheridan and his son lost the few remaining shillings they were worth, what doth my friend dallas do? why, before the fire was out, he writes a note to tom sheridan, [ ] the manager of this combustible concern, to inquire whether this farce was not converted into fuel with about two thousand other unactable manuscripts, which of course were in great peril, if not actually consumed. now was not this characteristic?--the ruling passions of pope are nothing to it. whilst the poor distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only worth £ , ., together with some twenty thousand pounds of rags and tinsel in the tiring rooms, bluebeard's elephants, [ ] and all that--in comes a note from a scorching author, requiring at his hands two acts and odd scenes of a farce!! dear h., remind drury that i am his well-wisher, and let scrope davies be well affected towards me. i look forward to meeting you at newstead, and renewing our old champagne evenings with all the glee of anticipation. i have written by every opportunity, and expect responses as regular as those of the liturgy, and somewhat longer. as it is impossible for a man in his senses to hope for happy days, let us at least look forward to merry ones, which come nearest to the other in appearance, if not in reality; and in such expectations i remain, etc. [footnote : hobhouse, writing to byron from malta, july , , says, "mrs. bruce picked out a pretty picture of a woman in a fashionable dress in ackerman's 'repository', and observed it was vastly like lord byron. i give you warning of this, for fear you should make another conquest and return to england without a curl upon your head. surely the ladies copy delilah when they crop their lovers after this fashion. 'successful youth! why mourn thy ravish'd hair, since each lost lock bespeaks a conquer'd fair, and young and old conspire to make thee bare?' this makes me think of my poor 'miscellany', which is quite dead, if indeed that can be said to be dead which was never alive; not a soul knows, or knowing will speak of it." again, july , , he writes: "the 'miscellany' is so damned that my friends make it a point of politeness not to mention it ever to me."] [footnote : 'the lady of the lake' was published in may, .] [footnote : for dallas, see page [letter ], [foot]note . his farce, entitled, 'not at home', was acted at the lyceum, by the drury lane company, in november, . it was afterwards printed, with a prologue (intended to have been spoken) written by walter rodwell wright, author of 'horae ionicae'.] [footnote : drury lane theatre, burned down in , and reopened in , was again destroyed by fire on february , .] [footnote : thomas sheridan ( - ), originally in the army, was at this time assisting his father, richard brinsley sheridan, as manager of drury lane theatre. his 'bonduca' was played at covent garden in may, . he married, in , caroline henrietta callender, who was "more beautiful than anybody but her daughters," afterwards mrs. norton, the duchess of somerset, and lady dufferin. he died at the cape of good hope in . "tom sheridan and his beautiful wife" were at gibraltar in , when byron and hobhouse landed on the rock, and, as galt states ('life of byron', p. ), brought the news to lady westmorland of their arrival. (see 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', lines , , and note .)] [footnote : 'bluebeard, or female curiosity', by george colman the younger ( - ), was being acted at drury lane in january, . "bluebeard's elephants" were wicker-work constructions. it was at covent garden that the first live elephant was introduced two years later. johnstone, the machinist employed at drury lane, famous for the construction of wooden children, wicker-work lions, and paste-board swans, was present with a friend. "among the attractions of this christmas foolery, a _real_ elephant was introduced.... the friend, who sat close to johnstone, jogged his elbow, whispering, 'this is a bitter bad job for drury! why, the elephant's _alive_! he'll carry all before him, and beat you hollow. what do you think on't, eh?' 'think on't?' said johnstone, in a tone of utmost contempt, 'i should be very sorry if i couldn't make a much better elephant than that, at any time'" (george colman the younger, 'random records', vol. i. pp. , ).] .--to john cam hobhouse. patras, morea, october th, . my dear hobhouse,--i wrote to you two days ago, but the weather and my friend strané's conversation being much the same, and my ally nicola [ ] in bed with a fever, i think i may as well talk to you, the rather, as you can't answer me, and excite my wrath with impertinent observations, at least for three months to come. i will try not to say the same things i have set down in my other letter of the nd, but i can't promise, as my poor head is still giddy with my late fever. i saw the lady hesther stanhope [ ] at athens, and do not admire "that dangerous thing a female wit." she told me (take her own words) that she had given you a good set-down at malta, in some disputation about the navy; from this, of course, i readily inferred the contrary, or in the words of an _acquaintance_ of ours, that "you had the best of it." she evinced a similar disposition to _argufy_ with me, which i avoided by either laughing or yielding. i despise the sex too much to squabble with them, and i rather wonder you should allow a woman to draw you into a contest, in which, however, i am sure you had the advantage, she abuses you so bitterly. i have seen too little of the lady to form any decisive opinion, but i have discovered nothing different from other she-things, except a great disregard of received notions in her conversation as well as conduct. i don't know whether this will recommend her to our sex, but i am sure it won't to her own. she is going on to constantinople. ali pacha is in a scrape. ibrahim pacha and the pacha of scutari have come down upon him with , gegdes and albanians, retaken berat, and threaten tepaleni. adam bey is dead, vely pacha was on his way to the danube, but has gone off suddenly to yanina, and all albania is in an uproar. the mountains we crossed last year are the scene of warfare, and there is nothing but carnage and cutting of throats. in my other letter i mentioned that vely had given me a fine horse. on my late visit he received me with great pomp, standing, conducted me to the door with his arm round my waist, and a variety of civilities, invited me to meet him at larissa and see his army, which i should have accepted, had not this rupture with ibrahim taken place. sultan mahmout is in a phrenzy because vely has not joined the army. we have a report here, that the russians have beaten the turks and taken muchtar pacha prisoner, but it is a greek bazaar rumour and not to be believed. i have now treated you with a dish of turkish politics. you have by this time gotten into england, and your ears and mouth are full of "reform burdett, gale jones, [ ] minority, last night's division, dissolution of parliament, battle in portugal," and all the cream of forty newspapers. in my t'other letter, to which i am perpetually obliged to refer, i have offered some moving topics on the head of your _miscellany_, the neglect of which i attribute to the half guinea annexed as the indispensable equivalent for the said volume. now i do hope, notwithstanding that exorbitant demand, that on your return you will find it selling, or, what is better, sold, in consequence of which you will be able to face the public with your new volume, if that intention still subsists. my journal, did i keep one, should be yours. as it is i can only offer my sincere wishes for your success, if you will believe it possible for a brother scribbler to be sincere on such an occasion. will you execute a commission for me? lord sligo tells me it was the intention of miller [ ] in albemarle street to send by him a letter to me, which he stated to be of consequence. now i have no concern with mr. m. except a bill which i hope is paid before this time; will you visit the said m. and if it be a pecuniary matter, refer him to hanson, and if not, tell me what he means, or forward his letter. i have just received an epistle from galt, [ ] with a candist poem, which it seems i am to forward to you. this i would willingly do, but it is too large for a letter, and too small for a parcel, and besides appears to be damned nonsense, from all which considerations i will deliver it in person. it is entitled the "fair shepherdess," or rather "herdswoman;" if you don't like the translation take the original title "[greek (transliterated): hae boskopoula]." galt also writes something not very intelligible about a "spartan state paper" which by his account is everything but laconic. now the said sparta having some years ceased to be a state, what the devil does he mean by a paper? he also adds mysteriously that the _affair_ not being concluded, he cannot at present apply for it. now, hobhouse, are you mad? or is he? are these documents for longman & co.? spartan state papers! and cretan rhymes! indeed these circumstances super-added to his house at mycone (whither i am invited) and his levant wines, make me suspect his sanity. athens is at present infested with english people, but they are moving, _dio bendetto!_ i am returning to pass a month or two; i think the spring will see me in england, but do not let this transpire, nor cease to urge the most dilatory of mortals, hanson. i have some idea of purchasing the island of ithaca; i suppose you will add me to the levant lunatics. i shall be glad to hear from your signoria of your welfare, politics, and literature. your last letter closes pathetically with a postscript about a nosegay; [ ] i advise you to introduce that into your next sentimental novel. i am sure i did not suspect you of any fine feelings, and i believe you were laughing, but you are welcome. _vale_; "i can no more," like lord grizzle. [ ] yours, [greek (transliterated): mpair_on] [footnote : nicolo giraud, from whom byron was learning italian.] [footnote : hobhouse had written to byron, speaking of lady hester stanhope "as the most superior woman, as bruce says, of all the world." the daughter of pitt's favourite sister, lady hester ( - ) was her uncle's constant companion ( - ). in character she resembled her grandfather far more than her uncle, who owed his cool judgment to the grenville blood. lady hester inherited the overweening pride, generosity, courage, and fervent heat of the "great commoner," as well as his indomitable will. like him, she despised difficulties, and ignored the word "impossibility." her romantic ideas were also combined with keen insight into character, and much practical sagacity. these were the qualities which made her for many years a power among the wild tribes of lebanon, with whom she was in proceeding to take up her abode ( - ).] [footnote : sir francis burdett ( - ), a lifelong friend of lady hester stanhope, was afterwards hobhouse's colleague as m.p. for westminster ( - ). he was committed to the tower in for publishing a speech which he delivered in the house of commons in defence of john gale jones, whom the house (february, ) had sent to newgate for a breach of privilege. sir francis refused to obey the warrant, and told the sergeant-at-arms that he would not go unless taken by force. his refusal led to riots near his house ( , piccadilly), in which the horse guards, or "oxford blues" as they were called, gained the name of "piccadilly butchers" (lord albemarle's 'recollections', vol. i. pp. , ).] [footnote : see page , 'note .'] [footnote : john galt ( - ), the novelist, was at this time endeavouring to establish a place of business at mycone, in the greek archipelago. he published in his 'voyages and travels in the years' , , . (for his meeting with byron at gibraltar, see page [letter ], [foot]note .)] [footnote : hobhouse's letter to byron of july , , ends with the following postscript:-- "i kept the half of your little nosegay till it withered entirely, and even then i could not bear to throw it away. i can't account for this, nor can you either, i dare say."] [footnote : lord grizzle, in fielding's 'tom thumb', is the first peer in the court of king arthur, who, jealous of tom thumb and in love with the princess huncamunca, turns traitor, and is run through the body by tom thumb. it is the ghost, not grizzle, who says, "i can no more." (see page [letter ], [foot]note .)] .--to francis hodgson. athens, november , . my dear hodgson,--this will arrive with an english servant whom i send homewards with some papers of consequence. i have been journeying in different parts of greece for these last four months, and you may expect me in england somewhere about april, but this is very dubious. hobhouse you have doubtless seen; he went home in august to arrange materials for a tour he talks of publishing. you will find him well and scribbling--that is, scribbling if well, and well if scribbling. i suppose you have a score of new works, all of which i hope to see flourishing, with a hecatomb of reviews. _my_ works are likely to have a powerful effect with a vengeance, as i hear of divers angry people, whom it is proper i should shoot at, by way of satisfaction. be it so, the same impulse which made "otho a warrior" will make me one also. my domestic affairs being moreover considerably deranged, my appetite for travelling pretty well satiated with my late peregrinations, my various hopes in this world almost extinct, and not very brilliant in the next, i trust i shall go through the process with a creditable _sang froid_ and not disgrace a line of cut-throat ancestors. i regret in one of your letters to hear you talk of domestic embarrassments, [ ] indeed i am at present very well calculated to sympathise with you on that point. i suppose i must take to dram-drinking as a _succedaneum_ for philosophy, though as i am happily not married, i have very little occasion for either just yet. talking of marriage puts me in mind of drury, who i suppose has a dozen children by this time, all fine fretful brats; i will never forgive matrimony for having spoiled such an excellent bachelor. if anybody honours my name with an inquiry tell them of "my whereabouts" and write if you like it. i am living alone in the franciscan monastery with one "fri_ar_" (a capuchin of course) and one "fri_er_" (a bandy-legged turkish cook), two albanian savages, a tartar, and a dragoman. my only englishman departs with this and other letters. the day before yesterday the waywode (or governor of athens) with the mufti of thebes (a sort of mussulman bishop) supped here and made themselves beastly with raw rum, and the padré of the convent being as drunk as _we_, my _attic_ feast went off with great _éclat_. i have had a present of a stallion from the pacha of the morea. i caught a fever going to olympia. i was blown ashore on the island of salamis, in my way to corinth through the gulf of Ægina. i have kicked an athenian postmaster, i have a friendship with the french consul [ ] and an italian painter, and am on good terms with five teutones and cimbri, danes and germans, [ ] who are travelling for an academy. vale! yours, [greek: mpair_on] [ ] [footnote : hodgson's father, rector of barwick-in-elmet, yorkshire, died in october, , heavily in debt. francis hodgson undertook to satisfy the claims of his father's creditors ('life of the rev. francis hodgson', vol. i. pp. , ).] [footnote : m. fauriel, the french consul: lusieri, an italian artist employed by lord elgin; nicolo giraud, from whom byron learned italian, and to whose sister lusieri proposed; baron haller, a bavarian 'savant'; and dr. bronstett, of copenhagen, were among his friends at athens.] [footnote : the signature represents "byron" in modern greek, [greek: mp] being the correct transliteration of 'b'.] .--to his mother. athens, january , . my dear madam,--i seize an occasion to write as usual, shortly, but frequently, as the arrival of letters, where there exists no regular communication, is, of course, very precarious. i have lately made several small tours of some hundred or two miles about the morea, attica, etc., as i have finished my grand giro by the troad, constantinople, etc., and am returned down again to athens. i believe i have mentioned to you more than once that i swam (in imitation of leander, though without his lady) across the hellespont, from sestos to abydos. of this, and all other particulars, fletcher, whom i have sent home with papers, etc., will apprise you. i cannot find that he is any loss; being tolerably master of the italian and modern greek languages, which last i am also studying with a master, i can order and discourse more than enough for a reasonable man. besides, the perpetual lamentations after beef and beer, the stupid, bigoted contempt for every thing foreign, and insurmountable incapacity of acquiring even a few words of any language, rendered him, like all other english servants, an incumbrance. i do assure you, the plague of speaking for him, the comforts he required (more than myself by far), the pilaws (a turkish dish of rice and meat) which he could not eat, the wines which he could not drink, the beds where he could not sleep, and the long list of calamities, such as stumbling horses, want of _tea!!!_ etc., which assailed him, would have made a lasting source of laughter to a spectator, and inconvenience to a master. after all, the man is honest enough, and, in christendom, capable enough; but in turkey, lord forgive me! my albanian soldiers, my tartars and jannissary, worked for him and us too, as my friend hobhouse can testify. it is probable i may steer homewards in spring; but to enable me to do that, i must have remittances. my own funds would have lasted me very well; but i was obliged to assist a friend, who, i know, will pay me; but, in the mean time, i am out of pocket. at present, i do not care to venture a winter's voyage, even if i were otherwise tired of travelling; but i am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind instead of reading about them, and the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an islander, that i think there should be a law amongst us, to set our young men abroad, for a term, among the few allies our wars have left us. here i see and have conversed with french, italians, germans, danes, greeks, turks, americans, etc., etc., etc.; and without losing sight of my own, i can judge of the countries and manners of others. where i see the superiority of england (which, by the by, we are a good deal mistaken about in many things), i am pleased, and where i find her inferior, i am at least enlightened. now, i might have stayed, smoked in your towns, or fogged in your country, a century, without being sure of this, and without acquiring any thing more useful or amusing at home. i keep no journal, nor have i any intention of scribbling my travels. i have done with authorship, and if, in my last production, i have convinced the critics or the world i was something more than they took me for, i am satisfied; nor will i hazard _that reputation_ by a future effort. it is true i have some others in manuscript, but i leave them for those who come after me; and, if deemed worth publishing, they may serve to prolong my memory when i myself shall cease to remember. i have a famous bavarian artist taking some views of athens, etc., etc., for me. this will be better than scribbling, a disease i hope myself cured of. i hope, on my return, to lead a quiet, recluse life, but god knows and does best for us all; at least, so they say, and i have nothing to object, as, on the whole, i have no reason to complain of my lot. i am convinced, however, that men do more harm to themselves than ever the devil could do to them. i trust this will find you well, and as happy as we can be; you will, at least, be pleased to hear i am so, and yours ever. .--to his mother. athens, february , . dear madam,--as i have received a firman for egypt, etc., i shall proceed to that quarter in the spring, and i beg you will state to mr. hanson that it is necessary to [send] further remittances. on the subject of newstead, i answer as before, _no_. if it is necessary to sell, sell rochdale. fletcher will have arrived by this time with my letters to that purport. i will tell you fairly, i have, in the first place, no opinion of funded property; if, by any particular circumstances, i shall be led to adopt such a determination, i will, at all events, pass my life abroad, as my only tie to england is newstead, and, that once gone, neither interest nor inclination lead me northward. competence in your country is ample wealth in the east, such is the difference in the value of money and the abundance of the necessaries of life; and i feel myself so much a citizen of the world, that the spot where i can enjoy a delicious climate, and every luxury, at a less expense than a common college life in england, will always be a country to me; and such are in fact the shores of the archipelago. this then is the alternative--if i preserve newstead, i return; if i sell it, i stay away. i have had no letters since yours of june, but i have written several times, and shall continue, as usual, on the same plan. believe me, yours ever, byron. p.s.--i shall most likely see you in the course of the summer, but, of course, at such a distance, i cannot specify any particular month. .--to his mother. 'volage' frigate, at sea, june , . dear mother,--this letter, which will be forwarded on our arrival at portsmouth, probably about the th of july, is begun about twenty-three days after our departure from malta. i have just been two years (to a day, on the d of july) absent from england, and i return to it with much the same feelings which prevailed on my departure, viz. indifference; but within that apathy i certainly do not comprise yourself, as i will prove by every means in my power. you will be good enough to get my apartments ready at newstead; but don't disturb yourself, on any account, particularly mine, nor consider me in any other light than as a visiter. i must only inform you that for a long time i have been restricted to an entire vegetable diet, neither fish nor flesh coming within my regimen; so i expect a powerful stock of potatoes, greens, and biscuit; i drink no wine. i have two servants, middle-aged men, and both greeks. it is my intention to proceed first to town, to see mr. hanson, and thence to newstead, on my way to rochdale. i have only to beg you will not forget my diet, which it is very necessary for me to observe. i am well in health, as i have generally been, with the exception of two agues, both of which i quickly got over. my plans will so much depend on circumstances, that i shall not venture to lay down an opinion on the subject. my prospects are not very promising, but i suppose we shall wrestle through life like our neighbours; indeed, by hanson's last advices, i have some apprehension of finding newstead dismantled by messrs. brothers,[ ] etc., and he seems determined to force me into selling it, but he will be baffled. i don't suppose i shall be much pestered with visiters; but if i am, you must receive them, for i am determined to have nobody breaking in upon my retirement: you know that i never was fond of society, and i am less so than before. i have brought you a shawl, and a quantity of attar of roses, but these i must smuggle, if possible. i trust to find my library in tolerable order. fletcher is no doubt arrived. i shall separate the mill from mr. b--'s farm, for his son is too gay a deceiver to inherit both, and place fletcher in it, who has served me faithfully, and whose wife is a good woman; besides, it is necessary to sober young mr. b--, or he will people the parish with bastards. in a word, if he had seduced a dairy-maid, he might have found something like an apology; but the girl is his equal, and in high life or low life reparation is made in such circumstances. but i shall not interfere further than (like buonaparte) by dismembering mr. b.'s _kingdom_, and erecting part of it into a principality for field-marshal fletcher! i hope you govern my little _empire_ and its sad load of national debt with a wary hand. to drop my metaphor, i beg leave to subscribe myself yours ever, byron. p.s. july .--this letter was written to be sent from portsmouth, but, on arriving there, the squadron was ordered to the nore, from whence i shall forward it. this i have not done before, supposing you might be alarmed by the interval mentioned in the letter being longer than expected between our arrival in port and my appearance at newstead. [footnote : brothers, an upholsterer of nottingham, had put in an execution at newstead for £ .] .--to r. c. dallas. _volage_ frigate, at sea, june , . after two years' absence (to a day, on the d of july, before which we shall not arrive at portsmouth), i am retracing my way to england. i have, as you know, spent the greater part of that period in turkey, except two months in spain and portugal, which were then accessible. i have seen every thing most remarkable in turkey, particularly the troad, greece, constantinople, and albania, into which last region very few have penetrated so high as hobhouse and myself. i don't know that i have done anything to distinguish me from other voyagers, unless you will reckon my swimming from sestos to abydos, on may d, , a tolerable feat for a _modern_. i am coming back with little prospect of pleasure at home, and with a body a little shaken by one or two smart fevers, but a spirit i hope yet unbroken. my affairs, it seems, are considerably involved, and much business must be done with lawyers, colliers, farmers, and creditors. now this, to a man who hates bustle as he hates a bishop, is a serious concern. but enough of my home department. i find i have been scolding cawthorn without a cause, as i found two parcels with two letters from you on my return to malta. by these it appears you have not received a letter from constantinople, addressed to longman's, but it was of no consequence. my satire, it seems, is in a fourth edition, a success rather above the middling run, but not much for a production which, from its topics, must be temporary, and of course be successful at first, or not at all. at this period, when i can think and act more coolly, i regret that i have written it, though i shall probably find it forgotten by all except those whom it has offended. my friend hobhouse's _miscellany_ has not succeeded; but he himself writes so good-humouredly on the subject, i don't know whether to laugh or cry with him. he met with your son at cadiz, of whom he speaks highly. yours and pratt's [ ] _protégé_, blacket, [ ] the cobbler, is dead, in spite of his rhymes, and is probably one of the instances where death has saved a man from damnation. you were the ruin of that poor fellow amongst you: had it not been for his patrons, he might now have been in very good plight, shoe- (not verse-) making; but you have made him immortal with a vengeance. i write this, supposing poetry, patronage, and strong waters, to have been the death of him. if you are in town in or about the beginning of july, you will find me at dorant's, in albemarle street, glad to see you.[ ] i have an imitation of horace's _art of poetry_ ready for cawthorn, but don't let that deter you, for i sha'n't inflict it upon you. you know i never read my rhymes to visiters. i shall quit town in a few days for notts., and thence to rochdale. i shall send this the moment we arrive in harbour, that is a week hence. yours ever sincerely, byron. [footnote : for pratt, see page , note .] [footnote : joseph blacket ( - ) has his place in 'english bards' (lines , ) and 'hints from horace' (line ). the son of a labourer, and himself by trade a cobbler, he wrote verses in which pratt saw signs of genius. a volume of his poetry was published in , under the title of 'specimens', edited by pratt. among those who befriended him were elliston the actor, dallas, and miss milbanke, afterwards lady byron (see 'english bards', lines , and note ). his 'remains' were collected and published by pratt in for the benefit of blacket's orphan daughter, with a dedication to "the duchess of leeds, lady milbanke and family" (see page , and 'hints from horace', line , and byron's note). in the suppressed edition of dallas's 'correspondence of lord byron' (pp. , ) occurs the following passage, from which, if dallas's grammar is to be trusted, it seems that the famous epitaph on blacket was not byron's composition. dallas "was persuaded by mr. pratt's warmth to see some sparkling of genius in the effusions of this young man (blacket). it was upon this that lord byron and a young friend of his were sometimes playful in conversation, and in writing to me. 'i see,' says the latter, 'that blacket the son of crispin and apollo is dead.' looking into boswell's 'life of johnson' the other day, i saw, 'we were talking about the famous mr. wordsworth, the poetical shoemaker.' now, i never before heard that there had been a mr. wordsworth a poet, a shoemaker, or a famous man; and i dare say you have never heard of him. thus it will be with bloomfield and blackett--their names two years after their death will be found neither on the rolls of curriers' hall nor of parnassus. who would think that anybody would be such a blockhead as to sin against an express proverb, 'ne sutor ultra crepidam'? 'but spare him, ye critics, his follies are past, for the cobler is come, as he ought, to his 'last'.' which two lines, with a scratch under 'last', to show where the joke lies, i beg that you will prevail on miss milbanke to have inserted on the tomb of her departed blacket." it should be added that the shoemaking poet was not wordsworth, but woodhouse.] [footnote : dallas called on byron at reddish's hotel, st. james's street, july , , and received from him the ms. of 'hints from horace'. byron finished the work march , , at the franciscan convent at athens, where he found a copy of the 'de arte poeticâ'. ('hints from horace' were not, however, published till .) on july dallas called again, and expressed surprise that byron had written nothing else. byron then produced out of his trunk 'childe harold's pilgrimage', saying, "they are not worth troubling you with, but you shall have them all with you if you like." he was as reluctant to publish 'childe harold' as he was eager to publish 'hints from horace'.] .--to francis hodgson. 'volage' frigate, at sea, june , . in a week, with a fair wind, we shall be at portsmouth, and on the d of july i shall have completed (to a day) two years of peregrination, from which i am returning with as little emotion as i set out. i think, upon the whole, i was more grieved at leaving greece than england, which i am impatient to see, simply because i am tired of a long voyage. indeed, my prospects are not very pleasant. embarrassed in my private affairs, indifferent to public, solitary without the wish to be social, with a body a little enfeebled by a succession of fevers, but a spirit i trust, yet unbroken, i am returning _home_ without a hope, and almost without a desire. the first thing i shall have to encounter will be a lawyer, the next a creditor, then colliers, farmers, surveyors, and all the agreeable attachments to estates out of repair, and contested coal-pits. in short, i am sick and sorry, and when i have a little repaired my irreparable affairs, away i shall march, either to campaign in spain, or back again to the east, where i can at least have cloudless skies and a cessation from impertinence. i trust to meet, or see you, in town, or at newstead, whenever you can make it convenient--i suppose you are in love and in poetry as usual. that husband, h. drury, has never written to me, albeit i have sent him more than one letter;--but i dare say the poor man has a family, and of course all his cares are confined to his circle. "for children fresh expenses yet, and dicky now for school is fit." warton. [ ] if you see him, tell him i have a letter for him from tucker, a regimental chirurgeon and friend of his, who prescribed for me,---- and is a very worthy man, but too fond of hard words. i should be too late for a speech-day, or i should probably go down to harrow. i regretted very much in greece having omitted to carry the _anthology_ with me--i mean bland and merivale's.--what has _sir edgar_ done? and the _imitations and translations_--where are they? i suppose you don't mean to let the public off so easily, but charge them home with a quarto. for me, i am "sick of fops, and poesy, and prate," and shall leave the "whole castalian state" to bufo, or any body else. [ ] but you are a sentimental and sensibilitous person, and will rhyme to the end of the chapter. howbeit, i have written some lines, of one kind or another, on my travels. i need not repeat that i shall be happy to see you. i shall be in town about the th, at dorant's hotel, in albemarle street, and proceed in a few days to notts., and thence to rochdale on business. i am, here and there, yours, etc. [footnote : warton's 'progress of discontent', lines , .] [footnote : "but sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, to bufo left the whole castalian state." pope, 'prologue to the satires', lines , .] .--to henry drury. 'volage' frigate, off ushant, july , . my dear drury,--after two years' absence (on the d) and some odd days, i am approaching your country. the day of our arrival you will see by the outside date of my letter. at present, we are becalmed comfortably, close to brest harbour;--i have never been so near it since i left duck puddle. [ ] we left malta thirty-four days ago, and have had a tedious passage of it. you will either see or hear from or of me, soon after the receipt of this, as i pass through town to repair my irreparable affairs; and thence i want to go to notts. and raise rents, and to lanes. and sell collieries, and back to london and pay debts,--for it seems i shall neither have coals nor comfort till i go down to rochdale in person. i have brought home some marbles for hobhouse;--for myself, four ancient athenian skulls, [ ] dug out of sarcophagi--a phial of attic hemlock [ ]--four live tortoises--a greyhound (died on the passage)--two live greek servants, one an athenian, t'other a _yaniote_, who can speak nothing but romaic and italian--and _myself_, as moses in the _vicar of wakefield_ says, _slily_ [ ] and i may say it too, for i have as little cause to boast of my expedition as he had of his to the fair. i wrote to you from the cyanean rocks to tell you i had swam from sestos to abydos--have you received my letter? hobhouse went to england to fish up his _miscellany,_ which foundered (so he tells me) in the gulph of lethe. i daresay it capsized with the vile goods of his contributory friends, for his own share was very portable. however, i hope he will either weigh up or set sail with a fresh cargo, and a luckier vessel. hodgson, i suppose, is four deep by this time. what would he have given to have seen, like me, the _real parnassus,_ where i robbed the bishop of chrisso of a book of geography!--but this i only call plagiarism, as it was done within an hour's ride of delphi. [footnote : the swimming-bath at harrow.] [footnote : given afterwards to sir walter scott.] [footnote : at present in the possession of mr. murray.] [footnote : "'welcome, welcome, moses! well, my boy, what have you brought us from the fair?' 'i have brought you _myself_,' cried moses, with a sly look, and resting the box on the dresser." 'vicar of wakefield', ch. xii.] .-to his mother. reddish's hotel, st. james's street, london, july , . my dear madam,--i am only detained by mr. hanson to sign some copyhold papers, and will give you timely notice of my approach. it is with great reluctance i remain in town. [ ] i shall pay a short visit as we go on to lancashire on rochdale business. i shall attend to your directions, of course, and am, with great respect, yours ever, byron. p.s.--you will consider newstead as your house, not mine; and me only as a visiter. [footnote : on his way to london, byron paid a visit, at sittingbourne, to hobhouse, who was with his militia regiment, and under orders for ireland. he also stayed with h. drury, at harrow, for two or three days.] .--to william miller. [ ] reddish's hotel, july th, . sir,--i am perfectly aware of the justice of your remarks, and am convinced that, if ever the poem is published, the same objections will be made in much stronger terms. but as it was intended to be a poem on _ariosto's plan,_ that _is_ to _say_ on _no plan_ at all, and, as is usual in similar cases, having a predilection for the worst passages, i shall retain those parts, though i cannot venture to defend them. under these circumstances i regret that you decline the publication, on my own account, as i think the book would have done better in your hands; the pecuniary part, you know, i have nothing to do with. but i can perfectly conceive, and indeed _approve_ your reasons, and assure you my sensations are not _archiepiscopal_ [ ] enough as yet to regard the rejection of my homilies. i am, sir, your very obed't humble serv't, byron. [footnote : william miller ( - ), son of thomas miller, bookseller, of bungay (see beloe's 'sexagenarian,' nd edit., vol. ii. pp. , ), served his apprenticeship in hookham's publishing house. in he set up for himself as a bookselling publisher in bond street. from onwards his place of business was at , albemarle street. but in september, , he sold his stock, copyrights, good will, and lease to john murray, and retired to a country farm in hertfordshire. he declined to publish 'childe harold,' on the grounds that it contained "sceptical stanzas," and attacked lord elgin as a plunderer. but on the latter point, byron, who was in serious earnest, was not likely to give way. in beloe's 'sexagenarian' (vol. ii. pp. , ), miller is described as "the splendid bookseller," who "was enabled to retire to tranquillity and independence long before the decline of life, or infirmities of age, rendered it necessary to do so. he was highly respectable, but could drive a hard bargain with a poor author, as well as any of his fraternity." [footnote : alluding to gil blas and the archbishop of grenada (see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]).] .--to john m. b. pigot. newport pagnell, august , . my dear doctor,--my poor mother died yesterday! and i am on my way from town to attend her to the family vault. i heard _one_ day of her illness, the _next_ of her death. [ ] thank god her last moments were most tranquil. i am told she was in little pain, and not aware of her situation. i now feel the truth of mr. gray's observation, "that we can only have _one_ mother." [ ] peace be with her! i have to thank you for your expressions of regard; and as in six weeks i shall be in lancashire on business, i may extend to liverpool and chester,--at least i shall endeavour. if it will be any satisfaction, i have to inform you that in november next the editor of the _scourge_ [ ] will be tried for two different libels on the late mrs. b. and myself (the decease of mrs. b. makes no difference in the proceedings); and as he is guilty, by his very foolish and unfounded assertion of a breach of privilege, he will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour. i inform you of this, as you seem interested in the affair, which is now in the hands of the attorney-general. i shall remain at newstead the greater part of this month, where i shall be happy to hear from you, after my two years' absence in the east. i am, dear pigot, yours very truly, byron. [footnote : on the night after his arrival at newstead, mrs. byron's maid, passing the room where the body lay, heard a heavy sigh from within. entering the room, she found byron sitting in the dark beside the bed. when she spoke to him, he burst into tears, and exclaimed, "oh, mrs. by, i had but one friend in the world, and she is gone!" on the day of the funeral he refused to follow the corpse to the grave, but watched the procession move away from the door of newstead; then, turning to rushton, bade him bring the gloves, and began his usual sparring exercise. only his silence, abstraction, and unusual violence betrayed to his antagonist, says moore ('life', p. ), the state of his feelings.] [footnote : "i had discovered a thing very little known, which is, that in one's whole life one can never have more than a single mother. you may think this is obvious, and (what you call) a trite observation. you are a green gosling! i was at the same age (very near) as wise as you, and yet i never discovered this (with full evidence and conviction, i mean) till it was too late. it is thirteen years ago, ... and every day i live it sinks deeper into my heart." gray to nicholls, 'works', vol. i. p. .] [footnote : one of byron's first acts on returning to england was to buy a copy of the 'scourge', in ridgway's bill for books supplied from piccadilly to byron on july , , is a copy of the 'scourge' at 's'. 'd'. hewson clarke ( - ) was entered at emanuel college, cambridge, apparently as a sizar, in . obliged to leave the university before he had taken his degree, he supported himself in london by his pen. he wrote two historical works--a continuation of hume's 'history of england' ( ), and an 'impartial history of the naval, etc., events in europe' from the french revolution to the peace of . it was, however, as a journalist that he came into collision with byron. in the 'satirist', a monthly magazine, illustrated with coloured cartoons, three attacks were made on byron, which he attributed to clarke: ( ) october, (vol. i pp. - ), a review of 'hours of idleness'; ( ) june, (vol. ii p. ), verses on "lord b--n to his bear. to the tune of 'lo chin y gair;'" ( ) august, (vol. iii pp. - ), a review of 'poems original and translated'. byron's reply was the passage in 'english bards, and scotch reviewers' (lines - ; see also the notes), where clarke is described as "a would-be satirist, a hired buffoon, a monthly scribbler of some low lampoon," etc.; and also the postscript to the second edition (see 'poems', vol. i. p. ). in the 'scourge' for march, (vol. i. pp. , 'et seqq'.), appeared an article headed "lord byron," in which the alleged libel occurred. "we are unacquainted," says the article, "with any act of cowardice that can be compared with that of keeping a libel 'ready cut and dried' till some favourable opportunity enable its author to disperse it without the hazard of personal responsibility, and under circumstances which deprive the injured party of every means of reparation ... he confined the knowledge of his lampoon, therefore, to the circle of his own immediate friends, and left it to be given to the public as soon as he should have bid adieu to the shores of britain. whether his voyage was in reality no further than to paris, in search of the proofs of his own legitimacy, or, as he asserts, to 'afric's coasts, and calpe's adverse height', was of little consequence to mr. clarke, who felt that to recriminate during his absence would be unworthy of his character ... considering the two parties not as writers, but as men, mr. clarke might confidently appeal to the knowledge and opinion of the whole university; but a character like his disdains comparison with that of his noble calumniator; a temper unruffled by malignant passions, a mind superior to vicissitude, are gifts for which the pride of doubtful birth, and the temporary possession of newstead abbey are contemptible equivalents ... "it may be reasonably asked whether to be a denizen of berwick-upon-tweed be more disgraceful than to be the illegitimate descendant of a murderer; whether to labour in an honourable profession for the peace and competence of maturer age be less worthy of praise than to waste the property of others in vulgar debauchery; whether to be the offspring of parents whose only crime is their want of title, be not as honourable as to be the son of a profligate father, and a mother whose days and nights are spent in the delirium of drunkenness; and, finally, whether to deserve the kindness of his own college, to obtain its prizes, and to prepare himself for any examination that might entitle him to share the highest honours which the university can bestow, be less indicative of talent and virtue than to be held up to the derision and contempt of his fellow-students, as a scribbler of doggerel and a bear-leader; to be hated for malignity of temper and repulsiveness of manners, and shunned by every man who did not want to be considered a profligate without wit, and trifling without elegance. ... we ... shall neither expose the infamy of his uncle, the indiscretions of his mother, nor his personal follies and embarrassments. but let him not again obtrude himself on our attention as a moralist, etc." the attorney-general, sir vicary gibbs, gave his opinion against legal proceedings, on the two grounds that a considerable time had elapsed since the publication, and byron himself had provoked the attack.] .--to john hanson. newstead abbey, august th, . my dear sir,--the _earl_ of huntley and the lady _jean_ stewart, daughter of james st, of scotland were the progenitors of mrs. byron. i think it would be as well to be correct in the statement. every thing is doing that can be done, plainly yet decently, for the interment. when you favour me with your company, be kind enough to bring down my carriage from messrs. baxter's & co., long acre. i have written to them, and beg you will come down in it, as i cannot travel conveniently or properly without it. i trust that the decease of mrs. b. will not interrupt the prosecution of the editor of the magazine, less for the mere punishment of the rascal, than to set the question at rest, which, with the ignorant & weak-minded, might leave a wrong impression. i will have no stain on the memory of my mother; with a very large portion of foibles and irritability, she was without a _vice_ (and in these days that is much). the laws of my country shall do her and me justice in the first instance; but, if they were deficient, the laws of modern honour should decide. cost what it may, gold or blood, i will pursue to the last the cowardly calumniator of an absent man and a defenceless woman. the effects of the deceased are sealed and untouched. i have sent for her agent, mr. bolton, to ascertain the proper steps and nothing shall be done precipitately. i understand her jewels and clothes are of considerable value. i shall write to you again soon, and in the meantime, with my most particular remembrance to mrs. hanson, my regards to charles, and my _respects_ to the young ladies, i am, dear sir, your very sincere and obliged servant, byron. .--to scrope berdmore davies. newstead abbey, august , . my dearest davies,--some curse hangs over me and mine. my mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. [ ] what can i say, or think, or do? i received a letter from him the day before yesterday. my dear scrope, if you can spare a moment, do come down to me--i want a friend. matthews's last letter was written on _friday._--on saturday he was not. in ability, who was like matthews? how did we all shrink before him? you do me but justice in saying, i would have risked my paltry existence to have preserved his. this very evening did i mean to write, inviting him, as i invite you, my very dear friend, to visit me. god forgive----for his apathy! what will our poor hobhouse feel? his letters breathe but of matthews. come to me, scrope, i am almost desolate--left almost alone in the world [ ]--i had but you, and h., and m., and let me enjoy the survivors whilst i can. poor m., in his letter of friday, speaks of his intended contest for cambridge, and a speedy journey to london. write or come, but come if you can, or one or both. yours ever. [footnote : charles skinner matthews (see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]).] [footnote : in byron had lost, besides his mother and matthews (august), his harrow friend wingfield (see page , note ), hargreaves hanson (see page [letter ], [foot]note ), and edleston (see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]).] .--to r. c. dallas. newstead abbey, notts., august , . peace be with the dead! regret cannot wake them. with a sigh to the departed, let us resume the dull business of life, in the certainty that we also shall have our repose. besides her who gave me being, i have lost more than one who made that being tolerable.--the best friend of my friend hobhouse, matthews, a man of the first talents, and also not the worst of my narrow circle, has perished miserably in the muddy waves of the cam, always fatal to genius:--my poor school-fellow, wingfield, at coimbra--within a month; and whilst i had heard from _all three,_ but not seen _one._ matthews wrote to me the very day before his death; and though i feel for his fate, i am still more anxious for hobhouse, who, i very much fear, will hardly retain his senses: his letters to me since the event have been most incoherent. [ ] but let this pass; we shall all one day pass along with the rest--the world is too full of such things, and our very sorrow is selfish. i received a letter from you, which my late occupations prevented me from duly noticing. [ ]--i hope your friends and family will long hold together. i shall be glad to hear from you, on business, on commonplace, or any thing, or nothing--but death--i am already too familiar with the dead. it is strange that i look on the skulls which stand beside me (i have always had _four_ in my study) without emotion, but i cannot strip the features of those i have known of their fleshy covering, even in idea, without a hideous sensation; but the worms are less ceremonious.--surely, the romans did well when they burned the dead.--i shall be happy to hear from you, and am, yours, etc. [footnote : "just," writes hobhouse to byron, in an undated letter from dover, "as i was preparing to condole with you on your severe misfortune, an event has taken place, the details of which you will find in the enclosed letter from s. davies. i am totally unable to say one word on the subject. he was my oldest friend, and, though quite unworthy of his attachment, i believe that i was an object of his regard. "i now fear that i have not been sufficiently at all times just and kind to him. return me this fatal letter, and pray add, if it is but one line, a few words of your own." a second letter, dated august , , is as follows:-- "my dear byron,--to-morrow morning we sail for cork. it is with difficulty i bring myself to talk of my paltry concerns, but i cannot refuse giving you such information as may enable me to hear from one of the friends that i have still left. pray do give me a line; nothing is more selfish than sorrow. his great and unrivalled talents were observable by all, his kindness was known to his friends. you recollect how affectionately he shook my hand at parting. it was the last time you ever saw him--did you think it would be the last? but three days before his death he told me in a letter that he had heard from you. on friday he wrote to me again, and on saturday--alas, alas! we are not stocks or stones,--every word of our friend davies' letter still pierces me to the soul--such a man and such a death! i would that he had not been so minute in his horrid details. oh, my dear byron, do write to me; i am very, very sick at heart indeed, and, after various efforts to write upon my own concerns, i still revert to the same melancholy subject. i wrote to cawthorn to-day, but knew not what i said to him; half my incitement to finish that task is for ever gone. i can neither have his assistance during my labour, his comfort if i should fail, nor his congratulation if i should succeed. forgive me, i do not forget you--but i cannot but remember him. ever your obliged and faithful, john c. hobhouse." byron had apparently suggested that hobhouse should write some brief record of his friend. hobhouse replies from enniscorthy, september , :-- "the melancholy subject of your last, in spite of every effort, perpetually recurs to me. it is indeed a hard science to forget, though i cannot but think that it is the wisest and indeed the only remedy for grief. i should be quite incapable every way of doing what you mention, and i could not even set about such a melancholy task with spirit or prospect of success. the thing may be better done by a person less interested than myself in so cruel a catastrophe. whatever you say in your book will be well said, and do credit both to your heart and head; how much would it have gratified him who shall ne'er hear it!"] [footnote : dallas had written on july to protest, on six grounds which he gives ('correspondence of lord byron', pp. - ), "against the sceptical stanzas" of 'childe harold'.] .--to----bolton. newstead abbey, august , . sir,--i enclose a rough draught of my intended will which i beg to have drawn up as soon as possible, in the firmest manner. the alterations are principally made in consequence of the death of mrs. byron. i have only to request that it may be got ready in a short time, and have the honour to be, your most obedient, humble servant, byron. . to----bolton. newstead abbey, august , . directions for the contents of a will to be drawn up immediately. the estate of newstead to be entailed (subject to certain deductions) on george anson byron, heir-at-law, or whoever may be the heir-at-law on the death of lord b. the rochdale property to be sold in part or the whole, according to the debts and legacies of the present lord b. to nicolo giraud of athens, subject of france, but born in greece, the sum of seven thousand pounds sterling, to be paid from the sale of such parts of rochdale, newstead, or elsewhere, as may enable the said nicolo giraud (resident at athens and malta in the year ) to receive the above sum on his attaining the age of twenty-one years. to william fletcher, joseph murray, and demetrius zograffo [ ] (native of greece), servants, the sum of fifty pounds pr. ann. each, for their natural lives. to wm. fletcher, the mill at newstead, on condition that he payeth rent, but not subject to the caprice of the landlord. to rt. rushton the sum of fifty pounds per ann. for life, and a further sum of one thousand pounds on attaining the age of twenty-five years. to jn. hanson, esq. the sum of two thousand pounds sterling. the claims of s. b. davies, esq. to be satisfied on proving the amount of the same. the body of lord b. to be buried in the vault of the garden of newstead, without any ceremony or burial-service whatever, or any inscription, save his name and age. his dog not to be removed from the said vault. my library and furniture of every description to my friends jn. cam hobhouse, esq., and s. b. davies, esq., my executors. in case of their decease, the rev. j. becher, of southwell, notts., and r. c. dallas, esq., of mortlake, surrey, to be executors. [ ] the produce of the sale of wymondham in norfolk, and the late mrs. b.'s scotch property, [ ] to be appropriated in aid of the payment of debts and legacies. this is the last will and testament of me, the rt. honble george gordon, lord byron, baron byron of rochdale, in the county of lancaster.--i desire that my body may be buried in the vault of the garden of newstead, without any ceremony or burial-service whatever, and that no inscription, save my name and age, be written on the tomb or tablet; and it is my will that my faithful dog may not be removed from the said vault. to the performance of this my particular desire, i rely on the attention of my executors hereinafter named. ==it is submitted to lord byron whether this clause relative to the funeral had not better be omitted. the substance of it can be given in a letter from his lordship to the executors, and accompany the will; and the will may state that the funeral shall be performed in such manner as his lordship may by letter direct, and, in default of any such letter, then at the discretion of his executors== [ ]. it must stand. b. i do hereby specifically order and direct that all the claims of the said s. b. davies upon me shall be fully paid and satisfied as soon as conveniently may be after my decease, on his proving {by vouchers, or otherwise, to the satisfaction of my executors hereinafter named} [ ] the amount thereof, and the correctness of the same. ==if mr, davies has any unsettled claims upon lord byron, that circumstance is a reason for his not being appointed executor; each executor having an opportunity of paying himself his own debt without consulting his co-executors.== so much the better--if possible, let him be an executor. b. [footnote : "if the papers lie not (which they generally do), demetrius zograffo of athens is at the head of the athenian part of the greek insurrection. he was my servant in , , , , at different intervals of those years (for i left him in greece when i went to constantinople), and accompanied me to england in : he returned to greece, spring, . he was a clever, but not _apparently_ an enterprising man; but circumstances make men. his two sons (_then_ infants) were named miltiades and alcibiades: may the omen be happy!" byron's ms. journal, quoted by moore, 'life', p. .] [footnote : in the clause enumerating the names and places of abode of the executors, the solicitor had left blanks for the christian names of these gentlemen, and lord byron, having filled up all but that of dallas, writes in the margin, "i forget the christian name of dallas --cut him out."] [footnote : on the death of mrs. byron, the sum of £ , the remains of the price of the estate of gight were paid over to byron by her trustee.] [footnote : the passages printed ==thus== are suggestions made by the solicitors.] [footnote : over the words placed {between brackets}, byron drew his pen.] .--to----bolton. newstead abbey, august , . sir,--i have answered the queries on the margin. i wish mr. davies's claims to be most fully allowed, and, further, that he be one of my executors. i wish the will to be made in a manner to prevent all discussion, if possible, after my decease; and this i leave to you as a professional gentleman. with regard to the few and simple directions for the disposal of my _carcass_, i must have them implicitly fulfilled, as they will, at least, prevent trouble and expense;--and (what would be of little consequence to me, but may quiet the conscience of the survivors) the garden is _consecrated_ ground. these directions are copied verbatim from my former will; the alterations in other parts have arisen from the death of mrs. b. i have the honour to be, your most obedient, humble servant, byron. .--to--bolton. newstead abbey, august , . sir,--the witnesses shall be provided from amongst my tenants, and i shall be happy to see you on any day most convenient to yourself. i forgot to mention, that it must be specified by codicil, or otherwise, that my body is on no account to be removed from the vault where i have directed it to be placed; and in case any of my successors within the entail (from bigotry, or otherwise) might think proper to remove the carcass, such proceeding shall be attended by forfeiture of the estate, which in such case shall go to my sister, the hon'ble augusta leigh and her heirs on similar conditions. i have the honour to be, sir, your very obedient, humble servant, byron. .--to the hon. augusta leigh. newstead abbey, august st, . my dear sister,--i ought to have answered your letter before, but when did i ever do any-thing that i ought? i am losing my relatives & you are adding to the number of yours; but which is best, god knows;--besides poor mrs. byron, i have been deprived by death of two most particular friends within little more than a month; but as all observations on such subjects are superfluous and unavailing, i leave the dead to their rest, and return to the dull business of life, which however presents nothing very pleasant to me either in prospect or retrospection. i hear you have been increasing his majesty's subjects, which in these times of war and tribulation is really patriotic. notwithstanding malthus [ ] tells us that, were it not for battle, murder, and sudden death, we should be overstocked, i think we have latterly had a redundance of these national benefits, and therefore i give you all credit for your matronly behaviour. i believe you know that for upwards of two years i have been rambling round the archipelago, and am returned just in time to know that i might as well have staid away for any good i ever have done, or am likely to do at home, and so, as soon as i have somewhat _repaired_ my _irreparable_ affairs i shall een go abroad again, for i am heartily sick of your climate and every thing it _rains_ upon, always save and except _yourself_ as in _duty bound_. i should be glad to see you here (as i think you have never seen the place) if you could make it convenient. murray is still like a rock, and will probably outlast some six lords byron, though in his th autumn. i took him with me to portugal & sent him round by sea to gibraltar whilst i rode through the interior of spain, which was then ( ) accessible. you say you have much to communicate to me, let us have it by all means, as i am utterly at a loss to guess; whatever it may be it will meet with due attention. your trusty and well beloved cousin f. howard [ ] is married to a miss somebody, i wish him joy on your account, and on his own, though speaking generally i do not affect that brood. by the bye, i shall marry, if i can find any thing inclined to barter money for rank within six months; after which i shall return to my friends the turks. in the interim i am, dear madam, [signature cut out.] [footnote : the rev. t. r. malthus ( - ) published, in , his 'essay on the principle of population'.] [footnote : the hon. frederick howard (see page [letter ], [foot]note ) married, august , , frances susan lambton, only daughter of william lambton, formerly m.p. for durham.] .--to r. c. dallas. newstead, august , . your letter gives me credit for more acute feelings than i possess; for though i feel tolerably miserable, yet i am at the same time subject to a kind of hysterical merriment, or rather laughter without merriment, which i can neither account for nor conquer, and yet i do not feel relieved by it; but an indifferent person would think me in excellent spirits. "we must forget these things," and have recourse to our old selfish comforts, or rather comfortable selfishness. i do not think i shall return to london immediately, and shall therefore accept freely what is offered courteously--your mediation between me and murray. [ ] i don't think my name will answer the purpose, and you must be aware that my plaguy satire will bring the north and south grub streets down upon the _pilgrimage_;--but, nevertheless, if murray makes a point of it, and you coincide with him, i will do it daringly; so let it be entitled "_by the author of english bards and scotch reviewers." my remarks on the romaic, etc., once intended to accompany the _hints from horace_, shall go along with the other, as being indeed more appropriate; also the smaller poems now in my possession, with a few selected from those published in hobhouse's _miscellany_. i have found amongst my poor mother's papers all my letters from the east, and one in particular of some length from albania. from this, if necessary, i can work up a note or two on that subject. as i kept no journal, the letters written on the spot are the best. but of this anon, when we have definitively arranged. has murray shown the work to any one? he may--but i will have no traps for applause. of course there are little things i would wish to alter, and perhaps the two stanzas of a buffooning cast on london's sunday are as well left out. i much wish to avoid identifying childe harold's character with mine, and that, in sooth, is my second objection to my name appearing in the title-page. when you have made arrangements as to time, size, type, etc., favour me with a reply. i am giving you an universe of trouble, which thanks cannot atone for. i made a kind of prose apology for my scepticism at the head of the ms., which, on recollection, is so much more like an attack than a defence, that, haply, it might better be omitted--perpend, pronounce. after all, i fear murray will be in a scrape with the orthodox; but i cannot help it, though i wish him well through it. as for me, "i have supped full of criticism," and i don't think that the "most dismal treatise" will stir and rouse my "fell of hair" till "birnam wood do come to dunsinane." i shall continue to write at intervals, and hope you will pay me in kind. how does pratt get on, or rather get off, joe blackett's posthumous stock? you killed that poor man amongst you, in spite of your ionian friend [ ] and myself, who would have saved him from pratt, poetry, present poverty, and posthumous oblivion. cruel patronage! to ruin a man at his calling; but then he is a divine subject for subscription and biography; and pratt, who makes the most of his dedications, has inscribed the volume to no less than five families of distinction. i am sorry you don't like harry white: [ ] with a great deal of cant, which in him was sincere (indeed it killed him as you killed joe blackett), certes there is poesy and genius. i don't say this on account of my simile and rhymes; but surely he was beyond all the bloomfields [ ] and blacketts, and their collateral cobblers, whom lofft [ ] and pratt have or may kidnap from their calling into the service of the trade. you must excuse my flippancy, for i am writing i know not what, to escape from myself. hobhouse is gone to ireland. mr. davies has been here on his way to harrowgate. you did not know matthews: he was a man of the most astonishing powers, as he sufficiently proved at cambridge, by carrying off more prizes and fellowships, against the ablest candidates, than any other graduate on record; but a most decided atheist, indeed noxiously so, for he proclaimed his principles in all societies. i knew him well, and feel a loss not easily to be supplied to myself--to hobhouse never. let me hear from you, and believe me, etc. [footnote : in john murray the first (born ) died, leaving a widow, two daughters, and one son, john murray the second ( - ), then a boy of fifteen. the bookselling and publishing business at , fleet street, which the first john murray had purchased in from william sandby, was for two years carried on by the chief assistant, samuel highley. from , when john murray the second joined it, it was conducted as a partnership, under the title of murray and highley. but in john murray cancelled the partnership, and started for himself at , fleet street. relieved from a timorous partner, he at once displayed his shrewdness, energy, and literary enthusiasm. he rapidly became, as byron called him, "the [greek (transliterated): anax] of publishers," or, as he was nicknamed, "the emperor of the west." in february, , he had launched the 'quarterly review'; in march, , he published 'childe harold'; in the following september, he moved to , albemarle street, the lease of which, with the stock, good will, and copyrights, he purchased from william miller (see page [letter ], [foot]note [ ]). the remarkable position which the second john murray created for himself, has two aspects, one commercial, the other social. he was not only the publisher, but the friend, of the most distinguished men of the day; and he was both by reason, partly of his honourable character, partly of his personal attractiveness. sir walter scott, writing, october , , to lockhart, speaks of murray in words which sum up his character: "by all means do what the emperor says. he is what emperor nap was not, 'much a gentleman.'" murray was the first to divorce the business of publishing from that of selling books; the first to see, as he wrote to sir walter scott, october , ('a publisher and his friends', vol. ii. p. ), that "the business of a publishing bookseller is not in his shop, or even his connection, but in his brains." quick-tempered and warm-hearted, he was endowed with a strong sense of humour, and a gift of felicitous expression, which made him at once an admirable talker and an excellent letter-writer, and enabled him to hold his own among the noted wits and brilliant men of letters whom he gathered under his roof. a man of ideas more than a man of business, of enterprise rather than of calculation, he was always on the watch for new writers and new openings. but his imagination and impulsive temperament were checked by his fine taste for sound literature, and controlled by high principles in matters of trade. thus he was saved from those disastrous speculations which involved scott in ruin, and might otherwise have appealed with fatal force to his own sanguine nature. his close relations with byron, which began in , and lasted till the poet's death, are set forth in the numerous letters which follow, and were never embittered even when he refused to continue the publication of 'don juan'. their names are inseparably associated in the history of literature. a generous paymaster, he was also an hospitable host. round him gathers much of the literary history of a half-century which includes such names as those of scott, byron, southey, coleridge, hallam, milman, mahon, carlyle, grote, benjamin disraeli, sir robert peel, canning, and mr. gladstone. his literary dinners were famous, and his drawing-room was the rallying-place of all that was witty and agreeable in society. at the same time, he was the acknowledged head of the publishing trade, unswerving in the rectitude of his commercial dealings, and in the maintenance of the honourable traditions of his most distinguished predecessors, as well as sincere in his enthusiasm for english letters.] [footnote : walter rodwell wright, author of 'horae ionicae, a poem descriptive of the ionian islands, and part of the adjacent coast of greece,' ( ), had been consul-general of the seven islands. on his return he became recorder of bury st. edmund's. he was subsequently president of the court of appeals in malta, where he died in . (see byron's address to him in 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', lines - .)] [footnote : henry kirke white ( - ) published 'clifton grove' and other poems in . he died at cambridge in . his 'remains' were published by southey in . (see 'english bards', and scotch reviewers', lines - , and note .)] [footnote : the three brothers, george bloomfield, a shoemaker, nathaniel, a tailor, and robert, also a shoemaker, were the sons of a tailor at honington, in suffolk, whose wife kept the village school. (for further details as to george and nathaniel, see 'english bards, and scotch reviewers', lines - , and 'notes'.) robert bloomfield ( - ) achieved a success with his 'farmer's boy' ( ), of which thousands of copies were sold in england, and which was translated into french and italian. but however creditable the lines may have been to the author, byron's opinion of the merits of the poet was the true one. bloomfield's subsequent volumes, of which there were seven, were inferior to 'the farmer's boy'. 'good tidings, or news from the farm' ( ), is perhaps the best known. a collected edition of bloomfield's 'works' was published in .] [footnote : capel lofft ( - ), educated at eton and cambridge, was called to the bar in . succeeding in to the family estates near bury st. edmund's, he lived for some years at troston hall. crabb robinson ('diary', vol. i. p. ) describes him, in , as "a gentleman of good family and estate--an author on an infinity of subjects; his books were on law, history, poetry, antiquities, divinity, and politics. he was then an acting magistrate, having abandoned the profession of the bar. he was one of the numerous answerers of burke; and, in spite of a feeble voice and other disadvantages, was an eloquent speaker." his boyish figure, slovenly dress, and involved sentences were well known on the platforms where he advocated parliamentary reform. on may , , johnson dined at mr. dilly's. among the guests was "mr. capel lofft, who, though a most zealous whig, has a mind so full of learning and knowledge, and so much in exercise in various exertions, and withal so much liberality, that the stupendous powers of the literary goliath, though they did not frighten this little david of popular spirit, could not but excite his admiration." lofft held strong opinions in favour of the french revolution, which he admired. he, "godwin, and thelwall are the only three persons i know (except hazlitt) who grieve at the late events;" so writes crabb robinson, after the battle of waterloo ('diary', vol. i. p. ). he published numerous works on law and politics, besides four volumes of poetry: 'the praises of poetry, a poem' ( ); 'eudosia, or a poem on the universe' ( ); 'the first and second georgics of virgil' (in blank verse, ); 'laura, or an anthology of sonnets' ( ). he also edited milton's 'paradise lost'. in november, , lofft read the manuscript of 'the farmer's boy', written by robert bloomfield in a london garret, where he worked as a shoemaker. interested in the poem and the suffolk poet, lofft had it published in , with cuts by bewick, and a preface by himself.] .--to francis hodgson. newstead abbey, august , . you may have heard of the sudden death of my mother, and poor matthews, which, with that of wingfield (of which i was not fully aware till just before i left town, and indeed hardly believed it,) has made a sad chasm in my connections. indeed the blows followed each other so rapidly that i am yet stupid from the shock; and though i do eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh, at times, yet i can hardly persuade myself that i am awake, did not every morning convince me mournfully to the contrary.--i shall now wave the subject,--the dead are at rest, and none but the dead can be so. you will feel for poor hobhouse,--matthews was the "god of his idolatry;" and if intellect could exalt a man above his fellows, no one could refuse him preeminence. i knew him most intimately, and valued him proportionably; but i am recurring--so let us talk of life and the living. if you should feel a disposition to come here, you will find "beef and a sea-coal fire," and not ungenerous wine. whether otway's two other requisites for an englishman or not, i cannot tell, but probably one of them [ ].--let me know when i may expect you, that i may tell you when i go and when return. i have not yet been to lancs. davies has been here, and has invited me to cambridge for a week in october, so that, peradventure, we may encounter glass to glass. his gaiety (death cannot mar it) has done me service; but, after all, ours was a hollow laughter. you will write to me? i am solitary, and i never felt solitude irksome before. your anxiety about the critique on----'s book is amusing; as it was anonymous, certes it was of little consequence: i wish it had produced a little more confusion, being a lover of literary malice. are you doing nothing? writing nothing? printing nothing? why not your satire on methodism? the subject (supposing the public to be blind to merit) would do wonders. besides, it would be as well for a destined deacon to prove his orthodoxy.--it really would give me pleasure to see you properly appreciated. i say _really_, as, being an author, my humanity might be suspected. believe me, dear h., yours always. [footnote : "give but an englishman his whore and ease, beef and a sea-coal fire, he's yours for ever." 'venice preserved', act ii. sc. ] appendix i. review of wordsworth's poems, vols. . (from 'monthly literary recreations' for july, .) the volumes before us are by the author of lyric ballads, a collection which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause. the characteristics of mr. wordsworth's muse are simple and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious verse; strong, and sometimes irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments. though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the poems possess a native elegance, natural and unaffected, totally devoid of the tinsel embellishments and abstract hyperboles of several contemporary sonneteers. the last sonnet in the first volume, p. , is perhaps the best, without any novelty in the sentiments, which we hope are common to every briton at the present crisis; the force and expression is that of a genuine poet, feeling as he writes-- another year! another deadly blow! another mighty empire overthrown! and we are left, or shall be left, alone-- the last that dares to struggle with the foe. 'tis well!--from this day forward we shall know that in ourselves our safety must be sought, that by our own right-hands it must be wrought; that we must stand unprop'd, or be laid low. o dastard! whom such foretaste doth not cheer! we shall exult, if they who rule the land be men who hold its many blessings dear, wise, upright, valiant, not a venal band, who are to judge of danger which they fear, and honour which they do not understand. the song at the feast of brougham castle, the seven sisters, the affliction of margaret----of----, possess all the beauties, and few of the defects, of the writer: the following lines from the last are in his first style:-- "ah! little doth the young one dream, when full of play and childish cares, what power hath e'en his wildest scream, heard by his mother unawares: he knows it not, he cannot guess: years to a mother bring distress, but do not make her love the less." the pieces least worthy of the author are those entitled "moods of my own mind." we certainly wish these "moods" had been less frequent, or not permitted to occupy a place near works which only make their deformity more obvious; when mr. w. ceases to please, it is by "abandoning" his mind to the most commonplace ideas, at the same time clothing them in language not simple, but puerile. what will any reader or auditor, out of the nursery, say to such namby-pamby as "lines written at the foot of brother's bridge"? "the cock is crowing, the stream is flowing, the small birds twitter, the lake doth glitter, the green field sleeps in the sun; the oldest and youngest, are at work with the strongest; the cattle are grazing, their heads never raising, there are forty feeding like one. like an army defeated, the snow hath retreated, and now doth fare ill, on the top of the bare hill." "the ploughboy is whooping anon, anon," etc., etc., is in the same exquisite measure. this appears to us neither more nor less than an imitation of such minstrelsy as soothed our cries in the cradle, with the shrill ditty of "hey de diddle, the cat and the fiddle: the cow jump'd over the moon, the little dog laugh'd to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon." on the whole, however, with the exception of the above, and other innocent odes of the same cast, we think these volumes display a genius worthy of higher pursuits, and regret that mr. w. confines his muse to such trifling subjects. we trust his motto will be in future "paulo majora canamus." many, with inferior abilities, have acquired a loftier seat on parnassus, merely by attempting strains in which wordsworth is more qualified to excel. appendix ii. article from the edinburgh review, for january, . 'hours of idleness; a series of poems, original and translated.' by george gordon, lord byron, a minor. vo, pp. . newark, . the poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor men are said to permit. indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that exact standard. his effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant water. as an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. we have it in the title-page, and on the very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of his 'style'. much stress is laid upon it in the preface; and the poems are connected with this general statement of his case, by particular dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. now, the law upon the point of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. it is a plea available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of action. thus, if any suit could be brought against lord byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court a certain quantity of poetry, and if judgment were given against him, it is highly probable that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver 'for poetry' the contents of this volume. to this he might plead 'minority'; but, as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath no right to sue, on that ground, for the price in good current praise, should the goods be unmarketable. this is our view of the law on the point; and, we dare to say, so will it be ruled. perhaps, however, in reality, all that he tells us about his youth is rather with a view to increase our wonder than to soften our censures. he possibly means to say, "see how a minor can write! this poem was actually composed by a young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen!" but, alas! we all remember the poetry of cowley at ten, and pope at twelve; and so far from hearing, with any degree of surprise, that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we really believe this to be the most common of all occurrences; that it happens in the life of nine men in ten who are educated in england; and that the tenth man writes better verse than lord byron. his other plea of privilege our author rather brings forward in order to waive it. he certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and ancestry--sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and, while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of dr. johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. in truth, it is this consideration only that induces us to give lord byron's poems a place in our review, beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account. with this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet,--nay, although (which does not always happen) those feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon the fingers,--is not the whole art of poetry. we would entreat him to believe, that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. we put it to his candour, whether there is any thing so deserving the name of poetry in verses like the following, written in ; and whether, if a youth of eighteen could say any thing so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it;-- "shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing from the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu! abroad or at home, your remembrance imparting new courage, he'll think upon glory and you. "though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation, 'tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret; far distant he goes, with the same emulation; the fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. "that fame, and that memory, still will he cherish; he vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown; like you will he live, or like you will he perish; when decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own." now, we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's volume. lord byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see at his writing-master's) are odious. gray's ode on eton college should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "on a distant view of the village and school of harrow." "where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied, how welcome to me your ne'er-fading remembrance, which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied." in like manner, the exquisite lines of mr. rogers, "on a tear," might have warned the noble author off those premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following:-- "mild charity's glow, to us mortals below, shows the soul from barbarity clear; compassion will melt where this virtue is felt, and its dew is diffused in a tear. "the man doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale, through billows atlantic to steer, as he bends o'er the wave, which may soon be his grave, the green sparkles bright with a tear." and so of instances in which former poets have failed. thus we do not think lord byron was made for translating, during his nonage, "adrian's address to his soul," when pope succeeded so indifferently in the attempt. if our readers, however, are of another opinion, they may look at it. "ah! gentle, fleeting, wavering sprite, friend and associate of this clay! to what unknown region borne wilt thou now wing thy distant flight? no more with wonted humour gay, but pallid, cheerless, and forlorn." however, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are great favourites with lord byron. we have them of all kinds, from anacreon to ossian; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may pass. only, why print them after they have had their day and served their turn? and why call the thing in p. (see p. ) a translation, where 'two' words [gr.]('thel_o legein') of the original are expanded into four lines, and the other thing in p. (see 'ibid'.) where [gr.] 'mesonuktiais poth h_orais' is rendered by means of six hobbling verses? as to his ossianic poesy, we are not very good judges, being in truth, so moderately skilled in that species of composition, that we should, in all probability, be criticizing some bit of the genuine macpherson itself, were we to express our opinion of lord byron's rhapsodies. if, then, the following beginning of a "song of bards" is by his lordship, we venture to object to it, as far as we can comprehend it. "what form rises on the roar of clouds? whose dark ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests? his voice rolls on the thunder; 'tis orla, the brown chief of oithona. he "was," etc. after detaining this "brown chief" some time, the bards conclude by giving him their advice to "raise his fair locks;" then to "spread them on the arch of the rainbow;" and to "smile through the tears of the storm." of this kind of thing there are no less than _nine_ pages; and we can so far venture an opinion in their favour, that they look very like macpherson; and we are positive they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome. it is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should "use it as not abusing it;" and particularly one who piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) on being "an infant bard,"--("the artless helicon i boast is youth")--should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. besides a poem above cited, on the family seat of the byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same subject, introduced with an apology, "he certainly had no intention of inserting it," but really "the particular request of some friends," etc., etc. it concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a noble line." there is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on lachin y gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, and might have learnt that pibroch is not a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle. as the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalise his employments at school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. in an ode with a greek motto, called "granta," we have the following magnificent stanzas:-- there, in apartments small and damp, the candidate for college prizes, sits poring by the midnight lamp, goes late to bed, yet early rises. who reads false quantities in sele, or puzzles o'er the deep triangle, deprived of many a wholesome meal, in barbarous latin doom'd to wrangle: renouncing every pleasing page, from authors of historic use; preferring to the letter'd sage, the square of the hypothenuse. still harmless are these occupations, that hurt none but the hapless student, compared with other recreations, which bring together the imprudent." we are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college psalmody as is contained in the following attic stanzas:-- "our choir would scarcely be excused even as a band of raw beginners; all mercy now must be refused to such a set of croaking sinners. if david, when his toils were ended, had heard these blockheads sing before him, to us his psalms had ne'er descended: in furious mood he would have tore 'em!" but, whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. he is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of parnassus: he never lived in a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and "though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the highlands of scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and, whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an author. therefore, let us take what we get, and be thankful. what right have we poor devils to be nice? we are well off to have got so much from a man of this lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but "has the sway" of newstead abbey. again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest sancho, bid god bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth. appendix iii. review of gell's geography of ithaca', and 'itinerary of greece'. (from the monthly review for august, .) that laudable curiosity concerning the remains of classical antiquity, which has of late years increased among our countrymen, is in no traveller or author more conspicuous than in mr. gell. whatever difference of opinion may yet exist with regard to the success of the several disputants in the famous trojan controversy [ ], or, indeed, relating to the present author's merits as an inspector of the troad, it must universally be acknowledged that any work, which more forcibly impresses on our imaginations the scenes of heroic action, and the subjects of immortal song, possesses claims on the attention of every scholar. of the two works which now demand our report, we conceive the former to be by far the most interesting to the reader, as the latter is indisputably the most serviceable to the traveller. excepting, indeed, the running commentary which it contains on a number of extracts from pausanias and strabo, it is, as the title imports, a mere itinerary of greece, or rather of argolis only, in its present circumstances. this being the case, surely it would have answered every purpose of utility much better by being printed as a pocket road-book of that part of the morea; for a quarto is a very unmanageable travelling companion. the maps [ ] and drawings, we shall be told, would not permit such an arrangement; but as to the drawings, they are not in general to be admired as specimens of the art; and several of them, as we have been assured by eye-witnesses of the scenes which they describe, do not compensate for their mediocrity in point of execution, by any extraordinary fidelity of representation. others, indeed, are more faithful, according to our informants. the true reason, however, for this costly mode of publication is in course to be found in a desire of gratifying the public passion for large margins, and all the luxury of typography; and we have before expressed our dissatisfaction with mr. gell's aristocratical mode of communicating a species of knowledge, which ought to be accessible to a much greater portion of classical students than can at present acquire it by his means:--but, as such expostulations are generally useless, we shall be thankful for what we can obtain, and that in the manner in which mr. gell has chosen to present it. the former of these volumes, we have observed, is the most attractive in the closet. it comprehends a very full survey of the far-famed island which the hero of the 'odyssey' has immortalized; for we really are inclined to think that the author has established the identity of the modern 'theaki' with the 'ithaca' of homer. at all events, if it be an illusion, it is a very agreeable deception, and is effected by an ingenious interpretation of the passages in homer that are supposed to be descriptive of the scenes which our traveller has visited. we shall extract some of these adaptations of the ancient picture to the modern scene, marking the points of resemblance which appear to be strained and forced, as well as those which are more easy and natural; but we must first insert some preliminary matter from the opening chapter. the following passage conveys a sort of general sketch of the book, which may give our readers a tolerably adequate notion of its contents:-- "the present work may adduce, by a simple and correct survey of the island, coincidences in its geography, in its natural productions, and moral state, before unnoticed. some will be directly pointed out; the fancy or ingenuity of the reader may be employed in tracing others; the mind familiar with the imagery of the 'odyssey' will recognise with satisfaction the scenes themselves; and this volume is offered to the public, not entirely without hopes of vindicating the poem of homer from the scepticism of those critics who imagine that the 'odyssey' is a mere poetical composition, unsupported by history, and unconnected with the localities of any particular situation. "some have asserted that, in the comparison of places now existing with the descriptions of homer, we ought not to expect coincidence in minute details; yet it seems only by these that the kingdom of ulysses, or any other, can be identified, as, if such an idea be admitted, every small and rocky island in the ionian sea, containing a good port, might, with equal plausibility, assume the appellation of ithaca. "the venetian geographers have in a great degree contributed to raise those doubts which have existed on the identity of the modern with the ancient ithaca, by giving, in their charts, the name of val di compare to the island. that name is, however, totally unknown in the country, where the isle is invariably called ithaca by the upper ranks, and theaki by the vulgar. the venetians have equally corrupted the name of almost every place in greece; yet, as the natives of epactos or naupactos never heard of lepanto, those of zacynthos of zante, or the athenians of settines, it would be as unfair to rob ithaca of its name, on such authority, as it would be to assert that no such island existed, because no tolerable representation of its form can be found in the venetian surveys. "the rare medals of the island, of which three are represented in the title-page, might be adduced as a proof that the name of ithaca was not lost during the reigns of the roman emperors. they have the head of ulysses, recognised by the pileum, or pointed cap, while the reverse of one presents the figure of a cock, the emblem of his vigilance, with the legend [greek:ithak_on]. a few of these medals are preserved in the cabinets of the curious, and one also, with the cock, found in the island, is in the possession of signor zavo, of bathi. the uppermost coin is in the collection of dr. hunter; the second is copied from newman; and the third is the property of r.p. knight, esq. "several inscriptions, which will be hereafter produced, will tend to the confirmation of the idea that ithaca was inhabited about the time when the romans were masters of greece; yet there is every reason to believe that few, if any, of the present proprietors of the soil are descended from ancestors who had long resided successively in the island. even those who lived, at the time of ulysses, in ithaca, seem to have been on the point of emigrating to argos, and no chief remained, after the second in descent from that hero, worthy of being recorded in history. it appears that the isle has been twice colonised from cephalonia in modern times, and i was informed that a grant had been made by the venetians, entitling each settler in ithaca to as much land as his circumstances would enable him to cultivate." mr. gell then proceeds to invalidate the authority of previous writers on the subject of ithaca. sir george wheeler and m. le chevalier fall under his severe animadversion; and, indeed, according to his account, neither of these gentlemen had visited the island, and the description of the latter is "absolutely too absurd for refutation." in another place, he speaks of m. le c. "disgracing a work of such merit by the introduction of such fabrications;" again, of the inaccuracy of the author's maps; and, lastly, of his inserting an island at the southern entry of the channel between cephalonia and ithaca, which has no existence. this observation very nearly approaches to the use of that monosyllable which gibbon [ ], without expressing it, so adroitly applied to some assertion of his antagonist, mr. davies. in truth, our traveller's words are rather bitter towards his brother tourist; but we must conclude that their justice warrants their severity. in the second chapter, the author describes his landing in ithaca, and arrival at the rock korax and the fountain arethusa, as he designates it with sufficient positiveness.--this rock, now known by the name of korax, or koraka petra, he contends to be the same with that which homer mentions as contiguous to the habitation of eumæus, the faithful swineherd of ulysses.--we shall take the liberty of adding to our extracts from mr. gell some of the passages in homer to which he _refers_ only, conceiving this to be the fairest method of exhibiting the strength or the weakness of his argument. "ulysses," he observes, "came to the extremity of the isle to visit eumæus, and that extremity was the most southern; for telemachus, coming from pylos, touched at the first south-eastern part of ithaca with the same intention." [greek: kai tote dae r odysaea kakos pothen aegage daim_on agrou ep eschatiaen, hothi d_omata naie sub_otaes enth aelthen philos uhios odyssaeos theioio, ek pylon aemathoentos i_on sun naei melainae. odyssei _o. autar epaen pr_otaen aktaen ithakaes aphikaeai, naea men es polin otrunai kai pantas etairous autos de pr_otista sub_otaen eisaphikesthai, k.t.l. odyssei o.] these citations, we think, appear to justify the author in his attempt to identify the situation of his rock and fountain with the place of those mentioned by homer. but let us now follow him in the closer description of the scene.--after some account of the subjects in the plate affixed, mr. gell remarks: "it is impossible to visit this sequestered spot without being struck with the recollection of the fount of arethusa and the rock korax, which the poet mentions in the same line, adding, that there the swine ate the _sweet_ [ ] acorns, and drank the black water." [greek: daeeis ton ge suessi paraemenon ai de nemontai par korakos petrae, epi te kraenae arethousae, esthousai balanon menoeikea, kai melan hud_or pinousai. odyssei n.] "having passed some time at the fountain, taken a drawing, and made the necessary observations on the situation of the place, we proceeded to an examination of the precipice, climbing over the terraces above the source among shady fig-trees, which, however, did not prevent us from feeling the powerful effects of the mid-day sun. after a short but fatiguing ascent, we arrived at the rock, which extends in a vast perpendicular semicircle, beautifully fringed with trees, facing to the south-east. under the crag we found two caves of inconsiderable extent, the entrance of one of which, not difficult of access, is seen in the view of the fount. they are still the resort of sheep and goats, and in one of them are small natural receptacles for the water, covered by a stalagmatic incrustation. "these caves, being at the extremity of the curve formed by the precipice, open toward the south, and present us with another accompaniment of the fount of arethusa, mentioned by the poet, who informs us that the swineherd eumæus left his guests in the house, whilst he, putting on a thick garment, went to sleep near the herd, under the hollow of the rock, which sheltered him from the northern blast. now we know that the herd fed near the fount; for minerva tells ulysses that he is to go first to eumæus, whom he should find with the swine, near the rock korax and the fount of arethusa. as the swine then fed at the fountain, so it is necessary that a cavern should be found in its vicinity; and this seems to coincide, in distance and situation, with that of the poem. near the fount also was the fold or stathmos of eumæus; for the goddess informs ulysses that he should find his faithful servant at or above the fount. "now the hero meets the swineherd close to the fold, which was consequently very near that source. at the top of the rock, and just above the spot where the waterfall shoots down the precipice, is at this day a stagni, or pastoral dwelling, which the herdsmen of ithaca still inhabit, on account of the water necessary for their cattle. one of these people walked on the verge of the precipice at the time of our visit to the place, and seemed so anxious to know how we had been conveyed to the spot, that his inquiries reminded us of a question probably not uncommon in the days of homer, who more than once represents the ithacences demanding of strangers what ship had brought them to the island, it being evident they could not come on foot. he told us that there was, on the summit where he stood, a small cistern of water, and a kalybea, or shepherd's hut. there are also vestiges of ancient habitations, and the place is now called amarâthia. "convenience, as well as safety, seems to have pointed out the lofty situation of amarâthia as a fit place for the residence of the herdsmen of this part of the island from the earliest ages. a small source of water is a treasure in these climates; and if the inhabitants of ithaca now select a rugged and elevated spot, to secure them from the robbers of the echinades, it is to be recollected that the taphian pirates were not less formidable, even in the days of ulysses, and that a residence in a solitary part of the island, far from the fortress, and close to a celebrated fountain, must at all times have been dangerous, without some such security as the rocks of korax. indeed, there can be no doubt that the house of eumæus was on the top of the precipice; for ulysses, in order to evince the truth of his story to the swineherd, desires to be thrown from the summit if his narration does not prove correct. "near the bottom of the precipice is a curious natural gallery, about seven feet high, which is expressed in the plate. it may be fairly presumed, from the very remarkable coincidence between this place and the homeric account, that this was the scene designated by the poet as the fountain of arethusa, and the residence of eumæus; and, perhaps, it would be impossible to find another spot which bears, at this day, so strong a resemblance to a poetic description composed at a period so very remote. there is no other fountain in this part of the island, nor any rock which bears the slightest resemblance to the korax of homer. "the stathmos of the good eumæus appears to have been little different, either in use or construction, from the stagni and kalybea of the present day. the poet expressly mentions that other herdsmen drove their flocks into the city at sunset,--a custom which still prevails throughout greece during the winter, and that was the season in which ulysses visited eumæus. yet homer accounts for this deviation from the prevailing custom, by observing that he had retired from the city to avoid the suitors of penelope. these trifling occurrences afford a strong presumption that the ithaca of homer was something more than the creature of his own fancy, as some have supposed it; for though the grand outline of a fable may be easily imagined, yet the consistent adaptation of minute incidents to a long and elaborate falsehood is a task of the most arduous and complicated nature." after this long extract, by which we have endeavoured to do justice to mr. gell's argument, we cannot allow room for any farther quotations of such extent; and we must offer a brief and imperfect analysis of the remainder of the work. in the third chapter the traveller arrives at the capital, and in the fourth he describes it in an agreeable manner. we select his account of the mode of celebrating a christian festival in the greek church:-- "we were present at the celebration of the feast of the ascension, when the citizens appeared in their gayest dresses, and saluted each other in the streets with demonstrations of pleasure. as we sate at breakfast in the house of signer zavo, we were suddenly roused by the discharge of a gun, succeeded by a tremendous crash of pottery, which fell on the tiles, steps, and pavements, in every direction. the bells of the numerous churches commenced a most discordant jingle; colours were hoisted on every mast in the port, and a general shout of joy announced some great event. our host informed us that the feast of the ascension was annually commemorated in this manner at bathi, the populace exclaiming [greek: anestae o christos, alaethinos o theos], christ is risen, the true god." in another passage, he continues this account as follows:-- "in the evening of the festival, the inhabitants danced before their houses; and at one we saw the figure which is said to have been first used by the youths and virgins of delos, at the happy return of theseus from the expedition of the cretan labyrinth. it has now lost much of that intricacy which was supposed to allude to the windings of the habitation of the minotaur," etc., etc. this is rather too much for even the inflexible gravity of our censorial muscles. when the author talks, with all the 'reality' (if we may use the expression) of a lemprière, on the stories of the fabulous ages, we cannot refrain from indulging a momentary smile; nor can we seriously accompany him in the learned architectural detail by which he endeavours to give us, from the 'odyssey', the ground-plot of the house of ulysses,--of which he actually offers a plan in drawing! "showing how the description of the house of ulysses in the 'odyssey' may be supposed to correspond with the foundations yet visible on the hill of aito!"--oh, foote! foote! why are you lost to such inviting subjects for your ludicrous pencil!--in his account of this celebrated mansion, mr. gell says, one side of the court seems to have been occupied by the thalamos, or sleeping apartments of the men, etc., etc.; and, in confirmation of this hypothesis, he refers to the th 'odyssey', line . on examining his reference, we read-- [greek: 'es thalamon t' ienai, kai saes epibaemenai eunaes'] where ulysses records an invitation which he received from circe to take a part of her bed. how this illustrates the above conjecture, we are at a loss to divine: but we suppose that some numerical error has occurred in the reference, as we have detected a trifling mistake or two of the same nature. mr. g. labours hard to identify the cave of dexia near bathi (the capital of the island), with the grotto of the nymphs described in the th 'odyssey'. we are disposed to grant that he has succeeded; but we cannot here enter into the proofs by which he supports his opinion; and we can only extract one of the concluding sentences of the chapter, which appears to us candid and judicious:-- "whatever opinion may be formed as to the identity of the cave of dexia with the grotto of the nymphs, it is fair to state, that strabo positively asserts that no such cave as that described by homer existed in his time, and that geographer thought it better to assign a physical change, rather than ignorance in homer, to account for a difference which he imagined to exist between the ithaca of his time and that of the poet. but strabo, who was an uncommonly accurate observer with respect to countries surveyed by himself, appears to have been wretchedly misled by his informers on many occasions. "that strabo had never visited this country is evident, not only from his inaccurate account of it, but from his citation of apollodorus and scepsius, whose relations are in direct opposition to each other on the subject of ithaca, as will be demonstrated on a future opportunity." we must, however, observe that "demonstration" is a strong term.--in his description of the leucadian promontory (of which we have a pleasing representation in the plate), the author remarks that it is "celebrated for the _leap_ of sappho, and the _death_ of artemisia." from this variety in the expression, a reader would hardly conceive that both the ladies perished in the same manner; in fact, the sentence is as proper as it would be to talk of the decapitation of russell, and the death of sidney. the view from this promontory includes the island of corfu; and the name suggests to mr. gell the following note, which, though rather irrelevant, is of a curious nature, and we therefore conclude our citations by transcribing it:-- "it has been generally supposed that corfu, or corcyra, was the phæacia of homer; but sir henry englefield thinks the position of that island inconsistent with the voyage of ulysses as described in the 'odyssey'. that gentleman has also observed a number of such remarkable coincidences between the courts of alcinous and solomon, that they may be thought curious and interesting. homer was familiar with the names of tyre, sidon, and egypt; and, as he lived about the time of solomon, it would not have been extraordinary if he had introduced some account of the magnificence of that prince into his poem. as solomon was famous for wisdom, so the name of alcinous signifies strength of knowledge; as the gardens of solomon were celebrated, so are those of alcinous ('od'. . ); as the kingdom of solomon was distinguished by twelve tribes under twelve princes ( kings ch. ), so that of alcinous ('od'. . ) was ruled by an equal number: as the throne of solomon was supported by lions of gold ( kings ch. ), so that of alcinous was placed on dogs of silver and gold ('od'. . ); as the fleets of solomon were famous, so were those of alcinous. it is perhaps worthy of remark, that neptune sate on the mountains of the solymi, as he returned from Æthiopia to Ægæ, while he raised the tempest which threw ulysses on the coast of phæacia; and that the solymi of pamphylia are very considerably distant from the route.--the suspicious character, also, which nausicaa attributes to her countryman agrees precisely with that which the greeks and romans gave of the jews." the seventh chapter contains a description of the monastery of kathara, and several adjacent places. the eighth, among other curiosities, fixes on an imaginary site for the farm of laertes; but this is the agony of conjecture indeed!--and the ninth chapter mentions another monastery, and a rock still called the school of homer. some sepulchral inscriptions of a very simple nature are included.--the tenth and last chapter brings us round to the port of schoenus, near bathi; after we have completed, seemingly in a very minute and accurate manner, the tour of the island. we can certainly recommend a perusal of this volume to every lover of classical scene and story. if we may indulge the pleasing belief that homer sang of a real kingdom, and that ulysses governed it, though we discern many feeble links in mr. gell's chain of evidence, we are on the whole induced to fancy that this is the ithaca of the bard and of the monarch. at all events, mr. gell has enabled every future traveller to form a clearer judgment on the question than he could have established without such a "vade-mecum to ithaca," or a "have with you, to the house of ulysses," as the present. with homer in his pocket, and gell on his sumpter-horse or mule, the odyssean tourist may now make a very classical and delightful excursion; and we doubt not that the advantages accruing to the ithacences, from the increased number of travellers who will visit them in consequence of mr. gell's account of their country, will induce them to confer on that gentleman any heraldic honours which they may have to bestow, should he ever look in upon them again.--'baron bathi' would be a pretty title:-- "'hoc' ithacus 'velit, et magno mercentur atridae'." virgil. for ourselves, we confess that all our old grecian feelings would be alive on approaching the fountain of melainudros, where, as the tradition runs, or as the priests relate, homer was restored to sight. we now come to the "grecian patterson," or "cary," which mr. gell has begun to publish; and really he has carried the epic rule of concealing the person of the author to as great a length as either of the above-mentioned heroes of itinerary writ. we hear nothing of his "hair-breadth 'scapes" by sea or land; and we do not even know, for the greater part of his journey through argolis, whether he relates what he has seen or what he has heard. from other parts of the book, we find the former to be the case; but, though there have been tourists and "strangers" in other countries, who have kindly permitted their readers to learn rather too much of their sweet selves, yet it is possible to carry delicacy, or cautious silence, or whatever it may be called, to the contrary extreme. we think that mr. gell has fallen into this error, so opposite to that of his numerous brethren. it is offensive, indeed, to be told what a man has eaten for dinner, or how pathetic he was on certain occasions; but we like to know that there is a being yet living who describes the scenes to which he introduces us; and that it is not a mere translation from strabo or pausanias which we are reading, or a commentary on those authors. this reflection leads us to the concluding remark in mr. gell's preface (by much the most interesting part of his book) to his 'itinerary of greece', in which he thus expresses himself:-- "the confusion of the modern with the ancient names of places in this volume is absolutely unavoidable; they are, however, mentioned in such a manner, that the reader will soon be accustomed to the indiscriminate use of them. the necessity of applying the ancient appellations to the different routes, will be evident from the total ignorance of the public on the subject of the modern names, which, having never appeared in print, are only known to the few individuals who have visited the country. "what could appear less intelligible to the reader, or less useful to the traveller, than a route from chione and zaracca to kutchukmadi, from thence by krabata to schoenochorio, and by the mills of peali, while every one is in some degree acquainted with the names of stymphalus, nemea, mycenæ, lyrceia, lerna, and tegea?" although this may be very true inasmuch as it relates to the reader, yet to the traveller we must observe, in opposition to mr. gell, that nothing can be less useful than the designation of his route according to the ancient names. we might as well, and with as much chance of arriving at the place of our destination, talk to a hounslow post-boy about making haste to 'augusta', as apply to our turkish guide in modern greece for a direction to stymphalus, nemea, mycenæ, etc., etc. this is neither more nor less than classical affectation; and it renders mr. gell's book of much more confined use than it would otherwise have been:--but we have some other and more important remarks to make on his general directions to grecian tourists; and we beg leave to assure our readers that they are derived from travellers who have lately visited greece. in the first place, mr. cell is absolutely incautious enough to recommend an interference on the part of english travellers with the minister at the porte, in behalf of the greeks. "the folly of such neglect (page , preface), in many instances, where the emancipation of a district might often be obtained by the present of a snuff-box or a watch, at constantinople, _and without the smallest danger of exciting the jealousy of such a court as that of turkey_, will be acknowledged when we are no longer able to rectify the error." we have every reason to believe, on the contrary, that the folly of half a dozen travellers, taking this advice, might bring us into a war. "never interfere with any thing of the kind," is a much sounder and more political suggestion to all english travellers in greece. mr. gell apologizes for the introduction of "his panoramic designs," as he calls them, on the score of the great difficulty of giving any tolerable idea of the face of a country in writing, and the ease with which a very accurate knowledge of it may be acquired by maps and panoramic designs. we are informed that this is not the case with many of these designs. the small scale of the single map we have already censured; and we have hinted that some of the drawings are not remarkable for correct resemblance of their originals. the two nearer views of the gate of the lions at mycenæ are indeed good likenesses of their subject, and the first of them is unusually well executed; but the general view of mycenæ is not more than tolerable in any respect; and the prospect of larissa, etc., is barely equal to the former. the view _from_ this last place is also indifferent; and we are positively assured that there are no windows at nauplia which look like a box of dominos,--the idea suggested by mr. gell's plate. we must not, however, be too severe on these picturesque bagatelles, which, probably, were very hasty sketches; and the circumstances of weather, etc., may have occasioned some difference in the appearance of the same objects to different spectators. we shall therefore return to mr. gell's preface; endeavouring to set him right in his directions to travellers, where we think that he is erroneous, and adding what appears to have been omitted. in his first sentence, he makes an assertion which is by no means correct. he says, "_we_ are at present as ignorant of greece, as of the interior of africa." surely not quite so ignorant; or several of our grecian _mungo parks_ have travelled in vain, and some very sumptuous works have been published to no purpose! as we proceed, we find the author observing that "athens is 'now' the most polished city of "greece," when we believe it to be the most barbarous, even to a proverb-- [greek: _o athaena, pr_otae ch_ora, ti gaidarous trepheis t_ora;] [ ] is a couplet of reproach _now_ applied to this once famous city; whose inhabitants seem little worthy of the inspiring call which was addressed to them within these twenty years, by the celebrated riga:-- [greek: deute paides t_on hellaen_on, k.t.l.] iannina, the capital of epirus, and the seat of ali pacha's government, 'is' in truth deserving of the honours which mr. gell has improperly bestowed on degraded athens. as to the correctness of the remark concerning the fashion of wearing the hair cropped in 'molossia', as mr. gell informs us, our authorities cannot depose; but why will he use the classical term of eleuthero-lacones, when that people are so much better known by their modern name of mainotes? "the court of the pacha of tripolizza" is said "to realise the splendid visions of the arabian nights." this is true with regard to the 'court'; but surely the traveller ought to have added that the city and palace are most miserable, and form an extraordinary contrast to the splendour of the court.--mr. gell mentions 'gold' mines in greece: he should have specified their situation, as it certainly is not universally known. when, also, he remarks that "the first article of necessity 'in greece' is a firman, or order from the sultan, permitting the traveller to pass unmolested," we are much misinformed if he be right. on the contrary, we believe this to be almost the only part of the turkish dominions in which a firman is not necessary; since the passport of the pacha is absolute within his territory (according to mr. g.'s own admission), and much more effectual than a firman.-- "money," he remarks, "is easily procured at salonica, or patrass, where the english have consuls." it is much better procured, we understand, from the turkish governors, who never charge discount. the consuls for the english are not of the most magnanimous order of greeks, and far from being so liberal, generally speaking; although there are, in course, some exceptions, and strané of patras has been more honourably mentioned.--after having observed that "horses seem the best mode of conveyance in greece," mr. gell proceeds: "some travellers would prefer an english saddle; but a saddle of this sort is always objected to by the owner of the horse, _and not without reason_," etc. this, we learn, is far from being the case; and, indeed, for a very simple reason, an english saddle must seem to be preferable to one of the country, because it is much lighter. when, too, mr. gell calls the _postillion_ "menzilgi," he mistakes him for his betters; _serrugees_ are postillions; _menzilgis_ are postmasters.--our traveller was fortunate in his turks, who are hired to walk by the side of the baggage-horses. they "are certain," he says, "of performing their engagement without grumbling." we apprehend that this is by no means certain:--but mr. gell is perfectly right in preferring a turk to a greek for this purpose; and in his general recommendation to take a janissary on the tour: who, we may add, should be suffered to act as he pleases, since nothing is to be done by gentle means, or even by offers of money, at the places of accommodation. a courier, to be sent on before to the place at which the traveller intends to sleep, is indispensable to comfort; but no tourist should be misled by the author's advice to suffer the greeks to gratify their curiosity, in permitting them to remain for some time about him on his arrival at an inn. they should be removed as soon as possible; for, as to the remark that "no stranger would think of intruding when a room is pre-occupied," our informants were not so well convinced of that fact. though we have made the above exceptions to the accuracy of mr. gell's information, we are most ready to do justice to the general utility of his directions, and can certainly concede the praise which he is desirous of obtaining,--namely, "of having facilitated the researches of future travellers, by affording that local information which it was before impossible to obtain." this book, indeed, is absolutely necessary to any person who wishes to explore the morea advantageously; and we hope that mr. gell will continue his itinerary over that and over every other part of greece. he allows that his volume "is only calculated to become a book of reference, and not of general entertainment;" but we do not see any reason against the compatibility of both objects in a survey of the most celebrated country of the ancient world. to that country, we trust, the attention not only of our travellers, but of our legislators, will hereafter be directed. the greatest caution will, indeed, be required, as we have premised, in touching on so delicate a subject as the amelioration of the possessions of an ally: but the field for the exercise of political sagacity is wide and inviting in this portion of the globe; and mr. gell, and all other writers who interest us, however remotely, in its extraordinary _capabilities_, deserve well of the british empire. we shall conclude by an extract from the author's work: which, even if it fails of exciting that general interest which we hope most earnestly it may attract towards its important subject, cannot, as he justly observes, "be entirely uninteresting to the scholar;" since it is a work "which gives him a faithful description of the remains of cities, the very existence of which was doubtful, as they perished before the æra of authentic history." the subjoined quotation is a good specimen of the author's minuteness of research as a topographer; and we trust that the credit which must accrue to him from the present performance will ensure the completion of his _itinerary_:-- "the inaccuracies of the maps of anacharsis are in many respects very glaring. the situation of phlius is marked by strabo as surrounded by the territories of sicyon, argos, cleonæ, and stymphalus. mr. hawkins observed, that phlius, the ruins of which still exist near agios giorgios, lies in a direct line between cleonæ and stymphalus, and another from sicyon to argos; so that strabo was correct in saying that it lay between those four towns; yet we see phlius, in the map of argolis by m. barbie du bocage, placed ten miles to the north of stymphalus, contradicting both history and fact. d'anville is guilty of the same error. "m. du bocage places a town named phlius, and by him phlionte, on the point of land which forms the port of drepano; there are not at present any ruins there. the maps of d'anville are generally more correct than any others where ancient geography is concerned. a mistake occurs on the subject of tiryns, and a place named by him vathia, but of which nothing can be understood. it is possible that vathi, or the profound valley, may be a name sometimes used for the valley of barbitsa, and that the place named by d'anville claustra may be the outlet of that valley called kleisoura, which has a corresponding signification. "the city of tiryns is also placed in two different positions, once by its greek name, and again as tirynthus. the mistake between the islands of sphæria and calaura has been noticed in page . the pontinus, which d'anville represents as a river, and the erasinus, are equally ill placed in his map. there was a place called creopolis, somewhere toward cynouria; but its situation is not easily fixed. the ports called bucephalium and piræus seem to have been nothing more than little bays in the country between corinth and epidaurus. the town called athenæ, in cynouria, by pausanias, is called anthena by 'thucydides', book . . "in general, the map of d'anville will be found more accurate than those which have been published since his time; indeed, the mistakes of that geographer are in general such as could not be avoided without visiting the country. two errors of d'anville may be mentioned, lest the opportunity of publishing the itinerary of arcadia should never occur. the first is, that the rivers malætas and mylaon, near methydrium, are represented as running toward the south, whereas they flow northwards to the ladon; and the second is, that the aroanius, which falls into the erymanthus at psophis, is represented as flowing from the lake of pheneos; a mistake which arises from the ignorance of the ancients themselves who have written on the subject. the fact is that the ladon receives the waters of the lakes of orchomenos and pheneos; but the aroanius rises at a spot not two hours distant from psophis." in furtherance of our principal object in this critique, we have only to add a wish that some of our grecian tourists, among the fresh articles of information concerning greece which they have lately imported, would turn their minds to the language of the country. so strikingly similar to the ancient greek is the modern romaic as a written language, and so dissimilar in sound, that even a few general rules concerning pronunciation would be of most extensive use. end of vol. i. transcribed by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk the life of lord byron author's introduction my present task is one of considerable difficulty; but i have long had a notion that some time or another it would fall to my lot to perform it. i approach it, therefore, without apprehension, entirely in consequence of having determined, to my own satisfaction, the manner in which the biography of so singular and so richly endowed a character as that of the late lord byron should be treated, but still with no small degree of diffidence; for there is a wide difference between determining a rule for one's self, and producing, according to that rule, a work which shall please the public. it has happened, both with regard to the man and the poet, that from the first time his name came before the public, there has been a vehement and continual controversy concerning him; and the chief difficulties of the task arise out of the heat with which the adverse parties have maintained their respective opinions. the circumstances in which he was placed, until his accession to the title and estates of his ancestors, were not such as to prepare a boy that would be father to a prudent or judicious man. nor, according to the history of his family, was his blood without a taint of sullenness, which disqualified him from conciliating the good opinion of those whom his innate superiority must have often prompted him to desire for friends. he was branded, moreover, with a personal deformity; and the grudge against nature for inflicting this defect not only deeply disturbed his happiness, but so generally affected his feelings as to embitter them with a vindictive sentiment, so strong as, at times, to exhibit the disagreeable energy of misanthropy. this was not all. he enjoyed high rank, and was conscious of possessing great talents; but his fortune was inadequate to his desires, and his talents were not of an order to redeem the deficiencies of fortune. it likewise so happened that while indulged by his only friend, his mother, to an excess that impaired the manliness of his character, her conduct was such as in no degree to merit the affection which her wayward fondness inspired. it is impossible to reflect on the boyhood of byron without regret. there is not one point in it all which could, otherwise than with pain, have affected a young mind of sensibility. his works bear testimony, that, while his memory retained the impressions of early youth, fresh and unfaded, there was a gloom and shadow upon them, which proved how little they had been really joyous. the riper years of one so truly the nursling of pride, poverty, and pain, could only be inconsistent, wild, and impassioned, even had his temperament been moderate and well disciplined. but when it is considered that in addition to all the awful influences of these fatalities, for they can receive no lighter name, he possessed an imagination of unbounded capacity--was inflamed with those indescribable feelings which constitute, in the opinion of many, the very elements of genius--fearfully quick in the discernment of the darker qualities of character--and surrounded by temptation--his career ceases to surprise. it would have been more wonderful had he proved an amiable and well-conducted man, than the questionable and extraordinary being who has alike provoked the malice and interested the admiration of the world. posterity, while acknowledging the eminence of his endowments, and lamenting the habits which his unhappy circumstances induced, will regard it as a curious phenomenon in the fortunes of the individual, that the progress of his fame as a poet should have been so similar to his history as a man. his first attempts, though displaying both originality and power, were received with a contemptuous disdain, as cold and repulsive as the penury and neglect which blighted the budding of his youth. the unjust ridicule in the review of his first poems, excited in his spirit a discontent as inveterate as the feeling which sprung from his deformity: it affected, more or less, all his conceptions to such a degree that he may be said to have hated the age which had joined in the derision, as he cherished an antipathy against those persons who looked curiously at his foot. childe harold, the most triumphant of his works, was produced when the world was kindliest disposed to set a just value on his talents; and his latter productions, in which the faults of his taste appear the broadest, were written when his errors as a man were harshest in the public voice. these allusions to the incidents of a life full of contrarieties, and a character so strange as to be almost mysterious, sufficiently show the difficulties of the task i have undertaken. but the course i intend to pursue will relieve me from the necessity of entering, in any particular manner, upon those debatable points of his personal conduct which have been so much discussed. i shall consider him, if i can, as his character will be estimated when contemporary surmises are forgotten, and when the monument he has raised to himself is contemplated for its beauty and magnificence, without suggesting recollections of the eccentricities of the builder. john galt. chapter i ancient descent--pedigree--birth--troubles of his mother--early education--accession to the title the english branch of the family of byron came in with william the conqueror; and from that era they have continued to be reckoned among the eminent families of the kingdom, under the names of buron and biron. it was not until the reign of henry ii. that they began to call themselves byron, or de byron. although for upwards of seven hundred years distinguished for the extent of their possessions, it does not appear, that, before the time of charles i., they ranked very highly among the heroic families of the kingdom. erneis and ralph were the companions of the conqueror; but antiquaries and genealogists have not determined in what relation they stood to each other. erneis, who appears to have been the more considerable personage of the two, held numerous manors in the counties of york and lincoln. in the domesday book, ralph, the direct ancestor of the poet, ranks high among the tenants of the crown, in notts and derbyshire; in the latter county he resided at horestan castle, from which he took his title. one of the lords of horestan was a hostage for the payment of the ransom of richard coeur de lion; and in the time of edward i., the possessions of his descendants were augmented by the addition of the manor of rochdale, in lancashire. on what account this new grant was given has not been ascertained; nor is it of importance that it should be. in the wars of the three edwards, the de byrons appeared with some distinction; and they were also of note in the time of henry v. sir john byron joined henry vii. on his landing at milford, and fought gallantly at the battle of bosworth, against richard iii., for which he was afterwards appointed constable of nottingham castle and warden of sherwood forest. at his death, in , he was succeeded by sir nicholas, his brother, who, at the marriage of arthur, prince of wales, in , was made one of the knights of the bath. sir nicholas died in , leaving an only son, sir john byron, whom henry viii. made steward of manchester and rochdale, and lieutenant of the forest of sherwood. it was to him that, on the dissolution of the monasteries, the church and priory of newstead, in the county of nottingham, together with the manor and rectory of papelwick, were granted. the abbey from that period became the family seat, and continued so until it was sold by the poet. sir john byron left newstead and his other possessions to john byron, whom collins and other writers have called his fourth, but who was in fact his illegitimate son. he was knighted by queen elizabeth in , and his eldest son, sir nicholas, served with distinction in the wars of the netherlands. when the great rebellion broke out against charles i., he was one of the earliest who armed in his defence. after the battle of edgehill, where he courageously distinguished himself, he was made governor of chester, and gallantly defended that city against the parliamentary army. sir john byron, the brother and heir of sir nicholas, was, at the coronation of james i., made a knight of the bath. by his marriage with anne, the eldest daughter of sir richard molyneux, he had eleven sons and a daughter. the eldest served under his uncle in the netherlands; and in the year was appointed by king charles i., governor of the tower of london. in this situation he became obnoxious to the refractory spirits in the parliament, and was in consequence ordered by the commons to answer at the bar of their house certain charges which the sectaries alleged against him. but he refused to leave his post without the king's command; and upon' this the commons applied to the lords to join them in a petition to the king to remove him. the peers rejected the proposition. on the th october, , sir john byron was created lord byron of rochdale, in the county of lancaster, with remainder of the title to his brothers, and their male issue, respectively. he was also made field-marshal-general of all his majesty's forces in worcestershire, cheshire, shropshire and north wales: nor were these trusts and honours unwon, for the byrons, during the civil war, were eminently distinguished. at the battle of newbury, seven of the brothers were in the field, and all actively engaged. sir richard, the second brother of the first lord, was knighted by charles i. for his conduct at the battle of edgehill, and appointed governor of appleby castle, in westmorland, and afterwards of newark, which he defended with great honour. sir richard, on the death of his brother, in , succeeded to the peerage, and died in . his eldest son, william, the third lord, married elizabeth, the daughter of viscount chaworth, of ireland, by whom he had five sons, four of whom died young. william, the fourth lord, his son, was gentleman of the bedchamber to prince george of denmark, and married, for his first wife, a daughter of the earl of bridgewater, who died eleven weeks after their nuptials. his second wife was the daughter of the earl of portland, by whom he had three sons, who all died before their father. his third wife was frances, daughter of lord berkley, of stratton, from whom the poet was descended. her eldest son, william, born in , succeeded to the family honours on the death of his father in . he entered the naval service, and became a lieutenant under admiral balchen. in the year he was made master of the staghounds; and in , he was sent to the tower, and tried before the house of peers, for killing his relation and neighbour, mr chaworth, in a duel fought at the star and garter tavern, in pall-mall. this lord william was naturally boisterous and vindictive. it appeared in evidence that he insisted on fighting with mr chaworth in the room where the quarrel commenced. they accordingly fought without seconds by the dim light of a single candle; and, although mr chaworth was the more skilful swordsman of the two, he received a mortal wound; but he lived long enough to disclose some particulars of the rencounter, which induced the coroner's jury to return a verdict of wilful murder, and lord byron was tried for the crime. the trial took place in westminster hall, and the public curiosity was so great that the peers' tickets of admission were publicly sold for six guineas each. it lasted two days, and at the conclusion he was unanimously pronounced guilty of manslaughter. on being brought up for judgment he pleaded his privilege and was discharged. it was to this lord that the poet succeeded, for he died without leaving issue. his brother, the grandfather of the poet, was the celebrated "hardy byron"; or, as the sailors called him, "foulweather jack," whose adventures and services are too well known to require any notice here. he married the daughter of john trevannion, esq., of carhais, in the county of cornwall, by whom he had two sons and three daughters. john, the eldest, and the father of the poet, was born in , educated at westminster school, and afterwards placed in the guards, where his conduct became so irregular and profligate that his father, the admiral, though a good-natured man, discarded him long before his death. in he acquired extraordinary eclat by the seduction of the marchioness of caermarthen, under circumstances which have few parallels in the licentiousness of fashionable life. the meanness with which he obliged his wretched victim to supply him with money would have been disgraceful to the basest adulteries of the cellar or garret. a divorce ensued, the guilty parties married; but, within two years after, such was the brutal and vicious conduct of captain byron, that the ill-fated lady died literally of a broken heart, after having given birth to two daughters, one of whom still survives. captain byron then married miss catharine gordon, of gight, a lady of honourable descent, and of a respectable fortune for a scottish heiress, the only motive which this don juan had for forming the connection. she was the mother of the poet. although the byrons have for so many ages been among the eminent families of the realm, they have no claim to the distinction which the poet has set up for them as warriors in palestine, even though he says-- near ascalon's tow'rs john of horestan slumbers; for unless this refers to the lord of horestan, who was one of the hostages for the ransom of richard i., it will not be easy to determine to whom he alludes; and it is possible that the poet has no other authority for this legend than the tradition which he found connected with two groups of heads on the old panels of newstead. yet the account of them is vague and conjectural, for it was not until ages after the crusades that the abbey came into the possession of the family; and it is not probable that the figures referred to any transactions in palestine, in which the byrons were engaged, if they were put up by the byrons at all. they were probably placed in their present situation while the building was in possession of the churchmen. one of the groups, consisting of a female and two saracens, with eyes earnestly fixed upon her, may have been the old favourite ecclesiastical story of susannah and the elders; the other, which represents a saracen with a european female between him and a christian soldier, is, perhaps, an ecclesiastical allegory, descriptive of the saracen and the christian warrior contending for the liberation of the church. these sort of allegorical stories were common among monastic ornaments, and the famous legend of st george and the dragon is one of them. into the domestic circumstances of captain and mrs byron it would be impertinent to institute any particular investigation. they were exactly such as might be expected from the sins and follies of the most profligate libertine of the age. the fortune of mrs byron, consisting of various property, and amounting to about , pounds, was all wasted in the space of two years; at the end of which the unfortunate lady found herself in possession of only pounds per annum. their means being thus exhausted she accompanied her husband in the summer of to france, whence she returned to england at the close of the year , and on the nd of january, , gave birth, in holles street, london, to her first and only child, the poet. the name of gordon was added to that of his family in compliance with a condition imposed by will on whomever should become the husband of the heiress of gight. the late duke of gordon and colonel duff, of fetteresso, were godfathers to the child. in the year mrs byron took up her residence in aberdeen, where she was soon after joined by captain byron, with whom she lived in lodgings in queen street; but their reunion was comfortless, and a separation soon took place. still their rupture was not final, for they occasionally visited and drank tea with each other. the captain also paid some attention to the boy, and had him, on one occasion, to stay with him for a night, when he proved so troublesome that he was sent home next day. byron himself has said that he passed his boyhood at marlodge, near aberdeen; but the statement is not correct; he visited, with his mother, occasionally among their friends, and among other places passed some time at fetteresso, the seat of his godfather, colonel duff. in , after an attack of the scarlet fever, he passed some time at ballater, a summer resort for health and gaiety, about forty miles up the dee from aberdeen. although the circumstances of mrs byron were at this period exceedingly straitened, she received a visit from her husband, the object of which was to extort more money; and he was so far successful, that she contrived to borrow a sum, which enabled him to proceed to valenciennes, where in the following year he died, greatly to her relief and the gratification of all who were connected with him. by her advances to captain byron, and the expenses she incurred in furnishing the flat of the house she occupied after his death, mrs byron fell into debt to the amount of pounds, the interest on which reduced her income to pounds; but, much to her credit, she contrived to live without increasing her embarrassments until the death of her grandmother, when she received pounds, a sum which had been set apart for the old gentlewoman's jointure, and which enabled her to discharge her pecuniary obligations. notwithstanding the manner in which this unfortunate lady was treated by her husband, she always entertained for him a strong affection insomuch that, when the intelligence of his death arrived, her grief was loud and vehement. she was indeed a woman of quick feelings and strong passions; and probably it was by the strength and sincerity of her sensibility that she retained so long the affection of her son, towards whom it cannot be doubted that her love was unaffected. in the midst of the neglect and penury to which she was herself subjected, she bestowed upon him all the care, the love and watchfulness of the tenderest mother. in his fifth year, on the th of november, , she sent him to a day-school, where she paid about five shillings a quarter, the common rate of the respectable day-schools at that time in scotland. it was kept by a mr bowers, whom byron has described as a dapper, spruce person, with whom he made no progress. how long he remained with mr bowers is not mentioned, but by the day-book of the school it was at least twelve months; for on the th of november of the following year there is an entry of a guinea having been paid for him. from this school he was removed and placed with a mr ross, one of the ministers of the city churches, and to whom he formed some attachment, as he speaks of him with kindness, and describes him as a devout, clever little man of mild manners, good-natured, and painstaking. his third instructor was a serious, saturnine, kind young man, named paterson, the son of a shoemaker, but a good scholar and a rigid presbyterian. it is somewhat curious in the record which byron has made of his early years to observe the constant endeavour with which he, the descendant of such a limitless pedigree and great ancestors, attempts to magnify the condition of his mother's circumstances. paterson attended him until he went to the grammar-school, where his character first began to be developed; and his schoolfellows, many of whom are alive, still recollect him as a lively, warm-hearted, and high-spirited boy, passionate and resentful, but withal affectionate and companionable; this, however, is an opinion given of him after he had become celebrated; for a very different impression has unquestionably remained among some who carry their recollections back to his childhood. by them he has been described as a malignant imp: was often spoken of for his pranks by the worthy housewives of the neighbourhood, as "mrs byron's crockit deevil," and generally disliked for the deep vindictive anger he retained against those with whom he happened to quarrel. by the death of william, the fifth lord, he succeeded to the estates and titles in the year ; and in the autumn of that year, mrs byron, with her son and a faithful servant of the name of mary gray, left aberdeen for newstead. previously to their departure, mrs byron sold the furniture of her humble lodging, with the exception of her little plate and scanty linen, which she took with her, and the whole amount of the sale did not yield seventy-five pounds. chapter ii moral effects of local scenery; a peculiarity in taste--early love-- impressions and traditions before i proceed to the regular narrative of the character and adventures of lord byron, it seems necessary to consider the probable effects of his residence, during his boyhood, in scotland. it is generally agreed, that while a schoolboy in aberdeen, he evinced a lively spirit, and sharpness enough to have equalled any of his schoolfellows, had he given sufficient application. in the few reminiscences preserved of his childhood, it is remarkable that he appears in this period, commonly of innocence and playfulness, rarely to have evinced any symptom of generous feeling. silent rages, moody sullenness, and revenge are the general characteristics of his conduct as a boy. he was, undoubtedly, delicately susceptible of impressions from the beauties of nature, for he retained recollections of the scenes which interested his childish wonder, fresh and glowing, to his latest days; nor have there been wanting plausible theories to ascribe the formation of his poetical character to the contemplation of those romantic scenes. but, whoever has attended to the influential causes of character will reject such theories as shallow, and betraying great ignorance of human nature. genius of every kind belongs to some innate temperament; it does not necessarily imply a particular bent, because that may possibly be the effect of circumstances: but, without question, the peculiar quality is inborn, and particular to the individual. all hear and see much alike; but there is an undefinable though wide difference between the ear of the musician, or the eye of the painter, compared with the hearing and seeing organs of ordinary men; and it is in something like that difference in which genius consists. genius is, however, an ingredient of mind more easily described by its effects than by its qualities. it is as the fragrance, independent of the freshness and complexion of the rose; as the light on the cloud; as the bloom on the cheek of beauty, of which the possessor is unconscious until the charm has been seen by its influence on others; it is the internal golden flame of the opal; a something which may be abstracted from the thing in which it appears, without changing the quality of its substance, its form, or its affinities. i am not, therefore, disposed to consider the idle and reckless childhood of byron as unfavourable to the development of his genius; but, on the contrary, inclined to think, that the indulgence of his mother, leaving him so much to the accidents of undisciplined impression, was calculated to cherish associations which rendered them, in the maturity of his powers, ingredients of spell that ruled his memory. it is singular, and i am not aware it has been before noticed, that with all his tender and impassioned apostrophes to beauty and love, byron has in no instance, not even in the freest passages of don juan, associated either the one or the other with sensual images. the extravagance of shakespeare's juliet, when she speaks of romeo being cut after his death into stars, that all the world may be in love with night, is flame and ecstasy compared to the icy metaphysical glitter of byron's amorous allusions. the verses beginning with she walks in beauty like the light of eastern climes and starry skies, are a perfect example of what i have conceived of his bodiless admiration of beauty, and objectless enthusiasm of love. the sentiment itself is unquestionably in the highest mood of the intellectual sense of beauty; the simile is, however, anything but such an image as the beauty of woman would suggest. it is only the remembrance of some impression or imagination of the loveliness of a twilight applied to an object that awakened the same abstract general idea of beauty. the fancy which could conceive in its passion the charms of a female to be like the glow of the evening, or the general effect of the midnight stars, must have been enamoured of some beautiful abstraction, rather than aught of flesh and blood. poets and lovers have compared the complexion of their mistresses to the hues of the morning or of the evening, and their eyes to the dewdrops and the stars; but it has no place in the feelings of man to think of female charms in the sense of admiration which the beauties of the morning or the evening awaken. it is to make the simile the principal. perhaps, however, it may be as well to defer the criticism to which this peculiar characteristic of byron's amatory effusions gives rise, until we shall come to estimate his general powers as a poet. there is upon the subject of love, no doubt, much beautiful composition. throughout his works; but not one line in all the thousands which shows a sexual feeling of female attraction--all is vague and passionless, save in the delicious rhythm of the verse. but these remarks, though premature as criticisms, are not uncalled for here, even while we are speaking of a child not more than ten years old. before byron had attained that age, he describes himself as having felt the passion. dante is said as early as nine years old to have fallen in love with beatrice; alfieri, who was himself precocious in the passion, considered such early sensibility to be an unerring sign of a soul formed for the fine arts; and canova used to say that he was in love when but five years old. but these instances, however, prove nothing. calf-love, as it is called in the country, is common; and in italy it may arise earlier than in the bleak and barren regions of lochynagar. this movement of juvenile sentiment is not, however, love--that strong masculine avidity, which, in its highest excitement, is unrestrained, by the laws alike of god and man. in truth, the feeling of this kind of love is the very reverse of the irrepressible passion it is a mean shrinking, stealthy awe, and in no one of its symptoms, at least in none of those which byron describes, has it the slightest resemblance to that bold energy which has prompted men to undertake the most improbable adventures. he was not quite eight years old, when, according to his own account, he formed an impassioned attachment to mary duff; and he gives the following account of his recollection of her, nineteen years afterwards. "i have been thinking lately a good deal of mary duff. how very odd that i should have been so devotedly fond of that girl, at an age when i could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the word and the effect! my mother used always to rally me about this childish amour, and at last, many years after, when i was sixteen, she told me one day, 'o byron, i have had a letter from edinburgh, and your old sweetheart, mary duff, is married to mr c***.' and what was my answer? i really cannot explain or account for my feelings at that moment, but they nearly threw me into convulsions, and alarmed my mother so much, that after i grew better she generally avoided the subject--to me--and contented herself with telling it to all her acquaintance." but was this agitation the effect of natural feeling, or of something in the manner in which his mother may have told the news? he proceeds to inquire. "now what could this be? i had never seen her since her mother's faux pas at aberdeen had been the cause of her removal to her grandmother's at banff. we were both the merest children. i had, and have been, attached fifty times since that period; yet i recollect all we said to each other, all our caresses, her features, my restlessness, sleeplessness, my tormenting my mother's maid to write for me to her, which she at last did to quiet me. poor nancy thought i was wild, and, as i could not write for myself, became my secretary. i remember too our walks, and the happiness of sitting by mary, in the children's apartment, at their house, not far from the plainstones, at aberdeen, while her lesser sister, helen, played with the doll, and we sat gravely making love in our own way. "how the deuce did all this occur so early? where could it originate? i certainly had no sexual ideas for years afterward, and yet my misery, my love for that girl, were so violent, that i sometimes doubt if i have ever been really attached since. be that as it may, hearing of her marriage, several years afterward, was as a thunderstroke. it nearly choked me, to the horror of my mother, and the astonishment and almost incredulity of everybody; and it is a phenomenon in my existence, for i was not eight years old, which has puzzled and will puzzle me to the latest hour of it. and, lately, i know not why, the recollection (not the attachment) has recurred as forcibly as ever: i wonder if she can have the least remembrance of it or me, or remember pitying her sister helen, for not having an admirer too. how very pretty is the perfect image of her in my memory. her dark brown hair and hazel eyes, her very dress--i should be quite grieved to see her now. the reality, however beautiful, would destroy, or at least confuse, the features of the lovely peri, which then existed in her, and still lives in my imagination, at the distance of more than sixteen years." such precocious and sympathetic affections are, as i have already mentioned, common among children, and is something very different from the love of riper years; but the extract is curious, and shows how truly little and vague byron's experience of the passion must have been. in his recollection of the girl, be it observed, there is no circumstance noticed which shows, however strong the mutual sympathy, the slightest influence of particular attraction. he recollects the colour of her hair, the hue of her eyes, her very dress, and he remembers her as a peri, a spirit; nor does it appear that his sleepless restlessness, in which the thought of her was ever uppermost, was produced by jealousy, or doubt, or fear, or any other concomitant of the passion. there is another most important circumstance in what may be called the aberdonian epoch of lord byron's life. that byron, in his boyhood, was possessed of lively sensibilities, is sufficiently clear; that he enjoyed the advantage of indulging his humour and temper without restraint, is not disputable; and that his natural temperament made him sensible, in no ordinary degree, to the beauties of nature, is also abundantly manifest in all his productions; but it is surprising that this admiration of the beauties of nature is but an ingredient in byron's poetry, and not its most remarkable characteristic. deep feelings of dissatisfaction and disappointment are far more obvious; they constitute, indeed, the very spirit of his works, and a spirit of such qualities is the least of all likely to have arisen from the contemplation of magnificent nature, or to have been inspired by studying her storms or serenity; for dissatisfaction and disappointment are the offspring of moral experience, and have no natural association with the forms of external things. the habit of associating morose sentiments with any particular kind of scenery only shows that the sources of the sullenness arose in similar visible circumstances. it is from these premises i would infer, that the seeds of byron's misanthropic tendencies were implanted during the "silent rages" of his childhood, and that the effect of mountain scenery, which continued so strong upon him after he left scotland, producing the sentiments with which he has imbued his heroes in the wild circumstances in which he places them, was mere reminiscence and association. for although the sullen tone of his mind was not fully brought out until he wrote childe harold, it is yet evident from his hours of idleness that he was tuned to that key before he went abroad. the dark colouring of his mind was plainly imbibed in a mountainous region, from sombre heaths, and in the midst of rudeness and grandeur. he had no taste for more cheerful images, and there are neither rural objects nor villagery in the scenes he describes, but only loneness and the solemnity of mountains. to those who are acquainted with the scottish character, it is unnecessary to suggest how very probable it is that mrs byron and her associates were addicted to the oral legends of the district and of her ancestors, and that the early fancy of the poet was nourished with the shadowy descriptions in the tales o' the olden time;--at last this is manifest, that although byron shows little of the melancholy and mourning of ossian, he was yet evidently influenced by some strong bias and congeniality of taste to brood and cogitate on topics of the same character as those of that bard. moreover, besides the probability of his imagination having been early tinged with the sullen hue of the local traditions, it is remarkable, that the longest of his juvenile poems is an imitation of the manner of the homer of morven. in addition to a natural temperament, kept in a state of continual excitement, by unhappy domestic incidents, and the lurid legends of the past, there were other causes in operation around the young poet that could not but greatly affect the formation of his character. descended of a distinguished family, counting among its ancestors the fated line of the scottish kings, and reduced almost to extreme poverty, it is highly probable, both from the violence of her temper, and the pride of blood, that mrs byron would complain of the almost mendicant condition to which she was reduced, especially so long as there was reason to fear that her son was not likely to succeed to the family estates and dignity. of his father's lineage few traditions were perhaps preserved, compared with those of his mother's family; but still enough was known to impress the imagination. mr moore, struck with this circumstance, has remarked, that "in reviewing the ancestors, both near and remote, of lord byron, it cannot fail to be remarked how strikingly he combined in his own nature some of the best, and perhaps worst qualities that lie scattered through the various characters of his predecessors." but still it is to his mother's traditions of her ancestors that i would ascribe the conception of the dark and guilty beings which he delighted to describe. and though it may be contended that there was little in her conduct to exalt poetical sentiment, still there was a great deal in her condition calculated to affect and impel an impassioned disposition. i can imagine few situations more likely to produce lasting recollections of interest and affection, than that in which mrs byron, with her only child, was placed in aberdeen. whatever might have been the violence of her temper, or the improprieties of her after-life, the fond and mournful caresses with which she used to hang over her lame and helpless orphan, must have greatly contributed to the formation of that morbid sensibility which became the chief characteristic of his life. at the same time, if it did contribute to fill his days with anguish and anxieties, it also undoubtedly assisted the development of his powers; and i am therefore disposed to conclude, that although, with respect to the character of the man, the time he spent in aberdeen can only be contemplated with pity, mingled with sorrow, still it must have been richly fraught with incidents of inconceivable value to the genius of the poet. chapter iii arrival at newstead--find it in ruins--the old lord and his beetles-- the earl of carlisle becomes the guardian of byron--the poet's acute sense of his own deformed foot--his mother consults a fortune-teller mrs byron, on her arrival at newstead abbey with her son, found it almost in a state of ruin. after the equivocal affair of the duel, the old lord lived in absolute seclusion, detested by his tenantry, at war with his neighbours, and deserted by all his family. he not only suffered the abbey to fall into decay, but, as far as lay in his power, alienated the land which should have kept it in repair, and denuded the estate of the timber. byron has described the conduct of the morose peer in very strong terms:--"after his trial he shut himself up at newstead, and was in the habit of feeding crickets, which were his only companions. he made them so tame that they used to crawl over him, and, when they were too familiar, he whipped them with a wisp of straw: at his death, it is said, they left the house in a body." however this may have been, it is certain that byron came to an embarrassed inheritance, both as respected his property and the character of his race; and, perhaps, though his genius suffered nothing by the circumstance, it is to be regretted that he was still left under the charge of his mother: a woman without judgment or self-command; alternately spoiling her child by indulgence, irritating him by her self-willed obstinacy, and, what was still worse, amusing him by her violence, and disgusting him by fits of inebriety. sympathy for her misfortunes would be no sufficient apology for concealing her defects; they undoubtedly had a material influence on her son, and her appearance was often the subject of his childish ridicule. she was a short and corpulent person. she rolled in her gait, and would, in her rage, sometimes endeavour to catch him for the purpose of inflicting punishment, while he would run round the room, mocking her menaces and mimicking her motion. the greatest weakness in lord byron's character was a morbid sensibility to his lameness. he felt it with as much vexation as if it had been inflicted ignominy. one of the most striking passages in some memoranda which he has left of his early days, is where, in speaking of his own sensitiveness on the subject of his deformed foot, he described the feeling of horror and humiliation that came over him when his mother, in one of her fits of passion, called him a "lame brat." the sense which byron always retained of the innocent fault in his foot was unmanly and excessive; for it was not greatly conspicuous, and he had a mode of walking across a room by which it was scarcely at all perceptible. i was several days on board the same ship with him before i happened to discover the defect; it was indeed so well concealed, that i was in doubt whether his lameness was the effect of a temporary accident, or a malformation, until i asked mr hobhouse. on their arrival from scotland, byron was placed by his mother under the care of an empirical pretender of the name of lavender, at nottingham, who professed the cure of such cases; and that he might not lose ground in his education, he was attended by a respectable schoolmaster, mr rodgers, who read parts of virgil and cicero with him. of this gentleman he always entertained a kind remembrance. nor was his regard in this instance peculiar; for it may be said to have been a distinguishing trait in his character, to recollect with affection all who had been about him in his youth. the quack, however, was an exception; whom (from having caused him to suffer much pain, and whose pretensions, even young as he then was, he detected) he delighted to expose. on one occasion, he scribbled down on a sheet of paper, the letters of the alphabet at random, but in the form of words and sentences, and placing them before lavender, asked him gravely, what language it was. "italian," was the reply, to the infinite amusement of the little satirist, who burst into a triumphant laugh at the success of his stratagem. it is said that about this time the first symptom of his predilection for rhyming showed itself. an elderly lady, a visitor to his mother, had been indiscreet enough to give him some offence, and slights he generally resented with more energy than they often deserved. this venerable personage entertained a singular notion respecting the soul, which she believed took its flight at death to the moon. one day, after a repetition of her original contumely, he appeared before his nurse in a violent rage, and complained vehemently of the old lady, declaring that he could not bear the sight of her, and then he broke out into the following doggerel, which he repeated over and over, crowing with delight. in nottingham county, there lives at swan-green, as curs'd an old lady as ever was seen; and when she does die, which i hope will be soon, she firmly believes she will go to the moon. mrs byron, by the accession of her son to the family honours and estate, received no addition to her small income; and he, being a minor, was unable to make any settlement upon her. a representation of her case was made to government, and in consequence she was placed on the pension-list for pounds a-year. byron not having received any benefit from the nottingham quack, was removed to london, put under the care of dr bailey, and placed in the school of dr glennie, at dulwich; mrs byron herself took a house on sloan terrace. moderation in all athletic exercises was prescribed to the boy, but dr glennie had some difficulty in restraining his activity. he was quiet enough while in the house with the doctor, but no sooner was he released to play, than he showed as much ambition to excel in violent exercises as the most robust youth of the school; an ambition common to young persons who have the misfortune to labour under bodily defects. while under the charge of dr glennie, he was playful, good-humoured, and beloved by his companions; and addicted to reading history and poetry far beyond the usual scope of his age. in these studies he showed a predilection for the scriptures; and certainly there are many traces in his works which show that, whatever the laxity of his religious principles may have been in after-life, he was not unacquainted with the records and history of our religion. during this period, mrs byron often indiscreetly interfered with the course of his education; and if his classical studies were in consequence not so effectually conducted as they might have been, his mind derived some of its best nutriment from the loose desultory course of his reading. among the books to which the boys at dr glennie's school had access was a pamphlet containing the narrative of a shipwreck on the coast of arracan, filled with impressive descriptions. it had not attracted much public attention, but it was a favourite with the pupils, particularly with byron, and furnished him afterwards with the leading circumstances in the striking description of the shipwreck in don juan. although the rhymes upon the lunar lady of notts are supposed to have been the first twitter of his muse, he has said himself, "my first dash into poetry was as early as . it was the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin, margaret parker. i was then about twelve, she rather older, perhaps a year." and it is curious to remark, that in his description of this beautiful girl there is the same lack of animal admiration which we have noticed in all his loves; he says of her:-- "i do not recollect scarcely anything equal to the transparent beauty of my cousin, or to the sweetness of her temper, during the short period of our intimacy: she looked as if she had been made out of a rainbow, all beauty and peace." this is certainly poetically expressed; but there was more true love in pygmalion's passion for his statue, and in the parisian maiden's adoration of the apollo. when he had been nearly two years under the tuition of dr glennie, he was removed to harrow, chiefly in consequence of his mother's interference with his studies, and especially by withdrawing him often from school. during the time he was under the care of dr glennie, he was more amiable than at any other period of his life, a circumstance which justifies the supposition, that, had he been left more to the discipline of that respectable person, he would have proved a better man; for, however much his heart afterwards became incrusted with the leprosy of selfishness, at this period his feelings were warm and kind. towards his nurse he evinced uncommon affection, which he cherished as long as she lived. he presented her with his watch, the first he possessed, and also a full-length miniature of himself, when he was only between seven and eight years old, representing him with a profusion of curling locks, and in his hands a bow and arrow. the sister of this woman had been his first nurse, and after he had left scotland he wrote to her, in a spirit which betokened a gentle and sincere heart, informing her with much joy of a circumstance highly important to himself. it was to tell her that at last he had got his foot so far restored as to be able to put on a common boot, an event which he was sure would give her great pleasure; to himself it is difficult to imagine any incident which could have been more gratifying. i dwell with satisfaction on these descriptions of his early dispositions; for, although there are not wanting instances of similar warm-heartedness in his later years, still he never formed any attachments so pure and amiable after he went to harrow. the change of life came over him, and when the vegetable period of boyhood was past, the animal passions mastered all the softer affections of his character. in the summer of he accompanied his mother to cheltenham, and while he resided there the views of the malvern hills recalled to his memory his enjoyments amid the wilder scenery of aberdeenshire. the recollections were reimpressed on his heart and interwoven with his strengthened feelings. but a boy gazing with emotion on the hills at sunset, because they remind him of the mountains where he passed his childhood, is no proof that he is already in heart and imagination a poet. to suppose so is to mistake the materials for the building. the delight of byron in contemplating the malvern hills, was not because they resembled the scenery of lochynagar, but because they awoke trains of thought and fancy, associated with recollections of that scenery. the poesy of the feeling lay not in the beauty of the objects, but in the moral effect of the traditions, to which these objects served as talismans of the memory. the scene at sunset reminded him of the highlands, but it was those reminiscences which similar scenes recalled, that constituted the impulse which gave life and elevation to his reflections. there is not more poesy in the sight of mountains than of plains; it is the local associations that throw enchantment over all scenes, and resemblance that awakens them, binding them to new connections: nor does this admit of much controversy; for mountainous regions, however favourable to musical feeling, are but little to poetical. the welsh have no eminent bard; the swiss have no renown as poets; nor are the mountainous regions of greece, nor of the apennines, celebrated for poetry. the highlands of scotland, save the equivocal bastardy of ossian, have produced no poet of any fame, and yet mountainous countries abound in local legends, which would seem to be at variance with this opinion, were it not certain, though i cannot explain the cause, that local poetry, like local language or local melody, is in proportion to the interest it awakens among the local inhabitants, weak and ineffectual in its influence on the sentiments of the general world. the "rans de vaches," the most celebrated of all local airs, is tame and commonplace,--unmelodious, to all ears but those of the swiss "forlorn in a foreign land." while in cheltenham, mrs byron consulted a fortune-teller respecting the destinies of her son, and according to her feminine notions, she was very cunning and guarded with the sybil, never suspecting that she might have been previously known, and, unconscious to herself, an object of interest to the spaewife. she endeavoured to pass herself off as a maiden lady, and regarded it as no small testimony of the wisdom of the oracle, that she declared her to be not only a married woman, but the mother of a son who was lame. after such a marvellous proof of second-sightedness, it may easily be conceived with what awe and faith she listened to the prediction, that his life should be in danger from poison before he was of age, and that he should be twice married; the second time to a foreign lady. whether it was this same fortune-teller who foretold that he would, in his twenty-seventh year, incur some great misfortune, is not certain; but, considering his unhappy english marriage, and his subsequent italian liaison with the countess guiccioli, the marital prediction was not far from receiving its accomplishment. the fact of his marriage taking place in his twenty-seventh year, is at least a curious circumstance, and has been noticed by himself with a sentiment of superstition. chapter iv placed at harrow--progress there--love for miss chaworth--his reading--oratorical powers in passing from the quiet academy of dulwich grove to the public school of harrow, the change must have been great to any boy--to byron it was punishment; and for the first year and a half he hated the place. in the end, however, he rose to be a leader in all the sports and mischiefs of his schoolfellows; but it never could be said that he was a popular boy, however much he was distinguished for spirit and bravery; for if he was not quarrelsome, he was sometimes vindictive. still it could not have been to any inveterate degree; for, undoubtedly, in his younger years, he was susceptible of warm impressions from gentle treatment, and his obstinacy and arbitrary humour were perhaps more the effects of unrepressed habit than of natural bias; they were the prickles which surrounded his genius in the bud. at harrow he acquired no distinction as a student; indeed, at no period was he remarkable for steady application. under dr glennie he had made but little progress; and it was chiefly in consequence of his backwardness that he was removed from his academy. when placed with dr drury, it was with an intimation that he had a cleverness about him, but that his education had been neglected. the early dislike which byron felt towards the earl of carlisle is abundantly well known, and he had the magnanimity to acknowledge that it was in some respects unjust. but the antipathy was not all on one side; nor will it be easy to parallel the conduct of the earl with that of any guardian. it is but justice, therefore, to byron, to make the public aware that the dislike began on the part of lord carlisle, and originated in some distaste which he took to mrs byron's manners, and at the trouble she sometimes gave him on account of her son. dr drury, in his communication to mr moore respecting the early history of byron, mentions a singular circumstance as to this subject, which we record with the more pleasure, because byron has been blamed, and has blamed himself, for his irreverence towards lord carlisle, while it appears that the fault lay with the earl. "after some continuance at harrow," says dr drury, "and when the powers of his mind had begun to expand, the late lord carlisle, his relation, desired to see me in town. i waited on his lordship. his object was to inform me of lord byron's expectations of property when he came of age, which he represented as contracted, and to inquire respecting his abilities. on the former circumstance i made no remark; as to the latter, i replied, 'he has talents, my lord, which will add lustre to his rank.' 'indeed,' said his lordship, with a degree of surprise, that, according to my feelings, did not express in it all the satisfaction i expected." lord carlisle had, indeed, much of the byron humour in him. his mother was a sister of the homicidal lord, and possessed some of the family peculiarity: she was endowed with great talent, and in her latter days she exhibited great singularity. she wrote beautiful verses and piquant epigrams among others, there is a poetical effusion of her pen addressed to mrs greville, on her ode to indifference, which, at the time, was much admired, and has been, with other poems of her ladyship's, published in pearch's collection. after moving, for a long time, as one of the most brilliant orbs in the sphere of fashion, she suddenly retired, and like her morose brother, shut herself up from the world. while she lived in this seclusion, she became an object of the sportive satire of the late mr fox, who characterized her as carlisle, recluse in pride and rags. i have heard a still coarser apostrophe by the same gentleman. it seems they had quarrelled, and on his leaving her in the drawing- room, she called after him, that he might go about his business, for she did not care two skips of a louse for him. on coming to the hall, finding paper and ink on the table, he wrote two lines in answer, and sent it up to her ladyship, to the effect that she always spoke of what was running in her head. byron has borne testimony to the merits of his guardian, her son, as a tragic poet, by characterizing his publications as paper books. it is, however, said that they nevertheless showed some talent, and that the father's revenge, one of the tragedies, was submitted to the judgment of dr johnson, who did not despise it. but to return to the progress of byron at harrow; it is certain that notwithstanding the affectionate solicitude of dr drury to encourage him, he never became an eminent scholar; at least, we have his own testimony to that effect, in the fourth canto of childe harold; the lines, however, in which that testimony stands recorded, are among the weakest he ever penned. may he who will his recollections rake and quote in classic raptures, and awake the hills with latin echoes: i abhorr'd too much to conquer, for the poet's sake, the drill'd, dull lesson forced down word by word, in my repugnant youth with pleasure to record. and, as an apology for the defect, he makes the following remarks in a note subjoined:-- "i wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions, which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as latin and greek, to relish or to reason upon. for the same reason, we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest passages of shakspeare ('to be, or not to be,' for instance), from the habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise not of mind but of memory; so that when we are old enough to enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. in some parts of the continent, young persons are taught from mere common authors, and do not read the best classics until their maturity. i certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. i was not a slow or an idle boy; and i believe no one could be more attached to harrow than i have always been, and with reason: a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my life; and my preceptor, the rev. dr joseph drury, was the best and worthiest friend i ever possessed; whose warnings i have remembered but too well, though too late, when i have erred; and whose counsels i have but followed when i have done well and wisely. if ever this imperfect record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and veneration; of one who would more gladly boast of having been his pupil if, by more closely following his injunctions, he could reflect any honour upon his instructor." lord byron, however, is not singular in his opinion of the inutility of premature classical studies; and notwithstanding the able manner in which the late dean vincent defended public education, we have some notion that his reasoning upon this point will not be deemed conclusive. milton, says dr vincent, complained of the years that were wasted in teaching the dead languages. cowley also complained that classical education taught words only and not things; and addison deemed it an inexpiable error, that boys with genius or without were all to be bred poets indiscriminately. as far, then, as respects the education of a poet, we should think that the names of milton, cowley, addison, and byron would go well to settle the question; especially when it is recollected how little shakspeare was indebted to the study of the classics, and that burns knew nothing of them at all. i do not, however, adopt the opinion as correct; neither do i think that dean vincent took a right view of the subject; for, as discipline, the study of the classics may be highly useful, at the same time, the mere hammering of greek and latin into english cannot be very conducive to the refinement of taste or the exaltation of sentiment. nor is there either common sense or correct logic in the following observations made on the passage and note, quoted by the anonymous author of childe harold's monitor. "this doctrine of antipathies, contracted by the impatience of youth against the noblest authors of antiquity, from the circumstance of having been made the vehicle of early instruction, is a most dangerous doctrine indeed; since it strikes at the root, not only of all pure taste, but of all praiseworthy industry. it would, if acted upon (as harold by the mention of the continental practice of using inferior writers in the business of tuition would seem to recommend), destroy the great source of the intellectual vigour of our countrymen." this is, undoubtedly, assuming too much; for those who have objected to the years "wasted" in teaching the dead languages, do not admit that the labour of acquiring them either improves the taste or adds to the vigour of the understanding; and, therefore, before the soundness of the opinion of milton, of cowley, of addison, and of many other great men can be rejected, it falls on those who are of dean vincent's opinion, and that of childe harold's monitor, to prove that the study of the learned languages is of so much primary importance as they claim for it. but it appears that byron's mind, during the early period of his residence at harrow, was occupied with another object than his studies, and which may partly account for his inattention to them. he fell in love with mary chaworth. "she was," he is represented to have said, "several years older than myself, but at my age boys like something older than themselves, as they do younger later in life. our estates adjoined, but owing to the unhappy circumstances of the feud (the affair of the fatal duel), our families, as is generally the case with neighbours, who happen to be near relations, were never on terms of more than common civility, scarcely those. she was the beau ideal of all that my youthful fancy could paint of the beautiful! and i have taken all my fables about the celestial nature of women from the perfection my imagination created in her. i say created, for i found her, like the rest of the sex, anything but angelic. i returned to harrow, after my trip to cheltenham, more deeply enamoured than ever, and passed the next holidays at newstead. i now began to fancy myself a man, and to make love in earnest. our meetings were stolen ones, and my letters passed through the medium of a confidant. a gate leading from mr chaworth's grounds to those of my mother, was the place of our interviews, but the ardour was all on my side; i was serious, she was volatile. she liked me as a younger brother, and treated and laughed at me as a boy; she, however, gave me her picture, and that was something to make verses upon. had i married miss chaworth, perhaps the whole tenor of my life would have been different; she jilted me, however, but her marriage proved anything but a happy one." it is to this attachment that we are indebted for the beautiful poem of the dream, and the stanzas beginning oh, had my fate been joined to thine! although this love affair a little interfered with his greek and latin, his time was not passed without some attention to reading. until he was eighteen years old, he had never seen a review; but his general information was so extensive on modern topics, as to induce a suspicion that he could only have collected so much information from reviews, as he was never seen reading, but always idle, and in mischief, or at play. he was, however, a devourer of books; he read eating, read in bed, read when no one else read, and had perused all sorts of books from the time he first could spell, but had never read a review, and knew not what the name implied. it should be here noticed, that while he was at harrow, his qualities were rather oratorical than poetical; and if an opinion had then been formed of the likely result of his character, the prognostication would have led to the expectation of an orator. altogether, his conduct at harrow indicated a clever, but not an extraordinary boy. he formed a few friendships there, in which his attachment appears to have been, in some instances, remarkable. the late duke of dorset was his fag, and he was not considered a very hard taskmaster. he certainly did not carry with him from harrow any anticipation of that splendid career he was destined to run as a poet. chapter v character at harrow--poetical predilections--byron at cambridge--his "hours of idleness" in reconsidering the four years which byron spent at harrow, while we can clearly trace the development of the sensibilities of his character, and an increased tension of his susceptibility, by which impressions became more acute and delicate, it seems impossible not to perceive by the records which he has himself left of his feelings, that something morbid was induced upon them. had he not afterwards so magnificently distinguished himself as a poet, it is not probable that he would have been recollected by his schoolfellows as having been in any respect different from the common herd. his activity and spirit, in their controversies and quarrels, were but the outbreakings of that temperament which the discipline of riper years, and the natural awe of the world, afterward reduced into his hereditary cast of character, in which so much of sullenness and misanthropy was exhibited. i cannot, however, think that there was anything either in the nature of his pastimes, or his studies, unfavourable to the formation of the poetical character. his amusements were active; his reading, though without method, was yet congenial to his impassioned imagination; and the phantom of an enthusiastic attachment, of which miss chaworth was not the only object (for it was altogether intellectual, and shared with others), were circumstances calculated to open various sources of reflection, and to concentrate the elements of an energetic and original mind. but it is no easy matter to sketch what may have been the outline of a young poet's education. the supposition that poets must be dreamers, because there is often much dreaminess in poesy, is a mere hypothesis. of all the professors of metaphysical discernment, poets require the finest tact; and contemplation is with them a sign of inward abstract reflection, more than of any process of mind by which resemblance is traced, and associations awakened. there is no account of any great poet, whose genius was of that dreamy cartilaginous kind, which hath its being in haze, and draws its nourishment from lights and shadows; which ponders over the mysteries of trees, and interprets the oracles of babbling waters. they have all been men--worldly men, different only from others in reasoning more by feeling than induction. directed by impulse, in a greater degree than other men, poets are apt to be betrayed into actions which make them singular, as compared by those who are less imaginative; but the effects of earnestness should never be confounded with the qualities of talent. no greater misconception has ever been obtruded upon the world as philosophic criticism, than the theory of poets being the offspring of "capering lambkins and cooing doves"; for they differ in no respect from other men of high endowment, but in the single circumstance of the objects to which their taste is attracted. the most vigorous poets, those who have influenced longest and are most quoted, have indeed been all men of great shrewdness of remark, and anything but your chin-on-hand contemplators. to adduce many instances is unnecessary. are there any symptoms of the gelatinous character of the effusions of the lakers in the compositions of homer? the london gazette does not tell us things more like facts than the narratives of homer, and it often states facts that are much more like fictions than his most poetical inventions. so much is this the case with the works of all the higher poets, that as they recede from that worldly standard which is found in the epics of homer, they sink in the scale of poets. in what does the inferiority of virgil, for example, consist, but in his having hatched fancies in his contemplations which the calm mind rejects as absurdities. then tasso, with his enchanted forests and his other improbabilities; are they more than childish tales? tales, too, not in fancy to be compared with those of that venerable dry-nurse, mother bunch. compare the poets that babble of green fields with those who deal in the actions and passions of men, such as shakspeare, and it must be confessed that it is not those who have looked at external nature who are the true poets, but those who have seen and considered most about the business and bosom of man. it may be an advantage that a poet should have the benefit of landscapes and storms, as children are the better for country air and cow's milk; but the true scene of their manly work and business is in the populous city. inasmuch as byron was a lover of solitude, he was deficient as an observer of men. the barrenest portion, as to materials for biography, in the life of this interesting man, is the period he spent at the university of cambridge. like that of most young men, it is probable the major part of his time was passed between the metropolis and the university. still it was in that period he composed the different poems which make up the little volume of the hours of idleness; a work which will ever be regarded, more by its consequences than its importance, as of great influence on the character and career of the poet. it has been supposed, i see not how justly, that there was affectation in the title. it is probable that byron intended no more by it than to imply that its contents were sketches of leisure. this is the less doubtful, as he was at that period particularly sensitive concerning the opinion that might be entertained of his works. before he made the collection, many of the pieces had been circulated, and he had gathered opinions as to their merits with a degree of solicitude that can only be conceived by those who were acquainted with the constantly excited sensibility of his mind. when he did publish the collection, nothing appeared in the style and form of the publication that indicated any arrogance of merit. on the contrary, it was brought forward with a degree of diffidence, which, if it did not deserve the epithet of modesty, could incur nothing harsher than that of bashfulness. it was printed at the obscure market-town press of newark, was altogether a very homely, rustic work, and no attempt was made to bespeak for it a good name from the critics. it was truly an innocent affair and an unpretending performance. but notwithstanding these, at least seeming, qualities of young doubtfulness and timidity, they did not soften the austere nature of the bleak and blighting criticism which was then characteristic of edinburgh. a copy was somehow communicated to one of the critics in that city, and was reviewed by him in the edinburgh review in an article replete with satire and insinuations calculated to prey upon the author's feelings, while the injustice of the estimate which was made of his talent and originality, could not but be as iron in his heart. owing to the deep and severe impression which it left, it ought to be preserved in every memoir which treats of the development of his genius and character; and for this reason i insert it entire, as one of the most influential documents perhaps in the whole extent of biography. chapter vi criticism of the "edinburgh review" "the poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither god nor man are said to permit. indeed we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that exact standard. his effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below the level than if they were so much stagnant water. as an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. we have it in the title- page, and on the very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of his style. much stress is laid upon it in the preface; and the poems are connected with this general statement of his case by particular dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. now, the law upon the point of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. it is a plea available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of action. thus, if any suit could be brought against lord byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court a certain quantity of poetry, and if judgment were given against him, it is highly probable that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver for poetry the contents of this volume. to this he might plead minority; but as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath no right to sue on that ground for the price in good current praise, should the goods be unmarketable. this is our view of the law on the point; and we dare to say, so will it be ruled. perhaps, however, in reality, all that he tells us about his youth is rather with a view to increase our wonder, than to soften our censures. he possibly means to say, 'see how a minor can write! this poem was actually composed by a young man of eighteen! and this by one of only sixteen!' but, alas, we all remember the poetry of cowley at ten, and pope at twelve; and, so far from hearing with any degree of surprise that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college inclusive, we really believe this to be the most common of all occurrences;--that it happens in the life of nine men in ten who are educated in england, and that the tenth man writes better verse than lord byron. "his other plea of privilege our author brings forward to waive it. he certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and ancestors, sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remind us of dr johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. in truth, it is this consideration only that induces us to give lord byron's poems a place in our review, besides our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account. "with this view we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet; nay, although (which does not always happen) these feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted upon the fingers, is not the whole art of poetry. we would entreat him to believe that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem; and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought, even in a little degree different from the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. we put it to his candour, whether there is anything so deserving the name of poetry, in verses like the following, written in , and whether, if a youth of eighteen could say anything so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth of nineteen should publish it: shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing from the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu; abroad or at home, your remembrance imparting new courage, he'll think upon glory and you. though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation, 'tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret; far distant he goes with the same emulation, the fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget. that fame and that memory still will he cherish, he vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown; like you will he live, or like you will he perish, when decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own. "now, we positively do assert, that there is nothing better than these stanzas in the whole compass of the noble minor's volume. "lord byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to see at his writing-master's) are odious. gray's ode to eton college should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas on a distant view of the village and school at harrow. where fancy yet joys to trace the resemblance of comrades in friendship or mischief allied, how welcome to me your ne'er-fading remembrance, which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied. "in like manner, the exquisite lines of mr rogers, on a tear, might have warned the noble author of these premises, and spared us a whole dozen such stanzas as the following: mild charity's glow, to us mortals below, shows the soul from barbarity clear; compassion will melt where the virtue is felt. and its dew is diffused in a tear. the man doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale, through billows atlantic to steer, as he bends o'er the wave, which may soon be his grave, the green sparkles bright with a tear. "and so of instances in which former poets had failed. thus, we do not think lord byron was made for translating, during his nonage, adrian's address to his soul, when pope succeeded indifferently in the attempt. if our readers, however, are of another opinion, they may look at it. ah! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring sprite, friend and associate of this clay, to what unknown region borne wilt thou now wing thy distant flight? no more with wonted humour gay, but pallid, cheerless, and forlorn. "however, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are great favourities with lord byron. we have them of all kinds, from anacreon to ossian; and, viewing them as school-exercises, they may pass. only, why print them after they have had their day and served their turn? and why call the thing in p. a translation, where two words ([greek]) of the original are expanded into four lines, and the other thing in p. , where [greek] is rendered by means of six hobbling verses. as to his ossian poesy, we are not very good judges; being, in truth, so moderately skilled in that species of composition, that we should, in all probability, be criticising some bit of genuine macpherson itself, were we to express our opinion of lord byron's rhapsodies. if, then, the following beginning of a song of bards is by his lordship, we venture to object to it, as far as we can comprehend it; 'what form rises on the roar of clouds, whose dark ghost gleams on the red stream of tempests? his voice rolls on the thunder; 'tis oila, the brown chief of otchona. he was,' etc. after detaining this 'brown chief' some time, the bards conclude by giving him their advice to 'raise his fair locks'; then to 'spread them on the arch of the rainbow'; and to 'smile through the tears of the storm.' of this kind of thing there are no less than nine pages: and we can so far venture an opinion in their favour, that they look very like macpherson; and we are positive they are pretty nearly as stupid and tiresome. "it is some sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should 'use it as not abusing it'; and particularly one who piques himself (though, indeed, at the ripe age of nineteen) on being an infant bard-- the artless helicon i boast is youth-- should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. besides a poem, above cited, on the family-seat of the byrons, we have another of eleven pages on the selfsame subject, introduced with an apology, 'he certainly had no intention of inserting it,' but really 'the particular request of some friends,' etc. etc. it concludes with five stanzas on himself, 'the last and youngest of the noble line.' there is also a good deal about his maternal ancestors, in a poem on lachion-y-gair, a mountain, where he spent part of his youth, and might have learned that pibroach is not a bagpipe, any more than a duet means a fiddle. "as the author has dedicated so large a part of his volume to immortalize his employments at school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. "in an ode, with a greek motto, called granta, we have the following magnificent stanzas:-- there, in apartments small and damp, the candidate for college prizes sits poring by the midnight lamp, goes late to bed, yet early rises: who reads false quantities in seale, or puzzles o'er the deep triangle, depriv'd of many a wholesome meal, in barbarous latin doomed to wrangle. renouncing every pleasing page from authors of historic use; preferring to the letter'd sage the square of the hypotenuse. still harmless are these occupations, that hurt none but the hapless student, compared with other recreations which bring together the imprudent. "we are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college-psalmody, as is contained in the following attic stanzas our choir could scarcely be excused, even as a band of raw beginners; all mercy now must be refused to such a set of croaking sinners. if david, when his toils were ended, had heard these blockheads sing before him, to us his psalms had ne'er descended-- in furious mood he would have tore 'em. "but whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content for they are the last we shall ever have from him. he is at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thoroughbred poets, and though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the highlands of scotland, he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and whether it succeeds or not, it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits, that he should again condescend to become an author. therefore, let us take what we get and be thankful. what right have we poor devils to be nice? we are well off to have got so much from a man of this lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but has got the sway of newstead abbey. again we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest sancho, bid god bless the giver, nor look the gift-horse in the mouth." the criticism is ascribed to mr francis jeffrey, an eloquent member of the scottish bar, and who was at that time supposed to be the editor of the edinburgh review. that it was neither just nor fair is sufficiently evident, by the degree of care and artificial point with which it has been drawn up. had the poetry been as insignificant as the critic affected to consider it, it would have argued little for the judgment of mr jeffrey, to take so much pains on a work which he considered worthless. but the world has no cause to repine at the severity of his strictures, for they unquestionably had the effect of kindling the indignation of byron, and of instigating him to that retaliation which he so spiritedly inflicted in his satire of english bards and scotch reviewers. it is amusing to compare the respective literary reputation of the poet and the critic, as they are estimated by the public, now that the one is dead, and the other dormant. the voice of all the age acknowledges byron to have been the greatest poetical genius of his time. mr jeffrey, though still enjoying the renown of being a shrewd and intelligent critic of the productions of others, has established no right to the honour of being an original or eminent author. at the time when byron published the satire alluded to, he had obtained no other distinction than the college reputation of being a clever, careless, dissipated student. but his dissipation was not intense, nor did it ever become habitual. he affected to be much more so than he was: his pretensions were moderated by constitutional incapacity. his health was not vigorous; and his delicacy defeated his endeavours to show that he inherited the recklessness of his father. he affected extravagance and eccentricity of conduct, without yielding much to the one, or practising a great deal of the other. he was seeking notoriety; and his attempts to obtain it gave more method to his pranks and follies than belonged to the results of natural impulse and passion. he evinced occasional instances of the generous spirit of youth; but there was in them more of ostentation than of that discrimination which dignifies kindness, and makes prodigality munificence. nor were his attachments towards those with whom he preferred to associate, characterised by any nobler sentiment than self- indulgence; he was attached, more from the pleasure he himself received in their society, than from any reciprocal enjoyment they had with him. as he became a man of the world, his early friends dropped from him; although it is evident, by all the contemporary records of his feelings, that he cherished for them a kind, and even brotherly, affection. this secession, the common effect of the new cares, hopes, interests, and wishes, which young men feel on entering the world, byron regarded as something analogous to desertion; and the notion tainted his mind, and irritated that hereditary sullenness of humour, which constituted an ingredient so remarkable in the composition of his more mature character. an anecdote of this period, characteristic of his eccentricity, and the means which he scrupled not to employ in indulging it, deserves to be mentioned. in repairing newstead abbey, a skull was found in a secret niche of the walls. it might have been that of the monk who haunted the house, or of one of his own ancestors, or of some victim of the morose race. it was converted into a goblet, and used at odin-like orgies. though the affair was but a whim of youth, more odious than poetical, it caused some talk, and raised around the extravagant host the haze of a mystery, suggesting fantasies of irreligion and horror. the inscription on the cup is not remarkable either for point or poetry. start not, nor deem my spot fled; in me behold the only skull from which, unlike a living head, whatever flows is never dull. i liv'd, i lov'd, i quaff'd like thee; i died, but earth my bones resign: fill up--thou canst not injure me, the worm hath fouler lips than thine. better to hold the sparkling grape than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood, and circle in the goblet's shape the drink of gods than reptile's food. where once my wit perchance hath shone, in aid of others let me shine; and when, alas, our brains are gone, what nobler substitute than wine? quaff while thou canst--another race, when thou and thine like me are sped, may rescue thee from earth's embrace, and rhyme and revel with the dead. why not? since through life's little day, our heads such sad effects produce; redeem'd from worms and wasting clay, this chance is theirs, to be use. chapter vii effect of the criticism in the "edinburgh review"--"english bards and scotch reviewers"--his satiety--intention to travel--publishes his satire--takes his seat in the house of lords--departs for lisbon; thence to gibraltar the impression which the criticism of the edinburgh review produced upon the juvenile poet was deep and envenomed. it stung his heart, and prompted him to excess. but the paroxysms did not endure long; strong volitions of revenge succeeded, and the grasps of his mind were filled, as it were, with writhing adders. all the world knows, that this unquenchable indignation found relief in the composition of english bards and scotch reviewers; a satire which, in many passages, equals, in fervour and force, the most vigorous in the language. it was during the summer of , while the poet was residing at newstead, that english bards and scotch reviewers was principally written. he bestowed more pains upon it than perhaps on any other of his works; and, though different from them all, it still exhibits strong indications of the misanthropy with which, after quitting cambridge, he became more and more possessed. it is painful to reflect, in considering the splendid energy displayed in the poem, that the unprovoked malice which directed him to make the satire so general, was, perhaps, the main cause of that disposition to wither his reputation, which was afterwards so fervently roused. he could not but expect, that, in stigmatising with contempt and ridicule so many persons by name, some of them would retaliate. nor could he complain of injustice if they did; for his attack was so wilful, that the rage of it can only be explained by supposing he was instigated to "the one fell swoop," by a resentful conviction, that his impillory in the edinburgh review had amused them all. i do not conceive, that the generality of the satire can be well extenuated; but i am not inclined to regard it as having been a very heinous offence. the ability displayed in it is a sufficient compensation. the beauty of the serpent's skin appeases the aversion to its nature. moreover, a toothless satire is verse without poetry- -the most odious of all respectable things. but, without regard to the merits or delinquency of the poem, to the acumen of its animadversions, or to the polish of the lines, it possesses, in the biography of the author, a value of the most interesting kind. it was the first burst of that dark, diseased ichor, which afterwards coloured his effusions; the overflowing suppuration of that satiety and loathing, which rendered childe harold, in particular, so original, incomprehensible, and antisocial; and bears testimony to the state of his feelings at that important epoch, while he was yet upon the threshold of the world, and was entering it with a sense of failure and humiliation, and premature disgust. for, notwithstanding his unnecessary expositions concerning his dissipation, it is beyond controversy, that at no time could it be said he was a dissipated young man. that he indulged in occasional excesses is true; but his habits were never libertine, nor did his health or stamina permit him to be distinguished in licentiousness. the declaration in which he first discloses his sobriety, contains more truth than all his pretensions to his father's qualities. "i took my gradations in the vices," says he, in that remarkable confession, "with great promptitude, but they were not to my taste; for my early passions, though violent in the extreme, were concentrated, and hated division or spreading abroad. i could have left or lost the whole world with or for that which i loved; but, though my temperament was naturally burning, i could not share in the common libertinism of the place and time without disgust; and yet this very disgust, and my heart thrown back upon itself, threw me into excesses perhaps more fatal than those from which i shrunk, as fixing upon one at a time the passions, which, spread among many, would have hurt only myself." this is vague and metaphysical enough; but it bears corroborative intimations, that the impression which he early made upon me was not incorrect. he was vain of his experiments in profligacy, but they never grew to habitude. while he was engaged in the composition of his satire, he formed a plan of travelling; but there was a great shortcoming between the intention and the performance. he first thought of persia; he afterwards resolved to sail for india; and had so far matured this project, as to write for information to the arabic professor at cambridge; and to his mother, who was not then with him at newstead, to inquire of a friend, who had resided in india, what things would be necessary for the voyage. he formed his plan of travelling upon different reasons from those which he afterward gave out, and which have been imputed to him. he then thought that all men should in some period of their lives travel; he had at that time no tie to prevent him; he conceived that when he returned home he might be induced to enter into political life, to which his having travelled would be an advantage; and he wished to know the world by sight, and to judge of men by experience. when his satire was ready for the press, he carried it with him to london. he was then just come of age, or about to be so; and one of his objects in this visit to the metropolis was, to take his seat in the house of lords before going abroad; but, in advancing to this proud distinction, so soothing to the self-importance of youth, he was destined to suffer a mortification which probably wounded him as deeply as the sarcasms of the edinburgh review. before the meeting of parliament, he wrote to his relation and guardian, the earl of carlisle, to remind him that he should be of age at the commencement of the session, in the natural hope that his lordship would make an offer to introduce him to the house: but he was disappointed. he only received a formal reply, acquainting him with the technical mode of proceeding, and the etiquette to be observed on such occasions. it is therefore not wonderful that he should have resented such treatment; and he avenged it by those lines in his satire, for which he afterwards expressed his regret in the third canto of childe harold. deserted by his guardian at a crisis so interesting, he was prevented for some time from taking his seat in parliament; being obliged to procure affidavits in proof of his grandfather's marriage with miss trevannion, which having taken place in a private chapel at carhais, no regular certificate of the ceremony could be produced. at length, all the necessary evidence having been obtained, on the th of march, , he presented himself in the house of lords alone--a proceeding consonant to his character, for he was not so friendless nor unknown, but that he might have procured some peer to have gone with him. it, however, served to make his introduction remarkable. on entering the house, he is described to have appeared abashed and pale: he passed the woolsack without looking round, and advanced to the table where the proper officer was attending to administer the oaths. when he had gone through them, the chancellor quitted his seat, and went towards him with a smile, putting out his hand in a friendly manner to welcome him, but he made a stiff bow, and only touched with the tip of his fingers the chancellor's hand, who immediately returned to his seat. such is the account given of this important incident by mr dallas, who went with him to the bar; but a characteristic circumstance is wanting. when lord eldon advanced with the cordiality described, he expressed with becoming courtesy his regret that the rules of the house had obliged him to call for the evidence of his grandfather's marriage.--"your lordship has done your duty, and no more," was the cold reply, in the words of tom thumb, and which probably was the cause of the marked manner of the chancellor's cool return to his seat. the satire was published anonymously, and immediately attracted attention; the sale was rapid, and a new edition being called for, byron revised it. the preparations for his travels being completed, he then embarked in july of the same year, with mr hobhouse, for lisbon, and thence proceeded by the southern provinces of spain to gibraltar. in the account of his adventures during this journey, he seems to have felt, to an exaggerated degree, the hazards to which he was exposed. but many of his descriptions are given with a bright pen. that of lisbon has always been admired for its justness, and the mixture of force and familiarity. what beauties doth lisboa's port unfold! her image floating on that noble tide, which poets vainly pave with sands of gold, but now whereon a thousand keels did ride, of mighty strength since albion was allied, and to the lusians did her aid afford. a nation swoln with ignorance and pride, who lick, yet loathe, the hand that waves the sword to save them from the wrath of gaul's unsparing lord. but whoso entereth within this town, that sheening for celestial seems to be, disconsolate will wander up and down, 'mid many things unsightly strange to see, for hut and palace show like filthily; the dingy denizens are reared in dirt; no personage of high or mean degree doth care for cleanness of surtout and shirt, though shent with egypt's plague, unkempt, unwash'd, unhurt. considering the interest which he afterwards took in the affairs of greece, it is remarkable that he should have passed through spain, at the period he has described, without feeling any sympathy with the spirit which then animated that nation. intent, however, on his travels, pressing onward to an unknown goal, he paused not to inquire as to the earnestness of the patriotic zeal of the spaniards, nor once dreamed, even for adventure, of taking a part in their heroic cause. chapter viii first acquaintance with byron--embark together--the voyage it was at gibraltar that i first fell in with lord byron. i had arrived there in the packet from england, in indifferent health, on my way to sicily. i had then no intention of travelling. i only went a trip, intending to return home after spending a few weeks in malta, sicily, and sardinia; having, before my departure, entered into the society of lincoln's inn, with the design of studying the law. at this time, my friend, the late colonel wright, of the artillery, was secretary to the governor; and during the short stay of the packet at the rock, he invited me to the hospitalities of his house, and among other civilities gave me admission to the garrison library. the day, i well remember, was exceedingly sultry. the air was sickly; and if the wind was not a sirocco, it was a withering levanter--oppressive to the functions of life, and to an invalid denying all exercise. instead of rambling over the fortifications, i was, in consequence, constrained to spend the hottest part of the day in the library; and, while sitting there, a young man came in and seated himself opposite to me at the table where i was reading. something in his appearance attracted my attention. his dress indicated a londoner of some fashion, partly by its neatness and simplicity, with just so much of a peculiarity of style as served to show, that although he belonged to the order of metropolitan beaux, he was not altogether a common one. i thought his face not unknown to me; i began to conjecture where i could have seen him; and, after an unobserved scrutiny, to speculate both as to his character and vocation. his physiognomy was prepossessing and intelligent, but ever and anon his brows lowered and gathered; a habit, as i then thought, with a degree of affectation in it, probably first assumed for picturesque effect and energetic expression; but which i afterwards discovered was undoubtedly the occasional scowl of some unpleasant reminiscence: it was certainly disagreeable--forbidding--but still the general cast of his features was impressed with elegance and character. at dinner, a large party assembled at colonel wright's; among others the countess of westmorland, with tom sheridan and his beautiful wife; and it happened that sheridan, in relating the local news of the morning, mentioned that lord byron and mr hobhouse had come in from spain, and were to proceed up the mediterranean in the packet. he was not acquainted with either. hobhouse had, a short time before i left london,, published certain translations and poems rather respectable in their way, and i had seen the work, so that his name was not altogether strange to me. byron's was familiar--the edinburgh review had made it so, and still more the satire of english bards and scotch reviewers, but i was not conscious of having seen the persons of either. on the following evening i embarked early, and soon after the two travellers came on board; in one of whom i recognised the visitor to the library, and he proved to be lord byron. in the little bustle and process of embarking their luggage, his lordship affected, as it seemed to me, more aristocracy than befitted his years, or the occasion; and i then thought of his singular scowl, and suspected him of pride and irascibility. the impression that evening was not agreeable, but it was interesting; and that forehead mark, the frown, was calculated to awaken curiosity, and beget conjectures. hobhouse, with more of the commoner, made himself one of the passengers at once; but byron held himself aloof, and sat on the rail, leaning on the mizzen shrouds, inhaling, as it were, poetical sympathy, from the gloomy rock, then dark and stern in the twilight. there was in all about him that evening much waywardness; he spoke petulantly to fletcher, his valet; and was evidently ill at ease with himself, and fretful towards others. i thought he would turn out an unsatisfactory shipmate; yet there was something redeeming in the tones of his voice, when, some time after he had indulged his sullen meditation, he again addressed fletcher; so that, instead of finding him ill-natured, i was soon convinced he was only capricious. our passage to sardinia was tardy, owing to calms; but, in other respects, pleasant. about the third day byron relented from his rapt mood, as if he felt it was out of place, and became playful, and disposed to contribute his fair proportion to the general endeavour to wile away the tediousness of the dull voyage. among other expedients for that purpose, we had recourse to shooting at bottles. byron, i think, supplied the pistols, and was the best shot, but not very pre-eminently so. in the calms, the jolly-boat was several times lowered; and, on one of those occasions, his lordship, with the captain, caught a turtle--i rather think two--we likewise hooked a shark, part of which was dressed for breakfast, and tasted, without relish; your shark is but a cannibal dainty. as we approached the gulf, or bay, of cagliari, in sardinia, a strong north wind came from the shore, and we had a whole disagreeable day of tacking, but next morning, it was sunday, we found ourselves at anchor near the mole, where we landed. byron, with the captain, rode out some distance into the country, while i walked with mr hobhouse about the town: we left our cards for the consul, and mr hill, the ambassador, who invited us to dinner. in the evening we landed again, to avail ourselves of the invitation; and, on this occasion, byron and his pylades dressed themselves as aides-de-camp--a circumstance which, at the time, did not tend to improve my estimation of the solidity of the character of either. but such is the force of habit: it appeared a less exceptionable affectation in the young peer than in the commoner. had we parted at cagliari, it is probable that i should have retained a much more favourable recollection of mr hobhouse than of lord byron; for he was a cheerful companion, full of odd and droll stories, which he told extremely well; he was also good-humoured and intelligent--altogether an advantageous specimen of a well-educated english gentleman. moreover, i was at the time afflicted with a nervous dejection, which the occasional exhilaration produced by his anecdotes and college tales often materially dissipated, though, for the most part, they were more after the manner and matter of swift than of addison. byron was, during the passage, in delicate health, and upon an abstemious regimen. he rarely tasted wine, nor more than half a glass, mingled with water, when he did. he ate little; no animal food, but only bread and vegetables. he reminded me of the ghoul that picked rice with a needle; for it was manifest, that he had not acquired his knowledge of the world by always dining so sparely. if my remembrance is not treacherous, he only spent one evening in the cabin with us--the evening before we came to anchor at cagliari; for, when the lights were placed, he made himself a man forbid, took his station on the railing between the pegs on which the sheets are belayed and the shrouds, and there, for hours, sat in silence, enamoured, it may be, of the moon. all these peculiarities, with his caprices, and something inexplicable in the cast of his metaphysics, while they served to awaken interest, contributed little to conciliate esteem. he was often strangely rapt--it may have been from his genius; and, had its grandeur and darkness been then divulged, susceptible of explanation; but, at the time, it threw, as it were, around him the sackcloth of penitence. sitting amid the shrouds and rattlins, in the tranquillity of the moonlight, churming an inarticulate melody, he seemed almost apparitional, suggesting dim reminiscences of him who shot the albatross. he was as a mystery in a winding-sheet, crowned with a halo. the influence of the incomprehensible phantasma which hovered about lord byron has been more or less felt by all who ever approached him. that he sometimes came out of the cloud, and was familiar and earthly, is true; but his dwelling was amid the murk and the mist, and the home of his spirit in the abysm of the storm, and the hiding- places of guilt. he was, at the time of which i am speaking, scarcely two-and-twenty, and could claim no higher praise than having written a clever worldly-minded satire; and yet it was impossible, even then, to reflect on the bias of his mind, as it was revealed by the casualties of conversation, without experiencing a presentiment, that he was destined to execute some singular and ominous purpose. the description he has given of manfred in his youth was of himself. my spirit walk'd not with the souls of men, nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes; the thirst of their ambition was not mine; the aim of their existence was not mine. my joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers, made me a stranger. though i wore the form, i had no sympathy with breathing flesh. my joy was in the wilderness--to breathe the difficult air of the iced mountain's top. where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge into the torrent, and to roll along on the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave of river, stream, or ocean, in their flow-- in these my early strength exulted; or to follow through the night the moving moon, the stars, and their development; or catch the dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim; or to look listening on the scatter'd leaves, while autumn winds were at their evening song;-- these were my pastimes--and to be alone. for if the beings, of whom i was one-- hating to be so--cross'd me in my path, i felt myself degraded back to them, and was all clay again. chapter ix dinner at the ambassador's--opera--disaster of byron at malta--mrs spencer smith i shall always remember cagliari with particular pleasure; for it so happened that i formed there three of the most agreeable acquaintances of my life, and one of them was with lord byron; for although we had been eight days together, i yet could not previously have accounted myself acquainted with his lordship. after dinner, we all went to the theatre, which was that evening, on account of some court festival, brilliantly illuminated. the royal family were present, and the opera was performed with more taste and execution than i had expected to meet with in so remote a place, and under the restrictions which rendered the intercourse with the continent then so difficult. among other remarkable characters pointed out to us was a nobleman in the pit, actually under the ban of outlawry for murder. i have often wondered if the incident had any effect on the creation of lara; for we know not in what small germs the conceptions of genius originate. but the most important occurrence of that evening arose from a delicate observance of etiquette on the part of the ambassador. after carrying us to his box, which was close to that of the royal family, in order that we might see the members of it properly, he retired with lord byron to another box, an inflection of manners to propriety in the best possible taste--for the ambassador was doubtless aware that his lordship's rank would be known to the audience, and i conceive that this little arrangement was adopted to make his person also known, by showing him with distinction apart from the other strangers. when the performance was over, mr hill came down with lord byron to the gate of the upper town, where his lordship, as we were taking leave, thanked him with more elocution than was precisely requisite. the style and formality of the speech amused mr hobhouse, as well as others; and, when the minister retired, he began to rally his lordship on the subject. but byron really fancied that he had acquitted himself with grace and dignity, and took the jocularity of his friend amiss--a little banter ensued--the poet became petulant, and mr hobhouse walked on; while byron, on account of his lameness, and the roughness of the pavement, took hold of my arm, appealing to me, if he could have said less, after the kind and hospitable treatment we had all received. of course, though i thought pretty much as mr hobhouse did, i could not do otherwise than civilly assent, especially as his lordship's comfort, at the moment, seemed in some degree dependent on being confirmed in the good opinion he was desirous to entertain of his own courtesy. from that night i evidently rose in his good graces; and, as he was always most agreeable and interesting when familiar, it was worth my while to advance, but by cautious circumvallations, into his intimacy; for his uncertain temper made his favour precarious. the next morning, either owing to the relaxation of his abstinence, which he could not probably well avoid amid the good things of the ambassadorial table; or, what was, perhaps, less questionable, some regret for his petulance towards his friend, he was indisposed, and did not make his appearance till late in the evening. i rather suspect, though there was no evidence of the fact, that hobhouse received any concession which he may have made with indulgence; for he remarked to me, in a tone that implied both forbearance and generosity of regard, that it was necessary to humour him like a child. but, in whatever manner the reconciliation was accomplished, the passengers partook of the blessings of the peace. byron, during the following day, as we were sailing along the picturesque shores of sicily, was in the highest spirits overflowing with glee, and sparkling with quaint sentences. the champagne was uncorked and in the finest condition. having landed the mail at girgenti, we stretched over to malta, where we arrived about noon next day--all the passengers, except orestes and pylades, being eager to land, went on shore with the captain. they remained behind for a reason--which an accidental expression of byron let out--much to my secret amusement; for i was aware they would be disappointed, and the anticipation was relishing. they expected--at least he did--a salute from the batteries, and sent ashore notice to sir alexander ball, the governor, of his arrival; but the guns were sulky, and evinced no respect of persons; so that late in the afternoon, about the heel of the evening, the two magnates were obliged to come on shore, and slip into the city unnoticed and unknown. at this time malta was in great prosperity. her commerce was flourishing; and the goodly clusters of its profits hung ripe and rich at every door. the merchants were truly hospitable, and few more so than mr chabot. as i had letters to him, he invited me to dinner, along with several other friends previously engaged. in the cool of the evening, as we were sitting at our wine, lord byron and mr hobhouse were announced. his lordship was in better spirits than i had ever seen him. his appearance showed, as he entered the room, that they had met with some adventure, and he chuckled with an inward sense of enjoyment, not altogether without spleen--a kind of malicious satisfaction--as his companion recounted with all becoming gravity their woes and sufferings, as an apology for begging a bed and morsel for the night. god forgive me! but i partook of byron's levity at the idea of personages so consequential wandering destitute in the streets, seeking for lodgings, as it were, from door to door, and rejected at all. next day, however, they were accommodated by the governor with an agreeable house in the upper part of valetta; and his lordship, as soon as they were domiciled, began to take lessons in arabic from a monk--i believe one of the librarians of the public library. his whole time was not, however, devoted to study; for he formed an acquaintance with mrs spencer smith, the lady of the gentleman of that name, who had been our resident minister at constantinople: he affected a passion for her; but it was only platonic. she, however, beguiled him of his valuable yellow diamond ring. she is the florence of childe harold, and merited the poetical embalmment, or rather the amber immortalisation, she possesses there--being herself a heroine. there was no exaggeration in saying that many incidents of her life would appear improbable in fiction. her adventures with the marquis de salvo form one of the prettiest romances in the italian language; everything in her destiny was touched with adventure: nor was it the least of her claims to sympathy that she had incurred the special enmity of napoleon. after remaining about three weeks at malta, byron embarked with his friend in a brig of war, appointed to convoy a fleet of small merchantmen to prevesa. i had, about a fortnight before, passed over with the packet on her return from messina to girgenti, and did not fall in with them again till the following spring, when we met at athens. in the meantime, besides his platonic dalliance with mrs spencer smith, byron had involved himself in a quarrel with an officer; but it was satisfactorily settled. his residence at malta did not greatly interest him. the story of its chivalrous masters made no impression on his imagination--none that appears in his works--but it is not the less probable that the remembrance of the place itself occupied a deep niche in his bosom: for i have remarked, that he had a voluntary power of forgetfulness, which, on more than one occasion, struck me as singular: and i am led in consequence to think, that something unpleasant, connected with this quarrel, may have been the cause of his suppression of all direct allusion to the island. it was impossible that his imagination could avoid the impulses of the spirit which haunts the walls and ramparts of malta; and the silence of his muse on a topic so rich in romance, and so well calculated to awaken associations concerning the knights, in unison with the ruminations of childe harold, persuades me that there must have been some specific cause for the omission. if it were nothing in the duel, i should be inclined to say, notwithstanding the seeming improbability of the notion, that it was owing to some curious modification of vindictive spite. it might not be that malta should receive no celebrity from his pen; but assuredly he had met with something there which made him resolute to forget the place. the question as to what it was, he never answered the result would throw light into the labyrinths of his character. chapter x sails from malta to prevesa--lands at patras--sails again--passes ithaca--arrival at prevesa it was on the th of september, , that byron sailed in the spider brig from malta for prevesa, and on the morning of the fourth day after, he first saw the mountains of greece; next day he landed at patras, and walked for some time among the currant grounds between the town and the shore. around him lay one of the noblest landscapes in the world, and afar in the north-east rose the purple summits of the grecian mountains. having re-embarked, the spider proceeded towards her destination; the poet not receiving much augmentation to his ideas of the grandeur of the ancients, from the magnitude of their realms and states. ithaca, which he doubtless regarded with wonder and disappointment, as he passed its cliffy shores, was then in the possession of the french. in the course of a month after, the kingdom of ulysses surrendered to a british serjeant and seven men. childe harold sail'd, and pass'd the barren spot, where sad penelope o'erlook'd the wave; and onward view'd the mount, not yet forgot. the lover's refuge, and the lesbian's grave. but when he saw the evening star above leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe, and hail'd the last resort of fruitless love, he felt, or deem'd he felt, no common glow; and as the stately vessel glided slow beneath the shadow of that ancient mount, he watch'd the billows' melancholy flow, and, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont-- more placid seem'd his eye, and smooth his pallid front. at seven in the evening, of the same day on which he passed leucadia, the vessel came to anchor off prevesa. the day was wet and gloomy, and the appearance of the town was little calculated to bespeak cheerfulness. but the novelty in the costume and appearance of the inhabitants and their dwellings, produced an immediate effect on the imagination of byron, and we can trace the vivid impression animating and adorning his descriptions. the wild albanian, kirtled to his knee, with shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, and gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see; the crimson-scarfed men of macedon; the delhi with his cap of terror on, and crooked glaive; the lively, supple greek, and swarthy nubia's mutilated son; the bearded turk, that rarely deigns to speak, master of all around, too potent to be meek. having partaken of a consecutive dinner, dish after dish, with the brother of the english consul, the travellers proceeded to visit the governor of the town: he resided within the enclosure of a fort, and they were conducted towards him by a long gallery, open on one side, and through several large unfurnished rooms. in the last of this series, the governor received them with the wonted solemn civility of the turks, and entertained them with pipes and coffee. neither his appearance, nor the style of the entertainment, were distinguished by any display of ottoman grandeur; he was seated on a sofa in the midst of a group of shabby albanian guards, who had but little reverence for the greatness of the guests, as they sat down beside them, and stared and laughed at their conversation with the governor. but if the circumstances and aspect of the place derived no importance from visible splendour, every object around was enriched with stories and classical recollections. the battle of actium was fought within the gulf. ambracia's gulf behold, where once was lost a world for woman--lovely, harmless thing! in yonder rippling bay, their naval host did many a roman chief and asian king to doubtful conflict, certain slaughter bring. look where the second caesar's trophies rose! now, like the lands that rear'd them, withering; imperial monarchs doubling human woes! god! was thy globe ordained for such to win and lose? having inspected the ruins of nicopolis, which are more remarkable for their desultory extent and scattered remnants, than for any remains of magnificence or of beauty, childe harold pass'd o'er many a mount sublime, through lands scarce noticed in historic tales. yet in famed attica such lovely dales are rarely seen; nor can fair tempe boast a charm they know not; loved parnassus fails, though classic ground and consecrated most, to match some spots that lurk within this lowering coast. in this journey he was still accompanied by mr hobhouse. they had provided themselves with a greek to serve as a dragoman. with this person they soon became dissatisfied, in consequence of their general suspicion of greek integrity, and because of the necessary influence which such an appendage acquires in the exercise of his office. he is the tongue and purse-bearer of his master; he procures him lodging, food, horses, and all conveniences; must support his dignity with the turks--a difficult task in those days for a greek--and his manifold trusts demand that he should be not only active and ingenious, but prompt and resolute. in the qualifications of this essential servant, the travellers were not fortunate--he never lost an opportunity of pilfering;--he was, however, zealous, bustling, and talkative, and withal good-humoured; and, having his mind intent on one object--making money--was never lazy nor drunken, negligent nor unprepared. on the st of october they embarked, and sailed up the gulf of salona, where they were shown into an empty barrack for lodgings. in this habitation twelve albanian soldiers and an officer were quartered, who behaved towards them with civility. on their entrance, the officer gave them pipes and coffee, and after they had dined in their own apartment, he invited them to spend the evening with him, and they condescended to partake of his hospitality. such instances as these in ordinary biography would be without interest; but when it is considered how firmly the impression of them was retained in the mind of the poet, and how intimately they entered into the substance of his reminiscences of greece, they acquire dignity, and become epochal in the history of the development of his intellectual powers. "all the albanians," says mr hobhouse, "strut very much when they walk, projecting their chests, throwing back their heads, and moving very slowly from side to side. elmas (as the officer was called) had this strut more than any man perhaps we saw afterwards; and as the sight was then quite new to us, we could not help staring at the magisterial and superlatively dignified air of a man with great holes in his elbows, and looking altogether, as to his garment, like what we call a bull-beggar." mr hobhouse describes him as a captain, but by the number of men under him, he could have been of no higher rank than serjeant. captains are centurions. after supper, the officer washed his hands with soap, inviting the travellers to do the same, for they had eaten a little with him; he did not, however, give the soap, but put it on the floor with an air so remarkable, as to induce mr hobhouse to inquire the meaning of it, and he was informed that there is a superstition in turkey against giving soap: it is thought it will wash away love. next day it rained, and the travellers were obliged to remain under shelter. the evening was again spent with the soldiers, who did their utmost to amuse them with greek and albanian songs and freaks of jocularity. in the morning of the rd of october they set out for arta, with ten horses; four for themselves and servants, four for their luggage, and two for two soldiers whom they were induced to take with them as guards. byron takes no notice of his visit to arta in childe harold; but mr hobhouse has given a minute account of the town. they met there with nothing remarkable. the remainder of the journey to joannina, the capital then of the famous ali pasha, was rendered unpleasant by the wetness of the weather; still it was impossible to pass through a country so picturesque in its features, and rendered romantic by the traditions of robberies and conflicts, without receiving impressions of that kind of imagery which constitutes the embroidery on the vestment of poetry. the first view of joannina seen in the morning light, or glittering in the setting sun, is lively and alluring. the houses, domes, and minarets, shining through gardens of orange and lemon trees and groves of cypresses; the lake, spreading its broad mirror at the foot of the town, and the mountains rising abrupt around, all combined to present a landscape new and beautiful. indeed, where may be its parallel? the lake was the acherusian, mount pindus was in sight, and the elysian fields of mythology spread in the lovely plains over which they passed in approaching the town. on entering joannina, they were appalled by a spectacle characteristic of the country. opposite a butcher's shop, they beheld hanging from the boughs of a tree a man's arm, with part of the side torn from the body. how long is it since temple bar, in the very heart of london, was adorned with the skulls of the scottish noblemen who were beheaded for their loyalty to the son and representative of their ancient kings! the object of the visit to joannina was to see ali pasha, in those days the most celebrated vizier in all the western provinces of the ottoman empire; but he was then at tepellene. the luxury of resting, however, in a capital, was not to be resisted, and they accordingly suspended their journey until they had satisfied their curiosity with an inspection of every object which merited attention. of joannina, it may be said, they were almost the discoverers, so little was known of it in england--i may say in western europe--previous to their visit. the palace and establishment of ali pasha were of regal splendour, combining with oriental pomp the elegance of the occident, and the travellers were treated by the vizier's officers with all the courtesy due to the rank of lord byron, and every facility was afforded them to prosecute their journey. the weather, however--the season being far advanced--was wet and unsettled, and they suffered more fatigue and annoyance than travellers for information or pleasure should have had to encounter. the journey from joannina to zitza is among the happiest sketches in the pilgrimage of childe harold. he pass'd bleak pindus, acherusia's lake, and left the primal city of the land, and onwards did his farther journey take to greet albania's chief, whose dread command is lawless law; for with a bloody hand he sways a nation, turbulent and bold: yet here and there some daring mountain-band disdain his power, and from their rocky hold hurl their defiance far, nor yield unless to gold. monastic zitza! from thy shady brow, thou small, but favour'd spot of holy ground! where'er we gaze, above, around, below, what rainbow tints, what magic charms are found; rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound; and bluest skies that harmonize the whole. beneath, the distant torrent's rushing sound tells where the volumed cataract doth roll between those hanging rocks that shock yet please the soul. in the course of this journey the poet happened to be alone with his guides, when they lost their way during a tremendous thunderstorm, and he has commemorated the circumstance in the spirited stanzas beginning-- chill and mink is the nightly blast. chapter xi halt at zitza--the river acheron--greek wine--a greek chariot-- arrival at tepellene--the vizier's palace the travellers, on their arrival at zitza, went to the monastery to solicit accommodation; and after some parley with one of the monks, through a small grating in a door plated with iron, on which marks of violence were visible, and which, before the country had been tranquillised under the vigorous dominion of ali pasha, had been frequently battered in vain by the robbers who then infested the neighbourhood. the prior, a meek and lowly man, entertained them in a warm chamber with grapes and a pleasant white wine, not trodden out by the feet, as he informed them, but expressed by the hand. to this gentle and kind host byron alludes in his description of "monastic zitza." amid the grove that crowns yon tufted hill, which, were it not for many a mountain nigh rising in lofty ranks, and loftier still, might well itself be deem'd of dignity; the convent's white walls glisten fair on high: here dwells the caloyer, nor rude is he, nor niggard of his cheer; the passer-by is welcome still; nor heedless will he flee from hence, if he delight kind nature's sheen to see. having halted a night at zitza, the travellers proceeded on their journey next morning, by a road which led through the vineyards around the villages, and the view from a barren hill, which they were obliged to cross, is described with some of the most forcible touches of the poet's pencil. dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight, nature's volcanic amphitheatre, chimera's alps, extend from left to right; beneath, a living valley seems to stir. flocks play, trees wave, streams flow, the mountain fir nodding above; behold black acheron! once consecrated to the sepulchre. pluto! if this be hell i look upon, close shamed elysium's gates; my shade shall seek for none! the acheron, which they crossed in this route, is now called the kalamas, a considerable stream, as large as the avon at bath but towards the evening they had some cause to think the acheron had not lost all its original horror; for a dreadful thunderstorm came on, accompanied with deluges of rain, which more than once nearly carried away their luggage and horses. byron himself does not notice this incident in childe harold, nor even the adventure more terrific which he met with alone in similar circumstances on the night before their arrival at zitza, when his guides lost their way in the defiles of the mountains--adventures sufficiently disagreeable in the advent, but full of poesy in the remembrance. the first halt, after leaving zitza, was at the little village of mosure, where they were lodged in a miserable cabin, the residence of a poor priest, who treated them with all the kindness his humble means afforded. from this place they proceeded next morning through a wild and savage country, interspersed with vineyards, to delvinaki, where it would seem they first met with genuine greek wine, that is, wine mixed with resin and lime--a more odious draught at the first taste than any drug the apothecary mixes. considering how much of allegory entered into the composition of the greek mythology, it is probable that in representing the infant bacchus holding a pine, the ancient sculptors intended an impersonation of the circumstance of resin being employed to preserve new wine. the travellers were now in albania, the native region of ali pasha, whom they expected to find at libokavo; but on entering the town, they were informed that he was further up the country at tepellene, or tepalen, his native place. in their route from libokavo to tepalen they met with no adventure, nor did they visit argyro-castro, which they saw some nine or ten miles off--a large city, supposed to contain about twenty thousand inhabitants, chiefly turks. when they reached cezarades, a distance of not more than nine miles, which had taken them five hours to travel, they were agreeably accommodated for the night in a neat cottage; and the albanian landlord, in whose demeanour they could discern none of that cringing, downcast, sinister look which marked the degraded greek, received them with a hearty welcome. next morning they resumed their journey, and halted one night more before they reached tepellene, in approaching which they met a carriage, not inelegantly constructed after the german fashion, with a man on the box driving four-in-hand, and two albanian soldiers standing on the footboard behind. they were floundering on at a trot through mud and mire, boldly regardless of danger; but it seemed to the english eyes of the travellers impossible that such a vehicle should ever be able to reach libokavo, to which it was bound. in due time they crossed the river laos, or voioutza, which was then full, and appeared both to byron and his friend as broad as the thames at westminster; after crossing it on a stone bridge, they came in sight of tepellene, when the sun had sunk behind vast tomerit, and laos, wide and fierce, came roaring by; the shades of wonted night were gathering yet, when down the steep banks, winding warily, childe harold saw, like meteors in the sky, the glittering minarets of tepalen, whose walls o'erlook the stream; and drawing nigh, he heard the busy hum of warrior-men swelling the breeze that sigh'd along the lengthening glen. on their arrival, they proceeded at once to the residence of ali pasha, an extensive rude pile, where they witnessed a scene, not dissimilar to that which they might, perhaps, have beheld some hundred years ago, in the castle-yard of a great feudal baron. soldiers, with their arms piled against the wall, were assembled in different parts of the court, several horses, completely caparisoned, were led about, others were neighing under the hands of the grooms; and for the feast of the night, armed cooks were busy dressing kids and sheep. the scene is described with the poet's liveliest pencil. richly caparison'd a ready row of armed horse, and many a warlike store, circled the wide extending court below; above, strange groups adorn'd the corridor, and ofttimes through the area's echoing door, some high-capp'd tartar spurr'd his steed away. the turk, the greek, the albanian, and the moor here mingled in their many-hued array, while the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day. some recline in groups, scanning the motley scene that varies round. there some grave moslem to devotion stoops, and some that smoke, and some that play, are found. here the albanian proudly treads the ground half-whispering, there the greek is heard to prate. hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound; the muezzin's call doth shake the minaret. "there is no god but god!--to prayer--lo, god is great!" the peculiar quietness and ease with which the mahommedans say their prayers, struck the travellers as one of the most peculiar characteristics which they had yet witnessed of that people. some of the graver sort began their devotions in the places where they were sitting, undisturbed and unnoticed by those around them who were otherwise engaged. the prayers last about ten minutes they are not uttered aloud, but generally in a low voice, sometimes with only a motion of the lips; and, whether performed in the public street or in a room, attract no attention from the bystanders. of more than a hundred of the guards in the gallery of the vizier's mansion at tepellene, not more than five or six were seen at prayers. the albanians are not reckoned strict mahommedans; but no turk, however irreligious himself, ever disturbs the devotion of others. it was then the fast of ramazan, and the travellers, during the night, were annoyed with the perpetual noise of the carousal kept up in the gallery, and by the drum, and the occasional voice of the muezzin. just at this season, ramazani's fast through the long day its penance did maintain: but when the lingering twilight hour was past, revel and feast assumed the rule again. now all was bustle, and the menial train prepared and spread the plenteous board within; the vacant gallery now seem'd made in vain, but from the chambers came the mingling din, and page and slave, anon, were passing out and in. chapter xii audience appointed with ali pasha--description of the vizier's person--an audience of the vizier of the morea the progress of no other poet's mind can be to clearly traced to personal experience as that of byron's. the minute details in the pilgrimage of childe harold are the observations of an actual traveller. had they been given in prose, they could not have been less imbued with fiction. from this fidelity they possess a value equal to the excellence of the poetry, and ensure for themselves an interest as lasting as it is intense. when the manners and customs of the inhabitants shall have been changed by time and the vicissitudes of society, the scenery and the mountains will bear testimony to the accuracy of lord byron's descriptions. the day after the travellers' arrival at tepellene was fixed by the vizier for their first audience; and about noon, the time appointed, an officer of the palace with a white wand announced to them that his highness was ready to receive them, and accordingly they proceeded from their own apartment, accompanied by the secretary of the vizier, and attended by their own dragoman. the usher of the white rod led the way, and conducted them through a suite of meanly-furnished apartments to the presence chamber. ali when they entered was standing, a courtesy of marked distinction from a turk. as they advanced towards him, he seated himself, and requested them to sit near him. the room was spacious and handsomely fitted up, surrounded by that species of continued sofa which the upholsterers call a divan, covered with richly-embroidered velvet; in the middle of the floor was a large marble basin, in which a fountain was playing. in marble-paved pavilion, where a spring of living water from the centre rose, whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling, and soft voluptuous couches breathed repose, ali reclined; a man of war and woes. yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace, while gentleness her milder radiance throws along that aged, venerable face, the deeds that lurk beneath and stain him with disgrace. it is not that yon hoary, lengthening beard, ill suits the passions that belong to youth; love conquers age--so hafiz hath averr'd: so sings the teian, and he sings in sooth-- but crimes that scorn the tender voice of ruth, beseeming all men ill, but most the man in years, have mark'd him with a tiger's tooth; blood follows blood, and through their mortal span, in bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began. when this was written ali pasha was still living; but the prediction which it implies was soon after verified, and he closed his stern and energetic life with a catastrophe worthy of its guilt and bravery. he voluntarily perished by firing a powder-magazine, when surrounded, beyond all chance of escape, by the troops of the sultan his master, whose authority he had long contemned. mr hobhouse describes him at this audience as a short fat man, about five feet five inches in height; with a very pleasing face, fair and round; and blue fair eyes, not settled into a turkish gravity. his beard was long and hoary, and such a one as any other turk would have been proud of; nevertheless, he, who was more occupied in attending to his guests than himself, neither gazed at it, smelt it, nor stroked it, according to the custom of his countrymen, when they seek to fill up the pauses in conversation. he was not dressed with the usual magnificence of dignitaries of his degree, except that his high turban, composed of many small rolls, was of golden muslin, and his yataghan studded with diamonds. he was civil and urbane in the entertainment of his guests, and requested them to consider themselves as his children. it was on this occasion he told lord byron, that he discovered his noble blood by the smallness of his hands and ears: a remark which has become proverbial, and is acknowledged not to be without truth in the evidence of pedigree. the ceremonies on such visits are similar all over turkey, among personages of the same rank; and as lord byron has not described in verse the details of what took place with him, it will not be altogether obtrusive here to recapitulate what happened to myself during a visit to velhi pasha, the son of ali: he was then vizier of the morea, and residing at tripolizza. in the afternoon, about four o'clock, i set out for the seraglio with dr teriano, the vizier's physician, and the vizier's italian secretary. the gate of the palace was not unlike the entrance to some of the closes in edinburgh, and the court within reminded me of smithfield, in london; but it was not surrounded by such lofty buildings, nor in any degree of comparison so well constructed. we ascended a ruinous staircase, which led to an open gallery, where three or four hundred of the vizier's albanian guards were lounging. in an antechamber, which opened from the gallery, a number of officers were smoking, and in the middle, on the floor, two old turks were seriously engaged at chess. my name being sent in to the vizier, a guard of ceremony was called, and after they had arranged themselves in the presence chamber, i was admitted. the doctor and the secretary having, in the meantime, taken off their shoes, accompanied me in to act as interpreters. the presence chamber was about forty feet square, showy and handsome: round the walls were placed sofas, which, from being covered with scarlet, reminded me of the woolsacks in the house of lords. in the farthest corner of the room, elevated on a crimson velvet cushion, sat the vizier, wrapped in a superb pelisse: on his head was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger, incrusted with jewels, and on the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire as large as the knob on the stopper of a vinegar-cruet, and which was said to have cost two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. in his left hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he twisted backwards and forwards during the greater part of the visit. on the sofa beside him lay a pair of richly-ornamented london-made pistols. at some distance, on the same sofa, but not on a cushion, sat memet, the pasha of napoli romania, whose son was contracted in marriage to the vizier's daughter. on the floor, at the foot of this pasha, and opposite to the vizier, a secretary was writing despatches. these were the only persons in the room who had the honour of being seated; for, according to the etiquette of this viceregal court, those who received the vizier's pay were not allowed to sit down in his presence. on my entrance, his highness motioned to me to sit beside him, and through the medium of the interpreters began with some commonplace courtly insignificancies, as a prelude to more interesting conversation. in his manners i found him free and affable, with a considerable tincture of humour and drollery. among other questions, he inquired if i had a wife: and being answered in the negative, he replied to me himself in italian, that i was a happy man, for he found his very troublesome: considering their probable number, this was not unlikely. pipes and coffee were in the mean-time served. the pipe presented to the vizier was at least twelve feet long; the mouth-piece was formed of a single block of amber, about the size of an ordinary cucumber, and fastened to the shaft by a broad hoop of gold, decorated with jewels. while the pipes and coffee were distributing, a musical clock, which stood in a niche, began to play, and continued doing so until this ceremony was over. the coffee was literally a drop of dregs in a very small china cup, placed in a golden socket. his highness was served with his coffee by pasha bey, his generalissimo, a giant, with the tall crown of a dun-coloured beaver-hat on his head. in returning the cup to him, the vizier elegantly eructed in his face. after the regale of the pipes and coffee, the attendants withdrew, and his highness began a kind of political discussion, in which, though making use of an interpreter, he managed to convey his questions with delicacy and address. on my rising to retire, his highness informed me, with more polite condescension than a christian of a thousandth part of his authority would have done, that during my stay at tripolizza horses were at my command, and guards who would accompany me to any part of the country i might choose to visit. next morning, he sent a complimentary message, importing, that he had ordered dinner to be prepared at the doctor's for me and two of his officers. the two officers were lively fellows; one of them in particular seemed to have acquired, by instinct, a large share of the ease and politeness of christendom. the dinner surpassed all count and reckoning, dish followed dish, till i began to fancy that the cook either expected i would honour his highness's entertainment as caesar did the supper of cicero, or supposed that the party were not finite beings. during the course of this amazing service, the principal singers and musicians of the seraglio arrived, and sung and played several pieces of very sweet turkish music. among others was a song composed by the late unfortunate sultan selim, the air of which was pleasingly simple and pathetic. i had heard of the sultan's poetry before, a small collection of which has been printed. it is said to be interesting and tender, consisting chiefly of little sonnets, written after he was deposed; in which he contrasts the tranquillity of his retirement with the perils and anxieties of his former grandeur. after the songs, the servants of the officers, who were albanians, danced a macedonian reel, in which they exhibited several furious specimens of highland agility. the officers then took their leave, and i went to bed, equally gratified by the hospitality of the vizier and the incidents of the entertainment. chapter xiii the effect of ali pasha's character on lord byron--sketch of the career of ali, and the perseverance with which he pursued the objects of his ambition although many traits and lineaments of lord byron's own character may be traced in the portraits of his heroes, i have yet often thought that ali pasha was the model from which he drew several of their most remarkable features; and on this account it may be expedient to give a sketch of that bold and stern personage--if i am correct in my conjecture--and the reader can judge for himself when the picture is before him--it would be a great defect, according to the plan of this work, not to do so. ali pasha was born at tepellene, about the year . his father was a pasha of two tails, but possessed of little influence. at his death ali succeeded to no inheritance but the house in which he was born; and it was his boast, in the plenitude of his power, that he began his fortune with sixty paras, about eighteen pence sterling, and a musket. at that time the country was much infested with cattle-stealers, and the flocks and herds of the neighbouring villages were often plundered. ali collected a few followers from among the retainers of his father, made himself master, first of one village, then of another, amassed money, increased his power, and at last found himself at the head of a considerable body of albanians, whom he paid by plunder; for he was then only a great robber--the rob roy of albania: in a word, one of those independent freebooters who divide among themselves so much of the riches and revenues of the ottoman dominions. in following up this career, he met with many adventures and reverses, but his course was still onwards, and uniformly distinguished by enterprise and cruelty. his enemies expected no mercy when vanquished in the field; and when accidentally seized in private, they were treated with equal rigour. it is reported that he even roasted alive on spits some of his most distinguished adversaries. when he had collected money enough, he bought a pashalic; and being invested with that dignity, he became still more eager to enlarge his possessions. he continued in constant war with the neighbouring pashas; and cultivating, by adroit agents, the most influential interest at constantinople, he finally obtained possession of joannina, and was confirmed pasha of the territory attached to it, by an imperial firman. he then went to war with the pashas of arta, of delvino, and of ocrida, whom he subdued, together with that of triccala, and established a predominant influence over the agas of thessaly. the pasha of vallona he poisoned in a bath at sophia; and strengthened his power by marrying his two sons, mouctar and velhi, to the daughters of the successor and brother of the man whom he had murdered. in the bride of abydos, lord byron describes the assassination, but applies it to another party. reclined and feverish in the bath, he, when the hunter's sport was up, but little deem'd a brother's wrath to quench his thirst had such a cup: the bowl a bribed attendant bore-- he drank one draught, nor needed more. during this progression of his fortunes, he had been more than once called upon to furnish his quota of troops to the imperial armies, and had served at their head with distinction against the russians. he knew his countrymen, however, too well ever to trust himself at constantinople. it was reported that he had frequently been offered some of the highest offices in the empire, but he always declined them and sought for power only among the fastnesses of his native region. stories of the skill and courage with which he counteracted several machinations to procure his head were current and popular throughout the country, and among the greeks in general he was certainly regarded as inferior only to the grand vizier himself. but though distrusting and distrusted, he always in the field fought for the sultan with great bravery, particularly against the famous rebel paswan oglou. on his return from that war in , he was, in consequence, made a pasha of three tails, or vizier, and was more than once offered the ultimate dignity of grand vizier, but he still declined all the honours of the metropolis. the object of his ambition was not temporary power, but to found a kingdom. he procured, however, pashalics for his two sons, the younger of whom, velhi, saved sufficient money in his first government to buy the pashalic of the morea, with the dignity of vizier, for which he paid seventy-five thousand pounds sterling. his eldest son, mouctar, was of a more warlike turn, with less ambition than his brother. at the epoch of which i am speaking, he supplied his father's place at the head of the albanians in the armies of the sultan, in which he greatly distinguished himself in the campaign of against the russians. the difficulties which ali pasha had to encounter in establishing his ascendancy, did not arise so much from the opposition he met with from the neighbouring pashas as from the nature of the people, and of the country of which he was determined to make himself master. many of the plains and valleys which composed his dominions were occupied by inhabitants who had been always in rebellion, and were never entirely conquered by the turks, such as the chimeriotes, the sulliotes, and the nations living among the mountains adjacent to the coast of the ionian sea. besides this, the woods and hills of every part of his dominions were in a great degree possessed by formidable bands of robbers, who, recruited and protected by the villages, and commanded by chiefs as brave and as enterprising as himself, laid extensive tracts under contribution, burning and plundering regardless of his jurisdiction. against these he proceeded with the most iron severity; they were burned, hanged, beheaded, and impaled, in all parts of the country, until they were either exterminated or expelled. a short time before the arrival of lord byron at joannina, a large body of insurgents who infested the mountains between that city and triccala, were defeated and dispersed by mouctar pasha, who cut to pieces a hundred of them on the spot. these robbers had been headed by a greek priest, who, after the defeat, went to constantinople and procured a firman of protection, with which he ventured to return to joannina, where the vizier invited him to a conference, and made him a prisoner. in deference to the firman, ali confined him in prison, but used him well until a messenger could bring from constantinople a permission from the porte to authorise him to do what he pleased with the rebel. it was the arm of this man which byron beheld suspended from the bough on entering joannina. by these vigorous measures, ali pasha rendered the greater part of albania and the contiguous districts safely accessible, which were before overrun by bandits and freebooters; and consequently, by opening the country to merchants, and securing their persons and goods, not only increased his own revenues, but improved the condition of his subjects. he built bridges over the rivers, raised causeways over the marshes, opened roads, adorned the country and the towns with new buildings, and by many salutary regulations, acted the part of a just, though a merciless, prince. in private life he was no less distinguished for the same unmitigated cruelty, but he afforded many examples of strong affection. the wife of his son mouctar was a great favourite with the old man. upon paying her a visit one morning, he found her in tears. he questioned her several times as to the cause of her grief; she at last reluctantly acknowledged that it arose from the diminution of her husband's regard. he inquired if she thought he paid attention to other women; the reply was in the affirmative; and she related that a lady of the name of phrosyne, the wife of a rich jew, had beguiled her of her husband's love; for she had seen at the bath, upon the finger of phrosyne, a rich ring, which had belonged to mouctar, and which she had often in vain entreated him to give to her. ali immediately ordered the lady to be seized, and to be tied up in a sack, and cast into the lake. various versions of this tragical tale are met with in all parts of the country, and the fate of phrosyne is embodied in a ballad of touching pathos and melody. that the character of this intrepid and ruthless warrior made a deep impression on the mind of byron cannot be questioned. the scenes in which he acted were, as the poet traversed the country, everywhere around him; and his achievements, bloody, dark, and brave, had become themes of song and admiration. chapter xiv leave joannina for prevesa--land at fanari--albania--byron's character of the inhabitants having gratified their curiosity with an inspection of every object of interest at tepellene, the travellers returned joannina, where they again resided several days, partaking of the hospitality of the principal inhabitants. on the rd of november they bade it adieu, and returned to salona, on the golf of arta; where, in consequence of hearing that the inhabitants of carnia were up in arms, that numerous bands of robbers had descended from the mountains of ziccola and agrapha, and had made their appearance on the other side of the gulf, they resolved to proceed by water to prevesa, and having presented an order which they had received from ali pasha, for the use of his galliot, she was immediately fitted out to convey them. in the course of the voyage they suffered a great deal of alarm, ran some risk, and were obliged to land on the mainland of albania, in a bay called fanari, contiguous to the mountainous district of sulli. there they procured horses, and rode to volondorako, a town belonging to the vizier, by the primate of which and his highness's garrison they were received with all imaginable civility. having passed the night there, they departed in the morning, which, proving bright and beautiful, afforded them interesting views of the steep romantic environs of sulli. land of albania, where iskander rose, theme of the young, and beacon of the wise, and he his namesake whose oft-baffled foes shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprise; land of albania! let me bend mine eyes on thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men! the cross descends, thy minarets arise, and the pale crescent sparkles in the glen, through many a cypress grove within each city's ken. of the inhabitants of albania--the arnaouts or albanese--lord byron says they reminded him strongly of the highlanders of scotland, whom they undoubtedly resemble in dress, figure, and manner of living. "the very mountains seemed caledonian with a kinder climate. the kilt, though white, the spare active form, their dialect, celtic in its sound, and their hardy habits, all carried me back to morven. no nation are so detested and dreaded by their neighbours as the albanese; the greeks hardly regard them as christians, or the turks as moslems, and in fact they are a mixture of both, and sometimes neither. their habits are predatory: all are armed, and the red- shawled arnaouts, the montenegrins, chimeriotes, and gedges, are treacherous; the others differ somewhat in garb, and essentially in character. as far as my own experience goes, i can speak favourably. i was attended by two, an infidel and a mussulman, to constantinople and every other part of turkey which came within my observations, and men more faithful in peril and indefatigable in service are nowhere to be found. the infidel was named basilius, the moslem dervish tahiri; the former a man of middle age, and the latter about my own. basili was strictly charged by ali pasha in person to attend us, and dervish was one of fifty who accompanied us through the forests of acarnania, to the banks of the achelous, and onward to missolonghi. there i took him into my own service, and never had occasion to repent it until the moment of my departure. "when in , after my friend, mr hobhouse, left me for england, i was seized with a severe fever in the morea, these men saved my life by frightening away my physician, whose throat they threatened to cut if i was not cured within a given time. to this consolatory assurance of posthumous retribution, and a resolute refusal of dr romanelli's prescriptions, i attributed my recovery. i had left my last remaining english servant at athens; my dragoman was as ill as myself; and my poor arnaouts nursed me with an attention which would have done honour to civilization. "they had a variety of adventures, for the moslem, dervish, being a remarkably handsome man, was always squabbling with the husbands of athens; insomuch that four of the principal turks paid me a visit of remonstrance at the convent, on the subject of his having taken a woman to the bath--whom he had lawfully bought, however--a thing quite contrary to etiquette. "basili also was extremely gallant among his own persuasion, and had the greatest veneration for the church, mixed with the highest contempt of churchmen, whom he cuffed upon occasion in a most heterodox manner. yet he never passed a church without crossing himself; and i remember the risk he ran on entering st sophia, in stamboul, because it had once been a place of his worship. on remonstrating with him on his inconsistent proceedings, he invariably answered, 'our church is holy, our priests are thieves'; and then he crossed himself as usual, and boxed the ears of the first papas who refused to assist in any required operation, as was always found to be necessary where a priest had any influence with the cogia bashi of his village. indeed, a more abandoned race of miscreants cannot exist than the lower orders of the greek clergy. "when preparations were made for my return, my albanians were summoned to receive their pay. basili took his with an awkward show of regret at my intended departure, and marched away to his quarters with his bag of piastres. i sent for dervish, but for some time he was not to be found; at last he entered just as signor logotheti, father to the ci-devant anglo-consul of athens, and some other of my greek acquaintances, paid me a visit. dervish took the money, but on a sudden dashed it on the ground; and clasping his hands, which he raised to his forehead, rushed out of the room weeping bitterly. from that moment to the hour of my embarkation, he continued his lamentations, and all our efforts to console him only produced this answer, 'he leaves me.' signor logotheti, who never wept before for anything less than the loss of a paras, melted; the padre of the convent, my attendants, my visitors, and i verily believe that even sterne's foolish fat scullion would have left her fish-kettle to sympathise with the unaffected and unexpected sorrow of this barbarian. "for my part, when i remembered that a short time before my departure from england, a noble and most intimate associate had excused himself from taking leave of me, because he had to attend a relation 'to a milliner's,' i felt no less surprised than humiliated by the present occurrence and the past recollection. "the albanians in general (i do not mean the cultivators of the earth in the provinces, who have also that appellation, but the mountaineers) have a fine cast of countenance; and the most beautiful women i have ever beheld, in stature and in features, we saw levelling the road broken down by the torrents between delvinaki and libokavo. their manner of walking is truly theatrical, but this strut is probably the effect of the capote or cloak depending from one shoulder. their long hair reminds you of the spartans, and their courage in desultory warfare is unquestionable. though they have some cavalry among the gedges, i never saw a good arnaout horseman, but on foot they are never to be subdued." the travellers having left volondorako proceeded southward until they came near to the seaside, and passing along the shore, under a castle belonging to ali pasha, on the lofty summit of a steep rock, they at last reached nicopolis again, the ruins of which they revisited. on their arrival at prevesa, they had no choice left but that of crossing carnia, and the country being, as already mentioned, overrun with robbers, they provided themselves with a guard of thirty-seven soldiers, and procured another galliot to take them down the gulf of arta, to the place whence they were to commence their land journey. having embarked, they continued sailing with very little wind until they reached the fortress of vonitza, where they waited all night for the freshening of the morning breeze, with which they again set sail, and about four o'clock in the afternoon arrived at utraikee. at this place there was only a custom house and a barrack for troops close to each other, and surrounded, except towards the water, by a high wall. in the evening the gates were secured, and preparations made for feeding their albanian guards; a goat was killed and roasted whole, and four fires were kindled in the yard, around which the soldiers seated themselves in parties. after eating and drinking, the greater part of them assembled at the largest of the fires, and, while the travellers were themselves with the elders of the party seated on the ground, danced round the blaze to their own songs, with astonishing highland energy. childe harold at a little distance stood, and view'd, but not displeased, the revelry, nor hated harmless mirth, however rude; in sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see their barbarous, yet their not indecent glee; and as the flames along their faces gleam'd, their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free, the long wild locks that to their girdles stream'd, while thus in concert they this lay half sang, half scream'd. "i talk not of mercy, i talk not of fear; he neither must know who would serve the vizier; since the days of our prophet, the crescent ne'er saw a chief ever glorious like ali pashaw. chapter xv leave utraikee--dangerous pass in the woods--catoona--quarrel between the guard and primate of the village--makala--gouri--missolonghi-- parnassus having spent the night at utraikee, byron and his friend continued their journey southward. the reports of the state of the country induced them to take ten additional soldiers with them, as their road for the first two hours lay through dangerous passes in the forest. on approaching these places fifteen or twenty of the party walked briskly on before, and when they had gone through the pass halted until the travellers came up. in the woods two or three green spots were discovered on the road-side, and on them turkish tombstones, generally under a clump of trees, and near a well or fountain. when they had passed the forest they reached an open country, whence they sent back the ten men whom they had brought from utraikee. they then passed on to a village called catoona, where they arrived by noon. it was their intention to have proceeded farther that day, but their progress was interrupted by an affair between their albanian guard and the primate of the village. as they were looking about, while horses were collecting to carry their luggage, one of the soldiers drew his sword at the primate, the greek head magistrate; guns were cocked, and in an instant, before either lord byron or mr hobhouse could stop the affray, the primate, throwing off his shoes and cloak, fled so precipitately that he rolled down the hill and dislocated his shoulder. it was a long time before they could persuade him to return to his house, where they lodged, and when he did return he remarked that he cared comparatively little about his shoulder to the loss of a purse with fifteen sequins, which had dropped out of his pocket during the tumble. the hint was understood. catoona is inhabited by greeks only, and is a rural, well-built village. the primate's house was neatly fitted up with sofas. upon a knoll, in the middle of the village, stood a schoolhouse, and from that spot the view was very extensive. to the west are lofty mountains, ranging from north to south, near the coast; to the east a grand romantic prospect in the distance, and in the foreground a green valley, with a considerable river winding through a long line of country. they had some difficulty in procuring horses at catoona, and in consequence were detained until past eleven o'clock the next morning, and only travelled four hours that day to makala, a well-built stone village, containing about forty houses distinct from each other, and inhabited by greeks, who were a little above the condition of peasants, being engaged in pasturage and a small wool-trade. the travellers were now in carnia, where they found the inhabitants much better lodged than in the albanian villages. the house in which they slept at this place resembled those old mansions which are to be met with in the bottoms of the wiltshire downs. two green courts, one before and the other behind, were attached to it, and the whole was surrounded by a high and thick wall, which shut out the prospect, but was necessary in a country so frequently overrun by strong bands of freebooters. from makala they proceeded through the woods, and in the course of their journey passed three new-made graves, which the albanians pointing at as they rode by, said they were "robbers." in the course of the journey they had a distant view of the large town of vraikore, on the left bank of the aspro, but they did not approach it, crossing the river by a ferry to the village of gouria, where they passed the night. leaving that place in the morning, they took an easterly direction, and continued to ride across a plain of cornfields, near the banks of the river, in a rich country; sometimes over stone causeways, and between the hedges of gardens and olive-groves, until they were stopped by the sea. this was that fruitful region formerly called paracheloitis, which, according to classic allegory, was drained or torn from the river achelous, by the perseverance of hercules and presented by him for a nuptial present to the daughter of oeneus. the water at which they had now arrived was rather a salt marsh than the sea, a shallow bay stretching from the mouth of the gulf of lepanto into the land for several miles. having dismissed their horses, they passed over in boats to natolico, a town which stood in the water. here they fell in with a hospitable jew, who made himself remembered by saying that he was honoured in their having partaken of his little misery. natolico, where they stayed for the night, was a well-built town; the houses of timber, chiefly of two stories, and about six hundred in number. having sent on their baggage in boats, they themselves proceeded to the town of missolonghi, so celebrated since as having suffered greatly during the recent rebellion of the greeks, but more particularly as the place where lord byron died. missolonghi is situated on the south side of the salt marsh or shallow, along the north coast of the gulf of corinth, nearly opposite to patras. it is a dull, and i should think an unwholesome place. the marsh, for miles on each side, has only from a foot to two feet of water on it, but there is a channel for boats marked out by perches. when i was there the weather was extremely wet, and i had no other opportunity of seeing the character of the adjacent country than during the intervals of the showers. it was green and pastoral, with a short skirt of cultivation along the bottom of the hills. abrupt and rapid as the foregoing sketch of the journey through albania has been, it is evident from the novelty of its circumstances that it could not be performed without leaving deep impressions on the susceptible mind of the poet. it is impossible, i think, not to allow that far more of the wildness and romantic gloom of his imagination was derived from the incidents of this tour, than from all the previous experience of his life. the scenes he visited, the characters with whom he became familiar, and above all, the chartered feelings, passions, and principles of the inhabitants, were greatly calculated to supply his mind with rare and valuable poetical materials. it is only in this respect that the details of his travels are interesting.--considered as constituting a portion of the education of his genius, they are highly curious, and serve to show how little, after all, of great invention is requisite to make interesting and magnificent poetry. from missolonghi the travellers passed over the gulf of corinth to patras, then a rude, half-ruined, open town with a fortress on the top of a hill; and on the th of december, in the afternoon, they proceeded towards corinth, but halted at vostizza, the ancient aegium, where they obtained their first view of parnassus, on the opposite side of the gulf; rising high above the other peaks of that hilly region, and capped with snow. it probably was during this first visit to vostizza that the address to parnassus was suggested. oh, thou parnassus! whom i now survey not in the frensy of a dreamer's eye, not in the fabled landscape of a lay, but soaring snow-clad through thy native sky, in the wild pomp of mountain majesty! what marvel if i thus essay to sing? the humblest of thy pilgrims passing by would gladly woo thine echoes with his string, though from thy heights no more one muse will wave her wing. oft have i dream'd of thee! whose glorious name who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore; and now i view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame that i in feeblest accents must adore. when i recount thy worshippers of yore i tremble, and can only bend the knee; nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar, but gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy in silent joy, to think at last i look on thee. chapter xvi vostizza--battle of lepanto--parnassus--livadia--cave at trophonius-- the fountains of oblivion and memory--chaeronea--thebes--athens vostizza was then a considerable town, containing between three and four thousand inhabitants, chiefly greeks. it stands on a rising ground on the peloponnesian side of the gulf of corinth. i say stands, but i know not if it has survived the war. the scenery around it will always make it delightful, while the associations connected with the achaian league, and the important events which have happened in the vicinity, will ever render the site interesting. the battle of lepanto, in which cervantes lost his hand, was fought within sight of it. what a strange thing is glory! three hundred years ago all christendom rang with the battle of lepanto, and yet it is already probable that it will only be interesting to posterity as an incident in the life of one of the private soldiers engaged in it. this is certainly no very mournful reflection to one who is of opinion that there is no permanent fame, but that which is obtained by adding to the comforts and pleasures of mankind. military transactions, after their immediate effects cease to be felt, are little productive of such a result. not that i value military virtues the less by being of this opinion; on the contrary, i am the more convinced of their excellence. burke has unguardedly said, 'that vice loses half its malignity by losing its grossness'; but public virtue ceases to be useful when it sickens at the calamities of necessary war. the moment that nations become confident of security, they give way to corruption. the evils and dangers of war seem as requisite for the preservation of public morals as the laws themselves; at least it is the melancholy moral of history, that when nations resolve to be peaceful with respect to their neighbours, they begin to be vicious with respect to themselves. but to return to the travellers. on the th of december they hired a boat with fourteen men and ten oars, and sailed to salona; thence they proceeded to crisso, and rode on to delphi, ascending the mountain on horseback, by a steep, craggy path towards the north-east. after scaling the side of parnassus for about an hour, they saw vast masses of rock, and fragments of stone, piled in a perilous manner above them, with niches and sepulchres, and relics, and remains on all sides. they visited and drank of castalia, and the prophetic font, cassotis; but still, like every other traveller, they were disappointed. parnassus is an emblem of the fortune that attends the votaries of the muses, harsh, rugged, and barren. the woods that once waved on delphi's steep have all passed away, and may now be sought in vain. a few traces of terraces may yet be discovered--here and there the stump of a column, while niches for receiving votive offerings are numerous among the cliffs, but it is a lone and dismal place; desolation sits with silence, and ruin there is so decayed as to be almost oblivion. parnassus is not so much a single mountain as the loftiest of a range; the cloven summit appears most conspicuous when seen from the south. the northern view is, however, more remarkable, for the cleft is less distinguishable, and seven lower peaks suggest, in contemplation with the summits, the fancy of so many seats of the muses. these peaks, nine in all, are the first of the hills which receive the rising sun, and the last that in the evening part with his light. from delphi the travellers proceeded towards livadia, passing in the course of the journey the confluence of the three roads where oedipus slew his father, an event with its hideous train of fatalities which could not be recollected by byron on the spot, even after the tales of guilt he had gathered in his albanian journeys, without agitating associations. at livadia they remained the greater part of three days, during which they examined with more than ordinary minuteness the cave of trophonius, and the streams of the hercyna, composed of the mingled waters of the two fountains of oblivion and memory. from livadia, after visiting the battlefield of chaeronea (the birthplace of plutarch), and also many of the almost innumerable storied and consecrated spots in the neighbourhood, the travellers proceeded to thebes--a poor town, containing about five hundred wooden houses, with two shabby mosques and four humble churches. the only thing worthy of notice in it is a public clock, to which the inhabitants direct the attention of strangers as proudly as if it were indeed one of the wonders of the world. there they still affect to show the fountain of dirce and the ruins of the house of pindar. but it is unnecessary to describe the numberless relics of the famous things of greece, which every hour, as they approached towards athens, lay more and more in their way. not that many remarkable objects met their view; yet fragments of antiquity were often seen, though many of them were probably brought far from the edifices to which they had originally belonged; not for their beauty, or on account of the veneration which the sight of them inspired, but because they would burn into better lime than the coarser rock of the hills. nevertheless, abased and returned into rudeness as all things were, the presence of greece was felt, and byron could not resist the inspirations of her genius. fair greece! sad relic of departed worth! immortal! though no more; though fallen, great; who now shall lead thy scatter'd children forth and long-accustom'd bondage uncreate? not such thy sons who whilom did await, the hopeless warriors of a willing doom, in bleak thermopylae's sepulchral strait: oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, leap from eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb! in the course of the afternoon of the day after they had left thebes, in attaining the summit of a mountain over which their road lay, the travellers beheld athens at a distance, rising loftily, crowned with the acropolis in the midst of the plain, the sea beyond, and the misty hills of egina blue in the distance. on a rugged rock rising abruptly on the right, near to the spot where this interesting vista first opened, they beheld the remains of the ancient walls of phyle, a fortress which commanded one of the passes from baeotia into attica, and famous as the retreat of the chief patriots concerned in destroying the thirty tyrants of athens. spirit of freedom! when on phyle's brow thou sat'st with thrasybulus and his train, couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now dims the green beauties of thine attic plain? not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, but every carle can lord it o'er thy land; nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, trembling beneath the scourge of turkish hand, from birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed unmann'd. such was the condition in which the poet found the country as he approached athens; and although the spirit he invoked has reanimated the dejected race he then beheld around him, the traveller who even now revisits the country will still look in vain for that lofty mien which characterises the children of liberty. the fetters of the greeks have been struck off, but the blains and excoriated marks of slavery are still conspicuous upon them; the sinister eye, the fawning voice, the skulking, crouching, base demeanour, time and many conflicts only can efface. the first view of the city was fleeting and unsatisfactory; as the travellers descended from the mountains the windings of the road among the hills shut it out. having passed the village of casha, they at last entered upon the slope, and thence into the plain of attica but the intervening heights and the trees kept the town concealed, till a turn of the path brought it full again before them; the acropolis crowned with the ruins of the parthenon--the museum hill--and the monument of philopappus-- ancient of days--august athena! where, where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? gone--glimmering through the dreams of things that were: first in the race that led to glory's goal, they won, and pass'd away:--is this the whole? a schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour! the warrior's weapon, and the sophist's stole are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power. chapter xvii athens--byron's character of the modern athenians--visit to eleusis-- visit to the caverns at vary and keratea--lost in the labyrinths of the latter it has been justly remarked, that were there no other vestiges of the ancient world in existence than those to be seen at athens, they are still sufficient of themselves to justify the admiration entertained for the genius of greece. it is not, however, so much on account of their magnificence as of their exquisite beauty, that the fragments obtain such idolatrous homage from the pilgrims to the shattered shrines of antiquity. but lord byron had no feeling for art, perhaps it would be more correct to say he affected none: still, athens was to him a text, a theme; and when the first rush of curiosity has been satisfied, where else can the palled fancy find such a topic. to the mere antiquary, this celebrated city cannot but long continue interesting, and to the classic enthusiast, just liberated from the cloisters of his college, the scenery and the ruins may for a season inspire delight. philosophy may there point her moral apophthegms with stronger emphasis, virtue receive new incitements to perseverance, by reflecting on the honour which still attends the memory of the ancient great, and patriotism there more pathetically deplore the inevitable effects of individual corruption on public glory; but to the man who seeks a solace from misfortune, or is "a- weary of the sun"; how wretched, how solitary, how empty is athens! yet to the remnants of thy splendour past shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied throng; long shall the voyager, with th' ionian blast, hail the bright clime of battle and of song; long shall thy annals and immortal tongue fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore; boast of the aged! lesson of the young! which sages venerate and bards adore, as pallas and the muse unveil their awful lore! of the existing race of athenians byron has observed, that they are remarkable for their cunning: "among the various foreigners resident in athens there was never a difference of opinion in their estimate of the greek character, though on all other topics they disputed with great acrimony. m. fauvel, the french consul, who has passed thirty years at athens, frequently declared in my hearing, that the greeks do not deserve to be emancipated, reasoning on the ground of their national and individual depravity--while he forgot that such depravity is to be attributed to causes which can only be removed by the measures he reprobates. "m. roque, a french merchant of respectability long settled in athens, asserted with the most amusing gravity, 'sir, they are the same canaille that existed in the days of themistocles.' the ancients banished themistocles; the moderns cheat monsieur roque: thus great men have ever been treated. "in short, all the franks who are fixtures, and most of the englishmen, germans, danes, etc., of passage, came over by degrees to their opinion, on much the same grounds that a turk in england would condemn the nation by wholesale, because he was wronged by his lackey and overcharged by his washerwoman. certainly, it was not a little staggering when the sieurs fauvel and lusieri, the two greatest demagogues of the day, who divide between them the power of pericles and the popularity of cleon, and puzzle the poor waywode with perpetual differences, agreed in the utter condemnation of the greeks in general, and of the athenians in particular." i have quoted his lordship thus particularly because after his arrival at athens he laid down his pen. childe harold there disappears. whether he had written the pilgrimage up to that point at athens i have not been able to ascertain; while i am inclined to think it was so, as i recollect he told me there that he had then described or was describing the reception he had met with at tepellene from ali pasha. after having halted some time at athens, where they established their headquarters, the travellers, when they had inspected the principal antiquities of the city (those things which all travellers must visit), made several excursions into the environs, and among other places went to eleusis. on the th of january they mounted earlier than usual, and set out on that road which has the site of the academy and the colonos, the retreat of oedipus during his banishment, a little to the right; they then entered the olive groves, crossed the cephessus, and came to an open, well-cultivated plain, extending on the left to the piraeus and the sea. having ascended by a gentle acclivity through a pass, at the distance of eight or ten miles from athens, the ancient corydallus, now called daphnerouni, they came, at the bottom of a piney mountain, to the little monastery of daphne, the appearance and situation of which are in agreeable unison. the monastery was then fast verging into that state of the uninhabitable picturesque so much admired by young damsels and artists of a romantic vein. the pines on the adjacent mountains hiss as they ever wave their boughs, and somehow, such is the lonely aspect of the place, that their hissing may be imagined to breathe satire against the pretensions of human vanity. after passing through the hollow valley in which this monastic habitation is situated, the road sharply turns round an elbow of the mountain, and the eleusinian plain opens immediately in front. it is, however, for a plain, but of small dimensions. on the left is the island of salamis, and the straits where the battle was fought; but neither of it nor of the mysteries for which the temple of ceres was for so many ages celebrated, has the poet given us description or suggestion; and yet few topics among all his wild and wonderful subjects were so likely to have furnished such "ample room, and verge enough" to his fancy. the next excursion in any degree interesting, if a qualification of that kind can be applied to excursions, in attica, was to cape colonna. crossing the bed of the ilissus and keeping nearer to mount hymettus, the travellers arrived at vary, a farm belonging to the monastery of agios asomatos, and under the charge of a caloyer. here they stopped for the night, and being furnished with lights, and attended by the caloyer's servant as a guide, they proceeded to inspect the paneum, or sculptured cavern in that neighbourhood, into which they descended. having satisfied their curiosity there, they proceeded, in the morning, to keratea, a small town containing about two hundred and fifty houses, chiefly inhabited by rural albanians. the wetness of the weather obliged them to remain several days at keratea, during which they took the opportunity of a few hours of sunshine to ascend the mountain of parne in quest of a cave of which many wonderful things were reported in the country. having found the entrance, kindled their pine torches, and taken a supply of strips of the same wood, they let themselves down through a narrow aperture; creeping still farther down, they came into what seemed a large subterranean hall, arched as it were with high cupolas of crystal, and divided into long aisles by columns of glittering spar, in some parts spread into wide horizontal chambers, in others terminated by the dark mouths of deep and steep abysses receding into the interior of the mountain. the travellers wandered from one grotto to another until they came to a fountain of pure water, by the side of which they lingered some time, till, observing that their torches were wasting, they resolved to return; but after exploring the labyrinth for a few minutes, they found themselves again close beside this mysterious spring. it was not without reason they then became alarmed, for the guide confessed with trepidation that he had forgotten the intricacies of the cave, and knew not how to recover the outlet. byron often described this adventure with spirit and humour, magnifying both his own and his friend's terrors; and though, of course, there was caricature in both, yet the distinction was characteristic. mr hobhouse, being of a more solid disposition naturally, could discern nothing but a grave cause for dread in being thus lost in the bowels of the earth; byron, however, described his own anxiety as a species of excitement and titillation which moved him to laughter. their escape from starvation and being buried alive was truly providential. while roaming in a state of despair from cave to cell; climbing up narrow apertures; their last pine-torch fast consuming; totally ignorant of their position, and all around darkness, they discovered, as it were by accident, a ray of light gleaming towards them; they hastened towards it, and arrived at the mouth of the cave. although the poet has not made any use of this incident in description, the actual experience which it gave him of what despair is, could not but enrich his metaphysical store, and increase his knowledge of terrible feelings; of the workings of the darkest and dreadest anticipations--slow famishing death--cannibalism and the rage of self-devouring hunger. chapter xviii proceed from keratea to cape colonna--associations connected with the spot--second-hearing of the albanians--journey to marathon--effect of his adventures on the mind of the poet--return to athens--i join the travellers there--maid of athens from keratea the travellers proceeded to cape colonna, by the way of katapheke. the road was wild and rude, but the distant view of the ruins of the temple of minerva, standing on the loneliness of the promontory, would have repaid them for the trouble, had the road been even rougher. this once elegant edifice was of the doric order, a hexastyle, the columns twenty-seven feet in height. it was built entirely of white marble, and esteemed one of the finest specimens of architecture. the rocks on which the remains stand are celebrated alike by the english and the grecian muses; for it was amid them that falconer laid the scene of his shipwreck; and the unequalled description of the climate of greece, in the giaour, was probably inspired there, although the poem was written in london. it was also here, but not on this occasion, that the poet first became acquainted with the albanian belief in second-hearing, to which he alludes in the same poem: deep in whose darkly-boding ear the death-shot peal'd of murder near. "this superstition of a second-hearing," says lord byron, "fell once under my own observation. on my third journey to cape colonna, as we passed through the defile that leads from the hamlet between keratea and colonna, i observed dervish tahiri (one of his albanian servants) riding rather out of the path, and leaning his head upon his hand as if in pain. i rode up and inquired. 'we are in peril!' he answered. 'what peril? we are not now in albania, nor in the passes to ephesus, missolonghi, or lepanto; there are plenty of us well armed, and the choriotes have not courage to be thieves.'--'true, affendi; but, nevertheless, the shot is ringing in my ears.'--'the shot! not a tophaike has been fired this morning.'--'i hear it, notwithstanding-- bom--bom--as plainly as i hear your voice.'--'bah.'--'as you please, affendi; if it is written, so will it be.' "i left this quick-eared predestinarian, and rode up to basili, his christian compatriot, whose ears, though not at all prophetic, by no means relished the intelligence. we all arrived at colonna, remained some hours, and returned leisurely, saying a variety of brilliant things, in more languages than spoiled the building of babel, upon the mistaken seer; romaic, arnaout, turkish, italian, and english were all exercised, in various conceits, upon the unfortunate mussulman. while we were contemplating the beautiful prospect, dervish was occupied about the columns. i thought he was deranged into an antiquarian, and asked him if he had become a palaocastro man. 'no,' said he, 'but these pillars will be useful in making a stand' and added some remarks, which at least evinced his own belief in his troublesome faculty of fore-hearing. "on our return to athens we heard from leone (a prisoner set on shore some days after) of the intended attack of the mainotes, with the cause of its not taking place. i was at some pains to question the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other circumstances, we could not doubt of his having been in 'villainous company,' and ourselves in a bad neighbourhood. dervish became a soothsayer for life, and i dare say is now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great refreshment of the arnaouts of berat and his native mountains. "in all attica, if we except athens itself, and marathon," byron remarks, "there is no scene more interesting than cape colonna. to the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher the supposed scene of some of plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the prospect over 'isles that crown the aegean deep.' but, for an englishman, colonna has yet an additional interest in being the actual spot of falconer's shipwreck. pallas and plato are forgotten in the recollection of falconer and campbell. "there, in the dead of night, by donna's steep, the seamen's cry was heard along the deep." from the ruins of the temple the travellers returned to keratea, by the eastern coast of attica, passing through that district of country where the silver mines are situated; which, according to sir george wheler, were worked with some success about a hundred and fifty years ago. they then set out for marathon, taking rapthi in their way; where, in the lesser port, on a steep rocky island, they beheld, from a distance, the remains of a colossal statue. they did not, however, actually inspect it, but it has been visited by other travellers, who have described it to be of white marble, sedent on a pedestal. the head and arms are broken off; but when entire, it is conjectured to have been twelve feet in height. as they were passing round the shore they heard the barking of dogs, and a shout from a shepherd, and on looking round saw a large dun-coloured wolf, galloping slowly through the bushes. such incidents and circumstances, in the midst of the most romantic scenery of the world, with wild and lawless companions, and a constant sense of danger, were full of poetry, and undoubtedly contributed to the formation of the peculiar taste of byron's genius. as it has been said of salvator rosa, the painter, that he derived the characteristic savage force of his pencil from his youthful adventures with banditti; it may be added of byron, that much of his most distinguished power was the result of his adventures as a traveller in greece. his mind and memory were filled with stores of the fittest imagery, to supply becoming backgrounds and appendages, to the characters and enterprises which he afterward depicted with such truth of nature and poetical effect. after leaving rapthi, keeping mount pentilicus on the left, the travellers came in sight of the ever-celebrated plain of marathon. the evening being advanced, they passed the barrow of the athenian slain unnoticed, but next morning they examined minutely the field of battle, and fancied they had made antiquarian discoveries. in their return to athens they inspected the different objects of research and fragments of antiquity, which still attract travellers, and with the help of chandler and pausanias, endeavoured to determine the local habitation and the name of many things, of which the traditions have perished and the forms have relapsed into rock. soon after their arrival at athens, mr hobhouse left lord byron to visit the negropont, where he was absent some few days. i think he had only been back three or four when i arrived from zante. my visit to athens at that period was accidental. i had left malta with the intention of proceeding to candia, by specia, and idra; but a dreadful storm drove us up the adriatic, as far as valona; and in returning, being becalmed off the island of zante, i landed there, and allowed the ship, with my luggage, to proceed to her destination, having been advised to go on by the gulf of corinth to athens; from which place, i was informed, there would be no difficulty in recovering my trunks. in carrying this arrangement into effect, i was induced to go aside from the direct route, and to visit velhi pasha, at tripolizza, to whom i had letters. returning by argos and corinth, i crossed the isthmus, and taking the road by megara, reached athens on the th of february. in the course of this journey, i heard of two english travellers being in the city; and on reaching the convent of the propaganda, where i had been advised to take up my lodgings, the friar in charge of the house informed me of their names. next morning, mr hobhouse, having heard of my arrival, kindly called on me, and i accompanied him to lord byron, who then lodged with the widow of a greek, who had been british consul. she was, i believe, a respectable person, with several daughters; one of whom has been rendered more famous by his lordship's verses than her degree of beauty deserved. she was a pale and pensive-looking girl, with regular grecian features. whether he really cherished any sincere attachment to her i much doubt. i believe his passion was equally innocent and poetical, though he spoke of buying her from her mother. it was to this damsel that he addressed the stanzas beginning, maid of athens, ere we part, give, oh! give me back my heart. chapter xix occupation at athens--mount pentilicus--we descend into the caverns-- return to athens--a greek contract of marriage--various athenian and albanian superstitions--effect of their impression on the genius of the poet during his residence at athens, lord byron made almost daily excursions on horseback, chiefly for exercise and to see the localities of celebrated spots. he affected to have no taste for the arts, and he certainly took but little pleasure in the examination of the ruins. the marble quarry of mount pentilicus, from which the materials for the temples and principal edifices of athens are supposed to have been brought, was, in those days, one of the regular staple curiosities of greece. this quarry is a vast excavation in the side of the hill; a drapery of woodbine hangs like the festoons of a curtain over the entrance; the effect of which, seen from the outside, is really worth looking at, but not worth the trouble of riding three hours over a road of rude and rough fragments to see: the interior is like that of any other cavern. to this place i one day was induced to accompany the two travellers. we halted at a monastery close by the foot of the mountain, where we procured a guide, and ate a repast of olives and fried eggs. dr chandler says that the monks, or caloyers, of this convent are summoned to prayers by a tune which is played on a piece of an iron hoop; and, on the outside of the church, we certainly saw a piece of crooked iron suspended. when struck, it uttered a bell-like sound, by which the hour of prayer was announced. what sort of tune could be played on such an instrument the doctor has judiciously left his readers to imagine. when we reached the mouth of the grotto, by that "very bad track" which the learned personage above mentioned clambered up, we saw the ruins of the building which the doctor at first thought had been possibly a hermit's cell; but which, upon more deliberate reflection, he became of opinion "was designed, perhaps, for a sentinel to look out, and regulate, by signals, the approach of the men and teams employed in carrying marble to the city." this, we agreed, was a very sagacious conjecture. it was, indeed, highly probable that sentinels were appointed to regulate, by signals, the manoeuvres of carts coming to fetch away stones. having looked at the outside of the quarry, and the guide having lighted candles, we entered into the interior, and beheld on all sides what dr chandler saw, "chippings of marble." we then descended, consecutively, into a hole, just wide enough to let a man pass; and when we had descended far enough, we found ourselves in a cell, or cave; it might be some ten or twelve feet square. here we stopped, and, like many others who had been there before us, attempted to engrave our names. mine was without success; lord byron's was not much better; but mr hobhouse was making some progress to immortality, when the blade of his knife snapped, or shutting suddenly, cut his finger. these attempts having failed, we inscribed our initials on the ceiling with the smoke of our candles. after accomplishing this notable feat, we got as well out of the scrape as we could, and returned to athens by the village of callandris. in the evening, after dinner, as there happened to be a contract of marriage performing in the neighbourhood, we went to see the ceremony. between the contract and espousal two years are generally permitted to elapse among the greeks in the course of which the bride, according to the circumstances of her relations, prepares domestic chattels for her future family. the affections are rarely consulted on either side, for the mother of the bridegroom commonly arranges the match for her son. in this case, the choice had been evidently made according to the principle on which mrs primrose chose her wedding gown; viz. for the qualities that would wear well. for the bride was a stout household quean; her face painted with vermilion, and her person arrayed in uncouth embroidered garments. unfortunately, we were disappointed of seeing the ceremony, as it was over before we arrived. this incident led me to inquire particularly into the existing usages and customs of the athenians; and i find in the notes of my journal of the evening of that day's adventures, a memorandum of a curious practice among the athenian maidens when they become anxious to get husbands. on the first evening of the new moon, they put a little honey, a little salt, and a piece of bread on a plate, which they leave at a particular spot on the east bank of the ilissus, near the stadium, and muttering some ancient words, to the effect that fate may send them a handsome young man, return home, and long for the fulfilment of the charm. on mentioning this circumstance to the travellers, one of them informed me, that above the spot where these offerings are made, a statue of venus, according to pausanias, formerly stood. it is, therefore, highly probable that what is now a superstitious, was anciently a religious rite. at this period my fellow-passengers were full of their adventures in albania. the country was new, and the inhabitants had appeared to them a bold and singular race. in addition to the characteristic descriptions which i have extracted from lord byron's notes, as well as mr hobhouse's travels, i am indebted to them, as well as to others, for a number of memoranda obtained in conversation, which they have themselves neglected to record, but which probably became unconsciously mingled with the recollections of both; at least, i can discern traces of them in different parts of the poet's works. the albanians are a race of mountaineers, and it has been often remarked that mountaineers, more than any other people, are attached to their native land, while no other have so strong a thirst of adventure. the affection which they cherish for the scenes of their youth tends, perhaps, to excite their migratory spirit. for the motive of their adventures is to procure the means of subsisting in ease at home. this migratory humour is not, however, universal to the albanians, but applies only to those who go in quest of rural employment, and who are found in a state of servitude among even the greeks. it deserves, however, to be noticed, that with the greeks they rarely ever mix or intermarry, and that they retain both their own national dress and manners unchanged among them. several of their customs are singular. it is, for example, in vain to ask a light or any fire from the houses of the albanians after sunset, if the husband or head of the family be still afield; a custom in which there is more of police regulation than of superstition, as it interdicts a plausible pretext for entering the cottages in the obscurity of twilight, when the women are defenceless by the absence of the men. some of their usages, with respect to births, baptisms, and burials, are also curious. when the mother feels the fulness of time at hand, the priestess of lucina, the midwife, is duly summoned, and she comes bearing in her hand a tripod, better known as a three-legged stool, the uses of which are only revealed to the initiated. she is received by the matronly friends of the mother, and begins the mysteries by opening every lock and lid in the house. during this ceremony the maiden females are excluded. the rites which succeed the baptism of a child are still more recondite. four or five days after the christening, the midwife prepares, with her own mystical hands, certain savoury messes, spreads a table, and places them on it. she then departs, and all the family, leaving the door open, in silence retire to sleep. this table is covered for the miri of the child, an occult being, that is supposed to have the care of its destiny. in the course of the night, if the child is to be fortunate, the miri comes and partakes of the feast, generally in the shape of a cat; but if the miri do not come, nor taste of the food, the child is considered to have been doomed to misfortune and misery; and no doubt the treatment it afterwards receives is consonant to its evil predestination. the albanians have, like the vulgar of all countries, a species of hearth or household superstitions, distinct from their wild and imperfect religion. they imagine that mankind, after death, become voorthoolakases, and often pay visits to their friends and foes for the same reasons, and in the same way, that our own country ghosts walk abroad; and their visiting hour is, also, midnight. but the collyvillory is another sort of personage. he delights in mischief and pranks, and is, besides, a lewd and foul spirit; and, therefore, very properly detested. he is let loose on the night of the nativity, with licence for twelve nights to plague men's wives; at which time some one of the family must keep wakeful vigil all the livelong night, beside a clear and cheerful fire, otherwise this naughty imp would pour such an aqueous stream on the hearth, that fire could never be kindled there again. the albanians are also pestered with another species of malignant creatures; men and women whose gifts are followed by misfortunes, whose eyes glimpse evil, and by whose touch the most prosperous affairs are blasted. they work their malicious sorceries in the dark, collect herbs of baleful influence; by the help of which, they strike their enemies with palsy, and cattle with distemper. the males are called maissi, and the females maissa--witches and warlocks. besides these curious superstitious peculiarities, they have among them persons who pretend to know the character of approaching events by hearing sounds which resemble those that shall accompany the actual occurrence. having, however, given lord byron's account of the adventure of his servant dervish, at cape colonna, it is unnecessary to be more particular with the subject here. indeed, but for the great impression which everything about the albanians made on the mind of the poet, the insertion of these memoranda would be irrelevant. they will, however, serve to elucidate several allusions, not otherwise very clear, in those poems of which the scenes are laid in greece; and tend, in some measure, to confirm the correctness of the opinion, that his genius is much more indebted to facts and actual adventures, than to the force of his imagination. many things regarded in his most original productions, as fancies and invention, may be traced to transactions in which he was himself a spectator or an actor. the impress of experience is vivid upon them all. chapter xx local pleasures--byron's grecian poems--his departure from athens-- description of evening in "the corsair"--the opening of "the giaour"- -state of patriotic feeling then in greece--smyrna--change in lord byron's manners the genii that preside over famous places have less influence on the imagination than on the memory. the pleasures enjoyed on the spot spring from the reminiscences of reading; and the subsequent enjoyment derived from having visited celebrated scenes, comes again from the remembrance of objects seen there, and the associations connected with them. a residence at athens, day after day, is but little more interesting than in a common country town: but afterwards, in reading either of the ancient or of the modern inhabitants, it is surprising to find how much local knowledge the memory had unconsciously acquired on the spot, arising from the variety of objects to which the attention had been directed. the best of all byron's works, the most racy and original, are undoubtedly those which relate to greece; but it is only travellers who have visited the scenes that can appreciate them properly. in them his peculiar style and faculty are most eminent; in all his other productions, imitation, even mere translation may be often traced, and though, without question, everything he touched became transmuted into something more beautiful and precious, yet he was never so masterly as in describing the scenery of greece, and albanian manners. in a general estimate of his works, it may be found that he has produced as fine or finer passages than any in his grecian poems; but their excellence, either as respects his own, or the productions of others, is comparative. in the grecian poems he is only truly original; in them the excellence is all his own, and they possess the rare and distinguished quality of being as true to fact and nature, as they are brilliant in poetical expression. childe harold's pilgrimage is the most faithful descriptive poem which has been written since the odyssey; and the occasional scenes introduced into the other poems, when the action is laid in greece, are equally vivid and glowing. when i saw him at athens, the spring was still shrinking in the bud. it was not until he returned from constantinople in the following autumn, that he saw the climate and country with those delightful aspects which he has delineated with so much felicity in the giaour and the corsair. it may, however, be mentioned, that the fine description of a calm sunset, with which the third canto of the corsair opens, has always reminded me of the evening before his departure from athens, owing to the circumstance of my having, in the course of the day, visited the spot which probably suggested the scene described. it was the th of march, ; the pylades sloop of war came that morning into the piraeus, and landed dr darwin, a son of the poet, with his friend, mr galton, who had come out in her for a cruise. captain ferguson, her commander, was so kind as to offer the english then in athens, viz., lord byron, mr hobhouse, and myself, a passage to smyrna. as i had not received my luggage from specia, i could not avail myself of the offer, but the other two did: i accompanied captain ferguson, however, and dr darwin, in a walk to the straits of salamis; the ship, in the meantime, after landing them, having been moored there. it was one of those serene and cloudless days of the early spring, when the first indications of leaf and blossom may just be discerned. the islands slept, as it were, on their glassy couch, and a slight dun haze hung upon the mountains, as if they too were drowsy. after an easy walk of about two hours, passing through the olive groves, and along the bottom of the hill on which xerxes sat to view the battle, we came opposite to a little cove near the ferry, and made a signal to the ship for a boat. having gone on board and partaken of some refreshment, the boat then carried us back to the piraeus, where we landed, about an hour before sundown--all the wide landscape presenting at the time the calm and genial tranquillity which is almost experienced anew in reading these delicious lines: slow sinks more lovely e'er his race be run, along morea's hills, the setting sun not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright, but one unclouded blaze of living light. o'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws, gilds the green wave that trembles as it flows. on old egina's rock, and idra's isle, the god of gladness sheds his parting smile; o'er his own regions lingering, loves to shine, though there his altars are no more divine;-- descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss thy glorious gulf, unconquer'd salamis! their azure arches, through the long expanse, more deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance, and tenderest tints, along their summits driven, mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven; till darkly shaded from the land and deep, behind his delphian cliff he sinks to sleep. the opening of the giaour is a more general description, but the locality is distinctly marked by reference to the tomb above the rocks of the promontory, commonly said to be that of themistocles; and yet the scene included in it certainly is rather the view from cape colonna, than from the heights of munychia. no breath of air to break the wave that rolls below the athenian's grave, that tomb, which, gleaming o'er the cliff, first greets the homeward-veering skiff, high o'er the land he saved in vain-- when shall such hero live again! the environs of the piraeus were indeed, at that time, well calculated to inspire those mournful reflections with which the poet introduces the infidel's impassioned tale. the solitude, the relics, the decay, and sad uses to which the pirate and the slave-dealer had put the shores and waters so honoured by freedom, rendered a visit to the piraeus something near in feeling to a pilgrimage. such is the aspect of this shore, 'tis greece, but living greece no more! so coldly sweet, so deadly fair, we start, for soul is wanting there. hers is the loveliness in death, that parts not quite with parting breath; but beauty with that fearful bloom, that hue which haunts it to the tomb, expression's last receding ray, a gilded halo hov'ring round decay, the farewell beam of feeling past away. spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth. at that time lord byron, if he did pity the condition of the greeks, evinced very little confidence in the resurrection of the nation, even although symptoms of change and reanimation were here and there perceptible, and could not have escaped his observation. greece had indeed been so long ruined, that even her desolation was then in a state of decay. the new cycle in her fortunes had certainly not commenced, but it was manifest, by many a sign, that the course of the old was concluding, and that the whole country felt the assuring auguries of undivulged renovation. the influence of that period did not, however, penetrate the bosom of the poet; and when he first quitted athens, assuredly he cared as little about the destinies of the greeks, as he did for those of the portuguese and spaniards, when he arrived at gibraltar. about three weeks or a month after he had left athens, i went by a circuitous route to smyrna, where i found him waiting with mr hobhouse, to proceed with the salsette frigate, then ordered to constantinople, to bring away mr adair, the ambassador. he had, in the meantime, visited ephesus, and acquired some knowledge of the environs of smyrna; but he appeared to have been less interested by what he had seen there than by the adventures of his albanian tour. perhaps i did him injustice, but i thought he was also, in that short space, something changed, and not with improvement. towards mr hobhouse, he seemed less cordial, and was altogether, i should say, having no better phrase to express what i would describe, more of a captain grand than improved in his manners, and more disposed to hold his own opinion than i had ever before observed in him. i was particularly struck with this at dinner, on the day after my arrival. we dined together with a large party at the consul's, and he seemed inclined to exact a deference to his dogmas, that was more lordly than philosophical. one of the naval officers present, i think the captain of the salsette, felt, as well as others, this overweening, and announced a contrary opinion on some question connected with the politics of the late mr pitt with so much firm good sense, that lord byron was perceptibly rebuked by it, and became reserved, as if he deemed that sullenness enhanced dignity. i never in the whole course of my acquaintance saw him kithe so unfavourably as he did on that occasion. in the course of the evening, however, he condescended to thaw, and before the party broke up, his austerity began to leaf, and hide its thorns under the influence of a relenting temperament. it was, however, too evident--at least it was so to me--that without intending wrong, or any offence, the unchecked humour of his temper was, by its caprices, calculated to prevent him from ever gaining that regard to which his talents and freer moods, independently of his rank, ought to have entitled him. such men become objects of solicitude, but never of esteem. i was also on this occasion struck with another new phase in his character; he seemed to be actuated by no purpose--he spoke no more of passing "beyond aurora and the ganges," but seemed disposed to let the current of chances carry him as it might. if he had any specific object in view, it was something that made him hesitate between going home and returning to athens when he should have reached constantinople, now become the ultimate goal of his intended travels. to what cause this sudden and singular change, both in demeanour and design, was owing, i was on the point of saying, it would be fruitless to conjecture; but a letter to his mother, written a few days before my arrival at smyrna, throws some light on the sources of his unsatisfied state. he appears by it to have been disappointed of letters and remittances from his agent, and says: "when i arrive at constantinople, i shall determine whether to proceed into persia, or return--which latter i do not wish if i can avoid it. but i have no intelligence from mr h., and but one letter from yourself. i shall stand in need of remittances, whether i proceed or return. i have written to him repeatedly, that he may not plead ignorance of my situation for neglect." here is sufficient evidence that the cause of the undetermined state of his mind, which struck me so forcibly, was owing to the incertitude of his affairs at home; and it is easy to conceive that the false dignity he assumed, and which seemed so like arrogance, was the natural effect of the anxiety and embarrassment he suffered, and of the apprehension of a person of his rank being, on account of his remittances, exposed to require assistance among strangers. but as the scope of my task relates more to the history of his mind, than of his private affairs, i shall resume the narrative of his travels, in which the curiosity of the reader ought to be more legitimately interested. chapter xxi smyrna--the sport of the djerid--journey to ephesus--the dead city-- the desolate country--the ruins and obliteration of the temple--the slight impression of all on byron the passage in the pylades from athens to smyrna was performed without accident or adventure. at smyrna lord byron remained several days, and saw for the first time the turkish pastime of the djerid, a species of tournament to which he more than once alludes. i shall therefore describe the amusement. the musselim or governor, with the chief agas of the city, mounted on horses superbly caparisoned, and attended by slaves, meet, commonly on sunday morning, on their playground. each of the riders is furnished with one or two djerids, straight white sticks, a little thinner than an umbrella-stick, less at one end than at the other and about an ell in length, together with a thin cane crooked at the head. the horsemen, perhaps a hundred in number, gallop about in as narrow a space as possible, throwing the djerids at each other and shouting. each man then selects an opponent who has darted his djerid or is for the moment without a weapon, and rushes furiously towards him, screaming "olloh! olloh!" the other flies, looking behind him, and the instant the dart is launched stoops downwards as low as possible, or wields his horse with inconceivable rapidity, and picking up a djerid with his cane, or taking one from a running slave, pursues in his turn the enemy, who wheels on the instant he darts his weapon. the greatest dexterity is requisite in these mimic battles to avoid the concurrence of the "javelin-darting crowd," and to escape the random blows of the flying djerids. byron, having satisfied his curiosity with smyrna, which is so like every other turkish town as to excite but little interest, set out with mr hobhouse on the th of march, for ephesus. as i soon after passed along the same road, i shall here describe what i met with myself in the course of the journey, it being probable that the incidents were in few respects different from those which they encountered. on ascending the heights after leaving smyrna, the road was remarkable in being formed of the broken relics of ancient edifices partly macadamised. on the brow of the hill i met a numerous caravan of camels coming from the interior of asia. these ships of the desert, variously loaded, were moving slowly to their port, and it seemed to me as i rode past them, that the composed docile look of the animals possessed a sort of domesticated grace which lessened the effect of their deformity. a caravan, owing to the oriental dresses of the passengers and attendants, with the numerous grotesque circumstances which it presents to the stranger, affords an amusing spectacle. on the back of one camel three or four children were squabbling in a basket; in another cooking utensils were clattering; and from a crib on a third a young camel looked forth inquiringly on the world: a long desultory train of foot-passengers and cattle brought up the rear. on reaching the summit of the hills behind smyrna the road lies through fields and cotton-grounds, well cultivated and interspersed with country houses. after an easy ride of three or four hours i passed through the ruins of a considerable turkish town, containing four or five mosques, one of them, a handsome building, still entire; about twenty houses or so might be described as tenantable, but only a place of sepulchres could be more awful: it had been depopulated by the plague--all was silent, and the streets were matted with thick grass. in passing through an open space, which reminded me of a market-place, i heard the cuckoo with an indescribable sensation of pleasure mingled with solemnity. the sudden presence of a raven at a bridal banquet could scarcely have been a greater phantasma. proceeding briskly from this forsaken and dead city, i arrived in the course of about half an hour at a coffee-house on the banks of a small stream, where i partook of some refreshment in the shade of three or four trees, on which several storks were conjugally building their nests. while resting there, i became interested in their work, and observed, that when any of their acquaintances happened to fly past with a stick, they chattered a sort of how-d'ye-do to one another. this civility was so uniformly and reciprocally performed, that the politeness of the stork may be regarded as even less disputable than its piety. the road from that coffee-house lies for a mile or two along the side of a marshy lake, the environs of which are equally dreary and barren; an extensive plain succeeds, on which i noticed several broken columns of marble, and the evident traces of an ancient causeway, which apparently led through the water. near the extremity of the lake was another small coffee-house, with a burial-ground and a mosque near it; and about four or five miles beyond i passed a spot, to which several turks brought a coffinless corpse, and laid it on the grass while they silently dug a grave to receive it. the road then ascended the hills on the south side of the plain, of which the marshy lake was the centre, and passed through a tract of country calculated to inspire only apprehension and melancholy. not a habitation nor vestige of living man was in sight, but several cemeteries, with their dull funereal cypresses and tombstones served to show that the country had once been inhabited. just as the earliest stars began to twinkle i arrived at a third coffee-house on the roadside, with a little mosque before it, a spreading beech tree for travellers to recline under in the spring, and a rude shed for them in showers or the more intense sunshine of summer. here i rested for the night, and in the morning at daybreak resumed my journey. after a short ride i reached the borders of the plain of ephesus, across which i passed along a road rudely constructed, and raised above the marsh, consisting of broken pillars, entablatures, and inscriptions, at the end of which two other paths diverge; one strikes off to the left, and leads over the cayster by a bridge above the castle of aiasaluk--the other, leading to the right, or west, goes directly to scala nuova, the ancient neapolis. by the latter byron and his friend proceeded towards the ferry, which they crossed, and where they found the river about the size of the cam at cambridge, but more rapid and deeper. they then rode up the south bank, and about three o'clock in the afternoon arrived at aiasaluk, the miserable village which now represents the city of ephesus. having put up their beds in a mean khan, the only one in the town, they partook of some cold provisions which they had brought with them on a stone seat by the side of a fountain, on an open green near to a mosque, shaded with tall cypresses. during their repast a young turk approached the fountain, and after washing his feet and hands, mounted a flat stone, placed evidently for the purpose on the top of the wall surrounding the mosque, and devoutly said his prayers, totally regardless of their appearance and operations. the remainder of the afternoon was spent in exploring the ruins of aiasaluk, and next morning they proceeded to examine those of the castle, and the mouldering magnificence of ephesus. the remains of the celebrated temple of diana, one of the wonders of the ancient world, could not be satisfactorily traced; fragments of walls and arches, which had been plated with marble, were all they could discover, with many broken columns that had once been mighty in their altitude and strength: several fragments were fifteen feet long, and of enormous circumference. such is the condition of that superb edifice, which was, in its glory, four hundred and twenty feet long by two hundred and twenty feet broad, and adorned with more than a hundred and twenty columns sixty feet high. when the travellers had satisfied their curiosity, if that can be called satisfaction which found no entire form, but saw only the rubbish of desolation and the fragments of destruction, they returned to smyrna. the investigation of the ruins of ephesus was doubtless interesting at the time, but the visit produced no such impression on the mind of byron as might have been expected. he never directly refers to it in his works: indeed, after athens, the relics of ephesus are things but of small import, especially to an imagination which, like that of the poet, required the action of living characters to awaken its dormant sympathies. chapter xxii embarks for constantinople--touches at tenedos--visits alexandria-- trees--the trojan plain--swims the hellespont--arrival at constantinople on the th of april lord byron embarked at smyrna, in the salsette frigate for constantinople. the wind was fair during the night, and at half past six next morning, the ship was off the sygean promontory, the north end of the ancient lesbos or mitylene. having passed the headland, north of the little town of baba, she came in sight of tenedos, where she anchored, and the poet went on shore to view the island. the port was full of small craft, which in their voyage to the archipelago had put in to wait for a change of wind, and a crowd of turks belonging to these vessels were lounging about on the shore. the town was then in ruins, having been burned to the ground by a russian squadron in the year . next morning, byron, with a party of officers, left the ship to visit the ruins of alexandria troas, and landed at an open port, about six or seven miles to the south of where the salsette was at anchor. the spot near to where they disembarked was marked by several large cannon-balls of granite; for the ruins of alexandria have long supplied the fortresses of the dardanelles with these gigantic missiles. they rambled some time through the shaggy woods, with which the country is covered, and the first vestiges of antiquity which attracted their attention were two large granite sarcophagi; a little beyond they found two or three fragments of granite pillars, one of them about twenty-five feet in length, and at least five in diameter. near these they saw arches of brick-work, and on the east of them those magnificent remains, to which early travellers have given the name of the palace of priam, but which are, in fact, the ruins of ancient baths. an earthquake in the course of the preceding winter had thrown down large portions of them, and the internal divisions of the edifice were, in consequence, choked with huge masses of mural wrecks and marbles. the visitors entered the interior through a gap, and found themselves in the midst of enormous ruins, enclosed on two sides by walls, raised on arches, and by piles of ponderous fragments. the fallen blocks were of vast dimensions, and showed that no cement had been used in the construction--an evidence of their great antiquity. in the midst of this crushed magnificence stood several lofty portals and arches, pedestals of gigantic columns and broken steps and marble cornices, heaped in desolate confusion. from these baths the distance to the sea is between two and three miles--a gentle declivity covered with low woods, and partially interspersed with spots of cultivated ground. on this slope the ancient city of alexandria troas was built. on the north-west, part of the walls, to the extent of a mile, may yet be traced; the remains of a theatre are also still to be seen on the side of the hill fronting the sea, commanding a view of tenedos, lemnos, and the whole expanse of the aegean. having been conducted by the guide, whom they had brought with them from tenedos, to the principal antiquities of alexandria troas, the visitors returned to the frigate, which immediately after got under way. on the th of april she came to anchor about a mile and a half from cape janissary, the sygean promontory, where she remained about a fortnight; during which ample opportunity was afforded to inspect the plain of troy, that scene of heroism, which, for three thousand years, has attracted the attention and interested the feelings and fancy of the civilized world. whether lord byron entertained any doubt of homer's troy ever having existed, is not very clear. it is probable, from the little he says on the subject, that he took no interest in the question. for although no traveller could enter with more sensibility into the local associations of celebrated places, he yet never seemed to care much about the visible features of antiquity, and was always more inclined to indulge in reflections than to puzzle his learning with dates or dimensions. his ruminations on the troad, in don juan, afford an instance of this, and are conceived in the very spirit of childe harold. and so great names are nothing more than nominal, and love of glory's but an airy lust, too often in its fury overcoming all who would, as 'twere, identify their dust from out the wide destruction which, entombing all, leaves nothing till the coming of the just, save change. i've stood upon achilles' tomb, and heard troy doubted--time will doubt of rome. the very generations of the dead are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb, until the memory of an age is fled, and buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doom. where are the epitaphs our fathers read, save a few glean'd from the sepulchral gloom, which once named myriads, nameless, lie beneath, and lose their own in universal death? no task of curiosity can indeed be less satisfactory that the examination of the sites of ancient cities; for the guides, not content with leading the traveller to the spot, often attempt to mislead his imagination, by directing his attention to circumstances which they suppose to be evidence that verifies their traditions. thus, on the trojan plain, several objects are still shown which are described as the self-same mentioned in the iliad. the wild fig- trees, and the tomb of ilus, are yet there--if the guides may be credited. but they were seen with incredulous eyes by the poet; even the tomb of achilles appears to have been regarded by him with equal scepticism; still his description of the scene around is striking, and tinted with some of his happiest touches. there on the green and village-cotted hill is flanked by the hellespont, and by the sea, entomb'd the bravest of the brave, achilles-- they say so. bryant says the contrary. and farther downward tall and towering still is the tumulus, of whom heaven knows it may be, patroclus, ajax, or protesilaus,-- all heroes, who, if living still, would slay us. high barrows without marble or a name, a vast untill'd and mountain-skirted plain, and ida in the distance still the same, and old scamander, if 'tis he, remain; the situation seems still form'd for fame, a hundred thousand men might fight again with ease. but where i sought for ilion's walls the quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls. troops of untended horses; here and there some little hamlets, with new names uncouth, some shepherds unlike paris, led to stare a moment at the european youth, whom to the spot their schoolboy feelings bear; a turk with beads in hand and pipe in mouth, extremely taken with his own religion, are what i found there, but the devil a phrygian. it was during the time that the salsette lay off cape janissary that lord byron first undertook to swim across the hellespont. having crossed from the castle of chanak-kalessi, in a boat manned by four turks, he landed at five o'clock in the evening half a mile above the castle of chelit-bauri, where, with an officer of the frigate who accompanied him, they began their enterprise, emulous of the renown of leander. at first they swam obliquely upwards, rather towards nagara point than the dardanelles, but notwithstanding their skill and efforts they made little progress. finding it useless to struggle with { } the current, they then turned and went with the stream, still however endeavouring to cross. it was not until they had been half an hour in the water, and found themselves in the middle of the strait, about a mile and a half below the castles, that they consented to be taken into the boat, which had followed them. by that time the coldness of the water had so benumbed their limbs that they were unable to stand, and were otherwise much exhausted. the second attempt was made on the rd of may, when the weather was warmer. they entered the water at the distance of a mile and a-half above chelit-bauri, near a point of land on the western bank of the bay of maito, and swam against the stream as before, but not for so long a time. in less than half an hour they came floating down the current close to the ship, which was then anchored at the dardanelles, and in passing her steered for the bay behind the castle, which they soon succeeded in reaching, and landed about a mile and a-half below the ship. lord byron has recorded that he found the current very strong and the water cold; that some large fish passed him in the middle of the channel, and though a little chilled he was not fatigued, and performed the feat without much difficulty, but not with impunity, for by the verses in which he commemorated the exploit it appears he incurred the ague. written after swimming from sestos to abydos if in the month of dark december leander who was nightly wont (what maid will not the tale remember) to cross thy stream, broad hellespont, if when the wintry tempest roar'd he sped to hero nothing loath, and thus of old thy current pour'd, fair venus! how i pity both. for me, degenerate modern wretch, though in the genial month of may, my dripping limbs i faintly stretch, and think i've done a feat to-day. but since he crossed the rapid tide, according to the doubtful story, to woo, and--lord knows what beside, and swam for love as i for glory, 'twere hard to say who fared the best; sad mortals thus the gods still plague you; he lost his labour, i my jest-- for he was drown'd, and i've the ague. "the whole distance," says his lordship, "from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four english miles, though the actual breadth is barely one. the rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may in some measure be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other (byron) in an hour and ten minutes. the water was extremely cold from the melting of the mountain snows. about three weeks before, in april, we had made an attempt; but having ridden all the way from the troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chilliness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits as just stated, entering a considerable way above the european, and landing below the asiatic fort. chevallier says that a young jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and oliver mentions it having been done by a neapolitan; but our consul (at the dardanelles), tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. a number of the salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance and the only thing that surprised me was, that as doubts had been entertained of the truth of leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability." while the salsette lay off the dardanelles, lord byron saw the body of a man who had been executed by being cast into the sea, floating on the stream, moving to and fro with the tumbling of the water, which gave to his arms the effect of scaring away several sea-fowl that were hovering to devour. this incident he has strikingly depicted in the bride of abydos. the sea-birds shriek above the prey o'er which their hungry beaks delay, as shaken on his restless pillow, his head heaves with the heaving billow; that hand whose motion is not life, yet feebly seems to menace strife, flung by the tossing tide on high, then levell'd with the wave-- what reeks it tho' that corse shall lie within a living grave. the bird that tears that prostrate form hath only robb'd the meaner worm. the only heart, the only eye, that bled or wept to see him die, had seen those scatter'd limbs composed, and mourned above his turban stone; that heart hath burst--that eye was closed-- yea--closed before his own. between the dardanelles and constantinople no other adventure was undertaken or befel the poet. on the th of may, the frigate came to anchor at sunset, near the headland to the west of the seraglio point; and when the night closed in, the silence and the darkness were so complete "that we might have believed ourselves," says mr hobhouse, "moored in the lonely cove of some desert island, and not at the foot of a city which, from its vast extent and countless population, is fondly imagined by its present masters to be worthy to be called 'the refuge of the world.'" chapter xxiii constantinople--description--the dogs and the dead--landed at tophana--the masterless dogs--the slave market--the seraglio--the defects in the description the spot where the frigate came to anchor affords but an imperfect view of the ottoman capital. a few tall white minarets, and the domes of the great mosques only are in sight, interspersed with trees and mean masses of domestic buildings. in the distance, inland on the left, the redoubted castle of the seven towers is seen rising above the gloomy walls; and, unlike every other european city, a profound silence prevails over all. this remarkable characteristic of constantinople is owing to the very few wheel-carriages employed in the city. in other respects the view around is lively, and in fine weather quickened with innumerable objects in motion. in the calmest days the rippling in the flow of the bosphorus is like the running of a river. in the fifth canto of don juan, lord byron has seized the principal features, and delineated them with sparkling effect. the european with the asian shore, sprinkled with palaces, the ocean stream here and there studded with a seventy-four, sophia's cupola with golden gleam; the cypress groves; olympus high and hoar; the twelve isles, and the more than i could dream, far less describe, present the very view which charm'd the charming mary montague. in the morning, when his lordship left the ship, the wind blew strongly from the north-east, and the rushing current of the bosphorus dashed with great violence against the rocky projections of the shore, as the captain's boat was rowed against the stream. the wind swept down the euxine, and the wave broke foaming o'er the blue symplegades. 'tis a grand sight, from off the giant's grave, to watch the progress of those rolling seas between the bosphorus, as they lash and lave europe and asia, you being quite at ease. "the sensations produced by the state of the weather, and leaving a comfortable cabin, were," says mr hobhouse, "in unison with the impressions which we felt, when, passing under the palace of the sultans, and gazing at the gloomy cypresses, which rise above the walls, we saw two dogs gnawing a dead body." the description in the siege of corinth of the dogs devouring the dead, owes its origin to this incident of the dogs and the body under the walls of the seraglio. and he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall, hold o'er the dead their carnival. gorging and growling o'er carcase and limb, they were too busy to bark at him. from a tartar's scull they had stripp'd the flesh, as ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh, and their white tusks crunched on the whiter scull, as it slipp'd through their jaws when their edge grew dull. as they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead, when they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed. so well had they broken a lingering fast, with those who had fallen for that night's repast. and alp knew by the turbans that rolled on the sand, the foremost of these were the best of his band. crimson and green were the shawls of their wear, and each scalp had a single long tuft of hair, all the rest was shaven and bare. the scalps were in the wild dogs' maw, the hair was tangled round his jaw. but close by the shore on the edge of the gulf, there sat a vulture flapping a wolf, who had stolen from the hills but kept away, scared by the dogs from the human prey; but he seized on his share of a steed that lay, pick'd by the birds on the sands of the bay. this hideous picture is a striking instance of the uses to which imaginative power may turn the slightest hint, and of horror augmented till it reach that extreme point at which the ridiculous commences. the whole compass of english poetry affords no parallel to this passage. it even exceeds the celebrated catalogue of dreadful things on the sacramental table in tam o' shanter. it is true, that the revolting circumstances described by byron are less sublime in their associations than those of burns, being mere visible images, unconnected with ideas of guilt, and unlike the knife a father's throat had mangled, which his ain son of life bereft: the gray hairs yet stuck to the heft. nor is there in the vivid group of the vulture flapping the wolf, any accessory to rouse stronger emotions, than those which are associated with the sight of energy and courage, while the covert insinuation, that the bird is actuated by some instigation of retribution in pursuing the wolf for having run away with the bone, approaches the very point and line where the horrible merges in the ludicrous. the whole passage is fearfully distinct, and though in its circumstances, as the poet himself says, "sickening," is yet an amazing display of poetical power and high invention. the frigate sent the travellers on shore at tophana, from which the road ascends to pera. near this landing-place is a large fountain, and around it a public stand of horses ready saddled, attended by boys. on some of these lord byron and his friend, with the officers who had accompanied them, mounted and rode up the steep hill, to the principal frank hotel, in pera, where they intended to lodge. in the course of the ride their attention was attracted to the prodigious number of masterless dogs which lounge and lurk about the corners of the streets; a nuisance both dangerous and disagreeable, but which the turks not only tolerate but protect. it is no uncommon thing to see a litter of puppies with their mother nestled in a mat placed on purpose for them in a nook by some charitable mussulman of the neighbourhood; for notwithstanding their merciless military practices, the turks are pitiful-hearted titans to dumb animals and slaves. constantinople has, however, been so often and so well described, that it is unnecessary to notice its different objects of curiosity here, except in so far as they have been contributory to the stores of the poet. the slave market was of course not unvisited, but the description in don juan is more indebted to the author's fancy, than any of those other bright reflections of realities to which i have hitherto directed the attention of the reader. the market now-a-days is in truth very uninteresting; few slaves are ever to be seen in it, and the place itself has an odious resemblance to smithfield. i imagine, therefore, that the trade in slaves is chiefly managed by private bargaining. when there, i saw only two men for sale, whites, who appeared very little concerned about their destination, certainly not more than english rustics offering themselves for hire to the farmers at a fair or market. doubtless, there was a time when the slave market of constantinople presented a different spectacle, but the trade itself has undergone a change--the christians are now interdicted from purchasing slaves. the luxury of the guilt is reserved for the exclusive enjoyment of the turks. still, as a description of things which may have been, byron's market is probable and curious. a crowd of shivering slaves of every nation and age and sex were in the market ranged, each busy with the merchant in his station. poor creatures, their good looks were sadly changed. all save the blacks seem'd jaded with vexation, from friends, and home, and freedom far estranged. the negroes more philosophy displayed, used to it no doubt, as eels are to be flayed. like a backgammon board, the place was dotted with whites and blacks in groups, on show for sale, though rather more irregularly spotted; some bought the jet, while others chose the pale. no lady e'er is ogled by a lover, horse by a black-leg, broadcloth by a tailor, fee by a counsel, felon by a jailer, as is a slave by his intended bidder. 'tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures, and all are to be sold, if you consider their passions, and are dext'rous, some by features are bought up, others by a warlike leader; some by a place, as tend their years or natures; the most by ready cash, but all have prices, from crowns to kicks, according to their vices. the account of the interior of the seraglio in don juan is also only probably correct, and may have been drawn in several particulars from an inspection of some of the palaces, but the descriptions of the imperial harem are entirely fanciful. i am persuaded, by different circumstances, that byron could not have been in those sacred chambers of any of the seraglios. at the time i was in constantinople, only one of the imperial residences was accessible to strangers, and it was unfurnished. the great seraglio was not accessible beyond the courts, except in those apartments where the sultan receives his officers and visitors of state. indeed, the whole account of the customs and usages of the interior of the seraglio, as described in don juan, can only be regarded as inventions; and though the descriptions abound in picturesque beauty, they have not that air of truth and fact about them which render the pictures of byron so generally valuable, independent of their poetical excellence. in those he has given of the apartments of the men, the liveliness and fidelity of his pencil cannot be denied; but the arabian tales and vathek seem to have had more influence on his fancy in describing the imperial harem, than a knowledge of actual things and appearances. not that the latter are inferior to the former in beauty, or are without images and lineaments of graphic distinctness, but they want that air of reality which constitutes the singular excellence of his scenes drawn from nature; and there is a vagueness in them which has the effect of making them obscure, and even fantastical. indeed, except when he paints from actual models, from living persons and existing things, his superiority, at least his originality, is not so obvious; and thus it happens, that his gorgeous description of the sultan's seraglio is like a versified passage of an arabian tale, while the imagery of childe harold's visit to ali pasha has all the freshness and life of an actual scene. the following is, indeed, more like an imitation of vathek, than anything that has been seen, or is in existence. i quote it for the contrast it affords to the visit referred to, and in illustration of the distinction which should be made between beauties derived from actual scenes and adventures, and compilations from memory and imagination, which are supposed to display so much more of creative invention. and thus they parted, each by separate doors, raba led juan onward, room by room, through glittering galleries and o'er marble floors, till a gigantic portal through the gloom haughty and huge along the distance towers, and wafted far arose a rich perfume, it seem'd as though they came upon a shrine, for all was vast, still, fragrant, and divine. the giant door was broad and bright and high, of gilded bronze, and carved in curious guise; warriors thereon were battling furiously; here stalks the victor, there the vanquish'd lies; there captives led in triumph droop the eye, and in perspective many a squadron flies. it seems the work of times before the line of rome transplanted fell with constantine. this massy portal stood at the wide close of a huge hall, and on its either side two little dwarfs, the least you could suppose, were sate, like ugly imps, as if allied in mockery to the enormous gate which rose o'er them in almost pyramidic pride. chapter xxiv dispute with the ambassador--reflections on byron's pride of rank-- abandons his oriental travels--re-embarks in the "salsette"--the dagger scene--zea--returns to athens--tour in the morea--dangerous illness--return to athens--the adventure on which "the giaour" is founded although lord byron remained two months in constantinople, and visited every object of interest and curiosity within and around it, he yet brought away with him fewer poetical impressions than from any other part of the ottoman dominions; at least he has made less use in his works of what he saw and learned there, than of the materials he collected in other places. from whatever cause it arose, the self-abstraction which i had noticed at smyrna, was remarked about him while he was in the capital, and the same jealousy of his rank was so nervously awake, that it led him to attempt an obtrusion on the ambassadorial etiquettes--which he probably regretted. it has grown into a custom, at constantinople, when the foreign ministers are admitted to audiences of ceremony with the sultan, to allow the subjects and travellers of their respective nations to accompany them, both to swell the pomp of the spectacle, and to gratify their curiosity. mr adair, our ambassador, for whom the salsette had been sent, had his audience of leave appointed soon after lord byron's arrival, and his lordship was particularly anxious to occupy a station of distinction in the procession. the pretension was ridiculous in itself, and showed less acquaintance with courtly ceremonies than might have been expected in a person of his rank and intelligence. mr adair assured him that he could obtain no particular place; that in the arrangements for the ceremonial, only the persons connected with the embassy could be considered, and that the turks neither acknowledged the precedence, nor could be requested to consider the distinctions of our nobility. byron, however, still persisted, and the minister was obliged to refer him on the subject to the austrian internuncio, a high authority in questions of etiquette, whose opinion was decidedly against the pretension. the pride of rank was indeed one of the greatest weaknesses of lord byron, and everything, even of the most accidental kind, which seemed to come between the wind and his nobility, was repelled on the spot. i recollect having some debate with him once respecting a pique of etiquette, which happened between him and sir william drummond, somewhere in portugal or spain. sir william was at the time an ambassador (not, however, i believe, in the country where the incident occurred), and was on the point of taking precedence in passing from one room to another, when byron stepped in before him. the action was undoubtedly rude on the part of his lordship, even though sir william had presumed too far on his riband: to me it seemed also wrong; for, by the custom of all nations from time immemorial, ambassadors have been allowed their official rank in passing through foreign countries, while peers in the same circumstances claim no rank at all; even in our own colonies it has been doubted if they may take precedence of the legislative counsellors. but the rights of rank are best determined by the heralds, and i have only to remark, that it is almost inconceivable that such things should have so morbidly affected the sensibility of lord byron; yet they certainly did so, and even to a ridiculous degree. on one occasion, when he lodged in st james's street, i recollect him rating the footman for using a double knock in accidental thoughtlessness. these little infirmities are, however, at most only calculated to excite a smile; there is no turpitude in them, and they merit notice but as indications of the humour of character. it was his lordship's foible to overrate his rank, to grudge his deformity beyond reason, and to exaggerate the condition of his family and circumstances. but the alloy of such small vanities, his caprice and feline temper, were as vapour compared with the mass of rich and rare ore which constituted the orb and nucleus of his brilliancy. he had not been long in constantinople, when a change came over his intentions; the journey to persia was abandoned, and the dreams of india were dissolved. the particular causes which produced this change are not very apparent--but mr hobhouse was at the same time directed to return home, and perhaps that circumstance had some influence on his decision, which he communicated to his mother, informing her, that he should probably return to greece. as in that letter he alludes to his embarrassment on account of remittances, it is probable that the neglect of his agent, with respect to them, was the main cause which induced him to determine on going no farther. accordingly, on the th of july, he embarked with mr hobhouse and the ambassador on board the salsette. it was in the course of the passage to the island of zea, where he was put on shore, that one of the most emphatic incidents of his life occurred; an incident which throws a remarkable gleam into the springs and intricacies of his character--more, perhaps, than anything which has yet been mentioned. one day, as he was walking the quarter-deck, he lifted an ataghan (it might be one of the midshipmen's weapons), and unsheathing it, said, contemplating the blade, "i should like to know how a person feels after committing murder." by those who have inquiringly noticed the extraordinary cast of his metaphysical associations, this dagger- scene must be regarded as both impressive and solemn; although the wish to know how a man felt after committing murder does not imply any desire to perpetrate the crime. the feeling might be appreciated by experiencing any actual degree of guilt; for it is not the deed-- the sentiment which follows it makes the horror. but it is doing injustice to suppose the expression of such a wish dictated by desire. lord byron has been heard to express, in the eccentricity of conversation, wishes for a more intense knowledge of remorse than murder itself could give. there is, however, a wide and wild difference between the curiosity that prompts the wish to know the exactitude of any feeling or idea, and the direful passions that instigate to guilty gratifications. being landed, according to his request, with his valet, two albanians, and a tartar, on the shore of zea, it may be easily conceived that he saw the ship depart with a feeling before unfelt. it was the first time he was left companionless, and the scene around was calculated to nourish stern fancies, even though there was not much of suffering to be withstood. the landing-place in the port of zea, i recollect distinctly. the port itself is a small land-locked gulf, or, as the scottish highlander would call it, a loch. the banks are rocky and forbidding; the hills, which rise to the altitude of mountains, have, in a long course of ages, been always inhabited by a civilized people. their precipitous sides are formed into innumerable artificial terraces, the aspect of which, austere, ruinous, and ancient, produces on the mind of the stranger a sense of the presence of a greater antiquity than the sight of monuments of mere labour and art. the town stands high upon the mountain, i counted on the lower side of the road which leads to it forty-nine of those terraces at one place under me, and on the opposite hills, in several places, upwards of sixty. whether lord byron ascended to the town is doubtful. i have never heard him mention that he had; and i am inclined to think that he proceeded at once to athens by one of the boats which frequent the harbour. at athens he met an old fellow-collegian, the marquis of sligo, with whom he soon after travelled as far as corinth; the marquis turning off there for tripolizza, while byron went forward to patras, where he had some needful business to transact with the consul. he then made the tour of the morea, in the course of which he visited the vizier velhi pasha, by whom he was treated, as every other english traveller of the time was, with great distinction and hospitality. having occasion to go back to patras, he was seized by the local fever there, and reduced to death's door. on his recovery he returned to athens, where he found the marquis, with lady hester stanhope, and mr bruce, afterward so celebrated for his adventures in assisting the escape of the french general lavalette. he took possession of the apartments which i had occupied in the monastery, and made them his home during the remainder of his residence in greece; but when i returned to athens, in october, he was not there himself. i found, however, his valet, fletcher, in possession. there is no very clear account of the manner in which lord byron employed himself after his return to athens; but various intimations in his correspondence show that during the winter his pen was not idle. it would, however, be to neglect an important occurrence, not to notice that during the time when he was at athens alone, the incident which he afterwards embodied in the impassioned fragments of the giaour came to pass; and to apprise the reader that the story is founded on an adventure which happened to himself--he was, in fact, the cause of the girl being condemned, and ordered to be sewn up in a sack and thrown into the sea. one day, as he was returning from bathing in the piraeus, he met the procession going down to the shore to execute the sentence which the waywode had pronounced on the girl; and learning the object of the ceremony, and who was the victim, he immediately interfered with great resolution; for, on observing some hesitation on the part of the leader of the escort to return with him to the governor's house, he drew a pistol and threatened to shoot him on the spot. the man then turned about, and accompanied him back, when, partly by bribery and entreaty, he succeeded in obtaining a pardon for her, on condition that she was sent immediately out of the city. byron conveyed her to the monastery, and on the same night sent her off to thebes, where she found a safe asylum. with this affair, i may close his adventures in greece; for, although he remained several months subsequent at athens, he was in a great measure stationary. his health, which was never robust, was impaired by the effects of the fever, which lingered about him; perhaps, too, by the humiliating anxiety he suffered on account of the uncertainty in his remittances. but however this may have been, it was fortunate for his fame that he returned to england at the period he did, for the climate of the mediterranean was detrimental to his constitution. the heat oppressed him so much as to be positive suffering, and scarcely had he reached malta on his way home, when he was visited again with a tertian ague. chapter xxv arrival in london--mr dallas's patronage--arranges for the publication of "childe harold"--the death of mrs byron--his sorrow-- his affair with mr moore--their meeting at mr rogers's house, and friendship lord byron arrived in london about the middle of july, , having been absent a few days more than two years. the embarrassed condition in which he found his affairs sufficiently explains the dejection and uneasiness with which he was afflicted during the latter part of his residence in greece; and yet it was not such as ought to have affected him so deeply, nor have i ever been able to comprehend wherefore so much stress has been laid on his supposed friendlessness. in respect both to it and to his ravelled fortune, a great deal too much has been too often said; and the manliness of his character has suffered by the puling. his correspondence shows that he had several friends to whom he was much attached, and his disposition justifies the belief that, had he not been well persuaded the attachment was reciprocal, he would not have remained on terms of intimacy with them. and though for his rank not rich, he was still able to maintain all its suitable exhibition. the world could never regard as an object of compassion or of sympathy an english noble, whose income was enough to support his dignity among his peers, and whose poverty, however grievous to his pride, caused only the privation of extravagance. but it cannot be controverted, that there was an innate predilection in the mind of lord byron to mystify everything about himself: he was actuated by a passion to excite attention, and, like every other passion, it was often indulged at the expense of propriety. he had the infirmity of speaking, though vaguely, and in obscure hints and allusions, more of his personal concerns than is commonly deemed consistent with a correct estimate of the interest which mankind take in the cares of one another. but he lived to feel and to rue the consequences: to repent he could not, for the cause was in the very element of his nature. it was a blemish as incurable as the deformity of his foot. on his arrival in london, his relation, mr dallas, called on him, and in the course of their first brief conversation his lordship mentioned that he had written a paraphrase of horace's art of poetry, but said nothing then of childe harold, a circumstance which leads me to suspect that he offered him the slighter work first, to enjoy his surprise afterward at the greater. if so, the result answered the intent. mr dallas carried home with him the paraphrase of horace, with which he was grievously disappointed; so much so, that on meeting his lordship again in the morning, and being reluctant to speak of it as he really thought, he only expressed some surprise that his noble friend should have produced nothing else during his long absence. i can easily conceive the emphatic indifference, if my conjecture be well founded, with which lord byron must have said to him, "i have occasionally written short poems, besides a great many stanzas in spenser's measure, relative to the countries i have visited: they are not worth troubling you with, but you shall have them all with you, if you like." childe harold's pilgrimage was accordingly placed in his hands; mr dallas took it home, and was not slow in discovering its beauties, for in the course of the same evening he despatched a note to his lordship, as fair a specimen of the style of an elderly patronising gentleman as can well be imagined: "you have written," said he, "one of the most delightful poems i ever read. if i wrote this in flattery, i should deserve your contempt rather than your friendship. i have been so fascinated with childe harold, that i have not been able to lay it down; i would almost pledge my life on its advancing the reputation of your poetical powers, and on its gaining you great honour and regard, if you will do me the credit and favour of attending to my suggestions." for some reason or another, lord byron, however, felt or feigned great reluctance to publish childe harold. possibly his repugnance was dictated by diffidence, not with respect to its merits, but from a consciousness that the hero of the poem exhibited traits and resemblances of himself. it would indeed be injustice to his judgment and taste, to suppose he was not sensible of the superiority of the terse and energetic poetry which brightens and burns in every stanza of the pilgrimage, compared with the loose and sprawling lines, and dull rhythm, of the paraphrase. it is true that he alleged it had been condemned by a good critic--the only one who had previously seen it--probably mr hobhouse, who was with him during the time he was writing it; but still i cannot conceive he was so blind to excellence, as to prefer in sincerity the other composition, which was only an imitation. but the arguments of mr dallas prevailed and in due season childe harold was prepared for the press. in the meantime, while busily engaged in his literary projects with mr dallas, and in law affairs with his agent, he was suddenly summoned to newstead by the state of his mother's health: before he had reached the abbey she had breathed her last. the event deeply affected him; he had not seen her since his return, and a presentiment possessed her when they parted, that she was never to see him again. notwithstanding her violent temper and other unseemly conduct, her affection for him had been so fond and dear, that he undoubtedly returned it with unaffected sincerity; and from many casual and incidental expressions which i have heard him employ concerning her, i am persuaded that his filial love was not at any time even of an ordinary kind. during her life he might feel uneasy respecting her, apprehensive on account of her ungovernable passions and indiscretions, but the manner in which he lamented her death, clearly proves that the integrity of his affection had never been impaired. on the night after his arrival at the abbey, the waiting-woman of mrs byron, in passing the door of the room where the corpse lay, heard the sound of some one sighing heavily within, and on entering found his lordship sitting in the dark beside the bed. she remonstrated with him for so giving way to grief, when he burst into tears, and exclaimed, "i had but one friend in the world, and she is gone." of the fervency of his sorrow i do therefore think there can be no doubt; the very endeavour which he made to conceal it by indifference, was a proof of its depth and anguish, though he hazarded the strictures of the world by the indecorum of his conduct on the occasion of the funeral. having declined to follow the remains himself, he stood looking from the hall door at the procession, till the whole had moved away; and then, turning to one of the servants, the only person left, he desired him to fetch the sparring-gloves, and proceeded with him to his usual exercise. but the scene was impressive, and spoke eloquently of a grieved heart; he sparred in silence all the time, and the servant thought that he hit harder than was his habit: at last he suddenly flung away the gloves and retired to his own room. as soon as the funeral was over the publication of childe harold was resumed, but it went slowly through the press. in the meantime, an incident occurred to him which deserves to be noted--because it is one of the most remarkable in his life, and has given rise to consequences affecting his fame--with advantage. in english bards and scotch reviewers, he had alluded, with provoking pleasantry, to a meeting which had taken place at chalk farm some years before, between mr jeffrey, the edinburgh reviewer, and mr moore, without recollecting, indeed without having heard, that mr moore had explained, through the newspapers, what was alleged to have been ridiculous in the affair. this revival of the subject, especially as it called in question the truth of mr moore's statement, obliged that gentleman to demand an explanation; but lord byron, being abroad, did not receive this letter, and of course knew not of its contents, so that, on his return, mr moore was induced to address his lordship again. the correspondence which ensued is honourable to the spirit and feelings of both. mr moore, after referring to his first letter, restated the nature of the insult which the passage in the note to the poem was calculated to convey, adding, "it is now useless to speak of the steps with which it was my intention to follow up that letter, the time which has elapsed since then, though it has done away neither the injury nor the feeling of it, has, in many respects, materially altered my situation, and the only object i have now in writing to your lordship, is to preserve some consistency with that former letter, and to prove to you that the injured feeling still exists, however circumstances may compel me to be deaf to its dictates at present. when i say 'injured feeling,' let me assure your lordship that there is not a single vindictive sentiment in my mind towards you; i mean but to express that uneasiness under what i consider to be a charge of falsehood, which must haunt a man of any feeling to his grave, unless the insult be retracted, or atoned for, and which, if i did not feel, i should indeed deserve far worse than your lordship's satire could inflict upon me." and he concluded by saying, that so far from being influenced by any angry or resentful feeling, it would give him sincere pleasure if, by any satisfactory explanation, his lordship would enable him to seek the honour of being ranked among his acquaintance. the answer of lord byron was diplomatic but manly. he declared that he never received mr moore's letter, and assured him that in whatever part of the world it had reached him, he would have deemed it his duty to return and answer it in person; that he knew nothing of the advertisement to which mr moore had alluded, and consequently could not have had the slightest idea of "giving the lie" to an address which he had never seen. "when i put my name to the production," said his lordship, "which has occasioned this correspondence, i became responsible to all whom it might concern, to explain where it requires explanation, and where insufficiently or too sufficiently explicit, at all events to satisfy; my situation leaves me no choice; it rests with the injured and the angry to obtain reparation in their own way. with regard to the passage in question, you were certainly not the person towards whom i felt personally hostile: on the contrary, my whole thoughts were engrossed by one whom i had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could i foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion. you do not specify what you would wish to have done. i can neither retract nor apologize for a charge of falsehood which i never advanced." in reply, mr moore commenced by acknowledging that his lordship's letter was upon the whole as satisfactory as he could expect; and after alluding to specific circumstances in the case, concluded thus: "as your lordship does not show any wish to proceed beyond the rigid formulary of explanation, it is not for me to make any farther advances. we irishmen, in business of this kind, seldom know any medium between decided hostility and decided friendship. but as any approaches towards the latter alternative must now depend entirely on your lordship, i have only to repeat that i am satisfied with your letter." here the correspondence would probably, with most people, have been closed, but lord byron's sensibility was interested, and would not let it rest. accordingly, on the following day, he rejoined: "soon after my return to england, my friend mr hodgson apprised me that a letter for me was in his possession; but a domestic event hurrying me from london immediately after, the letter, which may most probably be your own, is still unopened in his keeping. if, on examination of the address, the similarity of the handwriting should lead to such a conclusion, it shall be opened in your presence, for the satisfaction of all parties. mr h. is at present out of town; on friday i shall see him, and request him to forward it to my address. with regard to the latter part of both your letters, until the principal point was discussed between us, i felt myself at a loss in what manner to reply. was i to anticipate friendship from one who conceived me to have charged him with falsehood? were not advances under such circumstances to be misconstrued, not perhaps by the person to whom they were addressed, but by others? in my case such a step was impracticable. if you, who conceived yourself to be the offended person, are satisfied that you had no cause for offence, it will not be difficult to convince me of it. my situation, as i have before stated, leaves me no choice. i should have felt proud of your acquaintance had it commenced under other circumstances, but it must rest with you to determine how far it may proceed after so auspicious a beginning." mr moore acknowledges that he was somewhat piqued at the manner in which his efforts towards a more friendly understanding were received, and hastened to close the correspondence by a short note, saying that his lordship had made him feel the imprudence he was guilty of in wandering from the point immediately in discussion between them. this drew immediately from lord byron the following frank and openhearted reply: "you must excuse my troubling you once more upon this very unpleasant subject. it would be a satisfaction to me, and i should think to yourself, that the unopened letter in mr hodgson's possession (supposing it to prove your own) should be returned in statu quo to the writer, particularly as you expressed yourself 'not quite easy under the manner in which i had dwelt on its miscarriage.' "a few words more and i shall not trouble you further. i felt, and still feel, very much flattered by those parts of your correspondence which held out the prospect of our becoming acquainted. if i did not meet them, in the first instance, as perhaps i ought, let the situation in which i was placed be my defence. you have now declared yourself satisfied, and on that point we are no longer at issue. if, therefore, you still retain any wish to do me the honour you hinted at, i shall be most happy to meet you when, where, and how you please, and i presume you will not attribute my saying thus much to any unworthy motive." the result was a dinner at the house of mr rogers, the amiable and celebrated author of the pleasures of memory, and the only guest besides the two adversaries was mr campbell, author of the pleasures of hope: a poetical group of four not easily to be matched, among contemporaries in any age or country. the meeting could not but be interesting, and mr moore has described the effect it had on himself with a felicitous warmth, which showed how much he enjoyed the party, and was pleased with the friendship that ensued. "among the impressions," says he, "which this meeting left on me, what i chiefly remember to have remarked was, the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice and manners, and--what was naturally not the least attraction--his marked kindness for myself. being in mourning for his mother, the colour as well of his dress as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when in repose." chapter xxvi the libel in "the scourge"--the general impression of his character-- improvement in his manners, as his merit was acknowledgement by the public--his address in management--his first speech in parliament-- the publication of "childe harold"--its reception and effect during the first winter after lord byron had returned to england, i was frequently with him. childe harold was not then published; and although the impression of his satire, english bards and scotch reviewers, was still strong upon the public, he could not well be said to have been then a celebrated character. at that time the strongest feeling by which he appeared to be actuated was indignation against a writer in a scurrilous publication, called the scourge; in which he was not only treated with unjustifiable malignity, but charged with being, as he told me himself, the illegitimate son of a murderer. i had not read the work; but the writer who could make such an absurd accusation, must have been strangely ignorant of the very circumstances from which he derived the materials of his own libel. when lord byron mentioned the subject to me, and that he was consulting sir vickery gibbs, with the intention of prosecuting the publisher and the author, i advised him, as well as i could, to desist, simply because the allegation referred to well-known occurrences. his grand-uncle's duel with mr. chaworth, and the order of the house of peers to produce evidence of his grandfather's marriage with miss trevannion; the facts of which being matter of history and public record, superseded the necessity of any proceeding. knowing how deeply this affair agitated him at that time, i was not surprised at the sequestration in which he held himself--and which made those who were not acquainted with his shy and mystical nature, apply to him the description of his own lara: the chief of lara is return'd again, and why had lara cross'd the bounding main?-- left by his sire too young such loss to know, lord of himself; that heritage of woe. in him, inexplicably mix'd, appear'd much to be loved and hated, sought and fear'd, opinion varying o'er his hidden lot, in praise or railing ne'er his name forgot. his silence form'd a theme for others' prate; they guess'd, they gazed, they fain would know his fate, what had he been? what was he, thus unknown, who walk'd their world, his lineage only known? a hater of his kind? yet some would say, with them he could seem gay amid the gay; but own'd that smile, if oft observed and near waned in its mirth and wither'd to a sneer; that smile might reach his lip, but pass'd not by; none e'er could trace its laughter to his eye: yet there was softness, too, in his regard, at times a heart is not by nature hard. but once perceived, his spirit seem'd to hide such weakness as unworthy of its pride, and stretch'd itself as scorning to redeem one doubt from others' half-withheld esteem; in self-inflicted penance of a breast which tenderness might once have wrung from rest, in vigilance of grief that would compel the soul to hate for having loved too well. there was in him a vital scorn of all, as if the worst had fall'n which could befall. he stood a stranger in this breathing world, an erring spirit from another hurl'd; a thing of dark imaginings, that shaped by choice the perils he by chance escaped. such was byron to common observance on his return. i recollect one night meeting him at the opera. seeing me with a gentleman whom he did not know, and to whom he was unknown, he addressed me in italian, and we continued to converse for some time in that language. my friend, who in the meanwhile had been observing him with curiosity, conceiving him to be a foreigner, inquired in the course of the evening who he was, remarking that he had never seen a man with such a cain-like mark on the forehead before, alluding to that singular scowl which struck me so forcibly when i first saw him, and which appears to have made a stronger impression upon me than it did upon many others. i never, in fact, could overcome entirely the prejudice of the first impression, although i ought to have been gratified by the friendship and confidence with which he always appeared disposed to treat me. when childe harold was printed, he sent me a quarto copy before the publication; a favour and distinction i have always prized; and the copy which he gave me of the bride of abydos was one he had prepared for a new edition, and which contains, in his own writing, these six lines in no other copy: bless'd--as the muezzin's strain from mecca's wall to pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call, soft--as the melody of youthful days that steals the trembling tear of speechless praise, sweet--as his native song to exile's ears shall sound each tone thy long-loved voice endears. he had not, it is true, at the period of which i am speaking, gathered much of his fame; but the gale was rising--and though the vessel was evidently yielding to the breeze, she was neither crank nor unsteady. on the contrary, the more he became an object of public interest, the less did he indulge his capricious humour. about the time when the bride of abydos was published, he appeared disposed to settle into a consistent character--especially after the first sale of newstead. before that particular event, he was often so disturbed in his mind, that he could not conceal his unhappiness, and frequently spoke of leaving england for ever. although few men were more under the impulses of passion than lord byron, there was yet a curious kind of management about him which showed that he was well aware how much of the world's favour was to be won by it. long before childe harold appeared, it was generally known that he had a poem in the press, and various surmises to stimulate curiosity were circulated concerning it: i do not say that these were by his orders, or under his directions, but on one occasion i did fancy that i could discern a touch of his own hand in a paragraph in the morning post, in which he was mentioned as having returned from an excursion into the interior of africa; and when i alluded to it, my suspicion was confirmed by his embarrassment. i mention this incident not in the spirit of detraction; for in the paragraph there was nothing of puff, though certainly something of oddity--but as a tint of character, indicative of the appetite for distinction by which, about this period, he became so powerfully incited, that at last it grew into a diseased crave, and to such a degree, that were the figure allowable, it might be said, the mouth being incapable of supplying adequate means to appease it--every pore became another mouth greedy of nourishment. i am, however, hastening on too fast. lord byron was, at that time, far indeed from being ruled by any such inordinate passion; the fears, the timidity, and bashfulness of young desire still clung to him, and he was throbbing with doubt if he should be found worthy of the high prize for which he was about to offer himself a candidate. the course he adopted on the occasion, whether dictated by management, or the effect of accident, was, however, well calculated to attract attention to his debut as a public man. when childe harold was ready for publication, he determined to make his first appearance as an orator in the house of lords: the occasion was judiciously chosen, being a debate on the nottingham frame-breaking bill; a subject on which it was natural to suppose he possessed some local knowledge that might bear upon a question directed so exclusively against transactions in his own county. he prepared himself as the best orators do in their first essays, not only by composing, but writing down, the whole of his speech beforehand. the reception he met with was flattering; he was complimented warmly by some of the speakers on his own side; but it must be confessed that his debut was more showy than promising. it lacked weight in metal, as was observed at the time, and the mode of delivery was more like a schoolboy's recital than a masculine grapple with an argument. it was, moreover, full of rhetorical exaggerations, and disfigured with conceits. still it scintillated with talent, and justified the opinion that he was an extraordinary young man, probably destined to distinction, though he might not be a statesman. mr dallas gives a lively account of his elation on the occasion. "when he left the great chamber," says that gentleman, "i went and met him in the passage; he was glowing with success, and much agitated. i had an umbrella in my right hand, not expecting that he would put out his hand to me; in my haste to take it when offered, i had advanced my left hand: 'what!' said he, 'give your friend your left hand upon such an occasion?' i showed the cause, and immediately changing the umbrella to the other, i gave him my right hand, which he shook and pressed warmly. he was greatly elated, and repeated some of the compliments which had been paid him, and mentioned one or two of the peers who had desired to be introduced to him. he concluded by saying, that he had, by his speech, given me the best advertisement for childe harold's pilgrimage." it is upon this latter circumstance, that i have ventured to state my suspicion, that there was a degree of worldly management in making his first appearance in the house of lords, so immediately preceding the publication of his poem. the speech was, indeed, a splendid advertisement, but the greater and brighter merits of the poem soon proved that it was not requisite, for the speech made no impression, but the poem was at once hailed with delight and admiration. it filled a vacancy in the public mind, which the excitement and inflation arising from the mighty events of the age, had created. the world, in its condition and circumstances, was prepared to receive a work, so original, vigorous, and beautiful; and the reception was such that there was no undue extravagance in the noble author saying in his memorandum, "i awoke one morning and found myself famous." but he was not to be allowed to revel in such triumphant success with impunity. if the great spirits of the time were smitten with astonishment at the splendour of the rising fire, the imps and elves of malignity and malice fluttered their bat-wings in all directions. those whom the poet had afflicted in his satire, and who had remained quietly crouching with lacerated shoulders in the hope that their flagellation would be forgotten, and that the avenging demon who had so punished their imbecility would pass away, were terrified from their obscurity. they came like moths to the candle, and sarcasms in the satire which had long been unheeded, in the belief that they would soon be forgotten, were felt to have been barbed with irremediable venom, when they beheld the avenger towering in his pride of place. chapter xxvii sketches of character--his friendly dispositions--introduce prince k- -to him--our last interview--his continued kindness towards me-- instance of it to one of my friends. for some time after the publication of childe harold, the noble author appeared to more advantage than i ever afterwards saw him. he was soothed by success; and the universal applause which attended his poem seemed to make him think more kindly of the world, of which he has too often complained, while it would be difficult to discover, in his career and fortunes, that he had ever received any cause from it to justify his complaint. at no time, i imagine, could it be said that lord byron was one of those men who interest themselves in the concerns of others. he had always too much to do with his own thoughts about himself, to afford time for the consideration of aught that was lower in his affections. but still he had many amiable fits, and at the particular period to which i allude, he evinced a constancy in the disposition to oblige, which proved how little self-control was wanting to have made him as pleasant as he was uniformly interesting. i felt this towards myself in a matter which had certainly the grace of condescension in it, at the expense of some trouble to him. i then lived at the corner of bridge street, westminster, and in going to the house of lords he frequently stopped to inquire if i wanted a frank. his conversation, at the same time, was of a milder vein, and with the single exception of one day, while dining together at the st alban's, it was light and playful, as if gaiety had become its habitude. perhaps i regarded him too curiously, and more than once it struck me that he thought so. for at times, when he was in his comfortless moods, he has talked of his affairs and perplexities as if i had been much more acquainted with them than i had any opportunity of being. but he was a subject for study, such as is rarely met with--at least, he was so to me; for his weaknesses were as interesting as his talents, and he often indulged in expressions which would have been blemishes in the reflections of other men, but which in him often proved the germs of philosophical imaginings. he was the least qualified for any sort of business of all men i have ever known; so skinless in sensibility as respected himself, and so distrustful in his universal apprehensions of human nature, as respected others. it was, indeed, a wild, though a beautiful, error of nature, to endow a spirit with such discerning faculties, and yet render it unfit to deal with mankind. but these reflections belong more properly to a general estimate of his character, than to the immediate purpose before me, which was principally to describe the happy effects which the splendid reception of childe harold had on his feelings; effects which, however, did not last long. he was gratified to the fullness of his hopes; but the adulation was enjoyed to excess, and his infirmities were aggravated by the surfeit. i did not, however, see the progress of the change, as in the course of the summer i went to scotland, and soon after again abroad. but on my return, in the following spring, it was very obvious. i found him, in one respect, greatly improved; there was more of a formed character about him; he was evidently, at the first glance, more mannered, or endeavouring to be so, and easier with the proprieties of his rank; but he had risen in his own estimation above the honours so willingly paid to his genius, and was again longing for additional renown. not content with being acknowledged as the first poet of the age, and a respectable orator in the house of lords, he was aspiring to the eclat of a man of gallantry; so that many of the most ungracious peculiarities of his temper, though brought under better discipline, were again in full activity. considering how much he was then caressed, i ought to have been proud of the warmth with which he received me. i did not, however, so often see him as in the previous year; for i was then on the eve of my marriage, and i should not so soon, after my return to london, have probably renewed my visits, but a foreign nobleman of the highest rank, who had done me the honour to treat me as a friend, came at that juncture to this country, and knowing i had been acquainted with lord byron, he requested me to introduce him to his lordship. this rendered a visit preliminary to the introduction necessary; and so long as my distinguished friend remained in town, we again often met. but after he left the country my visits became few and far between; owing to nothing but that change in a man's pursuits and associates which is one among some of the evils of matrimony. it is somewhat remarkable, that of the last visit i ever paid him, he has made rather a particular memorandum. i remember well, that it was in many respects an occasion not to be at once forgotten; for, among other things, after lighter topics, he explained to me a variety of tribulations in his affairs, and i urged him, in consequence, to marry, with the frankness which his confidence encouraged; subjoining certain items of other good advice concerning a liaison which he was supposed to have formed, and which mr moore does not appear to have known, though it was much talked of at the time. during that visit the youthful peculiarities of his temper and character showed all their original blemish. but, as usual, when such was the case, he was often more interesting than when in his discreeter moods. he gave me the copy of the bride of abydos, with a very kind inscription on it, which i have already mentioned; but still there was an impression on my mind that led me to believe he could not have been very well pleased with some parts of my counselling. this, however, appears not to have been the case; on the contrary, the tone of his record breathes something of kindness; and long after i received different reasons to believe his recollection of me was warm and friendly. when he had retired to genoa, i gave a gentleman a letter to him, partly that i might hear something of his real way of life, and partly in the hope of gratifying my friend by the sight of one of whom he had heard so much. the reception from his lordship was flattering to me; and, as the account of it contains what i think a characteristic picture, the reader will, i doubt not, be pleased to see so much of it as may be made public without violating the decorum which should always be observed in describing the incidents of private intercourse, when the consent of all parties cannot be obtained to the publication. edinburgh, june , . "dear galt,--though i shall always retain a lively general recollection of my agreeable interview with lord byron, at genoa, in may, , so long a time has since elapsed that much of the aroma of the pleasure has evaporated, and i can but recall generalities. at that time there was an impression in genoa that he was averse to receive visits from englishmen, and i was indeed advised not to think of calling on him, as i might run the risk of meeting with a savage reception. however, i resolved to send your note, and to the surprise of every one the messenger brought a most polite answer, in which, after expressing the satisfaction of hearing of his old friend and fellow-traveller, he added that he would do himself the honour of calling on me the next day, which he accordingly did; but owing to the officious blundering of an italian waiter, who mentioned i was at dinner, his lordship sent up his card with his compliments that he would not deranger the party. i was determined, however, that he should not escape me in this way, and drove out to his residence next morning, when, upon his english valet taking up my name, i was immediately admitted. "as every one forms a picture to himself of remarkable characters, i had depicted his lordship in my mind as a tall, sombre, childe harold personage, tinctured somewhat with aristocratic hauteur. you may therefore guess my surprise when the door opened, and i saw leaning upon the lock, a light animated figure, rather petite than otherwise, dressed in a nankeen hussar-braided jacket, trousers of the same material, with a white waistcoat; his countenance pale but the complexion clear and healthful, with the hair coming down in little curls on each side of his fine forehead. "he came towards me with an easy cheerfulness of manner, and after some preliminary inquiries concerning yourself, we entered into a conversation which lasted two hours, in the course of which i felt myself perfectly at ease, from his lordship's natural and simple manners; indeed, so much so, that, forgetting all my anticipations, i found myself conversing with him with as fluent an intercourse of mind as i ever experienced, even with yourself. "it is impossible for me at present to overtake a detail of what passed, but as it produced a kind of scene, i may mention one incident. "having remarked that in a long course of desultory reading, i had read most of what had been said by english travellers concerning italy; yet, on coming to it i found there was no country of which i had less accurate notions: that among other things i was much struck with the harshness of the language. he seemed to jerk at this, and immediately observed, that perhaps in going rapidly through the country, i might not have had many opportunities of hearing it politely spoken. 'now,' said he, 'there are supposed to be nineteen dialects of the italian language, and i shall let you hear a lady speak the principal of them, who is considered to do it very well.' i pricked up my ears at hearing this, as i considered it would afford me an opportunity of seeing the far-famed countess guiccioli. his lordship immediately rose and left the apartment, returning in the course of a minute or two leading in the lady, and while arranging chairs for the trio, he said to me, 'i shall make her speak each of the principal dialects, but you are not to mind how i pronounce, for i do not speak italian well.' after the scene had been performed he resumed to me, 'now what do you think?' to which i answered, that my opinion still remained unaltered. he seemed at this to fall into a little revery, and then said, abruptly, 'why 'tis very odd, moore thought the same.' 'does your lordship mean tom moore?' 'yes.' 'ah, then, my lord, i shall adhere with more pertinacity to my opinion, when i hear that a man of his exquisite taste in poetry and harmony was also of that opinion.' "you will be asking what i thought of the lady; i had certainly heard much of her high personal attractions, but all i can say is, that in my eyes her graces did not rank above mediocrity. they were youth, plumpness, and good-nature." chapter xxviii a miff with lord byron--remarkable coincidences--plagiarisms of his lordship there is a curious note in the memoranda which lord byron kept in the year , that i should not pass unnoticed, because it refers to myself, and moreover is characteristic of the excoriated sensibility with which his lordship felt everything that touched or affected him or his. when i had read the bride of abydos, i wrote to him my opinion of it, and mentioned that there was a remarkable coincidence in the story, with a matter in which i had been interested. i have no copy of the letter, and i forget the expressions employed, but lord byron seemed to think they implied that he had taken the story from something of mine. the note is: "galt says there is a coincidence between the first part of the bride and some story of his, whether published or not, i know not, never having seen it. he is almost the last person on whom any one would commit literary larceny, and i am not conscious of any witting thefts on any of the genus. as to originality, all pretensions are ludicrous; there is nothing new under the sun." it is sufficiently clear that he was offended with what i had said, and was somewhat excited. i have not been able at present to find his answer to my letter, but it would appear by the subjoined that he had written to me something which led me to imagine he was offended at my observations, and that i had in consequence deprecated his wrath. "dec. , . "my dear galt,--there was no offence--there could be none. i thought it by no means impossible that we might have hit on something similar, particularly as you are a dramatist, and was anxious to assure you of the truth, viz. that i had not wittingly seized upon plot, sentiment, or incident; and i am very glad that i have not in any respect trenched upon your subjects. something still more singular is, that the first part, where you have found a coincidence in some events within your observations on life, was drawn from observation of mine also, and i meant to have gone on with the story, but on second thoughts, i thought myself two centuries at least too late for the subject; which, though admitting of very powerful feeling and description, yet is not adapted for this age, at least this country. though the finest works of the greeks, one of schiller's and alfieri's, in modern times, besides several of our old (and best) dramatists, have been grounded on incidents of a similar cast, i therefore altered it as you perceive, and in so doing have weakened the whole, by interrupting the train of thought; and in composition i do not think second thoughts are the best, though second expressions may improve the first ideas. "i do not know how other men feel towards those they have met abroad, but to me there seems a kind of tie established between all who have met together in a foreign country, as if we had met in a state of pre-existence, and were talking over a life that has ceased; but i always look forward to renewing my travels; and though you, i think, are now stationary, if i can at all forward your pursuits there as well as here, i shall be truly glad in the opportunity. ever yours very sincerely, "b. "p.s. i believe i leave town for a day or two on monday, but after that i am always at home, and happy to see you till half-past two." this letter was dated on saturday, the th of december, . on sunday, the th, he made the following other note in his memorandum book: "by galt's answer, i find it is some story in real life, and not any work with which my late composition coincides. it is still more singular, for mine is drawn from existence also." the most amusing part of this little fracas is the denial of his lordship, as to pilfering the thoughts and fancies of others; for it so happens, that the first passage of the bride of abydos, the poem in question, is almost a literal and unacknowledged translation from goethe, which was pointed out in some of the periodicals soon after the work was published. then, as to his not thieving from me or mine, i believe the fact to be as he has stated; but there are singular circumstances connected with some of his other productions, of which the account is at least curious. on leaving england i began to write a poem in the spenserian measure. it was called the unknown, and was intended to describe, in narrating the voyages and adventures of a pilgrim, who had embarked for the holy land, the scenes i expected to visit. i was occasionally engaged in this composition during the passage with lord byron from gibraltar to malta, and he knew what i was about. in stating this, i beg to be distinctly understood, as in no way whatever intending to insinuate that this work had any influence on the composition of childe harold's pilgrimage, which lord byron began to write in albania; but it must be considered as something extraordinary, that the two works should have been so similar in plan, and in the structure of the verse. his lordship never saw my attempt that i know of, nor did i his poem until it was printed. it is needless to add, that beyond the plan and verse there was no other similarity between the two works; i wish there had been. his lordship has published a poem, called the curse of minerva, the subject of which is the vengeance of the goddess on lord elgin for the rape of the parthenon. it has so happened that i wrote at athens a burlesque poem on nearly the same subject (mine relates to the vengeance of all the gods) which i called the atheniad; the manuscript was sent to his lordship in asia minor, and returned to me through mr hobhouse. his curse of minerva, i saw for the first time in , in galignani's edition of his works. in the giaour, which he published a short time before the bride of abydos, he has this passage, descriptive of the anxiety with which the mother of hassan looks out for the arrival of her son: the browsing camels' bells are tinkling-- his mother look'd from her lattice high; she saw the dews of eve besprinkling the parterre green beneath her eye: she saw the planets faintly twinkling-- 'tis twilight--sure his train is nigh. she could not rest in the garden bower, but gazed through the grate of his steepest tower: why comes he not--and his steeds are fleet-- nor shrink they from the summer heat? why sends not the bridegroom his promised gift; is his heart more cold or his barb less swift? his lordship was well read in the bible, and the book of judges, chap. , and verse , has the following passage:-- "the mother of sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, why is his chariot so long in coming; why tarry the wheels of his chariot?" it was, indeed, an early trick of his lordship to filch good things. in the lamentation for kirke white, in which he compares him to an eagle wounded by an arrow feathered from his own wing, he says, so the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, no more through rolling clouds to soar again, view'd his own feather on the fatal dart and winged the shaft that quivered in his heart. the ancients have certainly stolen the best ideas of the moderns; this very thought may be found in the works of that ancient-modern, waller: that eagle's fate and mine are one, which on the shaft that made him die, espied a feather of his own wherewith he wont to soar on high. his lordship disdained to commit any larceny on me; and no doubt the following passage from the giaour is perfectly original: it is as if the dead could feel the icy worm around them steal; and shudder as the reptiles creep to revel o'er their rotting sleep, without the power to scare away the cold consumers of their clay. i do not claim any paternity in these lines: but not the most judicious action of all my youth was to publish certain dramatic sketches, and his lordship had the printed book in his possession long before the giaour was published, and may have read the following passage in a dream, which was intended to be very hideous: then did i hear around the churme and chirruping of busy reptiles at hideous banquet on the royal dead:-- full soon methought the loathsome epicures came thick on me, and underneath my shroud i felt the many-foot and beetle creep, and on my breast the cold worm coil and crawl. however, i have said quite enough on this subject, both as respects myself and his seeming plagiarisms, which might be multiplied to legions. such occasional accidental imitations are not things of much importance. all poets, and authors in general, avail themselves of their reading and knowledge to enhance the interest of their works. it can only be considered as one of lord byron's spurts of spleen, that he felt so much about a "coincidence," which ought not to have disturbed him; but it may be thought by the notice taken of it, that it disturbs myself more than it really does; and that it would have been enough to have merely said--perhaps, when some friend is hereafter doing as indulgently for me, the same kind of task that i have undertaken for byron, there may be found among my memoranda notes as little flattering to his lordship, as those in his concerning me. i hope, however, that friend will have more respect for my memory than to imitate the taste of mr moore. chapter xxix lord byron in --the lady's tragedy--miss milbanke--growing uneasiness of lord byron's mind--the friar's ghost--the marriage--a member of the drury lane committee--embarrassed affairs--the separation the year was perhaps the period of all lord byron's life in which he was seen to most advantage. the fame of childe harold was then in its brightest noon; and in that year he produced the giaour and the bride of abydos--compositions not only of equal power, but even tinted with superior beauties. he was himself soothed by the full enjoyment of his political rank and station; and though his manners and character had not exactly answered to the stern and stately imaginations which had been formed of his dispositions and appearance, still he was acknowledged to be no common man, and his company in consequence was eagerly courted. it forms no part of the plan of this work to repeat the gossip and tattle of private society, but occurrences happened to lord byron which engaged both, and some of them cannot well be passed over unnoticed. one of these took place during the spring of this year, and having been a subject of newspaper remark, it may with less impropriety be mentioned than others which were more indecorously made the topics of general discussion. the incident alluded to was an extravagant scene enacted by a lady of high rank, at a rout given by lady heathcote; in which, in revenge, as it was reported, for having been rejected by lord byron, she made a suicidal attempt with an instrument, which scarcely penetrated, if it could even inflict any permanent mark on, the skin. the insane attachment of this eccentric lady to his lordship was well known; insane is the only epithet that can be applied to the actions of a married woman, who, in the disguise of her page, flung herself to a man, who, as she told a friend of mine, was ashamed to be in love with her because she was not beautiful--an expression at once curious and just, evincing a shrewd perception of the springs of his lordship's conduct, and the acuteness blended with frenzy and talent which distinguished herself. lord byron unquestionably at that time cared little for her. in showing me her picture, some two or three days after the affair, and laughing at the absurdity of it, he bestowed on her the endearing diminutive of vixen, with a hard- hearted adjective that i judiciously omit. the immediate cause of this tragical flourish was never very well understood; but in the course of the evening she had made several attempts to fasten on his lordship, and was shunned: certain it is, she had not, like burke in the house of commons, premeditatedly brought a dagger in her reticule, on purpose for the scene; but, seeing herself an object of scorn, she seized the first weapon she could find--some said a pair of scissors--others, more scandalously, broken jelly-glass, and attempted an incision of the jugular, to the consternation of all the dowagers, and the pathetic admiration of every miss who witnessed or heard of the rapture. lord byron at the time was in another room, talking with prince k--, when lord p-- came, with a face full of consternation, and told them what had happened. the cruel poet, instead of being agitated by the tidings, or standing in the smallest degree in need of a smelling- bottle, knitted his scowl, and said, with a contemptuous indifference, "it is only a trick." all things considered, he was perhaps not uncharitable; and a man of less vanity would have felt pretty much as his lordship appeared to do on the occasion. the whole affair was eminently ridiculous; and what increased the absurdity was a letter she addressed to a friend of mine on the subject, and which he thought too good to be reserved only for his own particular study. it was in this year that lord byron first proposed for miss milbanke; having been urged by several of his friends to marry, that lady was specially recommended to him for a wife. it has been alleged, that he deeply resented her rejection of his proposal; and i doubt not, in the first instance, his vanity may have been a little piqued; but as he cherished no very animated attachment to her, and moreover, as she enjoyed no celebrity in public opinion to make the rejection important, the resentment was not, i am persuaded, either of an intense or vindictive kind. on the contrary, he has borne testimony to the respect in which he held her character and accomplishments; and an incidental remark in his journal, "i shall be in love with her again, if i don't take care," is proof enough that his anger was not of a very fierce or long-lived kind. the account ascribed to him of his introduction to miss milbanke, and the history of their attachment, ought not to be omitted, because it serves to illustrate, in some degree, the state of his feelings towards her, and is so probable, that i doubt not it is in the main correct:-- "the first time of my seeing miss milbanke was at lady ***'s. it was a fatal day; and i remember, that in going upstairs i stumbled, and remarked to moore, who accompanied me, that it was a bad omen. i ought to have taken the warning. on entering the room, i observed a young lady more simply dressed than the rest of the assembly sitting alone upon a sofa. i took her for a female companion, and asked if i was right in my conjecture. 'she is a great heiress,' said he, in a whisper, that became lower as he proceeded, 'you had better marry her, and repair the old place, newstead.' "there was something piquant, and what we term pretty, in miss milbanke. her features were small and feminine, though not regular. she had the fairest skin imaginable. her figure was perfect for her height, and there was a simplicity, a retired modesty about her, which was very characteristic, and formed a happy contrast to the cold artificial formality and studied stiffness which is called fashion. she interested me exceedingly. i became daily more attached to her, and it ended in my making her a proposal, that was rejected. her refusal was couched in terms which could not offend me. i was, besides, persuaded, that in declining my offer, she was governed by the influence of her mother; and was the more confirmed in my opinion, by her reviving our correspondence herself twelve months after. the tenour of her letter was, that, although she could not love me, she desired my friendship. friendship is a dangerous word for young ladies; it is love full-fledged, and waiting for a fine day to fly." but lord byron possessed this sort of irrepressible predilections-- was so much the agent of impulses, that he could not keep long in unison with the world, or in harmony with his friends. without malice, or the instigation of any ill spirit, he was continually provoking malignity and revenge. his verses on the princess charlotte weeping, and his other merciless satire on her father, begot him no friends, and armed the hatred of his enemies. there was, indeed, something like ingratitude in the attack on the regent, for his royal highness had been particularly civil; had intimated a wish to have him introduced to him; and byron, fond of the distinction, spoke of it with a sense of gratification. these instances, as well as others, of gratuitous spleen, only justified the misrepresentations which had been insinuated against himself, and what was humour in his nature, was ascribed to vice in his principles. before the year was at an end, his popularity was evidently beginning to wane: of this he was conscious himself, and braved the frequent attacks on his character and genius with an affectation of indifference, under which those who had at all observed the singular associations of his recollections and ideas, must have discerned the symptoms of a strange disease. he was tainted with a herodian malady of the mind: his thoughts were often hateful to himself; but there was an ecstasy in the conception, as if delight could be mingled with horror. i think, however, he struggled to master the fatality, and that his resolution to marry was dictated by an honourable desire to give hostages to society, against the wild wilfulness of his imagination. it is a curious and a mystical fact, that at the period to which i am alluding, and a very short time, only a little month, before he successfully solicited the hand of miss milbanke, being at newstead, he fancied that he saw the ghost of the monk which is supposed to haunt the abbey, and to make its ominous appearance when misfortune or death impends over the master of the mansion.--the story of the apparition in the sixteenth canto of don juan is derived from this family legend, and norman abbey, in the thirteenth of the same poem, is a rich and elaborate description of newstead. after his proposal to miss milbanke had been accepted, a considerable time, nearly three months, elapsed before the marriage was completed, in consequence of the embarrassed condition in which, when the necessary settlements were to be made, he found his affairs. this state of things, with the previous unhappy controversy with himself, and anger at the world, was ill-calculated to gladden his nuptials: but, besides these real evils, his mind was awed with gloomy presentiments, a shadow of some advancing misfortune darkened his spirit, and the ceremony was performed with sacrificial feelings, and those dark and chilling circumstances, which he has so touchingly described in the dream:-- i saw him stand before an altar with a gentle bride; her face was fair, but was not that which made the starlight of his boyhood:--as he stood even at the altar, o'er his brow there came the self-same aspect, and the quivering shock that in the antique oratory shook his bosom in its solitude; and then-- as in that hour--a moment o'er his face the tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced--and then it faded as it came, and he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke the faltering vows, but heard not his own words, and all things reeled around him: he could see not that which was, nor that which should have been-- but the old mansion and the accustom'd hall, and the remembered chambers, and the place, the day, the hour, the sunshine and the shade, all things pertaining to that place and hour. and her, who was his destiny, came back, and thrust themselves between him and the light. this is very affectingly described; and his prose description bears testimony to its correctness. "it had been predicted by mrs williams that twenty-seven was to be a dangerous age for me. the fortune- telling witch was right; it was destined to prove so. i shall never forget the nd of january, , lady byron was the only unconcerned person present; lady noel, her mother, cried; i trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after the ceremony called her miss milbanke. "there is a singular history attached to the ring. the very day the match was concluded a ring of my mother's, that had been lost, was dug up by the gardener at newstead. i thought it was sent on purpose for the wedding; but my mother's marriage had not been a fortunate one, and this ring was doomed to be the seal of an unhappier union still. "after the ordeal was over, we set off for a country-scat of sir ralph's (lady b.'s father), and i was surprised at the arrangements for the journey, and somewhat out of humour, to find the lady's maid stuck between me and my bride. it was rather too early to assume the husband; so i was forced to submit, but it was not with a very good grace. i have been accused of saying, on getting into the carriage, that i had married lady byron out of spite, and because she had refused me twice. though i was for a moment vexed at her prudery, or whatever you may choose to call it, if i had made so uncavalier, not to say brutal, a speech, i am convinced lady byron would instantly have left the carriage to me and the maid. she had spirit enough to have done so, and would properly have resented the affront. our honeymoon was not all sunshine; it had its clouds. "i was not so young when my father died, but that i perfectly remember him, and had a very early horror of matrimony from the sight of domestic broils: this feeling came over me very strongly at my wedding. something whispered me that i was sealing my own death- warrant. i am a great believer in presentiments: socrates's demon was not a fiction; monk lewis had his monitor, and napoleon many warnings. at the last moment i would have retreated, could i have done so; i called to mind a friend of mine, who had married a young, beautiful, and rich girl, and yet was miserable; he had strongly urged me against putting my neck in the same yoke." for some time after the marriage things went on in the usual matrimonial routine, until he was chosen into the managing committee of drury lane; an office in which, had he possessed the slightest degree of talent for business, he might have done much good. it was justly expected that the illiterate presumption which had so long deterred poetical genius from approaching the stage, would have shrunk abashed from before him; but he either felt not the importance of the duty he had been called to perform, or, what is more probable, yielding to the allurements of the moment, forgot that duty, in the amusement which he derived from the talents and peculiarities of the players. no situation could be more unfit for a man of his temperament, than one which exposed him to form intimacies with persons whose profession, almost necessarily, leads them to undervalue the domestic virtues. it is said, that the course of life into which he was drawn after he joined the managing committee of drury lane was not in unison with the methodical habits of lady byron. but independently of outdoor causes of connubial discontent and incompatibility of temper, their domestic affairs were falling into confusion. "my income at this period," says lord byron, "was small, and somewhat bespoken. we had a house in town, gave dinner-parties, had separate carriages, and launched into every sort of extravagance. this could not last long; my wife's ten thousand pounds soon melted away. i was beset by duns, and at length an execution was levied, and the bailiffs put in possession of the very beds we had to sleep on. this was no very agreeable state of affairs, no very pleasant scene for lady byron to witness; and it was agreed she should pay her father a visit till the storm had blown over, and some arrangement had been made with my creditors." from this visit her ladyship never returned; a separation took place; but too much has been said to the world respecting it, and i have no taste for the subject. whatever was the immediate cause, the event itself was not of so rare a kind as to deserve that the attention of the public should be indelicately courted to it. beyond all question, however, lord byron's notions of connubial obligations were rather philosophical. "there are," said he to captain parry, "so many undefinable and nameless, and not to be named, causes of dislike, aversion, and disgust in the matrimonial state, that it is always impossible for the public, or the friends of the parties, to judge between man and wife. theirs is a relation about which nobody but themselves can form a correct idea, or have any right to speak. as long as neither party commits gross injustice towards the other; as long as neither the woman nor the man is guilty of any offence which is injurious to the community; as long as the husband provides for his offspring, and secures the public against the dangers arising from their neglected education, or from the charge of supporting them; by what right does it censure him for ceasing to dwell under the same roof with a woman, who is to him, because he knows her, while others do not, an object of loathing? can anything be more monstrous, than for the public voice to compel individuals who dislike each other to continue their cohabitation? this is at least the effect of its interfering with a relationship, of which it has no possible means of judging. it does not indeed drag a man to a woman's bed by physical force, but it does exert a moral force continually and effectively to accomplish the same purpose. nobody can escape this force, but those who are too high or those who are too low for public opinion to reach; or those hypocrites who are, before others, the loudest in their approbation of the empty and unmeaning forms of society, that they may securely indulge all their propensities in secret." in the course of the conversation, in which he is represented to have stated these opinions, he added what i have pleasure in quoting, because the sentiments are generous in respect to his wife, and strikingly characteristic of himself:-- "lady byron has a liberal mind, particularly as to religious opinions: and i wish when i married her that i had possessed the same command over myself that i now do. had i possessed a little more wisdom and more forbearance, we might have been happy. i wished, when i was just married to have remained in the country, particularly till my pecuniary embarrassments were over. i knew the society of london; i knew the characters of many who are called ladies, with whom lady byron would necessarily have to associate, and i dreaded her contact with them. but i have too much of my mother about me to be dictated to; i like freedom from constraint; i hate artificial regulations: my conduct has always been dictated by my own feelings, and lady byron was quite the creature of rules. she was not permitted either to ride, or run, or walk, but as the physician prescribed. she was not suffered to go out when i wished to go: and then the old house was a mere ghost-house, i dreamed of ghosts and thought of them waking. it was an existence i could not support." here lord byron broke off abruptly, saying, "i hate to speak of my family affairs, though i have been compelled to talk nonsense concerning them to some of my butterfly visitors, glad on any terms to get rid of their importunities. i long to be again on the mountains. i am fond of solitude, and should never talk nonsense, if i always found plain men to talk to." chapter xxx reflections on his domestic verses--consideration of his works--"the corsair"--probabilities of the character and incidents of the story-- on the difference between poetical invention and moral experience: illustrated by the difference between the genius of shakespeare and that of byron the task just concluded may disappoint the expectations of some of my readers, but i would rather have said less than so much, could so little have been allowed; for i have never been able to reconcile to my notions of propriety, the exposure of domestic concerns which the world has no right claim to know, and can only urge the plea of curiosity for desiring to see explained. the scope of my undertaking comprehends only the public and intellectual character of lord byron; every word that i have found it necessary to say respecting his private affairs has been set down with reluctance; nor should i have touched so freely on his failings, but that the consequences have deeply influenced his poetical conceptions. there is, however, one point connected with his conjugal differences which cannot be overlooked, nor noticed without animadversion. he was too active himself in bespeaking the public sympathy against his lady. it is true that but for that error the world might never have seen the verses written by him on the occasion; and perhaps it was the friends who were about him at the time who ought chiefly to be blamed for having given them circulation: but in saying this, i am departing from the rule i had prescribed to myself, while i ought only to have remarked that the compositions alluded to, both the fare-thee-well and the anathema on mrs charlemont, are splendid corroborations of the metaphysical fact which it is the main object of this work to illustrate, namely, that byron was only original and truly great when he wrote from the dictates of his own breast, and described from the suggestions of things he had seen. when his imagination found not in his subject uses for the materials of his experience, and opportunities to embody them, it seemed to be no longer the same high and mysterious faculty that so ruled the tides of the feelings of others. he then appeared a more ordinary poet---- a skilful verse-maker. the necromancy which held the reader spellbound became ineffectual; and the charm and the glory which interested so intensely, and shone so radiantly on his configurations from realities, all failed and faded; for his genius dealt not with airy fancies, but had its power and dominion amid the living and the local of the actual world. i shall now return to the consideration of his works, and the first in order is the corsair, published in . he seems to have been perfectly sensible that this beautiful composition was in his best peculiar manner. it is indeed a pirate's isle, peopled with his own creatures. it has been alleged that lord byron was indebted to sir walter scott's poem of rokeby for the leading incidents of the corsair, but the resemblance is not to me very obvious: besides, the whole style of the poem is so strikingly in his own manner, that even had he borrowed the plan, it was only as a thread to string his own original conceptions upon; the beauty and brilliancy of them could not be borrowed, and are not imitations. there were two islands in the archipelago, when lord byron was in greece, considered as the chief haunts of the pirates, stampalia, and a long narrow island between cape colonna and zea. jura also was a little tainted in its reputation. i think, however, from the description, that the pirate's isle of the corsair is the island off cape colonna. it is a rude, rocky mass. i know not to what particular coron, if there be more than one, the poet alludes; for the coron of the morea is neighbour to, if not in, the mainote territory, a tract of country which never submitted to the turks, and was exempted from the jurisdiction of mussulman officers by the payment of an annual tribute. the mainotes themselves are all pirates and robbers. if it be in that coron that byron has placed seyd the pasha, it must be attributed to inadvertency. his lordship was never there, nor in any part of maina; nor does he describe the place, a circumstance which of itself goes far to prove the inadvertency. it is, however, only in making it the seat of a turkish pasha that any error has been committed. in working out the incidents of the poem where descriptions of scenery are given, they relate chiefly to athens and its neighbourhood. in themselves these descriptions are executed with an exquisite felicity; but they are brought in without any obvious reason wherefore. in fact, they appear to have been written independently of the poem, and are patched on "shreds of purple" which could have been spared. the character of conrad the corsair may be described as a combination of the warrior of albania and a naval officer--childe harold mingled with the hero of the giaour. a man of loneliness and mystery, scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh; robust, but not herculean, to the sight, no giant frame sets forth his common height; yet in the whole, who paused to look again saw more than marks the crowd of vulgar men: they gaze and marvel how, and still confess that thus it is, but why they cannot guess. sun-burnt his cheek, his forehead high and pale, the sable curls in wild profusion veil. and oft perforce his rising lip reveals the haughtier thought it curbs, but scarce conceals: though smooth his voice, and calm his general mien, still seems there something he would not have seen. his features' deepening lines and varying hue at times attracted, yet perplex'd the view, as if within that murkiness of mind work'd feelings fearful, and yet undefined: such might he be that none could truly tell, too close inquiry his stern glance could quell. there breathed but few whose aspect could defy the full encounter of his searching eye; he had the skill, when cunning gaze to seek to probe his heart and watch his changing cheek, at once the observer's purpose to espy, and on himself roll back his scrutiny, lest he to conrad rather should betray some secret thought, than drag that chief's to day. there was a laughing devil in his sneer that raised emotions both of rage and fear; and where his frown of hatred darkly fell hope withering fled, and mercy sigh'd, farewell. it will be allowed that, in this portrait, some of the darker features and harsher lineaments of byron himself are very evident, but with a more fixed sternness than belonged to him; for it was only by fits that he could put on such severity. conrad is, however, a higher creation than any which he had previously described. instead of the listlessness of childe harold, he is active and enterprising; such as the noble pilgrim would have been, but for the satiety which had relaxed his energies. there is also about him a solemnity different from the animation of the giaour--a penitential despair arising from a cause undisclosed. the giaour, though wounded and fettered, and laid in a dungeon, would not have felt as conrad is supposed to feel in that situation. the following bold and terrific verses, descriptive of the maelstrom agitations of remorse, could not have been appropriately applied to the despair of grief, the predominant source of emotion in the giaour. there is a war, a chaos of the mind when all its elements convulsed combined, lie dark and jarring with perturbed force, and gnashing with impenitent remorse. that juggling fiend who never spake before, but cries, "i warn'd thee," when the deed is o'er; vain voice, the spirit burning, but unbent, may writhe, rebel--the weak alone repent. the character of conrad is undoubtedly finely imagined; as the painters would say, it is in the highest style of art, and brought out with sublime effect; but still it is only another phase of the same portentous meteor, that was nebulous in childe harold, and fiery in the giaour. to the safe and shop-resorting inhabitants of christendom, the corsair seems to present many improbabilities; nevertheless, it is true to nature, and in every part of the levant the traveller meets with individuals whose air and physiognomy remind him of conrad. the incidents of the story, also, so wild and extravagant to the snug and legal notions of england, are not more in keeping with the character, than they are in accordance with fact and reality. the poet suffers immeasurable injustice, when it is attempted to determine the probability of the wild scenes and wilder adventurers of his tales, by the circumstances and characters of the law-regulated system of our diurnal affairs. probability is a standard formed by experience, and it is not surprising that the anchorets of libraries should object to the improbability of the corsair, and yet acknowledge the poetical power displayed in the composition; for it is a work which could only have been written by one who had himself seen or heard on the spot of transactions similar to those he has described. no course of reading could have supplied materials for a narration so faithfully descriptive of the accidents to which an aegean pirate is exposed as the corsair. had lord byron never been out of england, the production of a work so appropriate in reflection, so wild in spirit, and so bold in invention, as in that case it would have been, would have entitled him to the highest honours of original conception, or been rejected as extravagant; considered as the result of things seen, and of probabilities suggested, by transactions not uncommon in the region where his genius gathered the ingredients of its sorceries, more than the half of its merits disappear, while the other half brighten with the lustre of truth. the manners, the actions, and the incidents were new to the english mind; but to the inhabitant of the levant they have long been familiar, and the traveller who visits that region will hesitate to admit that lord byron possessed those creative powers, and that discernment of dark bosoms for which he is so much celebrated; because he will see there how little of invention was necessary to form such heroes as conrad, and how much the actual traffic of life and trade is constantly stimulating enterprise and bravery. but let it not, therefore, be supposed, that i would undervalue either the genius of the poet, or the merits of the poem, in saying so, for i do think a higher faculty has been exerted in the corsair than in childe harold. in the latter, only actual things are described, freshly and vigorously as they were seen, and feelings expressed eloquently as they were felt; but in the former, the talent of combination has been splendidly employed. the one is a view from nature, the other is a composition both from nature and from history. lara, which appeared soon after the corsair, is an evident supplement to it; the description of the hero corresponds in person and character with conrad; so that the remarks made on the corsair apply, in all respects, to lara. the poem itself is perhaps, in elegance, superior; but the descriptions are not so vivid, simply because they are more indebted to imagination. there is one of them, however, in which the lake and abbey of newstead are dimly shadowed, equal in sweetness and solemnity to anything the poet has ever written. it was the night, and lara's glassy stream the stars are studding each with imaged beam: so calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray, and yet they glide, like happiness, away; reflecting far and fairy-like from high the immortal lights that live along the sky; its banks are fringed with many a goodly tree, and flowers the fairest that may feast the bee: such in her chaplet infant dian wove, and innocence would offer to her love; these deck the shore, the waves their channel make in windings bright and mazy, like the snake. all was so still, so soft in earth and air, you scarce would start to meet a spirit there, secure that naught of evil could delight to walk in such a scene, in such a night! it was a moment only for the good: so lara deemed: nor longer there he stood; but turn'd in silence to his castle-gate: such scene his soul no more could contemplate: such scene reminded him of other days, of skies more cloudless, moons of purer blaze; of nights more soft and frequent, hearts that now-- no, no! the storm may beat upon his brow unfelt, unsparing; but a night like this, a night of beauty, mock'd such breast as his. he turn'd within his solitary hall, and his high shadow shot along the wall: there were the painted forms of other times-- 'twas all they left of virtues or of crimes, save vague tradition; and the gloomy vaults that hid their dust, their foibles, and their faults, and half a column of the pompous page, that speeds the spacious tale from age to age; where history's pen its praise or blame supplies and lies like truth, and still most truly lies; he wand'ring mused, and as the moonbeam shone through the dim lattice o'er the floor of stone, and the high-fretted roof and saints that there o'er gothic windows knelt in pictured prayer; reflected in fantastic figures grew like life, but not like mortal life to view; his bristling locks of sable, brow of gloom, and the wide waving of his shaken plume glanced like a spectre's attributes, and gave his aspect all that terror gives the grave. that byron wrote best when he wrote of himself and of his own, has probably been already made sufficiently apparent. in this respect he stands alone and apart from all other poets, and there will be occasion to show, that this peculiarity extended much farther over all his works, than merely to those which may be said to have required him to be thus personal. the great distinction, indeed, of his merit consists in that singularity. shakspeare, in drawing the materials of his dramas from tales and history has, with wonderful art, given from his own invention and imagination the fittest and most appropriate sentiments and language; and admiration at the perfection with which he has accomplished this, can never be exhausted. the difference between byron and shakspeare consists in the curious accident, if it may be so called, by which the former was placed in circumstances which taught him to feel in himself the very sentiments that he has ascribed to his characters. shakspeare created the feelings of his, and with such excellence, that they are not only probable to the situations, but give to the personifications the individuality of living persons. byron's are scarcely less so; but with him there was no invention, only experience, and when he attempts to express more than he has himself known, he is always comparatively feeble. chapter xxxi byron determines to reside abroad--visits the plain of waterloo-- state of his feelings from different incidental expressions in his correspondence it is sufficiently evident that byron, before his marriage, intended to reside abroad. in his letter to me of the th december, , he distinctly states this intention, and intimates that he then thought of establishing his home in greece. it is not therefore surprising that, after his separation from lady byron, he should have determined to carry this intention into effect; for at that period, besides the calumny heaped upon him from all quarters, the embarrassment of his affairs, and the retaliatory satire, all tended to force him into exile; he had no longer any particular tie to bind him to england. on the th of april, , he sailed for ostend, and resumed the composition of childe harold, it may be said, from the moment of his embarkation. in it, however, there is no longer the fiction of an imaginary character stalking like a shadow amid his descriptions and reflections----he comes more decidedly forwards as the hero in his own person. in passing to brussels he visited the field of waterloo, and the slight sketch which he has given in the poem of that eventful conflict is still the finest which has yet been written on the subject. but the note of his visit to the field is of more importance to my present purpose, inasmuch as it tends to illustrate the querulous state of his own mind at the time. "i went on horseback twice over the field, comparing it with my recollection of similar scenes. as a plain, waterloo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, though this may be mere imagination. i have viewed with attention those of platea, troy, mantinea, leuctra, chaevronae, and marathon, and the field round mont st jean and hugoumont appears to want little but a better cause and that indefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except perhaps the last-mentioned." the expression "a better cause," could only have been engendered in mere waywardness; but throughout his reflections at this period a peevish ill-will towards england is often manifested, as if he sought to attract attention by exasperating the national pride; that pride which he secretly flattered himself was to be augmented by his own fame. i cannot, in tracing his travels through the third canto, test the accuracy of his descriptions as in the former two; but as they are all drawn from actual views they have the same vivid individuality impressed upon them. nothing can be more simple and affecting than the following picture, nor less likely to be an imaginary scene: by coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, there is a small and simple pyramid, crowning the summit of the verdant mound; beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid, our enemies. and let not that forbid honour to marceau, o'er whose early tomb tears, big tears, rush'd from the rough soldier's lid, lamenting and yet envying such a doom, falling for france, whose rights he battled to resume. perhaps few passages of descriptive poetry excel that in which reference is made to the column of avenches, the ancient aventicum. it combines with an image distinct and picturesque, poetical associations full of the grave and moral breathings of olden forms and hoary antiquity. by a lone wall, a lonelier column rears a gray and grief-worn aspect of old days: 'tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, and looks as with the wild-bewilder'd gaze of one to stone converted by amaze, yet still with consciousness; and there it stands, making a marvel that it not decays, when the coeval pride of human hands, levell'd aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands. but the most remarkable quality in the third canto is the deep, low bass of thought which runs through several passages, and which gives to it, when considered with reference to the circumstances under which it was written, the serious character of documentary evidence as to the remorseful condition of the poet's mind. it would be, after what has already been pointed out in brighter incidents, affectation not to say, that these sad bursts of feeling and wild paroxysms, bear strong indications of having been suggested by the wreck of his domestic happiness, and dictated by contrition for the part he had himself taken in the ruin. the following reflections on the unguarded hour, are full of pathos and solemnity, amounting almost to the deep and dreadful harmony of manfred: to fly from, need not be to hate, mankind; all are not fit with them to stir and toil, nor is it discontent to keep the mind deep in its fountain, lest it overboil in the hot throng, where we become the spoil of our infection, till too late and long we may deplore and struggle with the coil, in wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 'midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong. there, in a moment, we may plunge our years in fatal penitence, and in the blight of our own soul, turn all our blood to tears, and colour things to come with hues of night; the race of life becomes a hopeless flight to those who walk in darkness: on the sea, the boldest steer but where their ports invite; but there are wanderers o'er eternity, whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be. these sentiments are conceived in the mood of an awed spirit; they breathe of sorrow and penitence. of the weariness of satiety the pilgrim no more complains; he is no longer despondent from exhaustion, and the lost appetite of passion, but from the weight of a burden which he cannot lay down; and he clings to visible objects, as if from their nature he could extract a moral strength. i live not in myself, but i become portion of that around me; and to me, high mountains are a feeling, but the hum of human cities tortures: i can see nothing to loathe in nature, save to be a link reluctant in a fleshly chain, class'd among creatures, where the soul can flee, and with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. these dim revelations of black and lowering thought are overshadowed with a darker hue than sorrow alone could have cast. a consciousness of sinful blame is evident amid them; and though the fantasies that loom through the mystery, are not so hideous as the guilty reveries in the weird caldron of manfred's conscience, still they have an awful resemblance to them. they are phantoms of the same murky element, and, being more akin to fortitude than despair, prophesy not of hereafter, but oracularly confess suffering. manfred himself hath given vent to no finer horror than the oracle that speaks in this magnificent stanza: i have not loved the world, nor the world me; i have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd to its idolatries a patient knee-- nor coin'd my cheek to smiles--nor cried aloud in worship of an echo;--in the crowd they could not deem me one of such; i stood among them, but not of them; in a shroud of thoughts which were not of their thoughts, and still could, had i not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued. there are times in life when all men feel their sympathies extinct, and lord byron was evidently in that condition, when he penned these remarkable lines; but independently of their striking beauty, the scenery in which they were conceived deserves to be considered with reference to the sentiment that pervades them. for it was amid the same obscure ravines, pine-tufted precipices and falling waters of the alps, that he afterward placed the outcast manfred--an additional corroboration of the justness of the remarks which i ventured to offer, in adverting to his ruminations in contemplating, while yet a boy, the malvern hills, as if they were the scenes of his impassioned childhood. in "the palaces of nature," he first felt the consciousness of having done some wrong, and when he would infuse into another, albeit in a wilder degree, the feelings he had himself felt, he recalled the images which had ministered to the cogitations of his own contrition. but i shall have occasion to speak more of this, when i come to consider the nature of the guilt and misery of manfred. that manfred is the greatest of byron's works will probably not be disputed. it has more than the fatal mysticism of macbeth, with the satanic grandeur of the paradise lost, and the hero is placed in circumstances, and amid scenes, which accord with the stupendous features of his preternatural character. how then, it may be asked, does this moral phantom, that has never been, bear any resemblance to the poet himself? must not, in this instance, the hypothesis which assigns to byron's heroes his own sentiments and feelings be abandoned? i think not. in noticing the deep and solemn reflections with which he was affected in ascending the rhine, and which he has embodied in the third canto of childe harold, i have already pointed out a similarity in the tenour of the thoughts to those of manfred, as well as the striking acknowledgment of the "filed" mind. there is, moreover, in the drama, the same distaste of the world which byron himself expressed when cogitating on the desolation of his hearth, and the same contempt of the insufficiency of his genius and renown to mitigate contrition--all in strange harmony with the same magnificent objects of sight. is not the opening soliloquy of manfred the very echo of the reflections on the rhine? my slumbers--if i slumber--are not sleep, but a continuance of enduring thought, which then i can resist not; in my heart there is a vigil, and these eyes but close to look within--and yet i live and bear the aspect and the form of breathing man. but the following is more impressive: it is the very phrase he would himself have employed to have spoken of the consequences of his fatal marriage: my in juries came down on those who lov'd me, on those whom i best lov'd; i never quell'd an enemy, save in my just defence-- but my embrace was fatal. he had not, indeed, been engaged in any duel of which the issue was mortal; but he had been so far engaged with more than one, that he could easily conceive what it would have been to have quelled an enemy in just defence. but unless the reader can himself discern, by his sympathies, that there is the resemblance i contend for, it is of no use to multiply instances. i shall, therefore, give but one other extract, which breathes the predominant spirit of all byron 's works- -that sad translation of the preacher's "vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" look on me! there is an order of mortals on the earth, who do become old in their youth and die ere middle age, without the violence of warlike death; some perishing of pleasure--some of study-- some worn with toil--some of mere weariness-- some of disease--and some insanity-- and some of wither'd or of broken hearts; for this last is a malady which slays more than are number'd in the lists of fate; taking all shapes, and bearing many names. look upon me! for even of all these things have i partaken--and of all these things one were enough; then wonder not that i am what i am, but that i ever was, or, having been, that i am still on earth. chapter xxxii byron's residence in switzerland--excursion to the glaciers-- "manfred" founded on a magical sacrifice, not on guilt--similarity between sentiments given to manfred and those expressed by lord byron in his own person the account given by captain medwin of the manner in which lord byron spent his time in switzerland, has the raciness of his lordship's own quaintness, somewhat diluted. the reality of the conversations i have heard questioned, but they relate in some instances to matters not generally known, to the truth of several of which i can myself bear witness; moreover they have much of the poet's peculiar modes of thinking about them, though weakened in effect by the reporter. no man can give a just representation of another who is not capable of putting himself into the character of his original, and of thinking with his power and intelligence. still there are occasional touches of merit in the feeble outlines of captain medwin, and with this conviction it would be negligence not to avail myself of them. "switzerland," said his lordship, "is a country i have been satisfied with seeing once; turkey i could live in for ever. i never forget my predilections: i was in a wretched state of health and worse spirits when i was at geneva; but quiet and the lake, better physicians than polidori, soon set me up. i never led so moral a life as during my residence in that country; but i gained no credit by it. where there is mortification there ought to be reward. on the contrary, there is no story so absurd that they did not invent at my cost. i was watched by glasses on the opposite side of the lake, and by glasses, too, that must have had very distorted optics; i was waylaid in my evening drives. i believe they looked upon me as a man-monster. "i knew very few of the genevese. hentsh was very civil to me, and i have a great respect for sismondi. i was forced to return the civilities of one of their professors by asking him and an old gentleman, a friend of gray's, to dine with me i had gone out to sail early in the morning, and the wind prevented me from returning in time for dinner. i understand that i offended them mortally. "among our countrymen i made no new acquaintances; shelley, monk lewis, and hobhouse were almost the only english people i saw. no wonder; i showed a distaste for society at that time, and went little among the genevese; besides, i could not speak french. when i went the tour of the lake with shelley and hobhouse, the boat was nearly wrecked near the very spot where st preux and julia were in danger of being drowned. it would have been classical to have been lost there, but not agreeable." the third canto of childe harold, manfred, and the prisoner of chillon are the fruits of his travels up the rhine and of his sojourn in switzerland. of the first it is unnecessary to say more; but the following extract from the poet's travelling memorandum-book, has been supposed to contain the germ of the tragedy "september , .--left thun in a boat, which carried us the length of the lake in three hours. the lake small, but the banks fine; rocks down to the water's edge: landed at newhouse; passed interlachen; entered upon a range of scenes beyond all description or previous conception; passed a rock bearing an inscription; two brothers, one murdered the other; just the place for it. after a variety of windings, came to an enormous rock; arrived at the foot of the mountain (the jungfrau) glaciers; torrents, one of these nine hundred feet, visible descent; lodge at the curate's; set out to see the valley; heard an avalanche fall like thunder; glaciers; enormous storm comes on thunder and lightning and hail, all in perfection and beautiful. the torrent is in shape, curving over the rock, like the tail of the white horse streaming in the wind, just as might be conceived would be that of the pale horse on which death is mounted in the apocalypse: it is neither mist nor water, but a something between both; its immense height gives a wave, a curve, a spreading here, a condensation there, wonderful, indescribable "september .--ascent of the wingren, the dent d'argent shining like truth on one side, on the other the clouds rose from the opposite valley, curling up perpendicular precipices like the foam of the ocean of hell during a spring-tide. it was white and sulphury, and immeasurably deep in appearance; the side we ascended was of course not of so precipitous a nature; but on arriving at the summit, we looked down on the other side upon a boiling sea of cloud dashing against the crag on which we stood. arrived at the greenderwold, mounted and rode to the higher glacier, twilight, but distinct, very fine; glacier like a frozen hurricane; starlight beautiful; the whole of the day was fine, and, in point of weather, as the day in which paradise was made. passed whole woods of withered pines, all withered, trunks stripped and lifeless, done by a single winter." undoubtedly in these brief and abrupt but masterly touches, hints for the scenery of manfred may be discerned, but i can perceive nothing in them which bears the least likelihood to their having influenced the conception of that sublime work. there has always been from the first publication of manfred, a strange misapprehension with respect to it in the public mind. the whole poem has been misunderstood, and the odious supposition that ascribes the fearful mystery and remorse of a hero to a foul passion for his sister, is probably one of those coarse imaginations which have grown out of the calumnies and accusations heaped upon the author. how can it have happened that none of the critics have noticed that the story is derived from the human sacrifices supposed to have been in use among the students of the black art? manfred is represented as being actuated by an insatiable curiosity-- a passion to know the forbidden secrets of the world. the scene opens with him at his midnight studies--his lamp is almost burned out--and he has been searching for knowledge and has not found it, but only that sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, the tree of knowledge is not that of life. philosophy and science and the springs of wonder, and the wisdom of the world i have essayed, and in my mind there is, a power to make these subject to itself. he is engaged in calling spirits; and, as the incantation proceeds, they obey his bidding, and ask him what he wants; he replies, "forgetfulness." first spirit of what--of whom--and why? manfred of that which is within me; read it there---- ye know it, and i cannot utter it. spirit we can but give thee that which we possess;-- ask of us subjects, sovereignty, the power o'er earth, the whole or portion, or a sign which shall control the elements, whereof we are the dominators. each and all-- these shall be thine. manfred oblivion, self oblivion-- can ye not wring from out the hidden realms ye offer so profusely, what i ask? spirit it is not in our essence, in our skill, but--thou may'st die. manfred will death bestow it on me? spirit we are immortal, and do not forget; we are eternal, and to us the past is as the future, present. art thou answer'd? manfred ye mock me, but the power which brought ye here hath made you mine. slaves! scoff not at my will; the mind, the spirit, the promethean spark, the lightning of my being is as bright, pervading and far darting as your own, and shall not yield to yours though coop'd in clay. answer, or i will teach you what i am. spirit we answer as we answer'd. our reply is even in thine own words. manfred why say ye so? spirit if, as thou say'st, thine essence be as ours, we have replied in telling thee the thing mortals call death hath naught to do with us. manfred i then have call'd you from your realms in vain. this impressive and original scene prepares the reader to wonder why it is that manfred is so desirous to drink of lethe. he has acquired dominion over spirits, and he finds, in the possession of the power, that knowledge has only brought him sorrow. they tell him he is immortal, and what he suffers is as inextinguishable as his own being: why should he desire forgetfulness?--has he not committed a great secret sin? what is it?--he alludes to his sister, and in his subsequent interview with the witch we gather a dreadful meaning concerning her fate. her blood has been shed, not by his hand nor in punishment, but in the shadow and occultations of some unutterable crime and mystery. she was like me in lineaments; her eyes, her hair, her features, all to the very tone even of her voice, they said were like to mine, but soften'd all and temper'd into beauty. she had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, the quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind to comprehend the universe; nor these alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, pity, and smiles, and tears, which i had not; and tenderness--but that i had for her; humility, and that i never had: her faults were mine--her virtues were her own; i lov'd her and--destroy'd her-- witch with thy hand? manfred not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart. it gaz'd on mine, and withered. i have shed blood, but not hers, and yet her blood was shed;-- i saw, and could not stanch it. there is in this little scene, perhaps, the deepest pathos ever expressed; but it is not of its beauty that i am treating; my object in noticing it here is, that it may be considered in connection with that where manfred appears with his insatiate thirst of knowledge, and manacled with guilt. it indicates that his sister, astarte, had been self-sacrificed in the pursuit of their magical knowledge. human sacrifices were supposed to be among the initiate propitiations of the demons that have their purposes in magic--as well as compacts signed with the blood of the self-sold. there was also a dark egyptian art, of which the knowledge and the efficacy could only be obtained by the novitiate's procuring a voluntary victim--the dearest object to himself and to whom he also was the dearest; { } and the primary spring of byron's tragedy lies, i conceive, in a sacrifice of that kind having been performed, without obtaining that happiness which the votary expected would be found in the knowledge and power purchased at such a price. his sister was sacrificed in vain. the manner of the sacrifice is not divulged, but it is darkly intimated to have been done amid the perturbations of something horrible. night after night for years he hath pursued long vigils in this tower without a witness.--i have been within it-- so have we all been ofttimes; but from it, or its contents, it were impossible to draw conclusions absolute of aught his studies tend to.--to be sure there is one chamber where none enter--. . . count manfred was, as now, within his tower: how occupied--we know not--but with him, the sole companion of his wanderings and watchings--her--whom of all earthly things that liv'd, the only thing he seem'd to love. with admirable taste, and its thrilling augmentation of the horror, the poet leaves the deed which was done in that unapproachable chamber undivulged, while we are darkly taught, that within it lie the relics or the ashes of the "one without a tomb." chapter xxxiii state of byron in switzerland--he goes to venice--the fourth canto of "childe harold"--rumination on his own condition--beppo--lament of tasso--curious example of byron's metaphysical love the situation of lord byron in switzerland was comfortless. he found that "the montain palaces of nature" afforded no asylum to a haunted heart; he was ill at ease with himself, even dissatisfied that the world had not done him enough of wrong to justify his misanthropy. some expectation that his lady would repent of her part in the separation probably induced him to linger in the vicinity of geneva, the thoroughfare of the travelling english, whom he affected to shun. if it were so, he was disappointed, and, his hopes being frustrated, he broke up the establishment he had formed there and crossed the alps. after visiting some of the celebrated scenes and places in the north of italy he passed on to venice, where he domiciled himself for a time. during his residence at venice lord byron avoided as much as possible any intercourse with his countrymen. this was perhaps in some degree necessary, and it was natural in the state of his mind. he had become an object of great public interest by his talents; the stories connected with his domestic troubles had also increased his notoriety, and in such circumstances he could not but shrink from the inquisition of mere curiosity. but there was an insolence in the tone with which he declares his "utter abhorrence of any contact with the travelling english," that can neither be commended for its spirit, nor palliated by any treatment he had suffered. like coriolanus he may have banished his country, but he had not, like the roman, received provocation: on the contrary, he had been the aggressor in the feuds with his literary adversaries; and there was a serious accusation against his morals, or at least his manners, in the circumstances under which lady byron withdrew from his house. it was, however, his misfortune throughout life to form a wrong estimate of himself in everything save in his poetical powers. a life in venice is more monotonous than in any other great city; but a man of genius carries with him everywhere a charm, which secures to him both variety and enjoyment. lord byron had scarcely taken up his abode in venice, when he began the fourth canto of childe harold, which he published early in the following year, and dedicated to his indefatigable friend mr hobhouse by an epistle dated on the anniversary of his marriage, "the most unfortunate day," as he says, "of his past existence." in this canto he has indulged his excursive moralizing beyond even the wide licence he took in the three preceding parts; but it bears the impression of more reading and observation. though not superior in poetical energy, it is yet a higher work than any of them, and something of a more resolved and masculine spirit pervades the reflections, and endows, as it were, with thought and enthusiasm the aspect of the things described. of the merits of the descriptions, as of real things, i am not qualified to judge: the transcripts from the tablets of the author's bosom he has himself assured us are faithful. "with regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. the fact is, that i had become weary of drawing a line, which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the chinese, in goldsmith's citizen of the world, whom nobody would believe to be a chinese, it was in vain that i asserted and imagined that i had drawn a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and the disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that i determined to abandon it altogether--and have done so." this confession, though it may not have been wanted, gives a pathetic emphasis to those passages in which the poet speaks of his own feelings. that his mind was jarred, and out of joint, there is too much reason to believe; but he had in some measure overcome the misery that clung to him during the dismal time of his sojourn in switzerland, and the following passage, though breathing the sweet and melancholy spirit of dejection, possesses a more generous vein of nationality than is often met with in his works, even when the same proud sentiment might have been more fitly expressed: i've taught me other tongues--and in strange eyes have made me not a stranger; to the mind which is itself, no changes bring surprise, nor is it harsh to make or hard to find a country with--aye, or without mankind. yet was i born where men are proud to be, not without cause; and should i leave behind th' inviolate island of the sage and free, and seek me out a home by a remoter sea? perhaps i lov'd it well, and should i lay my ashes in a soil which is not mine, my spirit shall resume it--if we may, unbodied, choose a sanctuary. i twine my hopes of being remember'd in my line, with my land's language; if too fond and far these aspirations in their hope incline-- if my fame should be as my fortunes are, of hasty growth and blight, and dull oblivion bar my name from out the temple where the dead are honour'd by the nations--let it be, and light the laurels on a loftier head, and be the spartan's epitaph on me: "sparta had many a worthier son than he"; meantime i seek no sympathies, nor need; the thorns which i have reap'd are of the tree i planted--they have torn me--and i bleed: i should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. it will strike the reader as remarkable, that although the poet, in the course of this canto, takes occasion to allude to dante and tasso, in whose destinies there was a shadowy likeness of his own, the rumination is mingled with less of himself than might have been expected, especially when it is considered how much it was a habit with him, to make his own feelings the basis and substratum of the sentiments he ascribed to others. it has also more than once surprised me that he has so seldom alluded to alfieri, whom of all poets, both in character and conduct, he most resembled; with this difference, however, that alfieri was possessed of affections equally intense and durable, whereas the caprice of byron made him uncertain in his partialities, or what was the same in effect, made his friends set less value on them than perhaps they were entitled to. before childe harold was finished, an incident occurred which suggested to byron a poem of a very different kind to any he had yet attempted:--without vouching for the exact truth of the anecdote, i have been told, that he one day received by the mail a copy of whistlecraft's prospectus and specimen of an intended national work; and, moved by its playfulness, immediately after reading it, began beppo, which he finished at a sitting. the facility with which he composed renders the story not improbable; but, singular as it may seem, the poem itself has the facetious flavour in it of his gaiety, stronger than even his grave works have of his frowardness, commonly believed to have been--i think, unjustly--the predominant mood of his character. the ode to venice is also to be numbered among his compositions in that city; a spirited and indignant effusion, full of his peculiar lurid fire, and rich in a variety of impressive and original images. but there is a still finer poem which belongs to this period of his history, though written, i believe, before he reached venice--the lament of tasso: and i am led to notice it the more particularly, as one of its noblest passages affords an illustration of the opinion which i have early maintained--that lord byron's extraordinary pretensions to the influence of love was but a metaphysical conception of the passion. it is no marvel--from my very birth my soul was drunk with love, which did pervade and mingle with whate'er i saw on earth; of objects all inanimate i made idols, and out of wild and lovely flowers, and rocks whereby they grew, a paradise, where i did lay me down within the shade of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours. it has been remarked by an anonymous author of memoirs of lord byron, a work written with considerable talent and acumen, that "this is so far from being in character, that it is the very reverse; for whether tasso was in his senses or not, if his love was sincere, he would have made the object of his affection the sole theme of his meditation, instead of generalising his passion, and talking about the original sympathies of his nature." in truth, no poet has better described love than byron has his own peculiar passion. his love was passion's essence--as a tree on fire by lightning; with ethereal flame kindled he was, and blasted; for to be thus enamour'd were in him the same. but his was not the love of living dame, nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, but of ideal beauty, which became in him existence, and o'erflowing teems along his burning page, distemper'd though it seems. in tracing the course of lord byron's career, i have not deemed it at all necessary to advert to the instances of his generosity, or to conduct less pleasant to record. enough has appeared to show that he was neither deficient in warmth of heart nor in less amiable feelings; but, upon the whole, it is not probable that either in his charities or his pleasures he was greatly different from other young men, though he undoubtedly had a wayward delight in magnifying his excesses, not in what was to his credit, like most men, but in what was calculated to do him no honour. more notoriety has been given to an instance of lavish liberality at venice, than the case deserved, though it was unquestionably prompted by a charitable impulse. the house of a shoemaker, near his lordship's residence, in st samuel, was burned to the ground, with all it contained, by which the proprietor was reduced to indigence. byron not only caused a new but a superior house to be erected, and also presented the sufferer with a sum of money equal in value to the whole of his stock in trade and furniture. i should endanger my reputation for impartiality if i did not, as a fair set-off to this, also mention that it is said he bought for five hundred crowns a baker's wife. there might be charity in this, too. chapter xxxiv removes to ravenna--the countess guiccioli although lord byron resided between two and three years at venice, he was never much attached to it. "to see a city die daily, as she does," said he, "is a sad contemplation. i sought to distract my mind from a sense of her desolation and my own solitude, by plunging into a vortex that was anything but pleasure. when one gets into a mill-stream, it is difficult to swim against it, and keep out of the wheels." he became tired and disgusted with the life he led at venice, and was glad to turn his back on it. about the close of the year he accordingly removed to ravenna; but before i proceed to speak of the works which he composed at ravenna, it is necessary to explain some particulars respecting a personal affair, the influence of which on at least one of his productions is as striking as any of the many instances already described upon others. i allude to the intimacy which he formed with the young countess guiccioli. this lady, at the age of sixteen, was married to the count, one of the richest noblemen in romagna, but far advanced in life. "from the first," said lord byron, in his account of her, "they had separate apartments, and she always called him, sir! what could be expected from such a preposterous connection. for some time she was an angiolina and he a marino faliero, a good old man; but young italian women are not satisfied with good old men, and the venerable count did not object to her availing herself of the privileges of her country in selecting a cicisbeo; an italian would have made it quite agreeable: indeed, for some time he winked at our intimacy, but at length made an exception against me, as a foreigner, a heretic, an englishman, and, what was worse than all, a liberal. "he insisted--teresa was as obstinate--her family took her part. catholics cannot get divorces; but to the scandal of all romagna, the matter was at last referred to the pope, who ordered her a separate maintenance on condition that she should reside under her father's roof. all this was not agreeable, and at length i was forced to smuggle her out of ravenna, having discovered a plot laid with the sanction of the legate, for shutting her up in a convent for life." the countess guiccioli was at this time about twenty, but she appeared younger; her complexion was fair, with large, dark, languishing eyes; and her auburn hair fell in great profusion of natural ringlets over her shapely shoulders. her features were not so regular as in their expression pleasing, and there was an amiable gentleness in her voice which was peculiarly interesting. leigh hunt's account of her is not essentially dissimilar from any other that i have either heard of or met with. he differs, however, in one respect, from every other, in saying that her hair was yellow; but considering the curiosity which this young lady has excited, perhaps it may be as well to transcribe his description at length, especially as he appears to have taken some pains on it, and more particularly as her destiny seems at present to promise that the interest for her is likely to be revived by another unhappy english connection. "her appearance," says mr hunt, "might have reminded an english spectator of chaucer's heroine: yclothed was she, fresh for to devise, her yellow hair was braided in a tress behind her back, a yarde long i guess, and in the garden (as the same uprist) she walketh up and down, where as her list. and then, as dryden has it: at every turn she made a little stand, and thrust among the thorns her lily hand. madame guiccioli, who was at that time about twenty, was handsome and lady-like, with an agreeable manner, and a voice not partaking too much of the italian fervour to be gentle. she had just enough of it to give her speaking a grace--none of her graces appeared entirely free from art; nor, on the other hand, did they betray enough of it to give you an ill opinion of her sincerity and good-humour . . . her hair was what the poet has described, or rather blond, with an inclination to yellow; a very fair and delicate yellow, at all events, and within the limits of the poetical. she had regular features of the order properly called handsome, in distinction to prettiness or piquancy; being well proportioned to one another, large, rather than otherwise, but without coarseness, and more harmonious than interesting. her nose was the handsomest of the kind i ever saw; and i have known her both smile very sweetly, and look intelligently, when lord byron has said something kind to her. i should not say, however, that she was a very intelligent person. both her wisdom and her want of wisdom were on the side of her feelings, in which there was doubtless mingled a good deal of the self-love natural to a flattered beauty. . . . in a word, madame guiccioli was a kind of buxom parlour-boarder, compressing herself artificially into dignity and elegance, and fancying she walked, in the eyes of the whole world, a heroine by the side of a poet. when i saw her at monte nero, near leghorn, she was in a state of excitement and exultation, and had really something of this look. at that time, also, she looked no older than she was; in which respect, a rapid and very singular change took place, to the surprise of everybody. in the course of a few months she seemed to have lived as many years." this is not very perspicuous portraiture, nor does it show that mr hunt was a very discerning observer of character. lord byron himself is represented to have said, that extraordinary pains were taken with her education: "her conversation is lively without being frivolous; without being learned, she has read all the best authors of her own and the french language. she often conceals what she knows, from the fear of being thought to know too much; possibly because she knows i am not fond of blues. to use an expression of jeffrey's, 'if she has blue stockings, she contrives that her petticoats shall hide them.'" lord byron was at one time much attached to her; nor could it be doubted that their affection was reciprocal; but in both, their union outlived their affection, for before his departure to greece his attachment had perished, and he left her, as it is said, notwithstanding the rank and opulence she had forsaken on his account, without any provision. he had promised, it was reported, to settle two thousand pounds on her, but he forgot the intention, or died before it was carried into effect. { } on her part, the estrangement was of a different and curious kind--she had not come to hate him, but she told a lady, the friend of a mutual acquaintance of lord byron and mine, that she feared more than loved him. chapter xxxv residence in ravenna--the carbonari--byron's part in their plot--the murder of the military commandant--the poetical use of the incident-- "marino faliero"--reflections--"the prophecy of dante" lord byron has said himself, that except greece, he was never so attached to any place in his life as to ravenna. the peasantry he thought the best people in the world, and their women the most beautiful. "those at tivoli and frescati," said he, "are mere sabines, coarse creatures, compared to the romagnese. you may talk of your english women; and it is true, that out of one hundred italian and english you will find thirty of the latter handsome; but then there will be one italian on the other side of the scale, who will more than balance the deficit in numbers--one who, like the florence venus, has no rival, and can have none in the north. i found also at ravenna much education and liberality of thinking among the higher classes. the climate is delightful. i was not broken in upon by society. ravenna lies out of the way of travellers. i was never tired of my rides in the pine forest: it breathes of the decameron; it is poetical ground. francesca lived and dante was exiled and died at ravenna. there is something inspiring in such an air. "the people liked me as much as they hated the government. it is not a little to say, i was popular with all the leaders of the constitutional party. they knew that i came from a land of liberty, and wished well to their cause. i would have espoused it, too, and assisted them to shake off their fetters. they knew my character, for i had been living two years at venice, where many of the ravennese have houses. i did not, however, take part in their intrigues, nor join in their political coteries; but i had a magazine of one hundred stand of arms in the house, when everything was ripe for revolt----a curse on carignan's imbecility! i could have pardoned him that, too, if he had not impeached his partisans. "the proscription was immense in romagna, and embraced many of the first nobles: almost all my friends, among the rest the gambas (the father and brother of the countess guiccioli), who took no part in the affair, were included in it. they were exiled, and their possessions confiscated. they knew that this must eventually drive me out of the country. i did not follow them immediately: i was not to be bullied--i had myself fallen under the eye of the government. if they could have got sufficient proof they would have arrested me." the latter part of this declaration bears, in my opinion, indubitable marks of being genuine. it has that magnifying mysticism about it which more than any other quality characterized lord byron's intimations concerning himself and his own affairs; but it is a little clearer than i should have expected in the acknowledgment of the part he was preparing to take in the insurrection. he does not seem here to be sensible, that in confessing so much, he has justified the jealousy with which he was regarded. "shortly after the plot was discovered," he proceeds to say, "i received several anonymous letters, advising me to discontinue my forest rides; but i entertained no apprehensions of treachery, and was more on horseback than ever. i never stir out without being well armed, nor sleep without pistols. they knew that i never missed my aim; perhaps this saved me." an event occurred at this time at ravenna that made a deep impression on lord byron. the commandant of the place, who, though suspected of being secretly a carbonaro, was too powerful a man to be arrested, was assassinated opposite to his residence. the measures adopted to screen the murderer proved, in the opinion of his lordship, that the assassination had taken place by order of the police, and that the spot where it was perpetrated had been selected by choice. byron at the moment had his foot in the stirrup, and his horse started at the report of the shot. on looking round he saw a man throw down a carbine and run away, and another stretched on the pavement near him. on hastening to the spot, he found it was the commandant; a crowd collected, but no one offered any assistance. his lordship directed his servant to lift the bleeding body into the palace--he assisted himself in the act, though it was represented to him that he might incur the displeasure of the government--and the gentleman was already dead. his adjutant followed the body into the house. "i remember," says his lordship, "his lamentation over him--'poor devil he would not have harmed a dog.'" it was from the murder of this commandant that the poet sketched the scene of the assassination in the fifth canto of don juan. the other evening ('twas on friday last), this is a fact, and no poetic fable-- just as my great coat was about me cast, my hat and gloves still lying on the table, i heard a shot--'twas eight o'clock scarce past, and running out as fast as i was able, i found the military commandant stretch'd in the street, and able scarce to pant. poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad, they had him slain with five slugs, and left him there to perish on the pavement: so i had him borne into the house, and up the stair; the man was gone: in some italian quarrel kill'd by five bullets from an old gun-barrel. the scars of his old wounds were near his new, those honourable scars which bought him fame, and horrid was the contrast to the view-- but let me quit the theme, as such things claim perhaps ev'n more attention than is due from me: i gazed (as oft i've gazed the same) to try if i could wrench aught out of death which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith. whether marino faliero was written at ravenna or completed there, i have not ascertained, but it was planned at venice, and as far back as . i believe this is considered about the most ordinary performance of all lord byron's works; but if it is considered with reference to the time in which it was written, it will probably be found to contain many great and impressive passages. has not the latter part of the second scene in the first act reference to the condition of venice when his lordship was there? and is not the description which israel bertuccio gives of the conspirators applicable to, as it was probably derived from, the carbonari, with whom there is reason to say byron was himself disposed to take a part? know, then, that there are met and sworn in secret a band of brethren, valiant hearts and true; men who have proved all fortunes, and have long grieved over that of venice, and have right to do so; having served her in all climes, and having rescued her from foreign foes, would do the same for those within her walls. they are not numerous, nor yet too few for their great purpose; they have arms, and means, and hearts, and hopes, and faith, and patient courage. this drama, to be properly appreciated, both in its taste and feeling should be considered as addressed to the italians of the epoch at which it was written. had it been written in the italian instead of the english language, and could have come out in any city of italy, the effect would have been prodigious. it is, indeed, a work not to be estimated by the delineations of character nor the force of passion expressed in it, but altogether by the apt and searching sarcasm of the political allusions. viewed with reference to the time and place in which it was composed, it would probably deserve to be ranked as a high and bold effort: simply as a drama, it may not be entitled to rank above tragedies of the second or third class. but i mean not to set my opinion of this work against that of the public, the english public; all i contend for is, that it possesses many passages of uncommon beauty, and that its chief tragic merit consists in its political indignation; but above all, that is another and a strong proof too, of what i have been endeavouring to show, that the power of the poet consisted in giving vent to his own feelings, and not, like his great brethren, or even his less, in the invention of situations or of appropriate sentiments. it is, perhaps, as it stands, not fit to succeed in representation; but it is so rich in matter that it would not be a difficult task to make out of little more than the third part a tragedy which would not dishonour the english stage. i have never been able to understand why it has been so often supposed that lord byron was actuated in the composition of his different works by any other motive than enjoyment: perhaps no poet had ever less of an ulterior purpose in his mind during the fits of inspiration (for the epithet may be applied correctly to him and to the moods in which he was accustomed to write) than this singular and impassioned man. those who imagine that he had any intention to impair the reverence due to religion, or to weaken the hinges of moral action, give him credit for far more design and prospective purpose than he possessed. they could have known nothing of the man, the main defect of whose character, in relation to everything, was in having too little of the element or principle of purpose. he was a thing of impulses, and to judge of what he either said or did, as the results of predetermination, was not only to do the harshest injustice, but to show a total ignorance of his character. his whole fault, the darkest course of those flights and deviations from propriety which have drawn upon him the severest animadversion, lay in the unbridled state of his impulses. he felt, but never reasoned. i am led to make these observations by noticing the ungracious, or, more justly, the illiberal spirit in which the prophecy of dante, which was published with the marino faliero, has been treated by the anonymous author of memoirs of the life and writings of lord byron. of the prophecy of dante i am no particular admirer. it contains, unquestionably, stanzas of resounding energy, but the general verse of the poem is as harsh and abrupt as the clink and clang of the cymbal; moreover, even for a prophecy, it is too obscure, and though it possesses abstractedly too many fine thoughts, and too much of the combustion of heroic passion to be regarded as a failure, yet it will never be popular. it is a quarry, however, of very precious poetical expression. it was written at ravenna, and at the suggestion of the guiccioli, to whom it is dedicated in a sonnet, prettily but inharmoniously turned. like all his other best performances, this rugged but masterly composition draws its highest interest from himself and his own feelings, and can only be rightly appreciated by observing how fitly many of the bitter breathings of dante apply to his own exiled and outcast condition. for, however much he was himself the author of his own banishment, he felt when he wrote these haughty verses that he had been sometimes shunned. chapter xxxvi the tragedy of "sardanapalus" considered, with reference to lord byron's own circumstances--"cain" among the mental enjoyments which endeared ravenna to lord byron, the composition of sardanapalus may be reckoned the chief. it seems to have been conceived in a happier mood than any of all his other works; for, even while it inculcates the dangers of voluptuous indulgence, it breathes the very essence of benevolence and philosophy. pleasure takes so much of the character of virtue in it, that but for the moral taught by the consequences, enjoyment might be mistaken for duty. i have never been able to satisfy myself in what the resemblance consists, but from the first reading it has always appeared to me that there was some elegant similarity between the characters of sardanapalus and hamlet, and my inclination has sometimes led me to imagine that the former was the nobler conception of the two. the assyrian monarch, like the prince of denmark, is highly endowed, capable of the greatest undertakings; he is yet softened by a philosophic indolence of nature that makes him undervalue the enterprises of ambition, and all those objects in the attainment of which so much of glory is supposed to consist. they are both alike incapable of rousing themselves from the fond reveries of moral theory, even when the strongest motives are presented to them. hamlet hesitates to act, though his father's spirit hath come from death to incite him; and sardanapalus derides the achievements that had raised his ancestors to an equality with the gods. thou wouldst have me go forth as a conqueror.--by all the stars which the chaldeans read! the restless slaves deserve that i should curse them with their wishes and lead them forth to glory. again: the ungrateful and ungracious slaves! they murmur because i have not shed their blood, nor led them to dry into the deserts' dust by myriads, or whiten with their bones the banks of ganges, nor decimated them with savage laws, nor sweated them to build up pyramids or babylonian walls. the nothingness of kingly greatness and national pride were never before so finely contemned as by the voluptuous assyrian, and were the scorn not mitigated by the skilful intermixture of mercifulness and philanthropy, the character would not be endurable. but when the same voice which pronounced contempt on the toils of honour says, enough for me if i can make my subjects feel the weight of human misery less, it is impossible to repress the liking which the humane spirit of that thought is calculated to inspire. nor is there any want of dignity in sardanapalus, even when lolling softest in his luxury. must i consume my life--this little life-- in guarding against all may make it less! it is not worth so much--it were to die before my hour to live in dread of death. . . . till now no drop of an assyrian vein hath flow'd for me, nor hath the smallest coin of nineveh's vast treasure e'er been lavish'd on objects which could cost her sons a tear. if then they hate me 'tis because i hate not, if they rebel 'tis because i oppress not. this is imagined in the true tone of epicurean virtue, and it rises to magnanimity when he adds in compassionate scorn, oh, men! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres, and mow'd down like the grass, else all we reap is rank abundance and a rotten harvest of discontents infecting the fair soil, making a desert of fertility. but the graciousness in the conception of the character of sardanapalus, is not to be found only in these sentiments of his meditations, but in all and every situation in which the character is placed. when salamenes bids him not sheath his sword-- 'tis the sole sceptre left you now with safety, the king replies-- "a heavy one;" and subjoins, as if to conceal his distaste for war, by ascribing a dislike to the sword itself, the hilt, too, hurts my hand. it may be asked why i dwell so particularly on the character of sardanapalus. it is admitted that he is the most heroic of voluptuaries, the most philosophical of the licentious. the first he is undoubtedly, but he is not licentious; and in omitting to make him so, the poet has prevented his readers from disliking his character upon principle. it was a skilful stroke of art to do this; had it been otherwise, and had there been no affection shown for the ionian slave, sardanapalus would have engaged no sympathy. it is not, however, with respect to the ability with which the character has been imagined, nor to the poetry with which it is invested, that i have so particularly made it a subject of criticism; it was to point out how much in it lord byron has interwoven of his own best nature. at the time when he was occupied with this great work, he was confessedly in the enjoyment of the happiest portion of his life. the guiccioli was to him a myrrha, but the carbonari were around, and in the controversy, in which sardanapalus is engaged, between the obligations of his royalty and his inclinations for pleasure, we have a vivid insight of the cogitation of the poet, whether to take a part in the hazardous activity which they were preparing, or to remain in the seclusion and festal repose of which he was then in possession. the assyrian is as much lord byron as childe harold was, and bears his lineaments in as clear a likeness, as a voluptuary unsated could do those of the emaciated victim of satiety. over the whole drama, and especially in some of the speeches of sardanapalus, a great deal of fine but irrelevant poetry and moral reflection has been profusely spread; but were the piece adapted to the stage, these portions would of course be omitted, and the character denuded of them would then more fully justify the idea which i have formed of it, than it may perhaps to many readers do at present, hidden as it is, both in shape and contour, under an excess of ornament. that the character of myrrha was also drawn from life, and that the guiccioli was the model, i have no doubt. she had, when most enchanted by her passion for byron--at the very time when the drama was written--many sources of regret; and he was too keen an observer, and of too jealous a nature, not to have marked every shade of change in her appearance, and her every moment of melancholy reminiscence; so that, even though she might never have given expression to her sentiments, still such was her situation, that it could not but furnish him with fit suggestions from which to fill up the moral being of the ionian slave. were the character of myrrha scanned with this reference, while nothing could be discovered to detract from the value of the composition, a great deal would be found to lessen the merit of the poet's invention. he had with him the very being in person whom he has depicted in the drama, of dispositions and endowments greatly similar, and in circumstances in which she could not but feel as myrrha is supposed to have felt--and it must be admitted, that he has applied the good fortune of that incident to a beautiful purpose. this, however, is not all that the tragedy possesses of the author. the character of zarina is, perhaps, even still more strikingly drawn from life. there are many touches in the scene with her which he could not have imagined, without thinking of his own domestic disasters. the first sentiment she utters is truly conceived in the very frame and temper in which byron must have wished his lady to think of himself, and he could not embody it without feeling that-- how many a year has pass'd, though we are still so young, since we have met which i have borne in widowhood of heart. the following delicate expression has reference to his having left his daughter with her mother, and unfolds more of his secret feelings on the subject than anything he has expressed more ostentatiously elsewhere: i wish'd to thank you, that you have not divided my heart from all that's left it now to love. and what sardanapalus says of his children is not less applicable to byron, and is true: deem not i have not done you justice: rather make them resemble your own line, than their own sire; i trust them with you--to you. and when zarina says, they ne'er shall know from me aught but what may honour their father's memory, he puts in her mouth only a sentiment which he knew, if his wife never expressed to him, she profoundly acknowledged in resolution to herself. the whole of this scene is full of the most penetrating pathos; and did the drama not contain, in every page, indubitable evidence to me, that he has shadowed out in it himself his wife, and his mistress, this little interview would prove a vast deal in confirmation of the opinion so often expressed, that where his genius was most in its element, it was when it dealt with his own sensibilities and circumstances. it is impossible to read the following speech, without a conviction that it was written at lady byron: my gentle, wrong'd zarina! i am the very slave of circumstance and impulse--borne away with every breath! misplaced upon the throne--misplaced in life. i know not what i could have been, but feel i am not what i should be--let it end. but take this with thee: if i was not form'd to prize a love like thine--a mind like thine-- nor dote even on thy beauty--as i've doted on lesser charms, for no cause save that such devotion was a duty, and i hated all that look'd like a chain for me or others (this even rebellion must avouch); yet hear these words, perhaps among my last--that none e'er valued more thy virtues, though he knew not to profit by them. at ravenna cain was also written; a dramatic poem, in some degree, chiefly in its boldness, resembling the ancient mysteries of the monasteries before the secular stage was established. this performance, in point of conception, is of a sublime order. the object of the poem is to illustrate the energy and the art of lucifer in accomplishing the ruin of the first-born. by an unfair misconception, the arguments of lucifer have been represented as the sentiments of the author upon some imaginary warranty derived from the exaggerated freedom of his life; and yet the moral tendency of the reflections are framed in a mood of reverence as awful towards omnipotence as the austere divinity of milton. it would be presumption in me, however, to undertake the defence of any question in theology; but i have not been sensible to the imputed impiety, while i have felt in many passages influences that have their being amid the shadows and twilights of "old religion"; "stupendous spirits that mock the pride of man, and people space with life and mystical predominance." the morning hymns and worship with which the mystery opens are grave, solemn, and scriptural, and the dialogue which follows with cain is no less so: his opinion of the tree of life is, i believe, orthodox; but it is daringly expressed: indeed, all the sentiments ascribed to cain are but the questions of the sceptics. his description of the approach of lucifer would have shone in the paradise lost. a shape like to the angels, yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect, of spiritual essence. why do i quake? why should i fear him more than other spirits whom i see daily wave their fiery swords before the gates round which i linger oft in twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those gardens which are my just inheritance, ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls, and the immortal trees which overtop the cherubim-defended battlements? i shrink not from these, the fire-arm'd angels; why should i quail from him who now approaches? yet he seems mightier far than them, nor less beauteous; and yet not all as beautiful as he hath been, or might be: sorrow seems half of his immortality. there is something spiritually fine in this conception of the terror or presentiment of coming evil. the poet rises to the sublime in making lucifer first inspire cain with the knowledge of his immortality--a portion of truth which hath the efficacy of falsehood upon the victim; for cain, feeling himself already unhappy, knowing that his being cannot be abridged, has the less scruple to desire to be as lucifer, "mighty." the whole speech of lucifer, beginning, souls who dare use their immortality, is truly satanic; a daring and dreadful description given by everlasting despair of the deity. but, notwithstanding its manifold immeasurable imaginations, cain is only a polemical controversy, the doctrines of which might have been better discussed in the pulpit of a college chapel. as a poem it is greatly unequal; many passages consist of mere metaphysical disquisition, but there are others of wonderful scope and energy. it is a thing of doubts and dreams and reveries--dim and beautiful, yet withal full of terrors. the understanding finds nothing tangible; but amid dread and solemnity, sees only a shapen darkness with eloquent gestures. it is an argument invested with the language of oracles and omens, conceived in some religious trance, and addressed to spirits. chapter xxxvii removal to pisa--the lanfranchi palace--affair with the guard at pisa--removal to monte nero--junction with mr hunt--mr shelley's letter the unhappy distrusts and political jealousies of the times obliged lord byron, with the gambas, the family of the guiccioli, to remove from ravenna to pisa. in this compulsion he had no cause to complain; a foreigner meddling with the politics of the country in which he was only accidentally resident, could expect no deferential consideration from the government. it has nothing to do with the question whether his lordship was right or wrong in his principles. the government was in the possession of the power, and in self- defence he could expect no other course towards him than what he did experience. he was admonished to retreat: he did so. could he have done otherwise, he would not. he would have used the austrian authority as ill as he was made to feel it did him. in the autumn of , lord byron removed from ravenna to pisa, where he hired the lanfranchi palace for a year--one of those massy marble piles which appear "so old, as if they had for ever stood-- so strong, as if they would for ever stand!" both in aspect and character it was interesting to the boding fancies of the noble tenant. it is said to have been constructed from a design of michael angelo; and in the grandeur of its features exhibits a bold and colossal style not unworthy of his genius. the lanfranchi family, in the time of dante, were distinguished in the factions of those days, and one of them has received his meed of immortality from the poet, as the persecutor of ugolino. they are now extinct, and their traditionary reputation is illustrated by the popular belief in the neighbourhood, that their ghosts are restless, and still haunt their former gloomy and gigantic habitation. the building was too vast for the establishment of lord byron, and he occupied only the first floor. the life he led at this period was dull and unvaried. billiards, conversations, reading, and occasionally writing, constituted the regular business of the day. in the cool of the afternoon, he sometimes went out in his carriage, oftener on horseback, and generally amused himself with pistol practice at a five-paul piece. he dined at half an hour after sunset, and then drove to count gamba's, where he passed several hours with the countess guiccioli, who at that time still resided with her father. on his return he read or wrote till the night was far spent, or rather till the morning was come again, sipping at intervals spirits diluted with water, as medicine to counteract some nephritic disorder to which he considered himself liable. notwithstanding the tranquillity of this course of life, he was accidentally engaged in a transaction which threatened unpleasant consequences, and had a material effect on his comfort. on the st of march, , as he was returning from his usual ride, in company with several of his friends, a hussar officer, at full speed, dashed through the party, and violently jostled one of them. lord byron, with his characteristic impetuosity, instantly pushed forwards, and the rest followed, and overtook the hussar. his lordship inquired what he meant by the insult; but for answer, received the grossest abuse: on which he and one of his companions gave their cards, and passed on. the officer followed, hallooing, and threatening with his hand on his sabre. they were now near the paggia gate. during this altercation, a common artilleryman interfered, and called out to the hussar, "why don't you arrest them?--command us to arrest them." upon which the officer gave the word to the guard at the gate. his lordship, hearing the order, spurred his horse, and one of his party doing the same, they succeeded in forcing their way through the soldiers, while the gate was closed on the rest of the party, with whom an outrageous scuffle ensued. lord byron, on reaching his palace, gave directions to inform the police, and, not seeing his companions coming up, rode back towards the gate. on his way the hussar met him, and said, "are you satisfied?"--"no: tell me your name!"--"serjeant-major masi." one of his lordship's servants, who at this moment joined them, seized the hussar's horse by the bridle, but his master commanded him to let it go. the hussar then spurred his horse through the crowd, which by this time had collected in front of the lanfranchi palace, and in the attempt was wounded by a pitchfork. several of the servants were arrested, and imprisoned: and, during the investigation of the affair before the police, lord byron's house was surrounded by the dragoons belonging to serjeant-major masi's troop, who threatened to force the doors. the result upon these particulars was not just; all lord byron's italian servants were banished from pisa; and with them the father and brother of the guiccioli, who had no concern whatever in the affair. lord byron himself was also advised to quit the town, and, as the countess accompanied her father, he soon after joined them at leghorn, and passed six weeks at monte nero, a country house in the vicinity of that city. it was during his lordship's residence at monte nero, that an event took place--his junction with mr leigh hunt--which had some effect both on his literary and his moral reputation. previous to his departure from england, there had been some intercourse between them- -byron had been introduced by moore to hunt, when the latter was suffering imprisonment for the indiscretion of his pen, and by his civility had encouraged him, perhaps, into some degree of forgetfulness as to their respective situations in society.--mr hunt at no period of their acquaintance appears to have been sufficiently sensible that a man of positive rank has it always in his power, without giving anything like such a degree of offence as may be resented otherwise than by estrangement, to inflict mortification, and, in consequence, presumed too much to an equality with his lordship--at least this is the impression his conduct made upon me, from the familiarity of his dedicatory epistle prefixed to rimini to their riding out at pisa together dressed alike--"we had blue frock- coats, white waistcoats and trousers, and velvet caps, a la raphael, and cut a gallant figure." i do not discover on the part of lord byron, that his lordship ever forgot his rank; nor was he a personage likely to do so; in saying, therefore, that mr hunt presumed upon his condescension, i judge entirely by his own statement of facts. i am not undertaking a defence of his lordship, for the manner in which he acted towards mr hunt, because it appears to me to have been, in many respects, mean; but i do think there was an original error, a misconception of himself on the part of mr hunt, that drew down about him a degree of humiliation that he might, by more self-respect, have avoided. however, i shall endeavour to give as correct a summary of the whole affair as the materials before me will justify. the occasion of hunt's removal to italy will be best explained by quoting the letter from his friend shelley, by which he was induced to take that obviously imprudent step. "pisa, aug. , . "my dearest friend,--since i last wrote to you, i have been on a visit to lord byron at ravenna. the result of this visit was a determination on his part to come and live at pisa, and i have taken the finest palace on the lung' arno for him. but the material part of my visit consists in a message which he desires me to give you, and which i think ought to add to your determination--for such a one i hope you have formed--of restoring your shattered health and spirits by a migration to these 'regions mild, of calm and serene air.' "he proposes that you should come, and go shares with him and me in a periodical work to be conducted here, in which each of the contracting parties should publish all their original compositions, and share the profits. he proposed it to moore, but for some reason it was never brought to bear. there can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in which you and lord byron engage must, for various yet co-operating reasons, be very great. as to myself, i am, for the present, only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know each other, and effectuate the arrangement; since (to intrust you with a secret, which for your sake i withhold from lord byron) nothing would induce me to share in the profits, and still less in the borrowed splendour of such a partnership. you and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would bring in a different manner, but in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and success. do not let my frankness with you, nor my belief that you deserve it more than lord byron, have the effect of deterring you from assuming a station in modern literature, which the universal voice of my contemporaries forbids me either to stoop or aspire to. i am, and i desire to be, nothing. "i did not ask lord byron to assist me in sending a remittance for your journey; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation in the worldly sense of the word; and i am as jealous for my friend as for myself. i, as you know, have it not; but i suppose that at last i shall make up an impudent face, and ask horace smith to add to the many obligations he has conferred on me. i know i need only ask." . . . now, before proceeding farther, it seems from this epistle, and there is no reason to question shelley's veracity, that lord byron was the projector of the liberal; that hunt's political notoriety was mistaken for literary reputation, and that there was a sad lack of common sense in the whole scheme. chapter xxxviii mr hunt arrives in italy--meeting with lord byron--tumults in the house--arrangements for mr hunt's family---extent of his obligations to lord byron--their copartnery--meanness of the whole business on receiving mr shelley's letter, mr hunt prepared to avail himself of the invitation which he was the more easily enabled to do, as his friend, notwithstanding what he had intimated, borrowed two hundred pounds from lord byron, and remitted to him. he reached leghorn soon after his lordship had taken up his temporary residence at monte nero. the meeting with his lordship was in so many respects remarkable, that the details of it cannot well be omitted. the day was very hot; and when hunt reached the house he found the hottest-looking habitation he had ever seen. not content with having a red wash over it, the red was the most unseasonable of all reds--a salmon-colour; but the greatest of all heats was within. lord byron was grown so fat that he scarcely knew him; and was dressed in a loose nankeen jacket and white trousers, his neckcloth open, and his hair in thin ringlets about his throat; altogether presenting a very different aspect from the compact, energetic, and curly-headed person whom hunt had known in england. his lordship took the stranger into an inner room, and introduced him to a young lady who was in a state of great agitation. this was the guiccioli; presently her brother also, in great agitation, entered, having his arm in a sling. this scene and confusion had arisen from a quarrel among the servants, in which the young count, having interfered, had been stabbed. he was very angry, the countess was more so, and would not listen to the comments of lord byron, who was for making light of the matter. indeed, it looked somewhat serious, for though the stab was not much, the inflicter threatened more, and was at that time revengefully keeping watch, with knotted brows, under the portico, with the avowed intention of assaulting the first person who issued forth. he was a sinister-looking, meager caitiff, with a red cap--gaunt, ugly, and unshaven; his appearance altogether more squalid and miserable than englishmen would conceive it possible to find in such an establishment. an end, however, was put to the tragedy by the fellow throwing himself on a bench, and bursting into tears--wailing and asking pardon for his offence, and perfecting his penitence by requesting lord byron to kiss him in token of forgiveness. in the end, however, he was dismissed; and it being arranged that mr hunt should move his family to apartments in the lanfranchi palace at pisa, that gentleman returned to leghorn. the account which mr hunt has given, in his memoir of lord byron, is evidently written under offended feeling; and, in consequence, though he does not appear to have been much indebted to the munificence of his lordship, the tendency is to make his readers sensible that he was, if not ill used, disappointed. the casa lanfranchi was a huge and gaunt building, capable, without inconvenience or intermixture, of accommodating several families. it was, therefore, not a great favour in his lordship, considering that he had invited mr hunt from england, to become a partner with him in a speculation purely commercial, to permit him to occupy the ground-floor or flat, as it would be called in scotland. the apartments being empty, furniture was necessary, and the plainest was provided; good of its kind and respectable, it yet could not have cost a great deal. it was chosen by mr shelley, who intended to make a present of it to mr hunt; but when the apartments were fitted up, lord byron insisted upon paying the account, and to that extent mr hunt incurred a pecuniary obligation to his lordship. the two hundred pounds already mentioned was a debt to mr shelley, who borrowed the money from lord byron. soon after mr hunt's family were settled in their new lodgings, shelley returned to leghorn, with the intention of taking a sea excursion--in the course of which he was lost: lord byron knowing how much hunt was dependent on that gentleman, immediately offered him the command of his purse, and requested to be considered as standing in the place of shelley, his particular friend. this was both gentlemanly and generous, and the offer was accepted, but with feelings neither just nor gracious: "stern necessity and a large family compelled me," says mr hunt, "and during our residence at pisa i had from him, or rather from his steward, to whom he always sent me for the money, and who doled it out to me as if my disgraces were being counted, the sum of seventy pounds." "this sum," he adds, "together with the payment of our expenses when we accompanied him from pisa to genoa, and thirty pounds with which he enabled us subsequently to go from genoa to florence, was all the money i ever received from lord byron, exclusive of the two hundred pounds, which, in the first instance, he made a debt of mr shelley, by taking his bond."--the whole extent of the pecuniary obligation appears certainly not to have exceeded five hundred pounds; no great sum--but little or great, the manner in which it was recollected reflects no credit either on the head or heart of the debtor. mr hunt, in extenuation of the bitterness with which he has spoken on the subject, says, that "lord byron made no scruple of talking very freely of me and mine." it may, therefore, be possible, that mr hunt had cause for his resentment, and to feel the humiliation of being under obligations to a mean man; at the same time lord byron, on his side, may upon experience have found equal reason to repent of his connection with mr hunt. and it is certain that each has sought to justify, both to himself and to the world, the rupture of a copartnery which ought never to have been formed. but his lordship's conduct is the least justifiable. he had allured hunt to italy with flattering hopes; he had a perfect knowledge of his hampered circumstances, and he was thoroughly aware that, until their speculation became productive, he must support him. to the extent of about five hundred pounds he did so: a trifle, considering the glittering anticipations of their scheme. viewing their copartnery, however, as a mere commercial speculation, his lordship's advance could not be regarded as liberal, and no modification of the term munificence or patronage could be applied to it. but, unless he had harassed hunt for the repayment of the money, which does not appear to have been the case, nor could he morally, perhaps even legally, have done so, that gentleman had no cause to complain. the joint adventure was a failure, and except a little repining on the part of the one for the loss of his advance, and of grudging on that of the other for the waste of his time, no sharper feeling ought to have arisen between them. but vanity was mingled with their golden dreams. lord byron mistook hunt's political notoriety for literary reputation, and mr hunt thought it was a fine thing to be chum and partner with so renowned a lord. after all, however, the worst which can be said of it is, that formed in weakness it could produce only vexation. but the dissolution of the vapour with which both parties were so intoxicated, and which led to their quarrel, might have occasioned only amusement to the world, had it not left an ignoble stigma on the character of lord byron, and given cause to every admirer of his genius to deplore, that he should have so forgotten his dignity and fame. there is no disputing the fact, that his lordship, in conceiving the plan of the liberal, was actuated by sordid motives, and of the basest kind, inasmuch as it was intended that the popularity of the work should rest upon satire; or, in other words, on the ability to be displayed by it in the art of detraction. being disappointed in his hopes of profit, he shuffled out of the concern as meanly as any higgler could have done who had found himself in a profitless business with a disreputable partner. there is no disguising this unvarnished truth; and though his friends did well in getting the connection ended as quickly as possible, they could not eradicate the original sin of the transaction, nor extinguish the consequences which it of necessity entailed. let me not, however, be misunderstood: my objection to the conduct of byron does not lie against the wish to turn his extraordinary talents to profitable account, but to the mode in which he proposed to, and did, employ them. whether mr hunt was or was not a fit copartner for one of his lordship's rank and celebrity, i do not undertake to judge; but any individual was good enough for that vile prostitution of his genius, to which, in an unguarded hour, he submitted for money. indeed, it would be doing injustice to compare the motives of mr hunt in the business with those by which lord byron was infatuated. he put nothing to hazard; happen what might, he could not be otherwise than a gainer; for if profit failed, it could not be denied that the "foremost" poet of all the age had discerned in him either the promise or the existence of merit, which he was desirous of associating with his own. this advantage mr hunt did gain by the connection; and it is his own fault that he cannot be recollected as the associate of byron, but only as having attempted to deface his monument. chapter xxxix mr shelley--sketch of his life--his death--the burning of his body, and the return of the mourners it has been my study in writing these sketches to introduce as few names as the nature of the work would admit of; but lord byron connected himself with persons who had claims to public consideration on account of their talents; and, without affectation, it is not easy to avoid taking notice of his intimacy with some of them, especially, if in the course of it any circumstance came to pass which was in itself remarkable, or likely to have produced an impression on his lordship's mind. his friendship with mr shelley, mentioned in the preceding chapter, was an instance of this kind. that unfortunate gentleman was undoubtedly a man of genius--full of ideal beauty and enthusiasm. and yet there was some defect in his understanding by which he subjected himself to the accusation of atheism. in his dispositions he is represented to have been ever calm and amiable; and but for his metaphysical errors and reveries, and a singular incapability of conceiving the existing state of things as it practically affects the nature and condition of man, to have possessed many of the gentlest qualities of humanity. he highly admired the endowments of lord byron, and in return was esteemed by his lordship; but even had there been neither sympathy nor friendship between them, his premature fate could not but have saddened byron with no common sorrow. mr shelley was some years younger than his noble friend; he was the eldest son of sir timothy shelley, bart., of castle goring, sussex. at the age of thirteen he was sent to eton, where he rarely mixed in the common amusements of the other boys; but was of a shy, reserved disposition, fond of solitude, and made few friends. he was not distinguished for his proficiency in the regular studies of the school; on the contrary, he neglected them for german and chemistry. his abilities were superior, but deteriorated by eccentricity. at the age of sixteen he was sent to the university of oxford, where he soon distinguished himself by publishing a pamphlet, under the absurd and world-defying title of the necessity of atheism; for which he was expelled from the university. the event proved fatal to his prospects in life; and the treatment he received from his family was too harsh to win him from error. his father, however, in a short time relented, and he was received home; but he took so little trouble to conciliate the esteem of his friends, that he found the house uncomfortable, and left it. he then went to london; where he eloped with a young lady to gretna green. their united ages amounted to thirty-two; and the match being deemed unsuitable to his rank and prospects, it so exasperated his father, that he broke off all communication with him. after their marriage the young couple resided some time in edinburgh. they then passed over to ireland, which being in a state of disturbance, shelley took a part in politics, more reasonable than might have been expected. he inculcated moderation. about this tune he became devoted to the cultivation of his poetical talents; but his works were sullied with the erroneous inductions of an understanding which, inasmuch as he regarded all the existing world in the wrong, must be considered as having been either shattered or defective. his rash marriage proved, of course, an unhappy one. after the birth of two children, a separation, by mutual consent, took place, and mrs shelley committed suicide. he then married a daughter of mr godwin, the author of caleb williams, and they resided for some time at great marlow, in buckinghamshire, much respected for their charity. in the meantime, his irreligious opinions had attracted public notice, and, in consequence of his unsatisfactory notions of the deity, his children, probably at the instance of his father, were taken from him by a decree of the lord chancellor: an event which, with increasing pecuniary embarrassments, induced him to quit england, with the intention of never returning. being in switzerland when lord byron, after his domestic tribulations, arrived at geneva, they became acquainted. he then crossed the alps, and again at venice renewed his friendship with his lordship; he thence passed to rome, where he resided some time; and after visiting naples, fixed his permanent residence in tuscany. his acquirements were constantly augmenting, and he was without question an accomplished person. he was, however, more of a metaphysician than a poet, though there are splendid specimens of poetical thought in his works. as a man, he was objected to only on account of his speculative opinions; for he possessed many amiable qualities, was just in his intentions, and generous to excess. when he had seen mr hunt established in the casa lanfranchi with lord byron at pisa, mr shelley returned to leghorn, for the purpose of taking a sea excursion; an amusement to which he was much attached. during a violent storm the boat was swamped, and the party on board were all drowned. their bodies were, however, afterwards cast on shore; mr shelley's was found near via reggio, and, being greatly decomposed, and unfit to be removed, it was determined to reduce the remains to ashes, that they might be carried to a place of sepulture. accordingly preparations were made for the burning. wood in abundance was found on the shore, consisting of old trees and the wreck of vessels: the spot itself was well suited for the ceremony. the magnificent bay of spezzia was on the right, and leghorn on the left, at equal distances of about two-and-twenty miles. the headlands project boldly far into the sea; in front lie several islands, and behind dark forests and the cliffy apennines. nothing was omitted that could exalt and dignify the mournful rites with the associations of classic antiquity; frankincense and wine were not forgotten. the weather was serene and beautiful, and the pacified ocean was silent, as the flame rose with extraordinary brightness. lord byron was present; but he should himself have described the scene and what he felt. these antique obsequies were undoubtedly affecting; but the return of the mourners from the burning is the most appalling orgia, without the horror of crime, of which i have ever heard. when the duty was done, and the ashes collected, they dined and drank much together, and bursting from the calm mastery with which they had repressed their feelings during the solemnity, gave way to frantic exultation. they were all drunk; they sang, they shouted, and their barouche was driven like a whirlwind through the forest. i can conceive nothing descriptive of the demoniac revelry of that flight, but scraps of the dead man's own song of faust, mephistophiles, and ignis fatuus, in alternate chorus. the limits of the sphere of dream, the bounds of true and false are past; lead us on, thou wand'ring gleam; lead us onwards, far and fast, to the wide, the desert waste. but see how swift, advance and shift, trees behind trees--row by row, now clift by clift, rocks bend and lift, their frowning foreheads as we go; the giant-snouted crags, ho! ho! how they snort, and how they blow. honour her to whom honour is due, old mother baubo, honour to you. an able sow with old baubo upon her is worthy of glory and worthy of honour. the way is wide, the way is long, but what is that for a bedlam throng? some on a ram, and some on a prong, on poles and on broomsticks we flutter along. every trough will be boat enough, with a rag for a sail, we can sweep through the sky. who flies not to-night, when means he to fly? chapter xl "the two foscari"--"werner"--"the deformed transformed"--"don juan"-- "the liberal"--removes from pisa to genoa i have never heard exactly where the tragedy of the two foscari was written: that it was imagined in venice is probable. the subject is, perhaps, not very fit for a drama, for it has no action; but it is rich in tragic materials, revenge and affection, and the composition is full of the peculiar stuff of the poet's own mind. the exulting sadness with which jacopo foscari looks in the first scene from the window, on the adriatic, is byron himself recalling his enjoyment of the sea. how many a time have i cloven with arm still lustier, heart more daring, the wave all roughen'd: with a swimmer's stroke flinging the billows back from my drench'd hair, and laughing from my lip th' audacious brine which kiss'd it like a wine-cup. the whole passage, both prelude and remainder, glows with the delicious recollections of laying and revelling in the summer waves. but the exile's feeling is no less beautifully given and appropriate to the author's condition, far more so, indeed, than to that of jacopo foscari. had i gone forth from my own land, like the old patriarchs, seeking another region with their flocks and herds; had i been cast out like the jews from zion, or like our fathers driven by attila from fertile italy to barren islets, i would have given some tears to my late country, and many thoughts; but afterward address'd myself to those about me, to create a new home and first state. what follows is still more pathetic: ay--we but hear of the survivors' toil in their new lands, their numbers and success; but who can number the hearts which broke in silence of that parting, or after their departure; of that malady { a} which calls up green and native fields to view from the rough deep with such identity to the poor exile's fever'd eye, that he can scarcely be restrained from treading them? that melody { b} which out of tones and tunes collects such pastime for the ling'ring sorrow of the sad mountaineer, when far away from his snow-canopy of cliffs and clouds, that he feeds on the sweet but poisonous thought and dies.--you call this weakness! it is strength, i say--the parent of all honest feeling: he who loves not his country can love nothing. marina obey her then, 'tis she that puts thee forth. jacopo foscari ay, there it is. 'tis like a mother's curse upon my soul--the mark is set upon me. the exiles you speak of went forth by nations; their hands upheld each other by the way; their tents were pitch'd together--i'm alone-- ah, you never yet were far away from venice--never saw her beautiful towers in the receding distance, while every furrow of the vessel's track seem'd ploughing deep into your heart; you never saw day go down upon your native spires so calmly with its gold and crimson glory, and after dreaming a disturbed vision of them and theirs, awoke and found them not. all this speaks of the voluntary exile's own regrets, and awakens sympathy for the anguish which pride concealed, but unable to repress, gave vent to in the imagined sufferings of one that was to him as hecuba. it was at pisa that werner, or the inheritance, a tragedy, was written, or at least completed. it is taken entirely from the german's tale, kruitzner, published many years before, by one of the miss lees, in their canterbury tales. so far back as , byron began a drama upon the same subject, and nearly completed an act when he was interrupted. "i have adopted," he says himself, "the characters, plan, and even the language of many parts of this story"; an acknowledgment which exempts it from that kind of criticism to which his principal works are herein subjected. but the deformed transformed, which was also written at pisa, is, though confessedly an imitation of goethe's faust, substantially an original work. in the opinion of mr moore, it probably owes something to the author's painful sensibility to the defect in his own foot; an accident which must, from the acuteness with which he felt it, have essentially contributed to enable him to comprehend and to express the envy of those afflicted with irremediable exceptions to the ordinary course of fortune, or who have been amerced by nature of their fair proportions. but save only a part of the first scene, the sketch will not rank among the felicitous works of the poet. it was intended to be a satire--probably, at least--but it is only a fragment--a failure. hitherto i have not noticed don juan otherwise than incidentally. it was commenced in venice, and afterward continued at intervals to the end of the sixteenth canto, until the author left pisa, when it was not resumed, at least no more has been published. strong objections have been made to its moral tendency; but, in the opinion of many, it is the poet's masterpiece, and undoubtedly it displays all the variety of his powers, combined with a quaint playfulness not found to an equal degree in any other of his works. the serious and pathetic portions are exquisitely beautiful; the descriptive have all the distinctness of the best pictures in childe harold, and are, moreover, generally drawn from nature, while the satire is for the most part curiously associated and sparklingly witty. the characters are sketched with amazing firmness and freedom, and though sometimes grotesque, are yet not often overcharged. it is professedly an epic poem, but it may be more properly described as a poetical novel. nor can it be said to inculcate any particular moral, or to do more than unmantle the decorum of society. bold and buoyant throughout, it exhibits a free irreverent knowledge of the world, laughing or mocking as the thought serves, in the most unexpected antitheses to the proprieties of time, place, and circumstance. the object of the poem is to describe the progress of a libertine through life, not an unprincipled prodigal, whose profligacy, growing with his growth, and strengthening with his strength, passes from voluptuous indulgence into the sordid sensuality of systematic debauchery, but a young gentleman, who, whirled by the vigour and vivacity of his animal spirits into a world of adventures, in which his stars are chiefly in fault for his liaisons, settles at last into an honourable lawgiver, a moral speaker on divorce bills, and possibly a subscriber to the society for the suppression of vice. the author has not completed his design, but such appears to have been the drift of it, affording ample opportunities to unveil the foibles and follies of all sorts of men--and women too. it is generally supposed to contain much of the author's own experience, but still, with all its riant knowledge of bowers and boudoirs, it is deficient as a true limning of the world, by showing man as if he were always ruled by one predominant appetite. in the character of donna inez and don jose, it has been imagined that lord byron has sketched himself and his lady. it may be so; and if it were, he had by that time got pretty well over the lachrymation of their parting. it is no longer doubtful that the twenty-seventh stanza records a biographical fact, and the thirty-sixth his own feelings, when, poor fellow! he had many things to wound him, let's own, since it can do no good on earth; it was a trying moment that which found him standing alone beside his desolate hearth, where all his household gods lay shiver'd round him: no choice was left his feelings or his pride, save death or doctors' commons. it has been already mentioned, that while the poet was at dr glennie's academy at dulwich, he read an account of a shipwreck, which has been supposed to have furnished some of the most striking incidents in the description of the disastrous voyage in the second canto in don juan. i have not seen that work; but whatever lord byron may have found in it suitable to his purpose, he has undoubtedly made good use of his grandfather's adventures. the incident of the spaniel is related by the admiral. in the licence of don juan, the author seems to have considered that his wonted accuracy might be dispensed with. the description of haidee applies to an albanian, not a greek girl. the splendour of her father's house is altogether preposterous; and the island has no resemblance to those of the cyclades. with the exception of zea, his lordship, however, did not visit them. some degree of error and unlike description, runs indeed through the whole of the still life around the portrait of haidee. the fete which lambro discovers on his return, is, however, prettily described; and the dance is as perfect as true. and farther on a group of grecian girls, the first and tallest her white kerchief waving, were strung together like a row of pearls, link'd hand in hand and dancing; each too having down her white neck long floating auburn curls. their leader sang, and bounded to her song, with choral step and voice, the virgin throng. the account of lambro proceeding to the house is poetically imagined; and, in his character, may be traced a vivid likeness of ali pasha, and happy illustrative allusions to the adventures of that chief. the fourth canto was written at ravenna; it is so said within itself; and the description of dante's sepulchre there may be quoted for its truth, and the sweet modulation of the moral reflection interwoven with it. i pass each day where dante's bones are laid; a little cupola, more neat than solemn, protects his dust; but reverence here is paid to the bard's tomb and not the warrior's column. the time must come when both alike decay'd, the chieftain's trophy and the poet's volume will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth, before pelides' death or homer's birth. the fifth canto was also written in ravenna. but it is not my intention to analyze this eccentric and meandering poem; a composition which cannot be well estimated by extracts. without, therefore, dwelling at greater length on its variety and merits. i would only observe that the general accuracy of the poet's descriptions is verified by that of the scenes in which juan is placed in england, a point the reader may determine for himself; while the vagueness of the parts derived from books, or sketched from fancy, as contrasted with them, justifies the opinion, that invention was not the most eminent faculty of byron, either in scenes or in characters. of the demerits of the poem it is only necessary to remark, that it has been proscribed on account of its immorality; perhaps, however, there was more of prudery than of equity in the decision, at least it is liable to be so considered, so long as reprints are permitted of the older dramatists, with all their unpruned licentiousness. but the wheels of byron's destiny were now hurrying. both in the conception and composition of don juan he evinced an increasing disregard of the world's opinion; and the project of the liberal was still more fatal to his reputation. not only were the invidious eyes of bigotry now eagerly fixed upon his conduct, but those of admiration were saddened and turned away from him. his principles, which would have been more correctly designated as paradoxes, were objects of jealousy to the tuscan government; and it has been already seen that there was a disorderliness about the casa lanfranchi which attracted the attention of the police. his situation in pisa became, in consequence, irksome; and he resolved to remove to genoa, an intention which he carried into effect about the end of september, , at which period his thoughts began to gravitate towards greece. having attained to the summit of his literary eminence, he grew ambitious of trying fortune in another field of adventure. in all the migrations of lord byron there was ever something grotesque and desultory. in moving from ravenna to pisa, his caravan consisted of seven servants, five carriages, nine horses, a monkey, a bulldog, and a mastiff, two cats, three peafowl, a harem of hens, books, saddles, and firearms, with a chaos of furniture nor was the exodus less fantastical; for in addition to all his own clanjamphry, he had mr hunt's miscellaneous assemblage of chattels and chattery and little ones. chapter xli genoa--change in the manners of lord byron--residence at the casa saluzzi--"the liberal"--remarks on the poet's works in general and on hunt's strictures on his character previously to their arrival at genoa, a house had been taken for lord byron and the guiccioli in albaro, a pleasant village on a hill, in the vicinity of the city; it was the casa saluzzi, and i have been told, that during the time he resided there, he seemed to enjoy a more uniform and temperate gaiety than in any former period of his life. there might have been less of sentiment in his felicity, than when he lived at ravenna, as he seldom wrote poetry, but he appeared to some of his occasional visitors, who knew him in london, to have become more agreeable and manly. i may add, at the risk of sarcasm for the vanity, that in proof of his mellowed temper towards me, besides the kind frankness with which he received my friend, as already mentioned, he sent me word, by the earl of blesinton, that he had read my novel of the entail three times, and thought the old leddy grippy one of the most living-like heroines he had ever met with. this was the more agreeable, as i had heard within the same week, that sir walter scott had done and said nearly the same thing. half the compliment from two such men would be something to be proud of. lord byron's residence at albaro was separate from that of mr hunt, and, in consequence, they were more rarely together than when domiciled under the same roof as at pisa. indeed, by this time, if one may take mr hunt's own account of the matter, they appear to have become pretty well tired of each other. he had found out that a peer is, as a friend, but as a plebeian, and a great poet not always a high-minded man. his lordship had, on his part, discovered that something more than smartness or ingenuity is necessary to protect patronage from familiarity. perhaps intimate acquaintance had also tended to enable him to appreciate, with greater accuracy, the meretricious genius and artificial tastes of his copartner in the liberal. it is certain that he laughed at his affected admiration of landscapes, and considered his descriptions of scenery as drawn from pictures. one day, as a friend of mine was conversing with his lordship at the casa saluzzi, on the moral impressions of magnificent scenery, he happened to remark that he thought the view of the alps in the evening, from turin, the sublimest scene he had ever beheld. "it is impossible," said he, "at such a time, when all the west is golden and glowing behind them, to contemplate such vast masses of the deity without being awed into rest, and forgetting such things as man and his follies."--"hunt," said his lordship, smiling, "has no perception of the sublimity of alpine scenery; he calls a mountain a great impostor." in the mean time the materials for the first number of the liberal had been transmitted to london, where the manuscript of the vision of judgment was already, and something of its quality known. all his lordship's friends were disturbed at the idea of the publication. they did not like the connection he had formed with mr shelley--they liked still less the copartnery with mr hunt. with the justice or injustice of these dislikes i have nothing to do. it is an historical fact that they existed, and became motives with those who deemed themselves the custodiers of his lordship's fame, to seek a dissolution of the association. the first number of the liberal, containing the vision of judgment, was received soon after the copartnery had established themselves at genoa, accompanied with hopes and fears. much good could not be anticipated from a work which outraged the loyal and decorous sentiments of the nation towards the memory of george iii. to the second number lord byron contributed the heaven and earth, a sacred drama, which has been much misrepresented in consequence of its fraternity with don juan and the vision of judgment; for it contains no expression to which religion can object, nor breathes a thought at variance with the genesis. the history of literature affords no instance of a condemnation less justifiable, on the plea of profanity, than that of this mystery. that it abounds in literary blemishes, both of plan and language, and that there are harsh jangles and discords in the verse, is not disputed; but still it abounds in a grave patriarchal spirit, and is echo to the oracles of adam and melchisedek. it may not be worthy of lord byron's genius, but it does him no dishonour, and contains passages which accord with the solemn diapasons of ancient devotion. the disgust which the vision of judgment had produced, rendered it easy to persuade the world that there was impiety in the heaven and earth, although, in point of fact, it may be described as hallowed with the scriptural theology of milton. the objections to its literary defects were magnified into sins against worship and religion. the liberal stopped with the fourth number, i believe. it disappointed not merely literary men in general, but even the most special admirers of the talents of the contributors. the main defect of the work was a lack of knowledge. neither in style nor genius, nor even in general ability, was it wanting; but where it showed learning it was not of a kind in which the age took much interest. moreover, the manner and cast of thinking of all the writers in it were familiar to the public, and they were too few in number to variegate their pages with sufficient novelty. but the main cause of the failure was the antipathy formed and fostered against it before it appeared. it was cried down, and it must be acknowledged that it did not much deserve a better fate. with the liberal i shall close my observations on the works of lord byron. they are too voluminous to be examined even in the brief and sketchy manner in which i have considered those which are deemed the principal. besides, they are not, like them, all characteristic of the author, though possessing great similarity in style and thought to one another. nor would such general criticism accord with the plan of this work. lord byron was not always thinking of himself; like other authors, he sometimes wrote from imaginary circumstances; and often fancied both situations and feelings which had no reference to his own, nor to his experience. but were the matter deserving of the research, i am persuaded, that with mr moore's work, and the poet's original journals, notes, and letters, innumerable additions might be made to the list of passages which the incidents of his own life dictated. the abandonment of the liberal closed his lordship's connection with mr hunt; their friendship, if such ever really existed, was ended long before. it is to be regretted that byron has not given some account of it himself; for the manner in which he is represented to have acted towards his unfortunate partner, renders another version of the tale desirable. at the same time--and i am not one of those who are disposed to magnify the faults and infirmities of byron--i fear there is no excess of truth in hunt's opinion of him. i judge by an account which lord byron gave himself to a mutual friend, who did not, however, see the treatment in exactly the same light as that in which it appeared to me. but, while i cannot regard his lordship's conduct as otherwise than unworthy, still the pains which mr hunt has taken to elaborate his character and dispositions into every modification of weakness, almost justifies us in thinking that he was treated according to his deserts. byron had at least the manners of a gentleman, and though not a judicious knowledge of the world, he yet possessed prudence enough not to be always unguarded. mr hunt informs us, that when he joined his lordship at leghorn, his own health was impaired, and that his disease rather increased than diminished during his residence at pisa and genoa; to say nothing of the effect which the loss of his friend had on him, and the disappointment he suffered in the liberal; some excuse may, therefore, be made for him. in such a condition, misapprehensions were natural; jocularity might be mistaken for sarcasm, and caprice felt as insolence. chapter xlii lord byron resolves to join the greeks--arrives at cephalonia--greek factions--sends emissaries to the grecian chiefs--writes to london about the loan--to mavrocordato on the dissensions--embarks at lest for missolonghi while the liberal was halting onward to its natural doom, the attention of lord byron was attracted towards the struggles of greece. in that country his genius was first effectually developed; his name was associated with many of its most romantic scenes, and the cause was popular with all the educated and refined of europe. he had formed besides a personal attachment to the land, and perhaps many of his most agreeable local associations were fixed amid the ruins of greece, and in her desolated valleys. the name is indeed alone calculated to awaken the noblest feelings of humanity. the spirit of her poets, the wisdom and the heroism of her worthies; whatever is splendid in genius, unparalleled in art, glorious in arms, and wise in philosophy, is associated in their highest excellence with that beautiful region. had lord byron never been in greece, he was, undoubtedly, one of those men whom the resurrection of her spirit was likeliest to interest; but he was not also one fitted to do her cause much service. his innate indolence, his sedentary habits, and that all- engrossing consideration for himself, which, in every situation, marred his best impulses, were shackles upon the practice of the stern bravery in himself which he has so well expressed in his works. it was expected when he sailed for greece, nor was the expectation unreasonable with those who believe imagination and passion to be of the same element, that the enthusiasm which flamed so highly in his verse was the spirit of action, and would prompt him to undertake some great enterprise. but he was only an artist; he could describe bold adventures and represent high feeling, as other gifted individuals give eloquence to canvas and activity to marble; but he did not possess the wisdom necessary for the instruction of councils. i do, therefore, venture to say, that in embarking for greece, he was not entirely influenced by such exoterical motives as the love of glory or the aspirations of heroism. his laurels had for some time ceased to flourish, the sear and yellow, the mildew and decay, had fallen upon them, and he was aware that the bright round of his fame was ovalling from the full and showing the dim rough edge of waning. he was, moreover, tired of the guiccioli, and again afflicted with a desire for some new object with which to be in earnest. the greek cause seemed to offer this, and a better chance for distinction than any other pursuit in which he could then engage. in the spring of he accordingly made preparations for transferring himself from genoa to greece, and opened a correspondence with the leaders of the insurrection, that the importance of his adhesion might be duly appreciated. greece, with a fair prospect of ultimate success, was at that time as distracted in her councils as ever. her arms had been victorious, but the ancient jealousy of the greek mind was unmitigated. the third campaign had commenced, and yet no regular government had been organized; the fiscal resources of the country were neglected: a wild energy against the ottomans was all that the greeks could depend on for continuing the war. lord byron arrived in cephalonia about the middle of august, , where he fixed his residence for some time. this was prudent, but it said nothing for that spirit of enterprise with which a man engaging in such a cause, in such a country, and with such a people, ought to have been actuated--especially after marco botzaris, one of the best and most distinguished of the chiefs, had earnestly urged him to join him at missolonghi. i fear that i may not be able to do justice to byron's part in the affairs of greece; but i shall try. he did not disappoint me, for he only acted as might have been expected, from his unsteady energies. many, however, of his other friends longed in vain to hear of that blaze of heroism, by which they anticipated that his appearance in the field would be distinguished. among his earliest proceedings was the equipment of forty suliotes, or albanians, whom he sent to marco botzaris to assist in the defence of missolonghi. an adventurer of more daring would have gone with them; and when the battle was over, in which botzaris fell, he transmitted bandages and medicines, of which he had brought a large supply from italy, and pecuniary succour, to the wounded. this was considerate, but there was too much consideration in all that he did at this time, neither in unison with the impulses of his natural character, nor consistent with the heroic enthusiasm with which the admirers of his poetry imagined he was kindled. in the mean time he had offered to advance one thousand dollars a month for the succour of missolonghi and the troops with marco botzaris; but the government, instead of accepting the offer, intimated that they wished previously to confer with him, which he interpreted into a desire to direct the expenditure of the money to other purposes. in his opinion his lordship was probably not mistaken; but his own account of his feeling in the business does not tend to exalt the magnanimity of his attachment to the cause: "i will take care," says he, "that it is for the public cause, otherwise i will not advance a para. the opposition say they want to cajole me, and the party in power say the others wish to seduce me; so, between the two, i have a difficult part to play; however, i will have nothing to do with the factions, unless to reconcile them, if possible." it is difficult to conceive that lord byron, "the searcher of dark bosoms," could have expressed himself so weakly and with such vanity; but the shadow of coming fate had already reached him, and his judgment was suffering in the blight that had fallen on his reputation. to think of the possibility of reconciling two greek factions, or any factions, implies a degree of ignorance of mankind, which, unless it had been given in his lordship's own writing, would not have been credible; and as to having nothing to do with the factions, for what purpose went he to greece, unless it was to take a part with one of them? i abstain from saying what i think of his hesitation in going to the government instead of sending two of his associated adventurers, mr trelawney and mr hamilton brown, whom he despatched to collect intelligence as to the real state of things, substituting their judgment for his own. when the hercules, the ship he chartered to carry him to greece, weighed anchor, he was committed with the greeks, and everything short of unequivocal folly he was bound to have done with and for them. his two emissaries or envoys proceeded to tripolizza, where they found colocotroni seated in the palace of the late vizier, velhi pasha, in great power; the court-yard and galleries filled with armed men in garrison, while there was no enemy at that time in the morea able to come against them! the greek chieftains, like their classic predecessors, though embarked in the same adventure, were personal adversaries to each other. colocotroni spoke of his compeer mavrocordato in the very language of agamemnon, when he said that he had declared to him, unless he desisted from his intrigues, he would mount him on an ass and whip him out of the morea; and that he had only been restrained from doing so by the representation of his friends, who thought it would injure their common cause. such was the spirit of the chiefs of the factions which lord byron thought it not impossible to reconcile! at this time missolonghi was in a critical state, being blockaded both by land and sea; and the report of trelawney to lord byron concerning it, was calculated to rouse his lordship to activity. "there have been," says he, "thirty battles fought and won by the late marco botzaris, and his gallant tribe of suliotes, who are shut up in missolonghi. if it fall, athens will be in danger, and thousands of throats cut: a few thousand dollars would provide ships to relieve it; a portion of this sum is raised, and i would coin my heart to save this key of greece." bravely said! but deserving of little attention. the fate of missolonghi could have had no visible effect on that of athens. the distance between these two places is more than a hundred miles, and lord byron was well acquainted with the local difficulties of the intervening country; still it was a point to which the eyes of the greeks were all at that time directed; and mavrocordato, then in correspondence with lord byron, and who was endeavouring to collect a fleet for the relief of the place, induced his lordship to undertake to provide the money necessary for the equipment of the fleet, to the extent of twelve thousand pounds. it was on this occasion his lordship addressed a letter to the greek chiefs, that deserves to be quoted, for the sagacity with which it suggests what may be the conduct of the great powers of christendom. "i must frankly confess," says he, "that unless union and order are confirmed, all hopes of a loan will be in vain, and all the assistance which the greeks could expect from abroad, an assistance which might be neither trifling nor worthless, will be suspended or destroyed; and what is worse, the great powers of europe, of whom no one was an enemy to greece, but seemed inclined to favour her in consenting to the establishment of an independent power, will be persuaded that the greeks are unable to govern themselves, and will, perhaps, undertake to arrange your disorders in such a way, as to blast the brightest hopes you indulge, and that are indulged by your friends." in the meantime, lord byron was still at the villa he had hired in cephalonia, where his conduct was rather that of a spectator than an ally. colonel stanhope, in a letter of the th of november, describes him as having been there about three months, and spending his time exactly as every one acquainted with his habits must have expected. "the first six weeks he spent on board a merchant-vessel, and seldom went on shore, except on business. since that period he has lived in a little villa in the country, in absolute retirement, count gamba (brother to the guiccioli) being his only companion."-- such, surely, was not exactly playing that part in the greek cause which he had taught the world to look for. it is true, that the accounts received there of the greek affairs were not then favourable. everybody concurred in representing the executive government as devoid of public virtue, and actuated by avarice or personal ambition. this intelligence was certainly not calculated to increase lord byron's ardour, and may partly excuse the causes of his personal inactivity. i say personal, because he had written to london to accelerate the attempt to raise a loan, and, at the suggestion of colonel stanhope, he addressed a letter to mavrocordato respecting the inevitable consequences of their calamitous dissensions. the object of this letter was to induce a reconciliation between the rival factions, or to throw the odium, of having thwarted the loan, upon the executive, and thereby to degrade the members of it in the opinion of the people. "i am very uneasy," said his lordship to the prince, "at hearing that the dissensions of greece still continue; and at a moment when she might triumph over everything in general, as she has triumphed in part. greece is at present placed between three measures; either to reconquer her liberty, or to become a dependence of the sovereigns of europe, or to return to a turkish province; she has already the choice only of these three alternatives. civil war is but a road which leads to the two latter. if she is desirous of the fate of wallachia and the crimea, she may obtain it to-morrow; if that of italy, the day after. but if she wishes to become truly greece, free and independent, she must resolve to-day, or she will never again have the opportunity," etc., etc. meanwhile, the greek people became impatient for lord byron to come among them. they looked forward to his arrival as to the coming of a messiah. three boats were successively despatched for him and two of them returned, one after the other, without him. on the th of december, , however, his lordship did at last embark. chapter xliii lord byron's conversations on religion with dr kennedy while lord byron was hesitating, in the island of cephalonia, about proceeding to greece, an occurrence took place, of which much has been made. i allude to the acquaintance he formed with a dr kennedy, the publication of whose conversations with him on religion has attracted some degree of public attention. this gentleman was originally destined for the scottish bar, but afterwards became a student of medicine, and entering the medical department of the army, happened to be stationed in cephalonia when lord byron arrived. he appears to have been a man of kind dispositions, possessed of a better heart than judgment; in all places wherever his duty bore him he took a lively interest in the condition of the inhabitants, and was active, both in his official and private capacity, to improve it. he had a taste for circulating pious tracts, and zealously co-operated in distributing copies of the scriptures. firmly settled, himself, in a conviction of the truth of christianity, he was eager to make converts to his views of the doctrines; but whether he was exactly the kind of apostle to achieve the conversion of lord byron may, perhaps, be doubted. his sincerity and the disinterestedness of his endeavours would secure to him from his lordship an indulgent and even patient hearing. but i fear that without some more effectual calling, the arguments he appears to have employed were not likely to have made lord byron a proselyte. his lordship was so constituted in his mind, and by his temperament, that nothing short of regeneration could have made him a christian, according to the gospel of dr kennedy. lord byron had but loose feelings in religion--scarcely any. his sensibility and a slight constitutional leaning towards superstition and omens showed that the sense of devotion was, however, alive and awake within him; but with him religion was a sentiment, and the convictions of the understanding had nothing whatever to do with his creed. that he was deeply imbued with the essence of natural piety; that he often felt the power and being of a god thrilling in all his frame, and glowing in his bosom, i declare my thorough persuasion; and that he believed in some of the tenets and in the philosophy of christianity, as they influence the spirit and conduct of men, i am as little disposed to doubt; especially if those portions of his works which only trend towards the subject, and which bear the impression of fervour and earnestness, may be admitted as evidence. but he was not a member of any particular church, and, without a reconstruction of his mind and temperament, i venture to say, he could not have become such; not in consequence, as too many have represented, of any predilection, either of feeling or principle, against christianity, but entirely owing to an organic peculiarity of mind. he reasoned on every topic by instinct, rather than by induction or any process of logic; and could never be so convinced of the truth or falsehood of an abstract proposition, as to feel it affect the current of his actions. he may have assented to arguments, without being sensible of their truth; merely because they were not objectionable to his feelings at the time. and, in the same manner, he may have disputed even fair inferences, from admitted premises, if the state of his feelings happened to be indisposed to the subject. i am persuaded, nevertheless, that to class him among absolute infidels were to do injustice to his memory, and that he has suffered uncharitably in the opinion of "the rigidly righteous," who, because he had not attached himself to any particular sect or congregation, assumed that he was an adversary to religion. to claim for him any credit, as a pious man, would be absurd; but to suppose he had not as deep an interest as other men "in his soul's health" and welfare, was to impute to him a nature which cannot exist. being, altogether, a creature of impulses, he certainly could not be ever employed in doxologies, or engaged in the logomachy of churchmen; but he had the sentiment which at a tamer age might have made him more ecclesiastical. there was as much truth as joke in the expression, when he wrote, i am myself a moderate presbyterian. a mind constituted like that of lord byron, was little susceptible of impressions from the arguments of ordinary men. it was necessary that truth, in visiting him, should come arrayed in her solemnities, and with awe and reverence for her precursors. acknowledged superiority, yea, celebrated wisdom, were indispensable, to bespeak his sincere attention; and, without disparagement, it may be fairly said, these were not the attributes of dr kennedy. on the contrary, there was a taint of cant about him--perhaps he only acted like those who have it--but still he was not exactly the dignitary to command unaffected deference from the shrewd and irreverent author of don juan. the result verified what ought to have been the anticipation. the doctor's attempt to quicken byron to a sense of grace failed; but his lordship treated him with politeness. the history of the affair will, however, be more interesting than any reflections which it is in my humble power to offer. some of dr kennedy's acquaintances wished to hear him explain, in "a logical and demonstrative manner, the evidences and doctrines of christianity"; and lord byron, hearing of the intended meeting, desired to be present, and was accordingly invited. he attended; but was not present at several others which followed; he however intimated to the doctor, that he would be glad to converse with him, and the invitation was accepted. "on religion," says the doctor, "his lordship was in general a hearer, proposing his difficulties and objections with more fairness than could have been expected from one under similar circumstances; and with so much candour, that they often seemed to be proposed more for the purpose of procuring information, or satisfactory answers, than from any other motive." at the first meeting, dr kennedy explained, becomingly, his views of the subject, and that he had read every work against christianity which fell in his way. it was this consideration which had induced him with such confidence to enter upon the discussion, knowing, on the one hand, the strength of christianity, and, on the other, the weakness of its assailants. "to show you, therefore," said the doctor, "the grounds on which i demand your attention to what i may say on the nature and evidence of christianity, i shall mention the names of some of the authors whose works i have read or consulted." when he had mentioned all these names, lord byron asked if he had read barrow's and stillingfleet's works? the doctor replied, "i have seen them, but i have not read them." after a disquisition, chiefly relative to the history of christianity, dr kennedy observed, "we must, on all occasions, but more particularly in fair and logical discussions with sceptics, or deists, make a distinction between christianity, as it is found in the scriptures, and the errors, abuses, and imperfections of christians themselves." to this his lordship remarked, that he always had taken care to make that distinction, as he knew enough of christianity to feel that it was both necessary and just. the doctor remarked that the contrary was almost universally the case with those who doubted or denied the truth of christianity, and proceeded to illustrate the statement. he then read a summary of the fundamental doctrines of christianity; but he had not proceeded far, when he observed signs of impatience in lord byron, who inquired if these sentiments accorded with the doctor's? and being answered they did, and with those of all sound christians, except in one or two minor things, his lordship rejoined, that he did not wish to hear the opinions of others, whose writings he could read at any time, but only his own. the doctor then read on till coming to the expression "grace of god." his lordship inquired, "what do you mean by grace?" "the primary and fundamental meaning of the word," replied the doctor, somewhat surprised at his ignorance (i quote his own language), "is favour; though it varies according to the context to express that disposition of god which leads him to grant a favour, the action of doing so, or the favour itself, or its effects on those who receive it." the arrogance of the use of the term ignorance here, requires no animadversion; but to suppose the greatest master, then in existence, of the english language, not acquainted with the meaning of the word, when he asked to be informed of the meaning attached to it by the individual making use of it, gives us some insight into the true character of the teacher. the doctor closed the book, as he perceived that lord byron, as he says, had no distinct conception of many of the words used; and his lordship subjoined, "what we want is, to be convinced that the bible is true; because if we can believe that, it will follow as a matter of course, that we must believe all the doctrines it contains." the reply to this was to the effect, that the observation was partly just; but though the strongest evidence were produced of the scriptures being the revealed will of god, they (his lordship and others present) would still remain unbelievers, unless they knew and comprehended the doctrines contained in the scriptures. this was not conclusive, and lord byron replied, that they wished him to prove that the scriptures were the word of god, which the doctor, with more than apostolic simplicity, said that such was his object, but he should like to know what they deemed the clearest course to follow with that object in view. after some farther conversation--"no other plan was proposed by them," says the doctor; and he adds, "they had violated their engagement to hear me for twelve hours, for which i had stipulated." this may, perhaps, satisfy the reader as to the quality of the doctor's understanding; but as the subject, in its bearing, touches lord byron's character, i shall proceed a little farther into the marrow of the matter. the inculcation being finished for that evening, lord byron said, that when he was young his mother brought him up strictly; and that he had access to a great many theological works, and remembered that he was particularly pleased with barrow's writings, and that he also went regularly to church. he declared that he was not an infidel, who denied the scriptures and wished to remain in unbelief; on the contrary, he was desirous to believe, as he experienced no happiness in having his religious opinions so unsteady and unfixed. but he could not, he added, understand the scriptures. "those people who conscientiously believe, i always have respected, and was always disposed to trust in them more than in others." a desultory conversation then ensued, respecting the language and translations of the scriptures; in the course of which his lordship remarked, that scott, in his commentary on the bible, did not say that it was the devil who tempted eve, nor does the bible say a word about the devil. it is only said that the serpent spoke, and that it was the subtlest of all the beasts of the field.--will it be said that truth and reason were served by dr kennedy's { } answer? "as beasts have not the faculty of speech, the just inference is, that the beast was only an instrument made use of by some invisible and superior being. the scriptures accordingly tell us, that the devil is the father of lies- -the lie made by the serpent to eve being the first we have on record; they call him also a murderer from the beginning, as he was the cause of the sentence of death which was pronounced against adam and all his posterity; and still farther, to remove all doubt, and to identify him as the agent who used the serpent as an instrument, he is called the serpent--the devil." lord byron inquired what the doctor thought of the theory of warburton, that the jews had no distinct idea of a future state? the doctor acknowledged that he had often seen, but had never read the divine legation. and yet, he added, had warburton read his bible with more simplicity and attention, he would have enjoyed a more solid and honourable fame. his lordship then said, that one of the greatest difficulties he had met with was the existence of so much pure and unmixed evil in the world, and which he could not reconcile to the idea of a benevolent creator. the doctor set aside the question as to the origin of evil; but granted the extensive existence of evil in the universe; to remedy which, he said, the gospel was proclaimed; and after some of the customary commonplaces, he ascribed much of the existing evil to the slackness of christians in spreading the gospel. "is there not," said his lordship, "some part of the new testament where it appears that the disciples were struck with the state of physical evil, and made inquiries into the cause?"--"there are two passages," was the reply. the disciples inquired, when they saw a man who had been born blind, whether it was owing to his own or his parents' sin?--and, after quoting the other instance, he concludes, that moral and physical evil in individuals are not always a judgment or punishment, but are intended to answer certain ends in the government of the world. "is there not," said his lordship, "a prophecy in the new testament which it is alleged has not been fulfilled, although it was declared that the end of the world would come before the generation then existing should pass away?"--"the prediction," said dr kennedy, "related to the destruction of jerusalem, which certainly took place within the time assigned; though some of the expressions descriptive of the signs of that remarkable event are of such a nature as to appear to apply to christ's coming to judge the world at the end of time." his lordship then asked, if the doctor thought that there had been fewer wars and persecutions, and less slaughter and misery, in the world since the introduction of christianity than before? the doctor answered this by observing, that since christianity inculcates peace and good-will to all men, we must always separate pure religion from the abuses of which its professors are guilty. two other opinions were expressed by his lordship in the conversation. the doctor, in speaking of the sovereignty of god, had alluded to the similitude of the potter and his clay; for his lordship said, if he were broken in pieces, he would say to the potter, "why do you treat me thus?" the other was an absurdity. it was--if the whole world were going to hell, he would prefer going with them than go alone to heaven. such was the result of the first council of cephalonia, if one may venture the allusion. it is manifest, without saying much for lord byron's ingenuity, that he was fully a match for the doctor, and that he was not unacquainted with the subject under discussion. in the next conversation lord byron repeated, "i have no wish to reject christianity without investigation; on the contrary, i am very desirous of believing. but i do not see very much the need of a saviour, nor the utility of prayer. devotion is the affection of the heart, and this i feel. when i view the wonders of creation, i bow to the majesty of heaven; and when i feel the enjoyments of life, i feel grateful to god for having bestowed them upon me." upon this some discussion arose, turning chiefly on the passage in the third chapter of john, "unless a man is converted, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven"; which naturally led to an explanatory interlocutor, concerning new birth, regeneration, etc.; and thence diverged into the topics which had been the subject of the former conversation. among other things, lord byron inquired, "if the doctor really thought that the devil appeared before god, as is mentioned in the book of job, or is it only an allegorical or poetical mode of speaking?"--the reply was, "i believe it in the strict and literal meaning." "if it be received in a literal sense," said his lordship, "it gives me a much higher idea of the majesty, power, and wisdom of god, to believe that the devils themselves are at his nod, and are subject to his control, with as much ease as the elements of nature follow the respective laws which his will has assigned them." this notion was characteristic, and the poetical feeling in which it originated, when the doctor attempted to explain the doctrine of the manicheans, was still more distinctly developed; for his lordship again expressed how much the belief of the real appearance of satan, to hear and obey the commands of god, added to his views of the grandeur and majesty of the creator. this second conversation was more desultory than the first; religion was brought in only incidentally, until his lordship said, "i do not reject the doctrines of christianity; i want only sufficient proofs of it, to take up the profession in earnest; and i do not believe myself to be so bad a christian as many of them who preach against me with the greatest fury--many of whom i have never seen nor injured." "you have only to examine the causes which prevent you" (from being a true believer), said the doctor, "and you will find they are futile, and only tend to withhold you from the enjoyment of real happiness; which at present it is impossible you can find." "what, then, you think me in a very bad way?" "i certainly think you are," was the reply; "and this i say, not on my own authority, but on that of the scriptures.--your lordship must be converted, and must be reformed, before anything can be said of you, except that you are bad, and in a bad way." "but," replied his lordship, "i already believe in predestination, which i know you believe, and in the depravity of the human heart in general, and of my own in particular; thus you see there are two points in which we agree. i shall get at the others by-and-by. you cannot expect me to become a perfect christian at once." and farther his lordship subjoined: "predestination appears to me just; from my own reflection and experience, i am influenced in a way which is incomprehensible, and am led to do things which i never intended; and if there is, as we all admit, a supreme ruler of the universe; and if, as you say, he has the actions of the devils, as well as of his own angels, completely at his command, then those influences, or those arrangements of circumstances, which lead us to do things against our will, or with ill-will, must be also under his directions. but i have never entered into the depths of the subject; i have contented myself with believing that there is a predestination of events, and that predestination depends on the will of god." dr kennedy, in speaking of this second conversation, bears testimony to the respectfulness of his lordship's attention. "there was nothing in his manner which approached to levity, or anything that indicated a wish to mock at religion; though, on the other hand, an able dissembler would have done and said all that he did, with such feelings and intentions." subsequent to the second conversation, dr kennedy asked a gentleman who was intimate with lord byron, if he really thought his lordship serious in his desire to hear religion explained. "has he exhibited any contempt or ridicule at what i have said?" this gentleman assured him that he had never heard byron allude to the subject in any way which could induce him to suspect that he was merely amusing himself. "but, on the contrary, he always names you with respect. i do not, however, think you have made much impression on him: he is just the same fellow as before. he says, he does not know what religion you are of, for you neither adhere to creeds nor councils." it ought here to be noticed, as showing the general opinion entertained of his lordship with respect to these polemical conversations, that the wits of the garrison made themselves merry with what was going on. some of them affected to believe, or did so, that lord byron's wish to hear dr kennedy proceeded from a desire to have an accurate idea of the opinions and manners of the methodists, in order that he might make don juan become one for a time, and so be enabled to paint their conduct with greater accuracy. the third conversation took place soon after this comment had been made on lord byron's conduct. the doctor inquired if his lordship had read any of the religious books he had sent. "i have looked," replied byron, "into boston's fourfold state, but i have not had time to read it far: i am afraid it is too deep for me." although there was no systematic design, on the part of lord byron, to make dr kennedy subservient to any scheme of ridicule; yet it is evident that he was not so serious as the doctor so meritoriously desired. "i have begun," said his lordship, "very fairly; i have given some of your tracts to fletcher (his valet), who is a good sort of man, but still wants, like myself, some reformation; and i hope he will spread them among the other servants, who require it still more. bruno, the physician, and gamba, are busy, reading some of the italian tracts; and i hope it will have a good effect on them. the former is rather too decided against it at present; and too much engaged with a spirit of enthusiasm for his own profession, to attend to other subjects; but we must have patience, and we shall see what has been the result. i do not fail to read, from time to time, my bible, though not, perhaps, so much as i should." "have you begun to pray that you may understand it?" "not yet. i have not arrived at that pitch of faith yet; but it may come by-and-by. you are in too great a hurry." his lordship then went to a side-table, on which a great number of books were ranged; and, taking hold of an octavo, gave it to the doctor. it was illustrations of the moral government of god, by e. smith, m.d., london. "the author," said he, "proves that the punishment of hell is not eternal; it will have a termination." "the author," replied the doctor, "is, i suppose, one of the socinians; who, in a short time, will try to get rid of every doctrine in the bible. how did your lordship get hold of this book?" "they sent it out to me from england, to make a convert of me, i suppose. the arguments are strong, drawn from the bible itself; and by showing that a time will come when every intelligent creature shall be supremely happy, and eternally so, it expunges that shocking doctrine, that sin and misery will for ever exist under the government of god, whose highest attribute is love and goodness. to my present apprehension, it would be a most desirable thing, could it be proved that, alternately, all created beings were to be happy. this would appear to be most consistent with the nature of god.--i cannot yield to your doctrine of the eternal duration of punishment.- -this author's opinion is more humane; and, i think, he supports it very strongly from scripture." the fourth conversation was still more desultory, being carried on at table amid company; in the course of it lord byron, however, declared "that he was so much of a believer as to be of opinion that there is no contradiction in the scriptures which cannot be reconciled by an attentive consideration and comparison of passages." it is needless to remark that lord byron, in the course of these conversations, was incapable of preserving a consistent seriousness. the volatility of his humour was constantly leading him into playfulness, and he never lost an opportunity of making a pun or saying a quaint thing. "do you know," said he to the doctor, "i am nearly reconciled to st paul; for he says there is no difference between the jews and the greeks, and i am exactly of the same opinion, for the character of both is equally vile." upon the whole it must be conceded, that whatever was the degree of lord byron's dubiety as to points of faith and doctrine, he could not be accused of gross ignorance, nor described as animated by any hostile feeling against religion. in this sketch of these conversations, i have restricted myself chiefly to those points which related to his lordship's own sentiments and belief. it would have been inconsistent with the concise limits of this work to have detailed the controversies. a fair summary of what byron did not believe, what he was disposed to believe but had not satisfied himself with the evidence, and what he did believe, seemed to be the task i ought to undertake. the result confirmed the statement of his lordship's religious condition, given in the preliminary remarks which, i ought to mention, were written before i looked into dr kennedy's book; and the statement is not different from the estimate which the conversations warrant. it is true that lord byron's part in the conversations is not very characteristic; but the integrity of dr kennedy is a sufficient assurance that they are substantially correct. chapter xliv voyage to cephalonia--letter--count gamba's address--grateful feelings of the turks--endeavours of lord byron to mitigate the horrors of the war lord byron, after leaving argostoli, on the th december, , the port of cephalonia, sailed for zante, where he took on board a quantity of specie. although the distance from zante to missolonghi is but a few hours' sail, the voyage was yet not without adventures. missolonghi, as i have already mentioned, was then blockaded by the turks, and some address was necessary, on that account, to effect an entrance, independent of the difficulties, at all times, of navigating the canals which intersect the shallows. in the following letter to colonel stanhope, his lordship gives an account of what took place. it is very characteristic; i shall therefore quote it. "scrofer, or some such name, on board a cephaloniate mistice, dec. , . "my dear stanhope,--we are just arrived here--that is, part of my people and i, with some things, etc., and which it may be as well not to specify in a letter (which has a risk of being intercepted, perhaps); but gamba and my horses, negro, steward, and the press, and all the committee things, also some eight thousand dollars of mine (but never mind, we have more left--do you understand?) are taken by the turkish frigates; and my party and myself in another boat, have had a narrow escape, last night (being close under their stern, and hailed, but we would not answer, and bore away) as well as this morning. here we are, with sun and charming weather, within a pretty little port enough; but whether our turkish friends may not send in their boats, and take us out (for we have no arms, except two carbines and some pistols, and, i suspect, not more than four fighting people on board), is another question; especially if we remain long here, since we are blocked out of missolonghi by the direct entrance. you had better send my friend george drake, and a body of suliotes, to escort us by land or by the canals, with all convenient speed. gamba and our bombard are taken into patras, i suppose, and we must take a turn at the turks to get them out. but where the devil is the fleet gone? the greek, i mean--leaving us to get in without the least intimation to take heed that the moslems were out again. make my respects to mavrocordato, and say that i am here at his disposal. i am uneasy at being here. we are very well.- -yours, etc. "n. b. "p.s. the bombard was twelve miles out when taken; at least, so it appeared to us (if taken she actually be, for it is not certain), and we had to escape from another vessel that stood right in between us and the port." colonel stanhope on receiving this despatch, which was carried to him by two of lord byron's servants, sent two armed boats, and a company of suliotes, to escort his lordship to missolonghi, where he arrived on the th of january, and was received with military honours, and the most enthusiastic demonstrations of popular joy. no mark of respect which the greeks could think of was omitted. the ships fired a salute as he passed. prince mavrocordato, and all the authorities, with the troops and the population, met him on his landing, and accompanied him to the house which had been prepared for him, amid the shouts of the multitude and the discharge of cannon. in the meantime, count gamba and his companions being taken before yusuff pasha at patras, expected to share the fate of certain unfortunate prisoners whom that stern chief had sacrificed the preceding year at prevesa; and their fears would probably have been realised but for the intrepid presence of mind displayed by the count, who, assuming a haughty style, accused the ottoman captain of the frigate of a breach of neutrality, in detaining a vessel under english colours, and concluded by telling the pasha that he might expect the vengeance of the british government in thus interrupting a nobleman who was merely on his travels, and bound to calamata. perhaps, however, another circumstance had quite as much influence with the pasha as this bravery. in the master of the vessel he recognised a person who had saved his life in the black sea fifteen years before, and in consequence not only consented to the vessel's release, but treated the whole of the passengers with the utmost attention, and even urged them to take a day's shooting in the neighbourhood. the first measure which his lordship attempted after his arrival, was to mitigate the ferocity with which the war was carried on; one of the objects, as he explained to my friend who visited him at genoa, which induced him to embark in the cause. and it happened that the very day he reached the town was signalised by his rescuing a turk who had fallen into the hands of some greek sailors. this man was clothed by his lordship's orders, and sent over to patras; and soon after count gamba's release, hearing that four other turks were prisoners in missolonghi, he requested that they might be placed in his hands, which was immediately granted. these he also sent to patras, with a letter addressed to yusuff, expressing his hope that the prisoners thence-forward taken on both sides would be treated with humanity. this act was followed by another equally praiseworthy. a greek cruiser having captured a turkish boat, in which there was a number of passengers, chiefly women and children, they were also placed at the disposal of his lordship, at his particular request. captain parry has given a description of the scene between lord byron, and that multitude of mothers and children, too interesting to be omitted here. "i was summoned to attend him, and receive his orders that everything should be done which might contribute to their comfort. he was seated on a cushion at the upper end of the room, the women and children were standing before him with their eyes fixed steadily on him; and on his right hand was his interpreter, who was extracting from the women a narrative of their sufferings. one of them, apparently about thirty years of age, possessing great vivacity, and whose manners and dress, though she was then dirty and disfigured, indicated that she was superior in rank and condition to her companions, was spokeswoman for the whole. i admired the good order the others preserved, never interfering with the explanation, or interrupting the single speaker. i also admired the rapid manner in which the interpreter explained everything they said, so as to make it almost appear that there was but one speaker. after a short time it was evident that what lord byron was hearing affected his feelings; his countenance changed, his colour went and came, and i thought he was ready to weep. but he had, on all occasions, a ready and peculiar knack in turning conversation from any disagreeable or unpleasant subject; and he had recourse to this expedient. he rose up suddenly, and, turning round on his heel as was his wont, he said something to his interpreter, who immediately repeated it to the women. all eyes were immediately fixed on me; and one of the party, a young and beautiful woman, spoke very warmly. lord byron seemed satisfied, and said they might retire. the women all slipped off their shoes in an instant, and, going up to his lordship, each in succession, accompanied by their children, kissed his hand fervently, invoked, in the turkish manner, a blessing, both on his hand and heart, and then quitted the room. this was too much for lord byron, and he turned his face away to conceal his emotion" a vessel was then hired, and the whole of them, to the number of twenty-four, were sent to prevesa, provided with every requisite for their comfort during the passage. these instances of humanity excited a sympathy among the turks. the governor of prevesa thanked his lordship, and assured him that he would take care that equal attention should be in future paid to the greeks, who might fall into his hands. chapter xlv proceedings at missolonghi--byron's suliote brigade--their insubordination--difference with colonel stanhope--imbecility of the plans for the independence of greece the arrival of lord byron at missolonghi was not only hailed as a new era in the history of greece, but as the beginning of a new cycle in his own extraordinary life. his natural indolence disappeared; the sardanapalian sloth was thrown off, and he took a station in the van of her efforts that bespoke heroic achievement. after paying the fleet, which indeed had only come out in the expectation of receiving the arrears from the loan he had promised to mavrocordato, he resolved to form a brigade of suliotes. five hundred of the remains of marco botzaris's gallant followers were accordingly taken into his pay. "he burns with military ardour and chivalry," says colonel stanhope, "and will proceed with the expedition to lepanto." but the expedition was delayed by causes which ought to have been foreseen. the suliotes, conceiving that in his lordship they had found a patron whose wealth and generosity were equally boundless, refused to quit missolonghi till their arrears were paid. savage in the field, and untamable in the city, they became insubordinate and mercenary; nor was their conduct without excuse. they had long defended the town with untired bravery; their families had been driven into it in the most destitute condition; and all the hopes that had led them to take up arms were still distant and prospective. besides, mavrocordato, unlike the other grecian captains, having no troops of his own, affected to regard these mercenaries as allies, and was indulgent to their excesses. the town was overawed by their turbulence, conflicts took place in the street; riot and controversy everywhere prevailed, and blood was shed. lord byron's undisciplined spirit could ill brook delay; he partook of the general vehemence, and lost the power of discerning the comparative importance both of measures and things. he was out of his element; confusion thickened around him; his irritability grew into passion; and there was the rush and haste, the oblivion and alarm of fatality in all he undertook and suggested. one day, a party of german adventurers reached the fortress so demoralized by hardships, that few of them were fit for service. it was intended to form a corps of artillery, and these men were destined for that branch of the service; but their condition was such, that stanhope doubted the practicability of carrying the measure into effect at that time. he had promised to contribute a hundred pounds to their equipment. byron attributed the colonel's objections to reluctance to pay the money; and threatened him if it were refused, with a punishment, new in grecian war----to libel him in the greek chronicle! a newspaper which stanhope had recently established. it is, however, not easy to give a correct view of the state of affairs at that epoch in missolonghi. all parties seem to have been deplorably incompetent to understand the circumstances in which they were placed;--the condition of the greeks, and that their exigencies required only physical and military means. they talked of newspapers and types, and libels, as if the moral instruments of civil exhortation were adequate to wrench the independence of greece from the bloody grasp of the ottoman. no wonder that byron, accustomed to the management only of his own fancies, was fluttered amid the conflicts of such riot and controversy. his situation at this period was indeed calculated to inspire pity. had he survived, it might, instead of awakening the derision of history, have supplied to himself materials for another canto of don juan. i shall select one instance of his afflictions. the captain of a british gun-brig came to missolonghi to demand an equivalent for an ionian boat, which had been taken in the act of going out of the gulf of lepanto, with provisions and arms. the greek fleet at that time blockading the port consisted of five brigs, and the turks had fourteen vessels of war in the gulf. the captain maintained that the british government recognised no blockade which was not efficient, and that the efficiency depended on the numerical superiority of cannon. on this principle he demanded restitution of the property. mavrocordato offered to submit the case to the decision of the british government, but the captain would only give him four hours to consider. the indemnification was granted. lord byron conducted the business in behalf of the captain. in the evening, conversing with stanhope on the subject, the colonel said the affair was conducted in a bullying manner. his lordship started into a passion and contended that law, justice, and equity had nothing to do with politics. "that may be," replied stanhope, "but i will never lend myself to injustice." his lordship then began to attack jeremy bentham. the colonel complained of such illiberality, as to make personal attacks on that gentleman before a friend who held him in high estimation. "i only attack his public principles," replied byron, "which are mere theories, but dangerous,--injurious to spain, and calculated to do great mischief in greece." stanhope vindicated bentham, and said, "he possesses a truly british heart; but your lordship, after professing liberal principles from boyhood, have, when called upon to act, proved yourself a turk." "what proofs have you of this? "your conduct in endeavouring to crush the press by declaiming against it to mavrocordato, and your general abuse of liberal principles." "if i had held up my finger," retorted his lordship, "i could have crushed the press." "with all this power," said stanhope, "which by the way you never possessed, you went to the prince, and poisoned his ear." lord byron then disclaimed against the liberals. "what liberals?" cried stanhope. "did you borrow your notions of freemen from the italians?" "no: from the hunts, cartwrights, and such." "and yet your lordship presented cartwright's reform bill, and aided hunt by praising his poetry and giving him the sale of your works." "you are worse than wilson," exclaimed byron, "and should quit the army." "i am a mere soldier," replied stanhope, "but never will i abandon my principles. our principles are diametrically opposite, so let us avoid the subject. if lord byron acts up to his professions, he will be the greatest, if not, the meanest of mankind." "my character," said his lordship, "i hope, does not depend on your assertions." "no: your genius has immortalized you. the worst will not deprive you of fame." lord byron then rejoined, "well; you shall see: judge of me by my acts." and, bidding the colonel good night, who took up the light to conduct him to the passage, he added, "what! hold up a light to a turk!" such were the franklins, the washingtons, and the hamiltons who undertook the regeneration of greece. chapter xlvi lord byron appointed to the command of three thousand men to besiege lepanto--the siege abandoned for a blockade--advanced guard ordered to proceed--lord byron's first illness--a riot--he is urged to leave greece--the expedition against lepanto abandoned--byron dejected--a wild diplomatic scheme three days after the conversation related in the preceding chapter, byron was officially placed in the command of about three thousand men, destined for the attack on lepanto; but the suliotes remained refractory, and refused to quit their quarters; his lordship, however, employed an argument which proved effectual. he told them that if they did not obey his commands, he would discharge them from his service. but the impediments were not to be surmounted; in less than a week it was formally reported to byron that missolonghi could not furnish the means of undertaking the siege of lepanto, upon which his lordship proposed that lepanto should be only blockaded by two thousand men. before any actual step was, however, taken, two spies came in with a report that the albanians in garrison at lepanto had seized the citadel, and were determined to surrender it to his lordship. still the expedition lingered; at last, on the th of february, six weeks after byron's arrival at missolonghi, it was determined that an advanced guard of three hundred soldiers, under the command of count gamba, should march for lepanto, and that lord byron, with the main body, should follow. the suliotes were, however, still exorbitant, calling for fresh contributions for themselves and their families. his troubles were increasing, and every new rush of the angry tide rose nearer and nearer his heart; still his fortitude enabled him to preserve an outward show of equanimity. but, on the very day after the determination had been adopted, to send forward the advanced guard, his constitution gave way. he was sitting in colonel stanhope's room, talking jestingly, according to his wonted manner, with captain parry, when his eyes and forehead occasionally discovered that he was agitated by strong feelings. on a sudden he complained of a weakness in one of his legs; he rose, but finding himself unable to walk, called for assistance; he then fell into a violent nervous convulsion, and was placed upon a bed: while the fit lasted, his face was hideously distorted; but in the course of a few minutes the convulsion ceased, and he began to recover his senses: his speech returned, and he soon rose, apparently well. during the struggle his strength was preternaturally augmented, and when it was over, he behaved with his usual firmness. "i conceive," says colonel stanhope, "that this fit was occasioned by over-excitement. the mind of byron is like a volcano; it is full of fire, wrath, and combustibles, and when this matter comes to be strongly agitated, the explosion is dreadful. with respect to the causes which produced the excess of feeling, they are beyond my reach, except one great cause, the provoking conduct of the suliotes." a few days after this distressing incident, a new occurrence arose, which materially disturbed the tranquillity of byron. a suliote, accompanied by the son, a little boy, of marco botzaris, with another man, walked into the seraglio, a kind of citadel, which had been used as a barrack for the suliotes, and out of which they had been ejected with difficulty, when it was required for the reception of stores and the establishment of a laboratory. the sentinel ordered them back, but the suliote advanced. the sergeant of the guard, a german, pushed him back. the suliote struck the sergeant; they closed and struggled. the suliote drew his pistol; the german wrenched it from him, and emptied the pan. at this moment a swedish adventurer, captain sass, seeing the quarrel, ordered the suliote to be taken to the guard-room. the suliote would have departed, but the german still held him. the swede drew his sabre; the suliote his other pistol. the swede struck him with the flat of his sword; the suliote unsheathed his ataghan, and nearly cut off the left arm of his antagonist, and then shot him through the head. the other suliotes would not deliver up their comrade, for he was celebrated among them for distinguished bravery. the workmen in the laboratory refused to work: they required to be sent home to england, declaring, they had come out to labour peaceably, and not to be exposed to assassination. these untoward occurrences deeply vexed byron, and there was no mind of sufficient energy with him to control the increasing disorders. but, though convinced, as indeed he had been persuaded from the beginning in his own mind, that he could not render any assistance to the cause beyond mitigating the ferocious spirit in which the war was conducted, his pride and honour would not allow him to quit greece. in a letter written soon after his first attack, he says, "i am a good deal better, though of course weakly. the leeches took too much blood from my temples the day after, and there was some difficulty in stopping it; but i have been up daily, and out in boats or on horseback. to-day i have taken a warm bath, and live as temperately as can well be, without any liquid but water, and without any animal food"; then adverting to the turbulences of the suliotes, he adds, "but i still hope better things, and will stand by the cause as long as my health and circumstances will permit me to be supposed useful." subsequently, when pressed to leave the marshy and deleterious air of missolonghi, he replied, still more forcibly, "i cannot quit greece while there is a chance of my being of (even supposed) utility. there is a stake worth millions such as i am, and while i can stand at all i must stand by the cause. while i say this, i am aware of the difficulties, and dissensions, and defects of the greeks themselves; but allowance must be made for them by all reasonable people." after this attack of epilepsy lord byron because disinclined to pursue his scheme against lepanto. indeed, it may be said that in his circumstances it was impracticable; for although the suliotes repented of their insubordination, they yet had an objection to the service, and said "they would not fight against stone walls." all thought of the expedition was in consequence abandoned, and the destinies of poor byron were hastening to their consummation. he began to complain! in speaking to parry one day of the greek committee in london, he said, "i have been grossly ill-treated by the committee. in italy mr blaquiere, their agent, informed me that every requisite supply would be forwarded with all despatch. i was disposed to come to greece, but i hastened my departure in consequence of earnest solicitations. no time was to be lost, i was told, and mr blaquiere, instead of waiting on me at his return from greece, left a paltry note, which gave me no information whatever. if ever i meet with him, i shall not fail to mention my surprise at his conduct; but it has been all of a piece. i wish the acting committee had had some of the trouble which has fallen on me since my arrival here: they would have been more prompt in their proceedings, and would have known better what the country stood in need of. they would not have delayed the supplies a day nor have sent out german officers, poor fellows, to starve at missolonghi, but for my assistance. i am a plain man, and cannot comprehend the use of printing-presses to a people who do not read. here the committee have sent supplies of maps. i suppose that i may teach the young mountaineers geography. here are bugle-horns without bugle-men, and it is a chance if we can find anybody in greece to blow them. books are sent to people who want guns; they ask for swords, and the committee give them the lever of a printing- press. "my future intentions," continued his lordship, "as to greece, may be explained in a few words. i will remain here until she is secure against the turks, or till she has fallen under their power. all my income shall be spent in her service; but, unless driven by some great necessity, i will not touch a farthing of the sum intended for my sister's children. whatever i can accomplish with my income, and my personal exertions, shall be cheerfully done. when greece is secure against external enemies, i will leave the greeks to settle their government as they like. one service more, and an eminent service it will be, i think i may perform for them. you, parry, shall have a schooner built for me, or i will buy a vessel; the greeks shall invest me with the character of their ambassador, or agent: i will go to the united states, and procure that free and enlightened government to set the example of recognising the federation of greece as an independent state. this done, england must follow the example, and then the fate of greece will be permanently fixed, and she will enter into all her rights as a member of the great commonwealth of christian europe." this intention will, to all who have ever looked at the effects of fortune on individuals, sufficiently show that byron's part in the world was nearly done. had he lived, and recovered health, it might have proved that he was then only in another lunation: his first was when he passed from poesy to heroism. but as it was, it has only served to show that his mind had suffered by the decadency of his circumstances, and how much the idea of self-exaltation weakly entered into all his plans. the business was secondary to the style in which it should be performed. building a vessel! why think of the conveyance at all? as if the means of going to america were so scarce that there might be difficulty in finding them. but his mind was passing from him. the intention was unsound--a fantasy--a dream of bravery in old age--begotten of the erroneous supposition that the cabinets of christendom would remain unconcerned spectators of the triumph of the greeks, or even of any very long procrastination of their struggle. chapter xlvii the last illness and death of lord byron--his last poem although in common parlance it may be said, that after the attack of epilepsy lord byron's general health did not appear to have been essentially impaired, the appearance was fallacious; his constitution had received a vital shock, and the exciting causes, vexation and confusion, continued to exasperate his irritation. on the st of march he complained of frequent vertigoes, which made him feel as though he were intoxicated; but no effectual means were taken to remove these portentous symptoms; and he regularly enjoyed his daily exercise, sometimes in boats, but oftener on horseback. his physician thought him convalescent; his mind, however, was in constant excitement; it rested not even during sleep. on the th of april, while sailing, he was overtaken by the rain, and got very wet: on his return home, he changed the whole of his dress; but he had been too long in his wet clothes, and the stamina of his constitution being shaken could not withstand the effects. in little more than two hours he was seized with rigors, fever, and rheumatic pains. during the night, however, he slept in his accustomed manner, but in the morning he complained of pains and headache; still this did not prevent him from going out on horseback in the afternoon--it was for the last time. on returning home, he observed to one of the servants that the saddle was not perfectly dry, from having been so wet the day before, and that he thought it had made him worse. he soon after became affected with almost constant shivering; sudorific medicines were administered, and blood-letting proposed; but though he took the drugs, he objected to the bleeding. another physician was in consequence called in to see if the rheumatic fever could be appeased without the loss of blood. this doctor approved of the medicines prescribed, and was not opposed to the opinion that bleeding was necessary, but said it might be deferred till the next day. on the th he seemed rather better, but the medicines had produced no effect. on the th he was confined to bed with fever, and his illness appeared to be increasing; he was very low, and complained of not having had any sleep during the night; but the medical gentlemen saw no cause for alarm. dr bruno, his own physician, again proposed bleeding; the stranger still, however, thought it might be deferred, and byron himself was opposed to it. "you will die," said dr bruno, "if you do not allow yourself to be bled." "you wish to get the reputation of curing my disease," replied his lordship, "that is why you tell me it is so serious; but i will not permit you to bleed me." on the th he sat up for some time, after a sleepless night, and still complained of pain in his bones and head. on the th he also left his bed. the fever was less, but the debility greater, and the pain in his head was undiminished. his valet became alarmed, and, doubtful of the skill of the doctors around him, entreated permission to send to zante for an english physician of greater reputation. his lordship desired him to consult the others, which he did, and they told him there was no occasion to call in any person, as they hoped all would be well in a few days. his lordship now began to doubt if his disease was understood, and remarked repeatedly in the course of this day, that he was sure the doctors did not understand it. "then, my lord," said fletcher, his valet, "have other advice." "they tell me," rejoined his lordship, "that it is only a common cold, which you know i have had a thousand times." "i am sure you never had one of so serious a nature." "i think i never had." fletcher then went again to the physicians, and repeated his solicitations that the doctor in zante might be sent for; but was again assured that his master would be better in two or three days. at length, the doctor who had too easily consented to the postponement of the bleeding, seeing the prognostications of dr bruno more and more confirmed, urged the necessity of bleeding, and of no longer delay. this convinced byron, who was himself greatly averse to the operation, that they did not understand his case. on the th his lordship felt the pains abated, insomuch that he was able to transact some business. on the th he wrote a letter, but towards the evening he became worse, and a pound of blood was taken from him. still the disease was making progress, but dr bruno did not yet seem much alarmed; on the contrary, he thought were more blood removed his recovery was certain. fletcher immediately told his master, urging him to comply with the doctor's wishes. "i fear," said his lordship, "they know nothing about my disorder, but"--and he stretched out his arm--"here, take my arm and do whatever you like." on the th his countenance was changed; during the night he had become weaker, and a slight degree of delirium, in which he raved of fighting, had come on. in the course of the day he was bled twice; in the morning, and at two in the afternoon. the bleeding, on both occasions, was followed by fainting fits. on this day he said to fletcher, "i cannot sleep, and you well know i have not been able to sleep for more than a week. i know that a man can only be a certain time without sleep, and then he must go mad, without anyone being able to save him; and i would ten times sooner shoot myself than be mad, for i am not afraid of dying--i am more fit to die than people think." on the th his lordship first began to dread that his fate was inevitable. "i fear," said he to fletcher, "you and tita will be ill by sitting up constantly, night and day"; and he appeared much dissatisfied with his medical treatment. fletcher again entreated permission to send for dr thomas, at zante: "do so, but be quick," said his lordship, "i am sorry i did not let you do so before, as i am sure they have mistaken my disease; write yourself, for i know they would not like to see other doctors here." not a moment was lost in executing the order, and on fletcher informing the doctors what he had done, they said it was right, as they now began to be afraid themselves. "have you sent?" said his lordship, when fletcher returned to him.--"i have, my lord." "you have done well, for i should like to know what is the matter with me." from that time his lordship grew every hour weaker and weaker; and he had occasional flights of delirium. in the intervals he was, however, quite self-possessed, and said to fletcher, "i now begin to think i am seriously ill; and in case i should be taken off suddenly, i wish to give you several directions, which i hope you will be particular in seeing executed." fletcher in reply expressed his hope that he would live many years, and execute them himself. "no, it is now nearly over; i must tell you all without losing a moment." "shall i go, my lord, and fetch pen, ink, and paper. "oh, my god! no, you will lose too much time, and i have it not to spare, for my time is now short. now pay attention--you will be provided for." "i beseech you, my lord, to proceed with things of more consequence." his lordship then added, "oh, my poor dear child!--my dear ada!--my god! could i have but seen her--give her my blessing--and my dear sister augusta, and her children--and you will go to lady byron and say--tell her everything- -you are friends with her." he appeared to be greatly affected at this moment. his voice failed, and only words could be caught at intervals; but he kept muttering something very seriously for some time, and after raising his voice, said, "fletcher, now if you do not execute every order which i have given you, i will torment you hereafter, if possible." this little speech is the last characteristic expression which escaped from the dying man. he knew fletcher's superstitious tendency, and it cannot be questioned that the threat was the last feeble flash of his prankfulness. the faithful valet replied in consternation that he had not understood one word of what his lordship had been saying. "oh! my god!" was the reply, "then all is lost, for it is now too late! can it be possible you have not understood me!" "no, my lord; but i pray you to try and inform me once more." "how can i? it is now too late, and all is over." "not our will, but god's be done," said fletcher, and his lordship made another effort, saying, "yes, not mine be done--but i will try"--and he made several attempts to speak, but could only repeat two or three words at a time; such as, "my wife! my child--my sister--you know all--you must say all--you know my wishes"----the rest was unintelligible. a consultation with three other doctors, in addition to the two physicians in regular attendance, was now held; and they appeared to think the disease was changing from inflammatory diathesis to languid, and ordered stimulants to be administered. dr bruno opposed this with the greatest warmth; and pointed out that the symptoms were those, not of an alteration in the disease, but of a fever flying to the brain, which was violently attacked by it; and, that the stimulants they proposed would kill more speedily than the disease itself. while, on the other hand, by copious bleeding, and the medicines that had been taken before, he might still be saved. the other physicians, however, were of a different opinion; and then dr bruno declared he would risk no farther responsibility. peruvian bark and wine were then administered. after taking these stimulants, his lordship expressed a wish to sleep. his last words were, "i must sleep now"; and he composed himself accordingly, but never awoke again. for four-and-twenty hours he continued in a state of lethargy, with the rattles occasionally in his throat. at six o'clock in the morning of the th, fletcher, who was watching by his bed-side, saw him open his eyes and then shut them, apparently without pain or moving hand or foot. "my god!" exclaimed the faithful valet, "i fear his lordship is gone." the doctors felt his pulse--it was so. after life's fitful fever he sleeps well. but the fittest dirge is his own last lay, written on the day he completed his thirty-sixth year, soon after his arrival at missolonghi, when his hopes of obtaining distinction in the greek cause were, perhaps, brightest; and yet it breathes of dejection almost to boding. 'tis time this heart should be unmoved since others it has ceased to move, yet though i cannot be beloved still let me love. my days are in the yellow leaf, the flowers and fruits of love are gone, the worm, the canker, and the grief are mine alone. the fire that in my bosom preys is like to some volcanic isle, no torch is kindled at its blaze-- a funeral pile. the hope, the fears, the jealous care, th' exalted portion of the pain, and power of love i cannot share, but wear the chain. but 'tis not here--it is not here-- such thoughts should shake my soul; nor now where glory seals the hero's bier, or binds his brow. the sword, the banner, and the field, glory and greece around us see; the spartan borne upon his shield was not more free. awake! not greece--she is awake-- awake my spirit! think through whom my life-blood tastes its parent lake, and then strike home! i tread reviving passions down, unworthy manhood! unto thee indifferent should the smile or frown of beauty be. if thou regrett'st thy youth, why live? the land of honourable death is here, up to the field and give away thy breath. seek out--less often sought than found-- a soldier's grave--for thee the best then look around, and choose thy ground, and take thy rest. chapter xlviii the funeral preparations and final obsequies the death of lord byron was felt by all greece as a national misfortune. from the moment it was known that fears were entertained for his life, the progress of the disease was watched with the deepest anxiety and sorrow. on easter sunday, the day on which he expired, thousands of the inhabitants of missolonghi had assembled on the spacious plain on the outside of the city, according to an ancient custom, to exchange the salutations of the morning; but on this occasion it was remarked, that instead of the wonted congratulations, "christ is risen," they inquired first, "how is lord byron?" on the event being made known, the provisional government assembled, and a proclamation, of which the following is a translation, was issued "provisional government of western greece. "the day of festivity and rejoicing is turned into one of sorrow and morning. "the lord noel byron departed this life at eleven { } o'clock last night, after an illness of ten days. his death was caused by an inflammatory fever. such was the effect of his lordship's illness on the public mind, that all classes had forgotten their usual recreations of easter, even before the afflicting event was apprehended. "the loss of this illustrious individual is undoubtedly to be deplored by all greece; but it must be more especially a subject of lamentation at missolonghi, where his generosity has been so conspicuously displayed, and of which he had become a citizen, with the ulterior determination of participating in all the dangers of the war. "everybody is acquainted with the beneficent acts of his lordship, and none can cease to hail his name as that of a real benefactor. "until, therefore, the final determination of the national government be known, and by virtue of the powers with which it has been pleased to invest me, i hereby decree: " st. to-morrow morning, at daylight, thirty-seven minute-guns shall be fired from the grand battery, being the number which corresponds with the age of the illustrious deceased. " nd. all the public offices, even to the tribunals, are to remain closed for three successive days. " rd. all the shops, except those in which provisions or medicines are sold, will also be shut; and it is strictly enjoined that every species of public amusement and other demonstrations of festivity at easter may be suspended. " th. a general mourning will be observed for twenty-one days. " th. prayers and a funeral service are to be offered up in all the churches. "a. mavrocordatos. "georgis praidis, secretary. "given at missolonghi, this th of april, ." the funeral oration was written and delivered on the occasion, by spiridion tricoupi, and ordered by the government to be published. no token of respect that reverence could suggest, or custom and religion sanction, was omitted by the public authorities, nor by the people. lord byron having omitted to give directions for the disposal of his body, some difficulty arose about fixing the place of interment. but after being embalmed it was sent, on the nd of may, to zante, where it was met by lord sidney osborne, a relation of lord byron, by marriage--the secretary of the senate at corfu. it was the wish of lord sidney osborne, and others, that the interment should be in zante; but the english opposed the proposition in the most decided manner. it was then suggested that it should be conveyed to athens, and deposited in the temple of theseus, or in the parthenon--ulysses odysseus, the governor of athens, having sent an express to missolonghi, to solicit the remains for that city; but, before it arrived, they were already in zante, and a vessel engaged to carry them to london, in the expectation that they would be deposited in westminster abbey or st paul's. on the th of may, the florida left zante with the body, which colonel stanhope accompanied; and on the th of june it reached the downs. after the ship was cleared from quarantine, mr hobhouse, with his lordship's solicitor, received it from colonel stanhope, and, by their directions it was removed to the house of sir e. knatchbull, in westminster, where it lay in state several days. the dignitaries of the abbey and of st paul's having, as it was said, refused permission to deposit the remains in either of these great national receptacles of the illustrious dead, it was determined that they should be laid in the ancestral vault of the byrons. the funeral, instead of being public, was in consequence private, and attended by only a few select friends to hucknell, a small village about two miles from newstead abbey, in the church of which the vault is situated; there the coffin was deposited, in conformity to a wish early expressed by the poet, that his dust might be mingled with his mother's. yet, unmeet and plain as the solemnity was in its circumstances, a remarkable incident gave it interest and distinction: as it passed along the streets of london, a sailor was observed walking uncovered near the hearse, and on being asked what he was doing there, replied that he had served lord byron in the levant, and had come to pay his last respects to his remains; a simple but emphatic testimony to the sincerity of that regard which his lordship often inspired, and which with more steadiness might always have commanded. the coffin bears the following inscription: lord byron, of rochdale, born in london, january , ; died at missolonghi, in western greece, april , . beside the coffin the urn is placed, the inscription on which is, within this urn are deposited the heart, brains, etc. of the deceased lord byron. chapter xlix the character of lord byron my endeavour, in the foregoing pages, has been to give a general view of the intellectual character of lord byron. it did not accord with the plan to enter minutely into the details of his private life, which i suspect was not greatly different from that of any other person of his rank, not distinguished for particular severity of manners. in some respects his lordship was, no doubt, peculiar. he possessed a vivacity of sensibility not common, and talents of a very extraordinary kind. he was also distinguished for superior personal elegance, particularly in his bust. the style and character of his head were universally admired; but perhaps the beauty of his physiognomy has been more highly spoken of than it really merited. its chief grace consisted, when he was in a gay humour, of a liveliness which gave a joyous meaning to every articulation of the muscles and features: when he was less agreeably disposed, the expression was morose to a very repulsive degree. it is, however, unnecessary to describe his personal character here. i have already said enough incidentally, to explain my full opinion of it. in the mass, i do not think it was calculated to attract much permanent affection or esteem. in the detail it was the reverse: few men possessed more companionable qualities than lord byron did occasionally; and seen at intervals in those felicitous moments, i imagine it would have been difficult to have said, that a more interesting companion had been previously met with. but he was not always in that fascinating state of pleasantry: he was as often otherwise; and no two individuals could be more distinct from each other than byron in his gaiety and in his misanthropy. this antithesis was the great cause of that diversity of opinion concerning him, which has so much divided his friends and adversaries. of his character as a poet there can be no difference of opinion, but only a difference in the degree of admiration. excellence in talent, as in every other thing, is comparative; but the universal republic of letters will acknowledge, that in energy of expression and liveliness of imagery byron had no equal in his own time. doubts, indeed, may be entertained, if in these high qualities even shakspeare himself was his superior. i am not disposed to think with many of those who rank the genius of byron almost as supreme, that he has shown less skill in the construction of his plots, and the development of his tales, than might have been expected from one so splendidly endowed; for it has ever appeared to me that he has accomplished in them everything he proposed to attain, and that in this consists one of his great merits. his mind, fervid and impassioned, was in all his compositions, except don juan, eagerly fixed on the catastrophe. he ever held the goal full in view, and drove to it in the most immediate manner. by this straightforward simplicity all the interest which intricacy excites was of necessity disregarded. he is therefore not treated justly when it is supposed that he might have done better had he shown more art: the wonder is, that he should have produced such magnificent effects with so little. he could not have made the satiated and meditative harold so darkling and excursive, so lone, "aweary," and misanthropical, had he treated him as the hero of a scholastic epic. the might of the poet in such creations lay in the riches of his diction and in the felicity with which he described feelings in relation to the aspect of scenes amid the reminiscences with which the scenes themselves were associated. if in language and plan he be so excellent, it may be asked why should he not be honoured with that pre-eminent niche in the temple which so many in the world have by suffrage assigned to him? simply because, with all the life and beauty of his style, the vigour and truth of his descriptions, the boldness of his conceptions, and the reach of his vision in the dark abysses of passion, lord byron was but imperfectly acquainted with human nature. he looked but on the outside of man. no characteristic action distinguishes one of his heroes from another, nor is there much dissimilarity in their sentiments; they have no individuality; they stalk and pass in mist and gloom, grim, ghastly, and portentous, mysterious shadows, entities of the twilight, weird things like the sceptred effigies of the unborn issue of banquo. combined with vast power, lord byron possessed, beyond all question, the greatest degree of originality of any poet of this age. in this rare quality he has no parallel in any age. all other poets and inventive authors are measured in their excellence by the accuracy with which they fit sentiments appropriate not only to the characters they create, but to the situations in which they place them: the works of lord byron display the opposite to this, and with the most extraordinary splendour. he endows his creations with his own qualities; he finds in the situations in which he places them only opportunities to express what he has himself felt or suffered; and yet he mixes so much probability in the circumstances, that they are always eloquently proper. he does everything, as it were, the reverse of other poets; in the air and sea, which have been in all times the emblems of change and the similitudes of inconstancy, he has discovered the very principles of permanency. the ocean in his view, not by its vastness, its unfathomable depths, and its limitless extent, becomes an image of deity, by its unchangeable character! the variety of his productions present a prodigious display of power. in his short career he has entitled himself to be ranked in the first class of the british poets for quantity alone. by childe harold, and his other poems of the same mood, he has extended the scope of feeling, made us acquainted with new trains of association, awakened sympathies which few suspected themselves of possessing; and he has laid open darker recesses in the bosom than were previously supposed to exist. the deep and dreadful caverns of remorse had long been explored but he was the first to visit the bottomless pit of satiety. the delineation of that promethean fortitude which defied conscience, as he has shown it in manfred, is his greatest achievement. the terrific fables of marlowe and of goethe, in their respective versions of the legend of faustus, had disclosed the utmost writhings which remorse in the fiercest of its torments can express; but what are those laocoon agonies to the sublime serenity of manfred. in the power, the originality, and the genius combined, of that unexampled performance, lord byron has placed himself on an equality with milton. the satan of the paradise lost is animated by motives, and dignified by an eternal enterprise. he hath purposes of infinite prospect to perform, and an immeasurable ambition to satisfy. manfred hath neither purpose nor ambition, nor any desire that seeks gratification. he hath done a deed which severs him from hope, as everlastingly as the apostacy with the angels has done satan. he acknowledges no contrition to bespeak commiseration, he complains of no wrong to justify revenge, for he feels none; he despises sympathy, and almost glories in his perdition. the creation of such a character is in the sublimest degree of originality; to give it appropriate thoughts and feelings required powers worthy of the conception; and to make it susceptible of being contemplated as within the scope and range of human sympathy, places byron above all his contemporaries and antecedents. milton has described in satan the greatest of human passions, supernatural attributes, directed to immortal intents, and stung with inextinguishable revenge; but satan is only a dilatation of man. manfred is loftier, and worse than satan; he has conquered punishment, having within himself a greater than hell can inflict. there is a fearful mystery in this conception; it is only by solemnly questioning the spirits that lurk within the dark metaphors in which manfred expresses himself, that the hideous secrets of the character can be conjectured. but although in intellectual power, and in creative originality, byron is entitled to stand on the highest peak of the mountain, his verse is often so harsh, and his language so obscure, that in the power of delighting he is only a poet of the second class. he had all the talent and the means requisite to embody his conceptions in a manner worthy of their might and majesty; his treasury was rich in everything rare and beautiful for illustration, but he possessed not the instinct requisite to guide him in the selection of the things necessary to the inspiration of delight:--he could give his statue life and beauty, and warmth, and motion, and eloquence, but not a tuneful voice. some curious metaphysicians, in their subtle criticism, have said that don juan was but the bright side of childe harold, and that all its most brilliant imagery was similar to that of which the dark and the shadows were delineated in his other works. it may be so. and, without question, a great similarity runs through everything that has come from the poet's pen; but it is a family resemblance, the progeny are all like one another; but where are those who are like them? i know of no author in prose or rhyme, in the english language, with whom byron can be compared. imitators of his manner there will be often and many, but he will ever remain one of the few whom the world acknowledges are alike supreme, and yet unlike each other--epochal characters, who mark extraordinary periods in history. raphael is the only man of pre-eminence whose career can be compared with that of byron; at an age when the genius of most men is but in the dawning, they had both attained their meridian of glory, and they both died so early, that it may be said they were lent to the world only to show the height to which the mind may ascend when time shall be allowed to accomplish the full cultivations of such extraordinary endowments. footnotes: { } i.e., against. { } the sacrifice of antinous by the emperor adrian is supposed to have been a sacrifice of that kind. dion cassius says, that adrian, who had applied himself to the study of magic, being deceived by the principles of that black egyptian art into a belief that he would be rendered immortal by a voluntary human sacrifice to the infernal gods, accepted the offer which antinous made of himself. i have somewhere met with a commentary on this to the following effect: the christian religion, in the time of adrian, was rapidly spreading throughout the empire, and the doctrine of gaining eternal life by the expiatory offering was openly preached. the egyptian priests, who pretended to be in possession of all knowledge, affected to be acquainted with this mystery also. the emperor was, by his taste and his vices, attached to the old religion; but he trembled at the truths disclosed by the revelation; and in this state of apprehension, his thirst of knowledge and his fears led him to consult the priests of osiris and isis; and they impressed him with a notion that the infernal deities would be appeased by the sacrifice of a human being dear to him, and who loved him so entirely as to lay down his life for him. antinous, moved by the anxiety of his imperial master, when all others had refused, consented to sacrifice himself; and it was for this devotion that adrian caused his memory to be hallowed with religious rites. { } mr hobhouse has assured me that this information is not correct. "i happen," says he, "to know that lord byron offered to give the guiccioli a sum of money outright, or to leave it to her by his will. i also happen to know that the lady would not hear of any such present or provision; for i have a letter in which lord byron extols her disinterestedness, and mentions that he has met with a similar refusal from another female. as to the being in destitute circumstances, i cannot believe it; for count gamba, her brother, whom i knew very well after lord byron's death, never made any complaint or mention of such a fact: add to which, i know a maintenance was provided for her by her husband, in consequence of a law process, before the death of lord byron." { a} the calenture. { b} the swiss air. { } the doctor evidently makes a mistake in confounding sir william hamilton with sir william drummond. { } fletcher's narrative implies at six that evening, the th april, . team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net [illustration: a day with byron] [illustration] she walks in beauty. "she walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes: thus mellow'd to that tender light which heaven to gaudy day denies." (_hebrew melodies._) a day with lord byron _by_ m.c. gillington london hodder & stoughton _in the same series._ _longfellow._ _tennyson._ _keats._ _browning._ _wordsworth._ _burns._ _scott._ _shelley._ a day with byron. one february afternoon in the year , about two o'clock,--for this is the hour at which his day begins,--"the most notorious personality of his century" arouses himself, in the palazzo lanfranchi at pisa. george gordon noel, lord byron, languidly arises and dresses, with the assistance of his devoted valet fletcher. invariably he awakes in very low spirits, "in actual despair and despondency," he has termed it: this is in part constitutional, and partly, no doubt, a reaction after the feverish brain-work of the previous night. it is, at any rate, in unutterable melancholy and _ennui_ that he surveys in the mirror that slight and graceful form, which had been idolised by london drawing-rooms, and that pale, scornful, beautiful face, "like a spirit, good or evil," which the enthusiastic walter scott has termed a thing to dream of. he notes the grey streaks already visible among his dark brown locks, and mutters his own lines miserably to himself,-- through life's dull road, so dim and dirty, i have dragg'd to three-and-thirty. what have these years left to me? nothing--except thirty-three. an innumerable motley crowd of reminiscences--most of them bitter, sorrowful, or contemptuous, throng across his mind, shaping themselves into poignant verse: there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, when the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; 'tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, but the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. * * * * * oh! could i feel as i have felt,--or be what i have been, or weep as i could once have wept o'er many a vanished scene; as springs in desert found seem sweet, all brackish though they be, so, 'midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me. a meagre breakfast,--of claret and soda with a few mouthfuls of some italian dish,--somewhat restores his natural vivacity: and he listens with cynical amusement to fletcher's blood-curdling stories of the phantoms who have made night hideous. for the famous old feudal palazzo, with its dungeons and secret chambers, has been immemorially infested with ghosts, and harassed by inexplicable noises. fletcher has already begged leave to change his room, and then refused to occupy his new room, because, as his master reports, "there are more ghosts there than in the other!... there is one place where people were evidently walled up ... i am bothered about these spectres, as they say the last occupants were too." however, he is laughing as he descends the magnificent staircase,--the reputed work of michael angelo,--laughing until the shrill querulous cries of peevish children make him stop and frown. he has allowed the leigh hunts, with their large and fractious family, to occupy for the present the ground-floor of the palazzo; and children are his pet abhorrence. "i abominate the sight of them so much," he has already told moore, "that i have always had the greatest respect for the character of herod!" no child figures in any of his poems: his own paternal feeling towards "ada, sole daughter of my house and home," is merely a fluctuating sentiment. he shrugs his shoulders and enters his great _salon_, again moody and with a downcast air: and throws himself upon a couch in gloomy reverie. snatches of poetry wander through his thoughts--poetry intrinsically autobiographical, for "the inequalities of his style are those of his career," and his imaginary heroes are endless reproductions of himself, "the wandering outlaw of his own dark mind." he has drawn his own picture more effectively in _lara_ than any strange hand could do. in him, inexplicably mix'd, appear'd much to be loved and hated, sought and fear'd; opinion, varying o'er his hidden lot, in praise or railing ne'er his name forgot.... there was in him a vital scorn of all: as if the worst had fall'n which could befall; he stood a stranger in this breathing world, an erring spirit from another hurl'd.... his early dreams of good outstripp'd the truth, and troubled manhood follow'd baffled youth. his men, in short, as has been observed, are "made after his own image, and his women after his own heart." yet the inveterate family likeness of these heroes is not shared by the heroines of his romantic stanzas: for byron has an eclectic taste in beauty. one can hardly imagine a wider dissimilarity than between the _bride of abydos_, the gentle zuleika, with her "nameless charms unmark'd by her alone-- the light of love, the purity of grace, the mind, the music breathing from her face, the heart whose softness harmonised the whole, and oh! that eye was in itself a soul." and "circassia's daughter," the stately leila of _the giaour_, whose black and flowing hair "swept the marble where her feet gleamed whiter than the mountain sleet." or, if the reader seek a further choice, there is medora, beloved of the corsair,--medora of the deep blue eye and long fair hair; or the nameless eastern maiden of the _hebrew melodies_: she walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes: thus mellow'd to that tender light which heaven to gaudy day denies. one shade the more, one ray the less, had half impair'd the nameless grace which waves in every raven tress, or softly lightens o'er her face; where thoughts serenely sweet express how pure, how dear their dwelling-place. and on that cheek, and o'er that brow, so soft, so calm, yet eloquent, the smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent, a mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent! yet all these heroines are alike in one respect--their potentiality of passionate emotion: since byron's "passions and his powers," according to his intense admirer shelley, "are incomparably greater than those of other men:" and he has used the last almost recklessly in portrayal of the first. as the poet reclines in sombre meditation, his reverie is broken by the not unwelcome entrance of his friends--who may be better termed his intimate acquaintances. for, to that brooding, introspective spirit,--constitutionally shy, and morbidly conscious of the fact,--"friendship is a propensity," he has declared, "to which my genius is very limited. i do not know the _male_ human being, except lord clare, the friend of my infancy, for whom i feel anything that deserves the name. all my others are men-of-the-world friendships." be that as it may, it is with a warmly cordial expression, and with that peculiarly sweet smile of his, that byron welcomes his usual visitors,--captain williams, captain medwin, taafe the irishman, and percy bysshe shelley, "the most companionable person under thirty," he has avowed, "that ever i knew." when they have discussed the latest little pisan _on dits_, and the progress of shelley's boat-building, the conversation trends more and more towards literary topics: personal topics, be it understood, for byron is not an omnivorous reader like shelley. williams and medwin, themselves dabblers in verse and prose, listen with respectful admiration to the _dicta_ of the great poets exchanging views. the low, clear, harmonious voice of byron "is a sort of intoxication: men are held by it as under a spell." he makes no secret of his open contempt for the professional writing fraternity. "who would write, if he had anything better to do?" he scornfully enquires, "i think the mighty stir made about scribbling and scribes, by themselves and others, a sign of effeminacy, degeneracy, and weakness." shelley, whose assiduous studies in literature have led him to quite other conclusions, defends his craft with ardour. but byron's chief successes have been too lightly won. he who wrote the _corsair_ in ten days, the _bride of abydos_ in four, and _lara_ whilst undressing after balls and masquerades, cannot be expected to take a very serious view of poetry as the one business of a lifetime. "i by no means rank poetry or poets," says he, "high in the scale of imagination. poetry is the lava of the imagination, whose eruption prevents an earthquake. if i live ten years longer," he adds prophetically, "you will see that all is not over with me,--i don't mean in literature, for that is nothing, and, it may seem odd enough to say, i don't think it's my vocation. but you will see that i shall do _something_ or other!" [illustration] juan and haidÉe. "they heard the waves splash, and the wind so low, and saw each other's dark eyes darting light into each other--and, beholding this, their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss." (_don juan._) this contemner of poesy, however, is soon persuaded, without much difficulty, to read aloud some excerpts from his new poems in process of completion: and very well he reads them. the listeners are moved to smiles by the bitter humour of the _vision of judgment_: they are left half breathless by the impetuous vigour of _heaven and earth_. but a murmur of unfeigned applause punctuates the second canto of _don juan_, with its exquisite presentment of youth, love, and ecstasy in the persons of juan and haidée. it was the cooling hour, just when the rounded red sun sinks down behind the azure hill, which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded, circling all nature, hush'd, and dim, and still, with the far mountain-crescent half surrounded on one side, and the deep sea calm and chill, upon the other, and the rosy sky, with one star sparkling through it like an eye. and thus they wander'd forth, and hand in hand, over the shining pebbles and the shells, glided along the smooth and harden'd sand.... * * * * * they look'd up to the sky, whose floating glow spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright; they gazed upon the glittering sea below, whence the broad moon rose circling into sight; they heard the waves splash, and the wind so low, and saw each other's dark eyes darting light into each other--and, beholding this, their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss. (_don juan._) byron's restless spirit, perpetually eager to express itself in action, now makes him anxious to dismiss intellectual discussions: and he hastily proposes a game of billiards. as he moves around the billiard-table, his lameness is distinctly noticeable: not all the ingenuity of his tailor, nor his own efforts to walk naturally, can conceal it. yet, as has been said of him in other matters, he redeems all his defects by his graces. and his companions note with surprise the remarkable change for the better which has taken place in him since, a few months before, he arrived at this old palace on the arno with a troop of servants, carriages, horses, fowls, dogs, and monkeys. the selfish and sensual byron of venetian days is entirely a thing of the past. "he is improved in every respect,"--says shelley to williams, "in genius, in temper, in moral views, in health and happiness." and although keeping up a certain splendour upon an income of £ a year, he devotes £ of that income entirely to purposes of charity. his own personal needs are of the simplest. the game concluded, byron's carriage is announced: his friends and he proceed in it as far as the town gates of pisa, by this means to avoid the starers of the streets. horses are in readiness at the gates: the company, with one or two servant-men, mount and ride into the pine-forest that reaches towards the sea. byron is as excellent and graceful a rider as a swimmer, with remarkable powers of endurance. he can cover seventy or eighty miles a day, fast going, and swim five miles at a stretch: he is indeed, in many respects, the typical open-air englishman. but to-day he rides slowly and immersed in thought. as his wife years since assured him, he is at heart the most melancholy of mankind, often when apparently the gayest. his abnormally long sight takes in every detail of the scenery,--storing it up unconsciously for future reference. it has been said that byron is nothing without his descriptions: and in these he has achieved some of his finest work: notably in some immortal stanzas of _childe harold_, with their dazzling panoramic succession of vivid scenes: whether depicting how i stood in venice, on the bridge of sighs; a palace and a prison on each hand: i saw from out the wave her structures rise as from the stroke of the enchanter's wand. or, on the eve of waterloo, there was a sound of revelry by night, and belgium's capital had gather'd then her beauty and her chivalry, and bright the lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; a thousand hearts beat happily; and when music arose with its voluptuous swell, soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, and all went merry as a marriage bell; but hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! whether again, in the "vale of vintage," the castled crag of drachenfels frowns o'er the wide and winding rhine, whose breast of waters broadly swells between the banks which bear the vine, and hills all rich with blossom'd trees, * * * * * and peasant girls, with deep blue eyes, and hands which offer early flowers, walk smiling o'er this paradise. [illustration] the prisoner of chillon and the bird. "thro' the crevice where it came, that bird was perch'd, as fond and tame, and tamer than upon the tree; a lovely bird, with azure wings, and song that said a thousand things, and seem'd to say them all for me!" (_the prisoner of chillon._) or, looking backwards through a score of centuries, i see before me the gladiator lie: he leans upon his hand--his manly brow consents to death, but conquers agony, and his droop'd head sinks gradually low-- and through his side the last drops, ebbing slow from the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, like the first of a thunder-shower; and now the arena swims around him--he is gone, ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won. byron is emphatically a citizen of the world, who has "not only painted the environs, but reflected the passions and aspirations of every scene which he visualizes." and it is this magic power of conveying the authentic impression of an actual occurrence, which renders his most recondite situations so thrilling,--which breathes a western vigour into the scented air of the orient, and thrills with poignant pathos through the horrors of the _prisoner of chillon_. a light broke in upon my brain-- it was the carol of a bird; it ceased, and then it came again, the sweetest song ear ever heard: and mine was thankful till my eyes ran over with the glad surprise, and they that moment could not see i was the mate of misery; but then by dull degrees came back my senses to their wonted track; i saw the dungeon walls and floor close slowly round me as before, i saw the glimmer of the sun creeping as it before had done; but through the crevice where it came that bird was perch'd, as fond and tame, and tamer than upon the tree; a lovely bird, with azure wings, and song that said a thousand things, and seem'd to say them all for me! i never saw its like before, i ne'er shall see its likeness more: it seem'd like me to want a mate, but was not half so desolate, and it was come to love me when none lived to love me so again, and cheering from my dungeon's brink, had brought me back to feel and think. i know not if it late were free, or broke its cage to perch on mine, but knowing well captivity, sweet bird! i could not wish for thine! or if it were, in winged guise, a visitant from paradise; for--heaven forgive that thought! the while which made me both to weep and smile-- i sometimes deem'd that it might be my brother's soul come down to me; but then at last away it flew, and then 'twas mortal well i knew, for he would never thus have flown, and left me twice so doubly lone, lone as the corse within its shroud, lone as a solitary cloud,-- a single cloud on a sunny day, while all the rest of heaven is clear, a frown upon the atmosphere, that hath no business to appear when skies are blue, and earth is gay. (_the prisoner of chillon._) unhappily, all these shifting scenes of imagination or experience--so the poet has made mournful confession--have little power to wean him from himself. "neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, above, around, and beneath me." and although, it will be noticed, he exempts the sea--and although the blood of old sea-kings, running fiercely in his veins, still kindles him to imperishable rapture in its presence,-- and i have loved thee, ocean! and my joy of youthful sports was on thy breast to be borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy i wanton'd with thy breakers--they to me were a delight; and if the freshening sea made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear, for i was as it were a child of thee, and trusted to thy billows far and near, and laid my hand upon thy mane--as i do here. (_childe harold._) --yet there is sorrow on the sea itself,--the "unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea" which separates him from his mother-country. cosmopolitan as he is, self-banished exile, quick with greek and italian sympathies, byron never for one moment forgets that he is head of one of england's proudest families. despite his scathing scorn towards his fair-weather london friends, towards the unreasoning outbursts of malignity which drove him out of his england--with all her faults, he loves her still. he vaguely hopes and hankers after a return to those long-lost shores: and endeavours to believe that the future will in some way make atonement for all the calamities of the past. but now shelley, williams, medwin, and taafe are dismounting in the pine forest, and the men-servants setting up the target. pistol-practice is byron's forte; when he hits a half-crown at twelve yards he is as delighted as a boy, and quite glum and disconcerted if he should happen to miss. this very rarely happens, as he is a crack shot, easily distancing the other competitors. his hand trembles violently, but he calculates on this vibration, and, depending entirely on his eye, hardly ever fails. after about an hour's shooting, the light begins to wane towards sunset: and the friends ride back to the city, byron in exuberant good humour with himself and everybody else. arrived at the palazzo lanfranchi, he finds two guests awaiting him,--count pietro gamba, brother of the lovely contessa guiccioli, and trelawny, that handsome, picturesque, piratical-looking "younger son," who has not yet published to an astonished world his remarkable and almost incredible "adventures." trelawny is at present in command of byron's yacht the _bolivar_, lying in the harbour of genoa. the poet welcomes these new additions to his company: for, since his arrival in pisa, he has begun to entertain men at dinner-parties, for the first time since leaving england. a very cheerful company sits down with him to dinner: their host displays himself to great advantage, "being at once," to quote shelley, "polite and cordial, full of social hilarity and the most perfect good humour, never diverging into ungraceful merriment, and yet keeping up the spirit of liveliness throughout the evening." byron, according to his own declaration, has never passed two hours in mixed society without wishing himself out of it again. nobody, however, could guess at this fact from his bright, frank, and spontaneous gaiety. always an abstemious eater--"i have fed at times for over two months together," he assures his friends, "on sheer biscuit and water,"--very little food suffices him: and besides, _bien entendu_, he is anxious to retain that "happy slenderness" on which he prides himself,--the slenderness which is a characteristic of his family, and which he has recently endangered by a lazy life in venice. the guests sit fascinated by his enthralling personality: they recognize that he wears a natural greatness which "his errors can only half obscure:" and they rivet their gaze upon that pale and splendid face, the only one, as scott says, that ever came up to an artist's notion of what the lineaments of a poet should be. he looks around him upon the ethereal and feminine countenance of shelley, the visionary,--the kind, pleasant, honest english faces of medwin and williams,--the good-looking italian gamba, the quaint little irishman taafe,--last, not least, the dark mustachios and wildly-flashing celtic eyes of the cornish adventurer trelawny. this latter might well have served for a model of conrad the corsair: and so he is assured by his companions. "sun-burnt his cheek, his forehead high and pale the sable curls in wild profusion veil.... his features' deepening lines and varying hue at times attracted, yet perplex'd the view." [illustration] conrad and gulnare. "extreme in love or hate, in good or ill, the worst of crimes had left her woman still! this conrad mark'd, and felt--ah! could he less?-- hate of that deed, but grief for her distress." _(the corsair._) but where, they ask, shall the original of _gulnare_ be found,--gulnare, who stains her hand with the blood of her lord the pasha, to save the corsair from a dreadful death? byron refuses to reveal his source of inspiration: but shelley quotes with sincere approval the lines which most emphatically delineate that lovely, desperate woman. embark'd, the sail unfurl'd, the light breeze blew-- how much had conrad's memory to review!... he thought on her afar, his lovely bride: he turned and saw--gulnare, the homicide! she watch'd his features till she could not bear their freezing aspect and averted air; and that strange fierceness, foreign to her eye, fell quench'd in tears, too late to shed or dry. "but for that deed of darkness what wert thou? reproach me--but not yet--o! spare me _now_! i am not what i seem--this fearful night my brain bewilder'd--do not madden quite! if i had never loved, though less my guilt, thou hadst not lived to--hate me--if thou wilt." extreme in love or hate, in good or ill, the worst of crimes had left her woman still! this conrad mark'd, and felt--ah! could he less? hate of that deed, but grief for her distress; what she has done no tears could wash away, and heaven must punish on its angry day: but--it was done: he knew, whate'er her guilt, for him that poniard smote, that blood was spilt; and he was free! and she for him had given her all on earth, and more than all in heaven! (_the corsair._) but--"heavens, shelley!" cries his host, "what infinite nonsense are you quoting?" and he hastily turns the current of conversation towards more impersonal subjects. the evening wears on: the guests depart: the clear spring moonlight streams upon the winding arno. byron stands dreaming at the open window, the bridges and buildings of pisa lie still and silver-lit before him: a subtle influence of quietude steals down upon him from the stars. "what nothings we are," he murmurs, "before the least of these stars!" one in particular--is it sirius?--entrances his attention with its cold refulgence of pure light. his thoughts involuntarily shape themselves in rhythm and rhyme; sun of the sleepless! melancholy star! whose tearful beam glows tremulously far, that show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel, how like art thou to joy remember'd well! so gleams the past, the light of other days, which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays; a night-beam sorrow watcheth to behold, distinct, but distant--clear--but oh! how cold! it is the hour when byron's brain becomes thronged with a glowing phantasmagoria of ideas that cry aloud for visible expression. he forgets, under the stress of creative impulse, the sources and causes of his inherent melancholy,--the miserable days of his childhood, with a fury for a mother,--the wound, never to be healed, of his unrequited love for mary chaworth,--the inimical wife from whom he is eternally alienated,--the little daughter that he may never hold in his arms,--the beloved sister separated from his side,--the ancestral home of his forefathers now passed into a stranger's hold,--the meteoric glory and total eclipse of his unparalleled popularity in england,--the follies, and worse than follies, which have made him what he is, "consistent in nothing but his passion and his pride." these memories, like poisonous exhalations, are banished from his mind, and leave a clear horizon for a while,--a fertile landscape peopled with great words and images. something akin to inspiration seizes upon him: and he throws himself to work with all the zest and nerve of his impulsive nature. this is a man who writes, in his own phrase, "with rapidity and rarely with pains.... when i once take pen in hand, i _must_ say what comes uppermost or fling it away." not for him that careful polishing of sentences, which other writers meticulously bestow. "i have always written as fast as i could put pen to paper, and never revised but in the proofs.... i can never recast anything. i am like the tiger; if i miss the first spring, i go grumbling back to my jungle." and to this impetuous directness of onslaught, his finest poems bear witness. some critic has remarked that byron is too much of the earth earthy to be a great lyrical writer: yet a promethean fire, stolen from heaven, burns immortally through some of his shorter lyrics. in greek, it is said, there are ways of expressing the simple fact _i love you_: yet who has ever put it in a more convincing form than byron does in _maid of athens_? [illustration] maid of athens. by those tresses unconfined, woo'd by each Ægean wind; by those lids whose jetty fringe kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge; by those wild eyes like the roe, _zöe mou, sas agapo_. * * * * * maid of athens, ere we part, give, oh give me back my heart! or, since that has left my breast, keep it now, and take the rest! hear my vow before i go. _zöe mou, sas agapo._ (my life, i love you!) by those tresses unconfined, woo'd by each Ægean wind; by those lids whose jetty fringe kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge; by those wild eyes like the roe, _zöe mou, sas agapo_. by that lip i long to taste; by that zone-encircled waist; by all the token-flowers that tell what words can never speak so well; by love's alternate joy and woe, _zöe mou, sas agapo_. maid of athens! i am gone: think of me, sweet! when alone. though i fly to istambol, athens holds my heart and soul: can i cease to love thee? no! _zöe mou, sas agapo._ rapidly as his pen flies over the paper, the torrent of throbbing thought flows faster still. far on into the night, when ghostly noises echo through the sleeping palace, "that ever-gushing and perennial fount of natural waters," as scott has described the genius of byron, pours forth in reckless profusion. until at last, outspent with energy, he draws a deep breath of exhaustion, and realizes that he is weariness itself. the moon has sunk in arno: the stars are half-way across the sky: a cold glimmer of dawn is palpitating along the east, as byron-- "again to that accustom'd couch must creep where joy subsides, and sorrow sighs to sleep." after day's fitful fever he sleeps well: and rest, a few short hours of it, is due to that perturbed spirit, which now, ... o'erlabour'd with his being's strife, shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life ... that sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least. (_lara._) [illustration] _printed by percy lund, humphries & co., ltd._, _bradford and london._ the love affairs of lord byron * * * * * _works by the same author_ madame de staËl and her lovers george sand and her lovers rosseau and the women he loved chateaubriand and his court of women the passions of the french romantics * * * * * [illustration: _lord byron._] the love affairs of lord byron by francis gribble author of "george sand and her lovers" etc. london eveleigh nash fawside house preface whether a book is called "the love affairs of lord byron" or "the life of lord byron" can make very little difference to the contents of its pages. byron's love affairs were the principal incidents of his life, and almost the only ones. like chateaubriand, he might have spoke of "a procession of women" as the great panoramic effect of his career. he differed from chateaubriand, however, in the first place, in not professing to be very much concerned by the pageant, and, in the second place, in being, in reality, very deeply affected by it. chateaubriand kept his emotions well in hand, exaggerating them in retrospect for the sake of literary effect, picturing the sensibility of his heart in polished phrases, but never giving the impression of a man who has suffered through his passions, or been swept off his feet by them, or diverted by them from the pursuit of ambition or the serene cult of the all-important ego. in all chateaubriand's love affairs, in short, red blood is lacking and self-consciousness prevails. he appears to be equally in love with all the women in the procession; the explanation being that he is more in love with himself than with any of them. in spite of the procession of women, which is admitted to have been magnificent, it may justly be said of chateaubriand that love was "of his life a thing apart." of byron, who coined the phrase (though madame de staël had coined it before him) it cannot be said. it may appear to be true of sundry of his incidental love affairs, but it cannot stand as a broad generalisation. his whole life was deflected from its course, and thrown out of gear: first, by his unhappy passion for mary chaworth; secondly, by the way in which women of all ranks, flattering his vanity for the gratification of their own, importuned him with the offer of their hearts. lady byron herself did so no less than lady caroline lamb, and jane clairmont, and the venetian light o' loves, though, no doubt, with more delicacy and a better show of maidenly reserve. fully persuaded in her own mind that he had pined for her for two years, she delicately hinted to him that he need pine no longer. he took the hint and married her, with the catastrophic consequences which we know. then other women--a long series of other women--did what they could to break his fall and console him. he dallied with them for years, without ever engaging his heart very deeply, until at last he realised that this sort of dalliance was a very futile and enervating occupation, tore himself away from his last entanglement, and crossed the sea to strike a blow for freedom. that is byron's life in a nutshell. his biographer, it is clear, has no way of escape from his love affairs; while the critic is under an obligation, almost equally compelling, to take note of them. it is not merely that he was continually writing about them, and that the meaning of his enigmatic sentences can, in many cases, only be unravelled by the help of the clue which a knowledge of his love affairs provides. the striking change which we see the tone of his work undergoing as he grows older is the reflection of the history of his heart. many of his later poems might have been written in mockery of the earlier ones. he had his illusions in his youth. in his middle-age, if he can be said to have reached middle-age, he had none, but wrote, to the distress of the countess guiccioli, as a man who delighted to tear aside, with a rude hand, the striped veil of sentiment and hypocrisy which hid the ugly nakedness of truth. the secret of that transformation is written in the record of his love affairs, and can be read nowhere else. his life lacks all unity and all consistency unless the first place in it is given to that record. since the appearance of moore's life, and even since the appearance of cordy jeaffreson's "real lord byron," a good deal of new information has been made available. the biographer has to take cognisance of the various documents brought together in mr. murray's latest edition of byron's writings and letters; of hobhouse's "account of the separation"; of the "confessions," for whatever they may be worth, elicited from jane clairmont and first printed in the _nineteenth century_; of mr. richard edgcumbe's "byron: the last phase"; and of the late lord lovelace's privately printed work, "astarte." the importance of each of these authorities will appear when reference is made to it in the text. it will be seen, then, that some of the murray mss. give precision to the narrative of byron's relations with lady caroline lamb, and that others effectually dispose of cordy jeaffreson's theory that lady byron's mysterious grievance--the grievance which caused her lawyer to declare reconciliation impossible--was her husband's intimacy with miss clairmont. others of them, again, as effectually confute cordy jeaffreson's amazing doctrine that byron only brought railing accusations against his wife because he loved her, and that at the time when he denounced her as "the moral clytemnestra of thy lord," he was in reality yearning to be recalled to the nuptial bed. concerning "astarte" some further remarks may be made. it is a disgusting and calumnious compilation, designed, apparently, to show that byron's descendants accept the worst charges preferred against him by his enemies during his lifetime. those charges are such that one would have expected a member of the family to hold his tongue about them, even if he were in possession of evidence conclusively demonstrating their truth. that a member of the family should have revived the charges on the strength of evidence which may justly be described as not good enough to hang a dog on almost surpasses belief. still, the thing has been done, and the biographer's obligations are affected accordingly. unpleasant though the subject is, he must examine the so-called evidence for fear lest he should be supposed to feel himself unable to rebut it; and he is under the stronger compulsion to do so because the mud thrown by lord lovelace is not thrown at byron only, but also at augusta leigh, a most worthy and womanly woman, and the best of sisters and wives. it is the hope and belief of the present writer that he has succeeded in definitely clearing her character, together with that of her brother, and demonstrated that the legend of the crime, so industriously inculated by byron's grandson, has no shadow of foundation in fact. francis gribble contents chapter page i. ancestors, parents, and hereditary influences ii. childhood and schooldays at aberdeen, dulwich, and harrow iii. a schoolboy's love affairs--mary duff, margaret parker, and mary chaworth iv. life at cambridge and flirtations at southwell v. revelry at newstead--"english bards and scotch reviewers" vi. the grand tour--flirtations in spain vii. florence spencer smith viii. the maid of athens--mrs. werry--mrs. pedley--the swimming of the hellespont ix. return to england--publication of "childe harold" x. the secret orchard xi. lady caroline lamb xii. the quarrel with lady caroline--her character and subsequent career xiii. lady oxford--byron's intention of going abroad with her xiv. an emotional crisis--thoughts of marriage, of foreign travel, and of mary chaworth xv. renewal and interruption of relations with mary chaworth xvi. marriage xvii. incompatibility of temper xviii. lady byron's demand for a separation--rumours that "gross charges" might be brought, involving mrs. leigh xix. "gross charges" disavowed by lady byron--separation agreed to xx. revival of the byron scandal by mrs. beecher stowe and the late lord lovelace xxi. inherent improbability of the charges against augusta leigh--the allegation that she "confessed"--the proof that she did nothing of the kind xxii. byron's departure for the continent--his acquaintance with jane clairmont xxiii. life at geneva--the affair with jane clairmont xxiv. from geneva to venice--the affair with the draper's wife xxv. at venice--the affair with the baker's wife--dissolute proceedings in the mocenigo palace--illness, recovery and reformation xxvi. in the venetian salons--introduction to countess guiccioli xxvii. byron's relations with the countess guiccioli and her husband at ravenna xxviii. revolutionary activities--removal from ravenna to pisa xxix. the trivial round at pisa xxx. from pisa to genoa xxxi. departure for greece xxxii. death in a great cause appendix index list of illustrations lord byron _frontispiece_ the maid of athens _to face page_ lady caroline lamb " mary chaworth " lady byron " countess guiccioli " chapter i ancestors, parents, and hereditary influences the byrons came over with the conqueror, helped him to conquer, and were rewarded with a grant of landed estates in lancashire. hundreds of years elapsed before they distinguished themselves either for good or evil, or emerged from the ruck of the landed gentry. there were byrons at crecy, and at the siege of calais; and there probably were byrons among the crusaders. there is even a legend of a byron crusader rescuing a christian maiden from the saracens; but neither the maiden nor the crusader can be identified. the authentic history of the family only begins with the grant of newstead abbey, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, to sir john byron of clayton, in lancashire--a reward, apparently, for services rendered by his father at the battle of bosworth field. even so, however, the byrons remained comparatively inconspicuous[ ]; and their records only begin to be full and interesting at the time of the war between charles i. and his parliament. seven byrons, all brothers, then fought on the king's side; and the most distinguished of the seven was the eldest, another sir john byron of clayton--a loyal, valiant, and impetuous soldier, with more zeal than discretion. it was his charge that broke haslerig's cuirassiers at roundway down. it was in his regiment that falkland was fighting when he fell at newbury. on the other hand he helped to lose the battle of marston moor by charging without orders. "by lord byron's improper charge," prince rupert reported, "much harm hath been done." he had been given his peerage--with limitations in default of issue male to his six surviving brothers and the issue male of their bodies--in the midst of the war. after naseby, he went to paris, and spent the rest of his life in exile. his first wife being dead, he married a second--a lady concerning whom there is a piquant note in pepys' diary. she was, pepys tells us, one of charles ii.'s mistresses--his "seventeenth mistress aboard," who, as the diarist proceeds, "did not leave him till she got him to give her an order for £ worth of plate; but, by delays, thanks be to god! she died before she got it." this first lord byron died childless, and the title passed to his brother richard, who had also distinguished himself in the war on the king's side. he was one of the colonels whose gallantry at edgehill the university of oxford rewarded with honorary degrees; and he was governor, successively, of appleby and newark. he tried to seduce his kinsman, colonel hutchinson, from his allegiance to the parliament, but without avail. "except," colonel hutchinson told him, "he found his own heart prone to such treachery, he might consider that there was, if nothing else, so much of a byron's blood in him that he should very much scorn to betray or quit a trust he had undertaken." the third lord, richard's son william, succeeded to the title in . his marriage with elizabeth, daughter of viscount chaworth, brings the name of the heroine of the poet's first and last love into the story; and he is also notable as the first byron who had a taste, if not actually a turn, for literature. thomas shipman, the royalist singer whose songs indicate, according to mr. thomas seccombe's criticism in the "dictionary of national biography," that "the severe morals of the roundheads were even less to his taste than their politics," was his intimate friend; and shipman's "carolina" contains a set of verses from his pen: "_my whole ambition only does extend to gain the name of shipman's faithful friend; and though i cannot amply speak your praise, i'll wear the myrtle, tho' you wear the bays._" that is a fair specimen of the third lord byron's poetical style; and it is clear that his descendant did not need to be a great poet in order to improve upon it. of his son, the fourth lord, who died in , there is nothing to be said; but his grandson, the fifth lord, lives in history and tradition as "the wicked lord byron." the report of his arraignment before his fellow peers on the charge of murdering his relative, mr. william chaworth, in , may be read in the nineteenth volume of state trials, though the most careful reading is likely to leave the rights of the case obscure. the tragedy, whatever the rights of it, occurred after one of the weekly dinners of the nottinghamshire county club, at the star and garter tavern in pall mall. the quarrel arose out of a heated discussion on the subject of preserving game--a topic which country gentlemen are particularly liable to discuss with heat. lord byron is said to have advocated leniency, and mr. chaworth severity, towards poachers. the argument led to a wager; and the two men went upstairs together--apparently for the purpose of arranging the terms of the wager--and entered a room lighted only by a dull fire and a single candle. as soon as the door was closed, they drew their swords and fought, and lord byron ran mr. chaworth through the body. those are the only points on which all the depositions agree. lord byron said that chaworth, who was the better swordsman of the two, challenged him to fight, and that the fight was conducted fairly. the case for the prosecution was that chaworth did not mean to fight, and that lord byron attacked him unawares. chaworth, though he lingered for some hours, and was questioned on the subject, said nothing to exonerate his assailant. that, broadly speaking, was the evidence on which the peers had to come to their decision; and they found lord byron not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. pleading his privilege as a peer, he was released on payment of the fees. society, however, inclined to the view that he had not fought fairly. two years before he had been master of the stag-hounds. now he was cut by the county, and relapsed into misanthropic debauchery. he quarrelled with his son, the honorable william byron, sometime m.p. for morpeth, for contracting a marriage of which he disapproved. he drove his wife away from newstead by his brutality, and consorted with a low-born "lady betty." the stories of his shooting his coachman and trying to drown his wife were untrue, but his neighbours believed them, and behaved accordingly; and an unpleasant picture of his retirement may be found in horace walpole's letters. "the present lord," horace walpole writes, "hath lost large sums, and paid part in old oaks; five thousand pounds worth have been cut down near the house. _en revanche_, he has built two baby forts to pay his country in castles for the damage done to the navy, and planted a handful of scotch firs that look like plough-boys dressed in old family liveries for a public day." playing at naval battles and bombardments, with toy ships, on the little lakes in his park, was, indeed, the favourite, if not the only, recreation of the wicked lord's old age. it is said that his chief purpose in cutting down the timber was to spite and embarrass his heirs; and he did, at any rate, involve his heir in a law suit almost as long as the famous case of jarndyce _versus_ jarndyce by means of an improper sale of the byron property at rochdale. his heir, however, was not to be either his son or his grandson. they both predeceased him--the latter dying in corsica in --and the title and estates passed to the issue of his brother john, known to the navy list as admiral byron, and to the navy as "foul weather jack." the admiral had been round the world with anson, had been wrecked on the coast of chili, and had published a narrative--"my granddad's narrative"--of his hardships and adventures. he had later been sent round the world on a voyage of discovery on his own account, but had discovered nothing in particular. finally he had fought, not too successfully, against d'estaing in the west indies, and had withdrawn to misanthropic isolation. his son, captain byron, of the guards, known to his contemporaries as "mad jack byron," was a handsome youth of worthless character, but very fascinating to women. his elopement, while still a minor, with the marchioness of carmarthen, was one of the sensational events of a london season. lady carmarthen's husband having divorced her, mad jack married her in . they lived together in paris and at chantilly--prosperously, for the bride had £ a year in her own right. a child was born--augusta, who subsequently married colonel leigh; but, in , his wife died, and captain byron, heavily in debt, was once more thrown on his own resources. he returned to england to look for an heiress, and he found one in the person of miss gordon of gight, whom he met and married at bath in . the fortune, when the landed estates had been realised, amounted to about £ , ; and captain byron's clamorous creditors took most of it. a considerable portion of what was left was quickly squandered in riotous living on the continent. the ultimate income consisted of the interest (subject to an annuity to mrs. byron's grandmother) on the sum of £ ; and that lamentable financial position had already been reached when captain and mrs. byron came back to england and took a furnished house in holles street, where george noel gordon, sixth lord byron, was born on january , . there we have, in brief outline, all that is essential of the little that is known of byron's heredity. if it is not precisely common-place, it is at least undistinguished. no one can ever have generalised from it and said that the byrons were brilliant, or even--in spite of the third lord's conscientious attempts at versification--that they were "literary." a far more likely generalisation would have been that the byrons were mad. they were not quite that, of course, though some of them were eccentric; and those who were eccentric had the courage of their eccentricity. but they were, at least so far as we know them, impetuous and reckless men--men who went through life in the spirit of a bull charging a gate, doing what they chose to do because they chose to do it, with a defiant air of "damn the consequences." we find that note alike in the first lord's "improper charge" on marston moor, and the fifth lord's improvised duel in the dark room of the pall mall tavern, and in captain byron's dashing elopement with a noble neighbour's wife. we shall catch it again, and more than once, in our survey of the career of the one byron who has been famous; and we shall see how much his fame owed to his pride, his determined indifference, in spite of his prickly sensitiveness, to public opinion, and his clear-cut, haughty character. legh richmond, the popular evangelical preacher, once said that, if byron had been as bad a poet as he was a man, his poetry would have done but little harm, but that criticism is almost an inversion of the truth. byron, in fact, imposed himself far less because his poetry was good than because his personality was strong. he never saw as far into the heart of things as wordsworth. when he tried to do so, at shelley's instigation, he only saw what wordsworth had already shown; and there are many passages in his work which might fairly be described as being "like wordsworth only less so." none of his shorter pieces are fit to stand beside "the world is too much with us," and he never wrote a line so wonderfully inspired as wordsworth's "still, sad music of humanity." but he had one advantage over wordsworth. he spoke out; he was not afraid of saying things. his genius had all the hard riding, neck-or-nothing temper of the earlier, undistinguished byrons behind it. he was "dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,"--and he damned the consequences with the haphazard blasphemy of an aristocrat who feels sure of himself, and has no need to pick his words. he was quite ready to damn them in the presence of ladies, and in the face of kings; and he damned them as one having authority, and not as the democratic upstarts; so that the world listened attentively, wondering what he would say next, and even shelley, observing how easily he compelled a hearing, was fully persuaded that byron was a greater poet than himself. that, in the main, it would seem, was how heredity affected him. the hereditary influences, however, were, in their turn modified by the strange circumstances of his upbringing; and it is time to glance at them, and see how far they help to account for the loneliness and aloofness of byron's temperament, for the sensitiveness already referred to, and for the ultimate attitude known as the byronic pose. chapter ii childhood and schooldays at aberdeen, dulwich, and harrow captain and mrs. byron, finding themselves impoverished, left holles street, and retired to aberdeen, to live on an income of £ a year. augusta having been taken off their hands by her grandmother, lady holderness, they were alone together, with the baby and the nurse, in cheap and gloomy lodgings; and they soon began to wrangle. it was the old story, no doubt, of poverty coming in at the door and love flying out of the window, leaving only incompatibility of temper behind. the husband, though inclined to be amiable as long as things went well, was, in modern phrase, a "waster." the wife, though shrewd and possessed of some domestic virtues, was, in the language of all time, a scold. he wanted to run into debt in order to keep up appearances; she to disregard appearances in order to live within her income. dinners of many courses and wines of approved vintages seemed to her the superfluities but to him the necessaries of life. he probably did not mince words in expressing his view of the matter; she certainly minced none in expressing hers. there is a strong presumption, too, that she complained of him to her neighbours; for it is well attested in her son's letters to his sister that she was that sort of woman. so the day came when captain byron walked out of the house, vowing that he would live with his wife no longer. for a time he lived in a separate lodging in the same street. presently, scraping some money together--borrowing it, that is to say, without any intention of repaying it--he went to france to amuse himself; and in january , at the age of thirty-five, he died at valenciennes. it has been suggested that he committed suicide, but nothing is known for certain. one of byron's earliest recollections was of his mother's weeping at the news of her husband's death, and of his own astonishment at her tears. she had continually nagged at him, and heaped abuse on him, while he lived; yet now her distracted shrieks filled the house and disturbed the neighbourhood. that was the child's earliest lesson in the unaccountable ways of women. he was only three at the time--yet old enough to wonder, though not to understand. his stay at aberdeen was to last for seven more years. he was to go to school there, and to be accounted a dunce, though not a fool. he was to learn religion there from his nurse, who taught him the dark, alarming calvinistic doctrine; and he was to develop some of the traits and characteristics which were afterwards to be pronounced. on the whole, indeed, in spite of alleviations, he had a gloomy childhood, by a sense, however imperfectly comprehended, of the contrast between life as it was and life as it ought to have been. he had been born proud, inheriting quite as much pride from his mother's as from his father's family. he soon came to know that there were such things as old families, and that the byron family was one of the oldest of them. it was borne in upon him by what he saw and heard that the proper place for a baron was a baronial hall; and he could see that the apartment in which he was growing up was neither a hall nor baronial. the first apartment occupied by his mother was, in fact, as has already been said, a lodging, and the second was an "upper part," the furniture of which, when it ultimately came to be sold, fetched exactly £ s. d. the boy must have felt--we may depend upon it that his mother told him--that there was something wrong about that; that his school companions were make-shift associates, not really worthy of him; that he was, as it were, a child born in exile, and unjustly kept out of his rights. the feeling must have grown stronger--we may be quite sure that his mother stimulated it--when the unexpected death of his cousin made him the direct heir to the title and estates; and, indeed, it was a feeling to some extent justified by the facts. his great-uncle, the wicked lord byron, ought then, as everybody said, to have shown signs of recognition, and to have offered an allowance. he made no sign, however, and he offered no allowance. instead of doing so, he went on felling timber, and effected the illegal sale of the rochdale property already referred too; and for four more years--from the age of six, roughly speaking, to the age of ten--the heir apparent to the barony was living poorly in an aberdeen "upper part," while the actual baron was living in luxury and state at newstead. there were good grounds for bitterness and resentment there; and mrs. byron, with her unruly tongue, was the woman to make the most of them. family pride grew apace under her influence; and there was no other influence to check or counteract it. the boy learnt to be as proud of his birth as a _parvenu_ would like to be--a characteristic of which we shall presently note some examples. if he was proud, however, he was also sensitive: and it may well have been that his pride was, to some extent, a shield of protection which his sensitiveness threw up. he was sensitive, not only because he was poor when he ought to be rich and insignificant when he ought to be important, but also because he was lame. an injury done at birth to his achilles tendons prevented him from planting his heels firmly on the ground. he had to trot on the ball of his foot instead of walking; he could not even trot for more than a mile or so at a time. a physical defect of that sort is always a haunting grief to a child--especially so, perhaps, to a child with a dawning consciousness of great mental gifts. it appears to such a child as an irreparable wrong done--a wrong which can never be either righted or avenged--an irremovable mark of inferiority, inviting taunts and gibes. byron was sensitive on the subject, fearing that it made him ridiculous, throughout his life, alike when he was the darling and when he was the outcast of society; and various stories show how the deformity embittered his childhood. "what a pretty boy byron is! what a pity he has such a leg!" he, one day, heard a lady say to his nurse. "dinna speak of it," he screamed, stamping his foot, and slashing at her with his toy whip. and then there is the story of his mother who, in one of her fits of passion, called him "a lame brat." he drew himself up, and, with a restraint and a concentrated scorn beyond his years, replied in the word which he afterwards put into "the hunchback": "i was born so, mother." that was one of the passionate scenes that passed between them--but only one among many; and it was only in the case of this one affront which cut him to the quick, that the child displayed such precocious self-control. more often he answered rage with rage and violence with violence. in one fit of fury he tore his new frock to shreds; in another he tried to stab himself, at table, with a dinner knife. exactly why he did it, or what he resented, he probably did not know either at the time, or afterwards; but he vaguely felt, no doubt, that something was wrong with the world, and instinct impelled him to kick against the pricks and damn the whole nature of things. then, in , came the sudden change of fortune. the wicked lord byron was dead at last; and the child of ten was a peer of the realm and the heir to great, though heavily mortgaged estates. he could not take possession of them yet--the embarrassed property needed to be delicately nursed--but still, subject to the charges, they were his. he was taken to look at them, and then, a tenant having been found for newstead, mrs. byron settled, first at nottingham, and then in london, and her son was sent to school--first to a preparatory school at dulwich, and then to harrow. even so, however, there remained something strange, abnormal, and uncomfortable about his position. on the one hand, mrs. byron, not understanding, or trying to understand, him, nagged and scolded until he lost almost all his natural affection for her. on the other hand, his father's relatives, whether because they felt that "mad jack" had disgraced the family, or because they objected to mrs. byron--who, in truth, in spite of her good birth, was extremely provincial in her style, and of loquacious, mischief-making propensities--were very far from cordial. they had not even troubled to communicate with her when the death of her son's cousin made him the direct heir, but had left her to learn the news accidentally from strangers. lord carlisle, the son of his grandfather's sister, isabella byron, consented to act as his guardian, but abstained from making friendly overtures. the fault in that case, however, was almost entirely mrs. byron's. there was some dispute between her and dr. glennie, her son's dulwich headmaster--a dispute which culminated in a fit of hysterics in dr. glennie's study. lord carlisle was appealed to, and the result of his attempt at mediation was that mrs. byron practically ordered him out of the house. byron, of course, could not help that; but, equally of course, he suffered from it. he was neglected, and he was sensible of the neglect. he had come into a world in which he had every right to move, only to be made to feel that he was not wanted there. born in exile, and having returned from exile, he was cold-shouldered by kinsmen who seemed to think that he would have done better to remain in exile. very likely he was, at that age, somewhat of a lout, shy, ill at ease, and unprepossessing. genius does not necessarily reflect itself in polished behaviour. aberdeen is not as good a school of manners as eton, and mrs. byron was but an indifferent teacher of deportment. but his pride, it seems clear, was not the less but the greater because of his inability to express it in strict accordance with the rules of the best society. he was a byron--a peer of the realm--the senior representative of an ancient house. he knew that respect, and even homage, were due to him; and he felt that he must assert himself--if not in one way, then in another. so, when the earl of portsmouth--a peer of comparatively recent creation--presumed to give his ear a friendly pinch, he asserted himself by picking up a sea-shell and throwing it at the earl of portsmouth's head. that would teach the earl, he said, not to take liberties with other members of the aristocracy. at this date, too, when writing to his mother, he addressed her as "the honorable mrs. byron," a designation to which, of course, she had no shadow of a right; and he earned the nickname of "the old english baron" by his habit of boasting to his schoolfellows of the amazing antiquity of his lineage. lord carlisle may well have thought that it was high time for his ward to go to harrow to be licked or kicked into shape. he went there in , at the age of thirteen and a half. dr. drury, of harrow, was the first man who saw in byron the promise of future distinction. "he has talents, my lord," he soon assured his guardian, "which will add lustre to his rank." whereat lord carlisle merely shrugged his shoulders and said, "indeed!"--whether because his ward's talents were a matter of indifference to him, or because he considered that rank could dispense with the lustre which talents bestow. according to his own recollections, byron was quick but indolent. he could run level in the class-room with sir robert peel, who afterwards took a sensational double-first at oxford, when he chose; but, as a rule, he did not choose. he absorbed a good deal of scholarship, without ever becoming a good scholar in the technical sense, and his declamations on the speech-days were much applauded. there are records to the effect that he was bullied. a specially offensive insult directed at him in later life drew from him the retort that he had not passed through a public school without learning that he was deformed; and leigh hunt has related that sometimes "he would wake and find his leg in a tub of water." but he was not an easy boy to bully, for he was ready to fight on small provocation; and he won all his fights except one. he did credit to his religious training by punching lord calthorpe's head for calling him an atheist, though it is possible that his objections to the obnoxious epithet were as much social as theological, for an atheist, among schoolboys is, by implication, an "outsider." "i was a most unpopular boy," he told moore, "but _led_ latterly." the latter statement has been generally accepted by his biographers; but not all the stories told in support of it stand the test of inquiry. there is the story, for instance, accepted even by cordy jeaffreson, that he led the revolt against butler's appointment to the headmastership, but prevented his followers from burning down one of the class-rooms by reminding them that the names of their ancestors were carved upon the desks. "i can certify," wrote the late dean merivale of ely, "that just such a story was told in my early days of sir john richardson;" so that byron seems here to have got the credit for another hero's exploits. there are the stories, too, of his connection with the first eton and harrow cricket match. cordy jeaffreson goes so far as to express doubt whether he took part in the match at all; but that is exaggerated scepticism, which research would have confuted. the score is printed in lillywhite's "cricket scores and biographies of celebrated cricketers;" and it appears therefrom that byron scored seven runs in the first innings and two in the second, and also bowled one wicket; but even on that subject the dean of ely, who went to harrow in , has something to say. "it is clear," the dean writes, "that he was never a leader.... on the contrary, awkward, sentimental, and addicted to dreaming and tombstones, he seems to have been held in little estimation among our spirited athletes. the remark was once made to me by mr. john arthur lloyd (of salop), a well-known harrovian, who had been captain of the school in the year of the first match with eton ( ): 'yes,' he said, 'byron played in the match, and very badly too. he should never have been in the eleven if my counsel had been taken.'" and the dean goes on, picturing byron's awkwardness: "mrs. drury was once heard to say of him: 'there goes byron' (birron she called him) 'straggling up the hill, like a ship in a storm without rudder or compass.'" byron's influence at harrow, in short, was exercised over his juniors rather than his contemporaries. it pleased him, when he was big enough, to protect small boys from school tyrants. one catches his feudal spirit again in his appeal to a bully not to lick lord delawarr "because he is a fellow peer"; but he was also ready to intervene in other cases in which that plea could not be urged; and he had the reward that might be expected. he once offered to take a licking for one of the peels; and he became a hero with hero-worshippers--titled hero-worshippers for the most part--sitting at his feet. lord delawarr, lord clare, the duke of dorset, the honorable john wingfield, were the most conspicuous among them. it was from their adulation that he got his first taste of the incense which was, in later years, to be burnt to him so lavishly. he described his school friendships, when he looked back on them, as "passions"; and there is no denying that the language of the letters which he wrote to his friends was inordinately passionate for a schoolboy addressing schoolfellows. "dearest" is a more frequent introduction to them than "dear," and the word "sweet" also occurs. it is not the happiest of signs to find a schoolboy writing such letters; and it is not altogether impossible that unfounded apprehensions caused by them account for the suggestion made by drury--though the fact is not mentioned in the biographies--that byron should be quietly removed from the school on the ground that his conduct was causing "much trouble and uneasiness." that, however, is uncertain, and one must not insist. all that the so-called "passions"--occasionally detrimental though they may have been to school discipline--demonstrate is byron's enjoyment of flattery, and his proneness to sentiment and gush. he liked, as he grew older, to accept flattery, while professing to be superior to it; to enjoy sentiment, and then to laugh at it; to gush with the most gushing, and then suddenly to turn round and "say 'damn' instead." but the cynicism which was afterwards to alternate with the sentimentalism had not developed yet. he did not yet say "damn"--at all events in that connection. one must think of him as a boy with a great capacity for passionate affection, and a precocious tendency to gush, deprived of the most natural outlets for his emotions. he could not love his mother because she was a virago; he hardly ever saw his sister; his guardian kept him coldly at a distance. consequently his feelings, dammed in one direction, broke out with almost ludicrous intensity in another; and his friendships were sentimental to a degree unusual, though not, of course, unknown or unprecedented, among schoolboys. he wrote sentimental verses to his friends. but not to them alone. "hours of idleness," first published when he was a cambridge undergraduate, is the idealised record of his school friendships; but it is also the idealised record of other, and very different, excursions into sentiment. it introduces us to mary duff, to margaret parker, to mary chaworth,--and also to some other maries of less importance; and we will turn back and glance, in quick succession at their stories before following byron to cambridge. chapter iii a schoolboy's love affairs--mary duff, margaret parker, and mary chaworth first on the list of early loves comes little mary duff of aberdeen. she was one of byron's scotch cousins, though a very distant one; and there is hardly anything else to be said, except that he was a child and she was a child in their kingdom by the sea. only no wind blew out of a cloud chilling her. her mother made a second marriage--described by byron as a "faux pas" because it was socially disadvantageous--and left the city; and the two children never met again. it was of no importance, of course. they were only a little more than seven when they were separated. but byron was proud of his precocity, and liked to recall it, and to wonder if any other lover had ever been equally precocious. "i have been thinking lately a good deal of mary duff," he wrote in a fragment of a diary at the age of twenty-five; and he reminded himself how he used to lie awake, picturing her, and how he urged his nurse to write her a love letter on his behalf, and how they sat together--"gravely making love in our way"--while mary expressed pity for her younger sister helen, for not having an admirer too. above all, he reminded himself of the shock which he felt, years afterwards, when the sudden communication of a piece of news revived the recollection of the idyll. "my mother," he proceeded, "used always to rally me about this childish amour; and, at last, many years after, when i was sixteen, she told me, one day, 'oh, byron, i have had a letter from edinburgh, from miss abercromby, and your old sweetheart mary duff is married to a mr. c----.' and what was my answer? i really cannot explain or account for my feelings at that moment; but they nearly threw me into convulsions, and alarmed my mother so much that, after i grew better, she generally avoided the subject--to _me_--and contented herself with telling it to all her acquaintance." and then again: "my misery, my love for that girl were so violent that i sometimes doubt if i have ever been really attached since. be that as it may, hearing of her marriage several years after was like a thunder stroke--it nearly choked me--to the horror of my mother and the astonishment and almost incredulity of nearly everybody." it is a well-known story, and one can add nothing to it beyond the fact that mary duff's husband was mr. cockburn, the wine merchant, and that she lived quite happily with him, and that we are entitled to think of her whenever we drink a glass of cockburn's port. but we may also doubt, perhaps, whether byron is, in this case, quite a faithful reporter of his own emotions, and whether his grief was not artistically blended with other and later regrets, and other and later perceptions of the fickleness of the female heart and the mutability of human things. for when we come to look at the dates, we find that the date of mary duff's marriage was also the date of byron's desperate passion for mary chaworth. between mary duff and mary chaworth, however, margaret parker had intervened. she was another cousin, descended from admiral byron's daughter augusta. the first letter that byron ever wrote was addressed to her mother. "dear madam," it began, "my mamma being unable to write herself desires i will let you know that the potatoes are now ready and you are welcome to them whenever you please." for the rest, one can only quote byron's brief reminiscence: "my first dash into poetry was as early as . it was the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin margaret parker, one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings. i have long forgotten the verses, but it would be difficult for me to forget her--her dark eyes--her long eyelashes--her completely greek cast of face and figure! i was then about twelve--she rather older, perhaps a year. she died about a year or two afterwards in consequence of a fall which injured her spine and induced consumption.... my sister told me that, when she went to see her, shortly before her death, upon accidentally mentioning my name, margaret coloured through the paleness of mortality to the eyes.... i knew nothing of her illness, being at harrow and in the country, till she was gone. some years after i made an attempt at an elegy--a very dull one." and then byron speaks of his cousin's "transparent" beauty--"she looked as if she had been made out of a rainbow"--and concludes: "my passion had its usual effect upon me--i could not eat--i could not sleep--i could not rest; and although i had reason to know that she loved me, it was the texture of my life to think of the time that must elapse before we could meet again, being usually about twelve hours of separation! but i was a fool then, and am not much wiser now." the elegy is included in the collected works. special indulgence is asked for it on the ground that it was "composed at the age of fourteen." it is very youthful in tone--quite on the conventional lines--as one would expect. a single quatrain may be given--not to be criticised, but merely to show that byron, as a boy, was still looking at life pretty much as his pastors and masters told him to look at it: "_and shall presumptuous mortals heaven arraign! and, madly, godlike providence accuse! ah! no, far fly from me attempts so vain;-- i'll ne'er submission to my god refuse._" we are still a long way here from the intense, the cynical, the defiant, or even the posturing byron of later years. the gift of personal expression has not yet come to him; and he is still in literary fetters, weeping, on paper, according to the rules. intensity and the personal note only begin with his sudden love for mary chaworth; cynicism and defiance only begin after that love affair has ended in failure. mary chaworth was the heir of the annesley property, adjoining newstead, and she was the grand-niece of the chaworth whom the wicked lord byron ran through the body in the upper chamber of the pall mall tavern; so that their marriage, if they could have been married, would, as byron says, "have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers." but byron was not yet the byron who had only to come, and to be seen, in order to conquer. he was a schoolboy of fifteen, which is an awkward age. he had achieved no triumphs in any field which could give him self-assurance. he was not yet a leader, even among his schoolfellows; and he was not only lame, but also fat. how shall a fat boy hope, whatever fires of genius burn within him, to enter the lists against his elders and bear away the belle from county balls? byron, at any rate, failed signally in the attempt to do so. newstead having been let to lord grey de ruthen, mrs. byron was, at the time, lodging at nottingham; and byron had various reasons for preferring to see as little of her as possible. she was never sympathetic; she was often quarrelsome; it was her pleasant habit, when annoyed, to rattle the fire-irons and throw the tongs at him. so he often availed himself of his tenant's invitation to visit newstead, whenever he liked; and from newstead it was the most natural thing in the world that he should go over to annesley, where miss chaworth, with whom he already had a slight acquaintance, was living with her mother, mrs. clarke. he was always welcome there. there was as little desire on his cousin's side as on his to revive the recollection of the feud. when he came to call, he was pressed to stay and sleep. at first he refused, most probably from shyness, though he professed a superstitious fear of the family portraits. they had "taken a grudge to him," he said, on account of the duel; they would "come down from their frames at night to haunt him." but presently his fears, or his shyness, were conquered. he had seen a ghost, he said, in the park; and if he must see ghosts he might just as well see them in the house; so, if it was all the same to his hosts, he would like to stay. he stayed, and was entranced with mary chaworth's singing. he rode with her, and practiced pistol shooting on the terrace--more than a little pleased, one conjectures, to show off his marksmanship. he went with her--and with others, including a chaperon--on an excursion to matlock and castleton. a note, written long afterwards, preserves a memory of the trip: "it happened that, in a cavern in derbyshire, i had to cross in a boat (in which two people only could lie down) a stream which flows under a rock, with the rock so close upon the water as to admit the boat only to be pushed on by a ferryman (a sort of charon) who wades at the stern, stooping all the time. the companion of my transit was m.a.c., with whom i had long been in love, and never _told_ it, though _she_ had discovered it without. i recollect my sensations, but cannot describe them, and it is as well." and no doubt mary chaworth encouraged the boy, amused at his raptures, enjoying the visible proof of her power, prepared to snub him, in the end, if necessary, but scarcely expecting that there would be any need for her to do so. she was seventeen, and a girl of seventeen always feels capable of reminding a boy of fifteen that the prayer book forbids him to marry his grandmother. moreover, she was engaged, though the engagement had not yet been announced, to mr. john musters--a grown man and a philistine--a handsome, rather dissipated, hard-riding and hard-drinking country squire. the dreamy, limping, fat boy from harrow had no shadow of a chance against his athletic rival. it was impossible for mary chaworth to divine the genius that lurked beneath the fat. one has no right to expect such powers of divination from girls of seventeen. no doubt she thought the fat boy, as she would have said, "good fun." no doubt she was amused when, as a demonstration that he was not too young to be loved, he showed her the locket which margaret parker had given him, three years before, when he was twelve. unquestionably she flirted with him--or, at least, let him flirt with her. she even gave him a ring, and the gift must have raised high hopes, though it was the cause of the discovery which brought the flirtation to an end. squire musters discovered the ring among byron's clothes one day when he and the boy were bathing together in the trent. he recognised it, picked it up, and put it in his pocket. byron claimed it, and musters declined to give it up; and then, to quote the countess guiccioli, who is the authority for the story: "high words were exchanged. on returning to the house, musters jumped on a horse and galloped off to ask an explanation from miss chaworth, who, being forced to confess that lord byron wore the ring with her consent, felt obliged to make amends to musters by promising to declare immediately her engagement with him." such is the story, as one gets it, through the countess and through moore, from byron himself; but we also get a side glimpse at it in a letter, recently published,[ ] from mrs. byron to hanson, the family solicitor. from this we gather that byron, in order to make love, had absented himself from school; that drury had inquired the reason of his absence; and that his mother was making strenuous, but unavailing, efforts to induce him to return. nothing was the matter with him but love--"desperate love, the _worst_ of all _maladies_ in my opinion." he had hardly been to see his mother at all, but had been spending all his time at annesley. "it is the last of all connexions," she added, "that i should wish to take place"; and she begged mr. hanson to make arrangements for her son to spend his next holidays elsewhere. expense was no object; and it would suit her very well if dr. drury could be induced to detain him at harrow. and byron himself, meanwhile, was writing to his mother, alternately using lofty language about his right to choose his own friends, and pleading for one more day in order that he might take leave. he took it; but there is more than one version of the story. "do you think," he overheard mary chaworth say to her maid, "that i could care anything for that lame boy?" and, having heard that, "he instantly darted out of the house, and, scarcely knowing whither he ran, never stopped till he found himself at newstead." that is what moore tells us; but the picture drawn in "the dream,"--the most obviously and deliberately autobiographical of byron's poems--is different. "she loved," he writes: "_another: even now she loved another, and on the summit of that hill she stood looking afar as if her lover's steed kept pace with her expectancy, and flew._" she was waiting, that is to say, for squire musters to ride up the lane, while listening to byron's declaration. that is the first picture; and then there follows the picture of the boy who "within an antique oratory stood," and to whom, presently, "the lady of his love re-entered": "_she was serene and smiling then, and yet she knew she was by him beloved--she knew, for quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart was darkened with her shadow, and she saw that he was wretched, but she saw not all. he rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp he took her hand; a moment o'er his face a tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced, and then it faded, as it came; he dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps retired, but not as bidding her adieu, for they did part with mutual smiles; he passed from out the massy gate of that old hall, and mounting on his steed he went his way; and ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more._" there we have the mary chaworth legend as it has been handed down from one generation of biographers to another. byron, according to that legend, saw mary once after her marriage, but once only. he was on the point of visiting her at a later date, but was dissuaded by his sister. "if you go," augusta said, "you will fall in love again, and then there will be a scene; one step will lead to another, _et cela fera un éclat_." he agreed that the reasoning was sound, and did as he was advised. he tells that story himself, and adds: "shortly after, i married." and yet--the legend continues--this hopeless love, which touched his heart at the age of fifteen, was the dominating influence of his life. mary chaworth, though always absent, was yet always present. he never loved any other woman, though he tried to love, and indeed seemed to love, several. the vision of her face always came between him and them. his later love affairs were only concessions, or attempts to escape from himself and his memories--unavailing attempts, for this memory continued to haunt him until the end. it sounds incredible. the thoughts of youth may be long, long thoughts; but the memories of youth are short, and the dreams of youth are dreams from which we never fail to wake. and yet byron insists, quite as much as biographers have insisted. he insists in "the dream," which was written more than a decade after the parting. he insists in later poems, the inner meaning of which is hardly to be questioned. so that speculation is challenged, and, when pursued, leads us inevitably to a dilemma. for of two things, one: either byron was posing--posing not only to the world but to himself; or else the story, as all the biographers from moore to cordy jeaffreson have told it, is incomplete, and after an interlude, had a sequel. to search for such a sequel will be our task presently. unless we can find one, the development of the personal note in byron's work will have to be left unexplained. the impression which we get, if we read the more personal poems in quick succession, is of a man who first awakes from the dream of love--and remains very wide awake for a season--and then relapses and dreams it all over again. unless the story which first set him dreaming had had a sequel, that would hardly be. so we will seek for the sequel in due course, though we must first gather up the incidents of the interlude. chapter iv life at cambridge and flirtations at southwell baffled in love, byron returned to harrow, after a term's absence, in january , and remained there for another eighteen months. this eighteen months is the period during which he describes himself as having been happy at school. it is also the period during which he haunted the harrow churchyard, indulging his day dreams as he looked down from the hillside on the wide, green valley of the thames. those dreams, it is hardly to be doubted, were chiefly of mary chaworth; and we may picture the poet's secret sorrow as giving him, fat though he was, a sense of superiority over other boys who had no secret sorrows. apparently, too, casting about for an explanation of his failure, he realised that, in the rivalries of love, the victory is far less likely to rest with the fat than with the lame; and so, presently,--though not until after an interval of reflection--he set himself the task of compelling his too solid flesh to melt. he has been laughed at, and charged with vanity for doing so; but he was right. he would also have been ridiculed, and with more justice, if he had resigned himself to be overwhelmed by the rising tide of superabundant tissue. fatness is not merely a grotesque condition. it is a condition incompatible with fitness; and it is far nobler to resist it with systematic heroism than to cultivate it and call heaven and earth to witness that one is the fattest person going; and the fact that byron, by dint of exercises which made him perspire, a careful diet, and a persistent use of epsom salts, reduced his weight from fourteen stone six to twelve stone seven, is no small achievement to be passed over lightly. it is, on the contrary, one of the most memorable incidents in his development--the greatest of all the feats performed by him at trinity college, cambridge,[ ] where he began to reside in october . he did not read for honours. at oxford he might have done so, and might have figured in the same class list as his harrow friend, sir robert peel, who took a double-first, and archbishop whately, who took a double-second. at cambridge, however, the pernicious rule prevailed that honours were only for mathematicians. the classical tripos was not originated until a good many years afterwards, and byron had neither talent nor taste for figures. the most notable, though not the highest, wranglers of his year were adam sedgwick, the geologist, and blomfield, bishop of london. byron would have had to work very hard to make any show against them. he did not enter the competition, but let his mind exercise itself on more congenial themes, cherishing the belief--so erroneous and yet so common--that senior wranglers never come to any good in after life. his allowance was £ a year; and he kept a servant and a horse. his general proceedings, except when he was writing verses were pretty similar to those of the average young nobleman who attends a university, not to instruct but to amuse himself. he rode, and fenced, and boxed, and swam, and dived; he gambled and backed horses; he was alternately guest and host at rather uproarious wine-parties, and was spoken of as a young man "of very tumultuous passions." the statement has been made--he has made it himself and his biographers have repeated it--that he lived quietly at first, and only latterly got into a dissipated set; but as we find him, in his second term, entreating his sister to back a bill for £ , the statement probably needs to be modified in order to square with the facts. apparently augusta did not comply with his request; but the proofs that he lived beyond his means are ample. mrs. byron was as loud in her wail on the subject as the widows of asher. she complains--this also in the second term--of bills "coming in thick upon me to double the amount i expected"; and she protests, in byron's first easter vacation, against his wanton extravagance in subscribing thirty guineas to pitt's statue; while, in the course of the next easter vacation we find her consulting the family solicitor as to the propriety of borrowing £ to get her son out of the hands of the jews, and declaring that, during the whole of his cambridge career he has done "nothing but drink, gamble, and spend money." very similar is the testimony of his own and his sister's letters. "i was much surprised," augusta writes, in the second term, to the solicitor, "to see my brother a week ago at the play, as i think he ought to be employing his time more profitably at cambridge." byron himself, writing to his intimates, confesses to several departures from sobriety. the first was in celebration of the eton and harrow match, which was followed by a convivial scene, foreshadowing those at the empire on boat-race night, at some place of public entertainment. "how i got home after the play," byron says, "god knows. i hardly recollect, as my brain was so much confused by the heat, the row, and the wine i drank, that i could not remember in the morning how i found my way to bed." later, in a letter to miss elizabeth bridget pigot of southwell, he speaks of his life as "one continual routine of dissipation," talks of "a bottle of claret in my head," and concludes with the specific admission: "sorry to say been drunk every day, and not quite sober yet." possibly he exaggerates a little; but those who know the universities best will be least likely to suspect him of exaggerating very much. there is always a set which lives in that style at any college frequented by young men of ample means. their ways, _mutatis mutandis_, are faithfully described in the pages of "verdant green." byron's career, once more _mutatis mutandis_, was not unlike the career of charles larkyns and little mr. bouncer in cuthbert bede's picture of life at the sister university. he had, at any rate, one foot in such a set as that, though he was in a better set as well, and formed serious friendships with such men as hobhouse, afterwards lord broughton, charles skinner matthews, afterwards fellow of downing, scrope davies, afterwards fellow of king's, and francis hodgson, ultimately provost of eton. it is not quite clear whether he was, or was not, one of the rowdy spirits who "ragged" lort mansell, the master of trinity.[ ] he certainly annoyed the dons by keeping a bear as a pet, and asserting that he intended the animal to "sit for a fellowship." but the most characteristic picture, after all, is that which he draws (selecting his solicitor, of all persons in the world, for his confidant) of his mode of reducing his flesh. "i wear _seven_ waistcoats, and a great coat, run and play cricket in this dress, till quite exhausted by excessive perspiration, use the bath daily, eat only a quarter of a pound of butcher's meat in hours.... by these means my ribs display skin of no great thickness, and my clothes have been taken in nearly _half a yard_." that is the closing passage of a letter which begins with the confession that "_wine_ and _women_ have _dished_ your _humble servant_." the two statements, taken in conjunction, furnish two-thirds of the picture. the remaining third of it may be deduced and constructed from the verses which byron had then written or was then writing. it might be tempting to see in the period of dissipation a disappointed lover's desperate attempt to escape from an ineffaceable recollection; and the view might be supported by byron's own subsequent declaration that "a violent, though _pure_, love and passion," was "the then romance of the most romantic period of my life." undergraduate excesses, however, rarely require such recondite explanations; and byron's reminiscences had, as we shall see, been coloured by intervening events. all the contemporary evidence that one can gather goes to show that they were inexact; that, though he had been hard hit by mary chaworth's disdainful reception of his suit, he did not mope, but, holding up his head, was in a fair way to live his trouble down; and that his theory of himself, put forward in the well-known lines in "childe harold": "_and i must from this land begone because i cannot love but one_" is an after thought entirely inconsistent with his practices as a cambridge undergraduate. one would be constrained to suspect that, even if the early poems addressed to mary chaworth stood alone. there are not many of them, and they lack the intensity of passion--the impression of all possible hopes irremediably blighted--which "the dream" reveals. they strike one as a little stiff and artificial, as though the poet had tried to express, not so much what he actually felt, as what he considered that a man in his position ought to feel. that is particularly the case with the poems of the first period. there are boasts in them which we know to have been quite unwarranted by the circumstances of the case. the poet pictures himself as one who might disturb domestic peace if he chose, but refrains, being merciful as he is strong: "_perhaps his peace i could destroy, and spoil the blisses that await him; yet let my rival smile in joy, for thy dear sake, i cannot hate him._" the boasts there, we see, are the prelude of resignation; and, a line or two further on, resignation is followed by the resolution to forget: "_then, fare thee well, deceitful maid, 'twere vain and fruitless to regret thee; nor hope nor memory yield their aid, but pride may teach me to forget thee._" that is very conventional--hardly less conventional than the elegy on margaret parker--a sentimental "prelude to life," one would judge, of quite an ordinary kind. and, as has been said, the sentimental utterance does not stand alone. other verses, hardly less sentimental, addressed to several other ladies, were, at the same time, pouring from byron's pen. burgage manor, a house which his mother had taken at southwell, near nottingham, was his vacation home. he fled from his home, from time to time, because of mrs. byron's incurable habit of rattling the fire-irons in order to draw attention to his faults; but he returned at intervals, and stayed long enough to form a considerable circle of friends--friends, be it noted, who belonged not to "the county" but to the professional society of the town. the county did not "call" to any appreciable extent. a few of the men called on byron himself; but none of the women called on mrs. byron--whether because her reputation for rattling the fire-irons and hurling the tongs had reached them, or because, on general principles, they did not think her good enough to mix with them. byron, as was natural, resented their attitude and refused to return visits which implied a slight upon his mother. whatever his own disputes with her, he would not have her snubbed by the local magnates, or himself enter their doors on sufferance while she was excluded from them. he mixed instead with the clergy, the doctors, the lawyers, the retired colonels, and flirted with their sisters and daughters. in that set he moved as a triton among the minnows, fluttering the dovecotes of southwell pretty much as, at a later date, praed, fresh from eton, fluttered the dovecotes of teignmouth. he could not dance, of course, owing to his lameness; but he could distinguish himself in amateur theatricals, and he could write verses. his success in the southwell drawing-rooms and boudoirs was the first reward of his success in resisting and repelling the encroachments of the flesh. the struggle was one which he had to renew at intervals throughout his life; but his "crowning mercy" was the victory of this date. he emerged from it slim, elegant, and strikingly handsome. he rejoiced, and the girls of southwell rejoiced with him. they understood, as well as he did, that it is difficult for a man to be fat and sentimental at one and the same time; that there is something ludicrously incongruous in the picture of a fat boy writing sentimental verses and professing to pine away for love. and they liked him to write sentimental verses to them, and he was quite willing to do so. he was, at this time, the sort of young man who will write verses to any girl who will give him a keepsake--the sort of young man to whom almost every girl will give a keepsake on condition that he will write verses to her. he wrote lines, for instance, "to a lady who presented to the author a lock of hair braided with his own and appointed a night in december to meet him in the garden." nothing is known of her except that her name was mary, and that she was neither mary duff nor mary chaworth, but a third mary "of humble station." southwell, when it saw those verses, was shocked. it seemed highly improper to southwell that maidens of humble station should be encouraged to presume by such attentions on the part of noblemen. probably it was on this occasion that the reverend john becher, vicar of rumpton, notts, expostulated with the poet for "_deigning to varnish scenes that shun the day with guilty lustre and with amorous lay._" but byron kept mary's lock of hair, and showed it, together with her portrait, to his friends and wrote: "_thro' hours, thro' years, thro' time 'twill cheer-- my hope in gloomy moments raise; in life's last conflict 'twill appear, and meet my fond, expiring gaze._" to mary chaworth herself byron could hardly have said more, but he was, in fact, at this time, saying the same sort of thing to all and sundry. just the same sentiment recurs in the lines addressed "to a lady who presented the author with the velvet band which bound her tresses": "_oh! i will wear it next my heart; 'twill bind my soul in bonds to thee: from me again 'twill ne'er depart, but mingle in the grave with me._" yet if byron proposes to be faithful for ever to this un-named lady, he proposes, at the same time, to be equally faithful to a lady who can be identified as miss anne houson: "_with beauty like yours, oh, how vain the contention! thus lowly i sue for forgiveness before you;-- at once to conclude such a fruitless dissension, be false, my sweet anne, when i cease to adore you!_" and then there are other lines--innumerable other lines which would also have to be quoted if the treatment of the subject were to be encyclopædic--lines to marion, lines to caroline, lines to a beautiful quaker, lines to miss julia leacroft, whose brother, the fire-eating captain john leacroft remonstrated with byron, and, according to moore, even went so far as to challenge him, on account of his pointed attentions to his sister: lines, finally, to m.s.g. who would appear, if verse could be accepted as autobiography, to have offered to yield to byron, but to have been spared because of his tender regard for her fair fame: "_i will not ease my tortured heart, by driving dove-ey'd peace from thine; rather than such a sting impart, each thought presumptuous i resign._ "_at least from guilt shalt thou be free, no matron shall thy shame reprove; though cureless pangs may prey on me, no martyr shalt thou be to love._" with that citation we may quit the subject. not one of the sets of verses--with the single exception of the set addressed to miss leacroft--has any discoverable story attached to it. all of them--or nearly all of them--have the air of celebrating some profound attachment from which no escape is to be looked for on this side of the grave. byron's later conception of himself as a man who had loved but one had not crept into his poetry yet. he had not even begun to strike the pose of the childe impelled to "visit scorching climes beyond the sea" because the one he loved "could ne'er be his." the idea, indeed, of a man fleeing the country in because he had loved in vain in would not, in any case, carry conviction. even to a poet the idea could hardly have presented itself without some definite renewal of the memories. they were revived, in fact, at a dinner party, in , of which we find an account in one of byron's letters to hodgson: "i was seated near a woman to whom, when a boy, i was as much attached as boys generally are, and more than a man should be. i knew this before i went, and was determined to be valiant and converse with _sang froid_; but instead i forgot my valour and my nonchalance, and never opened my lips even to laugh, far less to speak, and the lady was almost as absurd as myself, which made both the object of more observation than if we had conducted ourselves with easy indifference. you will think all this great nonsense; if you had seen it, you would have thought it still more ridiculous. what fools we are! we cry for a plaything which, like children, we are never satisfied with till we break open, though, like them, we cannot get rid of it by putting it on the fire." that is the prose record of the meeting, and there is also a record in verse. there are lines "to a lady on being asked my reason for quitting england in the spring"; there is the piece beginning, "well! thou art happy": "_mary, adieu! i must away: while thou art blest i'll not repine; but near thee i can never stay; my heart would soon again be thine._" and also: "_in flight i shall be surely wise, escaping from temptation's snare; i cannot view my paradise without the wish of dwelling there._" poor stuff, as poetry, it will be agreed. any one who wrote poetry at all might have written it. the sentiment rendered in it is just the sentiment which any sentimental youth would have felt to be proper to the occasion. we can find in it, at most, only the faint fore-running shadow of the byronic pose. it rings very insincerely if we set it beside the lines in which walter savage landor, at about the same period, commemorated a similar moment of emotion: "_rose aylmer, whom these waking eyes may weep but never see; a night of memories and of sighs i consecrate to thee._" in that comparison, most decidedly, all the advantage is with landor--inevitably, because his were the feelings of a man, whereas byron's were the feelings of a boy. he was only twenty, and his age is the explanation of a good deal. it explains his startled timidity, described in the letter to hodgson, in a novel, romantic situation. it explains his hugging his grief as a precious possession on no account to be let go. it also explains the zest with which, when grief had had its sacred hour, he could turn from it and throw himself into other activities. he rejoiced in the pose, only outlined as yet, which was presently to make him the most interesting man (to women at all events) in europe; but he also rejoiced in his youth. he flirted, as we have seen; he took part in amateur theatrical performances; he engaged energetically in most of the sports of the day, fencing with angelo, boxing with gentleman jackson, swimming the thames from lambeth to the tower; he accumulated debts with the fine air of a man heaping pelion on ossa; he flung down his defiant challenge to the literary bigwigs in "english bards and scotch reviewers"; he drew his plans for the grand tour. the world, in short, was just then "so full of a number of things" that mary chaworth's importance in it can easily be, as it has often been, exaggerated. presently we shall see byron exaggerating it; and we shall also see how he came to do so--how the boy's occasional pose became the determining reality of the man's life. but before we come to that, we must turn back. chapter v revelry at newstead--"english bards and scotch reviewers" one watches the swelling of byron's indebtedness with morbid interest. it is like the rapid rising of a spring tide which threatens to submerge a city. already, in his second term at cambridge, as we have seen, he besought his sister to pledge her credit for his loans. at the beginning of his third year, we find him making a confession to his solicitor: "my debts amount to three thousand, three hundred to jews, eight hundred to mrs. b. of nottingham, to coachmaker and other tradesmen a thousand more, and these must be much increased before they are lessened." they were increased before they were lessened--unless the explanation be that byron only told the truth about them in instalments. three months later this is his confession to the reverend john becher: "_entre nous_, i am cursedly dipped; my debts, _everything_ inclusive, will be nine or ten thousand before i am twenty-one." but, even so, the high-water mark is not yet reached. towards the end of the same year, when byron is contemplating his "grand tour," he once more calls his solicitor into council: "you honour my debts; they amount to perhaps twelve thousand pounds, and i shall require perhaps three or four thousand at setting out, with credit on a bengal agent. this you must manage for me." a pleasant commission, which seems to have led to a reference to mrs. byron, who made a luminous suggestion: "i wish to god he would exert himself and retrieve his affairs. he must marry a woman of _fortune_ this spring; love matches is all nonsense. let him make use of the talents god has given him. he is an english peer, and has all the privileges of that situation." it was a matter-of-fact proposal, worthy of the canny scotswoman who made it--a proof that, even when she threw the tongs at her son, she still had his interests at heart; but nothing came of it. very likely byron, at this date knew no heiresses; and even his mother was not matter-of-fact enough to expect him to advertise for one, even for the purpose of avoiding the necessity of selling newstead. there was still the resource of borrowing a little more, and of making the loans go as far as possible by retaining the money for personal expenses, instead of applying it to the payment of debt; and something of that sort seems to have been done. scrope davies lent byron £ ; and yet mrs. byron had occasion to write: "there is some trades people at nottingham that will be completely ruined if he does not pay them, which i would not have happen for a whole world." moreover, though byron himself talked vaguely to hanson of the possibility of his marriage with "a golden dolly," he was at an age at which a young man does not readily marry any woman with whom he is not in love. whether he was or was not, at that time, in love with mrs. chaworth,[ ] he certainly was not in love with any one else; and he was enjoying himself and "having his fling," after the manner of gilded youth. his "domestic female companion," to use gibbon's charming phrase, was a professional daughter of joy who travelled about with him in male attire. he even brought her to newstead, when he took possession of the abbey on the expiration of lord grey de ruthen's tenancy. that may have been one reason--though it need not necessarily have been the only one--for his refusal to let his mother join him there. it would certainly have been a valid reason for postponing matrimony. around those newstead revels a good deal of fantastic legend circles; and the facts concerning them are hardly to be disentangled from the myths. "childe harold" starts with them:-- _ah! me! in sooth he was a shameless wight, sore given to revel and ungodly glee; few earthly things found favour in his sight save concubines and carnal companie, and flaunting wassailers of high and low degree._ "childe harold," however, in spite of the fact that it was first called "childe buron," is a poem, not a deposition. the picture, with its "paphian girls" and the rest of it-- _where superstition once had made her den, now paphian girls were wont to sing and smile, and monks might deem their time was come agen, if ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men_, is not necessarily faithful because the note of contrast which it sounds is of the essence of the poem. but, on the other hand, the excuses and explanations by means of which moore and cordy jeaffreson attempt to palliate and minimise the supposed assertions of the poem are somewhat less than convincing. the revels, say these apologists, cannot have been so very dreadful because the newstead guests sometimes included some of the local clergy, and because some of the young men who engaged in them afterwards took orders. the obvious answer to that is that the revellers may very well have moderated their revelry on the occasions on which clergymen were present--and that those of them who afterwards became pillars of the church may not, at that date, have got the old adam into complete subjection. nor is a great deal gained by the contention that the part of the supposed "paphian girls" was, in fact, sustained by byron's "domestic female companion," and by the newstead cook and the newstead housemaid. to say this is merely to protest that the alleged paphians did not really come from paphos, but from some other island in the same neighbourhood. a letter written by charles skinner matthews to his sister is the only contemporary chronicle of the proceedings. there is a confirmation of his account, together with some supplementary details, in a letter written, long afterwards, by byron to john murray. remembering the ages and circumstances of the revellers--and remembering also that moore's information was derived from some of them--we will try to get as near to the truth as the procurable evidence allows. byron, one must always bear in mind, had not yet conquered his place in county society, or in what is now called "smart" society. his mother's eccentricities and his guardian's chilly attitude had, as we have seen, kept him out of it. he actually knew no peer who could or would introduce him when he took his seat in the house of lords. the people whom he knew at home were chiefly provincial people of the professional classes. at cambridge he had got into a fast, though not an unintellectual, set. he was very young, and he had plenty of credit, if not much ready money; and here was the "venerable pile" of newstead--not the less venerable because it was dilapidated--at his disposal as a playground, and a place in which to dispense hospitality. naturally he wanted to show newstead to his friends, whom he had never been able to entertain at home before. naturally, having credit, he used it to fit up and furnish as much of newstead as was necessary for their comfortable accommodation, not troubling to foresee the day--though he would not have had to look very far ahead in order to foresee it--when the bailiffs would be put in to seize the goods in default of payment. naturally, as mrs. byron was so addicted to rattling the tongs and throwing the fire-irons at him, he did not want her there. naturally, his college friends having fast tastes and habits, and no ladies of their own station being of the party, the method of their life did not follow the conventional round of the ordinary house-party. the pet bear, and the pet wolf, which guarded the entrances, were only symbols of the unusual and extravagant state of things within. breakfast, in theory, could be served at any hour. the hour actually preferred by the majority of the party was one p.m. matthews, who generally came down between eleven and twelve, "was esteemed a prodigy of early rising." any one, he says, who had wanted to breakfast as early as ten "would have been rather lucky to find any of the servants up." not until two p.m., as a rule, was the breakfast cleared away. the amusements of the afternoon--which matthews euphemistically calls the morning--were "reading, fencing, single-stick, or shuttle-cock, in the great room, practising with pistols in the hall, walking, riding, cricket, sailing on the lake, playing with the bear, or teasing the wolf." dinner was between seven and eight, and then--another euphemism most proper in a letter to a sister--"the evening diversions may be easily conceived." those evening diversions consisted, in the first instance of dressing up and drinking. the beverages, according to byron himself, were "burgundy, claret, champagne, and what not," quaffed not only out of ordinary glasses, but also out of a loving-cup fashioned from a skull which had been dug up in the newstead grounds. as for the dressing-up; "a set of monkish dresses," says matthews, "which had been provided, with all the proper apparatus of crosses, beads, tonsures, &c., often gave a variety to our appearance and to our pursuits," which pursuits consisted, in byron's words, of "buffooning all round the house in our conventual garments." that matthews speaks of tonsures as if they were articles of dress is neither here nor there; and there is no importance to be attached to his omission of all reference to the "buffooning." we know from hobhouse that he played his part in it, and that one of the amusements of this brilliant young fellow of downing was to hide himself in a stone coffin in the long gallery and groan, by way of alarming his brother revellers. evidently the monks of newstead, while taking some hints from the profane members of the medmenham hell fire club, carried out, to the best of their ability, the traditions of the monks of thelema. "fays ce que voudras" might have been their motto; and the doing of what they wished appears to have involved and included the extension of invitations to the cook and the housemaid to participate in their pleasures. moore says so, not as one who makes a charge, but as one who makes an admission to rebut a graver charge, and is full of sympathy for the exuberance of lusty youth. moralists must make what they can of the story, and apportion censure and indulgence as they think just. the excesses, at any rate, whatever their degree and nature, did not fill byron's life. he was getting on with his poetry in spite of them, though it would be too much to say that he had yet proved his title to be called a poet. "hours of idleness" had appeared while he was at cambridge. the interest of that volume, nowadays, is far more biographical than poetical. when one has inferred from it that byron did not pass through the university with a heart bowed down by the loss of mary chaworth, but flirted with a long series of the belles of southwell, one has said nearly all that there is to say. the poems themselves, as the quotations given amply demonstrate, are no better than the general run of undergraduate verse composition. they are purely imitative; no new note rings in them. one is not surprised that lord carlisle, on receiving a presentation copy, was in a greater hurry to acknowledge than to read it, and merely remarked, in his acknowledgment that young men were better occupied in writing poetry than in devoting their valuable time to women and horses. "tolerably handsome," was byron's first verdict on that letter; but he seems to have felt snubbed when he read it over a second time. lord carlisle's opinions, he wrote to miss pigot, were nothing to him, but his guardian must not be "insolent." if he were insolent, he should be gibbeted, just as butler of harrow had been gibbeted. in fact, and to sum up: "perhaps the earl '_bears no brother near the throne_'--_if so_, i will make his _sceptre_ totter _in his hands_." which shows that byron's back was up, and that he was already in a fighting mood when the famous review in the _edinburgh_ introduced a jarring note into the chorus of approbation. the author of the attack was not jeffrey, as byron thought, but brougham. he had the excuse, for what it may be worth, that the poems had indubitably been over-praised because they had appeared under the signature of a nobleman. he, therefore, set out on the war path with the truculent air of a man whose conscience requires him to bludgeon a butterfly. the punishment, we cannot doubt, was very painful to the poet whom cambridge undergraduates and southwell belles had flattered; and the instant question for him was: would he take his punishment lying down, or would he take it fighting? that question, however, was not long in doubt. the byrons were a fighting race; and the poet had inherited their love of fighting. just as he had fought lord calthorpe at harrow for calling him an atheist, so now he would fight the _edinburgh_ critic for calling him a fool. and he would fight him with his own weapons. let him have three bottles of claret to prime him, and then he would strip for the fray, and would "take on," not the reviewer only, but every one whom the reviewer had praised, and every one whom he himself disliked, or thought he might dislike if he knew him better. so he emptied his three bottles, and set to work on "english bards and scotch reviewers," and having written twenty lines of it, "felt better." it is the poem in which his genius first begins to be apparent. most of the judgments expressed in it were unjust--most of them were afterwards retracted by their author; but that does not matter. one does not expect sound criticism from poets--least of all does one expect it from poets of one-and-twenty. the essence of the thing is that now, in "english bards and scotch reviewers" a new personality spoke--and spoke loud enough to be heard. the note of byron--the note which gained him his large and attentive audience--was his reckless audacity. he was not afraid of saying things; he did not wrap them up, like wordsworth and coleridge, but said them in plain language which all the world could understand--said them, moreover, in a manner which made them appear true even to those who thought, or wished to think, them false. his readers never knew what he would be saying next. they only knew that, whatever it was, he would say it effectively, and, as has already been remarked, with the air of one who damned the consequences. that was the note which was, in later years, to ring through "don juan." we can already hear it ringing, as it were in anticipation, through the couplets of "english bards and scotch reviewers." many examples might be cited; for the satire, after the way of satires, is almost entirely composed of damnatory clauses. any piece of gossip was good enough for byron to lay hold of and use as a missile when running amok among literary reputations. the best instance, however, may be found in the passage in which he turned and rent carlisle. his original intention was to make himself pleasant to his guardian. he had no particular reason for liking him, but he had no definite case against him. there was the letter, of course, in which carlisle had patronised the poet instead of praising his poetry; but he had got over his irritation about that, and did not bear malice; and so he prepared for publication these lines of fulsome eulogy: "_ah, who would take their titles from their rhymes? on one alone apollo deigns to smile, and crowns a new roscommon in carlisle._" but then, before the day of publication, occurred his quarrel with carlisle. he thought that his guardian ought to have volunteered to introduce him when he took his seat in the house of lords; he had the more reason for thinking so because his guardian was the only peer of the realm whom he knew. carlisle, however, did not do so, contenting himself with instructing his ward as to the formalities to be fulfilled. the slight, whether intentional or not, was keenly felt--the more keenly because byron was, at the moment, at war with all the world except carlisle. _et tu, brute_, may very well have been his reflection. so he had misjudged carlisle. so carlisle was as bad as other people--worse, indeed, because better things might reasonably have been expected from him. very well. it was to be war between them, was it? those who played at bowls must look out for rubbers. carlisle should see what kind of an antagonist he had provoked. he had threatened to make his sceptre totter in his hands. now he would show that he could do it. so he struck out the lines of eulogy, and substituted: "_yet did or taste or reason sway the times, ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes! roscommon! sheffield! with your spirits fled, no future laurels deck a noble head; no muse will cheer with renovating smile the paralytic puling of carlisle._" such was the parthian shaft; and byron, having discharged it, shook the dust of england from off his feet, and departed on the grand tour. chapter vi the grand tour--flirtations in spain the glory has long since departed from the grand tour. we all take it nowadays, with less and less sense of adventure, and more and more expectation of home comforts. sir henry lunn has pegged out the course, and stationed lecturers along it at intervals, to prevent us from confounding scylla and charybdis with sodom and gomorrah. they stir appropriate emotions in our breasts like stokers making up a fire. we play bridge in the evening on steamers "replete with every modern convenience"; and we are back again, in about six weeks, with a smattering of second-hand culture which goes the way of all smatterings in a very brief period of time. it is a shadowy, unreal, unsatisfactory business--a poor imitation of the grand tour as our forefathers knew it. some of them, no doubt, travelled frivolously and superficially. the earl of carlisle did so when he and fox, as samuel rogers tells us, "travelled from paris to lyons for the express purpose of buying waistcoats and, during the whole journey, talked of nothing else." but there was plenty of emotion in travel for those who cared for it--a real impression of a widening horizon on which unusual figures might be expected to appear--a sense of escaping from the familiar crowd and plunging into an unknown world in which anything might happen. the temptation was strong for the traveller of temperament to strike an attitude and say: "behold me! the old moorings were impossible; the old lights gave no guidance. i prefer to be adrift on a strange sea, seeking i know not what. travel is my escape from life. a woman tempted me, and tortured me, and so, unless a woman heals the wound a woman gave----" chateaubriand sought the orient in that spirit. disgust and disillusion, as he tells us, drove him forth. pauline de beaumont was dead, and madame de chateaubriand was a woman hard to live with. he needed the consolations of religion; he needed to meditate at the tomb of christ. above all he needed, when his meditations had fortified his mind, to meet natalie de noailles-mouchy in the court of the lions at the alhambra. he met her there, and travelled with her for three months in spain, and presently found that he had only plucked yet another dead sea apple. and so he cried: "behold me!" similarly, in spite of the differences, with byron. it was a fixed article of faith with chateaubriand that byron had plagiarised his personality without acknowledgment. it was an act of envious vengeance, he said, for his own neglect to reply to a letter which byron had written him while a schoolboy. that accusation, of course, is incredible and may be dismissed; but the resemblance between the two men was nevertheless as close as the differences of race allowed. byron was as distinctly british, at intervals, as chateaubriand was, at all times, distinctly french; and their points of view were to diverge widely as they grew older. chateaubriand, an artistic catholic, was to become one of the pillars of the holy alliance. byron was to do more than any other man except canning to pull the pillars of that temple down. but, in the meantime, the likeness was striking. there was about them both an equal air of cultivated gloom, an equal tendency to introspection, an equally intense interest in their personalities--that sense of the significance of the ego which was to be of the essence of the romantic movement--an equal readiness, as has been re-marked, to exclaim: behold me! the likeness is specially striking in the case of their journeys to the orient. they sailed the same seas in the same spirit--with the one difference that byron, who had a deadly hatred of certain kinds of hypocrisy, made no pretence in his quest for peace, of looking to and fro between love and religion. in both cases alike, disgust for life was understood to have given the impulsion to the journey. a leading incident in both journeys was, as byron bluntly puts it, "a passion for a married woman." neither passion gave the lover any lasting satisfaction. both passions were proclaimed in enigmatic pæans to the world. the two cantos of "childe harold's pilgrimage" which chronicle the journey are also the record of the beginning of the byronic pose. the picture of the childe is the picture of rené, with a difference--the difference being that, whereas chateaubriand could never, even in a work of art, depreciate himself, byron rejoiced in doing so. for the rest, the childe was "tameless and swift and proud," and worthless, and weary, and disillusioned, and disgusted. he had "spent his days in riot most uncouth": he had "felt the fulness of satiety." it was well that he had not won the woman whom he loved because his kiss "had been polution unto aught so chaste." his boon companions were only "flatterers of the festal hour," and "none did love him, not his lemans dear." wherefore behold him, on the lisbon packet, in flight from himself, and seeking his "escape from life." that is the picture; that, as perhaps it would be better to put it, is the pose. it was to become a sincere and natural posture before the end; but it is impossible, at this early stage, to take it very seriously. byron would himself have been the first to repudiate the suggestion that such men as matthews, hobhouse, and hodgson were "heartless parasites of present cheer." he had more respect for matthews than for any man of his acquaintance; hodgson was to be his most regular correspondent, and hobhouse the chosen companion of his journey. moreover, he was only twenty-one--an age at which a young man is eager to see the world and needs no excuse for setting out to do so. his conception of himself as a forlorn exile impelled to wander because the world has betrayed and trifled with him is, in the main, a young man's literary affectation. an affectation, no doubt, for which certain realities had furnished a hint. the fear of impending pecuniary embarrassment may sometimes have given the sound of revelry a hollow ring. the sarcasm of the _edinburgh_, though repaid in kind, had certainly left a thin skin sore. the icy politeness of carlisle had chilled an expansive heart, and given byron the impression that he was regarded as an intruder in his own domain. conjoined with his mother's nagging, it had made something of a three-cornered quarrel from which it was good to escape. he had also found himself more sentimental than he ought to be about mary chaworth. here, at any rate, was something to exaggerate--a foundation of bad temper on which a superstructure of pessimism might be raised. byron duly raised it, for literary purposes. but he had his high spirits as well as his low spirits; and the farewell lines which he sent from falmouth to hodgson suggest anything rather than a heart bowed down with woe. "_now at length we're off for turkey, lord knows when we shall come back! breezes foul and tempests murky may unship us in a crack. but since life at most a jest is, as philosophers allow, still to laugh by far the best is, then laugh on--as i do now. laugh at all things, great and small things, sick or well, at sea or shore; while we're quaffing, let's have laughing-- who the devil asks for more?-- some good wine! and who would lack it, ev'n on board the lisbon packet?_" those verses, quite as much as "'tis done, and shivering in the gale"--and much more than anything in "childe harold,"--indicate the frame of mind in which byron wished his native land good-night. he was travelling with all the paraphernalia of the grand tourist--with more servants than he could afford, and with the hearty, matter-of-fact john cam hobhouse for his companion to keep him out of mischief. whatever he fled from, adventure was what he was looking for--not only the adventures which belong to the exploration of barbarous countries, but also those which are to be encountered in the boudoirs of garrison towns. he landed at lisbon and went to cintra. he rode across spain to seville and cadiz. he proceeded to gibraltar, to malta, to albania, to athens, and thence to smyrna and the dardanelles. he returned to athens, and spent some time in exploring the interior of greece. that, in outline, was the itinerary; and there were two adventures of which the letters to hodgson show him to have been particularly proud. he swam the hellespont, in imitation of leander--a feat of which he boasts, over and over again, in every letter to every correspondent--and he indulged in "a passion for a married woman at malta." nor was that his only passion. if it was the only passion which he felt--which is doubtful--it certainly was not the only passion which he inspired. "lord byron," says hobhouse, in his matter-of-fact way, "is, of course, very popular with all the ladies, as he is very handsome, amusing, and generous; but his attentions to all and sundry generally end, as on this occasion, in _rixæ femininæ_." we shall come to that story in a moment. it is preceded by a story of which the hint is in the lines beginning: "_yet are spain's maids no race of amazons, but formed for all the witching arts of love_:" a story of which the memory is in "don juan": "_'tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue by female lips and eyes--that is i mean, when both the teacher and the taught are young, as was the case, at least, where i have been._" it happened at seville, where the travellers, as hobhouse writes, "made the acquaintance of admiral cordova, with whose daughter byron contrived to fall in love at very short notice." admiral cordova was the admiral who put up the fight which gained sir john jervis the title of earl saint vincent. byron had an introduction to the family, met señorita cordova at the theatre, and was invited to escort her home. it is not quite clear from the correspondence whether it was señorita cordova or some other lady who quarrelled with him because he would not give her the ring which he wore, as pledge of his affection; nor is it certain whether the ring was, or was not, a memento of mary chaworth. whatever its origin, it was to be yielded up at the hour of the "passion for a married woman"; and meanwhile there was another little incident of which byron speaks, of all places in the world, in a letter to his mother: "we lodged in the house of two spanish unmarried ladies.... the eldest honoured your _unworthy_ son with very particular attention, embracing him with great tenderness at parting ... after cutting off a lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of her own, about three feet in length, which i send and beg you will retain till my return.... she offered me a share of her apartment, which my _virtue_ induced me to decline." that is all, and it is of no importance. the next stage was gibraltar, and it is there, and on the voyage thence to malta, that we get our first glimpse of byron from the pen of an observer who observed, not as a matter of course, but as a matter of curiosity, and had a turn for picturesque description. john galt, afterwards famous as a scotch novelist, was at gibraltar when byron arrived there. he had been sent to the levant by a firm of traders to ascertain how far british goods could be exploited in defiance of the berlin and milan decrees. he was to try hard, though in vain, to introduce such goods into the greek archipelago, and to smuggle them into spain. half man of action and half dreamer, he went about denouncing priests and kings, and exhorting the british government to seize all the islands everywhere for the supposed advantage of british commerce. byron, condescendingly asking hodgson to review one of his books favourably, describes him, with more or less of justice, as "a cock-brained man," and, remembering him at a later date, told lady blessington that he "could not awe him into a respect sufficiently profound for my sublime self, either as a peer or an author." this means, of course, that galt, though he perceived the pose, did not abase himself in ecstasy before it. seeing that he was a man of thirty, whereas byron was only just of age, it was hardly to be expected that he would. moreover, as a scotsman, he would naturally take the side of the _edinburgh_ and maintain that byron had done nothing to be conceited about. so he observed byron--and we may be grateful to him for doing so--in a spirit of criticism and detachment. "his physiognomy," galt writes, "was prepossessing and intelligent, but ever and anon his brows lowered and gathered; a habit, as i then thought, with a degree of affectation in it, probably first assumed for picturesque effect and energetic expression, but which i afterwards discovered was undoubtedly the occasional scowl of some unpleasant recollection: it was certainly disagreeable--forbidding--but still the general cast of his features was impressed with elegance and character." that was the first impression, and the second impression was not more favourable: "in the little bustle and process of embarking their luggage, his lordship affected, as it seemed to me, more aristocracy than befitted his years or the occasion; and i then thought of his singular scowl, and suspected him of pride and irascibility. the impression that evening was not agreeable, but it was interesting; and that forehead mark, the frown, was calculated to awaken curiosity and beget conjectures." galt, in short, contrasted byron unfavourably with hobhouse, whom he found "a cheerful companion" and "altogether an advantageous specimen of a well-educated english gentleman;" but it was byron who intrigued him. he noticed what byron ate--"no animal food, but only bread and vegetables"--and he reflected that "he had not acquired his knowledge of the world by always dining so sparingly." he even found his way "by cautious circumvallations into his intimacy"--though not very far into it, for "his uncertain temper made his favour precarious"; and finally we find him, as if in return for this precarious favour, drawing a picture of byron which really can be called byronic. the scene is the ship which conveys them both from gibraltar to malta: "when the lights were placed, he made himself a man forbid, took his station on the railing between the pegs on which the sheets are belayed and the shrouds, and there, for hours, sat in silence, enamoured, it may be, of the moon. all these peculiarities, with his caprices, and something inexplicable in the cast of his metaphysics, while they served to awaken interest, contributed little to conciliate esteem. he was often strangely rapt--it may have been from his genius; and, had its grandeur and darkness been then divulged, susceptible of explanation; but, at the time, it threw, as it were, round him the sackcloth of penitence. sitting amidst the shrouds and rattlings, churming an inarticulate melody, he seemed almost apparitional, suggesting dim reminiscences of him who shot the albatross. he was as a mystery in a winding sheet, crowned with a halo." one quotes the passage in full because it is the earliest coloured picture of the theatrical byron--the fatal man of gloom and splendour on whom so much limelight was presently to be thrown. whether byron was posing for galt--or whether galt magnified the pose in the light of subsequent events--it is, of course, at this date, impossible to say. perhaps both things happened, and the picture owes a little to each of them. at all events the beginning of byronism--of the outward, visible byronism, that is to say--is there. it is just the picture which we feel we have a right to look for of the fatal man divining the doom which he is unable to resist--alone in the midst of the crowd--his own personality creating a void around him--proceeding to his first "passion for a married woman." that passion awaited him as soon as he landed at malta. the woman who inspired it was mrs. spencer smith--the "florence" of "childe harold:" "_sweet florence! could another ever share this wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine._" but mrs. spencer smith has a story of her own which it is worth while to turn aside and tell. chapter vii florence spencer smith mrs. spencer smith was the daughter of an austrian ambassador and the wife of an english minister plenipotentiary. "married unhappily, yet has never been impeached in point of character," says byron in a letter to his mother. there are no details forthcoming about that, however. all that one can affirm is that her husband only appears as a shadowy figure in the background of her adventures, leaving the leading _rôle_ to other men, while he serves his country at the other end of europe. he was a younger brother of sir sidney smith, who had checked napoleon's victorious career at acre. napoleon, it is said by some french writers, loathed the very name of smith after that calamity, held all the smiths jointly and severally responsible for it, and swore to wreak his vengeance on the first smith who fell into his hands. consequently, the same writers add, when he heard that a mrs. smith was staying at venice--a city then in his power--he felt that his long-delayed hour of triumph had come, and gave his orders accordingly. that version of the story, however, is too good to be true. mrs. spencer smith, in fact, was suspected, whether rightly or wrongly, of having played some part, as a secret agent, in some conspiracy against napoleon. she had been betrayed, or denounced; she was being watched; and she walked, unaware of her danger, into the snare that had been set. venice, it had seemed to her, would be a safe place of refuge when the over-running of northern italy by the french armies made it awkward for her to remain at the baths of valdagno, where she had been staying for the benefit of her health. her sister, countess attems, lived at venice, and she went to visit her. she was young, accomplished, beautiful--"like one of those apparitions," says the duchesse d'abrantès, "which come to us in our happiest dreams." she spoke seven languages, and looked down demurely--"a habit," the duchesse d'abrantès continues, "which only added to her charms." a sicilian boy of twenty, the marquis de salvo, begged for an introduction, was presented, and fell in love. he had hardly done so--he had not even declared himself--when he lighted upon his chance of proving his devotion by rendering help in time of trouble. general lauriston, napoleon's aide-de-camp, arrived at venice with a commission to act as military governor in his pocket; and then the trouble began. mrs. spencer smith was sent for by the chief of police and requested to leave the town and take a residence in the country. she had hardly begun to look for one when there arrived four gendarmes, with the intimation that she was to remain in her apartment, and that they were to see that she did so. the marquis de salvo then volunteered to call on the chief of police and inquire the meaning of this rigorous measure. the chief of police first talked vaguely to him about napoleon's prejudice against the name of smith, and then hinted that there might be more specific reasons for his severity. he added that his orders were to conduct mrs. smith under an escort to milan; "and i rather fancy," he concluded, "that she is to be detained in the fortress of valenciennes." that was the boy's chance. he was a boy in years, but a man in courage and resource. he ran to mrs. spencer smith, repeated what he had been told, and promised that he would save her. at first she hesitated. he would be taking a risk, she said, which he had no right to take. he probably expected a reward which her "principles" would not permit her to grant. but the boy, as it happened, was as chivalrous as he was brave. perhaps he loved noble actions for their own sake. at all events he loved adventure; and here was the prospect of an adventure such as rarely comes the way of a youth fresh from school. as for the risks, he said, he did not fear them. as for reward, he would not ask for any. if mrs. spencer smith would let him save her she should be saved. he had thought the matter out, and made his plans. all that was necessary was that she should take a maid with her whom she could trust. everything else might be left to him. then florence spencer smith thanked salvo, and promised to accept his aid. she too was of the age at which one is grateful to life for adventures; and, if she must choose between the two evils, well then she would rather be compromised than locked up. so she made sure of her maid, and got into the carriage which the gendarmes provided. there were five of them, including the brigadier; and salvo sought, and obtained, leave to ride with them in the vague character of "friend of the family." the gendarmes, he found, were excellent fellows, quite unsuspicious, and very sympathetic. the brigadier was specially sympathetic because he was lost in admiration of mrs. smith's faithful maid; and salvo, having carefully thought out his coup, watched all the chances. it had been agreed that mrs. smith should plead ill health, and ask to be allowed to journey by short stages. no objections were raised--probably because of the pleasure which the brigadier took in the society of the maid--and the party halted, first at verona, and then at brescia. at verona nothing could be done. an italian friend, whom salvo implored to meet and help him, failed to keep the appointment, guessing why he was wanted, and fearing napoleon's long arm. he must, therefore, act alone; and the question was whether he could find a means of getting mrs. smith on board a boat and across the lake of garda. probably he could if he could first see her alone and concert a scheme with her. so he galloped off to the lake side, hired two boats, and bought a post chaise, in which he proposed to drive mrs. smith up into the mountains, and over the frontier into austria. then he galloped back, told the brigadier that he was obliged to return to venice, and begged to be allowed to say good-bye to mrs. smith without witnesses. the brigadier, who liked to be alone with the maid, could quite understand that the marquis liked to be alone with the mistress. he winked a wicked eye, called the marquis "a sad dog," and gave permission. salvo winked back at him, as if admitting the impeachment of sad doggedness, and, in the brief interview which the brigadier supposed to be consecrated to sentiment, told mrs. smith what he had plotted, and how she herself must act. he would return, after night-fall, with a rope ladder. in order to avoid the suspicions of the inquisitive, he would make that rope ladder with his own hands. he would pack it up into a parcel, and mrs. smith must lower a piece of string with which to draw it up. the parcel would also contain a boy's costume, as a disguise for her, and a dose of laudanum with which to drug the maid's evening drink in case she were not a party to the conspiracy. he would come again at eleven, wearing a cocked hat, and enveloped in a military cloak. mrs. smith, understanding who was there, must then make the ladder fast and climb down to him. he came; and things happened more or less as he had planned them. the maid, in particular, was magnificently loyal. she offered to attend her mistress in her flight; and, when told that that could not be, she handed out her mistress' jewels, helped in securing the ladder to the verandah, promised to remove it after it had served its purpose, and then tossed off the soporific of her own accord, so that it might be physically impossible for her to answer questions for some hours to come--incidentally also, no doubt, in order to give the brigadier the excuse which he would naturally desire for acquitting her of all complicity in the escape. mrs. smith descended the ladder half way, and then fell off it; but salvo had expected that. he caught her in his arms, and they got into their carriage and were off. the gates of the town were closed; but salvo bluffed his way through them in an instant, with the help of his military cloak and head-gear. "what in thunder do you mean by keeping me waiting? i'm the colonel of the twenty-fifth. you were warned to look out for me. you'll hear of this again, my man. open the gate at once, and let me through." thus the boy swore in the full-blooded military style of the period. the gate was thrown open for him with profound apologies. he whipped up the horses, and galloped to salona, where the boats were ready. they embarked, taking their carriage with them, and crossed to riva. there they got into the carriage again, and galloped on to trent, where a sleepy official, much in wrath at this disturbance of his slumbers, proceeded to make trouble about their passports, which were only approximately in order. the only course, since time pressed, and pursuers were on their track, was to leave the chaise behind and slip away surreptitiously in a country cart which an inn-keeper offered to sell them. the pursuers, indeed, were hard upon their heels; but happily the morning sun was in their eyes. the fugitives saw them before they were seen, and drove their cart down from the mountain road through the forest to the torrent, so that the horsemen missed them and rode past them. after that, they abandoned their cart, and travelled by cross country roads and mountain paths, continually in peril of arrest, but always escaping as if by a miracle. a peasant, to whom they appealed for food and shelter, proposed to conduct them to the nearest police station, but was melted to tenderness by mrs. smith's tears and pitiful entreaties. they read the offer of a reward for their capture posted on the walls. they hid themselves for two days in a mountain chapel. they were stopped, and questioned, and mistaken for other more romantic fugitives--an italian princess who was said to have eloped with an italian bookseller's assistant. they disguised themselves as peasants, and travelled in the midst of the real peasants' flocks of sheep. not until after many days' wanderings did they reach austrian territory, declare their true identity, and claim the protection of the law; and even so their troubles were not over. austria, at that date, had not yet recovered either morally or materially from the shock of austerlitz, and dared not stand openly between napoleon and his prey. the fugitives had to be arrested before they could be saved. salvo was, for a while, locked up, like a criminal, in the deepest dungeon of a styrian castle; and mrs. smith was smuggled out of the country, under the name of frau müller--first to riga, and thence to england, where salvo ultimately joined her. queen charlotte thanked him publicly for the service so gallantly rendered to a british subject; and he made his best bow and withdrew, remembering his promise to expect no other recompense. such is the story of mrs. smith's adventure as told, first by salvo himself, who wrote a book about it, and then by the duchesse d'abrantès, who devoted a long section of her memoirs to it. one repeats it, partly for its own sake and partly because the romance of it explains how the heroine of it appealed to byron's imagination. she was the first really interesting--or, at all events, the first really remarkable--woman whom he had met. the women whom he had previously known had been very conventional young persons of the upper middle classes. even mary chaworth had been _bourgeoise_, or must have seemed so in comparison with mrs. spencer smith. to meet her was to encounter, for the first time, the amazing realities of life, and to find more romance in them than even a poet dared to dream of without reality to prompt him. and she was married, and it made no difference--or none except that, being married, she had more liberty, and could be more audacious than a spinster. "since my arrival here," byron writes--still to his mother--"i have had scarcely any other companion." there is an unmistakable note of self-complacency in the confession. byron's "passion for a married woman" was evidently signalling to him, as such a passion has signalled to many a young man before and after him, that, now at last, he was grown up. galt says that the attachment was merely "platonic." possibly galt was right, though his evidence goes for nothing, seeing that byron looked down upon him from far too olympian a height to be in the least likely to confide in him. the impression which mrs. spencer smith, from the little that we know about her, gives is that of the type of the favourite heroine of mr. henry arthur jones' more serious plays--a woman, that is to say, who shows herself of a very "coming-on" disposition until a certain point is reached, but then stops suddenly short, being frightened and abashed by her own temerity. she asked byron for his ring--the ring which the spanish lady had asked him for in vain--and he gave it to her. "soon after this i sailed for malta, and there parted with both heart and ring," is his own way of putting it; and as galt knew that she had got the ring, there seem to be grounds for the conjecture that she showed it and boasted of it. anything else, however, it would be idle to conjecture, even though we have "childe harold" and sundry "lines" to help us in the quest. the suggestion in "childe harold" is that mrs. spencer smith made love to byron in vain: "_fair florence found, in sooth, with some amaze, one who, 'twas said, still sighed to all he saw, withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze----_" the suggestion in the "lines" is different: "_oh, lady! when i left the shore, the distant shore which gave me birth, i hardly thought to grieve once more, to quit another spot on earth:_ "_yet, here amidst this barren isle, where panting nature droops the head, where only thou art seen to smile, i view my parting hour with dread._" we must make what we can of that; and it really matters very little what we make of it. this "passion for a married woman" was an inevitable stage of the sentimental pilgrimage. byron was bound to halt there for a little while, if not for long; and it was not to be expected that he would, like ulysses, stuff his ears with wool while passing the siren's isle. that is not the way of poets, and that is not the way of youth. he was bound, too, to fancy, for a moment, that the passion meant a great deal to him, even though, in fact, it meant but little; for that also is the way of youth and poets. and hardly less inevitable, though both of them knew that no hearts were being broken was the idea that fate was cruel to decree their parting, and that, while they acted wisely, they must also suffer for their wisdom. and therefore: "_though fate forbids such things to be, yet by thine eyes and ringlets curled! i cannot_ lose _a_ world _for thee, but would not lose_ thee _for a_ world." and therefore again, just two months later: "_the spell is broke, the charm is flown! thus is it with life's fitful fever: we madly smile when we should groan; delirium is our best deceiver. each lucid interval of thought recalls the woes of nature's charter; and_ he _that acts as_ wise men ought, _but_ lives--_as saints have died--a martyr._" that is all; and the story which the lines half cover up and half disclose is clearly of very little consequence. mrs. smith had enjoyed her flirtation, and had had verses written to her--much better verses than had been addressed to any of the belles of southwell. byron had posed, not knowing for certain whether he posed or not, had undergone a necessary experience, and had passed through the fire unhurt. the experiences which were really to matter to him were yet to come--though not immediately; and he had hardly finished writing verses to mrs. spencer smith when he began writing verses to the maid of athens. chapter viii the maid of athens--mrs. werry--mrs. pedley--the swimming of the hellespont "_maid of athens, ere we part, give, oh give me back my heart!_" it would be superfluous to quote more of the poem than that; and it would be absurd to attach importance to the episode which it commemorates. byron came to athens after an expedition, with hobhouse, into the heart of albania. he was, according to hobhouse's diary, "all this time engaged in writing a long poem in the spenserian stanzas," the poem being, of course, the first canto of "childe harold." that the travellers roughed it a good deal is evident from hobhouse's description of a supper whereat "byron, with his sabre, cut off the head of a goose which shared our room with a collection of pigs and cows, and so we got an excellent roast." he was much pleased with his reception by ali pasha, who said "he was certain i was a man of birth because i had small ears, curling hair, and little white hands." he was also, at the same time, brooding on his "passion for a married woman," and no doubt felt himself years older in consequence of that passion; and then, arriving at athens, he fell in love, or fancied or pretended that he was in love, with his landlady's daughter. that was the social status of the maid of athens. her mother, theodora macri, the widow of a former british vice-consul, had been reduced to letting lodgings--a sitting-room and two bedrooms, looking on to a courtyard, much patronised by english travellers, and highly recommended by them. there were three daughters, and there are passages in byron's letters which might be read to mean that he was equally in love with all of them. "an attachment to three greek girls" is his summary of the incident to hodgson; but he distinguished one of them by the special homage of a poem destined to be one of the most famous in the english language, with the result that theresa macri, maid of athens, became an institution, and that subsequent lodgers made much of her, looking for a romance where there had, in fact, been little more than the formal salute of the ships passing in the night. hugh w. williams, the artist, who was at athens in , depicts them for us: "on the crown of the head of each is a red albanian skull-cap, with a blue tassel spread out and fastened down like a star. near the edge or bottom of the skull-cap is a handkerchief of various colours bound round their temples. the youngest wears her hair loose, falling on her shoulders." [illustration: _the maid of athens._] that, no doubt, was how theresa wore her hair when byron flattered her with his attentions. she also, it seems, wore "white stockings and yellow slippers," and had "teeth of pearly whiteness" and "manners such as would be fascinating in any country." it was the usual thing, according to williams, for their mother's lodgers to flirt with one or other of them. it would have been "remarkable," he thinks, if they had not done so. presumably he did so himself. at all events he admired them very much as they sat "in the eastern style, a little reclined, with their limbs gathered under them on the divan, and without shoes"; but he insists with no less emphasis upon their propriety than upon their graces. "modesty and delicacy of conduct," he comments, "will always command respect"; and further: "though so poor, their virtues shine as conspicuous as their beauty.... not all the wealth of the east, or the complimentary lays even of the first of england's poets could render them so truly worthy of love and admiration." moore tells us that byron, in oriental style, gashed himself across the breast with a dagger as a symbolic demonstration of his conquest by theresa's charms, and that theresa "looked on very coolly during the operation, considering it a fit tribute to her beauty, but in no degree moved to gratitude." and that, of course, is what one would expect. the game was being played according to the rules, and theresa was child enough to enjoy the fun. one can imagine that it was a game which the girls often played with the lodgers, teaching them the rules when they did not already know them. one would be churlish indeed to begrudge them their enjoyment, or to protest that they were "forward" or suspect that they were "designing." the landlady's daughter can often do much to make life in a lodging-house agreeable; and youth must have its hour though time flies and love, like a bird, is on the wing. our next glimpse of theresa, taken from walsh's "narrative of a residence in constantinople," shows us that time is, indeed, an "ever-rolling stream," carrying its daughters, as well as its sons away upon the flood. "lord byron's poem," writes walsh in , "has rendered the poor lady no temporal service though it has ensured her immortality"; and he continues: "she was once very lovely, i was informed by those who knew her, and realised all the descriptive part of the poem; but time and, i suppose, disappointed hopes preyed upon her, and though still very elegant in her person, and gentle and lady-like in her manners, she has lost all pretensions to beauty, and has a countenance singularly marked by hopeless sadness." that, no doubt, is the exaggeration of a sentimentalist. theresa's hopes can hardly have been serious. landladies' daughters, have too many hopes deferred and disappointed to allow the disappointment of any hope in particular to blight their lives. theresa, in due course, became mrs. black, the wife, like her mother, of a vice-consul; and she lived to the great age of eighty, "a tall old lady," writes the united states consular agent at athens, "with features inspiring reverence, and showing that at a time past she was a beautiful woman." her countrymen, however, did not forget that she had been the maid of athens; and, byron's services to the greek cause being also remembered, a public subscription provided for the necessities of her last years. that is all that there is to say about her unless it be to repeat that she played but a very minor part in the pageant of byron's life, and cannot even be spoken of as mrs. spencer smith's only rival. for there were others; and though the other stories are clouded with a good deal of doubt, they cannot fail to leave a certain collective impression of byron as a man whom all women found attractive and many women found susceptible. at smyrna, for instance, there was a mrs. werry, whose name and effusive proceedings are mentioned by hobhouse: "mrs. werry actually cut off a lock of byron's hair on parting from him to-day, and shed a good many tears. pretty well for fifty-six years at least!" at athens, too, there was a second affair of which there is a full and circumstantial account in medwin's "conversations of lord byron." the heroine was a turkish girl of whom byron was "fond as i have been of few women." all went well, he told medwin, until the fast of ramadan, when law and religion prohibit love-making for forty days, and the women are not allowed to quit their apartments. an attempt to arrange an assignation at this season was detected. the penalty was to be death, and byron was to be kept in ignorance of everything until it was too late to interfere: "a mere accident only enabled me to prevent the completion of the sentence. i was taking one of my usual evening rides by the sea-side, when i observed a crowd of people moving down to the shore, and the arms of the soldiers glittering among them. they were not so far off but that i thought i could now and then distinguish a faint and stifled shriek. my curiosity was forcibly excited, and i despatched one of my followers to inquire the cause of the procession. what was my horror to learn that they were carrying an unfortunate girl, sewn up in a sack, to be thrown into the sea! i did not hesitate as to what was to be done. i knew i could depend on my faithful albanians, and rode up to the officer commanding the party, threatening in case of his refusal to give up his prisoner, that i would adopt means to compel him. he did not like the business he was on, or perhaps the determined look of my bodyguard, and consented to accompany me back to the city with the girl, whom i discovered to be my turkish favourite. suffice it to say that my interference with the chief magistrate, backed by a heavy bribe, saved her; but it was only on condition that i should break off all intercourse with her, and that she should immediately quit athens, and be sent to her friends in thebes. there she died, a few days after her arrival, of a fever, perhaps of love." "perhaps of love" is the typical finishing touch of the "fatal man;" but medwin may have added it. to byron, at any rate, the incident counted for no more than any of the other incidents; but it was followed, or is said to have been followed, by an incident which counted for even less--the incident of the beautiful mrs. pedley, related in a curious anonymous work entitled: "the life, writings, opinions, and times of the right hon. g. g. noel byron," published in . byron met mrs. pedley at malta on his way home. she was the wife of a dr. pedley, beautiful and frivolous--addicted, it may be, to levity, as a relief from the dulness of garrison life. her husband, for reasons which we are left to conjecture, turned her out of his house. she came to byron's house, sat down on the door-step, and refused to go. perhaps she argued that, as byron had loved one married woman, he was prepared to love all married women; but if so, she argued wrongly. byron begged her to return to her home, and when she declined to do so, he sent a note to dr. pedley to ask what he had better do with her. the dr.'s answer was to pack up the lady's clothes and other belongings and send them to byron's rooms, with a message to the effect that he wished him joy of the adventure. the upshot of it all was that byron consented to take mrs. pedley to england, but gave her very little of his society, and parted with her immediately on landing. such, at all events, is the story as the anonymous biographer relates it, though it is impossible to say on what authority it reposes. even if it rests upon gossip, and is untrue, it helps to fill in the picture by reflecting the reputation which byron was making for himself during his oriental travels: a reputation, on the one hand, of a man who made love with cynical recklessness, and on the other hand of a man who swaggered round the levant with unwarrantable arrogance and pride. we have already seen him swaggering about his swimming of the hellespont. he continued to swagger about it to the very end of his life. even in "don juan" there is a well-known reference to the exploit: "_a better swimmer you could scarce see ever; he could, perhaps, have passed the hellespont, as once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) leander, mr. ekenhead, and i did._" it was a considerable feat, no doubt, though he was only an hour and ten minutes in the water; but the anonymous biographer already quoted adds some details which make it, if not more glorious, at least more dramatic. byron, according to this version of the story, was helped out of the water in a state of extreme exhaustion, and lay three days in a fisherman's hut, nursed and tended by the fisherman's wife. the fisherman did not in the least know whom he was entertaining, but believed his guest, whose language he could not speak, to be a needy shipwrecked sailor. on his departure, therefore, he pressed on him not only bread and cheese and wine, but also a few copper coins. byron accepted the gift, without attempting to explain, and a few days afterwards sent his servant with a return gift: a brace of pistols, a fowling piece, a fishing net, and some silk to make a gown for the fisherman's wife. the fisherman was so overwhelmed that he set out at once in his boat to thank the generous donor, and was caught in a sudden squall and drowned. that is a story of which it is impossible to say whether it is true or only well invented. we are on safer ground in taking the testimony of the well-known people who met byron in the course of his journey; and our principal witnesses are lady hester stanhope, who passed him at athens on her way to lebanon, sir stratford canning, afterwards lord stratford de redcliffe, the "great eltchi," then secretary of embassy at constantinople, and john galt, who was still going his rounds as a high-class commercial traveller. no one of the three is extravagantly eulogistic, and all three bear witness to the pose, the swagger, and the arrogance. "a sort of don quixote fighting with the police for a woman of the town," is lady hester's verdict, suggested, no doubt, by the adventure on which byron put such a different colour when he related it to medwin. "he wanted," she continues, "to make himself something great," but she will not allow that he succeeded. "he had a great deal of vice in his looks," she says, "his eyes set close together and a contracted brow"; and, as for his poetry, lady hester shakes her head even over that: "at athens, i saw nothing in him but a well-bred man, like many others; for, as for poetry, it is easy enough to write verses; and as for the thoughts, who knows where he got them? many a one picks up some old book that nobody knows anything about, and gets his ideas out of it." that reflection, perhaps, always supposing that dr. merryon has reported it correctly, throws a brighter flood of light upon the critic's mind than upon the poet's genius; but the criticism offered by sir stratford canning was a criticism of matters which he understood. he "cannot," he says, "forbear to record" what happened when byron obtained permission to be present at an audience granted by the sultan to the _corps diplomatique_. there is a reference to the story in moore's "journal"; but the authorised version must be sought in lord stratford de redcliffe's papers: "we had assembled," he writes, "in the hall of our so-called palace when lord byron arrived in scarlet regimentals topped by a profusely feathered cocked hat, and, coming up to me, asked what his place as a peer of the realm was to be in the procession. i referred him to mr. adair, who had not yet left his room, and the upshot of their private interview was that, as the turks ignored all but officials, any amateur, though a peer, must be content to follow in the wake of the embassy. his lordship thereupon walked away with that look of scornful indignation which so well became his fine, imperious features." "as canning refused to walk behind him, byron went home," is hobhouse's laconic report of the incident; but when a letter from the ambassador followed him, he apologised. his fancy dress, it had seemed to him, was quite as becoming as other people's uniforms; he had honestly supposed himself to be standing out for the legitimate rights of a peer of the realm. as this was not so--as the austrian internuncio had been consulted and had said that it was not so--then he would be glad to join the procession as a simple individual, and humbly to follow his excellency and "his ox or his ass or anything that was his." whether that was a subtle way of calling stratford canning an ass does not appear; but the transaction was a characteristic exhibition of the neck-or-nothing audacity of byron's undisciplined youth. he figures, at this date, as a lord among adventurers and an adventurer among lords. stratford canning saw him in the latter and john galt in the former light. at a dinner-party at which they were both present, "he seemed inclined," says galt, "to exact a deference to his dogmas that was more lordly than philosophical"; and he continues: "it was too evident ... that without intending wrong, or any offence, the unchecked humour of his temper was, by its caprices, calculated to prevent him from ever gaining that regard to which his talents and freer moods, independently of his rank, ought to have entitled him. such men become objects of solicitude, but never of esteem." the fair inference seems to be that byron had let galt perceive the great gulf fixed between peers of the realm and commercial travellers. it was the sort of thing that he would do when in a bad temper, though not when in a good one. galt, however, not only submitted to the snub, but accounted for it like a philosopher. byron, he says, was in trouble at this time, not about his soul, but about his remittances; and "the false dignity he assumed" was really "the apprehension of a person of his rank being exposed to require assistance among strangers." one can certainly find support for the supposition in his urgent letters home. in due course, however, the remittances turned up, and byron recovered his affability and resumed his journey. hobhouse left him and returned alone. "took leave," he notes in his diary, "_non sine lacrymis_, of this singular young person, on a little stone terrace at the end of the bay, dividing with him a little nosegay of flowers." there had been some coolness between them, and this was the sentimental renewal of their friendship. a return visit to athens was the next stage, but there does not appear to have been any resumption of the old relations with the maid of athens. on the contrary, it was on this second visit to athens that lady hester stanhope discovered the poet "fighting the police for a woman of the town." at athens, too, byron met his old cambridge acquaintance, lord sligo, from whom we obtain, through moore, some further glimpses at his manner of life and characteristic affectations. he was once more, it seems, constrained to combat the flesh by means of self-denying ordinances, and, to that end, took three turkish baths a week, and confined himself to a diet of rice and vinegar and water. this system, and a fever contracted at patras, made him very pale; and he felt that to be pale was to be interesting. "standing one day before a looking glass," moore tells us, "he said to lord sligo: "'how pale i look! i should like, i think, to die of a consumption!' "'why of a consumption?' asked his friend. "'because then,' he answered, 'all the women would say, "see that poor byron--how interesting he looks in dying!"'" but that is another of the stories which throw at least as much light on the reporter as on the reported. lord sligo, no doubt, was the sort of healthy, wooden-headed young philistine on whom it is a joy to test the effect of such remarks. byron, in thus posing for him, was, so to say, "trying it on the dog." there is no such foolishness in his correspondence with those whom he regarded as his intellectual equals, and one cannot conclude the account of his travels better than by quoting his summary of their moral effect contained in a letter to hodgson: "i hope you will find me an altered personage--i do not mean in body but in manner, for i begin to find out that nothing but virtue will do in this damned world. i am tolerably sick of vice, which i have tried in its agreeable varieties, and mean, on my return, to cut all my dissolute acquaintance, leave off wine and carnal company, and betake myself to politics and decorum." to what extent, and within what limits, he carried out these good resolutions, we shall observe as we proceed. chapter ix return to england--publication of "childe harold" july saw byron back in england after two years' absence, but in no hurry, for various reasons, to return to newstead. the "venerable pile" had been desecrated by the invasion of bailiffs in connection with an unpaid upholsterer's bill; and mrs. byron was living there, and was, as usual, quarrelling with her neighbours. byron, in one of his letters from the levant, tells her that she cannot deny that she is a "vixen," and suggests that she is in the habit of drinking more champagne than is good for her. it was only to be expected that she would rattle the fire-irons, and throw the tongs, as furiously as ever--even if a little less accurately--under the stimulating influence. he lingered, therefore, at reddish's hotel, saint james's street; and it was there that the news of her sudden illness--the result, it is said, of shock caused by the magnitude of the afore-mentioned upholsterer's bill--surprised him. he hurried to her, but the news of her death met him on his way. he had not loved her. we have passed many proofs of that, and many others could be given. she had taunted him with his deformity, and he believed--so he told lord sligo--that he owed it to her "false delicacy" at his birth. she had not understood him, and he had fled before her violence. unable to love her, he had missed a precious emotion to which he felt himself entitled--that may be one of the secrets of his persistent view of himself as a lonely man, without a friend in a lonely world. if he was shaken by the sudden sundering of the tie, it would have been too much to expect him to be prostrated by his grief, or to do more than pay his brief tribute to the solemnity of death, remembering that there had been signs of tenderness in the midst of, or in the intervals between, the storms of passion. "oh, mrs. by," he exclaimed to his mother's maid. "i had but one friend in the world, and she is gone"; but he always said that of every friend who died--of skinner matthews who was drowned in the cam; of john wingfield who was drowned off coimbra; and of eddleston, the choir boy, whom he had admitted to his intimacy at cambridge. he said it quite sincerely, giving emotion its hour, and then let his thoughts flow in other directions. on the day of mrs. byron's funeral he told his servant to fetch the gloves and spar with him; and the boy thought that he hit harder than usual. then he threw down the gloves and left the room without a word, with the air of a man disgusted with himself for trying to kill devils like that; and presently he was in the thick of his preparations for the production of "childe harold." he had brought the manuscript of "childe harold" home with him, together with the manuscript of "hints from horace." he believed "hints from horace" to be much the greater work of the two; and his reasons for thinking so are easy to understand. "hints from horace" was a satire based on the best models, and composed on conventional lines. it could be compared with the models, and judged and "marked," like a schoolboy's theme. "childe harold" was an experiment. it expressed a personality--the personality of a very young man who was not yet quite sure of himself and, except when his temper was up, was afraid of being laughed at. hobhouse--that candid, trusty, matter-of-fact friend--had seen it, and had criticised it pretty much in the spirit in which mark twain's jumping frog was criticised. he had failed to see any points in that poem different from any other poem. byron, consequently, was sensitive and timorous about it. "childe harold," he felt, like "hours of idleness," would put him on his defence, whereas in "hints from horace," as in "english bards and scotch reviewers," he would have the advantage of attacking. he needed the encouragement of flattery. one dallas, a distant relative who now introduced himself and, for a season, doubled the parts, as it were, of literary mentor and literary valet, supplied the flattery, recognising that, whereas "hints from horace" was just a satire like another, "childe harold" was the expression of a new sentiment, hitherto unheard in english literature. "hints from horace," he thought, might be published, if the author wished it--it did not much matter one way or the other; but "childe harold" must be published. it was interesting; it was romantic; it would please. it was not merely a narrative, but a manifesto. it ignored conventions, lifted a mask, and revealed a man--a new and unsuspected type of man--beneath it. so dallas spoke and wrote; and byron let himself be persuaded. he yielded, at first, with reluctance--or perhaps it was only with a pretence of reluctance; but, after he had yielded, he entered into the spirit of the situation. he would not only publish, but he would publish with _éclat_. if he could not command success, he would deserve it, and would be careful not to throw away a chance. he would not be contented with a publisher who merely printed a few copies of the poem, pushed them outside the back-door, and waited to see what would happen. the minds of men--and women--should be duly prepared for the sensation in store for them. whatever the mountain might be destined to bring forth, at least it should be visibly in labour. publication should be preluded by a noise as of the rolling of logs. the money did not matter. the "magnificent man"--and there was a good deal of aristotle's "magnificent man" about byron at this period--could not soil his hands by taking money for a poem even for the purpose of discharging his debt to the upholsterers whose bills were frightening his mother out of her life. perish the mean thought! if there was money in the poem, dallas might have it for himself. all that the author wanted was glory--a "boom," as we vulgar moderns say--and that arresting noise already referred to, as of the rolling of logs. dallas must see to that to the best of his ability, and he himself would lend a hand. above all, there must be no hole-and-corner publishing. cawthorne must on no account have the book--his status was not good enough. miller was the man, and, failing miller, murray. on the whole it was to murray that it would be best to go. murray was the coming man--one could divine him as the publisher of the future, and he had, on his side divined byron as the poet of the future, and expressed a wish to "handle" some of his work. so dallas went to murray, and got five hundred guineas for the copyright; and then the sound of the rolling of the logs began. galt heard it. galt, being himself a man of letters as well as a commercial traveller, knew what it was that he heard. galt, who was now back in london, tells us that "various surmises to stimulate curiosity were circulated," and he continues: "i do not say that these were by his orders or under his directions, but on one occasion i did fancy that i could discern a touch of his own hand in a paragraph in the _morning post_, in which he was mentioned as having returned from an excursion into the interior of africa; and when i alluded to it, my suspicion was confirmed by his embarrassment." that is quite modern--one often reads similar paragraphs nowadays concerning the visits of novelists to the engadine, or to khartoum; and if byron did not go quite so far as to speak publicly of his forthcoming work as "a colossal undertaking," he managed, without saying so, to convey the impression that that was what it was. he also contrived to have the proofs shown, as a great privilege, to the right people, and was careful to let the critics have advance copies with a view to notice on the day of publication. dallas himself reviewed it before the day of publication, and was excused on the ground that his indiscretion had proved "a good advertisement." the privileged women--lady caroline lamb was among them--enchanted by the sentiment of the poem, boasted to the women who were not so privileged, and besought an introduction to the poet. "i must see him. i am dying to see him," was lady caroline's exclamation to rogers. "he bites his nails," rogers maliciously warned her; but she persisted as vehemently as ever. she was to see him presently, in circumstances and with consequences which we shall have to note. in the meantime many striking stories concerning him were floating about for her to hear. she heard, for instance--or one may suppose her to have heard--of that dinner-party at rogers' house at which byron distinguished himself by his abstemiousness, refused soup, and fish, and mutton, and wine, asked for hard biscuits and soda-water, and, when rogers confessed himself unable to provide these delicacies, "dined upon potatoes bruised down upon his plate and drenched with vinegar." let us hope that she never heard the end of the story which proceeds, in "table talk of samuel rogers": "i did not then know, what i now know to be a fact, that byron, after leaving my house, had gone to a club in saint james's street and eaten a hearty meat-supper." and, of course, her interest, like the interest of the rest of the world, was stimulated by byron's maiden speech in the house of lords. galt says quite bluntly that "there was a degree of worldly management in making his first appearance in the house of lords so immediately preceding the publication of his poem." most probably there was. when so many logs were rolling, this particular log was hardly likely to be left unrolled; and there is no denying that the note of self-advertisement does sound in the speech quite as loudly as the note of sympathy with the common people--those nottingham rioters and frame-breakers for whose suppression it was proposed to legislate. viewed as a contribution to the debate, the speech does more credit to the speaker's heart than to his head. the appeal for pity for misguided, labouring men is mixed up with a denunciation of labour-saving appliances as devices for the further impoverishment of the poor. an economist might say a good deal about that if this were the place for saying it. byron, such a one would point out, was a radical by instinct, but a radical who had as yet but an imperfect comprehension of the natural laws most favourable to the production, distribution, and exchange of wealth. but let that pass. the most resounding note of the speech is, after all, the note of the new man presenting himself, and explaining who he is, and what he has done: "i have traversed the seat of war in the peninsular, i have been in some of the most oppressed provinces in turkey; but never under the most despotic of infidel governments did i behold such squalid wretchedness," &c. &c. &c. that, in the days in which travel was really travel, involving adventure and bestowing unique experience, was the sort of utterance to draw attention. byron had actually been to the places which other people only talked and read about; and he was no bronzed, maimed, or wrinkled veteran, but a youth with curling hair, a marble brow, a pallid face, a godlike aspect. what havoc must he not have wrought in harems, and in the hearts of odalisques! he was so young, so handsome, so clever--and, according to his own account, so wicked. and he had written a poem, it appeared--a poem as wicked and beautiful as himself, explaining, with all kinds of delightful details, the shocking courses into which he had been driven by disappointed love. however much poetry one left unread, one must read that poem, and read it at once, in order to show that one was "in the movement." so the women argued. it did not matter to them that byron lacked the graces of the natural orator, and declaimed his sentiments in a monotonous sing-song tone, like a public schoolboy on a speech-day. it mattered still less to them whether his economics were sound or shaky. sympathy, not argument, was what they wanted, and the sympathy was there. byron would be some one to lionise--some one, it might be, to love--some one, at any rate, whom every woman must try to understand. and the first step towards understanding him must be to read his book. they read it, and made the men read it too. it was recognised, as such things come to be recognised, that any one who had not read it would be liable to feel foolish wherever the "best" people were gathered together. the first edition, issued on march , , was sold out in three days. there was a second edition in april, a third in june, a fourth in september, a fifth in december, a sixth in august , a seventh in february . by , an eleventh edition had been reached; and the subsequent editions would require a professional statistician to count them. byron, in short, had not only, as he said, "woke up one morning and found himself famous"; his fame had proved to have enduring qualities. the suddenness of the fame, as we have seen, was not solely the result either of accident or of merit. author, publisher, and literary agent--for dallas may fairly be ranked with the pioneers of the last-named profession--had planned and plotted for it. it may even be questioned whether such supreme success was quite deserved; and it would be easy to cite examples of much greater work--some of wordsworth's, for example--which was far less successful. but that the enthusiasm was natural--and indeed almost inevitable--cannot be disputed. the title helped, as byron himself recognised with cheerful cynicism. lords, of course, had tried their hands at poetry before, but never with much success, whether they were good lords or wicked. their compositions had amounted to little more than ingenious exercises in rhyme. either they had failed to put their personalities into their poems or they had had no personalities worth speaking of to put into them. one could say that, with varying degrees of truth, of rochester, roscommon, sheffield, and carlisle. to find a lord whose poems could be taken seriously one had to go back to the elizabethan ages; and modern readers--especially the women among them--were not very fond of going back so far. to get real poetry, with a real personality behind it, from a lord was "phenomenal," like getting figs from thistles--a thing to stand still and take note of. note, therefore, was taken--the more carefully, perhaps, because byron was, as it were, an unknown lord, born and brought up in exile, coming into society with something of the air of one who had to break down barriers in order to claim his birthright. his poem was, in a manner, his weapon of assault; and, whatever else might be said about it, it was, in no case mere exercise in metrical composition. it was the manifesto of a new personality. an immature personality, no doubt--in these two cantos of "childe harold" the essential byron is not yet revealed. a personality, too, it might be, with a good deal of paste board theatricality about it--sincerity and clarity of insight were later byronic developments. but that did not matter--least of all did it matter to the women. melodrama is often more instantaneously effective than drama; and "twopence coloured" has obvious immediate advantages over "penny plain." the pose might be apparent, but it was not ridiculous--or, at all events, it did not strike people as being so; and the power of posing without making himself ridiculous is one of the tests of a man's value. moreover no pose which makes an impression is ever entirely insincere. the great posturer must put a good deal of himself into his postures, just as the great painter puts a good deal of himself into his pictures. matter-of-fact persons like hobhouse might not think so; but women, with their surer instinct, know better. hobhouse, glancing at the manuscript of "childe harold," might say, with perfect candour, that he saw no points in that poem different from any other poem; but to the women it was, and was bound to be, a revelation. a revelation, too, of just such a personality as the women liked to think that they understood--and with just such gaps in the revelation as they liked to be puzzled by! one may almost say that the hearts of englishwomen went out with a rush to byron for the same reason for which the hearts of the frenchwomen, two generations earlier, had gone out to rousseau--because he gave them sentiment in place of gallantry. he had, in fact, given them both; but the note of sentiment predominated; and it was easy to believe that the sentiment was sincere, and the gallantry merely the consoling pastime of the stricken heart. the women took that view, as they were bound to, agreeing that byron was the most interesting man of their age and generation. he certainly was infinitely more interesting, from their point of view, than rousseau. he was younger, better born, and better looking, with more distinguished manners--one of themselves and not, like jean-jacques, a promoted lackey. so, in a day and a night, they made him famous, and ensured that, whatever else his career might be, it should be spectacular. the world, in short, was placed, in a sudden instant, at his feet. it was open to him to stand with his foot on its neck, striking attitudes--to step at a stride into a notable position in public life, or to ride, in his own way, with his own haste, to the devil. or, at all events, it seemed open to him to make this choice, though the actual course of his life in the presence of the apparent choice, might well be cited as an object lesson in the distinction which the philosophers have drawn between the freedom to do as we will, and the freedom to will as we will. which is to say that the spectacular life, in his case as in so many others, was to be at the mercy of the inner life, and the things seen in it were largely to be the effect of causes which were out of sight. it is to that inner life, and to those invisible causes of visible effects that we must now turn back. chapter x the secret orchard the invisible force which was beginning to influence byron's life, and was presently to deflect it, was a revival of his recollections of mary chaworth. he nowhere tells us so, nor do his biographers on his behalf, but the fact is none the less quite certain. the proofs abound, though the name is never mentioned in them; and mr. richard edgecumbe has marshalled them[ ] with conclusive force. the course which byron's life followed--the things which he willed and did, as well as the things he said--can only be explained if mary chaworth is once more brought into the story. she is, it must be admitted, one of the most shadowy and elusive of all heroines of romance. we have hardly a scrap of her handwriting--hardly a definite report about her from any contemporary witness. she is said to have been disposed to flirt before her marriage, but to have been serious and well-conducted afterwards. it is known that her husband was unkind to her and that she was unhappy with him; there are statements that she was "religious"; but most of the other evidence is negative, leaving the impression that she was commonplace. the secret of her charm, that is to say, is lost; and we can only guess at it--each of us guessing differently because something of ourselves has to go to the framing of the guesses. assuredly there is no inference unfavourable to her charm to be drawn from the fact that she passed through the world without cutting a figure in it. the women who dazzle the world are rarely the women for whose love men count the world well lost. it has been written that a man could no more fall in love with mrs. siddons than with the pyramid of cheops. men have also refrained, as a rule, from falling in love with the brilliant women of the _salons_--with madame du deffand, for instance, and madame necker, and lady blessington, and lady holland. the qualities of a hostess, they have felt, are different from those of a mistress. such women can dominate the crowd, wearing their tiaras like queens, in the garish light of fashionable assemblies; but, in the twilight of the secret orchard, their empire crumbles to the dust. it is not given to them to make any man feel that the limitations of time and space have ceased and that the whole of life is concentrated in the life lived here and now. the women who possess that power are the women who seem insignificant to the men to whom they have not revealed themselves. mary chaworth possessed that power, and so left no mark anywhere in life except on byron's heart. she was quite undistinguished, and seemingly conventional--the last woman in the world to be likely to throw her bonnet over the windmill; but she had this subtle, indefinable, and inexplicable secret. she had had it even in the irresponsible days when she flirted with the fat boy, but failed to divine his genius, and preferred the hard-riding and hard-drinking squire. she retained it when the fox-hunting squire had shown the coarseness of his fibre, and the fat boy was a man whose genius had proved itself. every meeting, therefore, was bound to bring a renewal of the spell, even though, in the intervals between the meetings, byron could forget. we have it, on byron's authority, that there were certain "stolen meetings." it has been assumed that these were prior to mary chaworth's marriage; but that is hardly credible. there was no need for stolen meetings then; for everything was frank and open. they must have taken place, if at all--and there is no reason to doubt that they did take place--subsequently to the marriage: subsequently to that dinner-party at which byron and mary met, and were embarrassed, and did not know what to say to each other. perhaps, since mary was a woman whose instinct it was to walk in the straight path, there was no conscious and deliberate secrecy. the more likely assumption, indeed, is that they contrived to meet by accident, and then thought it better, without any definite exchange of promises, not to mention that they had met. however that may be, the spell continued, and mary kept the key of the secret orchard. her spirit was certain to revisit it, even if she herself did not. then came the long eastern pilgrimage. the feeling that this sort of thing could not go on indefinitely may very well have been one of the motives for it; and byron, of course, was quite young enough to forget, and a great deal too young to let past memories divert his mind from present pleasures. he did forget--or very nearly so; he did divert himself as opportunity occurred. he enjoyed his battle with the police for a woman of the town; he enjoyed his passion for a married woman. there is no reason whatever to suppose that he was really thinking of mary chaworth when he wrote verses to the maid of athens, or when he gave the most precious of his rings to mrs. spencer smith. but the secret orchard always remained; the spirit of the old tenant might at any time return to it. such spirits always do return whenever life suddenly, for whatever reason, seems a blank. it was, in this instance, death--a rapid series of deaths--that brought it back. byron's mother died, in circumstances for which, as we have seen, he had some reason to reproach himself. his choirboy friend eddleston pined away from consumption. charles skinner matthews was drowned in the cam--entangled in the river weeds and sucked under. wingfield was drowned on his way to the war in spain. the news of these four deaths came almost simultaneously, and the shock broke down byron's high spirits. his letters are very heartbroken and eloquent. "some curse," he wrote to scrope davies, the gamester, "hangs over me and mine.... come to me, scrope; i am almost desolate--left almost alone in the world." "at three-and-twenty," he wrote to dallas, "i am left alone, and what more can we be at seventy? it is true i am young enough to begin again, but with whom can i retrace the laughing part of my life?" to dallas, too, he wrote a certain morbid letter about the four skulls which lay on his study table, and in another letter to hodgson he says: "the blows followed each other so rapidly that i am yet stupid from the shock; and though i do eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh at times, yet i can hardly persuade myself that i am awake, did not every morning convince me mournfully to the contrary. i shall now waive the subject, the dead are at rest, and none but the dead can be so.... i am solitary, and i never felt solitude irksome before." the consolations which hodgson offered him in his distress were those of religion. he wrote him long letters concerning the immortality of the soul; letters which caused byron, years afterwards, to remark, when his friend had taken orders, that hodgson was always pious, "even when he was kept by a washerwoman"--and was shocked by his blasphemous reply that he did not believe in immortality and did not desire it. he appealed to byron--"for god's sake"--to pull himself together and read paley's "evidences of christianity." he had a great respect for paley as a senior wrangler and entertained no doubt that his conclusions followed from his premisses. a little later, he and harness,[ ] one of byron's harrow protégés, who was then at cambridge, reading for his degree, went down to newstead to stay with byron. there were no orgies there this time. no "paphian girls" were introduced; no practical jokes were played; the cook and the housemaid remained in the servants' quarters. "nothing," says harness, "could have been more orderly than the course of our days"--which was right and proper seeing that both he and hodgson were shortly going to be ordained. if the trio sat up late, it was only to talk about literature and religion. hodgson pressed orthodox views on byron with "judicious zeal and affectionate earnestness." harness supported him with the diffidence appropriate to his tender years. byron maintained his own point of view, while thinking of other things. chiefly he thought of the ghost which now revisited his secret orchard, telling himself that it was not the ghost but the real woman which should have been there. with mary chaworth alone he had known the sensation that nothing else mattered while he and she were together. now that so many deaths had made a solitude in his heart he sorely needed the renewal of that feeling. she could have vouchsafed it to him; she both could and should. why then, was she not at annesley, waiting for him, granting more stolen interviews, proving that she still cared, affording him that escape from life to ecstasy? that was the drift of byron's thoughts at the time when hodgson was trying to direct his attention to paley's "evidences." he saw, as youth is apt to do, more possibilities of comfort in love than in theology--a fact which is the less to be wondered at seeing that the theology in which he had been brought up was of the uncomfortable calvinistic kind; and though he was the victim of a mood rather than of a passion--for passion needed the stimulus of sight and touch--the mood had to be expressed, and perhaps worked off, in verse. it burst into "childe harold": "_thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one! whom youth and youth's affections bound to me; who did for me what none beside have done, nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee. what is my being! thou has ceased to be! nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home, who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see-- would they had never been, or were to come! would he had ne'er returned to find fresh cause to roam._ "_oh, ever loving, lovely, and beloved! how selfish sorrow ponders on the past. and clings to thoughts now better far removed! but time shall tear thy shadow from me last. all thou couldst have of mine, stern death, thou hast; the parent, friend, and now the more than friend, ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, and grief with grief continuing still to blend, hath snatched the little joy that life hath yet to lend._" these stanzas, with three others, were sent to dallas after "childe harold" was in the press, together with a letter which must have mystified him though, as a "poor relation," he would not well ask impertinent questions; a letter to the effect that byron has "supped full of horrors" and "become callous" and "has not a tear left." the "thyrza" sequence of poems belongs to the same period--almost to the same day. they have puzzled many generations of editors and commentators because "thyrza" is addressed in them as one who is dead, and because, though byron spoke of thyrza to his friends as a real person and showed a lock of her hair, no trace of any woman answering to her description can be discovered in any chronicle of his life. the explanation is that thyrza was not really dead, though byron chose so to write of her. thyrza was mary chaworth who was dead to byron in the sense that she had passed out of his life, as he had every reason to think (though he thought wrongly) for ever. the poems expressed, according to moore, "the essence, the abstract spirit, as it were, of many griefs," with which was mingled the memory of her who "though living was for him as much lost as" any of the dead friends for whom he mourned. they expressed, in fact, his despair at finding the secret orchard tenanted only by a ghost; and if we read the poems by the light of that clue, we can get a clear meaning out of every line. they are too long to be quoted. readers must refer to them and judge. the note is the note of bitter despair, working up, at the end, into the note of recklessness. the contrast is there--that contrast as old as the world--between the things that are and the things that might, and should, have been; and then there follows the declaration that, as things are what they are, and as their consequences will be what they will be, there is nothing for it but to plunge into pleasure, albeit with the full knowledge that pleasure cannot please: "_one struggle more, and i am free from pangs that rend my heart in twain; one last long sigh to love and thee, then back to busy life again. it suits me well to mingle now with things that never pleased before: though every joy is fled below, what future grief can touch me more?_ "_then bring me wine, the banquet bring; man was not formed to live alone: i'll be that light unmeaning thing that smiles with all, and weeps with none. it was not thus in days more dear, it never would have been, but thou hast fled, and left me lonely here; thou'rt nothing,--all are nothing now._" the so-called byronic pose challenges us in that passage; but it is by no means as a pose that it must be dismissed. the men who seem to pose are very often just the men who have the courage--or the bravado, if any one prefers the word--to be sincere; and byron, if he is to be rightly understood, must be thought of as the most sincere man who ever struck an attitude. that was the secret of his strength. pose was for him just what aristotle, as interpreted by professor bywater, says that the spectacle of tragedy is to the mass of the spectators. it purged him, for the time being, of his emotions by indulging them. the pose, having done its work, ceased until the emotions recurred, and then he posed again. hence the many differences of opinion among his friends as to whether he posed or not. just now he was posing, in all sincerity, not only to himself but to hodgson. at one time he told hodgson that, as soon as he had set his affairs in order, he should "leave england for ever." at another he sent him an "epistle to a friend in answer to some lines exhorting the author to be cheerful and to 'banish care.'" hodgson sent them to moore for publication in his life, requesting that the concluding lines should not be printed; but moore disregarded the request. the epistle ended thus: "_but let this pass--i'll whine no more. nor seek again an eastern shore; the world befits a busy brain,-- i'll hie me to its haunts again. but if, in some succeeding year, when britain's "may is in the sere," thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes suit with the sablest of the times, of one, whom love nor pity sways, nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise; one, who in stern ambition's pride, perchance not blood shall turn aside: one ranked in some recording page with the worst anarchs of the age, him wilt thou_ know,--_and_ knowing _pause, nor with the effect forget the cause._" the allusion here, as hodgson's biographer discerns, is to "his early disappointment in love as the source of all his subsequent sorrow." hodgson's own comment, scrawled in the margin of the manuscript is: "n.b.--the poor dear soul meant nothing of all this." he meant it--and yet he did not mean it. it was the emphasised and exaggerated expression of what he meant--momentarily emphasised for the purpose, whether conscious or unconscious, of relieving himself from the black mood which had descended on him. the relief was gained--though it was not to be permanent. he did not "leave england for ever"--not yet--but hied him to the haunts of the world as he had promised. he plunged into pleasure--and found pleasure more pleasant than he had imagined that it could be. that was inevitable. he was only twenty-four, and he was famous; and "to be famous when one is young--that is the dream of the gods." moreover, he was achieving just that sort of fame which is attended by the most intoxicating joy. the fame of the man of science is nothing--the world interests itself in his discovery but not in him. the fame of a statesman is hardly sweeter--it is only won by fighting and working hard and making jealous enemies. the fame of a poet--a poet who is also _the_ poet--brings instantaneously the applause of men and the wonder and homage of women. they do not separate the man from his work, but insist on associating him with it. beautiful women as well as blue-stockings--and with less critical discrimination than blue-stockings--prostrate and abase themselves before him, competing for the sunshine of his smiles, believing, or affecting to believe, that his and theirs are kindred souls. so it befell byron. born in exile, he had at last returned from exile in a blaze of triumph. all the doors of all the best houses were thrown open to him with a blare of trumpets. he entered them, not as a parvenu, like moore the irish grocer's son, but as the one man without whose presence the festival would have been incomplete. no man, if one might judge by externals, had ever a better chance of making a splendid and noble pageant of his life. so far as an observer could judge--so far probably as he himself knew--the ghosts of the past were laid, and its memories in a fair way of being effaced. if the past had not come back to him, he might have forgotten it. the tragedy of his life was that it did come back--that he did meet mary chaworth again and rediscover the secret orchard which, while she was absent from it, was a howling wilderness, overgrown with weeds. but not quite immediately. there were certain other things which had to happen first. chapter xi lady caroline lamb the record of byron's social triumphs may be outlined in a few sentences. without quite losing sight of such old friends as hodgson and harness, he moved, with the air of a social conqueror in three new sets, which may be regarded as distinct, though there were points at which they touched each other. among men of letters his chief friends were samuel rogers, the banker poet, then a man verging on fifty, whose superlative dinner we have seen him refusing to eat, and thomas moore, who had made his acquaintance by demanding satisfaction for an alleged affront in "english bards," which byron had explained away. at the same time he "got on very well," as he tells us, with beau brummell and the other dandies, being one of the three men of letters who were admitted to watiers, and was lionised in the society which we should nowadays describe as "smart." it has been written that the roadway opposite to his apartments was blocked by liveried footmen conveying perfumed notes. that, we may take it, is a picturesque exaggeration; but, no doubt, he received more invitations than the laws of time and space allowed him to accept--most of them, though by no means all of them, to the great whig houses. lady westmorland, lady jersey, lady holland, and lady melbourne were the most fashionable of the hostesses who competed for the privilege of his company; and lady melbourne had a daughter-in-law--lady caroline lamb. she also had a niece--miss anna isabella milbanke; but it is of lady caroline lamb that we must speak first. lady caroline was three years older than byron. she was the daughter of the third earl of bessborough, and the wife of william lamb, who, as lord melbourne, afterwards became prime minister of england. it was a matter of opinion whether she was beautiful; it was also a matter of opinion whether she was sane--doctors consulted on that branch of the subject had returned doubtful, non-committal answers. she was not exactly mad, they said, but she was of a temperament allied to madness. she must not be pressed to study, but must be allowed to run wild and do as she liked. she had run wild, for years, reading the works of burns, which are not written for the young, and galloping about parks on bare-backed steeds, imagining the world about her instead of realising it, and, of course, imagining it wrong. it is on record that she believed that bread-and-butter was a natural product and that horses were fed on beef; also that she divided the community into two classes--dukes and beggars--and supposed that the former would always, by some law of nature, remain wealthy, whatever they did with their money. her charm--and she could be very charming when she liked--was that of a high-spirited, irresponsible, wilful, wayward child. she was, in short, the kind of girl whom those who loved her best would describe, in the vernacular, as "a handful." [illustration: _lady caroline lamb._] "of all the devonshire house girls," william lamb had said, "that is the one for me." that was when she was thirteen; and six years later he was still of the same opinion. he was confirmed in it when she refused his offer of marriage, proposing instead to run away with him in boy's clothes and act as his secretary. he accepted neither his dismissal nor her alternative suggestion, but persevered in his suit until he was accepted. the next thing that happened was that lady caroline broke into railing accusations against the bishop who performed the marriage rites, tore her wedding dress to tatters, and had to be carried to her carriage in a fainting fit. it was not a very auspicious commencement of married life, but one which prepares us for the general reflections on marriage found in her husband's common-place book, recently edited by mr. lloyd sanders: "the general reason against marriage is that two minds, however congenial they may be, or however submissive the one may be to the other, can never act like one. it is the nature of human beings that no man can be free or independent...." "... by marriage you place yourself on the defensive instead of the offensive in society...." "every man will find his own private affairs more difficult to control than any public affairs on which he may be engaged...." william lamb's experience of married life was to be, as it were, an object lesson on those texts. at one moment lady caroline was to overwhelm him with doting affection; at the next to make him ridiculous. sometimes the two moods followed each other as quickly as the thunder follows the lightning, as in the case of a scene of which the kembles were involuntary witnesses when staying in the same hotel with the lambs in paris. husband and wife had quarrelled in their presence, and had then withdrawn to their apartment which faced the rooms which the kembles occupied. the lamps were lighted, and the blinds were not drawn, so that the kembles looked across the courtyard and saw what happened. william lamb was in his arm-chair. lady caroline first sat on his knee, and then slid to his feet, looking up into his face with great humility. this for a few moments. then something that william lamb said once more disturbed lady caroline's equanimity. in an instant she was on her feet, running round the room, pursued by her husband, sweeping mirrors, candlesticks, and crockery on to the floor, in a veritable whirlwind of passion; whereupon william lamb drew the blind and the kembles saw no more. that story may serve as a symbolic epitome of william lamb's married life. we shall come to many stories of the same kind as we proceed. lady caroline was a creature of impulse, and there was nearly always a man in the case. she easily persuaded herself that any man who was polite to her was in love with her--both moore and rogers were among the victims of whom she boasted--and she would not allow the contrary to be suggested. moreover, besides being self-willed in matters of the heart, she liked to _afficher_ herself with every man for whom she felt a preference, and to declare the state of her affections to the world with the insistent emphasis with which the sensational virtues of soaps and sauces are set forth on the hoardings. whether she deliberately sought notoriety, or merely did what she chose to do without fear of it, remains, to this hour, an open question. all that is certain is that she did, in fact, make herself very notorious indeed, and that there was more scandal than subtlety in her attempts to monopolise byron, to whose heart she laid siege, with all the audacity of a stage adventuress, in the presence of a large, amused, and interested audience. it was lady westmorland who introduced them. she did not introduce byron to lady caroline, but lady caroline to byron. already, only a few days after the appearance of "childe harold," he was on his pedestal, and was not expected to descend from it, even to show deference to ladies. "he has a club-foot and bites his nails," rogers had told her. "if he is as ugly as Æsop i must know him," she had answered. but now that she was brought to him, she shrank from him, whether because she was afraid, or because she wished to provoke and pique him. "i looked earnestly at him," she told lady morgan, "and turned on my heel"; and she went home and wrote in her diary the impression that byron was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." that was the first scene in the comedy. the second took place at holland house, and the third at melbourne house. lady caroline's recollections of them were recorded in lady morgan's reminiscences: "i was sitting with lord and lady holland when he was announced. lady holland said, 'i must present lord byron to you.' lord byron said, 'that offer was made to you before; may i ask why you rejected it?' he begged permission to come and see me. he did so the next day. rogers and moore were standing by me: i had just come in from riding. i was filthy and heated. when lord byron was announced, i flew out of the room to wash myself. when i returned, rogers said, 'lord byron, you are a happy man. lady caroline has been sitting here in all her dirt with us, but when you were announced, she flew to beautify herself.' lord byron wished to come and see me at eight o'clock, when i was alone. i said he might." he did; and "from that moment for more than nine months he almost lived at melbourne house." the rest, in lady caroline's opinion--at all events in one of her opinions, expressed in an angry letter--was all william lamb's fault. "he cared nothing for my morals," she remarks. "i might flirt and go about with what men i pleased. he was privy to my affair with lord byron and laughed at it. his indolence renders him insensible to everything. when i ride, play, and amuse him, he loves me. in sickness and suffering he deserts me." that protest, however, is wholly unjust, and only partly true. a married woman who has no sooner met a man than she arranges to dine _tête-à-tête_ with him is hardly entitled to ascribe her flirtation to her husband's contributory negligence. lady caroline not only did that, but also, in her wilful way, plunged at once into a compromising correspondence. her very first letter to byron, according to rogers, "assured him that, if he was in any want of money, all her jewels were at his disposal." in another letter of approximately the same date we find her writing: "the rose lord byron gave lady caroline lamb died in despite of every effort made to save it; probably from regret at its fallen fortunes." evidently lady caroline had thrown herself at byron's head before william lamb guessed what was happening. afterwards, no doubt, he knew what the rest of the world knew. but he also knew--what the rest of the world did not know, and what lady caroline herself only imperfectly realised--how froward and changeable were his wife's moods, how great was the risk of hysterical explosions if those moods were crossed, what a "handful" she was, in short, and how very difficult it was to handle her, and so he left things alone. leaving things alone, indeed, was william lamb's regular formula for the solution of the problems alike of public and of private life. he believed that problems left alone tended to solve themselves, just as letters left unanswered tend to answer themselves. on the whole the principle had worked, if not ideally, yet well enough for the practical purposes of domestic life. things had happened before, and, being left alone, had ceased to happen. in his desk lay a letter relating to some previous ebullition the particulars of which are wrapped in mystery. "i think lately, my dearest william," lady caroline had written, three years before, "we have been very troublesome to each other." it was true, and it had not mattered. the fire, if there had been a fire, had burnt itself out. the hysterics--it is not to be doubted that there were hysterics--had subsided with the passing of the occasion which had called them forth. the clouds had been dispersed, and the sun had shone again. why should not this chapter in his domestic history repeat itself? he was very fond of his wife; he hated rows; he wished to take no risks. the best way of avoiding risks was to humour her. so he humoured her, remembering how she had railed at the bishop on her wedding day, knowing, no doubt, how little a thing might upset her mental balance, and making every possible allowance; and the only attempt at intervention came from lady melbourne, who remonstrated, not with lady caroline, but with byron. he struck an attitude, and waived the matter on one side. "you need not fear me," was his reply. "i do not pursue pleasure like other men; i labour under an incurable disease and a blighted heart. believe me she is safe with me." no one knows whether she was, in the narrow sense of the word, "safe" with him or not. rogers thought that she was, but admitted that he did not really know. in any case she was not safe from herself, or from the tongue of scandal. she was really in love--her devotion was no passing fancy--and she did not care who knew it. indeed she behaved as if she thought that the more people who knew it, the better. the woman who, at a ball, called upon byron's friend harness--that very serious young cantab just about to take orders--to bear witness that she was wearing no fewer than six pairs of stockings, was not likely to hide the light of a grand passion under a bushel. she did not so hide it, but proceeded, as has been said, to _afficher_ herself as if she were inviting the attention of the world to a great spectacular entertainment. she had not known byron a couple of months before people were beginning to talk. "your little friend caro william," wrote the duchess of devonshire on may , , "as usual is doing all sorts of imprudent things with him.... the ladies, i hear spoil him, and the gentlemen are jealous of him. he is going back to naxos, and then the husbands may sleep in peace. i should not be surprised if caro william were to go with him, she is so wild and imprudent." rogers, in his "table talk," is still more picturesque. he tells us how, when byron and lady caroline quarrelled, she used to plant herself in his (rogers') garden, waiting to catch him on his return home and beg him to effect a reconciliation; and he continues: "when she met byron at a party, she would always, if possible, return home from it in _his_ carriage, and accompanied by _him_: i recollect particularly their returning to town together from holland house. but such was the insanity of her passion for byron that sometimes, when not invited to a party where he was to be, she would wait for him in the street till it was over! one night, after a great party at devonshire house, to which lady caroline had not been invited, i saw her--yes, saw her--talking to byron, with half of her body thrust into the carriage which he had just entered." in the midst of, and in consequence of, these spectacles, lady melbourne decided to take lady caroline to ireland. she cherished, it seems, the double design of getting her daughter-in-law out of byron's way and marrying byron to her niece. of the success of the latter scheme there will be a good deal to be said in subsequent chapters. much was to happen, however, both to byron and to lady caroline before it succeeded. they continued to correspond during lady caroline's absence; and the correspondence soon reached an acute phase which resulted in a series of violent scenes. chapter xii the quarrel with lady caroline--her character and subsequent career "while in ireland," lady caroline lamb told lady morgan, "i received letters constantly--the most tender and the most amusing." she received one letter in which byron, after speaking of "a sense of duty to your husband and mother" declared that "no other in word or deed shall ever hold the place in my affections which is, and shall be, most sacred to you," and concluded: "i was and am yours freely and most entirely, to obey, to honour, love--and fly with you when, where, and how you yourself _might_ and _may_ determine." what did he mean? apparently he meant to let lady caroline down gently--to give her the right of boasting of his undying regard--and to obtain his liberty in exchange. we need not stop to consider whether the bargain would have been a fair one, for lady caroline did not agree to it. there were no bounds to her infatuation, and she could not bear the thought that there should be any bounds to his. but there were. "even during our intimacy," he told medwin, "i was not at all constant to this fair one, and she suspected as much." it looks as though her suspicions decided her to return to england. at all events she started, and at dublin, received another letter to which the epithets "tender" and "amusing" were equally inapplicable. "it was," she told lady morgan, "that cruel letter i have published in 'glenarvon'"--the novel in which, some five years later, she gave the world her version of the liaison. the text of it, as given in 'glenarvon,' is as follows: "i am no longer your lover; and since you oblige me to confess it by this truly unfeminine persecution, learn that i am attached to another, whose name it would, of course, be dishonest to mention. i shall ever remember with gratitude the many instances i have received of the predilection you have shown in my favour. i shall ever continue your friend, if your ladyship will permit me so to style myself. and as a first proof of my regard, i offer you this advice: correct your vanity, which is ridiculous: exert your absurd caprices on others; and leave me in peace." byron appears to have admitted to medwin that "a part" of the letter was genuine. the rest of it--the gratuitously offensive part of it--was doubtless doctored, if not actually fabricated, by the novelist for the purposes of her art. in any case, however, quite enough was written to send lady caroline into a fit, from which she only recovered to renew her eccentricities. "i lost my brain," she confesses. "i was bled, leeched; kept for a month in the filthy dolphin inn at rock. on my return i was in great prostration of mind and spirit." and then scenes followed--scene on the heels of scene. it is impossible to be quite sure of arranging them in their proper order; but that matters little. there was a scene in brocket park, where lady caroline burnt byron in effigy. together with his effigy she burnt copies of his letters, keeping the originals for reference. a number of girls, attired in white, danced round the pyre, chanting a dirge which she had composed for the occasion: "_is this guy faux you burn in effigy? why bring the traitor here? what is guy faux to me? guy faux betrayed his country, and his laws. england revenged the wrong; his was a public cause. but i have private cause to raise this flame. burn also those, and be their fate the same._" and also: "_burn, fire, burn, while wondering boys exclaim, and gold and trinkets glitter in the flame. ah! look not thus on me, so grave, so sad; shake not your heads, nor say the lady's mad._" et cetera. then there was a scene in byron's chambers, whither lady caroline pursued him in order to obtain confirmation of certain suspicions, thus described by byron to medwin: "in order to detect my intrigues she watched me, and earthed a lady into my lodgings--and came herself, terrier-like, in the disguise of a carman. my valet, who did not see through the masquerade, let her in: when to the despair of fletcher, she put off the man and put on the woman. imagine the scene! it was worthy of faublas!" after that, according to medwin, it was agreed that, if they met, they were to meet as strangers; but lady caroline did not carry out her part of the agreement. "we were at a ball," the reporter represents byron as saying. "she came up and asked me if she might waltz. i thought it perfectly indifferent whether she waltzed or not, or with whom, and told her so, in different terms, but with much coolness. after she had finished, a scene occurred, which was in the mouths of everyone." fanny kemble, however, gives a more sensational version of the story. "lady caroline," she says, "with impertinent disregard of byron's infirmity, asked him to waltz. he contemptuously replied, 'i cannot, and you nor any other woman ought not.'" whereupon, the narrator continues, lady caroline rushed into the dressing-room, threw up the window, and tried to throw herself out of it, exclaiming with saint-preux: "_la roche est escarpée; l'eau est profonde!_" then, saved by someone who saw her intention and caught hold of her skirts, she asked for water, bit a piece out of the glass which was handed to her, and tried to stab herself with it, but was ultimately persuaded to return home and go to bed. fact and fancy, no doubt, are inextricably woven together in that narrative. all that is quite certain is that lady caroline did go home, and that her temper became so ungovernable that william lamb, who also, in spite of his easy-going ways, had a temper, proposed a separation. the proposal was agreed to, and the family lawyer was instructed to draw up the deed. he drew it up; but when he brought it to the house to be signed, sealed, and delivered, he found lady caroline sitting on her husband's knee, "feeding him," says his biographer, "with tiny scraps of transparent bread and butter." his professional tact bade him retire before this unexpected tableau; and the separation was postponed for twelve years. that is practically the whole of the story, so far as byron is concerned with it. lady caroline was to write him other letters to which it will be necessary to refer as we proceed; but she had now passed out of his life, even if he had not passed out of hers. other urgent interests were springing up to occupy him; and he had once more heard the _leit motif_ for which we always have to listen when we find his actions, his letters, and his poems perplexing us. society--that is to say, the women of society--blamed him for his conduct; but the blame, if it is to have any sting in it, seems to require the assumption that every woman has a right to every man's heart if she demands it with sufficient emphasis, and that any man who refuses to honour the demand is, _ipso facto_, "behaving badly." women, perhaps, are a little more ready to make that assumption than are philosophers to allow its validity. granting the assumption, we shall be bound to admit that byron did treat lady caroline shamefully; but suppose we do not grant it--then, perhaps, our chief task will be to search for excuses for lady caroline herself. the excuses to which she is entitled are those which were very obviously made for her by her husband and his mother. they did not quarrel with her, though they sometimes lost their temper with her; and--what is more to the purpose--they did not quarrel with byron. evidently, therefore, they held the view that lady caroline was responsible for byron's conduct--but could not be held responsible for her own. they had the doctor's word for it that, though she was not mad, she might easily become so. if she was to be kept sane, she must be humoured. in humouring her up to a point, byron had acted for the best. neither a husband nor a mother-in-law could blame him for his unwillingness to go beyond that point. his proposal to fly with her may strike one as excessive; but it may perhaps be classed with the promises sometimes made to passionate children in the hope of keeping them quiet till the passion passes. there is really no reason to think that either william lamb or lady melbourne regarded it in any other light. it was "really from the best motives," byron assured hodgson, that "i withdrew my homage." the best motives, as we shall perceive, were mixed with other motives; but they were doubtless there. byron could justly speak of himself as "restoring a woman to her family, who are treating her with the greatest kindness, and with whom i am on good terms." it was only to be expected that he would be flattered by her attentions when he was twenty-four and new to society. it was equally to be expected that he should execute a retreat when he realised that he had to do with a _détraquée_ whose pursuit at once threatened a scandal and made him as well as her husband look ridiculous. the proofs that her mind was unhinged are ample. "she appears to me," wrote lady h. leveson gower to lady g. morpeth, "in a state very little short of insanity, and my aunt describes it as at times having been very decidedly so." that is an example of the direct evidence; and the circumstantial evidence is even more abundant. the scene at the ball, of which lady caroline herself gave a spluttering account in a rambling and incoherent letter to medwin, is only a part of it. an attempt which she made to forge byron's signature in order to obtain his portrait from john murray points to the same conclusion. the inconsistent and inconsequential picture which she draws of herself in her letters and her writings affords the most conclusive testimony of all. from the correspondence and other documents one could not possibly gather whether she preferred her husband to her lover or her lover to her husband; whether she "worshipped" byron for three years only or throughout her life; whether her attachment to him ceased, or did not cease, after her visit, in men's clothes, to his chambers; whether she did or did not rejoice in the unhappiness of his married life. on all these points she repeatedly contradicted herself with the excessive emphasis of the hysterical. to say that byron's treatment of her drove her mad would be to talk nonsense. at the most it only gave an illusion of method to her madness, and supplied the monomania for which her unbalanced mind was waiting. william lamb humoured her long after byron had ceased to do so. she knew it, and, in her comparatively lucid intervals, appreciated both his forbearance and his character. "remember," she wrote to lady morgan, "the only noble fellow i ever met with is william lamb; he is to me what shore was to jane shore." she also placed "william lamb first" in the order of the objects of her affection; but, in the very letter in which she did so, she spoke of "lord byron, that dear, that angel, that misguided and misguiding byron, whom i adore." we must make what we can of it; but, in truth, there is nothing to be made of it except that lady caroline was mad. presently she became so obviously mad that she smashed her doctor's watch in a fit of rage and had to be placed in the charge of two female keepers. there came a day when, riding near brocket, she met a funeral procession, and was told that it was byron's. then she fainted; and it was after that incident that her uncontrollable violence caused the long-postponed separation to be carried into effect. some verses which she wrote on the occasion are printed among lord melbourne's papers: "_loved one! no tear is in mine eye, though pangs my bosom thrill, for i have learned, when others sigh, to suffer and be still. passion, and pride, and flattery strove, they made a wreck of me; but oh, i never ceased to love, i never loved but thee._" there are two other--very similar--stanzas. the inadequacy of the expression is, perhaps, the most pathetic thing about them. a child seems to be struggling to utter the emotions of a grown-up person--a clouded mind, to be striving to clear itself under the influence of a sudden shock. and the mind in truth was, at that date, very far from clear. the drinking of laudanum mixed with brandy often helped in the clouding of it; and the end was not very far removed. the last illness began towards the end of . william lamb, when he heard of it, hurried to his wife's side; devoted to her, and eager to humour her, in spite of everything, to the last. she was "able to converse with him and enjoy his society," and he found her "calm, patient, and affectionate." she died of dropsy on january , ; and william lamb published an article consecrated to her memory in the _literary gazette_ in the course of the following month. one gathers from it, reading between the lines, not only that he forgave, but that he understood. hopes, he admitted, had been drawn from her early years which "her maturity was not destined to realise"; but he concluded: "her manners, though somewhat eccentric, and apparently, not really, affected, had a fascination which it is difficult for any who never encountered their effect to conceive." all this, however, though not irrelevant, is taking us a long way from byron, to whom it is now time to return. chapter xiii lady oxford--byron's intention of going abroad with her byron's separation from lady caroline lamb, though suggested by lady melbourne, appears to have been negotiated by hobhouse at the instance of lady bessborough. "received a note from lady bessborough. went to byron, who agrees to go out of town," is the entry in his diary which reveals the part he played. a further entry relating that lady caroline found him and lady bessborough together, and charged them with looking like conspirators, adds all the confirmation needed. byron went out of town as he had promised, stayed at cheltenham, and presently wrote the letter in which he told lady caroline that he had ceased to love her. he added insult to injury, as lady caroline felt, by writing on notepaper bearing the arms of the countess of oxford. she and lady oxford knew each other rather well, and had been friends. "lady oxford and caroline william lamb," we read in one of the letters of harriet lady granville, "have been engaged in a correspondence, the subject whether learning greek purifies or inflames the passions." the right answer to the conundrum is, perhaps, that it depends upon the learner--or else that it depends upon the teacher. lady oxford's passions, at any rate, were, like lady caroline's, inflammable. she was forty--the romantic age in the view of the philosophers; and she was unhappily married. byron spoke of her to medwin as "sacrificed, almost before she was a woman, to one whose mind and body were equally contemptible." a less prejudiced witness, uvedale price, wrote to rogers, at the time of her death: "there could not, in all respects, be a more ill-matched pair than herself and lord oxford, or a stronger instance of the cruel sports of venus or, rather, of hymen." byron was in love with her, or thought so--he was not quite clear which when he poured his confidences on the subject into medwin's ear. lady caroline's suspicions, to that extent, were justified. the "autumnal charms"--it is he who calls them so--fascinated him for about eight months. "the autumn of a beauty like hers," he said, "is preferable to the spring in others." he added that he "had great difficulty in breaking with her," and "once was on the point of going abroad with her, and narrowly escaped this folly." how he escaped it--or why he avoided it--he does not say; but perhaps we may find a reason. of his intentions, at any rate, there is no room for doubt. we have no need to depend on medwin's evidence for the full proof is in byron's own letters. it is mixed up with a good deal of extraneous matter, but it is there; and a series of very brief citations will present the romance, such as it was, in outline: to william bankes on september , : "the only persons i know are the rawdons and oxfords, with some later acquaintances of less brilliant descent. but i do not trouble them much." to hanson on october , : "i am going to lord oxford's, eywood, presteigne, hereford." letters are dated from presteigne on october , november , and november . a letter of november begins, "on my return here (cheltenham) from lord oxford's." a january letter shows byron once again at lord oxford's; and then the references to the contemplated foreign tour--letters of which there is no mistaking the significance--begin: to hanson on february, , : "it is my determination, on account of a malady to which i am subject, and for other weighty reasons, to go abroad again almost immediately. to this you will object; but, as my intention cannot be altered, i have only to request that you will assist me as far as in your power to make the necessary arrangements." to hanson on march , : "your objections i anticipated and can only repeat that i cannot act otherwise; so pray hasten some arrangement--for with, or without, i must go." to hanson on march , : "i must be ready in april at whatever risk--at whatever loss." to charles hanson on march , : "pray tell your father to get the money on rochdale, or i must sell it directly. i must be ready by the last week in _may_, and am consequently pressed for time. i go first to cagliari in sardinia, and then on to the levant." to mrs. leigh on march , : "i am going abroad again in june, but should wish to see you before my departure.... on sunday, i set off for a fortnight for eywood, near presteigne, in herefordshire--with the _oxfords_. i see you put on a _demure_ look at the name, which is very becoming and matronly in you; but you won't be sorry to hear that i am quite out of a more serious scrape with another singular personage, which threatened me last year." to hanson on april , : "i shall only be able to see you a few days in town, as i shall sail before the th of may." to hanson on april , : "i wish, if possible, the arrangement with hoare to be made immediately, as i must set off forthwith." to john murray on april , : "send in my account to bennet street, as i wish to settle it before sailing." to hanson on june , ; "i am as determined as i have been for the last six months.... everything is ordered and ready now. do not trifle with me, for i am in very solid serious earnest.... i have made my choice, and go i will." to hodgson on june , : "i shall manage to see you somewhere before i sail, which will be next month." to john murray on june , : "recollect that my lacquey returns in the evening, and that i set out for portsmouth to-morrow." to william gifford on june , : "as i do not sail quite so soon as murray may have led you to expect (not till july), i trust i may have some chance of taking you by the hand before my departure." to mrs. leigh, in the same month: "if you knew _whom_ i had put off besides my journey, you would think me grown strangely fraternal." to moore on july , : "the oxfords have sailed almost a fortnight, and my sister is in town, which is a great comfort." that is the skeleton of the romance. such clothes as it is felt to need the imagination must provide. byron's position seems to have been perilously near that of a "tame cat," though he might have preferred to call himself, then, as on a later occasion, a _cavaliere servente_. his excuse is that he was only twenty-five, and that a fascinating woman of forty can be very fascinating indeed, and very clever at getting her own way. her attempt to annex byron, though she was fifteen years his senior, may be viewed as her gambler's throw for happiness. she threw and lost--but she lost quietly. she resembled lady caroline in being romantic, but she differed from her in not being "obstreperous." there was no scandal for society to take note of, and the welkin never rang with her complaints, though she did walk about rome displaying byron's portrait at her girdle. nor did it ring with byron's, who, indeed, had nothing to complain of. the few allusions to the affair which hobhouse contributes throw very little light upon it. he notes, in one place, that lady oxford was "most uncommon in her talk and licentious." he adds, on another page, the memorandum: "got a picture of lady oxford from mrs. mee. lord b.'s money for it." that is all; and there are no hints to be derived from "occasional" verses. however much lady oxford may have pleased byron, she did not inspire him. the period of his intimacy with her was, from the literary point of view, a singularly barren period; and the allusions cited from the letters--they are all the allusions that can be cited--are chiefly instructive because of the difference between their tone and the tone of certain other letters written very soon afterwards. there is no suggestion in them of deep sentiment. what they do suggest is--first, a young man desperately determined to go through with a desperate adventure, and very much afraid of being warned of the consequences of his folly--then a young man who, having a haunting doubt of his own sincerity, shouts to keep up his courage--finally a young man who is grateful to the circumstances, whatever they may have been, which have deflected him from a rash course, and saved him from himself. one turns a few pages, and finds byron writing in a very different strain: "i have said nothing of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, i am at this moment in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape, than any of the last twelve months, and that is saying a good deal. it is unlucky we can neither live with nor without these women." "i would incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour to-morrow--that is, i would a month ago, but at present...." "some day or other, when we are _veterans_, i may tell you a tale of present and past times; and it is not from want of confidence that i do not tell you now.... all this would be very well if i had no heart; but, unluckily, i have found that there is such a thing still about me, though in no very good repair, and also that it has a habit of attaching itself to _one_, whether i will or no." these passages are from letters to moore. a few days before writing the last of them byron had written to miss milbanke, whom he was shortly to marry: "i am at present a little feverish--i mean mentally--and, as usual, on the brink of something or other, which will probably crush me at last, and cut our correspondence short, with everything else." no names are mentioned here; but certain inferences not only can, but inevitably must, be drawn. at some time towards the end of the summer of , there was a crisis of byron's life. it did not come to a head until after lady oxford's departure, and lady oxford had nothing whatever to do with it. the latter point not only follows from the sudden disappearance of lady oxford from byron's sphere of interest, but is specifically made in a letter (dated november , ) from byron to his sister: "my dearest augusta, "i have only time to say that my long silence has been occasioned by a thousand things (with which _you_ are not concerned). it is not lady caroline, nor lady oxford; _but perhaps you may guess_, and if you do, do not tell. you do not know what mischief your being with me might have prevented. you shall hear from me to-morrow: in the meantime don't be alarmed. i am in _no immediate_ peril." those are the most significant of the letters, though there are others. even if they stood alone, one would feel sure that there was a story behind them; but they do not stand alone. we have the poems to set beside them, and we have also the journal which byron kept from november , till april , . letters, poems, and journal, read in conjunction, furnish a clue which it is impossible to mistrust. the distinction of having first so read them with sufficient care to find the clue belongs to mr. richard edgcumbe. possibly mr. edgcumbe has proved just a little too much--that question will have to be faced when we come to it; but our immediate task must be to track the story along the lines which he has indicated, and see how all the mysteries connected with byron can be solved, and all the emotional inconsistencies of his life unified, by the recollection that, of all the many passions of his life, there was only one which really mattered to him. many women were welcome to love him if they liked--he was a man very ready to let himself be loved; but only one woman had the power to make him suffer--and that woman was mary chaworth. the motto "cherchez la femme" may, in short, in his case, be particularised. whenever his conduct and his utterances seem, on the face of it, inexplicable, we have to look for mary chaworth and see her re-asserting a power which has been allowed to lapse; and we will turn to look for her now. chapter xiv an emotional crisis--thoughts of marriage, of foreign travel, and of mary chaworth the poems written during the dark period of byron's life which we have now to consider are "the giaour," "the bride of abydos," "the corsair," and "lara." mr. ernest hartley coleridge, in his introduction to "the bride of abydos," attributed the gloom to the fact that byron "had been staying at aston hall, rotherham, with his friend james wedderburn webster, and had fallen in love with his friend's wife, lady frances." it will be time enough to treat that suggestion seriously when more evidence is offered in support of it. the one important reference to lady frances in the letters certainly does not bear it out: "i stayed a week with the websters, and behaved very well, though the lady of the house is young, religious, and pretty, and the master is my particular friend. i felt no wish for anything but a poodle dog, which they kindly gave me." that is all; and it is not in tune with those allusions, veiled by asterisks, to a consuming and destroying passion, with which the journal is thickly sprinkled. on the other hand the open references to mary chaworth scattered throughout byron's autobiographical utterances are perfectly in tune with these enigmatical invocations of an unknown lady. even if it could not be shown that she and byron met during this period of mental anguish, we should still be tempted to conjecture that she and the unknown lady were one; and, as a matter of fact, we know that they did meet, and also know enough of the terms on which they met to be able to clear up the situation beyond much possibility of doubt. the key to it, indeed, is the letter written by byron to mary chaworth five years after their final separation: "my own, we may have been very wrong, but i repent of nothing except that cursed marriage, and your refusing to continue to love me as you had loved me. i can neither forget nor _quite forgive_ you for that precious piece of reformation. but i can never be other than i have been, and whenever i love anything, it is because it reminds me in some way or other of yourself." that letter by itself proves practically the whole case. it does not matter whether it is his own marriage or mary chaworth's that byron speaks of as "cursed"--the epithet may well have seemed to him equally applicable to either union. the essential point is that byron could not conceivably have written in this tone to mary chaworth in if he had had no relations, or only formal relations, with her since . the mere fact--the only openly acknowledged fact--that she had jilted him when he was a schoolboy would certainly not have warranted him in reproaching her with "refusing to continue to love" at a date thirteen years subsequent to his rejection. the letter obviously, and undeniably, implies an intimacy of later date in which his passion was reciprocated. later acquaintance, indeed, apart from intimacy, can easily be demonstrated, in spite of the suppressions of the biographers. "i remember meeting her," byron himself said to medwin, "after my return from greece"; and the statement is confirmed, as medwin's statements generally need to be, from other sources. it appears from byron's own letters that mary chaworth, or some member of her family, took charge of his robes after one of his attendances at the house of lords; and a letter from mary chaworth to byron, in the possession of mr. murray, is printed by mr. edgcumbe. it speaks of a seal which byron was having made for her. the seal is still in existence, and is in the possession of the musters family. the approximate date of its presentation is fixed by an entry in byron's journal: "mem. i must get a toy to-morrow for eliza, and send the device for the seals of myself and ----." here, at any rate, we get one clear case in which the asterisks in the journal not only appear to indicate mary chaworth, but cannot possibly indicate anybody else. it does not follow, of course, that we are entitled to insert her name wherever we encounter asterisks--for byron and his editors have, from time to time, had various reasons for thus concealing various names; but the cases in which the asterisks do refer to her are, when once this clue is provided, tolerably easy to distinguish. furnished with the clue, we can at once unravel the skein of events and construct a consistent picture of these critical months in byron's career; and we may begin with the picture which he drew of himself to medwin: "i was at this time," he says, "a mere bond street lounger--a great man at lobbies, coffee and gambling houses: my afternoons were passed in visits, luncheons, lounging, and boxing--not to mention drinking." this is true, and yet, at the same time, it is not true. the picture is, at once, confirmed by the letters and the journal and contradicted by them. it is a picture in which, so to say, all the lights are glaring, and all the shadows are left out. the truest thing in it is the after-thought, added a few sentences lower down; "don't suppose, however, that i took any pleasure in all these excesses." in that moody claim we get, of course, the reflection, or recollection, of the byronic pose; and at this period, if not at all periods, there was grim reality behind the pose, and byron fully justifies the description of him as the most sincere man who ever struck an attitude. it would be easy to depict him, whether from his letters or from contemporary memoirs, as the dissipated darling of society. the year was the year in which he and madame de staël were the rival lions of the season, roaring against each other, not entirely without jealousy. the list of his social engagements, if one troubled to draw it out, would have a very formidable appearance. it would show him going everywhere, meeting everybody, doing everything. we should see him at the great houses, such as lady melbourne's, lady holland's, lady jersey's. we should discover him at the opera and the theatre, now in their boxes, now in his own, and at men's dinners, with sheridan, and rogers, "conversation sharp," and other brilliant talkers. we should also find him patronising "the fancy," and losing his money at hazard, and drinking several bottles of claret at a sitting--retiring to bed in a sublime state of exaltation, and rising from it with a shocking headache. that, however, would only be one half the picture. many contemporary observers remarked that byron passed through the haunts of pleasure with a scowl, and that his face wore a frown whenever his features were in repose. one would infer from that, not that byron, while really enjoying himself, posed, for the sake of effect, as a man who was secretly eating his heart out, but rather that some secret trouble was actually gnawing at his heart while he made the gestures of a man of pleasure; and the letters and the journal--more particularly the journal--give us many glimpses at this darker side of his life. if he often accepted the invitations which continued to be showered on him, he also frequently declined them, locking himself up alone in his chambers to read, and write, and think things out--persuading himself, after some months had lapsed, that he had really been very little into society, and that it was a matter of indifference to him whether he went into it again or not. and this, it will be observed, is a new note which only begins to be sounded in his intimate writings towards the end of the summer of , after he has allowed lady oxford to go abroad alone. there is nothing like it in the days of his dalliance with her. still less is there anything like it in the writings of the days of his dalliance with lady caroline lamb. those episodes and adventures, it is quite clear, only touched the surface of his nature. he first pursued them, and then ceased to pursue them, with laughter on his lips, and self-satisfaction--one might even say jollity--in his heart. there was not even anything in them to cradle him into song. the interval between the "thyrza" poems and the passionate allegorical tales of which "the giaour" was the first--an interval of some eighteen months--was poetically uneventful. a period of feverish activity succeeded; and it coincided with a renewal of relations with mary chaworth. mary chaworth had lived unhappily with the handsome squire whom she had, so naturally, preferred to the fat boy from harrow. he had been, as these red-faced, full-blooded philistines are so apt to be, at once jealous, unfaithful, and brutal, wanting to "have it both ways,"--to push rivals brusquely out of his path, and to pursue his own coarse pleasures where he chose. he had forbidden his wife to see byron. he had insisted upon her absence from annesley at the time of byron's return from greece; and he had found her, whether willingly or unwillingly, compliant. but he had also, by his own conduct, caused scandals which had set the tongues of the neighbours wagging; and, in doing that, he had presumed too far. there had been a separation by mutual consent; and it was after the separation that the meeting with byron took place. there was little about him now to remind mary of the fat boy whom she had laughed at. the turkish baths, the epsom salts, and the regimen of biscuits and soda-water had done their work. he came to her as a man of ethereal beauty, fascinating manners, and undisputed genius; and he left other women--women of higher rank, greater importance, and more widely acknowledged charm--in order to come to her. nor did he come with the triumphant air of a man who was resolved to dazzle her in order to avenge a slight. he came, as it were, because he could not help himself--because he felt cords drawing him--because this was his destiny and he must fulfil it, though he forfeited the whole world in doing so. her case was hard. she was not one of the women who readily do desperate things in scorn of consequence. the traditions of her class, the claims of her family--the precepts, also, one imagines, of her religion--had too strong a hold on her for that. these very hesitations, no doubt,--so different from the "on coming" ways of lady caroline, and lady oxford's "terrible love," as balzac phrases it, "of the woman of forty"--were a part of her charm for byron. but she was very unhappy, and byron was offering her a little happiness; and it was very, very difficult for her to refuse the gift. so the history of the matter seems, in a sentence or two, to have been this: that she was slow to yield, but yielded; that she had no sooner yielded than she repented; that her repentance left byron a desperate, heart-broken man, profoundly cynical about women--so cynical about them that he could speak even of her, while he still loved her, to medwin, as "like the rest of her sex, far from angelic"--ready to marry out of pique, or from any other motive equally unworthy. the details must remain obscure. they passed in the secret orchard; and byron was not, like victor hugo, a man who treated his secret orchard as a park to be thrown open to excursionists. he knew that there was a time to keep silence as well as a time to speak; and though there were some episodes in his life of which he spoke too much, of this particular episode he only spoke to moore and mrs. leigh, whom he could trust. yet, given the clues, the story constructs itself; and we must either believe the story which arises out of those clues, or else believe that the most passionate poems which byron ever wrote were the outcome of a spiritual crisis about nothing in particular. and that, of course, is absurd. we find him, at the beginning of the crisis, pondering two escapes from it--the escape by way of marriage, and the escape by way of foreign travel. he talks, in the middle of july, of proposing to lady adelaide forbes; he talks, at the end of august, of proposing to anyone who is likely to accept him; but in neither instance does he talk like a man who really means what he says. this is the july announcement: "my circumstances are mending, and were not my other prospects blackening, i would take a wife, and that should be the woman had i a chance.... the staël last night said that i had no feeling, was totally _in_sensible to _la belle passion_, and _had_ been all my life. i am very glad to hear it, but did not know it before." then in august he writes: "after all, we must end in marriage; and i can conceive nothing more delightful than such a state in the country, reading the county newspaper, &c., and kissing one's wife's maid. seriously, i would incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour to-morrow--that is, i would a month ago, but at present----." the word "seriously" there is evidently a _façon de parler_. the writer's mood may be serious, but his intentions evidently are not. it may be doubted whether the thoughts of travel were any more serious, though they lasted longer. in letter after letter we find byron making inquiries about a passage in a ship of war bound for the levant. when such a passage is offered to him, however, he declines it on the ground that he is unable to obtain accommodation for as many servants as he desires to take with him; and that explanation inevitably strikes one as a pretext rather than a reason--the pretext of a man who, while he knows that it would be better to go, is looking for an excuse to stay. projects of travel with his sister and with various friends fell through at about the same time, for reasons which are nowhere stated, but can very easily be guessed. we cannot read the letters, dark though the allusions are, without being conscious of a thickening plot. it thickens very perceptibly when we discover byron at newstead at a time when mary chaworth, forsaken by her husband, is at annesley. there is nearly a month's gap in the published letters at this point; but conjecture can easily fill the gap in the light of the letter from byron to mrs. leigh, already quoted, which is dated november : "it is not lady caroline nor lady oxford; but perhaps you may guess, and if you _do_, do not tell. "you do not know what mischief your being near me might have prevented. you shall hear from me to-morrow; in the meantime, don't be alarmed. i am in _no immediate_ peril." one is further helped to understand by a letter to moore written, after a longer silence than usual, on november : "since i last wrote to you, much has occurred, good, bad, and indifferent,--not to make me forget you, but to prevent me of reminding you of one who, nevertheless, has often thought of you.... "your french quotation was very confoundedly to the purpose,--though very _unexpectedly_ pertinent, as you may imagine by what i _said_ before, and my silence since. however, 'richard's himself again,' and except all night, and some part of the morning, i don't think very much about the matter." the french quotation referred to is fontenelle's: "si je recommençais ma carrière je ferais tout ce que j'ai fait." the inference from the allusion to it, and from the two letters given, is quite clear. something has happened--at newstead or in the neighbourhood, as the dates demonstrate--something which byron cannot bring himself to regret, even though he feels that it is going to make trouble for him. hints at the possibility of a duel which follow in later letters make it not less clear that the trouble--or a part of it--may come from the indignation of an angry husband. "i shall not return his fire," byron writes--an indication, we may take it, that a sense of guilt, and some remorse, is mingled with his passion. that is what we gather, and cannot help gathering, from the letters, in spite of their vagueness and intentional obscurity. we will take up the thread of the story from them again in a moment. in the meanwhile we will turn to the journal and see how byron presents the story to himself. chapter xv renewal and interruption of relations with mary chaworth the journal is only a fragment, kept only for five months. it is a record rather of emotions than of events--the chronicle of the emotions of a man who feels the need of talking to himself of matters of which he cannot easily talk to others, but who, even in speaking to himself, speaks in riddles. it begins soon after the "mischief" of which augusta has been told has happened, and while he is entangled in the "scrape" mentioned to moore. the talk on the first page is of travel--"provided i neither marry myself, nor unmarry any one else in the interval"; and there immediately follows a reference to the writing of "the bride of abydos": "i believe the composition of it kept me alive--for it was written to drive my thoughts from the recollection of-- "_dear sacred name, rest ever unreveal'd._" "at least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it." "the bride," he insists, was written for himself, and not with any view to publication. "i am sure, had it not been for murray, _that_ would never have been published, though the circumstances which are the groundwork make it ... heigho!" "it was written," he adds, "in four days to distract my thoughts from * * *"; and then we perceive that he is in correspondence with the lady thus enigmatically designated. he is expecting a letter from her which does not arrive. what, he asks himself, is the meaning of that? "not a word from * * * have they set out from * * *? or has my last precious epistle fallen into the lion's jaws? if so--and this silence looks suspicious--i must clap on my 'musty morion' and 'hold out my iron.' i am out of practice--but i won't begin again at manton's now. besides, i would not return his shot. i was once a famous wafer-splitter; but then the bullies of society made it necessary. ever since i began to feel that i had a bad cause to support, i have left off the exercise." the probability of a challenge from an injured husband is evidently contemplated here. no challenge came, the injured man remaining in ignorance of his injury; but peace of mind nevertheless remained unattainable. no connected narrative, indeed, can be pieced together. it is hardly ever possible to declare that such and such a thing happened on such and such a day. there is only the general impression that things are happening, and that, whether they happen or do not happen, a tragedy is always in progress. we come presently to a curiously significant note on the _raison d'être_ of byron's practice of fasting: "i should not so much mind a little accession of flesh--my bones can well bear it. but the worst is, the devil always came with it,--till i starved him out,--and i will _not_ be the slave of _any_ appetite. if i do err, it shall be my heart, at least, that heralds the way." but a man does not write like that unless his heart has heralded the way, and he is following it. byron's trouble was not that he had failed to follow the road which his heart pointed, but that he had followed it into an _impasse_. he had reached a point at which the only way out was the way on; but he could not follow it alone, and his companion would not follow it with him. she had gone a little way with him, and then taken fright at his and her own temerity. it is a question whether we should pity her for her lack of courage or praise her for remembering her principles after she had yielded to temptation; but we should need more knowledge of the facts than we have in order to answer it with confidence. exceptional people may do exceptional things with impunity--it is sometimes for lack of the nerve to do them that they make shipwreck of their lives; but though byron was an exceptional man, we have no proof that mary chaworth was an exceptional woman. she had neither the romantic audacity of george sand, nor that audacity of the superior person which upheld george eliot in her bold misappropriation of another woman's name. probably, if she had had it, byron would have classed her with the "blues," and either have tired of her at once or turned away from her very quickly. she had, no doubt, exceptional charm, but no exceptional strength of character. she was just a weak woman launched into a situation to which the old rules did not apply, but afraid to break them, ashamed of having broken them, obstinate in her refusal to go on breaking them. catastrophe, in those circumstances, was inevitable. the bold course might have led to it--for a weak woman, brought up in the fear of her neighbours, can only take a bold course at grave risks. the weak course--since the love of the heart and not merely the passion of the senses was at stake--was bound to lead to it, and did. the only question was whether the victims of the catastrophe would suffer in silence or would cry aloud; and the answer to that question, given the characters of the victims, could easily be predicted. mary chaworth would be silent, would make believe to the best of her ability, would wear a mask, and pose, and persuade the world that she was behaving naturally. byron, disdaining to pretend, proclaiming the truth about his own heart even while respecting mary's secret--proclaiming it quite naturally though rather noisily--would appear to the world to be posing. he did so; but before we observe him doing so, we may turn back to the journal, and study a few more of its enigmatic passages with the help of the clues at our disposal: "i awoke from a dream! well! and have not others dreamed? but she did not overtake me.... ugh! how my blood chilled,--and i could not wake--and--heigho!... i do not like this dream,--i hate its 'foregone conclusions.'" "no letters to-day;--so much the better,--there are no answers. i must not dream again;--it spoils even reality. i will go out of doors and see what the fog will do for me." "ward talks of going to holland, and we have partly discussed an _ensemble_ expedition.... and why not? ---- is distant, and will be at ----, still more distant, till spring. no one else except augusta cares for me; no ties--no trammels." "no dreams last night of the dead, nor the living; so--i am 'firm as the marble, founded on the rock,' till the next earthquake.... "... i am tremendously in arrear with my letters--except to ----, and to her my thoughts overpower me;--my words never compass them." "i believe with clym o' the clow, or robin hood, 'by our mary (dear name!) thou art both mother and may, i think it never was a man's lot to die before his day.'" [illustration: _mary chaworth._] "---- has received the portrait safe; and, in answer the only remark she makes upon it is, 'indeed it is like'--and again 'indeed it is like.' with her the likeness 'covered a multitude of sins,' for i happen to know this portrait was not a flatterer, but dark and stern,--even black as the mood in which my mind was scorching last july when i sat for it." "i am _ennuyé_ beyond my usual tense of that yawning verb, which i am always conjugating; and i don't find that society much mends the matter. i am too lazy to shoot myself--and it would annoy augusta, and perhaps ----." "much done, but nothing to record. it is quite enough to set down my thoughts,--my actions will rarely bear retrospection." "the more i see of men the less i like them. if i could say so of women too, all would be well. why can't i? i am now six-and-twenty; my passions have had enough to cool them; my affections more than enough to wither them,--and yet, and yet, always _yet_ and _but_." "i must set about some employment soon; my heart begins to eat _itself_ again." "i do not know that i am happiest when alone; but this i am sure of, that i never am long in the society even of _her_ i love (god knows too well, and the devil probably too) without a yearning for the company of my lamp, and my utterly confused and tumbled-down library. "i will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, i tear out the remaining leaves of this volume. to be sure, i have long despised myself and man, but i never spat in the face of my species before, 'o fool! i shall go mad!'" these entries, as everyone who has read them through will have remarked, are all variations on a single theme; and there are many more entries in the same key, which have been left unquoted. they succeed each other, week after week, and almost day after day, for a period of about five months. the story of the events to which they relate has been told, and need not be repeated. one may think of them as the cries attendant on the birth pangs of those aspects of byron's character and personality which the world knows specifically as byronism. other tragedies, indeed, were to come to pass--and were to be necessary--before the angry heart could dash itself with its full force against the desolations of the world; but the train was being laid for those tragedies too; and by the time byron flung his unfinished diary down, the thing called byronism was born. curiously enough, indeed, even the political byronism can be seen coming to birth at the time of the writing of the journal. the byron who was presently, while in exile, to harbour revolutionists, and make his house their arsenal, deride the tsar of all the russias as a "billy bald-coot," and shake his fist in the faces of the "holy three," already begins to reveal himself in its pages with scoffing remarks about legitimate kings and the hereditary principle. perhaps it is only a case of instinct asserting itself and the imperious need to find something to scoff at following the line of least resistance; but that does not matter. what does matter is that here was a crisis and a turning point in byron's development, brought about because mary chaworth had come back into his life, had passed through it, and had passed out of it again. mr. richard edgcumbe reads, and has written, still more details into the story, startling students of byron's biography with the suggestion that a child was born as the result of the intimacy--that mrs. leigh adopted the child and pretended that it was her own--that the child thus secretly born and falsely acknowledged was no other than medora leigh, who turned out so badly, and whose alleged autobiography was published by charles mackay. passages can be quoted from the poems--and perhaps also from the letters--which might conceivably contain veiled allusions to such a transaction. none, however, can be quoted which require that explanation as an alternative to remaining unintelligible; and, in the absence of positive evidence, all the probabilities are against mr. edgcumbe's theory. such a secret as he hints at--and indeed almost affirms--would have been very difficult to keep; and it is hard to believe that mrs. leigh's sense of duty to her husband, with whom she was on the best of terms, would have allowed her to be a party to the alleged conspiracy. those are a few of the most obvious objections; and they must be given the greater weight because byron's bitter cries and altered attitude towards life are more easily explicable without mr. edgcumbe's hypothesis than with it. loving the real mother so passionately, and having such a faithful friend in the supposed mother, he would assuredly not have been content to live out his life in exile without ever making an attempt to see his daughter, and without constant and particular inquiries after her. so why strain credulity so far when, without straining it, everything can be made plain and clear? there was a renewal of intimacy, and then a suspension of intimacy; a fear of a public scandal which proved to be groundless; a risk of a duel which was, after all, avoided. that is all that is certain; but that suffices to explain the references to "scrapes" and "mischief" and the rest of it; and that also, on the assumption that byron was passionately sincere, explains the depth and disgusted vehemence of his emotions. he had dreamed of mary chaworth before as the one woman in the world with whom he could live out the whole of his life in a continuous ecstasy of intense emotion; but he had from time to time awakened from his dream. now the dream had become a reality--and the reality had not lasted. she had been too high principled--or too much afraid. he had not been strong enough to give her courage--or to shake her principles. and therefore.... therefore he wrote poem after poem, all on the same theme, all in the same key--poems of farewell, of everlasting sorrow and despair, and of that sense of guilt, not defiant as yet, of which mr. edgcumbe makes so much, but which are perhaps best read as the reflection of mary chaworth's own horror--the horror of a mind perilously near insanity--at the thing which she had done, but was resolved to do no more. he wrote this, for instance: "_there is no more for me to hope, there is no more for thee to fear; and, if i give my sorrow scope, that sorrow thou shalt never hear. why did i hold thy love so dear? why shed for such a heart one tear? let deep and dreary silence be my only memory of thee!_" he wrote the well-known lines, beginning: "_i speak not--i trace not--i breathe not thy name-- there is love in the sound--there is guilt in the fame-- but the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart the deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart._" he wrote, again, these lines, which are taken from "lara": "_the tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed on that the feebler elements had raised. the rapture of his heart had looked on high, and asked if greater dwell beyond the sky: chained to excess, the slave of each extreme, how woke he from the wildness of that dream! alas! he told not--but he did awake to curse the withered heart that would not break._" and then, once more: "_these lips are mute, these eyes are dry; but in my breast and in my brain, awake the pangs that pass not by, the thought that ne'er shall sleep again. my soul nor deigns nor dares complain, though grief and passion there rebel: i only know we loved in vain-- i only feel--farewell! farewell!_" there is no need to quote more. enough has been given to show how the passionate heart found passionate utterance, and what a wound the wrench had left. afterwards, of course, when it was all over--or as much over as it ever would be--byron realised that a man of twenty-six could not well consecrate all the rest of his years to lamentation. he had to live out his life somehow, with the help of incident of some sort; and incident in such a case must mean either a fresh love affair or marriage. in byron's case it meant marriage--the very marriage which lady melbourne had designed as a distraction for him from the too-pointed attentions of lady caroline lamb. chapter xvi marriage whatever doubts and mysteries environ the circumstances of byron's separation from his wife, there is, at any rate, nothing to perplex us in the train of events which brought about his marriage, though the two common and conflicting theories have to be set aside. he did not marry miss milbanke for money; he did not marry her for love; he married her, partly because he had persuaded himself that he wanted a wife, and partly because she had made up her mind that he should do so. he cannot have married her for money because, at that date, her fortune was inconsiderable and her expectations were vague. she had only £ , ; and "good lives" stood between her and the prospect of any substantial inheritance. seeing that newstead, when put up to auction, was bought in for £ , , a dowry of £ , was of no particular consequence to byron, and if he had been fortune-hunting, he would have hunted bigger game. the fortune which he did capture was not enough to save him from almost instant financial embarrassments; and he faced that prospect as one who viewed it with indifference. "she is said," he wrote to moore, "to be an heiress, but of that i really know nothing certainly, and shall not inquire. but i do know that she has talents and excellent qualities." but if it is clear that byron was not an interested, it is equally clear that he was not a passionate, suitor. he hardly could be so soon after the emotional stress through which we have seen him passing; and the proofs that he was not are conclusive. the most conclusive proof of all is that at the time when he proposed, by letter, to miss milbanke, he had not seen her, or made any attempt to see her, for ten months, and that, though he had, during those ten months, been corresponding with her, he had also, during those ten months, been pursuing sentimental adventures with which she had nothing to do. it was, as we have already seen, during those ten months that the renewed relations with mary chaworth were broken off; and when, after the close of those renewed relations, byron's thoughts turned to marriage, it was not miss milbanke whom he first thought of marrying. the desire to marry, in short, had only been a particular emotion with byron when there was a possibility of marrying mary chaworth. thereafter it was only a general emotion--a desire for an "escape from life," and a domestic refuge from the storms which threatened shipwreck. he was tired of the struggle, and here was a prospect of rest. a little more than three months before his proposal to miss milbanke he was thinking of proposing to lady adelaide forbes--ready to marry her, as he wrote to moore, "with the same indifference which has frozen over the 'black sea' of all my passions." a fortnight later--almost to a day three months before the proposal--he writes again to moore: "i _could_ be very sentimental now, but i won't. the truth is, that i have been all my life trying to harden my heart, and have not yet quite succeeded--though there are great hopes--and you do not know how it has sunk with your departure." byron assuredly was not in love with miss milbanke when he wrote that; and he had no opportunity of falling in love with her in the course of the next three months, for he did not even see her. none the less he made up his mind to ask her to marry him--as an alternative to departing on a long foreign tour; and it is from hobhouse's lately published narrative that we can best see how he was led, or lured, to that decision. byron had first met miss milbanke at the time when lady caroline lamb was throwing herself at his head. lady caroline had shown him some verses which miss milbanke had written, and he had said that he considered them rather good--possibly because he thought so, but more probably because he wished to be polite. soon afterwards, he had been presented to her, and had made her a first proposal of marriage, which she had declined. the reasons alike for his offer and for her refusal of it remain obscure. he must, at any rate, have liked her; he was almost certainly getting tired of lady caroline's determination to monopolise and exploit him; perhaps he was also anxious to do anything in reason to oblige lady melbourne, who had the motives which we know of for desiring to bring about the match. whether miss milbanke, on her part, preferred some other admirer or resented lady melbourne's attempt to make a convenience of her is doubtful. both motives may have operated simultaneously; and byron, at any rate, accepted his refusal in a philosophic spirit. it had not, hobhouse says, "sunk very deep into his heart or preyed upon his spirits." he "did not pretend to regret miss milbanke's refusal deeply." indeed "it might be said that he did not pretend to regret it at all." and hobhouse describes a "ludicrous scene" when some common friend related that he had been rejected by miss milbanke, and burst into tears over the catastrophe. "is that all?" said lord byron. "perhaps then it will be some consolation for you to know that i also have been refused by miss milbanke." perhaps it was--some unsuccessful suitors are quite capable of taking comfort from such reflections; but that need not concern us. what we have to note is that byron's rejection by miss milbanke resulted in his engaging in a long correspondence with her; and that the commencement of that correspondence was negotiated by lady melbourne. one infers that lady melbourne was a very clever woman, by no means innocent of "ulterior motives," far less ready than byron to take "no" for an answer from miss milbanke, and intuitively conscious that correspondences of this character are apt to weave entanglements for those who engage in them. some extracts from the correspondence are printed in mr. murray's collected edition of byron's works. there are references to it both in byron's journal and in hobhouse's account of the separation. there is nothing in the text which it seems imperative to quote--nothing, that is to say, which perceptibly helps the story along. byron's own letters are rather high-flown and artificial. the impression which one gathers from them is that of a man elaborately keeping alive the double pretence that he is unworthy and that he is disappointed--but only keeping it alive out of politeness. the nature of miss milbanke's letters can only be inferred from the one or two allusions which we find to them. "yesterday, a very pretty letter from annabella, which i answered. what an odd situation and friendship is ours!--without one spark of love on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general lead to coldness on one side and aversion on the other. she is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled.... she is a poetess--a mathematician--a metaphysician, and yet withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension. any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions, and a tenth of her advantages." that is what byron says; but hobhouse adds a little more. he says that byron at first "believed that a certain eccentricity of education had produced this communication from a young woman otherwise notorious for the strictest propriety of conduct and demeanour." he also says that the tone of the communications grew in warmth as the correspondence proceeded, and that byron did not make up his mind to propose marriage a second time until "after certain expressions had been dropped by miss milbanke in her letters which might easily have encouraged a bolder man than his lordship." he says finally, and this he says, in italics, that when byron did propose for the second time, miss milbanke _accepted him by return of post_. to which piece of information moore adds the statement that in order to make assurance doubly sure, she sent her acceptance in duplicate to his town and his country addresses. it reached him at hastings; and miss milbanke proceeded to impart her news to her friends. a passage from one of the letters--that to miss milner--shows not only that she was very happy in the prospect of her marriage, but also that she had woefully deceived herself as to the circumstances which had preceded and led up to the proposal: "you only know me truly in thinking that without the highest moral esteem i could never have yielded to, if i had been weak enough to form, an attachment. it is not in the great world that lord byron's true character must be sought; but ask of those nearest to him--of the unhappy whom he has consoled, of the poor whom he has blessed, of the dependants to whom he is the best of masters. for his despondency i fear i am but too answerable for the last two years." "the last two years" included, as we have seen, the period during which byron was bombarding hanson with perpetual and imperious demands for the ready money without which he could not go abroad with lady oxford--the period at which he told moore that he was ready to "incorporate with any decent woman"--and the period at which he wrote "the bride of abydos" in order to "distract my thoughts from * * *" miss milbanke, that is to say, exaggerated both her importance to byron and her influence over him, flattering herself that there would have been no "byronism" but for her coldness, and that the warmth of her affection, so long withheld, was the one thing wanting to make glorious summer of the winter of byron's discontent. it was not an unnatural hallucination. young women of romantic disposition are easily flattered into such beliefs, especially if the gates are thronged with suitors. having read of such situations in many novels, and dreamed of them in many dreams, they live in expectation of the day when life will be true to fiction and their dreams will be fulfilled. and sometimes, of course, the dreams are fulfilled--sometimes, but not very often, and hardly ever in the case of heroines who are, as miss milbanke was, commonplace in spite of their intelligence, cold, obstinate, unyielding, critical, vain, and inexperienced, quick to perceive slights, and slow to forgive them. at all events they were not, in her case, destined to be fulfilled; and the initial improbability of their fulfilment may be inferred from a confession which hobhouse reports. "lord byron," hobhouse writes, "frankly confessed to his companion that he was not in love with his intended bride; but at the same time he said that he felt for her that regard which he believed was the surest guarantee of matrimonial felicity." no more than that. byron was only marrying, hobhouse assures us, from "a love of change, and curiosity and a feeling of a sort of necessity of doing such a thing once." so that the engagement may be said to have been entered upon with a clash of conflicting expectations; and though tact might have saved the adventurers from shipwreck, tact was precisely the quality in which they were both most conspicuously deficient. it was on the last day of september, , that hobhouse heard of the engagement. on the first day of october he wrote his congratulations, and on october , he was invited to act as groomsman. some time in the same month byron paid his first visit to the milbankes at seaham. thence he went to cambridge to vote in favour of the candidature of his friend dr. clarke's candidature for the professorship of anatomy, and was applauded by the undergraduates in the senate house. "this distinction," hobhouse says, "to a literary character had never before been paid except in the instance of archdeacon paley"--a curious partner in the poet's glory. a month later byron and hobhouse set out together again for seaham on what hobhouse calls "his matrimonial scheme." this was the occasion on which byron confided to hobhouse that he was not in love. a note in hobhouse's diary to the effect that "never was lover in less haste" affords contemporary corroboration of the fact; and the diary continues to be picturesque, giving us hobhouse's critical, but not altogether unfavourable, impression of miss milbanke and her family: "miss milbanke is rather dowdy-looking, and wears a long and high dress, though she has excellent feet and ankles.... the lower part of her face is bad, the upper, expressive but not handsome, yet she gains by inspection. "she heard byron coming out of his room, ran to meet him, threw her arms round his neck, and burst into tears. she did this _not before us_.... lady milbanke was so much agitated that she had gone to her room ... our delay the cause.... indeed i looked foolish in finding out an excuse for our want of expedition.... "miss milbanke, before us, was silent and modest, but very sensible and quiet, and inspiring an interest which it is easy to mistake for love. with me she was frank and open, without little airs and affectations.... "of my friend she seemed dotingly fond, gazing with delight on his bold and animated face ... this regulated, however, by the most entire decorum. "old sir ralph milbanke is an honest, red-faced spirit, a little prosy, but by no means devoid of humour.... my lady, who has been a dasher in her day, and has ridden the grey mare, is pettish and tiresome, but clever." there is more; but that is the essence. the impression which disengages itself is one of a well-bred but rather narrow provincialism. the milbankes are not exactly great people, but the country cousins of great people--very decidedly their country cousins. the men are not quite men of the world; the women are very far from being women of the world--which is pretty much what one would expect in an age in which the country was so much more remote from the town than it is at present. miss milbanke, in particular, seems to strike the exact note of provincial correctitude alike in her display of the emotion proper to the occasion and in her concealment of it. her correctitude was, no doubt, made still more correct by an unemotional disposition. during the ceremony, which took place in her mother's drawing-room, she was very self-possessed--"firm as a rock," is hobhouse's description of her demeanour. things were happening as she had meant them to happen--one may almost say as she had contrived that they should happen. "i felt," says hobhouse, "as if i had buried a friend"; but he nevertheless paid the compliments which were due, and miss milbanke, now lady byron, said just the right thing in reply to them: "at a little before twelve," hobhouse notes, "i handed lady byron downstairs and into her carriage. when i wished her many years of happiness, she said, 'if i am not happy it will be my own fault.'" nothing could have been more proper than that; for that is just how things happen when the dreams come true. such a saying sometimes is, and always should be, the prelude to "they lived happily together ever afterwards"; and one can picture lady byron telling herself that things were happening, and would continue to happen, just as in a story-book. only there are two kinds of story-books. there are the story-books which are written for girls--and the others. this story was to be one of the others. the husband's past and the wife's illusions were almost bound to make it so--the more certainly because both husband and wife suffered from the defects of their qualities; and the defects of lady byron's qualities in particular were such as not only to make her helpless in the _rôle_ which developments were to assign to her, but also to compel her to comport herself with something worse than a lack of dignity. chapter xvii incompatibility of temper a thick accretion of legend has gathered round byron's life alike as an engaged and as a married man. every biographer, whether friendly or hostile, has added fresh anecdotes to the heap. almost all the stories are coloured by prejudice. even when they seem to be derived from the same source, they are often mutually contradictory; so that it is, as a rule, a hopeless task to try to distinguish between fact and fiction, or do more than disengage a general impression of discordant temperaments progressing from incompatibility to open war. even the period of the engagement is reported not to have been of unclouded happiness. a son of sir ralph milbanke's steward at seaham has furnished recollections to that effect. "while byron was at seaham," says this witness, "he spent most of his time pistol-shooting in the plantation"--a strangely moody occupation for an affianced man; and he adds that, on the wedding morning, when all was prepared for the ceremony, "byron had to be sought for in the grounds where he was walking in his usual surly mood." mrs. beecher stowe tells us that miss milbanke, observing that her lover did not rejoice sufficiently in his good fortune, offered to release him from his promise--whereupon he "fainted entirely away," and so convinced her, for the moment, of the sincerity of his affection. similar stories, equally well attested and equally unconvincing, cluster round the departure of the married couple for halnaby where they spent their honeymoon. lady byron told lady anne barnard that the carriage had no sooner driven away from the door of the mansion than her husband turned upon her with "a malignant sneer" and derided her for cherishing the "wild hope" of "reforming him," saying: "many are the tears you will have to shed ere that plan is accomplished. it is enough for me that you are my wife for me to hate you." the steward's son, giving an alternative version of the story, declares that "insulting words" were spoken before leaving the park--"after which he appeared to sit in moody silence, reading a book for the rest of the journey." byron's own account of the incident, as given to medwin, was as follows: "i was surprised at the arrangements for the journey, and somewhat out of humour to find a lady's maid stuck between me and my bride. it was rather too early to assume the husband; so i was forced to submit, but it was not with a very good grace. put yourself in a similar situation, and tell me if i had not some reason to be in the sulks." these three stories, it is clear, cannot all be true; and none of them can either be proved or disproved, though the last was contradicted by hobhouse who said that he had inspected the carriage and found no maid in it. similarly with the stories which follow. according to the steward's son, sir ralph milbanke's tenants assembled to cheer byron on his arrival at halnaby--but "of these he took not the slightest notice, but jumped out of the carriage and walked away, leaving his bride to alight by herself." there is also a story told by another authority, who cannot, however, have been an eye-witness, to the effect that byron, awaking from his slumbers on his nuptial night, exclaimed, in his surprise at his strange surroundings, that he supposed he was in hell. all these stories, of course, are exceedingly shocking, if true; but there are no means of ascertaining whether they are true. nothing can be positively affirmed except that the beginnings were inauspicious, and must have seemed the more inauspicious to lady byron because of that fond belief of hers, that her rejection of byron in had caused him two years' mental agony, now at last to be happily removed by her condescending tenderness. a vast amount of tact--a vast amount of give-and-take--would have been needed to make a success of a marriage concluded under that misapprehension; and lord and lady byron were both of an age at which tact is, as a rule, a virtue only known by name. of byron's tact we have an example in the famous dialogue: "do i interrupt you, byron?"... "damnably." of lady byron's tact we shall discover an instance at the crisis of her married life. in the meantime we must note that they made up their first quarrel--which may very well have been less serious at the time than it appeared to be in retrospect--and, at any rate, kept up appearances sufficiently well to deceive their closest friends. from halnaby they returned to seaham, where nothing happened except that byron discovered his father-in-law to be a bore, addicted to dreary political monologuising over wine and walnuts. they next visited mrs. leigh at six mile bottom, and then they proceeded to piccadilly terrace--that unluckily numbered house, hired from the duchess of devonshire, in which many catastrophes were to occur, and a distress was presently to be levied for non-payment of the rent. mrs. leigh, it will be observed, was pleasantly surprised to observe that the marriage seemed to be turning out well. she had the more reason to be surprised because she shared none of lady byron's illusions as to the part which she had played, for the past two years, in byron's emotional and imaginative life. she was in her brother's confidence, and knew all about lady caroline lamb, all about lady oxford, and--more particularly--all about mary chaworth. consequently she had had her apprehensions, which she confided to byron's friend hodgson. a few extracts from her letters to hodgson will bring this point out, and show us how the marriage looked from her point of view. on february , , she wrote: "it appears to me that lady byron _sets about_ making him happy in quite the right way. it is true i judge at a distance, and we generally _hope_ as we _wish_; but i assure you i don't conclude hastily on this subject, and will own to you, what i would not scarcely to any other person, that i had _many fears_ and much anxiety _founded upon many causes and circumstances_ of which i cannot _write_. thank god! that they do not appear likely to be realised." on march , : "byron is looking remarkably well, and of lady b. i hardly know how to write, for i have a sad trick of being struck dumb when i am most happy and pleased. the expectations i had formed could not be _exceeded_, but at least they are fully answered. "i think i never saw or heard of a more perfect being in mortal mould than she appears to be, and scarcely dared flatter myself such a one would fall to the lot of my dear b. he seems quite sensible of her value." on march , : "byron and lady b. left me on tuesday for london.... the more i see of her the more i love and esteem her, and feel how grateful i am, and ought to be, for the blessing of such a wife for my dear, darling byron." on september , : "my brother has just left me, having been here since last wednesday, when he arrived very unexpectedly. i never saw him _so_ well, and he is in the best spirits." this is evidence not extorted by questions but spontaneously volunteered. if it proves nothing else, at least it proves that appearances were kept up, and that augusta was deceived. but appearances, none the less, gave a false impression; and there were other friends, more keen sighted than augusta, who saw through them. hobhouse, in particular, did so. he too had had his anxieties, and had been watching; and the notes in his diary--some of them contemporaneous with, but others subsequent to, augusta's letters--are not unlike the rumblings of a coming thunderstorm. on march , : "i went to bed out of spirits from indeterminate but chiefly low apprehensions about byron." on april , : "he advises me 'not to marry,' though he has the best of wives." on april , : "lady oxford walks about naples with byron's picture on her girdle in front." on july , : "byron is not more happy than before marriage. d. kinnaird is also melancholy. this is the state of man." on august , : "lord byron tells me he and she have begun a little snubbing on money matters. 'marry not,' says he." on august , : "dined with byron, &c. all grumbled at life." on november , : "called on byron. in that quarter things do not go well. strong advice against marriage. talking of going abroad." there is nothing specific there; and when we set out to look for something specific, we only run up against gossip of doubtful authenticity. "do i interrupt you?"... "damnably," may be assumed to be authentic since byron himself has admitted the repartee. it was rude and reprehensible, though it was probably provoked. the charges which young harness, now in holy orders, heard preferred by some of lady byron's friends are rightly described by him as "nonsensical"; but we may as well have them before us in order to judge of the propriety of the epithet: "the poor lady had never had a comfortable meal since their marriage. her husband had no fixed hour for breakfast, and was always too late for dinner. "at his express desire she had invited two elderly ladies to meet them in her opera-box. nothing could be more courteous than his manner to them while they remained; but no sooner had they gone than he began to annoy his wife by venting his ill-humour, in a strain of bitterest satire, against the dress and manners of her friends." "poor lady byron was afraid of her life. her husband slept with loaded pistols by his bed-side, and a dagger under his pillow." "nonsensical" is decidedly the word for these allegations. the incidents, even if true, could only be symptoms, not causes, of the disagreement. harness, perceiving that, seeks the true explanation of the estrangement in the disposition of lady byron, whom he had known as a girl. she "gave one the idea of being self-willed and self-opinionated." she "carried no cheerfulness along with her." the majority of her acquaintances "looked upon her as a reserved and frigid sort of being whom one would rather cross the room to avoid than be brought into conversation with unnecessarily." a common acquaintance remarked to harness: "if lady byron has a heart, it is deeper seated and harder to get at than anybody else's heart whom i have ever known." et cetera. so far as we can judge lady byron by the letters in which she subsequently announced, without formulating, her grievances, the verdict seems a just one. she might be pictured, in the words of the author of "ionica" as one who "_smiles at all that's coarse and rash, yet wins the trophies of the fight, unscathed in honour's wreck and crash, heartless, yet always in the right._" or rather one begins so to picture her--and is even justified in so picturing her at the beginning--though presently, when one sees how unfairly she fought in the great fight which ensued, one changes one's mind about her, withdraws such sympathy as one has allowed to go out to her, and thinks of her husband when one comes to the final couplet of the poem: "_and i, dear passionate teucer, dare go through the homeless world with you._" yet lady byron had her grievances, and though they were quite different from those which harness has reported, they were not light ones. two grievances in particular must have been very trying to the temper of a young bride who had been an only and spoiled child. in the first place, and almost at once, there was trouble about money. in the second place, and very soon, there was trouble about "the women of the theatre." byron, at the time of his marriage, was heavily in debt. his one idea of economy had always been to obtain credit instead of paying cash; and such cash as he had the handling of quickly slipped through his fingers. he never denied himself a luxury, and seldom refused a request for a loan. he had helped augusta; he had helped hodgson; he had helped coleridge. now he found his expenses increased out of all proportion to the increase of his income; while his creditors, assuming that his wife had a fortune, proceeded to press for the settlement of their accounts. hence that "snubbing on money matters" to which we have seen hobhouse referring; and the word "snubbing" may well have been a euphemism for more severe remonstrance when executions began to be levied. there were no fewer than ten executions in the house in the course of a few months; and one can understand that the experience was unfavourable to the temper of a young wife coming from a well-ordered home in which precise middle-class notions on such subjects had prevailed. the simultaneous trouble about women, of course, made matters worse. whether there was trouble about mary chaworth or not is uncertain; but, at any rate, lady byron met her and appears to have felt the pangs of jealousy. "such a wicked looking cat i never saw. somebody else looked quite virtuous by the side of her," was her commentary to augusta; and, if she spoke of mary chaworth as a cat, we need not suppose her to have been any more complimentary in her references to those actresses whose acquaintance she knew her husband to be making. he had become, at this time, together with lord essex, george lamb, douglas kinnaird, and peter moore, a member of the sub-committee of management of drury lane theatre. it does not appear that the sub-committee did a great deal except waste the time of the actual managers; but it is not to be supposed that they were altogether neglectful of the amenities of their position. they had "influence"; and upon the men who have "influence" actresses never fail to smile. some actresses smiled upon byron for that reason, and others smiled upon him for his own sake. some of them, it may be, drew the line at smiling; but others, as certainly, did more than smile. miss jane clairmont, in particular--but we shall come to miss jane clairmont presently. how much lady byron knew, at the time, about these matters is doubtful. she must have known a good deal, for actresses sometimes called at the house; and any defects in her knowledge may be presumed to have been eked out by conjecture. knowledge, conjecture, and gossip, operating in concert, cannot have failed to make her feel uncomfortable. in this respect, as in others, things were not falling out as she had expected. the fondly cherished belief that her love was the one thing needful to byron's happiness, and that he had moped for two years because she had withheld it from him, was receiving every day a ruder shock. the shocks were the more violent because byron, in the midst of his pecuniary embarrassments and theatrical philanderings, was attacked by a disorder of the liver. no man is at his best when his liver is sluggish; and byron probably was at his worst--gloomy, contentious, and prone to uncontrollable outbursts of passion. so there were scenes--the sort of scenes that one would expect: lady byron, on the one hand, coldly and reasonably reproachful--"always in the right," and most careful not to lose her temper; byron, on the other hand, talking to provoke her, boasting of abandoned wickedness, falling into fits of rage, much as his own mother had been wont to do when she rattled the fire-irons--throwing his watch on the ground and smashing it to pieces with the poker. very likely he was angry with lady byron because he did not love her--irritated beyond measure at every fresh revelation that she could never be to him what mary chaworth might have been. the beginning of unhappiness in marriage must often come like that. it is not unnatural, though it is unreasonable, and not to be combated by reason. lady byron, unhappily, had no other weapon than reason with which to combat it; and it is quite likely that her very reasonableness made the trouble worse. it did, at any rate, pass from bad to worse--and then from worse to worst--during the critical days of her confinement, at the end of . those were the circumstances which paved the way for open war and the demand for judicial separation. or, at all events, those were some of the circumstances; for the story is long, and intricate, and involved, and darkened with the clouds of controversy. byron's version of it, it is needless to say, is quite different from lady byron's. according to him the causes of the separation were "too simple to be easily found out." according to her, they included an enormity of which he dared not speak; and the clash of these conflicting allegations constitutes what has been called "the byron mystery." perhaps it is not possible to solve the whole of that mystery even now. new evidence, however, has lately been adduced, on the one hand in hobhouse's diary and narrative, and on the other hand from lady byron's correspondence, printed by the late earl of lovelace in "astarte." by sifting it, we may at least contrive to come nearer to the truth--to put, as it were, a ring fence round the mystery--to distinguish the assertions which have been proved from the assertions which have been disproved, and to reduce within narrow limits the fragment of the mystery which, until more conclusive documents are produced, must still remain mysterious. the late earl of lovelace, as is well-known, attempted to acquit his grandmother of a charge of evil-speaking by convicting his grandfather of a charge of unnatural vice. it will be necessary to consider whether he has succeeded or failed in the attempt. the latter charge, but for his revival of it, might have been waived aside as equally calumnious and incredible. as it is, a biographer cannot discharge his task without taking up the challenge. it shall be taken up with every possible avoidance of unpleasant detail, but taken up it must be; and the most convenient way to approach the subject will be first to tell the story as it is presented by hobhouse who represented byron throughout the negotiations. chapter xviii lady byron's demand for a separation--rumours that "gross charges" might be brought, involving mrs. leigh hobhouse, as we have seen, had an early inkling of the trouble which was to come; and it is not to be supposed that the brief entries in his diary chronicle the whole of his knowledge. he had observed, indeed--or so he says--that it was "impossible for any couple to live in more apparent harmony"; but he also had reason to believe that the appearances did not reflect the realities with complete exactitude. he had heard byron talk, though "vaguely," of breaking up his establishment, of going abroad without lady byron, of living alone in rooms; and he had noticed that byron's complaints of his poverty led up to disparaging generalisations about marriage. speaking of his embarrassments, byron had said that "no one could know what he had gone through," but that he "should think lightly of them were he not married." marriage, he had added, "doubled all his misfortunes and diminished all his comforts." he summed the matter up, with apparent anxiety to do equal justice to lady byron's feelings and his own by saying: "my wife is perfection itself--the best creature breathing; but mind what i say--_don't marry_." having received these confidences, and knowing byron well, hobhouse must have been at least partially prepared for the subsequent developments; but their suddenness nevertheless surprised him, as they surprised everyone. the crisis came shortly after lady byron's confinement, in the early days of . augusta, byron's cousin, captain george byron, and mrs. clermont, a waiting woman who had been promoted to be lady byron's governess and companion, were all in the house at the time. they had witnessed some of the scenes of which we have spoken--scenes which appear to have included, if not to have been provoked by, irritating references to "the women of the theatre." byron is said to have been aggressive in his allusions to them; and there is no evidence that lady byron was conciliatory on the subject. the state of his liver and of her general health would naturally have tended to accentuate any differences that arose. things came to such a pass that, for a few days, they communicated in writing instead of by word of mouth; and byron sent a note to lady byron's room. he spoke in this note of the necessity of breaking up his establishment--a necessity of which, in view of the frequent invasions of the bailiffs, she can scarcely have then heard for the first time. he asked her to fix a date for accepting an invitation to stay with her mother at kirkby mallory. he proposed that that date should be as early as was compatible with her convenience, and added: "the child will, of course, accompany you." whereto lady byron replied, also in writing: "i shall obey your wishes and fix the earliest day that circumstances will admit for leaving london." neither letter is particularly amiable. on the other hand, neither letter suggests that lady byron was leaving, or being asked to leave, as the direct consequence of any specific quarrel. there was no question of a separation--only of a visit to be paid; and the dread of more "men in possession" sufficiently explains byron's wish that it should be paid without delay. lady byron would obviously be more comfortable at kirkby mallory than in a house besieged or occupied by minions of the law. her husband would have time, while she was there, to turn round and reconsider his position. the temporary estrangement--the interchange of heated recriminations--did not make the execution of the plan any the less desirable. on the contrary, it might afford opportunity for tempers to cool and for absence to make the heart grow fonder. it seemed, at first, as though lady byron saw the matter in that light. she did not sail out of the house with indignation--she left it on ostensibly cordial terms with everybody who remained in it. she wrote to byron in language which seemed to express fond affection, sending him news of his child, and saying that she looked forward to seeing him at kirkby. one of the letters--there were two of them--began with the words "dear duck," and was signed with lady byron's pet name "pippin." that was in the middle of january. there was an interval of a few days, and then it became known that lady noel[ ] and mrs. clermont were in london, "for the purpose," as hobhouse states, "of procuring means of providing a separation." nothing, hobhouse insists, had happened since lady byron's departure to account for this sudden change of attitude. there had, in fact, hardly been time for anything to happen. that intrigue with a "woman of the theatre" which cordy jeaffreson believed to have been lady byron's determining grievance did not begin until a later date. the one thing, in short, which had happened was that lady byron--and mrs. clermont, who had accompanied her--had talked. byron's conduct had been painted by them in lurid colours--the more lurid, no doubt, because they found listeners who were at once astounded and sympathetic. sir ralph and lady noel had, naturally, been indignant. their daughter, they vowed, was not to be treated in this way; and they were, no doubt, the more disposed to indignation because they and byron had not got on very well together. sir ralph is commonly described in byron's letters to his intimates as prosy and a bore. "i can't stand lady noel," was the reason which he gave hobhouse for declining to visit her house. a very small spark, in such circumstances, may kindle a fierce conflagration; and it appeared to do so in this case. there was no manoeuvring for position, no beating about the bush. byron received no intimation, direct or indirect, of the plans which were being laid for his confusion. what he did receive--on february --was a stiffly worded ultimatum from his father-in-law. the charges contained in the ultimatum were mostly vague; in so far as they were precise, they were untrue. "very recently," sir ralph began, "circumstances have come to my knowledge"; the circumstances, so far as he disclosed them, relating to lady byron's "dismissal" from byron's house, and "the treatment she experienced while in it." he went on to propose a separation and to demand as early an answer as possible. he got his answer the same day. it was to the effect that lady byron had not been "dismissed" from piccadilly terrace, but had left london "by medical advice," and it concluded: "till i have her express sanction of your proceedings, i shall take leave to doubt the propriety of your interference." mrs. leigh wrote simultaneously to lady byron to inquire whether the proposal made by her father had her concurrence. the answer, dated february , was that it had, but that lady byron, owing to her "distressing situation" did not feel "capable of stating in a detailed manner the reasons which will not only justify this measure, but compel me to take it." she referred, however, to byron's "avowed and insurmountable aversion to the married state, and the desire and determination he has expressed, ever since its commencement, to free himself from that bondage, as finding it quite insupportable"; and she added in a subsequent letter, written on the following day: "i hope, my dear a., that you would on no account, withhold from your brother the letter which i sent yesterday, in answer to yours, written by his desire; particularly as one which i have received from himself to-day renders it still more important that he should know the contents of that addressed to you." that was the stage which the discussion had reached when hobhouse, calling on byron on february , heard what had happened and was taken into council. the whole thing was a mystery to him, and a mystery on which byron could throw but little light. in the light of the few facts before him, lady byron's conduct was absolutely unaccountable, inconsistent, and incoherent. the transition from the "dearest duck" letter to the "avowed and insurmountable aversion to the married state" letter seemed inexplicably abrupt; and, indeed, it seems so still, though later disclosures enable us, in some measure, to trace its history; the facts now known, but not then known either to byron or to his advisers, being as follows: . lady byron had assumed that byron was mad, and must be humoured tactfully. the "dearest duck" letter had been the manifestation of her tact. . lady byron had secretly instructed doctors to inquire into, and report upon, the state of byron's mind. they had reported that he was perfectly sane; and their report had, in lady byron's opinion, removed all shadow of excuse for his behaviour, and decided her to leave him. hence lady noel's journey to london, to consult lawyers. . dr. lushington, the lawyer consulted, had advised lady noel that, while the circumstances laid before him "were such as justified a separation," they were "not such as to render such a measure indispensable," and that he "deemed a reconciliation practicable." . lady byron had persisted, for reasons which she did not yet state, either to her family or to her legal advisers, in her refusal to return. hence sir ralph noel's ultimatum. these facts, which gave lady byron's conduct a certain superficial coherence, were gradually elicited. for the moment, however, the only fact which hobhouse had before him was the ultimatum and lady byron's endorsement of it. of lady byron's reasons he knew nothing; and he had no grounds for suspecting any other motives than the word "tantrums" would cover. he proceeded, as did all byron's supporters, on the assumption that the word "tantrums" did, in fact, cover them; and a fusillade of letters ensued. one cannot quote them all, but their contents can easily be summed up. from byron's side there issued appeals for reconciliation, for explanations, for specific charges, for personal interviews; from lady byron's side there came refusals either to give reasons or to parley, and reiterated statements that her mind was unalterably made up. "i must decline your visit and all discussion," was what lady byron wrote to hobhouse on february ; and on the same day she wrote to byron himself: "i have finally determined on the measure of a separation.... every expression of feeling, sincerely as it might be made, would be misplaced." the letter apparently crossed one from byron to sir ralph noel, in which he said that his house was still open to lady byron, that he must not debase himself to "implore as a suppliant the restoration of a reluctant wife," but that it was her duty to return, and that he knew of no reason why she should not do so. on the following day byron addressed a further appeal to lady byron herself: "will you see me--when and where you please--in whose presence you please?" and, almost as he was writing, he received another communication from sir ralph noel, threatening legal proceedings "until a final separation is effected." february brought the letter in which lady byron stated that she had excused byron's conduct in the belief that he was mad, but that she could not excuse it now that she had received assurance of his sanity. she added: "i have consistently fulfilled my duty as your wife; it was too dear to be resigned till it was hopeless. now my resolution cannot be changed." byron rejoined on february : "i have invited your return; it has been refused. i have requested to know with what i am charged; it is refused." he had, in fact, made, and was still to make, attempts, through several channels, to pin lady byron and her supporters to a specific allegation. hodgson had been appealed to by mrs. leigh to come and help. he came, and, on the strength of the information supplied to him, wrote to lady byron. two of her letters and one of his are published in his life by his son, the reverend james t. hodgson. hers may be analysed as a very thinly veiled threat to bring mysterious and abominable charges unless she got her way. there is an air about the letters of conscious virtue and of consideration for the feelings of others, but the threat is unmistakably contained in them. "he _does_ know--too well--what he affects to inquire," is one sentence; and another is: "the circumstances, which are of too convincing a nature, shall not be generally known whilst lord b. allows me to spare him." hanson, the lawyer had, in the meantime, been sent to call on sir ralph noel. he had asked for explanations, and been refused any. he had also met lushington who had, by this time, been definitely retained by lady byron, and addressed some inquiries to him. "oh, we are not going to let you into the _forte_ of our case," had been dr. lushington's reply. it was, no doubt, a reply in strict conformity with his instructions. lushington, as we know from a published letter from him to lady byron, was, at this date, personally in favour of an attempt at reconciliation. on the other hand, as is equally clear from the letters quoted in preceding paragraphs, lady byron had announced her intention of going into court unless she could get her separation without doing so. whether she had, at this date, any case--any case, that is to say, which a lawyer could take into court with any confidence of winning it--may be questioned. the weaker her case, of course, the less likely her counsel would be to reveal the nakedness of the land prematurely by talking about it. professional etiquette and zeal for the interests intrusted to him account quite adequately for his reticence; and there is no other influence to be drawn from it. a little later, at an uncertain date towards the end of february, lushington, as his letter to lady byron sets forth, received a visit from lady byron, had "additional information" imparted to him, changed his mind, and said that, if a reconciliation were still contemplated, or should thereafter be proposed, he, at any rate, should decline to render any help in bringing it about. the original "byron mystery" was: what was the nature of that "additional information" which so suddenly altered lushington's attitude towards the case? that mystery has, as we shall see in a moment, been solved by lord lovelace. the questions left unsolved relate, not to the nature of the information but to its accuracy. byron, hobhouse, and hodgson, however, were unable to dispute its accuracy because they were left uninformed as to its nature, and could only guess the charges to be met. the awkwardness of the situation is obvious. on the one hand, byron could not be expected to desire, for his own sake, the society of a wife who wrote him such letters as he was now receiving from lady byron--to separate from her would, at any rate, be the least uncomfortable of the courses open to him. on the other hand, he could not afford to let it be said that he had consented to a separation under the threat of gross, but unspecified, accusations. the charges might be specified afterwards, whether by lady byron herself or by the irresponsible voice of gossip, and he would be held to have pleaded guilty to them. that, as byron's friends impressed upon him, could not be allowed. it could the less be allowed because rumour was already busy, and charges of a very monstrous and malignant character were being whispered. the name of mrs. leigh was being mixed up in the matter, and there was some reason to suppose that the stories implicating her emanated from lady byron; for lady byron, according to hobhouse, had intimated to mrs. leigh that "she would be one of her evidences against her brother." that might mean much, or might mean little; but it meant enough, at any rate, to make it imperative for byron to show fight until the air was cleared. so his friends urged, and he agreed with them, and waited for the next step to be taken by the other side. what the other side did, in these circumstances--we are still following hobhouse's account--was simultaneously to appeal for pity, to bluff, and to spy out the land. they "talked of the cruelty of dragging" lady byron into a public court. they sent mrs. clermont to captain byron to try to induce him to dissuade byron from fighting. they threatened that, if he did fight, they would carry the case from court to court, and bury him alive under a heap of costs. but all this without effect. sir ralph noel wrote to hanson to inquire whether byron had "come to any determination" on the proposal to separate. the reply was to the effect that "his lordship cannot accede." at the end of february, that is to say, byron still meant fighting. he said that, if lady byron did not proceed against him, he should proceed against her, and commence an action for the restitution of conjugal rights. his friends approved of his determination; but, at the same time, desiring to know what sort of a case would have to be met, they begged byron to be quite candid with them and inform them, not, of course, of the nature of lady byron's charges, of which he had not himself been informed, but of any good grounds of complaint which he knew himself to have given her. chapter xix "gross charges" disavowed by lady byron--separation agreed to how far byron was candid with his friends it is, of course, impossible to say. we know neither what he told them nor what he left untold. all that is on record is their opinion, reproduced by hobhouse, that "the whole charge against him would amount merely to such offences as are more often committed than complained of, and, however they might be regretted as subversive of matrimonial felicity, would not render him amenable to the laws of any court, whether of justice or of equity." that was either at the end of february or the beginning of march. early in the latter month byron and his friends opened further negotiations. byron once more asked his wife to see him, and she replied: "i regret the necessity of declining an interview under existing circumstances." then lady melbourne urged her to return to her husband, but only elicited an expression of wonder "that lord byron had not more regard for his reputation than to think of coming before the public." then lord holland, who had already offered his services as a negotiator, submitted to byron the proposed terms of a deed of separation; but byron rejected the terms, describing the proposal as "a kind of appeal to the supposed mercenary feelings of the person to whom it was made." there next followed interviews between lady byron and mrs. leigh, and between lady byron and captain byron. to these intermediaries lady byron represented that "something had passed which she had as yet told to no one, and which nothing but the absolute necessity of justifying herself in court should wring from her." whereto byron replied that "it was absolutely false that he had been guilty of any enormity--that nothing could or would be proved by anybody against him, and that he was prepared for anything that could be said in any court." he allowed hobhouse to offer on his behalf "any guarantees short of separation"; but he made it quite clear that he was not frightened, and would not yield to threats. upon that lady byron changed her tone. her next letter did not so much claim a separation as beg for one. "after your repeated assertions," she wrote, "that, when convinced my conduct has not been influenced by others, you should not oppose my wishes, i am yet disposed to hope these assertions will be realised." there, at last, was an appeal to which it was possible for byron to respond--on terms; not on lady byron's terms, of course--but on his own. he had begun the negotiations by declining to "implore as a suppliant the return of a reluctant wife." nothing had happened in the course of the negotiations to persuade him that he would live more happily with lady byron than without her. indeed, it was now more evident than ever that to separate was the only way of making the best of a bad job. [illustration: _lady byron._] at the same time it was equally evident that he must stand out for terms. mud had been thrown; and while there had been no specific charges, there had been dark hints of monstrous crimes. it was necessary, therefore, to insist that lady byron should give "a positive disavowal of all the grosser charges" which had been suggested without being positively preferred; and hobhouse proceeded to continue the negotiations on those lines. there were, in fact, two "gross" charges to be faced. one of these concerned mrs. leigh, and the other did not. on the nature of the latter charge it is quite superfluous to speculate. whatever it may have been, no evidence was offered in support of it at the time, and no evidence bearing on it has since been brought to light. it was not maintained; it was not revived; it has been forgotten. the rules of controversy not only warrant us in passing it over, but bid us do so. the byron mystery, wherever it may be, is not there. though all the "gross" charges had, at the moment, to be dealt with collectively, the only charge which mattered was the charge in which mrs. leigh was involved. lady byron, when challenged with the charges, at first equivocated. she was quite willing, she said, to declare that the rumours indicated "had not emanated from her or from her family." that, naturally, was not good enough for byron and his friends. what they required was that lady byron should state "not only that the rumours did not originate with her or her family, but that the charges which they involved made no part of her charges against lord byron." a statement to that effect was drawn up for her to sign, and she signed it. the signed statement, witnessed by byron's cousin, wilmot horton, was shown to hobhouse, and was left in wilmot horton's hands until the settlement should be completed. the byron mystery, such as it is, or was, only exists--or existed--because byron and wilmot horton fell out, and the latter, withdrawing from the negotiations, mislaid or lost the document. that lady byron did sign the document, however, and that its contents were as stated, no doubt whatever can be entertained. hobhouse's subsequent evidence on the subject is supported by the correspondence which passed at the time. he referred to the document, with full particularity, in a letter which he wrote lady byron, and which has been published; and lady byron, in her answer, did not deny either that she had signed, or that she was bound by its contents. the trouble arose because, after having signed it, she behaved as if she had not done so, and, by her conduct, gave the lie to her pledged word that "neither of the specified charges would have formed part of her allegations if she had come into court." this trouble, however, was not immediate. lady byron did not begin to talk till some time afterwards: and at first she only talked to people who had sense enough to keep her secret, if not to rate it at its true value. not until some years after her death did a foolish woman in whom she had confided publish her story to the world in a book filled from cover to cover with gross and even ludicrous inaccuracies. when that happened, the old scandal which the book revived was mistaken for a new scandal freshly brought to light; and there was a great outcry about "shocking revelations" and much angry beating of the air by violent controversialists on both sides. all that it is necessary to say on that branch of the subject shall be said in a moment. what we have to note now is that byron did not, and could not, foresee that that particular battle would rage over his reputation. he admitted to his friends, and he had previously admitted to lady byron, that "he had been guilty of infidelity with one female." he was under the impression that she had given him "a plenary pardon"; but the offence nevertheless gave her a moral--if not also a legal--right to her separation, if she insisted on it. of the "gross" charges he only knew that they had never been formally pressed, and that they had been formally repudiated. so far as they were concerned, therefore, his honour was perfectly clear; and there remained no reason why he should not append his signature to the proposed deed of separation, as soon as its exact terms were agreed upon. the details still awaiting adjustment were mainly of the financial order. they were adjusted, and then byron signed. it may be that he signed the more readily because the rumours had been tracked to another source, and disavowed there also. lady caroline lamb has often been accused of putting them in circulation. she heard, at the time, that she had been so accused, and wrote to byron to repudiate the charge. "they tell me," she wrote, "that you have accused me of having spread injurious reports against you. had you the heart to say this? i do not greatly believe it." very possibly the receipt of that letter strengthened byron's resolution to sign. at all events he did sign, and then a storm burst about his head: "i need not tell you of the obloquy and opprobrium that were cast upon my name when our separation was made public. i once made a list from the journals of the day of the different worthies, ancient and modern, to whom i was compared. i remember a few: nero, apicius, epicurus, caligula, heliogabalus, henry the eighth, and lastly the ----. all my former friends, even my cousin george byron, who had been brought up with me, and whom i loved as a brother, took my wife's part. he followed the stream when it was strongest against me, and can never expect anything from me: he shall never touch a sixpence of mine. i was looked upon as the worst of husbands, the most abandoned and wicked of men, and my wife as a suffering angel--an incarnation of all the virtues and perfections of the sex. i was abused in the public prints, made the common talk of private companies, hissed as i went to the house of lords, insulted in the streets, afraid to go to the theatre, whence the unfortunate mrs. mardyn had been driven with insult. the _examiner_ was the only paper that dared say a word in my defence, and lady jersey the only person in the fashionable world that did not look upon me as a monster." "i was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private rancour; my name which had been a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for william the norman, was tainted. i felt that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and murmured was true, i was unfit for england; if false, england was unfit for me." the former of these passages is from medwin's "conversations"; the latter is written by byron's own hand. there is very little to be added to the picture which they draw. byron discovered that, for a man of his notoriety, there was no such thing as private life. his business was assumed to be everybody's business. in his case, just as in the dreyfus case, at a later date, all the world took a side, and those who knew least of the rights of the case were the most vehement in their indignation. broadly speaking one may say that his friends were for him but his acquaintances were against him, and the mob took the part of his acquaintances. hobhouse, hodgson, moore, rogers, leigh hunt, and scrope davies never faltered in their allegiance. on the other hand, many social leaders cut him; the journalists showered abuse on him as spitefully as if they felt that they had "failed in literature" through his fault; the religious seized the opportunity to punish him for what they considered the immoral tone of his writings; the pit and gallery at drury lane classed him with the villain of the melodrama who presumes to lay his hand upon a woman otherwise than in the way of kindness. it was a combination as irresistible as it was unforeseen, and he had to yield to it. lady jersey, as he told medwin, did her best for him. he and mrs. leigh were both present at a reception specially given in his honour--a demonstration that one social leader at least attached no importance and gave no credence to the scandals which besmeared his name. miss mercer, afterwards madame de flahault and, in her own right, lady keith, made a point of greeting him with frank cordiality as if nothing had happened. probably the specific scandal which lady byron had been compelled to disavow was never taken very seriously outside lady byron's immediate circle. certainly it was not the scandal which aroused the indignation of the multitude. for them, the _causa teterrima belli_ was mrs. mardyn, the actress, whom byron hardly knew by sight; and the gravamen of their charge against him was that he had treated a woman badly. that was enough for them; and their indignation was too much for him. now that the deed of separation had been signed, it was too late for him to fight. the "grosser charges" against him were charges of which he could not prove publication--charges which had been withdrawn. sneers and innuendoes did not, any more than hoots and hisses, furnish him with any definite allegation on which he could join issue. the whispered charge involving his sister was not one which he could formally contradict unless it were formally preferred. _qui s'excuse s'accuse_ would have been quoted against him if he had done so; and mrs. leigh's good name as well as his own would have been at the mercy of the mud-slingers. all things considered, it seemed that the best course open to him was to travel, and let the hostile rumours die away, instead of keeping them alive by argument. he went, and they died away and were forgotten. we will follow him to the continent presently, and see how nearly persecution drove him to degradation, and how, under the influence of the blow which threatened to crush him, his genius took fresh flights, more hardy than of old, and more sublime. but first we must turn back, and face the scandal in the form in which mrs. beecher stowe and lord lovelace have successively given it two fresh leases of life, and see whether it is not possible to blow it into the air so effectively that no admirer of byron's genius need ever feel uneasy about it again. chapter xx revival of the byron scandal by mrs. beecher stowe and the late lord lovelace the byron scandal slowly fell asleep, and was allowed to slumber for about half a century. even the publication of moore's life did not awaken it. people took sides, indeed, as they always do, some throwing the blame on the husband, and others on the wife; but the view that, whoever was to blame, the causes of the separation were "too simple to be easily found out" prevailed. forces, however, making for the revival of the scandal were nevertheless at work. byron smarted under social ostracism and resented it. though lady byron had never made any formal charge to which he could reply, but had, on the contrary, formally retracted all "gross" charges, he continued to be embittered by suggestions of mysterious iniquities, and his anger found expression alike in his letters and in his poems. to a certain extent he defended himself by taking the offensive. he caused notes on his case to be privately distributed. he wrote "at" lady byron, in the fourth canto of "childe harold," in "don juan," and elsewhere. a good deal of his correspondence, printed by moore, expressed his opinion of her in terms very far from flattering. under these combined influences public opinion veered round--the more readily because byron was held to have made ample atonement for his faults, whatever they might have been, by sacrificing his life in the cause of greek independence. lady byron was now thought, not indeed to have erred in any technical sense, but to have made an undue fuss about very little, and to have been most unwomanly in her frigid consciousness of rectitude. the world, in short, was more certain now that she had been "heartless" than that she had been "always in the right." naturally, her temptation to "answer back" was strong. she could not very well answer back by preferring any monstrous indictment in public. that course was not only to be avoided in her daughter's interest, but might also have involved her in an action for defamation of character on the part of mrs. leigh--an action which she could not have met with any adequate defence. of that risk, indeed, she had been warned by her friend colonel doyle, in a letter printed in "astarte" to which it will presently be necessary to return--a letter in which she had been urgently recommended to "act as if a time might possibly arise when it might be necessary for you to justify yourself." but if she could not answer back in public, at least she could answer back in private. she did so. that is to say, she talked--mostly to sympathetic women who were more or less discreet, but also, in her later years to mrs. harriet beecher stowe, who did not so much as know what discretion was. the story of which mrs. harriet beecher stowe had already received hints from the women whose discretion was comparative was ultimately told to her, whose indiscretion was absolute, by lady byron herself. she remained as discreet as the rest--that is to say, more or less discreet--during lady byron's life, and for some time afterwards. but when the countess guiccioli wrote a book about byron in which lady byron was disparaged, she could restrain herself no longer. in support of lady byron's story she had no evidence except lady byron's word. she did not know--and she did not trouble to inquire--what evidence against it might exist. she did not pause to ask herself whether her own recollection might not be at fault concerning a story which she had heard thirteen years before. it was enough for her, apparently, that lady byron was a religious woman, and that byron, on his own showing, had lived "a man's life." that sufficed, in her view, wherever there was a conflict of statements, to demonstrate that byron was a liar, and that lady byron spoke the truth. so she plunged into the fray, and, with a great flourish of trumpets, published lady byron's story in "macmillan's magazine." when the "quarterly review" had, in so far as it is ever possible to prove a negative, disproved the story, she repeated it with embellishments in a book entitled: "lady byron vindicated: a history of the byron controversy from its beginning in to the present time." the essence of mrs. stowe's story is contained in this report of lady byron's conversation: "there was something awful to me in the intensity of repressed emotion which she showed as she proceeded. the great fact upon which all turned was stated in words that were unmistakable: "'he was guilty of incest with his sister.'" there is the charge. turning over the pages in quest of the evidence in support of it, we find this: "she said that one night, in her presence, he treated his sister with a liberty which both shocked and astonished her. seeing her amazement and alarm he came up to her, and said, in a sneering tone, 'i suppose you perceive _you_ are not wanted here. go to your own room, and leave us alone. we can amuse ourselves better without you.' "she said, 'i went to my room trembling. i went down on my knees and prayed to my heavenly father to have mercy on them. i thought: what shall i do?' "i remember, after this, a pause in the conversation, during which she seemed struggling with thoughts and emotions; and, for my part, i was unable to utter a word or ask a question." no more than that. this _ex parte_ interpretation of a foolish conjugal quarrel of forty years before, admittedly untested by any demand for particulars, was absolutely the sole piece of testimony which mrs. stowe adduced when she set out to blast byron's reputation. the rest of the book consists of pious and sentimental out-pourings, vulgar abuse of byron, and equally vulgar eulogy of his wife; the two passages cited being the only passages material to the issue. there was nothing in writing for her to quote--no case which a respectable lawyer would have taken into court--no case that would not have been laughed out of court within five minutes if it had ever got so far. the tribunal of public opinion did, in fact, laugh the case out of court at the time. it was "snowed under," partly by laughter, and partly by indignation and the british feeling in favour of fair play; and it remained so buried for nearly forty years. biographers could afford to scout it as "monstrous" without troubling to confute it. sir leslie stephen, in the "dictionary of national biography," treated it as an hallucination to which lady byron had fallen a victim through brooding over her grievances in solitude. one would be glad if one could still take that tone towards it; but lord lovelace has made it impossible to do so. mrs. stowe, as a mischief-making meddler, interfering with matters which did not concern her, and about which she was obviously very ill informed, had not even a _primâ facie_ title to be taken seriously. the case of lord lovelace was different. he was byron's grandson and the custodian of lady byron's strong-box. he affected not merely to assert but to argue. he produced from the strong-box documents which he was pleased to call proofs. a good many people, not having seen them, probably still believe that they are proofs. they cannot be waived on one side like mrs. stowe's unsupported allegations, but must be dealt with; and the whole question of the charge which they are alleged to substantiate must, of course, be dealt with simultaneously. and first, as the documents laid before us are miscellaneous, we must distinguish between those of them which count and those which do not count. some of the contents of the strong-box, it seems, are merely "statements" in lady byron's handwriting. these are only referred to by lord lovelace, but not printed. not having been produced, they cannot be criticised; but there are, nevertheless, two comments which it is legitimate to make. in the first place, an _ex parte_ statement, though admissible in evidence for what it may be worth, is not the same thing as proof. in the second place, if the statements had been of a nature to strengthen the case which lord lovelace was trying to make out, instead of merely embellishing it, they would not have been held back. their absence from the _dossier_ need not, therefore, embarrass us; and we need, in fact, be the less embarrassed by it because it was already perfectly well known that lady byron was in the habit of writing out statements, and had shown them to impartial persons who had taken the measure of their value. that fact is set forth in the rev. frederick arnold's life of robertson of brighton, who, as is well known, was, for a considerable time, lady byron's religious adviser. "a remarkable incident," writes mr. arnold, "may be mentioned in illustration of the relations with lord byron. lady byron had accumulated a great mass of documentary evidence, papers and letters, which were supposed to constitute a case completely exculpatory of herself and condemnatory of byron. she placed all this printed matter in the hands of a well-known individual, who was then resident at brighton, and afterwards removed into the country. this gentleman went carefully through the papers, and was utterly astonished at the utter want of criminatory matter against byron. he was not indifferent to the _éclat_ or emolument of editing such memoirs. but he felt that this was a brief which he was unable to hold, and accordingly returned all the papers to lady byron." that comment on the "statements," significant in itself, is doubly significant when taken in conjunction with lord lovelace's suppression of them; and we may fairly consider the case without further reference to them, and without an apprehension that a surprise will be sprung from that source to upset the conclusions at which we arrive. lord lovelace did not rest his case on them, but on quite other documents, which we will proceed to examine after first saying the few words which need to be said in order to clear the air. one point, indeed, lord lovelace has made successfully. he has proved that the gross and mysterious charge which lady byron preferred (or rather hinted at while refusing to prefer it) at the time of the separation was, in fact, identical with the charge formulated in mrs. stowe's book. a contemporary memorandum to that effect, in lushington's handwriting, signed by lady byron, and witnessed by lushington, wilmot horton, and colonel doyle, is printed in "astarte." to that extent the so-called byron mystery is now solved, once and for all. the statement set forth in that memorandum, and afterwards repeated to mrs. stowe, was the statement on the strength of which lushington declared, as has already been mentioned, that he could not be a party to any attempt to effect a reconciliation. so far so good. the probability of these facts could have been inferred from hobhouse's narrative; their certainty is now established. we now know of what byron was accused--behind his back; we also know of what mrs. leigh was accused--behind her back. but--and the "but" is most important--the memorandum contains this remarkable sentence: "it will be observed that this paper does not contain nor pretend to contain any of the grounds which gave rise to the suspicion which has existed and still continues to exist in lady b.'s mind." which is to say that lady byron, on her own showing, and that of her legal advisers, was acting not on evidence but on "suspicion." in this document there is not even so much evidence as was set before mrs. stowe, or any suggestion that any evidence worthy of the name exists. the quest for proof must be pursued elsewhere. but where? lord lovelace has not shown us. the document in which it is expressly set forth that none of the statements contained in it are of the nature of proofs is the only contemporary document which he cites; for the scrap of a letter which he quotes from mrs. george lamb only proves, if indeed it proves anything, that mrs. lamb had heard what lady byron said. further on in his book, indeed, lord lovelace represents that mrs. leigh subsequently, under pressure, confessed her guilt to lady byron; but concerning that representation two things shall be demonstrated in the next chapter. in the first place mrs. leigh did not confess--the alleged confession having no bearing whatsoever on the matter which we are now considering. in the second place the inherent probabilities of the case and the circumstantial evidence which illuminates it are such that, even if mrs. leigh had confessed, it would be impossible to believe her on her oath. chapter xxi inherent improbability of the charges against augusta leigh--the allegation that she "confessed"--the proof that she did nothing of the kind first as to the inherent probabilities: the accusation, as elaborated by lord lovelace, is, it must be observed, that byron had yielded to an unnatural passion for his sister at a period anterior to his marriage--the period covered by the journal from which we have quoted, and by those mysteriously morbid and gloomy poems of which "the bride of abydos" and "lara" are the most remarkable. this passion, according to lord lovelace, was the cause of the spiritual "crisis" through which poems and journal alike prove him to have passed. when byron writes that "the bride" was "written to drive my thoughts from the recollection of * * *," lord lovelace interprets him to mean that it was written to drive his thoughts from the recollection of mrs. leigh. hers, he invites us to believe, was the "dear sacred name" which was to "rest ever unrevealed." that theory is not only nonsense, but arrant nonsense--obviously so to readers who are familiar with byron's letters, and demonstrably so to those who are not. all that can be said in favour of the view is that some of the passages in some of the poems are so obscure that they can be tortured into accord with the most preposterous hypothesis. on the other hand, while there is no direct evidence on the subject at all, there is conclusive circumstantial evidence which effectually disposes of lord lovelace's calumnious assertion--evidence, happily, so simple that one almost can sum it up in a sentence. throughout the whole of the "crisis" in question byron was in correspondence with mrs. leigh; and a great deal of the correspondence has been published. the letters are letters in which byron takes his sister into his confidence. we find him writing to her, first about his "affairs" with lady caroline lamb and lady oxford, and then about his desolating passion for another lady whom we have seen reason to identify with mary chaworth. nor does it matter, for the purposes of the present argument, whether that identification is correct or not. the solid fact, in any case, remains that, at the very time when lord lovelace represents byron as engaged in an intrigue with augusta leigh, he was, in fact, writing to her to apologise for his "long silence," and attributing that silence to trouble in connection with another lady: "it is not lady caroline, nor lady oxford; _but perhaps you may guess_, and, if you do, do not tell." there are other letters to the same effect, but that letter should suffice. no sane man will believe byron to have been devoured by a guilty passion for the woman to whom he confided secrets of that sort; and, if there were any disposition to entertain the belief were still harboured, it could hardly fail to be expelled by an examination of the letters which passed between lady byron and mrs. leigh, and between mrs. leigh and francis hodgson. mrs. leigh had been with lady byron during her confinement. there had been no quarrel between them, and no suspicion or suggestion of a quarrel. when lady byron left piccadilly terrace for kirkby mallory, mrs. leigh continued, with her knowledge, and without any hint of an objection, to stay in her brother's house. even when lady byron communicated her decision not to return to her husband, she expressed neither surprise at mrs. leigh's remaining there, nor desire for her departure. on the contrary, at the very time when she was insisting upon separation, and hinting at charges too awful to be preferred unless the particulars were dragged from her, she was corresponding with mrs. leigh, not merely on terms of ordinary politeness, but on terms of confidential intimacy and cordial affection--addressing her as "my dearest a.," "my dearest sis," "my dearest gus," &c., &c. a long series of these letters is printed in mr. murray's latest edition of byron's works. readers who desire full particulars must be referred to them. a few sentences only need be given here, as an indication of their tone: "if all the world had told me you were doing me an injury, i _ought not_ to have believed it. my chief feeling, therefore, in relation to you and myself must be that i _have_ wronged you, and that you have never wronged me!" "i know you feel for me as i do for you--and perhaps i am better understood than i think. you have been ever since i knew you my best comforter, and will so remain, unless you grow tired of the office, which may well be." "the present sufferings of all _may_ yet be repaid in blessings. don't despair absolutely, dearest; and leave me but enough of your interest to afford you any consolation by partaking that sorrow which i am most unhappy to cause you thus unintentionally.... heaven knows you have considered me more than one in a thousand would have done." "i am anxious to acquit you of all misrepresentation, and myself of having supposed that you had misrepresented.... i cannot give you pain without feeling yet more myself." "my dearest a., it is my great comfort that you are in piccadilly." some of these letters were written at a time when lady byron believed her husband to be mad. all of them were written at a time when she was accusing him of improper relations with her correspondent--as is established beyond dispute by her signed statement, published in "astarte." the excerpt printed last was written at the time when she professed to entertain both beliefs. it amounts, when analysed, to an expression of gratification that her sister-in-law, to whom she claims to be deeply attached, is in a position to continue incestuous and adulterous intercourse with a raving maniac. it is incredible, of course, that she can either have felt, or intended to express, any such gratification at any such state of things. the letter is explicable on one hypothesis, and one only: that lady byron herself did not really believe the story which she had told to her advisers. we have already seen--from the wording of lady byron's statement and from her correspondence with colonel doyle--that she had no proofs of her story. we have also seen that, when byron's friends tried to pin her to the story, she disavowed it. the conclusion that she did not even believe it at the time when she told it comes as a fitting climax; and it needs but little conjecture or imagination to divine her motives and give coherence to the narrative of her proceedings. she had come to hate her husband, and had resolved to separate from him at all costs. such hatreds are sometimes conceived by women without adequate cause, just before and just after pregnancy. one suspects that pathological explanation, though one does not know enough of the facts to insist upon it. the hatred, at any rate, was there, impelling lady byron to seek a separation, and she proceeded to take advice. probably she was advised that her case was too weak to be taken into court with confidence; and she certainly was advised that reconciliation was preferable to separation. the only way of securing the firm support of her own friends was to lay fresh facts before them. that is the stage of the proceedings at which we are told that fresh facts came to her knowledge. but the alleged facts were only treated as facts for the purposes of argument. they were scandals--the scandals implicating mrs. leigh, and launched, as is believed, by lady caroline lamb, who subsequently disavowed them as explicitly as lady byron herself. in order to make sure of her separation lady byron adopted those scandals and laid them before lushington. lushington may or may not have believed them. so long, however, as he remained in charge of the case he was bound to behave as if he did; and the nature of the charges was such that, even if he only believed them in the sense in which a barrister is required to believe the contents of his brief, he was obviously bound to take the line that they precluded all idea of a reconciliation. he did take that line; and lady byron got her separation. she was so eager to get it that she first made abominable charges against her husband in order to win the sympathy of her own friends, and then withdrew them in order to disarm byron's friends. all this without informing mrs. leigh that her name was being mixed up in the matter, and without withdrawing from mrs. leigh's society. ultimately, no doubt, she did come to believe the story which she had first circulated and then disavowed. it is hardly to be questioned that she believed it at the time when she told it to mrs. beecher stowe. but she clearly did not believe it at the time when she made use of it; and one can only attribute her final belief in it to a kind of auto-suggestion, induced by dwelling on her grievances, and akin to the process by which george iv. persuaded himself that he had taken part in the battle of waterloo. that is the most plausible supposition as to the motives inspiring lady byron's conduct; and there is nothing except the motives themselves which stands in need of explanation. from lushington's action no inference whatever is to be drawn, for it was the only action which the rules of professional etiquette left open to him; and the byron question is not: on what evidence did lady byron act as she did? it is merely: why did lady byron act as she did without any evidence at all? it is so small a question that, having offered a tentative solution, we may fairly leave it and glance at mrs. leigh's correspondence with hodgson. hodgson, as has already been mentioned was brought in by mrs. leigh as a peacemaker. the letters which she wrote to him before, during, and after the quarrel appear in the life of hodgson by his son, published in . they are too long to be given at length; but their bearing on the issue, which no one who takes the trouble to read them will dispute, must be briefly stated. in the first place they, most obviously, are not the letters of a guilty woman, or of a woman who feels herself in any way personally implicated in the dispute which she seeks to compose. every line in them demonstrates, not merely that the writer is conscious of rectitude, but also that the writer is ignorant that she herself is, or can be, the object of sinister suspicion. they are just the flurried letters of a simple body who feels that circumstances have laid upon her shoulders a heavier load of responsibility than they can bear, but would rather be helped to bear the burden than run away from it; and it is a fair summary of them to say that they exonerate byron by exonerating the alleged accomplice in his crime. in the second place the letters show mrs. leigh, ignorant, indeed, of the specific enormities with which byron is charged, but well aware of certain circumstances which had made byron's marriage a dubious experiment. in the earlier letters, indeed those circumstances are only hinted at obscurely, but in the later letters the meaning of the hints is made quite clear. for instance: "i assure you i don't conclude hastily on this subject, and will own to you, what i would not scarcely to any other person that i had _many fears_ and much anxiety founded upon many causes and circumstances of which i cannot _write_. thank god! that they do not appear likely to be realised." that was written during the honeymoon. in letters written shortly after the honeymoon there are similar vague expressions of anxiety. it is not until we come to the letters written after the separation that we begin to get sight of the particulars; but then we light upon this significant passage: "i am afraid to open my lips, though all i say to _you_ i know is secure from misinterpretation. on the opinions expressed by mr. m. i am _not surprised_. i have seen letters written _to him_ which could not but give rise to such, or confirm them. if i may give you _mine_, it is that _in his own mind_ there _were_ and _are_ recollections, fatal to his peace, and which would have prevented his being happy with any woman whose excellence equalled or approached that of lady b., from the consciousness of being unworthy of it. nothing could or can remedy this fatal cause but the consolations to be derived from religion, of which, alas! dear mr. h., our beloved b. is, i fear, destitute." the idea that the fatal recollections here deplored are recollections of guilty acts in which the writer of the letter was a partner would be too preposterous to be treated with respect even if we did not know what the nature of those recollections was; but, as a matter of fact, a later passage in the same letter supplies the information: "i am glad you were rather agreeably surprised in the poems.... of course _you_ know to whom the 'dream' alludes, mrs. c----." and there, of course, the truth is out. mrs. c---- is, and can be no one else than, mary chaworth. the "causes too simple to be found out" had to do with byron's imperishable passion for the lady whom we have seen his wife calling a "cat." byron could not live happily with lady byron because he could not forget mary chaworth--and lady byron knew it. consequently she set her heart upon obtaining a separation, and, in order to make sure of that separation, "put up" the story, suggested by lady caroline lamb's poisonous tongue. the whole business is as simple as all that; and the subject might properly be dropped at that point if it were not for lord lovelace's assertion that papers in his hands demonstrated that mrs. leigh had "confessed." but the so-called confession of augusta leigh is like the so-called confession of captain dreyfus. we are told that it exists; and when our curiosity has been thus aroused we are told that it is not worth while to produce it. augusta, says lord lovelace, "admitted everything in her letters of june, july, and august, "; and then he goes on to say: "it is unnecessary to produce them here, as their contents are confirmed and made clear by the correspondence of in another chapter." but when we turn to the correspondence of , we find that no confession is contained in them. the most that one can say is that, the language of the letters being sometimes enigmatic, and the subjects to which they relate being uncertain, one or two passages in them might conceivably be read as referring to a confession, if one knew that a confession had been made. even on that hypothesis, however, they might just as easily be read as referring to something else; and the real clue to their meaning may, almost certainly, be found in a letter which lord lovelace prints in the chapter entitled "some correspondence of augusta byron." the letter[ ] in question is a love letter. it begins "my dearest love" and ends "ever dearest." lord lovelace prints it as addressed by lord byron to mrs. leigh in may . it is a letter, however, in which both the signature and the address are erased; but though there is no great reason for doubting that byron was the writer, there is no reason whatever for believing that mrs. leigh was the recipient. indeed, one has only to place it side by side with the letters which we actually know byron to have written to mrs. leigh a little before may , and a little afterwards, in order to be positive that she was not; and one has only to remember that byron still sometimes wrote to mary chaworth, and that his correspondence passed through his sister's hands, in order to satisfy oneself whose letter it was that lord lovelace found among lord byron's papers. so that our conclusion must be: . that lord lovelace's most substantial piece of evidence against mrs. leigh is a letter[ ] which though it passed through her hands, was really written to mary chaworth. . that the alleged confession does not exist--for if it did exist, lord lovelace would have printed it. and we may go further, and say, with confidence, not only that the alleged confession does not exist at the present time, but that it never did exist; for even that conclusion follows irresistibly from the known circumstances of the final meeting between lady byron and mrs. leigh, at reigate, in the presence of the rev. f. w. robertson, in . they had remained friends until , and had then quarrelled, not about byron, but about the appointment of a new trustee under a settlement. after that, they had ceased to see each other; and the reigate interview, of which robertson drew up a memorandum, was avowedly and admittedly arranged because lady byron desired, and expected, to receive a confession before a witness of unimpeachable integrity. nothing is more obvious than that lady byron would have had no need to solicit a verbal confession in if she had succeeded in extracting a written confession in ; and it is common ground that, in , mrs. leigh not only confessed nothing, but denied that she had anything to confess. the whole story of the confession, therefore, vanishes like smoke; and one is free, at last, to quit this painful part of the subject. it was necessary to dwell on it carefully and at length on account of the sophistical cobwebs spun round it by lord lovelace's awkward hands and because, while justice injoined the vindication of lord byron, his biographer could not let any prudish scruples or false delicacy withhold him from the task of definitely clearing the memory of byron's sister from the shameful aspersions cast upon it, by byron's grandson. but one, nevertheless, gets away from it with relief, and returns with a sense of recovered freedom to the facts of byron's career at the time when the storm broke about his head and drove him from the country. chapter xxii byron's departure for the continent--his acquaintance with jane clairmont macaulay has described, in that picturesque style of his, how, just as byron "woke up one morning and found himself famous," so the british public woke up one morning and found itself virtuous, with the result that byron was hooted and hounded out of england. the picture, like all macaulay's pictures, was overdrawn and over-coloured. the life of the country, and even of the capital, went on pretty much as usual in spite of byron's dissensions with his wife; and byron himself kept up appearances fairly well, going to the theatre, entertaining leigh hunt, kinnaird, and other friends at dinner, and corresponding with murray about the publication of his poems. but, nevertheless, many circumstances combined to make him feel uncomfortable. invitations ceased to be showered upon him; and "gross charges" continued to be whispered in spite of lady byron's disavowal. the grounds of the separation not being known, every one was free to conjecture his own solution of the mystery. there seemed little doubt, at any rate, that byron had forsaken his lawful wife's society for that of the nymphs of drury lane; and it was quite certain that he had failed to pay the duchess of devonshire her rent. the only possible reply to these allegations was that they were no part of the business of the people who made such a fuss about them. the fuss being made, the most reasonable course was to go abroad until the hubbub ceased. it was no case, as byron's enemies have said, of running away to avoid an investigation into his conduct--investigation had been challenged, and all the grave charges had been withdrawn. they had, indeed, by a breach of faith, been secretly kept alive; but they had not reappeared in such shape and circumstances that action could be taken on them; and byron could not be expected to formulate them himself, merely for the purpose of denying them. his threat, a little later, to appeal to the courts for an injunction to restrain lady byron from taking his daughter out of england as he had heard that she proposed to do, amply showed that he had no fear of any shameful disclosures; but he had mrs. leigh's reputation as well as his own to think of; and it was better for her sake as well as his that he should desist from bandying words with her calumniators. moreover it was not only his calumniators who were making things unpleasant for him. his creditors were also joining in the hue and cry and multiplying his motives for retiring; so he resolved to go, attended by three servants and the italian physician, polidori. rogers paid him a farewell visit on april ; and mr. and mrs. kinnaird called the same evening, bringing, as hobhouse tells us, "a cake and two bottles of champagne." on the following morning the party were up at six and off at half-past nine for dover; hobhouse riding with polidori in scrope davies' carriage, and byron, with scrope davies, in his own new travelling coach, modelled on that of napoleon, containing a bed, a library, and a dinner-service, specially built for him at a cost of £ . a crowd gathered to watch the departure--a crowd which hobhouse feared might prove dangerous, but which, in fact, was only inquisitive. the bailiffs arrived ten minutes afterwards and "seized everything," with expressions of regret that they had not been in time to seize the coach as well. even cage-birds and a squirrel were taken away by them. this news having been brought by fletcher, the valet, who followed the party, the coach was hustled on board the packet to be safe--a most wise precaution seeing that there was a day's delay before it started; and hobhouse continues: "april . up at eight, breakfasted; all on board except the company. the captain said he could not wait, and byron would not get up a moment sooner. even the serenity of scrope was disturbed.... the bustle kept byron in spirits, but he looked affected when the packet glided off.... the dear fellow pulled off his cap and waved it to me. i gazed until i could not distinguish him any longer. god bless him for a gallant spirit and a kind one!" and then: "went to london.... told there was a row expected at the theatre, douglas k. having received fifteen anonymous letters stating that mrs. mardyn would be hissed on byron's account." this gives us, of course, the point of view of the populace--or perhaps one should say of the middle classes. they, it is evident, knew nothing of any specially gross or unspeakable charges against byron, but were satisfied to turn the hose of virtuous indignation on him because, instead of managing drury lane in the sole interest of dramatic art, he had availed himself of opportunities and yielded to temptations. and so no doubt he had, though not exactly in such circumstances as the populace supposed or in connection with the particular lady whose guilt the populace had hastily assumed. the popular indictment, indeed, included at least three glaring errors of fact. in the first place the partner of byron's latest passion (if passion be the word) was not mrs. mardyn, but miss jane clairmont. in the second place his relations with miss clairmont had nothing whatever to do with his separation from lady byron, because he did not make miss clairmont's acquaintance until after lady byron had left him. in the third place it was not byron who pursued miss clairmont with his attentions, but miss clairmont who threw herself at byron's head. jane clairmont was, as is well known, sister by affinity to mary godwin who was then living with shelley and was afterwards married to him. she had accompanied shelley and mary on their first trip to switzerland in , and had subsequently stayed with them in various lodgings. in the impending summer she was to go to switzerland with them again, and byron was to meet her there, whether accidentally or on purpose. in the early biographies, indeed, the meeting figures as accidental; but the later biographers knew better, and the complete story can be pieced together from a bundle of letters included in the murray mss., and the statement which miss clairmont herself made in her old age to mr. william graham, who travelled all the way to florence to see her, and, after her death, reported her conversations in the _nineteenth century_. "when i was a very young girl," miss clairmont told mr. graham, "byron was the rage." she spoke of the "troubling morbid obsession" which he exercised "over the youth of england of both sexes," and insisted that the girls in particular "made simple idiots of themselves about him"; and then she went on to describe how one girl did so: "in the days when byron was manager of drury lane theatre i bethought myself that i would go on to the stage. our means were very narrow, and it was necessary for me to do something, and this seemed to suit me better than anything else; in any case it was the only form of occupation congenial to my girlish love of glitter and excitement.... i called, then, on byron in his capacity of manager, and he promised to do what he could to help me as regards the stage. the result you know. i am too old now to play with any mock repentance. i was young, and vain, and poor. he was famous beyond all precedent.... his beauty was as haunting as his fame, and he was all-powerful in the direction in which my ambition turned. it seems to me almost needless to say that the attentions of a man like this, with all london at his feet, very quickly completely turned the head of a girl in my position; and when you recollect that i was brought up to consider marriage not only as a useless but as an absolutely sinful custom, that only bigotry made necessary, you will scarcely wonder at the results, which you know." that is the story as miss clairmont remembered it, or as she wished posterity to believe it. she also seems to have been fully persuaded in her own mind that shelley had recommended her to apply to byron, and that it was about her that byron and lady byron fell out; but the letters published by mr. murray show all this to be a tissue of absurd inexactitudes. what actually happened was that miss clairmont wrote to byron under the pseudonym of "e trefusis," beginning "an utter stranger takes the liberty of addressing you," and proceeding to say: "it may seem a strange assertion, but it is not the less true that i place my happiness in your hands." there is no reference there, it will be remarked, to any desire on miss clairmont's part to adopt the theatrical profession. the few references to such a desire which do occur later in the correspondence are of such a nature as to show that miss clairmont did not entertain it seriously, consisting mainly of objections to byron's proposal that she should discuss the matter with mr. kinnaird instead of him. miss clairmont, in short, made it abundantly clear that she was in love, not with the theatre, but with byron; and the more evasive byron showed himself, the more ardently and impulsively did she advance. we gather from her letters, indeed, that most of those letters were left unanswered, that byron very frequently was "not at home" to her, and that, when she was at last admitted, she did not find him alone. most women would have been discouraged by such a series of repulses; but miss clairmont was not. in response to a communication in which byron had begged her to "write short," she wrote: "i do not expect you to love me; i am not worthy of your love." but she begged him, if he could not love, at least to let himself be loved--to suffer her to demonstrate that she, on her part, could "love gently and with affection"; and thus she paved the way to a practical proposal: "have you, then," (she asked) "any objection to the following plan? on thursday evening we may go out of town together by some stage of mail about the distance of ten or twelve miles. there we shall be free and unknown; we can return early the following morning. i have arranged everything here so that the slightest suspicion may not be excited. pray do so with your people." even to that appeal byron seems to have turned a deaf ear. one infers as much from the fact that other appeals followed it: "do not delay our meeting after saturday--i cannot endure the suspense," &c. after that, however, and apparently quite soon after it, followed the capitulation; and for the sequel we will turn again to mr. graham's report of miss clairmont's confessions: "he was making his final arrangements for leaving england, when i told him of the project the shelleys and i had formed of the journey to geneva. he at once suggested that we should all meet at geneva, and delightedly fell in with my proposal to accompany me one day when i had arranged to visit the shelleys at marlow,[ ] where they were then stopping, and arrange matters. we started early one morning, and we arrived at marlow about the mid-day dinner-hour.... byron refreshed himself with a huge mug of beer.... a few minutes afterwards in came shelley and mary. it was such a merry party that we made at lunch in the inn parlour: byron, despite his misfortunes, was in the spirits of a boy at leaving england, and shelley was overjoyed at meeting his idolised poet, who had actually come all the way from london to see him." such are the facts, so far as they are ascertainable, concerning the origin of this curious _liaison_. it is a story which begins, and goes on for some time, though it does not conclude, like the story of joseph and potiphar's wife; and miss clairmont recalls how exultantly she proclaimed her triumph. "percy! mary! what do you think? the great lord byron loves me!" she exclaimed, bursting in upon her friends; and she adds that shelley regarded the attachment as right and natural and proper, and a proof that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. he may have done so, for he was a dreamer, cradled in illusions, unfettered by codes, always ready to look upon life as a fairy-tale that was turning out to be true. whether he did so or not, it seems at any rate pretty clear that he was in miss clairmont's confidence, knew for what reason byron wished to meet him at geneva, and acquiesced in the proposal. but it is equally certain that he was not in byron's confidence, and had no suspicion of the spirit in which byron had entered into the intrigue. for byron was not in love with miss clairmont, and never had been in love with her, and never would be. in so far as he loved at all, he still loved mary chaworth, to whom his heart always returned at every crisis of unhappiness. there was no question of any renewal of the old passionate relations; but she consented to see him once more before he left england. "when we two parted in silence and tears" seems to belong to this moment of his life--the moment at which miss clairmont first persuaded herself, and then persuaded shelley, that she was enthroned for ever in the author's heart. that, still, was his one real sentimental hold on life. nothing else mattered; and the coquetries and audacities of this child of seventeen mattered less than most things. but a man must live; a man must divert himself. most especially must a man do so when, as byron expressed it, his household gods lay shivered around him--when his home was broken up and his child was taken away--when rumours as intangible as abominable were afloat to his dishonour--when the society of which he had been the bright particular star was turning its back on him. even the love, or what passed for such, of a stage-struck girl of seventeen, could be welcome in such a case, and it would not be difficult to give something which could pass for love in return for it. that was what happened--and that was all that happened. miss clairmont told mr. graham, in so many words, that she never loved byron, but was only "dazzled" by him. it is written in byron's letters--from which there shall be quotations in due course--and it is amply demonstrated by his conduct, that he never loved miss clairmont, but only accepted favours which she pressed upon him, and suffered her to help him to live at a time when life was difficult. the credit of having done that for him, however, should be freely given to her. the appointment which she made with him at geneva touched his flight from england with romance. his reception by the generality of english residents on the continent was very, very doubtful. it would have been painful to him to travel across europe, defying opinion in solitude; but he and shelley and mary godwin and jane clairmont could defy it in company and laugh; and it was with this confident assurance in his mind that, as hobhouse writes, "the dear fellow pulled off his cap and waved it" when the ostend packet glided out of dover harbour. chapter xxiii life at geneva--the affair with jane clairmont "from brussels," as moore magniloquently puts it, "the noble traveller pursued his course along the rhine." at geneva he joined shelley and his party who had taken the shorter route across france; and it would seem that he felt the need of all the moral support which their companionship could give him. concerning the nature of his reception in switzerland, indeed, there is a good deal of conflicting testimony; but the balance of the evidence points to its having been unfavourable. his own statement is that he "retired entirely from society," with the exception of "some occasional intercourse with coppet at the wish of madame de staël"; but there are indications that the retirement was not voluntary, and that, even at coppet, his welcome was something less than enthusiastic. on the former point we may quote the letters of lady westmorland, just published by lady rose weigall: "lord byron has been very coldly received here both by the natives and by the english. no one visited him, though there is much curiosity about him. he has been twice to coppet." only twice, be it observed; and on one of the two occasions, one of madame de staël's guests, mrs. hervey the novelist--a mature woman novelist of sixty-five virtuous summers--fainted, according to one account, and "nearly fainted," according to another, at the sudden appearance of the man of sin, though, when she came to, she was ashamed of herself, and conversed with him. probably he called again; and not all the coppet house-party shared mrs. hervey's consternation at his visits. lady westmorland did not for one, but commented on his "sweetness and sadness, melancholy and depression," adding: "if he was all that he tries to seem now he would really be very fascinating." on the other hand, however, madame de staël's son-in-law, the duc de broglie, summed him up unkindly and almost scornfully, declaring him "a boastful pretender in the matter of vice," protesting that "his talk was heavy and tiresome," and that "he did not manoeuvre his lame legs with the same ease and nonchalance as m. de talleyrand," and concluding: "madame de staël, who helped all her friends to make the best of themselves, did what she could to make him cut a dignified figure without success; and when the first moment of curiosity had passed, his society ceased to attract, and no one was glad to see him." which clearly indicates, in spite of the offensive priggishness of the witness, that the tide of hostile opinion was, indeed, flowing too strongly for even madame de staël to stem it. she did her best, however; for she was no prude, but a woman with a great heart, who had herself sought happiness in marriage, and failed to find it there, and had openly done things for which, if she had been an englishwoman, mrs. grundy, instead of lionising, would have turned and rent her. she went further, and proposed to write to lady byron and try to arrange terms of peace; and byron thanked her, and let her do so. not, of course, that he had the least desire to return to lady byron's society. he was presently to thunder at her as his "moral clytemnestra"; and cordy jeaffreson's suggestion that his irrepressible rhetoric was "only the superficial ferment covering the depths of his affection for her," and that "the woman at whom he railed so insanely was the woman who shared with his child the last tender emotions of his unruly heart" is as absurd a suggestion as ever a biographer put forth. hobhouse has told us that byron never was in love with lady byron; and, after what we have seen of lady byron's conduct and correspondence, it is hard to believe that any man would have been in love with her after living with her for a twelvemonth. moreover, we know from "the dream" where byron's heart was at this time, as always, and we know from his own, as well as from miss clairmont's confessions, with how little regard for lady byron's feelings he was just then diverting himself in the genevan suburbs; and we may fairly conclude that what he desired was not to return to her, but merely to be set right with the world by a nominal reconciliation, which would still leave him free to live apart from her. he did not get what he wanted, and lady byron was quite within her rights in withholding it. he had allowed himself to be manoeuvred into a false position, and had no claim upon her to help him to manoeuvre himself out of it; while she, on her part, was much too high principled to strain a point in favour of a returning prodigal--especially if, as is probable, information had reached her as to his proceedings in his exile. so she rejected his overtures in that cold, judicial, high-minded way of hers; and byron did not repeat them, but made it clear that he had meant nothing by them, seeing that-- his reason is in "the dream" which he wrote in july . it was another of his bursts of candour, telling the world (and lady byron) yet again how he loved mary chaworth, and always had loved her, and always would, and how, even on his wedding day, the memory of her had come between him and his bride: "_a change came o'er the spirit of my dream. the wanderer was returned--i saw him stand before an altar--with a gentle bride; her face was fair, but was not that which made the starlight of his boyhood:--as he stood even at the altar, o'er his brow there came the self-same aspect, and the quivering shock that in the antique oratory shook his bosom in its solitude: and then-- as in that hour--a moment o'er his face the tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced,--and then it faded as it came, and he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke the fitting vows, but heard not his own words, and all things reeled around him; he could see not that which was, nor that which should have been-- but the old mansion and the accustomed hall, and the remembered chambers, and the place, the day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, all things pertaining to that place and hour and her who was his destiny, came back and thrust themselves between him and the light._" that was his parthian shaft; and cordy jeaffreson's view of "the dream" as "a lovely and elaborate falsehood, written to persuade all mankind that he never loved the woman whose heart he was yearning to recover" is much too preposterous to be admitted. mary chaworth's husband knew that it was no figment. he recognised the reference to a certain "peculiar diadem of trees" on his estate, and gave orders that those trees should be cut down. lady byron had no such remedy open to her; but she knew what was meant and wrapped herself up in her virtue; while byron, on his part, turned to the diversions which were to help him to live in the face of the world's contumely. alike for him and for shelley and the two ladies who attended him there was a good deal of that contumely as long as they remained in the hotel d'angleterre; and it may almost be said that they invited it by making themselves conspicuous. in shelley's relations with miss godwin and miss clairmont there was at least the appearance of promiscuity--an appearance on which it did not take gossip long to base positive asseveration.[ ] byron, already an object of curiosity on account of his supposed misdeeds, had made himself conspicuous by his coach, and his retinue, and his manner of travelling _en seigneur_. so that the other boarders stared when he arrived, and stared still more when they saw him fraternising with his brother poet and the ladies, not only wondering what the eccentric party would be up to next, but keeping close watch on their comings and goings, following them to the lake-side when they went out boating, awaiting them on the lake-side when they landed on their return, lining up to inspect them as often as carriages were brought to the door to take them for a drive. they did not like it, and moved into villas on the other side of the rhone, only to discover that the hotel d'angleterre overlooked them, and that its obliging landlord had set up a large telescope so that his visitors might survey their proceedings the more commodiously. this obliged them to move again--byron to the villa diodati, and shelley to the maison chapuis or campagne mont allègre--and there at last they were able, as the party of the libertins in the geneva of the reformation put it, to "live as they chose without reference to the preachers." to much that they did there the preachers, even those of calvin's time, could have taken no exception. they talked--the sort of talk that would have been high over the heads of their censors of the d'angleterre; they rowed on the lake, and sang in their boat in the moonlight; they read poetry, and wrote it. shelley pressed byron to read wordsworth; and he did so, with results which are apparent in the third canto of "childe harold," where we find the wordsworthian conception of the unity of man with nature reproduced and spoiled, as wordsworth most emphatically insisted, in the reproduction. there was a week of rain during which the friends decided to fleet the time by writing ghost stories, and mary godwin wrote "frankenstein." there was also a circular tour of the lake, undertaken without the ladies, in the course of which shelley had a narrow escape from drowning near saint gingolph. these things were a part, and not the least important part, of the diversions which helped byron to defy the slanderers whom he could not answer. so was his short trip to the oberland with hobhouse. and, finally, meaning so little to him that one naturally keeps it to the end and adds it as a detail, there was the "affair" with miss jane clairmont. on this branch of the subject he wrote to mrs. leigh, who had heard exaggerated rumours: "as to all these 'mistresses,' lord help me--i have had but one. now don't scold; but what could i do?--a foolish girl, in spite of all i could say or do, would come after me, or rather went before--for i found her here--and i have had all the plague possible to persuade her to go back again; but at last she went. now, dearest, i do most truly tell thee that i could not help this, that i did all i could to prevent it, and have at last put an end to it. i was not in love, nor have any love left for any; but i could not exactly play the stoic with a woman who had scrambled eight hundred miles to unphilosophise me. besides, i had been regaled of late with so many 'two courses and a _desert_' (alas!) of aversion, that i was fain to take a little love (if pressed particularly) by way of novelty." the love had been pressed, as we have seen, and as miss clairmont, in her age, admitted, very particularly indeed. she had dreamt, she admits--and she would have us think that shelley and mary godwin expected--that her alliance with "the great lord byron" was to be permanent; and this though she declares, elsewhere in her confessions, that she did not really love him, but was only dazzled by him, and that her heart, in truth, was shelley's. it was an ambitious dream; and it would be easy to make a list of reasons why it was impossible that it should come true. the mood in which she found byron was only one of them. the defects and limitations of her own qualities furnish others. she was a tradesman's daughter, and, though well-educated, not without vulgarity; pretentious, but superficial; stage-struck, a romp, and a mimic. if she ever mimicked byron--if, in particular, she ever mimicked his lameness--a good deal would be explained. one does not know whether she did or not. what one does know is that he shook her off rather roughly, and, never having loved her, presently conceived a dislike for her; and that though she bore him a child--the little allegra, so named after her birthplace, who only lived to be five years of age, and now lies buried at harrow. to allegra, indeed, byron was good and kind--he looked forward, he told moore and others, to the time when she would be a support to the loneliness of his old age; but to allegra's mother he would have nothing more to say. how she hunted him down, and how she and the countess guiccioli made each other jealous--these are matters into which it is unnecessary to enter here. the conclusions which miss clairmont drew, as she told mr. graham, was that byron's attitude towards women was that of a sultan towards the ladies of his harem. no doubt it was so in her case--and through her fault; for her plight was very much like that of the worshipper of juggernaut who should prostrate himself before the oncoming car and then complain because the wheels pass over him. probably, if she had been less pressing, or less clinging, he would have been more grateful; for there assuredly was cause for gratitude even though there was no room for love. vulgar, feather-headed, stage-struck little thing that she was, jane clairmont, by throwing herself at byron's head, and telling him, without waiting to be asked, that she, at least, would count the world well lost for him--and still more perhaps by bringing him into relation with the shelleys--had rendered him real help in the second desperate crisis of his life. one may repeat, indeed, that she helped him to live through that dark period; and if she knew that, or guessed it, she may well have felt aggrieved that his return for her passion was so inadequate. but he could not help it. his heart was out of his keeping, and he could not give what he did not possess. a "passade" was all that he was capable of just then; but that this "passade" did really help him to feel his feet again in stormy waters, and bring him back once more to cheerfulness and self-respect, is amply proved, first by the change of tone which appears in his more intimate writings, and then by the new, and worse, way of life into which we see him falling after the curtain has been rung down on the episode. shelley departed, taking miss clairmont and her sister with him, sorely, as there is reason to believe, against the former's wish, towards the end of august; the honeymoon, such as it was, having lasted about three months. towards the end of the time, visitors began to arrive--"monk" lewis, and "conversation" sharp, and scrope davies, and hobhouse--but most particularly hobhouse who wrote mrs. leigh a reassuring letter to the effect that her brother was "living with the strictest attention to decorum, and free from all offence, either to god or man or woman," having given up brandy and late hours and "quarts of magnesia" and "deluges of soda-water," and appearing to be "as happy as it is consistent for a man of honour and common feeling to be after the occurrence of a calamity involving a charge, whether just or unjust, against his honour and his feeling." that was written on september ; and it approximated to the truth. having despatched his report, hobhouse took byron for the tour already referred to--over the col de jaman, down the simmenthal to thun, up the lake of thun to interlaken, and thence to lauterbrunnen, grindelwald, brienz, and back by way of berne, fribourg, and yverdon. byron kept a journal of the journey for his sister to peruse. in the main it is merely a record, admirably written, of things seen; but now and again the diarist speaks out and shows how exactly his companion had read and interpreted his mind. "it would be a great injustice," hobhouse had continued to mrs. leigh, in reference to the "calamity" and the "charge," "to suppose that he has dismissed the subject from his thoughts, or indeed from his conversation, upon any other motive than that which the most bitter of his enemies would commend. the uniformly guarded and tranquil manner shows the effort which it is meant to hide." and there are just two passages in the diary in which we see the tranquil manner breaking down. in the first place at grindelwald: "starlight, beautiful, but a devil of a path. never mind, got safe in; a little lightning; but the whole of the day as fine in point of weather as the day on which paradise was made. passed _whole woods of withered pines, all withered_; trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless; done by a single winter--their appearance reminded me of me and my family." in the second place, at the very end of the tour: "i ... have seen some of the noblest views in the world. but in all this--the recollections of bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my old wretched identity in the majesty, and the power and the glory, around, above, and beneath me." a striking admission truly of the unreality and insincerity of the byronic presentation of wordsworth's pantheism, and concluding with an exclamation which shows clearly how distinct a thing byron's individuality was to him, and how far he was from picturing himself, in sober prose, as "a portion of the tempest" or anything but his passionate and suffering self: "i am past reproaches; and there is a time for all things. i am past the wish of vengeance, and i know of none like for what i have suffered; but the hour will come when what i feel must be felt, and the--but enough." and so up the rhone valley and over the simplon to italy, where his life was to enter upon yet another phase. chapter xxiv from geneva to venice--the affair with the draper's wife as long as hobhouse remained with byron nothing memorable happened. there was a good deal of the schoolmaster about hobhouse, though he could sometimes unbend in a non-committal way; and in the presence of schoolmasters life is seldom a drama and never an extravaganza. the change, therefore, in the manner of byron's life did not occur until, tiring of his friend's supervision, he declined to accompany him to rome. in the meantime, first at milan and then at verona, he held up his head, and passed like a pageant through the salons of the best continental society. milan, he told murray, was "very polite and hospitable." he parted there from polidori, who was expelled from the territory on account of a brawl with an austrian officer in a theatre; and he dined with the marquis de brême--an italian nobleman equally famous for his endeavours to popularise vaccination and suppress mendicity--to meet monti the italian poet and stendhal the french novelist. "never," wrote stendhal of that meeting, "shall i forget the sublime expression of his countenance; it was the peaceful look of power united with genius." and a long account of byron's sojourn at milan was contributed by stendhal to the _foreign literary gazette_. the introductions, stendhal says, "passed with as much ceremonious gravity as if our introducer had been de brême's grandfather in days of yore ambassador from the duke of savoy to the court of louis xiv." he describes byron as "a dandy" who "expressed a constant dread of augmenting the bulk of his outward man, concealed his right foot as much as possible, and endeavoured to render himself agreeable in female society;" and he proceeds to relate how female society sought to make itself agreeable to him: "his fine eyes, his handsome horses, and his fame gained him the smiles of several young, lovely, and noble females, one of whom, in particular, performed a journey of more than a hundred miles for the pleasure of being present at a masked ball to which his lordship was invited. byron was apprised of the circumstance, but either from _hauteur_ or shyness, declined an introduction. 'your poets are perfect clowns,' cried the fair one, as she indignantly quitted the ball-room." and then again: "perhaps few cities could boast such an assemblage of lovely women as that which chance had collected at milan in . many of them had flattered themselves with the idea that byron would seek an introduction; but whether from pride, timidity, or a remnant of dandyism, which induced him to do exactly the contrary of what was expected, he invariably declined the honour. he seemed to prefer a conversation on poetical or philosophical subjects." the explanation of his aloofness, stendhal thought, might be that he "had some guilty stain upon his conscience, similar to that which wrecked othello's fame." he suspected him of having, in a frenzy of jealousy, "shortened the days of some fair grecian slave, faithless to her vows of love." that, it seemed to him, might account for the fact that he so often "appeared to us like one labouring under an access of folly, often approaching to madness." but, of course, as this narrative has demonstrated, stendhal was guessing wildly and guessing wrong; and the thoughts which really troubled byron were thoughts of the wreck of his household gods, and the failure of his sentimental life, and perhaps also of the failure of miss clairmont's free offering of a naïve and passionate heart to awaken any answering emotion in his breast, or do more than tide him over the first critical weeks following upon the separation. so he wrote moore a long letter from verona, relating his kind reception by the milanese, discoursing of milanese manners and morals, but then concluding: "if i do not speak to you of my own affairs, it is not from want of confidence, but to spare you and myself. my day is over--what then--i have had it. to be sure, i have shortened it." from verona, too, he wrote on the same day to his sister, saying, after compliments and small-talk: "i am also growing _grey_ and _giddy_, and cannot help thinking my head will decay; i wish my memory would, at least my remembrance." all of which seems to show byron defiant, but not yet reckless, preferring, if not actually enjoying, the society of his equals, and still paying a very proper regard to appearances. the change occurred when he got to venice and hobhouse left him there. then there was a moral collapse, just as if a moral support had been withdrawn--a collapse of which the first outward sign was a new kind of intrigue. hitherto his amours had been with his social equals; and the daughters of the people had, since his celebrity, had very little attraction for him. now the decline begins--a decline which was to conduct him to very degraded depths; and our first intimation of it is in a letter written to moore within a week of his arrival. he begins with a comment on the decay of venice--"i have been familiar with ruins too long to dislike desolation"--and he proceeds: "besides, i have fallen in love, which next to falling into the canal (which would be of no use as i can swim), is the best or the worst thing i could do. i have got some extremely good apartments in the house of a 'merchant of venice,' who is a good deal occupied with business, and has a wife in her twenty-second year. marianna (that is her name) is in her appearance altogether like an antelope.... her features are regular and rather aquiline--mouth small--skin clear and soft, with a kind of hectic colour--forehead remarkably good: her hair is of the dark gloss, curl, and colour of lady jersey's: her figure is light and pretty, and she is a famous songstress." and so on at some length. our only other witness to marianna's charms and character--a manuscript note to moore's life quoted in murray's edition of the letters--describes her as "a demon of avarice and libidinousness who intrigued with every resident in the house and every guest who visited it." it is possible--it is even probable--that this description, made from a different point of view than byron's, fits her. byron's enthusiasm was for her physical, not her moral, attributes; and it does not appear that he was under any illusion as to the latter. the former, however, fascinated him; and we find him dwelling on them, in letter after letter, to murray as well as moore--the publisher, indeed, being the first recipient of the confidence that "our little arrangement is completed; the usual oaths having been taken, and everything fulfilled according to the 'understood relations' of such liaisons." which means, very clearly, that the draper's wife has become the poet's mistress, with the knowledge of her husband, and to his pecuniary advantage. the story is not one on which to dwell. it is less a story, indeed, than a string of unrelated incidents. though spun out and protracted, it does not end but leaves off; and of the circumstances of its termination there is no record. marianna's avarice may have had something to do with it. so may her habit, above referred to, of intriguing with all comers. but nothing is known; and the one thing certain is that, though byron was attracted, sentiment played no part in the attraction. it would seem too that he was only relatively faithful. one gathers that from the account which he gives to moore of a visit received from marianna's sister-in-law, whom marianna caught in his apartment, and seized by the hair, and slapped: "i need not describe the screaming which ensued. the luckless visitor took flight. i seized marianna, who, after several vain attempts to get away in pursuit of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; and, in spite of reasoning, eau de cologne, vinegar, half a pint of water, and god knows what other waters beside, continued so till past midnight." whereupon enter signor segati himself, "her lord and master, and finds me with his wife fainting upon the sofa, and all the apparatus of confusion, dishevelled hair, hats, handkerchiefs, salts, smelling-bottles--and the lady as pale as ashes, without sense or motion." and then, explanations more or less suitable having been offered and accepted, "the sister-in-law, very much discomposed at being treated in such wise, has (not having her own shame before her eyes) told the affair to half venice, and the servants (who were summoned by the fight and the fainting) to the other half." and so forth, and so forth. it is all very vulgar, and none of it of the faintest importance except for the sake of the light which it throws on byron's mind and disposition, though its importance is, from that point of view, considerable. it shows byron sick of sentiment because sentiment has failed him and played him false, but grasping at the sensual pleasures of love as the solid realities about which no mistake is possible. it shows him, moreover, socially as well as sentimentally, on the down grade, consorting with inferiors, and in some danger of unfitting himself for the company of his equals. the reckless note of the man resolved to enjoy himself, or at any rate to keep up the pretence that he is doing so, although his heart is bankrupt, is struck in one of the letters to augusta. it refers to a previous letter, not published, in which the tidings of the "new attachment" has already been communicated, and to a letter addressed, some time previously, to lady byron; and it continues: "i was wretched enough when i wrote it, and had been so for many a long day and month: at present i am less so, for reasons explained in my late letter; and as i never pretend to be what i am not, you may tell her, if you please, that i am recovering, and the reason also if you like it." which is to say that he wishes lady byron to be told, _totidem verbis_, and on authority which she cannot question, that, having lived connubially with both, he very much prefers the draper's wife to her. and so, no doubt, he did; for though the draper's wife, as well as lady byron, had her faults, they were the faults of a naughty child rather than a pedantic schoolmistress, and therefore less exasperating to a man in the mood to which byron had been driven. she might be--indeed she was--very jealous and very violent; but at least she did not assume airs of moral superiority and deliver lectures, or parade the heartlessness of one who is determined to be always in the right. so that byron delighted to have her about him. "i am very well off with marianna, who is not at all a person to tire me," he told murray in one letter; and in another he wrote: "she is very pretty and pleasing, and talks venetian, which amuses me, and is naïve, and i can besides see her, and make love with her at all or any hours, which is convenient to my temperament." just that, and nothing more than that; for such occasional outbursts of sentiment and yearnings after higher things as we do find in the letters of this date leave signora segati altogether on one side. there is something of sentiment, for instance, in a letter to mrs. leigh informing her that miss clairmont has borne byron a daughter. the mother, he says, is in england, and he prays god to keep her there; but then he thinks of the child, and continues: "they tell me it is very pretty, with blue eyes and _dark_ hair; and, although i never was attached nor pretended attachment to the mother, still in case of the eternal war and alienation which i foresee about my legitimate daughter, ada, it may be as well to have something to repose a hope upon. i must love something in my old age, and probably circumstances will render this poor little creature a great, and, perhaps, my only comfort." there is sentiment there; and there also is sentiment, although of a different kind, in a letter written at about the same date to moore: "if i live ten years longer you will see, however, that it is not over with me--i don't mean in literature, for that is nothing; and it may seem odd enough to say, i do not think it my vocation. but you will see that i shall do something or other--the times and fortune permitting--that, 'like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.' but i doubt whether my constitution will hold out. i have exorcised it most devilishly." this is a strikingly interesting, because an unconsciously prophetic, passage. byron's ultimate efforts to "do something"--something quite unconnected with literature--is the most famous, and some would say the most glorious, incident in his life. we shall come to it very soon, and we shall see how his constitution, so sorely tried by an indiscreet diet and excessive indulgence in all things from love to epsom salts, just allowed him to begin his task, but did not suffer him to finish it. enough to note here that byron saw the better even when he preferred the worse, and never lost faith in himself even in his most degraded years, but always looked forward, even then, to the day when he would shake off sloth and sensuality in order to be worthy of his higher self. he divined that the power to do that would be restored to him in the end--that social outlawry, though it might daze him, could not crush him--that it would come to be, in the end, a kind of education, and a source of self-reliance. but not yet, and not for a good many years to come. before the moral recovery could begin, the moral collapse had to be completed; and the affair with the draper's wife was only the first milestone on the downward path. we shall have to follow him past other milestones before we see him turning back. chapter xxv at venice--the affair with the baker's wife--dissolute proceedings in the mocenigo palace--illness, recovery and reformation for six weeks or so in may and june byron tore himself away from marianna and visited rome, where he dined with lord lansdowne, sat to thorwaldsen for his bust, and gathered the materials for the fourth canto of "childe harold." he refused, however, for marianna's sake, to go on with hobhouse to naples, but hurried back to her, bidding her meet him half-way, and afterwards taking her, but not her husband, to a villa at la mira, on the brenta, a few miles out of venice. it seems that the neighbours, less particular than the leaders of english society, yet including a marquis as well as a physician with four unmarried daughters, hastened to call, if not on the lady, at all events on him. monk lewis paid him a short visit, and hobhouse, on his return from naples, stayed for some time in a house close by, studying in the ducal library, and amassing the erudition which appears in his notes to "childe harold." praise of marianna, however, disappears from byron's letters at this period; and one may infer from his comment on the news of the death of madame de staël that, if marianna had ever made him happy, she had now ceased to do so. "with regard to death," he then wrote to murray, "i doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes." this is not the note of a man who has found happiness in love or even pleasure in dissipation. apparently the novelty of the new experiences was wearing off; and byron was becoming sick of the isolation and uneventfulness of his life. he had gone to venice largely because there was no english society there--and yet he missed it; hoppner, the consul-general being almost his only english friend. he had access to venetian society, and to some extent, mixed in it; but he did not find it interesting. he tired of the receptions alike of signora benzoni the worldly, and of signora albrizzi the "blue," at which, no doubt, he was stared at as a marvel of fascinating profligacy; and he also tired of marianna segati, who doubtless gave him an excuse for breaking off his relations with her; and then there followed a further and deeper plunge. the departure of hobhouse seems, as usual, to have given the signal. it was about the time of his departure that byron gave up his lodging in the draper's shop and moved into the mocenigo palace; and the letter in which murray is advised that hobhouse is on his way home continues thus: "it is the height of the carnival, and i am in the _estrum_ and agonies of a new intrigue with i don't exactly know whom or what, except that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has light hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that i met her at the masque, and that when her mask is off, i am as wise as ever. i shall make what i can of the remainder of my youth." a vow which he kept after a fashion as innumerable passages from innumerable letters prove--moore, murray, and james wedderburn webster receiving his confidences in turn. venice, he assures the last named, "is by no means the most regular and correct moral city in the universe;" and he continues, describing the life there--not everybody's life, of course, but the life with which he has chosen to associate himself: "young and old--pretty and ugly--high and low--are employed in the laudable practice of love-making--and though most beauty is found amongst the middling and lower classes--this of course only renders their amatory habits more universally diffused." then to moore there is talk of "a venetian girl with large black eyes, a face like faustina's and the figure of a juno--tall and energetic as a pythoness, with eyes flashing, and her dark eyes streaming in the moonlight;" while to murray there is a long account of the affair with margarita cogni, the baker's wife, with whom the draper's wife disputed publicly for byron's favours: "margarita threw back her veil, and replied in very explicit venetian: '_you_ are _not_ his _wife_: _i_ am _not_ his _wife_: _you_ are his _donna_ and _i_ am his _donna_; _your_ husband is a cuckold, and _mine_ is another. for the rest what right have you to reproach me? if he prefers what is mine to what is yours, is it my fault? if you wish to secure him, tie him to your petticoat-string; but do not think to speak to me without a reply because you happen to be richer than i am.' having delivered this pretty piece of eloquence (which i relate as it was translated to me by a bye-stander), she went on her way, leaving a numerous audience with madame segati, to ponder at her leisure on the dialogue between them." and byron goes on to tell other stories of margarita's jealousy, relating that "she had inordinate self-love, and was not tolerant of other women ... so that, i being at the time somewhat promiscuous, there was great confusion and demolition of head-dresses and handkerchiefs; and sometimes my servants, in 'redding' the fray between her and other feminine persons, received more knocks than acknowledgments for their peaceful endeavours." and then follows the story of margarita's flight from her husband's house to byron's palace, and her husband's application to the police to restore her to him, and her second desertion of "that consumptive cuckold," as she styled him in open court, and her final success in settling herself as a fixture in byron's establishment, without his formal consent, but with his indolent acquiescence. she became his housekeeper, with the result that "the expenses were reduced to less than half, and everybody did their duty better." but she also had an ungovernable temper, suppressed all letters in a feminine handwriting, threatened violence with a table-knife, and had to be disarmed by fletcher; so that byron at last tired of her and told her to go. she then went quietly downstairs and threw herself into the canal, but was fished out, brought to with restoratives, and sent away a second time. "and this," byron concludes, "is the story of margarita cogni, as far as it belongs to me." like the story of marianna segati, it is hardly a story at all; and there seem to have been several other stories very much like it running concurrently with it. so, at all events, byron told augusta, who passed the news on to hodgson, saying that her brother had written "on the old subject very uncomfortably, and on his present pursuits which are what one would dread and expect; a string of low attachments." and if a picture of the life, drawn by an eye-witness, be desired, one has only to turn to shelley's letter on the subject to thomas love peacock. the subject of shelley's comments is the point of view and "tone of mind" of certain passages in "childe harold." he finds here "a kind of obstinate and self-willed folly," and he continues: "nothing can be less sublime than the true source of these expressions of contempt and desperation. the fact is that, first, the italian women with whom he associates are, perhaps, the most contemptible of all who exist under the moon--the most ignorant, the most disgusting, the most bigoted; countesses smell so strongly of garlic that an ordinary englishman cannot approach them. well, l. b. is familiar with the lowest sort of these women, the people his gondolieri pick up in the streets. he associates with wretches who seem almost to have lost the gait and physiognomy of man, and who do not scruple to avow practices, which are not only not named, but i believe, seldom even conceived in england. he says he disapproves, but he endures. he is heartily and deeply discontented with himself; and contemplating in the distorted mirror of his own thoughts the nature and habits of man, what can he behold but objects of contempt and despair?... and he has a certain degree of candour while you talk to him, but, unfortunately, it does not outlast your departure. no, i do not doubt, and for his sake i ought to hope, that his present career must end soon in some violent circumstance." this, it is to be remarked, is the picture, not of an enemy, but of a friend--one who already admired byron as the greatest poet of his generation, and was to learn to admire him as one of its greatest men: a man capable of doing great things as well as dreaming them. evidently, therefore, it is, as far as it goes, a true picture, though there is something to be added to it--something which blackens, and also something which brightens it. byron, to begin with, was, during this dark period, as careless of his appearance as of his morals. it was not necessary to his facile conquests among the venetian courtesans that he should be either sober or well-groomed. it may even, on the contrary, have been necessary that he should drink too much and go unkempt in order to live comfortably on their level. at all events he did drink too much--preferring fiery spirits to the harmless italian wines--and indulged a large appetite for miscellaneous foods, and ceased his frequentation of the barber's shop; with the result that the flesh, set free from its customary discipline, revolted and spread abroad, and hanson, who came to byron at venice to settle about the sale of newstead to colonel wildman, reported to augusta that he had found him "_fat_, immensely large, and his hair long." james wedderburn webster, a few months later, heard of his "corpulence" as "stupendous;" and byron, while objecting to that epithet, was constrained to admit that it was considerable. there were limits, however, to his excesses; and if misconduct was sometimes three parts of life for him, there always remained the fourth part to be devoted to other activities and interests. even at his most debased hours byron never quite lost his love of literature and out-door exercise, or his genius for friendship with men of like tastes with himself, who judged him as they found him and not as his wife said that he was; so that a picture contrasting pleasantly from shelley's may be taken from consul-general hoppner, whom byron took almost daily in his gondola to ride on the lido: "nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the lido were to me. we were from half to three quarters of an hour crossing the water, during which his conversation was always most amusing and interesting. sometimes he would bring with him any new book he had received, and read to me the passages which most struck him. often he would repeat to me whole stanzas of the poems he was engaged in writing, as he had composed them on the preceding evening; and this was the more interesting to me because i could frequently trace in them some idea which he had started in our conversation of the preceding day, or some remark the effect of which he had evidently been trying upon me. occasionally, too, he spoke of his own affairs, making me repeat all i had heard with regard to him, and desiring that i would not spare him, but let him know the worst that was said." the two reports must be read, of course, not as contradicting but as supplementing one another; so that a just estimate of the actual situation may not be very difficult to arrive at. byron, it is important to remember, though he had so many adventures, was only thirty years of age; and at thirty even a man of genius is still very young; and a very young man is always apt, given the provocation, to challenge public attention by going to the devil conspicuously and with a blare of trumpets. he may or may not like, and therefore nurse, the idea that he has tied his life up into such a knot that nothing but death--his own death or another's--can untie it; but he is quite ready, as a rule, to accept the tangle, if not to welcome it, as an excuse for a sensational plunge into the abysms of debauchery. and this is especially so if his passions are strong, and if his private affairs have been a public pageant, watched, whether for praise or censure, by innumerable eyes. both those conditions were fulfilled in byron's case. consequently he set out to swagger to the devil--as cynical now as he had once been sentimental--convinced, or at any rate affecting to be convinced, that, in a so-called love affair, nothing mattered but the sensual satisfaction; promiscuous in his habits and careless of his health--pleased to let lady byron know that he found more pleasure in the society of the scum of the stews of venice than in hers--delighted also to think that the community at large were shocked by his dissolute proceedings. we have just seen him asking his sister to inform his wife what he was doing and how he was living. his friend harness, who had long since lost sight of him, assures us that one of his great joys was to send defamatory paragraphs about himself to the continental newspapers in the hope that the english press would copy them, and that the world would believe him to be even worse than he was. he was vicious, that is to say, and he was also, as the duc de broglie called him, a "fanfaron of vice." it was a phase which he had to pass through, but no more; for such a man could not possibly go on living such a life for long. the real risk for his reputation was that he should die before the phase was finished, die in a house which was little better than a brothel, with venetian prostitutes tearing each other's hair and scratching each other's faces by his bedside. the end, indeed, might easily have come in that ignominious fashion; for he had a recurrence of the malaria to which he had been liable ever since his first journey to greece, and, in view of the liberties which he had taken with his constitution, it is rather surprising that he recovered from it. still, he did recover; and, whether ill or well, he never quite lost sight of the better possibilities. his harem claimed his days, but not, as a rule, his nights. there came, pretty regularly, an hour when the revelry ceased and the domestic female companions were packed off to their several beds; and then pens and ink and ardent spirits were set before byron, and he wrote. it was, indeed, just when his life was most dissolute that his genius was brightest. he wrote "manfred," the poem in which he responded to the challenge of his calumniators, and showed that he could, if he chose, cast a halo round the very charge with which they had sought to crush him. he wrote the fourth canto of "childe harold," in which we see the last of the admired byronic pose. he began "don juan," the poem in which the sincere cynic, who has come to cynicism by way of sentiment, passes with a light step from the pathetic to the ribald, and, attacking all hypocrisies, from those of mrs. grundy to those of the holy alliance, brushes them impatiently away like cobwebs. byron, in short, remained a fighter even in the midst of his self-indulgences; and for the fighter there is always hope. self-indulgence brings satiety, but fighting does not, when it can be seen that the blows are telling; and there could be no question of the effect of byron's blows. though the sea rolled between him and his countrymen, he shocked them as they had never been shocked before. regarding him as the wickedest of wicked men, they admitted that his was a wickedness that had to be reckoned with, which was exactly what he wished and had intended. perhaps he shocked them more for the fun of the thing than as the conscious champion of any particular cause; but that does not matter. the greatest builders are nearly always those who are building better than they know; and the building, at any rate, saved byron from suffering too much harm from the loose manner of his life, and helped him to await his opportunity. "i am only a spectator upon earth, until a tenfold opportunity offers. it may come yet," he wrote to moore about this time. the passage is enigmatical, and may only refer to some dream of vengeance cherished against lady byron and her advisers. on the other hand, it may just as well be a second reference to that resolution to "do something,"--something which "like the cosmogony or creation of the world will puzzle the philosophers of all ages,"--formulated in the letter to moore already quoted. the letter, at all events, is quickly followed by news of the illness already mentioned, and of which there is a more or less particular account in one of the letters to murray: "you ask about my health: about the beginning of the year i was in a state of great exhaustion, attended by such debility of stomach that nothing remained upon it; and i was obliged to reform my 'way of life,' which was conducting me from the yellow leaf to the ground, with all deliberate speed. i am better in health and in morals, and very much yours ever, "b." this change in the "way of life" meant, of course, in the first instance, the restoration of the draper's and baker's wives to the baker and draper respectively, and the return of the professional prostitutes to the places in which they normally plied their trade. it also meant, in the second place, the courtship of the countess guiccioli, a branch of the subject to be dealt with in a separate chapter. chapter xxvi in the venetian salons--introduction to countess guiccioli even at the time when the draper's and baker's wives were quarrelling over their claims to his attentions--even at the time when the baker's wife was routing the rest of the harem, and threatening violence with carving-knives--byron never quite lost his foothold in the venetian salons. there were two such salons, such as they were--that of the countess albrizzi, who aspired to be literary, and was styled the venetian de staël, and that of the countess benzoni, who aspired, in modern parlance, to be smart; and byron was welcome in both of them, and could even wound the feelings of either hostess by preferring the receptions of her rival. both hostesses knew, of course, how he spent the time which he did not spend with them. they saw the draper's wife in his box at the theatre; they saw the baker's wife frolicking with him at the carnival; they heard shocking stories of the "goings on" at the mocenigo palace. but they considered that these matters were not their business--or at all events did not concern them very much. they knew that english milords were mad, and that men of genius were mad; and, as byron was both of these things, they could pardon him for possessing a double dose of eccentricity. moreover, in a country in which most wives as well as most husbands were unfaithful, the fuss made about lady byron's grievances, whatever they might be, appeared ridiculous. why, they asked themselves, looking at the matter from their italian view-point, could not lady byron take a lover and be happy instead of assuming the airs of a martyr, organising a persecution, and hiring lawyers to throw mud? and they noted, too, that byron had picturesque ways of demonstrating that, though he followed depraved courses, he was, at the bottom of his heart, disgusted with them, and profoundly conscious of his capability of walking in sublimer paths. "an additional proof," says moore, "that, in this short, daring career of libertinism, he was but desperately seeking relief for a wronged and mortified spirit, and '_what to us seem'd guilt might be but woe_,'-- is that, more than once, of an evening, when his house has been in the possession of such visitants, he has been known to hurry away in his gondola, and pass the greater part of the night upon the water, as if hating to return to his home." allowances, it was clear (to the ladies), must be made for a man (or at all events for a milord and a poet) who, even when passing from the arms of a draper's to a baker's wife, could thus search for, even if he could not "set up," "_a mark of everlasting light above the howling senses' ebb and flow_." they made the allowances, therefore, showing that, even if they sometimes disapproved, they were always ready to forgive when the footman threw open the door and announced the return of the prodigal. to countess albrizzi, on these occasions, "his face appeared tranquil like the ocean on a fine spring morning," while his hands "were as beautiful as if they had been works of art," and his eyes "of the azure colour of the heavens, from which they seemed to derive their origin." this, though countess albrizzi was nearly sixty years of age; so that one can readily imagine the impression made upon countess guiccioli, whose husband was sixty, but who was herself little more than seventeen. [illustration: _countess guiccioli._] "i became acquainted with lord byron," she wrote to moore, "in the april of ; he was introduced to me at venice by the countess benzoni at one of that lady's parties. this introduction, which had so much influence over the lives of us both, took place contrary to our wishes, and had been permitted by us only from courtesy. for myself, more fatigued than usual that evening on account of the late hours they keep at venice, i went with great repugnance to this party, and purely in obedience to count guiccioli. lord byron, too, who was averse to forming new acquaintances--alleging that he had entirely renounced all attachments, and was unwilling any more to expose himself to their consequences--on being requested by the countess benzoni to allow himself to be presented to me, refused, and, at last, only assented from a desire to oblige her. his noble and exquisitely beautiful countenance, the tone of his voice, his manners, the thousand enchantments that surrounded him, rendered him so different and so superior a being to any whom i had hitherto seen that it was impossible he should not have left the most profound impression upon me. from that evening, during the whole of my subsequent stay at venice, we met every day." the girl countess's maiden name was teresa gamba; and she had been married to her elderly husband for his money. he was in his sixtieth year, and was worth about £ , a year. in his youth he had collaborated with alfieri in the establishment of a national theatre. now his principal interests were political--as were also those of the gamba family--and the police had their eyes on them in consequence. his principal establishment was at ravenna; and he was on the point of starting for ravenna, breaking the journey at various mansions which he possessed upon the road, on the evening on which his wife, acting "purely in obedience," to his instructions, attended the reception at which she lost her heart. he removed her from venice a very few days afterwards; but by that time the mischief was done, and it was not the heart only that had been lost. byron had pressed his suit with impetuous precipitation, and countess guiocioli had yielded--without, as it would seem, the least idea that there could be any harm in her doing so. morality, as has been said, is a matter partly of geography and partly of chronology; and, in the italy of those days, no woman got credit for fidelity unless she had a lover, as well as a husband, to be faithful to. so madame guiccioli punctuated her departure with fainting fits, and then wrote byron appealing letters, begging him to follow her as soon as she had prepared the minds of her relatives to receive him. to do so occupied her until the first days of june; and the further development of events may be best related in extracts from byron's letters: "about the th i leave venice, to take a journey into romagna; but shall probably return in a month." this to murray, as early as may . on may , we find him still going, but not yet gone: "next week i set out for romagna, at least in all probability." on june , a letter addressed to hoppner from padua shows that he has started, but that, the favours he sought having been accorded to him at venice, he is not very anxious to take a hot and dusty journey for the purpose of following up the intrigue: "now to go to cuckold a papal count, who, like candide, has already been 'the death of two men, one of whom was a priest,' in his own house is rather too much for my modesty, when there are several other places at least as good for the purpose. she says they must go to bologna in the middle of june, and why the devil then drag me to ravenna? however i shall determine nothing till i get to bologna, and probably take some time to decide when i am there, so that, the gods willing, you may probably see me again soon. the charmer forgets that a man may be whistled anywhere _before_, but that _after_, a journey in an italian june is a conscription, and therefore she should have been less liberal in venice, or less exigent at ravenna." that letter is the first which throws light on the vexed question whether byron really loved madame guiccioli, or merely viewed her as an eligible mistress. it is to be observed, however, that his conduct was less cynical than his correspondence, and that the countess, on her part, saw no reason for suspecting insincerity. "i shall stay but a few days at bologna," is his announcement when he gets there; and the countess relates his arrival: "dante's tomb, the classical pine wood, the relics of antiquity which are to be found in that place, afforded a sufficient pretext for me to invite him to come, and for him to accept my invitation. he came, in fact, in the month of june ... while i, attacked by a consumptive complaint, which had its origin from the moment of my quitting venice, appeared on the point of death.... his motives for such a visit became the subject of discussion, and these he himself afterwards involuntarily divulged; for having made some inquiries with a view to paying me a visit, and being told that it was unlikely he would ever see me again, he replied, if such were the case, he hoped that he should die also; which circumstance, being repeated, revealed the object of his journey." the narrative adds that count guiccioli himself begged byron to call in the hope that his society might be beneficial to his wife's health; and it is, at all events, certain that byron's arrival was followed by a remarkably rapid recovery, explicable from the fact, set forth by byron, that her complaint, after all, was not consumption but a "fausse couche." the husband's attitude, however, puzzled him. "if i come away with a stiletto in my gizzard some fine afternoon," he writes, "i shall not be astonished;" and he proceeds: "i cannot make _him_ out at all, he visits me frequently, and takes me out (like whittington the lord mayor) in a coach and _six_ horses.... by the aid of a priest, a chambermaid, a young negro-boy, and a female friend, we are enabled to carry on our unlawful loves, as far as they can well go, though generally with some peril, especially as the female friend and priest are at present out of town for some days, so that some of the precautions devolve upon the maid and negro." that, it will be agreed, is rather the language of don juan than of a really devout lover; but there is more of the lover and less of the don juan in the letters which succeed. in the letter to murray, for instance, dated june : "i see my _dama_ every day at the proper and improper hours; but i feel seriously uneasy about her health, which seems very precarious. in losing her i should lose a being who has run great risks on my account, and whom i have every reason to love, but i must not think this possible. i do not know what i _should_ do if she died, but i ought to blow my brains out, and i hope that i should. her husband is a very polite personage, but i wish he would not carry me out in his coach and six, like whittington and his cat." and still more in a letter to hoppner dated july : "if anything happens to my present _amica_, i have done with passion for ever, it is my _last_ love. as to libertinism, i have sickened myself of that, as was natural in the way i went on, and have at least derived that advantage from vice, to _love_ in the better sense of the word. _this_ will be my last adventure. i can hope no more to inspire attachment, and i trust never again to feel it." but then, in a letter to murray, dated august , there is a relapse and a change of tone: "my 'mistress dear,' who hath 'fed my heart upon smiles and wine' for the last two months, set out for bologna with her husband this morning, and it seems that i follow him at three to-morrow morning. i cannot tell how our romance will end, but it hath gone on hitherto most erotically--such perils and escapes--juan's are a child's play in comparison." gallantry, not passion, is the note there; but, on the other hand, passion and not gallantry prevails in the letter to the countess, written on a blank page of her copy of "corinne," which byron had read in her garden in her absence: "my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, seventeen years of age, and two out of a convent. i wish that you had stayed there, with all my heart, or, at least, that i had never met you in your married state. "but all this is too late. i love you and you love me--at least you _say so_, and _act_ as if you _did_ so, which last is a great consolation in all events. but _i_ more than love you, and cannot cease to love you." "think of me, sometimes, when the alps and the ocean divide us--but they never will unless you _wish_ it." a series of contradictions with which we must be content to be perplexed; though perhaps they indicate nothing except that byron changed his mind from time to time, and was more in love on some days than on others. and that, of course, it may be urged, is pretty much the same as saying that he was not, in the fullest sense of the words, in love at all. that his feelings for the countess differed from his feelings for the wives of the baker and the draper is, indeed, clear enough. otherwise he would not have drawn the invidious distinction which we have seen him drawing between the "libertinism" of the earlier intrigues and the "romance" of the later one. those passions had depended solely on the senses; into this one sentiment and intellectual sympathy entered. that is what his biographers are thinking of when they say that the new attachment either lifted him out of the mire or, at least, prevented him from slipping back into it. that, in particular, is what shelley meant when he wrote of byron as "greatly improved in every respect" and apparently becoming "a virtuous man," and added, by way of explanation: "the connection with la guiccioli has been an inestimable benefit to him." but that, after all merely signifies that byron, having a lady instead of a loose woman for his mistress, had to forswear sack and live cleanly--a thing which the painful effects of his excesses on his health had already disposed him to do. it does not signify that he had found a love which filled his life, or healed his wounds, or effaced the memories of his earlier loves; and there is, in fact, a poem of the period to which mr. richard edgcumbe points as circumstantial proof that, even when he was paying his suit to madame guiccioli, byron's heart was in england, with mary chaworth. * * * * * three years had passed since he had seen her. her mind had been temporarily deranged by her troubles, but she had recovered. she had been reconciled to her husband, and was living with him at colwick hall, near nottingham. close to the walls of that old mansion flows the river trent; and byron wrote the lines beginning: "_river that rollest by the ancient walls, where dwells the lady of my love, when she walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls a faint and fleeting memory of me._" the common supposition is that the river invoked is the po, and that the lady referred to is madame guiccioli; but that can hardly be. seeing that madame guiccioli was, at this time, beseeching byron to come to her arms at ravenna, her recollection of him could hardly be described as "fair and fleeting." the allusion is evidently to an anterior passion; and madame guiccioli's place in the poem comes in a later stanza: "_my blood is all meridian: were it not, i had not left my clime, nor should i be, in spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot, a slave again to love--at least of thee._" and then again: "_a stranger loves the lady of the land, born far beyond the mountains, but his blood is all meridian, as if never fanned by the bleak wind that chills the polar flood._ "_'tis vain to struggle--let me perish young-- live as i lived, and love as i have loved: to dust if i return, from dust i sprung, and then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved._" the conclusion here clearly is that byron is committed to passion because his temperament compels it, and is very grateful to madame guiccioli for loving him, but that if mary chaworth should ever lift a little finger and beckon him, he would leave madame guiccioli and go to her. so mr. edgcumbe argues; and he makes out his case--a case which we shall find nothing to contradict, and something to confirm when we get back to our story. chapter xxvii byron's relations with the countess guiccioli and her husband at ravenna countess guiccioli speaks of byron's regard for her as "the serious attachment which he had wished to avoid, but which had mastered his whole heart, and induced him to live an isolated life with the person he loved in a town of romagna, far from all that could flatter his vanity and from all intercourse with his countrymen." the account is not altogether inaccurate, but it omits one important fact: the countess's own resolute insistence that byron's society was essential to her happiness and even to her life. at first, it seems clear, his sole objective was the seduction of his neighbour's wife. he was engaged, as he thought, upon an affair not of sentiment but of gallantry; and he had no idea that his neighbour's wife, having consented to be seduced, would expect him to dance attendance on her for ever afterwards. so much seems evident from the letter in which he complains of being dragged to ravenna in a blazing italian june. his mistress, however, had compelled him to come by pleading illness; and she did not scruple to repeat that plea as often as she found any difficulty in getting her own way. "i am ill--so ill. send for lord byron or i shall die;" that was the refrain which helped her to reorganise her life. having joined her at ravenna, byron, as we have seen, accompanied her to bologna. it was at bologna that he wrote the love letter, quoted in the preceding chapter, in madame guiccioli's copy of "corinne." from bologna, too, he wrote to murray, asking him to use his influence to procure count guiccioli a nomination as british vice-consul--an unsalaried office which would entitle him to british protection in the event of political disturbances; and at bologna, finally, occurred countess guiccioli's second diplomatic indisposition. "some business," she told moore, "having called count guiccioli to ravenna, i was obliged by the state of my health, instead of accompanying him, to return to venice, and he consented that lord byron should be the companion of my journey. we left bologna on september .... when i arrived at venice, the physicians ordered that i should try the country air; and lord byron, having a villa at la mira, gave it up to me, and came to reside there with me. at this place we passed the autumn." at this place, too, the plot began to thicken in a manner which throws light upon count guiccioli's character. he wrote proposing that byron should lend him £ ; and when byron refused to do anything of the kind, seeing that the count was a richer man than he, he demanded that the countess should return to him; so that letters of october and november contain these significant passages: "count g. comes to venice next week, and i am requested to consign his wife to him, which shall be done--with all her linen." "count g. has arrived in venice, and has presented his spouse (who had preceded him two months for her health and the prescriptions of dr. aglietti) with a paper of conditions, regulations of hours and conduct and morals, &c., which he insists on her accepting, and she persists in refusing. i am expressly, it would seem, excluded by this treaty, as an indispensable preliminary; so that they are in high discussion, and what the result may be i know not, particularly as they are consulting friends." the view of the friends--that is to say of the italy of the period--was that morals were of little but appearances of great importance. married women might have lovers--one lover at a time--but their amours must be conducted in their own homes and under their husbands' patronage. by running away with their lovers they put themselves in the wrong; and the men who ran away with them showed themselves ignorant of the manners of good society; so that countess belzoni, who knew all about the draper's wife and the baker's wife and the promiscuous debaucheries of the mocenigo palace, remarked to moore, who was passing through venice at the time: "it is such a pity, you know. until he did that, he had been behaving with such perfect propriety." so the debate proceeded; the girl wife and the sexagenarian husband giving each other pieces of their several minds, and the friends offering good advice to both of them, while byron, who was excluded from the council chamber, sat below and wrote to murray: "as i tell you that the guiccioli business is on the eve of exploding in one way or the other, i will just add that, without attempting to influence the decision of the contessa, a good deal depends upon it. if she and her husband make it up you will, perhaps, see me in england sooner than you expect; if not, i shall retire with her to france or america, change my name, and live a quiet provincial life. all this may seem odd, but i have got the poor girl into a scrape; and as neither her birth, nor her rank, nor her connections by birth or marriage are inferior to my own, i am in honour bound to support her through: besides, she is a very pretty woman--ask moore--and not yet one and twenty." that, once again, is not the language of a man whom an invincible passion has swept off his feet. it is the language of the man who lets himself be loved rather than of the man who loves--the man who will preserve an even mind whether he retains his mistress or loses her, and whose affection for her only carries him to the point of saying that, whatever happens, at any rate he will not treat her badly. it is a point, at any rate, beyond that to which his affection for miss clairmont ever carried him; but it is hardly the furthest point to which it is possible for love to go. * * * * * "with some difficulty, and many internal struggles, i reconciled the lady with her lord," is the language in which byron relates the upshot of the negotiations. "i think," he continues, "of setting out for england by the tyrol in a few days"; but only six days later he has changed his plans. "pray," he then writes to murray, "let my sister be informed that i am not coming as i intended: i have not the courage to tell her so myself, at least not yet; but i will soon, _with the reasons_." and about the reasons there is, of course, no mystery. count guiccioli, having gained the day, had carried his wife off to ravenna, and byron had missed her more than he had expected. hoppner writes of him as "very much out of spirits, owing to madame guiccioli's departure, and out of humour with everybody and everything around him." he had had his belongings packed for his return to england, and had even dressed for the journey, but had changed his mind, and unpacked and undressed again at the last minute; and madame guiccioli, in the meantime, had had her third diplomatic indisposition, and threatened yet again to die unless byron were brought to her. so that presently, on january , , we find byron back again at ravenna, and giving moore a curious explanation of his movements: "after her arrival at ravenna the guiccioli fell ill again too; and at last her father (who had, all along, opposed the _liaison_ most violently till now) wrote to me to say that she was in such a state that _he_ begged me to come and see her--and that her husband had acquiesced, in consequence of her relapse, and that _he_ (her father) would guarantee all this, and that there would be no further scenes in consequence between them, and that i should not be compromised in any way. i set out soon after and have been here ever since. i found her a good deal altered, but getting better." at first he seems to have supposed that he was merely a visitor like another; and a letter to hoppner, dated january , shows him uncertain as to the duration of his stay: "i may stay a day, a week, a year, all my life; but all this depends upon what i can neither see nor foresee. i came because i was called, and will go the moment that i perceive what may render my departure proper. my attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the microscopic accuracy of the close to such _liaisons_; but 'time and the hour' must decide upon what i do." here, yet again, one detects a note of hesitation incompatible with perfect love. the very letter, however, which expresses the hesitations also contains directions for the forwarding of his furniture, which looks as though byron already foresaw and accepted his fate. he was destined, in fact, to live with the household of the guicciolis on the same terms on which he had previously lived with the household of the segatis--engaging an apartment in their mansion, and paying a rent to the husband while making love to the wife--and to be what the italians call a _cicisbeo_ and the english a tame cat. he admits, in various letters, that that is his position, and that he does not altogether like it. "i can't say," he tells hobhouse, "that i don't feel the degradation;" but he nevertheless submits to it, describing himself to hoppner as "drilling very hard to learn how to double a shawl," and giving the same correspondent a graphic picture of his first appearance in his new character: "the g.'s object appeared to be to parade her foreign lover as much as possible, and, faith, if she seemed to glory in the scandal, it was not for me to be ashamed of it. nobody seemed surprised; all the women, on the contrary, were, as it were, delighted with the excellent example. the vice-legate, and all the other vices, were as polite as could be; and i, who had acted on the reserve, was fairly obliged to take the lady under my arm, and look as much like a cicisbeo as i could on so short a notice, to say nothing of the embarrassment of a cocked hat and sword, much more formidable to me than it ever will be to the enemy." a picture in which no one's part is dignified, and no one's emotions are strained to a tense pitch, but everybody is happy and comfortable in an easy-going way. one gets the same impression from byron's reply to murray's suggestion that he should write "a volume of manners, &c. on italy." there are many reasons, he says, why he does not care to touch that subject in print; but he assures murray privately that the italian morality, though widely different from the english, has nevertheless "its rules and its fitnesses and decorums." the women "exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honour, while they pay the husband as a tradesman, that is not at all." at the same time, he adds, "the greatest outward respect is to be paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their _serventi_," so that "you would suppose them relations," and might imagine the _servente_ to be "one adopted into the family." but this was an arcadian state of things too good to last. exactly how or why it came to an end one does not know; but probably because, while the countess was too vehemently in love to control the expression of her feelings, byron's european importance overshadowed her husband, made him feel foolish, and challenged him to assert himself. whatever the reason, the arrangement only remained idyllic for about four months, and then, in may , there began to be talk of divorce, "on account of our having been taken together _quasi_ in the fact, and, what is worse, that she does not _deny_ it." she was so far from denying it, indeed, that she protested that it was a shame that she should be the only woman in romagna who was not allowed to have a lover, and declared that, unless her husband did allow her to have a lover, she would not live with him. her family took her part, saying that her husband, having tolerated her infidelity for so long, had forfeited, his right to make a fuss about it. the ladies of ravenna, and the populace, also made the business theirs, and supported the lovers, on general principles, because they were of the age for love and the husband was not, and also because count guiccioli was an unpleasant person and unpopular. he was, indeed, not only unpleasant and unpopular, but also reputed to be a desperate and dangerous character, careful, indeed, of his own elderly skin, but quite capable of hiring bravos to assassinate those who crossed his path. "warning was given me," byron writes to moore, "not to take such long rides in the pine forest without being on my guard;" and again: "the principal security is that he has not the courage to spend twenty scudi--the average price of a clean-handed bravo--otherwise there is no want of opportunity, for i ride about the woods every evening, with one servant, and sometimes an acquaintance, who latterly looks a little queer in solitary bits of bushes." the peril of violence may have been the greater because the count could not find a lawyer willing to take up his case; the advocates declining, as one man, to act for him on the ground that he was either a fool or a knave--a fool if he had been unaware of the liaison and a knave if he had connived at it and "waited for some bad end to divulge it." the stiletto, however, remained in its sheath, and the matter, after all, was settled in the courts. the countess, supported by her family, applied for the separation which she had previously resisted; and the count, on his part, resisted the separation which he had previously demanded, raising particular objections to the claim that he should pay alimony. but he had to pay it. the papal court decreed a separation, fixing madame guiccioli's allowance at £ a year, but, at the same time, ordained with that indifference to liberty and justice which distinguishes churches whenever they attain temporal power, that the wife whose injuries it was professing to redress, should not be allowed to live with her lover, but must either reside in the house of her parents or get her to a nunnery. she went on july to a villa about fifteen miles from ravenna. byron visited her there twice a month, but continued to occupy his hired apartment in her husband's house--a fact which by itself sufficiently justifies his reiterated protests that the manners and customs of italy are beyond the comprehension of the english. a letter to moore dated august gives us his own view of his proceedings as well as of the relations which he conceives to subsist between genius and disorder: "i verily believe that nor you nor any man of poetical temperament can avoid a strong passion of some kind. it is the poetry of life. what should i have known or written had i been a quiet mercantile politician or a lord-in-waiting? a man must travel and turmoil, or there is no existence. besides, i only meant to be a cavalier servente, and had no idea it would turn out a romance in the anglo fashion." so that we find byron launched yet again on a new way of life--the last before his final and famous transference of his energies from love to revolutionary politics. evidently it was a relief to him to find himself a lover instead of a cavaliere servente--even at the risk of having a dagger planted, on some dark night, between his shoulder blades. evidently, too, he loved "the lady whom i serve" better than he had loved her at the beginning of the liaison, and better than he was to love her towards the end of it. but, even so, it was no absorbing love that possessed him--no love that diverted his thoughts from morbid introspection, or made him feel that, merely by loving, he had fulfilled his destiny and played a worthy part in life. on the contrary he could write in the diary which he then kept for six weeks or so: "i go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived so long, and to so little purpose;" and he could compose the well-known epigram: _through life's road, so dim and dirty, i have dragged to three-and-thirty. what have these years left to me? nothing--except thirty-three._ nationalism, movements, risings, revolutions, and the rest of it might well seem a welcome excitement to a man so _blasé_ and so inured to sensations that love, though he vowed that he "loved entirely" could not lift him to a more exalted frame of mind than that; and his attachment to madame guiccioli may well have gained an element of permanence from the fact that she belonged to a family of conspirators in league against priests and kings. chapter xxviii revolutionary activities--removal from ravenna to pisa the origin of byron's revolutionary opinions is wrapped in mystery. he certainly was not born a revolutionist; there is no record of his becoming one for definite reasons at any definite moment of time; and if it were alleged that he assumed revolutionism for the sake of swagger and effect, or had it thrust upon him by the household of the gambas, the propositions, though pretty obviously untrue, could not very easily be disproved. what he chiefly lacked in the character of revolutionist was the fine enthusiasm of the men of , their pathetic belief in the perfectibility of human nature, and their zeal for equality and fraternity as things of equal account with liberty. his view of human nature was thoroughly cynical, and he was far too proudly conscious of his own place in the social hierarchy to aspire to be merely citizen byron in a world from which all honorific distinctions had disappeared. indeed we find him, in some of his letters, actually gibing at hobhouse because his activities as a political agitator have brought him into contact with ill-bred associates; and that, as will be admitted, is a strange tone for a sincere revolutionist to take. nor was byron ever an argumentative revolutionist of the school of the philosophic radicals. neither in his letters nor in his other writings does he give reasons for his revolutionary faith. he presents himself there as one who is a revolutionist as a matter of course--one to whom it could not possibly occur to be anything but a revolutionist. as for his motives, he assumes that we know them, or that they do not concern us, or else he leaves us to guess them, or to infer them from our general knowledge of his character and circumstances. apparently, since guess-work is our resource, he was a revolutionist in italy for much the same reason for which he had been a protector of small boys at harrow. the same generous instinct which had made him hate bullies then made him hate oppressors now; and he hated them the more because he perceived that oppression was buttressed by hypocrisy. in particular he saw the italians bullied by the austrians in the name of the so-called holy alliance--that unpleasant group of potentates whose fanaticism was exploited by the cunning of metternich, and who invoked the name of god and the principle of divine right for the crushing of national aspirations. that was enough to set him now sighing for "a forty-parson power" to "snuffle the praises of the holy three," now proposing that the same three should be "shipped off to senegal," and to enlist his sympathies on the italian side. the rest depended upon circumstances; and the determining circumstances were that he was an active man on a loose end, and that his lot was cast among conspirators. he was ready to conspire because of the trend of his sympathies; he actually conspired, in the first instance, partly to please the gambas, and partly because he was bored; and his appetite grew with what it fed upon. it was not merely that conspiracy furnished him with occupation--the cause at the same time furnished him with an ideal, of which he was beginning to feel the need. living for himself he had made a mess of his life; and his relations with madame guiccioli did not conceal the fact from him. his love for her was a pastime, and no more an end in itself than his attachment to the draper's wife at venice. but he felt the need of some end in itself, unrelated to his personal concerns, to round off his life, give it unity and consistency, and make it a progressive drama instead of a mere series of unrelated incidents; and he found that end in espousing the cause of oppressed nationalities. no doubt there were other influences simultaneously at work. the most effective altruist is always something of an egoist as well; and it is likely enough that byron heard the promptings of personal ambition as well as the bitter cry of outcast peoples. his place in a revolutionary army could not be that of a private soldier--he was bound to be its picturesque figure-head if not its actual leader; and that meant much at a time when all the liberals of europe closely followed every attempt to shake off the austrian, or the prussian, or the papal yoke. so that here was his clear chance to rehabilitate himself--to issue from his obscure retreat in a sudden blaze of glory, and set the prophets saying that the stone which the builders rejected had become the head-stone of the corner. but, however that may be, and however much or little that object may have been present to his mind, it is at all events from the time of his active association with revolutionary movements that byron's life in exile begins to acquire seriousness and dignity. so much in broad outline. the details, when we come to look for them, are obscure, insignificant, and disappointing. he joined the carbonari, and was made the head of one of their sections--the capo of the americani was his official designation; but the carbonari, though a furious, were a feeble folk. they had signs, and passwords, and secret meeting-places in the forest, and they whispered any quantity of sedition; but their secrets were "secrets de polichinelle." spies lurked behind every door and listened at every keyhole, and their intentions were better known to the police than to themselves. a rising was proposed and even planned. the poet's letters to his publisher are full of dark references to the terrible things about to happen. a row is imminent, and he means to be in the thick of it. heads are likely to be broken, and his own shall be risked with the rest. all other projects must be postponed to that contingency. he cannot even come to england as he had intended, to attend to his private affairs. and so on, in a series of letters, in one of which we find the significantly prophetic question, honoured with a paragraph to itself: "what thinkst thou of greece?" it is the beginning, at last, of the awakening of byron's sterner and more serious self--the first occasion on which we see the fierce joys of battle clearly meaning more to him than the soft delights of love. only there was to be no battle this time, and hardly even a skirmish, and, in fact, very little beyond a scare. the austrians were watching the romagnese border much as a cat watches a mouse-hole. a week or so before the proposed insurrection was to have taken place, an austrian army crossed the po, and the proposed insurgents scattered and hid themselves. it only remained for the government to arrest those of them whom it desired to keep under lock and key, and expel those whom it preferred to get rid of. byron himself might very well have been lodged in an austrian or papal gaol through a scurvy trick played on him by some of the conspirators. he had provided a number of them with arms at his expense; and then the decree went forth that all persons found in possession of arms were to be treated as rebels. whereupon the chicken-hearted crew came running to the guiccioli palace and begged byron to take back his muskets. he was out at the time, but returned from his ride to find his apartment turned into an armoury; and it still remains uncertain whether he escaped molestation, as he thought, because his servants did not betray him, or, as seems more probable, because the government preferred not to have such an embarrassing prisoner on their hands. if he would have been embarrassing as a prisoner, however, he was equally embarrassing as a resident; and, as his expulsion might have made a noise, it was decided to manoeuvre him out of the country by expelling the gambas. where they went madame guiccioli would have to go too, and where she went byron might be expected to follow. we get his version of the story, together with a glimpse at his feelings, and at the new struggle in his mind between love and ambition, in a letter to moore dated september , ; "i am all in the sweat, dust, and blasphemy of an universal packing of all my things, furniture &c., for pisa, whither i go for the winter. the cause has been the exile of all my fellow carbonics, and, amongst them, of the whole family of madame g.; who, you know, was divorced from her husband, last week, 'on account of p. p. clerk of this parish,' and who is obliged to join her family and relatives, now in exile there, to avoid being shut up in a monastery, because the pope's decree of separation required her to reside in _casa paterna_, or else, for decorum's sake, in a convent. as i could not say, with hamlet, 'get thee to a nunnery,' i am preparing to follow them. "it is awful work, this love, and prevents all a man's projects of good or glory. i wanted to go to greece lately (as everything seems up here), with her brother, who is a very fine, brave fellow (i have seen him put to the proof) and wild about liberty. but the tears of a woman who has left her husband for a man, and the weakness of one's own heart, are paramount to these projects, and i can hardly indulge them." greece again, it will be observed, and an indication that byron is at last more anxious to be up and doing something as the champion of desperate causes than to lie bound with silken chains about the feet of a mistress! a proof, too, that his mistress, on her part, already perceiving that causes may be her rivals, feels the need of working on his feelings with her tears! moore prints the letters in which she appeals to him in the first excitement of her passions and apprehensions: "help me, my dear byron, for i am in a situation most terrible; and without you i can resolve upon nothing." she has received, it seems, a passport, and also an intimation that she must either return to her husband or go to a convent. not suspecting that passport and intimation came from the same source, she talks of the necessity of escaping by night lest the passport should be taken from her. she is in despair, and cannot bear the thought of never seeing byron again. if that is to be the result of quitting romagna, then she will remain and let them immure her, regarding that as the less melancholy fate. and so forth, in language which may be merely hysterical, but more probably indicates a waning confidence in her lover. but her tears prevailed. byron, it is true, lingered at ravenna for some months after her departure; but that is a circumstance of which we must not make too much. he had his apartment at ravenna; he had his belongings about him; and they were considerable, including not only furniture, and books, and manuscripts, and horses, and carriages, and dogs and cats, but a large menagerie of miscellaneous live-stock. he could hardly be expected to go until he and the gambas had arranged where to settle; and their arrangements called for much discussion and balancing of pros and cons. it was during the time of indecision that shelley came, at his request, to visit him; and we may take shelley's letters to peacock as our next testimony to his way of life. his establishment, shelley reports, "consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, five cats, an eagle, a crow and a falcon;" and in a postscript he adds: "i find that my enumeration of the animals in this circæan palace was defective, and that in a material point. i have just met, on the grand staircase, five peacocks, two guinea-hens, and an egyptian crane." then he proceeds: "lord byron gets up at two. i get up, quite contrary to my usual custom (but one must sleep or die, like southey's sea-snake in _kehama_) at twelve. after breakfast we sit talking till six. from six till eight we gallop through the pine forests which divide ravenna from the sea. we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning." they gossiped about many things, and considered, among other matters, what would be the best place for byron, the gambas, and madame guiccioli to live in. switzerland had been proposed, but shelley urged objections which byron admitted to be sound. switzerland was "little fitted for him." the english colonies would be likely to "torment him as they did before," ostentatiously sending him to coventry, and then spying on him when there. the consequence of his exasperation might be "a relapse of libertinism," a return to the venetian way of life, "which he says he plunged into not from taste, but from despair." perhaps the last-named danger was rather less than shelley supposed; for the drapers' and bakers' wives of geneva and the canton of vaud are neither so attractive nor so accommodating as those of venice; but, on the whole, this wayward sprite, as he is commonly esteemed--so wayward that he had been expelled from his university and had sacrificed a large fortune to an unnecessary quarrel with his father--showed common sense and worldly wisdom in his advice. he showed so much of it, indeed, and showed it so clearly, that byron begged him to write to madame guiccioli and put the case to her; which he duly did "in lame italian," eliciting an answer very eloquent of his correspondent's growing anxiety as to her hold upon byron's heart. madame guiccioli agreed to the proposal, but then begged a favour: "pray do not leave ravenna without taking milord with you." but that, of course, was rather too much to ask. the most that shelley could promise was that he would undertake every arrangement on byron's behalf for his establishment at pisa, and would then "assail him with importunities," if these should be necessary, to rejoin his mistress; and it seems that they were necessary, for two months or more later, we find shelley writing to him: "when may we expect you? the countess g. is very patient, though sometimes she seems apprehensive that you will never leave ravenna." the countess, indeed, in supplying moore with biographical material, showed herself at her wit's end to devise excuses for byron's delay, not too wounding to her vanity; and shelley, at the time, showed a tendency to reconsider his estimate of their relations: "la guiccioli," he wrote in october, "is a very pretty, sentimental, innocent italian, who has sacrificed an immense fortune for the sake of lord byron, and who, if i know anything of my friend, of her, and of human nature, will hereafter have plenty of leisure and opportunity to repent her rashness." it was a harsh judgment, based in part, no doubt, on what shelley had been told of byron's treatment of miss clairmont; but it indicated a real danger-spot. byron had ceased to love passionately, if he had ever done so, and he did not love blindly. we need not, indeed, accept miss clairmont's statement that, at the end, he was "sick to death of madame guiccioli," and that it was chiefly for the purpose of escaping from her that he joined the greek insurgents. that utterance was the voice of a jealous woman endeavouring to appease her own affronted pride. but though there was no question of byron's giving madame guiccioli a rival of her own sex, she was now destined to encounter the rivalry, hardly less serious, of his political interests and ambitions. all through the period of his residence at ravenna things had been working towards that conclusion; and the circumstances of the removal showed how near they had now got to it. "we were divided in choice," byron wrote to moore, "between switzerland and tuscany, and i gave my vote for pisa, as nearer the mediterranean, which i love for the sake of the shores which it washes, and for my young recollections of . switzerland is a curst selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world. i never could bear the inhabitants, and still less their english visitors; for which reason, after writing for some information about houses, upon hearing that there was a colony of english all over the cantons of geneva, &c., i immediately gave up the thought, and persuaded the gambas to do the same." which is true enough as far as it goes, but is something less than the whole truth, since it omits to mention the increasing seriousness in byron's character, and his new tendency to transfer the bitterness of his indignation from the authors of his own wrongs to the political tyrants of the political school of metternich. switzerland could afford no scope, in that direction, for his energies. the swiss, it is true, have their revolutions from time to time; but these are petty and trivial. strangers have a difficulty in understanding the points at issue; and the interference of strangers is not solicited. the revolutionist from abroad is only welcome in switzerland when he is resting, or when a price is put upon his head--neither of which conditions byron could claim to fulfil. in italy, however, and over against greece, he would be in the midst of the most hospitable revolutionists in the world; and his chance of passing from love and literature to fighting and statesmanship was bound to come to him if he would wait for it. chapter xxix the trivial round at pisa from ravenna to pisa, from pisa to genoa, from genoa to cephalonia, from cephalonia to missolonghi and an untimely death in a great cause still very far from victory--these are the remaining stages of the pilgrimage. we have a cloud of witnesses--shelley, leigh hunt, trelawny, medwin, lady blessington, and others; but only the merest fragment of their long depositions can be presented here. the life at pisa, where byron at last arrived in november , was, at first, quite commonplace and uneventful. one reads of a trivial round of functions rather than of duties punctually discharged at the same hour of every day. byron, we gather, lay late in bed, but ultimately rose, and ate biscuits and drank soda-water, and received the visits of his english acquaintances, and rode out with them to an inn, and practised shooting at a mark, and then rode home again. after that came dinner, and a call upon the gambas, and an interview with madame guiccioli; and then, that ceremony finished, the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning were devoted, sometimes to conversation, but more often to literary composition. that was all; and it would have seemed little enough if the witnesses had not taken the view that, whatever byron did, he was giving a performance, and that whoever saw him do it was a privileged spectator at a private view and under an obligation to report the spectacle. they did take that view, however, and devoted themselves, in the modern phraseology, to "interviewing" byron. he was so different from them--so much greater--and so much more interesting--that they could no more converse with him lightly, on common topics and on equal terms, than they could so converse with a monster advertised as the leading attraction of a freak museum. shelley, indeed, might do so, being his friend as well as his admirer, and one who moved naturally on the same plane of thought; but the others could only approach him humbly from below, sit at his feet, and talk to him about himself. after his back was turned, they might presume to quiz and satirise--leigh hunt did so, and so, too, to a less extent, did both trelawny and lady blessington; but, at the time, they could get no further than begging permission to ask questions. the permission was always accorded. byron had never seriously resisted the doctrine that his private affairs were of public interest; and he had, at this period of his life, completely succumbed to it. no topic was so delicate that his interlocutors felt any obligation to avoid it. his quarrel with lady byron; his adventures with lady caroline lamb and lady oxford, his excursions into inebriety with sheridan and scrope davies; his losses at hazard with the dandies; the moral laxity of the venetian interlude; the placid pleasure which he found in his relations with madame guiccioli: on all these topics he talked at large and at length whenever any stray companion started them. his readiness thus to gossip with all comers on his most intimate affairs is noticed somewhere by hobhouse as one of the gravest defects of his character; but very likely there was not much else to talk about in that dull provincial town; and in any case byron did not invariably tell the truth. trelawny says that he delighted to "bam" those who conversed with him; but that queer slang word has long since gone out of date. a more modern way of putting it would be to say that he liked to "gas," having no inconsiderable contempt for those who tried to pump him, and being more anxious to tell them things that would astonish them than to supply them with accurate information. having left london in the days of the dandies, he had taken some of the ideals of the dandies to italy with him, though he had coated them with a cosmopolitan veneer. he still liked to swagger in the style of a buck of the regency who spared neither man in his anger nor woman in his lust and could carry any quantity of claret with heroic lightness of heart. or, at all events, he liked to swagger in that way from time to time; though one can see, collating the confidences with the letters, that there were also moments at which the mask was lifted and the real man appeared. but the real man was also a new man--or, at all events, a man whose character was undergoing a radical transformation under the very eyes of his friends. shelley seems to have been the only one of them who perceived the change--he is, at any rate, the only one who has recorded it. byron, he said, was "becoming a virtuous man;" and the expression may pass, and may be regarded as confirmed by the testimony of the other companions, if we do not give the word "virtue" too rigid an interpretation. the venetian libertinism had been left behind for ever. with it had been left the old passions and the old bitterness, and the old lack of aim or of ambition to do more than enrapture the women and rub the self-righteous the wrong way. byron, in fact, was becoming calm, tolerant, practical and sincere--learning to look forward instead of backward--a man who was at last ready, and even resolved, to make sacrifices in order to achieve. even his feelings towards lady byron and her family seem to have undergone a change at about this time, though not a change which indicated any probability of reconciliation. a little while before, at ravenna, he had composed two epigrams on the subject: one addressed "to medea," on the anniversary of his wedding: "_this day of all our days has done the most for me and you; 'tis just six years since we were_ one _and_ five _since we were two!_" and the second on hearing simultaneously that _marino faliero_ had failed on the stage, and that lady noel had recovered from an illness which had seemed likely to be fatal: "_behold the blessing of a lucky lot! my play is_ damned, _and lady noel not._" now, at pisa, we find him acknowledging the gift of a lock of his child's hair, and writing to lady byron thus: "the time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer one of our prior acquaintance. we both made a bitter mistake; but now it is over, and irrevocably so. for, at thirty-three on my part, and a few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life, still it is one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as to admit of no modification; and as we could not agree when younger, we should with difficulty do so now." and also: "whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, i have ceased to reflect upon any but two things--viz. that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again. i think if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference to myself, it will be better for all three." the letter, for whatever reason, was never sent; but it has, nevertheless, its value as a document illustrative of byron's ultimate attitude towards the great blunder of his life. there is no renewal of love, and no desire for the renewal of intimate relations; but, on the other hand, there is no more angry talk about shattered household gods. instead, there is a new spirit of toleration. byron recognises, at last, that lady byron has a perfect right to be the sort of woman that she is--that she may even be a woman of some merit, though on him her very virtues jar. so he takes the tone of a man who parleys politely under a flag of truce; and then turns and goes his way, a little disappointed perhaps, but on the whole indifferent. he had thought it worth while to send lady byron messages about the pleasure which he found in the company of the venetian harlots; but he sent her none about the charms of madame guiccioli. he had travelled too far from her for that, and got too completely out of touch with her, and acquired too many new interests which she did not share. it should be added, however, that in many of his new interests madame guiccioli herself hardly shared. she was a charming woman--almost exactly the woman to suit him--pretty and plump and intelligent, and yet ready to acquiesce in his habit of regarding her sex from the standpoint of an oriental satrap. it gratified him to relapse into her society when strenuous activities had tired him; for he found her restful as well as amiable. but her affection was no substitute for those strenuous activities; and his need for her love seems to have diminished as the desire to assert and prove himself by doing something strenuous and striking grew upon him. an eloquent fact is that, having suspended the writing of "don juan" at her request, he presently resumed it--and that though her objection to "don juan" was that it stripped the sentiment from love; which indicates that, though he still loved her in his fashion, he loved no more than he chose to, and certainly not enough to let his love stand between him and any serious enterprise. there are biographers, indeed, who doubt whether he would have been willing to marry madame guiccioli if unexpected circumstances had enabled him to do so; but, according to lady blessington, the irregularity of their relations was a cause of great distress to him: "i am bound by the indissoluble ties of marriage to _one_ who will _not_ live with me, and live with one to whom i cannot give a legal right to be my companion, and who, wanting that right, is placed in a position humiliating to her and most painful to me. were the countess guiccioli and i married, we should, i am sure, be cited as an example of conjugal happiness, and the domestic and retired life we lead would entitle us to respect. but our union, wanting the legal and religious part of the ceremony of marriage, draws on us both censure and blame. she is formed to make a good wife to any man to whom she attaches herself. she is fond of retirement, is of a most affectionate disposition, and noble-minded and disinterested to the highest degree. judge then how mortifying it must be to me to be the cause of placing her in a false position. all this is not thought of when people are blinded by passion, but when passion is replaced by better feelings--those of affection, friendship, and confidence--when, in short, the _liaison_ has all of marriage but its forms, then it is that we wish to give it the respectability of wedlock." such is the report, confirming the view that the ardour of byron's passion had by this time burnt itself out, and exhibiting him in the novel light of a lover tired of love-making but desirous of domestication. the desire does, at times, overtake even the most disorderly; and it is credible enough that byron had come to entertain it. he had entertained it once before, on the eve of his marriage; and it is the kind of desire that recurs even after the first experiments have proved unsatisfactory. so it was with byron, the wife, and not the estate of matrimony, being held responsible for the failure; only the desire was not, in his case, the ruling passion. that passion was to do something, and to be seen doing it, the second condition being as essential as the first, in defence of the victims of the holy alliance or any other tyranny. it was a passion destined very soon to be gratified, the end coming in a dismal swamp, but in a blaze of glory. we will tell the story--or as much of it as needs to be told--in a moment; but we must first attend byron a little longer on the trivial round--riding out to the inn, and shooting at a mark, and riding home again--in order that we may note how certain deaths and other incidents aided and threw light upon the further development of his character. chapter xxx from pisa to genoa it was while byron was at pisa that his natural daughter, the little allegra, died, after a rapid illness, of typhus fever at her convent school. he disliked her mother--we have noted the reasons why it was hardly to be expected that he would do anything else--but he had viewed the child as the gift of heaven, precious, though at first undesired. he had played with her in his garden at ravenna, and had made a will leaving her £ , and was at once too fond and too proud to make any mystery of the relationship. all his friends, as well as his sister were apprised of it, and received news, from time to time, of the child's physical and moral progress. nearly all of them were informed of her death. "it is a heavy blow for many reasons, but must be borne--with time," he wrote to murray. "the blow was stunning and unexpected," he told shelley. "i suppose that time will do his usual work--death has done his." to sir walter scott he commented: "the only consolation, save time, is that she is either at rest or happy; for her few years (only five), prevented her from having incurred any sin, except what we inherit from adam." he desired, too, that the child's relationship to him should be proclaimed on a tablet to be set up in harrow church; but that was impossible owing to the prejudices of the vicar and churchwardens. it seemed to them that "every man of refined taste, to say nothing of sound morals," would practise hypocrisy in such a matter. the vicar wrote to murray to say so, and to ask him to point out to byron that, in the case of ex-parishioners, the churchwardens had the power not only to advise hypocrisy but to enforce it; and he enclosed a formal prohibition from one of them, running thus: "_honoured sir_, i object on behalf of the parish to admit the tablet of lord byron's child into the church. "_james winkley, churchwarden._" it was the pitiful performance of a clerical jack-in-office; and we will leave it and pass on, merely noting that byron, more than once, in defining his duties to allegra, affirmed and illustrated his own religious position. one of his avowed reasons for not allowing her to be brought up by her mother was that jane clairmont was "atheistical." for himself, he said, he was "a very good christian," though given to expressing himself flippantly. the affirmation is confirmed by shelley's description of him, half playful and half-shocked, as "no better than a christian," and by the account of his opinions given by pietro gamba in a letter to dr. kennedy--from which it appears that though byron might, like his own cain, defy the god of the shorter catechism, he was profoundly reverent in his attitude towards really holy things. count pietro reports two conversations with him on these sacred matters; the first talk taking place at ravenna: "we were riding together in the pineta on a beautiful spring day. 'how,' said byron, 'when we raise our eyes to heaven, or direct them to the earth, can we doubt of the existence of god? or how, turning them inwards, can we doubt that there is something within us, more noble and more durable than the clay of which we are formed? those who do not hear, or are unwilling to listen to these feelings, must necessarily be of a vile nature.' i answered him with all those reasons which the superficial philosophy of helvetius, his disciples and his masters, have taught. byron replied with very strong arguments, and profound eloquence, and i perceived that obstinate contradiction on this subject, which forced him to reason upon it, gave him pain." later, at genoa, the subject came up again: "in various ways i heard him confirm the sentiments which i have already mentioned to you. "'why, then,' said i to him, 'have you earned for yourself the name of impious, and enemy of all religious belief, from your writings?' he answered, 'they are not understood, and are wrongly interpreted by the malevolent. my object is only to combat hypocrisy, which i abhor in everything, and particularly in religion, and which now unfortunately appears to me to be prevalent, and for this alone do those to whom you allude wish to render me odious and make me out worse than i am.'" decidedly we have a more serious byron there--a child becoming a man, emerging from frivolity, and putting away frivolous and childish things; and one gets the same impression of mental and moral evolution repeated when one reads byron's appreciation of shelley, written under the shock of the news of his sudden death--passages which it is a labour of love to copy out: "i presume you have heard that mr. shelley and captain williams were lost on the th ultimo in their passage from leghorn to spezzia, in their own open boat. you may imagine the state of their families: i never saw such a scene, nor wish to see another. you were all brutally mistaken about shelley, who was, without exception, the _best_ and least selfish man i ever knew. i never knew one who was not a beast in comparison." "there is thus another man gone, about whom the world was ill-naturedly, and ignorantly, and brutally mistaken. it will, perhaps, do him justice _now_, when he can be no better for it." "you are all mistaken about shelley. you do not know how mild, how tolerant, how good he was in society; and as perfect a gentleman as ever crossed a drawing-room, when he liked, and where he liked." those are the appreciations; and one quotes them, not for shelley's sake, but for byron's, and because the power to appreciate shelley's worth in spite of his eccentricities is a test of character. his shining spirituality cannot be perceived by the gross who are in bondage to the conventions of ethics, politics, or religion, or by those, not less gross, who are the slaves of their lusts. to love him was impossible except for one who looked beyond the material to the ideal. it is so now, and it was more especially so in his lifetime, when belief in his wickedness was almost an article of the christian faith. but byron stands the test, and his relations with shelley are further proofs of his final progress towards moral grandeur. one cannot say the same of his relations with leigh hunt; but then leigh hunt was a very different sort of person from shelley; and his behaviour towards byron was peculiar. invited to pisa to arrange for the production of a new newspaper or magazine, he arrived with a sick wife and several children, with no visible means of support, and with the ill-concealed intention of sponging up innumerable guineas from the stores of the originators of the enterprise. the guineas were not refused to him. byron seems to have let him have about five hundred guineas in all, as well as some valuable copyrights and board and lodging for himself and his family on the ground floor of his own palace. he found the noisy children a nuisance, however, and resented the desire to sponge; with the result that relations were quickly strained, and the reluctant host and clamorous guest regarded each other with suspicion and dislike. one of hunt's complaints was that the guineas, instead of being poured into his lap in a continual golden shower, were doled out, a few at a time, by a steward. another was that there was a point in the palace which no member of the household of the hunts was allowed to pass without a special invitation, and that a savage bull-dog was stationed there to guard the passage. the former precaution was probably quite necessary, and the latter charge is probably untrue; though, the palace being full of bull-dogs, and the hunt children being, as byron said, "far from tractable," one can readily imagine the nature of the incident on which it was based. in any case, however, the essential facts of the situation are that byron, though he had once been sufficiently in sympathy with hunt to visit him when in prison, for calling the regent a fat adonis of fifty, now found that he disliked him, and kept him at arm's length; while hunt, on his part, taking offence at the aloofness of byron's attitude, avenged himself by writing a very spiteful book, full of unpleasant truths not only about byron, but also about madame guiccioli. the countess, he says, did not know how to "manage" byron. when he "shocked" her, she replied by "nagging"--the prime offence, it will be remembered, of lady byron herself. it was a policy which might have served when she was in the full bloom of youth; but that happy time was passing. she was beginning to look old and weary, and to go about as one who carried a secret sorrow locked up in her breast. "everybody" noticed the change: "in the course of a few months she seemed to have lived as many years. it is most likely in that interval that she discovered that she had no real hold on the affections of her companion." assuredly if hunt had nothing better to do in italy than to take notes of this character it was high time to pack him off home again; and packed off he was, in due course, though not quite immediately. before his departure byron had moved from pisa to genoa, driven to this further migration by the fact that the tuscan government had in its turn, expelled the gambas, and that madame guiccioli, for reasons already explained, was once more obliged to accompany them. if he had been as anxious to be rid of her as hunt hints, and cordy jeaffreson, leaning upon hunt's testimony, explicitly declares, here was his opportunity. he did not take it, but accompanied her to her new home, where he was to live under the same roof with her; one of hunt's minor grievances being that he and his children--described by byron in a letter to mrs. shelley as "dirtier and more mischievous than yahoos"--were not admitted to the same boat with them, but had to travel in a separate felucca. afterwards there was some talk of a further trip of the nature of a honey-moon--_solus cum sola_--to naples; but this, for whatever reason, did not take place, and byron remained at genoa. it was at genoa that he met lady blessington, whose report of his regret that there was no way of regularising his intimacy with madame guiccioli we have already had before us. she and leigh hunt, if they do not contradict each other at every point, at least give very contrary impressions of the state of things. the difference may be due to the fact that, whereas leigh hunt was borrowing money with great difficulty, lady blessington was flirting with some success. neither she nor byron meant anything by it. count d'orsay, no less than countess guiccioli, barred the way to anything approaching attachment or intrigue. lady blessington only flirted to flatter her vanity; byron only for the purpose of killing time and introducing variety into a somewhat monotonous life. flirtation there was, however, or at all events the semblance of it, and one may fairly suppose it to afford a partial explanation of countess guiccioli's nagging and martyred look, observed by leigh hunt's prying eyes. indeed there are passages in lady blessington's journal which suggest as much, the passage, for instance, in which byron is reported as saying, not that he "was" but that he "had been" passionately in love with the countess; and then this passage: "byron is a strange _mélange_ of good and evil, the predominancy of either depending wholly on the humour he may happen to be in. his is a character that nature totally unfitted for domestic habits, or for rendering a woman of refinement or susceptibility happy. he confesses to me that he is not happy, but admits that it is his own fault, as the contessa guiccioli, the only object of his love, has all the qualities to render a reasonable being happy. i observed, _à propos_ to some observation he had made, that i feared la contessa guiccioli had little reason to be satisfied with her lot. he answered: 'perhaps you are right: yet she must know that i am sincerely attached to her; but the truth is, my habits are not those requisite to form the happiness of any woman. i am worn out in feelings; for, though only thirty-six, i feel sixty in mind, and am less capable than ever of those nameless attentions that all women, but above all italian women, require. i like solitude, which has become absolutely necessary to me; am fond of shutting myself up for hours, and, when with the person i like, am often _distrait_ and gloomy.'" a man does not talk like that to a woman with whom he has just become acquainted unless he is flirting with her--albeit, it may be, giving her to understand, while in the act of flirting, that his heart is too withered to be long responsive to her charms. and that, it seems, at the end of many love affairs, was byron's final note. even madame guiccioli did not really matter to him, though he acknowledged obligations to her and discharged them. nothing mattered except one memory which, though it could never be anything more than a memory, still haunted him. he lived with that memory to the last, as we shall see. being only a memory, and a painful one, it was rather a stimulus to action than a hindrance to it. but with the luxurious and uxorious love which does hinder action he had done. whether he was tired of it or not, he felt that it was unworthy of him, and that life held nobler possibilities. to an unknown lady who seems, at this date, to have offered him the free gift of her love, he answered, pooh-poohing the proposition. he looked upon love, he said, as "a sort of hostile transaction, very necessary to make or to break matches, but by no means a sinecure to the parties concerned." he added that he regarded his own "love times" as "pretty well over"; and so in fact they were. he needed a sharper spur than they could give him, and a more heroic issue than they could involve, if, during the few years left to him, he was to redeem the time and startle the world by deeds of which it had not imagined him to be capable. the revolt in greece gave him his chance and he took it. his sympathies, as we have seen, had long been enlisted on the greek side, as had also those of the gambas. now the london greek committee placed itself in communication with him. "i cannot express to you," he wrote to edward blaquière, "how much i feel interested in the cause, and nothing but the hopes i entertained of witnessing the liberation of italy itself prevented me long ago from returning to do what little i could, as an individual, in that land which it is an honour even to have visited." to sir john bowring he added a significant detail: "to this project the only objection is of a domestic nature, and i shall try to get over it." he did get over it; and those who knew him best were confident that he would; but the fact that madame guiccioli tried to detain him is to be remarked as explaining a good deal. it explains why he did not care to take her to greece, or even to the ionian islands, with him, fearing lest she should be a clog on his activities. it explains the comparative coldness of the letters which he addressed to her from the scene of action. it explains finally, if any explanation be needed, why hers was not the memory which he chose to live with in the dismal swamp in which his last days were passed. and so off to cephalonia with young trelawny and pietro gamba. chapter xxxi departure for greece a book might be written--indeed more than one book has been written--about that picturesque last phase of byron's life which dazzled the imagination of mankind. coming to it at the end of a book already long, one owes it to one's sense of proportion to treat it briefly, noting only the outstanding facts. the details, when all is said, are of small importance. what matters is that here is an instance, almost unique in history, of a poet transforming himself into a man of action, and proving himself a very competent man of action, very sober and sensible, and quite free from the characteristic vices of the poetical and artistic temperaments. so far, though he had succeeded as a poet, byron had failed as a man. the one deep and sincere passion of his life had only made trouble for him; and still more trouble had been made by his own violence, and vanity, and faults of temper. through them he had allowed himself to be manoeuvred into a false position from which, in the bitterness of his indignation at the injustice done to him, he had made no serious effort to escape. sitting in the midst of the wreck of his household gods, he had given vent to his anger in winged words; while, at the same time, making the persecution which he endured an excuse for sensual indulgence. sensuality had wrecked his health without yielding him any real satisfaction, and, of course, without giving his censors any reason to reconsider their disapproval. he understood now what a poor figure he would have cut, in the eyes alike of his contemporaries and of future generations, if he had died, as he so nearly did, in the days of his degradation, in the arms of the baker's wife, or of some hired mistress. he understood, too, that he was capable of greater things than any of these virtuous people who would then have pointed the finger of scorn at him. he had thought to demonstrate as much by his association with the carbonari. it was not he who had failed the carbonari, but the carbonari who had failed him. that failure being however, through their fault and foolishness, complete, it still remained for him to give his proofs, in a much more striking style, in greece. though he had but a poor opinion of his colleagues, he was thoroughly in earnest about the cause. he had always hated bullying, and the turks were bullies. he was always at war with hypocrites--and it seemed to him that an absolute government was an organised hypocrisy. it was not necessary, therefore, for him to love revolutionists in order to be willing to help them to work out their salvation; and he certainly did not love the greeks. it is recorded that he gave up keeping a diary because he found so much abuse of the greeks creeping into it; and he sometimes spoke of them with excessive bitterness: "i am of st. paul's opinion," he said, "that there is no difference between jews and greeks, the character of both being equally vile;" and his conduct, at the beginning of his expedition, was somewhat of a disappointment to romantic people. the eyes of romantic europe were upon him, and far too much was expected from the magic of his presence and his name. he would, at once, people thought, raise an army and march to constantinople. arriving before constantinople, he would blow a trumpet, and the walls of the city would fall down flat. "instead of which," they complained, he had settled down comfortably in a villa in the ionian islands, and was writing a fresh canto of "don juan." but that was not true. byron was, indeed, living in a villa--for even a romantic poet must live somewhere; but the only poetry which he wrote in his villa was a war song. for the rest, he was wisely trying to master the situation before committing himself--refusing to stir before he saw his way. for the situation was, just then, far from satisfactory. their initial successes had turned the heads of the greeks, and now their leaders were at loggerheads. each of them was anxious to secure byron's help, not for a nation, but for a faction, and to engage him, not in revolt against the common enemy, but in internecine strife. as finlay puts it: "to nobody did the greeks ever unmask their selfishness and self-deceit so candidly.... kolokrotones invited him to a national assembly at salamis. mavrocordatos informed him that he would be of no use anywhere but at hydra, for mavrocordatos was then in that island. constantine metaxa, who was governor of missolonghi, wrote saying that greece would be ruined unless lord byron visited that fortress. petra bey used plainer words. he informed lord byron that the true way to save greece was to lend him, the bey, a thousand pounds." trelawny, who was more keen about the fighting than about the cause, accused him of "dawdling" and "shilly-shallying," and went off, without him, to join the forces of one of the sectional chiefs.[ ] byron, just because he took the revolution more seriously than trelawny, sat tight. his immediate purpose was to reconcile the rival factions, and raise money for them. pending the conclusion of a loan, he advanced them a good deal of his own money, and those who imagined that he was merely out to see sights and amuse himself, quickly discovered their mistake. it was suggested to him, for instance, that as a man of letters, a scholar, and an antiquary, he might be interested to visit the stronghold of ulysses. "do i look," he asked indignantly, "like one of those emasculated fogies? i detest antiquarian twaddle. do people think i have no lucid intervals, and that i came to greece to scribble nonsense? i will show them that i can do something better." on another occasion, when he was taken to a monastery, and the abbot received him in ecclesiastical costume, with the swinging of odorous censers, and presented him with an address of fulsome flattery, he burst into tempestuous rage, exclaiming: "will no one release me from the presence of these pestilential idiots? they drive me mad." it was at this time that the idea was mooted of electing byron to be king of greece. a king would be wanted, it was said, as soon as the turks had been turned out, and no one would cut a nobler figure on the throne than byron. he heard what had been said, and smiled on the proposal. "if they make me the offer," he wrote, "i will perhaps not reject it"; and one feels quite sure that he would not have rejected it. to found a dynasty and be privileged, as a royal personage, to repudiate lady byron and take another wife, in order that the throne might have an heir--that would, indeed, have been a triumph over the polite society which had cold-shouldered him and the pious people who had denounced his morals; and there can be little doubt that byron aspired to win it, and would have won it if he had lived. he was very far, however, from stooping to conciliate the electors with smooth words; in a state paper, addressed to the greek central government, he lectured them severely: "i desire the well-being of greece and nothing else. i will do all i can to secure it; but i will never consent that the english public be deceived as to the real state of affairs. you have fought gloriously; act honourably towards your fellow citizens and the world, and it will then no more be said, as has been repeated for two thousand years, that philopæmen was the last of the grecians." the man of action spoke there; and the man of action also came out in byron's expressions of disdain for his colleague, colonel stanhope--the "typographical colonel," as he called him--who maintained that the one thing needful for the salvation of the greeks was that they should "model their institutions on those of the united states of america, and decree the unlimited freedom of the press." byron knew better than that. he was not to be persuaded that "newspapers would be more effectual in driving back the ottoman armies than well-drilled troops and military tactics." he knew that fighting would be necessary, and he was awaiting his chance of fighting with effect. his chance came when mavrocordatos, emerging from the ruck of revolutionary leaders, arrived to raise the siege of missolonghi, after mopping up a turkish treasure ship by the way, and invited byron to join him, placing a brig at his disposal for the voyage. "i need not tell you," he wrote, "to what a pitch your presence is desired by everybody, or what a prosperous direction it will give to all our affairs." the "typographical colonel," who was already with mavrocordatos, wrote at the same time: "it is right and proper to tell you that a great deal is expected from you, both in the way of counsel and money ... you are expected with feverish anxiety. your further delay in coming will be attended with serious consequences." whereupon byron, resolving at last to take the plunge, wrote to douglas kinnaird, who was managing his affairs for him in london: "get together all the means and credit of mine you can, to face the war establishment, for it is 'in for a penny, in for a pound,' and i must do all that i can for the ancients." and so, with pietro gamba, to the dismal swamp, where he was "welcomed," gamba tells us, "with salvos of artillery, firing of muskets, and wild music." "crowds of soldiery," gamba continues, "and citizens of every rank, sex, and age were assembled on the shore to testify their delight. hope and content were pictured in every countenance. his lordship landed in a spezziot boat, dressed in a red uniform. he was in excellent health, and appeared moved by the scene." moved by the scene, indeed, he doubtless was. the scene was the beginning of his rehabilitation in the eyes of those who had treated him with contempt--the beginning of the proof that he had the qualities of a leader, and could wield other weapons besides the pen--the demonstrative proclamation that the path of duty was to be the way to glory. the scarlet uniform was an appropriate tribute to the solemnity of the occasion on which he formally entered upon his last and best new way of life. he did not enter upon it, however, "in excellent health," as gamba says, but as a broken man with a shattered constitution, who had but a little time in which to do his work before the inevitable malaria came up out of the marsh and gripped him. meanwhile, however, mavrocordatos gave him a commission as commander-in-chief--archi-strategos was his grandiloquent title--and he did what he could. he took of those "dark suliotes" whom he had sung in the early cantos of "childe harold" into his pay, and was prepared to lead them to the storming of lepanto. he did something to mitigate the inhumanities of the war by insisting upon the release of some turkish prisoners whom his allies proposed to massacre. maintaining his character as man of action, he suppressed a converted blacksmith, who arrived from england with a cargo of type, paper, bibles and wesleyan tracts, proposing to use the tracts for cartridges and turn the type into small shot. and then, having leisure on his hands, he wrote one poem, which he showed to colonel stanhope, saying: "you were complaining the other day that i never write any poetry now. this is my birthday, and i have just finished something which, i think, is better than what i usually write." i "_'tis time this heart should be unmoved, since others it hath ceased to move; yet though i cannot be beloved, still let me love!_ ii "_my days are in the yellow leaf; the flowers and fruits of love are gone; the worm, the canker, and the grief are mine alone!_ iii "_the fire that on my bosom preys is lone as some volcanic isle; no torch is kindled at its blaze-- a funeral pile!_ iv "_the hope, the fear, the jealous care, the exalted portion of the pain and power of love, i cannot share, but wear the chain._ v "_but 'tis not_ thus--_and 'tis not_ here-- _such thoughts should shake my soul, nor_ now, _where glory decks the hero's bier, or binds his brow._ vi "_the sword, the banner, and the field, glory and greece, around me see! the spartan, borne upon his shield, was not more free._ vii "_awake! (not greece--she is awake!) awake my spirit! think through_ whom _thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, and then strike home._ viii "_tread those reviving passions down, unworthy manhood!--unto thee indifferent should the smile or frown of beauty be._ ix "_if thou regret'st thy youth_, why love? _the land of honourable death is here:--up to the field, and give away thy breath!_ x "_seek out--less often sought than found-- a soldier's grave, for thee the bed; then look around, and choose thy ground, and take thy rest._" "we perceived," count gamba comments, "from these lines ... that his ambition and his hope were irrevocably fixed upon the glorious objects of his expedition to greece, and that he had made up his mind to 'return victorious or return no more.'" readers who are better acquainted than count pietro alike with the english language and with the circumstances of the case will find rather more than that in them. they also reveal the memory which byron fell back upon and lived with at the hours when he rested from the strain of his revolutionary enthusiasm. it was not the memory of count pietro's sister. byron could not possibly have been thinking of her when he cried out that his love was a lonely fire at which no torch was kindled; for her love for him was far fiercer and more enduring than his love for her. his thoughts, it is quite clear, had once more strayed back to mary chaworth; and the internal evidence of that is confirmed by the mention of her name in two separate passages of those "detached thoughts" which he threw on paper just before he left ravenna. his attachment to her, he then remembers, threw him out "on a wide, wide sea." he speaks of her as "my m.a.c.," and continues in a passage often quoted: "alas! why do i say _my_? our union would have healed feuds, in which blood had been shed by our fathers; it would have joined lands broad and rich; it would have joined at least _one_ heart, and two persons not ill-matched in years (she is two years my elder); and--and--and--what has been the result? she has married a man older than herself, been wretched, and separated. i have married, and am separated; and yet _we_ are _not_ united." this last fact, indeed, may well have impressed him as the cruellest of all. there had been two desperately unhappy marriages, and a shivering and scattering of two sets of household gods; and yet he and she, through whatever misunderstandings and scruples, had failed to set up their new structure on the ruins. he, indeed, on his part, would have asked nothing better than to be allowed to try that task of reconstruction; but she, on hers, had been too good, or too weak, or too much under the influence of well-meaning friends who believed the whole duty of woman to consist in forgiving her husband and keeping up appearances. she had kept them up, accepting martyrdom with a resignation worthy of a better cause than any which her hard-drinking husband was capable of representing, believing that she only sacrificed herself, and earning no gratitude worth speaking of by doing so. but she had also sacrificed her lover. he was one of those exceptional men who may do exceptional things with impunity--and also one of those self-willed men who, having made up their minds what is best, can never be contented with the second-best, but must always be kicking against the pricks. hence the stormy emotional career through which we have followed him, and the many experiments, reckless but half-hearted, with new ways of life; a reckless but half-hearted marriage; reckless but half-hearted intrigues, first with the drury lane actresses, and then with the venetian light-o'-loves; a reckless but half-hearted career as the _cicisbeo_ of an italian nobleman's wife. two thoughts had been present to his mind through all these phases: the thought in the first place that he owed it to himself to prove that he was a better and a greater man than he had seemed to be, and to redeem the mess which he had made of his life by some impressive action; the thought, in the second place, of mary chaworth. we have seen the former thought flashing out in a letter to moore, who was probably one of the last men in the world capable of understanding it. the latter thought is blazoned in the letter written to mary chaworth in the midst of the venetian revels, and so absurdly asserted by lord lovelace to be a letter to augusta leigh. it reappears, as we have seen, in the detached thoughts, and also in poem after poem, from "the dream" to the piece just cited. evidently, therefore, it was, indeed, the thought which byron lived with--the thought which, if not always with him, was always waiting for him when the reaction following upon excitement made room for it. there would be no escape from it until the hour when, as he put it, he looked around, and chose his ground, and took his rest; and it only remains for us to picture the last stormy scenes at the end of which rest was reached. chapter xxxii death in a great cause the end was not to come, as byron may have hoped, on the field of battle. it was his health, as he had apprehended (though without, for that reason, taking any special care of it) that was to fail him. an imprudent plunge into the winter sea while on his way to missolonghi had upset him; and though he had temporarily recovered, he was in no state to resist the pestilential climate of that dismal swamp. he knew it, and at the very time when stanhope was writing home that "lord byron burns with military ardour and chivalry," he was keenly conscious, as his own letters show, of the danger attending his residence in the most malarious quarter of a malarious town. "if we are not taken off by the sword," he wrote on february , "we are like to march off with an ague in this mud basket; and, to conclude with a bad grace better _marshally_ than _marti-ally_. the dykes of holland, when broken down, are the deserts of arabia in comparison with missolonghi." the risk, though inglorious in itself, was nevertheless the price of glory; and he paid it willingly. he was, once more, as famous as at the hour when "childe harold" had suddenly revealed his genius, and the fame which he now tasted was of a worthier kind. then he had dazzled and fascinated. now he enjoyed the love and admiration, not merely of idle women, but of a whole people, and discovered that he had the power to heal feuds and to lead men. he might, or might not, live to wear, or to refuse, a kingly crown; but at least he had lived to be hailed as the liberator of a nation, and to be revered accordingly. an anecdote preserved by parry, the artificer who was serving under him in charge of the arsenal, illustrates the adoration of the peasantry: "byron one day," parry relates, "returned from his ride more than usually pleased. an interesting country-woman, with a fine family, had come out of her cottage and presented him with a curd cheese and some honey, and could not be persuaded to accept payment for it. 'i have felt,' he said, 'more pleasure this day, and at this circumstance, than for a long time past.'" such was the homage paid to him, by the humble as well as the great; but it soon became increasingly evident that though he had achieved the glory, death was to rob him of the crown. he began to have epileptic seizures; and in the midst of them, there was trouble with the suliotes. there were only five hundred of them, and they preferred the insolent claim that one hundred and fifty of them should be promoted to be officers, and that the rest should be accorded a month's pay in advance. colonel stanhope tells us how he quelled the mutiny: "soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when he was lying on his sick-bed, while his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous suliotes, covered with dirt and splendid attire, broke into his apartment, brandishing their costly arms, and loudly demanding their rights. lord byron electrified by this unexpected act, seemed to recover from his sickness, and the more the suliotes raged, the more his calm courage triumphed. the scene was truly sublime." the mutineers suppressed, the doctors came and bled him. he pulled through, whether in consequence of their treatment or in spite of it; but his regimen and his mode of life were not such as to restore him to vigour. he was sweeping away the coats of his stomach by large and frequent doses of powerful purgative medicaments; and in the intervals between the purges he partook freely of a comfortable and potent kind of punch which parry mixed for him. it is no wonder, therefore, that relapse succeeded relapse and that just at that hour at which fortune seemed beginning to smile upon the greeks, his life could be seen to be ebbing away. on april , while riding with gamba, he was caught in a violent storm of rain. "i should make a fine soldier if i did not know how to stand such a trifle as this," he said to his companion; but two hours after his return he was shivering and complaining: "i am in great pain," he said to gamba. "i should not care for dying but i cannot bear these pains." on april , he was well enough to ride again, but on the th, he was in bed with what was diagnosed as rheumatic fever, and the fever never again left him. the inevitable proposal to bleed him was repeated. at first he resisted, with the usual talk about the lancet being more deadly than the sword, but in the end he acquiesced. "there!" he said. "you are, i see, a d----d set of butchers. take away as much blood as you like, and have done with it." they took twenty ounces of blood from him. it was an absurd treatment, and probably hastened the end; but he had bad doctors, and even the good doctors of these days knew no better. moreover his constitution was shattered. he was falling to pieces like an old ruin, and it is doubtful whether the wisest treatment could have saved him. there was a further rally, however, and gamba, who was laid up in an adjoining apartment with a sprained ankle, hobbled in to see him. "i contrived," he writes, "to walk to his room. his look alarmed me much. he was too calm. he talked to me in the kindest way, but in a sepulchral tone. i could not bear it. a flood of tears burst from me, and i was obliged to retire." soon after this, the final delirium set in. his attendants stood by his bedside weeping copiously. they could not, says cordy jeaffreson cynically, have wept more copiously "if there had been a prize of a thousand guineas for the one who wept most." afterwards he was alone, at one time with parry, and at another time with fletcher; and of his last articulate words there is more than one account. it is told that he spoke of greece: "i have given her my time, my money, and my health--what could i do more? now i give her my life." it is told that he gesticulated wildly, as if mounting a breach to an assault, and calling, half in english, half in italian: "forward--forward--courage--follow my example--don't be afraid." it is told again that he stammered unintelligible messages to lady byron and to his sister. but all that matters little. what matters is, not byron's last utterance, but his last action, now that neither love nor lust, nor despair, nor bitterness, nor sloth, nor self-indulgence, held him any longer in unworthy bondage. for he had died in the act of redeeming the many wasted years, and of fulfilling the prediction of his most degraded time, that, in spite of everything, he would come to achievement at last--not merely the literary achievement which was compatible with the life of a trifler and a man of pleasure, but the more glorious achievement which is only possible to those who consent to sacrifice their ease and make a free gift of their energies to a cause which they perceive to be greater than themselves. appendix byron's letter to mary chaworth venice, _may , _ my dearest love, i have been negligent in not writing, but what can i say? three years' absence--and the total change of scene and habit make such a difference that we have never nothing in common but our affections and our relationship. but i have never ceased nor can cease to feel for a moment that perfect and boundless attachment which bound and binds me to you--which renders me incapable of _real_ love for any other human being--for what could they be to me after _you_? my own ... we may have been very wrong--but i repent of nothing except that cursed marriage--and your refusing to continue to love me as you had loved me. i can neither forget nor _quite forgive_ you for that precious piece of reformation, but i can never be other than i have been--and whenever i love anything it is because it reminds me in some way or other of yourself. for instance, i not long ago attached myself to a venetian for no earthly reason (although a pretty woman) but because she was called ..., and she often remarked (without knowing the reason) how fond i was of the name. it is heart-breaking to think of our long separation--and i am sure more than punishment enough for all our sins. dante is more humane in his "hell," for he places his unfortunate lovers--francesca of rimini and paolo--whose case fell a good deal short of _ours_ (though sufficiently naughty) in company; and though they suffer, it is at least together. if ever i return to england it will be to see you; and recollect that in all time, and place, and feelings, i have never ceased to be the same to you in heart. circumstances may have ruffled my manner and hardened my spirit; you may have seen me harsh and exasperated with all things around me; grieved and tortured with your _new resolution_, and soon after the persecution of that infamous fiend who drove me from my country, and conspired against my life--by endeavouring to deprive me of all that could render it precious--but remember that even then _you_ were the sole object that cost me a tear; and _what tears_! do you remember our parting? i have not spirits now to write to you upon other subjects. i am well in health, and have no cause of grief but the reflection that we are not together. when you write to me speak to me of yourself, and say that you love me; never mind commonplace people and topics which can be in no degree interesting to me who see nothing in england but the country which holds _you_, or around it but the sea which divides us. they say absence destroys weak passions, and confirms strong ones. alas! _mine_ for you is the union of all passions and of all affections--has strengthened itself, but will destroy me; i do not speak of physical destruction, for i have endured, and can endure, much; but the annihilation of all thoughts, feelings, or hopes, which have not more or less a reference to you and to _our recollections_. ever, dearest, index albrizzi, countess, , allegra, byron's natural daughter, , - bankes, william, becher, rev. john, , benzoni, countess, , - bessborough, lady, blessington, lady, - , , - "_bride of abydos, the_," broglie, duc de, byron, admiral lord, byron, augusta. _see_ leigh, augusta byron, captain george, the poet's cousin, , byron, captain, "mad jack," the poet's father, - , - byron, george noel gordon, lord, ancestors, parents, and hereditary influences, - ; childhood and schooldays, - ; schoolboy love affairs, - ; life at cambridge, and flirtations at southwell, - ; revelry at newstead, - ; the "grand tour," - ; flirtations in spain, - ; meeting with mrs. spencer smith, - ; at athens, ; swims the hellespont, ; return to england, ; death of his mother, ; publishes "_childe harold_," - ; recollections of mary chaworth, - ; infatuation of lady caroline lamb, - ; acquaintance with lady oxford, - ; renewed relations with mary chaworth, - ; marriage with miss milbanke, - ; disagreements, - ; lady byron demands separation, - ; scandalous accusations against him, - ; departure for the continent, ; acquaintance with miss clairmont, - , - ; at geneva, - ; in italy, _et seq._; moral decline, - ; in the venetian salons, ; attachment to countess guiccioli, - ; revolutionary activities, - ; life at pisa and genoa, - ; enlists in the greek cause, - ; illness and death, - byron, john, lord, byron, lady, wife of the poet, marriage, ; disagreements, - ; demands separation, - ; scandalous admissions, - ; mentioned, - , . _see also_ milbanke, anna isabella byron, mrs., the poet's mother, - , , , - , , , byron, richard, lord, byron, sir john, of claydon, byron, "the wicked lord," - , , byron, william, lord, canning, sir stratford, - carlisle, lord, - , , - carmarthen, marchioness of, chateaubriand, vicomte de, - chaworth, mary, , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - chaworth, william, "_childe harold_," - , - , clairmont, jane, - , - , , , clermont, mrs., , cogni, margarita, - cordova, admiral, dallas, - , davies, scrope, , , , "_don juan_," , duff, mary, "_english bards and scotch reviewers_," - forbes, lady adelaide, , galt, john, - , , , - gamba, pietro, gifford, william, godwin, mary, , , , - , guiccioli, count, , , - guiccioli, countess, , - , - , - , - , - hanson, charles, - , , harness, rev. william, , , hervey, mrs., hobhouse, john cam, , , , , , , - , - , , , , , , , , - hodgson, - , - , , , , , , , holland, lady, holland, lord, hoppner, consul-general at venice, , , , - horton, wilmot, "_hours of idleness_," houson, anne, hunt, leigh, , - , - hutchinson, colonel, jersey, lady, - kemble, fanny, lamb, lady caroline, - , - , - , lamb, william, afterwards lord melbourne, - , - , - , - lauriston, general, leigh, medora, leigh, augusta, , , - , , - , - , , - , , , - , - , , , lovelace, lord, , , - , - lushington, dr., , , - macri, theresa, - "_manfred_," mardyn, mrs., mavrocordatos, , , medwin, , , - , , - , , melbourne, lady, , - , melbourne, lord. _see_ lamb, william milbanke, anna isabella, afterwards lady byron, , , - milbanke, sir ralph, afterwards noel, moore, thomas, - , , - , , - , , , , , morgan, lady, murray, john, - , , napoleon i., - noel, sir ralph, , - , . _see also_ milbanke, sir ralph oxford, lady, - parker, margaret, - pedley, mrs., - robertson, rev. f. w., , rogers, samuel, , - , - , , salvo, marquis de, - segati, marianna, - , , - shelley, percy bysshe, , - , - , - , , , - , - , , - shipman, thomas, sligo, lord, smith, florence spencer, - staël, madame de, , , - stanhope, lady hester, - stendhal, - stowe, harriet beecher, - , "_thyrza_," trelawny, - , webster, james wedderburn, , webster, lady frances, werry, mrs., westmorland, lady, williams, captain, williams, hugh w., - printed by ballantyne & company ltd. tavistock street covent garden london footnotes: [ ] one of the heads of the family was born before his father's marriage, but he was subsequently given a title on his own merits. [ ] in mr. murray's latest edition of "the letters and journals." [ ] he would have preferred oxford, but there was no set of rooms vacant at christ church. [ ] they intoned underneath his windows the supplication: good lort, deliver us! [ ] musters took his wife's name when he married her, though he afterwards resumed his own. [ ] in "byron: the last phase." [ ] afterwards the rev. william harness, and a popular preacher. [ ] sir ralph milbanke had taken the name of noel on succeeding to some property. [ ] for the full text of the letter see appendix. [ ] it is doubtful whether shelley was at marlow at this date, so that miss clairmont's memory of the place of meeting was probably at fault. [ ] southey, among others, circulated the scandal. [ ] odysseus, who was in attica. generously made available by the internet archive.) byron: the last phase byron: the last phase by richard edgcumbe new york charles scribner's sons - fifth avenue to mrs. charles call, daughter of edward trelawny, byron's companion in greece, i dedicate this work as a mark of affection and esteem preface this book has no pretensions; it is merely a record of events and impressions which nearly forty years of close study have accumulated. there seems to be a general agreement that the closing scenes of byron's short life have not been adequately depicted by his biographers. from the time of byron's departure from ravenna, in the autumn of , his disposition and conduct underwent a transformation so complete that it would have been difficult to recognize, in the genial, unselfish personality who played so effective a rôle at missolonghi, the gloomy misanthrope of , or the reckless libertine of the following decade. the conduct of byron in greece seems to have come as a revelation to his contemporaries, and his direction of complex affairs, in peculiarly trying circumstances, certainly deserves more attention than it has received. records made on the spot by men whose works are now, for the most part, out of print have greatly simplified my task, and i hope that the following pages may be acceptable to those who have not had an opportunity of studying that picturesque phase of byron's career. i should have much preferred to preserve silence on the subject of his separation from his wife. unfortunately, the late lord lovelace, in giving his sanction to the baseless and forgotten slanders of a bygone age, has recently assailed the memory of byron's half-sister, and has set a mark of infamy upon her which cannot be erased without referring to matters which ought never to have been mentioned. in order to traverse statements made in 'astarte,' it was necessary to reveal an incident which, during byron's lifetime, was known only by those who were pledged to silence. with fuller knowledge of things hidden from byron's contemporaries, we may realize the cruelty of those futile persecutions to which mrs. leigh was subjected by lady byron and her advisers, under the impression that they could extract the confession of a crime which existed only in their prurient imaginations. mrs. leigh, in one of her letters to hobhouse, says, 'i have made it a rule to be silent--that is to say, as long as i can.' although the strain must have been almost insupportable she died with her secret unrevealed, and the mystery which byron declared 'too simple to be easily found out' has hitherto remained unsolved. i regret being unable more precisely to indicate the source of information embodied in the concluding portions of this work. the reader may test the value of my statements by the light of citations which seem amply to confirm them. at all events, i claim to have shown by analogy that lord lovelace's accusation against mrs. leigh is groundless, and therefore his contention, that byron's memoirs were destroyed _because they implicated mrs. leigh_, is absolutely untenable. those memoirs were destroyed, as we now know, because both hobhouse and mrs. leigh feared possible revelations concerning another person, whose feelings and interests formed the paramount consideration of those who were parties to the deed. lord john russell, who had read the memoirs, stated in that mrs. leigh was _not_ implicated in them, a fact which proves that they were not burned for the purpose of shielding _her_. lord lovelace tells us that sir walter scott, who had heard full particulars from thomas moore, remarked, 'it is a pity, but there _was_ a reason--_premat nox alta_.' facts which they hoped deep oblivion would hide have come to the surface at last, and i deeply regret that circumstances should have imposed upon me a duty which is repugnant both to my inclination and instincts. after all is said, the blame rightly belongs to lady byron's grandson, who, heedless of consequences, stirred the depths of a muddy pool. he tells us, in 'astarte,' ( ) that the papers concerning byron's marriage have been carefully preserved; ( ) that they form _a complete record of all the causes of separation_; and ( ) that they contain _full information on every part of the subject_. in those circumstances it is strange that, with the whole of lady byron's papers before him, lord lovelace should have published only documents of secondary importance which do not prove his case. after saying, 'it should be distinctly understood that no misfortunes, blunders, or malpractices, have swept away lady byron's papers, or those belonging to the executors of lord byron,' he leaves the essential records to the imagination of his readers, and feeds us on hints and suggestions which are not borne out by extracts provided as samples of the rest. it is impossible not to suspect that lord lovelace, in arranging the papers committed to his charge, discarded some that would have told in favour of mrs. leigh, and selected others which colourably supported his peculiar views. in matters of this kind everything depends upon the qualifications of the accuser and the reliability of the witness. lord lovelace in a dual capacity certainly evinced an active imagination. as an example, 'astarte,' which was designed to blast the fair fame of mrs. leigh, was used by him to insult the memory of the late mr. murray (who he admits showed him many acts of kindness), and to repudiate promises which he undoubtedly made, to edit his grandfather's works. rambling statements are made with design to discredit both mr. gifford, the editor of the _quarterly_, and mr. murray, the friend of lord byron. even personal defects are dragged in to prejudice the reader and embitter the venom of irrelevant abuse. it was as if plutarch, in order to enhance the glory of antony, had named 'the last of the romans' cassius the short-sighted. fortunately, written proofs were in existence to controvert lord lovelace's assertions--proofs which were used with crushing effect--otherwise mr. murray might have found himself in a position quite as helpless as that of poor mrs. leigh herself. so unscrupulous a use of documents in that case suggests the possibility that a similar process may have been adopted in reference to mrs. leigh. it is indeed unfortunate that lady byron's papers cannot be inspected by some unprejudiced person, for we have nothing at present beyond lord lovelace's vague assertions. were those papers thoroughly sifted they would surely acquit mrs. leigh of the crime that has been so cruelly laid to her charge. meanwhile i venture to think that the following pages help to clear the air of much of that mystery which surrounds the lives of lord byron and his sister. in conclusion, i desire to record my personal obligation to the latest edition of the 'poems,' edited by mr. ernest hartley coleridge; and of the 'letters and journals,' edited by mr. rowland prothero, volumes which together form the most comprehensive and scholarly record of byron's life and poetry that has ever been issued. r. e. _august, ._ byron: the last phase part i '... le cose ti fien conte, quando noi fermerem li nostri passi sulla trista riviera d' acheronte.' _inferno_, canto iii., - . chapter i 'a large disagreeable city, almost without inhabitants'--such was the poet shelley's description of pisa in . the arno was yellow and muddy, the streets were empty, and there was altogether an air of poverty and wretchedness in the town. the convicts, who were very numerous, worked in the streets in gangs, cleaning and sweeping them. they were dressed in red, and were chained together by the leg in pairs. all day long one heard the slow clanking of their chains, and the rumbling of the carts they were forced to drag from place to place like so many beasts of burden. a spectator could not but be struck by the appearance of helpless misery stamped on their yellow cheeks and emaciated forms. on the lung' arno mediceo, east of the ponte di mezzo, stands the palazzo lanfranchi, which is supposed to have been built by michael angelo. here, on november , , lord byron arrived, with his servants, his horses, his monkey, bulldog, mastiff, cats, peafowl, hens, and other live stock, which he had brought with him from ravenna. in another quarter of the city resided count rugiero gamba, his son pietro, and his daughter countess teresa guiccioli. on the other side of the arno, nearly opposite to byron's residence, lived the poet shelley, with his wife and their friends edward and jane williams. in the middle of november, captain thomas medwin, a relative of shelley's, arrived at pisa; and on january , , came edward john trelawny, who was destined to play so important a part in the last scenes of the lives of both shelley and byron. byron was at this time in his thirty-third year. medwin thus describes his personal appearance: 'i saw a man of about five feet seven or eight, apparently forty years of age. as was said of milton, lord byron barely escaped being short and thick. his face was fine, and the lower part symmetrically moulded; for the lips and chin had that curved and definite outline that distinguishes grecian beauty. his forehead was high, and his temples broad; and he had a paleness in his complexion almost to wanness. his hair, thin and fine, had almost become grey, and waved in natural and graceful curls over his head, that was assimilating itself fast to the "bald first cæsar's." he allowed it to grow longer behind than it is accustomed to be worn, and at that time had mustachios which were not sufficiently dark to be becoming. in criticizing his features, it might, perhaps, be said that his eyes were placed too near his nose, and that one was rather smaller than the other. they were of a greyish-brown, but of a peculiar clearness, and when animated possessed a fire which seemed to look through and penetrate the thoughts of others, while they marked the inspirations of his own. his teeth were small, regular, and white. i expected to discover that he had a club-foot; but it would have been difficult to have distinguished one from the other, either in size or in form. on the whole, his figure was manly, and his countenance handsome and prepossessing, and very expressive. the familiar ease of his conversation soon made me perfectly at home in his society.' trelawny's description is as follows: 'in external appearance byron realized that ideal standard with which imagination adorns genius. he was in the prime of life, thirty-four; of middle height, five feet eight and a half inches; regular features, without a stain or furrow on his pallid skin; his shoulders broad, chest open, body and limbs finely proportioned. his small highly-finished head and curly hair had an airy and graceful appearance from the massiveness and length of his throat; you saw his genius in his eyes and lips.' trelawny could find no peculiarity in his dress, which was adapted to the climate. byron wore: 'a tartan jacket braided--he said it was the gordon pattern, and that his mother was of that race--a blue velvet cap with a gold band, and very loose nankin trousers, strapped down so as to cover his feet. his throat was not bare, as represented in drawings.' lady blessington, who first saw byron in april of the following year, thus describes him: 'the impression of the first few minutes disappointed me, as i had, both from the portraits and descriptions given, conceived a different idea of him. i had fancied him taller, with a more dignified and commanding air; and i looked in vain for the hero-looking sort of person, with whom i had so long identified him in imagination. his appearance is, however, highly prepossessing. his head is finely shaped, and his forehead open, high, and noble; his eyes are grey and full of expression, but one is visibly larger than the other. the nose is large and well shaped, but, from being a little _too thick_, it looks better in profile than in front-face; his mouth is the most remarkable feature in his face, the upper lip of grecian shortness, and the corners descending; the lips full, and finely cut. 'in speaking, he shows his teeth very much, and they are white and even; but i observed that even in his smile--and he smiles frequently--there is something of a scornful expression in his mouth, that is evidently natural, and not, as many suppose, affected. this particularly struck me. his chin is large and well shaped, and finishes well the oval of his face. he is extremely thin--indeed, so much so that his figure has almost a boyish air. his face is peculiarly pale, but not the paleness of ill-health, as its character is that of fairness, the fairness of a dark-haired person; and his hair (which is getting rapidly grey) is of a very dark brown, and curls naturally: he uses a good deal of oil in it, which makes it look still darker. his countenance is full of expression, and changes with the subject of conversation; it gains on the beholder the more it is seen, and leaves an agreeable impression.... his whole appearance is remarkably gentlemanlike, and he owes nothing of this to his toilet, as his coat appears to have been many years made, is much too large--and all his garments convey the idea of having been purchased ready-made, so ill do they fit him. there is a _gaucherie_ in his movements, which evidently proceeds from the perpetual consciousness of his lameness, that appears to haunt him; for he tries to conceal his foot when seated, and when walking has a nervous rapidity in his manner. he is very slightly lame, and the deformity of his foot is so little remarkable, that i am not now aware which foot it is. 'his voice and accent are peculiarly agreeable, but effeminate--clear, harmonious, and so distinct, that though his general tone in speaking is rather low than high, not a word is lost. his manners are as unlike my preconceived notions of them as is his appearance. i had expected to find him a dignified, cold, reserved, and haughty person, but nothing can be more different; for were i to point out the prominent defect of lord byron, i should say it was flippancy, and a total want of that natural self-possession and dignity, which ought to characterize a man of birth and education.' medwin tells us, in his 'journal of the conversations of lord byron,' that byron's voice had a flexibility, a variety in its tones, a power and pathos, beyond any he ever heard; and his countenance was capable of expressing the tenderest as well as the strongest emotions, which would perhaps have made him the finest actor in the world. the countess guiccioli, who had a longer acquaintance with byron than any of those who have attempted to portray him, says: 'lord byron's eyes, though of a light grey, were capable of all extremes of expression, from the most joyous hilarity to the deepest sadness, from the very sunshine of benevolence to the most concentrated scorn or rage. but it was in the mouth and chin that the great beauty as well as expression of his fine countenance lay. his head was remarkably small, so much so as to be rather out of proportion to his face. the forehead, though a little too narrow, was high, and appeared more so from his having his hair (to preserve it, as he said) shaved over the temples. still, the glossy dark brown curls, clustering over his head, gave the finish to its beauty. when to this is added that his nose, though handsomely, was rather thickly shaped, that his teeth were white and regular, and his complexion colourless, as good an idea, perhaps, as it is in the power of mere words to convey may be conceived of his features. in height he was five feet eight inches and a half. his hands were very white, and, according to his own notions of the size of hands as indicating birth, aristocratically small.... no defect existed in the formation of his limbs; his slight infirmity was nothing but the result of weakness of one of his ankles. his habit of ever being on horseback had brought on the emaciation of his legs, as evinced by the post-mortem examination; the best proof of this is the testimony of william swift, bootmaker at southwell, who had the honour of working for lord byron from to .' it appears that mrs. wildman (the widow of the colonel who had bought newstead from byron) not long before her death presented to the naturalist society of nottingham several objects which had belonged to lord byron, and amongst others his boot and shoe trees. these trees are about nine inches long, narrow, and generally of a symmetrical form. they were accompanied by the following statement: 'william swift, bootmaker at southwell, nottinghamshire, having had the honour of working for lord byron when residing at southwell from to , asserts that these were the trees upon which his lordship's boots and shoes were made, and that the last pair delivered was on the th may, . he moreover affirms that his lordship had not a club foot, as has been said, but that both his feet were equally well formed, one, however, being an inch and a half shorter than the other.[ ] the defect was not in the foot, but in the ankle, which, being weak, caused the foot to turn out too much. to remedy this, his lordship wore a very light and thin boot, which was tightly laced just under the sole, and, when a boy, he was made to wear a piece of iron with a joint at the ankle, which passed behind the leg and was tied behind the shoe. the calf of this leg was weaker than the other, and it was the left leg. '(signed) william swift.' 'this, then,' says countess guiccioli, 'is the extent of the defect of which so much has been said, and which has been called a deformity. as to its being visible, all those who knew him assert that it was so little evident, that it was even impossible to discover in which of the legs or feet the fault existed.' byron's alleged sensitiveness on the subject of his lameness seems to have been exaggerated. 'when he did show it,' continues countess guiccioli, 'which was never but to a very modest extent, it was only because, physically speaking, he suffered from it. under the sole of the weak foot he at times experienced a painful sensation, especially after long walks. once, at genoa, byron walked down the hill from albaro to the seashore with me by a rugged and rough path. when we had reached the shore he was very well and lively. but it was an exceedingly hot day, and the return home fatigued him greatly. when home, i told him that i thought he looked ill. "yes," said he, "i suffer greatly from my foot; it can hardly be conceived how much i suffer at times from that pain;" and he continued to speak to me about this defect with great simplicity and indifference.' we have been particular to set before the reader the impression which byron's personal appearance made upon those who saw him at this time, because none of the busts or portraits seem to convey anything like an accurate semblance of this extraordinary personality. had the reader seen byron in his various moods, he would doubtless have exclaimed, with sir walter scott, that 'no picture is like him.' the portrait by saunders represents byron with thick lips, whereas 'his lips were harmoniously perfect,' says countess guiccioli. holmes almost gives him a large instead of his well-proportioned head. in phillips's picture the expression is one of haughtiness and affected dignity, which countess guiccioli assures us was never visible to those who saw him in life. the worst portrait of lord byron, according to countess guiccioli, and which surpasses all others in ugliness, was done by mr. west, an american, 'an excellent man, but a very bad painter.' this portrait, which some of byron's american admirers requested to have taken, and which byron consented to sit for, was begun at montenero, near leghorn. byron seems only to have sat two or three times for it, and it was finished from memory. countess guiccioli describes it as 'a frightful caricature, which his family or friends ought to destroy.' as regards busts, she says: 'thorwaldsen alone has, in his marble bust of byron, been able to blend the regular beauty of his features with the sublime expression of his countenance.' on january , , byron's mother-in-law, lady noel, died at the age of seventy. 'i am distressed for poor lady byron,' said the poet to medwin: 'she must be in great affliction, for she adored her mother! the world will think that i am pleased at this event, but they are much mistaken. i never wished for an accession of fortune; i have enough without the wentworth property. i have written a letter of condolence to lady byron--you may suppose in the kindest terms. if we are not reconciled, it is not my fault.' there is no trace of this letter, and it is ignored by lord lovelace in 'astarte.' it may be well here to point out how erroneous was the belief that miss milbanke was an heiress. byron on his marriage settled £ , on his wife, and miss milbanke was to have brought £ , into settlement; but the money was not paid. sir ralph milbanke's property was at that time heavily encumbered. miss milbanke had some expectations through her mother and her uncle, lord wentworth; but those prospects were not mentioned in the settlements. both lord wentworth and sir ralph milbanke were free to leave their money as they chose. when lord wentworth died, in april , he left his property to lady milbanke for her life, and at her death to her daughter, lady byron. therefore, at lady noel's death byron inherited the whole property by right of his wife. but one of the terms of the separation provided that this property should be divided by arbitrators. lord dacre was arbitrator for lady byron, and sir f. burdett for byron. under this arrangement half the income was allotted to the wife and half to the husband. in the _london gazette_ dated 'whitehall, march , ,' royal licence is given to lord byron and his wife that they may 'take and use the surname of noel only, and also bear the arms of noel only; and that the said george gordon, baron byron, may subscribe the said surname of noel before all titles of honour.' henceforward the poet signed all his letters either with the initials n. b. or with 'noel byron' in full. byron was at this time in excellent health and spirits, and the society of the shelleys made life unusually pleasant to him. ravenna, with its gloomy forebodings, its limited social intercourse, to say nothing of its proscriptions--for nearly all byron's friends had been exiled--was a thing of the past. the last phase had dawned, and byron was about to show another side of his character. medwin tells us that byron's disposition was eminently sociable, however great the pains which he took to hide it from the world. on wednesdays there was always a dinner at the palazzo lanfranchi, to which the _convives_ were cordially welcomed. when alone byron's table was frugal, not to say abstemious. but on these occasions every sort of wine, every luxury of the season, and every english delicacy, were displayed. medwin says he never knew any man do the honours of his house with greater kindness and hospitality. on one occasion, after dinner, the conversation turned on the lyrical poetry of the day, and a question arose as to which was the most perfect ode that had been produced. shelley contended for coleridge's on switzerland beginning, 'ye clouds,' etc.; others named some of moore's 'irish melodies' and campbell's 'hohenlinden'; and, had lord byron not been present, his own invocation to manfred, or ode to napoleon, or on prometheus, might have been cited. 'like gray,' said byron, 'campbell smells too much of the oil: he is never satisfied with what he does; his finest things have been spoiled by over-polish--the sharpness of the outline is worn off. like paintings, poems may be too highly finished. the great art is effect, no matter how produced.' and then, rising from the table, he left the room, and presently returned with a magazine, from which he read 'the burial of sir john moore' with the deepest feeling. it was at that time generally believed that byron was the author of these admirable stanzas; and medwin says: 'i am corroborated in this opinion lately ( ) by a lady, whose brother received them many years ago from lord byron, in his lordship's own handwriting.' these festive gatherings were not pleasing to shelley, who, with his abstemious tastes and modest, retiring disposition, disliked the glare and surfeit of it all. but shelley's unselfish nature overcame his antipathy, and for the sake of others he sacrificed himself. in writing to his friend horace smith, he marks his repugnance for these dinners, 'when my nerves are generally shaken to pieces by sitting up, contemplating the rest of the company making themselves vats of claret, etc., till three o'clock in the morning.' nevertheless, companionship with byron seemed for a time, to shelley and mary, to be like 'companionship with a demiurge who could create rolling worlds at pleasure in the void of space.' shelley's admiration for the poetic achievements of byron is well known: 'space wondered less at the swift and fair creations of god when he grew weary of vacancy, than i at the late works of this spirit of an angel in the mortal paradise of a decaying body. so i think--let the world envy, while it admires as it may.'[ ] and again: 'what think you of lord byron's last volume? in my opinion it contains finer poetry than has appeared in england since the publication of "paradise regained." "cain" is apocalyptic; it is a revelation not before communicated to man.' byron recognized shelley's frankness, courage, and hardihood of opinion, but was not influenced by him so much as was at that time supposed by his friends in england. in writing to horace smith (april , ), shelley begs him to assure moore that he had not the smallest influence over byron's religious opinions. 'if i had, i certainly should employ it to eradicate from his great mind the delusions of christianity, which, in spite of his reason, seem perpetually to recur, and to lay in ambush for the hours of sickness and distress. "cain" was _conceived_ many years ago, and begun before i saw him last year at ravenna. how happy should i not be to attribute to myself, however indirectly, any participation in that immortal work!' 'byron,' says professor dowden in his 'life of shelley,' 'on his own part protested that his _dramatis personæ_ uttered their own opinions and sentiments, not his.' byron undoubtedly had a deep-seated reverence for religion, and had a strong leaning towards the roman catholic doctrines. writing to moore (march , ), he says: 'i am no enemy to religion, but the contrary. as a proof, i am educating my natural daughter a strict catholic in a convent of romagna; for i think people can never have _enough_ of religion, if they are to have any.... as to poor shelley, who is another bug-bear to you and the world, he is, to my knowledge, the _least_ selfish and the mildest of men--a man who has made more sacrifices of his fortune and feelings for others than any i ever heard of. with his speculative opinions i have nothing in common, nor desire to have.' countess guiccioli, a woman of no ordinary intuitive perceptions, with ample opportunities for judging the characters of both shelley and byron, makes a clear statement on this point: 'in shelley's heart the dominant wish was to see society entirely reorganized. the sight of human miseries and infirmities distressed him to the greatest degree; but, too modest himself to believe that he was called upon to take the initiative, and inaugurate a new era of good government and fresh laws for the benefit of humanity, he would have been pleased to see such a genius as byron take the initiative in this undertaking. shelley therefore did his best to influence byron. but the latter hated discussions. he could not bear entering into philosophical speculation at times when his soul craved the consolations of friendship, and his mind a little rest. he was quite insensible to reasonings, which often appear sublime because they are clothed in words incomprehensible to those who have not sought to understand their meaning. but he made an exception in favour of shelley. he knew that he could not shake his faith in a doctrine founded upon illusions, by his incredulity; but he listened to him with pleasure, not only on account of shelley's good faith and sincerity, but also because he argued upon false data, with such talent and originality, that he was both interested and amused. lord byron had examined every form of philosophy by the light of common sense, and by the instinct of his genius. pantheism in particular was odious to him. he drew no distinction between absolute pantheism which mixes up that which is infinite with that which is finite, and that form of pantheism which struggles in vain to keep clear of atheism. shelley's views, clothed in a veil of spiritualism, were the most likely to interest byron, but they did not fix him. byron could never consent to lose his individuality, deny his own freedom of will, or abandon the hope of a future existence. as a matter of fact, byron attributed all shelley's views to the aberrations of a mind which is happier when it dreams than when it denies.' 'shelley appears to me to be mad with his metaphysics,' said byron on one occasion to count gamba. 'what trash in all these systems! say what they will, mystery for mystery, i still find that of the creation the most reasonable of any.' thus it will be seen that the opinions of lord byron on matters of religion were far more catholic than those of his friend shelley, who could not have influenced byron in the manner generally supposed. that a change came over the spirit of byron's poetry after meeting shelley on the lake of geneva is unquestionable; but the surface of the waters may be roughened by a breeze without disturbing the depths below. like all true poets, byron was highly susceptible to passing influences, and there can be no doubt that shelley impressed him deeply. the evident sincerity in the life and doctrines of shelley--his unworldliness; the manner in which he had been treated by the world, and even by his own family, aroused the sympathy of byron, at a time when he himself was for a different cause smarting under somewhat similar treatment. although byron and shelley differed fundamentally on some subjects they concurred in the principles of others. byron had no fixed religious opinions--that was the string upon which shelley played--but there is a wide difference between doubt and denial. gamba, after byron's death, wrote thus to dr. kennedy: 'my belief is that byron's religious opinions were not fixed. i mean that he was not more inclined towards one than towards another of the christian sects; but that his feelings were thoroughly religious, and that he entertained the highest respect for the doctrines of christ, which he considered to be the source of virtue and of goodness. as for the incomprehensible mysteries of religion, his mind floated in doubts which he wished most earnestly to dispel, as they oppressed him, and that is why he never avoided a conversation on the subject, as you are well aware. i have often had an opportunity of observing him at times when the soul involuntarily expresses its most sincere convictions; in the midst of dangers, both at sea and on land; in the quiet contemplation of a calm and beautiful night, in the deepest solitude. on these occasions i remarked that lord byron's thoughts were always imbued with a religious sentiment. the first time i ever had a conversation with him on that subject was at ravenna, my native place, a little more than four years ago. we were riding together in the pineta on a beautiful spring day. "how," said byron, "when we raise our eyes to heaven, or direct them to the earth, can we doubt of the existence of god? or how, turning them inwards, can we doubt that there is something within us, more noble and more durable than the clay of which we are formed? those who do not hear, or are unwilling to listen to these feelings, must necessarily be of a vile nature." i answered him with all those reasons which the superficial philosophy of helvetius, his disciples and his masters, have taught. byron replied with very strong arguments and profound eloquence, and i perceived that obstinate contradiction on this subject, which forced him to reason upon it, gave him pain. this incident made a deep impression upon me.... last year, at genoa, when we were preparing for our journey to greece, byron used to converse with me alone for two or three hours every evening, seated on the terrace of his residence at albaro in the fine evenings of spring, whence there opened a magnificent view of the superb city and the adjoining sea. our conversation turned almost always on greece, for which we were so soon to depart, or on religious subjects. in various ways i heard him confirm the sentiments which i have already mentioned to you. "why, then," said i to him, "have you earned for yourself the name of impious, and enemy of all religious belief, from your writings?" he answered, "they are not understood, and are wrongly interpreted by the malevolent. my object is only to combat hypocrisy, which i abhor in everything, and particularly in religion, and which now unfortunately appears to me to be prevalent, and for this alone do those to whom you allude wish to render me odious, and make me out worse than i am.'" we have quoted only a portion of pietro gamba's letter, but sufficient to show that byron has been, like his friend shelley, 'brutally misunderstood.' there was no one better qualified than count gamba to express an opinion on the subject, for he was in the closest intimacy with byron up to the time of the latter's death. there was no attempt on byron's part to mystify his young friend, who had no epistolary intercourse with those credulous people in england whom byron so loved to 'gull.' the desire to blacken his own character was reserved for those occasions when, as he well knew, there would be most publicity. trelawny says: 'byron's intimates smiled at his vaunting of his vices, but comparative strangers stared, and noted his sayings to retail to their friends, and that is the way many scandals got abroad.' according to the same authority, george iv. made the sport known as 'equivocation' the fashion; the men about town were ashamed of being thought virtuous, and bragged of their profligacy. 'in company,' says trelawny, 'byron talked in don juan's vein; with a companion with whom he was familiar, he thought aloud.' among the accusations made against byron by those who knew him least was that of intemperance--intemperance not in meat and drink only, but in everything. it must be admitted that byron was to blame for this; he vaunted his propensity for the bottle, and even attributed his poetic inspirations to its aid. trelawny, who had observed him closely, says: 'of all his vauntings, it was, luckily for him, the emptiest. from all that i heard or witnessed of his habits abroad, he was and had been exceedingly abstemious in eating and drinking. when alone, he drank a glass or two of small claret or hock, and when utterly exhausted at night, a single glass of grog; which, when i mixed it for him, i lowered to what sailors call "water bewitched," and he never made any remark. i once, to try him, omitted the alcohol; he then said, "tre, have you not forgotten the creature comfort?" i then put in two spoonfuls, and he was satisfied. this does not look like an habitual toper. byron had not damaged his body by strong drinks, but his terror of getting fat was so great that he reduced his diet to the point of absolute starvation. he was the only human being i ever met with who had sufficient self-restraint and resolution to resist this proneness to fatten. he did so; and at genoa, where he was last weighed, he was ten stone and nine pounds, and looked much less. this was not from vanity of his personal appearance, but from a better motive, and, as he was always hungry, his merit was the greater. whenever he relaxed his vigilance he swelled apace. he would exist on biscuits and soda-water for days together; then, to allay the eternal hunger gnawing at his vitals, he would make up a horrid mess of cold potatoes, rice, fish, or greens, deluged in vinegar, and swallow it like a famished dog. either of these unsavoury dishes, with a biscuit and a glass or two of rhine wine, he cared not how sour, he called feasting sumptuously. byron was of that soft, lymphatic temperament which it is almost impossible to keep within a moderate compass, particularly as in his case his lameness prevented his taking exercise. when he added to his weight, even standing was painful, so he resolved to keep down to eleven stone.' while on this subject, it is not uninteresting to contrast the effects of byron's regimen of abstinence by the light of a record kept by the celebrated wine-merchants, messrs. berry, of st. james's street. this register of weights has been kept on their premises for the convenience of their customers since , and contains over twenty thousand names. the following extract was made by the present writer on november , :[ ] date. stone. lbs. age. january , (boots, no hat) july , (shoes) july , (shoes, no hat) august , (shoes, no hat) - / january , (see moore's 'life') may , (messrs. berry) -- june , (messrs. berry) - / july , (messrs. berry) - / (_circa_) june, (see trelawny) it will be seen at a glance that between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five byron had reduced his weight by three stone and three pounds. the fluctuations between the ages of nineteen and thirty-five are not remarkable. this record marks the consistency of a heroic self-denial under what must often have been a strong temptation to appease the pangs of hunger. chapter ii byron's life at pisa, as afterwards at genoa, was what most people would call a humdrum, dull existence. he rose late. 'billiards, conversation, or reading, filled up the intervals,' says medwin, 'till it was time to take our evening drive, ride, and pistol-practice. on our return, which was always in the same direction, we frequently met the countess guiccioli, with whom he stopped to converse a few minutes. he dined at half an hour after sunset, then drove to count gamba's, the countess guiccioli's father, passed several hours in their society, returned to his palace, and either read or wrote till two or three in the morning; occasionally drinking spirits diluted with water as a medicine, from a dread of a nephritic complaint, to which he was, or fancied himself, subject.' on sunday, march , , while byron, shelley, trelawny, captain hay, count pietro gamba, and an irish gentleman named taaffe, were returning from their evening ride, and had nearly reached the porta alle piagge at the eastern end of the lung' arno, sergeant-major masi, belonging to a dragoon regiment, being apparently in a great hurry to get back to barracks, pushed his way unceremoniously through the group of riders in front of him, and somewhat severely jostled mr. taaffe. this gentleman appealed to byron, and the latter demanded an apology from the sergeant, whom he at first mistook for an officer. the sergeant lost his temper, and called out the guard at the gateway. byron and gamba dashed through, however, and before the others could follow there was some 'dom'd cutting and slashing'; shelley was knocked off his horse, and captain hay received a wound in his face. masi in alarm fled, and on the lung' arno met byron returning to the scene of the fray: an altercation took place, and one of byron's servants, who thought that masi had wounded his master, struck at him with a pitchfork, and tumbled the poor fellow off his horse. there was a tremendous hubbub about this, and the legal proceedings which followed occupied two months, with much bluster, false swearing, and injustice, as a natural consequence. the court eventually came to the conclusion that there was no evidence for criminal proceedings against any of byron's domestics, but, in consideration of giovanni battista falcieri--one of byron's servants--having a black beard, he was condemned to be escorted by the police to the frontier and banished from the grand-duchy of tuscany. at the same time the gambas (who had nothing whatever to do with the affair) were told that their presence at pisa was disagreeable to the government. in consequence of the hint, byron and the gambas hired the villa dupuy, at montenero, near leghorn. here, on june , , a scuffle took place in the gardens of the villa between the servants of count gamba and of byron, in which byron's coachman and his cook took part. knives were drawn as usual. byron appeared on the balcony with his pistols, and threatened to shoot the whole party if they did not drop their knives, and the police had to be called in to quell the disturbance. the government, who were anxious to be rid of byron, took advantage of this riot at the villa dupuy. byron's courier and gamba's valet were sent over the frontier of the grand-duchy under police escort, and the gambas were warned that, unless they left the country within three days, formal sentence of banishment would be passed upon them. as soon as byron heard the news, he wrote a letter to the governor of leghorn, and asked for a respite for his friends. a few days grace were granted to the gambas, and on july they took passports for genoa, intending to go first to the baths of lucca, where they hoped to obtain permission to return to pisa. while negotiations were proceeding byron returned to the palazzo lanfranchi.[ ] on april , , there died at bagnacavallo, not far from ravenna, byron's natural daughter allegra, whose mother, claire clairmont, had joined the shelleys at pisa five days previously. the whole story is a sad one, and shall be impartially given in these pages. when shelley left ravenna in august, , he understood that byron had determined that allegra should not be left behind, alone and friendless, in the convent of bagnacavallo, and shelley hoped that an arrangement would be made by which claire might have the happiness of seeing her child once more. when byron arrived at pisa in november, and allegra was not with him, claire clairmont's anxiety was so great that she wrote twice to byron, protesting against leaving her child in so unhealthy a place, and entreated him to place allegra with some respectable family in pisa, or florance, or lucca. she promised not to go near the child, if such was his wish, nor should mary or shelley do so without byron's consent. byron, it appears, took no notice of these letters. the shelleys, while strongly of opinion that allegra should in some way be taken out of byron's hands, thought it prudent to temporize and watch for a favourable opportunity. claire held wild schemes for carrying off the child, schemes which were under the circumstances impolitic, even if practicable. both mary and shelley did their utmost to dissuade claire from any violent attempts, and mary, in a letter written at this time, assures claire that her anxiety for allegra's health was to a great degree unfounded. after carefully considering the affair she had come to the conclusion that allegra was well taken care of by the nuns in the convent, that she was in good health, and would in all probability continue so. on april claire clairmont arrived at pisa on a visit to the shelleys, and a few days later started with the williamses for spezzia, to search for houses on the bay. professor dowden says:[ ] 'they cannot have been many hours on their journey, when shelley and mary received tidings of sorrowful import, which mary chronicles in her journal with the words "evil news." allegra was dead. typhus fever had raged in the romagna, but no one wrote to inform her parents with the fact.' lord byron felt the loss bitterly at first. 'his conduct towards this child,' says countess guiccioli, 'was always that of a fond father. he was dreadfully agitated by the first intelligence of her illness; and when afterwards that of her death arrived, i was obliged to fulfil the melancholy task of communicating it to him. the memory of that frightful moment is stamped indelibly on my mind. a mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his strength failed him, and he sank into a seat. his look was fixed, and the expression such that i began to fear for his reason; he did not shed a tear; and his countenance manifested so hopeless, so profound, so sublime a sorrow, that at the moment he appeared a being of a nature superior to humanity. he remained immovable in the same attitude for an hour, and no consolation which i endeavoured to afford him seemed to reach his ears, far less his heart.' writing to shelley on april , , byron says: 'i do not know that i have anything to reproach in my conduct, and certainly nothing in my feelings and intentions towards the dead. but it is a moment when we are apt to think that, if this or that had been done, such events might have been prevented, though every day and hour shows us that they are the most natural and inevitable. i suppose that time will do his usual work. death has done his.' whatever may be thought of byron's conduct in the matter of miss claire clairmont--conduct which allegra's mother invariably painted in the darkest colours--the fact remains as clear as day, that byron always behaved well and kindly towards the poor little child whose death gave him such intense pain. the evidence of the hoppners at venice, of countess guiccioli at ravenna, and of the shelleys, all point in the same direction; and if any doubt existed, a close study of the wild and wayward character of claire clairmont would show where the truth in the matter lay. byron was pestered by appeals from allegra's mother, indirectly on her own behalf, and directly on behalf of the child. claire never understood that, by reason of byron's antipathy to her, the surest way of not getting what she wanted was to ask for it; and, with appalling persistency, she even persuaded shelley to risk his undoubted influence over byron by intercessions on her behalf, until byron's opinion of shelley's judgment was shaken. after making full allowance for the maternal feeling, so strong in all women, it was exceedingly foolish of claire not to perceive that byron, by taking upon himself the adoption of the child, had shielded her from scandal; and that, having surrendered allegra to his care, claire could not pretend to any claim or responsibility in the matter. it should also be pointed out that, in sending allegra to the convent at bagnacavallo, byron had no intention of leaving her there for any length of time. it was merely a provisional step, and, at hoppner's suggestion, byron thought of sending the child to a good institution in switzerland. in his will he had bequeathed to the child the sum of £ , , which was to be paid to her either on her marriage or on her attaining the age of twenty-one years (according as the one or the other should happen first), with the proviso that she should not marry with a native of great britain. byron was anxious to keep her out of england, because he thought that his natural daughter would be under great disadvantage in that country, and would have a far better chance abroad. chapter iii on april , , the shelleys left pisa for lerici, and on may they took up their abode in the casa magni, situated near the fishing-village of san terenzo. towards the close of may, byron moved to his new residence at montenero, near leghorn. leigh hunt's arrival, at the end of june, added considerably to byron's perplexities. the poet had not seen hunt since they parted in england six years before, and many things had happened to both of them since then. byron, never satisfied that his promise to contribute poetry to a joint stock literary periodical was wise, disliked the idea more and more as time went on, and shelley foresaw considerable difficulties in the way of keeping byron up to the mark in this respect. hunt had brought over by sea a sick wife and several children, and opened the ball by asking byron for a loan of money to meet current expenses. byron now discovered that leigh hunt had ceased to be editor of the _examiner_, and, being absolutely without any source of income, had no prospect save the money he hoped to get from a journal not yet in existence. he ought, of course, to have told both byron and shelley that in coming to italy with his family--a wife and six children--he would naturally expect one or both of his friends to provide the necessary funds. this information hunt withheld, and although both byron and shelley knew him to be in pecuniary embarrassment, and had every wish to assist him, they were both under the impression that hunt had some small income from the _examiner_. byron was astonished to hear that his proposed coadjutor in a literary venture had not enough money in his pockets even for one month's current expenses. he was not inclined to submit tamely to hunt's arrangements for sucking money out of him. beginning as he meant to go on, byron from the first showed hunt that he had no intention of being imposed upon, and the social intercourse between them was, to say the least of it, somewhat strained. byron and shelley between them had furnished the ground-floor of the palazzo lanfranchi for the hunt family, and had shelley lived he would, presumably, have impoverished himself by disbursements in their favour; but his death placed the hunts in a false position. had shelley lived, his influence over byron would have diminished the friction between byron and his tactless guest. the amount of money spent by byron on the hunt family was not great, but, considering the comparative cheapness of living in italy at that time, and the difference in the value of money, byron's contribution was not niggardly. after paying for the furniture of their rooms in his palace, and sending £ for the cost of their voyage to italy, byron gave leigh hunt £ while he was at pisa, defrayed the cost of their journey from pisa to genoa, and supplied them with another £ to enable them to travel to florence. there was really no occasion for byron to make hunt a present of £ , which he seems to have done, except hunt's absolute incapacity to make both ends meet, which was his perpetual weakness. from the manner in which hunt treats his pecuniary transactions with the wide-awake byron, it is evident that the sum would have risen to thousands if byron had not turned a deaf ear to the 'insatiable applicant' at his elbow. on the first visit which trelawny paid to byron at the palazzo lanfranchi after hunt's arrival, he found mrs. hunt was confined to her room, as she generally was, from bad health. trelawny says: 'hunt, too, was in delicate health--a hypochondriac; and the seven children, untamed, the eldest a little more than ten, and the youngest a yearling, were scattered about playing on the large marble staircase and in the hall. hunt's theory and practice were that children should be unrestrained until they were of an age to be reasoned with. if they kept out of his way he was satisfied. on my entering the poet's study, i said to him, "the hunts have effected a lodgment in your palace;" and i was thinking how different must have been his emotion on the arrival of the hunts from that triumphant morning after the publication of "childe harold" when he "awoke and found himself famous."' truth told, the hunts' lodgment in his palace must have been a terrible infliction to the sensitive byron. his letters to friends in england at this time are full of allusions to the prevailing discomfort. trelawny tells us that 'byron could not realize, till the actual experiment was tried, the nuisance of having a man with a sick wife and seven disorderly children interrupting his solitude and his ordinary customs--especially as hunt did not conceal that his estimate of byron's poetry was not exalted. at that time hunt thought highly of his own poetry and underestimated all other. leigh hunt thought that shelley would have made a great poet if he had written on intelligible subjects. shelley soared too high for him, and byron flew too near the ground. there was not a single subject on which byron and hunt could agree.' after shelley and his friend williams had established the hunts in lord byron's palace at pisa, they returned to leghorn, shelley 'in a mournful mood, depressed by a recent interview with byron,' says trelawny. it was evident to all who knew byron that he bitterly repented having pledged himself to embark on the literary venture which, unfortunately, he himself had initiated. at their last interview shelley found byron irritable whilst talking with him on the fulfilment of his promises with regard to leigh hunt. byron, like a lion caught in a trap, could only grind his teeth and bear it. unfortunately, it was not in byron's nature to bear things becomingly; he could not restrain the exhibition of his inner mind. on these occasions he was not at his best, and forgot the courtesy due even to the most unwelcome guest. williams appears to have been much impressed by byron's reception of mrs. hunt, and, writing to his wife from leghorn, says: 'lord byron's reception of mrs. hunt was most shameful. she came into his house sick and exhausted, and he scarcely deigned to notice her; was silent, and scarcely bowed. this conduct cut hunt to the soul. but the way in which he received our friend roberts, at dunn's door,[ ] shall be described when we meet: it must be acted.' shelley and edward williams, two days after that letter had been written--on monday, july , , at three o'clock in the afternoon--set sail on the _ariel_ for their home on the gulf of spezzia. the story is well known, thanks to the graphic pen of edward trelawny, and we need only allude to the deaths of shelley and williams, and the sailor lad charles vivian, in so far as it comes into our picture of byron at this period. byron attended the cremation of the bodies of shelley and williams, and showed his deep sympathy with mary shelley and jane williams in various ways. writing to john murray from pisa on august , , he says: 'i presume you have heard that mr. shelley and captain williams were lost on the th ultimo in their passage from leghorn to spezzia, in their own open boat. you may imagine the state of their families: i never saw such a scene, nor wish to see another. you were all brutally mistaken about shelley, who was, without exception, the _best_ and least selfish man i ever knew. i never knew one who was not a beast in comparison.'[ ] writing august , , to thomas moore, byron says in allusion to shelley's death: 'there is thus another man gone, about whom the world was ill-naturedly, and ignorantly, and brutally mistaken. it will, perhaps, do him justice _now_, when he can be no better for it.' in another letter, written december , , byron says: 'you are all mistaken about shelley. you do not know how mild, how tolerant, how good he was in society; and as perfect a gentleman as ever crossed a drawing-room, when he liked, and where he liked.' byron's opinion of leigh hunt, and his own connection with that ill-fated venture known as _the liberal_, is concisely given by byron himself in a letter to murray. _the liberal_, published october , , was fiercely attacked in the _literary gazette_ and other periodicals. the _courier_ for october , , calls it a 'scoundrel-like publication.' byron writes: 'i am afraid the journal is a _bad_ business, and won't do; but in it i am sacrificing _myself_ for others--i can have no advantage in it. i believe the brothers hunt to be honest men; i am sure they are poor ones. they have not a rap: they pressed me to engage in this work, and in an evil hour i consented; still, i shall not repent, if i can do them the least service. i have done all i can for leigh hunt since he came here; but it is almost useless. his wife is ill, his six children not very tractable, and in the affairs of the world he himself is a child. the death of shelley left them totally aground; and i could not see them in such a state without using the common feelings of humanity, and what means were in my power to set them afloat again.' in another letter to murray (december , ) byron says: 'had their [the hunts'] journal gone on well, and i could have aided to make it better for them, i should then have left them, after my safe pilotage off a lee-shore, to make a prosperous voyage by themselves. as it is, i can't, and would not if i could, leave them amidst the breakers. as to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion between leigh hunt and me, there is little or none. we meet rarely, hardly ever; but i think him a good-principled and able man, and must do as i would be done by. i do not know what world he has lived in, but i have lived in three or four; and none of them like his keats and kangaroo _terra incognita_. alas! poor shelley! how he would have laughed had he lived, and how we used to laugh now and then, at various things, which are grave in the suburbs!' it is perhaps not generally known that shelley bequeathed a legacy of £ , to byron. byron's renunciation of this token of friendship is ignored by professor dowden in his life of shelley. writing to leigh hunt on june , , byron says: 'there was something about a legacy of two thousand pounds which he [shelley] has left me. this, of course, i declined, and the more so that i hear that his will is admitted valid; and i state this distinctly that, in case of anything happening to me, my heirs may be instructed not to claim it.' towards the end of september, , byron and the countess guiccioli left the palazzo lanfranchi, and moved from pisa to albaro, a suburb of genoa. at the villa saluzzo, where the poet resided until his departure for greece, dwelt also count gamba and his son pietro, who occupied one part of that large house, while byron occupied another part, and their establishments were quite separate. the first number of _the liberal_ which had been printed in london, reached byron's hands at this time. the birth of that unlucky publication was soon followed by its death, as anyone knowing the circumstances attending its conception might have foreseen. shelley's death may be said to have destroyed the enterprise and energy of the survivors of that small coterie, who, in the absence of that vital force, the fine spirit that had animated and held them together, 'degenerated apace,' as trelawny tells us. byron 'exhausted himself in planning, projecting, beginning, wishing, intending, postponing, regretting, and doing nothing. the unready are fertile in excuses, and his were inexhaustible.' in december, , trelawny laid up byron's yacht, _the bolivar_, paid off the crew, and started on horseback for rome. _the bolivar_ was eventually sold by byron to lord blessington for guineas. four or five years after byron's death this excellent little sea-boat, with captain roberts (who planned her for byron) on board, struck on the iron-bound coast of the adriatic and foundered. not a plank of her was saved. 'never,' said captain roberts in narrating the circumstance many years afterwards, 'was there a better sea-boat, or one that made less lee-way than the dear little _bolivar_, but she could not walk in the wind's eye. i dared not venture to put her about in that gale for fear of getting into the trough of the sea and being swamped. to take in sail was impossible, so all we had left for it was to luff her up in the lulls, and trust to providence for the rest. night came on dark and cold, for it was november, and as the sea boiled and foamed in her wake, it shone through the pitchy darkness with a phosphoric efflorescence. the last thing i heard was my companion's exclamation, "breakers ahead!" and almost at the same instant _the bolivar_ struck: the crash was awful; a watery column fell upon her bodily like an avalanche, and all that i remember was, that i was struggling with the waves. i am a strong swimmer, and have often contested with byron in his own element, so after battling long with the billows, covered with bruises, and more dead than alive, i succeeded in scrambling up the rocks, and found myself in the evergreen pine-forest of ravenna, some miles from any house. but at last i sheltered myself in a forester's hut. death and i had a hard struggle that bout.'[ ] on april , , lord and lady blessington called on byron at the casa saluzzo. lady blessington assures us that, in speaking of his wife, byron declared that he was totally unconscious of the cause of her leaving him. he said that he left no means untried to effect a reconciliation, and added with bitterness: 'a day will arrive when i shall be avenged. i feel that i shall not live long, and when the grave has closed over me, what must she feel!' in speaking of his sister, byron always spoke with strong affection, and said that she was the most faultless person he had ever known, and that she was his only source of consolation in his troubles during the separation business. 'byron,' says lady blessington, 'has remarkable penetration in discovering the characters of those around him, and piques himself on it. he also thinks that he has fathomed the recesses of his own mind; but he is mistaken. with much that is _little_ (which he suspects) in his character, there is much that is _great_ that he does not give himself credit for. his first impulses are always good, but his temper, which is impatient, prevents his acting on the cool dictates of reason. he mistakes temper for character, and takes the ebullitions of the first for the indications of the nature of the second.' lady blessington seems to have made a most searching examination of byron's character, and very little escaped her vigilance during the two months of their intimate intercourse. she tells us that byron talked for effect, and liked to excite astonishment. it was difficult to know when he was serious, or when he was merely 'bamming' his aquaintances. he admitted that he liked to _hoax_ people, in order that they might give contradictory accounts of him and of his opinions. he spoke very highly of countess guiccioli, whom he had passionately loved and deeply respected. lady blessington says: 'in his praises of madame guiccioli it is quite evident that he is sincere.' byron confessed that he was not happy, but admitted that it was his own fault, as the countess guiccioli, the only object of his love, had all the qualities to render a reasonable being happy. in speaking of allegra, byron said that while she lived her existence never seemed necessary to his happiness; but no sooner did he lose her than it appeared to him as though he could not exist without her. it is noteworthy that, one evening, while byron was speaking to lady blessington at her hotel at genoa, he pointed out to her a boat at anchor in the harbour, and said: 'that is the boat in which my friend shelley went down--the sight of it makes me ill. you should have known shelley to feel how much i must regret him. he was the most gentle, most amiable, and _least_ worldly-minded person i ever met; full of delicacy, disinterested beyond all other men, and possessing a degree of genius, joined to a simplicity, as rare as it is admirable. he had formed to himself a _beau-idéal_ of all that is fine, high-minded, and noble, and he acted up to this ideal even to the very letter. he had a most brilliant imagination, but a total want of worldly wisdom. i have seen nothing like him, and never shall again, i am certain.' we may, upon the evidence before us, take it for certain that byron only admired two of his contemporaries--sir walter scott and shelley. he liked hobhouse, and they had travelled together without a serious quarrel, which is a proof of friendship; but he felt that hobhouse undervalued him, and, as byron had a good deal of the spoiled child about him, he resented the friendly admonitions which, it seems, hobhouse unsparingly administered whenever they were together. tom moore was a 'croney'--a man to laugh and sit through the night with--but there was nothing, either in his genius or his conduct, which byron could fall down and worship, as he seemed capable of doing in the case of shelley and scott. it is evident that lady byron occupied his thoughts continually; he constantly mentioned her in conversation, and often spoke of the brief period during which they lived together. he told lady blessington that, though not regularly handsome, he liked her looks. he said that when he reflected on the whole tenor of her conduct--the refusing any explanation, never answering his letters, or holding out any hopes that in future years their child might form a bond of union between them--he felt exasperated against her, and vented this feeling in his writings. the mystery of lady byron's silence piqued him and kept alive his interest in her. it was evident to those who knew byron during the last year of his life that he anxiously desired a reconciliation with her. he seemed to think that, had his pecuniary affairs been in a less ruinous state, his temper would not have been excited as it constantly was, during the brief period of their union, by demands of insolent creditors whom he was unable to satisfy, and who drove him nearly out of his senses, until he lost all command of himself, and so forfeited his wife's affection. byron felt himself to blame for such conduct, and bitterly repented of it. but he never could divest himself of the idea that his wife still took a deep interest in him, and said that ada must always be a bond of union between them, though perchance they were parted for ever. 'i am sure,' said lady blessington, 'that if ten individuals undertook the task of describing byron, no two of the ten would agree in their verdict respecting him, or convey any portrait that resembled the other, and yet the description of each might be correct, according to individual opinion. the truth is, that the chameleon-like character or manner of byron renders it difficult to portray him; and the pleasure he seems to take in misleading his associates in their estimation of him increases the difficulty of the task.' on one occasion byron lifted the veil, and showed his inmost thoughts by words which were carefully noted at the time. he spoke on this occasion from the depth of his heart as follows: 'can i reflect on my present position without bitter feelings? exiled from my country by a species of ostracism--the most humiliating to a proud mind, when _daggers_ and not shells were used to ballot, inflicting mental wounds more deadly and difficult to be healed than all that the body could suffer. then the notoriety that follows me precludes the privacy i desire, and renders me an object of curiosity, which is a continual source of irritation to my feelings. i am bound by the indissoluble ties of marriage to _one_ who will _not_ live with me, and live with one to whom i cannot give a legal right to be my companion, and who, wanting that right, is placed in a position humiliating to her and most painful to me. were the countess guiccioli and i married, we should, i am sure, be cited as an example of conjugal happiness, and the domestic and retired life we lead would entitle us to respect. but our union, wanting the legal and religious part of the ceremony of marriage, draws on us both censure and blame. she is formed to make a good wife to any man to whom she attaches herself. she is fond of retirement, is of a most affectionate disposition, and noble-minded and disinterested to the highest degree. judge then how mortifying it must be to me to be the cause of placing her in a false position. all this is not thought of when people are blinded by passion, but when passion is replaced by better feelings--those of affection, friendship, and confidence--when, in short, the _liaison_ has all of marriage but its forms, then it is that we wish to give it the respectability of wedlock. i feel this keenly, reckless as i appear, though there are few to whom i would avow it, and certainly not to a man.' there is much in this statement which it is necessary for those who wish to understand byron's position at the close of his life to bear in mind. we may accept it unreservedly, for it coincides in every particular with conclusions independently arrived at by the present writer, after a long and patient study of all circumstances relating to the life of this extraordinary man. at the period of which we write--the last phase in byron's brief career--the poet was, morally, ascending. his character, through the fire of suffering, had been purified. even his pride--so assertive in public--had been humbled, and he was gradually and insensibly preparing himself for a higher destiny, unconscious of the fact that the hand of death was upon him. 'wait,' he said, 'and you will see me one day become all that i ought to be. i have reflected seriously on all my faults, and that is the first step towards amendment.' chapter iv certain it is, that in proportion to the admiration which byron's poetic genius excited, was the severity of the censure which his fellow-countrymen bestowed on his defects as a man. the humour of the situation no doubt appealed to byron's acute sense of proportion, and induced him to feed the calumnies against himself, by painting his own portrait in the darkest colours. unfortunately, the effects of such conduct long survived him; for the world is prone to take a man at his own valuation, and 'hypocrisy reversed' does not enter into human calculations. it is unfortunate for the fame of byron that his whole conduct after the separation was a glaring blunder, for which no subsequent act of his, no proof of his genius, could by any possibility atone. truth told, the obloquy which byron had to endure, after lady byron left him, was such as might well have changed his whole nature. it must indeed have been galling to that proud spirit, after having been humbly asked everywhere, to be ostentatiously asked nowhere. the injustice he suffered at the hands of those who were fed on baseless calumnies raised in his breast a feeling of profound contempt for his fellow-creatures--a contempt which led him into many follies; thus, instead of standing up against the storm and meeting his detractors face to face, as he was both capable of and justified in doing, he chose to leave england under a cloud, and, by a system of mystification, to encourage the belief that he thoroughly deserved the humiliation which had been cast upon him. as a consequence, to employ the words of macaulay, 'all those creeping things that riot in the decay of nobler natures hastened to their repast; and they were right; they did after their kind. it is not every day that the savage envy of aspiring dunces is gratified by the agonies of such a spirit, and the degradation of such a name.' lady blessington tells us that byron had an excellent heart, but that it was running to waste for want of being allowed to expend itself on his fellow-creatures. his heart teemed with affection, but his past experiences had checked its course, and left it to prey on the aching void in his breast. he could never forget his sorrows, which in a certain sense had unhinged his mind, and caused him to deny to others the justice that had been denied to himself. he affected to disbelieve in either love or friendship, and yet was capable of making great sacrifices for both. 'he has an unaccountable passion for misrepresenting his own feelings and motives, and exaggerates his defects more than an enemy could do; and is often angry because we do not believe all he says against himself. if byron were not a great poet, the charlatanism of affecting to be a satanic character, in this our matter-of-fact nineteenth century, would be very amusing: but when the genius of the man is taken into account, it appears too ridiculous, and one feels mortified that he should attempt to pass for something that all who know him rejoice that he is not. if byron knew his own power, he would disdain such unworthy means of attracting attention, and trust to his merit for commanding it.' as lady blessington remarks in her 'conversations of lord byron,' from which we have largely quoted, byron's pre-eminence as a poet gives an interest to details which otherwise would not be worth mentioning. she tells us, for instance, that one of the strongest anomalies in byron was the exquisite taste displayed in his descriptive poetry, and the total want of it that was so apparent in his modes of life. 'fine scenery seemed to have no effect upon him, though his descriptions are so glowing, and the elegancies and comforts of refined life byron appeared to as little understand as value.' byron appeared to be wholly ignorant of what in his class of life constituted its ordinary luxuries. 'i have seen him,' says lady blessington, 'apparently delighted with the luxurious inventions in furniture, equipages, plate, etc., common to all persons of a certain station or fortune, and yet after an inquiry as to their prices--an inquiry so seldom made by persons of his rank--shrink back alarmed at the thought of the expense, though there was nothing alarming in it, and congratulate himself that he had no such luxuries, or did not require them. i should say that a bad and vulgar taste predominated in all byron's equipments, whether in dress or in furniture. i saw his bed at genoa, when i passed through in , and it certainly was the most vulgarly gaudy thing i ever saw; the curtains in the worst taste, and the cornice having his family motto of "crede byron" surmounted by baronial coronets. his carriages and his liveries were in the same bad taste, having an affectation of finery, but _mesquin_ in the details, and tawdry in the _ensemble_. it was evident that he piqued himself on them, by the complacency with which they were referred to.' in one of byron's expansive moods--and these were rare with men, though frequent in the society of lady blessington--byron, speaking of his wife, said: 'i am certain that lady byron's first idea is, what is due to herself; i mean that it is the undeviating rule of her conduct. i wish she had thought a little more of what is due to others. now, my besetting sin is a want of that self-respect which she has in _excess_; and that want has produced much unhappiness to us both. but though i accuse lady byron of an excess of self-respect, i must in candour admit, that if any person ever had an excuse for an extraordinary portion of it, she has; as in all her thoughts, words, and deeds, she is the most decorous woman that ever existed, and must appear a perfect and refined gentlewoman even to her _femme-de-chambre_. this extraordinary degree of self-command in lady byron produced an opposite effect on me. when i have broken out, on slight provocations, into one of my ungovernable fits of rage, her calmness piqued, and seemed to reproach me; it gave her an air of superiority, that vexed and increased my wrath. i am now older and wiser, and should know how to appreciate her conduct as it deserved, as i look on self-command as a positive virtue, though it is one i have not the courage to adopt.' in speaking of his sister, shortly before his departure for greece, byron maintained that he owed the little good which he could boast, to her influence over his wayward nature. he regretted that he had not known her earlier, as it might have influenced his destiny. 'to me she was, in the hour of need, as a tower of strength. her affection was my last rallying point, and is now the only bright spot that the horizon of england offers to my view.' 'augusta,' said byron, 'knew all my weaknesses, but she had love enough to bear with them. she has given me such good advice, and yet, finding me incapable of following it, loved and pitied me the more, because i was erring. this is true affection, and, above all, true christian feeling.' but we should not be writing about byron and his foibles eighty-four years after his death, if he had not been wholly different to other men in his views of life. shortly after his marriage, for no sufficient, or at least for no apparent reason, byron chose to immolate himself, and took a sort of tarpeian leap, passing the remainder of his existence in bemoaning his bruises, and reviling the spectators who were not responsible for his fall. one of the main results of this conduct was his separation from his child, for whom he seems to have felt the deepest affection. we find him, at the close of his life, constantly speaking of ada, 'sole daughter of his heart and house,' and prophesying the advent of a love whose consolations he could never feel. 'i often, in imagination, pass over a long lapse of years,' said byron, 'and console myself for present privations, in anticipating the time when my daughter will know me by reading my works; for, though the hand of prejudice may conceal my portrait from her eyes,[ ] it cannot hereafter conceal my thoughts and feelings, which will talk to her when he to whom they belonged has ceased to exist. the triumph will then be mine; and the tears that my child will drop over expressions wrung from me by mental agony--the certainty that she will enter into the sentiments which dictated the various allusions to her and to myself in my works--consoles me in many a gloomy hour.' this prophecy was amply fulfilled. it appears that, after ada's marriage to lord king, colonel wildman met her in london, and invited her to pay him a visit at newstead abbey. one morning, while ada was in the library, colonel wildman took down a book of poems. ada asked the name of the author of these poems, and when shown the portrait of her father--phillips's well-known portrait--which hung upon the wall, ada remained for a moment spell-bound, and then remarked ingenuously: 'please do not think that it is affectation on my part when i declare to you that i have been brought up in complete ignorance of all that concerns my father.' never until that moment had ada seen the handwriting of her father, and, as we know, even his portrait had been hidden from her. when byron's genius was revealed to his daughter, an enthusiasm for his memory filled her soul. she shut herself up for hours in the rooms which byron had used, absorbed in all the glory of one whose tenderness for her had been so sedulously concealed by her mother. on her death-bed she dictated a letter to colonel wildman, begging that she might be buried at hucknall-torkard, in the same vault as her illustrious father. and there they sleep the long sleep side by side--separated during life, united in death--the prophecy of fulfilled in : 'yet, though dull hate as duty should be taught, i know that thou wilt love me; though my name should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught with desolation, and a broken claim: though the grave closed between us,--'twere the same, i know that thou wilt love me; though to drain _my_ blood from out thy being were an aim and an attainment,--all would be in vain,-- still thou wouldst love me, still that more than life retain.' chapter v there is no doubt that byron had a craving for celebrity in one form or another. in the last year of his life his thoughts turned with something like apathy from the fame which his pen had brought him[ ] towards that wider and nobler fame which might be attained by the sword. in the spirit of an exalted poet who has lately passed from us, if such prescience were possible, byron might have applied these stirring lines to himself: 'up, then, and act! rise up and undertake the duties of to-day. thy courage wake! spend not life's strength in idleness, for life should not be wasted in care's useless strife. no slothful doubt let work's place occupy, but labour! labour for posterity! 'up, then, and sing! rise up and bare the sword with which to combat suffering and wrong. console all those that suffer with thy word, defend man's heritage with sword and song! combat intrigue, injustice, tyranny, and in thine efforts god will be with thee.' 'i have made as many sacrifices to liberty,' said byron, 'as most people of my age; and the one i am about to undertake is not the least, though probably it will be the last; for with my broken health, and the chances of war, greece will most likely terminate my career. i like italy, its climate, its customs, and, above all, its freedom from cant of every kind; therefore it is no slight sacrifice of comfort to give up the tranquil life i lead here, and break through the ties i have formed, to engage in a cause, for the successful result of which i have no very sanguine hopes. i have a presentiment that i shall die in greece. i hope it may be in action, for that would be a good finish to a very _triste_ existence, and i have a horror of death-bed scenes; but as i have not been famous for my luck in life, most probably i shall not have more in the manner of my death.' it was towards the close of may, , that byron received a letter telling him that he had been elected a member of the committee which sat in london to further the greek cause. byron willingly accepted the appointment, and from that moment turned his thoughts towards greece, without exactly knowing in what manner he could best serve her cause. he experienced alternations of confidence and despondency certainly, but he never abandoned the notion that he might be of use, if only he could see his way clearly through the conflicting opinions and advice which reached him from all sides. the presentiment that he would end his days in greece, weighed so heavily on his mind, that he felt a most intense desire to revisit his native country before finally throwing in his lot with the greeks. he seems to have vaguely felt that all chances of reconciliation with lady byron were not dead. he would have liked to say farewell to her without bitterness, and he longed to embrace his child. but the objections to a return to england were so formidable that he was compelled to abandon the idea. his proud nature could not face the chance of a cold reception, and a revival of that roar of calumny which had driven him from our shores. he told lady blessington that he could laugh at those attacks with the sea between him and his traducers; but that on the spot, and feeling the effect which each libel produced upon the minds of his too sensitive friends, he could not stand the strain. byron felt sure that his enemies would misinterpret his motives, and that no good would come of it. after byron had made up his mind to visit greece in person, he does not appear ever to have seriously thought of drawing back. on june , , he informed trelawny, who was at rome, that he was determined to go to greece, and asked him to join the expedition. seven days later byron had hired a vessel to transport himself, his companions, his servants, and his horses, to cephalonia. on july , byron, with edward trelawny, count pietro gamba, and a young medical student,[ ] with eight servants, embarked at genoa on the english brig _hercules_, commanded by captain scott. at the last moment a passage was offered to a greek named schilitzy, and to mr. hamilton browne. gamba tells us that five horses were shipped, besides arms, ammunition, and two one-pounder guns which had belonged to _the bolivar_. byron carried with him , spanish dollars in ready-money, with bills of exchange for , more. passing within sight of elba, corsica, the lipari islands (including stromboli,) sicily, italy, etc., on august , the _hercules_ lay between zante and cephalonia; and the next day she cast anchor in argostoli, the principal port of cephalonia. the resident, colonel napier, was at that time absent from the island. shortly after byron's arrival, captain kennedy, colonel napier's secretary, came on board, and informed him that little was known of the internal affairs of greece. the turks appeared to have been in force at sea, while the greeks remained inactive at hydra, spezia, and ipsara. it was supposed that mr. blaquière had gone to corfu, while the famous marco botzari, to whom byron had been especially recommended, was at missolonghi. before taking any definite step, byron judged it best to send messengers to corfu and missolonghi, to collect information as to the state of affairs in the morea. to pass the time, byron and some of his companions made an excursion to ithaca. the first opportunity of showing his sympathy towards the victims of barbarism and tyranny occurred at this period. many poor families had taken refuge at ithaca, from scio, patras, and other parts of greece. byron handed , piastres to the commandant for their relief, and transported a family, in absolute poverty, to cephalonia, where he provided them with a house and gave them a monthly allowance. the following narrative, written by a gentleman who was travelling in ithaca at that time, seems to be worthy of reproduction in these pages: 'it was in the island of ithaca, in the month of august, , that i was shown into the dining-room of the resident governor, where lord byron, count gamba, dr. bruno, mr. trelawny, and mr. hamilton browne, were seated after dinner, with some of the english officers and principal inhabitants of the place. i had been informed of lord byron's presence, but had no means of finding him out, except by recollection of his portraits; and i am not ashamed to confess that i was puzzled, in my examination of the various countenances before me, where to fix upon "the man." i at one time almost settled upon trelawny, from the interest which he seemed to take in the schooner in which i had just arrived; but on ascending to the drawing-room i was most agreeably undeceived by finding myself close to the side of the great object of my curiosity, and engaged in easy conversation with him, without presentation or introduction of any kind. 'he was handling and remarking upon the books in some small open shelves, and fairly spoke to me in such a manner that not to have replied would have been boorish. "'pope's homer's odyssey'--hum!--that is well placed here, undoubtedly; 'hume's essays,'--'tales of my landlord;' there you are, watty! are you recently from england, sir?" i answered that i had not been there for two years. "then you can bring us no news of the greek committee? here we are all waiting orders, and no orders seem likely to come. ha! ha!" "i have not changed my opinion of the greeks," he said. "i know them as well as most people" (a favourite phrase), "but we must not look always too closely at the men who are to benefit by our exertions in a good cause, or god knows we shall seldom do much good in this world. there is trelawny thinks he has fallen in with an angel in prince mavrocordato, and little bruno would willingly sacrifice his life for the _cause_, as he calls it. i must say he has shown some sincerity in his devotion, in consenting to join it for the little matter he makes of me." i ventured to say that, in all probability, the being joined with him in any cause was inducement enough for any man of moderate pretensions. he noticed the compliment only by an indifferent smile. "i find but one opinion," he continued, "among all people whom i have met since i came here, that no good is to be done for these rascally greeks; that i am sure to be deceived, disgusted, and all the rest of it. it may be so; but it is chiefly to satisfy myself upon these very points that i am going. i go prepared for anything, expecting a deal of roguery and imposition, but hoping to do some good." '"have you read any of the late publications on greece?" i asked. '"i never read any accounts of a country to which i can myself go," said he. "the committee have sent me some of their 'crown and anchor' reports, but i can make nothing of them." 'the conversation continued in the same familiar flow. to my increased amazement, he led it to his works, to lady byron, and to his daughter. the former was suggested by a volume of "childe harold" which was on the table; it was the ugly square little german edition, and i made free to characterize it as execrable. he turned over the leaves, and said: 'yes, it was very bad; but it was better than one that he had seen in french prose in switzerland. "i know not what my friend mr. murray will say to it all. kinnaird writes to me that he is wroth about many things; let them do what they like with the book--they have been abusive enough of the author. the _quarterly_ is trying to make amends, however, and _blackwood's_ people will suffer none to attack me but themselves. milman was, i believe, at the bottom of the personalities, but they all sink before an american reviewer, who describes me as a kind of fiend, and says that the deformities of my mind are only to be equalled by those of my body; it is well that anyone can see them, at least." our hostess, mrs. knox, advanced to us about this moment, and his lordship continued, smiling: "does not your gordon blood rise at such abuse of a clansman? the gallant gordons 'bruik nae slight.' are you true to your name, mrs. knox?" the lady was loud in her reprobation of the atrocious abuse that had recently been heaped upon the noble lord, and joined in his assumed clannish regard for their mutual name. "lady byron and you would agree," he said, laughing, "though i could not, you are thinking; you may say so, i assure you. i dare say it will turn out that i have been terribly in the wrong, _but i always want to know what i did_." i had not courage to touch upon this delicate topic, and mrs. knox seemed to wish it passed over till a less public occasion. he spoke of ada exactly as any parent might have done of a beloved absent child, and betrayed not the slightest confusion, or consciousness of a sore subject, throughout the whole conversation. 'i now learnt from him that he had arrived in the island from cephalonia only that morning, and that it was his purpose (as it was mine) to visit its antiquities and localities. a ride to the fountain of arethusa had been planned for the next day, and i had the happiness of being invited to join it. pope's "homer" was taken up for a description of the place, and it led to the following remarks: "yes, the very best translation that ever was, or ever will be; there is nothing like it in the world, be assured. it is quite delightful to find pope's character coming round again; i forgive gifford everything for that. puritan as he is, he has too much good sense not to know that, even if all the lies about pope were truths, his character is one of the best among literary men. there is nobody now like him, except watty,[ ] and he is as nearly faultless as ever human being was." 'the remainder of the evening was passed in arranging the plan of proceeding on the morrow's excursion, in the course of which his lordship occasionally interjected a facetious remark of some general nature; but in such fascinating tones, and with such a degree of amiability and familiarity, that, of all the libels of which i well knew the public press to be guilty, that of describing lord byron as inaccessible, morose, and repulsive in manner and language, seemed to me the most false and atrocious. i found i was to be accommodated for the night under the same roof with his lordship, and i retired, satisfied in my own mind that favouring chance had that day made me the intimate (almost confidential) friend of the greatest literary man of modern times. 'the next morning, about nine o'clock, the party for the fountain of arethusa assembled in the parlour of captain knox; but lord byron was missing. trelawny, who had slept in the room adjoining his lordship's, told us that he feared he had been ill during the night, but that he had gone out in a boat very early in the morning. at this moment i happened to be standing at the window, and saw the object of our anxiety in the act of landing on the beach, about ten or a dozen yards from the house, to which he walked slowly up. i never saw and could not conceive the possibility of such a change in the appearance of a human being as had taken place since the previous night. he looked like a man under sentence of death, or returning from the funeral of all that he held dear on earth. his person seemed shrunk, his face was pale, and his eyes languid and fixed on the ground. he was leaning upon a stick, and had changed his dark camlet-caped surtout of the preceding evening for a nankeen jacket embroidered like a hussar's--an attempt at dandyism, or dash, to which the look and demeanour of the wearer formed a sad contrast. on entering the room, his lordship made the usual salutations; and, after some preliminary arrangements, the party moved off, on horses and mules, to the place of destination for the day. 'i was so struck with the difference of appearance in lord byron that the determination to which i had come, to try to monopolize him, if possible, to myself, without regard to appearances or _bienséance_, almost entirely gave way under the terror of a freezing repulse. i advanced to him under the influence of this feeling, but i had scarcely received his answer when all uneasiness about my reception vanished, and i stuck as close to him as the road permitted our animals to go. his voice sounded timidly and quiveringly at first; but as the conversation proceeded, it became steady and firm. the beautiful country in which we were travelling naturally formed a prominent topic, as well as the character of the people and of the government. of the latter, i found him (to my amazement) an admirer. "there is a deal of fine stuff about that old maitland," he said; "he knows the greeks well. do you know if it be true that he ordered one of their brigs to be blown out of the water if she stayed ten minutes longer in corfu roads?" i happened to know, and told him that it was true. "well, of all follies, that of daring to say what one cannot dare to do is the least to be pitied. do you think sir tom would have really executed his threat?" i told his lordship that i believed he certainly would, and that this knowledge of his being in earnest in everything he said was the cause, not only of the quiet termination of that affair, but of the order and subordination in the whole of the countries under his government. 'the conversation again insensibly reverted to sir walter scott, and lord byron repeated to me the anecdote of the interview in murray's shop, as conclusive evidence of his being the author of the "waverley novels." he was a little but not durably staggered by the equally well-known anecdote of sir walter having, with some solemnity, denied the authorship to mr. wilson croker, in the presence of george iv., the duke of york, and the late lord canterbury. he agreed that an author wishing to conceal his authorship had a right to give _any answer whatever_ that succeeded in convincing an inquirer that he was wrong in his suppositions. 'when we came within sight of the object of our excursion, there happened to be an old shepherd in the act of coming down from the fountain. his lordship at once fixed upon him for eumæus, and invited him back with us to "fill up the picture." having drunk of the fountain, and eaten of our less classical repast of cold fowls, etc., his lordship again became lively, and full of pleasant conceits. to detail the conversation (which was general and varied as the individuals that partook of it) is now impossible, and certainly not desirable if it were possible. i wish to observe, however, that on this and one very similar occasion, it was very unlike the kind of conversation which lord byron is described as holding with various individuals who have written about him. still more unlike was it to what one would have _supposed_ his conversation to be; it was exactly that of nine-tenths of the cultivated class of english gentlemen, careless and unconscious of everything but the present moment. lord byron ceased to be more than one of the party, and stood some sharp jokes, practical and verbal, with more good nature than would have done many of the ciphers whom one is doomed to tolerate in society. 'we returned as we went, but no opportunity presented itself of introducing any subject of interest beyond that of the place and time. his lordship seemed quite restored by the excursion, and in the evening came to the resident's, bearing himself towards everybody in the same easy, gentlemanly way that rendered him the delight and ornament of every society in which he chose to unbend himself. 'the resident was as absolute a monarch as ulysses, and i dare say much more hospitable and obliging. he found quarters for the whole anglo-italian party, in the best houses of the town, and received them on the following morning at the most luxurious of breakfasts, consisting, among other native productions, of fresh-gathered grapes, just ripened, but which were pronounced of some danger to be eaten, as not having had the "first rain." this is worthy of note, as having been apparently a ground of their being taken by lord byron in preference to the riper and safer figs and nectarines; but he deemed it a fair reason for an apology to the worthy doctor of the th regiment (dr. scott), who had cautioned the company against the fruit. '"i take them, doctor," said his lordship, "as i take other prohibited things--in order to accustom myself to any and all things that a man may be compelled to take where i am going--in the same way that i abstain from all superfluities, even salt to my eggs or butter to my bread; and i take tea, mrs. knox, without sugar or cream. but tea itself is, really, the most superfluous of superfluities, though i am never without it." 'i heard these observations as they were made to dr. scott, next to whom i was sitting, towards the end of the table; but i could not hear the animated conversation that was going on between his lordship and mrs. knox, beyond the occasional mention of "penelope," and, when one of her children came in to her, "telemachus"--names too obviously _à propos_ of the place and persons to be omitted in any incidental conversation in ithaca. 'the excursion to the "school of homer" (why so called nobody seemed to know) was to be made by water; and the party of the preceding day, except the lady, embarked in an elegant country boat with four rowers, and sundry packages and jars of eatables and drinkables. as soon as we were seated under the awning--lord byron in the centre seat, with his face to the stern--trelawny took charge of the tiller. the other passengers being seated on the side, the usual small flying general conversation began. lord byron seemed in a mood calculated to make the company think he meant something more formal than ordinary talk. of course there could not be anything said in the nature of a dialogue, which, to be honest, was the kind of conversation that i had at heart. he began by informing us that he had just been reading, with renewed pleasure, david hume's essays. he considered hume to be by far the most profound thinker and clearest reasoner of the many philosophers and metaphysicians of the last century. "there is," said he, "no refuting him, and for simplicity and clearness of style he is unmatched, and is utterly unanswerable." he referred particularly to the essay on miracles. it was remarked to him, that it had nevertheless been specifically answered, and, some people thought, refuted, by a presbyterian divine, dr. campbell of aberdeen. i could not hear whether his lordship knew of the author, but the remark did not affect his opinion; it merely turned the conversation to aberdeen and "poor john scott," the most promising and most unfortunate literary man of the day, whom he knew well, and who, said he, knew him (lord byron) as a schoolboy. scotland, walter scott (or, as his lordship always called him, "watty"), the "waverley novels," the "rejected addresses," and the english aristocracy (which he reviled most bitterly), were the prominent objects of nearly an hour's conversation. it was varied, towards the end of the voyage, in this original fashion: "but come, gentlemen, we must have some inspiration. here, tita, l'hippocrena!" 'this brought from the bows of the boat a huge venetian gondolier, with a musket slung diagonally across his back, a stone jar of two gallons of what turned out to be english gin, another porous one of water, and a quart pitcher, into which the gondolier poured the spirit, and laid the whole, with two or three large tumblers, at the feet of his expectant lord, who quickly uncorked the jar, and began to pour its contents into the smaller vessel. '"now, gentlemen, drink deep, or taste not the pierian spring; it is the true poetic source. i'm a rogue if i have drunk to-day. come" (handing tumblers round to us), "this is the way;" and he nearly half filled a tumbler, and then poured from the height of his arm out of the water-jar, till the tumbler sparkled in the sun like soda-water, and drunk it off while effervescing, glorious gin-swizzle, a most tempting beverage, of which everyone on board took his share, munching after it a biscuit out of a huge tin case of them. this certainly exhilarated us, till we landed within some fifty or sixty yards of the house to which we were directed. 'on our way we learned that the regent of the island--that is, the native governor, as captain knox was the protecting power's governor (viceroy over the king!)--had forwarded the materials of a substantial feast to the occupant (his brother); for the _nobili inglesi_, who were to honour his premises. in mentioning this act of the regent to lord byron, his remark was a repetition of the satirical line in the imitation address of the poet fitzgerald, "god bless the regent!" and as i mentioned the relationship to our approaching host, he added, with a laugh, "and the duke of york!" 'on entering the mansion, we were received by the whole family, commencing with the mother of the princes--a venerable lady of at least seventy, dressed in pure greek costume, to whom lord byron went up with some formality, and, with a slight bend of the knee, took her hand, and kissed it reverently. we then moved into the adjoining _sala_, or saloon, where there was a profusion of english comestibles, in the shape of cold sirloin of beef, fowls, ham, etc., to which we did such honour as a sea appetite generally produces. it was rather distressing that not one of the entertainers touched any of these luxuries, it being the greek second or panagia lent, but fed entirely on some cold fish fried in oil, and green salad, of which last lord byron, in adherence to his rule of accustoming himself to eat anything eatable, partook, though with an obvious effort--as well as of the various wines that were on the table, particularly ithaca, which is exactly port as made and drunk in the country of its growth. 'i was not antiquary enough to know to what object of antiquity our visit was made, but i saw lord byron in earnest conversation with a very antique old greek monk in full clerical habit. he was a bishop, sitting oil a stone of the ruined wall close by, and he turned out to be the _esprit fort_ mentioned in a note at the end of the second canto of "childe harold"--a freethinker, at least a freespeaker, when he called the sacrifice of the maso _una coglioneria_. 'when we embarked on our return to vathi, lord byron seemed moody and sullen, but brightened up as he saw a ripple on the water, a mast and sail raised in the cutter, and trelawny seated in the stern with the tiller in hand. in a few minutes we were scudding, gunwale under, in a position infinitely more beautiful than agreeable to landsmen, and lord byron obviously enjoying the not improbable idea of a swim for life. his motions, as he sat, tended to increase the impulse of the breeze, and tended also to sway the boat to leeward. "i don't know," he said, "if you all swim, gentlemen; but if you do, you will have fifty fathoms of blue water to support you; and if you do not, you will have it over you. but as you may not all be prepared, starboard, trelawny--bring her up. there! she is trim; and now let us have a glass of grog after the gale. _tita, i fiaschi!_" this was followed by a reproduction of the gin-and-water jars, and a round of the immortal swizzle. to my very great surprise, it was new to the company that the liquor which they were enjoying was the product of scotland, in the shape of what is called "low-wines," or semi-distilled whisky--chiefly from the distillery of mine ancient friend, james haig of lochrin; but the communication seemed to gratify the noble drinker, and led to the recitation by one of the company, in pure lowland scotch, of burns's petition to the house of commons in behalf of the national liquor. the last stanza, beginning '"scotland, my auld respeckit mither," very much pleased lord byron, who said that he too was more than half a scotchman. 'the conversation again turned on the "waverley novels," and on this occasion lord byron spoke of "the bride of lammermoor," and cited the passage where the mother of the cooper's wife tells her husband (the cooper) that she "kent naething aboot what he might do to his wife; but the deil a finger shall ye lay on my dochter, and _that ye may foond upon_." shortly afterwards, the conversation having turned upon poetry, his lordship mentioned the famous ode on the death of sir john moore as the finest piece of poetry in any language. he recited some lines of it. one of the company, with more presumption than wisdom, took him up, as his memory seemed to lag, by filling in the line: '"and he looked like a warrior taking his rest, with his martial cloak around him." 'lord byron, with a look at the interloper that spoke as if death were in it, and no death was sufficiently cruel for him, shouted, "he _lay_--he _lay_ like a warrior, not he _looked_." the pretender was struck dumb, but, with reference to his lordship's laudation of the piece, he ventured half to whisper that the "gladiator" was superior to it, as it is to any poetical picture ever painted in words. the reply was a benign look, and a flattering recognition, by a little applausive tapping of his tobacco-box on the board on which he sat. 'on arriving at vathi, we repaired to our several rooms in the worthy citizens' houses where we were billeted, to read and meditate, and write and converse, as we might meet, indoors or out; and much profound lucubration took place among us, on the characteristics and disposition of the very eminent personage with whom we were for the time associated. dr. scott, the assistant-surgeon of the th foot, who had heard of, though he may not have witnessed, any of the peculiarities of the great poet, accounted for them, and even for the sublimities of his poetry, by an abnormal construction or chronic derangement of the digestive organs--a theory which experience and observation of other people than poets afford many reasons to support: '"is it not strange now--ten times strange--to think, and is it not enough one's faith to shatter, that right or wrong direction of a drink, a _plus_ or _minus_ of a yellow matter, one half the world should elevate or sink to bliss or woe (most commonly the latter)-- that human happiness is well-formed chyle, and human misery redundant bile!" 'the next morning the accounts we heard of lord byron were contradictory: trelawny, who slept in the next room to him, stating that he had been writing the greater part of the night, and he alleged it was the sixteenth canto of "don juan"; and dr. bruno, who visited him at intervals, and was many hours in personal attendance at his bedside, asserting that he had been seriously ill, and had been saved only by those _benedette pillule_ which so often had had that effect. his lordship again appeared rowing in from his bath at the lazzaretto, a course of proceeding (bathing and boating) which caused dr. bruno to wring his hands and tear his hair with alarm and vexation. 'it was, however, the day fixed for our return to cephalonia, and, having gladly assented to the proposition to join the suite, we all mounted ponies to cross the island to a small harbour on the south side, where a boat was waiting to bear us to santa eufemia, a custom-house station on the coast of cephalonia, about half an hour's passage from ithaca, which we accordingly passed, and arrived at the collector's mansion about two o'clock. 'during the journey across the smaller island, i made a bold push, and succeeded in securing, with my small pony, the side-berth of lord byron's large brown steed, and held by him in the narrow path, to the exclusion of companions better entitled to the post. his conversation was not merely free--it was familiar and intimate, as if we were schoolboys meeting after a long separation. i happened to be "up" in the "waverley novels," had seen several letters of sir walter scott's about his pedigree for his baronetage, could repeat almost every one of the "rejected addresses," and knew something of the _london magazine_ contributors, who were then in the zenith of their reputation--hazlitt, charles lamb, talfourd, browning, allan cunningham, reynolds, darley, etc. but his lordship pointed at the higher game of southey, gifford (whom he all but worshipped), jeffrey of the _edinburgh review_, john wilson, and other blackwoodites. he said they were all infidels, as every man has a right to be; that edinburgh was understood to be the seat of all infidelity, and he mentioned names (dr. chalmers and andrew thomson, for examples) among the clergy as being of the category. this i never could admit. he was particularly bitter against southey, sneered at wordsworth, admired thomas campbell, classing his "battle of the baltic" with the very highest of lyric productions. "nothing finer," he said, "was ever written than-- '"there was silence deep as death, and the boldest held his breath for a time." 'we arrived at one of the beautiful bays that encircle the island, like a wavy wreath of silver sand studded with gold and emerald in a field of liquid pearl, and embarked in the collector's boat for the opposite shore of santa eufemia, where, on arrival, we were received by its courteous chief, mr. toole, in a sort of state--with his whole establishment, french and english, uncovered and bowing. he had had notice of the illustrious poet's expected arrival, and had prepared one of the usual luxurious feasts in his honour--feasts which lord byron said "played the devil" with him, for he could not abstain when good eating was within his reach. the apartment assigned to us was small, and the table could not accommodate the whole party. there were, accordingly, small side or "children's tables," for such guests as might choose to be willing to take seats at them. "ha!" said lord byron, "england all over--places for tommy and billy, and lizzie and molly, if there were any. mr. ----" (addressing me), "will you be my tommy?"--pointing to the two vacant seats at a small side-table, close to the chair of our host. down i sat, delighted, opposite to my companion, and had a _tête-à-tête_ dinner apart from the head-table, from which, as usual, we were profusely helped to the most recherché portions. "verily," said his lordship, "i cannot abstain." his conversation, however, was directed chiefly to his host, from whom he received much local information, and had his admiration of sir thomas maitland increased by some particulars of his system of government. there were no vacant apartments within the station, but we learned that quarters had been provided for us at a monastery on the hill of samos, across the bay. thither we were all transported at twilight, and ascended to the large venerable abode of some dozen of friars, who were prepared for our arrival and accommodation. outside the walls of the building there were some open sarcophagi and some pieces of carved frieze and fragments of pottery. 'i walked with his lordship and count gamba to examine them, speculating philosophically on their quondam contents. something to our surprise, lord byron clambered over into the deepest, and lay in the bottom at full length on his back, muttering some english lines. i may have been wrong, or idly and unjustifiably curious, but i leaned over to hear what the lines might be. i found they were unconnected fragments of the scene in "hamlet," where he moralizes with horatio on the skull: '"imperious cæsar, dead and turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away; o, that that earth, which held the world in awe, should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!" 'as he sprang out and rejoined us, he said: "hamlet, as a whole, is original; but i do not admire him to the extent of the common opinion. more than all, he requires the very best acting. kean did not understand the part, and one could not look at him after having seen john kemble, whose squeaking voice was lost in his noble carriage and thorough right conception of the character. rogers told me that kemble used to be almost always hissed in the beginning of his career. 'the best actor on the stage,' he said, 'is charles young. his pierre was never equalled, and never will be.'" amid such flying desultory conversation we entered the monastery, and took coffee for lack of anything else, while our servants were preparing our beds. lord byron retired almost immediately from the _sala_. shortly afterwards we were astonished and alarmed by the entry of dr. bruno, wringing his hands and tearing his hair--a practice much too frequent with him--and ejaculating: "_o maria, santissima maria, se non è già morto--cielo, perchè non son morto io!_" it appeared that lord byron was seized with violent spasms in the stomach and liver, and his brain was excited to dangerous excess, so that he would not tolerate the presence of any person in his room. he refused all medicine, and stamped and tore all his clothes and bedding like a maniac. we could hear him rattling and ejaculating. poor dr. bruno stood lamenting in agony of mind, in anticipation of the most dire results if immediate relief were not obtained by powerful cathartics, but lord byron had expelled him from the room by main force. he now implored one or more of the company to go to his lordship and induce him, if possible, to save his life by taking the necessary medicine. trelawny at once proceeded to the room, but soon returned, saying that it would require ten such as he to hold his lordship for a minute, adding that lord byron would not leave an unbroken article in the room. the doctor again essayed an entrance, but without success. the monks were becoming alarmed, and so, in truth, were all present. the doctor asked me to try to bring his lordship to reason; "he will thank you when he is well," he said, "but get him to take this one pill, and he will be safe." it seemed a very easy undertaking, and i went. there being no lock on the door, entry was obtained in spite of a barricade of chairs and a table within. his lordship was half undressed, standing in a far corner like a hunted animal at bay. as i looked determined to advance in spite of his imprecations of "back! out, out of my sight! fiends, can i have no peace, no relief from this hell! leave me, i say!" and he lifted the chair nearest to him, and hurled it direct at my head; i escaped as i best could, and returned to the _sala_. the matter was obviously serious, and we all counselled force and such coercive measures as might be necessary to make him swallow the curative medicine. mr. hamilton browne, one of our party, now volunteered an attempt, and the silence that succeeded his entrance augured well for his success. he returned much sooner than expected, telling the doctor that he might go to sleep; lord byron had taken both the pills, and had lain down on my mattress and bedding, prepared for him by my servant, the only regular bed in the company, the others being trunks and portable tressels, with such softening as might be procured for the occasion. lord byron's beautiful and most commodious patent portmanteau bed, with every appliance that profusion of money could provide, was mine for the night. 'on the following morning lord byron was all dejection and penitence, not expressed in words, but amply in looks and movements, till something tending to the jocular occurred to enliven him and us. wandering from room to room, from porch to balcony, it so happened that lord byron stumbled upon their occupants in the act of writing accounts, journals, private letters, or memoranda. he thus came upon me on an outer roof of a part of the building, while writing, as far as i recollect, these very notes of his conversation and conduct. what occurred, however, was not of much consequence--or none--and turned upon the fact that so many people were writing, when he, the great voluminous writer, so supposed, was not writing at all. the journey of the day was to be over the black mountain to argostoli, the capital of cephalonia. we set out about noon, struggling as we best could over moor, marsh ground, and water wastes. lord byron revived; and, lively on horseback, sang, at the pitch of his voice, many of moore's melodies and stray snatches of popular songs of the time in the common style of the streets. there was nothing remarkable in the conversation. on arrival at argostoli, the party separated--lord byron and trelawny to the brig of the former, lying in the offing, the rest to their several quarters in the town.' chapter vi after an absence of eight days the party returned to argostoli, and went on board the _hercules_. the messenger whom byron had sent to corfu brought the unwelcome intelligence that mr. blaquière had sailed for england, without leaving any letters for byron's guidance. news also reached him that the greeks were split up into factions, and more intent on persecuting and calumniating each other than on securing the independence of their country. this was depressing news for a man who had sacrificed so much, and would have damped the enthusiasm of most people in byron's position; but it neither deceived nor disheartened him. he was, and had always been, prepared for the worst. he made up his mind not to enter personally into the arena of contending factions, but to await further developments at cephalonia, hoping to acquire an influence which might eventually be employed in settling their internal discords. as he himself remarked, 'i came not here to join a faction, but a nation. i must be circumspect.' trelawny, in his valuable record of events at this time, is hard on byron. he mistook byron's motives, and thought that he was 'shilly-shallying and doing nothing.' but trelawny, though mistaken, was sincere. he was in every sense of the word a man of action, and full of a wild enthusiasm for the greek cause. it was not in his nature to await events, but rather to create them, and byron's wise decision made him restive. he determined to proceed to the morea, and induced hamilton browne to go with him. byron gave them letters to the greek government, if they could find any such authority, expressing his readiness to serve them when they had satisfied him how he could do so. gamba takes a calmer view of byron's hesitation. he says that byron well knew that prudence had never been in the catalogue of his virtues; that he knew the necessity of such a virtue in his present situation, and was determined to attain it. he carefully avoided every appearance of ostentation, and dreaded being suspected of being a mere hunter after adventures. 'by perseverance and discernment,' says gamba, 'byron hoped to assist in the liberation of greece. to know and to be known was consequently, from the outset, his principal object.' how far he succeeded we shall see later. from the time of byron's arrival at argostoli until september he lived on board the _hercules_. colonel napier had frequently begged him to take up his quarters with him, but byron declined the hospitality; mainly because he feared that he might thereby embroil the british authorities on the island with their own government, whose dispositions were yet unknown. early in september byron removed with gamba to a village named metaxata, in a healthy situation and amidst magnificent scenery. a month later letters arrived from edward trelawny, saying that things were not so bad as had been reported. it was evident that great apathy and total disorganization prevailed among those who had got the upper hand, but that the mass of the people--well disposed towards the revolution--was beginning to take an interest in the war. a general determination of never again submitting to the turkish yoke had taken deep root. the existing greek government sent pressing letters to byron inviting him to set out immediately, but byron still thought it wiser not to move; for the reasons which had governed his conduct hitherto still prevailed. he was determined neither to waste his services nor his money on furthering the greed of some particular chieftain, or at best of some faction. letters arrived from the greek committee in london, informing byron that arrangements had been made for the floating of a greek loan. meanwhile mavrocordato wrote to byron from hydra, whither he had fled, inviting him to that island. lord byron replied that so long as the dissensions between the factions continued he would remain a mere spectator, as he was resolved not to be mixed up in quarrels whose effects were so disastrous to the cause. he at the same time begged mavrocordato to expedite the departure of the fleet, and to send the greek deputies to london. the turkish fleet meanwhile had sailed for the dardanelles, leaving a squadron of fourteen vessels for the blockade of missolonghi, and for the protection of a fortress in the gulf, which was still in the hands of the turks. the gallant marco botzari had been killed in action, and missolonghi was in a state of siege. its governor wrote and implored byron to come there; but as the place was in no danger, either from famine or from assault, he declined the proposal. in the middle of november, , mr. hamilton browne and the deputies arrived at cephalonia. they brought letters from the greek government asking byron to advance £ , ( , dollars) for the payment of the greek fleet. an assurance was offered by the legislative body that, upon payment of this money, a greek squadron would immediately put to sea. byron consented to advance £ , , and gave the deputies letters for london. in allusion to the loan about to be raised in england, he thus addressed them: 'everyone believes that a loan will be the salvation of greece, both as to its internal disunion and external enemies. but i shall refrain from insisting much on this point, for fear that i should be suspected of interested views, and of wishing to repay myself the loan of money which i have advanced to your government.' on december , , while byron was at metaxata, awaiting definite information as to the progress of events, he resumed his journal, which had been abruptly discontinued in consequence of news having reached him that his daughter was ill. 'i know not,' he wrote, 'why i resume it even now, except that, standing at the window of my apartment in this beautiful village, the calm though cool serenity of a beautiful and transparent moonlight, showing the islands, the mountains, the sea, with a distant outline of the morea traced between the double azure of the waves and skies, has quieted me enough to be able to write, which (however difficult it may seem for one who has written so much publicly to refrain) is, and always has been, to me a task, and a painful one. i could summon testimonies were it necessary; but my handwriting is sufficient. it is that of one who thinks much, rapidly, perhaps deeply, but rarely with pleasure.' the greeks were still quarrelling among themselves, and byron almost despaired of being able to unite the factions in one common interest. mavrocordato and the squadron from hydra, for whose coming byron had bargained when he advanced £ , , had at length arrived after the inglorious capture of a small turkish vessel with , dollars on board. this prize having been captured within the bounds of neutrality, on the coast of ithaca, byron naturally foresaw that it would bring the greeks into trouble with the british authorities. meanwhile, news from london confirmed the accounts of an increasing interest in the greek cause, and gave good promise of a successful floating of the loan. in the middle of november colonel leicester stanhope arrived at cephalonia. he had been deputed by the london committee to act with lord byron. news also came from greece that the pasha of scutari had abandoned anatolico, and that the turkish army had been put to flight. but the greek factions, whose jealous dissensions promised to wreck the cause of greek independence, had come to blows in the morea. as byron had been recognized as a representative of the english and german committees interested in the greek cause, he was advised to write a public remonstrance to the general government of greece, pointing out that their dissensions would be fatal to the cause which it was presumed they all had at heart. byron disliked to take so prominent a step, but he was eventually persuaded that such a letter might do a great deal of good. gamba cites the following extract from byron's appeal to the executive and legislative bodies of the greek nation: 'cephalonia, '_november , _. 'the affair of the loan, the expectation so long and vainly indulged of the arrival of the greek fleet, and the danger to which missolonghi is still exposed, have detained me here, and will still detain me till some of them are removed. but when the money shall be advanced for the fleet, i will start for the morea, not knowing, however, of what use my presence can be in the present state of things. we have heard some rumours of new dissensions--nay, of the existence of a civil war. with all my heart, i pray that these reports may be false or exaggerated, for i can imagine no calamity more serious than this; and i must frankly confess, that unless union and order are established, all hopes of a loan will be vain. all the assistance which the greeks could expect from abroad--an assistance neither trifling nor worthless--will be suspended or destroyed. and, what is worse, the great powers of europe, of whom no one is an enemy to greece, but seems to favour her establishment of an independent power, will be persuaded that the greeks are unable to govern themselves, and will, perhaps, themselves undertake to settle your disorders in such a way as to blast the hopes of yourselves and of your friends. 'and allow me to add once for all--i desire the well-being of greece, and nothing else, i will do all i can to secure it. but i cannot consent, i never will consent, that the english public or english individuals should be deceived as to the real state of greek affairs. the rest, gentlemen, depends on you. you have fought gloriously; act honourably towards your fellow-citizens and towards the world. then it will no more be said, as it has been said for two thousand years, with the roman historian, that philopoemen was the last of the grecians. let not calumny itself (and it is difficult, i own, to guard against it in so arduous a struggle) compare the patriot greek, when resting from his labours, to the turkish pacha, whom his victories have exterminated. 'i pray you to accept these my sentiments as a sincere proof of my attachment to your real interests; and to believe that i am, and always shall be, 'your, etc., 'noel byron.' byron at the same time wrote to prince mavrocordato, and sent the letter by colonel leicester stanhope. he tells the prince that he is very uneasy at the news about the dissensions among the greek chieftains, and warns him that greece must prepare herself for three alternatives. she must either reconquer her liberty by united action, or become a dependence of the sovereigns of europe; or, failing in either direction, she would revert to her position as a mere province of turkey. there was no other choice open to her. civil war was nothing short of ruin. 'if greece desires the fate of walachia and the crimea,' says byron, 'she may obtain it to-morrow; if that of italy, the day after; but if she wishes to become truly greece, free and independent, she must resolve to-day, or she will never again have the opportunity.' byron, in his journal dated december , , says: 'the turks have retired from before missolonghi--nobody knows why--since they left provisions and ammunition behind them in quantities, and the garrison made no sallies, or none to any purpose. they never invested missolonghi this year, but bombarded anatoliko, near the achelous.' finlay, in his 'history of greece,' states that the turks made no effort to capture the place, and after a harmless bombardment the siege was raised, and the turkish forces retired into epirus. the following extract from a letter, which byron wrote to his sister[ ] conveys an unimpeachable record of his feelings and motives in coming to greece: 'you ask me why i came up amongst the greeks. it was stated to me that my doing so might tend to their advantage in some measure, in their present struggle for independence, both as an individual and as a member for the committee now in england. how far this may be realized i cannot pretend to anticipate, but i am willing to do what i can. they have at length found leisure to quarrel amongst themselves, after repelling their other enemies, and it is no very easy part that i may have to play to avoid appearing partial to one or other of their factions.... i have written to their government at tripolizza and salamis, and am waiting for instructions _where_ to proceed, for things are in such a state amongst them, that it is difficult to conjecture where one could be useful to them, if at all. however, i have some hopes that they will see their own interest sufficiently not to quarrel till they have received their national independence, and then they can fight it out among them in a domestic manner--and welcome. you may suppose that i have something to _think_ of at least, for you can have no idea what an intriguing, cunning, unquiet generation they are; and as emissaries of all parties come to me at present, and i must act impartially, it makes me exclaim, as julian did at his military exercises, "oh! plato, what a task for a philosopher!'" chapter vii it was during the time that byron was in the neighbourhood of cephalonia that dr. kennedy, a scottish medical man, methodistically inclined, undertook the so-called 'conversion' of the poet. gamba tells us that their disputes on religious matters sometimes lasted five or six hours. 'the bible was so familiar to byron that he frequently corrected the citations of the theological doctor.' byron, in the letter from which we have quoted, says: 'there is a clever but eccentric man here, a dr. kennedy, who is very pious and tries in good earnest to make converts; but his christianity is a queer one, for he says that the priesthood of the church of england are no more christians than "mahound or termagant" are.... i like what i have seen of him. he says that the dozen shocks of an earthquake we had the other day are a sign of his doctrine, or a judgment on his audience, but this opinion has not acquired proselytes.' as disputants, byron and kennedy stood far as the poles asunder. the former, while believing firmly in the existence and supreme attributes of god, doubted, but never denied, manifestations that could not be tested or demonstrated by positive proof. the latter, through blind unquestioning faith, believed in everything which an inspired bible had revealed to mankind. thus both were believers up to a certain point, and both were equally well-meaning and sincere. the intensity of their faith had its limitations. they did not agree, and never could have agreed, in their views of religion. they moved on parallel lines that might have been extended indefinitely, but could never meet. kennedy discouraged the unlimited use of reason, and preferred an absolute reliance on the traditional teaching of his church. to byron the exercise of reason was an absolute necessity. he would not admit that god had given us minds, and had denied us the right to use them intelligently; or that the almighty desired us to sacrifice reason to faith. 'it is useless,' said byron, 'to tell me that i am to believe, and not to reason; you might as well say to a man: "wake not, but sleep."' while byron profoundly disbelieved in eternal punishments, kennedy would have mankind kept straight by fear of them. kennedy, though versed in the bible, was, as events proved, hardly a match for byron. hodgson, an old friend of byron's, has left a record that a bible presented to him 'by that better angel of his life,' his beloved sister, was among the books which byron always kept near him. the following lines, taken from scott, were inserted by byron on the fly-leaf: 'within this awful volume lies the mystery of mysteries. oh! happiest they of human race to whom our god has given grace to hear, to read, to fear, to pray, to lift the latch, and force the way; but better had he ne'er been born who reads to doubt, or reads to scorn!'[ ] during the discussions which took place, kennedy was forced to admit that byron was well versed in the bible; but he maintained that prayer was necessary in order to understand its message. byron said that, in his opinion, prayer does not consist in the act of kneeling, or of repeating certain words in a solemn manner, as devotion is the affection of the heart. 'when i look at the marvels of the creation,' said he, 'i bow before the majesty of heaven; and when i experience the delights of life, health, and happiness, then my heart dilates in gratitude towards god for all his blessings.' kennedy maintained that this was not sufficient; it must be an earnest supplication for grace and humility. in kennedy's opinion byron had not sufficient humility to understand the truths of the gospel. at this time, certainly, byron was not prepared to believe implicitly in the divinity of christ. he lacked the necessary faith to do so, but he did not reject the doctrine. 'i have not the slightest desire,' he said, 'to reject a doctrine without having investigated it. quite the contrary; i wish to believe, because i feel extremely unhappy in a state of uncertainty as to what i am to believe.' he wanted proofs--as so many others have before and since--and without it conviction was impossible. 'byron,' said countess guiccioli, 'would never have contested absolutely the truth of any mystery, but have merely stated that, so long as the testimony of its truth was hidden in obscurity, such a mystery must be liable to be questioned.' byron had been brought up by his mother in very strict religious principles, and in his youth had read many theological works. he told dr. kennedy that he was in no sense an unbeliever who denied the scriptures, or was content to grope in atheism, but, on the contrary, that it was his earnest wish to increase his belief, as half-convictions made him wretched. he declared that, with the best will in the world, he could not understand the scriptures. kennedy, on the other hand, took the bible to be the salvation of mankind, and was strong in his condemnation of the catholic church. he objected to the roman communion as strongly as he repudiated and despised deism and socinianism. byron had at this time a decided leaning towards the roman communion, and, while deploring hypocrisies and superstitions, deeply respected those who believed conscientiously, whatever that belief might be. he loathed hypocrites of all kinds, and especially hypocrites in religion. 'i do not reject the doctrines of christianity,' he said; 'i only ask a few more proofs to profess them sincerely. i do not believe myself to be the vile christian which so many assert that i am.' kennedy advised byron to put aside all difficult subjects--such as the origin of sin, the fall of man, the nature of the trinity, the doctrine of predestination, and kindred mysteries--and to study christianity by the light of the bible alone, which contains the only means of salvation. we give byron's answer in full on dr. kennedy's authority: 'you recommend what is very difficult; for how is it possible for one who is acquainted with ecclesiastical history, as well as with the writings of the most renowned theologians, with all the difficult questions which have agitated the minds of the most learned, and who sees the divisions and sects which abound in christianity, and the bitter language which is often used by the one against the other; how is it possible, i ask, for such a one not to inquire into the nature of the doctrines which have given rise to so much discussion? one council has pronounced against another; popes have belied their predecessors, books have been written against other books, and sects have risen to replace other sects. the pope has opposed the protestants, and the protestants the pope. we have heard of arianism, socinianism, methodism, quakerism, and numberless other sects. why have these existed? it is a puzzle for the brain; and does it not, after all, seem safer to say: "let us be neutral: let those fight who will, and when they have settled which is the best religion, then shall we also begin to study it." i like your way of thinking, in many respects; you make short work of decrees and councils, you reject all which is not in harmony with the scriptures. you do not admit of theological works filled with latin and greek, of both high and low church; you would even suppress many abuses which have crept into the church, and you are right; but i question whether the archbishop of canterbury or the scotch presbyterians would consider you their ally.' kennedy, in reply, alluded to the differences which existed in religious opinions, and expressed regret at this, but pleaded indulgence for those sects which do not attack the fundamental doctrines of christianity. he strongly condemned arianism, socinianism, and swedenborgianism, which were anathema to him. 'you seem to hate the socinians greatly,' said byron, 'but is this charitable? why exclude a socinian, who believes honestly, from any hope of salvation? does he not also found his belief upon the bible? it is a religion which gains ground daily. lady byron is much in favour with its followers. we were wont to discuss religious matters together, and many of our misunderstandings have arisen from that. yet, on the whole, i think her religion and mine were much alike.' whether byron was justified in this opinion or not may be seen from a letter which lady byron wrote to mr. crabb robinson[ ] in reference to dr. kennedy's book: 'strange as it may seem, dr. kennedy is most faithful where you doubt his being so. not merely from casual expressions, but from the whole tenor of lord byron's feelings, i could not but conclude he was a believer in the inspiration of the bible, and had the gloomiest calvinistic tenets. to that unhappy view of the relation of the creature to the creator, i have always ascribed the misery of his life.... it is enough for me to remember, that he who thinks his transgressions beyond _forgiveness_ (and such was his own deepest feeling) _has_ righteousness beyond that of the self-satisfied sinner; or, perhaps, of the half awakened. it was impossible for me to doubt, that, could he have been at once assured of pardon, his living faith in a moral duty and love of virtue ("i love the virtues which i cannot claim") would have conquered every temptation. judge, then, how i must hate the creed which made him see god as an avenger, not a father. my own impressions were just the reverse, but could have little weight, and it was in vain to seek to turn his thoughts for long from that _idée fixe_, with which he connected his physical peculiarity as a stamp. instead of being made happier by any apparent good, he felt convinced that every blessing would be "turned into a curse" for him. who, possessed of such ideas, could lead a life of love and service to god or man? they must in a measure realize themselves. "the worst of it is i _do_ believe," he said. i, like all connected with him, was broken against the rock of predestination.' lady byron writes from her own personal experience of a time when tender affection or sympathy formed no part of byron's nature; of a time when he had no regard for the interests or the happiness of others; when he lived according to his own humours, and when his will was his law. byron's earlier poetry amply supports lady byron's view of so miserable a state of mind. but there is reason to hope--nay, we might say to believe--that, in the last years of his life, byron began to realize that a merciful god would be wholly incapable of such manifest injustice as to condemn his creatures to suffer for crimes which they were powerless to resist and predestined to commit. he believed in god and in the immortality of the soul, and has publicly declared that all punishment which is to revenge, rather than to correct, must be morally wrong. 'human passions,' wrote byron, 'have probably disfigured the divine doctrines here: but the whole thing is inscrutable.' countess guiccioli tells us that, whatever may have been byron's opinions with regard to certain points of religious doctrine, sects, and modes of worship, in essential matters his mind never seriously doubted. matthews in his cambridge days, and shelley towards the close of life, moved him not at all. between the commencement of byron's career and its close, his mind passed successively through different phases before arriving at the last result. leicester stanhope, who was at missolonghi with byron, and who knew him well latterly, says: 'most persons assume a virtuous character. lord byron's ambition, on the contrary, was to make the world imagine that he was a sort of satan, though occasionally influenced by lofty sentiments to the performance of great actions. fortunately for his fame, he possessed another quality, by which he stood completely unmasked. he was the most ingenuous of men, and his nature, in the main good, always triumphed over his acting.' parry, who stood at byron's bedside when he died at missolonghi, tells us that byron died fearless and resigned. could there be a better proof than these words, spoken by byron a few hours before he passed away?-- 'eternity and space are before me; but on this subject, thank god, i am happy and at ease. the thought of living eternally, of again reviving, is a great pleasure. christianity is the purest and most liberal religion in the world; but the numerous teachers who are eternally worrying mankind with their denunciations and their doctrines are the greatest enemies of religion. i have read, with more attention than half of them, the book of christianity, and i admire the liberal and truly charitable principles which christ has laid down. there are questions connected with this subject which none but almighty god can solve. time and space, who can conceive? none but god: on him i rely.' during the time that byron lived at metaxata, in cephalonia, he seldom saw anyone in the evening except dr. stravolemo, one of the most estimable men in the island, who lived in that village. he had been first physician to ali pacha. he was an entertaining man, and afforded byron much amusement by disputing with dr. bruno on medical questions. 'lord byron,' says gamba, 'had generally three or four books lying before him, of which he read first one, then the other, and used to contrive to foment those friendly contentions, which, however, never exceeded the proper bounds. lord byron's favourite reading consisted of greek history, of memoirs, and of romances. never a day passed without his reading some pages of scott's novels. his admiration of walter scott, both as a writer and as a companion, was unbounded. speaking of him to his english friends, he used to say: "you should know scott; you would like him so much; he is the most delightful man in a room; no affectation, no nonsense; and, what i like above all things, nothing of the author about him."' one evening colonel napier, the british resident, arrived at byron's house at a gallop, and asked for drs. bruno and stravolemo. he said that a party of peasants who were road-making had, in excavating a high bank, fallen under a landslide and were in danger of their lives. there were at least a dozen persons entombed. colonel napier happened to be passing at the moment when the catastrophe occurred; help was urgently needed. byron sent dr. bruno to their assistance, while he and gamba followed as soon as their horses could be saddled. 'when we came to the place,' says gamba, 'we saw a lamentable spectacle indeed. a crowd of women and children were assembled round the ruins, and filled the air with their cries. three or four of the peasants who had been extricated were carried before us half dead to the neighbouring cottages; and we found mr. hill, a friend of lord byron, and the superintendent of the works, in a state of the utmost consternation. although an immense crowd continued flocking to the place, and it was thought that there were still some other workmen under the fallen mass of earth, no one would make any further efforts. the greeks stood looking on without moving, as if totally indifferent to the catastrophe, and despaired of doing any good. this enraged lord byron; he seized a spade, and began to work as hard as he could; but it was not until the peasants had been threatened with the horsewhip that they followed his example. some shoes and hats were found, but no human beings. lord byron never could be an idle spectator of any calamity. he was peculiarly alive to the distress of others, and was perhaps a little too easily imposed upon by every tale of woe, however clumsily contrived. the slightest appearance of injustice or cruelty, not only to his own species, but to animals, roused his indignation and compelled his interference, and personal consequences never for one moment entered into his calculations.' in the month of december the greek squadron anchored off missolonghi, where prince mavrocordato was received with enthusiasm. he was given full powers to organize western greece. the turkish squadron was at this time shut up in the gulf of lepanto. byron sent to inform mavrocordato that the loan which he had promised to the government was ready, and that he was prepared either to go on board some vessel belonging to the greek fleet, or to come to missolonghi and confer with him. mavrocordato and colonel leicester stanhope wrote to beg byron to come as soon as possible to missolonghi, where his presence would be of great service to the cause. in the first place money to pay the fleet was much wanted; the sailors were on the verge of mutiny. mavrocordato was in a state of anxiety, the greek admiral looked gloomy, and the sailors grumbled aloud. 'it is right and necessary to tell you,' wrote stanhope, 'that a great deal is expected of you, both in the way of counsel and money. if the money does not arrive soon, i expect that the remaining five ships (the others are off) will soon make sail for spezia. all are eager to see you. they calculate on your aiding them with resources for their expedition against lepanto, and hope that you will take about , suliotes into your pay for two or three months. missolonghi is swarming with soldiers, and the government has neither quarters nor provisions for them. i walked along the street this evening, and the people asked me after lord byron. your further delay in coming will be attended with serious consequences.' byron at the same time received a letter from the legislative council, begging him to co-operate with mavrocordato in the organization of western greece. it was now december , . byron chartered a vessel for part of the baggage; a mistico, or light fast-sailing vessel, for himself and his suite; and a larger vessel for the horses, baggage, and munitions of war. the weather was unfavourable and squally, the vessels could not get under-weigh, and the whole party were detained for two days, during which time byron lodged with his banker, mr. charles hancock, and passed the greater part of the day in the society of the british authorities of the island. we are able, through the courtesy of general skey muir, the son of byron's friend at cephalonia, to give extracts from a letter which mr. charles hancock wrote to dr. muir on june , . during byron's residence at metaxata, dr. muir was the principal medical officer at cephalonia, and it was in his house that some of the conversations on religion between dr. kennedy and byron were held. mr. charles hancock writes: 'the day before byron left the island i happened to receive a copy of "quentin durward," which i put into his hands, knowing that he had not seen it, and that he wished to obtain the perusal of it. lord byron was very fond of scott's novels--you will have observed they were always scattered about his rooms at metaxata. he immediately shut himself in his room, and, in his eagerness to indulge in it, refused to dine with the officers of the th regiment at their mess, or even to join us at table, but merely came out once or twice to say how much he was entertained, returning to his chamber with a plate of figs in his hand. he was exceedingly delighted with "quentin durward"--said it was excellent, especially the first volume and part of the second, but that it fell off towards the conclusion, like all the more recent of these novels: it might be, he added, owing to the extreme rapidity with which they were written--admirably conceived, and as well executed at the outset, but hastily finished off.... 'i will close these remarks with the mention of the period when we took our final leave of him. it was on the th december last that, after a slight repast, you and i accompanied him in a boat, gay and animated at finding himself embarked once more on the element he loved; and we put him on board the little vessel that conveyed him to zante and missolonghi. he mentioned the poetic feeling with which the sea always inspired him, rallied you on your grave and thoughtful looks, me on my bad steering; quizzed dr. bruno, but added in english (which the doctor did not understand), "he is the most sincere italian i ever met with"; and laughed at fletcher, who was getting well ducked by the spray that broke over the bows of the boat. the vessel was lying sheltered from the wind in the little creek that is surmounted by the convent of san constantino, but it was not till she had stood out and caught the breeze that we parted from him, to see him no more.' the wind becoming fair, on december , at p.m., the vessels got under way, byron in the mistico, pietro gamba in the larger vessel. on the morning of the th they were at zante, and spent the day in transacting business with mr. barff and shipping a considerable sum of money. byron declined the commandant's invitation to his residence, as his time was fully occupied with the business in hand. at about six in the evening they sailed for missolonghi, without the slightest suspicion that the turkish fleet was on the lookout for prizes. they knew that the greek fleet was lying before missolonghi, and they expected to sight a convoy sent out to meet them. gamba says: 'we sailed together till after ten at night, with a fair wind and a clear sky; the air was fresh but not sharp. our sailors sang patriotic songs, monotonous indeed, but to persons in our situation extremely touching. we were all, lord byron particularly, in excellent spirits. his vessel sailed the fastest. then the waves parted us, and our voices could no longer reach each other. we made signals by firing pistols and carabines, and shouted, "to morrow we meet at missolonghi--to morrow!" 'thus, full of confidence and spirit, we sailed along. at midnight we were out of sight.' at . a.m. the vessel which bore gamba along gaily approached the rocks which border the shallows of missolonghi. they saw a large vessel bearing down upon them, which they at first took for one of the greek fleet; in appearance it seemed superior to a turkish man-of-war. but as gamba's vessel hoisted the ionian flag, to their dismay the stranger hoisted the ottoman ensign. the turkish commander ordered gamba's captain to come on board, and the poor fellow gave himself up for lost. they could think of no excuse which would have any weight with their captors, and were in some trepidation as to byron's fate, he having money, arms, and some greeks, with him. writing from missolonghi on january , , colonel stanhope says: 'count gamba has just arrived here, with all the articles belonging to the committee. he was taken early in the morning by a turkish ship. the captain thereof ordered the master on board. the moment he came on deck, the captain drew his dazzling sabre and placed himself in an attitude as if to cut his head off, and at the same time asked him where he was bound. the frightened greek said, to missolonghi. they gazed at each other, and all at once the turk recognized in his prisoner one who, on a former occasion, had saved his life. they embraced. next came count gamba's turn. he declared--swore that he was bound to calamata, and that the master had told a lie through fear, and that his bill of lading would bear him out. they were both taken to the castle of the morea, were well treated, and after three days released.' on january , , byron arrived at missolonghi. he was received with military honours and popular applause. 'he landed,' says gamba, 'in a speziot boat, dressed in a red uniform. he was in excellent health, and appeared moved by the scene. i met him as he disembarked, and in a few minutes we entered the house prepared for him--the same in which colonel stanhope resided. the colonel and prince mavrocordato, with a long suite of greek and european officers, received him at the door. i cannot describe the emotions which such a scene excited. crowds of soldiery and citizens of every rank, sex, and age, were assembled to testify their delight. hope and content were pictured on every countenance.' byron seems to have escaped from perils quite as great, though differing in nature, from those through which gamba had passed. his vessel passed close to the turkish frigate, but under favour of the night, and by preserving complete silence, the master ran her close under the rocks of the scrofes, whither the turk dared not follow her. byron saw gamba's vessel taken and conducted to patras. byron, thinking it wiser not to make straight for missolonghi steered for petala; but finding that port open and unsafe, his vessel was taken to dragomestri, a small town on the coast of acarnania. on his arrival there, byron was visited by the primates and officers of the place, who offered him their good offices. from this place byron sent messengers both to zante and missolonghi. on receipt of byron's letter, mavrocordato sent five gunboats and a brig-of-war to escort him to missolonghi. on january , the flotilla was caught in a violent storm, which threw byron's vessel in dangerous proximity to the rocks on that inhospitable coast. the sailors at first behaved remarkably well, and got the vessel off the rocks; but a second squall burst upon them with great violence, and drove the mistico into dangerous waters, causing the sailors to lose all hope of saving her. they abandoned the vessel to her fate, and thought only of their own safety. but byron persuaded them to remain; and by his firmness, and no small share of nautical skill, not only got the crew out of danger, but also saved the vessel, several lives, and , dollars, the greater part of which was in hard cash. byron does not seem to have pulled off his clothes since leaving cephalonia. it was an adventurous voyage--appropriately so--for it was his last journey in this world. chapter viii at the beginning of the war, missolonghi consisted of about scattered houses, built close to the seaside on a muddy and most unhealthy site, scarcely above the level of the waters, 'which a few centuries ago must have covered the spot, as may be judged from the nature of the soil, consisting of decomposed seaweed and dried mud.' the population was exceedingly poor, and amounted to nearly , souls. the town had a most uninviting appearance; the streets were narrow and badly paved. but, says millingen, what most revolted a stranger was the practice of having the buildings so constructed that the most loathsome substances were emptied into the streets. the inhabitants were so accustomed to this abominable state of things that they ridiculed the complaints of strangers, and even swore at people who ventured to suggest reform. missolonghi must indeed have been a wretched place even for a strong man in his full powers and vitality--for byron it was nothing short of death! trelawny tells us that this place is situated on the verge of a dismal swamp. the marvel to him was that byron, who was always liable to fevers, should have consented to live three months on this mud-bank, shut in by a circle of stagnant pools 'which might be called the belt of death.' when trelawny arrived in the early spring, he found most of the strangers suffering from gastric fevers. he waded through the streets, 'between wind and water,' to the house where byron had lived--a detached building on the margin of the shallow, slimy sea-waters. such, then, was the residence which was destined to be the last home of the author of 'childe harold!' byron had scarcely reached the modest apartment which had been assigned to him, when he was greeted by the tumultuous visits of the primates and chiefs. all the chieftains of western greece--that is to say, the mountainous districts occupied by the greeks--were now collected at missolonghi in a general assembly, together with many of the primates of the same districts. mavrocordato, at that time governor-general of the province, was president of the assembly, with a bodyguard of , armed men. the first object of this assembly, says gamba, was to organize the military forces, the assignment of the soldiers' pay, and the establishment of the national constitution and some regular form of government for western greece. the chieftains were not all of them well disposed towards mavrocordato; the soldiers were badly paid--in fact, hardly paid at all; and so great was the fear of disturbances, quarrels, and even of a civil war, that without the influence of prince mavrocordato, and the presence of byron with his money, there could have been no harmony. after the departure of the turks, who had blockaded missolonghi, there was a general feeling of security, and no one expected them to return before the spring. the peloponnesus, with exception of the castles of the morea and of patras, of modon and of covon, was in the hands of the greeks. the northern shore of the gulf of lepanto, with the exception of the two castles, were also in greek hands. they swayed boeotia and attica, together with the whole isthmus of corinth. such was the state of affairs when byron arrived on that dismal swamp. the position in which he found himself required much skill and tact; for the dissension among the various leaders in other parts of greece was in its bitterest phase, and public opinion everywhere was dead against the executive body. it would have been fatal to the prestige of byron if, in a moment of impetuosity, he had cast in his lot with some particular faction. it was his fixed intention, as it was clearly his best policy, to reconcile differences, and to bring the contending factions closer together. his influence amongst all parties was daily increasing, and everyone believed that byron would eventually be able to bring discordant voices into harmony, and pave the way for the formation of a strong, patriotic government. he faced the situation bravely, and closed his ears to the unworthy squabbles of ambitious cliques. he made arrangements, with the best assistance at hand, to turn the expected loan from england to the best account, in order to insure the freedom and independence of greece. the first day of his arrival at missolonghi was signalized by an act of grace. a turk, who had fallen into the hands of some greek sailors, was released by byron's orders, and, having been clothed and fed at his own expense, was given quarters at byron's house until an opportunity occurred of sending him in freedom to patras. about a fortnight later, hearing that four turkish prisoners were at missolonghi in a state of destitution, byron caused them to be set at liberty, and sent them to usouff pacha at patras, with a letter which, though it has been often printed, deserves a place in this narrative: 'highness! 'a vessel, in which a friend and some domestics of mine were embarked, was detained a few days ago, and released by order of your highness. i have now to thank you, not for liberating the vessel, which as carrying a neutral flag, and being under british protection, no one had a right to detain, but for having treated my friends with so much kindness while they were in your hands. 'in the hope that it may not be altogether displeasing to your highness, i have requested the governor of this place to release four turkish prisoners, and he has humanely consented to do so. i lose no time, therefore, in sending them back, in order to make as early a return as i could, for your courtesy on the late occasion. these prisoners are liberated without any conditions; but should the circumstance find a place in your recollection, i venture to beg that your highness will treat such greeks as may henceforth fall into your hands, with humanity; more especially as the horrors of war are sufficiently great in themselves, without being aggravated by wanton cruelties on either side. 'noel byron. 'missolonghi, '_january , _.' this letter was the keynote of byron's policy during the remainder of his life. the horrors of war were sufficient in themselves without that unnecessary cruelty so often exhibited by eastern nations in their treatment of prisoners of war. the following account of an incident connected with byron's clemency to a prisoner pictures the state of things at missolonghi. 'this evening,' says gamba, 'whilst mavrocordato was with lord byron, two sailors belonging to the privateer which had taken the turk came into the room, demanding in an insolent tone that their prisoner should be delivered up to them. lord byron refused; their importunity became more violent, and they refused to leave the room without their turk (such was their expression) on which lord byron, presenting a pistol at the intruders, threatened to proceed to extremities unless they instantly retired. the sailors withdrew, but byron complained to mavrocordato of his want of authority, and said to him: "if your government cannot protect me in my own house, i will find means to protect myself." from that time lord byron retained a suliote guard in his house.' during the winter preparations were being made for an expedition against lepanto, a fortress which, if captured by the greeks, would facilitate the siege of patras. its fortifications were constructed on the slope of a hill, forming a triangle, the base of which was close to the sea. its walls were of venetian construction, but without ditches. as portions of its walls were commanded by a neighbouring hill, its siege would have proved a very arduous undertaking even with regular troops; but with raw greek levies its reduction, except by famine, would have been almost impossible. on january , , colonel stanhope writes to mr. bowring in the following terms: 'lord byron has taken suliotes into pay. he burns with military ardour and chivalry, and will proceed with the expedition to lepanto.' circumstances were, however, against this expedition from the very beginning. great hopes had been entertained by lord byron and by colonel stanhope that the suliotes would conform to discipline, and that mr. parry, who had been sent out by the greek committee with stores and ammunition, would on his arrival organize the artillery, and manufacture congreve rockets--a projectile of which the turks were said to be in great awe. parry arrived at missolonghi early in february, on board the brig _anna_, which had been chartered by the london greek committee. he brought cannons, ammunition, printing-presses, medicines, and all the apparatus necessary for the establishment of a military laboratory. several english mechanics came with him, and some english, german, and swedish gentlemen, who wished to serve the greek cause. mr. (or, as he was afterwards called) major, parry was a peculiar person in every way. he had at one time served as a shipwright, then as firemaster in the king's service, and won favour with byron through his buffoonery and plain speaking--two very useful qualifications in environments of stress and duplicity. when byron appointed him major in the artillery brigade, the best officers in the brigade tendered their resignations, stating that, while they would be proud to serve under lord byron, neither their honour nor the interests of the service would allow them to serve under a man who had no practical experience of military evolutions. the german officers also, who had previously served in the prussian army, appealed against parry's appointment, and offered proofs of his ignorance of artillery. but byron would not listen to complaints, which he attributed partly to jealousy and partly to german notions of etiquette, which seemed to him to be wholly out of place in a country where merit rather than former titles should regulate such appointments. in supporting parry against these officers, byron was in a measure influenced by the recommendations of both the greek committee who sent him out, and of colonel leicester stanhope, who at that time considered parry to be an exceedingly capable officer. perhaps, if parry had not appeared on parade in an apron, brandishing a hammer, and if he had not asserted himself so extravagantly, he might possibly have passed muster. but tact and modesty were not in parry's line; and having boasted to the london committee that he was acquainted with almost every branch of military mechanics, he bullied its members into a belief that his pretentions were well founded. as a matter of fact, parry proved to be unsuited for high command, although it must be admitted that he worked indefatigably. he made plans for the erection of a laboratory, and presided over the works. he paved the yard of the seraglio, repaired the batteries, instructed the troops in musketry and gunnery; he gave lessons with the broadsword, inspected the fortifications, and directed the operations of cocchini, the chief engineer. he repaired gun-carriages, and put his hand to anything wanted, so that it appeared as if really nothing could be done without him. in one thing only did parry seem to fall short of general expectation. he had boasted that he knew the composition of 'congreve rockets.' with this mighty instrument of mischief he prophesied that the greeks would be able to paralyze all the efforts of their enemy, both by land and sea. the turkish cavalry, the only arm against which the greeks were impotent, would be rendered useless, and the turkish vessels, by the same means, would be easily destroyed. unfortunately, the manufacture of these rockets was impossible without the assistance of the english mechanics whom he had brought with him, and these men were unable to work without materials, which were not obtainable. thus the principal part of parry's 'stock-in-trade'--his rockets, incendiary kites, and improved grecian fires--were not forthcoming. for a long time the roads in the neighbourhood of missolonghi were so broken up by incessant rain that byron could not ride or take any outdoor exercise. this affected his health. his only means of getting a little fresh air was by paddling through the murky waters in a sort of canoe. during these expeditions, says gamba, who always accompanied him, he spoke often of his anxiety to begin the campaign. he had not much hope of success, but felt that something must be done during these tedious months, if only to employ the troops and keep them from creating disturbances in the town. 'i am not come here in search of adventures,' said byron, 'but to assist the regeneration of a nation, whose very debasement makes it more honourable to become their friend. regular troops are certainly necessary, but not in great numbers: regular troops alone would not succeed in a country like greece; and irregular troops alone are only just better than nothing. only let the loan be raised; and in the meantime let us try to form a strong national government, ready to apply our pecuniary resources, when they arrive, to the organization of troops, the establishment of internal civilization, and the preparations for acting defensively now, and on the offensive next winter. nothing is so insupportable to me as all these minute details and these repeated delays. but patience is indispensable, and that i find the most difficult of all attainments.' it was byron's custom to spend his evenings in colonel stanhope's room, with his english comrades. sometimes the germans would join the party, play on their flutes, and sing their national airs to the accompaniment of a guitar. byron was fond of music in general, and was especially partial to german music, particularly to their national songs. millingen tells us that in the evening all the english who had not, with colonel stanhope, turned odysseans assembled at byron's house, and enjoyed the charm of his conversation till late at night. byron's character, says millingen, 'differed so much from what i had been induced to imagine from the relations of travellers, that either their reports must have been inaccurate, or his character must have totally changed after his departure from genoa. it would be difficult, indeed impossible, to convey an idea of the pleasure his conversation afforded. among his works, that which may perhaps be more particularly regarded as exhibiting the mirror of his conversation, and the spirit which animated it, is "don juan." he was indeed too open, and too indiscreet in respect to the reminiscences of his early days. sometimes, when his vein of humour flowed more copiously than usual, he would play tricks on individuals. fletcher's boundless credulity afforded him an ever-ready fund of amusement, and he one evening planned a farce, which was as well executed and as laughable as any ever exhibited on the stage. having observed how nervous parry had been, a few days before, during an earthquake, he felt desirous of renewing the ludicrous sight which the fat, horror-struck figure of the major had exhibited on that occasion. he placed, therefore, fifty of his suliotes in the room above that where parry slept, and towards midnight ordered them to shake the house, so as to imitate that phenomenon. he himself at the same time banged the doors, and rushed downstairs, delighted to see the almost distracted major imploring tremblingly the mercy of heaven.' lord byron was very much taken with parry, whose drolleries relieved the tedium and constant vexations incidental to the situation at missolonghi. the major appears to have been an excellent mimic, and possessed a fund of quaint expressions that made up for the deficiency of real wit. millingen says that he could tell, in his coarse language, a good story, and could play falstaff's, or the part of a clown very naturally. he ranted richard iii.'s or hamlet's soliloquies in a mock-tragic manner like a player at bartholomew fair, which made everyone laugh, and beguiled the length of many a rainy evening. on january , , missolonghi was blockaded by the turkish fleet. there were neither guns nor even sailors fit to man the gunboats; the only chance was to make a night attack upon the turks in boats manned by the european volunteers then residing at missolonghi. byron took the matter in hand, and insisted on joining personally in the expedition. he was so determined on this project that mavrocordato and others, realizing the folly of exposing so valuable a life on so desperate an enterprise, dissuaded byron from risking his valuable life in a business for which there were already sufficient volunteers. as things turned out, it did not much matter, for the turkish fleet suddenly abandoned the blockade and returned to the gulf. on january , while colonel stanhope and some friends were assembled, byron came from his bedroom and said, with a smile: 'you were complaining the other day that i never write any poetry now: this is my birthday, and i have just finished something, which, i think, is better than what i usually write.' he then produced those affecting verses on his own birthday which were afterwards found written in his journal, with the following introduction: 'january : on this day i complete my thirty-sixth year.' 'we perceived from these lines,' says gamba, 'as well as from his daily conversations, that his ambition and his hope were irrevocably fixed upon the glorious objects of his expedition to greece, and that he had made up his mind to "return victorious, or return no more." indeed, he often said to me, "others may do as they please--they may go--but i stay here, _that is certain_."' this resolution was accompanied with the natural presentiment that he should never leave greece alive. he one day asked his faithful servant tita whether he thought of returning to italy. 'yes,' said tita; 'if your lordship goes, i go.' lord byron smiled, and said: 'no, tita, i shall never go back from greece; either the turks, or the greeks, or the climate, will prevent that.' parry tells us that byron's mind on this point was irrevocably fixed. 'my future intentions,' he said, 'may be explained in a few words. i will remain here in greece till she is secure against the turks, or till she has fallen under her power. all my income shall be spent in her service; but, unless driven by some great necessity, i will not touch a farthing of the sum intended for my sister's children. whatever i can accomplish with my income, and my personal exertions, shall be cheerfully done. when greece is secure against external enemies, i will leave the greeks to settle their government as they like. one service more, and an eminent service it will be, i think i may perform for them. you shall have a schooner built for me, or i will buy a vessel; the greeks shall invest me with the character of their ambassador or agent; i will go to the united states, and procure that free and enlightened government, to set the example of recognizing the federation of greece, as an independent state. this done, england must follow the example, and then the fate of greece will be permanently fixed, and she will enter into all her rights, as a member of the great commonwealth of christian europe.... 'the cause of greece naturally excites our sympathy. her people are christians contending against turks, and slaves struggling to be free. there never was a cause which had such strong claims on the sympathy of the people of europe, and particularly of the people of england.'[ ] the following extract from a letter written by mr. george finlay in june, , seems worthy of production in this place: 'i arrived at missolonghi at the latter end of february. during my stay there, in the forenoon i rode out with lord byron; and generally mr. fowke and myself spent the evenings in his room. 'in our rides, the state of greece was the usual subject of our conversation; and at times he expressed a strong wish to revisit athens. i mentioned the great cheapness of property in attica, and the possibility of my purchasing some of the villas near the city. he said that, if i could find any eligible property, he would have no objections to purchase likewise, as he wished to have some real property in greece; and he authorized me to treat for him. i always urged him to make corinth his headquarters. sometimes he appeared inclined to do so, and remarked, that it would be a strange coincidence if, after writing an unsuccessful defence of corinth, he should himself make a successful one. an event so fortunate, i said, would leave him no more to ask from fortune, and reminded him how very much of fame depends on mere accident. cæsar's conquests and his works would not have raised his fame so high, but for the manner of his death. 'in the evenings lord byron was generally extremely communicative, and talked much of his youthful scenes at cambridge, brighton, and london; spoke very often of his friends, mr. hobhouse and mr. scrope b. davies--told many anecdotes of himself which are well known, and many which were amusing from his narration, but which would lose their interest from another; but what astonished me the most was the ease with which he spoke of all those reports which were spread by his enemies--he gave his denials and explanations with the frankness of an unconcerned person. 'i often spoke to him about newstead abbey, which i had visited in , a few months before leaving england. on informing him of the repairs and improvements which were then going on, he said, if he had been rich enough, he should have liked to have kept it as the old abbey; but he enjoyed the excellent bargain he had made at the sale. a solicitor sent him a very long bill, and, on his grumbling at the amount, he said he was silenced by a letter, reminding him that he had received £ , forfeit-money from the first purchaser. i mentioned the picture of his bear in the cottage near the lodge--the newfoundland dog and the verses on its tomb. he said, newfoundland dogs had twice saved his life, and that he could not live without one. 'he spoke frequently of the time he lived at aberdeen. their house was near the college. he described the place, but i have forgotten it. he said his mother's "lassack" used to put him to bed at a very early hour, and then go to converse with her lover; he had heard the house was haunted, and sometimes used to get out of bed and run along the lobby in his shirt, till he saw a light, and there remain standing till he was so cold he was forced to go to bed again. one night the servant returning, he grew frightened and ran towards his room; the maid saw him, and fled more frightened than he; she declared she had seen a ghost. lord byron said, he was so frightened at the maid, he kept the secret till she was turned away; and, he added, he never since kept a secret half so long. the first passion he ever felt was for a young lady who was on a visit to his mother while they lived in scotland; he was at the time about six years old, and the young lady about nine, yet he was almost ill on her leaving his mother's house to return home. he told me, if i should ever meet the lady (giving me her address), to ask her if she remembers him. on some conversation about the "english bards and scotch reviewers," he gave as a reason for his attacking many of the persons included, that he was informed, some time before the publication of the review, that the next number was to contain an article on his poems which had been read at holland house. "judge of my fever; was it not a pleasant situation for a young author?" 'in conversation he used to deliver very different opinions on many authors from those contained in his works; in the one case he might be guided more by his judgment, and in the other submit entirely to his own particular taste. i have quoted his writings in opposition to his words, and he replied, "never mind what i print; that is not what i think." he certainly did not consider much of the poetry of the present day as "possessing buoyancy enough to float down the stream of time." i remarked, he ought really to alter the passage in the preface of "marino faliero," on living dramatic talent; he exclaimed, laughing, "do you mean me to erase the name of _moral me_?" in this manner he constantly distinguished milman, alluding to some nonsense in the _quarterly review_. he was extremely amused with _blackwood's magazine_, and read it whenever he could get a number; he has frequently repeated to me passages of ensign o'doherty's poetry, which i had not read, and expressed great astonishment at the ability displayed by the author. 'on a gentleman present once asking his opinion of the works of a female author of some note, he said, "a bad imitation of me--all pause and start." 'on my borrowing mitford's "history of greece" from him, and saying i had read it once, and intended commencing it again in greece, he said, "i hate the book; it makes you too well acquainted with the ancient greeks, and robs antiquity of all its charms. history in his hands, has no poetry." 'i was in the habit of praising sir william gell's itineraries to lord b., and he, on the other hand, took every opportunity of attacking his argolis though his attacks were chiefly directed against the drawings, and particularly the view of the bay. he told me he was the author of the article on sir w. gell's argolis in the _monthly review_, and said he had written two other articles in this work; but i have forgotten them.[ ] 'whenever the drama was mentioned, he defended the unities most eagerly, and usually attacked shakspeare. a gentleman present, on hearing his anti-shakspearean opinions, rushed out of the room, and afterwards entered his protest most anxiously against such doctrines. lord b. was quite delighted with this, and redoubled the severity of his criticism. i had heard that shelley once said to lord b. in his extraordinary way, "b., you are a most wonderful man." "how?" "you are envious of shakspeare." i, therefore, never expressed the smallest astonishment at hearing shakspeare abused; but remarked, it was curious that lord b. was so strangely conversant in an author of such inferior merit, and that he should so continually have the most melodious lines of shakspeare in his mouth as examples of blank verse. he said once, when we were alone, "i like to astonish englishmen: they come abroad full of shakspeare, and contempt for the dramatic literature of other nations; they think it blasphemy to find a fault in his writings, which are full of them. people talk of the tendency of my writings, and yet read the sonnets to master hughes." lord b. certainly did not admire the french tragedians enthusiastically. i said to him, "there is a subject for the drama which, i believe, has never been touched, and which, i think, affords the greatest possible scope for the representation of all that is sublime in human character--but then it would require an abandonment of the unities--the attack of maurice of saxony on charles v., which saved the protestant religion; it is a subject of more than national interest." he said it was certainly a fine subject; but he held that the drama could not exist without a strict adherence to the unities; and besides, he knew well he had failed in his dramatic attempts, and that he intended to make no more. he said he thought "sardanapalus" his best tragedy. 'the memory of lord b. was very extraordinary; it was not the mere mechanical memory which can repeat the advertisements of a newspaper and such nonsense; but of all the innumerable novels which he had read, he seemed to recollect perfectly the story and every scene of merit. 'once i had a bet with mr. fowke that maurice of orange was not the grandson of maurice of saxony, as it ran in my head that maurice was a son of count horn's sister. on applying for a decision of our bet to lord b., he immediately told me i was wrong, that william of orange was thrice married, and that he had maurice by a daughter of maurice of saxony: he repeated the names of all the children. i said, "this is the most extraordinary instance of your memory i ever heard." he replied, "it's not very extraordinary--i read it all a few days ago in watson's "philip ii.," and you will find it in a note at the bottom of the last page but one" (i think he said) "of the second volume." he went to his bedroom and brought the book, in which we found the note he had repeated. it seemed to me wonderful enough that such a man could recollect the names of william of orange's children and their families even for ten minutes. 'once, on receiving some newspapers, in reading the advertisements of new publications aloud, i read the name of sir aubrey de vere hunt; lord b. instantly said, "sir aubrey was at harrow, i remember, but he was younger than me. he was an excellent swimmer, and once saved a boy's life; nobody would venture in, and the boy was nearly drowned, when sir aubrey was called. the boy's name was m'kinnon, and he went afterwards to india." i think b. said he died there. '"it is strange," i replied; "i heard this very circumstance from sir aubrey de vere hunt, who inquired if i knew the boy, who must now be a man, but said, i think, that his name was mackenzie." "depend upon it, i am right," said byron. 'lord b. said he had kept a very exact journal of every circumstance of his life, and many of his thoughts while young, that he had let mr. hobhouse see it in albania, and that he at last persuaded him to burn it. he said hobhouse had robbed the world of a treat. he used to say that many of his acquaintances, particularly his female ones, while he was in london, did not like mr. hobhouse, "for they thought he kept me within bounds." 'when he was asked for a motto for the _greek telegraph_, by gamba, during the time he felt averse to the publication of a european newspaper in greece, he gave, "to the greeks foolishness"--in allusion to the publication in languages which the natives generally do not understand. 'on a discussion in his presence concerning the resemblance of character between the ancient and modern greeks, he said: "at least we have st. paul's authority that they had their present character in his time; for he says there is no difference between the jew and the greek." 'a few days before i left missolonghi, riding out together, he told me that he had received a letter from his sister, in which she mentioned that one of the family had displayed some poetical talent, but that she would not tell him who, as she hoped she should hear no more of it. i said "that is a strange wish from the sister of such a poet." he replied that he believed the poetical talent was always a source of pain, and that he certainly would have been happier had he never written a line. 'those only who were personally acquainted with him can be aware of the influence which every passing event had over his mind, or know the innumerable modifications under which his character was daily presenting itself; even his writings took a shade of colouring from those around him. his passions and feelings were so lively that each occurrence made a strong impression, and his conduct became so entirely governed by impulse that he immediately and vehemently declared his sentiments. it is not wonderful, therefore, that instances of his inconsistency should be found; though in the most important actions of his life he has acted with no common consistency, and his death attests his sincerity. to attempt by scattered facts to illustrate his character is really useless. a hundred could be immediately told to prove him a miser; as many to prove him the most generous of men; an equal number, perhaps, to show he was nervously alive to the distresses of others, or heartlessly unfeeling; at times that he indulged in every desire; at others, that he pursued the most determined system of self-denial; that he ridiculed his friends, or defended them with the greatest anxiety. at one time he was all enthusiasm; at another perfect indifference on the very same subject. all this would be true, and yet our inference most probably incorrect. such hearts as lord b.'s must become old at an early age, from the continual excitement to which they are exposed, and those only can judge fairly of him, even from his personal acquaintance, who knew him from his youth, when his feelings were warmer than they could be latterly. from some of those who have seen the whole course of his wonderful existence, we may, indeed, expect information; and it is information, not scandal, that will be sought for.' chapter ix millingen tells us that byron, even before his arrival in greece, was a favourite among the people and soldiers. popular imagination had been kindled by reports of his genius, his wealth, and his rank. everything that a man could perform was expected of him; and many a hardship and grievance was borne patiently, in hope that on byron's arrival everything would be set right. the people were not disappointed; his conduct towards them after he had landed soon made him a popular idol. it was perceived that byron was not a theoretical, but a practical, friend to greece; and his repeated acts of kindness and charity in relieving the poor and distressed, the heavy expenses he daily incurred for the furtherance of every plan, and every institution which he deemed worthy of support, showed the people of missolonghi that byron was not less alive to their private than he was to their public interests. but there were some people, of course, who felt a slight attack of that pernicious malady known euphuistically as 'the green-eyed monster'. mavrocordato, the governor-general of western greece, was, according to millingen, slightly afflicted with envy. he had imagined, when using every means during byron's stay at cephalonia to induce him to come to missolonghi, that he was preparing for himself a powerful instrument to execute his own designs, and that, by placing byron in a prominent position which would require far more knowledge of the state of things than byron could possibly possess, he would helplessly drift, and eventually fall entirely under his own guidance. but in this mavrocordato was entirely mistaken, for byron had long made up his mind as to the course which he meant to steer, and by sheer honesty of purpose and by the glamour of his fame his authority daily increased, while that of mavrocordato fell in proportion, until his high-sounding title was little better than an empty phrase. the people of missolonghi were fascinated by the personality of a man who had practically thrown his whole fortune at their feet. they openly spoke of the advantages that would be derived by western greece were byron to be appointed its governor-general. 'ambitious and suspicious by nature,' says millingen, 'mavrocordato felt his authority aimed at. he began by seconding his supposed rival's measures in a luke-warm manner, whilst he endeavoured in secret to thwart them. he was looked upon as the cause of the rupture between the suliotes and lord byron, fearing that the latter might, with such soldiers, become too powerful.' byron perceived the change in mavrocordato's conduct, and from that moment lost much of the confidence which he had at first felt in him. 'the plain, undisguised manner in which byron expressed himself on this subject, and the haughty manner in which he received mavrocordato, tended to confirm the latter's opinion that byron sought to supplant him.' mavrocordato thus laboured under a delusion. far from having ambitious views, byron would, in millingen's opinion, have refused, if the offer had been made to him, ever to take a part in civil administration. he knew too well how little his impetuous character fitted him for the tedious and intricate details of greek affairs. 'he had come to greece to assist her sacred cause with his wealth, his talents, his courage; and the only reward he sought was a soldier's grave.' had lord byron lived, says millingen, the misunderstanding between these two distinguished individuals would have been merely temporary. their principles and love of order were the same, as also the ends they proposed to attain. however different were the roads upon which they marched, they would have been sure to meet at last. 'lord byron,' wrote colonel stanhope, 'possesses all the means of playing a great part in the glorious revolution of greece. he has talent; he professes liberal principles; he has money; and is inspired with fervent and chivalrous feelings.' colonel leicester stanhope was himself deserving of the praise which he thus bestows on byron, the item 'money' being equally discarded. colonel stanhope was a chivalrous gentleman, and devoted himself heart and soul to the regeneration of greece. but his views were not those of byron. he was all for printing-presses, freedom of the press, and schools. byron was all for fighting and organization in a military sense. their aims were the same, but their methods entirely different. byron recognized the virtues of stanhope, and never seriously opposed any of his schemes. stanhope was absolutely boiling over with enthusiasm regarding the advantages of publishing a newspaper. his paramount policy, as he states himself in a letter to mr. bowring, was 'to strive to offend no one, but, on the contrary, to make all friendly to the press.' he contended for the absolute liberty of the press, and for publicity in every shape! it would be difficult to match such a contention applied to such a period and such a people. in forwarding the third number of the _greek chronicle_ to mr. bowring, stanhope writes: 'the last article in the _chronicle_ is on mr. bentham. its object is to dispose the people to read and contemplate his works. conviction follows.' byron had a peculiar antipathy to mr. bentham and all his works, but he provided money to support the _chronicle_. on january colonel stanhope wrote to mr. bowring a letter which explains the position exactly; and a very peculiar position it was. after asking byron whether he will subscribe £ for the support of the _greek chronicle_, which byron cheerfully agreed to do, colonel stanhope proceeds to 'heckle' him. the conversation is well worth transcribing: 'stanhope (_loquitur_): "your lordship stated yesterday evening that you had said to prince mavrocordato that, 'were you in his place (as governor-general of western greece), you would have placed the press under a censor,' and that he replied, 'no; the liberty of the press is guaranteed by the constitution.' now, i wish to know whether your lordship was serious when you made the observation, or whether you only said so to provoke me? if your lordship was serious, i shall consider it my duty to communicate this affair to the committee in england, in order to show them how difficult a task i have to fulfil in promoting the liberties of greece, if your lordship is to throw the weight of your vast talents into the opposite scale on a question of such vital importance." 'byron, in reply, said that he was an ardent friend of publicity and the press; but he feared that it was not applicable to this society in its present combustible state. stanhope replied that he thought it applicable to all countries, and essential in greece, in order to put an end to the state of anarchy which then prevailed. byron said that he was afraid of libels and licentiousness. stanhope maintained that the object of a free press was to check public licentiousness and to expose libellers to odium.' in a subsequent letter to mr. bowring, colonel stanhope repeats a conversation with byron on the subject of mr. bentham. one does not know whether to laugh or cry; there is both humour and pathos in the incident. 'his lordship,' writes stanhope, 'began, according to custom, to attack mr. bentham. i said that it was highly illiberal to make personal attacks on mr. bentham before a friend who held him in high estimation. he said that he only attacked his public principles, which were mere theories, but dangerous--injurious to spain and calculated to do great mischief in greece. i did not object to his lordship's attacking mr. bentham's principles; what i objected to were his personalities. his lordship never reasoned on any of mr. bentham's writings, but merely made sport of them. i therefore asked him what it was that he objected to. lord byron mentioned his "panopticon" as visionary. i said that experience in pennsylvania, at milbank, etc., had proved it otherwise. i said that bentham had a truly british heart; but that lord byron, after professing liberal principles from his boyhood, had, when called upon to act, proved himself a turk. 'lord byron asked what proofs i had of this. 'i replied: "your conduct in endeavouring to crush the press, by declaiming against it to mavrocordato, and your general abuse of liberal principles." lord byron said that if he had held up his finger he could have crushed the press. i replied: "with all this power, which, by the way, you never possessed, you went to the prince and poisoned his ear." 'lord byron declaimed against the liberals whom he knew. '"but what liberals?" i asked. did he borrow his notions of free men from the italians? lord byron said: "no; from the hunts, cartwrights, etc." "and still," said i, "you presented cartwright's reform bill, and aided hunt by praising his poetry and giving him the sale of your works." 'lord byron exclaimed: "you are worse than wilson,[ ] and should quit the army." i replied that i was a mere soldier, but never would abandon my principles. our principles,' continues stanhope, 'are diametrically opposite. if lord byron acts up to his professions, he will be the greatest--if not, the meanest--of mankind. he said he hoped his character did not depend on my assertions. "no," said i, "your genius has immortalized you. the worst could not deprive you of fame." 'lord byron replied: "well, you shall see; judge me by my acts." 'when he wished me good-night, i took up the light to conduct him to the passage, but he said: "what! hold up a light to a turk!"' it would be difficult indeed to find anything in the wide range of literature dealing with that period which would throw a stronger light upon both these men. imagine the agent appointed by the london committee wasting his precious time in writing such a letter as this for the information of its chairman. stanhope meant no harm, we feel sure of that; but such a letter was little calculated to advance either his own reputation or byron's, and it was above all things necessary for the london committee to have a good opinion of both. but stanhope was decidedly impetuous, and lacked all sense of humour. millingen tells us that it soon became evident that little co-operation could be expected between byron and colonel stanhope. byron was fully persuaded that, in the degraded state of the greek nation, a republican form of government was totally unsuited, as well as incompatible with her situation, in respect to the neighbouring states of europe. colonel stanhope, whose enthusiasm for the cause was extreme, supposed the greeks to be endowed with the same virtue which their ancestors displayed. we, who live in the twentieth century, are able by the light of subsequent events to decide which of these two men held the sounder view; and we can honestly deplore that a mere matter of opinion should have caused any disagreements between two men who had sacrificed so much in a common cause. gamba, who seems to have been present during the altercation above alluded to, says that colonel stanhope, in accusing lord byron of being an enemy to the press, laid himself open to a rejoinder which is not recorded in the report of these proceedings. byron's reply was to the point: 'and yet, without my money, where would your greek newspaper be?' and he concluded the sentence, 'judge me by my actions,' cited by stanhope, with, '_not by my words_.' colonel stanhope could not understand byron's bantering moods. they seemed to him to be entirely out of place. the more byron laughed and joked, the more serious stanhope became, and their discussions seldom ended without a strong reproof, which irritated byron for the moment. but so far from leaving any unfavourable impression on byron's mind, it increased his regard for an antagonist of such evident sincerity: 'when parting from him one evening, after a discussion of this nature, lord byron went up to him, and exclaimed: "give me that honest right hand." two such men were worthy of being friends, and it is to be regretted that an injudicious champion of the one should, by a partial detail of their trifling differences, try to raise him at the expense of the other.' with the money provided by byron, colonel stanhope's pet scheme, the _greek chronicle_, printed in greek type, came into being. its editor, 'a hot-headed republican' named jean jacques meyer, who had been a swiss doctor, was particularly unfitted for the post, and soon came to loggerheads with byron for publishing a violent attack on the austrian government. in a letter to samuel barff, byron says: 'from the very first i foretold to colonel stanhope and to prince mavrocordato that a greek newspaper (as indeed any other), in _the present state_ of greece, might and probably _would_ lead to much mischief and misconstruction, unless under _some_ restrictions; nor have i ever had anything to do with it, as a writer or otherwise, except as a pecuniary contributor to its support in the outset, which i could not refuse to the earnest request of the projectors. colonel stanhope and myself had considerable differences of opinion on this subject, and (what will appear laughable enough) to such a degree that he charged me with _despotic_ principles, and i _him_ with _ultra-radicalism_. dr. meyer, the editor, with his unrestrained freedom of the press, and who has the freedom to exercise an unlimited discretion--not allowing any articles but his own and those like them to appear--and in declaiming against restrictions, cuts, carves, and restricts, at his own will and pleasure. he is the author of an article against monarchy, of which he may have the advantage and fame--but they (the editors) will get themselves into a scrape, if they do not take care. of all petty tyrants, he (meyer) is one of the pettiest, as are most demagogues that ever i knew. he is a swiss by birth, and a greek by assumption, having married a wife and changed his religion.' on the appearance of meyer's stupid attack on monarchy, byron immediately suppressed the whole edition. early in march the prospectus of a polyglot newspaper, entitled the _greek telegraph_, was published at missolonghi. millingen says: 'the sentiments imprudently advocated in this prospectus induced the british authorities in the ionian islands to entertain so unfavourable an impression of the spirit which would guide its conductors, that its admission into the heptarchy was interdicted under severe penalties. the same took place in the austrian states, where they began to look upon greece as "the city of refuge," as it were, for the carbonari and discontented english reformers. the first number appeared on th march; but it was written in a tone so opposite to what had been expected, that it might, in some degree, be considered as a protest against its prospectus. lord byron was the cause of this change. more than ever convinced that nothing could be more useless, and even more dangerous, to the interests of greece, both at home and abroad, than an unlimited freedom of the press, he insisted on count gamba becoming editor. byron cautioned him to restrict the paper to a simple narrative of events as they occurred, and an unprejudiced statement of opinions in respect to political relations and wants, so as to make them subjects of interest to the friends of greece in the western parts of europe.' gamba says: 'lord byron's view of the politics of greece was, that this revolution had little or nothing in common with the great struggles with which europe had been for thirty years distracted, and that it would be most foolish for the friends of greece to mix up their cause with that of other nations, who had attempted to change their form of government, and by so doing to draw down the hatred and opposition of one of the two great parties that at present divide the civilized world. lord byron's wish was to show that the contest was simply one between barbarism and civilization--between christianity and islamism--and that the struggle was on behalf of the descendants of those to whom we are indebted for the first principles of science and the most perfect models of literature and art. for such a cause he hoped that all politicians of all parties, in every european state, might fairly be expected to unite.' byron believed that the moment had arrived for uniting the greeks; the approach of danger and the chance of succour seemed favourable to his designs. 'to be in time to defend ourselves,' said byron, 'we have only to put in action and unite all the means the greeks possess; with money we have experienced the facility of raising troops. i cannot calculate to what a height greece may rise. 'hitherto it has been a subject for the hymns and elegies of fanatics and enthusiasts; but now it will draw the attention of the politician.' early in february, , colonel stanhope proposed to go into the morea, in order to co-operate in the great work of appeasing the discords of that country. prince mavrocordato wrote privately to sir thomas maitland[ ] in the hope of averting trouble consequent upon the infraction of the neutrality of the ionian territory at ithaca. lord byron forwarded his letter to lord sidney osborne.[ ] with the following explanation: 'enclosed is a private communication from prince mavrocordato to sir thomas maitland, which you will oblige me much by delivering. sir thomas can take as much or as little of it as he pleases; but i hope and believe that it is rather calculated to conciliate than to irritate on the subject of the late event near ithaca and sta mauro, which there is every disposition on the part of the government here to disavow; and they are also disposed to give every satisfaction in their power. you must all be persuaded how difficult it is, under existing circumstances, for the greeks to keep up discipline, however they may all be disposed to do so. i am doing all i can to convince them of the necessity of the strictest observance of the regulations of the island, and, i trust, with some effect. i was received here with every possible public and private mark of respect. if you write to any of our friends, you can say that i am in good health and spirits; and that i shall _stick_ by the cause as long as a man of honour can, without sparing purse, and (i hope, if need be) _person_.' this letter is dated from missolonghi, february , . on february byron heard the news of the death of sir thomas maitland. parry says: 'the news certainly caused considerable satisfaction among the greeks, and among some of the english. he was generally looked on by them as the great enemy of their cause; but there is no proof of this. i know that his government has been very much censured in england, and far be it from me to approve of the arbitrary or despotic measures of any man; but those who know anything of the people he had to deal with will find, in their character, an excuse for his conduct. i believe, in general, his government was well calculated for his subjects.' parry throws light upon byron's attitude towards mavrocordato, to which we alluded in a previous chapter. 'i took an opportunity, one evening, of asking lord byron what he thought of prince mavrocordato. he replied he considered him an honest man and a man of talent. he had shown his devotion to his country's service by expending his private fortune in its cause, and was probably the most capable and trustworthy of all the greek chieftains. lord byron said that he agreed with mavrocordato, that missolonghi and its dependencies were of the greatest importance to greece; and as long as the prince acted as he had done, he would give him all the support in his power. lord byron seemed, at the same time, to suppose that a little more energy and industry in the prince, with a disposition to make fewer promises, would tend much to his advantage.' the following incident, related by parry, seems to fall naturally into this part of our narrative: 'when the turkish fleet was blockading missolonghi, i was one day ordered by lord byron to accompany him to the mouth of the harbour to inspect the fortifications, in order to make a report of the state they were in. he and i were in his own punt, a little boat which he had, rowed by a boy; and in a large boat, accompanying us, were prince mavrocordato and his attendants. as i was viewing, on one hand, the turkish fleet attentively, and reflecting on its powers, and our means of defence; and looking, on the other, at prince mavrocordato and his attendants, perfectly unconcerned, smoking their pipes and gossiping, as if greece were liberated and at peace, and missolonghi in a state of perfect security, i could not help giving vent to a feeling of contempt and indignation. '"what is the matter?" said lord byron, appearing to be very serious; "what makes you so angry, parry?" '"i am not angry, my lord," i replied, "but somewhat indignant. the turks, if they were not the most stupid wretches breathing, might take the fort of vasaladi, by means of two pinnaces, any night they pleased; they have only to approach it with muffled oars, they would not be heard, i will answer for their not being seen, and they may storm it in a few minutes. with eight gunboats properly armed with -pounders, they might batter both missolonghi and anatolica to the ground. and there sits the old gentlewoman, prince mavrocordato and his troop, to whom i applied an epithet i will not here repeat, as if they were all perfectly safe. they know that their means of defence are inadequate, and they have no means of improving them. if i were in their place, i should be in a fever at the thought of my own incapacity and ignorance, and i should burn with impatience to attempt the destruction of those stupid turkish rascals. the greeks and the turks are opponents, worthy by their imbecility of each other." 'i had scarcely explained myself fully, when lord byron ordered our boat to be placed alongside the other, and actually related our whole conversation to the prince. in doing it, however, he took upon himself the task of pacifying both the prince and me, and though i was at first very angry, and the prince, i believe, very much annoyed, he succeeded. it was, in fact, only lord byron's manner of reproving us both. it taught me to be prudent and discreet. to the prince and the greeks it probably conveyed a lesson, which lord byron could have found no better means of giving them.' byron was remarkably sincere and frank in all his words and actions. parry says that he never harboured a thought concerning another man that he did not express to his face; neither could he bear duplicity in others. if one person were to speak against a third party, in byron's presence, he would be sure to repeat it the first time the two opponents were in presence of one another. this was a habit, says parry, of which his acquaintance were well aware, and it spared byron the trouble of listening to many idle and degrading calumnies. he probably expected thereby to teach others a sincerity which he so highly prized; but it must be added that he derived pleasure from witnessing the confusion of the person thus exposed. we recognize byron in this trait, as none of his biographers have omitted to mention the extraordinary indiscretion of his confidences; but never before was his habit of 'blabbing' turned to a better use. it is generally admitted that the greeks were supine to the last degree. little or nothing had been done to repair the losses resulting from the late campaign, nor had adequate preparations been made for the struggle in prospect. through their improvidence, the greeks had neither money nor materials. neither in the morea nor in western greece had any steps been taken to meet an assault by the enemy. the fortifications, that had suffered in the previous campaign, were left _in statu quo_. the greek fleet was practically non-existent, owing to the insufficiency of money wherewith to pay the crews. in addition to internal dissensions, which might at any moment give rise to a civil war, the french and english governments were continually demanding satisfaction for breaches of neutrality, or for acts of piracy committed by vessels of the greek fleet, under a singular misapprehension of the game of war. in the midst of all these depressing conditions byron kept his intense enthusiasm for the cause, and whatever may have been the errors in his policy, everyone acknowledged the purity of his motives and the intensity of his zeal. prince mavrocordato and colonel stanhope were not on very good terms. the colonel had no confidence in the prince, and, indeed, openly defied and opposed him. his hostility to mavrocordato became so marked that both greeks and english were persuaded that he was endeavouring to break up the establishment at missolonghi, and to remove all the stores, belonging to the committee, to athens. 'this report,' says parry, 'was conveyed to lord byron, who had not parted with colonel stanhope on very good terms, and caused him much annoyance. he had before attributed both neglect and deceit to the greek committee or some of its agents; and this report of the proceedings of their special and chosen messenger made him, in the irritation of the moment, regard them as acting even treacherously towards himself. "by the cant of religious pretenders," he said, "i have already deeply suffered, and now i know what the cant of pretended reformers and philanthropists amounts to."' byron was much displeased by the neglect which he had experienced at the hands of the london committee, who, instead of sending supplies that would have been of some use, sent printing-presses, maps, and bugles. books and bibles were sent to a people who wanted guns, and when they asked for a sword they sent the lever of a printing-press. the only wonder was that they did not send out a pack of beagles. colonel stanhope, who might perhaps have been of some use in a military capacity, began organizing the whole country in accordance with mr. bentham's views of morality and justice. in this he acted entirely on his own responsibility, and rarely consulted byron or mavrocordato before carrying his wild schemes into execution. byron said of him, in a moment of exasperation: 'he is a mere schemer and talker, more of a saint than a soldier; and, with a great deal of pretended plainness, a mere politician, and no patriot. i thought colonel stanhope, being a soldier, would have shown himself differently. he ought to know what a nation like greece needs for its defence; and should have told the committee that arms, and the materials for carrying on war, were what the greeks required.' byron placed practice before precept, and was content to wait until the turks had been driven out of greece before entering upon any scheme for the cultivation of the soil and the development of commerce. he always maintained that colonel stanhope began at the wrong end, and was foolish to expect, by introducing some signs of wealth and knowledge, to make the people of greece both rich and intelligent. 'i hear,' said byron, in a conversation with parry, 'that missionaries are to be introduced before the country is cleared of the enemy, and religious disputes are to be added to the other sources of discord. how very improper are such proceedings! nothing could be more impolitic; it will cause ill blood throughout the country, and very possibly be the means of again bringing greece under the turkish yoke. can it be supposed that the greek priesthood, who have great influence, and even power, will tamely submit to see interested self-opinionated foreigners interfere with their flocks? i say again, clear the country, teach the people to read and write, and the labouring people will judge for themselves.' the vexations to which byron was daily subjected during his stay at missolonghi, and the insufficiency of the diet which he prescribed for himself against the advice of his medical attendant, so affected his nervous system, which by nature was highly irritable, that at last he broke down. count gamba says: 'lord byron was exceedingly vexed at the necessary abandonment of his project against lepanto, at a time when success seemed so probable. he had not been able to ride that day, nor for some days, on account of the rain. he had been extremely annoyed at the vexations caused by the suliotes, as also with the various other interruptions from petitions, demands, and remonstrances, which never left him a moment's peace at any hour of the day. at seven in the evening i went into his room on some business, and found him lying on the sofa: he was not asleep, and, seeing me enter, called out, "i am not asleep--come in--i am not well." at eight o'clock he went downstairs to visit colonel stanhope. the conversation turned upon our newspaper. we agreed that it was not calculated to give foreigners the necessary intelligence of what was passing in greece; because, being written in romaic, it was not intelligible, except to a few strangers. we resolved to publish another, in several languages, and lord byron promised to furnish some articles himself. when i left the room, he was laughing and joking with parry and the colonel; he was drinking some cider.' as gamba is no longer a witness of what actually happened, we refer the reader to the statement of parry himself: 'lord byron's quarters were on the second-floor of the house, and colonel stanhope lived on the first-floor. in the evening, about eight o'clock, lord byron came downstairs into the colonel's room where i was. he seated himself on a cane settee, and began talking with me on various subjects. colonel stanhope, who was employed in a neighbouring apartment, fitting up printing-presses, and count gamba, both came into the room for a short time, and some conversation ensued about the newspaper, which was never to lord byron a pleasant topic, as he disagreed with his friends about it. after a little time they went their several ways, and more agreeable subjects were introduced. lord byron began joking with me about colonel stanhope's occupations, and said he thought the author would have his brigade of artillery ready before the soldier got his printing-press fixed. there was then nobody in the room but his lordship, mr. hesketh, and myself. there was evidently a constrained manner about lord byron, and he complained of thirst. he ordered his servant to bring him some cider, which i entreated him not to drink in that state. there was a flush in his countenance, which seemed to indicate great nervous agitation; and as i thought lord byron had been much agitated and harassed for several days past, i recommended him, at least, to qualify his cider with some brandy. he said he had frequently drunk cider, and felt no bad consequences from it, and he accordingly drank it off. he had scarcely drunk the cider, when he complained of a very strange sensation, and i noticed a great change in his countenance. he rose from his seat, but could not walk, staggered a step or two, and fell into my arms. 'i had no other stimulant than brandy at hand, and having before seen it administered in similar cases with considerable benefit, i succeeded in making him swallow a small quantity. in another minute his teeth were closed, his speech and senses gone, and he was in strong convulsions. i laid him down on the settee, and with the assistance of his servant kept him quiet. 'when he fell into my arms, his countenance was very much distorted, his mouth being drawn on one side. after a short time his medical attendant came, and he speedily recovered his senses and his speech. he asked for colonel stanhope, as he had something particular to say to him, should there be a probability of his not recovering. colonel stanhope came from the next room. on recovering his senses, lord byron's countenance assumed its ordinary appearance, except that it was pale and haggard. no other effect remained visible except great weakness.' according to gamba: 'lord byron was carried upstairs to his own bed, and complained only of weakness. he asked whether his attack was likely to prove fatal. "let me know," he said. "do not think i am afraid to die--i am not." he told me that when he lost his speech he did not lose his senses; that he had suffered great pain, and that he believed, if the convulsion had lasted a minute longer, he must have died.' the attack had been brought on by the vexations which he had long suffered in silence, and borne heroically. but his mode of living was a contributory cause. he ate nothing but fish, cheese, and vegetables--having regulated his table, says gamba, so as not to cost more than paras. this he did to show that he could live on fare as simple as that of the greek soldiers. byron had scarcely recovered consciousness, when a false alarm was brought to him that the suliotes had risen, and were about to attack the building where the arms were stored. 'we ran to our arsenal,' says gamba, 'parry ordered the artillerymen under arms: our cannon were loaded and pointed on the approaches to the gates; the sentries were doubled. this alarm had originated with two germans, who, having taken too much wine, and seeing a body of soldiers with their guns in their hands proceeding towards the seraglio, thought that a revolution had broken out, and spread an alarm over the whole town. as a matter of fact, these troops were merely changing their quarters. these germans were so inconsiderate, that during our absence at the arsenal they forced their way into byron's bedroom, swearing that they had come to defend him and his house. fortunately, we were not present, for, as this was only half an hour after byron's attack, we should have been tempted to fling the intruders out of the window. on the following day byron was better, and got up at noon; but he was very pale and weak, and complained of a sensation of weight in his head. the doctor applied eight leeches to his temples, and the blood flowed copiously; it was stopped with difficulty, and he fainted.' dr. millingen says that dr. bruno had at first proposed opening a vein; but finding it impossible to obtain byron's consent, he applied leeches to the temples, which bled so copiously as almost to bring on syncope. byron, alarmed to see the difficulty dr. bruno had in stopping the hæmorrhage, sent for millingen, who, by the application of lunar caustic, succeeded in stopping the flow of blood. in millingen's opinion, byron was never the same man after this; a change took place in his mental and bodily functions. 'that wonderful elasticity of disposition, that continual flow of wit, that facility of jest by which his conversation had been so distinguished, returned only at distant intervals,' says millingen: 'from this time byron fell into a state of melancholy from which none of our arguments could relieve him. he felt certain that his constitution had been ruined; that he was a worn-out man; and that his muscular power was gone. flashes before his eyes, palpitations and anxieties, hourly afflicted him; and at times such a sense of faintness would overpower him, that, fearing to be attacked by similar convulsions, he would send in great haste for medical assistance. his nervous system was, in fact, in a continual state of erethism, which was certainly augmented by the low, debilitating diet which dr. bruno had recommended.' on one occasion byron said to dr. millingen that he did not wish for life; it had ceased to have any attraction for him. 'but,' said byron, 'the fear of two things now haunt me. i picture myself slowly expiring on a bed of torture, or ending my days like swift--a grinning idiot! would to heaven the day were arrived in which, rushing, sword in hand, on a body of turks, and fighting like one weary of existence, i shall meet immediate, painless death--the object of my wishes.' two days after this seizure byron made the following entry in his journal: 'with regard to the presumed causes of this attack, so far as i know, there might be several. the state of the place and the weather permit little exercise at present. i have been violently agitated with more than one passion recently, and amidst conflicting parties, politics, and (as far as regards public matters) circumstances. i have also been in an anxious state with regard to things which may be only interesting to my own private feelings, and, perhaps, not uniformly so temperate as i may generally affirm that i was wont to be. how far any or all of these may have acted on the mind or body of one who had already undergone many previous changes of place and passion during a life of thirty-six years, i cannot tell.' the following note, which is entered by mr. rowland prothero in the new edition of lord byron's 'letters and journals,'[ ] was dashed off by byron in pencil, on the day of his seizure, february , : 'having tried in vain at great expense, considerable trouble, and some danger, to unite the suliotes for the good of greece--and their own--i have come to the following resolution: 'i will have nothing more to do with the suliotes. they may go to the turks, or the devil,--they may cut me into more pieces than they have dissensions among themselves,--sooner than change my resolution. 'for the rest, i hold my means and person at the disposal of the greek nation and government the same as before.' no better proof could be given of the perplexities which worried him at that particular time. but the surrounding gloom was lightened now and then by some of parry's stories. the following anecdote about jeremy bentham was an especial favourite with byron; parry's sea-terms and drollery doubtless heightened its effect: 'shortly before i left london for greece, mr. bowring, the honorary secretary to the greek committee, informed me that mr. jeremy bentham wished to see the stores and materials, preparing for the greeks, and that he had done me the honour of asking me to breakfast with him some day, that i might afterwards conduct him to see the guns, etc. '"who the devil is mr. bentham?" was my rough reply; "i never heard of him before." many of my readers may still be in the same state of ignorance, and it will be acceptable to them, i hope, to hear of the philosopher. '"mr. bentham," said mr. bowring, "is one of the greatest men of the age, and for the honour now offered to you, i waited impatiently many a long day--i believe for more than two years." '"great or little, i never heard of him before; but if he wants to see me, why i'll go." 'it was accordingly arranged that i should visit mr. bentham, and that mr. bowring should see him to fix the time, and then inform me. in a day or two afterwards, i received a note from the honorary secretary to say i was to breakfast with mr. bentham on saturday. it happened that i lived at a distance from town, and having heard something of the primitive manner of living and early hours of philosophers, i arranged with my wife overnight that i would get up very early on the saturday morning, that i might not keep mr. bentham waiting. accordingly, i rose with the dawn, dressed myself in haste, and brushed off for queen's square, westminster, as hard as my legs could carry me. on reaching the strand, fearing i might be late, being rather corpulent, and not being willing to go into the presence of so very great a man, as i understood mr. jeremy bentham to be, puffing and blowing, i took a hackney-coach and drove up to his door about eight o'clock. i found a servant girl afoot, and told her i came to breakfast with mr. bentham by appointment. 'she ushered me in, and introduced me to two young men, who looked no more like philosophers, however, than my own children. i thought they might be mr. bentham's sons, but this, i understood, was a mistake. i showed them the note i had received from mr. bowring, and they told me mr. bentham did not breakfast till three o'clock. this surprised me much, but they told me i might breakfast with them, which i did, though i was not much flattered by the honour of sitting down with mr. bentham's clerks, when i was invited by their master. poor mr. bowring! thought i, he must be a meek-spirited young man if it was for this he waited so impatiently. i supposed the philosopher himself did not get up till noon, as he did not breakfast till so late, but in this i was also mistaken. about ten o'clock i was summoned to his presence, and mustered up all my courage and all my ideas for the meeting. his appearance struck me forcibly. his thin white locks, cut straight in the fashion of the quakers, and hanging, or rather floating, on his shoulders; his garments something of quaker colour and cut, and his frame rather square and muscular, with no exuberance of flesh, made up a singular-looking and not an inelegant old man. he welcomed me with a few hurried words, but without any ceremony, and then conducted me into several rooms to show me _his_ ammunition and materials of war. one very large room was nearly filled with books, and another with unbound works, which, i understood, were the philosopher's own composition. the former, he said, furnished him his supplies; and there was a great deal of labour required to read so many volumes. i said inadvertently, "i suppose you have quite forgotten what is said in the first before you read the last." mr. bentham, however, took this in good part, and, taking hold of my arm, said we would proceed on our journey. accordingly, off we set, accompanied by one of his young men carrying a portfolio, to keep, i suppose, a log of our proceedings. 'we went through a small garden, and, passing out of a gate, i found we were in st. james's park. here i noticed that mr. bentham had a very snug dwelling, with many accommodations, and such a garden as belongs in london only to the first nobility. but for his neighbours, i thought--for he has a barrack of soldiers on one side of his premises--i should envy him his garden more than his great reputation. on looking at him, i could but admire his hale, and even venerable, appearance. i understood he was seventy-three years of age, and therefore i concluded we should have a quiet, comfortable walk. very much to my surprise, however, we had scarcely got into the park, when he let go my arm, and set off trotting like a highland messenger. the park was crowded, and the people one and all seemed to stare at the old man; but, heedless of all this, he trotted on, his white locks floating in the wind, as if he were not seen by a single human being. 'as soon as i could recover from my surprise, i asked the young man, "is mr. bentham flighty?" pointing to my head. "oh no, it's his way," was the hurried answer; "he thinks it good for his health. but i must run after him;" and off set the youth in chase of the philosopher. i must not lose my companions, thought i, and off i set also. of course the eyes of every human being in the park were fixed on the running veteran and his pursuers. there was jerry ahead, then came his clerk and his portfolio, and i, being a heavier sailer than either, was bringing up the rear. 'what the people might think, i don't know; but it seemed to me a very strange scene, and i was not much delighted at being made such an object of attraction. mr. bentham's activity surprised me, and i never overtook him or came near him till we reached the horse guards, where his speed was checked by the blues drawn up in array. here we threaded in amongst horses and men till we escaped at the other gate into whitehall. i now thought the crowded streets would prevent any more racing; but several times he escaped from us, and trotted off, compelling us to trot after him till we reached mr. galloway's manufactory in smithfield. here he exulted in his activity, and inquired particularly if i had ever seen a man at his time of life so active. i could not possibly answer no, while i was almost breathless with the exertion of following him through the crowded streets. after seeing at mr. galloway's manufactory, not only the things which had been prepared for the greeks, but his other engines and machines, we proceeded to another manufactory at the foot of southwark bridge, where our brigade of guns stood ready mounted. when mr. bentham had satisfied his curiosity here also, and i had given him every information in my power, we set off to return to his house, that he might breakfast; i endeavoured to persuade him to take a hackney-coach, but in vain. we got on tolerably well, and without any adventures, tragical or comical, till we arrived at fleet street. we crossed from fleet market over towards mr. waithman's shop, and here, letting go my arm, he quitted the foot pavement, and set off again in one of his vagaries up fleet street. his clerk again set off after him, and i again followed. the race here excited universal attention. the perambulating ladies, who are always in great numbers about that part of the town, and ready to laugh at any kind of oddity, and catch hold of every simpleton, stood and stared at or followed the venerable philosopher. one of them, well known to all the neighbourhood by the appellation of the _city barge_, given to her on account of her extraordinary bulk, was coming with a consort full sail down fleet street, but whenever they saw the flight of mr. jeremy bentham they hove to, tacked, and followed to witness the fun or share the prize. i was heartily ashamed of participating in this scene, and supposed that everybody would take me for a mad doctor, the young man for my assistant, and mr. bentham for my patient, just broke adrift from his keepers. 'fortunately the chase did not continue long. mr. bentham hove to abreast of carlisle's shop, and stood for a little time to admire the books and portraits hanging in the window. at length one of them arrested his attention more particularly. "ah, ah," said he, in a hurried indistinct tone, "there it is, there it is!" pointing to a portrait which i afterwards found was that of the illustrious jeremy himself. 'soon after this, i invented an excuse to quit mr. bentham and his man, promising to go to queen's square to dine. i was not, however, to be again taken in by the philosopher's meal hours; so, laying in a stock of provisions, i went at his dining hour, half-past ten o'clock, and supped with him. we had a great deal of conversation, particularly about mechanical subjects and the art of war. i found the old gentleman as lively with his tongue as with his feet, and passed a very pleasant evening; which ended by my pointing out, at his request, a plan for playing his organ by the steam of his tea-kettle. 'this little story,' says parry, 'gave byron a great deal of pleasure. he very often laughed as i told it; he laughed much at its conclusion. he declared, when he had fished out every little circumstance, that he would not have lost it for , guineas. lord byron frequently asked me to repeat what he called: _jerry bentham's cruise_.' parry tells us that byron took a great interest in all that concerned the welfare of the working classes, and particularly of the artisans. 'i have lately read,' said byron on one occasion, 'of an institution lately established in london for the instruction of mechanics. i highly approve of this, and intend to subscribe £ to it; but i shall at the same time write and give my opinion on the subject. i am always afraid that schemes of this kind are intended to deceive people; and, unless all the offices in such an institution are filled with real practical mechanics, the working classes will soon find themselves deceived. if they permit any but mechanics to have the direction of their affairs, they will only become the tools of others. the real working man will soon be ousted, and his more cunning pretended friends will take possession and reap all the benefits. it gives me pleasure to think what a mass of natural intellect this will call into action. if the plan succeeds, and i hope it may, the ancient aristocracy of england will be secure for ages to come. the most useful and numerous body of people in the nation will then judge for themselves, and, when properly informed, will judge correctly. there is not on earth a more honourable body of men than the english nobility; and there is no system of government under which life and property are better secured than under the british constitution. 'the mechanics and working classes who can maintain their families are, in my opinion, the happiest body of men. poverty is wretchedness; but it is perhaps to be preferred to the heartless, unmeaning dissipation of the higher orders. i am thankful that i am now entirely clear of this, and my resolution to remain clear of it for the rest of my life is immutable.' parry remarks that it would be folly to attribute to byron any love for democracy, as the term was then understood. although the bent of his mind was more liberal than conservative, he was not a party man in its narrow sense. he was a sworn foe to injustice, cruelty, and oppression; such was the alpha and omega of his political prejudices. he would be an inveterate enemy to any government which oppressed one class for the benefit of another class, and which did not allow its subjects to be free and happy. in speaking of america, byron said: 'i have always thought the mode in which the americans separated from great britain was unfortunate for them. it made them despise or regret everything english. they disinherited themselves of all the historical glory of england; there was nothing left for them to admire or venerate but their own immediate success, and they became egotists, like savages, from wanting a history. the spirit of jealousy and animosity excited by the contests between england and america is now subsiding. should peace continue, prejudices on both sides will gradually decrease. already the americans are beginning, i think, to cultivate the antiquities of england, and, as they extend their inquiries, they will find other objects of admiration besides themselves. it was of some importance, both for them and for us, that they did not reject our language with our government. time, i should hope, will approximate the institutions of both countries to one another; and the use of the same language will do more to unite the two nations than if they both had only one king.' chapter x according to gamba's journal, on the day following the seizure to which we have referred, byron followed up his former efforts to inculcate the principles and practice of humanity into both the nations engaged in the war. there were twenty-four turks, including women and children, who had suffered all the rigours of captivity at missolonghi since the beginning of the revolution. byron caused them to be released, and sent at his own cost to prevesa. the following letter, which he addressed to the english consul at that port, deserves a place in this record: 'sir, 'coming to greece, one of my principal objects was to alleviate as much as possible the miseries incident to a warfare so cruel as the present. when the dictates of humanity are in question, i know no difference between turks and greeks. it is enough that those who want assistance are men, in order to claim the pity and protection of the meanest pretender to humane feelings. i have found here twenty-four turks, including women and children, who have long pined in distress, far from the means of support and the consolations of their home. the government has consigned them to me: i transmit them to prevesa, whither they desire to be sent. i hope you will not object to take care that they may be restored to a place of safety, and that the governor of your town may accept of my present. the best recompense i can hope for would be to find that i had inspired the ottoman commanders with the same sentiments towards those unhappy greeks who may hereafter fall into their hands. 'i beg you to believe me, etc., 'noel byron.' the details of this incident have hitherto passed almost unnoticed. the whole story is full of pathos, and affords a view of byron's real character. in june, , when missolonghi and anatolico proclaimed themselves parts of independent greece, all turkish residents were arrested. the males were cruelly put to death, and their wives and families were handed over to the greek householders as slaves. the miseries these defenceless people endured while death stared them daily in the face are indescribable. millingen says: 'one day, as i entered the dispensary, i found the wife of one of the turkish inhabitants of missolonghi who had fled to patras. the poor woman came to implore my pity, and begged me to allow her to take shelter under my roof from the brutality and cruelty of the greeks. they had murdered all her relations, and two of her boys; and the marks remained on the angle of the wall against which, a few weeks previously, they had dashed the brains of the youngest, only five years of age. a little girl, nine years old, remained to be the only companion of her misery. like a timid lamb, she stood by her mother, naked and shivering, drawing closer and closer to her side. her little hands were folded like a suppliant's, and her large, beautiful eyes--so accustomed to see acts of horror and cruelty--looked at me now and then, hardly daring to implore pity. "take us," said the mother; "we will serve you and be your slaves; or you will be responsible before god for whatever may happen to us." 'i could not see so eloquent a picture of distress unmoved, and from that day i treated them as relatives. some weeks after, i happened to mention before lord byron some circumstances relative to these individuals, and spoke with so much admiration of the noble fortitude displayed by the mother in the midst of her calamities; of the courage with which maternal love inspired her on several occasions; of the dignified manner in which she replied to the insults of her persecutors, that he expressed a wish to see the mother and child. on doing so, he became so struck by hatajè's beauty, the naïveté of her answers, and the spiritedness of her observations on the murderers of her brethren, that he decided on adopting her. "banish fear for ever from your mind," said he to the mother; "your child shall henceforth be mine. i have a daughter in england. to her i will send the child. they are both of the same age; and as she is alone, she will, no doubt, like a companion who may, at times, talk to her of her father. do not shudder at the idea of changing your religion, for i insist on your professing none other but the musulman." 'she seized his hand, kissed it with energy, and raising her eyes to heaven, eyes now filled with tears, she repeated the familiar words: "allah is great!" byron ordered costly dresses to be made for them, and sent to hatajè a necklace of sequins. he desired me to send them twice a week to his house. he would then take the little child on his knees, and caress her with all the fondness of a father. 'from the moment i received the mother and child into my house, the other unfortunate turkish women, who had miraculously escaped the general slaughter, seeing how different were the feelings and treatment of the english towards their nation and sex from those of the greeks, began to feel more hopeful of their lot in life. they daily called at my lodgings, and by means of my servant, a suliote who spoke turkish fluently, narrated their misfortunes, and the numberless horrors of which they had been spectators. one woman said: "our fears are not yet over; we are kept as victims for future sacrifices, hourly expecting our doom. an unpleasant piece of news, a drunken party, a fit of ill-humour or of caprice, may decide our fate. we are then hunted down the streets like wild beasts, till some one of us, or of our children, is immolated to their insatiable cruelty. our only hope centres in you. one word of yours to lord byron can save many lives. can you refuse to speak for us. let lord byron send us to any part of turkey. we are women and children; can the greeks fear us?" 'i hastened to give lord byron a faithful picture of the position of these wretched people. knowing and relieving the distressed were, with him, simultaneous actions. a few days later notice was given to every turkish woman to prepare for departure. all, a few excepted, embarked and were conveyed at byron's expense to prevesa. they amounted to twenty-two. a few days previously four turkish prisoners had been sent by him to patras. repeated examples of humanity like these were for the greeks more useful and appropriate lessons than the finest compositions which all the printing-presses could have spread amongst them.' hatajè! and what became of little hatajè? on february byron wrote to his sister: 'i have been obtaining the release of about nine-and-twenty turkish prisoners--men, women, and children--and have sent them home to their friends; but one, a pretty little girl of nine years of age named hato or hatagèe, has expressed a strong wish to remain with me, or under my care, and i have nearly determined to adopt her. if i thought that lady b. would let her come to england as a companion to ada (they are about the same age), and we could easily provide for her; if not, i can send her to italy for education. she is very lively and quick, and with great black oriental eyes and asiatic features. all her brothers were killed in the revolution; her mother wishes to return to her husband, but says that she would rather entrust the child to me, in the present state of the country. her extreme youth and sex have hitherto saved her life, but there is no saying what might occur in the course of the war (and of _such_ a war), and i shall probably commit her to the charge of some english lady in the islands for the present. the child herself has the same wish, and seems to have a decided character for her age. you can mention this matter if you think it worth while. i merely wish her to be respectably educated and treated, and, if my years and all things be considered, i presume it would be difficult to conceive me to have any other views.' meanwhile, byron, wishing to remove the child from missolonghi, seems to have proposed to dr. kennedy at cephalonia that mrs. kennedy should take temporary charge of her. writing to kennedy on march , , byron says: 'your future convert hato, or hatagèe, appears to me lively, intelligent, and promising; she possesses an interesting countenance. with regard to her disposition i can say little, but millingen speaks well of both mother and daughter, and he is to be relied on. as far as i know, i have only seen the child a few times with her mother, and what i have seen is favourable, or i should not take so much interest in her behalf. if she turns out well, my idea would be to send her to my daughter in england (if not to respectable persons in italy), and so to provide for her as to enable her to live with reputation either singly or in marriage, if she arrive at maturity. i will make proper arrangements about her expenses through messrs. barff and hancock, and the rest i leave to your discretion, and to mrs. k.'s, with a great sense of obligation for your kindness in undertaking her temporary superintendence.' this arrangement fell through, and was never carried out. the child remained at missolonghi with her mother until byron's death. then, by the irony of fate, they departed in the _florida_--the vessel that bore the dead body of their protector to the inhospitable lazaretto at zante. with wonderful prophetic instinct, byron, long before his voyage to greece, gave to the world the vision of another hatajè, rescued from death on the field of battle: 'the moslem orphan went with her protector, for she was homeless, houseless, helpless; all her friends, like the sad family of hector, had perished in the field or by the wall: her very place of birth was but a spectre of what it had been: there the muezzin's call to prayer was heard no more--and juan wept, and made a vow to shield her, which he kept.' blaquière, who was at zante when the _florida_ was placed in quarantine, says: 'the child, whom i have frequently seen in the lazaretto, is extremely interesting, and about eight years of age. she came over with byron's body, under her mother's care. they had not been here many days, before an application came from usouff pacha, to give them up. it being customary, whenever claims of this kind are made, to consult the parties themselves, both the mother and her child were questioned as to their wishes on the subject. the latter, with tears in her eyes, said that, had his lordship lived, she would always have considered him as a father; but as he was no more, she preferred going back to her own country. the mother having expressed the same wish, they were sent to patras.' according to millingen, when hatajè and her mother arrived at patras, the child's father received them in a transport of joy. 'i thought you slaves,' said the father in embracing them, 'and, lo! you return to me decked like brides.' and that is all that we know--all, we suppose, that _can_ be known--of little hatajè! she may still be alive, the last survivor of those who had spoken to byron! if, in her ninety-third year, she still recalls the events of , she will hold up the torch with modest pride, while the present writer commemorates one, out of many, of the noble actions performed by the poet byron. 'this special honour was conferred, because he had behaved with courage and humanity-- which _last_ men like, when they have time to pause from their ferocities produced by vanity. his little captive gained him some applause for saving her amidst the wild insanity of carnage--and i think he was more glad in her safety, than his new order of st. vladimir.' _don juan_, canto viii., cxl. chapter xi on february there was great excitement at missolonghi on account of a turkish brig-of-war, which had run ashore on a sand-bank about seven miles from the city. byron sent for parry, and accosted him in his liveliest manner: 'now's the day, parry, and now's the hour; now for your rockets, your fire-kites, and red-hot shots; now, parry, for your grecian fires. onward, death or victory!' byron was still so weak that he could not rise from the sofa; but all the available soldiers manned the greek boats, and set off in the hope of plunder. parry and some other european officers went out to reconnoitre the brig, and discovered a broad and long neck of land, which separated the shallows from the sea, upon which it would be easy to plant a couple of guns and make an attack upon the brig. parry says that he had only two guns fit for immediate service--a long three-pounder and a howitzer. the attack was to be made on the following day, and byron gave orders that, in the event of any prisoners being taken, their lives were, if possible, to be spared. he offered to pay two dollars a head for each prisoner saved, to pay something more for officers, and have them cared for at missolonghi at his own expense. he also gave strict orders that the artillery brigade should be kept in reserve, so as to relieve and protect the turkish prisoners. early on the following day the guns were shipped, but, unfortunately, the boats ran aground, and much valuable time was lost. meanwhile three turkish brigs came to the rescue, and got into position so as to enfilade the beach. they manned their boats and tried to haul the brig into deep water, but without success; and seeing the greeks preparing to attack, they thought it better to sheer off. but before doing so they managed to remove all the men, and as many of the brig's stores as they could save, and then set the vessel on fire. although byron was disappointed in not having captured a prize, he was glad to hear that the brig had been burnt to the water's edge. it was estimated that the loss of that vessel to the enemy would amount to nearly , dollars, and the little garrison of missolonghi was highly elated at so important an achievement. on february a serious event occurred, which caused something like a revolution at missolonghi, and might have been attended with more serious consequences if byron had not shown a firm hand. it is thus related by millingen: 'a sentry had been placed at the gate of the seraglio to prevent anyone who did not belong to the laboratory from entering. a suliote named toti, presented himself, and, without paying the slightest attention to the prohibition, boldly walked in. lieutenant sass, a swede, informed of this, came up to the suliote, and, pushing him roughly, ordered him to go out. on his refusal the officer drew his sword and struck him with its flat side. incensed at this, the suliote, who was of herculean strength, cut the swede's left arm almost entirely off with one stroke of his yataghan, and immediately after shot him through the head. the soldiers belonging to the artillery brigade shut the gate, and after inflicting several wounds on toti, who continued to defend himself, succeeded in securing him. his countrymen, with whom he was a favourite, being informed of the accident, hastened to the seraglio, and would have proceeded to acts of violence, had not their comrade been delivered into their hands. the next morning lieutenant sass was buried with military honours. the suliotes attended the funeral; and thus terminated the temporary misunderstanding between them and the franks.' it appears, from gamba's account of this unfortunate affair, that lieutenant sass was universally esteemed as one of the best and bravest of the foreigners in the service of greece. the suliote chiefs laid all the blame of this affray on sass himself, whose imprudence in striking one of the proud and warlike race cannot be justified. the suliotes had already given many proofs of lawless insubordination, and several skirmishes had previously taken place between them and the people of missolonghi. this last affair brought matters to a head, and byron agreed, with the primates and mavrocordato, that these lawless troops must, at any cost, be got rid of. not only did their presence at missolonghi alarm its inhabitants, but their fighting value had diminished, owing to their determination not to take any part in the projected siege of lepanto, alleging as a reason that they were not disposed to fight against stone walls. their dismissal was, however, not an easy matter, for they were practically masters of the city, and claimed , dollars as arrears of pay. the primates, being applied to by byron, declared that they had no money. under these circumstances it became absolutely necessary for byron to find the money himself, which he did on the understanding that the primates bound themselves to clear the town of this turbulent band. upon payment of this money the suliotes packed up their effects, and departed for arta, thus putting an end to all byron's hopes of capturing the fortress of lepanto. a report was at this time circulated in missolonghi that the turkish authorities had set a price on the lives of all europeans engaged in the greek service. this rumour added enormously to the difficulties of the situation; for the artificers, whom parry had brought out from england to work in the arsenal, struck work, and applied to byron for permission to return home. they said that they had bargained to be conducted into a place of safety. byron tried, says gamba, to persuade them that the affray had been accidental, that, after the departure of the suliotes, nothing of the kind would happen again, and so long as he himself remained there could not be any serious danger. but all arguments were useless; the men were thoroughly demoralized, and went from byron's presence unshaken in their resolve to return to their native land. byron, writing to kennedy on march , says with his usual good-nature: 'the mechanics were all pretty much of the same mind. perhaps they are less to blame than is imagined, since colonel stanhope is said to have told them _that he could not positively say their lives were safe_. i should like to know _where_ our life _is_ safe, either here or anywhere else? with regard to a place of safety, at least such hermetically sealed safety as these persons appeared to desiderate, it is not to be found in greece, at any rate; but missolonghi was supposed to be the place where they would be useful, and their risk was no greater than that of others.' in a letter to barff, some days later, byron once more alludes to these artificers, whose absence began to be seriously felt at the arsenal: 'captain parry will write to you himself on the subject of the artificers' wages, but, with all due allowance for their situation, i cannot see a great deal to pity in their circumstances. they were well paid, housed and fed, expenses granted of every kind, and they marched off at the first alarm. were _they_ more exposed than the rest? or _so much_? neither are they very much embarrassed, for captain parry says that _he knows_ all of them have money, and one in particular a considerable sum.' these are the men in whose interests byron had written to barff: 'six englishmen will soon be in quarantine at zante; they are artificers, and have had enough of greece in fourteen days; if you could recommend them to a passage home, i would thank you; they are good men enough, but do not quite understand the little discrepancies in these countries, and are not used to see shooting and slashing in a domestic quiet way, or (as it forms here) a part of housekeeping. if they should want anything during their quarantine, you can advance them _not more_ than a dollar a day (amongst them) for that period, to purchase them some little extras as comforts (as they are quite out of their element). i cannot afford them more at present. the committee pays their passage.' byron was exceedingly vexed by these proceedings, and began to lose all hope of being of any real service to the greeks. he told gamba that he had lost time, money, patience, and even health, only to meet with deception, calumny, and ingratitude. gamba begged byron to visit athens, partly for the benefit of his health, and partly to be quit for a time from the daily annoyances to which he was subjected. but he refused, and determined to remain in that dismal swamp until he saw what turn things would take in the morea, and until he received news of the success of the loan from london. he resolved meanwhile to fortify missolonghi and anatolico, and to drill the greek troops into something like discipline. in order to reorganize the artillery brigade, byron agreed to furnish money which would encourage the greeks to enlist. artillery was the only arm that it was possible to form, as there were no muskets with bayonets suitable for infantry regiments, and the artillery was deficient both in officers and men. with great difficulty parry succeeded in collecting some greek artificers, and made some slight progress with his laboratory. the weather improved, and byron was able to take long rides, which had an excellent effect on his health and spirits. artillery recruits came in faster than was expected, and were regularly trained for efficient service. it seemed as though the tide had turned. at about this time byron received a letter from mr. barff, strongly urging his return to zante for the purpose of regaining his usual health, which it was feared he would not attain at missolonghi. byron was touched by this mark of friendship, but would not grasp the hand that might have saved his life. 'i am extremely obliged by your offer of your country house (as for all other kindness), in case that my health should require any removal; but i cannot quit greece while there is a chance of my being of (even _supposed_) utility. there is a stake worth millions such as i am, and while i can stand at all, i must stand by the cause. while i say this, i am aware of the difficulties, dissensions, and defects of the greeks themselves; but allowances must be made for them by all reasonable people.' it may seem strange, but it is nevertheless certain, that byron found more pleasure in the society of parry, that 'rough, burly fellow,' than he did in the companionship of anyone else at missolonghi. he thoroughly trusted the man, and even confided in him without reserve. parry appreciated the honour of byron's intimacy, and his evidence of what passed during the last few weeks of byron's life is, so far as we are able to judge, quite reliable. he tells us that byron had taken a small body of suliotes into his own pay, and kept them about his person as a bodyguard. they consisted altogether of fifty-six men, and of these a certain number were always on duty. a large outer room in byron's house was used by them, and their carbines were hung upon its walls. 'in this room,' says parry, 'and among these rude soldiers, lord byron was accustomed to walk a great deal, especially in wet weather. on these occasions he was almost always accompanied by his favourite dog, lion, who was perhaps his dearest and most affectionate friend. they were, indeed, very seldom separated. riding or walking, sitting or standing, lion was his constant attendant. he can scarcely be said to have forsaken him even in sleep. every evening lion went to see that his master was safe before he lay down himself, and then he took his station close to his door, a guard certainly as faithful as lord byron's suliotes. 'with lion lord byron was accustomed, not only to associate, but to commune very much. his most usual phrase was, "lion, you are no rogue, lion"; or, "lion, thou art an honest fellow, lion." the dog's eyes sparkled, and his tail swept the floor, as he sat with haunches on the ground. "thou art more faithful than men, lion; i trust thee more." lion sprang up, and barked, and bounded round his master, as much as to say, "you may trust me; i will watch actively on every side." then byron would fondle the dog, and say, "lion, i love thee; thou art my faithful dog!" and lion jumped and kissed his master's hand, by way of acknowledgment. in this manner, when in the dog's company, byron passed a good deal of time, and seemed more contented and happy than at any other hour during the day. this valuable and affectionate animal was, after byron's death, brought to england and placed under the care of mrs. leigh, his lordship's sister.' parry gives a graphic description of the state of missolonghi during this period, which compelled byron to take a circuitous route whenever the state of the weather permitted him to ride. the pavements and condition of the streets were so bad that it was impossible to ride through them without the risk of breaking one's neck. 'lord byron's horses were therefore generally led to the gate of the town, while his lordship, in a small punt, was rowed along the harbour, and up what is called the military canal. this terminates not far from the gate; here he would land, and mount his horse.' the suliote guard always attended byron during his rides; and, though on foot, it was surprising to see their swiftness, says parry. with carbines carried at the trail in their right hands, these agile mountaineers kept pace with the horses, even when byron went at a gallop. it was a matter of honour with these suliotes never to desert their chief; for they considered themselves responsible both to greece and to england for his safety. parry says: 'they were tall men, and remarkably well formed. perhaps, taken all together, no sovereign in europe could boast of having a finer set of men for his bodyguard.' byron while in greece abandoned his habit of spending the whole morning in bed, as was his custom in italy. he rose at nine o'clock, and breakfasted at ten. this meal consisted of tea without either milk or sugar, dry toast, and water-cresses. 'during his breakfast,' says parry, 'i generally waited on him to make the necessary reports, and to take his orders for the work of the day. when this business was settled, i retired to give the orders which i had received, and returned to lord byron by eleven o'clock at latest. his lordship would then inspect the accounts, and, with the assistance of his secretary, checked every item in a business-like manner. if the weather permitted, he afterwards rode out; if it did not, he used to amuse himself by shooting at a mark with pistols. though his hand trembled much, his aim was sure, and he could hit an egg four times out of five at a distance of ten or twelve yards.' after an early dinner, composed of dried toast, vegetables, and cheese, with a very small quantity of wine or cider (parry assures us that he never drank any spirituous liquors during any part of the day or night), byron would attend the drilling of the officers of his corps, in an outer apartment of his own dwelling, and went through all the exercises which it was proper for them to learn. when this was finished he very often played a bout of singlestick, or underwent some other severe muscular exertion. he then retired for the evening, to spin yarns with his friends or to study military tactics. parry says: 'at eleven o'clock i left him, and i was generally the last person he saw, except his servants. he then retired, not to sleep, but to study. till nearly four o'clock every morning byron was continually engaged reading or writing, and rarely slept more than five hours. in this manner did he pass nearly every day of the time i had the pleasure of knowing him.' it was at the end of february that mr. george finlay, who afterwards wrote a 'history of greece,' arrived at missolonghi. he brought a message from odysseus, and also from edward trelawny, inviting both byron and mavrocordato to a conference at salona. gamba, writing on february , , says: 'we had news from the morea that their discords were almost at an end. the government was daily acquiring credit.... on the whole, greek affairs appeared to take as favourable an aspect as we could well desire.... my lord and prince mavrocordato have settled to go to salona in a fortnight.' on the following day gamba wrote in his journal these ominous words: 'lord byron is indisposed. he complained to me that he was often attacked by vertigoes, which made him feel as if intoxicated. he had also very disagreeable nervous sensations, which he said resembled the feeling of fear, although he knew there was no cause for alarm. the weather got worse, and he could not ride on horseback.' on march all the shops in the town of missolonghi were shut, owing to a report that there was a case of the plague there. it seems that a greek merchant who came from gastuni was attacked with violent sickness and died within a few hours. after death several black pustules appeared on his face, arms, and back. the doctors were undecided as to whether it was a case of poisoning or of plague. it was ascertained that great mortality prevailed at gastuni, but whether the plague or a fever was not known. every possible precaution was taken to prevent infection, and the greatest alarm prevailed in the town. everyone walked with a stick, to keep off the passer-by. it was realized by the doctors that, in a country so devoid of cleanliness, the plague would make alarming strides. byron sent an express to zante to communicate the intelligence to the resident, and began to make plans for going into the mountains if the plague broke out. on the following day news arrived from gastuni that there were no cases of the plague there. this intelligence restored a general confidence, and business was resumed as usual. meanwhile, says gamba, 'the drilling of our company made great progress, and in three or four weeks we should have been ready to take the field. we exercised the brigade in all sorts of movements. lord byron joined us, and practised with us at the sabre and foil: notwithstanding his lameness, he was very adroit.' the following anecdote, which is given on the authority of parry, will show the respect in which byron was held by the peasants in greece: 'byron one day returned from his ride more than usually pleased. an interesting country-woman, with a fine family, had come out of her cottage and presented him with a curd cheese and some honey, and could not be persuaded to accept payment for it. '"i have felt," he said, "more pleasure this day, and at this circumstance, than for a long time past." then, describing to me where he had seen her, he ordered me to find her out, and make her a present in return. "the peasantry," he said, "are by far the most kind, humane, and honest part of the population; they redeem the character of their countrymen. the other classes are so debased by slavery--accustomed, like all slaves, never to speak truth, but only what will please their masters--that they cannot be trusted. greece would not be worth saving but for the peasantry." 'lord byron then sat down to his cheese, and insisted on our partaking of his fare. a bottle of porter was sent for and broached, that we might join byron in drinking health and happiness to the kind family, which had procured him so great a pleasure.' chapter xii it has been suggested by byron's enemies that he flattered himself with the notion of some day becoming king of greece, and that his conduct during the latter part of his life was influenced by ambition. the idea is, of course, absurd. no one knew better than byron that the greek _leaders_ were not disposed to accept a king at that time. he also knew that, in order to attain that position, it would have been necessary to have recourse to measures which were utterly repugnant to his deep sense of humanity and justice. that byron may have been sounded by some of the intriguing chieftains with some such suggestion is more than probable, but he was far too honest to walk into the snare. one day he said to parry: 'i have experienced, since my arrival at missolonghi, offers that would surprise you, were i to tell you of them, and which would turn the head of any man less satiated than i am, and more desirous of possessing power than of contributing to freedom and happiness. to all these offers, and to every application made to me, which had a tendency to provoke disputes or increase discord, i have always replied: "i came here to serve greece; agree among yourselves for the good of your country, and whatever is your _united_ resolve, and whatever the government commands, i shall be ready to support with my fortune and my sword." we who came here to fight for greece have no right to meddle with its internal affairs, or dictate to the people or government.' that byron, if he had lived, and if he had chosen to _usurp_ power, could have made himself a dictator admits of no doubt. in the then state of that distracted country, and the well-known mercenary disposition of the greeks, he might with his dollars have raised an army which would have made him supreme in greece. 'no single chieftain,' parry says, '_could_ have resisted; and all of them would have been compelled--because they would not trust one another--to join their forces with byron's. the whole of the suliotes were at his beck and call. he could have procured the assassination of any man in greece for a sum too trifling to mention.' but byron had no such views; he never wished to possess political power in greece. he had come to serve the greeks on their own conditions, and nothing could have made him swerve from that intention. byron's talk with trelawny at cephalonia on this subject was not serious, and it took place before he had mastered all the perplexing problems connected with greece. it is to byron's lasting credit that, with so many opportunities for self-aggrandizement, he should have proved himself so unselfish and high-minded. what might have happened if he had been able to attend the congress at salona we shall never know. but we feel confident, from a long and close study of byron's character, that, even if the government and the chieftains had offered him the throne of greece, he would have refused it. not only would such a throne have been, figuratively, poised in air, swayed by every breath which the rival chieftains would have blown upon it, but byron himself would have been accused, throughout the length and breadth of europe, of exploiting the sufferings of greece for his own personal aggrandizement. while we are discussing this question, it is well to understand the position of affairs at the time when the proposal to hold a congress at salona was made. the ostensible object of the congress was to shake hands all round, to let bygones be bygones, and to unite all available forces in a spirit of amity. it was high time. the morea was troubled by the hostilities between colocotroni's men and government factions. colocotroni[ ] himself was shut up in tripolitza, and his son pano in napoli di romagna. eastern greece was more or less tranquil. odysseus[ ] was at negropont, from whence seven hundred albanians had lately absconded. the passes of thermopylæ were insecure. although western greece was for the moment tranquil, life in missolonghi was not worth an hour's purchase; and there was a serious split between the so-called odysseans and the party of mavrocordato, skilfully fostered by both colonel stanhope and odysseus. though candia was subdued, the peasantry threatened a rising in the mountains; the albanians were discontented; and, finally, the government itself was not sleeping on a bed of roses, for it had most of the great military chiefs dead against it. there were, in fact, at that time two governments--one at argos and one at tripolitza--and both hostile to each other. the primates were in favour of a turkish form of government, and they had great influence in the morea. the chiefs, on the contrary, while professing democratic principles, were really in favour of frank terrorism and plunder. some of them were personally brave; others were the offspring of heroes, whom the turks had never been able to subdue, and who held a sort of feudal tenure over lands which they had kept by the sword. the people of the peloponnesus were under the influence of the civil and military oligarchs; those of eastern and western greece were chiefly under the captains. of these, odysseus and mavrocordato were the most influential. the islands hydra and spezzia were under the influence of some rich oligarchs; while ipsara was purely democratic. the only virtue to be found in greece was monopolized by the peasantry, who had passed through a long period of turkish oppression without being tainted by that corruption which was so prevalent in the towns. indeed, the peasants and some of the islanders were the finest examples of the 'national' party, which had never been subdued by military or civil tyrants. when we consider the mercenary character of the greeks, their real or assumed poverty, their insatiable demands for byron's money; when one realizes the hopeless tangle into which greed and ambition had thrown the affairs of greece (the open hostility of the capitanis to any settled form of government), it is evident that the supreme management of such a circus would have been no sinecure. no one believed that greece, under the conditions then prevailing, would have found repose under a foreign king. nothing short of a cruel, unflinching despotism would have quieted the country. it is, of course, possible that the chiefs assembled at salona would have offered to byron the general direction of affairs in the western continent. gamba says that he had heard rumours to the effect that in a short time the general government of greece would have been placed in byron's hands. 'considering,' he says, 'the vast addition to his authority which the arrival of the moneys from england would have insured to byron, such an idea is by no means chimerical.' writing to barff on march , byron says: 'in a few days prince mavrocordato and myself intend to proceed to salona at the request of odysseus and the chiefs of eastern greece, to concert, if possible, a plan of union between western and eastern greece, and to take measures, offensive and defensive, for the ensuing campaign. mavrocordato is _almost_ recalled by the _new_ government to the morea (to take the lead, i rather think), and they have written to propose to me to go either to the morea with him, or to take the general direction of affairs in this quarter with general londos, and any other i may choose, to form a council. andrea londos is my old friend and acquaintance, since we were lads in greece together. it would be difficult to give a positive answer till the salona meeting is over; but i am willing to serve them in any capacity they please, either commanding or commanded--it is much the same to me, as long as i can be of any presumed use to them.' chapter xiii on march news reached missolonghi that the greek loan had been successfully raised in london. byron sent this welcome intelligence to the greek government, with a request that no time should be lost in fitting out the fleet at the different islands. the artillery corps at missolonghi was augmented by one hundred regular troops under the command of lambro, a brave suliote chief, for the better protection of the guns stationed in the mountains. unfortunately, the weather, upon which byron so much depended for exercise, could not possibly have been worse. incessant rain and impassable roads confined him to the house until his health was seriously affected. he constantly complained of oppression on his chest, and was altogether in a depressed condition of mind. on the day fixed for his departure for salona, the river phidari was so swollen as not to be fordable, and the roads in every direction were impassable. for many days the rain poured down in torrents, until, to employ byron's quaint phrase, 'the dykes of holland, when broken down, would be the deserts of arabia for dryness, in comparison.' on march an event occurred to which byron has alluded in his published correspondence. it was a trifling matter enough, but might have had serious consequences if byron had not shown great firmness. one of the artillerymen, an italian, had robbed a poor peasant in the market-place of piastres. the man was in due course arrested, tried by court-martial, and convicted. there was no doubt as to his guilt, but a serious dispute arose among the officers as to his punishment. the germans were for the bastinado; but that was contrary to the french military code, under which the man was tried, and byron strongly opposed its infliction. he declared that, so far as he was concerned, no barbarous usages should be introduced into greece, especially as such a mode of punishment would disgust rather than reform. he proposed that, instead of corporal punishment, the offender should have his uniform stripped off his back, and be marched through the streets, bearing a label describing the nature of his offence. he was then to be handed over to the regular police and imprisoned for a time. this example of severity, tempered by humanity, produced an excellent effect upon the soldiers and the citizens of missolonghi. in the course of the evening some high words passed on the subject between three englishmen, two of them being officers of the brigade, cards were exchanged, and two duels were to be fought the next morning. byron did not hear of this until late at night. he then ordered gamba to arrest the whole party. when they were afterwards brought before byron, he with some difficulty prevailed upon them to shake hands, and thus averted a serious scandal. gamba, writing on march , says that the primates of missolonghi on that day presented byron with the freedom of their town. 'this new honour,' he says, 'did but entail upon lord byron the necessity for greater sacrifices. the poverty of the government and the town became daily more apparent. they could not furnish the soldiers' rations nor pay their arrears; nor was there forthcoming a single piastre of the , dollars which the primates had agreed to furnish for the fortifications. thus the whole charge fell upon lord byron.' on the following night a greek came with tears rolling down his cheeks, and complained that one of byron's soldiers had, in a drunken frenzy, broken open his door and with drawn sword alarmed his whole family. he appealed to byron for protection. without a moment's hesitation byron sent an officer with a file of men to arrest the delinquent. he was a russian who had lately arrived and enlisted in the artillery brigade. the man vowed that the charge was false; that he had lodged in that house for several days, and that he only broke the door open because the greek would not admit him, and kept him outside in the rain. he moreover complained of the time and manner of his arrest, and sent a letter to byron accusing the officer who had arrested him. byron's reply was as follows: '_april , ._ 'sir, 'i have the honour to reply to your letter of this day. in consequence of an urgent and, to all appearances, a well-founded complaint, made to me yesterday evening, i gave orders to mr. hesketh to proceed to your quarters with the soldiers of his guard, and to remove you from your house to the seraglio, because the owner of your house declared himself and his family to be in immediate danger from your conduct; and added that that was not the first time that you had placed them in similar circumstances. neither mr. hesketh nor myself could imagine that you were in bed, as we had been assured to the contrary; and certainly such a situation was not contemplated. but mr. hesketh had positive orders to conduct you from your quarters to those of the artillery brigade; at the same time being desired to use no violence; nor does it appear that any was had recourse to. this measure was adopted because your landlord assured me, when i proposed to put off the inquiry until the next day, that he could not return to his house without a guard for his protection, and that he had left his wife and daughter, and family, in the greatest alarm; on that account putting them under our immediate protection; the case admitted of no delay. as i am not aware that mr. hesketh exceeded his orders, i cannot take any measures to punish him; but i have no objection to examine minutely into his conduct. you ought to recollect that entering into the auxiliary greek corps, now under my orders, at your own sole request and positive desire, you incurred the obligation of obeying the laws of the country, as well as those of the service. 'i have the honour to be, etc., 'n. b.' it is doubtful whether any other commanding officer would, in similar circumstances, have taken the trouble to write such a letter to a private in his regiment. we merely allude to the incident in order to show that even in trivial matters byron performed his duty towards those under his command, taking especial interest in each case, so that breaches of discipline might not be too harshly treated by his subordinates. on april the whole town of missolonghi was thrown into a panic of alarm. a rumour quickly spread that a body of troops had disembarked at chioneri, a village on the southern shore of the city. at two o'clock in the afternoon about one hundred and fifty men, belonging to the chief cariascachi, landed, and demanded reparation for an injury which had been inflicted on his nephew by some boatmen belonging to missolonghi. meanwhile the man who wounded the young man had absconded; and the soldiers, unable to wreak their vengeance upon them, arrested two of the primates, and sent them to cariascachi as hostages. they then seized the fort at vasiladi, a small mud island commanding the flats, which on the sea side afford an impenetrable defence to the town. cariascachi further declared that he would neither give up the primates nor vasiladi until the men who had wounded his nephew were delivered into his hands. on the same day seven turkish vessels anchored off vasiladi. cariascachi had long been suspected of a treasonable correspondence with the turks, and mavrocordato was quick to perceive that his conduct on this occasion, coinciding as it did with the movements of the enemy, was part of a conspiracy against his authority in western greece. he expected every moment to hear that the turks had taken possession of vasiladi, and guessed that the soldiers sent by cariascachi, ostensibly to avenge a private injury, had really come to open the gates to the turks. it was a critical moment indeed. all the disposable troops were in the provinces; the suliotes were marching to arta, and some of them had already accepted service under cariascachi himself. byron, with wonderful self-command, concealed his indignation at such evidence of treason, and urged mavrocordato to dismiss his fears, and to display all possible energy in order to defeat cariascachi's designs. he offered his own services, that of the artillery brigade, and of the three hundred suliotes who formed his guard. gunboats were sent to vasiladi with orders to dislodge the rebels, and byron resolved that the suspected treason of this greek chieftain should be severely punished. the batteries of missolonghi were immediately secured by the artillerymen, and several of their guns were pointed towards the town, so as to prevent a surprise. at the approach of the gunboats the rebels precipitately fled, and, perceiving the resolute bearing assumed by byron's troops, they immediately surrendered the primates, and humbly asked permission to retire unmolested. this was of course granted, but cariascachi was subsequently tried by court-martial, and found guilty of holding treasonable communications with the enemy. according to millingen, who was at missolonghi at that time, it was not proved against cariascachi that he had ever proposed to deliver up vasiladi and missolonghi to the turks; but appearances were certainly against him, and his subsequent flight to agraffa seems to have given evidence of a guilty conscience. byron was deeply mortified by this example of treason on the part of a greek chieftain. he had not been prepared to meet with black-hearted treachery, or to see greeks conspiring against their own country, courting the chains of their former masters, and bargaining the liberties and very existence of their own fellow-countrymen. 'ignorant at first,' says millingen, 'how far the ramifications of this conspiracy might extend, he trembled to think of the consequences. personal fear never entered his mind, although most of the suliotes who composed his guard, as soon as they heard that their compatriots at anatolico sided with cariascachi, declared openly that they would not act against their countrymen. the hopes that byron had formed for the future of greece were for a moment obscured. he feared lest the news of a civil war in the peloponnesus, and of a conspiracy to introduce the turks into western greece, would, on reaching england, ruin the greek credit, and preclude all hope of obtaining a loan, which to him appeared indispensable to the salvation of her liberty.' while absorbed by the gloomy reflections to which this incident gave rise, a spy was discovered under byron's own roof. a man named constantine volpiotti, it was asserted, had had several conferences with cariascachi at anatolico. letters found upon him confirmed the worst suspicions, and he was handed over by byron's orders to the tender mercies of the town guard. a military commission subsequently examined minutely into the whole affair. it appears that the incriminating letters found in volpiotti's clothes were those written by mavrocordato and other patriots to cariascachi, reproaching him for his treachery and connivance with the enemy. these volpiotti was to show to omer pacha as certificates to prove how faithful cariascachi had ever been to his engagements with him. 'it resulted, from the examination which volpiotti underwent, that he had been charged to ask omer pacha for a _bouyourtè_, appointing cariascachi capitano of the province of agraffa. cariascachi engaged in return to co-operate with vernakiotti in the reduction of western greece, and to draw over to his party several of the chiefs who had hitherto most faithfully adhered to the greek government.' under these circumstances it was not wise, even if it were politic, to allow cariascachi to escape. byron felt this keenly, and foresaw what actually happened. cariascachi was no sooner clear of anatolico than he placed himself at the head of his followers, and, assisted by andrea isco, of macrinoro, he again made agraffa and its adjoining provinces the scene of his depredations and daily sanguinary encounters. 'at no time in his life,' says millingen, 'did lord byron find himself in circumstances more calculated to render him unhappy. the cup of health had dropped from his lips, and constant anxiety and suffering operated powerfully on his mind, already a prey to melancholy apprehensions, and disappointment, increased by disgust. continually haunted by a dread of epilepsy or palsy, he fell into the lowest state of hypochondriasis, and vented his sorrows in language which, though sometimes sublime, was at others as peevish and capricious as that of an unruly and quarrelsome child.' gamba tells us that byron, after the events above mentioned, became nervous and irritable. he had not been on horseback for some days on account of the weather, but on april , though the weather was threatening, he determined to ride. three miles from the town he and gamba were caught in a heavy downpour of rain, and they returned to the town walls wet through and in a violent perspiration. gamba says: 'i have before mentioned that it was our practice to dismount at the walls, and return to our house in a boat. this day, however, i entreated byron to return home on horseback the whole way, as it would be dangerous, hot as he was, to remain exposed to the rain in a boat for half an hour. but he would not listen to me, and said: "i should make a pretty soldier indeed, if i were to care for such a trifle." accordingly we dismounted, and got into the boat as usual. two hours after his return home, he was seized with a shuddering: he complained of fever and rheumatic pains. at eight in the evening i entered his rooms; he was lying on a sofa, restless and melancholy.' byron said that he suffered a great deal of pain, and in consequence dr. bruno proposed to bleed him. bruno seems to have considered the lancet as a sovereign remedy for all the ills of life. 'have you no other remedy than bleeding? there are many more die of the lancet than the lance,' said byron, as he declined his doctor's proposal. on the following day he was perpetually shuddering, but he got up at his usual hour and transacted business. he did not, however, leave the house. on april byron resolved to ride out an hour before his usual time, fearing that, if he waited, he would be prevented by the rain. 'we rode for a long time in the olive woods,' says gamba. 'lambro, a suliote officer, accompanied by a numerous suite, attended byron, who spoke much and appeared to be in good spirits. 'the next day he kept his bed with an attack of rheumatic fever. it was thought that his saddle was wet; but it is more probable that he was really suffering from his previous exposure to the rain, which perhaps affected him the more readily on account of his over-abstemious mode of life.' the dates to which gamba refers in the statement we have quoted were april and . it is important to remark that in fletcher's account, published in the _westminster review_, it is stated that the last time byron rode out was on april . according to parry, who supports fletcher's opinion, byron was very unwell on april , and did not leave his house. he had shivering fits, and complained of pains, particularly in his bones and head. 'he talked a great deal,' says parry, 'and i thought in rather a wandering manner. i became alarmed for his safety, and earnestly begged him to try a change of air and scene at zante.' gamba, in his journal, says that byron rose from his bed on april , but did not leave the house. the fever appeared to be diminished, but the pains in his head and bones continued. he was melancholy and irritable. he had not slept since his attack, and could take no other nourishment than a little broth and a spoonful or two of arrowroot. on the th he got out of bed at noon; he was calmer. the fever had apparently diminished, but he was very weak, and still complained of pains in his head. it was with the greatest difficulty, says gamba, that the physicians dissuaded him from going out riding, which, in spite of the threatening weather, he desired to do. there seems at that time to have been no suspicion of danger, and it was even supposed by his doctors that the malady was under control. byron himself said that he was rather glad of his fever, as it might cure him of his tendency to epilepsy. he attended to his correspondence as usual. gamba says: 'i think it was on this day that, as i was sitting near him on his sofa, he said to me, "i was afraid i was losing my memory, and, in order to try, i attempted to repeat some latin verses with the english translation, which i have not tried to recollect since i was at school. i remembered them all except the last word of one of the hexameters."' on april the fever was still upon him, says gamba, but all pain had ceased. he was easier, and expressed a wish to ride out, but the weather would not permit. he transacted business, and received, among others, a letter from the turkish governor to whom he had sent the prisoners he had liberated. the turk thanked byron for his courtesy, and asked for a repetition of this favour. 'the letter pleased him much,' says gamba. according to fletcher, it appears that both on that day and the day previous byron had a suspicion that his complaint was not understood by his doctors. parry says that on april the doctors thought there was no danger, and said so, openly. he paid byron a visit, and remained at his bedside from p.m. until o'clock. 'lord byron spoke of death with great composure,' says parry; 'and though he did not think that his end was so very near, there was something about him so serious and so firm, so resigned and composed, so different from anything i had ever before seen in him, that my mind misgave me.' byron then spoke of the sadness of being ill in such a place as missolonghi, and seemed to have imagined the possibility of a reconciliation with his wife. 'when i left italy,' said byron, 'i had time on board the brig to give full scope to memory and reflection. i am convinced of the happiness of domestic life. no man on earth respects a virtuous woman more than i do, and the prospect of retirement in england with my wife and daughter gives me an idea of happiness i have never before experienced. retirement will be everything for me, for heretofore my life has been like the ocean in a storm.' byron then spoke of tita (and fletcher also, doubtless, though parry does not mention that honest and faithful servant), and said that bruno was an excellent young man and very skilful, but too much agitated. he hoped that parry would come to him as often as possible, as he was jaded to death by the worrying of his doctors, and the evident anxiety of all those who wished him well. on a wretched fever-stricken swamp, in a house barely weather-tight, in a miserable room, far from all those whom he loved on earth, lay the 'pilgrim of eternity,' his life, so full of promise, slowly flickering out. the pestilent sirocco was blowing a hurricane, and the rain was falling with almost tropical violence. gamba had met with an accident which confined him to his quarters in another part of the town, a circumstance which deprived byron of a loyal friend in the hour of his direst need. under these circumstances, parry was a godsend to byron, and he seems to have done everything possible to cheer him in his moments of depression. on april byron was alarmingly ill, and, according to parry, almost constantly delirious. he spoke alternately in english and italian, and his thoughts wandered. the doctors were not alarmed, and told parry that byron would certainly recover. according to millingen's account, dr. bruno called him in for a consultation on the th, and we shall see what millingen thought of his patient's condition when we lay his narrative before the reader. when parry visited byron on the morning of the th, he was at times delirious. he appeared to be much worse than on the day before. the doctors succeeded in bleeding him twice, and both times he fainted. 'his debility was excessive. he complained bitterly of the want of sleep, as delirious patients do complain, in a wild, rambling manner. he said he had not slept for more than a week, when, in fact, he had repeatedly slept at short intervals, disturbedly indeed, but still it was sleep. he had now ceased to think or talk of death; he had probably no idea that death was so near at hand, for his senses were in such a state that they rarely allowed him to form a correct idea of anything.' on the th gamba managed to get to byron's room, and was struck by the change in his appearance. 'he was very calm,' says gamba, 'and talked to me in the kindest manner about my having sprained my ankle. in a hollow, sepulchral tone, he said: "take care of your foot. i know by experience how painful it must be." i could not stay near his bed: a flood of tears rushed into my eyes, and i was obliged to withdraw. this was the first day that the medical men seemed to entertain serious apprehensions.' on this day gamba heard that dr. thomas, of zante, had been sent for. it is unfortunate that this was not done sooner; but byron had forbidden fletcher to send for that excellent medical man, when he proposed it two days previously. during the night of the th byron became delirious, and wandered in his speech; he fancied himself at the head of his suliotes, assailing the walls of lepanto--a wish that had lain very close to his heart for many and many a day. it was his dream of a soldier's glory, to die fighting, sword in hand. on the morning of the th drs. millingen and bruno were alarmed by symptoms of an inflammation of the brain, and proposed another bleeding, to which byron consented, but soon ordered the vein to be closed. 'at noon,' says gamba, 'i came to his bedside. he asked me if there were any letters for him. there was one from the archbishop ignatius to him, which told byron that the sultan had proclaimed him, in full divan, an enemy of the porte. i thought it best not to let him know of the arrival of that letter. a few hours afterwards other letters arrived from england from his most intimate friends, full of good news, and most consolatory in every way, particularly one from mr. hobhouse, and another from douglas kinnaird; but he had then become unconscious--it was too late!' april , , was easter day, a holiday throughout the length and breadth of greece, and a noisy one, too. it is the day on which the greeks at missolonghi were accustomed to discharge their firearms and great guns. prince mavrocordato gave orders that parry should march his artillery brigade and suliotes to some distance from the town, in order to attract the populace from the vicinity of byron's house. at the same time the town guard patrolled the streets, and informed people of byron's danger, begging them to make as little noise as possible. the plan succeeded admirably; byron was not disturbed, and at three o'clock in the afternoon he rose, and, leaning on the arm of tita, went into the next room. when seated, he told tita to bring him a book, mentioning it by name. about this time dr. bruno entreated him, with tears in his eyes, to be again bled. 'no,' said byron; 'if my hour is come, i shall die whether i lose my blood or keep it.' after reading a few minutes he became faint, and, leaning on tita's arm, he tottered into the next room and returned to bed. at half-past three, dr. bruno and dr. millingen, becoming more alarmed, wished to call in two other physicians, a dr. freiber, a german, and a greek named luca vaya, the most distinguished of his profession in the town, and physician to mavrocordato. lord byron at first refused to see them; but being told that mavrocordato advised it, he said: 'very well, let them come; but let them look at me and say nothing.' they promised this, and were admitted. when about him and feeling his pulse, one of them wished to speak. 'recollect your promise,' said byron, 'and go away.' in order to form some idea of the state of things while byron's life was slowly ebbing away, we will quote a passage from parry's book, which was published soon after the poet's death: 'dr. bruno i believe to be a very good young man, but he was certainly inadequate to his situation. i do not allude to his medical knowledge, of which i cannot pretend to be a judge; but he lacked firmness, and was so much agitated that he was incapable of bringing whatever knowledge he might possess into use. tita was kind and attentive, and by far the most teachable and useful of all the persons about lord byron. as there was nobody invested with any authority over his household after he fell ill, there was neither method, order, nor quiet, in his apartments. a clever, skilful english surgeon, possessing the confidence of his patient, would have put all this in train; but dr. bruno had no idea of doing any such thing. there was also a want of many comforts which, to the sick, may be called necessaries, and there was a dreadful confusion of tongues. in his agitation dr. bruno's english, and he spoke but imperfectly, was unintellegible; fletcher's italian was equally bad. i speak nothing but english; tita then spoke nothing but italian; and the ordinary greek domestics were incomprehensible to us all. in all the attendants there was the officiousness of zeal; but, owing to their ignorance of each other's language, their zeal only added to the confusion. this circumstance, and the absence of common necessaries, made lord byron's apartment such a picture of distress, and even anguish, during the two or three last days of his life, as i never before beheld, and wish never again to witness.' at four o'clock on april , according to gamba, byron seemed to be aware of his approaching end. dr. millingen, fletcher, and tita, were at his bedside. strange though it may seem to us in these far-off days, with our experience of medical men, dr. millingen, unable to restrain his tears, walked out of the room. tita also wept profusely, and would have retired if byron had not held his hand. byron looked at him steadily, and said, half smiling, in italian: 'oh, questa è una bella scena.' he then seemed to reflect a moment, and exclaimed, 'call parry.' 'almost immediately afterwards,' says gamba, 'a fit of delirium ensued, and he began to talk wildly, as if he were mounting a breach in an assault. he called out, half in english, half in italian: "forwards--forwards--courage--follow my example--don't be afraid!"' when he came to himself fletcher was with him. he then knew that he was dying, and seemed very anxious to make his servant understand his wishes. he was very considerate about his servants, and said that he was afraid they would suffer from sitting up so long in attendance upon him. byron said, 'i wish to do something for tita and luca.' 'my lord,' said fletcher, 'for god's sake never mind that now, but talk of something of more importance.' but he returned to the same topic, and, taking fletcher by the hand, continued: 'you will be provided for--and now hear my last wishes.' fletcher begged that he might bring pen and paper to take down his words. 'no,' replied lord byron, 'there is no time--mind you execute my orders. go to my sister--tell her--go to lady byron--you will see her, and say----' here his voice faltered, and gradually became indistinct; but still he continued muttering something in a very earnest manner for nearly twenty minutes, though in such a tone that only a few words could be distinguished. these were only names: 'augusta,' 'ada,' 'hobhouse,' 'kinnaird.' he then said: 'now i have told you all.' 'my lord,' replied fletcher, 'i have not understood a word your lordship has been saying.' byron looked most distressed at this, and said, 'not understand me? what a pity! then it is too late--all is over.' 'i hope not,' answered fletcher; 'but the lord's will be done.' byron continued, 'yes, not mine.' he then tried to utter a few words, of which none were intelligible except, 'my sister--my child.' the doctors began to concur in an opinion which one might have thought sufficiently obvious from the first, namely, that the principal danger to the patient was his extreme weakness, and now agreed to administer restoratives. dr. bruno, however, thought otherwise, but agreed to administer a dose of claret, bark, and opium, and to apply blisters to the soles of byron's feet. he took the draught readily, but for some time refused the blisters. at last they were applied, and byron fell asleep. gamba says: 'he awoke in half an hour. i wished to go to him, but i had not the heart. parry went; byron knew him, and squeezed his hand.' parry says: 'when lord byron took my hand, i found his hands were deadly cold. with tita's assistance, i endeavoured gently to create a little warmth in them, and i also loosened the bandage which was tied round his head. till this was done, he seemed in great pain--clenched his hands at times, and gnashed his teeth. he bore the loosening of the band passively; and after it was loosened, he shed tears. i encouraged him to weep, and said: "my lord, i thank god, i hope you will now be better; shed as many tears as you can; you will sleep and find ease." he replied faintly, "yes, the pain is gone; i shall sleep now." he took my hand, uttered a faint "good-night," and dropped to sleep. my heart ached, but i thought then his sufferings were over, and that he would wake no more. he did wake again, however, and i went to him; he knew me, though scarcely. he was less distracted than i had seen him for some time before; there was the calmness of resignation, but there was also the stupor of death. he tried to utter his wishes, but he was not able to do so. he said something about rewarding tita, and uttered several incoherent words. there was either no meaning in what he said, or it was such a meaning as we could not expect at that moment. his eyes continued open only a short time, and then, at about six o'clock in the evening of the th april, he sank into a slumber, or rather, i should say, a stupor, and woke and knew no more.' it must be borne in mind that the details given above were written by a man who asserts that he was present during the period of which he gives an account. gamba, as we have seen, was not present, and the details which he gives are avowedly gathered from those who happened to be in the room. 'from those about him,' says gamba, 'i collected that, either at this time or in his former interval of reason, byron could be understood to say, "poor greece! poor town! my poor servants!" also, "why was i not aware of this sooner?" and, "my hour is come! i do not care for death. but why did i not go home before i came here?" at another time he said: "there are things which make the world dear to me."' he said this in italian, and parry may of course not have understood him. 'io lascio qualche cosa di caro nel mondo.' he also said: 'i am content to die.' in speaking of greece, he said: 'i have given her my time, my means, my health, and now i give her my life! what could i do more?' byron remained insensible, immovable, for twenty-four hours. there were occasional symptoms of suffocation, and a rattling in the throat, which induced his servants occasionally to raise his head. gamba says: 'means were taken to rouse him from his lethargy, but in vain. a great many leeches were applied to his temples, and the blood flowed copiously all night. it was exactly a quarter past six on the next day, the th april, that he was seen to open his eyes, and immediately close them again. the doctors felt his pulse--he was gone!' chapter xiv it matters little what we now think of byron as a man. after eighty-four years, his personality is of less public interest than his achievements, while our capacity for forming an adequate judgment of his character is necessarily dependent on second-hand evidence, some of which is false, and much tainted by prejudice. but what did those hard men of action who stood at his side in those terrible days in greece--stanhope, parry, finlay, blaquière, millingen, trelawny--what did they think of byron? stanhope, who was at salona, wrote to bowring on april : 'a courier has just arrived from the chief scalza. alas! all our fears are realized. the soul of byron has taken its last flight. england has lost her brightest genius--greece her noblest friend. to console them for the loss, he has left behind the emanations of his splendid mind. if byron had faults, he had redeeming virtues too--he sacrificed his comfort, fortune, health, and life, to the cause of an oppressed nation. honoured be his memory! had i the disposal of his ashes, i would place them in the temple of theseus, or in the parthenon at athens.' three days later stanhope wrote again to bowring: 'byron would not refuse to an entire people the benefit of his virtues; he condescended to display them wherever humanity beckoned him to her aid. this single object of devotion to the well-being of a people has raised him to a distinguished pitch of glory among characters dignified by their virtues, of which the illustrious british nation can make so ample a display, and of whom greece hopes to behold many co-operating in her regeneration. having here paid the tribute of admiration due to the virtues of lord byron, eternal may his memory remain with the world!' parry says: 'thus died the truest and greatest poet england has lately given birth to, the warmest-hearted of her philanthropists, the least selfish of her patriots. that the disappointment of his ardent hopes was the primary cause of his illness and death cannot, i think, be doubted. the weight of that disappointment was augmented by the numerous difficulties he met with. he was fretted and annoyed, but he disdained to complain. as soon as it was known that lord byron was dead, sorrow and grief were generally felt in greece. they spread from his own apartments over the town of missolonghi, through the whole of greece, and over every part of civilized europe. no persons, perhaps, after his domestics and personal friends, felt his loss more acutely than the poor citizens of missolonghi. his residence among them procured them food, and insured their protection. but for him they would have been first plundered by the unpaid suliotes, and then left a prey to the turks. not only were the primates and mavrocordato affected on the occasion, but the poorest citizen felt that he had lost a friend. mavrocordato spoke of lord byron as the best friend of greece, and said that his conduct was admirable. "nobody knows," he was heard to say, "except perhaps myself, the loss greece has suffered. her safety even depended on his life. his presence at missolonghi has checked intrigues which will now have uncontrolled sway. by his aid alone have i been able to preserve this city; and now i know that every assistance i derived from and through him will be withdrawn." 'at other cities and places of greece--at salona, where the congress had just assembled; at athens--the grief was equally sincere. lord byron was mourned as the best benefactor to greece. orations were pronounced by the priests, and the same honours were paid to his memory as to the memory of one of their own revered chiefs.' after byron's death finlay wrote these words: 'lord byron's death has shed a lustre on both his writings and his actions; they are in accordance. his life was sacrificed in the cause for which he had early written, and which he constantly supported. his merit would not have been greater had he breathed his last on the isthmus of corinth at the conclusion of a baffled siege. yet such a death would certainly have been more fortunate; for it would have recalled his name oftener to the memory, at least, of those who have no souls. time will put an end to all undue admiration and malicious cant, and the world will ultimately form an estimate of byron's character from his writings and his public conduct. it will then be possible to form a just estimate of the greatness of his genius and his mind, and the real extent of his faults. the ridiculous calumnies which have found a moment's credit will then be utterly forgotten. nor will it be from the cursory memoirs or anecdotes of his contemporaries that his character can be drawn.' blaquière, who had brought out the first instalment of the greek loan, arrived at zante on april , and was there informed of byron's death. he had been among the first to urge byron to hasten his projected visit to greece, and had held a long conversation with him at genoa on the state of affairs in the morea. the following extract is taken from a letter which he wrote to a friend in england: 'thus terminated the life of lord byron, at a moment the most glorious for his own fame, but the most unfortunate for greece; since there is no doubt but, had he lived, many calamities would have been avoided, while his personal credit and guarantee would have prevented the ruinous delay which has taken place with regard to transferring the loan. in thus devoting his life and fortune to the cause of religion and humanity, when he might have continued to enjoy the enthusiastic praises of his contemporaries, he has raised the best monument to his own fame, and has furnished the most conclusive reply to calumny and detraction. when all he had done, and was about to do for the cause, is considered, no wonder that lord byron's death should have produced such an effect. it was, in fact, regarded not only as a national calamity, but as an irreparable loss to every individual in the town of missolonghi, and the english volunteers state that hundreds of the greeks were seen to shed tears when the event was announced. 'with respect to prince mavrocordato, to whom lord byron had rendered the most important services, both as a personal friend and in his capacity of governor-general of western greece, it is unnecessary to say that he could not have received a severer blow. when i saw lord byron at genoa last year, i well remember with what enthusiasm he spoke of his intended visit, and how much he regretted not having joined the standard of freedom long before. when once in greece, he espoused her most sacred cause with zeal. up to the time of his fatal illness he had not advanced less than fifty thousand dollars, and there is no doubt but he intended to devote the whole of his private income to the service of the confederation.' millingen says: 'the most dreadful public calamity could not have spread more general consternation, or more profound and sincere grief, than the unexpected news of lord byron's death. during the few months he had lived among the people of missolonghi, he had given so many proofs of the sincerity and extent of his zeal for the advancement of their best interests. he had, with so much generosity, sacrificed considerable sums to that purpose; he had relieved the distress of so many unfortunate persons, that everyone looked upon him as a father and public benefactor. these titles were not, as they mostly are, the incense of adulation, but the spontaneous tribute of overflowing gratitude. he had succeeded in inspiring the soldiers with the brightest and most sanguine expectations. full of confidence in a chief they loved, they would have followed him in the boldest enterprises. to-day they must follow the corpse of him whom they received but yesterday with the liveliest acclamations.' trelawny, who arrived at missolonghi four days after byron's death, thus writes to stanhope at salona: 'lord byron is dead. with all his faults, i loved him truly; he is connected with every event of the most interesting years of my wandering life. his everyday companion, we lived in ships, boats, and in houses, together; we had no secrets, no reserve, and though we often differed in opinion, we never quarrelled. it gave me pain witnessing his frailties; he only wanted a little excitement to awaken and put forth virtues that redeemed them all.... this is no private grief; the world has lost its greatest man, i my best friend.' on april trelawny wrote again to stanhope: 'i think byron's name was the great means of getting the loan. a mr. marshall with £ , per annum was as far as corfu, and turned back on hearing of byron's death.... the greatest man in the world has resigned his mortality in favour of this sublime cause; for had he remained in italy he had lived!' such was trelawny's opinion of byron in april, . from all that the present writer has been able to gather, both from trelawny's lips and from his 'recollections,' published thirty-four years after byron's death, such was his real opinion to the last. mrs. julian marshall, having called attention[ ] to the fact that, four months after byron's death, trelawny, in a letter to mary shelley, spoke in contemptuous terms of byron, we feel bound to refer to it here. it must be remembered that the letter in question was of a strictly private nature. in making it public, mrs. marshall _unintentionally_ dealt a severe blow at trelawny, which, in justice to his memory, we will endeavour to soften. to anyone acquainted with the character of this remarkable man--the fearless soul of honour--such a _volte-face_ seems absurd, except on the hypothesis that something had transpired, since byron's death, sufficient to destroy a long-tried friendship. the fact is that during those four months the whole situation had changed. trelawny, no longer a free-lance, was practically a prisoner in a cave on mount parnassus. his friend odysseus went about in daily fear of assassination, and was persecuted by the active hostility of a government which both odysseus and trelawny thought was inspired by mavrocordato. trelawny's opinion of the latter, whose cause byron had espoused, may be gathered from his letter to mary shelley: 'a word as to your wooden god mavrocordato. he is a miserable jew, and i hope ere long to see his head removed from his worthless and heartless body. he is a mere shuffling soldier, an aristocratic brute--wants kings and congresses--a poor, weak, shuffling, intriguing, cowardly fellow; so no more about him.' it will be seen that trelawny, when fairly warmed up, did not mince his words. it is indeed a pity that these heated adjectives were served up to the public. it was only because byron had consistently supported mavrocordato as the governor of western greece that trelawny, in his indiscriminative manner, assailed his memory. but his letter was evidently only the peevish outburst of an angry man, and closed with these words: 'i would do much to see and talk to you, but, as i am now too much irritated to disclose the real state of things, i will not mislead you by false statements.' the state of things at the time may be gathered from a letter addressed to colonel stanhope by captain humphreys, who was then serving the greek cause as a volunteer. 'i write, not from a land of liberty and freedom, but from a country at present a prey to anarchy and confusion, with the dismal prospect of future tyranny.... odysseus is at his fortress of parnassus; bribery, assassination, and every provocation, have been employed against him. an english officer, captain fenton, who is with odysseus, as well as trelawny, has been twice attempted to be assassinated, after refusing to accept a bribe of , dollars, to deliver up the fortress. _mavrocordato's agents principally influence the government; the executive body remains stationary; and part of the loan has been employed to secure their re-election._' there is enough in this letter to account for trelawny's irritation; but he was entirely wrong in thinking that byron was in any sense subservient to the man whom he then regarded as the real author of his misfortunes. trelawny had made the mistake of joining the faction of odysseus, but byron was never connected with any faction whatever. odysseus seems to have persuaded trelawny that byron had become a mere tool of mavrocordato, and it was under that erroneous impression that his letter to mary shelley was written. if, as mrs. julian marshall says, 'trelawny's mercurial and impulsive temperament--ever in extremes--was liable to the most sudden revulsion of feeling,' it would surely have been wiser, and certainly fairer, to have withheld the publication of opinions which were not intended for publication, and which he had, in later life, openly disavowed. in his estimate of the character and policy of mavrocordato, he was also mistaken. it would be quite easy to show that mavrocordato was perhaps the only man of his nation, then in greece, who united in an eminent degree unadulterated patriotism with the talents which form a statesman. millingen, who knew him well, tells us that it was fortunate for greece that mavrocordato was so well acquainted with the character of those with whom he had to deal. that knowledge preserved missolonghi, until the arrival of reinforcements enabled it to hold out against omer pacha's assault. mavrocordato, he tells us, never pursued any other object than the good of his country, and never sacrificed her interests to his own ambition. he alone was capable of organizing a civil administration; in fact, he created a stable form of government from the ashes of chaos. so far from his having been a coward, as trelawny asserts, mavrocordato, in his intense desire to serve his country, often placed himself at the head of troops and fought bravely. having held the position of governor-general of western greece in very trying times, he relinquished his command in , in compliance with the orders of his government, which recalled him to anapli, there to fill the post of secretary of state. he sacrificed the whole of his fortune in the service of greece. according to millingen, he was occasionally so distressed for money as to be unable to provide for his daily expenses. enough has been said to show that trelawny's abuse of byron must not be taken too seriously, and that his opinion of mavrocordato was not endorsed by those whose opportunities for judging the prince's conduct were far greater than trelawny's. let us dismiss from our minds the recollection of hasty words written in anger, and let us remember those truer and deeper sentiments which trelawny expressed in his old age: 'i withdrew the black pall and the white shroud, and beheld the body of the pilgrim--more beautiful in death than in life. the contraction of the muscles and skin had effaced every line that time or passion had ever traced upon it. few marble busts would have matched its stainless white, the harmony of its proportions, and perfect finish. and yet he had been dissatisfied with that body, and longed to cast its slough! he was jealous of the genius of shakespeare--that might well be--but where had he seen the face or the form worthy to excite his envy?' chapter xv the news of byron's death spread like wildfire through the streets and bazaars of missolonghi. the whole city seemed stunned by the unexpected blow. byron's illness had been known, but no one dreamed that it would end so fatally. as gamba has well said: 'he died in a strange land, and amongst strangers; but more loved, more sincerely wept, he could never have been wherever he had breathed his last.' on the day of byron's death, mavrocordato issued the following proclamation, which forms a real and enduring tribute to the memory of one who, in the prime of life, died in a great cause: provisional government of western greece. the present day of festivity and rejoicing is turned into one of sorrow and mourning. the lord noel byron departed this life at eleven o'clock last night, after an illness of ten days, his death being caused by an inflammatory fever. such was the effect of his lordship's illness on the public mind, that all classes had forgotten their usual recreations of easter, even before the afflicting end was apprehended. the loss of this illustrious individual is undoubtedly to be deplored by all greece; but it must be more especially a subject of lamentation at missolonghi, where his generosity has been so conspicuously displayed, and of which he had even become a citizen, with the ulterior determination of participating in all the dangers of the war. everybody is acquainted with the beneficent acts of his lordship, and none can cease to hail his name as that of a real benefactor. until, therefore, the final determination of the national government be known, and by virtue of the powers with which it has been pleased to invest me, i hereby decree: st. to-morrow morning at daylight, minute-guns shall be fired from the grand battery, being the number which corresponds with the age of the illustrious deceased. nd. all the public offices, even to the tribunals, are to remain closed for three successive days. rd. all the shops, except those in which provisions or medicines are sold, will also be shut; and it is strictly enjoined, that every species of public amusement and other demonstrations of festivity at easter may be suspended. th. a general mourning will be observed for twenty-one days. th. prayers and a funeral service are to be offered up in all the churches. (_signed_) a. mavrocordato. giorgius praidis, _secretary_. given at missolonghi, this th day of april, . at sunrise, on the day following byron's death, thirty-seven minute-guns were fired from the principal battery; and one of the batteries belonging to the corps immediately under his orders fired a gun every half-hour during the day. we take the following from gamba's journal: '_april ._--for the remainder of this day and the next, a silence, like that of the grave, prevailed over the city. we had intended to perform the funeral ceremony on the st, but the continued rain prevented us. on the nd, however, we acquitted ourselves of that sad duty, so far as our humble means would permit. in the midst of his own brigade, of the government troops, and of the whole population, on the shoulders of his own officers, the most precious portion of his honoured remains was carried to the church, where lie the bodies of marco bozzari and of general normann. there we laid them down. the coffin was a rude, ill-constructed chest of wood; a black mantle served for a pall; and over it we placed a helmet and sword, with a crown of laurels. no funeral pomp could have left the impression, nor spoken the feelings, of this simple ceremony. the wretchedness and desolation of the place itself; the wild, half-civilized warriors around us; their deep, unaffected grief; the fond recollections and disappointed hopes; the anxieties and sad presentiments depicted on every countenance, contributed to form a scene more moving, more truly affecting, than perhaps was ever before witnessed round the coffin of a great man.' spiridion tricoupi, a son of one of the primates of missolonghi, pronounced the funeral oration in the following words, translated from the modern greek by an inhabitant of missolonghi: 'unlooked-for event! deplorable misfortune! but a short time has elapsed since the people of this deeply suffering country welcomed, with unfeigned joy and open arms, this celebrated individual to their bosoms. to-day, overwhelmed with grief and despair, they bathe his funeral couch with tears of bitterness, and mourn over it with inconsolable affliction. on easter sunday, the happy salutation of the day, "christ is risen," remained but half spoken on the lips of every greek; and as they met, before even congratulating one another on the return of that joyous day, the universal question was, "how is lord byron?" thousands assembled in the spacious plain outside the city, to commemorate the sacred day, appeared as if they had assembled for the sole purpose of imploring the saviour of the world to restore to health him who was a partaker with us in our present struggle for the deliverance of our native land. and how is it possible that any heart should remain unmoved, any lip closed, upon the present occasion? was ever greece in greater want of assistance than when lord byron, at the peril of his life, crossed over to missolonghi? then, and ever since he has been with us, his liberal hand has been opened to our necessities--necessities which our own poverty would have otherwise rendered irremediable. how many and much greater benefits did we not expect from him! and to-day, alas! to-day, the unrelenting grave closes over him and all our hopes. 'residing out of greece, and enjoying all the pleasures and luxuries of europe, he might have contributed materially to the success of our cause without coming personally amongst us; and this would have been sufficient for us, for the well-proved ability and profound judgment of our governor, the president of the senate, would have insured our safety with the means so supplied. but if this was sufficient for us, it was not so for lord byron. destined by nature to uphold the rights of man whenever he saw them trampled upon; born in a free and enlightened country; early taught, by reading the works of our ancestors, which teach all who can read them, not only what man is, but what he ought to be, and what he may be, he saw the persecuted and enslaved greek determined to break the heavy chains with which he was bound, and to convert the iron into sharp-edged swords, that he might regain by force what force had torn from him. he came to share our sufferings; assisting us, not only with his wealth, of which he was profuse; not only with his judgment, of which he has given us so many salutary examples; but with his sword, which he was preparing to unsheath against our barbarous and tyrannical oppressors. he came--according to the testimony of those who were intimate with him--with a determination to die in greece and for greece. how, therefore, can we do otherwise than lament with deep sorrow the loss of such a man! how can we do otherwise than bewail it as the loss of the whole greek nation! thus far, my friends, you have seen him liberal, generous, courageous, a true philhellenist; and you have seen him as your benefactor. this is indeed a sufficient cause for your tears, but it is not sufficient for his honour. it is not sufficient for the greatness of the undertaking in which he had engaged. he, whose death we are now so deeply deploring, was a man who, in one great branch of literature, gave his name to the age in which we live: the vastness of his genius and the richness of his fancy did not permit him to follow the splendid though beaten track of the literary fame of the ancients; he chose a new road--a road which ancient prejudice had endeavoured, and was still endeavouring, to shut against the learned of europe: but as long as his writings live, and they must live as long as the world exists, this road will remain always open; for it is, as well as the other, a sure road to true knowledge. i will not detain you at the present time by expressing all the respect and enthusiasm with which the perusal of his writings has always inspired me, and which, indeed, i feel much more powerfully now than at any other period. the learned men of all europe celebrate him, and have celebrated him; and all ages will celebrate the poet of our age, for he was born for all europe and for all ages. 'one consideration occurs to me, as striking and true as it is applicable to the present state of our country: listen to it, my friends, with attention, that you may make it your own, and that it may become a generally acknowledged truth. there have been many great and splendid nations in the world, but few have been the epochs of their true glory: one phenomenon, i am inclined to believe, is wanting in the history of these nations, and one the possibility of the appearance of which the all-considering mind of the philosopher has much doubted. almost all the nations of the world have fallen from the hands of one master into those of another; some have been benefited, others have been injured by the change; but the eye of the historian has not yet seen a nation enslaved by barbarians, and more particularly by barbarians rooted for ages in their soil--has not yet seen, i say, such a people throw off their slavery unassisted and alone. this is the phenomenon; and now, for the first time in the history of the world, we witness it in greece--yes, in greece alone! the philosopher beholds it from afar, and his doubts are dissipated; the historian sees it, and prepares his citation of it as a new event in the fortunes of nations; the statesman sees it, and becomes more observant and more on his guard. such is the extraordinary time in which we live. my friends, the insurrection of greece is not an epoch of our nation alone; it is an epoch of all nations: for, as i before observed, it is a phenomenon which stands alone in the political history of nations. 'the great mind of the highly gifted and much lamented byron observed this phenomenon, and he wished to unite his name with our glory. other revolutions have happened in his time, but he did not enter into any of them--he did not assist any of them; for their character and nature were totally different: the cause of greece alone was a cause worthy of him whom all the learned men of europe celebrate. consider then, my friends, consider the time in which you live--in what a struggle you are engaged; consider that the glory of past ages admits not of comparison with yours: the friends of liberty, the philanthropists, the philosophers of all nations, and especially of the enlightened and generous english nation, congratulate you, and from afar rejoice with you; all animate you; and the poet of our age, already crowned with immortality, emulous of your glory, came personally to your shores, that he might, together with yourselves, wash out with his blood the marks of tyranny from our polluted soil. 'born in the great capital of england, his descent noble on the side of both his father and his mother, what unfeigned joy did his philhellenic heart feel when our poor city, in token of our gratitude, inscribed his name among the number of her citizens! in the agonies of death--yes, at the moment when eternity appeared before him; as he was lingering on the brink of mortal and immortal life; when all the material world appeared but as a speck in the great works of the divine omnipotence; in that awful hour, but two names dwelt upon the lips of this illustrious individual, leaving all the world besides--the names of his only and much-beloved daughter, and of greece: these two names, deeply engraven on his heart, even the moment of death could not efface. "my daughter!" he said; "greece!" he exclaimed; and his spirit passed away. what grecian heart will not be deeply affected as often as it recalls this moment? 'our tears, my friends, will be grateful, very grateful, to his shade, for they are the tears of sincere affection; but much more grateful will be our deeds in the cause of our country, which, though removed from us, he will observe from the heavens, of which his virtues have doubtless opened to him the gates. this return alone does he require from us for all his munificence; this reward for his love towards us; this consolation for his sufferings in our cause; and this inheritance for the loss of his invaluable life. when your exertions, my friends, shall have liberated us from the hands which have so long held us down in chains; from the hands which have torn from our arms, our property, our brothers, our children--then will his spirit rejoice, then will his shade be satisfied. yes, in that blessed hour of our freedom the archbishop will extend his sacred and free hand, and pronounce a blessing over his venerated tomb; the young warrior sheathing his sword, red with the blood of his tyrannical oppressors, will strew it with laurel; the statesman will consecrate it with his oratory; and the poet, resting upon the marble, will become doubly inspired; the virgins of greece (whose beauty our illustrious fellow-citizen byron has celebrated in many of his poems), without any longer fearing contamination from the rapacious hands of our oppressors, crowning their heads with garlands, will dance round it, and sing of the beauty of our land, which the poet of our age has already commemorated with such grace and truth. but what sorrowful thought now presses upon my mind! my fancy has carried me away; i had pictured to myself all that my heart could have desired; i had imagined the blessing of our bishops, the hymns, and laurel crowns, and the dance of the virgins of greece round the tomb of the benefactor of greece;--but this tomb will not contain his precious remains; the tomb will remain void; but a few days more will his body remain on the face of our land--of his new chosen country; it cannot be given over to our arms; it must be borne to his own native land, which is honoured by his birth. 'oh daughter! most dearly beloved by him, your arms will receive him; your tears will bathe the tomb which shall contain his body; and the tears of the orphans of greece will be shed over the urn containing his precious heart, and over all the land of greece, for all the land of greece is his tomb. as in the last moments of his life you and greece were alone in his heart and upon his lips, it was but just that she (greece) should retain a share of the precious remains. missolonghi, his country, will ever watch over and protect with all her strength the urn containing his venerated heart, as a symbol of his love towards us. all greece, clothed in mourning and inconsolable, accompanies the procession in which it is borne; all ecclesiastical, civil, and military honours attend it; all his fellow-citizens of missolonghi and fellow-countrymen of greece follow it, crowning it with their gratitude and bedewing it with their tears; it is blessed by the pious benedictions and prayers of our archbishop, bishop, and all our clergy. learn, noble lady, learn that chieftains bore it on their shoulders, and carried it to the church; thousands of greek soldiers lined the way through which it passed, with the muzzles of their muskets, which had destroyed so many tyrants, pointed towards the ground, as though they would war against that earth which was to deprive them for ever of the sight of their benefactor;--all this crowd of soldiers, ready at a moment to march against the implacable enemy of christ and man, surrounded the funeral couch, and swore never to forget the sacrifices made by your father for us, and never to allow the spot where his heart is placed to be trampled upon by barbarous and tyrannical feet. thousands of christian voices were in a moment heard, and the temple of the almighty resounded with supplications and prayers that his venerated remains might be safely conveyed to his native land, and that his soul might repose where the righteous alone find rest.' * * * * * 'when the funeral service was over,' says gamba, 'we left the bier in the middle of the church, where it remained until the evening of the next day, guarded by a detachment of his own brigade. the church was crowded without cessation by those who came to honour and to regret the benefactor of greece. 'on the evening of the rd the bier was privately carried back by byron's officers to his own house. the coffin was not closed until the th april. 'immediately after death byron's countenance had an air of calmness, mingled with a severity that seemed gradually to soften. when i took a last look at him, the expression, at least to my eyes, was truly sublime.' soon after death, byron's body was embalmed, and a report of the autopsy will be found in the appendix. millingen says: 'before we proceeded to embalm the body, we could not refrain from pausing to contemplate the lifeless clay of one who, but a few days before, was the hope of a whole nation, and the admiration of the civilized world. we could not but admire the perfect symmetry of his body. nothing could surpass the beauty of his forehead; its height was extraordinary, and the protuberances under which the nobler intellectual faculties are supposed to reside were strongly pronounced. his hair, which curled naturally, was quite grey; the mustachios light-coloured. his physiognomy had suffered little alteration, and still preserved the sarcastic, haughty expression which habitually characterized it. the chest was broad, high-vaulted; the waist very small; the muscular system well pronounced; the skin delicate and white; and the habit of the body plump. the only blemish of his body, which might otherwise have vied with that of apollo himself, was the congenital malconformation of his _left_ foot and leg. the foot was deformed and turned inwards, and the leg was smaller and shorter than the sound one.'[ ] trelawny arrived at missolonghi on april , after the body had been embalmed. he states that byron's right leg was shorter than the other, and the _right_ foot was the most distorted, being twisted inwards, so that only the edge could have touched the ground. the discrepancy between trelawny's statement and that of millingen is probably due to the fact that nearly thirty-four years had passed before trelawny's book was written. trelawny wrote, from fletcher's dictation, full particulars of byron's last illness and death. it is presumably from these notes that trelawny drafted his letter to colonel stanhope, dated april , . in reference to that letter, gamba says: 'the details there given of lord byron's last illness and death are not quite correct. but where mr. trelawny speaks of the general impression produced by that lamentable event, he pathetically describes what is recognized for truth by all those who were witnesses of the melancholy scene.' as trelawny was not present during the illness and death of byron, he cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies that may appear in his 'records.' he merely wrote from fletcher's dictation, without adding one word of his own. on fletcher's return to england, he gave the following evidence: 'my master continued his usual custom of riding daily, when the weather would permit, until the th of april. but on that ill-fated day he got very wet, and on his return home his lordship changed the whole of his dress; but he had been too long in his wet clothes, and the cold, of which he had complained more or less ever since we left cephalonia, made this attack be more severely felt. though rather feverish during the night, his lordship slept pretty well, but complained in the morning of a pain in his bones and a headache: this did not, however, prevent him from taking a ride in the afternoon, which, i grieve to say, was his last. on his return, my master said that the saddle was not perfectly dry, from being so wet the day before, and observed that he thought it had made him worse. his lordship was again visited by the same slow fever, and i was sorry to perceive, on the next morning, that his illness appeared to be increasing. he was very low, and complained of not having had any sleep during the night. his lordship's appetite was also quite gone. i prepared a little arrowroot, of which he took three or four spoonfuls, saying it was very good, but could take no more. it was not till the third day, the th, that i began to be alarmed for my master. in all his former colds he always slept well, and was never affected by this slow fever. i therefore went to dr. bruno and mr. millingen, the two medical attendants, and inquired minutely into every circumstance connected with my master's present illness: both replied that there was no danger, and i might make myself perfectly easy on the subject, for all would be well in a few days. this was on the th. on the following day i found my master in such a state, that i could not feel happy without supplicating that he would send to zante for dr. thomas. after expressing my fears lest his lordship should get worse, he desired me to consult the doctors; which i did, and was told there was no occasion for calling in any person, as they hoped all would be well in a few days. here i should remark that his lordship repeatedly said, in the course of the day, he was sure the doctors did not understand his disease; to which i answered, "then, my lord, have other advice, by all means." "they tell me," said his lordship, "that it is only a common cold, which, you know, i have had a thousand times." "i am sure, my lord," said i, "that you never had one of so serious a nature." "i think i never had," was his lordship's answer. i repeated my supplications that dr. thomas should be sent for on the th, and was again assured that my master would be better in two or three days. after these confident assurances, i did not renew my entreaties until it was too late. 'with respect to the medicines that were given to my master, i could not persuade myself that those of a strong purgative nature were the best adapted for his complaint, concluding that, as he had nothing on his stomach, the only effect would be to create pain: indeed, this must have been the case with a person in perfect health. the whole nourishment taken by my master, for the last eight days, consisted of a small quantity of broth at two or three different times, and two spoonfuls of arrowroot on the th, the day before his death. the first time i heard of there being any intention of bleeding his lordship was on the th, when it was proposed by dr. bruno, but objected to at first by my master, who asked mr. millingen if there was any very great reason for taking blood. the latter replied that it might be of service, but added that it could be deferred till the next day; and accordingly my master was bled in the right arm on the evening of the th, and a pound of blood was taken. i observed at the time that it had a most inflamed appearance. dr. bruno now began to say he had frequently urged my master to be bled, but that he always refused. a long dispute now arose about the time that had been lost, and the necessity of sending for medical assistance to zante; upon which i was informed, for the first time, that it would be of no use, as my master would be better, or no more, before the arrival of dr. thomas. his lordship continued to get worse: but dr. bruno said he thought letting blood again would save his life; and i lost no time in telling my master how necessary it was to comply with the doctor's wishes. to this he replied by saying he feared they knew nothing about his disorder; and then, stretching out his arm, said, "here, take my arm, and do whatever you like." his lordship continued to get weaker; and on the th he was bled twice in the morning, and at two o'clock in the afternoon. the bleeding at both times was followed by fainting fits, and he would have fallen down more than once had i not caught him in my arms. in order to prevent such an accident, i took care not to let his lordship stir without supporting him. on this day my master said to me twice, "i cannot sleep, and you well know i have not been able to sleep for more than a week: i know," added his lordship, "that a man can only be a certain time without sleep, and then he must go mad, without anyone being able to save him; and i would ten times sooner shoot myself than be mad, for i am not afraid of dying--i am more fit to die than people think." i do not, however, believe that his lordship had any apprehension of his fate till the day after, the th, when he said, "i fear you and tita will be ill by sitting up constantly night and day." i answered, "we shall never leave your lordship till you are better." as my master had a slight fit of delirium on the th, i took care to remove the pistols and stiletto which had hitherto been kept at his bedside in the night. on the th his lordship addressed me frequently, and seemed to be very much dissatisfied with his medical treatment. i then said, "do allow me to send for dr. thomas," to which he answered, "do so, but be quick. i am sorry i did not let you do so before, as i am sure they have mistaken my disease. write yourself, for i know they would not like to see other doctors here." 'i did not lose a moment in obeying my master's orders; and on informing dr. bruno and mr. millingen of it, they said it was very right, as they now began to be afraid themselves. on returning to my master's room, his first words were, "have you sent?" "i have, my lord," was my answer; upon which he said, "you have done right, for i should like to know what is the matter with me." although his lordship did not appear to think his dissolution was so near, i could perceive he was getting weaker every hour, and he even began to have occasional fits of delirium. he afterwards said, "i now begin to think i am seriously ill; and, in case i should be taken off suddenly, i wish to give you several directions, which i hope you will be particular in seeing executed." i answered i would, in case such an event came to pass, but expressed a hope that he would live many years to execute them much better himself than i could. to this my master replied, "no, it is now nearly over," and then added, "i must tell you all without losing a moment." i then said, "shall i go, my lord, and fetch pen, ink, and paper?" "oh, my god! no, you will lose too much time; and i have it not to spare, for my time is now short," said his lordship; and immediately after, "now, pay attention." his lordship commenced by saying, "you will be provided for." i begged him, however, to proceed with things of more consequence. he then continued, "oh, my poor dear child!--my dear ada! my god! could i but have seen her! give her my blessing--and my dear sister augusta and her children;--and you will go to lady byron, and say--tell her everything;--you are friends with her." his lordship appeared to be greatly affected at this moment. here my master's voice failed him, so that i could only catch a word at intervals; but he kept muttering something very seriously for some time, and would often raise his voice and say, "fletcher, now, if you do not execute every order which i have given you, i will torment you hereafter if possible." here i told his lordship, in a state of the greatest perplexity, that i had not understood a word of what he said; to which he replied, "oh, my god! then all is lost, for it is now too late! can it be possible you have not understood me?" "no, my lord," said i, "but i pray you to try and inform me once more." "how can i?" rejoined my master; "it is now too late, and all is over!" i said, "not our will, but god's be done!" and he answered, "yes, not mine be done--but i will try." his lordship did indeed make several efforts to speak, but could only repeat two or three words at a time, such as "my wife! my child! my sister! you know all--you must say all--you know my wishes." the rest was quite unintelligible. 'a consultation was now held about noon, when it was determined to administer some peruvian bark and wine. my master had now been nine days without any sustenance whatever, except what i have already mentioned. with the exception of a few words which can only interest those to whom they were addressed, and which, if required, i shall communicate to themselves, it was impossible to understand anything his lordship said after taking the bark. he expressed a wish to sleep. i at one time asked whether i should call mr. parry; to which he replied, "yes, you may call him." mr. parry desired him to compose himself. he shed tears, and apparently sunk into a slumber. mr. parry went away, expecting to find him refreshed on his return; but it was the commencement of the lethargy preceding his death. the last words i heard my master utter were at six o'clock on the evening of the th, when he said, "i must sleep now"; upon which he laid down never to rise again!--for he did not move hand or foot during the following twenty-four hours. his lordship appeared, however, to be in a state of suffocation at intervals, and had a frequent rattling in the throat. on these occasions i called tita to assist me in raising his head, and i thought he seemed to get quite stiff. the rattling and choking in the throat took place every half-hour; and we continued to raise his head whenever the fit came on, till six o'clock in the evening of the th, when i saw my master open his eyes and then shut them, but without showing any symptom of pain, or moving hand or foot. "oh, my god!" i exclaimed, "i fear his lordship is gone." the doctors then felt his pulse, and said, "you are right--he is gone."' dr. bruno's answer to the above statement will be found in the appendix. chapter xvi several days passed after the requiem service held in the church of s. spiridion. meanwhile the necessary preparations were made for transporting the body to zante. on may the coffin was carried down to the seaside on the shoulders of four military chiefs, and attended in the same order as before. the guns of the fortress saluted until the moment of embarkation. the vessel which bore the body reached the island of zante on the third day after leaving missolonghi, having, as gamba says, taken the same course exactly as on the voyage out. the vessel, owing to head-winds, was brought to anchor close to the same rocks where byron had sought shelter from the turkish frigate. 'on the evening of the th may,' says gamba, 'we made the port of zante, and heard that lord sidney osborne had arrived, but, not finding us in that island, had sailed for missolonghi.' blaquière, who was at zante at the time, says: 'the vessel was recognized at a considerable distance, owing to her flag being at half-mast. she entered the mole towards sunset. the body was accompanied by the whole of his lordship's attendants, who conveyed it to the lazaretto on the following morning.' during the time that the body of lord byron was detained at the lazaretto, a discussion arose as to the final disposal of the remains, colonel stanhope and others being of opinion that they should be interred in the parthenon at athens. it would seem that such a course would have met with byron's approval; but, in deference to what were then supposed to have been the wishes of the poet's family, it was finally arranged to charter the brig _florida_, which had lately arrived at zante with the first instalment of the greek loan. in this connection, the last entry in gamba's journal may be quoted in full: 'a few days after our arrival at zante, colonel stanhope came from the morea. he had already written to inform us that the greek chieftains of athens had expressed their desire that lord byron should be buried in the temple of theseus. the citizens of missolonghi had made a similar request for their town; and we thought it advisable to accede to their wishes so far as to leave with them, for interment, one of the vessels containing a portion of the honoured remains. as he had not expressed any wishes on the subject,[ ] we thought the most becoming course was to convey him to his native country. accordingly, the ship that had brought us the specie was engaged for that purpose. colonel stanhope kindly took charge; and on the th may the _florida_, having on board the remains of lord byron, set sail for england from the port of zante.' the following tribute to byron from the pen of blaquière, written on may , , must here be given: 'every letter of byron's, in which any allusion was made to the greek cause, proved how judiciously he viewed that great question, while it displayed a thorough knowledge of the people he had come to assist. this latter circumstance, which made him more cautious in avoiding every interference calculated to wound the self-love of the greeks, who, though fallen, are still remarkable for their pride, accounts for the great popularity he had acquired. 'it may be truly said that no foreigner who has hitherto espoused the cause made greater allowance for the errors inseparable from it than did lord byron. 'with respect to his opinion as to the best mode of bringing the contest to a triumphant close, and healing those differences which have been created by party spirit or faction, there is reason to believe that the subject occupied his particular attention, and he was even more than once heard to say that "no person had as yet hit upon the right plan for securing the independence of greece." 'while sedulously employed in reconciling jarring interests and promoting a spirit of union, the grand maxim which he laboured to instil into the greeks was that of making every other object secondary and subservient to the paramount one of driving out the turks.' at six o'clock on the evening of that day, blaquière added the following words: 'i have this instant returned on shore, after having performed the melancholy duty of towing the remains of lord byron alongside the _florida_. 'i should add that, in consequence of there being no means of procuring lead for the coffin at zante, it was arranged that the tin case prepared at missolonghi should be enclosed in wood; so that there is now no fear that the body will not reach england in perfect preservation. the only mark of respect shown to-day was displayed by the merchant vessels in the bay and mole. the whole of these, whether english or foreign, had their flags at half-mast, and many of them fired guns. the _florida_ fired minute-guns from the time of our leaving the lazaretto until we got alongside, when the body was taken on board, and placed in a space prepared for that purpose. the whole is painted black, and, thanks to the foresight of my friend robinson, an escutcheon very well executed designates the mournful receptacle. although no honours have been paid to the remains of our immortal poet here, we look forward with melancholy satisfaction to those which await him in the land of his birth. 'however bitterly his pen may have lashed the vices and follies of his day, it is not the least honourable trait in our national character that neither personal dislike nor those prejudices which arise from literary jealousy and political animosity prevent us from duly appreciating departed worth, and even forgetting those aberrations to which all are more or less liable in this state of imperfection and fallibility.' the following extracts are taken from lord broughton's 'recollections of a long life,' a work that was printed, but not published, in . as the opinions of byron's life-long friend, john cam hobhouse, they cannot fail to interest the reader:[ ] 'how much soever the greeks of that day may have differed on other topics, there was no difference of opinion in regard to the loss they had sustained by the death of byron. those who have read colonel leicester stanhope's interesting volume, "greece in and ," and more particularly colonel stanhope's "sketch" and mr. finlay's "reminiscences" of byron, will have seen him just as he appeared to me during our long intimacy. i liked him a great deal too well to be an impartial judge of his character; but i can confidently appeal to the impressions he made upon the two above-mentioned witnesses of his conduct, under very trying circumstances, for a justification of my strong affection for him--an affection not weakened by the forty years of a busy and chequered life that have passed over me since i saw him laid in his grave. 'the influence he had acquired in greece was unbounded, and he had exerted it in a manner most useful to her cause. lord sidney osborne, writing to mrs. leigh, said that, if byron had never written a line in his life, he had done enough, during the last six months in greece, to immortalize his name. he added that no one unacquainted with the circumstances of the case could have any idea of the difficulties he had overcome. he had reconciled the contending parties, and had given a character of humanity and civilization to the warfare in which they were engaged, besides contriving to prevent them from offending their powerful neighbours in the ionian islands. 'i heard that sir f. adam,[ ] in a despatch to lord bathurst, bore testimony to his great qualities, and lamented his death as depriving the ionian government of the only man with whom they could act with safety. mavrocordato, in his letter to dr. bowring, called him "a great man," and confessed that he was almost ignorant how to act when deprived of such a coadjutor.... on thursday, july , i heard that the _florida_, with the remains of byron, had arrived in the downs, and i went the same evening to rochester. the next morning i went to standgate creek, and, taking a boat, went on board the vessel. there i found colonel leicester stanhope, dr. bruno, fletcher, byron's valet, with three others of his servants. three dogs that had belonged to my friend were playing about the deck. i could hardly bring myself to look at them. the vessel had got under-weigh, and we beat up the river to gravesend. i cannot describe what i felt during the five or six hours of our passage. i was the last person who shook hands with byron when he left england in . i recollected his waving his cap to me as the packet bounded off on a curling wave from the pier-head at dover, and here i was now coming back to england with his corpse. 'poor fletcher burst into tears when he first saw me, and wept bitterly when he told me the particulars of my friend's last illness. these have been frequently made public, and need not be repeated here. i heard, however, on undoubted authority, that until he became delirious he was perfectly calm; and i called to mind how often i had heard him say that he was not apprehensive as to death itself, but as to how, from physical infirmity, he might behave at that inevitable hour. on one occasion he said to me, "let no one come near me when i am dying, if you can help it, and we happen to be together at the time." 'the _florida_ anchored at gravesend, and i returned to london; colonel stanhope accompanied me. this was on friday, july . on the following monday i went to doctors' commons and proved byron's will. mr. hanson did so likewise. thence i went to london bridge, got into a boat, and went to london docks buoy, where the _florida_ was anchored. i found mr. woodeson, the undertaker, on board, employed in emptying the spirit from the large barrel containing the box that held the corpse. this box was removed, and placed on deck by the side of a leaden coffin. i stayed whilst the iron hoops were knocked off the box; but i could not bear to see the remainder of the operation, and went into the cabin. whilst there i looked over the sealed packet of papers belonging to byron, which he had deposited at cephalonia, and which had not been opened since he left them there. captain hodgson of the _florida_, the captain's father, and fletcher, were with me; we examined every paper, and did not find any will. those present signed a document to that effect. 'after the removal of the corpse into the coffin, and the arrival of the order from the custom-house, i accompanied the undertaker in the barge with the coffin. there were many boats round the ship at the time, and the shore was crowded with spectators. we passed quietly up the river, and landed at palace yard stairs. thence the coffin and the small chest containing the heart were carried to the house in george street, and deposited in the room prepared for their reception. the room was decently hung with black, but there was no other decoration than an escutcheon of the byron arms, roughly daubed on a deal board. 'on reaching my rooms at the albany, i found a note from mr. murray, telling me that he had received a letter from dr. ireland, politely declining to allow the burial of byron in westminster abbey; but it was not until the next day that, to my great surprise, i learnt, on reading the doctor's note, that mr. murray had made the request to the dean in my name. i thought that it had been settled that mr. gifford should sound the dean of westminster previously to any formal request being made. i wrote to mr. murray, asking him to inform the dean that i had not made the request. whether he did so, i never inquired. 'i ascertained from mrs. leigh that it was wished the interment should take place at the family vault at hucknall in nottinghamshire. the utmost eagerness was shown, both publicly and privately, to get sight of anything connected with byron. lafayette was at that time on his way to america, and a young frenchman came over from the general at havre, and wrote me a note requesting a sight of the deceased poet. the coffin had been closed, and his wishes could not be complied with. a young man came on board the _florida_, and in very moving terms besought me to allow him to take one look at him. i was sorry to be obliged to refuse, as i did not know the young man, and there were many round the vessel who would have made the same request. he was bitterly disappointed; and when i gave him a piece of the cotton in which the corpse had been wrapped, he took it with much devotion, and placed it in his pocket-book. mr. phillips, the academician, applied for permission to take a likeness, but i heard from mrs. leigh that the features of her brother had been so disfigured by the means used to preserve his remains, that she scarcely recognized them. this was the fact; for i had summoned courage enough to look at my dead friend; so completely was he altered, that the sight did not affect me so much as looking at his handwriting, or anything that i knew had belonged to him.' the following account by colonel leicester stanhope, probably outlined during his voyage home with byron's body, is well worth reading. it unveils the personality of byron as he appeared during those trying times at missolonghi, when, tortured by illness and worried by dissensions among his coadjutors, he gave his life to greece. stanhope's sketch conveys the honest opinion of a man whose political views, differing fundamentally from those of byron, brought them often in collision. but for this reason, perhaps, this record is the more valuable. it is written without prejudice, with considerable perspicuity, and with unquestionable sincerity. its peculiar value lies in the approval which, as we have seen, it received from mr. hobhouse, who undoubtedly was better acquainted with the character of byron than any of his contemporaries. 'in much of what certain authors have lately said in praise of lord byron i concur. the public are indebted to them for useful information concerning that extraordinary man's biography. i do not, however, think that any of them have given of him a full and masterly description. it would require a person of his own wonderful capacity to draw his character, and even he could not perform this task otherwise than by continuing the history of what passed in his mind; for his character was as versatile as his genius. from his writings, therefore, he must be judged, and from them can he alone be understood. his character was, indeed, poetic, like his works, and he partook of the virtues and vices of the heroes of his imagination. lord byron was original and eccentric in all things, and his conduct and his writings were unlike those of other men. he might have said with rousseau: "moi seul. je sens mon coeur et je connois les hommes. je ne suis fait comme aucun de ceux qui existent. si je ne vaux pas mieux, au moins, je suis autre. si la nature a bien ou mal fait de briser le moule dans lequel elle m'a jetté, c'est dont on ne peut juger qu'après m'avoir lu." all that can be hoped is, that, after a number of the ephemeral sketches of lord byron have been published, and ample information concerning him obtained, some master-hand will undertake the task of drawing his portrait. if anything like justice be done to lord byron, his character will appear far more extraordinary than any his imagination has produced, and not less wonderful than those sublime and inimitable sketches created and painted by the fanciful pen of shakespeare. 'there were two circumstances which appear to me to have had a powerful influence on byron's conduct. i allude to his lameness and his marriage. the deformity of his foot constantly preyed on his spirits and soured his temper. it is extraordinary, however, and contrary, i believe, to the conduct of the generality of lame persons, that he pitied, sympathized, and befriended, those who laboured under similar defects. 'with respect to lady byron, her image appeared to be rooted in his mind. she had wounded lord byron's pride by having refused his first offer of marriage; by having separated herself from him whom others assiduously courted; and by having resisted all the efforts of his genius to compel her again to yield to his dominion. had lady byron been submissive, could she have stooped to become a caressing slave, like other ingenious slaves, she might have governed her lord and master. but no, she had a mind too great, and was too much of an englishwoman to bow so low. these contrarieties set lord byron's heart on fire, roused all his passions, gave birth, no doubt, to many of his sublimest thoughts, and impelled him impetuously forward in his zigzag career. when angry or humorous, she became the subject of his wild sport; at other times she seemed, though he loved her not, to be the mistress of his feelings, and one whom he in vain attempted to cast from his thoughts. thus, in a frolicsome tone, i have heard him sketch characters, and, speaking of a certain acquaintance, say, "with the exception of southey and lady byron, there is no one i hate so much." this was a noisy shot--a sort of a _feu de joie_, that inflicted no wound, and left no scar behind. lord byron was in reality a good-natured man, and it was a violence to his nature, which he seldom practised, either to conceal what he thought or to harbour revenge. in one conversation which i had with lord byron, he dwelt much upon the acquirements and virtues of lady byron, and even said she had committed no fault but that of having married him. the truth is, that he was not formed for marriage. his riotous genius could not bear restraint. no woman could have lived with him but one devoid of, or of subdued, feelings--an asiatic slave. lord byron, it is well known, was passionately fond of his child; of this he gave me the following proof. he showed me a miniature of ada, as also a clever description of her character, drawn by her mother, and forwarded to him by the person he most esteemed, his amiable sister. after i had examined the letter, while reflecting on its contents, i gazed intently on the picture; lord byron, observing me in deep meditation, impatiently said, "well, well, what do you think of ada?" i replied, "if these are true representations of ada, and are not drawn to flatter your vanity, you have engrafted on her your virtues and your failings. she is in mind and feature the very image of her father." never did i see man feel more pleasure than lord byron felt at this remark; his eyes lightened with ecstasy. 'lord byron's mental and personal courage was unlike that of other men. to the superficial observer his conduct seemed to be quite unsettled; this was really the case to a certain extent. his genius was boundless and excursive, and in conversation his tongue went rioting on '"from grave to gay, from lively to severe." 'still, upon the whole, no man was more constant, and, i may almost say, more obstinate in the pursuit of some great objects. for example, in religion and politics he seemed firm as a rock, though like a rock he was subjected to occasional rude shocks, the convulsions of agitated nature. 'the assertions i have ventured to make of lord byron having fixed opinions on certain material questions are not according to his own judgment. from what fell from his own lips, i could draw no such conclusions, for, in conversing with me on government and religion, and after going wildly over these subjects, sometimes in a grave and philosophical, and sometimes in a laughing and humorous strain, he would say: "the more i think, the more i doubt; i am a perfect sceptic." in contradiction to this assertion, i set lord byron's recorded sentiments, and his actions from the period of his boyhood to that of his death; and i contend that although he occasionally veered about, yet he always returned to certain fixed opinions; and that he felt a constant attachment to liberty, according to our notions of liberty, and that, although no christian, he was a firm believer in the existence of a god. it is, therefore, equally remote from truth to represent him as either an atheist or a christian: he was, as he has often told me, a confirmed deist. 'lord byron was no party politician. lord clare was the person whom he liked best, because he was his old school acquaintance. mr. john cam hobhouse was his long-tried, his esteemed, and valued literary and personal friend. death has severed these, but there is a soul in friendship that can never die. no man ever chose a nobler friend. mr. hobhouse has given many proofs of this, and among others, i saw him, from motives of high honour, destroy a beautiful poem of lord byron's, and, perhaps, the last he ever composed. the same reason that induced mr. h. to tear this fine manuscript will, of course, prevent him or me from ever divulging its contents. mr. douglas kinnaird was another for whom lord byron entertained the sincerest esteem: no less on account of his high social qualities, than as a clear-sighted man of business, on whose discretion he could implicitly rely. sir francis burdett was the politician whom he most admired. he used to say, "burdett is an englishman of the old school." he compared the baronet to the statesmen of charles i.'s time, whom he considered the sternest and loftiest spirits that britain had produced. lord byron entertained high aristocratic notions, and had much family pride. he admired, notwithstanding, the american institutions, but did not consider them of so democratic a nature as is generally imagined. he found, he said, many englishmen and english writers more imbued with liberal notions than those americans and american authors with whom he was acquainted. 'lord byron was chivalrous even to quixotism. this might have lowered him in the estimation of the wise, had he not given some extraordinary proofs of the noblest courage. for example, the moment he recovered from that alarming fit which took place in my room, he inquired again and again, with the utmost composure, whether he was in danger. if in danger, he desired the physician honestly to apprise him of it, for he feared not death. soon after this dreadful paroxysm, when lord byron, faint with overbleeding, was lying on his sick-bed, with his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous suliotes, covered with dirt and splendid attires, broke into his apartment, brandishing their costly arms, and loudly demanding their wild rights. lord byron, electrified by this unexpected act, seemed to recover from his sickness; and the more the suliotes raged, the more his calm courage triumphed. the scene was truly sublime. 'at times lord byron would become disgusted with the greeks, on account of their horrid cruelties, their delays, their importuning him for money, and their not fulfilling their promises. that he should feel thus was very natural, although all this is just what might be anticipated from a people breaking loose from ages of bondage. we are too apt to expect the same conduct from men educated as slaves (and here be it remembered that the greeks were the helots of slaves) that we find in those who have, from their infancy, breathed the wholesome atmosphere of liberty. 'most persons assume a virtuous character. lord byron's ambition, on the contrary, was to make the world imagine that he was a sort of "satan," though occasionally influenced by lofty sentiments to the performance of great actions. fortunately for his fame, he possessed another quality, by which he stood completely unmasked. he was the most ingenuous of men, and his nature, in the main good, always triumphed over his acting. 'there was nothing that he detested more than to be thought merely a great poet, though he did not wish to be esteemed inferior as a dramatist to shakspeare. like voltaire, he was unconsciously jealous of, and for that reason abused, our immortal bard. his mind was absorbed in detecting shakspeare's glaring defects, instead of being overpowered by his wonderful creative and redeeming genius. he assured me that he was so far from being a "heaven-born poet" that he was not conscious of possessing any talent in that way when a boy. this gift had burst upon his mind unexpectedly, as if by inspiration, and had excited his wonder. he also declared that he had no love or enthusiasm for poetry. i shook my head doubtingly, and said to him that, although he had displayed a piercing sagacity in reading and developing the characters of others, he knew but little of his own. he replied: "often have i told you that i am a perfect sceptic. i have no fixed opinions; that is my character. like others, i am not in love with what i possess, but with that which i do not possess, and which is difficult to obtain." lord byron was for shining as a hero of the first order. he wished to take an active part in the civil and military government of greece.[ ] on this subject he consulted me; i condemned the direct assumption of command by a foreigner, fearing that it would expose him to envy and danger without promoting the cause. i wished him, by a career of perfect disinterestedness, to preserve a commanding influence over the greeks, and to act as their great mediator. lord byron listened to me with unusual and courteous politeness, for he suspected my motives--he thought me envious--jealous of his increasing power; and though he did not disregard, did not altogether follow my advice. i was not, however, to be disarmed either by politeness or suspicions; they touched me not, for my mind was occupied with loftier thoughts. the attack was renewed the next day in a mild tone. the collision, however, of lord byron's arguments, sparkling with jests, and mine, regardless of his brilliancy and satire, all earnestness, ended as usual in a storm. though most anxious to assume high power, lord byron was still modest. he said to me, laughing, that if napier came, he would _supersede himself_, as governor and commander of western greece, in favour of that distinguished officer. i laughed at this whimsical expression till i made lord byron laugh, too, and repeat over again that he would "supersede himself." 'the mind of lord byron was like a volcano, full of fire and wealth, sometimes calm, often dazzling and playful, but ever threatening. it ran swift as the lightning from one subject to another, and occasionally burst forth in passionate throes of intellect, nearly allied to madness. a striking instance of this sort of eruption i shall mention. lord byron's apartments were immediately over mine at missolonghi. in the dead of the night i was frequently startled from my sleep by the thunders of his lordship's voice, either raging with anger or roaring with laughter, and rousing friends, servants, and, indeed, all the inmates of the dwelling, from their repose. even when in the utmost danger, lord byron contemplated death with calm philosophy. he was, however, superstitious, and dreadfully alarmed at the idea of going mad, which he predicted would be his sad destiny. 'as a companion, no one could be more amusing; he had neither pedantry nor affectation about him, but was natural and playful as a boy. his conversation resembled a stream, sometimes smooth, sometimes rapid, and sometimes rushing down in cataracts; it was a mixture of philosophy and slang--of everything--like his "don juan." he was a patient and, in general, a very attentive listener. when, however, he did engage with earnestness in conversation, his ideas succeeded each other with such uncommon rapidity that he could not control them. they burst from him impetuously; and although he both attended to and noticed the remarks of others, yet he did not allow these to check his discourse for an instant. 'lord byron professed a deep-rooted antipathy to the english, though he was always surrounded by englishmen, and, in reality, preferred them (as he did italian women) to all others. i one day accused him of ingratitude to his countrymen. for many years, i observed, he had been, in spite of his faults, and although he had shocked all her prejudices, the pride, and i might almost say the idol, of britain. he said they must be a stupid race to worship such an idol, but he had at last cured their superstition, as far as his divinity was concerned, by the publication of his "cain." it was true, i replied, that he had now lost their favour. this remark stung him to the soul, for he wished not only to occupy the public mind, but to command, by his genius, public esteem. 'this extraordinary person, whom everybody was as anxious to see, and to know, as if he had been a napoleon, the conqueror of the world, had a notion that he was hated, and avoided like one who had broken quarantine. he used often to mention to me the kindness of this or that insignificant individual, for having given him a good and friendly reception. in this particular lord byron was capricious, for at genoa he would scarcely see anyone but those who lived in his own family; whereas at cephalonia he was to everyone and at all times accessible. at genoa he acted the misanthropist; at cephalonia he appeared in his genuine character, doing good, and rather courting than shunning society. 'lord byron conceived that he possessed a profound knowledge of mankind, and of the working of their passions. in this he judged right. he could fathom every mind and heart but his own, the extreme depths of which none ever reached. on my arrival from england at cephalonia, his lordship asked me what new publications i had brought out. among others i mentioned "the springs of action." "springs of action!" said lord byron, stamping with rage with his lame foot, and then turning sharply on his heel, "i don't require to be taught on this head. i know well what are the springs of action." some time afterwards, while speaking on another subject, he desired me to lend him "the springs of action." he then suddenly changed the conversation to some humorous remarks for the purpose of diverting my attention. i could not, however, forbear reminding him of his former observations and his furious stamp. 'avarice and great generosity were among lord byron's qualities; these contrarieties are said not unfrequently to be united in the same person. as an instance of lord byron's parsimony, he was constantly attacking count gamba, sometimes, indeed, playfully, but more often with the bitterest satire, for having purchased for the use of his family, while in greece, dollars' worth of cloth. this he used to mention as an instance of the count's imprudence and extravagance. lord byron told me one day, with a tone of great gravity, that this dollars would have been most serviceable in promoting the siege of lepanto; and that he never would, to the last moment of his existence, forgive gamba for having squandered away his money in the purchase of cloth. no one will suppose that lord byron could be serious in such a denunciation; he entertained, in reality, the highest opinion of count gamba, who both on account of his talents and devotedness to his friend merited his lordship's esteem. 'lord byron's generosity is before the world; he promised to devote his large income to the cause of greece, and he honestly acted up to his pledge. it was impossible for lord byron to have made a more useful, and therefore a more noble, sacrifice of his wealth, than by devoting it, _with discretion_, to the greek cause. he set a bright example to the millionaires of his own country, who certainly show but little public spirit. most of them expend their fortunes in acts of ostentation or selfishness. few there are of this class who will devote, perchance, the hundredth part of their large incomes to acts of benevolence or bettering the condition of their fellow-men. none of our millionaires, with all their pride and their boasting have had the public virtue, like lord byron, to sacrifice their incomes or their lives in aid of a people struggling for liberty. 'lord byron's reading was desultory, but extensive; his memory was retentive to an extraordinary extent. he was partial to the italian poets, and is said to have borrowed from them. their fine thoughts he certainly associated with his own, but with such skill that he could not be accused of plagiarism. lord byron possessed, indeed, a genius absolutely boundless, and could create with such facility that it would have been irksome to him to have become a servile imitator. he was original in all things, but especially as a poet. 'the study of voyages and travels was that in which he most delighted; their details he seemed actually to devour. he would sit up all night reading them. his whole soul was absorbed in these adventures, and he appeared to personify the traveller. lord byron had a particular aversion to business; his familiar letters were scrawled out at a great rate, and resembled his conversations. rapid as were his tongue and his pen, neither could keep pace with the quick succession of ideas that flashed across his mind. he hated nothing more than writing formal official letters; this drudgery he would generally put off from day to day, and finish by desiring count gamba, or some other friend, to perform the task. no wonder that lord byron should dislike this dry antipoetic work, and which he, in reality, performed with so much difficulty. lord byron's arduous yet unsuccessful labours in this barren field put me in mind of the difficulty which one of the biographers of addison describes this politician to have experienced, when attempting to compose an official paragraph for the _gazette_ announcing the death of the queen. this duty, after a long and ineffectual attempt, the minister, in despair, handed over to a clerk, who (not being a genius, but a man of business) performed it in an instant. 'not less was lord byron's aversion to reading than to writing official documents; these he used to hand over to me, pretending, spite of all my protestations to the contrary, that i had a passion for documents. when once lord byron had taken any whim into his head, he listened not to contradiction, but went on laughing and satirizing till his joke had triumphed over argument and fact. thus i, for the sake of peace, was sometimes silent, and suffered him to good-naturedly bully me into reading over, or, rather, yawning over, a mass of documents dull and uninteresting. 'lord byron once told me, in a humorous tone, but apparently quite in earnest, that he never could acquire a competent knowledge of arithmetic. addition and subtraction he said he could, though with some difficulty, accomplish. the mechanism of the rule of three pleased him, but then division was a puzzle he could not muster up sufficient courage to unravel. i mention this to show of how low a cast lord byron's capacity was in some commonplace matters, where he could not command attention. the reverse was the case on subjects of a higher order, and in those trifling ones, too, that pleased his fancy. moved by such themes, the impulses of his genius shot forth, by day and night, from his troubled brain, electric sparks or streams of light, like blazing meteors. 'lord byron loved greece. her climate and her scenery, her history, her struggles, her great men and her antiquities, he admired. he declared that he had no mastery over his own thoughts. in early youth he was no poet, nor was he now, except when the fit was upon him, and he felt his mind agitated and feverish. these attacks, he continued, scarcely ever visited him anywhere but in greece; there he felt himself exhilarated--metamorphosed into another person, and with another soul--in short, never had he, but in greece, written one good line of poetry. this is a fact exaggerated, as facts often are, by the impulses of strong feelings. it is not on that account less calculated to convey to others the character of lord byron's mind, or to impress it the less upon their recollections. 'once established at missolonghi, it required some great impetus to move lord byron from that unhealthy swamp. on one occasion, when irritated by the suliotes and the constant applications for money, he intimated his intention to depart. the citizens of missolonghi and the soldiers grumbled, and communicated to me, through dr. meyer, their discontent. i repeated what i had heard to lord byron. he replied, calmly, that he would rather be cut to pieces than imprisoned, for he came to aid the greeks in their struggle for liberty, and not to be their slave. no wonder that the "hellenists" endeavoured to impede lord byron's departure, for even i, a mere soldier, could not escape from missolonghi, athens, corinth, or salona, without considerable difficulty. some time previous to lord byron's death, he began to feel a restlessness and a wish to remove to athens or to zante.' on monday, july , at eleven o'clock in the morning, the funeral procession, attended by a great number of carriages and by crowds of people, left no. , great george street, westminster, and, passing the abbey, moved slowly to st. pancras gate. here a halt was made; the carriages returned, and the hearse proceeded by slow stages to nottingham. the mayor and corporation of nottingham now joined the funeral procession. mr. hobhouse, who attended, tells us that the cortège extended about a quarter of a mile, and, moving very slowly, was five hours on the road to hucknall-torkard. 'the view of it as it wound through the villages of papplewick and lindlay excited sensations in me which will never be forgotten. as we passed under the hill of annesley, "crowned with the peculiar diadem of trees" immortalized by byron, i called to mind a thousand particulars of my first visit to newstead. it was dining at annesley park that i saw the first interview of byron, after a long interval, with his early love, mary anne chaworth. 'the churchyard and the little church of hucknall were so crowded that it was with difficulty we could follow the coffin up the aisle. the contrast between the gorgeous decorations of the coffin and the urn, and the humble village church, was very striking. i was told afterwards that the place was crowded until a late hour in the evening, and that the vault was not closed until the next morning. 'i should mention that i thought lady byron ought to be consulted respecting the funeral of her husband; and i advised mrs. leigh to write to her, and ask what her wishes might be. her answer was, if the deceased had left no instructions, she thought the matter might be left to the judgment of mr. hobhouse. there was a postscript, saying, "if you like you may show this."' hobhouse concludes his account with these words: 'i was present at the marriage of this lady with my friend, and handed her into the carriage which took the bride and bridegroom away. shaking hands with lady byron, i wished her all happiness. her answer was: "if i am _not_ happy, it will be my own fault."' part ii what the poems reveal 'intesi, che a cosi fatto tormento enno dannati i peccator carnali che la ragion sommettono al talento.' _inferno_, canto v., - . what the poems reveal 'every author in some degree portrays himself in his works, even be it against his will.'--goethe. lady byron has expressed her opinion that almost every incident in byron's poems was drawn from his personal experience. in a letter to lady anne barnard, written two years after the separation, she says: 'in regard to [byron's] poetry, egotism is the vital principle of his imagination, which it is difficult for him to kindle on any subject with which his own character and interests are not identified; but by the introduction of fictitious incidents, by change of scene or time, he has enveloped his poetical disclosures in a system impenetrable except to a very few.' byron himself has told us in 'don juan' that his music 'has some mystic diapasons, with much which could not be appreciated in any manner by the _uninitiated_.' in a letter to john murray (august , ), he says: 'almost all "don juan" is _real_ life, either my own or from people i knew.' it is no exaggeration to say that in byron's poems some of the mysterious incidents in his life are plainly revealed. for example, 'childe harold,' 'the giaour,' 'the bride of abydos,' 'the corsair,' 'lara,' 'the dream,' 'manfred,' 'don juan,' and several of the smaller pieces, all disclose episodes connected with his own personal experience. in the so-called 'fugitive pieces' we get a glimpse of his school life and friendships; his pursuits during the time that he resided with his mother at southwell; and his introduction to cambridge. in the 'hours of idleness' we are introduced to mary chaworth, after her marriage and the ruin of his hopes. in the verse 'remembrance' we realize that the dawn of his life is overcast. we see, from some verses written in , how, three years after that marriage, he was still the victim of a fatal infatuation: 'i deem'd that time, i deem'd that pride, had quench'd at length my boyish flame; nor knew, till seated by thy side, my heart in all--save hope--the same.' after lingering for three months in the neighbourhood of the woman whom he so unwisely loved, he finally resolved to break the chain: 'in flight i shall be surely wise, escaping from temptation's snare; i cannot view my paradise without the wish of dwelling there.' when about to leave england, in vain pursuit of the happiness he had lost, he addresses passionate verses to mary chaworth: 'and i must from this land be gone, because i cannot love but one.' he tells her that he has had love passages with another woman, in the vain hope of destroying the love of his life: 'but some unconquerable spell forbade my bleeding breast to own a kindred care for aught but one.' he wished to say farewell, but dared not trust himself. in the cantos of 'childe harold,' written during his absence, he recurs to the subject nearest to his heart. he says that before leaving newstead-- 'oft-times in his maddest mirthful mood strange pangs would flash along childe harold's brow, as if the memory of some _deadly feud_ or _disappointed passion_ lurked below: but this none knew, nor haply cared to know.' he mentions his mother, from whom he dreaded to part, and his sister augusta, whom he loved, but had not seen for some time. after his return to england in , he wrote the 'thyrza' poems, and added some stanzas to 'childe harold,' wherein he expresses a hope that the separation between himself and mary chaworth may not be eternal. he then pours out the sorrows of his heart to francis hodgson. we cannot doubt that the 'lines written beneath a picture,' composed at athens in january, , 'dear object of defeated care! though now of love and thee bereft,' referred to mary chaworth, for he mentions the deathblow of his hope. in the 'epistle to a friend,' byron mentions the effect which a chance meeting with mary had upon him, causing him to realize that 'time had not made him love the less.' the poems that have puzzled the commentator most were those which byron addressed to 'thyrza'--a mysterious personage, whose identity has not hitherto been discovered. the present writer proposes to enter fully, and, he hopes, impartially, into the subject, trusting that the conclusions at which he has arrived may ultimately be endorsed by others who have given their serious attention to the question at issue. in any attempt to unravel the mystery of the 'thyrza' poems, it will be necessary to consider, not only the circumstances in which they were written, but also those associations of byron's youth which inspired a love that endured throughout his life. byron's attachment to his distant cousin, mary anne chaworth, is well known. we know that his boyish love was not returned, and that the young heiress of annesley married, in , mr. john musters, of colwick, in the neighbourhood of nottingham. in order to account for these love-poems, it has been suggested that, subsequent to this marriage, byron fell in love with some incognita, whose identity has never been established, and who died soon after his return to england in . we are unable to concur with so simple a solution of the mystery, for the following reasons: it will be remembered that shortly after mary chaworth's marriage byron entered trinity college, cambridge, where he formed a romantic attachment to a young chorister, named edleston, whose life he had saved from drowning. writing to miss elizabeth pigot on june , , byron says: 'i quit cambridge with very little regret, because our _set_ are vanished, and my musical _protégé_ (edleston), before mentioned, has left the choir, and is stationed in a mercantile house of considerable eminence in the metropolis. you may have heard me observe he is, exactly to an hour, two years younger than myself. i found him grown considerably, and, as you may suppose, very glad to see his former _patron_.[ ] he is nearly my height, very _thin_, very fair complexion, dark eyes, and light locks. 'my opinion of his mind you already know; i hope i shall never have occasion to change it.' on july , , byron again wrote to miss pigot: 'at this moment i write with a bottle of claret in my _head_ and _tears_ in my _eyes_; for i have just parted with my "cornelian,"[ ] who spent the evening with me. as it was our last interview, i postponed my engagement to devote the hours of the _sabbath_ to friendship: edleston and i have separated for the present, and my mind is a chaos of hope and sorrow.... i rejoice to hear you are interested in my _protégé_; he has been my _almost constant_ associate since october, , when i entered trinity college. his _voice_ first attracted my attention, his _countenance_ fixed it, and his _manner_ attached me to him for ever. he departs for a mercantile house in town in october, and we shall probably not meet till the expiration of my minority, when i shall leave to his decision, either entering as a _partner_ through my interest, or residing with me altogether. of course he would, in his present frame of mind, prefer the latter, but he may alter his opinion previous to that period; however, he shall have his choice. i certainly love him more than any human being, and neither time nor distance have had the least effect on my (in general) changeable disposition. in short, we shall put lady e. butler and miss ponsonby (the "ladies of llangollen," as they were called) to the blush, pylades and orestes out of countenance, and want nothing but a catastrophe like nisus and euryalus, to give jonathan and david the "go by." he certainly is perhaps more attached to me than even i am in return. during the whole of my residence at cambridge we met every day, summer and winter, without passing one tiresome moment, and separated each time with increasing reluctance. i hope you will one day see us together. he is the only being i esteem, though i _like_ many.' this letter shows the depth of the boyish affection that had sprung up between two lads with little experience of life. the attachment on both sides was sincere, but not more so than many similar boy friendships, which, alas! fade away under the chilling influences of time and circumstance. in this case the 'cornelian heart' that had sparkled with the tears of edleston, and which, in the fervour of his feelings, byron had suspended round his neck, was, not long afterwards, transferred to miss elizabeth pigot. a vague notion seems to prevail that the inspiration of these 'thyrza' poems is in some way connected with edleston. this idea seems to have arisen from byron's allusion to a pledge of affection given in better days: 'thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token!' we cannot accept this theory, being of opinion, not lightly formed, that the 'bitter pledge' referred to had a far deeper and a more lasting significance than ever could have belonged to 'the cornelian heart that was broken.' in later years, it will be remembered, byron told medwin that, shortly after his arrival at cambridge, he fell into habits of dissipation, in order to drown the remembrance of a hopeless passion for mary chaworth. that mary chaworth held his affections at that time is beyond question. she also had given byron 'a token,' which was still in his possession when the 'thyrza' poems were written; whereas edleston's gift had passed to other hands. the following anecdote, related by the countess guiccioli, may be accepted on byron's authority: 'one day (while byron and musters were bathing in the trent--a river that runs through the grounds of colwick) mr. musters perceived a ring among lord byron's clothes, left on the bank. to see and take possession of it was the affair of a moment. musters had recognized it as having belonged to miss chaworth. lord byron claimed it, but musters would not restore the ring. high words were exchanged. on returning to the house, musters jumped on a horse, and galloped off to ask an explanation from miss chaworth, who, being forced to confess that lord byron wore the ring with her consent, felt obliged to make amends to musters, by promising to declare immediately her engagement with him.' it is therefore probable that the 'dear simple gift,' of the first draft, was the ring which mary chaworth had given to her boy lover in , and that the words we have quoted had no connection whatever with young edleston. assuming that the 'thyrza' poems were addressed to a woman--and there is abundant proof of this--it is remarkable that, neither in the whole course of his correspondence with his friends, nor from any source whatever, can any traces be found of any other serious attachment which would account for the poems in question. between the date of the marriage, in , and the autumn of , byron and mary chaworth had not met. it will be remembered that in the autumn--only eight months before he left england with hobhouse--byron met mary chaworth at dinner in her own home. the effect of that meeting, which he has himself described, shows the depth of his feelings, and precludes the idea that he could at that time have been deeply interested in anyone else. after that meeting byron remained three months in the neighbourhood of annesley; and it may be inferred that an intimacy sprang up between them, which was broken off somewhat abruptly by mary's husband. there are traces of this in 'lara.' at the end of november, , byron writes from newstead to his sister: 'i am living here alone, which suits my inclination better than society of any kind.... i am a very unlucky fellow, for i think i had naturally not a bad heart; but it has been so bent, twisted, and trampled on, that it has now become as hard as a highlander's heelpiece.' a fortnight later he writes to hanson, his agent, and talks of either marrying for money or blowing his brains out. it was then that he wrote those verses addressed to mary chaworth: 'when man, expell'd from eden's bowers, a moment linger'd near the gate, each scene recall'd the vanish'd hours, and bade him curse his future fate. 'in flight i shall be surely wise, escaping from temptation's snare; i cannot view my paradise without the wish of dwelling there.' on january , , byron returned to london. it is hard to believe that during those three months byron did not often meet the lady of his love. it is more than probable that the old friendship between them had been renewed, since there is evidence to prove that, after byron had taken his seat in the house of lords on march , , he confided his parliamentary robes to mary chaworth's safe-keeping, a circumstance which suggests a certain amount of neighbourly friendship. in may, byron again visited newstead, where he entertained matthews and some of his college friends. that _sérénade indiscrète_, ''tis done--and shivering in the gale,' which was addressed to mary chaworth from falmouth on, or about, june , shows the state of his feelings towards her; but she does not seem to have given him any encouragement, and there was no correspondence between them during byron's absence from england. between july , , and july , , byron's thoughts were fully occupied in other directions. his distractions, which may be traced in his writings, were, however, not sufficient to crush out the remembrance of that fatal infatuation. when, in , he returned to england, it was without pleasure, and without the faintest hope of any renewal of an intimacy which mary chaworth had broken off for both their sakes. he was in no hurry to visit newstead, where his mother anxiously awaited him, and dawdled about town, under various pretexts, until the first week in august, when he heard of his mother's serious illness. before byron reached newstead his mother had died. he seems to have heard of her illness one day, and of her death on the day following. although there had long been a certain estrangement between them, all was now forgotten, and byron felt his mother's death acutely. it was at this time that he wrote to his friend scrope davies: 'some curse hangs over me and mine. my mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends (charles skinner matthews) is drowned in a ditch. what can i say, or think, or do? i received a letter from him the day before yesterday.... come to me, scrope; i am almost desolate--left almost alone in the world.' in that gloomy frame of mind, in the solitude of a ruin--for newstead at that time was but little better than a ruin--byron, on august , drew up some directions for his will, in which he desired to be buried in the garden at newstead, by the side of his favourite dog boatswain. on the same day he wrote to dallas, who was superintending the printing of the first and second cantos of 'childe harold': 'peace be with the dead! regret cannot wake them. with a sigh to the departed, let us resume the dull business of life, in the certainty that we also shall have our repose. besides her who gave me being, i have lost more than one who made that being tolerable. matthews, a man of the first talents, and also not the worst of my narrow circle, has perished miserably in the muddy waves of the cam, always fatal to genius; my poor schoolfellow, wingfield, at coimbra--within a month; and whilst i had heard from _all three_, but not seen _one_.... but let this pass; we shall all one day pass along with the rest. the world is too full of such things, and our very sorrow is selfish.... i am already too familiar with the dead. it is strange that i look on the skulls which stand beside me (i have always had _four_ in my study) without emotion, but i cannot strip the features of those i have known of their fleshy covering, even in idea, without a hideous sensation; but the worms are less ceremonious. surely, the romans did well when they burned the dead.' the writer of this letter was in his twenty-fourth year! ten days later byron writes to hodgson: 'indeed the blows followed each other so rapidly that i am yet stupid from the shock; and though i do eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh at times, yet i can hardly persuade myself that i am awake, did not every morning convince me mournfully to the contrary. i shall now waive the subject, the dead are at rest, and none but the dead can be so.... i am solitary, and i never felt solitude irksome before.' at about the same date, in a letter to dallas, byron writes: 'at three-and-twenty i am left alone, and what more can we be at seventy? it is true i am young enough to begin again, but with whom can i retrace the laughing part of my life? it is odd how few of my friends have died a quiet death--i mean, in their beds! 'i cannot settle to anything, and my days pass, with the exception of bodily exercise to some extent, with uniform indolence and idle insipidity.' the verses, 'oh! banish care,' etc., were written at this time. in the following lines we see that his grief at the losses he had sustained was deepened by the haunting memory of mary chaworth: 'i've seen my bride another's bride-- have seen her seated by his side-- have seen the infant which she bore wear the sweet smile the mother wore, when she and i in youth have smiled as fond and faultless as her child; have seen her eyes, in cold disdain, ask if i felt no secret pain. and i have acted well my part, and made my cheek belie my heart, returned the freezing glance she gave, yet felt the while _that_ woman's slave; have kissed, as if without design, the babe which ought to have been mine, and showed, alas! in each caress time had not made me love the less.' moore, who knew more of the inner workings of byron's mind in later years than anyone else, has told us that the poems addressed to 'thyrza' were merely 'the abstract spirit of many griefs,' and that the pseudonym was given to an 'object of affection' to whom he poured out the sorrows of his heart. 'all these recollections,' says moore, 'of the young and dead now came to mingle themselves in his mind with the image of her who, _though living_, was for him as much lost as they, and diffused that general feeling of sadness and fondness through his soul, which found a vent in these poems. no friendship, however warm, could have inspired sorrow so passionate; as no love, however pure, could have kept passion so chastened. 'it was the blending of the two affections in his memory and imagination that thus gave birth to an ideal object combining the best features of both, and drew from him these saddest and tenderest of love-poems, in which we find all the depth and intensity of real feeling, touched over with such a light as no reality ever wore.' moore here expresses himself guardedly. he was one of the very few who knew the whole story of mary chaworth's associations with byron. he could not, of course, betray his full knowledge; but he has made it sufficiently clear that byron, in writing the 'thyrza' group of poems, was merely strewing the flowers of poetry on the grave of his love for mary chaworth. the first of these poems was written on the day on which he heard of the death of edleston. in a letter to dallas he says: 'i have been again shocked by a _death_, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times. i have become callous, nor have i a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed down my head to the earth. it seems as though i were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age. my friends fall around me, and i shall be left a lonely tree before i am withered. other men can always take refuge in their families; i have no resource but my own reflections, and they present no prospect here or hereafter, except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my betters. i am indeed very wretched, and you will excuse my saying so, as you know i am not apt to cant of sensibility.'[ ] shortly after this letter was written byron visited cambridge, where, among the many memories which that place awakened, a remembrance of the young chorister and their ardent friendship was most vivid. byron recollected the cornelian that edleston gave him as a token of friendship, and, now that the giver had passed away for ever, he regretted that he had parted with it. the following letter to mrs. pigot explains itself: 'cambridge, '_october , _. 'dear madam, 'i am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet i cannot well do otherwise. you may remember a _cornelian_ which some years ago i consigned to miss pigot--indeed i _gave_ to her--and now i am going to make the most selfish and rude of requests. the person who gave it to me, when i was very young, is _dead_, and though a long time has elapsed since we met, as it was the only memorial i possessed of that person (in whom i was very much interested), it has acquired a value by this event i could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes. if, therefore, miss pigot should have preserved it, i must, under these circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me at no. , st. james' street, london, and i will replace it by something she may remember me by equally well. as she was always so kind as to feel interested in the fate of him that formed the subject of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian died in may last of a consumption at the age of twenty-one, making the sixth, within four months, of friends and relatives that i have lost between may and the end of august. 'believe me, dear madam, 'yours very sincerely, 'byron.' the cornelian when found, was returned to byron, but apparently in a broken condition. 'ill-fated heart! and can it be, that thou shouldst thus be rent in twain?' it was through the depressing influence of solitude that the idea entered byron's mind to depict his (possibly eternal) separation from mary chaworth in terms synonymous with death. with a deep feeling of desolation he recalled every incident of his boyish love. we have seen how the image of his lost mary, now the wife of his rival, deepened the gloom caused by the sudden death of his mother, and of some of his college friends. it was to mary, whom he dared not name, that he cried in his agony: 'by many a shore and many a sea divided, yet beloved in vain; the past, the future fled to thee, to bid us meet--no, ne'er again!' her absence from annesley, where he had hoped to find her on his return home, was a great disappointment to him. 'thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one! whom youth and youth's affections bound to me; who did for me what none beside have done, nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee. what is my being! thou hast ceased to be! nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home, who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see-- would they had never been, or were to come! would he had ne'er returned to find fresh cause to roam! 'oh i ever loving, lovely, and beloved! how selfish sorrow ponders on the past, and clings to thoughts now better far removed! but time shall tear thy shadow from me last. all thou couldst have of mine, stern death! thou hast; the parent, friend, and now the more than friend: ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, and grief with grief continuing still to blend, hath snatch'd the little joy that life hath yet to lend. * * * * * 'what is the worst of woes that wait on age? what stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? to view each loved one blotted from life's page, and be alone on earth, as i am now. before the chastener humbly let me bow, o'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroyed: roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow, since time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed, and with the ills of eld mine earlier years alloyed.' these stanzas were attached to the second canto of 'childe harold,' after that poem was in the press. mr. ernest hartley coleridge, who so ably edited the latest edition of the poetry of byron, states that they were sent to dallas on the same day that byron composed the poem 'to thyrza.' this is significant, as also his attempt to mystify dallas by telling him that he had again (october , ) been shocked by a death. this was true enough, for he had on that day heard of the death of edleston; but it was _not_ true that the stanzas we have quoted had any connection with that event. mr. coleridge in a note says: 'in connection with this subject, it may be noted that the lines and of stanza xcv., '"nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home, who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see," do not bear out byron's contention to dallas (letters, october and , ) that in these three _in memoriam_ stanzas (ix., xcv., xcvi.) he is bewailing an event which took place _after_ he returned to newstead.[ ] the "more than friend" had "ceased to be" before the "wanderer" returned. it is evident that byron did not take dallas into his confidence.' assuredly he did not. the 'more than friend' was not _dead_; she had merely absented herself, and did not stay to welcome the 'wanderer' on his return from his travels. she was, however, _dead to him_ in a sense far deeper than mere absence at such a time. 'the absent are the dead--for they are cold, and ne'er can be what once we did behold.'[ ] mary chaworth's presence would have consoled him at a time when he felt alone in the world. he feared that she was lost to him for ever. he knew her too well to suppose that she could ever be more to him than a friend; and yet it was just that female sympathy and friendship for which he so ardently yearned. in his unreasonableness, he was both hurt and disappointed that this companion of his earlier days should have kept away from her home at that particular time, and of course misconstrued the cause. with the feeling that this parting must be eternal, he wished that they could have met once more. 'could this have been--a word, a look, that softly said, "we part in peace," had taught my bosom how to brook, with fainter sighs, thy soul's release.' in the bitterness of his desolation he recalled the days when they were at newstead together--probably stolen interviews, which find no place in history--when 'many a day in these, to me, deserted towers, ere called but for a time away, affection's mingling tears were ours? ours, too, the glance none saw beside; the smile none else might understand; the whispered thought: the walks aside; the pressure of the thrilling hand; the kiss so guiltless and relined, that love each warmer wish forbore; those eyes proclaimed so pure a mind, ev'n passion blushed to plead for more. the tone that taught me to rejoice, when prone, unlike thee, to repine; _the song, celestial from thy voice, but sweet to me from none but thine_; the pledge we wore--_i_ wear it still, but where is thine? ah! where art thou? oft have i borne the weight of ill, but never bent beneath till now!' six days after these lines were written byron left newstead. writing to hodgson from his lodgings in st. james's street, he enclosed some stanzas which he had written a day or two before, 'on hearing a song of former days.' the lady, whose singing now so deeply impressed byron, was the hon. mrs. george lamb, whom he had met at melbourne house. in this, the second of the 'thyrza' poems, the allusions to mary chaworth are even more marked. byron says the songs of mrs. george lamb 'speak to him of brighter days,' and that he hopes to hear those strains no more: 'for now, alas! i must not think, i may not gaze, on what i _am_--on what i _was_. the voice that made those sounds more sweet is hush'd, and all their charms are fled. * * * * * 'on my ear the well-remembered echoes thrill; i hear a voice i would not hear, a voice that now might well be still. * * * * * 'sweet thyrza! waking as in sleep, thou art but now a lovely dream; _a star_ that trembled o'er the deep, then turned from earth its tender beam. but he who through life's dreary way must pass, when heaven is veiled in wrath, will long lament the vanished ray that scattered gladness o'er his path.' in byron's imagination mary chaworth was always hovering over him like a star. she was the 'starlight of his boyhood,' the 'star of his destiny,' and three years later the poet, in his unpublished fragment 'harmodia,' speaks of mary as his 'melancholy star whose tearful beam shoots trembling from afar.' the third and last of the 'thyrza' poems must have been written at about the same time as the other two. it appeared with 'childe harold' in . byron, weary of the gloom of solitude, and tortured by 'pangs that rent his heart in twain,' now determined to break away and seek inspiration for that mental energy which formed part of his nature. man, he says, was not made to live alone. 'i'll be that light unmeaning thing that smiles with all, and weeps with none. it was not thus in days more dear, it never would have been, _but thou hast fled, and left me lonely here_.' byron's thoughts went back to the days when he was sailing over the bright waters of the blue Ægean, in the _salsette_ frigate, commanded by 'good old bathurst'[ ]--those halcyon days when he was weaving his visions into stanzas for 'childe harold.' 'on many a lone and lovely night it soothed to gaze upon the sky; for then i deemed the heavenly light shone sweetly on thy pensive eye: and oft i thought at cynthia's noon, when sailing o'er the Ægean wave, "now thyrza gazes on that moon"-- alas! it gleamed upon her grave! 'when stretched on fever's sleepless bed, and sickness shrunk my throbbing veins, "'tis comfort still," i faintly said, "that thyrza cannot know my pains." like freedom to the timeworn slave-- a boon 'tis idle then to give-- relenting nature vainly gave my life, when thyrza ceased to live! 'my thyrza's pledge in better days, _when love and life alike were new_! how different now thou meet'st my gaze! how tinged by time with sorrow's hue! the heart that gave itself with thee is silent--ah, were mine as still! though cold as e'en the dead can be, it feels, it sickens with the chill.' byron here suggests that the pledge in question was given with the giver's heart. lovers are apt to interpret such gifts as 'love-tokens,' without suspicion that they may possibly have been due to a feeling far less flattering to their hopes. 'thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token! though painful, welcome to my breast! still, still, preserve that love unbroken, or break the heart to which thou'rt pressed. time tempers love, but not removes, more hallowed when its hope is fled.' these three pieces comprise the so-called 'thyrza' poems, and, in the absence of proof to the contrary, we may reasonably suppose that their subject was mary chaworth. this is the more likely because the original manuscripts were the property of byron's sister, to whom they were probably given by mary chaworth, when, in later years, she destroyed or parted with all the letters and documents which she had received from byron since the days of their childhood. byron did not give up the hope of winning mary chaworth's love until her marriage in . two months later he entered trinity college, cambridge, and from that time, until his departure with hobhouse on his first foreign tour, those who were in constant intercourse with him never mentioned any other object of adoration who might fit in with the thyrza of the poems. if such a person had really existed, byron would certainly, either in conversation or in writing, have disclosed her identity. moore makes it clear that the one passion of byron's life was mary chaworth. he tells us that there were many fleeting love-episodes, but only one passion strong enough to have inspired the poems in question. if byron's heart, during the two years that he passed abroad, had been overflowing with love for some incognita, it was not in his nature to have kept silence. from his well-known effusiveness, reticence under such circumstances is inconceivable. finally, as there were no poems, no letters, and no allusion to any such person in the _first_ draft of 'childe harold,' we may confidently assume that the poet, in the loneliness of his heart, appealed to the only woman whom he ever really loved, and that the legendary thyrza was a myth. it will be remembered that the ninth stanza in the second canto of 'childe harold' was interpolated long after the manuscript had been given to dallas. it was forwarded for that purpose, three days after the date of the poem 'to thyrza,' and essentially belongs to that period of desolation which inspired those poems: 'there, thou! _whose love and life, together fled, have left me here to love and live in vain_-- twined with my heart, and can i deem thee dead, when busy memory flashes on my brain? well--_i will dream that we may meet again_, and woo the vision to my vacant breast: if aught of young remembrance then remain, be as it may futurity's behest, _or seeing thee no more, to sink to sullen rest_.'[ ] it is difficult to believe that this stanza was inspired by a memory of the dead. are we not told that 'love and life _together_ fled'--in other words, when mary withdrew her love, she was dead to him? he tells her that in abandoning him she has left him to love and live in vain. and yet he will not give up the hope of meeting her again some day; this is now his sole consolation. memory of the past (possibly those meetings which took place by stealth, shortly before his departure from england in ) feeds the hope that now sustains him. but he will leave everything to chance, and if fate decides that they shall be parted for ever, then will he sink to sullen apathy. we may remind the reader that at this period ( ) byron had no belief in any existence after death. 'i will have nothing to do with your immortality,' he writes to hodgson in september; 'we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another. if men are to live, why die at all? and if they die, why disturb the sweet and sound sleep that "knows no waking"? '"post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil ... quæris quo jaceas post obitum loco? quo _non_ nata jacent."' even when, in later years, byron somewhat modified the views of his youth, he expressed an opinion that 'a material resurrection seems strange, and even absurd, except for purposes of punishment, and all punishment which is to _revenge_ rather than _correct_ must be _morally wrong_.' it is therefore tolerably certain that, on the day when he expressed a hope that he might meet his lady-love again, the meeting was to have been in _this_ world, and not in that 'land of souls beyond the sable shore.' it must also be remembered that the eighth stanza in the second canto of 'childe harold' was substituted for one in which byron deliberately stated that he did not look for life, where life may never be. the revise was written to please dallas, and does not pretend to be a confession of belief in immortality, but merely an admission that, on a subject where 'nothing can be known,' no final decision is possible. in the summer of byron underwent grave vicissitudes, mental, moral, and financial. his letters and journals teem with allusions to some catastrophe. it seemed as though he were threatened with impending ruin. in his depressed state of mind he found relief only, as he tells us, in the composition of poetry. it was at this time that he wrote in swift succession 'the giaour,' 'the bride of abydos,' and 'the corsair.' it is clear that byron's dejection was the result of a hopeless attachment. mr. hartley coleridge assumes that byron's _innamorata_ was lady frances wedderburn webster. but that bright star did not long shine in byron's orbit--certainly not after october, --and it is doubtful whether they were ever on terms of close intimacy. her husband had long been byron's friend. byron had lent him money, and had given him advice, which he seems to have sorely needed. it is difficult to understand why lady frances webster should have been especially regarded as byron's calypso. there is nothing to show that she ever seriously occupied his thoughts. writing to moore on september , , byron says: 'i stayed a week with the websters, and behaved very well, though the lady of the house is young, religious, and pretty, and the master is my particular friend. i felt no wish for anything but a poodle dog, which they kindly gave me.' so little does byron seem to have been attracted by lady frances, that he only once more visited the websters, and then only for a few days, on his way to newstead, between october and , . on june of that year byron wrote to mr. john hanson, his solicitor, a letter which shows the state of his mind at that time. he tells hanson that he is about to visit salt hill, near maidenhead, and that he will be absent for one week. he is determined to go abroad. the prospective lawsuit with mr. claughton (about the sale of newstead) is to be dropped, if it cannot be carried on in byron's absence. at all hazards, at all losses, he is determined that nothing shall prevent him from leaving the country. 'if utter ruin _were_ or _is_ before me on the one hand, and wealth at home on the other, i have made my choice, and go i will.' the pictures, and every movable that could be converted into cash, were, by byron's orders, to be sold. 'all i want is a few thousand pounds, and then, adieu. you shan't be troubled with me these ten years, if ever.' clearly, there must have been something more than a passing fancy which could have induced byron to sacrifice his chances of selling newstead, for the sake of a few thousand pounds of ready-money. it _had been_ his intention to accompany lord and lady oxford on their travels, but this project was abandoned. after three weeks--spent in running backwards and forwards between salt hill and london--byron confided his troubles to augusta. she was always his rock of refuge in all his deeper troubles. augusta leigh thought that absence might mend matters, and tried hard to keep her brother up to his resolve of going abroad; she even volunteered to accompany him. but lady melbourne--who must have had a prurient mind--persuaded byron that the gossips about town would not consider it 'proper' for him and his sister to travel alone! as byron was at that time under the influence of an irresistible infatuation, lady melbourne's warning turned the scale, and the project fell through. meanwhile the plot thickened. something--he told moore--had ruined all his prospects of matrimony. his financial circumstances, he said, were mending; 'and were not my other prospects blackening, i would take a wife.' in july he still wishes to get out of england. 'they had better let me go,' he says; 'one can die anywhere.' on august , after another visit to salt hill, byron writes to moore: 'i have said nothing of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, i am at this moment in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape, than any of the last twelve months, and that is saying a good deal. it is unlucky we can neither live with nor without these women.' a week later he wrote again to moore: 'i would incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour to-morrow--that is, i would a month ago, but at present....' moore suggested that byron's case was similar to that of the youth apostrophized by horace in his twenty-seventh ode, and invited his confidence: 'come, whisper it--the tender truth-- to safe and friendly ears! what! her? o miserable youth! oh! doomed to grief and tears! in what a whirlpool are you tost, your rudder broke, your pilot lost!' recent research has convinced the present writer that the incident which affected byron so profoundly at this time--about eighteen months before his marriage--indirectly brought about the separation between lord and lady byron in . a careful student of byron's character could not fail to notice, among all the contradictions and inconsistencies of his life, one point upon which he was resolute--namely, a consistent reticence on the subject of the intimacy which sprang up between himself and mary chaworth in the summer of . the strongest impulse of his life--even to the last--was a steadfast, unwavering, hopeless attachment to that lady. throughout his turbulent youth, in his early as in his later days, the same theme floats through the chords of his melodious verse, a deathless love and a deep remorse. even at the last, when the shadow of death was creeping slowly over the flats at missolonghi, the same wild, despairing note found involuntary expression, and the last words that byron ever wrote tell the sad story with a distinctness which might well open the eyes even of the blind. when he first met his fate, he was a schoolboy of sixteen--precocious, pugnacious, probably a prig, and by no means handsome. he must have appeared to mary much as we see him in his portrait by sanders. mary was two years older, and already in love with a fox-hunting squire of good family. 'love dwells not in our will,' and a nature like byron's, once under its spell, was sure to feel its force acutely. there was romance, too, in the situation; and the poetic temperament--always precocious--responded to an impulse on the gossamer chance of achieving the impossible. mary was probably half amused and half flattered by the adoration of a boy of whose destiny she divined nothing. there is no reason to suppose that there was any meeting between byron and mary chaworth after the spring of , until the summer of . their separation seemed destined to be final. although byron, in after-years, wished it to be believed that they had not met since , it is certain that a meeting took place in the summer of . although byron took, as we shall see presently, great pains to conceal that fact from the public, he did not attempt to deceive either moore, hobhouse, or hodgson. in his letter to monsieur coulmann, written in july, , we have the version which byron wished the public to believe. 'i had not seen her [mary chaworth] for many years. when an occasion offered, i was upon the point, with her consent, of paying her a visit, when my sister, who has always had more influence over me than anyone else, persuaded me not to do it. "for," said she, "if you go, you will fall in love again, and then there will be a scene; one step will lead to another, _et cela fera un éclat_," etc. i was guided by these reasons, and shortly after i married.... mrs. chaworth some time after, being separated from her husband, became insane; but she has since recovered her reason, and is, i believe, reconciled to her husband.' at about the same time byron told medwin that, _after_ mary's separation from her husband, she proposed an interview with him--a suggestion which byron, by the advice of mrs. leigh, declined. he also said to medwin: 'she [mary chaworth] was the _beau-idéal_ of all that my youthful fancy could paint of beautiful; and i have taken all my fables about the celestial nature of women from the perfection my imagination created in her--i say _created_, for i found her, _like the rest of her sex, anything but angelic_.' it is difficult to see how byron could have arrived at so unflattering an estimate of a woman whom he had only _once_ seen since her marriage--at a dinner-party, when, as he has told us, he was overcome by shyness and a feeling of awkwardness! but let that pass. byron wished the world to believe ( ) that mary chaworth, after the separation from her husband in , proposed a meeting with byron; ( ) that he declined to meet her; ( ) that, after his unfortunate marriage, mary became insane; and ( ) that he found her, 'like the rest of her sex, anything but angelic.' it is quite possible, of course, that byron may have _at first_ refused to meet the only woman on earth whom he sincerely loved, and more than likely that mrs. leigh did her utmost to dissuade him from so rash a proceeding. but it is on record that byron incautiously admitted to medwin that he _did_ meet mary chaworth _after his return from greece_.[ ] it will be remembered that he returned from greece in . their intimacy had long before been broken off by mr. john musters; and, as we have seen, mary, faithful to a promise which she had made to her husband, kept away from annesley during the period ( ) when the 'thyrza' poems were written. it is doubtful whether they would ever again have met if her husband had shown any consideration for her feelings. but he showed her none. when, nearly forty years ago, the present writer visited annesley, there were several people living who remembered both mary chaworth and her husband. these people stated that their married life, so full of grief and bitterness, was a constant source of comment both at annesley and newstead. the trouble was attributed to the harsh and capricious conduct, and the well-known infidelities, of one to whose kindness and affection mary had a sacred claim. she seems to have been left for long periods at annesley with only one companion, miss anne radford, who had been brought up with her from childhood. this state of things eventually broke down, and when, in the early part of , mary could stand the strain no longer, a separation took place by mutual consent. in the summer of that year byron and this unhappy woman were thrown together by the merest accident, and, unfortunately for both, renewed their dangerous friendship. byron's friend and biographer, thomas moore, took great pains to suppress every allusion to mary chaworth in byron's memoranda and letters. he faithfully kept the secret. there is nothing in byron's letters or journals, as revised by moore, to show that they ever met after , and yet they undoubtedly did meet in , _after_ mary's estrangement from her husband. that they were in constant correspondence in november of that year may be gathered from byron's journal, where mary's name is veiled by asterisks. on november he writes: 'i am tremendously in arrear with my letters, except to * * * *, and to her my thoughts overpower me: my words never compass them.' 'i have been pondering,' he writes on the th, 'on the miseries of separation, that--oh! how seldom we see those we love! yet we live ages in moments _when met_.' then follows, on the th, a clue: 'i believe, with clym o' the clow, or robin hood, '"by our mary (dear name!) thou art both mother and may, i think it never was a man's lot to die before his day."' it is attested, by all those who were acquainted with mary chaworth, that she always bore an exemplary character. it was well known that her marriage was an unhappy one, and that she had been for some time deserted by her husband. in june, , when she fell under the fatal spell of byron, then the most fascinating man in society,[ ] she was living in deep dejection, parted from her lawful protector, with whom she had a serious disagreement. he had neglected her, and she well knew that she had a rival in his affections at that time. it was in these distressing circumstances that byron, with the world at his feet, came to worship her in great humility. as he looked back upon the past, he realized that this neglected woman had always been the light of his life, the lodestar of his destiny. and now that he beheld his 'morning star of annesley' shedding ineffectual rays upon the dead embers of a lost love, the old feeling returned to him with resistless force. 'we met--we gazed--i saw, and sighed; she did not speak, and yet replied; there are ten thousand tones and signs we hear and see, but none defines-- involuntary sparks of thought, which strike from out the heart o'erwrought, and form a strange intelligence, alike mysterious and intense, which link the burning chain that binds, without their will, young hearts and minds. i saw, and sighed--in silence wept, and still reluctant distance kept, until i was made known to her, and we might then and there confer without suspicion--then, even then, i longed, and was resolved to speak; but on my lips they died again, the accents tremulous and weak, until one hour... * * * * * 'i would have given my life but to have called her mine in the full view of earth and heaven; for i did oft and long repine that we could only meet by stealth.' in the remorseful words of manfred, 'her faults were mine--her virtues were her own-- i loved her, and destroyed her!... not with my hand, but heart--which broke _her_ heart-- it gazed on mine and withered.' without attempting to excuse byron's conduct--indeed, that were useless--it must be remembered that he was only twenty-five years of age, and mary was very unhappy. after all hope of meeting her again had been abandoned, the force of destiny, so to speak, had unexpectedly restored his lost thyrza--the _theresa_ of 'mazeppa.' 'i loved her then, i love her still; and such as i am, love indeed in fierce extremes--in good and ill-- but still we love... haunted to our very age with the vain shadow of the past.' byron's punishment was in this world. the remorse which followed endured throughout the remaining portion of his life. it wrecked what might have proved a happy marriage, and drove him, from stone to stone, along life's causeway, to that 'sea sodom' where, for many months, he tried to destroy the memory of his crime by reckless profligacy. mary chaworth no sooner realized her awful danger--the madness of an impulse which not even love could excuse--than she recoiled from the precipice which yawned before her. she had been momentarily blinded by the irresistible fascination of one who, after all, really and truly loved her. but she was a good woman in spite of this one episode, and to the last hour of her existence she never swerved from that narrow path which led to an honoured grave. although it was too late for happiness, too late to evade the consequences of her weakness, there was still time for repentance. the secret was kept inviolate by the very few to whom it was confided, and the present writer deeply regrets that circumstances have compelled him to break the seal. if 'astarte' had not been written, there would have been no need to lift the veil. lord lovelace has besmirched the good name of mrs. leigh, and it is but an act of simple justice to defend her. when mary chaworth escaped from byron's fatal influence, he reproached her for leaving him, and tried to shake her resolution with heart-rending appeals. happily for both, they fell upon deaf ears. 'astarte! my beloved! speak to me; say that thou loath'st me not--that i do bear this punishment for both.' the depth and sincerity of byron's love for mary chaworth cannot be questioned. moore, who knew him well, says: 'the all-absorbing and unsuccessful (unsatisfied) love for mary chaworth was the agony, without being the death, of an unsated desire which lived on through life, filled his poetry with the very soul of tenderness, lent the colouring of its light to even those unworthy ties which vanity or passion led him afterwards to form, and was the last aspiration of his fervid spirit, in those stanzas written but a few months before his death.' it was, in fact, a love of such unreasonableness and persistence as might be termed, without exaggeration, a madness of the heart. although mary escaped for ever from that baneful infatuation, which in an unguarded moment had destroyed her peace of mind, her separation from byron was not complete until he married. not only did they correspond frequently, but they also met occasionally. in the following january ( ) byron introduced mary to augusta leigh. from that eventful meeting, _when probable contingencies were provided for_, until mary's death in , these two women, who had suffered so much through byron, continued in the closest intimacy; and in november, , augusta stood sponsor for mary's youngest daughter. in a poem which must have been written in , an apostrophe 'to time,' byron refers to mary's resolutions. 'in joy i've sighed to think thy flight would soon subside from swift to slow; thy cloud could overcast the light, but could not add a night to woe; for then, however drear and dark, my soul was suited to thy sky; _one star alone_ shot forth a spark to prove thee--not eternity. _that beam hath sunk._' it is of course true that matters were not, and could never again be, on the same footing as in july of that year; but mary chaworth was constancy itself, in a higher and a nobler sense than byron attached to it, when he reproached her for broken vows. 'thy vows are all broken, and light is thy fame: i hear thy name spoken, and share in its shame.' during the remainder of byron's life, mary took a deep interest in everything that affected him. in , believing that marriage would be his salvation, she used her influence in that direction. we know that she did not approve of the choice which byron so recklessly made, and she certainly had ample cause to deplore its results. through her close intimacy with augusta leigh--an intimacy which has not hitherto been suspected--she became acquainted with every phase in byron's subsequent career. she could read 'between the lines,' and solve the mysteries to be found in such poems as 'lara,' 'mazeppa,' 'manfred,' and 'don juan.' we believe that byron's love for mary was the main cause of the indifference he felt towards his wife. in order to shield mary from the possible consequences of a public investigation into conduct prior to his marriage, byron, in , consented to a separation from his wife. after byron had left england mary broke down under the strain she had borne so bravely, and her mind gave way. when at last, in april, , a reconciliation took place between mary and her husband, it was apparent to everyone that she had, during those four anxious years, become a changed woman. she never entirely regained either health or spirits. her mind 'had acquired a tinge of religious melancholy, which never afterwards left it.' sorrow and disappointment had subdued a naturally buoyant nature, and 'melancholy marked her for its own.' shortly before her death, in , she destroyed every letter she had received from byron since those distant fateful years when, as boy and girl, they had wandered on the hills of annesley. for eight sad years mary chaworth survived the lover of her youth. shortly before her death, in a letter to one of her daughters, she drew her own character which might fitly form her epitaph: 'soon led, easily pleased, very hasty, and very relenting, with a heart moulded in a warm and affectionate fashion.' such was the woman who, though parted by fate, maintained through sunshine and storm an ascendancy over the heart of byron which neither time nor absence could impair, and which endured to the end of his earthly existence. we may well believe that those inarticulate words which the dying poet murmured to the bewildered fletcher--those broken sentences which ended with, 'tell her everything; you are friends with her'--may have referred, not to lady byron, as policy suggested, but to mary chaworth, with whom fletcher had been acquainted since his youth. we have incontestable proof that, only two months before he died, byron's thoughts were occupied with one whom he had named 'the starlight of his boyhood.' how deeply byron thought about mary chaworth at the last is proved by the poem which was found among his papers at missolonghi. in six stanzas the poet revealed the story that he would fain have hidden. a note in his handwriting states that they were addressed 'to no one in particular,' and that they were merely 'a poetical scherzo.' there is, however, no room for doubt that the poem bears a deep significance. i. 'i watched thee when the foe was at our side, ready to strike at him--or thee and me were safety hopeless--rather than divide aught with one loved, save love and liberty.' we have here a glimpse of that turbulent scene when mary's husband, in a fit of jealousy, put an end to their dangerous intimacy. ii. 'i watched thee on the breakers, when the rock received our prow, and all was storm and fear, and bade thee cling to me through every shock; this arm would be thy bark, or breast thy bier.' this brings us to that period of suspense and fear, in , which preceded the birth of medora. in a letter which byron at that time wrote to miss milbanke, we find these words: 'i am at present a little feverish--i mean mentally--and, as usual, _on the brink of something or other, which will probably crush me at last, and cut our correspondence short, with everything else_.' twelve days later (march , ), byron tells moore that he is 'uncomfortable,' and that he has 'no lack of argument to ponder upon of the most gloomy description.' 'some day or other,' he writes, 'when we are _veterans_, i may tell you a tale of present and past times; and it is not from want of confidence that i do not now.... _all this would be very well if i had no heart_; but, unluckily, i have found that there is such a thing still about me, though in no very good repair, and also that it has a habit of attaching itself to _one_, whether i will or no. _divide et impera_, i begin to think, will only do for politics.' when moore, who was puzzled, asked byron to explain himself more clearly, he replied: 'guess darkly, and you will seldom err.' thirty-four days later medora was born, april , . iii. 'i watched thee when the fever glazed thine eyes, yielding my couch, and stretched me on the ground, when overworn with watching, ne'er to rise from thence if thou an early grave had found.' here we see byron's agony of remorse. like herod, he lamented for mariamne: 'and mine's the guilt, and mine the hell, this bosom's desolation dooming; and i have earned those tortures well which unconsumed are still consuming!' in 'manfred' we find a note of remembrance in the deprecating words: 'oh! no, no, no! my injuries came down on those who loved me-- on those whom i best loved: i never quelled an enemy, save in my just defence-- but my embrace was fatal.' iv. 'the earthquake came, and rocked the quivering wall, and men and nature reeled as if with wine: whom did i seek around the tottering hall? for thee. whose safety first provide for? thine.' we now see byron, at the supreme crisis of his life, standing in solitude on his hearth, with all his household gods shivered around him. we perceive that not least among his troubles at that time was the ever-haunting fear lest the secret of medora's birth should be disclosed. his greatest anxiety was for mary's safety, and this could only be secured by keeping his matrimonial squabbles out of a court of law. it was, in fact, by agreeing to sign the deed of separation that the whole situation was saved. the loyalty of augusta leigh on this occasion was never forgotten: 'there was soft remembrance and sweet trust in one fond breast.' '_that_ love was pure--and, far above disguise, had stood the test of mortal enmities still undivided, and cemented more by peril, dreaded most in female eyes, but this was firm.' in the fifth stanza we see byron, eight years later, at missolonghi, struck down by that attack of epilepsy which preceded his death by only two months: v. 'and when convulsive throes denied my breath the faintest utterance to my fading thought, to thee--to thee--e'en in the gasp of death my spirit turned, oh! oftener than it ought.' in the sixth and final stanza, probably the last lines that byron ever wrote, we find him reiterating, with all a lover's persistency, a belief that mary could never have loved him, otherwise she would not have left him. vi. 'thus much and more; and yet thou lov'st me not, and never will! love dwells not in our will. nor can i blame thee, though it be my lot to strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.' the reproaches of lovers are often unjust. byron either could not, or perhaps _would not_, see that in abandoning him mary had been actuated by the highest, the purest motives, and that the renunciation must have afforded her deep pain--a sacrifice, not lightly made, for byron's sake quite as much as for her own. that byron for a time resented her conduct in this respect is evident from a remark made in a letter to miss milbanke, dated november , . after saying that he once thought that mary chaworth could have made him happy, he added, 'but _subsequent events have proved_ that my expectations might not have been fulfilled had i ever proposed to and received my idol.'[ ] what those 'subsequent events' were may be guessed from reproaches which at this period appear among his poems: 'the wholly false the _heart_ despises, and spurns deceiver and deceit; but she who not a thought disguises, whose love is as sincere as sweet-- when _she_ can change, who loved so truly, it _feels_ what mine has _felt_ so newly.' in the letter written five years after their final separation, byron again reproaches mary chaworth, but this time without a tinge of bitterness: 'my own, we may have been very wrong, but i repent of nothing except that cursed marriage, and your refusing to continue to love me as you had loved me. i can neither forget nor _quite forgive_ you for that precious piece of reformation. but i can never be other than i have been, and whenever i love anything, it is because it reminds me in some way or other of yourself.' 'the giaour' was begun in may and finished in november, . those parts which relate to mary chaworth were added to that poem in july and august: 'she was a form of life and light, that, seen, became a part of sight; and rose, where'er i turned mine eye, the morning-star of memory!' byron says that, like the bird that sings within the brake, like the swan that swims upon the waters, he can only have one mate. he despises those who sneer at constancy. he does not envy them their fickleness, and regards such heartless men as lower in the scale of creation than the solitary swan. 'such shame at least was never mine-- leila! each thought was only thine! my good, _my guilt_, my weal, my woe, my hope on high--my all below. earth holds no other like to thee, or, if it doth, in vain for me: ... thou wert, thou art, the cherished madness of my heart!' 'yes, love indeed is light from heaven; a spark of that immortal fire with angels shared, by alla given, to lift from earth our low desire. i grant _my_ love imperfect, all that mortals by the name miscall; then deem it evil, what thou wilt; but say, oh say, _hers_ was not guilt! and she was lost--and yet i breathed, but not the breath of human life: a serpent round my heart was wreathed, and stung my every thought to strife.' who can doubt that the friend 'of earlier days,' whose memory the giaour wishes to bless before he dies, but whom he dares not bless lest heaven should 'mark the vain attempt' of guilt praying for the guiltless, was mary chaworth. he bids the friar tell that friend 'what thou didst behold: the withered frame--the ruined mind, the wreck that passion leaves behind-- the shrivelled and discoloured leaf, seared by the autumn blast of grief.' he wonders whether that friend is still his friend, as in those earlier days, when hearts were blended in that sweet land where bloom his native valley's bowers. to that friend he sends a ring, which was the memorial of a youthful vow: 'tell him--unheeding as i was, through many a busy bitter scene of all our golden youth hath been, in pain, my faltering tongue had tried to bless his memory--ere i died; i do not ask him not to blame, too gentle he to wound my name; i do not ask him not to mourn, such cold request might sound like scorn. but bear this ring, his own of old, and tell him what thou dost behold!' the motto chosen by byron for 'the giaour' is in itself suggestive: 'one fatal remembrance--one sorrow that throws its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes-- to which life nothing darker nor brighter can bring, for which joy hath no balm--and affliction no sting.' on october , , byron arrived at newstead, where he stayed for a month. mary chaworth was at annesley during that time. on his return to town he wrote (november ) to his sister: 'my dearest augusta, 'i have only time to say that my long silence has been occasioned by a thousand things (with which _you_ are not concerned). it is not lady caroline, nor lady oxford; _but perhaps you may guess_, and if you do, do not tell. you do not know what mischief your being with me might have prevented. you shall hear from me to-morrow; in the meantime don't be alarmed. i am in _no immediate_ peril. 'believe me, ever yours, 'b.' on november byron wrote to moore: 'we were once very near neighbours this autumn;[ ] and a good and bad neighbourhood it has proved to me. suffice it to say that your french quotation (si je récommençais ma carrière, je ferais tout ce que j'ai fait) was confoundedly to the purpose,--though very _unexpectedly_ pertinent, as you may imagine by what i _said_ before, and my silence since. however, "richard's himself again," and, except all night and some part of the morning, i don't think very much about the matter. all convulsions end with me in rhyme; and to solace my midnights i have scribbled another turkish story ['the bride of abydos'] which you will receive soon after this.... i have written this, and published it, for the sake of _employment_--to wring my thoughts from reality, and take refuge in "imaginings," however "horrible."... this is the work of a week....' in order the more effectually to dispose of the theory that lady frances wedderburn webster was the cause of byron's disquietude, we insert an extract from his journal, dated a fortnight earlier (november , ): 'last night i finished "zuleika" [the name was afterwards changed to 'the bride of abydos'], my second turkish tale. i believe the composition of it kept me alive--for it was written to drive my thoughts from the recollection of * * * * "dear sacred name, rest ever unrevealed." at least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it.... i have some idea of expectorating a romance, but what romance could equal the events '"... quæque ipse ... vidi, et quorum pars magna fui"?' surely the name that byron dared not write, even in his own journal, was not that of lady frances webster, whose name appears often in his correspondence. the 'sacred name' was that of one of whom he afterwards wrote, 'thou art both mother and may.' during october, november, and december, , byron's mind was in a perturbed condition. we gather, from a letter which he wrote to moore on november , that his thoughts were centred on a lady living in nottinghamshire[ ], and that the scrape, which he mentions in his letter to augusta on november , referred to that lady and the dreaded prospects of maternity. mr. coleridge believes that the verses, 'remember him, whom passion's power,' were addressed to lady frances wedderburn webster. there is nothing, so far as the present writer knows, to support that opinion. there is no evidence to show the month in which they were written; and, in view of the statement that the lady in question had lived in comparative retirement, 'thy soul from long seclusion pure,' and that she had, because of his presumption, banished the poet in , it could not well have been lady frances webster, who in september of that year had asked byron to be godfather to her child, and in october had invited him to her house. it is noteworthy that byron expressly forbade murray to publish those verses with 'the corsair,' where, it must be owned, they would have been sadly out of place. 'farewell, if ever fondest prayer,' was decidedly more appropriate to the state of things existing at that time. the motto chosen for his 'bride of abydos' is taken from burns: 'had we never loved sae kindly, had we never loved sae blindly, never met--or never parted, we had ne'er been broken-hearted.' the poem was written early in november, . byron has told us that it was written to divert his mind,[ ] 'to wring his thoughts from reality to imagination, from selfish regrets to vivid recollections'; to 'distract his thoughts from the recollection of * * * * "dear sacred name, rest ever unrevealed,"' and in a letter to john galt (december , ) he says that parts of the poem were drawn 'from existence.' he had been staying at newstead, in close proximity to annesley, from october to november , during which time, as he says, he regretted the absence of his sister augusta, 'who might have saved him much trouble.' he says, 'all convulsions end with me in rhyme,' and that 'the bride of abydos' was 'the work of a week.' in speaking of a 'dear sacred name, rest ever unrevealed,' he says: 'at least even here my hand would tremble to write it'; and on november he writes to moore: 'since i last wrote' (october ), 'much has happened to me.' on november he writes in his journal: 'mary--dear name--thou art both mother and may.'[ ] at the end of november, after he had returned to town, he writes in his journal: '* * * * is distant, and will be at * * * *, still more distant, till the spring. no one else, except augusta, cares for me.... i am tremendously in arrears with my letters, except to * * * *, and to her my thoughts overpower me--my words never compass them.' on november byron sends a device for the seals of himself and * * * *; the seal in question is at present in the possession of the chaworth-musters family. on december , we find from one of byron's letters that he had thoughts of committing suicide, and was deterred by the idea that 'it would annoy augusta, and perhaps * * * *.' byron seems to have put into the mouth of zuleika words which conveyed his own thoughts: 'think'st thou that i could bear to part with thee, and learn to halve my heart? ah! were i severed from thy side, where were thy friend--and who my guide? years have not seen, time shall not see, the hour that tears my soul from thee: ev'n azrael, from his deadly quiver when flies that shaft, and fly it must, that parts all else, shall doom for ever our hearts to undivided dust! * * * * * what other can she seek to see than thee, companion of her bower, the partner of her infancy? these cherished thoughts with life begun, say, why must i no more avow?' selim suggests that zuleika should brave the world and fly with him: 'but be the star that guides the wanderer, thou! thou, my zuleika, share and bless my bark; the dove of peace and promise to mine ark! or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife, be thou the rainbow to the storms of life! the evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints to-morrow with prophetic ray! * * * * * not blind to fate, i see, where'er i rove, unnumbered perils,--but one only love! yet well my toils shall that fond breast repay, though fortune frown, or falser friends betray.' zuleika, we are told, was the 'last of giaffir's race.'[ ] selim tells her that 'life is hazard at the best,' and there is much to fear: 'yes, fear! the doubt, the dread of losing thee. that dread shall vanish with the favouring gale; which love to-night has promised to my sail. no danger daunts the pair his smile hath blest, their steps still roving, but their hearts at rest. with thee all toils are sweet, each clime hath charms; earth--sea alike--our world within our arms!' 'the corsair' was written between december , , and january , . while it was passing through the press, byron was at newstead. he gives a little of his own spirit to conrad, and all mary's virtues to medora--a name which was afterwards given to his child. conrad 'knew himself a villain--but he deemed the rest no better than the thing he seemed; and scorned the best as hypocrites who hid those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did. lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt from all affection and from all contempt. none are all evil--quickening round his heart, one softer feeling would not yet depart. yet 'gainst that passion vainly still he strove, and even in him it asks the name of love! yes, it was love--unchangeable--unchanged, felt but for one from whom he never ranged. yes--it was love--if thoughts of tenderness, tried in temptation, strengthened by distress, unmoved by absence, firm in every clime, and yet--oh! more than all! untired by time. if there be love in mortals--this was love! he was a villain--aye, reproaches shower on him--but not the passion, nor its power, which only proved--all other virtues gone-- not guilt itself could quench this _earliest_ one!' the following verses are full of meaning for the initiated: i. 'deep in my soul that tender secret dwells, lonely and lost to light for evermore, save when to thine my heart responsive swells, then trembles into silence as before. ii. 'there, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp burns the slow flame, eternal--but unseen; which not the darkness of despair can damp, though vain its ray as it had never been. iii. 'remember me--oh! pass not thou my grave without one thought whose relics there recline: the only pang my bosom dare not brave must be to find forgetfulness in thine. iv. 'my fondest--faintest--latest accents hear-- grief for the dead not virtue can reprove; then give me all i ever asked--a tear, the first--last--sole reward of so much love!' conrad and medora part, to meet no more in life 'but she is nothing--wherefore is he here?... by the first glance on that still, marble brow-- it was enough--she died--what recked it how? _the love of youth, the hope of better years_, the source of softest wishes, tenderest fears, the only living thing he could not hate, was reft at once--_and he deserved his fate_, but did not feel it less.' the blow he feared the most had fallen at last. the only woman whom he loved had withdrawn her society from him, and his heart, 'formed for softness--warped to wrong, betrayed too early, and beguiled too long,' was petrified at last! 'yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock; if such his heart, so shattered it the shock. there grew one flower beneath its rugged brow, though dark the shade--it sheltered--saved till now. the thunder came--that bolt hath blasted both, the granite's firmness, and the lily's growth: the gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell its tale, but shrunk and withered where it fell; and of its cold protector, blacken round but shivered fragments on the barren ground!' in moments of deep emotion, even the most reticent of men may sometimes reveal themselves. 'the giaour,' 'the bride of abydos,' and 'the corsair,' formed a trilogy, through which the tragedy of byron's life swept like a musical theme. those poems acted like a recording instrument which, by registering his transient moods, was destined ultimately to betray a secret which he had been at so much pains to hide. in 'the giaour' we see remorse for a crime, which he was at first willing to expiate in sorrow and repentance. in 'the bride of abydos' we find him, in an access of madness and passion, proposing to share the fate of his victim, if she will but consent to fly with him. happily for both, mary would never have consented to an act of social suicide. in 'the corsair' we behold his dreams dispelled by the death of his love and the hope of better years. 'he asked no question--all were answered now!' with the dramatic fate of medora the curtain falls, and the poet, in whom 'i suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno,' crosses the threshold of a new life. he reappears later on the scene of all his woes, a broken, friendless stranger, in the person of lara--that last phase, in which the poet discloses his identity with characteristic insouciance, brings the tragedy abruptly to a close.[ ] on january , , byron wrote a remarkable letter to moore, at that time in nottinghamshire: '... i have a confidence for you--a perplexing one to me, and just at present in a state of abeyance in itself.... [here probably follows the disclosure.] however, we shall see. in the meantime you may amuse yourself with my suspense, and put all the justices of peace in requisition, in case i come into your county [nottinghamshire] with hackbut bent.[ ] seriously, whether i am to hear from her or him, it is a pause, which i can fill up with as few thoughts of my own as i can borrow from other people. anything is better than stagnation; and now, in the interregnum of my autumn and a strange summer adventure, which i don't like to think of.... of course you will keep my secret, and don't even talk in your sleep of it. happen what may, your dedication is ensured, being already written; and i shall copy it out fair to-night, in case business or amusement--_amant alterna camoenæ_.' byron here refers to 'the corsair,' which he dedicated to thomas moore. in order to understand this letter, it may be inferred that one of the letters he had written to his lady-love had remained so long unanswered that byron feared it might have fallen into her husband's hands. writing to moore on the following day, byron says: 'my last epistle would probably put you in a fidget. but the devil, who _ought_ to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my letter to the right place.... is it not odd? the very fate i said she had escaped from * * * * she has now undergone from the worthy * * * *.' an undated letter from mary chaworth, preserved among the byron letters in mr. murray's possession, seems to belong to this period: 'your kind letter, my dear friend, relieved me much, and came yesterday, when i was by no means well, and was a most agreeable remedy, for i fancied a thousand things.... i shall set great value by your _seal_, and, if you come down to newstead before we leave annesley, see no reason why you should not call on us and bring it....[ ] i have lately suffered from a pain in my side, which has alarmed me; but i will not, in return for your charming epistle, fill mine with complaints.... i am surprised you have not seen mr. chaworth, as i hear of him going about a good deal. we [herself and miss radford] are now visiting very near nottingham, but return to annesley to-morrow, i _trust_, where i have left all my little dears except the eldest, whom _you_ saw, and who is with me. we are very anxious to see you, and yet know not how we shall feel on the occasion--_formal_, i dare say, at the _first_; but our meeting must be confined to our trio, and then i think we shall be more at our ease. _do write_ me, and make a _sacrifice_ to _friendship_, which i shall consider your visit. you _may_ always address your letters to annesley perfectly safe. 'your sincere friend, 'mary ----' on or about january , , byron writes to his sister augusta in reference to mary chaworth: 'i shall write to-morrow, but did _not_ go to lady m.'s [melbourne] twelfth cake banquet. m. [mary] has written again--_all friendship_--and really very simple and pathetic--_bad usage_--_paleness_--_ill-health_--old _friendship_--_once_--_good motive_--virtue--and so forth.' five days later byron again writes to augusta leigh: 'on sunday or monday next, with leave of your lord and president, you will be _well_ and ready to accompany me to newstead, which you _should_ see, and i will endeavour to render as comfortable as i can, for both our sakes.... claughton is, i believe, inclined to settle.... more news from mrs. [chaworth], _all friendship_; you shall see her.' medora was born on or about april , . 'lara' was written between may and . the opening lines, which would have set every tongue wagging, were withheld from publication until january, . they were written in london early in may, and were addressed to the mother of medora: 'when thou art gone--the loved, the lost--the one whose smile hath gladdened, though perchance undone-- _whose name too dearly cherished to impart_ dies on the lip, but trembles in the heart; whose sudden mention can almost convulse, and lightens through the ungovernable pulse-- till the heart leaps so keenly to the word we fear that throb can hardly beat unheard--[ ] then sinks at once beneath that sickly chill that follows when we find her absent still. when thou art gone--too far again to bless-- oh! god--how slowly comes forgetfulness! let none complain how faithless and how brief the brain's remembrance, or the bosom's grief, or ere they thus forbid us to forget let mercy strip the memory of regret; yet--selfish still--we would not be forgot, what lip dare say--"my love--remember not"? oh! best--and dearest! thou whose thrilling name my heart adores too deeply to proclaim-- my memory, almost ceasing to repine, would mount to hope if once secure of thine. meantime the tale i weave must mournful be-- as absence to the heart that lives on thee!' lord lovelace has told us that 'nothing is too stupid for belief.' we are disposed to agree with him, especially as he produces these lines in support of his accusation against augusta leigh. the absurdity of supposing that they were addressed to byron's sister appears to us to be so evident that it seems unnecessary to waste words in disputation. there is abundant proof that during this period mrs. leigh and byron were in constant correspondence, and that he visited her almost daily during her simulated confinement and convalescence. when murray sent her some books to while away the time, byron wrote (april ) on her behalf to thank him. and finally, as augusta leigh had no intention whatever of leaving london, she could in no sense have been 'the lost one' whose prospective departure filled byron with despair. the poet and his sister--whom he was accustomed to address as 'goose'[ ]--were then, and always, on most familiar terms. the 'mention of her name' (which was often on his lips) would certainly not have convulsed him, nor have caused his heart to beat so loudly that he feared lest others should hear it! the woman to whom those lines were addressed was mary chaworth, whose condition induced him, on april , to begin a fragment entitled 'magdalen'--she of whom he wrote on may : 'i speak not--i trace not--i breathe not thy name-- there is love in the sound--there is guilt in the fame.' lord lovelace, in his impetuosity, and with very imperfect knowledge of byron's life-story, ties every doubtful scrap of his grandfather's poetry into his bundle of proofs against augusta leigh, without perceiving any discrepancy in the nature of his evidence. a moment's reflection might have convinced him that the lines we have quoted could not, by any possibility, have applied to one whom he subsequently addressed as: 'my sister! my sweet sister! if a name dearer and purer were, it should be thine; * * * * * had i but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, i had been better than i now can be; the passions which have torn me would have slept; _i_ had not suffered, and _thou_ hadst not wept.' it must be admitted that byron, through indiscreet confidences and reckless mystifications, was partly the cause of the suspicions which afterwards fell upon his sister. lady byron has left it on record that byron early in --before the birth of medora--told lady caroline lamb that a woman he passionately loved was with child by him, and that if a daughter was born it should be called medora.[ ] at about the same time 'he advanced, at holland house, the most extraordinary theories about the relations of brother and sister, which originated the reports about mrs. leigh.' that, after ninety years, such nonsense should be regarded as evidence against a woman so well known in the society of her day as was mrs. leigh, justifies our concurrence with lord lovelace's opinion that 'nothing is too stupid for belief.' it appears that one day lady byron was talking to her husband about 'lara,' which seemed to her to be 'like the darkness in which one fears to behold spectres.' this bait was evidently too tempting for byron to resist. he replied: '"lara"--there's more in _that_ than in any of them.' as he spoke he shuddered, and turned his eyes to the ground. before we examine that poem to see how much it may contain of illuminating matter, we will touch upon a remark byron made to his wife, which lord lovelace quotes without perceiving its depth and meaning. we will quote 'astarte': 'he told lady byron that if she had married him when he first proposed, he should not have written any of the poems which followed [the first and second cantos] "childe harold."' this is perfectly true. byron proposed to miss milbanke in . if she had married him then, he would not have renewed his intimacy with mary chaworth in june, . there would have been no heart-hunger, no misery, no remorse, and, in short, no inspiration for 'the giaour,' 'the bride,' 'the corsair,' and 'lara.' miss milbanke's refusal of his offer of marriage in rankled long in byron's mind, and provoked those ungenerous reproaches which have been, with more or less exaggeration, reported by persons in lady byron's confidence. the mischief was done between the date of miss milbanke's refusal and her acceptance of his offer, which occurred after the fury of his passion for mary chaworth had burnt itself out. no blame attaches to lady byron for this misfortune. when byron first proposed, her affections were elsewhere engaged; she could not, therefore, dispose of her heart to him. when she at last accepted him, it was too late for happiness. in a letter which byron wrote to miss milbanke previous to his marriage,[ ] he unconsciously prophesied the worst: 'the truth is that could i have foreseen that your life was to be linked to mine--had i even possessed a distinct hope, however distant--i would have been a different and better being. as it is, i have sometimes doubts, even if i should not disappoint the future, nor act hereafter unworthily of you, whether the past ought not to make you still regret me--even that portion of it with which you are not unacquainted. i did not believe such a woman existed--at least for me--_and i sometimes fear i ought to wish that she had not_.' when byron said that he had doubts whether the past would not eventually reflect injuriously upon his future wife, he referred, not to augusta leigh, but to his fatal intercourse with mary chaworth. the following sentences taken from mrs. leigh's letters to francis hodgson, who knew the truth, prove that the mystery only incidentally affected augusta. the letters were written february, . 'from what passed [between captain byron and mrs. clermont] _now_, if _they_ choose it, it must come into court! god alone knows the consequences.' 'it strikes me that, if their pecuniary proposals are favourable, byron will be too happy to escape the exposure. _he must_ be anxious. it is impossible he should not in some degree.' these are the expressions, not of a person connected with a tragedy, but rather of one who was a spectator of it. every impartial person must see that. when, on another occasion, byron told his wife that he wished he had gone abroad--as he had intended--in june, , he undoubtedly implied that the fatal intimacy with mary chaworth would have been avoided. this seems so clear to us that we are surprised that byron's statement on the subject of his poems should have made no impression on the mind of lord lovelace, and should have elicited nothing from him in 'astarte,' except the _banale_ suggestion that byron's literary activity _must have been accidental_! lara, like conrad, is a portion of byron himself, and the poem opens with his return to newstead after some bitter experiences, at which he darkly hints: 'short was the course his restlessness had run, but long enough to leave him half undone.' he tells us that 'another chief consoled his destined bride.' 'one is absent that most might decorate that gloomy pile.' 'why slept he not when others were at rest? why heard no music, and received no guest? all was not well, they deemed--but where the wrong? some knew perchance.' in stanzas , , and , byron draws a picture of himself, so like that his sister remarked upon it in a letter to hodgson. after telling us that 'his heart was not by nature hard,' he says that 'his blood in temperate seeming now would flow: ah! happier if it ne'er with guilt had glowed, but ever in that icy smoothness flowed!' the poet tells us that after lara's death he was mourned by one whose quiet grief endured for long. 'vain was all question asked her of the past, and vain e'en menace--silent to the last.' 'why did she love him? curious fool!--be still-- is human love the growth of human will? to her he might be gentleness; the stern have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern, and when they love, your smilers guess not how beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow. they were not common links, that formed the chain that bound to lara kaled's heart and brain; but that wild tale she brooked not to unfold, _and sealed is now each lip that could have told_. * * * * * 'the tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed on that the feebler elements hath raised. the rapture of his heart had looked on high, and asked if greater dwelt beyond the sky: chained to excess, the slave of each extreme, how woke he from the wildness of that dream! alas! he told not--_but he did awake to curse the withered heart that would not break_.' on september , , four months after byron had finished 'lara,' while he was at newstead with his sister and her children--the little medora among them--he wrote his fragment 'harmodia.' the rough draft was given after his marriage to lady byron, who had no idea to what it could possibly refer. when the scandal about augusta was at its height, this fragment was impounded among other incriminating documents, and eventually saw the light in 'astarte.' lord lovelace was firmly convinced that it was addressed to augusta leigh! between september and byron and mary chaworth were considering the desirability of marriage for byron, and letters were passing between the distracted poet and two young ladies--miss milbanke and another--with that object in view. although byron was still in love with mary chaworth, he had come to understand that her determination to break the dangerous intimacy was irrevocable, so he resolved to follow her advice and marry. the tone of his letter to moore, written on september , shows that he was not very keen about wedlock. he was making plans for a journey to italy in the event of his proposal being rejected. it is possible that, in a conversation between mary and himself, the former may have spoken of the risks they had incurred in the past, and of her resolve never to transgress again. to which byron replied: harmodia. 'the things that were--and what and whence are they? those clouds and rainbows of thy yesterday? their path has vanish'd from th' eternal sky, and now its hues are of a different dye. thus speeds from day to day, and pole to pole, the change of parts, the sameness of the whole; and all we snatch, amidst the breathing strife, but gives to memory what it takes from life: despoils a substance to adorn a shade-- and that frail shadow lengthens but to fade. sun of the sleepless! melancholy star! whose tearful beam shoots trembling from afar-- _that chang'st_ the darkness thou canst not dispel-- how like art thou to joy, remembered well! such is the past--the light of other days that shines, but warms not with its powerless rays-- a moonbeam _sorrow_ watcheth to behold, distinct, but distant--clear, but _death-like_ cold. 'oh! as full thought comes rushing o'er the mind of all we saw before--to leave behind-- of all!--but words, what are they? can they give a trace of truth to thoughts while yet they live? no--passion--feeling speak not--or in vain-- the tear for grief--the groan must speak for pain-- joy hath its smile--and love its blush and sigh-- despair her silence--hate her lip and eye-- these their interpreters, where deeply lurk-- the soul's despoilers warring as they work-- the strife once o'er--then words may find their way, yet how enfeebled from the forced delay! 'but who could paint the progress of the wreck-- himself still clinging to the dangerous deck? safe on the shore the artist first must stand, and then the pencil trembles in his hand.' when, four years later, byron was writing the first canto of 'don juan,' with feelings chastened by suffering and time, he recurred to that period--never effaced from his memory--the time when he wrote: 'when thou art gone--the loved--the lost--the one whose smile hath gladdened--though, perchance, undone!' time could not change the feelings of his youth, nor keep his thoughts for long from the object of his early love. 'they tell me 'tis decided you depart: 'tis wise--'tis well, but not the less a pain; i have no further claim on your young heart, mine is the victim, and would be again: to love too much has been the only art i used.' 'i loved, i love you, for this love have lost state, station, heaven, mankind's, my own esteem, and yet can not regret what it hath cost, _so dear is still the memory of that dream_; yet, if i name my guilt, 'tis not to boast, none can deem harshlier of me than i deem.' 'all is o'er for me on earth, except some years to hide my shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core: these i could bear, but cannot cast aside the passion which still rages as before-- and so farewell--forgive me, love me--no, that word is idle now--but let it go.' * * * * * 'my heart is feminine, nor can forget-- to all, except one image, madly blind; so shakes the needle, and so stands the pole, as vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul.' it was early in that byron also wrote his farewell verses to mary chaworth, which appeared in the second edition of 'the corsair': i. 'farewell! if ever fondest prayer for other's weal availed on high, mine will not all be lost in air, but waft thy name beyond the sky. 'twere vain to speak--to weep--to sigh: oh! more than tears of blood can tell, _when wrung from guilt's expiring eye_, are in that word--farewell! farewell! ii. 'these lips are mute, these eyes are dry; but in my breast, and in my brain, awake the pangs that pass not by, _the thought that ne'er shall sleep again_. my soul nor deigns nor dares complain, though grief and passion there rebel: i only know we loved in vain-- i only feel--farewell! farewell!' even in the 'hebrew melodies,' which were probably begun in the autumn of , and finished after byron's marriage in january, , there are traces of that deathless remorse and love, whose expression could not be altogether repressed. we select some examples at random. in the poem 'oh, snatched away in beauty's bloom,' the poet had added two verses which were subsequently suppressed: 'nor need i write to tell the tale, my pen were doubly weak. oh! what can idle words avail, unless my heart could speak? 'by day or night, in weal or woe, that heart, no longer free, must bear the love it cannot show, and silent turn for thee.' in 'herod's lament for mariamne' we find: 'she's gone, who shared my diadem; she sunk, with her my joys entombing; i swept that flower from judah's stem, whose leaves for me alone were blooming; and mine's the guilt, and mine the hell, this bosom's desolation dooming; and i have earned those tortures well, which unconsumed are still consuming!' while admitting that byron's avowed object was to portray the remorse of herod, we suspect that the haunting image of one so dear to him--one who had suffered through guilt which he so frequently deplored in verse--must have been in the poet's mind when these lines were written. on january , , byron went to newstead with augusta leigh, and stayed there one month. 'a busy month and pleasant, at least three weeks of it.... "the corsair" has been conceived, written, published, etc., since i took up this journal. they tell me it has great success; it was written _con amore_, and much from _existence_.' on the following day byron wrote to his friend wedderburn webster: 'i am on my way to the country on rather a melancholy expedition. a very old and early connexion [mary chaworth], or rather friend of mine, has desired to see me; and, as now we can never be more than friends, i have no objection. she is certainly unhappy and, i fear, ill; and the length and circumstances attending our acquaintance render her request and my visit neither singular nor improper.' this strange apology for what might have been considered a very natural act of neighbourly friendship, inevitably reminds us of a french proverb, _qui s'excuse s'accuse_. it is worthy of note that, after byron had been ten days at newstead with his sister, he wrote to his lawyer--who must have been surprised at the irrelevant information--to say that augusta leigh was 'in the family way.' the significance of this communication has hitherto passed unnoticed. we gather from byron's letters that he was much depressed by mary chaworth's state of health, involving all the risks of discovery. 'my rhyming propensity is quite gone,' he writes, 'and i feel much as i did at patras on recovering from my fever--weak, but in health, and only afraid of a relapse.' soon after his return to london byron wrote to moore: 'seriously, i am in what the learned call a dilemma, and the vulgar, a scrape....' moore took care, with his asterisks, that we should not know the nature of that scrape, which certainly had nothing to do with his 'lines to a lady weeping' which appeared in the first edition of 'the corsair.' if the reader has any doubts on this point, let him refer to byron's letters to murray, notably to that one in which the angry poet protests against the suppression of those lines in the second edition of 'the corsair': 'you have played the devil by that injudicious _suppression_, which you did totally without my consent.... now, i _do not_, and _will_ not be supposed to shrink, although myself and everything belonging to me were to perish with my memory.' moore's asterisks veiled the record of a deeper scrape, as byron's letter to him, written three weeks later, plainly show. on april , , byron wrote in his journal: 'i do not know that i am happiest when alone; but this i am sure of, that i am never long in the society even of _her_ i love (god knows too well, and the devil probably too), without a yearning for the company of my lamp, and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library.' the latter portion of the journal at this period is much mutilated. there is a gap between april and , when, four days after the birth of medora, he writes in deep dejection: 'there is ice at both poles, north and south--all extremes are the same--misery belongs to the highest and the lowest, only.... i will keep no further journal ... and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, i tear out the remaining leaves of this volume.... "o! fool! i shall go mad."' it was at this time that byron wrote the following lines, in which he tells mary chaworth that all danger of the discovery of their secret is over: 'there is no more for _me_ to hope, _there is no more for thee to fear_; and, if i give my sorrow scope, that sorrow _thou_ shalt never hear. why did i hold thy love so dear? why shed for such a heart one tear? let deep and dreary silence be my only memory of thee! when all are fled who flatter now, save thoughts which will not flatter then; and thou recall'st the broken vow to him who must not love again-- _each hour of now forgotten years_ thou, then, shalt number with thy tears; and every drop of grief shall be a vain remembrancer of me!' on may , , byron sent to moore the following verses. we quote from lady byron's manuscript: 'i speak not--i trace not--i breathe not thy name-- there is love in the sound--there is guilt in the fame-- but the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart the deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart. 'too brief for our passion--too long for our peace-- was that hour--can its hope--can its memory cease? we repent--we abjure--we will break from our chain: we must part--we must fly to--unite it again! 'oh! thine be the gladness--and mine be the guilt! forgive me--adored one--forsake if thou wilt-- but the heart which is thine shall expire undebased, and man shall not break it whatever _thou_ mayst. 'oh! proud to the mighty--but humble to thee this soul in its bitterest moment shall be, and our days glide as swift--and our moments more sweet with thee at my side--than the world at my feet. 'one tear of thy sorrow--one smile of thy love-- shall turn me or fix--shall reward or reprove-- and the heartless may wonder at all i resign: thy lip shall reply--not to them--but to mine.' these verses were not published until byron had been five years in his grave. they tell the story plainly, and the manuscript in mr. murray's possession speaks plainer still. before byron gave the manuscript to his wife, he erased the following lines: 'we have loved--and oh! still, my adored one, we love!' 'oh! the moment is past when that passion might cease.' 'but i cannot repent what we ne'er can recall.' after medora's birth byron became more and more dejected, and on april he wrote a remarkable letter to murray, enclosing a draft to redeem the copyrights of his poems, and releasing murray from his engagement to pay £ , , agreed on for 'the giaour' and 'the bride of abydos.' byron was evidently afraid that mr. chaworth musters would discover the truth, and that a duel and disgrace would be the inevitable consequence. '_if any accident occurs to me_, you may do then as you please; but, with the exception of two copies of each for _yourself_ only, i expect and request that the advertisements be withdrawn, and the remaining copies of _all_ destroyed; and any expense so incurred i will be glad to defray. for all this it may be well to assign some reason. i have none to give except my own caprice, and i do not consider the circumstance of consequence enough to require explanation. of course, i need hardly assure you that they never shall be published with my consent, directly or indirectly, by any other person whatsoever, and that i am perfectly satisfied, and have every reason so to be, with your conduct in all transactions between us, as publisher and author. it will give me great pleasure to preserve your acquaintance, and to consider you as my friend.' two days later byron seems to have conquered his immediate apprehensions, and, in reply to an appeal from murray, writes: 'if your present note is serious, and it really would be inconvenient, there is an end of the matter; tear my draft, and go on as usual: in that case we will recur to our former basis. that _i_ was perfectly _serious_ in wishing to suppress all future publication is true; but certainly not to interfere with the convenience of others, and more particularly your own. _some day i will tell you the reason of this apparently strange resolution._' it had evidently dawned on byron's mind that a sudden suppression of his poems would have aroused public curiosity, and that a motive for his action would either have been found or invented. this would have been fatal to all concerned. if trouble were to come, it would be wiser not to meet it halfway. happily, the birth of medora passed unnoticed. as time wore on, byron's hopes that mary would relent grew apace. but he was doomed to disappointment. mary chaworth had the courage and the wisdom to crush a love so disastrous to both. byron in his blindness reproached her: 'thou art not false, but thou art fickle.' he tells her that he would despise her if she were false; but he knows that her love is sincere: 'when _she_ can change who loved so truly!' 'ah! sure such grief is _fancy's_ scheming, and all the change can be but dreaming!' he could not believe that her resolve was serious. time taught him better. love died, and friendship took its place. the same love that tempted her to sin was that true love that works out its redemption. between april and , , before signing the deed of separation, byron went into the country to take leave of mary chaworth. it was their last meeting, and the parting must have been a sad one. the hopes that mary had formed for his peace and happiness in marriage had suddenly been dashed to the ground. and now he was about to leave england under a cloud, which threatened for a time to overwhelm them both. a terrible anxiety as to the issue of investigations, which were being made into his conduct previous to and during his marriage, oppressed her with the gravest apprehension. everything seemed to depend upon the silence both of byron and augusta. under this awful strain the mind of mary chaworth was flickering towards collapse. by the following verses, which must have been written soon after their final meeting, we find byron, 'seared in heart--and lone--and blighted,' reproaching, with a lover's injustice, the woman he adored, for that act of renunciation which, under happier auspices, might have proved his own salvation: i. 'when we two parted in silence and tears, half broken-hearted to sever for years, pale grew thy cheek and cold, colder thy kiss; truly that hour foretold sorrow to this. ii. 'the dew of the morning sunk chill on my brow-- it felt like the warning of what i feel now. thy vows are all broken, and light is thy fame: i hear thy name spoken, and share in its shame. iii. 'they name thee before me, a knell to mine ear; a shudder comes o'er me-- why wert thou so dear? they know not i knew thee, who knew thee too well: long, long shall i rue thee, too deeply to tell. iv. 'in secret we met-- in silence i grieve, _that thy heart could forget, thy spirit deceive_. if i should meet thee after long years, how should i greet thee? with silence and tears.' in the first draft byron had written, after the second verse, the following words: '_our secret lies hidden, but never forgot._' in 'fare thee well,' written on march , , there are only four lines which have any bearing on the point under consideration. byron tells his wife that if she really knew the truth, if every inmost thought of his breast were bared before her, she would _not_ have forsaken him. that is true. lady byron might, in time, have forgiven everything if the doctors had been able to declare that her husband was not wholly accountable for his actions. but when they pronounced him to be of sound mind, and, as will be seen presently, she subsequently convinced herself that he had committed, and might even then be committing adultery with his sister under her own roof, she resolved never again to place herself in his power. if, in the early stages of disagreement, without betraying mary chaworth, it could have been avowed that mrs. leigh _was not the mother of medora_, lady byron might not have seen in her husband's strange conduct towards herself 'signs of a deep remorse.' she would certainly have been far more patient under suffering, and the separation might have been avoided. but this avowal was impracticable. augusta had committed herself too far for that, and the idle gossip of her servants _subsequently_ convinced lady byron that byron was the father of augusta's child. it is clear that neither augusta nor byron made any attempts to remove those suspicions; in fact, they acted in a manner most certain to confirm them. whether the secret, which they had pledged themselves to keep, could long have been withheld from lady byron, if matters had been patched up, is doubtful. meanwhile, as everything depended on _premat nox alta_, they dared not risk even a partial avowal of the truth. the separation was inevitable, and in this case it was eternal. it is hard to believe that there had ever been any real love on either side. under these circumstances we feel sure that any attempts at reconciliation would have ended disastrously for both. byron's love for mary chaworth was strong as death. many waters could not have quenched it, 'neither could the floods drown it.' the last verses written by byron before he left england for ever were addressed to his sister. the deed of separation had been signed, and augusta leigh, who had stood at his side in those dark hours when all the world had forsaken him, was about to leave london. 'when all around grew drear and dark, and reason half withheld her ray-- and hope but shed a dying spark which more misled my lonely way; when fortune changed, and love fled far, and hatred's shafts flew thick and fast, thou wert the solitary star which rose, and set not to the last. and when the cloud upon us came _which strove to blacken o'er thy ray_-- then purer spread its gentle flame and dashed the darkness all away. still may thy spirit dwell on mine, _and teach it what to brave or brook_-- there's more in one soft word of thine than in the world's defied rebuke. * * * * * _then let the ties of baffled love be broken_--thine will never break; thy heart can feel.' these ingenuous words show that byron's affection for his sister, and his gratitude for her loyalty, were both deep and sincere. if, as lord lovelace asserts, byron had been her lover, we know enough of his character to be certain that he would never have written these lines. he was not a hypocrite--far from it--and it was foreign to his naturally combative nature to attempt to conciliate public opinion. these lines were written _currente calamo_, and are only interesting to us on account of the light they cast upon the situation at the time of the separation. evidently byron had heard a rumour of the baseless charge that was afterwards openly made. he reminds augusta that a cloud threatened to darken her existence, but the bright rays of her purity dispelled it. he hopes that even in absence she will guide and direct him as in the past; and he compliments her by saying that one word from her had more influence over him than the whole world's censure. although his love-episode with mary was over, yet so long as augusta loves him he will still have something to live for, as she alone can feel for him and understand his position. in speaking of his sister, in the third canto of 'childe harold,' he says: 'for there was soft remembrance, _and sweet trust_ in one fond breast, to which his own would melt.' '_and he had learned to love_--i know not why, for this in such as him seems strange of mood-- _the helpless looks of blooming infancy_, even in its earliest nurture; what subdued, to change like this, a mind so far imbued with scorn of man, it little boots to know; but thus it was; and though in solitude small power the nipped affections have to grow, in him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow.' if these words bear any significance, byron must mean that, since the preceding canto of 'childe harold' was written, he had formed (learned to love) a strong attachment to some child, and, in spite of absence, this affection still glowed. that child may possibly have been ada, as the opening lines seem to suggest. but this is not quite certain. according to lord lovelace, byron never saw his child after january , , when the babe was only twenty-four days old. byron himself states that it was not granted to him 'to watch her dawn of little joys, or hold her lightly on his knee, and print on her soft cheek a parent's kiss.' all this, he tells us, 'was in his nature,' but was denied to him. his sole consolation was the hope that some day ada would learn to love him. on the other hand, the child mentioned in 'childe harold' had won his love by means which 'it little boots to know.' if byron had alluded to his daughter ada, there need have been no ambiguity. possibly the child here indicated may have been little medora, then three years old, with whom he had often played, and who was then living with that sister of 'soft remembrance and sweet trust.' if that conjecture be correct, this is the only allusion to medora in byron's poetry. but she is indicated in prose. in reference to the death of one of moore's children, byron wrote (february , ): 'i know how to feel with you, because i am quite wrapped up in my own children. besides my little legitimate, i have made unto myself an illegitimate since, _to say nothing of one before_; and i look forward to one of them as the pillar of my old age, supposing that i ever reach, as i hope i never shall, that desolating period.' in the _one before_ moore will have recognized medora. in spite of the 'scarlet cloak and double figure,' moore had no belief in the story that byron became a father while at harrow school! 'the dream,' which was written in july, , is perhaps more widely known than any of byron's poems. its theme is the remembrance of a hopeless passion, which neither time nor reason could extinguish. similar notes of lamentation permeate most of his poems, but in 'the dream' byron, for the first time, takes the world into his confidence, and tells his tale of woe with such distinctness that we realize its truth, its passion, and its calamity. the publication of that poem was an indiscretion which must have been very disconcerting to his sister. fortunately, it had no disastrous consequences. it apparently awakened no suspicions, and its sole effect was to incense mary chaworth's husband, who, in order to stop all prattle, caused the 'peculiar diadem of trees' to be cut down. in byron's early poems we see how deeply mary chaworth's marriage affected him; but this was known only to a small circle of southwell friends. in 'the dream' we realize that she was in fact a portion of his life, and that his own marriage had not in the least affected his feelings towards her. he had tried hard to forget her, but in vain; she was his destiny. whether byron, when he wrote this poem, had any idea of publishing it to the world is not known. it may possibly have been written to relieve his overburdened mind, and would not have seen the light but for lady byron's treatment of mrs. leigh on the memorable occasion when she extracted, under promise of secrecy, the so-called 'confession,' to which we shall allude presently. in any case, byron became aware of what had happened in september, . in some lines addressed to his wife, he tells her that she bought others' grief at any price, adding: 'the means were worthy, and the end is won; i would not do by thee as _thou_ hast done.' possibly, byron may have thought that the publication of this poem would act as a barb, and would wound lady byron's stubborn pride. its appearance in the circumstances was certainly _contra bonos mores_, but we must remember that 'men in rage often strike those who wish them best.' whatever may have been byron's intention, 'the dream' affords a proof that mary chaworth was never long absent from his thoughts. at this time, when he felt a deep remorse for his conduct towards mary chaworth, he asks himself: 'what is this death? a quiet of the heart? the whole of that of which we are a part? for life is but a vision--what i see of all which lives alone is life to me, and being so--the absent are the dead who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread a dreary shroud around us, and invest with sad remembrancers our hours of rest. the absent are the dead--for they are cold, and ne'er can be what once we did behold; and they are changed, and cheerless,--or if yet _the unforgotten do not all forget, since thus divided_--equal must it be _if the deep barrier be of earth, or sea_; _it may be both_--but one day end it must in the dark union of insensate dust.' it was at this time also that byron wrote his 'stanzas to augusta,' which show his complete confidence in her loyalty: 'though human, thou didst not deceive me, though woman, thou didst not forsake, though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, though tempted, thou never couldst shake; _though trusted, thou didst not betray me_, though parted, it was not to fly, though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, _nor, mute, that the world might belie_.' byron's remorse also found expression in 'manfred,' where contrition is but slightly veiled by words of mysterious import, breathed in an atmosphere of mountains, magic, and ghost-lore. people in society, whose ears had been poisoned by insinuations against mrs. leigh, and who knew nothing of byron's intercourse with mary chaworth, came to the conclusion that 'manfred' revealed a criminal attachment between byron and his sister. byron was aware of this, and, conscious of his innocence, held his head in proud defiance, and laughed his enemies to scorn. he did not deign to defend himself; and the public--forgetful of the maxim that where there is a sense of guilt there is a jealousy of drawing attention to it--believed the worst. when a critique of 'manfred,' giving an account of the supposed origin of the story, was sent to byron, he wrote to murray: 'the conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of the matter. i had a better origin than he can devise or divine for the soul of him.' that was the simple truth. the cruel allegation against mrs. leigh seemed to be beneath contempt. as sir egerton brydges pointed out at the time, byron, being of a strong temperament, did not reply to the injuries heaped upon him by whining complaints and cowardly protestations of innocence; he became desperate, and broke out into indignation, sarcasm, and exposure of his opponents, in a manner so severe as to seem inexcusably cruel to those who did not realize the provocation. it was 'war to the knife,' and byron had the best of it. we propose to examine 'manfred' closely, to see whether astarte in any degree resembles the description which lord lovelace has given of augusta leigh. manfred tells us that his slumbers are 'a continuance of enduring thought,' since that 'all-nameless hour' when he committed the crime for which he suffers. he asks 'forgetfulness of that which is within him--a crime which he cannot utter.' when told by the seven spirits that he cannot have self-oblivion, manfred asks if death would give it to him; and receives the sad reply that, being immortal, the spirit after death cannot forget the past. eventually the seventh spirit--typifying, possibly, a magdalen--appears before manfred, in the shape of a beautiful woman. 'manfred. oh god! if it be thus, and _thou_ art not a madness and a mockery, i yet might be most happy.' when the figure vanishes, manfred falls senseless. in the second act, manfred, in reply to the chamois-hunter, who offers him a cup of wine, says: 'away, away! there's blood upon the brim! will it then never--never sink in the earth? 'tis blood--my blood! the pure warm stream which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours when we were in our youth, and had one heart, and loved each other as we should not love, and _this_ was shed: but still it rises up. colouring the clouds that shut me out from heaven.' one may well wonder what all this has to do with augusta. the blood that ran in byron's veins also ran in the veins of mary chaworth, and that blood, shed by byron's kinsman, had caused a feud, which was not broken until byron came upon the scene, and fell hopelessly in love with 'the last of a time-honoured race.' byron from his boyhood always believed that there was a blood-curse upon him. when, two years later, he wrote 'the duel' (december, ), he again alludes to the subject: 'i loved thee--i will not say _how_, since things like these are best forgot: perhaps thou mayst imagine now who loved thee and who loved thee not. and thou wert wedded to another, and i at last another wedded: i am a father, thou a mother, to strangers vowed, with strangers bedded. * * * * * 'many a bar, and many a feud, though never told, well understood, rolled like a river wide between-- _and then there was the curse of blood_, which even my heart's can not remove. * * * * * 'i've seen the sword that slew him; he, the slain, stood in a like degree to thee, as he, the slayer stood (oh, had it been but other blood!) in kin and chieftainship to me. thus came the heritage to thee.' clearly, then, the spirit, which appeared to manfred in the form of a beautiful female figure, was mary chaworth; the crime for which he suffered was his conduct towards her; and the blood, which his fancy beheld on the cup's brim, was the blood of william chaworth, which his predecessor, lord byron, had shed. when asked by the chamois-hunter whether he had wreaked revenge upon his enemies, manfred replies: 'no, no, no! my injuries came down on those who loved me-- on those whom i best loved: i never quelled an enemy, save in my just defence-- but my embrace was fatal.' in speaking of the 'core of his heart's grief,' manfred says: 'yet there was one-- she was like me in lineaments--her eyes-- her hair--her features--all, to the very tone even of her voice, they said were like to mine; but softened all, and tempered into beauty: she had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,[ ] the quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind to comprehend the universe: nor these alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, pity, and smiles, and tears--which i had not; and tenderness--but that i had for her; humility--and that i never had. her faults were mine--her virtues were her own-- i loved her, and destroyed her! not with my hand, but heart, _which broke her heart_; _it gazed on mine, and withered_.' in order to appreciate the absurdity of connecting this description with augusta, we will quote her noble accuser, lord lovelace: 'the character of augusta is seen in her letters and actions. she was a woman of that great family which is vague about facts, unconscious of duties, impulsive in conduct. the course of her life could not be otherwise explained, by those who had looked into it with close intimacy, than by a kind of moral idiotcy from birth. she was of a sanguine and buoyant disposition, childishly fond and playful, ready to laugh at anything, loving to talk nonsense.' in fact, '_she had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, the quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind to comprehend the universe._' lord lovelace further tells us that augusta leigh 'had a refined species of comic talent'; that she was 'strangely insensible to the nature and magnitude of the offence in question [incest] even as an imputation;' and that 'there was apparently an absence of all deep feeling in her mind, of everything on which a strong impression could be made.' we are also told that 'byron, after his marriage, generally spoke of augusta as "a fool," with equal contempt of her understanding and principles.' in short, byron's description of the woman, whom he had 'destroyed,' resembles augusta leigh about as much as a mountain resembles a haystack. how closely manfred's description resembles mary chaworth will be seen presently. augusta leigh had told byron that, in consequence of his conduct, mary chaworth was out of her mind. manfred says that if he had never lived, that which he loved had still been living: '... had i never loved, that which i love would still be beautiful, happy, and giving happiness. what is she? what is she now? _a sufferer for my sins_-- _a thing i dare not think upon_--or nothing.' when nemesis asks manfred whom he would 'uncharnel,' he replies: 'one without a tomb-- call up astarte.' the name, of course, suggests a star. as we have seen, byron often employed that metaphor in allusion to mary chaworth. when the phantom of astarte rises, manfred exclaims: 'can this be death? there's bloom upon her cheek; but now i see it is no living hue, but a strange hectic.' he is afraid to look upon her; he cannot speak to her, and implores nemesis to intercede: 'bid her speak-- forgive me, or condemn me.' nemesis tells him that she has no authority over astarte: 'she is not of our order, but belongs to the other powers.'[ ] the fine appeal of manfred cannot have been addressed by byron to his sister: 'hear me, hear me-- astarte! my belovéd! speak to me: i have so much endured--so much endure-- look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more than i am changed for thee. thou lovedst me too much, as i loved thee: we were not made to torture thus each other--though it were the deadliest sin to love as we have loved. say that thou loath'st me not--that i do bear this punishment for both--that thou wilt be one of the blesséd--and that i shall die. * * * * * 'i cannot rest. i know not what i ask, nor what i seek: _i feel but what thou art_, and what i am; and i would hear yet once before i perish the voice which was my music[ ]--speak to me! * * * * * speak to me! i have wandered o'er the earth, and never found thy likeness.' when manfred implores astarte to forgive him, she is silent. it is not a matter for forgiveness. he entreats her to speak to him, so that he may once more hear that sweet voice, even though it be for the last time. the silence is broken by the word 'farewell!' manfred, whose doom is sealed, cries in agony: 'what i have done is done; i bear within a torture which could nothing gain (from others). the mind, which is immortal, makes itself requital for its good or evil thoughts,-- is its own origin of ill and end-- and its own place and time: i was my own destroyer, and will be my own hereafter... the hand of death is on me... all things swim around me, and the earth heaves, as it were, beneath me. fare thee well!' so far as we know, there is nothing in the whole length of this poem to suggest anything abnormal; and it is hard to understand what resemblance byron's contemporaries could have discovered between the astarte of 'manfred' and augusta leigh! enough has been quoted to show that byron was not thinking of his sister when he wrote 'manfred,' but of her whose life he had blasted, and whose 'sacred name' he trembled to reveal. in april, , byron was informed by mrs. leigh that mary chaworth and her husband had made up their differences. the 'lament of tasso' was written in that month, and byron's thoughts were occupied, as usual, with the theme of all his misery. 'that thou wert beautiful, and i not blind, hath been the sin that shuts me from mankind; but let them go, or torture as they will, my heart can multiply thine image still; successful love may sate itself away; the wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate to have all feeling, save the one, decay, and every passion into one dilate, as rapid rivers into ocean pour; but ours is fathomless, and hath no shore.' in 'mazeppa' byron tells how he met 'theresa' in that month of june, and how 'through his brain the thought did pass that there was something in her air which would not doom him to despair.' this incident is again referred to in 'don juan.' the count palatine is, probably, intended as a sketch of mary's husband. 'the duel,' which was written in december, , is addressed to mary chaworth: 'i loved thee--i will not say _how_, since things like these are best forgot.' byron alludes to 'the curse of blood,' with, 'many a bar and many a feud,' which 'rolled like a wide river between them': 'alas! how many things have been since we were friends; for i alone feel more for thee than can be shown.' in the so-called 'stanzas to the po,' we find the same prolonged note of suffering. writing to murray (may , ), byron says: 'i sent a copy of verses to mr. kinnaird (they were written last year on crossing the po) which must _not_ be published. pray recollect this, as they were mere verses of society, and written from private feelings and passions.' in view of the secrecy which byron consistently observed, respecting his later intimacy with mary chaworth, the publication of these verses would have been highly indiscreet. they were written in june, , after mary had for some time been reconciled to her husband. she was then living with him at colwick hall, near nottingham. ostensibly these stanzas form an apostrophe to the river po, and the 'lady of the land' was, of course, the guiccioli. medwin, to whom byron gave the poem, believed that the river apostrophized by the poet was the river po, whose 'deep and ample stream' was 'the mirror of his heart.' but it seems perfectly clear that, if this poem referred only to the countess guiccioli, there could have been no objection to its publication in england. the reading public in those days knew nothing of byron's liaisons abroad, and his mystic allusion to foreign rivers and foreign ladies would have left the british public cold. a scrutiny of these perplexing stanzas suggests that they were adapted, from a fragment written in early life, to meet the conditions of . evidently mary chaworth was once more 'the ocean to the river of his thoughts,' and the stream indicated in the opening stanza was not the po, but the river trent, which flows close to the ancient walls of colwick, where 'the lady of his love' was then residing. to assist the reader, we insert the poem, having merely transposed three stanzas to make its purport clearer i. 'river, that rollest by the ancient walls, where dwells the lady of my love, when she walks by the brink, _and there perchance recalls a faint and fleeting memory of me_: ii. 'she will look on thee--i have looked on thee, full of that thought: and from that moment ne'er thy waters could i dream of, name, or see without the inseparable sigh for her! iii. 'but that which keepeth us apart is not distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, but the distraction of a various lot, as various the climates of our birth. iv. 'what if thy deep and ample stream should be a mirror of my heart, where she may read the thousand thoughts _i now betray to thee_, wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed! v. 'what do i say--a mirror of my heart? are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? such as my feelings were and are, thou art; and such as thou art were my passions long. vi. 'time may have somewhat tamed them--not for ever; thou overflowest thy banks, and not for aye thy bosom overboils, congenial river! thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away: vii. 'but left long wrecks behind, and now again, borne on our old unchanged career, we move: thou tendest wildly onwards to the main, and i,--to loving _one_ i should not love. viii. 'my blood is all meridian; were it not, i had not left my clime, nor should i be, in spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot, a slave again to love--at least of thee. ix. 'the current i behold will sweep beneath her native walls,[ ] and murmur at her feet; her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe the twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat. x. 'her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream. yes, they will meet the wave i gaze on now: mine cannot witness, even in a dream, that happy wave repass me in its flow! xi. 'the wave that bears my tears returns no more: will she return by whom that wave shall sweep? both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore, i near thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.[ ] xii. 'a stranger loves the lady of the land, born far beyond the mountains, but his blood is all meridian, as if never fanned by the bleak wind that chills the polar flood. xiii. ''tis vain to struggle--let me perish young-- live as i lived, and love as i have loved; to dust if i return, from dust i sprung, and then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.' in the first stanza, byron says that when his lady-love walks by the river's brink 'she may perchance recall a faint and fleeting memory' of him. those words, which might have been applicable to mary chaworth, whom he had not seen for at least three years, could not possibly refer to a woman from whom he had been parted but two short months, and with whom he had since been in constant correspondence. only a few days before these verses were written, countess guiccioli had told him by letter that she had prepared all her relatives and friends to expect him at ravenna. there must surely have been something more than 'a faint and fleeting' memory of byron in the mind of the ardent guiccioli. in the second stanza, byron, in allusion to the river he had in his thoughts, says: 'she will look on thee--_i have looked on thee_, full of that thought: _and from that moment_ ne'er thy waters could i dream of, _name, or see_, without the inseparable sigh for her.' now, while there was nothing whatever to connect the river po with tender recollections, there was byron's association in childhood with the river trent, a memory inseparable from his boyish love for mary chaworth. 'but in his native stream, the guadalquivir, juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont; and having learnt to swim in that sweet river had often turned the art to some account.' in the fourth stanza we perceive that the poet, while thinking of the trent, 'betrays his thoughts' to the po, a river as wild and as swift as his native stream. the ninth stanza has puzzled commentators exceedingly. it has been pointed out that the river po does not sweep beneath the walls of ravenna. that is, of course, indisputable. but byron, in all probability, did not then know the exact course of that river, and blindly followed dante's geographical description, and almost used his very words: 'siede la terra, _dove nata fui, su la marina dove il po discende_, per aver pace co' seguaci sui.' it is, of course, well known that the po branches off into two streams to the north-west of ferrara, and flows both northward and southward of that city. the southern portion--the po di primaro--is fed by four affluents--the rheno, the savena, the santerno, and the lamone--and flows into the adriatic south of comachio, about midway between that place and ravenna. it was obviously to the _po di primaro_ that dante referred when he wrote _seguaci sui_. unless francesca was born close to the mouth of the po, which is not impossible, byron erred in good company. in any case, we may fairly plead poetic licence. that byron crossed the po di primaro as well as the main river admits of no doubt. in the eleventh stanza byron is wondering what will be the result of his journey? will the guiccioli return to him? will all be well with the lovers, or will he return to venice alone? in his fancy they are both wandering on the banks of that river. he is near its source, where the po di primaro branches off near pontelagascuro, while she was on the shore of the adriatic. the twelfth stanza would perhaps have been clearer if the first and second lines had been, 'a stranger, born far beyond the mountains, loves the lady of the land,' which was byron's meaning. the poet excuses himself for his fickleness on the plea that 'his blood is all meridian'--in short, that he cannot help loving someone. but we plainly see that his love for mary chaworth was still paramount. 'in spite of tortures ne'er to be forgot'--tortures of which we had a glimpse in 'manfred'--he was still her slave. finally, byron tells us that it was useless to struggle against the misery his heart endured, and that all his hopes were centred on an early death. the episode of francesca and paolo had made a deep impression on byron. he likened it to his unfortunate adventure with mary chaworth in june and july, . in 'the corsair'--written after their intimacy had been broken off--byron prefixes to each canto a motto from 'the inferno' which seemed to be appropriate to his own case. in the first canto we find: 'nessun maggior dolore, che ricordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria.' in the second canto: 'conoscesti i dubbiosi desire?' in the third canto: 'come vedi--ancor non m' abbandona.' that byron had francesca in his mind when he wrote the stanzas to the po seems likely; and in the letter which he wrote to mary from venice, in the previous month, he compares their misfortunes with those of paolo and francesca in plain words.[ ] 'don juan' was begun in the autumn of . that poem, byron tells us, was inspired almost entirely by his own personal experience. perhaps he drew a portrait of mary chaworth when he described julia: 'and she was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.' when they parted in , that was exactly mary's age. 'her eye was large and dark, suppressing half its fire until she spoke. her glossy hair was clustered over a brow bright with intelligence. her cheek was purple with the beam of youth, mounting at times to a transparent glow; and she had an uncommon grace of manner. she was tall of stature. her husband was a good-looking man, neither much loved nor disliked. he was of a jealous nature, though he did not show it. they lived together, as most people do, suffering each other's foibles.' on a summer's eve in the month of june, juan and julia met: 'how beautiful she looked! her conscious heart glowed in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong.' for her husband she had honour, virtue, truth, and love. the sun had set, and the yellow moon arose high in the heavens: 'there is a dangerous silence in that hour, a stillness which leaves room for the full soul.' several weeks had passed away: 'julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds,-- alfonso's loves with inez were well known.' then came the parting note: 'they tell me 'tis decided you depart: 'tis wise--'tis well, but not the less a pain; i have no further claim on your young heart, mine is the victim, and would be again: to love too much has been the only art i used.' julia tells juan that she loved him, and still loves him tenderly: 'i loved, i love you, for this love have lost state, station, heaven, mankind's, my own esteem, and yet cannot regret what it hath cost, so dear is still the memory of that dream.' 'all is o'er for me on earth, except some years to hide my shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core.' the seal to this letter was a sunflower--_elle vous suit partout_. it may be mentioned here that byron had a seal bearing this motto. when juan realized that the parting was final, he exclaims: 'no more--no more--oh! never more, my heart, canst thou be my sole world, my universe! once all in all, but now a thing apart, thou canst not be my blessing or my curse: the illusion's gone for ever.' in the third canto we have a hint of byron's feelings after his wife had left him: 'he entered in the house no more his home, a thing to human feelings the most trying, and harder for the heart to overcome, perhaps, than even the mental pangs of dying; to find our hearthstone turned into a tomb, and round its once warm precincts palely lying the ashes of our hopes.' 'but whatsoe'er he had of love reposed on that beloved daughter; she had been the only thing which kept his heart unclosed amidst the savage deeds he had done and seen, a lonely pure affection unopposed: there wanted but the loss of this to wean his feelings from all milk of human kindness, and turn him like the cyclops mad with blindness.' in the fourth canto we are introduced to haidée, who resembled lambro in features and stature, even to the delicacy of their hands. we are told that owing to the violence of emotion and the agitation of her mind she broke a bloodvessel, and lay unconscious on her couch for days. like astarte in 'manfred,' 'her blood was shed: i saw, but could not stanch it': 'she looked on many a face with vacant eye, on many a token without knowing what: she saw them watch her without asking why, and recked not who around her pillow sat. * * * * * 'anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall in time to the harper's tune: he changed the theme and sang of love; the fierce name struck through all her recollection; on her flashed the dream of what she was, and is, if ye could call to be so being; in a gushing stream the tears rushed forth from her o'erclouded brain, like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.' 'short solace, vain relief! thought came too quick, and whirled her brain to madness.' 'she died, but not alone; she held within, a second principle of life, which might have dawned a fair and sinless child of sin; but closed its little being without light.' 'thus lived--thus died she; never more on her shall sorrow light, or shame.' in the fifth canto, written in , after the 'stanzas to the po,' we find byron once more in a confidential mood: 'i have a passion for the name of "mary," for once it was a magic sound to me; and still it half calls up the realms of fairy, where i beheld what never was to be; all feelings changed, but this was last to vary a spell from which even yet i am not quite free.' and there is a sigh for mary chaworth in the following lines: 'to pay my court, i gave what i had--a heart; as the world went, i gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever. 'twas the boy's mite, and like the widow's may perhaps be weighed hereafter, if not now; but whether such things do or do not weigh, all who have loved, or love, will still allow life has naught like it.' early in , little more than a year before his death, byron refers to 'the fair most fatal juan ever met.' under the name of the lady adeline, this most fatal fair one is introduced to the reader: 'although she was not evil nor meant ill, both destiny and passion spread the net and caught them.' 'chaste she was, to detraction's desperation, and wedded unto one she had loved well.' 'the world could tell nought against either, and both seemed secure-- she in her virtue, he in his hauteur.' here we have a minute description of newstead abbey, the home of the 'noble pair,' where juan came as a visitor: 'what i throw off is ideal-- lowered, leavened, like a history of freemasons, which bears the same relation to the real as captain parry's voyage may do to jason's. the grand _arcanum's_ not for men to see all; my music has some mystic diapasons; and there is much which could not be appreciated in any manner by the uninitiated.' adeline, we are told, came out at sixteen: 'at eighteen, though below her feet still panted a hecatomb of suitors with devotion, she had consented to create again that adam called "the happiest of men."' it will be remembered that when mary chaworth married she was exactly eighteen. her husband was: 'tall, stately, formed to lead the courtly van on birthdays. the model of a chamberlain.' 'but there was something wanting on the whole-- don't know what, and therefore cannot tell-- which pretty women--the sweet souls!--call _soul_. _certes_ it was not body; he was well proportioned, as a poplar or a pole, a handsome man.' this description would answer equally well for 'handsome jack musters,' who married mary chaworth. adeline, we are told, took juan in hand when she was about seven-and-twenty. that was mary's age in . but this may have been a mere coincidence. 'she had one defect,' says byron, in speaking of adeline: 'her heart was vacant. her conduct had been perfectly correct. she loved her lord, or thought so; but _that_ love cost her an effort. she had nothing to complain of--no bickerings, no connubial turmoil. their union was a model to behold--serene and noble, conjugal, but cold. there was no great disparity in years, though much in temper. but they never clashed. they moved, so to speak, apart.' now, when once adeline had taken an interest in anything, her impressions grew, and gathered as they ran, like growing water, upon her mind. the more so, perhaps, because she was not at first too readily impressed. she did not know her own heart: 'i think not she was _then_ in love with juan: if so, she would have had the strength to fly the wild sensation, unto her a new one: she merely felt a common sympathy in him.' 'she was, or thought she was, his friend--and this without the farce of friendship, or romance of platonism.' 'few of the soft sex,' says byron, 'are very stable in their resolves.' she had heard some parts of juan's history; 'but women hear with more good humour such aberrations than we men of rigour': 'adeline, in all her growing sense of juan's merits and his situation, felt on the whole an interest intense-- partly perhaps because a fresh sensation, or that he had an air of innocence, which is for innocence a sad temptation-- as women hate half-measures, on the whole, she 'gan to ponder how to save his soul.' after a deal of thought, 'she seriously advised him to get married.' 'there was miss millpond, smooth as summer's sea, that usual paragon, an only daughter, who seemed the cream of equanimity, till skimmed--and then there was some milk and water, with a slight shade of blue too, it might be beneath the surface.' the mention of aurora raby, to whom juan in the first instance proposed, and by whom he was refused, suggests an incident in his life which is well known. aurora was very young, and knew but little of the world's ways. in her indifference she confounded him with the crowd of flatterers by whom she was surrounded. her mind appears to have been of a serious caste; with poetic vision she 'saw worlds beyond this world's perplexing waste,' and 'those worlds had more of her existence; for in her there was a depth of feeling to embrace thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent too as space.' she had 'a pure and placid mien'; her colour was 'never high,' 'though sometimes faintly flushed--and always clear as deep seas in a sunny atmosphere.' we cannot be positive, but perhaps byron had aurora raby in his mind when he wrote: 'i've seen some balls and revels in my time, and stayed them over for some silly reason, and then i looked (i hope it was no crime) to see what lady best stood out the season; and though i've seen some thousands in their prime lovely and pleasing, and who still may please on, i never saw but one (the stars withdrawn) whose bloom could after dancing dare the dawn.'[ ] perhaps aurora raby may have been drawn from his recollection of miss mercer elphinstone, who afterwards married auguste charles joseph, comte de flahaut de la billarderie, one of napoleon's aides-de-camp, then an exile in england. this young lady was particularly gracious to byron at lady jersey's party, when others gave him a cold reception. we wonder how matters would have shaped themselves if she had accepted the proposal of marriage which byron made to her in ! but it was not to be. that charming woman passed out of his orbit, and as he waited upon the shore, gazing at the dim outline of the coast of france, the curtain fell upon the first phase of byron's existence. the pilgrim of eternity stood on the threshold of a new life: 'between two worlds life hovers like a star, 'twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge. how little do we know that which we are! how less what we may be! the eternal surge of time and tide rolls on and bears afar our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, lashed from the foam of ages.' and after eight years of exile, in his 'last words on greece,' written in those closing days at missolonghi, with the shadow of death upon him, his mind reverts to one whom, in , he had called 'soul of my thought': 'what are to me those honours or renown past or to come, a new-born people's cry? albeit for such i could despise a crown of aught save laurel, or for such could die. i am a fool of passion, and a frown of thine to me is as an adder's eye-- to the poor bird whose pinion fluttering down wafts unto death the breast it bore so high-- such is this maddening fascination grown, so strong thy magic or so weak am i.' 'the flowers and fruits of love are gone; the worm, the canker, and the grief, are mine alone!' part iii 'astarte' 'the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.' shakespeare: _julius cæsar_. chapter i from the moment when lord byron left england until the hour of his death, the question of his separation from his wife was never long out of his thoughts. he was remarkably communicative on the subject, and spoke of it constantly, not only to madame de staël, hobhouse, lady blessington, and trelawny, but, as we have seen, even in casual conversation with comparative strangers. there is no doubt that he felt himself aggrieved, and bitterly resented a verdict which he knew to be unjust. in a pamphlet which was subsequently suppressed, written while he was at ravenna, byron sums up his own case. in justice to one who can no longer plead his own cause, we feel bound to transcribe a portion of his reply to strictures on his matrimonial conduct, which appeared in _blackwood's magazine_: 'the man who is exiled by a faction has the consolation of thinking that he is a martyr; he is upheld by hope and the dignity of his cause, real or imaginary: he who withdraws from the pressure of debt may indulge in the thought that time and prudence will retrieve his circumstances: he who is condemned by the law has a term to his banishment, or a dream of its abbreviation; or, it may be, the knowledge or the belief of some injustice of the law, or of its administration in his own particular: but he who is outlawed by general opinion, without the intervention of hostile politics, illegal judgment, or embarrassed circumstances, whether he be innocent or guilty, must undergo all the bitterness of exile, without hope, without pride, without alleviation. this case was mine. upon what grounds the public founded their opinion, i am not aware; but it was general, and it was decisive. of me or of mine they knew little, except that i had written what is called poetry, was a nobleman, had married, become a father, and was involved in differences with my wife and her relatives, no one knew why, because the persons complaining refused to state their grievances. the fashionable world was divided into parties, mine consisting of a very small minority: the reasonable world was naturally on the stronger side, which happened to be the lady's, as was most proper and polite. the press was active and scurrilous; and such was the rage of the day, that the unfortunate publication of two copies of verses, rather complimentary than otherwise to the subjects of both, was tortured into a species of crime, or constructive petty treason. i was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private rancour; my name, which had been a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for william the norman, was tainted. i felt that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and murmured, was true, i was unfit for england; if false, england was unfit for me. i withdrew; but this was not enough. in other countries, in switzerland, in the shadow of the alps, and by the blue depths of the lakes, i was pursued and breathed upon by the same blight. i crossed the mountains, but it was the same: so i went a little farther, and settled myself by the waves of the adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters.... i have heard of, and believe, that there are human beings so constituted as to be insensible to injuries; but i believe that the best mode to avoid taking vengeance is to get out of the way of temptation. i do not in this allude to the party, who might be right or wrong; but to many who made her cause the pretext of their own bitterness. she, indeed, must have long avenged me in her own feelings, for whatever her reasons may have been (and she never adduced them, to me at least), she probably neither contemplated nor conceived to what she became the means of conducting the father of her child, and the husband of her choice.' byron knew of the charge that had been whispered against his sister and himself, and, knowing it to be false, it stung him to the heart. and yet he dared not speak, because a solution of the mystery that surrounded the separation from his wife would have involved the betrayal of one whom he designated as the soul of his thought: 'invisible but gazing, as i glow mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, and feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings dearth.' augusta leigh, the selfless martyr, the most loyal friend that byron ever possessed, his 'tower of strength in the hour of need,' assisted her brother, so to speak, to place the pack on a false scent, and the whole field blindly followed. there never was a nobler example of self-immolation than that of the sister who bravely endured the odium of a scandal in which she had no part. for byron's sake she was content to suffer intensely during her lifetime; and after she had ceased to feel, her name was branded by lady byron and her descendants with the mark of infamy. a curious feature in the case is that, with few exceptions, those who knew byron and mrs. leigh intimately came gradually to accept the story which lady caroline lamb had insidiously whispered, a libel which flourished exceedingly in the noxious vapours of a scandal-loving age. as nature is said to abhor a vacuum, so falsehood rushed in to fill the void which silence caused. it is with a deep searching of heart and with great reluctance that we re-open this painful subject. the entire responsibility must rest with the late lord lovelace, whose loud accusation against byron's devoted sister deprives us of any choice in the matter. in order to understand the full absurdity of the accusation brought against augusta leigh, we have but to contrast the evidence brought against her in 'astarte' with allusions to her in byron's poems, and with the esteem in which she was held by men and women well known in society at the time of the separation. lord stanhope, the historian, in a private letter written at the time of the beecher stowe scandals, says: 'i was very well acquainted with mrs. leigh about forty years ago, and used to call upon her at st. james's palace to hear her speak about lord byron, as she was very fond of doing. that fact itself is a presumption against what is alleged, since, on such a supposition, the subject would surely be felt as painful and avoided. she was extremely unprepossessing in her person and appearance--more like a nun than anything--and never can have had the least pretension to beauty. i thought her shy and sensitive to a fault in her mind and character, and, from what i saw and knew of her, i hold her to have been utterly incapable of such a crime as mrs. beecher stowe is so unwarrantably seeking to cast upon her memory.' frances, lady shelley, a woman of large experience, penetration, and sagacity, whose husband was a personal friend of the prince regent, stated in a letter to the _times_ that mrs. leigh was like a mother to byron, and when she knew her intimately--at the time of the separation--was 'not at all an attractive person.' her husband was very fond of her, and had a high opinion of her. these impressions are confirmed by all those friends and acquaintances of mrs. leigh who were still living in . in augusta leigh was a married woman of thirty-two years of age, and the mother of four children. she had long been attached to the court, moved in good society, and was much liked by those who knew her intimately. since her marriage in she had been more of a mother than a sister to byron, and her affection for him was deep and sincere. she made allowances for his frailties, bore his uncertain temper with patience, and was never afraid of giving him good advice. in june, , she tried to save him from the catastrophe which she foresaw; and having failed, she made the supreme sacrifice of her life, by adopting his natural child, thus saving the reputation of a woman whom her brother sincerely loved. henceforward, under suspicions which must have been galling to her pride, she faced the world's 'speechless obloquy,' heedless of consequences. in the after-years, when great trouble fell upon her through the misconduct of that adopted child, she bore her sorrows in silence. among those who were connected with byron's life, hobhouse, hodgson, and harness--three men of unimpeachable character--respected and admired her to the last. such, then, was the woman who was persecuted during her lifetime and slandered in her grave. her traducers at first whispered, and afterwards openly stated, not only that she had committed incest with her brother, but that she had employed her influence over him to make a reconciliation with his wife impossible. if that were so, it is simply inconceivable that hobhouse should have remained her lifelong friend. his character is well known. not only his public but much of his private life is an open book. as a gentleman and a man of honour he was above suspicion. from his long and close intimacy with byron, there were but few secrets between them; and hobhouse undoubtedly knew the whole truth of the matter between byron and his sister. he was byron's most trusted friend during life, and executor at his death. it has never been disputed that, at the time of the separation, hobhouse demanded from lady byron's representative a formal disavowal of that monstrous charge; otherwise the whole matter would be taken into a court of law. he would allow no equivocation. the charge must either be withdrawn, then and there, or substantiated in open court. when lady byron, through her representative, _unreservedly_ disavowed the imputation, byron was satisfied, and consented to sign the deed of separation. six months after byron left england, hobhouse visited him in switzerland; and on september , , he wrote as follows to augusta leigh: 'it would be a great injustice to suppose that [byron] has dismissed the subject from his thoughts, or indeed from his conversation, _upon any other motive than that which the most bitter of his enemies would commend_. the uniformly tranquil and guarded manner shows the effect which it is meant to hide.... i trust the news from your lowestoft correspondent [lady byron] will not be so bad as it was when i last saw you. pardon me, dear mrs. leigh, if i venture to advise the strictest confinement to very _common_ topics in all you say in that quarter. _repay kindness in any other way than by confidence._ i say this, not in reference to the lady's character, but as a maxim to serve for all cases. 'ever most faithfully yours, 'j. c. hobhouse.' this letter shows, not only that the writer was firmly convinced of mrs. leigh's innocence, but that he was afraid lest lady byron would worm the real secret out of byron's sister, by appealing, through acts of kindness, to her sense of gratitude. he knew that mrs. leigh had a very difficult part to perform. her loyalty to byron and mary chaworth had already borne a severe test, and he wished her to realize how much depended on her discretion. the task of keeping in touch with lady byron, without dispelling her illusions, was so trying to augusta leigh's naturally frank nature as almost to drive her to despair. lady byron, knowing that byron was in constant correspondence with his sister, asked permission to read his letters, and it was difficult, without plausible excuse, to withhold them. byron's correspondence was never characterized by reticence. he invariably unburdened his mind, heedless of the effect which his words might have upon those to whom his letters were shown. in these circumstances mrs. leigh was kept in a fever of apprehension as to what lady byron might glean, even from the winnowed portions which, from time to time, were submitted for her perusal. it has since transpired that, without augusta's knowledge, lady byron kept a copy of everything that was shown to her. it appears from 'astarte' that, in the early part of september, , augusta leigh underwent a rigorous cross-examination--not only from lady byron, but from inquisitive acquaintances, who were determined to extract from her replies proofs of her guilt. lord lovelace, on lady byron's authority, states that between august and september (the precise date is not given) augusta confessed to lady byron that she had committed incest with her brother _previous to his marriage_. this strange admission, which we are told had been long expected, seems to have completely satisfied lady byron. _after having promised to keep her secret inviolate_, she wrote to several of her friends, and told them that augusta had made 'a full confession of her guilt.' there had been no witnesses at the meeting between these two ladies, and the incriminating letters, which lord lovelace says mrs. leigh wrote to lady byron, are not given in 'astarte'! but in lady byron, referring to these meetings, says: 'she acknowledged that the verses, "i speak not, i trace not, i breathe not thy name,"' were addressed to her.' augusta was certainly in an awkward predicament. by adopting medora she had, at considerable personal risk, saved the reputation of mary chaworth. if she had now told the whole truth--namely, that medora was merely her daughter by adoption--she would have been pressed to prove it by divulging the identity of that child's mother. this was of course impossible. not only would she have mortally offended byron, and have betrayed his trust in her, but the fortune which by his will would devolve upon her children must have passed into other hands. for those reasons it was indispensable that the truth should be veiled. as to mrs. leigh's alleged statement that the lines, 'i speak not, i trace not, i breathe not thy name,'--were addressed to her, we say nothing. by that portion of her so-called 'confession' we may gauge the value of the rest. that lady byron should have been thus deceived affords a strong proof of her gullibility. there is nothing to show exactly what passed at these remarkable interviews. we know that augusta's statements, made orally, were subsequently written down from memory; because lady byron told one of her friends that she had sent the said 'confession' to the lord chancellor (eldon), 'as a bar to any future proceedings that might be taken by lord byron to obtain the custody of ada.' it is clear that mrs. leigh's communication would never have been made except under a promise of secrecy. she did not suspect the treachery which lady byron contemplated, and thought that she might safely encourage her delusions. perhaps she divined that lady byron had already convinced herself that medora was byron's child. at any rate, she knew enough of lady byron to be certain that there would be no peace until that lady had satisfied herself that her suspicions were well founded. unhappily for mrs. leigh, hobhouse's warning arrived too late; her ruse failed, and her reputation suffered during life. although she was destined to bear the stigma of a crime of which she was innocent, she never wavered, and died with her secret unrevealed. lady byron, with all her ingenuity, never divined the truth. towards the close of her life she became uneasy in her mind, and died under the impression that 'augusta had made a fool of her.' immediately after mrs. leigh's interviews with lady byron she wrote to byron, and revealed the state of affairs. that, at the same time, she reproached him for the troubles he had brought upon her is evident from byron's journal of september : 'i am past reproaches, and there is a time for all things. i am past the wish of vengeance, and i know of none like what i have suffered; but the hour will come when what i feel must be felt, and the [truth will out?]--but enough.' it was at this time, also, that byron thought that the 'epistle to augusta'--sent to murray on august --had better not be published. it did not, in fact, see the light until . lady byron's conduct in this business affected him profoundly, and his feelings towards her changed completely. he was also angry with augusta for a time, and told her that it was 'on her account principally that he had given way at all and signed the separation, for he thought they would endeavour to drag her into it, although they had no business with anything previous to his marriage with that infernal fiend, whose destruction he should yet see.'[ ] in spite of lady byron's prejudice against mrs. leigh, as time went on she gradually realized that her sister-in-law's so-called 'confession' was not consistent either with her known disposition, her reputation in society, or with her general conduct. in order to satisfy her conscience, lady byron, in april, , arranged a meeting with mrs. leigh at reigate. clearly, it was lady byron's purpose to obtain a full confession from mrs. leigh of the crime which she had long suspected. lady byron came to reigate accompanied by the rev. frederick robertson of brighton, who happened then to be her spiritual adviser. this time augusta leigh's 'confession' was to be made before an unimpeachable witness, who would keep a record of what passed. it deeply mortified lady byron to find that mrs. leigh--far from making any 'confession'--appeared before her in 'all the pride of innocence,' and, after saying that she had always been loyal to byron and his wife, and had never tried to keep them apart, told lady byron that hobhouse--who was still living--had expressed his opinion that lady byron had every reason to be grateful to mrs. leigh; for she not only risked the loss of property, but what was much dearer to her, byron's affection.[ ] alas, the bubble had burst! the _confession_, upon which the peace of lady byron's conscience depended, was transformed into an avowal of innocence, which no threats could shake, no arguments could weaken, and no reproaches divert. chapter ii it is because 'astarte' is a pretentious and plausible record of fallacies that the present writer feels bound to take note of its arguments. in order to avoid circumlocution and tedious excursions over debatable ground, we will assume that the reader is tolerably well acquainted with literature relating to the separation of lord and lady byron. it would certainly have been better if the details of byron's quarrel with his wife had been ignored. prior to the publication of mrs. beecher stowe's articles, in , the greatest tenderness had been shown towards lady byron by all writers upon byron's career and poetry, and by all those who alluded to his unhappy marriage. everyone respected lady byron's excellent qualities, and no one accused her of any breach of faith in her conduct towards either her husband or his sister. lady byron was generally regarded as a virtuous and high-minded woman, with a hard and cold disposition, but nothing worse was said or thought of her, and the world really sympathized with her sorrows. but when her self-imposed silence was broken by mrs. beecher stowe, and byron stood publicly accused on lady byron's authority of an odious crime which she had never attempted to prove during the poet's lifetime, there arose a revulsion of feeling against her memory. it was generally felt, after the suffering and the patience of a lifetime, that lady byron might well have evinced a deeper christian spirit at its close. as time went on, the memory of this untoward incident gradually faded away, and the present generation thought little of the rights or wrongs of a controversy which had moved their forefathers so deeply. the dead, so to speak, had buried their dead, and all would soon have been forgotten. unfortunately, the late lord lovelace, a grandson of lady byron, goaded by perusal of the attacks made upon lady byron's memory, after mrs. beecher stowe's revelations in , was induced in to circulate among 'those who, for special reasons, ought to have the means of acquainting themselves with the true position of lord and lady byron,' a work entitled 'astarte,' which is mainly a compilation of letters and data, skilfully selected for the purpose of defaming his grandfather. after informing the reader that 'the public of this age would do well to pay no attention to voluminous complications and caricatures of lord byron,' lord lovelace gaily proceeds, on the flimsiest of evidence, to blast, not only byron's name, but also the reputation of the poet's half-sister, augusta leigh. after telling the world that byron 'after his death was less honoured than an outcast,' lord lovelace endeavours to justify the public neglect to honour the remains of a great national poet by accusing byron of incest. lord lovelace's claim to have been the sole depositary of so damning a secret is really comical, because, as a matter of fact, he never knew the truth at all. he thought that he had only, like pandora, to open his box for all the evil to fly out, forgetting that truth has an awkward habit of lying at the bottom. he seems, however, to have had some inkling of this, for he is careful to remind us that 'truth comes in the last, and very late, limping along on the arm of time.' in support of a theory which is supposed to be revealed by his papers, lord lovelace declares that a solution of byron's mystery may be found in his poems, and he fixes on 'manfred' for the key. the haunting remorse of manfred is once more trotted out to prove that byron committed incest. there is nothing new in this 'nightmare of folly,' for byron himself was well aware of the interpretation placed upon that poem by his contemporaries. manfred is certainly the revelation of deep remorse, but the crime for which he suffers had no connection with augusta leigh. lord lovelace says that 'the germ of this nightmare in blank verse _was in the actual letters of the living astarte_.' the statement may be true; but he was certainly not in a position to prove it, for he knew not, to the last hour of his life, who the living astarte was. it is a sad story that should never have been told, and the present writer regrets that circumstances should have compelled him to save the reputation of one good woman by revealing matters affecting the misfortunes of another. but the blame must lie with those inconsiderate, ignorant, and prejudiced persons who, in an attempt to justify lady byron's conduct, cruelly assailed the memory of one who 'when fortune changed--and love fled far, and hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,' was the solitary star which rose, and set not to the last. on january , , lord and lady byron were married at seaham. the little that is known of their married life may be found in letters and memoranda of people who were in actual correspondence with them, and the details which we now give from various sources are necessary to a better understanding of the causes which led to a separation between husband and wife in january, . according to a statement made by lady byron to her friend lady anne barnard, shortly after a rumour of the separation spread in london, there never was any real love on either side. the following passages are taken from some private family memoirs written by lady anne herself: 'i heard of lady byron's distress, and entreated her to come and let me see and hear her, if she conceived my sympathy or counsel could be any comfort to her. she came, but what a tale was unfolded by this interesting young creature, who had so fondly hoped to have made [byron] happy! they had not been an hour in the carriage ... when byron, breaking into a malignant sneer, said: "oh, what a dupe you have been to your imagination! how is it possible a woman of your sense could form the wild hope of reforming _me_? many are the tears you will have to shed ere that plan is accomplished. it is enough for me that you are my wife for me to hate you; if you were the wife of any other man, i own you might have charms," etc. 'i listened in astonishment,' writes lady anne. '"how could you go on after this, my dear!" said i. "why did you not return to your father's?" '"because i had not a conception he was in earnest; because i reckoned it a bad jest, and told him so--that my opinion of him was very different from his of himself, otherwise he would not find me by his side. he laughed it over when he saw me appear hurt, and i forgot what had passed till forced to remember it. i believe he was pleased with me, too, for a little while. i suppose it had escaped his memory that i was his wife." 'but,' says lady anne, 'she described the happiness they enjoyed to have been unequal and perturbed. her situation in a short time might have entitled her to some tenderness, but she made no claim on him for any. he sometimes reproached her for the motives that had induced her to marry him--"all was vanity, the vanity of miss milbanke carrying the point of reforming lord byron! he always knew _her_ inducements; her pride shut her eyes to _his_; _he_ wished to build up his character and his fortunes; both were somewhat deranged; she had a high name, and would have a fortune worth his attention--let her look to that for _his_ motives!" '"oh, byron, byron," she said, "how you desolate me!" he would then accuse himself of being mad, and throw himself on the ground in a frenzy, which lady byron believed was affected to conceal the coldness and malignity of his heart--an affectation which at that time never failed to meet with the tenderest commiseration.... lady byron saw the precipice on which she stood, and kept his sister with her as much as possible. he returned in the evenings from the haunts of vice, where he made her understand he had been, with manners so profligate. '"oh, wretch!" said i. "and had he no moments of remorse?" "sometimes he appeared to have them," replied lady byron. "one night, coming home from one of his lawless parties, he saw me so indignantly collected, bearing all with such determined calmness, that a rush of remorse seemed to come over him; he called himself a monster, though his sister was present, and threw himself in agony at my feet. he said that i could not--no, i could not forgive him such injuries. he was sure that he had lost me for ever! astonished at the return of virtue, my tears, i believe, flowed over his face, and i said: 'byron, all is forgotten; never, never shall you hear of it more!' he started up, and, folding his arms while he looked at me, burst into laughter. 'what do you mean?' said i. 'only a philosophical experiment, that's all,' said he. 'i wished to ascertain the value of your resolutions.'" 'i need not say more of this prince of duplicity,' continues lady anne barnard, 'except that varied were his methods of rendering her wretched, even to the last.' there is enough evidence in the above statement to show that a separation between lord and lady byron was inevitable. byron's temper, always capricious, became ungovernable under the vexatious exigencies of his financial affairs. several executions had taken place in their house during the year, and it is said that even the beds upon which they slept were in the possession of the bailiffs. it has been shown by those who knew byron well that he was never suited to the married state. his temperament was an obstacle to happiness in marriage. he lacked the power of self-command, and the irritation produced by the shattered state of his fortune drove him at times to explosions, which were very like madness. we have an example of this in his conduct one night in ithaca, when his companions were afraid to enter his room. lady byron could not meet these explosions in any effectual manner. the more fiercely he vented his exasperation, the colder she became. lady byron, like her husband, was a spoilt child who set her own self-will against his. if she had possessed more tact and deeper affections, she might possibly have managed him. we frankly admit that byron's conduct during this period was not calculated to win the love and respect of any woman. during his mad moods he did his utmost to blacken his own character, and it is not surprising that lady byron, who had heard much of his conduct before marriage, implicitly believed him. his so-called 'mystifications' were all taken seriously. she was, moreover, of a jealous nature, and byron delighted to torment her by suggestions of immorality which had no foundation in fact. in such a character as lady byron's, a hint was enough to awaken the darkest suspicions, and when an impression had been stamped on her mind it was impossible to remove it. byron, of course, fanned the flame, for he was bored to death in the bonds of wedlock, and we are inclined to believe that he did many outrageous things in order to drive his wife on the road to a separation. when the moment came he was sorry, but he certainly brought matters designedly to a crisis. his sister augusta was much in favour of his marriage, and had strong hopes that happiness was in store for them, as the following letter will show: 'six mile bottom, '_february , _. 'my dear mr. hodgson, 'you could not have gratified me more than by giving me an opportunity of writing on my favourite subject to one so truly worthy of it as you are; indeed, i have repeatedly wished of late that i could communicate with you. most thankful do i feel that i have so much to say that will delight you. i have every reason to think that my beloved b. is very happy and comfortable. i hear constantly from him and _his rib_. they are now at seaham, and not inclined to return to halnaby, _because_ all the world were preparing to visit them there, and at seaham they are free from this torment, no trifling one in b.'s estimation, as you know. from my own observations on their epistles, and knowledge of b.'s disposition and ways, i really hope _most_ confidently that all will turn out very happily. it appears to me that lady byron _sets about_ making him happy quite in the right way. it is true i judge at a distance, and we generally _hope_ as we _wish_; but i assure you i don't conclude hastily on this subject, and will own to you, what i would not scarcely to any other person, that i had _many fears_ and much anxiety _founded upon many causes and circumstances_ of which i cannot _write_. thank god! that they do not appear likely to be realized. in short, there seems to me to be but one drawback to _all our_ felicity, and that, alas! is the disposal of dear newstead, which i am afraid is irrevocably decreed. i received the fatal communication from lady byron ten days ago, and will own to you that it was not only grief, but disappointment; for i flattered myself such a sacrifice would not be made. from my representations she had said and urged all she could in favour of keeping it. mr. hobhouse the same, and i _believe_ that he was deputed to make inquiries and researches, and i knew that he wrote to b. suggesting the propriety and expediency of at least _delaying_ the sale. this most excellent advice created so much disturbance in byron's mind that lady b. wrote me word, "he had such a fit of vexation he could not appear at dinner, or leave his room...." b.'s spirits had improved at the prospect of a release from the embarrassments which interfered so much with his comfort, and i suppose i _ought_ to be satisfied with this.... may the future bring peace and comfort to my dearest b.! that is always one of my first wishes; and i am convinced it is my duty to _endeavour_ to be resigned to the loss of this dear abbey from our family, as well as all other griefs which are sent by him who knows what is good for us.... i do not know what are b.'s plans. lady byron says nothing can be decided upon till their affairs are in some degree arranged. they have been anxious to procure a temporary habitation in my neighbourhood, which would be convenient to him and delightful to me, if his presence is required in town upon this sad newstead business. but i am sorry to say i cannot hear of any likely to suit them; and our house is so _very_ small, i could scarcely contrive to take them in. lady b. is extremely kind to me, for which i am most grateful, and to my dearest b., for i am well aware how much i am indebted to his partiality and affection for her good opinion. i will not give up the hope of seeing them on their way to town, whenever they do go, as for a few nights they would, perhaps, tolerate the innumerable inconveniences attending the best arrangements i could make for them.... my babes are all quite well; medora more beautiful than ever.... lady b. writes me word she never saw her father and mother so happy: that she believes the latter would go to the bottom of the sea herself to find fish for b.'s dinner, and that byron owns at last that he is very happy and comfortable at seaham, though he had _predetermined_ to be very miserable. in some of her letters she mentions his health not being very good, though he seldom complains, but says that his spirits have been improved by some daily walks she had prevailed on him to take; and attributes much of his languor in the morning and _feverish feels_ at night to his _long fasts_, succeeded by _too_ hearty meals for any weak and empty stomach to bear at one time, waking by night and sleeping by day. i flatter myself her influence will prevail over these bad habits.' on march , , augusta leigh again writes to byron's friend, the rev. francis hodgson, from six mile bottom: 'b. and lady byron arrived here last sunday on their way from the north to london, where they have taken a very good house of the duke of devonshire in piccadilly. i hope they will stay some days longer with me, and i shall regret their departure, whenever it takes place, as much as i now delight in their society. byron is looking remarkably well, and of lady b. i scarcely know how to write, for i have a sad trick of being struck dumb when i am most happy and pleased. the expectations i had formed could not be _exceeded_, but at least they are fully answered. 'i think i never saw or heard or read of a more perfect being in mortal mould than she appears to be, and scarcely dared flatter myself such a one would fall to the lot of my dear b. he seems quite sensible of her value, and as happy as the present alarming state of _public_ and the tormenting uncertainties of his own private affairs will admit of. colonel leigh is in the north.' on march , , mrs. leigh again writes to hodgson: 'byron and lady b. left me on tuesday for london. b. will probably write to you immediately. he talked of it while here after i received your last letter, which was the cause of _my_ being silent.... i am sorry to say his nerves and spirits are very far from what i wish them, but don't speak of this to him on any account. 'i think the uncomfortable state of his affairs is the cause; at least, i can discern no other. he has every outward blessing this world can bestow. i trust that the almighty will be graciously pleased to grant him those _inward_ feelings of peace and calm which are now unfortunately wanting. this is a subject which i cannot dwell upon, but in which i feel and have felt all you express. i think lady byron very judiciously abstains from pressing the consideration of it upon him at the present moment. in short, the more i see of her the more i love and esteem her, and feel how grateful i am, and ought to be, for the blessing of such a wife for my dear, darling byron.' augusta's next letter is written from , piccadilly terrace, on april , , about three weeks after her arrival there on a visit to the byrons. it also is addressed to hodgson, and conveys the following message from byron: 'i am desired to add: lady b. is ----, and that lord wentworth has left all to her mother, and then to lady byron and children; but byron is, _he says_, "a very miserable dog for all that."' at the end of june, , augusta leigh ended her visit, and returned to six mile bottom. there seems to have been some unpleasantness between augusta and lady byron during those ten weeks. two months later, on september , , augusta leigh writes again to hodgson: 'your letter reached me at a time of much hurry and confusion, which has been succeeded by many events of an afflicting nature, and compelled me often to neglect those to whom i feel most pleasure in writing.... my brother has just left me, having been here since last wednesday, when he arrived very unexpectedly. i never saw him _so_ well, and he is in the best spirits, and desired me to add his congratulations to mine upon your marriage.' on november , , augusta leigh arrived at , piccadilly terrace, on a long visit. it cannot have been a pleasant experience for augusta leigh, this wretched period which culminated in a dire catastrophe for all concerned. lord lovelace tells us that, when mrs. leigh came to stay with them in november, byron 'seemed much alienated from his sister, and was entirely occupied with women at the theatre.' and yet '_the impressions of mrs. leigh's guilt had been forced into lady byron's mind chiefly by incidents and conversations which occurred while they were all under one roof._' what may have given rise to these suspicions is not recorded--probably byron's mystifications, which were all taken seriously. but there is no attempt to deny the fact that, during this painful time, lady byron owed deep gratitude to mrs. leigh, who had faithfully striven to protect her when ill and in need of sympathy. it was during this period that lady byron wrote the following cryptic note to byron's sister: 'you will think me very foolish, but i have tried two or three times, and cannot _talk_ to you of your departure with a decent visage; so let me say one word in this way to spare my philosophy. with the expectations which i have, i never will nor can ask you to stay one moment longer than you are inclined to do. it would be the worst return for all i ever received from you. but, in this at least, i _am_ "truth itself" when i say that, whatever the situation may be, there is no one whose society is dearer to me, or can contribute more to my happiness. these feelings will not change under any circumstances, and i should be grieved it you did not understand them. 'should you hereafter condemn me, i shall not love you less. i will say no more. judge for yourself about going or staying. i wish you to consider _yourself_, if you could be wise enough to do that for the first time in your life.' on december , , lady byron gave birth to a daughter. lord lovelace says: 'about three weeks after lady byron's confinement, the aversion byron had already at times displayed towards her struck everyone in the house as more formidable than ever. augusta, george byron, and mrs. clermont, were then all staying in the house, and were very uneasy at his unaccountable manner and talk. he assumed a more threatening aspect towards lady byron. there were paroxysms of frenzy, but a still stronger impression was created by the frequent hints he gave of some suppressed and bitter determination. he often spoke of his conduct and intentions about women of the theatre, particularly on january , , when he came to lady byron's room and talked on that subject with considerable violence. after that he did not go any more to see her or the child, but three days later sent her the following note: '"_january , ._ '"when you are disposed to leave london, it would be convenient that a day should be fixed--and (if possible) not a very remote one for that purpose. of my opinion upon that subject you are sufficiently in possession, and of the circumstances which have led to it, as also to my plans--or, rather, intentions--for the future. when in the country i will write to you more fully--as lady noel has asked you to kirkby; there you can be for the present, unless you prefer seaham. '"as the dismissal of the present establishment is of importance to me, the sooner you can fix on the day the better--though, of course, your convenience and inclination shall be first consulted. '"the child will, of course, accompany you: there is a more easy and safer carriage than the chariot (unless you prefer it) which i mentioned before--on that you can do as you please."' the next day lady byron replied in writing as follows: 'i shall obey your wishes, and fix the earliest day that circumstances will admit for leaving london.' consequently she quitted london on january , . soon after lady byron's arrival at kirkby, her mother drew from her some of the circumstances of her misery. lady byron then told her mother that she believed her life would be endangered by a return to her husband. she expressed an opinion that byron was out of his mind, although he seemed competent to transact matters connected with his business affairs. lady noel, naturally, took her daughter's part entirely, and went to london to seek legal advice. during her stay in london, lady noel saw augusta leigh and george byron, who agreed with her that every endeavour should be made to induce byron to agree to a separation. she also consulted sir samuel romilly, sergeant heywood, dr. lushington, and colonel francis doyle, an old friend of the milbanke family. they all agreed that a separation was necessary. it was perhaps a very natural view to take of a marriage which had run its short course so tempestuously, but there were no grounds other than incompatibility of temperament upon which to base that conclusion. 'nothing had been said at this time,' says lord lovelace, 'by lady byron of her suspicions about augusta, except, apparently, a few incoherent words to lady noel, when telling her that lord byron had threatened to take the child away from her and commit it to augusta's charge.' byron, says lord lovelace,[ ] 'was very changeable at this time, sometimes speaking kindly of his wife--though never appearing to wish her to return--and the next hour he would say that the sooner lady byron's friends arranged a separation, the better.' this statement is a fair example of the manner in which lord lovelace handles his facts and documents. mr. hobhouse, who was in a position to know the truth, has recently shown that byron was very anxious for his wife's return, was indeed prepared to make great sacrifices to attain that object, and resolutely opposed the wishes of those persons who tried to arrange a legal separation. it was not until lady byron herself reminded him of a promise which he had once made to her that, 'when convinced her conduct had not been influenced by others, he should not oppose her wishes,' that he consented to sign the deed of separation. he had done enough to show that he was not afraid of any exposure which might have affected his honour, and was willing, if necessary, to go into a court of law, but he could not resist the petition of his wife.[ ] it is also extremely improbable that byron should, 'towards the end of january, have spoken of proposing a separation himself,' in view of the letters which he wrote to his wife on february , and february following.[ ] on february sir ralph noel, under legal advice, wrote a stiff letter requiring a separation. byron at that time positively refused to accept these terms. the whole affair then became publicly known. every kind of report was spread about him, and especially the scandal about augusta was noised abroad by lady caroline lamb and mr. brougham. there can be no doubt whatever that byron heard of this report, and paid very little attention to it. he found out then, or soon afterwards, how the scandal arose. lady byron's relations were bent on arranging an amicable separation. should byron persist in his refusal, it was intended to institute a suit in the ecclesiastical court to obtain a divorce on the plea of adultery and cruelty. there is reason to believe that a charge of adultery could _not_ have been substantiated at that time. meanwhile, lady byron, who had lately acquired some documents, which were unknown to her when she left her husband on january ,[ ] came to london on february , and had a long private conversation with dr. lushington. she then showed him two packets of letters which mrs. clermont had abstracted from byron's writing-desk. lady byron received those letters some time between february and , . one packet contained missives from a married lady, with whom byron had been intimate previous to his marriage. it appears that lady byron--whose notions of the ordinary code of honour were peculiar--sent those letters to that lady's husband, who, like a sensible man, threw them into the fire. of the other packet we cannot speak so positively. it probably comprised letters from augusta leigh, referring to the child medora.[ ] such expressions as 'our child' or 'your child' would have fallen quite naturally from her pen under the circumstances. it is easy to imagine the effect of some such words upon the suspicious mind of lady byron. by mrs. clermont's masterful stroke of treachery, strong presumptive evidence was thus brought against augusta leigh. the letters undoubtedly convinced dr. lushington that incest had taken place, and he warned lady byron against any personal intercourse with mrs. leigh. he at the same time advised her to keep her lips closed until augusta had of her own free will confessed; and pointed out to lady byron that, 'while proofs and impressions were such as left no doubt on _her_ mind, _they were decidedly not such as could have been brought forward to establish a charge of incest, in the event of lady byron being challenged to bring forward the grounds of her imputation_.'[ ] from that moment all lady byron's wiles were employed to extract a confession from augusta leigh, which would have gone far to justify lady byron's conduct in leaving her husband. soon after this momentous interview with dr. lushington, an ugly rumour was spread about town affecting mrs. leigh's character. lord lovelace says: 'when augusta's friends vehemently and indignantly resented such a calumny, they were met with the argument that _lady byron's refusal to assign a reason for her separation confirmed the report_, and that no one but augusta could deny it with any effect.' this, by the nature of her agreement with byron, was impossible, and mrs. clermont's treachery held her in a vice. during january and february, , lady byron, who strongly suspected mrs. leigh's conduct to have been disloyal to herself, wrote the most affectionate letters to that lady. 'kirkby mallory. 'my dearest a., 'it is my great comfort that you are in piccadilly.' 'kirkby mallory, '_january , _. 'dearest a., 'i know you feel for me as i do for you, and perhaps i am better understood than i think. you have been, ever since i knew you, my best comforter, and will so remain, unless you grow tired of the office, which may well be.' '_january , ._ 'my dearest augusta, 'shall i still be your sister? i must resign my rights to be so considered; but i don't think that will make any difference in the kindness i have so uniformly experienced from you.' 'kirkby mallory, '_february , _. 'my dearest augusta, 'you are desired by your brother to ask if my father has acted with my concurrence in proposing a separation. he has. it cannot be supposed that, in my present distressing situation, i am capable of stating, in a detailed manner, the reasons which will not only justify this measure, but compel me to take it; and it never can be my wish to remember unnecessarily those injuries for which, however deep, i feel no resentment. i will now only recall to lord byron's mind his avowed and insurmountable aversion to the married state, and the desire and determination he has expressed ever since its commencement to free himself from that bondage, as finding it quite insupportable, though candidly acknowledging that no effort of duty or affection has been wanting on my part. he has too painfully convinced me that all these attempts to contribute towards his happiness were wholly useless, and most unwelcome to him. i enclose this letter to my father, wishing it to receive his sanction. 'ever yours most affectionately, 'a. i. byron.' '_february , ._ 'i hope, my dear a., that you would on no account withhold from your brother the letter which i sent yesterday, in answer to yours written by his desire; particularly as one which i have received from himself to-day renders it still more important that he should know the contents of that addressed to you. i am, in haste and not very well, 'yours most affectionately, 'a. i. byron.' 'kirkby mallory, '_february , _. 'the present sufferings of all may yet be repaid in blessings. do not despair absolutely, dearest; and leave me but enough of your interest to afford you any consolation, by partaking of that sorrow which i am most unhappy to cause thus unintentionally. '_you will_ be of my opinion hereafter, and at present your bitterest reproach would be forgiven; though heaven knows you have considered me more than a thousand would have done--more than anything but my affection for b., one most dear to you, could deserve. i must not remember these feelings. farewell! god bless you, from the bottom of my heart. 'a. i. b.' it is only fair to remind the reader that, when these letters were written, lady byron had not consulted dr. lushington. we are inclined to think that the last letter was written on the day when she received mrs. clermont's 'proofs.' meanwhile, augusta, unconscious that an avalanche of scandal threatened to sweep her reputation into an abyss, was catching at every straw that might avert a catastrophe. her thoughts turned to hodgson, whose noble character, sound common-sense, and affection for byron, were undoubted. it was possible, she thought, that the ruin and destruction which she dreaded for her brother might be averted through the advice and assistance of an honourable man of the world. in that wild hope the following letters were written: ' , piccadilly terrace, '_wednesday, february , _. 'dear mr. hodgson, 'can you by _any means_ contrive to come up to town? were it only for _a day_, it might be of the most essential service to a friend i know you love and value. there is too much fear of a separation between him and his wife. no time is to be lost, but even if you are _too late_ to prevent that happening _decidedly_, yet it would be the greatest comfort and relief to me to confide other circumstances to you, and consult you; and so if _possible_ oblige me, if only for _twenty-four_ hours. say not _a word_ of my summons, but attribute your coming, if you come, to business of your own or chance. excuse brevity; i am so perfectly wretched i can only say, 'ever yours most truly, 'augusta leigh. 'it is probable i may be obliged to go home next week. if my scheme appears wild, pray attribute it to the state of mind i am in. alas! i see only _ruin_ and _destruction_ in _every_ shape to one most dear to me.' hodgson at once responded to this appeal by taking the first stage-coach to london, where the next letter was addressed to him at his lodgings near piccadilly: 'how very good of you, dear mr. hodgson! i intend showing the letter to b., as i _think_ he will jump at seeing you just now, but i _must_ see you first; and how? i am now going to mr. hanson's from b. i'm afraid of your meeting people here who _do no good_, and would counteract yours; but will you call about two, or after that, and ask for _me_ first? i shall be home, i hope, and _must_ see you. if i'm out ask for capt. b. 'yours sincerely, 'a. l.' '_friday evening, o'clock._ 'dear mr. hodgson, 'i've been unable to write to you till this moment. mr. h.[ ] stayed till a late hour, and is now here again. b. dined with me, and after i left the room i sent your note in, thinking him in better spirits and more free from irritations. he has only just mentioned it to me: "oh, by-the-by, i've had a note from h., augusta, whom you must write to, and say i'm so full of domestic calamities that i can't see anybody." still, i think he _will_ see you if he hears you are here, or that even it would be better, if the worst came to the worst, to let the servant announce you and walk in. can you call here about eleven to-morrow morning, when he will not be up, or scarcely awake, and capt. b., you, and i, can hold a council on what is best to be done? the fact is, he is now _afraid_ of everybody who would tell him the truth. it is a most dreadful situation, dear mr. h.! the worst is, that _if_ you said you have done so-and-so, etc., he would deny it; and i see he is afraid of _your despair_, as he terms it, when you hear of his situation, and, in short, of your telling him the truth. he can only bear to see those who flatter him and encourage him to all that is wrong. i've not mentioned having seen you, because i wish him to suppose your opinions unprejudiced. you _must_ see him; and pray see me and george b. to-morrow morning, when we will consult upon the best means. you are the only comfort i've had this long time. i'm quite of your opinion on all that is to be feared. 'ever yours truly, 'a. l.' 'piccadilly terrace. 'dear mr. h., 'about three you will be sure of finding me, if not sooner. i've sent in your letter; he said in return i was to do what i pleased about it. i _think_ and _hope_ he will find comfort in seeing you. 'yours truly, 'a. l.' '_saturday._ 'dear mr. h., 'b. will see you. i saw him open your note, and said i had given his message this morning, when i had seen you and talked generally on the subject of his present situation, of which you had before heard. he replied, "oh, then, tell him i will see him, certainly; my reason for _not_ was the fear of distressing him." you had better call towards three, and wait if he is not yet out of his room. mr. hanson has sent for me in consequence (probably) of your interview. i'm going to him about three with capt. b., but have said nothing to b. of this. 'ever yours, 'a. l.' immediately after the interview, which took place on the day after the last note was written, hodgson, feeling that nothing could be lost and that much might be gained by judicious remonstrance, resolved to hazard an appeal to lady byron's feelings--with what success will be seen from her ladyship's reply. it is impossible to over-estimate the combined tact and zeal displayed by hodgson in this most delicate and difficult matter. 'whether i am outstepping the bounds of prudence in this address to your ladyship i cannot feel assured; and yet there is so much at stake in a quarter so loved and valuable that i cannot forbear running the risk, and making one effort more to plead a cause which your ladyship's own heart must plead with a power so superior to all other voices. if, then, a word that is here said only adds to the pain of this unhappy conflict between affection and views of duty, without lending any weight of reason to the object it seeks, i would earnestly implore that it may be forgiven; and, above all, the interference itself, which nothing but its obvious motive and the present awful circumstance could in any way justify. 'after a long and most confidential conversation with my friend (whom i have known thoroughly, i believe, for many trying years), i am convinced that the deep and rooted feeling in his heart is regret and sorrow for the occurrences which have so deeply wounded you; and the most unmixed admiration of your conduct in all its particulars, and the warmest affection. but may i be allowed to state to lady byron that lord b., after his general acknowledgment of having frequently been very wrong, and, from various causes, in a painful state of irritation, yet declares himself ignorant of the specific things which have given the principal offence, and that he wishes to hear of them; that he may, if extenuation or atonement be possible, endeavour to make some reply; or, at all events, may understand the fulness of those reasons which have now, and as unexpectedly as afflictingly, driven your ladyship to the step you have taken? 'it would be waste of words and idle presumption for me, however your ladyship's goodness might be led to excuse it, to observe how very extreme, how decidedly irreconcilable, such a case should be, before the last measure is resorted to. but it may not be quite so improper to urge, from my deep conviction of their truth and importance, the following reflections. i entreat your ladyship's indulgence to them. what can be the consequence, to a man so peculiarly constituted, of such an event? if i may give vent to my fear, my thorough certainty, nothing short of absolute and utter destruction. i turn from the idea; but _no_ being except your ladyship can prevent this. _none_, i am thoroughly convinced, ever could have done so, notwithstanding the unhappy appearances to the contrary. whatever, then, may be against it, whatever restraining remembrances or anticipations, to a person who was not already qualified by sad experience to teach this very truth, i would say that there _is_ a claim paramount to all others--that of attempting to save the human beings nearest and dearest to us from the most comprehensive ruin that can be suffered by them, at the expense of any suffering to ourselves. 'if i have not gone too far, i would add that so suddenly and at once to shut every avenue to returning comfort must, when looked back upon, appear a strong measure; and, if it proceeds (pray pardon the suggestion) from the unfortunate notion of the very person to whom my friend now looks for consolation being unable to administer it, that notion i would combat with all the energy of conviction; and assert, that whatever unguarded and unjustifiable words, and even actions, may have inculcated this idea, it is the very rock on which the peace of both would, as unnecessarily as wretchedly, be sacrificed. but god almighty forbid that there should be any sacrifice. be all that is right called out into action, all that is wrong suppressed (and by your only instrumentality, lady byron, as by yours only it can be) in my dear friend. may you both yet be what god intended you for: the support, the watchful correction, and improvement, of each other! of yourself, lord b. from his heart declares that he would wish nothing altered--nothing but that sudden, surely sudden, determination which must _for ever_ destroy one of you, and perhaps even both. god bless both! 'i am, with deep regard, 'your ladyship's faithful servant, 'francis hodgson.' lady byron's answer was as follows: 'kirkby, '_february , _. 'dear sir, 'i feel most sensibly the kindness of a remonstrance which equally proves your friendship for lord byron and consideration for me. i have declined all discussion of this subject with others, but my knowledge of your principles induces me to justify my own; and yet i would forbear to accuse as much as possible. 'i married lord b. determined to endure everything whilst there was _any_ chance of my contributing to his welfare. i remained with him under trials of the severest nature. in leaving him, which, however, i can scarcely call a _voluntary_ measure, i probably saved him from the bitterest remorse. i may give you a general idea of what i have experienced by saying that he married me with the deepest determination of revenge, avowed on the day of my marriage, and executed ever since with systematic and increasing cruelty, which no affection could change.... my security depended on the total abandonment of every moral and religious principle, against which (though i trust they were never obtruded) his hatred and endeavours were uniformly directed.... the circumstances, which are of too convincing a nature, shall not be generally known whilst lord b. allows me to spare him. it is not unkindness that can always change affection. 'with you i may consider this subject in a less worldly point of view. is the present injury to his reputation to be put in competition with the danger of unchecked success to this wicked pride? and may not his actual sufferings (in which, be assured, that affection for me has very little share) expiate a future account? i know him too well to dread the fatal event which he so often mysteriously threatens. i have acquired my knowledge of him bitterly indeed, and it was long before i learned to mistrust the apparent candour by which he deceives all but himself. he _does_ know--too well--what he affects to inquire. you reason with me as i have reasoned with myself, and i therefore derive from your letter an additional and melancholy confidence in the rectitude of this determination, which has been deliberated on the grounds that you would approve. it was not suggested, and has not been enforced, by others; though it is sanctioned by my parents. 'you will continue lord byron's friend, and the time may yet come when he will receive from that friendship such benefits as he now rejects. i will even indulge the consolatory thought that the remembrance of me, when time has softened the irritation created by my presence, may contribute to the same end. may i hope that you will still retain any value for the regard with which i am, 'your most obliged and faithful servant, 'a. i. byron.' 'i must add that lord byron had been fully, earnestly, and affectionately warned of the unhappy consequences of his conduct.' it is most unfortunate that the second letter which hodgson wrote on this most distressing occasion is lost, but some clue to its contents may be gathered from lady byron's reply: '_february , ._ 'dear sir, 'i have received your second letter. first let me thank you for the charity with which you consider my motives; and now of the principal subject. 'i eagerly adopted the belief on insanity as a consolation; and though such malady has been found insufficient to prevent his responsibility with man, i will still trust that it may latently exist, so as to acquit him towards god. this no human being can judge. it certainly does not destroy the powers of self-control, or impair the knowledge of moral good and evil. considering the case upon the supposition of derangement, you may have heard, what every medical adviser would confirm, that it is in the nature of such malady to reverse the affections, and to make those who would naturally be dearest, the greatest objects of aversion, the most exposed to acts of violence, and the least capable of alleviating the malady. upon such grounds my absence from lord b. was medically advised before i left town. but the advisers had not then seen him, and since mr. le mann has had opportunities of personal observation, it has been found that the supposed physical causes do not exist so as to render him not an accountable agent. 'i believe the nature of lord b.'s mind to be most benevolent. but there may have been circumstances (i would hope the _consequences_, not the _causes_, of mental disorder) which would render an original tenderness of conscience the motive of desperation--even of guilt--when self-esteem had been forfeited _too far_. no _external_ motive can be so strong. goodness of heart--when there are impetuous passions and no principles--is a frail security. 'every possible means have been employed to effect a private and amicable arrangement; and i would sacrifice such advantages in terms as, i believe, the law would insure to me, to avoid this dreadful necessity. yet i must have some _security_, and lord b. refuses to afford any. if you could persuade him to the agreement, you would save me from what i most deprecate. i have now applied to lord holland for that end. 'if you wish to answer--and i shall always be happy to hear from you--i must request you to enclose your letter to my father, sir ralph noel, mivart's hotel, lower brook street, london, as i am not sure where i may be at that time. my considerations of duty are of a very complicated nature; for my duty as a mother seems to point out the same conduct as i pursue upon other principles that i have partly explained. 'i must observe upon one passage of your letter that i _had_ (_sic_) expectations of personal violence, though i was too miserable to have _feelings_ of fear, and those expectations would now be still stronger. 'in regard to any change which the future state of lord b.'s mind might justify in my intentions, an amicable arrangement would not destroy the opening for reconciliation. pray endeavour to promote the dispositions to such an arrangement; there is every reason to desire it. 'yours very truly, 'a. i. byron.' it is worthy of note that lady byron, _two days after her interview with lushington_, here states that, in the event of 'an amicable arrangement' (an amicable separation) being arrived at, it would not destroy the opening for reconciliation. this is an extraordinary statement, because, as we have seen, dr. lushington absolutely declined to be a party to any such step. on march lady byron signed a declaration, giving her reasons for the separation, as will be seen presently. on march augusta leigh returned to her apartments in st. james's palace, and on the following day byron consented to a separation from his wife. on april lady jersey gave a party in honour of byron, and to show her sympathy for him in his matrimonial troubles. both byron and augusta were present, but it was a cold and spiritless affair, and nothing came of this attempt to stem the tide of prejudice. on april augusta parted for ever from her brother, and retired into the country, her health broken down by the worry and anxiety of the past three months. on april and , , the deed of separation was signed by both lord and lady byron. on april byron left london, and travelled to dover accompanied by his friends hobhouse and scrope-davies. on the th he embarked for ostend, unable to face the consequences of his quarrel with his wife. 'to his susceptible temperament and generous feelings,' says his schoolfellow harness, 'the reproach of having ill-used a woman must have been poignant in the extreme. it was repulsive to his chivalrous character as a gentleman; it belied all he had written of the devoted fervour of his attachments; and rather than meet the frowns and sneers which awaited him in the world, as many a less sensitive man might have done, he turned his back on them and fled.' chapter iii the publication of 'astarte' has had one good result; it has placed beyond question the precise nature of lady byron's complaints against her husband. on march , , lady byron was induced by dr. lushington to draw up and sign a statement which would be useful if her conduct should at any future time be criticized. we place the entire document before the reader, just as it appears in lord lovelace's book: 'statement.--a. l. 'in case of my death to be given to colonel doyle. a. i. byron, thursday, march , .' 'during the year that lady byron lived under the same roof with lord b. certain circumstances occurred, and some intimations were made, which excited a suspicion in lady b.'s mind that an improper connection had at one time, and might even still, subsist between lord b. and mrs. l----.[ ] the causes, however, of this suspicion did not amount to proof, and lady byron did not consider herself justified in acting upon these suspicions by immediately quitting lord b.'s house, for the following reasons: 'first and principally, because the causes of suspicion, though they made a strong impression upon her mind, did not amount to positive proof, and lady b. considered, that whilst a possibility of innocence existed, every principle of duty and humanity forbad her to act as if mrs. leigh was actually guilty, more especially as any intimation of so heinous a crime, even if not distinctly proved, must have seriously affected mrs. l.'s character and happiness. 'secondly, lady b. had it not in her power to pursue a middle course; it was utterly impossible for her to remove mrs. l. from the society and roof of lord b. except by a direct accusation. 'thirdly, because mrs. l. had from her first acquaintance with lady b. always manifested towards her the utmost kindness and attention, endeavouring as far as laid in her power to mitigate the violence and cruelty of lord b. 'fourthly, because mrs. l. at times exhibited signs of a deep remorse; at least so lady b. interpreted them to be, though she does not mean to aver that the feelings mrs. l. then showed were signs of remorse for the commission of the crime alluded to, or any other of so dark a description. 'and, lastly, because lady b. conceived it possible that the crime, if committed, might not only be deeply repented of, but never have been perpetrated since her marriage with lord b. 'it was from these motives, and strongly inclining to a charitable interpretation of all that passed, that lady b. never during her living with lord b. intimated a suspicion of this nature. since lady b.'s separation from lord b. the report has become current in the world of such a connection having subsisted. this report was not spread nor sanctioned by lady b. mrs. l.'s character has, however, been to some extent affected thereby. lady b. cannot divest her mind of the impressions before stated; but anxious to avoid all possibility of doing injury to mrs. l., and not by any conduct of her own to throw any suspicion upon mrs. l., and it being intimated that mrs. l.'s character can never be so effectually preserved as by a renewal of intercourse with lady b., she does for the motives and reasons before mentioned consent to renew that intercourse. 'now, this statement is made in order to justify lady b. in the line of conduct she has now determined to adopt, and in order to prevent all misconstruction of her motives in case mrs. l. should be proved hereafter to be guilty; and, if any circumstances should compel or render it necessary for lady b. to prefer the charge, in order that lady b. may be at full liberty so to do without being prejudiced by her present conduct. 'it is to be observed that this paper does not contain nor pretends to contain any of the grounds which gave rise to the suspicion which has existed and still continues to exist in lady b.'s mind. 'we whose names are hereunto subscribed are of opinion, that under all the circumstances above stated, and also from our knowledge of what has passed respecting the conduct of all parties mentioned, that the line now adopted by lady b. is strictly right and honourable, as well as just towards mrs. l., and lady b. ought not, whatever may hereafter occur, to be prejudiced thereby. 'robt. john wilmot. f. h. doyle. stephen lushington. (_signed by each._) 'london, _march , _.' one month later, on april , byron writes a letter to his wife, who was staying at an hotel in london, in which he says that he has just parted from augusta: 'almost the last being you had left me to part with, and the only unshattered tie of my existence.... if any accident occurs to me--be kind to _her_,--if she is then nothing--to her children. some time ago i informed you that, with the knowledge that any child of ours was already provided for by other and better means, i had made my will in favour of her and her children--as prior to my marriage; this was not done in prejudice to you, for we had not then differed--and even this is useless during your life by the settlements. i say, therefore, be kind to her and hers, for never has she acted or spoken otherwise towards you. she has ever been your friend; this may seem valueless to one who has now so many. be kind to her, however, and recollect that, though it may be an advantage to you to have lost your husband, it is sorrow to her to have the waters now, or the earth hereafter, between her and her brother. she is gone. i need hardly add that of this request she knows nothing.' there are two points in this letter which deserve notice. in the first place byron intimates that he has made a will in favour of augusta and _her children, as prior to his marriage_. this would insure that medora would be amply provided for. in addition to this, byron had already given his sister £ , in may, , within one month of medora's birth. in reply to her scruples, byron writes: 'consider the children, and my georgina in particular--in short, i need say no more.' in the second place, we appeal to any unprejudiced person whether it is likely that byron would have made to his wife an especial appeal on behalf of augusta, if he had not had a clear conscience as to his relations with her? that he had a clear conscience cannot be doubted, and augusta never hesitated in private intercourse with lady byron to speak on that painful subject. to quote lord lovelace: 'on all these occasions, one subject, uppermost in the thoughts of both, had been virtually ignored, except that augusta had had the audacity to name the reports about herself "with the pride of innocence," as it is called.' augusta tried to make lady byron speak out, and say that she did not believe the reports against her, but in vain. lady byron, having once conceived a notion of augusta's guilt, would not change her opinion, and was far too honest to dissemble. she found refuge in flight, not daring to show to augusta the letters which had been abstracted from byron's desk by mrs. clermont. in vain mrs. villiers and wilmot urged lady byron to avow to augusta the information of which they were in possession. lady byron would not produce her so-called 'proofs,' and said that 'she would experience pain in throwing off a person she had loved, and from whom she had received kindness.' but lady byron, conscious of her false position, had recourse to her pen, and wrote a letter to augusta telling her all that she knew. we are told that augusta did not attempt to deny the accusation, and admitted everything in her letters of june, july, and august, . lord lovelace coolly says: 'it is unnecessary to produce these letters here, as their contents are confirmed and made sufficiently clear by the correspondence of , given in another chapter.' we are further told in a footnote (p. ) that the late sir leslie stephen said it made him quite uncomfortable to read mrs. leigh's letters of humiliation dated . one would have supposed, after such a flourish of trumpets, that lord lovelace would have produced those letters! he does nothing of the kind, and expects posterity to accept his _ex-parte_ statements without reserve. lord lovelace bids us to believe that it was 'from the best and kindest motives, and long habit of silence, that dr. lushington's influence was exerted in , to prevent, or at least postpone, revelation.' the fact is, of course, he kept silence because he well knew that there was nothing in those letters ( and ) to fix guilt upon mrs. leigh. lady byron herself has told us that 'the causes of her suspicion _did not amount to proof_, and lady byron did not consider herself justified in acting upon these suspicions.' she further states that '_the possibility of innocence existed_,' but that 'mrs. leigh, at times, exhibited signs of deep remorse; _at least so lady byron interpreted them to be_, though she does not mean to aver that the feelings mrs. leigh then showed were signs of remorse for the commission of the crime alluded to, or any other of so dark a description.' but lady byron, under lushington's skilful hand, protects herself against the possibility of legal proceedings for defamation of character by these words: 'this paper does not contain, nor pretend to contain, any of the grounds which give rise _to the suspicion_ which has existed, and still continues to exist, in lady byron's mind. her statement is made in order to justify lady byron ... _in case mrs. leigh should be proved hereafter to be guilty_.' as this statement was made after lady byron's interview with dr. lushington (when he decided to take no part in any attempt at reconciliation), it is perfectly clear that the alleged incriminating letters were not considered as conclusive evidence against mrs. leigh. although they were sufficient to detach lushington from the party of reconciliation, it was not considered wise to produce them as evidence in , at a time when a strong revulsion of feeling had set in against lady byron. the clear legal brain of sir alexander cockburn, trained to appraise evidence, saw through the flimsy pretext which had deceived an equally great lawyer. time instructs us, and much has come to light in this so-called 'byron mystery,' since lady byron beguiled lushington. among other things, we now know, on lord lovelace's authority, that lady byron was afraid that her child would be taken from her by byron, and placed under the care of mrs. leigh. we also know, on the authority of hobhouse,[ ] that lady byron's representatives distinctly disavowed, on lady byron's behalf, having spread any rumours injurious to lord byron's character in that respect, and also stated that a charge of incest would not have been made part of her allegations if she had come into court. this disavowal was signed by lady byron herself, and was witnessed by mr. wilmot. it is certain that lord byron would have gone into a court of law to meet that charge, and that he refused to agree to a separation until that assurance had been given. this grave charge was still in abeyance in ; it was not safe to speak of it until after byron's death, and then only under the seal of secrecy. 'upon one contingency only,' wrote sir francis doyle in --'namely, the taking from lady byron of her child, and placing her under the care of mrs. leigh--would the disclosure have been made of lady byron's grounds for _suspecting_ mrs. leigh's guilt.' it was evident that lady byron was clutching at straws to save her child from mrs. leigh, and to prevent this it was essential to prove mrs. leigh's unworthiness. in her maternal anxiety she stuck at nothing, and for a time she triumphed. her private correspondence was drenched with the theme that had impressed lushington so strongly. a fortnight after signing her 'statement,' lady byron writes to mrs. george lamb, in reference to mrs. leigh: 'i am glad that you think of _her_ with the feelings of pity which prevail in my mind, and surely if in _mine_ there must be some cause for them. i never was, nor ever can be, so _mercilessly_ virtuous as to admit _no_ excuse for even the worst of errors.' such letters go perilously near that charge which lady byron's representatives had repudiated in the presence of hobhouse. but lady byron was desperate, and her whole case depended on a general belief in that foul accusation. what could not be done openly could be done secretly, and she poisoned the air to save her child. colonel doyle, who seems to have been one of the few on lady byron's side who kept his head, wrote to her on july , : 'i see the possibility of a contingency under which the fullest explanation of the motives and grounds of your conduct may be necessary; i therefore implore of you to suffer no delicacy to interfere with your endeavouring to obtain the fullest _admission_ of the fact. if you obtain an acknowledgment of the facts and that your motives be, as you seem to think, properly appreciated, i think on the whole we shall have reason to rejoice that you have acted as you have done, but i shall be very anxious to have a more detailed knowledge of what has passed, and particularly of the state in which you leave it. the step you have taken was attended with great risk, and i could not, contemplating the danger to which it might have exposed you, have originally advised it. 'if, however, your correspondence has produced an acknowledgment of the fact even previous to your marriage, i shall be most happy that it has taken place.' colonel doyle, by no means easy in his own mind, again writes to lady byron on july , : 'i must recommend you to act as if a time might possibly arise when it would be necessary for you to justify yourself, though nothing short of an absolute necessity so imperative as to be irresistible could ever authorize your advertence to your present communications. still, i cannot dismiss from my mind the experience we have had, nor so far forget the very serious embarrassment we were under from the effects of your too confiding disposition, as not to implore you to bear in mind the importance of securing yourself from eventual danger. 'this is my first object, and if that be attained, i shall approve and applaud all the kindness you can show [to mrs. leigh].' here, then, we have a picture of the state of affairs limned by a man who was an accomplice of lady byron's, and who was fully awake to the danger of their position in the event of byron turning round upon them. the husband might insist upon lady byron explaining the grounds of her conduct. in order to make their position secure, it would be, above all things, necessary to obtain a full confession from mrs. leigh of her criminal intercourse with byron. with this end in view, lady byron opened a correspondence with augusta leigh, and tried to inveigle her into making an admission of her guilt. it was not an easy matter to open the subject, but lady byron was not abashed, and, under cover of sundry acts of kindness, tried hard to gain her point. in this game of foils augusta showed remarkable skill, and seems to have eventually fooled lady byron to the top of her bent. no wonder, then, that mrs. leigh, accused of an abominable crime by her sister-in-law, should have written to a friend: 'none can know _how much_ i have suffered from this unhappy business--and, indeed, i have never known a moment's peace, and begin to despair for the future.' lady byron and her friends plied mrs. leigh with questions, hoping to gain a confession which would justify their conduct. lady noel strongly and repeatedly warned lady byron against mrs. leigh, who, like a wounded animal, was dangerous. 'take care of augusta,' she wrote september , . 'if i know anything of human nature, she _does_ and must _hate you_.' as a matter of fact, augusta, while pretending contrition for imaginary sins, revenged herself upon lady byron by heightening her jealousy, and encouraging her in the belief that byron had not only been her lover, but was still appealing to her from abroad. she even went so far as to pretend that she was going to join him, which nearly frightened mrs. villiers out of her wits. they lied to augusta profusely, these immaculate people, and had the meanness to tell her that byron had betrayed her in writing to two or three women. they probably wished to cause a breach between brother and sister, but augusta, who pretended to be alarmed by this intelligence, laughed in her sleeve. she knew the truth, and saw through these manoeuvres; it was part of her plan to keep lady byron on a false scent. 'i cannot believe my brother to have been so dishonourable,' was her meek rejoinder, meaning, of course, that it would have been dishonourable for byron to have defamed one who, having taken his child under her protection, had saved the honour of the woman whom he loved. but lady byron regarded mrs. leigh's answer as an admission of guilt, and trumpeted the news to all her friends. lord lovelace tells us that augusta, on august , , wrote to lady byron a letter, in which she asserted most solemnly that byron had not been her friend, and that, though there were difficulties in writing to him, she was determined never to see him again in the way she had done. it is remarkable that the letter to which lord lovelace refers is not given in 'astarte,' where one would naturally expect to find it. in order to gauge the impression made upon augusta's mind, the reader will do well to consult the letters which she wrote a little later to the rev. francis hodgson, in which she speaks of byron with the greatest affection. 'and now for our old subject, dear b. i wonder whether you have heard from him? the last to me was from geneva, sending me a short but most interesting journal of an excursion to the bernese alps. he speaks of his health as _very_ good, but, alas! his spirits appear wofully the contrary. i believe, however, that he does not write in that strain to others. sometimes i venture to indulge a hope that what i wish most earnestly for him may be working its way in his mind. heaven grant it!' in another letter to hodgson she speaks of ada, and says: 'the bulletins of the poor child's health, by byron's desire, pass through me, and i'm very sorry for it, and that i ever had any concern in this most wretched business. i can't, however, explain all my reasons at this distance, and must console myself by the consciousness of having done my duty, and, to the best of my judgment, all i could for the happiness of _both_.' at a time when byron was accused of having 'betrayed his sister in writing to two or three women,' he was writing that well-known stanza in 'childe harold': 'but there was one soft breast, as hath been said, which unto his was bound by stronger ties than the church links withal; and though unwed, yet it was pure--and, far above disguise, had stood the test of mortal enmities still undivided, and cemented more by peril, dreaded most in female eyes; but this was firm, and from a foreign shore well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour.' and it was in july, , that augusta's loyalty to him and to mary chaworth moved byron to write his celebrated 'stanzas to augusta': '_though thy soul with my grief was acquainted_, it shrunk not to share it with me, and the love which my spirit hath painted it never hath found but in _thee_.' 'though human, thou didst not _betray_ me; though tempted, thou never couldst shake.' lord lovelace claims to have found the key of the byron mystery in 'manfred,' and employs it as a damning proof against augusta, with what justice we have seen. at the time when 'manfred' was begun mary chaworth was temporarily insane. the anxiety which she had undergone at the time of byron's matrimonial quarrels, when she feared that a public inquiry might disclose her own secret, affected her health. she bore up bravely until after byron's departure from england; then, the strain relieved, her mind gave way, and she lived for some time in london, under the care of a doctor. her illness was kept as secret as possible, but augusta, who was constantly at her side, informed byron of her condition. chapter iv there has of late years been a disposition on the part of byron's biographers unduly to disparage moore's 'life of byron.' tastes have changed, and moore's patronizing style of reference to 'his noble friend the noble poet' does not appeal to the democratic sentiment now prevailing. but, after allowance has been made for moore's manner, it cannot be denied that, in consequence of his personal intimacy with byron, his work must always have a peculiar value and authority. there are, for instance, portions of moore's 'life' which are indispensable to those who seek to fathom the depths of byron's mind. moore says that byron was born with strong affections and ardent passions, and that his life was 'one continued struggle between that instinct of genius, which was for ever drawing him back into the lonely laboratory of self, and those impulses of passion, ambition, and vanity, which again hurried him off into the crowd, and entangled him in its interests.' moore assures us that most of byron's so-called love-affairs were as transitory as the imaginings that gave them birth. 'it may be questioned,' says moore, 'whether his heart had ever much share in such passions. actual objects there were, in but too great number, who, as long as the illusion continued, kindled up his thoughts and were the themes of his song. but they were little more than mere dreams of the hour. _there was but one love that lived unquenched through all_'--byron's love for mary chaworth. every other attachment faded away, but that endured to the end of his stormy life. in speaking of byron's affection for his sister, moore, who knew all that had been said against augusta leigh and byron, and had read the 'memoirs,' remarked: 'in a mind sensitive and versatile as [byron's], long habits of family intercourse might have estranged, or at least dulled, his natural affection for his sister; but their separation during youth left this feeling fresh and untired. that he was himself fully aware of this appears from a passage in one of his letters: "my sister is in town, which is a great comfort; for, never having been much together, we are naturally more attached to each other." his very inexperience in such ties made the smile of a sister no less a novelty than a charm to him; and before the first gloss of this newly awakened sentiment had time to wear off, they were again separated, and for ever.' when the parting came it was bitter indeed, for she was, says moore, 'almost the only person from whom he then parted with regret. those beautiful and tender verses, "though the day of my destiny's over," were now his parting tribute to her who, through all this bitter trial, had been his sole consolation.' enough has been said to show what kind of woman augusta was, and it is difficult to understand by what process of reasoning lord lovelace persuaded himself that she could have been guilty of the atrocious crime which he lays to her charge. we entirely concur with mrs. villiers, when she wrote to augusta leigh (in september, ): 'i consider you the victim to the most infernal plot that has ever entered the heart of man to conceive.' we must at the same time frankly admit that augusta, in order to screen mary chaworth, did all she could do to keep lady byron under a false impression. she seems to have felt so secure in the knowledge of her own innocence that she might afford to allow lady byron to think as ill of her as she pleased. unfortunately, augusta, having once entered upon a course of duplicity, was obliged to keep it up by equivocations of all kinds. she went so far as even to show portions of letters addressed to her care, and pretended that they had been written to herself. she seems to have felt no compunction for the sufferings of lady byron. she may even have exulted in the pain she inflicted upon that credulous lady, having herself suffered intensely through the false suspicions, and the studied insults heaped upon her by many of lady byron's adherents. byron, who was informed of what had been said against his sister by lady byron and others, told the world in 'marino faliero' that he 'had only one fount of quiet left, and _that_ they poisoned.' but he was powerless to interfere. writing to moore (september , ) he said: 'i could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl--anything but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when i stood alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered around me. do you suppose i have forgotten it? it has, comparatively, swallowed up in me every other feeling, and i am only a spectator upon earth till a tenfold opportunity offers.' it may be that augusta avenged her brother tenfold without his knowledge. but she suffered in the process. lord lovelace lays great stress upon what he calls 'the correspondence of ,' in order to show us that augusta had confessed to the crime of incest. that correspondence is very interesting, not as showing the guilt of augusta leigh, but as an example of feminine duplicity in which she was an adept. augusta was hard pressed indeed for some weapon of offence when she pretended, on june , , that she had received the following letter from her brother. she must have been some time in making up her mind to send it, as the letter in question had been in her hands three weeks, having arrived in london on june . it may be as well to state that all letters written by byron to mary chaworth passed through mrs. leigh's hands, and were delivered with circumspection. 'venice, '_may , _.[ ] 'my dearest love, 'i have been negligent in not writing, but what can i say? three years' absence--and the total change of scene and habit make such a difference that we have never nothing in common but our affections and our relationship. but i have never ceased nor can cease to feel for a moment that perfect and boundless attachment which bound and binds me to you--which renders me utterly incapable of _real_ love for any other human being--for what could they be to me after _you_? my own ...[ ] we may have been very wrong--but i repent of nothing except that cursed marriage--and your refusing to continue to love me as you had loved me. i can neither forget nor _quite forgive_ you for that precious piece of reformation, but i can never be other than i have been--and whenever i love anything it is because it reminds me in some way or other of yourself. for instance, i not long ago attached myself to a venetian for no earthly reason (although a pretty woman) but because she was called ...[ ] and she often remarked (without knowing the reason) how fond i was of the name.[ ] it is heart-breaking to think of our long separation--and i am sure more than punishment enough for all our sins. dante is more humane in his "hell," for he places his unfortunate lovers (francesca of rimini and paolo--whose case fell a good deal short of _ours_, though sufficiently naughty) in company; and though they suffer, it is at least together. if ever i return to england it will be to see you; and recollect that in all time, and place, and feelings, i have never ceased to be the same to you in heart. circumstances may have ruffled my manner and hardened my spirit; you may have seen me harsh and exasperated with all things around me; grieved and tortured with _your new resolution_, and the soon after persecution of that infamous fiend[ ] who drove me from my country, and conspired against my life--by endeavouring to deprive me of all that could render it precious[ ]--but remember that even then _you_ were the sole object that cost me a tear; and _what tears_! do you remember our parting? i have not spirits now to write to you upon other subjects. i am well in health, and have no cause of grief but the reflection that we are not together. when you write to me speak to me of yourself, and say that you love me; never mind common-place people and topics which can be in no degree interesting to me who see nothing in england but the country which holds _you_, or around it but the sea which divides us. they say absence destroys weak passions, and confirms strong ones. alas! _mine_ for you is the union of all passions and of all affections--has strengthened itself, but will destroy me; i do not speak of physical destruction, for i have endured, and can endure, much; but the annihilation of all thoughts, feelings, or hopes, which have not more or less a reference, to you and to _our recollections_. 'ever, dearest,' [signature erased]. the terms of this letter, which lord lovelace produces as conclusive evidence against augusta leigh, deserve attention. at first sight they seem to confirm lady byron's belief that a criminal intercourse had existed between her husband and his sister. but close examination shows that the letter was not written to mrs. leigh at all, but to mary chaworth. on the day it was written byron was at venice, where he had recently made the acquaintance of the countess guiccioli, whom, as 'lady of the land,' he followed to ravenna a fortnight later. it will be noticed that the date synchronizes with the period when the 'stanzas to the po' were written. both letter and poem dwell upon the memory of an unsatisfied passion. the letter bears neither superscription nor signature, both having been erased by mrs. leigh before the document reached lady byron's hands. the writer excuses himself for not having written to his correspondent (_a_) because three years' absence, (_b_) total change of scene, and (_c_) _because there is nothing in common between them_, except mutual affections and their relationship. byron could not have excused himself in that manner to a sister, who had much in common with him, and to whom he had written, on an average, twice in every month since he left england. his letters to augusta entered minutely into all his feelings and actions, and the common bond between them was ada, whose disposition, appearance, and health, occupied a considerable space in their correspondence. nor would byron have written in that amatory strain to his dear 'goose.' in the letter which preceded the one we have quoted, byron begins, 'dearest augusta,' and ends, 'i am in health, and yours, b.' in that which followed it there is nothing in the least effusive. it begins, 'dearest augusta,' and ends, 'yours ever, and very truly, b.' there are not many of byron's letters to augusta extant. all those which mentioned medora were either mutilated or suppressed. for byron to have given 'three years' absence, and a total change of scene,' as reasons for not having written to his sister for a month or so would have been absurd. but when he said that he had nothing in common with mary chaworth, except 'our affections and our relationship,' his meaning was--their mutual affections, their kinship, and their common relationship to medora. we invite any unprejudiced person to say whether byron would have been likely to write to a sister, who knew his mind thoroughly, 'i have never ceased--nor can cease to feel for a moment that perfect and boundless attachment which bound and binds me to you.' did not augusta know very well that he loved and admired her, and that byron was under the strongest obligations to her for her loyalty at a trying time? then, there was the erasure of 'a short name of three or four letters,' which might have opened lady byron's eyes to the trick that was being played upon her. those four letters spelt the name of mary, and the 'pretty woman' to whom byron had 'not long ago' attached himself was the venetian marianna (anglice: mary anne) segati, with whom he formed a liaison from november, , to february . augusta would certainly not have understood the allusion. in this illuminating letter byron reproaches mary chaworth for breaking off her fatal intimacy with him, and for having persuaded him to marry--'that infamous fiend who drove me from my country, and conspired against my life--by _endeavouring to deprive me of all that could render it precious_.' as the person here referred to was, obviously, augusta herself, this remark could not have been made to her. in speaking of their long separation as a punishment for their sins, he tells mary chaworth that, if he ever returns to england, it will be to see _her_, and that his feelings have undergone no change. it will be observed that byron begs his correspondent _to speak to him only of herself and to say that she loves him_! it is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that augusta was the intermediary between byron and his wife--his confidential agent in purely private affairs. it was to her that he wrote on all matters relating to business transactions with his wife, and from whom he received intelligence of the health and happiness of his daughter. under those circumstances how could byron ask augusta to speak to him of nothing but her love for him? to show the absurdity of lord lovelace's contention, we insert the letter which byron wrote to his sister seven months later. many letters had passed between them during the interval, but we have not been allowed to see them: 'bologna, '_december , _. 'dearest augusta, 'the health of my daughter allegra, the cold season, and the length of the journey, induce me to postpone for some time a purpose (never very willing on my part) to revisit great britain. 'you can address to me at venice as usual. wherever i may be in italy, the letter will be forwarded. i enclose to you all that long hair on account of which you would not go to see my picture. you will see that it was not so very long. i curtailed it yesterday, my head and hair being weakly after my tertian. 'i wrote to you not very long ago, and, as i do not know that i could add anything satisfactory to that letter, i may as well finish this. in a letter to murray i requested him to apprise you that my journey was postponed; but here, there, and everywhere, know me 'yours ever and very truly, 'b.' it is ridiculous to suppose that these two letters were addressed to the same person. in the one we find the expression of an imperishable attachment, in the other merely commonplace statements. in the first letter byron says, if ever he returns to england, it will be to see the person to whom he is writing, and that absence has the more deeply confirmed his passion. in the second he tells the lady that he has had his hair cut, and that he was never very willing to revisit great britain! and yet, in spite of these inconsistencies, lady byron walked into the snare which augusta had so artfully prepared. in forwarding the amatory epistle to lady byron, augusta tells her to burn it, and says that her brother 'must surely be considered a maniac' for having written it, adding, with adroit mystification: '_i_ do not believe any feelings expressed are by any means permanent--only occasioned by the passing and present reflection and occupation of writing _to the unfortunate being to whom they are addressed_.' augusta did not tell lady byron that 'the unfortunate being' was mary chaworth, now reconciled to her husband, and that she had withheld byron's letter from her, lest her mind should be unsettled by its perusal. mrs. leigh had two excellent reasons for this betrayal of trust. in the first place, she wished lady byron to believe that her brother was still making love to her, and that she was keeping her promise in not encouraging his advances. in the second place, she knew that the terms of byron's letter would deeply wound lady byron's pride--and revenge is sometimes sweet! lady byron, who was no match for her sister-in-law, had failed to realize the wisdom of her mother's warning: 'beware of augusta, for she _must_ hate you.' she received this proof of augusta's return to virtue with gratitude, thanked her sincerely, and acknowledged that the terms of byron's letter 'afforded ample testimony that she had not encouraged his tenderness.' poor lady byron! she deserves the pity of posterity. but she was possessed of common sense, and knew how to play her own hand fairly well. she wrote to augusta in the following terms: 'this letter is a proof of the prior "reformation," which was sufficiently evidenced to _me_ by your own assertion, and the agreement of circumstances with it. _but, in case of a more unequivocal disclosure on his part than has yet been made_, this letter would confute those false accusations to which you would undoubtedly be subjected from others.' in suggesting a more open disclosure on byron's part, lady byron angled for further confidences, so that her evidence against her husband might be overwhelming. she hoped that his repentant sister might be able to show incriminating letters, which would support the clue found in those missives which mrs. clermont had 'conveyed.' how little did she understand augusta leigh! never would she have assisted lady byron to prejudice the world against her brother, nor would she have furnished lady byron with a weapon which might at any moment have been turned against herself. with the object of proving augusta's guilt, the whole correspondence between her and lady byron from june , , to the end of the following january has been printed in 'astarte.' we have carefully examined it without finding anything that could convict augusta and byron. it seems clear that mrs. leigh began this correspondence with an ulterior object in view. she wished to win back lady byron's confidence, and to induce her to make some arrangement by which the leigh children would benefit at lady byron's death, in the event of byron altering the will he had already made in their favour. she began by asking lady byron's advice as to how she was to answer the 'dearest love' letter. lady byron gave her two alternatives. either she must tell her brother that, so long as his idea of her was associated with the most guilty feelings, it was her duty to break off all communication; or, if augusta did not approve of that plan, then it was her duty to treat byron's letter with the silence of contempt. to this excellent advice augusta humbly replied that, if she were to reprove her brother for the warmth of his letter, he might be mortally offended, in which case her children, otherwise unprovided for, would fare badly. but mrs. leigh was too diplomatic to convey that meaning in plain language. writing june , , she says: 'i will tell you what _now_ passes in my mind. as to the _gentler_ expedient you propose, i certainly lean to it, as the least offensive; but, supposing he suspects the motive, and is piqued to answer: "i wrote you such a letter of such a date: did you receive it?" what then is to be done? i could not reply falsely--and might not that line of conduct, acknowledged, irritate? this consideration would lead me, perhaps preferably, to adopt the other, as most open and honest (certainly to any other character but his), but query whether it might not be most judicious as to its effects; _and_ at the same time acknowledging that his victim was wholly in his power, as to temporal good,[ ] and leaving it to his generosity whether to use that power or not. there seem so many reasons why he should for his own sake abstain _for the present_ from _gratifying_ his revenge, that one can scarcely think he would do so--unless _insane_. it would surely be ruin to all his prospects, and those of a pecuniary nature are not indifferent if others are become so. 'if really and truly he feels, or fancies he feels, that passion he professes, i have constantly imagined he might suppose, from his experience of the _weakness_ of disposition of the unfortunate object, that, driven from every other hope or earthly prospect, she might fly to _him_! and that as long as he was impressed with that idea he would persevere in his projects. but, if he considered _that_ hopeless, he might desist, for otherwise he must lose everything _but his revenge_, and what good would _that_ do him? 'after all, my dearest a., if you cannot calculate the probable consequences, how should i presume to do so! to be sure, the gentler expedient might be the safest, with so violent and irritable a disposition, and at least _for a time_ act as a _palliative_--and who knows what changes a little time might produce or how providence might graciously interpose! with so many reasons to wish to avoid extremities (i mean for the sake of others), one leans to what appears the _safest_, and one is a coward. 'but the other at the same time has something gratifying to one's feelings--and i think might be said and done--so that, if he showed the letters, it would be no evidence against _the_ person; and worded with that kindness, and appearance of real affectionate concern for _him_ as well as the other person concerned, that it _might_ possibly touch him. pray think of what i have _thought_, and write me a line, not to decide, for that i cannot expect, but to tell me if i deceived myself in the ideas i have expressed to you. i shall not, _cannot_ answer till the _latest_ post-day this week. 'i know you will forgive me for this infliction, and may god bless you for that, and every other kindness.' we do not remember ever to have read a letter more frankly disingenuous than this. the duplicity lurking in every line shows why the cause of the separation between lord and lady byron has been for so long a mystery. lady byron herself was mystified by augusta leigh. it certainly was not easy for lady byron to gauge the deep deception practised upon her by both her husband and mrs. leigh; and yet it is surprising that lady byron should not have suspected, in augusta's self-depreciation, an element of fraud. was it likely that augusta, who had good reason to hate lady byron, would have provided her with such damning proofs against her brother and herself, if she had not possessed a clear conscience in the matter? she relied implicitly upon byron's letter being destroyed, and so worded her own that it would be extremely difficult for anyone but lady byron to understand what she was writing about. it will be noticed that no names are mentioned in any of her missives. people are referred to either as 'maniacs,' 'victims,' 'unfortunate objects,' or as 'that most detestable woman, your relation by marriage,' which, in a confidential communication to a sister-in-law, would be superfluous caution were she really sincere. but, after the separation period, mrs. leigh was never sincere in her intercourse with lady byron. through that lady's unflattering suspicions, augusta had suffered 'too much to be forgiven.' lady byron, on the other hand, with very imperfect understanding of her sister-in-law's character, was entirely at her mercy. to employ a colloquialism, the whole thing was a 'blind,' devised to support augusta's rôle as a repentant magdalen; to attract compassion, perhaps even pecuniary assistance; and, above all, to shield the mother of medora. the _ruse_ was successful. lady byron saw a chance of eventually procuring, in the handwriting of her husband, conclusive evidence of his crime. in her letter of june , , to mrs. leigh, she conveyed a hint that byron might be lured to make 'a more unequivocal disclosure than has yet been made.' lady byron, it must be remembered, craved incessantly for documentary proofs, which might be produced, if necessary, to justify her conduct. it is significant that at the time of writing she possessed no evidence, except the letters which mrs. clermont had purloined from byron's writing-desk, and these were pronounced by lushington to be far from conclusive. mrs. leigh seems to have enjoyed the wrigglings of her victim on the hook. 'decision was never my forte,' she writes to lady byron: 'one ought to act _right_, and leave the issue to providence.' the whole episode would be intensely comical were it not so pathetic. as might have been expected, lady byron eventually suffered far more than the woman she had so cruelly wounded. augusta seems coolly to suggest that her brother might 'out of revenge' (because his sister acted virtuously?) publish to the world his incestuous intercourse with her! could anyone in his senses believe such nonsense? augusta hints that then lady byron would be able to procure a divorce; and, as lady noel was still alive, byron would not be able to participate in that lady's fortune at her death. the words, 'there seem so many reasons why he should for his own sake abstain _for the present_ from gratifying his revenge ... it would surely be ruin to all his prospects,' are plain enough. even if there had been anything to disclose, byron would never have wounded that sister who stood at his side at the darkest hour of his life, who had sacrificed herself in order to screen his love for mary chaworth, and who was his sole rock of refuge in this stormy world. but it was necessary to show lady byron that she was standing on the brink 'of a precipice.' 'on the subject of the mortgage,' writes augusta, 'i mean to decline that wholly; and pray do me the justice to believe that one thought of the interests of my children, as far as _that_ channel is concerned, never crosses my mind. i have entreated--i believe more than once--that the will might be altered. [oh, augusta!] but if it is not--as far as i understand the matter--there is not the slightest probability of their ever deriving any benefit. whatever my feelings, dear a., i assure you, never in my life have i looked to advantage of _that_ sort. i do not mean that i have any merit in not doing it--but that i have no inclination, therefore nothing to struggle with. i trust my babes to providence, and, provided they are _good_, i think, perhaps, _too little_ of the rest.' it is plain that augusta was getting nervous about her brother's attachment to the guiccioli, a liaison which might end in trouble; and if that lady was avaricious (which she was not) byron might be induced to alter his will (made in ), by which he left all _his_ share in the property to augusta's children. with a mother's keen eye to their ultimate advantage, she tried hard to make their position secure, so that, in the event of byron changing his mind, lady byron might make suitable provision for them. it was a prize worth playing for, and she played the game for all it was worth. 'leaving her babes to providence' was just the kind of sentiment most likely to appeal to lady byron who did, in a measure, respond to augusta's hints. in a letter (december , ) lady byron writes: 'with regard to your pecuniary interests ... i am aware that the interests of your children may _rightly_ influence your conduct when guilt is not incurred by consulting them. however, your children cannot, i trust, under any circumstances, be left destitute, for reasons which i will hereafter communicate.' there was at this time a strong probability of byron's return to england. lady byron tried to extract from augusta a promise that she would not see him. augusta fenced with the question, until, when driven into a corner, she was compelled to admit that it would be unnatural to close the door against her brother. lady byron was furious: 'i do not consider you bound to me in any way,' she writes. 'i told you what i knew, because i thought that measure would enable me to befriend you--and chiefly by representing the objections to a renewal of personal communication between you and him.... we must, _according to your present intentions_, act independently of each other. on my part it will still be with every possible consideration for you and your children, and should i, by your reception of him, be obliged to relinquish my intercourse with you, i will do so in such manner as shall be least prejudicial to your interests. i shall most earnestly wish that the results of your conduct may tend to establish your peace, instead of aggravating your remorse. but, entertaining these views of your duty and my own, could i in honesty, or in friendship, suppress them?' it might have been supposed that lady byron, in , after augusta's so-called 'confession,' would have kept her secret inviolate. that had been a condition precedent; without it augusta would not have ventured to deceive even lady byron. it appears from the following note, written by lady byron to mrs. villiers, that augusta's secret had been confided to the tender mercies of that lady. on january , , lady byron writes: 'i am reluctant to give you _my_ impression of what has passed between augusta and me, respecting her conduct in case of his return; but i should like to know whether your unbiassed opinion, _formed from the statement of facts_, coincided with it.' verily, augusta had been playing with fire! chapter v on december , , byron wrote a letter to his wife. the following is an extract: 'augusta can tell you all about me and mine, if you think either worth the inquiry. the object of my writing is to come. it is this: i saw moore three months ago, and gave to his care a long memoir, written up to the summer of , of my life, which i had been writing since i left england. it will not be published till after my death; and, in fact, it is a memoir, and not "confessions." i have omitted the most important and decisive events and passions of my existence, not to compromise others. but it is not so with the part you occupy, which is long and minute; and i could wish you to see, read, and mark any part or parts that do not appear to coincide with the truth. the truth i have always stated--but there are two ways of looking at it, and your way may be not mine. i have never revised the papers since they were written. you may read them and mark what you please. i wish you to know what i think and say of you and yours. you will find nothing to flatter you; nothing to lead you to the most remote supposition that we could ever have been--or be happy together. but i do not choose to give to another generation statements which we cannot arise from the dust to prove or disprove, without letting you see fairly and fully what i look upon you to have been, and what i depict you as being. if, seeing this, you can detect what is false, or answer what is charged, do so; _your mark_ shall not be erased. you will perhaps say, _why_ write my life? alas! i say so too. but they who have traduced it, and blasted it, and branded me, should know that it is they, and not i, are the cause. it is no great pleasure to have lived, and less to live over again the details of existence; but the last becomes sometimes a necessity, and even a duty. if you choose to see this, you may; if you do not, you have at least had the option.' the receipt of this letter gave lady byron the deepest concern, and, in the impulse of a moment, she drafted a reply full of bitterness and defiance. but dr. lushington persuaded her--not without a deal of trouble--to send an answer the terms of which, after considerable delay, were arranged between them. the letter in question has already appeared in mr. prothero's 'letters and journals of lord byron,'[ ] together with byron's spirited rejoinder of april , . lord lovelace throws much light upon the inner workings of lady byron's mind at this period. that she should have objected to the publication of byron's memoirs was natural; but, instead of saying this in a few dignified sentences, lady byron parades her wrongs, and utters dark hints as to the possible complicity of augusta leigh in byron's mysterious scheme of revenge. dr. lushington at first thought that it would be wiser and more diplomatic to beg byron's sister to dissuade him from publishing his memoirs, but lady byron scented danger in that course. 'i foresee,' she wrote to colonel doyle, 'from the transmission of such a letter ... this consequence: that an unreserved disclosure from mrs. leigh to him being necessitated, they would combine together against me, he being actuated by revenge, she by fear; whereas, from her never having dared to inform him that she has already admitted his guilt to me with her own, they have hitherto been prevented from acting in concert.' byron was, of course, well acquainted with what had passed between his wife and augusta leigh. it could not have been kept from him, even if there had been any reason for secrecy. he knew that his sister had been driven to admit that medora was his child, thus _implying_ the crime of which she had been suspected. there was nothing, therefore, for augusta to fear from _him_. she dreaded a public scandal, not so much on her own account as 'for the sake of others.' for that reason she tried to dissuade her brother from inviting a public discussion on family matters. there was no reason why augusta should 'combine' with byron against his hapless wife! the weakness of lady byron's position is admitted by herself in a letter dated january , : 'my information previous to my separation was derived either directly from lord byron, or from my observations on that part of his conduct which he exposed to my view. the infatuation of pride may have blinded him to the conclusions which must inevitably be established by a long series of circumstantial evidences.' oh, the pity of it all! there was something demoniacal in byron's treatment of this excellent woman. perhaps it was all very natural under the circumstances. lady byron seemed to invite attack at every conceivable moment, and did not realize that a wounded tiger is always dangerous. this is the way in which she spoke of augusta to colonel doyle: 'reluctant as i have ever been to bring my domestic concerns before the public, and anxious as i have felt _to save from ruin a near connection of his_, i shall feel myself compelled by duties of primary importance, if he perseveres in accumulating injuries upon me, to make a disclosure of the past in the _most_ authentic form.' lady byron's grandiloquent phrase had no deeper meaning than this: that she was willing to accuse augusta leigh on the strength of 'a long series of circumstantial evidences.' we leave it for lawyers to say whether that charge could have been substantiated in the event of mrs. leigh's absolute denial, and her disclosure of all the circumstances relating to the birth of medora. in the course of the same year ( ) augusta, having failed to induce lady byron to make a definite statement as to her intentions with regard to the leigh children, urged byron to intercede with his wife in their interests. he accordingly wrote several times to lady byron, asking her to be kind to augusta--in other words, to make some provision for her children. it seemed, under all circumstances, a strange request to make, but byron's reasons were sound. in accordance with the restrictions imposed by his marriage settlement, the available portion of the funds would revert to lady byron in the event of his predeceasing her. lady byron at first made no promise to befriend augusta's children; but later she wrote to say that the past would not prevent her from befriending augusta leigh and her children 'in any future circumstances which may call for my assistance.' in thanking lady byron for this promise, byron writes: 'as to augusta * * * *, whatever she is, or may have been, _you_ have never had reason to complain of her; on the contrary, you are not aware of the obligations under which you have been to her. her life and mine--and yours and mine--were two things perfectly distinct from each other; when one ceased the other began, and now both are closed.' lord lovelace seeks to make much out of that statement, and says in 'astarte': 'it is evident, from the allusion in this letter, that byron had become thoroughly aware of the extent of lady byron's information, and did not wish that she should be misled. he probably may have heard from augusta herself that she had admitted her own guilt, together with his, to lady byron.' what _naïveté_! byron's meaning is perfectly clear. whatever she was, or may have been--whatever her virtues or her sins--she had never wronged lady byron. on the contrary, she had, at considerable risk to herself, interceded for her with her brother, when the crisis came into their married life. byron's intercourse with his sister had never borne any connection with his relations towards his wife--it was a thing apart--and at the time of writing was closed perhaps for ever. he plainly repudiates lady byron's cruel suspicions of a criminal intercourse having taken place during the brief period of their married existence. he could not have spoken in plainer language without indelicacy, and yet, so persistent was lady byron in her evil opinion of both, these simple straightforward words were wholly misconstrued. malignant casuistry could of course find a dark hint in the sentence, 'when one ceased, the other began'; but the mind must indeed be prurient that could place the worst construction upon the expression of so palpable a fact. it was not lady byron's intention to complain of things that had taken place _previous_ to her marriage; her contention had always been that she separated from her husband in consequence of his conduct while under her own roof. when, in , all the documentary evidence upon which she relied was shown to lord chief justice cockburn, that great lawyer thus expressed his opinion of their value: 'lady byron had an ill-conditioned mind, preying upon itself, till morbid delusion was the result. if not, she was an accomplished hypocrite, regardless of truth, and to whose statements no credit whatever ought to be attached.' lord lovelace tells us that all the charges made against lady byron in (when the beecher stowe 'revelations' were published) would have collapsed 'if all her papers had then been accessible and available'; and that dr. lushington, who was then alive, 'from the best and kindest motives, and long habit of silence,' exerted his influence over the other trustees to suppress them! why, we may ask, was this? the answer suggests itself. it was because he well knew that there was nothing in those papers to fix guilt upon mrs. leigh. it must not be forgotten that dr. lushington, in , expressed his deliberate opinion that the proofs were wholly insufficient to sustain a charge of incest. in this connection lady byron's written statement, dated march , , is most valuable. 'the causes of this suspicion,' she writes, 'did not amount to proof ... and i considered that, whilst a possibility of innocence existed, every principle of duty and humanity forbade me to act as if mrs. leigh was actually guilty, more especially as any intimation of so heinous a crime, even if not distinctly proved, must have seriously affected mrs. leigh's character and happiness.' exactly one month after lady byron had written those words, her husband addressed her in the following terms: 'i have just parted from augusta--almost the last being you had left me to part with, and the only unshattered tie of my existence. wherever i may go, and i am going far, you and i can never meet again in this world, nor in the next. let this content or atone. if any accident occurs to me, be kind to _her_; if she is then nothing, to her children.' it was, as we have seen, five years before lady byron could bring herself to make any reply to this appeal. how far she fulfilled the promise then made, 'to befriend augusta leigh and her children in any future circumstances which might call for her assistance,' may be left to the imagination of the reader. we can find no evidence of it in 'astarte' or in the 'revelations' of mrs. beecher stowe. chapter vi in order to meet the charges which the late lord lovelace brought against mrs. leigh in 'astarte,' we have been compelled to quote rather extensively from its pages. in the chapter entitled 'manfred' will be found selections from a mass of correspondence which, without qualification or comment, might go far to convince the reader. lord lovelace was evidently 'a good hater,' and he detested the very name of augusta leigh with all his heart and soul. there was some reason for this. she had, in lord lovelace's opinion, '_substituted herself for lord byron's right heirs_' ('astarte,' p. ). it was evidently a sore point that augusta should have benefited by lord byron's will. lord lovelace forgot that lady byron had approved of the terms of her husband's will, and that lady byron's conduct had not been such as to deserve any pecuniary consideration at lord byron's death. but impartiality does not seem to have been lord lovelace's forte. having made up his mind that mrs. leigh was guilty, he selected from his papers whatever might appear most likely to convict her. but the violence of his antagonism has impaired the value of his contention; and the effect of his arguments is very different from that which he intended. having satisfied himself that mrs. leigh (though liked and respected by her contemporaries) was an abandoned woman, lord lovelace says: 'a real reformation, according to christian ideals, would not merely have driven byron and augusta apart from each other, but expelled them from the world of wickedness, consigned them for the rest of their lives to strict expiation and holiness. but this could never be; and in the long-run her flight to an outcast life would have been a lesser evil than the consequences of preventing it. the fall of mrs. leigh would have been a definite catastrophe, affecting a small number of people for a time in a startling manner. the disaster would have been obvious, but partial, immediately over and ended.... she would have lived in open revolt against the christian standard, not in secret disobedience and unrepentant hypocrisy.' poor mrs. leigh! and was it so bad as all that? had she committed incest with her brother after the separation of ? did she follow byron abroad 'in the dress of a page,' as stated by some lying chronicler from the banks of the lake of geneva? did byron come to england in secret at some period between and ? if not, what on earth is the meaning of this mysterious homily? does lord lovelace, in the book that survives him, wish the world to believe that lady byron prevented augusta from deserting her husband and children, and flying into byron's arms in a 'far countree'? if that was the author's intention, he has signally failed. there never was a moment, since the trip abroad was abandoned in , when augusta had the mind to join her brother in his travels. there is not a hint of any such wish in any document published up to the present time. augusta, who was undoubtedly innocent, had suffered enough from the lying reports that had been spread about town by lady caroline lamb, ever to wish for another dose of scandal. if the lovelace papers contain any hint of that nature, the author of 'astarte' would most assuredly have set it forth in double pica. it is a baseless calumny. in lord lovelace's opinion, 'judged by the light of nature, a heroism and sincerity of united fates and doom would have seemed, beyond all comparison, purer and nobler than what they actually drifted into. by the social code, sin between man and woman can never be blotted out, as assuredly it is the most irreversible of facts. nevertheless, societies secretly respect, though they excommunicate, those rebel lovers who sacrifice everything else, but observe a law of their own, and make a religion out of sin itself, by living it through with constancy.' these be perilous doctrines, surely! but how do those reflections apply to the case of byron and his sister? the hypothesis may be something like this: byron and his sister commit a deadly sin. they are found out, but their secret is kept by a select circle of their friends. they part, and never meet again in this world. the sin might have been forgiven, or at least condoned, if they had 'observed a law of their own'--in other words, 'gone on sinning.' why? because 'societies secretly respect rebel lovers.' but these wretches had not the courage of their profligacy; they parted and sinned no more, therefore they were 'unrepentant hypocrites.' the 'heroism and sincerity of united fates and doom' was denied to them, and no one would ever have suspected them of such a crime, if lady byron and lord lovelace had not betrayed them. what pestilential rubbish! one wonders how a man of lord lovelace's undoubted ability could have sunk to bathos of that kind. 'byron,' he tells us, 'was ready to sacrifice everything for augusta, and to defy the world with her. if this _had not been prevented_ [the italics are ours], _he would have been a more poetical figure in history_ than as the author of "manfred."' it is clear, then, that in lord lovelace's opinion byron and augusta were prevented by someone from becoming poetical figures. who was that guardian angel? lady byron, of course! now, what are the facts? byron parted from his sister on april , , _nine days prior to his own departure from london_. they never met again. there was nothing to 'prevent' them from being together up to the last moment if they had felt so disposed. byron never disguised his deep and lasting affection for augusta, whom in private he called his 'dear goose,' and in public his 'sweet sister.' there was no hypocrisy on either side--nothing, in short, except the prurient imagination of a distracted wife, aided and abetted by a circle of fawning gossips. it is a lamentable example of how public opinion may be misdirected by evidence, which horace would have called _parthis mendacior_. lord lovelace comforts himself by the reflection that augusta 'was not spared misery or degradation by being preserved from flagrant acts; for nothing could be more wretched than her subsequent existence; and far from growing virtuous, she went farther down without end temporally and spiritually.' now, that is very strange! how could augusta have gone farther down spiritually after byron's departure? according to lord lovelace, 'character regained was the consummation of mrs. leigh's ruin!' mrs. leigh must have been totally unlike anyone else, if character regained proved her ruin. there must be some mistake. no, there it is in black and white. 'her return to outward respectability was an unmixed misfortune to the third person through whose protection it was possible.' this cryptic utterance implies that mrs. leigh's respectability was injurious to lady byron. why? 'if augusta had fled to byron in exile, and was seen with him as _et soror et conjux_, the victory remained with lady byron, solid and final. _this was the solution hoped for by lady byron's friends_, lushington and doyle, as well as lady noel.' so the cat is out of the bag at last! it having been impossible for lady byron to bring any proof against byron and his sister which would have held water in a law-court, her friends and her legal adviser hoped that augusta would desert her husband and children, and thus furnish them with evidence which would justify their conduct before the world. but augusta was sorry not to be able to oblige them. this was a pity, because, according to lord lovelace, who was the most ingenuous of men: 'their triumph and lady byron's justification would have been complete, and great would have been their rejoicing.' well, they made up for it afterwards, when byron and augusta were dead; after those memoirs had been destroyed which, in byron's words, 'will be a kind of guide-post in case of death, and prevent some of the lies which would otherwise be told, and destroy some which have been told already.' in allusion to the meetings between lady byron and augusta immediately after the separation, we are told in 'astarte' that 'on all these occasions, one subject--uppermost in the thoughts of both--had been virtually ignored, except that augusta _had had the audacity_ to name the reports about herself with all the pride of innocence. _intercourse could not continue on that footing_, for augusta probably aimed at a positive guarantee of her innocence, and at committing lady byron irretrievably to that.' this was great presumption on mrs. leigh's part, after all the pains they had taken to make her uncomfortable. lady byron, we are told by lord lovelace, could no longer bear the false position, and 'before leaving london she went to the hon. mrs. villiers--a most intimate friend of augusta's'--and deliberately poisoned her mind. that which she told mrs. villiers is not stated; but we infer that lady byron retailed some of the gossip that had reached her through one of mrs. leigh's servants who had overheard part of a conversation between augusta and byron shortly after medora's birth. after the child had been taken to st. james's palace, byron often went there. it is likely that augusta had been overheard jesting with byron about his child. we cannot be sure of this; but, at any rate, some such expression, if whispered in lady byron's ears, would be sufficient to confirm her erroneous belief. mrs. villiers, we are told, began from this time to be slightly prejudiced against augusta. she believed her to be absolutely pure, but with lax notions of morality. this sounds like a contradiction in terms, but so it was; and through the wilful misrepresentation of lady byron and her coterie, augusta's best friend was lured from her allegiance. mrs. villiers was also informed of something else by wilmot-horton, another friend of lady byron's. the plot thickened, and, without any attempt being made to arrive at the truth, augusta's life became almost unbearable. no wonder the poor woman said in her agony: 'none can know _how much_ i have suffered from this unhappy business, and, indeed, i have never known a moment's peace, and begin to despair for the future.' the 'unhappy business' was, of course, her unwise adoption of medora. through that error of judgment she was doomed to plod her way to the grave, suspected by even her dearest friend, and persecuted by the byron family. mrs. villiers was a good woman and scented treason. she boldly urged lady byron to avow to augusta the information of which she was in possession. but lady byron was at first afraid to run the risk. she knew very well the value of servants' gossip, and feared the open hostility of augusta if she made common cause with byron. this much she ingenuously avowed in a letter to dr. lushington. but, upon being further pressed, she consented to _write_ to augusta and announce what she had been told. we have no doubt that the letter was written with great care, after consultation with colonel doyle and lushington, and that the gossip was retailed with every outward consideration for augusta's feelings. whatever was said, and there is no evidence of it in 'astarte,' we are there told that 'augusta did not attempt to deny it, and, in fact, admitted everything in subsequent letters to lady byron during the summer of .' lord lovelace ingenuously adds: 'it is unnecessary to produce them here, as their contents are confirmed and made sufficiently clear by the correspondence of , in another chapter.' it is very strange that lord lovelace, who is not thrifty in his selections, should have withheld the only positive proof of augusta's confession known to be in existence. his reference to the letters of , which he publishes, is a poor substitute for the letters themselves. the only letter which affords any clue to the mystery is the 'dearest love' letter, dated may , , which we have quoted in a previous chapter. the value of that letter, as evidence against augusta, we have already shown. when compared with the letter which byron wrote to his sister on june , --a year after he had parted from her--the conclusion that the incriminating letter is not addressed to augusta at all, forces itself irresistibly upon the mind. as an example of varying moods, it is worth quoting: 'for the life of me i can't make out whether your disorder is a broken heart or ear-ache--or whether it is you that have been ill or the children--or what your melancholy and mysterious apprehensions tend to--or refer to--whether to caroline lamb's novels--mrs. clermont's evidence--lady byron's magnanimity, or any other piece of imposture.' it is really laughable to suppose that the writer of the above extract could have written to the same lady two years later in the following strain: 'my dearest love, i have never ceased, nor can cease, to feel for a moment that perfect and boundless attachment which bound and binds me to you--which renders me utterly incapable of _real_ love for any other human being--for what could they be to me after _you_? my own * * * * we may have been very wrong,' etc. but lord lovelace found no difficulty in believing that the letter in question sealed the fate of augusta leigh. in the face of such a document, lord lovelace thought that a direct confession in augusta's handwriting would be superfluous, and sir leslie stephen had warned him against superfluity! colonel doyle, an intimate friend of lady byron, seems to have been the only man on her side of the question--not even excepting lushington--who showed anything approaching to common sense. he perceived that lady byron, by avowing the grounds of her suspicions to mrs. leigh, had placed herself in an awkward position. he foresaw that this avowal would turn mrs. leigh into an enemy, who must sooner or later avenge the insults heaped upon her. on july , , colonel doyle wrote to lady byron: 'your feelings i perfectly understand; i will even _whisper_ to you i approve. but you must remember that your position is very extraordinary, and though, when we have sufficiently deliberated and _decided_, we should pursue our course without embarrassing ourselves with the consequences; yet we should _not neglect the means of fully justifying ourselves_ if the necessity be ever imposed upon us.' we have quoted enough to show that, _five months after the separation was formally proposed to lord byron_, they had not sufficient evidence to bring into a court of law. under those depressing circumstances lady byron was urged to induce augusta to 'confess'; the conspirators would have been grateful even for an admission of guilt as _prior to lord byron's marriage_! colonel doyle, as a man of honour, did not wish lady byron to rely upon 'confessions' made under the seal of secrecy. they had, apparently, been duped on a previous occasion; and, in case mrs. leigh were to bring an action against lady byron for defamation of character, it would not be advisable to rely, for her defence, upon letters which were strictly private and confidential. as to augusta's 'admissions,' made orally and without witnesses, they were absolutely valueless--especially as the conditions under which they were made could not in honour be broken. augusta through all this worry fell into a state of deep dejection. she had been accused of a crime which (though innocent) she had tacitly admitted. her friends were beginning to look coldly upon her, and consequently her position became tenfold more difficult and 'extraordinary' than that of her accuser. perhaps she came to realize the truth of dryden's lines: 'smooth the descent and easy is the way; but to return, and view the cheerful skies, in this the task and mighty labour lies.' equivocation is a dangerous game. lord lovelace tells us that all the papers concerning the marriage of lord and lady byron have been carefully preserved. 'they are a complete record of all the causes of separation, and contain full information on every part of the subject.' we can only say that it is a pity lord lovelace should have withheld those which were most likely to prove his case--for example, the letters which mrs. leigh wrote to lady byron in the summer of . the public have a right to demand from an accuser the grounds of his accusation. lord lovelace gives us none. he bids us listen to what he deigns to tell us, and to ask for nothing more. that his case is built upon lady byron's surmises, and upon no more solid foundation, is shown by the following illuminating extract from 'astarte': 'when a woman is placed as lady byron was, her mind works involuntarily, almost unconsciously, and conclusions force their way into it. she has not meant to think so and so, and she has thought it; the dreadful idea is repelled then, and to the last, with the whole force of her will, but when once conceived it cannot be banished. the distinctive features of a true hypothesis, when once in the mind, are a precise conformity to facts already known, and an adaptability to fresh developments, which allow us not to throw it aside at pleasure. lady byron's agony of doubt could only end in the still greater agony of certainty; but this was no result of ingenuity or inquiry, as she sought not for information.' if lady byron did not seek for information when she plied augusta with questions, and encouraged her friends to do the same, she must have derived pleasure from torturing her supposed rival. but that is absurd. 'women,' says lord lovelace, 'are said to excel in piecing together scattered insignificant fragments of conversations and circumstances, and fitting them all into their right places amongst what they know already, and thus reconstruct a whole that is very close to the complete truth. but lady byron's whole effort was to resist the light, or rather the darkness, that would flow into her mind.' in her effort to resist the light, lady byron seems to have admirably succeeded. but, in spite of her grandson's statement, that she employed any great effort to resist the darkness that flowed into her mind we entirely disbelieve. we are rather inclined to think that, in her search for evidence to convict mrs. leigh, she would have been very grateful for a farthing rushlight. we now leave 'astarte' to the judgment of posterity, for whom, in a peculiarly cruel sense, it was originally intended. if in a court of law counsel for the prosecution were to declaim loudly and frequently about evidence which he does not--perhaps dares not--produce, his harangues would make an unfavourable impression on a british jury. we have no wish to speak ill of the dead, but, in justice to mrs. leigh, we feel bound to say that the author of 'astarte,' with all his talk about evidence against byron and augusta leigh, has not produced a scrap of evidence which would have any weight with an impartial jury of their countrymen. but we will not end upon a jarring note. let us remember that lord lovelace, as ada's son, felt an affectionate regard for the memory of lady byron. it was his misfortune to imbibe a false tradition, and, while groping his way through the darkness, his sole guide was a packet of collected papers by which his grandmother hoped to justify her conduct in leaving her husband. if lady byron had deigned to read byron's 'memoirs,' she might have been spared those painful delusions by which her mind was obsessed in later years. that she had ample grounds, in byron's extraordinary conduct during the brief period of their intercourse, to separate herself from him is not disputed; but her premises were wrong, and her vain attempt to justify herself by unsupported accusations against mrs. leigh has failed. her daughter ada, the mother of lord lovelace, had learnt enough of the family history to come to the conclusion (which she decidedly expressed to mr. fonblanque) that the sole cause of the separation was incompatibility. there let it rest. the byron of the last phase was a very different man from the poet of 'the dream.' on the day that byron was buried at hucknall-torkard the great goethe, in allusion to a letter which byron, on the eve of his departure for greece, had written to him, says: 'what emotions of joy and hope did not that paper once excite! but now it has become, by the premature death of its noble writer, an inestimable relic and a source of unspeakable regret; for it aggravates, to a peculiar degree in me, the mourning and melancholy that pervade the moral and poetic world. in me, who looked forward (after the success of his great efforts) to the prospect of being blessed with the sight of this master-spirit of the age, this friend so fortunately acquired; and of having to welcome on his return the most humane of conquerors. 'but i am consoled by the conviction that his country will at once _awake_, and shake off, like a troubled dream, the partialities, the prejudices, the injuries, and the calumnies, with which he has been assailed; and that these will subside and sink into oblivion; and that she will at length acknowledge that his frailties, whether the effect of temperament, or the defect of the times in which he lived (against which even the best of mortals wrestle painfully), were only momentary, fleeting, and transitory; whilst the imperishable greatness to which he has raised her, now and for ever remains, and will remain, illimitable in its glory and incalculable in its consequences. certain it is that a nation, who may well pride herself on so many great sons, will place byron, all radiant as he is, by the side of those who have done most honour to her name.' with these just words it is fitting to draw our subject to a close. the poetic fame of byron has passed through several phases, and will probably pass through another before his exact position in the poetical hierarchy is determined. but the world's interest in the man who cheerfully gave his life to the cause of greek independence has not declined. eighty-five years have passed, and time has gradually fulfilled the prophecy which inspiration wrung from the anguish of his heart: 'but i have lived, and have not lived in vain: my mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, and my frame perish even in conquering pain; but there is that within me which shall tire torture and time, and breathe when i expire; something unearthly, which they deem not of, like the remembered tone of a mute lyre, shall on their softened spirits sink, and move in hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.' appendix dr. bruno's reply to fletcher's statement the following remarks appeared in the _westminster review_, and gave great annoyance to dr. millingen, who thought that he had been accused of having caused the death of byron by putting off, during four successive days, the operation of bleeding: mr. fletcher has omitted to state that on the second day of lord byron's illness his physician, dr. bruno, seeing the sudorific medicines had no effect, proposed blood-letting, and that his lordship refused to allow it, and caused mr. millingen to be sent for in order to consult with his physician, and see if the rheumatic fever could not be cured without the loss of blood. mr. millingen approved of the medicines previously prescribed by dr. bruno, and was not opposed to the opinion that bleeding was necessary; but he said to his lordship that it might be deferred till the next day. he held this language for three successive days, while the other physician (dr. bruno) every day threatened lord byron that he would die by his obstinacy in not allowing himself to be bled. his lordship always answered: 'you wish to get the reputation of curing my disease, that is why you tell me it is so serious; but i will not permit you to bleed me.' after the first consultation with mr. millingen, the domestic fletcher asked dr. bruno how his lordship's complaint was going on. the physician replied that, if he would allow the bleeding, he would be cured in a few days. but the surgeon mr. millingen, assured lord byron from day to day that it could wait till to-morrow; and thus four days slipped away, during which the disease, for want of blood-letting, grew much worse. at length mr. millingen, seeing that the prognostications which dr. bruno had made respecting lord byron's malady were more and more confirmed, urged the necessity of bleeding, and of no longer delaying it a moment. this caused lord byron, disgusted at finding that he could not be cured without loss of blood, to say that it seemed to him that the doctors did not understand his malady. he then had a man sent to zante to fetch dr. thomas. mr. fletcher having mentioned this to dr. bruno, the latter observed that, if his lordship would consent to lose as much blood as was necessary, he would answer for his cure; but that if he delayed any longer, or did not entirely follow his advice, dr. thomas would not arrive in time: in fact, when dr. thomas was ready to set out from zante, lord byron was dead. the pistols and stiletto were removed from his lordship's bed--not by fletcher, but by the servant tita, who was the only person that constantly waited on lord byron in his illness, and who had been advised to take this precaution by dr. bruno, the latter having perceived that my lord had moments of delirium. two days before the death a consultation was held with three other doctors, who appeared to think that his lordship's disease was changing from inflammatory diathesis to languid, and they ordered china,[ ] opium, and ammonia. dr. bruno opposed this with the greatest warmth, and pointed out to them that the symptoms were those, not of an alteration in the disease, but of a fever flying to the brain, which was violently attacked by it; and that the wine, the china, and the stimulants, would kill lord byron more speedily than the complaint itself could; while, on the other hand, by copious bleedings and the medicines that had been taken before he might yet be saved. the other physicians, however, were of a different opinion; and it was then that dr. bruno declared to his colleagues that he would have no further responsibility for the loss of lord byron, which he pronounced inevitable if the china were given him. in effect, after my lord had taken the tincture, with some grains of carbonate of ammonia, he was seized by convulsions. soon afterwards they gave him a cup of very strong decoction of china, with some drops of laudanum. he instantly fell into a deep lethargic sleep, from which he never rose. the opening of the body discovered the brain in a state of the highest inflammation; and all the six physicians who were present at that opening were convinced that my lord would have been saved by the bleeding, which his physician, dr. bruno, had advised from the beginning with the most pressing urgency and the greatest firmness. f. b. dr. millingen's account mr. finlay and myself called upon him in the evening, when we found him lying on a sofa, complaining of a slight fever and of pains in the articulations. he was at first more gay than usual; but on a sudden he became pensive, and, after remaining some few minutes in silence, he said that during the whole day he had reflected a great deal on a prediction which had been made to him, when a boy, by a famed fortune-teller in scotland. his mother, who firmly believed in cheiromancy and astrology, had sent for this person, and desired him to inform her what would be the future destiny of her son. having examined attentively the palm of his hand, the man looked at him for a while steadfastly, and then with a solemn voice exclaimed: 'beware of your thirty-seventh year, my young lord--beware!' he had entered on his thirty-seventh year on the nd of january; and it was evident, from the emotion with which he related this circumstance, that the caution of the palmist had produced a deep impression on his mind, which in many respects was so superstitious that we thought proper to accuse him of superstition. 'to say the truth,' answered his lordship, 'i find it equally difficult to know what to believe in this world and what not to believe. there are as many plausible reasons for inducing me to die a bigot as there have been to make me hitherto live a freethinker. you will, i know, ridicule my belief in lucky and unlucky days; but no consideration can now induce me to undertake anything either on a friday or a sunday. i am positive it would terminate unfortunately. every one of my misfortunes--and god knows i have had my share--have happened to me on one of those days.' considering myself on this occasion, not a medical man, but a visitor, and being questioned neither by his physician nor himself, i did not even feel lord byron's pulse. i was informed next morning that during the night he had taken diaphoretic infusions, and that he felt himself better. the next day dr. bruno administered a purgative, and kept up its effects by a solution of cream of tartar, which the italians call 'imperial lemonade.' in the evening the fever augmented, and as on the th, although the pains in the articulations had diminished, the feverish symptoms were equally strong, dr. bruno strongly recommended him to be blooded; but as the patient entertained a deep-rooted prejudice against bleeding, his physician could obtain no influence whatever over him, and his lordship obstinately persevered in refusing to submit to the operation. on the th, towards noon, fletcher called upon me and informed me that his master desired to see me, in order to consult with dr. bruno on the state of his health. dr. bruno informed me that his patient laboured under a rheumatic fever--that, as at first the symptoms had been of a mild character, he had trusted chiefly to sudorifics; but during the last two days the fever had so much increased that he had repeatedly proposed bleeding, but that he could not overcome his lordship's antipathy to that mode of treatment. convinced, by an examination of the patient, that bleeding was absolutely necessary, i endeavoured, as mildly and as gently as possible, to persuade him; but, in spite of all my caution, his temper was so morbidly irritable that he refused in a manner excessively peevish. he observed that, of all his prejudices, the strongest was against phlebotomy. 'besides,' said his lordship, 'does not dr. reid observe in his essays that less slaughter has been effected by the warrior's lance than by the physician's lancet? it is, in fact, a minute instrument of mighty mischief.' on my observing that this remark related to the treatment of nervous disorders, not of inflammatory ones, he angrily replied: 'who is nervous, if i am not? do not these words, besides, apply to my case? drawing blood from a nervous patient is like loosening the chords of a musical instrument, the tones of which are already defective for want of sufficient tension. before i became ill, you know yourself how weak and irritable i had become. bleeding, by increasing this state, will inevitably kill me. do with me whatever else you please, but bleed me you shall not. i have had several inflammatory fevers during my life, and at an age when i was much more robust and plethoric than i am now; yet i got through them without bleeding. this time also i will take my chance.' after much reasoning and entreaty, however, i at length succeeded in obtaining a promise that, should his fever increase at night, he would allow bruno to bleed him. happy to inform the doctor of this partial victory, i left the room, and, with a view of lowering the impetus of the circulatory system, and determining to the skin, i recommended the administration of an ounce of a solution of half a grain of tartarized antimony and two drachms of nitre in twelve ounces of water. early the next morning i called on the patient, who told me that, having passed a better night than he had expected, he had not requested dr. bruno to bleed him. chagrined at this, i laid aside all consideration for his feelings, and solemnly assured him how deeply i lamented to see him trifle with his life in this manner. i told him that his pertinacious refusal to be bled had caused a precious opportunity to be lost; that a few hours of hope yet remained; but that, unless he would submit immediately to be bled, neither dr. bruno nor myself could answer for the consequences. he might not care for life, it was true; but who could assure him, unless he changed his resolution, the disease might not operate such disorganization in his cerebral and nervous system as entirely to deprive him of his reason? i had now touched the sensible chord, for, partly annoyed by our unceasing importunities, and partly convinced, casting at us both the fiercest glance of vexation, he threw out his arm, and said in the most angry tone: 'come; you are, i see, a d----d set of butchers. take away as much blood as you will, but have done with it.' we seized the moment, and drew about twenty ounces. on coagulating, the blood presented a strong buffy coat. yet the relief obtained did not correspond to the hopes we had anticipated, and during the night the fever became stronger than it had been hitherto. the restlessness and agitation increased, and the patient spoke several times in an incoherent manner. the next morning ( th) the bleeding was repeated; for, although the rheumatic symptoms had completely disappeared, the cerebral ones were hourly increasing, and this continuing all day, we opened the vein for the third time in the afternoon. cold applications were from the beginning constantly kept on the head; blisters were also proposed. when on the point of applying them, lord byron asked me whether it would answer the same purpose to apply both on the same leg. guessing the motive that led him to ask this question, i told him i would place them above the knees, on the inside of the thighs. 'do so,' said he; 'for as long as i live i will not allow anyone to see my lame foot.' in spite of our endeavours, the danger hourly increased; the different signs of strong nervous affection succeeded each other with surprising rapidity; twitchings and involuntary motions of the tendons began to manifest themselves in the night; and, more frequently than before, the patient muttered to himself and talked incoherently. in the morning ( th) a consultation was proposed, to which dr. lucca vaga and dr. freiber, my assistant, were invited. our opinions were divided. bruno and lucca proposed having recourse to antispasmodics and other remedies employed in the last stage of typhus. freiber and i maintained that such remedies could only hasten the fatal termination; that nothing could be more empirical than flying from one extreme to the other; that if, as we all thought, the complaint was owing to the metastasis of rheumatic inflammation, the existing symptoms only depended on the rapid and extensive progress it had made in an organ previously so weakened and irritable. antiphlogistic means could never prove hurtful in this case; they would become useless only if disorganization were already operated; but then, when all hopes were fled, what means would not prove superfluous? we recommended the application of numerous leeches to the temples, behind the ears, and along the course of the jugular vein, a large blister between the shoulders, and sinapisms to the feet. these we considered to be the only means likely to succeed. dr. bruno, however, being the patient's physician, had, of course, the casting vote, and he prepared, in consequence, the antispasmodic potion which he and dr. lucca had agreed upon. it was a strong infusion of valerian with ether, etc. after its administration the convulsive movements and the delirium increased; yet, notwithstanding my earnest representations, a second dose was administered half an hour after; when, after articulating confusedly a few broken phrases, our patient sank into a comatose sleep, which the next day terminated in death. lord byron expired on the th of april, at six o'clock in the afternoon. interesting as every circumstance relative to the death of so celebrated a person may prove to some, i should, nevertheless, have hesitated in obtruding so much medical detail on the patience of the reader, had not the accounts published by dr. bruno in the _westminster review_, and many of the newspapers, rendered it necessary that i should disabuse the friends of the deceased; and at the same time vindicate my own professional character, on which the imputation has been laid of my having been the cause of lord byron's death by putting off, during four successive days, the operation of bleeding. i must first observe that, not knowing a syllable of english, although present at the conversation i had with lord byron, dr. bruno could neither understand the force of the language i employed to surmount his lordship's deep-rooted prejudice and aversion for bleeding, nor the positive refusals he repeatedly made before i could obtain his promise to consent to the operation. yet he boldly states that i spoke to lord byron in a very undecided manner of the benefits of such an operation, and that i even ventured to recommend procrastination; and these, he says, are the reasons that induced him to consent to the delay--as if he were himself indifferent to such treatment, or as if a few words from me were sufficient to determine him! conduct like this it is not difficult to appreciate: i shall therefore forbear abandoning myself to the indignation such a falsehood might naturally excite; nor shall i repel his unwarrantable accusation by relating the causes of that deep-rooted jealousy which dr. bruno entertained against me from the day he perceived the preference which lord byron indicated in favour of english physicians. this narrow-minded, envious feeling, as i could prove, prevented him from insisting on immediately calling me, or other medical men at missolonghi, to a consultation. had he done so, he would have exonerated himself from every responsibility; but his vanity made him forget the duty he owed to his patient, and even to himself. for i did not see lord byron (medically) till i was sent for by his lordship himself, without any participation on the part of dr. bruno. i can refute dr. bruno's calumnies, not only from the testimony of others, but even from his own. for the following extract from the article published in the _telegrapho greco_, announcing the death of lord byron, was at the request of count gamba (himself a witness of whatever took place during the fatal illness of his friend) composed by the doctor: 'notwithstanding the most urgent entreaties and representations of the imminent danger attending his complaint made to him from the onset of his illness, both by his private physician and the medical man sent by the greek committee, it was impossible to surmount the great aversion and prejudice he entertained against bleeding, although he lay under imperious want of it' (vide _telegrapho greco_, il di aprile, ). as to the assertion confidently made by dr. bruno, that, had his patient submitted at the onset of his malady to phlebotomy, he would have infallibly recovered, i believe every medical man who maturely considers the subject will be led to esteem this assertion as being founded rather on presumption than on reason. positive language, which is in general so misplaced in medical science, becomes in the present case even ridiculous; for, if different authors be consulted, it will appear that the very remedy which is proclaimed by some as the anchor of salvation, is by others condemned as the instrument of ruin. bleeding (as many will be found to assert) favours metastasis in rheumatic fevers; and, in confirmation of this opinion, they will remark that in this case, as soon as the lancet was employed, the cerebral symptoms manifested themselves on the disappearance of the rheumatic; while those who incline to dr. reid's and dr. heberden's opinion will observe that, after each successive phlebotomy, the cerebral symptoms not only did not remain at the same degree, but that they hourly went on increasing. in this dilemmatic position it is evident that, whatever treatment might have been adopted, detractors could not fail to have some grounds for laying the blame on the medical attendants. the more i consider this difficult question, however, the more i feel convinced that, whatsoever method of cure had been adopted, there is every reason to believe that a fatal termination was inevitable; and here i may be permitted to observe, that it must have been the lot of every medical man to observe how frequently the fear of death produces it, and how seldom a patient, who persuades himself that he must die, is mistaken. the prediction of the scotch fortune-teller was ever present to lord byron, and, like an insidious poison, destroyed that moral energy which is so useful to keep up the patient in dangerous complaints. 'did i not tell you,' said he repeatedly to me, 'that i should die at thirty-seven?' there is an entry in millingen's 'memoirs of greece' which has not received the attention it deserves--namely, a request made by byron on the day before his death. it is given by millingen in the following words: 'one request let me make to you. let not my body be hacked, or be sent to england. here let my bones moulder. lay me in the first corner without pomp or nonsense.' after byron's death millingen informed gamba of this request, but it was thought that it would be a sacrilege to leave his remains in a place 'where they might some day become the sport of insulting barbarians.' index adam, sir f., high commissioner of the ionian islands: his tribute to byron's character, agraffa, the scene of cariascachi's depredations, allegra, byron's natural daughter: her life and death, ; byron's feelings for, americans, byron on, anatoliko, turkish abandonment of, argostoli, byron arrives at, _astarte_, by earl of lovelace. see lovelace _augusta, stanzas and epistle to_, , , barnard, lady anne, on byron's married life, _et seq._ beecher stowe scandals, , bentham, jeremy, and byron, _et seq._, ; amusing anecdote about, _et seq._ berry, messrs., byron's wine merchants: register of byron's weight, _bible, the_, scott's lines on, _blackwood's magazine_ on byron, , , , blaquière, captain, ; sails for england, ; describes the return of hatajè to her parents, ; eulogy on byron, , , _et seq._ blessington, lady, _conversations of lord byron_: describes byron, , ; character and reminiscences of byron, _et seq._, , _bolivar, the_, byron's yacht, sold to lord blessington, ; her end, botzari, marco, ; his death, bowring, mr., hon. secretary to the greek committee, _bride of abydos, the_: what the poem reveals, , , , , brougham, mr., spreads the scandal, broughton, lord (see hobhouse, john cam), _recollections of a long life_, , n., n., n., n. browne, hamilton, goes with byron to greece, , ; byron's illness, ; arrives at cephalonia, bruno, dr., travels with byron to greece, , ; byron's illness, , ; medical discussions with dr. stravolemo, ; his medical treatment of byron, , , , , , _et seq._; accompanies byron's body to england, ; reply to fletcher's statement, _et seq._; dr. millingen on, _et seq._ brydges, sir egerton, burdett, sir francis, , byron, george gordon (sixth lord): arrival and habits of life at pisa, , , - ; personal appearance, - ; evidence as to his lameness, , , ; portraits of, , ; inherits the noel property on death of lady noel, , ; the society and influence of the shelleys, _et seq._; discussion on the most perfect ode produced, , , ; religion, _et seq._; habit of vaunting his vices, , , ; abstinence, ; weight register, ; fracas at pisa and montenero, , ; his natural daughter allegra, _et seq._; effect of allegra's death on, ; dealings with leigh hunt, _et seq._; death of shelley and williams, , ; refuses shelley's legacy of £ , , ; leaves pisa with countess guiccioli and goes to albaro, ; sells his yacht _the bolivar_, ; feelings on his own position, and desire for reconciliation with his wife, _et seq._; admiration for sir walter scott and shelley, ; liaison with countess guiccioli, , , ; conduct after separation from his wife, _et seq._; lady blessington on, ; anomalies, ; opinion of his wife, ; admiration for his sister, ; affection for his child ada, ; craving for celebrity, ; takes up the greek cause, ; travels to greece with money, arms, and retinue, ; arrives at argostoli, , ; practical sympathy, , ; an interesting interview with, _et seq._; visits the _fountain of arethusa_, - ; attacks of illness, , , , , ; excursion to the _school of homer_, - ; on the _waverley novels_, ; at vathi, ; admiration for southey, gifford, and others, , ; reception at santa eufemia, ; on actors, ; journey over the black mountain to argostoli, ; action with regard to dissensions in greece, _et seq._; resides at metaxata, ; advances £ , to the greeks, _et seq._; appeal to the greek nation, ; motives in coming to greece, , , ; discussions with dr. kennedy on religion, _et seq._; favourite books, , , ; helps to rescue workmen, ; sails with money from zante for missolonghi to join and help the greek fleet, , ; adventurous voyage, - ; reception at missolonghi, ; releases turkish prisoners, , , ; preparations against lepanto, ; takes suliotes into his pay, ; and major parry, _et seq._, ; turks blockade missolonghi, ; verses on his birthday, ; presentiment that he would never leave greece, and his intentions, ; some reminiscences of, _et seq._; wonderful memory, ; a popular idol in greece, ; relations with mavrocordato, , ; and colonel stanhope, _et seq._, , , ; jeremy bentham, ; dealings with the press, , ; views of the politics of greece, ; effective mode of reproof, ; on the useless supplies sent by the london committee, ; abandonment of the lepanto project, ; illness and feelings as to death, - ; dismisses the suliotes, , ; anecdote of _jerry bentham's cruise_, _et seq._; interest in the working classes, ; his politics, ; on america, ; the story of hatajè, _et seq._; turkish brig ashore, ; firmness and tact in difficulties, , _et seq._; desertion of the english artificers, , ; improvement in his health, ; favourite dogs, , ; daily life, , ; the unhealthy state of missolonghi, ; bodyguard, ; indisposition of, ; peasants' respect for, ; no desire for self-aggrandizement in greece, _et seq._; greek loan raised in london, ; receives the freedom of missolonghi, ; cariascachi's treachery, _et seq._; detailed accounts of his last illness, and death, _et seq._, _et seq._, _et seq._; eulogies on, _et seq._, , ; trelawny's opinion of, _et seq._; effect of his death on greece, _et seq._, ; the funeral oration, ; body conveyed to zante, and thence to england, _et seq._; arrival of the body in england, - ; character sketch by colonel stanhope, _et seq._; funeral procession and burial at hucknall-torkard, , ; what the poems reveal, _et seq._; infatuation for mary chaworth, _et seq._; mystery of the _thyrza_ poems, _et seq._; romantic attachment to edleston, , , , ; anecdote of mary chaworth's gift, ; his mother's death, ; on death of his friends, , ; _childe harold_, , , , , ; and the hon. mrs. george lamb, ; disbelief in existence after death, , ; in great dejection writes _the giaour_, _the bride of abydos_, and _the corsair_, , _et seq._, , , , ; and lady webster, , , ; persuaded to give up going abroad, , ; what he wishes the world to believe about mary chaworth, , ; their meetings after her separation from her husband, , _et seq._; remorse and parting, ; suspense and fear preceding the birth of medora, , ; reason of separation from his wife, ; reproaches mary chaworth, , ; device for a seal, , ; remarkable letter to moore, ; birth of medora, ; _lara_, , , ; partly the cause of the scandal about mrs. leigh, ; effect of miss milbanke's first refusal, _et seq._; _harmodia_, , ; _don juan_, , _et seq._; _hebrew melodies_, ; _herod's lament for mariamne_, ; his significant communication to his lawyer, ; verses to mary chaworth, , ; fear of disgrace, ; important correspondence with murray, , ; last meeting with mary chaworth, ; how the secret was kept, ; verses to his sister, , ; _the dream_, , ; _stanzas to augusta_, , ; _manfred_, _et seq._, , ; his treatment of the scandal, , , ; _the duel_, , ; _the lament of tasso_, ; _stanzas to the po_, _et seq._, ; _last words on greece_, ; on his separation from his wife, _et seq._; mrs. leigh's so-called confession, _et seq._, _et seq._, ; _epistle to augusta_, ; story of his married life, _et seq._; sir ralph noel requires a separation, ; lady jersey's party, ; parts for the last time from his sister, , , ; consents to separation from his wife, ; lady byron's written statement of complaints, ; letter to lady byron as to his will, ; moore's life of, _et seq._; writes to moore about the scandal, ; letter supposed to be written to mary chaworth, _et seq._; letter compared with one to his sister, ; writes to lady byron as to the memoir of his life, ; asks lady byron to make provision for mrs. leigh's children, , ; goethe on, , _byron, lord: letters and journals of_, by rowland prothero, n., n., n.; _life of_, by tom moore, ; _reminiscences of_, by g. finlay, ; _sketch of_, by colonel stanhope, byron, captain george (afterwards seventh lord), , byron, hon. augusta. see leigh, hon. mrs. augusta byron, hon. augusta ada (afterwards lady king and countess of lovelace), byron's daughter: separation from her father, , , ; hobhouse's opinion of, , ; her health, byron, lady (formerly miss milbanke): property and settlements on marriage, ; married life, , _et seq._; her husband's desire for reconciliation, , , ; on byron's religion, , ; the result of first refusal of byron, , ; _if i am not happy, it will be my own fault_, ; on byron's poetry, ; on his indiscreet confidences, ; her conduct after the birth of medora, , , _et seq._; interview with mrs. leigh at reigate, ; mrs. leigh's long visit to, ; birth of a daughter, and her husband's treatment, ; steps for a separation taken, , , , , , ; her treatment of the abstracted letters, , ; attempts to extract a confession from mrs. leigh, , , , , _et seq._; letters to mrs. leigh, , , ; hodgson's appeal to, _et seq._; text of the signed statement of her conduct, _et seq._; colonel doyle's advice, ; her husband's letter to mary chaworth, _et seq._; and the prospects of mrs. leigh's children, , ; confides in mrs. villiers, ; letter from byron, ; the weakness of her position, , ; cockburn's opinion of, ; lord lovelace on, _et seq._ campbell, dr., presbyterian divine, campbell, thomas, _battle of the baltic_, cariascachi, a greek chieftain, his treachery, _et seq._ chaworth, mary (afterwards mrs. john musters): byron's infatuation for, and references in his poems to, _et seq._; unhappy married life and separation, _et seq._; weakness and repentance, _et seq._; breakdown of health, and reconciliation with her husband, ; describes her own character, ; birth of medora, , ; how the secret was kept by mrs. leigh, , , , , , _et seq._; letters to byron, , _et seq._; last parting with byron, _childe harold_, what the poem reveals, , , _et seq._, , clairmont, claire: her anxiety about her daughter allegra, , ; her conduct to byron, , clare, lord, and byron, clermont, mrs., ; her abstraction of byron's letters, _et seq._, cockburn, sir alexander, lord chief justice, and the byron mystery, ; his opinion of lady byron, coleridge, ernest hartley, on identity of byron's infatuation, , , colocotroni, one of the turbulent capitani, _congreve rockets_, , _corsair, the_, what the poem reveals, , _et seq._, , dacre, lord, davies, scrope b., , ; byron's letter to, _don juan_, what the poem reveals, , , _et seq._ dowden, professor, _life of shelley_: on byron, ; the death of allegra, doyle, colonel francis: consulted by lady byron as to a separation, ; signs lady byron's statement of her conduct, ; advises lady byron to obtain a confession from mrs. leigh, , , dragomestri, byron's visit to, _dream, the_, what the poem reveals, , _duel, the_, the poem's application to mary chaworth, edleston, a chorister at cambridge: byron saves his life and forms a romantic attachment to, ; his death, , elphinstone, miss mercer, and byron, fenton, captain, finlay, george, _history of greece_: the siege of missolonghi, ; byron's mode of life at missolonghi, _et seq._, ; on byron, ; _reminiscences of byron_, ; byron's last illness, fletcher, byron's valet: byron's last ride, ; ignorance of the doctors, , ; byron's last illness and death, , , ; his statement, _et seq._; accompanies byron's body to england, ; dr. bruno's reply to the statement, _et seq._; dr. millingen's account of byron's last illness, _et seq._ _florida_, the brig, brings the loan to greece, and conveys back byron's body, _et seq._ freiber, dr., german physician, attends byron, gamba, count pietro: on byron's religious opinions, , ; fracas at pisa, ; goes to albaro, ; travels with byron to greece, , ; on byron's perseverance and discernment, ; on byron's favourite reading, ; byron's practical sympathy, ; accompanies byron to missolonghi, ; taken prisoner by the turks, ; release and arrival at missolonghi, ; the general assembly at missolonghi, ; byron's interview with the two privateer sailors, ; becomes editor of the _greek telegraph_, ; byron's illness, , , , _et seq._; arrest of english officers, ; byron's funeral, ; conveys byron's body to zante, gamba, count ruggiero, byron's neighbour at pisa, ; leaves pisa and goes to montenero, ; ordered to leave montenero, ; goes to albaro, ; and byron, gamba, teresa. see guiccioli, countess gell, sir william, his writings, , n. george iv. makes 'equivocation' the fashion, , ; and sir walter scott, _giaour, the_, what the poem reveals, , , , gifford, william, byron's opinion of, , greece: byron sails for, ; state of the country and army, , _et seq._, , ; byron advances £ , , ; byron's appeal to the nation, , ; preparations against lepanto, ; honours offered to byron, , ; congress at salona, ; greek loan raised in london, ; effect of byron's death on, _et seq._ _greece, history of_, by g. finlay, ; by mitford, _greek chronicle_: byron's support, ; suppression of, , _greek telegraph_, , guiccioli, countess, daughter of count ruggiero gamba: byron's neighbour at pisa, , , ; describes byron, _et seq._; on the characters of shelley and byron, , ; on byron's conduct towards allegra, ; on byron's religion, , ; anecdote about mary chaworth's ring, ; _lady of the land_, , , ; and mrs. leigh, hancock, charles, byron's banker, hanson, john, byron's solicitor, , , _harmodia_, , hatajè, byron's kindness to, _et seq._ hay, captain, fracas at pisa, , _hebrew melodies_, _hercules_, the, an english brig: byron and his suite sail to greece in it, ; byron lives on board, , _herod's lament for mariamne_, hesketh, mr., , heywood, sergeant, consulted by lady byron, hobhouse, john cam (afterwards lord broughton): and byron, ; persuades byron to burn his journal, ; destroys one of byron's poems, ; byron's funeral, , ; and lady byron, , ; life-long friend of mrs. leigh, . see also broughton, lord hodgson, captain of the _florida_, hodgson, rev. francis: consulted by mrs. leigh, _et seq._; appeals to lady byron, _et seq._ _hodgson, rev. f., memoir of_, n. holmes, mr. james, his portrait of byron, _hours of idleness_, what the poem reveals, hucknall-torkard, byron's burial place, humphreys, captain, on state of greece, hunt, sir aubrey de vere, hunt, leigh: the story of his literary and money relations with byron, _et seq._; byron's opinion of, ireland, dr., dean of westminster, refuses burial of byron in westminster abbey, jersey, countess of, her party in honour of byron, kean, edmund, actor, byron's opinion of, kemble, john, actor, byron's opinion of, kennedy, dr., scottish medical man: tries to 'convert' byron, _et seq._; and hatajè, ; lady byron on, king, lady. see byron, hon. augusta ada kinnaird, the hon. douglas, byron's opinion of, knox, captain, knox, mrs., , lamb, hon. mrs. george, and byron, lamb, lady caroline, spreads the byron scandal, , , , lambro, a suliote chief, , _lara_, what the poem reveals, , , leigh, hon. mrs. augusta, half-sister of lord byron: influence over her brother, , , , ; and his poetry, ; wishes him to go abroad, ; first introduction to, and close intimacy with, mary chaworth, ; loyalty to her brother and mary chaworth, , , , ; letters from her brother about mary chaworth, , , ; simulated confinement and convalescence, ; her brother's conduct gives colour to the scandal, , , ; letters to hodgson on the secret, , _et seq._; spends a month at newstead with her brother, ; the difficulties of keeping the secret, , , _et seq._; lines in _childe harold_ referring to, ; the so-called confession, , , , , , , _et seq._; _stanzas to augusta_, , ; lord lovelace's opinion of her character, , ; the accusation dealt with in detail, _et seq._; lord stanhope and frances, lady shelley on, ; the story of her life, ; hobhouse's advice to, ; difficult position with lady byron, , , , ; her predicament owing to the adoption of medora, ; _epistle to augusta_, ; letters to hodgson on her brother's marriage, _et seq._; a long visit to her brother and lady byron, ; lady byron's feelings towards her, , , , , ; lady byron's confinement, ; mrs. clermont's treachery, ; lady jersey's party, ; parts for ever from her brother, ; lady byron's written statement, _et seq._; letters to hodgson on her brother, ; her line of conduct to lady byron, _et seq._; moore on byron's feelings towards her, ; pretends that her brother's letter to mary chaworth was written to herself, _et seq._; a genuine letter, ; reply to lady byron's advice, _et seq._; her children's prospects discussed with lady byron, , ; lady byron's request, ; lord lovelace on, _et seq._ lepanto, preparations against, _liberal, the_, its unsuccessful career, , _lion_, byron's favourite dog, , londos, general andrea, and byron, lovelace, earl of, _astarte_: byron's _thyrza_, n.; accusations against mrs. leigh, , _et seq._, , , , , , , , , _et seq._, _et seq._, _et seq._, ; describes mrs. leigh's character, ; _manfred_, the key of the mystery, _et seq._, ; byron's mutability, ; lady byron's written statement, _et seq._; important letters from byron, _et seq._, , ; and lady byron, lushington, dr.: advises lady byron, , , , , , , ; his opinion on byron's letters abstracted by mrs. clermont, ; signs lady byron's statement, _et seq._ _magdalen_, a fragment, maitland, sir thomas, high commissioner of the ionian islands, , ; character and death, , _manfred_, the supposed key to the mystery, _et seq._, , _marino faliero_, marshall, mrs. julian, _life and letters of mary wollstonecraft shelley_, , masi, sergeant-major, fracas at pisa, , matthews, charles skinner, one of byron's best friends, his death, mavrocordato, prince, governor-general of western greece: and byron, , , , ; brings the greek fleet to missolonghi, ; byron's arrival at missolonghi, ; byron's interview with two privateer sailors, ; his jealousy, , ; infraction of neutrality in ithaca, ; byron's opinion of, ; opposition by colonel stanhope, , ; and odysseus, _et seq._; byron's last illness and death, _et seq._; effect of byron's death on, , ; trelawny's opinion of, , ; his efforts for greece, ; issues a proclamation on byron's death, , medora, birth of, , ; _childe harold_, ; adoption by mrs. leigh, medwin, captain thomas: his description of byron, , , ; on byron's life at pisa, ; _the angler in wales_, n. melbourne, lady, persuades byron not to go abroad, metaxata, byron's residence at, , meyer, jean jacques, editor of the _greek chronicle_, milbanke, miss. see byron, lady milbanke, sir ralph, his property, millingen, dr.: on byron's character, ; on parry, ; byron a favourite in greece, , ; on the greek press, ; byron's illness, ; byron's kind treatment of hatajè, _et seq._; on cariascachi's treachery, ; on byron's unhappiness and anxieties, ; attends byron in his last illness and death, _et seq._, , _et seq._, _et seq._; on mavrocordato, missolonghi: blockade of, , ; turks retire from, ; greek squadron at, ; description of, ; byron's arrival and life at, , ; release of turkish prisoners, ; turkish brig-of-war runs ashore off, ; effect of byron's death, , _et seq._ mitford, william, _history of greece_, _monthly literary recreations_, n. _monthly review_, byron's reviews in, , n. moore, thomas: letters from shelley and byron, , , ; and byron, ; on the _thyrza_ poems, ; byron's love for mary chaworth, , , , ; criticism on his _life of byron_, moore, sir john, ode on the death of, muir, dr., principal medical officer at cephalonia, muir, general skey, murray, john, byron's publisher: byron's letters to, , ; _childe harold_, ; asks for byron to be buried in westminster abbey, ; and mrs. leigh, ; byron's copyrights, ; _epistle to augusta_, musters, john, husband of mary chaworth: the ring incident and engagement, , ; separation from his wife, ; behaviour to his wife, ; reconciliation, ; cuts down the _peculiar diadem of trees_, napier, colonel, british resident governor of argostoli, , newstead abbey: sale of, ; byron's visits, , noel, lady, byron's mother-in-law: byron inherits the noel property on her death, ; her bequest of byron's portrait, n.; advice as to her daughter's separation from byron, ; and mrs. leigh, noel, sir ralph, writes to byron requiring a separation, o'doherty, ensign, byron's opinion of his poetry, odysseus, greek insurgent leader: his opposition to mavrocordato, ; and trelawny, , osborne, lord sidney, and sir thomas maitland, ; goes to missolonghi, ; eulogy of byron's conduct in greece, parry, major: his arrival at missolonghi, , ; his peculiarities, _et seq._; practical joke on, ; on byron's intentions in greece, , ; on the relationship between mavrocordato and byron, ; on byron's mode of reproof, ; account of byron's illness, ; anecdote of _jerry bentham's cruise_, ; turkish brig-of-war ashore, ; artillery at missolonghi, ; on byron's mode of life, ; on byron's power in greece, , ; byron's last illness and death, _et seq._, ; his opinion of byron, phillips, thomas, his portrait of byron, pigot, elizabeth, byron's letters to, , pisa: shelley's description of, ; byron's life at, _po, stanzas to the_, what they reveal, _et seq._, pope, alexander, homer, prothero, rowland e.: _letters and journals of lord byron_, n., , n., n., _quarterly review_, the, , _recollections of a long life._ see broughton, lord roberts, captain, describes the wreck of _the bolivar_, robertson, rev. frederick, lady byron's spiritual adviser, robinson, crabb, romilly, sir samuel, consulted by lady byron, salona, congress at, , sanders, mr. george, painter, his portrait of byron, _sardanapalus_, a tragedy, sass, lieutenant, death of, schilitzy, a greek, accompanies byron to greece, scott, captain, commands the _hercules_, in which byron travels to greece, scott, dr., surgeon, and byron, , scott, sir walter: byron's opinion of, , , , ; his denial of the authorship of the _waverley novels_, segati, marianna, byron's liaison with, shakespeare, william, byron's opinion of, shelley, percy bysshe: describes pisa, ; and byron, _et seq._; fracas at pisa, , ; and allegra, ; leaves pisa for lerici, ; and leigh hunt, _et seq._; his death, ; byron's opinion of, , ; his legacy to byron, _shelley, life and letters of mary wollstonecraft_, by mrs. julian marshall, stanhope, col. the hon. leicester: arrives in cephalonia to co-operate with byron, ; on byron's character, , ; begs byron to come to missolonghi, ; on byron's conduct in greece, , ; interviews and misunderstandings with byron, _et seq._; his conduct in greece, , ; accompanies byron's body to england, , ; _greece in and _, and _sketch of byron_, ; character sketch of byron, _et seq._ stanhope, earl, historian, opinion of mrs. leigh, stephen, sir leslie, and mrs. leigh's letters, stowe. see beecher stowe stravolemo, dr., physician, and dr. bruno, suliotes: byron takes into his pay, ; false alarm, ; serious fracas, ; their dismissal, swift, william, bootmaker at southwell, his evidence of byron's lameness, taaffe, mr., fracas at pisa, , thomas, dr., invited to attend byron in his last illness, , _et seq._ thorwaldsen, his marble bust of byron, _thyrza_ poems, what they reveal, , , tita, giovanni battista falcieri, byron's faithful servant, , , _et seq._ toole, mr., receives byron at santa eufemia, trelawny, edward john: arrives at pisa, ; describes byron and his peculiarities, , , ; on leigh hunt and byron, ; effect of shelley's death, ; lays up _the bolivar_, ; travels with byron to greece, , ; and byron's seizure, ; mistaken views of byron's motives, , ; unhealthiness of missolonghi, ; his opinion of byron, _et seq._; and mavrocordato, ; on byron's deformity, , tricoupi, spiridion, pronounces funeral oration over byron, vaga, dr. lucca, greek physician, attends byron in his last illness, , vathi, byron at, villiers, hon. mrs., and mrs. leigh, , , ; lady byron confides the secret to, , vivian, charles, his death, volpiotti, constantine, spy under byron's roof, watson's _philip ii._, webster, lady frances wedderburn, and byron, , , wentworth, lord, byron inherits his property, west, william edward, american painter, his portrait of byron, wildman, colonel thomas, wildman, mrs., owner of byron's boot-trees and the bootmaker's statement as to byron's deformity, , williams, edward, and leigh hunt, ; on byron's treatment of mrs. hunt, ; his death, wilmot, robert john, signs lady byron's statement, , , wilson, john, wilson, general sir robert, known as 'jaffa wilson,' wordsworth, william, ; byron reviews his poems, n. york, duke of, and sir walter scott, young, charles, actor, byron's opinion of, zante, byron at, , the end billing and sons, ltd., printers, guildford footnotes: [ ] medwin, in his book 'the angler in wales,' vol. ii., p. , says: 'the _right_ foot, as everyone knows, being twisted inwards, so as to amount to what is generally known as a club-foot.' [ ] letter to mr. gisborne, january , . professor dowden's 'life of shelley,' vol. ii., p. . [ ] 'lord byron.' [ ] 'letters and journals of lord byron,' edited by rowland prothero, vol. vi., appendix iii. [ ] 'life of shelley,' vol. ii., p. . [ ] henry dunn kept a british shop at leghorn. [ ] for byron's opinion of shelley's poetry, see appendix to 'the two foscari': 'i highly admire the poetry of "queen mab" and shelley's other publications.' [ ] 'the angler in wales,' by thomas medwin, vol. ii., pp. - . [ ] lady noel left by her will to the trustees a portrait of byron, with directions that it was not to be shown to his daughter ada till she attained the age of twenty-one; but that if her mother were still living, it was not to be so delivered without lady byron's consent. [ ] it was at this time that byron endeavoured to suppress the fact that he had written 'the age of bronze.' [ ] dr. bruno. [ ] byron's sobriquet for walter scott. [ ] 'letters and journals of lord byron,' edited by rowland prothero, vol. vi., p. . [ ] 'memoir of rev. f. hodgson,' vol. ii., p. . [ ] 'diary,' vol. iii., pp. , . [ ] parry, p. . [ ] byron wrote a review of wordsworth's 'poems' in _monthly literary recreations_ for july, , and a review of gell's 'geography of ithaca' in the _monthly review_ for august, . [ ] general sir robert wilson ( - ), commonly known as 'jaffa wilson,' entered parliament in . having held napoleon up to horror and execration for his cruelty at jaffa, wilson subsequently became one of his strongest eulogists. being by nature a demagogue, he posed as a champion in the cause of freedom and civil government; he accused england of injustice and tyranny towards other nations, and prophesied her speedy fall. he warmly espoused the cause of queen caroline, and was present at the riot in hyde park on the occasion of her funeral, when there was a collision between the horse guards and the mob. for his conduct on that occasion, despite a long record of gallant service in the field, wilson was dismissed the army in , but was reinstated on the accession of william iv. he appears to have been both foolish and vain, and fond of creating effect. he was constantly brooding over services which he conceived to have been overlooked, and merits which he fancied were neglected. he attached himself to the ultra-radicals, and puffed himself into notoriety by swimming against the stream. a writer in the _quarterly review_ (vol. xix., july, ) says: 'the obliquity of his (wilson's) perceptions make his talents worse than useless as a politician, and form, even in his own profession, a serious drawback to energy however great, and to bravery however distinguished.' [ ] high commissioner of the ionian islands. [ ] acting as secretary to high commissioner. [ ] vol. vi., p. . [ ] one of the turbulent capitani who was playing for his own hand. he was at one time a member of the executive body, and was afterwards proclaimed by the legislative assembly as an enemy of the state. [ ] a leader of greek insurgents--byron calls him ulysses--who broke away from government control to form an independent party in opposition to mavrocordato, with whose views byron sympathized. trelawny and colonel stanhope believed in odysseus, who after having acquired great influence in eastern greece was proclaimed by the government, imprisoned, and murdered while in captivity. [ ] 'life and letters of mary wollstonecraft shelley,' edited by mrs. julian marshall. [ ] for further evidence on this point, see 'letters of lord byron,' edited by rowland prothero, vol. i., pp. - . [ ] it is difficult to reconcile this with millingen's statement. [ ] _edinburgh review_, april, , pp. - . [ ] he succeeded sir thomas maitland as high commissioner of the ionian islands. [ ] this must be taken _cum grano salis_. [ ] they appear to have met accidentally in trinity walks a few days earlier. edleston did not at first recognize byron, who had grown so thin. [ ] edleston, who some time previously had given byron a 'cornelian' as a parting gift on leaving cambridge for the vacation. [ ] edleston had died five months before byron heard the sad news. [ ] 'i think it proper to state to you that this stanza alludes to an event which has taken place since my arrival here, and not to the death of any _male_ friend.'--lord byron to mr. dallas. [ ] that this thyrza was no passing fancy is proved by lord lovelace's statement in 'astarte' (p. ): 'he had occasionally spoken of thyrza to lady byron, at seaham and afterwards in london, _always with strong but contained emotion_. he once showed his wife a beautiful tress of thyrza's hair, _but never mentioned her real name_.' [ ] captain (afterwards commodore) walter bathurst was mortally wounded at the battle of navarino, on october , .--'battles of the british navy,' joseph allen, vol. ii., p. . [ ] the last line was in the first draft. [ ] medwin (edition of ), p. . [ ] 'a power of fascination rarely, if ever, possessed by any man of his age' ('recollections of a long life,' by lord broughton, vol. ii., p. ). [ ] 'letters and journals of byron,' vol. iii., p. , edited by rowland e. prothero. [ ] moore had rented a cottage in nottinghamshire, not very remote from newstead abbey. [ ] see 'letters and journals of lord byron,' edited by rowland prothero, vol. ii., pp. , , , . [ ] 'had i not written "the bride" (in four nights), i must have gone mad by eating my own heart--bitter diet.'--'journals and letters,' vol. ii., p. . [ ] 'hail be you, mary, mother and may, mild, and meek, and merciable!' _an ancient hymn to the virgin._ [ ] mary was 'the last of a time-honoured race.' the line of the chaworths ended with her. [ ] it will be remembered that byron had announced 'the corsair' as 'the last production with which he should trespass on public patience for some years.' with the loss of mary's love his inspiration was gone. [ ] 'with hackbut bent, my secret stand, dark as the purposed deed, i chose, and mark'd where, mingling in his band, trooped scottish pikes and english bows.' sir walter scott: _cadyow castle_. [ ] mary's allusion to the seal is explained by an entry in byron's journal, november , . the seal is treasured as a memento of byron by the musters family. [ ] no one, we presume, will question the identity of the person mentioned in 'the dream': 'upon a tone, a touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, and his cheek change tempestuously--his heart unknowing of its cause of agony.' [ ] 'astarte,' p. . [ ] lady caroline lamb also asserted that byron showed her some letters which contained some such expression as this: "oh! b----, if we loved one another as we did in childhood--_then_ it was innocent." the reader may judge whether such a remark would be more natural from augusta, or from mary chaworth. [ ] october , . [ ] see the poem 'remember him': 'thy soul from long seclusion pure.' [ ] 'ophelia. o heavenly powers, restore him!' _hamlet_, act iii., scene i. [ ] 'the song, celestial from thy voice, but sweet to me from none but thine.' _poetry of byron_, vol. iv.: 'to thyrza.' [ ] 'siede la terra, dove nata fui, su la marina dove il po discende.' _inferno_, canto v., , . [ ] although not near the source of the po itself, byron, at ferrara, was not very far from the point where the po di primaro breaks away from the po, and, becoming an independent river, flows into the dark blue adriatic, about midway between comachio and ravenna. [ ] shortly afterwards he translated 'the episode of francesca,' line for line, into english verse. [ ] 'beppo,' stanza . [ ] 'astarte,' p. . [ ] lady byron and rev. f. robertson drew up a memorandum of this conversation, april , . [ ] 'astarte,' p. . [ ] 'recollections of a long life,' by lord broughton, vol. ii., p. . [ ] _ibid._, vol. ii., pp. , . [ ] 'lady byron said that she founded her determination [to part from her husband] on some communication from london.'--'recollections of a long life,' vol. ii., p. . [ ] 'there is reason to believe that lord chief justice cockburn privately saw letters [in ] of and which proved the fact of incest, and the overwhelming effect of the evidence therein contained.'--'astarte,' p. . [ ] 'astarte,' p. . [ ] hanson. [ ] leigh. [ ] 'recollections of a long life,' vol. ii., p. . [ ] a fortnight before writing 'stanzas to the po.' [ ] 'short name of three or four letters obliterated.'--'astarte,' p. . [ ] short name of three or four letters obliterated. [ ] marianna (anglice: mary anne). [ ] lady byron (see 'astarte,' p. ). [ ] his sister's society. [ ] in case byron altered his will. [ ] vol. v., p. . [ ] tinct. chinæ corticis; tinct. cinchonæ. the byron controversy. london: printed by spottiswoode and co., new-street square and parliament street lady byron vindicated. a history of the byron controversy from its beginning in to the present time. by harriet beecher stowe. london: sampson low, son, and marston crown buildings, fleet street. . (_all rights reserved._) note by the publishers. the subject of this volume is of such painful notoriety that any apology from the publishers may seem unnecessary upon issuing the author's reply to the counter statements which her narrative in _macmillan's magazine_ has called forth. nevertheless they consider it right to state that their strong regard for the author, respect for her motives, and assurance of her truthfulness, would, even in the absence of all other considerations, be sufficient to induce them to place their imprint on the title-page. the publication has been undertaken by them at the author's request, 'as her friends,' and as the publishers of her former works, and from a feeling that whatever difference of opinion may be entertained respecting the author's judiciousness in publishing 'the true story,' she is entitled to defend it, having been treated with grave injustice, and often with much maliciousness, by her critics and opponents, and been charged with motives from which no person living is more free. an intense love of justice and hatred of oppression, with an utter disregard of her own interests, characterise mrs. stowe's conduct and writings, as all who know her well will testify; and the publishers can unhesitatingly affirm their belief that neither fear for loss of her literary fame, nor hope of gain, has for one moment influenced her in the course she has taken. london: _january _. contents. part i. chapter i. page introduction chapter ii. the attack on lady byron chapter iii. rÉsumÉ of the conspiracy chapter iv. results after lord byron's death chapter v. the attack on lady byron's grave part ii. chapter i. lady byron as i knew her chapter ii. lady byron's story as told me chapter iii. chronological summary of events chapter iv. the character of the two witnesses compared chapter v. the direct argument to prove the crime chapter vi. physiological argument chapter vii. how could she love him? chapter viii. conclusion part iii. miscellaneous documents. the true story of lady byron's life (as originally published in 'the atlantic monthly') lord lindsay's letter to 'the london times' dr. forbes winslow's letter to 'the london times' extract from lord byron's expunged letter to murray extracts from 'blackwood's magazine' letters of lady byron to h. c. robinson domestic poems by lord byron part i. chapter i. introduction. the interval since my publication of 'the true story of lady byron's life' has been one of stormy discussion and of much invective. i have not thought it necessary to disturb my spirit and confuse my sense of right by even an attempt at reading the many abusive articles that both here and in england have followed that disclosure. friends have undertaken the task for me, giving me from time to time the substance of anything really worthy of attention which came to view in the tumult. it appeared to me essential that this first excitement should in a measure spend itself before there would be a possibility of speaking to any purpose. now, when all would seem to have spoken who can speak, and, it is to be hoped, have said the utmost they can say, there seems a propriety in listening calmly, if that be possible, to what i have to say in reply. and, first, why have i made this disclosure at all? _to this i answer briefly, because i considered it my duty to make it._ i made it in defence of a beloved, revered friend, whose memory stood forth in the eyes of the civilised world charged with most repulsive crimes, of which i _certainly_ knew her innocent. i claim, and shall prove, that lady byron's reputation has been the victim of a concerted attack, begun by her husband during her lifetime, and coming to its climax over her grave. i claim, and shall prove, that it was not i who stirred up this controversy in this year . i shall show _who did do it_, and who is responsible for bringing on me that hard duty of making these disclosures, which it appears to me ought to have been made by others. i claim that these facts were given to me unguarded by any promise or seal of secrecy, expressed or implied; that they were lodged with me as one sister rests her story with another for sympathy, for counsel, for defence. _never_ did i suppose the day would come that i should be subjected to so cruel an anguish as this use of them has been to me. never did i suppose that,--when those kind hands, that had shed nothing but blessings, were lying in the helplessness of death,--when that gentle heart, so sorely tried and to the last so full of love, was lying cold in the tomb,--a countryman in england could be found to cast the foulest slanders on her grave, and not one in all england to raise an effective voice in her defence. i admit the feebleness of my plea, in point of execution. it was written in a state of exhausted health, when no labour of the kind was safe for me,--when my hand had not strength to hold the pen, and i was forced to dictate to another. i have been told that i have no reason to congratulate myself on it as a literary effort. o my brothers and sisters! is there then nothing in the world to think of but literary efforts? i ask any man with a heart in his bosom, if he had been obliged to tell a story so cruel, because his mother's grave gave no rest from slander,--i ask any woman who had been forced to such a disclosure to free a dead sister's name from grossest insults, whether she would have thought of making this work of bitterness a literary success? are the cries of the oppressed, the gasps of the dying, the last prayers of mothers,--are _any_ words wrung like drops of blood from the human heart to be judged as literary efforts? my fellow-countrymen of america, men of the press, i have done you one act of justice,--of all your bitter articles, i have read not one. i shall never be troubled in the future time by the remembrance of any unkind word you have said of me, for at this moment i recollect not one. i had such faith in you, such pride in my countrymen, as men with whom, above all others, the cause of woman was safe and sacred, that i was at first astonished and incredulous at what i heard of the course of the american press, and was silent, not merely from the impossibility of being heard, but from grief and shame. but reflection convinces me that you were, in many cases, acting from a misunderstanding of facts and through misguided honourable feeling; and i still feel courage, therefore, to ask from you a fair hearing. now, as i have done you this justice, will you also do me the justice to hear me seriously and candidly? what interest have you or i, my brother and my sister, in this short life of ours, to utter anything but the truth? is not truth between man and man and between man and woman the foundation on which all things rest? have you not, every individual of you, who must hereafter give an account yourself alone to god, an interest to know the exact truth in this matter, and a duty to perform as respects that truth? hear me, then, while i tell you the position in which i stood, and what was my course in relation to it. a shameless attack on my friend's memory had appeared in the 'blackwood' of july , branding lady byron as the vilest of criminals, and recommending the guiccioli book to a christian public as interesting from the very fact that it was the avowed production of lord byron's mistress. no efficient protest was made against this outrage in england, and littell's 'living age' reprinted the 'blackwood' article, and the harpers, the largest publishing house in america, perhaps in the world, re-published the book. its statements--with those of the 'blackwood,' 'pall mall gazette,' and other english periodicals--were being propagated through all the young reading and writing world of america. i was meeting them advertised in dailies, and made up into articles in magazines, and thus the generation of to-day, who had no means of judging lady byron but by these fables of her slanderers, were being foully deceived. the friends who knew her personally were a small select circle in england, whom death is every day reducing. they were few in number compared with the great world, and were _silent_. i saw these foul slanders crystallising into history uncontradicted by friends who knew her personally, who, firm in their own knowledge of her virtues and limited in view as aristocratic circles generally are, had no idea of the width of the world they were living in, and the exigency of the crisis. when time passed on and no voice was raised, i spoke. i gave at first a simple story, for i knew instinctively that whoever put the first steel point of truth into this dark cloud of slander must wait for the storm to spend itself. i must say the storm exceeded my expectations, and has raged loud and long. but now that there is a comparative stillness i shall proceed, first, to prove what i have just been asserting, and, second, to add to my true story such facts and incidents as i did not think proper at first to state. chapter ii. the attack on lady byron. in proving what i asserted in the first chapter, i make four points: st. a concerted attack upon lady byron's reputation, begun by lord byron in self-defence. nd. that he transmitted his story to friends to be continued after his death. rd. that they did so continue it. th. that the accusations reached their climax over lady byron's grave in 'blackwood' of , and the guiccioli book, and that this re-opening of the controversy was my reason for speaking. and first i shall adduce my proofs that lady byron's reputation was, during the whole course of her husband's life, the subject of a concentrated, artfully planned attack, commencing at the time of the separation and continuing during his life. by various documents carefully prepared, and used publicly or secretly as suited the case, he made converts of many honest men, some of whom were writers and men of letters, who put their talents at his service during his lifetime in exciting sympathy for him, and who, by his own request, felt bound to continue their defence of him after he was dead. in order to consider the force and significance of the documents i shall cite, we are to bring to our view just the issues lord byron had to meet, both at the time of the separation and for a long time after. in byron's 'memoirs,' vol. iv. letter , under date december , , nearly four years after the separation, he writes to murray in a state of great excitement on account of an article in 'blackwood,' in which his conduct towards his wife had been sternly and justly commented on, and which he supposed to have been written by wilson, of the 'noctes ambrosianæ.' he says in this letter: 'i like and admire w----n, and he should not have indulged himself in such outrageous license.... when he talks of lady byron's business he talks of what he knows nothing about; and you may tell him _no man can desire a public investigation of that affair more than i do_.'[ ] [footnote : the italics are mine.] he shortly after wrote and sent to murray a pamphlet for publication, which was printed, but not generally circulated till some time afterwards. though more than three years had elapsed since the separation, the current against him at this time was so strong in england that his friends thought it best, at first, to use this article of lord byron's discreetly with influential persons rather than to give it to the public. the writer in 'blackwood' and the indignation of the english public, of which that writer was the voice, were now particularly stirred up by the appearance of the first two cantos of 'don juan,' in which the indecent caricature of lady byron was placed in vicinity with other indecencies, the publication of which was justly considered an insult to a christian community. it must here be mentioned, for the honour of old england, that at first she did her duty quite respectably in regard to 'don juan.' one can still read, in murray's standard edition of the poems, how every respectable press thundered reprobations, which it would be well enough to print and circulate as tracts for our days. byron, it seems, had thought of returning to england, but he says, in the letter we have quoted, that he has changed his mind, and shall not go back, adding: 'i have finished the third canto of "don juan," but the things i have heard and read discourage all future publication. you may try the copy question, but you'll lose it; the cry is up, and the cant is up. i should have no objection to return the price of the copyright, and have written to mr. kinnaird on this subject.' one sentence quoted by lord byron from the 'blackwood' article will show the modern readers what the respectable world of that day were thinking and saying of him:-- 'it appears, in short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted _every species_ of sensual gratification--having drained the cup of sin even to its bitterest dregs--were resolved to show us that he is no longer a human being even in his frailties, but a cool, unconcerned fiend, laughing with detestable glee over the whole of the better and worse elements of which human life is composed.' the defence which lord byron makes, in his reply to that paper, is of a man cornered and fighting for his life. he speaks thus of the state of feeling at the time of his separation from his wife:-- 'i was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private rancour; my name, which had been a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for william the norman, was tainted. i felt that, if what was whispered and muttered and murmured was true, i was unfit for england; if false, england was unfit for me. i withdrew; but this was not enough. in other countries--in switzerland, in the shadow of the alps, and by the blue depth of the lakes--i was pursued and breathed upon by the same blight. i crossed the mountains, but it was the same; so i went a little farther, and settled myself by the waves of the adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters. 'if i may judge by the statements of the few friends who gathered round me, the outcry of the period to which i allude was beyond all precedent, all parallel, even in those cases where political motives have sharpened slander and doubled enmity. i was advised not to go to the theatres lest i should be hissed, nor to my duty in parliament lest i should be insulted by the way; even on the day of my departure my most intimate friend told me afterwards that he was under the apprehension of violence from the people who might be assembled at the door of the carriage.' now lord byron's charge against his wife was that she was directly responsible for getting up and keeping up this persecution, which drove him from england,--that she did it in a deceitful, treacherous manner, which left him no chance of defending himself. he charged against her that, taking advantage of a time when his affairs were in confusion, and an execution in the house, she left him suddenly, with treacherous professions of kindness, which were repeated by letters on the road, and that soon after her arrival at her home her parents sent him word that she would never return to him, and she confirmed the message; that when he asked the reason why, she refused to state any; and that when this step gave rise to a host of slanders against him she silently encouraged and confirmed the slanders. his claim was that he was denied from that time forth even the justice of any tangible accusation against himself which he might meet and refute. he observes, in the same article from which we have quoted:-- 'when one tells me that i cannot "in any way _justify_ my own behaviour in that affair," i acquiesce, because no man can "_justify_" himself until he knows of what he is accused; and i have never had--and, god knows, my whole desire has ever been to obtain it--any specific charge, in a tangible shape, submitted to me by the adversary, nor by others, unless the atrocities of public rumour and the mysterious silence of the lady's legal advisers may be deemed such.' lord byron, his publishers, friends, and biographers, thus agree in representing his wife as the secret author and abettor of that persecution, which it is claimed broke up his life, and was the source of all his subsequent crimes and excesses. lord byron wrote a poem in september , in switzerland, just after the separation, in which he stated, in so many words, these accusations against his wife. shortly after the poet's death murray published this poem, together with the 'fare thee well,' and the lines to his sister, under the title of 'domestic pieces,' in his standard edition of byron's poetry. it is to be remarked, then, that this was for some time a private document, shown to confidential friends, and made use of judiciously, as readers or listeners to his story were able to bear it. lady byron then had a strong party in england. sir samuel romilly and dr. lushington were her counsel. lady byron's parents were living, and the appearance in the public prints of such a piece as this would have brought down an aggravated storm of public indignation. for the general public such documents as the 'fare thee well' were circulating in england, and he frankly confessed his wife's virtues and his own sins to madame de staël and others in switzerland, declaring himself in the wrong, sensible of his errors, and longing to cast himself at the feet of that serene perfection, 'which wanted one sweet weakness--to forgive.' but a little later he drew for his private partisans this bitter poetical indictment against her, which, as we have said, was used discreetly during his life, and published after his death. before we proceed to lay that poem before the reader we will refresh his memory with some particulars of the tragedy of Æschylus, which lord byron selected as the exact parallel and proper illustration of his wife's treatment of himself. in his letters and journals he often alludes to her as clytemnestra, and the allusion has run the round of a thousand american papers lately, and been read by a thousand good honest people, who had no very clear idea who clytemnestra was, and what she did which was like the proceedings of lady byron. according to the tragedy, clytemnestra secretly hates her husband agamemnon, whom she professes to love, and wishes to put him out of the way that she may marry her lover, Ægistheus. when her husband returns from the trojan war she receives him with pretended kindness, and officiously offers to serve him at the bath. inducing him to put on a garment, of which she had adroitly sewed up the sleeves and neck so as to hamper the use of his arms, she gives the signal to a concealed band of assassins, who rush upon him and stab him. clytemnestra is represented by Æschylus as grimly triumphing in her success, which leaves her free to marry an adulterous paramour. 'i did it, too, in such a cunning wise, that he could neither 'scape nor ward off doom. i staked around his steps an endless net, as for the fishes.' in the piece entitled 'lines on hearing lady byron is ill,' lord byron charges on his wife a similar treachery and cruelty. the whole poem is in murray's english edition, vol. iv. p. . of it we quote the following. the reader will bear in mind that it is addressed to lady byron on a sick-bed:-- 'i am too well avenged, but 'twas my right; whate'er my sins might be, _thou_ wert not sent to be the nemesis that should requite, nor did heaven choose so near an instrument. mercy is for the merciful! if thou hast been of such, 't will be accorded now. thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep, for thou art pillowed on a curse too deep; yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel a hollow agony that will not heal. thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap the bitter harvest in a woe as real. _i have had many foes, but none like thee_; for 'gainst the rest myself i could defend, and be avenged, or turn them into friend; but thou, in safe implacability, hast naught to dread,--in thy own weakness shielded, and in my love, which hath but too much yielded, and spared, for thy sake, some i should not spare. and thus upon the world, trust in thy truth, and the wild fame of my ungoverned youth,-- on things that were not and on things that are,-- even upon such a basis thou hast built a monument whose cement hath been guilt! the moral clytemnestra of thy lord, and hewed down with an unsuspected sword fame, peace, and hope, and all that better life which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, might yet have risen from the grave of strife and found a nobler duty than to part. but of thy virtues thou didst make a vice, trafficking in them with a purpose cold, and buying others' woes at any price, for present anger and for future gold; and thus, once entered into crooked ways, the early truth, that was thy proper praise, did not still walk beside thee, but at times, and with a breast unknowing its own crimes, deceits, averments incompatible, equivocations, and the thoughts that dwell _in janus spirits, the significant eye that learns to lie with silence_,[ ] the pretext of prudence with advantages annexed, the acquiescence in all things that tend, no matter how, to the desired end,-- all found a place in thy philosophy. the means were worthy and the end is won. i would not do to thee as thou hast done.' [footnote : the italics are mine.] now, if this language means anything, it means, in plain terms, that, whereas, in her early days, lady byron was peculiarly characterised by truthfulness, she has in her recent dealings with him acted the part of a liar,--that she is not only a liar, but that she lies for cruel means and malignant purposes,--that she is a moral assassin, and her treatment of her husband has been like that of the most detestable murderess and adulteress of ancient history,--that she has learned to lie skilfully and artfully, that she equivocates, says incompatible things, and crosses her own tracks,--that she is double-faced, and has the art to lie even by silence, and that she has become wholly unscrupulous, and acquiesces in _any_thing, no matter what, that tends to the desired end, and that end the destruction of her husband. this is a brief summary of the story that byron made it his life's business to spread through society, to propagate and make converts to during his life, and which has been in substance reasserted by 'blackwood' in a recent article this year. now, the reader will please to notice that this poem is dated in september , and that on the th of march of that same year, he had thought proper to tell quite another story. at that time the deed of separation was not signed, and negotiations between lady byron, acting by legal counsel, and himself were still pending. at that time, therefore, he was standing in a community who knew all he had said in former days of his wife's character, who were in an aroused and excited state by the fact that so lovely and good and patient a woman had actually been forced for some unexplained cause to leave him. his policy at that time was to make large general confessions of sin, and to praise and compliment her, with a view of enlisting sympathy. everybody feels for a handsome sinner, weeping on his knees, asking pardon for his offences against his wife in the public newspapers. the celebrated 'fare thee well', as we are told, was written on the th of march, and accidentally found its way into the newspapers at this time 'through the imprudence of a friend whom he allowed to take a copy.' these 'imprudent friends' have all along been such a marvellous convenience to lord byron. but the question met him on all sides, what is the matter? this wife you have declared the brightest, sweetest, most amiable of beings, and against whose behaviour as a wife you actually never had nor can have a complaint to make,--why is she _now_ all of a sudden so inflexibly set against you? this question required an answer, and he answered by writing another poem, which also _accidentally_ found its way into the public prints. it is in his 'domestic pieces,' which the reader may refer to at the end of this volume, and is called 'a sketch.' there was a most excellent, respectable, well-behaved englishwoman, a mrs. clermont,[ ] who had been lady byron's governess in her youth, and was still, in mature life, revered as her confidential friend. it appears that this person had been with lady byron during a part of her married life, especially the bitter hours of her lonely child-bed, when a young wife so much needs a sympathetic friend. this mrs. clermont was the person selected by lord byron at this time to be the scapegoat to bear away the difficulties of the case into the wilderness. [footnote : in lady blessington's 'memoirs' this name is given charlemont; in the late 'temple bar' article on the character of lady byron it is given clermont. i have followed the latter.] we are informed in moore's life what a noble pride of rank lord byron possessed, and how when the headmaster of a school, against whom he had a pique, invited him to dinner, he declined, saying, 'to tell you the truth, doctor, if you should come to newstead, i shouldn't think of inviting _you_ to dine with _me_, and so i don't care to dine with you here.' different countries, it appears, have different standards as to good taste; moore gives this as an amusing instance of a young lord's spirit. accordingly, his first attack against this 'lady,' as we americans should call her, consists in gross statements concerning her having been born poor and in an inferior rank. he begins by stating that she was 'born in the garret, in the kitchen bred, promoted thence to deck her mistress' head; next--for some gracious service unexpressed and from its wages only to be guessed-- raised from the toilet to the table, where her wondering betters wait behind her chair. with eye unmoved and forehead unabashed. she dines from off the plate she lately washed; quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, the genial confidante and general spy,-- who could, ye gods! her next employment guess,-- an _only infant's earliest governess_! what had she made the pupil of her art none knows; _but that high soul secured the heart, and panted for the truth it could not hear with longing soul and undeluded ear_!'[ ] [footnote : the italics are mine.] the poet here recognises as a singular trait in lady byron her peculiar love of truth,--a trait which must have struck everyone that had any knowledge of her through life. he goes on now to give what he certainly knew to be the real character of lady byron:-- 'foiled was perversion by that youthful mind, which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, _deceit infect_ not, nor contagion soil, indulgence weaken, or example spoil, nor mastered science tempt her to look down on humbler talent with a pitying frown, nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain. we are now informed that mrs. clermont, whom he afterwards says in his letters was a spy of lady byron's mother, set herself to make mischief between them. he says:-- 'if early habits,--those strong links that bind at times the loftiest to the meanest mind, have given her power too deeply to instil the angry essence of her deadly will; if like a snake she steal within your walls, till the black slime betray her as she crawls; if like a viper to the heart she wind, and leaves the venom there she did not find,-- what marvel that this hag of hatred works eternal evil latent as she lurks.' the noble lord then proceeds to abuse this woman of inferior rank in the language of the upper circles. he thus describes her person and manner:-- 'skilled by a touch to deepen scandal's tints with all the kind mendacity of hints, while mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles, a thread of candour with a web of wiles; a plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming, to hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming; a lip of lies; a face formed to conceal, and without feeling mock at all who feel; with a vile mask the gorgon would disown,-- a cheek of parchment and an eye of stone. mark how the channels of her yellow blood ooze to her skin and stagnate there to mud, cased like the centipede in saffron mail, or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale,-- (for drawn from reptiles only may we trace congenial colours in that soul or face,) look on her features! and behold her mind as in a mirror of itself defined: look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged there is no trait which might not be enlarged.' the poem thus ends:-- 'may the strong curse of crushed affections light back on thy bosom with reflected blight, and make thee in thy leprosy of mind as loathsome to thyself as to mankind! till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate, black--as thy will for others would create; till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, and thy soul welter in its hideous crust. o, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed, the widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread then when thou fain wouldst weary heaven with prayer, look on thy earthly victims--and despair! down to the dust! and as thou rott'st away, even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay. _but for the love i bore and still must bear_ to her thy malice from all ties would tear, thy name,--thy human name,--to every eye the climax of all scorn, should hang on high, exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers, and festering in the infamy of years.' march , . now, on the th of march , this was lord byron's story. he states that his wife had a truthfulness even from early girlhood that the most artful and unscrupulous governess could not pollute,--that she always _panted_ for truth,--that flattery could not fool nor baseness blind her,--that though she was a genius and master of science, she was yet gentle and tolerant, and one whom no envy could ruffle to retaliate pain. in september of the same year she is a monster of unscrupulous deceit and vindictive cruelty. now, what had happened in the five months between the dates of these poems to produce such a change of opinion? simply this:-- st. the negotiation between him and his wife's lawyers had ended in his signing a deed of separation in preference to standing a suit for divorce. nd. madame de staël, moved by his tears of anguish and professions of repentance, had offered to negotiate with lady byron on his behalf, and had failed. the failure of this application is the only apology given by moore and murray for this poem, which gentle thomas moore admits was not in quite as generous a strain as the 'fare thee well'. but lord byron knew perfectly well, when he suffered that application to be made, that lady byron had been entirely convinced that her marriage relations with him could never be renewed, and that duty both to man and god required her to separate from him. the allowing the negotiation was, therefore, an artifice to place his wife before the public in the attitude of a hard-hearted, inflexible woman; her refusal was what he knew beforehand must inevitably be the result, and merely gave him capital in the sympathy of his friends, by which they should be brought to tolerate and accept the bitter accusations of this poem. we have recently heard it asserted that this last-named piece of poetry was the sudden offspring of a fit of ill-temper, and was never intended to be published at all. there were certainly excellent reasons why his friends should have advised him not to publish it _at that time_. but that it was read with sympathy by the circle of his intimate friends, and believed by them, is evident from the frequency with which allusions to it occur in his confidential letters to them.[ ] [footnote : in lady blessington's conversations with lord byron, just before he went to greece, she records that he gave her this poem in manuscript. it was published in her 'journal.'] about three months after, under date march , , he writes to moore: 'i suppose now i shall never be able to shake off my sables in public imagination, more particularly since my moral ---- clove down my fame.' again to murray in , three years after, he says: 'i never hear anything of ada, the little electra of mycenæ.' electra was the daughter of clytemnestra, in the greek poem, who lived to condemn her wicked mother, and to call on her brother to avenge the father. there was in this mention of electra more than meets the ear. many passages in lord byron's poetry show that he intended to make this daughter a future partisan against her mother, and explain the awful words he is stated in lady anne barnard's diary to have used when first he looked on his little girl,--'what an instrument of torture i have gained in you!' in a letter to lord blessington, april , , he says, speaking of dr. parr:[ ]-- 'he did me the honour once to be a patron of mine, though a great friend of the _other branch of the house of atreus_, and the greek teacher, i believe, of my _moral_ clytemnestra. i say _moral_ because it is true, and is so useful to the virtuous, that it enables them to do anything without the aid of an Ægistheus.' [footnote : vol. vi. p. .] if lord byron wrote this poem merely in a momentary fit of spleen, why were there so many persons evidently quite familiar with his allusions to it? and why was it preserved in murray's hands? and why published after his death? that byron was in the habit of reposing documents in the hands of murray, to be used as occasion offered, is evident from a part of a note written by him to murray respecting some verses so intrusted: 'pray let not these _versiculi_ go forth with my name except _to the initiated_.'[ ] [footnote : 'byron's miscellany', vol. ii. p. . london, .] murray, in publishing this attack on his wife after lord byron's death, showed that he believed in it, and, so believing, deemed lady byron a woman whose widowed state deserved neither sympathy nor delicacy of treatment. at a time when every sentiment in the heart of the most deeply wronged woman would forbid her appearing to justify herself from such cruel slander of a dead husband, an honest, kind-hearted, worthy englishman actually thought it right and proper to give these lines to her eyes and the eyes of all the reading world. nothing can show more plainly what this poem was written for, and how thoroughly it did its work! considering byron as a wronged man, murray thought he was contributing his mite towards doing him justice. his editor prefaced the whole set of 'domestic pieces' with the following statements:-- 'they all refer to the unhappy separation, of which the precise causes are still a mystery, and which he declared to the last were never disclosed to himself. he admitted that pecuniary embarrassments, disordered health, and dislike to family restraints had aggravated his naturally violent temper, and driven him to excesses. he suspected that his mother-in-law had fomented the discord,--which lady byron denies,--and that more was due to the malignant offices of a female dependant, who is the subject of the bitterly satirical sketch. * * * * * 'to these general statements can only be added the still vaguer allegations of lady byron, that she conceived his conduct to be the result of insanity,--that, the physician pronouncing him responsible for his actions, she could submit to them no longer, and that dr. lushington, her legal adviser, agreed that a reconciliation was neither proper nor possible. _no weight can be attached to the opinions of an opposing counsel upon accusations made by one party behind the back of the other, who urgently demanded and was pertinaciously refused the least opportunity of denial or defence._ he rejected the proposal for an amicable separation, but _consented when threatened with a suit in doctors' commons_.'[ ] [footnote : the italics are mine.] neither john murray nor any of byron's partisans seem to have pondered the admission in these last words. here, as appears, was a woman, driven to the last despair, standing with her child in her arms, asking from english laws protection for herself and child against her husband. she had appealed to the first counsel in england, and was acting under their direction. two of the greatest lawyers in england have pronounced that there has been such a cause of offence on his part that a return to him is neither proper nor possible, and that no alternative remains to her but separation or divorce. he asks her to state her charges against him. she, making answer under advice of her counsel, says, 'that if he _insists_ on the specifications, he must receive them in open court in a suit for divorce.' what, now, ought to have been the conduct of any brave, honest man, who believed that his wife was taking advantage of her reputation for virtue to turn every one against him, who saw that she had turned on her side even the lawyer he sought to retain on his;[ ] that she was an unscrupulous woman, who acquiesced in every and any thing to gain her ends, while he stood before the public, as he says, 'accused of every monstrous vice, by public rumour or private rancour'? when she, under advice of her lawyers, made the alternative legal _separation_ or open investigation in court for divorce, what did he do? [footnote : lord byron says, in his observations on an article in 'blackwood': 'i recollect being much hurt by romilly's conduct: he (having a general retainer for me) went over to the adversary, alleging, on being reminded of his retainer, that he had forgotten it, as his clerk had so many. i observed that some of those who were now so eagerly laying the axe to my roof-tree might see their own shaken. his fell and crushed him.' in the first edition of moore's life of lord byron there was printed a letter on sir samuel romilly, so brutal that it was suppressed in the subsequent editions. (see part iii.)] he signed the act of separation and left england. now, let any man who knows the legal mind of england,--let any lawyer who knows the character of sir samuel romilly and dr. lushington, ask whether _they_ were the men to take a case into court for a woman that had no _evidence_ but her own statements and impressions? were _they_ men to go to trial without proofs? did they not know that there were artful, hysterical women in the world, and would _they_, of all people, be the men to take a woman's story on her own side, and advise her in the last issue to bring it into open court, without legal proof of the strongest kind? now, as long as sir samuel romilly lived, this statement of byron's--that he was condemned unheard, and had no chance of knowing whereof he _was accused--never appeared in public_. it, however, was most actively circulated _in private_. that byron was in the habit of intrusting to different confidants articles of various kinds to be shown to different circles as they could bear them, we have already shown. we have recently come upon another instance of this kind. in the late eagerness to exculpate byron, a new document has turned up, of which mr. murray, it appears, had never heard when, after byron's death, he published in the preface to his 'domestic pieces' the sentence: '_he rejected the proposal for an amicable separation, but consented when threatened with a suit in doctors' commons_.' it appears that, up to , neither john murray senior, nor the son who now fills his place, had taken any notice of this newly found document, which we are now informed 'was drawn up by lord byron in august , while mr. hobhouse was staying with him at la mira, near venice, given to mr. matthew gregory lewis, _for circulation among friends in england_, found in mr. lewis's papers after his death, and _now_ in the possession of mr. murray.' here it is:-- 'it has been intimated to me that the persons understood to be the legal advisers of lady byron have declared "their lips to be sealed up" on the cause of the separation between her and myself. if their lips are sealed up, they are not sealed up by me, and the greatest favour _they_ can confer upon me will be to open them. from the first hour in which i was apprised of the intentions of the noel family to the last communication between lady byron and myself in the character of wife and husband (a period of some months), i called repeatedly and in vain for a statement of their or her charges, and it was chiefly in consequence of lady byron's claiming (in a letter still existing) a promise on my part to consent to a separation, if such was _really_ her wish, that i consented at all; this claim, and the exasperating and inexpiable manner in which their object was pursued, which rendered it next to an impossibility that two persons so divided could ever be reunited, induced me reluctantly then, and repentantly still, to sign the deed, which i shall be happy--most happy--to cancel, and go before any tribunal which may discuss the business in the most public manner. 'mr. hobhouse made this proposition on my part, viz. to abrogate all prior intentions--and go into court--the very day before the separation was signed, and it was declined by the other party, as also the publication of the correspondence during the previous discussion. those propositions i beg here to repeat, and to call upon her and hers to say their worst, pledging myself to meet their allegations,--whatever they may be,--and only too happy to be informed at last of their real nature. 'byron.' 'august , . 'p.s.--i have been, and am now, utterly ignorant of what description her allegations, charges, or whatever name they may have assumed, are; and am as little aware for what purpose they have been kept back,--unless it was to sanction the most infamous calumnies by silence. 'byron.' 'la mira, near venice.' it appears the circulation of this document must have been _very private_, since moore, not _over_-delicate towards lady byron, did not think fit to print it; since john murray neglected it, and since it has come out at this late hour for the first time. if lord byron really desired lady byron and her legal counsel to understand the facts herein stated, and was willing at all hazards to bring on an open examination, why was this _privately_ circulated? why not issued as a card in the london papers? is it likely that mr. matthew gregory lewis, and a chosen band of friends acting as a committee, requested an audience with lady byron, sir samuel romilly, and dr. lushington, and formally presented this cartel of defiance? we incline to think not. we incline to think that this small serpent, in company with many others of like kind, crawled secretly and privately around, and when it found a good chance, bit an honest briton, whose blood was thenceforth poisoned by an undetected falsehood. the reader now may turn to the letters that mr. moore has thought fit to give us of this stay at la mira, beginning with letter , dated july , ,[ ] where he says: 'i have been working up my impressions into a _fourth_ canto of childe harold,' and also 'mr. lewis is in venice. i am going up to stay a week with him there.' [footnote : vol. iv. p. .] next, under date la mira, venice, july ,[ ] he says, 'monk lewis is here; how pleasant!' [footnote : ibid. p. .] next, under date july , , to mr. murray: 'i write to give you notice that i have _completed the fourth and ultimate canto of childe harold_.... it is yet to be copied and polished, and the notes are to come.' under date of la mira, august , , he records that the new canto is one hundred and thirty stanzas in length, and talks about the price for it. he is now ready to launch it on the world; and, as now appears, on august , , _two days after_, he wrote the document above cited, and put it into the hands of mr. lewis, as we are informed, 'for circulation among friends in england.' the reason of this may now be evident. having prepared a suitable number of those whom he calls in his notes to murray 'the initiated,' by private documents and statements, he is now prepared to publish his accusations against his wife, and the story of his wrongs, in a great immortal poem, which shall have a band of initiated interpreters, shall be read through the civilised world, and stand to accuse her after his death. in the fourth canto of 'childe harold,' with all his own overwhelming power of language, he sets forth his cause as against the silent woman who all this time had been making no party, and telling no story, and whom the world would therefore conclude to be silent because she had no answer to make. i remember well the time when this poetry, so resounding in its music, so mournful, so apparently generous, filled my heart with a vague anguish of sorrow for the sufferer, and of indignation at the cold insensibility that had maddened him. thousands have felt the power of this great poem, which stands, and must stand to all time, a monument of what sacred and solemn powers god gave to this wicked man, and how vilely he abused this power as a weapon to slay the innocent. it is among the ruins of ancient rome that his voice breaks forth in solemn imprecation:-- 'o time, thou beautifier of the dead, adorner of the ruin, comforter, and only healer when the heart hath bled!-- time, the corrector when our judgments err, the test of truth, love,--sole philosopher, for all besides are sophists,--from thy shrift that never loses, though it doth defer!-- time, the avenger! unto thee i lift my hands and heart and eyes, and claim of thee a gift. * * * * * 'if thou hast ever seen me too elate, hear me not; but if calmly i have borne good, and reserved my pride against the hate which shall not whelm me, _let me not have worn this iron in my soul in vain,--shall they not mourn?_ and thou who never yet of human wrong left the unbalanced scale, great nemesis, here where the ancients paid their worship long, thou who didst call the furies from the abyss, and round orestes bid them howl and hiss _for that unnatural retribution,--just had it but come from hands less near_,--in this thy former realm i call thee from the dust. dost thou not hear, my heart? awake thou shalt and must! it is not that i may not have incurred for my ancestral faults and mine, the wound wherewith i bleed withal, and had it been conferred with a just weapon it had flowed unbound, but now my blood shall not sink in the ground. * * * * * 'but in this page a record will i seek; not in the air shall these my words disperse, though i be ashes,--a far hour shall wreak the deep prophetic fulness of this verse, and pile on human heads the mountain of my curse. that curse shall be forgiveness. have i not,-- hear me, my mother earth! behold it, heaven,-- have i not had to wrestle with my lot? have i not suffered things to be forgiven? have i not had my brain seared, my heart riven, hopes sapped, name blighted, life's life lied away, and only not to desperation driven, because not altogether of such clay as rots into the soul of those whom i survey? * * * * * 'from mighty wrongs to petty perfidy, have i not seen what human things could do,-- from the loud roar of foaming calumny, to the small whispers of the paltry few, and subtler venom of the reptile crew, _the janus glance of whose significant eye, learning to lie with silence, would seem true, and without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy_?'[ ] [footnote : the italics are mine.] the reader will please notice that the lines in italics are almost, word for word, a repetition of the lines in italics in the former poem on his wife, where he speaks of a _significant eye_ that has _learned to lie in silence_, and were evidently meant to apply to lady byron and her small circle of confidential friends. before this, in the third canto of 'childe harold,' he had claimed the sympathy of the world, as a loving father, deprived by a severe fate of the solace and society of his only child:-- 'my daughter,--with this name my song began,-- my daughter,--with this name my song shall end,-- i see thee not and hear thee not, but none can be so wrapped in thee; thou art the friend to whom the shadows of far years extend. * * * * * 'to aid thy mind's developments, to watch the dawn of little joys, to sit and see almost thy very growth, to view thee catch knowledge of objects,--wonders yet to thee,-- and print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,-- this it should seem was not reserved for me. yet this was in my nature,--as it is, i know not what there is, yet something like to this. * * * * * '_yet though dull hate as duty should be taught_, i know that thou wilt love me; though my name should be shut out from thee as spell still fraught with desolation and a broken claim, though the grave close between us,--'t were the same, i know that thou wilt love me, though to drain my blood from out thy being were an aim and an attainment,--all will be in vain.' to all these charges against her, sent all over the world in verses as eloquent as the english language is capable of, the wife replied nothing. 'assailed by slander and the tongue of strife, her only answer was,--a blameless life.' she had a few friends, a very few, with whom she sought solace and sympathy. one letter from her, written at this time, preserved by accident, is the only authentic record of how the matter stood with her. we regret to say that the publication of this document was not brought forth to clear lady byron's name from her husband's slanders, but to shield him from the worst accusation against him, by showing that this crime was not included in the few private confidential revelations that friendship wrung from the young wife at this period. lady anne barnard, authoress of 'auld robin grey', a friend whose age and experience made her a proper confidante, sent for the broken-hearted, perplexed wife, and offered her a woman's sympathy. to her lady byron wrote many letters, under seal of confidence, and lady anne says: 'i will give you a few paragraphs transcribed from one of lady byron's own letters to me. it is sorrowful to think that in a very little time this young and amiable creature, wise, patient, and feeling, will have her character mistaken by every one who reads byron's works. to rescue her from this i preserved her letters, and when she afterwards expressed a fear that anything of her writing should ever fall into hands to injure him (i suppose she meant by publication), i safely assured her that it never should. but here this letter shall be placed, a sacred record in her favour, unknown to herself. 'i am a very incompetent judge of the impression which the last canto of "childe harold" may produce on the minds of indifferent readers. 'it contains the usual trace of a conscience restlessly awake, though his object has been too long to aggravate its burden, as if it could thus be oppressed into eternal stupor. i will hope, as you do, that it survives for his ultimate good. 'it was the acuteness of his remorse, impenitent in its character, which so long seemed to demand from my compassion to spare every semblance of reproach, every look of grief, which might have said to his conscience, "you have made me wretched." 'i am decidedly of opinion that he is responsible. he has wished to be thought partially deranged, or on the brink of it, to perplex observers and _prevent them from tracing effects to their real causes_ through all the intricacies of his conduct. i was, as i told you, at one time the dupe of his acted insanity, and clung to the former delusions in regard to the motives that concerned me personally, till the whole system was laid bare. 'he is the absolute monarch of words, and uses them, as bonaparte did lives, for conquest, without more regard to their intrinsic value, considering them only as ciphers, which must derive all their import from the situation in which he places them, and the ends to which he adapts them, with such consummate skill. 'why, then, you will say, does he not employ them to give a better colour to his own character? because he is too good an actor to over-act, or to assume a moral garb, which it would be easy to strip off. 'in regard to his poetry, egotism is the vital principle of his imagination, which it is difficult for him to kindle on any subject with which his own character and interests are not identified; but by the introduction of fictitious incidents, by change of scene or time, _he has enveloped his poetical disclosures in a system impenetrable except to a very few_; and his constant desire of creating a sensation makes him not averse to be the object of wonder and curiosity, even though accompanied _by some dark and vague suspicions_. 'nothing has contributed more to the misunderstanding of his real character than the lonely grandeur in which he shrouds it, and his affectation of being above mankind, when he exists almost in their voice. the romance of his sentiments is another feature of this mask of state. i know no one more habitually destitute of that enthusiasm he so beautifully expresses, and to which he can work up his fancy chiefly by contagion. '_i had heard he was the best of brothers, the most generous of friends, and i thought such feelings only required to be warmed and cherished into more diffusive benevolence. though these opinions are eradicated, and could never return but with the decay of my memory_, you will not wonder if there are still moments when the association of feelings which arose from them soften and sadden my thoughts. 'but i have not thanked you, dearest lady anne, for your kindness in regard to a principal object,--that of rectifying false impressions. i trust you understand my wishes, which never were to injure lord byron in any way; for, _though he would not suffer me to remain his wife, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend; and it was from considering myself as such that i silenced the accusations by which my own conduct might have been more fully justified_. 'it is not necessary to speak ill of his heart in general; it is sufficient that to me it was hard and impenetrable,--that my own must have been broken before his could have been touched. i would rather represent this as _my_ misfortune than as _his_ guilt; but, surely, that misfortune is not to be made my crime! such are my feelings; you will judge how to act. 'his allusions to me in "childe harold" are cruel and cold, but with such a semblance as to make _me_ appear so, and to attract all sympathy to himself. it is said in this poem that hatred of him will be taught as a lesson to his child. i might appeal to all who have ever heard me speak of him, and still more to my own heart, to witness that there has been no moment when i have remembered injury otherwise than affectionately and sorrowfully. 'it is not my duty to give way to hopeless and wholly unrequited affection; but, so long as i live, my chief struggle will probably be not to remember him too kindly. i do not seek the sympathy of the world, but i wish to be known by those whose opinion is valuable and whose kindness is dear to me. among such, my dear lady anne, you will ever be remembered by your truly affectionate 'a. byron.' on this letter i observe lord lindsay remarks that it shows a noble but rather severe character, and a recent author has remarked that it seemed to be written rather in a 'cold spirit of criticism.' it seems to strike these gentlemen as singular that lady byron did not enjoy the poem! but there are two remarkable sentences in this letter which have escaped the critics hitherto. lord byron, in this, the third canto of 'childe harold,' expresses in most affecting words an enthusiasm of love for his sister. so long as he lived he was her faithful correspondent; he sent her his journals; and, dying, he left her and her children everything he had in the world. this certainly seems like an affectionate brother; but in what words does lady byron speak of this affection? 'i _had heard he was the best of brothers_, the most generous of friends. i thought these feelings only required to be warmed and cherished into more diffusive benevolence. these opinions are eradicated, and could never return but with the decay of memory.' let me ask those who give this letter as a proof that at this time no idea such as i have stated was in lady byron's mind, to account for these words. let them please answer these questions: why had lady byron ceased to think him a good brother? why does she use so strong a word as that the opinion was eradicated, torn up by the roots, and could never grow again in her except by decay of memory? and yet this is a document lord lindsay vouches for as authentic, and which he brings forward _in defence_ of lord byron. again she says,'though he _would not suffer me to remain his wife_, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend.' do these words not say that in some past time, in some decided manner, lord byron had declared to her his rejection of her as a wife? i shall yet have occasion to explain these words. again she says, 'i silenced accusations by which my conduct might have been more fully justified.' the people in england who are so very busy in searching out evidence against my true story have searched out and given to the world an important confirmation of this assertion of lady byron's. it seems that the confidential waiting-maid who went with lady byron on her wedding journey has been sought out and interrogated, and, as appears by description, is a venerable, respectable old person, quite in possession of all her senses in general, and of that sixth sense of propriety in particular, which appears not to be a common virtue in our days. as her testimony is important, we insert it just here, with a description of her person in full. the ardent investigators thus speak:-- 'having gained admission, we were shown into a small but neatly furnished and scrupulously clean apartment, where sat the object of our visit. mrs. mimms is a venerable-looking old lady, of short stature, slight and active appearance, with a singularly bright and intelligent countenance. although midway between eighty and ninety years of age, she is in full possession of her faculties, discourses freely and cheerfully, hears apparently as well as ever she did, and her sight is so good that, aided by a pair of spectacles, she reads the chronicle every day with ease. some idea of her competency to contribute valuable evidence to the subject which now so much engages public attention on three continents may be found from her own narrative of her personal relations with lady byron. mrs. mimms was born in the neighbourhood of seaham, and knew lady byron from childhood. during the long period of ten years she was miss milbanke's lady's-maid, and in that capacity became the close confidante of her mistress. there were circumstances which rendered their relationship peculiarly intimate. miss milbanke had no sister or female friend to whom she was bound by the ties of more than a common affection; and her mother, whatever other excellent qualities she may have possessed, was too high-spirited and too hasty in temper to attract the sympathies of the young. some months before miss milbanke was married to lord byron, mrs. mimms had quitted her service on the occasion of her own marriage with mr. mimms; but she continued to reside in the neighbourhood of seaham, and remained on the most friendly terms with her former mistress. as the courtship proceeded, miss milbanke concealed nothing from her faithful attendant; and when the wedding-day was fixed, she begged mrs. mimms to return and fulfil the duties of lady's-maid, at least during the honeymoon. mrs. mimms at the time was nursing her first child, and it was no small sacrifice to quit her own home at such a moment, but she could not refuse her old mistress's request. accordingly, she returned to seaham hall some days before the wedding, was present at the ceremony, and then preceded lord and lady byron to halnaby hall, near croft, in the north riding of yorkshire, one of sir ralph milbanke's seats, where the newly married couple were to spend the honeymoon. mrs. mimms remained with lord and lady byron during the three weeks they spent at halnaby hall, and then accompanied them to seaham, where they spent the next six weeks. it was during the latter period that she finally quitted lady byron's service; but she remained in the most friendly communication with her ladyship till the death of the latter, and for some time was living in the neighbourhood of lady byron's residence in leicestershire, where she had frequent opportunities of seeing her former mistress. it may be added that lady byron was not unmindful of the faithful services of her friend and attendant in the instructions to her executors contained in her will. such was the position of mrs. mimms towards lady byron; and we think no one will question that it was of a nature to entitle all that mrs. mimms may say on the subject of the relations of lord and lady byron to the most respectful consideration and credit.' such is the chronicler's account of the faithful creature whom nothing but intense indignation and disgust at mrs. beecher stowe would lead to speak on her mistress's affairs; but mrs. beecher stowe feels none the less sincere respect for her, and is none the less obliged to her for having spoken. much of mrs. mimms's testimony will be referred to in another place; we only extract one passage, to show that while lord byron spent his time in setting afloat slanders against his wife, she spent hers in sealing the mouths of witnesses against him. of the period of the honeymoon mrs. mimms says:-- 'the happiness of lady byron, however, was of brief duration; even during the short three weeks they spent at halnaby, the irregularities of lord byron occasioned her the greatest distress, and she even contemplated returning to her father. mrs. mimms was her constant companion and confidante through this painful period, and she does not believe that her ladyship concealed a thought from her. _with laudable reticence, the old lady absolutely refuses to disclose the particulars of lord byron's misconduct at this time; she gave lady byron a solemn promise not to do so._ * * * * * 'so serious did mrs. mimms consider the conduct of lord byron, that she recommended her mistress to confide all the circumstances to her father, sir ralph milbanke, a calm, kind, and most excellent parent, and take his advice as to her future course. at one time mrs. mimms thinks lady byron had resolved to follow her counsel and impart her wrongs to sir ralph; but on arriving at seaham hall her ladyship strictly enjoined mrs. mimms to preserve absolute silence on the subject--a course which she followed herself;--so that when, six weeks later, she and lord byron left seaham for london, not a word had escaped her to disturb her parents' tranquility as to their daughter's domestic happiness. as might be expected, mrs. mimms bears the warmest testimony to the noble and lovable qualities of her departed mistress. she also declares that lady byron was by no means of a cold temperament, but that the affectionate impulses of her nature were checked by the unkind treatment she experienced from her husband.' we have already shown that lord byron had been, ever since his separation, engaged in a systematic attempt to reverse the judgment of the world against himself, by making converts of all his friends to a most odious view of his wife's character, and inspiring them with the zeal of propagandists to spread these views through society. we have seen how he prepared partisans to interpret the fourth canto of 'childe harold.' this plan of solemn and heroic accusation was the first public attack on his wife. next we see him commencing a scurrilous attempt to turn her to ridicule in the first canto of 'don juan.' it is to our point now to show how carefully and cautiously this don juan campaign was planned. vol. iv. p. , we find letter to mr. murray:-- 'venice: january , . 'you will do me the favour to _print privately, for private distribution, fifty copies of "don juan."_ the list of the men to whom i wish it presented i will send hereafter.' the poem, as will be remembered, begins with the meanest and foulest attack on his wife that ever ribald wrote, and puts it in close neighbourhood with scenes which every pure man or woman must feel to be the beastly utterances of a man who had lost all sense of decency. such a potion was too strong to be administered even in a time when great license was allowed, and men were not over-nice. but byron chooses fifty armour-bearers of that class of men who would find indecent ribaldry about a wife a good joke, and talk about the 'artistic merits' of things which we hope would make an honest boy blush. at this time he acknowledges that his vices had brought him to a state of great exhaustion, attended by such debility of the stomach that nothing remained on it; and adds, 'i was obliged to reform my way of life, which was conducting me from the yellow leaf to the ground with all deliberate speed.'[ ] but as his health is a little better he employs it in making the way to death and hell elegantly easy for other young men, by breaking down the remaining scruples of a society not over-scrupulous. [footnote : vol. iv. p .] society revolted, however, and fought stoutly against the nauseous dose. his sister wrote to him that she heard such things said of it that _she_ never would read it; and the outcry against it on the part of all women of his acquaintance was such that for a time he was quite overborne; and the countess guiccioli finally extorted a promise from him to cease writing it. nevertheless, there came a time when england accepted 'don juan,'--when wilson, in the 'noctes ambrosianæ,' praised it as a classic, and took every opportunity to reprobate lady byron's conduct. when first it appeared the 'blackwood' came out with that indignant denunciation of which we have spoken, and to which byron replied in the extracts we have already quoted. he did something more than reply. he marked out wilson as one of the strongest literary men of the day, and set his 'initiated' with their documents to work upon him. one of these documents to which he requested wilson's attention was the private autobiography, written expressly to give his own story of all the facts of the marriage and separation. in the indignant letter he writes murray on the 'blackwood' article, vol. iv., letter --under date december , --he says:-- 'i sent home for moore, and for moore only (who has my journal also), my memoir written up to , and i gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, _but not to publish_ on any account. _you_ may read it, and you may let wilson read it if he likes--not for his public opinion, but his private, for i like the man, and care very little about the magazine. and i could wish lady byron herself to read it, that she may have it in her power to mark anything mistaken or misstated. as it will never appear till after my extinction, it would be but fair she should see it; that is to say, herself willing. your "blackwood" accuses me of treating women harshly; but i have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them.' it was a part of byron's policy to place lady byron in positions before the world where she _could_ not speak, and where her silence would be set down to her as haughty, stony indifference and obstinacy. such was the pretended negotiation through madame de staël, and such now this apparently fair and generous offer to let lady byron see and mark this manuscript. the little ada is now in her fifth year--a child of singular sensibility and remarkable mental powers--one of those exceptional children who are so perilous a charge for a mother. her husband proposes this artful snare to her,--that she shall mark what is false in a statement which is all built on a damning lie, that she cannot refute over that daughter's head,--and which would perhaps be her ruin to discuss. hence came an addition of two more documents, to be used 'privately among friends,'[ ] and which 'blackwood' uses after lady byron is safely out of the world to cast ignominy on her grave--the wife's letter, that of a mother standing at bay for her daughter, knowing that she is dealing with a desperate, powerful, unscrupulous enemy. 'kirkby mallory: march , . [footnote : lord byron took especial pains to point out to murray the importance of these two letters. vol. v. letter , he says: 'you must also have from mr. moore the correspondence between me and lady b., to whom i offered a sight of all that concerns herself in these papers. this is important. he has _her_ letter and my answer.'] 'i received your letter of january , offering to my perusal a memoir of part of your life. i decline to inspect it. i consider the publication or circulation of such a composition at any time as prejudicial to ada's future happiness. for my own sake, i have no reason to shrink from publication; but, notwithstanding the injuries which i have suffered, i should lament some of the _consequences_. 'a. byron. 'to lord byron.' lord byron, writing for the public, as is his custom, makes reply:-- 'ravenna: april , . 'i received yesterday your answer, dated march . my offer was an honest one, and surely could only be construed as such even by the most malignant casuistry. i could answer you, but it is too late, and it is not worth while. to the mysterious menace of the last sentence, whatever its import may be--and i cannot pretend to unriddle it--i could hardly be very sensible even if i understood it, as, before it can take place, i shall be where "nothing can touch him further".... i advise you, however, to anticipate the period of your intention, for, be assured, no power of figures can avail beyond the present; and if it could, i would answer with the florentine:-- '"ed io, che posto son con loro in croce ... e certo la fiera moglie, più ch' altro, mi nuoce."[ ] 'byron. 'to lady byron.' [footnote : 'and i, who with them on the cross am placed, ... truly my savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me.' _inferno_, canto, xvi., longfellow's translation. ] two things are very evident in this correspondence: lady byron intimates that, if he publishes his story, some _consequences_ must follow which she shall regret. lord byron receives this as a threat, and says he doesn't understand it. but directly after he says, 'before it can take place, i shall be,' &c. the intimation is quite clear. he _does_ understand what the consequences alluded to are. they are evidently that lady byron will speak out and tell her story. he says she cannot do this till _after he is dead_, and then he shall not care. in allusion to her accuracy as to dates and figures, he says: 'be assured no power of figures can avail beyond the present' (life); and then ironically _advises_ her to _anticipate the period_,--i.e. to speak out while he is alive. in vol. vi. letter , which lord byron wrote to lady byron, but did not send, he says: 'i burned your last note for two reasons,--firstly, because it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, because i wished to take your word without documents, which are the resources of worldly and suspicious people.' it would appear from this that there _was_ a last letter of lady byron to her husband, which he did not think proper to keep on hand, or show to the 'initiated' with his usual unreserve; that this letter contained some kind of _pledge_ for which he preferred to take her word, _without documents_. each reader can imagine for himself what that _pledge_ might have been; but from the tenor of the three letters we should infer that it was a promise of silence for his lifetime, on _certain conditions_, and that the publication of the autobiography would violate those conditions, and make it her duty to speak out. this celebrated autobiography forms so conspicuous a figure in the whole history, that the reader must have a full idea of it, as given by byron himself, in vol. iv. letter , to murray:-- 'i gave to moore, who is gone to rome, my life in ms.,--in seventy-eight folio sheets, brought down to ... also a journal kept in . neither are for publication during my life, but when i am cold you may do what you please. in the mean time, if you like to read them you may, and show them to anybody you like. i care not....' he tells him also:-- 'you will find in it a detailed account of my marriage and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such an account.' of the extent to which this autobiography was circulated we have the following testimony of shelton mackenzie, in notes to 'the noctes' of june . in 'the noctes' odoherty says:-- 'the fact is, the work had been copied for the private reading of a great lady in florence.' the note says:-- 'the great lady in florence, for whose private reading byron's autobiography was copied, was the countess of westmoreland.... lady blessington had the autobiography in her possession for weeks, and confessed to having copied every line of it. moore remonstrated, and she committed her copy to the flames, but did not tell him that her sister, mrs. home purvis, now viscountess of canterbury, had also made a copy!... from the quantity of copy i have seen,--and others were more in the way of falling in with it than myself,--i surmise that at least half a dozen copies were made, and of these _five_ are now in existence. some particular parts, such as the marriage and separation, were copied separately; but i think there cannot be less than five full copies yet to be found.' this was written _after the original autobiography was burned_. we may see the zeal and enthusiasm of the byron party,--copying seventy-eight folio sheets, as of old christians copied the gospels. how widely, fully, and thoroughly, thus, by this secret process, was society saturated with byron's own versions of the story that related to himself and wife! against her there was only the complaint of an absolute silence. she put forth no statements, no documents; had no party, sealed the lips of her counsel, and even of her servants; yet she could not but have known, from time to time, how thoroughly and strongly this web of mingled truth and lies was being meshed around her steps. from the time that byron first saw the importance of securing wilson on his side, and wrote to have his partisans attend to him, we may date an entire revolution in the 'blackwood.' it became byron's warmest supporter,--is to this day the bitterest accuser of his wife. why was this wonderful silence? it appears by dr. lushington's statements, that, when lady byron did speak, she had a story to tell that powerfully affected both him and romilly,--a story supported by evidence on which they were willing to have gone to public trial. supposing, now, she had imitated lord byron's example, and, avoiding public trial, had put her story into private circulation; as he sent 'don juan' to fifty confidential friends, suppose she had sent a written statement of her story to fifty judges as intelligent as the two that had heard it; or suppose she had confronted his autobiography with her own,--what would have been the result? the first result might have been mrs. leigh's utter ruin. the world may finally forgive the man of genius anything; but for a woman there is no mercy and no redemption. this ruin lady byron prevented by her utter silence and great self-command. mrs. leigh never lost position. lady byron never so varied in her manner towards her as to excite the suspicions even of her confidential old servant. to protect mrs. leigh effectually, it must have been necessary to continue to exclude even her own mother from the secret, as we are assured she did at first; for, had she told lady milbanke, it is not possible that so high-spirited a woman could have restrained herself from such outward expressions as would at least have awakened suspicion. there was no resource but this absolute silence. lady blessington, in her last conversation with lord byron, thus describes the life lady byron was leading. she speaks of her as 'wearing away her youth in almost monastic seclusion, questioned by some, appreciated by few, seeking consolation alone in the discharge of her duties, and avoiding all external demonstrations of a grief that her pale cheek and solitary existence alone were vouchers for.'[ ] [footnote : 'conversations,' p. .] the main object of all this silence may be imagined, if we remember that if lord byron had not died,--had he truly and deeply repented, and become a thoroughly good man, and returned to england to pursue a course worthy of his powers, there was on record neither word nor deed from his wife to stand in his way. his place was kept in society, ready for him to return to whenever he came clothed and in his right mind. he might have had the heart and confidence of his daughter unshadowed by a suspicion. he might have won the reverence of the great and good in his own lands and all lands. that hope, which was the strong support, the prayer of the silent wife, it did not please god to fulfil. lord byron died a worn-out man at thirty-six. but the bitter seeds he had sown came up, after his death, in a harvest of thorns over his grave; and there were not wanting hands to use them as instruments of torture on the heart of his widow. chapter iii. rÉsumÉ of the conspiracy. we have traced the conspiracy of lord byron against his wife up to its latest device. that the reader's mind may be clear on the points of the process, we shall now briefly recapitulate the documents in the order of time. i. march , .--while negotiations for separation were pending,--'_fare thee well, and if for ever_.' while writing these pages, we have received from england the testimony of one who has seen the original draught of that 'fare thee well.' this original copy had evidently been subjected to the most careful and acute revision. scarcely two lines that were not interlined, scarcely an adjective that was not exchanged for a better; showing that the noble lord was not so far overcome by grief as to have forgotten his reputation. (found its way to the public prints through the imprudence of _a friend_.) ii. march , .--an attack on lady byron's old governess for having been born poor, for being homely, and for having unduly influenced his wife against him; promising that her grave should be a fiery bed, &c.; also praising his wife's perfect and remarkable truthfulness and discernment, that made it impossible for flattery to fool, or baseness blind her; but ascribing all his woes to her being fooled and blinded by this same governess. (found its way to the prints by the imprudence of _a friend_.) iii. september .--lines on hearing that lady byron is ill. calls her a clytemnestra, who has secretly set assassins on her lord; says she is a mean, treacherous, deceitful liar, and has entirely departed from her early truth, and become the most unscrupulous and unprincipled of women. (never printed till after lord byron's death, but circulated _privately_ among the '_initiated_.') iv. aug. , .--gives to m. g. lewis a paper for circulation among friends in england, stating that what he most wants is _public investigation_, which has always been denied him; and daring lady byron and her counsel to come out publicly. (found in m. g. lewis's portfolio after his death; never heard of before, except among the 'initiated.') having given m. g. lewis's document time to work,-- january .--gives the fourth canto of 'childe harold'[ ] to the public. [footnote : murray's edition of 'byron's works,' vol. ii. p. ; date of dedication to hobhouse, jan. , .] jan. , .--sends to murray to print for private circulation among the 'initiated' the first canto of 'don juan.' is nobly and severely rebuked for this insult to his wife by the 'blackwood,' august . october .--gives moore the manuscript 'autobiography,' with leave to show it to whom he pleases, and print it after his death. oct. , , vol. iv. letter .--writes to murray, that he may read all this 'autobiography,' and show it to anybody he likes. dec. , .--writes to murray on this article in 'blackwood' against 'don juan' and himself, which he supposes written by wilson; sends a complimentary message to wilson, and asks him to read his 'autobiography' sent by moore. (letter .) march , .--writes and dedicates to i. disraeli, esq., a vindication of himself in reply to the 'blackwood' on 'don juan,' containing an indignant defence of his own conduct in relation to his wife, and maintaining that he never yet has had an opportunity of knowing whereof he has been accused; accusing sir s. romilly of taking his retainer, and then going over to the adverse party, &c. (printed for _private circulation_; to be found in the standard english edition of murray, vol. ix. p. .) to this condensed account of byron's strategy we must add the crowning stroke of policy which transmitted this warfare to his friends, to be continued after his death. during the last visit moore made him in italy, and just before byron presented to him his 'autobiography,' the following scene occurred, as narrated by moore (vol. iv. p. ):-- 'the chief subject of conversation, when alone, was his marriage, and the load of obloquy which it had brought upon him. he was most anxious to know _the worst_ that had been alleged of his conduct; and, as this was our first opportunity of speaking together on the subject, i did not hesitate to put his candour most searchingly to the proof, not only by enumerating the various charges i had heard brought against him by others, but by specifying such portions of these charges as i had been inclined to think not incredible myself. 'to all this he listened with patience, and answered with the most unhesitating frankness; laughing to scorn the tales of unmanly outrage related of him, but at the same time acknowledging that there had been in his conduct but too much to blame and regret, and stating one or two occasions during his domestic life when he had been irritated into letting the "breath of bitter words" escape him, ... which he now evidently remembered with a degree of remorse and pain which might well have entitled them to be forgotten by others. 'it was, at the same time, manifest, that, whatever admissions he might be inclined to make respecting his own delinquencies, _the inordinate measure of the punishment dealt out to him had sunk deeply into his mind, and, with the usual effect of such injustice, drove him also to be unjust himself; so much so, indeed, as to impute to the quarter to which he now traced all his ill fate a feeling of fixed hostility to himself, which would not rest, he thought, even at his grave, but continue to persecute his memory as it was now embittering his life_. so strong was this impression upon him, that, during one of our few intervals of seriousness, he conjured me by our friendship, if, as he both felt and hoped, i should survive him, not to let unmerited censure settle upon his name.' in this same account, page , moore testifies that 'lord byron disliked his countrymen, but only because he knew that his morals were held in contempt by them. the english, themselves rigid observers of family duties, could not pardon him the neglect of his, nor his trampling on principles; therefore, neither did he like being presented to them, nor did they, especially when they had wives with them, like to cultivate his acquaintance. still there was a strong desire in all of them to see him; and the women in particular, who did not dare to look at him but by stealth, said in an under-voice, "what a pity it is!" if, however, any of his compatriots of exalted rank and high reputation came forward to treat him with courtesy, he showed himself obviously flattered by it. it seemed that, to the wound which remained open in his ulcerated heart, such soothing attentions were as drops of healing balm, which comforted him.' when in society, we are further informed by a lady quoted by mr. moore, he was in the habit of speaking of his wife with much respect and affection, as an illustrious lady, distinguished for her qualities of heart and understanding; saying that all the fault of their cruel separation lay with himself. mr. moore seems at times to be somewhat puzzled by these contradictory statements of his idol, and speculates not a little on what could be lord byron's object in using such language in public; mentally comparing it, we suppose, with the free handling which he gave to the same subject in his private correspondence. the innocence with which moore gives himself up to be manipulated by lord byron, the _naïveté_ with which he shows all the process, let us a little into the secret of the marvellous powers of charming and blinding which this great actor possessed. lord byron had the beauty, the wit, the genius, the dramatic talent, which have constituted the strength of some wonderfully fascinating women. there have been women able to lead their leashes of blinded adorers; to make them swear that black was white, or white black, at their word; to smile away their senses, or weep away their reason. no matter what these sirens may say, no matter what they may do, though caught in a thousand transparent lies, and doing a thousand deeds which would have ruined others, still men madly rave after them in life, and tear their hair over their graves. such an enchanter in man's shape was lord byron. he led captive moore and murray by being beautiful, a genius, and a lord; calling them 'dear tom' and 'dear murray,' while they were only commoners. he first insulted sir walter scott, and then witched his heart out of him by ingenuous confessions and poetical compliments; he took wilson's heart by flattering messages and a beautifully-written letter; he corresponded familiarly with hogg; and, before his death, had made fast friends, in one way or another, of the whole 'noctes ambrosianæ' club. we thus have given the historical _résumé_ of lord byron's attacks on his wife's reputation: we shall add, that they were based on philosophic principles, showing a deep knowledge of mankind. an analysis will show that they can be philosophically classified:-- st. those which addressed the sympathetic nature of man, representing her as cold, methodical, severe, strict, unforgiving. nd. those addressed to the faculty of association, connecting her with ludicrous and licentious images; taking from her the usual protection of womanly delicacy and sacredness. rd. those addressed to the moral faculties, accusing her as artful, treacherous, untruthful, malignant. all these various devices he held in his hand, shuffling and dealing them as a careful gamester his pack of cards according to the exigencies of the game. he played adroitly, skilfully, with blinding flatteries and seductive wiles, that made his victims willing dupes. nothing can more clearly show the power and perfectness of his enchantments than the masterly way in which he turned back the moral force of the whole english nation, which had risen at first in its strength against him. the victory was complete. chapter iv. results after lord byron's death. at the time of lord byron's death, the english public had been so skilfully manipulated by the byron propaganda, that the sympathy of the whole world was with him. a tide of emotion was now aroused in england by his early death--dying in the cause of greece and liberty. there arose a general wail for him, as for a lost pleiad, not only in england, but over the whole world; a great rush of enthusiasm for his memory, to which the greatest literary men of england freely gave voice. by general consent, lady byron seems to have been looked upon as the only cold-hearted unsympathetic person in this general mourning. from that time the literary world of england apparently regarded lady byron as a woman to whom none of the decorums, nor courtesies of ordinary womanhood, nor even the consideration belonging to common humanity, were due. 'she that is a widow indeed, and desolate,' has been regarded in all christian countries as an object made sacred by the touch of god's afflicting hand, sacred in her very helplessness; and the old hebrew scriptures give to the supreme father no dearer title than 'the widow's god.' but, on lord byron's death, men not devoid of tenderness, men otherwise generous and of fine feeling, acquiesced in insults to his widow with an obtuseness that seems, on review, quite incredible. lady byron was not only a widow, but an orphan. she had no sister for confidante; no father and mother to whom to go in her sorrows--sorrows so much deeper and darker to her than they could be to any other human being. she had neither son nor brother to uphold and protect her. on all hands it was acknowledged that, so far, there was no fault to be found in her but her utter silence. her life was confessed to be pure, useful, charitable; and yet, in this time of her sorrow, the writers of england issued article upon article not only devoid of delicacy, but apparently injurious and insulting towards her, with a blind unconsciousness which seems astonishing. one of the greatest literary powers of that time was the 'blackwood:' the reigning monarch on that literary throne was wilson, the lion-hearted, the brave, generous, tender poet, and, with some sad exceptions, the noble man. but wilson had believed the story of byron, and, by his very generosity and tenderness and pity, was betrayed into injustice. in 'the noctes' of november there is a conversation of the noctes club, in which north says, 'byron and i knew each other pretty well; and i suppose there's no harm in adding, that we appreciated each other pretty tolerably. did you ever see his letter to me?' the footnote to this says, '_this letter, which was printed in byron's lifetime, was not published till_ , when it appeared in moore's "life of byron." it is one of the most vigorous prose compositions in the language. byron had the highest opinion of wilson's genius and noble spirit.' in the first place, with our present ideas of propriety and good taste, we should reckon it an indecorum to make the private affairs of a pure and good woman, whose circumstances under any point of view were trying, and who evidently shunned publicity, the subject of public discussion in magazines which were read all over the world. lady byron, as they all knew, had on her hands a most delicate and onerous task, in bringing up an only daughter, necessarily inheriting peculiarities of genius and great sensitiveness; and the many mortifications and embarrassments which such intermeddling with her private matters must have given, certainly should have been considered by men with any pretensions to refinement or good feeling. but the literati of england allowed her no consideration, no rest, no privacy. in 'the noctes' of november there is the record of a free conversation upon lord and lady byron's affairs, interlarded with exhortations to push the bottle, and remarks on whisky-toddy. medwin's 'conversations with lord byron' is discussed, which, we are told in a note, appeared a few months after the _noble_ poet's death. there is a rather bold and free discussion of lord byron's character--his fondness for gin and water, on which stimulus he wrote 'don juan;' and james hogg says pleasantly to mullion, 'o mullion! it's a pity you and byron could na ha' been acquaint. there would ha' been brave sparring to see who could say the wildest and the dreadfullest things; for he had neither fear of man or woman, and would ha' his joke or jeer, cost what it might.' and then follows a specimen of one of his jokes with an actress, that, in indecency, certainly justifies the assertion. from the other stories which follow, and the parenthesis that occurs frequently ('mind your glass, james, a little more!'), it seems evident that the party are progressing in their peculiar kind of _civilisation_. it is in this same circle and paper that lady byron's private affairs come up for discussion. the discussion is thus elegantly introduced:-- _hogg._--'reach me the black bottle. i say, christopher, what, after all, is your opinion o' lord and leddy byron's quarrel? do you yoursel' take part with him, or with her? i wad like to hear your real opinion.' _north._--'oh, dear! well, hogg, since you will have it, i think douglas kinnard and hobhouse are bound to tell us whether there be any truth, and how much, in this story about the _declaration_, signed by sir ralph' [milbanke]. the note here tells us that this refers to a statement that appeared in 'blackwood' immediately after byron's death, to the effect that, previous to the formal separation from his wife, byron required and obtained from sir ralph milbanke, lady byron's father, a statement to the effect that lady byron had no charge of moral delinquency to bring against him.[ ] [footnote : recently, lord lindsay has published another version of this story, which makes it appear that he has conversed with a lady who conversed with hobhouse during his lifetime, in which this story is differently reported. in the last version, it is made to appear that hobhouse had this declaration from lady byron herself.] north continues:-- 'and i think lady byron's letter--the "dearest duck" one i mean--should really be forthcoming, if her ladyship's friends wish to stand fair before the public. at present we have nothing but loose talk of society to go upon; and certainly, _if the things that are said be true, there must be thorough explanation from some quarter, or the tide will continue, as it has assuredly begun, to flow in a direction very opposite to what we were for years accustomed_. sir, they must _explain this business of the letter_. you have, of course, heard about the invitation it contained, the warm, affectionate invitation, to kirkby mallory'---- hogg interposes,-- 'i dinna like to be interruptin' ye, mr. north; but i must inquire, is the _jug_ to stand still while ye're going on at that rate?' _north._--'there, porker! these things are part and parcel of the chatter of every bookseller's shop; _à fortiori_, of every drawing-room in may fair. _can_ the matter stop here? can a great man's memory be permitted to incur damnation while these saving clauses are afloat anywhere uncontradicted?' and from this the conversation branches off into strong, emphatic praise of byron's conduct in greece during the last part of his life. the silent widow is thus delicately and considerately reminded in the 'blackwood' that she is the talk, not only over the whisky-jug of the noctes, but in every drawing-room in london; and that she _must_ speak out and explain matters, or the whole world will set against her. but she does not speak yet. the public persecution, therefore, proceeds. medwin's book being insufficient, another biographer is to be selected. now, the person in the noctes club who was held to have the most complete information of the byron affairs, and was, on that account, first thought of by murray to execute this very delicate task of writing a memoir which should include the most sacred domestic affairs of a noble lady and her orphan daughter, was _maginn_. maginn, the author of the pleasant joke, that 'man never reaches the apex of civilisation till he is too drunk to pronounce the word,' was the first person in whose hands the 'autobiography,' memoirs, and journals of lord byron were placed with this view. the following note from shelton mackenzie, in the june number of 'the noctes,' , says,-- 'at that time, had he been so minded, maginn (odoherty) could have got up a popular life of byron as well as most men in england. immediately on the account of byron's death being received in london, john murray proposed that maginn should bring out memoirs, journals, and letters of lord byron, and, with this intent, placed in his hand every line that he (murray) possessed in byron's handwriting.... the strong desire of _byron's family and executors_ that the "autobiography" should be burned, to which desire murray foolishly yielded, made such an hiatus in the materials, that murray and maginn agreed it would not answer to bring out the work then. eventually moore executed it.' the character of the times in which this work was to be undertaken will appear from the following note of mackenzie's to 'the noctes' of august , which we copy, with the _author's own italics_:-- 'in the "blackwood" of july was a poetical epistle by the renowned timothy tickler to the editor of the "john bull" magazine, on an article in his first number. this article ... _professed_ to be a portion of the veritable "autobiography" of byron which was burned, and was called "my wedding night." it appeared to relate in detail _everything_ that occurred in the twenty-four hours immediately succeeding that in which byron was married. it had plenty of coarseness, and some to spare. it went into particulars such as hitherto had been given only by faublas; and it had, notwithstanding, many phrases and some facts which evidently did not belong to a mere fabricator. some years after, i compared this "wedding night" with what i had all assurance of having been transcribed from the actual manuscripts of byron, and was persuaded that the magazine-writer must have had the _actual_ statement before him, or have had a perusal of it. the writer in "blackwood" declared his conviction that it really was byron's own writing.' the reader must remember that lord byron died april ; so that, according to this, his 'autobiography' was made the means of this gross insult to his widow three months after his death. if some powerful cause had not paralysed all feelings of gentlemanly honour, and of womanly delicacy, and of common humanity, towards lady byron, throughout the whole british nation, no editor would have dared to open a periodical with such an article; or, if he had, he would have been overwhelmed with a storm of popular indignation, which, like the fire upon sodom, would have made a pillar of salt of him for a warning to all future generations. 'blackwood' reproves the 'john bull' in a poetical epistle, recognising the article as coming from byron, and says to the _author_,-- 'but that _you_, sir, a wit and a scholar like you, should not blush to produce what he blushed not to do,-- take your compliment, youngster; this doubles, almost, the sorrow that rose when his honour was lost.' we may not wonder that the 'autobiography' was burned, as murray says in a recent account, by a committee of byron's _friends_, including hobhouse, his sister, and murray himself. now, the 'blackwood' of july thus declares its conviction that this outrage on every sentiment of human decency came from lord byron, and that his honour was lost. maginn does not undertake the memoir. no memoir at all is undertaken; till finally moore is selected, as, like demetrius of old, a well-skilled gilder and 'maker of silver shrines,' though _not_ for diana. to moore is committed the task of doing his best for this battered image, in which even the worshippers recognise foul sulphurous cracks, but which they none the less stand ready to worship as a genuine article that 'fell down from jupiter.' moore was a man of no particular nicety as to moralities, but in that matter seems not very much below what this record shows his average associates to be. he is so far superior to maginn, that his vice is rose-coloured and refined. he does not burst out with such heroic stanzas as maginn's frank invitation to jeremy bentham:-- 'jeremy, throw your pen aside, and come get drunk with me; and we'll go where bacchus sits astride, perched high on barrels three.' moore's vice is cautious, soft, seductive, slippery, and covered at times with a thin, tremulous veil of religious sentimentalism. in regard to byron, he was an unscrupulous, committed partisan: he was as much bewitched by him as ever man has been by woman; and therefore to him, at last, the task of editing byron's 'memoirs' was given. this byron, whom they all knew to be obscene beyond what even their most drunken tolerance could at first endure; this man, whose foul license _spoke out_ what most men conceal from mere respect to the decent instincts of humanity; whose 'honour was lost,'--was submitted to this careful manipulator, to be turned out a perfected idol for a world longing for an idol, as the israelites longed for the calf in horeb. the image was to be invested with deceitful glories and shifting haloes,--admitted faults spoken of as peculiarities of sacred origin,--and the world given to understand that no common rule or measure could apply to such an undoubtedly divine production; and so the hearts of men were to be wrung with pity for his sorrows as the yearning pain of a god, and with anger at his injuries as sacrilege on the sacredness of genius, till they were ready to cast themselves at his feet, and adore. then he was to be set up on a pedestal, like nebuchadnezzar's image on the plains of dura; and what time the world heard the sound of cornet, sackbut, and dulcimer, in his enchanting verse, they were to fall down and worship. for lady byron, moore had simply the respect that a commoner has for a lady of rank, and a good deal of the feeling that seems to underlie all english literature,--that it is no matter what becomes of the woman when the man's story is to be told. but, with all his faults, moore was not a cruel man; and we cannot conceive such outrageous cruelty and ungentlemanly indelicacy towards an unoffending woman, as he shows in these 'memoirs,' without referring them to lord byron's own influence in making him an unscrupulous, committed partisan on his side. so little pity, so little sympathy, did he suppose lady byron to be worthy of, that he laid before her, in the sight of all the world, selections from her husband's letters and journals, in which the privacies of her courtship and married life were jested upon with a vulgar levity; letters filled, from the time of the act of separation, with a constant succession of sarcasms, stabs, stings, epigrams, and vindictive allusions to herself, bringing her into direct and insulting comparison with his various mistresses, and implying their superiority over her. there, too, were gross attacks on her father and mother, as having been the instigators of the separation; and poor lady milbanke, in particular, is sometimes mentioned with epithets so offensive, that the editor prudently covers the terms with stars, as intending language too gross to be printed. the last mistress of lord byron is uniformly brought forward in terms of such respect and consideration, that one would suppose that the usual moral laws that regulate english family life had been specially repealed in his favour. moore quotes with approval letters from shelley, stating that lord byron's connection with la guiccioli has been of inestimable benefit to him; and that he is now becoming what he should be, 'a virtuous man.' moore goes on to speak of the connection as one, though somewhat reprehensible, yet as having all those advantages of marriage and settled domestic ties that byron's affectionate spirit had long sighed for, but never before found; and in his last _résumé_ of the poet's character, at the end of the volume, he brings the mistress into direct comparison with the wife in a single sentence: 'the woman to whom he gave the love of his maturer years idolises his name; and, _with a single unhappy exception_, scarce an instance is to be found of one brought ... into relations of amity with him who did not retain a kind regard for him in life, and a fondness for his memory.' literature has never yet seen the instance of a person, of lady byron's rank in life, placed before the world in a position more humiliating to womanly dignity, or wounding to womanly delicacy. the direct implication is, that she has no feelings to be hurt, no heart to be broken, and is not worthy even of the consideration which in ordinary life is to be accorded to a widow who has received those awful tidings which generally must awaken many emotions, and call for some consideration, even in the most callous hearts. the woman who we are told walked the room, vainly striving to control the sobs that shook her frame, while she sought to draw from the servant that last message of her husband which she was never to hear, was not thought worthy even of the rights of common humanity. the first volume of the 'memoir' came out in . then for the first time came one flash of lightning from the silent cloud; and she who had never spoken before spoke out. the libels on the memory of her dead parents drew from her what her own wrongs never did. during all this time, while her husband had been keeping her effigy dangling before the public as a mark for solemn curses, and filthy lampoons, and _secretly_-circulated disclosures, that spared no sacredness and violated every decorum, she had not uttered a word. she had been subjected to nameless insults, discussed in the assemblies of drunkards, and challenged to speak for herself. like the chaste lady in 'comus,' whom the vile wizard had bound in the enchanted seat to be 'grinned at and chattered at' by all the filthy rabble of his dehumanised rout, she had remained pure, lofty, and undefiled; and the stains of mud and mire thrown upon her had fallen from her spotless garments. now that she is dead, a recent writer in 'the london quarterly' dares give voice to an insinuation which even byron gave only a _suggestion_ of when he called his wife clytemnestra; and hints that she tried the power of youth and beauty to win to her the young solicitor lushington, and a handsome young officer of high rank. at this time, _such_ insinuations had not been thought of; and the only and chief allegation against lady byron had been a cruel severity of virtue. at all events, when lady byron spoke, the world listened with respect, and believed what she said. here let us, too, read her statement, and give it the careful attention she solicits (moore's 'life of byron,' vol. vi. p. ):-- 'i have disregarded various publications in which facts within my own knowledge have been grossly misrepresented; but i am called upon to notice some of the erroneous statements proceeding from one who claims to be considered as lord byron's confidential and authorised friend. domestic details ought not to be intruded on the public attention: if, however, they _are_ so intruded, the persons affected by them have a right to refute injurious charges. mr. moore has promulgated his own impressions of private events in which i was most nearly concerned, as if he possessed a competent knowledge of the subject. having survived lord byron, i feel increased reluctance to advert to any circumstances connected with the period of my marriage; nor is it now my intention to disclose them further than may be indispensably requisite for the end i have in view. self-vindication is not the motive which actuates me to make this appeal, and the spirit of accusation is unmingled with it; but when the conduct of my parents is brought forward in a disgraceful light by the passages selected from lord byron's letters, and by the remarks of his biographer, i feel bound to justify their characters from imputations which i _know_ to be false. the passages from lord byron's letters, to which i refer, are,--the aspersion on my mother's character (p. , l. ):[ ] "my child is very well and flourishing, i hear; but i must see also. i feel no disposition to resign it to the _contagion of its grandmother's society_." the assertion of her dishonourable conduct in employing a spy (p. , l. , &c.): "a mrs. c. (now a kind of housekeeper and _spy of lady n.'s_), who, in her better days, was a washerwoman, is supposed to be--by the learned--very much the occult cause of our domestic discrepancies." the seeming exculpation of myself in the extract (p. ), with the words immediately following it, "her nearest relations are a----;" where the blank clearly implies something too offensive for publication. these passages tend to throw suspicion on my parents, and give reason to ascribe the separation either to their direct agency, or to that of "officious spies" employed by them.[ ] from the following part of the narrative (p. ), it must also be inferred that an undue influence was exercised by them for the accomplishment of this purpose: "it was in a few weeks after the latter communication between us (lord byron and mr. moore) that lady byron adopted the determination of parting from him. she had left london at the latter end of january, on a visit to her father's house in leicestershire; and lord byron was in a short time to follow her. they had parted in the utmost kindness,--she wrote him a letter, full of playfulness and affection, on the road; and, immediately on her arrival at kirkby mallory, her father wrote to acquaint lord byron that she would return to him no more." [footnote : the references are to the first volume of the first edition of moore's life', originally published by itself.] [footnote : 'the officious spies of his privacy,' p. .] 'in my observations upon this statement, i shall, as far as possible, avoid touching on any matters relating personally to lord byron and myself. the facts are,--i left london for kirkby mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the th of january, . lord byron had signified to me in writing (jan. ) his absolute desire that i should leave london on the earliest day that i could conveniently fix. it was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a journey sooner than the th. previously to my departure, it had been strongly impressed on my mind that lord byron was under the influence of insanity. this opinion was derived in a great measure from the communications made to me by his nearest relatives and personal attendant, who had more opportunities than myself of observing him during the latter part of my stay in town. it was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying himself. _with the concurrence of his family_, i had consulted dr. baillie, as a friend (jan. ), respecting this supposed malady. on acquainting him with the state of the case, and with lord byron's desire that i should leave london, dr. baillie thought that my absence might be advisable as an experiment, _assuming_ the fact of mental derangement; for dr. baillie, not having had access to lord byron, could not pronounce a positive opinion on that point. he enjoined that, in correspondence with lord byron, i should avoid all but light and soothing topics. under these impressions i left london, determined to follow the advice given by dr. baillie. whatever might have been the nature of lord byron's conduct towards me from the time of my marriage, yet, supposing him to be in a state of mental alienation, it was not for _me_, nor for any person of common humanity, to manifest at that moment a sense of injury. on the day of my departure, and again on my arrival at kirkby (jan. ), i wrote to lord byron in a kind and cheerful tone, according to those medical directions. 'the last letter was circulated, and employed as a pretext for the charge of my having been subsequently _influenced_ to "desert"[ ] my husband. it has been argued that i parted from lord byron in perfect harmony; that feelings incompatible with any deep sense of injury had dictated the letter which i addressed to him; and that my sentiments must have been changed by persuasion and interference when i was under the roof of my parents. these assertions and inferences are wholly destitute of foundation. when i arrived at kirkby mallory, my parents were unacquainted with the existence of any causes likely to destroy my prospects of happiness; and, when i communicated to them the opinion which had been formed concerning lord byron's state of mind, they were most anxious to promote his restoration by every means in their power. they assured those relations who were with him in london, that "they would devote their whole care and attention to the alleviation of his malady;" and hoped to make the best arrangements for his comfort if he could be induced to visit them. [footnote : 'the deserted husband,' p. .] 'with these intentions, my mother wrote on the th to lord byron, inviting him to kirkby mallory. she had always treated him with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. never did an irritating word escape her lips in her whole intercourse with him. the accounts given me after i left lord byron, by the persons in constant intercourse with him, added to those doubts which had before transiently occurred to my mind as to the reality of the alleged disease; and the reports of his medical attendant were far from establishing the existence of anything like lunacy. under this uncertainty, i deemed it right to communicate to my parents, that, if i were to consider lord byron's past conduct as that of a person of sound mind, nothing could induce me to return to him. it therefore appeared expedient, both to them and myself, to consult the ablest advisers. for that object, and also to obtain still further information respecting the appearances which seemed to indicate mental derangement, my mother determined to go to london. she was empowered by me to take legal opinions on a written statement of mine, though i had then reasons for reserving a part of the case from the knowledge even of my father and mother. being convinced by the result of these inquiries, and by the tenor of lord byron's proceedings, that the notion of insanity was an illusion, i no longer hesitated to authorise such measures as were necessary in order to secure me from being ever again placed in his power. conformably with this resolution, my father wrote to him on the nd of february to propose an amicable separation. lord byron at first rejected this proposal; but when it was distinctly notified to him that, if he persisted in his refusal, recourse must be had to legal measures, he agreed to sign a deed of separation. upon applying to dr. lushington, who was intimately acquainted with all the circumstances, to state in writing what he recollected upon this subject, i received from him the following letter, by which it will be manifest that my mother cannot have been actuated by any hostile or ungenerous motives towards lord byron:-- '"my dear lady byron,--i can rely upon the accuracy of my memory for the following statement. i was originally consulted by lady noel, on your behalf, whilst you were in the country. the circumstances detailed by her were such as justified a separation; but they were not of that aggravated description as to render such a measure indispensable. on lady noel's representation, i deemed a reconciliation with lord byron practicable, and felt most sincerely a wish to aid in effecting it. there was not on lady noel's part any exaggeration of the facts; nor, so far as i could perceive, any determination to prevent a return to lord byron: certainly none was expressed when i spoke of a reconciliation. when you came to town, in about a fortnight, or perhaps more, after my first interview with lady noel, i was for the first time informed by you of facts utterly unknown, as i have no doubt, to sir ralph and lady noel. on receiving this additional information, my opinion was entirely changed: i considered a reconciliation impossible. i declared my opinion, and added, that, if such an idea should be entertained, i could not, either professionally or otherwise, take any part towards effecting it. '"believe me, very faithfully yours, '"steph. lushington. '"great george street, jan. , ." 'i have only to observe, that, if the statements on which my legal advisers (the late sir samuel romilly and dr. lushington) formed their opinions were false, the responsibility and the odium should rest with _me only_. i trust that the facts which i have here briefly recapitulated will absolve my father and mother from all accusations with regard to the part they took in the separation between lord byron and myself. 'they neither originated, instigated, nor advised that separation; and they cannot be condemned for having afforded to their daughter the assistance and protection which she claimed. there is no other near relative to vindicate their memory from insult. i am therefore compelled to break the silence which i had hoped always to observe, and to solicit from the readers of lord byron's "life" an impartial consideration of the testimony extorted from me. 'a. i. noel byron. 'hanger hill, feb. , .' the effect of this statement on the literary world may be best judged by the discussion of it by christopher north (wilson) in the succeeding may number of 'the noctes,' where the bravest and most generous of literary men that then were--himself the husband of a gentle wife--thus gives sentence: the conversation is between north and the shepherd:-- _north._--'god forbid i should wound the feelings of lady byron, of whose character, known to me but by the high estimation in which it is held by all who have enjoyed her friendship, i have always spoken with respect!... but may i, without harshness or indelicacy, say, here among ourselves, james, that, by marrying byron, she took upon herself, with eyes wide open and conscience clearly convinced, duties very different from those of which, even in common cases, the presaging foresight shadows ... the light of the first nuptial moon?' _shepherd._--'she did that, sir; by my troth, she did that.' _north._--'miss milbanke knew that he was reckoned a rake and a _roué_; and although his genius wiped off, by impassioned eloquence in love-letters that were felt to be irresistible, or hid the worst stain of, that reproach, still miss milbanke must have believed it a perilous thing to be the wife of lord byron.... but still, by joining her life to his in marriage, she pledged her troth and her faith and her love, under probabilities of severe, disturbing, perhaps fearful trials, in the future.... 'but i think lady byron ought not to have printed that narrative. death abrogates not the rights of a husband to his wife's silence when speech is fatal ... to his character as a man. has she not flung suspicion over his bones interred, that they are the bones of a--monster?... if byron's sins or crimes--for we are driven to use terrible terms--were unendurable and unforgivable as if against the holy ghost, ought the wheel, the rack, or the stake to have extorted that confession from his widow's breast.... but there was no such pain here, james: the declaration was voluntary, and it was calm. self-collected, and gathering up all her faculties and feelings into unshrinking strength, she denounced before all the world--and throughout all space and all time--her husband, as excommunicated by his vices from woman's bosom. * * * * * ''twas to vindicate the character of her parents that lady byron wrote,--a holy purpose and devout, nor do i doubt sincere. but filial affection and reverence, sacred as they are, may be blamelessly, nay, righteously, subordinate to conjugal duties, which die not with the dead, are extinguished not even by the sins of the dead, were they as foul as the grave's corruption.' here is what john stuart mill calls the literature of slavery for woman, in length and breadth; and, that all women may understand the doctrine, the shepherd now takes up his parable, and expounds the true position of the wife. we render his scotch into english:-- 'not a few such widows do i know, whom brutal, profligate, and savage husbands have brought to the brink of the grave,--as good, as bright, as innocent as, and far more forgiving than, lady byron. there they sit in their obscure, rarely-visited dwellings; for sympathy instructed by suffering knows well that the deepest and most hopeless misery is least given to complaint.' then follows a pathetic picture of one such widow, trembling and fainting for hunger, obliged, on her way to the well for a can of water, her only drink, to sit down on a '_knowe_' and say a prayer. 'yet she's decently, yea, tidily dressed, poor creature! in sair worn widow's clothes, a single suit for saturday and sunday; her hair, untimely gray, is neatly braided under her crape cap; and sometimes, when all is still and solitary in the fields, and all labour has disappeared into the house, you may see her stealing by herself, or leading one wee orphan by the hand, with another at her breast, to the kirkyard, where the love of her youth and the husband of her prime is buried. 'yet,' says the shepherd, 'he was a brute, a ruffian, a monster. when drunk, how he raged and cursed and swore! often did she dread that, in his fits of inhuman passion, he would have murdered the baby at her breast; for she had seen him dash their only little boy, a child of eight years old, on the floor, till the blood gushed from his ears; and then the madman threw himself down on the body, and howled for the gallows. limmers haunted his door, and he theirs; and it was hers to lie, not sleep, in a cold, forsaken bed, once the bed of peace, affection, and perfect happiness. often he struck her; and once when she was pregnant with that very orphan now smiling on her breast, reaching out his wee fingers to touch the flowers on his father's grave.... 'but she tries to smile among the neighbours, and speaks of her boy's likeness to its father; nor, when the conversation turns on bygone times, does she fear to let his name escape her white lips, "my robert; the bairn's not ill-favoured, but he will never look like his father,"--and such sayings, uttered in a calm, sweet voice. nay, i remember once how her pale countenance reddened with a sudden flush of pride, when a gossiping crone alluded to their wedding; and the widow's eye brightened through her tears to hear how the bridegroom, sitting that sabbath in his front seat beside his bonny bride, had not his equal for strength, stature, and all that is beauty in man, in all the congregation. that, i say, sir, whether right or wrong, _was--forgiveness_.' here is a specimen of how even generous men had been so perverted by the enchantment of lord byron's genius, as to turn all the pathos and power of the strongest literature of that day against the persecuted, pure woman, and for the strong, wicked man. these 'blackwood' writers knew, by byron's own filthy, ghastly writings, which had gone sorely against their own moral stomachs, that he was foul to the bone. they could see, in moore's 'memoirs' right before them, how he had caught an innocent girl's heart by sending a love-letter, and offer of marriage, at the end of a long friendly correspondence,--a letter that had been written to _show_ to his libertine set, and sent on the toss-up of a copper, because he cared nothing for it one way or the other. they admit that, having won this poor girl, he had been savage, brutal, drunken, cruel. they had read the filthy taunts in 'don juan,' and the nameless abominations in the 'autobiography.' they had admitted among themselves that his honour was lost; but still this abused, desecrated woman must _reverence_ her brutal master's memory, and not speak, even to defend the grave of her own kind father and mother. that there was _no_ lover of her youth, that the marriage-vow had been a hideous, shameless cheat, is on the face of moore's account; yet the 'blackwood' does not see it nor feel it, and brings up against lady byron this touching story of a poor widow, who really had had a true lover once,--a lover maddened, imbruted, lost, through that very drunkenness in which the noctes club were always glorying. it is because of such transgressors as byron, such supporters as moore and the noctes club, that there are so many helpless, cowering, broken-hearted, abject women, given over to the animal love which they share alike with the poor dog,--the dog, who, beaten, kicked, starved, and cuffed, still lies by his drunken master with great anxious eyes of love and sorrow, and with sweet, brute forgiveness nestles upon his bosom, as he lies in his filth in the snowy ditch, to keep the warmth of life in him. great is the mystery of this fidelity in the poor, loving brute,--most mournful and most sacred! but, oh that a noble man should have no higher ideal of the love of a high-souled, heroic woman! oh that men should teach women that they owe no higher duties, and are capable of no higher tenderness, than this loving, unquestioning animal fidelity! the dog is ever-loving, ever-forgiving, because god has given him no high range of moral faculties, no sense of justice, no consequent horror at impurity and vileness. much of the beautiful patience and forgiveness of women is made possible to them by that utter _deadness to the sense of justice_ which the laws, literature, and misunderstood religion of england have sought to induce in woman as a special grace and virtue. the lesson to woman in this pathetic piece of special pleading is, that man may sink himself below the brute, may wallow in filth like the swine, may turn his home into a hell, beat and torture his children, forsake the marriage-bed for foul rivals; yet all this does not dissolve the marriage-vow on her part, nor free his bounden serf from her obligation to honour his memory,--nay, to sacrifice to it the honour due to a kind father and mother, slandered in their silent graves. such was the sympathy, and such the advice, that the best literature of england could give to a young widow, a peeress of england, whose husband, as they verily believed and admitted, might have done _worse_ than all this; whose crimes might have been 'foul, monstrous, unforgivable as the sin against the holy ghost.' if these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? if the peeress _as a wife_ has no rights, what is the state of the cotter's wife? but, in the same paper, north again blames lady byron for not having come out with the whole story before the world at the time she separated from her husband. he says of the time when she first consulted counsel through her mother, keeping back one item,-- 'how weak, and worse than weak, at such a juncture, on which hung her whole fate, to ask legal advice on an imperfect document! give the delicacy of a virtuous woman its due; but at such a crisis, when the question was whether her conscience was to be free from the oath of oaths, delicacy should have died, and nature was privileged to show unashamed--if such there were--the records of uttermost pollution.' _shepherd._--'and what think ye, sir, that a' this pollution could hae been, that sae electrified dr. lushington?' _north._--'bad--bad--bad, james. nameless, it is horrible; named, it might leave byron's memory yet within the range of pity and forgiveness; and, where they are, their sister affections will not be far; though, like weeping seraphs, standing aloof, and veiling their wings.' _shepherd._--'she should indeed hae been silent--till the grave had closed on her sorrows as on his sins.' _north._--'_even now she should speak_,--or some one else for her,-- ... and a few words will suffice. _worse_ the condition of the dead man's name cannot be--far, far better it might--i believe it would be--were _all_ the truth somehow or other declared; and declared it must be, not for byron's sake only, but for the sake of humanity itself; and then a mitigated sentence, or eternal silence.' we have another discussion of lady byron's duties in a further number of 'blackwood.' the 'memoir' being out, it was proposed that there should be a complete annotation of byron's works gotten up, and adorned, for the further glorification of his memory, with portraits of the various women whom he had delighted to honour. murray applied to lady byron for her portrait, and was met with a cold, decided negative. after reading all the particulars of byron's harem of mistresses, and moore's comparisons between herself and la guiccioli, one might _imagine_ reasons why a lady, with proper self-respect, should object to appearing in this manner. one would suppose there might have been gentlemen who could well appreciate the _motive_ of that refusal; but it was only considered a new evidence that she was indifferent to her conjugal duties, and wanting in that _respect_ which christopher north had told her she owed a husband's memory, though his crimes were foul as the rottenness of the grave. never, since queen vashti refused to come at the command of a drunken husband to show herself to his drunken lords, was there a clearer case of disrespect to the marital dignity on the part of a wife. it was a plain act of insubordination, rebellion against law and order; and how shocking in lady byron, who ought to feel herself but too much flattered to be exhibited to the public as the head wife of a man of genius! means were at once adopted to subdue her contumacy, of which one may read in a note to the 'blackwood' (noctes), september . an artist was sent down to ealing to take her picture by stealth as she sat in church. two sittings were thus obtained without her knowledge. in the third one, the artist placed himself boldly before her, and sketched, so that she could not but observe him. we shall give the rest in mackenzie's own words, as a remarkable specimen of the obtuseness, not to say indelicacy of feeling, which seemed to pervade the literary circles of england at the time:-- 'after prayers, wright and his friend (the artist) were visited by an ambassador from her ladyship to inquire the meaning of what she had seen. the reply was, that mr. murray _must_ have her portrait, and was compelled to take what she refused to give. the result was, wright was requested to visit her, which he did; taking with him, not _the_ sketch, which was very good, but another, in which there was a strong touch of caricature. rather than allow _that_ to appear as her likeness (a very natural and womanly feeling by the way), she consented to sit for the portrait to w. j. newton, which was engraved, and is here alluded to.' the artless barbarism of this note is too good to be lost; but it is quite borne out by the conversation in the noctes club, which it illustrates. it would appear from this conversation that these byron beauties appeared successively in pamphlet form; and the picture of lady byron is thus discussed:-- _mullion._--'i don't know if you have seen the last brochure. it has a charming head of lady byron, who, it seems, sat on purpose: and that's very agreeable to hear of; for it shows her ladyship has got over any little soreness that moore's "life" occasioned, and is now willing to contribute anything in her power to the real monument of byron's genius.' _north._--'i am delighted to hear of this: 'tis really very noble in the unfortunate lady. i never saw her. is the face a striking one?' _mullion._--'eminently so,--a most calm, pensive, melancholy style of native beauty,--and a most touching contrast to the maids of athens, annesley, and all the rest of them. i'm sure you'll have the proof finden has sent you framed for the boudoir at the lodge.' _north._--'by all means. i mean to do that for all the byron beauties.' but it may be asked, was there not a man in all england with delicacy enough to feel for lady byron, and chivalry enough to speak a bold word for her? yes: there was one. thomas campbell the poet, when he read lady byron's statement, believed it, as did christopher north; but it affected him differently. it appears he did not believe it a wife's duty to burn herself on her husband's funeral-pile, as did christopher north; and held the singular idea, that a wife had _some_ rights as a human being as well as a husband. lady byron's own statement appeared in pamphlet form in : at least, such is the date at the foot of the document. thomas campbell, in 'the new monthly magazine,' shortly after, printed a spirited, gentlemanly defence of lady byron, and administered a pointed rebuke to moore for the rudeness and indelicacy he had shown in selecting from byron's letters the coarsest against herself, her parents, and her old governess mrs. clermont, and by the indecent comparisons he had instituted between lady byron and lord byron's last mistress. it is refreshing to hear, at last, from somebody who is not altogether on his knees at the feet of the popular idol, and who has some chivalry for woman, and some idea of common humanity. he says,-- 'i found my right to speak on this painful subject on its now _irrevocable publicity_, brought up afresh as it has been by mr. moore, to be the theme of discourse to millions, and, if i err not much, the cause of misconception to innumerable minds. i claim to speak of lady byron in the right of a man, and of a friend to the rights of woman, and to liberty, and to natural religion. i claim a right, more especially, as one of the many friends of lady byron, who, one and all, feel aggrieved by this production. it has virtually dragged her forward from the shade of retirement, where she had hid her sorrows, and compelled her to defend the heads of her friends and her parents from being crushed under the tombstone of byron. nay, in a general view, it has forced her to defend _herself_; though, with her true sense and her pure taste, she stands above all special pleading. to plenary explanation she _ought_ not--she never _shall_ be driven. mr. moore is too much a gentleman not to shudder at the thought of that; but if other byronists, of a far different stamp, were to force the savage ordeal, it is her enemies, and not she, that would have to dread the burning plough-shares. 'we, her friends, have no wish to prolong the discussion: but a few words we _must_ add, even to her admirable statement; for hers is a cause not only dear to her friends, but having become, from mr. moore and her misfortunes, a publicly-agitated cause, it concerns morality, and the most sacred rights of the sex, that she should (and that, too, without more special explanations) be acquitted out and out, and honourably acquitted, in this business, of all share in the blame, which is one and indivisible. mr. moore, on further reflection, may see this; and his return to candour will surprise us less than his momentary deviation from its path. 'for the tact of mr. moore's conduct in this affair, i have not to answer; but, if indelicacy be charged upon me, i scorn the charge. neither will i submit to be called lord byron's accuser; because a word against him i wish not to say beyond what is painfully wrung from me by the necessity of owning or illustrating lady byron's unblamableness, and of repelling certain misconceptions respecting her, which are now walking the fashionable world, and which have been fostered (though heaven knows where they were born) most delicately and warily by the christian godfathership of mr. moore. 'i write not at lady byron's bidding. i have never humiliated either her or myself by asking _if_ i should write, or _what_ i should write; that is to say, i never applied to her for information against lord byron, though i was justified, as one intending to criticise mr. moore, in inquiring into the truth of some of his statements. neither will i suffer myself to be called her champion, if by that word be meant the advocate of her mere legal innocence; for that, i take it, nobody questions. 'still less is it from the sorry impulse of pity that i speak of this noble woman; for i look with wonder and even envy at the proud purity of her sense and conscience, that have carried her exquisite sensibilities in triumph through such poignant tribulations. but i am proud to be called her friend, the humble illustrator of her cause, and the advocate of those principles which make it to me more interesting than lord byron's. lady byron (if the subject must be discussed) belongs to sentiment and morality (at least as much as lord byron); nor is she to be suffered, when compelled to speak, to raise her voice as in a desert, with no friendly voice to respond to her. lady byron could not have outlived her sufferings if she had not wound up her fortitude to the high point of trusting mainly for consolation, not to the opinion of the world, but to her own inward peace; and, having said what ought to convince the world, i verily believe that she has less care about the fashionable opinion respecting her than any of her friends can have. but we, her friends, mix with the world; and we hear offensive absurdities about her, which we have a right to put down. * * * * * 'i proceed to deal more generally with mr. moore's book. you speak, mr. moore, against lord byron's censurers in a tone of indignation which is perfectly lawful towards calumnious traducers, but which will not terrify me, or any other man of courage who is no calumniator, from uttering his mind freely with regard to this part of your hero's conduct. i question your philosophy in assuming that all that is noble in byron's poetry was inconsistent with the possibility of his being devoted to a pure and good woman; and i repudiate your morality for canting too complacently about "the lava of his imagination," and the unsettled fever of his passions, being any excuses for his planting the _tic douloureux_ of domestic suffering in a meek woman's bosom. 'these are hard words, mr. moore; but you have brought them on yourself by your voluntary ignorance of facts known to me; for you might and ought to have known both sides of the question; and, if the subject was too delicate for you to consult lady byron's confidential friends, you ought to have had nothing to do with the subject. but you cannot have submitted your book even to lord byron's sister, otherwise she would have set you right about the imaginary spy, mrs. clermont.' campbell now goes on to print, at his own peril, he says, and without time to ask leave, the following note from lady byron in reply to an application he made to her, when he was about to review moore's book, for an 'estimate as to the correctness of moore's statements.' the following is lady byron's reply:-- 'dear mr. campbell,--in taking up my pen to point out for your private information[ ] those passages in mr. moore's representation of my part of the story which were open to contradiction, i find them of still greater extent than i had supposed; and to deny an assertion _here and there_ would virtually admit the truth of the rest. if, on the contrary, i were to enter into a full exposure of the falsehood of the views taken by mr. moore, i must detail various matters, which, consistently with my principles and feelings, i cannot under the existing circumstances disclose. i may, perhaps, convince you better of the difficulty of the case by an example: it is not true that pecuniary embarrassments were the cause of the disturbed state of lord byron's mind, or formed the chief reason for the arrangements made by him at that time. but is it reasonable for me to expect that you or any one else should believe this, unless i show you what were the causes in question? and this i cannot do. 'i am, &c., 'a. i. noel byron.' [footnote : 'i (campbell) had not time to ask lady byron's permission to print this private letter; but it seemed to me important, and i have published it _meo periculo_.'] campbell then goes on to reprove moore for his injustice to mrs. clermont, whom lord byron had denounced as a spy, but whose respectability and innocence were vouched for by lord byron's own family; and then he pointedly rebukes one false statement of great indelicacy and cruelty concerning lady byron's courtship, as follows:-- 'it is a further mistake on mr. moore's part, and i can prove it to be so, if proof be necessary, to represent lady byron, in the course of their courtship, as one inviting her future husband to correspondence by letters after she had at first refused him. she never proposed a correspondence. on the contrary, he sent her a message after that first refusal, stating that he meant to go abroad, and to travel for some years in the east; that he should depart with a heart aching, but not angry; and that he only begged a verbal assurance that she had still some interest in his happiness. could miss milbanke, as a well-bred woman, refuse a courteous answer to such a message? she sent him a verbal answer, which was merely kind and becoming, but which signified no encouragement that he should renew his offer of marriage. 'after that message, he wrote to her a most interesting letter about himself,--about his views, personal, moral, and religious,--to which it would have been uncharitable not to have replied. the result was an insensibly increasing correspondence, which ended in her being devotedly attached to him. about that time, i occasionally saw lord byron; and though i knew less of him than mr. moore, yet i suspect i knew as much of him as miss milbanke then knew. at that time, he was so pleasing, that, if i had had a daughter with ample fortune and beauty, i should have trusted her in marriage with lord byron. 'mr. moore at that period evidently understood lord byron better than either his future bride or myself; but this speaks more for moore's shrewdness than for byron's ingenuousness of character. 'it is more for lord byron's sake than for his widow's that i resort not to a more special examination of mr. moore's misconceptions. the subject would lead me insensibly into hateful disclosures against poor lord byron, who is more unfortunate in his rash defenders than in his reluctant accusers. happily, his own candour turns our hostility from himself against his defenders. it was only in wayward and bitter remarks that he misrepresented lady byron. he would have defended himself irresistibly if mr. moore had left only his acknowledging passages. but mr. moore has produced a "life" of him which reflects blame on lady byron so dexterously, that "more is meant than meets the ear." the almost universal impression produced by his book is, that lady byron must be a precise and a wan, unwarming spirit, a blue-stocking of chilblained learning, a piece of insensitive goodness. 'who that knows lady byron will not pronounce her to be everything the reverse? will it be believed that this person, so unsuitably matched to her moody lord, has written verses that would do no discredit to byron himself; that her sensitiveness is surpassed and bounded only by her good sense; and that she is '"blest with a temper, whose unclouded ray can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day"? 'she brought to lord byron beauty, manners, fortune, meekness, romantic affection, and everything that ought to have made her to the most transcendent man of genius--_had he been what he should have been_--his pride and his idol. i speak not of lady byron in the commonplace manner of attesting character: i appeal to the gifted mrs. siddons and joanna baillie, to lady charlemont, and to other ornaments of their sex, whether i am exaggerating in the least when i say, that, in their whole lives, they have seen few beings so intellectual and well-tempered as lady byron. 'i wish to be as ingenuous as possible in speaking of her. her manner, i have no hesitation to say, is cool at the first interview, but is modestly, and not insolently, cool: she contracted it, i believe, from being exposed by her beauty and large fortune, in youth, to numbers of suitors, whom she could not have otherwise kept at a distance. but this manner could have had no influence with lord byron; for it vanishes on nearer acquaintance, and has no origin in coldness. all her friends like her frankness the better for being preceded by this reserve. this manner, however, though not the slightest apology for lord byron, has been inimical to lady byron in her misfortunes. it endears her to her friends; but it piques the indifferent. most odiously unjust, therefore, is mr. moore's assertion, that she has had the advantage of lord byron in public opinion. she is, comparatively speaking, unknown to the world; for though she has many friends, that is, a friend in everyone who knows her, yet her pride and purity and misfortunes naturally contract the circle of her acquaintance. 'there is something exquisitely unjust in mr. moore comparing her chance of popularity with lord byron's, the poet who can command men of talents,--putting even mr. moore into the livery of his service,--and who has suborned the favour of almost all women by the beauty of his person and the voluptuousness of his verses. lady byron has nothing to oppose to these fascinations but the truth and justice of her cause. 'you said, mr. moore, that lady byron was unsuitable to her lord: the word is cunningly insidious, and may mean as much or as little as may suit your convenience. but, if she was unsuitable, i remark that it tells all the worse against lord byron. i have not read it in your book (for i hate to wade through it); but they tell me that you have not only warily depreciated lady byron, but that you have described a lady that would have suited him. if this be true, "it is the unkindest cut of all,"--to hold up a florid description of a woman suitable to lord byron, as if in mockery over the forlorn flower of virtue that was drooping in the solitude of sorrow. 'but i trust there is no such passage in your book. surely you must be conscious of your woman, with her "_virtue loose about her, who would have suited lord byron_," to be as imaginary a being as the woman without a head. a woman to suit lord byron! poo, poo! i could paint to you the woman that could have _matched_ him, if i had not bargained to say as little as possible against him. 'if lady byron was not suitable to lord byron, so much the worse for his lordship; for let me tell you, mr. moore, that neither your poetry, nor lord byron's, nor all our poetry put together, ever delineated a more interesting being than the woman whom you have so coldly treated. this was not kicking the dead lion, but wounding the living lamb, who was already bleeding and shorn, even unto the quick. i know, that, collectively speaking, the world is in lady byron's favour; but it is coldly favourable, and you have not warmed its breath. time, however, cures everything; and even your book, mr. moore, may be the means of lady byron's character being better appreciated. 'thomas campbell.' here is what seems to be a gentlemanly, high-spirited, chivalric man, throwing down his glove in the lists for a pure woman. what was the consequence? campbell was crowded back, thrust down, overwhelmed, his eyes filled with dust, his mouth with ashes. there was a general confusion and outcry, which reacted both on him and on lady byron. her friends were angry with him for having caused this re-action upon her; and he found himself at once attacked by lady byron's enemies, and deserted by her friends. all the literary authorities of his day took up against him with energy. christopher north, professor of moral philosophy in the edinburgh university, in a fatherly talk in 'the noctes,' condemns campbell, and justifies moore, and heartily recommends his 'biography,' as containing nothing materially objectionable on the score either of manners or morals. thus we have it in 'the noctes' of may :-- 'mr. moore's biographical book i admired; and i said so to my little world, in two somewhat lengthy articles, which many approved, and some, i am sorry to know, condemned.' on the point in question between moore and campbell, north goes on to justify moore altogether, only admitting that 'it would have been better had he not printed any coarse expression of byron's about the old people;' and, finally, he closes by saying,-- 'i do not think that, under the circumstances, mr. campbell himself, had he written byron's "life," could have spoken, with the sentiments he then held, in a better, more manly, and more gentlemanly spirit, in so far as regards lady byron, than mr. moore did: and i am sorry he has been deterred from "swimming" through mr. moore's work by the fear of "wading;" for the waters are clear and deep; nor is there any mud, either at the bottom or round the margin.' of the conduct of lady byron's so-called friends on this occasion it is more difficult to speak. there has always been in england, as john stuart mill says, a class of women who glory in the utter self-abnegation of the wife to the husband, as the special crown of womanhood. their patron saint is the griselda of chaucer, who, when her husband humiliates her, and treats her as a brute, still accepts all with meek, unquestioning, uncomplaining devotion. he tears her from her children; he treats her with personal abuse; he repudiates her,--sends her out to nakedness and poverty; he installs another mistress in his house, and sends for the first to be her handmaid and his own: and all this the meek saint accepts in the words of milton,-- 'my guide and head, what thou hast said is just and right.' accordingly, miss martineau tells us that when campbell's defence came out, coupled with a note from lady byron,-- 'the first obvious remark was, that there was no real disclosure; and the whole affair had the appearance of a desire, on the part of lady byron, to exculpate herself, while yet no adequate information was given. many, who had regarded her with favour till then, gave her up so far as to believe that feminine weakness had prevailed at last.' the saint had fallen from her pedestal! she had shown a human frailty! quite evidently she is not a griselda, but possessed with a shocking desire to exculpate herself and her friends. is it, then, only to slandered _men_ that the privilege belongs of desiring to exculpate themselves and their families and their friends from unjust censure? lord byron had made it a life-long object to vilify and defame his wife. he had used for that one particular purpose every talent that he possessed. he had left it as a last charge to moore to pursue the warfare after death, which moore had done to some purpose; and christopher north had informed lady byron that her private affairs were discussed, not only with the whisky-toddy of the noctes club, but in every drawing-room in may fair; and declared that the 'dear duck' letter, and various other matters, must be explained, and urged somebody to speak; and then, when campbell does speak with all the energy of a real gentleman, a general outcry and an indiscriminate _mêlée_ is the result. the world, with its usual injustice, insisted on attributing campbell's defence to lady byron. the reasons for this seemed to be, first, that campbell states that he did _not_ ask lady byron's leave, and that she did _not_ authorise him to defend her; and, second, that, having asked some explanations from her, he prints a note in which she declines to give any. we know not how a lady could more gently yet firmly decline to make a gentleman her confidant than in this published note of lady byron; and yet, to this day, campbell is spoken of by the world as having been lady byron's confidant at this time. this simply shows how very trustworthy are the general assertions about lady byron's confidants. the final result of the matter, so far as campbell was concerned, is given in miss martineau's sketch, in the following paragraph:-- 'the whole transaction was one of poor campbell's freaks. he excused himself by saying it was a mistake of his; that he did not know what he was about when he published the paper.' it is the saddest of all sad things to see a man, who has spoken from moral convictions, in advance of his day, and who has taken a stand for which he ought to honour himself, thus forced down and humiliated, made to doubt his own better nature and his own honourable feelings, by the voice of a wicked world. campbell had no steadiness to stand by the truth he saw. his whole story is told incidentally in a note to 'the noctes,' in which it is stated, that in an article in 'blackwood,' january , on scotch poets, the palm was given to hogg over campbell; 'one ground being, that _he_ could drink "eight and twenty tumblers of punch, while campbell is hazy upon seven."' there is evidence in 'the noctes,' that in due time campbell was reconciled to moore, and was always suitably ashamed of having tried to be any more generous or just than the men of his generation. and so it was settled as a law to jacob, and an ordinance in israel, that the byron worship should proceed, and that all the earth should keep silence before him. 'don juan,' that, years before, had been printed by stealth, without murray's name on the title-page, that had been denounced as a book which no woman should read, and had been given up as a desperate enterprise, now came forth in triumph, with banners flying and drums beating. every great periodical in england that had fired moral volleys of artillery against it in its early days, now humbly marched in the glorious procession of admirers to salute this edifying work of genius. 'blackwood,' which in the beginning had been the most indignantly virtuous of the whole, now grovelled and ate dust as the serpent in the very abjectness of submission. odoherty (maginn) declares that he would rather have written a page of 'don juan' than a ton of 'childe harold.'[ ] timothy tickler informs christopher north that he means to tender murray, as emperor of the north, an interleaved copy[ ] of 'don juan,' with illustrations, as the _only_ work of byron's he cares much about; and christopher north, professor of _moral_ philosophy in edinburgh, smiles approval! we are not, after this, surprised to see the assertion, by a recent much-aggrieved writer in 'the london era,' that 'lord byron has been, more than any other man of the age, the _teacher_ of the _youth_ of england;' and that he has 'seen his works on the bookshelves of _bishops'_ palaces, no less than on the tables of university undergraduates.' [footnote : 'noctes,' july .] [footnote : 'noctes,' september .] a note to 'the noctes' of july informs us of another instance of lord byron's triumph over english morals:-- 'the mention of this' (byron's going to greece) reminds me, by the by, of what the guiccioli said in her visit to london, where she was so lionised as having been the lady-love of byron. she was rather fond of speaking on the subject, designating herself by some venetian pet phrase, which she interpreted as meaning "love-wife."' what was lady byron to do in such a world? she retired to the deepest privacy, and devoted herself to works of charity, and the education of her only child,--that brilliant daughter, to whose eager, opening mind the whole course of current literature must bring so many trying questions in regard to the position of her father and mother,--questions that the mother might not answer. that the cruel inconsiderateness of the literary world added thorns to the intricacies of the path trodden by every mother who seeks to guide, restrain, and educate a strong, acute, and precociously intelligent child, must easily be seen. what remains to be said of lady byron's life shall be said in the words of miss martineau, published in 'the atlantic monthly:'-- 'her life, thenceforth, was one of unremitting bounty to society administered with as much skill and prudence as benevolence. she lived in retirement, changing her abode frequently; partly for the benefit of her child's education and the promotion of her benevolent schemes, and partly from a restlessness which was one of the few signs of injury received from the spoiling of associations with _home_. 'she felt a satisfaction which her friends rejoiced in when her daughter married lord king, at present the earl of lovelace, in and when grief upon grief followed, in the appearance of mortal disease in her only child, her quiet patience stood her in good stead as before. she even found strength to appropriate the blessings of the occasion, and took comfort, as did her dying daughter, in the intimate friendship, which grew closer as the time of parting drew nigh. 'lady lovelace died in ; and, for her few remaining years, lady byron was devoted to her grandchildren. but nearer calls never lessened her interest in remoter objects. her mind was of the large and clear quality which could comprehend remote interests in their true proportions, and achieve each aim as perfectly as if it were the only one. her agents used to say that it was impossible to mistake her directions; and thus her business was usually well done. there was no room, in her case, for the ordinary doubts, censures, and sneers about the misapplication of bounty. 'her taste did not lie in the "charity-ball" direction; her funds were not lavished in encouraging hypocrisy and improvidence among the idle and worthless; and the quality of her charity was, in fact, as admirable as its quantity. her chief aim was the extension and improvement of popular education; but there was no kind of misery that she heard of that she did not palliate to the utmost, and no kind of solace that her quick imagination and sympathy could devise that she did not administer. 'in her methods, she united consideration and frankness with singular success. for one instance among a thousand: a lady with whom she had had friendly relations some time before, and who became impoverished in a quiet way by hopeless sickness, preferred poverty with an easy conscience to a competency attended by some uncertainty about the perfect rectitude of the resource. lady byron wrote to an intermediate person exactly what she thought of the case. whether the judgment of the sufferer was right or mistaken was nobody's business but her own: this was the first point. next, a voluntary poverty could never be pitied by anybody: that was the second. but it was painful to others to think of the mortification to benevolent feelings which attends poverty; and there could be no objection to arresting that pain. therefore she, lady byron, had lodged in a neighbouring bank the sum of one hundred pounds, to be used for benevolent purposes; and, in order to preclude all outside speculation, she had made the money payable to the order of the intermediate person, so that the sufferer's name need not appear at all. 'five and thirty years of unremitting secret bounty like this must make up a great amount of human happiness; but this was only one of a wide variety of methods of doing good. it was the unconcealable magnitude of her beneficence, and its wise quality, which made her a second time the theme of english conversation in all honest households within the four seas. years ago, it was said far and wide that lady byron was doing more good than anybody else in england; and it was difficult to imagine how anybody could do more. 'lord byron spent every shilling that the law allowed him out of her property while he lived, and left away from her every shilling that he could deprive her of by his will; yet she had, eventually, a large income at her command. in the management of it, she showed the same wise consideration that marked all her practical decisions. she resolved to spend her whole income, seeing how much the world needed help at the moment. her care was for the existing generation, rather than for a future one, which would have its own friends. she usually declined trammelling herself with annual subscriptions to charities; preferring to keep her freedom from year to year, and to achieve definite objects by liberal bounty, rather than to extend partial help over a large surface which she could not herself superintend. 'it was her first industrial school that awakened the admiration of the public, which had never ceased to take an interest in her, while sorely misjudging her character. we hear much now--and everybody hears it with pleasure--of the spread of education in "common things;" but long before miss coutts inherited her wealth, long before a name was found for such a method of training, lady byron had instituted the thing, and put it in the way of making its own name. 'she was living at ealing, in middlesex, in ; and there she opened one of the first industrial schools in england, if not the very first. she sent out a master to switzerland, to be instructed in de fellenburgh's method. she took, on lease, five acres of land, and spent several hundred pounds in rendering the buildings upon it fit for the purposes of the school. a liberal education was afforded to the children of artisans and labourers during the half of the day when they were not employed in the field or garden. the allotments were rented by the boys, who raised and sold produce, which afforded them a considerable yearly profit if they were good workmen. those who worked in the field earned wages; their labour being paid by the hour, according to the capability of the young labourer. they kept their accounts of expenditure and receipts, and acquired good habits of business while learning the occupation of their lives. some mechanical trades were taught, as well as the arts of agriculture. 'part of the wisdom of the management lay in making the pupils pay. of one hundred pupils, half were boarders. they paid little more than half the expenses of their maintenance, and the day-scholars paid threepence per week. of course, a large part of the expense was borne by lady byron, besides the payments she made for children who could not otherwise have entered the school. the establishment flourished steadily till , when the owner of the land required it back for building purposes. during the eighteen years that the ealing schools were in action, they did a world of good in the way of incitement and example. the poor-law commissioners pointed out their merits. land-owners and other wealthy persons visited them, and went home and set up similar establishments. during those years, too, lady byron had herself been at work in various directions to the same purpose. 'a more extensive industrial scheme was instituted on her leicestershire property, and not far off she opened a girls' school and an infant school; and when a season of distress came, as such seasons are apt to befall the poor leicestershire stocking-weavers, lady byron fed the children for months together, till they could resume their payments. these schools were opened in . the next year, she built a schoolhouse on her warwickshire property; and, five years later, she set up an iron schoolhouse on another leicestershire estate. 'by this time, her educational efforts were costing her several hundred pounds a year in the mere maintenance of existing establishments; but this is the smallest consideration in the case. she has sent out tribes of boys and girls into life fit to do their part there with skill and credit and comfort. perhaps it is a still more important consideration, that scores of teachers and trainers have been led into their vocation, and duly prepared for it, by what they saw and learned in her schools. as for the best and the worst of the ealing boys, the best have, in a few cases, been received into the battersea training school, whence they could enter on their career as teachers to the greatest advantage; and the worst found their school a true reformatory, before reformatory schools were heard of. at bristol, she bought a house for a reformatory for girls; and there her friend, miss carpenter, faithfully and energetically carries out her own and lady byron's aims, which were one and the same. 'there would be no end if i were to catalogue the schemes of which these are a specimen. it is of more consequence to observe that her mind was never narrowed by her own acts, as the minds of benevolent people are so apt to be. to the last, her interest in great political movements, at home and abroad, was as vivid as ever. she watched every step won in philosophy, every discovery in science, every token of social change and progress in every shape. her mind was as liberal as her heart and hand. no diversity of opinion troubled her: she was respectful to every sort of individuality, and indulgent to all constitutional peculiarities. it must have puzzled those who kept up the notion of her being "strait-laced" to see how indulgent she was even to epicurean tendencies,--the remotest of all from her own. 'but i must stop; for i do not wish my honest memorial to degenerate into panegyric. among her latest known acts were her gifts to the sicilian cause, and her manifestations on behalf of the antislavery cause in the united states. her kindness to william and ellen craft must be well known there; and it is also related in the newspapers, that she bequeathed a legacy to a young american to assist him under any disadvantages he might suffer as an abolitionist. 'all these deeds were done under a heavy burden of ill health. before she had passed middle life, her lungs were believed to be irreparably injured by partial ossification. she was subject to attacks so serious, that each one, for many years, was expected to be the last. she arranged her affairs in correspondence with her liabilities: so that the same order would have been found, whether she died suddenly or after long warning. 'she was to receive one more accession of outward greatness before she departed. she became baroness wentworth in november, . this is one of the facts of her history; but it is the least interesting to us, as probably to her. we care more to know that her last days were bright in honour, and cheered by the attachment of old friends worthy to pay the duty she deserved. above all, it is consoling to know that she who so long outlived her only child was blessed with the unremitting and tender care of her grand-daughter. she died on the th of may, . 'the portrait of lady byron as she was at the time of her marriage is probably remembered by some of my readers. it is very engaging. her countenance afterwards became much worn; but its expression of thoughtfulness and composure was very interesting. her handwriting accorded well with the character of her mind. it was clear, elegant, and womanly. her manners differed with circumstances. her shrinking sensitiveness might embarrass one visitor; while another would be charmed with her easy, significant, and vivacious conversation. it depended much on whom she talked with. the abiding certainty was, that she had strength for the hardest of human trials, and the composure which belongs to strength. for the rest, it is enough to point to her deeds, and to the mourning of her friends round the chasm which her departure has made in their life, and in the society in which it is spent. all that could be done in the way of personal love and honour was done while she lived: it only remains now to see that her name and fame are permitted to shine forth at last in their proper light.' we have simply to ask the reader whether a life like this was not the best, the noblest answer that a woman could make to a doubting world. chapter v. the attack on lady byron's grave. we have now brought the review of the antagonism against lady byron down to the period of her death. during all this time, let the candid reader ask himself which of these two parties seems to be plotting against the other. _which_ has been active, aggressive, unscrupulous? which has been silent, quiet, unoffending? which of the two has laboured to make a party, and to make that party active, watchful, enthusiastic? have we not proved that lady byron remained perfectly silent during lord byron's life, patiently looking out from her retirement to see the waves of popular sympathy, that once bore her up, day by day retreating, while his accusations against her were resounding in his poems over the whole earth? and after lord byron's death, when all the world with one consent began to give their memorials of him, and made it appear, by their various 'recollections of conversations,' how incessantly he had obtruded his own version of the separation upon every listener, did she manifest any similar eagerness? lady byron had seen the 'blackwood' coming forward, on the first appearance of 'don juan,' to rebuke the cowardly lampoon in words eloquent with all the unperverted vigour of an honest englishman. under the power of the great conspirator, she had seen _that_ 'blackwood' become the very eager recipient and chief reporter of the stories against her, and the blind admirer of her adversary. all this time, she lost sympathy daily by being silent. the world will embrace those who court it; it will patronise those who seek its favour; it will make parties for those who seek to make parties: but for the often accused who do not speak, who make no confidants and no parties, the world soon loses sympathy. when at last she spoke, christopher north says '_she astonished the world_.' calm, clear, courageous, exact as to time, date, and circumstance, was that first testimony, backed by the equally clear testimony of dr. lushington. it showed that her secret had been kept even from her parents. in words precise, firm, and fearless, she says, 'if these statements on which dr. lushington and sir samuel romilly formed their opinion were false, the responsibility and the odium should rest with me only.' christopher north did not pretend to disbelieve this statement. he breathed not a doubt of lady byron's word. he spoke of the crime indicated, as one which might have been foul as the grave's corruption, unforgivable as the sin against the holy ghost. he rebuked the wife for bearing this testimony, even to save the memory of her dead father and mother, and, in the same breath, declared that she ought now to go farther, and speak fully the one awful word, and then--'a mitigated sentence, or eternal silence!' but lady byron took no counsel with the world, nor with the literary men of her age. one knight, with some small remnant of england's old chivalry, set lance in rest for her: she saw him beaten back unhorsed, rolled in the dust, and ingloriously vanquished, and perceived that henceforth nothing but injury could come to any one who attempted to speak for her. she turned from the judgments of man and the fond and natural hopes of human nature, to lose herself in sacred ministries to the downcast and suffering. what nobler record for woman could there be than that which miss martineau has given? particularly to be noted in lady byron was her peculiar interest in reclaiming fallen women. among her letters to mrs. prof. follen, of cambridge, was one addressed to a society of ladies who had undertaken this difficult work. it was full of heavenly wisdom and of a large and tolerant charity. fénelon truly says, it is only perfection that can tolerate imperfection; and the very purity of lady byron's nature made her most forbearing and most tender towards the weak and the guilty. this letter, with all the rest of lady byron's, was returned to the hands of her executors after her death. its publication would greatly assist the world in understanding the peculiarities of its writer's character. lady byron passed to a higher life in .[ ] after her death, i looked for the publication of her memoir and letters as the event that should give her the same opportunity of being known and judged by her life and writings that had been so freely accorded to lord byron. [footnote : miss martineau's biographical sketches.] she was, in her husband's estimation, a woman of genius. she was the friend of many of the first men and women of her times, and corresponded with them on topics of literature, morals, religion, and, above all, on the benevolent and philanthropic movements of the day, whose principles she had studied with acute observation, and in connection with which she had acquired a large experience. the knowledge of her, necessarily diffused by such a series of letters, would have created in america a comprehension of her character, of itself sufficient to wither a thousand slanders. such a memoir was contemplated. lady byron's letters to mrs. follen were asked for from boston; and i was applied to by a person in england, who i have recently learned is one of the existing trustees of lady byron's papers, to furnish copies of her letters to me for the purpose of a memoir. before i had time to have copies made, another letter came, stating that the trustees had concluded that it was best not to publish any memoir of lady byron at all. this left the character of lady byron in our american world precisely where the slanders of her husband, the literature of the noctes club, and the unanimous verdict of may fair as recorded by 'blackwood,' had placed it. true, lady byron had nobly and quietly lived down these slanders in england by deeds that made her name revered as a saint among all those who valued saintliness. but in france and italy, and in these united states, i have had abundant opportunity to know that lady byron stood judged and condemned on the testimony of her brilliant husband, and that the feeling against her had a vivacity and intensity not to be overcome by mere allusions to a virtuous life in distant england. this is strikingly shown by one fact. in the american edition of moore's 'life of byron,' by claxton, remsen, and haffelfinger, philadelphia, , which i have been consulting, lady byron's statement, which is found in the appendix of murray's standard edition, _is entirely omitted_. every other paper is carefully preserved. this one incident showed how the tide of sympathy was setting in this new world. of course, there is no stronger power than a virtuous life; but, for a virtuous life to bear testimony to the world, its details must be _told_, so that the world may know them. suppose the memoirs of clarkson and wilberforce had been suppressed after their death, how soon might the coming tide have wiped out the record of their bravery and philanthropy! suppose the lives of francis xavier and henry martyn had never been written, and we had lost the remembrance of what holy men could do and dare in the divine enthusiasm of christian faith! suppose we had no fénelon, no book of martyrs! would there not be an outcry through all the literary and artistic world if a perfect statue were allowed to remain buried for ever because some painful individual history was connected with its burial and its recovery? but is not a noble life a greater treasure to mankind than any work of art? we have heard much mourning over the burned autobiography of lord byron, and seen it treated of in a magazine as 'the lost chapter in history.' the lost chapter in history is _lady_ byron's autobiography in her life and letters; and the suppression of them is the root of this whole mischief. we do not in this intend to censure the parties who came to this decision. the descendants of lady byron revere her memory, as they have every reason to do. that it was _their_ desire to have a memoir of her published, i have been informed by an individual of the highest character in england, who obtained the information directly from lady byron's grandchildren. but the trustees in whose care the papers were placed drew back on examination of them, and declared, that, as lady byron's papers could not be fully published, they should regret anything that should call public attention once more to the discussion of her history. reviewing this long history of the way in which the literary world had treated lady byron, we cannot wonder that her friends should have doubted whether there was left on earth any justice, or sense that anything is due to woman as a human being with human rights. evidently this lesson had taken from them all faith in the moral sense of the world. rather than re-awaken the discussion, so unsparing, so painful, and so indelicate, which had been carried on so many years around that loved form, now sanctified by death, they sacrificed the dear pleasure of the memorials, and the interests of mankind, who have an indefeasible right to all the help that can be got from the truth of history as to the living power of virtue, and the reality of that great victory that overcometh the world. there are thousands of poor victims suffering in sadness, discouragement, and poverty; heart-broken wives of brutal, drunken husbands; women enduring nameless wrongs and horrors which the delicacy of their sex forbids them to utter,--to whom the lovely letters lying hidden away under those seals might bring courage and hope from springs not of this world. but though the friends of lady byron, perhaps from despair of their kind, from weariness of the utter injustice done her, wished to cherish her name in silence, and to confine the story of her virtues to that circle who knew her too well to ask a proof, or utter a doubt, the partisans of lord byron were embarrassed with no such scruple. lord byron had artfully contrived during his life to place his wife in such an antagonistic position with regard to himself, that his intimate friends were forced to believe that one of the two had deliberately and wantonly injured the other. the published statement of lady byron contradicted boldly and point-blank all the statement of her husband concerning the separation; so that, unless _she_ was convicted as a false witness, _he_ certainly was. the best evidence of this is christopher north's own shocked, astonished statement, and the words of the noctes club. the noble life that lady byron lived after this hushed every voice, and silenced even the most desperate calumny, _while she was in the world_. in the face of lady byron as the world saw her, of what use was the talk of clytemnestra, and the assertion that she had been a mean, deceitful conspirator against her husband's honour in life, and stabbed his memory after death? but when she was in her grave, when her voice and presence and good deeds no more spoke for her, and a new generation was growing up that knew her not, _then_ was the time selected to revive the assault on her memory, and to say over her grave what none would ever have dared to say of her while living. during these last two years, i have been gradually awakening to the evidence of a new crusade against the memory of lady byron, which respected no sanctity,--not even that last and most awful one of death. nine years after her death, when it was fully understood that no story on her side or that of her friends was to be forthcoming, then her calumniators raked out from the ashes of her husband's sepulchre all his bitter charges, to state them over in even stronger and more indecent forms. there seems to be reason to think that the materials supplied by lord byron for such a campaign yet exist in society. to 'the noctes' of november , there is the following note _apropos_ to a discussion of the byron question:-- 'byron's memoirs, given by him to moore, were burned, as everybody knows. but, before this, moore had lent them to several persons. mrs. home purvis, afterwards viscountess of canterbury, is _known_ to have sat up all one night, in which, aided by her daughter, she had a copy made. i have the strongest reason for believing that one other person made a copy; for the description of the first twenty-four hours after the marriage ceremonial has been in my hands. _not until after the death of lady byron, and hobhouse_, who was the poet's literary executor, can the poet's autobiography see the light; _but i am certain it will be published_.' thus speaks mackenzie in a note to a volume of 'the noctes,' published in america in . lady byron died in . nine years after lady byron's death, when it was ascertained that her story was not to see the light, when there were no means of judging her character by her own writings, commenced a well-planned set of operations to turn the public attention once more to lord byron, and to represent him as an injured man, whose testimony had been unjustly suppressed. it was quite possible, supposing copies of the autobiography to exist, that this might occasion a call from the generation of to-day, in answer to which the suppressed work might appear. this was a rather delicate operation to commence; but the instrument was not wanting. it was necessary that the subject should be first opened by some irresponsible party, whom more powerful parties might, as by accident, recognise and patronise, and on whose weakness they might build something stronger. just such an instrument was to be found in paris. the mistress of lord byron could easily be stirred up and flattered to come before the world with a book which should re-open the whole controversy; and she proved a facile tool. at first, the work appeared prudently in french, and was called 'lord byron jugé par les témoins de sa vie,' and was rather a failure. then it was translated into english, and published by bentley. the book was inartistic, and helplessly, childishly stupid as to any literary merits,--a mere mass of gossip and twaddle; but after all, when one remembers the taste of the thousands of circulating-library readers, it must not be considered the less likely to be widely read on that account. it is only once in a century that a writer of real genius has the art to tell his story so as to take both the cultivated few and the average many. de foe and john bunyan are almost the only examples. but there is a certain class of reading that sells and spreads, and exerts a vast influence, which the upper circles of literature despise too much ever to fairly estimate its power. however, the guiccioli book did not want for patrons in the high places of literature. the 'blackwood'--the old classic magazine of england; the defender of conservatism and aristocracy; the paper of lockhart, wilson, hogg, walter scott, and a host of departed grandeurs--was deputed to usher into the world this book, and to recommend it and its author to the christian public of the nineteenth century. the following is the manner in which 'blackwood' calls attention to it:-- 'one of the most beautiful of the songs of béranger is that addressed to his lisette, in which he pictures her, in old age, narrating to a younger generation the loves of their youth; decking his portrait with flowers at each returning spring, and reciting the verses that had been inspired by her vanished charms:-- 'lorsque les yeux chercheront sous vos rides les traits charmants qui m'auront inspiré, des doux récits les jeunes gens avides, diront: quel fut cet ami tant pleuré? de mon amour peignez, s'il est possible, l'ardeur, l'ivresse, et même les soupçons, et benne vieille, au coin d'un feu paisible de votre ami répétez les chansons. "on vous dira: savait-il être aimable? et sans rougir vous direz: je l'aimais. d'un trait méchant se montra-t-il capable? avec orgueil vous répondrez: jamais!"' 'this charming picture,' 'blackwood' goes on to say, 'has been realised in the case of a poet greater than béranger, and by a mistress more famous than lisette. the countess guiccioli has at length given to the world her "recollections of lord byron." the book first appeared in france under the title of "lord byron jugé par les témoins de sa vie," without the name of the countess. a more unfortunate designation could hardly have been selected. the "witnesses of his life" told us nothing but what had been told before over and over again; and the uniform and exaggerated tone of eulogy which pervaded the whole book was fatal to any claim on the part of the writer to be considered an impartial judge of the wonderfully mixed character of byron. '_when, however, the book is regarded as the avowed production of the countess guiccioli, it derives value and interest from its very faults._[ ] there is something inexpressibly touching in the picture of the old lady calling up the phantoms of half a century ago; not faded and stricken by the hand of time, but brilliant and gorgeous as they were when byron, in his manly prime of genius and beauty, first flashed upon her enraptured sight, and she gave her whole soul up to an absorbing passion, the embers of which still glow in her heart. [footnote : the italics are mine.--h. b. s.] 'to her there has been no change, no decay. the god whom she worshipped with all the ardour of her italian nature at seventeen is still the "pythian of the age" to her at seventy. to try such a book by the ordinary canons of criticism would be as absurd as to arraign the authoress before a jury of british matrons, or to prefer a bill of indictment against the sultan for bigamy to a middlesex grand jury.' this, then, is the introduction which one of the oldest and most classical periodicals of great britain gives to a very stupid book, simply because it was written by lord byron's mistress. _that fact_, we are assured, lends grace even to its faults. having brought the authoress upon the stage, the review now goes on to define her position, and assure the christian world that 'the countess guiccioli was the daughter of an impoverished noble. at the age of sixteen, she was taken from a convent, and sold as third wife to the count guiccioli, who was old, rich, and profligate. a fouler prostitution never profaned the name of marriage. a short time afterwards, she accidentally met lord byron. outraged and rebellious nature vindicated itself in the deep and devoted passion with which he inspired her. with the full assent of husband, father, and brother, and in compliance with the usages of italian society, he was shortly afterwards installed in the office, and invested with all the privileges, of her "cavalier servente."' it has been asserted that the marquis de boissy, the late husband of this guiccioli lady, was in the habit of introducing her in fashionable circles as 'the marquise de boissy, my wife, formerly mistress to lord byron'! we do not give the story as a verity; yet, in the review of this whole history, we may be pardoned for thinking it quite possible. the mistress, being thus vouched for and presented as worthy of sympathy and attention by one of the oldest and most classic organs of english literature, may now proceed in her work of glorifying the popular idol, and casting abuse on the grave of the dead wife. her attacks on lady byron are, to be sure, less skilful and adroit than those of lord byron. they want his literary polish and tact; but what of that? 'blackwood' assures us that even the faults of manner derive a peculiar grace from the fact that the narrator is lord byron's mistress; and so we suppose the literary world must find grace in things like this:-- 'she has been called, after his words, the moral clytemnestra of her husband. such a surname is severe: but the repugnance we feel to condemning a woman cannot prevent our listening to the voice of justice, which tells us that the comparison is still in favour of the guilty one of antiquity; for _she_, driven to crime by fierce passion overpowering reason, at least only deprived her husband of physical life, and, in committing the deed, exposed herself to all its consequences; while lady byron left her husband at the very moment that she saw him struggling amid a thousand shoals in the stormy sea of embarrassments created by his marriage, and precisely when he more than ever required a friendly, tender, and indulgent hand to save him. 'besides, she shut herself up in silence a thousand times more cruel than clytemnestra's poniard: _that_ only killed the body; whereas lady byron's silence was destined to kill the soul,--and such a soul!--leaving the door open to calumny, and making it to be supposed that her silence was magnanimity destined to cover over frightful wrongs, perhaps even depravity. in vain did he, feeling his conscience at ease, implore some inquiry and examination. she refused; and the only favour she granted was to send him, one fine day, two persons to see whether he were not mad. 'and, why, then, had she believed him mad? because she, a methodical, inflexible woman, with that unbendingness which a profound moralist calls the worship rendered to pride by a feelingless soul,--because she could not understand the possibility of tastes and habits different to those of ordinary routine, or of her own starched life. not to be hungry when she was; not to sleep at night, but to write while she was sleeping, and to sleep when she was up; in short, to gratify the requirements of material and intellectual life at hours different to hers,--all that was not merely annoying for her, but it must be _madness_; or, if not, it betokened depravity that she could neither submit to nor tolerate without perilling her own morality. 'such was the grand secret of the cruel silence which exposed lord byron to the most malignant interpretations, to all the calumny and revenge of his enemies. 'she was, perhaps, the only woman in the world so strangely organised,--the only one, perhaps, capable of not feeling happy and proud at belonging to a man superior to the rest of humanity; and fatally was it decreed that this woman _alone_ of her species should be lord byron's wife!' in a note is added,-- 'if an imaginary fear, and even an unreasonable jealousy, may be her excuse (just as one excuses a monomania), can one equally forgive her silence? such a silence is morally what are physically the poisons which kill at once, and defy all remedies; thus insuring the culprit's safety. this silence it is which will ever be her crime; for by it she poisoned the life of her husband.' the book has several chapters devoted to lord byron's peculiar virtues; and under the one devoted to magnanimity and heroism, his _forgiving_ disposition receives special attention. the climax of all is stated to be that he forgave lady byron. all the world knew that, since he had declared this fact in a very noisy and impassioned manner in the fourth canto of 'childe harold,' together with a statement of the wrongs which he forgave; but the guiccioli thinks his virtue, at this period, has not been enough appreciated. in her view, it rose to the sublime. she says of lady byron,-- 'an absolute moral monstrosity, an anomaly in the history of types of female hideousness, had succeeded in showing itself in the light of magnanimity. but false as was this high quality in lady byron, so did it shine out in him true and admirable. the position in which lady byron had placed him, and where she continued to keep him by her harshness, silence, and strange refusals, was one of those which cause such suffering, that the highest degree of self-control seldom suffices to quiet the promptings of human weakness, and to cause persons of even slight sensibility to preserve moderation. yet, with his sensibility and the knowledge of his worth, how did he act? what did he say? i will not speak of his "farewell;" of the care he took to shield her from blame by throwing it on others, by taking much too large a share to himself.' with like vivacity and earnestness does the narrator now proceed to make an incarnate angel of her subject by the simple process of denying everything that he himself ever confessed,--everything that has ever been confessed in regard to him by his best friends. he has been in the world as an angel unawares from his cradle. his guardian did not properly appreciate him, and is consequently mentioned as that _wicked_ lord carlisle. thomas moore is never to be sufficiently condemned for the facts told in his biography. byron's own frank and lawless admissions of evil are set down to a peculiar inability he had for speaking the truth about himself,--sometimes about his near relations; all which does not in the least discourage the authoress from giving a separate chapter on 'lord byron's love of truth.' in the matter of his relations with women, she complacently repeats (what sounds rather oddly as coming from her) lord byron's own assurance, that he _never_ seduced a woman; and also the equally convincing statement, that he had told _her_ (the guiccioli) that his married fidelity to his wife was perfect. she discusses moore's account of the mistress in boy's clothes who used to share byron's apartments in college, and ride with him to races, and whom he presented to _ladies_ as his brother. she has her own view of this matter. the disguised boy was a lady of rank and fashion, who sought lord byron's chambers, as, we are informed, noble ladies everywhere, both in italy and england, were constantly in the habit of doing; throwing themselves at his feet, and imploring permission to become his handmaids. in the authoress's own words, 'feminine overtures still continued to be made to lord byron; but the fumes of incense never hid from his sight his ideal.' we are told that in the case of these poor ladies, generally 'disenchantment took place on his side without a corresponding result on the other: thence many heart-breakings.' nevertheless, we are informed that there followed the indiscretions of these ladies 'none of those proceedings that the world readily forgives, but which his feelings as a man of honour would have condemned.' as to drunkenness, and all that, we are informed he was an anchorite. pages are given to an account of the biscuits and soda-water that on this and that occasion were found to be the sole means of sustenance to this ethereal creature. as to the story of using his wife's money, the lady gives, directly in the face of his own letters and journal, the same account given before by medwin, and which caused such merriment when talked over in the noctes club,--that he had with her only a marriage portion of £ , ; and that, on the separation, he not only paid it back, but doubled it.[ ] [footnote : in 'the noctes' of november, christopher north says, 'i don't call medwin a liar.... whether byron bammed him, or he, by virtue of his own stupidity, was the sole and sufficient bammifier of himself, i know not.' a note says that murray had been much shocked by byron's misstatements to medwin as to money-matters with him. the note goes on to say, 'medwin could not have invented them, for they were mixed up with acknowledged facts; and the presumption is that byron mystified his gallant acquaintance. he was fond of such tricks.'] so on the authoress goes, sowing right and left the most transparent absurdities and misstatements with what carlyle well calls 'a composed stupidity, and a cheerful infinitude of ignorance.' who _should_ know, if not she, to be sure? had not byron told her all about it? and was not his family motto _crede byron_? the 'blackwood,' having a dim suspicion that this confused style of attack and defence in reference to the two parties under consideration may not have great weight, itself proceeds to make the book an occasion for re-opening the controversy of lord byron with his wife. the rest of the review is devoted to a powerful attack on lady byron's character,--the most fearful attack on the memory of a dead woman we have ever seen made by living man. the author proceeds, like a lawyer, to gather up, arrange, and restate, in a most workmanlike manner, the confused accusations of the book. anticipating the objection, that such a re-opening of the inquiry was a violation of the privacy due to womanhood and to the feelings of a surviving family, he says, that though marriage usually is a private matter which the world has no right to intermeddle with or discuss, yet-- 'lord byron's was an exceptional case. it is not too much to say, that, had his marriage been a happy one, the course of events of the present century might have been materially changed; that the genius which poured itself forth in "don juan" and "cain" might have flowed in far different channels; that the ardent love of freedom which sent him to perish at six and thirty at missolonghi might have inspired a long career at home; and that we might at this moment have been appealing to the counsels of his experience and wisdom at an age not exceeding that which was attained by wellington, lyndhurst, and brougham. 'whether the world would have been a gainer or a loser by the exchange is a question which every man must answer for himself, according to his own tastes and opinions; but the possibility of such a change in the course of events warrants us in treating what would otherwise be a strictly private matter as one of public interest. 'more than half a century has elapsed, the actors have departed from the stage, the curtain has fallen; and whether it will ever again be raised so as to reveal the real facts of the drama, may, as we have already observed, be well doubted. but the time has arrived when we may fairly gather up the fragments of evidence, clear them as far as possible from the incrustations of passion, prejudice, and malice, and place them in such order, as, if possible, to enable us to arrive at some probable conjecture as to what the skeleton of the drama originally was.' here the writer proceeds to put together all the facts of lady byron's case, just as an adverse lawyer would put them as against her, and for her husband. the plea is made vigorously and ably, and with an air of indignant severity, as of an honest advocate who is thoroughly convinced that he is pleading the cause of a wronged man who has been ruined in name, ship-wrecked in life, and driven to an early grave, by the arts of a bad woman,--a woman all the more horrible that her malice was disguised under the cloak of religion. having made an able statement of facts, adroitly leaving out one,[ ] of which he could not have been ignorant had he studied the case carefully enough to know all the others, he proceeds to sum up against the criminal thus:-- [footnote : this one fact is, that lord byron might have had an open examination in court, if he had only persisted in refusing the deed of separation.] 'we would deal tenderly with the memory of lady byron. few women have been juster objects of compassion. it would seem as if nature and fortune had vied with each other which should be most lavish of her gifts, and yet that some malignant power had rendered all their bounty of no effect. rank, beauty, wealth, and mental powers of no common order, were hers; yet they were of no avail to secure her happiness. the spoilt child of seclusion, restraint, and parental idolatry, a fate (alike evil for both) cast her into the arms of the spoilt child of genius, passion, and the world. what real or fancied wrongs she suffered, we may never know; but those which she inflicted are sufficiently apparent. 'it is said that there are some poisons so subtle that they will destroy life, and yet leave no trace of their action. the murderer who uses them may escape the vengeance of the law; but he is not the less guilty. so the slanderer who makes no charge; who deals in hints and insinuations: who knows melancholy facts he would not willingly divulge,--things too painful to state; who forbears, expresses pity, sometimes even affection, for his victim, shrugs his shoulders, looks with "the significant eye, which learns to lie with silence,--" is far more guilty than he who tells the bold falsehood which may be met and answered, and who braves the punishment which must follow upon detection. 'lady byron has been called "the moral clytemnestra of her lord." the "moral brinvilliers" would have been a truer designation. 'the conclusion at which we arrive is, that there is no proof whatever that lord byron was guilty of any act that need have caused a separation, or prevented a re-union, and that the imputations upon him rest on the vaguest conjecture; that whatever real or fancied wrongs lady byron may have endured are shrouded in an impenetrable mist of her own creation,--a poisonous miasma in which she enveloped the character of her husband, raised by her breath, and which her breath only could have dispersed. "she dies and makes no sign. o god! forgive her."' as we have been obliged to review accusations on lady byron founded on old greek tragedy, so now we are forced to abridge a passage from a modern conversations-lexicon, that we may understand what sort of comparisons are deemed in good taste in a conservative english review, when speaking of ladies of rank in their graves. under the article 'brinvilliers,' we find as follows:-- 'marguerite d'aubrai, marchioness of brinvilliers.--the singular atrocity of this woman gives her a sort of infamous claim to notice. she was horn in paris in ; being daughter of d'aubrai, lieutenant-civil of paris, who married her to the marquis of brinvilliers. although possessed of attractions to captivate lovers, she was for some time much attached to her husband, but at length became madly in love with a gascon officer. her father imprisoned the officer in the bastille; and, while there, he learned the art of compounding subtle and most mortal poisons; and, when he was released, he taught it to the lady, who exercised it with such success, that, in one year, her father, sister, and two brothers became her victims. she professed the utmost tenderness for her victims, and nursed them assiduously. on her father she is said to have made eight attempts before she succeeded. she was _very religious_, and devoted to works of charity; and visited the hospitals a great deal, where it is said she tried her poisons on the sick.' people have made loud outcries lately, both in america and england, about violating the repose of the dead. we should like to know what they call this. is this, then, what they mean by _respecting_ the dead? let any man imagine a leading review coming out with language equally brutal about his own mother, or any dear and revered friend. men of america, men of england, what do you think of this? when lady byron was publicly branded with the names of the foulest ancient and foulest modern assassins, and lord byron's mistress was publicly taken by the hand, and encouraged to go on and prosper in her slanders, by one of the oldest and most influential british reviews, what was said and what was done in england? that is a question we should be glad to have answered. nothing was done that ever reached us across the water. and why was nothing done? is this language of a kind to be passed over in silence? was it no offence to the house of wentworth to attack the pure character of its late venerable head, and to brand her in her sacred grave with the name of one of the vilest of criminals? might there not properly have been an indignant protest of family solicitors against this insult to the person and character of the baroness wentworth? if virtue went for nothing, benevolence for nothing, a long life of service to humanity for nothing, one would at least have thought, that, in aristocratic countries, rank might have had its rights to decent consideration, and its guardians to rebuke the violation of those rights. we americans understand little of the advantages of rank; but we did understand that it secured certain decorums to people, both while living and when in their graves. from lady byron's whole history, in life and in death, it would appear that we were mistaken. what a life was hers! was ever a woman more evidently desirous of the delicate and secluded privileges of womanhood, of the sacredness of individual privacy? was ever a woman so rudely dragged forth, and exposed to the hardened, vulgar, and unfeeling gaze of mere curiosity?--her maiden secrets of love thrown open to be handled by _roués_; the sanctities of her marriage-chamber desecrated by leering satyrs; her parents and best friends traduced and slandered, till one indignant public protest was extorted from her, as by the rack,--a protest which seems yet to quiver in every word with the indignation of outraged womanly delicacy! then followed coarse blame and coarser comment,--blame for speaking at all, and blame for not speaking more. one manly voice, raised for her in honourable protest, was silenced and overborne by the universal roar of ridicule and reprobation; and henceforth what refuge? only this remained: 'let them that suffer according to the will of god commit the keeping of their souls to him as to a faithful creator.' lady byron turned to this refuge in silence, and filled up her life with a noble record of charities and humanities. so pure was she, so childlike, so artless, so loving, that those who knew her best, feel, to this day, that a memorial of her is like the relic of a saint. and could not all this preserve her grave from insult? o england, england! i speak in sorrow of heart to those who must have known, loved, and revered lady byron, and ask them, of what were you thinking when you allowed a paper of so established literary rank as the 'blackwood,' to present and earnestly recommend to our new world such a compendium of lies as the guiccioli book? is the great english-speaking community, whose waves toss from maine to california, and whose literature is yet to come back in a thousand voices to you, a thing to be so despised? if, as the solicitors of the wentworth family observe, you might be entitled to treat with silent contempt the slanders of a mistress against a wife, was it safe to treat with equal contempt the indorsement and recommendation of those slanders by one of your oldest and most powerful literary authorities? no european magazine has ever had the weight and circulation in america that the 'blackwood' has held. in the days of my youth, when new england was a comparatively secluded section of the earth, the wit and genius of the 'noctes ambrosianæ' were in the mouths of men and maidens, even in our most quiet mountain-towns. there, years ago, we saw all lady byron's private affairs discussed, and felt the weight of christopher north's decisions against her. shelton mackenzie, in his american edition, speaks of the american circulation of 'blackwood' being greater than that in england.[ ] it was and is now reprinted monthly; and, besides that, 'littell's magazine' reproduces all its striking articles, and they come with the weight of long established position. from the very fact that it has long been considered the tory organ, and the supporter of aristocratic orders, all its admissions against the character of individuals in the privileged classes have a double force. [footnote : in the history of 'blackwood's magazine,' prefaced to the american edition of , mackenzie says of the 'noctes' papers, 'great as was their popularity in england it was peculiarly in america that their high merit and undoubted originality received the heartiest recognition and appreciation. nor is this wonderful when it is considered that for one reader of "blackwood's magazine" in the old country there cannot be less than fifty in the new.'] when 'blackwood,' therefore, boldly denounces a lady of high rank as a modern brinvilliers, and no sensation is produced, and no remonstrance follows, what can people in the new world suppose, but that lady byron's character was a point entirely given up; that her depravity was so well established and so fully conceded, that nothing was to be said, and that even the defenders of aristocracy were forced to admit it? i have been blamed for speaking on this subject without consulting lady byron's friends, trustees, and family. more than ten years had elapsed since i had had any intercourse with england, and i knew none of them. how was i to know that any of them were living? i was astonished to learn, for the first time, by the solicitors' letters, that there were trustees, who held in their hands all lady byron's carefully prepared proofs and documents, by which this falsehood might immediately have been refuted. if they had spoken, they might have saved all this confusion. even if bound by restrictions for a certain period of time, they still might have called on a christian public to frown down such a cruel and indecent attack on the character of a noble lady who had been a benefactress to so many in england. they might have stated that the means of wholly refuting the slanders of the 'blackwood' were in their hands, and only delayed in coming forth from regard to the feelings of some in this generation. then might they not have announced her life and letters, that the public might have the same opportunity as themselves for knowing and judging lady byron by her own writings? had this been done, i had been most happy to have remained silent. i have been astonished that any one should have supposed this speaking on my part to be anything less than it is,--the severest act of self-sacrifice that one friend can perform for another, and the most solemn and difficult tribute to justice that a human being can be called upon to render. i have been informed that the course i have taken would be contrary to the wishes of my friend. i think otherwise. i know her strong sense of justice, and her reverence for truth. nothing ever moved her to speak to the public but an attack upon the honour of the dead. in her statement, she says of her parents, 'there is no other near relative to vindicate their memory from insult: i am therefore compelled to break the silence i had hoped always to have observed.' if there was any near relative to vindicate lady byron's memory, i had no evidence of the fact; and i considered the utter silence to be strong evidence to the contrary. in all the storm of obloquy and rebuke that has raged in consequence of my speaking, i have had two unspeakable sources of joy; first, that they could not touch _her_; and, second, that they could not blind the all-seeing god. it is worth being in darkness to see the stars. it has been said that _i_ have drawn on lady byron's name greater obloquy than ever before. i deny the charge. nothing fouler has been asserted of her than the charges in the 'blackwood,' because nothing fouler _could_ be asserted. no satyr's hoof has ever crushed this pearl deeper in the mire than the hoof of the 'blackwood,' but none of them have defiled it or trodden it so deep that god cannot find it in the day 'when he maketh up his jewels.' i have another word, as an american, to say about the contempt shown to our great people in thus suffering the materials of history to be falsified to subserve the temporary purposes of family feeling in england. lord byron belongs not properly either to the byrons or the wentworths. he is not one of their family jewels to be locked up in their cases. he belongs to the world for which he wrote, to which he appealed, and before which he dragged his reluctant, delicate wife to a publicity equal with his own: the world has, therefore, a right to judge him. we americans have been made accessories, after the fact, to every insult and injury that lord byron and the literary men of his day have heaped upon lady byron. we have been betrayed into injustice and a complicity with villany. after lady byron had nobly lived down slanders in england, and died full of years and honours, the 'blackwood' takes occasion to re-open the controversy by recommending a book full of slanders to a rising generation who knew nothing of the past. what was the consequence in america? my attention was first called to the result, not by reading the 'blackwood' article, but by finding in a popular monthly magazine two long articles,--the one an enthusiastic recommendation of the guiccioli book, and the other a lamentation over the burning of the autobiography as a lost chapter in history. both articles represented lady byron as a cold, malignant, mean, persecuting woman, who had been her husband's ruin. they were so full of falsehoods and misstatements as to astonish me. not long after, a literary friend wrote to me, '_will_ you, _can_ you, reconcile it to your conscience to sit still and allow that mistress so to slander that wife,--you, perhaps, the only one knowing the real facts, and able to set them forth?' upon this, i immediately began collecting and reading the various articles and the book, and perceived that the public of this generation were in a way of having false history created, uncontradicted, under their own eyes. i claim for my country, men and women, our right to _true_ history. for years, the popular literature has held up publicly before our eyes the facts as to this man and this woman, and called on us to praise or condemn. let us have _truth_ when we are called on to judge. it is our _right_. there is no conceivable obligation on a human being greater than that of _absolute justice_. it is the deepest personal injury to an honourable mind to be made, through misrepresentation, an accomplice in injustice. when a noble name is accused, any person who possesses truth which might clear it, and withholds that truth, is guilty of a sin against human nature and the inalienable rights of justice. i claim that i have not only a right, but an obligation, to bring in my solemn testimony upon this subject. for years and years, the silence-policy has been tried; and what has it brought forth? as neither word nor deed could be proved against lady byron, her silence has been spoken of as a monstrous, unnatural crime, 'a poisonous miasma,' in which she enveloped the name of her husband. very well; since silence is the crime, i thought i would tell the world that lady byron had spoken. christopher north, years ago, when he condemned her for speaking, said that she should speak further,-- 'she should speak, or some one for her. one word would suffice.' that one word has been spoken. part ii. chapter i. lady byron as i knew her. an editorial in 'the london times' of sept. says:-- 'the perplexing feature in this "true story" is, that it is impossible to distinguish what part in it is the editress's, and what lady byron's own. we are given the _impression_ made on mrs. stowe's mind by lady byron's statements; but it would have been more satisfactory if the statement itself had been reproduced as bare as possible, and been left to make its own impression on the public.' in reply to this, i will say, that in my article i gave a brief synopsis of the subject-matter of lady byron's communications; and i think it must be quite evident to the world that the _main fact_ on which the story turns was one which could not possibly be misunderstood, and the remembrance of which no lapse of time could ever weaken. lady byron's communications were made to me in language clear, precise, terrible; and many of her phrases and sentences i could repeat at this day, word for word. but if i had reproduced them at first, as 'the times' suggests, word for word, the public horror and incredulity would have been doubled. it was necessary that the brutality of the story should, in some degree, be veiled and softened. the publication, by lord lindsay, of lady anne barnard's communication, makes it now possible to tell fully, and in lady byron's own words, certain incidents that yet remain untold. to me, who know the whole history, the revelations in lady anne's account, and the story related by lady byron, are like fragments of a dissected map: they fit together, piece by piece, and form one connected whole. in confirmation of the general facts of this interview, i have the testimony of a sister who accompanied me on this visit, and to whom, immediately after it, i recounted the story. her testimony on the subject is as follows:-- 'my dear sister,--i have a perfect recollection of going with you to visit lady byron at the time spoken of in your published article. we arrived at her house in the morning; and, after lunch, lady byron and yourself spent the whole time till evening alone together. 'after we retired to our apartment that night, you related to me the story given in your published account, though with many more particulars than you have yet thought fit to give to the public. 'you stated to me that lady byron was strongly impressed with the idea that it might be her duty to publish a statement during her lifetime, and also the reasons which induced her to think so. you appeared at that time quite disposed to think that justice required this step, and asked my opinion. we passed most of the night in conversation on the subject,--a conversation often resumed, from time to time, during several weeks in which you were considering what opinion to give. 'i was strongly of opinion that justice required the publication of the truth, but felt exceedingly averse to its being done by lady byron herself during her own lifetime, when she personally would be subject to the comments and misconceptions of motives which would certainly follow such a communication. 'your sister, 'm. f. perkins.' i am now about to complete the account of my conversation with lady byron; but as the credibility of a history depends greatly on the character of its narrator, and as especial pains have been taken to destroy the belief in this story by representing it to be the wanderings of a broken-down mind in a state of dotage and mental hallucination, i shall preface the narrative with some account of lady byron as she was during the time of our mutual acquaintance and friendship. this account may, perhaps, be deemed superfluous in england, where so many knew her; but in america, where, from maine to california, her character has been discussed and traduced, it is of importance to give interested thousands an opportunity of learning what kind of a woman lady byron was. her character as given by lord byron in his journal, after her first refusal of him, is this:-- 'she is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled; which is strange in an heiress, a girl of twenty, a peeress that is to be in her own right, an only child, and a savante, who has always had her own way. she is a poetess, a mathematician, a metaphysician; yet, withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension. any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions and a tenth of her advantages.' such was lady byron at twenty. i formed her acquaintance in the year , during my first visit in england. i met her at a lunch-party in the house of one of her friends. the party had many notables; but, among them all, my attention was fixed principally on lady byron. she was at this time sixty-one years of age, but still had, to a remarkable degree, that personal attraction which is commonly considered to belong only to youth and beauty. her form was slight, giving an impression of fragility; her motions were both graceful and decided; her eyes bright, and full of interest and quick observation. her silvery-white hair seemed to lend a grace to the transparent purity of her complexion, and her small hands had a pearly whiteness. i recollect she wore a plain widow's cap of a transparent material; and was dressed in some delicate shade of lavender, which harmonised well with her complexion. when i was introduced to her, i felt in a moment the words of her husband:-- 'there was awe in the homage that she drew; her spirit seemed as seated on a throne.' calm, self-poised, and thoughtful, she seemed to me rather to resemble an interested spectator of the world's affairs, than an actor involved in its trials; yet the sweetness of her smile, and a certain very delicate sense of humour in her remarks, made the way of acquaintance easy. her first remarks were a little playful; but in a few moments we were speaking on what every one in those days was talking to me about,--the slavery question in america. it need not be remarked, that, when any one subject especially occupies the public mind, those known to be interested in it are compelled to listen to many weary platitudes. lady byron's remarks, however, caught my ear and arrested my attention by their peculiar incisive quality, their originality, and the evidence they gave that she was as well informed on all our matters as the best american statesman could be. i had no wearisome course to go over with her as to the difference between the general government and state governments, nor explanations of the united states constitution; for she had the whole before her mind with a perfect clearness. her morality upon the slavery question, too, impressed me as something far higher and deeper than the common sentimentalism of the day. many of her words surprised me greatly, and gave me new material for thought. i found i was in company with a commanding mind, and hastened to gain instruction from her on another point where my interest had been aroused. i had recently been much excited by kingsley's novels, 'alton locke' and 'yeast,' on the position of religious thought in england. from these works i had gathered, that under the apparent placid uniformity of the established church of england, and of 'good society' as founded on it, there was moving a secret current of speculative enquiry, doubt, and dissent; but i had met, as yet, with no person among my various acquaintances in england who seemed either aware of this fact, or able to guide my mind respecting it. the moment i mentioned the subject to lady byron, i received an answer which showed me that the whole ground was familiar to her, and that she was capable of giving me full information. she had studied with careful thoughtfulness all the social and religious tendencies of england during her generation. one of her remarks has often since occurred to me. speaking of the oxford movement, she said the time had come when the english church could no longer remain as it was. it must either _restore the past, or create a future_. the oxford movement attempted the former; and of the future she was beginning to speak, when our conversation was interrupted by the presentation of other parties. subsequently, in reply to a note from her on some benevolent business, i alluded to that conversation, and expressed a wish that she would finish giving me her views of the religious state of england. a portion of the letter that she wrote me in reply i insert, as being very characteristic in many respects:-- 'various causes have been assigned for the decaying state of the english church; which seems the more strange, because the clergy have improved, morally and intellectually, in the last twenty years. then why should their influence be diminished? i think it is owing to the diffusion of a spirit of free enquiry. 'doubts have arisen in the minds of many who are unhappily bound by subscription _not_ to doubt; and, in consequence, they are habitually _pretending_ either to believe or to disbelieve. the state of denmark cannot but be rotten, when _to seem_ is the first object of the witnesses of truth. 'they may lead better lives, and bring forward abler arguments; but their efforts are paralysed by that unsoundness. i see the high churchman professing to believe in the existence of a church, when the most palpable facts must show him that no _such_ church exists; the "low" churchman professing to believe in exceptional interpositions which his philosophy secretly questions; the "broad" churchman professing as absolute an attachment to the established church as the narrowest could feel, while he is preaching such principles as will at last pull it down. 'i ask you, my friend, whether there would not be more faith, as well as earnestness, if _all_ would speak out. there would be more unanimity too, because they would all agree in a certain basis. would not a wider love supersede the _creed-bound_ charity of sects? 'i am aware that i have touched on a point of difference between us, and i will not regret it; for i think the differences of mind are analogous to those differences of nature, which, in the most comprehensive survey, are the very elements of harmony. 'i am not at all prone to put forth my own opinions; but the tone in which you have written to me claims an unusual degree of openness on my part. i look upon creeds of all kinds as chains,--far worse chains than those you would break,--as the causes of much hypocrisy and infidelity. i hold it to be a sin to _make_ a child say, "_i believe_." lead it to utter that belief spontaneously. i also consider the institution of an exclusive priesthood, though having been of service in some respects, as retarding the progress of christianity at present. i desire to see a _lay_ ministry. 'i will not give you more of my heterodoxy at present: perhaps i need your pardon, connected as you are with the church, for having said so much. 'there are causes of decay known to be at work in my frame, which lead me to believe i may not have time to grow wiser; and i must therefore leave it to others to correct the conclusions i have now formed from my life's experience. i should feel happy to discuss them personally with you; for it would be _soul to soul_. in that confidence i am yours most truly, 'a. i. noel byron.' it is not necessary to prove to the reader that this letter is not in the style of a broken-down old woman subject to mental hallucinations. it shows lady byron's habits of clear, searching analysis, her thoughtfulness, and, above all, that peculiar reverence for _truth_ and sincerity which was a leading characteristic of her moral nature.[ ] it also shows her views of the probable shortness of her stay on earth, derived from the opinion of physicians about her disease, which was a gradual ossification of the lungs. it has been asserted that pulmonary diseases, while they slowly and surely sap the physical life, often appear to give added vigour to the play of the moral and intellectual powers. [footnote : the reader is here referred to lady byron's other letters, in part iii.; which also show the peculiarly active and philosophical character of her mind, and the class of subjects on which it habitually dwelt.] i parted from lady byron, feeling richer in that i had found one more pearl of great price on the shore of life. three years after this, i visited england to obtain a copyright for the issue of my novel of 'dred.' the hope of once more seeing lady byron was one of the brightest anticipations held out to me in this journey. i found london quite deserted; but, hearing that lady byron was still in town, i sent to her, saying in my note, that, in case she was not well enough to call, i would visit her. her reply i give:-- 'my dear friend,--i _will_ be indebted to you for our meeting, as i am barely able to leave my room. it is not a time for small personalities, if they could ever exist with _you_; and, dressed or undressed, i shall hope to see you after two o'clock. 'yours very truly, 'a. i. noel byron.' i found lady byron in her sick-room,--that place which she made so different from the chamber of ordinary invalids. her sick-room seemed only a telegraphic station whence her vivid mind was flashing out all over the world. by her bedside stood a table covered with books, pamphlets, and files of letters, all arranged with exquisite order, and each expressing some of her varied interests. from that sick-bed she still directed, with systematic care, her various works of benevolence, and watched with intelligent attention the course of science, literature, and religion; and the versatility and activity of her mind, the flow of brilliant and penetrating thought on all the topics of the day, gave to the conversations of her retired room a peculiar charm. you forgot that she was an invalid; for she rarely had a word of her own personalities, and the charm of her conversation carried you invariably from herself to the subjects of which she was thinking. all the new books, the literature of the hour, were lighted up by her keen, searching, yet always kindly criticism; and it was charming to get her fresh, genuine, clear-cut modes of expression, so different from the world-worn phrases of what is called good society. her opinions were always perfectly clear and positive, and given with the freedom of one who has long stood in a position to judge the world and its ways from her own standpoint. but it was not merely in general literature and science that her heart lay; it was following always with eager interest the progress of humanity over the whole world. this was the period of the great battle for liberty in kansas. the english papers were daily filled with the thrilling particulars of that desperate struggle, and lady byron entered with heart and soul into it. her first letter to me, at this time, is on this subject. it was while 'dred' was going through the press. 'cambridge terrace, aug. . 'my dear mrs. stowe,--messrs. chambers liked the proposal to publish the kansas letters. the more the public know of these matters, the better prepared they will be for your book. the moment for its publication seems well chosen. there is always in england a floating fund of sympathy for what is above the everyday sordid cares of life; and these better feelings, so nobly invested for the last two years in florence nightingale's career, are just set free. to what will they next be attached? if you can lay hold of them, they may bring about a deeper abolition than any legislative one,--the abolition of the heart-heresy that man's worth comes, not from god, but from man. 'i have been obliged to give up exertion again, but hope soon to be able to call and make the acquaintance of your daughters. in case you wish to consult h. martineau's pamphlets, i send more copies. do not think of answering: i have occupied too much of your time in reading. 'yours affectionately, 'a. i. noel byron.' as soon as a copy of 'dred' was through the press, i sent it to her, saying that i had been reproved by some excellent people for representing too faithfully the profane language of some of the wicked characters. to this she sent the following reply:-- 'your book, dear mrs. stowe, is of the little leaven kind, and must prove a great moral force; perhaps not manifestly so much as secretly. and yet i can hardly conceive so much power without immediate and sensible effects: only there will be a strong disposition to resist on the part of all hollow-hearted professors of religion, whose heathenisms you so unsparingly expose. they have a class feeling like others. 'to the young, and to those who do not reflect much on what is offered to their belief, you will do great good by showing how spiritual food is often adulterated. the bread from heaven is in the same case as bakers' bread. 'if there is truth in what i heard lord byron say, that works of fiction live only by the amount _of truth_ which they contain, your story is sure of a long life. of the few critiques i have seen, the best is in "the examiner." i find an obtuseness as to the spirit and aim of the book, as if you had designed to make the best novel of the season, or to keep up the reputation of one. you are reproached, as walter scott was, with too much scriptural quotation; not, that i have heard, with phrases of an opposite character. 'the effects of such reading till a late hour one evening appeared to influence me very singularly in a dream. the most horrible spectres presented themselves, and i woke in an agony of fear; but a faith still stronger arose, and i became courageous from trust in god, and felt calm. did you do this? it is very insignificant among the many things you certainly will do unknown to yourself. i know more than ever before how to value communion with you. i have sent robertson's sermons for you; and, with kind regards to your family, am 'yours affectionately, 'a. i. noel byron. i was struck in this note with the mention of lord byron, and, the next time i saw her, alluded to it, and remarked upon the peculiar qualities of his mind as shown in some of his more serious conversations with dr. kennedy. she seemed pleased to continue the subject, and went on to say many things of his singular character and genius, more penetrating and more appreciative than is often met with among critics. i told her that i had been from childhood powerfully influenced by him; and began to tell her how much, as a child, i had been affected by the news of his death,--giving up all my plays, and going off to a lonely hillside, where i spent the afternoon thinking of him. she interrupted me before i had quite finished, with a quick, impulsive movement. 'i know all that,' she said: 'i heard it all from mrs. ----; and it was one of the things that made me wish to _know_ you. i think _you_ could understand him.' we talked for some time of him then; she, with her pale face slightly flushed, speaking, as any other great man's widow might, only of what was purest and best in his works, and what were his undeniable virtues and good traits, especially in early life. she told me many pleasant little speeches made by him to herself; and, though there was running through all this a shade of melancholy, one could never have conjectured that there were under all any deeper recollections than the circumstances of an ordinary separation might bring. not many days after, with the unselfishness which was so marked a trait with her, she chose a day when she could be out of her room, and invited our family party, consisting of my husband, sister, and children, to lunch with her. what showed itself especially in this interview was her tenderness for all young people. she had often enquired after mine; asked about their characters, habits, and tastes; and on this occasion she found an opportunity to talk with each one separately, and to make them all feel at ease, so that they were able to talk with her. she seemed interested to point out to them what they should see and study in london; and the charm of her conversation left on their minds an impression that subsequent years have never effaced. i record this incident, because it shows how little lady byron assumed the privileges or had the character of an invalid absorbed in herself, and likely to brood over her own woes and wrongs. here was a family of strangers stranded in a dull season in london, and there was no manner of obligation upon her to exert herself to show them attention. her state of health would have been an all-sufficient reason why she should not do it; and her doing it was simply a specimen of that unselfish care for others, even down to the least detail, of which her life was full. a little while after, at her request, i went, with my husband and son, to pass an evening at her house. there were a few persons present whom she thought i should be interested to know,--a miss goldsmid, daughter of baron goldsmid, and lord ockham, her grandson, eldest son and heir of the earl of lovelace, to whom she introduced my son. i had heard much of the eccentricities of this young nobleman, and was exceedingly struck with his personal appearance. his bodily frame was of the order of the farnese hercules,--a wonderful development of physical and muscular strength. his hands were those of a blacksmith. he was broadly and squarely made, with a finely-shaped head, and dark eyes of surpassing brilliancy. i have seldom seen a more interesting combination than his whole appearance presented. when all were engaged in talking, lady byron came and sat down by me, and glancing across to lord ockham and my son, who were talking together, she looked at me, and smiled. i immediately expressed my admiration of his fine eyes and the intellectual expression of his countenance, and my wonder at the uncommon muscular development of his frame. she said that _that_ of itself would account for many of ockham's eccentricities. he had a body that required a more vigorous animal life than his station gave scope for, and this had often led him to seek it in what the world calls low society; that he had been to sea as a sailor, and was now working as a mechanic on the iron work of 'the great eastern.' he had laid aside his title, and went in daily with the other workmen, requesting them to call him simply ockham. i said that there was something to my mind very fine about this, even though it might show some want of proper balance. she said he had noble traits, and that she felt assured he would yet accomplish something worthy of himself. 'the great difficulty with our nobility is apt to be, that they do not _understand_ the working-classes, so as to feel for them properly; and ockham is now going through an experience which may yet fit him to do great good when he comes to the peerage. i am trying to influence him to do good among the workmen, and to interest himself in schools for their children. i think,' she added, 'i have great influence over ockham,--the greater, perhaps, that i never make any claim to authority.' this conversation is very characteristic of lady byron as showing her benevolent analysis of character, and the peculiar hopefulness she always had in regard to the future of every one brought in connection with her. her moral hopefulness was something very singular; and in this respect she was so different from the rest of the world, that it would be difficult to make her understood. her tolerance of wrong-doing would have seemed to many quite latitudinarian, and impressed them as if she had lost all just horror of what was morally wrong in transgression; but it seemed her fixed habit to see faults only as diseases and immaturities, and to expect them to fall away with time. she saw the germs of good in what others regarded as only evil. she expected valuable results to come from what the world looked on only as eccentricities;[ ] and she incessantly devoted herself to the task of guarding those whom the world condemned, and guiding them to those higher results of which she often thought that even their faults were prophetic. [footnote : see her character of dr. king, part iii.] before i quit this sketch of lady byron as i knew her, i will give one more of her letters. my return from that visit in europe was met by the sudden death of the son mentioned in the foregoing account. at the time of this sorrow, lady byron was too unwell to write to me. the letter given alludes to this event, and speaks also of two coloured persons of remarkable talent, in whose career in england she had taken a deep interest. one of them is the 'friend' she speaks of. 'london, feb. , . 'dear mrs. stowe,--i seem to feel our friend as a bridge, over which our broken _outward_ communication can be renewed without effort. why broken? the words i would have uttered _at one time_ were like drops of blood from my heart. now i sympathise with the calmness you have gained, and can speak of your loss as i do of my own. loss and restoration are more and more linked in my mind, but "to the _present_ live." as long as _they_ are in god's world they are in ours. i ask no other consolation. 'mrs. w----'s recovery has astonished me, and her husband's prospects give me great satisfaction. they have achieved a benefit to their coloured people. she had a mission which her burning soul has worked out, almost in defiance of death. but who is "called" without being "crucified," man or woman? i know of none. 'i fear that h. martineau was too sanguine in her persuasion that the slave power had received a serious check from the ruin of so many of your mammon-worshippers. with the return of commercial facilities, _that_ article of commerce will again find purchasers enough to raise its value. not that way is the iniquity to be overthrown. a deeper moral earthquake is needed.[ ] we english had ours in india; and though the cases are far from being alike, yet a consciousness of what we ought to have been and ought to be toward the natives could not have been awakened by less than the reddened waters of the ganges. so i fear you will have to look on a day of judgment worse than has been painted. [footnote : alluding to the financial crisis in the united states in .] 'as to all the frauds and impositions which have been disclosed by the failures, what a want of the sense of personal responsibility they show. it seems to be thought that "association" will "cover a multitude of sins;" as if "and co." could enter heaven. a firm may be described as a partnership for lowering the standard of morals. even ecclesiastical bodies are not free from the "and co.;" very different from "the goodly fellowship of the apostles." 'the better class of young gentlemen in england are seized with a mediæval mania, to which ruskin has contributed much. the chief reason for regretting it is that taste is made to supersede benevolence. the money that would save thousands from perishing or suffering must be applied to raise the gothic edifice where their last prayer may be uttered. charity may be dead, while art has glorified her. this is worse than catholicism, which cultivates heart and eye together. the first cathedral was truth, at the beginning of the fourth century, just as christianity was exchanging a heavenly for an earthly crown. true religion may have to cast away the symbol for the spirit before "the kingdom" can come. 'while i am speculating to little purpose, perhaps you are _doing_--what? might not a biography from your pen bring forth again some great, half-obscured soul to act on the world? even sir philip sidney ought to be superseded by a still nobler type. 'this must go immediately, to be in time for the bearer, of whose meeting with you i shall think as the friend of both. may it be happy! 'your affectionate a. i. n. b.' one letter more from lady byron i give,--the last i received from her:-- london, may , . 'dear friend,--i have found, particularly as to yourself, that, if i did not answer from the first impulse, all had evaporated. your letter came by 'the niagara' which brought fanny kemble to learn the loss of her best friend, the miss f---- whom you saw at my house. 'her death, after an illness in which she was to the last a minister of good to others, is a soul-loss to me also; and your remarks are most appropriate to my feelings. i have been taught, however, to accept survivorship; even to feel it, in some cases, heaven's best blessing. 'i have an intense interest in your new novel.[ ] more power in these few numbers than in any of your former writings, relating, at least, to my own mind. it would amuse you to hear my grand-daughter and myself attempting to foresee the future of the love-story; being, for the moment, quite persuaded that james is at sea, and the minister about to ruin himself. we think that mary will labour to be in love with the self-devoted man, under her mother's influence, and from that hyper-conscientiousness so common with good girls; but we don't wish her to succeed. then what is to become of her older lover? time will show. [footnote : 'the minister's wooing.'] 'the lady you desired to introduce to me will be welcomed as of you. she has been misled with respect to my having any house in yorkshire (new leeds). i am in london now to be of a little use to a----; not ostensibly, for i can neither go out, nor give parties: but i am the confidential friend to whom she likes to bring her social gatherings, as she can see something of the world with others. age and infirmity seem to be overlooked in what she calls the harmony between us,--not perfect agreement of opinion (which i should regret, with almost fifty years of difference), but the spirit-union: can you say what it is? 'i am interrupted by a note from mrs. k----. she says that she cannot write of our lost friend yet, though she is less sad than she will be. mrs. f---- may like to hear of her arrival, should you be in communication with our friend. she is the type of youth in age. 'i often converse with miss s----, a judicious friend of the w----s, about what is likely to await them. she would not succeed here as well as where she was a novelty. the character of our climate this year has been injurious to the respiratory organs; but i hope still to serve them. 'i have just missed dale owen, with whom i wished to have conversed on spiritualism.[ ] harris is lecturing here on religion. i do not hear him praised. [footnote : see her letter on spiritualistic phenomena, part iii.] 'people are looking for helps to believe, everywhere but in life,--in music, in architecture, in antiquity, in ceremony; and upon all these is written, "thou shalt _not_ believe." at least, if this be faith, happier the unbeliever. i am willing to see _through_ that materialism; but, if i am to rest there, i would rend the veil. * * * * * 'june . 'the day of the packet's sailing. i shall hope to be visited by you here. the best flowers sent me have been placed in your little vases, giving life to the remembrance of you, though not, like them, to pass away. 'ever yours, 'a. i. noel byron.' shortly after, i was in england again, and had one more opportunity of resuming our personal intercourse. the first time that i called on lady byron, i saw her in one of those periods of utter physical exhaustion to which she was subject on account of the constant pressure of cares beyond her strength. all who knew her will testify, that, in a state of health which would lead most persons to become helpless absorbents of service from others, she was assuming burdens, and making outlays of her vital powers in acts of love and service, with a generosity that often reduced her to utter exhaustion. but none who knew or loved her ever misinterpreted the coldness of those seasons of exhaustion. we knew that it was _not_ the spirit that was chilled, but only the frail mortal tabernacle. when i called on her at this time, she could not see me at first; and when, at last, she came, it was evident that she was in a state of utter prostration. her hands were like ice; her face was deadly pale; and she conversed with a restraint and difficulty which showed what exertion it was for her to keep up at all. i left as soon as possible, with an appointment for another interview. that interview was my last on earth with her, and is still beautiful in memory. it was a long, still summer afternoon, spent alone with her in a garden, where we walked together. she was enjoying one of those bright intervals of freedom from pain and languor, in which her spirits always rose so buoyant and youthful; and her eye brightened, and her step became elastic. one last little incident is cherished as most expressive of her. when it became time for me to leave, she took me in her carriage to the station. as we were almost there, i missed my gloves, and said, 'i must have left them; but there is not time to go back.' with one of those quick, impulsive motions which were so natural to her in doing a kindness, she drew off her own and said, 'take mine if they will serve you.' i hesitated a moment; and then the thought, that i might never see her again, came over me, and i said, 'oh, yes! thanks.' that was the last earthly word of love between us. but, thank god, those who love worthily never meet for the _last_ time: there is always a future. chapter ii. lady byron's story as told to me. i now come to the particulars of that most painful interview which has been the cause of all this controversy. my sister and myself were going from london to eversley to visit the rev. c. kingsley. on our way, we stopped, by lady byron's invitation, to lunch with her at her summer residence on ham common, near richmond; and it was then arranged, that on our return, we should make her a short visit, as she said she had a subject of importance on which she wished to converse with me alone. on our return from eversley, we arrived at her house in the morning. it appeared to be one of lady byron's _well_ days. she was up and dressed, and moved about her house with her usual air of quiet simplicity; as full of little acts of consideration for all about her as if they were the habitual invalids, and she the well person. there were with her two ladies of her most intimate friends, by whom she seemed to be regarded with a sort of worship. when she left the room for a moment, they looked after her with a singular expression of respect and affection, and expressed freely their admiration of her character, and their fears that her unselfishness might be leading her to over-exertion. after lunch, i retired with lady byron; and my sister remained with her friends. i should here remark, that the chief subject of the conversation which ensued was not entirely new to me. in the interval between my first and second visits to england, a lady who for many years had enjoyed lady byron's friendship and confidence, had, with her consent, stated the case generally to me, giving some of the incidents: so that i was in a manner prepared for what followed. those who accuse lady byron of being a person fond of talking upon this subject, and apt to make unconsidered confidences, can have known very little of her, of her reserve, and of the apparent difficulty she had in speaking on subjects nearest her heart. her habitual calmness and composure of manner, her collected dignity on all occasions, are often mentioned by her husband, sometimes with bitterness, sometimes with admiration. he says, 'though i accuse lady byron of an excess of self-respect, i must in candour admit that, if ever a person had excuse for an extraordinary portion of it, she has; as, in all her thoughts, words, and deeds, she is the most decorous woman that ever existed, and must appear, what few i fancy could, a perfectly refined gentlewoman, even to her _femme de chambre_. this calmness and dignity were never more manifested than in this interview. in recalling the conversation at this distance of time, i cannot remember all the language used. some particular words and forms of expression i do remember, and those i give; and in other cases i give my recollection of the substance of what was said. there was something awful to me in the intensity of repressed emotion which she showed as she proceeded. the great fact upon which all turned was stated in words that were unmistakable:-- 'he was guilty of incest with his sister!' she here became so deathly pale, that i feared she would faint; and hastened to say, 'my dear friend, i have heard that.' she asked quickly, 'from whom? and i answered, 'from mrs. ----;' when she replied, 'oh, yes!' as if recollecting herself. i then asked her some questions; in reply to which she said, 'i will tell you.' she then spoke of her first acquaintance with lord byron; from which i gathered that she, an only child, brought up in retirement, and living much within herself, had been, as deep natures often were, intensely stirred by his poetry; and had felt a deep interest in him personally, as one that had the germs of all that is glorious and noble. when she was introduced to him, and perceived his admiration of herself, and at last received his offer, although deeply moved, she doubted her own power to be to him all that a wife should be. she declined his offer, therefore, but desired to retain his friendship. after this, as she said, a correspondence ensued, mostly on moral and literary subjects; and, by this correspondence, her interest in him was constantly increased. at last, she said, he sent her a very beautiful letter, offering himself again. 'i thought,' she added, 'that it was sincere, and that i might now show him all i felt. i wrote just what was in my heart. 'afterwards,' she said, 'i found in one of his journals this notice of my letter: "a letter from bell,--never rains but it pours."' there was through her habitual calm a shade of womanly indignation as she spoke these words; but it was gone in a moment. i said, 'and did he not love you, then?' she answered, 'no, my dear: he did not love me.' 'why, then, did he wish to marry you?' she laid her hand on mine, and said in a low voice, 'you will see.' she then told me, that, shortly after the declared engagement, he came to her father's house to visit her as an accepted suitor. the visit was to her full of disappointment. his appearance was so strange, moody, and unaccountable, and his treatment of her so peculiar, that she came to the conclusion that he did not love her, and sought an opportunity to converse with him alone. she told him that she saw from his manner that their engagement did not give him pleasure; that she should never blame him if he wished to dissolve it; that his nature was exceptional; and if, on a nearer view of the situation, he shrank from it, she would release him, and remain no less than ever his friend. upon this, she said, he fainted entirely away. she stopped a moment, and then, as if speaking with great effort, added, '_then_ i was _sure_ he must love me.' 'and did he not?' said i. 'what other cause could have led to this emotion?' she looked at me very sadly, and said, '_fear of detection_.' 'what!' said i, 'did _that cause_ then exist?' 'yes,' she said, 'it did.' and she explained that she _now_ attributed lord byron's great agitation to fear, that, in some way, suspicion of the crime had been aroused in her mind, and that on this account she was seeking to break the engagement. she said, that, from that moment, her sympathies were aroused for him, to soothe the remorse and anguish which seemed preying on his mind, and which she then regarded as the sensibility of an unusually exacting moral nature, which judged itself by higher standards, and condemned itself unsparingly for what most young men of his times regarded as venial faults. she had every hope for his future, and all the enthusiasm of belief that so many men and women of those times and ours have had in his intrinsic nobleness. she said the gloom, however, seemed to be even deeper when he came to the marriage; but she looked at it as the suffering of a peculiar being, to whom she was called to minister. i said to her, that, even in the days of my childhood, i had heard of something very painful that had passed as they were in the carriage, immediately after marriage. she then said that it was so; that almost his first words, when they were alone, were, that she _might_ once have saved him; that, if she had accepted him when he first offered, she might have made him anything she pleased; but that, as it was, she would find she had married a devil. the conversation, as recorded in lady anne barnard's diary, seems only a continuation of the foregoing, and just what might have followed upon it. i then asked how she became certain of the true cause. she said, that, from the outset of their married life, his conduct towards her was strange and unaccountable, even during the first weeks after the wedding, while they were visiting her friends, and outwardly on good terms. he seemed resolved to shake and combat both her religious principles and her views of the family state. he tried to undermine her faith in christianity as a rule of life by argument and by ridicule. he set before her the continental idea of the liberty of marriage; it being a simple partnership of friendship and property, the parties to which were allowed by one another to pursue their own separate individual tastes. he told her, that, as he could not be expected to confine himself to her, neither should he expect or wish that she should confine herself to him; that she was young and pretty, and could have her lovers, and he should never object; and that she must allow him the same freedom. she said that she did not comprehend to what this was tending till after they came to london, and his sister came to stay with them. at what precise time the idea of an improper connection between her husband and his sister was first forced upon her, she did not say; but she told me _how_ it was done. she said that one night, in her presence, he treated his sister with a liberty which both shocked and astonished her. seeing her amazement and alarm, he came up to her, and said, in a sneering tone, 'i suppose you perceive _you_ are not wanted here. go to your own room, and leave us alone. we can amuse ourselves better without you.' she said, 'i went to my room, trembling. i fell down on my knees, and prayed to my heavenly father to have mercy on them. i thought, "what shall i do?"' i remember, after this, a pause in the conversation, during which she seemed struggling with thoughts and emotions; and, for my part, i was unable to utter a word, or ask a question. she did not tell me what followed immediately upon this, nor how soon after she spoke on the subject with either of the parties. she first began to speak of conversations afterwards held with lord byron, in which he boldly avowed the connection as having existed in time past, and as one that was to continue in time to come; and implied that she must submit to it. she put it to his conscience as concerning his sister's soul, and he said that it was no sin; that it was the way the world was first peopled: the scriptures taught that all the world descended from one pair; and how could that be unless brothers married their sisters? that, if not a sin then, it could not be a sin now. i immediately said, 'why, lady byron, those are the very arguments given in the drama of "cain."' 'the very same,' was her reply. 'he could reason very speciously on this subject.' she went on to say, that, when she pressed him hard with the universal sentiment of mankind as to the horror and the crime, he took another turn, and said that the horror and crime were the very attraction; that he had worn out all _ordinary_ forms of sin, and that he '_longed for the stimulus of a new kind of vice_.' she set before him the dread of detection; and then he became furious. _she_ should never be the means of his detection, he said. she should leave him; _that_ he was resolved upon: but she should always bear all the blame of the separation. in the sneering tone which was common with him, he said, 'the world will believe me, and it will _not_ believe you. the world has made up its mind that "by" is a glorious boy; and the world will go for "by," right or wrong. besides, i shall make it my life's object to discredit you: i shall use all my powers. read "caleb williams,"[ ] and you will see that i shall do by you just as falkland did by caleb.' [footnote : this novel of godwin's is a remarkably powerful story. it is related in the first person by the supposed hero, caleb williams. he represents himself as private secretary to a gentleman of high family named falkland. caleb accidentally discovers that his patron has, in a moment of passion, committed a murder. falkland confesses the crime to caleb, and tells him that henceforth he shall always suspect him, and keep watch over him. caleb finds this watchfulness insupportable, and tries to escape, but without success. he writes a touching letter to his patron, imploring him to let him go, and promising never to betray him. the scene where falkland refuses this is the most highly wrought in the book. he says to him, "do not imagine that i am afraid of you; i wear an armour against which all your weapons are impotent. i have dug a pit for you: and whichever way you move, backward or forward, to the right or the left, it is ready to swallow you. be still! if once you fall, call as loud as you will, no man on earth shall hear your cries: prepare a tale however plausible or however true, the whole world shall execrate you for an impostor. your innocence shall be of no service to you. i laugh at so feeble a defence. it is i that say it: you may believe what i tell you. do you know, miserable wretch!" added he, stamping on the ground with fury, "that i have sworn to preserve my reputation, whatever be the expense; that i love it more than the whole world and its inhabitants taken together? and do you think that you shall wound it?" the rest of the book shows how this threat was executed.] i said that all this seemed to me like insanity. she said that she was for a time led to think that it was insanity, and excused and pitied him; that his treatment of her expressed such hatred and malignity, that she knew not what else to think of it: that he seemed resolved to drive her out of the house at all hazards, and threatened her, if she should remain, in a way to alarm the heart of any woman: yet, thinking him insane, she left him at last with the sorrow with which anyone might leave a dear friend whose reason was wholly overthrown, and to whom in this desolation she was no longer permitted to minister. i inquired in one of the pauses of the conversation whether mrs. leigh was a peculiarly beautiful or attractive woman. 'no, my dear: she was plain.' 'was she, then, distinguished for genius or talent of any kind?' 'oh, no! poor woman! she was weak, relatively to him, and wholly under his control.' 'and what became of her?' i said. 'she afterwards repented, and became a truly good woman.' i think it was here she mentioned that she had frequently seen and conversed with mrs. leigh in the latter part of her life; and she seemed to derive comfort from the recollection. i asked, 'was there a child?' i had been told by mrs. ---- that there was a daughter, who had lived some years. she said there was one, a daughter, who made her friends much trouble, being of a very difficult nature to manage. i had understood that at one time this daughter escaped from her friends to the continent, and that lady byron assisted in efforts to recover her. of lady byron's kindness both to mrs. leigh and the child, i had before heard from mrs. ----, who gave me my first information. it is also strongly impressed on my mind, that lady byron, in answer to some question of mine as to whether there was ever any meeting between lord byron and his sister after he left england, answered, that she had insisted upon it, or made it a condition, that mrs. leigh should not go abroad to him. when the conversation as to events was over, as i stood musing, i said, 'have you no evidence that he repented?' and alluded to the mystery of his death, and the message he endeavoured to utter. she answered quickly, and with great decision, that whatever might have been his meaning at that hour, she felt sure he had finally repented; and added with great earnestness, 'i do not believe that _any_ child of the heavenly father is ever left to eternal sin.' i said that such a hope was most delightful to my feelings, but that i had always regarded the indulgence of it as a dangerous one. her look, voice, and manner, at that moment, are indelibly fixed in my mind. she looked at me so sadly, so firmly, and said,-- 'danger, mrs. stowe! what danger can come from indulging that hope, like the danger that comes from not having it?' i said in my turn, 'what danger comes from not having it?' 'the danger of losing all faith in god,' she said, 'all hope for others, all strength to try and save them. i once knew a lady,' she added, 'who was in a state of scepticism and despair from belief in that doctrine. i think i saved her by giving her my faith.' i was silent; and she continued: 'lord byron believed in eternal punishment fully: for though he reasoned against christianity as it is commonly received, he could not reason himself out of it; and i think it made him desperate. he used to say, "the worst of it is i _do_ believe." had he seen god as i see him, i am sure his heart would have relented.' she went on to say, that his sins, great as they were, admitted of much palliation and excuse; that he was the child of singular and ill-matched parents; that he had an organisation originally fine, but one capable equally of great good or great evil; that in his childhood he had only the worst and most fatal influences; that he grew up into manhood with no guide; that there was everything in the classical course of the schools to develop an unhealthy growth of passion, and no moral influence of any kind to restrain it; that the manners of his day were corrupt; that what were now considered vices in society were then spoken of as matters of course among young noblemen; that drinking, gaming, and licentiousness everywhere abounded: and that, up to a certain time, he was no worse than multitudes of other young men of his day,--only that the vices of his day were worse for him. the excesses of passion, the disregard of physical laws in eating, drinking, and living, wrought effects on him that they did not on less sensitively organised frames, and prepared him for the evil hour when he fell into the sin which shaded his whole life. all the rest was a struggle with its consequences,--sinning more and more to conceal the sin of the past. but she believed he never outlived remorse; that he always suffered; and that this showed that god had not utterly forsaken him. remorse, she said, always showed moral sensibility, and, while _that_ remained, there was always hope. she now began to speak of her grounds for thinking it might be her duty fully to publish this story before she left the world. first she said that, through the whole course of her life, she had felt the eternal value of truth, and seen how dreadful a thing was falsehood, and how fearful it was to be an accomplice in it, even by silence. lord byron had demoralised the moral sense of england, and he had done it in a great degree by the sympathy excited by falsehood. this had been pleaded in extenuation of all his crimes and vices, and led to a lowering of the standard of morals in the literary world. now it was proposed to print cheap editions of his works, and sell them among the common people, and interest them in him by the circulation of this same story. she then said in effect, that she believed in retribution and suffering in the future life, and that the consequences of sins _here_ follow us _there_; and it was strongly impressed upon her mind that lord byron must suffer in looking on the evil consequences of what he had done in this life, and in seeing the further extension of that evil. 'it has sometimes strongly appeared to me,' she said, 'that he cannot be at peace until this injustice has been righted. such is the strong feeling that i have when i think of going where he is.' these things, she said, had led her to inquire whether it might not be her duty to make a full and clear disclosure before she left the world. of course, i did not listen to this story as one who was investigating its worth. i received it as truth. and the purpose for which it was communicated was not to enable me to prove it to the world, but to ask my opinion whether _she_ should show it to the world before leaving it. the whole consultation was upon the assumption that she had at her command such proofs as could not be questioned. concerning what they were i did not minutely inquire: only, in answer to a general question, she said that she had letters and documents in proof of her story. knowing lady byron's strength of mind, her clear-headedness, her accurate habits, and her perfect knowledge of the matter, i considered her judgment on this point decisive. i told her that i would take the subject into consideration, and give my opinion in a few days. that night, after my sister and myself had retired to our own apartment, i related to her the whole history, and we spent the night in talking of it. i was powerfully impressed with the justice and propriety of an immediate disclosure; while she, on the contrary, represented the painful consequences that would probably come upon lady byron from taking such a step. before we parted the next day, i requested lady byron to give me some memoranda of such dates and outlines of the general story as would enable me better to keep it in its connection; which she did. on giving me the paper, lady byron requested me to return it to her when it had ceased to be of use to me for the purpose indicated. accordingly, a day or two after, i enclosed it to her in a hasty note, as i was then leaving london for paris, and had not yet had time fully to consider the subject. on reviewing my note, i can recall that then the whole history appeared to me like one of those singular cases where unnatural impulses to vice are the result of a taint of constitutional insanity. this has always seemed to me the only way of accounting for instances of utterly motiveless and abnormal wickedness and cruelty. these my first impressions were expressed in the hasty note written at the time:-- 'london, nov. , . 'dearest friend,--i return these. they have held mine eyes waking! how strange! how unaccountable! have you ever subjected the facts to the judgment of a medical man learned in nervous pathology? '_is_ it not insanity? "great wits to madness nearly are allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide." 'but my purpose to-night is not to write you fully what i think of this matter. i am going to write to you from paris more at leisure.' the rest of the letter was taken up in the final details of a charity in which lady byron had been engaged with me in assisting an unfortunate artist. it concludes thus:-- 'i write now in all haste, _en route_ for paris. as to america, all is not lost yet.[ ] farewell! i love you, my dear friend, as never before, with an intense feeling i cannot easily express. god bless you! 'h. b. s.' the next letter is as follows:-- 'paris, dec. , . [footnote : alluding to buchanan's election.] 'dear lady byron,--the kansas committee have written me a letter desiring me to express to miss ---- their gratitude for the five pounds she sent them. i am not personally acquainted with her, and must return these acknowledgments through you. 'i wrote you a day or two since, enclosing the reply of the kansas committee to you. 'on _that subject_ on which you spoke to me the last time we were together, i have thought often and deeply. 'i have changed my mind somewhat. considering the peculiar circumstances of the case, i could wish that the sacred veil of silence, so bravely thrown over the past, should never be withdrawn during the time that you remain with us. 'i would say, then, leave all with some discreet friends, who, after _both_ have passed from earth, shall say what was due to _justice_. 'i am led to think this by seeing how low, how unjust, how unworthy, the judgments of this world are; and i would not that what i so much respect, love, and revere should be placed within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes what it touches. 'the day will yet come which will bring to light every hidden thing. "there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known;" and so _justice will not fail_. 'such, my dear friend, are my thoughts; different from what they were since first i heard that strange, sad history. meanwhile, _i love you ever_, whether we meet again on earth or not. 'affectionately yours, 'h. b. s.' the following letter will here be inserted as confirming a part of lady byron's story:-- to the editor of 'macmillan's magazine.' 'sir,--i trust that you will hold me excused from any desire to be troublesome, or to rush into print. both these things are far from my wish. but the publication of a book having for its object the vindication of lord byron's character, and the subsequent appearance in your magazine of mrs. stowe's article in defence of lady byron, having led to so much controversy in the various newspapers of the day, i feel constrained to put in a few words among the rest. 'my father was intimately acquainted with lady byron's family for many years, both before and after her marriage; being, in fact, steward to sir ralph milbanke at seaham, where the marriage took place; and, from all my recollections of what he told me of the affair (and he used often to talk of it, up to the time of his death, eight years ago), i fully agree with mrs. stowe's view of the case, and desire to add my humble testimony to the truth of what she has stated. 'whilst byron was staying at seaham, previous to his marriage, he spent most of his time pistol-shooting in the plantations adjoining the hall, often making use of his glove as a mark; his servant being with him to load for him. 'when all was in readiness for the wedding-ceremony (which took place in the drawing-room of the hall), byron had to be sought for in the grounds, where he was walking in his usual surly mood. 'after the marriage, they posted to halnaby lodge in yorkshire, a distance of about forty miles; to which place my father accompanied them, and he always spoke strongly of lady byron's apparent distress during and at the end of the journey. 'the insulting words mentioned by mrs. stowe were spoken by byron before leaving the park at seaham; after which he appeared to sit in moody silence, reading a book, for the rest of the journey. at halnaby, a number of persons, tenants and others, were met to cheer them on their arrival. of these he took not the slightest notice, but jumped out of the carriage, and walked away, leaving his bride to alight by herself. she shook hands with my father, and begged that he would see that some refreshment was supplied to those who had thus come to welcome them. 'i have in my possession several letters (which i should be glad to show to anyone interested in the matter) both from lady byron, and her mother, lady milbanke, to my father, all showing the deep and kind interest which they took in the welfare of all connected with them, and directing the distribution of various charities, &c. pensions were allowed both to the old servants of the milbankes and to several poor persons in the village and neighbourhood for the rest of their lives; and lady byron never ceased to take a lively interest in all that concerned them. 'i desire to tender my humble thanks to mrs. stowe for having come forward in defence of one whose character has been much misrepresented; and to you, sir, for having published the same in your pages. 'i have the honour to be, sir, yours obediently, 'g. h. aird. 'daourty, northamptonshire, sept. , .' chapter iii. chronological summary of events. i have now fulfilled as conscientiously as possible the requests of those who feel that they have a right to know exactly what was said in this interview. it has been my object, in doing this, to place myself just where i should stand were i giving evidence under oath before a legal tribunal. in my first published account, there were given some smaller details of the story, of no particular value to the main purpose of it, which i received _not_ from lady byron, but from her confidential friend. one of these was the account of her seeing lord byron's favourite spaniel lying at his door, and the other was the scene of the parting. the first was communicated to me before i ever saw lady byron, and under these circumstances:--i was invited to meet her, and had expressed my desire to do so, because lord byron had been all my life an object of great interest to me. i inquired what sort of a person lady byron was. my friend spoke of her with enthusiasm. i then said, 'but of course she never _loved_ lord byron, or she would not have left him.' the lady answered, 'i can show you with what feelings she left him by relating this story;' and then followed the anecdote. subsequently, she also related to me the other story of the parting-scene between lord and lady byron. in regard to these two incidents, my recollection is clear. it will be observed by the reader that lady byron's conversation with me was simply for consultation _on one point_, and that point whether _she herself_ should publish the story before her death. it was not, therefore, a complete history of all the events in their order, but specimens of a few incidents and facts. her object was, not to prove her story to me, nor to put me in possession of it with a view to _my_ proving it, but simply and briefly to show me _what it was_, that i might judge as to the probable results of its publication at that time. it therefore comprised primarily these points:-- . an exact statement, in so many words, of the crime. . a statement of the manner in which it was first forced on her attention by lord byron's words and actions, including: his admissions and defences of it. . the admission of a period when she had ascribed his whole conduct to insanity. . a reference to later positive evidences of guilt,--the existence of a child, and mrs. leigh's subsequent repentance. and here i have a word to say in reference to the alleged inaccuracies of my true story. the dates that lady byron gave me on the memoranda did not relate either to the time of the first disclosure, or the period when her doubts became certainties; nor did her conversation touch either of these points: and, on a careful review of the latter, i see clearly that it omitted dwelling upon anything which i might be supposed to have learned from her already published statement. i re-enclosed that paper to her from london, and have never seen it since. in writing my account, which i designed to do in the most general terms, i took for my guide miss martineau's published memoir of lady byron, which has long stood uncontradicted before the public, of which macmillan's london edition is now before me. the reader is referred to page , which reads thus:-- 'she was born ; married in january ; returned to her father's house in ; died on may , .' this makes her married life two years; but we need not say that the date is inaccurate, as lady byron was married in . supposing lady byron's married life to have covered two years, i could only reconcile its continuance for that length of time to her uncertainty as to his sanity; to deceptions practised on her, making her doubt at one time, and believe at another; and his keeping her in a general state of turmoil and confusion, till at last he took the step of banishing her. various other points taken from miss martineau have also been attacked as inaccuracies; for example, the number of executions in the house: but these points, though of no importance, are substantially borne out by moore's statements. this controversy, unfortunately, cannot be managed with the accuracy of a legal trial. its course, hitherto, has rather resembled the course of a drawing-room scandal, where everyone freely throws in an assertion, with or without proof. in making out my narrative, however, i shall use only certain authentic sources, some of which have for a long time been before the public, and some of which have floated up from the waves of the recent controversy. i consider as authentic sources,-- moore's life of byron; lady byron's own account of the separation, published in ; lady byron's statements to me in ; lord lindsay's communication, giving an extract from lady anne barnard's diary, and a copy of a letter from lady byron dated , about three years after her marriage; mrs. mimms' testimony, as given in a daily paper published at newcastle, england; and lady byron's letters, as given recently in the late 'london quarterly.' all which documents appear to arrange themselves into a connected series. from these, then, let us construct the story. according to mrs. mimms' account, which is likely to be accurate, the time spent by lord and lady byron in bridal-visiting was three weeks at halnaby hall, and six weeks at seaham, when mrs. mimms quitted their service. during this first period of three weeks, lord byron's treatment of his wife, as testified to by the servant, was such that she advised her young mistress to return to her parents; and, at one time, lady byron had almost resolved to do so. what the particulars of his conduct were, the servant refuses to state; being bound by a promise of silence to her mistress. she, however, testifies to a warm friendship existing between lady byron and mrs. leigh, in a manner which would lead us to feel that lady byron received and was received by lord byron's sister with the greatest affection. lady byron herself says to lady anne barnard, 'i had heard that he was the best of brothers;' and the inference is, that she, at an early period of her married life, felt the greatest confidence in his sister, and wished to have her with them as much as possible. in lady anne's account, this wish to have the sister with her was increased by lady byron's distress at her husband's attempts to corrupt her principles with regard to religion and marriage. in moore's life, vol. iii., letter , lord byron writes from seaham to moore, under date of march , sending a copy of his verses in lady byron's handwriting, and saying, 'we shall leave this place to-morrow, and shall stop on our way to town, in the interval of taking a house there, at colonel leigh's, near newmarket, where any epistle of yours will find its welcome way. i have been very comfortable here, listening to that d----d monologue which elderly gentlemen call conversation, in which my pious father-in-law repeats himself every evening, save one, when he played upon the fiddle. however, they have been vastly kind and hospitable, and i like them and the place vastly; and i hope they will live many happy months. bell is in health and unvaried good-humour and behaviour; but we are in all the agonies of packing and parting.' nine days after this, under date of march , lord byron says, 'we mean to metropolize to-morrow, and you will address your next to piccadilly.' the inference is, that the days intermediate were spent at colonel leigh's. the next letters, and all subsequent ones for six months, are dated from piccadilly. as we have shown, there is every reason to believe that a warm friendship had thus arisen between mrs. leigh and lady byron, and that, during all this time, lady byron desired as much of the society of her sister-in-law as possible. she was a married woman and a mother, her husband's nearest relative; and lady byron could with more propriety ask, from her, counsel or aid in respect to his peculiarities than she could from her own parents. if we consider the character of lady byron as given by mrs. mimms,--that of a young person of warm but repressed feeling, without sister or brother, longing for human sympathy, and having so far found no relief but in talking with a faithful dependant,--we may easily see that the acquisition of a sister through lord byron might have been all in all to her, and that the feelings which he checked and rejected for himself might have flowed out towards his sister with enthusiasm. the date of mrs. leigh's visit does not appear. the first domestic indication in lord byron's letters from london is the announcement of the death of lady byron's uncle, lord wentworth, from whom came large expectations of property. lord byron had mentioned him before in his letters as so kind to bell and himself that he could not find it in his heart to wish him in heaven if he preferred staying here. in his letter of april , he mentions going to the play immediately after hearing this news, 'although,' as he says, 'he ought to have stayed at home in sackcloth for "unc."' on june , he writes that lady byron is more than three months advanced in her progress towards maternity; and that they have been out very little, as he wishes to keep her quiet. we are informed by moore that lord byron was at this time a member of the drury-lane theatre committee; and that, in this unlucky connection, one of the fatalities of the first year of trial as a husband lay. from the strain of byron's letters, as given in moore, it is apparent, that, while he thinks it best for his wife to remain at home, he does not propose to share the retirement, but prefers running his own separate career with such persons as thronged the greenroom of the theatre in those days. in commenting on lord byron's course, we must not by any means be supposed to indicate that he was doing any more or worse than most gay young men of his time. the licence of the day as to getting drunk at dinner-parties, and leading, generally, what would, in these days, be called a disorderly life, was great. we should infer that none of the literary men of byron's time would have been ashamed of being drunk occasionally. the noctes ambrosianæ club of 'blackwood' is full of songs glorying, in the broadest terms, in out-and-out drunkenness, and inviting to it as the highest condition of a civilised being.[ ] [footnote : shelton mackenzie, in a note to the 'noctes' of july , gives the following saying of maginn, one of the principal lights of the club: 'no man, however much he might tend to civilisation, was to be regarded as having absolutely reached its apex until he was drunk.' he also records it as a further joke of the club, that a man's having reached this apex was to be tested by his inability to pronounce the word 'civilisation,' which, he says, after ten o'clock at night ought to be abridged to _civilation_, 'by syncope, or vigorously speaking by hic-cup.'] but drunkenness upon lord byron had a peculiar and specific effect, which he notices afterwards, in his journal, at venice: 'the effect of all wines and spirits upon me is, however, strange. it settles, but makes me gloomy--gloomy at the very moment of their effect: it composes, however, though _sullenly_.'[ ] and, again, in another place, he says, 'wine and spirits make me sullen, and savage to ferocity.' [footnote : vol. v. pp. , .] it is well known that the effects of alcoholic excitement are various as the natures of the subjects. but by far the worst effects, and the most destructive to domestic peace, are those that occur in cases where spirits, instead of acting on the nerves of motion, and depriving the subject of power in that direction, stimulate the brain so as to produce there the ferocity, the steadiness, the utter deadness to compassion or conscience, which characterise a madman. how fearful to a sensitive young mother in the period of pregnancy might be the return of such a madman to the domestic roof! nor can we account for those scenes described in lady anne barnard's letters, where lord byron returned from his evening parties to try torturing experiments on his wife, otherwise than by his own statement, that spirits, while they _steadied_ him, made him 'gloomy, and savage to ferocity.' take for example this:-- 'one night, coming home from one of his lawless parties, he saw me (lady b.) so indignantly collected, and bearing all with such a determined calmness, that a rush of remorse seemed to come over him. he called himself a monster, and, though his sister was present, threw himself in agony at my feet. "i could not, no, i could not, forgive him such injuries! he had lost me for ever!" astonished at this return to virtue, my tears, i believe, flowed over his face; and i said, "byron, all is forgotten; _never_, never shall you hear of it more." 'he started up, and folding his arms while he looked at me, burst out into laughter. "what do you mean?" said i. "only a philosophical experiment; that's all," said he. "i wished to ascertain the value of your resolutions."' to ascribe such deliberate cruelty as this to the effect of drink upon lord byron, is the most charitable construction that can be put upon his conduct. yet the manners of the period were such, that lord byron must have often come to this condition while only doing what many of his acquaintances did freely, and without fear of consequences. mr. moore, with his usual artlessness, gives us an idea of a private supper between himself and lord byron. we give it, with our own italics, as a specimen of many others:-- 'having taken upon me to order the repast, and knowing that lord byron for the last two days had done nothing towards sustenance beyond eating a few biscuits and (to appease appetite) chewing mastic, i desired that we should have a good supply of at least two kinds of fish. my companion, however, confined himself to lobsters; and of these finished two or three, to his own share, interposing, sometimes, a small liqueur-glass of strong white brandy, sometimes a tumbler of very hot water, and then pure brandy again, to the amount of near half a dozen small glasses of the latter, without which, alternately with the hot water, he appeared to think the lobster could not be digested. after this, we had claret, of which, having despatched two bottles between us, at about four o'clock in the morning we parted. 'as pope has thought his "delicious lobster-nights" worth commemorating, these particulars of one in which lord byron was concerned may also have some interest. 'among _other nights of the same description which i had the happiness of passing with him_, i remember once, in returning home from some assembly at rather a late hour, we saw lights in the windows of his old haunt, stevens's in bond street, and agreed to stop there and sup. on entering, we found an old friend of his, sir g---- w----, who joined our party; and, the _lobsters and brandy and water being put in requisition, it was (as usual on such occasions) broad daylight before we separated_.'--vol. iii. p. . during the latter part of lady byron's pregnancy, it appears from moore that byron was, night after night, engaged out at dinner parties, in which getting drunk was considered as of course the _finale_, as appears from the following letters:-- (letter .) to mr. moore. terrace, piccadilly, oct. , . 'i have not been able to ascertain precisely the time of duration of the stock-market; but i believe it is a good time for selling out, and i hope so. first, because i shall see you; and, next, because i shall receive certain moneys on behalf of lady b., the which will materially conduce to my comfort; i wanting (as the duns say) "to make up a sum." 'yesterday i dined out with a large-ish party, where were sheridan and colman, harry harris, of c. g., and his brother, sir gilbert heathcote, ds. kinnaird, and others of note and notoriety. _like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible,[ ] then altogethery, then inarticulate, and then drunk._ when we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling; and, to crown all, kinnaird and i had to conduct sheridan down a d----d corkscrew staircase, which had certainly been constructed before the discovery of fermented liquors, and to which no legs, however crooked, could possibly accommodate themselves. we deposited him safe at home, where his man, _evidently used to the business_,[ ] waited to receive him in the hall. [footnote : these italics are ours.] [footnote : these italics are ours.] 'both he and colman were, as usual, very good; but i carried away much wine, and the wine had previously carried away my memory: so that all was hiccough and happiness for the last hour or so, and i am not impregnated with any of the conversation. perhaps you heard of a late answer of sheridan to the watchman who found him bereft of that "divine particle of air" called reason.... he (the watchman) found sherry in the street fuddled and bewildered, and almost insensible. "who are _you_, sir?"--no answer. "what's your name?"--a hiccough. "what's your name?"--answer, in a slow, deliberate, and impassive tone, "wilberforce!" is not that sherry all over?--and, to my mind, excellent. poor fellow, _his_ very dregs are better than the "first sprightly runnings" of others. 'my paper is full, and i have a grievous headache. 'p.s.--lady b. is in full progress. next month will bring to light (with the aid of "juno lucina, _fer opem_," or rather _opes_, for the last are most wanted) the tenth wonder of the world; gil blas being the eighth, and he (my son's father) the ninth.' here we have a picture of the whole story,--lady byron within a month of her confinement; her money being used to settle debts; her husband out at a dinner-party, going through the _usual course_ of such parties, able to keep his legs and help sheridan downstairs, and going home 'gloomy, and savage to ferocity,' to his wife. four days after this (letter ), we find that this dinner-party is not an exceptional one, but one of a series: for he says, 'to-day i dine with kinnaird,--we are to have sheridan and colman again; and to-morrow, once more, at sir gilbert heathcote's.' afterward, in venice, he reviews the state of his health, at this period in london; and his account shows that his excesses in the vices of his times had wrought effects on his sensitive, nervous organisation, very different from what they might on the more phlegmatic constitutions of ordinary englishmen. in his journal, dated venice, feb. , , he says,-- 'i have been considering what can be the reason why i always wake at a certain hour in the morning, and always in very bad spirits,--i may say, in actual despair and despondency, in all respects, even of that which pleased me over night. in about an hour or two this goes off, and i compose either to sleep again, or at least to quiet. in england, five years ago, i had the same kind of hypochondria, but accompanied with so violent a thirst, that i have drunk as many as fifteen bottles of soda-water in one night, after going to bed, and been still thirsty,--calculating, however, some lost from the bursting-out and effervescence and overflowing of the soda-water in drawing the corks, or striking off the necks of the bottles from mere thirsty impatience. at present, i have _not_ the thirst; but the depression of spirits is no less violent.'--vol. v. p. . these extracts go to show what _must_ have been the condition of the man whom lady byron was called to receive at the intervals when he came back from his various social excitements and pleasures. that his nerves were exacerbated by violent extremes of abstinence and reckless indulgence; that he was often day after day drunk, and that drunkenness made him savage and ferocious,--such are the facts clearly shown by mr. moore's narrative. of the natural peculiarities of lord byron's temper, he thus speaks to the countess of blessington:-- 'i often think that i inherit my violence and bad temper from my poor mother,--not that my father, from all i could ever learn, had a much better; so that it is no wonder i have such a very bad one. as long as i can remember anything, i recollect being subject to violent paroxysms of rage, so disproportioned to the cause as to surprise me when they were over; and this still continues. i cannot coolly view any thing which excites my feelings; and, once the lurking devil in me is roused, i lose all command of myself. i do not recover a good fit of rage for days after. mind, i do not by this mean that the ill humour continues, as, on the contrary, that quickly subsides, exhausted by its own violence; but it shakes me terribly, and leaves me low and nervous after.'--_lady blessington's conversations_, p. . that during this time also his irritation and ill temper were increased by the mortification of duns, debts, and executions, is on the face of moore's story. moore himself relates one incident, which gives some idea of the many which may have occurred at these times, in a note on p. , vol. iv., where he speaks of lord byron's destroying a favourite old watch that had been his companion from boyhood, and gone with him to greece. 'in a fit of vexation and rage, brought upon him by some of these humiliating embarrassments, to which he was now almost daily a prey, he furiously dashed this watch on the hearth, and ground it to pieces with the poker among the ashes.' it is no wonder, that, with a man of this kind to manage, lady byron should have clung to the only female companionship she could dare to trust in the case, and earnestly desired to retain with her the sister, who seemed, more than herself, to have influence over him. the first letter given by 'the quarterly,' from lady byron to mrs. leigh, without a date, evidently belongs to this period, when the sister's society presented itself as a refuge in her approaching confinement. mrs. leigh speaks of leaving. the young wife conscious that the house presents no attractions, and that soon she herself shall be laid by, cannot urge mrs. leigh's stay as likely to give her any pleasure, but only as a comfort to herself. 'you will think me very foolish; but i have tried two or three times, and cannot _talk_ to you of your departure with a decent visage: so let me say one word in this way to spare my philosophy. with the expectations which i have, i never will nor can ask you to stay one moment longer than you are inclined to do. it would [be] the worst return for all i ever received from you. but in this at least i _am_ "truth itself," when i say, that whatever the situation may be, there is no one whose society is dearer to me, or can contribute more to my happiness. these feelings will not change under any circumstances, and i should be grieved if you did not understand them. should you hereafter condemn me, i shall not love you less. i will say no more. judge for yourself about going or staying. i wish you to consider _yourself_, if you could be wise enough to do that, for the first time in your life. 'thine, 'a. i. b.' addressed on the cover, 'to the hon. mrs. leigh.' this letter not being dated, we have no clue but what we obtain from its own internal evidence. it certainly is not written in lady byron's usual clear and elegant style; and is, in this respect, in striking contrast to all her letters that i have ever seen. but the notes written by a young woman under such peculiar and distressing circumstances must not be judged by the standard of calmer hours. subsequently to this letter, and during that stormy, irrational period when lord byron's conduct became daily more and more unaccountable, may have come that startling scene in which lord byron took every pains to convince his wife of improper relations subsisting between himself and his sister. what an _utter_ desolation this must have been to the wife, tearing from her the last hold of friendship, and the last refuge to which she had clung in her sorrows, may easily be conceived. in this crisis, it appears that the _sister_ convinced lady byron that the whole was to be attributed to insanity. it would be a conviction gladly accepted, and bringing infinite relief, although still surrounding her path with fearful difficulties. that such was the case is plainly asserted by lady byron in her statement published in . speaking of her separation, lady byron says:-- 'the facts are, i left london for kirkby mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the th of january, . lord byron had signified to me in writing, jan. , his _absolute desire_ that i should leave london on the earliest day that i could conveniently fix. it was not safe for me to encounter the fatigues of a journey sooner than the th. _previously to my departure, it had been strongly impressed on my mind that lord byron was under the influence of insanity._ 'this opinion was in a great measure derived from the communications made to me by his _nearest relatives_ and personal attendant.' now there was no nearer relative than mrs. leigh; and the personal attendant was fletcher. it was therefore presumably mrs. leigh who convinced lady byron of her husband's insanity. lady byron says, 'it was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying himself. '_with the concurrence_ of his family, i had consulted with dr. baillie, as a friend, on jan. , as to his supposed malady.' now, lord byron's written order for her to leave came on jan. . it appears, then, that lady byron, acting in concurrence with mrs. leigh and others of her husband's family, consulted dr. baillie, on jan. , as to what she should do; the symptoms presented to dr. baillie being, evidently, insane hatred of his wife on the part of lord byron, and a determination to get her out of the house. lady byron goes on:-- 'on acquainting him with the state of the case, and with lord byron's desire that i should leave london, dr. baillie thought my absence might be advisable as an experiment, _assuming_ the fact of mental derangement; for dr. baillie, not having had access to lord byron, could not pronounce an opinion on that point. he enjoined, that, in correspondence with lord byron, i should avoid all but light and soothing topics. under these impressions, i left london, determined to follow the advice given me by dr. baillie. whatever might have been the nature of lord byron's treatment of me from the time of my marriage, yet, supposing him to have been in a state of mental alienation, it was not for _me_, nor for any person of common humanity, to manifest at that moment a sense of injury.' it appears, then, that the domestic situation in byron's house at the time of his wife's expulsion was one so grave as to call for family counsel; for lady byron, generally accurate, speaks in the plural number. 'his _nearest_ relatives' certainly includes mrs. leigh. 'his family' includes more. that some of lord byron's own relatives were cognisant of facts at this time, and that they took lady byron's side, is shown by one of his own chance admissions. in vol. vi. p. , in a letter on bowles, he says, speaking of this time, '_all my relations_, save one, fell from me like leaves from a tree in autumn.' and in medwin's conversations he says, 'even my cousin george byron, who had been brought up with me, and whom i loved as a brother, took my wife's part.' the conduct must have been marked in the extreme that led to this result. we cannot help stopping here to say that lady byron's situation at this time has been discussed in our days with a want of ordinary human feeling that is surprising. let any father and mother, reading this, look on their own daughter, and try to make the case their own. after a few short months of married life,--months full of patient endurance of the strangest and most unaccountable treatment,--she comes to them, expelled from her husband's house, an object of hatred and aversion to him, and having to settle for herself the awful question, whether he is a dangerous madman or a determined villain. such was this young wife's situation. with a heart at times wrung with compassion for her husband as a helpless maniac, and fearful that all may end in suicide, yet compelled to leave him, she writes on the road the much-quoted letter, beginning 'dear duck.' this is an exaggerated and unnatural letter, it is true, but of precisely the character that might be expected from an inexperienced young wife when dealing with a husband supposed to be insane. the next day, she addressed to augusta this letter:-- 'my dearest a.,--it is my great comfort that _you_ are still in piccadilly.' and again, on the rd:-- 'dearest a.,--i know you feel for me, as do for you; and perhaps i am better understood than i think. you have been, ever since i knew you, my best comforter; and will so remain, unless you grow tired of the office,--which may well be.' we can see here how self-denying and heroic appears to lady byron the conduct of the sister, who patiently remains to soothe and guide and restrain the moody madman, whose madness takes a form, at times, so repulsive to every womanly feeling. she intimates that she should not wonder should augusta grow weary of the office. lady byron continues her statement thus:-- 'when i arrived at kirkby mallory, my parents were unacquainted with the existence of any causes likely to destroy my prospects of happiness; and, when i communicated to them the opinion that had been formed concerning lord byron's state of mind, they were most anxious to promote his restoration by every means in their power. they assured those relations that were with him in london that "they would devote their whole care and attention to the alleviation of his malady."' here we have a _quotation_[ ] from a letter written by lady milbanke to the anxious 'relations' who are taking counsel about lord byron in town. lady byron also adds, in justification of her mother from lord byron's slanders, 'she had always treated him with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. never did an irritating word escape her lips in her whole intercourse with him.' [footnote : this little incident shows the characteristic carefulness and accuracy of lady byron's habits. this statement was written _fourteen_ years after the events spoken of; but lady byron carefully quotes a passage from her mother's letter written at that time. this shows that a copy of lady milbanke's letter had been preserved, and makes it appear probable that copies of the whole correspondence of that period were also kept. great light could be thrown on the whole transaction, could these documents be consulted.] now comes a remarkable part of lady byron's statement:-- 'the accounts given me after i left lord byron, by those in constant intercourse with him,[ ] _added_ to those doubts which had before transiently occurred to my mind as to the reality of the alleged disease; and the reports of his medical attendants were far from establishing anything like lunacy.' [footnote : here, again, lady byron's sealed papers might furnish light. the letters addressed to her at this time by those in constant intercourse with lord byron are doubtless preserved, and would show her ground of action.] when these doubts arose in her mind, it is not natural to suppose that they should, at first, involve mrs. leigh. she still appears to lady byron as the devoted, believing sister, fully convinced of her brother's insanity, and endeavouring to restrain and control him. but if lord byron were sane, if the purposes he had avowed to his wife were real, he must have lied about his sister in the past, and perhaps have the worst intentions for the future. the horrors of that state of vacillation between the conviction of insanity and the commencing conviction of something worse can scarcely be told. at all events, the wife's doubts extend so far that she speaks out to her parents. 'under this uncertainty,' says the statement, 'i deemed it right to communicate to my parents, that, if i were to consider lord byron's past conduct as that of a person of sound mind, _nothing could induce me to return to him_. it therefore appeared expedient, both to them and to myself, to consult the ablest advisers. for that object, and also to obtain still further information respecting appearances which indicated mental derangement, my mother determined to go to london. she was empowered by me to take legal opinion on a written statement of mine; though i then had reasons for reserving a _part of the case from the knowledge even of my father and mother_.' it is during this time of uncertainty that the next letter to mrs. leigh may be placed. it seems to be rather a fragment of a letter than a whole one: perhaps it is an extract; in which case it would be desirable, if possible, to view it in connection with the remaining text:-- 'jan. , . 'my dearest augusta,--shall i still be your sister? i must resign my right to be so considered; but i don't think that will make any difference in the kindness i have so uniformly experienced from you.' this fragment is not signed, nor finished in any way, but indicates that the writer is about to take a decisive step. on the th, as we have seen, lady milbanke had written, inviting lord byron. subsequently she went to london to make more particular inquiries into his state. this fragment seems part of a letter from lady byron, called forth in view of some evidence resulting from her mother's observations.[ ] [footnote : probably lady milbanke's letters are among the sealed papers, and would more fully explain the situation.] lady byron now adds:-- 'being convinced by the result of these inquiries, and by the tenour of lord byron's proceedings, that the notion of insanity was an illusion, i no longer hesitated to authorize such measures as were necessary in order to secure me from ever being again placed in his power. 'conformably with this resolution, my father wrote to him, on the nd of february, to request an amicable separation.' the following letter to mrs. leigh is dated the day after this application, and is in many respects a noticeable one:-- 'kirkby mallory, feb. , . 'my dearest augusta,--you are desired by your brother to ask if my father has acted with my concurrence in proposing a separation. he has. it cannot be supposed, that, in my present distressing situation, i am capable of stating in a detailed manner the reasons which will not only justify this measure, but compel me to take it; and it never can be my wish to remember _unnecessarily_ [_sic_] those injuries for which, however deep, i feel no resentment. i will now only recall to lord byron's mind his avowed and insurmountable aversion to the married state, and the desire and determination he has expressed ever since its commencement to free himself from that bondage, as finding it quite insupportable, though candidly acknowledging that no effort of duty or affection has been wanting on my part. he has too painfully convinced me that all these attempts to contribute towards his happiness were wholly useless, and most unwelcome to him. i enclose this letter to my father, wishing it to receive his sanction. 'ever yours most affectionately, 'a. i. byron.' we observe in this letter that it is written to _be shown_ to lady byron's father, and receive his sanction; and, as that father was in ignorance of all the deeper causes of trouble in the case, it will be seen that the letter must necessarily be a reserved one. this sufficiently accounts for the guarded character of the language when speaking of the causes of separation. one part of the letter incidentally overthrows lord byron's statement, which he always repeated during his life, and which is repeated for him now; namely, that his wife _forsook_ him, instead of being, as she claims, _expelled_ by him. she recalls to lord byron's mind the 'desire and _determination_ he has expressed ever since his marriage to free himself from its bondage.' this is in perfect keeping with the '_absolute_ desire,' signified by writing, that she should leave his house on the earliest day possible; and she places the cause of the separation on his having 'too painfully' convinced her that he does not want her--as a wife. it appears that augusta hesitates to show this note to her brother. it is bringing on a crisis which she, above all others, would most wish to avoid. in the meantime, lady byron receives a letter from lord byron, which makes her feel it more than ever essential to make the decision final. i have reason to believe that this letter is preserved in lady byron's papers:-- 'feb. , . 'i hope, my dear a., that you would on no account withhold from your brother the letter which i sent yesterday in answer to yours written by his desire, particularly as one which i have received from himself to-day renders it still more important that he should know the contents of that addressed to you, i am, in haste and not very well, 'yours most affectionately, 'a. i. byron.' the last of this series of letters is less like the style of lady byron than any of them. we cannot judge whether it is a whole consecutive letter, or fragments from a letter, selected and united. there is a great want of that clearness and precision which usually characterised lady byron's style. it shows, however, that the decision is made,--a decision which she regrets on account of the sister who has tried so long to prevent it. 'kirkby mallory, feb. , . 'the present sufferings of all may yet be repaid in blessings. do not despair absolutely, dearest; and leave me but enough of your interest to afford you any consolation by partaking of that sorrow which i am most unhappy to cause thus unintentionally. _you will_ be of my opinion hereafter; and at present your bitterest reproach would be forgiven, though heaven knows you have considered me more than a thousand would have done,--more than anything but my affection for b., one most dear to you, could deserve. i must not remember these feelings. farewell! god bless you from the bottom of my heart! 'a. i. b.' we are here to consider that mrs. leigh has stood to lady byron in all this long agony as her only confidante and friend; that she has denied the charges her brother has made, and referred them to insanity, admitting insane _attempts_ upon herself which she has been obliged to watch over and control. lady byron has come to the conclusion that augusta is mistaken as to insanity; that there is a real wicked _purpose_ and desire on the part of the brother, not as yet believed in by the sister. she regards the sister as one, who, though deceived and blinded, is still worthy of confidence and consideration; and so says to her, '_you will be of my opinion hereafter_.' she says, 'you have considered me more than a thousand would have done.' mrs. leigh is, in lady byron's eyes, a most abused and innocent woman, who, to spare her sister in her delicate situation, has taken on herself the whole charge of a maniacal brother, although suffering from him language and actions of the most injurious kind. that mrs. leigh did not flee the house at once under such circumstances, and wholly decline the management of the case, seems to lady byron consideration and self-sacrifice greater than she can acknowledge. the knowledge of the _whole extent of the truth_ came to lady byron's mind at a later period. we now take up the history from lushington's letter to lady byron, published at the close of her statement. the application to lord byron for an act of separation was positively refused at first; it being an important part of his policy that all the responsibility and insistance should come from his wife, and that he should appear forced into it contrary to his will. dr. lushington, however, says to lady byron,-- 'i was originally consulted by lady noel on your behalf while you were in the country. the circumstances detailed by her were such as justified a separation; but they were not of that aggravated description as to render such a measure indispensable. on lady noel's representations, i deemed a reconciliation with lord byron practicable, and felt most sincerely a wish to aid in effecting it. there was not, on lady noel's part, any exaggeration of the facts, nor, so far as i could perceive, any determination to prevent a return to lord byron: certainly none was expressed when i spoke of a reconciliation.' in this crisis, with lord byron refusing the separation, with lushington expressing a wish to aid in a reconciliation, and lady noel not expressing any aversion to it, the whole strain of the dreadful responsibility comes upon the wife. she resolves to ask counsel of her lawyer, in view of a statement of the _whole_ case. lady byron is spoken of by lord byron (letter ) as being in town with her father on the th of february; viz., fifteen days after the date of the last letter to mrs. leigh. it must have been about this time, then, that she laid her whole case before lushington; and he gave it a thorough examination. the result was, that lushington expressed in the most decided terms his conviction that reconciliation was impossible. the language he uses is very striking:-- 'when you came to town in about a fortnight, or perhaps more, after my first interview with lady noel, i was, for the first time, informed by you of facts utterly unknown, as i have no doubt, to sir ralph and lady noel. on receiving this additional information, my opinion was entirely changed. i considered a reconciliation impossible. i declared my opinion, and added, that, if such an idea should be entertained, i could not, either professionally or otherwise, take any part towards effecting it.' it does not appear in this note what effect the lawyer's examination of the case had on lady byron's mind. by the expressions he uses, we should infer that she may still have been hesitating as to whether a reconciliation might not be her duty. this hesitancy he does away with most decisively, saying, 'a reconciliation is impossible;' and, supposing lady byron or her friends desirous of one, he declares positively that he cannot, either professionally as a lawyer or privately as a friend, have anything to do with effecting it. the lawyer, it appears, has drawn, from the facts of the case, inferences deeper and stronger than those which presented themselves to the mind of the young woman; and he instructs her in the most absolute terms. fourteen years after, in , for the first time the world was astonished by this declaration from dr. lushington, in language so pronounced and positive that there could be no mistake. lady byron had stood all these fourteen years slandered by her husband, and misunderstood by his friends, when, had she so chosen, this opinion of dr. lushington's could have been at once made public, which fully justified her conduct. if, as the 'blackwood' of july insinuates, the story told to lushington was a malignant slander, meant to injure lord byron, why did she suppress the judgment of her counsel at a time when all the world was on her side, and this decision would have been the decisive blow against her husband? why, by sealing the lips of counsel, and of all whom she could influence, did she deprive herself finally of the very advantage for which it has been assumed she fabricated the story? chapter iv. the character of the two witnesses compared. it will be observed, that, in this controversy, we are confronting two opposing stories,--one of lord and the other of lady byron; and the statements from each are in point-blank contradiction. lord byron states that his wife deserted him. lady byron states that he expelled her, and reminds him, in her letter to augusta leigh, that the expulsion was a deliberate one, and that he had purposed it from the beginning of their marriage. lord byron always stated that he was ignorant why his wife left him, and was desirous of her return. lady byron states that he told her that he would force her to leave him, and to leave him in such a way that the whole blame of the separation should always rest on her, and not on him. to say nothing of any deeper or darker accusations on either side, here, in the very outworks of the story, the two meet point-blank. in considering two opposing stories, we always, as a matter of fact, take into account the character of the witnesses. if a person be literal and exact in his usual modes of speech, reserved, careful, conscientious, and in the habit of observing minutely the minor details of time, place, and circumstances, we give weight to his testimony from these considerations. but if a person be proved to have singular and exceptional principles with regard to truth; if he be universally held by society to be so in the habit of mystification, that large allowances must be made for his statements; if his assertions at one time contradict those made at another; and if his statements, also, sometimes come in collision with those of his best friends, so that, when his language is reported, difficulties follow, and explanations are made necessary,--all this certainly disqualifies him from being considered a trustworthy witness. all these disqualifications belong in a remarkable degree to lord byron, on the oft-repeated testimony of his best friends. we shall first cite the following testimony, given in an article from 'under the crown,' which is written by an early friend and ardent admirer of lord byron:-- 'byron had one pre-eminent fault,--a fault which must be considered as deeply criminal by everyone who does not, as i do, believe it to have resulted from monomania. he had a morbid love of a bad reputation. there was hardly an offence of which he would not, with perfect indifference, accuse himself. an old schoolfellow who met him on the continent told me that he would continually write paragraphs against himself in the foreign journals, and delight in their republication by the english newspapers as in the success of a practical joke. whenever anybody has related anything discreditable of byron, assuring me that it must be true, for he heard it from himself, i always felt that he could not have spoken upon worse authority; and that, in all probability, the tale was a pure invention. if i could remember, and were willing to repeat, the various misdoings which i have from time to time heard him attribute to himself, i could fill a volume. but i never believed them. i very soon became aware of this strange idiosyncrasy: it puzzled me to account for it; but there it was, a sort of diseased and distorted vanity. the same eccentric spirit would induce him to report things which were false with regard to his family, which anybody else would have concealed, though true. he told me more than once that his father was insane, and killed himself. i shall never forget the manner in which he first told me this. while washing his hands, and singing a gay neapolitan air, he stopped, looked round at me, and said, "there always was madness in the family." then, after continuing his washing and his song, he added, as if speaking of a matter of the slightest indifference, "my father cut his throat." the contrast between the tenour of the subject and the levity of the expression was fearfully painful: it was like a stanza of "don juan." in this instance, i had no doubt that the fact was as he related it; but in speaking of it, only a few years since, to an old lady in whom i had perfect confidence, she assured me that it was not so. mr. byron, who was her cousin, had been extremely wild, but was quite sane, and had died very quietly in his bed. what byron's reason could have been for thus calumniating not only himself but the blood which was flowing in his veins, who can divine? but, for some reason or other, it seemed to be his determined purpose to keep himself unknown to the great body of his fellow-creatures; to present himself to their view in moral masquerade.' certainly the character of lord byron here given by his friend is not the kind to make him a trustworthy witness in any case: on the contrary, it seems to show either a subtle delight in falsehood for falsehood's sake, or else the wary artifices of a man who, having a deadly secret to conceal, employs many turnings and windings to throw the world off the scent. what intriguer, having a crime to cover, could devise a more artful course than to send half a dozen absurd stories to the press, which should, after a while, be traced back to himself, till the public should gradually look on all it heard from him as the result of this eccentric humour? the easy, trifling air with which lord byron made to this friend a false statement in regard to his father would lead naturally to the inquiry, on what _other_ subjects, equally important to the good name of others, he might give false testimony with equal indifference. when medwin's 'conversations with lord byron' were first published, they contained a number of declarations of the noble lord affecting the honour and honesty of his friend and publisher murray. these appear to have been made in the same way as those about his father, and with equal indifference. so serious were the charges, that mr. murray's friends felt that he ought, in justice to himself, to come forward and confront them with the facts as stated in byron's letters to himself; and in vol. x., p. , of murray's standard edition, accordingly these false statements are confronted with the letters of lord byron. the statements, as reported, are of a most material and vital nature, relating to murray's financial honour and honesty, and to his general truthfulness and sincerity. in reply, murray opposes to them the accounts of sums paid for different works, and letters from byron exactly contradicting his own statements as to murray's character. the subject, as we have seen, was discussed in 'the noctes.' no doubt appears to be entertained that byron made the statements to medwin; and the theory of accounting for them is, that 'byron was "bamming" him.' it seems never to have occurred to any of these credulous gentlemen, who laughed at others for being 'bammed,' that byron might be doing the very same thing by themselves. how many of his so-called packages sent to lady byron were _real_ packages, and how many were mystifications? we find, in two places at least in his memoir, letters to lady byron, written and shown to others, which, he says, were never sent by him. he told lady blessington that he was in the habit of writing to her _constantly_. was this 'bamming'? was he 'bamming,' also, when he told the world that lady byron suddenly deserted him, quite to his surprise, and that he never, to his dying day, could find out why? lady blessington relates, that, in one of his conversations with her, he entertained her by repeating epigrams and lampoons, in which many of his friends were treated with severity. she inquired of him, in case he should die, and such proofs of his friendship come before the public, what would be the feelings of these friends, who had supposed themselves to stand so high in his good graces. she says, '"that," said byron, "is precisely one of the ideas that most amuses me. i often fancy the rage and humiliation of my quondam friends in hearing the truth, at least from me, for the first time, and when i am beyond the reach of their malice.... what grief," continued byron, laughing, "could resist the charges of ugliness, dulness, or any of the thousand nameless defects, personal or mental, 'that flesh is heir to,' when reprisal or recantation was impossible?... people are in such daily habits of commenting on the defects of friends, that they are unconscious of the unkindness of it.... now, i write down as well as speak my sentiments of those who think they have gulled me; and i only wish, in case i die before them, that i might return to witness the effects my posthumous opinions of them are likely to produce in their minds. what good fun this would be!... you don't seem to value this as you ought," said byron with one of his sardonic smiles, seeing i looked, as i really felt, surprised at his avowed insincerity. i feel the same pleasure in anticipating the rage and mortification of my _soi-disant_ friends at the discovery of my real sentiments of them, that a miser may be supposed to feel while making a will that will disappoint all the expectants that have been toadying him for years. then how amusing it will be to compare my posthumous with my previously given opinions, the one throwing ridicule on the other!"' it is asserted, in a note to 'the noctes,' that byron, besides his autobiography, prepared a voluminous dictionary of all his friends and acquaintances, in which brief notes of their persons and character were given, with his opinion of them. it was not considered that the publication of this would add to the noble lord's popularity; and it has never appeared. in hunt's life of byron, there is similar testimony. speaking of byron's carelessness in exposing his friends' secrets, and showing or giving away their letters, he says:-- 'if his five hundred confidants, by a reticence as remarkable as his laxity, had not kept his secrets better than he did himself, the very devil might have been played with i don't know how many people. but there was always this saving reflection to be made, that the man who could be guilty of such extravagances for the sake of making an impression might be guilty of exaggeration, or inventing what astonished you; and indeed, though he was a speaker of the truth on ordinary occasions,--that is to say, he did not tell you he had seen a dozen horses when he had seen only two,--yet, as he professed not to value the truth when in the way of his advantage (and there was nothing he thought more to his advantage than making you stare at him), the persons who were liable to suffer from his inconsistency had all the right in the world to the benefit of this consideration.'[ ] [footnote : hunt's byron, p. . philadelphia, .] with a person of such mental and moral habits as to truth, the inquiry always must be, _where_ does mystification end, and truth begin? if a man is careless about his father's reputation for sanity, and reports him a crazy suicide; if he gaily accuses his publisher and good friend of double-dealing, shuffling, and dishonesty; if he tells stories about mrs. clermont,[ ] to which his sister offers a public refutation,--is it to be supposed that he will always tell the truth about his wife, when the world is pressing him hard, and every instinct of self-defence is on the alert? [footnote : from the temple bar article, october . 'mrs. leigh, lord byron's sister, had other thoughts of mrs. clermont, and wrote to her offering public testimony to her tenderness and forbearance under circumstances which must have been trying to any friend of lady byron.'--_campbell, in the new monthly magazine_, , p. .] and then the ingenuity that could write and publish false documents about himself, that they might re-appear in london papers,--to what other accounts might it not be turned? might it not create documents, invent statements, about his wife as well as himself? the document so ostentatiously given to m. g. lewis 'for circulation among friends in england' was a specimen of what the noctes club would call 'bamming.' if byron wanted a legal investigation, why did he not take it in the first place, instead of signing the separation? if he wanted to cancel it, as he said in this document, why did he not go to london, and enter a suit for the restitution of conjugal rights, or a suit in chancery to get possession of his daughter? that this was in his mind, passages in medwin's 'conversations' show. he told lady blessington also that he might claim his daughter in chancery at any time. why did he not do it? either of these two steps would have brought on that public investigation he so longed for. can it be possible that all the friends who passed this private document from hand to hand never suspected that they were being 'bammed' by it? but it has been universally assumed, that, though byron was thus remarkably given to mystification, yet _all_ his statements in regard to this story are to be accepted, simply because he makes them. _why_ must we accept them, any more than his statements as to murray or his own father? so we constantly find lord byron's incidental statements coming in collision with those of others: for example, in his account of his marriage, he tells medwin that lady byron's maid was put between his bride and himself, on the same seat, in the wedding-journey. the lady's maid herself, mrs. mimms, says she was sent before them to halnaby, and was there to receive them when they alighted. he said of lady byron's mother, 'she always detested me, and had not the decency to conceal it in her own house. dining with her one day, i broke a tooth, and was in great pain; which i could not help showing. "it will do you good," said lady noel; "i am glad of it!"' lady byron says, speaking of her mother, 'she always treated him with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. never did an irritating word escape her.' lord byron states that the correspondence between him and lady byron, after his refusal, was first opened by her. lady byron's friends deny the statement, and assert that the direct contrary is the fact. thus we see that lord byron's statements are directly opposed to those of his family in relation to his father; directly against murray's accounts, and his own admission to murray; directly against the statement of the lady's maid as to her position in the journey; directly against mrs. leigh's as to mrs. clermont, and against lady byron as to her mother. we can see, also, that these misstatements were so fully perceived by the men of his times, that medwin's 'conversations' were simply laughed at as an amusing instance of how far a man might be made the victim of a mystification. christopher north thus sentences the book:-- 'i don't mean to call medwin a liar.... the captain _lies_, sir, but it is under a thousand mistakes. whether byron bammed him, or he, by virtue of his own egregious stupidity, was the sole and sufficient bammifier of himself, i know not; neither greatly do i care. this much is certain, ... that the book throughout is full of things that were not, and most resplendently deficient _quoad_ the things that were.' yet it is on medwin's 'conversations' alone that many of the magazine assertions in regard to lady byron are founded. it is on that authority that lady byron is accused of breaking open her husband's writing-desk in his absence, and sending the letters she found there to the husband of a lady compromised by them; and likewise that lord byron is declared to have paid back his wife's ten-thousand-pound wedding portion, and doubled it. moore makes no such statements; and his remarks about lord byron's use of his wife's money are unmistakable evidence to the contrary. moore, although byron's ardent partisan, was too well informed to make assertions with regard to him, which, at that time, it would have been perfectly easy to refute. all these facts go to show that lord byron's character for accuracy or veracity was not such as to entitle him to ordinary confidence as a witness, especially in a case where he had the strongest motives for misstatement. and if we consider that the celebrated autobiography was the finished, careful work of such a practised 'mystifier,' who can wonder that it presented a web of such intermingled truth and lies that there was no such thing as disentangling it, and pointing out where falsehood ended and truth began? but in regard to lady byron, what has been the universal impression of the world? it has been alleged against her that she was a precise, straight-forward woman, so accustomed to plain, literal dealings, that she could not understand the various mystifications of her husband; and from that cause arose her unhappiness. byron speaks, in 'the sketch,' of her _peculiar_ truthfulness; and even in the 'clytemnestra' poem, when accusing her of lying, he speaks of her as departing from 'the _early_ truth that was her proper praise.' lady byron's careful accuracy as to dates, to time, place, and circumstances, will probably be vouched for by all the very large number of persons whom the management of her extended property and her works of benevolence brought to act as co-operators or agents with her. she was not a person in the habit of making exaggerated or ill-considered statements. her published statement of is clear, exact, accurate, and perfectly intelligible. the dates are carefully ascertained and stated, the expressions are moderate, and all the assertions firm and perfectly definite. it therefore seems remarkable that the whole reasoning on this byron matter has generally been conducted by assuming all lord byron's statements to be true, and requiring all lady byron's statements to be sustained by other evidence. if lord byron asserts that his wife deserted him, the assertion is accepted without proof; but, if lady byron asserts that he ordered her to leave, that requires proof. lady byron asserts that she took counsel, on this order of lord byron, with his family friends and physician, under the idea that it originated in insanity. the 'blackwood' asks, '_what_ family friends?' says it doesn't know of any; and asks proof. if lord byron asserts that he always longed for a public investigation of the charges against him, the 'quarterly' and 'blackwood' quote the saying with ingenuous confidence. they are obliged to admit that he refused to stand that public test; that he signed the deed of separation rather than meet it. they know, also, that he could have at any time instituted suits against lady byron that would have brought the whole matter into court, and that he did not? why did he not? the 'quarterly' simply intimates that such suits would have been unpleasant. why? on account of personal delicacy? the man that wrote 'don juan', and furnished the details of his wedding-night, held back from clearing his name by delicacy! it is astonishing to what extent this controversy has consisted in simply repeating lord byron's assertions over and over again, and calling the result proof. now, we propose a different course. as lady byron is not stated by her warm admirers to have had _any_ monomania for speaking untruths on any subject, we rank her value as a witness at a higher rate than lord byron's. she never accused her parents of madness or suicide, merely to make a sensation; never 'bammed' an acquaintance by false statements concerning the commercial honour of anyone with whom she was in business relations; never wrote and sent to the press as a clever jest false statements about herself; and never, in any other ingenious way, tampered with truth. we therefore hold it to be a mere dictate of reason and common sense, that, in all cases where her statements conflict with her husband's, hers are to be taken as the more trustworthy. the 'london quarterly,' in a late article, distinctly repudiates lady byron's statements as sources of evidence, and throughout quotes statements of lord byron as if they had the force of self-evident propositions. we consider such a course contrary to common sense as well as common good manners. the state of the case is just this: if lord byron did not make false statements on this subject it was certainly an exception to his usual course. he certainly did make such on a great variety of other subjects. by his own showing, he had a peculiar pleasure in falsifying language, and in misleading and betraying even his friends. but, if lady byron gave false witness upon this subject, it was an exception to the whole course of her life. the habits of her mind, the government of her conduct, her life-long reputation, all were those of a literal, exact truthfulness. the accusation of her being untruthful was first brought forward by her husband in the 'clytemnestra' poem, in the autumn of ; but it never was publicly circulated till after his death, and it was first formally made the basis of a published attack on lady byron in the july 'blackwood' of . up to that time, we look in vain through current literature for any indications that the world regarded lady byron otherwise than as a cold, careful, prudent woman, who made no assertions, and had no confidants. when she spoke in , it is perfectly evident that christopher north and his circle believed what she said, though reproving her for saying it at all. the 'quarterly' goes on to heap up a number of vague assertions,--that lady byron, about the time of her separation, made a confidant of a young officer; that she told the clergyman of ham of some trials with lord ockham; and that she told stories of different things at different times. all this is not proof: it is mere assertion, and assertion made to produce prejudice. it is like raising a whirlwind of sand to blind the eyes that are looking for landmarks. it is quite probable lady byron told different stories about lord byron at various times. no woman could have a greater variety of stories to tell; and no woman ever was so persecuted and pursued and harassed, both by public literature and private friendship, to say _something_. she had plenty of causes for a separation, without the fatal and final one. in her conversations with lady anne barnard, for example, she gives reasons enough for a separation, though none of them are the chief one. it is not _different_ stories, but _contradictory_ stories, that must be relied on to disprove the credibility of a witness. the 'quarterly' has certainly told a great number of different stories,--stories which may prove as irreconcilable with each other as any attributed to lady byron; but its denial of all weight to her testimony is simply begging the whole question under consideration. a man gives testimony about the causes of a railroad accident, being the only eye-witness. the opposing counsel begs, whatever else you do, you will not admit that man's testimony. you ask, 'why? has he ever been accused of want of veracity on other subjects?'--'no: he has stood high as a man of probity and honour for years.'--'why, then, throw out his testimony?' 'because he lies in this instance,' says the adversary: 'his testimony does not agree with this and that.'--'pardon me, that is the very point in question,' say you: 'we expect to prove that it does agree with this and that.' because certain letters of lady byron's do not agree with the 'quarterly's' theory of the facts of the separation, it at once assumes that she is an untruthful witness, and proposes to throw out her evidence altogether. we propose, on the contrary, to regard lady byron's evidence with all the attention due to the statement of a high-minded conscientious person, never in any other case accused of violation of truth; we also propose to show it to be in strict agreement with all well-authenticated facts and documents; and we propose to treat lord byron's evidence as that of a man of great subtlety, versed in mystification and delighting in it, and who, on many other subjects, not only deceived, but gloried in deception; and then we propose to show that it contradicts well-established facts and received documents. one thing more we have to say concerning the laws of evidence in regard to documents presented in this investigation. this is not a london west-end affair, but a grave historical inquiry, in which the whole english-speaking world are interested to know the truth. as it is now too late to have the securities of a legal trial, certainly the rules of historical evidence should be strictly observed. all important documents should be presented in an entire state, with a plain and open account of their history,--who had them, where they were found, and how preserved. there have been most excellent, credible, and authentic documents produced in this case; and, as a specimen of them, we shall mention lord lindsay's letter, and the journal and letter it authenticates. lord lindsay at once comes forward, gives his name boldly, gives the history of the papers he produces, shows how they came to be in his hands, why never produced before, and why now. we feel confidence at once. but in regard to the important series of letters presented as lady byron's, this obviously proper course has not been pursued. though assumed to be of the most critical importance, no such distinct history of them was given in the first instance. the want of such evidence being noticed by other papers, the 'quarterly' appears hurt that the high character of the magazine has not been a sufficient guarantee; and still deals in vague statements that the letters have been freely circulated, and that two noblemen of the highest character would vouch for them if necessary. in our view, _it is necessary_. these noblemen should imitate lord lindsay's example,--give a fair account of these letters, under their own names; and then, we would add, it is needful for complete satisfaction to have the letters _entire_, and not in fragments. the 'quarterly' gave these letters with the evident implication that they are entirely destructive to lady byron's character as a witness. now, has that magazine much reason to be hurt at even an insinuation on its own character when making such deadly assaults on that of another? the individuals who bring forth documents that they suppose to be deadly to the character of a noble person, always in her generation held to be eminent for virtue, certainly should not murmur at being called upon to substantiate these documents in the manner usually expected in historical investigations. we have shown that these letters do not contradict, but that they perfectly confirm the facts, and agree with the dates in lady byron's published statements of ; and this is our reason for deeming them authentic. these considerations with regard to the manner of conducting the inquiry seem so obviously proper, that we cannot but believe that they will command a serious attention. chapter v. the direct argument to prove the crime. we shall now proceed to state the argument against lord byron. st, there is direct evidence that lord byron was guilty of some unusual immorality. the evidence is not, as the 'blackwood' says, that lushington yielded assent to the _ex parte_ statement of a client; nor, as the 'quarterly' intimates, that he was affected by the charms of an attractive young woman. the first evidence of it is the fact that lushington and romilly _offered to take the case into court, and make there a public exhibition of the proofs_ on which their convictions were founded. nd, it is very strong evidence of this fact, that lord byron, while loudly declaring that he wished to know with what he was charged, _declined_ this open investigation, and, rather than meet it, signed a paper which he had before refused to sign. rd, it is also strong evidence of this fact, that although secretly declaring to all his intimate friends that he still wished open investigation in a court of justice, and affirming his belief that his character was being ruined for want of it, he never afterwards took the means to get it. instead of writing a private handbill, he might have come to england and entered a suit; and he did not do it. that lord byron was conscious of a great crime is further made probable by the peculiar malice he seemed to bear to his wife's legal counsel. if there had been nothing to fear in that legal investigation wherewith they threatened him, why did he not only flee from it, but regard with a peculiar bitterness those who advised and proposed it? to an innocent man falsely accused, the certainties of law are a blessing and a refuge. female charms cannot mislead in a court of justice; and the atrocities of rumour are there sifted, and deprived of power. a trial is not a threat to an innocent man: it is an invitation, an opportunity. why, then, did he hate sir samuel romilly, so that he exulted like a fiend over his tragical death? the letter in which he pours forth this malignity was so brutal, that moore was obliged, by the general outcry of society, to suppress it. is this the language of an innocent man who has been offered a fair trial under his country's laws? or of a guilty man, to whom the very idea of public trial means public exposure? th, it is probable that the crime was the one now alleged, because that was the most important crime charged against him by rumour at the period. this appears by the following extract of a letter from shelley, furnished by the 'quarterly,' dated bath, sept. , :-- 'i saw kinnaird, and had a long talk with him. he informed me that lady byron was now in perfect health; that she was living with your sister. i felt much pleasure from this intelligence. i consider the latter part of it as affording a decisive contradiction to the only important calumny that ever was advanced against you. on this ground, at least, it will become the world hereafter to be silent.' it appears evident here that the charge of improper intimacy with his sister was, in the mind of shelley, the only important one that had yet been made against lord byron. it is fairly inferable, from lord byron's own statements, that his family friends believed this charge. lady byron speaks, in her statement, of 'nearest relatives' and family friends who were cognizant of lord byron's strange conduct at the time of the separation; and lord byron, in the letter to bowles, before quoted, says that every one of his relations, except his sister, fell from him in this crisis like leaves from a tree in autumn. there was, therefore, not only this report, but such appearances in support of it as convinced those nearest to the scene, and best apprised of the facts; so that they fell from him entirely, notwithstanding the strong influence of family feeling. the guiccioli book also mentions this same allegation as having arisen from peculiarities in lord byron's manner of treating his sister:--- 'this deep, fraternal affection assumed at times, under the influence of his powerful genius, and under exceptional circumstances, an almost too passionate expression, which opened a fresh field to his enemies.'[ ] [footnote : 'my recollections,' p. .] it appears, then, that there was nothing in the character of lord byron and of his sister, as they appeared before their generation, that prevented such a report from arising: on the contrary, there was something in their relations that made it seem probable. and it appears that his own family friends were so affected by it, that they, with one accord, deserted him. the 'quarterly' presents the fact that lady byron went to visit mrs. leigh at this time, as triumphant proof that _she_ did not then believe it. can the 'quarterly' show just what lady byron's state of mind was, or what her motives were, in making that visit? the 'quarterly' seems to assume, that no woman, without gross hypocrisy, can stand by a sister proven to have been guilty. we can appeal on this subject to all women. we fearlessly ask any wife, 'supposing your husband and sister were involved together in an infamous crime, and that you were the mother of a young daughter whose life would be tainted by a knowledge of that crime, what would be your wish? would you wish to proclaim it forthwith? or would you wish quietly to separate from your husband, and to cover the crime from the eye of man?' it has been proved that lady byron did not reveal this even to her nearest relatives. it is proved that she sealed the mouths of her counsel, and even of servants, so effectually, that they remain sealed even to this day. this is evidence that she did not wish the thing known. it is proved also, that, in spite of her secrecy with her parents and friends, the rumour got out, and was spoken of by shelley as the _only_ important one. now, let us see how this note, cited by the 'quarterly,' confirms one of lady byron's own statements. she says to lady anne barnard,-- 'i trust you understand my wishes, which never were to injure lord byron in any way; for, _though he would not suffer me to remain his wife, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend; and it was from considering myself as such that i silenced the accusations by which my own conduct might have been more fully justified_.' how did lady byron _silence accusations_? first, by keeping silence to her nearest relatives; second, by shutting the mouths of servants; third, by imposing silence on her friends,--as lady anne barnard; fourth, by silencing her legal counsel; fifth, and most entirely, by treating mrs. leigh, before the world, with unaltered kindness. in the midst of the rumours, lady byron went to visit her; and shelley says that the movement was effectual. can the 'quarterly' prove that, at this time, mrs. leigh had not confessed all, and thrown herself on lady byron's mercy? it is not necessary to suppose great horror and indignation on the part of lady byron. she may have regarded her sister as the victim of a most singularly powerful tempter. lord byron, as she knew, had tried to corrupt her own morals and faith. he had obtained a power over some women, even in the highest circles in england, which had led them to forego the usual decorums of their sex, and had given rise to great scandals. he was a being of wonderful personal attractions. he had not only strong poetical, but also strong logical power. he was daring in speculation, and vigorous in sophistical argument; beautiful, dazzling, and possessed of magnetic power of fascination. his sister had been kind and considerate to lady byron when lord byron was brutal and cruel. she had been overcome by him, as a weaker nature sometimes sinks under the force of a stronger one; and lady byron may really have considered her to be more sinned against than sinning. lord byron, if we look at it rightly, did not corrupt mrs. leigh any more than he did the whole british public. they rebelled at the immorality of his conduct and the obscenity of his writings; and he resolved that they should accept both. and he made them do it. at first, they execrated 'don juan.' murray was afraid to publish it. women were determined not to read it. in , dr. william maginn of the noctes wrote a song against it in the following virtuous strain: 'be "juan," then, unseen, unknown; it must, or we shall rue it. we may have virtue of our own: ah! why should we undo it? the treasured faith of days long past we still would prize o'er any, and grieve to hear the ribald jeer of scamps like don giovanni.' lord byron determined to conquer the virtuous scruples of the noctes club; and so we find this same dr. william maginn, who in wrote so valiantly, in declaring that he would rather have written a page of 'don juan' than a ton of 'childe harold.' all english morals were, in like manner, formally surrendered to lord byron. moore details his adulteries in venice with unabashed particularity: artists send for pictures of his principal mistresses; the literary world call for biographical sketches of their points; moore compares his wife and his last mistress in a neatly-turned sentence; and yet the professor of morals in edinburgh university recommends the biography as _pure_, and having no mud in it. the mistress is lionized in london, and in is introduced to the world of letters by 'blackwood,' and bid, 'without a blush, to say she loved'-- this much being done to all england, it is quite possible that a woman like lady byron, standing silently aside and surveying the course of things, may have thought that mrs. leigh was no more seduced than all the rest of the world, and have said as we feel disposed to say of that generation, and of a good many in this, 'let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.' the peculiar bitterness of remorse expressed in his works by lord byron is a further evidence that he had committed an unusual crime. we are aware that evidence cannot be drawn in this manner from an author's works merely, if unsupported by any external probability. for example, the subject most frequently and powerfully treated by hawthorne is the influence of a secret, unconfessed crime on the soul: nevertheless, as hawthorne is well known to have always lived a pure and regular life, nobody has ever suspected him of any greater sin than a vigorous imagination. but here is a man believed guilty of an uncommon immorality by the two best lawyers in england, and threatened with an open exposure, which he does not dare to meet. the crime is named in society; his own relations fall away from him on account of it; it is only set at rest by the heroic conduct of his wife. now, this man is stated by many of his friends to have had all the appearance of a man secretly labouring under the consciousness of crime. moore speaks of this propensity in the following language:-- 'i have known him more than once, as we sat together after dinner, and he was a little under the influence of wine, to fall seriously into this dark, self-accusing mood, and throw out hints of his past life with an air of gloom and mystery designed evidently to awaken curiosity and interest.' moore says that it was his own custom to dispel these appearances by ridicule, to which his friend was keenly alive. and he goes on to say,-- 'it has sometimes occurred to me, that the occult causes of his lady's separation from him, round which herself and her legal advisers have thrown such formidable mystery, may have been nothing more than some imposture of this kind, some dimly-hinted confession of undefined horror, which, though intended by the relater to mystify and surprise, the hearer so little understood as to take in sober seriousness.'[ ] [footnote : vol. vi. p. .] all we have to say is, that lord byron's conduct in this respect is exactly what might have been expected if he had a crime on his conscience. the energy of remorse and despair expressed in 'manfred' were so appalling and so vividly _personal_, that the belief was universal on the continent that the experience was wrought out of some actual crime. goethe expressed this idea, and had heard a murder imputed to byron as the cause. the allusion to the crime and consequences of incest is so plain in 'manfred,' that it is astonishing that any one can pretend, as galt does, that it had any other application. the hero speaks of the love between himself and the imaginary being whose spirit haunts him as having been the _deadliest sin_, and one that has, perhaps, caused her eternal destruction. 'what is she now? a sufferer for my sins; a thing i dare not think upon.' he speaks of her blood as haunting him, and as being '_my_ blood,--the pure, warm stream that ran in the veins of _my_ fathers, and in _ours_ when we were in our youth, and had one heart, and loved each other as we should not love.' this work was conceived in the commotion of mind immediately following his separation. the scenery of it was sketched in a journal sent to his sister at the time. in letter , defending the originality of the conception, and showing that it did not arise from reading 'faust,' he says,-- 'it was the steinbach and the jungfrau, and something else, more than faustus, that made me write "manfred."' in letter , speaking of the various accounts given by critics of the origin of the story, he says,-- 'the conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of the matter. i had a better origin than he could devise or divine for the soul of him.' in letter , he says:-- 'as to the germs of "manfred," they may be found in the journal i sent to mrs. leigh, part of which you saw.' it may be said, plausibly, that lord byron, if conscious of this crime, would not have expressed it in his poetry. but his nature was such that he could not help it. whatever he wrote that had any real power was generally wrought out of self; and, when in a tumult of emotion, he could not help giving glimpses of the cause. it appears that he did know that he had been accused of incest, and that shelley thought _that_ accusation the only really important one; and yet, sensitive as he was to blame and reprobation, he ran upon this very subject most likely to re-awaken scandal. but lord byron's strategy was always of the bold kind. it was the plan of the fugitive, who, instead of running away, stations himself so near to danger, that nobody would ever think of looking for him there. he published passionate verses to his sister on this principle. he imitated the security of an innocent man in every thing but the unconscious energy of the agony which seized him when he gave vent to his nature in poetry. the boldness of his strategy is evident through all his life. he began by charging his wife with the very cruelty and deception which he was himself practising. he had spread a net for her feet, and he accused her of spreading a net for his. he had placed her in a position where she could not speak, and then leisurely shot arrows at her; and he represented her as having done the same by him. when he attacked her in 'don juan,' and strove to take from her the very protection[ ] of womanly sacredness by putting her name into the mouth of every ribald, he did a bold thing, and he knew it. he meant to do a bold thing. there was a general outcry against it; and he fought it down, and gained his point. by sheer boldness and perseverance, he turned the public _from_ his wife, and _to_ himself, in the face of their very groans and protests. his 'manfred' and his 'cain' were parts of the same game. but the involuntary cry of remorse and despair pierced even through his own artifices, in a manner that produced a conviction of reality. [footnote : the reader is here referred to the remarks of 'blackwood' on 'don juan' in part iii.] his evident fear and hatred of his wife were other symptoms of crime. there was no apparent occasion for him to hate her. he admitted that she had been bright, amiable, good, agreeable; that her marriage had been a very uncomfortable one; and he said to madame de staël, that he did not doubt she thought him deranged. why, then, did he hate her for wanting to live peaceably by herself? why did he so fear her, that not one year of his life passed without his concocting and circulating some public or private accusation against her? she, by his own showing, published none against him. it is remarkable, that, in all his zeal to represent himself injured, he nowhere quotes a single remark from lady byron, nor a story coming either directly or indirectly from her or her family. he is in a fever in venice, not from what she has spoken, but because she has sealed the lips of her counsel, and because she and her family do not speak: so that he professes himself utterly ignorant what form her allegations against him may take. he had heard from shelley that his wife silenced the most important calumny by going to make mrs. leigh a visit; and yet he is afraid of her,--so afraid, that he tells moore he expects she will attack him after death, and charges him to defend his grave. now, if lord byron knew that his wife had a deadly secret that she could tell, all this conduct is explicable: it is in the ordinary course of human nature. men always distrust those who hold facts by which they can be ruined. they fear them; they are antagonistic to them; they cannot trust them. the feeling of falkland to caleb williams, as portrayed in godwin's masterly sketch, is perfectly natural, and it is exactly illustrative of what byron felt for his wife. he hated her for having his secret; and, so far as a human being could do it, he tried to destroy her character before the world, that she might not have the power to testify against him. if we admit this solution, byron's conduct is at least that of a man who is acting as men ordinarily would act under such circumstances: if we do not, he is acting like a fiend. let us look at admitted facts. he married his wife without love, in a gloomy, melancholy, morose state of mind. the servants testify to strange, unaccountable treatment of her immediately after marriage; such that her confidential maid advises her return to her parents. in lady byron's letter to mrs. leigh, she reminds lord byron that he always expressed a desire and determination to free himself from the marriage. lord byron himself admits to madame de staël that his behaviour was such, that his wife must have thought him insane. now we are asked to believe, that simply because, under these circumstances, lady byron wished to live separate from her husband, he hated and feared her so that he could never let her alone afterwards; that he charged her with malice, slander, deceit, and deadly intentions against himself, merely out of spite, because she preferred not to live with him. this last view of the case certainly makes lord byron more unaccountably wicked than the other. the first supposition shows him to us as a man in an agony of self-preservation; the second as a fiend, delighting in gratuitous deceit and cruelty. again: a presumption of this crime appears in lord byron's admission, in a letter to moore, that he had an illegitimate child born before he left england, and still living at the time. in letter , to mr. moore, under date venice, feb. , , byron says, speaking of moore's loss of a child,-- 'i know how to feel with you, because i am quite wrapped up in my own children. besides my little legitimate, i have made unto myself an illegitimate since [since ada's birth] _to say nothing of one before_; and i look forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that i ever reach, as i hope i never shall, that desolating period.' the illegitimate child that he had made to himself since ada's birth was allegra, born about nine or ten months after the separation. the other illegitimate alluded to was born before, and, as the reader sees, was spoken of as still living. moore appears to be puzzled to know who this child can be, and conjectures that it may possibly be the child referred to in an early poem, written, while a schoolboy of nineteen, at harrow. on turning back to the note referred to, we find two things: first, that the child there mentioned was not claimed by lord byron as his own, but that he asked his mother to care for it as belonging to a schoolmate now dead; second, that the infant died shortly after, and, consequently, could not be the child mentioned in this letter. now, besides this fact, that lord byron admitted a living illegitimate child born before ada, we place this other fact, that there was a child in england which was believed to be his by those who had every opportunity of knowing. on this subject we shall cite a passage from a letter recently received by us from england, and written by a person who appears well informed on the subject of his letter:-- 'the fact is, the incest was first committed, and the child of it born _before_, shortly before, the byron marriage. the child (a daughter) must not be confounded with the natural daughter of lord byron, born about a year after his separation. 'the history, more or less, of that child of incest, is known to many; for in lady byron's attempts to watch over her, and rescue her from ruin, she was compelled to employ various agents at different times.' this letter contains a full recognition, by an intelligent person in england, of a child corresponding well with lord byron's declaration of an illegitimate, born before he left england. up to this point, we have, then, the circumstantial evidence against lord byron as follows:-- a good and amiable woman, who had married him from love, determined to separate from him. two of the greatest lawyers of england confirmed her in this decision, and threatened lord byron, that, unless he consented to this, they would expose the evidence against him in a suit for divorce. he fled from this exposure, and never afterwards sought public investigation. he was angry with and malicious towards the counsel who supported his wife; he was angry at and afraid of a wife who did nothing to injure him, and he made it a special object to defame and degrade her. he gave such evidence of remorse and fear in his writings as to lead eminent literary men to believe he had committed a great crime. the public rumour of his day specified what the crime was. his relations, by his own showing, joined against him. the report was silenced by his wife's efforts only. lord byron subsequently declares the existence of an illegitimate child, born before he left england. corresponding to this, there is the history, known in england, of a child believed to be his, in whom his wife took an interest. all these presumptions exist independently of any direct testimony from lady byron. they are to be admitted as true, whether she says a word one way or the other. from this background of proof, i come forward, and testify to an interview with lady byron, in which she gave me specific information of the facts in the case. that i report the facts just as i received them from her, not altered or misremembered, is shown by the testimony of my sister, to whom i related them at the time. it cannot, then, be denied that i had this interview, and that this communication was made. i therefore testify that lady byron, for a proper purpose, and at a proper time, stated to me the following things:-- . that the crime which separated her from lord byron was incest. . that she first discovered it by improper actions towards his sister, which, he _meant_ to make her understand, indicated the guilty relation. . that he admitted it, reasoned on it, defended it, tried to make her an accomplice, and, failing in that, hated her and expelled her. . that he threatened her that he would make it his life's object to destroy her character. . that for a period she was led to regard this conduct as insanity, and to consider him only as a diseased person. . that she had subsequent proof that the facts were really as she suspected; that there had been a child born of the crime, whose history she knew; that mrs. leigh had repented. the purpose for which this was stated to me was to ask, was it her duty to make the truth fully known during her lifetime? here, then, is a man believed guilty of an unusual crime by two lawyers, the best in england, who have seen the evidence,--a man who dares not meet legal investigation. the crime is named in society, and deemed so far probable to the men of his generation as to be spoken of by shelley as the only important allegation against him. he acts through life exactly like a man struggling with remorse, and afraid of detection; he has all the restlessness and hatred and fear that a man has who feels that there is evidence which might destroy him. he admits an illegitimate child besides allegra. a child believed to have been his is known to many in england. added to all this, his widow, now advanced in years, and standing on the borders of eternity, being, as appears by her writings and conversation, of perfectly sound mind at the time, testifies to me the facts before named, which exactly correspond to probabilities. i publish the statement; and the solicitors who hold lady byron's private papers do not deny the truth of the story. they try to cast discredit on me for speaking; but they do not say that i have spoken falsely, or that the story is not true. the lawyer who knew lady byron's story in does not now deny that this is the true one. several persons in england testify that, at various times, and for various purposes, the same story has been told to them. moreover, it appears from my last letter addressed to lady byron on this subject, that i recommended her to leave _all necessary papers_ in the hands of some discreet persons, who, after _both_ had passed away, should see that justice was done. the solicitors admit that lady byron _has_ left sealed papers of great importance in the hands of trustees, with discretionary power. i have been informed very directly that the nature of these documents was such as to lead to the suppression of lady byron's life and writings. this is all exactly as it would be, if the story related by lady byron were the true one. the evidence under this point of view is so strong, that a great effort has been made to throw out lady byron's testimony. this attempt has been made on two grounds. st, that she was under a mental hallucination. this theory has been most ably refuted by the very first authority in england upon the subject. he says,-- 'no person practically acquainted with the true characteristics of insanity would affirm, that, had this idea of "incest" been an insane hallucination, lady byron could, from the lengthened period which intervened between her unhappy marriage and death, have refrained from exhibiting it, not only to legal advisers and trustees (assuming that she revealed to them the fact), but to others, exacting no pledge of secrecy from them as to her mental impressions. lunatics do for a time, and for some special purpose, most cunningly conceal their delusions; but they have not the capacity to struggle for thirty-six years, as lady byron must have done, with so frightful an hallucination, without the insane state of mind becoming obvious to those with whom they are daily associating. neither is it consistent with experience to suppose, that, if lady byron had been a monomaniac, her state of disordered understanding would have been restricted to one hallucination. her diseased brain, affecting the normal action of thought, would, in all probability, have manifested other symptoms besides those referred to of aberration of intellect. 'during the last thirty years, i have not met with a case of insanity (assuming the hypothesis of hallucination) at all parallel with that of lady byron. in my experience, it is unique. i never saw a patient with such a delusion.' we refer our readers to a careful study of dr. forbes winslow's consideration of this subject given in part iii. anyone who has been familiar with the delicacy and acuteness of dr. winslow, as shown in his work on obscure diseases of the brain and nerves, must feel that his positive assertion on this ground is the best possible evidence. we here gratefully acknowledge our obligations to dr. winslow for the corrected proof of his valuable letter, which he has done us the honour to send for this work. we shall consider that his argument, in connection with what the reader may observe of lady byron's own writings, closes that issue of the case completely. the other alternative is, that lady byron deliberately committed false witness. this was the ground assumed by the 'blackwood,' when in july, , it took upon itself the responsibility of re-opening the byron controversy. it is also the ground assumed by 'the london quarterly' of to-day. both say, in so many words, that no crime was imputed to lord byron; that the representations made to lushington in the beginning were false ones; and that the story told to lady byron's confidential friends in later days was also false. let us examine this theory. in the first place, it requires us to believe in the existence of a moral monster of whom madame brinvilliers is cited as the type. the 'blackwood,' let it be remembered, opens the controversy with the statement that lady byron was a madame brinvilliers. the 'quarterly' does not shrink from the same assumption. let us consider the probability of this question. if lady byron were such a woman, and wished to ruin her husband's reputation in order to save her own, and, being perfectly unscrupulous, had circulated against him a story of unnatural crime which had no proofs, how came two of the first lawyers of england to assume the responsibility of offering to present her case in open court? how came her husband, if he knew himself guiltless, to shrink from that public investigation which must have demonstrated his innocence? most astonishing of all, when he fled from trial, and the report got abroad against him in england, and was believed even by his own relations, why did not his wife avail herself of the moment to complete her victory? if at that moment she had publicly broken with mrs. leigh, she might have confirmed every rumour. did she do it? and why not? according to the 'blackwood,' we have here a woman who has made up a frightful story to ruin her husband's reputation, yet who takes every pains afterwards to prevent its being ruined. she fails to do the very thing she undertakes; and for years after, rather than injure him, she loses public sympathy, and, by sealing the lips of her legal counsel, deprives herself of the advantage of their testimony. moreover, if a desire for revenge could have been excited in her, it would have been provoked by the first publication of the fourth canto of 'childe harold,' when she felt that byron was attacking her before the world. yet we have lady anne barnard's testimony, that, at this time, she was so far from wishing to injure him, that all her communications were guarded by cautious secrecy. at this time, also, she had a strong party in england, to whom she could have appealed. again: when 'don juan' was first printed, it excited a violent re-action against lord byron. had his wife chosen _then_ to accuse him, and display the evidence she had shown to her counsel, there is little doubt that all the world would have stood with her; but she did not. after his death, when she spoke at last, there seems little doubt from the strength of dr. lushington's language, that lady byron had a very strong case, and that, had she been willing, her counsel could have told much more than he did. she might _then_ have told her whole story, and been believed. her word was believed by christopher north, and accepted as proof that byron had been a great criminal. had revenge been her motive, she could have spoken the one word more that north called for. the 'quarterly' asks why she waited till everybody concerned was dead. there is an obvious answer. because, while there was anybody living to whom the testimony would have been utterly destructive, there were the best reasons for withholding it. when all were gone from earth, and she herself was in constant expectation of passing away, there _was_ a reason, and a proper one, why she should speak. by nature and principle truthful, she had had the opportunity of silently watching the operation of a permitted lie upon a whole generation. she had been placed in a position in which it was necessary, by silence, to allow the spread and propagation through society of a radical falsehood. lord byron's life, fame, and genius had all struck their roots into this lie, been nourished by it, and had derived thence a poisonous power. in reading this history, it will be remarked that he pleaded his personal misfortunes in his marriage as excuses for every offence against morality, and that the literary world of england accepted the plea, and tolerated and justified the crimes. never before, in england, had adultery been spoken of in so respectful a manner, and an adulteress openly praised and _fêted_, and obscene language and licentious images publicly tolerated; and all on the plea of a man's private misfortunes. there was, therefore, great force in the suggestion made to lady byron, that she owed a testimony in this case to truth and justice, irrespective of any personal considerations. there is no more real reason for allowing the spread of a hurtful falsehood that affects ourselves than for allowing one that affects our neighbour. this falsehood had corrupted the literature and morals of both england and america, and led to the public toleration, by respectable authorities, of forms of vice at first indignantly rejected. the question was, was this falsehood to go on corrupting literature as long as history lasted? had the world no right to true history? had she who possessed the truth no responsibility to the world? was not a final silence a confirmation of a lie with all its consequences? this testimony of lady byron, so far from being thrown out altogether, as the 'quarterly' proposes, has a peculiar and specific value from the great forbearance and reticence which characterised the greater part of her life. the testimony of a person who has shown in every action perfect friendliness to another comes with the more weight on that account. testimony extorted by conscience from a parent against a child, or a wife against a husband, where all the other actions of the life prove the existence of kind feeling, is held to be the strongest form of evidence. the fact that lady byron, under the severest temptations and the bitterest insults and injuries, withheld every word by which lord byron could be criminated, so long as he and his sister were living, is strong evidence, that, when she did speak, it was not under the influence of ill-will, but of pure conscientious convictions; and the fullest weight ought, therefore, to be given to her testimony. we are asked now why she ever spoke at all. the fact that her story is known to several persons in england is brought up as if it were a crime. to this we answer, lady byron had an undoubted moral right to have exposed the whole story in a public court in , and thus cut herself loose from her husband by a divorce. for the sake of saving her husband and sister from destruction, she waived this right to self-justification, and stood for years a silent sufferer under calumny and misrepresentation. she desired nothing but to retire from the whole subject; to be permitted to enjoy with her child the peace and seclusion that belong to her sex. her husband made her, through his life and after his death, a subject of such constant discussion, that she must either abandon the current literature of her day, or run the risk of reading more or less about herself in almost every magazine of her time. conversations with lord byron, notes of interviews with lord byron, journals of time spent with lord byron, were constantly spread before the public. leigh hunt, galt, medwin, trelawney, lady blessington, dr. kennedy, and thomas moore, all poured forth their memorials; and in all she figured prominently. all these had their tribes of reviewers and critics, who also discussed her. the profound mystery of her silence seemed constantly to provoke inquiry. people could not forgive her for not speaking. her privacy, retirement, and silence were set down as coldness, haughtiness, and contempt of human sympathy. she was constantly challenged to say something: as, for example, in the 'noctes' of november , six months after byron's death, christopher north says, speaking of the burning of the autobiography,-- 'i think, since the memoir was burned by these people, these people are bound to put us in possession of the best evidence they still have the power of producing, in order that we may come to a just conclusion as to a subject upon which, by their act, at least, as much as by any other people's act, we are compelled to consider it our duty to make up our deliberate opinion,--deliberate and decisive. woe be to those who provoke this curiosity, and will not allay it! woe be to them! say i. woe to them! says the world.' when lady byron published her statement, which certainly seemed called for by this language, christopher north blamed her for doing it, and then again said that she ought to go on and tell the whole story. if she was thus adjured to speak, blamed for speaking, and adjured to speak further, all in one breath, by public prints, there is reason to think that there could not have come less solicitation from private sources,--from friends who had access to her at all hours, whom she loved, by whom she was beloved, and to whom her refusal to explain might seem a breach of friendship. yet there is no evidence on record, that we have seen, that she ever had other confidant than her legal counsel, till after all the actors in the events were in their graves, and the daughter, for whose sake largely the secret was guarded, had followed them. now, does anyone claim, that, because a woman has sacrificed for twenty years all cravings for human sympathy, and all possibility of perfectly free and unconstrained intercourse with her friends, that she is obliged to go on bearing this same lonely burden to the end of her days? let anyone imagine the frightful constraint and solitude implied in this sentence. let anyone, too, think of its painful complications in life. the roots of a falsehood are far-reaching. conduct that can only be explained by criminating another must often seem unreasonable and unaccountable; and the most truthful person, who feels bound to keep silence regarding a radical lie of another, must often be placed in positions most trying to conscientiousness. the great merit of 'caleb williams' as a novel consists in its philosophical analysis of the utter helplessness of an innocent person who agrees to keep the secret of a guilty one. one sees there how that necessity of silence produces all the effect of falsehood on his part, and deprives him of the confidence and sympathy of those with whom he would take refuge. for years, this unnatural life was forced on lady byron, involving her as in a network, even in her dearest family relations. that, when all the parties were dead, lady byron should allow herself the sympathy of a circle of intimate friends, is something so perfectly proper and natural, that we cannot but wonder that her conduct in this respect has ever been called in question. if it was her right to have had a public _exposé_ in , it was certainly her right to show to her own intimate circle the secret of her life when all the principal actors were passed from earth. the 'quarterly' speaks as if, by thus waiting, she deprived lord byron of the testimony of living witnesses. but there were as many witnesses and partisans dead on her side as on his. lady milbanke and sir ralph, sir samuel romilly and lady anne barnard were as much dead as hobhouse, moore, and others of byron's partisans. the 'quarterly' speaks of lady byron as 'running round, and repeating her story to people mostly below her own rank in life.' to those who know the personal dignity of lady byron's manners, represented and dwelt on by her husband in his conversations with lady blessington, this coarse and vulgar attack only proves the poverty of a cause which can defend itself by no better weapons. lord byron speaks of his wife as 'highly cultivated;' as having 'a degree of self-control i never saw equalled.' 'i am certain,' he says, 'that lady byron's first idea is what is due to herself: i mean that it is the undeviating rule of her conduct.... now, my besetting sin is a want of that self-respect which she has in excess.... but, though i accuse lady byron of an excess of self-respect, i must, in candour, admit, that, if any person ever had excuse for an extraordinary portion of it, she has; as, in all her thoughts, words, and actions, she is the most decorous woman that ever existed.' this is the kind of woman who has lately been accused in the public prints as a babbler of secrets and a gossip in regard to her private difficulties with children, grandchildren, and servants. it is a fair specimen of the justice that has generally been meted out to lady byron. in , she was accused of having made a confidant of campbell, on the strength of having written him a note _declining_ to give him any information, or answer any questions. in july, , she was denounced by 'blackwood' as a madame brinvilliers for keeping such perfect silence on the matter of her husband's character; and in the last 'quarterly' she is spoken of as a gossip 'running round, and repeating her story to people below her in rank.' while we are upon this subject, we have a suggestion to make. john stuart mill says that utter self-abnegation has been preached to women as a peculiarly feminine virtue. it is true; but there is a moral limit to the value of self-abnegation. it is a fair question for the moralist, whether it is right and proper wholly to ignore one's personal claims to justice. the teachings of the saviour give us warrant for submitting to personal injuries; but both the saviour and st. paul manifested bravery in denying false accusations, and asserting innocence. lady byron was falsely accused of having ruined _the_ man of his generation, and caused all his vices and crimes, and all their evil effects on society. she submitted to the accusation for a certain number of years for reasons which commended themselves to her conscience; but when all the personal considerations were removed, and she was about passing from life, it was right, it was just, it was strictly in accordance with the philosophical and ethical character of her mind, and with her habit of considering all things in their widest relations to the good of mankind, that she should give serious attention and consideration to the last duty which she might owe to abstract truth and justice in her generation. in her letter on the religious state of england, we find her advocating an absolute frankness in all religious parties. she would have all openly confess those doubts, which, from the best of motives, are usually suppressed; and believed, that, as a result of such perfect truthfulness, a wider love would prevail among christians. this shows the strength of her conviction of the power and the importance of absolute truth; and shows, therefore, that her doubts and conscientious inquiries respecting her duty on this subject are exactly what might have been expected from a person of her character and principles. having thus shown that lady byron's testimony is the testimony of a woman of strong and sound mind, that it was not given from malice nor ill-will, that it was given at a proper time and in a proper manner, and for a purpose in accordance with the most elevated moral views, and that it is coincident with all the established facts of this history, and furnishes a perfect solution of every mystery of the case, we think we shall carry the reader with us in saying that it is to be received as absolute truth. this conviction we arrive at while as yet we are deprived of the statement prepared by lady byron, and the proof by which she expected to sustain it; both which, as we understand, are now in the hands of her trustees. chapter vi. physiological argument. the credibility of the accusation of the unnatural crime charged to lord byron is greater than if charged to most men. he was born of parents both of whom were remarkable for perfectly ungoverned passions. there appears to be historical evidence that he was speaking literal truth when he says to medwin of his father,-- 'he would have made a bad hero for hannah more. he ran out three fortunes, and married or ran away with three women.... he seemed born for his own ruin and that of the other sex. he began by seducing lady carmarthen, and spent her four thousand pounds; and, not content with one adventure of this kind, afterwards eloped with miss gordon.'--_medwin's conversations_, p. . lady carmarthen here spoken of was the mother of mrs. leigh. miss gordon became lord byron's mother. by his own account, and that of moore, she was a passionate, ungoverned, though affectionate woman. lord byron says to medwin,-- 'i lost my father when i was only six years of age. my mother, when she was in a passion with me (and i gave her cause enough), used to say, "o you little dog! you are a byron all over, you are as bad as your father!"'--_ibid._, p. . by all the accounts of his childhood and early youth, it is made apparent that ancestral causes had sent him into the world with a most perilous and exceptional sensitiveness of brain and nervous system, which it would have required the most judicious course of education to direct safely and happily. lord byron often speaks as if he deemed himself subject to tendencies which might terminate in insanity. the idea is so often mentioned and dwelt upon in his letters, journals, and conversations, that we cannot but ascribe it to some very peculiar experience, and not to mere affectation. but, in the history of his early childhood and youth, we see no evidence of any original malformation of nature. we see only evidence of one of those organisations, full of hope and full of peril, which adverse influences might easily drive to insanity, but wise physiological training and judicious moral culture might have guided to the most splendid results. but of these he had neither. he was alternately the pet and victim of his mother's tumultuous nature, and equally injured both by her love and her anger. a scotch maid of religious character gave him early serious impressions of religion, and thus added the element of an awakened conscience to the conflicting ones of his character. education, in the proper sense of the word, did not exist in england in those days. physiological considerations of the influence of the body on the soul, of the power of brain and nerve over moral development, had then not even entered the general thought of society. the school and college education literally taught him nothing but the ancient classics, of whose power in exciting and developing the animal passions byron often speaks. the morality of the times is strikingly exemplified even in its literary criticism. for example: one of byron's poems, written while a schoolboy at harrow, is addressed to 'my son.' mr. moore, and the annotator of the standard edition of byron's poems, gravely give the public their speculations on the point, whether lord byron first became a father while a schoolboy at harrow; and go into particulars in relation to a certain infant, the claim to which lay between lord byron and another schoolfellow. it is not the nature of the event itself, so much as the cool, unembarrassed manner in which it is discussed, that gives the impression of the state of public morals. there is no intimation of anything unusual, or discreditable to the school, in the event, and no apparent suspicion that it will be regarded as a serious imputation on lord byron's character. modern physiological developments would lead any person versed in the study of the reciprocal influence of physical and moral laws to anticipate the most serious danger to such an organisation as lord byron's, from a precocious development of the passions. alcoholic and narcotic stimulants, in the case of such a person, would be regarded as little less than suicidal, and an early course of combined drinking and licentiousness as tending directly to establish those unsound conditions which lead towards moral insanity. yet not only lord byron's testimony, but every probability from the licence of society, goes to show that this was exactly what did take place. neither restrained by education, nor warned by any correct physiological knowledge, nor held in check by any public sentiment, he drifted directly upon the fatal rock. here we give mr. moore full credit for all his abatements in regard to lord byron's excesses in his early days. moore makes the point very strongly that he was not, _de facto_, even so bad as many of his associates; and we agree with him. byron's physical organisation was originally as fine and sensitive as that of the most delicate woman. he possessed the faculty of moral ideality in a high degree; and he had not, in the earlier part of his life, an attraction towards mere brutal vice. his physical sensitiveness was so remarkable that he says of himself, 'a dose of salts has the effect of a temporary inebriation, like light champagne, upon me.' yet this exceptionally delicately-organised boy and youth was in a circle where not to conform to the coarse drinking-customs of his day was to incur censure and ridicule. that he early acquired the power of bearing large quantities of liquor is manifested by the record in his journal, that, on the day when he read the severe 'edinburgh' article upon his schoolboy poems, he drank three bottles of claret at a sitting. yet byron was so far superior to his times, that some vague impulses to physiological prudence seem to have suggested themselves to him, and been acted upon with great vigour. he never could have lived so long as he did, under the exhaustive process of every kind of excess, if he had not re-enforced his physical nature by an assiduous care of his muscular system. he took boxing-lessons, and distinguished himself in all athletic exercises. he also had periods in which he seemed to try vaguely to retrieve himself from dissipation, and to acquire self-mastery by what he called temperance. but, ignorant and excessive in all his movements, his very efforts at temperance were intemperate. from violent excesses in eating and drinking, he would pass to no less unnatural periods of utter abstinence. thus the very conservative power which nature has of adapting herself to any _settled_ course was lost. the extreme sensitiveness produced by long periods of utter abstinence made the succeeding debauch more maddening and fatal. he was like a fine musical instrument, whose strings were every day alternating between extreme tension and perfect laxity. we have in his journal many passages, of which the following is a specimen:-- 'i have dined regularly to-day, for the first time since sunday last; this being sabbath too,--all the rest, tea and dry biscuits, six _per diem_. i wish to god i had not dined, now! it kills me with heaviness, stupor, and horrible dreams; and yet it was but a pint of bucellas, and fish. meat i never touch, nor much vegetable diet. i wish i were in the country, to take exercise, instead of being obliged to _cool_ by abstinence, in lieu of it. i should not so much mind a little accession of flesh: my bones can well bear it. but the worst is, the devil always came with it, till i starved him out; and i will _not_ be the slave of _any_ appetite. if i do err, it shall be my heart, at least, that heralds the way. o my head! how it aches! the horrors of digestion! i wonder how bonaparte's dinner agrees with him.'--_moore's life_, vol. ii. p. . from all the contemporary history and literature of the times, therefore, we have reason to believe that lord byron spoke the exact truth when he said to medwin,-- 'my own master at an age when i most required a guide, left to the dominion of my passions when they were the strongest, with a fortune anticipated before i came into possession of it, and a constitution impaired by early excesses, i commenced my travels, in , with a joyless indifference to the world and all that was before me.'--_medwin's conversations_, p. . utter prostration of the whole physical man from intemperate excess, the deadness to temptation which comes from utter exhaustion, was his condition, according to himself and moore, when he first left england, at twenty-one years of age. in considering his subsequent history, we are to take into account that it was upon the brain and nerve-power, thus exhausted by early excess, that the draughts of sudden and rapid literary composition began to be made. there was something unnatural and unhealthy in the rapidity, clearness, and vigour with which his various works followed each other. subsequently to the first two cantos of 'childe harold,' 'the bride of abydos,' 'the corsair,' 'the giaour,' 'lara,' 'parisina,' and 'the siege of corinth,' all followed close upon each other, in a space of less than three years, and those the three most critical years of his life. 'the bride of abydos' came out in the autumn of , and was written in a week; and 'the corsair' was composed in thirteen days. a few months more than a year before his marriage, and the brief space of his married life, was the period in which all this literary labour was performed, while yet he was running the wild career of intrigue and fashionable folly. he speaks of 'lara' as being tossed off in the intervals between masquerades and balls, &c. it is with the physical results of such unnatural efforts that we have now chiefly to do. every physiologist would say that the demands of such poems on a healthy brain, in that given space, must have been exhausting; but when we consider that they were cheques drawn on a bank broken by early extravagance, and that the subject was prodigally spending vital forces in every other direction at the same time, one can scarcely estimate the physiological madness of such a course as lord byron's. it is evident from his journal, and moore's account, that any amount of physical force which was for the time restored by his first foreign travel was recklessly spent in this period, when he threw himself with a mad recklessness into london society in the time just preceding his marriage. the revelations made in moore's memoir of this period are sad enough: those to medwin are so appalling as to the state of contemporary society in england, as to require, at least, the benefit of the doubt for which lord byron's habitual carelessness of truth gave scope. his adventures with ladies of the highest rank in england are there paraded with a freedom of detail that respect for womanhood must lead every woman to question. the only thing that is unquestionable is, that lord byron made these assertions to medwin, not as remorseful confessions, but as relations of his _bonnes fortunes_, and that medwin published them in the very face of the society to which they related. when lord byron says, 'i have seen a great deal of italian society, and swum in a gondola; but nothing could equal the profligacy of high life in england ... when i knew it,' he makes certainly strong assertions, if we remember what mr. moore reveals of the harem kept in venice. but when lord byron intimates that three married women in his own rank in life, who had once held illicit relations with him, made wedding-visits to his wife at one time, we must hope that he drew on his active imagination, as he often did, in his statements in regard to women. when he relates at large his amour with lord melbourne's wife, and represents her as pursuing him with an insane passion, to which he with difficulty responded; and when he says that she tracked a rival lady to his lodgings, and came into them herself, disguised as a carman--one _hopes_ that he exaggerates. and what are we to make of passages like this?-- 'there was a lady at that time, double my own age, the mother of several children who were perfect angels, with whom i formed a _liaison_ that continued without interruption for eight months. she told me she was never in love till she was thirty, and i thought myself so with her when she was forty. i never felt a stronger passion, which she returned with equal ardour.... 'strange as it may seem, she gained, as all women do, an influence over me so strong that i had great difficulty in breaking with her.' unfortunately, these statements, though probably exaggerated, are, for substance, borne out in the history of the times. with every possible abatement for exaggeration in these statements, there remains still undoubted evidence from other sources that lord byron exercised a most peculiar and fatal power over the moral sense of the women with whom he was brought in relation; and that love for him, in many women, became a sort of insanity, depriving them of the just use of their faculties. all this makes his fatal history both possible and probable. even the article in 'blackwood,' written in for the express purpose of vindicating his character, admits that his name had been coupled with those of three, four, or more women of rank, whom it speaks of as 'licentious, unprincipled, characterless women.' that such a course, in connection with alternate extremes of excess and abstinence in eating and drinking, and the immense draughts on the brain-power of rapid and brilliant composition, should have ended in that abnormal state in which cravings for unnatural vice give indications of approaching brain-disease, seems only too probable. this symptom of exhausted vitality becomes often a frequent type in periods of very corrupt society. the dregs of the old greek and roman civilisation were foul with it; and the apostle speaks of the turning of the use of the natural into that which is against nature, as the last step in abandonment. the very literature of such periods marks their want of physical and moral soundness. having lost all sense of what is simple and natural and pure, the mind delights to dwell on horrible ideas, which give a shuddering sense of guilt and crime. all the writings of this fatal period of lord byron's life are more or less intense histories of unrepentant guilt and remorse or of unnatural crime. a recent writer in 'temple bar' brings to light the fact, that 'the bride of abydos,' the first of the brilliant and rapid series of poems which began in the period immediately preceding his marriage, was, in its first composition, an intense story of love between a brother and sister in a turkish harem; that lord byron declared, in a letter to galt, that it was drawn from _real life_; that, in compliance with the prejudices of the age, he altered the relationship to that of cousins before publication. this same writer goes on to show, by a series of extracts from lord byron's published letters and journals, that his mind about this time was in a fearfully unnatural state, and suffering singular and inexplicable agonies of remorse; that, though he was accustomed fearlessly to confide to his friends immoralities which would be looked upon as damning, there was now a secret to which he could not help alluding in his letters, but which he told moore he could not tell now, but 'some day or other when we are _veterans_.' he speaks of his heart as eating itself out; of a mysterious _person_, whom he says, 'god knows i love too well, and the devil probably too.' he wrote a song, and sent it to moore, addressed to a partner in some awful guilt, whose very name he dares not mention, because 'there is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame.' he speaks of struggles of remorse, of efforts at repentance, and returns to guilt, with a sort of horror very different from the well-pleased air with which he relates to medwin his common intrigues and adulteries. he speaks of himself generally as oppressed by a frightful, unnatural gloom and horror, and, when occasionally happy, 'not in a way that _can_ or _ought_ to last.' 'the giaour,' 'the corsair,' 'lara,' 'parisina,' 'the siege of corinth,' and 'manfred,' all written or conceived about this period of his life, give one picture of a desperate, despairing, unrepentant soul, whom suffering maddens, but cannot reclaim. in all these he paints only the one woman, of concentrated, unconsidering passion, ready to sacrifice heaven and defy hell for a guilty man, beloved in spite of religion or reason. in this unnatural literature, the stimulus of crime is represented as intensifying love. medora, gulnare, the page in 'lara,' parisina, and the lost sister of manfred, love the more intensely because the object of the love is a criminal, out-lawed by god and man. the next step beyond this is--_madness_. the work of dr. forbes winslow on 'obscure diseases of the brain and nerves'[ ] contains a passage so very descriptive of the case of lord byron, that it might seem to have been written for it. the sixth chapter of his work, on 'anomalous and masked affections of the mind,' contains, in our view, the only clue that can unravel the sad tragedy of byron's life. he says, p. :-- [footnote : the article in question is worth a careful reading. its industry and accuracy in amassing evidence are worthy attention.] 'these forms of unrecognised mental disorder are not always accompanied by any well-marked disturbance of the bodily health requiring medical attention, or any obvious departure from a normal state of thought and conduct such as to justify legal interference; neither do these affections always incapacitate the party from engaging in the ordinary business of life.... the change may have progressed insidiously and stealthily, having slowly and almost imperceptibly induced important molecular modifications in the delicate vesicular neurine of the brain, ultimately resulting in some aberration of the ideas, alteration of the affections, or perversion of the propensities or instincts.... 'mental disorder of a dangerous character has been known for years to be stealthily advancing, without exciting the slightest notion of its presence, until some sad and terrible catastrophe, homicide, or suicide, has painfully awakened attention to its existence. persons suffering from latent insanity often affect singularity of dress, gait, conversation, and phraseology. the most trifling circumstances stimulate their excitability. they are martyrs to ungovernable paroxysms of passion, are inflamed to a state of demoniacal fury by the most insignificant of causes, and occasionally lose all sense of delicacy of feeling, sentiment, refinement of manners and conversation. such manifestations of undetected mental disorder may be seen associated with intellectual and moral qualities of the highest order.' in another place, dr. winslow again adverts to this latter symptom, which was strikingly marked in the case of lord byron:-- 'all delicacy and decency of thought are occasionally banished from the mind, so effectually does the principle of thought in these attacks succumb to the animal instincts and passions.... 'such cases will commonly be found associated with organic predisposition to insanity or cerebral disease.... modifications of the malady are seen allied with genius. the biographies of cowper, burns, byron, johnson, pope, and haydon establish that the most exalted intellectual conditions do not escape unscathed. 'in early childhood, this form of mental disturbance may, in many cases, be detected. to its existence is often to be traced the _motiveless_ crimes of the young.' no one can compare this passage of dr. forbes winslow with the incidents we have already cited as occurring in that fatal period before the separation of lord and lady byron, and not feel that the hapless young wife was indeed struggling with those inflexible natural laws, which, at some stages of retribution, involve in their awful sweep the guilty with the innocent. she longed to save; but he was gone past redemption. alcoholic stimulants and licentious excesses, without doubt, had produced those unseen changes in the brain, of which dr. forbes winslow speaks; and the results were terrible in proportion to the peculiar fineness and delicacy of the organism deranged. alas! the history of lady byron is the history of too many women in every rank of life who are called, in agonies of perplexity and fear, to watch that gradual process by which physical excesses change the organism of the brain, till slow, creeping, moral insanity comes on. the woman who is the helpless victim of cruelties which only unnatural states of the brain could invent, who is heart-sick to-day and dreads to-morrow,--looks in hopeless horror on the fatal process by which a lover and a protector changes under her eyes, from day to day, to a brute and a fiend. lady byron's married life--alas! it is lived over in many a cottage and tenement-house, with no understanding on either side of the cause of the woful misery. dr. winslow truly says, 'the science of these brain-affections is yet in its infancy in england.' at that time, it had not even begun to be. madness was a fixed point; and the inquiries into it had no nicety. its treatment, if established, had no redeeming power. insanity simply locked a man up as a dangerous being; and the very suggestion of it, therefore, was resented as an injury. a most peculiar and affecting feature of that form of brain disease which hurries its victim, as by an overpowering mania, into crime, is, that often the moral faculties and the affections remain to a degree unimpaired, and protest with all their strength against the outrage. hence come conflicts and agonies of remorse proportioned to the strength of the moral nature. byron, more than any other one writer, may be called the poet of remorse. his passionate pictures of this feeling seem to give new power to the english language:-- 'there is a war, a chaos of the mind, when all its elements convulsed--combined, lie dark and jarring with perturbèd force, and gnashing with impenitent remorse, that juggling fiend, who never spake before, but cries, "i warned thee!" when the deed is o'er.' it was this remorse that formed the only redeeming feature of the case. its eloquence, its agonies, won from all hearts the interest that we give to a powerful nature in a state of danger and ruin; and it may be hoped that this feeling, which tempers the stern justice of human judgments, may prove only a faint image of the wider charity of him whose thoughts are as far above ours as the heaven is above the earth. chapter vii. how could she love him? it has seemed, to some, wholly inconsistent, that lady byron, if this story were true, could retain any kindly feeling for lord byron, or any tenderness for his memory; that the profession implied a certain hypocrisy: but, in this sad review, we may see how the woman who once had loved him, might, in spite of every wrong he had heaped upon her, still have looked on this awful wreck and ruin chiefly with pity. while she stood afar, and refused to justify or join in the polluted idolatry which defended his vices, there is evidence in her writings that her mind often went back mournfully, as a mother's would, to the early days when he might have been saved. one of her letters in robinson's memoirs, in regard to his religious opinions, shows with what intense earnestness she dwelt upon the unhappy influences of his childhood and youth, and those early theologies which led him to regard himself as one of the reprobate. she says,-- 'not merely from casual expressions, but from the whole tenor of lord byron's feelings, i could not but conclude that he was a believer in the inspiration of the bible, and had the gloomiest calvinistic tenets. to that unhappy view of the relation of the creature to the creator i have always ascribed the misery of his life. 'it is enough for me to know that he who thinks his transgression beyond forgiveness ... has righteousness beyond that of the self-satisfied sinner. it is impossible for me to doubt, that, could he once have been assured of pardon, his living faith in moral duty, and love of virtue ("i love the virtues that i cannot claim"), would have conquered every temptation. judge, then, how i must hate the creed that made him see god as an avenger, and not as a father! my own impressions were just the reverse, but could have but little weight; and it was in vain to seek to turn his thoughts from that fixed idea with which he connected his personal peculiarity as a stamp. instead of being made happier by any apparent good, he felt convinced that every blessing would be turned into a curse to him.... "the worst of it is, i do believe," he said. _i_, like all connected with him, was broken against the rock of predestination. i may be pardoned for my frequent reference to the sentiment (expressed by him), that i was only sent to show him the happiness he was forbidden to enjoy.' in this letter we have the heart, not of the wife, but of the mother,--the love that searches everywhere for extenuations of the guilt it is forced to confess. that lady byron was not alone in ascribing such results to the doctrines of calvinism, in certain cases, appears from the language of the thirty-nine articles, which says:-- 'as the godly consideration of predestination, and our election in christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the workings of the spirit of christ; ... so, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the spirit of christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of god's predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into recklessness of most unclean living,--no less perilous than desperation.' lord byron's life is an exact commentary on these words, which passed under the revision of calvin himself. the whole tone of this letter shows not only that lady byron never lost her deep interest in her husband, but that it was by this experience that all her religious ideas were modified. there is another of these letters in which she thus speaks of her husband's writings and character:-- 'the author of the article on "goethe" appears to me to have the mind which could dispel the illusion about _another_ poet, without depreciating his claims ... to the truest inspiration. 'who has sought to distinguish between the holy and the unholy in that spirit? to prove, by the very degradation of the one, how high the other was. a character is never done justice to by extenuating its faults: so i do not agree to _nisi bonum_. it is kinder to read the blotted page.' these letters show that lady byron's idea was that, even were the whole mournful truth about lord byron fully told, there was still a foundation left for pity and mercy. she seems to have remembered, that if his sins were peculiar, so also were his temptations; and to have schooled herself for years to gather up, and set in order in her memory, all that yet remained precious in this great ruin. probably no english writer that ever has made the attempt could have done this more perfectly. though lady byron was not a poet _par excellence_, yet she belonged to an order of souls fully equal to lord byron. hers was more the analytical mind of the philosopher than the creative mind of the poet; and it was, for that reason, the one mind in our day capable of estimating him fully both with justice and mercy. no person in england had a more intense sensibility to genius, in its loftier acceptation, than lady byron; and none more completely sympathised with what was pure and exalted in her husband's writings. there is this peculiarity in lord byron, that the pure and the impure in his poetry often run side by side without mixing,--as one may see at geneva the muddy stream of the arve and the blue waters of the rhone flowing together unmingled. what, for example, can be nobler, and in a higher and tenderer moral strain than his lines on the dying gladiator, in 'childe harold'? what is more like the vigour of the old hebrew scriptures than his thunderstorm in the alps? what can more perfectly express moral ideality of the highest kind than the exquisite descriptions of aurora raby,--pure and high in thought and language, occurring, as they do, in a work full of the most utter vileness? lady byron's hopes for her husband fastened themselves on all the noble fragments yet remaining in that shattered temple of his mind which lay blackened and thunder-riven; and she looked forward to a sphere beyond this earth, where infinite mercy should bring all again to symmetry and order. if the strict theologian must regret this as an undue latitude of charity, let it at least he remembered that it was a charity which sprang from a christian virtue, and which she extended to every human being, however lost, however low. in her view, the mercy which took _him_ was mercy that could restore all. in my recollections of the interview with lady byron, when this whole history was presented, i can remember that it was with a softened and saddened feeling that i contemplated the story, as one looks on some awful, inexplicable ruin. the last letter which i addressed to lady byron upon this subject will show that such was the impression of the whole interview. it was in reply to the one written on the death of my son:-- 'jan. , . 'my dear friend,--i _did_ long to hear from you at a time when few knew how to speak, because i knew that _you_ had known everything that sorrow can teach,--you, whose whole life has been a crucifixion, a long ordeal. 'but i believe that the lamb, who stands for ever "in the midst of the throne, as it had been slain," has everywhere his followers,--those who seem sent into the world, as he was, to suffer for the redemption of others; and, like him, they must look to the joy set before them,--of redeeming others. 'i often think that god called you to this beautiful and terrible ministry when he suffered you to link your destiny with one so strangely gifted and so fearfully tempted. perhaps the reward that is to meet you when you enter within the veil where you must so soon pass will be to see _that_ spirit, once chained and defiled, set free and purified; and to know that to you it has been given, by your life of love and faith, to accomplish this glorious change. 'i think increasingly on the subject on which you conversed with me once,--the future state of retribution. it is evident to me that the spirit of christianity has produced in the human spirit a tenderness of love which wholly revolts from the old doctrine on this subject; and i observe, that, the more christ-like anyone becomes, the more difficult it seems for them to accept it as hitherto presented. and yet, on the contrary, it was _christ_ who said, "fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell;" and the most appalling language is that of christ himself. 'certain ideas, once prevalent, certainly must be thrown off. an endless _infliction_ for past sins was once the doctrine: _that_ we now generally reject. the doctrine now generally taught is, that an eternal persistence in evil necessitates everlasting suffering, since evil induces misery by the eternal nature of things; and this, i fear, is inferable from the analogies of nature, and confirmed by the whole implication of the bible. 'what attention have you given to this subject? and is there any fair way of disposing of the current of assertion, and the still deeper _under_-current of implication, on this subject, without admitting one which loosens all faith in revelation, and throws us on pure naturalism? but of one thing i always feel sure: probation does not end with this present life; and the number of the saved may therefore be infinitely greater than the world's history leads us to suppose. 'i think the bible implies a great crisis, a struggle, an agony, in which god and christ and all the good are engaged in redeeming from sin; and we are not to suppose that the little portion that is done for souls as they pass between the two doors of birth and death is all. 'the bible is certainly silent there. the primitive church believed in the mercies of an intermediate state; and it was only the abuse of it by romanism that drove the church into its present position, which, i think, is wholly indefensible, and wholly irreconcilable with the spirit of christ. for if it were the case, that probation in all cases begins and ends here, god's example would surely be one that could not be followed, and he would seem to be far less persevering than even human beings in efforts to save. 'nothing is plainer than that it would be wrong to give up any mind to eternal sin till every possible thing had been done for its recovery; and that is so clearly _not_ the case here, that i can see that, with thoughtful minds, this belief would cut the very roots of religious faith in god: for there is a difference between facts that we do not understand, and facts which we _do_ understand, and perceive to be wholly irreconcilable with a certain character professed by god. 'if god says he is love, and certain ways of explaining scripture make him _less_ loving and patient than man, then we make scripture contradict itself. now, as no passage of scripture limits probation to this life, and as one passage in peter certainly unequivocally asserts that christ preached to the spirits in prison while his body lay in the grave, i am clear upon this point. 'but it is also clear, that if there be those who persist in refusing god's love, who choose to dash themselves for ever against the inflexible laws of the universe, such souls must for ever suffer. 'there may be souls who hate purity because it reveals their vileness; who refuse god's love, and prefer eternal conflict with it. for such there can be no peace. even in this life, we see those whom the purest self-devoting love only inflames to madness; and we have only to suppose an eternal persistence in this to suppose eternal misery. 'but on this subject we can only leave all reverently in the hands of that being whose almighty power is "declared chiefly in showing mercy."' chapter viii. conclusion. in leaving this subject, i have an appeal to make to the men, and more especially to the women, who have been my readers. in justice to lady byron, it must be remembered that this publication of her story is not her act, but mine. i trust you have already conceded, that, in so severe and peculiar a trial, she had a right to be understood fully by her immediate circle of friends, and to seek of them counsel in view of the moral questions to which such very exceptional circumstances must have given rise. her communication to me was not an address to the public: it was a statement of the case for advice. true, by leaving the whole, unguarded by pledge or promise, it left discretionary power with me to use it if needful. you, my sisters, are to judge whether the accusation laid against lady byron by the 'blackwood,' in , was not of so barbarous a nature as to justify my producing the truth i held in my hands in reply. the 'blackwood' claimed a right to re-open the subject because it was _not_ a private but a public matter. it claimed that lord byron's unfortunate marriage might have changed not only his own destiny, but that of all england. it suggested, that, but for this, instead of wearing out his life in vice, and corrupting society by impure poetry, he might, at this day, have been leading the counsels of the state, and helping the onward movements of the world. then it directly charged lady byron with meanly forsaking her husband in a time of worldly misfortune; with fabricating a destructive accusation of crime against him, and confirming this accusation by years of persistent silence more guilty than open assertion. it has been alleged, that, even admitting that lady byron's story were true, it never ought to have been told. is it true, then, that a woman has not the same right to individual justice that a man has? if the cases were reversed, would it have been thought just that lord byron should go down in history loaded with accusations of crime because he could be only vindicated by exposing the crime of his wife? it has been said that the crime charged on lady byron was comparatively unimportant, and the one against lord byron was deadly. but the 'blackwood,' in opening the controversy, called lady byron by the name of an unnatural female criminal, whose singular atrocities alone entitle her to infamous notoriety; and the crime charged upon her was sufficient to warrant the comparison. both crimes are foul, unnatural, horrible; and there is no middle ground between the admission of the one or the other. you must either conclude that a woman, all whose other works, words, and deeds were generous, just, and gentle, committed this one monstrous exceptional crime, without a motive, and against all the analogies of her character, and all the analogies of her treatment of others; or you must suppose that a man known by all testimony to have been boundlessly licentious, who took the very course which, by every physiological law, would have led to unnatural results, did, at last, commit an unnatural crime. the question, whether i did right, when lady byron was thus held up as an abandoned criminal by the 'blackwood,' to interpose my knowledge of the real truth in her defence, is a serious one; but it is one for which i must account to god alone, and in which, without any contempt of the opinions of my fellow-creatures, i must say, that it is a small thing to be judged of man's judgment. i had in the case a responsibility very different from that of many others. i had been consulted in relation to the publication of this story by lady byron, at a time when she had it in her power to have exhibited it with all its proofs, and commanded an instant conviction. i have reason to think that my advice had some weight in suppressing that disclosure. i gave that advice under the impression that the byron controversy was a thing for ever passed, and never likely to return. it had never occurred to me, that, nine years after lady byron's death, a standard english periodical would declare itself free to re-open this controversy, when all the generation who were her witnesses had passed from earth; and that it would re-open it in the most savage form of accusation, and with the indorsement and commendation of a hook of the vilest slanders, edited by lord byron's mistress. let the reader mark the retributions of justice. the accusations of the 'blackwood,' in , were simply an intensified form of those first concocted by lord byron in his 'clytemnestra' poem of . he forged that weapon, and bequeathed it to his party. the 'blackwood' took it up, gave it a sharper edge, and drove it to the heart of lady byron's fame. the result has been the disclosure of this history. it is, then, lord byron himself, who, by his network of wiles, his ceaseless persecutions of his wife, his efforts to extend his partisanship beyond the grave, has brought on this tumultuous exposure. he, and he alone, is the cause of this revelation. and now i have one word to say to those in england who, with all the facts and documents in their hands which could at once have cleared lady byron's fame, allowed the barbarous assault of the 'blackwood' to go over the civilised world without a reply. i speak to those who, knowing that i am speaking the truth, stand silent; to those who have now the ability to produce the facts and documents by which this cause might be instantly settled, and who do not produce them. i do not judge them; but i remind them that a day is coming when they and i must stand side by side at the great judgment-seat,--i to give an account for my speaking, they for their silence. in that day, all earthly considerations will have vanished like morning mists, and truth or falsehood, justice or injustice, will be the only realities. in that day, god, who will judge the secrets of all men, will judge between this man and this woman. then, if never before, the full truth shall be told both of the depraved and dissolute man who made it his life's object to defame the innocent, and the silent, the self-denying woman who made it her life's object to give space for repentance to the guilty. part iii. miscellaneous documents. the true story of lady byron's life, as originally published in 'the atlantic monthly.' the reading world of america has lately been presented with a book which is said to sell rapidly, and which appears to meet with universal favour. the subject of the book may be thus briefly stated: the mistress of lord byron comes before the world for the sake of vindicating his fame from slanders and aspersions cast on him by his wife. the story of the mistress _versus_ wife may be summed up as follows:-- lord byron, the hero of the story, is represented as a human being endowed with every natural charm, gift, and grace, who, by the one false step of an unsuitable marriage, wrecked his whole life. a narrow-minded, cold-hearted precisian, without sufficient intellect to comprehend his genius, or heart to feel for his temptations, formed with him one of those mere worldly marriages common in high life; and, finding that she could not reduce him to the mathematical proprieties and conventional rules of her own mode of life, suddenly, and without warning, abandoned him in the most cruel and inexplicable manner. it is alleged that she parted from him in apparent affection and good-humour, wrote him a playful, confiding letter upon the way, but, after reaching her father's house, suddenly, and without explanation, announced to him that she would never see him again; that this sudden abandonment drew down upon him a perfect storm of scandalous stories, which his wife never contradicted; that she never in any way or shape stated what the exact reasons for her departure had been, and thus silently gave scope to all the malice of thousands of enemies. the sensitive victim was actually driven from england, his home broken up, and be doomed to be a lonely wanderer on foreign shores. in italy, under bluer skies, and among a gentler people, with more tolerant modes of judgment, the authoress intimates that he found peace and consolation. a lovely young italian countess falls in love with him, and, breaking her family ties for his sake, devotes herself to him; and, in blissful retirement with her, he finds at last that domestic life for which he was so fitted. soothed, calmed, and refreshed, he writes 'don juan,' which the world is at this late hour informed was a poem with a high moral purpose, designed to be a practical illustration of the doctrine of total depravity among young gentlemen in high life. under the elevating influence of love, he rises at last to higher realms of moral excellence, and resolves to devote the rest of his life to some noble and heroic purpose; becomes the saviour of greece; and dies untimely, leaving a nation to mourn his loss. the authoress dwells with a peculiar bitterness on lady byron's entire _silence_ during all these years, as the most aggravated form of persecution and injury. she informs the world that lord byron wrote his autobiography with the purpose of giving a fair statement of the exact truth in the whole matter; and that lady byron bought up the manuscript of the publisher, and insisted on its being destroyed, unread; thus inflexibly depriving her husband of his last chance of a hearing before the tribunal of the public. as a result of this silent persistent cruelty on the part of a cold, correct, narrow-minded woman, the character of lord byron has been misunderstood, and his name transmitted to after-ages clouded with aspersions and accusations which it is the object of this book to remove. * * * * * such is the story of lord byron's mistress,--a story which is going the length of this american continent, and rousing up new sympathy with the poet, and doing its best to bring the youth of america once more under the power of that brilliant, seductive genius, from which it was hoped they had escaped. already we are seeing it revamped in magazine-articles, which take up the slanders of the paramour and enlarge on them, and wax eloquent in denunciation of the marble-hearted insensible wife. all this while, it does not appear to occur to the thousands of unreflecting readers that they are listening merely to the story of lord byron's mistress, and of lord byron; and that, even by their own showing, their heaviest accusation against lady byron is that _she has not spoken at all_. her story has never been told. for many years after the rupture between lord byron and his wife, that poet's personality, fate, and happiness had an interest for the whole civilized world, which, we will venture to say, was unparalleled. it is within the writer's recollection, how, in the obscure mountain-town where she spent her early days, lord byron's separation from his wife was, for a season, the all-engrossing topic. she remembers hearing her father recount at the breakfast-table the facts as they were given in the public papers, together with his own suppositions and theories of the causes. lord byron's 'fare thee well,' addressed to lady byron, was set to music, and sung with tears by young school-girls, even in this distant america. madame de staël said of this appeal, that she was sure it would have drawn her at once to his heart and his arms; _she_ could have forgiven everything: and so said all the young ladies all over the world, not only in england but in france and germany, wherever byron's poetry appeared in translation. lady byron's obdurate cold-heartedness in refusing even to listen to his prayers, or to have any intercourse with him which might lead to reconciliation, was the one point conceded on all sides. the stricter moralists defended her; but gentler hearts throughout all the world regarded her as a marble-hearted monster of correctness and morality, a personification of the law unmitigated by the gospel. literature in its highest walks busied itself with lady byron. hogg, in the character of the ettrick shepherd, devotes several eloquent passages to expatiating on the conjugal fidelity of a poor highland shepherd's wife, who, by patience and prayer and forgiveness, succeeds in reclaiming her drunken husband, and making a good man of him; and then points his moral by contrasting with this touching picture the cold-hearted pharisaical correctness of lady byron. moore, in his 'life of lord byron,' when beginning the recital of the series of disgraceful amours which formed the staple of his life in venice, has this passage:-- 'highly censurable in point of morality and decorum as was his course of life while under the roof of madame ----, it was (with pain i am forced to confess) venial in comparison with the strange, headlong career of licence to which, when weaned from that connection, he so unrestrainedly, and, it may be added, defyingly abandoned himself. of the state of his mind on leaving england, i have already endeavoured to convey some idea; and among the feelings that went to make up that self-centred spirit of resistance which he then opposed to his fate was an indignant scorn for his own countrymen for the wrongs he thought they had done him. for a time, _the kindly sentiments which he still harboured toward lady byron, and a sort of vague hope, perhaps, that all would yet come right again_, kept his mind in a mood somewhat more softened and docile, as well as sufficiently under the influence of english opinions to prevent his breaking out into open rebellion against it, as he unluckily did afterward. '_by the failure of the attempted mediation with lady byron_, his last link with home was severed: while, notwithstanding the quiet and unobtrusive life which he led at geneva, there was as yet, he found, no cessation of the slanderous warfare against his character; the same busy and misrepresenting spirit which had tracked his every step at home, having, with no less malicious watchfulness, dogged him into exile.' we should like to know what the misrepresentations and slanders must have been, when this sort of thing is admitted in mr. moore's _justification_. it seems to us rather wonderful how anybody, unless it were a person like the countess guiccioli, could misrepresent a life such as even byron's friend admits he was leading. during all these years, when he was setting at defiance every principle of morality and decorum, the interest of the female mind all over europe in the conversion of this brilliant prodigal son was unceasing, and reflects the greatest credit upon the faith of the sex. madame de staël commenced the first effort at evangelization immediately after he left england, and found her catechumen in a most edifying state of humility. he was, metaphorically, on his knees in penitence, and confessed himself a miserable sinner in the loveliest manner possible. such sweetness and humility took all hearts. his conversations with madame de staël were printed, and circulated all over the world; making it to appear that only the inflexibility of lady byron stood in the way of his entire conversion. lady blessington, among many others, took him in hand five or six years afterwards, and was greatly delighted with his docility, and edified by his frank and free confessions of his miserable offences. nothing now seemed wanting to bring the wanderer home to the fold but a kind word from lady byron. but, when the fair countess offered to mediate, the poet only shook his head in tragic despair; 'he had so many times tried in vain; lady byron's course had been from the first that of obdurate silence.' any one who would wish to see a specimen of the skill of the honourable poet in mystification will do well to read a letter to lady byron, which lord byron, on parting from lady blessington, enclosed for her to read just before he went to greece. he says,-- 'the letter which i enclose _i was prevented from sending by my despair of its doing any good_. i was perfectly sincere when i wrote it, and am so still. but it is difficult for me to withstand the thousand provocations on that subject which both friends and foes have for seven years been throwing in the way of a man whose feelings were once quick, and whose temper was never patient.' 'to lady byron, care of the hon. mrs. leigh, london 'pisa, _nov._ , . 'i have to acknowledge the receipt of "ada's hair," which is very soft and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years old, if i may judge from what i recollect of some in augusta's possession, taken at that age. but it didn't curl--perhaps from its being let grow. 'i also thank you for the inscription of the date and name; and i will tell you why: i believe that they are the only two or three words of your handwriting in my possession. for your letters i returned; and except the two words, or rather the one word, "household," written twice in an old account book, i have no other. i burnt your last note, for two reasons: firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, i wished to take your word without documents, which are the worldly resources of suspicious people. 'i suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about ada's birthday--the th of december, i believe. she will then be six: so that, in about twelve more, i shall have some chance of meeting her; perhaps sooner, if i am obliged to go to england by business or otherwise. recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or nearness--every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our mutual feelings; which must always have one rallying point as long as our child exists, which, i presume, we both hope will be long after either of her parents. 'the time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer one of our prior acquaintance. we both made a bitter mistake; but now it is over, and irrevocably so. for at thirty-three on my part, and few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life, still it is one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as to admit of no modification; and, as we could not agree when younger, we should with difficulty do so now. 'i say all this, because i own to you, that notwithstanding everything, i considered our reunion as not impossible for more than a year after the separation; but then i gave up the hope entirely and for ever. but this very impossibility of reunion seems to me at least a reason why, on all the few points of discussion which can arise between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve,--perhaps more easily than nearer connections. for my own part, i am violent, but not malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentments. to you, who are colder and more concentrated, i would just hint, that you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a worse feeling for duty. i assure you that i bear you _now_ (whatever i may have done) no resentment whatever. remember, that, _if you have injured me_ in aught, this forgiveness is something; and that, if i have _injured you_, it is something more still, if it be true, as the moralists say, that the most offending are the least forgiving. 'whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, i have ceased to reflect upon any but two things; viz., that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again. i think, if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference to myself, it will be better for all three. 'yours ever, 'noel byron.' the artless thomas moore introduces this letter in the 'life,' with the remark,-- 'there are few, i should think, of my readers, who will not agree with me in pronouncing, that, if the author of the following letter had not _right_ on his side, he had at least most of those good feelings which are found in general to accompany it.' the reader is requested to take notice of the important admission, that _the letter was never sent to lady byron at all_. it was, in fact, never _intended_ for her, but was a nice little dramatic performance, composed simply with the view of acting on the sympathies of lady blessington and byron's numerous female admirers; and the reader will agree with us, we think, that, in this point of view, it was very neatly done, and deserves immortality as a work of high art. for six years he had been plunged into every kind of vice and excess, pleading his shattered domestic joys, and his wife's obdurate heart, as the apology and the impelling cause; filling the air with his shrieks and complaints concerning the slander which pursued him, while he filled letters to his confidential correspondents with records of new mistresses. during all these years, the silence of lady byron was unbroken; though lord byron not only drew in private on the sympathies of his female admirers, but employed his talents and position as an author in holding her up to contempt and ridicule before thousands of readers. we shall quote at length his side of the story, which he published in the first canto of 'don juan,' that the reader may see how much reason he had for assuming the injured tone which he did in the letter to lady byron quoted above. that letter never was sent to her; and the unmanly and indecent caricature of her, and the indelicate exposure of the whole story on his own side, which we are about to quote, were the only communications that could have reached her solitude. in the following verses, lady byron is represented as donna inez, and lord byron as don josé; but the incidents and allusions were so very pointed, that nobody for a moment doubted whose history the poet was narrating. 'his mother was a learned lady, famed for every branch of every science known in every christian language ever named, with virtues equalled by her wit alone: she made the cleverest people quite ashamed; and even the good with inward envy groaned, finding themselves so very much exceeded in their own way by all the things that she did. * * * * * save that her duty both to man and god required this conduct; which seemed very odd. she kept a journal where his faults were noted, and opened certain trunks of books and letters, (all which might, if occasion served, be quoted); and then she had all seville for abettors, besides her good old grandmother (who doted): the hearers of her case become repeaters, then advocates, inquisitors, and judges,-- some for amusement, others for old grudges. and then this best and meekest woman bore with such serenity her husband's woes! just as the spartan ladies did of yore, who saw their spouses killed, and nobly chose never to say a word about them more. calmly she heard each calumny that rose, and saw _his_ agonies with such sublimity, that all the world exclaimed, "what magnanimity!"' this is the longest and most elaborate version of his own story that byron ever published; but he busied himself with many others, projecting at one time a spanish romance, in which the same story is related in the same transparent manner: but this he was dissuaded from printing. the booksellers, however, made a good speculation in publishing what they called his domestic poems; that is, poems bearing more or less relation to this subject. every person with whom he became acquainted with any degree of intimacy was made familiar with his side of the story. moore's biography is from first to last, in its representations, founded upon byron's communicativeness, and lady byron's silence; and the world at last settled down to believing that the account so often repeated, and never contradicted, must be substantially a true one. the true history of lord and lady byron has long been perfectly understood in many circles in england; but the facts were of a nature that could not be made public. while there was a young daughter living whose future might be prejudiced by its recital, and while there were other persons on whom the disclosure of the real truth would have been crushing as an avalanche, lady byron's only course was the perfect silence in which she took refuge, and those sublime works of charity and mercy to which she consecrated her blighted early life. but the time is now come when the truth may be told. all the actors in the scene have disappeared from the stage of mortal existence, and passed, let us have faith to hope, into a world where they would desire to expiate their faults by a late publication of the truth. no person in england, we think, would as yet take the responsibility of relating the true history which is to clear lady byron's memory; but, by a singular concurrence of circumstances, all the facts of the case, in the most undeniable and authentic form, were at one time placed in the hands of the writer of this sketch, with authority to make such use of them as she should judge best. had this melancholy history been allowed to sleep, no public use would have been made of them; but the appearance of a popular attack on the character of lady byron calls for a vindication, and the true story of her married life will therefore now be related. lord byron has described in one of his letters the impression left upon his mind by a young person whom he met one evening in society, and who attracted his attention by the simplicity of her dress, and a certain air of singular purity and calmness with which she surveyed the scene around her. on inquiry, he was told that this young person was miss milbanke, an only child, and one of the largest heiresses in england. lord byron was fond of idealising his experiences in poetry; and the friends of lady byron had no difficulty in recognising the portrait of lady byron, as she appeared at this time of her life, in his exquisite description of aurora raby:-- 'there was indeed a certain fair and fairy one, of the best class, and better than her class,-- aurora raby, a young star who shone o'er life, too sweet an image for such glass; a lovely being scarcely formed or moulded; a rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded. * * * * * early in years, and yet more infantine in figure, she had something of sublime in eyes which sadly shone as seraphs' shine; all youth, but with an aspect beyond time; radiant and grave, as pitying man's decline; mournful, but mournful of another's crime, she looked as if she sat by eden's door, and grieved for those who could return no more. * * * * * she gazed upon a world she scarcely knew, as seeking not to know it; silent, lone, as grows a flower, thus quietly she grew, and kept her heart serene within its zone. there was awe in the homage which she drew; her spirit seemed as seated on a throne, apart from the surrounding world, and strong in its own strength,--most strange in one so young!' some idea of the course which their acquaintance took, and of the manner in which he was piqued into thinking of her, is given in a stanza or two:-- 'the dashing and proud air of adeline imposed not upon her: she saw her blaze much as she would have seen a glowworm shine; then turned unto the stars for loftier rays. juan was something she could not divine, being no sibyl in the new world's ways; yet she was nothing dazzled by the meteor, because she did not pin her faith on feature. his fame too (for he had that kind of fame which sometimes plays the deuce with womankind,-- a heterogeneous mass of glorious blame, half virtues and whole vices being combined; faults which attract because they are not tame; follies tricked out so brightly that they blind),-- these seals upon her wax made no impression, such was her coldness or her self-possession. aurora sat with that indifference which piques a _preux_ chevalier,--as it ought. of all offences, that's the worst offence which seems to hint you are not worth a thought. * * * * * to his gay nothings, nothing was replied, or something which was nothing, as urbanity required. aurora scarcely looked aside, nor even smiled enough for any vanity. the devil was in the girl! could it be pride, or modesty, or absence, or inanity? * * * * * juan was drawn thus into some attentions, slight but select, and just enough to express, to females of perspicuous comprehensions, that he would rather make them more than less. aurora at the last (so history mentions, though probably much less a fact than guess) so far relaxed her thoughts from their sweet prison as once or twice to smile, if not to listen. * * * * * but juan had a sort of winning way, a proud humility, if such there be, which showed such deference to what females say, as if each charming word were a decree. his tact, too, tempered him from grave to gay, and taught him when to be reserved or free. he had the art of drawing people out, without their seeing what he was about. aurora, who in her indifference, confounded him in common with the crowd of flatterers, though she deemed he had more sense than whispering foplings or than witlings loud, commenced (from such slight things will great commence) to feel that flattery which attracts the proud, rather by deference than compliment, and wins even by a delicate dissent. and then he had good looks: that point was carried _nem. con._ amongst the women. * * * * * now, though we know of old that looks deceive, and always have done, somehow these good looks, make more impression than the best of books. aurora, who looked more on books than faces, was very young, although so very sage: admiring more minerva than the graces, especially upon a printed page. but virtue's self, with all her tightest laces, has not the natural stays of strict old age; and socrates, that model of all duty, owned to a penchant, though discreet for beauty.' the presence of this high-minded, thoughtful, unworldly woman is described through two cantos of the wild, rattling 'don juan,' in a manner that shows how deeply the poet was capable of being affected by such an appeal to his higher nature. for instance, when don juan sits silent and thoughtful amid a circle of persons who are talking scandal, the poet says,-- ''tis true, he saw aurora look as though she approved his silence: she perhaps mistook its motive for that charity we owe, but seldom pay, the absent. * * * * * he gained esteem where it was worth the most; and certainly aurora had renewed in him some feelings he had lately lost or hardened,--feelings which, perhaps ideal, are so divine that i must deem them real:-- the love of higher things and better days; the unbounded hope and heavenly ignorance of what is called the world and the world's ways; the moments when we gather from a glance more joy than from all future pride or praise, which kindled manhood, but can ne'er entrance the heart in an existence of its own of which another's bosom is the zone. and full of sentiments sublime as billows heaving between this world and worlds beyond, don juan, when the midnight hour of pillows arrived, retired to his.'... in all these descriptions of a spiritual unworldly nature acting on the spiritual and unworldly part of his own nature, every one who ever knew lady byron intimately must have recognised the model from which he drew, and the experience from which he spoke, even though nothing was further from his mind than to pay this tribute to the woman he had injured, and though before these lines, which showed how truly he knew her real character, had come one stanza of ribald, vulgar caricature, designed as a slight to her:-- 'there was miss millpond, smooth as summer's sea that usual paragon, an only daughter, who seemed the cream of equanimity 'till skimmed; and then there was some milk and water; with a slight shade of blue, too, it might be, beneath the surface: but what did it matter? love's riotous; but marriage should have quiet, and, being consumptive, live on a milk diet.' the result of byron's intimacy with miss milbanke and the enkindling of his nobler feelings was an offer of marriage, which she, though at the time deeply interested in him, declined with many expressions of friendship and interest. in fact, she already loved him, but had that doubt of her power to be to him all that a wife should be which would be likely to arise in a mind so sensitively constituted and so unworldly. they, however, continued a correspondence as friends; on her part, the interest continually increased; on his, the transient rise of better feelings was choked and overgrown by the thorns of base unworthy passions. from the height at which he might have been happy as the husband of a noble woman, he fell into the depths of a secret adulterous intrigue with a blood relation, so near in consanguinity, that discovery must have been utter ruin and expulsion from civilised society. from henceforth, this damning guilty secret became the ruling force in his life; holding him with a morbid fascination, yet filling him with remorse and anguish, and insane dread of detection. two years after his refusal by miss milbanke, his various friends, seeing that for some cause he was wretched, pressed marriage upon him. marriage has often been represented as the proper goal and terminus of a wild and dissipated career; and it has been supposed to be the appointed mission of good women to receive wandering prodigals, with all the rags and disgraces of their old life upon them, and put rings on their hands, and shoes on their feet, and introduce them, clothed and in their right minds, to an honourable career in society. marriage was, therefore, universally recommended to lord byron by his numerous friends and well-wishers; and so he determined to marry, and, in an hour of reckless desperation, sat down and wrote proposals to two ladies. one was declined: the other, which was accepted, was to miss milbanke. the world knows well that he had the gift of expression, and will not be surprised that he wrote a very beautiful letter, and that the woman who had already learned to love him fell at once into the snare. her answer was a frank, outspoken avowal of her love for him, giving herself to him heart and hand. the good in lord byron was not so utterly obliterated that he could receive such a letter without emotion, or practise such unfairness on a loving, trusting heart without pangs of remorse. he had sent the letter in mere recklessness; he had not seriously expected to be accepted; and the discovery of the treasure of affection which he had secured was like a vision of lost heaven to a soul in hell. but, nevertheless, in his letters written about the engagement, there are sufficient evidences that his self-love was flattered at the preference accorded him by so superior a woman, and one who had been so much sought. he mentions with an air of complacency that she has employed the last two years in refusing five or six of his acquaintance; that he had no idea she loved him, admitting that it was an old attachment on his part. he dwells on her virtues with a sort of pride of ownership. there is a sort of childish levity about the frankness of these letters, very characteristic of the man who skimmed over the deepest abysses with the lightest jests. before the world, and to his intimates, he was acting the part of the successful _fiancé_, conscious all the while of the deadly secret that lay cold at the bottom of his heart. when he went to visit miss milbanke's parents as her accepted lover she was struck with his manner and appearance: she saw him moody and gloomy, evidently wrestling with dark and desperate thoughts, and anything but what a happy and accepted lover should be. she sought an interview with him alone, and told him that she had observed that he was not happy in the engagement; and magnanimously added, that, if on review, he found he had been mistaken in the nature of his feelings, she would immediately release him, and they should remain only friends. overcome with the conflict of his feelings, lord byron fainted away. miss milbanke was convinced that his heart must really be deeply involved in an attachment with reference to which he showed such strength of emotion, and she spoke no more of a dissolution of the engagement. there is no reason to doubt that byron was, as he relates in his 'dream,' profoundly agonized and agitated when he stood before god's altar with the trusting young creature whom he was leading to a fate so awfully tragic; yet it was not the memory of mary chaworth, but another guiltier and more damning memory, that overshadowed that hour. the moment the carriage-doors were shut upon the bridegroom and the bride, the paroxysm of remorse and despair--unrepentant remorse and angry despair--broke forth upon her gentle head:-- 'you might have saved me from this, madam! you had all in your own power when i offered myself to you first. then you might have made me what you pleased; but now you will find that you have married a _devil_!' in miss martineau's sketches, recently published, is an account of the termination of this wedding-journey, which brought them to one of lady byron's ancestral country seats, where they were to spend the honeymoon. miss martineau says,-- 'at the altar she did not know that she was a sacrifice; but before sunset of that winter day she knew it, if a judgment may be formed from her face, and attitude of despair, when she alighted from the carriage on the afternoon of her marriage-day. it was not the traces of tears which won the sympathy of the old butler who stood at the open door. the bridegroom jumped out of the carriage and walked away. the bride alighted, and came up the steps alone, with a countenance and frame agonized and listless with evident horror and despair. the old servant longed to offer his arm to the young, lonely creature, as an assurance of sympathy and protection. from this shock she certainly rallied, and soon. the pecuniary difficulties of her new home were exactly what a devoted spirit like hers was fitted to encounter. her husband bore testimony, after the catastrophe, that a brighter being, a more sympathising and agreeable companion, never blessed any man's home. when he afterwards called her cold and mathematical, and over-pious, and so forth, it was when public opinion had gone against him, and when he had discovered that her fidelity and mercy, her silence and magnanimity, might be relied on, so that he was at full liberty to make his part good, as far as she was concerned. 'silent she was even to her own parents, whose feelings she magnanimously spared. she did not act rashly in leaving him, though she had been most rash in marrying him.' not all at once did the full knowledge of the dreadful reality into which she had entered come upon the young wife. she knew vaguely, from the wild avowals of the first hours of their marriage, that there was a dreadful secret of guilt; that byron's soul was torn with agonies of remorse, and that he had no love to give to her in return for a love which was ready to do and dare all for him. yet bravely she addressed herself to the task of soothing and pleasing and calming the man whom she had taken 'for better or for worse.' young and gifted; with a peculiar air of refined and spiritual beauty; graceful in every movement; possessed of exquisite taste; a perfect companion to his mind in all the higher walks of literary culture; and with that infinite pliability to all his varying, capricious moods which true love alone can give; bearing in her hand a princely fortune, which, with a woman's uncalculating generosity, was thrown at his feet,--there is no wonder that she might feel for a while as if she could enter the lists with the very devil himself, and fight with a woman's weapons for the heart of her husband. there are indications scattered through the letters of lord byron, which, though brief indeed, showed that his young wife was making every effort to accommodate herself to him, and to give him a cheerful home. one of the poems that he sends to his publisher about this time, he speaks of as being copied by her. he had always the highest regard for her literary judgments and opinions; and this little incident shows that she was already associating herself in a wifely fashion with his aims as an author. the poem copied by her, however, has a sad meaning, which she afterwards learned to understand only too well:-- 'there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away when the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay: 'tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone that fades so fast; but the tender bloom of heart is gone e'er youth itself be past. then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess: the magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain the shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.' only a few days before she left him for ever, lord byron sent murray manuscripts, in lady byron's handwriting, of the 'siege of corinth,' and 'parisina,' and wrote,-- 'i am very glad that the handwriting was a favourable omen of the _morale_ of the piece: but you must not trust to that; for my copyist would write out anything i desired, in all the ignorance of innocence.' there were lucid intervals in which lord byron felt the charm of his wife's mind, and the strength of her powers. 'bell, you could be a poet too, if you only thought so,' he would say. there were summer-hours in her stormy life, the memory of which never left her, when byron was as gentle and tender as he was beautiful; when he seemed to be possessed by a good angel: and then for a little time all the ideal possibilities of his nature stood revealed. the most dreadful men to live with are those who thus alternate between angel and devil. the buds of hope and love called out by a day or two of sunshine are frozen again and again, till the tree is killed. but there came an hour of revelation,--an hour when, in a manner which left no kind of room for doubt, lady byron saw the full depth of the abyss of infamy which her marriage was expected to cover, and understood that she was expected to be the cloak and the accomplice of this infamy. many women would have been utterly crushed by such a disclosure; some would have fled from him immediately, and exposed and denounced the crime. lady byron did neither. when all the hope of womanhood died out of her heart, there arose within her, stronger, purer, and brighter, that immortal kind of love such as god feels for the sinner,--the love of which jesus spoke, and which holds the one wanderer of more account than the ninety and nine that went not astray. she would neither leave her husband nor betray him, nor yet would she for one moment justify his sin; and hence came two years of convulsive struggle, in which sometimes, for a while, the good angel seemed to gain ground, and then the evil one returned with sevenfold vehemence. lord byron argued his case with himself and with her with all the sophistries of his powerful mind. he repudiated christianity as authority; asserted the right of every human being to follow out what he called 'the impulses of nature.' subsequently he introduced into one of his dramas the reasoning by which he justified himself in incest. in the drama of 'cain,' adah, the sister and the wife of cain, thus addresses him:-- 'cain, walk not with this spirit. bear with what we have borne, and love me: i love thee. _lucifer._ more than thy mother and thy sire? _adah._ i do. is that a sin, too? _lucifer._ no, not yet: it one day will be in your children. _adah._ what! must not my daughter love her brother enoch? _lucifer._ not as thou lovest cain. _adah._ o my god! shall they not love, and bring forth things that love out of their love? have they not drawn their milk out of this bosom? was not he, their father, born of the same sole womb, in the same hour with me? did we not love each other, and, in multiplying our being, multiply things which will love each other as we love them? and as i love thee, my cain, go not forth with this spirit: he is not of ours. _lucifer._ the sin i speak of is not of my making and cannot be a sin in you, whate'er it seems in those who will replace ye in mortality. _adah._ what is the sin which is not sin in itself? can circumstance make sin of virtue? if it doth, we are the slaves of'-- lady byron, though slight and almost infantine in her bodily presence, had the soul, not only of an angelic woman, but of a strong reasoning man. it was the writer's lot to know her at a period when she formed the personal acquaintance of many of the very first minds of england; but, among all with whom this experience brought her in connection, there was none who impressed her so strongly as lady byron. there was an almost supernatural power of moral divination, a grasp of the very highest and most comprehensive things, that made her lightest opinions singularly impressive. no doubt, this result was wrought out in a great degree from the anguish and conflict of these two years, when, with no one to help or counsel her but almighty god, she wrestled and struggled with fiends of darkness for the redemption of her husband's soul. she followed him through all his sophistical reasonings with a keener reason. she besought and implored, in the name of his better nature, and by all the glorious things that he was capable of being and doing; and she had just power enough to convulse and shake and agonise, but not power enough to subdue. one of the first of living writers, in the novel of 'romola,' has given, in her masterly sketch of the character of tito, the whole history of the conflict of a woman like lady byron with a nature like that of her husband. she has described a being full of fascinations and sweetnesses, full of generosities and of good-natured impulses; a nature that could not bear to give pain, or to see it in others, but entirely destitute of any firm moral principle; she shows how such a being, merely by yielding step by step to the impulses of passion, and disregarding the claims of truth and right, becomes involved in a fatality of evil, in which deceit, crime, and cruelty are a necessity, forcing him to persist in the basest ingratitude to the father who has done all for him, and hard-hearted treachery to the high-minded wife who has given herself to him wholly. there are few scenes in literature more fearfully tragic than the one between romola and tito, when he finally discovers that she knows him fully, and can be deceived by him no more. some such hour always must come for strong decided natures irrevocably pledged--one to the service of good, and the other to the slavery of evil. the demoniac cried out, 'what have i to do with thee, jesus of nazareth? art thou come to torment me before the time?' the presence of all-pitying purity and love was a torture to the soul possessed by the demon of evil. these two years in which lady byron was with all her soul struggling to bring her husband back to his better self were a series of passionate convulsions. during this time, such was the disordered and desperate state of his worldly affairs, that there were ten executions for debt levied on their family establishment; and it was lady byron's fortune each time which settled the account. toward the last, she and her husband saw less and less of each other; and he came more and more decidedly under evil influences, and seemed to acquire a sort of hatred of her. lady byron once said significantly to a friend who spoke of some causeless dislike in another, 'my dear, i have known people to be hated for no other reason than because they impersonated conscience.' the biographers of lord byron, and all his apologists, are careful to narrate how sweet and amiable and obliging he was to everybody who approached him; and the saying of fletcher, his man-servant, that '_anybody_ could do anything with my lord, except my lady,' has often been quoted. the reason of all this will now be evident. 'my lady' was the only one, fully understanding the deep and dreadful secrets of his life, who had the courage resolutely and persistently and inflexibly to plant herself in his way, and insist upon it, that, if he went to destruction, it should be in spite of her best efforts. he had tried his strength with her fully. the first attempt had been to make her an accomplice by sophistry; by destroying her faith in christianity, and confusing her sense of right and wrong, to bring her into the ranks of those convenient women who regard the marriage-tie only as a friendly alliance to cover licence on both sides. when her husband described to her the continental latitude (the good-humoured marriage, in which complaisant couples mutually agreed to form the cloak for each other's infidelities), and gave her to understand that in this way alone she could have a peaceful and friendly life with him, she answered him simply, 'i am too truly your friend to do this.' when lord byron found that he had to do with one who would not yield, who knew him fully, who could not be blinded and could not be deceived, he determined to rid himself of her altogether. it was when the state of affairs between herself and her husband seemed darkest and most hopeless, that the only child of this union was born. lord byron's treatment of his wife during the sensitive period that preceded the birth of this child, and during her confinement, was marked by paroxysms of unmanly brutality, for which the only possible charity on her part was the supposition of insanity. moore sheds a significant light on this period, by telling us that, about this time, byron was often drunk, day after day, with sheridan. there had been insanity in the family; and this was the plea which lady byron's love put in for him. she regarded him as, if not insane, at least so nearly approaching the boundaries of insanity as to be a subject of forbearance and tender pity; and she loved him with that love resembling a mother's, which good wives often feel when they have lost all faith in their husband's principles, and all hopes of their affections. still, she was in heart and soul his best friend; true to him with a truth which he himself could not shake. in the verses addressed to his daughter, lord byron speaks of her as 'the child of love, though born in bitterness, and nurtured in convulsion.' a day or two after the birth of this child, lord byron came suddenly into lady byron's room, and told her that her mother was dead. it was an utter falsehood; but it was only one of the many nameless injuries and cruelties by which he expressed his hatred of her. a short time after her confinement, she was informed by him, in a note, that, as soon as she was able to travel, she must go; that he could not and would not longer have her about him; and, when her child was only five weeks old, he carried this threat of expulsion into effect. here we will insert briefly lady byron's own account (the only one she ever gave to the public) of this separation. the circumstances under which this brief story was written are affecting. lord byron was dead. the whole account between him and her was closed for ever in this world. moore's life had been prepared, containing simply and solely lord byron's own version of their story. moore sent this version to lady byron, and requested to know if she had any remarks to make upon it. in reply, she sent a brief statement to him,--the first and only one that had come from her during all the years of the separation, and which appears to have mainly for its object the exculpation of her father and mother from the charge, made by the poet, of being the instigators of the separation. in this letter, she says, with regard to their separation,-- 'the facts are, i left london for kirkby mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the th of january, . lord byron had signified to me in writing, jan. , his absolute desire that i should leave london on the earliest day that i could conveniently fix. it was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a journey sooner than the th. previously to my departure, it had been strongly impressed upon my mind that lord byron was under the influence of insanity. this opinion was derived, in a great measure, from the communications made me by his nearest relatives and personal attendant, who had more opportunity than myself for observing him during the latter part of my stay in town. it was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying himself. '_with the concurrence of his family_, i had consulted dr. baillie as a friend (jan. ) respecting the supposed malady. on acquainting him with the state of the case, and with lord byron's desire that i should leave london, dr. baillie thought that my absence might be advisable as an experiment, assuming the fact of mental derangement; for dr. baillie, not having had access to lord byron, could not pronounce a positive opinion on that point. he enjoined that, in correspondence with lord byron, i should avoid all but light and soothing topics. under these impressions, i left london, determined to follow the advice given by dr. baillie. whatever might have been the conduct of lord byron toward me from the time of my marriage, yet, supposing him to be in a state of mental alienation, it was not for _me_, nor for any person of common humanity, to manifest at that moment a sense of injury.' nothing more than this letter from lady byron is necessary to substantiate the fact, that she did not _leave_ her husband, but _was driven_ from him,--driven from him that he might give himself up to the guilty infatuation that was consuming him, without being tortured by her imploring face, and by the silent power of her presence and her prayers. for a long time before this, she had seen little of him. on the day of her departure, she passed by the door of his room, and stopped to caress his favourite spaniel, which was lying there; and she confessed to a friend the weakness of feeling a willingness even to be something as humble as that poor little creature, might she only be allowed to remain and watch over him. she went into the room where he and the partner of his sins were sitting together, and said, 'byron, i come to say good-bye,' offering, at the same time, her hand. lord byron put his hands behind him, retreated to the mantel-piece, and, looking on the two that stood there, with a sarcastic smile said, 'when shall we three meet again?' lady byron answered, 'in heaven, i trust.' and those were her last words to him on earth. now, if the reader wishes to understand the real talents of lord byron for deception and dissimulation, let him read, with this story in his mind, the 'fare thee well,' which he addressed to lady byron through the printer:-- 'fare thee well; and if for ever, still for ever fare thee well! even though unforgiving, never 'gainst thee shall my heart rebel. would that breast were bared before thee where thy head so oft hath lain, while that placid sleep came o'er thee thou canst never know again! though my many faults defaced me, could no other arm be found than the one which once embraced me to inflict a careless wound?' the re-action of society against him at the time of the separation from his wife was something which he had not expected, and for which, it appears, he was entirely unprepared. it broke up the guilty intrigue and drove him from england. he had not courage to meet or endure it. the world, to be sure, was very far from suspecting what the truth was: but the tide was setting against him with such vehemence as to make him tremble every hour lest the whole should be known; and henceforth, it became a warfare of desperation to make his story good, no matter at whose expense. he had tact enough to perceive at first that the assumption of the pathetic and the magnanimous, and general confessions of faults, accompanied with admissions of his wife's goodness, would be the best policy in his case. in this mood, he thus writes to moore:-- 'the fault was not in my choice (unless in choosing at all); for i do not believe (and i must say it in the very dregs of all this bitter business) that there ever was a better, or even a brighter, a kinder, or a more amiable, agreeable being than lady byron. i never had, nor can have, any reproach to make her while with me. where there is blame, it belongs to myself.' as there must be somewhere a scapegoat to bear the sin of the affair, lord byron wrote a poem called 'a sketch,' in which he lays the blame of stirring up strife on a friend and former governess of lady byron's; but in this sketch he introduces the following just eulogy on lady byron:-- 'foiled was perversion by that youthful mind which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, deceit infect not, near contagion soil, indulgence weaken, nor example spoil, nor mastered science tempt her to look down on humbler talents with a pitying frown, nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain, nor fortune change, pride raise, nor passion bow, nor virtue teach austerity,--till now; serenely purest of her sex that live, but wanting one sweet weakness,--to forgive; too shocked at faults her soul can never know, she deemed that all could be like her below: foe to all vice, yet hardly virtue's friend; for virtue pardons those she would amend.' in leaving england, lord byron first went to switzerland, where he conceived and in part wrote out the tragedy of 'manfred.' moore speaks of his domestic misfortunes, and the sufferings which he underwent at this time, as having influence in stimulating his genius, so that he was enabled to write with a greater power. anybody who reads the tragedy of 'manfred' with this story in his mind will see that it is true. the hero is represented as a gloomy misanthrope, dwelling with impenitent remorse on the memory of an incestuous passion which has been the destruction of his sister for this life and the life to come, but which, to the very last gasp, he despairingly refuses to repent of, even while he sees the fiends of darkness rising to take possession of his departing soul. that byron knew his own guilt well, and judged himself severely, may be gathered from passages in this poem, which are as powerful as human language can be made; for instance this part of the 'incantation,' which moore says was written at this time:-- 'though thy slumber may be deep, yet thy spirit shall not sleep: there are shades which will not vanish; there are thoughts thou canst not banish. by a power to thee unknown, thou canst never be alone: thou art wrapt as with a shroud; thou art gathered in a cloud; and for ever shalt thou dwell in the spirit of this spell. * * * * * from thy false tears i did distil an essence which had strength to kill; from thy own heart i then did wring the black blood in its blackest spring; from thy own smile i snatched the snake, for there it coiled as in a brake; from thy own lips i drew the charm which gave all these their chiefest harm in proving every poison known, i found the strongest was thine own. by thy cold breast and serpent smile, by thy unfathomed gulfs of guile, by that most seeming virtuous eye, by thy shut soul's hypocrisy, by the perfection of thine art which passed for human thine own heart, by thy delight in other's pain, and by thy brotherhood of cain, i call upon thee, and compel thyself to be thy proper hell!' again: he represents manfred as saying to the old abbot, who seeks to bring him to repentance,-- old man, there is no power in holy men, nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast, nor agony, nor greater than all these, the innate tortures of that deep despair, which is remorse without the fear of hell, but, all in all sufficient to itself, would make a hell of heaven, can exorcise from out the unbounded spirit the quick sense of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge upon itself: there is no future pang can deal that justice on the self-condemned he deals on his own soul.' and when the abbot tells him, 'all this is well; for this will pass away, and be succeeded by an auspicious hope, which shall look up with calm assurance to that blessed place which all who seek may win, whatever be their earthly errors,' he answers, 'it is too late.' then the old abbot soliloquises:-- 'this should have been a noble creature: he hath all the energy which would have made a goodly frame of glorious elements, had they been wisely mingled; as it is, it is an awful chaos,--light and darkness, and mind and dust, and passions and pure thoughts, mixed, and contending without end or order.' the world can easily see, in moore's biography, what, after this, was the course of lord byron's life; how he went from shame to shame, and dishonour to dishonour, and used the fortune which his wife brought him in the manner described in those private letters which his biographer was left to print. moore, indeed, says byron had made the resolution not to touch his lady's fortune; but adds, that it required more self-command than he possessed to carry out so honourable a purpose. lady byron made but one condition with him. she had him in her power; and she exacted that the unhappy partner of his sins should not follow him out of england, and that the ruinous intrigue should be given up. her inflexibility on this point kept up that enmity which was constantly expressing itself in some publication or other, and which drew her and her private relations with him before the public. the story of what lady byron did with the portion of her fortune which was reserved to her is a record of noble and skilfully administered charities. pitiful and wise and strong, there was no form of human suffering or sorrow that did not find with her refuge and help. she gave not only systematically, but also impulsively. miss martineau claims for her the honour of having first invented practical schools, in which the children of the poor were turned into agriculturists, artizans, seamstresses, and good wives for poor men. while she managed with admirable skill and economy permanent institutions of this sort, she was always ready to relieve suffering in any form. the fugitive slaves william and ellen crafts, escaping to england, were fostered by her protecting care. in many cases where there was distress or anxiety from poverty among those too self-respecting to make their sufferings known, the delicate hand of lady byron ministered to the want with a consideration which spared the most refined feelings. as a mother, her course was embarrassed by peculiar trials. the daughter inherited from the father not only brilliant talents, but a restlessness and morbid sensibility which might be too surely traced to the storms and agitations of the period in which she was born. it was necessary to bring her up in ignorance of the true history of her mother's life; and the consequence was that she could not fully understand that mother. during her early girlhood, her career was a source of more anxiety than of comfort. she married a man of fashion, ran a brilliant course as a gay woman of fashion, and died early of a lingering and painful disease. in the silence and shaded retirement of the sick-room, the daughter came wholly back to her mother's arms and heart; and it was on that mother's bosom that she leaned as she went down into the dark valley. it was that mother who placed her weak and dying hand in that of her almighty saviour. to the children left by her daughter, she ministered with the faithfulness of a guardian angel; and it is owing to her influence that those who yet remain are among the best and noblest of mankind. the person whose relations with byron had been so disastrous, also, in the latter years of her life, felt lady byron's loving and ennobling influences, and, in her last sickness and dying hours, looked to her for consolation and help. there was an unfortunate child of sin, born with the curse upon her, over whose wayward nature lady byron watched with a mother's tenderness. she was the one who could have patience when the patience of every one else failed; and though her task was a difficult one, from the strange abnormal propensities to evil in the object of her cares, yet lady byron never faltered, and never gave over, till death took the responsibility from her hands. during all this trial, strange to say, her belief that the good in lord byron would finally conquer was unshaken. to a friend who said to her, 'oh! how could you love him?' she answered briefly, 'my dear, there was the angel in him.' it is in us all. it was in this angel that she had faith. it was for the deliverance of this angel from degradation and shame and sin that she unceasingly prayed. she read every work that byron wrote--read it with a deeper knowledge than any human being but herself could possess. the ribaldry and the obscenity and the insults with which he strove to make her ridiculous in the world fell at her pitying feet unheeded. when he broke away from all this unworthy life to devote himself to a manly enterprise for the redemption of greece, she thought that she saw the beginning of an answer to her prayers. even although one of his latest acts concerning her was to repeat to lady blessington the false accusation which made lady byron the author of all his errors, she still had hopes from the one step taken in the right direction. in the midst of these hopes came the news of his sudden death. on his death-bed, it is well-known that he called his confidential english servant to him, and said to him, 'go to my sister; tell her--go to lady byron,--you will see her,--and say'-- here followed twenty minutes of indistinct mutterings, in which the names of his wife, daughter, and sister, frequently occurred. he then said, 'now i have told you all.' 'my lord,' replied fletcher, 'i have not understood a word your lordship has been saying.' 'not understand me!' exclaimed lord byron with a look of the utmost distress: 'what a pity! then it is too late,--all is over!' he afterwards, says moore, tried to utter a few words, of which none were intelligible except 'my sister--my child.' when fletcher returned to london, lady byron sent for him, and walked the room in convulsive struggles to repress her tears and sobs, while she over and over again strove to elicit something from him which should enlighten her upon what that last message had been; but in vain: the gates of eternity were shut in her face, and not a word had passed to tell her if he had repented. for all that, lady byron never doubted his salvation. ever before her, during the few remaining years of her widowhood, was the image of her husband, purified and ennobled, with the shadows of earth for ever dissipated, the stains of sin for ever removed; 'the angel in him,' as she expressed it, 'made perfect, according to its divine ideal.' never has more divine strength of faith and love existed in woman. out of the depths of her own loving and merciful nature, she gained such views of the divine love and mercy as made all hopes possible. there was no soul of whose future lady byron despaired,--such was her boundless faith in the redeeming power of love. after byron's death, the life of this delicate creature--so frail in body that she seemed always hovering on the brink of the eternal world, yet so strong in spirit, and so unceasing in her various ministries of mercy--was a miracle of mingled weakness and strength. to talk with her seemed to the writer of this sketch the nearest possible approach to talking with one of the spirits of the just made perfect. she was gentle, artless; approachable as a little child; with ready, outflowing sympathy for the cares and sorrows and interests of all who approached her; with a _naïve_ and gentle playfulness, that adorned, without hiding, the breadth and strength of her mind; and, above all, with a clear, divining, moral discrimination; never mistaking wrong for right in the slightest shade, yet with a mercifulness that made allowance for every weakness, and pitied every sin. there was so much of christ in her, that to have seen her seemed to be to have drawn near to heaven. she was one of those few whom absence cannot estrange from friends; whose mere presence in this world seems always a help to every generous thought, a strength to every good purpose, a comfort in every sorrow. living so near the confines of the spiritual world, she seemed already to see into it: hence the words of comfort which she addressed to a friend who had lost a son:-- 'dear friend, remember, as long as our loved ones are in _god's_ world, they are in _ours_.' * * * * * it has been thought by some friends who have read the proof-sheets of the foregoing that the author should give more specifically her authority for these statements. the circumstances which led the writer to england at a certain time originated a friendship and correspondence with lady byron, which was always regarded as one of the greatest acquisitions of that visit. on the occasion of a second visit to england, in , the writer received a note from lady byron, indicating that she wished to have some private, confidential conversation upon important subjects, and inviting her, for that purpose, to spend a day with her at her country-seat near london. the writer went and spent a day with lady byron alone; and the object of the invitation was explained to her. lady byron was in such a state of health, that her physicians had warned her that she had very little time to live. she was engaged in those duties and retrospections which every thoughtful person finds necessary, when coming deliberately, and with open eyes, to the boundaries of this mortal life. at that time, there was a cheap edition of byron's works in contemplation, intended to bring his writings into circulation among the masses; and the pathos arising from the story of his domestic misfortunes was one great means relied on for giving it currency. under these circumstances, some of lady byron's friends had proposed the question to her, _whether she had not a responsibility to society for the truth_; whether _she did right_ to allow these writings to gain influence over the popular mind by giving a silent consent to what she knew to be utter falsehoods. lady byron's whole life had been passed in the most heroic self-abnegation and self-sacrifice: and she had now to consider whether one more act of self-denial was not required of her before leaving this world; namely, to declare the absolute truth, no matter at what expense to her own feelings. for this reason, it was her desire to recount the whole history to a person of another country, and entirely out of the sphere of personal and local feelings which might be supposed to influence those in the country and station in life where the events really happened, in order that she might be helped by such a person's views in making up an opinion as to her own duty. the interview had almost the solemnity of a death-bed avowal. lady byron stated the facts which have been embodied in this article, and gave to the writer a paper containing a brief memorandum of the whole, with the dates affixed. we have already spoken of that singular sense of the reality of the spiritual world which seemed to encompass lady byron during the last part of her life, and which made her words and actions seem more like those of a blessed being detached from earth than of an ordinary mortal. all her modes of looking at things, all her motives of action, all her involuntary exhibitions of emotion, were so high above any common level, and so entirely regulated by the most unworldly causes, that it would seem difficult to make the ordinary world understand exactly how the thing seemed to lie before her mind. what impressed the writer more strongly than anything else was lady byron's perfect conviction that her husband was now a redeemed spirit; that he looked back with pain and shame and regret on all that was unworthy in his past life; and that, if he could speak or could act in the case, he would desire to prevent the further circulation of base falsehoods, and of seductive poetry, which had been made the vehicle of morbid and unworthy passions. lady byron's experience had led her to apply the powers of her strong philosophical mind to the study of mental pathology: and she had become satisfied that the solution of the painful problem which first occurred to her as a young wife, was, after all, the true one; namely, that lord byron had been one of those unfortunately constituted persons in whom the balance of nature is so critically hung, that it is always in danger of dipping towards insanity; and that, in certain periods of his life, he was so far under the influence of mental disorder as not to be fully responsible for his actions. she went over with a brief and clear analysis the history of his whole life as she had thought it out during the lonely musings of her widowhood. she dwelt on the ancestral causes that gave him a nature of exceptional and dangerous susceptibility. she went through the mismanagements of his childhood, the history of his school-days, the influence of the ordinary school-course of classical reading on such a mind as his. she sketched boldly and clearly the internal life of the young men of the time, as she, with her purer eyes, had looked through it; and showed how habits, which, with less susceptible fibre, and coarser strength of nature, were tolerable for his companions, were deadly to him, unhinging his nervous system, and intensifying the dangers of ancestral proclivities. lady byron expressed the feeling too, that the calvinistic theology, as heard in scotland, had proved in his case, as it often does in certain minds, a subtle poison. he never could either disbelieve or become reconciled to it; and the sore problems it proposes embittered his spirit against christianity. 'the worst of it is, i _do believe_,' he would often say with violence, when he had been employing all his powers of reason, wit, and ridicule upon these subjects. through all this sorrowful history was to be seen, not the care of a slandered woman to make her story good, but the pathetic anxiety of a mother, who treasures every particle of hope, every intimation of good, in the son whom she cannot cease to love. with indescribable resignation, she dwelt on those last hours, those words addressed to her, never to be understood till repeated in eternity. but all this she looked upon as for ever past; believing, that, with the dropping of the earthly life, these morbid impulses and influences ceased, and that higher nature which he often so beautifully expressed in his poems became the triumphant one. while speaking on this subject, her pale ethereal face became luminous with a heavenly radiance; there was something so sublime in her belief in the victory of love over evil, that faith with her seemed to have become sight. she seemed so clearly to perceive the divine ideal of the man she had loved, and for whose salvation she had been called to suffer and labour and pray, that all memories of his past unworthiness fell away, and were lost. her love was never the doting fondness of weak women; it was the appreciative and discriminating love by which a higher nature recognised god-like capabilities under all the dust and defilement of misuse and passion: and she never doubted that the love which in her was so strong, that no injury or insult could shake it, was yet stronger in the god who made her capable of such a devotion, and that in him it was accompanied by power to subdue all things to itself. the writer was so impressed and excited by the whole scene and recital, that she begged for two or three days to deliberate before forming any opinion. she took the memorandum with her, returned to london, and gave a day or two to the consideration of the subject. the decision which she made was chiefly influenced by her reverence and affection for lady byron. she seemed so frail, she had suffered so much, she stood at such a height above the comprehension of the coarse and common world, that the author had a feeling that it would almost be like violating a shrine to ask her to come forth from the sanctuary of a silence where she had so long abode, and plead her cause. she wrote to lady byron, that while this act of justice did seem to be called for, and to be in some respects most desirable, yet, as it would involve so much that was painful to her, the writer considered that lady byron would be entirely justifiable in leaving the truth to be disclosed after her death; and recommended that all the facts necessary should be put in the hands of some person, to be so published. years passed on. lady byron lingered four years after this interview to the wonder of her physicians and all her friends. after lady byron's death, the writer looked anxiously, hoping to see a memoir of the person whom she considered the most remarkable woman that england has produced in the century. no such memoir has appeared on the part of her friends; and the mistress of lord byron has the ear of the public, and is sowing far and wide unworthy slanders, which are eagerly gathered up and read by an undiscriminating community. there may be family reasons in england which prevent lady byron's friends from speaking. but lady byron has an american name and an american existence; and reverence for pure womanhood is, we think, a national characteristic of the american; and, so far as this country is concerned, we feel that the public should have this refutation of the slanders of the countess guiccioli's book. lord lindsay's letter to the london 'times.' to the editor of 'the times.' sir,--i have waited in expectation of a categorical denial of the horrible charge brought by mrs. beecher stowe against lord byron and his sister on the alleged authority of the late lady byron. such denial has been only indirectly given by the letter of messrs. wharton and fords in your impression of yesterday. that letter is sufficient to prove that lady byron never contemplated the use made of her name, and that her descendants and representatives disclaim any countenance of mrs. b. stowe's article; but it does not specifically meet mrs. stowe's allegation, that lady byron, in conversing with her thirteen years ago, affirmed the charge now before us. it remains open, therefore, to a scandal-loving world, to credit the calumny through the advantage of this flaw, involuntary, i believe, in the answer produced against it. my object in addressing you is to supply that deficiency by proving that what is now stated on lady byron's supposed authority is at variance, in all respects, with what she stated immediately after the separation, when everything was fresh in her memory in relation to the time during which, according to mrs. b. stowe, she believed that byron and his sister were living together in guilt. i publish this evidence with reluctance, but in obedience to that higher obligation of justice to the voiceless and defenceless dead which bids me break through a reserve that otherwise i should have held sacred. the lady byron of would, i am certain, have sanctioned my doing so, had she foreseen the present unparalleled occasion, and the bar that the conditions of her will present (as i infer from messrs. wharton and fords' letter) against any fuller communication. calumnies such as the present sink deep and with rapidity into the public mind, and are not easily eradicated. the fame of one of our greatest poets, and that of the kindest and truest and most constant friend that byron ever had, is at stake; and it will not do to wait for revelations from the fountain-head, which are not promised, and possibly may never reach us. the late lady anne barnard, who died in , a contemporary and friend of burke, windham, dundas, and a host of the wise and good of that generation, and remembered in letters as the authoress of 'auld robin gray,' had known the late lady byron from infancy, and took a warm interest in her; holding lord byron in corresponding repugnance, not to say prejudice, in consequence of what she believed to be his harsh and cruel treatment of her young friend. i transcribe the following passages, and a letter from lady byron herself (written in ) from _ricordi_, or private family memoirs, in lady anne's autograph, now before me. i include the letter, because, although treating only in general terms of the matter and causes of the separation, it affords collateral evidence bearing strictly upon the point of the credibility of the charge now in question:-- * * * * * 'the separation of lord and lady byron astonished the world, which believed him a reformed man as to his habits, and a becalmed man as to his remorses. he had written nothing that appeared after his marriage till the famous "fare thee well," which had the power of compelling those to pity the writer who were not well aware that he was not the unhappy person he affected to be. lady byron's misery was whispered soon after her marriage and his ill usage, but no word transpired, no sign escaped, from her. she gave birth, shortly, to a daughter; and when she went, as soon as she was recovered, on a visit to her father's, taking her little ada with her, no one knew that it was to return to her lord no more. at that period, a severe fit of illness had confined me to bed for two months. i heard of lady byron's distress; of the pains he took to give a harsh impression of her character to the world. i wrote to her, and entreated her to come and let me see and hear her, if she conceived my sympathy or counsel could be any comfort to her. she came; but what a tale was unfolded by this interesting young creature, who had so fondly hoped to have made a young man of genius and romance (as she supposed) happy! they had not been an hour in the carriage which conveyed them from the church, when, breaking into a malignant sneer, "oh! what a dupe you have been to your imagination! how is it possible a woman of your sense could form the wild hope of reforming _me_? many are the tears you will have to shed ere that plan is accomplished. it is enough for me that you are my wife for me to hate you! if you were the wife of any other man, i own you might have charms," &c. i who listened was astonished. "how could you go on after this," said i, "my dear? why did you not return to your father's?" "because i had not a conception he was in earnest; because i reckoned it a bad jest, and told him so,--that my opinions of him were very different from his of himself, otherwise he would not find me by his side. he laughed it over when he saw me appear hurt: and i forgot what had passed, till forced to remember it. i believe he was pleased with me, too, for a little while. i suppose it had escaped his memory that i was his wife." but she described the happiness they enjoyed to have been unequal and perturbed. her situation, in a short time, might have entitled her to some tenderness; but she made no claim on him for any. he sometimes reproached her for the motives that had induced her to marry him: all was "vanity, the vanity of miss milbanke carrying the point of reforming lord byron! he always knew _her_ inducements; her pride shut her eyes to _his_: _he_ wished to build up his character and his fortunes; both were somewhat deranged: she had a high name, and would have a fortune worth his attention,--let her look to that for his motives!"--"o byron, byron!" she said, "how you desolate me!" he would then accuse himself of being mad, and throw himself on the ground in a frenzy, which she believed was affected to conceal the coldness and malignity of his heart,--an affectation which at that time never failed to meet with the tenderest commiseration. i could find by some implications, not followed up by me, lest she might have condemned herself afterwards for her involuntary disclosures, that he soon attempted to corrupt her principles, both with respect to her own conduct and her latitude for his. she saw the precipice on which she stood, and kept his sister with her as much as possible. he returned in the evenings from the haunts of vice, where he made her understand he had been, with manners so profligate! "o the wretch!" said i. "and had he no moments of remorse?" "sometimes he appeared to have them. one night, coming home from one of his lawless parties, he saw me so indignantly collected, and bearing all with such a determined calmness, that a rush of remorse seemed to come over him. he called himself a monster, though his sister was present, and threw himself in agony at my feet. i could not--no--i could not forgive him such injuries. he had lost me for ever! astonished at the return of virtue, my tears, i believe, flowed over his face, and i said, 'byron, all is forgotten: never, never shall you hear of it more!' he started up, and, folding his arms while he looked at me, burst into laughter. 'what do you mean?' said i. 'only a philosophical experiment; that's all,' said he. 'i wished to ascertain the value of your resolutions.'" i need not say more of this prince of duplicity, except that varied were his methods of rendering her wretched, even to the last. when her lovely little child was born, and it was laid beside its mother on the bed, and he was informed he might see his daughter, after gazing at it with an exulting smile, this was the ejaculation that broke from him: "oh, what an implement of torture have i acquired in you!" such he rendered it by his eyes and manner, keeping her in a perpetual alarm for its safety when in his presence. all this reads madder than i believe he was: but she had not then made up her mind to disbelieve his pretended insanity, and conceived it best to intrust her secret with the excellent dr. baillie; telling him all that seemed to regard the state of her husband's mind, and letting his advice regulate her conduct. baillie doubted of his derangement; but, as he did not reckon his own opinion infallible, he wished her to take precautions as if her husband were so. he recommended her going to the country, but to give him no suspicion of her intentions of remaining there, and, for a short time, to show no coldness in her letters, till she could better ascertain his state. she went, regretting, as she told me, to wear any semblance but the truth. a short time disclosed the story to the world. he acted the part of a man driven to despair by her inflexible resentment and by the arts of a governess (once a servant in the family) who hated him. "i will give you," proceeds lady anne, "a few paragraphs transcribed from one of lady byron's own letters to me. it is sorrowful to think, that, in a very little time, this young and amiable creature, wise, patient, and feeling, will have her character mistaken by every one who reads byron's works. to rescue her from this, i preserved her letters; and, when she afterwards expressed a fear that any thing of her writings should ever fall into hands to injure him (i suppose she meant by publication), i safely assured her that it never should. but here this letter shall be placed, a sacred record in her favour, unknown to herself":-- '"i am a very incompetent judge of the impression which the last canto of 'childe harold' may produce on the minds of indifferent readers. it contains the usual trace of a conscience restlessly awake; though his object has been too long to aggravate its burden, as if it could thus be oppressed into eternal stupor. i will hope, as you do, that it survives for his ultimate good. it was the acuteness of his remorse, impenitent in its character, which so long seemed to demand from my compassion to spare every resemblance of reproach, every look of grief, which might have said to his conscience, 'you have made me wretched.' i am decidedly of opinion that he is responsible. he has wished to be thought partially deranged, or on the brink of it, to perplex observers, and prevent them from tracing effects to their real causes through all the intricacies of his conduct. i was, as i told you, at one time the dupe of his acted insanity, and clung to the former delusions in regard to the motives that concerned me personally, till the whole system was laid bare. he is the absolute monarch of words, and uses them, as bonaparte did lives, for conquest, without more regard to their intrinsic value; considering them only as ciphers, which must derive all their import from the situation in which he places them, and the ends to which he adapts them with such consummate skill. why, then, you will say, does he not employ them to give a better colour to his own character? because he is too good an actor to over-act, or to assume a moral garb which it would be easy to strip off. in regard to his poetry, egotism is the vital principle of his imagination, which it is difficult for him to kindle on any subject with which his own character and interests are not identified: but by the introduction of fictitious incidents, by change of scene or time, he has enveloped his poetical disclosures in a system impenetrable except to a very few; and his constant desire of creating a sensation makes him not averse to be the object of wonder and curiosity, even though accompanied by some dark and vague suspicions. nothing has contributed more to the misunderstanding of his real character than the lonely grandeur in which he shrouds it, and his affectation of being above mankind, when he exists almost in their voice. the romance of his sentiments is another feature of this mask of state. i know no one more habitually destitute of that enthusiasm he so beautifully expresses, and to which he can work up his fancy chiefly by contagion. i had heard he was the best of brothers, the most generous of friends; and i thought such feelings only required to be warmed and cherished into more diffusive benevolence. though these opinions are eradicated, and could never return but with the decay of my memory, you will not wonder if there are still moments when the association of feelings which arose from them soften and sadden my thoughts. but i have not thanked you, dearest lady anne, for your kindness in regard to a principal object,--that of rectifying false impressions. i trust you understand my wishes, which never were to injure lord byron in any way: for, though he would not suffer me to remain his wife, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend; and it was from considering myself as such that i silenced the accusations by which my own conduct might have been more fully justified. it is not necessary to speak ill of his heart in general: it is sufficient that to me it was hard and impenetrable; that my own must have been broken before his could have been touched. i would rather represent this as _my_ misfortune than as _his_ guilt; but surely that misfortune is not to be made my crime! such are my feelings: you will judge how to act. his allusions to me in 'childe harold' are cruel and cold, but with such a semblance as to make _me_ appear so, and to attract all sympathy to himself. it is said in this poem that hatred of him will be taught as a lesson to his child. i might appeal to all who have ever heard me speak of him, and still more to my own heart, to witness that there has been no moment when i have remembered injury otherwise than affectionately and sorrowfully. it is not my duty to give way to hopeless and wholly unrequited affection; but, so long as i live, my chief struggle will probably be not to remember him too kindly. i do not seek the sympathy of the world; but i wish to be known by those whoso opinion is valuable, and whose kindness is dear to me. among such, my dear lady anne, you will ever be remembered by your truly affectionate, '"a. byron."' it is the province of your readers, and of the world at large, to judge between the two testimonies now before them,--lady byron's in and , and that put forward in by mrs. b. stowe, as communicated by lady byron thirteen years ago. in the face of the evidence now given, positive, negative, and circumstantial, there can be but two alternatives in the case: either mrs. b. stowe must have entirely misunderstood lady byron, and been thus led into error and misstatement, or we must conclude that, under the pressure of a lifelong and secret sorrow, lady byron's mind had become clouded with an hallucination in respect of the particular point in question. tho reader will admire the noble but severe character displayed in lady byron's letter; but those who keep in view what her first impressions were, as above recorded, may probably place a more lenient interpretation than hers upon some of the incidents alleged to byron's discredit. i shall conclude with some remarks upon his character, written shortly after his death by a wise, virtuous, and charitable judge, the late sir walter scott, likewise in a letter to lady anne barnard:-- 'fletcher's account of poor byron is extremely interesting. i had always a strong attachment to that unfortunate though most richly-gifted man, because i thought i saw that his virtues (and he had many) were his own; and his eccentricities the result of an irritable temperament, which sometimes approached nearly to mental disease. those who are gifted with strong nerves, a regular temper, and habitual self-command, are not, perhaps, aware how much of what they may think virtue they owe to constitution; and such are but too severe judges of men like byron, whose mind, like a day of alternate storm and sunshine, is all dark shades and stray gleams of light, instead of the twilight gray which illuminates happier though less distinguished mortals. i always thought, that, when a moral proposition was placed plainly before lord byron, his mind yielded a pleased and willing assent to it; but, if there was any side view given in the way of raillery or otherwise, he was willing enough to evade conviction.... it augurs ill for the cause of greece that this master-spirit should have been withdrawn from their assistance just as he was obtaining a complete ascendency over their counsels. i have seen several letters from the ionian islands, all of which unite in speaking in the highest praise of the wisdom and temperance of his counsels, and the ascendency he was obtaining over the turbulent and ferocious chiefs of the insurgents. i have some verses written by him on his last birthday: they breathe a spirit of affection towards his wife, and a desire of dying in battle, which seems like an anticipation of his approaching fate.' i remain, sir, your obedient servant, lindsay, dunecht, sept. . dr. forbes winslow's letter to the london 'times.' to the editor. sir,--your paper of the th of september, containing an able and deeply interesting 'vindication of lord byron,' has followed me to this place. with the general details of the 'true story' (as it is termed) of lady byron's separation from her husband, as recorded in 'macmillan's magazine,' i have no desire or intention to grapple. it is only with the hypothesis of insanity, as suggested by the clever writer of the 'vindication' to account for lady byron's sad revelations to mrs. beecher stowe, with which i propose to deal. i do not believe that the mooted theory of mental aberration can, in this case, be for a moment maintained. if lady byron's statement of facts to mrs. b. stowe is to be viewed as the creation of a distempered fancy, a delusion or hallucination of an insane mind, what part of the narrative are we to draw the boundary-line between fact and delusion, sanity and insanity? where are we to fix the _point d'appui_ of the lunacy? again: is the alleged 'hallucination' to be considered as strictly confined to the idea that lord byron had committed the frightful sin of incest? or is the whole of the 'true story' of her married life, as reproduced with such terrible minuteness by mrs. beecher stowe, to be viewed as the delusion of a disordered fancy? if lady byron was the subject of an 'hallucination' with regard to her husband, i think it not unreasonable to conclude that the mental alienation existed on the day of her marriage. if this proposition be accepted, the natural inference will be, that the details of the conversation which lady byron represents to have occurred between herself and lord byron as soon as they entered the carriage never took place. lord byron is said to have remarked to lady byron, 'you might have prevented this (or words to this effect): you will now find that you have married a devil.' is this alleged conversation to be viewed as _fact_, or _fiction_? evidence of _sanity_, or _insanity_? is the revelation which lord byron is said to have made to his wife of his 'incestuous passion' another delusion, having no foundation except in his wife's disordered imagination? are his alleged attempts to justify to lady byron's mind the _morale_ of the plea of 'continental latitude--the good-humoured marriage, in which complaisant couples mutually agree to form the cloak for each other's infidelities,'--another morbid perversion of her imagination? did this conversation ever take place? it will be difficult to separate one part of the 'true story' from another, and maintain that this portion indicates insanity, and that portion represents sanity. if we accept the hypothesis of hallucination, we are bound to view the whole of lady byron's conversations with mrs. b. stowe, and the written statement laid before her, as the wild and incoherent representations of a lunatic. on the day when lady byron parted from her husband, did she enter his private room, and find him with the 'object of his guilty passion?' and did he say, as they parted, 'when shall we three meet again?' is this to be considered as an actual occurrence, or as another form of hallucination? it is quite inconsistent with the theory of lady byron's insanity to imagine that her delusion was restricted to the idea of his having committed 'incest.' in common fairness, we are bound to view the aggregate mental phenomena which she exhibited from the day of the marriage to their final separation and her death. no person practically acquainted with the true characteristics of insanity would affirm, that, had this idea of 'incest' been an insane hallucination, lady byron could, from the lengthened period which intervened between her unhappy marriage and death, have refrained from exhibiting her mental alienation, not only to her legal advisers and trustees, but to others, exacting no pledge of secrecy from them as to her disordered impressions. lunatics do for a time, and for some special purpose, most cunningly conceal their delusions; but they have not the capacity to struggle for thirty-six years with a frightful hallucination, similar to the one lady byron is alleged to have had, without the insane state of mind becoming obvious to those with whom they are daily associating. neither is it consistent with experience to suppose that, if lady byron had been a monomaniac, her state of disordered understanding would have been restricted to one hallucination. her diseased brain, affecting the normal action of thought, would, in all probability, have manifested other symptoms besides those referred to of aberration of intellect. during the last thirty years, i have not met with a case of insanity (assuming the hypothesis of hallucination) at all parallel with that of lady byron's. in my experience, it is unique. i never saw a patient with such a delusion. if it should be established, by the statements of those who are the depositors of the secret (and they are now bound, in vindication of lord byron's memory, to deny, if they have the power of doing so, this most frightful accusation), that the idea of incest did unhappily cross lady byron's mind prior to her finally leaving him, it no doubt arose from a most inaccurate knowledge of facts and perfectly unjustifiable data, and was not, in the right psychological acceptation of the phrase, an insane hallucination. sir, i remain your obedient servant, forbes winslow, m.d. zaringerhof, freiburg-en-breisgau, sept. , . extract from lord byron's expunged letter. to mr. murray. 'bologna, june , . ... 'before i left venice, i had returned to you your late, and mr. hobhouse's sheets of "juan." don't wait for further answers from me, but address yours to venice as usual. i know nothing of my own movements. i may return there in a few days, or not for some time: all this depends on circumstances. i left mr. hoppner very well. my daughter allegra is well too, and is growing pretty: her hair is growing darker, and her eyes are blue. her temper and her ways, mr. hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make, in that case, a manageable young lady. 'i have never seen anything of ada, the little electra of my mycenæ.... but there will come a day of reckoning, even if i should not live to see it. i have at least seen ---- shivered, who was one of my assassins. when that man was doing his worst to uproot my whole family,--tree, branch, and blossoms; when, after taking my retainer, he went over to them; when he was bringing desolation on my hearth, and destruction on my household gods,--did he think that, in less than three years, a natural event, a severe domestic, but an expected and common calamity, would lay his carcass in a cross-road, or stamp his name in a verdict of lunacy? did he (who in his sexagenary ...) reflect or consider what my feelings must have been when wife and child and sister, and name and fame and country, were to be my sacrifice on his legal altar?--and this at a moment when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and my mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointment? while i was yet young, and might have reformed what might be wrong in my conduct, and retrieved what was perplexing in my affairs? but he is in his grave, and--what a long letter i have scribbled!'... * * * * * in order that the reader may measure the change of moral tone with regard to lord byron, wrought by the constant efforts of himself and his party, we give the two following extracts from 'blackwood.' the first is 'blackwood' in , just after the publication of 'don juan': the second is 'blackwood' in . 'in the composition of this work, there is, unquestionably, a more thorough and intense infusion of genius and vice, power and profligacy, than in any poem which had ever before been written in the english, or, indeed, in any other modern language. had the wickedness been less inextricably mingled with the beauty and the grace and the strength of a most inimitable and incomprehensible muse, our task would have been easy. 'don juan' is by far the most admirable specimen of the mixture of ease, strength, gaiety, and seriousness, extant in the whole body of english poetry: the author has devoted his powers to the worst of purposes and passions; and it increases his guilt and our sorrow that he has devoted them entire. 'the moral strain of the whole poem is pitched in the lowest key. love, honour, patriotism, religion, are mentioned only to be scoffed at, as if their sole resting-place were, or ought to be, in the bosoms of fools. it appears, in short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted every species of sensual gratification, having drained the cup of sin even to its bitterest dregs, were resolved to show us that he is no longer a human being, even in his frailties, but a cool, unconcerned fiend, laughing with a detestable glee over the whole of the better and worse elements of which human life is composed; treating well-nigh with equal derision the most pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices; dead alike to the beauty of the one, and the deformity of the other; a mere heartless despiser of that frail but noble humanity, whose type was never exhibited in a shape of more deplorable degradation than in his own contemptuously distinct delineation of himself. to confess to his maker, and weep over in secret agonies the wildest and most fantastic transgressions of heart and mind, is the part of a conscious sinner, in whom sin has not become the sole principle of life and action; but to lay bare to the eye of man and of _woman_ all the hidden convulsions of a wicked spirit, and to do all this without one symptom of contrition, remorse, or hesitation, with a calm, careless ferociousness of contented and satisfied depravity,--this was an insult which no man of genius had ever before dared to put upon his creator or his species. impiously railing against his god, madly and meanly disloyal to his sovereign and his country, and brutally outraging all the best feelings of female honor, affection, and confidence, how small a part of chivalry is that which remains to the descendant of the byrons!--a gloomy visor and a deadly weapon! 'those who are acquainted (as who is not?) with the main incidents in the private life of lord byron, and who have not seen this production, will scarcely believe that malignity should have carried him so far as to make him commence a filthy and impious poem with an elaborate satire on the character and manners of his wife, from whom, even by his own confession, he has been separated only in consequence of his own cruel and heartless misconduct. it is in vain for lord byron to attempt in any way to justify his own behaviour in that affair; and, now that he has so openly and audaciously invited inquiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should not be plainly told so by the general voice of his countrymen. it would not be an easy matter to persuade any man who has any knowledge of the nature of woman, that a female such as lord byron has himself described his wife to be would rashly or hastily or lightly separate herself from the love with which she had once been inspired for such a man as he is or was. had he not heaped insult upon insult, and scorn upon scorn, had he not forced the iron of his contempt into her very soul, there is no woman of delicacy and virtue, as he _admitted_ lady byron to be, who would not have hoped all things, and suffered all things, from one, her love of whom must have been inwoven with so many exalting elements of delicious pride, and more delicious humility. to offend the love of such a woman was wrong, but it might be forgiven; to desert her was unmanly, but he might have returned, and wiped for ever from her eyes the tears of her desertion: but to injure and to desert, and then to turn back and wound her widowed privacy with unhallowed strains of cold-blooded mockery, was brutally, fiendishly, inexpiably mean. for impurities there might be some possibility of pardon, were they supposed to spring only from the reckless buoyancy of young blood and fiery passions; for impiety there might at least be pity, were it visible that the misery of the impious soul equalled its darkness: but for offences such as this, which cannot proceed either from the madness of sudden impulse or the bewildered agonies of doubt, but which speak the wilful and determined spite of an unrepenting, unsoftened, smiling, sarcastic, joyous sinner, there can be neither pity nor pardon. our knowledge that it is committed by one of the most powerful intellects our island ever has produced lends intensity a thousand-fold to the bitterness of our indignation. every high thought that was ever kindled in our breasts by the muse of byron, every pure and lofty feeling that ever responded from within us to the sweep of his majestic inspirations, every remembered moment of admiration and enthusiasm, is up in arms against him. we look back with a mixture of wrath and scorn to the delight with which we suffered ourselves to be filled by one, who, all the while he was furnishing us with delight, must, we cannot doubt it, have been mocking us with a cruel mockery; less cruel only, because less peculiar, than that with which he has now turned him from the lurking-place of his selfish and polluted exile to pour the pitiful chalice of his contumely on the surrendered devotion of a virgin bosom, and the holy hopes of the mother of his child. it is indeed a sad and a humiliating thing to know, that in the same year, there proceeded from the same pen two productions in all things so different as the fourth canto of "childe harold" and his loathsome "don juan." 'we have mentioned one, and, all will admit, the worst instance of the private malignity which has been embodied in so many passages of "don juan;" and we are quite sure the lofty-minded and virtuous _men_ whom lord byron has debased himself by insulting will close the volume which contains their own injuries, with no feelings save those of pity for him that has inflicted them, and for her who partakes so largely in the same injuries.'--_august, ._ 'blackwood,'--_iterum_. 'we shall, like all others who say anything about lord byron, begin, _sans apologie_, with his personal character. this is the great object of attack, the constant theme of open vituperation to one set, and the established mark for all the petty but deadly artillery of sneers, shrugs, groans, to another. two widely different matters, however, are generally, we might say universally, mixed up here,--the personal character of the man, as proved by his course of life; and his personal character, as revealed in or guessed from his books. nothing can be more unfair than the style in which this mixture is made use of. is there a noble sentiment, a lofty thought, a sublime conception, in the book? "ah, yes!" is the answer, "but what of that? it is only the _roué_ byron that speaks!" is a kind, a generous action of the man mentioned? "yes, yes!" comments the sage; "but only remember the atrocities of 'don juan:' depend on it, this, if it be true, must have been a mere freak of caprice, or perhaps a bit of vile hypocrisy." salvation is thus shut out at either entrance: the poet damns the man, and the man the poet. 'nobody will suspect us of being so absurd as to suppose that it is possible for people to draw no inferences as to the character of an author from his book, or to shut entirely out of view, in judging of a book, that which they may happen to _know_ about the man who writes it. the cant of the day supposes such things to be practicable; but they are not. but what we complain of and scorn is the extent to which they are carried in the case of this particular individual, as compared with others; the impudence with which things are at once assumed to be facts in regard to _his_ private history; and the absolute unfairness of never arguing from _his_ writings to _him, but for evil_. 'take the man, in the first place, as unconnected, in so far as we can thus consider him, with his works; and ask, what, after all, are the bad things we know of him? was he dishonest or dishonourable? had he ever _done_ anything to forfeit, or even endanger, his rank as a gentleman? most assuredly, no such accusations have ever been maintained against lord byron the private nobleman, although something of the sort may have been insinuated against the author. "but he was such a profligate in his morals, that his name cannot be mentioned with anything like tolerance." was he so, indeed? we should like extremely to have the catechising of the individual _man_ who says so. that he indulged in sensual vices, to some extent, is certain, and to be regretted and condemned. but was he worse, as to such matters, than the enormous majority of those who join in the cry of horror upon this occasion? we most assuredly believe exactly the reverse; and we rest our belief upon very plain and intelligible grounds. first, we hold it impossible that the majority of mankind, or that anything beyond a very small minority, are or can be entitled to talk of sensual profligacy as having formed a part of the life and character of the man, who, dying at six and thirty, bequeathed a collection of works such as byron's to the world. secondly, we hold it impossible, that laying the extent of his intellectual labours out of the question, and looking only to the nature of the intellect which generated, and delighted in generating, such beautiful and noble conceptions as are to be found in almost all lord byron's works,--we hold it impossible that very many men can be at once capable of comprehending these conceptions, and entitled to consider sensual profligacy as having formed the principal, or even a principal, trait in lord byron's character. thirdly, and lastly, we have never been able to hear any one fact established which could prove lord byron to deserve anything like the degree or even kind of odium which has, in regard to matters of this class, been heaped upon his name. we have no story of base unmanly seduction, or false and villainous intrigue, against him,--none whatever. it seems to us quite clear, that, if he had been at all what is called in society an unprincipled sensualist, there must have been many such stories, authentic and authenticated. but there are none such,--absolutely none. his name has been coupled with the names of three, four, or more women of some rank: but what kind of women? every one of them, in the first place, about as old as himself in years, and therefore a great deal older in character; every one of them utterly battered in reputation long before he came into contact with them,--licentious, unprincipled, characterless women. what father has ever reproached him with the ruin of his daughter? what husband has denounced him as the destroyer of his peace? 'let us not be mistaken. we are not defending the offences of which lord byron unquestionably was guilty; neither are we finding fault with those, who, after looking honestly within and around themselves, condemn those offences, no matter how severely: but we are speaking of society in general as it now exists; and we say that there is vile hypocrisy in the tone in which lord byron is talked of _there_. we say, that, although all offences against purity of life are miserable things, and condemnable things, the degrees of guilt attached to different offences of this class are as widely different as are the degrees of guilt between an assault and a murder; and we confess our belief, that no man of byron's station or age could have run much risk in gaining a very bad name in society, had a course of life similar (in so far as we know any thing of that) to lord byron's been the only thing chargeable against him. 'the last poem he wrote was produced upon his birthday, not many weeks before he died. we consider it as one of the finest and most touching effusions of his noble genius. we think he who reads it, and can ever after bring himself to regard even the worst transgressions that have been charged against lord byron with any feelings but those of humble sorrow and manly pity, is not deserving of the name of man. the deep and passionate struggles with the inferior elements of his nature (and ours) which it records; the lofty thirsting after purity; the heroic devotion of a soul half weary of life, because unable to believe in its own powers to live up to what it so intensely felt to be, and so reverentially honoured as, the right; the whole picture of this mighty spirit, often darkened, but never sunk,--often erring, but never ceasing to see and to worship the beauty of virtue; the repentance of it; the anguish; the aspiration, almost stilled in despair,--the whole of this is such a whole, that we are sure no man can read these solemn verses too often; and we recommend them for repetition, as the best and most conclusive of all possible answers whenever the name of byron is insulted by those who permit themselves to forget nothing, either in his life or in his writings, but the good.'--[ .] * * * * * the following letters of lady byron's are reprinted from the memoirs of h. c. robinson. they are given that the reader may form some judgment of the strength and activity of her mind, and the elevated class of subjects upon which it habitually dwelt. lady byron to h. c. r. 'dec. , . 'dear mr. crabb robinson,--i have an inclination, if i were not afraid of trespassing on your time (but you can put my letter by for any leisure moment), to enter upon the history of a character which i think less appreciated than it ought to be. men, i observe, do not understand men in certain points, without a woman's interpretation. those points, of course, relate to feelings. 'here is a man taken by most of those who come in his way either for dry-as-dust, matter-of-fact, or for a "vain visionary." there are, doubtless, some defective or excessive characteristics which give rise to those impressions. 'my acquaintance was made, oddly enough, with him twenty-seven years ago. a pauper said to me of him, "he's the _poor man's_ doctor." such a recommendation seemed to me a good one: and i also knew that his organizing head had formed the first district society in england (for mrs. fry told me she could not have effected it without his aid); yet he has always ignored his own share of it. i felt in him at once the curious combination of the christian and the cynic,--of reverence for _man_, and contempt of _men_. it was then an internal war, but one in which it was evident to me that the holier cause would be victorious, because there was deep belief, and, as far as i could learn, a blameless and benevolent life. he appeared only to want sunshine. it was a plant which could not be brought to perfection in darkness. he had begun life by the most painful conflict between filial duty and conscience,--a large provision in the church secured for him by his father; but he could not _sign_. there was discredit, as you know, attached to such scruples. 'he was also, when i first knew him, under other circumstances of a nature to depress him, and to make him feel that he was unjustly treated. the gradual removal of these called forth his better nature in thankfulness to god. still the old misanthropic modes of expressing himself obtruded themselves at times. this passed in ' between him and robertson. robertson said to me, "i want to know something about ragged schools." i replied, "you had better ask dr. king: he knows more about them."--"i?" said dr. king. "i take care to know nothing of ragged schools, lest they should make _me_ ragged." robertson did not see through it. perhaps i had been taught to understand such suicidal speeches by my cousin, lord melbourne. 'the example of christ, imperfectly as it may be understood by him, has been ever before his eyes: he woke to the thought of following it, and he went to rest consoled or rebuked by it. after nearly thirty years of intimacy, i may, without presumption, form that opinion. there is something pathetic to me in seeing any one _so_ unknown. even the other medical friends of robertson, when i knew that dr. king felt a woman's tenderness, said on one occasion to him, "but we know that you, dr. king, are _above all feeling_." 'if i have made the character more consistent to you by putting in these bits of mosaic, my pen will not have been ill employed, nor unpleasingly to you. 'yours truly, 'a. noel byron.' lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, nov. , . 'the thoughts of all this public and private suffering have taken the life out of my pen when i tried to write on matters which would otherwise have been most interesting to me: _these_ seemed the shadows, _that_ the stern reality. it is good, however, to be drawn out of scenes in which one is absorbed most unprofitably, and to have one's natural interests revived by such a letter as i have to thank you for, as well as its predecessor. you touch upon the very points which do interest me the most, habitually. the change of form, and enlargement of design, in "the prospective" _had_ led me to express to one of the promoters of that object my desire to contribute. the religious crisis is instant; but the man for it? the next best thing, if, as i believe, he is not to be found _in england_, is an association of such men as are to edit the new periodical. an address delivered by freeman clarke at boston, last may, makes me think him better fitted for a leader than any other of the religious "free-thinkers." i wish i could send you my one copy; but you do not _need_, it, and others do. his object is the same as that of the "alliance universelle:" only he is still more free from "partialism" (his own word) in his aspirations and practical suggestions with respect to an ultimate "christian synthesis." he so far adopts comte's theory as to speak of religion itself under three successive aspects, historically,-- . thesis; . antithesis; . synthesis. i made his acquaintance in england; and he inspired confidence at once by his brave independence (_incomptis capillis_) and self-_un_consciousness. j. j. tayler's address of last month follows in the same path,--all in favour of the "irenics," instead of polemics. 'the answer which you gave me so fully and distinctly to the questions i proposed for your consideration was of value in turning to my view certain aspects of the case which i had not before observed. i had begun a second attack on your patience, when all was forgotten in the news of the day.' lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, dec. , . 'with j. j. tayler, though almost a stranger to him, i have a peculiar reason for sympathising. a book of his was a treasure to my daughter on her death-bed.[ ] [footnote : probably 'the christian aspects of faith and duty.' mr. tayler has also written 'a retrospect of the religious life of england.'] 'i must confess to intolerance of opinion as to these two points,--_eternal_ evil in any form, and (involved in it) _eternal_ suffering. to believe in these would take away my god, who is all-loving. with a god with whom omnipotence and omniscience were all, evil might be eternal; but why do i say to you what has been better said elsewhere?' lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, jan. , . ... 'the great difficulty in respect to "the review"[ ] seems to be to settle a basis, inclusive and exclusive; in short, a _boundary question_. from what you said, i think you agreed with me, that a latitudinarian christianity ought to be the character of the periodical; but the depth of the roots should correspond with the width of the branches of that tree of knowledge. of some of those minds one might say, "they have no root;" and then, the richer the foliage, the more danger that the trunk will fall. "grounded in christ" has to me a most practical significance and value. i, too, have anxiety about a friend (miss carpenter) whose life is of public importance: she, more than any of the english reformers, unless nash and wright, has found the art of drawing out the good of human nature, and proving its existence. she makes these discoveries by the light of love. i hope she may recover, from to-day's report. the object of a reformatory in leicester has just been secured at a county meeting.... now the desideratum is well-qualified masters and mistresses. if you hear of such by chance, pray let me know. the regular schoolmaster is an extinguisher. heart, and familiarity with the class to be educated, are all important. at home and abroad, the evidence is conclusive on that point; for i have for many years attended to such experiments in various parts of europe. "the irish quarterly" has taken up the subject with rather more zeal than judgment. i had hoped that a sound and temperate exposition of the facts might form an article in the "might-have-been review."' [footnote : 'the national review.'] lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, feb. , . 'i have at last earned the pleasure of writing to you by having settled troublesome matters of little moment, except locally; and i gladly take a wider range by sympathizing in your interests. there is, besides, no responsibility--for me at least--in canvassing the merits of russell or palmerston, but much in deciding whether the "village politician" jackson or thompson shall be leader in the school or public-house. 'has not the nation been brought to a conviction that the _system_ should be broken up? and is lord palmerston, who has used it so long and so cleverly, likely to promote that object? 'but, whatever obstacles there may be in state affairs, that general persuasion must modify other departments of action and knowledge. "unroasted coffee" will no longer be accepted under the official seal,--another reason for a new literary combination for distinct special objects, a review in which every separate article should be _convergent_. if, instead of the problem to make a circle pass through three given points, it were required to find the centre from which to describe a circle through any three articles in the "edinburgh" or "westminster review," who would accomplish it? much force is lost for want of this one-mindedness amongst the contributors. it would not exclude variety or freedom in the unlimited discussion of means towards the ends unequivocally recognized. if st. paul had edited a review, he might have admitted peter as well as luke or barnabas.... 'ross gave us an excellent sermon, yesterday, on "hallowing the name." though far from commonplace, it might have been delivered in any church. 'we have had fanny kemble here last week. i only heard her "romeo and juliet,"--not less instructive, as her readings always are, than exciting; for in her glass shakspeare is a philosopher. i know her, and honour her, for her truthfulness amidst all trials.' lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, march , . 'i recollect only those passages of dr. kennedy's book which bear upon the opinions of lord byron. strange as it may seem, dr. kennedy is most faithful where you doubt his being so. not merely from casual expressions, but from the whole tenor of lord byron's feelings, i could not but conclude he was a believer in the inspiration of the bible, and had the gloomiest calvinistic tenets. to that unhappy view of the relation of the creature to the creator, i have always ascribed the misery of his life.... it is enough for me to remember, that he who thinks his transgressions beyond _forgiveness_ (and such was his own deepest feeling) _has_ righteousness beyond that of the self-satisfied sinner, or, perhaps, of the half-awakened. it was impossible for me to doubt, that, could he have been at once assured of pardon, his living faith in a moral duty, and love of virtue ("i love the virtues which i cannot claim"), would have conquered every temptation. judge, then, how i must hate the creed which made him see god as an avenger, not a father! my own impressions were just the reverse, but could have little weight; and it was in vain to seek to turn his thoughts for long from that _idée fixe_ with which he connected his physical peculiarity as a stamp. instead of being made happier by any apparent good, he felt convinced that every blessing would be "turned into a curse" to him. who, possessed by such ideas, could lead a life of love and service to god or man? they must, in a measure, realize themselves. "the worst of it is, i _do_ believe," he said. i, like all connected with him, was broken against the rock of predestination. i may be pardoned for referring to his frequent expression of the sentiment that i was only sent to show him the happiness he was forbidden to enjoy. you will now better understand why "the deformed transformed" is too painful to me for discussion. since writing the above, i have read dr. granville's letter on the emperor of russia, some passages of which seem applicable to the prepossession i have described. i will not mix up less serious matters with these, which forty years have not made less than present still to me.' lady byron to h. c. r. '_brighton_, april , . ... 'the book which has interested me most, lately, is that on "mosaism," translated by miss goldsmid, and which i read, as you will believe, without any christian (unchristian?) prejudice. the missionaries of the unity were always, from my childhood, regarded by me as in that sense _the_ people; and i believe they were true to that mission, though blind, intellectually, in demanding the crucifixion. the present aspect of jewish opinions, as shown in that book, is all but christian. the author is under the error of taking, as the representatives of christianity, the mystics, ascetics, and quietists; and therefore he does not know how near he is to the true spirit of the gospel. if you should happen to see miss goldsmid, pray tell her what a great service i think she has rendered to us _soi-disant_ christians in translating a book which must make us sensible of the little we have done, and the much we have to do, to justify our preference of the later to the earlier dispensation.'... lady byron to h. c. r. 'brighton, april , . 'you appear to have more definite information respecting "the review" than i have obtained.... it was also said that "the review" would, in fact, be "the prospective" amplified,--not satisfactory to me, because i have always thought that periodical too unitarian, in the sense of separating itself from other christian churches, if not by a high wall, at least by a wire-gauze fence. now, separation is to me _the_ [greek: ha/iresis]. the revelation through nature never separates: it is the revelation through the book which separates. whewell and brewster would have been one, had they not, i think, equally dimmed their lamps of science when reading their bibles. as long as we think a truth _better_ for being shut up in a text, we are not of the wide-world religion, which is to include all in one fold: for that text will not be accepted by the followers of other books, or students of the same; and separation will ensue. the christian scripture should be dear to us, not as the charter of a few, but of mankind; and to fashion it into cages is to deny its ultimate objects. these thoughts hot, like the roll at breakfast, where your letter was so welcome an addition.' * * * * * three domestic poems by lord byron. fare thee well. fare thee well! and if for ever, still for ever fare thee well! even though unforgiving, never 'gainst thee shall my heart rebel. would that breast were bared before thee where thy head so oft hath lain, while that placid sleep came o'er thee which thou ne'er canst know again! would that breast, by thee glanced over, every inmost thought could show! then thou wouldst at last discover 'twas not well to spurn it so. though the world for this commend thee, though it smile upon the blow, even its praises must offend thee, founded on another's woe. though my many faults defaced me, could no other arm be found, than the one which once embraced me, to inflict a cureless wound? yet, oh! yet, thyself deceive not love may sink by slow decay; but, by sudden wrench, believe not hearts can thus be torn away: still thine own its life retaineth; still must mine, though bleeding, beat and the undying thought which paineth is--that we no more may meet. these are words of deeper sorrow than the wail above the dead: both shall live, but every morrow wake us from a widowed bed. and when thou wouldst solace gather, when our child's first accents flow, wilt thou teach her to say 'father,' though his care she must forego? when her little hand shall press thee, when her lip to thine is pressed, think of him whose prayer shall bless thee think of him thy love had blessed. should her lineaments resemble those thou never more mayst see, then thy heart will softly tremble with a pulse yet true to me. all my faults, perchance, thou knowest; all my madness none can know: all my hopes, where'er thou goest, wither; yet with thee they go. every feeling hath been shaken: pride, which not a world could bow, bows to thee, by thee forsaken; even my soul forsakes me now. but 'tis done: all words are idle; words from me are vainer still; but the thoughts we cannot bridle force their way without the will. fare thee well!--thus disunited, torn from every nearer tie, seared in heart, and lone and blighted, more than this i scarce can die. a sketch. born in the garret, in the kitchen bred; promoted thence to deck her mistress' head; next--for some gracious service unexpress'd, and from its wages only to be guessed-- raised from the toilette to the table, where her wondering betters wait behind her chair, with eye unmoved, and forehead unabashed, she dines from off the plate she lately washed. quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, the genial confidante and general spy, who could, ye gods! her next employment guess?-- an only infant's earliest governess! she taught the child to read, and taught so well, that she herself, by teaching, learned to spell. an adept next in penmanship she grows, as many a nameless slander deftly shows: what she had made the pupil of her art, none know; but that high soul secured the heart, and panted for the truth it could not hear, with longing breast and undeluded ear. foiled was perversion by that youthful mind, which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, deceit infect not, near contagion soil, indulgence weaken, nor example spoil, nor mastered science tempt her to look down on humbler talents with a pitying frown, nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain, nor fortune change, pride raise, nor passion bow, nor virtue teach austerity, till now. serenely purest of her sex that live; but wanting one sweet weakness,--to forgive; too shocked at faults her soul can never know, she deems that all could be like her below: foe to all vice, yet hardly virtue's friend; for virtue pardons those she would amend. but to the theme, now laid aside too long,-- the baleful burthen of this honest song. though all her former functions are no more, she rules the circle which she served before. if mothers--none know why--before her quake; if daughters dread her for the mothers' sake; if early habits--those false links, which bind at times the loftiest to the meanest mind-- have given her power too deeply to instil the angry essence of her deadly will; if like a snake she steal within your walls till the black slime betray her as she crawls; if like a viper to the heart she wind, and leave the venom there she did not find,-- what marvel that this hag of hatred works eternal evil latent as she lurks, to make a pandemonium where she dwells, and reign the hecate of domestic hells? skilled by a touch to deepen scandal's tints with all the kind mendacity of hints, while mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles, a thread of candour with a web of wiles; a plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming. to hide her bloodless heart's soul-hardened scheming a lip of lies; a face formed to conceal, and, without feeling, mock at all who feel; with a vile mask the gorgon would disown; a cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone. mark how the channels of her yellow blood ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud! cased like the centipede in saffron mail, or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale, (for drawn from reptiles only may we trace congenial colours in that soul or face,)-- look on her features! and behold her mind as in a mirror of itself defined. look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged; there is no trait which might not be enlarged: yet true to 'nature's journeymen,' who made this monster when their mistress left off trade, this female dog-star of her little sky, where all beneath her influence droop or die. o wretch without a tear, without a thought, save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought! the time shall come, nor long remote, when thou shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now,-- feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain, and turn thee howling in unpitied pain. may the strong curse of crushed affections light back on thy bosom with reflected blight, and make thee, in thy leprosy of mind, as loathsome to thyself as to mankind, till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate black as thy will for others would create; till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, and thy soul welter in its hideous crust! oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed, the widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread then, when thou fain wouldst weary heaven with prayer, look on thine earthly victims, and despair! down to the dust! and, as thou rott'st away, even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay. but for the love i bore, and still must bear, to her thy malice from all ties would tear, thy name, thy human name, to every eye the climax of all scorn, should hang on high, exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers, and festering in the infamy of years. lines on hearing that lady byron was ill. and thou wert sad, yet i was not with thee! and thou wert sick, and yet i was not near! methought that joy and health alone could be where i was _not_, and pain and sorrow here. and is it thus? it is as i foretold, and shall be more so; for the mind recoils upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold, while heaviness collects the shattered spoils. it is not in the storm nor in the strife we feel benumbed, and wish to be no more, but in the after-silence on the shore, when all is lost except a little life. i am too well avenged! but 'twas my right: whate'er my sins might be, _thou_ wert not sent to be the nemesis who should requite; nor did heaven choose so near an instrument. mercy is for the merciful!--if thou hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep! yes! they may flatter thee; but thou shalt feel a hollow agony which will not heal; for thou art pillowed on a curse too deep: thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap the bitter harvest in a woe as real! i have had many foes, but none like thee; for 'gainst the rest myself i could defend, and be avenged, or turn them into friend; but thou in safe implacability hadst nought to dread, in thy own weakness shielded and in my love, which hath but too much yielded, and spared, for thy sake, some i should not spare. and thus upon the world,--trust in thy truth, and the wild fame of my ungoverned youth, on things that were not and on things that are,-- even upon such a basis hast thou built a monument, whose cement hath been guilt; the moral clytemnestra of thy lord, and hewed down, with an unsuspected sword, fame, peace, and hope, and all the better life, which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, might still have risen from out the grave of strife, and found a nobler duty than to part. but of thy virtues didst thou make a vice, trafficking with them in a purpose cold, for present anger and for future gold, and buying others' grief at any price. and thus, once entered into crooked ways, the early truth, which was thy proper praise, did not still walk beside thee, but at times, and with a breast unknowing its own crimes, deceit, averments incompatible, equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell in janus-spirits; the significant eye which learns to lie with silence; the pretext of prudence, with advantages annexed; the acquiescence in all things which tend, no matter how, to the desired end,-- all found a place in thy philosophy. the means were worthy, and the end is won i would not do by thee as thou hast done. _spottiswoode & co., printers, new-street square, london._ generously made available by the internet archive/canadian libraries.) columbia university studies in english leigh hunt's relations with byron, shelley and keats leigh hunt's relations with byron, shelley and keats by barnette miller, ph.d. new york the columbia university press _all rights reserved_ copyright, by the columbia university press printed from type april, press of the new era printing company lancaster, pa. _this monograph has been approved by the department of english in columbia university as a contribution to knowledge worthy of publication._ a. h. thorndike, _secretary_. preface the relations of leigh hunt to byron, shelley and keats have been treated in a fragmentary way in various works of biography and criticism, and from many points of view. yet hitherto there has been no attempt to construct a whole out of the parts. this led professor trent to suggest the subject to me about five years ago. the publication of the results of my investigation has been unfortunately delayed for nearly four years after the work was finished. i am indebted to mr. s. l. wolff for reading the first and second chapters; to professors g. r. krapp, w. w. lawrence, a. h. thorndike, of columbia university, and professor william alan nielson, now of harvard, for suggestions throughout. i am especially glad to have this opportunity to record my gratitude to prof. trent, whose inspiration and guidance and kindness from beginning to end have alone made completion of the study possible. b. m. constantinople, turkey. march , . contents chapter i. leigh hunt - chapter ii. keats chapter iii. shelley chapter iv. byron and _the liberal_ chapter v. the cockney school chapter vi. conclusion bibliography chapter i revolutionary tendencies of the age--the reaction--counter reform movement--leigh hunt--his ancestry--school days--career as a journalist--imprisonment--finances--politics--religion--poetry. since contemporary social conditions played an important part in the relations of leigh hunt with byron, shelley, and keats, a brief survey of the period in question is necessary to an understanding of the forces at play on their intellect and conduct. the english mind had been admirably prepared for the principles of the french revolution by the progressive tendency since the revolution of . the new order promised by france was acclaimed in england as one destined to right the wrongs of humanity; through unending progress mankind was to attain unlimited perfection. upon such a prospect both parties were agreed, and the warnings of burke were vain when pitt, rationalizing, led the tories, and fox, rhapsodizing, led the whigs. in , godwin's _political justice_, with its anarchistic doctrines of individual perfectibility and of individual self-reliance, rallied more recruits to the standard of liberty, though his theories of community of property and annulment of the marriage bond were somewhat charily received. the early writings of wordsworth, southey and coleridge were colored with enthusiasm for the new movement. the agitation and the enactment of reform measures made actual advances towards the expected millennium. but the excesses of the revolutionary régime in france bred in england, ever inclined to order, an opposition in many conservative minds that resulted in positive panic at the menace to state and church and property. the reaction swung the pendulum far in the opposite direction from justice and philanthropy. the first two decades of the new century continued to suffer from a counter-reform movement when the actual fright had subsided. during that period, anything which savored of reform was labelled as seditious. at the very beginning of this reaction william pitt's efforts for the extension of the franchise were summarily put an end to, and the house of commons remained as little representative of the english people as formerly. catholics and non-conformists were denied, from the period of the union of ireland with england in until , the right to vote and to hold office. pitt's efforts to frustrate such discrimination in ireland were as unavailing as in his own country, for the prejudices and obstinacy of george iii, in both instances, neutralized the good intentions of the liberal ministry. the corrupt influence of the crown in parliament was undiminished except by the disfranchisement of persons holding contracts from the crown and of incumbents of revenue offices. the wars with america and with france greatly increased the public debt, threatened the national credit and burdened with taxes an already overburdened people. oppressive industrial conditions made the life of the masses still more unendurable. the rise of manufacturing and the consequent adoption of inventions that dispensed with much hand labor decreased the number of the employed and reduced wages, while the enormous increase in population during the eighteenth century multiplied the number of the idle and the poor. it is true that the wealth of the country became much greater through the development of new resources, but the profits were distributed among the few and gave no relief to the majority. the government was indifferent to the sufferings of the poor, to the severity of the penal code, to the horrors of the slave traffic. in great britain the habeas corpus act was suspended, public assemblies were forbidden, the press was more narrowly restricted, right of petition was limited, and the legal definition of treason was greatly extended; in scotland the barbarous statute of transportation for political offenses was revived; in ireland industry and commerce were discouraged. the re-accession of the tories to power in , followed by their long ascendancy and abuse of power, led inevitably to a revival of the questions of revolution and of reform. lord byron, shelley and leigh hunt were among the leaders of this second band of agitators, the "new camp," as professor dowden has designated them. it was their love of humanity, perhaps to a greater degree than their poetic genius and their æsthetic ideals, that made these men akin. of the four poets with whom we deal keats alone was comparatively indifferent to the strife about him. * * * * * besides the political background of the times, personal influence and literary imitation enter into consideration in the present study. especially in the case of hunt, whose unique personality has been so variously interpreted, a brief biographical review is necessary. james henry leigh hunt was born october , , in the village of southgate, middlesex. he was descended on the father's side from "tory cavaliers" of west indian adoption, and on the mother's from american quakers of irish extraction--an exotic combination of celtic and creole strains which never coalesced but in turn affected his temperament. his father was an engaging and gifted clergyman who quoted horace and drank claret--a sanguine, careless child of the south who made the acquaintance alike of good society and of debtor's prisons. this parent's cheerfulness and courage were his most fortunate legacies to his son; a speculative turn in matters of religion and government and a general financial irresponsibility constituted his most unfortunate legacy. his mother was as shrinking as his father was convivial, but, like her husband, possessed a strong sense of duty and of loyalty. her son inherited her love of books and of nature. of his heritage from his parents leigh hunt wrote: "i may call myself, in every sense of the word ... a son of mirth and melancholy;... and, indeed, as i do not remember to have ever seen my mother smile, except in sorrowful tenderness, so my father's shouts of laughter are now ringing in my ears."[ ] as leigh hunt was heir to his ancestry in an unusual degree, so in an extraordinary measure was the child father of the man. the atmosphere of the home, tense with discussions of theology and politics and bitter with hardships of poverty and prisons, gave him a precocious acquaintance with weighty matters and with many miseries. in he entered christ's hospital. like shelley he rebelled against the time-honored custom of fagging, and chose instead a beating every night with a knotted handkerchief. he avoided personal encounters in self-defense, but was valiant enough where others were concerned, or where a principle was involved. haydon said: "he was a man who would have died at the stake for a principle, though he might have cried like a child from physical pain, and would have screamed still louder if he put his foot in the gutter! yet not one iota of recantation would have quivered on his lips, if all the elysium of all the religions on earth had been offered and realized to induce him to do so."[ ] his wonderful power of forming friendships--a power with which the present study is so much concerned--was first developed at christ's hospital. as he sentimentally expressed it, "the first heavenly taste it gave me of that most spiritual of the affections. i use the word 'heavenly' advisedly; and i call friendship the most spiritual of the affections, because even one's kindred, in partaking of our flesh and blood, become, in a manner, mixed up with our entire being. not that i would disparage any other form of affection, worshipping as i do, all forms of it, love in particular, which in its highest state, is friendship and something more. but if i ever tasted a disembodied transport on earth, it was in those friendships which i entertained at school, before i dreamt of any maturer feeling."[ ] like shelley, hunt had so great an inclination to sentimentalize and idealize friendship that sometimes after the first brief rhapsody of fresh acquaintance he suffered bitter disillusionment. the majority, however, of the ties formed were lasting.[ ] the abridgements of the _spectator_, set hunt as a school task, instilled a dislike of prose-writing that may account for his preference through life for verse composition, although he was by nature less a poet than an essayist. from cooke's edition of the _british poets_ he learned to love gray, collins, thomson, blair and spenser--influences responsible in part for his dislike of eighteenth century convention and for his historical prominence in the romantic movement. spenser later became the literary passion of his life. other books which he read at this period were tooke's _pantheon_, lemprière's _classical dictionary_, and spence's _polymetis_, three favorites with keats; _peter wilkins_, _thalaba_ and _german romances_, three favorites with shelley. later hunt and shelley's reading was closely paralleled in godwin's _political justice_, _lucretius_, _pliny_, _plato_, _aristotle_, _voltaire_, _condorcet_ and the _dictionnaire philosophique_. with the years hunt's list swelled to an almost incredible degree. it was through books that he knew life. he left christ hospital in . the eight years spent there were his only formal preparation for a literary profession. he greatly regretted his lack of a university education, but he consoled himself by quoting with true cockney spirit goldsmith's saying: "london is the first of universities."[ ] through his father's connections he met many prominent men in london and was made much of. this premature association accounts for some of the arrogance so conspicuous in his early journalistic work, which, in middle life, sobered down into a harmless vanity. in hunt started a sunday newspaper, _the examiner_. the letter tendering his resignation[ ] of a position in the office of the secretary of war, coming from an inexperienced man of twenty-four is pompous in tone and heavy with the weight of his duty to the english nation. his subsequent assurance and boldness resulted in in his being indicted for a libel of the prince regent, afterwards george iv, and in an imprisonment for two years dating from february , . his elder brother john, the publisher of the paper, served the same sentence in a separate prison. they shared between them a fine of £ , . by special dispensation hunt's family was allowed to reside with him in prison and, stranger still, he was allowed to continue his work on the libellous journal. at the same time he wrote in jail the _descent of liberty_ and part of the _story of rimini_. he transformed his prison yard into a garden and his prison room into a bower by papering the walls with trellises of roses and by coloring his ceiling like the sky. his books and piano-forte, his flowers and plaster casts surrounded him as at home. old friends gathered about and new ones sought him as a martyr to the liberal cause. but the picture has a darker side which it is necessary to notice in order to understand hunt's personal relations. an imaginative and over-sensitive brain in a feeble body had peopled his childhood with creatures of fear, the precursors of the morbid fancies of later years. from to he suffered from a trouble that seems to have been mental rather than physical, probably a form of melancholia or hypochondria. he tortured himself with problems of metaphysics and philosophy. he was haunted with the hallucination that he was deficient in physical courage, and therefore subjected himself to all kinds of tests. at the beginning of his imprisonment he was suffering from a second attack of his malady. the injurious effects upon his health of close confinement at this time can be traced to the end of his life. after his release his morbid fear of cowardice and his habit of seclusion were so strong upon him that for months at a time he would not venture out upon the streets. yet in spite of all this and of frequent illnesses, his animal spirits were invincible. his optimism was proverbial; indeed, it was a part of his religion. coventry patmore tells us that on entering a room and being presented to hunt for the first time, he received the greeting "this is a beautiful world, mr. patmore."[ ] his wonderful fancy colored his life as it colored his poetry. with his flowers and his friends and his fancies he turned life into a perpetual arcadia. it has been many times asserted that leigh hunt was morally weak. his self-depreciation is largely responsible for such assertions. it is true that he fell short of great accomplishment and that he was guilty of small foibles which haydon exaggerated into "petticoat twaddling and grandisonian cant."[ ] yet the struggle and the suffering of his life show more virility and nobility than he is generally credited with, and prove that beneath a veneer of affectation lay strong and healthy qualities. a second lasting and disastrous result that followed hunt's incarceration and that greatly affected his relations with byron and shelley was the crippling of his finances. while it cannot be said that he ever showed any real business ability, yet, at the beginning of the trials for libel, his money matters were in fair condition. the heavy fine and costs permanently disabled him. in his affairs were in such a bad state that, with the hope of bettering them, he left england on a precarious journalistic venture, an injudicious step, the cause of which can be traced to the lingering effects of his labors in the cause of liberalism. from to his misfortunes reached a climax. he sold his books to get something to eat. the pain of giving up his beloved _parnaso italiano_ was like that of a violinist parting with his instrument. he lived in continual fear of arrest for debt. at the same time, family troubles and ill-health combined to torment him. in sir percy shelley gave him an annuity of £ , and in , the same year of the benefit performance of _every man in his humour_, he was granted through the efforts of lord john russell, macaulay and carlyle, an annual pension of £ on the civil list. there were also two separate grants of £ each from the royal bounty, one from william iv, and the other from queen victoria. in his last years there is no mention made of want.[ ] hunt's attitude in respect to money obligations was unique, but well-defined and consistent. it was not, as is often inferred, either puling or unscrupulous.[ ] he was absolutely incapable of the skimpole vices.[ ] his dilemmas were not due to indolence. on the contrary, he labored indefatigably as results show. the trouble was his "hugger-mugger" management, as carlyle expressed it. he adopted william godwin's doctrine that the distribution of property should depend on justice and necessity, and thought with him that the teachers of religion were pernicious in treating the practice of justice "not as a debt, but as an affair of spontaneous generosity and bounty. they have called upon the rich to be clement and merciful to the poor. the consequence of this has been that the rich, when they bestowed the slender pittance of their enormous wealth in acts of charity, as they were called, took merit to themselves for what they gave, instead of considering themselves delinquents for what they withheld."[ ] godwin held gratitude to be a superstition. consequently, when in need, hunt thought he had a right to assistance from such friends as had the wherewithal to give. he accepted obligations, as will be shown in the following chapters, much as a matter of course.[ ] but even in his worst distresses, he never desired nor accepted promiscuous charity; and he did not always willingly accept aid even from his friends. he refused offers of help from trelawney. he returned a bank bill sent him by his sister-in-law, £ sent by de wilde as part of the compensation fund, and $ presented by james russell lowell. in reynell forfeited £ as security for hunt. twenty years later, on the payment of the first installment of the shelley legacy, hunt discharged the debt.[ ] he rejected several offers to pay his fine at the time of his imprisonment.[ ] mary shelley, who more than any one had cause to complain of hunt's attitude in money matters, wrote in in announcing to him the forthcoming annuity from her son: "i know your real delicacy about money matters."[ ] in the _correspondence_ there are mysterious allusions made by hunt and by his son thornton to a veiled influence on hunt's life, to some one who acted as trustee for him and who, without his knowledge or consent, made indiscriminating appeals in his behalf. the discovery of refusals and repulses led him to write the following to william story, through whom came lowell's offer: "nor do i think the man truly generous who cannot both give and receive. but, my dear story, my heart has been deeply wounded, some time back, in consequence of being supposed to carry such opinions to a practical extreme.... it gave me a shock so great that, as long as i live, it will be impossible for me to forego the hope of outliving all similar chances, by conduct which none can misinterpret."[ ] * * * * * leigh hunt's work which comes into the period of his association with byron, shelley and keats falls into four divisions: his theatrical criticism, his political journals, his poetry and his miscellaneous essays. the first and the last, although important in themselves, do not enter into his relations with the three men in question and will not be considered here. his political activity is important in his relations with byron and shelley; his poetry in his relations with keats and shelley. in leigh hunt's career, the step most significant in its far-reaching effects was the establishment of _the examiner_.[ ] its professed object was the discussion of politics. it contained, in addition to foreign and provincial intelligence, criticism of the theatre, of literature, and of the fine arts. full reports were given of the proceedings in parliament. at different times, various series of articles appeared, such as the _essays on methodism_ by hunt, and _the round table_ by hunt and hazlitt. fox-bourne says that previous to hunt's _examiner_ there had been weeklies or "essay sheets" such as defoe, steele, addison and goldsmith had developed, and that there had been dailies or "news sheets" which gave bare facts, but that _the examiner_ was the first to give the news faithfully in essay style.[ ] it soon raised the character of the weeklies. during the first year the circulation reached , , a large number at that time. carlyle said: "i well remember how its weekly coming was looked for in our village in scotland. the place of its delivery was besieged by an eager crowd, and its columns furnished the town talk till the next number came."[ ] redding says "everybody in those days read _the examiner_."[ ] the prospectus contained a severe criticism of contemporary journalism:[ ] "mean in its subserviency to the follies of the day, very miserably merry in its fuss and stories, extremely furious in politics, and quite as feeble in criticism. you are invited to a literary conversation, and you find nothing but scandal and commonplace. there is a flourish of trumpets, and enter tom thumb. there is an earthquake and a worm is thrown up.... the gentleman who until lately conducted the theatrical department in the _news_ will criticise the theatre in the examiner; and as the public have allowed the possibility of impartiality in that department, we do not see why the same possibility may not be obtained in politics." then followed a declaration against party as a factor in politics: party, it was declared, should not exist "abstracted from its utility"; in the present day every man must belong to some class; "he is either pittite or foxite, windhamite, wilberforcite or burdettite; though, at the same time, two thirds of these disturbers of coffee-houses might with as much reason call themselves hivites, or shunamites, or perhaps bedlamites."[ ] although _the examiner_ thus firmly announced its intentions, nevertheless in the heat of political contest it soon became the organ of a group of men known as "reformers," who were laboring and clamoring for constitutional and administrative improvement. it became the avowed enemy of the tory party and its journals, and in particular of the ministry during the long tory ascendancy; the enemy, at times, of royalty itself. the prospectus likewise announced an intention to reform the manners and morals of the age. hunt could write a sermon with the same ease as a song or a satire. horse-racing, cock-fighting and prize-fighting were condemned; most of all the publication of scandal and crime. a passage on advertisements is humorous and still of living interest: "the public shall neither be tempted to listen to somebody in the shape of wit who turns out to be a lottery-keeper, nor seduced to hear a magnificent oration which finishes by retreating into a peruke, or rolling off into a blacking ball ... and as there is perhaps about one person in a hundred who is pleased to see two or three columns occupied with the mutabilities of cotton and the vicissitudes of leather, the proprietors will have as little to do with bulls and raw-hides, as with lottery-men and wig-makers." the editorials, which occupied the foremost columns of the paper, attacked corruption and injustice of every kind without respect of persons, currying favor with neither party nor individual, and laboring above all for the people. international relations and continental conditions were kept track of, but chief prominence was given to domestic affairs. the editor warred against all abuses of power in the cabinet and in all offices under the crown. in particular he attacked with merciless persistence the prince regent in regard to his private life and his public conduct, and his brother frederick the duke of york, for his inefficiency as commander-in-chief of the army.[ ] his definition of the english army was "a host of laced jackets and long pigtails."[ ] he condemned the numerous subsidies of the crown, the royal pensions and salaries for nominal service. he ridiculed the divine right of kings and exposed court scandal and immorality. the chief measures for which he labored were catholic emancipation; reform of parliamentary representation; liberty of the press; reduction and equalization of taxes; greater discretion in increasing the public debt; education of the poor and amelioration of their sufferings; abolition of child-labor and of the slave trade; reform of military discipline, of prison conditions, and of the criminal and civil laws, particularly those governing debtors. it is not a matter of marvel that the paper made hosts of enemies on every side. charges of libel quickly followed its onslaughts. before the paper was a year old a prosecution was begun in connection with the major hogan and mrs. clarke case,[ ] but it was dropped when an investigation was begun by the house of commons. within a year's time after this prosecution a second indictment was brought because of the sentence: "of all monarchs since the revolution the successor of george the third will have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular."[ ] the _morning chronicle_ copied it, and was indicted, but both cases were dismissed. the third offense was the quotation of an article by john scott on the cruelty of military flogging[ ] but, like the others, this prosecution came to nothing. the fourth and most disastrous misdemeanor was libel of the prince regent, a man of shocking morals and of unstable character. before his appointment as regent he had leaned to the whig party and advocated catholic emancipation, but at his accession to power he retained the tory ministry. the whigs were greatly angered in consequence, and _the examiner_ took it upon itself to voice their indignation.[ ] at a dinner given at the freemason's tavern on st. patrick's day, march , , lord moira, an old friend of the prince's, omitted mentioning him in his speech. later, when a toast was proposed to the prince, it was greeted with hisses. mr. sheridan, because of lord moira's omission, spoke later in the evening in defense of the regent, but he, too, was received with hisses. the _morning chronicle_ reported the dinner; the _morning post_ replied with fulsome praise of the prince; _the examiner_ with its usual alacrity joined in the fray and took sides with the _chronicle_, dissecting, phrase by phrase, the adulation heaped upon the prince by the _post_. the following is the bitterest part of the polemic against him: "what person, unacquainted with the true state of the case, would imagine, in reading these astounding eulogies, that this 'glory of the people' was the subject of millions of shrugs and reproaches!--that this 'protector of the arts' had named a wretched foreigner his historical painter, in disparagement or in ignorance of the merits of his own countrymen!--that this 'mæcenas of the age' patronized not a single deserving writer!--that this 'breather of eloquence' could not say a few decent extempore words, if we are to judge, at least, from what he said to his regiment on its embarkation for portugal!--that this 'conqueror of hearts' was the disappointer of hopes!--that this 'exciter of desire' [bravo! messieurs of the post!]--this 'adonis in loveliness', was a corpulent man of fifty!--in short, this _delightful_, _blissful_, _wise_, _pleasurable_, _honourable_, _virtuous_, _true_ and _immortal_ prince, was a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a dispiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demireps, a man who has just closed half a century without one single claim on the gratitude of his country, or the respect of posterity!"[ ] it was said that the chief offense was given by the statement that "this 'adonis in loveliness' was a corpulent man of fifty." the article, although true, was of doubtful expediency and offensively violent and personal. further, the unremitting attacks of _the examiner_ had been neither dignified nor charitable in their searchlight penetration into the prince's private affairs.[ ] an indictment for libel naturally followed at once. lord brougham's "masterly defense"[ ] failed to avert the determined efforts of the prosecution to make an example of the editor and the publisher of _the examiner_. they were sentenced to the imprisonment and fine already mentioned. they refused all overtures for alleviation of the sentence:--overtures from the government; from the whigs who, in the person of perry of the _morning chronicle_, proposed to obtain a compromise from the prosecution by threatening the regent with the publication of state secrets from friends; and even from a juror who offered to pay the fine. leigh hunt wrote: "i am an englishman setting an example to my children and my country; and it would be hard, under all these circumstances, if i could not suffer my extremity rather than disgrace myself by effeminate lamentation or worse compromise."[ ] the two hunts thought that the serving of the sentence would be beneficial to the liberal cause, particularly in increasing the freedom of the press. the general method of _the examiner_ was vigorous attack. there was no circumlocution, no mincing of language, but aggressive candour, and, when it was considered necessary, wholesale censure and vituperation. a typical illustration is given in this passage, describing a dinner of the common council: "it is the fashion just now to call bonaparte antichrist, the beast with seven heads and ten horns, ... but if you wish to see those who have the 'real mark of the beast' upon them, go to a city dinner, and after battles for trout and the buffetings for turtle, after the rattling of wine glasses and plethoric throats, after the swillings and the gormandizings, and the maudlin hobs-and-nobs, and the disquisitions on smothered rabbits, and the bloated hectics, and the blinking eyes and slurred voices, and the hiccups, the rantings, and the roars, hear an unwieldy loan-jobber descanting on our glorious king and unshaken constitution. the stranger, that after this sight, goes to see the beasts in the tower, is an enemy to all true climax."[ ] in actual results _the examiner_ accomplished a great deal in the counter movement for reform. while hunt had no original or constructive political theory, little power of philosophical or logical thought, and no special equipment besides wide general knowledge, he had great sincerity and courage and a defiant attitude toward corruption of all kinds.[ ] he was himself absolutely incorruptible. if he preferred any form of government above another--for he was more interested in the pure administration of an established government than in the form itself--his preference was for a liberal monarchy. notwithstanding this moderate attitude, _the examiner_ was accused of radical, even revolutionary opinions. it was charged with being an enemy of the constitution, a traitor to the king, a foe to the established church.[ ] hunt's positive achievement in political journalism was two-fold: he obtained additional freedom for the press and he elevated journalistic style to a literary level. monkhouse says that hunt "established for the first time a paper which fought, and fought effectively, with prejudice and privilege, with superstition and tyranny, which was a bearer of light to all men of liberal principles in that country, and set the example of the independent thought and fearless expression of opinion, which has since become the very light and power of the press."[ ] of the hunt brothers coventry patmore writes: "i verily believe that, without the manly firmness, the immaculate political honesty, and the vigorous good sense of the one, and the exquisite genius and varied accomplishments, guided by the all-pervading and all-embracing humanity of the other, we should at this moment have been without many of those writers and thinkers on whose unceasing efforts the slow but sure march of our political, and with it, our social regeneration as a people mainly depends."[ ] hunt assisted in bringing about reforms in the interest of the people by calling attention to abuses that demanded investigation, and by advocating correction. his ideas on national finance and practical administration are wonderful when contrasted with his inefficiency in his own affairs. he lacked largeness of perspective and masculine grasp. his work is all the more remarkable when his temperament and tastes are considered; for his was a nature, as professor dowden has put it, "framed less for the rough and tumble of english radical politics than for 'dance and provençal song and sunburnt mirth.'" as a factor in the reform movement begun in the first decade of the nineteenth century leigh hunt has not yet come into his own.[ ] his was no cosmic theory, nor search after the origin of evil, nor magnificent rebellion like shelley's and byron's; but in his own smaller way he played as courageous and as effective a part in the cause of liberty as those greater spirits.[ ] in , the two brothers had established a quarterly, _the reflector_, of much the same nature and creed as _the examiner_. it was unsuccessful and was discontinued after the fourth number. it differed from its predecessor in combining literature with politics. hunt's reason for this innovation displays a rare power to judge of contemporary movements: "politics, in times like these, should naturally take the lead in periodical discussion, because they have an importance almost unexampled in history, and because _they are now, in their turn, exhibiting their reaction upon literature, as literature in the preceding age exhibited its action upon them_."[ ] although hunt continued to be editor of _the examiner_ until he went to italy in , his aggressive political activity seemed to die out of him after his release from prison. he was never so prominently again before the public; in , he ceased altogether to write on political questions. he retired more and more into the seclusion of his books, and from about , denied himself to all but a small circle of congenial spirits. hunt, like the others of his group, was deeply influenced by the liberal movement in religion as well as in politics. he had seen his father's progress from the anglican church through the unitarian[ ] to the universalist. at the age of twelve he repudiated the doctrine of eternal punishment and declared himself a believer in the "exclusive goodness of futurity." in his early manhood he decried the superstition of catholicism, the intolerance of calvinism, and the emotionality of methodism. yet he acknowledged a great first cause and a divine paternity. he refused, like shelley, to recognize the existence of evil, and thought everything finally good and beautiful in nature.[ ] he believed that universal happiness would come about through individual excellence, through performance of duty and avoidance of excess. those who disagreed with him in this respect he considered blasphemers of nature. as lord houghton in his address in the cemetery of kensal green on the unveiling of a bust of hunt remarked, he had an "absolute superstition for good." similar testimony was borne by r. h. horne when he said that chaucer's "'ah, benedicite' was falling forever from his lips."[ ] his religion was one of charity and cheerfulness, of love and truth, which is but to affirm that the humanitarian moral of _abou ben adhem_ was realized in his own life.[ ] on the death of shelley's child william, hunt wrote to the bereaved father: "i do not know that a soul is born with us; but we seem, to me, to _attain_ to a soul, some later, some earlier; and when we have got that, there is a look in our eye, a sympathy in our cheerfulness, and a yearning and grave beauty in our thoughtfulness that seems to say, 'our mortal dress may fall off when it will; our trunk and our leaves may go; we have shot up our blossom into an immortal air.'"[ ] hunt, like byron and shelley, had curious ideas about the relation of the sexes, ideas which hazlitt said, were "always coming out like a rash."[ ] this "crotchet" was taken over likewise from godwin, who thought it checked the progress of the mind for one individual to be obliged to live for a long period in conformity to the desires of another and therefore disapproved of the marriage relation. but, like godwin and shelley, hunt bowed to the conventions. his life was a singularly pure one. the influence of hunt's poetry upon keats and shelley, in its general romantic tendencies, particularly in respect to diction and metre, deserves equal consideration with the influence of his politics upon shelley and byron. _juvenilia_, a volume of hunt's poems collected by his father and issued by subscription in contains original work and translations which show wide reading for a boy of seventeen and some fluency in versification. otherwise the writer's own opinion in is correct: "my work was a heap of imitations, all but absolutely worthless.... i wrote 'odes' because collins and gray had written them, 'pastorals' because pope had written them, 'blank verse' because akenside and thomson had written blank verse, and a 'palace of pleasure' because spenser had written a 'bower of bliss.'"[ ] hunt's chief defect in taste, that of introducing in the midst of highly poetical conceptions, disagreeable physical conditions or symptoms, is as conspicuous in this volume[ ] as in his more mature work. the _feast of the poets_, ,[ ] is a light satire in the manner of sir john suckling's _session of the poets_. it spares few poets since the days of milton and dryden, and it includes in its revilings most of hunt's contemporaries. gifford, the editor of the _quarterly review_, comes in for the worst castigation. it is not remarkable that the satire antagonized people on every side in the literary world as _the examiner_ had done in the political. hunt believed that "its offences, both of commission and of omission, gave rise to some of the most inveterate enmities" of his life.[ ] it is important in the history to be discussed in a later chapter of the literary feud which resulted in the creation of the so-called cockney school. later revisions included some poets who had been intentionally ignored at first in both poems and notes, or who, like shelley and keats, naturally would not have been included in the edition; and it softened down the harsh criticism of those who were unfortunate enough to have been included, except gifford, whom hunt could never forgive. the irony is fresh and there are occasional spicy flashes of wit. the narrative is clear and the characterization vivid. byron pronounced it "the best session we have."[ ] the _descent of liberty_,[ ] , is a masque celebrating the triumph of liberty, in the person of the allies, over the enchanter, napoleon. there is little plot or human interest; the natural, the supernatural, and the mythical are confusedly interwoven. the pictorial effect, however, is one of great richness and color, and some of the songs and passages have fine lyrical feeling and melody. it is interesting in this connection to note a vague general resemblance between the _descent of liberty_ and shelley's _queen mab_ ( - ) in the worship of liberty, in the hope and promise of her ultimate triumph, and in the wild imagination which hunt probably never again equalled. it is not likely, however, that hunt knew shelley's poem at the time he was writing his own. _the story of rimini_, produced in and dedicated to lord byron, is the most important of hunt's works in a consideration of his relations with the enemies of the cockney school[ ] and with byron, shelley, and keats. byron criticised it severely. shelley thought it carried uncommon and irresistible interest with it, but he agreed with byron in thinking that the style had fettered hunt's genius.[ ] keats wrote a sonnet[ ] on _rimini_ in , and in his own works shows unmistakably the influence of hunt's poem in diction and versification. the story is founded, of course, on the francesca episode in the fifth canto of the _inferno_ of dante. it was a dangerous thing for hunt to undertake an elaboration of the marvelous episode of dante. had he been a man of greater genius it would have been a risk; as it was, he produced a diffuse and sentimental narrative which bears little resemblance to the singular perfection of the original. on the other hand, the _story of rimini_ does possess indubitable merits: directness of narrative, minute observation, sensuous richness of pictorial description, and occasional delicate felicity of language.[ ] byron wrote of the third canto which he saw in manuscript: "you have excelled yourself--if not all your contemporaries--in the canto which i have just finished. i think it above the former books; but that is as it should be; it rises with the subject, the conception seems to me perfect, and the execution perhaps as nearly so as verse will admit. there is more originality than i recollect to have seen elsewhere within the same compass, and frequent and great happiness of expression." the faults he said were "occasional quaintnesses and obscurity, and a kind of harsh and yet colloquial compounding of epithets, as if to avoid saying common things in a common way."[ ] october , , in reply to these objections hunt sent forth this defense: "we accomodate ourselves to certain habitual, sophisticated phrases of _written_ language, and thus take away from real feeling of any sort the only language _it ever actually uses_, which is the _spoken_ language." at the same time he made a few alterations at byron's suggestion.[ ] and again the latter wrote: "you have two excellent points in that poem--originality and italianism."[ ] after the _story of rimini_ appeared he wrote to moore: "leigh hunt's poem is a devilish good one--quaint, here and there, but with the substratum of originality, and with poetry about it that will stand the test."[ ] in byron's opinion had changed somewhat: "when i saw _rimini_ in ms., i told him i deemed it good poetry at bottom, disfigured only by a strange style. his answer was, that his style was a system, or _upon system_, or some other such cant; and when a man talks of system, his case is hopeless; so i said no more to him, and very little to anyone else. he believed his trash of vulgar phrases tortured into compound barbarisms to be _old_ english[ ] ... hunt, who had powers to make the _story of rimini_ as perfect as a fable of dryden, has thought fit to sacrifice his genius to some unintelligible notion of wordsworth, which i defy him to explain.[ ]... a friend of mine calls 'rimini' _nimini pimini_; and 'foliage' _follyage_. perhaps he had a tumble in 'climbing trees in the hesperides'! but rimini has a great deal of merit. there never were so many fine things spoiled as in 'rimini.'"[ ] hunt had a distinct theory of language based on a few crude principles. as his practical application of them had its effect upon keats, a somewhat full consideration of them is desirable here. the first and most conspicuous one, promoted by what hunt called "an idiomatic spirit in verse,"[ ] was a preference for colloquial words.[ ] he mistook for grace and fluency of diction, a turn of phrase that was without poetic connection and often in very poor taste. in dialogue, particularly, the effect is undignified. this professed doctrine was a fuller development[ ] of the statement in the advertisement to the _lyrical ballads_ of : in hunt's opinion, wordsworth failed to consider duly meter in its essential relations to poetry, and while hunt himself desired a "return to nature and a natural style" he thought that wordsworth had substituted puerility for simplicity and affectation for nature. hunt's acknowledged model for the poem was dryden,[ ] but hunt's colloquial phrasing, peculiar diction, elision,[ ] and loose expansion approach much more closely to chamberlayne's _pharronida_ ( ) than to anything in dryden.[ ] the following extract is one of many that might be cited as suggestive of hunt's _story of rimini_: "to his cold clammy lips joining her balmy twins, she from them sips so much of death's oppressing dews, that, by that touch revived, his soul, though winged to fly her ruined seat, takes time to breathe these sad notes forth: "farewell, my dear, beneath my fainting spirits sink."[ ] occasionally hunt's choice of colloquial words fitted the subject, as in the _feast of the poets_, where humor and satire permit such expressions as "bards of old england had all been rung in," "twiddling a sunbeam," "bloated his wits," "tricksy tenuity" or such words as "smack," "pop-in" and "sing-song." his poetical epistles suffer without injury such departures from dignified diction, but in other cases, of which the _story of rimini_ is a notable example, a grave subject in the garb of everyday language is degraded into the incongruous and prosaic. it is in physical descriptions that this undignified diction most strikingly violates good taste. examples are: "and both their cheeks, like peaches on a tree, leaned with a touch together, thrillingly." "so lightsomely dropped in, his lordly back, his thigh so fitted for the tilt or dance." sometimes the prosaic quality of hunt's diction is due to its being pitched upon a merely "society" level: "may i come in? said he:--it made her start,-- that smiling voice;--she coloured, pressed her heart a moment, as for breath and then with free and usual tone said, 'o yes,--certainly.'" such a treatment of the meeting of paolo and francesca in the bower is wholly inadequate to the situation and the emotion of the moment. additional illustrations of his colloquialisms from the _story of rimini_ and from other poems of the same period are: "to bless his shabby eyes," "that to the stander near looks awfully," "banquet small, and cheerful, and considerate," "clipsome waist," "jauntiness behind and strength before" (description of a horse), "lend their streaming tails to the fond air," "sweepy shape," "cored in our complacencies," "lumps of flowers," "smooth, down-arching thigh," "tapering with tremulous mass internally." hunt's second principle to be considered is the excessive use of vague and passionless words. instances of such words to be found very frequently in his poetry are: fond, amiable, fair, rural, cordial, cheerful, gentle, calm, smooth, serene, earnest, lovely, balmy, dainty, mild, meek, tender, kind, elegant, quiet, sweet, fresh, pleasant, warm, social, and many others of like character. a third principle was the employment of unusual words; examples are found in the _story of rimini_ in the first edition and in other poems produced about this same time. in the _poetical works_, , most of them have been discarded. the preface states that the "occasional quaintnesses and neologisms" which "formerly disfigured the poems did not arise from affectation but from the sheer license of animal spirits"; that they are not worth defending and that he has left only two in the _story of rimini_, "swirl" and "cored." "swaling" had been the most famous one in the poem because of the ridicule heaped upon it by the enemies of the cockney school. to use ordinary words in an extraordinary sense was a fourth principle. the effect was often extremely awkward. core passes as a synonym for heart; fry occurs in _rimini_ in a strange sense; hip and tiptoe are employed with a special huntian significance. nouns and adjectives are used as verbs and verbs as nouns and adjectives with an unpoetical effect: cored (verb); drag (noun); frets (noun); feel (noun); patting (adjective); spanning (adjective); lull'd (adjective); smearings; measuring; doings.[ ] the use of compounds is a fifth distinguishing feature. such combinations are found as bathing-air, house-warm lips, side-long pillowed meekness, fore-thoughted chess, pin-drop silence, tear-dipped feeling. the sixth and last peculiarity is the preference for adjectives in _y_ and _ing_, many of them of his own coinage; for adverbs in _ly_; and for unauthorized or awkward comparatives: examples are plumpy (cheeks), knify, perky, sweepy, farmy, bosomy, pillowy, arrowy, liny, leafy, scattery, winy, globy; hasting, silvering, doling, blubbing, firming, thickening, quickening, differing, perking; lightsomely, refreshfully, thrillingly, kneadingly, lumpishly, smilingly, preparingly, crushingly,[ ] finelier, martialler, tastefuller, apter. the colloquial vocabulary, the familiar tone, and the expansion of thought into phrases and clauses where it would have gained by condensed expression, give to the _story of rimini_ a prosaic and eccentric style. yet hunt declared he held in horror eccentricity and prosiness.[ ] in a discussion of the influence of leigh hunt upon the versification of his contemporaries and successors it is necessary to consider not only his theory but also the active part played by him as a conscious reviver of the older heroic couplet. in this reaction against the school of pope, as also in the use of blank verse, he showed great independence in discarding approved models. the notes added to the _feast of the poets_ in , when it was republished from the _reflector_ of , are important in this connection. they show a wide familiarity with modern poetry. he writes: "the late dr. darwin, whose notion of poetical music, in common with that of goldsmith and others, was of the school of pope, though his taste was otherwise different, was perhaps the first, who by carrying it to the extreme pitch of sameness, and ringing it affectedly in one's ears, gave the public at large a suspicion that there was something wrong in its nature. but of those who saw its deficiencies, part had the ambition without the taste or attention requisite for striking into a better path, and became eccentric in another extreme; while others, who saw the folly of both, were content to keep the beaten track and set a proper example to neither. by these appeals, however, the public ear has been excited to expect something better; and perhaps there was never a more favourable time than the present for an attempt to bring back the real harmonies of the english heroic, and to restore it to half the true principle of its music, variety. i am not here joining the cry of those, who affect to consider pope as no poet at all. he is, i confess, in my judgment, at a good distance from dryden, and at an immeasurable one from such men as spenser and milton; but if the author of the _rape of the lock_, of _eloisa to abelard_, and of the _elegy on an unfortunate lady_, is no poet, then are fancy and feeling no properties belonging to poetry. i am only considering his versification; and upon that point i do not hesitate to say, that i regard him, not only as no master of his art, but as a very indifferent practiser, and one whose reputation will grow less and less, in proportion as the lovers of poetry become intimate with his great predecessors, and with the principles of musical beauty in general."[ ] the remarks on pope close with the hope that the imitation of the best work of dryden, milton and spenser "might lead the poets of the present age to that proper mixture of sweetness and strength--of modern finish and ancient variety--from which pope and his rhyming facilities have so long withheld us."[ ] hunt closes with an appeal for the return to italian models, and says that hayley, in his _triumphs of temper_ was "the quickest of our late writers to point out the great superiority of the italian school over the french." he protests against the wide influence of boileau.[ ] the introduction to the _poetical works_ of contains a concise and technical statement of hunt's theory of the heroic couplet. he argues that the triplet tends to condensation, three lines instead of four; that it carries onward the fervor of the poet's feeling, delivering him from the ordinary laws of his verse, and that it expresses continuity. of the bracket he says: "i confess i like the very bracket that marks out the triplet to the reader's eye, and prepares him for the music of it. it has a look like the bridge of a lute."[ ] the use of the alexandrine in the heroic couplet, he avers, gives variety and energy. double rhymes are defended on historical grounds. for himself he claims credit as a restorer, not an innovator, and prophesies that the perfection of the heroic couplet is "to come about by a blending between the inharmonious freedom of our old poets in general ... and the regularity of dryden himself.... if anyone could unite the vigor of dryden with the ready and easy variety of pause in the works of the late mr. crabbe, and the lovely poetic consciousness in the _lamia_ of keats ... he would be a perfect master of the rhyming couplet." a study of the heroic couplet from dryden to shelley based on two hundred lines from each poet has yielded the results indicated in the table on the following page. professor saintsbury says: "there is no doubt that his [hunt's] versification in _rimini_ (which may be described as chaucerian in basis with a strong admixture of dryden, further crossed and dashed slightly with the peculiar music of the followers of spenser, especially browne and wither) had a very strong influence both on keats and on shelley, and that it drew from them music much better than itself. this fluent, musical, many-colored-verse was a capital medium for tale telling."[ ] professor herford marks it as the "starting point of that free or chaucerian treatment of the heroic couplet and of the colloquial style, eschewing epigram and full of familiar turns, which shelley in _julian and maddalo_, and keats in _lamia_, made classical."[ ] mr. r. b. johnson calls it "a protest against the polished couplet of pope--a protest already expressed to some extent in the _lyrical ballads_, but through hunt's influence, guiding the pens of keats, shelley and some of his noblest successors."[ ] mr. a. j. kent says that "no one-sided sentiment of reaction against our so-called augustan literature disqualified leigh hunt from becoming, as he afterwards became, the greatest master since the days of dryden of the heroic couplet."[ ] leigh hunt's greatest mistake in the handling of the couplet has been clearly pointed out by mr. colvin, who says that he "blended the grave and the colloquial cadences of dryden, without his characteristic nerve and energy in either."[ ] the late dr. garnett said that the ease and variety of dryden was restored by hunt to english literature.[ ] monkhouse pointed out that keats and shelley, more than hunt, reaped the rewards of his revivification of the heroic couplet. the diffuseness of the diction of the _story of rimini_ results in a movement weaker than dryden's and less buoyant than chaucer's. yet the verse is distinguished by a fluency and grace and melody that at times are very pleasing. it had a notable influence on english verse--an influence begun by others but strongly reinforced by hunt. further treatment of the influence of hunt's diction and versification upon keats and shelley is reserved for chapters ii and iii of the present study. ---------------+------------------------------------------------- |dryden, |_absalom & achitophel_, | . | +---------------------------------------------- | |wm. chamberlayne, | |_pharronida_, . | + +------------------------------------------- | | |alexander pope, | | |_dunciad_, . | | + +---------------------------------------- | | | |leigh hunt,[ ] | | | |_story of rimini_, . | | | + +------------------------------------- | | | | |john keats, | | | | |_i stood tiptoe_, . | | | | + +---------------------------------- | | | | | |keats, | | | | | |_sleep and poetry_, . | | | | | + +------------------------------- | | | | | | |keats, | | | | | | |_endymion_, . | | | | | | + +---------------------------- | | | | | | | |keats,[ ] | | | | | | | |_lamia_, . | | | | | | | + +------------------------- | | | | | | | | |shelley, | | | | | | | | |_julian & maddalo_, . ---------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+------------------------- run-on couplets| | | | | | | | | run-on lines | | | | | | | | | triplets | | | | | | | | | alexandrines | | | | | | | | | ---------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-- hunt's next poetical work after _rimini_ was _foliage_, published in . it is a collection of original poems under the title _greenwoods_, and of translations under the title _evergreens_.[ ] in the preface hunt announces the main features to be a love of sociability, of the country, and of the "fine imagination of the greeks."[ ] the first predilection runs the gamut from "sociability" to "domestic interest" and is the most fundamental characteristic of the author and of his writing. in the preface to _one hundred romances of real life_ he declares sociability to be "the greatest of all interests." it rarely failed to crop out when he was writing even on the gravest and most impersonal of subjects. in his intercourse with strangers, this same "sociability," added to a natural kindliness and sympathy, caused a familiarity of bearing that was often misunderstood. the _nymphs_, the longest poem of the volume, is founded on greek mythology and is interesting in connection with keats's poems on classical subjects. shelley said that the _nymphs_ was "truly _poetical_, in the intense and emphatic sense of the word. if miles were not between us, i should say what pity that _glib_ was not omitted, and that the poem is not so faultless as it is beautiful."[ ] in general shelley overestimated hunt's poetry, though he saw some of its affectations. shorter pieces were epistles to byron, moore, hazlitt and lamb--a kind of verse in which hunt excelled, for his attitude and style were peculiarly adapted to the familiar tone permissible in such writing. among hunt's best poems may be counted the sonnets to shelley, keats, haydon, raphael, and kosciusko; those entitled the _grasshopper and the cricket_, _to the nile_, _on a lock of milton's hair_, and the series on hampstead. the suburban charms of hampstead were very dear to hunt and he never tired of celebrating them in poetry and in prose. no amount of derision from the _quarterly_ or _blackwood's_ stopped him. the general characteristics of _foliage_ are much the same as those of the _story of rimini_. there are poor lines and good ones, never sustained power, and no poetry of a very high order. the subjects themselves are often unpoetical. hunt obtrudes himself too frequently in a breezy, offhand manner. byron's opinion of the book was scathing: "of all the ineffable centaurs that were ever begotten by self-love upon a nightmare, i think 'this monstrous sagittary' the most prodigious. _he_ (leigh h.) is an honest charlatan, who has persuaded himself into a belief of his own impostures, and talks punch in pure simplicity of heart, taking himself (as poor fitzgerald said of _him_self in the _morning post_) for vates in both senses and nonsenses of the word. did you [moore] look at the translations of his own which he prefers to pope and cowper, and says so?--did you read his skimble-skamble about wordsworth being at the head of his own _profession_, in the _eyes_ of _those_ who followed it? i thought that poetry was an _art_, or an _attribute_, and not a _profession_; but be it one, is that ... at the head of _your_ profession in your eyes?"[ ] other poems belonging to this period are _hero and leander_ and _bacchus and ariadne_ in , and a translation of tasso's _aminta_ in . the first two show hunt's faculty for poetical narrative and description, and, in common with keats, a partiality for classical subjects. the three are in no way radically different from the poems already considered. the _literary pocket book_ which hunt edited in , and , the _new monthly magazine_ to which he began contributing in , and the _literary examiner_, which he established in , complete the enumeration of his writings during the period of his association with byron, shelley and keats. beyond the contributions of shelley and keats to the first and the reviews of byron's poems in the third, they are unimportant here. chapter ii keats's meeting with hunt--growth of their friendship--haydon's intervention--keats's residence with hunt--his departure for italy--hunt's criticism of keats's poetry--his influence on the _poems of _. it was about the year that keats showed to his former school friend, charles cowden clarke, the following sonnet, the first indication the latter had that keats had written poetry: "what though, for showing truth to flatter'd state, kind hunt was shut in prison, yet has he, in his immortal spirit been as free as the sky-searching lark, and as elate. minion of grandeur! think you he did wait? think you he nought but prison walls did see, till, so unwilling thou unturn'dst the key? ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate! in spenser's halls he stray'd, and bowers fair, culling enchanted flowers; and he flew with daring milton through the fields of air: to regions of his own his genius true took happy flights. who shall his fame impair when thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew?" this admiration, expressed before keats had met hunt, was due to the influence of the clarke family and to keats's acquaintance with _the examiner_, which he saw regularly during his school days at enfield and which he continued to borrow from clarke during his medical apprenticeship. clarke later showed to leigh hunt two or three of keats's poems. of the reception of one of them (_how many bards gild the lapses of time_) clarke said: "i could not but anticipate that hunt would speak encouragingly, and indeed approvingly, of the compositions--written, too, by a youth under age; but my partial spirit was not prepared for the unhesitating and prompt admiration which broke forth before he had read twenty lines of the first poem."[ ] hunt invited keats to visit him. of this first meeting between the two men, clarke wrote: "that was a red letter day in the young poet's life, and one which will never fade with me while memory lasts. the character and expression of keats's features would arrest even the casual passenger in the street; and now they were wrought to a tone of animation that i could not but watch with interest, knowing what was in store for him from the bland encouragement, and spartan deference in attention, with fascinating conversational eloquence, that he was to encounter and receive.... the interview, which stretched into three 'morning calls', was the prelude to many after-scenes and saunterings about caen wood and its neighborhood; for keats was suddenly made a familiar of the household, and was always welcomed."[ ] hunt's account of the meeting is as follows: "i shall never forget the impression made upon me by the exuberant specimens of genuine though young poetry that were laid before me, and the promise of which was seconded by the fine fervid countenance of the writer. we became intimate on the spot, and i found the young poet's heart as warm as his imagination. we read and we walked together, and used to write verse of an evening upon a given subject. no imaginative pleasure was left untouched by us, or unenjoyed; from the recollections of the bards and patriots of old, to the luxury of a summer rain at our window, or the clicking of the coal in the winter-time. not long afterwards, having the pleasure of entertaining at dinner mr. godwin, mr. hazlitt, and mr. basil montagu, i showed the verses of my young friend, and they were pronounced to be as extraordinary as i thought them."[ ] leigh hunt discovered keats, by no means a small thing, for as he himself has said: "to admire and comment upon the genius that two or three hundred years have applauded, and to discover what will partake of applause two or three hundred years hence, are processes of a very different description."[ ] with the same power of prophetic discernment, writing in , he realized to the full the greatness of keats and predicted that growth of his fame in the future which has since taken place.[ ] keats's account of his reception is given in the sonnet _keen fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there_: "for i am brimfull of the friendliness that in a little cottage i have found; of fair hair'd milton's eloquent distress, and all his love for gentle lycid drown'd; of lovely laura in her light green dress, and faithful petrarch gloriously crowned." the date of the introduction of keats to hunt has been placed variously from november, , to the end of the year . he says: "it was not at hampstead that i first saw keats. it was in york buildings, in the new road (no. ), where i wrote part of the _indicator_--and he resided with me while in mortimer terrace, kentish town (no. ), where i concluded it. i mention this for the curious in such things, among whom i am one."[ ] if this statement were correct, it would make the meeting about two or three years later than has generally been supposed, for leigh hunt did not move to york buildings until , and he did not begin work on the _indicator_ until october, . clarke states positively that the meeting took place at hampstead. from this evidence mr. colvin has suggested the early spring of as the most probable date.[ ] what seems better evidence than any that has yet been brought forward is a passage in _the examiner_ of june , , in hunt's review of keats's _poems_ of , where he says that the poet is a personal friend whom he announced to the public a short time ago (this allusion can only be to an article in _the examiner_ of december , ) and that the friendship dates from "no greater distance of time than the announcement above mentioned. we had published one of his sonnets in our paper,[ ] without knowing more of him than of any other anonymous correspondent; but at the period in question a friend brought us one morning some copies in verse, which he said were from the pen of a youth.... we had not read more than a dozen lines when we recognized a young poet indeed." this seems conclusive evidence that the meeting did not take place until the winter of , for hunt's testimony written in , when the circumstance was fresh in his mind is certainly more trustworthy than his impression of it at the time that he revised his _autobiography_ in at the age of seventy-five years. the two men, before they came in contact, had much in common, and hunt's influence, while in some cases an inspiring force, more often fostered instincts already existing in keats. both possessed by nature a deep love of poetry, color and melody, and both "were given to 'luxuriating' somewhat voluptuously over the 'deliciousness' of the beautiful in art, books or nature."[ ] at the very beginning of their acquaintance, notwithstanding a disparity in age of eleven years, they were wonderfully drawn to each other. spenser was their favorite poet. both had a great love for chaucer, for oriental fable and for chivalric romance, and an unusual knowledge of greek myth. but even at the height of their intimacy, the friendship seems to have remained more intellectual than personal, a fact due no doubt to keats's reserve and hunt's "incuriousness."[ ] except for this drawback hunt considered the friendship ideal. he says: "mr. keats and i were old friends of the old stamp, between whom there was no such thing as obligation, except the pleasure of it. he enjoyed the privilege of greatness with all whom he knew, rendering it delightful to be obliged by him, and an equal, but not a greater delight, to oblige. it was a pleasure to his friends to have him in their houses, and he did not grude it."[ ] through hunt, keats was introduced to a circle of literary men whose companionship was an important factor in his development, notably haydon, godwin, hazlitt, shelley, vincent novello, horace smith, cornelius webbe, basil montagu, the olliers, barry cornwall, and later wordsworth. for about a year following the meeting of the two, hunt undoubtedly exerted the strongest influence of any living man over the young poet. severn said that keats's introduction to hunt wrought a great change in him and "intoxicated him with an excess of enthusiasm which kept by him four or five years."[ ] mr. forman says that "charles cowden clarke, as his early mentor, leigh hunt and haydon as his most powerful encouragers at the important epoch of adolescence, must be credited with much of the active influence that took keats out of the path to a medical practitioner's life, and set his feet in the devious paths of literature."[ ] keats's interest in his profession had decreased as his knowledge and love of poetry grew. with the publication of his _poems_ in , and his retirement in april of that year from london to the isle of wight "to be alone and improve" himself and to continue _endymion_, his decision was finally made in favor of a literary life. hunt's aid at this time took the practical form of publishing keats's poems in _the examiner_ and of drawing the attention of the public to them by comments and reviews. whether he ever paid keats for any of his contributions to his periodicals is not known.[ ] through the influence of hunt the ollier brothers were induced to undertake the publication of keats's first volume of poems. it is dedicated to leigh hunt in the sonnet _glory and loveliness have passed away_. the sestet refers directly to him: "but there are left delights as high as these, and i shall ever bless my destiny, that in a time, when under pleasant trees pan is no longer sought, i feel a free a leafy luxury, seeing i could please with these poor offerings, a man like thee."[ ] hunt replied in the sonnet _to john keats_, quoted here in full because of its inacessibility: "'tis well you think me truly one of those, whose sense discerns the loveliness of things; for surely as i feel the bird that sings behind the leaves, or dawn as it up grows, or the rich bee rejoicing as he goes, or the glad issue of emerging springs, or overhead the glide of a dove's wings, or turf, or trees, or midst of all, repose. and surely as i feel things lovelier still, the human look, and the harmonious form containing woman, and the smile in ill, and such a heart as charles's wise and warm,-- as surely as all this, i see ev'n now, young keats, a flowering laurel on your brow."[ ] in , hunt dedicated his translation of tasso's _aminta_ to keats. in spite of a eulogistic article by hunt running in _the examiners_ of june , july and , , and other notices in some of the provincial papers, the _poems_ sold not very well at first, and later, not at all.[ ] praise from the editor of _the examiner_, although offered with the kindest intentions in the world, was about the worst thing that could possibly have happened to keats, for, politically and poetically, leigh hunt was most unpopular at this time;[ ] and it was noised abroad that keats too was a radical in politics and in religion, a disciple of the apostate in his attack on the established and accepted creed of poetry. as a matter of fact, keats's interest in politics decreased as his knowledge of poetry increased, although, "as a party-badge and sign of ultra-liberalism," he, like hunt, byron and shelley continued to wear the soft turn-down collars in contrast to the stiff collars and enormous cravats of the time.[ ] in religion keats vented his dislike of sect and creed on the kirk of scotland, as hunt had on the methodists. his "simply-sensuous beauty-worship" palgrave attributes to the "moral laxity" of hunt.[ ] unless palgrave, like haydon, refers to hunt's unorthodoxy in matters of church and state, it is difficult to understand on what evidence he bases this statement; in the first place, a charge of moral laxity is not borne out by the recorded facts of hunt's life, but only by such untrustworthy tradition as still lingers in the public mind from the cockney school articles of _blackwood's_ and the _quarterly_. carlyle said that he was of "most exemplary private deportment."[ ] byron, shelley and lamb testified to his virtuous life. in the second place, a close comparison of the works of the two now leads one to conclude that "simply-sensuous beauty-worship" existed to a much higher degree in keats than in hunt, and that so strong an innate tendency would have developed without outward stimulus from any one. while both men sought the good and worshipped the beautiful, keats, unlike hunt, recognized somewhat "the burthen and the mystery" of human life. keats, during his stay in the isle of wight and a visit to oxford with bailey in the spring and summer of , worked on _endymion_, finishing it in the fall. the letters exchanged between him and hunt during his absence were friendly, but a feeling of coolness began before his return. in a letter from margate may , , there is a curiously obscure reference to the _nymphs_: "how have you got on among them? how are the _nymphs_? i suppose they have led you a fine dance. where are you now?--in judea, cappadocia, or the parts of lybia about cyrene? stranger from 'heaven, hues, and prototypes' i wager you have given several new turns to the old saying, 'now the maid was fair and pleasant to look on,' as well as made a little variation in 'once upon a time.' perhaps, too, you have rather varied, 'here endeth the first lesson.' thus i hope you have made a horseshoe business of 'unsuperfluous life,' 'faint bowers' and fibrous roots."[ ] a letter written by haydon to keats, dated may , , warned keats against hunt, and, with others of its kind, was possibly the insidious beginning of the coolness which followed: "beware, for god's sake of the delusions and sophistications that are ripping up the talents and morality of our friend! he will go out of the world the victim of his own weakness and the dupe of his own self-delusions, with the contempt of his enemies and the sorrow of his friends, and the cause he undertook to support injured by his own neglect of character."[ ] a letter in reply from keats, written the day after he wrote the passage about the _nymphs_, accounts for its dissembling tone: "i wrote to hunt yesterday--scarcely know what i said in it. i could not talk about poetry in the way i should have liked for i was not in humour with either his or mine. his self delusions are very lamentable--they have inticed him into a situation which i should be less eager after than that of a galley slave,--what you observe thereon is very true must be in time [sic]. perhaps it is a self delusion to say so--but i think i could not be deceived in the manner that hunt is--may i die to-morrow if i am to be. there is no greater sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself into the idea of being a great poet...."[ ] to judge from the testimony of his brother george it is not surprising that keats succumbed to haydon's influence against hunt: "his nervous, morbid temperament led him to misconstrue the motives of his best friends."[ ] in the last days of his life, his suspicion and bitterness were general. in a letter to bailey, june, , keats says: "i have suspected everybody."[ ] january, , he wrote georgiana keats, "upon the whole i dislike mankind."[ ] haydon may have sincerely believed hunt's influence to be injurious because of the latter's unorthodoxy in matters of religion. he wrote that keats "could not bring his mind to bear on one object, and was at the mercy of every petty theory that leigh hunt's ingenuity would suggest.... he had a tendency to religion when i first knew him, but leigh hunt soon forced it from his mind.... leigh hunt was the unhinger of his best dispositions. latterly, keats saw leigh hunt's weaknesses. i distrusted his leader, but keats would not cease to visit him, because he thought hunt ill-used. this shows keats's goodness of heart."[ ] it is not to be regretted that haydon lessened keats's estimate of hunt's literary infallibility, for his influence was most injurious in that direction; but it is to be regretted that he impugned a friendship in which hunt was certainly sincere and by which keats had benefited. in september, just before keats's return, he seems somewhat mollified and writes to john hamilton reynolds of leigh hunt's pleasant companionship; he has failings, "but then his make-ups are very good."[ ] on his return to hampstead in october, , keats found affairs among the circle in a very bad way.[ ] everybody "seems at loggerheads--there's hunt infatuated--there's haydon's picture in statu quo--there's hunt walks up and down his painting room--criticising every head most unmercifully. there's horace smith tired of hunt. 'the web of our life is of mingled yarn.'... i am quite disgusted with literary men and will never know another except wordsworth--no not even byron. here is an instance of the friendship of such. haydon and hunt have known each other many years.... haydon says to me, keats, don't show your lines to hunt on any account or he will have done half for you--so it appears hunt wishes it to be thought. when he met reynolds in the theatre, john told him that i was getting on to the completion of , lines--ah! says hunt, had it not been for me they would have been , ! if he will say this to reynolds, what would he to other people? haydon received a letter a little while back on this subject from some lady--which contains a caution to me, thro' him, on the subject--now is not all this a most paultry (sic) thing to think about?"[ ] hunt had tried to persuade keats not to write a long poem. keats wrote of this: "hunt's dissuasion was of no avail[ ]--i refused to visit shelley that i might have my own unfettered scope; and after all, i shall have the reputation of hunt's élève. his corrections and amputations will by the knowing ones be traced in the poem."[ ] during , leigh hunt in his critical work remained silent concerning keats, probably because of his sincere disapproval of _endymion_ and secondly, because he realized that his praise would be injurious. the attacks on hunt in _blackwood's_ and the _quarterly_ had foreshadowed an attack of the same virulent kind on keats. the realization came with the publication of _endymion_. the article on "johnny keats," fourth of the series on the cockney school in _blackwood's magazine_, appeared almost simultaneously with his return from scotland, and the one in the _quarterly_ in september of the same year. these will be discussed in a later chapter. suspicions of neglect on the part of hunt murmured in keats's mind like a discordant undertone, although the friendship continued as warm as ever on hunt's part. keats was passive, without, however, the old sense of dependence and trust. december , , he writes to his brothers of the "drivelling egotism" of _the examiner_ article on the obsoletion of christmas gambols and pastimes.[ ] in a journal letter written to george keats and his wife in louisville during december and january, , the old liking has become almost repugnance: "hunt keeps on in his old way--i am completely tired of it all. he has lately published a pocket book called the literary pocket-book--full of the most sickening stuff you can imagine";[ ] yet keats suffered himself to become a contributor to this same book with two sonnets, _the human seasons_ and _to ailsa rock_. again in the same letter: "the night we went to novello's there was a complete set-to of mozart and punning. i was so completely tired of it that if i were to follow my own inclinations i should never meet any of that set again, not even hunt who is certainly a pleasant fellow in the main when you are with him, but in reality he is vain, egotistical, and disgusting in matters of taste and morals. he understands many a beautiful thing; but then, instead of giving other minds credit for the same degree of perception as he himself possesses,--he begins an explanation in such a curious manner that our taste and self-love is offended continually. hunt does one harm by making fine things petty and beautiful things hateful. through him i am indifferent to mozart, i care not for white busts--and many a glorious thing when associated with him becomes a nothing."[ ] continuing in the same strain: "i will have no more wordsworth or hunt in particular. why should we be of the tribe of manasseh when we can wander with esau? why should we kick against the pricks, when we can walk on roses?... i don't mean to deny wordsworth's grandeur and hunt's merit, but i mean to say that we need not to be teazed with grandeur and merit, when we can have them uncontaminated and unobtrusive. let us have the old poets and robin hood."[ ] and again: "hunt has damned hampstead and masks and sonnets and italian tales. wordsworth has damned the lakes--milman has damned the old drama--west has damned wholesale. peacock has damned satire--ollier has damned music--hazlitt has damned the bigoted and the blue-stockinged; how durst the man?!"[ ] a parody on the conversation of hunt's set, in which he is the principal actor, carries with it a ridicule that is unkinder than the bitterness of dislike, and difficult to reconcile with the fact that keats at the same time preserved the semblance of friendship.[ ] "scene, a little parlour--enter hunt--gattie--hazlitt--mrs. novello--ollier. _gattie_:--ha! hunt got into your new house? ha! mrs. novello: seen altam and his wife? _mrs. n._: yes (with a grin) it's mr. hunt's isn't it? _gattie_: hunt's? no, ha! mr. ollier, i congratulate you upon the highest compliment i ever heard paid to the book. mr. hazlitt, i hope you are well. _hazlitt_:--yes sir, no sir--_mr. hunt_ (at the music) 'la biondina' etc. hazlitt, did you ever hear this?--"la biondina" &c. _hazlitt_: o no sir--i never--_ollier_:--do hunt give it us over again--divine--_gattie_:--divino--hunt when does your pocket-book come out--_hunt_:--'what is this absorbs me quite?' o we are spinning on a little, we shall floridize soon i hope. such a thing was very much wanting--people think of nothing but money getting--now for me i am rather inclined to the liberal side of things. i am reckoned lax in my christian principles, etc., etc., etc., etc."[ ] such a dual attitude in keats can be explained only by a dual feeling in his mind, for it is impossible to believe him capable of deliberate deceit. he may have realized hunt's affectation and superficiality and "disgusting taste"; he was probably swayed by haydon to distrust hunt's morals; the suspicions planted by haydon concerning _endymion_ rankled; but at the same time hunt's charm of personality, and the assistance and encouragement given in the first days of their friendship, formed a bond difficult to break. of leigh hunt's attitude there can be no doubt, for through his long life of more than threescore years and ten, filled with many friendships of many kinds, he can in no instance be charged with insincerity. there is no conclusive proof on record to show him deserving of the insinuations which keats believed in respect to _endymion_, for haydon is not trustworthy, and the opinion of a lady given through haydon may be dismissed on the same grounds.[ ] reynolds' testimony is not damaging in itself, and in the absence of facts to the contrary may have been wrongly construed by keats. to the charges against himself, leigh hunt has replied in the following passage, "affecting and persuasive in its unrestrained pathos of remonstrance":[ ] "an irritable morbidity appears even to have driven his suspicions to excess; and this not only with regard to the acquaintance whom he might reasonably suppose to have had some advantages over him, but to myself, who had none; for i learned the other day, with extreme pain, such as i am sure so kind and reflecting a man as mr. monckton milnes would not have inflicted on me could he have foreseen it, that keats at one period of his intercourse suspected shelley and myself of a wish to see him undervalued! such are the tricks which constant infelicity can play with the most noble natures. for shelley, let _adonais_ answer. for myself, let every word answer which i uttered about him, living and dead, and such as i now proceed to repeat. i might as well have been told that i wished to see the flowers or the stars undervalued, or my own heart that loved him."[ ] hunt's feeling towards keats is nowhere better expressed than in his _autobiography_: "i could not love him as deeply as i did shelley. that was impossible. but my affection was only second to the one which i entertained for that heart of hearts."[ ] keats's atonement is contained in the last letter that he ever wrote: "if i recover, i will do all in my power to correct the mistakes made during sickness, and if i should not, all my faults will be forgiven."[ ] haydon's influence over keats was at its height in and .[ ] his gifts and his enthusiasm, his "fresh magnificence"[ ] carried keats by storm. it was not until about july that a reaction against haydon in favor of hunt set in, brought about by money transactions between keats and haydon, and the indifference of the latter in repaying a debt when he knew keats's necessity.[ ] keats probably never ceased to feel that hunt's influence as a poet had been injurious, as indeed it was, but the relative stability of his two friends adjusted itself after this experience with haydon. affairs seem to have been smoothed over with hunt, and were not disturbed again until a short time before keats's departure for italy, when his morbid suspicions, which even led him to accuse his friend brown of flirting with fanny brawne,[ ] seem to have been renewed. in , brown, with whom keats had been living since his brother tom's death, went on a second tour to scotland. keats, unable to accompany him, took a lodging in wesleyan place, kentish town, to be near hunt, who was living in mortimer street. brown says: "it was his choice, during my absence to lodge at kentish town, that he might be near his friend, leigh hunt, in whose companionship he was ever happy."[ ] in a letter to fanny brawne, keats said hunt "amuses me very kindly."[ ] it is not likely, judging from this overture, that there had ever been an actual cessation of intercourse, notwithstanding what keats wrote in his letters; and the act points to a revival of the old feeling on his part. about the twenty-second or twenty-third of june, , keats left his rooms and moved to leigh hunt's home to be nursed.[ ] he remained about seven weeks with the family, when there occurred an unfortunate incident which resulted in his abrupt departure august , . a letter of fanny brawne's was delivered to him two days late with the seal broken. the contretemps was due to the misconduct of a servant, but it was interpreted by keats as treachery on the part of the family. at the moment he would accept no explanations or apologies. he writes of this incident to fanny brawne: "my friends have behaved well to me in every instance but one, and there they have become tattlers, and inquisitors into my conduct: spying upon a secret i would rather die than share it with anybody's confidence. for this i cannot wish them well, i care not to see any of them again. if i am the theme, i will not be the friend of idle gossips. good gods what a shame it is our loves should be put into the microscope of a coterie. their laughs should not affect you (i may perhaps give you reasons some day for these laughs, for i suspect a few people to hate me well enough, _for reasons i know of_, who have pretended a great friendship for me) when in competition with one, who if he should never see you again would make you the saint of his memory. these laughers, who do not like you, who envy you for your beauty, who would have god-bless'd me from you for ever: who were plying me with disencouragements with respect to you eternally. people are revengeful--do not mind them--do nothing but love me."[ ] in his next letter to her he says: "i shall never be able to endure any more the society of any of those who used to meet at elm cottage and wentworth place. the last two years taste like brass upon my palate."[ ] the lack of self-control and the distrust seen in these extracts show that keats was laboring under hallucinations produced by an ill mind and body; the letters from which they have been taken are unnatural, almost terrible, in their passion and rebellion against fate. keats moved to the residence of the brawnes. while he was here the trouble seems to have been smoothed over, for in a letter to hunt he says: "you will be glad to hear i am going to delay a little at mrs. brawne's. i hope to see you whenever you get time, for i feel really attached to you for your many sympathies with me, and patience at all my _lunes_.... your affectionate friend, john keats."[ ] to brown he says: "hunt has behaved very kindly to me"; and again: "the seal-breaking business is over-blown. i think no more of it."[ ] hunt's reply is couched in most affectionate terms: "giovani [sic] mio, "i shall see you this afternoon, and most probably every day. you judge rightly when you think i shall be glad at your putting up awhile where you are, instead of that solitary place. there are humanities in the house; and if wisdom loves to live with children round her knees (the tax-gatherer apart), sick wisdom, i think, should love to live with arms about it's waist. i need not say how you gratify me by the impulse that led you to write a particular sentence in your letter, for you must have seen by this time how much i am attached to yourself. "i am indicating at as dull a rate as a battered finger-post in wet weather. not that i am ill: for i am very well altogether. your affectionate friend, leigh hunt."[ ] this was probably the last letter written by him to keats. in september keats went to rome with severn to escape the hardships of the winter climate, after having declined an invitation from shelley to visit him at pisa. in the same month, hunt published an affectionate farewell to him in _the indicator_. an announcement of his death appeared in _the examiner_ of march , . the story of the personal relations of the two men could not be better closed than with the words of hunt written march , , to severn in rome when he believed keats still alive: "if he can bear to hear of us, pray tell him; but he knows it already, and can put it into better language than any man. i hear that he does not like to be told that he may get better; nor is it to be wondered at, considering his firm persuasion that he shall not survive. he can only regard it as a puerile thing, and an insinuation that he shall die. but if his persuasion should happen to be no longer so strong, or if he can now put up with attempts to console him, tell him of what i have said a thousand times, and what i still (upon my honour) think always, that i have seen too many instances of recovery from apparently desperate cases of consumption not to be in hope to the very last. if he still cannot bear to hear this, tell him--tell that great poet and noblehearted man--that we shall all bear his memory in the most precious part of our hearts, and that the world shall bow their heads to it, as our loves do. or if this, again, will trouble his spirit, tell him that we shall never cease to remember and love him; and that, christian or infidel, the most sceptical of us has faith enough in the high things that nature puts into our heads, to think all who are of one accord in mind and heart are journeying to one and the same place, and shall unite somewhere or other again, face to face, mutually conscious, mutually delighted."[ ] the literary relations of keats and hunt will be considered under two heads; first, the criticism of keats's writings by hunt; and second, his direct influence upon them. _on first looking into chapman's homer_ in _the examiner_ of december st, , was embodied in an article entitled "young poets." it was the first notice of keats to appear in print and is in part as follows: "the last of these young aspirants whom we have met with, and who promise to help the new school to revive nature and 'to put a spirit of youth in everything,'-- is we believe, the youngest of them all, and just of age. his name is john keats. he has not yet published anything except in a newspaper, but a set of his manuscripts was handed us the other day, and fairly surprised us with the truth of their ambition, and ardent grappling with nature." in _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, the last line of the same sonnet-- "silent upon a peak in darien"-- is called "a basis of gigantic tranquillity."[ ] leigh hunt's review of the _poems_ of [ ] was kind and discriminating. he writes characteristically of the first poem, _i stood tiptoe_, that it "consists of a piece of luxury in a rural spot"; of the epistles and sonnets, that they "contain strong evidences of warm and social feelings." this comment is quite characteristic of hunt. he was as fond of finding "warm and social feelings" in the poetry of others as of putting them into his own. in his anxiety he sometimes found them when they did not exist. he continues: "the best poem is certainly the last and the longest, entitled _sleep and poetry_. it originated in sleeping in a room adorned with busts and pictures [hunt's library], and is a striking specimen of the restlessness of the young poetical appetite, obtaining its food by the very desire of it, and glancing for fit subjects of creation 'from earth to heaven.' nor do we like it the less for an impatient, and as it may be thought by some irreverend [sic] assault upon the late french school of criticism[ ] and monotony." but hunt did not allow his affection for keats or his approval of keats's poetical doctrine to blunt his critical acumen. in summarizing he says: "the very faults of mr. keats arise from a passion for beauties, and a young impatience to vindicate them; and as we have mentioned these, we shall refer to them at once. they may be comprised in two;--first, a tendency to notice everything too indiscriminately, and without an eye to natural proportion and effect; and second, a sense of the proper variety of versification without a due consideration of its principles." in conclusion, the beauties "outnumber the faults a hundred fold" and "they are of a nature decidedly opposed to what is false and inharmonious. their characteristics indeed are a fine ear, a fancy and imagination at will, and an intense feeling of external beauty in its most natural and least inexpressible simplicity." hunt was disappointed with _endymion_ and did not hesitate to say so. keats writes to his brothers: "leigh hunt i showed my st book to--he allows it not much merit as a whole; says it is unnatural and made ten objections to it in the mere skimming over. he says the conversation is unnatural and too high-flown for brother and sister--says it should be simple, forgetting do ye mind that they are both overshadowed by a supernatural power, and of force could not speak like francesca in the _rimini_. he must first prove that caliban's poetry is unnatural. this with me completely overturns his objections. the fact is he and shelley are hurt, and perhaps justly, at my not having showed them the affair officiously (sic); and from several hints i have had they appear much disposed to dissect and anatomize any trip or slip i may have made.--but who's afraid? aye! tom! demme if i am."[ ] leigh hunt expressed himself thus in : "_endymion_, it must be allowed was not a little calculated to perplex the critics. it was a wilderness of sweets, but it was truly a wilderness; a domain of young, luxuriant, uncompromising poetry."[ ] _la belle dame sans merci_, which appeared first in _the indicator_,[ ] was accompanied with an introduction by hunt, who says that it was suggested by alain chartier's poem of the same title and "that the union of the imagination and the real is very striking throughout, particularly in the dream. the wild gentleness of the rest of the thoughts and of the music are alike old, and they are alike young." _the indicator_ of august and , , contained a review of the volume of . the part dealing with philosophy in poetry is of more than passing interest: "we wish that for the purpose of his story he had not appeared to give in to the commonplace of supposing that apollonius's sophistry must always prevail, and that modern experiment has done a deadly thing to poetry by discovering the nature of the rainbow, the air, etc.; that is to say, that the knowledge of natural science and physics, by showing us the nature of things, does away the imaginations that once adorned them. this is a condescension to a learned vulgarism, which so excellent a poet as mr. keats ought not to have made. the world will always have fine poetry, so long as it has events, passions, affections, and a philosophy that sees deeper than this philosophy. there will be a poetry of the heart, as long as there are tears and smiles: there will be a poetry of the imagination, as long as the first causes of things remain a mystery. a man who is no poet, may think he is none, as soon as he finds out the first causes of the rainbow; but he need not alarm himself:--he was none before."[ ] much the same line of discussion is reported of the conversation at haydon's "immortal dinner," december , , when keats and lamb denounced sir isaac newton and his demolition of the things of the imagination, keats saying he "destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to a prism."[ ] the pictorial features of the _eve of st. agnes_ were particularly admired by hunt, as one might be led to expect from the decorative detail of his own narrative poetry. the portrait of "agnes" (_sic_ for madeline) is said to be "remarkable for its union of extreme richness and good taste" and "affords a striking specimen of the sudden and strong maturity of the author's genius. when he wrote _endymion_ he could not have resisted doing too much. to the description before me, it would be a great injury either to add or to diminish. it falls at once gorgeously and delicately upon us, like the colours of the painted glass." of the description of the casement window, hunt asks "could all the pomp and graces of aristocracy with titian's and raphael's aid to boot, go beyond the rich religion of this picture, with its 'twilight saints' and its 'scutcheons blushing with the blood of queens'?" elsewhere he says that "persian kings would have filled a poet's mouth with gold" for such poetry. hunt calls _hyperion_[ ] "a fragment, a gigantic one, like a ruin in the desert, or the bones of the mastodon. it is truly of a piece with its subject, which is the downfall of the elder gods." later, in _imagination and fancy_, hunt declared that keats's greatest poetry is to be found in _hyperion_. his opinion of the whole is thus summed up: "mr. keats's versification sometimes reminds us of milton in his blank verse, and sometimes of chapman both in his blank verse and in his rhyme; but his faculties, essentially speaking, though partaking of the unearthly aspirations and abstract yearnings of both these poets, are altogether his own. they are ambitious, but less directly so. they are more _social_, and in the finer sense of the word, sensual, than either. they are more coloured by the modern philosophy of sympathy and natural justice. _endymion_, with all its extraordinary powers, partook of the faults of youth, though the best ones; but the reader of _hyperion_ and these other stories would never guess that they were written at twenty.[ ] the author's versification is now perfected, the exuberances of his imagination restrained, and a calm power, the surest and loftiest of all power, takes place of the impatient workings of the younger god within him. the character of his genius is that of energy and voluptuousness, each able at will to take leave of the other, and possessing in their union, a high feeling of humanity not common to the best authors who can combine them. mr. keats undoubtedly takes his seat with the oldest and best of our living poets."[ ] the more important division of the literary relations of the two men is the direct influence of hunt's work upon that of keats. on keats's prose style hunt's influence was very slight and can be quickly dismissed. at one time keats, affected perhaps by hunt's example, thought of becoming a theatrical critic. he did actually contribute four articles to _the champion_. keats's favorite of hunt's essays, _a now_, contains several passages composed by keats. mr. forman considers that "the greater part of the paper is so much in the taste and humor of keats" that he is justified in including it in his edition of keats. he has also called attention to a passage in keats's letter to haydon of april , , which bears a striking likeness to hunt's occasional essay style: "the hedges by this time are beginning to leaf--cats are becoming more vociferous--young ladies who wear watches are always looking at them. women about forty-five think the season very backward." the _poems_ of show hunt's influences in spirit, diction and versification. there are epistles and sonnets in the manner of hunt. _i stood tiptoe upon a little hill_ opens the volume with a motto from the _story of rimini_. the _specimen of an induction_ and _calidore_ so nearly approach hunt's work in manner, that they might easily be mistaken for it. _sleep and poetry_ attacks french models as hunt had previously done. the colloquial style of certain passages is significant of hunt's influence upon the poems. a few examples are: "to peer about upon variety."[ ] "or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves."[ ] "the ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses."[ ] "... you just now are stooping to pick up the keepsake intended for me."[ ] "of this fair world, and all its gentle livers."[ ] "the evening weather was so bright, and clear, that men of health were of unusual cheer."[ ] "linger awhile upon some bending planks that lean against a streamlet's rushy banks, and watch intently nature's gentle doings: they will be found softer than the ring-dove's cooings."[ ] "the lamps that from the high roof'd wall were pendant and gave the steel a shining quite transcendent."[ ] "or on the wavy grass outstretch'd supinely, pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely."[ ] the following are infelicitous passages reflecting leigh hunt's bad taste, especially in the description of physical appearance, or of situations involving emotion: "... what amorous and fondling nips they gave each other's cheeks."[ ] "... some lady sweet who cannot feel for cold her tender feet."[ ] "rein in the swelling of his ample might."[ ] "nor will a bee buzz round two swelling peaches."[ ] "... what a kiss, what gentle squeeze he gave each lady's hand! how tremblingly their delicate ankles spann'd! into how sweet a trance his soul was gone, while whisperings of affection made him delay to let their tender feet come to the earth; with an incline so sweet from their low palfreys o'er his neck they bent: and whether there were tears of languishment, or that the evening dew had pearl'd their tresses, he felt a moisture on his cheek and blesses with lips that tremble, and with glistening eye, all the soft luxury that nestled in his arms."[ ] "... add too, the sweetness of thy honey'd voice; the neatness of thine ankle, lightly turned: with those beauties, scarce discern'd kept with such sweet privacy, that they seldom meet the eye of the little loves that fly round about with eager pry."[ ] descriptive passages in the huntian style are not infrequent: the opening lines from the _imitation of spenser_[ ] are much nearer to hunt than to spenser. "now morning from her orient chamber came, and her first footsteps touched a verdant hill, crowning its lawny crest with amber flame, silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill; which, pure from mossy beds, did down distil and after parting beds of simple flowers, by many streams a little lake did fill, which round its marge reflected woven bowers, and in its middle space, a sky that never lowers."[ ] these lines of _calidore_ show a like resemblance: "he bares his forehead to the cool blue sky, and smiles at the far clearness all around, until his heart is well nigh over wound, and turns for calmness to the pleasant green of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean so elegantly o'er the waters' brim and show their blossoms trim."[ ] a third is: "across the lawny fields, and pebbly water." single phrases showing the influence of hunt[ ] are: "airy feel," "patting the flowing hair," "a man of elegance," "sweet-lipped ladies," "grateful the incense," "modest pride," "a sun-beamy tale of a wreath," "soft humanity," "leafy luxury," "pillowy silkiness," "swelling apples," "the very pleasant rout," "forms of elegance." the following passages apparently bear as close a resemblance to each other as it is possible to find by the comparison of individual passages from the works of the two men: "the sidelong view of swelling leafiness which the glad setting sun in gold doth dress"[ ] compare with: "and every hill, in passing one by one gleamed out with twinkles of the golden sun: for leafy was the road, with tall array."[ ] the _epistles_ are strikingly like hunt's epistles in spirit, diction and metre. mr. colvin has pointed out that the one addressed _to george felton mathew_ was written in november, , before keats had met hunt and before the publication of the latter's epistles;[ ] but keats may have known them at the time in manuscript through clarke. the resemblances may also have been due, in part, as in other points of comparison, to an innate similarity of thought and feeling. that hunt's habit of sonneteering and his preference for the petrarcan form influenced keats, is attested by the similarity of the latter's sonnets to hunt's in form, subjects, and allusions, and by the direct references[ ] to hunt. _on the grasshopper and the cricket_[ ] and _to the nile_[ ] were written in contest with hunt. _to spenser_ is a refusal to comply with hunt's request that he should write a sonnet on spenser.[ ] the title of _on leigh hunt's poem, the story of rimini_[ ] speaks for itself.[ ] to put it briefly, the _poems_ of show hunt's influence in more ways than any equal number of the young poet's later verses. it is seen in keats's subject matter[ ] and allusions; in his adoption of a colloquial style and diction; in his absorption of hunt's spirit in the treatment of nature and in his attitude toward women; and in his imitation and exaggerated use of the free heroic couplet in _sleep and poetry_, _i stood tiptoe_, _specimen of an induction_ and other poems. of the poem _lines on seeing a lock of milton's hair_, written in january, , keats wrote in a letter to bailey: "i was at hunt's the other day, and he surprised me with a real authenticated lock of _milton's hair_. i know you would like what i wrote thereon, so here it is--as they say of a sheep in a nursery book.... this i did at hunt's, at his request--perhaps i should have done something better alone and at home."[ ] leigh hunt's three sonnets on the same subject, published in _foliage_, have been already spoken of in the preceding chapter. _endymion_ shows a decided decrease in the ascendancy of hunt's mind over keats, for the sway of his intellectual supremacy had been shaken before suspicions arose in keats's mind as to the disinterestedness of his motives. what influence lingers is seen in the general theory of versification and in the diction, with some trace in matters of taste. a marvellous luxury of imagery, glimpses into the heights and depths of nature, an absorbing love of greek fable, a deeper infusion of the ideal have superseded what mr. colvin has called the "sentimental chirp" of hunt.[ ] specific passages in _endymion_ reminiscent of hunt are rare, but book iii, ll. - recalls the general descriptive style in the _descent of liberty_ and summarizes in a few lines pages of hunt's diffuse, spectacular imagery. once or twice keats seems to have fallen into the colloquial manner in dialogue: "but a poor naiad, i guess not. farewell! i have a ditty for my hollow cell."[ ] again: "i own this may sound strangely: but when, dearest girl, thou seest it for my happiness, no pearl will trespass down those cheeks. companion fair! wilt be content to dwell with her, to share this sister's love with me? like one resign'd and bent by circumstance, and thereby blind in self-commitment, thus that meek unknown: 'aye, but a buzzing by my ears has flown, of jubilee to dian:--truth i heard? well then, i see there is no little bird.'"[ ] occasionally there are passages in the bad taste of hunt, as this example: "enchantress! tell me by this soft embrace, by the most soft completion of thy face, those lips, o slippery blisses, twinkling eyes, and by these tenderest, milky sovereignties-- these tenderest, and by the nectar wine, the passion--"[ ] likewise: "o that i were rippling round her dainty fairness now, circling about her waist, and striving how to entice her to a dive! then stealing in between her luscious lips and eyelids thin."[ ] in july, , appeared the volume _lamia, isabella, the eve of st. agnes and other poems_. the lingering influence of hunt is seen in a fondness for the short poetic tale, in the direct and simple narrative style, and in the return in _lamia_ to the use of the heroic couplet; but that, along with the other poems of the volume, is free from the huntian eccentricities of manner and diction found in keats's earlier works. he had come into his own. in treatment, _lamia_ is almost faultless in technique and in matters of taste; although mr. colvin has pointed out as an exception the first fifteen lines of the second book, which he says have leigh hunt's "affected ease and fireside triviality."[ ] one of the few occurrences of hunt's manner is seen in the _eve of st. agnes_. "paining with eloquence her balmy side."[ ] the famous passage in the _eve of st. agnes_ describing all manner of luscious edibles is very suggestive of one in hunt's _bacchus and ariadne_ which enumerates articles of the same kind.[ ] it is in this latter poem and in the _story of rimini_ that hunt's power of description most nearly approximates to that of keats. in , in the _gentle armour_, hunt is the imitator of keats, as mr. colvin has already pointed out.[ ] the peculiarities of keats's diction are, in the main, two-fold, and may each be traced to a direct influence: first, archaisms in the manner of spenser[ ] and chatterton; second, colloquialisms and deliberate departures from established usage in the employment and formation of words, in imitation of leigh hunt. keats's theory so far as he had one, is set forth in a passage in one of his letters: "i shall never become attached to a foreign idiom, so as to put it into my writings. the paradise lost, though so fine in itself, is a corruption of our language. it should be kept as it is, unique, a curiosity, a beautiful and grand curosity, the most remarkable production of the world; a northern dialect accommodating itself to greek and latin inversions and intonations. the purest english, i think--or what ought to be the purest--is chatterton's."[ ] keats's _poems_ of show hunt's influence in diction more strongly than any of his later works. in the majority of instances, this influence is reflected in the principles of usage rather than in the actual usages, although words and phrases used by hunt are occasionally found in the writings of keats. the tendency to a colloquial vocabulary is seen in such words and combinations as jaunty, right glad, balmy pain, leafy luxury,[ ] delicious,[ ] tasteful, gentle doings, gentle livers, soft floatings, frisky leaps, lawny mantle, patting, busy spirits. among these words, leafy, balmy, lawny, patting, nest, tiptoe, and variations of "taste" were special favorites with hunt. a few expressions only of this kind, as "nest," "honey feel," "infant's gums," are found in _endymion_, and almost none at all in the later poems. keats used peculiar words with so much greater felicity and in so much greater profusion than hunt, exceeding in richness and individuality of vocabulary most of the poets of his own time, that one is forced to believe that spenser's influence rather than hunt's was dominant here. breaches of taste are confined almost entirely to the _poems_ of . ordinary words used peculiarly include "nips" (they gave each other's cheeks), "core" (for heart) and "luxury"[ ] (with a wrong connotation), nouns and adjectives employed as verbs, and verbs as nouns and adjectives. these devices likewise cannot be credited to hunt without reservation, since both spenser and milton used them; but there is little doubt that in this instance hunt was an inciting and sustaining influence. keats resorted to such artifices frequently and continued to do so to the end. instances of nouns and adjectives employed as verbs are: pennanc'd, luting, passion'd, neighbour'd, syllabling, companion'd, labrynth, anguish'd, poesied, vineyard'd, woof'd, loaned, medicin'd, zon'd, mesh, pleasure, legion'd, companion, green'd, gordian'd, character'd, finn'd, forest'd, tusk'd, monitor. verbs employed as nouns and adjectives are: shine, which occurs five times, feel, seeing, hush, pry and amaze. more examples of coined compounds, nouns and adjectives, are to be found in keats than in hunt; in his better work as well as in his early productions. a few are: cirque-couchant, milder-mooned, tress-lifting, flitter-winged, silk-pillowed, death-neighing, break-covert, palsy-twitching, high-sorrowful, sea-foamy, amber-fretted, sweet-lipped, lush-leaved. the last principle is the coining, or choice of, adjectives in _y_ and _ing_; of adverbs in _ly_, when, in many instances, adjectives and adverbs already existed formed on the same stem. the frequent use of words with these weak endings gives a very diffuse effect at times in keats's early poems. the following are examples: fenny, fledgy, rushy, lawny, liny, nervy, pipy, paly, palmy, towery, sluicy, surgy, scummy, mealy, sparry, heathy, rooty, slumbery, bowery, bloomy, boundly, palmy, surgy, spermy, ripply, spangly, spherey, orby, oozy, skeyey, clayey, and plashy.[ ] adjectives in _ing_ are: cheering, hushing, breeding, combing, dumpling, sphering, tenting, toying, baaing, far-spooming, peering (hand), searing (hand), shelving, serpenting. adverbs are: scantly, elegantly, refreshingly, freshening (lave), hoveringly, greyly, cooingly, silverly, refreshfully, whitely, drowningly, wingedly, sighingly, windingly, bearingly. these statements are not very conclusive proof of the frequent occurrences of the same words in the poems of the two men. they are questionable even in regard to the principles of usage themselves, since poets of the same period or young poets may possess the same tendencies. yet in the light of their relations already discussed the similarity of a number of principles seems convincing proof that hunt influenced keats considerably in the _principles_ of diction in his first volume and occasionally in the selection of individual words; and that keats never entirely freed himself from some of hunt's peculiarities. shelley, in writing of _hyperion_ to mrs. hunt, spoke of the "bad sort of style which is becoming fashionable among those who fancy that they are imitating hunt and wordsworth."[ ] medwin reported shelley as saying "we are certainly indebted to the lakists for a more simple and natural phraseology; but the school that has sprung out of it, have spawned a set of words neither chaucerian nor spencerian (_sic_), words such as 'gib,' and 'flush,' 'whiffling,' 'perking up,' 'swirling,' 'lightsome and brightsome' and hundreds of others."[ ] keats, following the lead of hunt, used the free heroic couplet in several of the poems with a license even greater than hunt's. in _endymion_ he indulged in further vagaries of rhythm and metre that hunt never dreamed of and in fact greatly disapproved of. hunt said that "_endymion_ had no versification."[ ] in its want of couplet and line units, this is not very far from the truth. writing of it again in , he says: "the great fault of _endymion_ next to its unpruned luxuriance, (or before it, rather, for it was not a fault on the right side,) was the wilfulness of its rhymes. the author had a just contempt for the monotonous termination of everyday couplets; he broke up his lines in order to distribute the rhyme properly; but going only upon the ground of his contempt, and not having settled with himself any principles of versification, the very exuberance of his ideas led him to make use of the first rhymes that offered; so that, by a new meeting of effects, the extreme was artificial, and much more obtrusive than the one under the old system. dryden modestly thought, that a rhyme had often helped him to a thought. mr. keats in the tyranny of his wealth, forced his rhymes to help him, whether they would or not; and they obeyed him, in the most singular manner, with equal promptitude and ungainliness."[ ] _endymion_ has been thought by some critics, to have been written under the metrical influence of chamberlayne's _pharronida_. in the number of run-on lines and couplets--a scheme nearer blank verse than the couplet--there is certainly a striking correspondence. mr. forman thinks that keats knew the poem. mr. colvin and mr. de selincourt can see no real likeness. there is no proof as yet discovered that keats ever heard of it. in _lamia_, after the extreme reaction in _endymion_, keats approached nearer to the classic form of the couplet used by dryden, but still with greater freedom in structure than appears in either dryden or hunt. from the evidence of brown it is probable that keats imitated dryden directly and not through the medium of hunt's work, but it is very likely that hunt directed him there in the first instance for a model. mr. palgrave says of the metre of _lamia_ that keats "admirably found and sustained the balance between a blank verse treatment of the 'heroic' and the epigrammatic form carried to such perfection by pope."[ ] leigh hunt said that "the lines seem to take pleasure in the progress of their own beauty like sea nymphs luxuriating through the water."[ ] in conclusion, keats's early and late employment of the couplet was marked always by greater freedom in the use of run-on couplets and lines, and in the handling of the cæsura than dryden's or hunt's; he was at first slower than hunt to employ the triplet and the alexandrine, but he later adopted them in a larger measure; and he introduced the run-on paragraph and the hemistich independently of hunt. chapter iii shelley finnerty case--correspondence of hunt and shelley--their political and religious sympathy--hunt's defense of shelley--hunt's italian journey--shelley's death--hunt's criticism--literary influence--shelley's estimate of hunt. the friendship of shelley and leigh hunt is the simple story of an intimacy founded on a common endowment of independence of thought and of capacity for self-sacrifice. although both were sensitive and shrinking by nature, and preferred to dwell in an isolated world of books and dreams, yet for the sake of abstract principles and for love of humanity, both expended much time and endured much pain in the arena of public strife. in _the examiners_ of february and , , appeared articles by hunt on the finnerty case. peter finnerty, hunt's successor as editor of _the statesman_, had been prosecuted and imprisoned on the charge of libelling lord castlereagh. hunt's defense drew shelley's attention to the case and may have inspired him, it has been suggested, to write his _political essay on the existing state of things_. the proceeds went to finnerty.[ ] on march shelley subscribed to the finnerty fund and, on the same day, wrote hunt, whom he had never met, a letter from oxford, congratulating him on his acquittal from a third charge of libel and proposing that an association should be formed to establish "rational liberty," to resist the enemies of justice, and to protect each other.[ ] shelley's political creed was, in the main, that of william godwin, with an admixture of holbach, volney and rousseau at first hand.[ ] in english philosophic literature he knew berkeley, hume, reid and locke. his watchword was the cry of the french revolution, liberty, equality and fraternity, to be gained, not by violence and bloodshed, but by a steady and unyielding resistance of the masses against the corrupt institutions of church and state. like godwin, he believed man capable of his own redemption and, with tradition and tyranny overthrown and reason and nature enthroned, he hoped for universal justice and ultimate perfectibility of mankind. his poetry and his prose represent a development from the impassioned and imaginative enthusiasm of an uncompromising youth, who would single-handed revolutionize the world in the twinkling of an eye, to the saner hope of a man who took somewhat into account the necessarily gradual nature of ethical evolution. his chief fallacy lay in the failure to recognize evil as an inherent force in human nature and to acknowledge sect and state, to which he attributed the origin of all error, as inventions of man's ingenuity. neither did he perceive the necessity of certain restrictions on the individual for the preservation of law and order. he believed in no distinctions of rank except those based on individual talent and virtue. he wrote in : "i am no aristocrat, nor '_crat_' at all, but vehemently long for the time when men may dare to live in accordance with nature and reason--in consequence with virtue, to which i firmly believe that religion and its establishments, polity and its establishments, are the formidable though destructible barriers."[ ] shelley knew of leigh hunt first as a political writer of considerable importance. in this respect he never ceased to admire him or to be influenced by _the examiner_ in the campaign against government corruption. yet his own equipment of mind and training, visionary as his theories seem, gave him a power of speculation and grasp of situation that ignored the limitations of time and space, while hunt, with his narrower view, never got beyond the petty and immediate details of one nation or of one age. the social improvements which shelley advocated were catholic emancipation, brought about later, as has been pointed out by symonds, by the very means which shelley foresaw and prophesied; reform of parliamentary representation[ ] similar to that carried into effect in , and ; freedom of the press[ ] and repeal of the union of great britain and ireland; the abolition of capital punishment and of war.[ ] during the fourteen years of hunt's editorship, among the reforms for which he fought in _the examiner_ were the first three of these measures. he denounced capital punishment and war in the same paper and later in his poem _captain sword and captain pen_.[ ] shelley's moral code was based on an idealized sense of justice, and was a kind of "natural piety."[ ] with one marked exception, he seems to have been true to the pursuit of it, both in his standards of conduct and in his relations with others. his life was a model of generosity, purity of thought, and unselfish devotion. hunt reported shelley as having said: "what a divine religion might be found out, if charity were really the principle of it, instead of faith."[ ] he was atheist only in the sense of discarding the dogmas of theology and of superstition, and in his spirit of scientific inquiry. he did not deny the existence in nature of an all-pervading spirit. hunt thought the popular misconception of shelley's opinions was due to his misapplication of the names of the deity and to his identification of them with vulgar superstitions. of shelley's attitude he wrote: "his want of faith in the letter, and his exceeding faith in the spirit of christianity, formed a comment, the one on the other, very formidable to those who chose to forget what scripture itself observes on that point."[ ] whether or not shelley believed in immortality is still a vexed question and is likely to remain so, since he had not reached convictions sufficiently stable to permit a formal statement on his part. many of the passages in _adonais_ would lead one to believe that he did; certainly he did, like hunt, cling to the idea of the persistence, in some form or other, of the good and the beautiful. the close conformity of their views is seen in the latter's two sonnets in _foliage_[ ] addressed to shelley, where the poet condemns the degrading notions so prevalent concerning the deity and celebrates the spirit of beauty and goodness in all things. but, in religion as in politics, shelley was bolder and more speculative than hunt. the fine of £ , and imprisonment of the hunt brothers in drew from shelley a vehement protest. in a letter to hogg[ ] he lamented the inadequacy of lord brougham's defense and fairly boiled with indignation at "the horrible injustice and tyranny of the sentence" and pronounced hunt "a brave, a good, and an enlightened man." he started a subscription with twenty pounds, and later he must have offered to pay the entire fine, for hunt recorded in his _autobiography_ that shelley had made him "a princely offer,"[ ] which he declined, as he did not need it. the offer was actuated solely by a hatred of oppression, for the two men had little or no personal knowledge of each other at the time. it is impossible to decide the exact date of their first meeting. hunt says that it took place before the indictment for libel on the prince regent.[ ] this evidence would make it fall sometime between march, , the date of shelley's letter mentioned above, and february, , the beginning of the incarceration. but a letter from shelley to hunt dated december , , demanding if he had made the statement that milton had died an atheist, from its very formal tone, leads one to believe that they had not met up to that time and that hunt, writing from memory many years afterwards, made a mistake. thornton hunt gives as the immediate cause of the two men coming together, shelley's application to mr. rowland hunter, the publisher and stepfather of mrs. hunt, for advice regarding the publication of a poem. he referred shelley to leigh hunt. the next meeting was in surrey street gaol. thornton hunt, in a delightful reminiscence of shelley,[ ] says that he had no recollection of him among his father's visitors in prison, but he remembered perfectly the latter's description of his "angelic" appearance, his classic thoughts, and his dreams for the emancipation of mankind. the real intimacy began after shelley's return from the continent in when shelley, in search of a house before he settled at marlow, was the guest of hunt at hampstead during a part of december.[ ] a close companionship followed uninterruptedly for two years until shelley went to italy, and there are recorded in the letters and journals of each many pleasant evenings at hampstead and at marlow, filled with poetry and music, with talks on art and trials of wit, with dinners and theater parties. mary shelley and mrs. hunt became as great friends as their husbands. when harriet committed suicide and shelley went up to london to institute proceedings for possession of their children, hunt remained constantly with him and gave him as much sympathy and support as it is possible for one fellow-being to extend to another whom all the world has deserted.[ ] he attended the chancery suit and stated shelley's position in _the examiner_.[ ] this sympathy and support, given shelley in his hour of greatest need and desolation, have never been sufficiently valued in a comparative estimate of the relative indebtedness of the two men. if shelley gave freely of his money, hunt, devoid of worldly goods, gave unstintingly, to the detriment of his reputation, of those things which money cannot purchase. that he incurred the displeasure of men in power, and ran the risk of being misunderstood by the public in befriending shelley, did not deter him for an instant. during shelley made the acquaintance, through hunt, of the cockney circle, including keats, reynolds, hazlitt, brougham, novello and horace smith. the last-named became one of shelley's most trusted friends.[ ] these new friends enlarged his list of acquaintances considerably, for up to this time he seems to have had no friends except godwin, hogg and peacock. in the early spring of , the shelleys went to italy, melancholy with the thought of separation from the hunts.[ ] the letters from shelley to hunt during the next four years form an important part of shelley's correspondence. the part played by shelley in the invitation extended to hunt to join lord byron and himself in italy and to become one of the editors of a periodical will be treated minutely in the next chapter. it is sufficient here to say that he was actuated by a desire to better hunt's finances and to enjoy his society--a pleasure he had been pining for ever since they had been separated, and, in case of a return to england, regarded as the one joy "among all the other sources of regret and discomfort with which england abounds for me.... shaking hands with you is worth all the trouble; the rest is clear loss."[ ] further, he knew that hunt longed for italy, and he wished to help byron in the cause of liberalism. to bring both ends about, he shouldered a burden that he was ill able to bear. an annuity of £ for the support of his two children, an annuity of £ to peacock, perpetual demand for large sums from godwin, occasional assistance rendered the gisbornes, partial support of jane claremont, loans to byron, and the support of his family, were the drains already upon him--met, in the main by money raised on _post obits_ at half value. the amount of hunt's indebtedness to shelley can be estimated only approximately. the first reference to a financial transaction between them after the "princely offer"[ ] is to be found in mary shelley's letter of december , , in which she wondered that hunt had not acknowledged the "receipt of so large a sum." professor dowden thinks this may be an allusion to shelley's response to an appeal for the poor of spitalfields which had appeared in _the examiner_ five days previously.[ ] shelley's offers to hunt to borrow £ from byron[ ] and to stand security for a loan from charles cowden clarke,[ ] and an attempt to borrow from samuel rogers[ ] are not developed by any further facts, but it is necessary to take note of them in a general estimate. before leaving england, shelley arranged with ollier for a loan of £ for hunt, a debt which was later liquidated by the sale of the _literary pocket book_.[ ] at some time before leaving england, shelley also gave hunt in one year £ , [ ] for the liquidation of his debts, which money was, medwin says, borrowed from horace smith.[ ] unfortunately for shelley, the sum was insufficient to extricate hunt from his difficulties. miss mitford gives the amount as £ , , instead of £ , , and adds that shelley's furniture and bedding were swept off to pay hunt's creditors;[ ] the inaccuracy of the first statement and the lack of any evidence to support the second, lead one to doubt the story. but it is true that shelley's income at the time was only £ , . even when so far away as italy, hunt's money troubles weighed heavily upon shelley in a continual regret that he could not set him entirely free from his creditors;[ ] he feared that the incredible exertions hunt was making on _the indicator_ and on _the examiner_, and the privations that he endured, would undermine his health.[ ] when hunt finally decided to go to italy, shelley assumed, as a matter of course, the chief responsibility of providing the means. as early as , when shelley and byron met in venice, the matter of the journal was discussed between them and broached to hunt. december , , shelley wrote him that byron wished him to come to italy and that, if money considerations prevented, byron would lend him £ or £ . he added that hunt should not feel uncomfortable in accepting the offer, as it was frankly made, and that his society would give byron pleasure and service.[ ] hunt does not seem to have seriously considered the proposition, for there are few references to it in his correspondence of this year. on the renewal of the plan in , shelley would never have called on byron for assistance for hunt if he himself could have provided otherwise, for his opinion of byron had changed in the meantime.[ ] january , , shelley sent £ for the expenses of the voyage, "within or pounds of what i have contrived to scrape together";[ ] and again on february , £ ,[ ] borrowed with security from byron. yet shelley's own exchequer at the time was so low that mary shelley wrote in the spring: "we are drearily behindhand with money at present. hunt and our furniture has swallowed up more than our savings."[ ] on april shelley stated that he was trying to finish _charles the first_ in order that he might earn £ for hunt. in round numbers it may be calculated that the sum total of hunt's indebtedness, exclusive of the yearly bequest of £ paid by shelley's son, was about £ , , a very large sum in the light of shelley's limited resources and other obligations. but it was as ungrudgingly given as it was graciously received. between the two men there was no distinction of _meum_ and _tuum_. more remarkable still, mary shelley gave as willingly as her husband. if one is inclined to marvel at such an unusual state of affairs, it must be recalled that both men were under the spell of william godwin's theories of community of property. shelley gave as his duty and hunt received as his due. that the effort involved much deprivation and distress of mind on the part of the giver mars the justice of acceptance by the recipient, retrieved only in part by the belief that hunt probably did not know the full extent of shelley's sacrifice, and the knowledge that the former would gladly have endured as much if the conditions had been reversed. the element of self-sacrifice and delicacy on the part of shelley in concealing it, in after years only added to the beauty of the gift in hunt's eyes, and even at the time he cannot be accused of indifference.[ ] jeaffreson makes the absurd suggestion that shelley gave the money as a bribe to the editor of a powerful and flourishing literary journal.[ ] he thinks dodging creditors was a strong bond of mutual interest between the two men. there is evidence that hunt was in difficulty at the time and that shelley left a surgeon's bill unpaid,[ ] but there is no proof extant of deliberate mutual protection. on the contrary, it is most unlikely. the hunts sailed from england in november, , and reached leghorn nearly nine months after first setting out on a voyage which, in its delays and dangers, byron compared to the "periplus of hanno the carthaginian, and with much the same speed";[ ] peacock to that of ulysses.[ ] of shelley's suggestion to make the trip by sea, hunt wrote: "if he had recommended a balloon, i should have been inclined to try it."[ ] hogg, with his characteristic humour, remarked that a journey by land would have taken equally long, since hunt would have stopped to gather all the daisies by the wayside from paris to pisa. both men looked forward to many years together[ ] and shelley, in his letter of welcome, wrote that wind and waves parted them no more,[ ] an assertion which now sounds like a knell of doom. from leghorn shelley conveyed the party to pisa and installed them in the lower floor of byron's dwelling, the lanfranchi palace.[ ] to shelley fell the difficult task of keeping lord byron in heart for the new undertaking and of reviving hunt's drooping spirits. hunt's funds were all gone and in their place was a debt of sixty crowns. the next few days were full of grave anxiety and foreboding for the future, broken only by a delightful sunday spent in seeing the cathedral and the tower. of this day hunt wrote: "good god! what a day was that, compared with all that have followed it! i had my friend with me, arm-in-arm, after a separation of years: he was looking better than i had ever seen him--we talked of a thousand things--we anticipated a thousand pleasures."[ ] then came the fatal monday with its shipwreck of many hopes--in its tragic sequel too well known to need repetition here. hunt's last services to his friend were his assistance rendered at the cremation and his contribution of the now famous latin epitaph "_cor cordium_."[ ] with shelley perished hunt's chief hope in life; in the opinion of his son, he was never the same man again. in , at his period of darkest depression, he wrote: "if you ask me how it is that i bear all this, i answer, that i love nature and books, and think well of the capabilities of human kind. i have known shelley, i have known my mother."[ ] in he claimed as his proudest title, the "friend of shelley."[ ] the first printed notice of shelley was in _the examiner_ of december , . therefore to hunt belongs in this case, as in that of keats, the credit of discovery. it is difficult to account for hunt's tardiness of recognition,[ ] coming as it did six years after shelley first wrote him, five years after the finnerty poem, three years after _queen mab_, and two years after the visit in prison.[ ] also shelley had sent contributions to _the examiner_, which hunt had not accepted, but which he vaguely recalled at the time of writing his first review on shelley. it was inspired by the announcement of _alastor_, and consisted of about ten lines, embodied in the article on keats and reynolds already referred to. hunt pronounced shelley "a very striking and original thinker." shelley's reply to a letter from hunt, telling him of the notice, pictures him anxiously scouring the countryside about bath for the sight of a copy and buoyed up at last by the news of one five miles distant. this notice was followed by the publication of the _hymn to intellectual beauty_ in _the examiner_ of january , ; a notice of the chancery suit, january and february ; and an extract from _laon and cythna_, november . a review of the _revolt of islam_ ran through three numbers, january , february and , . shelley's system of charity and his crusade against tyranny, as set forth in the preface, hunt loudly applauded. many extracts were italicized for the guidance of the public. the beauties of the poem were pronounced to be its mysticism, its wildness, its depth of sentiment, its grandeur of imagery, and its varied and sweet versification. in the boldness of speculation and in the love of virtue hunt saw a resemblance to lucretius, while in the gloom and imagination of certain passages, particularly in the grandeur of the supernatural architecture, he was reminded of dante. the defects were pronounced to be obscurity of narrative and sameness of image and metaphor. the review closed with the prophecy "we have no doubt he is destined to be one of the leading spirits of the age." the _quarterly review_ of may, , accused shelley[ ] of atheism and of dissolute conduct in private life; the same journal of april, , reviewing the _revolt of islam_ on the basis of the suppressed version of _laon and cythna_, though it did not fail to appreciate the genius and beauty of the poem, charged shelley with a predilection for incest and with a frantic dislike for christianity. it called the support of _the examiner_ "the sweet undersong of the weekly journal."[ ] the two attacks were met by a strong protest from hunt,[ ] particularly in regard to the part dealing with shelley's life. he denied the propriety of such discussion in public criticism and declared that he had never known shelley to "deviate, notwithstanding his theories, even into a single action which those who differ with him might think blameable." his life at marlow was described as spent in "beautiful charity and generosity" and was likened to that of plato. in an attack on shelley by hazlitt was met by an angry warning from hunt and a threat to become his public enemy, if the offense were repeated.[ ] hunt's reason for taking this defensive attitude was that he knew that shelley suffered greatly from such malignant exploitations and that he would not defend himself; therefore he made his friend's cause his own and wrote: "i reckon upon your leaving your personal battles to me,"[ ] much in the same manner as shelley had assumed his money troubles. following the review of the _revolt of islam_, a notice of _rosalind and helen_ and of _lines written among the euganean hills_[ ] appeared in _the examiner_ of may , . attention was called to the poet's optimism and to his great love of nature: "the beauty of the external world has an answering heart, and the very whispers of the wind a meaning." _the cenci_, published in , contained in its dedication a glowing tribute to hunt, an honour in shelley's opinion only in a small degree worthy of his friend.[ ] hunt was intoxicated with the honour and wrote: "i feel as if you had bound, not only my head, but my very soul and body with laurels."[ ] on the subject of the tragedy he was equally enthusiastic: "what a noble book, shelley, have you given us! what a true, stately, and yet affectionate mixture of poetry, philosophy, and human nature, horror, and all redeeming sweetness of intention, for there is an undersong of suggestion through it all, that sings, as it were, after the storm is over, like a brook in april."[ ] in a public expression of his opinion in _the examiner_ of march , , hunt pronounced _the cenci_ the greatest dramatic production of the day. writing of the drama again in the same journal of july and , , he called shelley "a framer of mighty lines" and continued: "majesty and love do sit on one throne in the lofty buildings of his poetry; and they will be found there, at a late and we trust a happier day, on a seat immortal as themselves." one of hunt's most perfect poems, _jaffár_, is inscribed to the memory of shelley. the praise of _jaffár_ and his friend's undying loyalty immediately suggest to the reader that hunt may have been celebrating his own and shelley's friendship. the last review to appear during shelley's lifetime by hunt was that of _prometheus unbound_ in three numbers of _the examiner_ of . a projected review of _adonais_ alluded to in a letter of hunt's does not seem to have seen the light of publication, but a reference in a letter at the time is worth noting: "it is the most delphic poety i have seen in a long while: full of those embodyings of the most subtle and airy imaginations,--those arrestings and explanations of the most shadowy yearnings of our being."[ ] the well-known account of shelley's rescue of a woman on hampstead heath was told in _the literary examiner_ of august , .[ ] the same magazine of september of the same year[ ] contained the following _sonnet to percy shelley_, given here because of its general inaccessibility: "hast thou from earth, then, really passed away, and mingled with the shadowy mass of things which were, but are not? will thy harp's dear strings no more yield music to the rapid play of thy swift thoughts, now turned thou art to clay? hark! is that rushing of thy spirit's wings, when (like the skylark, who in mounting sings) soaring through high imagination's way, thou pour'dst thy melody upon the earth, silent for ever? yes, wild ocean's wave hath o'er thee rolled. but whilst within the grave thou sleepst, let me in the love of thy pure worth one thing foretell,--that thy great fame shall be progressive as time's flood, eternal as the sea!" in _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_ appeared the first biographical memoir of shelley, a sketch of some seventy pages.[ ] it shows great appreciation of the fine and gentle qualities of his rare genius and defends some of the weak points of his career. the description of his personal appearance, of the life at marlowe, and the few anecdotes are often quoted. but on the whole, it lacks the bold strokes of vivid portraiture and it is very disappointing.[ ] there was probably no one, with the exception of his wife, who knew shelley so well as hunt and who was, therefore, in a position to give as complete and intimate an idea of him. it was mrs. shelley's wish that hunt should be her husband's biographer, for she thought that he, "perhaps above all others, understood his nature and his genius."[ ] hunt, in _the spectator_ of august , , gave as his reason for not writing shelley's life that he "could not survive enough persons." but it is to be questioned if he were fitted for the task. his son did not think that he was because of his attention to details and his irresistible tendency to analysis: "a mind, in short, like that of hamlet, cultivated rather than corrected by the trials of life, was scarcely suited to comprehend the strong instincts, indomitable will, and complete unity of idea which distinguished shelley."[ ] in the _tatler_ of august , , hunt wrote that "mr. shelley was a platonic philosopher, of the acutest and loftiest kind," and that he belonged to the school of plato and Æschylus, as keats belonged to that of spenser and milton. following _the tatler_ was the preface to _the mask of anarchy_,[ ] published in , originally designed for _the examiner_ in , but laid aside by the editor because he thought the public not discerning enough "to do justice to the sincerity and kindheartedness of the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse." the preface eulogizes the poet's spiritual nature and his "seraphic purpose of good." in _the seer_, , shelley's qualities of heart were pronounced more enduring than his genius.[ ] _imagination and fancy_ contained an essay and selections from his poems. here hunt makes the curious statement that little in the poems is purely poetical, but rather moral, political, and speculative. it is noteworthy that he predicts, probably for the first time, that, had shelley lived, he would have been the greatest dramatic writer since the days of elizabeth, if not, indeed, actually so, through what he did accomplish; a statement often repeated. he says: "if coleridge is the sweetest of our poets, shelley is at once the most ethereal and gorgeous, the one who has clothed his thought in draperies of the most evanescent and most magnificent words and imagery.... shelley ... might well call himself ariel."[ ] in connection with shelley's ethereal qualities, mrs. james t. fields quotes hunt as having said on another occasion that shelley always seemed to him as if he were "just alit from the planet mercury, bearing a winged wand tipped with flame."[ ] in _imagination and fancy_, hunt continues: "not milton himself is more learned in grecisms, or nicer in entomological propriety; and nobody, throughout, has a style so orphic and primeval." it is a touching circumstance that hunt's last letter bore reference to shelley, and that his last effort as a public writer, made only a few days before his death, was in vindication of shelley's character.[ ] the publication of the _shelley memorials_, , in which hunt had a part, provoked an unfavorable review in _the spectator_. hunt replied in the next number[ ] of the same paper. in particular he asserted shelley's truthfulness, which had been assailed in respect to his story of the attempted assassination in wales. he held that shelley was not a man to be judged by ordinary rules, but that he was the highest possible exponent of humanity--an approach to divinity. hunt's literary relation with shelley falls into two divisions; publications written for hunt's periodicals, and received by hunt in order to give shelley an outlet of expression denied him in the more conservative papers; and second, positive literary imitation. besides the poems quoted in hunt's criticisms of shelley, the first includes a review of godwin's _mandeville_,[ ] a letter of protest regarding the second edition of _queen mab_,[ ] _marianne's dream_,[ ] _song on a faded violet_,[ ] _the sunset_,[ ] _the question_,[ ] _good night_,[ ] _sonnet, ye hasten to the grave_,[ ] _to ---- (lines to a reviewer)_,[ ] _november, _,[ ] _love's philosophy_,[ ] and the contributions designed by shelley for _the liberal_ and published after his death.[ ] productions which were written for hunt's papers, but were not accepted, were _peter bell the third_, _the mask of anarchy_, _julian and maddalo_, a letter on the persecution of richard carlile,[ ] letters on italy, and a review of peacock's _rhododaphne_. hunt's failure to accept what was sent him greatly discouraged shelley at times: "mine is a life of failures; peacock says my poetry is composed of day dreams and nightmares, and leigh hunt does not think it good enough for _the examiner_." _on a fete at carlton house_, an attack on the prince regent, though perhaps directly inspired by the account in the dailies of the ball at carlton house on june , , was doubtless influenced by the continued attacks of _the examiner_. as there are extant only two or three lines of the poem,[ ] it is impossible to judge of the extent of the influence, but in shelley's letters to hogg and to edward graham describing the poem, there is resemblance in tone and epithet to _the examiner_. a letter from shelley to lord ellenborough on the occasion of eaton's sentence for publishing the third part of paine's _age of reason_ followed a long series of articles by hunt on the prerogative of liberty of speech.[ ] a meeting of reformers at manchester on the sixteenth of august, , for the purpose of discussing quietly the annual meeting of parliament, universal suffrage, and voting by ballot, was dispersed by military force. articles setting forth the long sufferings of the reformers, charging the authorities with wanton bloodshed, and ridiculing the absurd trial of the offenders, appeared in _the examiner_ of august , , september , and . _the mask of anarchy_, written on the occasion of the massacre at manchester, was sent to leigh hunt for publication sometime before the first of november, . the sentiment of both men is the same regarding the affair. accounts of the death of the princess charlotte and of the executions for high treason at derby of brandreth, ludlam and turner, after a horrible imprisonment, two articles in _the examiner_ of november , , inspired shelley's _address to the people on the death of the princess charlotte_, sometimes known as _we pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird_, dated november of the same year. hunt followed with a second article, _death of the princess charlotte and indecent advantage taken of it_, november , . both writers called attention to the disposition of the public to forget the sufferings of the poor, while it mourned hysterically with royalty; they declared that the administration of justice and the events leading to such crimes were of much greater importance. three articles in _the examiner_ of october , and , , on the trial of richard carlile for libel, were followed by an open letter on the same case from shelley to hunt dated november , . by scattered references it can be seen that shelley fully agreed with hunt in his opinion of the prince regent and of the ministers, in his attitude toward the corruption of the court and of the army; and in his proposed regulation of taxes and of the public debt. _oedipus tyrannus or swellfoot the tyrant_, begun august, , succeeded a series of articles, beginning in _the examiner_ of june , , and continuing throughout nineteen numbers,[ ] on the subject of george iv's attempt to divorce his wife.[ ] abhorrence of the king's perfidy and of his ministers' support, sympathy for queen caroline, and minor details parallel closely hunt's version in _the examiner_. this passage occurs in the article of june : "an animal sets himself down, month after month, at milan, to watch at her doors and windows, to intercept discarded servants and others who know what a deposition might be worth, and thus to gather poison for one of those venomous green bags, which have so long infected and nauseated the people, and are now to infect the queen." this seems to be the germ of the passage in shelley's poem beginning: "behold this bag! it is the poison bag of that green spider huge, on which our spies sulked in ovation through the streets of thebes, when they were paved with dead." then follows the plot to throw the contents upon the queen. the handling of the heroic couplet, employed in the _letter to maria gisborne_ and in _epipsychidon_, as well as in _julian and maddalo_,[ ] has been already discussed in its relationship to hunt's use of the same. shelley, in a letter to hunt, explains his position in regard to the language of _julian and maddalo_: "you will find the little piece, i think, in some degree consistent with your own ideas of the manner in which poetry ought to be written. i have employed a certain familiar style of language to express the actual way in which people talk to each other, whom education and a certain refinement of sentiment have placed above the use of vulgar idioms. i use the word _vulgar_ in its most extensive sense. the vulgarity of rank and fashion is as gross, in its way, as that of poverty, and its cant terms equally expressive of base conceptions, and therefore, equally unfit for poetry. not that the familiar style is to be admitted in the treatment of a subject wholly ideal, or in that part of any subject which relates to common life, where the passion, exceeding a certain limit, touches the boundary of that which is ideal. strong passion expresses itself in metaphor, borrowed alike from subjects remote or near, and casts over all the shadow of its own greatness."[ ] _rosalind and helen_, the _letter to maria gisborne_, _swellfoot the tyrant_, and _peter bell the third_[ ] show a similar influence. _the letter to maria gisborne_ bears a resemblance to hunt's epistolary style, and was written, mr. forman thinks, for circulation in the hunt circle only.[ ] it was through hunt, so shelley states in the dedication, that he knew the _peter bells_ of wordsworth and of john hamilton reynolds. shelley's qualified adoption in these poems of hunt's theory of poetic language is seen in the choice of a vocabulary in dialogue nearer everyday usage than the more remote one of his other poems. yet the result does not bear any great resemblance to hunt. shelley's unvarying refinement and sensibility kept him from committing the same errors of taste, but his work suffered rather than gained by an innovation which was probably a concession to his friendship for hunt and not a strong conviction. with the exception of the descriptive passages, the keynote of these poems is on a lower poetic pitch. on subjects of italian art and literature the friends held much the same opinion. at times shelley seems to have been led by hunt's judgment, as in his conclusions regarding raphael and michaelangelo.[ ] one passage on the italian poets indicates a possible borrowing of thought and figure on shelley's part when he wrote of boccaccio that he was superior to ariosto and to tasso, "the children of a later and colder day.... how much do i admire boccaccio! what descriptions of nature are those in his little introduction to every new day! it is the morning of life stripped of that mist of familiarity which makes it obscure to us."[ ] hunt wrote: "petrarch, boccaccio and dante are the morning, noon and night of the great italian day."[ ] poems which refer directly to hunt are the fourteen lines in the _letter to maria gisborne_;[ ] possibly the fragment, beginning, "for me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble."[ ] a cancelled passage of the _adonais_ describes hunt thus: and then came one of sweet and carnal looks, those soft smiles to his dark and night-like eyes were as the clear and ever-living brooks are to the obscure fountains whence they rise, showing how pure they are; a paradise of happy truth upon his forehead low lay, making wisdom lovely, in the guise of earth-awakening morn upon the brow of star-deserted heaven, while ocean gleams below, * * * * * his song, though very sweet, was low and faint, a single strain--[ ] the thirty-fifth strophe of the present version refers to hunt. shelley's last letter had reference to hunt.[ ] his last literary effort was a poem comparing hunt to a firefly and welcoming him to italy, just as hunt's last letter and last public utterance bore reference to shelley--strange coincidence, but striking testimony to their mutual devotion. an instance of shelley's overestimation of hunt's ability is seen in a passage where he says that hunt excels in tragedy in the power of delineating passion and, what is more necessary, of connecting and developing it, "the last an incredible effort for himself but easy for hunt."[ ] he greatly valued and trusted hunt's affection, at times calling him his best[ ] and his only friend.[ ] if the tender solicitude and veneration of a beautiful spirit for a man of vastly inferior abilities seems strange, it is but a witness to the humility of true genius. chapter iv. byron's politics and religion--his sympathy with hunt in prison--his impression of the man--hunt's defense of byron and criticism of his works--_the liberal_--_lord byron and some of his contemporaries_. it is not strange that lord byron, son of an english father and a scotch mother, born of a long line of adventurous and warlike sailors and illustrious and loyal knights, with a strain of royalty and madness on one side and eccentricity and immorality on the other, should have fallen heir in an unusual degree to a nature whose virtues and vices were complex and contradictory. its singularities are nowhere more apparent than in the mutations of his friendships. prior to his acquaintance with hunt, byron had taken his seat in the house of lords and had made speeches against the framebreakers of nottingham and in behalf of catholic emancipation. a month after their meeting he made a third speech introducing major cartwright's petition for reform in parliament. the second and third of these measures, in particular, were warmly advocated by _the examiner_, with which paper byron was familiar, as references in his letters show. it is therefore not hazardous to surmise that his sympathy with liberal policies, alien to his tory blood and aristocratic spirit, was due, in part at least, to this influence. byron's political principles on the whole were as evanescent and intermittent as a will-o'-the-wisp.[ ] his chief tenets were the assertion of the individual; antagonism against all authority; a striving after freedom. brandes, elze and treitscke agree in attributing his political enthusiasm to the intense passion of his nature rather than to his moral convictions.[ ] his religious convictions were as fugitive as his political and, like those of hunt and other advanced thinkers of the age, seem to have been without deference to any existing creed or dogma. at his gloomiest moments he confessed that he denied nothing but doubted everything. hunt says of byron's religion that he "did not know what he was.... he was a christian by education, he was an infidel by reading. he was a christian by habit, but he was no christian upon reflection."[ ] the phrase, "i am of the opposition" applies to his religion as well as to his politics, as indeed it serves as the key-note to almost every action of his life. leigh hunt has given a characteristic account of his first sight of byron "rehearsing the part of leander," in the river thames sometime before he went to greece in : "i saw nothing in lord byron at that time, but a young man, who, like myself, had written a bad volume of poems; and though i had sympathy with him on this account, and more respect for his rank than i was willing to suppose, my sympathy was not an agreeable one; so, contenting myself with seeing his lordship's head bob up and down in the water, like a buoy, i came away. lord byron when he afterwards came to see me in prison, was pleased to regret that i had not stayed. he told me, that the sight of my volume at harrow had been one of his incentives to write verses, and that he had had the same passion for friendship which i had displayed in it. to my astonishment he quoted some of the lines, and would not hear me speak ill of them."[ ] hunt's _juvenilia_, beyond having served as one of the incentives to the writing of byron's _hours of idleness_, does not seem to have affected it. for hunt's undercurrent of friendship and cheerfulness were substituted byron's prevailing notes of amorousness and melancholy. the actual acquaintance of the two men did not begin until , when thomas moore, since a staunch admirer of hunt's political courage and of his literary talent, and one of the visitors welcomed to surrey gaol, mentioned the circumstances of his imprisonment to lord byron, likewise a sympathizer with the attitude of _the examiner_ towards the prince regent. mr. cordy jeaffreson[ ] thinks that it was this reckless sympathy with the libeller of the prince regent that led byron to reprint with _the corsair_, eight lines addressed in to the princess charlotte, _weep, daughter of a royal line_. the retaliation of one of the tory papers goaded byron to write in return an article which strongly resembles hunt's famous libel[ ] on the prince regent. byron expressed a wish to call on hunt with moore, and a visit followed on may , .[ ] five days later hunt wrote: "i have had lord b. here again. he came on sunday, by himself, in a very frank, unceremonious manner, and knowing what i wanted for my poem [_story of rimini_] brought me the last new _travels in italy_ in two quarto volumes, of which he requests my acceptance, with the air of one who did not seem to think himself conferring the least obligation. this will please you. it strikes me that he and i shall become _friends_, literally and cordially speaking: there is something in the texture of his mind and feelings that seems to resemble mine to a thread; i think we are cut out of the same piece, only a little different wear may have altered our respective naps a little."[ ] with the pride of a sycophant in the presence of a lord hunt relates that byron would not let the footman carry the books but gave "you to understand that he was prouder of being a friend and a man of letters than a lord. it was thus by flattering one's vanity he persuaded us of his own freedom from it: for he could see very well, that i had more value for lords than i supposed."[ ] in june of the same year hunt invited byron, moore and mitchell to dine with him in prison. among several others who came in during the evening was mr. john scott, later a severe critic of byron in _the champion_.[ ] many years after moore, in his _life of byron_, wrote of the gathering with venom, recalling scott as an assailant of byron's "living fame, while another [hunt] less manful, would reserve the cool venom for his grave."[ ] byron esteemed hunt greatly during the first year of their acquaintance. his advances show a desire for intimacy which goes far toward contradicting the statements sometimes made that the overtures were on hunt's side only.[ ] byron expressed himself thus at the time: "hunt is an extraordinary character and not exactly of the present age. he reminds me more of the pym and hampden times--much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, aspect. if he goes on _qualis ab incepto_, i know few men who will deserve more praise or obtain it. i must go and see him again--a rapid succession of adventures since last summer, added to some serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our acquaintance; but he is a man worth knowing; and though for his own sake, i wish him out of prison, i like to study character in such situations. he has been unshaken and will continue so. i don't think him deeply versed in life:--he is the bigot of virtue (not religion) and enamoured of the beauty of that 'empty name,' as the last breath of brutus pronounced and every day proves it. he is perhaps, a little opinionated, as all men who are the _center of circles_, wide or narrow--the sir oracles--in whose name two or three are gathered together--must be, and as even johnson was: but withal, a valuable man, and less vain than success and even the consciousness of preferring 'the right to the expedient,' might excuse." december , , he wrote to hunt: "it is my wish that our acquaintance, or, if you please to accept it, friendship, may be permanent.... i have a thorough esteem for that independence of spirit which you have maintained with sterling talent, and at the expense of some suffering."[ ] cordial intercourse between the two men continued after hunt's removal from surrey gaol to lodgings in edgeware road, where byron became one of his most frequent visitors and correspondents. in the hunt household byron laid aside his ordinary reserve. there are records of his riding the children's rocking horse; of presents of game; loans of books; letters presented from a paris correspondent for _the examiner_; and gifts of boxes and tickets for drury lane theatre, of which he was one of the managers. this last hunt would not accept for fear of sacrificing his critical independence. in _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, hunt claims that this familiarity proceeded from an "instinct of immeasureable distance."[ ] it was not until byron's matrimonial difficulties in that hunt, inert and depressed from his long confinement, bestirred himself to return a single one of the calls. byron's separation from his wife in and the subsequent scandal aroused in hunt that instinctive protection and active loyalty for friends abused, already discussed in a review of his relations with keats and shelley. the conjugal troubles and libertinism of the prince regent had brought forth only scorn and vituperation from the editor of _the examiner_, but difficulties of equal notoriety at closer range in the lives of his friends evoked only sympathy and protection. he asserted that there was no positive knowledge as to the cause of the trouble and much depraved speculation, envy and falsehood, yet "had he [byron] been as the scandal-mongers represented him, we should nevertheless, if we thought our arm worth his using, have stood by him in his misfortunes to the last."[ ] a prophecy of a near reconciliation and a too-gushing picture of renewed domesticity are somewhat grotesque in the light of later events. for this defense byron was very grateful. january , , he wrote that scott, jeffrey and leigh hunt "were the only literary men of numbers whom i know (and some of whom i have served,) who dared venture even an anonymous word in my favour, just then ... the third was under no kind of obligation to me."[ ] hunt's opinion in the matter underwent a transformation after the fateful italian visit; he then declared that byron wooed with genius, married for money, and strove for a reconciliation because of pique.[ ] the _story of rimini_, which had been submitted to byron from time to time and which was dedicated to him, appeared likewise in . byron seems to have accepted the familiar tone of the inscription at the time in all good faith "as a public compliment and a private kindness"[ ] although _blackwood's_ of march, , states, perhaps not seriously, that byron in his copy had substituted for hunt's name "impudent varlet." as late as april , , byron wrote from italy that he expected to return to venice by ravenna and rimini that he might take notes of the scenery for hunt.[ ] but a letter to moore from venice, june , , seems to mark a disillusionment on the part of byron: "hunt's letter is probably the exact piece of vulgar coxcombry that you might expect from his situation. he is a good man with some practical element in his chaos, but spoilt by the christ church hospital and a sunday newspaper to say nothing of the surrey gaol, which converted him into a martyr.... of my friend hunt, i have already said that he is anything but vulgar in his manners [a statement repeated again in [ ]]; and of his disciples, therefore, i will not judge of their manners from their verses. they may be honourable and gentlemanly men for what i know; but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publications."[ ] hunt did not see or hear from byron from until . no further mention of hunt occurs in byron's writings during this period except the reference to his influence on barry cornwall's _sicilian story_ and _marcian colonna_,[ ] and another to the cockney school in byron's controversy with bowles. in explanation of this break in the intercourse hunt said, in , that "byron had become not very fond of his reforming acquaintances."[ ] hunt's criticism of byron's writings was not an important factor in his early literary development, as was the case with shelley and keats. yet it deserves brief attention. _the examiner_ of october , , contained the address of byron on the opening of the drury lane theatre and a commendation of its "natural domestic touch" and of its independence. hunt's _feast of the poets_ as it appeared first in _the reflector_ contained no mention of byron. the separate edition of devoted seven pages of the added notes to a wordy discussion of his work and to personal advice. byron in a letter of february , , thanked hunt for the "handsome note." the next mentions of bryon were in _the examiner_: a notice of his ode on napoleon april , ; _illustrations of lord byron's works_ on september of the same year; an elegy, _oh snatched away in beauty's bloom_, april , ; _the renegade's feelings among the tombs of heroes_, march , ; and finally, an announcement of an opera founded on _the corsair_, august , . a review of the first and second cantos of _don juan_ appeared in _the examiner_ of october , . byron's extraordinary variety and sudden transition of mood, his power in wielding satire and humor, his knowledge of human nature in its highest and lowest passions, his contribution to the mock-heroic and the sincere, the "strain of rich and deep beauty" in the descriptions were pointed out. any immoral tendency is denied: "the fact is at the bottom of these questions, that many things are made vicious which are not so by nature; and many things made virtuous, which are only so by calling and agreement; and it is on the horns of this self-created dilemma, that society is continually writhing and getting desperate!" _the examiner_ of august , containing a critique of the third and fourth cantos of _don juan_, condemned the "careless contempt of canting moralists." january , , there was a notice in _the examiner_ telling of byron's munificence to a shoemaker; in comment _the examiner_ said: "his lordship's virtues are his own. his frailties have been made for him, in more respects than one, by the faults and follies of society." january , , appeared a reprint of _my boat is on the shore_; april , the two stanzas from childe harold beginning, _italia, oh! italia_; april , _byron's letters on bowles's strictures on pope_; may , a review of two of bowles's letters to byron; july , an article entitled _sketches of the living poets_.[ ] the last gave a biographical account of byron. the general traits of his poety were said to be passion, humour, and learning. it criticized the narrative poems as "too melodramatic, hasty and vague." hunt's summary of the dramas and of _don juan_ shows excellent judgment: "for the drama, whatever good passages such a writer will always put forth, we hold that he has no more qualifications than we have; his tendency being to spin every thing out of his own perceptions, and colour it with his own eye. his _don juan_ is perhaps his best work, and the one by which he will stand or fall with readers who see beyond time and toilets. it far surpasses, in our opinion, all the italian models on which it is founded, not excepting the far famed _secchia rapita_."[ ] on june , , _the examiner_ reviewed _cain_. the article is chiefly a discussion of the origin of evil. the issue of september contained a reprint of _america_; that of november denied byron's authorship of _anastasius_. from july , , to november of the same year, there appeared in the _literary examiner_ friendly criticisms of the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth cantos of _don juan_. the reviews consisted chiefly of extracts and a summary of the narrative. the liberal. a letter from lord byron dated december , , had proposed to thomas moore to set up secretly, on their return to london, a weekly newspaper for the purpose of giving "the age some new lights upon policy, poesy, biography, criticism, morality, theology, and all other ism, ality and ology whatsoever. why, man, if we were to take to this in good earnest, your debts would be paid off in a twelvemonth, and by dint of a little diligence and practice, i doubt not that we could distance the common-place blackguards who have so long disgraced common sense and the common reader. they have no merit but practice and imprudence, both of which we may acquire; and, as for talent and culture, the devil's in't if such proofs as we have given of both can't furnish out something better than the 'funeral baked meats' which have coldly set forth the breakfast table of great britain for so many years."[ ] moore cautiously refused the offer and the idea lay dormant in byron's mind until he met shelley at ravenna in . he then proposed that they should establish a radical paper with leigh hunt as editor, the three to be equal partners. power, money, and notoriety were byron's chief objects. he frankly acknowledged a desire for enormous gains. he designed to use his proprietory privileges to publish those of his writings that murray dared not. at the same time byron had, without doubt, a desire to reform home government and to repay hunt for his public defense in .[ ] he may have wished to please shelley by asking hunt.[ ] undoubtedly he valued hunt's wide journalistic experience. moore asserts that in extending the invitation, byron inconsistently admitted hunt "not to any degree of confidence or intimacy but to a declared fellowship of fame and interest."[ ] this, like other of moore's statements regarding hunt, is not very plausible in view of the past intimacy. the most discussed question regarding byron's motives in inviting hunt is the extent of his relation to _the examiner_ at that time, and byron's knowledge of it. trelawny states that when byron "_consented_ to join leigh hunt and others in writing for the 'liberal,' i think his principal inducement was in the belief that john and leigh hunt were proprietors of the 'examiner';--so when leigh hunt at pisa told him that he was no longer connected with that paper, byron was taken aback, finding that hunt would be entirely dependent upon the success of their hazardous project, while he himself would be deprived of that on which he had set his heart,--the use of a weekly paper in great circulation."[ ] moore heard indirectly in that byron, shelley and hunt were to "_conspire_ together" in _the examiner_[ ]--a plan nowhere mentioned in the writings of the three men concerned and most unlikely. what trelawney "thought" conflicts with what moore "heard." the suggestions of both are open to doubt. byron was most assuredly the projector of _the liberal_ and did not "_consent_ to join leigh hunt and others." besides, granting that trelawney's opinion was based on a statement of byron's, even that would not be convincing, since byron made a number of mis-statements about the matter after he grew weary of it. questionable as the assertion is, it has been made the basis of accusations against hunt of deliberate deceit and of breach of contract. had it been true that there was an understanding of coöperation between the two papers, byron and moore would have made much of the charge. trelawney's opinion, first noticed by _blackwood's_ in march, , has been elaborated by jeaffreson,[ ] and accepted by leslie stephen[ ] and kent.[ ] elze, who seems to have labored under the impression that harold skimpole was a faithful portraiture of hunt, states that his connection with byron began with a falsehood.[ ] r. b. johnson says, in defense of hunt, that the accusation "is quite unreasonable and contrary to all the evidence."[ ] monkhouse thinks that it is doubtful if byron reckoned on the support of the london paper.[ ] j. ashcroft noble says that byron had much to say about the hunts in his letters, "and made the most of all kinds of trivial or imaginary grievances; it is simply incredible that had a grievance of such reality and magnitude as this really existed he would have refrained from mentioning it." as proof against it, he quotes byron's belief in hunt's honesty as late as september ; and he points out the "obvious absurdity of the idea that in the year a weekly newspaper could be conducted successfully, or at all, by an editor in pisa or genoa."[ ] the strong probability, gathered from all the extant evidence, is that byron and shelley, in inviting hunt to italy, expected, and very naturally, that he would continue to share in the profits of _the examiner_. shelley, indeed, in a letter dated as late as january , , urged hunt not to leave england without a regular income from that journal[ ]--an injunction which hunt unfairly disregarded. it is also likely that his connection with _the examiner_ was one of byron's reasons in extending the partnership to include hunt. but it is practically certain that there was no contract nor even understanding as regards the coöperation of _the liberal_ and the london paper. the question does not therefore, involve hunt's honor at all. if byron expected to profit by the influence of _the examiner_, his silence shows a manliness that noble does not credit him with. hunt, in accepting byron's offer, was actuated by motives both selfish and unselfish. the fine of £ , imposed at the time of his conviction of libel was not all paid; _the indicator_ had been abandoned; _the examiner_ was on its last legs; his health was broken by overwork undertaken in the effort not to call upon his friends for aid;[ ] an invalid wife and seven children were to be supported by his pen; his brother john was in prison. from january, , to august of the same year he had been unable to write. in accepting byron's offer he thought to recover his health in a southern climate, to regain his political influence which had been on the decrease during the last four or five years, and at the same time to aid aggressively the liberal movement.[ ] moreover, he was flattered immensely by the prospective public association with lord byron. he had little to lose and a prospect of large gain. hunt should have weighed more gravely such a step before he embarked on such a hazardous venture with so large a family, but, with a buoyancy and irresponsibility in practical affairs peculiar to himself, he clutched at the new proposition as a way out of all difficulties and did not look beyond immediate necessities. he pictured himself and his family healthy and wealthy in a land he had always sighed for. if the skies lowered, he fancied shelley always at hand. his description of preparations for the voyage is as airy as his pocketbook was light: "my family, therefore, packed up such goods and chattels as they had a regard for, my books in particular, and we took, with strange new thoughts and feelings, but in high expectation, our journey by sea."[ ] the part shelley played in the invitation to hunt is more difficult of interpretation. the original proposition to become an equal partner in the transaction he never seriously entertained. he consented to become a contributor only. his reasons for his refusal he gave to others, but, for fear of endangering hunt's prospects, withheld from byron; for the same reason he dissembled at times concerning his real feelings. yet he was equally responsible with byron in extending the invitation to hunt, as will be shown later. although shelley could not have foreseen the full consequences of such a course of action, he was deficient in frankness toward byron and undoubtedly sacrificed him somewhat in the transaction to his affection for hunt. while byron continued to hold the highest opinion of shelley, between the time of their meeting in switzerland and at ravenna, shelley had experienced three separate revulsions of feeling.[ ] at the time in question his distrust had returned. hunt's pecuniary troubles made their relations still more difficult. this state of affairs between byron and shelley must have given hunt great concern, and shelley suspecting his distress wrote march , : "the aspect of affairs has somewhat changed since the date of that in which i expressed a repugnance to a continuance of intimacy with lord byron as close as that which now exists; at least it has changed so far as regards you and the intended journal."[ ] in january, , mrs. hunt wrote mary shelley, begging that they might come to italy. the subject was thus revived and a formal invitation was conveyed in a letter of august , , from shelley to hunt. it proves beyond a doubt that byron was the chief projector of the journal: "he (byron) proposes that you should come out and go shares with him and me, in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of the contracting parties should publish all their original compositions and share the profits.... there can be no doubt that the _profits_ of any scheme in which you and lord byron engage, must, from various, yet co-operating reasons, be very great. as for myself, i am, for the present, only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know each other and effectuate the arrangement; since (to entrust you with a secret which, for your sake, i withhold from lord byron), nothing would induce me to share in the profits, and still less, in the borrowed splendor of such a partnership. you and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would bring, in a different manner, but in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and success.... i did not ask lord byron to assist me in sending a remittance for your journey; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation, in the worldly sense of the word; and i am as jealous for my friend as for myself.... he has many generous and exalted qualities, but the canker of aristocracy wants to be cut out."[ ] hunt's answer was full of expectation and hope. he wrote that "are there not three of us?... we will divide the world between us, like the triumvirate, and you shall be the sleeping partner, if you will."[ ] to shelley's reply of october , thanking him for coming, hunt answered: "you say, shelley, you thank me for coming. the pleasure of being obliged by those we love is so great that i do not wonder that you continue to muster up some obligation to me, but if you are obliged, how much am i?"[ ] from the beginning of the enterprise thomas moore and john murray scented trouble and made more. they continued their intermeddling after _the liberal_ was launched, and doubtless ministered to byron's vacillation. hunt and murray had disagreed over the _story of rimini_[ ] and an attack on southey in _the examiner_ of may and , , had included murray as well. moreover, murray saw in john hunt,[ ] the publisher of the new periodical, a dangerous future rival in his business relations with byron. after matters became unpleasant in italy, murray took his revenge by making public byron's letters containing ill-natured remarks about hunt.[ ] the relations of moore and hunt had been very friendly[ ] but at this juncture both became too proud of having a "noble lord" for a friend.[ ] moore, writing to byron in the latter part of , said: "i heard some time ago that leigh hunt was on his way to genoa with all of his family; and the idea seems to be, that you and shelley and he are to _conspire_ together in _the examiner_. i cannot believe this--and deprecate such a plan with all my might. _alone_ you may do anything, but partnerships in fame, like those in trade, make the strongest party answerable for the deficiencies or delinquencies of the rest, and i tremble even for you with such a bankrupt company.... they are both clever fellows, and shelley i look upon as a man of real genius; but, i must say again, you could not give your enemies (the ... s 'et hoc genus omne') a greater triumph than by joining such an unequal and unholy alliance,"[ ] an astounding statement from a man of pronounced liberal views. byron's answer of january was indefinite and perhaps intentionally misleading: "be assured that there is no such coalition as you apprehend."[ ] february , moore advised byron not to discuss religious matters in the new work, but to confine himself to political theories; "if you have any political catamarans to explode this (london) is your place."[ ] after _the liberal_ was begun, moore wrote: "it grieves me to urge anything so much against hunt's interest, but i should not hesitate to use the same language to himself were i near him. i would, if i were you, serve him in every possible way but this--i would give him (if he would accept of it) the profits of the same works, published separately--but i would not mix myself up in this way with others. i would not become a partner in this sort of miscellaneous '_pot au feu_' where the bad flavour of one ingredient is sure to taint all the rest. i would be, if i were _you_, alone, single-handed and as such, invincible."[ ] the hunts started for italy november , , but on account of various setbacks and delays did not really leave the coast of england until may , . in the ten months which elapsed between the invitation to hunt and his arrival, it is not surprising that byron's enthusiasm had cooled. he would have withdrawn if he could have done so, although byron, trelawny says, was at first more eager than shelley for hunt's arrival.[ ] as has already been stated above, affairs between byron and shelley had been very strained in january. in the letter of march , already referred to, shelley informed hunt that matters had improved between byron and himself and that byron expressed the "greatest eagerness to proceed with the journal, he dilates with impatience on the delay, and he disregards the opinion of those who have advised him against it." shelley thought that their strained relations would in no way interfere with hunt's prospects, and, with what looks a little like double-dealing, that it would be possible for him to preserve what influence he had over the "proteus" until hunt arrived: "it will be no very difficult task to execute that you have assigned me--to keep him in heart with the project until your arrival."[ ] april , shelley wrote again to hunt of byron's eagerness for his arrival: "he urges me to press you to depart." but a reference to the state of affairs in the two households in italy carries a foreboding note: "lord byron has made me bitterly feel the inferiority which the world has presumed to place between us, and which subsists nowhere in reality but in our own talents, which are not our own but nature's--or in our rank, which is not our own but fortune's." with his usual humility, shelley closes the letter with an apology for carrying his jealousy of byron into hunt's relations with him, and says: "you in the superiority of a wise and tranquil nature have well corrected and justly reproved me ... you will find much in me to correct and reprove."[ ] during the summer shelley continued to shrink more than ever from byron; june he declared to hunt that he would not be the link between them for byron is the "nucleus of all that is hateful." his one dread was that he might injure hunt's prospects.[ ] between april and july byron's enthusiasm had again cooled. trelawny relates that shelley when he went to leghorn to meet hunt, was greatly depressed by lord byron's "shuffling and equivocating," and, "but for imperilling hunt's prospects," that shelley would have abruptly terminated their intercourse.[ ] on july shelley wrote to mary from pisa that "things are in the worst possible situation with respect to poor hunt.... lord byron must of course furnish the requisite funds at present, as i cannot, but he seems inclined to depart without the necessary explanations and arrangements due to such a situation as hunt's. these, in spite of delicacy, i must procure."[ ] this dual attitude of shelley has been variously viewed. professor dowden thinks it a "triumph of diplomacy,"[ ] while jeaffreson deems it a conspiracy of hunt and shelley against the innocent and unsuspecting byron. hunt gave the following ominous description of his first call upon lord byron: "the day was very hot; the road to mount nero was very hot, through dusty suburbs; and when i got there i found the hottest looking house i ever saw. it was salmon colour. think of this, flaring over the country in a hot italian sun! but the greatest of all the heats was within. upon seeing lord byron, i hardly knew him, he was grown so fat; and he was longer in recognizing me, i had grown so thin."[ ] hunt wrote to england that byron received him with marked cordiality[ ] but shelley's friend williams, in his last letter to his wife, stated that byron treated hunt vilely and "actually said as much that he did not wish his name to be attached to the work, and of course to theirs"; that his treatment of mrs. hunt was "most shameful"; and that his "conduct cut h. to the soul."[ ] the hunt family was quickly quartered on the ground floor of byron's palace, which byron had furnished at a cost of £ .[ ] shelley's sensible suggestions to hunt about his furniture,[ ] about the income from _the examiner_, and worse still, his delicately given advice that it was not possible for him to bring _all_ of his family, had been ignored.[ ] with shelley's tragic death a few days after their arrival, the only "link of the two thunderbolts,"[ ] as he had called himself, was broken. hunt was left in an awkward position which no one could have foreseen. a few days later he wrote to friends at home of byron's kindness.[ ] in he gave a different version: "lord byron requested me to look upon him as standing in mr. s.'s place. my heart died within me to hear him; i made the proper acknowledgment, but i knew what he meant, and i more than doubted whether even in that, the most trivial part of the friendship, he could resemble mr. shelley, if he would. circumstances unfortunately rendered the matter of too much importance to me at the moment. i had reason to fear:--i was compelled to try:--and things turned out as i had dreaded. the public have been given to understand that lord byron's purse was at my command, and that i used it according to the spirit with which it was offered. _i did so._ stern necessity and a family compelled me."[ ] with the magazine scarcely likely to yield an income for some time, it was absolutely necessary for hunt to get money from somewhere for living expenses and, shelley gone, there was no one left to tide over the interval but byron. the latter did not relish the position of sole banker to a family of nine and doled out £ in small doses through his steward, hunt says, just as if his "disgraces were being counted."[ ] he was embittered by his position as suppliant and dependent, though there is nothing to show that he was ever refused what he asked for or requested to pay back what he owed.[ ] hunt's entire money obligation to byron has been comprehensively calculated by galt at £ : £ for the journey from england, £ at pisa for living expenses, the cost of the journey from pisa to genoa, and £ from genoa to florence. galt thought the use of the ground floor a small favor since byron could use only one floor for himself. such practices were very common, italian palaces often being built for that purpose.[ ] it is likely that until the step was irrevocable byron did not correctly gauge hunt's resources and the responsibility which he was assuming in transporting a large family to a foreign country. if he did, he expected to share the burden with shelley. had hunt been financially independent, it is probable that he and byron would have remained on amicable enough terms, for the former asserts that the first time he was treated with disrespect was when byron knew he was in want.[ ] yet that neither shelley nor byron were wholly ignorant of what to expect before hunt's arrival in italy is apparent from shelley's letter to byron, february , : "hunt had urged me more than once to ask you to lend him this money. my answer consisted in sending him all i could spare, which i have now literally done. your kindness in fitting up a part of your own home for his accommodation i sensibly felt, and willingly accept from you on his part, but, believe me, without the slightest intention of imposing, or, if i could help it, of allowing to be imposed, any heavier task on your purse. as it has come to this in spite of my exertions, i will not conceal from you the low ebb of my own money affairs in the present moment,--that is, my absolute incapacity of assisting hunt further. i do not think poor hunt's promise to pay in a given time is worth very much, but mine is less subject to uncertainty, and i should be happy to be responsible for any engagement he may have proposed to you."[ ] mrs. hunt seems to have widened further the breach between the two men.[ ] she did not speak italian and the countess guiccioli, the head of byron's establishment, did not speak english. neither made any linguistic efforts and consequently there was no intercourse between the families of the two households. this, hunt later says, was the first cause of diminished cordiality between byron and himself. the hunt children were a further cause of trouble. byron wrote of them to mrs. shelley: "they were dirtier and more mischievous than yahoos. what they can't destroy with their feet they will with their fingers."[ ] again he described them as "six little blackguards ... kraal out of the hottentot country."[ ] the question of rank was a thorn in the flesh, particularly to hunt. while in open theory he had no respect for titles, in actual practice he groveled before them. pride, as he thought, had made him decline all advances from men of rank, but it was more with the air of being afraid to trust himself than with real indifference. his exception, made in the case of lord byron, is thus explained: "but talents, poetry, similarity of political opinion, flattery of early sympathy with my boyish writings, more flattering offers of friendship and the last climax of flattery, an earnest waiving of his rank, were too much for me in the person of lord byron."[ ] on the renewal of the acquaintance in italy, the very familiar attitude seen in the dedication of the _story of rimini_, which hunt himself had decided was "foolish," was changed at the advice of shelley to an extremely formal manner of address. hunt says that byron did not like the change.[ ] as a matter of fact, six years of separation had brought about other more important changes: byron had grown more selfish and avaricious, hunt more helpless and vain. three months were spent in pisa after shelley's death. in september the two families left for genoa, travelling in separate parties and, on their arrival, settling in separate homes, the hunts with mrs. shelley. from this time on there was little intercourse between byron and hunt. october , , byron wrote to england and denied that all three families were living under one roof. he said that he rarely saw hunt, not more than once a month.[ ] hunt to the contrary said that they saw less of each other than in genoa yet "considerable."[ ] although at no time was there an open breach, yet cordiality and sympathy were wholly lost on both sides in the strain of the financial situation. they failed of agreement even on impersonal matters. byron had looked forward with great pleasure to hunt's companionship. before they met he had written: "when leigh hunt comes we shall have banter enough about those old _ruffiani_, the old dramatists, with their tiresome conceits, their jingling rhymes, and endless play upon words."[ ] this pleasant anticipation was not realized, for hunt's sensitiveness in petty matters and byron's scorn of hunt's affectation and of his ill-bred personal applications,[ ] or so the hearer interpreted them, reduced safe topics to boswell's _life of johnson_. even a mutual admiration of pope and dryden was forgotten. literary jealousy and vanity fed the flames. hunt was unable to appreciate manhood of byron's virile type, and he did not try to conceal the fact from one who was hungry for praise. on the other hand, byron did not render to hunt the homage he was accustomed to receive from the cockney circle and had nothing but contempt for all his works except the _story of rimini_. a statement in the anonymous _life of lord byron_, published by iley, that the misunderstanding was the result of a criticism by hunt of _parisina_ in the leghorn and lucca newspapers and that byron never spoke to him after the discovery[ ] is a fabrication as unsubstantial as the greater part of the other statements in the same book. hunt denied the charge. his sole connection with _parisina_ was that he supplied the incident of the heroine talking in her sleep,[ ] a device that he had already made use of in _rimini_. on his arrival in italy hunt wrote back to england that byron entered into _the liberal_ with great ardor, and that he had presented the _vision of judgment_ to his brother and himself for their mutual benefit.[ ] yet four days later in a letter to moore byron wrote: "hunt seems sanguine about the matter but (entre nous) i am not. i do not, however, like to put him out of spirits by saying so, for he is bilious and unwell. do, pray, answer _this_ letter immediately. do send hunt anything in prose or verse of yours, to start him handsomely--and lyrical, _iri_cal, or what you please."[ ] at the time of trelawny's first visit after the work had begun, byron said impatiently: "it will be an abortion," and again in trelawny's presence he called to his bull-dog on the stairway, "don't let any cockneys pass this way."[ ] sometime previous to october his endurance must have given way completely, for in that month hunt wrote that byron was _again_ for the plan.[ ] in january byron urged john hunt to employ good writers for _the liberal_ that it might succeed.[ ] march , , byron, in a letter to john hunt, said that he attributed the failure of _the liberal_ to his own contributions and that the magazine would stand a better chance without him. he desired to sever the partnership if the magazine was to be continued.[ ] his constant vacillation in part supports the charge made by hunt that byron under protest contributed his worse productions in order to make a show of coöperation.[ ] insinuations from moore and murray had fallen on fertile ground and had persuaded byron that the association jeopardized his reputation. hobhouse, byron's friend, joined his dissenting voice to theirs, and "rushed over the alps" to add to his disapproval.[ ] hazlitt's account of the conspiracy of byron's friends against _the liberal_ is very fiery.[ ] the first number of _the liberal_ appeared october , . there were three subsequent numbers. byron's contributions were his brilliant and masterly satire, the _vision of judgment_, _heaven and earth_, _a letter to the editor of my grandmother's review_, _the blues_, and his translation of the first canto of pulci's _morgante maggiore_. murray had withheld the preface to the _vision of judgment_ and this omission, combined with an unwise announcement in _the examiner_ of september , , by john hunt, made the reception even worse than it might otherwise have been. hunt said the _vision of judgment_ "played the devil with all of us."[ ] shelley had made ready for the forthcoming magazine his exquisite translation of goethe's _may day night_ and a prose narrative, _a german apologue_. these appeared in the first number. hunt's best contributions were two poems, _lines to a spider_ and _mahmoud_. _letters from abroad_ are good in spots only. his two satires, _the dogs_ and _the book of beginners_, are pale reflections in meter and tone of _don juan_ and _beppo_ combined. the _florentine lovers_ is a good story spoiled. _rhyme and reason_, _the guili tre_, and the rest are purely hack work, with the possible exceptions of the translation from ariosto and the modernization of the _squire's tale_. hazlitt contributed _pulpit oratory_, _on the spirit of monarchy_, a pithy dissertation _on the scotch character_, and a delightful reminiscence of coleridge in _my first acquaintance with poets_. mrs. shelley wrote _a tale of the passions_, _mme. d'houdetot_, and _giovanni villani_, all rather stilted and heavy. charles browne contributed _shakespear's fools_. a number of unidentified prose articles and poems, many of the latter translations from alfieri, completed the list. the causes of the failure of _the liberal_ were very complex, but quite obvious. there was no definite political campaign mapped out, no proportion outlined for the various departments, no assignments of individual responsibility, no attempt to cater to the public appetite or to mollify the public prejudices for expediency's sake, and an utter want of harmony among its supporters. each contributor rode his own hobby. each vented his private spleen without regard to the common good. it was a vague, up-in-the-air scheme, wholly lacking in coördination and common sense. byron's fickleness and want of genuine interest in a small affair among many other greater ones; the disappointment of both byron[ ] and hunt in not realizing the enormous profits that they had looked forward to--although hunt wrote later that the "moderate profits" were quite enough to have encouraged perseverance on the part of byron; hunt's ill-health and unhappy situation which rendered it difficult for him to write; john hunt's inexperience as a bookseller; the general unpopularity of the editor, the publisher, and the contributors; and last, the pent-up storm of rage from the press which greeted the first number of _the liberal_,[ ] were other reasons that contributed to its ultimate downfall. in seeking hunt for the editor of such a venture, as gait had pointed out,[ ] byron had mistaken his political notoriety for solid literary reputation. hunt, notwithstanding his confession[ ] of an inability to write at his best and of his brother's inexperience, throws the burden of failure solely on byron. he asserts that _the liberal_ had no enemies and, worst of all, that byron when he foresaw hostility and failure, gave him and his brother the profits that they might carry the responsibility of an "ominous partnership"[ ]--a statement ungenerously distorted by bitter memories, for when john hunt was prosecuted for the publication of the _vision of judgment_, byron offered to stand trial in his stead. neither does hunt state that byron's contributions were _gratis_ and that the "moderate profits" enabled him and his brother to pay off some of their old debts.[ ] byron, strong with the prescience of failure, likewise shifted the blame to other shoulders and with the aid of a strong imagination tried to persuade himself and his friends that the hunts had projected the affair and that he had consented in an evil hour to engage in it;[ ] that they were the cause of the failure; that his motives throughout had been philanthropic only in nature;[ ] and that he was sacrificing himself for others. such statements are inventions born of self-accusation and of self-defense. the worst that can be said of byron from beginning to end of the affair is that he was not conscientious in his endeavors to make the journal a success; that, after it failed, he evaded financial responsibility by placing barriers of coldness and ungraciousness between hunt and himself. on october , , he wrote to moore that he had done all he could for hunt "but in the affairs of this world he himself is a child";[ ] "as it is, i will not quit them (the hunts) in their adversity, though it should cost me my character, fame, money, and the usual et cetera.... had their journal gone on well, and i could have aided to make it better for them, i should then have left them; after my safe pilotage off a lee shore, to make a prosperous voyage by themselves. as it is, i can't, or would not, if i could, leave them amidst the breakers. as to any community of feeling, thought, or opinions between l. h. and me, there is little or none; we meet rarely, hardly ever; but i think him a good-principled and able man.[ ]... you would not have had me leave him in the street with his family, would you? and as to the other plan you mention, you forget how it would humiliate him--that his writings should be supposed to be dead weight! think a moment--he is perhaps the vainest man on earth, at least his own friends say so pretty loudly; and if he were in other circumstances i might be tempted to take him down a peg; but not now--it would be cruel.[ ]... a more amiable man in society i know not, nor (when he will allow his sense to prevail over his sectarian principles) a better writer. when he was writing his _rimini_ i was not the last to discover its beauties, long before it was published. even then i remonstrated against its vulgarisms; which are the more extraordinary, because the author is anything but a vulgar man."[ ] during april, , the countess of blessington had a conversation with byron in which he said that while he regretted having embarked in _the liberal_, yet he had a good opinion of the talents and principles of hunt, despite their diametrically opposed tastes.[ ] on april , , he wrote that hunt was incapable or unwilling to help himself; that he could not keep up this "genuine philanthropy" permanently; and that he would furnish hunt with the means to return to england in comfort.[ ] there is no proof that byron ever made such an offer to hunt. the purchase money of hunt's journey home was _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_. on july , , byron went to greece. the hunts, provided by him with £ for the trip, left genoa about the same time for florence, where they were literally stranded, in ill-health and without sufficient means for support,[ ] until their departure for england in september, . the suffering there and the foul calumny at home magnified in hunt's mind[ ] the indignity and injustice that had been put upon him and warped his sense of gratitude and honor in the whole affair. he wrote from florence: "the stiffness of age has come into my joints; my legs are sore and fevered; and i sometimes feel as if i were a ship rotting in a stagnant harbour."[ ] mrs. shelley protested to byron concerning his treatment of hunt[ ] but she received no further satisfaction than the statement that he had engaged in the journal for good-will and respect for hunt solely.[ ] the publisher colburn in made hunt an advance of money for the return journey, to be repaid by a volume of selections from _his own writings preceded by a biographical sketch_.[ ] an irresistible longing for england and a crisis in the disagreement with john hunt regarding the proprietary rights of _the examiner_ and the publication of the _wishing cap papers_ in that paper, made hunt seize at the first opportunity by which he might return home. from paris, on his way to england, he wrote: "if i delayed i might be pinned forever to a distance, like a fluttering bird to a wall, and so die in helpless yearning. i have been mistaken. during my strength my weakness perhaps, was only apparent; now that i am weaker, indignation has given a fillip to my strength."[ ] from his severance with _the examiner_ and the publication of _bacchus in tuscany_ in , hunt was idle until . then, pressed by his obligation to colburn and stung by the misrepresentations of the press regarding his relations with byron in italy, he scored even, as he thought, by producing _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, the blunder of his life and the one blot upon his honor. in addition to the part dealing with byron, it contained autobiographical reminiscences and memoirs of shelley, keats, moore, lamb and others. it went rapidly through three editions. the body of the work is a discussion of the defects of byron's character and a detailed analysis of his actions. in brief, he is charged with insincerity in the cause of liberty; an impatience of any despotism save his own; a vain pride of rank, although his friends were of humble origin; a "libelling all around" of friends; an ignorance of real love, consanguineous or sexual; coarseness in speaking of women or to them;[ ] a voluptuous indolence; weak impulses; a habit of miscellaneous confidences and exaggeration; untruthfulness; susceptibility to influence; avarice even in his patriotism and debauchery; a willingness to receive petty obligations; jealousy of the great and small; no powers of conversation and a want of self-possession; bad temper and self-will; an inordinate desire for flattery; egotism and love of notoriety. more petty accusations are excess in his eating and drinking, though hunt complains that byron would not "drink like a lord"; his fondness for communicating unpleasant tidings; his inclination to the mock heroic; his effeminacy and old-womanish superstition; his easily-aroused suspicions; his imitativeness in writing poetry; his slight knowledge of languages; his physical cowardice. the virtues of this monster, small in number and grudgingly allowed, were admitted to be good horsemanship, good looks, a delicate hand, amusing powers of mimicry, pleasantry in his cups, masterly swimming. unfortunately these statements were usually damned with a "but" or "yet." while it is now generally believed that many of the accusations made by hunt were true,[ ] inasmuch as they are confirmed in large part by contemporary evidence, and as truthfulness was one of hunt's dominant traits, yet, on the other hand, it is quite necessary to make large allowance for the point of view and the color given by prejudice and bitterness of spirit. that hunt told only the truth does not justify the injury in the slightest, for he had slept under byron's roof and eaten of his bread. the obligations conferred were not exactly those of benefactor to suppliant; they were perhaps no more than hunt's due in the light of the responsibility voluntarily assumed by byron; yet they could not be destroyed or forgotten because of a refusal to acknowledge them. worse still, hunt's motives proceeded from impecuniosity and revenge. such petty gossip of private affairs was worthy of a smaller and meaner soul. that hunt did not have the sanction of his own judgment and conscience is clearly seen in the preface to the first edition where he confesses an unwilling hand and gives as a reason for the change of scheme a too long holiday taken after the advance of money from colburn. he says that the book would never have been written at all, or consigned to the flames when finished, if he could have repaid the money.[ ] his one poor defense is that "byron talked freely of me and mine," that the public had talked, and that byron knew how he felt.[ ] the book had a very large circulation. but hunt, who had hoped to defend himself in this manner from the calumnies afloat since the failure of _the liberal_, brought down a storm of abuse from the press that resulted in his degradation and byron's canonization. moore's welcome was a poem, _the living dog and the dead lion_.[ ] hunt's friends replied with _the giant and the dwarf_.[ ] in his life of byron published some years later, moore speaks reservedly of the book, merely saying it had sunk into deserved oblivion.[ ] hunt's public apology and reparation, in so far as such lay in his power, were first made in in _a saunter through the west end_: "no. (formerly no. of what was piccadilly terrace) was the last house which byron inhabited in england. nobody needs to be told what a great wit and fine poet he was: but everybody does not know that he was by nature a genial and generous man spoiled by the most untoward circumstances in early life. he vexed his enemies, and sometimes his friends; but his very advantages have been hard upon him, and subjected him to all sorts of temptations. may peace rest upon his infirmities, and his fame brighten as it advances."[ ] in , he wrote in praise of the ave maria stanza in _don juan_.[ ] and finally and completely in his _autobiography_ he apologized for the heat and venom of _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_: "i wrote nothing which i did not feel to be true, or think so. but i can say with alamanni, that i was then a young man, and that i am now advanced in years. i can say, that i was agitated by grief and anger, and that i am now free from anger. i can say, that i was far more alive to other people's defects than to my own, and that i am now sufficiently sensible of my own to show to others the charity which i need myself. i can say, moreover, that apart from a little allowance for provocation, i do not think it right to exhibit what is amiss, or may be thought amiss, in the character of a fellow-creature, out of any feeling but unmistakable sorrow, or the wish to lessen evils which society itself may have caused. "lord byron, with respect to the points on which he erred and suffered (for on all others, a man like himself, poet and wit, could not but give and receive pleasure), was the victim of a bad bringing up, of a series of false positions in society, of evils arising from the mistakes of society itself, of a personal disadvantage (which his feelings exaggerated), nay, of his very advantages of person, and of a face so handsome as to render with strong tendencies of natural affection," and declared that his fickleness had been "nurtured by an excessively bad training." in exoneration of hunt he said that if "disappointment and the fervour of a new literary work--which often draws the pen beyond its original intention--led leigh hunt into a book that was too severe, perhaps too one-sided in its views, he himself afterwards corrected the one-sidedness, and recalled to mind the earlier and undoubtedly the more correct impression he had had of lord byron." i, - . him an object of admiration. even the lameness, of which he had such a resentment, only softened the admiration with tenderness. "but he did not begin life under good influences. he had a mother, herself, in all probability, the victim of bad training, who would fling the dishes from table at his head, and tell him he would be a scoundrel like his father. his father, who was cousin to the previous lord, had been what is called a man upon town, and was neither rich nor very respectable. the young lord, whose means had not yet recovered themselves, went to school, noble but poor, expecting to be in the ascendant with his title, yet kept down by the inconsistency of his condition. he left school to put on the cap with the gold tuft, which is worshipped at college:--he left college to fall into some of the worst hands on the town:--his first productions were contemptuously criticised, and his genius was thus provoked into satire:--his next were overpraised, which increased his self-love:--he married when his temper had been soured by difficulties, and his will and pleasure pampered by the sex:--and he went companionless into a foreign country, where all this perplexity could repose without being taught better, and where the sense of a lost popularity could be drowned in license. "i am sorry i ever wrote a syllable respecting lord byron which might have been spared. i have still to relate my connection with him, but it will be related in a different manner. pride, it is said, will have a fall; and i must own, that on this subject i have experienced the truth of the saying. i had prided myself--i should pride myself now if i had not been thus rebuked--on not being one of those who talk against others. i went counter to this feeling in a book; and to crown the absurdity of the contradiction, i am foolish enough to suppose that the very fact of my so doing would show that i had done it in no other instance! that having been thus public in the error, credit would be given me for never having been privately so! such are the delusions inflicted on us by self-love. when the consequence was represented to me as characterized by my enemies, i felt, enemies though they were, as if i blushed from head to foot. it is true i had been goaded to the task by misrepresentation:--i had resisted every other species of temptation to do it:--and, after all, i said more in his excuse, and less to his disadvantage, than many of those who reproved me. but enough. i owed the acknowledgment to him and to myself; and i shall proceed on my course with a sigh for both, and i trust in the good will of the sincere."[ ] chapter v characteristics of the "cockney school"--reasons for tory enmity--establishment of _blackwood's magazine_ and the _quarterly review_--their methods of attack--other targets--authorship of anonymous articles--members of the cockney group--byron--hunt--keats--shelley-- hazlitt. the word "cockney" says bulwer-lytton, signifies the "archetype of the londoner east of temple bar, and is as grotesquely identified with the bells of bow as quasimodo with those of notre dame."[ ] the epithet remains doubtful in origin but is proverbially significant of odium and of ridicule. r. h. horne asserts that, in its first application, it meant merely "pastoral, minus nature."[ ] the word did not long carry so harmless a connotation. it was first applied to hunt by the tory journals in and, in the phrase "cockney school," was gradually extended until it included most of his associates. the group of men thus arbitrarily banded together did not form a _school_ or cult, and themselves resented such a classification. they differed widely in their fundamental principles of life and art. they were not all of one vocation. on the other hand they had certain superficial points in common which made them collectively vulnerable to the dart of the enemy. they were londoners[ ] by birth or by adoption; with the exception of shelley they may all be said to have belonged to the middle class; the most cockneyfied of them had certain vulgar mannerisms; they egotistically paraded their personal affairs in public; they praised each other somewhat fulsomely in dedications and elsewhere, though not always to the full satisfaction of everybody concerned; they presented each other with wreaths of bay, laurel, and roses, and with locks of hair; they agreed in liking thomas moore and in disliking southey; they moved with complacency within a limited circle to the exclusion of a large city; in general they were liberal in politics and in religion; they were in revolt against french criticism; they chose elizabethan or italian models, and, as a rule, they conceitedly ignored or contemned contemporary writers. the gatherings of the coterie have been nowhere better described than by cowden clarke: "evenings of mozartian operatic and chamber music at vincent novello's own house, where leigh hunt, shelley, keats and the lambs were invited guests; the brilliant supper parties at the alternate dwellings of the novellos, the hunts and the lambs, who had mutually agreed that bread and cheese, with celery, and elia's immortalized 'lutheran beer' were to be the sole cates provided; the meetings at the theatres, when munden, dowton, liston, bannister, elliston and fanny kelly were on the stage; the picnic repasts enjoyed together by appointment in the fields that lay spread in green breadth and luxuriance between the west end of oxford street and the western slope of hampstead hill--are things never to be forgotten."[ ] miss mitford relates a ludicrous incident of one of these meetings: "leigh hunt (not the notorious mr. henry hunt, but the fop, poet and politician of the 'examiner') is a great keeper of birthdays. he was celebrating that of haydn, the great composer--giving a dinner, crowning his bust with laurels, berhyming the poor dear german, and conducting an apotheosis in full form. somebody told mr. haydon they were celebrating _his_ birthday. so off he trotted to hampstead, and bolted into the company--made a very fine animated speech--thanked him most sincerely for what they had done him and the arts in his person."[ ] at one time the set became violently vegetarian. the enthusiasm came to a sudden end, as narrated by joseph severn: "leigh hunt most eloquently discussed the charms and advantages of these vegetable banquets, depicting in glowing words the cauliflowers swimming in melted butter, and the peas and beans never profaned with animal gravy. in the midst of his rhapsody he was interrupted by the venerable wordsworth, who begged permission to ask a question. 'if,' he said, 'by chance of good luck they ever met with a caterpillar, they thanked their stars for the delicious morsel of animal food.' this absurdity all came to an end by an ugly discovery. haydon, whose ruddy face had kept the other enthusiasts from sinking under their scanty diet--for they clung fondly to the hope that they would become like him, although they increased daily in pallor and leanness--this haydon was discovered one day coming out of a chop-house. he was promptly taxed with treachery, when he honestly confessed that every day after the vegetable repast he ate a good beef-steak. this fact plunged the others in despair, and leigh hunt assured me that on vegetable diet his constitution had received a blow from which he had never recovered. with shelley it was different, for he was by nature formed to regard animal food repulsively."[ ] the causes of the enmity of the press were political rather than literary or personal and have already been sufficiently dwelt upon in the preceding chapters. the strong rivalry between edinburgh and london as publishing strongholds intensified the strife. hunt in particular had centered attention upon himself by his persistent and violent attacks on gifford and southey for several years previous to . besides _the examiner's_ persistent allusions to these two unregenerates, a savage diatribe had appeared in the _feast of the poets_, which alluded to gifford's humble origin and mediocre ability, charged him with being a government tool, and continued: "but a vile, peevish temper, the more inexcusable in its indulgence, because he appears to have had early warning of its effects, breaks out in every page of his criticism, and only renders his affected grinning the more obnoxious ... i pass over the nauseous epistle to peter pindar, and even notes to his baviad and moeviad, where though less vulgar in his language, he has a great deal of the pert cant and snip-snap which he deprecates."[ ] during , _the examiner_ had concerned itself particularly with southey. he had been called an apostate, a hypocrite, and almost every other name in hunt's abusive vocabulary. sir walter scott had not been spared. his politics were said to be easily estimated by the "simple fact, that of all the advocates of charles the second, he is the least scrupulous in mentioning his crimes, because he is the least abashed;" his command of prose was declared equal to nothing beyond "a plain statement or a brief piece of criticism;" his poetry "a little thinking conveyed in a great many words."[ ] hunt thus secured to himself, through offensive and aggressive abuse, the hostility of the tories both in england and in scotland. his weaknesses and affectations made him a conspicuous and assailable target for the inevitable return fire.[ ] the establishment by the tories of the _quarterly review_ in and of _blackwood's magazine_ in was with the view of opposing and, if possible, of suppressing the _edinburgh review_ and _the examiner_. the brunt of the hostility fell upon the latter, for hunt, by reason of his extreme social and religious policy, could not always rally the _edinburgh review_ to his support. with the founding of the _london magazine_ in he had a new ally in its editor, john scott, but the war had then already raged for three years, and scott fell a victim to it in two years' time.[ ] by a process of elimination scott fixed the identity of "z"--such was the only signature of the articles on the cockney school in _blackwood's_--upon lockhart. he also asserted that lockhart was the editor of the magazine. lockhart demanded an apology. his friend christie took up the quarrel. in the duel which followed scott was fatally wounded. his death followed keats's within four days. the method of attack with the _quarterly_ and with _blackwood's_ was much the same. they differed chiefly in the style of approach. the former may be compared to heavy artillery, slow, cumbrous and crushing. the reviews indeed often verge on dullness and stupidity. neither gifford nor southey seemed to have been blessed with the saving grace of humor in dealing with the cockney school. _blackwood's_, on the other hand, had too much, for whenever one of the so-called cockneys was mentioned, its contributors wallowed in the mire of coarse buffoonery and cruel satire, disgusting scandal and vulgar parody. the only counter-irritant to such a dose is the clever joking and keen humor; but even when this is clean, which is rare, the whole is rendered unpalatable by the thought of its cruelty and of its frequent falsity. furthermore, _blackwood's_ was more merciless in its persecution than the _quarterly_ in that it was untiring. it was perpetually discharging a fresh fusilade. both magazines disguised their real motives under a cloak of religious zeal and monarchical loyalty. while hunt did much to bring the hornet's nest about his ears, he was not wholly deserving of the amount, and not at all of the kind, of stinging calumny that he had to endure. neither were the members of the cockney school the only ones who provoked such antagonism from the same magazine. other famous libels of _blackwood's_ that should be mentioned to show the disposition of its controllers were the _chaldee manuscript_; the _madonna of dresden_ and other effusions of the "_baron von lauerwinckel_"; the _diary_ and _horæ sinicæ of ensign o'doherty_; and the _diary of william wastle, blackwood and dr. morris_. _letter to sir walter scott, bart., on the moral and other characteristics of the ebony and shandrydan school_,[ ] cites a full list of _blackwood's_ victims. these, besides those of the cockney school, were said to be jeffrey, professor playfair, professor dugald stewart, professor leslie, james macintosh, lord brougham, moore, professor david ricardo, wordsworth, coleridge, pringle, dalzell, cleghorn, graham, sharpe, jameson, and hogg, the ettrick shepherd. the characters in _noctes ambrosianæ_, ticklers, scorpions and shepherds, were said by the pamphleteer to respectively tickle, sting and stultify, and to make a business "of insulting worth, offending delicacy, caluminating genius, and outraging the decencies and violating all the sanctities of life." their weapons were "loathsome billingsgate and brutality," and "sublime bathos." an interesting statement, not elsewhere found, is made by the anonymous author of the pamphlet that the proprietor of the black bull inn imputed the death of his wife to the first volume of _peter's letters to his kinsfolk_, a series similar to the _noctes ambrosianæ_. sir walter scott is told that he cannot remain innocent if he remains indifferent to the machinations of the "ebony and shandrydan school"--as the writer pleases to call the _blackwood's_ group. another interesting pamphlet of like nature is _the scorpion critic unmasked; or animadversions on a pretended review of "fleurs, a poem, in four books," which appeared in blackwood's edinburgh magazine for june, , in a letter to a friend_.[ ] _blackwood's_ had called nathaniel john hollingsworth, the author of the poem, and others of his type, the "leg of mutton school."[ ] nothing in fact seems to have given this magazine so much malicious delight as to create schools, perhaps in a spirit of rivalry with the "lake school" of the _edinburgh review_. in the preceding april the "manchester school" had been presented by _blackwood's_ to the public. hollingsworth in turn created the "scorpion school" in order to deride _blackwood's_. other pamphlets of the same kind were _rebellion again gulliver; or r-d-c-l-sm in lilliput_. _a poetical fragment from a lilliputian manuscript_, an anonymous publication which appeared in edinburgh in ; _aspersions answered: an explanatory statement, advanced to the public at large, and to every reader of the quarterly review in particular_;[ ] and _another article for the quarterly review_;[ ] both by william hone in reply to the charge of irreligion made by the _quarterly_ against him. william blackwood, john wilson or "christopher north," lockhart, and perhaps maginn, share the blame severally of _blackwood's_; while in the case of the _quarterly_, to gifford and southey, already mentioned, must be added sir walter scott and croker. the two last certainly countenanced the actions of the others, even if they took no more active part. there seems to be no way of determining the individual authorship of the various articles. it was a secret jealously guarded at the time and it is unlikely that any further disclosures will come to light. the victims themselves hazarded as many guesses as more recent critics with no greater degree of certainty. leigh hunt thought that the articles were written by sir walter scott;[ ] hazlitt said, "to pay those fellows _in their own coin_, the way would be to begin with walter scott _and have at his clump foot_;"[ ] charles dilke thought that the articles were written by lockhart with the encouragement of scott;[ ] haydon thought that "z" was terry the actor, an intimate of the blackwood party, who had been exasperated because hunt had failed to notice him in _the examiner_;[ ] shelley fancied that the articles in the _quarterly_ were by southey, and, on his denial, attributed them to henry hart milman.[ ] mrs. oliphant in her two ponderous volumes, _william blackwood and his sons_, practically asserts that "z" was lockhart.[ ] if the extent of her research is to be the gauge of its value, her opinion is a very valuable one. mr. colvin advances the theory that "z" was wilson or lockhart, possibly revised by william blackwood.[ ] mr. courthope thinks that croker was the author of the articles on _endymion_ in the _quarterly_.[ ] mr. herford thinks that the whole campaign against the cockney school was "largely worked out" by lockhart.[ ] * * * * * hunt, shelley, hazlitt and keats were the chief targets in the cockney school. the attacks on each of these are of such length as to require separate discussion and will be returned to later. those who attained lesser notoriety were charles lamb, haydon, barry cornwall, john hamilton reynolds, cornelius webb, charles wells, charles dilke, charles lloyd, p. g. patmore and john ketch (abraham franklin). those who moved within the same circle and who may by attraction be considered cockneys are charles cowden clarke and his wife, vincent novello, charles armitage brown, the olliers, horace and james smith, douglas jerrold, joseph severn, laman blanchard, thomas noon talfourd, thomas love peacock, and perhaps thomas hood. charles lamb was first attacked in . he had written essays somewhat in the manner of hunt and he was a contributor to the _london magazine_, which had blundered by censuring castlereagh, canning, and wilberforce. the much-despised hazlitt was another of its force. accordingly, "elia" was pronounced a "cockney scribbler," _christ's hospital_ an essay full of offensive and reprehensible personalities,[ ] and _all fool's day_ "mere inanity and very cockneyism."[ ] in april, , _blackwood's_ returned to the attack but with more than usual good nature. in _noctes ambrosianæ_ of that month tickler is made to say: "elia in his happiest moods delights me; he is a fine soul; but when he is dull, his dullness sets human stupidity at defiance. he is like a well-bred, ill-trained pointer. he has a fine nose, but he can't or won't range. he always keeps close to your foot, and then he points larks or tit-mice. you see him snuffing and snoking and brandishing his tail with the most impassioned enthusiasm, and then drawn round into a semi-circle he stands beautifully--dead set. you expect a burst of partridges, or a towering cock-pheasant, when lo, and behold, away flits a lark, or you discover a mouse's nest, or there is absolutely nothing at all. perhaps a shrew has been there the day before. yet if elia were mine, i would not part with him, for all his faults." a few years later lamb became one of _blackwood's_ contributors. two attacks on lamb proceeded from the _quarterly_. the _confessions of a drunkard_, the writer says, "affords a fearful picture of the consequences of intemperance which we have reason to know is a true tale."[ ] in his _progress of infidelity_, southey asserted that elia's volume of essays wanted "only sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original."[ ] lamb's wrath had been slowly gathering under the strain of repeated attacks on hunt, hazlitt and himself. it culminated with southey's article. in the _london magazine_ of october, , he repudiated at considerable length the compliments thrust upon him at the expense of his friends, and denied the arraignment of drunkenness and heterodoxy. matters were then smoothed over between him and southey through an explanation which his unfailing good nature could not resist. haydon was nick-named the "raphael of the cockneys."[ ] until the exhibition of _christ's entry into jerusalem_ in edinburgh in , he underwent the same kind of persecution as his friends. his "greasy hair" was about as notorious as hazlett's "pimpled face." but the picture converted _blackwood's_ crew. they apologized and confessed that their misapprehensions had been due to the absurd style of laudation in _the examiner_. henceforward they acknowledged him to be "a high tory and an aristocrat, and a sound christian."[ ] bryan waller procter, or barry cornwall, was satirized in _blackwood's_ for his so-called effeminacy. in october, , the following facetious passage occurs: "the merry thought of a chick--three tea-spoonsfulls of peas, the eighth part of a french roll, a sprig of cauliflower, and an almost imperceptible dew of parsley" would dine the author of _the deluge_. the article on shelley's _posthumous poems_ in the _edinburgh_ of july, , was attributed to procter by _blackwood's_ and assailed in a most disgusting manner. the article was by hazlitt. john hamilton reynolds was a friend of keats, one of the _young poets_ reviewed by hunt in _the examiner_, and a contributor to the _london magazine_. his two poems, _eden of the imagination_ and _fairies_, showed hunt's influence. in the former he had even dared to praise hunt in the notes. cornelius webb was the author of numerous poems which exhibit in a marked degree the huntian peculiarities of diction pointed out in the first chapter. he is moreover responsible for the unfortunate lines so often quoted in derision by blackwood's: "keats the muses' son of promise! and what feats he yet may do." his sonnets in the _literary pocket book_ were thus reviewed in _blackwood's_ of december, : "now, cornelius webbe is a jaw-breaker. let any man who desires to have his ivory dislodged, read the above sonnet to march. or shall we call cornelius, the grinder? after reading aloud these fourteen lines, we called in our odontist, and he found that every tooth in our head was loosened, and a slight fracture in the jaw. 'my dearest christopher', said the odontist, in his wonted classical spirit, 'beware the ides of march.' so saying, he bounced up in our faces and disappeared." charles wells was a friend of hazlitt and of keats. in true cockney fashion he sent the latter a sonnet and some roses and thus began the acquaintance. dilke was a friend of keats, a radical, and an independent critic in the manner of hunt. charles lloyd was lamb's friend, one of the contributors to the _literary pocket book_ of , and a poet of sentimental and descriptive propensities. p. g. patmore was "count tims, the cockney."[ ] although he was a correspondent of _blackwood's_, his son has remarked that he was not _persona grata_, but was employed to secure news from london; and permitted to write only when he did not defend his friends too much.[ ] "john ketch" (abraham franklin) is mentioned by lord byron as one of the "cockney scribblers."[ ] thomas hood, as brother-in-law of reynolds, as assistant editor of the _london magazine_, and as an imitator in a small degree in his early work of lamb and of hunt may be enumerated among the cockneys, although he is not usually included. laman blanchard was the friend of procter, lamb and hunt. he imitated procter's _dramatic sketches_ and lamb's _essays_. talfourd was a member of the circle and the friend and biographer of lamb. he defended edward moxon when he was prosecuted for publishing _queen mab_. peacock was the friend of shelley. the ollier brothers, publishers, introduced keats, shelley, hunt, lamb and procter to the public.[ ] although byron was frequently at war with _blackwood's_ and the _quarterly_, and although he was closely associated with shelley and hunt, he was never stigmatized as a member of the cockney school. yet through his alliance with them he came in for some opprobrium that he would otherwise have escaped. _blackwood's_ strove through ridicule to prevent any growth of familiarity with hunt or his fraternity. its attitude towards the dedication to byron of the _story of rimini_ has already been mentioned. hunt's statement already quoted on p. that "for the drama, whatever good passages such a writer will always put forth, we hold that he (byron) has no more qualification than we have" was a choice morsel for the scotch birds of prey, enjoyed to the fullest extent in a review of _lyndsay's dramas of the ancient world_: "prigs will be preaching--and nothing but conceit cometh out of cockaigne. what an emasculated band of dramatists have deployed upon our boards. a pale-faced, sallow set, like the misses of some cockney boarding-school, taking a constitutional walk, to get rid of their habits of eating lime out of the wall.... but it was reserved to the spirit of atheism of an age, to talk of a cockney writing a tragedy. when the mind ceases to believe in a providence, it can believe in anything else; but the pious soul feels that while to dream, even in sleep, that a cockney had written a successful tragedy, would be repugnant to reason; certainly a more successful tragedy could not be imagined, from the utter destruction of cockaigne and all its inhabitants. an earthquake or a shower of lava would be too complimentary to the cockneys; but what do you think of a shower of soot from a multitude of foul chimneys, and the smell of gas from exploded pipes. something might be made of the idea.... the truth is, that these mongrel and doggerel drivellers have an instinctive abhorrence of a true poet; and they all ran out like so many curs baying at the feet of the pegasus on which byron rode ... and the eulogists of homely, and fireside, and little back-parlour incest, what could they imagine of the unseduceable spirit of the spotless angiolina?... when elliston, ignorant of what one gentleman owes to another, or driven by stupidity to forget it, brought the doge on the stage, how crowed the bantam cocks of cockaigne to see it damned!... but manfred and the doge are not dead; while all that small fry have disappeared in the mud, and are dried up like so many tadpoles in a ditch, under the summer drowth. 'lord byron,' quoth mr. leigh hunt, 'has about as much dramatic genius as _ourselves_!' he might as well have said, 'lucretia had about as much chastity as my own heroine in rimini;' or, 'sir phillip sidney was about as much of the gentleman as myself!'"[ ] byron's attitude toward the cockney school was expressed in a letter written to john murray during the bowles controversy: "with the rest of his (hunt's) young people i have no acquaintance, except through some things of theirs (which have been sent out without my desire), and i confess that till i had read them i was not aware of the full extent of human absurdity. like garrick's 'ode to shakespeare,' _they_ '_defy criticism_.' these are of the personages who decry pope.... mr. hunt redeems himself by occasional beauties; but the rest of these poor creatures seem so far gone that i would not 'march through coventry with them, that's flat!' were i in mr. hunt's place. to be sure, he has 'led his ragamuffins where they will be well peppered'; but a system-maker must receive all sorts of proselytes. when they have really seen life--when they have felt it--when they have travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of middlesex--when they have overpassed the alps of highgate, and traced to its sources the nile of the new river--then, and not till then, can it properly be permitted to them to despise pope.... the grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets is their _vulgarity_. by this i do not mean that they are coarse, but 'shabby-genteel,' as it is termed. a man may be _coarse_ and yet not _vulgar_, and the reverse.... it is in their _finery_ that the new school are _most_ vulgar, and they may be known by this at once; as what we called at harrow "a sunday blood" might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, although his clothes might be the better cut, and his boots the best blackened of the two:--probably because he made the one or cleaned the other, with his own hands.... in the present case, i speak of writing, not of persons. of the latter i know nothing; of the former i judge as it is found."[ ] byron's opinion of keats is too well known to need repetition. he thought there was hope for barry cornwall if "he don't get spoiled by green tea and the praises of pentonville and paradise row. the pity of these men is, that they never lived in _high life_ nor in _solitude_: there is no medium for the knowledge of the _busy_ or the _still_ world. if admitted into high life for a season, it is merely as _spectators_--they form no part of the mechanism thereof."[ ] _blackwood's_ of december, , in a review of _the liberal_, advised byron to "cut the cockney"--"by far the most unaccountable of god's works." hunt is denominated "the menial of a lord." when byron notwithstanding its advice continued his "conjunction with these deluded drivellers of cockaigne" _blackwood's_ grew savage towards the peer himself: it is said that he suffered himself "to be so enervated by the unworthy delilahs which have enslaved his imagination, as to be reduced to the foul office of displaying blind buffooneries before the philistines of cockaigne ... i feel a moral conviction that his lordship must have taken the examiner, the liberal, the rimini, the round table, as his model, and endeavored to write himself down to the level of the capacities and the swinish tastes of those with whom he has the misfortune, originally, i believe, from charitable motives, to associate. this is the most charitable hypothesis which i can frame. indeed there are some verses which have all the appearance of having been interpolated by the king of the cockneys."[ ] when byron and hunt had separated, _blackwood's_ attempted to reinstate byron in his former position by declaring that he had been disgusted beyond endurance on hunt's arrival in italy and that he had cut him very soon in a "paroxysm of loathing."[ ] * * * * * the declaration of war between the cockneys and the tory press was made with a review of the _story of rimini_ in the _quarterly_ of january, . from this time on hunt was the choice prey of the two magazines, and others were attacked principally on account of him, or reached through him. hunt's writings were termed "eruptions of a disease" with which he insists upon "inoculating mankind;" his language "an ungrammatical, unauthorized, chaotic jargon." _blackwood's_ of october, , contained the first of the long series of abusive articles which appeared in its columns. hazlitt in the _edinburgh review_ in june of the preceding year had acclaimed the _story of rimini_ to be "a reminder of the pure and glorious style that prevailed among us before french modes and french methods of criticism." in it he had discovered a resemblance to chaucer, to the voluptuous pathos of boccaccio and to the laughing graces of ariosto. to offset such statements _blackwood's_ dubbed the new school the "cockney school" and made hunt its chief doctor and professor. (later, in , _blackwood's_ proudly claimed the honor of christening and said that the _quarterly_ used the epithet only when it had become a part of english criticism.) it declared the dedication to byron an insult and the poem the product of affectation and gaudiness and continued: "the beaux are attorney's apprentices, with chapeau bras and limerick gloves--fiddlers, harp teachers, and clerks of genius: the belles are faded, fan-twinkling spinsters, prurient vulgar misses from school, and enormous citizen's wives. the company are entertained with luke-warm negus, and the sounds of a paltry piano forte.... his poetry resembles that of a man who has kept company with kept-mistresses. his muse talks indelicately like the tea-sipping milliner's girl. some excuse for her there might have been, had she been hurried away by imagination or passion; but with her, indecency seems a disease, she appears to speak unclean things from perfect inanition." hunt "would fain be always tripping and waltzing, and he is very sorry that he cannot be allowed to walk about in the morning with yellow breeches and flesh-colored silk stockings. he sticks an artificial rosebud in his button hole in the midst of winter. he wears no neckcloth, and cuts his hair in imitation of the prints of petrarch." nature in the eyes of a cockney was said to consist only of "green fields, jaunty streams, and o'er-arching leafiness;" no mountains were higher than highgate-hill nor streams more pastoral than the serpentine river.[ ] _blackwood's_ was near the truth in its criticism of hunt's conception of nature. while his appreciation was very genuine, it was restricted to rural or suburban scenes, "of the town, towny."[ ] the scale was that of the window garden or a flower pot. who but he could rhapsodize over a cut flower or a bit of green; or could speak in spring "of being gay and vernal and daffodilean?"[ ] yet he produced some delightful rural poetry. take this for instance: "you know the rural feeling, and the charm that stillness has for a world-fretted ear, 'tis now deep whispering all about me here, with thousand tiny bushings, like a swarm of atom bees, or fairies in alarm or noise of numerous bliss from distant spheres."[ ] the general characteristics of the school, briefly summarized, were said to be ignorance and vulgarity, an entire absence of religion, a vague and sour jacobinism for patriotism, admiration of chaucer and spenser when they resemble hunt, and extreme moral depravity and obscenity. november, , of _blackwood's_ contained the notorious accusation against the _story of rimini_ of immorality of purpose.[ ] the poem was called "the genteel comedy of incest." francesca's sin was declared voluntary and her sufferings sentimental. the changes from the historical version, an espousal by proxy instead of betrothal, the omission of deformity, the substitution of the duel for murder, and the happy opening, were pronounced wilful perversions for the furtherance of corruption. ford's treatment of the same theme much more elevated. hunt's defense was that the catastrophe was francesca's sufficient punishment.[ ] in may, , the same charge was repeated: "no woman who has not either lost her chastity, or is desirous of losing it, ever read the 'story of rimini' without the flushings of shame and of self-reproach." _the examiner_ of november and , , quoted extracts from the first of these articles and called upon the author to avow himself; otherwise to an "utter disregard of _truth_ and decency, he adds the height of meanness and cowardice."[ ] as might have been expected, this demand brought forth nothing more than a disavowal from the london publishers who handled _blackwood's_ of all responsibility in the matter. june , , _the examiner_ assailed the editor of the _quarterly_ as a government critic who disguised a political quarrel in literary garb, as a sycophant to power and wealth: "grown old in the service of corruption, he drivels on to the last with prostituted impotence, and shameless effrontery; salves a meagre reputation for wit, by venting the driblets of his spleen and impertinence on others; answers their arguments by confuting himself; mistakes habitual obtuseness of intellect for a particular acuteness, not to be imposed upon by shallow pretensions; unprincipled rancor for zealous loyalty; and the irritable, discontented, vindictive, and peevish effusions of bodily pain and mental infirmity, for proofs of refinement of taste and strength of understanding." this condescension to a use of his enemies' weapons only weakened hunt's position. yet in the light of the secrecy maintained at the time and the mystery surrounding the matter ever since, it is interesting to read _blackwood's_ contorted reply to hunt's demand for an open fight, written as late as january, : "nor let it be said that, either on this or any other occasion, the moral satyrists (sic) in this magazine ever wished to remain unknown. how, indeed, could they wish for what they well knew was impossible? all the world has all along known the names of the gentlemen who have uttered our winged words. nor did it ever, for one single moment, enter into the head of any one of them to wish--not to scorn concealment. to gentlemen, too, they at all times acted like gentlemen; but was it ever dreamt by the wildest that they were to consider as such the scum of the earth? 'if i but knew who was my slanderer,' was at one time the ludicrous skraigh of the convicted cockney. why did he not ask? and what would he have got by asking? shame and confusion of face--unanswerable argument and cruel chastisement. for before one word would have been deigned to the sinner, he must have eaten--and the bitter roll is yet ready for him--all the lies he had told for the last twenty years, and must either have choked or been kicked." in january, , _blackwood's_ issued a manifesto of their future campaign. the keatses, shelleys, and webbes, were to be taken in turn. the charges of profligacy and obscenity against hunt's poem were repeated, but it was emphatically stated that there was no implication made in reference to his private character--an ominous statement that any one with any knowledge of _blackwood's_ usual methods could only construe into a warning that such an implication would speedily follow. the article was signed "z," a shadowy personage who sorrowfully called himself the "present object" of hunt's resentment and dislike. he seems to have expected gratitude and affection in return for articles that would compare favorably with the most scurrilous billingsgate of any of the humanistic controversies. in may, , with due ceremony, hunt was proclaimed "king of the cockneys" and editor of the cockney court-gazette. his kingdom was the "land of cockaigne," a borrowing, most probably, from the thirteenth century satire by that name. keats's sonnet containing the line "he of the rose, the violet, the spring" became the official cockney poem--by an "amiable but infatuated bardling." john hunt was made prince john. with the lapse of time hunt's crimes seem to have multiplied. he is called a lunatic, a libeller, an abettor of murder and of assassination, a coward, an incendiary, a jacobin, a plebeian and a foe to virtue. he is instructed, if sickened with the sins and follies of mankind, to withdraw "to the holy contemplation of your own divine perfections, and there 'perk up with timid mouth' 'and lamping eyes' (as you have it) upon what to you is dearer and more glorious than all created things besides, till you become absorbed in your own identity--motionless, mighty, and magnificent, in the pure calm of cockneyism ... instead of rousing yourself from your lair, like some noble beast when attacked by the hunter, you roll yourself round like a sick hedgehog, that has crawled out into the 'crisp' gravel walk round your box at hampstead, and oppose only the feeble pricks of your hunch'd-up back to the kicks of any one who wishes less to hurt you, than to drive you into your den." the _quarterly_ of the same month contained the notorious review of _foliage_. southey, in a counterfeited cockney style, contorts hunt's devotion to his leafy luxuries, his flowerets, wine, music and other social joys into epicureanism[ ] and like unsound principles. he even goes so far as to accuse him of incest and adultery in his private life. there are disguised but unmistakable references to keats and to shelley; the latter is credited with evil doings that fall little short of machinations with the devil. the volume of poems, which was the ostensible pretext for this parade of foul slander, not a word of which was true, has, southey says, richness of language and picturesqueness of imagery.[ ] the july number of _blackwood's_ went a step beyond southey and identified the characters of the _story of rimini_ with hunt and his sister-in-law, elizabeth kent. after ostentatiously giving currency to the scandal, "z" then proceeds to deny the rumor--which had no existence save in the minds of hunt's vilifiers--in order to preserve immunity from libel. at the time that lamb replied to southey in he took up these charges made against hunt in . he said: "i was admitted to his household for several years, and do most solemnly aver that i believe him to be in his domestic relations as correct as any man. he chose an ill-judged subject for a poem.... in spite of 'rimini,' i must look upon its author as a man of taste and a poet. he is better than so; he is one of the most cordial-minded men that i ever knew, and matchless as a fireside companion. i do not mean to affront or wound your feelings when i say that in his more genial moods, he has often reminded me of you."[ ] a facetious bit of prose _on sonnet writing_ and a _sonnet on myself_ in _blackwood's_ of april, , parodied excellently the cockney conceit and mannerisms. the september number contrasted henry hunt, the representative of the cockney school of politics, with leigh hunt, of the cockney school of poetry; resenting loudly the claim of the two to prominence for "even douglasses never had more than one bell-the-cat at a time." while henry hunt "the brawny white feather of cockspur-street" addresses street mobs, the other hunt, "the lank and sallow hypochondriac of the 'leafy rise' and 'farmy fields' of hampstead," "the whining milk-sop sonneteer of the examiner" is said to speak to a "sorely depressed remnant of 'single gentlemen' in lodgings, and single ladies we know not where--a generation affected with headaches, tea-drinking and all the nostalgia of the nerves." it is hardly necessary to add that there was no connection whatsoever between the two men. _blackwood's_ of october, , announced _foliage_ to be a posthumous publication of hunt's, presented to the public by his three friends, keats, haydon and novello. an affecting picture is drawn of the now-departed hunt in his once familiar costume of dressing-gown, yellow breeches and red slippers, sipping tea, playing whist and writing sonnets. his statement in the preface that a "love of sociability, of the country, and the fine imagination of the greeks" had prompted the poems is greatly ridiculed. the first is said to have caused his death by an over-indulgence in tea-drinking; his feeling for nature is said to be limited to the lawns, stiles and hedges of hampstead and his knowledge of the imagination of the greeks to quotations. the _sonnet on receiving a crown of ivy from keats_ came in for especial derision--"a blister clapped on his head" would have been considered more appropriate. hunt's _literary pocket books_ for and were reviewed in _blackwood's_ in december, , in a remarkably kind article. they are recommended as worth three times the price. the reviewer, who was no other than "christopher north," stated that he had purchased six copies. _blackwood's_ of september, , reviewed _the indicator_; of december, , the _literary pocket book_; the last contained coarse and unkind allusions to hunt's health. it declared the production of sonnets in london and its suburbs about equal to the number of births and deaths. in reply, _the examiner_ of december , , in an article entitled _modern criticism_, italicised extracts from _blackwood's_ to bring out peculiarities of grammar and diction. _blackwood's_ of january, , contained a sonnet which it was pretended was hunt's new year's greeting, but which was instead a clever parody on his sonnet-style. the issue of the next month announced the triumvirate of _the liberal_ and, through byron's "noble generosity," hunt's departure with his wife and "little johnnys" upon a "perilous voyage on the un-cockney ocean.... he and his companions will now, like his own nereids, turn and toss upon the ocean's lifting billows, making them _banks and_ pillows, upon whose _springiness_ they lean and ride; some with an _inward back_; some _upward-eyed_, feeling the sky; and some with _sidelong hips_, o'er which the surface of the water slips." the first number of the _noctes ambrosianæ_ appeared in march. the following passage refers to the launching of _the liberal_ in a dialogue between the editor and o'doherty: o. hand me the lemons. this holy alliance of pisa will be a queer affair. _the examiner_ has let down its price from a tenpenny to a sevenpenny. they say the editor here is to be one of that faction, for they must publish in london, of course. ed. of course, but i doubt if they will be able to sell many. byron is a prince, but these dabbling dogglerers destroy every dish they dip in. o. apt alliteration's artful aid. ed. imagine shelly [sic], with his spavin, and hunt, with his staingalt, going in harness with such a caperer as byron, three-a-breast. he'll knock the wind out of them both the first canter. o. 'tis pity keats is dead.--i suppose you could not venture to publish a sonnet in which he is mentioned now? the _quarterly_ (who killed him, as shelly says) would blame you. ed. let's hear it. is it your own? o. no; 'twas written many months ago by a certain great italian genius, who cuts a figure about the london routs--one fudgiolo. ed. try to recollect it. (here follows the sonnet.) _blackwood's_ of december, , had passages on the cockney school in _noctes ambrosianæ_. number vii. of the series of articles on its members reviewed hunt's _florentine lovers_, or, in their phrasing, his _art of love_, the story of which is wilfully misrepresented. hunt is declared "the most irresistible knight-errant errotic extant ... the most contemptible little capon of the bantam breed that ever vainly dropped a wing, or sidled up to a partlet. he can no more crow than a hen. byron makes love like sir peter, moore like a tom-tit and hunt like a bantam." the writer then charges hunt with irreligion, indecency, sensuality and licentiousness. he is called "a fool" and an "exquisite idiot." such a burst of rage on the part of the anti-cockneys, after their wrath had begun to cool as seen in the review of the _literary pocket book_, was doubtless due to hunt's association in _the liberal_ with byron: "what can byron mean by patronizing a cockney?... by far the most unaccountable of god's works ... a scavenger raking in the filth of the common sewers and stews, for a few gold pieces thrown down by a nobleman.... but that satan should stoop to associate with an incubus, shows that there is degeneracy in hell." the tirade closes with a poem of six stanzas of which this is a fair sample: "the kind cockney monarch, he bids us farewell taking his place in the leghorn-bound smack-- in the smack, in the smack--ah! will he ne'er come back?" at the appearance of the last number of _the liberal_, _blackwood's_ rejoiced thus: "their hum, to be sure, is awfully subdued. they remind me of a mutchkin of wasps in a bottle, all sticking to each other--heads and tails--rumps glued with treacle and vinegar, wax and pus--helpless, hopeless, stingless, wingless, springless--utterly abandoned of air--choked and choking--mutually entangling and entangled--and mutually disgusting and disgusted--the last blistering ferment of incarnate filth working itself into one mass of oblivion in one bruised and battered sprawl of swipes and venom."[ ] _blackwood's_ of october, , declared hazlitt to be the most loathsome and hunt the most ludicrous of the group. before the close of the year hunt threatened the magazine with a suit for libel. this threat did not prevent in january a notice of hunt's _ultra-crepidarius_, a satire on gifford much in the vein and style of the _feast of the poets_. mercury and venus come to earth in search of the former's lost shoe. on their arrival they discover that it has been converted by command of the gods into a man named gifford. the satire is facetiously attributed by _blackwood's_ to master hunt, aged ten; a "small, smart, smattering satirist of an air-haparent ... cockney chick." the parent is reproached for putting a child in such a position. "had leigh hunt, the papa, boldly advanced on any great emergency, at the peril of his life and crown, to snatch the legitimate issue of his own loins from the shrivelled hands of some blear-eyed old beldam, into whose small cabbage-garden maximilian had headed a forlorn hope, good and well, and beautiful; but not so, when a stalwart and cankered carl like mr. gifford, with his quarter-staff, belabours the shoulders of his majesty, and sire shoves son between himself and the pounder ... such pusillanimity involves forfeiture of the crown, and from this hour we declare leigh dethroned, and the boy-bard of _ultra-crepidarius_ king of cockaigne." wearying of this make-believe, the reviewer discards such a possibility of authorship and considers hunt's grandfather, a legendary personage whose age is put at ninety-six and who is given the name of zachariah hunt: "what a gross, vulgar, leering old dog it is! was ever the couch of the celestials so profaned before! one thinks of some aged cur, with mangy back, glazed eye-balls dropping rheum, and with most disconsolate muzzard muzzling among the fleas of his abominable loins, by some accident lying upon the bed where love and beauty are embracing and embraced." as a final potentiality the reviewer deliberates whether hunt by any possibility could have been the author and closes with this peroration: "there he goes soaking, and swaling, and straddling up the sky, like daniel o'rouke on goose back!... toes in if you please. the goose is galloping--why don't you stand in the stirrups?... alas pegasus smells his native marshes; instead of making for olympus, he is off in a wallop to the fens of lincolnshire! bellerophon has lost his seat--now he clings desperately by the tail--a single feather holds him from eternity." article viii of the regular series, reviewing hunt's _bacchus in tuscany_, appeared in _blackwood's_ of august, . his allegiance to apollo in cockaigne is declared to have been changed to bacchus in tuscany, and his usual beverage of weak tea to a diet of wine on which he swills like a hippopotamus. he is depicted as jupiter tonans and his manner to hebe is compared with a "natty bagman to the barmaid of the hen and chickens." the same number noticed sotheby's translation of homer. the opportunity was not lost to refer unfavorably to hunt's translations of the same in _foliage_. _the rebellion of the beasts_; or _the ass is dead! long live the ass!!! by a late fellow of st. john's college, cambridge_, with the motto "a man hath pre-eminence above a beast," was published anonymously by j. & h. l. hunt in london in . there is every reason to believe that it was by hunt, although he does not mention it elsewhere. it is an exceedingly clever satire on monarchy and far surpasses anything else of the kind that he ever did. had the tories of edinburgh suspected the author it would probably have made them apoplectic with rage. with _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_ the rage of the two periodicals reached a grand climax and seemingly exhausted itself. the _quarterly_ in march of the same year in which it appeared said: "the last wiggle of expiring imbecility appears in these days to be a volume of personal reminiscences." it characterized the book as a melancholy product of coxcombry and cockneyism: as "dirty gabble about men's wives and men's mistresses--and men's lackeys, and even the mistresses of the lackeys:" as "the miserable book of a miserable man; the little airy fopperies of its manner are like the fantastic trip and convulsive simpers of some poor worn-out wanton, struggling between famine and remorse, leering through her tears." _blackwood's_ of the same month pictured hunt riding in the tourney lists of cockaigne to the tune of cock-a-doodle-doo. it accused him, besides those misdemeanors many times previously exploited, of clumsy casuistry, of falsehood regarding his transaction with colburn, of ill-breeding in dragging his wife into such a book. the following is the culmination of the author's anger: "mr. hunt, who to the prating pertness of the parrot, the chattering impudence of the magpie--to say nothing of the mowling malice of the monkey--adds the hissiness of the bill-pouting gander, and the gobble-bluster of the bubbly-jock--to say nothing of the forward valour of the brock or badger--threatens death and destruction to all writers of prose or verse, who shall dare to say white is the black of his eye, or that his book is not like a vase lighted up from within with the torch of truth ... frezeland bantam is the vainest bird that attempts to crow; and by and by our feverish friend comes out into the light, and begins to trim his plumage! his toilet over he basks on the ditch side, and has not the smallest doubt in the world that he is a bird of paradise." the _literary gazette_ joined in the hue-and-cry against "the pert vulgarity and miserable low-mindedness of cockney-land," against "the disagreeable, envious, bickering, hating, slandering, contemptible, drivelling and be-devilling wretches."[ ] _blackwood's_ of february, , in a review of moore's _life, letters and journals of lord byron_, satirizes the conversational habits of the cockneys "who all keep chattering during meals and after them, like so many monkeys, emulous and envious of each other's eloquence, and pulling out with their paws fetid observations from their cheek-pouches, which are nuts to them, though instead of kernel, nothing but snuff." not only did the articles in _blackwood's_ cease after this last, but in a full and complete apology was tendered hunt by christopher north: "and shelley truly loved leigh hunt. their friendship was honorable to both, for it was as disinterested as sincere; and i hope gurney will let a certain person in the city understand that i treat his offer of a reviewal of mr. hunt's _london journal_ with disdain. if he has anything to say against us or that gentleman, either conjunctly or severally, let him out with it in some other channel; and i promise him a touch and taste of the crutch. he talks to me of _maga's_ desertion of principle; but if he were a christian--nay, a man--his heart and his head would tell him that the animosities are mortal, but the humanities live for ever--and that leigh hunt has more talent in his little finger than the puling prig, who has taken upon himself to lecture christopher north in a scrawl crawling with forgotten falsehoods."[ ] professor wilson's invitation to hunt to contribute to his magazine was declined politely but firmly. leigh hunt wrote to charles cowden clarke: "_blackwood's_ and i, poetically, are becoming the best friends in the world. the other day there was an ode in _blackwood_ in honour of the memory of shelley; and i look for one of keats. i hope this will give you faith in glimpses of the golden age."[ ] nowhere does hunt show resentment or malice for the sufferings of years. yet mrs. oliphant, in her advocacy of the blackwood group, goes the length of saying that he displayed "feebleness of mind and body," "petty meannesses," "unwillingness or incapacity to take a high view even of friends or benefactors," a lightheartedness and frivolity, and "enduring spite." she grudgingly admits his "almost feminine grace and charm." she says that he thought his friends deserved only "casual thanks when they did what was but their manifest duty ... bitter and spiteful satire when they attended to their own affairs instead." she makes a radically false statement when she says that he defended byron, shelley, keats, moore, and many others in _the examiner_, but found an opportunity to say an evil word of most of them afterwards; and that when _blackwood's_ or the _quarterly_ attacked him, he was convinced that "it must be really one of his friends who was being struck at through him."[ ] the _quarterly_ delayed longer in assuming a friendly attitude. it remained silent until , when bulwer, in a comparison of hunt and hazlitt, conceded to the former a gracefulness and kindliness of disposition, a smoothness of tone and delicacy of finish in his writing. there was no formal apology as in the case of _blackwood's_. carlyle says that hunt suffered an "obloquy and calumny through the tory press--perhaps a greater quantity of baseness, persevering, implacable calumny, than any other living writer has undergone; which long course of hostility ... may be regarded as the beginning of his worst distresses, and a main cause of them down to this day."[ ] macaulay said: "there is hardly a man living whose merits have been so grudgingly allowed, and whose faults have been so cruelly expiated."[ ] for a period of more than a quarter of a century, from the beginning of the crusade against him until about , partly as the result of the misrepresentation of the press, and partly as a natural consequence of his own foibles and early blunders, a pretty general antagonism existed against him. at the end of that time his honesty and talents were recognized and rewarded publicly by the government. and the public has come more and more to esteem his personal character. * * * * * the _quarterly_ of april, , contained the stupid and savage review of _endymion_, provoked almost solely by the keats's offence in being the friend and public protégé of leigh hunt. the simple and manly preface[ ] was misconstrued into a formula for huntian poetry, and its allusion to a "london drizzle or a scotch mist" into a "deprecation of criticism in a feverish manner." leigh hunt asked years afterwards how "anybody could answer such an appeal to the mercy of strength with the cruelty of weakness. all the good for which mr. gifford pretended to be zealous, he might have effected with pain to no one, and glory to himself; and therefore all the evil he mixed with it was of his own making."[ ] the general trend of the article and the reviewer's acknowledgment that he had read only the first book of the poem are well known. the following passage refers directly to keats's connection with hunt: "the author is a copyist of mr. hunt, but he is more unintelligible, almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times more tiresome and absurd than his prototype; who, though he impudently presumed to seat himself in the chair of criticism, and to measure his own poetry by his own standard, yet generally had a meaning. but mr. keats advanced no dogmas which he was bound to support by examples; his nonsense is therefore quite gratuitous; he writes it for his own sake, and, being bitten by mr. leigh hunt's insane criticism, more than rivals the insanity of his poetry."[ ] _blackwood's_ followed the _quarterly's_ lead in august, reviewing keats's first volume at the same time with _endymion_. he is reproached with madness, with metromania, with low origin, with perversion of talents suited only to an apprenticeship, all because he admired hunt sufficiently to adopt some of his theories and because he had been called in _the examiner_ one of "two stars of glorious magnitude." the sonnet _written on the day that mr. leigh hunt left prison_, the _sonnet to haydon_, and _sleep and poetry_, are anathematized. in the last keats is said to speak with "contempt of some of the most exquisite spirits that the world ever produced, merely because they did not happen to exert their faculties in laborious affected descriptions of flowers seen in window-pots, or cascades heard at vauxhall; in short, because they chose to be wits, philosophers, patriots, and poets, rather than to found the cockney school of versification, morality and politics, a century before its time. after blaspheming himself into a fury against boileau, etc., mr. keats comforts himself and his readers with a view of the present more promising state of affairs; above all, with the ripened glories of the poet of _rimini_." the denunciation of the "calm, settled, drivelling idiocy" of _endymion_ in the same article is famous, but in a discussion of the cockney school it is well to recall the following: "from his prototype hunt, john keats has acquired a sort of vague idea, that the greeks were a most tasteful people, and that no mythology can be so finely adopted for the purpose of poetry as theirs. it is amusing to see what a hand the cockneys make of this mythology; the one confesses that he never read the greek tragedians and the other knows homer only from chapman; and both of them write about apollo, pan, nymphs, muses, and mysteries, as might be expected from persons of their education. we shall not, however, enlarge at present upon this subject, as we mean to dedicate an entire paper to the classical attainments and attempts of the cockney poets." the versification is said to expose the defects of hunt's system ten times more than hunt's own poetry. the mocking close is as follows: "it is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop, mr. john, back to 'plasters, pills, and ointment boxes,' etc. but, for heaven's sake, young sangrado, be a little more sparing of extenuatives and soporifics in your practice than you have been in your poetry." the delusion that these articles were the direct cause of keats's death, an impression given wide currency by the passages in _adonais_[ ] and _don juan_,[ ] has long since been dispelled by the evidence of hunt,[ ] fanny brawne, c. c. clarke and, most important of all, keats's own letters.[ ] it is not likely that he was affected by them as much as either hunt or hazlitt, for he showed more indifference and greater dignity under fire than either. his courage and his craving for future fame do not seem to have wavered during the year in which they appeared. joseph severn has testified that he never heard keats mention _blackwood's_ and that he considered what his friend endured from the press as "one of the least of his miseries"; that he knew so little about the whole matter that when he met sir walter scott in rome many years after he was at a loss to understand scott's embarrassment when keats's name was mentioned; and it was not until a friend afterwards explained that scott was connected with one of the magazines which was popularly supposed to have caused keats's death that he could fathom it.[ ] it would have been impossible for a more obtuse man than leigh hunt not to have realized from the import of these two articles that keats was abused largely because of the association with himself and, but for that, might have remained in peaceful obscurity. hunt therefore wisely refrained from further defense as it would only have made matters worse. during the year only one notice of keats appeared in _the examiner_.[ ] during the same year three sonnets to keats appeared in _foliage_. yet it has been several times stated that hunt forsook keats at this time. keats, under the hallucination of disease himself, accused hunt of neglect, yet there were three reasons which made a persistent defense on the part of hunt not to be expected. first, he was unaware, according to his own statement, of the extent of the defamation; second, he realized that his championship and friendship had been the original cause of wrath in the enemies' camp against keats and that any activity on his part would only incense them further,[ ] and third, he did not approve of keats's only publication of that year and could not give it his support, as he frankly told keats himself. mr. forman and mr. rossetti both scout the idea of disertion and disloyalty. yet mr. hall caine has made much[ ] of a charge which has been denied by hunt and ultimately repudiated by keats. he has, moreover, overlooked the fact that hunt's bitter satire, _ultra-crepidarius_, was written in _ _ as a reply to keats's critics but was withheld from publication, presumably only for reasons of prudence, until . when keats's feeling on the subject was brought to his knowledge years later, hunt wrote: "keats appears to have been of opinion that i ought to have taken more notice of what the critics said against him. and perhaps i ought. my notices of them may not have been sufficient. i may have too much contented myself with panegyrizing his genius, and thinking the objections to it of no ultimate importance. had he given me a hint to another effect, i should have acted upon it. but in truth, as i have before intimated, i did not see a twentieth part of what was said against us; nor had i the slightest notion, at that period, that he took criticism so much to heart. i was in the habit, though a public man, of living in a world of abstractions of my own; and i regarded him as of a nature still more abstracted, and sure of renown. though i was a politician (so to speak), i had scarcely a political work in my library. spensers and arabian tales filled up the shelves; and spenser himself was not remoter, in my eyes, from all the common-places of life, than my new friend. our whole talk was made up of idealisms. in the streets we were in the thick of the old woods. i little suspected, as i did afterwards, that the hunters had struck him; and never at any time did i suspect that he could have imagined it desired by his friends. let me quit the subject of so afflicting a delusion."[ ] the _edinburgh review_ of august, , discussed _endymion_ and the volume. while it lamented the extravagances and obscurities, the "intoxication of sweetness" and the perversion of rhyme, it gave keats due credit for his genius and his appreciation of the spirit of poetry. hunt's review of _lamia_[ ] and the other poems of the volume appeared in _the indicator_ of the same month. _blackwood's_ answered the next month, abusing hunt roundly and faintly praising the poems. the following proves that their chief object was to strike hunt through keats: "it is a pity that this young man, john keats, author of _endymion_, and some other poems, should have belonged to the cockney school--for he is evidently possessed of talents that, under better direction, might have done very considerable things. as it is, he bids fair to sink himself beneath such a mass of affectation, conceit, and cockney pedantry, as i never expected to see heaped together by anybody, except the first founder of the school.... there is much merit in some of the stanzas of mr. keats's last volume, which i have just seen; no doubt he is a fine feeling lad--and i hope he will live to despise leigh hunt and be a poet." hazlitt, in may of the next year wrote of the persecution of keats in the _edinburgh review_: "nor is it only obnoxious writers on politics themselves, but all their friends and acquaintances, and those whom they casually notice, that come under their sweeping anathema. it is proper to make a clear stage. the friends of caesar must not be suspected of an amicable intercourse with patriotic and incendiary writers. a young poet comes forward; an early and favourable notice appears of some boyish verses of his in the _examiner_, independently of all political opinion. that alone decides fate; and from that moment he is set upon, pulled in pieces, and hunted into his grave by the whole venal crew in full cry after him. it was crime enough that he dared to accept praise from so disreputable a quarter." in a letter from hunt in italy to _the examiner_, july , , an inquiry is made why mr. gifford has never noticed keats's last volume: "that beautiful volume containing _lamia_, the story from boccaccio, and that magnificent fragment _hyperion_?" _blackwood's_ of august replied to these two defenses in a tirade of twenty-two pages against the _edinburgh review_, hazlitt, and hunt. the _noctes ambrosianæ_ of october continued in the same strain and, though the grave should have protected keats from such banter, revived the old allusions to the apothecary and his pills. in self defense against the charge, that its attacks and those of the _quarterly_ had broken keats's heart, _blackwood's_ in january, , said that it alone had dealt with keats, shelley and procter with "_common sense_ or _common feeling_"; that, seeing keats in the road to ruin with the cockneys, it had "tried to save him by wholesome and severe discipline--they drove him to poverty, expatriation and death." the most remarkable part of this remarkable justification is this: "keats outhunted hunt in a species of emasculated pruriency, that, although invented in little britain, looks as if it were the prospect of some imaginative eunuch's muse within the melancholy inspiration of the haram" (_sic_). in march, , in a review of _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, the _quarterly_ seized the opportunity to revert to the author's friendship for keats in its old hostile manner; and, in a criticism of coleridge's poems in august, , to speak of his "dreamy, half-swooning style of verse criticised by lord byron (in language too strong for print) as the fatal sin of mr. john keats." finally in march, , in _journalism in france_, there is another feeble effort at defense; a resentment of the "twaddle" against the _quarterly_ "when they had the misfortune to criticise a sickly poet, who died soon afterwards, apparently for the express purpose of dishonoring us." one of hunt's utterances in regard to keats and his critics disposes finally of the matter: "his fame may now forgive the critics who disliked his politics, and did not understand his poetry."[ ] * * * * * from italy shelley wrote to peacock: "i most devoutly wish i were living near london.... my inclination points to hampstead; but i do not know whether i should not make up my mind to something more completely suburban. what are mountains, trees, heaths, or even glorious and ever beautiful sky, with such sunsets as i have seen at hampstead, to friends? social enjoyment, in some form or other, is the alpha and the omega of existence. all that i see in italy--and from my tower window i now see the magnificent peaks of the apennine half enclosing the plain--is nothing. it dwindles into smoke in the mind, when i think of some familiar forms of scenery, little perhaps in themselves, over which old remembrances have thrown a delightful colour."[ ] the attacks of the _quarterly_ of may, , on shelley's private life and of april, , on the _revolt of islam_, and the reply of _the examiner_, have already been discussed on p. of the third chapter. the assault was renewed in october, . the dominating characteristic of shelley's poetry is said to be "its frequent and total want of meaning." in _prometheus unbound_ there were said to be many absurdities "in defiance of common sense and even of grammar ... a mere jumble of words and heterogeneous ideas, connected by slight and accidental associations, among which it is impossible to distinguish the principal object from the accessory." the poem is declared to be full of "flagrant offences against morality and religion" and the poet to have gone out of his way to "revile christianity and its author." as a final verdict the reviewer says: "mr. shelley's poetry is, in sober sadness, _drivelling prose run mad_.... be his private qualities what they may, his poems ... are at war with reason, with taste, with virtue, in short, with all that dignifies man, or that man reveres." the _london literary gazette_ joined its forces to the _quarterly_ and scored _prometheus unbound_ in , _queen mab_ in . _the examiner_ of june , and july , , contained hunt's answer to the two onslaughts. he accused the writer in the _quarterly_ of having used six stars to indicate an omission, in order to imply that the name of christ had been blasphemously used; of having put quotation marks to sentences not in the author criticised and of having intentionally left out so much at times as to make the context seem absurd. at the same time hunt stated that he agreed that shelley's poetry was of "too abstract and metaphysical a cast ... too wilful and gratuitous in its metaphors"; and that it would have been better if he had kept metaphysics and polemics out of poetry. but at the same time he asserted that shelley had written much that was unmetaphysical and poetically beautiful, as _the cenci_, the _ode to a skylark_ and _adonais_. of the second he wrote: "i know of nothing more beautiful than this,--more choice of tones, more natural in words, more abundant in exquisite, cordial, and most poetic associations." he characterized southey's reviews as cant, gifford's as bitter commonplace and croker's as pettifogging. _blackwood's_ reviewed _adonais_ and _the cenci_ in december, . the della cruscans were reported to have come again from "retreats of cockney dalliance in the london suburbs" and "by wainloads from pisa." the cockneys were said to hate everything that was good and true and honorable, all moral ties and christian principles, and to be steeped in desperate licentiousness. _adonais_ is fifty-five stanzas of "unintelligible stuff" made up of every possible epithet that the poet has been able to "conglomerate in his piracy through the lexicon." the sense has been wholly subordinated to the rhymes. the author is a "glutton of names and colours" and has accomplished no more than might be done on such subjects as mother goose, waterloo or tom thumb. two cruel and loathsome parodies follow: _wouther the city marshal broke his leg_ and an _elegy on my tom cat_, which, it is claimed, are less nonsensical, verbose and inflated than _adonais_. _the cenci_ is "a vulgar vocabulary of rottenness and reptilism" in an "odiferous, colorific and daisy-enamoured style." it is regretted by the writer that it is impossible to believe that shelley's reason is unsettled, for this would be the best apology for the poem.[ ] when _the liberal_ was organized shelley was spoken of thus: "but percy bysshe shelly has now published a long series of poems, the only object of which seems to be the promotion of _atheism_ and _incest_; and we can no longer hesitate to avow our belief, that he is as worthy of co-operating with the king of cockaigne, as he is unworthy of co-operating with lord byron. shelley is a man of genius, but he has no sort of sense or judgment. he is merely 'an inspired idiot.' leigh hunt is a man of talents, but vanity and vulgarity neutralize all his efforts to pollute the public mind. lord byron we regard not only as a man of lofty genius, but of great shrewdness and knowledge of the world. what can he seriously hope from associating his name with such people as these?"[ ] as in the case of keats, _blackwood's_ did not have the decency to desist from its indecent articles after shelley's death. september, , this vulgar ridicule of the two dead poets appeared in answer to bryan waller procter's review of shelley's poems in the preceding number of the _edinburgh review_: "mr. shelley died, it seems, with a volume of mr. keats's poetry grasped with the hand in his bosom--rather an awkward posture, as you will be convinced if you try it. but what a rash man shelley was, to put to sea in a frail boat with jack's poetry on board. why, man, it would sink a trireme. in the preface to mr. shelley's poems we are told that his 'vessel bore out of sight with a favorable wind;' but what is that to the purpose? it had endymion on board, and there was an end. seventeen ton of pig iron would not be more fatal ballast. down went the boat with a 'swirl'! i lay a wager that it righted soon after evicting jack." in the face of these articles against it as evidence, _blackwood's_, as early as january, , had the audacity to claim--perhaps with the expectation that its audience was gifted with a sense of subtle humor--that shelley had been praised in its pages for his fortitude, patience, and many other noble qualities, and that this praise had irritated the other cockneys and made the whole trouble. if keats suffered at the hands of the edinburgh dictators for his association with hunt the balance weighed in the other direction in the case of shelley. all the crimes and opinions of which he was deemed guilty were passed on to hunt. but hunt gladly suffered for shelley. hazlitt, although of irish descent and a native of shropshire, and of such independence as to belong to no school whatsoever, came in for a share of abuse second only in virulence to that showered on hunt.[ ] in the _quarterly_ of april, , in a review of the _round table_, probably in retaliation for his abuse of southey in _the examiner_, hazlitt's papers are denominated "vulgar descriptions, silly paradoxes, flat truisms, misty sophistry, broken english, ill-humour and rancorous abuse." his characterizations of pitt and burke are "vulgar and foul invective," and "loathsome trash." the author might have described washerwomen forever, the reviewer asserts, "but if the creature, in his endeavours to see the light, must make his way over the tombs of illustrious men, disfiguring the records of their greatness with the slime and filth which marks his tracks, it is right to point out that he may be flung back to the situation in which nature designed that he should grovel." the _characters of shakespeare's plays_ was made an excuse for dissecting the morals and understanding of this "poor cankered creature."[ ] the _lectures on the english poets_ is characterized as a "third predatory incursion on taste and common sense ... either completely unintelligible, or exhibits only faint and dubious glimpses of meaning ... of that happy texture that leaves not a trace in the mind of either reader or hearer."[ ] the _political essays_ was said to mark the writer as a death's head hawk-moth, a creature already placed in a state of damnation, the drudge of _the examiner_, the ward of billingsgate, the slanderer of the human race, one of the plagues of england.[ ] later, in a discussion of _table talk_,[ ] he becomes a "slang-whanger" ("a gabbler who employs slang to amuse the rabble"). hazlitt's _letter to gifford_, , was a reply to all previous attacks of the _quarterly_. for a pamphlet of eighty-seven pages on such a subject it is "lively reading," for hazlitt, like burke, as mr. birrell has remarked, excelled in a quarrel.[ ] he calls gifford a cat's paw, the government critic, the paymaster of the band of gentleman pensioners, a nuisance, a "dull, envious, pragmatical, low-bred man.... grown old in the service of corruption, he drivels on to the last with prostituted impotence and shameless effrontery; salves a meagre reputation for wit, by venting the driblets and spleen of his wrath on others; answers their arguments by confuting himself; mistakes habitual obtuseness of intellect for a particular acuteness; not to be imposed upon by shallow appearances; unprincipled rancour for zealous loyalty; and the irritable, discontented, vindictive, peevish effusions of bodily pain and mental imbecility for proofs of refinement of taste and strength of understanding."[ ] _blackwood's_ had accepted abstracts of hazlitt's _lectures on the english poets_[ ] from p. g. patmore without comment and even managed a lengthy comparison of jeffrey and hazlitt with an approach to fair dealing. but by august, , he had been identified with the "cockney crew" and he became "that wild, black-bill hazlitt," a "lounge in third-rate bookshops"; and as a critic of shakspere, a gander gabbling at that "divine swan." in april of the following year he was christened the "aristotle" of the cockneys. his _table talk_ provoked ten pages of vituperation,[ ] and _liber amoris_, two reviews as coarse as the provocation.[ ] in the first of these, apropos of his contributions to the _edinburgh review_ and in particular of his article on the _periodical press of britain_, the downfall of the magazine and its editor is announced as certain. hazlitt is called a literary flunky, a sore, an ulcer, a poor devil. in the second he is hunt's orderly, the "mars of the hampstead heavy dragoons." hazlitt found relief for his feelings by threatening _blackwood's_ with a lawsuit. yet in july, , appeared an elaborate comparison of hunt and hazlitt in _blackwood's_ choicest manner and in march, , a review of the _spirit of the age_. after the defamatory articles ceased entirely. in appeared what might be construed into an attempt at reparation by bulwer-lytton. hazlitt was still spoken of as the most aggressive of the cockneys, discourteous and unscrupulous, a bitter politician who would substitute universal submission to napoleon for established monarchial institutions; but he is credited with strong powers of reason, of judicial criticism and of metaphysical speculation, and with perception of sentiment, truth and beauty. chapter vi conclusion it is curious that, in the lives of three such geniuses as shelley, byron and keats a man of lesser gifts and of weaker fibre should have played so large a part as did leigh hunt. it is more curious in view of the fact that the period of intimate association in each case extended over only a few years. the explanation must be sought in the accident of the age and in the personality of the man himself. it was an era of stirring action and of strong feeling. men were clamoring for freedom from the trammels of the past and were pressing forward to the new day. through the union of some of the qualities of the pioneer and of the prophet, leigh hunt was thrust into a position of prominence that he might not have gained at any other time, for he lacked the vital requisites of true leadership. his personal quality was as rare as his opportunity. he had a personal ascendancy, a strange fascination born of the sympathy and chivalry, the sweetness and joyousness of his nature. an exotic warmth and glow worked its spell upon those about him. barry cornwall said that he was a "compact of all the spring winds that blew." his lovableness and very "genius for friendship" bound intimately to him those who were thus attracted. there was, besides, an elusiveness and an ethereality about him--as carlyle expressed it--"a fine tricksy medium between the poet and the wit, half a sylph and half an ariel ... a fairy fluctuating bark." the "vinous quality" of his mind, hazlitt said, intoxicated those who came in contact with him. in the case of shelley it was hunt the man, rather than the writer, that held him. charm was the magnet in a friendship that, in its perfection and deep intimacy, deserves to be ranked with the fabled ones of old--a love passing the love of woman. there is no single cloud of distrust or disloyalty in the whole story of their relations. second to the personal tie may be ranked hunt's influence on shelley's politics, greater in this instance than in the case of byron or keats. hunt's attitude was an important factor in forming shelley's political creed. with godwin, he drew shelley's attention from the creation of imaginary universes to the less speculative issues of earth. indeed, shelley's main reliance for a knowledge of political happenings during many years, and practically his only one for the last four years of his life, was _the examiner_. he was guided and moderated by it in his general attitude. in the specific instances already cited, the stimulus for poems or the information for prose tracts and articles can be directly traced to hunt. in regard to literary art hunt did not affect shelley beyond pointing the way to a freer use of the heroic couplet, and in a limited degree, in four or five of his minor poems, influencing him in the use of a familiar diction. only in his letters does shelley show any inclination to emphasize "social enjoyments" or suburban delights. that the literary influence was so slight is not surprising when shelley's powers of speculation and accurate scholarship are compared with hunt's want of concentration and shallow attainments. notwithstanding this intellectual gulf, strong convictions, with a moral courage sufficient to support them, and a congeniality of tastes and temperament, made possible an ideal comradeship. byron, like shelley, was attracted by hunt's charm of personality. an imprisoned martyr and a persecuted editor appealed to byron's love of the spectacular. political sympathy furthered the friendship. in a literary way, byron influenced hunt more than hunt influenced him. their intercourse is the story of a pleasant acquaintance with a disagreeable sequel and much error on both sides. with two men of such varying caliber and tastes, the "wren and eagle" as shelley called them, thrown together under such trying circumstances, it could hardly have been otherwise. their love of liberty and courage of opposition were the only things in common. byron recognized to the last hunt's good qualities and hunt, except for the bitter years in italy and immediately after his return, proclaimed byron's genius; but, for all that, they were temperamentally opposed. byron detested hunt's small vulgarities as much as hunt loathed byron's assumed superiority. the relation with keats was the reverse of that in the other two cases. it was an intellectual affinity throughout. at no time were keats and hunt very close to each other. nor, indeed, does keats seem to have had the capacity for intimate friendship, except with his brothers and, possibly, brown and severn. the intercourse of the two men had its disadvantages for keats in an injurious influence on his early work and in the public association of his name with that of hunt's; but the latter's literary patronage and loving interpretation when keats was wholly unknown, the friendships made possible for him with others, the open home and tender care whenever needed, the unfailing sympathy, encouragement and admiration so freely given, the new fields of art, music and books opened up, and the pleasantness of the connection at the first, should more than compensate for the attacks which keats suffered as a member of the cockney school. from this view it seems very ungrateful of george keats to have said that he was sorry that his brother's name should go down to posterity associated with hunt's. keats received far more than he gave in return. briefly stated, keats's early work shows the marked influence of hunt in the selection of subjects, in a love of italian and older english literature, in the "domestic" touch, in the colloquial and feeble diction, and in the lapses of taste. it is only fair to hunt to emphasize that this was not wholly a question of influence. it was due, as keats himself confessed, to a natural affinity of gifts and tastes, though the one was so much more highly gifted than the other. keats soon saw his mistake. _endymion_ showed a great improvement and the volume an almost complete absence of his own _bourgeois_ tendencies and of the effect of hunt's specious theories. yet it was undoubtedly through hunt that keats in his later poems began to imitate dryden. in connection with the work of all three poets, hunt's criticism is a more important fact of literary history than his services of friendship. he had, as bulwer-lytton has remarked, the first requisite of a good critic, a good heart. he had also wonderful sympathy with aspiring authorship. his insight was most remarkable of all in the appreciation of his contemporaries. with powers of critical perception that might be called an instinct for genius, he discovered shelley and keats and heralded them to the public. the same ability helped him to appreciate byron, hazlitt and lamb. browning, tennyson and rossetti were other young poets whom he encouraged and supported. he defended the lake school in when it still had many deriders. he anticipated arnold's judgment when he wrote that "wordsworth was a fine lettuce, with too many outside leaves." as early as he wrote of the "wonderful works of sir walter scott, the remarkable criticism of hazlitt, the magnetism of keats, the tragedy and winged philosophy of shelley, the passion of byron, the art and festivity of moore." to value correctly such criticism it is necessary to remember that the romantic movement was still in its first youth at the time. his criticism of the three men in question, like his criticisms in general, is distinguished by great fairness and absence of all personal jealousy, by a delicacy of feeling that will not be fully felt until scattered notes and buried prefaces are gathered together. he was animated chiefly by an inborn love of poetry and enjoyment of all beautiful things. if he sometimes fell short in understanding homer, dante and shakespeare, he was perfectly sincere and independent, and pretended nothing that he did not feel. his range of information was truly remarkable, though not deep and accurate. his style was slipshod. with the exception of the essay _what is poetry_, he fails in concentration and generalization. he never clinched his results, but was forever flitting from one sweet to another. his method was impressionistic in its appreciation of physical beauty. there is no comprehension whatsoever of mystical beauty. it is the curious instance of a man of almost ascetic habits who revelled and luxuriated in the sensuous beauties of literature. the reader of such books as _imagination and fancy_ and the half dozen others of the same kind will see his wonderful power of selection. his attempt to interpret and "popularize literature"--a cause in which he laboured long and steadfastly--was one of the greatest services he rendered his age, even if his habit of italicization and running comment for the purpose of calling attention to perfectly patent beauties irritated some of his readers. his critical taste, when exercised on the work of others, was almost faultless. the occasional vulgarities of which he was guilty in his original work do not intrude here; they were superficial and were not a part of the man. through his criticism he discovered and championed illustrious contemporaries; he instituted the italian revival in creative literature in the early part of the century; he assisted in resuscitating the interest in sixteenth and seventeenth century literature. hunt's services of friendship to byron, shelley and keats, his able criticism and just defense of them, have found their reward in the inseparable association of his name with their immortal ones. they easily surpassed him in every department of writing in which they contested, yet the _man_ was strong and alluring enough in his relations with them to prove a determining and, on the whole, beneficent influence in their lives. bibliography the following list includes only the most important contributions to the present study. where the indebtedness consists merely of one or two references, such indebtedness is acknowledged in a footnote. alden, raymond macdonald. english verse. new york, . andrews, a. the history of british journalism. london, . arnold, matthew. essays in criticism. london and new york, . beers, h. a. history of english romanticism in the nineteenth century. new york, . blessington, countess of. conversations of lord byron with the countess of blessington. london, . blackwood's edinburgh magazine. byron, george gordon noel. the works of lord byron. a new, revised and enlarged edition, with illustrations. poetry. ed. by ernest hartley coleridge. vols. letters and journals. ed. by rowland e. prothero. vols. london and new york, . letters and journals of lord byron: with notices of his life, by thomas moore. vols. london, . brandes, george. main currents in nineteenth century literature. vols. new york, . caine, t. hall. cobwebs of criticism. "the cockney school," pp. - . london, . carlyle, thomas. early letters of thomas carlyle. ed. by charles eliot norton. vols. london and new york, . letters of thomas carlyle. ed. by charles eliot norton. vols. london and new york, . new letters of thomas carlyle. ed. by alexander carlyle. vols. london and new york, . clarke, charles and mary cowden. recollections of writers. london, . collins, j. churton. byron. in the quarterly review, cii, p. ff. colvin, sidney. keats. 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(temple library.) ed. by reginald brimley johnson. london, . the examiner, a sunday paper, on politics, domestic economy, and theatricals. london. editor - . contributor - . the feast of the poets; with notes and other pieces in verse, by the editor of the examiner. london, . foliage; or poems original and translated. london, . imagination and fancy; or selections from the english poets ... and an essay in answer to the question "what is poetry?" new york, . the indicator and the companion. vols. london, . juvenilia, or a collection of poems. fourth edition. london, . the liberal. vols. london, - . the literary examiner. london, . leigh hunt's london journal. vols. london, - . lord byron and some of his contemporaries, with recollections of the author's life, and of his visit to italy. vols. london, . men, women and books. london, . poetical works. london, . poetical works. ed. by s. adams lee. vols. boston, . leigh hunt as poet and essayist. (chandos classics.) ed. by w. c. m. kent, london, . the reflector, a quarterly magazine, on subjects of philosophy, politics, and the liberal arts. vols. london, - . the story of rimini. london, . ireland, alexander. list of the writings of leigh hunt and william hazlitt, chronologically arranged. london, . johnson, r. b. leigh hunt. london, . jeaffreson, cordy. the real lord byron. vols. london, . the real shelley. vols. london, . keats, john. poetical works. ed. by william t. arnold. london, . poems. (muses library.) ed. by g. thorn drury with an introduction by robert bridges. vols. london and new york, . the poetical works and other writings. edited by harry buxton forman. vols. london, . poetical works. (golden treasury series.) edited by francis t. palgrave. london and new york, . poems of john keats. ed. by e. de sélincourt. new york, . mac-carthy, denis florence. shelley's early life. london, n. d. martineau, harriet. autobiography. ed. by maria weston chapman. vols. boston, . masson, david. wordsworth, shelley, keats, and other essays. london, . meade, w. e. the versification of pope in its relation to the seventeenth century. leipsic, . medwin, thomas. the life of percy bysshe shelley. london, . journal of the conversations of lord byron. new york and philadelphia, . milnes, richard moncton. (lord houghton.) life, letters and literary remains of john keats. vols. london, . mitford, mary russell. recollections of a literary life. vols. london, . monkhouse, cosmo. life of leigh hunt. ("great writers.") london, . moore, thomas. memoirs, journal, and correspondence. ed. by the right honorable lord john russell, m. p. vols. london, . morley, john. critical miscellanies. london and new york, . nichol, john. byron. (english men of letters.) london and new york, . nicoll, w. robertson, and wise, thomas j. literary anecdotes of the nineteenth century. vols. london. noble, j. ashcroft. the sonnet in england and other essays. london and chicago, . oliphant, mrs. margaret. the literary history of england in the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. vols. london, . patmore, coventry. memoirs and correspondence. ed. by basil champneys. vols. london, . patmore, p. g. my friends and acquaintance. vols. london, . procter, bryan waller. (barry cornwall.) an autobiographical fragment and biographical notes. london, . the quarterly review. rossetti, william michael. life of john keats. ("great writers.") london, . saintsbury, george. essays in english literature. ( - .) london, . a history of nineteenth century literature. ( - .) london and new york, . schipper, jakob m. englische metrik. bonn, . severn, joseph. life and letters. by william sharp. new york, . sharp, william. life of percy bysshe shelley. (great writers.) london, . shelley, percy bysshe. works. ed. by harry buxton forman. vols. london, . the complete poetical works. (centenary edition.) ed. by george edward woodberry. new york, . poetical works. ed. by mrs. shelley. vols. london, . smith, george barnett. shelley, a critical biography. edinburgh, . trelawney, e. j. recollections of the last days of shelley and byron. boston, . records of shelley, byron, and the author. london, . woodberry, george edward. makers of literature. new york, . studies in letters and life. boston and new york, . symonds, john addington. shelley. (english men of letters.) london and new york, . footnotes: [ ] _autobiography of leigh hunt_, i, p. . [ ] _correspondence of leigh hunt_, i, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, i, p. . compare the above quotation with shelley's description of his first friendship. (hogg, _life of percy bysshe shelley_, pp. - .) [ ] this early passion for friendship, which developed into a power of attracting men vastly more gifted than himself, brought about him besides byron, shelley and keats, such men as charles lamb, robert browning, carlyle, dickens, horace and james smith, charles cowden clarke, vincent novello, william godwin, macaulay, thackeray, lord brougham, bentham, haydon, hazlitt, r. h. horne, sir john swinburne, lord john russell, bulwer lytton, thomas moore, barry cornwall, theodore hook, j. egerton webbe, thomas campbell, the olliers, joseph severn, miss edgeworth, mrs. gaskell, mrs. browning and macvey napier. hawthorne, emerson, james russel lowell and william story sought him out when they were in london. [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] _ibid._, i, p. . [ ] _memoirs and correspondence of coventry patmore_, ed. basil champney, i, p. . [ ] _life, letters and table talk of benjamin robert haydon_, ed. by stoddard, p. . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] on once being accused of speculation hunt replied that he had never been "in a market of any kind but to buy an apple or a flower." (_atlantic monthly_, liv, p. .) nor did hunt admire money-getting propensities in others. he said of americans: "they know nothing so beautiful as the ledger, no picture so lively as the national coin, no music so animating as the chink of a purse." (_the examiner_, , p. .) [ ] dickens did hunt an irreparable injury in caricaturing him as harold skimpole. the character bore such an unmistakable likeness to hunt that it was recognized by every one who knew him, yet the weaknesses and vices were greatly multiplied and exaggerated. before the appearance of _bleak house_, dickens wrote hunt in a letter which accompanied the presentation copies of _oliver twist_ and the new american edition of the _pickwick papers_: "you are an old stager in works, but a young one in faith--faith in all beautiful and excellent things. if you can only find in that green heart of yours to tell me one of these days, that you have met, in wading through the accompanying trifles, with anything that felt like a vibration of the old chord you have touched so often and sounded so well, you will confer the truest gratification on your old friend, charles dickens." (_littell's living age_, cxciv, p. .) his apology after hunt's death was complete, but it could not destroy the lasting memory of an immortal portrait. he wrote: "a man who had the courage to take his stand against power on behalf of right--who in the midst of the sorest temptations, maintained his honesty unblemished by a single stain--who, in all public and private transactions, was the very soul of truth and honour--who never bartered his opinion or betrayed his friend--could not have been a weak man; for weakness is always treacherous and false, because it has not the power to resist." (_all the year round_, april , .) [ ] godwin, _enquiry concerning political justice_, book viii, chap. i. [ ] prof. saintsbury has very plausibly suggested that a similar attitude in godwin, coleridge and southey in respect to financial assistance was a legacy from patronage days. (_a history of nineteenth century literature_, p. .) the same might be said of hunt. [ ] s. c. hall, _a book of memories of great men and women of the age, from personal acquaintance_, p. . [ ] his feeling on the subject is set forth clearly in a letter where he is writing of the generosity of dr. brocklesby to johnson and burke: "the extension of obligations of this latter kind is, for many obvious reasons, not to be desired. the necessity on the one side must be of as peculiar, and, so to speak, of as noble a kind as the generosity on the other; and special care would be taken by a necessity of that kind, that the generosity should be equalled by the means. but where the circumstances have occurred, it is delightful to record them." (hunt, _men, women and books_, p. .) [ ] _correspondence_, ii, p. . [ ] _ibid._, ii, p. . [ ] hunt's work as a political journalist had begun in with _the statesman_, a joint enterprise with his brother. it was very short-lived and is now very scarce. perhaps it is due to this rarity that it is not usually mentioned in bibliographies of hunt. [ ] h. r. fox-bourne, _english newspapers_, i, p. . [ ] _harper's new monthly magazine_, xl, p. . [ ] redding, _personal reminiscences of eminent men_, p. , ff. [ ] contemporary dailies were the _morning chronicle_, _morning post_, _morning herald_, _morning advertiser_, and the _times_. in there were sixteen sunday weeklies. among the weeklies published on other days, the _observer_ and the _news_ were conspicuous. in all, there were in the year , fifty-six newspapers circulating in london. (andrews, _history of british journalism_, vol. ii, p. .) [ ] _the examiner_, january , . [ ] on the subject of military depravity _the examiner_ contained the following: "the presiding genius of army government has become a perfect falstaff, a carcass of corruption, full of sottishness and selfishness, preying upon the hard labour of honest men, and never to be moved but by its lust for money; and the time has come when either the vices of one man must be sacrificed to the military honour of the country, or the military honour of the country must be sacrificed to the vices of one man." (_the examiner_, october , .) [ ] _the examiner_, april , . [ ] maj. hogan, an irishman in the english army, unable to gain promotion by the customary method of purchase, after a personal appeal to the duke of york, commander-in-chief of the army, gave an account of his grievences in a pamphlet entitled, _appeal to the public and a farewell address to the army_. before it appeared mrs. clarke, the mistress of the duke of york, sent maj. hogan £ to suppress it. he returned the money and made public the offer. the subsequent investigation showed that mrs. clarke was in the habit of securing through her influence with the commander-in-chief promotion for those who would pay her for it. after these disclosures, the duke resigned. _the examiner_ sturdily supported maj. hogan as one who refused to owe promotion "to low intrigue or petticoat influence." it likened mrs. clarke to mme. du barry and called the duke her tool. [ ] _the examiner_, october , . [ ] _ibid._, march , . [ ] "surely it is too gross to suppose that the prince of wales, the friend of fox, can have been affecting habits of thinking, and indulging habits of intimacy, which he is to give up at a moment's notice for nobody knows what:--surely it cannot be, that the prince regent, the whig prince, the friend of ireland--the friend of fox,--the liberal, the tolerant, experienced, large-minded heir apparent, can retain in power the very men, against whose opinions he has repeatedly declared himself, and whose retention in power hitherto he has explicitly stated to be owing solely to a feeling of delicacy with respect to his father." (_the examiner_, february , .) [ ] _the examiner_, march , . the contention between canon ainger and mr. gosse in respect to charles lamb's supposed part in this libel is set forth in _the athenaeum_ of march , . mr. gosse's evidence came through robert browning from john forster, who first told browning as early as that lamb was concerned in it. [ ] mr. monkhouse says that it was then politically unjustifiable. (_life of leigh hunt_, p. .) [ ] brougham wrote of his intended defense, "it will be a thousand times more unpleasant than the libel." for a narration of his friendship for hunt, see _temple bar_, june, . [ ] _the examiner_, february , . [ ] _the examiner_, december , . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] _the reflector_, i, p. . [ ] monkhouse, _life of leigh hunt_, p. . [ ] patmore, _my friends and acquaintance_, iii, p. . [ ] the _edinburgh review_ of may, , in an article entitled _the periodical press_ ranked hunt next to cobbett in talent and _the examiner_ as the ablest and most respectable of weekly publications, when allowance had been made for the occasional twaddle and flippancy, the mawkishness about firesides and bonaparte, and the sickly sonnet-writing. [ ] mazzini wrote hunt: "your name is known to many of my countrymen; it would no doubt impart an additional value to the thoughts embodied in the league. [international league.] it is the name not only of a patriot, but of a high literary man and a poet. it would show at once that _natural_ questions are questions not of merely _political_ tendencies, but of feeling, eternal trust, and godlike poetry. it would show that poets understand their active mission down here, and that they are also prophets and apostles of things to come. i was told only to-day that you had been asked to be a member of the league's council, and feel a want to express the joy i too would feel at your assent." (_cornhill magazine_, lxv, p. ff.) [ ] _the reflector_, i, p. . [ ] hunt accepted the _monthly repository_ in as a gift from w. j. fox in order to free it from unitarian influence. carlyle, landor, browning and miss martineau were contributors. [ ] ( ) "besides, it is my firm belief--as firm as the absence of positive, tangible proof can let it be (and if we had that, we should all kill ourselves, like plato's scholars, and go and enjoy heaven at once), that whatsoever of just and affectionate the mind of man is made by nature to desire, is made by her to be realized, and that this is the special good, beauty and glory of that illimitable thing called space--in her there is room for everything." _correspondence_, ii, p. . ( ) and faith, some day, will all in love be shown. ("abraham and the fire-worshipper," _poetical works of leigh hunt_, , p. .) [ ] _a new spirit of the age_, ii, p. . [ ] hunt wrote two religious books, _christianism_ and _religion of the heart_. the second, which is an expansion of the first, contains a ritual of daily and weekly service. for the most part it contains reflections on duty and service. [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] bryan waller proctor (barry cornwall), _an autobiographical fragment and biographical notes_, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, i, p. - . [ ] _a morning walk and view_; _sonnet on the sickness of eliza_. [ ] it had appeared previously in _the reflector_, no. , article . in the separate edition it was expanded and pages of notes were added. [ ] _poetical works_, , preface, p. . [ ] byron, _letters and journals_, iii, p. , february , . [ ] the same volume contained a preface on the origin and history of masques and an _ode for the spring of _. byron said of the latter that the "expressions were _buckram_ except here and there." the masque, he thought, contained "not only poetry and thought in the body, but much research and good old reading in your prefatory matter." byron, _letters and journals_, iii, p. , june , . [ ] see chapter v, p. . [ ] nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes of the nineteenth century_, p. . [ ] who loves to peer up at the morning sun, with half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek, let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek for meadows where the little rivers run; who loves to linger with the brightest one of heaven (hesperus) let him lowly speak these numbers to the night, and starlight meek, or moon, if that her hunting be begun. he who knows these delights, and too is prone to moralize upon a smile or tear, will find at once religion of his own, a bower for his spirit, and will steer to alleys where the fir-tree drops its cone, where robins hop, and fallen leaves are seer. (_complete works of john keats_, ed by forman, ii, p. .) [ ] lowell said of hunt: "no man has ever understood the delicacies and luxuries of the language better than he." [ ] byron, _letters and journals_, iii, p. , october , . [ ] _ibid._, iii, p. . [ ] _ibid._, iii, p. , october , . [ ] _ibid._, iii, p. , february , . [ ] _ibid._, iv, p. , june , . [ ] _ibid._, iv, pp. - . [ ] medwin, _journal of the conversations of lord byron_, p. . [ ] in the preface to the _story of rimini_ (london, , p. ), hunt says that a poet should use an actual existing language, and quotes as authorities, chaucer, ariosto, pulci, even homer and shakespeare. he thought simplicity of language of greater importance even than free versification in order to avoid the cant of art: "the proper language of poetry is in fact nothing different from that of real life, and depends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of what it speaks, omitting mere vulgarisms and fugitive phrases which are cant of ordinary discourse." [ ] byron, _letters and journals_, iii, p. . [ ] mr. a. t. kent in the _fortnightly review_ (vol. , p. ), points out that leigh hunt in the preface to the _story of rimini_, avoided the mistake of wordsworth in "looking to an unlettered peasantry for poetical language," and quotes him as saying that one should "add a musical modulation to what a fine understanding might naturally utter in the midst of its griefs and enjoyments." kent says we have here "two vital points on which wordsworth, in his capacity of critic, had failed to insist." [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] to be found chiefly in the _feast of the poets_. [ ] in , in _stories in verse_, hunt changed his acknowledged allegiance from dryden to chaucer. [ ] canto, ii, ll. - . [ ] e. de selincourt gives these three last as examples of hunt's derivation of the abstract noun from the present participle (_poems of john keats_, p. ). [ ] de selincourt notes that these adverbs are usually formed from present participles. (_poems of john keats_, p. .) [ ] byron, _letters and journals_, iii, p. . [ ] "for ever since pope spoiled the ears of the town with his cuckoo-song verses, half up and half down, there has been such a doling and sameness,--by jove, i'd as soon have gone down to see kemble in love." (_feast of the poets._) hunt calls pope's translation of the moonlight picture from _homer_ "a gorgeous misrepresentation" (_ibid._, p. ) and the whole translation "that elegant mistake of his in two volumes octavo." (_foliage_, p. .) [ ] _feast of the poets_, p. . the same opinions are expressed in _the examiner_ of june , ; in the preface to _foliage_, . [ ] _ibid._, p. . [ ] p. . [ ] saintsbury, _essays in english literature, - _, p. . [ ] hunt, _story of rimini_, london, , p. , lines beginning with top of page. in the lines of the poem, there are run-on couplets and run-on lines. there are alexandrines and triplets. in the edition of the number of triplets has been increased to . there are double rhymes. in a study of the cæsura based on the first lines there are medial, double cæsuras. the remaining lines have irregular or double cæsura. [ ] keats, _lamia_, bk. i, ll. - . in the lines of _lamia_, there are run-on couplets, run-on lines, alexandrines and triplets. the cæsura is handled with greater freedom than in the _story of rimini_. [ ] c. h. herford, _age of wordsworth_, p. . [ ] r. b. johnson, _leigh hunt_, p. . [ ] _leigh hunt as a poet, fortnightly review_, xxxvi: . [ ] sidney colvin, _keats_, p. . [ ] garnett, _age of dryden_, p. . [ ] from homer, theocritus, bion, moschus, anacreon, and catullus. [ ] p. . [ ] hunt, _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] byron, _letters and journals_, iv, p. . [ ] charles and mary cowden clarke, _recollections of writers_, p. . [ ] _ibid._, p. . [ ] hunt, _lord byron and some of his contemporaries; with recollections of the author's life and of his visit to italy_, p. . [ ] _ibid._, p. . [ ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, pp. , . [ ] colvin, _keats_, p. . [ ] this refers to keats's first published poem, the sonnet _o solitude, if i must with thee dwell_, published (without comment) in _the examiner_ of may , . [ ] colvin, _keats_, p. . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ ] sharp, _life and letters of joseph severn_, p. . [ ] _works_, i, p. . [ ] mr. forman, after a systematic search has been able to find no proof in either direction. (_works_, iii, p. .) [ ] _works_, i, p. . [ ] _foliage_, p. . [ ] colvin, _keats_, p. . [ ] a further account of the disastrous effects of his partisanship will be found in the discussion of the cockney school, ch. v. [ ] the _century magazine_, xxiii, p. . [ ] palgrave, _poetical works of john keats_, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _works_, iv, p. . [ ] haydon and hunt had originally been very intimate, as is shown by the letters written by the former from paris during , and by his attentions to hunt in surrey gaol. a letter to wilkie, dated october , , gives an attractive portrait of hunt, and from this evidence it is inferred that the change in haydon's attitude came about in the early part of , and that a small unpleasantness was allowed by him to outweigh a friendship of long standing. after two weeks spent with hunt he had written of him as "one of the most delightful companions. full of poetry and art, and amiable humour, we argue always with full hearts on everything but religion and bonaparte.... though leigh hunt is not deep in knowledge, moral metaphysical or classical, yet he is intense in feeling and has an intellect forever on the alert. he is like one of those instruments on three legs, which, throw it how you will, always pitches on two, and has a spike sticking for ever up and ever ready for you. he "sets" at a subject with a scent like a pointer. he is a remarkable man, and created a sensation by his independence, his disinterestedness in public matters; and by the truth, acuteness and taste of his dramatic criticisms, he raised the rank of newspapers, and gave by his example a literary feeling to the weekly ones more especially. as a poet, i think him full of the genuine feeling. his third canto in _rimini_ is equal to anything in any language of that sweet sort. perhaps in his wishing to avoid the monotony of the pope school, he may have shot into the other extreme; and his invention of obscene [sic] words to express obscene feelings borders sometimes on affectation. but these are trifles compared with the beauty of the poem, the intense painting of the scenery, and the deep burning in of the passion which trembles in every line. thus far as a critic, an editor and a poet. as a man i know none with such an affectionate heart, if never opposed in his opinions. he has defects of course: one of his great defects is getting inferior people about him to listen, too fond of shining at any expense in society, and love of approbation from the darling sex bordering on weakness; though to women he is delightfully pleasant, yet they seem more to handle him as a delicate plant. i don't know if they do not put a confidence in him which to me would be mortifying. he is a man of sensibility tinged with morbidity and of such sensitive organization of body that the plant is not more alive to touch than he.... he is a composition, as we all are, of defects and delightful qualities, indolently averse to worldly exertion, because it harasses the musings of his fancy, existing only by the common duties of life, yet ignorant of them, and often suffering from their neglect." (haydon, _life, letters and table talk_, ed. r. h. stoddard, pp. - .) haydon said that the rupture came about because hunt insisted upon speaking of our lord and his apostles in a condescending manner, and that he rebelled against hunt's "audacious romancing over the biblical conceptions of the almighty." (haydon, _life, letters and table talk_, p. .) this view, in the light of haydon's general unreliability, may be mere romancing; for keats, writing on january , , gave the following explanation of the quarrel: "mrs. h. (hunt) was in the habit of borrowing silver from haydon--the last time she did so, haydon asked her to return it at a certain time--she did not--haydon sent for it--hunt went to expostulate on the indelicacy, etc.--they got to words and parted for ever." (keats, _works_, iv, p. ). [ ] _works_, iv, p. . [ ] milnes, _life, letters and literary remains of john keats_, ii, p. . [ ] _works_, iv, p. . [ ] _ibid._, v, p. . [ ] _life, letters and table talk_, p. . [ ] _works_, iv, p. . [ ] _ibid._, iv, p. . [ ] _ibid._, iv, pp. - . [ ] _ibid._, iv, p. , keats gives his argument in favor of a long poem. [ ] _ibid._, iv, p. . [ ] _ibid._, iv, p. . [ ] _ibid._, iv, p. . [ ] _ibid._, iv, pp. - . [ ] _ibid._, iv, p. . [ ] _ibid._, iv, p. . [ ] _ibid._, i, p. . [ ] _ibid._, v, p. . [ ] haydon attempted also to make trouble between wordsworth and hunt, by telling the former that hunt's admiration for him was only a "weather cock estimation" and by insinuations concerning his sincerity in friendships. (haydon, _life, letters and table talk_, p. .) [ ] j. ashcroft noble, _the sonnet in england, and other essays_, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _works_, v, p. . [ ] keats wrote haydon, "there are three things to rejoice at in this age the excursion, your pictures, and hazlitt's depth of taste." (_works_, iv, p. .) [ ] _works_, ii, p. . [ ] _ibid._, v, p. . [ ] _ibid._, v, p. . [ ] _ibid._, v, p. . [ ] _ibid._, v, p. . [ ] that he needed better attention than he could receive in lodgings is seen from an account of keats's condition given in _maria gisborne's journal_ (_ibid._, v, p. ), which says that when she drank tea there in july, keats was under sentence of death from dr. lamb: "he never spoke and looks emaciated." [ ] _works_, v, p. - . the quotation follows keats's punctuation. [ ] _ibid._, v, p. . [ ] _cornhill magazine_, . [ ] _works_, v, p. . [ ] _ibid._, v, p. . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] p. . [ ] _the examiner_, june st, july th, and th, . [ ] lines - . [ ] _works_, iv, p. . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] may , . [ ] cf. with poe's sonnet, _science, true daughter of old time thou art_. [ ] haydon, _life, letters and table talk_, p. . [ ] in connection with _hyperion_, it is interesting to note that the manuscript in keats's handwriting recently discovered, survived through the agency of leigh hunt. from him it passed into the ownership of his son thornton, and later to the sister of dr. george bird. it has been purchased from her by the british museum. (_athenæum_, march , .) [ ] this is, of course, a mistake. [ ] for other criticism of the poems by hunt, see _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, pp. - . [ ] _i stood tiptoe_, l. . [ ] _ibid._, l. . [ ] _ibid._, l. . [ ] _to some ladies_, l. . [ ] _ibid._, l. . [ ] _i stood tiptoe_, l. . [ ] _ibid._, l. . [ ] _calidore_, l. . also pointed out by mr. colvin, _keats_, p. . [ ] _to my brother george_, l. . [ ] _i stood tiptoe_, l. . [ ] hunt quotes this with approbation, as showing a "human touch." (_specimen of an induction to a poem_, ll. - .) [ ] _specimen of an induction to a poem_, l. . [ ] _calidore_, l. . [ ] _ibid._, l. ff. [ ] _to ..._, l. ff. [ ] mr. de selincourt in _notes and queries_, feb. , , dates the _imitation of spenser_ " ." he does not produce documentary evidence, however. the discovery of the hitherto unpublished poem, _fill for me a brimming bowl_, in imitation of milton's early poems, dated in the woodhouse transcript aug. , is of considerable interest in determining the date of keats's earliest composition of verse. a sonnet _on peace_ found in the same ms. is a second discovery of an unpublished poem of the same period. [ ] _works_, i, p. . [ ] _ibid._, i. p. . mr. w. t. arnold, _poetical works of john keats_, london, , has remarked upon the similar use of _so_ by hunt and keats. he compares the "so elegantly" of this passage with the line from _rimini_ "leaves so finely suit." [ ] _to charles cowden clarke_, l. . [ ] _calidore_, ll. - . [ ] _story of rimini_, p. . [ ] colvin, _keats_, p. . [ ] references to hunt in the sonnets and other poems of are the following: . "he of the rose, the violet, the spring the social smile, the chain for freedom's sake:" (_addressed to the same_ [haydon].) this sonnet did not appear in , although it belongs to this period. . "... thy tender care thus startled unaware be jealous that the foot of other wight should madly follow that bright path of light trac'd by thy lov'd libertas; he will speak, and tell thee that my prayer is very meek * * * * * him thou wilt hear." (_specimen of an introduction_, l. ff.) mrs. clarke is the authority that "libertas" was hunt. . "with him who elegantly chats, and talks-- the wrong'd libertas." (_epistle to charles cowden clarke_, l. - .) . "i turn full-hearted to the friendly aids that smooth the path of honour; brotherhood, and friendliness the nurse of mutual good. _the hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet into the brain ere one can think upon it_; the silence when some rhymes are coming out; and when they're come, the very pleasant rout: the message certain to be done tomorrow. 'tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow some precious book from out its snug retreat, to cluster round it when we next shall meet." (_sleep and poetry._) lines - of the same, nearly one fifth of the entire poem, are a description of hunt's library. mr. de selincourt calls it "a glowing tribute to the sympathetic friendship which keats had enjoyed at the hampstead cottage and an attempt to express in the style of the _story of rimini_ something of the spirit which had informed the _lines written above tintern abbey_." (_poems of john keats._ introduction p. .) (_a_) of this room hunt wrote: "keats's _sleep and poetry_ is a description of a parlour that was mine, no bigger than an old mansion's closet." _correspondence_ i, p. . see also _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . (_b_) further description of the same room is to be found in _shelley's letter to maria gisborne_, ll. - . (_c_) clarke refers to it in the _gentleman's magazine_, february, , and in _recollections of writers_, p. . in the letter he says that a bed was made up in the library for keats and that he was installed as a member of the household. here he composed the framework of the poem. lines - are "an inventory of the art garniture of the room." (_d_) the most intresting record in regard to the room is that given by mrs. j. t. fields in a _shelf of old books_, who says that her husband saw the library treasures which had inspired keats--greek casts of sappho, casts of kosciusko and alfred, with engravings, sketches and well-worn books. among the books collected by mr. fields was a copy of shelley, coleridge and keats bound together, with an autograph of all three men, formerly owned by hunt. the fly leaf "at the back contained the sonnet written by keats on the _story of rimini_." [ ] the two sonnets were published in _the examiner_ of september , ; keats's had been included previously in the _poems of _; hunt's appeared later in _foliage_, . [ ] this did not appear in , but belongs to this period. see _works_, ii, p. . for a comparison of these two sonnets with shelley's on the same subject, see rossetti's _life of keats_, p. . [ ] _works_, ii, p. . [ ] compare with _a dream, after reading dante's episode of paolo and francesca_, . (_works_, iii, p. .) [ ] a pocket-book given keats by hunt and containing many of the first drafts of the sonnets belonged to charles wentworth dilke. it is still in the possession of the dilke family. [ ] for instances of keats's interest in politics, see _to kosciusko_, _to hope_, ll. - , and scattered references to wallace, william tell and similar characters. most of these references have already been called attention to by others. [ ] _works_, iv, pp. - . the poem follows. [ ] colvin, _keats_, p. . [ ] _endymion_, bk. ii, ll. - . [ ] _ibid._, bk. iv, l. ff. [ ] _ibid._, bk. ii, l. ff. [ ] _ibid._, bk. ii, l. ff. [ ] _keats_, p. . [ ] stanza , l. . [ ] _hero and leander_ and _bacchus and ariadne_, , p. . [ ] mr. w. t. arnold makes the mistake of thinking that keats imitated hunt's _gentle armour_. mr. colvin corrects this statement. (keats, _poetical works_, p. .) [ ] (_a_) w. t. arnold, keats, _poetical works_, p. . (_b_) j. hoops, _keats's jungend und jugendgedichte_, englische studien, xxi, . (_c_) w. a. read, _keats and spenser_. [ ] _works_, v, p. . [ ] this same expression occurs in _hero and leander_, , in the phrase, "half set in trees and leafy luxury." keats's dedication sonnet in which it occurs was written in . therefore mr. w. t. arnold makes a mistake when he says (in his edition of keats, p. ) it was taken direct from hunt's poem, although the two separate words are among his favorites and keats probably took them from him and combined them. [ ] mr. arnold says "delicious" is used sixteen times by keats. (keats, _poetical works_, p. ). he quotes a passage from one of hunt's prefaces in which the latter comments on chaucer's use of the word: "the word _deliciously_ is a venture of animal spirits which in a modern writer some critics would pronounce to be too affected or too familiar; but the enjoyment, and even incidental appropriateness and relish of it, will be obvious to finer senses." in _rimini_ this line occurs: "distils the next note more deliciously." [ ] palgrave, _poetical works of john keats_, p. , notices leigh hunt's misuse of this word in his review of _i stood tiptoe_, quoted on p. . see his use of the same on p. . in _bacchus and ariadne_ it occurs in this passage "all luxuries that come from odorous gardens." [ ] this is used in _hyperion_, ii, l. . the expression "plashy pools" occurs in the _story of rimini_. [ ] november , . [ ] _life of percy bysshe shelly_, ii, p. . [ ] _imagination and fancy_, p. . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, pp. - . [ ] palgrave, _poetical works of john keats_, p. . [ ] _poetical works_, , p. . [ ] the poem is reported to have brought £ , more than any poem sold during his lifetime. it is now lost. [ ] mac-carthay, who has fully treated this incident, thinks that the account hunt gave of the matter many years later is so incoherent as to indicate that he did not receive the letter until after he met shelley, or perhaps not at all. he also points out that two passages in the letter to hunt of march , , important in their bearing upon shelley's political theories at this time, are identical with passages in a letter of february of the same year, addressed to the editor of _the statesman_, presumably finnerty. (_shelley's early life_, pp. - .) [ ] hancock, _the french revolution and english poets_, pp. - . [ ] letter to miss hitchener, june , . [ ] g. b. smith, _shelley, a critical biography_, p. . [ ] see the _letter to lord ellenborough_. [ ] smith, _shelley, a critical biography_, p. . [ ] for shelley's opinion on the coincidence of their political views, see the last paragraph of the dedication of _the cenci_. [ ] hunt, _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] pp. , . [ ] december , . [ ] ii, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _atlantic monthly_, february, . [ ] december , , shelley wrote to hunt: "i have not in all my intercourse with mankind experienced sympathy and kindness with which i have been so affected, or which my whole being has so sprung forward to meet and to return.... with you, and perhaps some others (though in a less degree, i fear) my gentleness and sincerity find favour, because they are themselves gentle and sincere: they believe in self-devotion and generosity because they are themselves generous and self-devoted." (nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes of the nineteenth century_, p. .) [ ] december , , shelley wrote mary godwin: hunt's "delicate and tender attentions to me, his kind speeches of you, have sustained me against the weight of the horror of this event." (dowden, _life of shelley_, ii, p. .) [ ] (_a_) _the examiner_, january , . (_b_) _ibid._, february , . (_c_) _ibid._, august , . (_d_) hunt, _correspondence_, i, p. ; august , . [ ] shelley said of horace smith: "but is it not odd that the only truly generous person i ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker." (hunt, _autobiography_, i, p. .) see also _letter to maria gisborne_, ll. - ; forman, _works of shelley_, iii, p. ff. [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. ; march , . [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. ; november , . [ ] professor masson says that one of shelley's first acts was to offer hunt £ . it is probable he refers to the occasion already discussed. (_wordsworth, shelley, keats and other essays_, p. .) [ ] dowden, _life of shelley_, ii, p. . [ ] nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes of the nineteenth century_, p. ; december , . [ ] _ibid._, p. ; august , . [ ] rogers, _table talk_, p. . [ ] hunt, _correspondence_, i, p. ; september , . [ ] hunt, _autobiography_, ii, p. ; _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] medwin, _life of shelley_, ii, p. . [ ] mitford, _life_, i, p. . jeaffreson, _the real shelley_, ii, p. . [ ] nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes_, p. ; april , . he assumed the debt for hunt's piano as naturally as he did for his own. prof. dowden says that john hunt expected shelley to become responsible for all of his brother's debts. (_life of shelley_, ii, p. .) [ ] hunt, _correspondence_, i, p. ; november , . [ ] nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes of the nineteenth century_, p. . [ ] see chapter iv, p. . [ ] dowden, _life of shelley_, ii, p. ; also _works of shelley_, viii, p. . [ ] (_a_) nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes_, pp. , . (_b_) byron, _letters and journals_, vi, p. . [ ] dowden, _life of shelley_, ii, p. . [ ] hunt, _autobiography_, ii, pp. - . in august, , hunt importunes shelley to give no thought to his affairs (_correspondence_, i, p. ). hunt wrote mary shelley on september , : "pray thank shelley or rather do not, for that kind part of his offer relating to the expenses. i find i have omitted it; but the instinct that led me to do so is more honorable to him than thanks." (_correspondence_, i, p. .) [ ] jeaffreson, _the real shelley_, ii, p. . [ ] w. m. rossetti, _complete poetical works of percy bysshe shelley_, i, p. . [ ] _letters and journals_, vi, p. . [ ] kent, _leigh hunt as poet and essayist_, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _atlantic monthly_, february, . [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. . june , . [ ] built by michaelangelo and situated on the arno. [ ] _the liberal_, i, p. . [ ] brandes attributes the inscription to mary shelley. (_main currents in nineteenth century literature_, iv, p. .) [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] after shelley's death, mary shelley decided to remain in italy in order to assist with _the liberal_. she considered hunt "expatriated at the request and desire of others," and, in helping him, she thought to fulfil any obligation that shelley might have assumed in the scheme. for her services she received thirty-three pounds. she lived for some time in the same house with the hunts after they separated from lord byron, but the arrangement was an unhappy one. disagreements, beginning with a misunderstanding concerning the possession of shelley's heart, dragged through the winter. fortunately everything was adjusted before they separated. july, , she wrote of hunt: "he is all kindness, consideration and friendship--all feeling of alienation towards me has disappeared to its last dregs." (marshall, _the life and letters of mary wollstonecraft godwin_, london, , ii, p. .) and again: "but thank heaven we are now the best friends in the world.... it is a delightful thing, my dear jane, to be able to express one's affection upon an old and tried friend like hunt, and one so passionately attached to my shelley as he was, and is.... he was displeased with me for many just reasons, but he found me willing to expiate, as far as i could, the evil i had done; his heart again warmed, and if when i return you find me more amiable, and more willing to suffer with patience than i was, it is to him that i owe this benefit." (_ibid._, ii, p. .) [ ] jeaffreson assigns the cause of hunt's neglect to his ignorance of the fact that he could suck money out of shelley. _the real shelley_, ii, p. . [ ] mac-carthay in _literary anecdotes of the nineteenth century_, p. . [ ] shelley was deeply wounded by the attack. he wrote hunt: "as to what relates to yourself and me, it makes me melancholy to consider the dreadful wickedness of the heart which would have prompted such expressions as those with which the anonymous writer gloats over my domestic calamities and the perversion of understanding with which he paints your character." (nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes_, p. ; december , .) [ ] shelley at first attributed the article in the _quarterly_ to southey on the grounds of his enmity to _the examiner_ which, shelley declared, had been the "crown of thorns worn by this unredeemed redeemer for many years." southey denied the authorship. (nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes_, p. ; december , .) [ ] _the examiner_, september , october and , . see also _correspondence_, i, pp. - . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] _ibid._, i, p. . [ ] see hunt, _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] for shelley's desire for hunt's good opinion, see _works of shelley_, viii, p. . hunt's collection of poems, published during , under the title of _foliage_ was dedicated to shelley: "had i known a person more highly endowed than yourself with all the qualities that it becomes a man to possess, i had selected for this work the ornament of his name. one more gentle, honorable, innocent and brave; one of more exalted toleration of all who do and think evil; one who knows better how to receive, and how to confer a benefit though he must ever confer far more than he can receive; one of simpler, and in the highest sense of the word, of purer life and manners i never knew: and i had already been fortunate in friendships when your name was added to the list." [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] _ibid._, i, p. . [ ] _ibid._, i, p. ; march , . [ ] in an article on the _suburbs of genoa and the country about london_, pp. - . [ ] dated august , . [ ] the second part of the sketch was in answer to the _quarterly review's_ attack on the _posthumous poems_, which mrs. shelley, aided by hunt, had published in . this account was reworked in for the _autobiography_ and was taken in part for the preface to an edition of shelley's works in . hunt wrote another biographical sketch of shelley for s. c. hall's _book of gems_ (p. ). he gave a fine description of his physical appearance not often quoted. [ ] it was considered by the _athaneum_ to be the best part of the book, and to be the "powerful portrait of a benevolent man." (vi, p. .) [ ] letter to ollier, february, . [ ] _atlantic monthly_, february, . [ ] forman, _shelley library_, p. , says that the motto from _laon and cythna_ was added by hunt. [ ] pt. , p. . [ ] p. . [ ] _a shelf of old books_, p. . [ ] hunt's _book of the sonnet_, which appeared posthumously, contained a criticism of shelley's sonnet on _ozymandyas_ (i, p. ). [ ] august and , . [ ] _the examiner_, december , . [ ] _ibid._, july , . [ ] _literary pocket book_, london, . shelley's signature was [greek: d] and [greek: s]. see hunt, _correspondence_, i, . [ ] _literary pocket book_, . (_works of shelley_, iii, p. .) [ ] _literary pocket book_, . (_works of shelley_, iii, p. .) [ ] _literary pocket book_, . (_works of shelley_, iv, p. .) [ ] _ibid._, . (_works of shelley_, iv, p. .) [ ] _ibid._, . (_works of shelley_, iv, p. .) [ ] _ibid._, . (_works of shelley_, iv, p. .) [ ] _ibid._, . mr. forman thinks that the poem refers to harriet shelley's death and that the date is a disguise. (_works of shelley_, iii, p. .) [ ] _the indicator_, december , . [ ] chapter iv. [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. ; november , . [ ] _works of shelley_, iv, p. . [ ] six months later, december , , hunt addressed a letter to lord ellenborough on the same subject in regard to his own sentence. [ ] june , , , july , , august , september , , october , , , , december , , ; in , february , august , , and september . the last three articles were written after the queen's death. [ ] keats's _the cap and bells_ deals with the same. [ ] shelley gave directions that the poem should be printed like hunt's _hero and leander_. _works of shelley_, iii, p. . [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. ; august , . the letter instructs hunt to throw the poem into the fire or not as he sees fit and requests him, in preference to peacock, to correct the proofs. "can you take it as a compliment that i prefer to trouble you?" [ ] forman wrongly attributes the review of reynolds' _peter bell_ in _the examiner_ of april , , to hunt and says that this "flippant notice" by hunt inspired shelley's poem. _ibid._, ii, p. . reynolds asked keats to request hunt to review his poem. keats did it himself. (keats, _works_, iii, pp. - .) [ ] _works of shelley_, iii, p. . [ ] hunt, _correspondence_, i, p. , ; april , , and september , . cf. with _works of shelley_, viii, p. ; september , . (editor says dated wrongly.) [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. ; september , . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. ; august , . [ ] "you will see hunt--one of those happy souls which are the salt of the earth, and without whom this world would smell like what it is--a tomb; who is what others seem; his room no doubt is still adorned by many a cast from shout, with graceful flowers tastefully placed about, and coronals of bay from ribbons hung, and brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung,-- the gifts of the most learned among some dozens of female friends, sisters-in-law and cousins. and there he is with his eternal puns, which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns thundering for money at a poet's door; alas! it is no use to say 'i'm poor!'" [ ] mr. forman thinks that it may be part of the original draft of _rosalind and helen_; if so, it is still a very close approximation of shelley's opinion of hunt (_works of shelley_, iii, p. ). william rossetti and felix rabbe think that it was addressed to hunt. [ ] wise's edition of _adonais_, p. . london, . [ ] to his wife. _works of shelley_, viii, p. ; july , . [ ] nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes_, p. ; april , . [ ] hunt, _correspondence_, i, p. . professor george edward woodberry says that shelley had the "kindest feeling of gratitude and respect ... but nothing more" towards hunt. (_studies in letters and life_, p. .) [ ] _ibid._, i, p. . november , . _works of shelley_, viii, p. ; november , . [ ] sir walter scott has given a good estimate of them: "our sentiments agreed a good deal, except on the subject of religion and politics, upon neither of which i was inclined to believe that lord byron entertained very fixed principles.... on politics he used sometimes to express a high strain of what is now called liberalism; but it appeared to me that the pleasure that it afforded him as a vehicle of displaying his wit and satire against individuals in office was at the bottom of his habit of thinking. at heart i would have termed byron a patrician on principle." (moore, _letters and journals of lord byron_, i, p. .) [ ] hancock, _the french revolution and english poets_, p. . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] _ibid._, p. ; _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _the real lord byron_, i, p. . [ ] _letters and journals_, iii, pp. - . the article was not published. [ ] nichol, _life of bryon_, p. , incorrectly gives as the date. [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. , may , . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _the champion_, april , , , . [ ] _letters and journals of lord byron_, p. . [ ] byron, _letters and journals_, ii, p. , december , . [ ] _ibid._, ii, pp. - . [ ] page . [ ] _the examiner_, april , . [ ] _letters and journals_, vi, pp. - . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] _letters and journals_, iii, p. . [ ] in byron translated the rimini episode of the _divine comedy_. [ ] trelawney, _recollections of the last days of shelley and byron_, p. . [ ] _letters and journals_, v, pp. - . [ ] _letters and journals_, v, p. . this passage is omitted from the letter in which it occurs in moore's _letters and journals of lord byron_, ii, p. . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] hunt wrongly gives byron's date of birth as . the article is accompanied with a woodcut. [ ] see _blackwood's_, x, pp. , . [ ] _letters and journals_, v, pp. - . [ ] medwin, _journal of the conversations of lord byron_, p. . [ ] jeaffreson, _the real lord byron_, ii, p. , says that byron through shelley's mediation could secure hunt as editor. [ ] _ibid._, _letters and journals of lord byron_, ii, p. . [ ] _recollections of the last days of shelley and byron_, p. . [ ] see p. . [ ] _the real lord byron_, ii, p. . [ ] _dictionary of national biography._ [ ] _leigh hunt as poet and essayist_, p. . [ ] _life of byron_, pp. - . [ ] _leigh hunt_, p. , note. [ ] _life of leigh hunt_, p. . [ ] _the sonnet in england_, pp. - . [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] after shelley's meeting with byron in switzerland in , before they met again in venice, there had been a lapse of two years bridged only by a not always pleasant correspondence relating to allegra, byron's natural daughter. shelley occupied the unenviable position of mediator between him and jane clairmont, the child's mother. yet when the two men met again in august, , it was at first on the terms recorded in _julian and maddalo_. byron's influence served as a stimulus to this and to other poems of the same period. by december of that year shelley's opinion of byron had changed; on the d, he wrote to peacock of _childe harold_ in terms that show how quickly his views could alter: "the spirit in which it is written, is, if insane, the most wicked and mischievous insanity that was ever given forth. it is a kind of obstinate and self-willed folly, in which he hardens himself. i remonstrated with him in vain on the tone of mind from which such a view of things alone arises.... he (byron) associates with wretches who seem to have lost the gait and physiognomy of man, and who do not scruple to avow practices, which are not only not named, but i believe seldom even conceived in england. he says he disapproves, but he endures. he is heartily and deeply discontented with himself; and contemplating in the distorted mirror of his own thoughts the nature and destiny of man, what can he behold but objects of contempt and despair? but that he is a great poet, i think the address to ocean proves. and he has a certain degree of candour while you talk to him, but unfortunately it does not outlast your departure. no, i do not doubt, and for his own sake, i ought to hope, that his present career must soon end in some violent circumstance." (_works of shelley_, viii, pp. - .) from the close of until , they were again separated. their correspondence, as previously, related chiefly to allegra and was of a still less agreeable nature. byron had refused to deal directly with jane clairmont and all communications had to pass through shelley's hands. in the interval, as though in retaliation, byron had believed the shiloh story, a fabrication by a nurse of the shelleys that jane clairmont was shelley's mistress, but he does not seem to have condemned such a state of affairs. (_letters and journals_, v, p. , october, .) yet he testified in his letters his great admiration of shelley's poetry (_ibid._, vi, p. ), and after his death he called him "the best and least selfish man i ever knew." (_ibid._, vi, p. ; august , .) but before , a reversal of the opinion formed in shelley's mind at the time of byron's venetian excesses, came about. november , , he wrote to mrs. hunt: "his indecencies, too, both against sexual nature, and against human nature in general, sit very awkwardly upon him. he only affects the libertine; he is, really, a very amiable, friendly and agreeable man, i hear." (hunt, _correspondence_, i, p. .) this corroborates thornton hunt's statement that byron had risen in shelley's estimation before and that otherwise _the liberal_ would never have been started. (_atlantic monthly_, february, .) at byron's invitation they met again in ravenna. shelley's letters dated from there show unstinted admiration of byron's genius and of the man himself. he wrote in august, , that he was living a "life totally the reverse of that which he led at venice.... (_works of shelley_, viii, p. , august , .) l. b. is greatly improved in every respect. in genius, in temper, in moral views, in health, in happiness.... he has had mischievous passions, but these he seems to have subdued, and he is becoming what he should be, a virtuous man.... (_ibid._, viii, p. , august , .) lord byron and i are excellent friends, and were i reduced to poverty, or were i a writer who had no claims to a higher station than i possess--or did i possess a higher than i deserve, we should appear in all things as such, and i would freely ask him any favour. such is not now the case. the daemon of mistrust and pride lurks between two persons in our station, poisoning the freedom of our intercourse. this is a tax and a heavy one, which we must pay for being human." of _don juan_ he wrote: "it sets him not only above, but far above, all the poets of the day--every word is stamped with immortality. i despair of rivalling lord byron, as well i may, and there is no other with whom it is worth contending. (_ibid._, viii, p. , august , .) during the visit shelley served as ambassador to the countess guiccioli in persuading her not to go to switzerland, and in the same capacity to byron in the arrangement of allegra's affairs. it was then settled that byron should reside for the winter at pisa. shelley had misgivings about such an arrangement on his own and on miss clairmont's account, for he had previously intended to settle in the same vicinity. he finally decided not to let it make any difference in his plans. in january, , shelley wrote from pisa to peacock: "lord byron is established here, and we are his constant companions. no small relief this, after the dreary solitude of the understanding and the imagination in which we passed the first years of our expatriation, yoked to all sorts of miseries and discomforts.... if you before thought him a great poet, what is your opinion now that you have read _cain_?" (_works of shelley_, viii, p. ; january , .) during the same month he wrote to john gisborne: "what think you of lord byron now? space wondered less at the swift and fair creations of god, when he grew weary of vacancy, than i at this spirit of an angel in the mortal paradise of a decaying body." (_ibid._, viii, p. , january, .) a letter to leigh hunt gives the first intimation of the return of the ill-feeling toward byron: "past circumstances between lord b. and me render it _impossible_ that i should accept any supply from him for my own use, or that i should ask for yours if the contribution could be supposed in any manner to relieve me, or to do what i could otherwise have done." (_works of shelley_, viii, p. , january , .) this referred to more entanglements with byron about allegra. shelley wrote to jane clairmont: "it is of vital importance, both to me and yourself, to allegra even, that i should put a period to my intimacy with lord byron, and that without éclat. no sentiments of honour and of justice restrain him (as i strongly suspect) from the basest suspicion, and the only mode in which i could effectually silence him i am reluctant (even if i had proof) to employ during my father's life. but for your immediate feelings, i would suddenly and irrevocably leave the country which he inhabits, nor even enter it but as an enemy to determine our differences without words." (_the nation_, xlviii, p. .) [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. . [ ] _ibid._, viii, p. , august , . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. , september , . [ ] _ibid._, i, p. , november , . [ ] byron, _letters and journals_, iv, p. , june , . [ ] _ibid._, vi, pp. , , , , , , . [ ] _ibid._, vi, p. . [ ] in moore showed considerable pride in being included as one of the four poets to sup with apollo in the _feast of the poets_ and said that he was "particularly flattered by praise from hunt, because he is one of the most honest and candid men" that he knew. (_memoirs, journal and correspondence_, ii, p. .) in hunt had urged upon perry, the editor of the _morning chronicle_, the necessity of a public subscription for moore. (_ibid._, ii, p. ). an unfavorable review of moore's political principles in _the examiner_ during the same year may have done something to bring about the change in moore's feelings, though he was eulogized in a later issue of january , . [ ] b. w. procter, _an autobiographical fragment_, p. . [ ] _letters and journals of lord byron_, ii, p. . [ ] _ibid._, ii, p. . [ ] _ibid._, ii, p. . [ ] jeaffreson, _the real lord byron_, ii, p. . [ ] _recollections of the last days of shelley and byron_, p. . [ ] nicoll, _literary anecdotes of the nineteenth century_, p. , march, . [ ] _ibid._, p. . [ ] _fortnightly_, xxix, p. . [ ] _recollections of the last days of shelley and byron_, p. . [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. - . [ ] _life of shelley_, ii, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] monkhouse, _life of leigh hunt_, p. . [ ] hunt refuted the statement that byron had walled off part of his dwelling and furnished it handsomely. (_lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. ff.) [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, pp. , . [ ] nicoll and wise, _literary anecdotes of the nineteenth century_, p. , december , . [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] _ibid._, p. . [ ] "i could always procure what i wanted from lord byron, and living here is divinely cheap." (_correspondence_, i, p. , november , .) [ ] _life of byron_, p. . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] _works of shelley_, viii, p. . [ ] she used no tact in her dealings with lord byron. she let him see that she had no respect for rank or titles. she even went beyond the limits of courtesy in her remarks to him. on byron's saying, "what do you think, mrs. hunt? trelawny had been speaking of my morals! what do you think of that?" "it is the first time," said mrs. hunt, "i ever heard of them." (_lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. ). of his portrait by harlowe she said "that it resembled a great schoolboy, who had had a plain bun given him, instead of a plum one," a facetious speech indiscreetly repeated by hunt to byron. [ ] _letters and journals_, vi, p. . [ ] _ibid._, vi, pp. - . hunt's view was quite different. byron was, he thought, intimidated "out of his reasoning" by his children and their principles. (_lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. .) [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] _ibid._, p. . [ ] _letters and journals_, vi, pp. , . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] medwin, _conversations of lord byron_, p. . [ ] monkhouse, _life of leigh hunt_, pp. - . [ ] ii, pp. - . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. , july , . letter to his sister-in-law. [ ] _letters and journals_, vi, p. , july , . [ ] _recollections of the last days of shelley and byron_, i, p. . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . october (?), . [ ] _letters and journals_, vi, p. . january , . [ ] _ibid._, vi, pp. - . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, pp. , . [ ] _ibid._, p. . [ ] "_blackwood's magazine_ overflowed, as might be expected, with ten-fold gall and bitterness; the _john bull_ was outrageous; and mr. jerdan black in the face at this unheard-of and disgraceful union. but who would have supposed that mr. thomas moore and mr. hobhouse, those staunch friends and partisans of the people, should also be thrown into almost hysterical agonies of well-bred horror at the coalition between their noble and ignoble acquaintance, between the patrician and the 'newspaper-man'? mr. moore darted backwards and forwards from cold-bath-fields' prison to the examiner-office, from mr. longman's to mr. murray's shop, in a state of ridiculous trepidation, to see what was to be done to prevent this degradation of the aristocracy of letters, this indecent encroachment of plebeian pretensions, this undue extension of patronage and compromise of privilege. the tories were shocked that lord byron should grace the popular side by his direct countenance and assistance--the whigs were shocked that he should share his confidence and councils with any one who did not unite the double recommendations of birth and genius--but themselves!" (hazlitt, _the plain speaker_, ii, p. ff.) [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] galt in his _life of byron_ says: "whether mr. hunt was or was not a fit co-partner for one of his lordship's rank and celebrity, i do not undertake to judge; but every individual was good enough for that vile prostitution of his genius, to which in an unguarded hour, he submitted for money." (p. .) [ ] _the literary gazette_ of october , , was one of the notable opponents. [ ] _life of byron_, p. . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] _ibid._, p. . [ ] byron, _letters and journals_, vi, p. . [ ] _ibid._, vi, p. . [ ] _ibid._, vi, p. , p. . (letters to mrs. shelley.) [ ] _ibid._, vi, p. . [ ] _ibid._, v, p. , december , . [ ] _ibid._, vi, pp. - . [ ] _ibid._, v, p. . [ ] lady blessington, _conversations of lord byron_, p. . [ ] _letters and journals_, vi, pp. - , april , . [ ] hunt's only means of support were the income from his contributions to _colburn's new monthly magazine_, from the _wishing cap papers_ in _the examiner_, and an annuity of £ . (_correspondence_, i, p. .) [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. - . [ ] _correspondence_, i, p. . see hazlitt's account of hunt in italy given in a letter from haydon to miss mitford. (haydon, _life, letters and table talk_, pp. - .) [ ] moore, _memoirs_, iv, p. ; v, p. . [ ] _letters and journals_, vi, p. , . [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, preface, p. . [ ] clarke, _recollection of writers_, p. . [ ] but compare hunt's own remarks on p. . [ ] the biographers of the two men have taken various attitudes toward the value of _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_. galt says that the pains hunt took to elaborate faults of byron make one think hunt was treated according to his deserts, and that the troubles he labored under may have caused him to misapprehend byron's jocularity for sarcasm, and caprice for insolence. (_life of byron_, p. .) garnett considers the book a "corrective of merely idealized estimates of lord byron," and its "reception more unfavorable than its deserts." (_encyclopædia britannica_, "byron," ninth edition.) nichol thinks that while the book was prompted by uncharitableness and egotism, byron's faults were only slightly magnified: that the poetic insight, the cosmopolitan sympathy and courage of hunt have given a view that nothing else could have done. (_life of byron_, p. .) r. b. johnson thinks that it was a correct estimate written in self-justification. undoubtedly it should not have come from hunt, yet if it had not been written hunt would not have been defended nor byron so well known. he says there is "no reason to regret any part of the affair but the heated and persistent abuse with which one of the most sensitive and humane of men has been loaded on account of it." (_leigh hunt_, p. .) noble says that "byron's friends met unpleasant truths by still more unpleasant falsehoods." (_the sonnet in england_, p. .) alexander ireland, says the book was the great blunder of hunt's life, "ought not to have been written, far less published." (_dictionary of national biography._) [ ] _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, p. . [ ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ ] byron, _letters and journals_, ii, p. . [ ] _ibid._, ii, p. . [ ] thornton hunt, in his edition of his father's _correspondence_, , in this connection defended byron, and credited him with "a strong sympathy with all that was beautiful and generous, with a desire to do right, [ ] p. . for an apology made six years earlier see a letter from hunt to thomas moore. (_correspondence_, ii, p. .) [ ] hunt, _a jar of honey from mt. hybia_, p. . [ ] ii, pp. - . [ ] _charles lamb and some of his companions_ in the _quarterly review_ of january, . [ ] _a new spirit of the age_, p. . [ ] near the close of his life hunt wrote: "the jests about london and the cockneys did not affect me in the least, as far as my faith was concerned. they might as well have said that hampstead was not beautiful, or richmond lovely; or that chaucer and milton were cockneys when they went out of london to lie on the grass and look at the daisies. the cockney school is the most illustrious in england; for, to say nothing of pope and gray, who were both veritable cockneys, 'born within the sound of bow bell,' milton was so too; and chaucer and spenser were both natives of the city. of the four greatest english poets, shakespeare only was not a londoner." (_autobiography_, ii, p. .) [ ] _recollections of writers_, p. . other accounts of these suppers are to be found in hazlitt's _on the conversations of authors_; in the works dealing with charles lamb; and in the _cornhill magazine_, november, . [ ] _the life of mary russell mitford_. edited by a. j. k. l'estrange, new york, , i, p. , november , . [ ] sharp, _the life and letters of joseph severn_, p. . [ ] notes, pp. - . [ ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ ] other controversies, such as the one with antoine dubost, show hunt's aggressiveness. dubost had sold a painting of damocles to his patron, a mr. hope. the latter became convinced that the author was an imposter and tore the signature from the picture. in retaliation dubost painted and exhibited _beauty and the beast_, a caricature of the whole incident. _the examiner_ accused him of forgery and rank ingratitude. hunt does not seem to have had any particular proof or knowledge on the subject, yet he employed scathing denunciation in writing of it. dubost replied and asserted that hunt was hope's hireling, and that he had "ransacked the whole calendar of scurrility, and hunted for nick-names through all the common places of blackguardism." (dubost, _an appeal to the public against the calumnies of the examiner_, london, n. d., p. .) [ ] he undertook a vindication of the cockney school in a series of four articles, in which he pointed out the "mean insincerity," the "vulgar slander," the "mouthing cant," the "shabby spite," the falsehoods and the recantations of blackwood's. the description of the conditions, under which scott pictured the articles of his enemies to have been written, smacks of the mocking humor of _blackwood's_ itself: "a redolency of leith-ale, and tobacco smoke, which floats about all the pleasantry in question,--giving one the idea of its facetious articles having been written on the slopped table of a tavern parlour in the back-wynd, after the _convives_ had retired, and left the author to solitude, pipe-ashes, and the dregs of black-strap." [ ] published in edinburgh in and signed by "an american scotchman." [ ] published in newcastle in . [ ] the school was thus described in blackwood's: "the chief constellations, in this poetical firmament, consist of led captains, and clerical hangers-on, whose pleasure, and whose business, it is, to celebrate in tuneful verse, the virtues of some angelic patron, who keeps a good table, and has interest with the archbishop, or the india house. verily they have their reward." in other words this group was composed of diners-out or parasites, and sycophants for livings and military appointments. [ ] published in london, . [ ] published in london also in . [ ] keats, _works_, iv, p. . [ ] c. c. clarke, _recollections of writers_, p. . [ ] keats, _works_, iv, p. . [ ] _life of benjamin robert haydon_, p. . [ ] dowden, _life of shelley_, ii, p. . [ ] i, p. . [ ] _keats_, p. . [ ] _life in poetry: law in taste_, pp. - . [ ] _age of wordsworth_, p. . [ ] _blackwood's_, november, . [ ] _ibid._, may, . [ ] _quarterly_, april, . [ ] _ibid._, january, . [ ] _blackwood's_, april, . [ ] _life, letters and table talk of benjamin robert haydon_, p. . [ ] _blackwood's_, may, , pp. - . [ ] _memoirs and correspondence of coventry patmore_, i, p. . [ ] _letters and journals_, v, p. . [ ] _st. james magazine_, xxxv, p. ff. [ ] _blackwood's_, december, . [ ] _letters and journals_, v, pp. - . march , . [ ] _ibid._, v, pp. - . september , . [ ] _letters of timothy tickler, esq._, july, . [ ] september, . [ ] hunt, _correspondence_, i, p. . [ ] daniel maclise, _a gallery of illustrious literary characters_ ( - ). london, n. d., p. . [ ] william dorling, _memoirs of dora greenwell_, london, , p. . [ ] _epistle to barnes._ [ ] this accusation has been made still more recently by mr. palgrave, who speaks of the "slipshod morality of _rimini_ and _hero_." _poetical works of john keats_, p. . [ ] in , however, he refashioned the whole poem, now representing giovanni as deformed and as the murderer of his wife and brother, whereas in the version of paolo had been slain in a duel and francesca had died of grief. in , he made a second change and went back to the version. the duel he preserved in the fragment, _corso and emilia_. hunt's translation of dante's episode appeared in _stories of verse_, . in he made a third change and restored the version of . [ ] the editor of _blackwood's_ in a letter dated april , , offered space to p. g. patmore for a favourable critique of hunt's poetry, reserving to himself the privilege of answering such an article. he stated further that if hunt had employed less violent language towards the reviewer of _rimini_ he might have been given a friendly explanation. _memoirs and correspondence of coventry patmore_, ii, p. . [ ] this charge was renewed in a review of hunt's _autobiography_ in in the _eclectic review_, xcii, p. . [ ] byron greatly resented southey's article: "i am glad mr. southey owns that article on _foliage_ which excited my choler so much. but who else could have been the author? who but southey would have had the baseness, under the pretext of reviewing the work of one man, insidiously to make it nest work for hatching malicious calumnies against others?... i say nothing of the critique itself on _foliage_; with the exception of a few sonnets, it was unworthy of hunt. but what was the object of that article? i repeat, to villify and scatter his dark and devilish insinuation against me and others." (medwin, _conversations of lord byron_, p. .) again byron wrote of southey in : "hence his quarterly overflowings, political and literary, in what he has termed himself 'the ungentle craft,' and his special wrath against mr. leigh hunt, not withstanding that hunt has done more for wordsworth's reputation as a poet (such as it is), than all the lakers could in their interchange of praises for the last twenty-five years." (_letters and journals_, v, p. .) [ ] _london magazine_, october, . [ ] september, . [ ] reprinted in the _museum of foreign literature_, xii, p. . [ ] august, , xxvi, p. . [ ] c. c. clarke, _recollections of writers_, p. . the year in which the letter was written is not given, but it must fall within the years - , the period of hunt's residence at chelsea. [ ] _the victorian age_, i, pp. - . [ ] hunt, _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] _critical, historical and miscellaneous essays_, new york and boston, , iv, p. . [ ] the first preface to _endymion_ was rejected by keats on the advice of his friends who thought that it was in the vain yet deprecating tone of hunt's prefaces. to this charge keats replied: "i am not aware that there is anything like hunt in it (and if there is, it is my natural way, and i have something in common with hunt)." the second preface justifies the charge. [ ] _london journal_, january , . [ ] of southey's attack on hunt and others in may, , keats wrote: "i have more than a laurel from the quarterly reviewers, for they have smothered me in 'foliage.'" (_works_, iv, p. .) [ ] shelley wrote also a letter to the _quarterly review_ remonstrating against its treatment of keats but the letter was never sent. (milnes, _life, letters and literary remains of john keats_, i, p. ff.) [ ] in _lord byron and some of his contemporaries_, hunt states that he informed byron of his mistake and received a promise that it would be altered, but that the rhyme about _article_ and _particle_ was too good to throw away (p. ). [ ] just before leaving england, keats with hunt visited the house where tom had died. he told hunt in _this_ connection that he was "dying of a broken heart." (_literary examiner_, , p. .) [ ] _works_, iv, pp. - , - , , , ; v, pp. , . [ ] _atlantic monthly_, xi, p. . [ ] october , . it included two reprints from other papers. the first was a letter taken from the _morning chronicle_ signed j. s. it predicted that if keats would "apostatise his friendship, his principles, and his politics (if he have any) he may even command the approbation of the _quarterly review_." this was followed by extracts from an article by john hamilton reynolds in the _alfred exeter paper_ praising keats for his power of vitalizing heathen mythology and for his resemblance to chapman and calling gifford "a lottery commissioner and government pensioner" who persecuted keats by "intrigue of literature and contrivance of political parties." [ ] dante gabriel rossetti suggests this possibility in a letter to mr. hall caine. (caine, _recollections of dante gabriel rossetti_, p. .) [ ] _cobwebs of criticism_, p. . [ ] _autobiography_, ii, p. . [ ] see p. ff. [ ] _imagination and fancy_, p. . [ ] dowden, _life of shelley_, ii, p. . [ ] other hostile reviews of _the cenci_ appeared in the _literary gazette_ of april , ; the _monthly magazine_ of the same month; and the _london magazine_ of may of the same year. [ ] _blackwood's_, january, . [ ] alexander ireland has pointed out curious correspondences in the lives and intrests of hazlitt and hunt. (_memoir of hazlitt_, pp. - .) [ ] _quarterly_, may, . [ ] _ibid._, december, . [ ] _ibid._, july, . [ ] _ibid._, october, . [ ] birrell, _william hazlitt_, new york, , p. . [ ] _the examiner_ of march and , , contained extracts from the _letter_ and comments by hunt upon this "quint-essential salt of an epistle," as he called it. lamb's _letter to southey_, already referred to, contained a defense of hazlitt as well as of hunt. [ ] february, -april, . [ ] august, . 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